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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:09 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:36:09 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11165-0.txt b/11165-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..048a554 --- /dev/null +++ b/11165-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13578 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11165 *** + + WILD WINGS + + A ROMANCE OF YOUTH + + BY MARGARET REBECCA PIPER + + 1921 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I MOSTLY TONY + + II WITH ROSALIND IN ARDEN + + III A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS + + IV A BOY WHO WASN'T AN ASS BUT BEHAVED LIKE ONE + + V WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH + + VI A SHADOW ON THE PATH + + VII DEVELOPMENTS BY MAIL + + VIII THE LITTLE LADY WHO FORGOT + + IX TEDDY SEIZES THE DAY + + X TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY + + XI THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD + + XII AND THERE IS A FLAME + + XIII BITTER FRUIT + + XIV SHACKLES + + XV ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE + + XVI IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED + + XVII A WEDDING RING IT WAS HARD TO REMEMBER + + XVIII A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE + + XIX TWO HOLIDAYS MAKE CONFESSION + + XX A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE + + XXI HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS + + XXII THE DUNBURY CURE + + XXIII SEPTEMBER CHANGES + + XXIV A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED + + XXV ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE + + XXVI THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES + + XXVII TROUBLED WATERS + + XXVIII IN DARK PLACES + + XXIX THE PEDIGREE OF PEARLS + + XXX THE FIERY FURNACE + + XXXI THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE + + XXXII DWELLERS IN DREAMS + + XXXIII WAITING FOR THE END OF THE STORY + + XXXIV IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO + + XXXV GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES + + XXXVI THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET + + XXXVII ALAN MASSEY LOSES HIMSELF + +XXXVIII THE SONG IN THE NIGHT + + XXXIX IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MOSTLY TONY + + +Among the voluble, excited, commencement-bound crowd that boarded the +Northampton train at Springfield two male passengers were conspicuous for +their silence as they sat absorbed in their respective newspapers which +each had hurriedly purchased in transit from train to train. + +A striking enough contrast otherwise, however, the two presented. The +man next the aisle was well past sixty, rotund of abdomen, rubicund +of countenance, beetle-browed. He was elaborately well-groomed, +almost foppish in attire, and wore the obvious stamp of worldly +success, the air of one accustomed to giving orders and seeing them +obeyed before his eyes. + +His companion and chance seat-mate was young, probably a scant five and +twenty, tall, lean, close-knit of frame with finely chiseled, almost +ascetic features, though the vigorous chin and generous sized mouth +forbade any hint of weakness or effeminacy. His deep-set, clear gray-blue +eyes were the eyes of youth; but they would have set a keen observer to +wondering what they had seen to leave that shadow of unyouthful gravity +upon them. + +It happened that both men--the elderly and the young--had their papers +folded at identically the same page, and both were studying intently the +face of the lovely, dark-eyed young girl who smiled out of the duplicate +printed sheets impartially at both. + +The legend beneath the cut explained that the dark-eyed young beauty +was Miss Antoinette Holiday, who would play Rosalind that night in the +Smith College annual senior dramatics. The interested reader was +further enlightened to the fact that Miss Holiday was the daughter of +the late Colonel Holiday and Laura LaRue, a well known actress of a +generation ago, and that the daughter inherited the gifts as well as +the beauty of her famous mother, and was said to be planning to follow +the stage herself, having made her debut as the charming heroine of "As +You Like It." + +The man next the aisle frowned a little as he came to this last sentence +and went back to the perusal of the girl's face. So this was Laura's +daughter. Well, they had not lied in one respect at least. She was a +winner for looks. That was plain to be seen even from the crude newspaper +reproduction. The girl was pretty. But what else did she have beside +prettiness? That was the question. Did she have any of the rest of +it--Laura's wit, her inimitable charm, her fire, her genius? Pshaw! No, +of course she hadn't. Nature did not make two Laura LaRue's in one +century. It was too much to expect. + +Lord, what a woman! And what a future she had had and thrown away for +love! Love! That wasn't it. She could have had love and still kept on +with her career. It was marriage that had been the catastrophe--the fatal +blunder. Marriage and domesticity for a woman like that! It was +asinine--worse--criminal! It ought to have been forbidden by law. And the +stubbornness of her! After all these years, remembering, Max Hempel could +have groaned aloud. Every stage manager in New York, including himself, +had been ready to bankrupt himself offering her what in those days were +almost incredible contracts to prevent her from the suicidal folly on +which she was bent. But to no avail. She had laughed at them all, laughed +and quit the stage at six and twenty, and a few years later her beauty +and genius were still--in death. What a waste! What a damnation waste! + +At this point in his animadversions Max Hempel again looked at the girl +in the newspaper, the girl who was the product of the very marriage he +had been cursing, LaRue's only daughter. If there had been no marriage, +neither would there have been this glorious, radiant, vividly alive young +creature. Men called Laura LaRue dead. But was she? Was she not +tremendously alive in the life of her lovely young daughter? Was it not +he, and the other childless ones who had treated matrimony as the one +supreme mistake, that would soon be very much dead, dead past any +resurrection? + +Pshaw! He was getting sentimental. He wasn't here for sentiment. He was +here for cold, hard business. He was taking this confounded journey to +witness an amateur performance of a Shakespeare play, when he loathed +traveling in hot weather, detested amateur performances of anything, +particularly of Shakespeare, on the millionth of a chance that +Antoinette Holiday might be possessed of a tithe of her mother's talent +and might eventually be starred as the new ingénue he was in need of, +afar off, so to speak. It was Carol Clay herself who had warned him. +Carol was wonderful--would always be wonderful. But time passes. There +would come a season when the public would begin to count back and +remember that Carol had been playing ingénue parts already for over a +decade. There must always be youth--fresh, flaming youth in the +offing. That was the stage and life. + +As for this Antoinette Holiday girl, he had none too much hope. Max +Hempel never hoped much on general principles, so far as potential stars +were concerned. He had seen too many of them go off fizz bang into +nothingness, like rockets. It was more than likely he was on a false +trail, that people who had seen the girl act in amateur things had +exaggerated her ability. He trusted no judgment but his own, which was +perhaps one of the reasons why he was one of the greatest living stage +managers. It was more than likely she had nothing but a pretty, shallow +little talent for play acting and no notion under the sun of giving up +society or matrimony or what-not for the devilish hard work of a stage +career. Very likely there was some young galoot waiting even now, to +whisk Laura LaRue's daughter off the stage before she ever got on. + +Moreover there was always her family to cope with, dyed in the wool New +Englanders at that, no doubt with the heavy Puritan mortmain upon them, +narrow as a shoe string, circumscribed as a duck pond, walled in by +ghastly respectability. Ten to one, if the girl had talent and ambition, +they would smother these things in her, balk her at every turn. They had +regarded Ned Holiday's marriage to Laura a misalliance, he recalled. +There had been quite a to-do about it at the time. Good God! It had been +a misalliance all right, but not as they reckoned it. It had not been +considered suitable for a Holiday to marry an actress. Probably it would +be considered more unsuitable for a Holiday to _be_ an actress. Suitable! +Bah! The question was not whether the career was fit for the girl, but +whether the girl could measure up to the career. And irascibly, +unreasonably indignant as if he had already been contending in argument +with legions of mythical, over-respectable Holidays, Max Hempel whipped +his paper open to another page, a page that told of a drive somewhere on +the western front that had failed miserably, for this was the year +nineteen hundred and sixteen and there was a war going on, "on the other +side." Oh, typically American phrase! + +Meanwhile the young man, too, had stopped staring at Antoinette Holiday's +pictured face and was staring out of the window instead at the fast +flying landscape. He had really no need anyway to look at a picture of +Tony. His head and heart were full of them. He had been storing them up +for over eight years and it was a considerable collection by now and one +in which he took great joy in lonely hours in his dingy little lodging +room, or in odd moments as he went his way at his task as a reporter for +a great New York daily. The perspicuous reader will not need to be told +that the young man was in love with Tony Holiday--desperately in love. + +Desperately was the word. Slight as Max Hempel's hope may have been that +Laura LaRue's daughter was to prove the ingénue he sought, infinitely +slighter was Dick Carson's hope of ever making Tony his wife. How could +it be otherwise? Tony Holiday was as far above him in his own eyes as the +top of Mount Tom was high above the onion beds of the valley. The very +name he used was his only because she had given it to him. Dick Nobody he +had been. Richard Carson he had become through grace of Tony. + +Like his companion the young man went back into the past, though not so +far a journey. As vividly as if it were but yesterday he remembered the +misery of flesh and spirit which had been his as he stowed himself away +in the hay loft in the Holiday's barn, that long ago summer dawn, too +sick to take another step and caring little whether he lived or died, +conscious vaguely, however, that death would be infinitely preferable to +going back to the life of the circus and the man Jim's coarse brutality +from which he had made his escape at last. + +And then he had opened his eyes, hours later, and there had been +Tony--and there had been chiefly Tony ever since, for him. + +If ever he amounted to anything, and he meant to amount to something, it +would be all due to Tony and her Uncle Phil. The two of them had saved +him in more ways than one, had faith in him when he wasn't much but a +scarecrow, ignorant, profane, unmoral, miserable, a "gutter brat" as some +one had once called him, a phrase he had never forgotten. It had seemed +to brand him, set him apart from people like the Holidays forever. But +Tony and Doctor Phil had shown him a different way of looking at it, +proved to him that nothing could really disgrace him but himself. They +had given him his chance and he had taken it. Please God he would make +himself yet into something they could be proud of, and it would all be +their doing. He would never forget that, whatever happened. + +A half hour later the train puffed and wheezed into the station at +Northampton. Dick Carson and Max Hempel, still close together, descended +into the swarming, chattering crowd which was delightfully if confusingly +congested with pretty girls, more pretty girls and still more pretty +girls. But Dick was not confused. Even before the train had come to a +full stop he had caught sight of Tony. He had a single track mind so far +as girls were concerned. From the moment his eyes discovered Tony Holiday +the rest simply did not exist for him. It is to be doubted whether he +knew they were there at all, in spite of their manifest ubiquity and +equally manifest pulchritude. + +Tony saw him, too, as he loomed up, taller than the others, bearing +resistlessly down upon her. She waved a gay greeting and smiled her +welcome to him through the throng. Max Hempel, close behind, caught the +message, too, and recognized the face of the girl who smiled as the +original of the newspaper cut he had just been studying so assiduously. +Deliberately he dogged the young man's heels. He wanted to get a close-up +view of Laura LaRue's daughter. She was much prettier than the picture. +Even from a distance he had made that out, as she stood there among the +crowd, vivacious, vivid, clad all in white except for the loose +coral-hued sweater which set off her warm brunette beauty and the slim +but charmingly rounded curves of her supple young body. Yes, she was like +Laura, like her and yet different, with a quality which he fancied +belonged to herself and none other. + +Almost jealously Hempel watched the meeting between the girl and the +youth who up to now had been negligible enough, but suddenly emerged into +significance as the possible young galoot already mentally warned off the +premises by the stage manager. + +"Dick! O Dick! I'm _so_ glad to see you," cried the girl, holding out +both hands to the new arrival. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. +She looked quite as glad as she proclaimed. + +As for the young man who had set down his suitcase and taken possession +of both the proffered hands, there wasn't the slightest doubt that he was +in the seventh heaven of bliss wherever that may be. Next door to Fool's +Paradise, Max Hempel hoped somewhat vindictively. + +"Just you wait, young man," he muttered to himself. "Bet you'll have to, +anyway. That glorious young thing isn't going to settle down to the +shallows of matrimony without trying the deep waters first, unless I'm +mightily mistaken. In the meantime we shall see what we shall see +to-night." And the man of power trudged away in the direction of a +taxicab, leaving youth alone with itself. + +"Everybody is here," bubbled Tony. "At least, nearly everybody. Larry +went to a horrid old medical convention at Chicago, and can't be here for +the play; but he's coming to commencement. Of course, Granny isn't able +to travel and Aunt Margery couldn't come because the kiddies have been +measling, but Ted is here, and Uncle Phil--bless him! He brought the +twins over from Dunbury in the car. Phil Lambert and everybody are +waiting down the street. Carlotta too! To think you haven't ever met her, +when she's been my roommate and best friend for two years! And, oh! +Dicky! I haven't seen you myself for most a year and I'm so glad." She +beamed up at him as she made this rather ambiguous statement. "And you +haven't said a word but just 'hello!' Aren't you glad to see me, Dicky?" +she reproached. + +He grunted at that. + +"About a thousand times gladder than if I were in Heaven, unless you +happened to be sitting beside me on the golden stairs. And if you think I +don't know how long it is since I've seen you, you are mightily mistaken. +It is precisely one million years in round numbers." + +"Oh, it is?" Tony smiled, appeased. "Why didn't you say so before, and +not leave me to squeeze it out of you like tooth-paste?" + +Dick grinned back happily. + +"Because you brought me up not to interrupt a lady. You seemed to have +the floor, so to speak." + +"So to speak, indeed," laughed Tony. "Carlotta says I exist for that +sole purpose. But come on. Everybody's crazy to see you and I've a +million things to do." And tucking her arm in his, Tony marshaled the +procession of two down the stairs to the street where the car and the old +Holiday Hill crowd waited to greet the newest comer to the ranks of the +commencement celebrants. + +With the exception of Carlotta Cressy, Tony's roommate, the occupants of +the car are known already to those who followed the earlier tale of +Holiday Hill.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The earlier experiences of the Holidays and their friends +are related in "The House on the Hill."] + +First of all there was the owner of the car, Dr. Philip Holiday +himself, a married man now, with a small son and daughter of his own, +"Miss Margery's" children. A little thicker of build and thinner of +hair was the doctor, but possessed of the same genial friendliness of +manner and whimsical humor, the same steady hand held out to help +wherever and whenever help was needed. He was head of the House of +Holiday now for his father, the saintly old pastor, had gone on to +other fields and his soldier brother Ned, Tony's father, had also gone, +in the prime of life, two years before, victim of typhus, leaving his +beloved little daughter, and his two sons just verging into manhood, in +the care of the younger Holiday. + +As Dick and the doctor exchanged cordial greetings, the latter's friendly +eyes challenged the young man's and were answered. Plainly as if words +had been spoken the doctor knew that Dick was keeping faith with the old +pact, living up to the name the little girl Tony had given him in her +impulsive generosity. + +"Something not quite right, though," he thought. "The boy isn't all +happy. Wonder what the trouble is. Probably a girl. Usually is at +that age." + +At the wheel beside the doctor was his namesake and neighbor, Philip +Lambert. Phil was graduating, himself, this year from the college across +the river, a sturdy athlete of some note and a Phi Beta Kappa man as +well. Out of a harum-scarum, willful boyhood he had emerged into a finely +tempered, steady young manhood. The Dunbury wiseacres who had been wont +to shake their heads over Phil's youthful escapades and prophesy a bad +end for such a devil-may-care youngster now patted themselves +complacently on the back, as wiseacres will, and declared they had always +known the boy would turn out a credit to his family and the town. + +On the back seat were Phil's sisters, the pretty twins, Charley and +Clare, still astonishingly alike at twenty, as they had been at twelve, +and still full of the high spirits and ready laughter and wit that had +made them the life of the Hill in the old days. Neither looked a day over +sixteen, but Clare had already been teaching two years in a Dunbury +public school and Charley was to go into nurse's training in the fall. + +Larry, the young doctor, as Dunbury had taken to calling him in +distinction from his uncle, was not yet arrived, as Tony had explained; +but Ted, her younger brother, was very much on the scene, arrayed in all +the extravagant niceties of modish attire affected by university +undergraduates. At twenty, Ted Holiday was as handsome as the traditional +young Greek god and possessed of a godlike propensity to do as he liked +and the devil take the consequences. Already Ned Holiday's younger son +had acquired something of a reputation as a high flier among his own sex, +and a heart breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly +irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely +dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible, +and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults. +His soberer brother Larry worried uselessly over Ted's misdeeds, and took +him sharply to task for them; but even Larry admitted that there was +something rather magnificent about Ted and that possibly in the end he +would come out the soundest Holiday of them all. + +There remains only Carlotta to be introduced. Carlotta was lovely to look +upon. A poet speaks somewhere of a face "made out of a rose." Carlotta +had that kind of a face and her eyes were of that deep, violet shade +which works mischief and magic in the hearts of men. As for her hair, it +might well have been the envy of any princess, in or out of the covers of +a book, so fine spun was it in texture, so pure gold in color, like the +warm, vivid shimmer of tropical sunshine. She lifted an inquiring gaze +now to Dick, as she held out her hand in acknowledgment of the +introduction, and Dick murmured something platitudinous, bowed politely +over the hand and never noticed what color her eyes were. A single track +mind is both a curse and a protection to a man. + +"Carlotta _would_ come," Tony was explaining gaily, "though I told her +there wasn't room. Let me inform you all that Carlotta is the most +completely, magnificently, delightfully spoiled young person in these +United States of America." + +"Barring you?" teased her uncle. + +"Barring none. By comparison with Carlotta, I am all the noble army of +saints, martyrs and seraphim on record combined. Carlotta is preordained +to have her own way. Everybody unites to give it to her. We can't help +it. She hypnotizes us. Some night you will miss the moon in its +accustomed place and you will find that she wanted it for a few moments +to play with." + +Philip Lambert had turned around in his seat and was surveying Carlotta +rather curiously during this teasing tirade of Tony's. + +"Oh, well," murmured Carlotta. "Your old moon can be put up again when I +am through with it. I shan't do it a bit of harm. Anyway, Mr. Carson must +not be told such horrid things about me the very first time he meets me, +must he, Phil? He might think they were true." She suddenly lifted her +eyes and smiled straight up into the face of the young man on the front +seat who was watching her so intently. + +"Well, aren't they?" returned the young man addressed, stooping to +examine the brake. + +Carlotta did not appear in the least offended at his curt comment. +Indeed the smile on her lips lingered as if it had some inner reason for +being there. + +"Hop in, Tony," ordered Ted with brotherly peremptoriness. "Carlotta, you +are one too many, my love. You will have to sit in my lap." + +"I'm getting out," said Phil. "I'm due across the river. Want Ted to take +the wheel, Doctor?" + +"I do not. I have a wife and children at home. I cannot afford to place +my life in jeopardy." The doctor's eyes twinkled as they rested a moment +on his youngest nephew. + +"Now, Uncle Phil, that's mean of you. You ought to see me drive." + +"I have," commented Dr. Holiday drily. "Come on over here, one of you +twinnies, if Phil must go. See you to-night, my boy?" he turned to his +namesake to ask as Charley accepted the invitation and clambered over the +back of the seat while the doctor took her brother's vacated post. + +Phil shook his head. + +"No. I was in on the dress rehearsal last night. I've had my share. But +you folks are going to see the jolliest Rosalind that ever grew in Arden +or out of it. That's one sure thing." + +Phil smiled at Tony as he spoke, and Dick, settling himself in the small +seat beside Ted, felt a small barbed dart of jealousy prick into him. + +Tony and Phil were obviously exceedingly good friends. They had, he +knew, seen much of each other during the past four years, with only a +river between. Phil was Tony's own kind, college-trained, with a +certified line of good old New England ancestry behind him. Moreover, he +was a darned fine fellow--one of the best, in fact. In spite of that +hateful little jabbing dart, Dick acknowledged that. Ah well, there was +more than a river between himself and Tony Holiday and there always +would be. Who was he, nameless as he was, to enter the lists against +Philip Lambert or any one else? + +The car sped away, leaving Phil standing bareheaded in the sunshine, +staring after it. The mocking silver lilt of Carlotta Cressy's laughter +drifted back to him. He shrugged, jammed on his hat and strode off in the +direction of the trolley car. + +Dick Carson might just as well have spared himself the pain of jealousy. +Phil had already forgotten Tony, was remembering only Carlotta, who would +never deliberately do a mite of harm to the moon, would merely want to +play with it at her fancy and leave it at her whim for somebody else to +replace, if anybody cared to take the pains. And what was a moon more or +less anyway? + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WITH ROSALIND IN ARDEN + + +Of course it is understood that every graduating class rightfully +asserts, and is backed up in its belief by doting and nobly partisan +relatives and blindly devoted, hyperbolic friends, that _its_ particular, +unique and proper senior dramatics is the most glorious and unforgettable +performance in all the histrionic annals of the college, a thing to make +Will Shakespeare himself rise and applaud from his high and far off hills +of Paradise. + +Certainly Tony's class knew, past any qualms of doubt, and made no bones +of proclaiming its conviction that there never had been such a wonderful +"As You Like It" and that never, so long as the stars kept their seats in +the heavens and senior classes produced Shakespeare--two practically +synonymous conditions--would there ever be such another Rosalind as Tony +Holiday, so fresh, so spontaneous, so happy in her acting, so +bewitchingly winsome to behold, so boyish, yet so exquisitely feminine in +her doublet and hose, so daring, so dainty, so full of wit and grace and +sparkle, so tender, so merry, so natural, so all-in-all and utterly as +Will himself would have liked his "right Rosalind" to be. + +So the class maintained and so they chanted soon and late, in many keys, +"with a hey and a ho and a hey nonino." And who so bold or malicious, or +age cankered as to dispute the dictum? Is it not youth's privilege to +fling enthusiasm and superlatives to the wind and to deal in glorious +arrogance? + +It must be admitted, however, in due justice, that the class that played +"As You Like It" that year had some grounds on which to base its +pretensions and vain-glory. For had not a great stage manager been +present and applauded until his palms were purple and perspiration +beaded his beak of a nose? Had he not, as the last curtain, descended, +blown his nose, mopped his brow, exclaimed "God bless my soul!" three +times in succession and demanded to be shown without delay into the +presence of Rosalind? + +As we know already, the great stage manager had not come over-willingly +or over-hopefully to Northampton to see Tony Holiday play Rosalind. +Indeed, when it had been first suggested that he do so, he had objected +violently and remarked with conviction that he would "be +da--er--_blessed_ if he would." But he had come and he had been blessed +involuntarily. + +For he had seen something he had not expected to see--a real play, with +real magic to it, such magic as all his cunning stage artifice, all the +studied artistry of his fearfully and wonderfully salaried stellar +attachments somehow missed achieving. He tried afterwards to explain to +Carol Clay, his favorite star, just what the quality of the magic was, +but somehow he could not get it into words. It wasn't exactly wordable +perhaps. It was something that rendered negligible the occasionally +creaking mechanism and crudeness of stage business and rendition; +something compounded of dew and sun and wind, such as could only be found +in a veritable Forest of Arden; something elusive, exquisite, iridescent; +something he had supposed had vanished from the world about the time they +put Pan out of business and stopped up the Pipes of Arcady. It was +enchanting, elemental, genuine Elizabethan, had the spirit of Master +Skylark himself in it. Maybe it was the spirit of youth itself, immortal +youth, playing immortal youth's supreme play? Who knows or can lay finger +upon the secret of the magic? The great stage manager did not and could +not. He only knew that, in spite of himself, he had drunk deep for a +moment of true elixir. + +But as for Rosalind herself that was another matter. Max Hempel was +entirely capable of analyzing his impressions there and correlating them +with the cold hard business on which he had come. Even if the play had +proved a greater bore than he had anticipated, the trip from Broadway to +the Academy of Music would still have been materially worth while. +Antoinette Holiday was a genuine find, authentic star stuff. They hadn't +spoiled her, plastered her over with meaningless mannerisms. She was +virgin material--untrained, with worlds to learn, of course; but with a +spark of the true fire in her--her mother's own daughter, which was the +most promising thing anybody could say of her. + +No wonder Max Hempel had peremptorily demanded to be shown behind the +scenes without an instant's delay. He was almost in a panic lest some +other manager should likewise have gotten wind of this Rosalind and be +lurking in the wings even now to pounce upon his own legitimate prey. He +couldn't quite forget either the tall young man of the afternoon's +encounter, his seatmate up from Springfield. He wasn't exactly afraid, +however, having seen the girl and watched her live Rosalind. The child +had wings and would want to fly far and free with them, unless he was +mightily mistaken in his reading of her. + +Tony was still resplendent in her wedding white, and with her arms full +of roses, when she obeyed the summons to the stage door on being told +that the great manager wished to see her. She came toward him, flushed, +excited, adorably pretty. She laid down her roses and held out her hand, +shy, but perfectly self-possessed. + +"'Well, this is the Forest of Arden,'" she quoted. "It must be or else I +am dreaming. As long as I can remember I have wanted to meet you, and +here you are, right on the edge of the forest." + +He bowed low over her hand and raised it gallantly to his lips. + +"I rather think I am still in Arden myself," he said. "My dear, you have +given me a treat such as I never expected to enjoy again in this world. +You made me forget I knew anything about plays or was seeing one. You +carried me off with you to Arden." + +"Did you really like the play?" begged Tony, shining-eyed at the praise +of the great man. + +"I liked it amazingly and I liked your playing even more amazingly. Is it +true that you are going on the stage?" He had dropped Arden now, gotten +down to what he would have called brass tacks. The difference was in his +voice. Tony sensed it vaguely and was suddenly a little frightened. + +"Why, I--I don't know," she faltered. "I hope so. Sometime." + +"Sometime is never," he snapped. "That won't do." + +The Arden magic was quite gone by this time. He was scowling a little and +thrust out his upper lip in a way Tony did not care for at all. It +occurred to her inconsequentially that he looked a good deal like the +wolf, in the story, who threatened to "huff and puff" until he blew in +the house of the little pigs. She didn't want her house blown in. She +wished Uncle Phil would come. She stooped to gather up her roses as if +they might serve as a barricade between her and the wolf. But suddenly +she forgot her misgivings again, for Max Hempel was saying incredible +things, things which set her imagination agog and her pulses leaping. He +was offering her a small role, a maid's part, in one of his road +companies. + +"Me!" she gasped from behind her roses. + +"You." + +"When?" + +"To-morrow--the day after--next week at the latest. Chances like that +don't go begging long, young lady. Will you take it?" + +"Oh, I wish I could!" sighed Tony. "But I am afraid I can't. Oh, there is +Uncle Phil!" she interrupted herself to exclaim with perceptible relief. + +In a moment Doctor Holiday was with them, his arm around Tony while he +acknowledged the introduction to the stage manager, who eyed him somewhat +uncordially. The two men took each the other's measure. Possibly a spark +of antagonism flashed between them for an instant. Each wanted the lovely +little Rosalind on his own side of the fence, and each suspected the +other of desiring to lure her to the other side if he could. For the +moment however, the advantage was all with the doctor, with his +protecting arm around Tony. + +"Holiday!" muttered Hempel. "There was a Holiday once who married one of +the finest actresses of the American stage--carried her off to nurse his +babies. I never forgave that man. He was a brute." + +Tony stiffened. Her eyes flashed. She drew away from her uncle and +confronted the stage manager angrily. + +"He wasn't a brute, if you mean my father!" she burst out. "My mother was +Laura LaRue." + +"I know it," grinned the manager, thoroughly delighted to have struck +fire. The girl was better even than he had thought. She was magnificent, +angry. "That's why I'm here," he added. "I just offered this young person +a part in a practically all-star cast, touring the West. Do you mind?" he +challenged Doctor Holiday. + +"I should mind her accepting," said the other man tranquilly. "As it is, +I am duly appreciative of the offer. Thank you." + +"What if I told you she had accepted?" the wolf snapped. + +Tony saw the swift shadow cloud her uncle's face and hated the manager +for hurting him like that. + +"I didn't," she protested indignantly. "You know I wouldn't promise +anything without talking to you, Uncle Phil. I told him I couldn't go." + +"But you wanted to," persisted the wolf, bound to get his fangs in +somewhere. + +Tony smiled a little wistfully. + +"I wanted to most awfully," she confessed, patting her uncle's arm to +take the sting out of her admission. "Will you ask me again some day?" +she appealed to the manager. + +He snorted at that. + +"You'll come asking me, young lady, and before long, too. Laura LaRue's +daughter isn't going to settle down to being either a butterfly or a +blue-stocking. You are going on the stage and you know it. No use, +Holiday. You won't be able to hold her back. It's in the blood. You may +be able to dam the tide for a time, but not forever." + +"I don't intend to dam it," said the doctor gravely. "If, when the time +comes, Tony wishes to go on the stage, I shall not try to prevent her. In +fact I shall help her in every way in my power." + +"Uncle Phil!" Tony's voice had a tiny catch in it. She knew her +grandmother would be bitterly opposed to her going on the stage, and had +imagined she would have to win even her uncle over by slow degrees to the +gratifying of this desire of her heart. It had hurt her even to think of +hurting him or going against him in any way--he who was, "father and +mother and a'" to her. Dear Uncle Phil! How he always understood and took +the big, broad viewpoint! + +The manager grunted approval at that. His belligerency waned. + +"Congratulate you, sir. That's spoken like a man of sense. Evidently you +are able to see over the wall farther than most of the witch-ridden New +Englanders I've met. I should like the chance to launch this Rosalind of +yours. But don't make it too far off. Youth is the biggest drawing card +in the world and--the most transient. You have to get in the game early +to get away with it. I'll start her whenever you say--next week--next +month--next year. Guarantee to have her ready to understudy a star in +three months and perhaps a star herself in six. She might jump into the +heavens overnight. Stranger things have happened. What do you say? May I +have an option on the young lady?" + +"That is rather too big a question to settle off hand at midnight. Tony +is barely twenty-two and she has home obligations which will have to be +considered. Her grandmother is old and frail and--a New Englander of the +old school." + +"Too bad," commiserated the manager. "But never mind all that. All I ask +is that you won't let her sign up with anybody else without giving me a +chance first." + +"I think we may safely promise that and thank you. Tony and I both +appreciate that you are doing her a good deal of honor for one small +school girl, eh Tony?" The doctor smiled down at his flushed, starry-eyed +niece. He understood precisely what a big moment it was for her. + +"Oh, I should think so!" sighed Tony. "You are awfully kind, Mr. Hempel. +It is like a wonderful dream--almost too good to be true." + +Both men smiled at that. For youth no dream is quite too extravagant or +incredible to be potentially true. No grim specters of failure and +disillusionment and frustration dog its bright path. All possibilities +are its divine inheritance. + +"Mr. Hempel, did you know my mother?" Tony asked suddenly, with a shadow +of wistfulness in her dark eyes. There were so few people whom she met +that had known her mother. It was as if Laura LaRue had moved in a +different orbit from that of her daughter. It always hurt Tony to feel +that. But here was one who was of her mother's own world. No wonder her +eyes were beseeching as they sought the great manager's. + +He bowed gravely. + +"I knew her very well. She was one of the most beautiful women I have +ever seen--and one of the greatest actresses. Your father was a lucky +man, my dear. Few women would have given up for any man what she gave +up for him." + +"Oh, but--she loved him," explained Laura LaRue's daughter simply. + +Again Hempel nodded. + +"She did," he admitted grimly. After all these years there was no use +admitting that that had been the deepest rub of all, that Laura had loved +Ned Holiday and had never, for even the span of a moment, thought of +caring for himself. "I repeat, your father was a very lucky man--a +damnably lucky one." + +And with that they shook hands and parted. + +It was many months before Tony was to see Max Hempel again and many +waters were to run under the bridge before the meeting came to pass. + +Outside in the car, Ted, Dick and the twins waited the arrival of the +heroine of the evening. The three latter greeted her with a burst of +prideful congratulation; the former, being merely a brother, was +distinctly cross at having been kept waiting so long and did not hesitate +to express his sentiments fully out loud. But Doctor Holiday cut short +his nephew's somewhat ungracious speech by a quiet reminder that the car +was here primarily for Tony's use, and the boy subsided, having no more +to say until, having deposited the occupants of the car at their various +destinations, he announced to his uncle with elaborate carelessness that +he would take the car around to the garage. + +But he did not turn in at the side street where the garage was. Instead +he shot out Elm Street, "hitting her up" at forty. There had been a +reason for his impatience. Ted Holiday had important private business to +transact ere cock crow. + +Tony lay awake a long time that night, dreaming dreams that carried her +far and far into the future, until Rosalind's happy triumph of the +evening almost faded away in the glory of the yet-to-be. It was +characteristic of the girl's stage of development that in all her dreams, +no lovers, much less a possible husband, ever once entered. Tony Holiday +was in love with life and life alone that wonderful June night. As Hempel +had shrewdly perceived she was conscious of having wings and desirous of +flying far and free with them ere she came to pause. + +She did remember, in passing however, how she had caught Dick's eyes +once as he sat in the box near the stage, and how his rapt gaze had +thrilled her to intenser playing of her part. And she remembered how +dear he was afterward in the car when he held her roses and told her +softly what a wonderful, wonderful Rosalind she was. But, on the whole, +Dick, like most of the rest of the people with whom she had held +converse since the curtain went down upon Arden, seemed unimportant and +indistinct, like courtiers and foresters, not specifically named among +the _dramatis personae_, just put in to fill out and make a more +effective stage setting. + +Dick, too, in his room on Greene Street, was wakeful. He sat by the +window far into the night. His heart was heavy within him. The gulf +between him and Tony had suddenly widened immeasureably. She was a real +actress. He hadn't needed a great manager's verdict to teach him that. He +had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, felt it with +his own heart. He had worshiped and adored and been made unutterably sad +and lonely by her dazzling success, glad as he was that it had come to +her. Tony would go on in her shining path. He would always lag behind in +the shadows. They would never come together as long as they both lived. +She had started too far ahead. He could never overtake her. + +If only there were some way of finding out who he was, get some clue as +to his parentage. He only knew that the man they called Jim, who had +kicked and beaten and sworn at him with foul oaths until he could bear it +no longer, was no kin of his, though the other had claimed the authority +to abuse him as he abused his horses and dogs when drink and ugliness +were upon him. If only he could find Jim again after all these years, +perhaps he could manage to get the truth out of him, find out what the +man knew of himself, and how he had come to be in a circus troupe. Yet +after all, perhaps it was better not to know. The facts might separate +him from Tony even more than he was separated by his ignorance of them. +As it was, he started even, with neither honor nor shame bequeathed him +from the past. What he was, he was in himself. And if by any miracle of +fortune Tony ever did come to care for him it would be just himself, +plain Dick, that she would love. He knew that. + +The thought was vaguely comforting and he, too, fell adreaming. Most of +us foiled humans learn to play the game of make-believe and to find such +consolation as we may therein. Often and often in his lonely hours Dick +Carson had summoned Tony Holiday to his side, a Tony as bright and +beautiful and all adorable as the real Tony, but a dream Tony, withal, a +Tony who loved him even as he loved her. And in his make-believe he was +no longer a nameless, impecunious cub reporter, but a man who had arrived +somewhere, made himself worthy, so far as any mere man could, of the +supreme gift of Tony's caring. + +To-night, too, Dick played the game determinedly, but somehow he found +its consolation rather meager, as cold and remote as the sparkle of the +June stars, millions of miles away up there in the velvet sky, after +having sat by the side of the living, breathing Tony and, looking into +her happy eyes, known how little, how very little, he was in her +thoughts. She liked him to be near her, he knew, just as she liked her +roses to be fragrant, but neither the roses nor himself was a vital +necessity to her. She could do very well without either. That was the +pity of it. + +At last he got up and went to bed. Falling into troubled sleep he dreamed +that he and Tony were wandering, hand in hand, in the Forest of Arden. +From afar off came the sound of music, airy voices chanting: + +"When birds do sing, hey ding a ding +Sweet lovers love the spring." + +And then somebody laughed mockingly, like Jacques, and somebody else, +clad in motley like Touchstone, but who seemed to speak in Dick's own +voice, murmured, "Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I." + +And even with these words the forest vanished and Tony with it and the +dreamer was left alone on a steep and dusty road, lost and aching for the +missing touch of her hand. + +But later he woke to the song of a thousand birds greeting the new day +with full-throated joy. And his heart, too, began to sing. For it was +indeed a new day--a day in which he should see Tony. He was irrationally +content. Of such is the kingdom of lad's love! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS + + +In the lee of a huge gray bowlder on the summit of Mount Tom sat +Philip Lambert and Carlotta Cressy. Below them stretched the wide +sweep of the river valley, amethyst and topaz and emerald, rich with +lush June verdure, soft shadowed, tranquil, in the late afternoon +sunshine. They had been silent for a little time but suddenly Carlotta +broke the silence. + +"Phil, do you know why I brought you up here?" she asked. As she spoke +she drew a little closer to him and her hand touched his as softly as a +drifting feather or a blown cherry blossom might have touched it. + +He turned to look at her. She was all in white like a lily, and otherwise +carried out the lily tradition of belonging obviously to the +non-toiling-and-spinning species, justifying the arrangement by looking +seraphically lovely in the fruits of the loom and labor of the rest of +the world. And after all, sheer loveliness is an end in itself. Nobody +expects a flower to give account of itself and flower-like Carlotta was +very, very lovely as she leaned against the granite rock with the valley +at her feet. So Phil Lambert's eyes told her eloquently. The valley was +not the only thing at Carlotta's feet. + +"I labored under the impression that I did the bringing up myself," he +remarked, his hand closing over hers. "However, the point is immaterial. +You are here and I am here. Is there a cosmic reason?" + +"There is." Carlotta's voice was dreamy. She watched a cloud shadow +creep over the green-plumed mountain opposite. "I brought you up here so +that you could propose to me suitably and without interruption." + +"Huh!" ejaculated Phil inelegantly, utterly taken by surprise by +Carlotta's announcement. "Do you mind repeating that? The altitude seems +to have affected my hearing." + +"You heard correctly. I said I brought you up here to propose to me." + +Phil shrugged. + +"Too much 'As You Like It,'" he observed. "These Shakespearean heroines +are a bad lot. May I ask just why you want me to propose to you, my dear? +Do you have to collect a certain number of scalps by this particular rare +day in June? Or is it that you think you would enjoy the exquisite +pleasure of seeing me writhe and wriggle when you refuse me?" + +Phil's tone was carefully light, and he smiled as he asked the questions, +but there was a tight drawn line about his mouth even as he smiled. + +"Through bush, through briar, +Through flood, through fire" + +he had followed the will o' the wisp, Carlotta, for two years now, +against his better judgment and to the undoing of his peace of mind and +heart. And play days were over for Phil Lambert. The work-a-day world +awaited him, a world where there would be neither space nor time for +chasing phantoms, however lovely and alluring. + +"Don't be horrid, Phil. I'm not like that. You know I'm not," denied +Carlotta reproachfully. "I have a surprise for you, Philip, my dear. I am +going to accept you." + +"No!" exclaimed Phil in unfeigned amazement. + +"Yes," declared Carlotta firmly. "I decided it in church this morning +when the man was telling us how fearfully real and earnest life is. Not +that I believe in the real-earnestness. I don't. It's bosh. Life was made +to be happy in and that is why I made up my mind to marry you. You might +manage to look a little bit pleased. Anybody would think you were about +to keep an appointment with a dentist, instead of having the inestimable +privilege of proposing to me with the inside information that I am going +to accept you." + +Phil drew away his hand from hers. His blue eyes were grave. + +"Don't, Carlotta! I am afraid the chap was right about the +real-earnestness. It may be a fine jest to you. It isn't to me. You see I +happen to be in love with you." + +"Of course," murmured Carlotta. "That is quite understood. Did you think +I would have bothered to drag you clear up on a mountain top to propose +to me if I hadn't known you were in love with me and--I with you?" she +added softly. + +"Carlotta! Do you mean it?" Phil's whole heart was in his honest +blue eyes. + +"Of course, I mean it. Foolish! Didn't you know? Would I have tormented +you so all these months if I hadn't cared?" + +"But, Carlotta, sweetheart, I can't believe you are in earnest even now. +Would you marry me really?" + +"_Would_ I? _Will_ I is the verb I brought you up here to use. Mind +your grammar." + +Phil clasped his hands behind him for safe keeping. + +"But I can't ask you to marry me--at least not to-day." + +Carlotta made a dainty little face at him. + +"And why not? Have you any religious scruples about proposing on +Sunday?" + +He grinned absent-mindedly and involuntarily at that. But he shook his +head and his hands stayed behind his back. + +"I can't propose to you because I haven't a red cent in the world--at +least not more than three red cents. I couldn't support an everyday wife +on 'em, not to mention a fairy princess." + +"As if that mattered," dismissed Carlotta airily. "You are in love with +me, aren't you?" + +"Lord help me!" groaned Phil. "You know I am." + +"And I am in love with you--for the present. You had better ask me while +the asking is good. The wind may veer by next week, or even by tomorrow. +There are other young men who do not require to be commanded to propose. +They spurt, automatically and often, like Old Faithful." + +Phil's ingenuous face clouded over. The other young men were no +fabrication, as he knew to his sorrow. He was forever stumbling over them +at Carlotta's careless feet. + +"Don't, Carlotta," he begged again. "You don't have to scare me into +subjection, you know. If I had anything to justify me for asking you to +marry me I'd do it this minute without prompting. You ought to know that. +And you know I'm jealous enough already of the rest of 'em, without your +rubbing it in now." + +"Don't worry, old dear," smiled Carlotta. "I don't care a snap of my +fingers for any of the poor worms, though I wouldn't needlessly set +foot on 'em. As for justifications I have a whole bag of them up my +sleeve ready to spill out like a pack of cards when the time comes. You +don't have to concern yourself in the least about them. Your business +is to propose. 'Come, woo me, woo, me, for now I am in a holiday humor +and like enough to consent'"--she quoted Tony's lines and, leaning +toward him, lifted her flower face close to his. "Shall I count ten?" +she teased. + +"Carlotta, have mercy. You are driving me crazy. Pretty thing it would be +for me to propose to you before I even got my sheepskin. Jolly pleased +your father would be, wouldn't he, to be presented with a jobless, +penniless son-in-law?" + +"Nonsense!" said Carlotta crisply. "It wouldn't matter if you didn't even +have a fig leaf. You wouldn't be either jobless or penniless if you were +his son-in-law. He has pennies enough for all of us and enough jobs for +you, which is quite sufficient unto the day. Don't be stiff and silly, +Phil. And don't set your jaw like that. I hate men who set their jaws. It +isn't at all becoming. I don't say my dear misguided Daddy wouldn't raise +a merry little row just at first. He often raises merry little rows over +things I want to do, but in the end he always comes round to my way of +thinking and wants precisely what I want. Everything will be smooth as +silk, I promise you. I know what I am talking about. I've thought it out +very carefully. I don't make up my mind in a hurry, but when I do decide +what I want I take it." + +"You can't take this," said Philip Lambert. + +Carlotta drew back and stared, her violet eyes very wide open. Never in +all her twenty two years had any man said "can't" to her in that tone. +It was a totally new experience. For a moment she was too astounded even +to be angry. + +"What do you mean?" she asked a little limply. + +"I mean I won't take your father's pennies nor hold down a pseudo-job +I'm not fitted for, even for the sake of being his son-in-law. And I +won't marry you until I am able to support you on the kind of job I am +fitted for." + +"And may I inquire what that is?" demanded Carlotta sharply, recovering +sufficiently to let the thorns she usually kept gracefully concealed +prick out from among the roses. + +Phil laughed shortly. + +"Don't faint, Carlotta. I am eminently fitted to be a village +store-keeper. In fact that is what I shall be in less than two weeks. I +am going into partnership with my father. The new sign _Stuart Lambert +and Son_ is being painted now." + +Carlotta gasped. + +"Phil! You wouldn't. You can't." + +"Oh yes, Carlotta. I not only could and would but I am going to. It has +been understood ever since I first went to college that when I was out +I'd put my shoulder to the wheel beside Dad's. He has been pushing alone +too long as it is. He needs me. You don't know how happy he and Mums are +about it. It is what they have dreamed about and planned, for years. I'm +the only son, you know. It's up to me." + +"But, Phil! It is an awful sacrifice for you." For once Carlotta forgot +herself completely. + +"Not a bit of it. It is a flourishing concern--not just a two-by-four +village shop--a real department store, doing real business and making +real money. Dad built it all up himself, too. He has a right to be proud +of it and I am lucky to be able to step in and enjoy the results of all +his years of hard work. I'm not fooling myself about that. Don't get the +impression I am being a martyr or anything of the sort. I most +distinctly am not." + +Carlotta made a little inarticulate exclamation. Mechanically she counted +the cars of the train which was winding its black, snake-like trail far +down below them in the valley. It hadn't occurred to her that the moon +would be difficult to dislodge. Perhaps Carlotta didn't know much about +moons, after all. + +Phil went on talking earnestly, putting his case before her as best he +might. He owed it to Carlotta to try to make her understand if he could. +He thought that, under all the whimsicalities, it was rather fine of her +to lay down her princess pride and let him see she cared, that she really +wanted him. It made her dearer, harder to resist than ever. If only he +could make her understand! + +"You see I'm not fitted for city life," he explained. "I hate it. I like +to live where everybody has a plot of green grass in front of his house +to set his rocking chair in Sunday afternoons; where people can have +trees that they know as well as they know their own family and don't have +to go to a park to look at 'em; where they can grow tulips and green +peas--and babies, too, if the lord is good to 'em. I want to plant my +roots where people are neighborly and interested in each other as human +beings, not shut away like cave dwellers in apartment houses, not knowing +or caring who is on the other side of the wall. I should get to hating +people if I had to be crowded into a subway with them, day after day, +treading on their toes, and they on mine. Altogether I am afraid I have a +small town mind, sweetheart." + +He smiled at Carlotta as he made the confession, but she did not respond. +Her face gave not the slightest indication as to what was going on in her +mind as he talked. + +"I wouldn't be any good at all in your father's establishment. I've +never wanted to make money on the grand scale. I wouldn't be my father's +son if I did. I couldn't be a banker or a broker if I tried, and I don't +want to try." + +"Not even for the sake of--having me?" Carlotta's voice was as +expressionless as her face. She still watched the train, almost +vanishing from sight now in the far distance, leaving a cloud of ugly +black smoke behind it to mar the lustrous azure of the June sky. + +Phil, too, looked out over the valley. He dared not look at Carlotta. He +was young and very much in love. He wanted Carlotta exceedingly. For a +minute everything blurred before his gaze. It seemed as if he would try +anything, risk anything, give up anything, ride rough shod over anything, +even his own ideals, to gain her. It was a tense moment. He came very +near surrendering and thereby making himself, and Carlotta too, unhappy +forever after. But something stronger held him back. Oddly enough he +seemed to see that sign _Stuart Lambert and Son_ written large all over +the valley. His gaze came back to Carlotta. Their eyes met. The hardness +was gone from the girl's, leaving a wistful tenderness, a sweet +surrender, no man had ever seen there before. A weaker lad would have +capitulated under that wonderful, new look of Carlotta's. It only +strengthened Philip Lambert. It was for her as well as himself. + +"I am sorry, Carlotta," he said. "I couldn't do it, though I'd give you +my heart to cut up into pieces if it could make you happy. Maybe I would +risk it for myself. But I can't go back on my father, even for you." + +"Then you don't love me." Carlotta's rare and lovely tenderness was +burned away on the instant in a quick blaze of anger. + +"Yes I do, dear. It is because I love you that I can't do it. I have to +give you the best of me, not the worst of me. And the best of me belongs +in Dunbury. I wish I could make you understand. And I wish with all my +heart that, since I can't come to you, you could care enough to come to +me. But I am not going to ask it--not now anyway. I haven't the right. +Perhaps in two years time, if you are still free, I shall; but not now. +It wouldn't be fair." + +"Two years from now, and long before, I shall be married," said +Carlotta with a sharp little metallic note in her voice. She was trying +to keep from crying but he did not know that and winced both at her +words and tone. + +"That must be as it will," he answered soberly. "I cannot do any +differently. I would if I could. It--it isn't so easy to give you up. Oh, +Carlotta! I love you." + +And suddenly, unexpectedly to himself and Carlotta, he had her in his +arms and was covering her face with kisses. Carlotta's cheeks flamed. She +was no longer a lily, but a red, red rose. Never in her life had she been +so frightened, so ecstatic. With all her dainty, capricious flirtations +she had always deliberately fenced herself behind barriers. No man had +ever held her or kissed her like this, the embrace and kisses of a lover +to whom she belonged. + +"Phil! Don't, dear--I mean, do, dear--I love you," she whispered. + +But her words brought Phil back to his senses. His arms dropped and he +drew away, ashamed, remorseful. He was no saint. According to his way of +thinking a man might kiss a girl now and then, under impulsion of +moonshine or mischief, but lightly always, like thistledown. A man didn't +kiss a girl as he had just kissed Carlotta unless he had the right to +marry her. It wasn't playing straight. + +"I'm sorry, Carlotta. I didn't mean to," he said miserably. + +"I'm not. I'm glad. I think way down in my heart I've always wanted you +to kiss me, though I didn't know it would be like that. I knew your +kisses would be different, because _you_ are different." + +"How am I different?" Phil's voice was humble. In his own eyes he seemed +pitifully undifferent, precisely like all the other rash, intemperate, +male fools in the world. + +"You are different every way. It would take too long to tell you all of +them, but maybe you are chiefly different because I love you and I don't +love the rest. Except for Daddy. I've never loved anybody but myself +before, and when you kissed me I just seemed to feel my _meness_ going +right out of me, as if I stopped belonging to myself and began to belong +to you forever and ever. It scared me but--I liked it." + +"You darling!" fatuously. "Carlotta, will you marry me?" + +It was out at last--the words she claimed she had brought him up the +mountain to say--the words he had willed not to speak. + +"Of course. Kiss me again, Phil. We'll wire Daddy tomorrow." + +"Wire him what?" The mention of Carlotta's father brought Phil back to +earth with a jolt. + +"That we are engaged and that he is to find a suitable job for you so we +can be married right away," chanted Carlotta happily. + +Phil's rainbow vanished almost as soon as it had appeared in the heavens. +He drew a long breath. + +"Carlotta, I didn't mean that. I can't be engaged to you that way. I +meant--will you marry me when I can afford to have a fairy princess +in my home?" + +Carlotta stared at him, her rainbow, too, fading. + +"You did?" she asked vaguely. "I thought--" + +"I know," groaned Phil. "It was stupid of me--worse than stupid. It +can't be helped now I suppose. The damage is done. Shall we take the next +car down? It is getting late." + +He rose and put out both hands to help her to her feet. For a moment they +stood silent in front of the gray bowlder. The end of the world seemed to +have come for them both. It was like Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses +and all the King's men couldn't restore things to their old state nor +bring back the lost happiness of that one perfect moment when they had +belonged to each other without reservations. Carlotta put out her hand +and touched Philip's. + +"Don't feel too badly, Phil," she said. "As you say, it can't be +helped--nothing can be helped. It just had to be this way. We can't +either of us make ourselves over or change the way we look at things +and want things. I wish I were different for both our sakes. I wish I +were big enough and brave enough and fine enough to say I would marry +you anyway, and stop being a princess. But I don't dare. I know myself +too well. I might think I could do it up here where it is all still and +purple and sweet and sacred. But when we got down to the valley again I +am afraid I couldn't live up to it, nor to you, Philip, my king. +Forgive me." + +Phil bent and kissed her again--not passionately this time, but with a +kind of reverent solemnity as if he were performing a rite. + +"Never mind, sweetheart. I don't blame you any more than you blame me. +We've got to take life as we find it, not try to make it over into +something different to please ourselves. If some day you meet the man who +can make you happy in your way, I'll not grudge him the right. I'm not +sure I shall even envy him. I've had my moment." + +"But Phil, you aren't going to be awfully unhappy about me?" sighed +Carlotta. "Promise you won't. You know I never wanted to hurt the +moon, dear." + +Philip shook his head. + +"Don't worry about the moon. It is a tough old orb. I shan't be too +unhappy. A man has a whole lot of things beside love in his life. I am +not going to let myself be such a fool as to be miserable because things +started out a little differently from what I would like to have them." +His smile was brave but his eyes belied the smile and Carlotta's heart +smote her. + +"You will forget me," she said. It was half a reproach, half a command. + +Again he shook his head in denial. + +"Do you remember the queen who claimed she had Calais stamped on her +heart? Well, open mine a hundred years from now and you'll read +_Carlotta_." + +"But won't you ever marry?" pursued Carlotta with youth's insistence on +probing wounds to the quick. + +"I don't know. Probably," he added honestly. "A man is a poor stick in +this world without a home and kiddies. If I do it will be a long time yet +though. It will be many a year before I see anybody but you, no matter +where I look." + +"But I am horrid--selfish, cowardly, altogether horrid." + +"Are you?" smiled Phil. "I wonder. Anyway I love you. Come on, dear. +We'll have to hurry. The car is nearly due." + +And, as twilight settled down over the valley like a great bird brooding +over its nest, Philip and Carlotta went down from the mountain. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A BOY WHO WASN'T AN ASS BUT BEHAVED LIKE ONE + + +Baccalaureate services being over and the graduates duly exhorted to the +wisdom of the ages, the latter were for a time permitted to alight from +their lofty pedestal in the public eye and to revert temporarily to the +comfortable if less exalted state of being plain every day human girls. + +While Philip and Carlotta went up on the heights fondly believing they +were settling their destinies forever, Tony had been enjoying an +afternoon _en famille_ with her uncle and her brother Ted. + +Suddenly she looked at her watch and sprang up from the arm of her +uncle's chair on which she had been perched, chattering and content, for +a couple of hours. + +"My goodness! It is most four o'clock. Dick will be here in a minute. May +I call up the garage and ask them to send the car around? I'm dying for a +ride. We can go over to South Hadley and get the twins, if you'd like. +I'm sure they must have had enough of Mt. Holyoke by this time." + +"Car's out of commission," grunted Ted from behind his sporting sheet. + +"Out of commission? Since when?" inquired Doctor Holiday. "It was all +right when you took it to the garage last night." + +"I went out for a joy ride and had a smash up," explained his nephew +nonchalantly, and still hidden behind the newspaper. + +"Oh Ted! How could you when you know we want to use the car every +minute?" There was sharp dismay and reproach in Tony's voice. + +"Well, I didn't smash it on purpose, did I?" grumbled her brother, +throwing down the paper. "I'm sorry, Tony. But it can't be helped now. +You'd better be thankful I'm not out of commission myself. Came darn +near being." + +"Oh Ted!" There was only concern and sympathy in his sister's exclamation +this time. Tony adored her brothers. She went over to Ted now, +scrutinizing him as if she half expected to see him minus an arm or a +leg. "You weren't hurt?" she begged reassurance. + +"Nope--nothing to signify. Got some purple patches on my person and a +twist to my wrist, but that's all. I was always a lucky devil. Got more +lives than a cat." + +He was obviously trying to carry matters off lightly, but never once +did he meet his uncle's eyes, though he was quite aware they were +fixed on him. + +Tony sighed and shook her head, troubled. + +"I wish you wouldn't take such risks," she mourned. "Some day you'll get +dreadfully hurt. Please be careful. Uncle Phil," she appealed to the +higher court, "do tell him he mustn't speed so. He won't listen to me." + +"If Ted hasn't learned the folly of speeding by now, I am afraid that +nothing I can say will have much effect. I wonder--" + +Just here the telephone interrupted with an announcement that Mr. +Carson was waiting downstairs. Tony flew from the phone to dab powder +on her nose. + +"Since we can't go riding I think I'll take Dick for a walk in Paradise," +she announced into the mirror. "Will you come, too, Uncle Phil?" + +"No, thank you, dear. Run along and tell Dick we expect him back to +supper with us." + +The doctor held open the door for his niece, then turned back to +Ted, who was also on his feet now, murmuring something about going +out for a stroll. + +"Wait a bit, son. Suppose you tell me first precisely what happened +last night." + +"Did tell you." The boy fumbled sulkily at the leaves of a magazine that +lay on the table. "I took the car out and, when I was speeding like Sam +Hill out on the Florence road, I struck a hole. She stood up on her ear +and pitched u--er--_me_ out in the gutter. Stuck her own nose into a +telephone pole. I telephoned the garage people to go after her this +morning. They told me a while ago she was pretty badly stove up and it +will probably take a couple of weeks to get her in order." The story came +out jerkily and the narrator kept his eyes consistently floorward during +the recital. + +"Is that all?" + +"What more do you want?" curtly. "I said I was sorry, if that is what +you mean." + +"It isn't what I mean, Ted. I assume you didn't deliberately go out to +break my car and that you are not particularly proud of the outcome of +your joy ride. I mean, exactly what I asked. Have you told me the +whole story?" + +Ted was silent, mechanically rolling the corner of the, rug under his +foot. His uncle studied the good-looking, unhappy young face. His mind +worked back to that inadvertent "u--er--_me_" of the confession. + +"Were you alone?" he asked. + +A scarlet flush swept the lad's face, died away, leaving it a +little white. + +"Yes." + +The answer was low but distinct. It was like a knife thrust to the +doctor. In all the eight years in which he had fathered Ned's sons, both +before and since his brother's death, never once to his knowledge had +either one lied to him, even to save himself discomfort, censure or +punishment. With all their boyish vagaries and misdeeds, it had been the +one thing he could count on absolutely, their unflinching, invariable +honesty. Yet, surely as the June sun was shining outside, Ted had lied to +him just now. Why? Rash twenty was too young to go its way unchallenged +and unguided. He was responsible for the lad whose dead father had +committed him to his charge. + +Only a few weeks before his death Ned had written with curious +prescience, "If I go out any time, Phil, I know you will look after the +children as I would myself or better. Keep your eye on Ted especially. +His heart is in the right place, but he has a reckless devil in him that +will bring him and all of us to grief if it isn't laid." + +Doctor Holiday went over and laid a hand on each of the lad's hunched +shoulders. + +"Look at me, Ted," he commanded gently. + +The old habit of obedience strong in spite of his twenty years, Ted +raised his eyes, but dropped them again on the instant as if they were +lead weighted. + +"That is the first time you ever lied to me, I think, lad," said the +doctor quietly. + +A quiver passed over the boy's face, but his lips set tighter than ever +and he pulled away from his uncle's hands and turned, staring out of the +window at a rather dusty and bedraggled looking hydrangea on the lawn. + +"I wonder if it was necessary," the quiet voice continued. "I haven't the +slightest wish to be hard on you. I just want to understand. You know +that, son, don't you?" + +The boy's head went up at that. His gaze deserted the hydrangea, for the +first time that day, met his uncle's, squarely if somewhat miserably. + +"It isn't that, Uncle Phil. You have every right to come down on me. I +hadn't any business to have the car out at all, much less take fool +chances with it. But honestly I have told you all--all I can tell. I did +lie to you just now. I wasn't alone. There was a--a girl with me." + +Ted's face was hot again as he made the confession. + +"I see," mused the doctor. "Was she hurt?" + +"No--that is--not much. She hurt her shoulder some and cut her head a +bit." The details came out reluctantly as if impelled by the doctor's +steady eyes. "She telephoned me today she was all right. It's a miracle +we weren't both killed though. We might have been as easy as anything. +You said just now nothing you could say would make me have sense about +speeding. I guess what happened last night ought to knock sense into me +if anything could. I say, Uncle Phil--" + +"Well?" as the boy paused obviously embarrassed. + +"If you don't mind I'd rather not say anything more about the girl. +She--I guess she'd rather I wouldn't," he wound up confusedly. + +"Very well. That is your affair and hers. Thank you for coming halfway to +meet me. It made it easier all around." + +The doctor held out his hand and the boy took it eagerly. + +"You are great to me, Uncle Phil--lots better than I deserve. Please +don't think I don't see that. And truly I am awfully ashamed of smashing +the car, and not telling you, as I ought to have this morning, and +spoiling Tony's fun and--and everything." Ted swallowed something down +hard as if the "everything" included a good deal. "I don't see why I have +to be always getting into scrapes. Can't seem to help it, somehow. Guess +I was made that way, just as Larry was born steady." + +"That is a spineless jellyfish point of view, Ted. Don't fool yourself +with it. There is no earthly reason why you should keep drifting from one +escapade to another. Get some backbone into you, son." + +Ted's face clouded again at that, though he wasn't sulky this time. He +was remembering some other disagreeable confessions he had to make before +long. He knew this was a good opening for them, but somehow he could not +drive himself to follow it up. He could only digest a limited amount of +humble pie at a time and had already swallowed nearly all he could stand. +Still he skirted warily along the edge of the dilemma. + +"I suppose you think I made an awful ass of myself at college this year," +he averred gloomily. + +"I don't think it. I know it." The doctor's eyes twinkled a little. Then +he grew sober. "Why do you, Ted? You aren't really an ass, you know. If +you were, there might be some excuse for behaving like one." + +Ted flushed. + +"That's what Larry told me last spring when he was pitching into me +about--well about something. I don't know why I do, Uncle Phil, honest I +don't. Maybe it is because I hate college so and all the stale old stuff +they try to cram down our throats. I get so mad and sick and disgusted +with the whole thing that I feel as if I had to do something to offset +it--something that is real and live, even if it isn't according to rules +and regulations. I hate rules and regulations. I'm not a mummy and I +don't want to be made to act as if I were. I'll be a long time dead and I +want to get a whole lot of fun out of life first. I hate studying. I want +to do things, Uncle Phil--" + +"Well?" + +"I don't want to go back to college." + +"What do you want to do?" + +"Join the Canadian forces. It makes me sick to have a war going on and +me not in it. Dad quit college for West Point and everybody thought it +was all right. I don't see why I shouldn't get into it. I wouldn't fall +down on that. I promise you. I'd make you proud of me instead of ashamed +the way you are now." The boy's voice and eyes were unusually earnest. + +His uncle did not answer instantly. He knew that there was some truth in +his nephew's analysis of the situation. It was his uneasy, superabundant +energy and craving for action that made him find the more or less +restricted life of the college, a burden, a bore and an exasperation, and +drove him to crazy escapades and deeds of flagrant lawlessness. He needed +no assurance that the boy would not "fall down" at soldiering. He would +take to it as a duck to water. And the discipline might be the making of +him, prove the way to exorcise the devil. Still there were other +considerations which to him seemed paramount for the time at least. + +"I understand how you feel, Ted," he said at last. "If we get into the +war ourselves I won't say a word against your going. I should expect you +to go. We all would. But in the meantime as I see it you are not quite a +free agent. Granny is old and very, very feeble. She hasn't gotten over +your father's death. She grieves over it still. If you went to war I +think it would kill her. She couldn't bear the strain and anxiety. +Patience, laddie. You don't want to hurt her, do you?" + +"I s'pose not," said Ted a little grudgingly. "Then it is no, +Uncle Phil?" + +"I think it ought to be no of your own will for Granny's sake. We don't +live to ourselves alone in this world. We can't. But aside from Granny I +am not at all certain I should approve of your leaving college just +because it doesn't happen to be exciting enough to meet your fancy and +means work you are too lazy and irresponsible to settle down to doing. +Looks a little like quitting to me and Holidays aren't usually quitters, +you know." + +He smiled at the boy but Ted did not smile back. The thrust about +Holidays and quitters went home. + +"I suppose it has got to be college again if you say so," he said +soberly after a minute. "Thank heaven there are three months ahead clear +though first." + +"To play in?" + +"Well, yes. Why not? It is all right to play in vacation, isn't it?" the +boy retorted, a shade aggressively. + +"Possibly if you have earned the vacation by working beforehand." + +Ted's eyes fell at that. This was dangerously near the ground of those +uncomfortable, inevitable confessions which he meant to put off as long +as possible. + +"Do you mind if I go out now?" he asked with unusual meekness after a +moment's rather awkward silence. + +"No, indeed. Go ahead. I've had my say. Be back for supper with us?" + +"Dunno." And Ted disappeared into the adjoining room which connected with +his uncle's. In a moment he was back, expensive panama hat in one hand +and a lighted cigarette held jauntily in the other. "I meant to tell you +you could take the car repairs out of my allowance," he remarked casually +but with his eye shrewdly on his guardian as he made the announcement. + +"Very well," replied the latter quietly. Then he smiled a little seeing +his nephew's crestfallen expression. "That wasn't just what you wanted me +to say, was it?" he added. + +"Not exactly," admitted the boy with a returning grin. "All right, Uncle +Phil. I'm game. I'll pay up." + +A moment later his uncle heard his whistle as he went down the driveway +apparently as care free as if narrow escapes from death were nothing in +his young life. The doctor shook his head dubiously as he watched him +from the window. He would have felt more dubious still had he seen the +boy board a Florence car a few minutes later on his way to keep a +rendezvous with the girl about whom he had not wished to talk. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH + + +Three quarters of an hour later Ted was seated on a log, near a small +rustic bridge, beneath which flowed a limpid, gurgling stream. On a log +beside him sat a girl of perhaps eighteen years, exceedingly handsome +with the flaming kind of beauty like a poppy's, striking to the eye, +shallow-petaled. She was vividly effective against the background of deep +green spruces and white birch in her bright pink dress and large drooping +black hat. Her coloring was brilliant, her lips full, scarlet, ripely +sensuous. Beneath her straight black brows her sparkling, black eyes +gleamed with restless eagerness. An ugly, jagged, still fresh wound +showed beneath a carefully curled fringe of hair on her forehead. + +"I don't like meeting you this way," Ted was saying. "Are you sure your +grandfather would have cut up rough if I had come to the house and called +properly?" + +"You betcher," said his companion promptly. "You don't know grandpa. He's +death on young men. He won't let one come within a mile of me if he can +help it. He'd throw a fit if he knew I was here with you now. We should +worry. What he don't know won't hurt him," she concluded with a toss of +her head. Then, as Ted looked dubious, she added, "You just leave grandpa +to me. If you had had your way you would have spilled the beans by +telephoning me this morning at the wrong time. See how much better I +fixed it. I told him a piece of wood flew up and hit me when I was +chopping kindling before breakfast and that my head ached so I didn't +feel like going to church. Then the minute he was out of the yard I ran +to the 'phone and got you at the hotel. It was perfectly simple that +way--slick as grease. Easiest thing in the world to make a date. We +couldn't have gotten away with it otherwise." + +Ted still looked dubious. The phrase "gotten away with it" jarred. At the +moment he was not particularly proud of their mutual success in "getting +away with it." The girl wasn't his kind. He realized that, now he saw her +for the first time in daylight. + +She had looked all right to him on the train night before last. Indeed he +had been distinctly fascinated by her flashing, gypsy beauty, ready +laughter and quick, keen, half "fresh" repartee when he had started a +casual conversation with her when they chanced to be seat mates from +Holyoke on. + +Casual conversations were apt to turn into casual flirtations with Ted +Holiday. Afterward he wasn't sure whether she had dared him or he had +dared her to plan the midnight joy ride which had so narrowly missed +ending in a tragedy. Anyway it had seemed a jolly lark at the time--a +test of the mettle and mother wit of both of them to "get away with it." + +And she had looked good to him last night when he met her at the +appointed trysting place after "As You Like It." She had come out of the +shadows of the trees behind which she had been lurking, wearing a scarlet +tam-o'-shanter and a long dark cloak, her eyes shining like January +stars. He had liked her nerve in coming out like that to meet him alone +at midnight. He had liked the way she "sassed" him back and put him in +his place, when he had tried impudently enough to kiss her. He had liked +the way she laughed when he asked her if she was afraid to speed, on the +home stretch. It was her laugh that had spurred him on, intoxicated him, +made him send the car leaping faster and still faster, obeying his +reckless will. + +Then the crash had come. It was indeed a miracle that they had not both +been killed. No thanks to the rash young driver that they had not been. +It would be many a day before Ted Holiday would forget that nightmare of +dread and remorse which took possession of him as he pulled himself to +his feet and went over to where the girl's motionless form lay on the +grass, her face dead white, the blood flowing from her forehead. + +Never had he been so thankful for anything in his life as he was when he +saw her bright eyes snap open, and heard her unsteady little giggle as +she murmured, "My, but I thought I was dead, didn't you?" + +Game to her fingertips she had been. Ted acknowledged that, even now that +the glamour had worn off. Never once had she whimpered over her injuries, +never hurled a single word of blame at him for the misadventure that had +come within a hair's breadth of being the last for them both. + +"It wasn't a bit more your fault than mine," she had waived aside his +apologies. "And it was great while it lasted. I wouldn't have missed it +for anything, though I'm glad I'm not dead before I've had a chance to +really live. All I ask is that you won't tell a soul I was out with you. +Grandpa would think I was headed straight for purgatory if he knew." + +"I won't," Ted had promised glibly enough, and had kept his promise even +at the cost of lying to his uncle, a memory which hurt like the +toothache even now. + +But looking at the girl now in her tawdry, inappropriate garb he +suffered a revulsion of feeling. What he had admired in her as good sport +quality seemed cheap now, his own conduct even cheaper. His reaction +against himself was fully as poignant as his reaction against her. He was +suddenly ashamed of his joy ride, ashamed that he had ever wished or +tried to kiss her, ashamed that he had fallen in with her suggestion for +a clandestine meeting this afternoon. + +Possibly Madeline sensed that he was cold to her charms at the moment. +She flashed a shrewd glance at him. + +"You don't like me as well to-day as you did last night," she challenged. + +Caught, Ted tried half-heartedly to make denial, but the effort was +scarcely a success. He had yet to learn the art of lying gracefully +to a lady. + +"You don't," she repeated. "You needn't try to pretend you do. You can't +fool me. You're getting cold feet already. You're remembering I'm +just--just a pick-up." + +Ted winced again at that. He did not like the word "pick-up" either, +though to his shame he hadn't been above the thing itself. + +"Don't talk like that, Madeline. You know I like you. You were immense +last night. Any other girl I know, except my sister Tony, would have had +hysterics and fainting fits and lord knows what else with half the excuse +you had. And you never made a bit of fuss about your head, though it must +have hurt like the deuce. I say, you don't think it is going to leave a +scar, do you?" + +He leaned forward with genuine concern to examine the red wound. + +"I think it is more than likely. Lot you'll care, Ted Holiday. You'll +never come back to see whether it leaves a scar or not. See that bee over +there nosing around that elderberry. Think he'll come back next week? +Not much. I know your kind," scornfully. + +That bit into the lad's complacency. + +"Of course, I care and of course, I'll come back," he protested, though a +moment before he had had not the slightest wish or purpose to see her +again, rather to the contrary. + +"To see whether there is a scar?" + +"To see you," he played up gallantly. + +Her hard young face softened. + +"Will you, honest, Ted Holiday? Will you come back?" + +She put out her hand and touched his. Her eyes were suddenly wistful, +gentle, beseeching. + +"Sure I'll come back. Why wouldn't I?" The touch of her hand, the new +softness, almost pathos of her mood touched him, appealed to the chivalry +always latent in a Holiday. + +He heard her breath come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm +pressure of her hand. He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not +follow the impulse. The code of Holiday "noblesse oblige" was operating. + +"I wish I could believe that," Madeline sighed, looking down into the +water which whirled and eddied in white foam and splash over the rocks. +"I'd like to think you really wanted to come--really cared about seeing +me again. I know I'm not your kind." + +He started involuntarily at her voicing unexpectedly his own +recent thought. + +"Oh, you needn't be surprised," she threw at him half angrily. "Don't you +suppose I know that better than you do. Don't you suppose I know what the +girls you are used to look like? Well, I do. I've watched 'em, on the +street, on the campus, in church, everywhere. I've even seen your sister +and watched her, too. Somebody pointed her out to me once when she had +made a hit in a play and I've seen her at Glee Club concerts and at +vespers in the choir. She is lovely--lovely the way I'd like to be. It +isn't that she's any prettier. She isn't. It's just that she's +different--acts different--looks different--dresses different from me. I +can't make myself like her and the rest, no matter how I try. And I do +try. You don't know how hard I try. I got this dress because I saw your +sister Tony wearing a pink dress once. I thought maybe it would make me +look more like her. But it doesn't. It makes me look more _not_ like her +than ever, doesn't it?" she appealed rather disconcertingly. "It's +horrid. I hate it." + +"I don't know much about girls' dresses," said Ted. "But, now you speak +of it, maybe it would be prettier if it were a little--" he paused for a +word--"quieter," he decided on. "Do you ever wear white? Tony wears it a +lot and I think she looks nice in it." + +"I've got a white dress. I thought about putting it on to-day. But +somehow it didn't look quite nice enough. I thought--well, I thought I +looked handsomer in the pink. I wanted to look pretty--for you." The last +was very low--scarcely audible. + +"You look good to me all right," said the boy heartily and he meant it. +He thought she looked prettier at the moment than she had looked at any +time since he had made her acquaintance. + +Perhaps he was right. She had laid aside for once her mask of hard +boldness and was just a simple, humble, rather pathetic little girl, +voicing secret aspirations toward a fineness life had denied her. + +"I say, Madeline," Ted went on. "You don't--meet other chaps the way you +met me to-day, do you?" Set the blind to lead the blind! If there was +anything absurd in scapegrace Ted's turning mentor he was unconscious of +the absurdity, was exceedingly in earnest. + +"What's that to you?" She snapped the mask back into place. + +"Nothing--that is--I wouldn't--that's all." + +She laughed shrilly. + +"You're a pretty one to talk," she scoffed. + +Ted flushed. + +"I know I am. See here, Madeline. You're dead right. I ought not to +have taken you out last night. I ought not to have let you meet me +here to-day." + +"I made you--I made you do both those things." + +Ted shook his head at that. + +"A man's to blame always," he asserted. + +"No, he isn't," denied Madeline. "A girl's to blame always." + +They stared at each other a moment while the brook tinkled through the +silence. Then they both laughed at the solemnity of their contradictions. + +"But there isn't a bit of harm done," went on Madeline. "You see, I knew +that first night on the train that you were a gentleman." + +"Some gentlemen are rotters," said Ted Holiday, with a wisdom beyond his +twenty years. + +"But you are not." + +"No, I'm not; but some other chap might be. That is why I wish you would +promise not to go in for this sort of thing." + +"With anybody but you," she stipulated. + +"Not with anybody at all," corrected Ted soberly, remembering his own +recent restrained impulse to put his arm around her. + +"Well, I don't want to--at least not with anybody but you. I never did it +before with anybody. Honest, Ted, I never did." + +"That's good. I felt sure that you hadn't." + +"Why?" + +He grinned sheepishly and stooped to break off a dry twig from a +nearby bush. + +"By the way you didn't let me kiss you," he admitted. "A fellow likes +that in a girl. Did you know it?" He tossed away the twig and looked back +at the girl as he asked the question. + +"I thought they liked--the other thing." + +"They do and they don't," said Ted, his paradox again betraying a +scarcely to be expected wisdom. "But that is neither here nor there. What +I started out to say was that I'm glad you don't make a practice of this +pick-up business. It--it's no good," he summed up. + +"I know." Madeline nodded understanding of the import of his warning. She +was far too handsome and too prematurely developed physically to be +devoid of experience of the ways of the opposite sex. Like Ophelia she +knew there were tricks in the world and she liked frank Ted Holiday the +better for reminding her of them. "I won't do it," she promised. "That +is, unless you don't ever come back yourself. I don't know what I'll do +then--something awful, maybe." + +"I'll come fast enough. I'll come to-morrow." he added obeying a sudden +impulse, Ted fashion. + +"Will you?" The girl's face flushed with delight. "When?" + +"To-morrow afternoon. I can't dodge the ivy stuff in the morning. Will +four o'clock do all right?" + +"Yes. Come here to this same place." + +"I say, Madeline, can't I come to the house? I hate doing it like this." + +"No, you can't. If you want to see me you'll have to do it this way. It's +lots nicer here than in the house, anyway." + +Ted acquiesced, since he had no choice, and rose, announcing that it was +time to go now. + +"We don't have to go yet. I told Grandpa I was going to spend the +evening with my friend, Linda Bates. He won't know. We can stay as long +as we like." + +"I am afraid we can't," said Ted decidedly. "Come on, my lady." He held +out both hands and Madeline let him draw her to her feet, though she was +pouting a little at his gainsaying of her wishes. + +"You may kiss me now," she said suddenly, lifting her face to his. + +But Ted backed away. The code was still on. A girl of his own kind he +would have kissed in a moment at such provocation, or none. But he had +an odd feeling of needing to protect this girl from herself as well as +from himself. + +"You had more sense than I did last night. Let's follow your lead instead +of mine," he said. "It's better." + +"But Ted, you will come to-morrow?" she pleaded. "You won't forget or go +back on your promise?" + +"Of course, I'll come," promised Ted again readily. + +Five minutes later they parted, he to take his car, and she to stroll in +the opposite direction toward her friend Linda's house. + +"He is a dear," she thought. "I'm glad he wouldn't kiss me, so there," +she said aloud to a dusty daisy that peered up at her rather mockingly +from the gutter. + +An automobile horn honked behind her. She stepped aside, but the +car stopped. + +"Well, here is luck. Where are you going, my pretty maid?" called a gay, +bold voice. + +She turned. The speaker was one Willis Hubbard, an automobile agent by +profession, lady's man and general Lothario by avocation. His handsome +dark face stood out clearly in the dusk. She could see the avid shine in +his eyes. She hated him all of a sudden, though hitherto she had secretly +rather admired him, though she had always steadily refused his +invitations. + +For Madeline was wary. She knew how other girls had gone out with Willis +in his smart car and come back to give rather sketchy accounts of the +evening's pleasure jaunt. Her friend Linda had tried it once and remarked +later that Willis was some speed and that Madeline had the right hunch to +keep away from him. + +But it happened that Madeline Taylor was the particular peach that Willis +Hubbard hankered after. He didn't like them too easy, ready to drop from +the bough at the first touch. All the same, he meant to have his way in +the end with Madeline. He had an excellent opinion of his powers as a +conquering male. He had, alas, plenty of data to warrant it in his +relations with the fair and sometimes weak sex. + +"What's your hurry, dearie?" he asked now. "Come on for a spin. It's the +pink of the evening." + +But she thanked him stiffly and refused, remembering Ted Holiday's honest +blue eyes. + +"What are you so almighty prunes and prisms for, all of a sudden? It's +the wrong game to play with a man, I can tell you, if you want to have a +good time in the world. I say, Maidie, be a good girl and come out with +me to-morrow night. We'll have dinner somewhere and dance and make a +night of it. Say yes, you beauty. A girl like you oughtn't to stay cooped +up at home forever. It's against nature." + +But again Madeline refused and moved away with dignity. + +"Your grandfather will never know. You can plan to stay with Linda +afterward. I'll meet you by the sycamore tree just beyond the Bates' +place at eight sharp--give you the best time you ever had in your life. +Believe me, I'm some little spender when I get to going." + +"No, thank you, Mr. Hubbard. I tell you I can't go." + +He stared at the finality of her manner. He had no means of knowing that +he was being measured up, to his infinite disadvantage, with a blue eyed +lad who had stirred something in the girl before him that he himself +could never have roused in a thousand years. But he did know he was being +snubbed and the knowledge disturbed his fond conceit of self. + +"Highty tighty with your 'Mr. Hubbards'! You will sing another tune by +to-morrow night. I'll wait at the sycamore and you'll be there. See if +you won't. You're no fool, Maidie. You want a good time and you know I'm +the boy to give it to you. So long! See you to-morrow night." He started +his motor, kissed his hand impudently to her and was off down the road, +leaving Madeline to follow slowly, in his dust. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A SHADOW ON THE PATH + + +Across the campus the ivy procession wound its lovely length, flanked by +rainbow clad Junior ushers immensely conscious of themselves and their +importance as they bore the looped laurel chains between which walked the +even more important Seniors, all in white and each bearing an American +Beauty rose before her proudly, like a wand of youth. + +At the head of the procession, as president of the class, walked +Antoinette Holiday, a little lady of quality, as none who saw her could +have helped recognizing. Her uncle, watching the procession from the +steps of a campus house, smiled and sighed as he beheld her. She was so +young, so blithe-hearted, so untouched by the sad and sordid things of +life. If only he could keep her so for a little, preserve the shining +splendor of her shield of innocent young joy. But, even as he thought, he +knew the folly of his wish. Tony would be the last to desire to have life +tempered or kept from her. She would want to drain the whole cup, bitter, +sweet and all. + +Farther back in the procession was Carlotta, looking as heavenly fair and +ethereal as if she had that morning been wafted down from the skies. Out +of the crowd Phil Lambert's eyes met hers and smiled. Very sensibly and +modernly these two had decided to remain the best of friends since fate +prevented their being lovers. But Phil's eyes were rather more than +friendly, resting on Carlotta, and, underneath the diaphanous, exquisite +white cloud of a gown that she wore, Carlotta's heart beat a little +faster for what she saw in his face. The hand that held her rose trembled +ever so slightly as she smiled bravely back at him. She could not forget +those "very different" kisses of his, nor, with all the will in the +world, could she go back to where she was before she went up the mountain +and came down again in the purple dusk. She knew she had to get used to a +strange, new world, a world without Philip Lambert, a rather empty world, +it seemed. She wondered if this new world would give her anything so +wonderful and sweet as this thing that she had by her own act +surrendered. Almost she thought not. + +Ted, standing beside his uncle, watching the procession, suddenly heard a +familiar whistle, a signal dating back to Holiday Hill days, as +unmistakable as the Star Spangled Banner itself, though who should be +using it here and why was a mystery. In a moment his roving gaze +discovered the solution. Standing upon a slight elevation on the campus +opposite he perceived Dick Carson. The latter beckoned peremptorily. Ted +wriggled out of the group, descended with one leap over the rail to the +lawn, and made his way to where the other youth waited. + +"What in Sam Hill's chewing you?" he demanded upon arrival. "You've made +me quit the only spot I've struck to-day where I had room to stand on my +own feet and see anything at the same time." + +"I say, Ted, what train was Larry coming on?" counterquestioned Dick. + +"Chicago Overland. Why?" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Of course I am sure. He wired Tony. What in thunder are you driving at? +Get it out for Pete's sake?" + +"The Chicago Overland smashed into a freight somewhere near Pittsburgh +this morning. There were hundreds of people killed. Oh, Lord, Ted! I +didn't mean to break it to you like that." Dick was aghast at his own +clumsiness as Ted leaned against the brick wall of the college building, +his face white as chalk. "I wasn't thinking--guess I wasn't thinking +about much of anything except Tony," he added. + +Ted groaned. + +"Don't wonder," he muttered. "Let's not let her get wind of it till we +have to. Are you sure there--there isn't any mistake?" Ted put up his +hand to brush back a refractory lock of hair and found his forehead wet +with cold perspiration. "There's got to be a mistake. Larry--I won't +believe it, so there!" + +"You don't have to believe it till you know. Even if he was on the train +it doesn't mean he is hurt." Dick would not name the harsher possibility +to Larry Holiday's brother. + +"Of course, it doesn't," snapped Ted. "I say, Dick, is it in the +papers yet?" + +"No, it will be in an hour though, as soon as the evening editions get +out." + +"Good! Dick, it's up to you to keep Tony from knowing. She is going to +sing in the concert at five. That will keep her occupied until six. But +from now till then nix on the news. Take her out on the fool pond, walk +her up Sunset Hill, quarrel with her, make love to her, anything, so she +won't guess. I don't dare go near her. I'd give it away in a minute, I'm +such an idiot. Besides I can't think of anything but Larry. Gee!" The boy +swept his hand across his eyes. "Last time I saw him I consigned him to +the devil because he told me some perfectly true things about myself and +tried to give me some perfectly sound advice. And now--I'm damned if I +believe it. Larry is all right. He's got to be," fiercely. + +"Of course, he is," soothed Dick. "And I'll try to do as you say about +Tony. I'm not much of an actor, but I guess I can carry it through +for--for her sake." + +The little break in the speaker's voice made Ted turn quickly and stare +at the other youth. + +"Dick, old chap, is it like that with you? I didn't know." + +Ted's hand went out and held the other's in a cordial grip. + +"Nobody knows. I--I didn't mean to show it then. It's no good. I know +that naturally." + +"I'm not so sure about that. I know one member of the family that would +be mighty proud to have you for a brother." + +The obvious ring of sincerity touched Dick. It was a good deal coming +from a Holiday. + +"Thank you, Ted. That means a lot, I can tell you. I'll never forget your +saying it like that. You won't give me away, I know." + +"Sure not, old man. Tony is way up in the clouds just now, anyway. We are +all mostly ants in our minor ant hills so far as she is concerned. Gee! I +hope it isn't this thing about Larry that is going to pull her down to +earth. If anything had to happen to any of us why couldn't it have been +me instead of Larry. He is worth ten of me." + +"We don't know that anything has happened to Larry yet," Dick reminded. +"I say, Ted, they must have got the ivy planted. Everybody's coming back. +Tony is lunching with me at Boyden's right away, and I'll see that she +has her hands full until it is time for the concert. You warn Miss +Carlotta, so she'll be on guard after I surrender her. I'm afraid you +will have to tell your uncle." + +"I will. Trot on, old man, and waylay Tony. I'll make a mess of things +sure as preaching if I run into her now." + +Tony thought she had never known Dick to be so entertaining or talkative +as he was during that luncheon hour. He regaled her with all kinds of +newspaper yarns and related some of his own once semi-tragic but now +humorous misadventures of his early cub days. He talked, too, on current +events and world history, talked well, with the quiet poise and +assurance of the reader and thinker, the man who has kept his eyes and +ears open to life. + +It was a revelation to Tony. For once their respective roles were +reversed, he the talker, she the listener. + +"Goodness me, Dick!" she exclaimed during a pause in what had become +almost a monologue. "Why haven't you ever talked like this before? I +always thought I had to do it all and here you talk better than I ever +thought of doing because you have something to say and mine is just +chatter and nonsense." + +He smiled at that. + +"I love your chatter. But you are tired to-day and it is my turn. Do you +know what we are going to do after luncheon?" + +"No, what?" + +"We are going to take a canoe out on your Paradise and get into a shady +spot somewhere along the bank and you will lean back against a whole lot +of becoming cushions and put up that red parasol of yours so nobody but +me can see your face and then--" + +"Dicky! Dicky! Whatever is in you to-day? Paradise, pillows and parasols +are familiar symptoms. You will be making love to me next." + +"I might, at that," murmured Dick. "But you did not hear the rest of +my proposition. And then--I shall read you a story--a story that I +wrote myself." + +"Dick!" Tony nearly upset her glass of iced tea in her amazement at this +unexpected announcement. "You don't mean you have really and truly +written a story!" + +"Honest to goodness--such as it is. Please to remember it is my maiden +effort and make a margin of allowance. But I want your criticism, +too--all the benefit of your superior academic training." + +"Superior academic bosh!" scoffed Tony. "I'll bet it is a corking +story," she added unacademically. "Come on. Let's go, quick. I can't +wait to hear it." + +Nothing loath to get away speedily before the newsboys began to cry the +accident through the streets, Dick escorted his pretty companion back to +the campus and on to Paradise, at which point they took a canoe and, +finally selecting a shady point under an over-reaching sycamore tree, +drifted in to shore where Tony leaned against the cushions, tilted her +parasol as specified at the angle which forbade any but Dick to see her +charming, expressive young face and commanded him to "shoot." + +Dick shot. Tony listened intently, watching his face as he read, feeling +as if this were a new Dick--a Dick she did not know at all, albeit a most +interesting person. + +"Why Dick Carson!" she exclaimed when he finished. "It is great--a real +story with real laughter and tears in it. I love it. It is so--so human." + +The author flushed and fidgeted and protested that it wasn't much--just a +sketch done from life with a very little dressing up and polishing down. + +"I have a lot more of them in my head, though," he added. "And I'm +going to grind them out as soon as I get time. I wish I had a bigger +vocabulary and knew more about the technical end of the writing game. +I am going to learn, though--going to take some night work at the +University next fall. Maybe I'll catch up a little yet if I keep +pegging away." + +"Catch up! Dick, you make me so ashamed. Here Larry and Ted and I have +had everything done for us all our lives and we've slipped along with the +current, following the line of least resistance. And you have had +everything to contend with and you are way ahead of the rest of us +already. But why didn't you tell me before about the story? I think you +might have, Dicky. You know I would be interested," reproachfully. + +"I--I wasn't talking much about it to anybody till I knew it was any +good. But I--just took a notion to read it to you to-day. That's all." + +It wasn't all, but he wanted Tony to think it was. Not for anything would +he have betrayed how reading the story was a desperate expedient to keep +her diverted and safe from news of the disaster on the Overland. + +He escorted Tony back to the campus house at the latest possible moment +and Carlotta, in the secret, pretended to upbraid her roommate for her +tardiness and flew about helping her to get dressed, talking +continuously the while and keeping a sharp eye on the door lest some +intruder burst in and say the very thing Tony Holiday must not be +permitted to hear. It would be so ridiculously easy for somebody to ask, +"Oh, did you hear about the awful wreck on the Overland?" and then the +fat would be in the fire. + +But, thanks to Carlotta, nobody had a chance to say it and later Tony +Holiday, standing in the twilight in front of College Hall's steps, sang +her solo, Gounod's beautiful Ave Maria, smiled happily down into the +faces of the dear folks from her beloved Hill and only regretted that +Larry was not there with the rest--Larry who, for all the others knew, +might never come again. + +After dinner Ted rushed off again to the telegraph office which he had +been haunting all the afternoon to see if any word had come from his +brother, and Doctor Holiday went on up to the campus to escort his niece +to the informal hop. He had decided to go on just as if nothing was +wrong. If Larry was safe then there was no need of clouding Tony's joy, +and if he wasn't--well, there would be time enough to grieve when they +knew. By virtue of his being a grave and reverend uncle he was admitted +to the sacred precincts of his niece's room and had hardly gotten seated +when the door flew open and Ted flew in waving two yellow telegraph +blanks triumphantly, one in each hand, and announcing that everything was +all right--Larry was all right, had wired from Pittsburgh. + +Before Tony had a chance to demand what it was all about the door opened +again and a righteously indignant house mother appeared on the threshold, +demanding by what right an unauthorized male had gone up her stairway and +entered a girl's room, without permission or escort. + +"I apologize," beamed Ted with his most engaging smile. "Come on outside, +Mrs. Maynerd and I'll tell you all about it." And tucking his arm in hers +the irrepressible youth conveyed the angry personage out into the hall, +leaving his uncle to explain the situation to Tony. + +In a moment he was back triumphant. + +"She says I may stay since I'm here, and Uncle Phil is here to play +dragon," he announced. "She thought at first Carlotta would have to be +expunged to make it legal, but I overruled her, told her you and I had +played tiddle-de-winks with each other in our cradles," he added with an +impish grin at his sister's roommate. "Of course I never laid eyes on +you till two years ago, but that doesn't matter. I have a true +tiddle-de-winks feeling for you, anyway, and that is what counts, isn't +it, sweetness?" + +Carlotta laughed and averred that she was going to expunge herself anyway +as Phil was waiting for her downstairs. She picked up a turquoise satin +mandarin cloak from the chair and Ted sprang to put it around her bare +shoulders, stooping to kiss the tip of her ear as he finished. + +"Lucky Phil!" he murmured. + +Carlotta shook her head at him and went over to Tony, over whom she bent +for an instant with unusual feeling in her lovely eyes. + +"Oh, my dear," she whispered. "I wish I could tell you how I feel. I'm so +glad--so glad." And then she was gone before Tony could answer. + +"Oh me!" she sighed. "She has been so wonderful. You all have. Ted--Uncle +Phil! Come over here. I want to hold you tight." + +And, with her brother on one side of her and her uncle on the other, Tony +gave a hand to each and for a moment no one spoke. Then Ted produced his +telegrams one of which was addressed to Tony and one to her uncle. Both +announced the young doctor's safety. "Staying over in Pittsburgh. Letter +follows," was in the doctor's message. "Sorry can't make commencement. +Love and congratulations," was in Tony's. + +"There, didn't I tell you he was all right?" demanded Ted, as if his +brother's safety were due to his own remarkably good management of the +affair. "Gee! Tony! If you knew how I felt when Dick told me this +morning. I pretty nearly disgraced myself by toppling over, just like a +girl, on the campus. Lord! It was fierce." + +"I know." Tony squeezed his hand sympathetically. "And Dick--why Dick +must have kept me out in Paradise on purpose." + +"Sure he did. Dick's a jim dandy and don't you forget it." + +"I shan't," said Tony, her eyes a little misty, remembering how Dick had +fought all day to keep her care-free happiness intact. "I don't know +whether to be angry at you all for keeping it from me or to fall on your +necks and weep because you were all so dear not to tell me. And oh! If +anything had happened to Larry! I don't see how I could have stood it. It +makes us all seem awfully near, doesn't it?" + +"You bet!" agreed Ted with more fervor than elegance. "If the old chap +had been done for I'd have felt like making for the river, myself. Funny, +now the scare is over and he is all safe, I shall probably cuss him out +as hard as ever next time he tries to preach at me." + +"You had better listen to him instead. Larry is apt to be right and you +are apt to be wrong, and you know it." + +"Maybe it is because I do know it and because he is so devilish right +that I damn him," observed the youngest Holiday sagely, his eyes meeting +his uncle's over his sister's head. + +It wasn't until he had danced and flirted and made merry for three +consecutive hours at the hop, and proposed in the exuberance of his mood +to at least three different charmers whose names he had forgotten by the +next day, that Ted Holiday remembered Madeline and his promise to keep +tryst with her that afternoon. Other things of more moment had swept her +clean from his mind. + +"Thunder!" he muttered to himself. "Wonder what she is thinking when I +swore by all that was holy to come. Oh well; I should worry. I couldn't +help it. I'll write and explain how it happened." + +So said, so done. He scribbled off a hasty note of explanation and +apology which he signed "Yours devotedly, Ted Holiday" and went out to +the corner mail box to dispatch the same so it would go out in the +early morning collection, and prepared to dismiss the matter from his +mind again. + +Coming back into his room he found his uncle standing on the threshold. + +"Had to get a letter off," murmured the young man as his uncle looked +inquiring. He turned to light a cigarette with an air of determined +casualness. He didn't care to have Uncle Phil know any more about the +Madeline affair. + +"It must have been important." + +"Was," curtly. "Did you think I was joy riding again?" + +"No, I heard you stirring and thought you might be sick. I haven't been +able to get to sleep myself." + +Seeing how utterly worn out his uncle looked, Ted's resentment took +quick, shamed flight. Poor Uncle Phil! He never spared himself, always +bore the brunt of everything for them all. And here he himself had just +snapped like a cur because he suspected his guardian of desiring to +interfere with his high and mighty private business. + +"Too bad," he said. "Wish you'd smoke, Uncle Phil. It's great to cool off +your nerves. Honest it is! Have one?" He held out his case. + +Doctor Holiday smiled at that, though he declined the proffered weed. He +understood very well that the boy was making tacit amends for his +ungraciousness of a moment before. + +"No, I'll get to sleep presently. It has been rather a wearing day." + +"Should say it had been. I hope Aunt Margery doesn't know about the +wreck. She'll worry, if she knew Larry was coming east." + +"I wired her this evening. I didn't want to take any chance of her +thinking he was in the smash." + +Ted laid down his cigarette. + +"You never forget anybody do you, Uncle Phil?" he said rather +soberly for him. + +"I never forget Margery. She is a very part of myself, lad." + +And when he was alone Ted pondered over that last speech of his uncle's. +He wondered if there would ever be a Margery for him, and, if so, what +she would think of the Madelines if she knew of them. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DEVELOPMENTS BY MAIL + + +After the family had reassembled on the Hill the promised letter from +Larry arrived. He was staying on so long as his services were needed. The +enormous number of victims of the wreck had strained to the uttermost the +city's supply of doctors and nurses, and there was more than enough work +for all. The writer spared them the details of the wreck so far as +possible; indeed, evidently was not anxious to relive the horrors on his +own account. He mentioned a few of the many sad cases only. One of these +was the instant death of a famous surgeon whose loss to the world seemed +tragic and pitifully wasteful to the young doctor. Another was the +crushing to death of a young mother who, with her two children, had been +happily on their way to meet the husband who had been in South America +for a year. Larry had made friends with her on the train and played with +the babies who reminded him of his small cousins, Eric and Hester, Doctor +Philip's children. + +A third case he went into more fully, that of a young woman--just a mere +girl in appearance though she wore a wedding ring--who had received a +terrible blow on the base of her brain which had driven out memory +entirely. She did not know who she was, where she was going, or whence +she had come. Her physical injuries, otherwise, were not serious, a +broken arm and some bad bruises, nothing but what she would easily +recover from in a short time; but, for all her effort, the past remained +as something on the other side of a strange, blank wall. + +"She tries pitifully hard to remember, and is so sweet and brave we are +all devoted to her. I always stop and talk to her when I go by her. She +seems to cling to me, rather, as if I could help her get things back. +Lord knows I wish I could. She is too dainty and fragile a morsel of +humanity to be left to fight such a thing alone. She is a regular little +Dresden shepherdess, with the tiniest feet and hands and the yellowest +hair and bluest eyes I ever saw. Her husband must be about crazy, poor +chap, not hearing from her. I suppose he will be turning up soon to claim +her. I hope so. I don't know what will become of her if he does not. + +"It is late and I must turn in. I don't know when I shall get home. I +don't flatter myself Dunbury will miss me much when it has you. Give +everybody my love and tell Tony I am awfully sorry I couldn't get to +commencement. I guess maybe she is glad enough to have me alive not to +mind much. I'm some glad to be alive myself." + +The letter ended with affectionate greetings to the older doctor from his +nephew and junior assistant. With it came another epistle from the same +city from an old doctor friend who had watched Philip Holiday, himself, +grow up, and had immediately set his eye on the younger Holiday, when he +had discovered the relationship. + +"You have a lad to be proud of in that Larry of yours," he wrote. "He is +on the job early and late, no smart Alecness, no shirking, no fool +questions, just there on the spot when you want him with cool head, +steady nerves and a hand as gentle as a woman's. I like his quality, +Phil. Quality shows up at a time like this. He is true Holiday, through +and through, and you can tell him I said so when you see him." + +The doctor smiled, well pleased at this tribute to Ned's son and this +letter, like Larry's, he handed to his wife Margery to read. + +The thirties had touched "Miss Margery" lightly. She was still slim and +girlish-looking. In her simple gown of that forgetmenot blue shade which +her husband particularly loved she seemed scarcely older than she had on +that day, some eight years earlier, when he had found her giving a Fourth +of July party to the Hill youngsters, and had begun to lose his heart to +her then and there. It was not by shedding care and responsibility, +however, that she had kept her youth. It was by no means the easiest +thing in the world to be a busy doctor's wife, the mother of two lively +children and faithful daughter to an invalid and rather "difficult" +mother-in-law, as well as to care for a big house and an elastic +household, which in vacation time included Ned Holiday's children and +their friends. Needless to say she did not do any painting these days. +But there is more than one way of being an artist, and of the art of +simple, lovely, human living Margery Holiday was past mistress. + +"Doesn't sound much like 'Lazy Larry' these days, does it?" she +commented, giving the letters back to her husband. "I know you are proud +of Doctor Fenton's letter, Phil. You ought to be. It is more than a +little due to you that Larry is what he is." + +"We are advertised by our loving wives," he misquoted teasingly. "I have +always observed that the things we approve of in the younger generation +are the fruit of seeds we planted. The things we disapprove of slipped in +inadvertedly like weeds." + +The same mail that brought Larry's letter brought one also to Ted from +Madeline Taylor, a letter which made him wriggle a little internally, +and pull his forelock, as was his habit when things were a bit +perturbing. + +Madeline had gone to bed that Sunday night after her meeting with Ted in +the woods, full of the happiest kind of anticipations and shy, foolish, +impossible dreams. Her mind told her it was the rankest of nonsense to +dream about Ted Holiday, but her heart would do it. She knew the affair +with Ted had begun wrong, but she couldn't help hoping it would come out +beautifully right. She couldn't help making believe she had found her +prince, a bonny laddie who liked her well enough to play straight with +her and to come again to see her. + +She meant to try so hard, so very hard, to make herself into the kind of +girl he was used to and liked. She cut out the picture of Tony Holiday +that Max Hempel and Dick Carson had studied that day on the train. She +studied it even harder and hid it away among her very special treasures +where she could take it out and look at it often and use it as a model. +She even snatched her hitherto precious earrings from their pink cotton +resting place and hurled them as far as she could into the night. She was +very sure Tony Holiday did not wear earrings, and she was even surer she +had seen Ted's eyes resting disapprovingly on hers. The earrings had to +go. They had gone. + +The next afternoon she had waited for a while patiently by the brook. The +distant clock struck the half hour, the three quarters, the full hour. No +Ted Holiday. By this time her patience had long since evaporated and now +blazed into blind rage. Ted had forgotten his promise, if indeed he had +ever meant to keep it. He was with those other girls--his kind. Maybe he +was laughing at her, telling them how "easy" she had been, how gullible. +No, he wouldn't! He would be ashamed to admit he had had anything to do +with her. Men did not boast of their conquest of one kind of girl to +another. She had read enough fiction to know that. + +In any case she hated Ted Holiday with a fine fury of resentment. She +wanted to make him suffer, even as she was suffering, though she sensed +vaguely that men couldn't suffer that way. It was only women who were +capable of such fine-drawn torture. Men went free. + +From her rage against her recreant cavalier she went on to rage against +life built on a man-made plan for the benefit of man. Women were hurt, no +matter what they did. Being good wasn't any use. You got hurt all the +worse if you were good. It was silly even to try. It was better to shut +your eyes and have a good time. + +Pursuing this reasoning brought Madeline Taylor to the sycamore tree that +night where Willis Hubbard's car waited. She went with Willis, not to +please him, not to please herself, but to spite Ted Holiday. She had +hinted to Ted she would do something desperate if he failed her. She had +done something desperate, but it was herself, not Ted, that had been +hurt. She discovered that too late. + +The next morning had brought Ted's pleasant, penitent note, explaining +his defection and expressing the hope that they might meet again soon, +signed hers "devotedly." Poor Madeline! The cup of her regret was very +bitter to the taste as she read that letter of Ted Holiday's. + +Something of her misery and self-abasement crept into the letter to Ted, +together with a passionate remorse for having doubted him and her even +more vehement regret for having gone out with Willis Hubbard. The whole +complex story of her emotional reactions was of course not written down +for Ted's eyes; but he read quite enough to permit him to guess more than +he cared to know. Hubbard was evidently something of a rotter. Maybe he +was a bit of a rotter himself. If he hadn't taken the girl out joy riding +himself she wouldn't have gone with the other two nights later. That was +plain to be seen with half an eye and Ted Holiday was man enough to look +at the fact straight and unblinking for a moment. + +Well! He should worry. It wasn't his fault if Madeline had been fool +enough to go out with Hubbard, when she knew what kind of a chap he was. +He wasn't her keeper. He didn't see why she had to ask him to forgive +her. It was none of his business. And he wished she hadn't begged so +earnestly and humbly that he would see her again soon. He didn't want to +see her. Yet, down underneath, Ted Holiday had an uneasy feeling he +ought to want it, ought to try to make up to her in some way for +something which was somehow his fault, even though he did disclaim the +responsibility. + +Two days later came another letter even more disturbing. It seemed +Madeline was going to Holyoke again soon to visit her Cousin Emma and +wanted Ted to join her. She was "dying" to see him. He could stay at +Cousin Emma's, but maybe he wouldn't like that because there was a raft +of children always under foot and Fred, Emma's husband, was a dreadful +"ordinary" person who smoked a smelly pipe and sat round in his shirt +sleeves. But if he would come and stay at a hotel they could have a +wonderful time. She did want to see him so much. Besides, Willis +pestered her all the time and said if she went away he would come down +in his car every night to see her. So if Ted didn't want her to run +around with Willis as he said in his last letter he had better come +himself. She didn't like Willis the way she did Ted, though. Some ways +she hated him and she wished awfully she hadn't ever had anything to do +with him. And finally she liked Ted better than anybody in the world, +and would he please, please come to Holyoke, because she wanted him to +so very, very much? + +And then the postscript. "The cut is going to leave a scar, I am most +sure. I don't care. I like it. It makes me think of you and what a +wonderful time we had together that night." + +Ted read the letter coming up the Hill, and for once forebore to whistle +as he made the ascent. His mind was busy. A week of Dunbury calm and +sweet do-nothing had sufficed to make him undeniably restless. Madeline's +proposal struck him as rather a jolly idea accordingly. After all, she +was a dandy little girl, and he owed her a lot for not making any fuss +over his nearly killing her. He didn't like this Hubbard fellow, either. +He rather thought it was his duty to go and send him about his business. +Ted was a bit of a knight, at heart, and felt now the chivalric urge, +combining with others less unselfish, to go to the rescue of the damsel +and set her free of the false besieger. + +Her undisguised admission of her caring for him was a bit +disconcerting, although perhaps also a little sweet to his youthful +male vanity. Her caring was a complication, made him feel as if somehow +he ought to make up to her for failing her in the big thing by granting +her the smaller favor. + +By the time he had reached the top of the Hill he was rather definitely +committed in his own mind to the Holyoke trip, if he could throw enough +dust in his uncle's eyes to get away with it. + +Arrived at the house he flung the other mail on the hall table and went +upstairs. As he passed his grandmother's room he noticed that the door +was ajar and stepped in for a word with her. She looked very still and +white as she lay there in the big, old fashioned four-poster bed! Poor +Granny! It was awfully sad to be old. Ted couldn't quite imagine it for +himself, somehow. + +"'Lo, Granny dear," he greeted, stooping to kiss the withered old cheek. +"How goes it?" + +"About as usual, dear. Any word from Larry?" There was a plaintive note +in Madame Holiday's voice. She was never quite content unless all the +"children" were under the family roof-tree. And Larry was particularly +dear to her heart. + +"Yes, I just brought a letter for Uncle Phil. The very idea of your +wanting Larry when you have Tony and me, and you haven't had us for +so long." Ted pretended to be reproachful and his grandmother reached +for his hand. + +"I know, dear boy. I am very glad to have you and Tony. But Larry is a +habit, like Philip. You mustn't mind my missing him." + +"Course I don't mind, Granny. I was just jossing. I don't blame you a bit +for missing Larry. He is a mighty good thing to have in the family. Wish +I were half as valuable." + +"You are, sonny. I am so happy to be having you here all summer." + +"Maybe not quite all summer. I'll be going off for little trips," he +prepared her gently. + +"Youth! Youth! Never still--always wanting to fly off somewhere!" + +"We all fly back mighty quick," comforted Ted. "There come the kiddies." + +A patter of small feet sounded down the hall. In the next moment they +were there--sturdy Eric, the six year old, apple-cheeked, incredibly +energetic, already bidding fair to equal if not to rival his cousin Ted's +reputation for juvenile naughtiness; and Hester, two years younger, a +rose-and-snow creation, cherubic, adorable, with bobbing silver curls, +delectably dimpled elbows and corn flower blue eyes. + +Fresh from the tub and the daily delightful frolic with Daddy, they now +appeared for that other ceremonial known as saying good-night to Granny. + +"Teddy! Teddy! Ride us to Granny," demanded Eric hilariously, jubilant at +finding his favorite tall cousin on the spot. + +"'Es, wide us, wide us," chimed in Hester, not to be outdone. + +"You fiends!" But Ted obediently got down on "all fours" while the small +folks clambered up on his back and he "rode" them over to the bed, their +bathrobes flying as they went. Arrived at the destination Ted deftly +deposited his load in a giggling, squirming heap on the rug and then +gathering up the small Hester, swung her aloft, bringing her down with +her rose bud of a mouth close to Granny's pale cheeks. + +"Kiss your flying angel, Granny, before she flies away again." + +"Me! Me!" clamored Eric vociferously, hugging Ted's knees. "Me flying +angel, too!" + +"Not much," objected Ted. "No angel about you. Too, too much solid flesh +and bones. Kiss Granny, quick. I hear your parents approaching." + +Philip and Margery appeared on the threshold, seeking their obstreperous +offspring. + +There was another stampede, this time in the direction of the "parents." + +"Ca'y me! Ca'y me, Daddy," chirruped Hester. + +"No, me. Ride me piggy-back," insisted Eric. + +"Such children!" smiled Margery. "Ted, you encourage them. They are more +barbarian than ever when you are here, and they are bad enough under +normal conditions." + +Ted chuckled at that. He and his Aunt Margery were the best of good +friends. They always had been since Ted had refused to join her Round +Table on the grounds that he might have to be sorry for being bad if he +did, though he had subsequently capitulated, in view of the manifest +advantages accruing to membership in the order. + +"That's right. Lay it to me. I don't believe Uncle Phil was a saint, +either, was he, Granny?" he appealed. "I'll bet the kids get some of +their deviltry by direct line of descent." + +His grandmother smiled. + +"We forget a good deal about our children's naughtinesses when they are +grown up," she said. "I've even forgotten some of yours, Teddy." + +"Lucky," grinned her grandson, stooping to kiss her again. "_Allons, +enfants_." + +Later, when the obstreperous ones were in bed and everything quiet Philip +and Margery sat together in the hammock, lovers still after eight years +of strenuous married life and discussed Larry's last letter, which had +contained the rather astonishing request that he be permitted to bring +the little lady who had forgotten her past to Holiday Hill with him. + +"Queer proposition!" murmured the doctor. "Doesn't sound like +sober Larry." + +"I am not so sure. There is a quixotic streak in him--in all you +Holidays, for that matter. You can't say much. Think of the stray boys +you have taken in at one time or another, some of them rather dubious +specimens, I infer." + +Margery's eyes smiled tender raillery at her husband. He chuckled at the +arraignment, and admitted its justice. Still, boys were not mystery +ladies. She must grant him that. Then he sobered. + +"It is only you that makes me hesitate, Margery mine. You are carrying +about as heavy a burden now as any one woman ought to take upon herself, +with me and the house and the children and Granny. And here is this crazy +nephew of mine proposing the addition to the family of a stranger who +hasn't any past and whose future seems wrapped mostly in a nebular +hypothesis. It is rather a large order, my dear." + +"Not too large. It isn't as if she were seriously ill, or would be a +burden in any way. Besides, it is Larry's home as well as ours, and he so +seldom asks anything for himself, and is always ready to help anywhere. +Do you really mind her coming, Phil?" + +"Not if you don't. I am glad to agree if it is not going to be too hard +for you. As you say, Larry doesn't ever ask much for himself and I am +interested in the case, anyway. Shall we wire him to bring her, then?" + +"Please do. I shall be very glad." + +"You are a wonder, Margery mine." And the doctor bent and kissed his wife +before going in to telephone the message to be sent his nephew that +night, a message bidding him and the little stranger welcome, whenever +they cared to come to the House on the Hill. + +And far away in Pittsburgh, Larry got the word that night and smiled +content. Bless Uncle Phil and Aunt Margery! They never failed you, no +matter what you asked of them. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LITTLE LADY WHO FORGOT + + +Larry Holiday was a rather startlingly energetic person when he once got +under way. The next morning he overruled the "Mystery Lady's" faint +demurs, successfully argued the senior doctor into agreement with his +somewhat surprising plan of procedure, wired his uncle, engaged train +reservations for that evening, secured a nurse, preempted the services of +a Red Cap who promised to be waiting with a chair at the station so that +the little invalid would not have to set foot upon the ground, and +finally carried the latter with his own strong young arms onto the train +and into a large, cool stateroom where a fan was already whirring and the +white-clad nurse waiting to minister to the needs of the frail traveler. + +In a few moments the train was slipping smoothly out of the station and +the girl who had forgotten most things else knew that she was being +spirited off to a delightful sounding place called Holiday Hill in the +charge of a gray-eyed young doctor who had made himself personally +responsible for her from the moment he had extricated her, more dead than +alive, from the wreckage. Somehow, for the moment she was quite content +with the knowledge. + +Leaving his charge in the nurse's care, Larry Holiday ensconced himself +in his seat not far from the stateroom and pretended to read his paper. +But it might just as well have been printed in ancient Sanscrit for all +the meaning its words conveyed to his brain. His corporeal self occupied +the green plush seat. His spiritual person was elsewhere. + +After fifteen minutes of futile effort at concentration he flung down the +paper and strode to the door of the stateroom. A white linen arm answered +his gentle knock. There was a moment's consultation, then the nurse came +out and Larry went in. + +On the couch the girl lay very still with half-closed eyes. Her long +blonde braids tied with blue ribbons lay on the pillow on either side of +her sweet, pale little face, making it look more childlike than ever. + +"I can't see why I can't remember," she said to Larry as he sat down on +the edge of the other cot opposite her. "I try so hard." + +"Don't try. You are just wearing yourself out doing it. It will be all +right in time. Don't worry." + +"I can't help worrying. It is--oh, it is horrible not to have any +past--to be different from everybody in the world." + +"I know. It is mighty tough and you have been wonderfully brave about it. +But truly I do believe it will all come back. And in the meanwhile you +are going to one of the best places in the world to get well in. Take my +word for it." + +"But I don't see why I should be going. It isn't as if I had any claim +on you or your people. Why are you taking me to your home?" The blue +eyes were wide open now, and looking straight up into Larry Holiday's +gray ones. + +Larry smiled and Larry's smile, coming out of the usual gravity and +repose of his face, was irresistible. More than one young woman, case and +non-case, had wished, seeing that smile, that its owner had eyes for +girls as such. + +"Because you are the most interesting patient I ever had. Don't begrudge +it to me. I get measles and sore throats mostly. Do you wonder I snatched +you as a dog grabs a bone?" Then he sobered. "Truly, Ruth--you don't mind +my calling you that, do you, since we don't know your other name?--the +Hill is the one place in the world for you just now. You will forgive my +kidnapping you when you see it and my people. You can't help liking it +and them." + +"I am not afraid of not liking it or them if--" She had meant to say "if +they are at all like you," but that seemed a little too personal to say +to one's doctor, even a doctor who had saved your life and had the most +wonderful smile that ever was, and the nicest eyes. "If they will let +me," she substituted. "But it is such a queer, kind thing to do. The +other doctors were interested in me, too, as a case. But it didn't occur +to any of them to offer me the hospitality of their homes and family for +an unlimited time. Are you Holidays all like that?" + +"More or less," admitted Larry with another smile. "Maybe we are a bit +vain-glorious about Holiday hospitality. It is rather a family tradition. +The House on the Hill has had open doors ever since the first Holiday +built it nearly two hundred years ago. You saw Uncle Phil's wire. He +meant that 'welcome ready.' You'll see. But anyway it won't be very hard +for them to open the door to you. They will all love you." + +She shut her eyes again at that. Possibly the young doctor's expression +was rather more un-professionally eloquent than he knew. + +"Tired?" he asked. + +"Not much--tired of wondering. Maybe my name isn't Ruth at all." + +"Maybe it isn't. But it is a name anyway, and you may as well use it for +the present until you can find your own. I think Ruth Annersley is a +pretty name myself," added the young doctor seriously. "I like it." + +"Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley," corrected the girl. "That is rather +pretty too." + +Larry agreed somewhat less enthusiastically. + +Ruth lifted her hand and fell to twisting the wedding ring which was very +loose on her thin little finger. + +"Think of being married and not knowing what your husband looks like. +Poor Geoffrey Annersley! I wonder if he cares a great deal for me." + +"It is quite possible," said Larry Holiday grimly. + +He had taken an absurd dislike to the very name of Geoffrey Annersley. +Why didn't the man appear and claim his wife? Practically every paper +from the Atlantic to the Pacific had advertised for him. If he was any +good and wanted to find his wife he would be half crazy looking for her +by this time. He must have seen the newspaper notices. There was +something queer about this Geoffrey Annersley. Larry Holiday detested him +cordially. + +"You don't suppose he was killed in the wreck, do you?" Ruth's mind +worked on, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. + +"You were traveling alone. Your chair was near mine. I noticed you +because I thought--" He broke off abruptly. + +"Thought what?" + +"That you were the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life," he admitted. "I +wanted to speak to you. Two or three times I was on the verge of it but I +never could quite get up the courage. I'm not much good at starting +conversations with girls. My kid brother, Ted, has the monopoly of that +sort of thing in my family." + +"Oh, if you only had," she sighed. "Maybe I would have told you +something about myself and where I was going when I got to New York." + +"I wish I had," regretted Larry. "Confound my shyness! I don't see why +anybody ever let you travel alone from San Francisco to New York anyway," +he added. "Your Geoffrey ought to have taken better care of you." + +"Maybe I haven't a Geoffrey. The fact that there was an envelope in my +bag addressed to Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley doesn't prove that I am Mrs. +Geoffrey Annersley." + +"No, still there is the ring." Larry frowned thoughtfully. "If you aren't +Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley you must be Mrs. Somebody Else, I suppose. And +the locket says _Ruth from Geoffrey_." + +"Oh, yes, I suppose I am Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley. It seems as if I must +be. But why can't I remember? It seems as if any one would remember the +man she was married to--as if one couldn't forget that, no matter what +happened. But if there is a Geoffrey Annersley why doesn't he come and +get me and make me remember him?" + +Larry shook his head. + +"Don't worry, please. We'll keep on advertising. He is bound to come +before long if he really is your husband. Some day he will be coming up +our hill and run away with you, worse luck!" + +Ruth's eyes were on the ring again. + +"It is funny," she said. "But I can't make myself _feel_ married. I can't +make the ring mean anything to me. I don't want it to mean anything. I +don't want to be married. Sometimes I dream that Geoffrey Annersley has +come and I put my hand over my eyes because I don't want to see him. +Isn't that dreadful?" she turned to Larry to ask. + +"You can't help it." Larry tried manfully to push back his own wholly +unreasonable satisfaction in her aversion to her presumptive husband. +"It is the blow and the shock of the whole thing. It will be all right in +time. You will fall on your Geoffrey's neck and call him blessed when the +time comes." + +"I don't believe he is coming," she announced suddenly with conviction. + +Larry got up and walked over to her couch. + +"What makes you say that?" he demanded. + +"I don't know. It was just a feeling I had. Something inside me said +right out loud: 'He isn't coming. He isn't your husband.' Maybe it is +because I don't want him to come and don't want him to be my husband. Oh, +dear! It is all so queer and mixed up and horrid. It is awful not to be +anybody--just a ghost. I wish I'd been killed. Why didn't you leave me? +Why did you dig me out? All the others said I was dead. Why didn't you +let me _be_ dead? It would have been better." + +She turned her face away and buried it in the pillow, sobbing softly, +suddenly like a child. + +This was too much for Larry. He dropped on his knees beside her and put +his arms around the quivering little figure. + +"Don't, Ruth," he implored. "Don't cry and don't--don't wish you were +dead. I--I can't stand it." + +There was a tap at the door. Larry got to his feet in guilty haste and +went to the door of the stateroom. + +"It is time for Mrs. Annersley's medicine," announced the nurse +impersonally, entering and going over to the wash stand for a glass. + +The white linen back safely turned, Larry gave one swift look at Ruth and +bolted, shutting the door behind him. The nurse turned to look at the +patient whose face was still hidden in the pillow and then her gaze +traveled meditatively toward the door out of which the young doctor had +shot so precipitately. Larry had forgotten that there was a mirror over +the wash stand and that nurses, however impersonal, are still women with +eyes in their heads. + +"H--m," reflected the onlooker. "I wouldn't have thought he was that +kind. You never can tell about men, especially doctors. I wish him joy +falling in love with a woman who doesn't know whether or not she has a +husband. Your tablets, Mrs. Annersley," she added aloud. + + * * * * * + +"Larry, I think your Ruth is the dearest thing I ever laid eyes on," +declared Tony next day to her brother. "Her name ought to be Titania. I'm +not very big myself, but I feel like an Amazon beside her. And her laugh +is the sweetest thing--so soft and silvery, like little bells. But she +doesn't laugh much, does she? Poor little thing!" + +"She is awfully up against it," said Larry with troubled eyes. "She can't +stop trying to remember. It is a regular obsession with her. And she is +very shy and sensitive and afraid of strangers." + +"She doesn't look at you as if you were a stranger. She adores you." + +"Nonsense!" said Larry sharply. + +Tony opened her eyes at her brother's tone. + +"Why, Larry! Of course, I didn't mean she was in love with you. She +couldn't be when she is married. I just meant she adored you--well, the +way Max adores me," she explained as the tawny-haired Irish setter came +and rested his head on her knee, raising solemn worshipful brown eyes to +her face. "Why shouldn't she? You saved her life and you have been +wonderful to her every way." + +"Nonsense!" said Larry again, though he said it in a different tone this +time. "I haven't done much. It is Uncle Phil and Aunt Margery who are the +wonderful ones. It is great the way they both said yes right away when I +asked if I could bring her here. I tell you, Tony, it means something to +have your own people the kind you can count on every time. And it is +great to have a home like this to bring her to. She is going to love it +as soon as she is able to get downstairs with us all." + +Up in her cool, spacious north chamber, lying in the big bed with the +smooth, fine linen, Ruth felt as if she loved it already, though she +found these Holidays even more amazing than ever, now that she was +actually in their midst. Were there any other people in the world like +them she wondered--so kind and simple and unfeignedly glad to take a +stranger into their home and a queer, mysterious, sick stranger at that! + +"If I have to begin living all over just like a baby I think I am the +luckiest girl that ever was to be able to start in a place like this with +such dear, kind people all around me," she told Doctor Holiday, senior, +to whom she had immediately lost her heart as soon as she saw his smile +and felt the touch of his strong, magnetic, healing hand. + +"We will get you out under the trees in a day or two," he said. "And then +your business will be to get well and strong as soon as possible and not +worry about anything any more than if you were the baby you were just +talking about. Can you manage that, young lady?" + +"I'll try. I would be horrid and ungrateful not to when you are all so +good to me. I don't believe my own people are half as nice as you +Holidays. I don't see how they could be." + +The doctor laughed at that. + +"We will let it go at that for the present. You will be singing another +tune when your Geoffrey Annersley comes up the Hill to claim you." + +The girl's expressive face clouded over at that. She did not quite dare +to tell Doctor Holiday as she had his nephew that she did not want to see +Geoffrey Annersley nor to have to know she was married to him. It sounded +horrid, but it was true. Sometimes she hated the very thought of Geoffrey +Annersley. + +Later Doctor Holiday and his nephew went over the girl's case together +from both the personal and professional angles. There was little enough +to go on in untangling her mystery. The railway tickets which had been +found in her purse were in an un-postmarked envelope bearing the name +Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley, but no address. The baggage train had been +destroyed by fire at the time of the accident, so there were no trunks to +give evidence. The small traveling bag she had carried with her bore +neither initial nor geographical designation, and contained nothing which +gave any clew as to its owner's identity save that she was presumably a +person of wealth, for her possessions were exquisite and obviously +costly. A small jewel box contained various valuable rings, one or two +pendants and a string of matched pearls which even to uninitiated eyes +spelled a fortune. Also, oddly enough, among the rest was an absurd +little childish gold locket inscribed "Ruth from Geoffrey." + +She had worn no rings at all except for a single platinum-set, and very +perfect, diamond and a plain gold band, obviously a wedding ring. The +inference was that she was married and that her husband's name was +Geoffrey Annersley, but where he was and why she was traveling across the +United States alone and from whence she had come remained utterly +unguessable. Larry had seen to it that advertisements for Geoffrey +Annersley were inserted in every important paper from coast to coast but +nothing had come of any of his efforts. + +As for the strange lapse of memory, there seemed nothing to do but wait +in the hope that recovered health and strength might bring it back. + +"It may come bit by bit or by a sudden bound or never," was Doctor +Holiday's opinion. "There is nothing that I know of that she or you or +any one can do except let nature take her course. It is a case of time +and patience. I am glad you brought her to us. Margery and I are very +glad to have her." + +"You are awfully good, Uncle Phil. I do appreciate it and it is great to +have you behind me professionally. I haven't got a great deal of +confidence in myself. Doctoring scares me sometimes. It is such a fearful +responsibility." + +"It is, but you are going to be equal to it. The confidence will come +with experience. You need have no lack of faith in yourself; I haven't. +There is no reason why I should have, when I get letters like this." + +The senior doctor leaned over and extracted old Doctor Fenton's letter +from a cubby hole in his desk and gave it to his nephew to read. The +latter perused it in silence with slightly heightened color. Praise +always embarrassed him. + +"He is too kind," he observed as he handed back the letter. "I didn't do +much out there, precious little in fact but what I was told to do. I +figured it out that we young ones were the privates and it was up to us +to take orders from the captains who knew their business better than we +did and get busy. I worked on that basis." + +"Sound basis. I am not afraid that a man who can obey well won't be able +to command well when the time comes. It isn't a small thing to be +recognized as a true Holiday, either. It is something to be proud of." + +"I am proud, Uncle Phil. There is nothing I would rather hear--and +deserve. But, if I am anywhere near the Holiday standard, it is you +mostly that brought me up to it. I don't mean any dispraise of Dad. He +was fine and I am proud to be his son. But he never understood me. I +didn't have enough dash and go to me for him. Ted and Tony are both +more his kind, though I don't believe either of them loved him as I +did. But you seemed to understand always. You helped me to believe in +myself. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, coming to +you when I did." + +Larry turned to the mantel and picked up a photograph of himself which +stood there, a lad of fifteen or so, facing the world with grave, +sensitive eyes, the Larry he had been when he came to the House on the +Hill. He smiled at his uncle over the boy's picture. + +"You burned out the plague spots, too, with a mighty hot iron, some of +them," he added. "I'll never forget your sitting there in that very chair +telling me I was a lazy, selfish snob and that, all things considered, I +didn't measure up for a nickel with Dick. Jerusalem! I wonder if you knew +how that hit. I had a fairly good opinion of Larry Holiday in some ways +and you rather knocked the spots out of it, comparing me to my +disadvantage with a circus runaway." + +He replaced the picture, the smile still lingering on his face. + +"It was the right medicine though. I needed it. I can see that now. +Speaking of doses I wish you would make Ted tutor this summer. I don't +know whether he has told you. I rather think not. But he flunked so many +courses he will have to drop back a year unless he makes up the work and +takes examinations in the fall." + +The senior doctor drummed thoughtfully on the desk. So that was what the +boy had on his mind. + +"Why not speak to him yourself?" he asked after a minute. + +"And be sent to warm regions as I was last spring when I ventured to give +his lord highmightiness some advice. No good, Uncle Phil. He won't listen +to me. He just gets mad and swings off in the other direction. I don't +handle him right. Haven't your patience and tact. I wonder if he ever +will get any sense into his head. He is the best hearted kid in the +world, and I'm crazy over him, but he does rile me to the limit with his +fifty-seven varieties of foolness." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TED SEIZES THE DAY + + +The next morning Ted strolled into his uncle's office to ask if the +latter had any objections to his accepting an invitation to a house-party +from Hal Underwood, a college classmate, at the latter's home near +Springfield. + +The doctor considered a moment before answering. He knew all about the +Underwoods and knew that his erratic nephew could not be in a safer, +pleasanter place. Also his quick wit saw a chance to put the screws on +the lad in connection with the tutoring business. + +"I suppose your June allowance is able to float your traveling expenses," +he remarked less guilelessly than the remark sounded. + +The June allowance was, it seemed, the missing link. + +"I thought maybe you would be willing to allow me a little extra this +month on account of commencement stunts. It is darned expensive sending +nosegays to sweet girl graduates. I couldn't help going broke. Honest I +couldn't, Uncle Phil." Then as his uncle did not leap at the suggestion +offered, the speaker changed his tack. "Anyway, you would be willing to +let me have my July money ahead of time, wouldn't you?" he ingratiated. +"It is only ten days to the first." + +But Doctor Holiday still chose to be inconveniently irrelevant. + +"Have you any idea how much my bill was for repairing the car?" he +asked. + +Ted shook his head shamefacedly, and bent to examine a picture in a +magazine which lay on the desk. He wasn't anxious to have the car +incident resurrected. He had thought it decently buried by this time, +having heard no more about it. + +"It was a little over a hundred dollars," continued the doctor. + +The boy looked up, genuinely distressed. + +"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's highway robbery." + +"Scarcely. All things considered, it was a very fair bill. A hundred +dollars is a good deal to pay for the pleasure of nearly getting yourself +and somebody else killed, Ted." + +Ted pulled his forelock and had nothing to say. + +"Were you in earnest about paying up for that particular bit of +folly, son?" + +"Why, yes. At least I didn't think it would be any such sum as that," Ted +hedged. "I'll be swamped if I try to pay it out of my allowance. I can't +come out even, as it is. Couldn't you take it out of my own money--what's +coming to me when I'm of age?" + +"I could, if getting myself paid were the chief consideration. As it +happens, it isn't. I'm sorry if I seem to be hard on you, but I am going +to hold you to your promise, even if it pinches a bit. I think you know +why. How about it, son?" + +"I suppose it has to go that way if you say so," said Ted a little +sulkily. "Can I pay it in small amounts?" + +"How small? Dollar a year? I'd hate to wait until I was a hundred and +forty or so to get my money back." + +The boy grinned reluctantly, answering the friendly twinkle in his +uncle's eyes. He was relieved that a joke had penetrated what had begun +to appear to be an unpleasantly jestless interview. He hated to be +called to account. Like many another older sinner he liked dancing, but +found paying the piper an irksome business. + +"Nonsense, Uncle Phil! I meant real paying. Will ten dollars a month do?" + +"It will, provided you don't try to borrow ahead each month from the +next one." + +"I won't," glibly. "If you will--" The boy broke off and had the grace to +look confused, realizing he had been about to do the very thing he had +promised in the same breath not to do. "Then that means I can't go to +Hal's," he added soberly. + +He felt sober. There was more than Hal and the house-party involved, +though the latter had fallen in peculiarly fortuitous with his other +plans. He had rashly written Madeline he would be in Holyoke next week as +she desired, and the first of July and his allowance would still be just +out of reach next week. It was a confounded nuisance, to say the least, +being broke just now, with Uncle Phil turned stuffy. + +"No, I don't want you to give up your house-party, though that rests with +you. I'll make a bargain with you. I'll advance your whole July allowance +minus ten dollars Saturday morning." + +Ted's face cleared, beamed like sudden sunshine on a cloudy March day. + +"You will! Uncle Phil, you certainly are a peach!" And in his exuberance +he tossed his cap to the ceiling, catching it deftly on his nose as it +descended. + +"Hold on. Don't rejoice too soon. It was to be a bargain, you know. You +have heard only one side." + +"Oh--h!" The exclamation was slightly crestfallen. + +"I understand that you fell down on most of your college work this +spring. Is that correct?" + +This was a new complication and just as he had thought he was safely +out of the woods, too. Ted hung his head, gave consent to his uncle's +question by silence and braced himself for a lecture, though he was a +little relieved that he need not bring up the subject of that +inconvenient flunking of his, himself; that his uncle was already +prepared, whoever it was that had told tales. The lecture did not +come, however. + +"Here is the bargain. I will advance the money as I said, provided +that as soon as you get back from Hal's you will make arrangements to +tutor with Mr. Caldwell this summer, in all the subjects you failed in +and promise to put in two months of good, solid cramming, no half way +about it." + +"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's vacation." + +"You don't need a vacation. If all I hear of you is true, or even half of +it, you made your whole college year one grand, sweet vacation. What is +the answer? Want time to think the proposition over?" + +"No--o. I guess I'll take you up. I suppose I'll have to tutor anyway if +I don't want to drop back a class, and I sure don't," Ted admitted +honestly. "Unless you'll let me quit and you won't. It is awfully tough, +though. You never made Tony or Larry kill themselves studying in +vacations. I don't see--" + +"Neither Tony or Larry ever flunked a college course. It remained for you +to be the first Holiday to wear a dunce cap." + +Ted flushed angrily at that. The shot went home, as the doctor intended +it should. He knew when to hit and how to do it hard, as Larry had +testified. + +"Fool's cap if you like, Uncle Phil. I am not a dunce." + +"I rather think that is true. Anyway, prove it to us this summer and +there is no one who will be gladder than I to take back the aspersion. Is +it understood then? You have your house-party and when you come back you +are pledged to honest work, no shirking, no requests for time off, no +complaints. Have I your word?" + +Ted considered. He thought he was paying a stiff price for his +house-party and his lark with Madeline. He could give up the first, +though a fellow always had a topping time at Hal's; but he couldn't quite +see himself owning ignominiously to Madeline that he couldn't keep his +promise to her because of empty pockets. Moreover, as he had admitted, he +would have to tutor anyway, probably, and he might as well get some gain +out of the pain. + +"I promise, Uncle Phil." + +"Good. Then that is settled. I am not going to say anything more about +the flunking. You know how we all feel about it. I think you have sense +enough and conscience enough to see it about the way the rest of us do." + +Ted's eyes were down again now. Somehow Uncle Phil always made him feel +worse by what he didn't say than a million sermons from other people +would have done. He would have gladly have given up the projected journey +and anything else he possessed this moment if he could have had a clean +slate to show. But it was too late for that now. He had to take the +consequences of his own folly. + +"I see it all right, Uncle Phil," he said looking up. "Trouble is I never +seem to have the sense to look until--afterward. You are awfully decent +about it and letting me go to Hal's and--everything. I--I'll be gone +about a week, do you mind?" + +"No. Stay as long as you like. I am satisfied with your promise to make +good when you do come." + +Ted slipped away quickly then. He was ashamed to meet his uncle's kind +eyes. He knew he was playing a crooked game with stacked cards. He hadn't +exactly lied--hadn't said a word that wasn't strictly true, indeed. He +was going to Hal's, but he had let his uncle think he was going to stay +there the whole week whereas in reality he meant to spend the greater +part of the time in Madeline Taylor's society, which was not in the +bargain at all. Well he would make up later by keeping his promise about +the studying. He would show them Larry wasn't the only Holiday who could +make good. The dunce cap jibe rankled. + +And so, having satisfied his sufficiently elastic conscience, he departed +on Saturday for Springfield and adjacent points. + +He had the usual "topping" time at Hal's and tore himself away with the +utmost reluctance from the house-party, had half a mind, indeed, to wire +Madeline he couldn't come to Holyoke. But after all that seemed rather a +mean thing to do after having treated her so rough before, and in the end +he had gone, only one day later than he had promised. + +It was characteristic that, arrived at his destination, he straightway +forgot the pleasures he was foregoing at Hal's and plunged +whole-heartedly into amusing himself to the utmost with Madeline Taylor. +_Carpe Diem_ was Ted Holiday's motto. + +Madeline had indeed proved unexpectedly pretty and attractive when she +opened the door to him on Cousin Emma's little box of a front porch, clad +all in white and wearing no extraneous ornament of any sort, blushing +delightfully and obviously more than glad of his coming. He would not +have been Ted Holiday if he hadn't risen to the occasion. The last girl +in sight was usually the only girl for him so long as she _was_ in sight +and sufficiently jolly and good to look upon. + +A little later Madeline donned a trim tailored black sailor hat and a +pretty and becoming pale green sweater and the two went down the steps +together, bound for an excursion to the park. As they descended Ted's +hand slipped gallantly under the girl's elbow and she leaned on it ever +so little, reveling in the ceremony and prolonging it as much as +possible. Well she knew that Cousin Emma and the children were peering +out from behind the curtains of the front bedroom upstairs, and that Mrs. +Bascom and her stuck up daughter Lily had their faces glued to the pane +next door. They would all see that this was no ordinary beau, but a real +swell like the magnificent young men in the movies. Perhaps as she +descended Cousin Emma's steps and went down the path between the tiger +lilies and peonies that flanked the graveled path with Ted Holiday beside +her, Madeline Taylor had her one perfect moment. + +Only the "ordinary" Fred, on hearing his wife's voluble descriptions +later of Madeline's "grand" young man failed to be suitably impressed. +"Them swells don't mean no girl no good no time," he had summed up his +views with sententious accumulation of negatives. + +But little enough did either Ted or Madeline reck of Fred's or any other +opinion as they fared their blithe and care-free way that gala week. The +rest of the world was supremely unimportant as they went canoeing and +motoring and trolley riding and mountain climbing and "movieing" +together. Madeline strove with all her might to dress and act and _be_ as +nearly like those other girls after whom she was modeling herself as +possible, to do nothing, which could jar on Ted in any way or remind him +that she was "different." In her happiness and sincere desire to please +she succeeded remarkably well in making herself superficially at least +very much like Ted's own "kind of girl" and though with true masculine +obtuseness he was entirely unaware of the conscious effort she was +putting into the performance nevertheless he enjoyed the results in full +and played up to her undeniable charms with his usual debonair and +heedless grace and gallantry. + +The one thing that had been left out of the program for lack of suitable +opportunity was dancing, an omission not to be tolerated by two strenuous +and modern young persons who would rather fox trot than eat any day. +Accordingly on Thursday it was agreed that they should repair to the +White Swan, a resort down the river, famous for its excellent cuisine, +its perfect dance floor and its "snappy" negro orchestra. Both Ted and +Madeline knew that the Swan had also a reputation of another less +desirable sort, but both were willing to ignore the fact for the sake of +enjoying the "jolliest jazz on the river" as the advertisement read. The +dance was the thing. + +It was, indeed. The evening was decidedly the best yet, as both averred, +pirouetting and spinning and romping through one fox trot and one step +after another. The excitement of the music, the general air of +exhilaration about the place and their own high-pitched mood made the +occasion different from the other gaieties of the week, merrier, madder, +a little more reckless. + +Once, seeing a painted, over-dressed or rather under-dressed, girl in the +arms of a pasty-faced, protruding-eyed roué, both obviously under the +spell of too much liquid inspiration, Ted suffered a momentary revulsion +and qualm of conscience. He shouldn't have brought Madeline here. It +wasn't the sort of place to bring a girl, no matter how good the music +was. Oh, well! What did it matter just this once? They were there now and +they might as well get all the fun they could out of it. The music +started up, he held out his hand to Madeline and they wheeled into the +maze of dancers, the girl's pliant body yielding to his arms, her eyes +brilliant with excitement. They danced on and on and it was amazingly and +imprudently late when they finally left the Swan and went home to Cousin +Emma's house. + +Ted had meant to leave Madeline at the gate, but somehow he lingered and +followed the girl out into the yard behind the house where they seated +themselves in the hammock in the shade of the lilac bushes. And suddenly, +without any warning, he had her in his arms and was kissing her +tempestuously. + +It was only for a moment, however. He pulled himself together, hot +cheeked and ashamed and flung himself out of the hammock. Madeline sat +very still, not saying a word, as she watched him march to and fro +between the beds of verbena and love-lies-bleeding and portulaca. +Presently he paused beside the hammock, looking down at the girl. + +"I am going home to-morrow," he said a little huskily. + +Madeline threw out one hand and clutched one of the boy's in a +feverish clasp. + +"No! No!" she cried. "You mustn't go. Please don't, Ted." + +"I've got to," stolidly. + +"Why?" + +"You know why." + +"You mean--what you did--just now?" + +He nodded miserably. + +"That doesn't matter. I'm not angry. I--I liked it." + +"I am afraid it does matter. It makes a mess of everything, and it's all +my fault. I spoiled things. I've got to go." + +"But you will come back?" she pleaded. + +He shook his head. + +"It is better not, Madeline. I'm sorry." + +She snatched her hand away from his, her eyes shooting sparks of anger. + +"I hate you, Ted Holiday. You make me care and then you go away and leave +me. You are cruel--selfish. I hate you--hate you." + +Ted stared down at her, helpless, miserable, ashamed. No man knows what +to do with a scene, especially one which his own folly has precipitated. + +"Willis Hubbard is coming down to-morrow night and if you don't stay as +you promised I'll go to the Swan with him. He has been teasing me to go +for ages and I wouldn't, but I will now, if you leave me. I'll--I'll do +anything." + +Ted was worried. He did not like the sound of the girl's threats though +he wasn't moved from his own purpose. + +"Don't go to the Swan with Hubbard, Madeline. You mustn't." + +"Why not? You took me." + +"I know I did, but that is different," he finished lamely. + +"I don't see anything very different," she retorted hotly. + +Ted bit his lip. Remembering his own recent aberration, he did not see as +much difference as he would have liked to see himself. + +"I suppose you wouldn't have taken _your_ kind of girl to the Swan," +taunted Madeline. + +"No, I--" + +It was a fatal admission. Ted hadn't meant to make it so bluntly, but it +was out. The damage was done. + +A demon of rage possessed the girl. Beside herself with anger she sprang +to her feet and delivered a stinging blow straight in the boy's face. +Then, her mood changing, she fell back into the hammock sobbing bitterly. + +For a moment Ted was too much astonished by this fish-wife exhibition +of temper even to be angry with himself. Then a hot wave of wrath and +shame surged over him. He put up his hand to his cheek as if to brush +away the indignity of the blow. But he was honest enough to realize +that maybe he had deserved the punishment, though not for the reason +the girl had dealt it. + +Looking down at her in her racked misery, his resentment vanished and +an odd impersonal kind of pity for her possessed him instead, though +her attraction was gone forever. He could see the scar on her forehead, +and it troubled and reproached him vaguely, seemed a symbol of a deeper +wound he had dealt her, though never meaning any harm. He bent over +her, gently. + +"Forgive me, Madeline," he said. "I am sorry--sorry for +everything. Goodby." + +In a moment he was gone, past the portulaca and love-lies-bleeding, past +Cousin Emma's unlit parlor windows, down the walk between the tiger +lilies and peonies, out into the street. And Madeline, suddenly +realizing that she was alone, rushed after him, calling his name softly +into the dark. But only the echo of his firm, buoyant young feet came +back to her straining ears. She fled back to the garden and, throwing +herself, face down, on the dew drenched grass, surrendered to a passion +of tearless grief. + +Ted astonished his uncle, first by coming home a whole day earlier than +he had been expected and second, by announcing his intention of seeing +Robert Caldwell and making arrangements about the tutoring that very +day. He was more than usually uncommunicative about his house-party +experiences the Doctor thought and fancied too that just at first after +his return the boy did not meet his eyes quite frankly. But this soon +passed away and he was delighted and it must be confessed considerably +astounded too to perceive that Ted really meant to keep his word about +the studying and settled down to genuine hard work for perhaps the first +time, in his idle, irresponsible young life. He had been prepared to put +on the screws if necessary. There had been no need. Ted had applied his +own screws and kept at his uncongenial task with such grim determination +that it almost alarmed his family, so contrary was his conduct to his +usual light-hearted shedding of all obligations which he could, by hook +or crook, evade. + +Among other things to be noted with relief the doctor counted the fact +that there were no more letters from Florence. Apparently that flame +which had blazed up rather brightly at first had died down as a good many +others had. Doctor Holiday was particularly glad in this case. He had not +liked the idea of his nephew's running around with a girl who would be +willing to go "joy-riding" with him after midnight, and still less had he +liked the idea of his nephew's issuing such invitations to any kind of +girl. Youth was youth and he had never kept a very tight rein on any of +Ned's children, believing he could trust them to run straight in the +main. Still there were things one drew the line at for a Holiday. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY + + +Tony was dressing for dinner on her first evening at Crest House. +Carlotta was perched on the arm of a chair near by, catching up on mutual +gossip as to events that had transpired since they parted a month before +at Northampton. + +"I have a brand new young man for you, Tony. Alan Massey--the artist. At +least he calls himself an artist, though he hasn't done a thing but +philander and travel two or three times around the globe, so near as I +can make out, since somebody died and left him a disgusting big fortune. +Aunt Lottie hints that he is very improper, but anyway he is amusing and +different and a dream of a dancer. It is funny, but he makes me think a +little bit once in a while of somebody we both know. I won't tell you +who, and see if the same thing strikes you." + +A little later Tony met the "new young man." She was standing with her +friend in the big living room waiting for the signal for dinner when she +felt suddenly conscious of a new presence. She turned quickly and saw a +stranger standing on the threshold regarding her with a rather +disconcertingly intent gaze. He was very tall and foreign-looking, +"different," as Carlotta had said, with thick, waving blue-black hair, a +clear, olive skin and deep-set, gray-green eyes. There was nothing about +him that suggested any resemblance to anyone she knew. Indeed she had a +feeling that there was nobody at all like him anywhere in the world. + +The newcomer walked toward her, their glances crossing. Tony stood very +still, but she had an unaccountable sensation of going to meet him, as if +he had drawn her to him, magnet-wise, by his strange, sweeping look. They +were introduced. He bowed low in courtly old world fashion over the +girl's hand. + +"I am enchanted to know Miss Holiday," he said. His voice was as unusual +as the rest of him, deep-throated, musical, vibrant--an unforgettable +voice it seemed to Tony who for a moment seemed to have lost her own. + +"I shall sit beside Miss Tony to-night, Carla," he added. It was not a +question, not a plea. It was clear assertion. + +"Not to-night, Alan. You are between Aunt Lottie and Mary Frances Day. +You liked Mary Frances yesterday. You flirted with her outrageously +last night." + +He shrugged. + +"Ah, but that was last night, my dear. And this is to-night. And I have +seen your Miss Tony. That alters everything, even your seating +arrangements. Change me, Carlotta." + +Carlotta laughed and capitulated. Alan's highhanded tactics always +amused her. + +"Not that you deserve it," she said. "Don't be too nice to him, Tony. He +is not a nice person at all." + +So it happened that Tony found herself at dinner between Ted's friend, +and her own, Hal Underwood, and this strange, impossible, arbitrary, +new personage who had hypnotized her into unwonted silence at their +first meeting. + +She had recovered her usual poise by this time, however, and was quite +prepared to keep Alan Massey in due subjection if necessary. She did not +like masterful men. They always roused her own none too dormant +willfulness. + +As they sat down he bent over to her. + +"You are glad I made Carlotta put us together," he said, and this, too, +was no question, but an assertion. + +Tony was in arms in a flash. + +"On the contrary, I am exceedingly sorry she gave in to you. You seem to +be altogether too accustomed to having your own way as it is." And rather +pointedly she turned her pretty shoulder on her too presuming neighbor +and proceeded to devote her undivided attention for two entire courses to +Hal Underwood. + +But, with the fish, Hal's partner on the other side, a slim young person +in a glittering green sequined gown, suggesting a fish herself, or, at +politest, a mermaid, challenged his notice and Tony returned perforce to +her left-hand companion who had not spoken a single word since she had +snubbed him as Tony was well aware, though she had seemed so entirely +absorbed in her own conversation with Hal. + +His gray-green eyes smiled imperturbably into hers. + +"Am I pardoned? Surely I have been punished enough for my sins, whatever +they may have been." + +"I hope so," said Tony. "Are you always so disagreeable?" + +"I am never disagreeable when I am having my own way. I am always good +when I am happy. At this moment I am very, very good." + +"It hardly seems possible," said Tony. "Carlotta said you were not +good at all." + +He shrugged, a favorite mannerism, it seemed. + +"Goodness is relative and a very dull topic in any case. Let us talk, +instead, of the most interesting subject in the universe--love. You +know, of course, I am madly in love with you." + +"Indeed, no. I didn't suspect it," parried Tony. "You fall in love +easily." + +"Scarcely easily, in this case. I should say rather upon tremendous +provocation. I suppose you know how beautiful you are." + +"I look in the mirror occasionally," admitted Tony with a glimmer of +mischief in her eyes. "Carlotta told me you were a philanderer. +Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Massey." + +"Ah, but this isn't philandery. It is truth." Suddenly the mockery had +died out of his voice and his eyes. "_Carissima,_ I have waited a very +long time for you--too long. Life has been an arid waste without you, +but, Allah be praised, you are here at last. You are going to love +me--ah, my Tony--how you are going to love me!" The last words were +spoken very low for the girl's ears alone, though more than one person at +the table seeing him bend over her, understood, that Alan Massey, that +professional master-lover was "off" again. + +"Don't, Mr. Massey. I don't care for that kind of jest." + +"Jest! Good God! Tony Holiday, don't you know that I mean it, that this, +is the real thing at last for me--and for you? Don't fight it, +Mademoiselle Beautiful. It will do no good. I love you and you are going +to love me--divinely." + +"I don't even like you," denied Tony hotly. + +"What of that? What do I care for your liking? That is for others. But +your loving--that shall be mine--all mine. You will see." + +"I am afraid you are very much mistaken if you do mean all you are +saying. Please talk to Miss Irvine now. You haven't said a word to her +since you sat down. I hate rudeness." + +Again Tony turned a cold shoulder upon her amazing dinner companion but +she did not do it so easily or so calmly this time. She was not unused +to the strange ways of men. Not for nothing had she spent so much of her +life at army posts where love-making is as familiar as brass buttons. +Sudden gusts of passion were no novelty to her, nor was it a new thing +to hear that a man thought he loved her. But Alan Massey was different. +She disliked him intensely, she resented the arrogance of his +assumptions with all her might, but he interested her amazingly. And, +incredible as it might seem and not to be admitted out loud, he was +speaking the truth, just now. He did love her. In her heart Tony knew +that she had felt his love before he had ever spoken a word to her when +their eyes had met as he stood on the threshold and she knew too +instinctively, that his love--if it was that--was not a thing to be +treated like the little summer day loves of the others. It was big, +rather fearful, not to be flouted or played with. One did not play with +a meteor when it crossed one's path. One fled from it or stayed and let +it destroy one if it would. + +She roused herself to think of other people, to forget Alan Massey and +his wonderful voice which had said such perturbing things. Over across +the table, Carlotta was talking vivaciously to a pasty-visaged, +narrow-chested, stoop-shouldered youth who scarcely opened his mouth +except to consume food, but whose eyes drank in every movement of +Carlotta's. One saw at a glance he was another of that spoiled little +coquette's many victims. Tony asked Hal who he was. He seemed scarcely +worth so many of Carlotta's sparkles, she thought. + +"Herb Lathrop--father is the big tea and coffee man--all rolled up in +millions. Carlotta's people are putting all the bets on him, apparently, +though for the life of me I can't see why. Don't see why people with +money are always expected to match up with somebody with a whole +caboodle of the same junk. Ought to be evened up I think, and a bit of +eugenics slipped in, instead of so much cash, for good measure. You can +see what a poor fish he is. In my opinion she had much better marry your +neighbor up there on the Hill. He is worth a gross of Herb Lathrops and +she knows it. Carlotta is no fool." + +"You mean Phil Lambert?" Tony was surprised. + +Hal nodded. + +"That's the chap. Only man I ever knew that could keep Carlotta in +order." + +"But Carlotta hasn't the slightest idea of marrying Phil," objected Tony. + +"Maybe not. I only say he is the man she ought to marry. I say, Tony, +does she seem happy to you?" + +"Carlotta! Why, yes. I hadn't thought. She seems gayer than usual, if +anything." Tony's eyes sought her friend's face. Was there something a +little forced about that gaiety of hers? For the first time it struck her +that there was a restlessness in the lovely violet eyes which was +unfamiliar. Was Carlotta unhappy? Evidently Hal thought so. "You have +sharp eyes, Hal," she commented. "I hadn't noticed." + +"Oh, I'm one of the singed moths you know. I know Carlotta pretty well +and I know she is fighting some kind of a fight--maybe with herself. I +rather think it is. Tell Phil Lambert to come down here and marry her out +of hand. I tell you Lambert's the man." + +"You think Carlotta loves Phil?" + +"I don't think. 'Tisn't my business prying into a girl's fancies. I'm +simply telling you Phil Lambert is the man that ought to marry her, and +if he doesn't get on to the job almighty quick that pop-eyed simpleton +over there will be prancing down the aisle to Lohengrin with Carlotta +before Christmas, and the jig will be up. You tell him what I say. And +study the thing a bit yourself while you are here, Tony. See if you can +get to the bottom of it. I hate to have her mess things up for herself +that way." + +Whereupon Hal once more proceeded to do his duty to the mermaid, leaving +Tony to her other partner. + +"Well," the latter murmured, seeing her free. "I have done the heavy +polite act, discussed D'Annunzio, polo and psycho-analysis and finished +all three subjects neatly. Do I get my reward?" + +"What do you ask?" + +"The first dance and then the garden and the moon and you--all to +myself." + +Tony shook her head. She was on guard. + +"I shall want more than one dance and more than one partner. I am afraid +I shan't have time for the moon and the garden to-night. I adore dancing. +I never stop until the music does." + +A flash of exultancy leaped into his eyes. + +"So? I might have known you would adore dancing. You shall have your +fill. You shall have many dances, but only one partner. I shall suffice. +I am one of the best dancers in the world." + +"And evidently one of the vainest men," coolly. + +"What of it? Vanity is good when it is not misplaced. But I was not +boasting. I _am_ one of the best dancers in the world. Why should I not +be? My mother was Lucia Vannini. She danced before princes." He might +have added, "She was a prince's mistress." It had been the truth. + +"Oh!" cried Tony. She had heard of Lucia Vannini--a famous Italian beauty +and dancer of three decades ago. So Alan Massey was her son. No wonder he +was foreign, different, in ways and looks. One could forgive his +extravagances when one knew. + +"Ah, you like that, my beauty? You will like it even better when you +have danced with me. It is then that you will know what it is to dance. +We shall dance and dance and--love. I shall make you mine dancing, +_Toinetta mia_." + +Tony shrank back from his ardent eyes and his veiled threat. She was a +passionate devotee of her own freedom. She did not want to be made his or +any man's--certainly not his. She decided not to dance with him at all. +But later, when the violins began to play and Alan Massey came and stood +before her, uttering no word but commanding her to him with his eyes and +his out-stretched, nervous, slender, strong, artist hands, she +yielded--could scarcely have refused if she had wanted to. But she did +not want to, though she told herself it was with Lucia Vannini's son +rather than with Alan Massey that she desired to dance. + +After that she thought not at all, gave herself up to the very ecstasy of +emotion. She had danced all her life, but, even as he had predicted, she +learned for the first time in this man's arms what dancing really was. It +was like nothing she had ever even dreamed of--pure poetry of motion, a +curious, rather alarming weaving into one of two vividly alive persons in +a kind of pagan harmony, a rhythmic rapture so intense it almost hurt. It +seemed as if she could have gone on thus forever. + +But suddenly she perceived that she and her partner had the floor alone, +the others had stopped to watch, though the musicians still played on +frenziedly, faster and faster. Flushed, embarrassed at finding herself +thus conspicuous, she drew herself away from Alan Massey. + +"We must stop," she murmured. "They are all looking at us." + +"What of it?" He bent over her, his passionate eyes a caress. "Did I not +tell you, _carissima_ Was it not very heaven?" + +Tony shook her head. + +"I am afraid there was nothing heavenly about it. But it was wonderful. I +forgive you your boasting. You are the best dancer in the world. I am +sure of it." + +"And you will dance with me again and again, my wonder-girl. You must. +You want to." + +"I want to," admitted Tony. "But I am not going to--at least not again +to-night. Take me to a seat." + +He did so and she sank down with a fluttering sigh beside Miss Lottie +Cressy, Carlotta's aunt. The latter stared at her, a little oddly she +thought, and then looked up at Alan Massey. + +"You don't change, do you, Alan?" observed Miss Cressy. + +"Oh yes, I change a great deal. I have been very different ever since I +met Miss Tony." His eyes fell on the girl, made no secret of his emotions +concerning her and her beauty. + +Miss Cressy laughed a little sardonically. + +"No doubt. You were always different after each new sweetheart, I recall. +So were they--some of them." + +"You do me too much honor," he retorted suavely. "Shall we not go out, +Miss Holiday? The garden is very beautiful by moonlight." + +She bowed assent, and together they passed out of the room through the +French window. Miss Cressy stared after them, the bitter little smile +still lingering on her lips. + +"Youth for Alan always," she said to herself. "Ah, well, I was young, +too, those days in Paris. I must tell Carlotta to warn Tony. It would be +a pity for the child to be tarnished so soon by touching his kind too +close. She is so young and so lovely." + +Alan and Tony strayed to a remote corner of the spacious gardens and +came to a pause beside the fountain which leaped and splashed and caught +the moonlight in its falling splendor. For a moment neither spoke. Tony +bent to dip her fingers in the cool water. She had an odd feeling of +needing lustration from something. The man's eyes were upon her. She was +very young, very lovely, as Miss Cressy had said. There was something +strangely moving to Alan Massey about her virginal freshness, her +moonshine beauty. He was unaccustomed to compunction, but for a fleeting +second, as he studied Tony Holiday standing there with bowed head, +laving her hands in the sparkling purity of the water, he had an impulse +to go away and leave her, lest he cast a shadow upon her by his +lingering near her. + +It was only for a moment. He was far too selfish to follow the brief urge +to renunciation. The girl stirred his passion too deeply, roused his will +to conquer too irresistibly to permit him to forego the privilege of the +place and hour. + +She looked up at him and he smiled down at her, once more the +master-lover. + +"I was right, was I not, _Toinetta mia_? I did make you a little bit +mine, did I not? Be honest. Tell me." He laid a hand on each of her bare +white shoulders, looked deep, deep into her brown eyes as if he would +read secret things in their depths. + +Tony drew away from his hands, dropped her gaze once more to the rippling +white of the water, which was less disconcerting than Alan Massey's too +ardent green eyes. + +"You danced with me divinely. I shall also make you love me divinely even +as I promised. You know it dear one. You cannot deny it," the magically +beautiful voice which pulled so oddly at her heart strings went on +softly, almost in a sort of chant. "You love me already, my white +moonshine girl," he whispered. "Tell me you do." + +"Ah but I don't," denied Tony. "I--I won't. I don't want to love +anybody." + +"You cannot help it, dear heart. Nature made you for loving and being +loved. And it is I that you are going to love. Mine that you shall +be. Tell me, did you ever feel before as you felt in there when we +were dancing?" + +"No," said Tony, her eyes still downcast. + +"I knew it. You are mine, belovedest. I knew it the moment I saw you. It +is Kismet. Kiss me." + +"No." The girl pulled herself away from him, her face aflame. + +"No? Then so." He drew her back to him, and lifted her face gently with +his two hands. He bent over her, his lips close to hers. + +"If you kiss me I'll never dance with you again as long as I live!" +she flashed. + +He laughed a little mockingly, but he lowered his hands, made no effort +to gainsay her will. + +"What a horrible threat, you cruel little moonbeam! But you wouldn't keep +it. You couldn't. You love to dance with me too well." + +"I would," she protested, the more sharply because she suspected he was +right, that she would dance with him again, no matter what he did. "Any +way I shall not dance with you again to-night. And I shall not stay out +here with you any longer." She turned to flee, but he put out his hand +and held her back. + +"Not so fast, my Tony. They have eyes and ears in there. If you run away +from me and go back with those glorious fires lit in your cheeks and in +your eyes they will believe I did kiss you-." + +"Oh!" gasped Tony, indignant but lingering, recognizing the probable +truth of his prediction. + +"We shall go together after a minute with sedateness, as if we had been +studying the stars. I am wise, my Tony. Trust me." + +"Very well," assented Tony. "How many stars are there in the Pleiades, +anyway?" she asked with sudden imps of mirth in her eyes. + +Again she felt on safe ground, sure that she had conquered and put a +too presuming male in his place. She had no idea that the laurels had +been chiefly not hers at all but Alan Massey's, who was quite as wise +as he boasted. + +But she kept her word and danced no more with Alan Massey that night. +She did not dare. She hated Alan Massey, disapproved of him heartily and +knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with +him, especially if she let herself dance often with him as they had +danced to-night. + +And so, her very first night at Crest House, Antoinette Holiday +discovered that, there was such a thing as love after all, and that it +had to be reckoned with whether you desired or not to welcome it at +your door. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD + + +After that first night in the garden Alan Massey did not try to make open +love to Tony again, but his eyes, following her wherever she moved, made +no secret of his adoration. He was nearly always by her side, driving off +other devotees when he chose with a cool high-handedness which sometimes +amused, sometimes infuriated Tony. She found the man a baffling and +fascinating combination of qualities, all petty selfishness and colossal +egotisms one minute, abounding in endless charms and graces and small +endearing chivalries the next; outrageously outspoken at times, at other +times, reticent to the point of secretiveness; now reaching the most +extravagant pitch of high spirits, and then, almost without warning, +submerged in moods of Stygian gloom from which nothing could rouse him. + +Tony came to know something of his romantic and rather mottled career +from Carlotta and others, even from Alan himself. She knew perfectly well +he was not the kind of man Larry or her uncle would approve or tolerate. +She disapproved of him rather heartily herself in many ways. At times she +disliked him passionately, made up her mind she would have no more to do +with him. At other times she was all but in love with him, and suspected +she would have found the world an intolerably dull place with Alan Massey +suddenly removed from it. When they danced together she was dangerously +near being what he had claimed she was or would be--all his. She knew +this, was afraid of it, yet she kept on dancing with him night after +night. It seemed as if she had to, as if she would have danced with him +even if she knew the next moment would send them both hurtling through +space, like Lucifer, down to damnation. + +It was not until Dick Carson came down for a week end, some time later, +that Tony discovered the resemblance in Alan to some one she knew of +which Carlotta had spoken. Incredibly and inexplicably Dick and Alan +possessed a shadowy sort of similarity. In most respects they were as +different in appearance as they were in personality. Dick's hair was +brown and straight; Alan's, black and wavy. Dick's eyes were steady +gray-blue; Alan's, shifty gray-green. Yet the resemblance was there, +elusive, though it was. Perhaps it lay in the curve of the sensitive +nostrils, perhaps in the firm contour of chin, perhaps in the arch of the +brow. Perhaps it was nothing so tangible, just a fleeting trick of +expression. Tony did not know, but she caught the thing just as Carlotta +had and it puzzled and interested her. + +She spoke of it to Alan the next morning after Dick's arrival, as they +idled together, stretched out on the sand, waiting for the others to come +out of the surf. + +To her surprise he was instantly highly annoyed and resentful. + +"For Heaven's sake, Tony, don't get the resemblance mania. It's a +disgusting habit. I knew a woman once who was always chasing likenesses +in people and prattling about them--got her in trouble once and served +her right. She told a young lieutenant that he looked extraordinarily +like a certain famous general of her acquaintance. It proved later that +the young man had been born at the post where the general was stationed +while the presumptive father was absent on a year's cruise. It had been +quite a prominent scandal at the time." + +"That isn't a nice story, Alan. Moreover it is entirely irrelevant. But +you and Dick do look alike. I am not the only or the first person who saw +it, either." + +Alan started and frowned. + +"Good Lord! Who else?" he demanded. + +"Carlotta!" + +"The devil she did!" Alan's eyes were vindictive. Then he laughed. +"Commend me to a girl's imagination! This Dick chap seems to be head over +heels in love with you," he added. + +"What nonsense!" denied Tony crisply, fashioning a miniature sand +mountain as she spoke. + +"No nonsense at all, my dear. Perfectly obvious fact. Don't you suppose I +know how a man looks when he is in love? I ought to. I've been in love +often enough." + +Tony demolished her mountain with a wrathful sweep of her hand. + +"And registered all the appropriate emotions before the mirror, I +suppose. You make me sick, Alan. You are all pose. I don't believe there +is a single sincere thing about you." + +"Oh, yes, there is--are--two." + +"What are they?" + +"One is my sincere devotion to yourself, my beautiful. The other--an +equally sincere devotion to--_myself_." + +"I grant you the second, at least." + +"Don't pose, yourself, my darling. You know I love you. You pretend you +don't believe it, but you do. And way down deep in your heart you love my +love. It makes your heart beat fast just to think of it. See! Did I not +tell you?" He had suddenly put out his hand and laid it over her heart. + +"Poor little wild bird! How its wings flutter!" + +Tony got up swiftly from the sand, her face scarlet. She was indignant, +self-conscious, betrayed. For her heart had been beating at a fearful +clip and she knew it. + +"How dare you touch me like that, Alan Massey? I detest you. I don't see +why I ever listen to you at all, or let you come near me." + +Alan Massey, still lounging at her feet, looked up at her as she stood +above him, slim, supple, softly rounded, adorably pretty and feminine in +her black satin bathing suit and vivid, emerald hued cap. + +"I know why," he said and rose, too, slowly, with the indolent grace of a +leopard. "So do you, my Tony," he added. "We both know. Will you dance +with me a great deal to-night?" + +"No." + +"How many times?" + +"Not at all." + +"Indeed! And does his Dick Highmightiness object to your dancing with +me?" + +"Dick! Of course not. He hasn't anything to do with it. I am not going to +dance with you because you are behaving abominably to-day, and you did +yesterday and the day before that. I think you are nearly always +abominable, in fact." + +"Still, I am one of the best dancers in the world. It is a temptation, is +it not, my own?" + +He smiled his slow, tantalizing smile and, in spite of herself, Tony +smiled back. + +"It is," she admitted. "You are a heavenly dancer, Alan. There is no +denying it. If you were Mephisto himself I think I would dance with +you--occasionally." + +"And to-night?" + +"Once," relented Tony. "There come the others at last." And she ran off +down the yellow sands like a modern Atalanta. + +"My, but Tony is pretty to-night!" murmured Carlotta to Alan, who +chanced to be standing near her as her friend fluttered by with Dick. +"She looks like a regular flame in that scarlet chiffon. It is awfully +daring, but she is wonderful in it." + +"She is always wonderful," muttered Alan moodily, watching the slender, +graceful figure whirl and trip and flash down the floor like a gay poppy +petal caught in the wind. + +Carlotta turned. Something in Alan's tone arrested her attention. + +"Alan, I believe, it is real with you at last," she said. Up to that +moment she had considered his affair with Tony as merely another of his +many adventures in romance, albeit possibly a slightly more extravagant +one than usual. + +"Of course it is real--real as Hell," he retorted. "I'm mad over her, +Carla. I am going to marry her if I have to kill every man in the path to +get to her," savagely. + +"I am sorry, Alan. You must see Tony is not for the like of you. You +can't get to her. I wish you wouldn't try." + +Dick and Tony passed close to them again. Tony was smiling up at her +partner and he was looking down at her with a gaze that betrayed his +caring. Neither saw Alan and Carlotta. The savage light gleamed brighter +in Alan's green eyes. + +"Carlotta, is there anything between them?" he demanded fiercely. + +"Nothing definite. He adores her, of course, and she is very fond of him. +She feels as if he sort of belonged to her, I think. You know the story?" + +"Tell me." + +Briefly Carlotta outlined the tale of how Dick had taken refuge in the +Holiday barn when he had run away from the circus, and how Tony had found +him, sick and exhausted from fatigue, hunger and abuse; how the Holidays +had taken him in and set him on his feet, and Tony had given him her own +middle name of Carson since he had none of his own. + +Alan listened intently. + +"Did he ever get any clue as to his identity?" he asked as +Carlotta paused. + +"Never." + +"Has he asked Tony to marry him?" + +"I don't think so. I doubt if he ever does, so long as he doesn't know +who he is. He is very proud and sensitive, and has an almost +superstitious veneration for the Holiday tradition. Being a Holiday in +New England is a little like being of royal blood, you know. I don't +believe you will ever have to make a corpse of poor Dick, Alan." + +"I don't mind making corpses. I rather think I should enjoy making one of +him. I detest the long, lean animal." + +Had Alan known it, Dick had taken quite as thorough a dislike to his +magnificent self. At that very moment indeed, as he and Tony strolled in +the garden, Dick had remarked that he wished Tony wouldn't dance with +"that Massey." + +"And why not?" she demanded, always quick to resent dictatorial airs. + +"Because he makes you--well--conspicuous. He hasn't any business to dance +with you the way he does. You aren't a professional but he makes you look +like one." + +"Thanks. A left-hand compliment but still a compliment!" + +"It wasn't meant for one," said Dick soberly. "I hate it. Of course you +dance wonderfully yourself. It isn't just dancing with you. It is poetry, +stuff of dreams and all the rest of it. I can see that, and I know it +must be a temptation to have a chance at a partner like that. Lord! Tony! +No man in every day life has a right to dance the way he can. He +out-classes Castle. I hate that kind of a man--half woman." + +"There isn't anything of a woman about Alan, Dick. He is the most +virulently male man I ever knew." + +Dick fell silent at that. Presently he began again. + +"Tony, please don't be offended at what I am going to say. I know it is +none of my business, but I wish you wouldn't keep on with this affair +with Massey." + +"Why not?" There was an aggressive sparkle in Tony's eyes. + +"People are talking. I heard them last night when you were dancing with +him. It hurts. Alan Massey isn't the kind of a man for a girl like you to +flirt with." + +"Stuff and nonsense, Dicky! Any kind of a man is the kind for a girl to +flirt with, if she keeps her head." + +"But Tony, honestly, this Massey hasn't a good reputation." + +"How do you know?" + +"Newspaper men know a great deal. They have to. Besides, Alan Massey is a +celebrity. He is written up in our files." + +"What does that mean?" + +"It means that if he should die to-morrow all we would have to do would +be to put in the last flip. The biographical data is all on the card +ready to shoot." + +"Dear me. That's rather gruesome, isn't it?" shivered Tony. "I'm glad I'm +not a celebrity. I'd hate to be stuck down on your old flies. Will I get +on Alan's card if I keep on flirting with him?" + +"Good Lord! I should hope not." + +"I suppose I wouldn't be in very good company. I don't mean Alan. I +mean--his ladies." + +"Tony! Then you know?" + +"About Alan's ladies? Oh, yes. He told me himself." + +Dick looked blank. What was a man to do in a case like this, finding his +big bugaboo no bugaboo at all? + +"I know a whole lot about Alan Massey, maybe more than is on your old +card. I know his mother was Lucia Vannini, so beautiful and so gifted +that she danced in every court in Europe and was loved by a prince. I +know how Cyril Massey, an American artist, painted her portrait and +loved her and married her. I know how she worshiped him and was +absolutely faithful to him to the day he died, when the very light of +life went out for her." + +"She managed to live rather cheerfully afterward, even without light, if +all the stories about her are true," observed Dick, with, for him, +unusual cynicism. + +"You don't understand. She had to live." + +"There are other ways of living than those she chose." + +"Not for her. She knew only two things--love and dancing. She was thrown +from a horse the next year after her husband died. Dancing was over for +her. There was only--her beauty left. Her husband's people wouldn't have +anything to do with her because she had been a dancer and because of the +prince. Old John Massey, Cyril's uncle, turned her and her baby from his +door, and his cousin John and his wife refused even to see her. She said +she would make them hear of her before she died. She did." + +"They heard all right. She, and her son too, must have been a thorn in +the flesh of the Masseys. They were all rigid Puritans I understand, +especially old John." + +"Serve him right," sniffed Tony. "They were rolling in wealth. They might +have helped her kept her from the other thing they condemned so. She +wanted money only for Alan, especially after he began to show that he had +more than his father's gifts. She earned it in the only way she knew. I +don't blame her." + +"Tony!" + +"I can't help it if I am shocking you, Dick. I can understand why she did +it. She didn't care anything about the lovers. She never cared for anyone +after Cyril died. She gave herself for Alan. Can't you see that there was +something rather fine about it? I can." + +Dick grunted. He remembered hearing something about a woman whose sins +were forgiven her because she loved much. But he couldn't reconcile +himself to hearing such stories from Tony Holiday's lips. They were +remote from the clean, sweet, wholesome atmosphere in which she belonged. + +"Anyway, Alan was a wonderful success. He studied in Paris and he had +pictures on exhibition in salons over there before he was twenty. He was +fêted and courted and flattered and--loved, until he thought the world +was his and everything in it--including the ladies." Tony made a little +face at this. She did not care very-much for that part of Alan's story, +herself. "His mother was afraid he was going to have his head completely +turned and would lose all she had gained so hard for him, so she made him +come back to America and settle down. He did. He made a great name for +himself before he was twenty-five as a portrait painter and he and his +mother lived so happily together. She didn't need any more lovers then. +Alan was all she needed. And then she died, and he went nearly crazy with +grief, went all to pieces, every way. I suppose that part of his career +is what makes you say he isn't fit for me to flirt with." + +Dick nodded miserably. + +"It isn't very pleasant for me to think of, either," admitted Tony. "I +don't like it any better than you do. But he isn't like that any more. +When old John Massey died without leaving any will Alan got all the +money, because his cousin John and his stuck-up wife had died, too, and +there was nobody else. Alan pulled up stakes and traveled all over the +world, was gone two years and, when he came back, he wasn't dissipated +any more. I don't say he is a saint now. He isn't, I know. But he got +absolutely out of the pit he was in after his mother's death." + +"Lucky for him they never found the baby John Massey, who was stolen," +Dick remarked. "He would have been the heir if he could have appeared to +claim the money instead of Alan Massey, who was only a grand nephew." + +Tony stared. + +"There wasn't any baby," she exclaimed. + +"Oh yes, there was. John Massey, Junior, had a son John who was kidnapped +when he was asleep in the park and deserted by his nurse who had gone to +flirt with a policeman. There was a great fuss made about it at the time. +The Masseys offered fabulous sums of money for the return of the child, +but he never turned up. I had to dig up the story a few years ago when +old John died, which is why I know so much about it." + +"I don't believe Alan knew about the baby. He didn't tell me anything +about it." + +"I'll wager he knew, all right. It would be mighty unpleasant for him if +the other Massey turned up now." + +"Dick, I believe you would be glad if Alan lost the money," +reproached Tony. + +"Why no, Tony. It's nothing to me, but I've always been sorry for that +other Massey kid, though he doesn't know what he missed and is probably a +jail-bird or a janitor by this time, not knowing he is heir to one of +the biggest properties in America." + +"Sorry to disturb your theories, Mr.--er Carson," remarked Alan Massey, +suddenly appearing on the scene. "My cousin John happens to be neither a +jail-bird nor a janitor, but merely comfortably dead. Lucky John!" + +"But Dick said he wasn't dead--at least that nobody knew whether he was +or not," objected Tony. + +"Unfortunately your friend is in error. John Massey is entirely dead, I +assure you. And now, if he is quite through with me and my affairs, +perhaps Mr. Carson will excuse you. Come, dear." + +Alan laid a hand on Tony's arm with a proprietorial air which made Dick +writhe far more than his insulting manner to himself had done. Tony +looked quickly from one to the other. She hated the way Alan was +behaving, but she did not want to precipitate a scene and yielded, +leaving Dick, with a deprecatory glance, to go with Alan. + +"I don't like your manner," she told the latter. "You were abominably +rude just now." + +"Forgive me, sweetheart. I apologize. That young man of yours sets my +teeth on edge. I can't abide a predestined parson. I'll wager anything he +has been preaching at you." He smiled ironically as he saw the girl +flush. "So he did preach,--and against me, I suppose." + +"He did, and quite right, too. You are not at all a proper person for me +to flirt with, just as he said. Even Miss Lottie told me that and when +Miss Lottie objects to a man it means--" + +"That she has failed to hold him herself," said Alan cynically. "Stop, +Tony. I want to say something to you before we go in. I am not a proper +person. I told you that myself. There have been other women in my life--a +good many of them. I told you that, too. But that has absolutely nothing +to do with you and me. I love you. You are the only woman I ever have +loved in the big sense, at least the only one I have ever wanted to +marry. I am like my mother. She had many lesser loves. She had only one +great one. She married him. And I shall marry you." + +"Alan, don't. It is foolish--worse than foolish to talk like that. My +people would never let me marry you, even if I wanted to. Dick was +speaking for them just now when he warned me against you." + +"He was speaking for himself. Damn him!" + +"Alan!" + +"I beg your pardon, Tony. I'm a brute to-night. I am sorry. I won't +trouble you any more. I won't even keep you to your promise to dance once +with me if you wish to be let off." + +The music floated out to them, called insistently to Tony's rhythm-mad +feet and warm young blood. + +"Ah, but I do want to dance with you," she sighed. "I don't want to be +let off. Come." + +He bent over her, a flash of triumph in his eyes. + +"My own!" he exulted. "You are my own. Kiss me, belovedest." + +But Tony pulled away from him and he followed her. A moment later the +scarlet flame was in his arms whirling down the hall to the music of the +violins, and Dick, standing apart by the window watching, tasted the +dregs of the bitterest brew life had yet offered him. Better, far better +than Tony Holiday he knew where the scarlet flame was blowing. + +His dance with Tony over, Alan retired to the library where he used the +telephone to transmit a wire to Boston, a message addressed to one James +Roberts, a retired circus performer. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AND THERE IS A FLAME + + +When Alan Massey strayed into the breakfast room, one of the latest +arrivals at that very informal meal, he found a telegram awaiting him. It +was rather an odd message and ran thus, without capitalization or +punctuation. "Town named correct what is up let sleeping dogs lie sick." +Alan frowned as he thrust the yellow envelope into his pocket. + +"Does the fool mean he is sick, I wonder," he cogitated. "Lord, I wish I +could let well enough alone. But this sword of Damocles business is +beginning to get on my nerves. I have half a mind to take a run into town +this afternoon and see the old reprobate. I'll bet he doesn't know as +much as he claims to, but I'd like to be sure before he dies." + +Just then Tony Holiday entered, clad in a rose hued linen and looking +like a new blown rose herself. + +"You are the latest ever," greeted Carlotta. + +"On the contrary I have been up since the crack of dawn," denied Tony, +slipping into a seat beside her friend. + +Carlotta opened her eyes wide. Then she understood. + +"You got up to see Dick off," she announced. + +"I did. Please give me some strawberries, Hal, if you don't mean to eat +the whole pyramid yourself. I not only got up, but I went to the +station; not only went to the station, but I walked the whole mile and a +half. Can anybody beat that for a morning record?" Tony challenged as she +deluged her berries with cream. + +Alan Massey uttered a kind of a snarling sound such as a lion disturbed +from a nap might have emitted. He had thought he was through with Carson +when the latter had made his farewells the night before, saying +goodnight to Tony before them all. But Tony had gotten up at some +ridiculously early hour to escort him to the station, and did not mind +everybody's knowing it. He subsided into a dense mood of gloom. The +morning had begun badly. + +Later he discovered Tony in the rose garden with a big basket on her arm +and a charming drooping sun hat shading her even more charming face. She +waved him away as he approached. + +"Go away," she ordered. "I'm busy." + +"You mean you have made up your mind to be disagreeable to me," he +retorted, lighting a cigarette and looking as if he meant to fight it out +along that line if it took all summer. + +Tony snipped off a rose with her big shears and dropped it into her +basket. It rather looked as if she were meaning to snip off Alan Massey +figuratively in much the same ruthless manner. + +"Put it that way, if you like. Only stay away. I mean it." + +"Why?" he persisted. + +Thus pressed she turned and faced him. + +"It is a lovely morning--all blue and gold and clean-washed after last +night's storm--a good morning. I'm feeling good, too. The clean morning +has got inside of me. And when you come near me I feel a pricking in my +thumbs. You don't fit into my present, mood. Please go, Alan. I am +perfectly serious. I don't want to talk to you." + +"What have I done? I am no different from what I was yesterday." + +"I know. It isn't anything you have done. It isn't you at all. It is I +who am different--or want to be." Tony spoke earnestly. She was perfectly +sincere. She did want to be different. She had not slept well the night +before. She had thought a great deal about Holiday Hill and Uncle Phil +and her brothers and--well, yes--about Dick Carson. They all armed her +against Alan Massey. + +Alan threw away his cigarette with an angry gesture. + +"You can't play fast and loose with me, Tony Holiday. You have been +leading me on, playing the devil with me for days. You know you have. Now +you are scared, and want to get back to shallow water. It is too late. +You are in deep seas and you've got to stay there--with me." + +"I haven't _got_ to do anything, Alan. You are claiming more than you +have any right to claim." + +But he came nearer, towered above her, almost menacingly. + +"Because that nameless fool of a reporter with his sanctimonious airs and +impeccable morals, has put you against me you want to sack me. You can't +do it. Last night you were ready to go any lengths with me. You know it. +Do you think I am going to be balked by a miserable circus brat--a mere +nobody? Not so long as I am Alan Massey. Count on that." + +Tony's dark eyes were ablaze with anger. + +"Stop there, Alan. You are saying things that are not true. And I forbid +you ever to speak of Dick like that again to me." + +"Indeed! And how are you going to prevent my saying what I please about +your precious protégé?" sneered Alan. + +"I shall tell Carlotta I won't stay under the same roof with anybody who +insults my friends. You won't have to restrain yourself long in any case. +I am leaving Saturday--perhaps sooner." + +"Tony!" The sneer died away from Alan's face, which had suddenly grown +white. "You mustn't go. I can't live without you, my darling. If you knew +how I worshiped you, how I cannot sleep of nights for wanting you, you +wouldn't talk of going away from me. I was brutal just now. I admit it. +It is because I love you so. The thought of your turning from me, +deserting me, maddened me. I am not responsible for what I said. You must +forgive me. But, oh my belovedest, you are mine! Don't try to deny it. We +have belonged to each other for always. You know it. You feel it. I have +seen the knowledge in your eyes, felt it flutter in your heart. Will you +marry me, Tony Holiday? You shall be loved as no woman was ever loved. +You shall be my queen. I will be true to you forever and ever, your +slave, your mate. Tony, Tony, say yes. You must!" + +But Tony drew back from him, frightened, repulsed, shocked, by the +storm of his passion which shook him as mighty trees are shaken by +tempests. She shrank from the hungry fires in his eyes, from the +abandon and fierceness of his wooing. It was an alien, disturbing, +dreadful thing to her. + +"Don't," she implored. "You mustn't love me like that, Alan. You +must not." + +"How can I help it, sweetheart? I am no iceberg. I am a man and you are +the one woman in the world for me. I love you--love you. I want you. I'm +going to have you--make you mine--marry you, bell and book, what you +will, so long as you are mine--mine--mine." + +Tony set down her basket, clasped her hands behind her and stood looking +straight up into his face. + +"Listen, Alan. I cannot marry you. I couldn't, even if I loved you, and +I don't think I do love you, though you fascinate me and, when we are +dancing, I forget all the other things in you that I hate. I have been +very foolish and maybe unkind to let it go on so far. I didn't quite know +what I was doing. Girls don't know. That is why they play with men as +they do. They don't mean to be cruel. They just don't know." + +"But you know now, my Tony?" His dark, stormy face was very close to +hers. Tony felt her heart leap but she did not flinch nor pull away +this time. + +"Yes, Alan, I know, in a way, at least. We mustn't go on like this. It is +bad for us both. I'll tell Carlotta I am going home to-morrow." + +"You want--to go away from me?" The haunting music of his voice, more +moving in its hurt than in its mastery of mood, stirred Tony Holiday +profoundly, but she steadied herself by a strong effort of will. She must +not let him sweep her away from her moorings. She must not. She must +remember Holiday Hill very hard. + +"I have to, Alan," she said. "I am very sorry if I have hurt you, am +hurting you. But I can't marry you. That is final. The sooner we end +things the better." + +"By God! It isn't final. It never will be so long as you and I are both +alive. You will come to me of your own accord. You will love me. You do +love me now. But you are letting the world come in between where it has +no right to come. I tell you you are mine--mine!" + +"No, no!" denied Tony. + +"And I say yes, my love. You are my love. I have set my seal upon you. +You can go away, back to your Hill, but you will not be happy without me. +You will never forget me for a waking moment. You cannot. You are a part +of me, forever." + +There was something solemn, inexorable in Alan's tones. A strange fear +clutched at Tony's heart. Was he right? Could she never forget him? +Would he always be a part of her--forever? No, that was nonsense! How +could it be true? How could he have set his seal upon her when he had +never even kissed her? She would not let him hypnotize her into +believing his prophecy. + +She stooped mechanically to pick up her roses and remembered the story +of Persephone gathering lilies in the vale of Enna and suddenly borne +off by the coal black horses of Dis to the dark kingdom of the lower +world. Was she Persephone? Had she eaten of the pomegranate seeds while +she danced night after night in Alan Massey's arms? No, she would not +believe it. She was free. She would exile Alan Massey from her heart and +life. She must. + +This resolve was in her eyes as she lifted them to Alan's. The fire had +died out of his now, and his face was gray and drawn in the sunshine. His +mood had changed as his moods so often did swiftly. + +"Forgive me, Tony," he said humbly. "I have troubled you, frightened you. +I am sorry. You needn't go away. I will go. I don't want to spoil one +moment of happiness for you. I never shall, except when the devil is in +me. Please try to remember that. Say always, 'Alan loves me. No matter +what he does or says, he loves me. His love is real, if nothing else +about him is.' You do believe that, don't you, dearest?" he pleaded. + +"I do, Alan. I have always believed it, I think, ever since that first +night, though I have tried not to. I am very sorry though. Love--your +kind of love is a fearful thing. I am afraid of it." + +"It is fearful, but beautiful too--very beautiful--like fire. Did you +ever think what a strange dual element fire is? It consumes--is a force +of destruction. But it also purifies, burns out dross. Love is like +that, my Tony. Mine for you may damn me forever, or it may take me to the +very gate of Heaven. I don't know myself which it will be." + +As he spoke there was a strange kind of illumination on his face, a look +almost of spiritual exaltation. It awed Tony, bereft her of words. This +was a new Alan Massey--an Alan Massey she had never seen before, and she +found herself looking up instead of down at him. + +He stooped and kissed her hand reverently, as a devotee might pay homage +at the shrine of a saint. + +"I shall not see you again until to-night, Tony. I am going into town. +But I shall be back--for one more dance with you, heart's dearest. And +then I promise I will go away and leave you tomorrow. You will dance with +me, Tony--once? We shall have that one perfect thing to remember?" + +Tony bowed assent. And in a moment she was alone with her roses. + +That afternoon she shut herself in her room to write letters to the home +people whom she had neglected badly of late. Every moment had been so +full since she had come to Carlotta's. There had been so little time to +write and when she had written it had given little of what she was really +living and feeling--just the mere externals and not all of them, as she +was very well aware. They would never understand her relation with Alan. +They would disapprove, just as Dick had disapproved. Perhaps she did not +understand, herself, why she had let herself get so deeply entangled in +something which could not go on, something, which was the profoundest +folly, if nothing worse. + +The morning had crystallized her fear of the growing complication of the +situation. She was glad Alan was going away, glad she had had the +strength of will to deny him his will, glad that she could now--after +to-night--come back into undisputed possession of the kingdom of herself. +But in her heart she was gladder that there was to-night and that one +last dance with Alan Massey before life became simple and sane and tame +again, and Alan and his wild love passed out of it forever. + +She finished her letters, which were not very satisfactory after all. +How could one write real letters when one's pen was writing one thing +and one's thoughts were darting hither and thither about very different +business? She threw herself in the chaise longue, not yet ready to +dress and go down to join the others. There was nobody there she cared +to talk to, somehow. Alan was not there. Nobody else mattered. It had +come to that. + +Idly she picked up a volume of verse that lay beside her on the table and +fluttered its pages, seeking something to meet her restless mood. +Presently in her vagrant seeking she chanced upon a little poem--a poem +she read and reread, twice, three times. + + "For there is a flame that has blown too near, +And there is a name that has grown too dear, + And there is a fear. +And to the still hills and cool earth and far sky I make moan. +The heart in my bosom is not my own! +Oh, would I were free as the wind on wing! +Love is a terrible thing!" + +Tony laid the book face down upon the table, still open at the little +verse. The shadows were growing long out there in the dusk. The late +afternoon sun was pale honey color. A soft little breeze stirred the +branches of a weeping willow tree and set them to swaying languorously. +Unseen birds twittered happily among the shrubbery. A golden butterfly +poised for a moment above the white holly hocks and then drifted off over +the flaming scarlet poppies and was lost to sight. + +It was all so beautiful, so serene. She felt that it should have come +like a benediction, cooling the fever of her tired mind, but it did not. +It could not even drive the words of the poem out of her head. + +Oh, would I were free as the wind on wing! +Love is a terrible thing! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BITTER FRUIT + + +From the North Station in Boston Alan Massey directed his course to a +small cigar store on Atlantic Avenue. A black eyed Italian lad in +attendance behind the counter looked up as he entered and surveyed him +with grave scrutiny. + +"I am Mr. Massey," announced Alan. "Mr. Roberts is expecting me. I +wired." + +"Jim's sick," said the boy briefly. + +"I am sorry. I hope he is not too sick to see me." + +"Naw, he'll see you. He wants to." The speaker motioned Alan to follow +him to the rear of the store. Together they mounted some narrow stairs, +passed through a hallway and into a bedroom, a disorderly, dingy, +obviously man-kept affair. On the bed lay a large framed, exceedingly +ugly looking man. His flesh was yellow and sagged loosely away from his +big bones. The impression he gave was one of huge animal bulk, shriveling +away in an unlovely manner, getting ready to disintegrate entirely. The +man was sick undoubtedly. Possibly dying. He looked it. + +The door shut with a soft click. The two men were alone. + +"Hello, Jim." Alan approached the bed. "Bad as this? I am sorry." He +spoke with the careless, easy friendliness he could assume when it +suited him. + +The man grinned, faintly, ironically. The grin did not lessen the +ugliness of his face, rather accentuated it. + +"It's not so bad," he drawled. "Nothing but death and what's that? I +don't suffer much--not now. It's cancer, keeps gnawing away like a rat in +the wall. By and by it will get up to my heart and then it's good-by Jim. +I shan't care. What's life good for that a chap should cling to it like a +barnacle on a rock?" + +"We do though," said Alan Massey. + +"Oh, yes, we do. It's the way we're made. We are always clinging to +something, good or bad. Life, love, home, drink, power, money! Always +something we are ready to sell our souls to get or keep. With you and me +it was money. You sold your soul to me to keep money and I took it to +get money." + +He laughed raucously and Alan winced at the sound and cursed the morbid +curiosity that had brought him to the bedside of this man who for three +years past had held his own future in his dirty hand, or claimed to hold +it. Alan Massey had paid, paid high for the privilege of not knowing +things he did not wish to know. + +"What kind of a trail had you struck when you wired me, Massey? I didn't +know you were anxious for details about young John Massey's career I +thought you preferred ignorance. It was what you bought of me." + +"I know it was," groaned Alan, dropping into a creaking rocker beside the +bed. "I am a fool. I admit it. But sometimes it seems to me I can't stand +not knowing. I want to squeeze what you know out of you as you would +squeeze a lemon until there was nothing left but bitter pulp. It is +driving me mad." + +The sick man eyed the speaker with a leer of malicious satisfaction. It +was meat to his soul to see this lordly young aristocrat racked with +misery and dread, to hold him in his power as a cat holds a mouse, which +it can crush and crunch at any moment if it will. Alan Massey's mood +filled Jim Roberts with exquisite enjoyment, enjoyment such as a gourmand +feels on setting his teeth in some rare morsel of food. + +"I know," he nodded. "It works like that often. They say a murderer can't +keep away from the scene of his crime if he is left at large. There is an +irresistible fascination to him about the spot where he damned his +immortal soul." + +"I'm not a criminal," snarled Alan. "Don't talk to me like that or you +will never see another cent of my money." + +"Money!" sneered the sick man. "What's that to me now? I've lost my taste +for money. It is no good to me any more. I've got enough laid by to bury +me and I can't take the rest with me. Your money is nothing to me, Alan +Massey. But you'll pay still, in a different way. I am glad you came. It +is doing me good." + +Alan made a gesture of disgust and got to his feet, pacing to and fro, +his face dark, his soul torn, between conflicting emotions. + +"I'll be dead soon," went on the malicious, purring voice from the bed. +"Don't begrudge me my last fling. When I am in my grave you will be safe. +Nobody in the living world but me knows young John Massey's alive. You +can keep your money then with perfect ease of mind until you get to where +I am now and then,--maybe you will find out the money will comfort you no +longer, that nothing but having a soul can get you over the river." + +The younger man's march came to a halt by the bedside. + +"You shan't die until you tell me what you know about John Massey," he +said fiercely. + +"You're a fool," said James Roberts. "What you don't know you are not +responsible for--you can forget in a way. If you insist on hearing the +whole story you will never be able to get away from it to your dying day. +John Massey as an abstraction is one thing. John Massey as a live human +being, whom you have cheated out of a name and a fortune, is another." + +"I never cheated him of a name. You did that." + +The man grunted. + +"Right. That is on my bill. Lord knows, I wish it wasn't. Little enough +did I ever get out of that particular piece of deviltry. I over-reached +myself, was a darned little bit too smart. I held on to the boy, thinking +I'd get more out of it later, and he slid out of my hands like an eel and +I had nothing to show for it, until you came along and I saw a chance to +make a new deal at your expense. You fell for it like a lamb to the +slaughter. I'll never forget your face when I told you John Massey was +alive and that I could produce him in a minute for the courts. If I had, +your name would have been Dutch, young man. You'd never have gotten a +look in on the money. You had the sense to see that. Old John died +without a will. His grandson and not his grand-nephew was his heir +provided anybody could dig up the fellow, and I was the boy that could do +that. I proved that to you, Alan Massey." + +"You proved nothing. You scared me into handing you over a whole lot of +money, you blackmailing rascal, I admit that. But you didn't prove +anything. You showed me the baby clothes you said John Massey wore when +he was stolen. The name might easily enough have been stamped on the +linen later. You showed me a silver rattle marked 'John Massey.' The +inscription might also easily enough have been added later at a crook's +convenience. You showed me some letters purporting to have been written +by the woman who stole the child and was too much frightened by her crime +to get the gains she planned to win from it. The letters, too, might +easily have been forgery. The whole thing might have been a cock and bull +story, fabricated by a rotten, clever mind like yours, to apply the money +screw to me." + +"True," chuckled Jim Roberts. "Quite true. I wondered at your credulity +at the time." + +"You rat! So it was all a fake, a trap?" + +"You would like to believe that, wouldn't you? You would like to have a +dying man's oath that there was nothing but a pack of lies to the whole +thing, blackmail of the crudest, most unsupportable variety?" + +Alan bent over the man, shook his fist in the evil, withered old face. + +"Damn you, Jim Roberts! Was it a lie or was it not?" + +"Keep your hands off me, Alan Massey. It was the truth. Sarah Nelson did +steal the child just as I told you. She gave the child to me when she was +dying a few months later. I'll give my oath on that if you like." + +Alan brushed his hand across his forehead, and sat down again limply in +the creaking rocker. + +"Oh, you are willing to believe that again now, are you?" mocked Roberts. + +"I've got to, I suppose. Go on. Tell me the rest. I've got to know. Did +you really make a circus brat of John Massey and did he really run away +from you? That is all you told me before, you remember." + +"It was all you wanted to know. Besides," the man smiled his diabolical +grin again, "there was a reason for going light on the details. At the +time I held you up I hadn't any more idea than you had where John Massey +was, nor whether he was even alive. It was the weak spot in my armor. +But you were so panic stricken at the thought of having to give up your +gentleman's fortune that you never looked at the hollowness of the thing. +You could have bowled over my whole scheme in a minute by being honest +and telling me to bring on your cousin, John Massey. But you didn't. You +were only too afraid I would bring him on before you could buy me off. I +knew I could count on your being blind and rotten. I knew my man." + +"Then you don't know now whether John Massey is alive or not?" Alan asked +after a pause during which he let the full irony of the man's confession +sink into his heart and turn there like a knife in a wound. + +"That is where you're dead wrong. I do know. I made it my business to +find out. It was too important to have an invulnerable shield not to +patch up the discrepancy as early as possible. It took me a year to get +my facts and it cost a good chink of the filthy, but I got them. I not +only know that John Massey is alive but I know where he is and what he is +doing. I could send for him to-morrow, and cook your goose for you +forever, young man." + +He pulled himself up on one elbow to peer into Alan's gloomy face. + +"I may do it yet," he added. "You needn't offer me hush money. It's no +good to me, as I told you. I don't want money. I only want to pass the +time until the reaper comes along. You'll grant that it would be amusing +to me to watch the see-saw tip once more, to see you go down and your +cousin John come up." + +Alan was on his feet again now, striding nervously from door to window +and back again. He had wanted to know. Now he knew. He had knowledge +bitter as wormwood. The man had lied before. He was not lying now. + +"What made you send that wire? Were you on the track, too, trying to +find out on your own where your cousin is?" + +"Not exactly. Lord knows I didn't want to know. But I had a queer hunch. +Some coincidences bobbed up under my nose that I didn't like the looks +of. I met a young man a few days ago that was about the age John would +have been, a chap with a past, who had run away from a circus. The thing +stuck in my crop, especially as there was a kind of shadowy resemblance +between us that people noticed." + +"That is interesting. And his name?" + +"He goes under the name of Carson--Richard Carson." + +Roberts nodded. + +"The same. Good boy. You have succeeded in finding your cousin. +Congratulations!" he cackled maliciously. + +"Then it really is he?" + +"Not a doubt of it. He was taken up by a family named Holiday in Dunbury, +Massachusetts. They gave him a home, saw that he got some schooling, +started him on a country newspaper. He was smart, took to books, got +ahead, was promoted from one paper to another. He is on a New York daily +now, making good still, I'm told. Does it tally?" + +Alan bowed assent. It tallied all too well. The lad he had insulted, +jeered at, hated with instinctive hate, was his cousin, John Massey, the +third, whom he had told the other was quite dead. John Massey was very +much alive and was the rightful heir to the fortune which Alan Massey was +spending as the heavens had spent rain yesterday. + +It was worse than that. If the other was no longer nameless, had the +right to the same fine, old name that Alan himself bore, and had too +often disgraced, the barrier between him and Tony Holiday was swept +away. That was the bitterest drop in the cup. No wonder he hated +Dick--hated him now with a cumulative, almost murderous intensity. He had +mocked at the other, but how should he stand against him in fair field? +It was he--Alan Massey--that was the outcast, his mother a woman of +doubtful fame, himself a follower of false fires, his life ignoble, +wayward, erratic, unclean? Would it not be John rather than Alan Massey +Tony Holiday would choose, if she knew all? This ugly, venomous, +sin-scarred old rascal held his fate in the hollow of his evil old hand. + +The other was watching him narrowly, evidently striving to follow +his thoughts. + +"Well?" he asked. "Going to beat me at my own game, give your +cousin his due?" + +"No," curtly. + +"Queer," mused the man. "A month ago I would have understood it. It would +have seemed sensible enough to hold on to the cold cash at any risk. Now +it looks different. Money is filthy stuff, man. It is what they put on +dead eye-lids to keep them down. Sometimes we put it on our own living +lids to keep us from seeing straight. You are sure the money's worth so +much to you, Alan Massey?" + +The man's eyes burned livid, like coals. It was a strange and rather +sickening thing, Alan Massey thought, to hear him talk like this after +having lived the rottenest kind of a life, sunk in slime for years. + +"The money is nothing to me," he flung back. "Not now. I thought it was +worth considerable when I drove that devilish bargain with you to keep +it. It has been worse than nothing, if you care to know. It killed my +art--the only decent thing about me--the only thing I had a right to take +honest pride in. John Massey might have every penny of it to-morrow for +all I care if that were all there were to it." + +"What else is there?" probed the old man. + +"None of your business," snarled Alan. Not for worlds would he have +spoken Tony Holiday's name in this spot, under the baleful gleam of those +dying eyes. + +The man chuckled maliciously. + +"You don't need to tell me, I know. There's always a woman in it when a +man takes the path to Hell. Does she want money? Is that why you must +hang on to the filthy stuff?" + +"She doesn't want anything except what I can't give her, thanks to you +and myself--the love of a decent man." + +"I see. When we meet _the_ woman we wish we'd sowed fewer wild oats. I +went through that myself once. She was a white lily sort of girl and +I--well, I'd gone the pace long before I met her. I wasn't fit to touch +her and I knew it. I went down fast after that--nothing to keep me back. +Old Shakespeare says something somewhere about our pleasant vices beings +whips to goad us with. You and I can understand that, Alan Massey. We've +both felt the lash." + +Alan made an impatient gesture. He did not care to be lumped with this +rotten piece of flesh lying there before him. + +"I suppose you are wondering what my next move is," went on Roberts. + +"I don't care." + +"Oh yes, you do. You care a good deal. I can break you, Alan Massey, and +you know it." + +"Go ahead and break and be damned if you choose," raged Alan. + +"Exactly. As I choose. And I can keep you dancing on some mighty hot +gridirons before I shuffle off. Don't forget that, Alan Massey. And +there will be several months to dance yet, if the doctors aren't off +their count." + +"Suit yourself. Don't hurry about dying on my account," said Alan with +ironical courtesy. + +A few moments later he was on his way back to the station. His universe +reeled. All he was sure was that he loved Tony Holiday and would fight to +the last ditch to win and keep her and that she would be in his arms +to-night for perhaps the last time. The rest was a hideous blur. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SHACKLES + + +The evening was a specially gala occasion, with a dinner dance on, the +last big party before Tony went home to her Hill. The great ball room at +Crest House had been decorated with a network of greenery and crimson +rambler roses. A ruinous-priced, _de luxe_ orchestra had been brought +down from the city. The girls had saved their prettiest gowns and looked +their rainbow loveliest for the crowning event. + +Tony was wearing an exquisite white chiffon and silver creation, with +silver slippers and a silver fillet binding her dark hair. Alan had sent +her some wonderful orchids tied with silver ribbon, and these she wore; +but no jewelry whatever, not even a ring. There was something +particularly radiant about her young loveliness that night. The young men +hovered about her like honey bees about a rose and at every dance they +cut in and cut in until her white and silver seemed to be drifting from +one pair of arms to another. + +Tony was very gay and bountiful and impartial in her smiles and favors, +but all the time she waited, knowing that presently would come the one +dance to which there would be no cutting in, the dance that would make +the others seem nothing but shadows. + +By and by the hour struck. She saw Alan leave his place by the window +where he had been moodily lounging, saw him come toward her, taller +than any man in the room, distinguished--a king among the rest, it +seemed to Tony, waiting, longing for his coming? yet half dreading it, +too. For the sooner he came, the sooner it must all end. She was with +Hal at the moment, waiting for the music to begin, but as Alan +approached she turned to her companion with a quick appeal in her eyes +and a warm flush on her cheeks. + +"I am sorry, Hal," she said, low in his ear. "But this is Alan's. He is +going away to-morrow. Forgive me." + +Hal turned, stared at Alan Massey, turned back to Tony, bowed and +moved away. + +"Hanged if there isn't something magnificent about the fellow," he +thought. "No matter how you detest him there is something about him that +gets you. I wonder how far he has gone with Tony. Gee! It's a rotten +combination. But Lordy! How they can dance--those two!" + +Never as long as she lived was Tony Holiday to forget that dance with +Alan Massey. As a musician pours himself into his violin, as a poet puts +his soul into his sonnet, as a sculptor chisels his dream in marble, so +her companion flung his passion and despair and imploring into his +dancing. They forgot the others, forgot everything but themselves. They +might have been dancing alone on the top of Olympus for all either knew +or cared for the rest of the world. + +It was Alan, not Tony, who brought it to an end, however. He whispered +something in the girl's ear and their feet paused. In a moment he was +holding open the French window for her to pass out into the night. The +white and silver vanished like a cloud. Alan Massey followed. The window +swung shut again. The music stopped abruptly as if now its inspiration +had come to an end. A single note of a violin quivered off into silence +after the others, like the breath of beauty itself passing. + +Carlotta and her aunt happened to be standing near each other. The girl's +eyes were troubled. She wished Alan had not come back at all from the +city. She hoped he really intended to go away to-morrow as he had told +her. More than all she hoped she was right in believing that Tony had +refused to marry him. Like Dick, Carlotta had reverence for the Holiday +tradition. She could not bear to think of Tony's marrying Alan. She felt +woefully responsible for having brought the two together. + +"Did you say he was going to-morrow?" asked her aunt. + +Carlotta nodded. + +"He won't go," prophesied Miss Cressy. + +"Oh, yes. I think he will. I don't know for certain but I have an idea +she refused him this morning." + +"Ah, but that was this morning. Things look very different by star light. +That child ought not to be out there with him. She is losing her head." + +"Aunt Lottie! Alan is a gentleman," demurred Carlotta. + +Miss Lottie smiled satirically. Her smile repeated Ted Holiday's verdict +that some gentlemen were rotters. + +"You forget, my dear, that I knew Alan Massey when you and Tony were in +short petticoats and pigtails. You can't trust too much to his +gentlemanliness." + +"Of course, I know he isn't a saint," admitted Carlotta. "But you don't +understand. It is real with Alan this time. He really cares. It isn't +just--just the one thing." + +"It is always the one thing with Alan Massey's kind. I know what I am +talking about, Carlotta. He was a little in love with me once. I dare say +we both thought it was different at the time. It wasn't. It was pretty +much the same thing. Don't cherish any romantic notions about love, +Carlotta. There isn't any love as you mean it." + +"Oh yes, there is," denied Carlotta suddenly, a little fiercely. +"There is love, but most of us aren't--aren't worthy of it. It is too +big for us. That is why we get the cheap _little_ stuff. It is all we +are fit for." + +Miss Carlotta stared at her niece. But before she could speak Hal +Underwood had claimed the latter for a dance. + +"H--m!" she mused looking after the two. "So even Carlotta isn't immune. +I wonder who he was." + +Meanwhile, out in the garden Tony and Alan had strayed over to the +fountain, just as they had that first evening after that first dance. + +"Tony, belovedest, let me speak. Listen to me just once more. You do love +me. Don't lie to me with your lips when your eyes told me the truth in +there. You are mine, mine, my beautiful, my love--all mine." + +He drew her into his arms, not passionately but gently. It was his +gentleness that conquered. A storm of unrestrained emotion would have +driven her away from him, but his sudden quiet strength and tenderness +melted her last reservation. She gave her lips unresisting to his kiss. +And with that kiss, desire of freedom and all fear left her. For the +moment, at least, love was all and enough. + +"Tony, my belovedest," he whispered. "Say it just once. Tell me you love +me." It was the old, old plea, but in Tony's ears it was immortally new. + +"I love you, Alan. I didn't want to. I have fought it all along as you +know. But it was no use. I do love you." + +"My darling! And I love you. You don't know how I love you. It is like +suddenly coming out into sunshine after having lived in a cave all my +life. Will you marry me to-morrow, _carissima_?" + +But she drew away from his arms at that. + +"Alan, I can't marry you ever. I can only love you." + +"Why not? You must, Tony!" The old masterfulness leaped into his voice. + +"I cannot, Alan. You know why." + +She lifted her eyes to his and in their clear depths he saw reflected his +own willful, stained, undisciplined past. He bowed his head in real shame +and remorse. Nothing stood between himself and Antoinette Holiday but +himself. He had sown the wind. He reaped the whirlwind. + +After a moment he looked up again. He made no pretence of +misunderstanding her meaning. + +"You couldn't forgive?" he pleaded brokenly. Gone was the royal-willed +Alan Massey. Only a beggar in the dust remained. + +"Yes, Alan. I could forgive. I do now. I think I can understand how such +things can be in a man's life though it would break my heart to think Ted +or Larry were like that. But you never had a chance. Nobody ever helped +you to keep your eyes on the stars." + +"They are there now," he groaned. "You are my star, Tony, and stars are +very, very far away from the like of me," he echoed Carlotta's phrase. + +For almost the first time in his life humility possessed him. Had he +known it, it lifted him higher in Tony's eyes than all his arrogance and +conceit of power had ever done. + +Gently she slid her hand into his. + +"I don't feel far away, Alan. I feel very near. But I can't marry +you--not now anyway. You will have to prove to them all--to me, too--that +you are a man a Holiday might be proud to marry. I could forget the +past. I think I could persuade Uncle Phil and the rest to forget it, too. +They are none of them self-righteous Puritans. They could understand, +just as I understand, that a man might fall in battle and carry scars of +defeat, but not be really conquered. Alan, tell me something. It isn't +easy to ask but I must. Are the things I have to forget far back in the +past or--nearer? I know they go back to Paris days, the days Miss Lottie +belongs to. Oh, yes," as he started at that. "I guessed that. You mustn't +blame her. She was merely trying to warn me. She meant it for my good, +not to be spiteful and not because she still cares, though I think she +does. And I know there are things that belong to the time after your +mother died, and you didn't care what you did because you were so +unhappy. But are they still nearer? How close are they, Alan?" + +He shook his head despairingly. + +"I wish I could lie to you, Tony. I can't. They are too close to be +pleasant to remember. But they never will be again. I swear it. Can you +believe it?" + +"I shall have to believe it--be convinced of it before I could marry +you. I can't marry you, not being certain of you, just because my heart +beats fast when you come near me, because I love your voice and your +kisses and would rather dance with you than to be sure of going to +Heaven. Marriage is a world without end business. I can't rush into it +blindfold. I won't." + +"You don't love me as I love you or you couldn't reason so coldly about +it," he reproached. "You would go blindfold anywhere--to Hell itself +even, with me." + +"I don't know, Alan. I could let myself go. While we were dancing in +there I am afraid I would have been willing to go even as far as you say +with you. But out here in the star-light I am back being myself. I want +to make my life into something clean and sweet and fine. I don't want to +let myself be driven to follow weak, selfish, rash impulses and do things +that will hurt other people and myself. I don't want to make my people +sorry. They are dearer than any happiness of my own. They would not let +me marry you now, even if I wished it. If I did what you want and what +maybe something in me wants too--run off and marry you tomorrow without +their consent--it would break their hearts and mine, afterward when I had +waked up to what I had done. Don't ask me, dear. I couldn't do it." + +"But what will you do, Tony? Won't you marry me ever?" Alan's tone was +helpless, desolate. He had run up against a power stronger than any he +had ever wielded, a force which left him baffled. + +"I don't know. It will depend upon you. A year from now, if you still +want me and I am still free, if you can come to me and tell me you have +lived for twelve months as a man who loves a woman ought to live, I will +marry you if I love you enough; and I think--I am sure, I shall, for I +love you very much this minute." + +"A year! Tony, I can't wait a year for you. I want you now." Alan's tone +was sharp with dismay. He was not used to waiting for what he desired. He +had taken it on the instant, as a rule, and as a rule, his takings had +been dust and ashes as soon as they were in his hands. + +"You cannot have me, Alan. You can never have me unless you earn the +right to win me--straight. Understand that once for all. I will not marry +a weakling. I will marry--a conquerer--perhaps." + +"You mean that, Tony?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Then, by God, I'll be a conquerer!" he boasted. + +"I hope you will. Oh, my dear, my dear! It will break my heart if you +fail. I love you." And suddenly Tony was clinging to him, just a woman +who cared, who wanted her lover, even as he wanted her. But in a +breath she pulled herself away. "Take me in, Alan, now," she said. +"Kiss me once before we go. I shall not see you in the morning. This +is really good-by." + +Later, Carlotta, coming in to say goodnight to Tony, found the latter +sitting in front of the mirror brushing out her abundant red-brown hair +and noticed how very scarlet her friend's cheeks were and what a +tell-tale shining glory there was in her eyes. + +"It was a lovely party," announced Tony casually, unaware how much +Carlotta had seen over her shoulder in the mirror. + +"Tony, are you in love with Alan Massey?" demanded Carlotta. + +Tony whirled around on the stool, her cheeks flying deeper crimson +banners at this unexpected challenge. + +"I am afraid I am, Carlotta," she admitted. "It is rather a mess, +isn't it?" + +Carlotta groaned and dropping into a chaise lounge encircled her knees +with her arms, staring with troubled eyes at her guest. + +"A mess? I should say it was--worse than a mess--a catastrophe. You know +what Alan is--isn't--" She floundered off into silence. + +"Oh, yes," said Tony, the more tranquil of the two. "I know what he is +and isn't, better than most people, I think. I ought to. But I love him. +I just discovered it to-night, or rather it is the first time I ever let +myself look straight at the fact. I think I have known it from the +beginning." + +"But Tony! You won't marry him. You can't. Your people will never let +you. They oughtn't to let you." + +Tony shook back her wavy mane of hair, sent it billowing over her +rose-colored satin kimono. + +"It don't matter if the whole world won't let me. If I decide to marry +Alan I shall do it." + +"Tony!" + +There was shocked consternation in Carlotta's tone and Tony relenting +burst into a low, tremulous little laugh. + +"Don't worry, Carlotta. I'm not so mad as I sound. I told Alan he would +have to wait a year. He has to prove to me he is--worth loving." + +"But you are engaged?" Carlotta was relieved, but not satisfied. + +Tony shook her head. + +"Absolutely not. We are both free as air--technically. If you were in +love yourself you would know how much that amounts to by way of freedom." + +Carlotta's golden head was bowed. She did not answer her friend's +implication that she could not be expected to comprehend the delicate, +invisible, omnipotent shackles of love. + +"Don't tell anyone, Carlotta, please. It is our secret--Alan's and mine. +Maybe it will always he a secret unless he--measures up." + +"You are not going to tell your uncle?" + +"There is nothing to tell yet." + +"And I suppose this is the end of poor Dick." + +"Don't be silly, Carlotta. Dick never said a word of love to me in +his life." + +"That doesn't mean he doesn't think 'em. You have convenient eyes, Tony +darling. You see only what you wish to see." + +"I didn't want to see Alan's love. I tried dreadfully hard not to. But it +set up a fire in my own house and blazed and smoked until I had to do +something about it. See here, Carlotta. I'd like to ask you a question or +two. You are not really going to marry Herbert Lathrop, are you?" + +A queer little shadow, almost like a veil, passed over Carlotta's face at +this counter charge. + +"Why not?" she parried. + +"You know why not. He is exactly what Hal Underwood calls him, a poor +fish. He is as close to being a nonentity as anything I ever saw." + +"Precisely why I selected him," drawled Carlotta. "I've got to marry +somebody and poor Herbert hasn't a vice except his excess of virtue. We +can't have another old maid in the family. Aunt Lottie is a shining +example of what to avoid. I am not going to be 'Lottie the second' I have +decided on that." + +"As if you could," protested Tony indignantly. + +"Oh, I could. You look at Aunt Lottie's pictures of fifteen years ago. +She was just as pretty as I am. She had loads of lovers but somehow they +all slipped through her fingers. She has been sex-starved. She ought to +have married and had children. I don't want to be a hungry spinster. They +are infernally miserable." + +"Carlotta!" Tony was a little shocked at her friend's bluntness, a +little puzzled as to what lay behind her arguments. "You don't have to +be a hungry spinster. There are other men besides Herbert that want to +marry you." + +"Certainly. Some of them want to marry my money. Some of them want to +marry my body. I grant you Herbert is a poor fish in some ways, but at +least he wants to marry me, myself, which is more than the others do." + +"That isn't true. Hal Underwood wants to marry you, yourself." + +"Oh, Hal!" conceded Carlotta. "I forgot him for a moment. You are right. +He is real--too real. I should hurt him marrying him and not caring +enough. That is why a nonentity is preferable. It doesn't know what it +is missing. Hal would know." + +"But there is no reason why you shouldn't wait until you find somebody +you could care for," persisted Tony. + +"That is all you know about it, my dear. There is the best reason in the +world. I found him--and lost him." + +"Carlotta--is it Phil?" + +Carlotta sprang up and went over to the window. She took the rose she had +been wearing, in her hands and deliberately pulled it apart letting the +petals drift one by one out into the night. Then she turned back to Tony. + +"Don't ask questions, Tony. I am not going to talk." But she lingered a +moment beside her friend. "You and I, Tony darling, don't seem to have +very much luck in love," she murmured. "I hope you will be happy with +Alan, if you do marry him. But happiness isn't exactly necessary. There +are other things--" She broke off and began again. "There are other +things in a man's life besides love. Somebody said that to me once and I +believe it is true. But there isn't so much besides that matters much to +a woman. I wish there were. I hate love." And pressing a rare kiss on her +friend's cheek Carlotta vanished for the night. + +Meanwhile Alan Massey smoked and thought and cursed the past that had him +in its hateful toils. Like the guilty king in Hamlet, his soul, +"struggling to be free" was "but the more engaged." He honestly desired +to be worthy of Tony Holiday, to stand clear in her eyes, but he did not +want it badly enough, to the "teeth and forehead of his faults to give in +evidence." He did not want to bare the one worst plague spot of all and +run the risk not only of losing Tony himself but perhaps also of clearing +the way to her for his cousin, John Massey. Small wonder he smoked gall +and wormwood in his cigarettes that night. + +And far away in the heat and grime and din of the great city, Dick Carson +the nameless, who was really John Massey and heir to a great fortune, sat +dreaming over a girl's picture, telling himself that Tony must care a +little to have gotten up in the silver gray of the morning to see him off +so kindly. Happily for the dreamer's peace of mind he had no means of +knowing that that very night, in the starlit garden by the sea, Tony +Holiday had taken upon herself the mad and sad and glad bondage of love. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE + + +Tony, getting off the train at Dunbury on Saturday, found her brothers +waiting for her with the car, and the kiddies on the back seat, "for +ballast" as Ted said. With one quick apprizing glance the girl took in +the two young men. + +Ted was brown and healthy looking, clear-eyed, steady-nerved, for once, +without the inevitable cigarette in his mouth. He was oddly improved +somehow, his sister thought, considering how short a time she had been +away from the Hill. She noticed also that he drove the car much less +recklessly than was his wont, took no chances on curves, slid by no +vehicles at hair-breadth space, speeded not at all, and though he kept +up a running fire of merry nonsense, had his eye on the road as he +drove. So far so good. That spill out on the Florence road wasn't all +loss, it seemed. + +Larry was more baffling. He was always quiet. He was quieter than ever +to-day. There was something in his gray eyes which spelled trouble, Tony +thought. What was it? Was he worried about a case? Was Granny worse? Was +Ted in some scrape? Something there certainly was on his mind. Tony was +sure of that, though she could not conjecture what. + +The Holidays had an almost uncanny way of understanding things about each +other, things which sometimes never rose to the surface at all. Perhaps +it was that they were so close together in sympathy that a kind of small +telepathic signal registered automatically when anything was wrong with +any of them. So far as her brothers were concerned Tony's intuition was +all but infallible. + +She found the family gift a shade disconcerting, a little later, when +after her uncle kissed her he held her off at arm's length and studied +her face. Tony's eyes fell beneath his questioning gaze. For almost the +first time in her life she had a secret to keep from him if she could. + +"What have they been doing to my little girl?" he asked. "They have taken +away her sunshininess." + +"Oh, no, they haven't," denied Tony quickly. "It is just that I am tired. +We have been on the go all the time and kept scandalously late hours. +I'll be all right as soon as I have caught up. I feel as if I could sleep +for a century and any prince who has the effrontery to wake me up will +fare badly." + +She laughed, but even in her own ears the laughter did not sound quite +natural and she was sure Uncle Phil thought the same, though he asked no +more questions. + +"It is like living in a palace being at Crest House," she went on. "I've +played princess to my heart's content--been waited on and fêted and +flirted with until I'm tired to death of it all and want to be just plain +Tony again." + +She slid into her uncle's arms with a weary little sigh. It was good--oh +so good--to have him again! She hadn't known she had missed him so until +she felt the comfort of his presence. In his arms Alan Massey and all he +stood for seemed very far away. + +"Got letters for you this morning," announced Ted. "I forgot to give them +to you." He fished the aforesaid letters out of his pocket and examined +them before handing them over. "One is from Dick--the other"--he held the +large square envelope off and squinted at it teasingly. "Some scrawl!" +he commented. "Reckless display of ink and flourishes, I call it. Who's +the party?" + +Tony snatched the letters, her face rosy. + +"Give me Dick's. I haven't heard from him but once since he went back to +New York and that was just a card. Oh-h! Listen everybody. The Universal +has accepted his story and wants him to do a whole series of them. Oh, +isn't that just wonderful?" + +Tony's old sparkles were back now. There were no reservations necessary +here. Everybody knew and loved Dick and would be glad as she was herself +in his success. + +"Hail to Dicky Dumas!" she added, gaily waving the letter aloft. "I +always knew he would get there. And that was the very story he read me. +Wasn't it lucky I liked it really? If I hadn't, and it had turned out to +be good, wouldn't it have been awful?" + +Everybody laughed at that and perhaps nobody but the doctor noticed that +the other letter in the unfamiliar handwriting was tucked away very +quickly out of sight in her bag and no comments made. + +It was not until Tony had gone the rounds of the household and greeted +everyone from Granny down to Max that she read Alan's letter, as she sat +curled up in the cretonned window seat, just as the little girl Tony had +been wont to sit and devour love stories. This was a love story, too--her +own and with a sadly complicated plot at that. + +It was the first letter she had had from Alan and she found it very +wonderful and exciting reading. It was brimming over, as might have been +expected, with passionate lover's protests and extravagant endearments +which Tony could not have imagined her Anglo-Saxon relatives or friends +even conceiving, let alone putting on paper. But Alan was different. +These things were no affectation with him, but natural as breathing, part +and parcel of his personality. She could hear him now say "_carissima_" +in that low, deep-cadenced, musical voice of his and the word seemed very +sweet and beautiful to her as it sang in her heart and she read it in the +dashing script upon the paper. + +He was desolated without her, he wrote. Nothing was worth while. Nothing +interested him. He was refusing all invitations, went nowhere. He just +sat alone in the studio and dreamed about her or made sketches of her +from memory. She was everywhere, all about him. She filled the studio +with her voice, her laughter, her wonderful eyes. But oh, he was so +lonely, so unutterably lonely without her. Must he really wait a whole +year before he made her his? A year was twelve long, long months. +Anything could happen in a year. One of them might die and the other +would go frustrate and lonely forever, like a sad wind in the night. + +Tony caught her breath quickly at that sentence. The poetry of it +captivated her fancy, the dread of what it conjured clutched like cold +hands at her heart. She wanted Alan now, wanted love now. Already those +dear folks downstairs were beginning to seem like ghosts, she and Alan +the only real people. What if he should die, what if something should +happen to keep them forever apart, how could she bear it? How could she? + +She turned back to her letter which had turned into an impassioned plea +that she would never forsake him, no matter what happened, never drive +him over the precipice like the Gadderene swine. + +"You and your love are the only thing that can save me, dear heart," he +wrote. "Remember that always. Without you I shall go down, down into +blacker pits than I ever sank before. With you I shall come out into the +light. I swear it. But oh, beloved, pray for me, if you know how to pray. +I don't. I never had a god." + +There were tears in Tony's eyes as she finished her lover's letter. +His unwonted humility touched her as no arrogance could ever have +done. His appeal to his desperate need moved her profoundly as such +appeals will always move woman. It is an old tale and one oft +repeated. Man crying out at a woman's feet, "Save me! Save me! Myself +I cannot save!" Woman, believing, because she longs to believe it, +that salvation lies in her power, taking on herself the all but +impossible mission for love's high sake. + +Tony Holiday believed, as all the million other women have believed since +time began, that she could save her lover, loved him tenfold the more +because he threw himself upon her mercy, came indeed perhaps to truly +love him for the first time now with a kind of consecrated fervor which +belonged all to the spirit even as the love that had come to her while +they danced had belonged rather to the flesh. + + * * * * * + +And day by day Jim Roberts grew sicker and the gnawing thing crept up +nearer to his heart. Day by day he gloated over the goading whips he +brandished over Alan Massey's head, amused himself with the various +developments it lay in his power to give to the situation as he passed +out of life. + +He wrote two letters from his sick bed. The first one was addressed to +Dick Carson, telling the full story of his own and Alan Massey's share in +the deliberate defraudment of that young man of his rightful name and +estate. It pleased him to read and reread this letter and to reflect that +when it was mailed Alan Massey would drink the full cup of disgrace and +exposure while he who was infinitely guiltier would be sleeping very +quietly in a cool grave where hate, nor vengeance, nor even pity could +touch him. + +The other letter, which like the first he kept unmailed, was a less +honest and less incriminating letter, filled with plausible half truths, +telling how he had just become aware at last through coming into +possession of some old letters of the identity of the boy he had once had +in his keeping and who had run away from him, an identity which he now +hastened to reveal in the interests of tardy justice. The letter made no +mention of Alan Massey nor of the unlovely bargain he had driven with +that young man as the price of silence and the bliss of ignorance. It was +addressed to the lawyers who handled the Massey estate. + +Roberts had followed up various trails and discovered that Antoinette +Holiday was the girl Massey loved, discovered through the bribing of a +Crest House servant, that the young man they called Carson was also +presumably in love with the girl whose family had befriended him so +generously in his need. It was incredibly good he thought. He could +hardly have thought out a more diabolically clever plot if he had tried. +He could make Alan Massey writhe trebly, knowing these things. + +Pursuing his malignant whim he wrote to Alan Massey and told him of the +existence of the two letters, as yet unmailed, in his table drawer. He +made it clear that one of the letters damned Alan Massey utterly while +the other only robbed him of his ill-gotten fortune, made it clear also +that he himself did not know which of the two would be mailed in the end, +possibly he would decide it by a flip of a coin. Massey could only wait +and see what happened. + +"I suppose you think the girl is worth going to Hell for, even if the +money isn't," he had written. "Maybe she is. Some women are, perhaps. But +don't forget that if she loves you, you will be dragging her down there +too. Pretty thought, isn't it? I don't mean any future-life business +either. That's rot. I heard enough of that when I was a boy to sicken me +of it forever. It is the here and now Hell a man pays for his sins with, +and that is God's truth, Alan Massey." + +And Alan, sitting in his luxurious studio reading the letter, crushed +it in his hands and groaned aloud. He needed no commentary on the "here +and now Hell" from Jim Roberts. He was living it those summer days if +ever a man did. + +It wasn't the money now. Alan told himself he no longer cared for that, +hated it in fact. It was Tony now, all Tony, and the horrible fear lest +Roberts betray him and shut the gates of Paradise upon him forever. +Sometimes in his agony of fear he could almost have been glad to end it +all with one shot of the silver-mounted automatic he kept always near, to +beat Jim Roberts to the bliss of oblivion in the easiest way. + +But Alan Massey had an incorrigible belief in his luck. Just as he had +hoped, until he had all but believed, that his cousin John was as dead as +he had told that very person he was, so now he hoped against all reason +that he would be saved at the eleventh hour, that Roberts would go to his +death carrying with him the secret that would destroy himself if it +ceased to be a secret. + +Those unmailed letters haunted him, however, day and night, so much so, +in fact, that he took a journey to Boston one day and sought out the +little cigar store again. But this time he had not mounted the stairs. +His business was with the black-eyed boy. With one fifty dollar bill he +bought the lad's promise to destroy the letters and the packet in +Robert's drawer in the event of the latter's death; secured also the +promise that if at any time before his death Roberts gave orders that +either letter should be mailed, the boy would send the same not to the +address on the envelope but to Alan Massey. If the boy kept faith with +his pledges there would be another fifty coming to him after the death of +the man. He bought the lad even as Roberts had once bought himself. It +was a sickening transaction but it relieved his mind considerably and +catered in a measure to that incorrigible hope within him. + +But he paid a price too. Fifty miles away from Boston was Tony Holiday on +her Heaven kissing hill. He was mad to go to her but dared not, lest this +fresh corruption in some way betray itself to her clear gaze. + +So he went back to New York without seeing her and Tony never knew he had +been so near. + +And that night Jim Roberts took an unexpected turn for the worse and +died, foiled of that last highly anticipated spice of malice in flipping +the coin that was to decide Alan Massey's fate. + +In the end the boy had not had the courage to destroy the letters as he +had promised to do. Instead he sent them both, together with the packet +of evidence as to John Massey's identity, to Alan Massey. + +The thing was in Alan's own hands at last. Nothing could save or destroy +him but himself. And by a paradox his salvation depended upon his being +strong enough to bring himself to ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED + + +At home on her Hill Tony Holiday settled down more or less happily after +her eventful sally into the great world. To the careless observer she was +quite the same Tony who went down the Hill a few weeks earlier. If at +times she was unusually quiet, had spells of sitting very still with +folded hands and far away dreams in her eyes, if she crept away by +herself to read the long letters that came so often, from many addresses +but always in the same bold, beautiful script and to pen long answers to +these; if she read more poetry than was her wont and sang love songs with +a new, exquisite, but rather heart breaking timbre in her lovely +contralto voice, no one paid much attention to these signs except +possibly Doctor Philip who saw most things. He perceived regretfully that +his little girl was slipping away from him, passing through some +experience that was by no means all joy or contentment and which was +making her grow up all too fast. But he said nothing, quietly bided the +hour of confidence which he felt sure would come sooner or later. + +Tony puzzled much over the complexities of life these days, puzzled over +other things beside her own perverse romance. Carlotta too was much on +her mind. She wished she could wave a magic wand and make things come +right for these two friends of hers who were evidently made for each +other as Hal had propounded. She wondered if Phil were as unhappy as +Carlotta was and meant to find out in her own time and way. + +She had seen almost nothing of him since her return to the Hill. He was +working very hard in the store and never appeared at any of the little +dances and picnics and teas with which the Dunbury younger set passed +away the summer days and nights, and which Ted and the twins and usually +Tony herself frequented. Larry never did. He hated things of that sort. +But Phil was different. He had always liked fun and parties and had +always been on hand and in great demand hitherto at every social function +from a Ladies' Aid strawberry festival to a grand Masonic ball. It wasn't +natural for Phil to shut himself out of things like that. It was a bad +sign Tony thought. + +At any rate she determined to find out for herself how the land lay if +she could. Having occasion to do some shopping she marched down the Hill +and presented herself at Stuart Lambert and Son's, demanding to be served +by no less a person than Philip himself. + +"I want a pair of black satin pumps with very frivolous heels," she +announced. "Produce them this instant, slave." She smiled at Phil and he +smiled back. He and Tony had always been the best of chums. + +"Cannzy ones?" he laughed. "That's what one of our customers calls them." + +And while he knelt before her with an array of shoe boxes around him, +fitting a dainty slipper on Tony's pretty foot, Tony herself looked not +at the slipper but at Philip, studying his face shrewdly. He looked +older, graver. There was less laughter in his blue eyes, a grimmer line +about his young mouth. Poor Phil! Evidently Carlotta wasn't the only one +who was paying the price of too much loving. Tony made up her mind to +rush in, though she knew it might be a case for angel hesitation. + +"I've never given you a message Hal Underwood sent you," she observed +irrelevantly. + +Philip looked up surprised. + +"Hal Underwood! What message did he send me? I hardly know him." + +"He seemed to know you rather well. He told me to tell you to come down +and marry Carlotta, that you were the only man that could keep her in +order. That is too big, Phil. Try a smaller one." The speaker kicked off +the offending slipper. Philip mechanically picked it up and replaced it +in the box. + +"That is rather a queer message," he commented. "I had an idea Underwood +wanted to marry Carlotta himself. Try this." He reached for another pump. +His eyes were lowered so Tony could not see them. She wished she could. + +"He does," she said. "She won't have him." + +"Is--is there--anybody she is likely to have?" The words jerked out as +the young man groped for the shoe horn which was almost beside his hand +but which apparently he did not see at all. + +"I am afraid she is likely to take Herbert Lathrop unless somebody +stops her by main force. Why don't you play Lochinvar yourself, Phil? +You could." + +Philip looked straight up at Tony then, the slipper forgotten in his +hand. + +"Tony, do you mean that?" he asked. + +"I certainly do. Make her marry you, Phil. It is the only way with +Carlotta." + +"I don't want to _make_ any girl marry me," he said. + +"Oh, hang your silly pride, Phil Lambert! Carlotta wants to marry you I +tell you though she would murder me if she knew I did tell you." + +"Maybe she does. But she doesn't want to live in Dunbury. I've good +reason to know that. We thrashed it out rather thoroughly on the top of +Mount Tom last June. She hasn't changed her mind." + +Tony sighed. She was afraid Phil was right. Carlotta hadn't changed her +mind. Was it because she was afraid she might, that she was determining +to marry Herbert? + +"And you can't leave Dunbury?" she asked soberly. + +Just at that moment Stuart Lambert approached, a tall fine looking man, +with the same blue eyes and fresh coloring as his son and brown hair only +slightly graying around the temples. He had an air of vigor and ageless +youth. Indeed a stranger might easily have taken the two men for brothers +instead of father and son. + +"Hello, Tony, my dear," he greeted cordially. "It is good to see you +round again. We have missed you. This boy of mine getting you what +you want?" + +"He is trying," smiled Tony. "A woman doesn't always know what she wants, +Mr. Lambert. The store is wonderful since it was enlarged and I see lots +of other improvements too." Her eyes swept her surroundings with sincere +appreciation. + +"Make your bow to Phil for all that. It is good to get fresh brains into +a business. We old fogies need jerking out of our ruts." + +The older man's eyes fell upon Phil's bowed head and Tony realized how +much it meant to him to have his son with him at last, pulling shoulder +to shoulder. + +"New brains nothing!" protested Phil. "Dad's got me skinned going and +coming for progressiveness. As for old fogies he's the youngest man I +know. Make all your bows to him, Tony. It is where they belong." And Phil +got to his feet and himself made a solemn obeisance in Stuart Lambert's +direction. + +Mr. Lambert chuckled. + +"Phil was always a blarney," he said. "Don't know where he got it. +Don't you believe a word he says, my dear." But Tony saw he was +immensely pleased with Phil's tribute for all that. "How do you like +the sign?" he asked. + +"Fine. Looks good to me and I know it does to you, Mr. Lambert." + +"Well, rather." The speaker rested his hand on Phil's shoulder a moment. +"I tell you it _is_ good, young lady, to have the son part added, worth +waiting for. I'm mighty proud of that sign. Between you and me, Miss +Tony, I'm proud of my son too." + +"Who is blarneying now?" laughed Phil. "Go on with you, Dad. You are +spoiling my sale." + +The father chuckled again and moved away. Phil looked down at the girl. + +"I think your question is answered. I can't leave Dunbury," he said. + +"Then Carlotta ought to come to you." + +"There are no oughts in Carlotta's bright lexicon. I don't blame her, +Tony. Dunbury is a dead hole from most points of view. I am afraid she +wouldn't be happy here. You wouldn't be yourself forever. Bet you are +planning to get away right now." + +Tony nodded ruefully. + +"I suppose I am, Phil. The modern young woman isn't much to pin one's +faith to I am afraid. Do I get another slipper? Or is one enough?" + +Phil came back from his mental aberration with a start and a grin at his +own expense. + +"I am afraid I am not a very good salesman today," he apologized. +"Honestly I do better usually but you hit me in a vulnerable spot." + +"You do care for Carlotta then?" probed Tony. + +"Care! I'm crazy over her. I'd go on my hands and knees to Crest House if +I thought I could get her to marry me by doing it." + +"You would much better go by train--the next one. That's my advice. Are +you coming to Sue Emerson's dance? That is why I am buying slippers. You +can dance with 'em if you'll come." + +"Sorry. I don't go to dances any more." + +"That is nonsense, Phil. It is the worst thing in the world for you to +make a hermit of yourself. No girl's worth it. Besides there are other +girls besides Carlotta." + +Phil shook his head as he finished replacing Tony's trim brown oxfords. + +"Unfortunately that isn't true for me," he said rising. "At present my +world consists of myself bounded, north, south, east and west by +Carlotta." + +And Tony passing out under the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON a few +minutes later sighed a little. Here was Carlotta with a real man for the +taking and too stubborn and foolish to put out her hand and here was +herself, Tony Holiday, tying herself all up in a strange snarl for the +sake of somebody who wasn't a man at all as Holiday Hill standards ran. +What queer creatures women were! + +Other people besides Tony were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a +hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the +subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy +Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he +announced that he wasn't going to attend the function. + +"I'm the authentic T.B.M.," he parried from his perch on the porch +railing. "I've cut out dancing." + +"More idiot you!" retorted Charley promptly. "Mums, do tell Phil it is +all nonsense making such an oyster in a shell of himself." + +Mrs. Lambert smiled and looked up at her tall young son, looked rather +hard for a moment. + +"I think the twins are right, Phil," she said. "You are working too hard. +You don't allow yourself any relaxation." + +"Oh, yes I do. Only my idea of relaxation doesn't happen to coincide with +the twins. Dancing in this sort of weather with your collar slumping and +the perspiration rolling in tidal waves down your manly brow doesn't +strike me as being a particularly desirable diversion." + +"H-mp!" sniffed Charley. "You didn't object to dancing last summer when +it was twice as hot. You went to a dance almost every night when Carlotta +was visiting Tony. You know you did." + +"I wasn't a member of the esteemed firm of Stuart Lambert and Son last +summer. A lily of the field can afford to dance all night. I'm a working +man I'd have you know." + +"Well, I think you might come just this once to please us," joined in +Clare, the other twin. "You are a gorgeous dancer, Phil. I'd rather have +a one step with you than any man I know." Clare always beguiled where +Charley bullied, a method much more successful in the long run as Charley +sometimes grudgingly admitted after the fact. + +Phil smiled now at pretty Clare and promised to think about it and the +twins flew off across the street to visit with Tony and Ruth whom the +whole Hill adored. + +"Phil dear, aren't you happy?" asked Mrs. Lambert. "Have we asked too +much of you expecting you to settle down at home with us?" + +"Why yes, Mums. I'm all right." Phil left his post on the rail and +dropped into a chair beside his mother. Perhaps he did it purposely lest +she see too much. "Don't get notions in your head. I like living in +Dunbury. I wouldn't live in a city for anything and I like being with Dad +not to mention the rest of you." + +Mrs. Lambert shifted her position also. She wanted to see her son's face; +just as much as he didn't want her to see it. + +"Possibly that is all so but you aren't happy for all that. You can't +fool mother eyes, my dear." + +Phil looked straight at her then with a little rueful smile. + +"I reckon I can't," he admitted. "Very well then. I am not entirely happy +but it is nobody's fault and nothing anybody can help." + +"Philip, is it a girl?" + +How they dread the _girl_ in their sons' lives--these mothers! The very +possibility of her in the abstract brings a shadow across the path. + +"Yes, Mums, it is a girl." + +Mrs. Lambert rose and went over to where her son sat, running her fingers +through his hair as she had been wont to do when the little boy Phil was +in trouble of any sort. + +"I am very sorry, dear boy," she said. "It won't help to talk about it?" + +"I am afraid not. Don't worry, Mums. It is just--well, it hurts a little +just now that's all." + +She kissed his forehead and went back to her chair. It hurt her to +know her boy was being hurt, hurt her almost as much to know she could +not help him, she must just let him close the door on his grief and +bear it alone. + +Yet she respected his reserve and loved him the better for it. Phil was +like that always. He never cried out when he was hurt. She remembered how +long ago the little boy Phil had come to her with a small finger just +released from a slamming door that had crushed it unmercifully, the +tears streaming down his cheeks but uttering no sound. She recalled +another incident of years later, when the coach had been obliged to put +some one else in Phil's place on the team the last minute because his +sprained ankle had been bothering. She and Stuart had come on for the +game. It had been a bitter disappointment to them all. To the boy it had +been little short of a tragedy. But he had smiled bravely at her in spite +of the trouble in his blue eyes. "Don't mind, Mums. It is all right," he +had said steadily. "We've got to win. We can't risk my darned ankle's +flopping. It's the bleachers for me. The game's the thing." + +The game had always been the thing for Phil. Even in his blundering, +willful boyhood he had played hard and played fair and taken defeat like +a man when things had gone against him. + +There was a moment's silence. Then Mrs. Lambert spoke again. + +"Phil, I wish you would go to the dance with the girls. It will please +them and be good for you. You can't shut yourself away from everything +the way you are doing, if you are going to make Dunbury your home. Your +father never has. He has always given himself freely to it, worked with +it, played with it, made it a real part of himself. You mustn't start out +by building a wall around yourself." + +"Am I doing that, Mums?" Phil's voice was sober. + +"I am afraid you are, Phil. It troubles your father. He was so +disappointed when you wouldn't serve on the library committee. They were +disappointed too. They didn't expect it of your father's son." + +"I--I wasn't interested." + +"No, you weren't interested. That was the trouble. You ought to have +been. You have had your college training, the world of books has been +thrown wide open for you. You come back here and aren't interested in +seeing that others less fortunate get the right kind of books into their +hands and heads. I don't want to preach, dear. But education isn't only a +privilege. It is a responsibility." + +"Maybe you are right, Mums. I didn't think of it that way. I just +didn't want to bother. I was--well, I was thinking too much about +myself I suppose." + +"Youth is apt to. There were other things too. When they asked you to +take charge of the Fourth of July pageant, to dig up Dunbury's past +history and make it live for us again, your father and I both thought you +would enjoy it. He was tremendously excited about it, full of ideas to +help. But the project fell through because nobody would undertake the +leadership. You were too busy. Every one was too busy." + +"But, Mums, I was busy," Phil defended himself. "It is no end of a job to +put things like that through properly." + +"Most things worth doing are no end of a job. Your father would have +taken it with all the rest he has on his hands and made a success of it. +But he was hurt by your high handed refusal to have anything to do with +it and he let it go, though you know having Fourth of July community +celebrations is one of his dearest hobbies--always has been since he used +to fight so hard to get rid of the old, wretched noise, law breaking and +rowdyism kind of village celebration you and the other young Dunbury +vandals delighted in." + +Phil flushed at that. The point went home. He remembered vividly his +boyish self tearing reluctantly from Doctor Holiday's fireworks impelled +by an unbearably guilty conscience to confess to Stuart Lambert that his +own son had been a transgressor against the law. Boy as he was, he had +gotten out of the interview with his father that night a glimpse into the +ideal citizenship which Stuart Lambert preached and lived and worked for. +He had understood a little then. He understood better now having stood +beside his father man to man. + +"I am sorry, Mums. I would have done the thing if I'd known Dad wanted me +to. Why didn't he say so?" + +Mrs. Lambert smiled. + +"Dad doesn't say much about what he wants. You will have to learn to keep +your eyes open and find out for yourself. I did." + +"Any more black marks on my score? I may as well eat the whole darned +pie at once." Phil's smile was humorous but his eyes were troubled. It +was a bit hard when you had been thinking you had played your part +fairly creditably to discover you had been fumbling your cues wretchedly +all along. + +"Only one other thing. We were both immensely disappointed when you +wouldn't take the scout-mastership they offered you. Father believes +tremendously in the movement. He thinks it is going to be the making of +the next generation of men. He would have liked you to be a Scoutmaster +and when you wouldn't he went on the Scout Troop Committee himself though +he really could not spare the time." + +"I see," said Phil. "I guess I've been pretty blind. Funny part of it is +I really wanted to take the Scoutmaster job but I thought Dad would think +it took too much of my time. Anything more?" he asked. + +"Not a thing. Haven't you had quite enough of a lecture for once?" his +mother smiled back. + +"I reckon I needed it. Thank you, Mums. I'll turn over a new leaf if it +isn't too late. I'll go to the dance and I'll ask them if there is still +a place for me on the library committee and I'll start a troop of Scouts +myself--another bunch I've had my eyes on for some time." + +"That will please Dad very much. It pleases me too. Boys are very dear to +my heart. I wonder if you can guess why, Philip, my son?" + +"I wish I'd been a better son, Mums. Some chaps never seem to cause +their-mothers any worry or heart ache. I wasn't that kind. I am afraid I +am not even yet." + +"No son is, dear, unless there is something wrong with him or the mother. +Mothering means heart ache and worries, plus joy and pride and the joy +and pride more than makes up for the rest. It has for me a hundred times +over even when I had a rather bad little boy on my hands and now I have a +man--a man I am glad and proud to call my son." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A WEDDING RING IT WAS HARD TO REMEMBER + + +It was a grilling hot August afternoon. The young Holidays were keeping +cool as best they could out in the yard. Ruth lay in the canopied hammock +against a background of a hedge of sweet peas, pink and white and +lavender, looking rather like a dainty, frail little flower herself. Tony +in cool white was seated on a scarlet Navajo blanket, leaning against the +apple tree. Around her was a litter of magazines and an open box of +bonbons. Ted was stretched at his ease on the grass, gazing skyward, a +cigarette in his lips, enjoying well-earned rest after toil. Larry +occupied the green garden bench in the lee, of the hammock. He was +unsolaced either by candy or smoke and looked tired and not particularly +happy. There were dark shadows under his gray eyes which betrayed that he +was not getting the quota of sleep that healthy youth demands. His eyes +were downcast now, apparently absorbed in contemplation of a belated +dandelion at his feet. + +"Ruth, why don't you come down to the dance with us tonight?" demanded +Tony suddenly dropping her magazine. "You are well enough now and I +know you would enjoy it. It is lovely down on the island where the +pavilion is--all quiet and pine-woodsy. You needn't dance if you don't +want to. You could just lie in the hammock and listen to the music and +the water. We'd come and talk to you between dances so you wouldn't be +lonesome. Do come." + +"Oh, I couldn't." Ruth's voice was dismayed, her blue eyes filled with +alarm at the suggestion. + +"Why couldn't you?" persisted Tony. "You aren't going to just hide away +forever are you? It is awfully foolish, isn't it, Larry?" she appealed to +her brother. + +He did not answer, but he did transfer his gaze from the dandelion to +Ruth as if he were considering his sister's proposition. + +"Sure, it's foolish," Ted replied for him, sitting up. "Come on down and +dance the first foxtrot with me, sweetness. You'll like it. Honest you +will, when you get started." + +"Oh, I couldn't" reiterated Ruth. + +"That is nonsense. Of course, you could," objected Tony. "It is just your +notion, Ruthie. You have kept away from people so long you are scared. +But you would get over that in a minute and truly it would be lots better +for you. Tell her it would, Larry. She is your patient." + +"I don't know whether it would or not," returned Larry in his deliberate +way, which occasionally exasperated the swift-minded, impulsive Tony. + +"Then you are a rotten doctor," she flung back. "I know better than that +myself and Uncle Phil agrees with me. I asked him." + +"Ruth's my patient, as you reminded me a moment ago. She isn't Uncle +Phil's." There was an unusual touchiness in the young doctor's voice. He +was not professionally aggressive as a rule. + +"Well, I wouldn't be a know-it-all, if she is," snapped Tony. "Maybe +Uncle Phil knows a thing or two more than you do yet. And anyway you are +only a man and I am a girl and I know that girls need people and fun and +dancing. It isn't good for anybody to hide away by herself. I believe you +are keeping Ruth away from everybody on purpose." + +The hot weather and other things were setting Tony's nerves a bit on +edge. She felt slightly belligerent and not precisely averse to +picking a quarrel with her aggravatingly quiet brother, if he gave her +half an opening. + +Larry flushed and scowled at that and ordered her sharply not to talk +nonsense. Whereupon Ted intervened. + +"I'm all on your side, Tony. Of course it is bad for Ruth not to see +anybody but us. Any fool would know that. Dancing may be the very thing +for her anyhow. You can't tell till you try. Maybe when you are +foxtrotting with me, goldilocks, you'll remember how it seemed to have +some other chap's arm around you. It might be like laying a fuse." + +"I'm glad you all know so much about my business," said Larry testily. +"You make me tired, both of you." + +"Oh," begged Ruth, her blue eyes full of trouble. "Please, please, don't +quarrel about me." + +"I beg your pardon," apologized Larry. "See here, would you be willing to +try it, just as an experiment? Would you go down there for a little while +tonight with us?" + +The blue eyes met the gray ones. + +"If you--wanted me to," faltered the blue-eyes. + +"Would you mind it very much?" Larry leaned forward. His voice was low, +solicitous. Tony, listening, resented it a little. She didn't see why +Larry had to keep his good manners for somebody outside the family. He +might have spoken a little more politely to herself, she thought. She had +only been trying to be nice to Ruth. + +"Not--if you would take care of me and not let people talk to me too +much," Ruth answered the solicitous tone. + +"I will," promised Larry. "You needn't talk to a soul if you don't +want to. I'll ward 'em off. And you can dance if you want to--one +dance anyway." + +"With me," announced Ted complacently from the grass. "My bid was in +first. Don't you forget, Miss Peaseblossom." Ted had a multitude of pet +names for Ruth. They slipped off his tongue easily, as water falling +over a cliff. + +"No, with me," said his brother shortly. + +"Gee, I wish I were a doctor! It gives you a hideous advantage." + +"But I haven't anything to wear," exclaimed Ruth, coming next to the +really sole and only supreme woman question. + +"We'll fix that easy as easy," said Tony, amicable again now. "I've a +darling blue organdy that will look sweet on you--just the color of your +eyes. Don't you worry a minute, honey. Your fairy godmother will see to +all that. All I ask is that you won't let that old ogre of an M.D. change +his mind and say you can't go. It isn't good for Larry to obey him so +meekly. He is getting to be a regular tyrant." + +A moment later Doctor Holiday joined the group, dropped on the bench +beside Larry and was informed by Tony that Ruth was to go on an adventure +down the Hill; to Sue Emerson's dance in fact. + +"Isn't that great?" she demanded. + +"Superb," he teased. Then he smiled approval at Ruth. "Good idea, Larry," +he added to his nephew. "Glad you thought of it." + +"I didn't think of it. Tony did. You really approve?" The gray eyes were +a little anxious. Larry was by no means a know-it-all doctor, as his +sister accused him. He had too little rather than too much confidence in +his own judgment in fact. + +"I certainly do. Go to it, little lady. May be the best medicine in the +world for you." + +"Now you are talking," exulted Ted. "That's what Tony and I said +and Larry wanted to execute us on the spot for daring to have an +opinion at all." + +"Scare you much to think of it?" Doctor Holiday asked Ruth, prudently +ignoring this last sally. + +"A good deal," sighed Ruth. "But I'll try not to be too much scared if +Larry will go too and not let people ask questions." + +The young doctor had long since become Larry to Ruth. It was too +confusing talking about two Doctor Holidays. Everybody in Dunbury said +Larry or Doctor Larry or at most, respectfully, Doctor Laurence. + +"I'll let nobody talk to you but myself," said Larry. + +"There you are!" flashed Tony. "You might just as well keep her penned up +here in the yard. You want to keep her all to yourself." + +She didn't mean anything in particular, only to be a little disagreeable, +to pay Larry back for being so snappy. But to her amazement Ruth was +suddenly blushing a lovely but startling blush and Larry was bending over +to examine the hammock-hook in obvious confusion. + +"Good gracious!" she thought in consternation. "Is that what's up? It +can't be. I'm just imagining it. Larry wouldn't fall in love with any one +who wore a wedding ring. He mustn't." + +But she knew in her heart that whether Larry must or must not he had. A +thousand signs betrayed the truth now that her eyes were open. Poor +Larry! No wonder he was cross and unlike himself. And Ruth was so +sweet--just the girl for him. And poor Uncle Phil! She herself was +hurting him dreadfully keeping her secret about Alan and nobody knew what +Ted had up his sleeve under his cloak of incredible virtue. And now here +was Larry with a worse complication still. Oh dear! Would the three of +them ever stop getting into scrapes as long as they lived? It was bad +enough when they were children. It was infinitely worse now they were +grown up and the scrapes were so horribly serious. + +"I suppose you can't tear yourself away from your studies to attend a +mere dance?" Doctor Holiday was asking of his younger nephew with a +twinkle in his eyes when Tony recovered enough to listen again. + +Ted sent his cigarette stub careening off into the shrubbery and grinned +back at his uncle, a grin half merry, half defiant. + +"Like fun, I can't!" he ejaculated. "I'm a union man, I am. I've done my +stunt for the day. If anybody thinks I'm going to stick my nose in +between the covers of a book before nine A.M. tomorrow he has a whole +orchard of brand new little thinks growing up to stub his toes on, +that's all." + +"So the student life doesn't improve with intimate acquaintance?" The +doctor's voice was still teasing, but there was more than teasing behind +his questions. He was really interested in his nephew's psychology. + +"Not a da--ahem--darling bit. If I had my way every book in existence +would be placed on a huge funeral pyre and conflagrated instantly. +Moreover, it would be a criminal offence punishable by the death sentence +for any person to bring another of the infernal nuisances into the world. +That is my private opinion publicly expressed." So saying Ted picked +himself up from the grass and sauntered off toward the house. + +His uncle chuckled. He was sorry the boy did not take more cordially to +books, since it looked as if there were a good two years of them ahead at +the least. But he liked the honesty that would not pretend to anything +it did not feel, and he liked even better the spirit that had kept the +lad true to his pledge of honest work without a squirm or grumble through +all these weeks of grilling summer weather when sustained effort of any +sort, particularly mental effort, was undoubtedly a weariness and +abomination to flesh and soul, to his restless, volatile, ease-addicted, +liberty loving young ward. The boy had certainly shown more grit and +grace than he had credited him with possessing. + +The village clock struck six. Tony sprang up from her blanket and began +to gather up her possessions. + +"I never get over a scared, going-to-be-scolded feeling running down my +spine when the clock strikes and I'm not ready for supper," she said. +"Poor dear Granny! She certainly worked hard trying to make truly proper +persons out of us wild Arabs. It isn't her fault if she didn't succeed, +is it Larry?" She smiled at her brother--a smile that meant in Tony +language "I am sorry I was cross. Let's make up." + +He smiled back in the same spirit. He rose taking the rug and magazines +from his sister's hand and walked with her toward the house. + +Ruth sat up in her hammock and smoothed her disarrayed blonde hair. + +"I am glad you are going down the Hill," said the doctor to her. "It is a +fine idea, little lady. Do you lots of good." + +"Doctor Holiday, I think I ought to go away," announced Ruth suddenly. "I +am perfectly well now, and there is no reason why I should stay." + +"Tired of us?" + +"Oh no! I could never be that. I love it here and love all of you. But +after all I am only a stranger." + +"Not to us, Ruthie. Listen. I would like to explain how I feel about +this, not from your point of view but from ours." + +Tony would be going away soon. They needed a home daughter very much, +needed Ruth particularly as she had such a wonderful way with the +children, who adored her, and because Granny loved her so well, though +she did not love many people who were not Holidays. And he and Larry +needed her good fairy ministrations. They had not been unmindful, though +perhaps manlike they had not expressed their appreciation of the way +fresh flowers found their way to the offices daily, and they were kept +from being snowed under by the newspapers of yester week. In short Doctor +Holiday made it very clear that, if Ruth cared to stay she was wanted and +needed very much in the House on the Hill. And Ruth touched and grateful +and happy promised to remain. + +"If you think it is all right--" she added with rather sudden blush, "for +me to stay when I am married or not married and don't know which." + +Whereupon Doctor Holiday, who happened not to observe the blush, remarked +that he couldn't see what that had to do with it. Anyway she seemed like +such a child to them that they hardly remembered the wedding ring at all. + +Ruth blushed again at that and wished she dared confess that she was +afraid the wedding ring had a good deal to do with the situation in the +eyes of one Holiday at least. But she could not bring herself to speak +the fatal word which might banish her from the dear Hill and from Larry, +who had come to be even dearer. + +A dozen times, while she was dressing for the dance later, Ruth felt like +crying out to Tony in the next room that she could not go, that she dared +not face strangers, that it was too hard. But she set her lips firmly +and did nothing of the sort. Larry wanted her to do it. She wouldn't +disappoint him if it killed her. + +Oh dear! Why did she always have to do everything as a case, never just +as a girl. She couldn't even be natural as a girl. She had to be maybe +married. She hated the ring which seemed to her a symbol of bondage to a +past that was dead and yet still clutched her with cold hands. She had a +childish impulse to fling the ring out of the window where she could +never--never see it again. If it wasn't for the ring-- + +She interrupted her own thoughts, blushing hotly again. She knew she had +meant to go on, "If it were not for the ring she could marry Larry +Holiday." She mustn't think about that. She must not forget the ring, nor +let Larry forget it. She must not let him love her. It was a terrible +thing she was doing. He was unhappy--dreadfully unhappy and it was all +her fault. And by and by they would all see it. Tony had seen it today, +she was almost sure. And Doctor Holiday would see it. He saw so much it +was a wonder he had not seen it long before this. They would hate her for +hurting Larry and spoiling his life. She could not bear to have them hate +her when she loved them so and they had been so kind and good to her. She +must go away. She must. Maybe Larry would forget her if she wasn't always +there right under his eyes. + +But how could she go? Doctor Philip would think it queer and ungrateful +of her after she had promised to stay. How could she desert him and the +children and dear Granny? And if she went what could she do? What use was +she anyway but to be a trouble and a burden to everybody? It would have +been better, much better, if Larry had left her to die in the wreck. + +Why didn't Geoffrey Annersley come and get her, if there was a Geoffrey +Annersley? She knew she would hate him, but she wished he would come for +all that. Anything was better than making Larry suffer, making all the +Holidays suffer through him. Oh why hadn't she died, why hadn't she? + +But in her heart Ruth knew she did not want to die. She wanted to live. +She wanted life and love and happiness and Larry Holiday. + +And then Tony stood on the threshold, smiling friendly encouragement. + +"Ready, hon? Oh, you look sweet! That blue is lovely for you. It never +suited me at all. Blue is angel color and I have too much--well, of the +other thing in my composition to wear it. Come on. The boys have been +whistling impatience for half an hour and I don't want to scare Larry out +of going. It is the first function he has condescended to attend in a +blue moon." + +On the porch Ted and Larry waited, two tall, sturdy, well-groomed, +fine-looking youths, bearing the indefinable stamp of good birth and +breeding, the inheritance of a long line of clean strong men and gentle +women--the kind of thing not forged in one generation but in many. + +They both rose as the girls appeared. Larry crossed over to Ruth. His +quick gaze took in her nervousness and trouble of mind. + +"Are you all right, Ruth? You mustn't let us bully you into going if you +really don't want to." + +"No, I am all right. I do want to--with you," she added softly. + +"We'll all go over in the launch," announced Ted, but Larry interposed +the fact that he and Ruth were going in the canoe. Ruth would get too +tired if she got into a crowd. + +"More professional graft," complained Ted. He was only joking but Tony +with her sharpened sight knew that it was thin ice for Larry and +suspected he had non-professional reasons for wanting Ruth alone in the +canoe with him that night. Poor Larry! It was all a horrible tangle, just +as her affair with Alan was. + +It was a night made for lovers, still and starry. Soft little breezes +came tiptoeing along the water from fragrant nooks ashore and stopped +in their course to kiss Ruth's face as she lay content and lovely among +the scarlet cushions, reading the eloquent message of Larry Holiday's +gray eyes. + +They did not talk much. They were both a little afraid of words. They +felt as if they could go on riding in perfect safety along the edge of +the precipice so long as neither looked over or admitted out loud that +there was a precipice. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE + + +The dance was well in progress when Larry and Ruth arrived. The latter +was greeted cordially and not too impressively by gay little Sue Emerson, +their hostess, and her friends. Ruth was ensconced comfortably in a big +chair where she could watch the dancers and talk as much or little as she +pleased. Everybody was so pleasant and natural and uncurious that she did +not feel frightened or strange at all, and really enjoyed the little +court she held between dances. Pretty girls and pleasant lads came to +talk with her, the latter besieging her with invitations to dance which +she refused so sweetly that they found the little Goldilocks more +charming than ever for her very denial. + +They rallied Larry however on his rigorous dragonship and finally Ruth +herself dismissed him to dance with his hostess as a proper guest should. +She never meant he must stick to her every moment anyway. That was +absurd. He rose to obey reluctantly; but paused to ask if she wouldn't +dance with him just once. No, she couldn't--didn't even know whether she +could. He mustn't try to make her. And seeing she was in earnest, Larry +left her. But Ted came skating down the floor to her and he begged for +just one dance. + +"Oh, I couldn't, Ted, truly I couldn't," she denied. + +But obeying a sudden impulse Ted had swooped down upon her, picked her up +and before she really knew what was happening she had slid into step +with him and was whirling off down the floor in his arms. + +"Didn't I tell you, sweetness?" he exulted. "Of course you can dance. +What fairy can't? Tired?" He bent over to ask with the instinctive +gentleness that was in all Holiday men. + +Ruth shook her head. She was exhilarated, excited, tense, happy. She +could dance--she could. It was as easy and natural as breathing. She did +not want to stop. She wanted to go on and on. Then suddenly something +snapped. They came opposite Sue and Larry. The former called a gay +greeting and approval. Larry said nothing. His face was dead white, his +gray eyes black with anger. Both Ted and Ruth saw and understood and the +lilt went out of the dance for both of them. + +"Oh Lord!" groaned Ted. "Now I've done it. I'm sorry, Ruth. I didn't +suppose the old man would care. Don't see why he should it you are +willing. Come on, just one more round before the music stops and we're +both beheaded." + +But Ruth shook her head. There was no more joy for her after that one +glimpse of Larry's face. + +"Take me to a seat, Ted, please. I'm tired." + +He obeyed and she sank down in the chair, white and trembling, utterly +exhausted. She was hurt and aching through and through. How could she? +How could she have done that to Larry when he loved her so? How could she +have let Ted make her dance with him when she had refused to dance with +Larry? No wonder he was angry. It was terrible--cruel. + +But he mustn't make a scene with Ted. He mustn't. She cast an +apprehensive glance around the room. Larry was invisible. A forlornness +came over her, a despair such as she had never experienced even in that +dreadful time after the wreck when she realized she had forgotten +everything. She felt as if she were sinking down, down in a fearful +black sea and that there was no help for her anywhere. Larry had deserted +her. Would he never come back? + +In a minute Tony and the others were beside her, full of sympathetic +questions. How had it seemed to dance again? Wasn't it great to find she +could still do it? How had she dared to do it while Larry was off guard? +Why wouldn't she, couldn't she dance with this one or that one if she +could dance with Ted Holiday? But they were quick to see she was really +tired and troubled and soon left her alone to Tony's ministrations. + +"Ruth, what is the trouble? Where is Larry? And Ted is gone, too. What +happened?" Tony's voice was anxious. She hadn't seen Larry's face, but +she knew Larry and could guess at the rest. + +"Ted made me dance with him. I didn't mean to. But when we got started I +couldn't bear to stop, it was so wonderful to do it and to find I could. +I--am afraid Larry didn't like it." + +"I presume he didn't," said Larry's sister drily. "Let him be angry if he +wants to be such a silly. It was quite all right, Ruthie. Ted has just as +much right to dance with you as Larry has." + +"I am afraid Larry doesn't think so and I don't think so either." + +Tony squeezed the other girl's hand. + +"Never mind, honey. You mustn't take it like that. You are all of a +tremble. Larry has a fearful temper, but he will hang on to it for your +sake if for no other reason. He won't really quarrel with Ted. He never +does any more. And he won't say a word to you." + +"I'd rather he would," sighed Ruth. "You are all so good to me and I--am +making a dreadful lot of trouble for you all the time, though I don't +mean to and I love you so." + +"It isn't your fault, Ruthie, not a single speck of it. Oh, yes. I mean +just what you mean. Not simply Larry's being so foolish as to lose his +temper about this little thing, but the whole big thing of your caring +for each other. It is all hard and mixed up and troublesome; but you are +not to blame, and Larry isn't to blame, and it will all come out right +somehow. It has to." + +As soon as Ted had assured himself that Ruth was all right in his +sister's charge he had looked about for Larry. Sue was perched on a table +eating marshmallows she had purloined from somewhere with Phil Lambert +beside her, but there was no Larry to be seen. + +Ted stepped outside the pavilion. He was honestly sorry his brother was +hurt and angry. He realized too late that maybe he hadn't behaved quite +fairly or wisely in capturing Ruth like that, though he hadn't meant any +harm, and had had not the faintest idea Larry would really care, care +enough to be angry as Ted had not seen him for many a long day. Larry's +temper had once been one of the most active of the family skeletons. It +had not risen easily, but when it did woe betide whatever or whomever it +met in collision. By comparison with Larry's rare outbursts of rage +Tony's frequent ebullitions were as summer zephyrs to whirlwinds. + +But that was long past history. Larry had worked manfully to conquer his +familiar demon and had so far succeeded that sunny Ted had all but +forgotten the demon ever existed. But he remembered now, had remembered +with consternation when he saw the black passion in the other's face as +they met on the floor of the dance hall. + +Puzzled and anxious he stared down the slope toward the water. Larry was +just stepping into the canoe. Was he going home, leaving Ruth to the +mercies of the rest of them, or was he just going off temporarily by +himself to fight his temper to a finish as he had been accustomed to do +long ago when he had learned to be afraid and ashamed of giving into it? +Ted hesitated a moment, debating whether to call him back and get the row +over, if row there was to be, or to let him get away by himself as he +probably desired. + +"Hang it! It's my fault. I can't let him go off like that. It just about +kills him to take it out of himself that way. I'd rather he'd take it +out of me." + +With which conclusion Ted shot down the bank whistling softly the old +Holiday Hill call, the one Dick had used that day on the campus to summon +himself to the news that maybe Larry was killed. + +Larry did not turn. Ted reached the shore with one stride. + +"Larry," he called. "I say, Larry." + +No answer. The older lad picked up the paddle, prepared grimly to push +off, deaf, to all intents and purposes to the appeal in the younger +one's voice. + +But Ted Holiday was not an easily daunted person. With one flying leap +he landed in the canoe, all but upsetting the craft in his sudden +descent upon it. + +The two youths faced each other. Larry was still white, and his sombre +eyes blazed with half subdued fires. He looked anything but hospitable to +advances, however well meant. + +"Better quit," he advised slowly in a queer, quiet voice which Ted knew +was quiet only because Larry was making it so by a mighty effort of +will. "I'm not responsible just now. We'll both be sorry if you don't +leave me alone." + +"I won't quit, Larry. I can't. It was my fault. Confound it, old man! +Please listen. I didn't mean to make you mad. Come ashore and punch my +fool head if it will make you feel any better." + +Still Larry said nothing, just sat hunched in a heap, running his +fingers over the handle of the paddle. He no longer even looked at Ted. +His mouth was set at its stubbornest. + +Ted rushed on, desperately in earnest, entirely sincere in his +willingness to undergo any punishment, himself, to help Larry. + +"Honest, I didn't mean to make trouble," he pleaded. "I just picked her +up and made her dance on impulse, though she told me she wouldn't and +couldn't. I never thought for a minute you would care. Maybe it was a +mean trick. I can see it might have looked so, but I didn't intend it +that way. Gee, Larry! Say something. Don't swallow it all like that. Get +it out of your system. I'd rather you'd give me a dozen black eyes than +sit still and feel like the devil." + +Larry looked up then. His face relaxed its sternness a little. Even the +hottest blaze of wrath could not burn quite so fiercely when exposed to a +generous penitence like his young brother's. He understood Ted was +working hard not only to make peace but to spare himself the sharp battle +with the demon which, as none knew better that Larry Holiday, did, +indeed, half kill. + +"Cut it, Ted," he ordered grimly. "'Nough said. I haven't the +slightest desire to give you even one black eye at present, though I +may as well admit if you had been in my hands five minutes ago +something would have smashed." + +"Don't I know it?" Ted grinned a little. "Gee, I thought my hour +had struck!" + +"What made you come after me then?" + +Ted's grin faded. + +"You know why I came, old man. You know I'd let you pommel my head off +any time if it could help you anyhow. Besides it was my fault as I told +you. I didn't mean to be mean. I'll do any penance you say." + +Larry picked up the paddle. + +"Your penance is to let me absolutely alone for fifteen minutes. You had +better go ashore though. You will miss a lot of dances." + +"Hang the dances! I'm staying." + +Ted settled down among the cushions against which Ruth's blonde head had +nestled a few hours ago. He took out his watch, struck a match, looked at +the time, lit a cigarette with the same match, replaced the watch and +relapsed into silence. + +The canoe shot down the lake impelled by long, fierce strokes. Larry was +working off the demon. Far away the rhythmic beat of dance music reached +them faintly. Now and then a fish leaped and splashed or a bull frog +bellowed his hoarse "Better go home" into the silence. Otherwise there +was no sound save the steady ripple of the water under the canoe. + +Presently Ted finished his cigarette, sent its still ruddy remains +flashing off into the lake where it fell with a soft hiss, took out his +watch again, lit another match, considered the time, subtracted gravely, +looked up and announced "Time's up, Larry." + +Larry laid down the paddle and a slow reluctant smile played around the +corners of his mouth, though there was sharp distress still in his +eyes. He loathed losing his temper like that. It sickened him, filled +him with spiritual nausea, a profound disgust for himself and his +mastering weakness. + +"I've been a fool, kid," he admitted. "I'm all right now. You were a +trump to stand by me. I appreciate it." + +"Don't mention it," nonchalantly from Ted "Going back to the pavilion?" + +His brother nodded, resumed the paddle and again the canoe shot through +the waters, this time toward the music instead of away from it. + +"I suppose you know why your dancing with Ruth made me go savage," said +Larry after a few moments of silence. + +"Damned if I do," said Ted cheerfully. "It doesn't matter. I don't need a +glossary and appendix. Suit yourself as to the explanations. I put my +foot in it. I've apologized. That is the end of it so far as I am +concerned unless you want to say something more yourself. You don't have +to you know." + +"It was plain, fool movie stuff jealousy. That is the sum and +substance of it. I'm in love with her. I couldn't stand her dancing +with you when she had refused me. I could almost have killed you for a +minute. I am ashamed but I couldn't help it. That is the way it was. +Now--forget it, please." + +Ted swallowed hard and pulled his forelock in genuine perturbation. + +"Good Lord, Larry!" he blurted. "I--" + +His brother held up an imperious warning hand. + +"I said 'forget it.' Don't make me want to dump you now, after coming +through the rest." + +Ted saluted promptly. + +"Ay, ay, sir! It's forgot. Only perhaps you'll let me apologize again, +underscored, now I understand. Honest, I'm no end sorry, Larry." + +The other nodded acceptance of the underscored apology and again silence +had its way. + +As they landed Ted fastened the canoe and for a moment the two brothers +stood side by side in the starlight. Larry put out his hand. Ted took it. +Their eyes met, said more than any words could have expressed. + +"Thank you, Ted. You've been great--helped a lot." + +Larry's voice was a little unsteady, his eyes were full of trouble +and shame. + +"Ought to, after starting the conflagration," said Ted. "I'll attend to +the general explanations. You go to Ruth." + +More than one person had wondered at the mysterious disappearance of the +two Holidays. It is quite usual, and far from unexpected, when two young +persons of the opposite sex drift off somewhere under the stars on a +summer night without giving any particular account of themselves; but one +scarcely looks for that sort of social--or unsocial--eccentricity from +two youths, especially two brothers. Nobody but Ruth and Tony, and +possibly shrewd-eyed Sue, suspected a quarrel, but everybody was curious +and ready to burst into interrogation upon the simultaneous return of the +two young men which was quite as sudden as their vanishing had been. + +"Larry and I had a wager up," announced Ted to Sue in a perfectly clear, +distinct voice which carried across the length of the small hall now that +the music was silent. "He said he could paddle down to the point, current +against him, faster than I could paddle back, current with me. We took a +notion to try it out tonight. Please forgive us, Susanna, my dear. A +Holiday is a creature of impulse you know." + +Sue made a little face at the speaker. She was quite sure he was lying +about the wager, but she was a good hostess and played up to his game. + +"You don't deserve to be forgiven, either of you," she sniffed. +"Especially Larry who never comes to parties and when he does has to go +off and do a silly thing like that. Who won though? I will ask that." She +smiled at Ted and he grinned back. + +"Larry, of course. Give me a dance, Sue. I've got my second wind." + +"Bless Ted!" thought Tony, listening to her brother's glib excuses. +"Thank goodness he can lie like that. Larry never could." And as her eyes +met Ted's a moment later when they passed each other in the maze of +dancers he murmured "All right" in her ear and she was well content. +Bless Ted, indeed! + +Meanwhile Larry had gone, as Ted bade him, straight to Ruth. He bent over +her tired little white face, an agony of remorse in his own. + +"Ruth, forgive me. I'll never forgive myself." + +"Don't, Larry. It is I who ought to be sorry and I am--oh so sorry--you +don't know. Ted didn't mean any harm. I ought not to have let him do it. +It was my fault." + +"There was nobody at fault except me and my fool temper. I am desperately +ashamed of myself Ruth. I've left you all alone all this time and I +promised I wouldn't. You'll never trust me again and I don't deserve to +be trusted. It doesn't do any good to say I am sorry. It can't undo what +I did. I didn't dare stay and that's the fact. I didn't know what I'd do +to Ted if he got in my way. I felt--murderous." + +"Larry!" + +"I know it sounds awful. It is awful. It is an old battle. I thought I'd +won it, but I haven't. Don't look so scared though. Nothing happened. Ted +came after me like the corking big-hearted kid he is and brought me to, +in half the time I could have done it for myself. It is thanks to him I'm +here now. But never mind that. It is only you that matters. Shall I take +you home? I don't deserve it, but if you will let me it will show you +forgive me a little bit anyway," he finished humbly. + +"Don't look so dreadfully unhappy, Larry. It is over now, and of course I +forgive you if you think there is anything to forgive. I'm so thankful +you didn't quarrel with Ted. I was awfully worried and so was Tony. She +watched the door every minute till you came back." + +"I suppose so," groaned Larry. "I made one horrible mess of everything +for you all. Are you ready to go?" + +"I'd like to dance with you once first, Larry, if--if you would like to." + +"Would I like to!" Larry's face lost its mantle of gloom, was sudden +sunshine all over. "Will you really dance with me--after the rotten way +I've behaved?" + +"Of course, I will. I wanted to all the time, but I was afraid. But when +Ted made me it all came back and I loved it, only it was you I wanted to +dance with most. You know that, don't you, Larry, dear?" The last word +was very low, scarcely more than a breath, but Larry heard it and it +nearly undid him. A flood of long-pent endearments trembled on his lips. +But Ruth held up a hand of warning. + +"Don't, Larry. We mustn't spoil it. We've got to remember the ring." + +"Damn the ring!" he exploded. "I beg your pardon." Larry was genuinely +shocked at his own bad manners. "I don't know why I'm such a brute +tonight. Let's dance." + +And to the delight and relief of the younger Holidays, Larry and Ruth +joined the dancers. + +The dance over, they made their farewells. Larry guided Ruth down the +slope, his arm around her ostensibly for her support, and helped her into +the canoe. Once more they floated off over the quiet water, under the +quiet stars. But their young hearts were anything but quiet. Their love +was no longer an unacknowledged thing. Neither knew just what was to be +done with it; but there it was in full sight, as both admitted in joy +and trepidation and silence. + +As Larry held open the door for her to step inside the quiet hall he bent +over the girl a moment, taking both her hands in his. Then he drew away +abruptly and bolted into the living room, leaving her to grope her way up +stairs in the dark alone. + +"I wonder," she murmured to herself later as she stood before her mirror +shaking out her rippling golden locks from their confining net. "I wonder +if it would have been so terrible if he had kissed me just that once. +Sometimes I wish he weren't quite so--so Holidayish." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +TWO HOLIDAYS MAKE CONFESSION + + +The next evening Doctor Holiday listened to a rather elaborate argument +on the part of his older nephew in favor of the latter's leaving Dunbury +immediately in pursuit of his specialist training that he had planned to +go in for eventually. + +"You are no longer contented here with me--with us?" questioned the older +man when the younger had ended his exposition. + +Larry's quick ear caught the faint hurt in his uncle's voice and hastened +to deny the inference. + +"It isn't that, Uncle Phil. I am perfectly satisfied--happier here with +you that I would be anywhere else in the world. You have been wonderful +to me. I am not such an ungrateful idiot as not to understand and +appreciate what a start it has given me to have you and your name and +work behind me. Only--maybe I've been under your wing long enough. Maybe +I ought to stand on my feet." + +Doctor Holiday studied the troubled young face opposite him. He was +fairly certain that he wasn't getting the whole or the chief reasons +which were behind this sudden proposition. + +"Do you wish to go at once?" he asked. "Or will the first of the year be +soon enough." + +Larry flushed and fell to fumbling with a paper knife that lay on the +desk. + +"I--I meant to go right away," he stammered. + +"Why?" + +Larry was silent. + +"I judge the evidence isn't all in," remarked the older doctor a little +drily. "Am I going to hear the rest of it--the real reason for your +decision to go just now?" + +Still silence on Larry's part, the old obstinate set to his lips. + +"Very well then. Suppose I take my turn. I think you haven't quite all +the evidence yourself. Do you know Granny is dying?" + +The paper knife fell with a click to the floor. + +"Uncle Phil! No, I didn't know. Of course I knew it was coming but you +mean--soon?" + +"Yes, Larry, I mean soon. How soon no one can tell, but I should say +three months would be too long to allow." + +The boy brushed his hand across his eyes. He loved Granny. He had always +seemed to understand her better than the others had and had been himself +always the favorite. Moreover he was bound to her by a peculiar tie, +having once saved her life, conquering his boyish fear to do so. It was +hard to realize she was really going, that no one could save her now. + +"I didn't know," he said again in a low voice. + +"Ted will go back to college. I shall let Tony go to New York to study as +she wishes, just as you had your chance. It isn't exactly the time for +you to desert us, my boy." + +"I won't, Uncle Phil. I'll stay." + +"Thank you, son. I felt sure you wouldn't fail us. You never have. But I +wish you felt as if you could tell me the other reason or reasons for +going which you are keeping back. If it is they are stronger than the one +I have given you for staying it is only fair that I should have them." + +Larry's eyes fell. A slow flush swept his face, ran up to his very hair. + +"My boy, is it Ruth?" + +The gray eyes lifted, met the older man's grave gaze unfalteringly. + +"Yes, Uncle Phil, it is Ruth. I thought you must have seen it before +this. It seemed as if I were giving myself away, everything I did or +didn't do." + +"I have thought of it occasionally, but dismissed the idea as too +fantastic. It hasn't been so obvious as it seemed to you no doubt. You +have not made love to her?" + +"Not in so many words. I might just as well have though. She knows. If it +weren't for the ring--well, I think she would care too." + +"I am very sorry, Larry. It looks like a bad business all round. Yet I +can't see that you have much to blame yourself for. I withdraw my +objections to your going away. If it seems best to you to go I haven't a +word to say." + +"I don't know whether it is best or not. I go round and round in circles +trying to work it out. It seems cowardly to run away from it, +particularly if I am needed here. A man ought not to pull up stakes just +because things get a little hard. Besides Ruth would think she had driven +me away. I know she would go herself if she guessed I was even thinking +of going. And I couldn't stand that. I'd go to the north pole myself and +stay forever before I would send her away from you all. I was so grateful +to you for asking her to stay and making her feel she was needed. She was +awfully touched and pleased. She told me last night." + +The senior doctor considered, thought back to his talk with Ruth. Poor +child! So that was what she had been trying to tell him. She had thought +she ought to go away on Larry's account, just as he was thinking he ought +to go on hers. Poor hapless youngsters caught in the mesh of +circumstances! It was certainly a knotty problem. + +"It isn't easy to say what is right and best to do," he said after a +moment. "It is something you will have to decide for yourself. When you +came to me you had decided it was best to go, had you not? Was there a +specially urgent reason?" + +Larry flushed again and related briefly the last night's unhappy +incident. + +"I'm horribly ashamed of the way I acted," he finished. "And the whole +thing showed me I couldn't count on my self-control as I thought I could. +I couldn't sleep last night, and I thought perhaps maybe the thing to do +was to get out quick before I did any real damage. It doesn't matter +about me. It is Ruth." + +"Do you think you can stay on and keep a steady head for her sake and +for ours?" + +"I can, Uncle Phil. It is up to me to stick and I'll do it. Uncle +Phil, how long must a woman in Ruth's position wait before she can +legally marry?" + +"Ruth's position is so unique that I doubt if there is any legal +precedent for it. Ordinarily when the husband fails to put in appearance +and the presumption is he is no longer living, the woman is considered +free in the eyes of the law, after a certain number of years, varying I +believe, in different states. With Ruth the affair doesn't seem to be a +case of law at all. She is in a position which requires the utmost +protection from those who love her as we do. The obligation is moral +rather than legal. I wouldn't let my mind run on the marrying aspects of +the case at present my boy." + +"I--Uncle Phil, sometimes I think I'll just marry her anyway and let the +rest of it take care of itself. There isn't any proof she is married--not +the slightest shadow of proof," Larry argued with sudden heat. + +His uncle's eyebrows went up. "Steady, Larry. A wedding ring is usually +considered presumptive evidence of marriage." + +"I don't care," flashed the boy, the tension of the past weeks suddenly +snapping. "She loves me. I don't see what right anything has to come +between us. What is a wedding ceremony when a man and woman belong to +each other as we belong? Hanged if I don't think I'd be justified in +marrying her tomorrow! There is nothing but a ring to prevent." + +"There is a good deal more than a ring to prevent," said Doctor Holiday +with some sternness. "What if you did do just that and her husband +appeared in two months or six?" + +"I don't believe she has a husband. If she had he would have come after +her before this. We've waited. He's had time." + +"You have waited scarcely two months, Larry. That is hardly enough time +upon which to base finalities." + +"What of it? I'm half crazy sometimes over the whole thing. I can't see +things straight. I don't want to. I don't want anything but Ruth, whether +she is married or not. I want her. Some day I'll ask her to go off with +me and she will go. She will do anything I ask." + +"Hold on, Larry lad. You are saying things you don't mean. You are the +last man in the world to take advantage of a girl's defenseless position +and her love for you to gratify your own selfish desires and perhaps +wreck her life and your own." + +Larry bit his lip, wheeled and went over to the window, staring out into +the night. At last he turned back, white, but master of himself again. + +"I beg your pardon, Uncle Phil. You are right. I was talking like a fool. +Of course I'll do nothing of the kind. I won't do anything to harm Ruth +anyway. I won't even make love to her--if I can help it," he qualified in +a little lower tone. + +"If you can't you had better go at once," said his uncle still a +bit sternly. Then more gently. "I know you don't want to play the +cad, Larry." + +"I won't, Uncle Phil. I promise." + +"Very well. I am satisfied with your word. Remember I am ready to +help any way and if it gets too hard I'll make it easy at any time +for you to go. But in the mean time we won't talk about it. The least +said the better." + +Larry nodded his assent to that and suddenly switched to another subject, +asking his uncle what he knew about this Alan Massey with whom Tony was +having such an extensive correspondence. + +His uncle admitted that he didn't know much of anything about him, except +that he was the inheritor of the rather famous Massey property and an +artist of some repute. + +"He has plenty of repute of other kinds," said Larry. "He is a +thorough-going rotter, I infer. I made some inquiries from a chap who +knows him. He has gone the pace and then some. It makes me sick to have +Tony mixed up with a chap like that." + +"You haven't said anything to her yourself?" + +"No. Don't dare. It would only make it worse for me to tackle her. +Neither she nor Ted will stand any interference from me. We are a cranky +lot I am afraid. We all have what Dad used to call the family devil. So +far as I know you are the only person on record that can manage him." + +And Larry smiled rather shame-facedly at his uncle. + +"I am afraid you will all three have to learn to manage your own +particular familiar. Devils are rather personal property, Larry." + +"Don't I know it? I got into mighty close range with mine last night, and +just now for that matter. Anyway I am not prepared to do any preaching at +anybody at present; but I would be awfully grateful to you if you will +speak to Tony. Somebody has to. And you can do it a million times better +than anyone else." + +"Very well. I will see what I can do." And thus quietly Doctor Holiday +accepted another burden on his broad shoulders. + +The next day he found Tony on the porch reading one of the long letters +which came to her so frequently in the now familiar, dashing script. + +"Got a minute for me, niece o' mine?" he asked. + +Tony slid Alan's letter back into its envelope and smiled up at +her uncle. + +"Dozens of them, nice uncle," she answered. + +"It is getting well along in the summer and high time we decided a few +things. Do you still want to go in for the stage business in the fall?" + +"I want to very much, Uncle Phil, if you think it isn't too much like +deserting Granny and the rest of you." + +"No, you have earned it. I want you to go. I don't suppose because you +haven't talked about Hempel's offer that it means you have forgotten it?" + +"Indeed, I haven't forgotten it. For myself I would much rather get +straight on the stage if I could and learn by doing it, but you would +prefer to have me go to a regular dramatic school, wouldn't you?" + +"Yes, Tony, I would. A year of preparation isn't a bit too much to get +your bearings in before you take the grand plunge. I want you to be very +sure that the stage is what you really want." + +"I am sure of that already. I've been sure for ages. But I am perfectly +willing to do the thing any way you want and I am more grateful than I +can tell you that you are on my side about it. Are you going to tell +Granny? It will about break her heart I am afraid." Tony's eyes were +troubled. She did hate to hurt Granny; but on the other hand she couldn't +wait forever to begin. + +She did not see the shadow that crept over her uncle's face. Well he knew +that long before Tony was before the footlights, Granny would be where +prejudices and misunderstandings were no more; but he had no wish to mar +the girl's happiness by betraying the truth just now. + +"I think we are justified in indulging in a little camouflage there," he +said. "We will tell Granny you are going to study art. Art covers a +multitude of sins," he added with a lightness he was far from feeling. +"One thing more, my dear. I have waited a good while to hear something +about the young man who writes these voluminous letters."' He nodded at +the envelope in Tony's lap. "I like his writing; but I should like to +know something about him,--himself." + +Tony flushed and averted her eyes for a moment. Then she looked up +frankly. + +"I haven't said anything because I didn't know what to say. He is Alan +Massey, the artist. I met him at Carlotta's. He wants to marry me." + +"But you have not already accepted him?" + +"No, I couldn't. He--he isn't the kind of man you would want me to marry. +He is trying to be, for my sake though. I think he will succeed. I told +him if he wanted to ask me again next summer I would tell him what my +answer would be." + +"He is on probation then?" + +"Yes." + +"And you care for him?" + +"I--think so." + +"You don't know it?" + +"No, Uncle Phil. I don't. He cares so much for me--so terribly much. And +I don't know whether I care enough or not. I should have to care a great +deal to overlook what he has been and done. Maybe it wasn't anything but +midsummer madness and his wonderful dancing. We danced almost every night +until I sent him away. And when we danced we seemed to be just one +person. Aside from his dancing he fascinated me. I couldn't forget him or +ignore him. He was--is--different from any man I ever knew. I feel +differently about him from what I ever felt about any other man. Maybe it +is love. Maybe it isn't. I--I thought it was last month." + +Doctor Holiday shook his head dubiously. + +"And you are not so sure now?" he questioned. + +"Not always," admitted Tony. "I didn't want to love him. I fought it with +all my might. I didn't want to be bothered with love. I wanted to be +happy and free and make a great success of my work. But after Alan came +all those things didn't seem to matter. I am afraid it goes rather deep, +Uncle Phil. Sometimes I think he means more to me than even you and Larry +and Ted do. It is strange. It isn't kind or loyal or decent. But that is +the way it is. I have to be honest, even if it hurts." + +Her dark eyes were wistful and beseeched forgiveness as they sought her +uncle's. He did not speak and she went on swiftly, earnestly. + +"Please don't ask me to break off with him, Uncle Phil. I couldn't do it, +not only because I care for him too much, but because it would be cruel +to him. He has gotten out of his dark forest. I don't want to drive him +back into it. And that is what it would mean if I deserted him now. I +have to go on, no matter what you or Larry or any one thinks about it." + +She had risen now and stood before her uncle earnestly pleading her +lover's cause and her own. + +"It isn't fair to condemn a man forever because he has made mistakes back +in the past. We don't any of us know what we would have been like if +things had been different. Larry and Ted are fine. I am proud of their +clean record. It would be horrible if people said things about either of +them such as they say about Alan. But Larry and Ted have every reason to +be fine. They have had you and Dad and Grandfather Holiday and the rest +of them to go by. They have lived all their lives in the Holiday +tradition of what a man should be. Alan has had nobody, nothing. Nobody +ever helped him to see the difference between right and wrong and why it +mattered which you chose. He does see now. He is trying to begin all over +again and begin right. And I'm going to stand by him. I have to--even if +I have to go against you, Uncle Phil." + +There was a quiver--almost a sob in Tony's voice Her uncle drew her +into his arms. + +"All right, little girl. It is not an easy thing to swallow. I hate to +have your shining whiteness touch pitch even for a minute. No, wait, +dear. I am not going to condemn your lover. If he is sincerely in earnest +in trying to clean the slate, I have only respect for the effort. You are +right about much of it. We can none of us afford to do over much judging. +We are all sinners, more or less. And there are a million things to be +taken into consideration before we may dare to sit in judgment upon any +human being. It takes a God to do that. I am not going to ask you to give +him up, or to stop writing or even seeing him. But I do want you to go +slow. Marriage is a solemn thing. Don't wreck your life from pity or +mistaken devotion. Better a heart-ache now than a life-long regret. Let +your lover prove himself just as you have set him to do. A woman can't +save a man. He has to save himself. But if he will save himself for love +of her the chances are he will stay saved and his love is the real thing. +I shall accept your decision. I shan't fight it in any way, whatever it +is. All I ask is that you will wait the full year before you make any +definite promise of marriage." + +"I will," said Tony. "I meant to do that any way. I am not such a foolish +child as maybe you have been thinking I was. I am pretty much grown up, +Uncle Phil. And I have plenty of sense. It I hadn't--I should be married +to Alan this minute." + +He smiled a little sadly at that. + +"Youth! Youth! Yes, Tony, I believe you have sense. Maybe I have +under-estimated it. Any way I thank the good Lord for it. No more +secrets? Everything clear?" + +He lifted her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes with tender +searching. + +"Not a secret. I am very glad to have you know. We all feel better the +moment we dump all our woes on you," she sighed. + +He smiled and stroked her hair. + +"I had much rather be a dumping ground than be shut out of the confidence +of any one of you. That hurts. We all have to stand by Larry, just now. +Not in words but in--well, we'll call it moral support. The poor lad +needs it." + +"Oh, Uncle Phil! Did he tell you or did you guess?" + +"A little of both. The boy is in a bad hole, Tony. But he will keep out +of the worst of the bog. He has grit and chivalry enough to pull through +somehow. And maybe before many weeks the mystery will be cleared for +better or worse. We can only hope for the best and hold on tight to +Larry, and Ruth too, till they are out of the woods." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE + + +Philip Lambert was rather taken by surprise when Harrison Cressy appeared +at the store one day late in August, announcing that he had come to talk +business and practically commanding the young man to lunch with him that +noon. It was Saturday and Phil had little time for idle conjecture, but +he did wonder every now and then that morning what business Carlotta's +father could possibly have with himself, and if by any chance Carlotta +had sent him. + +Later, seated in the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury's one +hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with +considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise of manner. + +Having left soup the waiter shuffled away with the congenital air of +discouragement which belongs to his class, and Harrison Cressy got down +to business in regard both to the soup and his mission in Dunbury. He was +starting a branch brokerage concern in a small city just out of Boston. +He needed a smart young man to put at the head of it. The smart young man +would get a salary of five thousand a year, plus his commissions to start +with. If he made good the salary would go up in proportion. In fact the +sky would be the limit. He offered the post to Philip Lambert. + +Phil laid down his soup spoon and stared at his companion. After a moment +he remarked that it was rather unusual, to say the least, to offer a +salary like that to an utter greenhorn in a business as technical as +brokerage, and that he was afraid he was not in the least fitted for the +position in question. + +"That is my look out," snapped Mr. Cressy. "Do I look like a born fool, +Philip Lambert? You don't suppose I am jumping in the dark do you? I have +gone to some pains to look up your record in college. I found out you +made good no matter what you attempted, on the gridiron, in the +classroom, everywhere else. I've been picking men for years and I've gone +on the principle that a man who makes good in one place will make good in +another if he has sufficient incentive." + +"I suppose the five thousand is to be considered in the light of an +incentive," said Phil. + +"It is five times the incentive and more than I had when I started out," +grunted his host. "What more do you want?" + +"Nothing. I don't want so much. I couldn't earn it. And in any case I +cannot consider any change at present. I have gone in with my father." + +"So I understood. But that is not a hard and fast arrangement. A young +man like you has to look ahead. Your father won't stand in the way of +your bettering yourself." Harrison Cressy spoke with conviction. Well he +might. Though Philip had not known it his companion had spent an hour in +earnest conversation with his father that morning. Harrison Cressy knew +his ground there. + +"Go ahead, Mr. Cressy," Stewart Lambert had said at the close of the +interview. "You have my full permission to offer the position to the +boy and he has my full permission to accept it. He is free to go +tomorrow if he cares to. If it is for his happiness it is what his +mother and I want." + +But the younger Lambert was yet to be reckoned with. + +"It is a hard and fast arrangement so far as I am concerned," he said +quietly now. "Dad can fire me. I shan't fire myself." + +Mr. Cressy made a savage lunge at a fly that had ventured to light on the +sugar bowl, not knowing it was for the time being Millionaire Cressy's +sugar bowl. He hated being balked, even temporarily. He had supposed the +hardest sledding would be over when he had won the father's consent. He +had authentic inside information that the son had stakes other than +financial. He counted on youth's imperious urge to happiness. The lad had +done without Carlotta for two months now. It had seemed probable he would +be more amenable to reason in August than he had been in June. But it did +not look like it just now. + +"You are a darn fool, my young man," he gnarled. + +"Very likely," said Phil Lambert, with the same quietness which had +marked his father's speech earlier in the day. "If you had a son, Mr. +Cressy, wouldn't you want him to be the same kind of a darn fool? Would +you expect him to take French leave the first time somebody offered him +more money?" + +Harrison Cressy snorted, beckoned to the waiter his face purple with +rage. Why in blankety blank blank et cetera, et cetera, didn't he bring +the fish? Did he think they were there for the season? Philip did not +know he had probed an old wound. The one great disappointment of Harrison +Cressy's career was the fact that he had no son, or had had one for such +a brief space of hours that he scarcely counted except as a pathetic +might-have-been And even as Phil had said, so he would have wanted his +son to behave. The boy was a man, every inch of him, just such a man as +Harrison Gressy had coveted for his own. + +"Hang the money part." he snapped back at Phil, after the interlude with +the harrassed waiter. "Let's drop it." + +"With all my heart," agreed Phil. "Considering the money part hanged what +is left to the offer? Carlotta?" + +Mr. Cressy dropped his fork with a resounding clatter to the floor and +swore muttered monotonous oaths at the waiter for not being +instantaneously on the spot to replace the implement. + +"Young man," he said to Phil. "You are too devilish smart. Carlotta--is +why I am here." + +"So I imagined. Did she send you?" + +"Great Scott, no! My life wouldn't be worth a brass nickel if she knew I +was here." + +"I am glad she didn't. I wouldn't like Carlotta to think I could +be--bribed." + +"She didn't. Carlotta has perfectly clear impressions as to where you +stand. She gives you entire credit for being the blind, stubborn, +pigheaded jack-ass that you are." + +Phil grinned faintly at this accumulation of epithets, but his blue eyes +had no mirth in them. The interview was beginning to be something of a +strain. He wished it were over. + +"That's good," he said. "Apparently we all know where we all stand. I +have no illusions about Carlotta's view-point either. There is no reason +I should have. I got it first hand." + +"Don't be an idiot," ordered Mr. Cressy. "A woman can have as many +view-points as there are days in the year, counting Sundays double. You +have no more idea this minute where Carlotta stands than--than I have," +he finished ignominiously, wiping his perspiring forehead with an +imported linen handkerchief. + +"Do you mind telling me just why you are here, if Carlotta didn't send +you? I don't flatter myself you automatically selected me for your new +post without some rather definite reason behind it." + +"I came because I had a notion you were the best man for another job--a +job that makes the whole brokerage business look like a game of +jack-straws--the job of marrying my daughter Carlotta." + +Phil stared. He had not expected Mr. Cressy to take this position. He had +been ready enough to believe Carlotta's prophecy that her parent would +raise a merry little row if she announced to him her intention of +marrying that obscure individual, Philip Lambert, of Dunbury, +Massachusetts. He thought that particular way of behavior on the parent's +part not only probable but more or less justifiable, all things +considered. He saw no reason now why Mr. Cressy should feel otherwise. + +Harrison Cressy drained a deep draught of water, once more wiped his +highly shining brow and leaned forward over the table toward his +puzzled guest. + +"You see, Philip," he went on using the young man's first name for the +first time. "Carlotta is in love with you." + +Philip flushed and his frank eyes betrayed that this, though not entirely +new news, was not unwelcome to hear. + +"In fact," continued Carlotta's father grimly, "she is so much in love +with you she is going to marry another man." + +The light went out of Phil's eyes at that, but he said nothing to this +any more than he had to the preceding statement. He waited for the other +man to get at what he wanted to say. + +"I can't stand Carlotta's being miserable. I never could. It is why I am +here, to see if I can't fix up a deal with you to straighten things out. +I am in your hands, boy, at your mercy. I have the reputation of being +hard as shingle nails. I'm soft as putty where the girl is concerned. It +kills me by inches to have her unhappy." + +"Is she--very unhappy?" Phil's voice was sober. He thought that he too +was soft as putty, or softer where Carlotta was concerned. It made him +sick all over to think of her being unhappy. + +"She is--damnably unhappy." Harrison Cressy blew his nose with a sound as +of a trumpet. "Here you," he bellowed at the waiter who was timidly +approaching. "Is that our steak at last? Bring it here, quick and don't +jibber. Are you deaf and dumb as well as paralyzed?" + +The host attacked the steak with ferocity, slammed a generous section on +a plate and fairly threw it at the young man opposite. Phil wasn't +interested in steak. He scarcely looked at it. His eyes were on Mr. +Cressy, his thoughts were on that gentleman's only daughter. + +"I am sorry she is unhappy," he said. "I don't know how much you know +about it all; but since you know so much I assume you also know that I +care for Carlotta just as much as she cares for me, possibly more. I +would marry her tomorrow if I could." + +"For the Lord Harry's sake, do it then. I'll put up the money." + +Phil's face hardened. + +"That is precisely the rock that Carlotta and I split on, Mr. Cressy. She +wanted to have you put up the money. I love Carlotta but I don't love her +enough to let her or you--buy me." + +The old man and the young faced each other across the table. There was a +deadlock between them and both knew it. + +"But this offer I've made you is a bona fide one. You'll make good. You +will be worth the five thousand and more in no time. I know your kind. I +told you I was a good picker. It isn't a question of buying. Can the +movie stuff. It's a fair give and take." + +"I have refused your offer, Mr. Cressy." + +"You refused it before you knew Carlotta was eating her heart out for +you. Doesn't that make any difference to you, my lad? You said you loved +her," reproachfully. + +A huge blue-bottle fly buzzed past the table, passed on to the window +where it fluttered about aimlessly, bumping itself against the pane here +and there. Mechanically Phil watched its gyrations. It was one of the +hardest moments of his life. + +"In one way it makes a great difference, Mr. Cressy," he answered slowly. +"It breaks my heart to have her unhappy. But it wouldn't make her happy +to have me do something I know isn't right or fair or wise. I know +Carlotta. Maybe I know her better than you do; I know she doesn't want me +that way." + +"But you can't expect her to live in a hole like this, on a yearly +income that is probably less than she spends in one month just for +nothing much." + +"I don't expect it," explained Phil patiently. "I've never blamed +Carlotta for deciding against it. But there is no use going over it all. +She and I had it out together. It is our affair, not yours, Mr. Cressy." + +"Philip Lambert, did you ever see Carlotta cry?" + +Phil winced. The shot went home. + +"No. I'd hate to," he admitted. + +"You would," seconded Harrison Cressy. "I hated it like the devil myself. +She cried all over my new dress suit the other night." + +Phil's heart was one gigantic ache. The thought of Carlotta in tears was +almost unbearable. Carlotta--his Carlotta--was all sunshine and laughter. + +"It was like this," went on Carlotta's parent. "Her aunt told me she was +going to marry young Lathrop--old skin-flint tea-and-coffee Lathrop's +son. I couldn't quite stomach it. The fellow's an ass, an unobjectionable +ass, it is true, but with all the ear marks. I tackled Carlotta about it. +She said she wasn't engaged but might be any minute. I said some fool +thing about wanting her to be happy, and the next thing I knew she was in +my arms crying like anything. I haven't seen her cry since she was a +little tot. She has laughed her way through life always up to now. I +couldn't bear it. I can't bear it now, even remembering it. I squeezed +the story out of her, drop at a time, till I got pretty much the whole +bucket full. I tell you, Phil Lambert, you've got to give in. I can't +have her heart broken. You can't have her heart broken. God, man, it's +your funeral too." + +Phil felt very much as if it were his own funeral. But he did not speak. +He couldn't. The other forged on, his big, mumbling bass mingled with the +buzz of the blue-bottle in the window. + +"I made up my mind something had to be done and done quick. I wasn't +going to have my little girl run her head into the noose by marrying +Lathrop when it was you she loved. I got busy, made inquiries about you +as I said. I had to before I offered you the job naturally, but it was +more than that. I had to find out whether you were the kind of man I +wanted my Carlotta to marry. I found out, and came up here to put the +proposition to you. I talked to your father first, by the way, and got +his consent to go ahead with my plans." + +"You went to my father!" There was concern and a trace of indignation in +Phil's voice. + +"Naturally I was playing to win. I had to hold all the trumps. I wanted +your father on my side--had to have him in fact. He came without a +murmur. He is a good sport. Said all he wanted was your happiness, same +as all I wanted was Carlotta's. We quite understood each other." + +Phil sat silent with down cast eyes on his almost untasted salad. He +couldn't bear to think of his father's being attacked like that, hit with +a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. The more he thought about it the +more he resented it. Of course Dad would agree. He was a good sport as +Mr. Cressy said. Rut that didn't make the thing any easier or more +justifiable. + +"Your father is willing. I want it. Carlotta wants it. You want it, +yourself. Lord, boy, be honest. You know you do. You'll never regret +giving in. Remember it is for Carlotta's happiness we are both looking +for." There was an almost pleading note in Harrison Cressy's voice--a +note few men had heard. He was more used to command than to sue for what +he desired. + +Phil rose from the table. His face was a little white as he stood there, +tall, quiet, perfectly master of himself and the situation. Even before +the young man spoke Harrison Cressy knew he had failed. + +"I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. If Carlotta wants happiness with me I am afraid +she will have to come to Dunbury." + +"You won't reconsider?" + +"There is nothing to reconsider. There never was any question. I am sorry +you even raised one in Dad's mind. You shouldn't have gone to him in the +first place. You should have come to me. It was for me to settle." + +"Highty, tighty!" fumed the exasperated magnate. "People don't tell me +what I should and should not do. They do what I tell 'em." + +"I don't," said Philip Lambert in much the same tone he had once said to +Carlotta, "You can't have this." "I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. I don't want to +be rude, or unkind or obstinate; but there are some things no man can +decide for me. And there are some things I won't do even to win +Carlotta." + +Harrison Cressy's head drooped for a moment. He was beaten for +once--beaten by a lad of twenty-three whose will was quite as strong as +his own. The worst of it was he had never liked any young man in his +life so well as he liked Philip Lambert at this minute, never so coveted +any thing for his daughter Carlotta as he coveted her marriage with +Philip Lambert. + +"That is final, I suppose," he asked after a moment, looking up at the +young man. + +"Absolutely, Mr. Cressy. I am sorry." + +Harrison Cressy lumbered to his feet. + +"I am sorry too," he said, "damnably sorry for Carlotta and for +myself. Will you shake hands with me, Philip? It is good to meet a man +now and then." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS + + +Left to himself, Harrison Cressy discovered to his annoyance that there +was no train out of Dunbury for two hours. That was the worst of these +little one-horse towns. You might as well be dead as alive in 'em. By the +time he had smoked his after-dinner cigar he felt as if he might as well +be dead himself. He felt suddenly heavy, old, almost decrepit, though +that morning when he had left Boston he had considered himself in the +prime of life and vigor. Hang it! He was sixty-nine. A man was about done +for at sixty-nine, all but ready to turn into his grave. And he without +son or grandson. Lord! What a swindle life was anyway! + +Well, there was no use sitting still groaning. He would get up and take a +little walk until train time. Maybe it was his liver that made him feel +so confoundedly rotten and no count. A little exercise would do him good. + +Absentmindedly he noted, as he strolled down the elm-shaded streets, the +neatness of the lawns, the gay flower beds, the hammocks and swings out +under the trees as if people really lived out of doors here. There were +animate evidences of the fact everywhere. Children played here and there +in shady spaces under big trees. Pretty girls on wide, hospitable-looking +porches chatted and drank lemonade and knitted. A lithe, red-haired lass +in white played tennis on a smooth dirt court with a tall, clean looking +youth. As Mr. Cressy passed the girl cried out, "Love all" and the +millionaire smiled. It occurred to him it was not so hard to love all in +a village like this. It was only in cities that you hated your neighbor +and did him first lest you be done yourself. + +He hadn't been loose in a country town like this for years. He had almost +forgotten what they were like when you didn't shoot through them in a +motor car, rushing always to get somewhere else. His casual saunter down +the quiet street was oddly soothing to his nerves, awoke happy, yet +half-sad memories. + +He had met and loved Carlotta's mother in a country town. The lilacs had +been in bloom and the orioles had stood sponsor for his first Sunday +call. They had become engaged by the time the asters were out. The next +lilac time they had been married. A third spring and the little Carlotta +had come. They had both been disappointed at its not being a boy, but the +little girl was a wonder, with hair as gold as buttercups, eyes like wood +violets and a laugh that lilted and gurgled like the little brook down in +the meadow. + +And then, two years later, the boy had come, come and drifted off to some +far place. It had been a bitter blow to Rose as well as to Harrison +Cressy, especially as they said there never could be any more children. +Rose grew frail, did not rally or regain her strength. They advised a +sanitarium in the Adirondacks for her. She had gone, but it had been of +no use. By the time they brought in the first gentians Rose had drifted +off after her little son. Carlotta and her father were alone. + +By this time Harrison Cressy had begun to show the authentic Midas +touch. Only the little Carlotta stood between him and sheer, sordid +money grubbing. And even she was an excuse for the getting of always +more and more wealth. He told himself Carlotta should be a veritable +princess, should go always clad in the finest, have of the best, be +surrounded always by the most beautiful. She should know only joy and +light and laughter. + +Thinking these thoughts, Carlotta's father sighed. For now at last +Carlotta wanted something he could not give her, was learning after +twenty-two years of cloudless joy the bitter way of tears. Why hadn't +that stubborn boy surrendered? + +For that matter why didn't Carlotta surrender? This was a new idea to +Harrison Cressy. All the time he had been talking to Philip Lambert he +had been seeing Carlotta only in relation to Crest House and the Beacon +Street mansion. But just now he had been recalling her mother under very +different associations. Rose had been content with a tiny little cottage +set in a green yard gay with bright old fashioned flowers. He and Rose +had nested as happily as the orioles in the maples, especially after the +gold-haired baby came. Was Carlotta so different from Rose? Was her +happiness such a different kind of thing? Were women not pretty much +alike at heart? Did they not want about the same things? + +Carlotta loved this lad of hers as Rose had loved himself. Was it her own +father who was cheating her out of happiness because he had taught her to +believe that money and limousines and great houses and many servants and +silken robes are happiness? If he had talked to her of other things, told +her about her mother and the happy old days among the lilacs and orioles, +with little but love to nest with, couldn't he have made her see things +more truly, shown her that love was the main thing, that money could not +buy happiness? One could not buy much of anything that was worth buying +Harrison Cressy thought. One could purchase only the worthless. That was +the everlasting failure of money. + +He remembered the boy's, "I love Carlotta. But I don't love her enough to +let her or you buy me." It was true. Neither he nor his daughter had been +able to purchase the lad's integrity, his good faith, his ideals. And +Harrison Cressy was thankful from the bottom of his heart that it was so. + +He turned his steps back to the village and as he did so an oriole +flashed out of the shrubbery near him, and passed like a flame out of +sight among the trees. This was a good sign. Orioles had nested every +year in the maple tree by the little white house where Carlotta had been +born. Carlotta herself had always loved them. "Pretty, pretty, birdie!" +she had been wont to call out. "Come, daddy, let's follow him and see +where he goes." + +He would go home and tell Carlotta all this, make her see that her +happiness was in her own hands. No, it was the boy's story. If Carlotta +would not follow the orioles and her own heart for Philip Lambert she +would not for any argument of his. + +By this time a distant puff of smoke gave evidence that the Boston train +was already on its way, leaving Harrison Cressy in Dunbury. Not that he +cared. He had business still to transact ere he departed, a new battle to +fight. He walked with the firm elastic step of a youth back to town. What +did it matter if you were sixty-nine when the best things of life were +still ahead of you? + +Accordingly Phil was a second time that day surprised by the unheralded +arrival of Carlotta's father, a rather dusty, weary and limp-looking +gentleman this time, but exuding a sort of benignant serenity that had +not been there early in the day. + +"Hello," greeted the millionaire blandly. "Missed my train--got to +browsing round the town like an old billy goat. Not sorry though. It is a +nice little town. Mind if I sit down? I'm a bit blown." And dropping on a +stool Mr. Cressy fanned himself with his panama and grinned at Philip, a +grin the young man could not quite fathom. What new trick had the clever +old financier at the bottom of his mind? Phil hoped he had not got to go +through the thing again. Once had been quite enough for one day. + +"Let me send out for something cool to drink, Mr. Cressy. You must be +horribly hot. It is warm in here, even with all the fans going. Hi, +there, Tommy!" Philip summoned a freckled, red-haired youth from +somewhere in the background. "Run over to Greene's and get a lemonade for +this gentleman, will you?" + +"Right, Mr. Phil." The boy saluted--an odd salute, Mr. Cressy noted. It +was rendered with the right hand, the three middle fingers held up, the +thumb bent over touching the nail of the little finger. The saluter stood +very straight as he went through the ceremony and looked very serious +about it. "Queer!" thought the onlooker. The messenger boys he knew did +not behave like that when you gave them an order. + +Philip excused himself to attend to a customer and in a moment the +red-haired lad was back with a tall glass of lemonade clinking +delightfully with ice. Mr. Cressy took it and set it down on the counter +while he fumbled for his wallet and produced a dollar bill. + +To his amazement the boy's grin faded, and he drew himself up with +dignity. + +"No, thank you, sir," he said to the proffered greenback. "I'm a Scout +and Scouts don't take tips." + +"What!" gasped Harrison Cressy. In all his life he did not recall meeting +a boy who ever refused money before. He began to think there was +something uncanny about this town of Dunbury. First a young man who could +not be bought at any price. And now a boy who wouldn't take a tip for +service rendered. + +"I said I was a Scout," repeated the lad patiently. "And Scouts don't +take tips. We are supposed to do one good turn every day, anyway, and I +hadn't gotten mine in before. I'm only a Tenderfoot but I'm most ready +for my second class tests. Mr. Phil's going to try me out in first aid as +soon as he gets time." + +"Mr. Phil! What's he got to do with it?" inquired Mr. Cressy, after a +long, satisfying swig of lemonade. + +"He is our Scout-master and a peach of a one too. He is going to take us +on a hike tomorrow." + +"Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Sunday, young man." The Methodist in Harrison +Cressy rose to the surface. + +"I know. We all go to church and Sunday school in the morning. Mr. Phil +won't take us unless we do. But in the afternoon he thinks it is all +right to go on a hike. We don't practise signaling and things like that, +but we get in a lot of nature study. I can identify all my ten trees now +and a whole lot more besides, and I've got a bird list of over sixty." + +"You don't say so?" Harrison Cressy was plainly impressed. "So your Mr. +Phil gives a good deal of time to that sort of thing, does he?" he added, +his eyes seeking Philip Lambert in the distance. + +"Should say he did. I guess he gives about all the time he has outside +of the store. He's a dandy Scout-master. What he says goes, you betcher." + +Remembering the scene at the luncheon table that day, Harrison Cressy +thought it quite probable. What Philip had said had gone "you betcher" on +that occasion with a vengeance. So young Lambert gave his off hours to +business of this sort. Most of Carlotta's male friends gave most of +theirs to polo, jazz, and chorus girls. He began to covet Philip more +than ever for a possible, and he hoped probable, son-in-law. + +It played into his purposes excellently that Philip on returning invited +him to supper on the Hill that night. He wanted to meet the boy's people, +especially the mother. Carlotta had told him once that Philip's mother +was the most wonderful person in the world. + +Seated at the long table in the Lambert dining-room Harrison Cressy +enjoyed a meal such as his chef-ridden soul had almost forgotten could +exist--a meal so simple yet so delectable that he dreamed of it for days +afterward. + +But the food, excellent as it was, was only a small part of the +significance of the occasion. It was a revelation to the millionaire to +know that a family could gather around the board like this and have such +a thoroughly delightful time all round. There was gay talk and ready +laughter, a fine flavor of old-fashioned courtesy and hospitality and +good will in everything that was said or done. + +The Lambert girls--the pretty twins and the younger, slim slip of a +lassie, Elinor--were charming, fresh, natural, unspoiled, very different +from and far more to his taste than most of the young women who came to +Crest House--hot-house products, over-sophisticated, cynical, too +familiar with rouge and cigarettes and the game of love and lure, +huntresses more or less, the whole pack of them. It seemed girls could +still be plain girls on this enchanted Hill--girls who would make +wonderful wives some day for some lucky men. + +But the mother! She was the secret of it all, quite as remarkable as +Carlotta had said. She was extraordinarily well read, talked well on a +dozen subjects as to which he was himself but vaguely informed, and she +was evidently even more extraordinarily busy. There was talk of a Better +Babies movement in which she was interested, of a Red Cross Chapter at +which she had spent the afternoon, of a committee meeting of the local +Woman's Club which was bringing a noted English poet-lecturer to town. +There were Chatauqua plans in view, and a new children's reading room in +the public library with a story-telling hour of which Clare was to be in +charge. A hundred things indicated that Mrs. Lambert was by no means +confined to the four walls of her home for interests and activities. Yet +her home was exquisitely kept and she was a mother first of all. One +could see that every moment. It was "Mums, this" and "Mums, that" from +them all. The life of the home clearly pivoted about her. + +Harrison Cressy found himself wishing that Carlotta could have known a +motherhood like that. Rose had gone so soon. Carlotta had never known +what she missed. Perhaps Mr. Cressy himself had not known until he saw +Mrs. Lambert and realized what a mother might be. Poor Carlotta! He had +given her a great deal. At least, until this, afternoon, he had thought +he had. But he had never given her anything at all comparable to what +this quiet village store-keeper and his wife had given to their son and +daughters. He hadn't had it to give. He had been poor, after all, all +along. Though he hadn't suspected it until now. + +After supper Stuart Lambert had slipped quickly away, bidding his son +stay up on the Hill a little longer with their guest. Phil had demurred, +but had been quietly overruled and had acquiesced perforce. Poor Dad! +There had not been a moment all day to relieve his mind about Mr. +Cressy's offer. Not once had the father and son been alone. Phil was +afraid his father was taking the thing a good deal to heart, and it +worried him. He had counted on talking it over together as they went back +to the store but his father had willed otherwise. + +It was with Carlotta's father instead of his own that Philip talked first +after all. + +"See here, Philip," began Mr. Cressy as they descended the Hill in +"Lizzie." "I went at this all wrong. So did Carlotta. I understand +better now. I've been back in the past this afternoon, remembering what +it means to live in the country and love and mate there in the good +old-fashioned way as Carlotta's mother and I did. It is what I want her +to do with you. Do you get that, boy? I want her to come to Dunbury. I +want her to have a piece of your mother. Carlotta never knew what it was +to have a mother. It is mostly my fault she doesn't see any clearer. You +mustn't blame her, lad." + +"I don't," said Phil. "I love her." + +"I know you do. And she loves you. Go to her. Make her see. Make her +marry you and be happy." + +Phil was silent, not because he was not moved by the older man's plea but +because he was almost too moved to speak. It rather took his breath away +to have Harrison Cressy on his side like this. It was almost too +incredible, and yet there was no mistaking the sincerity in the other's +words or on his face. Carlotta's father did want Carlotta to come to him +on his Hill. + +But would Carlotta want it? That was the question. For himself he +sought no higher road to follow than the one where his father and +mother had blazed the trail through fair weather and stormy these many +years. But would Carlotta be content to travel so with him? He did not +know. At any rate he could ask her, try once more to make her see, as +her father put it. + +He turned to his companion with a sober smile at this point in his +reflections. + +"Thank you, Mr. Cressy. I will try again and I know it is going to make a +great deal of difference to Carlotta--and to me--to have you on my side. +Perhaps she will see it differently this time. I--hope so." + +"Lord, boy, so do I!" groaned Mr. Cressy. "You will come back to Crest +House tomorrow with me?" + +Phil hesitated, considered, shook his head. + +"I'll come next Saturday. I can't get away tomorrow," he said. + +"Why not? For the Lord's sake, boy, get it over!" + +Phil smiled but shook his head. He too wanted to get it over. He could +hardly wait to get to Carlotta, would have started that moment if he +could have done so. But there were clear-cut reasons why he could not go +tomorrow, obligations that held him fast in Dunbury. + +"I can't go tomorrow because I have promised my boys a hike," he +explained. + +Harrison Cressy nearly exploded. + +"Heavens, man! What does a parcel of kids amount to when it comes to +getting you a wife? You can call off your hike, can't you?" + +"I could, but it would be hard on a good many of them. They count on it a +good deal. Some of them have given up other pleasures they might have had +on account of it. Tommy has, for instance. His uncle asked him to go to +Worcester with him in his car, and he refused because of his date with +me. They are all bribed to church and Sunday School by the means. One of +the things Scouting stands for is sticking to your job and your word. I +don't think it is exactly up to the Scoutmaster to dodge his +responsibilities when he preaches the other kind of thing. Of course, if +it were a life and death matter, it would be different. It isn't. I have +waited a good many weeks to see Carlotta. I can wait one more." + +Harrison Cressy grunted. He hardly knew whether to fly into a rage with +this extraordinary young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he +liked him better and better every minute. He contented himself by +repeating a remark he had made earlier in the day. + +"You are a darn fool, young man." Then he added, half against his will, +"But I like your darnfoolness, hang me if I don't!" + +Phil had a strenuous two hours in the store with never a minute to get at +his father. It was not until the last customer had departed, the last +clerk fled away and the clock striking eleven that the father and son +were alone. + +Philip came over to where the older man stood. His heart smote him when +he saw how utterly worn and weary the other looked, as if he had suddenly +added a full ten years to his age since morning. His characteristic +buoyancy seemed to have deserted him for once. + +"Dad, I've not had a minute alone with you all day. I am sorry Mr. Cressy +bothered you about that blue sky proposition of his. I never would have +let him if I had known. Of course there was nothing in it. I didn't +consider it for a minute." + +Stuart Lambert smiled wearily and sat down on the counter. + +"I am afraid you have given up more than we realized, Philip, in coming +into the store. Mr. Cressy gave me a glimpse into things that I knew +nothing about. You should have told us." + +"There was nothing to tell. I've given up nothing that was mine. I told +Carlotta all along she would have to come to me. I couldn't come to her. +My whole life is here with you. It is what I have wanted ever since I had +the sense to want anything but to enjoy my fool self. But even then I +didn't appreciate what it would be like to be here with you. I couldn't, +till I had tried it and found out first hand what kind of a man my dad +was. I am absolutely satisfied. If Mr. Cressy had offered me a million a +year I wouldn't have taken it. It wouldn't have been the slightest +temptation even--" he smiled a little sadly--"even with Carlotta thrown +in. I don't want to get Carlotta that way." + +"You say you are satisfied, Philip. Maybe that is so. But you are +not happy." + +"I wasn't, just at first. I was a fool. I let the thing swamp me for +awhile. Mums helped pull me out of the slough and since then I've been +finding out that happiness is--well, a kind of by-product. Like the +kingdom of heaven it doesn't come for observation. I have had about as +much happiness here with you, and with Mums and the girls at home, and +with my Scouts in the woods, as I deserve, maybe more. I'm going to try +to get Carlotta. I haven't given up hope. I'm going down to Sea View next +week to ask her again and maybe things will be different this time. Her +father is on my side now, which is a great help. He has got the Holiday +Hill viewpoint all at once. He wants Carlotta to come to me--us. So do I, +with all my heart. But whether she does or doesn't, I am here with you as +long as you want me, first last and all the time and glad to be. Please +believe that, Dad, always." + +Stuart Lambert rose. + +"Philip, you don't know what it means to me to hear you say this." There +was a little break in the older man's voice, the suggestion of pent +emotion. "It nearly killed me to think I ought to give you up. You are +sure you are not making too much of a sacrifice?" + +"Dad! Please don't say that word to me. There isn't any sacrifice. It is +what I want. I haven't been a very good son always. Even this summer I am +afraid I haven't come up to all you expected of me, especially just at +first when I was wrapped up in myself and my own concerns too much to see +that doing a good job in the store was only a small part of what I was +here in Dunbury to do. But anyway I am prouder than I can tell you to be +your son and I am going to try my darndest to live up to the sign if you +will let me stay on being the minor part of it." + +He held out his hand and his father took it. There were tears in the +older man's eyes. A moment later the store was dark as the two passed out +shoulder to shoulder beneath the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE DUNBURY CURE + + +Harrison Cressy awoke next morning to the cheerful chirrup of robins and +the pleasant far-off sound of church bells. He liked the bells. They +sounded different in the country he thought. You couldn't hear them in +the city anyway. There were too many noises to distract you. There was no +Sabbath stillness in the city. For that matter there wasn't much Sabbath. + +He got up out of bed and went and looked out of the window. There was a +heavenly hush everywhere. It was still very early. It had been the +Catholic bells ringing for mass that he had heard. The dew was a-dazzle +on every grass blade. The robins hopped briskly about at their business +of worm-gathering. The morning glories all in fresh bloom climbed +cheerfully over the picket fence. He hadn't seen a morning glory in +years. It set him dreaming again, took him back to his boyhood days. + +If only Carlotta would be sensible and yield to the boy's wooing. Dunbury +had cast a kind of spell upon him. He wanted his daughter to live here. +He wanted to come here to visit her. In his imagination he saw himself +coming to Carlotta's home--not too big a home--just big enough to live +and grow in and raise babies in. He saw himself playing with Carlotta's +little golden-haired violet-eyed daughters, and walking hand in hand with +her small son Harrison, just such a sturdy, good-looking, wide-awake +youngster as Philip Lambert had no doubt been. Harrison Cressy's mind +dwelt fondly upon this grandson of his. That was a boy indeed! + +Carlotta's son should not be permitted to grow up a money grubber. There +would be money of course. One couldn't very well avoid that under the +circumstances. The boy would be trained to the responsibilities of being +Harrison Cressy's heir. But he should be taught to see things in their +true values and proportions. He must not grow up money-blinded like +Carlotta. He should know that money was good--very good. But he should +know it was not the chief good, was never for an instant to be classed +with the abiding things--the real things, not to be purchased at a price. + +Mr. Cressy sighed a little at that point and crept back to bed. It +occurred to him he would have to leave this latter part of his grandson's +education to the Lambert side of the family. That was their business, +just as the money part was his. + +He fell asleep again and presently re-awoke in a kind of shivering panic. +What if Carlotta would not marry Philip after all? What if it was too +late already? What if his grandson turned out to be a second Herbert +Lathrop, an unobjectionable, possibly even an objectionable ass. +Perspiration beaded on the millionaire's brow. Why was that young idiot +on the Hill waiting? What were young men made of nowadays? Didn't Philip +Lambert know that you could lose a woman forever if you didn't jump +lively? Hanged if he wouldn't call the boy this minute and tell him he +just had to change his mind and go to Crest House that very morning +without a moment's delay. Delay might be fatal. Harrison Cressy sat up in +bed, fumbled for his slippers, shook his head gloomily and returned to +his place under the covers. + +It wasn't any use. He might as well give up. He couldn't make Philip +Lambert do anything he did not want to do. He had tried it twice and +failed ignominiously both times. He wouldn't tackle it again. The boy was +stronger than he was. He had to lie back and let things take their course +as best they might. + +"Cheer up! Cheer up!" counseled the robins outside, but millionaire +Cressy heeded not their injunctions. The balloon of his hopes lay pricked +and flat in the dust. + +He rose, dressed, breakfasted and discovered there was an eleven o'clock +train for Boston. He discovered also that he hadn't the slightest wish to +take it. He did not want to go to Boston. He did not want to go to Crest +House. And very particularly and definitely he did not want to see his +daughter Carlotta. Carlotta might ferret out his errand to Dunbury and be +bitterly angry at his interference with her affairs. Even if she were not +angry how could he meet her without telling her everything, including +things that were the boy's right to tell? It was safer to stay away from +Crest House entirely. That was it. He would telegraph Carlotta his gout +was worse, that he had gone to the country to take a cure. He would be +home Saturday. + +Immensely heartened he dispatched the wire. By this time it was +ten-thirty and the dew on the grass was all dry, the morning glories shut +tight and the robins vanished. The church bells were ringing again +however and Harrison Cressy decided to go to church, the white Methodist +church on the common. He wouldn't meet any of the Hill people there. The +Holidays were Episcopal, the Lamberts Unitarian--a loose, heterodox kind +of creed that. He wished Phil were Methodist. It would have given him +something to go by. Then he grinned a bit sheepishly at his own expense +and shook his head. He had had the Methodist creed to go by himself and +much good had it done him. Maybe it did not make so much difference what +you believed. It was how you acted that mattered. Why that was +Unitarianism itself, wasn't it? Queer. Maybe there was something in it +after all. + +Seated in the little church Harrison Cressy hardly listened to the +preacher's droning voice. He followed his own trend of thought instead, +recalling long-forgotten scriptural passages. "What shall it profit a man +though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" was one of the +recurring phrases. He applied it to Philip Lambert, applied it sadly to +himself and with a shake of his head to his daughter, Carlotta. He +remembered too the story of the rich young man. Had he made Carlotta as +the rich young man, cumbered her with so many worldly possessions and +standards that by his own hand he was keeping her out of the heaven of +happiness she might have otherwise inherited? He feared so. + +He bowed his head with the others but he did not pray. He could not. He +was too unhappy. And yet who knows? Perhaps his unwonted clarity of +vision and humility of soul were acceptable that morning in lieu of +prayer to Sandalphou. + +As he ate his solitary dinner his despondency grew upon him. He felt +almost positive Philip would fail in his mission, that Carlotta would go +her willful way to regret and disillusionment, and all these things gone +irretrievably wrong would be at bottom his own fault. + +Later he endeavored to distract himself from his dreary thoughts by +discoursing with his neighbor on the veranda, a tall, grizzled, soldierly +looking gentleman with shrewd but kind eyes and the brow of a scholar. + +As they talked desultorily a group of khaki clad youngsters filed past, +Philip Lambert among them, looking only an older and taller boy in their +midst. The lads looked happy, alert, vigorous, were of clean, upstanding +type, the pick of the town it seemed probable to Harrison Cressy who said +as much to his companion. + +The other smiled and shook his head. + +"You are mistaken, sir," he said. "Three months ago most of those fellows +were riffraff--the kind that hang around street corners smoking and +indulging in loose talk and profanity. Young Lambert, the chap with them, +their Scout-master, picked that kind from choice, turned down a +respectable church-mothered bunch for this one, left the other for a man +who wanted an easier row to hoe. It was some stunt, as the boys say. It +took a man like Phil Lambert to put it through. He has the crowd where he +wants them now though. They would go through fire and water if he led +them and he is a born leader." + +Harrison Cressy's eyes followed the departing group. Here was a new light +on his hoped-for son-in-law. So he picked "publicans-and sinners" to eat +with. Mr. Cressy rather liked that. He hated snobs and pharisees, +couldn't stomach either brand. + +"It means a good deal to a town like this when its college-bred boys come +back and lend a hand like that," the other man went on. "So many of them +rush off to the cities thinking there isn't scope enough for their +ineffable wisdom and surpassing talents in their own home town. A number +of people prophesied that young Lambert would do the same instead of +settling down with his father as we all wanted him to do. I wasn't much +afraid of that myself. Phil has sense enough to see rather straight +usually. He did about that. And then the kickers put up a howl that he +had a swelled head, felt above the rest of Dunbury because he had a +college education and his father was getting to be one of the most +prosperous men in town. They complained he wouldn't go in for things the +rest of the town was interested in, kept to himself when he was out of +the store. There were some grounds for the kick I will admit. But it +wasn't a month before he got his bearings, had his head out of the clouds +and was in the thick of everything. They swear by him now almost as much +as they do by his father which is saying a good deal for Dunbury has +revolved about Stuart Lambert for years. It is beginning to revolve about +Stuart Lambert and Son now. But I am boring you with all this. Phil +happens to be rather a favorite of mine." + +"You know him well?" questioned Mr. Cressy. + +"I ought to. I am Robert Caldwell, principal of the High School here. +I've known Phil since he was in knickerbockers and had him under my +direct eye for four years. He kept my eye sufficiently busy at that," he +added with a smile. "There wasn't much mischief that youngster and a +neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn't get into. Maybe that is why he +is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the +direction in which the khaki-clad lads had gone. + +"H-mm," observed Mr. Cressy. "I am rather glad to hear all this. You see +it happens that I came to Dunbury to offer Philip Lambert a position. My +name's Cressy--Harrison Cressy," he explained. + +His companion lifted his eye-brows a little dubiously. + +"I see. I didn't know I was discussing a young man you knew well enough +to offer a position to. May I ask if he accepted it?" "He did not," +admitted Harrison Cressy grimly. + +"Turned it down, eh?" The school man looked interested. + +"Turned it down, man? He made the proposition look flatter than a last +year's pan-cake and it was a mighty good proposition. At least I thought +it was," the magnate added with a faint grin remembering all that went +with that proposition. + +Robert Caldwell smiled. He rather liked the idea of one of his boys +making a proposition of millionaire Cressy's look like a last year's +pan-cake. It was what he would have expected of Phil Lambert. + +"I am sorry for you, Mr. Cressy," he said. "But I am glad for Dunbury. +Philip is the kind we need right here." + +"He is the kind we need right everywhere," grunted Mr. Cressy. "Only we +can't get 'em. They aren't for sale." + +"No," agreed Robert Caldwell. "They are not for sale. Ah, the Boston +train must be in. There is the stage." + +Mr. Cressy allowed his eyes to stray idly to the arriving bus and the +descending passengers. + +Suddenly he stiffened. + +"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, an exclamation called forth by the fact that +the last person to alight from the bus was a slim young person in a trim, +tailored, navy blue suit and a tiny black velvet toque whose air bespoke +Paris, a person with eyes which were precisely the color of violets which +grow in the deepest woods. + +A little later Harrison Cressy sat in a deep leather upholstered chair in +his bedroom with his daughter Carlotta in his lap. + +"Don't try to deceive me, Daddy darling," Carlotta was saying. "You were +worried--dreadfully worried because your little Carlotta wept salt tears +all over your shirt bosom. You thought that Carlotta must not be allowed +to be unhappy. Wars, earthquakes, ship sinkings, wrecks--anything might +be allowed to go on as usual but not Carlotta unhappy. You thought that, +didn't you, Daddy darling?" + +Daddy darling pleaded guilty. + +"Of course you did, you old dear. The moment I knew you were in Dunbury I +knew what you were up to. I understand perfectly how your mind works. I +ought to. Mine works very much the same way. It is a simple three stage +operation. First we decide we want a thing. Next we decide the surest, +quickest way to get it and third--we get it. At least we usually do. We +must do ourselves that much justice, must we not, Daddy darling?" + +Daddy darling merely grunted. + +"You came to Dunbury to tell Phil he had to marry me because I was in +love with him and wanted to marry him. He couldn't very well marry me and +keep on living in Dunbury because I wouldn't care to live in Dunbury. +Therefore he would have to emigrate to a place I would care to live in +and he couldn't very well do that unless he had a very considerable +income because spending money was one of my favorite sports both indoor +and outdoor and I wouldn't be happy if I didn't keep right on playing it +to the limit. Therefore, again, the very simple solution of the whole +thing was for you to offer Phil a suitable salary so that we could marry +at once and live in the suitable place and say, 'Go to it. Bless you my +children. Bring on your wedding bells--I mean bills. I'll foot 'em.' Put +in the rough, that was the plan wasn't it, my dear parent?" + +"Practically," admitted the dear parent with a wry grin. "How did you +work it out so accurately?" + +Carlotta made a face at him. + +"I worked it out so accurately because it was all old stuff. The plan +wasn't at all original with you. I drew the first draft of it myself last +June up on the top of Mount Tom, took Phil up there on purpose indeed to +exhibit it to him." + +"Humph!" muttered Harrison Cressy. + +"Unfortunately Phil didn't at all care for the exhibit because it +happened that I had fallen in love with a man instead of a puppet. I +could have told you coming to Dunbury was no earthly use if you had +consulted me. Phil did not take to your plan, did he?" + +"He did not." + +"And he told you--he didn't care for me any more?" Carlotta's voice was +suddenly a little low. + +"He did not. In fact I gathered he was fair-to-middling fond of you +still, in spite of your abominable behavior." + +"Phil, didn't say I had behaved abominably Daddy. You know he didn't. He +might think it but he wouldn't ever say it--not to you anyway." + +"He didn't. That is my contribution and opinion. Carlotta, I wish to the +Lord Harry you would marry Philip Lambert!" + +Carlotta's lovely eyes flashed surprise and delight before she +lowered them. + +"But, Daddy," she said. "He hasn't got very much money. And it takes a +great deal of money for me." + +"You had better learn to get along with less then," snapped Harrison +Cressy. "I tell you, Carlotta, money is nothing--the stupidest, most +useless, rottenest stuff in the world." + +Carlotta opened her eyes very wide. + +"Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?" she asked gravely. + +"No. It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury." + +"But you--you wouldn't want me to live here?" probed Carlotta. + +"My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole +world. I've traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in +the past with your mother. Things look different to me now. I don't want +what I did for you. At least what I want hasn't changed. That is the same +always--your happiness. But I have changed my mind as to what makes for +happiness." + +"I am awfully glad, Daddy darling," sighed Carlotta snuggling closer in +his arms. "Because I came up here on purpose to tell you that I've +changed my mind too. If Dunbury is good for gout maybe--maybe it will be +good for what ails me. Do you think it might, Daddy?" For answer he held +her very tight. + +"Do you mean it, child? Are you here to tell that lad of yours you are +ready to come up his Hill to him?" + +"If--if he still wants me," faltered Carlotta. "I'll have to find that +out for myself. I'll know as soon as I see Phil. There won't anything +have to be said. I am afraid there has been too much talking already. You +shouldn't have told him I cried," reproachfully. + +"How could I help it? That is, how the deuce did you know I did?" +floundered the trapped parent. + +"Daddy! You know you played on Phil's sympathy every way you could. It +was awful. At least it would have been awful if you had bought him +with my silly tears after you failed to buy him with your silly money. +But he didn't give in even for a moment--even when you told him I +cried, did he?" + +"Not even then. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care. He--" + +But Carlotta's hand was over his mouth at that. How much Phil cared she +wanted to hear from nobody but from Phil himself. + +Philip Lambert found a queer message waiting for him when he came in from +his hike. Some mysterious person who would give no name had telephoned +requesting him to be at the top of Sunset Hill at precisely seven o'clock +to hear some important information which vitally concerned the firm of +Stuart Lambert and Son. + +"Sounds like a hoax of some sort," remarked Phil. "But Lizzie has been +chafing at the bit all day in the garage and I don't mind a ride. Come +on, Dad, let's see what this bunk means." + +Stuart Lambert smiled assent. And at precisely seven o'clock when dusk +was settling gently over the valley and the glory in the western sky was +beginning to fade into pale heliotrope and rose tints Lizzie brought the +two Lamberts to the crest of Sunset Hill where another car waited, a +hired car from the Eagle garage. + +From the tonneau of the other car Harrison Cressy stepped out, somewhat +ponderously, followed by some one else, some one all in white with hair +that shone pure gold even in the gathering twilight. + +Phil made one leap and in another moment, before the eyes of his father +and Carlotta's, not to mention the interested stare of the Eagle garage +chauffeur, he swept his far-away princess into his arms. There was no +need of anybody's trying to make Carlotta see. Love had opened her +eyes. The two fathers smiled at each other, both a little glad and a +little sad. + +"Brother Lambert," said Mr. Cressy. "Suppose you and I ride down the +hill. I rather think this spot belongs to the children." + +"So it seems," agreed Stuart Lambert. "We will leave Lizzie for +chaperone. I think there will be a moon later." + +"Exactly. There always was a moon, I believe. It is quite customary." + +As Stuart Lambert got out of the small car Philip and Carlotta came to +him hand-in-hand like happy children. + +Carlotta slipped away from Phil, put out both hands to his father. He +took them with a happy smile. + +"I have a good many daughters, my dear," he said. "But I have always +wanted to welcome one more. Do you think you could take in another Dad?" + +"I know I could," said Carlotta lifting her flower face to him for a +daughterly kiss. + +"Come, come! Where do I come in on this deal? Where is my son, I'd like +to know?" demanded Mr. Cressy. + +"Right here at your service--darnfoolness and all," said Phil holding +out his hand. + +"Don't rub it in," snapped Harrison Cressy, though he gripped the +proffered hand hard. "Come on, Lambert. This is no place for us." + +And the two fathers went down the hill in the hired car leaving Lizzie +and the lovers in possession of the summit with the world which the moon +was just turning to silver at their feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SEPTEMBER CHANGES + + +When September came Carlotta, who had been ostensibly visiting Tony +though spending a good deal of her time "in the moon with Phil" as she +put it, departed for Crest House, carrying Philip with her "for +inspection," as he dubbed it somewhat ruefully. He wasn't particularly +enamored of the prospect of being passed upon by Carlotta's friends and +relatives. It was rather incongruous when you came to think of it that +the lovely Carlotta, who might have married any one in the world, should +elect an obscure village store keeper for a husband. But Carlotta herself +had no qualms. She was shrewd enough to know that with her father on her +side no one would do much disapproving. And in any case she had no fear +that any one even just looking at Phil would question her choice. +Carlotta was not the woman to choose a man she would have to apologize +for. Phil would hold his own with the best of them and she knew it. He +was a man every inch of him, and what more could any woman ask? + +Ted went up for his examinations and came back so soberly that the family +held its composite breath and wondered in secret whether he could +possibly have failed after all his really heroic effort. But presently +the word came that he had not only not failed but had rather covered +himself with glory. The Dean himself, an old friend of Doctor Holiday's, +wrote expressing his congratulations and the hope that this performance +of his nephew's was a pledge of better things in the future and that this +fourth Holiday to pass through the college might yet reflect credit upon +it and the Holiday name. + +Ted himself emphatically disclaimed all praise whatsoever in the matter +and cut short his uncle's attempt at expressing his appreciation not only +of the successful finish of the examinations but the whole summer's hard +work and steadiness. + +"I am glad if you are satisfied, Uncle Phil," he said. "But there isn't +any credit coming to me. It was the least I could do after making such a +confounded mess of things. Let's forget it." + +But Ted Holiday was not quite the same unthinking young barbarian in +September that he had been in June. Nobody could work as he had worked +that summer without gaining something in character and self-respect. +Moreover, being constantly as he was with his brother and uncle, he +would have been duller than he was not to get a "hunch," as he would +have called it, of what it meant to be a Holiday of the authentic sort. +Larry's example was particularly salutary. The younger Holiday could +not help comparing his own weak-willed irresponsibility of conduct with +the older one's quiet self-control and firmness of principle. Larry's +love for Ruth was the real thing. Ted could see that, and it made his +own random, ill-judged attraction to Madeline Taylor look crude and +cheap if nothing worse. He hated to remember that affair in Cousin +Emma's garden. He made up his mind there would be no more things like +that to have to remember. + +"You can tell old Bob Caldwell," he wrote from college to his uncle, +"that he'll sport no more caddies and golf balls at my expense. Flunking +is too damned expensive every way, saving your presence, Uncle Phil. No +more of it for this child. But don't get it into your head I am a +violently reformed character. I am nothing of the kind and don't want to +be. If I see any signs of angel pin-feathers cropping out I'll shave 'em. +I'd hate to be conspicuously virtuous. All the same if I have a few +grains more sense than I had last year they are mostly to your credit. +Fact is, Uncle Phil, you are a peach and I am just beginning to realize +it, more fool I." + +Tony also flitted from the Hill that September for her new work and life +in the big city. Rather against her will she had ensconced herself in a +Student Hostelry where Jean Lambert, Phil's older sister, had been living +several years very happily, first as a student and later as a successful +illustrator. Tony had objected that she did not want anything so +"schooly," and that the very fact that Jean liked the Hostelry would be +proof positive that she, Tony, would not like it. What she really wanted +to do was either to have a studio of her own or accept Félice Norman's +invitation to make her home with her. Mrs. Norman was a cousin of Tony's +mother, a charming widow of wealth and wide social connections whom Tony +had always adored and admired extravagantly. Just visiting her had always +been like taking a trip to fairy land and to live with her--well, it +would be just too wonderful, Tony thought. But Doctor Holiday had vetoed +decidedly both these pleasant and impractical propositions. Tony was far +too young and pretty to live alone. That was out of the question. And he +was scarcely more willing that she should go to Mrs. Norman, though he +liked the latter very well and was glad that his niece would have her to +go to in any emergency. He knew Tony, and knew that in such an +environment as Mrs. Norman's home offered the girl would all but +inevitably drift into being a gay little social butterfly and forget she +ever came to the city to do serious work. Life with Mrs. Norman would be +"too wonderful" indeed. + +So Tony went to the Hostelry with the understanding that if after a few +months' trial she really did dislike it as much as she declared she knew +she would they would make other arrangements. But rather to her chagrin +she found herself liking the place very much and enjoying the society of +the other girls who were all in the city as she and Jean were, pursuing +some art or other. + +The dramatic school work was all she had hoped and more, stimulating, +engrossing, altogether delightful. She made friends easily as always, +among teachers and pupils, slipped naturally here as in college into a +position of leadership. Tony Holiday was a born queen. + +She had plenty of outside diversion too. Cousin Félice was kind and +delighted to pet and exhibit her pretty little kinswoman. There were +fascinating glimpses into high society, delightful private dancing +parties in gorgeous ball rooms, motor trips, gay theater parties in +resplendent boxes, followed by suppers in brilliant restaurants--all the +pomp and glitter of life that youth loves. + +There were other no less genuinely happy occasions spent with Dick +Carson, way up near the roof in the theaters and opera house or in queer, +fascinating out-of-the-way foreign restaurants. The two had the jolliest +kind of time together, always like two children at a picnic. Tony was +very nice to Dick these days. He kept her from being too homesick for the +Hill and anyway she felt a wee bit sorry for him because he did not know +about Alan and those long letters which came so frequently from the +retreat in the mountains where the latter was sketching. She knew she +ought to tell Dick how far things had gone but somehow she couldn't quite +drive herself to do it. She didn't want to hurt him. And she did not want +to banish him from her life. She wanted him, needed him just where he +was, at her feet, and never bothering her with any inconvenient demands +or love-making. It was selfish but it was true. And in any case it would +be soon enough to worry Dick when Alan came back to town. + +And then without warning he was back, very much back. And with his return +the pleasant nicely balanced, casual scheme of things which she had been +following so contentedly was knocked sky high. She had to adjust herself +to a new heaven and a new earth with Alan Massey the center of both. In +her delight and intoxication at having her lover near her again, more +fascinating and lover-like than ever, Tony lost her head a little, +neglected her work, snubbed her friends, refused invitations from Dick +and Cousin Félice, and indeed from everybody except Alan. She went +everywhere with him, almost nowhere without him, spent her days and more +of her nights than was at all prudent or proper in his absorbing society, +had, in short, what she afterward described to Carlotta as a "perfect +orgy of Alan." + +At the end of ten days she called a halt, sat down and took honest +account of herself and her proceedings and found that this sort of thing +would not do. Alan was too expensive every way. She could not afford so +much of him. Accordingly with her usual decision and frankness she +explained the situation to him as she saw it and announced that +henceforth she would see him only twice a week and not as often if she +were especially busy. + +To this ultimatum she kept rigidly in spite of her lover's protests and +pleas and threats. She was inexorable. If Alan wanted to see her at all +he must do it on her terms. He yielded perforce and was madder over her +than ever, fêted and worshiped and adored her inordinately when he was +with her, deluged her with flowers and poetry and letters between times, +called her up daily and nightly by telephone just to hear her voice, if +he might not see her face. + +So superficially Tony conquered. But she was not over-proud of her +victory. She knew that whether she saw Alan or not he was always in the +under-current of her thoughts and feelings. In the midst of other +occupations she caught herself wondering whether he had written her, +whether she would find his flowers when she got home, where he was, +what he was doing, if he was thinking of her as she of him. She wanted +him most irrationally when she forbade his coming to her. She looked +forward to those few hours spent with him as the only time when she was +fully alive, dreamed them over afterward, knew they meant a hundredfold +more to her than those she spent with any other man or woman. She wore +his flowers, pored over his long, beautiful, impassioned letters, +devoured the books of poetry he sent her, danced with him as often and +as long as she dared, gave her soul more and more into his keeping, the +more so perhaps in that he was so tenderly reverential of her body, +never even touching her lips with his, though his eyes often told a +less moderate story. + +The orgy over she was again doing well with her work at the school. She +knew that. Her teachers praised her gifts and her progress. Without any +vanity she could not help seeing that she was forging ahead of others who +had started even with her, had more real talent perhaps than most of +those with whom she worked and played. But she took no pride in these +things. For equally clearly she saw that she was not doing half what she +might have done, would have done, had there been no Alan Massey in the +city and in her heart. She had a divided allegiance and a divided +allegiance is a hard thing to live with as a daily companion. + +But she would not have had it otherwise. Not for a moment did she ever +wish to go back to those free days when love was but a name and the flame +had not blown so dangerously near. + +As for Alan Massey himself, he alternated between moods which were starry +pinnacles of ecstasy and others which were bottomless pits of despair. He +lived for two things only--his hours with Tony and his work. For he had +begun to paint again, magnificently, furiously, with all his old power +and a new almost godlike one added to it. As an artist it was his supreme +hour. He painted as he had never painted before. + +His love for Tony ran the whole gamut. He loved her passionately, found +it exquisite torture to have her in his arms when they danced and to +have still to bank the fires which consumed him and of which she only +dimly guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to +a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his +own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her +day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her +shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of +beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place +apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. He +loved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some other man might +be near her when he might not, might dance with her, covet her, kiss +her. He hated all men because of her and particularly he hated with +black hate the man whom he was wronging daily by his silence, his +cousin, John Massey. + +Beneath all this strange, sad welter of emotion deeper still in Alan +Massey's heart lay the tragic conviction that he would never win Tony, +that his own sins would somehow rise to strike at him like a snake out of +the grass. He had lost faith in his luck, had lost it strangely enough +when luck had laid at his feet that most desirable of all gifts, Jim +Roberts' timely death. + +In the House on the Hill, things were very quiet, missing the gay +presence of the two younger Holidays and with those at home cumbered with +cares and perplexity and grief. + +Things were easier for Ruth than for Larry. It was less difficult for her +to play the part of quiet friendship than for him, partly because her +love was a much less tempestuous affair and partly because a woman nearly +always plays a part of any kind with more facility than a man does. And +Larry Holiday was temperamentally unfit to play any part whatsoever. He +was a Yea-Yea and Nay-Nay person. + +The simplicity of the girl's role was also very largely created by her +lover's rigid self control. She took her cue from his quietness and felt +that things could not be so bad after all. At least they were together. +Neither had driven the other away from the Hill by any unconsidered act +or word. Ruth had no idea that being with her under the tormenting +circumstances was scarcely undivided happiness for poor Larry or that her +peace of mind was more or less purchased at cost of his. + +Larry kept the promise he had made to his uncle more literally than the +latter had had any idea he would or could. He never sought out Ruth's +society, was never alone with her if he could help it, never so much as +touched her hand. Ruth being a very human and feminine little person +sometimes wished he were not quite so consistently, "Holidayish" in his +conduct. She missed the ardent gaze of those wonderful gray eyes which he +now kept studiously averted from hers. Privately she thought it would not +have mattered so fearfully if just once in a while he had forgotten the +ring. Life was very, very drab when you never forgot and let yourself go +the tiniest little bit. Child like little Ruth never guessed that a man +like Larry Holiday does not dare let himself go the tiniest little bit, +lest he go farther, far enough to regret. + +Doctor Holiday watching in silence out of the tail of his eye understood +better what was going on behind his nephew's quiet exterior demeanor, +and wondered sometimes if it had not been a mistake to keep the boy +bound to the wheel like that, if he should not rather have packed him +off to the uttermost parts of the earth, far away from the little lady +with the wedding ring who was so little married. And yet there was +Granny, growing perceptibly weaker day by day, clinging pathetically to +Larry's young strength. Poor Granny! And poor Larry! How little one +could do for either! + +Ruth's memory did not return. She remembered, or at least found familiar, +books she had read, songs she must have sung, drifted into doing a +hundred little simple everyday things she must have done before, since +they came to her with no effort. She could sew and knit and play the +piano exquisitely. But all this seemed rather a trick of the fingers than +of the mind. The people, the places, the life that lay behind that crash +on the Overland never returned to her consciousness for all her anxious +struggle to get them back. + +It began to look as if her husband, if she had one, were not going to +claim her. No one claimed her. Not a single response came from all the +extensive advertising which Larry still kept up in vain hope of success. +Apparently no one had missed the little Goldilocks. Precious as she was +none sought her. + +In the meanwhile she was an undisguised angel visitant to the House on +the Hill. If in his kindly hospitality Doctor Holiday had stretched a +point or two in the first place to make the little stranger feel at home +the case was different now. She was needed, badly needed and she played +the part of house daughter so sweetly and unselfishly that her presence +among them was a double blessing to them all, except perhaps to poor +Larry who loved her best of all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED + + +Coming in from a lively game of tennis with Elsie Hathaway, his newest +sweetheart, the Ancient History Prof's pretty daughter, Ted Holiday found +awaiting him a letter from Madeline Taylor. He turned it over in his +hands with a keen distaste for opening it, had indeed almost a mind to +chuck it in the waste paper basket unread. Hang it all! Why had she +written? He didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to be reminded of +her existence. He wanted instead distinctly to forget there was a +Madeline Taylor and that he had been fool enough to make love to her +once. Nevertheless he opened the letter and pulled his forelock in +perturbation as he read it. + +She had quarrelled with her grandfather and he would not let her come +back home. She was with Emma just now but she couldn't stay. Fred was +behaving very nastily and he might tell Emma any day that she, Madeline, +had to go. They were all against her. Everything was against a girl +anyway. They never had a chance as a man did. She wished she had been +killed when she had been thrown out of the car that night. It would have +been much better for her than being as miserable as she was now. She +often wished she was dead. But what she had written to Ted Holiday for +was because she thought perhaps he could help her to find a job in the +college town. She had to earn some money right away. She would do +anything. She didn't care what and would be very grateful to Ted if he +would or could help her to find work. + +That was all. There was not a single personal note in the whole thing, no +reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion +to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed +between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so +summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one human +being to another. + +Ted thrust the letter soberly in his pocket and went off for a shower. +But the thing went with him. He wished Madeline hadn't written, wished +she hadn't besought his aid, wished most of all she hadn't been such a +devilish good sport in it all. If she had whined, cast things up against +him as she might have done, thrown herself in any way upon him, he could +perhaps have ignored her and her plea. But she had done nothing of the +sort. She was deucedly game now just as she had been the night of the +smash. And by a queer trick of his mind her very gameness made Ted +Holiday feel more quiet and responsible, a frame of mind he heartily +resented. Hanged if he could see why it was his funeral! If that old +Hottentot of a grandfather of hers chose to turn her out without a cent +it wasn't his fault. For that matter he wasn't to blame for what Madeline +herself had done. He didn't suppose the old man would have cut so rough +without plenty of cause. Why did she have to bob up now and make him feel +so darned rotten? + +Unfortunately, even the briefest of episodes have a way of not erasing +themselves as conveniently as most of us would like to have them. The +thing was there and Ted Holiday had to look at it whether it made him +feel "darned rotten" or not. He did not want to help the girl, did not +even want to renew their acquaintance by even so much as a letter. The +whole thing was an infernal nuisance. But infernal nuisance or not, he +had to deal with it, could not funk it. He was a Holiday and no Holiday +ever shirked obligations he himself had incurred. He was a Holiday and no +Holiday ever let a woman ask for help, and not give It. By the time he +was back from the shower Ted knew precisely where he stood. Perhaps he +had known all along. + +The next day he bestirred himself, went to Berry the florist who he +happened to know was in need of a clerk, got the burly Irishman's consent +to give the girl a job at excellent wages, right away, the sooner the +better. Ted opened his mouth to ask for an advance of salary but thought +better of it before the words came out. Madeline might not like to have +anybody know she was up against it like that. He would have to see to +that part of it himself somehow. + +"You're a good customer, Mr. Holiday," the genial florist was saying. +"I'm tickled to be obligin' ye and mesilf at the same time. Anything in +the flower line, to-day, Mr. Holiday? Some roses now or violets? Got some +Jim dandies just in. Beauties, I'm tellin' you. Want to see 'em?" + +Ted hesitated. His exchecquer was low, very low. The first of the month +was also far away--too far, considering all things. His bill at Berry's +already passed the bounds of wisdom and the possibility of being paid in +full out of the next month's allowance without horribly crippling the +debtor. It was exceedingly annoying to have to forfeit that ten dollars +to Uncle Phil every month for that darned automobile business which it +seemed as if he never would get free of one way or another. He certainly +ought not to buy any more flowers this month. + +Still, there was the hop to-night. Elsie was going with him. He had run +a race with three other applicants for the privilege of escorting her and +being victor it behooved him to prove he appreciated his gains. He didn't +want Elsie to think he was a tight-wad, or worse still suspect him of +being broke. He fell, let Berry open the show case, debated seriously the +respective merits of roses and violets, having reluctantly relinquished +orchids as a little too ruinous even for a ruined young man. + +"If they are for Miss Hathaway," murmured a pretty, sympathetic clerk in +his ear, "Mr. Delany sent roses this morning and she likes violets best. +I've heard her say so." + +That settled it. Ted Holiday wasn't going to be beaten by a poor fish +like Ned Delany. The violets were bought and duly charged along with +those other too numerous items on Ted Holiday's account. Going home Ted +wrote a cheerful, friendly letter to Madeline Taylor reporting his +success in getting her a job and enclosing a check for twenty live +dollars, "just to tide you over," he had put in lightly, forbearing to +mention that the gift made his bank balance even lighter, so light in +fact that it approached complete invisibility. He added that he was sorry +things were in a mess for her but they would clear up soon, bound to, you +know. And nix on the wish-I-were-dead-stuff! It was really a jolly old +world as she would say herself when her luck turned. He remained hers +sincerely and so forth. + +This business off his mind, young Mr. Holiday felt highly relieved and +pleased with himself and the world which was such a jolly old affair as +he had just assured Madeline. Later he went to the hop and had a corking +time, stayed till the last violin swooned off into silence, then +sauntered with deliberate leisureliness toward Prof. Hathaway's house +with Elsie on his arm. On the Prof's porch he had lingered as long as was +prudent, perhaps a little longer, spooning discreetly the while as one +may, even with an Ancient History Prof's daughter. There was nothing +suggestive of Ancient History about Elsie. She was slim and young as the +little new moon they had both nearly broken their necks to see over their +right shoulders a few minutes before. Moreover she was exceedingly pretty +and as provocative as the dickens. In the end Ted stole a saucy kiss and +left her pretending to be as indignant as if a dozen other impudent +youths had not done precisely the same thing since the opening of the +college year. It was the lady's privilege to protest. Ted granted that, +but neither was he much taken in by injured innocence airs. Elsie was +quite as sophisticated as he was himself as he knew very well. No first +kiss business for either of them, he reflected as he went whistling back +to the frat house. It was all in the game and both knew it was nothing +but a game which made it perfectly pleasant and harmless. + +At the frat house he found a quiet little game of another sort in +progress, slid in, took a hand, got interested, played until three A.M. +and on quitting found himself in possession of some thirty odd dollars he +had not had when he sat in. Considering his recent financial depression +the thirty dollars was all to the good, covered Madeline's check and +Elsie's violets. It was indeed a jolly old world if you treated it right +and did not take it or yourself too seriously. + +Inasmuch as playing cards for money was strictly against college rules +and gambling had been the one vice of all vices the late Major Holiday +had hated with unrelenting hate, it might be a satisfaction to record +that the late Major's son took an uneasy conscience to bed that night, or +rather that morning, but truth is truth and we are compelled to state +that Ted Holiday did not suffer the faintest twinge of remorse and went +to sleep the moment his head touched the pillow as peacefully as a +guileless new born babe might have done. + +Moreover when he woke the next morning at an unconscionably late hour he +turned over, looked at the clock, grunted and grinned sleepily and lapsed +off again into blissful oblivion, thereby cutting all his morning classes +and generally submerging himself in the unregenerate ways of his +graceless sophomoric year. He had never contracted to be conspicuously +virtuous it will be recalled. + +The next day he secured a suitable lodging place for Madeline in an +inexpensive but respectable neighborhood and the day after that betook +himself to the station to meet the girl herself. Ted never did things by +halves. Having made up his mind to stand by he did it thoroughly, perhaps +the more punctiliously because in his heart he loathed the whole business +and wished he were well out of it. + +For a moment as Madeline came toward him he hardly recognized her. She +looked years older. The brilliancy of her beauty was curiously dimmed as +an electric light might be dimmed inside a dusty globe. There were hard +lines about her full lips and a sharp, driven look in her black eyes. The +two had met in June on equal terms of blithe youth. Now, only a few +months later, Ted was still a careless boy but Madeline Taylor had been +forced into premature womanhood and wore on her haggard young face, the +stamp of a woman's hard won wisdom. + +To the girl Ted Holiday appeared more the bonny Prince Charming than +ever only infinitely farther removed from her than he had seemed in +those happy summer days which were a million years ago to all intents +and purposes now. How good looking he was--how tall and clean and +manly looking! Her heart gave a quick jump seeing him again after all +these dreary months. But oh, she must be very careful--must never +forget for a moment that things were very, very different now from what +they were in June! + +There was a moment's slightly embarrassed silence as they shook hands. +Both were remembering all too vividly the scene in Cousin Emma's garden +upon the occasion of their last meeting. It was Ted who first found +tongue and announced casually that he was going to take her straight to +the house of Mrs. Bascom, her landlady to be. + +"She's a good sort," he added. "Mothery like you know. You'll like her." + +Madeline did not answer. She couldn't. Something choked in her throat. +The phrase, "mothery like" was almost too much for the girl who had +never had a mother to remember and wanted one now as she never had +wanted one in her life. Ted's kindness--the first she had received from +any one these many days--touched her deeply. For the first time in +months the tears brimmed up into her eyes as she followed her companion +to the cab and let him help her in. As the door closed upon them Ted +turned and faced the girl and seeing the tears put out his hand and +touched hers gently. + +"Don't worry, Madeline," he said. "Things are going to look up. And +please don't cry," he pleaded earnestly. + +She wiped away the tears and summoned a wan little smile to meet his. + +"I won't," she said. "Crying is silly and won't help anything. It is just +that I was awfully tired and your being so good to me upset me. You've +always been good even--when I thought you weren't. I understand better +now. And oh, Ted, you don't know how ashamed I am of the way I behaved +that night! It was awful--my striking you like that. It made me sick to +think of it afterward." + +"It needn't have. If anybody has any call to be ashamed of that night +it's yours truly. See here, Madeline, I've worried a lot about you though +maybe you won't believe it because I didn't write or act as if I were +sorry about things. I kept still because it seemed the straightest thing +to do all round, but I did think a great deal about you, honest I did, +and I've wondered millions of times if my darn-foolness set things going +wrong for you. Did it, Madeline?" he demanded. + +"No," she answered her gaze away from his out the cab window. +"You mustn't worry, Ted, or blame yourself. It--it's all my +fault--everything." + +"It's good of you to let me out but I am not so sure I ought to be let +out. I'd give a good deal this minute if I could go back and not take +Uncle Phil's car that night." Ted leaned forward suddenly and for a +startled instant Madeline thought he meant to kiss her. But nothing was +farther from his wish or thought. It was the scar he was looking for. He +had almost forgotten it, just as he had almost forgotten the episode it +represented. But there it was on her forehead. Even in the gathering +darkness it showed with perfect distinctness. "I hoped it had gone," he +added. "But it is still there, isn't it?" + +"The scar? Yes, it is still there." For a moment the ghost of a +smile played about the girl's lips. "I've always liked it. I'd miss +it if it went." + +"Well, I don't like it. I hate it," groaned the boy. "Why, Madeline I +might have killed you!" + +"I know. Sometimes I wish it had come out so. It--it would have +been better." + +"Don't Madeline. That is an awful thing to say. Things can't be as bad as +all that, you know they can't. By the way, can you tell me the whole +business or would you rather not?" + +The girl shivered. + +"No. Don't ask me, Ted. It--it's too awful. Don't bother about me. +You have done quite enough as it is. I am very grateful but truly I +would rather you wouldn't have anything more to do with me. Just +forget I am here." + +And because this injunction was precisely in line with his own +inclination Ted suspected its propriety and swung counterwise in true +Ted fashion. + +"I'll do just exactly as I please about that. I won't pester you but you +needn't think I'm going to leave you all soul alone in a strange place +when you are feeling rotten anyway. I'm pretty doggoned selfish but not +quite that bad." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE + + +Although Max Hempel had not openly sought out Tony Holiday he was +entirely aware of her presence in the city and in the dramatic school. +Whenever she played a role in the course of the latter's program he had +his trusted aides on the spot to watch her, gauge her progress, report +their finding to himself. Once or twice he had come himself, sat in a +dark corner and kept his eye unblinking from first to last upon the girl. + +In November it had seemed good to the school to revive The Killarney +Rose, a play which ten years ago had had a phenomenal run and ended as it +began with packed houses. It was past history now. Even the road +companies had lapsed, and its name was all but forgotten by the fickle +public which must and will have ever new sensations. + +Hempel was glad the school had made this particular selection, doubly +glad it had given Antoinette Holiday the title role. The play would show +whether the girl was ready for his purposes as he had about decided she +was. He would send Carol Clay to see her do the thing. Carol would know. +Who better? It was she who created the original Rose. + +Tony Holiday behind the scene on that momentous evening, on being +informed that Carol Clay--the famous Carol Clay herself--the real +Rose--was out there in a box, was paralyzed with fear, for the first +time in her life, victim of genuine stage fright. She was cold. She was +hot. She was one tremendous shake and shiver. She was a very lump of +stone. The orchestra was already playing. In a moment her call would +come and she was going to fail, fail miserably. And with Carol Clay +there to see. + +Some flowers and a card were brought in. The flowers were from Alan of +course, great crimson roses. It was dear of him to send them. Later she +would appreciate it. But just now not even Alan mattered. She glanced at +the card which had come separately, was not with the flowers. It was +Dick's. Hastily she read the pencil-written scrawl. "Am covering the +Rose. Will be close up. See you after the show. Best o' luck and love." + +Tony could almost have cried for joy over the message. Somehow the +knowledge of Dick's nearness gave her back her self-possession. She had +refused to let Alan come. His presence in the audience always distracted +her, made her nervous. But Dick was different. It was almost like having +Uncle Phil himself there. She wouldn't fail now. She couldn't. It was for +the honor of the Hill. + +A moment later, still clutching Dick's comforting card, she ran in on the +stage, swinging her sun-bonnet from its green ribbons with hoydenish +grace, chanting a gay little lilt of an Irish melody. Her fear had gone +even as the dew might have disappeared at the kiss of the sun upon the +Killarney greensward. + +Almost at once she discovered Dick and sang a part of her song straight +down at him. A little later she dared to let her eyes stray to the box +where Carol Clay sat. The actress smiled and Tony smiled back and then +forgot she was Tony, was henceforth only Rose of Killarney. + +It was a winsome, old-timey sort of play, with an almost Barriesque +charm and whimsicality to it. The witching little Rose laughed and danced +and sang and flirted and wept and loved her way through it and in the end +threw herself in the right lover's arms, presumably there to dwell happy +forever after. + +After the last curtain went down and she had smiled and bowed and kissed +her hand to the kindly audience over and over Tony fled to the dressing +room where she could still hear the intoxicating, delightful thunder of +applause. It had come. She could act. She could. Oh! She couldn't live +and be any happier. + +But, after all she could stand a little more joy without coming to an +untimely end, for there suddenly smiling at her from the threshold was +Carol Clay congratulating her and telling her what a pleasure to-night's +Rose had been to the Rose of yesterday. And before Tony could get her +breath to do more than utter a rather shy and gasping word of gratitude, +the actress had invited her to take tea with her on the next day and she +had accepted and Carol Clay was gone. + +It was in a wonderful world of dreams that Tony Holiday dwelt as she +removed a little of her makeup, gave orders to have all her flowers sent +to a near-by hospital, except Alan's, which she gathered up in her arms +and drawing her velvet cloak around her, stepped out into the +waiting-room. + +But it was a world of rather alarming realities that she went into. There +was Dick Carson waiting as she had bidden him to wait in the message she +had sent him. And there was Alan Massey, unbidden and unexpected. And +both these males with whom she had flirted unconscionably for weeks past +were ominously belligerent of manner and countenance. She would have +given anything to have had a wand to wave the two away, keep them from +spoiling her perfect evening. But it was too late. The hour of reckoning +which comes even to queens was here. + +"Hello, you two," she greeted, putting on a brave front for all her +sinking heart. She laid down the roses and gave a hand impartially to +each. "Awfully glad to see you, Dicky. Alan, I thought I told you not to +come. Were you here all the same?" + +"I was. I told you so in my note. Didn't you get it? I sent it in with +the roses." He nodded at the flowers she had just surrendered. + +Dick's eyes shadowed. Massey had scored there. He had not thought of +flowers. Indeed there had been no time to get any he had gotten the +assignment so late. There had been quantities of other flowers, he knew. +The usher had carried up tons of them it seemed to the popular Rose, but +she carried only Alan Massey's home with her. + +"I am sorry, Alan. I didn't see it. Maybe it was there; I didn't half +look at the flowers. Your message did me so much good, Dicky. I was +scared to death because they had just said Miss Clay was outside. And +somehow when I knew you were there I felt all right again. I carried your +card all through the first act and I know it was your wishing me the best +o' luck that brought it." + +She smiled at Dick and it was Alan's turn to glower. She had not looked +at his roses, had not cared to look for his message; but she carried the +other man's card, used it as a talisman. And she was glad. The other was +there, but she had forbidden himself--Alan Massey--to come, had even +reproached him for coming. + +A group of actors passed through the reception room, calling gay +goodnights and congratulations to Tony as they went and shooting glances +of friendly curiosity at the two, tall frowning men between whom the +vivacious Rose stood. + +"Tony Holiday doesn't keep all her lovers on the stage," laughed the +near-heroine as she was out of hearing. "Did you ever see two gentlemen +that hated each other more cordially?" + +"She is an arrant little flirt, isn't she, Micky?" The speaker challenged +the Irish lover of the play who had had the luck to win the sweet, thorny +little Killarney Rose in the end and to get a real, albeit a play kiss +from the pretty little heroine, who as Tony Holiday as well as Rose was +prone to make mischief in susceptible male hearts. + +"She can have me any minute, on the stage or off," answered Micky +promptly. "She's a winner. Got me going all right. Most forgot my lines +she was so darned pretty." + +Dick took advantage of the confusion of the interruption to get in his +word. + +"Will you come out with me for a bite somewhere, Tony. I won't keep you +late, but there are some things I want to talk over with you." + +Tony hesitated. She had caught the ominous flash of Alan's eyes. She was +desperately afraid there would be a scene if she said yes to Dick now in +Alan's hearing. The latter strode over to her instantly, and laid his +hand with a proprietorial air on her arm. From this point of vantage he +faced Dick insolently. + +"Miss Holiday is going out with me," he asserted. "You--clear out." + +The tone and manner even more than the words were deliberate insult. +Dick's face went white. His mouth set tight. There was almost as ugly a +look in his eyes as there was in Alan's. Tony had never seen him look +like that and was frightened. + +"I'll clear out when Miss Holiday asks me to and not before," he said in +a significantly quiet voice. "Don't go too far, Mr. Massey. I have taken +a good deal from you. There's a limit. Tony, I repeat my question. Will +you go out with me to-night?" + +Before Tony could speak Alan Massey's long right arm shot out in Dick's +direction. Dick dodged the blow coolly. + +"Hold on, Massey," he said. "I'm perfectly willing to smash your head any +time it is convenient. Nothing would afford me greater pleasure in fact. +But you will kindly keep from making trouble here. You can't get a +woman's name mixed up with a cheap brawl such as you are trying to start. +You know, it won't do." + +Alan Massey's white face turned a shade whiter. His arm fell. He turned +back to Tony, real anguish in his fire-shot eyes. + +"I beg your pardon, Tony dearest," he bent over to say. "Carson is right. +We'll fight it out elsewhere when you are not present. May I take you to +the taxi? I have one waiting outside." + +Another group of people passed through the vestibule, said goodnight and +went on out to the street exit. It made Tony sick to think of what they +would have seen if Dick had lost his self control as Alan had. She +thought she had never liked Dick as she did that moment, never despised +Alan Massey so utterly. Dick was a man. Alan was a spoiled child, a +weakling, the slave of his passions. It was no thanks to him that her +name was not already bandied about on people's lips, the name of a girl, +about whom men came to fist blows like a Bowery movie scene. She was +humiliated all over, enraged with Alan, enraged with herself for +stooping to care for a man like that. She waited until they were +absolutely alone again and then said what she had to say. She turned to +face Alan directly. + +"You may take me nowhere," she said. "I don't want to see you again as +long as I live." + +For an instant Alan stared at her, dazed, unable to grasp the force of +what she was saying, the significance of her tone. As a matter of fact +the artist in him had leaped to the surface, banished all other +considerations. He had never seen Tony Holiday really angry before. She +was magnificent with those flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks--a glorious +little Fury--a Valkyrie. He would paint her like that. She was +stupendous, the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen, like flame +itself, in her flaming anger. Then it came over him what she had said. + +"But, Tony," he pleaded, "my belovedest--" + +He put out both hands in supplication, but Tony whirled away from them. +She snatched the great bunch of red roses from the table, ran to the +window, flung up the sash, hurled them out into the night. Then she +turned back to Alan. + +"Now go," she commanded, pointing with a small, inexorable hand to the +door. + +Alan Massey went. + +Tony dropped in a chair, spent and trembling, all but in tears. The +disagreeable scene, the piled up complex of emotions coming on top of the +stress and strain of the play were almost too much for her. She was a +quivering bundle of nerves and misery at the moment. + +Dick came to her. + +"Forgive me, Tony. I shouldn't have forced the issue maybe. But I +couldn't stand any more from that cad." + +"I am glad you did exactly what you did do, Dick, and I am more grateful +than I can ever tell you for not letting Alan get you into a fight here +in this place with all these people coming and going. I would never have +gotten over it if anything like that had happened. It would have been +terrible. I couldn't ever have looked any of them in the face again." +She shivered and put her two hands over her eyes ashamed to the quick at +the thought. + +Dick sat down on the arm of her chair, one hand resting gently on the +girl's shoulder. + +"Don't cry, Tony," he begged. "I can't stand it. You needn't have +worried. There wasn't any danger of anything like that happening. I care +too much to let you in for anything of that sort. So does he for that +matter. He saw it in a minute. He really wouldn't want to do you any harm +anyway, Tony. Even I know that, and you must know it better than I." + +Tony put down her hands, looked at Dick. "I suppose that is true," she +sighed. "He does love me, Dick." + +"He does, Tony. I wish he didn't. And I wish with all my heart I were +sure you didn't love him." + +Tony sighed again and her eyes fell. + +"I wish--I were sure, too," she faltered. + +Dick winced at that. He had no answer. What was there to say? + +"I don't see why I should care. I don't see how I can care after +to-night. He is horrid in lots of ways--a cad--just as you called him. I +know Larry would feel just as you do and hate to have him come near me. +Larry and I have almost quarreled about it now. He thinks Uncle Phil is +all wrong not to forbid my seeing Alan at all. But Uncle Phil is too +wise. He doesn't want to have me marry Alan any more than the rest of you +do but he knows if he fights it it would put me on the other side in a +minute and I'd do it, maybe, in spite of everybody." + +"Tony, you aren't engaged to him?" + +She shook her head. + +"Not exactly. I am afraid I might as well be though. I said I didn't +ever want to see him again, but I didn't mean it. I shall want to see him +again by to-morrow. I always do no matter what he does. I always shall I +am afraid. It is like that with me. I'm sorry, Dicky. I ought to have +told you that before. I've been horrid not to, I know. Take me home now, +please. I'm tired--awfully tired." + +Going home in the cab neither spoke until just as they were within a few +blocks of the Hostelry when Dick broke the silence. + +"I am sorry all this had to happen to-night," he said. "Because, well, I +am going away tomorrow." + +"Going away! Dick! Where?" It was horribly selfish of her, Tony knew; +but it didn't seem as if she could bear to have Dick go. It seemed as if +the only thing that was stable in her reeling life would be gone if he +went. If he went she would belong to Alan more and more. There would be +nothing to hold her back. She was afraid. She clung to Dick. He alone of +the whole city full of human beings was a symbol of Holiday Hill. With +him gone it seemed to her as if she would be hopelessly adrift on +perilous seas. + +"To Mexico--Vera Cruz, I believe," he answered her question. + +"Vera Cruz! Dick, you mustn't! It is awful down there now. Everybody says +so." He smiled a little at that. + +"It is because it is more or less awful that they are sending me," he +said. "Journalism isn't much interested in placidity. A newspaper man has +to be where things are happening fast and plenty. If things are hot down +there so much the better. They will sizzle more in the copy." + +"Dick! I can't have you go. I can't bear it." Tony's hand crept into +his. "Something dreadful might happen to you," she wailed. + +He pressed her hand, grateful for her real trouble about him and for +her caring. + +"Oh no, dear. Nothing dreadful will happen to me. You mustn't worry," +he soothed. + +"But I do. I shall. How can I help it? It is just as if Larry or Ted were +going. It scares me." + +Dick drew away his hand suddenly. + +"For heaven's sake, Tony, please don't tell me again that I'm just like +Larry and Ted to you. It is bad enough to know it without your rubbing it +in all the time. I can't stand it--not to-night." + +"Dick!" Tony was startled, taken aback by his tone. Dick rarely let +himself go like that. + +In a moment he was all contrition. + +"Forgive me, Tony. I'm sorry I said that. I ought to be thankful you care +that much, and I am. It is dear of you and I do appreciate it." + +"Oh me!" sighed Tony. "Everything I do or say is wrong. I wish I did care +the other way for you, Dicky dear. Truly I do. It would be so much nicer +and simpler than caring for Alan," she added naïvely. + +"Life isn't fixed nice and simple, Tony. At least it never has +been for me." + +"Oh, Dick! Everything has been horribly hard for you always, and I'm +making it harder. I don't want to, Dicky dear. You know I don't. It is +just that I can't help it." + +"I know, Tony. You mustn't bother about me. I'm all right. Will you tell +me just one thing though? If you hadn't cared for Massey--no I won't put +it like that. If you had cared for me would my not having any name have +made any difference?" + +"Of course it wouldn't have made any difference, Dicky. What does a name +matter? You are you and that is what I would care for--do care for. The +rest doesn't matter. Besides, you are making a name for yourself." + +"I am doing it under your name--the one you gave me." + +"I am proud to have it used that way. Why wouldn't I be? It is honored. +You have not only lived up to it as you promised Uncle Phil. You have +made it stand for something fine. Your stories are splendid. You are +going to be famous and I--Why, Dicky, just think, it will be my name you +will take on up to the stars. Oh, we're here," as the cab jolted to a +halt in front of the Hostelry. + +The cabby flung open the door. Tony and Dick stepped out, went up the +steps. In a moment they were alone in the dimly lit hall. + +"Tony, would you mind letting me kiss you just once as you would Larry or +Ted if one of them were going off on a long journey away from you?" + +Dick's voice was humble, pleading. It touched Tony deeply, and sent the +quick tears welling up into her eyes as she raised her face to his. + +For a moment he held her close, kissed her on the cheek and then +released her. + +"Good-by, Tony. Thank you and God bless you," he said a little huskily as +he let her go. + +"Good-by, Dick." And then impulsively Tony put up her lips and kissed +him, the first time he ever remembered a woman's lips touching his. + +A second later the door closed upon him, shutting him out in the night. +He dismissed the cab driver and walked blindly off, not knowing or caring +in what direction he went. It was hours before he let himself into his +lodging house. It seemed as if he could have girdled the earth on the +strength of Tony Holiday's kiss. The next morning he was off for Mexico. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES + + +Tony slept late next morning and when she did open her eyes they fell +upon a huge florist box by the door and a special delivery letter on top +of it. The maid had set the two in an hour ago and tiptoed away lest she +waken the weary little sleeper. + +Tony got up and opened the box. Roses--dozens of them, worth the price of +a month's wages to many a worker in the city! Frail, exquisite, +shell-pink beauties, with gold at their hearts! Tony adored roses but she +almost hated these because it seemed to her Alan was bribing her +forgiveness by playing upon her worship of their beauty and fragrance. + +Still kneeling by the flowers she glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty! Dick +was already miles away on his hateful journey, had gone sad and hopeless +because she loved Alan Massey. Why did it have to be so? Why was love so +perverse and unreasonable a thing? Alan was not worthy to touch Dick's +hand, though in his arrogance he affected to despise the other. But it +was Alan she loved, not Dick. There must be something wrong with her, +dreadfully wrong that it should be so. After last night there could be no +doubt of that. + +She sat down on the floor, opened Alan's letter, despised herself for +letting its author's spell creep over her anew with every word. It was an +abject plea for mercy, for forgiveness, for restoration to favor. It had +been a devil of jealousy that had possessed him, he had not known what +he was doing. Surely she must know that he would not willingly harm or +hurt or anger her in any way. He loved her too much. Carson had behaved +like a man. Alan would apologize to him if the other man would accept the +apology. It was Tony really who had driven him mad by being so much +kinder to the other than to himself. She must realize what he was, not +drive him too far. + +"I am sending you roses," he ended. "Please don't throw them away as you +did the others. Keep them and let them plead for me. And don't ah Tony, +don't ever, ever say again what you said last night, that you never +wanted to see me again! You don't mean it, I know. But don't say it. It +kills me to hear you. If you throw me over I'll blow my brains out as +sure as I am a living man this moment. But you won't, you cannot, Tony +dearest. You will forgive me, stand by me, rotten as I am. You are mine. +You love me. You won't push me down to Hell." + +It was a cowardly letter Tony thought, a letter calculated to frighten +her, bring her to subjection again as well as to gratify the writer's own +Byronic instinct for pose. He had behaved badly. He acknowledged it but +claimed forgiveness on the grounds of love, his love for her which had +been goaded to mad jealousy by her thoughtless unkindness, her love for +him which would not desert him no matter what he did. + +But pose or not, Tony was obliged to admit there was some truth in it +all. Perhaps it was all true-too true. Even if he did not resort to the +pistol as he threatened he would find other means of slaying his soul if +not his body if she forsook him now. She could not do it. As he said she +loved him too well. She had gone too far in the path to turn back now. + +Ah why, why had she let it go so far? Why had she not listened to Dick, +to Uncle Phil, to Carlotta, even to Miss Lottie? They had all told her +there was no happiness for her in loving Alan Massey. She knew it herself +better than any of them could possibly know it. And yet she had to go on, +for his sake, for her own because she loved him. + +By this time she was no longer angry or resentful. She was just +sorry--sorry for Alan--sorry for herself. She knew just as she had known +all along that last night's incident would not really make any +difference. It would be put away in time with all the other things she +had to forgive. She had eaten her pomegranate seeds. She could not escape +the dark kingdom. She did not wish to. + +Later came violets from Dick which she put in a vase on her desk beside +Uncle Phil's picture. But it was the fragrance and color of Alan's roses +that filled the room, and presently she sat down and wrote her +ill-behaved lover a sweet, forgiving little note. She was sorry if she +had been unkind. She had not meant to be. As for what happened it was too +late to worry about it now. They had best forget it, if they could. He +couldn't very well apologize to Dick in person because he was already on +his way to Mexico. There was no need of any penance. Of course she +forgave him, knew he had not meant to hurt her, though he had horribly. +If he cared to do so he might take her to dinner tomorrow +night--somewhere where they could dance. And in conclusion she was always +his, Tony Holiday. + +Both Dick and Alan were driven out of her mind later that day by the +delightful and exciting interview over the tea table with Carol Clay. +Miss Clay was a charming hostess, drew the girl out without appearing to +do so, got her to talk naturally about many things, her life with her +father at army barracks, and with her uncle on her beloved Hill, of her +friends and brothers, her college life, of books and plays. Plays took +them to the Killarney Rose and once more Miss Clay expressed her pleasure +in the girl's rendering of one of her own favorite roles. + +"You acted as if you had been playing Rose all your life," she added +with a smile. + +"Maybe I have," said Tony. "Rose is--a good deal like me. Maybe that is +why I loved playing her so." + +"I shouldn't wonder. You are a real little actress, my dear. I wonder if +you are ready to pay the price of it. It is bitterly hard work and it +means giving up half the things women care for." + +The speaker's lovely eyes shadowed a little. Tony wondered what +Carol Clay had given up, was giving up for her art to bring that +look into them. + +"I am not afraid. I am willing to work. I love it. And I--I am willing to +give up a good deal." + +"Lovers?" smiled Miss Clay. + +"Must I? I thought actresses always had lovers, at least worshipers. +Can't I keep the lovers, Miss Clay?" There was a flash of mischief in +Tony's eyes as she asked the important question. + +"Better stick to worshipers. Lovers are risky. Husbands--fatal." + +Tony laughed outright at that. + +"I am willing to postpone the fatality," she murmured. + +"I am glad to hear it for I lured you here to take you into a deep-laid +plot. I suppose you did not suspect that it was Max Hempel who sent me to +see you play Rose?" + +"Mr. Hempel? I thought he had forgotten me." + +"He never forgets any one in whom he is interested. He has had his eye +on you ever since he saw you play Rosalind. He told me when he came back +from that trip that I had a rival coming on." + +"Oh, no!" Tony objected even in jest to such desecration. + +"Oh, yes," smiled her hostess. "Max Hempel is a brutally frank person. He +never spares one the truth, even the disagreeable truth. He has had his +eye out for a new ingénue for a long time. Ingénues do get old--at least +older you know." + +"Not you," denied Tony. + +"Even I, in time. I grant you not yet. It takes a degree of age and +sophistication to play youth and innocence. We do it better as a rule at +thirty than at twenty. We are far enough away from it to stand off and +observe how it behaves and can imitate it better than if we still had it. +That is one reason I was interested in your Rose last night. You played +like a little girl as Rose should. You looked like a little girl. But you +couldn't have given it that delightfully sure touch if you hadn't been a +little bit grown up. Do you understand?" + +Tony nodded. + +"I think so. You see I am--a little bit grown up." + +"Don't grow up any more. You are adorable as you are. But to business. +Have you seen my Madge?" + +"In the 'End of the Rainbow?' Yes, indeed. I love it. You like the part +too, don't you? You play it as if you did." + +"I do. I like it better than any I have had since Rose. Did it occur to +you that you would like to play Madge yourself?" + +Tony blushed ingenuously. + +"Well, yes, it did," she admitted half shyly. "Of course, I knew I +couldn't play it as you did. It takes years of experience and a real art +like yours to do it like that, but I did think I'd like to try it and see +what I could do." + +Miss Clay nodded, well pleased. + +"Of course you did. Why not? It is your kind of a role, just as Rose is. +You and I are the same types. Mr. Hempel has said that all along, ever +since he saw your Rosalind. But I won't keep you in suspense. The long +and short of all this preliminary is--how would you like to be my +understudy for Madge?" + +"Oh, Miss Clay!" Tony gasped. "Do you think I could?" + +"I know you could, my dear. I knew it all the time while I was +watching you play Rose. Mr. Hempel has known it even longer. I went to +see Rose to find out if there was a Madge in you. There is. I told Mr. +Hempel so this morning. He is brewing his contracts now so be +prepared. Will you try it?" + +"I'd love to if you and Mr. Hempel think I can. I promised Uncle Phil I +would take a year of the school work though. Will I have to drop that?" + +"I think so--most of it at least. You would have to be at the rehearsals +usually which are in the morning. You might have to play Madge quite +often then. There are reasons why I have to be away a great deal just +now." Again the shadow, darkened the star's eyes and a droop came to her +mouth. "It isn't even so impossible that you would be called upon to +play before the real Broadway audience in fact. Understudies sometimes +do you know." + +Miss Clay was smiling now, but the shadow in her eyes had not +lifted Tony saw. + +"I am particularly anxious to get a good understudy started in +immediately," the actress continued. "The one I had was impossible, did +not get the spirit of the thing at all. It is absolutely essential to +have some one ready and at once. My little daughter is in a sanitarium +dying with an incurable heart leakage. There will be a time--probably +within the next two months--when I shall have to be away." + +Tony put out her hand and let it rest upon the other woman's. There was +compassion in her young eyes. + +"I am so sorry," she said simply. "I didn't know you had a daughter. Of +course, I did know you weren't really Miss Clay, that you were Mrs. +Somebody, but I didn't think of your having children. Somehow we don't +remember actresses may be mothers too." + +"The actresses remember it--sometimes," said Miss Clay with a tremulous +little smile. "It isn't easy to laugh when your heart is heavy, Miss +Antoinette. It is all I can do to go on with 'Madge' sometimes. I just +have to forget--make myself forget I am a mother and a wife. Captain +Carey, my husband, is in the British Army. He is in Flanders now, or was +when I last heard." + +"Oh, I don't see how you can do it--play, I mean," sighed Tony aghast at +this new picture the actress's words brought up. + +"One learns, my dear. One has to. An actress is two distinct persons. +One of her belongs to the public. The other is just a plain woman. +Sometimes I feel as if I were far more the first than I am the second. +There wouldn't be any more contracts if I were not. But never mind that. +To come back to you. Mr. Hempel will send you a contract to-morrow. Will +you sign it?" + +"Yes, if Uncle Phil is willing. I'll wire him to-night. I am almost +positive he will say yes. He is very reasonable and he will see what a +wonderful, wonderful chance this is for me. I can't thank you enough, +Miss Clay. It all takes my breath away. But I am grateful and so happy; +you can't imagine it." + +Miss Clay smiled and drew on her gloves. The interview was over. + +"There is really nothing to thank me, for," she said. "The favor is on +the other side. It is I who am lucky. The perfect understudy like a +becoming hat is hard to find, but when found is absolutely beyond price. +May I send you a pass for to-morrow night to the 'End of the Rainbow'? +Perhaps you would like to see it again and play 'Madge' with me from a +box. The pass will admit two. Bring one of the lovers if you like." + +Tony wired her uncle that night. In the morning mail arrived Max Hempel's +contract as Miss Clay had promised. Tony regarded it with superstitious +awe. It was the first contract she had ever seen in her life, much less +had offered for her signature. The terms were, generous--appallingly so +it seemed to the girl who knew little of such things and was not inclined +to over-rate her powers financially speaking. She wisely took the +contract over to the school and got the manager's advice to "Go ahead." + +"We've nothing comparable to offer you, Miss Tony. With Hempel and Miss +Clay both behind you you are practically made. You are a lucky little +lady. I know a dozen experienced actresses in this city who would give +their best cigarette cases to be in your shoes." + +Arrived home at the Hostelry, armed with this approval, Tony found her +Uncle's answering wire bidding her do as she thought best and sending +heartiest love and congratulations. Dear Uncle Phil! + +And then she sat down and signed the impressive document that made her +Carol Clay's understudy and a real wage-earning person. + +All the afternoon she spent in long, delicious, dreamless slumber. At +five she was wakened by the maid bringing a letter from Alan, a +wonderful, extravagant lover-note such as only he could pen. Later she +bathed and dressed, donning the white and silver gown she had worn the +night when she had first admitted to Alan in Carlotta's garden that she +loved him, first took his kisses. It was rather a sacred little gown to +Tony, sacred to Alan and her own surrender to love. He called it her +starlight dress and loved it especially because it brought out the +springlike, virginal quality of her youth and loveliness as her other +more sophisticated gowns did not. Tony wore it for Alan to-night, +wanted him to think her lovely, to love her immensely. She wanted to +taste all life's joy at once, have a perfect deluge of happiness. Youth +must be served. + +Alan, graceful for being forgiven so easily, fell in with her mood and +was at his best, courtly, considerate, adoring. He exerted all the +magic of his not inconsiderable charm to make Tony forget that other +unfortunate night when he had appeared in other, less attractive +colors. And Tony was ready enough to forget beneath his worshiping +green eyes and under the spell of his wonderful voice. She meant to +shut out the unwelcome guests of fear and doubt from her heart, let +love alone have sway. + +They dined at a gorgeous restaurant in a great hotel. Tony reveled in the +splendor and richness of the setting, delighted in the flawless service, +the perfection of the strange and delectable viands which Alan ordered +for their consumption. Particularly she delighted in Alan himself and the +way he fitted into the richness and luxury. It was his rightful setting. +She could not imagine him in any of the shabby restaurants where she and +Dick had often dined so contentedly. Alan was a born aristocrat, +patrician of the patricians. His looks, his manner, everything about him +betrayed it. Most of all it was revealed in the way the waiters scurried +to do his bidding, bowed obsequiously before him, recognized him as the +authentic master, lord of the purple. + +"So Carson really has gone to Mexico," Alan murmured as they dallied over +their salads, looking mostly into each other's eyes. + +"Yes, he went yesterday. I hated to have him go. It is awfully +disagreeable and dangerous down there they say. He might get a fever or +get killed or something." Tony absent-mindedly nibbling a piece of roll +already saw Dick in her mind's eye the victim of an assassin's blade. + +"No such luck!" thought Alan Massey bitterly. The thought brought a flash +of venom into his eyes which Tony unluckily caught. + +"Alan! Why do you hate Dick so? He never did you any harm." + +Tony Holiday did not know what outrageous injury Dick had done his +cousin, Alan Massey. + +Alan was already suavely master of himself, the venom expunged +from his eyes. + +"Why wouldn't I hate him, _Antoinetta mia_? You are half in love +with him." + +"I am not," denied Tony indignantly. "He is just like Lar--." She broke +off abruptly, remembering Dick's flare of resentment at that familiar +formula, remembering too the kiss she had given him in the dimly-lit hall +in the Hostelry, the kiss which had not been precisely such a one as she +would have given Larry. + +Alan's face darkened again. + +"Oh, yes, you are. You are blushing." + +"I am not." Then putting her hands up to her face and feeling it warm +she changed her tactics. "Well, what, if I am? I do care a lot about +Dick. I found out the other night that I cared a whole lot more than I +knew. It isn't like caring for Larry and Ted. It's different. For after +all he isn't my brother--never was--never will be. I'm a wretched flirt, +Alan. You know it as well as I do. I've let Dick keep on loving me, +knowing all the time I didn't mean to marry him. And I'm not a bit sure I +am going to marry you either." + +"Tony!" + +"Well, anyway not for a long, long time. I want to go on the stage. I +can't put all of myself into my work and give it to you at the same time. +I don't want to get married. I don't dare to. I don't dare even let +myself care too much. I want to be free." + +"You want to be loved." + +"Of course. Every woman does." + +Alan made an impatient gesture. + +"I don't mean lip-worship. You are a woman, not a piece of statuary. Come +on now. Let's dance." + +They danced. In her lover's arms, their feet keeping time to the +syncopated, stirring rhythms of the violins, their hearts beating to a +mightier harmony of nature's own brewing, Tony Holiday was far from being +a piece of statuary. She was all woman, a woman very much alive and very +much in love. + +Alan bent over her. + +"Tony, belovedest. There are more things than art in the world," he said +softly. "Don't you know it, feel it? There is life. And life is bigger +than your work or mine. We're both artists, but we'll be bigger artists +together. Marry me now. Don't make me wait. Don't make yourself wait. You +want it as much as I do. Say yes, sweetheart," he implored. + +Tony shook her head vehemently. She was afraid. She knew that just now +all her dreams of success in her chosen art, all her love for the dear +ones at home were as nothing in comparison with this greater thing which +Alan called life and which she felt surging mightily within her. But she +also knew that this way lay madness, disloyalty, regret. She must be +strong, strong for Alan as well as for herself. + +"Not yet," she whispered back. "Be patient, Alan. I love you, +dear. Wait." + +The music came to an end. Many eyes followed the two as they went back to +their places at the table. They were incomparable artists. It was worth +missing one's own dance to see them have theirs. Aside from his wonderful +dancing and striking personality Alan was at all times a marked figure, +attracting attention wherever he went and whatever he did. The public +knew he had a superlative fortune which he spent magnificently as a +prince, and that he had a superlative gift which for all they were aware +he had flung wantonly away as soon as the money came into his hands. +Moreover he was even more interesting because of his superlatively bad +reputation which still followed him. The public would have found it hard +to believe that at last Alan Massey was leading the most temperate and +arduous of lives and devoting himself exclusively to one woman whom he +treated as reverently as if she were a goddess. The gazes focussed upon +Alan now inevitably included the girl with him, as lovely and young as +spring itself. + +"Who was she?" they asked each other. "What was a girl like that doing +in Alan Massey's society?" To most of the observers it meant but one +thing, eventually if not now. Even the most cynical and world-hardened +thought it a pity, and these would have been confounded if they could +have heard just now his passionate plea for marriage. One did not +associate marriage with Alan Massey. One had not associated it too much +with his mother, one recalled. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +TROUBLED WATERS + + +Ted Holiday drifted into Berry's to buy floral offerings for the +reigning goddess who chanced still to be pretty Elsie Hathaway. Things +had gone on gayly since that night a month ago when he had stolen that +impudent kiss beneath the crescent moon. Not that there was anything at +all serious about the affair. College coquettes must have lovers, and +Ted Holiday would not have been himself if there had not been a pretty +sweetheart on hand. + +By this time Ted had far outdistanced the other claimants for Elsie's +favor. But the victory had come high. His bank account was again sadly +humble in porportions and his bills at Berry's and at the candy shops +were things not to be looked into too closely. Nevertheless he was in a +gala humor that November morning. Aside from chronic financial +complications things were going very well with him. He was working just +hard enough to satisfy his newly-awakened common sense or conscience, or +whatever it was that was operating. He was having a jolly good time with +Elsie and basket ball and other things and college life didn't seem quite +such a bore and burden as it had hitherto. Moreover Uncle Phil had just +written that he would waive the ten dollar automobile tax for December in +consideration of the approach of Christmas, possibly also in +consideration of his nephew's fairly creditable showing on the new leaf +of the ledger though he did not say so. In any case it was a jolly old +world if anybody asked Ted Holiday that morning as he entered Berry's. + +He made straight for Madeline as he invariably did. He was always +friendly and gay and casual with her, always careful to let no one +suspect he had ever known her any more intimately than at present--not +because he cared on his own account--Ted Holiday was no snob. But because +he had sense to see it was better for Madeline herself. + +He was genuinely sorry for the girl. He could not help seeing how her +despondency grew upon her from week to week and that she appeared +miserably sick as well as unhappy. She looked worse than usual to-day, he +thought, white and heavy-eyed and unmistakably heavy-hearted. It troubled +him to see her so. Ted had the kindest heart in the world and always +wanted every one else to be as blithely content with life as he was +himself. Accordingly now under cover of his purchase of chrysanthemums +for Elsie he managed to get in a word in her ear. + +"You look as if you needed cheering up a bit. How about the movies +to-night? Charlie's on. He'll fix you." + +"No, thank you, I couldn't." The girl's voice was also prudently low, +and she busied herself with the flowers instead of looking at Ted as +she spoke. + +"Why not?" he challenged, always impelled to insistence by denial. + +"Because I--" And then to Ted's consternation the flowers flew out of her +hands, scattering in all directions, her face went chalky white and she +fell forward in a heavy faint in Ted Holiday's arms. + +Ted got her to a chair, ordered another clerk to get water and spirits of +ammonia quick. His arm was still around her when Patrick Berry strayed +in from the back room. Berry's eyes narrowed. He looked the girl over +from head to foot, surveyed Ted Holiday also with sharp scrutiny and +knitted brows. The clerk returned with water and dashed off for the +ammonia as ordered. Madeline's eyes opened slowly, meeting Ted's anxious +blue ones as he bent over her. + +"Ted!" she gasped. "Oh, Ted!" + +Her eyes closed again wearily. Berry's frown deepened. His best +customer had hitherto in his hearing been invariably addressed by the +girl as Mr. Holiday. + +In a moment Madeline's eyes opened again and she almost pushed Ted away +from her, shooting a frightened, deprecating glance at her employer as +she did so. + +"I--I am all right now," she said, rising unsteadily. + +"You are nothing of the sort, Madeline," protested Ted, also forgetting +caution in his concern. "You are sick. I'll get a taxi and take you +home. Mr. Berry won't mind, will you Berry?" appealed the best +customer, completely unaware of the queer, sharp look the florist was +bending upon him. + +"No, she'd better go," agreed Berry shortly. "I'll call a cab." He walked +over to the telephone but paused, his hand on the receiver and looked +back at Ted. "Where does she live?" he asked. "Do you know?" + +"Forty-nine Cherry," returned Ted still unconsciously revelatory. + +The big Irishman got his number and called the cab. The clerk came back +with the ammonia and vanished with it into the back room. Berry walked +over to where Ted stood. + +"See here, Mr. Holiday," he said. "I don't often go out of my way to give +college boys advice. Advice is about the one thing in the world nobody +wants. But I'm going to give you a bit. I like you and I liked your +brother before you. Here's the advice. Stick to the campus. Don't get +mixed up with Cherry Street. You wanted the chrysanthemums sent to Miss +Hathaway, didn't you?" + +"I did." There was a flash in Ted's blue eyes. "Send 'em and send a dozen +of your best roses to Miss Madeline Taylor, forty-nine Cherry and mind +your business. There is the cab. Ready, Madeline?" As the girl appeared +in the doorway with her coat and hat on. "I'll take you home." + +"Oh, no, indeed, it isn't at all necessary," protested Madeline. "You +have done quite enough as it is, Mr. Holiday. You mustn't bother." The +speaker's tone was cool, almost cold and very formal. She did not know +that Patrick Berry had heard that very different, fervid, "Ted! Oh, Ted!" +if indeed she knew it had ever passed her lips as she came reluctantly +back to the world of realities. + +Ted held the door open for her. They passed out. But a moment later when +Berry peered out the window he saw the cab going in one direction and his +best customer strolling off in the other and nodded his satisfaction. + +Sauntering along his nonchalant course, Madeline Taylor already half +forgotten, Ted Holiday came face to face with old Doctor Hendricks, a +rosy cheeked, white bearded, twinkling eyed Santa Claus sort of person +who had known his father and uncle and brother and had pulled himself +through various minor itises and sprains. Seeing the doctor reminded him +of Madeline. + +"Hello, Doc. Just the man I wanted to see. Want a job?" + +"Got more jobs than I can tend to now, young man. Anything the matter +with you? You look as tough as a two year old rooster." + +The old man's small, kindly, shrewd eyes scanned the lad's face +as he spoke. + +"Smoking less, sleeping more, nerves steadier, working harder, playing +the devil lighter," he gummed up silently with satisfaction. "Good, he'll +come out a Holiday yet if we give him time." + +"I am tough," Ted grinned back, all unconscious that he had been +diagnosed in that flitting instant of time. "Never felt better in my +life. Always agrees with me to be in training." + +The old doctor nodded. + +"I know. You young idiots will mind your coaches when you won't your +fathers and your doctors. What about the job?" + +"There's a girl I know who works at Berry's flower shop. I am afraid she +is sick though she won't see a doctor. She fainted away just now while I +was in the store, keeled over into my arms, scared me half out of my +wits. I'm worried about her. I wish you would go and see her. She lives +down on Cherry Street." + +"H-m!" The doctor's eyes studied the boy's face again but with less +complacency this time. Like Patrick Berry he thought a young Holiday +would better stick to the campus, not run loose on Cherry Street. + +"Know the girl well?" he queried. + +Ted hesitated, flushed, looked unmistakably embarrassed. + +"Yes, rather," he admitted. "I ran round with her quite a little the +first of the summer. I got her the job at Berry's. Her grandfather, a +pious old stick in the mud, turned her out of his house. She had to do +something to earn her living. I hope she isn't going to be sick. It would +be an awful mess. She can't have much saved up. Go and see her, will you, +Doc? Forty-nine Cherry. Taylor is the name." + +"H-m." The doctor made a note of these facts. "All right, I'll go. But +you had better keep away from Cherry Street, young man. It is not the +environment you belong in." + +"Environment be--blessed!" said Ted. "Don't you begin on that sort of +rot, please, Doc. Old Pat Berry's just been giving me a lecture on the +same subject. You make me tired both of you. As if the girls on Cherry +Street weren't as good any day as the ones on the campus, just because +they work in shops and stores and the girls on the campus work--us," he +concluded with a grin. "I'm not an infant that has to be kept in a Kiddie +coop you know." + +"Look out you don't land in a chicken coop," sniffed the doctor. "Very +well, you young sinner. Don't listen to me if you don't want to. I know I +might as well talk to the wind. You always were open to all the fool +germs going, Ted Holiday. Some day you'll own the old Doc knew best." + +"I wouldn't admit to being so hanged well up on the chicken-roost +proposition myself if I were you," retorted Ted impudently. "So long. I'm +much obliged for your kind favors all but the moral sentiments. You can +have those back. You may need 'em to use over again." + +So Ted went on his way, dropped in to see Elsie, had a cup of tea and +innumerable small cakes, enjoyed a foxtrot to phonograph music with the +rug rolled up out of the way, conversed amicably with the Ancient History +Prof himself, who wasn't such a bad sort as Profs go and had the merit of +being one of the few instructors who had not flunked Ted Holiday in his +course the previous year. + +The next morning Ted found a letter from Doctor Hendricks in his mail +which he opened with some curiosity wondering what the old Doc could have +to say. He read the communication through in silence and tucking it in +his pocket walked out of the room as if he were in a dream, paying no +attention to the question somebody called after him as he went. He went +on to his classes but he hardly knew what was going on about him. His +mind seemed to have stopped dead like a stop watch with the reading of +the old doctor's letter. + +He understood at last the full force of the trouble which engulfed +Madeline Taylor and why she had said that it would have been better for +her if that mad joy ride with him had ended life for her. The doctor had +gone to her as he had promised and had extracted the whole miserable +story. It seemed Madeline had married, or thought she had married, +Willis Hubbard against her grandfather's express command, a few weeks +after Ted had parted from her in Holyoke. In less than two months +Hubbard had disappeared leaving behind him the ugly fact that he already +had one wife living in Kansas City in spite of the pretense of a wedding +ceremony which he had gone through with Madeline. Long since +disillusioned but still having power and pride to suffer intensely the +latter found herself in the tragic position of being-a wife and yet no +wife. In her desperate plight she besought her grandfather's clemency +and forgiveness but that rigid old covenanter had declared that even as +she had made her bed in willful disobedience to his command so she +should lie on it for all of him. + +It was then that she had turned as a last resort to Ted Holiday though +always hoping against hope that she could keep the real truth of her +unhappy situation from him. + +"It is a bad affair from beginning to end," wrote the doctor. "I'd like +to break every rotten bone in that scoundrel's body but he has taken +mighty good care to effect a complete disappearance. That kind is never +willing to foot the bills for their own villainy. I am telling you the +story in order to make it perfectly clear that you are to keep out of the +business from now on. You have burned your fingers quite enough as it is +I gather. Don't see the girl. Don't write her. Don't telephone her. Let +her alone absolutely. Mind, these aren't polite requests. They are +orders. And if you don't obey them I'll turn the whole thing over to your +uncle double quick and I don't think you want me to do that. Don't worry +about the girl. I'll look after her now and later when she is likely to +need me more. But you keep hands off. That is flat--the girl's wish as +well as my orders." + +And this was what Ted Holiday had to carry about with him all that bleak +day and a half sleepless, uneasy night. And in the morning he was +summoned home to the House on the Hill. Granny was dying. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN DARK PLACES + + +The House on the Hill was a strange place to Tony and Ted those November +days, stranger than to the others who had walked day by day with the +sense of the approaching shadow always with them. Death itself was an +awesome and unaccustomed thing to them. They did not see how the others +bore it so well, took it all so calmly. To make matters worse, Uncle Phil +who never failed any one was stricken down with a bad case of influenza +and was unable to leave his bed. This of course made Margery also +practically _hors de combat_. The little folks spent most of their time +across the street in motherly Mrs. Lambert's care. Upon Ned Holiday's +children rested the chief burden of the hour. + +Granny was rarely conscious and all three of her grandchildren coveted +the sad privilege of being near her when these brief moments of lucidity +came though Tony and Ted could not stand long periods of watching beside +the still form as Larry could and did. It was Larry that she most often +recognized. Sometimes though he was his father to her and she called him +"Ned" in such tones of yearning tenderness that it nearly broke down his +self control. Sometimes too he was Philip to her and this also was +bitterly hard for Larry missed his uncle's support woefully in this dark +hour. Ruth, Granny seemed to know, oftener indeed, than she did Tony to +the latter's keen grief though she acknowledged the justice of the stab. +For she had gone her selfish way leaving the stranger to play the loving +granddaughter's part. + +One night when the nurse was resting and Larry too had flung himself upon +the couch in the living room to snatch a little much needed relaxation, +leaving Ruth in charge of the sickroom, Ted drifted in and demanded to +take his turn at the watch, giving Ruth a chance to sleep. She demurred +at first, knowing how hard these vigils were for the restless, unhappy +lad. But seeing he was really in earnest she yielded. As she passed out +of the room her hand rested for a moment on the boy's bowed head. She had +come to care a great deal for sunny, kind-hearted Teddy, loved him for +himself and because she knew he loved Larry with deep devotion. + +He looked up with a faint smile and gave her hand a squeeze. + +"You are a darling, Ruthie," he murmured. "Don't know what we would ever +do without you." + +And then he was alone with death and his own somber thoughts. He could +not get away from the memory of Madeline, could not help feeling with a +terrible weight of responsibility that he was more than a little to blame +for her plight. Whether he liked to think it or not he couldn't help +knowing that the whole thing had started with that foolish joy ride with +himself. Madeline had never risked her grandfather's displeasure till she +risked it for him. She had never gone anywhere with Hubbard till she went +because she was bitterly angry with himself because he had not kept his +promise--a promise which never should have been made in the first place. +And if he had not gone to Holyoke, hadn't behaved like an idiot that last +night, hadn't deserted her like a selfish cad to save his own precious +self--if none of these things had happened would Madeline still have +gone to Hubbard? Perhaps. But in his heart Ted Holiday had a hateful +conviction that she would not, that her wretchedness now was indirectly +if not directly chargeable to his own folly. It was terrible that such +little things should have such tremendous consequences but there it was. + +All his life Ted Holiday had evaded responsibility and had found self +extenuation the easiest thing in the world. But somehow all at once he +seemed to have lost the power of letting himself off. He had no plea to +offer even to himself except "guilty." Was he going to do as Doctor +Hendricks commanded and let Madeline pay the price of her own folly alone +or was he going to pay with her? The night was full of the question. + +The quiet figure on the bed stirred. Instantly the boy had forgotten +himself, remembered only Granny. + +He bent over her. + +"Granny, don't you know me? It's Teddy," he pleaded. + +The white lips quivered into a faint smile. The frail hand on the cover +lid groped vaguely for his. + +"I know--Teddy," the lips formed slowly with an effort. + +Ted kissed her, tears in his eyes. + +"Be--a man, dear," the lips breathed softly. "Be--" and Granny was off +again to a world of unconsciousness from which she had returned a moment +to give her message to the grief stricken lad by her side. + +To Ted in his overwrought condition the words were almost like a voice +from heaven, a sacred command. To be a man meant to face the hardest +thing he had ever had to face in his life. It meant marrying Madeline +Taylor, not leaving her like a coward to pay by herself for something +which he himself had helped to start. He rose softly and went to the +window, staring out into the night. A few moments later he turned back +wearing a strange uplifted sort of look, a look perhaps such, as Percival +bore when he beheld the Grail. + +Strange forces were at work in the House on the Hill that night. Ruth +had gone to her room to rest as Ted bade her but she had not slept in +spite of her intense weariness. She had almost lost the way of sleep +latterly. She was always so afraid of not being near when Larry needed +her. The night watches they had shared so often now had brought them +very, very close to each other, made their love a very sacred as well as +very strong thing. + +Ruth knew that the time was near now when she would have to go away from +the Hill. After Granny went there would be no excuse for staying on. If +she did not go Larry would. Ruth knew that very well and did not intend +the latter should happen. + +She had laid her plans well. She would go and take a secretarial course +somewhere. She had made inquiries and found that there was always demand +for secretaries and that the training did not take so long as other +professional education did. She could sell her rings and live on the +money they brought her until she was self supporting. She did not want to +dispose of her pearls if she could help it. She wanted to hold on to them +as the link to her lost past. Yes, she would leave the Hill. It was quite +the right thing to do. + +But oh, what a hard thing it was! She did not see how she was ever going +to face life alone under such hard, queer conditions without Doctor +Philip, without dear Mrs. Margery and the children, without Larry, +especially without Larry. For that matter what would Larry do without +her? He needed her so, loved her so much. Poor Larry! + +And suddenly Ruth sat up in bed. As clearly as if he had been in the +room with her she heard Larry's voice calling to her. She sprang up +and threw a dark blue satin negligee around her, went out of the room, +down the stairs, seeming to know by an infallible instinct where her +lover was. + +On the threshold of the living room she paused. Larry was pacing the +floor nervously, his face drawn and gray in the dim light of the +flickering gas. Seeing her he made a swift stride in her direction, took +both her hands in his. + +"Ruth, why did you come?" There was an odd tension in his voice. + +"You called me, didn't you? I thought you did." Her eyes were wondering. +"I heard you say 'Ruth' as plain as anything." + +He shook his head. + +"No, I didn't call you out loud. Maybe I did with my heart though. I +wanted you so." + +He dropped her hands as abruptly as he had taken them. + +"Ruth, I've got to marry you. I can't go on like this. I've tried to +fight it, to be patient and hang on to myself as Uncle Phil wanted me to. +But I can't go on. I'm done." + +He flung himself into a chair. His head went down on the table. The clock +ticked quietly on the mantel. What was Death upstairs to Time? What were +Youth and Love and Grief down here? These things were merely eddies in +the great tide of Eternity. + +For a moment Ruth stood very still. Then she went over and laid a hand on +the bowed head, the hand that wore the wedding ring. + +"Larry, Larry dear," she said softly. "Don't give up like that. It +breaks my heart." There was a faint tremor in her voice, a hint of tears +not far off. + +He lifted his head, the strain of his long self mastering wearing thin +almost to the breaking point at last, for once all but at the mercy of +the dominant emotion which possessed him, his love for the girl at his +side who stood so close he could feel her breathing, got the faint violet +fragrance of her. And yet he must not so much as touch her hand. + +The clock struck three, solemn, inexorable strokes. Ruth and Larry and +the clock seemed the only living things in the quiet house. Larry brushed +his hand over his eyes, got to his feet. + +"Ruth, will you marry me?" + +"Yes, Larry." + +The shock of her quiet consent brought Larry back a little to realities. + +"Wait, Ruth. Don't agree too soon. Do you realize what it means to marry +me? You may be married already. Your husband may return and find you +living--illegally--with me." + +"I know," said Ruth steadily. "There must be something wrong with me, +Larry. I can't seem to care. I can't seem to make myself feel as if I +belonged to any one else except to you. I don't think I do belong to any +one else. I was born over in the wreck. I was born yours. You saved me. I +would have died if you hadn't gotten me out from under the beams and +worked over and brought me back to life when everybody else gave me up as +dead. I wouldn't have been alive for my husband if you hadn't saved me. I +am yours, Larry. If you want me to marry you I will. If you want me--any +way--I am yours. I love you." + +"Ruth!" + +Larry drew her into his arms and kissed her--the first time he had ever +kissed any girl in his life except his sister. She lay in his arms, her +fragrant pale gold hair brushing his cheek. He kissed her over and over +passionately, almostly roughly in the storm of his emotion suddenly +unpent. Then he was Larry Holiday again. He pushed her gently from him, +remorse in his gray eyes. + +"Forgive me, Ruth. It's all wrong. I'm all wrong. We can't do it. I +shouldn't have kissed you. I shouldn't have touched you--shouldn't have +let you come to me like this. You must go now, dear. I am sorry." + +Ruth faced him in silence a moment then bowed her head, turned and walked +away to the door meekly like a chidden child. Her loosened hair fell like +a golden shower over her shoulders. It was all Larry could do to keep +from going after her, taking her in his arms again. But he stood grimly +planted by the table, gripping its edge as if to keep himself anchored. +He dared not stir one inch toward that childish figure in the dark robe. + +On the threshold Ruth turned, flung back her hair and looked back at him. +There was a kind of fearless exaltation and pride on her lovely young +face and in her shining eyes. + +"I don't know whether you are right or wrong, Larry, or rather when you +are right and when you are wrong. It is all mixed up. It seems as if it +must be right to care or we wouldn't be doing it so hard, as if God +couldn't let us love like this if he didn't mean we should be happy +together, belong to each other. Why should He make love if He didn't want +lovers to be happy?" + +It was an argument as old as the garden of Eden but to Ruth and Larry it +was as if it were being pronounced for the first time for themselves, +here in the dead of night, in the old House on the Hill, as they felt +themselves drawn to each other by the all but irresistible impulse of +their mutual love. + +"Maybe," went on Ruth, "I forgot my morals along with the rest I forgot. +I don't seem to care very much about right and wrong to-night. You +called me. I heard you and I came. I am here." Her lovely, proud little +head was thrown back, her eyes still shining with that fearless elation. + +"Ruth! Don't, dear. You don't know what you are saying. I've got to care +about right and wrong for both of us. Please go. I--I can't stand it." + +He left his post by the table then came forward and held open the door +for her. She passed out, went up the stairs, her hair falling in a wave +of gold down to her waist. She did not turn back. + +Larry waited at the foot of the stairs until he heard the door of her +room close upon her and then he too went up, to Granny's room. Ted met +him at the threshold in a panic of fear and grief. + +"Larry--I think--oh--" and Ted bolted unable to finish what he had begun +to say or to linger on that threshold of death. + +The nurse was bending over Madame Holiday forcing some brandy between the +blue lips. Larry was by the bedside in an instant. The nurse stepped back +with a sad little shake of the head. There was nothing she could do and +she knew it, knew also there was nothing the young doctor could do +professionally. He knelt, chafed the cold hands. The pale lips quivered a +little, the glazed eyes opened for a second. + +"Ned--Larry--give Philip love--" That was all. The eyes closed. There was +a little flutter of passing breath. Granny was gone. + +It was two days after Granny's funeral. Ted had gone back to college. +Tony would leave for New York on the morrow. Life cannot wait on +death. It must go on its course as inevitably as a river must go its +way to the sea. + +Yet to Tony it seemed sad and heartless that it should be so. She was +troubled by her selfishness, first to Granny living and now to Granny +dead. She said as much to her uncle sorrowfully. + +"It isn't really heartless or unkind," he comforted her. "We have to go +on with our work. We can't lay it down or scamp it just because dear +Granny's work is done. It is no more wrong for you to go back to your +play than it is for me to go back to my doctoring." + +"I know," sighed Tony. "But I can't help feeling remorseful. I had so +much time and Granny had so little and yet I wasn't willing to give her +even a little of mine. I would have if I had known though. I knew I was +selfish but I didn't know how selfish. I wish you had told me, Uncle +Phil. Why didn't you? You told Ruth. You let her help. Why wouldn't you +let me?" she half reproached. + +"I tried to do what was best for us all. I wanted to find a reason for +keeping Ruth with us and I did not think then and I don't think now that +it was right or necessary to keep you back for the little comfort it +could have brought to Granny. You must not worry, dear child. The blame +if there is any is mine. I know you would have stayed if I had let you." + +Back in college Ted sorted out his personal letters from the sheaf of +bills. Among them was one from Madeline Taylor, presumably the answer to +the one Ted had written her from the House on the Hill. He stared at the +envelope, dreading to open it. He was too horribly afraid of what it +might contain. Suddenly he threw the letter down on the table and his +head went down on top of it. + +"I can't do it," he groaned. "I can't. I won't. It's too hard." + +But in a moment his head popped up again fiercely. + +"Confound you!" he muttered. "You can and you will. You've got to. +You've made your bed. Now lie on it." And he opened the letter. + +"I can't tell you," wrote the girl, "how your letter touched me. Don't +think I don't understand that it isn't because you love me or really want +to marry me that you are asking me to do it. It is all the finer and more +wonderful because you don't and couldn't, ever. You had nothing to +gain--everything to lose. Yet you offered it all as if it were the most +ordinary gift in the world instead of the biggest. + +"Of course, I can't let you sacrifice yourself like that for me. Did you +really think I would? I wouldn't let you be dragged down into my life +even if you loved me which you don't. Some day you will want to marry a +girl--not somebody like me--but your own kind and you can go to her clean +because you never hurt me, never did me anything but good ever. You +lifted me up always. But there must have been something still stronger +that pulled me down. I couldn't stay up. I was never your kind though I +loved you just as much as if I were. Forgive my saying it just this once. +It will be the last time. This is really good-by. Thank you over and over +for everything, + +"Madeline." + +A mist blurred Ted Holiday's eyes as he finished the letter. He was free. +The black winged vulture thing which had hovered over him for days was +gone. By and by he would be thankful for his deliverance but just now +there was room only in his chivalrous boy's heart for one overmastering +emotion, pity for the girl and her needlessly wrecked life. What a +hopeless mess the whole thing was! And what could he do to help her since +she would not take what he had offered in all sincerity? He must think +out a way somehow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE PEDIGREE OF PEARLS + + +"Where is Larry?" asked Doctor Holiday a few days later coming into the +dining room at supper time. "I haven't seen him all the afternoon." + +Margery dropped into her chair with a tired little sigh. + +"There is a note from him at your place. I think he has gone out of town. +John told me he took him to the three ten train." + +"H--m!" mused the doctor. "Where is Ruth?" he looked up to ask. + +"Ruth went to Boston at noon. At least so Bertha tells me." Bertha +was the maid. "She did not say good-by to me. I thought possibly she +had to you!" + +Her husband shook his head, perplexed and troubled. + +"Dear Uncle Phil," ran Larry's message. + +"Ruth has gone to Boston. She left a letter for me saying good-by and +asking me to say good-by to the rest of you for her. Said she would write +as soon as she had an address and that no one was to worry about her. She +would be quite all right and thought it was best not to bother us by +telling us about her plans until she was settled." + +"Of course I am going after her. I don't know where she is but I'll find +her. I've got to, especially as I was the one who drove her away. I broke +my promise to you. I did make love to her and asked her to marry me the +night Granny died. She said she would and then of course I said she +couldn't and we've not seen each other alone since so I don't know what +she thinks now. I don't know anything except that I'm half crazy." + +"I know it is horribly selfish to go off and leave you like this when you +need me especially. Please forgive me. I'll be back as soon as I can or +send Ruth or we'll both come. And don't worry. I'm not going to do +anything rash or wrong or anything that will hurt you or Ruth. I am sorry +about the other night. I didn't mean to smash up like that." + +The doctor handed the letter over to his wife. + +"Why didn't he wait until he had her address? How can he possibly find +her in a city like Boston with not the slightest thing to go on?" + +Doctor Holiday smiled wearily. + +"Wait! Do you see Larry waiting when Ruth is out of his sight? My dear, +don't you know Larry is the maddest of the three when he gets under way?" + +"The maddest and the finest. Don't worry, Phil. He is all right. He won't +do anything rash just as he tells you." + +"You can't trust a man in love, especially a young idiot who waited a +full quarter century to get the disease for the first time. But you are +right. I'd trust him anywhere, more rather than less because of that +confession of his. I've wondered that he didn't break his promise long +before this. He is only human and his restraint has been pretty nearly +super-human. I don't believe he would have smashed up now as he calls it +if his nerves hadn't been strained about to the limit by taking all the +responsibility for Granny at the end. It was terrible for the poor lad." + +"It was terrible for you too, Phil. Larry isn't the only one who has +suffered. I do wish those foolish youngsters could have waited a little +and not thrown a new anxiety on you just now. But I suppose we can't +blame them under the circumstances. Isn't it strange, dear? Except for +the children sleeping up in the nursery you and I are absolutely alone +for the first time since I came to the House on the Hill." + +He nodded a little sadly. His father was gone long since and now Granny +too. And Ned's children were all grown up, would perhaps none of them +ever come again in the old way. Their wings were strong enough now to +make strange flights. + +"We've filled your life rather full, Margery mine," he said. "I hope +there are easier days ahead." + +"I don't want any happier ones," said Margery as she slipped her +hand into his. + +The next few days were a perfect nightmare to Larry. Naturally he found +no trace of Ruth, did not know indeed under what name she had chosen to +go. The city had swallowed her up and the saddest part of it was she had +wanted to be swallowed, to get away from himself. She had gone for his +sake he knew, because he had told her he could endure things no longer. +She had taken him at his word and vanished utterly. For all her +gentleness and docility Ruth had tremendous fortitude. She had taken this +hard, rash step alone in the dark for love's sake, just as she was ready +that unforgettable night to take that rasher step with him to marriage or +something less than marriage had he permitted it. She would have +preferred to marry him, not to bother with abstractions of right and +wrong, to take happiness as it offered but since he would not have it so +she had lost herself. + +Despair, remorse, anxiety, loneliness held him-in thrall while he roamed +the streets of the old city, almost hopeless now of finding her but still +doggedly persistent in his search. Another man under such a strain of +mind and body would have gone on a stupendous thought drowning carouse. +Larry Holiday had no such refuge in his misery. He took it straight +without recourse to anaesthetic of any sort. And on the fourth day when +he had been about to give up in defeat and go home to the Hill to wait +for word of Ruth a crack of light dawned. + +Chancing to be strolling absent mindedly across the Gardens he ran into a +college classmate of his, one Gary Eldridge, who shook his hand with +crushing grip and announced that it was a funny thing Larry's bobbing up +like that because he had been hearing the latter's name pretty +consecutively all the previous afternoon on the lips of the daintiest +little blonde beauty it had been his luck to behold in many a moon, a +regular Greuze girl in fact, eyes and all. + +Naturally there was no escape for Eldridge after that. Larry Holiday +grabbed him firmly and demanded to know if he had seen Ruth Annersley and +if he had and knew where she was to tell him everything quick. It was +important. + +Considering Larry Holiday's haggard face and tense voice Eldridge +admitted the importance and spun his yarn. No, he did not know where Ruth +Annersley was nor if the Greuze girl was Ruth Annersley at all. He did +know the person he meant was in the possession of the famous Farringdon +pearls, a fact immensely interesting to Fitch and Larrabee, the jewelers +in whose employ he was. + +"Your Ruth Annersley or Farringdon or whoever she is brought the pearls +in to our place yesterday to have them appraised. You can bet we sat up +and took notice. We didn't know they had left Australia but here they +were right under our noses absolutely unmistakable, one of the finest +sets of matched pearls in the world. You Holidays are so hanged smart. I +wonder it didn't occur to you to bring 'em to us anyway. We're the boys +that can tell you who's who in the lapidary world. Pearls have pedigrees, +my dear fellow, quite as faithfully recorded as those of prize pigs." + +Larry thumped his cranium disgustedly. It did seem ridiculous now that +the very simple expedient of going to the master jewelers for information +had not struck any of them. But it hadn't and that was the end of it. He +made Eldridge sit down in the Gardens then and there however to tell him +all he knew about the pearls but first and most important did the other +have any idea where the owner of the pearls was? He had none. The girl +was coming in again in a few days to hear the result of a cable they had +sent to Australia where the pearls had been the last Larrabee and Fitch +knew. She had left no address. Eldridge rather thought she hadn't cared +to be found. Larry bit his lip at that and groaned inwardly. He too was +afraid it was only too true, and it was all his fault. + +This was the story of the pearls as his friend briefly outlined it for +Larry Holiday's benefit. The Farringdon pearls had originally belonged to +a Lady Jane Farringdon of Farringdon Court, England. They had been the +gift of a rejected lover who had gone to Africa to drown his +disappointment and had died there after having sent the pearls home to +the woman he had loved fruitlessly and who was by this time the wife of +another man, her distant cousin Sir James Farringdon. At her death Lady +Jane had given the pearls to her oldest son for his bride when he should +have one. He too had died however before he had attained to the bride. +The pearls went to his younger brother Roderick a sheep raiser in +Australia who had amassed a fortune and discarded the title. The sheep +raiser married an Australian girl and gave her the pearls. They had two +children, a girl and a boy. Roderick was since deceased. Possibly his +wife also was dead. They had cabled to find out details. But it looked as +if the little blonde lady who possessed the pearls although she did not +know where she got them was in all probability the daughter of Roderick +Farringdon, the granddaughter of the famous beauty, Lady Jane. She was +probably also a great heiress. The sheep raiser and his father-in-law had +both been reported to be wallowing in money. "Oh boy!" Eldridge had ended +significantly. + +"But if Ruth is a person of so much importance why did they let her +travel so far alone with those valuable pearls in her possession? Why +haven't they looked her up? I suppose she told you about the wreck +and--the rest of it?" + +"She did, sang the praises of the family of Holiday in a thousand keys. +Your advertisements were all on the Annersley track you see and they +would all be out on the Farringdon one. The paths didn't happen to cross +I suppose." + +"You don't know anything about, Geoffrey Annersley do you?" Larry asked +anxiously. + +"Not a thing. We are jewelers not detectives or clairvoyants. It is only +the pearls we are up on and we've evidently slipped a cog on them. We +should have known when they came to the States but we didn't." + +"I'll cable the American consul at Australia myself. It's the first +real clue we have had--the rest has been working in the dark. The first +thing though is to find Ruth." And Larry Holiday looked so very +determined and capable of doing anything he set out to do that Gary +Eldridge grinned a little. + +"Wonderful what falling in love will do for a chap," he reflected. "Used +to think old Larry was rather a slow poke but he seems to have developed +into some whirlwind. Don't wonder considering what a little peach the +girl is. Hope the good Lord has seen fit to recall Geoffrey Annersley to +his heaven if he really did marry her." + +Aloud he promised to telephone Larry the moment the owner of the pearls +crossed the threshold of Larrabee and Fitch and to hold her by main force +if necessary until Larry could get there. In the meantime he suggested +that she had seemed awfully interested in the Australia part of the story +and it was very possible she had gone to the-- + +"Library." Larry took the words out of his mouth and bolted without any +formality of farewell into the nearest subway entrance. + +His friend gazed after him. + +"And this is Larry Holiday who used to flee if a skirt fluttered in his +direction," he murmured. "Ah well, it takes us differently. But it gets +us all sooner or later." + +Larry's luck had turned at last. In the reading room of the Public +Library he discovered a familiar blonde head bent over a book. He strode +to the secluded corner where she sat "reading up" on Australia. + +"Ruth!" Larry tried to speak quietly though he felt like raising the +echoes of the sacred scholarly precincts. + +The reader looked up startled, wondering. Her face lit with quick +delight. + +"Larry, oh Larry, I'm finding myself," she whispered breathlessly. + +"I'm glad but I'm gladder that I'm finding--yourself. Come on outside +sweetheart. I want to shout. I can't whisper and I won't. I'll get us +both put out if you won't come peaceably." + +"I'll come," said Ruth meekly. + +Outside in the corridor she raised blue eyes to gray ones. + +"I didn't mean you to find me--yet," she sighed. + +"So I should judge. I didn't think a mite of a fairy girl like you could +be so cruel. Some day I'll exact full penance for all you've made me +suffer but just now we'll waive that and go over to the Plaza and have a +high tea and talk. But first I'm going to kiss you. I don't care if +people are looking. All Boston can look if it likes. I'm going to do it." + +But it was only a scrub woman and not all Boston who witnessed that kiss, +and she paid no attention to the performance. Even had she seen it is +hardly probable that she would have been vastly startled at the sight. +She was a very old woman and more than likely she had seen such sights +before. Perhaps she had even been kissed by a man herself, once upon a +time. We hope so. + +The next day Larry and Ruth came home to the Hill, radiantly happy and +full of their strange adventures. Ruth was wearing an immensely becoming +new dark blue velvet suit, squirrel furs and a new hat which to Margery's +shrewd feminine eyes betrayed a cost all out of proportion to its +minuteness. She was looking exquisitely lovely in her new finery. Scant +wonder Larry could not keep his eyes off of her. Margery and Philip were +something in the same state. + +"On the strength of my being an heiress maybe Larry thought I might +afford some new clothes," Ruth confessed. "Of course he paid for +them--temporarily," she had added with a charming blush and a side long, +deprecating glance at Doctor Holiday, senior. She did not want him to +disapprove of her for letting Larry buy her pretty clothes nor blame +Larry for doing it. + +But he only laughed and remarked that he would have gone shopping with +her himself if he had any idea the results would be so satisfactory. + +It was only when he was alone with Margery that he shook his head. + +"Those crazy children behave as if everything were quite all right and as +if they could run right out any minute and get married. She doesn't even +wear her ring any more and they both appear to think the fact it +presumably represents can be disposed of as summarily." + +"Let them alone," advised his wife. "They are all right. It won't do them +a bit of harm to let themselves go a bit. Larry does his worshiping with +his eyes and maybe with his tongue when they are alone. I don't blame +him. She is a perfect darling. And it is much better for him not to +pretend he doesn't care when we all know he does tremendously. It was +crushing it all back that made him so miserable and smash up as he wrote +you. I don't believe he smashed very irretrievably anyway. He is too much +of a Holiday." + +The doctor smiled a little grimly. + +"You honor us, my dear. Even Holidays are men!" + +"Thank heaven," said Margery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE FIERY FURNACE + + +A few days after the return of Larry and Ruth to the Hill Doctor Holiday +found among his mail an official looking document bearing the seal of the +college which Ted attended and which was also his own and Larry's alma +mater. He opened it carelessly supposing it to be an alumni appeal of +some sort but as his-eyes ran down the typed sheet his face grew grave +and his lips set in a tight line. The communication was from the +president and informed its recipient that his nephew Edward Holiday was +expelled from the college on the confessed charge of gambling. + +"We are particularly sorry to be obliged to take this action," wrote the +president, "inasmuch as Edward has shown recently a marked improvement +both in class-room work and general conduct which has gone far to +eradicate the unfortunate impression made by the lawlessness of his +earlier career. But we cannot overlook so flagrant an offense and are +regretfully forced to make an example of the offender. As you know +gambling is strictly against the rules of the institution and your nephew +played deliberately for high stakes as he admits and made a considerable +sum of money--three hundred dollars to be precise--which he disposed of +immediately for what purpose he refuses to tell. Again regretting," et +cetera, et cetera, the letter closed. + +But there was also a hand written postscript and an enclosure. + +The postscript ran as follows: + +"As a personal friend and not as the president of the college I am +sending on the enclosed which may or may not be of importance. A young +girl, Madeline Taylor by name, of Florence, Massachusetts, who has until +recently been employed in Berry's flower shop, was found dead this +morning with the gas jet fully turned on, the inference being clearly +suicide. A short time ago a servant from the lodging house where the +dead girl resided came to me with a letter addressed to your nephew. It +seems Miss Taylor had given the girl the letter to mail the previous +evening and had indeed made a considerable point of its being mailed. +Nevertheless the girl had forgotten to do so and the next day was too +frightened to do it fearing the thing might have some connection with +the suicide. She meant to give it to Ted in person but finding him out +decided at the last moment to deliver it to me instead. I am sending the +letter to you, as I received it, unopened, and have not and shall not +mention the incident to any one else. I should prefer and am sure that +you will also wish that your nephew's name shall not be associated in +any way with the dead girl's. Frankly I don't believe the thing contains +any dynamite whatever but I would rather you handled the thing instead +of myself. + +"Believe me, my dear Holiday, I am heartily sick, and sorry over the +whole matter of Ted's expulsion. If we had not had his own word for it I +should not have believed him guilty. Even now I have a feeling that there +was more behind the thing than we got, something perhaps more to his +credit than he was willing to tell." + +Philip Holiday picked up the enclosed letter addressed to Ted and looked +at it as dubiously as if indeed it might have contained dynamite. The +scrawling handwriting was painfully familiar. And the mention of +Florence as the dead girl's home was disagreeably corroborating evidence. +What indeed was behind it all? + +Steeling his will he tore open the sealed envelope. Save for a folded +slip of paper it was quite empty. The folded slip was a check for three +hundred dollars made payable to Madeline Taylor and signed with Ted +Holiday's name. + +Here was dynamite and to spare for Doctor Holiday. Beside the uneasy +questions this development conjured the catastrophe of the boy's +expulsion took second place. And yet he forced himself not to judge until +he had heard Ted's own story. What was love for if it could not find +faith in time of need? + +He said nothing to any one, even his wife, of the president's letter and +that disconcerting check which evidently represented the results of the +boy's law breaking. All day he looked for a letter from Ted himself and +hoped against hope that he would appear in person. His anxiety grew as he +heard nothing. What had become of the boy? Where had he betaken himself +with his shame and trouble? How grave was his trouble? It was a bad day +for Philip Holiday and a worse night. + +But the morning brought a letter from his nephew, mailed ominously enough +from a railway post office in northern Vermont. The doctor tore it open +with hands that trembled a little. One thing at least he was certain of. +However bad the story the lad had to tell it would be the truth. He could +count on that. + +"Dear Uncle Phil--" it ran. "By the time you get this I shall be over the +border and enlisted, I hope, with the Canadians. I am horribly sorry to +knife you like this and go off without saying good-by and leaving such a +mess behind but truly it is the best thing I could do for the rest of +you as well as myself. + +"They will write you from college and tell you I am fired--for gambling. +But they won't tell you the whole story because they don't know it. I +couldn't tell them. It concerned somebody else besides myself. But you +have a right to know everything and I am going to tell it to you and +there won't be anything shaved off or tacked on to save my face either. +It will be straight stuff on my honor as a Holiday which means as much to +me as it does to you and Larry whether you believe it or not." + +Then followed a straightforward account of events from the first +ill-judged pick-up on the train and the all but fatal joy ride to the +equally ill-judged kisses in Cousin Emma's garden. + +"I hate like the mischief to put such things down on paper," wrote the +boy, "but I said I'd tell the whole thing and I will, even if it does +come out hard, so you will know it isn't any worse than it is. It is bad +enough I'll admit, I hadn't any business to make fool love to her when I +really didn't care a picayune. And I hadn't any business to be there in +Holyoke at all when you thought I was at Hal's. I did go to Hal's but I +only stayed two days. The rest of the time I was with Madeline and knew I +was going to be when I left the Hill. That part can't look any worse to +you than it does to me. It was a low-down trick to play on you when you +had been so white about the car and everything. But I did it and I can't +undo it. I can only say I am sorry. I did try afterward to make up a +little bit by keeping my word about the studying. Maybe you'll let that +count a little on the other side of the ledger. Lord knows I need +anything I can get there. It is little enough, more shame to me!" + +Then followed the events of the immediately preceding months from +Madeline Taylor's arrival in the college town on to the stunning +revelation of old Doctor Hendricks' letter. + +"You don't know how the thing made me feel. I couldn't help feeling more +or less responsible. For after all I did start the thing and though +Madeline was always too good a sport to blame me I knew and I am sure she +knew that she wouldn't have taken up with Hubbard if I hadn't left her in +the lurch just when she had gotten to care a whole lot too much for me. +Besides I couldn't help thinking what it would have been like if Tony had +been caught in a trap like that. It didn't seem to me I could stand off +and let her go to smash alone though I could see Doc Hendricks had common +sense on his side when he ordered me to keep out of the whole business. + +"I had all this on my mind when I came home that last time when Granny +was dying. I had it lodged in my head that it was up to me to straighten +things out by marrying Madeline myself though I hated the idea like death +and destruction and I knew it would about kill the rest of you. I wrote +and asked her to marry me that night after Granny went. She wouldn't do +it. It wasn't because she didn't love me either. I guess it was rather +because she did that she wouldn't. She wouldn't pull me down in the quick +sands with her. Whatever you may think of what she was and did you will +have to admit that she was magnificent about this. She might have saved +herself at my expense and she wouldn't. Remember that, Uncle Phil, and +don't judge her about the rest." + +Doctor Holiday ceased reading a moment and gazed into the fire. By the +measure of his full realization of what such a marriage would have meant +to his young nephew he paid homage to the girl in her fine courage in +refusing to take advantage of a chivalrous boy's impulsive generosity +even though it left her the terrible alternative which later she had +taken. And he thought with a tender little smile that there was something +also rather magnificent about a lad who would offer himself thus +voluntarily and knowingly a living sacrifice for "dear Honor's sake." He +went back to the letter. + +"But I still felt I had to do something to help though she wouldn't +accept the way I first offered. I knew she needed money badly as she +wasn't able to work and I wanted to give her some of mine. I knew I had +plenty or would have next spring when I came of age. But I was sure you +wouldn't let me have any of it now without knowing why and Larry wouldn't +lend me any either, sight unseen. I wouldn't have blamed either of you +for refusing. I haven't deserved to be taken on trust. + +"The only other way I knew of to get money quick was to play for it. I +have fool's luck always at cards. Last year I played a lot for money. +Larry knew and rowed me like the devil for it last spring. No wonder. He +knew how Dad hated it. So did I. I'd heard him rave on the subject often +enough. But I did it just the same as I did a good many other things I am +not very proud to remember now. But I haven't done it this year--at least +only a few times. Once I played when I'd sent Madeline all the money I +had for her traveling expenses and once or twice beside I did it on my +own account because I was so darned sick of toeing a chalk mark I had to +go on a tangent or bust. I am not excusing it. I am not excusing +anything. I am just telling the truth. + +"Anyhow the other night I played again in good earnest. There were quite +a number of fellows in the game and we all got a bit excited and plunged +more than we meant to especially myself and Ned Delany who was out to +get me if he could. He hates me like the seven year itch anyway because I +caught him cheating at cards once and said so right out in meeting. I had +absolutely incredible luck. I guess the devil or the angels were on my +side. I swept everything, made about three hundred dollars in all. The +fellows paid up and I banked the stuff and mailed Madeline a check for +the whole amount the first thing. I don't know what would have happened +if I had lost instead of winning. I didn't think about that. A true +gambler never does I reckon. + +"But I want to say right here and now, Uncle Phil, that I am through with +the business. The other night sickened me of gambling for good and all. +Even Dad couldn't have hated it any more than I do this minute. It is +rotten for a man, kills his nerves and his morals and his common sense. +I'm done. I'll never make another penny that way as long as I live. But +I'm not sorry I did it this once no matter how hard I'm paying for it. If +I had it to do over again I'd do precisely the same thing. I wonder if +you can understand that, Uncle Phil, or whether you'll think I'm just +plain unregenerate. + +"I thought then I was finished with the business but as a matter of fact +I was just starting on it. Somebody turned state's evidence. I imagine it +was Delany though I don't know. Anyhow somebody wrote the president an +anonymous letter telling him there was a lot of gambling going on and I +was one of the worst offenders, and thoughtfully suggested the old boy +should ask me how much I made the other night and what I did with it. Of +course that finished me off. I was called before the board and put +through a holy inquisition. Gee! They piled up not only the gambling +business but all the other things I'd done and left undone for two years +and a half and dumped the whole avalanche on my head at once. Whew! It +was fierce. I am not saying I didn't deserve it. I did, if not for this +particular thing for a million other times when I've gone scot-free. + +"They tried to squeeze out of me who the other men involved were but I +wouldn't tell. I could have had a neat little come back on Delany if I +had chosen but I don't play the game that way and I reckon he knew it and +banked on my holding my tongue. I'd rather stand alone and take what was +coming to me and I got it too good and plenty. They tried to make me tell +what I did with the money. That riled me. It was none of their business +and I told 'em so. Anyway I couldn't have told even if it would have done +me any good on Madeline's account. I wouldn't drag her into it. + +"Finally they dismissed me and said they would let me know later what +they would do about my case. But there wasn't any doubt in my mind what +they were going to do nor in theirs either, I'll bet. I was damned. They +had to fire me--couldn't help it when I was caught with the goods under +their very noses. I think a good many of them wished I hadn't been +caught, that they could have let me off some way, particularly Prof. +Hathaway. He put out his hand and patted my shoulder when I went out and +I knew he was mighty sorry. He has been awfully decent to me always +especially since I have been playing round with his daughter Elsie this +fall and I guess it made him feel bad to have me turn out such a black +sheep. I wished I could tell him the whole story but I couldn't. I just +had to let him think it was as bad as it looked. + +"I had hardly gotten back into the Frat house when I was called to the +telephone. It was Madeline. She thanked me for sending her the money but +said she was sending the check back as she didn't need it, had found a +way out of her difficulties. She was going on a long, long journey in +fact, and wouldn't see me again. Said she wanted to say good-by and wish +me all kinds of luck and thank me for what she was pleased to call my +goodness to her. And then she hung up before I could ask any questions or +get it through my head what she meant by her long, long journey. My brain +wasn't working very lively after what I'd been through over there at the +board meeting anyway and I was too wrapped up in my own troubles to +bother much about hers at the moment, selfish brute that I am. + +"But the next morning I understood all right. She had found her way out +and no mistake, just turned on the gas and let herself go. She was dead +when they found her. I don't blame her, Uncle Phil. It was too hard for +her. She couldn't go through with it. Life had been too hard for her from +the beginning. She never had half a chance. And in the end we killed her +between us, her pious old psalm singing hypocrite of a grandfather, the +rotter who ruined her, and myself, the prince of fools. + +"I went to see her with the old Doc. And, Uncle Phil, she was beautiful. +Not even Granny looked more peaceful and happy than she did lying there +dead with the little smile on her lips as if she were having a pleasant +dream. But the scar was there on her forehead--the scar I put there. I've +got a scar of my own too. It doesn't show on the surface but it is there +for all that and always will be. I shan't talk about it but I'll never +forget as long as I live that part of the debt she paid was mine. It is +_mea culpa_ for me always so far as she is concerned. + +"Her grandfather arrived while I was there. If ever there was a man +broken, mind and body and spirit he was. I couldn't help feeling sorry +for him. Of the two I would much rather have been Madeline lying there +dead than that poor old chap living with her death on his conscience. + +"Later I got my official notice from the board. I was fired. I wanted to +get out of college. I'm out for better or worse. Uncle Phil, don't think +I don't care. I know how terribly you are going to be hurt and that it +will be just about the finish of poor old Larry. I am not very proud of +it myself--being catapulted out in disgrace where the rest of you left +trailing clouds of glory. It isn't only what I have done just now. It is +all the things I have done and haven't done before that has smashed me in +the end--my fool attitude of have a good time and damn the expense. I +didn't pay at the time. I am paying now compound interest accumulated. +Worst of it is the rest of you will have to pay with me. You told me once +we couldn't live to ourselves alone. I didn't understand then. I do now. +I am guilty but you have to suffer with me for my mistakes. It is that +that hurts worst of all. + +"You have been wonderful to me always, had oceans of patience when I +disappointed you and hurt you and worried you over and over again. And +now here is this last, worst thing of all to forgive. Can you do it, +Uncle Phil? Please try. And please don't worry about me, nor let the +others. I'll come through all right. And if I don't I am not afraid of +death. I have found out there are lots of worse things in the world. I +haven't any pipe dreams about coming out a hero of any sort but I do mean +to come out the kind of a man you won't be ashamed of and to try my +darnedest to live up a little bit to the Holiday specifications. Again, +dear Uncle Phil, please forgive me if you can and write as soon as I can +send an address." Then a brief postscript. "The check Madeline sent back +never got to me. If it is forwarded to the Hill please send it or rather +its equivalent to the president. I wouldn't touch the money with a ten +foot pole. I never wanted it for myself but only for Madeline and she is +beyond needing anything any of us can give her now." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE + + +Having read and reread the boy's letter Doctor Holiday sat long with it +in his hand staring into the fire. Poor Teddy for whom life had hitherto +been one grand and glorious festival! He was getting the other, the seamy +side of things, at last with a vengeance. Knowing with the sure intuition +of love how deeply the boy was suffering and how sincerely he repented +his blunders the doctor felt far more compassion than condemnation for +his nephew. The fineness and the folly of the thing were so inextricably +confused that there was little use trying to separate the two even if he +had cared to judge the lad which he did not, being content with the boy's +own judgment of himself. Bad as the gambling business was and deeply as +he regretted the expulsion from college the doctor could not help seeing +that there was some extenuation for Ted's conduct, that he had in the +main kept faith with himself, paid generously, far more than he owed, and +traveling through the fiery furnace had somehow managed to come out +unscathed, his soul intact. After all could one ask much more? + +It was considerably harder for Larry to accept the situation +philosophically than it was for the senior doctor's more tolerant and +mature mind. Larry loved Ted as he loved no one else in the world not +perhaps even excepting Ruth. But he loved the Holiday name too with a +fine, high pride and it was a bitter dose to swallow to have his younger +brother "catapulted in disgrace," as Ted himself put it, out of the +college which he himself so loved and honored. He was inclined to resent +what looked in retrospect as entirely unnecessary and uncalled for +generosity on Ted's part. + +"Nobody but Ted would ever have thought of doing such a fool thing," he +groaned. "Why didn't he pull out in the first place as Hendricks wanted +him to? He would have been entirely justified." + +But the older man smiled and shook his head. + +"Some people could have done it, not Ted," he said. "Ted isn't built that +way. He never deserted anybody in trouble in his life. I don't believe he +ever will. We can't expect him to have behaved differently in this one +affair just because we would have liked it better so. I am not sure but +we would be wrong and he right in any case." + +"Maybe. But it is a horrible mess. I can't get over the injustice of the +poor kid's paying so hard when he was just trying to do the decent, hard, +right thing." + +"You have it less straight than Ted has, Larry. He knows he is paying not +for what he did and thought right but for what he did and knew was wrong. +You can't feel worse than I do about it. I would give anything I have to +save Ted from the torture he is going through, has been going through +alone for days. But I would rather he learned his lesson thoroughly now, +suffering more than he deserves than have him suffer too little and fall +worse next time. No matter how badly we feel for him I think it is up to +us not to try to dilute his penitence and to leave a generous share of +the blame where he puts it himself--on his own shoulders." + +"I suppose you are right, Uncle Phil," sighed Larry. "You usually are. +But it's like having a piece taken right out of me to have him go off +like that. And the Canadians are the very devil of fighters. Always in +the thick of things." + +"That is where Ted would want to be, Larry. Let us not cross that +bridge until we have to. As he says himself there are worse things than +death anyway." + +"I know. Marrying the girl would have been worse. She was rather +magnificent, wasn't she, just as he says, not saving herself when she +might have at his expense?" + +"I think she was. I am almost glad the poor child is where she can suffer +no more at the hands of men." + +The next day came a wire from Ted announcing his acceptance in the +Canadian army and giving his address in the training camp. + +The doctor answered at once, writing a long, cheerful letter full of home +news especially the interesting developments in Ruth's romantic story. It +was only at the end that he referred to the big thing that had to be +faced between them. + +"I am not going to say a word that will add in any way to the burden you +are already carrying, Teddy, my lad. You know how sadly disappointed we +all are in your having to leave college this way but I understand and +sympathize fully with your reasons for doing what you did. Even though I +can't approve of the thing itself. I haven't a single reproach to offer. +You have had a harsh lesson. Learn it so well that you will never bring +yourself or the rest of us to such pain and shame again. Keep your scar. +I should be sorry to think you were so callous that you could pass +through an experience like that without carrying off an indelible mark +from it. But it isn't going to ruin your life. On the contrary it is +going to make a man of you, is doing that already if I may judge from +the spirit of your letter which goes far to atone for the rest. The +forgiveness is yours always, son, seventy times seven if need be. Never +doubt it. We shall miss you very much. I wonder if you know how dear to +us you are, Teddy lad. But we aren't going to borrow trouble of the +future. We shall say instead God speed. May he watch over you wherever +you are and bring you safe back to us in His good time!" + +And Ted reading the letter later in the Canadian training camp was not +ashamed of the tears that came stinging up in his eyes. He was woefully +homesick, wanted the home people, especially Uncle Phil desperately. +But the message from the Hill brought strength and comfort as well as +heart ache. + +"Dear Uncle Phil," he thought. "I will make it up to him somehow. I will. +He shan't ever have to be ashamed of me again." + +And so Ted Holiday girded on manhood along with his khaki and his Sam +Browne belt and started bravely up out of the pit which his own willful +folly had dug for him. + +Tony was not told the full story of her brother's fiasco. She only +knew that he had left college for some reason or other and had taken +French leave for the Canadian training camp. She was relieved to +discover that even in Larry's stern eyes the escapade, whatever it +was, had not apparently been a very damaging one and accepted +thankfully her uncle's assurance that there was nothing at all to +worry about and that Ted was no doubt very much better off where he +was than if he had stayed in college. + +As for the going to war part small blame had she for Ted in that. She +knew well it was precisely what she would have done herself in his case +and teemed with pride in her bonny, reckless, beloved soldier brother. + +She had small time to think much about anybody's affairs beside her own +just now. Any day now might come the word that little Cecilia had gone +and that Tony Holiday would take her place on the Broadway stage as a +real star if only for a brief space of twinkling. + +She saw very little even of Alan. He was tremendously busy and seemed, +oddly enough, to be drawing a little away from her, to be less jealously +exacting of her time and attention. It was not that he cared less, rather +more, Tony thought. His strange, tragic eyes rested hungrily upon her +whenever they were together and it seemed as if he would drink deep of +her youth and loveliness and joy, a draught deep enough to last a long, +long time, through days of parching thirst to follow. He was very gentle, +very quiet, very loveable, very tender. His stormy mood seemed to have +passed over leaving a great weariness in its wake. + +A very passion of creation was upon him. Seeing the canvases that +flowered into beauty beneath his hand Tony felt very small and humble, +knew that by comparison with her lover's genius her own facile gifts were +but as a firefly's glow to the light of a flaming torch. He was of the +masters. She saw that and was proud and glad and awed by the fact. But +she saw also that the artist was consuming himself by the very fire of +his own genius and the knowledge troubled her though she saw no way to +check or prevent the holocaust if such it was. + +Sometimes she was afraid. She knew that she would never be happy in the +every day way with Alan. Happiness did not grow in his sunless garden. +Married to him she would enter dark forests which were not her natural +environment. But it did not matter. She loved him. She came always back +to that. She was his, would always be his no matter what happened. She +was bound by the past, caught in its meshes forever. + +And then suddenly a new turn of the wheel took place. Word came just +before Christmas that Dick Carson was very ill, dying perhaps down in +Mexico, stricken with a malarial fever. + +A few moments after Tony received this stunning news Alan Massey's card +was brought to her. She went down to the reception room, gave him a limp +cold little hand in greeting and asked if he minded going out with her. +She had to talk with him. She couldn't talk here. + +Alan did not mind. A little later they were walking riverward toward a +brilliant orange sky, against which the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument +loomed gray and majestic. It was bitter cold. A stinging wind lashed the +girl's skirts around her and bit into her cheeks. But somehow she +welcomed the physical discomfort. It matched her mood. + +Then the story came out. Dick was sick, very sick, going to die maybe and +she, Tony Holiday couldn't stand it. + +Alan listened in tense silence. So Dick Carson might be going to be so +unexpectedly obliging as to die after all. If he had known how to pray he +would have done it, beseeched whatever gods there were to let the thing +come to an end at last, offered any bribe within his power if they would +set him free from his bondage by disposing of his cousin. + +But there beside him clinging to his arm was Tony Holiday aquiver with +grief for this same cousin. He saw that there were tears on her cheeks, +tears that the icy wind turned instantly to frosted silver. And suddenly +a new power was invoked--the power of love. + +"Tony, darling, don't cry," he beseeched. "I--can't stand it. He--he +won't die." + +And then and there a miracle took place. Alan Massey who had never +prayed in his life was praying to some God, somewhere to save John Massey +for Tony because she loved him and his dying would hurt her. Tony must +not be hurt. Any God could see that. It must not be permitted. + +Tony put up her hand and brushed away the frosted silver drops. + +"No, he isn't going to die. I'm not going to let him. I'm going to Mexico +to save him." + +Alan stopped short, pulling her to a halt beside him. + +"Tony, you can't," he gasped, too astonished for a moment even to be +angry. + +"I can and I am going to," she defied him. + +"But my dear, I tell you, you can't. It would be madness. Your uncle +wouldn't let you. I won't let you." + +"You can't stop me. Nobody can stop me. I'm going. Dick shan't die alone. +He shan't." + +"Tony, do you love him?" + +"I don't know. I don't want to talk about love--your kind. I do love him +one way with all my heart. I wish it were the way I love you. I'd go down +and marry him if I did. Maybe I'll marry him anyway. I would in a minute +if it would save him." + +"Tony!" Alan's face was dead white, his green eyes savage. "You promised +to stick to me through everything. Where is your Holiday honor that you +can talk like that about marrying another man?" Maddened, he branished +his words like whips, caring little whether they hurt or not. + +"I can't help it, Alan. I am sorry if I am hurting you. But I can't think +about anybody but Dick just now." + +"Forgive me, sweetheart. I know you didn't mean it, what you said about +marrying him and you didn't mean it about going to Mexico. You know you +can't. It is no place for a woman like you." + +"If Dick is there dying, it _is_ the place for me. I love you, Alan. But +there are some things that go even deeper, things that have their very +roots in me, the things that belong to the Hill. And Dick is a very big +part of them, sometimes I think he is the biggest part of all. I have to +go to him. Please don't try to stop me. It will only make us both unhappy +if you try." + +A bitter blast struck their faces with the force of a blow. Tony +shivered. + +"Let's go back. I'm cold--so dreadfully cold," she moaned clinging +to his arm. + +They turned in silence. There was nothing to say. The sunset glory had +faded now. Only a pale, cold mauve tint was left where the flame had +blazed. A star or two had come out. The river flowed sinister black, +showing white humps of foam here and there. + +At the Hostelry Jean Lambert met them in the hall. + +"Tony, where have you been? We have been trying everywhere to locate you. +Cecilia died this afternoon. You have to take Miss Clay's place tonight." + +Tony's face went white. She leaned against the wall trembling. + +"I forgot--I forgot about the play. I can't go to Mexico. Oh, what shall +I do? What shall I do?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +DWELLERS IN DREAMS + + +The last curtain had gone down on the "End of the Rainbow" and Tony +Holiday had made an undeniable hit, caught the popular fancy by her young +charm and vivid personality and fresh talents to such a degree that for +the moment at least even its idol of many seasons, Carol Clay, was +forgotten. The new arriving star filled the whole firmament. Broadway was +ready to worship at a new shrine. + +But Broadway did not know that there were two Tony Holidays that night, +the happy Tony who had taken its fickle, composite heart by storm and the +other Tony half distracted by grief and trapped bewilderment. Tony had +willed to exile that second self before she stepped out behind the foot +lights. She knew if she did not she never could play Madge as Madge had +the right to be played. For her own sake, for Max Hempel's sake because +he believed in her, for Carol Clay's sake because Tony loved her, she +meant to forget everything but Madge for those few hours. Later she would +remember that Dick was dying in Mexico, that she had hurt Alan cruelly +that afternoon, that she had a sad and vexed problem to solve to which +there seemed no solution. These things must wait. And they had waited but +they came crowding back upon her the moment the play was over and she saw +Alan waiting for her in the little room off the wings. + +He rose to meet her and oblivious of curious eyes about them drew +her into his arms and kissed her. And Tony utterly miserable in a +daze of conflicting emotions nestled in his embrace unresisting for a +second, not caring any more than Alan himself what any one saw or +thought upon seeing. + +"You were wonderful, belovedest," he whispered. "I never saw them go +madder over anybody, not even Carol herself." + +Tony glowed all over at his praise and begged that they might drive a +little in the park before they went home. She had to think. She couldn't +think in the Hostelry. It stifled her. Nothing loath Alan acquiesced, +hailed a cab and gave the necessary orders. For a moment they rode in +silence Tony relaxing for the first time in many hours in the comfort of +her lover's presence, his arm around her. Things were hard, terribly hard +but you could not feel utterly disconsolate when the man you loved best +in all the world was there right beside you looking at you with eyes that +told you how much you were beloved in return. + +"Tony, dear, I am going to surprise you," he said suddenly breaking the +silence. "I have decided to go to Mexico." + +"To go to Mexico! Alan! Why?" + +Tony drew away from her companion to study his face, with amazement +on her own. + +"To find Carson and look after him. Why else?" + +"But your exhibition? You can't go away now, Alan, even if I would let +you go to Dick that way." + +"Oh, yes I can. The arrangements are all made. Van Slyke can handle the +last stages of the thing far better than I can. I loathe hanging round +and hearing the fools rant about my stuff and wonder what the devil I +meant by this or that or if I didn't mean anything. I am infinitely +better off three thousand miles away." + +"But even so--I don't want to hurt you or act as if I didn't appreciate +what you are offering to do--but you hate Dick. I don't see how you could +help him." + +"I don't hate him any more, Tony. At least I don't think I do. At any +rate whether I do or don't won't make the slightest bit of difference. I +shall look after him as well as your uncle or your brothers would--better +perhaps because I know Mexico well and how to get things done down there. +I know how to get things done in most places." + +"Oh, I know. I have often thought you must have magic at your command the +way people fly to do your bidding. It is startling but it is awfully +convenient." + +"Money magic mostly," he retorted grimly. + +"Partly, not mostly. You are a born potentate. You must have been a +sultan or a pashaw or something in some previous incarnation. I don't +care what you are if you will find Dick and see that he gets well. Alan, +don't you think--couldn't I--wouldn't it be better--if I went too?" + +There was a sudden gleam in Alan's eyes. The hour was his. He could take +advantage of the situation, of the girl's anxiety for his cousin, her +love for himself while it was at high tide as it was at this over +stimulated hour of excitement. He could marry her. And once the rite was +spoken--not John Massey--not all Holiday Hill combined could take her +from him. She would be his and his alone to the end. Tony was ripe for +madness to-night, overwrought, ready to take any wild leap in the dark +with him. He could make her his. He felt the intoxicating truth quiver in +the touch of her hand, read it in her eager, dark eyes lifted to his for +his answer. + +Alan Massey was unused to putting away temptation but this, perhaps the +biggest and blackest that had ever assailed him he put by. + +"No, dear I'll go alone," he said. "You will just have to trust me, Tony. +I swear I'll do everything in the world that can be done for Carson. Let +us have just one dance though. I should like it to remember--in Mexico." + +Tony hesitated. It was very late. The Hostelry would ill approve of her +going anywhere to dance at such an hour. It ill approved of Alan Massey +any way. Still-- + +"I am going to-morrow. It is our last chance," he pleaded. "Just one +dance, _carissima_. It may have to last--a long, long time." + +And Tony yielded. After all they could not treat this night as if it were +like all the other nights in the calendar. They had the right to their +one more hour of happiness before Alan went away. They had the right to +this one last dance. + +The one dance turned into many before they were through. It seemed to +both as if they dared not stop lest somehow love and happiness should +stop too with the end of the music. They danced on and on "divinely" as +Alan had once called it. Tony thought the rest of his prophecy was +fulfilled at last, that they also loved each other divinely, as no man or +woman had ever loved since time began. + +But at last this too had to come to an end as perfect moments must in +this finite world and Alan and Tony went out of the brilliantly lighted +restaurant into white whirls of snow. For a storm had started while they +had been inside and was now well in progress. All too soon the cab +deposited them at the Hostelry. In the dimly lit hall Alan drew the girl +into his arms and kissed her passionately then suddenly almost flung her +from him, muttered a curt good-by and before Tony hardly realized he was +going, was gone, swallowed up in the night and storm. Alone Tony put her +hands over her hot cheeks. So this was love. It was terrible, but oh--it +was wonderful too. + +Soberly after a moment she went to change the damning OUT opposite her +name in the hall bulletin just as the clock struck the shocking hour of +three. But lo there was no damning OUT visible, only a meek and proper IN +after her name. For all the bulletin proclaimed Antoinette Holiday might +have been for hours wrapt in innocent slumber instead of speeding away +the wee' sma' hours in a public restaurant in the arms of a lover at whom +Madame Grundy and her allies looked awry. Somebody had tampered with the +thing to save Tony a reprimand or worse. But who? Jean? No, certainly not +Jean. Jean's conscience was as inelastic as a yard stick. Whoever had +committed the charitable act of mendacity it couldn't have been Jean. + +But when Tony opened her own door and switched on the light there was +Jean curled up asleep in the big arm chair. The sudden flare of light +roused the sleeper and she sat up blinking. + +"Wherever have you been, Tony? I have been worried to death about you. +I've been home from the theater for hours. I couldn't think what had +happened to you." + +"I am sorry you worried. You needn't have. I was with Alan, of course." + +"Tony, people say dreadful things about Mr. Massey. Aren't you ever +afraid of him yourself?" Jean surveyed the younger girl with +troubled eyes. + +Tony flung off her cloak impatiently. + +"Of course I am not afraid. People don't know him when they say such +things about him. You needn't ever worry, Jean. I am safer with Alan than +with any one else in the world. I'd know that to-night if I never knew it +before. We were dancing. I knew it was late but I didn't care. I +wouldn't have missed those dances if they had told me I had to pack my +trunk and leave to-morrow." Thus spoke the rebel always ready to fly out +like a Jack-in-the box from under the lid in Tony Holiday. + +"They won't," said Jean in a queer, compressed little voice. + +"Jean! Was it you that fixed that bulletin?" + +"Yes, it was. I know it wasn't a nice thing to do but I didn't want them +to scold you just now when you were so worried about Dick and +everything. I thought you would be in most any minute any way and I +waited up myself to tell you how I loved the play and how proud I was of +you. Then when you didn't come for so long I got really scared and then +I fell asleep and--" + +Tony came over and stopped the older girl's words with a kiss. + +"You are a sweet peach, Jean Lambert, and I am awfully grateful to you +for straining your conscience like that for my sake and awfully sorry I +worried you. I am afraid I always do worry good, sensible, proper people. +I'm made that way, mad north north west like Hamlet," she added +whimsically. "Maybe we Holidays are all mad that much, excepting Uncle +Phil of course. He's all that keeps the rest of us on the track of sanity +at all. But Alan is madder still. Jean, he is going to Mexico to take +care of Dick." + +"Mr. Massey is going to Mexico to take care of Dick!" Jean' stared. "Why, +Tony--I thought--" + +"Naturally. So did I. Who wouldn't think him the last person in the world +to do a thing like that? But he is going and it is his idea not mine. I +wanted to go too but he wouldn't let me," she added. + +Jean gasped. + +"Tony! You would have married him when your uncle--when everybody +doesn't want you to?" + +To Jean Lambert's well ordered, carefully fenced in mind such wild mental +leaps as Tony Holiday's were almost too much to contemplate. But worse +was to come. + +"Married him! Oh, I don't know. I didn't think about that. I would just +have gone with him. There wouldn't have been time to get a license. Of +course I couldn't though on account of the play." + +Jean gasped again. If it hadn't been for the play this astounding young +person before her would have gone gallivanting off with one man to whom +she was not married to the bedside, thousands of miles away, of another +man to whom she was also not married. Such simplicity of mental processes +surpassed any complexity Jean Lambert could possibly conceive. + +"Alan wouldn't let me," repeated the astounding Tony. "I suppose it is +better so. By to-morrow I will probably agree with him. When the wind is +southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw too. But the wind isn't southerly +to-night. It wasn't when I was dancing nor afterward," she added with a +flaming color in her cheeks remembering that moment in the Hostelry hall +when wisdom had mattered very little to her in comparison with love. "Oh, +Jean, what if something dreadful should happen to him down there! I can't +let him go. I can't. But Dick mustn't die alone either. Oh, what shall I +do? What shall I do?" + +And suddenly Tony threw herself face down on the bed sobbing great, heart +rending sobs, but whether she was crying for Dick or Alan or herself or +all three Jean was unable to decipher. Perhaps Tony did not know herself. + +The next morning when Tony awoke Alan had already left for his long +journey, but a great box full of roses told her she had been his last +thought. One by one she lifted them out of the box--great, gorgeous, +blood red beauties, royal, Tony thought, like the royal lover who had +sent them. The only message with the flowers was a bit of verse, a poem +of Tagore's whom Alan loved and had taught Tony to love too. + + You are the evening cloud floating in the sky of + my dreams. + I paint you and fashion you with my love longings. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my endless + dreams! + + Your feet are rosy-red with the glow of my heart's + desire, Gleaner of my sunset songs! + Your lips are bitter-sweet with the taste of my wine + of pain. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my lonesome + dreams! + + With the shadow of my passion have I darkened + your eyes, Haunter of the depth of my gaze! + I have caught you and wrapt you, my love, in the + net of my music. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my deathless + dreams! + +As she read the exquisite lines Antoinette Holiday knew it was all +true. The poet might have written his poem for her and Alan. Her lips +were indeed bitter-sweet with the taste of his wine of pain, her eyes +were darkened by his shadows. He had caught her and wrapt her in the +net of his love, which was a kind of music in itself--a music one +danced to. She was his, dweller in his dreams as he was always to dwell +in hers. It was fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +WAITING FOR THE END OF THE STORY + + +At home on the Hill Ruth's affairs developed slowly. It was in time +ascertained from Australia that the Farringdon pearls had come to America +in the possession of Miss Farringdon who was named Elinor Ruth, daughter +of Roderick and Esther Farringdon, both deceased. What had become of her +and her pearls no one knew. Grave fears had been entertained as to the +girl's safety because of her prolonged silence and the utter failure of +all the advertising for her which had gone on in English and American +papers. She had come to America to join an aunt, one Mrs. Robert Wright, +widow of a New York broker, but it had been later ascertained that Mrs. +Wright had left for England before her niece could have reached her and +had subsequently died having caught a fever while engaged in nursing in a +military hospital. Roderick Farringdon, the brother of Elinor Ruth, an +aviator in His Majesty's service, was reported missing, believed to be +dead or in a German prison somewhere. The lawyers in charge of the huge +business interests of the two young Farringdons were in grave distress +because of their inability to locate either of the owners and begged that +if Doctor Laurence Holiday knew anything of the whereabouts of Miss +Farringdon that he would communicate without delay with them. + +So far so good. Granted that Ruth was presumably Elinor Ruth Farringdon +of Australia. Was she or was she not married? There had been no +opportunity in the cables to make inquiry about one Geoffrey Annersley +though Larry had put that important question first in his letter to the +consul which as yet had received no answer. The lawyers stated that when +Miss Farringdon had left Australia she was not married but +unsubstantiated rumors had reached them from San Francisco hinting at her +possible marriage there. + +All this failed to stir Ruth's dormant memory in any degree. There was +nothing to do but wait until further information should be forthcoming. + +Not unnaturally these facts had a somewhat different effect upon the two +individuals most concerned. Ruth was frankly elated over the whole thing +and found it by no means impossible to believe that she was a princess in +disguise though she had played Cinderella contentedly enough. + +On the strength of her presumable princessship she had gone on another +excursion to Boston carrying the Lambert twins with her this time and had +returned laden with all manner of feminine fripperies. She had an +exquisite taste and made unerringly for the softest and finest of +fabrics, the hats with an "air," the dresses that were the simplest, the +most ravishing and it must be admitted also the most extravagant. If she +remembered nothing else Ruth remembered how to spend royally. + +She had consulted the senior doctor before making the splendid plunge. +She did not want to have Larry buy her anything more and she didn't want +Doctor Philip and Margery to think her stark mad to go behaving like a +princess before the princess purse was actually in her hands. But she had +to have pretty things, a lot of them, had to have them quick. Did the +doctor mind very much advancing her some money? He could keep her rings +as security. + +He had laughed indulgently and declared as the rings and the pearls too +for that matter were in his possession in the safe deposit box he should +worry. He also told her to go ahead and be as "princessy" as she liked. +He would take the risk. Whereupon he placed a generous sum of money at +her account in a Boston bank and sent her away with his blessing and an +amused smile at the femininity of females. And Ruth had gone and played +princess to her heart's content. But there was little enough of heart's +content in any of it for poor Larry. Day by day it seemed to him he could +see his fairy girl slipping away from him. Ruth was a great lady and +heiress. Who was Larry Holiday to take advantage of the fact that +circumstances had almost thrown her into his willing arms? + +Moreover the information afforded as to Roderick Farringdon had put a new +idea into his head. Roderick was reported "missing." Was it not possible +that Geoffrey Annersley might be in the same category? Missing men +sometimes stayed missing in war time but sometimes also they returned as +from the dead from enemy prisons or long illnesses. What if this should +be the case with the man who was presumably Ruth's husband? Certainly it +put out of the question, if there ever had been a question in Larry's +mind, his own right to marry the girl he loved until they knew absolutely +that the way was clear. + +Considering these things it was not strange that the new year found Larry +Holiday in heavy mood, morose, silent, curt and unresponsive even to his +uncle, inclined at times to snap even at his beloved little Goldilocks +whose shining new happiness exasperated him because he could not share +it. Of course he repented in sack cloth and ashes afterward, but +repentance did not prevent other offenses and altogether the young doctor +was ill to live with during those harrassed January days. + +It was not only Ruth. Larry could not take Ted's going with the quiet +fortitude with which his uncle met it. Those early weeks of nineteen +hundred and seventeen were black ones for many. The grim Moloch War +demanded more and ever more victims. Thousands of gay, brave, high +spirited lads like Ted were mown down daily by shrapnel and machine gun +or sent twisted and writhing to still more hideous death in the +unspeakable horror of noxious gases. It was all so unnecessary--so +senseless. Larry Holiday whose life was dedicated to the healing and +saving of men's bodies hated with bitter hate this opposing force which +was all for destruction and which held the groaning world in its +relentless grip. It would not have been so bad he thought if the Moloch +would have been content to take merely the old, the life weary, the +diseased, the vile. Not so. It demanded the young, the strong, the clean +and gallant hearted, took their bodies, maimed and tortured them, killed +them sooner or later, hurled them undiscriminatingly into the bottomless +pit of death. + +To Larry it all came back to Ted. Ted was the embodiment, the symbol of +the rest. He was the young, the strong, the clean and gallant +hearted--the youth of the world, a vain sacrifice to the cruel blindness +of a so called civilization which would not learn the futility of war and +all the ways of war. + +So while Ruth bought pretty clothes and basked in happy anticipations +which for her took the place of memories, poor Larry walked in dark +places and saw no single ray of light. + +One afternoon he was summoned to the telephone to receive the word that +there was a telegram for him at the office. It was Dunbury's informal +habit to telephone messages of this sort to the recipient instead of +delivering them in person. Larry took the repeated word in silence. A +question evidently followed from the other end. + +"Yes, I got it," Larry snapped back and threw the receiver back in place +with vicious energy. His uncle who had happened to be near looked up to +ask a question but the young doctor was already out of the room leaving +only the slam of the door in his wake. A few moments later the older man +saw the younger start off down the Hill in the car at a speed which was +not unlike Ted's at his worst before the smash on the Florence road. +Evidently Larry was on the war path. Why? + +The afternoon wore on. Larry did not return. His uncle began to be +seriously disturbed. A patient with whom the junior doctor had had an +appointment came and waited and finally went away somewhat indignant in +spite of all efforts to soothe her not unnatural wrath. Worse and +worse! Larry never failed his appointments, met every obligation +invariably as punctiliously as if for professional purposes he was +operated by clock work. + +At supper time Phil Lambert dropped in with the wire which had already +been reported to Larry and which the company with the same informality +already mentioned had asked him to deliver. Doctor Holiday was tempted to +read it but refrained. Surely the boy would be home soon. + +The evening meal was rather a silent one. Ruth was wearing a charming +dark blue velvet gown which Larry especially liked. The doctor guessed +that she had dressed particularly for her lover and was sadly +disappointed when he failed to put in his appearance. She drooped +perceptibly and her blue eyes were wistful. + +An hour later when the three, Margery, her husband, and Ruth, were +sitting quietly engaged in reading in the living room they heard the +sound of the returning car. All three were distinctly conscious of an +involuntary breath of relief which permeated the room. Nobody had said a +word but every one of them had been filled with foreboding. + +Presently Larry entered with the yellow envelope in his hand. He was pale +and very tired looking but obviously entirely in command of himself +whatever had been the case earlier in the day. He crossed the room to +where his uncle sat and handed him the telegram. + +"Please read it aloud," he said. "It--it concerns all of us." + +The older doctor complied with the request. + +_Arrive Dunbury January 18 nine forty_ A.M. So ran the brief though +pregnant message. It was signed _Captain Geoffrey Annersley_. + +The color went out of Ruth's face as she heard the name. She put her +hands over her eyes and uttered a little moan. Then abruptly she dropped +her hands, the color came surging back into her cheeks and she ran to +Larry, fairly throwing herself into his arms. + +"I don't want to see him. Don't let him come. I hate him. I don't want to +be Elinor Farringdon. I want to be just Ruth--Ruth Holiday," she +whispered the last in Larry's ear, her head on his shoulder. + +Larry kissed her for the first time before the others, then meeting his +uncle's grave eyes he put her gently from him and walked over to the +door. On the threshold he turned and faced them all. + +"Uncle Phil--Aunt Margery, help Ruth. I can't." And the door +closed upon him. + +Philip and Margery did their best to obey his parting injunction but it +was not an easy task. Ruth was possessed by a very panic of dread of +Geoffrey Annersley and an even more difficult to deal with flood of love +for Larry Holiday. + +"I don't want anybody but Larry," she wailed over and over. "It is Larry +I love. I don't love Geoffrey Annersley. I won't let him be my husband. I +don't want anybody but Larry." + +In vain they tried to comfort her, entreat her to wait until to-morrow +before she gave up. Perhaps Geoffrey Annersley wasn't her husband. +Perhaps everything was quite all right. She must try to have patience and +not let herself get sick worrying in advance. + +"He _is_ my husband," she suddenly announced with startling conviction. +"I remember his putting the ring on my finger. I remember his saying +'You've got to wear it. It is the only thing to do. You must.' I remember +what he looks like--almost. He is tall and he has a scar on his cheek +--here." She patted her own face feverishly to show the spot. "He made me +wear the ring and I didn't want to. I didn't want to. Oh, don't let me +remember. Don't let me," she implored. + +At this point the doctor took things in his own hands. The child was +obviously beginning to remember. The shock of the man's coming had +snapped something in her brain. They must not let things come back +too disastrously fast. He packed her off to bed with a stiff dose of +nerve quieting medicine. Margery sat with her arms tight around the +forlorn little sufferer and presently the dreary sobbing ceased and +the girl drifted off to exhausted sleep, nature's kindest panacea for +all human ills. + +Meanwhile the doctor sought out Larry. He found him in the office +apparently completely absorbed in the perusal of a medical magazine. He +looked up quickly as the older man entered and answered the question in +his eyes giving assurance that Ruth was quite all right, would soon be +asleep if she was not already. He made no mention of that disconcerting +flash of memory. Sufficient unto the day was the trouble thereof. + +He came over and laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder. + +"Keep up heart a little longer," he said. "By tomorrow you will +know where you stand and that will be something, no matter which +way it turns." + +"I should say it would," groaned Larry. "I'm sick of being in a +labyrinth. Even the worst can't be much worse than not knowing. You don't +know how tough it has been, Uncle Phil." + +"I can make a fairly good guess at it, my boy. I've seen and understood +more than you realize perhaps. You have put up a magnificent fight, son. +And you are the boy who once told me he was a coward." + +"I am afraid I still am, Uncle Phil,--sometimes." + +"We all are, Larry, cowards in our hearts, but that does not matter so +long as the yellow streak doesn't get into our acts. You have not let +that happen I think." + +Larry was silent. He was remembering that night when Ruth had come to +him. He wasn't very proud of the memory. He wondered if his uncle guessed +how near the yellow streak had come to the surface on that occasion. + +"I don't deserve as much credit as you are giving me," he said humbly. +"There have been times--at least one time--" He broke off. + +"You would have been less than a man if there had not been, Larry. I +understand all that. But on the whole you know and I know that you have a +clean slate to show. Don't let yourself get morbid worrying about things +you might have done and didn't. They don't worry me. They needn't worry +you. Forget it." + +"Uncle Phil! You are great the way you always clear away the fogs. But my +clean slate is a great deal thanks to you. I don't know where I would +have landed if you hadn't held me back, not so much by what you said as +what you are. Ted isn't the only one who has learned to appreciate what a +pillar of strength we all have in you. However this comes out I shan't +forget what you did for me, are doing all the time." + +"Thank you, Larry. It is good to hear things like that though I think you +underestimate your own strength. I am thankful if I have helped in any +degree. I have felt futile enough. We all have. At any rate the strain is +about over. The telegram must have been a knock down blow though. Where +were you this afternoon?" + +"I don't know. I just drove like the devil--anywhere. Did you worry? I am +sorry. Good Lord! I cut my appointment with Mrs. Blake, didn't I? I never +thought of it until this minute. Gee! I am worse than Ted. Used to think +I had some balance but evidently I am a plain nut. I'm disgusted with +myself and I should think you would be more disgusted with me." The boy +looked up at his uncle with eyes that were full of shamed compunction. + +But the latter smiled back consolingly. + +"Don't worry. There are worse things in the world than cutting an +appointment for good and sufficient reasons. You will get back your +balance when things get normal again. I have no complaint to make anyway. +You have kept up the professional end splendidly until now. What you need +is a good long vacation and I am going to pack you off on one at the +earliest opportunity. Do you want me to meet Captain Annersley for you +tomorrow?" he switched off to ask. + +Larry shook his head. + +"No, I'll meet him myself, thank you. It is my job. I am not going to +flunk it. If he is Ruth's husband I am going to be the first to shake +hands with him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO + + +And while things were moving toward their crisis for Larry and Ruth +another drama was progressing more or less swiftly to its conclusion +down in Vera Cruz. Alan Massey had found his cousin in a wretched, +vermin haunted shack, nursed in haphazard fashion by a slovenly, +ignorant half-breed woman under the ostensible professional care of a +mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough +whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself +continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New +York City. The doctor held the credulity of the men who mailed those +checks in fine contempt and proceeded to feather his nest valiantly +while his good luck continued, going on many a glorious spree at the +paper's expense while Dick Carson went down every day deeper into the +valley of the shadow of death. + +With the coming of Alan Massey however a new era began. Alan was apt to +leave transformation of one sort or another in his wake. It was not +merely his money magic though he wielded that magnificently as was his +habit and predilection, spent Mexican dollars with a superb disregard of +their value which won from the natives a respect akin to awe and wrought +miracles wherever the golden flow touched. But there was more than money +magic to Alan Massey's performance in Vera Cruz. There was also the +magic of his dominating, magnetic personality. He was a born master and +every one high or low who crossed his path recognized his rightful +ascendency and hastened to obey his royal will. + +His first step was to get the sick man transferred from the filthy hovel +in which he found him to clean, comfortable quarters in an ancient adobe +palace, screened, airy, spacious. The second step was to secure the +services of two competent and high priced nurses from Mexico City, one an +American, the other an English woman, both experienced, intrepid, +efficient. The third step taken simultaneously with the other two was to +dismiss the man who masqueraded as a physician though he was nothing in +reality but a cheap charlatan fattening himself at the expense of +weakness and disease. The man had been inclined to make trouble at first +about his unceremonious discharge. He had no mind to lose without a +protest such a convenient source of unearned increment as those checks +represented. He had intended to get in many another good carouse before +the sick man died or got well as nature willed. But a single interview +with Alan Massey sufficed to lay his objections to leaving the case. In +concise and forcible language couched in perfect Spanish Alan had made it +clear that if the so-called doctor came near his victim again he would be +shot down like a dog and if Carson died he would in any case be tried for +man slaughter and hanged on the spot. The last point had been further +punctuated by an expressive gesture on the speaker's part, pointing to +his own throat accompanied by a significant little gurgling sound. The +gesture and the gurgle had been convincing. The man surrendered the case +in some haste. He did not at all care for the style of conversation +indulged in by this tall, unsmiling, green-eyed man. Consequently he +immediately evaporated to all intents and purposes and was seen no more. +The new physician put in charge was a different breed entirely, a man who +had the authentic gift and passion for healing which the born doctor +always possesses, be he Christian or heathen, gypsy herb mixer or ten +thousand dollar specialist. Alan explained to this man precisely what was +required of him, explained in the same forcible, concise, perfect Spanish +that had banished the other so completely. His job was to cure the sick +man. If he succeeded there would be a generous remuneration. If he failed +through no fault of his there would still be fair remuneration though +nothing like what would be his in case of complete recovery. If he failed +through negligence--and here the expressive gesture and the gurgle were +repeated--. The sentence had not needed completion. The matter was +sufficiently elucidated. The man was a born healer as has been recorded +but even if he had not been he would still have felt obliged to move +heaven and earth so far as in him lay to cure Dick Carson. Alan Massey's +manner was persuasive. One did one's best to satisfy a person who spoke +such Spanish and made such ominous gestures. One did as one was +commanded. One dared do no other. + +As for the servants whom Alan rallied to his standard they were slaves +rather than servants. They recognized in him their preordained master, +were wax to his hands, mats to his feet. They obeyed his word as +obsequiously, faithfully and unquestioningly as if he could by a clap of +his lordly hands banish them to strange deaths. + +They talked in low tones about him among themselves behind his back. +This was no American they said. No American could command as this +green-eyed one commanded. No American had such gift of tongues, such +gestures, such picturesque and varied and awesome oaths. No American +carried small bright flashing daggers such as he carried in his inner +pockets, nor did Americans talk glibly as he talked of weird poisons, +not every day drugs, but marvelous, death dealing concoctions done up in +lustrous jewel-like capsules or diluted in sparkling, insidious gorgeous +hued fluids. The man was too wise--altogether too wise to be an +American. He had traveled much, knew strange secrets. They rather +thought he knew black art. Certainly he knew more of the arts of healing +than the doctor himself. There was nothing he did not know, the +green-eyed one. It was best to obey him. + +And while Alan Massey's various arts operated Dick Carson passed through +a series of mental and physical evolutions and came slowly back to +consciousness of what was going on. + +At first he was too close to the hinterland to know or care as to what +was happening here, though he did vaguely sense that he had left the +lower levels of Hell and was traversing a milder purgatorial region. He +did not question Alan's presence or recognize him. Alan was at first +simply another of those distrusted foreigners whose point of view and +character he comprehended as little as he did their jibbering tongues. + +Gradually however this one man seemed to stand out from the others and +finally took upon himself a name and an entity. By and by, Dick thought, +when he wasn't so infernally-tired as he was just now he would wonder why +Alan Massey was here and would try to recall why he had disliked him so, +some time a million years ago or so. He did not dislike him now. He was +too weak to dislike anybody in any case but he was beginning to connect +Alan vaguely but surely with the superior cleanliness and comfort and +care with which he was now surrounded. He knew now that he had been +sick, very sick and that he was getting better, knew that before long he +would find himself asking questions. Even now his eyes followed Alan +Massey as the latter came and went with an ever more insistent wonderment +though he had not yet the force of will or body to voice that pursuing +question as to why Alan Massey was here apparently taking charge of his +own slow return to health and consciousness. + +Meanwhile Alan wired Tony Holiday every day as to his patient's condition +though he wrote not at all and said nothing in his wires of himself. +Letters from Tony were now beginning to arrive, letters full of eager +gratitude and love for Alan and concern for Dick. + +And one day Dick's mind got suddenly very clear. He was alone with the +nurse at the time, the sympathetic American one whom he liked better and +was less afraid of than he was of the stolid, inexorable British lady. +And he began to ask questions, many questions and very definite ones. He +knew at last precisely what it was he wanted to know. + +He got a good deal of information though by no means all he sought. He +found out that he had been taken desperately ill, that he had been +summarily removed from his lodging place because of the owner's +superstitious dread of contagion into the miserable little thatch +roofed hut in which he had nearly died thanks to the mal-practice of +the rascally, drunken doctor and the ignorant half-breed nurse. He +learned how Alan Massey had suddenly appeared and taken things in his +own hands, discovered that in a nutshell the fact was he owed his life +to the other-man. But why? That was what he had to find out from Alan +Massey himself. + +The next day when Alan came in and the nurse went out he asked +his question. + +"That is easy," said Alan grimly. "I came on Tony's account." + +Dick winced. Of course that was it. Tony had sent Massey. He was here as +her emissary, naturally, no doubt as her accepted lover. It was kind. +Tony was always kind but he wished she had not done it. He did not want +to have his life saved by the man who was going to marry Tony Holiday. He +rather thought he did not want his life saved anyway by anybody. He +wished they hadn't done it. + +"I--I am much obliged to you and to Tony," he said a little stiffly. "I +fear it--it was hardly worth the effort." His eyes closed wearily. + +"Tony didn't send me though," observed Alan Massey as if he had read the +other's thought. "I sent myself." + +Dick's eyes opened. + +"That is odd if it is true," he said slowly. + +Alan dropped into a chair near the bed. + +"It is odd," he admitted. "But it happens to be true. It came about +simply enough. When Tony heard you were sick she went crazy, swore +she was coming down here in spite of us all to take care of you. Then +Miss Clay's child died and she had to go on the boards. You can +imagine what it meant to her--the two things coming at once. She +played that night--swept everything as you'd know she would--got 'em +all at her feet." + +Dick nodded, a faint flash of pleasure in his eyes. Down and out as he +was he could still be glad to hear of Tony's triumph. + +"She wanted to come to you," went on Alan. "She let me come instead +because she couldn't. I came for--for her sake." + +Dick nodded. + +"Naturally--for her sake," he said. "I could hardly have expected you to +come for mine. I would hardly have expected it in any case." + +"I would hardly have expected it of myself," acknowledged Alan with a wry +smile. "But I've had rather a jolly time at your expense. I've always +enjoyed working miracles and if you could have seen yourself the way you +were when I got here you would think there was a magic in it somehow." + +"I evidently owe you a great deal, Mr. Massey. I am grateful or at least +I presume I shall be later. Just now I feel a little--dumb." + +"My dear fellow, nothing would please me better than to have you continue +dumb on that subject. I did this thing as I've done most things in my +life to please myself. I don't want your thanks. I would like a little of +your liking though. You and I are likely to see quite a bit of each other +these next few weeks. Could you manage to forget the past and call a kind +of truce for a while? You have a good deal to forgive me--perhaps more +than you know. If you would be willing to let the little I have done down +here--and mind you I don't want to magnify that part--wipe off the slate +I should be glad. Could you manage it, Carson?" + +"It looks as if it hardly could be magnified," said Dick with sudden +heartiness. "I spoke grudgingly just now I am afraid. Please overlook it. +I am more than grateful for all you have done and more than glad to be +friends if you want it. I don't hate you. How could I when you have saved +my life and anyway I never hated you as you used to hate me. I've often +wondered why you did, especially at first before you knew how much I +cared for Tony. And even that shouldn't have made you hate me +because--you won." + +"Never mind why I hated you. I don't any more. Will you shake hands with +me, Carson, so we can begin again?" + +Dick pulled himself weakly up on the pillow. Their hands met. + +"Hang it, Massey," Dick said. "I am afraid I am going to like you. I've +heard you were hypnotic. I believe on my soul you came down here to make +me like you? Did you?" + +But Alan only smiled his ironic, noncommital smile and remarked it was +time for the invalid to take a nap. He had had enough conversation for +the first attempt. + +Dick soon drifted off to sleep but Alan Massey prowled the streets of the +Mexican city far into the night, with tireless, driven feet. The demons +were after him again. + +And far away in another city whose bright lights glow all night Tony +Holiday was still playing Madge to packed houses, happy in her triumph +but with heart very pitiful for her beloved Miss Clay whose sorrow and +continued illness had made possible the fruition of her own eager hopes. +Tony was sadly lonely without Alan, thought of him far more often and +with deeper affection even than she had while she had him at her beck and +call in the city, loved him with a new kind of love for his generous +kindness to Dick. She made up her mind that he had cleared the shield +forever by this splendid act and saw no reason why she should keep him +any longer on probation. Surely she knew by this time that he was a man +even a Holiday might be proud to marry. + +She wrote this decision to her uncle and asked to be relieved from +her promise. + +"I am sorry," she wrote, "if you cannot approve but I cannot help it. I +love him and I am going to be engaged to him as soon as he comes back to +New York if he wants it. I am afraid I would have married him and gone +to Mexico with him, given up the play and broken my promise to you, if he +would have let me. It goes that far and deep with me. + +"People are crazy over his pictures. The exhibition came off last week +and they say he is one of the greatest living painters with a wonderful +future ahead of him. I am so proud and happy. He is fine everyway now, +has really sloughed off the past just as he promised he would. So please, +dear Uncle Phil, forgive me if I do what you don't want me to. I have to +marry him. In my heart I am married to him already." + +And this was the letter Philip Holiday found at his place at breakfast on +the morning of the day Geoffrey Annersley was expected. He read it +gravely. Rash, loving, generous-hearted Tony. Where was she going? Ah +well, she was no longer a child to be protected from the storm and stress +of life. She was a woman grown, woman enough to love and to be loved +greatly, to sacrifice and suffer if need be for love's mighty sake. She +must go her way as Ted had gone his, as their father had gone his before +them. He could only pray that she was right in her faith that for love of +her Alan Massey had been born anew. + +His own deep affection for Ned's children seemed at the moment a sadly +powerless thing. He had coveted the best things of life for them, happy, +normal ways of peace and gentle living. Yet here was Ted at twenty +already lived through an experience, tragic enough to leave its scarlet +mark for all the rest of his life and even now on the verge of +voluntarily entering a terrific conflict from which few returned alive +and none came back unchanged. Here was Tony taking upon herself the +thraldom of a love, which try as he would Philip Holiday could not see +in any other light but as at best a cataclysmic risk. And at this very +hour Larry might be learning that the desire of his heart was dust and +ashes, his hope a vain thing, himself an exile henceforth from the things +that round out a man's life, make it full and rich and satisfying. + +And yet thinking of the three Philip Holiday found one clear ray of +comfort. With all their vagaries, their rash impulsions, their willful +blindness, their recklessness, they had each run splendidly true to type. +Not one of the three had failed in the things that really count. He had +faith that none of them ever would. They might blunder egregiously, +suffer immeasurably, pay extravagantly, but they would each keep that +vital spirit which they had in common, untarnished and undaunted, an +unconquerable thing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES + + +There were few passengers alighting from the south bound train from +Canada. Larry Holiday had no difficulty in picking out Geoffrey Annersley +among these, a tall young man, wearing the British uniform and supporting +himself with a walking stick. His face was lean and bronzed and lined, +the face of a man who has seen things which kill youth and laughter and +yet a serene face too as if its owner had found that after all nothing +mattered very much if you looked it square in the eye. + +Larry went to the stranger at once. + +"Captain Annersley?" he asked. "I am Laurence Holiday." + +The captain set down his bag, leaned on his stick, deliberately +scrutinized the other man. Larry returned the look frankly. They were of +nearly the same age but any one seeing them would have set the Englishman +as at least five years the senior of the young doctor. Geoffrey Annersley +had been trained in a stern school. A man does not wear a captain's bars +and four wound stripes for nothing. + +Then the Englishman held out his hand with a pleasant and unexpectedly +boyish smile. + +"So you are Larry," he said. "Your brother sent me to you." + +"Ted! You have seen him?" For a minute Larry forgot who Geoffrey +Annersley was, forgot Ruth, forgot himself, remembered only Ted and +gave his guest a heartier handshake than he had willed for his "Kid" +brother's sake. + +"Yes, I was with him day before yesterday and the night before that. He +was looking jolly well and sent all kinds of greetings to you all. See +here, Doctor Holiday, I have no end of things to say to you. Can we go +somewhere and talk?" + +"My car is outside. You will come up to the house will you not? We are +all expecting you." Larry tried hard to keep his voice quiet and +emotionless. Not for anything would he have had this gallant soldier +suspect how his knees were trembling. + +"Delighted," bowed the captain suavely and permitted Larry to take his +bag and lead the way to the car. Nothing more was said until the two men +were seated and the car had left the station yard. + +"I am afraid I should have made my wire a bit more explicit," observed +the captain turning to Larry. "My wife says I am too parsimonious with my +words in telegrams--a British trait possibly." He spoke deliberately and +his keen eyes studied his companion's face as he made the casual remark +which set Larry's brain reeling. "See here, Holiday, I'm a blunt brute. I +don't know how to break things gently to people. But I am here to tell +you if you care to know that Elinor Ruth Farringdon is no more married +than you are unless she is married to you. That was her mother's wedding +ring. Lord, man, do you always drive a car like this? I've been all but +killed once this year and I don't care to repeat the experiment." + +Larry grinned, flushed, apologized and moderated the speed of his motor. +He wondered that he could drive at all. He felt strangely light as if he +were stripped of his body and were nothing but spirit. + +"Do you mind if we drive about a bit and talk things over before I see +Elinor--Ruth, as you call her? I'm funking that a little though I've +been trying ever since your brother told me the story to get used to +the idea of her being, well not quite right, you know. But I can't +stick it somehow." + +"She is all right, perfectly normal every way except that she had +forgotten things." Larry's voice was faintly indignant. He resented +anybody's implying that Ruth was queer, unbalanced in any way. She +wasn't. She was absolutely sane, as sane as Captain Annersley himself, +considerably more sane than Larry Holiday could take oath he was at +this moment. + +"Good heavens! Isn't that enough?" groaned Annersley almost equally +indignant. "You forget or rather you don't know all she has forgotten. I +know. I was brought up with her. Her father was my uncle and guardian. We +played together, had the same tutor, rode the same ponies, got into the +same jolly old scrapes. Why, Elinor's like my own sister, man. I can't +swallow her forgetting me and her brother Rod and all the rest as easily +as you seem to do. It--well, it's the limit as you say in the states." +The captain wiped his forehead on which great drops of perspiration stood +in spite of the January chill in the air. There was agitation, suppressed +vehemence in his tone. + +"I suppose it is natural that you should feel that way." Larry spoke +thoughtfully as he turned the car away from the Hill in response to his +guest's request that he be permitted to postpone meeting Elinor Ruth +Farringdon a little while. "The remembering part hasn't bothered me so +much. Maybe I wasn't very keen on having her remember. Maybe I was afraid +she would remember too much," he added coloring a little. + +The frown on his companion's stern young face melted at that. The +frank, boyish smile appeared again. He liked Larry Holiday none the less +for his lack of pretense. He understood all that. The younger Holiday +had taken pains to make things perfectly clear to him. He knew precisely +what the young doctor was afraid of and why in case Elinor Farringdon's +memory returned. + +"My uncle thinks and I think too that her memory will come back now that +it has the external stimulus to waken it," Larry continued. "I shouldn't +be surprised if seeing you would give the necessary impetus. In fact I am +counting on that very thing happening, hoping for it with all my might. +That was one of the reasons I was glad to have you come. Please believe +that I should have been glad even if your coming had made her remember +she was your wife. Of course her recovery is the main thing. The rest +is--a side issue." + +"A jolly important side issue I take it for her and for you. I'm not a +stranger, Doctor Holiday. I am Elinor Ruth Farringdon's cousin, in her +brother's absence I represent her family and in that capacity I would +like to say before I am a minute older that what you and the rest of you +Holidays have done for Elinor passes anything I know of for sheer +fineness and generosity. I'm not a man of words. War would have knocked +them out of me if I had been but when I remember that you not only saved +Elinor's life but took care of her afterward when she apparently hadn't a +friend in the world--well, there isn't anything I can say but thank you +and tell you that if there is ever anything I can do in return for you or +yours you have only to ask. Neither Elinor nor I can ever repay you. It +is the sort of thing that is--unpayable." And again the captain wiped his +perspiring brow. He was deeply moved and emotion went hard with his +Anglo-Saxon temperament. + +"We did nothing but what anybody would have been glad to do. If there +are any thanks coming they are chiefly due to my uncle and his wife. But +we don't any of us want thanks. We love Ruth. Please forget the rest. We +would rather you would." + +The captain nodded quick approval. He had been told Americans were +boasters, given to Big-Itis. But either people got the Americans wrong or +these Holidays were an exception to the general run. He remembered that +other young Holiday whom he had met rather intimately in the Canadian +camp. There had been no side there either. His modesty had been one of +his chief charms. And here was the brother quietly putting aside credit +for a course of conduct which was simply immense in its quixotic +generosity. He liked these Holidays. There was something rather +magnificent about their simplicity--something almost British he thought. + +"That is all very well," he made answer. "I won't talk about it if you +prefer but you will pardon me if I don't forget that you saved my +cousin's life and looked after her when she was in a desperately unhappy +situation and her own people seemed to have utterly deserted her. And I +consider my running into your brother at camp one of the sheerest pieces +of good luck I've had these many days on all counts." + +"How did it happen?" asked Larry. + +"I was doing some recruiting work in the vicinity and they asked me to +say a few words to the lads in training. I did. Your brother was there +and lost no time in getting in touch with me when he heard who I was. And +jolly pleased I was to hear his story--all of it." + +The speaker smiled at his companion. + +"I mean that, Larry Holiday. Elinor and I were kid sweethearts. We used +to swear we were going to get married when we grew up. That was when she +was eight and I a man of twelve or so. I gave her the locket which made +some of the trouble as a sort of hostage for the future. We called her +Ruth in those days. It was her own fancy to change it to Elinor later. +She thought it more grown up and dignified I remember. Then I went back +to England to school. I didn't see her again until we were both grown up +and then I married her best friend with her blessing and approval. But +that is another story. Just now I am trying to tell you that I am ready +to congratulate my cousin with all my heart if it happens that you want +to marry her as your brother seems to think." + +"There is no doubt about what I want," said Larry grimly. "Whether it is +what she wants is another matter. We haven't been exactly in a position +to discuss marriage." + +"I understand. I'm beastly sorry to have been such an infernal dog in the +manger unwittingly. The only thing I can do to make, up is to give my +blessing and wish you best of luck in your wooing. Shall we shake on it, +Larry Holiday, and on the friendship I hope you and I are going to have?" + +And with a cordial man to man grip there was cemented a friendship which +was to last as long as they both lived. + +To relate briefly the links of the story some of which Larry Holiday now +heard as the car sped over the smooth, frost hardened roads which the +open winter had left unusually snowless and clean. Geoffrey Annersley had +been going his careless, happy go lucky way as an Oxford undergraduate +when the sudden firing of a far off shot had startled the world and made +war the one inevitable fact. The young man had enlisted promptly and had +been in practically continuous service of one sort or another ever since. +He had gone through desperate fighting, been four times wounded, and was +now at last definitely eliminated from active service by a semi-paralyzed +leg, the result of his last visit to "Blighty." He had been invalided the +previous spring and had been sent to Australia on a recruiting mission. +Here he had renewed his acquaintance with his cousins whom he had not +seen for years and promptly fell in love with and married pretty Nancy +Hallinger, his cousin Elinor's chum. + +The speedy wooing accomplished as well as the recruiting job which was +dispatched equally expeditiously and thoroughly Geoffrey prepared to +return to France to get in some more good work against the Huns while his +wife planned to enter Red Cross service as a nurse for which she had been +in training for some time. Roderick had entered the Australian air +service and was already in Flanders where he had the reputation of being +one of the youngest and most reckless aviators flying which was saying +considerable. + +It was imperative that some arrangement be made for Elinor who obviously +could not be left alone in Sydney. It was decided in family conclave that +she should go to America and accept the often proffered hospitality of +her aunt for a time at least. A cable to this effect had been dispatched +to Mrs. Wright which as later appeared never reached that lady as she was +already on her way to England and died there shortly after. + +Geoffrey had been exceedingly reluctant to have his young cousin take the +long journey alone though she had laughed at his fears and his wife had +abetted her in her disregard of possible disastrous consequences, telling +him that women no longer required wrapping in tissue paper. The war had +changed all that. + +At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother's +wedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that the +small gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardian +somewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned or +over bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried to +no small degree. + +They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May, +nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequent +strange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that they +heard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days. +Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderick +was by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeled +with that saddest of all tags--missing. It was not until Geoffrey was +out of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible, +more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that the +others began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the ken +of all who knew her. Some one who knew her by sight had chanced to see +her in California and had noted the wedding ring, hence the +"unsubstantiated rumor" of her marriage in San Francisco, a rumor which +Nancy half frantic over her husband's desperate illness was the only +person who was in a position to explain. + +When Geoffrey came slowly back to the land of the living it was to learn +that his cousin Roderick was still reported missing and that Elinor was +even more sadly and mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth in +spite of all effort to discover her fate. It had been a tragic coming +back for the sick man. But an Englishman is hard to down and gradually he +got back health and a degree of hope and happiness. There would be no +more fighting for him but the War Department assured him there were +plenty of other ways in which he could serve the cause and he had +readily placed himself at their disposal for the recruiting work in which +he had already demonstrated his power to success in Australia. + +Which brings us to the Canadian training camp and Ted Holiday. Captain +Annersley had been asked as he had told Larry to speak to the boys. He +had done so, given a little straight talk of what lay ahead of them and +what they were fighting for, bade them get in a few extra licks for him +since he was out of it for good, done for, "crocked." In conclusion he +had begged them give the Huns hell. It was all he asked of them and from +the look of them he jolly well knew they would do it. + +While he was speaking he was aware all the time of a tall, blue-eyed +youth who stood leaning against a post with a kind of nonchalant grace. +The boy's pose had been indolent but his eyes had been wide awake, +earnest, responsive. Little by little the captain found himself talking +directly to the lad. What he was saying might be over the heads of some +of them but not this chap's. He got you as the Americans say. He had the +vision, would go wherever the speaker could take him. One saw that. + +Afterwards the boy had sought out the recruiter to ask if by any chance +he knew a girl named Elinor Ruth Farringdon. It had been rather a +tremendous moment for both of them. Each had plenty to say that the other +wanted to hear. But the full story had to wait. Corporal Holiday couldn't +run around loose even talking to a distinguished British officer. There +would have to be special dispensation for that and special dispensations +take time in an army world. It would be forthcoming however--to-morrow. + +In the meantime Geoffrey Annersley had heard enough to want to know a +great deal more and thought he might as well make some inquiries on his +own. He wanted to find out who these American Holidays were, one of whom +had apparently saved his cousin Elinor's life and all of whom had, one +concluded, been amazingly kind to her though the blue-eyed boy had +gracefully made light of that side of the thing in the brief synopsis of +events he had had time to give to the Englishman. The captain had taken a +fancy to the narrator and was not averse to beginning his investigation +as to the Holiday family with the young corporal himself. + +Accordingly he tackled the boy's commanding officer, a young colonel with +whom he chanced to be dining. The colonel was willing to talk and +Geoffrey Annersley discovered that young Holiday was rather by way of +being a top-notcher. He had enlisted as a private only a short time ago +but had been shot speedily into his corporalship. Time pressed. Officers +were needed. The boy was officer stuff. He wouldn't stay a corporal. If +all went well he would go over as a sergeant. + +"We put him through though, just at first handled him rather nasty," the +colonel admitted with a reminiscent twinkle. "We do put the Americans +through somehow, though it isn't that we have any grudge against 'em. We +haven't. We like 'em--most of 'em and we have to admit it's rather decent +of them to be here at all when they don't have to. All the same we give +'em an extra twist of the discipline crank on general principles just to +see what they are made of. We found out mighty quick with this youngster. +He took it all and came back for more with a 'sir,' and a salute and a +devilish debonair, you-can't-down-me kind of grin that would have +disarmed a Turk." + +"He doesn't look precisely meek to me," Annersley had said remembering +the answering flash he had caught in those blue eyes when he was begging +the boys to get in an extra lick against the Huns for his sake. + +"Meek nothing! He has more spirit than any cub we've had to get into +shape this many a moon. It isn't that. It is just that he has the right +idea, had it from the start however he came by it. You know what it is, +captain. It is obedience, first, last and all the time, the will to be +willed. A soldier's job is to do what he is told whether he likes it or +not, whether it is his job or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether +he gets his orders from a man he looks up to and respects or whether he +gets them from a low down cur that he knows perfectly well isn't fit to +black his boots--none of that makes any difference. It is up to him to do +what he is told and he does it without a kick if he's wise. Young Holiday +is wise. He'd had his medicine sometime. One sees that. I don't know why +he dropped down on us like a shooting star the way he did, some college +fiasco I understand. He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs though +he is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look in +his eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thank +the Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him ace +high here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll bet +my best belt on that." + +This interested Geoffrey Annersley. He thought he understood what the +colonel meant. There was something in Ted Holiday's eyes which betrayed +that he had already been under fire somehow. He had seen it himself. + +"He is as smart as they make 'em," went on the colonel. "Quick as a flash +to think and to see and to act, never loses his head. And he's a wonder +with the men, jollies 'em along when they are grousing or homesick, sets +'em grinning from ear to ear when they are down-hearted, has a pat on the +shoulder for this one and a jeer for that one. Old and young they are +all crazy about him. They'd go anywhere he led. I tell you he's the stuff +that will take 'em over the top and make the boches feel cold in the pit +of their fat tumtums when they see him coming. Lord, but the uselessness +of it though! He'll get killed. His kind always does. They are always in +front. They are made that way. Can't help it. Sometimes they do come +through though." The colonel flashed a quick admiring glance at his guest +who had also been the kind that was always in front and yet had somehow +by the grace of something come through in spite of the hazards he had run +and the deaths he had all but died. "You are a living witness to that +little fact," he added. "Lord love us! It's all in the game anyway and a +man can die but once." + +The next day Corporal Holiday was given a brief leave of absence from +camp at the request of the distinguished British officer. Together the +two went over the strange story of Elinor Ruth Farringdon and the +Holidays' connection with the later chapters thereof. They decided not to +write to the Hill as Annersley was planning to go to Boston next day +whence he was to return soon to England his mission accomplished, and +could easily stop over in Dunbury on his way and set things right in +person, perhaps even by his personal presence renew Ruth's memory of +things she had forgotten. + +All through the pleasant dinner hour Ted kept wishing he could get the +captain to talking about himself and his battle experiences and had no +idea at all that he himself was being shrewdly studied as they talked. +"Good breeding, good blood-quality," the captain summed up. "If he is a +fair sample of young America then young America is a bit of all right." +And if he is a fair sample of the Holiday family then Elinor had indeed +fallen into the best of hands. Praise be! He wondered more than once what +the young-corporal's own story was, what was the nature of the fiasco +which had driven him into the Canadian training camp and what was behind +that unboyish look which came now and then into his boyish eyes. + +Later during the intimate evening over their cigarettes both had their +curiosity gratified. Captain Annersley was moved to relate some of his +hair breadth escapes and thrilling moments to an alert and hero +worshiping listener. And later still Ted too waxed autobiographical in +response to some clever baiting of which he was entirely unaware though +he did wonder afterward how he had happened to tell the thing he had kept +most secret to an entire stranger. It was an immense relief to the boy to +talk it all out. It would never haunt him again in quite the same way now +he had once broken the barriers of his reserve. Geoffrey Annersley served +his purpose for Ted as well as Larry Holiday. + +Annersley was immensely interested in the confession. It matched very +well he thought with that other story of a gallant young Holiday to whom +his cousin Elinor owed so much in more than one way. They were a queer +lot these Holidays. They had the courage of their convictions and tilted +at windmills right valiantly it seemed. + +And then he fell to talking straight talk to Ted Holiday, saying things +that only a man who has lived deeply can say with any effect. He urged +the boy not to worry about that smash of his. It was past history, over +and done with. He must look ahead not back and be thankful he had come +out as well as he had. + +"There is just one other thing I want to say," he added. "You think you +have had your lesson. Maybe it is enough but you'll find it a jolly lot +easier to slip up over there than it is at home. You lose your sense of +values when there is death and damnation going all around you, get to +feeling you have a right to take anything that comes your way to even it +up. Anyway I felt that way until I met the girl I wanted to marry. Then +the rest looked almighty different. I've given Nancy the best I had to +give but it wasn't good enough. She deserved more than I could give her. +That is plain speaking, Holiday. Men say war excuses justify anything. It +doesn't do anything of the sort. Some day you will be wanting to marry a +girl yourself. Don't let anything happen in this next year over there +that you will regret for a life-time. That is a queer preachment and I'm +a jolly rotten preacher. But somehow I felt I had to say it. You can +remember it or forget it as you like." + +Ted lit another cigarette, looked up straight into Geoffrey Annersley's +war lined face. + +"Thank you," he said. "I think I'll remember it. Anyway I appreciate your +saying it to me that way." + +The subject dropped then, went back to war and how men feel on the edge +of death, of the unimportance of death anyway. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET + + +Larry knocked at Ruth's door. It opened and a wan and pathetically +drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake +Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which +had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to +lift her eyes to her lover's face. But in a moment he had her in his +arms, a performance which banished the droop and brought a lovely color +back into the pale cheeks. + +"Larry, oh Larry, is it all right? I'm not his wife? He didn't marry me?" + +Larry kissed her. + +"He didn't marry you. Nobody's going to marry you but me. No, I didn't +mean to say that now. Forget it, sweetheart. You are free, and if you +want to say so I'll let you go. If you don't want--" + +"But I do want," she interrupted. "I want Larry Holiday and he is all I +want. Why won't you ever, ever believe I love you? I do, more than +anything in the world." + +"You darling! Will you marry me? I shouldn't have asked you that other +time. I hadn't the right. But I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so. +And I've waited so long." + +"Listen to me, Larry Holiday." Ruth held up a small warning forefinger. +"I'll marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross to me again. +I have shed quarts of tears because you were so unkind and--faithless. I +ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or +anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I +told you so but still you wouldn't believe." + +Larry shook his head remorsefully. + +"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I +have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for +anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a +devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is +any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie. +All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours--" He indicated +the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as--as an ash +can," he finished prosaically. + +Ruth's happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a +kiss. + +"I'll remember," she said. "You're not a brute, Larry. You're a darling +and I love you--oh immensely and I'll marry you just as quick as ever I +can and we'll be so happy you won't ever remember you have a +disposition." + +Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are +nobody's business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply +ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two +went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to +Elinor Farringdon. + +"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended. + +"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor +Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best +friend, Nan--" + +"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it's coming back. He married Nancy +Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of +hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the +addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why, +Larry, I'm remembering--really remembering," she stopped short on the +stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone. + +"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come +on down and remember the rest with Annersley's help. He is some cousin. +You'd better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and +wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and +decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his +cheek which he evidently didn't get shaving." + +Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her +tremble against his arm. He was more than a little anxious as to the +outcome of the thing itself. The shock and the strain of meeting Geoffrey +Annersley were going to be rather an ordeal he knew. + +They entered the living room and paused on the threshold, Larry's arm +still around the girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose. The +latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared at him an instant and then +flung herself away from Larry into the other man's arms. + +"Geoff! Geoff!" she cried. + +For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew herself away. + +"Geoffrey Annersley, why did you ever, ever make me wear that horrid +ring?" she demanded reproachfully. "Larry and I could have married each +other months ago if you hadn't. It was the silliest idea anyway and it's +all your fault--everything." + +He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled hearty laugh that came from the +depths of him. + +"That sounds natural," he said. "Every scrape you ever enticed me into as +a kid was always my fault somehow. Are you real, Elinor? I can't help +thinking I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?" anxiously. + +"Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff. Listen hard." + +And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty lips and whistled a merry, +lilting bar of melody. + +"By Jove!" exulted the captain. "That does sound like old times." + +"Don't tell me I don't remember," she flashed back happy and excited +beyond measure at playing this new remembering game. "That was our +special call, yours and Rod's and mine. Oh Rod!" And at that all the joy +went out of the eager, flushed face. She went back into her cousin's +arms again, sobbing in heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of +memory had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy. In Geoffrey +Annersley's arms Ruth mourned her brother's loss for the first time. +Larry sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room. The older +doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin were left alone to pick up the +dropped threads of the past. + +They all met again at luncheon however, Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and +red-eyed but on the whole none the worse for her journey back into the +land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the external stimulus of +actually seeing and hearing somebody out of that other life was enough to +start the train. What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and +little by little the past took on shape and substance and Elinor Ruth +Farringdon became once more a normal human being with a past as well as a +present which was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur of +her dear Rod's unknown fate. + +In the course of the conversation at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin +as Elinor and was promptly informed that she wasn't Elinor and was Ruth +and that he was to call her by that name or run the risk of being +disapproved of very heartily. + +He laughed, amused at this. + +"Now I know you are real," he said. "It is exactly the tone you used when +you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost the same words except +for the reversed titles. 'Don't call me Ruth, Geoff,'" he mimicked. "'I +am not going to be Ruth any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is a much +prettier name.'" + +"Well, I don't think so now," retorted Ruth. "I've changed my mind again. +I think Ruth is the nicest name there is because--well--" She blushed +adorably and looked across the table at the young doctor, "because Larry +likes it," she completed half defiantly. + +"Is that meant to be an official publishing of the bans?" teased her +cousin when the laugh that Ruth's naïve confession had raised subsided +leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot of cheek. + +"If you want to call it that," said Ruth. "Larry, I think you might say +something, not leave me everything to do myself. Tell them we are engaged +and are going to be married--" + +"To-morrow," put in Larry suddenly pushing back his chair and going +over to stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing the +others gallantly if obviously also embarrassedly over her shyly bent +blonde head. + +The blonde head went up at that, and was shaken very decidedly. + +"No indeed. That isn't right at all," she objected. "Don't listen to him +anybody. It isn't going to be tomorrow. I've got to have a wedding dress +and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding dress when it is the only +time you ever intend to be married. I have all the other +things--everything I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff. +That's why I went to Boston. I knew I was going to want pretty clothes +quick. I told Doctor Holiday so." She sent a charming, half merry, half +deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled back. + +"She most assuredly did," he corroborated. "I never suspected it was part +of a deep laid plot however. I thought it was just femininity cropping +out after a dull season. How was I to know it was because you were +planning to run off with my assistant that you wanted all the gay +plumage?" he teased. + +Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that. + +"That isn't a fair way to put it," she declared. "If I had been +planning to run away with Larry or he with me we would have done it +months ago, plumage or no plumage. I wanted to but he wouldn't anyway," +she confessed. "I like this way much, much better though. I don't want +to be married anywhere except right here in the heart of the House on +the Hill." + +She slipped out of her chair and away from Larry's hands at that and went +over to where Doctor Philip sat. + +"May we?" she asked like a child asking permission to run out and play. + +"It is what we all want more than anything in the world, dear child," he +said. "You belong with Larry in our hearts as well as in the heart of the +House. You know that, don't you?" + +"I know you are the dearest man that ever was, not even excepting Larry. +And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there. I can call you that +now, can't I? I've always wanted to." And fitting the deed to the word +Ruth bent over and gave Doctor Philip a fluttering little butterfly kiss. + +They rose from the table at that and Ruth was bidden go off to her room +and get a long rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly +repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed gravely for +them just as if his inner self were not executing wild fandangoes of joy. +Perhaps his patients did get a few waves of his happiness however for +there was not one of them who did not leave the office with greater hope +and strength and courage than he brought there. + +"The young doctor's getting to be a lot like his uncle," one of them said +to his wife later. "Just the very touch of his hand made me feel better +today, sort of toned up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer +how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes." + +Not so queer. Larry Holiday had just been himself electrified by love and +joy. No wonder he had new power that day and was a better healer than he +had ever been before. + +In the living room Doctor Philip and Captain Annersley held converse. The +captain expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to Australia. + +"If her brother is dead as we have every reason to fear, Elinor--Ruth--is +the sole owner of an immense amount of property. The lawyers are about +crazy trying to keep things going without either Roderick or Ruth. They +have been begging me to come out and take charge of things for months but +I haven't been able to see my way clear owing to one thing or another. +Somebody will have to go at once and of course it should be Ruth." + +"How would it do for her and Laurence both to go?" + +"Magnificent. I was hoping you would think that was a feasible project. +They will be glad to have a man to represent the family. My cousin knows +nothing about the business end of the thing. She has always approached it +exclusively from the spending side. Do you think your nephew would care +to settle there?" + +"Possibly," said the Doctor. "That will develop later. They will have to +work that out for themselves. I am rather sorry he is going to marry a +girl with so much money but I suppose it cannot be helped." + +"Some people wouldn't look at it that way, Doctor Holiday," grinned the +captain. "But I am prepared to accept the fact that you Holidays are in a +class by yourselves. We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a +victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can't tell you what a relief +it is to have her marry a man like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to +go through such a punishing period of suspense waiting for his happiness. +Since there wasn't really the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut +his scruples and married her long ago." + +"I don't agreed with you, Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them +worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that this is what they +both want. If he had taken the risk and married her when he knew he +hadn't the full right to do it he would have been miserable and made her +more so. Larry is an odd chap. There is a morbid streak in him. He +wouldn't have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing his own +self-respect would have been the worst thing that could have happened to +him. No amount of actual legality could have made up for starting out on +a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have to keep on moderately good +terms with ourselves to be happy," he added with a quiet smile. + +"I suppose you are right," admitted the Englishman. "Anyway the thing is +straight and clear now. He has earned every bit of happiness that is +coming to him and I hope it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of +indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth is enormous. I wish +there were some way of making adequate returns for it all. But it is too +big to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on your other nephew when +he gets over. I certainly should like to. I don't know when I've taken +such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a ripping sort." + +"Ted?" Doctor Holiday smiled a little. "Well, yes, I suppose he is what +you Britishers call ripping. It has been rather ripping in another sense +being his guardian sometimes." + +"I judge so by his own account of himself. Yoxi mustn't let that smash of +his worry you. He'll find something over there that will be worth a +hundred times what any college can give him, and as for the rest half the +lads of mettle in the world come to earth with a jolt over a girl sooner +or later and they don't all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did +by, a long shot." + +"So he told you about that affair? You must have gotten under his skin +rather surprisingly Ted doesn't talk much about himself and I fancy he +hasn't talked about that thing at all to any one. It went deep." + +"I know. He shows that in a hundred ways. But it hasn't crushed him or +made him reckless. It simply steadied him and I infer he needed some +steadying." + +Doctor Holiday nodded assent to that and asked if he thought the boy was +doing well up there. + +"Not a doubt of it," said the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief +synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in regard to his +youngest corporal. + +"That is rather astonishing," remarked Doctor Holiday. "Obedience +hasn't ever been one of Ted's strong points. In fact he has been a +rebel always." + +"Most boys are until they perceive that there is sense instead of tyranny +in law. Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard and he is +all the better for it tough as it was in the process. He is making good +up there. He will make good over seas. He is a born leader--a better +leader of men than his brother would be though maybe Larry is finer +stuff. I don't know." + +"They are very different but I like to think they are both rather fine +stuff. Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud of them both, +Ted as well as Larry." + +"You have every reason," approved the captain heartily. "I have seen a +good many splendid lads in the last four years and these two measure up +in a way which is an eye opener to me. In my stupid insular prejudice +maybe I had fallen to thinking that the particular quality that marks +them both was a distinctly British affair. Apparently you can breed it in +America too. I'm glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one other +thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C. and a lot of other junk like +that but I'd surrender every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought +that I would ever have a son that would worship me the way those lads of +yours worship you. It is an honor any man might well covet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +ALAN MASSEY LOSES HIMSELF + + +While Ruth and Larry steered their storm tossed craft of love into smooth +haven at last; while Ted came into his own in the Canadian training camp +and Tony played Broadway to her heart's content, the two Masseys down in +Mexico drifted into a strange pact of friendship. + +Had there been no other ministrations offered save those of creature +comfort alone Dick would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan +Massey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man +reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits +to militate against recovery. + +But there was more than creature comfort in Alan's service. Without the +latter's presence loneliness, homesickness and heartache would have +gnawed at the younger man retarding his physical gains. With Alan +Massey life even on a sick bed took on fascinating colors like a prism +in sunlight. + +For the sick lad's delectation Alan spun long thrilling tales, many of +them based on personal experience in his wide travels in many lands. He +was a magnificent raconteur and Dick propped up among his pillows drank +it all in, listening like another Desdemona to strange moving accidents +of fire and flood which his scribbling soul recognized as superb copy. + +Often too Alan read from books, called in the masters of the pen to set +the listener's eager mind atravel through wondrous, unexplored worlds. +Best of all perhaps were the twilight hours when Alan quoted long +passages of poetry from memory, lending to the magic of the poet's art +his own magic of voice and intonation. These were wonderful moments to +Dick, moments he was never to forget. He drank deep of the soul vintage +which the other man offered him out of the abundance of his experience as +a life long pilgrim in the service of beauty. + +It was a curious relation--this growing friendship between the two men. +In some respects they were as master and pupil, in others were as man and +man, friend and friend, almost brother and brother. When Alan Massey gave +at all he gave magnificently without stint or reservation. He did now. +And when he willed to conquer he seldom if ever failed. He did not now. +He won, won first his cousin's liking, respect, and gratitude and finally +his loyal friendship and something else that was akin to reverence. + +Tony Holiday's name was seldom mentioned between the two. Perhaps they +feared that with the name of the girl they both loved there might return +also the old antagonistic forces which had already wrought too much +havoc. Both sincerely desired peace and amity and therefore the woman who +held both their hearts in her keeping was almost banished from the talk +of the sick room though she was far from forgotten by either. + +So things went on. In time Dick was judged by the physician well enough +to take the long journey back to New York. Alan secured the tickets, made +all the arrangements, permitting Dick not so much as the lifting of a +finger in his own behalf. And just then came Tony Holiday's letter to +Alan telling him she was his whenever he wanted her since he had cleared +the shield forever in her eyes by what he had done for Dick. She trusted +him, knew he would not ask her to marry him unless he was quite free +morally and every other way to ask her. She wanted him, could not be +surer of his love or her own if she waited a dozen years. He meant more +to her than her work, more than her beloved freedom more even than +Holiday Hill itself although she felt that she was not so much deserting +the Hill as bringing Alan to it. The others would learn to love him too. +They must, because she loved him so much! But even if they did not she +had made her choice. She belonged to him first of all. + +"But think, dear," she finished. "Think well before you take me. Don't +come to me at all unless you can come free, with nothing on your soul +that is going to prevent your being happy with me. I shall ask no +questions if you come. I trust you to decide right for us both because +you lave me in the high way as well as all the other ways." + +Alan took this letter of Tony's out into the night, walked with it +through flaming valleys of hell. She was his. Of her own free will she +had given herself to him, placed him higher in her heart at last than +even her sacred Hill. And yet after all the Hill stood between them, in +the challenge she flung at him. She was his to take if he could come +free. She left the decision to him. She trusted him. + +Good God! Why should he hesitate to take what she was willing to give? He +had atoned, saved his cousin's life, lived decently, honorably as he had +promised, kept faith with Tony herself when he might perhaps have won her +on baser terms than he had made himself keep to because he loved her as +she said "in the high way as well as all the other ways." He would +contrive some way of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want +it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils +should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at +this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him +what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer +he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear +eyes but he was more afraid of something else--his own soul which somehow +Tony had created by loving and believing in him. + +All the next day, the day before they were to leave on the northern +journey, Alan behaved as if all the devils of hell which he had invoked +were with him. The old mocking bitterness of tongue was back, an even +more savage light than Dick remembered that night of their quarrel was in +his green eyes. The man was suddenly acidulated as if he had over night +suffered a chemical transformation which had affected both mind and body. +A wild beast tortured, evil, ready to pounce, looked out of his drawn, +white face. + +Dick wondered greatly what had caused the strange reaction and seeing +the other was suffering tremendously for some reason or other +unexplained and perhaps inexplicable was profoundly sorry. His +friendship for the man who had saved his life was altogether too strong +and deep to be shaken by this temporary lapse into brutality which he +had known all along was there although held miraculously in abeyance +these many weeks. The man was a genius, with all the temperamental +fluctuations of mood which are comprehensible and forgivable in a +genius. Dick did not begrudge the other any relief he might find in his +debauch of ill humor, was more than willing he should work it off on his +humble self if it could do any good though he would be immensely +relieved when the old friendly Alan came back. + +Twilight descended. Dick turned from the mirror after a critical survey +of his own lean, fever parched, yellow countenance. + +"Lord! I look like a peanut," he commenced disgustedly. "I say, Massey, +when we get back to New York I think I should choke anybody if I were you +who dared to say we looked alike. One must draw the line somewhere at +what constitutes a permissible insult." He grinned whimsically at his own +expense, turned back to the mirror. "Upon my word, though, I believe it +is true. We do look alike. I never saw it until this minute. Funny +things--resemblances." + +"This isn't so funny," drawled Alan. "We had the same great grandfather." + +Dick whirled about staring at the other man as if he thought him +suddenly gone mad. + +"What! What do you know about my great grandfather? Do you know +who I am?" + +"I do. You are John Massey, old John's grandson, the chap I told you once +was dead and decently buried. I hoped it was true at the time but it +wasn't a week before I knew it was a lie. I found out John Massey was +alive and that he was going under the name of Dick Carson. Do you wonder +I hated you?" + +Dick sat down, his face white. He looked and was utterly dazed. + +"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mind explaining? It--it is a +little hard to get all at once." + +And then Alan Massey told the story that no living being save himself +knew. He spared himself nothing, apologised for nothing, expressed no +regret, asked for no palliation of judgment, forgiveness or even +understanding. Quietly, apparently without emotion, he gave back to the +other man the birthright he had robbed him of by his selfish and +dishonorable connivance with a wicked old man now beyond the power of any +vengeance or penalty. Dick Carson was no longer nameless but as he +listened tensely to his cousin's revelations he almost found it in his +heart to wish he were. It was too terrible to have won his name at such a +cost. As he listened, watching Alan's eyes burn in the dusk in strange +contrast to his cool, liquid, studiously tranquil voice, Dick remembered +a line Alan himself had read him only the other day, "Hell, the shadow of +a soul on fire," the Persian phrased it. Watching, Dick Carson saw before +him a sadder thing, a soul which had once been on fire and was now but +gray ashes. The flame had blazed up, scorched and blackened its path. It +was over now, burnt out. At thirty-three Alan Massey was through, had +lived his life, had given up. The younger man saw this with a pang which +had no reactive thought of self, only compassion for the other. + +"That is all, I think," said Alan at last. "I have all the proofs of your +identity with me. I never could destroy them somehow though I have meant +to over and over again. On the same principle I suppose that the sinning +monk sears the sign of the cross on his breast though he makes no outward +confession to the world and means to make none. I never meant to make +mine. I don't know why I am doing it now. Or rather I do. I couldn't +marry Tony with this thing between us. I tried to think I could, that I'd +made up to you by saving your life, that I was free to take my happiness +with her because I loved her and she loved me. And she does love me. She +wrote me yesterday she would marry me whenever I wished. I could have had +her. But I couldn't take her that way. I couldn't have made her happy. +She would have read the thing in my soul. She is too clean and honest and +true herself not to feel the presence of the other thing when it came +near her. I have tried to tell myself love was enough, that it would make +up to her for the rest. It isn't enough. You can't build life or +happiness except on the quarry stuff they keep on Holiday Hill, right, +honor, decency. You know that. Tony forgave my past. I believe she is +generous enough to forgive even this and go on with me. But I shan't ask +her. I won't let her. I--I've given her up with the rest." + +The speaker came over to where Dick sat, silent, stunned. + +"Enough of that. I have no wish to appeal to you in any way. The next +move is yours. You can act as you please. You can brand me as a +criminal if you choose. It is what I am, guilty in the eyes of the law +as well as in my own eyes and yours. I am not pleading innocence. I am +pleading unqualified guilt. Understand that clearly. I knew what I was +doing when I did it. I have known ever since. I've never been blind to +the rottenness of the thing. At first I did it for the money because I +was afraid of poverty and honest work. And then I went on with it for +Tony, because I loved her and wouldn't give her up to you. Now I've +given up the last ditch. The name is yours and the money is yours and +if you can win Tony she is yours. I'm out of the face for good and all. +But we have to settle just how the thing is going to be done. And that +is for you to say." + +"I wish I needn't do anything about it," said Dick slowly after a moment. +"I don't want the money. I am almost afraid of it. It seems accursed +somehow considering what it did to you. Even the name I don't seem to +care so much about just now thought I have wanted a name as I have never +wanted anything else in the world except Tony. It was mostly for her I +wanted it. See here, Alan, why can't we make a compromise? You say +Roberts wrote two letters and you have both. Why can't we destroy the one +and send the other to the lawyers, the one that lets you out? It is +nobody's business but ours. We can say that the letter has just fallen +into your hands with the other proof that I am the John Massey that was +stolen. That would straighten the thing out for you. I've no desire to +brand you in any way. Why should I after all I owe you? You have made up +a million times by saving my life and by the way you have given the thing +over now. Anyway one doesn't exact payment from one's friends. And you +are my friend, Alan. You offered me friendship. I took it--was proud to +take it. I am proud now, prouder than ever." + +And rising Dick Carson who was no longer Dick Carson but John Massey held +out his hand to the man who had wronged him so bitterly. The paraquet in +the corner jibbered harshly. Thunder rumbled heavily outside. An eerily +vivid flash of lightning dispelled for a moment the gloom of the dusk as +the two men clasped hands. + +"John Massey!" Alan's voice with its deep cello quality was vibrant with +emotion. "You don't know what that means to me. Men have called me many +things but few have ever called me friend except in lip service for what +they thought they could get out of it. And from you--well, I can only +say, I thank you." + +"We are the only Masseys. We ought to stand together," said Dick simply. + +Alan smiled though the room was too dark for Dick to see. + +"We can't stand together. I have forfeited the right. You chose the high +road long ago and I chose the other. We have both to abide by our +choices. We can't change those things at will. Spare me the public +revelation if you care to. I shall be glad for Tony's sake. For myself it +doesn't matter much. I don't expect to cross your path or hers again. I +am going to lose myself. Maybe some day you will win her. She will be +worth the winning. But don't hurry her if you want to win. She will have +to get over me first and that will take time." + +"She will never get over you, Alan. I know her. Things go deep with her. +They do with all the Holidays. You shan't lose yourself. There is no need +of it. Tony loves you. You must stay and make her happy. You can now you +are free. She need never know the worst of this any more than the rest of +the world need know. We can divide the money. It is the only way I am +willing to have any of it." + +Alan shook his head. + +"We can divide nothing, not the money and not Tony's love. I told you I +was giving it all up. You cannot stop me. No man has ever stopped me from +doing what I willed to do. I have a letter or two to write now and so +I'll leave you. I am glad you don't hate me, John Massey. Shall we shake +hands once more and then--good-night?" + +Their hands met again. A sharp glare of lightning lit the room with +ominous brilliancy for a moment. The paraquet screamed raucously. And +then the door closed on Alan Massey. + +An hour later a servant brought word to Dick that an American was below +waiting to speak to him. He descended with the card in his hand. The name +was unfamiliar, Arthur Hallock of Chicago, mining engineer. + +The stranger stood in the hall waiting while Dick came down the stairs. +He was obviously ill at ease. + +"I am Hallock," announced the visitor. "You are Richard Carson?" + +Dick nodded. Already the name was beginning to sound strange on his ears. +In one hour he had gotten oddly accustomed to knowing that he was John +Massey. And no longer needed Tony's name, dear as it was. + +"I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, Mr. Carson," the stranger +proceeded. "You have a friend named Alan Massey living here with you?" + +Again Dick nodded. He was apprehensive at the mention of Alan's name. + +"There was a riot down there." The speaker pointed down the street. "A +fuss over an American flag some dirty German dog had spit at. It didn't +take long to start a life sized row. We are all spoiling for a chance to +stick a few of the pigs ourselves whether we're technically at war or +not. A lot of us collected, your friend Massey among the rest. I +remember particularly when he joined the mob because he was so much +taller than the rest of us and came strolling in as if he was going to +an afternoon tea instead of getting into an international mess with +nearly all the contracting parties drunk and disorderly. There was a +good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows +just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the +mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like +mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of +plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in +the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a +breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I +were the first to get to him but there wasn't anything to do but look in +his pockets and find out who he was. We found his name on a card with +this address and your name scribbled on it in pencil. I say, Mr. Carson, +I am horribly sorry," suddenly perceiving Dick's white face. "You care a +lot, don't you?" + +"I care a lot," said Dick woodenly. "He was my cousin and--my best +friend." + +"I am sorry," repeated the young engineer. "Mr. Carson, there is +something else I feel as if I had to say though I shan't say it to any +one else. Massey might have dodged with the rest of us. He saw it coming +just as we did. He waited for it and I saw him smile as it came--a queer +smile at that. Maybe I'm mistaken but I have a hunch he wanted that +dagger to find him. That was why he smiled." + +"I think you are entirely right, Mr. Hallock," said Dick. "I haven't any +doubt but that was why he smiled. He would smile just that way. Where +--where is he?" Dick brushed his hands across his eyes as he asked the +question. He had never felt so desolate, so utterly alone in his life. + +"They are bringing him here. Shall I stay? Can I help anyway?" + +Dick shook his head sadly. + +"Thank you. I don't think there is anything any one can do. I--I wish +there was." + +A little later Alan Massey's dead body lay in austere dignity in the +house in which he had saved his cousin's life and given him back his name +and fortune together with the right to win the girl he himself had loved +so well. The smile was still on his face and a strange serenity of +expression was there too. He slept well at last. He had lost himself as +he had proclaimed his intent to do and in losing had found himself. One +could not look upon that calm white sculptured face without feeling that. +Alan Massey had died a victor undaunted, a master of fate to the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE SONG IN THE NIGHT + + +Tony Holiday sat in the dressing room waiting her cue to go on the stage. +It was only a rehearsal however. Miss Clay was back now and Tony was once +more the humble understudy though with a heart full of happy knowledge of +what it is like to be a real actress with a doting public at her feet. + +While she waited she picked up a newspaper and carelessly scanned its +pages. Suddenly to the amazement and consternation of the other girl who +was dressing in the same room she uttered a sharp little cry and for the +first time in her healthy young life slid to the floor in a merciful +faint. Her frightened companion called for help instantly and it was only +a moment before Tony's brown eyes opened and she pulled herself up from +the couch where they had laid her. But she would not speak or tell them +what had happened and it was only when they had gotten her off in a cab +with a motherly, big hearted woman who played shrew's and villainess' +parts always on the stage but was the one person of the whole cast to +whom every one turned in time of trouble that the rest searched the paper +for the clew to the thing which had made Tony look like death itself. It +was not far to seek. Tony looked like death because Alan Massey was dead. + +They all knew Alan Massey and knew that he and Tony Holiday were intimate +friends, perhaps even betrothed. More than one of them had seen and +remembered how he had kissed her before them all on the night of Tony's +first Broadway triumph and some of them had wondered why he had not been +seen since with her. So he had been in Mexico and now he was dead, his +heart pierced by a Mexican dagger. And Tony--Tony of the gay tongue and +the quick laughter--had the dagger gone into her heart too? It looked so. +The "End of the Rainbow" cast felt very sad and sober that day. They +loved Tony and just now she was not an actress to them but a girl who had +loved a man, a man who was dead. + +Jean Lambert telegraphed at once for Doctor Holiday to come to Tony who +was in a bad way. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't eat. She did not sleep. +She did not cry. Jean thought if she cried her grief would not have been +so pitiful to behold. It was the stony, white silence of her that was +intolerable to witness. + +In her uncle's arms Tony's terrible calm gave way and she sobbed herself +to utter weariness and finally to sleep. But even to him she would not +talk much about Alan. He had not known Alan. He had never +understood--never would understand now how wonderful, how lovable, how +splendid her lover had been. For several days she was kept in bed and the +doctor hardly left her. It was a hard time for him as well as his +stricken niece. Even their love for each other did not serve to lighten +the pain to any great extent. It was not the same sorrow they had. Doctor +Holiday was suffering because his little girl suffered. Tony was +suffering because she loved Alan Massey who would never come to her +again. Neither could entirely share the grief of the other. Alan Massey +was between them still. + +Finally Dick came and was able to give what Doctor Philip could not. He +could sing Alan's praises, tell her how wonderful he had been, how +generous and kind. He could share her grief as no one else could because +he had learned to love Alan Massey almost as well as she did herself. + +Dick talked freely of Alan, told her of the strange discovery which they +had made that he and Alan were cousins and that he himself was John +Massey, the kidnapped baby whom he had been so sorry for when he had +looked up the Massey story at the time of the old man's death. Dick was +not an apt liar but he lied gallantly now for Alan's sake and for Tony's. +He told her that it was only since Alan had been in Mexico that he had +known who his cousin was and had immediately possessed the other of the +facts and turned over to him the proofs of his identity as John Massey. + +It was a good lie, well conceived and well delivered but the liar had not +reckoned on that fatal Holiday gift of intuition. Tony listened to the +story, shut her eyes and thought hard for a moment. Then she opened her +eyes again and looked straight at Dick. + +"That is not the truth," she said. "Alan knew before he went to Mexico. +He knew long before. That was the other ghost--the one he could not lay. +Don't lie to me. I know." + +And then yielding to her command Dick began again and told her the truth, +serving Alan's memory well by the relation. One thing only he kept back. +After all he had no proof that the young engineer had been right in his +conjecture that Alan had wanted the dagger to find him. There was no need +of hurting Tony with that. + +"Dick--I can't call you John yet. I can't even think about you to-night +though I am so thankful to have you back safe and well. I can't be glad +yet for you. I can't remember any one but Alan. You will forgive me, I +know. But tell me. It was a terrible thing he did to you. Do you forgive +him really?" The girl's deep shadowed eyes searched the young man's face, +challenging him to speak the truth and only that. + +He met the challenge willingly. He had nothing to conceal here. Tony +might read him through and through and she would find in him neither hate +nor rancor, nor condemnation. + +"Of course I forgive him, Tony. He did a terrible thing to me you say. +He did a much more terrible thing to himself. And he made up for +everything over and over by what he did for me in Mexico. He might have +let me die. I should have died if he had not come. There is no doubt in +the world of that. He could not have done more if he had been my own +brother. He meant me to like him. He did more. He made me love him. He +was my friend. We parted as friends with a handshake which was his +good-by though I didn't know it." + +It was a fatal speech. Too late Dick realized it as he saw Tony's face. + +"Dick, he meant to let himself get killed. I've thought so all along and +now I know you think so too." + +"I didn't mean to let that out. Maybe I am mistaken. We shall never know. +But I believe he was not sorry to let the dagger get him. He had given up +everything else. It wasn't so hard for him to give up the one thing +more--the thing he didn't want anyway--life. Life wasn't much to him +after he gave you up, Tony. His love was the biggest thing about him. I +love you myself but I am not ashamed to say that his love was a bigger +thing than mine every way, finer, more magnificent, the love of a genius +whereas mine is just the love of an every day man. It was love that +saved him." + +"Dick, do you believe that the real Alan is dust--nothing but dust down +in a grave?" demanded Tony suddenly. + +"No, Tony, I don't. I can't. The essence of what was best in him is alive +somewhere. I know it. It must be. His love for you--for all beauty--they +couldn't die, dear. They were big enough to be immortal." + +"And his dancing," sighed Tony. "His dancing couldn't die. It had a +soul." + +If she had not been sure already that Alan had meant to go out of her +life even if he had not meant to go to his death when he left New York +she would have been convinced a little later. Alan's Japanese servant +brought two gifts to her from his honorable master according to his +honorable master's orders should he not return from his journey. His +honorable master being unfortunately dead his unworthy servant laid the +gifts at Mees Holiday's honorable feet. Whereupon the bearer had departed +as quietly as death itself might come. + +One of the gifts was a picture, a painting which Tony had seen, and which +was she thought the most beautiful of all his beautiful creations. Its +sheer loveliness would have hurt her even if it had had no other +significance and it did have a very real message. + +At first sight the whole scene seemed enveloped in translucent, silver +mist. As one looked more closely however there was revealed the figure of +a man, black clad in pilgrim guise, kneeling on the verge of a +precipitous cliff which rose out of a seemingly bottomless abyss of +terrific blackness. Though in posture of prayer the pilgrim's head was +lifted and his face wore an expression of rapt adoration. Above a film +of fog in the heavens stretched a clear space of deep blue black sky in +which hung a single luminous star. From the star a line of golden light +of unearthly radiance descended and finding its way to the uplifted +transfigured face of the kneeling pilgrim ended there. + +Tony Holiday understood, got the message as clearly as if Alan himself +stood beside her to interpret it. She knew that he was telling her +through the picture that she had saved his soul, kept him out of the +abyss, that to the end she was what he had so often called her--his star. + +With tear blinded eyes she turned from the canvas to the little silver +box which the servant had placed in her hands together with a sealed +envelope. In the box was a gorgeous, unset ruby, the gem of Alan's +collection as Tony well knew having worshiped often at its shrine. It lay +there now against the austere purity of its white satin background--the +symbol of imperishable passion. + +Reverently Tony closed the little box and opened the sealed envelope +dreading yet longing to know its contents. Alan had sent her no word of +farewell, had not written to her that night before he went out into the +storm to meet his death, had made no response to the letter she herself +had written offering herself and her love and faith for his taking. At +first these things had hurt her. But these gifts of his were beginning to +make her understand his silence. Selfish and spectacular all his life at +his death Alan Massey had been surpassingly generous and simple. He had +chosen to bequeath his love to her not as an obsession and a bondage but +as an elemental thing like light and air. + +The message in the envelope was in its way as impersonal as the ruby had +been but Tony found it more hauntingly personal than she had ever found +his most impassioned love letter. Once more the words were couched in the +symbol tongue of the poet in India--in only two sentences, but sentences +so poignant that they stamped themselves forever on Tony Holiday's mind +as they stood out from the paper in Alan's beautiful, striking +handwriting. + +"When the lighted lamp is brought into the room + I shall go. + And then perhaps you will listen to the night, and + hear my song when I am silent." + +The lines were dated on that unforgettable night when Tony had played +Broadway and danced her last dance with her royal lover. So he had known +even then that he was giving her up. Realizing this Tony realized as she +never had before the high quality of his love. She could guess a little +of what that night had meant to him, how passionately he must have +desired to win through to the full fruition of his love before he gave +her up for all the rest of time. And she herself had been mad that night +Tony remembered. Ah well! He had been strong for them both. And now their +love would always stay upon the high levels, never descend to the ways of +earth. There would never be anything to regret, though Tony loving her +lover's memory as she did that moment was not so sure but she regretted +that most of all. + +Yet tragic as Alan's death was and bitterly and sincerely as she mourned +his loss Tony could see that he had after all chosen the happiest way +out for himself as well as for her and his cousin. It was not hard to +forgive a dead lover with a generous act of renunciation his last deed. +It would have been far less easy to forgive a living lover with such a +stain upon his life. Even though he tried to wash it away by his +surrender and she by her forgiveness the stain would have remained +ineradicable. There would always have been a barrier between them for +all his effort and her own. + +And his love would ill have borne denial or frustration. Without her he +would have gone down into dark pits if he had gone on living. Perhaps he +had known and feared this himself, willing to prevent it at any cost. +Perhaps he had known that so long as he lived she, Tony, would never have +been entirely her own again. His bondage would have been upon her even if +he never saw her again. Perhaps he had elected death most of all for this +reason, had loved her well enough to set her free. He had told her once +that love was twofold, a force of destruction and damnation but also a +force of purification and salvation. Alan had loved her greatly, perhaps +in the end his love had taken him in his own words "to the gate of +Heaven." Tony did not know but she thought if there really was a God he +would understand and forgive the soul of Alan Massey for that last +splendid sacrifice of his in the name of love. + +And whatever happened Tony Holiday knew that she would bear forever the +mark of Alan Massey's stormy, strange, and in the end all-beautiful love. +Perhaps some day the lighted lamp might be brought in. She did not know, +would not attempt to prophesy about that. She did not know that she would +always listen to the night for Alan Massey's sake and hear his song +though he was silent forever. + +The next day Richard Carson officially disappeared from the world and +John Massey appeared in his place. The papers made rather a striking +story of his romantic history and its startling denouement which had +come they said through the death bed confessions of the man Roberts which +had only just reached the older Massey's hands, strangely enough on the +eve of his own tragic death, which was again related to make the tale a +little more of a thriller. That was all the world knew, was ever to know +for the Holidays and John Massey kept the dead man's secret well. + +And the grass grew green on Alan Massey's grave. The sun and dew and rain +laid tender fingers upon it and great crimson and gold hearted roses +strewed their fragrant petals upon it year by year. The stars he had +loved so well shone down upon the lonely spot where his body slept quiet +at last after the torment of his brief and stormy life. But otherwise, as +John Massey and Tony Holiday believed, his undefeated spirit fared on +splendidly in its divine quest of beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL + + +The winter had at last decided to recapture its forsaken role of the Snow +King. For two days and as many nights the air had been one swirl of snow +which shut out earth and sky. But on the third morning the Hill woke to a +dazzling world of cloudless blue and trackless white. A resplendent +bride-like day it was and fitly so for before sundown the old House on +the Hill was to know another bride. Elinor Ruth Farringdon's affairs +required her immediate attention in Australia and she was leaving +to-night for that far away island which was again now dear to her heart +as the home of her happy childhood, the memory of which had now all +returned after months of strange obliteration. But she would not go as +Elinor Ruth Farringdon. That name was to be shed as absolutely as her +recollection of it had once been shed. She would go as Mrs. Laurence +Holiday with a real wedding ring all her own and a real husband also all +her own by her side. + +There were to be no guests outside the family except for the Lamberts, +Carlotta and Dick--John Massey, as they were now trying to learn to call +him. The wedding was to be very quiet not only because of Granny but +because they were all very pitiful of Tony's still fresh grief, the more +so because she bore it so bravely and quietly, anxious lest she cast any +shadow upon the happiness of the others, especially that of Larry and +Ruth. In any case a quiet wedding would have been the choice of the two +who were most concerned. They wanted only their near and dear about them +when they took upon themselves the rites which were to unite them for the +rest of their two lives. + +Aside from Tony's sorrow the only two regrets which marred the household +joy that bride white day were Ted's absence and imminent departure for +France and that other even soberer remembrance of that other gallant +young soldier, Ruth's brother Roderick of whom no news had come, though +Ruth insisted that Rod wasn't dead, that he would came back just as her +vivid memory of him had returned. + +And it happened that her faith was rewarded and on the very day of days +when one drop more of happiness made the cup fairly spill over. Larry was +summoned to the telephone just as he had been once before on a certain +memorable occasion to be told that a cabled message awaited him. The +message was from Geoffrey Annersley and bore besides his love and +congratulations the wonderful news that Roderick Farringdon had escaped +from a German prison camp and was safe in England. + +Ruth shed many happy tears over this best of all bridal gifts, not enough +to dim the shining blue of her eyes but enough to give them a lovely, +misty tenderness which made her sweeter than ever Larry thought, and who +should have magic eyes if not a bridegroom? + +A little later came Carlotta and Dick, the latter well and strong again +but thin and pale and rather sober. Tony loved him for grieving for Alan +as she knew he did. He too had known and loved the dead man and +understood him perhaps better than she had herself. For after all no man +and woman can ever fully understand each other especially if they are in +love. So many faint nuances of doubt and fear and pride and passion and +jealousy are forever drifting between lovers obscuring clarity of vision. + +Carlotta was prettier than ever with a new sweetness and womanliness +which her love had wrought in her during the year. People who had known +her mother said she was growing daily more like Rose though always before +they had traced a greater resemblance to the other side of the house, to +her Aunt Lottie particularly. She and Philip were to be married in the +spring. "When the orioles come" Carlotta had said remembering her +father's story of that other brief mating. + +Tony and Carlotta slipped away from the others to talk by +themselves. Carlotta too had known and liked Alan and to all such +Tony clung just now. + +"He was so different at the end," she said to her friend. "I wish you +could have known him that way--so dear and gentle and wonderful. He kept +his promise everyway, lived absolutely straight and clean and fine." + +"He did it for you, Tony. He never could have done it for himself. He +wouldn't have thought it worth while. Don't tell me if you don't want to +but I have guessed a good many things since I knew about Dick and I have +wondered if he wasn't rather glad--to get killed." + +"Yes, Dick thinks and I think too that he let the dagger find him. I +have always called him my royal lover. His death was the most royal +part of all." + +Carlotta was silent. She hoped that somewhere Alan was finding the +happiness he seemed always to have missed on earth. Then seeing her +friend's lovely eyes with the heavy shadow in them where there had been +only sunshine before her heart rebelled. Poor Tony! Why must she suffer +like this? She was so young. Was life really over for her? For Carlotta +in her own happiness life and love were synonymous terms. Something of +what was in her mind she said to her friend. + +"I don't know," confessed Tony. "It is too soon to tell. Just now Alan +fills every nook and cranny of me. I can't think of any other man or +imagine myself loving anybody else as I loved him. But I am a very much +alive person. I don't believe I shall give myself to death forever. Alan +himself wouldn't want it so. A part of me will always be his but there +are other margins of me that Alan never touched and these maybe I shall +give to some one else when the time comes." + +"Does that mean Dick--John Massey?" + +"Maybe. Maybe not. I have told him not to speak of love for a long, long +time. We must both be free. He is going to France as a war correspondent +next week." + +"Don't you hate to have him go?" + +"Yes, I do. But I can't be selfish enough to keep him hanging round me +forever on the slim chance that some time I shall be willing to marry +him. He is too fine to be treated like that. He wants to go overseas +unless I will marry him now and I can't do that. It is better that we +should be apart for a while. As for me I have my work and I am going to +plunge into it as deep and hard as I can. I am not going to be unhappy. +You can't be unhappy when you love your work as I love mine. Don't be +sorry for me, Carlotta. I am not sorry for myself. Even if I never loved +again and never was loved I should still have had enough for a life time. +It is more than many women have, more than I deserve." + +The bride white day wore on to twilight and as the clock struck the hour +of five Ruth Farringdon came down the broad oak staircase clad in the +shining splendor of the bridal gown she had "dreamed," wearing her +grandmother's pearls and the lace veil which Larry's lovely mother had +worn as Ned Holiday's bride long and long ago. At the foot of the stairs +Larry waited and took her hand. Eric and Hester flanking the living room +door pushed aside the curtains for the two who still hand in hand walked +past the children into the room where the others were assembled. Gravely +and brimming with importance the guard of honor followed, the latter +bearing the bride's bouquet, the former squeezing the wedding ring in his +small fist. Ruth took her place beside the senior doctor. The minister +opened his mouth to proceed with the ceremony, shut it again with a +little gasp. + +For suddenly the curtains were swept aside again, this time with a +breezier and less stately sweep and Ted Holiday in uniform and sergeant's +regalia plunged into the room, a thinner, browner, taller Ted, with a new +kind of dignity about him but withal the same blue-eyed lad with the old +heart warming smile, still always Teddy the beloved. + +"Don't mind me," he announced. "Please go on." And he slipped into +a place beside Tony drawing her hand in his with a warm pressure as +he did so. + +They went on. Laurence LaRue Holiday and Elinor Ruth Farringdon were made +man and wife till death did them part. The old clock on the mantel which +had looked down on these two on a less happy occasion looked on still, +ticking away calmly, telling no tales and asking no questions. What was a +marriage more or less to time? + +The ceremony over it was the newly arrived sergeant rather than the bride +and groom who was the center of attraction and none were better pleased +than Larry and Ruth to have it so. + +It was a flying visit on Ted's part. He had managed to secure a last +minute leave just before sailing from Montreal at which place he had to +report the day after to-morrow. + +"So let's eat, drink, and be merry," he finished his explanation gayly. +"But first, please, Larry, may I kiss the bride?" + +"Go to it," laughed his brother. "I'm so hanged glad to see you Kid, I've +half a mind to kiss you myself." + +Needing no further urging Ted availed himself of the proffered privilege +and kissed the bride, not once but three times, once on each rosy cheek, +and last full on her pretty mouth itself. + +"There!" he announced standing off to survey her, both her hands still in +his possession. "I've always wanted to do that and now I've done it. I +feel better." + +Everybody laughed at that not because what he said was so very +amusing as because their hearts were so full of joy to have the +irrepressible youngest Holiday at home again after the long anxious +weeks of his absence. + +Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth's ear, "Gee! But I'm +glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley +is some peach of a cousin, I'm telling you, though I'm confoundedly +glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast +clear for Larry." + +He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words +as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers +met and each looked into the other's face, for once unashamed of the +emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to +recover speech. + +"Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it +has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck +and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now. +Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close +to me lately especially since I've been in this war business." Then +seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old +man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever +happens. You know yourself death isn't so much--not such a horrible +calamity as we talk as if it were." + +"I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I +can't seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn't +have gone." + +"Don't let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself +before you know it and then I'd have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept +me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself. +I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and +when we have the Germans jolly well licked I'm coming home and find me as +pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry +her quick as lightning." + +Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And +irrationally enough he found himself more than a little reassured and +comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and +have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done. + +"And I say, Larry." Ted's voice was soberer now. "I have always wanted +to tell you how I appreciated your standing by me so magnificently in +that horrible mess of mine. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had felt +like throwing me over for life after my being such a tarnation idiot +and disgracing the family like that. I'll never forget how white you and +Uncle Phil both were about it every way and maybe you won't believe it +but there'll never be anything like that again. There are some things +I'm through with--at least if I'm not I'm even more of a fool than I +think I am." + +"Don't, Ted. I haven't been such a model of virtue and wisdom that I can +afford to sit in judgment on you. I've learned a few things myself this +year and I am not so cock sure in my views as I was by a long shot. +Anyway you have more than made up by what you have done since and what +you are going to do over there. Let's forget the rest and just remember +that we are both Holidays, and it is up to both of us to measure up to +Dad and Uncle Phil, far as we can." + +"Some stunt, what?" Thus Ted flippantly mixed his familiar American and +newly acquired British vernacular. "You are dead right, Larry. I am +afraid I'm doomed to land some nine miles or so below the mark but I'm +going to make a stab at it anyway." + +Later there was a gala dinner party, an occasion almost as gay as that +Round Table banquet over eight years ago had been when Dick Carson had +been formally inducted into the order and Doctor Holiday had announced +that he was going to marry Miss Margery. And as before there was +laughter and gay talk and teasing, affectionate jest and prophecy +mingled with the toasting. + +There were toasts to the reigning bride and groom, Larry and Ruth, to the +coming bride and groom Philip and Carlotta, to Tony, the understudy that +was, the star that was to be; to Dick Carson that had been, John Massey +that was, foreign correspondent, and future famous author. There was a +particularly stirring toast to Sergeant Ted who would some day be +returning to his native shore at least a captain if not a major with all +kinds of adventures and honors to his credit. Everybody smiled gallantly +over this toast. Not one of them would let a shadow of grief or dread for +Teddy the beloved cloud this one happy home evening of his before he left +the Hill perhaps forever. The Holidays were like that. + +And then Larry on his feet raised his hand for silence. + +"Last and best of all," he said, "I give you--the Head of the House of +Holiday--the best friend and the finest man I know--Uncle Phil!" + +Larry smiled down at his uncle as he spoke but there was deep +feeling in his fine gray eyes. Better than any one else he knew how +much of his present happiness he owed to that good friend and fine +man Philip Holiday. + +The whole table rose to this toast except the doctor, even to the small +Eric and Hester who had no idea what it was all about but found it all +very exciting and delightful and beautifully grown up. As they drank +the toast Ted's free hand rested with affectionate pressure on his +uncle's and Tony on the other side set down her glass and squeezed his +hand instead. They too were trying to tell him that what Larry had +spoken in his own behalf was true for them also. They wanted to have +him know how much he meant to them and how much they wanted to do and +be for his dear sake. + +Perhaps Philip Holiday won his order of distinguished service then and +there. At any rate with his own children and Ned's around him, with the +wife of his heart smiling down at him from across the table with proud, +happy, tear wet eyes, the Head of the House of Holiday was content. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Wings, by Margaret Rebecca Piper + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11165 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ad63d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11165 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11165) diff --git a/old/11165-8.txt b/old/11165-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b10cadc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11165-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13997 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Wings, by Margaret Rebecca Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wild Wings + A Romance of Youth + +Author: Margaret Rebecca Piper + +Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11165] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD WINGS *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + WILD WINGS + + A ROMANCE OF YOUTH + + BY MARGARET REBECCA PIPER + + 1921 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I MOSTLY TONY + + II WITH ROSALIND IN ARDEN + + III A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS + + IV A BOY WHO WASN'T AN ASS BUT BEHAVED LIKE ONE + + V WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH + + VI A SHADOW ON THE PATH + + VII DEVELOPMENTS BY MAIL + + VIII THE LITTLE LADY WHO FORGOT + + IX TEDDY SEIZES THE DAY + + X TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY + + XI THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD + + XII AND THERE IS A FLAME + + XIII BITTER FRUIT + + XIV SHACKLES + + XV ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE + + XVI IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED + + XVII A WEDDING RING IT WAS HARD TO REMEMBER + + XVIII A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE + + XIX TWO HOLIDAYS MAKE CONFESSION + + XX A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE + + XXI HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS + + XXII THE DUNBURY CURE + + XXIII SEPTEMBER CHANGES + + XXIV A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED + + XXV ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE + + XXVI THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES + + XXVII TROUBLED WATERS + + XXVIII IN DARK PLACES + + XXIX THE PEDIGREE OF PEARLS + + XXX THE FIERY FURNACE + + XXXI THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE + + XXXII DWELLERS IN DREAMS + + XXXIII WAITING FOR THE END OF THE STORY + + XXXIV IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO + + XXXV GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES + + XXXVI THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET + + XXXVII ALAN MASSEY LOSES HIMSELF + +XXXVIII THE SONG IN THE NIGHT + + XXXIX IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MOSTLY TONY + + +Among the voluble, excited, commencement-bound crowd that boarded the +Northampton train at Springfield two male passengers were conspicuous for +their silence as they sat absorbed in their respective newspapers which +each had hurriedly purchased in transit from train to train. + +A striking enough contrast otherwise, however, the two presented. The +man next the aisle was well past sixty, rotund of abdomen, rubicund +of countenance, beetle-browed. He was elaborately well-groomed, +almost foppish in attire, and wore the obvious stamp of worldly +success, the air of one accustomed to giving orders and seeing them +obeyed before his eyes. + +His companion and chance seat-mate was young, probably a scant five and +twenty, tall, lean, close-knit of frame with finely chiseled, almost +ascetic features, though the vigorous chin and generous sized mouth +forbade any hint of weakness or effeminacy. His deep-set, clear gray-blue +eyes were the eyes of youth; but they would have set a keen observer to +wondering what they had seen to leave that shadow of unyouthful gravity +upon them. + +It happened that both men--the elderly and the young--had their papers +folded at identically the same page, and both were studying intently the +face of the lovely, dark-eyed young girl who smiled out of the duplicate +printed sheets impartially at both. + +The legend beneath the cut explained that the dark-eyed young beauty +was Miss Antoinette Holiday, who would play Rosalind that night in the +Smith College annual senior dramatics. The interested reader was +further enlightened to the fact that Miss Holiday was the daughter of +the late Colonel Holiday and Laura LaRue, a well known actress of a +generation ago, and that the daughter inherited the gifts as well as +the beauty of her famous mother, and was said to be planning to follow +the stage herself, having made her debut as the charming heroine of "As +You Like It." + +The man next the aisle frowned a little as he came to this last sentence +and went back to the perusal of the girl's face. So this was Laura's +daughter. Well, they had not lied in one respect at least. She was a +winner for looks. That was plain to be seen even from the crude newspaper +reproduction. The girl was pretty. But what else did she have beside +prettiness? That was the question. Did she have any of the rest of +it--Laura's wit, her inimitable charm, her fire, her genius? Pshaw! No, +of course she hadn't. Nature did not make two Laura LaRue's in one +century. It was too much to expect. + +Lord, what a woman! And what a future she had had and thrown away for +love! Love! That wasn't it. She could have had love and still kept on +with her career. It was marriage that had been the catastrophe--the fatal +blunder. Marriage and domesticity for a woman like that! It was +asinine--worse--criminal! It ought to have been forbidden by law. And the +stubbornness of her! After all these years, remembering, Max Hempel could +have groaned aloud. Every stage manager in New York, including himself, +had been ready to bankrupt himself offering her what in those days were +almost incredible contracts to prevent her from the suicidal folly on +which she was bent. But to no avail. She had laughed at them all, laughed +and quit the stage at six and twenty, and a few years later her beauty +and genius were still--in death. What a waste! What a damnation waste! + +At this point in his animadversions Max Hempel again looked at the girl +in the newspaper, the girl who was the product of the very marriage he +had been cursing, LaRue's only daughter. If there had been no marriage, +neither would there have been this glorious, radiant, vividly alive young +creature. Men called Laura LaRue dead. But was she? Was she not +tremendously alive in the life of her lovely young daughter? Was it not +he, and the other childless ones who had treated matrimony as the one +supreme mistake, that would soon be very much dead, dead past any +resurrection? + +Pshaw! He was getting sentimental. He wasn't here for sentiment. He was +here for cold, hard business. He was taking this confounded journey to +witness an amateur performance of a Shakespeare play, when he loathed +traveling in hot weather, detested amateur performances of anything, +particularly of Shakespeare, on the millionth of a chance that +Antoinette Holiday might be possessed of a tithe of her mother's talent +and might eventually be starred as the new ingénue he was in need of, +afar off, so to speak. It was Carol Clay herself who had warned him. +Carol was wonderful--would always be wonderful. But time passes. There +would come a season when the public would begin to count back and +remember that Carol had been playing ingénue parts already for over a +decade. There must always be youth--fresh, flaming youth in the +offing. That was the stage and life. + +As for this Antoinette Holiday girl, he had none too much hope. Max +Hempel never hoped much on general principles, so far as potential stars +were concerned. He had seen too many of them go off fizz bang into +nothingness, like rockets. It was more than likely he was on a false +trail, that people who had seen the girl act in amateur things had +exaggerated her ability. He trusted no judgment but his own, which was +perhaps one of the reasons why he was one of the greatest living stage +managers. It was more than likely she had nothing but a pretty, shallow +little talent for play acting and no notion under the sun of giving up +society or matrimony or what-not for the devilish hard work of a stage +career. Very likely there was some young galoot waiting even now, to +whisk Laura LaRue's daughter off the stage before she ever got on. + +Moreover there was always her family to cope with, dyed in the wool New +Englanders at that, no doubt with the heavy Puritan mortmain upon them, +narrow as a shoe string, circumscribed as a duck pond, walled in by +ghastly respectability. Ten to one, if the girl had talent and ambition, +they would smother these things in her, balk her at every turn. They had +regarded Ned Holiday's marriage to Laura a misalliance, he recalled. +There had been quite a to-do about it at the time. Good God! It had been +a misalliance all right, but not as they reckoned it. It had not been +considered suitable for a Holiday to marry an actress. Probably it would +be considered more unsuitable for a Holiday to _be_ an actress. Suitable! +Bah! The question was not whether the career was fit for the girl, but +whether the girl could measure up to the career. And irascibly, +unreasonably indignant as if he had already been contending in argument +with legions of mythical, over-respectable Holidays, Max Hempel whipped +his paper open to another page, a page that told of a drive somewhere on +the western front that had failed miserably, for this was the year +nineteen hundred and sixteen and there was a war going on, "on the other +side." Oh, typically American phrase! + +Meanwhile the young man, too, had stopped staring at Antoinette Holiday's +pictured face and was staring out of the window instead at the fast +flying landscape. He had really no need anyway to look at a picture of +Tony. His head and heart were full of them. He had been storing them up +for over eight years and it was a considerable collection by now and one +in which he took great joy in lonely hours in his dingy little lodging +room, or in odd moments as he went his way at his task as a reporter for +a great New York daily. The perspicuous reader will not need to be told +that the young man was in love with Tony Holiday--desperately in love. + +Desperately was the word. Slight as Max Hempel's hope may have been that +Laura LaRue's daughter was to prove the ingénue he sought, infinitely +slighter was Dick Carson's hope of ever making Tony his wife. How could +it be otherwise? Tony Holiday was as far above him in his own eyes as the +top of Mount Tom was high above the onion beds of the valley. The very +name he used was his only because she had given it to him. Dick Nobody he +had been. Richard Carson he had become through grace of Tony. + +Like his companion the young man went back into the past, though not so +far a journey. As vividly as if it were but yesterday he remembered the +misery of flesh and spirit which had been his as he stowed himself away +in the hay loft in the Holiday's barn, that long ago summer dawn, too +sick to take another step and caring little whether he lived or died, +conscious vaguely, however, that death would be infinitely preferable to +going back to the life of the circus and the man Jim's coarse brutality +from which he had made his escape at last. + +And then he had opened his eyes, hours later, and there had been +Tony--and there had been chiefly Tony ever since, for him. + +If ever he amounted to anything, and he meant to amount to something, it +would be all due to Tony and her Uncle Phil. The two of them had saved +him in more ways than one, had faith in him when he wasn't much but a +scarecrow, ignorant, profane, unmoral, miserable, a "gutter brat" as some +one had once called him, a phrase he had never forgotten. It had seemed +to brand him, set him apart from people like the Holidays forever. But +Tony and Doctor Phil had shown him a different way of looking at it, +proved to him that nothing could really disgrace him but himself. They +had given him his chance and he had taken it. Please God he would make +himself yet into something they could be proud of, and it would all be +their doing. He would never forget that, whatever happened. + +A half hour later the train puffed and wheezed into the station at +Northampton. Dick Carson and Max Hempel, still close together, descended +into the swarming, chattering crowd which was delightfully if confusingly +congested with pretty girls, more pretty girls and still more pretty +girls. But Dick was not confused. Even before the train had come to a +full stop he had caught sight of Tony. He had a single track mind so far +as girls were concerned. From the moment his eyes discovered Tony Holiday +the rest simply did not exist for him. It is to be doubted whether he +knew they were there at all, in spite of their manifest ubiquity and +equally manifest pulchritude. + +Tony saw him, too, as he loomed up, taller than the others, bearing +resistlessly down upon her. She waved a gay greeting and smiled her +welcome to him through the throng. Max Hempel, close behind, caught the +message, too, and recognized the face of the girl who smiled as the +original of the newspaper cut he had just been studying so assiduously. +Deliberately he dogged the young man's heels. He wanted to get a close-up +view of Laura LaRue's daughter. She was much prettier than the picture. +Even from a distance he had made that out, as she stood there among the +crowd, vivacious, vivid, clad all in white except for the loose +coral-hued sweater which set off her warm brunette beauty and the slim +but charmingly rounded curves of her supple young body. Yes, she was like +Laura, like her and yet different, with a quality which he fancied +belonged to herself and none other. + +Almost jealously Hempel watched the meeting between the girl and the +youth who up to now had been negligible enough, but suddenly emerged into +significance as the possible young galoot already mentally warned off the +premises by the stage manager. + +"Dick! O Dick! I'm _so_ glad to see you," cried the girl, holding out +both hands to the new arrival. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. +She looked quite as glad as she proclaimed. + +As for the young man who had set down his suitcase and taken possession +of both the proffered hands, there wasn't the slightest doubt that he was +in the seventh heaven of bliss wherever that may be. Next door to Fool's +Paradise, Max Hempel hoped somewhat vindictively. + +"Just you wait, young man," he muttered to himself. "Bet you'll have to, +anyway. That glorious young thing isn't going to settle down to the +shallows of matrimony without trying the deep waters first, unless I'm +mightily mistaken. In the meantime we shall see what we shall see +to-night." And the man of power trudged away in the direction of a +taxicab, leaving youth alone with itself. + +"Everybody is here," bubbled Tony. "At least, nearly everybody. Larry +went to a horrid old medical convention at Chicago, and can't be here for +the play; but he's coming to commencement. Of course, Granny isn't able +to travel and Aunt Margery couldn't come because the kiddies have been +measling, but Ted is here, and Uncle Phil--bless him! He brought the +twins over from Dunbury in the car. Phil Lambert and everybody are +waiting down the street. Carlotta too! To think you haven't ever met her, +when she's been my roommate and best friend for two years! And, oh! +Dicky! I haven't seen you myself for most a year and I'm so glad." She +beamed up at him as she made this rather ambiguous statement. "And you +haven't said a word but just 'hello!' Aren't you glad to see me, Dicky?" +she reproached. + +He grunted at that. + +"About a thousand times gladder than if I were in Heaven, unless you +happened to be sitting beside me on the golden stairs. And if you think I +don't know how long it is since I've seen you, you are mightily mistaken. +It is precisely one million years in round numbers." + +"Oh, it is?" Tony smiled, appeased. "Why didn't you say so before, and +not leave me to squeeze it out of you like tooth-paste?" + +Dick grinned back happily. + +"Because you brought me up not to interrupt a lady. You seemed to have +the floor, so to speak." + +"So to speak, indeed," laughed Tony. "Carlotta says I exist for that +sole purpose. But come on. Everybody's crazy to see you and I've a +million things to do." And tucking her arm in his, Tony marshaled the +procession of two down the stairs to the street where the car and the old +Holiday Hill crowd waited to greet the newest comer to the ranks of the +commencement celebrants. + +With the exception of Carlotta Cressy, Tony's roommate, the occupants of +the car are known already to those who followed the earlier tale of +Holiday Hill.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The earlier experiences of the Holidays and their friends +are related in "The House on the Hill."] + +First of all there was the owner of the car, Dr. Philip Holiday +himself, a married man now, with a small son and daughter of his own, +"Miss Margery's" children. A little thicker of build and thinner of +hair was the doctor, but possessed of the same genial friendliness of +manner and whimsical humor, the same steady hand held out to help +wherever and whenever help was needed. He was head of the House of +Holiday now for his father, the saintly old pastor, had gone on to +other fields and his soldier brother Ned, Tony's father, had also gone, +in the prime of life, two years before, victim of typhus, leaving his +beloved little daughter, and his two sons just verging into manhood, in +the care of the younger Holiday. + +As Dick and the doctor exchanged cordial greetings, the latter's friendly +eyes challenged the young man's and were answered. Plainly as if words +had been spoken the doctor knew that Dick was keeping faith with the old +pact, living up to the name the little girl Tony had given him in her +impulsive generosity. + +"Something not quite right, though," he thought. "The boy isn't all +happy. Wonder what the trouble is. Probably a girl. Usually is at +that age." + +At the wheel beside the doctor was his namesake and neighbor, Philip +Lambert. Phil was graduating, himself, this year from the college across +the river, a sturdy athlete of some note and a Phi Beta Kappa man as +well. Out of a harum-scarum, willful boyhood he had emerged into a finely +tempered, steady young manhood. The Dunbury wiseacres who had been wont +to shake their heads over Phil's youthful escapades and prophesy a bad +end for such a devil-may-care youngster now patted themselves +complacently on the back, as wiseacres will, and declared they had always +known the boy would turn out a credit to his family and the town. + +On the back seat were Phil's sisters, the pretty twins, Charley and +Clare, still astonishingly alike at twenty, as they had been at twelve, +and still full of the high spirits and ready laughter and wit that had +made them the life of the Hill in the old days. Neither looked a day over +sixteen, but Clare had already been teaching two years in a Dunbury +public school and Charley was to go into nurse's training in the fall. + +Larry, the young doctor, as Dunbury had taken to calling him in +distinction from his uncle, was not yet arrived, as Tony had explained; +but Ted, her younger brother, was very much on the scene, arrayed in all +the extravagant niceties of modish attire affected by university +undergraduates. At twenty, Ted Holiday was as handsome as the traditional +young Greek god and possessed of a godlike propensity to do as he liked +and the devil take the consequences. Already Ned Holiday's younger son +had acquired something of a reputation as a high flier among his own sex, +and a heart breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly +irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely +dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible, +and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults. +His soberer brother Larry worried uselessly over Ted's misdeeds, and took +him sharply to task for them; but even Larry admitted that there was +something rather magnificent about Ted and that possibly in the end he +would come out the soundest Holiday of them all. + +There remains only Carlotta to be introduced. Carlotta was lovely to look +upon. A poet speaks somewhere of a face "made out of a rose." Carlotta +had that kind of a face and her eyes were of that deep, violet shade +which works mischief and magic in the hearts of men. As for her hair, it +might well have been the envy of any princess, in or out of the covers of +a book, so fine spun was it in texture, so pure gold in color, like the +warm, vivid shimmer of tropical sunshine. She lifted an inquiring gaze +now to Dick, as she held out her hand in acknowledgment of the +introduction, and Dick murmured something platitudinous, bowed politely +over the hand and never noticed what color her eyes were. A single track +mind is both a curse and a protection to a man. + +"Carlotta _would_ come," Tony was explaining gaily, "though I told her +there wasn't room. Let me inform you all that Carlotta is the most +completely, magnificently, delightfully spoiled young person in these +United States of America." + +"Barring you?" teased her uncle. + +"Barring none. By comparison with Carlotta, I am all the noble army of +saints, martyrs and seraphim on record combined. Carlotta is preordained +to have her own way. Everybody unites to give it to her. We can't help +it. She hypnotizes us. Some night you will miss the moon in its +accustomed place and you will find that she wanted it for a few moments +to play with." + +Philip Lambert had turned around in his seat and was surveying Carlotta +rather curiously during this teasing tirade of Tony's. + +"Oh, well," murmured Carlotta. "Your old moon can be put up again when I +am through with it. I shan't do it a bit of harm. Anyway, Mr. Carson must +not be told such horrid things about me the very first time he meets me, +must he, Phil? He might think they were true." She suddenly lifted her +eyes and smiled straight up into the face of the young man on the front +seat who was watching her so intently. + +"Well, aren't they?" returned the young man addressed, stooping to +examine the brake. + +Carlotta did not appear in the least offended at his curt comment. +Indeed the smile on her lips lingered as if it had some inner reason for +being there. + +"Hop in, Tony," ordered Ted with brotherly peremptoriness. "Carlotta, you +are one too many, my love. You will have to sit in my lap." + +"I'm getting out," said Phil. "I'm due across the river. Want Ted to take +the wheel, Doctor?" + +"I do not. I have a wife and children at home. I cannot afford to place +my life in jeopardy." The doctor's eyes twinkled as they rested a moment +on his youngest nephew. + +"Now, Uncle Phil, that's mean of you. You ought to see me drive." + +"I have," commented Dr. Holiday drily. "Come on over here, one of you +twinnies, if Phil must go. See you to-night, my boy?" he turned to his +namesake to ask as Charley accepted the invitation and clambered over the +back of the seat while the doctor took her brother's vacated post. + +Phil shook his head. + +"No. I was in on the dress rehearsal last night. I've had my share. But +you folks are going to see the jolliest Rosalind that ever grew in Arden +or out of it. That's one sure thing." + +Phil smiled at Tony as he spoke, and Dick, settling himself in the small +seat beside Ted, felt a small barbed dart of jealousy prick into him. + +Tony and Phil were obviously exceedingly good friends. They had, he +knew, seen much of each other during the past four years, with only a +river between. Phil was Tony's own kind, college-trained, with a +certified line of good old New England ancestry behind him. Moreover, he +was a darned fine fellow--one of the best, in fact. In spite of that +hateful little jabbing dart, Dick acknowledged that. Ah well, there was +more than a river between himself and Tony Holiday and there always +would be. Who was he, nameless as he was, to enter the lists against +Philip Lambert or any one else? + +The car sped away, leaving Phil standing bareheaded in the sunshine, +staring after it. The mocking silver lilt of Carlotta Cressy's laughter +drifted back to him. He shrugged, jammed on his hat and strode off in the +direction of the trolley car. + +Dick Carson might just as well have spared himself the pain of jealousy. +Phil had already forgotten Tony, was remembering only Carlotta, who would +never deliberately do a mite of harm to the moon, would merely want to +play with it at her fancy and leave it at her whim for somebody else to +replace, if anybody cared to take the pains. And what was a moon more or +less anyway? + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WITH ROSALIND IN ARDEN + + +Of course it is understood that every graduating class rightfully +asserts, and is backed up in its belief by doting and nobly partisan +relatives and blindly devoted, hyperbolic friends, that _its_ particular, +unique and proper senior dramatics is the most glorious and unforgettable +performance in all the histrionic annals of the college, a thing to make +Will Shakespeare himself rise and applaud from his high and far off hills +of Paradise. + +Certainly Tony's class knew, past any qualms of doubt, and made no bones +of proclaiming its conviction that there never had been such a wonderful +"As You Like It" and that never, so long as the stars kept their seats in +the heavens and senior classes produced Shakespeare--two practically +synonymous conditions--would there ever be such another Rosalind as Tony +Holiday, so fresh, so spontaneous, so happy in her acting, so +bewitchingly winsome to behold, so boyish, yet so exquisitely feminine in +her doublet and hose, so daring, so dainty, so full of wit and grace and +sparkle, so tender, so merry, so natural, so all-in-all and utterly as +Will himself would have liked his "right Rosalind" to be. + +So the class maintained and so they chanted soon and late, in many keys, +"with a hey and a ho and a hey nonino." And who so bold or malicious, or +age cankered as to dispute the dictum? Is it not youth's privilege to +fling enthusiasm and superlatives to the wind and to deal in glorious +arrogance? + +It must be admitted, however, in due justice, that the class that played +"As You Like It" that year had some grounds on which to base its +pretensions and vain-glory. For had not a great stage manager been +present and applauded until his palms were purple and perspiration +beaded his beak of a nose? Had he not, as the last curtain, descended, +blown his nose, mopped his brow, exclaimed "God bless my soul!" three +times in succession and demanded to be shown without delay into the +presence of Rosalind? + +As we know already, the great stage manager had not come over-willingly +or over-hopefully to Northampton to see Tony Holiday play Rosalind. +Indeed, when it had been first suggested that he do so, he had objected +violently and remarked with conviction that he would "be +da--er--_blessed_ if he would." But he had come and he had been blessed +involuntarily. + +For he had seen something he had not expected to see--a real play, with +real magic to it, such magic as all his cunning stage artifice, all the +studied artistry of his fearfully and wonderfully salaried stellar +attachments somehow missed achieving. He tried afterwards to explain to +Carol Clay, his favorite star, just what the quality of the magic was, +but somehow he could not get it into words. It wasn't exactly wordable +perhaps. It was something that rendered negligible the occasionally +creaking mechanism and crudeness of stage business and rendition; +something compounded of dew and sun and wind, such as could only be found +in a veritable Forest of Arden; something elusive, exquisite, iridescent; +something he had supposed had vanished from the world about the time they +put Pan out of business and stopped up the Pipes of Arcady. It was +enchanting, elemental, genuine Elizabethan, had the spirit of Master +Skylark himself in it. Maybe it was the spirit of youth itself, immortal +youth, playing immortal youth's supreme play? Who knows or can lay finger +upon the secret of the magic? The great stage manager did not and could +not. He only knew that, in spite of himself, he had drunk deep for a +moment of true elixir. + +But as for Rosalind herself that was another matter. Max Hempel was +entirely capable of analyzing his impressions there and correlating them +with the cold hard business on which he had come. Even if the play had +proved a greater bore than he had anticipated, the trip from Broadway to +the Academy of Music would still have been materially worth while. +Antoinette Holiday was a genuine find, authentic star stuff. They hadn't +spoiled her, plastered her over with meaningless mannerisms. She was +virgin material--untrained, with worlds to learn, of course; but with a +spark of the true fire in her--her mother's own daughter, which was the +most promising thing anybody could say of her. + +No wonder Max Hempel had peremptorily demanded to be shown behind the +scenes without an instant's delay. He was almost in a panic lest some +other manager should likewise have gotten wind of this Rosalind and be +lurking in the wings even now to pounce upon his own legitimate prey. He +couldn't quite forget either the tall young man of the afternoon's +encounter, his seatmate up from Springfield. He wasn't exactly afraid, +however, having seen the girl and watched her live Rosalind. The child +had wings and would want to fly far and free with them, unless he was +mightily mistaken in his reading of her. + +Tony was still resplendent in her wedding white, and with her arms full +of roses, when she obeyed the summons to the stage door on being told +that the great manager wished to see her. She came toward him, flushed, +excited, adorably pretty. She laid down her roses and held out her hand, +shy, but perfectly self-possessed. + +"'Well, this is the Forest of Arden,'" she quoted. "It must be or else I +am dreaming. As long as I can remember I have wanted to meet you, and +here you are, right on the edge of the forest." + +He bowed low over her hand and raised it gallantly to his lips. + +"I rather think I am still in Arden myself," he said. "My dear, you have +given me a treat such as I never expected to enjoy again in this world. +You made me forget I knew anything about plays or was seeing one. You +carried me off with you to Arden." + +"Did you really like the play?" begged Tony, shining-eyed at the praise +of the great man. + +"I liked it amazingly and I liked your playing even more amazingly. Is it +true that you are going on the stage?" He had dropped Arden now, gotten +down to what he would have called brass tacks. The difference was in his +voice. Tony sensed it vaguely and was suddenly a little frightened. + +"Why, I--I don't know," she faltered. "I hope so. Sometime." + +"Sometime is never," he snapped. "That won't do." + +The Arden magic was quite gone by this time. He was scowling a little and +thrust out his upper lip in a way Tony did not care for at all. It +occurred to her inconsequentially that he looked a good deal like the +wolf, in the story, who threatened to "huff and puff" until he blew in +the house of the little pigs. She didn't want her house blown in. She +wished Uncle Phil would come. She stooped to gather up her roses as if +they might serve as a barricade between her and the wolf. But suddenly +she forgot her misgivings again, for Max Hempel was saying incredible +things, things which set her imagination agog and her pulses leaping. He +was offering her a small role, a maid's part, in one of his road +companies. + +"Me!" she gasped from behind her roses. + +"You." + +"When?" + +"To-morrow--the day after--next week at the latest. Chances like that +don't go begging long, young lady. Will you take it?" + +"Oh, I wish I could!" sighed Tony. "But I am afraid I can't. Oh, there is +Uncle Phil!" she interrupted herself to exclaim with perceptible relief. + +In a moment Doctor Holiday was with them, his arm around Tony while he +acknowledged the introduction to the stage manager, who eyed him somewhat +uncordially. The two men took each the other's measure. Possibly a spark +of antagonism flashed between them for an instant. Each wanted the lovely +little Rosalind on his own side of the fence, and each suspected the +other of desiring to lure her to the other side if he could. For the +moment however, the advantage was all with the doctor, with his +protecting arm around Tony. + +"Holiday!" muttered Hempel. "There was a Holiday once who married one of +the finest actresses of the American stage--carried her off to nurse his +babies. I never forgave that man. He was a brute." + +Tony stiffened. Her eyes flashed. She drew away from her uncle and +confronted the stage manager angrily. + +"He wasn't a brute, if you mean my father!" she burst out. "My mother was +Laura LaRue." + +"I know it," grinned the manager, thoroughly delighted to have struck +fire. The girl was better even than he had thought. She was magnificent, +angry. "That's why I'm here," he added. "I just offered this young person +a part in a practically all-star cast, touring the West. Do you mind?" he +challenged Doctor Holiday. + +"I should mind her accepting," said the other man tranquilly. "As it is, +I am duly appreciative of the offer. Thank you." + +"What if I told you she had accepted?" the wolf snapped. + +Tony saw the swift shadow cloud her uncle's face and hated the manager +for hurting him like that. + +"I didn't," she protested indignantly. "You know I wouldn't promise +anything without talking to you, Uncle Phil. I told him I couldn't go." + +"But you wanted to," persisted the wolf, bound to get his fangs in +somewhere. + +Tony smiled a little wistfully. + +"I wanted to most awfully," she confessed, patting her uncle's arm to +take the sting out of her admission. "Will you ask me again some day?" +she appealed to the manager. + +He snorted at that. + +"You'll come asking me, young lady, and before long, too. Laura LaRue's +daughter isn't going to settle down to being either a butterfly or a +blue-stocking. You are going on the stage and you know it. No use, +Holiday. You won't be able to hold her back. It's in the blood. You may +be able to dam the tide for a time, but not forever." + +"I don't intend to dam it," said the doctor gravely. "If, when the time +comes, Tony wishes to go on the stage, I shall not try to prevent her. In +fact I shall help her in every way in my power." + +"Uncle Phil!" Tony's voice had a tiny catch in it. She knew her +grandmother would be bitterly opposed to her going on the stage, and had +imagined she would have to win even her uncle over by slow degrees to the +gratifying of this desire of her heart. It had hurt her even to think of +hurting him or going against him in any way--he who was, "father and +mother and a'" to her. Dear Uncle Phil! How he always understood and took +the big, broad viewpoint! + +The manager grunted approval at that. His belligerency waned. + +"Congratulate you, sir. That's spoken like a man of sense. Evidently you +are able to see over the wall farther than most of the witch-ridden New +Englanders I've met. I should like the chance to launch this Rosalind of +yours. But don't make it too far off. Youth is the biggest drawing card +in the world and--the most transient. You have to get in the game early +to get away with it. I'll start her whenever you say--next week--next +month--next year. Guarantee to have her ready to understudy a star in +three months and perhaps a star herself in six. She might jump into the +heavens overnight. Stranger things have happened. What do you say? May I +have an option on the young lady?" + +"That is rather too big a question to settle off hand at midnight. Tony +is barely twenty-two and she has home obligations which will have to be +considered. Her grandmother is old and frail and--a New Englander of the +old school." + +"Too bad," commiserated the manager. "But never mind all that. All I ask +is that you won't let her sign up with anybody else without giving me a +chance first." + +"I think we may safely promise that and thank you. Tony and I both +appreciate that you are doing her a good deal of honor for one small +school girl, eh Tony?" The doctor smiled down at his flushed, starry-eyed +niece. He understood precisely what a big moment it was for her. + +"Oh, I should think so!" sighed Tony. "You are awfully kind, Mr. Hempel. +It is like a wonderful dream--almost too good to be true." + +Both men smiled at that. For youth no dream is quite too extravagant or +incredible to be potentially true. No grim specters of failure and +disillusionment and frustration dog its bright path. All possibilities +are its divine inheritance. + +"Mr. Hempel, did you know my mother?" Tony asked suddenly, with a shadow +of wistfulness in her dark eyes. There were so few people whom she met +that had known her mother. It was as if Laura LaRue had moved in a +different orbit from that of her daughter. It always hurt Tony to feel +that. But here was one who was of her mother's own world. No wonder her +eyes were beseeching as they sought the great manager's. + +He bowed gravely. + +"I knew her very well. She was one of the most beautiful women I have +ever seen--and one of the greatest actresses. Your father was a lucky +man, my dear. Few women would have given up for any man what she gave +up for him." + +"Oh, but--she loved him," explained Laura LaRue's daughter simply. + +Again Hempel nodded. + +"She did," he admitted grimly. After all these years there was no use +admitting that that had been the deepest rub of all, that Laura had loved +Ned Holiday and had never, for even the span of a moment, thought of +caring for himself. "I repeat, your father was a very lucky man--a +damnably lucky one." + +And with that they shook hands and parted. + +It was many months before Tony was to see Max Hempel again and many +waters were to run under the bridge before the meeting came to pass. + +Outside in the car, Ted, Dick and the twins waited the arrival of the +heroine of the evening. The three latter greeted her with a burst of +prideful congratulation; the former, being merely a brother, was +distinctly cross at having been kept waiting so long and did not hesitate +to express his sentiments fully out loud. But Doctor Holiday cut short +his nephew's somewhat ungracious speech by a quiet reminder that the car +was here primarily for Tony's use, and the boy subsided, having no more +to say until, having deposited the occupants of the car at their various +destinations, he announced to his uncle with elaborate carelessness that +he would take the car around to the garage. + +But he did not turn in at the side street where the garage was. Instead +he shot out Elm Street, "hitting her up" at forty. There had been a +reason for his impatience. Ted Holiday had important private business to +transact ere cock crow. + +Tony lay awake a long time that night, dreaming dreams that carried her +far and far into the future, until Rosalind's happy triumph of the +evening almost faded away in the glory of the yet-to-be. It was +characteristic of the girl's stage of development that in all her dreams, +no lovers, much less a possible husband, ever once entered. Tony Holiday +was in love with life and life alone that wonderful June night. As Hempel +had shrewdly perceived she was conscious of having wings and desirous of +flying far and free with them ere she came to pause. + +She did remember, in passing however, how she had caught Dick's eyes +once as he sat in the box near the stage, and how his rapt gaze had +thrilled her to intenser playing of her part. And she remembered how +dear he was afterward in the car when he held her roses and told her +softly what a wonderful, wonderful Rosalind she was. But, on the whole, +Dick, like most of the rest of the people with whom she had held +converse since the curtain went down upon Arden, seemed unimportant and +indistinct, like courtiers and foresters, not specifically named among +the _dramatis personae_, just put in to fill out and make a more +effective stage setting. + +Dick, too, in his room on Greene Street, was wakeful. He sat by the +window far into the night. His heart was heavy within him. The gulf +between him and Tony had suddenly widened immeasureably. She was a real +actress. He hadn't needed a great manager's verdict to teach him that. He +had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, felt it with +his own heart. He had worshiped and adored and been made unutterably sad +and lonely by her dazzling success, glad as he was that it had come to +her. Tony would go on in her shining path. He would always lag behind in +the shadows. They would never come together as long as they both lived. +She had started too far ahead. He could never overtake her. + +If only there were some way of finding out who he was, get some clue as +to his parentage. He only knew that the man they called Jim, who had +kicked and beaten and sworn at him with foul oaths until he could bear it +no longer, was no kin of his, though the other had claimed the authority +to abuse him as he abused his horses and dogs when drink and ugliness +were upon him. If only he could find Jim again after all these years, +perhaps he could manage to get the truth out of him, find out what the +man knew of himself, and how he had come to be in a circus troupe. Yet +after all, perhaps it was better not to know. The facts might separate +him from Tony even more than he was separated by his ignorance of them. +As it was, he started even, with neither honor nor shame bequeathed him +from the past. What he was, he was in himself. And if by any miracle of +fortune Tony ever did come to care for him it would be just himself, +plain Dick, that she would love. He knew that. + +The thought was vaguely comforting and he, too, fell adreaming. Most of +us foiled humans learn to play the game of make-believe and to find such +consolation as we may therein. Often and often in his lonely hours Dick +Carson had summoned Tony Holiday to his side, a Tony as bright and +beautiful and all adorable as the real Tony, but a dream Tony, withal, a +Tony who loved him even as he loved her. And in his make-believe he was +no longer a nameless, impecunious cub reporter, but a man who had arrived +somewhere, made himself worthy, so far as any mere man could, of the +supreme gift of Tony's caring. + +To-night, too, Dick played the game determinedly, but somehow he found +its consolation rather meager, as cold and remote as the sparkle of the +June stars, millions of miles away up there in the velvet sky, after +having sat by the side of the living, breathing Tony and, looking into +her happy eyes, known how little, how very little, he was in her +thoughts. She liked him to be near her, he knew, just as she liked her +roses to be fragrant, but neither the roses nor himself was a vital +necessity to her. She could do very well without either. That was the +pity of it. + +At last he got up and went to bed. Falling into troubled sleep he dreamed +that he and Tony were wandering, hand in hand, in the Forest of Arden. +From afar off came the sound of music, airy voices chanting: + +"When birds do sing, hey ding a ding +Sweet lovers love the spring." + +And then somebody laughed mockingly, like Jacques, and somebody else, +clad in motley like Touchstone, but who seemed to speak in Dick's own +voice, murmured, "Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I." + +And even with these words the forest vanished and Tony with it and the +dreamer was left alone on a steep and dusty road, lost and aching for the +missing touch of her hand. + +But later he woke to the song of a thousand birds greeting the new day +with full-throated joy. And his heart, too, began to sing. For it was +indeed a new day--a day in which he should see Tony. He was irrationally +content. Of such is the kingdom of lad's love! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS + + +In the lee of a huge gray bowlder on the summit of Mount Tom sat +Philip Lambert and Carlotta Cressy. Below them stretched the wide +sweep of the river valley, amethyst and topaz and emerald, rich with +lush June verdure, soft shadowed, tranquil, in the late afternoon +sunshine. They had been silent for a little time but suddenly Carlotta +broke the silence. + +"Phil, do you know why I brought you up here?" she asked. As she spoke +she drew a little closer to him and her hand touched his as softly as a +drifting feather or a blown cherry blossom might have touched it. + +He turned to look at her. She was all in white like a lily, and otherwise +carried out the lily tradition of belonging obviously to the +non-toiling-and-spinning species, justifying the arrangement by looking +seraphically lovely in the fruits of the loom and labor of the rest of +the world. And after all, sheer loveliness is an end in itself. Nobody +expects a flower to give account of itself and flower-like Carlotta was +very, very lovely as she leaned against the granite rock with the valley +at her feet. So Phil Lambert's eyes told her eloquently. The valley was +not the only thing at Carlotta's feet. + +"I labored under the impression that I did the bringing up myself," he +remarked, his hand closing over hers. "However, the point is immaterial. +You are here and I am here. Is there a cosmic reason?" + +"There is." Carlotta's voice was dreamy. She watched a cloud shadow +creep over the green-plumed mountain opposite. "I brought you up here so +that you could propose to me suitably and without interruption." + +"Huh!" ejaculated Phil inelegantly, utterly taken by surprise by +Carlotta's announcement. "Do you mind repeating that? The altitude seems +to have affected my hearing." + +"You heard correctly. I said I brought you up here to propose to me." + +Phil shrugged. + +"Too much 'As You Like It,'" he observed. "These Shakespearean heroines +are a bad lot. May I ask just why you want me to propose to you, my dear? +Do you have to collect a certain number of scalps by this particular rare +day in June? Or is it that you think you would enjoy the exquisite +pleasure of seeing me writhe and wriggle when you refuse me?" + +Phil's tone was carefully light, and he smiled as he asked the questions, +but there was a tight drawn line about his mouth even as he smiled. + +"Through bush, through briar, +Through flood, through fire" + +he had followed the will o' the wisp, Carlotta, for two years now, +against his better judgment and to the undoing of his peace of mind and +heart. And play days were over for Phil Lambert. The work-a-day world +awaited him, a world where there would be neither space nor time for +chasing phantoms, however lovely and alluring. + +"Don't be horrid, Phil. I'm not like that. You know I'm not," denied +Carlotta reproachfully. "I have a surprise for you, Philip, my dear. I am +going to accept you." + +"No!" exclaimed Phil in unfeigned amazement. + +"Yes," declared Carlotta firmly. "I decided it in church this morning +when the man was telling us how fearfully real and earnest life is. Not +that I believe in the real-earnestness. I don't. It's bosh. Life was made +to be happy in and that is why I made up my mind to marry you. You might +manage to look a little bit pleased. Anybody would think you were about +to keep an appointment with a dentist, instead of having the inestimable +privilege of proposing to me with the inside information that I am going +to accept you." + +Phil drew away his hand from hers. His blue eyes were grave. + +"Don't, Carlotta! I am afraid the chap was right about the +real-earnestness. It may be a fine jest to you. It isn't to me. You see I +happen to be in love with you." + +"Of course," murmured Carlotta. "That is quite understood. Did you think +I would have bothered to drag you clear up on a mountain top to propose +to me if I hadn't known you were in love with me and--I with you?" she +added softly. + +"Carlotta! Do you mean it?" Phil's whole heart was in his honest +blue eyes. + +"Of course, I mean it. Foolish! Didn't you know? Would I have tormented +you so all these months if I hadn't cared?" + +"But, Carlotta, sweetheart, I can't believe you are in earnest even now. +Would you marry me really?" + +"_Would_ I? _Will_ I is the verb I brought you up here to use. Mind +your grammar." + +Phil clasped his hands behind him for safe keeping. + +"But I can't ask you to marry me--at least not to-day." + +Carlotta made a dainty little face at him. + +"And why not? Have you any religious scruples about proposing on +Sunday?" + +He grinned absent-mindedly and involuntarily at that. But he shook his +head and his hands stayed behind his back. + +"I can't propose to you because I haven't a red cent in the world--at +least not more than three red cents. I couldn't support an everyday wife +on 'em, not to mention a fairy princess." + +"As if that mattered," dismissed Carlotta airily. "You are in love with +me, aren't you?" + +"Lord help me!" groaned Phil. "You know I am." + +"And I am in love with you--for the present. You had better ask me while +the asking is good. The wind may veer by next week, or even by tomorrow. +There are other young men who do not require to be commanded to propose. +They spurt, automatically and often, like Old Faithful." + +Phil's ingenuous face clouded over. The other young men were no +fabrication, as he knew to his sorrow. He was forever stumbling over them +at Carlotta's careless feet. + +"Don't, Carlotta," he begged again. "You don't have to scare me into +subjection, you know. If I had anything to justify me for asking you to +marry me I'd do it this minute without prompting. You ought to know that. +And you know I'm jealous enough already of the rest of 'em, without your +rubbing it in now." + +"Don't worry, old dear," smiled Carlotta. "I don't care a snap of my +fingers for any of the poor worms, though I wouldn't needlessly set +foot on 'em. As for justifications I have a whole bag of them up my +sleeve ready to spill out like a pack of cards when the time comes. You +don't have to concern yourself in the least about them. Your business +is to propose. 'Come, woo me, woo, me, for now I am in a holiday humor +and like enough to consent'"--she quoted Tony's lines and, leaning +toward him, lifted her flower face close to his. "Shall I count ten?" +she teased. + +"Carlotta, have mercy. You are driving me crazy. Pretty thing it would be +for me to propose to you before I even got my sheepskin. Jolly pleased +your father would be, wouldn't he, to be presented with a jobless, +penniless son-in-law?" + +"Nonsense!" said Carlotta crisply. "It wouldn't matter if you didn't even +have a fig leaf. You wouldn't be either jobless or penniless if you were +his son-in-law. He has pennies enough for all of us and enough jobs for +you, which is quite sufficient unto the day. Don't be stiff and silly, +Phil. And don't set your jaw like that. I hate men who set their jaws. It +isn't at all becoming. I don't say my dear misguided Daddy wouldn't raise +a merry little row just at first. He often raises merry little rows over +things I want to do, but in the end he always comes round to my way of +thinking and wants precisely what I want. Everything will be smooth as +silk, I promise you. I know what I am talking about. I've thought it out +very carefully. I don't make up my mind in a hurry, but when I do decide +what I want I take it." + +"You can't take this," said Philip Lambert. + +Carlotta drew back and stared, her violet eyes very wide open. Never in +all her twenty two years had any man said "can't" to her in that tone. +It was a totally new experience. For a moment she was too astounded even +to be angry. + +"What do you mean?" she asked a little limply. + +"I mean I won't take your father's pennies nor hold down a pseudo-job +I'm not fitted for, even for the sake of being his son-in-law. And I +won't marry you until I am able to support you on the kind of job I am +fitted for." + +"And may I inquire what that is?" demanded Carlotta sharply, recovering +sufficiently to let the thorns she usually kept gracefully concealed +prick out from among the roses. + +Phil laughed shortly. + +"Don't faint, Carlotta. I am eminently fitted to be a village +store-keeper. In fact that is what I shall be in less than two weeks. I +am going into partnership with my father. The new sign _Stuart Lambert +and Son_ is being painted now." + +Carlotta gasped. + +"Phil! You wouldn't. You can't." + +"Oh yes, Carlotta. I not only could and would but I am going to. It has +been understood ever since I first went to college that when I was out +I'd put my shoulder to the wheel beside Dad's. He has been pushing alone +too long as it is. He needs me. You don't know how happy he and Mums are +about it. It is what they have dreamed about and planned, for years. I'm +the only son, you know. It's up to me." + +"But, Phil! It is an awful sacrifice for you." For once Carlotta forgot +herself completely. + +"Not a bit of it. It is a flourishing concern--not just a two-by-four +village shop--a real department store, doing real business and making +real money. Dad built it all up himself, too. He has a right to be proud +of it and I am lucky to be able to step in and enjoy the results of all +his years of hard work. I'm not fooling myself about that. Don't get the +impression I am being a martyr or anything of the sort. I most +distinctly am not." + +Carlotta made a little inarticulate exclamation. Mechanically she counted +the cars of the train which was winding its black, snake-like trail far +down below them in the valley. It hadn't occurred to her that the moon +would be difficult to dislodge. Perhaps Carlotta didn't know much about +moons, after all. + +Phil went on talking earnestly, putting his case before her as best he +might. He owed it to Carlotta to try to make her understand if he could. +He thought that, under all the whimsicalities, it was rather fine of her +to lay down her princess pride and let him see she cared, that she really +wanted him. It made her dearer, harder to resist than ever. If only he +could make her understand! + +"You see I'm not fitted for city life," he explained. "I hate it. I like +to live where everybody has a plot of green grass in front of his house +to set his rocking chair in Sunday afternoons; where people can have +trees that they know as well as they know their own family and don't have +to go to a park to look at 'em; where they can grow tulips and green +peas--and babies, too, if the lord is good to 'em. I want to plant my +roots where people are neighborly and interested in each other as human +beings, not shut away like cave dwellers in apartment houses, not knowing +or caring who is on the other side of the wall. I should get to hating +people if I had to be crowded into a subway with them, day after day, +treading on their toes, and they on mine. Altogether I am afraid I have a +small town mind, sweetheart." + +He smiled at Carlotta as he made the confession, but she did not respond. +Her face gave not the slightest indication as to what was going on in her +mind as he talked. + +"I wouldn't be any good at all in your father's establishment. I've +never wanted to make money on the grand scale. I wouldn't be my father's +son if I did. I couldn't be a banker or a broker if I tried, and I don't +want to try." + +"Not even for the sake of--having me?" Carlotta's voice was as +expressionless as her face. She still watched the train, almost +vanishing from sight now in the far distance, leaving a cloud of ugly +black smoke behind it to mar the lustrous azure of the June sky. + +Phil, too, looked out over the valley. He dared not look at Carlotta. He +was young and very much in love. He wanted Carlotta exceedingly. For a +minute everything blurred before his gaze. It seemed as if he would try +anything, risk anything, give up anything, ride rough shod over anything, +even his own ideals, to gain her. It was a tense moment. He came very +near surrendering and thereby making himself, and Carlotta too, unhappy +forever after. But something stronger held him back. Oddly enough he +seemed to see that sign _Stuart Lambert and Son_ written large all over +the valley. His gaze came back to Carlotta. Their eyes met. The hardness +was gone from the girl's, leaving a wistful tenderness, a sweet +surrender, no man had ever seen there before. A weaker lad would have +capitulated under that wonderful, new look of Carlotta's. It only +strengthened Philip Lambert. It was for her as well as himself. + +"I am sorry, Carlotta," he said. "I couldn't do it, though I'd give you +my heart to cut up into pieces if it could make you happy. Maybe I would +risk it for myself. But I can't go back on my father, even for you." + +"Then you don't love me." Carlotta's rare and lovely tenderness was +burned away on the instant in a quick blaze of anger. + +"Yes I do, dear. It is because I love you that I can't do it. I have to +give you the best of me, not the worst of me. And the best of me belongs +in Dunbury. I wish I could make you understand. And I wish with all my +heart that, since I can't come to you, you could care enough to come to +me. But I am not going to ask it--not now anyway. I haven't the right. +Perhaps in two years time, if you are still free, I shall; but not now. +It wouldn't be fair." + +"Two years from now, and long before, I shall be married," said +Carlotta with a sharp little metallic note in her voice. She was trying +to keep from crying but he did not know that and winced both at her +words and tone. + +"That must be as it will," he answered soberly. "I cannot do any +differently. I would if I could. It--it isn't so easy to give you up. Oh, +Carlotta! I love you." + +And suddenly, unexpectedly to himself and Carlotta, he had her in his +arms and was covering her face with kisses. Carlotta's cheeks flamed. She +was no longer a lily, but a red, red rose. Never in her life had she been +so frightened, so ecstatic. With all her dainty, capricious flirtations +she had always deliberately fenced herself behind barriers. No man had +ever held her or kissed her like this, the embrace and kisses of a lover +to whom she belonged. + +"Phil! Don't, dear--I mean, do, dear--I love you," she whispered. + +But her words brought Phil back to his senses. His arms dropped and he +drew away, ashamed, remorseful. He was no saint. According to his way of +thinking a man might kiss a girl now and then, under impulsion of +moonshine or mischief, but lightly always, like thistledown. A man didn't +kiss a girl as he had just kissed Carlotta unless he had the right to +marry her. It wasn't playing straight. + +"I'm sorry, Carlotta. I didn't mean to," he said miserably. + +"I'm not. I'm glad. I think way down in my heart I've always wanted you +to kiss me, though I didn't know it would be like that. I knew your +kisses would be different, because _you_ are different." + +"How am I different?" Phil's voice was humble. In his own eyes he seemed +pitifully undifferent, precisely like all the other rash, intemperate, +male fools in the world. + +"You are different every way. It would take too long to tell you all of +them, but maybe you are chiefly different because I love you and I don't +love the rest. Except for Daddy. I've never loved anybody but myself +before, and when you kissed me I just seemed to feel my _meness_ going +right out of me, as if I stopped belonging to myself and began to belong +to you forever and ever. It scared me but--I liked it." + +"You darling!" fatuously. "Carlotta, will you marry me?" + +It was out at last--the words she claimed she had brought him up the +mountain to say--the words he had willed not to speak. + +"Of course. Kiss me again, Phil. We'll wire Daddy tomorrow." + +"Wire him what?" The mention of Carlotta's father brought Phil back to +earth with a jolt. + +"That we are engaged and that he is to find a suitable job for you so we +can be married right away," chanted Carlotta happily. + +Phil's rainbow vanished almost as soon as it had appeared in the heavens. +He drew a long breath. + +"Carlotta, I didn't mean that. I can't be engaged to you that way. I +meant--will you marry me when I can afford to have a fairy princess +in my home?" + +Carlotta stared at him, her rainbow, too, fading. + +"You did?" she asked vaguely. "I thought--" + +"I know," groaned Phil. "It was stupid of me--worse than stupid. It +can't be helped now I suppose. The damage is done. Shall we take the next +car down? It is getting late." + +He rose and put out both hands to help her to her feet. For a moment they +stood silent in front of the gray bowlder. The end of the world seemed to +have come for them both. It was like Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses +and all the King's men couldn't restore things to their old state nor +bring back the lost happiness of that one perfect moment when they had +belonged to each other without reservations. Carlotta put out her hand +and touched Philip's. + +"Don't feel too badly, Phil," she said. "As you say, it can't be +helped--nothing can be helped. It just had to be this way. We can't +either of us make ourselves over or change the way we look at things +and want things. I wish I were different for both our sakes. I wish I +were big enough and brave enough and fine enough to say I would marry +you anyway, and stop being a princess. But I don't dare. I know myself +too well. I might think I could do it up here where it is all still and +purple and sweet and sacred. But when we got down to the valley again I +am afraid I couldn't live up to it, nor to you, Philip, my king. +Forgive me." + +Phil bent and kissed her again--not passionately this time, but with a +kind of reverent solemnity as if he were performing a rite. + +"Never mind, sweetheart. I don't blame you any more than you blame me. +We've got to take life as we find it, not try to make it over into +something different to please ourselves. If some day you meet the man who +can make you happy in your way, I'll not grudge him the right. I'm not +sure I shall even envy him. I've had my moment." + +"But Phil, you aren't going to be awfully unhappy about me?" sighed +Carlotta. "Promise you won't. You know I never wanted to hurt the +moon, dear." + +Philip shook his head. + +"Don't worry about the moon. It is a tough old orb. I shan't be too +unhappy. A man has a whole lot of things beside love in his life. I am +not going to let myself be such a fool as to be miserable because things +started out a little differently from what I would like to have them." +His smile was brave but his eyes belied the smile and Carlotta's heart +smote her. + +"You will forget me," she said. It was half a reproach, half a command. + +Again he shook his head in denial. + +"Do you remember the queen who claimed she had Calais stamped on her +heart? Well, open mine a hundred years from now and you'll read +_Carlotta_." + +"But won't you ever marry?" pursued Carlotta with youth's insistence on +probing wounds to the quick. + +"I don't know. Probably," he added honestly. "A man is a poor stick in +this world without a home and kiddies. If I do it will be a long time yet +though. It will be many a year before I see anybody but you, no matter +where I look." + +"But I am horrid--selfish, cowardly, altogether horrid." + +"Are you?" smiled Phil. "I wonder. Anyway I love you. Come on, dear. +We'll have to hurry. The car is nearly due." + +And, as twilight settled down over the valley like a great bird brooding +over its nest, Philip and Carlotta went down from the mountain. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A BOY WHO WASN'T AN ASS BUT BEHAVED LIKE ONE + + +Baccalaureate services being over and the graduates duly exhorted to the +wisdom of the ages, the latter were for a time permitted to alight from +their lofty pedestal in the public eye and to revert temporarily to the +comfortable if less exalted state of being plain every day human girls. + +While Philip and Carlotta went up on the heights fondly believing they +were settling their destinies forever, Tony had been enjoying an +afternoon _en famille_ with her uncle and her brother Ted. + +Suddenly she looked at her watch and sprang up from the arm of her +uncle's chair on which she had been perched, chattering and content, for +a couple of hours. + +"My goodness! It is most four o'clock. Dick will be here in a minute. May +I call up the garage and ask them to send the car around? I'm dying for a +ride. We can go over to South Hadley and get the twins, if you'd like. +I'm sure they must have had enough of Mt. Holyoke by this time." + +"Car's out of commission," grunted Ted from behind his sporting sheet. + +"Out of commission? Since when?" inquired Doctor Holiday. "It was all +right when you took it to the garage last night." + +"I went out for a joy ride and had a smash up," explained his nephew +nonchalantly, and still hidden behind the newspaper. + +"Oh Ted! How could you when you know we want to use the car every +minute?" There was sharp dismay and reproach in Tony's voice. + +"Well, I didn't smash it on purpose, did I?" grumbled her brother, +throwing down the paper. "I'm sorry, Tony. But it can't be helped now. +You'd better be thankful I'm not out of commission myself. Came darn +near being." + +"Oh Ted!" There was only concern and sympathy in his sister's exclamation +this time. Tony adored her brothers. She went over to Ted now, +scrutinizing him as if she half expected to see him minus an arm or a +leg. "You weren't hurt?" she begged reassurance. + +"Nope--nothing to signify. Got some purple patches on my person and a +twist to my wrist, but that's all. I was always a lucky devil. Got more +lives than a cat." + +He was obviously trying to carry matters off lightly, but never once +did he meet his uncle's eyes, though he was quite aware they were +fixed on him. + +Tony sighed and shook her head, troubled. + +"I wish you wouldn't take such risks," she mourned. "Some day you'll get +dreadfully hurt. Please be careful. Uncle Phil," she appealed to the +higher court, "do tell him he mustn't speed so. He won't listen to me." + +"If Ted hasn't learned the folly of speeding by now, I am afraid that +nothing I can say will have much effect. I wonder--" + +Just here the telephone interrupted with an announcement that Mr. +Carson was waiting downstairs. Tony flew from the phone to dab powder +on her nose. + +"Since we can't go riding I think I'll take Dick for a walk in Paradise," +she announced into the mirror. "Will you come, too, Uncle Phil?" + +"No, thank you, dear. Run along and tell Dick we expect him back to +supper with us." + +The doctor held open the door for his niece, then turned back to +Ted, who was also on his feet now, murmuring something about going +out for a stroll. + +"Wait a bit, son. Suppose you tell me first precisely what happened +last night." + +"Did tell you." The boy fumbled sulkily at the leaves of a magazine that +lay on the table. "I took the car out and, when I was speeding like Sam +Hill out on the Florence road, I struck a hole. She stood up on her ear +and pitched u--er--_me_ out in the gutter. Stuck her own nose into a +telephone pole. I telephoned the garage people to go after her this +morning. They told me a while ago she was pretty badly stove up and it +will probably take a couple of weeks to get her in order." The story came +out jerkily and the narrator kept his eyes consistently floorward during +the recital. + +"Is that all?" + +"What more do you want?" curtly. "I said I was sorry, if that is what +you mean." + +"It isn't what I mean, Ted. I assume you didn't deliberately go out to +break my car and that you are not particularly proud of the outcome of +your joy ride. I mean, exactly what I asked. Have you told me the +whole story?" + +Ted was silent, mechanically rolling the corner of the, rug under his +foot. His uncle studied the good-looking, unhappy young face. His mind +worked back to that inadvertent "u--er--_me_" of the confession. + +"Were you alone?" he asked. + +A scarlet flush swept the lad's face, died away, leaving it a +little white. + +"Yes." + +The answer was low but distinct. It was like a knife thrust to the +doctor. In all the eight years in which he had fathered Ned's sons, both +before and since his brother's death, never once to his knowledge had +either one lied to him, even to save himself discomfort, censure or +punishment. With all their boyish vagaries and misdeeds, it had been the +one thing he could count on absolutely, their unflinching, invariable +honesty. Yet, surely as the June sun was shining outside, Ted had lied to +him just now. Why? Rash twenty was too young to go its way unchallenged +and unguided. He was responsible for the lad whose dead father had +committed him to his charge. + +Only a few weeks before his death Ned had written with curious +prescience, "If I go out any time, Phil, I know you will look after the +children as I would myself or better. Keep your eye on Ted especially. +His heart is in the right place, but he has a reckless devil in him that +will bring him and all of us to grief if it isn't laid." + +Doctor Holiday went over and laid a hand on each of the lad's hunched +shoulders. + +"Look at me, Ted," he commanded gently. + +The old habit of obedience strong in spite of his twenty years, Ted +raised his eyes, but dropped them again on the instant as if they were +lead weighted. + +"That is the first time you ever lied to me, I think, lad," said the +doctor quietly. + +A quiver passed over the boy's face, but his lips set tighter than ever +and he pulled away from his uncle's hands and turned, staring out of the +window at a rather dusty and bedraggled looking hydrangea on the lawn. + +"I wonder if it was necessary," the quiet voice continued. "I haven't the +slightest wish to be hard on you. I just want to understand. You know +that, son, don't you?" + +The boy's head went up at that. His gaze deserted the hydrangea, for the +first time that day, met his uncle's, squarely if somewhat miserably. + +"It isn't that, Uncle Phil. You have every right to come down on me. I +hadn't any business to have the car out at all, much less take fool +chances with it. But honestly I have told you all--all I can tell. I did +lie to you just now. I wasn't alone. There was a--a girl with me." + +Ted's face was hot again as he made the confession. + +"I see," mused the doctor. "Was she hurt?" + +"No--that is--not much. She hurt her shoulder some and cut her head a +bit." The details came out reluctantly as if impelled by the doctor's +steady eyes. "She telephoned me today she was all right. It's a miracle +we weren't both killed though. We might have been as easy as anything. +You said just now nothing you could say would make me have sense about +speeding. I guess what happened last night ought to knock sense into me +if anything could. I say, Uncle Phil--" + +"Well?" as the boy paused obviously embarrassed. + +"If you don't mind I'd rather not say anything more about the girl. +She--I guess she'd rather I wouldn't," he wound up confusedly. + +"Very well. That is your affair and hers. Thank you for coming halfway to +meet me. It made it easier all around." + +The doctor held out his hand and the boy took it eagerly. + +"You are great to me, Uncle Phil--lots better than I deserve. Please +don't think I don't see that. And truly I am awfully ashamed of smashing +the car, and not telling you, as I ought to have this morning, and +spoiling Tony's fun and--and everything." Ted swallowed something down +hard as if the "everything" included a good deal. "I don't see why I have +to be always getting into scrapes. Can't seem to help it, somehow. Guess +I was made that way, just as Larry was born steady." + +"That is a spineless jellyfish point of view, Ted. Don't fool yourself +with it. There is no earthly reason why you should keep drifting from one +escapade to another. Get some backbone into you, son." + +Ted's face clouded again at that, though he wasn't sulky this time. He +was remembering some other disagreeable confessions he had to make before +long. He knew this was a good opening for them, but somehow he could not +drive himself to follow it up. He could only digest a limited amount of +humble pie at a time and had already swallowed nearly all he could stand. +Still he skirted warily along the edge of the dilemma. + +"I suppose you think I made an awful ass of myself at college this year," +he averred gloomily. + +"I don't think it. I know it." The doctor's eyes twinkled a little. Then +he grew sober. "Why do you, Ted? You aren't really an ass, you know. If +you were, there might be some excuse for behaving like one." + +Ted flushed. + +"That's what Larry told me last spring when he was pitching into me +about--well about something. I don't know why I do, Uncle Phil, honest I +don't. Maybe it is because I hate college so and all the stale old stuff +they try to cram down our throats. I get so mad and sick and disgusted +with the whole thing that I feel as if I had to do something to offset +it--something that is real and live, even if it isn't according to rules +and regulations. I hate rules and regulations. I'm not a mummy and I +don't want to be made to act as if I were. I'll be a long time dead and I +want to get a whole lot of fun out of life first. I hate studying. I want +to do things, Uncle Phil--" + +"Well?" + +"I don't want to go back to college." + +"What do you want to do?" + +"Join the Canadian forces. It makes me sick to have a war going on and +me not in it. Dad quit college for West Point and everybody thought it +was all right. I don't see why I shouldn't get into it. I wouldn't fall +down on that. I promise you. I'd make you proud of me instead of ashamed +the way you are now." The boy's voice and eyes were unusually earnest. + +His uncle did not answer instantly. He knew that there was some truth in +his nephew's analysis of the situation. It was his uneasy, superabundant +energy and craving for action that made him find the more or less +restricted life of the college, a burden, a bore and an exasperation, and +drove him to crazy escapades and deeds of flagrant lawlessness. He needed +no assurance that the boy would not "fall down" at soldiering. He would +take to it as a duck to water. And the discipline might be the making of +him, prove the way to exorcise the devil. Still there were other +considerations which to him seemed paramount for the time at least. + +"I understand how you feel, Ted," he said at last. "If we get into the +war ourselves I won't say a word against your going. I should expect you +to go. We all would. But in the meantime as I see it you are not quite a +free agent. Granny is old and very, very feeble. She hasn't gotten over +your father's death. She grieves over it still. If you went to war I +think it would kill her. She couldn't bear the strain and anxiety. +Patience, laddie. You don't want to hurt her, do you?" + +"I s'pose not," said Ted a little grudgingly. "Then it is no, +Uncle Phil?" + +"I think it ought to be no of your own will for Granny's sake. We don't +live to ourselves alone in this world. We can't. But aside from Granny I +am not at all certain I should approve of your leaving college just +because it doesn't happen to be exciting enough to meet your fancy and +means work you are too lazy and irresponsible to settle down to doing. +Looks a little like quitting to me and Holidays aren't usually quitters, +you know." + +He smiled at the boy but Ted did not smile back. The thrust about +Holidays and quitters went home. + +"I suppose it has got to be college again if you say so," he said +soberly after a minute. "Thank heaven there are three months ahead clear +though first." + +"To play in?" + +"Well, yes. Why not? It is all right to play in vacation, isn't it?" the +boy retorted, a shade aggressively. + +"Possibly if you have earned the vacation by working beforehand." + +Ted's eyes fell at that. This was dangerously near the ground of those +uncomfortable, inevitable confessions which he meant to put off as long +as possible. + +"Do you mind if I go out now?" he asked with unusual meekness after a +moment's rather awkward silence. + +"No, indeed. Go ahead. I've had my say. Be back for supper with us?" + +"Dunno." And Ted disappeared into the adjoining room which connected with +his uncle's. In a moment he was back, expensive panama hat in one hand +and a lighted cigarette held jauntily in the other. "I meant to tell you +you could take the car repairs out of my allowance," he remarked casually +but with his eye shrewdly on his guardian as he made the announcement. + +"Very well," replied the latter quietly. Then he smiled a little seeing +his nephew's crestfallen expression. "That wasn't just what you wanted me +to say, was it?" he added. + +"Not exactly," admitted the boy with a returning grin. "All right, Uncle +Phil. I'm game. I'll pay up." + +A moment later his uncle heard his whistle as he went down the driveway +apparently as care free as if narrow escapes from death were nothing in +his young life. The doctor shook his head dubiously as he watched him +from the window. He would have felt more dubious still had he seen the +boy board a Florence car a few minutes later on his way to keep a +rendezvous with the girl about whom he had not wished to talk. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH + + +Three quarters of an hour later Ted was seated on a log, near a small +rustic bridge, beneath which flowed a limpid, gurgling stream. On a log +beside him sat a girl of perhaps eighteen years, exceedingly handsome +with the flaming kind of beauty like a poppy's, striking to the eye, +shallow-petaled. She was vividly effective against the background of deep +green spruces and white birch in her bright pink dress and large drooping +black hat. Her coloring was brilliant, her lips full, scarlet, ripely +sensuous. Beneath her straight black brows her sparkling, black eyes +gleamed with restless eagerness. An ugly, jagged, still fresh wound +showed beneath a carefully curled fringe of hair on her forehead. + +"I don't like meeting you this way," Ted was saying. "Are you sure your +grandfather would have cut up rough if I had come to the house and called +properly?" + +"You betcher," said his companion promptly. "You don't know grandpa. He's +death on young men. He won't let one come within a mile of me if he can +help it. He'd throw a fit if he knew I was here with you now. We should +worry. What he don't know won't hurt him," she concluded with a toss of +her head. Then, as Ted looked dubious, she added, "You just leave grandpa +to me. If you had had your way you would have spilled the beans by +telephoning me this morning at the wrong time. See how much better I +fixed it. I told him a piece of wood flew up and hit me when I was +chopping kindling before breakfast and that my head ached so I didn't +feel like going to church. Then the minute he was out of the yard I ran +to the 'phone and got you at the hotel. It was perfectly simple that +way--slick as grease. Easiest thing in the world to make a date. We +couldn't have gotten away with it otherwise." + +Ted still looked dubious. The phrase "gotten away with it" jarred. At the +moment he was not particularly proud of their mutual success in "getting +away with it." The girl wasn't his kind. He realized that, now he saw her +for the first time in daylight. + +She had looked all right to him on the train night before last. Indeed he +had been distinctly fascinated by her flashing, gypsy beauty, ready +laughter and quick, keen, half "fresh" repartee when he had started a +casual conversation with her when they chanced to be seat mates from +Holyoke on. + +Casual conversations were apt to turn into casual flirtations with Ted +Holiday. Afterward he wasn't sure whether she had dared him or he had +dared her to plan the midnight joy ride which had so narrowly missed +ending in a tragedy. Anyway it had seemed a jolly lark at the time--a +test of the mettle and mother wit of both of them to "get away with it." + +And she had looked good to him last night when he met her at the +appointed trysting place after "As You Like It." She had come out of the +shadows of the trees behind which she had been lurking, wearing a scarlet +tam-o'-shanter and a long dark cloak, her eyes shining like January +stars. He had liked her nerve in coming out like that to meet him alone +at midnight. He had liked the way she "sassed" him back and put him in +his place, when he had tried impudently enough to kiss her. He had liked +the way she laughed when he asked her if she was afraid to speed, on the +home stretch. It was her laugh that had spurred him on, intoxicated him, +made him send the car leaping faster and still faster, obeying his +reckless will. + +Then the crash had come. It was indeed a miracle that they had not both +been killed. No thanks to the rash young driver that they had not been. +It would be many a day before Ted Holiday would forget that nightmare of +dread and remorse which took possession of him as he pulled himself to +his feet and went over to where the girl's motionless form lay on the +grass, her face dead white, the blood flowing from her forehead. + +Never had he been so thankful for anything in his life as he was when he +saw her bright eyes snap open, and heard her unsteady little giggle as +she murmured, "My, but I thought I was dead, didn't you?" + +Game to her fingertips she had been. Ted acknowledged that, even now that +the glamour had worn off. Never once had she whimpered over her injuries, +never hurled a single word of blame at him for the misadventure that had +come within a hair's breadth of being the last for them both. + +"It wasn't a bit more your fault than mine," she had waived aside his +apologies. "And it was great while it lasted. I wouldn't have missed it +for anything, though I'm glad I'm not dead before I've had a chance to +really live. All I ask is that you won't tell a soul I was out with you. +Grandpa would think I was headed straight for purgatory if he knew." + +"I won't," Ted had promised glibly enough, and had kept his promise even +at the cost of lying to his uncle, a memory which hurt like the +toothache even now. + +But looking at the girl now in her tawdry, inappropriate garb he +suffered a revulsion of feeling. What he had admired in her as good sport +quality seemed cheap now, his own conduct even cheaper. His reaction +against himself was fully as poignant as his reaction against her. He was +suddenly ashamed of his joy ride, ashamed that he had ever wished or +tried to kiss her, ashamed that he had fallen in with her suggestion for +a clandestine meeting this afternoon. + +Possibly Madeline sensed that he was cold to her charms at the moment. +She flashed a shrewd glance at him. + +"You don't like me as well to-day as you did last night," she challenged. + +Caught, Ted tried half-heartedly to make denial, but the effort was +scarcely a success. He had yet to learn the art of lying gracefully +to a lady. + +"You don't," she repeated. "You needn't try to pretend you do. You can't +fool me. You're getting cold feet already. You're remembering I'm +just--just a pick-up." + +Ted winced again at that. He did not like the word "pick-up" either, +though to his shame he hadn't been above the thing itself. + +"Don't talk like that, Madeline. You know I like you. You were immense +last night. Any other girl I know, except my sister Tony, would have had +hysterics and fainting fits and lord knows what else with half the excuse +you had. And you never made a bit of fuss about your head, though it must +have hurt like the deuce. I say, you don't think it is going to leave a +scar, do you?" + +He leaned forward with genuine concern to examine the red wound. + +"I think it is more than likely. Lot you'll care, Ted Holiday. You'll +never come back to see whether it leaves a scar or not. See that bee over +there nosing around that elderberry. Think he'll come back next week? +Not much. I know your kind," scornfully. + +That bit into the lad's complacency. + +"Of course, I care and of course, I'll come back," he protested, though a +moment before he had had not the slightest wish or purpose to see her +again, rather to the contrary. + +"To see whether there is a scar?" + +"To see you," he played up gallantly. + +Her hard young face softened. + +"Will you, honest, Ted Holiday? Will you come back?" + +She put out her hand and touched his. Her eyes were suddenly wistful, +gentle, beseeching. + +"Sure I'll come back. Why wouldn't I?" The touch of her hand, the new +softness, almost pathos of her mood touched him, appealed to the chivalry +always latent in a Holiday. + +He heard her breath come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm +pressure of her hand. He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not +follow the impulse. The code of Holiday "noblesse oblige" was operating. + +"I wish I could believe that," Madeline sighed, looking down into the +water which whirled and eddied in white foam and splash over the rocks. +"I'd like to think you really wanted to come--really cared about seeing +me again. I know I'm not your kind." + +He started involuntarily at her voicing unexpectedly his own +recent thought. + +"Oh, you needn't be surprised," she threw at him half angrily. "Don't you +suppose I know that better than you do. Don't you suppose I know what the +girls you are used to look like? Well, I do. I've watched 'em, on the +street, on the campus, in church, everywhere. I've even seen your sister +and watched her, too. Somebody pointed her out to me once when she had +made a hit in a play and I've seen her at Glee Club concerts and at +vespers in the choir. She is lovely--lovely the way I'd like to be. It +isn't that she's any prettier. She isn't. It's just that she's +different--acts different--looks different--dresses different from me. I +can't make myself like her and the rest, no matter how I try. And I do +try. You don't know how hard I try. I got this dress because I saw your +sister Tony wearing a pink dress once. I thought maybe it would make me +look more like her. But it doesn't. It makes me look more _not_ like her +than ever, doesn't it?" she appealed rather disconcertingly. "It's +horrid. I hate it." + +"I don't know much about girls' dresses," said Ted. "But, now you speak +of it, maybe it would be prettier if it were a little--" he paused for a +word--"quieter," he decided on. "Do you ever wear white? Tony wears it a +lot and I think she looks nice in it." + +"I've got a white dress. I thought about putting it on to-day. But +somehow it didn't look quite nice enough. I thought--well, I thought I +looked handsomer in the pink. I wanted to look pretty--for you." The last +was very low--scarcely audible. + +"You look good to me all right," said the boy heartily and he meant it. +He thought she looked prettier at the moment than she had looked at any +time since he had made her acquaintance. + +Perhaps he was right. She had laid aside for once her mask of hard +boldness and was just a simple, humble, rather pathetic little girl, +voicing secret aspirations toward a fineness life had denied her. + +"I say, Madeline," Ted went on. "You don't--meet other chaps the way you +met me to-day, do you?" Set the blind to lead the blind! If there was +anything absurd in scapegrace Ted's turning mentor he was unconscious of +the absurdity, was exceedingly in earnest. + +"What's that to you?" She snapped the mask back into place. + +"Nothing--that is--I wouldn't--that's all." + +She laughed shrilly. + +"You're a pretty one to talk," she scoffed. + +Ted flushed. + +"I know I am. See here, Madeline. You're dead right. I ought not to +have taken you out last night. I ought not to have let you meet me +here to-day." + +"I made you--I made you do both those things." + +Ted shook his head at that. + +"A man's to blame always," he asserted. + +"No, he isn't," denied Madeline. "A girl's to blame always." + +They stared at each other a moment while the brook tinkled through the +silence. Then they both laughed at the solemnity of their contradictions. + +"But there isn't a bit of harm done," went on Madeline. "You see, I knew +that first night on the train that you were a gentleman." + +"Some gentlemen are rotters," said Ted Holiday, with a wisdom beyond his +twenty years. + +"But you are not." + +"No, I'm not; but some other chap might be. That is why I wish you would +promise not to go in for this sort of thing." + +"With anybody but you," she stipulated. + +"Not with anybody at all," corrected Ted soberly, remembering his own +recent restrained impulse to put his arm around her. + +"Well, I don't want to--at least not with anybody but you. I never did it +before with anybody. Honest, Ted, I never did." + +"That's good. I felt sure that you hadn't." + +"Why?" + +He grinned sheepishly and stooped to break off a dry twig from a +nearby bush. + +"By the way you didn't let me kiss you," he admitted. "A fellow likes +that in a girl. Did you know it?" He tossed away the twig and looked back +at the girl as he asked the question. + +"I thought they liked--the other thing." + +"They do and they don't," said Ted, his paradox again betraying a +scarcely to be expected wisdom. "But that is neither here nor there. What +I started out to say was that I'm glad you don't make a practice of this +pick-up business. It--it's no good," he summed up. + +"I know." Madeline nodded understanding of the import of his warning. She +was far too handsome and too prematurely developed physically to be +devoid of experience of the ways of the opposite sex. Like Ophelia she +knew there were tricks in the world and she liked frank Ted Holiday the +better for reminding her of them. "I won't do it," she promised. "That +is, unless you don't ever come back yourself. I don't know what I'll do +then--something awful, maybe." + +"I'll come fast enough. I'll come to-morrow." he added obeying a sudden +impulse, Ted fashion. + +"Will you?" The girl's face flushed with delight. "When?" + +"To-morrow afternoon. I can't dodge the ivy stuff in the morning. Will +four o'clock do all right?" + +"Yes. Come here to this same place." + +"I say, Madeline, can't I come to the house? I hate doing it like this." + +"No, you can't. If you want to see me you'll have to do it this way. It's +lots nicer here than in the house, anyway." + +Ted acquiesced, since he had no choice, and rose, announcing that it was +time to go now. + +"We don't have to go yet. I told Grandpa I was going to spend the +evening with my friend, Linda Bates. He won't know. We can stay as long +as we like." + +"I am afraid we can't," said Ted decidedly. "Come on, my lady." He held +out both hands and Madeline let him draw her to her feet, though she was +pouting a little at his gainsaying of her wishes. + +"You may kiss me now," she said suddenly, lifting her face to his. + +But Ted backed away. The code was still on. A girl of his own kind he +would have kissed in a moment at such provocation, or none. But he had +an odd feeling of needing to protect this girl from herself as well as +from himself. + +"You had more sense than I did last night. Let's follow your lead instead +of mine," he said. "It's better." + +"But Ted, you will come to-morrow?" she pleaded. "You won't forget or go +back on your promise?" + +"Of course, I'll come," promised Ted again readily. + +Five minutes later they parted, he to take his car, and she to stroll in +the opposite direction toward her friend Linda's house. + +"He is a dear," she thought. "I'm glad he wouldn't kiss me, so there," +she said aloud to a dusty daisy that peered up at her rather mockingly +from the gutter. + +An automobile horn honked behind her. She stepped aside, but the +car stopped. + +"Well, here is luck. Where are you going, my pretty maid?" called a gay, +bold voice. + +She turned. The speaker was one Willis Hubbard, an automobile agent by +profession, lady's man and general Lothario by avocation. His handsome +dark face stood out clearly in the dusk. She could see the avid shine in +his eyes. She hated him all of a sudden, though hitherto she had secretly +rather admired him, though she had always steadily refused his +invitations. + +For Madeline was wary. She knew how other girls had gone out with Willis +in his smart car and come back to give rather sketchy accounts of the +evening's pleasure jaunt. Her friend Linda had tried it once and remarked +later that Willis was some speed and that Madeline had the right hunch to +keep away from him. + +But it happened that Madeline Taylor was the particular peach that Willis +Hubbard hankered after. He didn't like them too easy, ready to drop from +the bough at the first touch. All the same, he meant to have his way in +the end with Madeline. He had an excellent opinion of his powers as a +conquering male. He had, alas, plenty of data to warrant it in his +relations with the fair and sometimes weak sex. + +"What's your hurry, dearie?" he asked now. "Come on for a spin. It's the +pink of the evening." + +But she thanked him stiffly and refused, remembering Ted Holiday's honest +blue eyes. + +"What are you so almighty prunes and prisms for, all of a sudden? It's +the wrong game to play with a man, I can tell you, if you want to have a +good time in the world. I say, Maidie, be a good girl and come out with +me to-morrow night. We'll have dinner somewhere and dance and make a +night of it. Say yes, you beauty. A girl like you oughtn't to stay cooped +up at home forever. It's against nature." + +But again Madeline refused and moved away with dignity. + +"Your grandfather will never know. You can plan to stay with Linda +afterward. I'll meet you by the sycamore tree just beyond the Bates' +place at eight sharp--give you the best time you ever had in your life. +Believe me, I'm some little spender when I get to going." + +"No, thank you, Mr. Hubbard. I tell you I can't go." + +He stared at the finality of her manner. He had no means of knowing that +he was being measured up, to his infinite disadvantage, with a blue eyed +lad who had stirred something in the girl before him that he himself +could never have roused in a thousand years. But he did know he was being +snubbed and the knowledge disturbed his fond conceit of self. + +"Highty tighty with your 'Mr. Hubbards'! You will sing another tune by +to-morrow night. I'll wait at the sycamore and you'll be there. See if +you won't. You're no fool, Maidie. You want a good time and you know I'm +the boy to give it to you. So long! See you to-morrow night." He started +his motor, kissed his hand impudently to her and was off down the road, +leaving Madeline to follow slowly, in his dust. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A SHADOW ON THE PATH + + +Across the campus the ivy procession wound its lovely length, flanked by +rainbow clad Junior ushers immensely conscious of themselves and their +importance as they bore the looped laurel chains between which walked the +even more important Seniors, all in white and each bearing an American +Beauty rose before her proudly, like a wand of youth. + +At the head of the procession, as president of the class, walked +Antoinette Holiday, a little lady of quality, as none who saw her could +have helped recognizing. Her uncle, watching the procession from the +steps of a campus house, smiled and sighed as he beheld her. She was so +young, so blithe-hearted, so untouched by the sad and sordid things of +life. If only he could keep her so for a little, preserve the shining +splendor of her shield of innocent young joy. But, even as he thought, he +knew the folly of his wish. Tony would be the last to desire to have life +tempered or kept from her. She would want to drain the whole cup, bitter, +sweet and all. + +Farther back in the procession was Carlotta, looking as heavenly fair and +ethereal as if she had that morning been wafted down from the skies. Out +of the crowd Phil Lambert's eyes met hers and smiled. Very sensibly and +modernly these two had decided to remain the best of friends since fate +prevented their being lovers. But Phil's eyes were rather more than +friendly, resting on Carlotta, and, underneath the diaphanous, exquisite +white cloud of a gown that she wore, Carlotta's heart beat a little +faster for what she saw in his face. The hand that held her rose trembled +ever so slightly as she smiled bravely back at him. She could not forget +those "very different" kisses of his, nor, with all the will in the +world, could she go back to where she was before she went up the mountain +and came down again in the purple dusk. She knew she had to get used to a +strange, new world, a world without Philip Lambert, a rather empty world, +it seemed. She wondered if this new world would give her anything so +wonderful and sweet as this thing that she had by her own act +surrendered. Almost she thought not. + +Ted, standing beside his uncle, watching the procession, suddenly heard a +familiar whistle, a signal dating back to Holiday Hill days, as +unmistakable as the Star Spangled Banner itself, though who should be +using it here and why was a mystery. In a moment his roving gaze +discovered the solution. Standing upon a slight elevation on the campus +opposite he perceived Dick Carson. The latter beckoned peremptorily. Ted +wriggled out of the group, descended with one leap over the rail to the +lawn, and made his way to where the other youth waited. + +"What in Sam Hill's chewing you?" he demanded upon arrival. "You've made +me quit the only spot I've struck to-day where I had room to stand on my +own feet and see anything at the same time." + +"I say, Ted, what train was Larry coming on?" counterquestioned Dick. + +"Chicago Overland. Why?" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Of course I am sure. He wired Tony. What in thunder are you driving at? +Get it out for Pete's sake?" + +"The Chicago Overland smashed into a freight somewhere near Pittsburgh +this morning. There were hundreds of people killed. Oh, Lord, Ted! I +didn't mean to break it to you like that." Dick was aghast at his own +clumsiness as Ted leaned against the brick wall of the college building, +his face white as chalk. "I wasn't thinking--guess I wasn't thinking +about much of anything except Tony," he added. + +Ted groaned. + +"Don't wonder," he muttered. "Let's not let her get wind of it till we +have to. Are you sure there--there isn't any mistake?" Ted put up his +hand to brush back a refractory lock of hair and found his forehead wet +with cold perspiration. "There's got to be a mistake. Larry--I won't +believe it, so there!" + +"You don't have to believe it till you know. Even if he was on the train +it doesn't mean he is hurt." Dick would not name the harsher possibility +to Larry Holiday's brother. + +"Of course, it doesn't," snapped Ted. "I say, Dick, is it in the +papers yet?" + +"No, it will be in an hour though, as soon as the evening editions get +out." + +"Good! Dick, it's up to you to keep Tony from knowing. She is going to +sing in the concert at five. That will keep her occupied until six. But +from now till then nix on the news. Take her out on the fool pond, walk +her up Sunset Hill, quarrel with her, make love to her, anything, so she +won't guess. I don't dare go near her. I'd give it away in a minute, I'm +such an idiot. Besides I can't think of anything but Larry. Gee!" The boy +swept his hand across his eyes. "Last time I saw him I consigned him to +the devil because he told me some perfectly true things about myself and +tried to give me some perfectly sound advice. And now--I'm damned if I +believe it. Larry is all right. He's got to be," fiercely. + +"Of course, he is," soothed Dick. "And I'll try to do as you say about +Tony. I'm not much of an actor, but I guess I can carry it through +for--for her sake." + +The little break in the speaker's voice made Ted turn quickly and stare +at the other youth. + +"Dick, old chap, is it like that with you? I didn't know." + +Ted's hand went out and held the other's in a cordial grip. + +"Nobody knows. I--I didn't mean to show it then. It's no good. I know +that naturally." + +"I'm not so sure about that. I know one member of the family that would +be mighty proud to have you for a brother." + +The obvious ring of sincerity touched Dick. It was a good deal coming +from a Holiday. + +"Thank you, Ted. That means a lot, I can tell you. I'll never forget your +saying it like that. You won't give me away, I know." + +"Sure not, old man. Tony is way up in the clouds just now, anyway. We are +all mostly ants in our minor ant hills so far as she is concerned. Gee! I +hope it isn't this thing about Larry that is going to pull her down to +earth. If anything had to happen to any of us why couldn't it have been +me instead of Larry. He is worth ten of me." + +"We don't know that anything has happened to Larry yet," Dick reminded. +"I say, Ted, they must have got the ivy planted. Everybody's coming back. +Tony is lunching with me at Boyden's right away, and I'll see that she +has her hands full until it is time for the concert. You warn Miss +Carlotta, so she'll be on guard after I surrender her. I'm afraid you +will have to tell your uncle." + +"I will. Trot on, old man, and waylay Tony. I'll make a mess of things +sure as preaching if I run into her now." + +Tony thought she had never known Dick to be so entertaining or talkative +as he was during that luncheon hour. He regaled her with all kinds of +newspaper yarns and related some of his own once semi-tragic but now +humorous misadventures of his early cub days. He talked, too, on current +events and world history, talked well, with the quiet poise and +assurance of the reader and thinker, the man who has kept his eyes and +ears open to life. + +It was a revelation to Tony. For once their respective roles were +reversed, he the talker, she the listener. + +"Goodness me, Dick!" she exclaimed during a pause in what had become +almost a monologue. "Why haven't you ever talked like this before? I +always thought I had to do it all and here you talk better than I ever +thought of doing because you have something to say and mine is just +chatter and nonsense." + +He smiled at that. + +"I love your chatter. But you are tired to-day and it is my turn. Do you +know what we are going to do after luncheon?" + +"No, what?" + +"We are going to take a canoe out on your Paradise and get into a shady +spot somewhere along the bank and you will lean back against a whole lot +of becoming cushions and put up that red parasol of yours so nobody but +me can see your face and then--" + +"Dicky! Dicky! Whatever is in you to-day? Paradise, pillows and parasols +are familiar symptoms. You will be making love to me next." + +"I might, at that," murmured Dick. "But you did not hear the rest of +my proposition. And then--I shall read you a story--a story that I +wrote myself." + +"Dick!" Tony nearly upset her glass of iced tea in her amazement at this +unexpected announcement. "You don't mean you have really and truly +written a story!" + +"Honest to goodness--such as it is. Please to remember it is my maiden +effort and make a margin of allowance. But I want your criticism, +too--all the benefit of your superior academic training." + +"Superior academic bosh!" scoffed Tony. "I'll bet it is a corking +story," she added unacademically. "Come on. Let's go, quick. I can't +wait to hear it." + +Nothing loath to get away speedily before the newsboys began to cry the +accident through the streets, Dick escorted his pretty companion back to +the campus and on to Paradise, at which point they took a canoe and, +finally selecting a shady point under an over-reaching sycamore tree, +drifted in to shore where Tony leaned against the cushions, tilted her +parasol as specified at the angle which forbade any but Dick to see her +charming, expressive young face and commanded him to "shoot." + +Dick shot. Tony listened intently, watching his face as he read, feeling +as if this were a new Dick--a Dick she did not know at all, albeit a most +interesting person. + +"Why Dick Carson!" she exclaimed when he finished. "It is great--a real +story with real laughter and tears in it. I love it. It is so--so human." + +The author flushed and fidgeted and protested that it wasn't much--just a +sketch done from life with a very little dressing up and polishing down. + +"I have a lot more of them in my head, though," he added. "And I'm +going to grind them out as soon as I get time. I wish I had a bigger +vocabulary and knew more about the technical end of the writing game. +I am going to learn, though--going to take some night work at the +University next fall. Maybe I'll catch up a little yet if I keep +pegging away." + +"Catch up! Dick, you make me so ashamed. Here Larry and Ted and I have +had everything done for us all our lives and we've slipped along with the +current, following the line of least resistance. And you have had +everything to contend with and you are way ahead of the rest of us +already. But why didn't you tell me before about the story? I think you +might have, Dicky. You know I would be interested," reproachfully. + +"I--I wasn't talking much about it to anybody till I knew it was any +good. But I--just took a notion to read it to you to-day. That's all." + +It wasn't all, but he wanted Tony to think it was. Not for anything would +he have betrayed how reading the story was a desperate expedient to keep +her diverted and safe from news of the disaster on the Overland. + +He escorted Tony back to the campus house at the latest possible moment +and Carlotta, in the secret, pretended to upbraid her roommate for her +tardiness and flew about helping her to get dressed, talking +continuously the while and keeping a sharp eye on the door lest some +intruder burst in and say the very thing Tony Holiday must not be +permitted to hear. It would be so ridiculously easy for somebody to ask, +"Oh, did you hear about the awful wreck on the Overland?" and then the +fat would be in the fire. + +But, thanks to Carlotta, nobody had a chance to say it and later Tony +Holiday, standing in the twilight in front of College Hall's steps, sang +her solo, Gounod's beautiful Ave Maria, smiled happily down into the +faces of the dear folks from her beloved Hill and only regretted that +Larry was not there with the rest--Larry who, for all the others knew, +might never come again. + +After dinner Ted rushed off again to the telegraph office which he had +been haunting all the afternoon to see if any word had come from his +brother, and Doctor Holiday went on up to the campus to escort his niece +to the informal hop. He had decided to go on just as if nothing was +wrong. If Larry was safe then there was no need of clouding Tony's joy, +and if he wasn't--well, there would be time enough to grieve when they +knew. By virtue of his being a grave and reverend uncle he was admitted +to the sacred precincts of his niece's room and had hardly gotten seated +when the door flew open and Ted flew in waving two yellow telegraph +blanks triumphantly, one in each hand, and announcing that everything was +all right--Larry was all right, had wired from Pittsburgh. + +Before Tony had a chance to demand what it was all about the door opened +again and a righteously indignant house mother appeared on the threshold, +demanding by what right an unauthorized male had gone up her stairway and +entered a girl's room, without permission or escort. + +"I apologize," beamed Ted with his most engaging smile. "Come on outside, +Mrs. Maynerd and I'll tell you all about it." And tucking his arm in hers +the irrepressible youth conveyed the angry personage out into the hall, +leaving his uncle to explain the situation to Tony. + +In a moment he was back triumphant. + +"She says I may stay since I'm here, and Uncle Phil is here to play +dragon," he announced. "She thought at first Carlotta would have to be +expunged to make it legal, but I overruled her, told her you and I had +played tiddle-de-winks with each other in our cradles," he added with an +impish grin at his sister's roommate. "Of course I never laid eyes on +you till two years ago, but that doesn't matter. I have a true +tiddle-de-winks feeling for you, anyway, and that is what counts, isn't +it, sweetness?" + +Carlotta laughed and averred that she was going to expunge herself anyway +as Phil was waiting for her downstairs. She picked up a turquoise satin +mandarin cloak from the chair and Ted sprang to put it around her bare +shoulders, stooping to kiss the tip of her ear as he finished. + +"Lucky Phil!" he murmured. + +Carlotta shook her head at him and went over to Tony, over whom she bent +for an instant with unusual feeling in her lovely eyes. + +"Oh, my dear," she whispered. "I wish I could tell you how I feel. I'm so +glad--so glad." And then she was gone before Tony could answer. + +"Oh me!" she sighed. "She has been so wonderful. You all have. Ted--Uncle +Phil! Come over here. I want to hold you tight." + +And, with her brother on one side of her and her uncle on the other, Tony +gave a hand to each and for a moment no one spoke. Then Ted produced his +telegrams one of which was addressed to Tony and one to her uncle. Both +announced the young doctor's safety. "Staying over in Pittsburgh. Letter +follows," was in the doctor's message. "Sorry can't make commencement. +Love and congratulations," was in Tony's. + +"There, didn't I tell you he was all right?" demanded Ted, as if his +brother's safety were due to his own remarkably good management of the +affair. "Gee! Tony! If you knew how I felt when Dick told me this +morning. I pretty nearly disgraced myself by toppling over, just like a +girl, on the campus. Lord! It was fierce." + +"I know." Tony squeezed his hand sympathetically. "And Dick--why Dick +must have kept me out in Paradise on purpose." + +"Sure he did. Dick's a jim dandy and don't you forget it." + +"I shan't," said Tony, her eyes a little misty, remembering how Dick had +fought all day to keep her care-free happiness intact. "I don't know +whether to be angry at you all for keeping it from me or to fall on your +necks and weep because you were all so dear not to tell me. And oh! If +anything had happened to Larry! I don't see how I could have stood it. It +makes us all seem awfully near, doesn't it?" + +"You bet!" agreed Ted with more fervor than elegance. "If the old chap +had been done for I'd have felt like making for the river, myself. Funny, +now the scare is over and he is all safe, I shall probably cuss him out +as hard as ever next time he tries to preach at me." + +"You had better listen to him instead. Larry is apt to be right and you +are apt to be wrong, and you know it." + +"Maybe it is because I do know it and because he is so devilish right +that I damn him," observed the youngest Holiday sagely, his eyes meeting +his uncle's over his sister's head. + +It wasn't until he had danced and flirted and made merry for three +consecutive hours at the hop, and proposed in the exuberance of his mood +to at least three different charmers whose names he had forgotten by the +next day, that Ted Holiday remembered Madeline and his promise to keep +tryst with her that afternoon. Other things of more moment had swept her +clean from his mind. + +"Thunder!" he muttered to himself. "Wonder what she is thinking when I +swore by all that was holy to come. Oh well; I should worry. I couldn't +help it. I'll write and explain how it happened." + +So said, so done. He scribbled off a hasty note of explanation and +apology which he signed "Yours devotedly, Ted Holiday" and went out to +the corner mail box to dispatch the same so it would go out in the +early morning collection, and prepared to dismiss the matter from his +mind again. + +Coming back into his room he found his uncle standing on the threshold. + +"Had to get a letter off," murmured the young man as his uncle looked +inquiring. He turned to light a cigarette with an air of determined +casualness. He didn't care to have Uncle Phil know any more about the +Madeline affair. + +"It must have been important." + +"Was," curtly. "Did you think I was joy riding again?" + +"No, I heard you stirring and thought you might be sick. I haven't been +able to get to sleep myself." + +Seeing how utterly worn out his uncle looked, Ted's resentment took +quick, shamed flight. Poor Uncle Phil! He never spared himself, always +bore the brunt of everything for them all. And here he himself had just +snapped like a cur because he suspected his guardian of desiring to +interfere with his high and mighty private business. + +"Too bad," he said. "Wish you'd smoke, Uncle Phil. It's great to cool off +your nerves. Honest it is! Have one?" He held out his case. + +Doctor Holiday smiled at that, though he declined the proffered weed. He +understood very well that the boy was making tacit amends for his +ungraciousness of a moment before. + +"No, I'll get to sleep presently. It has been rather a wearing day." + +"Should say it had been. I hope Aunt Margery doesn't know about the +wreck. She'll worry, if she knew Larry was coming east." + +"I wired her this evening. I didn't want to take any chance of her +thinking he was in the smash." + +Ted laid down his cigarette. + +"You never forget anybody do you, Uncle Phil?" he said rather +soberly for him. + +"I never forget Margery. She is a very part of myself, lad." + +And when he was alone Ted pondered over that last speech of his uncle's. +He wondered if there would ever be a Margery for him, and, if so, what +she would think of the Madelines if she knew of them. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DEVELOPMENTS BY MAIL + + +After the family had reassembled on the Hill the promised letter from +Larry arrived. He was staying on so long as his services were needed. The +enormous number of victims of the wreck had strained to the uttermost the +city's supply of doctors and nurses, and there was more than enough work +for all. The writer spared them the details of the wreck so far as +possible; indeed, evidently was not anxious to relive the horrors on his +own account. He mentioned a few of the many sad cases only. One of these +was the instant death of a famous surgeon whose loss to the world seemed +tragic and pitifully wasteful to the young doctor. Another was the +crushing to death of a young mother who, with her two children, had been +happily on their way to meet the husband who had been in South America +for a year. Larry had made friends with her on the train and played with +the babies who reminded him of his small cousins, Eric and Hester, Doctor +Philip's children. + +A third case he went into more fully, that of a young woman--just a mere +girl in appearance though she wore a wedding ring--who had received a +terrible blow on the base of her brain which had driven out memory +entirely. She did not know who she was, where she was going, or whence +she had come. Her physical injuries, otherwise, were not serious, a +broken arm and some bad bruises, nothing but what she would easily +recover from in a short time; but, for all her effort, the past remained +as something on the other side of a strange, blank wall. + +"She tries pitifully hard to remember, and is so sweet and brave we are +all devoted to her. I always stop and talk to her when I go by her. She +seems to cling to me, rather, as if I could help her get things back. +Lord knows I wish I could. She is too dainty and fragile a morsel of +humanity to be left to fight such a thing alone. She is a regular little +Dresden shepherdess, with the tiniest feet and hands and the yellowest +hair and bluest eyes I ever saw. Her husband must be about crazy, poor +chap, not hearing from her. I suppose he will be turning up soon to claim +her. I hope so. I don't know what will become of her if he does not. + +"It is late and I must turn in. I don't know when I shall get home. I +don't flatter myself Dunbury will miss me much when it has you. Give +everybody my love and tell Tony I am awfully sorry I couldn't get to +commencement. I guess maybe she is glad enough to have me alive not to +mind much. I'm some glad to be alive myself." + +The letter ended with affectionate greetings to the older doctor from his +nephew and junior assistant. With it came another epistle from the same +city from an old doctor friend who had watched Philip Holiday, himself, +grow up, and had immediately set his eye on the younger Holiday, when he +had discovered the relationship. + +"You have a lad to be proud of in that Larry of yours," he wrote. "He is +on the job early and late, no smart Alecness, no shirking, no fool +questions, just there on the spot when you want him with cool head, +steady nerves and a hand as gentle as a woman's. I like his quality, +Phil. Quality shows up at a time like this. He is true Holiday, through +and through, and you can tell him I said so when you see him." + +The doctor smiled, well pleased at this tribute to Ned's son and this +letter, like Larry's, he handed to his wife Margery to read. + +The thirties had touched "Miss Margery" lightly. She was still slim and +girlish-looking. In her simple gown of that forgetmenot blue shade which +her husband particularly loved she seemed scarcely older than she had on +that day, some eight years earlier, when he had found her giving a Fourth +of July party to the Hill youngsters, and had begun to lose his heart to +her then and there. It was not by shedding care and responsibility, +however, that she had kept her youth. It was by no means the easiest +thing in the world to be a busy doctor's wife, the mother of two lively +children and faithful daughter to an invalid and rather "difficult" +mother-in-law, as well as to care for a big house and an elastic +household, which in vacation time included Ned Holiday's children and +their friends. Needless to say she did not do any painting these days. +But there is more than one way of being an artist, and of the art of +simple, lovely, human living Margery Holiday was past mistress. + +"Doesn't sound much like 'Lazy Larry' these days, does it?" she +commented, giving the letters back to her husband. "I know you are proud +of Doctor Fenton's letter, Phil. You ought to be. It is more than a +little due to you that Larry is what he is." + +"We are advertised by our loving wives," he misquoted teasingly. "I have +always observed that the things we approve of in the younger generation +are the fruit of seeds we planted. The things we disapprove of slipped in +inadvertedly like weeds." + +The same mail that brought Larry's letter brought one also to Ted from +Madeline Taylor, a letter which made him wriggle a little internally, +and pull his forelock, as was his habit when things were a bit +perturbing. + +Madeline had gone to bed that Sunday night after her meeting with Ted in +the woods, full of the happiest kind of anticipations and shy, foolish, +impossible dreams. Her mind told her it was the rankest of nonsense to +dream about Ted Holiday, but her heart would do it. She knew the affair +with Ted had begun wrong, but she couldn't help hoping it would come out +beautifully right. She couldn't help making believe she had found her +prince, a bonny laddie who liked her well enough to play straight with +her and to come again to see her. + +She meant to try so hard, so very hard, to make herself into the kind of +girl he was used to and liked. She cut out the picture of Tony Holiday +that Max Hempel and Dick Carson had studied that day on the train. She +studied it even harder and hid it away among her very special treasures +where she could take it out and look at it often and use it as a model. +She even snatched her hitherto precious earrings from their pink cotton +resting place and hurled them as far as she could into the night. She was +very sure Tony Holiday did not wear earrings, and she was even surer she +had seen Ted's eyes resting disapprovingly on hers. The earrings had to +go. They had gone. + +The next afternoon she had waited for a while patiently by the brook. The +distant clock struck the half hour, the three quarters, the full hour. No +Ted Holiday. By this time her patience had long since evaporated and now +blazed into blind rage. Ted had forgotten his promise, if indeed he had +ever meant to keep it. He was with those other girls--his kind. Maybe he +was laughing at her, telling them how "easy" she had been, how gullible. +No, he wouldn't! He would be ashamed to admit he had had anything to do +with her. Men did not boast of their conquest of one kind of girl to +another. She had read enough fiction to know that. + +In any case she hated Ted Holiday with a fine fury of resentment. She +wanted to make him suffer, even as she was suffering, though she sensed +vaguely that men couldn't suffer that way. It was only women who were +capable of such fine-drawn torture. Men went free. + +From her rage against her recreant cavalier she went on to rage against +life built on a man-made plan for the benefit of man. Women were hurt, no +matter what they did. Being good wasn't any use. You got hurt all the +worse if you were good. It was silly even to try. It was better to shut +your eyes and have a good time. + +Pursuing this reasoning brought Madeline Taylor to the sycamore tree that +night where Willis Hubbard's car waited. She went with Willis, not to +please him, not to please herself, but to spite Ted Holiday. She had +hinted to Ted she would do something desperate if he failed her. She had +done something desperate, but it was herself, not Ted, that had been +hurt. She discovered that too late. + +The next morning had brought Ted's pleasant, penitent note, explaining +his defection and expressing the hope that they might meet again soon, +signed hers "devotedly." Poor Madeline! The cup of her regret was very +bitter to the taste as she read that letter of Ted Holiday's. + +Something of her misery and self-abasement crept into the letter to Ted, +together with a passionate remorse for having doubted him and her even +more vehement regret for having gone out with Willis Hubbard. The whole +complex story of her emotional reactions was of course not written down +for Ted's eyes; but he read quite enough to permit him to guess more than +he cared to know. Hubbard was evidently something of a rotter. Maybe he +was a bit of a rotter himself. If he hadn't taken the girl out joy riding +himself she wouldn't have gone with the other two nights later. That was +plain to be seen with half an eye and Ted Holiday was man enough to look +at the fact straight and unblinking for a moment. + +Well! He should worry. It wasn't his fault if Madeline had been fool +enough to go out with Hubbard, when she knew what kind of a chap he was. +He wasn't her keeper. He didn't see why she had to ask him to forgive +her. It was none of his business. And he wished she hadn't begged so +earnestly and humbly that he would see her again soon. He didn't want to +see her. Yet, down underneath, Ted Holiday had an uneasy feeling he +ought to want it, ought to try to make up to her in some way for +something which was somehow his fault, even though he did disclaim the +responsibility. + +Two days later came another letter even more disturbing. It seemed +Madeline was going to Holyoke again soon to visit her Cousin Emma and +wanted Ted to join her. She was "dying" to see him. He could stay at +Cousin Emma's, but maybe he wouldn't like that because there was a raft +of children always under foot and Fred, Emma's husband, was a dreadful +"ordinary" person who smoked a smelly pipe and sat round in his shirt +sleeves. But if he would come and stay at a hotel they could have a +wonderful time. She did want to see him so much. Besides, Willis +pestered her all the time and said if she went away he would come down +in his car every night to see her. So if Ted didn't want her to run +around with Willis as he said in his last letter he had better come +himself. She didn't like Willis the way she did Ted, though. Some ways +she hated him and she wished awfully she hadn't ever had anything to do +with him. And finally she liked Ted better than anybody in the world, +and would he please, please come to Holyoke, because she wanted him to +so very, very much? + +And then the postscript. "The cut is going to leave a scar, I am most +sure. I don't care. I like it. It makes me think of you and what a +wonderful time we had together that night." + +Ted read the letter coming up the Hill, and for once forebore to whistle +as he made the ascent. His mind was busy. A week of Dunbury calm and +sweet do-nothing had sufficed to make him undeniably restless. Madeline's +proposal struck him as rather a jolly idea accordingly. After all, she +was a dandy little girl, and he owed her a lot for not making any fuss +over his nearly killing her. He didn't like this Hubbard fellow, either. +He rather thought it was his duty to go and send him about his business. +Ted was a bit of a knight, at heart, and felt now the chivalric urge, +combining with others less unselfish, to go to the rescue of the damsel +and set her free of the false besieger. + +Her undisguised admission of her caring for him was a bit +disconcerting, although perhaps also a little sweet to his youthful +male vanity. Her caring was a complication, made him feel as if somehow +he ought to make up to her for failing her in the big thing by granting +her the smaller favor. + +By the time he had reached the top of the Hill he was rather definitely +committed in his own mind to the Holyoke trip, if he could throw enough +dust in his uncle's eyes to get away with it. + +Arrived at the house he flung the other mail on the hall table and went +upstairs. As he passed his grandmother's room he noticed that the door +was ajar and stepped in for a word with her. She looked very still and +white as she lay there in the big, old fashioned four-poster bed! Poor +Granny! It was awfully sad to be old. Ted couldn't quite imagine it for +himself, somehow. + +"'Lo, Granny dear," he greeted, stooping to kiss the withered old cheek. +"How goes it?" + +"About as usual, dear. Any word from Larry?" There was a plaintive note +in Madame Holiday's voice. She was never quite content unless all the +"children" were under the family roof-tree. And Larry was particularly +dear to her heart. + +"Yes, I just brought a letter for Uncle Phil. The very idea of your +wanting Larry when you have Tony and me, and you haven't had us for +so long." Ted pretended to be reproachful and his grandmother reached +for his hand. + +"I know, dear boy. I am very glad to have you and Tony. But Larry is a +habit, like Philip. You mustn't mind my missing him." + +"Course I don't mind, Granny. I was just jossing. I don't blame you a bit +for missing Larry. He is a mighty good thing to have in the family. Wish +I were half as valuable." + +"You are, sonny. I am so happy to be having you here all summer." + +"Maybe not quite all summer. I'll be going off for little trips," he +prepared her gently. + +"Youth! Youth! Never still--always wanting to fly off somewhere!" + +"We all fly back mighty quick," comforted Ted. "There come the kiddies." + +A patter of small feet sounded down the hall. In the next moment they +were there--sturdy Eric, the six year old, apple-cheeked, incredibly +energetic, already bidding fair to equal if not to rival his cousin Ted's +reputation for juvenile naughtiness; and Hester, two years younger, a +rose-and-snow creation, cherubic, adorable, with bobbing silver curls, +delectably dimpled elbows and corn flower blue eyes. + +Fresh from the tub and the daily delightful frolic with Daddy, they now +appeared for that other ceremonial known as saying good-night to Granny. + +"Teddy! Teddy! Ride us to Granny," demanded Eric hilariously, jubilant at +finding his favorite tall cousin on the spot. + +"'Es, wide us, wide us," chimed in Hester, not to be outdone. + +"You fiends!" But Ted obediently got down on "all fours" while the small +folks clambered up on his back and he "rode" them over to the bed, their +bathrobes flying as they went. Arrived at the destination Ted deftly +deposited his load in a giggling, squirming heap on the rug and then +gathering up the small Hester, swung her aloft, bringing her down with +her rose bud of a mouth close to Granny's pale cheeks. + +"Kiss your flying angel, Granny, before she flies away again." + +"Me! Me!" clamored Eric vociferously, hugging Ted's knees. "Me flying +angel, too!" + +"Not much," objected Ted. "No angel about you. Too, too much solid flesh +and bones. Kiss Granny, quick. I hear your parents approaching." + +Philip and Margery appeared on the threshold, seeking their obstreperous +offspring. + +There was another stampede, this time in the direction of the "parents." + +"Ca'y me! Ca'y me, Daddy," chirruped Hester. + +"No, me. Ride me piggy-back," insisted Eric. + +"Such children!" smiled Margery. "Ted, you encourage them. They are more +barbarian than ever when you are here, and they are bad enough under +normal conditions." + +Ted chuckled at that. He and his Aunt Margery were the best of good +friends. They always had been since Ted had refused to join her Round +Table on the grounds that he might have to be sorry for being bad if he +did, though he had subsequently capitulated, in view of the manifest +advantages accruing to membership in the order. + +"That's right. Lay it to me. I don't believe Uncle Phil was a saint, +either, was he, Granny?" he appealed. "I'll bet the kids get some of +their deviltry by direct line of descent." + +His grandmother smiled. + +"We forget a good deal about our children's naughtinesses when they are +grown up," she said. "I've even forgotten some of yours, Teddy." + +"Lucky," grinned her grandson, stooping to kiss her again. "_Allons, +enfants_." + +Later, when the obstreperous ones were in bed and everything quiet Philip +and Margery sat together in the hammock, lovers still after eight years +of strenuous married life and discussed Larry's last letter, which had +contained the rather astonishing request that he be permitted to bring +the little lady who had forgotten her past to Holiday Hill with him. + +"Queer proposition!" murmured the doctor. "Doesn't sound like +sober Larry." + +"I am not so sure. There is a quixotic streak in him--in all you +Holidays, for that matter. You can't say much. Think of the stray boys +you have taken in at one time or another, some of them rather dubious +specimens, I infer." + +Margery's eyes smiled tender raillery at her husband. He chuckled at the +arraignment, and admitted its justice. Still, boys were not mystery +ladies. She must grant him that. Then he sobered. + +"It is only you that makes me hesitate, Margery mine. You are carrying +about as heavy a burden now as any one woman ought to take upon herself, +with me and the house and the children and Granny. And here is this crazy +nephew of mine proposing the addition to the family of a stranger who +hasn't any past and whose future seems wrapped mostly in a nebular +hypothesis. It is rather a large order, my dear." + +"Not too large. It isn't as if she were seriously ill, or would be a +burden in any way. Besides, it is Larry's home as well as ours, and he so +seldom asks anything for himself, and is always ready to help anywhere. +Do you really mind her coming, Phil?" + +"Not if you don't. I am glad to agree if it is not going to be too hard +for you. As you say, Larry doesn't ever ask much for himself and I am +interested in the case, anyway. Shall we wire him to bring her, then?" + +"Please do. I shall be very glad." + +"You are a wonder, Margery mine." And the doctor bent and kissed his wife +before going in to telephone the message to be sent his nephew that +night, a message bidding him and the little stranger welcome, whenever +they cared to come to the House on the Hill. + +And far away in Pittsburgh, Larry got the word that night and smiled +content. Bless Uncle Phil and Aunt Margery! They never failed you, no +matter what you asked of them. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LITTLE LADY WHO FORGOT + + +Larry Holiday was a rather startlingly energetic person when he once got +under way. The next morning he overruled the "Mystery Lady's" faint +demurs, successfully argued the senior doctor into agreement with his +somewhat surprising plan of procedure, wired his uncle, engaged train +reservations for that evening, secured a nurse, preempted the services of +a Red Cap who promised to be waiting with a chair at the station so that +the little invalid would not have to set foot upon the ground, and +finally carried the latter with his own strong young arms onto the train +and into a large, cool stateroom where a fan was already whirring and the +white-clad nurse waiting to minister to the needs of the frail traveler. + +In a few moments the train was slipping smoothly out of the station and +the girl who had forgotten most things else knew that she was being +spirited off to a delightful sounding place called Holiday Hill in the +charge of a gray-eyed young doctor who had made himself personally +responsible for her from the moment he had extricated her, more dead than +alive, from the wreckage. Somehow, for the moment she was quite content +with the knowledge. + +Leaving his charge in the nurse's care, Larry Holiday ensconced himself +in his seat not far from the stateroom and pretended to read his paper. +But it might just as well have been printed in ancient Sanscrit for all +the meaning its words conveyed to his brain. His corporeal self occupied +the green plush seat. His spiritual person was elsewhere. + +After fifteen minutes of futile effort at concentration he flung down the +paper and strode to the door of the stateroom. A white linen arm answered +his gentle knock. There was a moment's consultation, then the nurse came +out and Larry went in. + +On the couch the girl lay very still with half-closed eyes. Her long +blonde braids tied with blue ribbons lay on the pillow on either side of +her sweet, pale little face, making it look more childlike than ever. + +"I can't see why I can't remember," she said to Larry as he sat down on +the edge of the other cot opposite her. "I try so hard." + +"Don't try. You are just wearing yourself out doing it. It will be all +right in time. Don't worry." + +"I can't help worrying. It is--oh, it is horrible not to have any +past--to be different from everybody in the world." + +"I know. It is mighty tough and you have been wonderfully brave about it. +But truly I do believe it will all come back. And in the meanwhile you +are going to one of the best places in the world to get well in. Take my +word for it." + +"But I don't see why I should be going. It isn't as if I had any claim +on you or your people. Why are you taking me to your home?" The blue +eyes were wide open now, and looking straight up into Larry Holiday's +gray ones. + +Larry smiled and Larry's smile, coming out of the usual gravity and +repose of his face, was irresistible. More than one young woman, case and +non-case, had wished, seeing that smile, that its owner had eyes for +girls as such. + +"Because you are the most interesting patient I ever had. Don't begrudge +it to me. I get measles and sore throats mostly. Do you wonder I snatched +you as a dog grabs a bone?" Then he sobered. "Truly, Ruth--you don't mind +my calling you that, do you, since we don't know your other name?--the +Hill is the one place in the world for you just now. You will forgive my +kidnapping you when you see it and my people. You can't help liking it +and them." + +"I am not afraid of not liking it or them if--" She had meant to say "if +they are at all like you," but that seemed a little too personal to say +to one's doctor, even a doctor who had saved your life and had the most +wonderful smile that ever was, and the nicest eyes. "If they will let +me," she substituted. "But it is such a queer, kind thing to do. The +other doctors were interested in me, too, as a case. But it didn't occur +to any of them to offer me the hospitality of their homes and family for +an unlimited time. Are you Holidays all like that?" + +"More or less," admitted Larry with another smile. "Maybe we are a bit +vain-glorious about Holiday hospitality. It is rather a family tradition. +The House on the Hill has had open doors ever since the first Holiday +built it nearly two hundred years ago. You saw Uncle Phil's wire. He +meant that 'welcome ready.' You'll see. But anyway it won't be very hard +for them to open the door to you. They will all love you." + +She shut her eyes again at that. Possibly the young doctor's expression +was rather more un-professionally eloquent than he knew. + +"Tired?" he asked. + +"Not much--tired of wondering. Maybe my name isn't Ruth at all." + +"Maybe it isn't. But it is a name anyway, and you may as well use it for +the present until you can find your own. I think Ruth Annersley is a +pretty name myself," added the young doctor seriously. "I like it." + +"Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley," corrected the girl. "That is rather +pretty too." + +Larry agreed somewhat less enthusiastically. + +Ruth lifted her hand and fell to twisting the wedding ring which was very +loose on her thin little finger. + +"Think of being married and not knowing what your husband looks like. +Poor Geoffrey Annersley! I wonder if he cares a great deal for me." + +"It is quite possible," said Larry Holiday grimly. + +He had taken an absurd dislike to the very name of Geoffrey Annersley. +Why didn't the man appear and claim his wife? Practically every paper +from the Atlantic to the Pacific had advertised for him. If he was any +good and wanted to find his wife he would be half crazy looking for her +by this time. He must have seen the newspaper notices. There was +something queer about this Geoffrey Annersley. Larry Holiday detested him +cordially. + +"You don't suppose he was killed in the wreck, do you?" Ruth's mind +worked on, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. + +"You were traveling alone. Your chair was near mine. I noticed you +because I thought--" He broke off abruptly. + +"Thought what?" + +"That you were the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life," he admitted. "I +wanted to speak to you. Two or three times I was on the verge of it but I +never could quite get up the courage. I'm not much good at starting +conversations with girls. My kid brother, Ted, has the monopoly of that +sort of thing in my family." + +"Oh, if you only had," she sighed. "Maybe I would have told you +something about myself and where I was going when I got to New York." + +"I wish I had," regretted Larry. "Confound my shyness! I don't see why +anybody ever let you travel alone from San Francisco to New York anyway," +he added. "Your Geoffrey ought to have taken better care of you." + +"Maybe I haven't a Geoffrey. The fact that there was an envelope in my +bag addressed to Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley doesn't prove that I am Mrs. +Geoffrey Annersley." + +"No, still there is the ring." Larry frowned thoughtfully. "If you aren't +Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley you must be Mrs. Somebody Else, I suppose. And +the locket says _Ruth from Geoffrey_." + +"Oh, yes, I suppose I am Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley. It seems as if I must +be. But why can't I remember? It seems as if any one would remember the +man she was married to--as if one couldn't forget that, no matter what +happened. But if there is a Geoffrey Annersley why doesn't he come and +get me and make me remember him?" + +Larry shook his head. + +"Don't worry, please. We'll keep on advertising. He is bound to come +before long if he really is your husband. Some day he will be coming up +our hill and run away with you, worse luck!" + +Ruth's eyes were on the ring again. + +"It is funny," she said. "But I can't make myself _feel_ married. I can't +make the ring mean anything to me. I don't want it to mean anything. I +don't want to be married. Sometimes I dream that Geoffrey Annersley has +come and I put my hand over my eyes because I don't want to see him. +Isn't that dreadful?" she turned to Larry to ask. + +"You can't help it." Larry tried manfully to push back his own wholly +unreasonable satisfaction in her aversion to her presumptive husband. +"It is the blow and the shock of the whole thing. It will be all right in +time. You will fall on your Geoffrey's neck and call him blessed when the +time comes." + +"I don't believe he is coming," she announced suddenly with conviction. + +Larry got up and walked over to her couch. + +"What makes you say that?" he demanded. + +"I don't know. It was just a feeling I had. Something inside me said +right out loud: 'He isn't coming. He isn't your husband.' Maybe it is +because I don't want him to come and don't want him to be my husband. Oh, +dear! It is all so queer and mixed up and horrid. It is awful not to be +anybody--just a ghost. I wish I'd been killed. Why didn't you leave me? +Why did you dig me out? All the others said I was dead. Why didn't you +let me _be_ dead? It would have been better." + +She turned her face away and buried it in the pillow, sobbing softly, +suddenly like a child. + +This was too much for Larry. He dropped on his knees beside her and put +his arms around the quivering little figure. + +"Don't, Ruth," he implored. "Don't cry and don't--don't wish you were +dead. I--I can't stand it." + +There was a tap at the door. Larry got to his feet in guilty haste and +went to the door of the stateroom. + +"It is time for Mrs. Annersley's medicine," announced the nurse +impersonally, entering and going over to the wash stand for a glass. + +The white linen back safely turned, Larry gave one swift look at Ruth and +bolted, shutting the door behind him. The nurse turned to look at the +patient whose face was still hidden in the pillow and then her gaze +traveled meditatively toward the door out of which the young doctor had +shot so precipitately. Larry had forgotten that there was a mirror over +the wash stand and that nurses, however impersonal, are still women with +eyes in their heads. + +"H--m," reflected the onlooker. "I wouldn't have thought he was that +kind. You never can tell about men, especially doctors. I wish him joy +falling in love with a woman who doesn't know whether or not she has a +husband. Your tablets, Mrs. Annersley," she added aloud. + + * * * * * + +"Larry, I think your Ruth is the dearest thing I ever laid eyes on," +declared Tony next day to her brother. "Her name ought to be Titania. I'm +not very big myself, but I feel like an Amazon beside her. And her laugh +is the sweetest thing--so soft and silvery, like little bells. But she +doesn't laugh much, does she? Poor little thing!" + +"She is awfully up against it," said Larry with troubled eyes. "She can't +stop trying to remember. It is a regular obsession with her. And she is +very shy and sensitive and afraid of strangers." + +"She doesn't look at you as if you were a stranger. She adores you." + +"Nonsense!" said Larry sharply. + +Tony opened her eyes at her brother's tone. + +"Why, Larry! Of course, I didn't mean she was in love with you. She +couldn't be when she is married. I just meant she adored you--well, the +way Max adores me," she explained as the tawny-haired Irish setter came +and rested his head on her knee, raising solemn worshipful brown eyes to +her face. "Why shouldn't she? You saved her life and you have been +wonderful to her every way." + +"Nonsense!" said Larry again, though he said it in a different tone this +time. "I haven't done much. It is Uncle Phil and Aunt Margery who are the +wonderful ones. It is great the way they both said yes right away when I +asked if I could bring her here. I tell you, Tony, it means something to +have your own people the kind you can count on every time. And it is +great to have a home like this to bring her to. She is going to love it +as soon as she is able to get downstairs with us all." + +Up in her cool, spacious north chamber, lying in the big bed with the +smooth, fine linen, Ruth felt as if she loved it already, though she +found these Holidays even more amazing than ever, now that she was +actually in their midst. Were there any other people in the world like +them she wondered--so kind and simple and unfeignedly glad to take a +stranger into their home and a queer, mysterious, sick stranger at that! + +"If I have to begin living all over just like a baby I think I am the +luckiest girl that ever was to be able to start in a place like this with +such dear, kind people all around me," she told Doctor Holiday, senior, +to whom she had immediately lost her heart as soon as she saw his smile +and felt the touch of his strong, magnetic, healing hand. + +"We will get you out under the trees in a day or two," he said. "And then +your business will be to get well and strong as soon as possible and not +worry about anything any more than if you were the baby you were just +talking about. Can you manage that, young lady?" + +"I'll try. I would be horrid and ungrateful not to when you are all so +good to me. I don't believe my own people are half as nice as you +Holidays. I don't see how they could be." + +The doctor laughed at that. + +"We will let it go at that for the present. You will be singing another +tune when your Geoffrey Annersley comes up the Hill to claim you." + +The girl's expressive face clouded over at that. She did not quite dare +to tell Doctor Holiday as she had his nephew that she did not want to see +Geoffrey Annersley nor to have to know she was married to him. It sounded +horrid, but it was true. Sometimes she hated the very thought of Geoffrey +Annersley. + +Later Doctor Holiday and his nephew went over the girl's case together +from both the personal and professional angles. There was little enough +to go on in untangling her mystery. The railway tickets which had been +found in her purse were in an un-postmarked envelope bearing the name +Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley, but no address. The baggage train had been +destroyed by fire at the time of the accident, so there were no trunks to +give evidence. The small traveling bag she had carried with her bore +neither initial nor geographical designation, and contained nothing which +gave any clew as to its owner's identity save that she was presumably a +person of wealth, for her possessions were exquisite and obviously +costly. A small jewel box contained various valuable rings, one or two +pendants and a string of matched pearls which even to uninitiated eyes +spelled a fortune. Also, oddly enough, among the rest was an absurd +little childish gold locket inscribed "Ruth from Geoffrey." + +She had worn no rings at all except for a single platinum-set, and very +perfect, diamond and a plain gold band, obviously a wedding ring. The +inference was that she was married and that her husband's name was +Geoffrey Annersley, but where he was and why she was traveling across the +United States alone and from whence she had come remained utterly +unguessable. Larry had seen to it that advertisements for Geoffrey +Annersley were inserted in every important paper from coast to coast but +nothing had come of any of his efforts. + +As for the strange lapse of memory, there seemed nothing to do but wait +in the hope that recovered health and strength might bring it back. + +"It may come bit by bit or by a sudden bound or never," was Doctor +Holiday's opinion. "There is nothing that I know of that she or you or +any one can do except let nature take her course. It is a case of time +and patience. I am glad you brought her to us. Margery and I are very +glad to have her." + +"You are awfully good, Uncle Phil. I do appreciate it and it is great to +have you behind me professionally. I haven't got a great deal of +confidence in myself. Doctoring scares me sometimes. It is such a fearful +responsibility." + +"It is, but you are going to be equal to it. The confidence will come +with experience. You need have no lack of faith in yourself; I haven't. +There is no reason why I should have, when I get letters like this." + +The senior doctor leaned over and extracted old Doctor Fenton's letter +from a cubby hole in his desk and gave it to his nephew to read. The +latter perused it in silence with slightly heightened color. Praise +always embarrassed him. + +"He is too kind," he observed as he handed back the letter. "I didn't do +much out there, precious little in fact but what I was told to do. I +figured it out that we young ones were the privates and it was up to us +to take orders from the captains who knew their business better than we +did and get busy. I worked on that basis." + +"Sound basis. I am not afraid that a man who can obey well won't be able +to command well when the time comes. It isn't a small thing to be +recognized as a true Holiday, either. It is something to be proud of." + +"I am proud, Uncle Phil. There is nothing I would rather hear--and +deserve. But, if I am anywhere near the Holiday standard, it is you +mostly that brought me up to it. I don't mean any dispraise of Dad. He +was fine and I am proud to be his son. But he never understood me. I +didn't have enough dash and go to me for him. Ted and Tony are both +more his kind, though I don't believe either of them loved him as I +did. But you seemed to understand always. You helped me to believe in +myself. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, coming to +you when I did." + +Larry turned to the mantel and picked up a photograph of himself which +stood there, a lad of fifteen or so, facing the world with grave, +sensitive eyes, the Larry he had been when he came to the House on the +Hill. He smiled at his uncle over the boy's picture. + +"You burned out the plague spots, too, with a mighty hot iron, some of +them," he added. "I'll never forget your sitting there in that very chair +telling me I was a lazy, selfish snob and that, all things considered, I +didn't measure up for a nickel with Dick. Jerusalem! I wonder if you knew +how that hit. I had a fairly good opinion of Larry Holiday in some ways +and you rather knocked the spots out of it, comparing me to my +disadvantage with a circus runaway." + +He replaced the picture, the smile still lingering on his face. + +"It was the right medicine though. I needed it. I can see that now. +Speaking of doses I wish you would make Ted tutor this summer. I don't +know whether he has told you. I rather think not. But he flunked so many +courses he will have to drop back a year unless he makes up the work and +takes examinations in the fall." + +The senior doctor drummed thoughtfully on the desk. So that was what the +boy had on his mind. + +"Why not speak to him yourself?" he asked after a minute. + +"And be sent to warm regions as I was last spring when I ventured to give +his lord highmightiness some advice. No good, Uncle Phil. He won't listen +to me. He just gets mad and swings off in the other direction. I don't +handle him right. Haven't your patience and tact. I wonder if he ever +will get any sense into his head. He is the best hearted kid in the +world, and I'm crazy over him, but he does rile me to the limit with his +fifty-seven varieties of foolness." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TED SEIZES THE DAY + + +The next morning Ted strolled into his uncle's office to ask if the +latter had any objections to his accepting an invitation to a house-party +from Hal Underwood, a college classmate, at the latter's home near +Springfield. + +The doctor considered a moment before answering. He knew all about the +Underwoods and knew that his erratic nephew could not be in a safer, +pleasanter place. Also his quick wit saw a chance to put the screws on +the lad in connection with the tutoring business. + +"I suppose your June allowance is able to float your traveling expenses," +he remarked less guilelessly than the remark sounded. + +The June allowance was, it seemed, the missing link. + +"I thought maybe you would be willing to allow me a little extra this +month on account of commencement stunts. It is darned expensive sending +nosegays to sweet girl graduates. I couldn't help going broke. Honest I +couldn't, Uncle Phil." Then as his uncle did not leap at the suggestion +offered, the speaker changed his tack. "Anyway, you would be willing to +let me have my July money ahead of time, wouldn't you?" he ingratiated. +"It is only ten days to the first." + +But Doctor Holiday still chose to be inconveniently irrelevant. + +"Have you any idea how much my bill was for repairing the car?" he +asked. + +Ted shook his head shamefacedly, and bent to examine a picture in a +magazine which lay on the desk. He wasn't anxious to have the car +incident resurrected. He had thought it decently buried by this time, +having heard no more about it. + +"It was a little over a hundred dollars," continued the doctor. + +The boy looked up, genuinely distressed. + +"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's highway robbery." + +"Scarcely. All things considered, it was a very fair bill. A hundred +dollars is a good deal to pay for the pleasure of nearly getting yourself +and somebody else killed, Ted." + +Ted pulled his forelock and had nothing to say. + +"Were you in earnest about paying up for that particular bit of +folly, son?" + +"Why, yes. At least I didn't think it would be any such sum as that," Ted +hedged. "I'll be swamped if I try to pay it out of my allowance. I can't +come out even, as it is. Couldn't you take it out of my own money--what's +coming to me when I'm of age?" + +"I could, if getting myself paid were the chief consideration. As it +happens, it isn't. I'm sorry if I seem to be hard on you, but I am going +to hold you to your promise, even if it pinches a bit. I think you know +why. How about it, son?" + +"I suppose it has to go that way if you say so," said Ted a little +sulkily. "Can I pay it in small amounts?" + +"How small? Dollar a year? I'd hate to wait until I was a hundred and +forty or so to get my money back." + +The boy grinned reluctantly, answering the friendly twinkle in his +uncle's eyes. He was relieved that a joke had penetrated what had begun +to appear to be an unpleasantly jestless interview. He hated to be +called to account. Like many another older sinner he liked dancing, but +found paying the piper an irksome business. + +"Nonsense, Uncle Phil! I meant real paying. Will ten dollars a month do?" + +"It will, provided you don't try to borrow ahead each month from the +next one." + +"I won't," glibly. "If you will--" The boy broke off and had the grace to +look confused, realizing he had been about to do the very thing he had +promised in the same breath not to do. "Then that means I can't go to +Hal's," he added soberly. + +He felt sober. There was more than Hal and the house-party involved, +though the latter had fallen in peculiarly fortuitous with his other +plans. He had rashly written Madeline he would be in Holyoke next week as +she desired, and the first of July and his allowance would still be just +out of reach next week. It was a confounded nuisance, to say the least, +being broke just now, with Uncle Phil turned stuffy. + +"No, I don't want you to give up your house-party, though that rests with +you. I'll make a bargain with you. I'll advance your whole July allowance +minus ten dollars Saturday morning." + +Ted's face cleared, beamed like sudden sunshine on a cloudy March day. + +"You will! Uncle Phil, you certainly are a peach!" And in his exuberance +he tossed his cap to the ceiling, catching it deftly on his nose as it +descended. + +"Hold on. Don't rejoice too soon. It was to be a bargain, you know. You +have heard only one side." + +"Oh--h!" The exclamation was slightly crestfallen. + +"I understand that you fell down on most of your college work this +spring. Is that correct?" + +This was a new complication and just as he had thought he was safely +out of the woods, too. Ted hung his head, gave consent to his uncle's +question by silence and braced himself for a lecture, though he was a +little relieved that he need not bring up the subject of that +inconvenient flunking of his, himself; that his uncle was already +prepared, whoever it was that had told tales. The lecture did not +come, however. + +"Here is the bargain. I will advance the money as I said, provided +that as soon as you get back from Hal's you will make arrangements to +tutor with Mr. Caldwell this summer, in all the subjects you failed in +and promise to put in two months of good, solid cramming, no half way +about it." + +"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's vacation." + +"You don't need a vacation. If all I hear of you is true, or even half of +it, you made your whole college year one grand, sweet vacation. What is +the answer? Want time to think the proposition over?" + +"No--o. I guess I'll take you up. I suppose I'll have to tutor anyway if +I don't want to drop back a class, and I sure don't," Ted admitted +honestly. "Unless you'll let me quit and you won't. It is awfully tough, +though. You never made Tony or Larry kill themselves studying in +vacations. I don't see--" + +"Neither Tony or Larry ever flunked a college course. It remained for you +to be the first Holiday to wear a dunce cap." + +Ted flushed angrily at that. The shot went home, as the doctor intended +it should. He knew when to hit and how to do it hard, as Larry had +testified. + +"Fool's cap if you like, Uncle Phil. I am not a dunce." + +"I rather think that is true. Anyway, prove it to us this summer and +there is no one who will be gladder than I to take back the aspersion. Is +it understood then? You have your house-party and when you come back you +are pledged to honest work, no shirking, no requests for time off, no +complaints. Have I your word?" + +Ted considered. He thought he was paying a stiff price for his +house-party and his lark with Madeline. He could give up the first, +though a fellow always had a topping time at Hal's; but he couldn't quite +see himself owning ignominiously to Madeline that he couldn't keep his +promise to her because of empty pockets. Moreover, as he had admitted, he +would have to tutor anyway, probably, and he might as well get some gain +out of the pain. + +"I promise, Uncle Phil." + +"Good. Then that is settled. I am not going to say anything more about +the flunking. You know how we all feel about it. I think you have sense +enough and conscience enough to see it about the way the rest of us do." + +Ted's eyes were down again now. Somehow Uncle Phil always made him feel +worse by what he didn't say than a million sermons from other people +would have done. He would have gladly have given up the projected journey +and anything else he possessed this moment if he could have had a clean +slate to show. But it was too late for that now. He had to take the +consequences of his own folly. + +"I see it all right, Uncle Phil," he said looking up. "Trouble is I never +seem to have the sense to look until--afterward. You are awfully decent +about it and letting me go to Hal's and--everything. I--I'll be gone +about a week, do you mind?" + +"No. Stay as long as you like. I am satisfied with your promise to make +good when you do come." + +Ted slipped away quickly then. He was ashamed to meet his uncle's kind +eyes. He knew he was playing a crooked game with stacked cards. He hadn't +exactly lied--hadn't said a word that wasn't strictly true, indeed. He +was going to Hal's, but he had let his uncle think he was going to stay +there the whole week whereas in reality he meant to spend the greater +part of the time in Madeline Taylor's society, which was not in the +bargain at all. Well he would make up later by keeping his promise about +the studying. He would show them Larry wasn't the only Holiday who could +make good. The dunce cap jibe rankled. + +And so, having satisfied his sufficiently elastic conscience, he departed +on Saturday for Springfield and adjacent points. + +He had the usual "topping" time at Hal's and tore himself away with the +utmost reluctance from the house-party, had half a mind, indeed, to wire +Madeline he couldn't come to Holyoke. But after all that seemed rather a +mean thing to do after having treated her so rough before, and in the end +he had gone, only one day later than he had promised. + +It was characteristic that, arrived at his destination, he straightway +forgot the pleasures he was foregoing at Hal's and plunged +whole-heartedly into amusing himself to the utmost with Madeline Taylor. +_Carpe Diem_ was Ted Holiday's motto. + +Madeline had indeed proved unexpectedly pretty and attractive when she +opened the door to him on Cousin Emma's little box of a front porch, clad +all in white and wearing no extraneous ornament of any sort, blushing +delightfully and obviously more than glad of his coming. He would not +have been Ted Holiday if he hadn't risen to the occasion. The last girl +in sight was usually the only girl for him so long as she _was_ in sight +and sufficiently jolly and good to look upon. + +A little later Madeline donned a trim tailored black sailor hat and a +pretty and becoming pale green sweater and the two went down the steps +together, bound for an excursion to the park. As they descended Ted's +hand slipped gallantly under the girl's elbow and she leaned on it ever +so little, reveling in the ceremony and prolonging it as much as +possible. Well she knew that Cousin Emma and the children were peering +out from behind the curtains of the front bedroom upstairs, and that Mrs. +Bascom and her stuck up daughter Lily had their faces glued to the pane +next door. They would all see that this was no ordinary beau, but a real +swell like the magnificent young men in the movies. Perhaps as she +descended Cousin Emma's steps and went down the path between the tiger +lilies and peonies that flanked the graveled path with Ted Holiday beside +her, Madeline Taylor had her one perfect moment. + +Only the "ordinary" Fred, on hearing his wife's voluble descriptions +later of Madeline's "grand" young man failed to be suitably impressed. +"Them swells don't mean no girl no good no time," he had summed up his +views with sententious accumulation of negatives. + +But little enough did either Ted or Madeline reck of Fred's or any other +opinion as they fared their blithe and care-free way that gala week. The +rest of the world was supremely unimportant as they went canoeing and +motoring and trolley riding and mountain climbing and "movieing" +together. Madeline strove with all her might to dress and act and _be_ as +nearly like those other girls after whom she was modeling herself as +possible, to do nothing, which could jar on Ted in any way or remind him +that she was "different." In her happiness and sincere desire to please +she succeeded remarkably well in making herself superficially at least +very much like Ted's own "kind of girl" and though with true masculine +obtuseness he was entirely unaware of the conscious effort she was +putting into the performance nevertheless he enjoyed the results in full +and played up to her undeniable charms with his usual debonair and +heedless grace and gallantry. + +The one thing that had been left out of the program for lack of suitable +opportunity was dancing, an omission not to be tolerated by two strenuous +and modern young persons who would rather fox trot than eat any day. +Accordingly on Thursday it was agreed that they should repair to the +White Swan, a resort down the river, famous for its excellent cuisine, +its perfect dance floor and its "snappy" negro orchestra. Both Ted and +Madeline knew that the Swan had also a reputation of another less +desirable sort, but both were willing to ignore the fact for the sake of +enjoying the "jolliest jazz on the river" as the advertisement read. The +dance was the thing. + +It was, indeed. The evening was decidedly the best yet, as both averred, +pirouetting and spinning and romping through one fox trot and one step +after another. The excitement of the music, the general air of +exhilaration about the place and their own high-pitched mood made the +occasion different from the other gaieties of the week, merrier, madder, +a little more reckless. + +Once, seeing a painted, over-dressed or rather under-dressed, girl in the +arms of a pasty-faced, protruding-eyed roué, both obviously under the +spell of too much liquid inspiration, Ted suffered a momentary revulsion +and qualm of conscience. He shouldn't have brought Madeline here. It +wasn't the sort of place to bring a girl, no matter how good the music +was. Oh, well! What did it matter just this once? They were there now and +they might as well get all the fun they could out of it. The music +started up, he held out his hand to Madeline and they wheeled into the +maze of dancers, the girl's pliant body yielding to his arms, her eyes +brilliant with excitement. They danced on and on and it was amazingly and +imprudently late when they finally left the Swan and went home to Cousin +Emma's house. + +Ted had meant to leave Madeline at the gate, but somehow he lingered and +followed the girl out into the yard behind the house where they seated +themselves in the hammock in the shade of the lilac bushes. And suddenly, +without any warning, he had her in his arms and was kissing her +tempestuously. + +It was only for a moment, however. He pulled himself together, hot +cheeked and ashamed and flung himself out of the hammock. Madeline sat +very still, not saying a word, as she watched him march to and fro +between the beds of verbena and love-lies-bleeding and portulaca. +Presently he paused beside the hammock, looking down at the girl. + +"I am going home to-morrow," he said a little huskily. + +Madeline threw out one hand and clutched one of the boy's in a +feverish clasp. + +"No! No!" she cried. "You mustn't go. Please don't, Ted." + +"I've got to," stolidly. + +"Why?" + +"You know why." + +"You mean--what you did--just now?" + +He nodded miserably. + +"That doesn't matter. I'm not angry. I--I liked it." + +"I am afraid it does matter. It makes a mess of everything, and it's all +my fault. I spoiled things. I've got to go." + +"But you will come back?" she pleaded. + +He shook his head. + +"It is better not, Madeline. I'm sorry." + +She snatched her hand away from his, her eyes shooting sparks of anger. + +"I hate you, Ted Holiday. You make me care and then you go away and leave +me. You are cruel--selfish. I hate you--hate you." + +Ted stared down at her, helpless, miserable, ashamed. No man knows what +to do with a scene, especially one which his own folly has precipitated. + +"Willis Hubbard is coming down to-morrow night and if you don't stay as +you promised I'll go to the Swan with him. He has been teasing me to go +for ages and I wouldn't, but I will now, if you leave me. I'll--I'll do +anything." + +Ted was worried. He did not like the sound of the girl's threats though +he wasn't moved from his own purpose. + +"Don't go to the Swan with Hubbard, Madeline. You mustn't." + +"Why not? You took me." + +"I know I did, but that is different," he finished lamely. + +"I don't see anything very different," she retorted hotly. + +Ted bit his lip. Remembering his own recent aberration, he did not see as +much difference as he would have liked to see himself. + +"I suppose you wouldn't have taken _your_ kind of girl to the Swan," +taunted Madeline. + +"No, I--" + +It was a fatal admission. Ted hadn't meant to make it so bluntly, but it +was out. The damage was done. + +A demon of rage possessed the girl. Beside herself with anger she sprang +to her feet and delivered a stinging blow straight in the boy's face. +Then, her mood changing, she fell back into the hammock sobbing bitterly. + +For a moment Ted was too much astonished by this fish-wife exhibition +of temper even to be angry with himself. Then a hot wave of wrath and +shame surged over him. He put up his hand to his cheek as if to brush +away the indignity of the blow. But he was honest enough to realize +that maybe he had deserved the punishment, though not for the reason +the girl had dealt it. + +Looking down at her in her racked misery, his resentment vanished and +an odd impersonal kind of pity for her possessed him instead, though +her attraction was gone forever. He could see the scar on her forehead, +and it troubled and reproached him vaguely, seemed a symbol of a deeper +wound he had dealt her, though never meaning any harm. He bent over +her, gently. + +"Forgive me, Madeline," he said. "I am sorry--sorry for +everything. Goodby." + +In a moment he was gone, past the portulaca and love-lies-bleeding, past +Cousin Emma's unlit parlor windows, down the walk between the tiger +lilies and peonies, out into the street. And Madeline, suddenly +realizing that she was alone, rushed after him, calling his name softly +into the dark. But only the echo of his firm, buoyant young feet came +back to her straining ears. She fled back to the garden and, throwing +herself, face down, on the dew drenched grass, surrendered to a passion +of tearless grief. + +Ted astonished his uncle, first by coming home a whole day earlier than +he had been expected and second, by announcing his intention of seeing +Robert Caldwell and making arrangements about the tutoring that very +day. He was more than usually uncommunicative about his house-party +experiences the Doctor thought and fancied too that just at first after +his return the boy did not meet his eyes quite frankly. But this soon +passed away and he was delighted and it must be confessed considerably +astounded too to perceive that Ted really meant to keep his word about +the studying and settled down to genuine hard work for perhaps the first +time, in his idle, irresponsible young life. He had been prepared to put +on the screws if necessary. There had been no need. Ted had applied his +own screws and kept at his uncongenial task with such grim determination +that it almost alarmed his family, so contrary was his conduct to his +usual light-hearted shedding of all obligations which he could, by hook +or crook, evade. + +Among other things to be noted with relief the doctor counted the fact +that there were no more letters from Florence. Apparently that flame +which had blazed up rather brightly at first had died down as a good many +others had. Doctor Holiday was particularly glad in this case. He had not +liked the idea of his nephew's running around with a girl who would be +willing to go "joy-riding" with him after midnight, and still less had he +liked the idea of his nephew's issuing such invitations to any kind of +girl. Youth was youth and he had never kept a very tight rein on any of +Ned's children, believing he could trust them to run straight in the +main. Still there were things one drew the line at for a Holiday. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY + + +Tony was dressing for dinner on her first evening at Crest House. +Carlotta was perched on the arm of a chair near by, catching up on mutual +gossip as to events that had transpired since they parted a month before +at Northampton. + +"I have a brand new young man for you, Tony. Alan Massey--the artist. At +least he calls himself an artist, though he hasn't done a thing but +philander and travel two or three times around the globe, so near as I +can make out, since somebody died and left him a disgusting big fortune. +Aunt Lottie hints that he is very improper, but anyway he is amusing and +different and a dream of a dancer. It is funny, but he makes me think a +little bit once in a while of somebody we both know. I won't tell you +who, and see if the same thing strikes you." + +A little later Tony met the "new young man." She was standing with her +friend in the big living room waiting for the signal for dinner when she +felt suddenly conscious of a new presence. She turned quickly and saw a +stranger standing on the threshold regarding her with a rather +disconcertingly intent gaze. He was very tall and foreign-looking, +"different," as Carlotta had said, with thick, waving blue-black hair, a +clear, olive skin and deep-set, gray-green eyes. There was nothing about +him that suggested any resemblance to anyone she knew. Indeed she had a +feeling that there was nobody at all like him anywhere in the world. + +The newcomer walked toward her, their glances crossing. Tony stood very +still, but she had an unaccountable sensation of going to meet him, as if +he had drawn her to him, magnet-wise, by his strange, sweeping look. They +were introduced. He bowed low in courtly old world fashion over the +girl's hand. + +"I am enchanted to know Miss Holiday," he said. His voice was as unusual +as the rest of him, deep-throated, musical, vibrant--an unforgettable +voice it seemed to Tony who for a moment seemed to have lost her own. + +"I shall sit beside Miss Tony to-night, Carla," he added. It was not a +question, not a plea. It was clear assertion. + +"Not to-night, Alan. You are between Aunt Lottie and Mary Frances Day. +You liked Mary Frances yesterday. You flirted with her outrageously +last night." + +He shrugged. + +"Ah, but that was last night, my dear. And this is to-night. And I have +seen your Miss Tony. That alters everything, even your seating +arrangements. Change me, Carlotta." + +Carlotta laughed and capitulated. Alan's highhanded tactics always +amused her. + +"Not that you deserve it," she said. "Don't be too nice to him, Tony. He +is not a nice person at all." + +So it happened that Tony found herself at dinner between Ted's friend, +and her own, Hal Underwood, and this strange, impossible, arbitrary, +new personage who had hypnotized her into unwonted silence at their +first meeting. + +She had recovered her usual poise by this time, however, and was quite +prepared to keep Alan Massey in due subjection if necessary. She did not +like masterful men. They always roused her own none too dormant +willfulness. + +As they sat down he bent over to her. + +"You are glad I made Carlotta put us together," he said, and this, too, +was no question, but an assertion. + +Tony was in arms in a flash. + +"On the contrary, I am exceedingly sorry she gave in to you. You seem to +be altogether too accustomed to having your own way as it is." And rather +pointedly she turned her pretty shoulder on her too presuming neighbor +and proceeded to devote her undivided attention for two entire courses to +Hal Underwood. + +But, with the fish, Hal's partner on the other side, a slim young person +in a glittering green sequined gown, suggesting a fish herself, or, at +politest, a mermaid, challenged his notice and Tony returned perforce to +her left-hand companion who had not spoken a single word since she had +snubbed him as Tony was well aware, though she had seemed so entirely +absorbed in her own conversation with Hal. + +His gray-green eyes smiled imperturbably into hers. + +"Am I pardoned? Surely I have been punished enough for my sins, whatever +they may have been." + +"I hope so," said Tony. "Are you always so disagreeable?" + +"I am never disagreeable when I am having my own way. I am always good +when I am happy. At this moment I am very, very good." + +"It hardly seems possible," said Tony. "Carlotta said you were not +good at all." + +He shrugged, a favorite mannerism, it seemed. + +"Goodness is relative and a very dull topic in any case. Let us talk, +instead, of the most interesting subject in the universe--love. You +know, of course, I am madly in love with you." + +"Indeed, no. I didn't suspect it," parried Tony. "You fall in love +easily." + +"Scarcely easily, in this case. I should say rather upon tremendous +provocation. I suppose you know how beautiful you are." + +"I look in the mirror occasionally," admitted Tony with a glimmer of +mischief in her eyes. "Carlotta told me you were a philanderer. +Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Massey." + +"Ah, but this isn't philandery. It is truth." Suddenly the mockery had +died out of his voice and his eyes. "_Carissima,_ I have waited a very +long time for you--too long. Life has been an arid waste without you, +but, Allah be praised, you are here at last. You are going to love +me--ah, my Tony--how you are going to love me!" The last words were +spoken very low for the girl's ears alone, though more than one person at +the table seeing him bend over her, understood, that Alan Massey, that +professional master-lover was "off" again. + +"Don't, Mr. Massey. I don't care for that kind of jest." + +"Jest! Good God! Tony Holiday, don't you know that I mean it, that this, +is the real thing at last for me--and for you? Don't fight it, +Mademoiselle Beautiful. It will do no good. I love you and you are going +to love me--divinely." + +"I don't even like you," denied Tony hotly. + +"What of that? What do I care for your liking? That is for others. But +your loving--that shall be mine--all mine. You will see." + +"I am afraid you are very much mistaken if you do mean all you are +saying. Please talk to Miss Irvine now. You haven't said a word to her +since you sat down. I hate rudeness." + +Again Tony turned a cold shoulder upon her amazing dinner companion but +she did not do it so easily or so calmly this time. She was not unused +to the strange ways of men. Not for nothing had she spent so much of her +life at army posts where love-making is as familiar as brass buttons. +Sudden gusts of passion were no novelty to her, nor was it a new thing +to hear that a man thought he loved her. But Alan Massey was different. +She disliked him intensely, she resented the arrogance of his +assumptions with all her might, but he interested her amazingly. And, +incredible as it might seem and not to be admitted out loud, he was +speaking the truth, just now. He did love her. In her heart Tony knew +that she had felt his love before he had ever spoken a word to her when +their eyes had met as he stood on the threshold and she knew too +instinctively, that his love--if it was that--was not a thing to be +treated like the little summer day loves of the others. It was big, +rather fearful, not to be flouted or played with. One did not play with +a meteor when it crossed one's path. One fled from it or stayed and let +it destroy one if it would. + +She roused herself to think of other people, to forget Alan Massey and +his wonderful voice which had said such perturbing things. Over across +the table, Carlotta was talking vivaciously to a pasty-visaged, +narrow-chested, stoop-shouldered youth who scarcely opened his mouth +except to consume food, but whose eyes drank in every movement of +Carlotta's. One saw at a glance he was another of that spoiled little +coquette's many victims. Tony asked Hal who he was. He seemed scarcely +worth so many of Carlotta's sparkles, she thought. + +"Herb Lathrop--father is the big tea and coffee man--all rolled up in +millions. Carlotta's people are putting all the bets on him, apparently, +though for the life of me I can't see why. Don't see why people with +money are always expected to match up with somebody with a whole +caboodle of the same junk. Ought to be evened up I think, and a bit of +eugenics slipped in, instead of so much cash, for good measure. You can +see what a poor fish he is. In my opinion she had much better marry your +neighbor up there on the Hill. He is worth a gross of Herb Lathrops and +she knows it. Carlotta is no fool." + +"You mean Phil Lambert?" Tony was surprised. + +Hal nodded. + +"That's the chap. Only man I ever knew that could keep Carlotta in +order." + +"But Carlotta hasn't the slightest idea of marrying Phil," objected Tony. + +"Maybe not. I only say he is the man she ought to marry. I say, Tony, +does she seem happy to you?" + +"Carlotta! Why, yes. I hadn't thought. She seems gayer than usual, if +anything." Tony's eyes sought her friend's face. Was there something a +little forced about that gaiety of hers? For the first time it struck her +that there was a restlessness in the lovely violet eyes which was +unfamiliar. Was Carlotta unhappy? Evidently Hal thought so. "You have +sharp eyes, Hal," she commented. "I hadn't noticed." + +"Oh, I'm one of the singed moths you know. I know Carlotta pretty well +and I know she is fighting some kind of a fight--maybe with herself. I +rather think it is. Tell Phil Lambert to come down here and marry her out +of hand. I tell you Lambert's the man." + +"You think Carlotta loves Phil?" + +"I don't think. 'Tisn't my business prying into a girl's fancies. I'm +simply telling you Phil Lambert is the man that ought to marry her, and +if he doesn't get on to the job almighty quick that pop-eyed simpleton +over there will be prancing down the aisle to Lohengrin with Carlotta +before Christmas, and the jig will be up. You tell him what I say. And +study the thing a bit yourself while you are here, Tony. See if you can +get to the bottom of it. I hate to have her mess things up for herself +that way." + +Whereupon Hal once more proceeded to do his duty to the mermaid, leaving +Tony to her other partner. + +"Well," the latter murmured, seeing her free. "I have done the heavy +polite act, discussed D'Annunzio, polo and psycho-analysis and finished +all three subjects neatly. Do I get my reward?" + +"What do you ask?" + +"The first dance and then the garden and the moon and you--all to +myself." + +Tony shook her head. She was on guard. + +"I shall want more than one dance and more than one partner. I am afraid +I shan't have time for the moon and the garden to-night. I adore dancing. +I never stop until the music does." + +A flash of exultancy leaped into his eyes. + +"So? I might have known you would adore dancing. You shall have your +fill. You shall have many dances, but only one partner. I shall suffice. +I am one of the best dancers in the world." + +"And evidently one of the vainest men," coolly. + +"What of it? Vanity is good when it is not misplaced. But I was not +boasting. I _am_ one of the best dancers in the world. Why should I not +be? My mother was Lucia Vannini. She danced before princes." He might +have added, "She was a prince's mistress." It had been the truth. + +"Oh!" cried Tony. She had heard of Lucia Vannini--a famous Italian beauty +and dancer of three decades ago. So Alan Massey was her son. No wonder he +was foreign, different, in ways and looks. One could forgive his +extravagances when one knew. + +"Ah, you like that, my beauty? You will like it even better when you +have danced with me. It is then that you will know what it is to dance. +We shall dance and dance and--love. I shall make you mine dancing, +_Toinetta mia_." + +Tony shrank back from his ardent eyes and his veiled threat. She was a +passionate devotee of her own freedom. She did not want to be made his or +any man's--certainly not his. She decided not to dance with him at all. +But later, when the violins began to play and Alan Massey came and stood +before her, uttering no word but commanding her to him with his eyes and +his out-stretched, nervous, slender, strong, artist hands, she +yielded--could scarcely have refused if she had wanted to. But she did +not want to, though she told herself it was with Lucia Vannini's son +rather than with Alan Massey that she desired to dance. + +After that she thought not at all, gave herself up to the very ecstasy of +emotion. She had danced all her life, but, even as he had predicted, she +learned for the first time in this man's arms what dancing really was. It +was like nothing she had ever even dreamed of--pure poetry of motion, a +curious, rather alarming weaving into one of two vividly alive persons in +a kind of pagan harmony, a rhythmic rapture so intense it almost hurt. It +seemed as if she could have gone on thus forever. + +But suddenly she perceived that she and her partner had the floor alone, +the others had stopped to watch, though the musicians still played on +frenziedly, faster and faster. Flushed, embarrassed at finding herself +thus conspicuous, she drew herself away from Alan Massey. + +"We must stop," she murmured. "They are all looking at us." + +"What of it?" He bent over her, his passionate eyes a caress. "Did I not +tell you, _carissima_ Was it not very heaven?" + +Tony shook her head. + +"I am afraid there was nothing heavenly about it. But it was wonderful. I +forgive you your boasting. You are the best dancer in the world. I am +sure of it." + +"And you will dance with me again and again, my wonder-girl. You must. +You want to." + +"I want to," admitted Tony. "But I am not going to--at least not again +to-night. Take me to a seat." + +He did so and she sank down with a fluttering sigh beside Miss Lottie +Cressy, Carlotta's aunt. The latter stared at her, a little oddly she +thought, and then looked up at Alan Massey. + +"You don't change, do you, Alan?" observed Miss Cressy. + +"Oh yes, I change a great deal. I have been very different ever since I +met Miss Tony." His eyes fell on the girl, made no secret of his emotions +concerning her and her beauty. + +Miss Cressy laughed a little sardonically. + +"No doubt. You were always different after each new sweetheart, I recall. +So were they--some of them." + +"You do me too much honor," he retorted suavely. "Shall we not go out, +Miss Holiday? The garden is very beautiful by moonlight." + +She bowed assent, and together they passed out of the room through the +French window. Miss Cressy stared after them, the bitter little smile +still lingering on her lips. + +"Youth for Alan always," she said to herself. "Ah, well, I was young, +too, those days in Paris. I must tell Carlotta to warn Tony. It would be +a pity for the child to be tarnished so soon by touching his kind too +close. She is so young and so lovely." + +Alan and Tony strayed to a remote corner of the spacious gardens and +came to a pause beside the fountain which leaped and splashed and caught +the moonlight in its falling splendor. For a moment neither spoke. Tony +bent to dip her fingers in the cool water. She had an odd feeling of +needing lustration from something. The man's eyes were upon her. She was +very young, very lovely, as Miss Cressy had said. There was something +strangely moving to Alan Massey about her virginal freshness, her +moonshine beauty. He was unaccustomed to compunction, but for a fleeting +second, as he studied Tony Holiday standing there with bowed head, +laving her hands in the sparkling purity of the water, he had an impulse +to go away and leave her, lest he cast a shadow upon her by his +lingering near her. + +It was only for a moment. He was far too selfish to follow the brief urge +to renunciation. The girl stirred his passion too deeply, roused his will +to conquer too irresistibly to permit him to forego the privilege of the +place and hour. + +She looked up at him and he smiled down at her, once more the +master-lover. + +"I was right, was I not, _Toinetta mia_? I did make you a little bit +mine, did I not? Be honest. Tell me." He laid a hand on each of her bare +white shoulders, looked deep, deep into her brown eyes as if he would +read secret things in their depths. + +Tony drew away from his hands, dropped her gaze once more to the rippling +white of the water, which was less disconcerting than Alan Massey's too +ardent green eyes. + +"You danced with me divinely. I shall also make you love me divinely even +as I promised. You know it dear one. You cannot deny it," the magically +beautiful voice which pulled so oddly at her heart strings went on +softly, almost in a sort of chant. "You love me already, my white +moonshine girl," he whispered. "Tell me you do." + +"Ah but I don't," denied Tony. "I--I won't. I don't want to love +anybody." + +"You cannot help it, dear heart. Nature made you for loving and being +loved. And it is I that you are going to love. Mine that you shall +be. Tell me, did you ever feel before as you felt in there when we +were dancing?" + +"No," said Tony, her eyes still downcast. + +"I knew it. You are mine, belovedest. I knew it the moment I saw you. It +is Kismet. Kiss me." + +"No." The girl pulled herself away from him, her face aflame. + +"No? Then so." He drew her back to him, and lifted her face gently with +his two hands. He bent over her, his lips close to hers. + +"If you kiss me I'll never dance with you again as long as I live!" +she flashed. + +He laughed a little mockingly, but he lowered his hands, made no effort +to gainsay her will. + +"What a horrible threat, you cruel little moonbeam! But you wouldn't keep +it. You couldn't. You love to dance with me too well." + +"I would," she protested, the more sharply because she suspected he was +right, that she would dance with him again, no matter what he did. "Any +way I shall not dance with you again to-night. And I shall not stay out +here with you any longer." She turned to flee, but he put out his hand +and held her back. + +"Not so fast, my Tony. They have eyes and ears in there. If you run away +from me and go back with those glorious fires lit in your cheeks and in +your eyes they will believe I did kiss you-." + +"Oh!" gasped Tony, indignant but lingering, recognizing the probable +truth of his prediction. + +"We shall go together after a minute with sedateness, as if we had been +studying the stars. I am wise, my Tony. Trust me." + +"Very well," assented Tony. "How many stars are there in the Pleiades, +anyway?" she asked with sudden imps of mirth in her eyes. + +Again she felt on safe ground, sure that she had conquered and put a +too presuming male in his place. She had no idea that the laurels had +been chiefly not hers at all but Alan Massey's, who was quite as wise +as he boasted. + +But she kept her word and danced no more with Alan Massey that night. +She did not dare. She hated Alan Massey, disapproved of him heartily and +knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with +him, especially if she let herself dance often with him as they had +danced to-night. + +And so, her very first night at Crest House, Antoinette Holiday +discovered that, there was such a thing as love after all, and that it +had to be reckoned with whether you desired or not to welcome it at +your door. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD + + +After that first night in the garden Alan Massey did not try to make open +love to Tony again, but his eyes, following her wherever she moved, made +no secret of his adoration. He was nearly always by her side, driving off +other devotees when he chose with a cool high-handedness which sometimes +amused, sometimes infuriated Tony. She found the man a baffling and +fascinating combination of qualities, all petty selfishness and colossal +egotisms one minute, abounding in endless charms and graces and small +endearing chivalries the next; outrageously outspoken at times, at other +times, reticent to the point of secretiveness; now reaching the most +extravagant pitch of high spirits, and then, almost without warning, +submerged in moods of Stygian gloom from which nothing could rouse him. + +Tony came to know something of his romantic and rather mottled career +from Carlotta and others, even from Alan himself. She knew perfectly well +he was not the kind of man Larry or her uncle would approve or tolerate. +She disapproved of him rather heartily herself in many ways. At times she +disliked him passionately, made up her mind she would have no more to do +with him. At other times she was all but in love with him, and suspected +she would have found the world an intolerably dull place with Alan Massey +suddenly removed from it. When they danced together she was dangerously +near being what he had claimed she was or would be--all his. She knew +this, was afraid of it, yet she kept on dancing with him night after +night. It seemed as if she had to, as if she would have danced with him +even if she knew the next moment would send them both hurtling through +space, like Lucifer, down to damnation. + +It was not until Dick Carson came down for a week end, some time later, +that Tony discovered the resemblance in Alan to some one she knew of +which Carlotta had spoken. Incredibly and inexplicably Dick and Alan +possessed a shadowy sort of similarity. In most respects they were as +different in appearance as they were in personality. Dick's hair was +brown and straight; Alan's, black and wavy. Dick's eyes were steady +gray-blue; Alan's, shifty gray-green. Yet the resemblance was there, +elusive, though it was. Perhaps it lay in the curve of the sensitive +nostrils, perhaps in the firm contour of chin, perhaps in the arch of the +brow. Perhaps it was nothing so tangible, just a fleeting trick of +expression. Tony did not know, but she caught the thing just as Carlotta +had and it puzzled and interested her. + +She spoke of it to Alan the next morning after Dick's arrival, as they +idled together, stretched out on the sand, waiting for the others to come +out of the surf. + +To her surprise he was instantly highly annoyed and resentful. + +"For Heaven's sake, Tony, don't get the resemblance mania. It's a +disgusting habit. I knew a woman once who was always chasing likenesses +in people and prattling about them--got her in trouble once and served +her right. She told a young lieutenant that he looked extraordinarily +like a certain famous general of her acquaintance. It proved later that +the young man had been born at the post where the general was stationed +while the presumptive father was absent on a year's cruise. It had been +quite a prominent scandal at the time." + +"That isn't a nice story, Alan. Moreover it is entirely irrelevant. But +you and Dick do look alike. I am not the only or the first person who saw +it, either." + +Alan started and frowned. + +"Good Lord! Who else?" he demanded. + +"Carlotta!" + +"The devil she did!" Alan's eyes were vindictive. Then he laughed. +"Commend me to a girl's imagination! This Dick chap seems to be head over +heels in love with you," he added. + +"What nonsense!" denied Tony crisply, fashioning a miniature sand +mountain as she spoke. + +"No nonsense at all, my dear. Perfectly obvious fact. Don't you suppose I +know how a man looks when he is in love? I ought to. I've been in love +often enough." + +Tony demolished her mountain with a wrathful sweep of her hand. + +"And registered all the appropriate emotions before the mirror, I +suppose. You make me sick, Alan. You are all pose. I don't believe there +is a single sincere thing about you." + +"Oh, yes, there is--are--two." + +"What are they?" + +"One is my sincere devotion to yourself, my beautiful. The other--an +equally sincere devotion to--_myself_." + +"I grant you the second, at least." + +"Don't pose, yourself, my darling. You know I love you. You pretend you +don't believe it, but you do. And way down deep in your heart you love my +love. It makes your heart beat fast just to think of it. See! Did I not +tell you?" He had suddenly put out his hand and laid it over her heart. + +"Poor little wild bird! How its wings flutter!" + +Tony got up swiftly from the sand, her face scarlet. She was indignant, +self-conscious, betrayed. For her heart had been beating at a fearful +clip and she knew it. + +"How dare you touch me like that, Alan Massey? I detest you. I don't see +why I ever listen to you at all, or let you come near me." + +Alan Massey, still lounging at her feet, looked up at her as she stood +above him, slim, supple, softly rounded, adorably pretty and feminine in +her black satin bathing suit and vivid, emerald hued cap. + +"I know why," he said and rose, too, slowly, with the indolent grace of a +leopard. "So do you, my Tony," he added. "We both know. Will you dance +with me a great deal to-night?" + +"No." + +"How many times?" + +"Not at all." + +"Indeed! And does his Dick Highmightiness object to your dancing with +me?" + +"Dick! Of course not. He hasn't anything to do with it. I am not going to +dance with you because you are behaving abominably to-day, and you did +yesterday and the day before that. I think you are nearly always +abominable, in fact." + +"Still, I am one of the best dancers in the world. It is a temptation, is +it not, my own?" + +He smiled his slow, tantalizing smile and, in spite of herself, Tony +smiled back. + +"It is," she admitted. "You are a heavenly dancer, Alan. There is no +denying it. If you were Mephisto himself I think I would dance with +you--occasionally." + +"And to-night?" + +"Once," relented Tony. "There come the others at last." And she ran off +down the yellow sands like a modern Atalanta. + +"My, but Tony is pretty to-night!" murmured Carlotta to Alan, who +chanced to be standing near her as her friend fluttered by with Dick. +"She looks like a regular flame in that scarlet chiffon. It is awfully +daring, but she is wonderful in it." + +"She is always wonderful," muttered Alan moodily, watching the slender, +graceful figure whirl and trip and flash down the floor like a gay poppy +petal caught in the wind. + +Carlotta turned. Something in Alan's tone arrested her attention. + +"Alan, I believe, it is real with you at last," she said. Up to that +moment she had considered his affair with Tony as merely another of his +many adventures in romance, albeit possibly a slightly more extravagant +one than usual. + +"Of course it is real--real as Hell," he retorted. "I'm mad over her, +Carla. I am going to marry her if I have to kill every man in the path to +get to her," savagely. + +"I am sorry, Alan. You must see Tony is not for the like of you. You +can't get to her. I wish you wouldn't try." + +Dick and Tony passed close to them again. Tony was smiling up at her +partner and he was looking down at her with a gaze that betrayed his +caring. Neither saw Alan and Carlotta. The savage light gleamed brighter +in Alan's green eyes. + +"Carlotta, is there anything between them?" he demanded fiercely. + +"Nothing definite. He adores her, of course, and she is very fond of him. +She feels as if he sort of belonged to her, I think. You know the story?" + +"Tell me." + +Briefly Carlotta outlined the tale of how Dick had taken refuge in the +Holiday barn when he had run away from the circus, and how Tony had found +him, sick and exhausted from fatigue, hunger and abuse; how the Holidays +had taken him in and set him on his feet, and Tony had given him her own +middle name of Carson since he had none of his own. + +Alan listened intently. + +"Did he ever get any clue as to his identity?" he asked as +Carlotta paused. + +"Never." + +"Has he asked Tony to marry him?" + +"I don't think so. I doubt if he ever does, so long as he doesn't know +who he is. He is very proud and sensitive, and has an almost +superstitious veneration for the Holiday tradition. Being a Holiday in +New England is a little like being of royal blood, you know. I don't +believe you will ever have to make a corpse of poor Dick, Alan." + +"I don't mind making corpses. I rather think I should enjoy making one of +him. I detest the long, lean animal." + +Had Alan known it, Dick had taken quite as thorough a dislike to his +magnificent self. At that very moment indeed, as he and Tony strolled in +the garden, Dick had remarked that he wished Tony wouldn't dance with +"that Massey." + +"And why not?" she demanded, always quick to resent dictatorial airs. + +"Because he makes you--well--conspicuous. He hasn't any business to dance +with you the way he does. You aren't a professional but he makes you look +like one." + +"Thanks. A left-hand compliment but still a compliment!" + +"It wasn't meant for one," said Dick soberly. "I hate it. Of course you +dance wonderfully yourself. It isn't just dancing with you. It is poetry, +stuff of dreams and all the rest of it. I can see that, and I know it +must be a temptation to have a chance at a partner like that. Lord! Tony! +No man in every day life has a right to dance the way he can. He +out-classes Castle. I hate that kind of a man--half woman." + +"There isn't anything of a woman about Alan, Dick. He is the most +virulently male man I ever knew." + +Dick fell silent at that. Presently he began again. + +"Tony, please don't be offended at what I am going to say. I know it is +none of my business, but I wish you wouldn't keep on with this affair +with Massey." + +"Why not?" There was an aggressive sparkle in Tony's eyes. + +"People are talking. I heard them last night when you were dancing with +him. It hurts. Alan Massey isn't the kind of a man for a girl like you to +flirt with." + +"Stuff and nonsense, Dicky! Any kind of a man is the kind for a girl to +flirt with, if she keeps her head." + +"But Tony, honestly, this Massey hasn't a good reputation." + +"How do you know?" + +"Newspaper men know a great deal. They have to. Besides, Alan Massey is a +celebrity. He is written up in our files." + +"What does that mean?" + +"It means that if he should die to-morrow all we would have to do would +be to put in the last flip. The biographical data is all on the card +ready to shoot." + +"Dear me. That's rather gruesome, isn't it?" shivered Tony. "I'm glad I'm +not a celebrity. I'd hate to be stuck down on your old flies. Will I get +on Alan's card if I keep on flirting with him?" + +"Good Lord! I should hope not." + +"I suppose I wouldn't be in very good company. I don't mean Alan. I +mean--his ladies." + +"Tony! Then you know?" + +"About Alan's ladies? Oh, yes. He told me himself." + +Dick looked blank. What was a man to do in a case like this, finding his +big bugaboo no bugaboo at all? + +"I know a whole lot about Alan Massey, maybe more than is on your old +card. I know his mother was Lucia Vannini, so beautiful and so gifted +that she danced in every court in Europe and was loved by a prince. I +know how Cyril Massey, an American artist, painted her portrait and +loved her and married her. I know how she worshiped him and was +absolutely faithful to him to the day he died, when the very light of +life went out for her." + +"She managed to live rather cheerfully afterward, even without light, if +all the stories about her are true," observed Dick, with, for him, +unusual cynicism. + +"You don't understand. She had to live." + +"There are other ways of living than those she chose." + +"Not for her. She knew only two things--love and dancing. She was thrown +from a horse the next year after her husband died. Dancing was over for +her. There was only--her beauty left. Her husband's people wouldn't have +anything to do with her because she had been a dancer and because of the +prince. Old John Massey, Cyril's uncle, turned her and her baby from his +door, and his cousin John and his wife refused even to see her. She said +she would make them hear of her before she died. She did." + +"They heard all right. She, and her son too, must have been a thorn in +the flesh of the Masseys. They were all rigid Puritans I understand, +especially old John." + +"Serve him right," sniffed Tony. "They were rolling in wealth. They might +have helped her kept her from the other thing they condemned so. She +wanted money only for Alan, especially after he began to show that he had +more than his father's gifts. She earned it in the only way she knew. I +don't blame her." + +"Tony!" + +"I can't help it if I am shocking you, Dick. I can understand why she did +it. She didn't care anything about the lovers. She never cared for anyone +after Cyril died. She gave herself for Alan. Can't you see that there was +something rather fine about it? I can." + +Dick grunted. He remembered hearing something about a woman whose sins +were forgiven her because she loved much. But he couldn't reconcile +himself to hearing such stories from Tony Holiday's lips. They were +remote from the clean, sweet, wholesome atmosphere in which she belonged. + +"Anyway, Alan was a wonderful success. He studied in Paris and he had +pictures on exhibition in salons over there before he was twenty. He was +fêted and courted and flattered and--loved, until he thought the world +was his and everything in it--including the ladies." Tony made a little +face at this. She did not care very-much for that part of Alan's story, +herself. "His mother was afraid he was going to have his head completely +turned and would lose all she had gained so hard for him, so she made him +come back to America and settle down. He did. He made a great name for +himself before he was twenty-five as a portrait painter and he and his +mother lived so happily together. She didn't need any more lovers then. +Alan was all she needed. And then she died, and he went nearly crazy with +grief, went all to pieces, every way. I suppose that part of his career +is what makes you say he isn't fit for me to flirt with." + +Dick nodded miserably. + +"It isn't very pleasant for me to think of, either," admitted Tony. "I +don't like it any better than you do. But he isn't like that any more. +When old John Massey died without leaving any will Alan got all the +money, because his cousin John and his stuck-up wife had died, too, and +there was nobody else. Alan pulled up stakes and traveled all over the +world, was gone two years and, when he came back, he wasn't dissipated +any more. I don't say he is a saint now. He isn't, I know. But he got +absolutely out of the pit he was in after his mother's death." + +"Lucky for him they never found the baby John Massey, who was stolen," +Dick remarked. "He would have been the heir if he could have appeared to +claim the money instead of Alan Massey, who was only a grand nephew." + +Tony stared. + +"There wasn't any baby," she exclaimed. + +"Oh yes, there was. John Massey, Junior, had a son John who was kidnapped +when he was asleep in the park and deserted by his nurse who had gone to +flirt with a policeman. There was a great fuss made about it at the time. +The Masseys offered fabulous sums of money for the return of the child, +but he never turned up. I had to dig up the story a few years ago when +old John died, which is why I know so much about it." + +"I don't believe Alan knew about the baby. He didn't tell me anything +about it." + +"I'll wager he knew, all right. It would be mighty unpleasant for him if +the other Massey turned up now." + +"Dick, I believe you would be glad if Alan lost the money," +reproached Tony. + +"Why no, Tony. It's nothing to me, but I've always been sorry for that +other Massey kid, though he doesn't know what he missed and is probably a +jail-bird or a janitor by this time, not knowing he is heir to one of +the biggest properties in America." + +"Sorry to disturb your theories, Mr.--er Carson," remarked Alan Massey, +suddenly appearing on the scene. "My cousin John happens to be neither a +jail-bird nor a janitor, but merely comfortably dead. Lucky John!" + +"But Dick said he wasn't dead--at least that nobody knew whether he was +or not," objected Tony. + +"Unfortunately your friend is in error. John Massey is entirely dead, I +assure you. And now, if he is quite through with me and my affairs, +perhaps Mr. Carson will excuse you. Come, dear." + +Alan laid a hand on Tony's arm with a proprietorial air which made Dick +writhe far more than his insulting manner to himself had done. Tony +looked quickly from one to the other. She hated the way Alan was +behaving, but she did not want to precipitate a scene and yielded, +leaving Dick, with a deprecatory glance, to go with Alan. + +"I don't like your manner," she told the latter. "You were abominably +rude just now." + +"Forgive me, sweetheart. I apologize. That young man of yours sets my +teeth on edge. I can't abide a predestined parson. I'll wager anything he +has been preaching at you." He smiled ironically as he saw the girl +flush. "So he did preach,--and against me, I suppose." + +"He did, and quite right, too. You are not at all a proper person for me +to flirt with, just as he said. Even Miss Lottie told me that and when +Miss Lottie objects to a man it means--" + +"That she has failed to hold him herself," said Alan cynically. "Stop, +Tony. I want to say something to you before we go in. I am not a proper +person. I told you that myself. There have been other women in my life--a +good many of them. I told you that, too. But that has absolutely nothing +to do with you and me. I love you. You are the only woman I ever have +loved in the big sense, at least the only one I have ever wanted to +marry. I am like my mother. She had many lesser loves. She had only one +great one. She married him. And I shall marry you." + +"Alan, don't. It is foolish--worse than foolish to talk like that. My +people would never let me marry you, even if I wanted to. Dick was +speaking for them just now when he warned me against you." + +"He was speaking for himself. Damn him!" + +"Alan!" + +"I beg your pardon, Tony. I'm a brute to-night. I am sorry. I won't +trouble you any more. I won't even keep you to your promise to dance once +with me if you wish to be let off." + +The music floated out to them, called insistently to Tony's rhythm-mad +feet and warm young blood. + +"Ah, but I do want to dance with you," she sighed. "I don't want to be +let off. Come." + +He bent over her, a flash of triumph in his eyes. + +"My own!" he exulted. "You are my own. Kiss me, belovedest." + +But Tony pulled away from him and he followed her. A moment later the +scarlet flame was in his arms whirling down the hall to the music of the +violins, and Dick, standing apart by the window watching, tasted the +dregs of the bitterest brew life had yet offered him. Better, far better +than Tony Holiday he knew where the scarlet flame was blowing. + +His dance with Tony over, Alan retired to the library where he used the +telephone to transmit a wire to Boston, a message addressed to one James +Roberts, a retired circus performer. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AND THERE IS A FLAME + + +When Alan Massey strayed into the breakfast room, one of the latest +arrivals at that very informal meal, he found a telegram awaiting him. It +was rather an odd message and ran thus, without capitalization or +punctuation. "Town named correct what is up let sleeping dogs lie sick." +Alan frowned as he thrust the yellow envelope into his pocket. + +"Does the fool mean he is sick, I wonder," he cogitated. "Lord, I wish I +could let well enough alone. But this sword of Damocles business is +beginning to get on my nerves. I have half a mind to take a run into town +this afternoon and see the old reprobate. I'll bet he doesn't know as +much as he claims to, but I'd like to be sure before he dies." + +Just then Tony Holiday entered, clad in a rose hued linen and looking +like a new blown rose herself. + +"You are the latest ever," greeted Carlotta. + +"On the contrary I have been up since the crack of dawn," denied Tony, +slipping into a seat beside her friend. + +Carlotta opened her eyes wide. Then she understood. + +"You got up to see Dick off," she announced. + +"I did. Please give me some strawberries, Hal, if you don't mean to eat +the whole pyramid yourself. I not only got up, but I went to the +station; not only went to the station, but I walked the whole mile and a +half. Can anybody beat that for a morning record?" Tony challenged as she +deluged her berries with cream. + +Alan Massey uttered a kind of a snarling sound such as a lion disturbed +from a nap might have emitted. He had thought he was through with Carson +when the latter had made his farewells the night before, saying +goodnight to Tony before them all. But Tony had gotten up at some +ridiculously early hour to escort him to the station, and did not mind +everybody's knowing it. He subsided into a dense mood of gloom. The +morning had begun badly. + +Later he discovered Tony in the rose garden with a big basket on her arm +and a charming drooping sun hat shading her even more charming face. She +waved him away as he approached. + +"Go away," she ordered. "I'm busy." + +"You mean you have made up your mind to be disagreeable to me," he +retorted, lighting a cigarette and looking as if he meant to fight it out +along that line if it took all summer. + +Tony snipped off a rose with her big shears and dropped it into her +basket. It rather looked as if she were meaning to snip off Alan Massey +figuratively in much the same ruthless manner. + +"Put it that way, if you like. Only stay away. I mean it." + +"Why?" he persisted. + +Thus pressed she turned and faced him. + +"It is a lovely morning--all blue and gold and clean-washed after last +night's storm--a good morning. I'm feeling good, too. The clean morning +has got inside of me. And when you come near me I feel a pricking in my +thumbs. You don't fit into my present, mood. Please go, Alan. I am +perfectly serious. I don't want to talk to you." + +"What have I done? I am no different from what I was yesterday." + +"I know. It isn't anything you have done. It isn't you at all. It is I +who am different--or want to be." Tony spoke earnestly. She was perfectly +sincere. She did want to be different. She had not slept well the night +before. She had thought a great deal about Holiday Hill and Uncle Phil +and her brothers and--well, yes--about Dick Carson. They all armed her +against Alan Massey. + +Alan threw away his cigarette with an angry gesture. + +"You can't play fast and loose with me, Tony Holiday. You have been +leading me on, playing the devil with me for days. You know you have. Now +you are scared, and want to get back to shallow water. It is too late. +You are in deep seas and you've got to stay there--with me." + +"I haven't _got_ to do anything, Alan. You are claiming more than you +have any right to claim." + +But he came nearer, towered above her, almost menacingly. + +"Because that nameless fool of a reporter with his sanctimonious airs and +impeccable morals, has put you against me you want to sack me. You can't +do it. Last night you were ready to go any lengths with me. You know it. +Do you think I am going to be balked by a miserable circus brat--a mere +nobody? Not so long as I am Alan Massey. Count on that." + +Tony's dark eyes were ablaze with anger. + +"Stop there, Alan. You are saying things that are not true. And I forbid +you ever to speak of Dick like that again to me." + +"Indeed! And how are you going to prevent my saying what I please about +your precious protégé?" sneered Alan. + +"I shall tell Carlotta I won't stay under the same roof with anybody who +insults my friends. You won't have to restrain yourself long in any case. +I am leaving Saturday--perhaps sooner." + +"Tony!" The sneer died away from Alan's face, which had suddenly grown +white. "You mustn't go. I can't live without you, my darling. If you knew +how I worshiped you, how I cannot sleep of nights for wanting you, you +wouldn't talk of going away from me. I was brutal just now. I admit it. +It is because I love you so. The thought of your turning from me, +deserting me, maddened me. I am not responsible for what I said. You must +forgive me. But, oh my belovedest, you are mine! Don't try to deny it. We +have belonged to each other for always. You know it. You feel it. I have +seen the knowledge in your eyes, felt it flutter in your heart. Will you +marry me, Tony Holiday? You shall be loved as no woman was ever loved. +You shall be my queen. I will be true to you forever and ever, your +slave, your mate. Tony, Tony, say yes. You must!" + +But Tony drew back from him, frightened, repulsed, shocked, by the +storm of his passion which shook him as mighty trees are shaken by +tempests. She shrank from the hungry fires in his eyes, from the +abandon and fierceness of his wooing. It was an alien, disturbing, +dreadful thing to her. + +"Don't," she implored. "You mustn't love me like that, Alan. You +must not." + +"How can I help it, sweetheart? I am no iceberg. I am a man and you are +the one woman in the world for me. I love you--love you. I want you. I'm +going to have you--make you mine--marry you, bell and book, what you +will, so long as you are mine--mine--mine." + +Tony set down her basket, clasped her hands behind her and stood looking +straight up into his face. + +"Listen, Alan. I cannot marry you. I couldn't, even if I loved you, and +I don't think I do love you, though you fascinate me and, when we are +dancing, I forget all the other things in you that I hate. I have been +very foolish and maybe unkind to let it go on so far. I didn't quite know +what I was doing. Girls don't know. That is why they play with men as +they do. They don't mean to be cruel. They just don't know." + +"But you know now, my Tony?" His dark, stormy face was very close to +hers. Tony felt her heart leap but she did not flinch nor pull away +this time. + +"Yes, Alan, I know, in a way, at least. We mustn't go on like this. It is +bad for us both. I'll tell Carlotta I am going home to-morrow." + +"You want--to go away from me?" The haunting music of his voice, more +moving in its hurt than in its mastery of mood, stirred Tony Holiday +profoundly, but she steadied herself by a strong effort of will. She must +not let him sweep her away from her moorings. She must not. She must +remember Holiday Hill very hard. + +"I have to, Alan," she said. "I am very sorry if I have hurt you, am +hurting you. But I can't marry you. That is final. The sooner we end +things the better." + +"By God! It isn't final. It never will be so long as you and I are both +alive. You will come to me of your own accord. You will love me. You do +love me now. But you are letting the world come in between where it has +no right to come. I tell you you are mine--mine!" + +"No, no!" denied Tony. + +"And I say yes, my love. You are my love. I have set my seal upon you. +You can go away, back to your Hill, but you will not be happy without me. +You will never forget me for a waking moment. You cannot. You are a part +of me, forever." + +There was something solemn, inexorable in Alan's tones. A strange fear +clutched at Tony's heart. Was he right? Could she never forget him? +Would he always be a part of her--forever? No, that was nonsense! How +could it be true? How could he have set his seal upon her when he had +never even kissed her? She would not let him hypnotize her into +believing his prophecy. + +She stooped mechanically to pick up her roses and remembered the story +of Persephone gathering lilies in the vale of Enna and suddenly borne +off by the coal black horses of Dis to the dark kingdom of the lower +world. Was she Persephone? Had she eaten of the pomegranate seeds while +she danced night after night in Alan Massey's arms? No, she would not +believe it. She was free. She would exile Alan Massey from her heart and +life. She must. + +This resolve was in her eyes as she lifted them to Alan's. The fire had +died out of his now, and his face was gray and drawn in the sunshine. His +mood had changed as his moods so often did swiftly. + +"Forgive me, Tony," he said humbly. "I have troubled you, frightened you. +I am sorry. You needn't go away. I will go. I don't want to spoil one +moment of happiness for you. I never shall, except when the devil is in +me. Please try to remember that. Say always, 'Alan loves me. No matter +what he does or says, he loves me. His love is real, if nothing else +about him is.' You do believe that, don't you, dearest?" he pleaded. + +"I do, Alan. I have always believed it, I think, ever since that first +night, though I have tried not to. I am very sorry though. Love--your +kind of love is a fearful thing. I am afraid of it." + +"It is fearful, but beautiful too--very beautiful--like fire. Did you +ever think what a strange dual element fire is? It consumes--is a force +of destruction. But it also purifies, burns out dross. Love is like +that, my Tony. Mine for you may damn me forever, or it may take me to the +very gate of Heaven. I don't know myself which it will be." + +As he spoke there was a strange kind of illumination on his face, a look +almost of spiritual exaltation. It awed Tony, bereft her of words. This +was a new Alan Massey--an Alan Massey she had never seen before, and she +found herself looking up instead of down at him. + +He stooped and kissed her hand reverently, as a devotee might pay homage +at the shrine of a saint. + +"I shall not see you again until to-night, Tony. I am going into town. +But I shall be back--for one more dance with you, heart's dearest. And +then I promise I will go away and leave you tomorrow. You will dance with +me, Tony--once? We shall have that one perfect thing to remember?" + +Tony bowed assent. And in a moment she was alone with her roses. + +That afternoon she shut herself in her room to write letters to the home +people whom she had neglected badly of late. Every moment had been so +full since she had come to Carlotta's. There had been so little time to +write and when she had written it had given little of what she was really +living and feeling--just the mere externals and not all of them, as she +was very well aware. They would never understand her relation with Alan. +They would disapprove, just as Dick had disapproved. Perhaps she did not +understand, herself, why she had let herself get so deeply entangled in +something which could not go on, something, which was the profoundest +folly, if nothing worse. + +The morning had crystallized her fear of the growing complication of the +situation. She was glad Alan was going away, glad she had had the +strength of will to deny him his will, glad that she could now--after +to-night--come back into undisputed possession of the kingdom of herself. +But in her heart she was gladder that there was to-night and that one +last dance with Alan Massey before life became simple and sane and tame +again, and Alan and his wild love passed out of it forever. + +She finished her letters, which were not very satisfactory after all. +How could one write real letters when one's pen was writing one thing +and one's thoughts were darting hither and thither about very different +business? She threw herself in the chaise longue, not yet ready to +dress and go down to join the others. There was nobody there she cared +to talk to, somehow. Alan was not there. Nobody else mattered. It had +come to that. + +Idly she picked up a volume of verse that lay beside her on the table and +fluttered its pages, seeking something to meet her restless mood. +Presently in her vagrant seeking she chanced upon a little poem--a poem +she read and reread, twice, three times. + + "For there is a flame that has blown too near, +And there is a name that has grown too dear, + And there is a fear. +And to the still hills and cool earth and far sky I make moan. +The heart in my bosom is not my own! +Oh, would I were free as the wind on wing! +Love is a terrible thing!" + +Tony laid the book face down upon the table, still open at the little +verse. The shadows were growing long out there in the dusk. The late +afternoon sun was pale honey color. A soft little breeze stirred the +branches of a weeping willow tree and set them to swaying languorously. +Unseen birds twittered happily among the shrubbery. A golden butterfly +poised for a moment above the white holly hocks and then drifted off over +the flaming scarlet poppies and was lost to sight. + +It was all so beautiful, so serene. She felt that it should have come +like a benediction, cooling the fever of her tired mind, but it did not. +It could not even drive the words of the poem out of her head. + +Oh, would I were free as the wind on wing! +Love is a terrible thing! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BITTER FRUIT + + +From the North Station in Boston Alan Massey directed his course to a +small cigar store on Atlantic Avenue. A black eyed Italian lad in +attendance behind the counter looked up as he entered and surveyed him +with grave scrutiny. + +"I am Mr. Massey," announced Alan. "Mr. Roberts is expecting me. I +wired." + +"Jim's sick," said the boy briefly. + +"I am sorry. I hope he is not too sick to see me." + +"Naw, he'll see you. He wants to." The speaker motioned Alan to follow +him to the rear of the store. Together they mounted some narrow stairs, +passed through a hallway and into a bedroom, a disorderly, dingy, +obviously man-kept affair. On the bed lay a large framed, exceedingly +ugly looking man. His flesh was yellow and sagged loosely away from his +big bones. The impression he gave was one of huge animal bulk, shriveling +away in an unlovely manner, getting ready to disintegrate entirely. The +man was sick undoubtedly. Possibly dying. He looked it. + +The door shut with a soft click. The two men were alone. + +"Hello, Jim." Alan approached the bed. "Bad as this? I am sorry." He +spoke with the careless, easy friendliness he could assume when it +suited him. + +The man grinned, faintly, ironically. The grin did not lessen the +ugliness of his face, rather accentuated it. + +"It's not so bad," he drawled. "Nothing but death and what's that? I +don't suffer much--not now. It's cancer, keeps gnawing away like a rat in +the wall. By and by it will get up to my heart and then it's good-by Jim. +I shan't care. What's life good for that a chap should cling to it like a +barnacle on a rock?" + +"We do though," said Alan Massey. + +"Oh, yes, we do. It's the way we're made. We are always clinging to +something, good or bad. Life, love, home, drink, power, money! Always +something we are ready to sell our souls to get or keep. With you and me +it was money. You sold your soul to me to keep money and I took it to +get money." + +He laughed raucously and Alan winced at the sound and cursed the morbid +curiosity that had brought him to the bedside of this man who for three +years past had held his own future in his dirty hand, or claimed to hold +it. Alan Massey had paid, paid high for the privilege of not knowing +things he did not wish to know. + +"What kind of a trail had you struck when you wired me, Massey? I didn't +know you were anxious for details about young John Massey's career I +thought you preferred ignorance. It was what you bought of me." + +"I know it was," groaned Alan, dropping into a creaking rocker beside the +bed. "I am a fool. I admit it. But sometimes it seems to me I can't stand +not knowing. I want to squeeze what you know out of you as you would +squeeze a lemon until there was nothing left but bitter pulp. It is +driving me mad." + +The sick man eyed the speaker with a leer of malicious satisfaction. It +was meat to his soul to see this lordly young aristocrat racked with +misery and dread, to hold him in his power as a cat holds a mouse, which +it can crush and crunch at any moment if it will. Alan Massey's mood +filled Jim Roberts with exquisite enjoyment, enjoyment such as a gourmand +feels on setting his teeth in some rare morsel of food. + +"I know," he nodded. "It works like that often. They say a murderer can't +keep away from the scene of his crime if he is left at large. There is an +irresistible fascination to him about the spot where he damned his +immortal soul." + +"I'm not a criminal," snarled Alan. "Don't talk to me like that or you +will never see another cent of my money." + +"Money!" sneered the sick man. "What's that to me now? I've lost my taste +for money. It is no good to me any more. I've got enough laid by to bury +me and I can't take the rest with me. Your money is nothing to me, Alan +Massey. But you'll pay still, in a different way. I am glad you came. It +is doing me good." + +Alan made a gesture of disgust and got to his feet, pacing to and fro, +his face dark, his soul torn, between conflicting emotions. + +"I'll be dead soon," went on the malicious, purring voice from the bed. +"Don't begrudge me my last fling. When I am in my grave you will be safe. +Nobody in the living world but me knows young John Massey's alive. You +can keep your money then with perfect ease of mind until you get to where +I am now and then,--maybe you will find out the money will comfort you no +longer, that nothing but having a soul can get you over the river." + +The younger man's march came to a halt by the bedside. + +"You shan't die until you tell me what you know about John Massey," he +said fiercely. + +"You're a fool," said James Roberts. "What you don't know you are not +responsible for--you can forget in a way. If you insist on hearing the +whole story you will never be able to get away from it to your dying day. +John Massey as an abstraction is one thing. John Massey as a live human +being, whom you have cheated out of a name and a fortune, is another." + +"I never cheated him of a name. You did that." + +The man grunted. + +"Right. That is on my bill. Lord knows, I wish it wasn't. Little enough +did I ever get out of that particular piece of deviltry. I over-reached +myself, was a darned little bit too smart. I held on to the boy, thinking +I'd get more out of it later, and he slid out of my hands like an eel and +I had nothing to show for it, until you came along and I saw a chance to +make a new deal at your expense. You fell for it like a lamb to the +slaughter. I'll never forget your face when I told you John Massey was +alive and that I could produce him in a minute for the courts. If I had, +your name would have been Dutch, young man. You'd never have gotten a +look in on the money. You had the sense to see that. Old John died +without a will. His grandson and not his grand-nephew was his heir +provided anybody could dig up the fellow, and I was the boy that could do +that. I proved that to you, Alan Massey." + +"You proved nothing. You scared me into handing you over a whole lot of +money, you blackmailing rascal, I admit that. But you didn't prove +anything. You showed me the baby clothes you said John Massey wore when +he was stolen. The name might easily enough have been stamped on the +linen later. You showed me a silver rattle marked 'John Massey.' The +inscription might also easily enough have been added later at a crook's +convenience. You showed me some letters purporting to have been written +by the woman who stole the child and was too much frightened by her crime +to get the gains she planned to win from it. The letters, too, might +easily have been forgery. The whole thing might have been a cock and bull +story, fabricated by a rotten, clever mind like yours, to apply the money +screw to me." + +"True," chuckled Jim Roberts. "Quite true. I wondered at your credulity +at the time." + +"You rat! So it was all a fake, a trap?" + +"You would like to believe that, wouldn't you? You would like to have a +dying man's oath that there was nothing but a pack of lies to the whole +thing, blackmail of the crudest, most unsupportable variety?" + +Alan bent over the man, shook his fist in the evil, withered old face. + +"Damn you, Jim Roberts! Was it a lie or was it not?" + +"Keep your hands off me, Alan Massey. It was the truth. Sarah Nelson did +steal the child just as I told you. She gave the child to me when she was +dying a few months later. I'll give my oath on that if you like." + +Alan brushed his hand across his forehead, and sat down again limply in +the creaking rocker. + +"Oh, you are willing to believe that again now, are you?" mocked Roberts. + +"I've got to, I suppose. Go on. Tell me the rest. I've got to know. Did +you really make a circus brat of John Massey and did he really run away +from you? That is all you told me before, you remember." + +"It was all you wanted to know. Besides," the man smiled his diabolical +grin again, "there was a reason for going light on the details. At the +time I held you up I hadn't any more idea than you had where John Massey +was, nor whether he was even alive. It was the weak spot in my armor. +But you were so panic stricken at the thought of having to give up your +gentleman's fortune that you never looked at the hollowness of the thing. +You could have bowled over my whole scheme in a minute by being honest +and telling me to bring on your cousin, John Massey. But you didn't. You +were only too afraid I would bring him on before you could buy me off. I +knew I could count on your being blind and rotten. I knew my man." + +"Then you don't know now whether John Massey is alive or not?" Alan asked +after a pause during which he let the full irony of the man's confession +sink into his heart and turn there like a knife in a wound. + +"That is where you're dead wrong. I do know. I made it my business to +find out. It was too important to have an invulnerable shield not to +patch up the discrepancy as early as possible. It took me a year to get +my facts and it cost a good chink of the filthy, but I got them. I not +only know that John Massey is alive but I know where he is and what he is +doing. I could send for him to-morrow, and cook your goose for you +forever, young man." + +He pulled himself up on one elbow to peer into Alan's gloomy face. + +"I may do it yet," he added. "You needn't offer me hush money. It's no +good to me, as I told you. I don't want money. I only want to pass the +time until the reaper comes along. You'll grant that it would be amusing +to me to watch the see-saw tip once more, to see you go down and your +cousin John come up." + +Alan was on his feet again now, striding nervously from door to window +and back again. He had wanted to know. Now he knew. He had knowledge +bitter as wormwood. The man had lied before. He was not lying now. + +"What made you send that wire? Were you on the track, too, trying to +find out on your own where your cousin is?" + +"Not exactly. Lord knows I didn't want to know. But I had a queer hunch. +Some coincidences bobbed up under my nose that I didn't like the looks +of. I met a young man a few days ago that was about the age John would +have been, a chap with a past, who had run away from a circus. The thing +stuck in my crop, especially as there was a kind of shadowy resemblance +between us that people noticed." + +"That is interesting. And his name?" + +"He goes under the name of Carson--Richard Carson." + +Roberts nodded. + +"The same. Good boy. You have succeeded in finding your cousin. +Congratulations!" he cackled maliciously. + +"Then it really is he?" + +"Not a doubt of it. He was taken up by a family named Holiday in Dunbury, +Massachusetts. They gave him a home, saw that he got some schooling, +started him on a country newspaper. He was smart, took to books, got +ahead, was promoted from one paper to another. He is on a New York daily +now, making good still, I'm told. Does it tally?" + +Alan bowed assent. It tallied all too well. The lad he had insulted, +jeered at, hated with instinctive hate, was his cousin, John Massey, the +third, whom he had told the other was quite dead. John Massey was very +much alive and was the rightful heir to the fortune which Alan Massey was +spending as the heavens had spent rain yesterday. + +It was worse than that. If the other was no longer nameless, had the +right to the same fine, old name that Alan himself bore, and had too +often disgraced, the barrier between him and Tony Holiday was swept +away. That was the bitterest drop in the cup. No wonder he hated +Dick--hated him now with a cumulative, almost murderous intensity. He had +mocked at the other, but how should he stand against him in fair field? +It was he--Alan Massey--that was the outcast, his mother a woman of +doubtful fame, himself a follower of false fires, his life ignoble, +wayward, erratic, unclean? Would it not be John rather than Alan Massey +Tony Holiday would choose, if she knew all? This ugly, venomous, +sin-scarred old rascal held his fate in the hollow of his evil old hand. + +The other was watching him narrowly, evidently striving to follow +his thoughts. + +"Well?" he asked. "Going to beat me at my own game, give your +cousin his due?" + +"No," curtly. + +"Queer," mused the man. "A month ago I would have understood it. It would +have seemed sensible enough to hold on to the cold cash at any risk. Now +it looks different. Money is filthy stuff, man. It is what they put on +dead eye-lids to keep them down. Sometimes we put it on our own living +lids to keep us from seeing straight. You are sure the money's worth so +much to you, Alan Massey?" + +The man's eyes burned livid, like coals. It was a strange and rather +sickening thing, Alan Massey thought, to hear him talk like this after +having lived the rottenest kind of a life, sunk in slime for years. + +"The money is nothing to me," he flung back. "Not now. I thought it was +worth considerable when I drove that devilish bargain with you to keep +it. It has been worse than nothing, if you care to know. It killed my +art--the only decent thing about me--the only thing I had a right to take +honest pride in. John Massey might have every penny of it to-morrow for +all I care if that were all there were to it." + +"What else is there?" probed the old man. + +"None of your business," snarled Alan. Not for worlds would he have +spoken Tony Holiday's name in this spot, under the baleful gleam of those +dying eyes. + +The man chuckled maliciously. + +"You don't need to tell me, I know. There's always a woman in it when a +man takes the path to Hell. Does she want money? Is that why you must +hang on to the filthy stuff?" + +"She doesn't want anything except what I can't give her, thanks to you +and myself--the love of a decent man." + +"I see. When we meet _the_ woman we wish we'd sowed fewer wild oats. I +went through that myself once. She was a white lily sort of girl and +I--well, I'd gone the pace long before I met her. I wasn't fit to touch +her and I knew it. I went down fast after that--nothing to keep me back. +Old Shakespeare says something somewhere about our pleasant vices beings +whips to goad us with. You and I can understand that, Alan Massey. We've +both felt the lash." + +Alan made an impatient gesture. He did not care to be lumped with this +rotten piece of flesh lying there before him. + +"I suppose you are wondering what my next move is," went on Roberts. + +"I don't care." + +"Oh yes, you do. You care a good deal. I can break you, Alan Massey, and +you know it." + +"Go ahead and break and be damned if you choose," raged Alan. + +"Exactly. As I choose. And I can keep you dancing on some mighty hot +gridirons before I shuffle off. Don't forget that, Alan Massey. And +there will be several months to dance yet, if the doctors aren't off +their count." + +"Suit yourself. Don't hurry about dying on my account," said Alan with +ironical courtesy. + +A few moments later he was on his way back to the station. His universe +reeled. All he was sure was that he loved Tony Holiday and would fight to +the last ditch to win and keep her and that she would be in his arms +to-night for perhaps the last time. The rest was a hideous blur. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SHACKLES + + +The evening was a specially gala occasion, with a dinner dance on, the +last big party before Tony went home to her Hill. The great ball room at +Crest House had been decorated with a network of greenery and crimson +rambler roses. A ruinous-priced, _de luxe_ orchestra had been brought +down from the city. The girls had saved their prettiest gowns and looked +their rainbow loveliest for the crowning event. + +Tony was wearing an exquisite white chiffon and silver creation, with +silver slippers and a silver fillet binding her dark hair. Alan had sent +her some wonderful orchids tied with silver ribbon, and these she wore; +but no jewelry whatever, not even a ring. There was something +particularly radiant about her young loveliness that night. The young men +hovered about her like honey bees about a rose and at every dance they +cut in and cut in until her white and silver seemed to be drifting from +one pair of arms to another. + +Tony was very gay and bountiful and impartial in her smiles and favors, +but all the time she waited, knowing that presently would come the one +dance to which there would be no cutting in, the dance that would make +the others seem nothing but shadows. + +By and by the hour struck. She saw Alan leave his place by the window +where he had been moodily lounging, saw him come toward her, taller +than any man in the room, distinguished--a king among the rest, it +seemed to Tony, waiting, longing for his coming? yet half dreading it, +too. For the sooner he came, the sooner it must all end. She was with +Hal at the moment, waiting for the music to begin, but as Alan +approached she turned to her companion with a quick appeal in her eyes +and a warm flush on her cheeks. + +"I am sorry, Hal," she said, low in his ear. "But this is Alan's. He is +going away to-morrow. Forgive me." + +Hal turned, stared at Alan Massey, turned back to Tony, bowed and +moved away. + +"Hanged if there isn't something magnificent about the fellow," he +thought. "No matter how you detest him there is something about him that +gets you. I wonder how far he has gone with Tony. Gee! It's a rotten +combination. But Lordy! How they can dance--those two!" + +Never as long as she lived was Tony Holiday to forget that dance with +Alan Massey. As a musician pours himself into his violin, as a poet puts +his soul into his sonnet, as a sculptor chisels his dream in marble, so +her companion flung his passion and despair and imploring into his +dancing. They forgot the others, forgot everything but themselves. They +might have been dancing alone on the top of Olympus for all either knew +or cared for the rest of the world. + +It was Alan, not Tony, who brought it to an end, however. He whispered +something in the girl's ear and their feet paused. In a moment he was +holding open the French window for her to pass out into the night. The +white and silver vanished like a cloud. Alan Massey followed. The window +swung shut again. The music stopped abruptly as if now its inspiration +had come to an end. A single note of a violin quivered off into silence +after the others, like the breath of beauty itself passing. + +Carlotta and her aunt happened to be standing near each other. The girl's +eyes were troubled. She wished Alan had not come back at all from the +city. She hoped he really intended to go away to-morrow as he had told +her. More than all she hoped she was right in believing that Tony had +refused to marry him. Like Dick, Carlotta had reverence for the Holiday +tradition. She could not bear to think of Tony's marrying Alan. She felt +woefully responsible for having brought the two together. + +"Did you say he was going to-morrow?" asked her aunt. + +Carlotta nodded. + +"He won't go," prophesied Miss Cressy. + +"Oh, yes. I think he will. I don't know for certain but I have an idea +she refused him this morning." + +"Ah, but that was this morning. Things look very different by star light. +That child ought not to be out there with him. She is losing her head." + +"Aunt Lottie! Alan is a gentleman," demurred Carlotta. + +Miss Lottie smiled satirically. Her smile repeated Ted Holiday's verdict +that some gentlemen were rotters. + +"You forget, my dear, that I knew Alan Massey when you and Tony were in +short petticoats and pigtails. You can't trust too much to his +gentlemanliness." + +"Of course, I know he isn't a saint," admitted Carlotta. "But you don't +understand. It is real with Alan this time. He really cares. It isn't +just--just the one thing." + +"It is always the one thing with Alan Massey's kind. I know what I am +talking about, Carlotta. He was a little in love with me once. I dare say +we both thought it was different at the time. It wasn't. It was pretty +much the same thing. Don't cherish any romantic notions about love, +Carlotta. There isn't any love as you mean it." + +"Oh yes, there is," denied Carlotta suddenly, a little fiercely. +"There is love, but most of us aren't--aren't worthy of it. It is too +big for us. That is why we get the cheap _little_ stuff. It is all we +are fit for." + +Miss Carlotta stared at her niece. But before she could speak Hal +Underwood had claimed the latter for a dance. + +"H--m!" she mused looking after the two. "So even Carlotta isn't immune. +I wonder who he was." + +Meanwhile, out in the garden Tony and Alan had strayed over to the +fountain, just as they had that first evening after that first dance. + +"Tony, belovedest, let me speak. Listen to me just once more. You do love +me. Don't lie to me with your lips when your eyes told me the truth in +there. You are mine, mine, my beautiful, my love--all mine." + +He drew her into his arms, not passionately but gently. It was his +gentleness that conquered. A storm of unrestrained emotion would have +driven her away from him, but his sudden quiet strength and tenderness +melted her last reservation. She gave her lips unresisting to his kiss. +And with that kiss, desire of freedom and all fear left her. For the +moment, at least, love was all and enough. + +"Tony, my belovedest," he whispered. "Say it just once. Tell me you love +me." It was the old, old plea, but in Tony's ears it was immortally new. + +"I love you, Alan. I didn't want to. I have fought it all along as you +know. But it was no use. I do love you." + +"My darling! And I love you. You don't know how I love you. It is like +suddenly coming out into sunshine after having lived in a cave all my +life. Will you marry me to-morrow, _carissima_?" + +But she drew away from his arms at that. + +"Alan, I can't marry you ever. I can only love you." + +"Why not? You must, Tony!" The old masterfulness leaped into his voice. + +"I cannot, Alan. You know why." + +She lifted her eyes to his and in their clear depths he saw reflected his +own willful, stained, undisciplined past. He bowed his head in real shame +and remorse. Nothing stood between himself and Antoinette Holiday but +himself. He had sown the wind. He reaped the whirlwind. + +After a moment he looked up again. He made no pretence of +misunderstanding her meaning. + +"You couldn't forgive?" he pleaded brokenly. Gone was the royal-willed +Alan Massey. Only a beggar in the dust remained. + +"Yes, Alan. I could forgive. I do now. I think I can understand how such +things can be in a man's life though it would break my heart to think Ted +or Larry were like that. But you never had a chance. Nobody ever helped +you to keep your eyes on the stars." + +"They are there now," he groaned. "You are my star, Tony, and stars are +very, very far away from the like of me," he echoed Carlotta's phrase. + +For almost the first time in his life humility possessed him. Had he +known it, it lifted him higher in Tony's eyes than all his arrogance and +conceit of power had ever done. + +Gently she slid her hand into his. + +"I don't feel far away, Alan. I feel very near. But I can't marry +you--not now anyway. You will have to prove to them all--to me, too--that +you are a man a Holiday might be proud to marry. I could forget the +past. I think I could persuade Uncle Phil and the rest to forget it, too. +They are none of them self-righteous Puritans. They could understand, +just as I understand, that a man might fall in battle and carry scars of +defeat, but not be really conquered. Alan, tell me something. It isn't +easy to ask but I must. Are the things I have to forget far back in the +past or--nearer? I know they go back to Paris days, the days Miss Lottie +belongs to. Oh, yes," as he started at that. "I guessed that. You mustn't +blame her. She was merely trying to warn me. She meant it for my good, +not to be spiteful and not because she still cares, though I think she +does. And I know there are things that belong to the time after your +mother died, and you didn't care what you did because you were so +unhappy. But are they still nearer? How close are they, Alan?" + +He shook his head despairingly. + +"I wish I could lie to you, Tony. I can't. They are too close to be +pleasant to remember. But they never will be again. I swear it. Can you +believe it?" + +"I shall have to believe it--be convinced of it before I could marry +you. I can't marry you, not being certain of you, just because my heart +beats fast when you come near me, because I love your voice and your +kisses and would rather dance with you than to be sure of going to +Heaven. Marriage is a world without end business. I can't rush into it +blindfold. I won't." + +"You don't love me as I love you or you couldn't reason so coldly about +it," he reproached. "You would go blindfold anywhere--to Hell itself +even, with me." + +"I don't know, Alan. I could let myself go. While we were dancing in +there I am afraid I would have been willing to go even as far as you say +with you. But out here in the star-light I am back being myself. I want +to make my life into something clean and sweet and fine. I don't want to +let myself be driven to follow weak, selfish, rash impulses and do things +that will hurt other people and myself. I don't want to make my people +sorry. They are dearer than any happiness of my own. They would not let +me marry you now, even if I wished it. If I did what you want and what +maybe something in me wants too--run off and marry you tomorrow without +their consent--it would break their hearts and mine, afterward when I had +waked up to what I had done. Don't ask me, dear. I couldn't do it." + +"But what will you do, Tony? Won't you marry me ever?" Alan's tone was +helpless, desolate. He had run up against a power stronger than any he +had ever wielded, a force which left him baffled. + +"I don't know. It will depend upon you. A year from now, if you still +want me and I am still free, if you can come to me and tell me you have +lived for twelve months as a man who loves a woman ought to live, I will +marry you if I love you enough; and I think--I am sure, I shall, for I +love you very much this minute." + +"A year! Tony, I can't wait a year for you. I want you now." Alan's tone +was sharp with dismay. He was not used to waiting for what he desired. He +had taken it on the instant, as a rule, and as a rule, his takings had +been dust and ashes as soon as they were in his hands. + +"You cannot have me, Alan. You can never have me unless you earn the +right to win me--straight. Understand that once for all. I will not marry +a weakling. I will marry--a conquerer--perhaps." + +"You mean that, Tony?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Then, by God, I'll be a conquerer!" he boasted. + +"I hope you will. Oh, my dear, my dear! It will break my heart if you +fail. I love you." And suddenly Tony was clinging to him, just a woman +who cared, who wanted her lover, even as he wanted her. But in a +breath she pulled herself away. "Take me in, Alan, now," she said. +"Kiss me once before we go. I shall not see you in the morning. This +is really good-by." + +Later, Carlotta, coming in to say goodnight to Tony, found the latter +sitting in front of the mirror brushing out her abundant red-brown hair +and noticed how very scarlet her friend's cheeks were and what a +tell-tale shining glory there was in her eyes. + +"It was a lovely party," announced Tony casually, unaware how much +Carlotta had seen over her shoulder in the mirror. + +"Tony, are you in love with Alan Massey?" demanded Carlotta. + +Tony whirled around on the stool, her cheeks flying deeper crimson +banners at this unexpected challenge. + +"I am afraid I am, Carlotta," she admitted. "It is rather a mess, +isn't it?" + +Carlotta groaned and dropping into a chaise lounge encircled her knees +with her arms, staring with troubled eyes at her guest. + +"A mess? I should say it was--worse than a mess--a catastrophe. You know +what Alan is--isn't--" She floundered off into silence. + +"Oh, yes," said Tony, the more tranquil of the two. "I know what he is +and isn't, better than most people, I think. I ought to. But I love him. +I just discovered it to-night, or rather it is the first time I ever let +myself look straight at the fact. I think I have known it from the +beginning." + +"But Tony! You won't marry him. You can't. Your people will never let +you. They oughtn't to let you." + +Tony shook back her wavy mane of hair, sent it billowing over her +rose-colored satin kimono. + +"It don't matter if the whole world won't let me. If I decide to marry +Alan I shall do it." + +"Tony!" + +There was shocked consternation in Carlotta's tone and Tony relenting +burst into a low, tremulous little laugh. + +"Don't worry, Carlotta. I'm not so mad as I sound. I told Alan he would +have to wait a year. He has to prove to me he is--worth loving." + +"But you are engaged?" Carlotta was relieved, but not satisfied. + +Tony shook her head. + +"Absolutely not. We are both free as air--technically. If you were in +love yourself you would know how much that amounts to by way of freedom." + +Carlotta's golden head was bowed. She did not answer her friend's +implication that she could not be expected to comprehend the delicate, +invisible, omnipotent shackles of love. + +"Don't tell anyone, Carlotta, please. It is our secret--Alan's and mine. +Maybe it will always he a secret unless he--measures up." + +"You are not going to tell your uncle?" + +"There is nothing to tell yet." + +"And I suppose this is the end of poor Dick." + +"Don't be silly, Carlotta. Dick never said a word of love to me in +his life." + +"That doesn't mean he doesn't think 'em. You have convenient eyes, Tony +darling. You see only what you wish to see." + +"I didn't want to see Alan's love. I tried dreadfully hard not to. But it +set up a fire in my own house and blazed and smoked until I had to do +something about it. See here, Carlotta. I'd like to ask you a question or +two. You are not really going to marry Herbert Lathrop, are you?" + +A queer little shadow, almost like a veil, passed over Carlotta's face at +this counter charge. + +"Why not?" she parried. + +"You know why not. He is exactly what Hal Underwood calls him, a poor +fish. He is as close to being a nonentity as anything I ever saw." + +"Precisely why I selected him," drawled Carlotta. "I've got to marry +somebody and poor Herbert hasn't a vice except his excess of virtue. We +can't have another old maid in the family. Aunt Lottie is a shining +example of what to avoid. I am not going to be 'Lottie the second' I have +decided on that." + +"As if you could," protested Tony indignantly. + +"Oh, I could. You look at Aunt Lottie's pictures of fifteen years ago. +She was just as pretty as I am. She had loads of lovers but somehow they +all slipped through her fingers. She has been sex-starved. She ought to +have married and had children. I don't want to be a hungry spinster. They +are infernally miserable." + +"Carlotta!" Tony was a little shocked at her friend's bluntness, a +little puzzled as to what lay behind her arguments. "You don't have to +be a hungry spinster. There are other men besides Herbert that want to +marry you." + +"Certainly. Some of them want to marry my money. Some of them want to +marry my body. I grant you Herbert is a poor fish in some ways, but at +least he wants to marry me, myself, which is more than the others do." + +"That isn't true. Hal Underwood wants to marry you, yourself." + +"Oh, Hal!" conceded Carlotta. "I forgot him for a moment. You are right. +He is real--too real. I should hurt him marrying him and not caring +enough. That is why a nonentity is preferable. It doesn't know what it +is missing. Hal would know." + +"But there is no reason why you shouldn't wait until you find somebody +you could care for," persisted Tony. + +"That is all you know about it, my dear. There is the best reason in the +world. I found him--and lost him." + +"Carlotta--is it Phil?" + +Carlotta sprang up and went over to the window. She took the rose she had +been wearing, in her hands and deliberately pulled it apart letting the +petals drift one by one out into the night. Then she turned back to Tony. + +"Don't ask questions, Tony. I am not going to talk." But she lingered a +moment beside her friend. "You and I, Tony darling, don't seem to have +very much luck in love," she murmured. "I hope you will be happy with +Alan, if you do marry him. But happiness isn't exactly necessary. There +are other things--" She broke off and began again. "There are other +things in a man's life besides love. Somebody said that to me once and I +believe it is true. But there isn't so much besides that matters much to +a woman. I wish there were. I hate love." And pressing a rare kiss on her +friend's cheek Carlotta vanished for the night. + +Meanwhile Alan Massey smoked and thought and cursed the past that had him +in its hateful toils. Like the guilty king in Hamlet, his soul, +"struggling to be free" was "but the more engaged." He honestly desired +to be worthy of Tony Holiday, to stand clear in her eyes, but he did not +want it badly enough, to the "teeth and forehead of his faults to give in +evidence." He did not want to bare the one worst plague spot of all and +run the risk not only of losing Tony himself but perhaps also of clearing +the way to her for his cousin, John Massey. Small wonder he smoked gall +and wormwood in his cigarettes that night. + +And far away in the heat and grime and din of the great city, Dick Carson +the nameless, who was really John Massey and heir to a great fortune, sat +dreaming over a girl's picture, telling himself that Tony must care a +little to have gotten up in the silver gray of the morning to see him off +so kindly. Happily for the dreamer's peace of mind he had no means of +knowing that that very night, in the starlit garden by the sea, Tony +Holiday had taken upon herself the mad and sad and glad bondage of love. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE + + +Tony, getting off the train at Dunbury on Saturday, found her brothers +waiting for her with the car, and the kiddies on the back seat, "for +ballast" as Ted said. With one quick apprizing glance the girl took in +the two young men. + +Ted was brown and healthy looking, clear-eyed, steady-nerved, for once, +without the inevitable cigarette in his mouth. He was oddly improved +somehow, his sister thought, considering how short a time she had been +away from the Hill. She noticed also that he drove the car much less +recklessly than was his wont, took no chances on curves, slid by no +vehicles at hair-breadth space, speeded not at all, and though he kept +up a running fire of merry nonsense, had his eye on the road as he +drove. So far so good. That spill out on the Florence road wasn't all +loss, it seemed. + +Larry was more baffling. He was always quiet. He was quieter than ever +to-day. There was something in his gray eyes which spelled trouble, Tony +thought. What was it? Was he worried about a case? Was Granny worse? Was +Ted in some scrape? Something there certainly was on his mind. Tony was +sure of that, though she could not conjecture what. + +The Holidays had an almost uncanny way of understanding things about each +other, things which sometimes never rose to the surface at all. Perhaps +it was that they were so close together in sympathy that a kind of small +telepathic signal registered automatically when anything was wrong with +any of them. So far as her brothers were concerned Tony's intuition was +all but infallible. + +She found the family gift a shade disconcerting, a little later, when +after her uncle kissed her he held her off at arm's length and studied +her face. Tony's eyes fell beneath his questioning gaze. For almost the +first time in her life she had a secret to keep from him if she could. + +"What have they been doing to my little girl?" he asked. "They have taken +away her sunshininess." + +"Oh, no, they haven't," denied Tony quickly. "It is just that I am tired. +We have been on the go all the time and kept scandalously late hours. +I'll be all right as soon as I have caught up. I feel as if I could sleep +for a century and any prince who has the effrontery to wake me up will +fare badly." + +She laughed, but even in her own ears the laughter did not sound quite +natural and she was sure Uncle Phil thought the same, though he asked no +more questions. + +"It is like living in a palace being at Crest House," she went on. "I've +played princess to my heart's content--been waited on and fêted and +flirted with until I'm tired to death of it all and want to be just plain +Tony again." + +She slid into her uncle's arms with a weary little sigh. It was good--oh +so good--to have him again! She hadn't known she had missed him so until +she felt the comfort of his presence. In his arms Alan Massey and all he +stood for seemed very far away. + +"Got letters for you this morning," announced Ted. "I forgot to give them +to you." He fished the aforesaid letters out of his pocket and examined +them before handing them over. "One is from Dick--the other"--he held the +large square envelope off and squinted at it teasingly. "Some scrawl!" +he commented. "Reckless display of ink and flourishes, I call it. Who's +the party?" + +Tony snatched the letters, her face rosy. + +"Give me Dick's. I haven't heard from him but once since he went back to +New York and that was just a card. Oh-h! Listen everybody. The Universal +has accepted his story and wants him to do a whole series of them. Oh, +isn't that just wonderful?" + +Tony's old sparkles were back now. There were no reservations necessary +here. Everybody knew and loved Dick and would be glad as she was herself +in his success. + +"Hail to Dicky Dumas!" she added, gaily waving the letter aloft. "I +always knew he would get there. And that was the very story he read me. +Wasn't it lucky I liked it really? If I hadn't, and it had turned out to +be good, wouldn't it have been awful?" + +Everybody laughed at that and perhaps nobody but the doctor noticed that +the other letter in the unfamiliar handwriting was tucked away very +quickly out of sight in her bag and no comments made. + +It was not until Tony had gone the rounds of the household and greeted +everyone from Granny down to Max that she read Alan's letter, as she sat +curled up in the cretonned window seat, just as the little girl Tony had +been wont to sit and devour love stories. This was a love story, too--her +own and with a sadly complicated plot at that. + +It was the first letter she had had from Alan and she found it very +wonderful and exciting reading. It was brimming over, as might have been +expected, with passionate lover's protests and extravagant endearments +which Tony could not have imagined her Anglo-Saxon relatives or friends +even conceiving, let alone putting on paper. But Alan was different. +These things were no affectation with him, but natural as breathing, part +and parcel of his personality. She could hear him now say "_carissima_" +in that low, deep-cadenced, musical voice of his and the word seemed very +sweet and beautiful to her as it sang in her heart and she read it in the +dashing script upon the paper. + +He was desolated without her, he wrote. Nothing was worth while. Nothing +interested him. He was refusing all invitations, went nowhere. He just +sat alone in the studio and dreamed about her or made sketches of her +from memory. She was everywhere, all about him. She filled the studio +with her voice, her laughter, her wonderful eyes. But oh, he was so +lonely, so unutterably lonely without her. Must he really wait a whole +year before he made her his? A year was twelve long, long months. +Anything could happen in a year. One of them might die and the other +would go frustrate and lonely forever, like a sad wind in the night. + +Tony caught her breath quickly at that sentence. The poetry of it +captivated her fancy, the dread of what it conjured clutched like cold +hands at her heart. She wanted Alan now, wanted love now. Already those +dear folks downstairs were beginning to seem like ghosts, she and Alan +the only real people. What if he should die, what if something should +happen to keep them forever apart, how could she bear it? How could she? + +She turned back to her letter which had turned into an impassioned plea +that she would never forsake him, no matter what happened, never drive +him over the precipice like the Gadderene swine. + +"You and your love are the only thing that can save me, dear heart," he +wrote. "Remember that always. Without you I shall go down, down into +blacker pits than I ever sank before. With you I shall come out into the +light. I swear it. But oh, beloved, pray for me, if you know how to pray. +I don't. I never had a god." + +There were tears in Tony's eyes as she finished her lover's letter. +His unwonted humility touched her as no arrogance could ever have +done. His appeal to his desperate need moved her profoundly as such +appeals will always move woman. It is an old tale and one oft +repeated. Man crying out at a woman's feet, "Save me! Save me! Myself +I cannot save!" Woman, believing, because she longs to believe it, +that salvation lies in her power, taking on herself the all but +impossible mission for love's high sake. + +Tony Holiday believed, as all the million other women have believed since +time began, that she could save her lover, loved him tenfold the more +because he threw himself upon her mercy, came indeed perhaps to truly +love him for the first time now with a kind of consecrated fervor which +belonged all to the spirit even as the love that had come to her while +they danced had belonged rather to the flesh. + + * * * * * + +And day by day Jim Roberts grew sicker and the gnawing thing crept up +nearer to his heart. Day by day he gloated over the goading whips he +brandished over Alan Massey's head, amused himself with the various +developments it lay in his power to give to the situation as he passed +out of life. + +He wrote two letters from his sick bed. The first one was addressed to +Dick Carson, telling the full story of his own and Alan Massey's share in +the deliberate defraudment of that young man of his rightful name and +estate. It pleased him to read and reread this letter and to reflect that +when it was mailed Alan Massey would drink the full cup of disgrace and +exposure while he who was infinitely guiltier would be sleeping very +quietly in a cool grave where hate, nor vengeance, nor even pity could +touch him. + +The other letter, which like the first he kept unmailed, was a less +honest and less incriminating letter, filled with plausible half truths, +telling how he had just become aware at last through coming into +possession of some old letters of the identity of the boy he had once had +in his keeping and who had run away from him, an identity which he now +hastened to reveal in the interests of tardy justice. The letter made no +mention of Alan Massey nor of the unlovely bargain he had driven with +that young man as the price of silence and the bliss of ignorance. It was +addressed to the lawyers who handled the Massey estate. + +Roberts had followed up various trails and discovered that Antoinette +Holiday was the girl Massey loved, discovered through the bribing of a +Crest House servant, that the young man they called Carson was also +presumably in love with the girl whose family had befriended him so +generously in his need. It was incredibly good he thought. He could +hardly have thought out a more diabolically clever plot if he had tried. +He could make Alan Massey writhe trebly, knowing these things. + +Pursuing his malignant whim he wrote to Alan Massey and told him of the +existence of the two letters, as yet unmailed, in his table drawer. He +made it clear that one of the letters damned Alan Massey utterly while +the other only robbed him of his ill-gotten fortune, made it clear also +that he himself did not know which of the two would be mailed in the end, +possibly he would decide it by a flip of a coin. Massey could only wait +and see what happened. + +"I suppose you think the girl is worth going to Hell for, even if the +money isn't," he had written. "Maybe she is. Some women are, perhaps. But +don't forget that if she loves you, you will be dragging her down there +too. Pretty thought, isn't it? I don't mean any future-life business +either. That's rot. I heard enough of that when I was a boy to sicken me +of it forever. It is the here and now Hell a man pays for his sins with, +and that is God's truth, Alan Massey." + +And Alan, sitting in his luxurious studio reading the letter, crushed +it in his hands and groaned aloud. He needed no commentary on the "here +and now Hell" from Jim Roberts. He was living it those summer days if +ever a man did. + +It wasn't the money now. Alan told himself he no longer cared for that, +hated it in fact. It was Tony now, all Tony, and the horrible fear lest +Roberts betray him and shut the gates of Paradise upon him forever. +Sometimes in his agony of fear he could almost have been glad to end it +all with one shot of the silver-mounted automatic he kept always near, to +beat Jim Roberts to the bliss of oblivion in the easiest way. + +But Alan Massey had an incorrigible belief in his luck. Just as he had +hoped, until he had all but believed, that his cousin John was as dead as +he had told that very person he was, so now he hoped against all reason +that he would be saved at the eleventh hour, that Roberts would go to his +death carrying with him the secret that would destroy himself if it +ceased to be a secret. + +Those unmailed letters haunted him, however, day and night, so much so, +in fact, that he took a journey to Boston one day and sought out the +little cigar store again. But this time he had not mounted the stairs. +His business was with the black-eyed boy. With one fifty dollar bill he +bought the lad's promise to destroy the letters and the packet in +Robert's drawer in the event of the latter's death; secured also the +promise that if at any time before his death Roberts gave orders that +either letter should be mailed, the boy would send the same not to the +address on the envelope but to Alan Massey. If the boy kept faith with +his pledges there would be another fifty coming to him after the death of +the man. He bought the lad even as Roberts had once bought himself. It +was a sickening transaction but it relieved his mind considerably and +catered in a measure to that incorrigible hope within him. + +But he paid a price too. Fifty miles away from Boston was Tony Holiday on +her Heaven kissing hill. He was mad to go to her but dared not, lest this +fresh corruption in some way betray itself to her clear gaze. + +So he went back to New York without seeing her and Tony never knew he had +been so near. + +And that night Jim Roberts took an unexpected turn for the worse and +died, foiled of that last highly anticipated spice of malice in flipping +the coin that was to decide Alan Massey's fate. + +In the end the boy had not had the courage to destroy the letters as he +had promised to do. Instead he sent them both, together with the packet +of evidence as to John Massey's identity, to Alan Massey. + +The thing was in Alan's own hands at last. Nothing could save or destroy +him but himself. And by a paradox his salvation depended upon his being +strong enough to bring himself to ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED + + +At home on her Hill Tony Holiday settled down more or less happily after +her eventful sally into the great world. To the careless observer she was +quite the same Tony who went down the Hill a few weeks earlier. If at +times she was unusually quiet, had spells of sitting very still with +folded hands and far away dreams in her eyes, if she crept away by +herself to read the long letters that came so often, from many addresses +but always in the same bold, beautiful script and to pen long answers to +these; if she read more poetry than was her wont and sang love songs with +a new, exquisite, but rather heart breaking timbre in her lovely +contralto voice, no one paid much attention to these signs except +possibly Doctor Philip who saw most things. He perceived regretfully that +his little girl was slipping away from him, passing through some +experience that was by no means all joy or contentment and which was +making her grow up all too fast. But he said nothing, quietly bided the +hour of confidence which he felt sure would come sooner or later. + +Tony puzzled much over the complexities of life these days, puzzled over +other things beside her own perverse romance. Carlotta too was much on +her mind. She wished she could wave a magic wand and make things come +right for these two friends of hers who were evidently made for each +other as Hal had propounded. She wondered if Phil were as unhappy as +Carlotta was and meant to find out in her own time and way. + +She had seen almost nothing of him since her return to the Hill. He was +working very hard in the store and never appeared at any of the little +dances and picnics and teas with which the Dunbury younger set passed +away the summer days and nights, and which Ted and the twins and usually +Tony herself frequented. Larry never did. He hated things of that sort. +But Phil was different. He had always liked fun and parties and had +always been on hand and in great demand hitherto at every social function +from a Ladies' Aid strawberry festival to a grand Masonic ball. It wasn't +natural for Phil to shut himself out of things like that. It was a bad +sign Tony thought. + +At any rate she determined to find out for herself how the land lay if +she could. Having occasion to do some shopping she marched down the Hill +and presented herself at Stuart Lambert and Son's, demanding to be served +by no less a person than Philip himself. + +"I want a pair of black satin pumps with very frivolous heels," she +announced. "Produce them this instant, slave." She smiled at Phil and he +smiled back. He and Tony had always been the best of chums. + +"Cannzy ones?" he laughed. "That's what one of our customers calls them." + +And while he knelt before her with an array of shoe boxes around him, +fitting a dainty slipper on Tony's pretty foot, Tony herself looked not +at the slipper but at Philip, studying his face shrewdly. He looked +older, graver. There was less laughter in his blue eyes, a grimmer line +about his young mouth. Poor Phil! Evidently Carlotta wasn't the only one +who was paying the price of too much loving. Tony made up her mind to +rush in, though she knew it might be a case for angel hesitation. + +"I've never given you a message Hal Underwood sent you," she observed +irrelevantly. + +Philip looked up surprised. + +"Hal Underwood! What message did he send me? I hardly know him." + +"He seemed to know you rather well. He told me to tell you to come down +and marry Carlotta, that you were the only man that could keep her in +order. That is too big, Phil. Try a smaller one." The speaker kicked off +the offending slipper. Philip mechanically picked it up and replaced it +in the box. + +"That is rather a queer message," he commented. "I had an idea Underwood +wanted to marry Carlotta himself. Try this." He reached for another pump. +His eyes were lowered so Tony could not see them. She wished she could. + +"He does," she said. "She won't have him." + +"Is--is there--anybody she is likely to have?" The words jerked out as +the young man groped for the shoe horn which was almost beside his hand +but which apparently he did not see at all. + +"I am afraid she is likely to take Herbert Lathrop unless somebody +stops her by main force. Why don't you play Lochinvar yourself, Phil? +You could." + +Philip looked straight up at Tony then, the slipper forgotten in his +hand. + +"Tony, do you mean that?" he asked. + +"I certainly do. Make her marry you, Phil. It is the only way with +Carlotta." + +"I don't want to _make_ any girl marry me," he said. + +"Oh, hang your silly pride, Phil Lambert! Carlotta wants to marry you I +tell you though she would murder me if she knew I did tell you." + +"Maybe she does. But she doesn't want to live in Dunbury. I've good +reason to know that. We thrashed it out rather thoroughly on the top of +Mount Tom last June. She hasn't changed her mind." + +Tony sighed. She was afraid Phil was right. Carlotta hadn't changed her +mind. Was it because she was afraid she might, that she was determining +to marry Herbert? + +"And you can't leave Dunbury?" she asked soberly. + +Just at that moment Stuart Lambert approached, a tall fine looking man, +with the same blue eyes and fresh coloring as his son and brown hair only +slightly graying around the temples. He had an air of vigor and ageless +youth. Indeed a stranger might easily have taken the two men for brothers +instead of father and son. + +"Hello, Tony, my dear," he greeted cordially. "It is good to see you +round again. We have missed you. This boy of mine getting you what +you want?" + +"He is trying," smiled Tony. "A woman doesn't always know what she wants, +Mr. Lambert. The store is wonderful since it was enlarged and I see lots +of other improvements too." Her eyes swept her surroundings with sincere +appreciation. + +"Make your bow to Phil for all that. It is good to get fresh brains into +a business. We old fogies need jerking out of our ruts." + +The older man's eyes fell upon Phil's bowed head and Tony realized how +much it meant to him to have his son with him at last, pulling shoulder +to shoulder. + +"New brains nothing!" protested Phil. "Dad's got me skinned going and +coming for progressiveness. As for old fogies he's the youngest man I +know. Make all your bows to him, Tony. It is where they belong." And Phil +got to his feet and himself made a solemn obeisance in Stuart Lambert's +direction. + +Mr. Lambert chuckled. + +"Phil was always a blarney," he said. "Don't know where he got it. +Don't you believe a word he says, my dear." But Tony saw he was +immensely pleased with Phil's tribute for all that. "How do you like +the sign?" he asked. + +"Fine. Looks good to me and I know it does to you, Mr. Lambert." + +"Well, rather." The speaker rested his hand on Phil's shoulder a moment. +"I tell you it _is_ good, young lady, to have the son part added, worth +waiting for. I'm mighty proud of that sign. Between you and me, Miss +Tony, I'm proud of my son too." + +"Who is blarneying now?" laughed Phil. "Go on with you, Dad. You are +spoiling my sale." + +The father chuckled again and moved away. Phil looked down at the girl. + +"I think your question is answered. I can't leave Dunbury," he said. + +"Then Carlotta ought to come to you." + +"There are no oughts in Carlotta's bright lexicon. I don't blame her, +Tony. Dunbury is a dead hole from most points of view. I am afraid she +wouldn't be happy here. You wouldn't be yourself forever. Bet you are +planning to get away right now." + +Tony nodded ruefully. + +"I suppose I am, Phil. The modern young woman isn't much to pin one's +faith to I am afraid. Do I get another slipper? Or is one enough?" + +Phil came back from his mental aberration with a start and a grin at his +own expense. + +"I am afraid I am not a very good salesman today," he apologized. +"Honestly I do better usually but you hit me in a vulnerable spot." + +"You do care for Carlotta then?" probed Tony. + +"Care! I'm crazy over her. I'd go on my hands and knees to Crest House if +I thought I could get her to marry me by doing it." + +"You would much better go by train--the next one. That's my advice. Are +you coming to Sue Emerson's dance? That is why I am buying slippers. You +can dance with 'em if you'll come." + +"Sorry. I don't go to dances any more." + +"That is nonsense, Phil. It is the worst thing in the world for you to +make a hermit of yourself. No girl's worth it. Besides there are other +girls besides Carlotta." + +Phil shook his head as he finished replacing Tony's trim brown oxfords. + +"Unfortunately that isn't true for me," he said rising. "At present my +world consists of myself bounded, north, south, east and west by +Carlotta." + +And Tony passing out under the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON a few +minutes later sighed a little. Here was Carlotta with a real man for the +taking and too stubborn and foolish to put out her hand and here was +herself, Tony Holiday, tying herself all up in a strange snarl for the +sake of somebody who wasn't a man at all as Holiday Hill standards ran. +What queer creatures women were! + +Other people besides Tony were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a +hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the +subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy +Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he +announced that he wasn't going to attend the function. + +"I'm the authentic T.B.M.," he parried from his perch on the porch +railing. "I've cut out dancing." + +"More idiot you!" retorted Charley promptly. "Mums, do tell Phil it is +all nonsense making such an oyster in a shell of himself." + +Mrs. Lambert smiled and looked up at her tall young son, looked rather +hard for a moment. + +"I think the twins are right, Phil," she said. "You are working too hard. +You don't allow yourself any relaxation." + +"Oh, yes I do. Only my idea of relaxation doesn't happen to coincide with +the twins. Dancing in this sort of weather with your collar slumping and +the perspiration rolling in tidal waves down your manly brow doesn't +strike me as being a particularly desirable diversion." + +"H-mp!" sniffed Charley. "You didn't object to dancing last summer when +it was twice as hot. You went to a dance almost every night when Carlotta +was visiting Tony. You know you did." + +"I wasn't a member of the esteemed firm of Stuart Lambert and Son last +summer. A lily of the field can afford to dance all night. I'm a working +man I'd have you know." + +"Well, I think you might come just this once to please us," joined in +Clare, the other twin. "You are a gorgeous dancer, Phil. I'd rather have +a one step with you than any man I know." Clare always beguiled where +Charley bullied, a method much more successful in the long run as Charley +sometimes grudgingly admitted after the fact. + +Phil smiled now at pretty Clare and promised to think about it and the +twins flew off across the street to visit with Tony and Ruth whom the +whole Hill adored. + +"Phil dear, aren't you happy?" asked Mrs. Lambert. "Have we asked too +much of you expecting you to settle down at home with us?" + +"Why yes, Mums. I'm all right." Phil left his post on the rail and +dropped into a chair beside his mother. Perhaps he did it purposely lest +she see too much. "Don't get notions in your head. I like living in +Dunbury. I wouldn't live in a city for anything and I like being with Dad +not to mention the rest of you." + +Mrs. Lambert shifted her position also. She wanted to see her son's face; +just as much as he didn't want her to see it. + +"Possibly that is all so but you aren't happy for all that. You can't +fool mother eyes, my dear." + +Phil looked straight at her then with a little rueful smile. + +"I reckon I can't," he admitted. "Very well then. I am not entirely happy +but it is nobody's fault and nothing anybody can help." + +"Philip, is it a girl?" + +How they dread the _girl_ in their sons' lives--these mothers! The very +possibility of her in the abstract brings a shadow across the path. + +"Yes, Mums, it is a girl." + +Mrs. Lambert rose and went over to where her son sat, running her fingers +through his hair as she had been wont to do when the little boy Phil was +in trouble of any sort. + +"I am very sorry, dear boy," she said. "It won't help to talk about it?" + +"I am afraid not. Don't worry, Mums. It is just--well, it hurts a little +just now that's all." + +She kissed his forehead and went back to her chair. It hurt her to +know her boy was being hurt, hurt her almost as much to know she could +not help him, she must just let him close the door on his grief and +bear it alone. + +Yet she respected his reserve and loved him the better for it. Phil was +like that always. He never cried out when he was hurt. She remembered how +long ago the little boy Phil had come to her with a small finger just +released from a slamming door that had crushed it unmercifully, the +tears streaming down his cheeks but uttering no sound. She recalled +another incident of years later, when the coach had been obliged to put +some one else in Phil's place on the team the last minute because his +sprained ankle had been bothering. She and Stuart had come on for the +game. It had been a bitter disappointment to them all. To the boy it had +been little short of a tragedy. But he had smiled bravely at her in spite +of the trouble in his blue eyes. "Don't mind, Mums. It is all right," he +had said steadily. "We've got to win. We can't risk my darned ankle's +flopping. It's the bleachers for me. The game's the thing." + +The game had always been the thing for Phil. Even in his blundering, +willful boyhood he had played hard and played fair and taken defeat like +a man when things had gone against him. + +There was a moment's silence. Then Mrs. Lambert spoke again. + +"Phil, I wish you would go to the dance with the girls. It will please +them and be good for you. You can't shut yourself away from everything +the way you are doing, if you are going to make Dunbury your home. Your +father never has. He has always given himself freely to it, worked with +it, played with it, made it a real part of himself. You mustn't start out +by building a wall around yourself." + +"Am I doing that, Mums?" Phil's voice was sober. + +"I am afraid you are, Phil. It troubles your father. He was so +disappointed when you wouldn't serve on the library committee. They were +disappointed too. They didn't expect it of your father's son." + +"I--I wasn't interested." + +"No, you weren't interested. That was the trouble. You ought to have +been. You have had your college training, the world of books has been +thrown wide open for you. You come back here and aren't interested in +seeing that others less fortunate get the right kind of books into their +hands and heads. I don't want to preach, dear. But education isn't only a +privilege. It is a responsibility." + +"Maybe you are right, Mums. I didn't think of it that way. I just +didn't want to bother. I was--well, I was thinking too much about +myself I suppose." + +"Youth is apt to. There were other things too. When they asked you to +take charge of the Fourth of July pageant, to dig up Dunbury's past +history and make it live for us again, your father and I both thought you +would enjoy it. He was tremendously excited about it, full of ideas to +help. But the project fell through because nobody would undertake the +leadership. You were too busy. Every one was too busy." + +"But, Mums, I was busy," Phil defended himself. "It is no end of a job to +put things like that through properly." + +"Most things worth doing are no end of a job. Your father would have +taken it with all the rest he has on his hands and made a success of it. +But he was hurt by your high handed refusal to have anything to do with +it and he let it go, though you know having Fourth of July community +celebrations is one of his dearest hobbies--always has been since he used +to fight so hard to get rid of the old, wretched noise, law breaking and +rowdyism kind of village celebration you and the other young Dunbury +vandals delighted in." + +Phil flushed at that. The point went home. He remembered vividly his +boyish self tearing reluctantly from Doctor Holiday's fireworks impelled +by an unbearably guilty conscience to confess to Stuart Lambert that his +own son had been a transgressor against the law. Boy as he was, he had +gotten out of the interview with his father that night a glimpse into the +ideal citizenship which Stuart Lambert preached and lived and worked for. +He had understood a little then. He understood better now having stood +beside his father man to man. + +"I am sorry, Mums. I would have done the thing if I'd known Dad wanted me +to. Why didn't he say so?" + +Mrs. Lambert smiled. + +"Dad doesn't say much about what he wants. You will have to learn to keep +your eyes open and find out for yourself. I did." + +"Any more black marks on my score? I may as well eat the whole darned +pie at once." Phil's smile was humorous but his eyes were troubled. It +was a bit hard when you had been thinking you had played your part +fairly creditably to discover you had been fumbling your cues wretchedly +all along. + +"Only one other thing. We were both immensely disappointed when you +wouldn't take the scout-mastership they offered you. Father believes +tremendously in the movement. He thinks it is going to be the making of +the next generation of men. He would have liked you to be a Scoutmaster +and when you wouldn't he went on the Scout Troop Committee himself though +he really could not spare the time." + +"I see," said Phil. "I guess I've been pretty blind. Funny part of it is +I really wanted to take the Scoutmaster job but I thought Dad would think +it took too much of my time. Anything more?" he asked. + +"Not a thing. Haven't you had quite enough of a lecture for once?" his +mother smiled back. + +"I reckon I needed it. Thank you, Mums. I'll turn over a new leaf if it +isn't too late. I'll go to the dance and I'll ask them if there is still +a place for me on the library committee and I'll start a troop of Scouts +myself--another bunch I've had my eyes on for some time." + +"That will please Dad very much. It pleases me too. Boys are very dear to +my heart. I wonder if you can guess why, Philip, my son?" + +"I wish I'd been a better son, Mums. Some chaps never seem to cause +their-mothers any worry or heart ache. I wasn't that kind. I am afraid I +am not even yet." + +"No son is, dear, unless there is something wrong with him or the mother. +Mothering means heart ache and worries, plus joy and pride and the joy +and pride more than makes up for the rest. It has for me a hundred times +over even when I had a rather bad little boy on my hands and now I have a +man--a man I am glad and proud to call my son." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A WEDDING RING IT WAS HARD TO REMEMBER + + +It was a grilling hot August afternoon. The young Holidays were keeping +cool as best they could out in the yard. Ruth lay in the canopied hammock +against a background of a hedge of sweet peas, pink and white and +lavender, looking rather like a dainty, frail little flower herself. Tony +in cool white was seated on a scarlet Navajo blanket, leaning against the +apple tree. Around her was a litter of magazines and an open box of +bonbons. Ted was stretched at his ease on the grass, gazing skyward, a +cigarette in his lips, enjoying well-earned rest after toil. Larry +occupied the green garden bench in the lee, of the hammock. He was +unsolaced either by candy or smoke and looked tired and not particularly +happy. There were dark shadows under his gray eyes which betrayed that he +was not getting the quota of sleep that healthy youth demands. His eyes +were downcast now, apparently absorbed in contemplation of a belated +dandelion at his feet. + +"Ruth, why don't you come down to the dance with us tonight?" demanded +Tony suddenly dropping her magazine. "You are well enough now and I +know you would enjoy it. It is lovely down on the island where the +pavilion is--all quiet and pine-woodsy. You needn't dance if you don't +want to. You could just lie in the hammock and listen to the music and +the water. We'd come and talk to you between dances so you wouldn't be +lonesome. Do come." + +"Oh, I couldn't." Ruth's voice was dismayed, her blue eyes filled with +alarm at the suggestion. + +"Why couldn't you?" persisted Tony. "You aren't going to just hide away +forever are you? It is awfully foolish, isn't it, Larry?" she appealed to +her brother. + +He did not answer, but he did transfer his gaze from the dandelion to +Ruth as if he were considering his sister's proposition. + +"Sure, it's foolish," Ted replied for him, sitting up. "Come on down and +dance the first foxtrot with me, sweetness. You'll like it. Honest you +will, when you get started." + +"Oh, I couldn't" reiterated Ruth. + +"That is nonsense. Of course, you could," objected Tony. "It is just your +notion, Ruthie. You have kept away from people so long you are scared. +But you would get over that in a minute and truly it would be lots better +for you. Tell her it would, Larry. She is your patient." + +"I don't know whether it would or not," returned Larry in his deliberate +way, which occasionally exasperated the swift-minded, impulsive Tony. + +"Then you are a rotten doctor," she flung back. "I know better than that +myself and Uncle Phil agrees with me. I asked him." + +"Ruth's my patient, as you reminded me a moment ago. She isn't Uncle +Phil's." There was an unusual touchiness in the young doctor's voice. He +was not professionally aggressive as a rule. + +"Well, I wouldn't be a know-it-all, if she is," snapped Tony. "Maybe +Uncle Phil knows a thing or two more than you do yet. And anyway you are +only a man and I am a girl and I know that girls need people and fun and +dancing. It isn't good for anybody to hide away by herself. I believe you +are keeping Ruth away from everybody on purpose." + +The hot weather and other things were setting Tony's nerves a bit on +edge. She felt slightly belligerent and not precisely averse to +picking a quarrel with her aggravatingly quiet brother, if he gave her +half an opening. + +Larry flushed and scowled at that and ordered her sharply not to talk +nonsense. Whereupon Ted intervened. + +"I'm all on your side, Tony. Of course it is bad for Ruth not to see +anybody but us. Any fool would know that. Dancing may be the very thing +for her anyhow. You can't tell till you try. Maybe when you are +foxtrotting with me, goldilocks, you'll remember how it seemed to have +some other chap's arm around you. It might be like laying a fuse." + +"I'm glad you all know so much about my business," said Larry testily. +"You make me tired, both of you." + +"Oh," begged Ruth, her blue eyes full of trouble. "Please, please, don't +quarrel about me." + +"I beg your pardon," apologized Larry. "See here, would you be willing to +try it, just as an experiment? Would you go down there for a little while +tonight with us?" + +The blue eyes met the gray ones. + +"If you--wanted me to," faltered the blue-eyes. + +"Would you mind it very much?" Larry leaned forward. His voice was low, +solicitous. Tony, listening, resented it a little. She didn't see why +Larry had to keep his good manners for somebody outside the family. He +might have spoken a little more politely to herself, she thought. She had +only been trying to be nice to Ruth. + +"Not--if you would take care of me and not let people talk to me too +much," Ruth answered the solicitous tone. + +"I will," promised Larry. "You needn't talk to a soul if you don't +want to. I'll ward 'em off. And you can dance if you want to--one +dance anyway." + +"With me," announced Ted complacently from the grass. "My bid was in +first. Don't you forget, Miss Peaseblossom." Ted had a multitude of pet +names for Ruth. They slipped off his tongue easily, as water falling +over a cliff. + +"No, with me," said his brother shortly. + +"Gee, I wish I were a doctor! It gives you a hideous advantage." + +"But I haven't anything to wear," exclaimed Ruth, coming next to the +really sole and only supreme woman question. + +"We'll fix that easy as easy," said Tony, amicable again now. "I've a +darling blue organdy that will look sweet on you--just the color of your +eyes. Don't you worry a minute, honey. Your fairy godmother will see to +all that. All I ask is that you won't let that old ogre of an M.D. change +his mind and say you can't go. It isn't good for Larry to obey him so +meekly. He is getting to be a regular tyrant." + +A moment later Doctor Holiday joined the group, dropped on the bench +beside Larry and was informed by Tony that Ruth was to go on an adventure +down the Hill; to Sue Emerson's dance in fact. + +"Isn't that great?" she demanded. + +"Superb," he teased. Then he smiled approval at Ruth. "Good idea, Larry," +he added to his nephew. "Glad you thought of it." + +"I didn't think of it. Tony did. You really approve?" The gray eyes were +a little anxious. Larry was by no means a know-it-all doctor, as his +sister accused him. He had too little rather than too much confidence in +his own judgment in fact. + +"I certainly do. Go to it, little lady. May be the best medicine in the +world for you." + +"Now you are talking," exulted Ted. "That's what Tony and I said +and Larry wanted to execute us on the spot for daring to have an +opinion at all." + +"Scare you much to think of it?" Doctor Holiday asked Ruth, prudently +ignoring this last sally. + +"A good deal," sighed Ruth. "But I'll try not to be too much scared if +Larry will go too and not let people ask questions." + +The young doctor had long since become Larry to Ruth. It was too +confusing talking about two Doctor Holidays. Everybody in Dunbury said +Larry or Doctor Larry or at most, respectfully, Doctor Laurence. + +"I'll let nobody talk to you but myself," said Larry. + +"There you are!" flashed Tony. "You might just as well keep her penned up +here in the yard. You want to keep her all to yourself." + +She didn't mean anything in particular, only to be a little disagreeable, +to pay Larry back for being so snappy. But to her amazement Ruth was +suddenly blushing a lovely but startling blush and Larry was bending over +to examine the hammock-hook in obvious confusion. + +"Good gracious!" she thought in consternation. "Is that what's up? It +can't be. I'm just imagining it. Larry wouldn't fall in love with any one +who wore a wedding ring. He mustn't." + +But she knew in her heart that whether Larry must or must not he had. A +thousand signs betrayed the truth now that her eyes were open. Poor +Larry! No wonder he was cross and unlike himself. And Ruth was so +sweet--just the girl for him. And poor Uncle Phil! She herself was +hurting him dreadfully keeping her secret about Alan and nobody knew what +Ted had up his sleeve under his cloak of incredible virtue. And now here +was Larry with a worse complication still. Oh dear! Would the three of +them ever stop getting into scrapes as long as they lived? It was bad +enough when they were children. It was infinitely worse now they were +grown up and the scrapes were so horribly serious. + +"I suppose you can't tear yourself away from your studies to attend a +mere dance?" Doctor Holiday was asking of his younger nephew with a +twinkle in his eyes when Tony recovered enough to listen again. + +Ted sent his cigarette stub careening off into the shrubbery and grinned +back at his uncle, a grin half merry, half defiant. + +"Like fun, I can't!" he ejaculated. "I'm a union man, I am. I've done my +stunt for the day. If anybody thinks I'm going to stick my nose in +between the covers of a book before nine A.M. tomorrow he has a whole +orchard of brand new little thinks growing up to stub his toes on, +that's all." + +"So the student life doesn't improve with intimate acquaintance?" The +doctor's voice was still teasing, but there was more than teasing behind +his questions. He was really interested in his nephew's psychology. + +"Not a da--ahem--darling bit. If I had my way every book in existence +would be placed on a huge funeral pyre and conflagrated instantly. +Moreover, it would be a criminal offence punishable by the death sentence +for any person to bring another of the infernal nuisances into the world. +That is my private opinion publicly expressed." So saying Ted picked +himself up from the grass and sauntered off toward the house. + +His uncle chuckled. He was sorry the boy did not take more cordially to +books, since it looked as if there were a good two years of them ahead at +the least. But he liked the honesty that would not pretend to anything +it did not feel, and he liked even better the spirit that had kept the +lad true to his pledge of honest work without a squirm or grumble through +all these weeks of grilling summer weather when sustained effort of any +sort, particularly mental effort, was undoubtedly a weariness and +abomination to flesh and soul, to his restless, volatile, ease-addicted, +liberty loving young ward. The boy had certainly shown more grit and +grace than he had credited him with possessing. + +The village clock struck six. Tony sprang up from her blanket and began +to gather up her possessions. + +"I never get over a scared, going-to-be-scolded feeling running down my +spine when the clock strikes and I'm not ready for supper," she said. +"Poor dear Granny! She certainly worked hard trying to make truly proper +persons out of us wild Arabs. It isn't her fault if she didn't succeed, +is it Larry?" She smiled at her brother--a smile that meant in Tony +language "I am sorry I was cross. Let's make up." + +He smiled back in the same spirit. He rose taking the rug and magazines +from his sister's hand and walked with her toward the house. + +Ruth sat up in her hammock and smoothed her disarrayed blonde hair. + +"I am glad you are going down the Hill," said the doctor to her. "It is a +fine idea, little lady. Do you lots of good." + +"Doctor Holiday, I think I ought to go away," announced Ruth suddenly. "I +am perfectly well now, and there is no reason why I should stay." + +"Tired of us?" + +"Oh no! I could never be that. I love it here and love all of you. But +after all I am only a stranger." + +"Not to us, Ruthie. Listen. I would like to explain how I feel about +this, not from your point of view but from ours." + +Tony would be going away soon. They needed a home daughter very much, +needed Ruth particularly as she had such a wonderful way with the +children, who adored her, and because Granny loved her so well, though +she did not love many people who were not Holidays. And he and Larry +needed her good fairy ministrations. They had not been unmindful, though +perhaps manlike they had not expressed their appreciation of the way +fresh flowers found their way to the offices daily, and they were kept +from being snowed under by the newspapers of yester week. In short Doctor +Holiday made it very clear that, if Ruth cared to stay she was wanted and +needed very much in the House on the Hill. And Ruth touched and grateful +and happy promised to remain. + +"If you think it is all right--" she added with rather sudden blush, "for +me to stay when I am married or not married and don't know which." + +Whereupon Doctor Holiday, who happened not to observe the blush, remarked +that he couldn't see what that had to do with it. Anyway she seemed like +such a child to them that they hardly remembered the wedding ring at all. + +Ruth blushed again at that and wished she dared confess that she was +afraid the wedding ring had a good deal to do with the situation in the +eyes of one Holiday at least. But she could not bring herself to speak +the fatal word which might banish her from the dear Hill and from Larry, +who had come to be even dearer. + +A dozen times, while she was dressing for the dance later, Ruth felt like +crying out to Tony in the next room that she could not go, that she dared +not face strangers, that it was too hard. But she set her lips firmly +and did nothing of the sort. Larry wanted her to do it. She wouldn't +disappoint him if it killed her. + +Oh dear! Why did she always have to do everything as a case, never just +as a girl. She couldn't even be natural as a girl. She had to be maybe +married. She hated the ring which seemed to her a symbol of bondage to a +past that was dead and yet still clutched her with cold hands. She had a +childish impulse to fling the ring out of the window where she could +never--never see it again. If it wasn't for the ring-- + +She interrupted her own thoughts, blushing hotly again. She knew she had +meant to go on, "If it were not for the ring she could marry Larry +Holiday." She mustn't think about that. She must not forget the ring, nor +let Larry forget it. She must not let him love her. It was a terrible +thing she was doing. He was unhappy--dreadfully unhappy and it was all +her fault. And by and by they would all see it. Tony had seen it today, +she was almost sure. And Doctor Holiday would see it. He saw so much it +was a wonder he had not seen it long before this. They would hate her for +hurting Larry and spoiling his life. She could not bear to have them hate +her when she loved them so and they had been so kind and good to her. She +must go away. She must. Maybe Larry would forget her if she wasn't always +there right under his eyes. + +But how could she go? Doctor Philip would think it queer and ungrateful +of her after she had promised to stay. How could she desert him and the +children and dear Granny? And if she went what could she do? What use was +she anyway but to be a trouble and a burden to everybody? It would have +been better, much better, if Larry had left her to die in the wreck. + +Why didn't Geoffrey Annersley come and get her, if there was a Geoffrey +Annersley? She knew she would hate him, but she wished he would come for +all that. Anything was better than making Larry suffer, making all the +Holidays suffer through him. Oh why hadn't she died, why hadn't she? + +But in her heart Ruth knew she did not want to die. She wanted to live. +She wanted life and love and happiness and Larry Holiday. + +And then Tony stood on the threshold, smiling friendly encouragement. + +"Ready, hon? Oh, you look sweet! That blue is lovely for you. It never +suited me at all. Blue is angel color and I have too much--well, of the +other thing in my composition to wear it. Come on. The boys have been +whistling impatience for half an hour and I don't want to scare Larry out +of going. It is the first function he has condescended to attend in a +blue moon." + +On the porch Ted and Larry waited, two tall, sturdy, well-groomed, +fine-looking youths, bearing the indefinable stamp of good birth and +breeding, the inheritance of a long line of clean strong men and gentle +women--the kind of thing not forged in one generation but in many. + +They both rose as the girls appeared. Larry crossed over to Ruth. His +quick gaze took in her nervousness and trouble of mind. + +"Are you all right, Ruth? You mustn't let us bully you into going if you +really don't want to." + +"No, I am all right. I do want to--with you," she added softly. + +"We'll all go over in the launch," announced Ted, but Larry interposed +the fact that he and Ruth were going in the canoe. Ruth would get too +tired if she got into a crowd. + +"More professional graft," complained Ted. He was only joking but Tony +with her sharpened sight knew that it was thin ice for Larry and +suspected he had non-professional reasons for wanting Ruth alone in the +canoe with him that night. Poor Larry! It was all a horrible tangle, just +as her affair with Alan was. + +It was a night made for lovers, still and starry. Soft little breezes +came tiptoeing along the water from fragrant nooks ashore and stopped +in their course to kiss Ruth's face as she lay content and lovely among +the scarlet cushions, reading the eloquent message of Larry Holiday's +gray eyes. + +They did not talk much. They were both a little afraid of words. They +felt as if they could go on riding in perfect safety along the edge of +the precipice so long as neither looked over or admitted out loud that +there was a precipice. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE + + +The dance was well in progress when Larry and Ruth arrived. The latter +was greeted cordially and not too impressively by gay little Sue Emerson, +their hostess, and her friends. Ruth was ensconced comfortably in a big +chair where she could watch the dancers and talk as much or little as she +pleased. Everybody was so pleasant and natural and uncurious that she did +not feel frightened or strange at all, and really enjoyed the little +court she held between dances. Pretty girls and pleasant lads came to +talk with her, the latter besieging her with invitations to dance which +she refused so sweetly that they found the little Goldilocks more +charming than ever for her very denial. + +They rallied Larry however on his rigorous dragonship and finally Ruth +herself dismissed him to dance with his hostess as a proper guest should. +She never meant he must stick to her every moment anyway. That was +absurd. He rose to obey reluctantly; but paused to ask if she wouldn't +dance with him just once. No, she couldn't--didn't even know whether she +could. He mustn't try to make her. And seeing she was in earnest, Larry +left her. But Ted came skating down the floor to her and he begged for +just one dance. + +"Oh, I couldn't, Ted, truly I couldn't," she denied. + +But obeying a sudden impulse Ted had swooped down upon her, picked her up +and before she really knew what was happening she had slid into step +with him and was whirling off down the floor in his arms. + +"Didn't I tell you, sweetness?" he exulted. "Of course you can dance. +What fairy can't? Tired?" He bent over to ask with the instinctive +gentleness that was in all Holiday men. + +Ruth shook her head. She was exhilarated, excited, tense, happy. She +could dance--she could. It was as easy and natural as breathing. She did +not want to stop. She wanted to go on and on. Then suddenly something +snapped. They came opposite Sue and Larry. The former called a gay +greeting and approval. Larry said nothing. His face was dead white, his +gray eyes black with anger. Both Ted and Ruth saw and understood and the +lilt went out of the dance for both of them. + +"Oh Lord!" groaned Ted. "Now I've done it. I'm sorry, Ruth. I didn't +suppose the old man would care. Don't see why he should it you are +willing. Come on, just one more round before the music stops and we're +both beheaded." + +But Ruth shook her head. There was no more joy for her after that one +glimpse of Larry's face. + +"Take me to a seat, Ted, please. I'm tired." + +He obeyed and she sank down in the chair, white and trembling, utterly +exhausted. She was hurt and aching through and through. How could she? +How could she have done that to Larry when he loved her so? How could she +have let Ted make her dance with him when she had refused to dance with +Larry? No wonder he was angry. It was terrible--cruel. + +But he mustn't make a scene with Ted. He mustn't. She cast an +apprehensive glance around the room. Larry was invisible. A forlornness +came over her, a despair such as she had never experienced even in that +dreadful time after the wreck when she realized she had forgotten +everything. She felt as if she were sinking down, down in a fearful +black sea and that there was no help for her anywhere. Larry had deserted +her. Would he never come back? + +In a minute Tony and the others were beside her, full of sympathetic +questions. How had it seemed to dance again? Wasn't it great to find she +could still do it? How had she dared to do it while Larry was off guard? +Why wouldn't she, couldn't she dance with this one or that one if she +could dance with Ted Holiday? But they were quick to see she was really +tired and troubled and soon left her alone to Tony's ministrations. + +"Ruth, what is the trouble? Where is Larry? And Ted is gone, too. What +happened?" Tony's voice was anxious. She hadn't seen Larry's face, but +she knew Larry and could guess at the rest. + +"Ted made me dance with him. I didn't mean to. But when we got started I +couldn't bear to stop, it was so wonderful to do it and to find I could. +I--am afraid Larry didn't like it." + +"I presume he didn't," said Larry's sister drily. "Let him be angry if he +wants to be such a silly. It was quite all right, Ruthie. Ted has just as +much right to dance with you as Larry has." + +"I am afraid Larry doesn't think so and I don't think so either." + +Tony squeezed the other girl's hand. + +"Never mind, honey. You mustn't take it like that. You are all of a +tremble. Larry has a fearful temper, but he will hang on to it for your +sake if for no other reason. He won't really quarrel with Ted. He never +does any more. And he won't say a word to you." + +"I'd rather he would," sighed Ruth. "You are all so good to me and I--am +making a dreadful lot of trouble for you all the time, though I don't +mean to and I love you so." + +"It isn't your fault, Ruthie, not a single speck of it. Oh, yes. I mean +just what you mean. Not simply Larry's being so foolish as to lose his +temper about this little thing, but the whole big thing of your caring +for each other. It is all hard and mixed up and troublesome; but you are +not to blame, and Larry isn't to blame, and it will all come out right +somehow. It has to." + +As soon as Ted had assured himself that Ruth was all right in his +sister's charge he had looked about for Larry. Sue was perched on a table +eating marshmallows she had purloined from somewhere with Phil Lambert +beside her, but there was no Larry to be seen. + +Ted stepped outside the pavilion. He was honestly sorry his brother was +hurt and angry. He realized too late that maybe he hadn't behaved quite +fairly or wisely in capturing Ruth like that, though he hadn't meant any +harm, and had had not the faintest idea Larry would really care, care +enough to be angry as Ted had not seen him for many a long day. Larry's +temper had once been one of the most active of the family skeletons. It +had not risen easily, but when it did woe betide whatever or whomever it +met in collision. By comparison with Larry's rare outbursts of rage +Tony's frequent ebullitions were as summer zephyrs to whirlwinds. + +But that was long past history. Larry had worked manfully to conquer his +familiar demon and had so far succeeded that sunny Ted had all but +forgotten the demon ever existed. But he remembered now, had remembered +with consternation when he saw the black passion in the other's face as +they met on the floor of the dance hall. + +Puzzled and anxious he stared down the slope toward the water. Larry was +just stepping into the canoe. Was he going home, leaving Ruth to the +mercies of the rest of them, or was he just going off temporarily by +himself to fight his temper to a finish as he had been accustomed to do +long ago when he had learned to be afraid and ashamed of giving into it? +Ted hesitated a moment, debating whether to call him back and get the row +over, if row there was to be, or to let him get away by himself as he +probably desired. + +"Hang it! It's my fault. I can't let him go off like that. It just about +kills him to take it out of himself that way. I'd rather he'd take it +out of me." + +With which conclusion Ted shot down the bank whistling softly the old +Holiday Hill call, the one Dick had used that day on the campus to summon +himself to the news that maybe Larry was killed. + +Larry did not turn. Ted reached the shore with one stride. + +"Larry," he called. "I say, Larry." + +No answer. The older lad picked up the paddle, prepared grimly to push +off, deaf, to all intents and purposes to the appeal in the younger +one's voice. + +But Ted Holiday was not an easily daunted person. With one flying leap +he landed in the canoe, all but upsetting the craft in his sudden +descent upon it. + +The two youths faced each other. Larry was still white, and his sombre +eyes blazed with half subdued fires. He looked anything but hospitable to +advances, however well meant. + +"Better quit," he advised slowly in a queer, quiet voice which Ted knew +was quiet only because Larry was making it so by a mighty effort of +will. "I'm not responsible just now. We'll both be sorry if you don't +leave me alone." + +"I won't quit, Larry. I can't. It was my fault. Confound it, old man! +Please listen. I didn't mean to make you mad. Come ashore and punch my +fool head if it will make you feel any better." + +Still Larry said nothing, just sat hunched in a heap, running his +fingers over the handle of the paddle. He no longer even looked at Ted. +His mouth was set at its stubbornest. + +Ted rushed on, desperately in earnest, entirely sincere in his +willingness to undergo any punishment, himself, to help Larry. + +"Honest, I didn't mean to make trouble," he pleaded. "I just picked her +up and made her dance on impulse, though she told me she wouldn't and +couldn't. I never thought for a minute you would care. Maybe it was a +mean trick. I can see it might have looked so, but I didn't intend it +that way. Gee, Larry! Say something. Don't swallow it all like that. Get +it out of your system. I'd rather you'd give me a dozen black eyes than +sit still and feel like the devil." + +Larry looked up then. His face relaxed its sternness a little. Even the +hottest blaze of wrath could not burn quite so fiercely when exposed to a +generous penitence like his young brother's. He understood Ted was +working hard not only to make peace but to spare himself the sharp battle +with the demon which, as none knew better that Larry Holiday, did, +indeed, half kill. + +"Cut it, Ted," he ordered grimly. "'Nough said. I haven't the +slightest desire to give you even one black eye at present, though I +may as well admit if you had been in my hands five minutes ago +something would have smashed." + +"Don't I know it?" Ted grinned a little. "Gee, I thought my hour +had struck!" + +"What made you come after me then?" + +Ted's grin faded. + +"You know why I came, old man. You know I'd let you pommel my head off +any time if it could help you anyhow. Besides it was my fault as I told +you. I didn't mean to be mean. I'll do any penance you say." + +Larry picked up the paddle. + +"Your penance is to let me absolutely alone for fifteen minutes. You had +better go ashore though. You will miss a lot of dances." + +"Hang the dances! I'm staying." + +Ted settled down among the cushions against which Ruth's blonde head had +nestled a few hours ago. He took out his watch, struck a match, looked at +the time, lit a cigarette with the same match, replaced the watch and +relapsed into silence. + +The canoe shot down the lake impelled by long, fierce strokes. Larry was +working off the demon. Far away the rhythmic beat of dance music reached +them faintly. Now and then a fish leaped and splashed or a bull frog +bellowed his hoarse "Better go home" into the silence. Otherwise there +was no sound save the steady ripple of the water under the canoe. + +Presently Ted finished his cigarette, sent its still ruddy remains +flashing off into the lake where it fell with a soft hiss, took out his +watch again, lit another match, considered the time, subtracted gravely, +looked up and announced "Time's up, Larry." + +Larry laid down the paddle and a slow reluctant smile played around the +corners of his mouth, though there was sharp distress still in his +eyes. He loathed losing his temper like that. It sickened him, filled +him with spiritual nausea, a profound disgust for himself and his +mastering weakness. + +"I've been a fool, kid," he admitted. "I'm all right now. You were a +trump to stand by me. I appreciate it." + +"Don't mention it," nonchalantly from Ted "Going back to the pavilion?" + +His brother nodded, resumed the paddle and again the canoe shot through +the waters, this time toward the music instead of away from it. + +"I suppose you know why your dancing with Ruth made me go savage," said +Larry after a few moments of silence. + +"Damned if I do," said Ted cheerfully. "It doesn't matter. I don't need a +glossary and appendix. Suit yourself as to the explanations. I put my +foot in it. I've apologized. That is the end of it so far as I am +concerned unless you want to say something more yourself. You don't have +to you know." + +"It was plain, fool movie stuff jealousy. That is the sum and +substance of it. I'm in love with her. I couldn't stand her dancing +with you when she had refused me. I could almost have killed you for a +minute. I am ashamed but I couldn't help it. That is the way it was. +Now--forget it, please." + +Ted swallowed hard and pulled his forelock in genuine perturbation. + +"Good Lord, Larry!" he blurted. "I--" + +His brother held up an imperious warning hand. + +"I said 'forget it.' Don't make me want to dump you now, after coming +through the rest." + +Ted saluted promptly. + +"Ay, ay, sir! It's forgot. Only perhaps you'll let me apologize again, +underscored, now I understand. Honest, I'm no end sorry, Larry." + +The other nodded acceptance of the underscored apology and again silence +had its way. + +As they landed Ted fastened the canoe and for a moment the two brothers +stood side by side in the starlight. Larry put out his hand. Ted took it. +Their eyes met, said more than any words could have expressed. + +"Thank you, Ted. You've been great--helped a lot." + +Larry's voice was a little unsteady, his eyes were full of trouble +and shame. + +"Ought to, after starting the conflagration," said Ted. "I'll attend to +the general explanations. You go to Ruth." + +More than one person had wondered at the mysterious disappearance of the +two Holidays. It is quite usual, and far from unexpected, when two young +persons of the opposite sex drift off somewhere under the stars on a +summer night without giving any particular account of themselves; but one +scarcely looks for that sort of social--or unsocial--eccentricity from +two youths, especially two brothers. Nobody but Ruth and Tony, and +possibly shrewd-eyed Sue, suspected a quarrel, but everybody was curious +and ready to burst into interrogation upon the simultaneous return of the +two young men which was quite as sudden as their vanishing had been. + +"Larry and I had a wager up," announced Ted to Sue in a perfectly clear, +distinct voice which carried across the length of the small hall now that +the music was silent. "He said he could paddle down to the point, current +against him, faster than I could paddle back, current with me. We took a +notion to try it out tonight. Please forgive us, Susanna, my dear. A +Holiday is a creature of impulse you know." + +Sue made a little face at the speaker. She was quite sure he was lying +about the wager, but she was a good hostess and played up to his game. + +"You don't deserve to be forgiven, either of you," she sniffed. +"Especially Larry who never comes to parties and when he does has to go +off and do a silly thing like that. Who won though? I will ask that." She +smiled at Ted and he grinned back. + +"Larry, of course. Give me a dance, Sue. I've got my second wind." + +"Bless Ted!" thought Tony, listening to her brother's glib excuses. +"Thank goodness he can lie like that. Larry never could." And as her eyes +met Ted's a moment later when they passed each other in the maze of +dancers he murmured "All right" in her ear and she was well content. +Bless Ted, indeed! + +Meanwhile Larry had gone, as Ted bade him, straight to Ruth. He bent over +her tired little white face, an agony of remorse in his own. + +"Ruth, forgive me. I'll never forgive myself." + +"Don't, Larry. It is I who ought to be sorry and I am--oh so sorry--you +don't know. Ted didn't mean any harm. I ought not to have let him do it. +It was my fault." + +"There was nobody at fault except me and my fool temper. I am desperately +ashamed of myself Ruth. I've left you all alone all this time and I +promised I wouldn't. You'll never trust me again and I don't deserve to +be trusted. It doesn't do any good to say I am sorry. It can't undo what +I did. I didn't dare stay and that's the fact. I didn't know what I'd do +to Ted if he got in my way. I felt--murderous." + +"Larry!" + +"I know it sounds awful. It is awful. It is an old battle. I thought I'd +won it, but I haven't. Don't look so scared though. Nothing happened. Ted +came after me like the corking big-hearted kid he is and brought me to, +in half the time I could have done it for myself. It is thanks to him I'm +here now. But never mind that. It is only you that matters. Shall I take +you home? I don't deserve it, but if you will let me it will show you +forgive me a little bit anyway," he finished humbly. + +"Don't look so dreadfully unhappy, Larry. It is over now, and of course I +forgive you if you think there is anything to forgive. I'm so thankful +you didn't quarrel with Ted. I was awfully worried and so was Tony. She +watched the door every minute till you came back." + +"I suppose so," groaned Larry. "I made one horrible mess of everything +for you all. Are you ready to go?" + +"I'd like to dance with you once first, Larry, if--if you would like to." + +"Would I like to!" Larry's face lost its mantle of gloom, was sudden +sunshine all over. "Will you really dance with me--after the rotten way +I've behaved?" + +"Of course, I will. I wanted to all the time, but I was afraid. But when +Ted made me it all came back and I loved it, only it was you I wanted to +dance with most. You know that, don't you, Larry, dear?" The last word +was very low, scarcely more than a breath, but Larry heard it and it +nearly undid him. A flood of long-pent endearments trembled on his lips. +But Ruth held up a hand of warning. + +"Don't, Larry. We mustn't spoil it. We've got to remember the ring." + +"Damn the ring!" he exploded. "I beg your pardon." Larry was genuinely +shocked at his own bad manners. "I don't know why I'm such a brute +tonight. Let's dance." + +And to the delight and relief of the younger Holidays, Larry and Ruth +joined the dancers. + +The dance over, they made their farewells. Larry guided Ruth down the +slope, his arm around her ostensibly for her support, and helped her into +the canoe. Once more they floated off over the quiet water, under the +quiet stars. But their young hearts were anything but quiet. Their love +was no longer an unacknowledged thing. Neither knew just what was to be +done with it; but there it was in full sight, as both admitted in joy +and trepidation and silence. + +As Larry held open the door for her to step inside the quiet hall he bent +over the girl a moment, taking both her hands in his. Then he drew away +abruptly and bolted into the living room, leaving her to grope her way up +stairs in the dark alone. + +"I wonder," she murmured to herself later as she stood before her mirror +shaking out her rippling golden locks from their confining net. "I wonder +if it would have been so terrible if he had kissed me just that once. +Sometimes I wish he weren't quite so--so Holidayish." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +TWO HOLIDAYS MAKE CONFESSION + + +The next evening Doctor Holiday listened to a rather elaborate argument +on the part of his older nephew in favor of the latter's leaving Dunbury +immediately in pursuit of his specialist training that he had planned to +go in for eventually. + +"You are no longer contented here with me--with us?" questioned the older +man when the younger had ended his exposition. + +Larry's quick ear caught the faint hurt in his uncle's voice and hastened +to deny the inference. + +"It isn't that, Uncle Phil. I am perfectly satisfied--happier here with +you that I would be anywhere else in the world. You have been wonderful +to me. I am not such an ungrateful idiot as not to understand and +appreciate what a start it has given me to have you and your name and +work behind me. Only--maybe I've been under your wing long enough. Maybe +I ought to stand on my feet." + +Doctor Holiday studied the troubled young face opposite him. He was +fairly certain that he wasn't getting the whole or the chief reasons +which were behind this sudden proposition. + +"Do you wish to go at once?" he asked. "Or will the first of the year be +soon enough." + +Larry flushed and fell to fumbling with a paper knife that lay on the +desk. + +"I--I meant to go right away," he stammered. + +"Why?" + +Larry was silent. + +"I judge the evidence isn't all in," remarked the older doctor a little +drily. "Am I going to hear the rest of it--the real reason for your +decision to go just now?" + +Still silence on Larry's part, the old obstinate set to his lips. + +"Very well then. Suppose I take my turn. I think you haven't quite all +the evidence yourself. Do you know Granny is dying?" + +The paper knife fell with a click to the floor. + +"Uncle Phil! No, I didn't know. Of course I knew it was coming but you +mean--soon?" + +"Yes, Larry, I mean soon. How soon no one can tell, but I should say +three months would be too long to allow." + +The boy brushed his hand across his eyes. He loved Granny. He had always +seemed to understand her better than the others had and had been himself +always the favorite. Moreover he was bound to her by a peculiar tie, +having once saved her life, conquering his boyish fear to do so. It was +hard to realize she was really going, that no one could save her now. + +"I didn't know," he said again in a low voice. + +"Ted will go back to college. I shall let Tony go to New York to study as +she wishes, just as you had your chance. It isn't exactly the time for +you to desert us, my boy." + +"I won't, Uncle Phil. I'll stay." + +"Thank you, son. I felt sure you wouldn't fail us. You never have. But I +wish you felt as if you could tell me the other reason or reasons for +going which you are keeping back. If it is they are stronger than the one +I have given you for staying it is only fair that I should have them." + +Larry's eyes fell. A slow flush swept his face, ran up to his very hair. + +"My boy, is it Ruth?" + +The gray eyes lifted, met the older man's grave gaze unfalteringly. + +"Yes, Uncle Phil, it is Ruth. I thought you must have seen it before +this. It seemed as if I were giving myself away, everything I did or +didn't do." + +"I have thought of it occasionally, but dismissed the idea as too +fantastic. It hasn't been so obvious as it seemed to you no doubt. You +have not made love to her?" + +"Not in so many words. I might just as well have though. She knows. If it +weren't for the ring--well, I think she would care too." + +"I am very sorry, Larry. It looks like a bad business all round. Yet I +can't see that you have much to blame yourself for. I withdraw my +objections to your going away. If it seems best to you to go I haven't a +word to say." + +"I don't know whether it is best or not. I go round and round in circles +trying to work it out. It seems cowardly to run away from it, +particularly if I am needed here. A man ought not to pull up stakes just +because things get a little hard. Besides Ruth would think she had driven +me away. I know she would go herself if she guessed I was even thinking +of going. And I couldn't stand that. I'd go to the north pole myself and +stay forever before I would send her away from you all. I was so grateful +to you for asking her to stay and making her feel she was needed. She was +awfully touched and pleased. She told me last night." + +The senior doctor considered, thought back to his talk with Ruth. Poor +child! So that was what she had been trying to tell him. She had thought +she ought to go away on Larry's account, just as he was thinking he ought +to go on hers. Poor hapless youngsters caught in the mesh of +circumstances! It was certainly a knotty problem. + +"It isn't easy to say what is right and best to do," he said after a +moment. "It is something you will have to decide for yourself. When you +came to me you had decided it was best to go, had you not? Was there a +specially urgent reason?" + +Larry flushed again and related briefly the last night's unhappy +incident. + +"I'm horribly ashamed of the way I acted," he finished. "And the whole +thing showed me I couldn't count on my self-control as I thought I could. +I couldn't sleep last night, and I thought perhaps maybe the thing to do +was to get out quick before I did any real damage. It doesn't matter +about me. It is Ruth." + +"Do you think you can stay on and keep a steady head for her sake and +for ours?" + +"I can, Uncle Phil. It is up to me to stick and I'll do it. Uncle +Phil, how long must a woman in Ruth's position wait before she can +legally marry?" + +"Ruth's position is so unique that I doubt if there is any legal +precedent for it. Ordinarily when the husband fails to put in appearance +and the presumption is he is no longer living, the woman is considered +free in the eyes of the law, after a certain number of years, varying I +believe, in different states. With Ruth the affair doesn't seem to be a +case of law at all. She is in a position which requires the utmost +protection from those who love her as we do. The obligation is moral +rather than legal. I wouldn't let my mind run on the marrying aspects of +the case at present my boy." + +"I--Uncle Phil, sometimes I think I'll just marry her anyway and let the +rest of it take care of itself. There isn't any proof she is married--not +the slightest shadow of proof," Larry argued with sudden heat. + +His uncle's eyebrows went up. "Steady, Larry. A wedding ring is usually +considered presumptive evidence of marriage." + +"I don't care," flashed the boy, the tension of the past weeks suddenly +snapping. "She loves me. I don't see what right anything has to come +between us. What is a wedding ceremony when a man and woman belong to +each other as we belong? Hanged if I don't think I'd be justified in +marrying her tomorrow! There is nothing but a ring to prevent." + +"There is a good deal more than a ring to prevent," said Doctor Holiday +with some sternness. "What if you did do just that and her husband +appeared in two months or six?" + +"I don't believe she has a husband. If she had he would have come after +her before this. We've waited. He's had time." + +"You have waited scarcely two months, Larry. That is hardly enough time +upon which to base finalities." + +"What of it? I'm half crazy sometimes over the whole thing. I can't see +things straight. I don't want to. I don't want anything but Ruth, whether +she is married or not. I want her. Some day I'll ask her to go off with +me and she will go. She will do anything I ask." + +"Hold on, Larry lad. You are saying things you don't mean. You are the +last man in the world to take advantage of a girl's defenseless position +and her love for you to gratify your own selfish desires and perhaps +wreck her life and your own." + +Larry bit his lip, wheeled and went over to the window, staring out into +the night. At last he turned back, white, but master of himself again. + +"I beg your pardon, Uncle Phil. You are right. I was talking like a fool. +Of course I'll do nothing of the kind. I won't do anything to harm Ruth +anyway. I won't even make love to her--if I can help it," he qualified in +a little lower tone. + +"If you can't you had better go at once," said his uncle still a +bit sternly. Then more gently. "I know you don't want to play the +cad, Larry." + +"I won't, Uncle Phil. I promise." + +"Very well. I am satisfied with your word. Remember I am ready to +help any way and if it gets too hard I'll make it easy at any time +for you to go. But in the mean time we won't talk about it. The least +said the better." + +Larry nodded his assent to that and suddenly switched to another subject, +asking his uncle what he knew about this Alan Massey with whom Tony was +having such an extensive correspondence. + +His uncle admitted that he didn't know much of anything about him, except +that he was the inheritor of the rather famous Massey property and an +artist of some repute. + +"He has plenty of repute of other kinds," said Larry. "He is a +thorough-going rotter, I infer. I made some inquiries from a chap who +knows him. He has gone the pace and then some. It makes me sick to have +Tony mixed up with a chap like that." + +"You haven't said anything to her yourself?" + +"No. Don't dare. It would only make it worse for me to tackle her. +Neither she nor Ted will stand any interference from me. We are a cranky +lot I am afraid. We all have what Dad used to call the family devil. So +far as I know you are the only person on record that can manage him." + +And Larry smiled rather shame-facedly at his uncle. + +"I am afraid you will all three have to learn to manage your own +particular familiar. Devils are rather personal property, Larry." + +"Don't I know it? I got into mighty close range with mine last night, and +just now for that matter. Anyway I am not prepared to do any preaching at +anybody at present; but I would be awfully grateful to you if you will +speak to Tony. Somebody has to. And you can do it a million times better +than anyone else." + +"Very well. I will see what I can do." And thus quietly Doctor Holiday +accepted another burden on his broad shoulders. + +The next day he found Tony on the porch reading one of the long letters +which came to her so frequently in the now familiar, dashing script. + +"Got a minute for me, niece o' mine?" he asked. + +Tony slid Alan's letter back into its envelope and smiled up at +her uncle. + +"Dozens of them, nice uncle," she answered. + +"It is getting well along in the summer and high time we decided a few +things. Do you still want to go in for the stage business in the fall?" + +"I want to very much, Uncle Phil, if you think it isn't too much like +deserting Granny and the rest of you." + +"No, you have earned it. I want you to go. I don't suppose because you +haven't talked about Hempel's offer that it means you have forgotten it?" + +"Indeed, I haven't forgotten it. For myself I would much rather get +straight on the stage if I could and learn by doing it, but you would +prefer to have me go to a regular dramatic school, wouldn't you?" + +"Yes, Tony, I would. A year of preparation isn't a bit too much to get +your bearings in before you take the grand plunge. I want you to be very +sure that the stage is what you really want." + +"I am sure of that already. I've been sure for ages. But I am perfectly +willing to do the thing any way you want and I am more grateful than I +can tell you that you are on my side about it. Are you going to tell +Granny? It will about break her heart I am afraid." Tony's eyes were +troubled. She did hate to hurt Granny; but on the other hand she couldn't +wait forever to begin. + +She did not see the shadow that crept over her uncle's face. Well he knew +that long before Tony was before the footlights, Granny would be where +prejudices and misunderstandings were no more; but he had no wish to mar +the girl's happiness by betraying the truth just now. + +"I think we are justified in indulging in a little camouflage there," he +said. "We will tell Granny you are going to study art. Art covers a +multitude of sins," he added with a lightness he was far from feeling. +"One thing more, my dear. I have waited a good while to hear something +about the young man who writes these voluminous letters."' He nodded at +the envelope in Tony's lap. "I like his writing; but I should like to +know something about him,--himself." + +Tony flushed and averted her eyes for a moment. Then she looked up +frankly. + +"I haven't said anything because I didn't know what to say. He is Alan +Massey, the artist. I met him at Carlotta's. He wants to marry me." + +"But you have not already accepted him?" + +"No, I couldn't. He--he isn't the kind of man you would want me to marry. +He is trying to be, for my sake though. I think he will succeed. I told +him if he wanted to ask me again next summer I would tell him what my +answer would be." + +"He is on probation then?" + +"Yes." + +"And you care for him?" + +"I--think so." + +"You don't know it?" + +"No, Uncle Phil. I don't. He cares so much for me--so terribly much. And +I don't know whether I care enough or not. I should have to care a great +deal to overlook what he has been and done. Maybe it wasn't anything but +midsummer madness and his wonderful dancing. We danced almost every night +until I sent him away. And when we danced we seemed to be just one +person. Aside from his dancing he fascinated me. I couldn't forget him or +ignore him. He was--is--different from any man I ever knew. I feel +differently about him from what I ever felt about any other man. Maybe it +is love. Maybe it isn't. I--I thought it was last month." + +Doctor Holiday shook his head dubiously. + +"And you are not so sure now?" he questioned. + +"Not always," admitted Tony. "I didn't want to love him. I fought it with +all my might. I didn't want to be bothered with love. I wanted to be +happy and free and make a great success of my work. But after Alan came +all those things didn't seem to matter. I am afraid it goes rather deep, +Uncle Phil. Sometimes I think he means more to me than even you and Larry +and Ted do. It is strange. It isn't kind or loyal or decent. But that is +the way it is. I have to be honest, even if it hurts." + +Her dark eyes were wistful and beseeched forgiveness as they sought her +uncle's. He did not speak and she went on swiftly, earnestly. + +"Please don't ask me to break off with him, Uncle Phil. I couldn't do it, +not only because I care for him too much, but because it would be cruel +to him. He has gotten out of his dark forest. I don't want to drive him +back into it. And that is what it would mean if I deserted him now. I +have to go on, no matter what you or Larry or any one thinks about it." + +She had risen now and stood before her uncle earnestly pleading her +lover's cause and her own. + +"It isn't fair to condemn a man forever because he has made mistakes back +in the past. We don't any of us know what we would have been like if +things had been different. Larry and Ted are fine. I am proud of their +clean record. It would be horrible if people said things about either of +them such as they say about Alan. But Larry and Ted have every reason to +be fine. They have had you and Dad and Grandfather Holiday and the rest +of them to go by. They have lived all their lives in the Holiday +tradition of what a man should be. Alan has had nobody, nothing. Nobody +ever helped him to see the difference between right and wrong and why it +mattered which you chose. He does see now. He is trying to begin all over +again and begin right. And I'm going to stand by him. I have to--even if +I have to go against you, Uncle Phil." + +There was a quiver--almost a sob in Tony's voice Her uncle drew her +into his arms. + +"All right, little girl. It is not an easy thing to swallow. I hate to +have your shining whiteness touch pitch even for a minute. No, wait, +dear. I am not going to condemn your lover. If he is sincerely in earnest +in trying to clean the slate, I have only respect for the effort. You are +right about much of it. We can none of us afford to do over much judging. +We are all sinners, more or less. And there are a million things to be +taken into consideration before we may dare to sit in judgment upon any +human being. It takes a God to do that. I am not going to ask you to give +him up, or to stop writing or even seeing him. But I do want you to go +slow. Marriage is a solemn thing. Don't wreck your life from pity or +mistaken devotion. Better a heart-ache now than a life-long regret. Let +your lover prove himself just as you have set him to do. A woman can't +save a man. He has to save himself. But if he will save himself for love +of her the chances are he will stay saved and his love is the real thing. +I shall accept your decision. I shan't fight it in any way, whatever it +is. All I ask is that you will wait the full year before you make any +definite promise of marriage." + +"I will," said Tony. "I meant to do that any way. I am not such a foolish +child as maybe you have been thinking I was. I am pretty much grown up, +Uncle Phil. And I have plenty of sense. It I hadn't--I should be married +to Alan this minute." + +He smiled a little sadly at that. + +"Youth! Youth! Yes, Tony, I believe you have sense. Maybe I have +under-estimated it. Any way I thank the good Lord for it. No more +secrets? Everything clear?" + +He lifted her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes with tender +searching. + +"Not a secret. I am very glad to have you know. We all feel better the +moment we dump all our woes on you," she sighed. + +He smiled and stroked her hair. + +"I had much rather be a dumping ground than be shut out of the confidence +of any one of you. That hurts. We all have to stand by Larry, just now. +Not in words but in--well, we'll call it moral support. The poor lad +needs it." + +"Oh, Uncle Phil! Did he tell you or did you guess?" + +"A little of both. The boy is in a bad hole, Tony. But he will keep out +of the worst of the bog. He has grit and chivalry enough to pull through +somehow. And maybe before many weeks the mystery will be cleared for +better or worse. We can only hope for the best and hold on tight to +Larry, and Ruth too, till they are out of the woods." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE + + +Philip Lambert was rather taken by surprise when Harrison Cressy appeared +at the store one day late in August, announcing that he had come to talk +business and practically commanding the young man to lunch with him that +noon. It was Saturday and Phil had little time for idle conjecture, but +he did wonder every now and then that morning what business Carlotta's +father could possibly have with himself, and if by any chance Carlotta +had sent him. + +Later, seated in the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury's one +hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with +considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise of manner. + +Having left soup the waiter shuffled away with the congenital air of +discouragement which belongs to his class, and Harrison Cressy got down +to business in regard both to the soup and his mission in Dunbury. He was +starting a branch brokerage concern in a small city just out of Boston. +He needed a smart young man to put at the head of it. The smart young man +would get a salary of five thousand a year, plus his commissions to start +with. If he made good the salary would go up in proportion. In fact the +sky would be the limit. He offered the post to Philip Lambert. + +Phil laid down his soup spoon and stared at his companion. After a moment +he remarked that it was rather unusual, to say the least, to offer a +salary like that to an utter greenhorn in a business as technical as +brokerage, and that he was afraid he was not in the least fitted for the +position in question. + +"That is my look out," snapped Mr. Cressy. "Do I look like a born fool, +Philip Lambert? You don't suppose I am jumping in the dark do you? I have +gone to some pains to look up your record in college. I found out you +made good no matter what you attempted, on the gridiron, in the +classroom, everywhere else. I've been picking men for years and I've gone +on the principle that a man who makes good in one place will make good in +another if he has sufficient incentive." + +"I suppose the five thousand is to be considered in the light of an +incentive," said Phil. + +"It is five times the incentive and more than I had when I started out," +grunted his host. "What more do you want?" + +"Nothing. I don't want so much. I couldn't earn it. And in any case I +cannot consider any change at present. I have gone in with my father." + +"So I understood. But that is not a hard and fast arrangement. A young +man like you has to look ahead. Your father won't stand in the way of +your bettering yourself." Harrison Cressy spoke with conviction. Well he +might. Though Philip had not known it his companion had spent an hour in +earnest conversation with his father that morning. Harrison Cressy knew +his ground there. + +"Go ahead, Mr. Cressy," Stewart Lambert had said at the close of the +interview. "You have my full permission to offer the position to the +boy and he has my full permission to accept it. He is free to go +tomorrow if he cares to. If it is for his happiness it is what his +mother and I want." + +But the younger Lambert was yet to be reckoned with. + +"It is a hard and fast arrangement so far as I am concerned," he said +quietly now. "Dad can fire me. I shan't fire myself." + +Mr. Cressy made a savage lunge at a fly that had ventured to light on the +sugar bowl, not knowing it was for the time being Millionaire Cressy's +sugar bowl. He hated being balked, even temporarily. He had supposed the +hardest sledding would be over when he had won the father's consent. He +had authentic inside information that the son had stakes other than +financial. He counted on youth's imperious urge to happiness. The lad had +done without Carlotta for two months now. It had seemed probable he would +be more amenable to reason in August than he had been in June. But it did +not look like it just now. + +"You are a darn fool, my young man," he gnarled. + +"Very likely," said Phil Lambert, with the same quietness which had +marked his father's speech earlier in the day. "If you had a son, Mr. +Cressy, wouldn't you want him to be the same kind of a darn fool? Would +you expect him to take French leave the first time somebody offered him +more money?" + +Harrison Cressy snorted, beckoned to the waiter his face purple with +rage. Why in blankety blank blank et cetera, et cetera, didn't he bring +the fish? Did he think they were there for the season? Philip did not +know he had probed an old wound. The one great disappointment of Harrison +Cressy's career was the fact that he had no son, or had had one for such +a brief space of hours that he scarcely counted except as a pathetic +might-have-been And even as Phil had said, so he would have wanted his +son to behave. The boy was a man, every inch of him, just such a man as +Harrison Gressy had coveted for his own. + +"Hang the money part." he snapped back at Phil, after the interlude with +the harrassed waiter. "Let's drop it." + +"With all my heart," agreed Phil. "Considering the money part hanged what +is left to the offer? Carlotta?" + +Mr. Cressy dropped his fork with a resounding clatter to the floor and +swore muttered monotonous oaths at the waiter for not being +instantaneously on the spot to replace the implement. + +"Young man," he said to Phil. "You are too devilish smart. Carlotta--is +why I am here." + +"So I imagined. Did she send you?" + +"Great Scott, no! My life wouldn't be worth a brass nickel if she knew I +was here." + +"I am glad she didn't. I wouldn't like Carlotta to think I could +be--bribed." + +"She didn't. Carlotta has perfectly clear impressions as to where you +stand. She gives you entire credit for being the blind, stubborn, +pigheaded jack-ass that you are." + +Phil grinned faintly at this accumulation of epithets, but his blue eyes +had no mirth in them. The interview was beginning to be something of a +strain. He wished it were over. + +"That's good," he said. "Apparently we all know where we all stand. I +have no illusions about Carlotta's view-point either. There is no reason +I should have. I got it first hand." + +"Don't be an idiot," ordered Mr. Cressy. "A woman can have as many +view-points as there are days in the year, counting Sundays double. You +have no more idea this minute where Carlotta stands than--than I have," +he finished ignominiously, wiping his perspiring forehead with an +imported linen handkerchief. + +"Do you mind telling me just why you are here, if Carlotta didn't send +you? I don't flatter myself you automatically selected me for your new +post without some rather definite reason behind it." + +"I came because I had a notion you were the best man for another job--a +job that makes the whole brokerage business look like a game of +jack-straws--the job of marrying my daughter Carlotta." + +Phil stared. He had not expected Mr. Cressy to take this position. He had +been ready enough to believe Carlotta's prophecy that her parent would +raise a merry little row if she announced to him her intention of +marrying that obscure individual, Philip Lambert, of Dunbury, +Massachusetts. He thought that particular way of behavior on the parent's +part not only probable but more or less justifiable, all things +considered. He saw no reason now why Mr. Cressy should feel otherwise. + +Harrison Cressy drained a deep draught of water, once more wiped his +highly shining brow and leaned forward over the table toward his +puzzled guest. + +"You see, Philip," he went on using the young man's first name for the +first time. "Carlotta is in love with you." + +Philip flushed and his frank eyes betrayed that this, though not entirely +new news, was not unwelcome to hear. + +"In fact," continued Carlotta's father grimly, "she is so much in love +with you she is going to marry another man." + +The light went out of Phil's eyes at that, but he said nothing to this +any more than he had to the preceding statement. He waited for the other +man to get at what he wanted to say. + +"I can't stand Carlotta's being miserable. I never could. It is why I am +here, to see if I can't fix up a deal with you to straighten things out. +I am in your hands, boy, at your mercy. I have the reputation of being +hard as shingle nails. I'm soft as putty where the girl is concerned. It +kills me by inches to have her unhappy." + +"Is she--very unhappy?" Phil's voice was sober. He thought that he too +was soft as putty, or softer where Carlotta was concerned. It made him +sick all over to think of her being unhappy. + +"She is--damnably unhappy." Harrison Cressy blew his nose with a sound as +of a trumpet. "Here you," he bellowed at the waiter who was timidly +approaching. "Is that our steak at last? Bring it here, quick and don't +jibber. Are you deaf and dumb as well as paralyzed?" + +The host attacked the steak with ferocity, slammed a generous section on +a plate and fairly threw it at the young man opposite. Phil wasn't +interested in steak. He scarcely looked at it. His eyes were on Mr. +Cressy, his thoughts were on that gentleman's only daughter. + +"I am sorry she is unhappy," he said. "I don't know how much you know +about it all; but since you know so much I assume you also know that I +care for Carlotta just as much as she cares for me, possibly more. I +would marry her tomorrow if I could." + +"For the Lord Harry's sake, do it then. I'll put up the money." + +Phil's face hardened. + +"That is precisely the rock that Carlotta and I split on, Mr. Cressy. She +wanted to have you put up the money. I love Carlotta but I don't love her +enough to let her or you--buy me." + +The old man and the young faced each other across the table. There was a +deadlock between them and both knew it. + +"But this offer I've made you is a bona fide one. You'll make good. You +will be worth the five thousand and more in no time. I know your kind. I +told you I was a good picker. It isn't a question of buying. Can the +movie stuff. It's a fair give and take." + +"I have refused your offer, Mr. Cressy." + +"You refused it before you knew Carlotta was eating her heart out for +you. Doesn't that make any difference to you, my lad? You said you loved +her," reproachfully. + +A huge blue-bottle fly buzzed past the table, passed on to the window +where it fluttered about aimlessly, bumping itself against the pane here +and there. Mechanically Phil watched its gyrations. It was one of the +hardest moments of his life. + +"In one way it makes a great difference, Mr. Cressy," he answered slowly. +"It breaks my heart to have her unhappy. But it wouldn't make her happy +to have me do something I know isn't right or fair or wise. I know +Carlotta. Maybe I know her better than you do; I know she doesn't want me +that way." + +"But you can't expect her to live in a hole like this, on a yearly +income that is probably less than she spends in one month just for +nothing much." + +"I don't expect it," explained Phil patiently. "I've never blamed +Carlotta for deciding against it. But there is no use going over it all. +She and I had it out together. It is our affair, not yours, Mr. Cressy." + +"Philip Lambert, did you ever see Carlotta cry?" + +Phil winced. The shot went home. + +"No. I'd hate to," he admitted. + +"You would," seconded Harrison Cressy. "I hated it like the devil myself. +She cried all over my new dress suit the other night." + +Phil's heart was one gigantic ache. The thought of Carlotta in tears was +almost unbearable. Carlotta--his Carlotta--was all sunshine and laughter. + +"It was like this," went on Carlotta's parent. "Her aunt told me she was +going to marry young Lathrop--old skin-flint tea-and-coffee Lathrop's +son. I couldn't quite stomach it. The fellow's an ass, an unobjectionable +ass, it is true, but with all the ear marks. I tackled Carlotta about it. +She said she wasn't engaged but might be any minute. I said some fool +thing about wanting her to be happy, and the next thing I knew she was in +my arms crying like anything. I haven't seen her cry since she was a +little tot. She has laughed her way through life always up to now. I +couldn't bear it. I can't bear it now, even remembering it. I squeezed +the story out of her, drop at a time, till I got pretty much the whole +bucket full. I tell you, Phil Lambert, you've got to give in. I can't +have her heart broken. You can't have her heart broken. God, man, it's +your funeral too." + +Phil felt very much as if it were his own funeral. But he did not speak. +He couldn't. The other forged on, his big, mumbling bass mingled with the +buzz of the blue-bottle in the window. + +"I made up my mind something had to be done and done quick. I wasn't +going to have my little girl run her head into the noose by marrying +Lathrop when it was you she loved. I got busy, made inquiries about you +as I said. I had to before I offered you the job naturally, but it was +more than that. I had to find out whether you were the kind of man I +wanted my Carlotta to marry. I found out, and came up here to put the +proposition to you. I talked to your father first, by the way, and got +his consent to go ahead with my plans." + +"You went to my father!" There was concern and a trace of indignation in +Phil's voice. + +"Naturally I was playing to win. I had to hold all the trumps. I wanted +your father on my side--had to have him in fact. He came without a +murmur. He is a good sport. Said all he wanted was your happiness, same +as all I wanted was Carlotta's. We quite understood each other." + +Phil sat silent with down cast eyes on his almost untasted salad. He +couldn't bear to think of his father's being attacked like that, hit with +a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. The more he thought about it the +more he resented it. Of course Dad would agree. He was a good sport as +Mr. Cressy said. Rut that didn't make the thing any easier or more +justifiable. + +"Your father is willing. I want it. Carlotta wants it. You want it, +yourself. Lord, boy, be honest. You know you do. You'll never regret +giving in. Remember it is for Carlotta's happiness we are both looking +for." There was an almost pleading note in Harrison Cressy's voice--a +note few men had heard. He was more used to command than to sue for what +he desired. + +Phil rose from the table. His face was a little white as he stood there, +tall, quiet, perfectly master of himself and the situation. Even before +the young man spoke Harrison Cressy knew he had failed. + +"I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. If Carlotta wants happiness with me I am afraid +she will have to come to Dunbury." + +"You won't reconsider?" + +"There is nothing to reconsider. There never was any question. I am sorry +you even raised one in Dad's mind. You shouldn't have gone to him in the +first place. You should have come to me. It was for me to settle." + +"Highty, tighty!" fumed the exasperated magnate. "People don't tell me +what I should and should not do. They do what I tell 'em." + +"I don't," said Philip Lambert in much the same tone he had once said to +Carlotta, "You can't have this." "I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. I don't want to +be rude, or unkind or obstinate; but there are some things no man can +decide for me. And there are some things I won't do even to win +Carlotta." + +Harrison Cressy's head drooped for a moment. He was beaten for +once--beaten by a lad of twenty-three whose will was quite as strong as +his own. The worst of it was he had never liked any young man in his +life so well as he liked Philip Lambert at this minute, never so coveted +any thing for his daughter Carlotta as he coveted her marriage with +Philip Lambert. + +"That is final, I suppose," he asked after a moment, looking up at the +young man. + +"Absolutely, Mr. Cressy. I am sorry." + +Harrison Cressy lumbered to his feet. + +"I am sorry too," he said, "damnably sorry for Carlotta and for +myself. Will you shake hands with me, Philip? It is good to meet a man +now and then." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS + + +Left to himself, Harrison Cressy discovered to his annoyance that there +was no train out of Dunbury for two hours. That was the worst of these +little one-horse towns. You might as well be dead as alive in 'em. By the +time he had smoked his after-dinner cigar he felt as if he might as well +be dead himself. He felt suddenly heavy, old, almost decrepit, though +that morning when he had left Boston he had considered himself in the +prime of life and vigor. Hang it! He was sixty-nine. A man was about done +for at sixty-nine, all but ready to turn into his grave. And he without +son or grandson. Lord! What a swindle life was anyway! + +Well, there was no use sitting still groaning. He would get up and take a +little walk until train time. Maybe it was his liver that made him feel +so confoundedly rotten and no count. A little exercise would do him good. + +Absentmindedly he noted, as he strolled down the elm-shaded streets, the +neatness of the lawns, the gay flower beds, the hammocks and swings out +under the trees as if people really lived out of doors here. There were +animate evidences of the fact everywhere. Children played here and there +in shady spaces under big trees. Pretty girls on wide, hospitable-looking +porches chatted and drank lemonade and knitted. A lithe, red-haired lass +in white played tennis on a smooth dirt court with a tall, clean looking +youth. As Mr. Cressy passed the girl cried out, "Love all" and the +millionaire smiled. It occurred to him it was not so hard to love all in +a village like this. It was only in cities that you hated your neighbor +and did him first lest you be done yourself. + +He hadn't been loose in a country town like this for years. He had almost +forgotten what they were like when you didn't shoot through them in a +motor car, rushing always to get somewhere else. His casual saunter down +the quiet street was oddly soothing to his nerves, awoke happy, yet +half-sad memories. + +He had met and loved Carlotta's mother in a country town. The lilacs had +been in bloom and the orioles had stood sponsor for his first Sunday +call. They had become engaged by the time the asters were out. The next +lilac time they had been married. A third spring and the little Carlotta +had come. They had both been disappointed at its not being a boy, but the +little girl was a wonder, with hair as gold as buttercups, eyes like wood +violets and a laugh that lilted and gurgled like the little brook down in +the meadow. + +And then, two years later, the boy had come, come and drifted off to some +far place. It had been a bitter blow to Rose as well as to Harrison +Cressy, especially as they said there never could be any more children. +Rose grew frail, did not rally or regain her strength. They advised a +sanitarium in the Adirondacks for her. She had gone, but it had been of +no use. By the time they brought in the first gentians Rose had drifted +off after her little son. Carlotta and her father were alone. + +By this time Harrison Cressy had begun to show the authentic Midas +touch. Only the little Carlotta stood between him and sheer, sordid +money grubbing. And even she was an excuse for the getting of always +more and more wealth. He told himself Carlotta should be a veritable +princess, should go always clad in the finest, have of the best, be +surrounded always by the most beautiful. She should know only joy and +light and laughter. + +Thinking these thoughts, Carlotta's father sighed. For now at last +Carlotta wanted something he could not give her, was learning after +twenty-two years of cloudless joy the bitter way of tears. Why hadn't +that stubborn boy surrendered? + +For that matter why didn't Carlotta surrender? This was a new idea to +Harrison Cressy. All the time he had been talking to Philip Lambert he +had been seeing Carlotta only in relation to Crest House and the Beacon +Street mansion. But just now he had been recalling her mother under very +different associations. Rose had been content with a tiny little cottage +set in a green yard gay with bright old fashioned flowers. He and Rose +had nested as happily as the orioles in the maples, especially after the +gold-haired baby came. Was Carlotta so different from Rose? Was her +happiness such a different kind of thing? Were women not pretty much +alike at heart? Did they not want about the same things? + +Carlotta loved this lad of hers as Rose had loved himself. Was it her own +father who was cheating her out of happiness because he had taught her to +believe that money and limousines and great houses and many servants and +silken robes are happiness? If he had talked to her of other things, told +her about her mother and the happy old days among the lilacs and orioles, +with little but love to nest with, couldn't he have made her see things +more truly, shown her that love was the main thing, that money could not +buy happiness? One could not buy much of anything that was worth buying +Harrison Cressy thought. One could purchase only the worthless. That was +the everlasting failure of money. + +He remembered the boy's, "I love Carlotta. But I don't love her enough to +let her or you buy me." It was true. Neither he nor his daughter had been +able to purchase the lad's integrity, his good faith, his ideals. And +Harrison Cressy was thankful from the bottom of his heart that it was so. + +He turned his steps back to the village and as he did so an oriole +flashed out of the shrubbery near him, and passed like a flame out of +sight among the trees. This was a good sign. Orioles had nested every +year in the maple tree by the little white house where Carlotta had been +born. Carlotta herself had always loved them. "Pretty, pretty, birdie!" +she had been wont to call out. "Come, daddy, let's follow him and see +where he goes." + +He would go home and tell Carlotta all this, make her see that her +happiness was in her own hands. No, it was the boy's story. If Carlotta +would not follow the orioles and her own heart for Philip Lambert she +would not for any argument of his. + +By this time a distant puff of smoke gave evidence that the Boston train +was already on its way, leaving Harrison Cressy in Dunbury. Not that he +cared. He had business still to transact ere he departed, a new battle to +fight. He walked with the firm elastic step of a youth back to town. What +did it matter if you were sixty-nine when the best things of life were +still ahead of you? + +Accordingly Phil was a second time that day surprised by the unheralded +arrival of Carlotta's father, a rather dusty, weary and limp-looking +gentleman this time, but exuding a sort of benignant serenity that had +not been there early in the day. + +"Hello," greeted the millionaire blandly. "Missed my train--got to +browsing round the town like an old billy goat. Not sorry though. It is a +nice little town. Mind if I sit down? I'm a bit blown." And dropping on a +stool Mr. Cressy fanned himself with his panama and grinned at Philip, a +grin the young man could not quite fathom. What new trick had the clever +old financier at the bottom of his mind? Phil hoped he had not got to go +through the thing again. Once had been quite enough for one day. + +"Let me send out for something cool to drink, Mr. Cressy. You must be +horribly hot. It is warm in here, even with all the fans going. Hi, +there, Tommy!" Philip summoned a freckled, red-haired youth from +somewhere in the background. "Run over to Greene's and get a lemonade for +this gentleman, will you?" + +"Right, Mr. Phil." The boy saluted--an odd salute, Mr. Cressy noted. It +was rendered with the right hand, the three middle fingers held up, the +thumb bent over touching the nail of the little finger. The saluter stood +very straight as he went through the ceremony and looked very serious +about it. "Queer!" thought the onlooker. The messenger boys he knew did +not behave like that when you gave them an order. + +Philip excused himself to attend to a customer and in a moment the +red-haired lad was back with a tall glass of lemonade clinking +delightfully with ice. Mr. Cressy took it and set it down on the counter +while he fumbled for his wallet and produced a dollar bill. + +To his amazement the boy's grin faded, and he drew himself up with +dignity. + +"No, thank you, sir," he said to the proffered greenback. "I'm a Scout +and Scouts don't take tips." + +"What!" gasped Harrison Cressy. In all his life he did not recall meeting +a boy who ever refused money before. He began to think there was +something uncanny about this town of Dunbury. First a young man who could +not be bought at any price. And now a boy who wouldn't take a tip for +service rendered. + +"I said I was a Scout," repeated the lad patiently. "And Scouts don't +take tips. We are supposed to do one good turn every day, anyway, and I +hadn't gotten mine in before. I'm only a Tenderfoot but I'm most ready +for my second class tests. Mr. Phil's going to try me out in first aid as +soon as he gets time." + +"Mr. Phil! What's he got to do with it?" inquired Mr. Cressy, after a +long, satisfying swig of lemonade. + +"He is our Scout-master and a peach of a one too. He is going to take us +on a hike tomorrow." + +"Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Sunday, young man." The Methodist in Harrison +Cressy rose to the surface. + +"I know. We all go to church and Sunday school in the morning. Mr. Phil +won't take us unless we do. But in the afternoon he thinks it is all +right to go on a hike. We don't practise signaling and things like that, +but we get in a lot of nature study. I can identify all my ten trees now +and a whole lot more besides, and I've got a bird list of over sixty." + +"You don't say so?" Harrison Cressy was plainly impressed. "So your Mr. +Phil gives a good deal of time to that sort of thing, does he?" he added, +his eyes seeking Philip Lambert in the distance. + +"Should say he did. I guess he gives about all the time he has outside +of the store. He's a dandy Scout-master. What he says goes, you betcher." + +Remembering the scene at the luncheon table that day, Harrison Cressy +thought it quite probable. What Philip had said had gone "you betcher" on +that occasion with a vengeance. So young Lambert gave his off hours to +business of this sort. Most of Carlotta's male friends gave most of +theirs to polo, jazz, and chorus girls. He began to covet Philip more +than ever for a possible, and he hoped probable, son-in-law. + +It played into his purposes excellently that Philip on returning invited +him to supper on the Hill that night. He wanted to meet the boy's people, +especially the mother. Carlotta had told him once that Philip's mother +was the most wonderful person in the world. + +Seated at the long table in the Lambert dining-room Harrison Cressy +enjoyed a meal such as his chef-ridden soul had almost forgotten could +exist--a meal so simple yet so delectable that he dreamed of it for days +afterward. + +But the food, excellent as it was, was only a small part of the +significance of the occasion. It was a revelation to the millionaire to +know that a family could gather around the board like this and have such +a thoroughly delightful time all round. There was gay talk and ready +laughter, a fine flavor of old-fashioned courtesy and hospitality and +good will in everything that was said or done. + +The Lambert girls--the pretty twins and the younger, slim slip of a +lassie, Elinor--were charming, fresh, natural, unspoiled, very different +from and far more to his taste than most of the young women who came to +Crest House--hot-house products, over-sophisticated, cynical, too +familiar with rouge and cigarettes and the game of love and lure, +huntresses more or less, the whole pack of them. It seemed girls could +still be plain girls on this enchanted Hill--girls who would make +wonderful wives some day for some lucky men. + +But the mother! She was the secret of it all, quite as remarkable as +Carlotta had said. She was extraordinarily well read, talked well on a +dozen subjects as to which he was himself but vaguely informed, and she +was evidently even more extraordinarily busy. There was talk of a Better +Babies movement in which she was interested, of a Red Cross Chapter at +which she had spent the afternoon, of a committee meeting of the local +Woman's Club which was bringing a noted English poet-lecturer to town. +There were Chatauqua plans in view, and a new children's reading room in +the public library with a story-telling hour of which Clare was to be in +charge. A hundred things indicated that Mrs. Lambert was by no means +confined to the four walls of her home for interests and activities. Yet +her home was exquisitely kept and she was a mother first of all. One +could see that every moment. It was "Mums, this" and "Mums, that" from +them all. The life of the home clearly pivoted about her. + +Harrison Cressy found himself wishing that Carlotta could have known a +motherhood like that. Rose had gone so soon. Carlotta had never known +what she missed. Perhaps Mr. Cressy himself had not known until he saw +Mrs. Lambert and realized what a mother might be. Poor Carlotta! He had +given her a great deal. At least, until this, afternoon, he had thought +he had. But he had never given her anything at all comparable to what +this quiet village store-keeper and his wife had given to their son and +daughters. He hadn't had it to give. He had been poor, after all, all +along. Though he hadn't suspected it until now. + +After supper Stuart Lambert had slipped quickly away, bidding his son +stay up on the Hill a little longer with their guest. Phil had demurred, +but had been quietly overruled and had acquiesced perforce. Poor Dad! +There had not been a moment all day to relieve his mind about Mr. +Cressy's offer. Not once had the father and son been alone. Phil was +afraid his father was taking the thing a good deal to heart, and it +worried him. He had counted on talking it over together as they went back +to the store but his father had willed otherwise. + +It was with Carlotta's father instead of his own that Philip talked first +after all. + +"See here, Philip," began Mr. Cressy as they descended the Hill in +"Lizzie." "I went at this all wrong. So did Carlotta. I understand +better now. I've been back in the past this afternoon, remembering what +it means to live in the country and love and mate there in the good +old-fashioned way as Carlotta's mother and I did. It is what I want her +to do with you. Do you get that, boy? I want her to come to Dunbury. I +want her to have a piece of your mother. Carlotta never knew what it was +to have a mother. It is mostly my fault she doesn't see any clearer. You +mustn't blame her, lad." + +"I don't," said Phil. "I love her." + +"I know you do. And she loves you. Go to her. Make her see. Make her +marry you and be happy." + +Phil was silent, not because he was not moved by the older man's plea but +because he was almost too moved to speak. It rather took his breath away +to have Harrison Cressy on his side like this. It was almost too +incredible, and yet there was no mistaking the sincerity in the other's +words or on his face. Carlotta's father did want Carlotta to come to him +on his Hill. + +But would Carlotta want it? That was the question. For himself he +sought no higher road to follow than the one where his father and +mother had blazed the trail through fair weather and stormy these many +years. But would Carlotta be content to travel so with him? He did not +know. At any rate he could ask her, try once more to make her see, as +her father put it. + +He turned to his companion with a sober smile at this point in his +reflections. + +"Thank you, Mr. Cressy. I will try again and I know it is going to make a +great deal of difference to Carlotta--and to me--to have you on my side. +Perhaps she will see it differently this time. I--hope so." + +"Lord, boy, so do I!" groaned Mr. Cressy. "You will come back to Crest +House tomorrow with me?" + +Phil hesitated, considered, shook his head. + +"I'll come next Saturday. I can't get away tomorrow," he said. + +"Why not? For the Lord's sake, boy, get it over!" + +Phil smiled but shook his head. He too wanted to get it over. He could +hardly wait to get to Carlotta, would have started that moment if he +could have done so. But there were clear-cut reasons why he could not go +tomorrow, obligations that held him fast in Dunbury. + +"I can't go tomorrow because I have promised my boys a hike," he +explained. + +Harrison Cressy nearly exploded. + +"Heavens, man! What does a parcel of kids amount to when it comes to +getting you a wife? You can call off your hike, can't you?" + +"I could, but it would be hard on a good many of them. They count on it a +good deal. Some of them have given up other pleasures they might have had +on account of it. Tommy has, for instance. His uncle asked him to go to +Worcester with him in his car, and he refused because of his date with +me. They are all bribed to church and Sunday School by the means. One of +the things Scouting stands for is sticking to your job and your word. I +don't think it is exactly up to the Scoutmaster to dodge his +responsibilities when he preaches the other kind of thing. Of course, if +it were a life and death matter, it would be different. It isn't. I have +waited a good many weeks to see Carlotta. I can wait one more." + +Harrison Cressy grunted. He hardly knew whether to fly into a rage with +this extraordinary young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he +liked him better and better every minute. He contented himself by +repeating a remark he had made earlier in the day. + +"You are a darn fool, young man." Then he added, half against his will, +"But I like your darnfoolness, hang me if I don't!" + +Phil had a strenuous two hours in the store with never a minute to get at +his father. It was not until the last customer had departed, the last +clerk fled away and the clock striking eleven that the father and son +were alone. + +Philip came over to where the older man stood. His heart smote him when +he saw how utterly worn and weary the other looked, as if he had suddenly +added a full ten years to his age since morning. His characteristic +buoyancy seemed to have deserted him for once. + +"Dad, I've not had a minute alone with you all day. I am sorry Mr. Cressy +bothered you about that blue sky proposition of his. I never would have +let him if I had known. Of course there was nothing in it. I didn't +consider it for a minute." + +Stuart Lambert smiled wearily and sat down on the counter. + +"I am afraid you have given up more than we realized, Philip, in coming +into the store. Mr. Cressy gave me a glimpse into things that I knew +nothing about. You should have told us." + +"There was nothing to tell. I've given up nothing that was mine. I told +Carlotta all along she would have to come to me. I couldn't come to her. +My whole life is here with you. It is what I have wanted ever since I had +the sense to want anything but to enjoy my fool self. But even then I +didn't appreciate what it would be like to be here with you. I couldn't, +till I had tried it and found out first hand what kind of a man my dad +was. I am absolutely satisfied. If Mr. Cressy had offered me a million a +year I wouldn't have taken it. It wouldn't have been the slightest +temptation even--" he smiled a little sadly--"even with Carlotta thrown +in. I don't want to get Carlotta that way." + +"You say you are satisfied, Philip. Maybe that is so. But you are +not happy." + +"I wasn't, just at first. I was a fool. I let the thing swamp me for +awhile. Mums helped pull me out of the slough and since then I've been +finding out that happiness is--well, a kind of by-product. Like the +kingdom of heaven it doesn't come for observation. I have had about as +much happiness here with you, and with Mums and the girls at home, and +with my Scouts in the woods, as I deserve, maybe more. I'm going to try +to get Carlotta. I haven't given up hope. I'm going down to Sea View next +week to ask her again and maybe things will be different this time. Her +father is on my side now, which is a great help. He has got the Holiday +Hill viewpoint all at once. He wants Carlotta to come to me--us. So do I, +with all my heart. But whether she does or doesn't, I am here with you as +long as you want me, first last and all the time and glad to be. Please +believe that, Dad, always." + +Stuart Lambert rose. + +"Philip, you don't know what it means to me to hear you say this." There +was a little break in the older man's voice, the suggestion of pent +emotion. "It nearly killed me to think I ought to give you up. You are +sure you are not making too much of a sacrifice?" + +"Dad! Please don't say that word to me. There isn't any sacrifice. It is +what I want. I haven't been a very good son always. Even this summer I am +afraid I haven't come up to all you expected of me, especially just at +first when I was wrapped up in myself and my own concerns too much to see +that doing a good job in the store was only a small part of what I was +here in Dunbury to do. But anyway I am prouder than I can tell you to be +your son and I am going to try my darndest to live up to the sign if you +will let me stay on being the minor part of it." + +He held out his hand and his father took it. There were tears in the +older man's eyes. A moment later the store was dark as the two passed out +shoulder to shoulder beneath the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE DUNBURY CURE + + +Harrison Cressy awoke next morning to the cheerful chirrup of robins and +the pleasant far-off sound of church bells. He liked the bells. They +sounded different in the country he thought. You couldn't hear them in +the city anyway. There were too many noises to distract you. There was no +Sabbath stillness in the city. For that matter there wasn't much Sabbath. + +He got up out of bed and went and looked out of the window. There was a +heavenly hush everywhere. It was still very early. It had been the +Catholic bells ringing for mass that he had heard. The dew was a-dazzle +on every grass blade. The robins hopped briskly about at their business +of worm-gathering. The morning glories all in fresh bloom climbed +cheerfully over the picket fence. He hadn't seen a morning glory in +years. It set him dreaming again, took him back to his boyhood days. + +If only Carlotta would be sensible and yield to the boy's wooing. Dunbury +had cast a kind of spell upon him. He wanted his daughter to live here. +He wanted to come here to visit her. In his imagination he saw himself +coming to Carlotta's home--not too big a home--just big enough to live +and grow in and raise babies in. He saw himself playing with Carlotta's +little golden-haired violet-eyed daughters, and walking hand in hand with +her small son Harrison, just such a sturdy, good-looking, wide-awake +youngster as Philip Lambert had no doubt been. Harrison Cressy's mind +dwelt fondly upon this grandson of his. That was a boy indeed! + +Carlotta's son should not be permitted to grow up a money grubber. There +would be money of course. One couldn't very well avoid that under the +circumstances. The boy would be trained to the responsibilities of being +Harrison Cressy's heir. But he should be taught to see things in their +true values and proportions. He must not grow up money-blinded like +Carlotta. He should know that money was good--very good. But he should +know it was not the chief good, was never for an instant to be classed +with the abiding things--the real things, not to be purchased at a price. + +Mr. Cressy sighed a little at that point and crept back to bed. It +occurred to him he would have to leave this latter part of his grandson's +education to the Lambert side of the family. That was their business, +just as the money part was his. + +He fell asleep again and presently re-awoke in a kind of shivering panic. +What if Carlotta would not marry Philip after all? What if it was too +late already? What if his grandson turned out to be a second Herbert +Lathrop, an unobjectionable, possibly even an objectionable ass. +Perspiration beaded on the millionaire's brow. Why was that young idiot +on the Hill waiting? What were young men made of nowadays? Didn't Philip +Lambert know that you could lose a woman forever if you didn't jump +lively? Hanged if he wouldn't call the boy this minute and tell him he +just had to change his mind and go to Crest House that very morning +without a moment's delay. Delay might be fatal. Harrison Cressy sat up in +bed, fumbled for his slippers, shook his head gloomily and returned to +his place under the covers. + +It wasn't any use. He might as well give up. He couldn't make Philip +Lambert do anything he did not want to do. He had tried it twice and +failed ignominiously both times. He wouldn't tackle it again. The boy was +stronger than he was. He had to lie back and let things take their course +as best they might. + +"Cheer up! Cheer up!" counseled the robins outside, but millionaire +Cressy heeded not their injunctions. The balloon of his hopes lay pricked +and flat in the dust. + +He rose, dressed, breakfasted and discovered there was an eleven o'clock +train for Boston. He discovered also that he hadn't the slightest wish to +take it. He did not want to go to Boston. He did not want to go to Crest +House. And very particularly and definitely he did not want to see his +daughter Carlotta. Carlotta might ferret out his errand to Dunbury and be +bitterly angry at his interference with her affairs. Even if she were not +angry how could he meet her without telling her everything, including +things that were the boy's right to tell? It was safer to stay away from +Crest House entirely. That was it. He would telegraph Carlotta his gout +was worse, that he had gone to the country to take a cure. He would be +home Saturday. + +Immensely heartened he dispatched the wire. By this time it was +ten-thirty and the dew on the grass was all dry, the morning glories shut +tight and the robins vanished. The church bells were ringing again +however and Harrison Cressy decided to go to church, the white Methodist +church on the common. He wouldn't meet any of the Hill people there. The +Holidays were Episcopal, the Lamberts Unitarian--a loose, heterodox kind +of creed that. He wished Phil were Methodist. It would have given him +something to go by. Then he grinned a bit sheepishly at his own expense +and shook his head. He had had the Methodist creed to go by himself and +much good had it done him. Maybe it did not make so much difference what +you believed. It was how you acted that mattered. Why that was +Unitarianism itself, wasn't it? Queer. Maybe there was something in it +after all. + +Seated in the little church Harrison Cressy hardly listened to the +preacher's droning voice. He followed his own trend of thought instead, +recalling long-forgotten scriptural passages. "What shall it profit a man +though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" was one of the +recurring phrases. He applied it to Philip Lambert, applied it sadly to +himself and with a shake of his head to his daughter, Carlotta. He +remembered too the story of the rich young man. Had he made Carlotta as +the rich young man, cumbered her with so many worldly possessions and +standards that by his own hand he was keeping her out of the heaven of +happiness she might have otherwise inherited? He feared so. + +He bowed his head with the others but he did not pray. He could not. He +was too unhappy. And yet who knows? Perhaps his unwonted clarity of +vision and humility of soul were acceptable that morning in lieu of +prayer to Sandalphou. + +As he ate his solitary dinner his despondency grew upon him. He felt +almost positive Philip would fail in his mission, that Carlotta would go +her willful way to regret and disillusionment, and all these things gone +irretrievably wrong would be at bottom his own fault. + +Later he endeavored to distract himself from his dreary thoughts by +discoursing with his neighbor on the veranda, a tall, grizzled, soldierly +looking gentleman with shrewd but kind eyes and the brow of a scholar. + +As they talked desultorily a group of khaki clad youngsters filed past, +Philip Lambert among them, looking only an older and taller boy in their +midst. The lads looked happy, alert, vigorous, were of clean, upstanding +type, the pick of the town it seemed probable to Harrison Cressy who said +as much to his companion. + +The other smiled and shook his head. + +"You are mistaken, sir," he said. "Three months ago most of those fellows +were riffraff--the kind that hang around street corners smoking and +indulging in loose talk and profanity. Young Lambert, the chap with them, +their Scout-master, picked that kind from choice, turned down a +respectable church-mothered bunch for this one, left the other for a man +who wanted an easier row to hoe. It was some stunt, as the boys say. It +took a man like Phil Lambert to put it through. He has the crowd where he +wants them now though. They would go through fire and water if he led +them and he is a born leader." + +Harrison Cressy's eyes followed the departing group. Here was a new light +on his hoped-for son-in-law. So he picked "publicans-and sinners" to eat +with. Mr. Cressy rather liked that. He hated snobs and pharisees, +couldn't stomach either brand. + +"It means a good deal to a town like this when its college-bred boys come +back and lend a hand like that," the other man went on. "So many of them +rush off to the cities thinking there isn't scope enough for their +ineffable wisdom and surpassing talents in their own home town. A number +of people prophesied that young Lambert would do the same instead of +settling down with his father as we all wanted him to do. I wasn't much +afraid of that myself. Phil has sense enough to see rather straight +usually. He did about that. And then the kickers put up a howl that he +had a swelled head, felt above the rest of Dunbury because he had a +college education and his father was getting to be one of the most +prosperous men in town. They complained he wouldn't go in for things the +rest of the town was interested in, kept to himself when he was out of +the store. There were some grounds for the kick I will admit. But it +wasn't a month before he got his bearings, had his head out of the clouds +and was in the thick of everything. They swear by him now almost as much +as they do by his father which is saying a good deal for Dunbury has +revolved about Stuart Lambert for years. It is beginning to revolve about +Stuart Lambert and Son now. But I am boring you with all this. Phil +happens to be rather a favorite of mine." + +"You know him well?" questioned Mr. Cressy. + +"I ought to. I am Robert Caldwell, principal of the High School here. +I've known Phil since he was in knickerbockers and had him under my +direct eye for four years. He kept my eye sufficiently busy at that," he +added with a smile. "There wasn't much mischief that youngster and a +neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn't get into. Maybe that is why he +is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the +direction in which the khaki-clad lads had gone. + +"H-mm," observed Mr. Cressy. "I am rather glad to hear all this. You see +it happens that I came to Dunbury to offer Philip Lambert a position. My +name's Cressy--Harrison Cressy," he explained. + +His companion lifted his eye-brows a little dubiously. + +"I see. I didn't know I was discussing a young man you knew well enough +to offer a position to. May I ask if he accepted it?" "He did not," +admitted Harrison Cressy grimly. + +"Turned it down, eh?" The school man looked interested. + +"Turned it down, man? He made the proposition look flatter than a last +year's pan-cake and it was a mighty good proposition. At least I thought +it was," the magnate added with a faint grin remembering all that went +with that proposition. + +Robert Caldwell smiled. He rather liked the idea of one of his boys +making a proposition of millionaire Cressy's look like a last year's +pan-cake. It was what he would have expected of Phil Lambert. + +"I am sorry for you, Mr. Cressy," he said. "But I am glad for Dunbury. +Philip is the kind we need right here." + +"He is the kind we need right everywhere," grunted Mr. Cressy. "Only we +can't get 'em. They aren't for sale." + +"No," agreed Robert Caldwell. "They are not for sale. Ah, the Boston +train must be in. There is the stage." + +Mr. Cressy allowed his eyes to stray idly to the arriving bus and the +descending passengers. + +Suddenly he stiffened. + +"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, an exclamation called forth by the fact that +the last person to alight from the bus was a slim young person in a trim, +tailored, navy blue suit and a tiny black velvet toque whose air bespoke +Paris, a person with eyes which were precisely the color of violets which +grow in the deepest woods. + +A little later Harrison Cressy sat in a deep leather upholstered chair in +his bedroom with his daughter Carlotta in his lap. + +"Don't try to deceive me, Daddy darling," Carlotta was saying. "You were +worried--dreadfully worried because your little Carlotta wept salt tears +all over your shirt bosom. You thought that Carlotta must not be allowed +to be unhappy. Wars, earthquakes, ship sinkings, wrecks--anything might +be allowed to go on as usual but not Carlotta unhappy. You thought that, +didn't you, Daddy darling?" + +Daddy darling pleaded guilty. + +"Of course you did, you old dear. The moment I knew you were in Dunbury I +knew what you were up to. I understand perfectly how your mind works. I +ought to. Mine works very much the same way. It is a simple three stage +operation. First we decide we want a thing. Next we decide the surest, +quickest way to get it and third--we get it. At least we usually do. We +must do ourselves that much justice, must we not, Daddy darling?" + +Daddy darling merely grunted. + +"You came to Dunbury to tell Phil he had to marry me because I was in +love with him and wanted to marry him. He couldn't very well marry me and +keep on living in Dunbury because I wouldn't care to live in Dunbury. +Therefore he would have to emigrate to a place I would care to live in +and he couldn't very well do that unless he had a very considerable +income because spending money was one of my favorite sports both indoor +and outdoor and I wouldn't be happy if I didn't keep right on playing it +to the limit. Therefore, again, the very simple solution of the whole +thing was for you to offer Phil a suitable salary so that we could marry +at once and live in the suitable place and say, 'Go to it. Bless you my +children. Bring on your wedding bells--I mean bills. I'll foot 'em.' Put +in the rough, that was the plan wasn't it, my dear parent?" + +"Practically," admitted the dear parent with a wry grin. "How did you +work it out so accurately?" + +Carlotta made a face at him. + +"I worked it out so accurately because it was all old stuff. The plan +wasn't at all original with you. I drew the first draft of it myself last +June up on the top of Mount Tom, took Phil up there on purpose indeed to +exhibit it to him." + +"Humph!" muttered Harrison Cressy. + +"Unfortunately Phil didn't at all care for the exhibit because it +happened that I had fallen in love with a man instead of a puppet. I +could have told you coming to Dunbury was no earthly use if you had +consulted me. Phil did not take to your plan, did he?" + +"He did not." + +"And he told you--he didn't care for me any more?" Carlotta's voice was +suddenly a little low. + +"He did not. In fact I gathered he was fair-to-middling fond of you +still, in spite of your abominable behavior." + +"Phil, didn't say I had behaved abominably Daddy. You know he didn't. He +might think it but he wouldn't ever say it--not to you anyway." + +"He didn't. That is my contribution and opinion. Carlotta, I wish to the +Lord Harry you would marry Philip Lambert!" + +Carlotta's lovely eyes flashed surprise and delight before she +lowered them. + +"But, Daddy," she said. "He hasn't got very much money. And it takes a +great deal of money for me." + +"You had better learn to get along with less then," snapped Harrison +Cressy. "I tell you, Carlotta, money is nothing--the stupidest, most +useless, rottenest stuff in the world." + +Carlotta opened her eyes very wide. + +"Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?" she asked gravely. + +"No. It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury." + +"But you--you wouldn't want me to live here?" probed Carlotta. + +"My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole +world. I've traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in +the past with your mother. Things look different to me now. I don't want +what I did for you. At least what I want hasn't changed. That is the same +always--your happiness. But I have changed my mind as to what makes for +happiness." + +"I am awfully glad, Daddy darling," sighed Carlotta snuggling closer in +his arms. "Because I came up here on purpose to tell you that I've +changed my mind too. If Dunbury is good for gout maybe--maybe it will be +good for what ails me. Do you think it might, Daddy?" For answer he held +her very tight. + +"Do you mean it, child? Are you here to tell that lad of yours you are +ready to come up his Hill to him?" + +"If--if he still wants me," faltered Carlotta. "I'll have to find that +out for myself. I'll know as soon as I see Phil. There won't anything +have to be said. I am afraid there has been too much talking already. You +shouldn't have told him I cried," reproachfully. + +"How could I help it? That is, how the deuce did you know I did?" +floundered the trapped parent. + +"Daddy! You know you played on Phil's sympathy every way you could. It +was awful. At least it would have been awful if you had bought him +with my silly tears after you failed to buy him with your silly money. +But he didn't give in even for a moment--even when you told him I +cried, did he?" + +"Not even then. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care. He--" + +But Carlotta's hand was over his mouth at that. How much Phil cared she +wanted to hear from nobody but from Phil himself. + +Philip Lambert found a queer message waiting for him when he came in from +his hike. Some mysterious person who would give no name had telephoned +requesting him to be at the top of Sunset Hill at precisely seven o'clock +to hear some important information which vitally concerned the firm of +Stuart Lambert and Son. + +"Sounds like a hoax of some sort," remarked Phil. "But Lizzie has been +chafing at the bit all day in the garage and I don't mind a ride. Come +on, Dad, let's see what this bunk means." + +Stuart Lambert smiled assent. And at precisely seven o'clock when dusk +was settling gently over the valley and the glory in the western sky was +beginning to fade into pale heliotrope and rose tints Lizzie brought the +two Lamberts to the crest of Sunset Hill where another car waited, a +hired car from the Eagle garage. + +From the tonneau of the other car Harrison Cressy stepped out, somewhat +ponderously, followed by some one else, some one all in white with hair +that shone pure gold even in the gathering twilight. + +Phil made one leap and in another moment, before the eyes of his father +and Carlotta's, not to mention the interested stare of the Eagle garage +chauffeur, he swept his far-away princess into his arms. There was no +need of anybody's trying to make Carlotta see. Love had opened her +eyes. The two fathers smiled at each other, both a little glad and a +little sad. + +"Brother Lambert," said Mr. Cressy. "Suppose you and I ride down the +hill. I rather think this spot belongs to the children." + +"So it seems," agreed Stuart Lambert. "We will leave Lizzie for +chaperone. I think there will be a moon later." + +"Exactly. There always was a moon, I believe. It is quite customary." + +As Stuart Lambert got out of the small car Philip and Carlotta came to +him hand-in-hand like happy children. + +Carlotta slipped away from Phil, put out both hands to his father. He +took them with a happy smile. + +"I have a good many daughters, my dear," he said. "But I have always +wanted to welcome one more. Do you think you could take in another Dad?" + +"I know I could," said Carlotta lifting her flower face to him for a +daughterly kiss. + +"Come, come! Where do I come in on this deal? Where is my son, I'd like +to know?" demanded Mr. Cressy. + +"Right here at your service--darnfoolness and all," said Phil holding +out his hand. + +"Don't rub it in," snapped Harrison Cressy, though he gripped the +proffered hand hard. "Come on, Lambert. This is no place for us." + +And the two fathers went down the hill in the hired car leaving Lizzie +and the lovers in possession of the summit with the world which the moon +was just turning to silver at their feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SEPTEMBER CHANGES + + +When September came Carlotta, who had been ostensibly visiting Tony +though spending a good deal of her time "in the moon with Phil" as she +put it, departed for Crest House, carrying Philip with her "for +inspection," as he dubbed it somewhat ruefully. He wasn't particularly +enamored of the prospect of being passed upon by Carlotta's friends and +relatives. It was rather incongruous when you came to think of it that +the lovely Carlotta, who might have married any one in the world, should +elect an obscure village store keeper for a husband. But Carlotta herself +had no qualms. She was shrewd enough to know that with her father on her +side no one would do much disapproving. And in any case she had no fear +that any one even just looking at Phil would question her choice. +Carlotta was not the woman to choose a man she would have to apologize +for. Phil would hold his own with the best of them and she knew it. He +was a man every inch of him, and what more could any woman ask? + +Ted went up for his examinations and came back so soberly that the family +held its composite breath and wondered in secret whether he could +possibly have failed after all his really heroic effort. But presently +the word came that he had not only not failed but had rather covered +himself with glory. The Dean himself, an old friend of Doctor Holiday's, +wrote expressing his congratulations and the hope that this performance +of his nephew's was a pledge of better things in the future and that this +fourth Holiday to pass through the college might yet reflect credit upon +it and the Holiday name. + +Ted himself emphatically disclaimed all praise whatsoever in the matter +and cut short his uncle's attempt at expressing his appreciation not only +of the successful finish of the examinations but the whole summer's hard +work and steadiness. + +"I am glad if you are satisfied, Uncle Phil," he said. "But there isn't +any credit coming to me. It was the least I could do after making such a +confounded mess of things. Let's forget it." + +But Ted Holiday was not quite the same unthinking young barbarian in +September that he had been in June. Nobody could work as he had worked +that summer without gaining something in character and self-respect. +Moreover, being constantly as he was with his brother and uncle, he +would have been duller than he was not to get a "hunch," as he would +have called it, of what it meant to be a Holiday of the authentic sort. +Larry's example was particularly salutary. The younger Holiday could +not help comparing his own weak-willed irresponsibility of conduct with +the older one's quiet self-control and firmness of principle. Larry's +love for Ruth was the real thing. Ted could see that, and it made his +own random, ill-judged attraction to Madeline Taylor look crude and +cheap if nothing worse. He hated to remember that affair in Cousin +Emma's garden. He made up his mind there would be no more things like +that to have to remember. + +"You can tell old Bob Caldwell," he wrote from college to his uncle, +"that he'll sport no more caddies and golf balls at my expense. Flunking +is too damned expensive every way, saving your presence, Uncle Phil. No +more of it for this child. But don't get it into your head I am a +violently reformed character. I am nothing of the kind and don't want to +be. If I see any signs of angel pin-feathers cropping out I'll shave 'em. +I'd hate to be conspicuously virtuous. All the same if I have a few +grains more sense than I had last year they are mostly to your credit. +Fact is, Uncle Phil, you are a peach and I am just beginning to realize +it, more fool I." + +Tony also flitted from the Hill that September for her new work and life +in the big city. Rather against her will she had ensconced herself in a +Student Hostelry where Jean Lambert, Phil's older sister, had been living +several years very happily, first as a student and later as a successful +illustrator. Tony had objected that she did not want anything so +"schooly," and that the very fact that Jean liked the Hostelry would be +proof positive that she, Tony, would not like it. What she really wanted +to do was either to have a studio of her own or accept Félice Norman's +invitation to make her home with her. Mrs. Norman was a cousin of Tony's +mother, a charming widow of wealth and wide social connections whom Tony +had always adored and admired extravagantly. Just visiting her had always +been like taking a trip to fairy land and to live with her--well, it +would be just too wonderful, Tony thought. But Doctor Holiday had vetoed +decidedly both these pleasant and impractical propositions. Tony was far +too young and pretty to live alone. That was out of the question. And he +was scarcely more willing that she should go to Mrs. Norman, though he +liked the latter very well and was glad that his niece would have her to +go to in any emergency. He knew Tony, and knew that in such an +environment as Mrs. Norman's home offered the girl would all but +inevitably drift into being a gay little social butterfly and forget she +ever came to the city to do serious work. Life with Mrs. Norman would be +"too wonderful" indeed. + +So Tony went to the Hostelry with the understanding that if after a few +months' trial she really did dislike it as much as she declared she knew +she would they would make other arrangements. But rather to her chagrin +she found herself liking the place very much and enjoying the society of +the other girls who were all in the city as she and Jean were, pursuing +some art or other. + +The dramatic school work was all she had hoped and more, stimulating, +engrossing, altogether delightful. She made friends easily as always, +among teachers and pupils, slipped naturally here as in college into a +position of leadership. Tony Holiday was a born queen. + +She had plenty of outside diversion too. Cousin Félice was kind and +delighted to pet and exhibit her pretty little kinswoman. There were +fascinating glimpses into high society, delightful private dancing +parties in gorgeous ball rooms, motor trips, gay theater parties in +resplendent boxes, followed by suppers in brilliant restaurants--all the +pomp and glitter of life that youth loves. + +There were other no less genuinely happy occasions spent with Dick +Carson, way up near the roof in the theaters and opera house or in queer, +fascinating out-of-the-way foreign restaurants. The two had the jolliest +kind of time together, always like two children at a picnic. Tony was +very nice to Dick these days. He kept her from being too homesick for the +Hill and anyway she felt a wee bit sorry for him because he did not know +about Alan and those long letters which came so frequently from the +retreat in the mountains where the latter was sketching. She knew she +ought to tell Dick how far things had gone but somehow she couldn't quite +drive herself to do it. She didn't want to hurt him. And she did not want +to banish him from her life. She wanted him, needed him just where he +was, at her feet, and never bothering her with any inconvenient demands +or love-making. It was selfish but it was true. And in any case it would +be soon enough to worry Dick when Alan came back to town. + +And then without warning he was back, very much back. And with his return +the pleasant nicely balanced, casual scheme of things which she had been +following so contentedly was knocked sky high. She had to adjust herself +to a new heaven and a new earth with Alan Massey the center of both. In +her delight and intoxication at having her lover near her again, more +fascinating and lover-like than ever, Tony lost her head a little, +neglected her work, snubbed her friends, refused invitations from Dick +and Cousin Félice, and indeed from everybody except Alan. She went +everywhere with him, almost nowhere without him, spent her days and more +of her nights than was at all prudent or proper in his absorbing society, +had, in short, what she afterward described to Carlotta as a "perfect +orgy of Alan." + +At the end of ten days she called a halt, sat down and took honest +account of herself and her proceedings and found that this sort of thing +would not do. Alan was too expensive every way. She could not afford so +much of him. Accordingly with her usual decision and frankness she +explained the situation to him as she saw it and announced that +henceforth she would see him only twice a week and not as often if she +were especially busy. + +To this ultimatum she kept rigidly in spite of her lover's protests and +pleas and threats. She was inexorable. If Alan wanted to see her at all +he must do it on her terms. He yielded perforce and was madder over her +than ever, fêted and worshiped and adored her inordinately when he was +with her, deluged her with flowers and poetry and letters between times, +called her up daily and nightly by telephone just to hear her voice, if +he might not see her face. + +So superficially Tony conquered. But she was not over-proud of her +victory. She knew that whether she saw Alan or not he was always in the +under-current of her thoughts and feelings. In the midst of other +occupations she caught herself wondering whether he had written her, +whether she would find his flowers when she got home, where he was, +what he was doing, if he was thinking of her as she of him. She wanted +him most irrationally when she forbade his coming to her. She looked +forward to those few hours spent with him as the only time when she was +fully alive, dreamed them over afterward, knew they meant a hundredfold +more to her than those she spent with any other man or woman. She wore +his flowers, pored over his long, beautiful, impassioned letters, +devoured the books of poetry he sent her, danced with him as often and +as long as she dared, gave her soul more and more into his keeping, the +more so perhaps in that he was so tenderly reverential of her body, +never even touching her lips with his, though his eyes often told a +less moderate story. + +The orgy over she was again doing well with her work at the school. She +knew that. Her teachers praised her gifts and her progress. Without any +vanity she could not help seeing that she was forging ahead of others who +had started even with her, had more real talent perhaps than most of +those with whom she worked and played. But she took no pride in these +things. For equally clearly she saw that she was not doing half what she +might have done, would have done, had there been no Alan Massey in the +city and in her heart. She had a divided allegiance and a divided +allegiance is a hard thing to live with as a daily companion. + +But she would not have had it otherwise. Not for a moment did she ever +wish to go back to those free days when love was but a name and the flame +had not blown so dangerously near. + +As for Alan Massey himself, he alternated between moods which were starry +pinnacles of ecstasy and others which were bottomless pits of despair. He +lived for two things only--his hours with Tony and his work. For he had +begun to paint again, magnificently, furiously, with all his old power +and a new almost godlike one added to it. As an artist it was his supreme +hour. He painted as he had never painted before. + +His love for Tony ran the whole gamut. He loved her passionately, found +it exquisite torture to have her in his arms when they danced and to +have still to bank the fires which consumed him and of which she only +dimly guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to +a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his +own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her +day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her +shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of +beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place +apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. He +loved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some other man might +be near her when he might not, might dance with her, covet her, kiss +her. He hated all men because of her and particularly he hated with +black hate the man whom he was wronging daily by his silence, his +cousin, John Massey. + +Beneath all this strange, sad welter of emotion deeper still in Alan +Massey's heart lay the tragic conviction that he would never win Tony, +that his own sins would somehow rise to strike at him like a snake out of +the grass. He had lost faith in his luck, had lost it strangely enough +when luck had laid at his feet that most desirable of all gifts, Jim +Roberts' timely death. + +In the House on the Hill, things were very quiet, missing the gay +presence of the two younger Holidays and with those at home cumbered with +cares and perplexity and grief. + +Things were easier for Ruth than for Larry. It was less difficult for her +to play the part of quiet friendship than for him, partly because her +love was a much less tempestuous affair and partly because a woman nearly +always plays a part of any kind with more facility than a man does. And +Larry Holiday was temperamentally unfit to play any part whatsoever. He +was a Yea-Yea and Nay-Nay person. + +The simplicity of the girl's role was also very largely created by her +lover's rigid self control. She took her cue from his quietness and felt +that things could not be so bad after all. At least they were together. +Neither had driven the other away from the Hill by any unconsidered act +or word. Ruth had no idea that being with her under the tormenting +circumstances was scarcely undivided happiness for poor Larry or that her +peace of mind was more or less purchased at cost of his. + +Larry kept the promise he had made to his uncle more literally than the +latter had had any idea he would or could. He never sought out Ruth's +society, was never alone with her if he could help it, never so much as +touched her hand. Ruth being a very human and feminine little person +sometimes wished he were not quite so consistently, "Holidayish" in his +conduct. She missed the ardent gaze of those wonderful gray eyes which he +now kept studiously averted from hers. Privately she thought it would not +have mattered so fearfully if just once in a while he had forgotten the +ring. Life was very, very drab when you never forgot and let yourself go +the tiniest little bit. Child like little Ruth never guessed that a man +like Larry Holiday does not dare let himself go the tiniest little bit, +lest he go farther, far enough to regret. + +Doctor Holiday watching in silence out of the tail of his eye understood +better what was going on behind his nephew's quiet exterior demeanor, +and wondered sometimes if it had not been a mistake to keep the boy +bound to the wheel like that, if he should not rather have packed him +off to the uttermost parts of the earth, far away from the little lady +with the wedding ring who was so little married. And yet there was +Granny, growing perceptibly weaker day by day, clinging pathetically to +Larry's young strength. Poor Granny! And poor Larry! How little one +could do for either! + +Ruth's memory did not return. She remembered, or at least found familiar, +books she had read, songs she must have sung, drifted into doing a +hundred little simple everyday things she must have done before, since +they came to her with no effort. She could sew and knit and play the +piano exquisitely. But all this seemed rather a trick of the fingers than +of the mind. The people, the places, the life that lay behind that crash +on the Overland never returned to her consciousness for all her anxious +struggle to get them back. + +It began to look as if her husband, if she had one, were not going to +claim her. No one claimed her. Not a single response came from all the +extensive advertising which Larry still kept up in vain hope of success. +Apparently no one had missed the little Goldilocks. Precious as she was +none sought her. + +In the meanwhile she was an undisguised angel visitant to the House on +the Hill. If in his kindly hospitality Doctor Holiday had stretched a +point or two in the first place to make the little stranger feel at home +the case was different now. She was needed, badly needed and she played +the part of house daughter so sweetly and unselfishly that her presence +among them was a double blessing to them all, except perhaps to poor +Larry who loved her best of all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED + + +Coming in from a lively game of tennis with Elsie Hathaway, his newest +sweetheart, the Ancient History Prof's pretty daughter, Ted Holiday found +awaiting him a letter from Madeline Taylor. He turned it over in his +hands with a keen distaste for opening it, had indeed almost a mind to +chuck it in the waste paper basket unread. Hang it all! Why had she +written? He didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to be reminded of +her existence. He wanted instead distinctly to forget there was a +Madeline Taylor and that he had been fool enough to make love to her +once. Nevertheless he opened the letter and pulled his forelock in +perturbation as he read it. + +She had quarrelled with her grandfather and he would not let her come +back home. She was with Emma just now but she couldn't stay. Fred was +behaving very nastily and he might tell Emma any day that she, Madeline, +had to go. They were all against her. Everything was against a girl +anyway. They never had a chance as a man did. She wished she had been +killed when she had been thrown out of the car that night. It would have +been much better for her than being as miserable as she was now. She +often wished she was dead. But what she had written to Ted Holiday for +was because she thought perhaps he could help her to find a job in the +college town. She had to earn some money right away. She would do +anything. She didn't care what and would be very grateful to Ted if he +would or could help her to find work. + +That was all. There was not a single personal note in the whole thing, no +reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion +to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed +between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so +summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one human +being to another. + +Ted thrust the letter soberly in his pocket and went off for a shower. +But the thing went with him. He wished Madeline hadn't written, wished +she hadn't besought his aid, wished most of all she hadn't been such a +devilish good sport in it all. If she had whined, cast things up against +him as she might have done, thrown herself in any way upon him, he could +perhaps have ignored her and her plea. But she had done nothing of the +sort. She was deucedly game now just as she had been the night of the +smash. And by a queer trick of his mind her very gameness made Ted +Holiday feel more quiet and responsible, a frame of mind he heartily +resented. Hanged if he could see why it was his funeral! If that old +Hottentot of a grandfather of hers chose to turn her out without a cent +it wasn't his fault. For that matter he wasn't to blame for what Madeline +herself had done. He didn't suppose the old man would have cut so rough +without plenty of cause. Why did she have to bob up now and make him feel +so darned rotten? + +Unfortunately, even the briefest of episodes have a way of not erasing +themselves as conveniently as most of us would like to have them. The +thing was there and Ted Holiday had to look at it whether it made him +feel "darned rotten" or not. He did not want to help the girl, did not +even want to renew their acquaintance by even so much as a letter. The +whole thing was an infernal nuisance. But infernal nuisance or not, he +had to deal with it, could not funk it. He was a Holiday and no Holiday +ever shirked obligations he himself had incurred. He was a Holiday and no +Holiday ever let a woman ask for help, and not give It. By the time he +was back from the shower Ted knew precisely where he stood. Perhaps he +had known all along. + +The next day he bestirred himself, went to Berry the florist who he +happened to know was in need of a clerk, got the burly Irishman's consent +to give the girl a job at excellent wages, right away, the sooner the +better. Ted opened his mouth to ask for an advance of salary but thought +better of it before the words came out. Madeline might not like to have +anybody know she was up against it like that. He would have to see to +that part of it himself somehow. + +"You're a good customer, Mr. Holiday," the genial florist was saying. +"I'm tickled to be obligin' ye and mesilf at the same time. Anything in +the flower line, to-day, Mr. Holiday? Some roses now or violets? Got some +Jim dandies just in. Beauties, I'm tellin' you. Want to see 'em?" + +Ted hesitated. His exchecquer was low, very low. The first of the month +was also far away--too far, considering all things. His bill at Berry's +already passed the bounds of wisdom and the possibility of being paid in +full out of the next month's allowance without horribly crippling the +debtor. It was exceedingly annoying to have to forfeit that ten dollars +to Uncle Phil every month for that darned automobile business which it +seemed as if he never would get free of one way or another. He certainly +ought not to buy any more flowers this month. + +Still, there was the hop to-night. Elsie was going with him. He had run +a race with three other applicants for the privilege of escorting her and +being victor it behooved him to prove he appreciated his gains. He didn't +want Elsie to think he was a tight-wad, or worse still suspect him of +being broke. He fell, let Berry open the show case, debated seriously the +respective merits of roses and violets, having reluctantly relinquished +orchids as a little too ruinous even for a ruined young man. + +"If they are for Miss Hathaway," murmured a pretty, sympathetic clerk in +his ear, "Mr. Delany sent roses this morning and she likes violets best. +I've heard her say so." + +That settled it. Ted Holiday wasn't going to be beaten by a poor fish +like Ned Delany. The violets were bought and duly charged along with +those other too numerous items on Ted Holiday's account. Going home Ted +wrote a cheerful, friendly letter to Madeline Taylor reporting his +success in getting her a job and enclosing a check for twenty live +dollars, "just to tide you over," he had put in lightly, forbearing to +mention that the gift made his bank balance even lighter, so light in +fact that it approached complete invisibility. He added that he was sorry +things were in a mess for her but they would clear up soon, bound to, you +know. And nix on the wish-I-were-dead-stuff! It was really a jolly old +world as she would say herself when her luck turned. He remained hers +sincerely and so forth. + +This business off his mind, young Mr. Holiday felt highly relieved and +pleased with himself and the world which was such a jolly old affair as +he had just assured Madeline. Later he went to the hop and had a corking +time, stayed till the last violin swooned off into silence, then +sauntered with deliberate leisureliness toward Prof. Hathaway's house +with Elsie on his arm. On the Prof's porch he had lingered as long as was +prudent, perhaps a little longer, spooning discreetly the while as one +may, even with an Ancient History Prof's daughter. There was nothing +suggestive of Ancient History about Elsie. She was slim and young as the +little new moon they had both nearly broken their necks to see over their +right shoulders a few minutes before. Moreover she was exceedingly pretty +and as provocative as the dickens. In the end Ted stole a saucy kiss and +left her pretending to be as indignant as if a dozen other impudent +youths had not done precisely the same thing since the opening of the +college year. It was the lady's privilege to protest. Ted granted that, +but neither was he much taken in by injured innocence airs. Elsie was +quite as sophisticated as he was himself as he knew very well. No first +kiss business for either of them, he reflected as he went whistling back +to the frat house. It was all in the game and both knew it was nothing +but a game which made it perfectly pleasant and harmless. + +At the frat house he found a quiet little game of another sort in +progress, slid in, took a hand, got interested, played until three A.M. +and on quitting found himself in possession of some thirty odd dollars he +had not had when he sat in. Considering his recent financial depression +the thirty dollars was all to the good, covered Madeline's check and +Elsie's violets. It was indeed a jolly old world if you treated it right +and did not take it or yourself too seriously. + +Inasmuch as playing cards for money was strictly against college rules +and gambling had been the one vice of all vices the late Major Holiday +had hated with unrelenting hate, it might be a satisfaction to record +that the late Major's son took an uneasy conscience to bed that night, or +rather that morning, but truth is truth and we are compelled to state +that Ted Holiday did not suffer the faintest twinge of remorse and went +to sleep the moment his head touched the pillow as peacefully as a +guileless new born babe might have done. + +Moreover when he woke the next morning at an unconscionably late hour he +turned over, looked at the clock, grunted and grinned sleepily and lapsed +off again into blissful oblivion, thereby cutting all his morning classes +and generally submerging himself in the unregenerate ways of his +graceless sophomoric year. He had never contracted to be conspicuously +virtuous it will be recalled. + +The next day he secured a suitable lodging place for Madeline in an +inexpensive but respectable neighborhood and the day after that betook +himself to the station to meet the girl herself. Ted never did things by +halves. Having made up his mind to stand by he did it thoroughly, perhaps +the more punctiliously because in his heart he loathed the whole business +and wished he were well out of it. + +For a moment as Madeline came toward him he hardly recognized her. She +looked years older. The brilliancy of her beauty was curiously dimmed as +an electric light might be dimmed inside a dusty globe. There were hard +lines about her full lips and a sharp, driven look in her black eyes. The +two had met in June on equal terms of blithe youth. Now, only a few +months later, Ted was still a careless boy but Madeline Taylor had been +forced into premature womanhood and wore on her haggard young face, the +stamp of a woman's hard won wisdom. + +To the girl Ted Holiday appeared more the bonny Prince Charming than +ever only infinitely farther removed from her than he had seemed in +those happy summer days which were a million years ago to all intents +and purposes now. How good looking he was--how tall and clean and +manly looking! Her heart gave a quick jump seeing him again after all +these dreary months. But oh, she must be very careful--must never +forget for a moment that things were very, very different now from what +they were in June! + +There was a moment's slightly embarrassed silence as they shook hands. +Both were remembering all too vividly the scene in Cousin Emma's garden +upon the occasion of their last meeting. It was Ted who first found +tongue and announced casually that he was going to take her straight to +the house of Mrs. Bascom, her landlady to be. + +"She's a good sort," he added. "Mothery like you know. You'll like her." + +Madeline did not answer. She couldn't. Something choked in her throat. +The phrase, "mothery like" was almost too much for the girl who had +never had a mother to remember and wanted one now as she never had +wanted one in her life. Ted's kindness--the first she had received from +any one these many days--touched her deeply. For the first time in +months the tears brimmed up into her eyes as she followed her companion +to the cab and let him help her in. As the door closed upon them Ted +turned and faced the girl and seeing the tears put out his hand and +touched hers gently. + +"Don't worry, Madeline," he said. "Things are going to look up. And +please don't cry," he pleaded earnestly. + +She wiped away the tears and summoned a wan little smile to meet his. + +"I won't," she said. "Crying is silly and won't help anything. It is just +that I was awfully tired and your being so good to me upset me. You've +always been good even--when I thought you weren't. I understand better +now. And oh, Ted, you don't know how ashamed I am of the way I behaved +that night! It was awful--my striking you like that. It made me sick to +think of it afterward." + +"It needn't have. If anybody has any call to be ashamed of that night +it's yours truly. See here, Madeline, I've worried a lot about you though +maybe you won't believe it because I didn't write or act as if I were +sorry about things. I kept still because it seemed the straightest thing +to do all round, but I did think a great deal about you, honest I did, +and I've wondered millions of times if my darn-foolness set things going +wrong for you. Did it, Madeline?" he demanded. + +"No," she answered her gaze away from his out the cab window. +"You mustn't worry, Ted, or blame yourself. It--it's all my +fault--everything." + +"It's good of you to let me out but I am not so sure I ought to be let +out. I'd give a good deal this minute if I could go back and not take +Uncle Phil's car that night." Ted leaned forward suddenly and for a +startled instant Madeline thought he meant to kiss her. But nothing was +farther from his wish or thought. It was the scar he was looking for. He +had almost forgotten it, just as he had almost forgotten the episode it +represented. But there it was on her forehead. Even in the gathering +darkness it showed with perfect distinctness. "I hoped it had gone," he +added. "But it is still there, isn't it?" + +"The scar? Yes, it is still there." For a moment the ghost of a +smile played about the girl's lips. "I've always liked it. I'd miss +it if it went." + +"Well, I don't like it. I hate it," groaned the boy. "Why, Madeline I +might have killed you!" + +"I know. Sometimes I wish it had come out so. It--it would have +been better." + +"Don't Madeline. That is an awful thing to say. Things can't be as bad as +all that, you know they can't. By the way, can you tell me the whole +business or would you rather not?" + +The girl shivered. + +"No. Don't ask me, Ted. It--it's too awful. Don't bother about me. +You have done quite enough as it is. I am very grateful but truly I +would rather you wouldn't have anything more to do with me. Just +forget I am here." + +And because this injunction was precisely in line with his own +inclination Ted suspected its propriety and swung counterwise in true +Ted fashion. + +"I'll do just exactly as I please about that. I won't pester you but you +needn't think I'm going to leave you all soul alone in a strange place +when you are feeling rotten anyway. I'm pretty doggoned selfish but not +quite that bad." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE + + +Although Max Hempel had not openly sought out Tony Holiday he was +entirely aware of her presence in the city and in the dramatic school. +Whenever she played a role in the course of the latter's program he had +his trusted aides on the spot to watch her, gauge her progress, report +their finding to himself. Once or twice he had come himself, sat in a +dark corner and kept his eye unblinking from first to last upon the girl. + +In November it had seemed good to the school to revive The Killarney +Rose, a play which ten years ago had had a phenomenal run and ended as it +began with packed houses. It was past history now. Even the road +companies had lapsed, and its name was all but forgotten by the fickle +public which must and will have ever new sensations. + +Hempel was glad the school had made this particular selection, doubly +glad it had given Antoinette Holiday the title role. The play would show +whether the girl was ready for his purposes as he had about decided she +was. He would send Carol Clay to see her do the thing. Carol would know. +Who better? It was she who created the original Rose. + +Tony Holiday behind the scene on that momentous evening, on being +informed that Carol Clay--the famous Carol Clay herself--the real +Rose--was out there in a box, was paralyzed with fear, for the first +time in her life, victim of genuine stage fright. She was cold. She was +hot. She was one tremendous shake and shiver. She was a very lump of +stone. The orchestra was already playing. In a moment her call would +come and she was going to fail, fail miserably. And with Carol Clay +there to see. + +Some flowers and a card were brought in. The flowers were from Alan of +course, great crimson roses. It was dear of him to send them. Later she +would appreciate it. But just now not even Alan mattered. She glanced at +the card which had come separately, was not with the flowers. It was +Dick's. Hastily she read the pencil-written scrawl. "Am covering the +Rose. Will be close up. See you after the show. Best o' luck and love." + +Tony could almost have cried for joy over the message. Somehow the +knowledge of Dick's nearness gave her back her self-possession. She had +refused to let Alan come. His presence in the audience always distracted +her, made her nervous. But Dick was different. It was almost like having +Uncle Phil himself there. She wouldn't fail now. She couldn't. It was for +the honor of the Hill. + +A moment later, still clutching Dick's comforting card, she ran in on the +stage, swinging her sun-bonnet from its green ribbons with hoydenish +grace, chanting a gay little lilt of an Irish melody. Her fear had gone +even as the dew might have disappeared at the kiss of the sun upon the +Killarney greensward. + +Almost at once she discovered Dick and sang a part of her song straight +down at him. A little later she dared to let her eyes stray to the box +where Carol Clay sat. The actress smiled and Tony smiled back and then +forgot she was Tony, was henceforth only Rose of Killarney. + +It was a winsome, old-timey sort of play, with an almost Barriesque +charm and whimsicality to it. The witching little Rose laughed and danced +and sang and flirted and wept and loved her way through it and in the end +threw herself in the right lover's arms, presumably there to dwell happy +forever after. + +After the last curtain went down and she had smiled and bowed and kissed +her hand to the kindly audience over and over Tony fled to the dressing +room where she could still hear the intoxicating, delightful thunder of +applause. It had come. She could act. She could. Oh! She couldn't live +and be any happier. + +But, after all she could stand a little more joy without coming to an +untimely end, for there suddenly smiling at her from the threshold was +Carol Clay congratulating her and telling her what a pleasure to-night's +Rose had been to the Rose of yesterday. And before Tony could get her +breath to do more than utter a rather shy and gasping word of gratitude, +the actress had invited her to take tea with her on the next day and she +had accepted and Carol Clay was gone. + +It was in a wonderful world of dreams that Tony Holiday dwelt as she +removed a little of her makeup, gave orders to have all her flowers sent +to a near-by hospital, except Alan's, which she gathered up in her arms +and drawing her velvet cloak around her, stepped out into the +waiting-room. + +But it was a world of rather alarming realities that she went into. There +was Dick Carson waiting as she had bidden him to wait in the message she +had sent him. And there was Alan Massey, unbidden and unexpected. And +both these males with whom she had flirted unconscionably for weeks past +were ominously belligerent of manner and countenance. She would have +given anything to have had a wand to wave the two away, keep them from +spoiling her perfect evening. But it was too late. The hour of reckoning +which comes even to queens was here. + +"Hello, you two," she greeted, putting on a brave front for all her +sinking heart. She laid down the roses and gave a hand impartially to +each. "Awfully glad to see you, Dicky. Alan, I thought I told you not to +come. Were you here all the same?" + +"I was. I told you so in my note. Didn't you get it? I sent it in with +the roses." He nodded at the flowers she had just surrendered. + +Dick's eyes shadowed. Massey had scored there. He had not thought of +flowers. Indeed there had been no time to get any he had gotten the +assignment so late. There had been quantities of other flowers, he knew. +The usher had carried up tons of them it seemed to the popular Rose, but +she carried only Alan Massey's home with her. + +"I am sorry, Alan. I didn't see it. Maybe it was there; I didn't half +look at the flowers. Your message did me so much good, Dicky. I was +scared to death because they had just said Miss Clay was outside. And +somehow when I knew you were there I felt all right again. I carried your +card all through the first act and I know it was your wishing me the best +o' luck that brought it." + +She smiled at Dick and it was Alan's turn to glower. She had not looked +at his roses, had not cared to look for his message; but she carried the +other man's card, used it as a talisman. And she was glad. The other was +there, but she had forbidden himself--Alan Massey--to come, had even +reproached him for coming. + +A group of actors passed through the reception room, calling gay +goodnights and congratulations to Tony as they went and shooting glances +of friendly curiosity at the two, tall frowning men between whom the +vivacious Rose stood. + +"Tony Holiday doesn't keep all her lovers on the stage," laughed the +near-heroine as she was out of hearing. "Did you ever see two gentlemen +that hated each other more cordially?" + +"She is an arrant little flirt, isn't she, Micky?" The speaker challenged +the Irish lover of the play who had had the luck to win the sweet, thorny +little Killarney Rose in the end and to get a real, albeit a play kiss +from the pretty little heroine, who as Tony Holiday as well as Rose was +prone to make mischief in susceptible male hearts. + +"She can have me any minute, on the stage or off," answered Micky +promptly. "She's a winner. Got me going all right. Most forgot my lines +she was so darned pretty." + +Dick took advantage of the confusion of the interruption to get in his +word. + +"Will you come out with me for a bite somewhere, Tony. I won't keep you +late, but there are some things I want to talk over with you." + +Tony hesitated. She had caught the ominous flash of Alan's eyes. She was +desperately afraid there would be a scene if she said yes to Dick now in +Alan's hearing. The latter strode over to her instantly, and laid his +hand with a proprietorial air on her arm. From this point of vantage he +faced Dick insolently. + +"Miss Holiday is going out with me," he asserted. "You--clear out." + +The tone and manner even more than the words were deliberate insult. +Dick's face went white. His mouth set tight. There was almost as ugly a +look in his eyes as there was in Alan's. Tony had never seen him look +like that and was frightened. + +"I'll clear out when Miss Holiday asks me to and not before," he said in +a significantly quiet voice. "Don't go too far, Mr. Massey. I have taken +a good deal from you. There's a limit. Tony, I repeat my question. Will +you go out with me to-night?" + +Before Tony could speak Alan Massey's long right arm shot out in Dick's +direction. Dick dodged the blow coolly. + +"Hold on, Massey," he said. "I'm perfectly willing to smash your head any +time it is convenient. Nothing would afford me greater pleasure in fact. +But you will kindly keep from making trouble here. You can't get a +woman's name mixed up with a cheap brawl such as you are trying to start. +You know, it won't do." + +Alan Massey's white face turned a shade whiter. His arm fell. He turned +back to Tony, real anguish in his fire-shot eyes. + +"I beg your pardon, Tony dearest," he bent over to say. "Carson is right. +We'll fight it out elsewhere when you are not present. May I take you to +the taxi? I have one waiting outside." + +Another group of people passed through the vestibule, said goodnight and +went on out to the street exit. It made Tony sick to think of what they +would have seen if Dick had lost his self control as Alan had. She +thought she had never liked Dick as she did that moment, never despised +Alan Massey so utterly. Dick was a man. Alan was a spoiled child, a +weakling, the slave of his passions. It was no thanks to him that her +name was not already bandied about on people's lips, the name of a girl, +about whom men came to fist blows like a Bowery movie scene. She was +humiliated all over, enraged with Alan, enraged with herself for +stooping to care for a man like that. She waited until they were +absolutely alone again and then said what she had to say. She turned to +face Alan directly. + +"You may take me nowhere," she said. "I don't want to see you again as +long as I live." + +For an instant Alan stared at her, dazed, unable to grasp the force of +what she was saying, the significance of her tone. As a matter of fact +the artist in him had leaped to the surface, banished all other +considerations. He had never seen Tony Holiday really angry before. She +was magnificent with those flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks--a glorious +little Fury--a Valkyrie. He would paint her like that. She was +stupendous, the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen, like flame +itself, in her flaming anger. Then it came over him what she had said. + +"But, Tony," he pleaded, "my belovedest--" + +He put out both hands in supplication, but Tony whirled away from them. +She snatched the great bunch of red roses from the table, ran to the +window, flung up the sash, hurled them out into the night. Then she +turned back to Alan. + +"Now go," she commanded, pointing with a small, inexorable hand to the +door. + +Alan Massey went. + +Tony dropped in a chair, spent and trembling, all but in tears. The +disagreeable scene, the piled up complex of emotions coming on top of the +stress and strain of the play were almost too much for her. She was a +quivering bundle of nerves and misery at the moment. + +Dick came to her. + +"Forgive me, Tony. I shouldn't have forced the issue maybe. But I +couldn't stand any more from that cad." + +"I am glad you did exactly what you did do, Dick, and I am more grateful +than I can ever tell you for not letting Alan get you into a fight here +in this place with all these people coming and going. I would never have +gotten over it if anything like that had happened. It would have been +terrible. I couldn't ever have looked any of them in the face again." +She shivered and put her two hands over her eyes ashamed to the quick at +the thought. + +Dick sat down on the arm of her chair, one hand resting gently on the +girl's shoulder. + +"Don't cry, Tony," he begged. "I can't stand it. You needn't have +worried. There wasn't any danger of anything like that happening. I care +too much to let you in for anything of that sort. So does he for that +matter. He saw it in a minute. He really wouldn't want to do you any harm +anyway, Tony. Even I know that, and you must know it better than I." + +Tony put down her hands, looked at Dick. "I suppose that is true," she +sighed. "He does love me, Dick." + +"He does, Tony. I wish he didn't. And I wish with all my heart I were +sure you didn't love him." + +Tony sighed again and her eyes fell. + +"I wish--I were sure, too," she faltered. + +Dick winced at that. He had no answer. What was there to say? + +"I don't see why I should care. I don't see how I can care after +to-night. He is horrid in lots of ways--a cad--just as you called him. I +know Larry would feel just as you do and hate to have him come near me. +Larry and I have almost quarreled about it now. He thinks Uncle Phil is +all wrong not to forbid my seeing Alan at all. But Uncle Phil is too +wise. He doesn't want to have me marry Alan any more than the rest of you +do but he knows if he fights it it would put me on the other side in a +minute and I'd do it, maybe, in spite of everybody." + +"Tony, you aren't engaged to him?" + +She shook her head. + +"Not exactly. I am afraid I might as well be though. I said I didn't +ever want to see him again, but I didn't mean it. I shall want to see him +again by to-morrow. I always do no matter what he does. I always shall I +am afraid. It is like that with me. I'm sorry, Dicky. I ought to have +told you that before. I've been horrid not to, I know. Take me home now, +please. I'm tired--awfully tired." + +Going home in the cab neither spoke until just as they were within a few +blocks of the Hostelry when Dick broke the silence. + +"I am sorry all this had to happen to-night," he said. "Because, well, I +am going away tomorrow." + +"Going away! Dick! Where?" It was horribly selfish of her, Tony knew; +but it didn't seem as if she could bear to have Dick go. It seemed as if +the only thing that was stable in her reeling life would be gone if he +went. If he went she would belong to Alan more and more. There would be +nothing to hold her back. She was afraid. She clung to Dick. He alone of +the whole city full of human beings was a symbol of Holiday Hill. With +him gone it seemed to her as if she would be hopelessly adrift on +perilous seas. + +"To Mexico--Vera Cruz, I believe," he answered her question. + +"Vera Cruz! Dick, you mustn't! It is awful down there now. Everybody says +so." He smiled a little at that. + +"It is because it is more or less awful that they are sending me," he +said. "Journalism isn't much interested in placidity. A newspaper man has +to be where things are happening fast and plenty. If things are hot down +there so much the better. They will sizzle more in the copy." + +"Dick! I can't have you go. I can't bear it." Tony's hand crept into +his. "Something dreadful might happen to you," she wailed. + +He pressed her hand, grateful for her real trouble about him and for +her caring. + +"Oh no, dear. Nothing dreadful will happen to me. You mustn't worry," +he soothed. + +"But I do. I shall. How can I help it? It is just as if Larry or Ted were +going. It scares me." + +Dick drew away his hand suddenly. + +"For heaven's sake, Tony, please don't tell me again that I'm just like +Larry and Ted to you. It is bad enough to know it without your rubbing it +in all the time. I can't stand it--not to-night." + +"Dick!" Tony was startled, taken aback by his tone. Dick rarely let +himself go like that. + +In a moment he was all contrition. + +"Forgive me, Tony. I'm sorry I said that. I ought to be thankful you care +that much, and I am. It is dear of you and I do appreciate it." + +"Oh me!" sighed Tony. "Everything I do or say is wrong. I wish I did care +the other way for you, Dicky dear. Truly I do. It would be so much nicer +and simpler than caring for Alan," she added naïvely. + +"Life isn't fixed nice and simple, Tony. At least it never has +been for me." + +"Oh, Dick! Everything has been horribly hard for you always, and I'm +making it harder. I don't want to, Dicky dear. You know I don't. It is +just that I can't help it." + +"I know, Tony. You mustn't bother about me. I'm all right. Will you tell +me just one thing though? If you hadn't cared for Massey--no I won't put +it like that. If you had cared for me would my not having any name have +made any difference?" + +"Of course it wouldn't have made any difference, Dicky. What does a name +matter? You are you and that is what I would care for--do care for. The +rest doesn't matter. Besides, you are making a name for yourself." + +"I am doing it under your name--the one you gave me." + +"I am proud to have it used that way. Why wouldn't I be? It is honored. +You have not only lived up to it as you promised Uncle Phil. You have +made it stand for something fine. Your stories are splendid. You are +going to be famous and I--Why, Dicky, just think, it will be my name you +will take on up to the stars. Oh, we're here," as the cab jolted to a +halt in front of the Hostelry. + +The cabby flung open the door. Tony and Dick stepped out, went up the +steps. In a moment they were alone in the dimly lit hall. + +"Tony, would you mind letting me kiss you just once as you would Larry or +Ted if one of them were going off on a long journey away from you?" + +Dick's voice was humble, pleading. It touched Tony deeply, and sent the +quick tears welling up into her eyes as she raised her face to his. + +For a moment he held her close, kissed her on the cheek and then +released her. + +"Good-by, Tony. Thank you and God bless you," he said a little huskily as +he let her go. + +"Good-by, Dick." And then impulsively Tony put up her lips and kissed +him, the first time he ever remembered a woman's lips touching his. + +A second later the door closed upon him, shutting him out in the night. +He dismissed the cab driver and walked blindly off, not knowing or caring +in what direction he went. It was hours before he let himself into his +lodging house. It seemed as if he could have girdled the earth on the +strength of Tony Holiday's kiss. The next morning he was off for Mexico. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES + + +Tony slept late next morning and when she did open her eyes they fell +upon a huge florist box by the door and a special delivery letter on top +of it. The maid had set the two in an hour ago and tiptoed away lest she +waken the weary little sleeper. + +Tony got up and opened the box. Roses--dozens of them, worth the price of +a month's wages to many a worker in the city! Frail, exquisite, +shell-pink beauties, with gold at their hearts! Tony adored roses but she +almost hated these because it seemed to her Alan was bribing her +forgiveness by playing upon her worship of their beauty and fragrance. + +Still kneeling by the flowers she glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty! Dick +was already miles away on his hateful journey, had gone sad and hopeless +because she loved Alan Massey. Why did it have to be so? Why was love so +perverse and unreasonable a thing? Alan was not worthy to touch Dick's +hand, though in his arrogance he affected to despise the other. But it +was Alan she loved, not Dick. There must be something wrong with her, +dreadfully wrong that it should be so. After last night there could be no +doubt of that. + +She sat down on the floor, opened Alan's letter, despised herself for +letting its author's spell creep over her anew with every word. It was an +abject plea for mercy, for forgiveness, for restoration to favor. It had +been a devil of jealousy that had possessed him, he had not known what +he was doing. Surely she must know that he would not willingly harm or +hurt or anger her in any way. He loved her too much. Carson had behaved +like a man. Alan would apologize to him if the other man would accept the +apology. It was Tony really who had driven him mad by being so much +kinder to the other than to himself. She must realize what he was, not +drive him too far. + +"I am sending you roses," he ended. "Please don't throw them away as you +did the others. Keep them and let them plead for me. And don't ah Tony, +don't ever, ever say again what you said last night, that you never +wanted to see me again! You don't mean it, I know. But don't say it. It +kills me to hear you. If you throw me over I'll blow my brains out as +sure as I am a living man this moment. But you won't, you cannot, Tony +dearest. You will forgive me, stand by me, rotten as I am. You are mine. +You love me. You won't push me down to Hell." + +It was a cowardly letter Tony thought, a letter calculated to frighten +her, bring her to subjection again as well as to gratify the writer's own +Byronic instinct for pose. He had behaved badly. He acknowledged it but +claimed forgiveness on the grounds of love, his love for her which had +been goaded to mad jealousy by her thoughtless unkindness, her love for +him which would not desert him no matter what he did. + +But pose or not, Tony was obliged to admit there was some truth in it +all. Perhaps it was all true-too true. Even if he did not resort to the +pistol as he threatened he would find other means of slaying his soul if +not his body if she forsook him now. She could not do it. As he said she +loved him too well. She had gone too far in the path to turn back now. + +Ah why, why had she let it go so far? Why had she not listened to Dick, +to Uncle Phil, to Carlotta, even to Miss Lottie? They had all told her +there was no happiness for her in loving Alan Massey. She knew it herself +better than any of them could possibly know it. And yet she had to go on, +for his sake, for her own because she loved him. + +By this time she was no longer angry or resentful. She was just +sorry--sorry for Alan--sorry for herself. She knew just as she had known +all along that last night's incident would not really make any +difference. It would be put away in time with all the other things she +had to forgive. She had eaten her pomegranate seeds. She could not escape +the dark kingdom. She did not wish to. + +Later came violets from Dick which she put in a vase on her desk beside +Uncle Phil's picture. But it was the fragrance and color of Alan's roses +that filled the room, and presently she sat down and wrote her +ill-behaved lover a sweet, forgiving little note. She was sorry if she +had been unkind. She had not meant to be. As for what happened it was too +late to worry about it now. They had best forget it, if they could. He +couldn't very well apologize to Dick in person because he was already on +his way to Mexico. There was no need of any penance. Of course she +forgave him, knew he had not meant to hurt her, though he had horribly. +If he cared to do so he might take her to dinner tomorrow +night--somewhere where they could dance. And in conclusion she was always +his, Tony Holiday. + +Both Dick and Alan were driven out of her mind later that day by the +delightful and exciting interview over the tea table with Carol Clay. +Miss Clay was a charming hostess, drew the girl out without appearing to +do so, got her to talk naturally about many things, her life with her +father at army barracks, and with her uncle on her beloved Hill, of her +friends and brothers, her college life, of books and plays. Plays took +them to the Killarney Rose and once more Miss Clay expressed her pleasure +in the girl's rendering of one of her own favorite roles. + +"You acted as if you had been playing Rose all your life," she added +with a smile. + +"Maybe I have," said Tony. "Rose is--a good deal like me. Maybe that is +why I loved playing her so." + +"I shouldn't wonder. You are a real little actress, my dear. I wonder if +you are ready to pay the price of it. It is bitterly hard work and it +means giving up half the things women care for." + +The speaker's lovely eyes shadowed a little. Tony wondered what +Carol Clay had given up, was giving up for her art to bring that +look into them. + +"I am not afraid. I am willing to work. I love it. And I--I am willing to +give up a good deal." + +"Lovers?" smiled Miss Clay. + +"Must I? I thought actresses always had lovers, at least worshipers. +Can't I keep the lovers, Miss Clay?" There was a flash of mischief in +Tony's eyes as she asked the important question. + +"Better stick to worshipers. Lovers are risky. Husbands--fatal." + +Tony laughed outright at that. + +"I am willing to postpone the fatality," she murmured. + +"I am glad to hear it for I lured you here to take you into a deep-laid +plot. I suppose you did not suspect that it was Max Hempel who sent me to +see you play Rose?" + +"Mr. Hempel? I thought he had forgotten me." + +"He never forgets any one in whom he is interested. He has had his eye +on you ever since he saw you play Rosalind. He told me when he came back +from that trip that I had a rival coming on." + +"Oh, no!" Tony objected even in jest to such desecration. + +"Oh, yes," smiled her hostess. "Max Hempel is a brutally frank person. He +never spares one the truth, even the disagreeable truth. He has had his +eye out for a new ingénue for a long time. Ingénues do get old--at least +older you know." + +"Not you," denied Tony. + +"Even I, in time. I grant you not yet. It takes a degree of age and +sophistication to play youth and innocence. We do it better as a rule at +thirty than at twenty. We are far enough away from it to stand off and +observe how it behaves and can imitate it better than if we still had it. +That is one reason I was interested in your Rose last night. You played +like a little girl as Rose should. You looked like a little girl. But you +couldn't have given it that delightfully sure touch if you hadn't been a +little bit grown up. Do you understand?" + +Tony nodded. + +"I think so. You see I am--a little bit grown up." + +"Don't grow up any more. You are adorable as you are. But to business. +Have you seen my Madge?" + +"In the 'End of the Rainbow?' Yes, indeed. I love it. You like the part +too, don't you? You play it as if you did." + +"I do. I like it better than any I have had since Rose. Did it occur to +you that you would like to play Madge yourself?" + +Tony blushed ingenuously. + +"Well, yes, it did," she admitted half shyly. "Of course, I knew I +couldn't play it as you did. It takes years of experience and a real art +like yours to do it like that, but I did think I'd like to try it and see +what I could do." + +Miss Clay nodded, well pleased. + +"Of course you did. Why not? It is your kind of a role, just as Rose is. +You and I are the same types. Mr. Hempel has said that all along, ever +since he saw your Rosalind. But I won't keep you in suspense. The long +and short of all this preliminary is--how would you like to be my +understudy for Madge?" + +"Oh, Miss Clay!" Tony gasped. "Do you think I could?" + +"I know you could, my dear. I knew it all the time while I was +watching you play Rose. Mr. Hempel has known it even longer. I went to +see Rose to find out if there was a Madge in you. There is. I told Mr. +Hempel so this morning. He is brewing his contracts now so be +prepared. Will you try it?" + +"I'd love to if you and Mr. Hempel think I can. I promised Uncle Phil I +would take a year of the school work though. Will I have to drop that?" + +"I think so--most of it at least. You would have to be at the rehearsals +usually which are in the morning. You might have to play Madge quite +often then. There are reasons why I have to be away a great deal just +now." Again the shadow, darkened the star's eyes and a droop came to her +mouth. "It isn't even so impossible that you would be called upon to +play before the real Broadway audience in fact. Understudies sometimes +do you know." + +Miss Clay was smiling now, but the shadow in her eyes had not +lifted Tony saw. + +"I am particularly anxious to get a good understudy started in +immediately," the actress continued. "The one I had was impossible, did +not get the spirit of the thing at all. It is absolutely essential to +have some one ready and at once. My little daughter is in a sanitarium +dying with an incurable heart leakage. There will be a time--probably +within the next two months--when I shall have to be away." + +Tony put out her hand and let it rest upon the other woman's. There was +compassion in her young eyes. + +"I am so sorry," she said simply. "I didn't know you had a daughter. Of +course, I did know you weren't really Miss Clay, that you were Mrs. +Somebody, but I didn't think of your having children. Somehow we don't +remember actresses may be mothers too." + +"The actresses remember it--sometimes," said Miss Clay with a tremulous +little smile. "It isn't easy to laugh when your heart is heavy, Miss +Antoinette. It is all I can do to go on with 'Madge' sometimes. I just +have to forget--make myself forget I am a mother and a wife. Captain +Carey, my husband, is in the British Army. He is in Flanders now, or was +when I last heard." + +"Oh, I don't see how you can do it--play, I mean," sighed Tony aghast at +this new picture the actress's words brought up. + +"One learns, my dear. One has to. An actress is two distinct persons. +One of her belongs to the public. The other is just a plain woman. +Sometimes I feel as if I were far more the first than I am the second. +There wouldn't be any more contracts if I were not. But never mind that. +To come back to you. Mr. Hempel will send you a contract to-morrow. Will +you sign it?" + +"Yes, if Uncle Phil is willing. I'll wire him to-night. I am almost +positive he will say yes. He is very reasonable and he will see what a +wonderful, wonderful chance this is for me. I can't thank you enough, +Miss Clay. It all takes my breath away. But I am grateful and so happy; +you can't imagine it." + +Miss Clay smiled and drew on her gloves. The interview was over. + +"There is really nothing to thank me, for," she said. "The favor is on +the other side. It is I who am lucky. The perfect understudy like a +becoming hat is hard to find, but when found is absolutely beyond price. +May I send you a pass for to-morrow night to the 'End of the Rainbow'? +Perhaps you would like to see it again and play 'Madge' with me from a +box. The pass will admit two. Bring one of the lovers if you like." + +Tony wired her uncle that night. In the morning mail arrived Max Hempel's +contract as Miss Clay had promised. Tony regarded it with superstitious +awe. It was the first contract she had ever seen in her life, much less +had offered for her signature. The terms were, generous--appallingly so +it seemed to the girl who knew little of such things and was not inclined +to over-rate her powers financially speaking. She wisely took the +contract over to the school and got the manager's advice to "Go ahead." + +"We've nothing comparable to offer you, Miss Tony. With Hempel and Miss +Clay both behind you you are practically made. You are a lucky little +lady. I know a dozen experienced actresses in this city who would give +their best cigarette cases to be in your shoes." + +Arrived home at the Hostelry, armed with this approval, Tony found her +Uncle's answering wire bidding her do as she thought best and sending +heartiest love and congratulations. Dear Uncle Phil! + +And then she sat down and signed the impressive document that made her +Carol Clay's understudy and a real wage-earning person. + +All the afternoon she spent in long, delicious, dreamless slumber. At +five she was wakened by the maid bringing a letter from Alan, a +wonderful, extravagant lover-note such as only he could pen. Later she +bathed and dressed, donning the white and silver gown she had worn the +night when she had first admitted to Alan in Carlotta's garden that she +loved him, first took his kisses. It was rather a sacred little gown to +Tony, sacred to Alan and her own surrender to love. He called it her +starlight dress and loved it especially because it brought out the +springlike, virginal quality of her youth and loveliness as her other +more sophisticated gowns did not. Tony wore it for Alan to-night, +wanted him to think her lovely, to love her immensely. She wanted to +taste all life's joy at once, have a perfect deluge of happiness. Youth +must be served. + +Alan, graceful for being forgiven so easily, fell in with her mood and +was at his best, courtly, considerate, adoring. He exerted all the +magic of his not inconsiderable charm to make Tony forget that other +unfortunate night when he had appeared in other, less attractive +colors. And Tony was ready enough to forget beneath his worshiping +green eyes and under the spell of his wonderful voice. She meant to +shut out the unwelcome guests of fear and doubt from her heart, let +love alone have sway. + +They dined at a gorgeous restaurant in a great hotel. Tony reveled in the +splendor and richness of the setting, delighted in the flawless service, +the perfection of the strange and delectable viands which Alan ordered +for their consumption. Particularly she delighted in Alan himself and the +way he fitted into the richness and luxury. It was his rightful setting. +She could not imagine him in any of the shabby restaurants where she and +Dick had often dined so contentedly. Alan was a born aristocrat, +patrician of the patricians. His looks, his manner, everything about him +betrayed it. Most of all it was revealed in the way the waiters scurried +to do his bidding, bowed obsequiously before him, recognized him as the +authentic master, lord of the purple. + +"So Carson really has gone to Mexico," Alan murmured as they dallied over +their salads, looking mostly into each other's eyes. + +"Yes, he went yesterday. I hated to have him go. It is awfully +disagreeable and dangerous down there they say. He might get a fever or +get killed or something." Tony absent-mindedly nibbling a piece of roll +already saw Dick in her mind's eye the victim of an assassin's blade. + +"No such luck!" thought Alan Massey bitterly. The thought brought a flash +of venom into his eyes which Tony unluckily caught. + +"Alan! Why do you hate Dick so? He never did you any harm." + +Tony Holiday did not know what outrageous injury Dick had done his +cousin, Alan Massey. + +Alan was already suavely master of himself, the venom expunged +from his eyes. + +"Why wouldn't I hate him, _Antoinetta mia_? You are half in love +with him." + +"I am not," denied Tony indignantly. "He is just like Lar--." She broke +off abruptly, remembering Dick's flare of resentment at that familiar +formula, remembering too the kiss she had given him in the dimly-lit hall +in the Hostelry, the kiss which had not been precisely such a one as she +would have given Larry. + +Alan's face darkened again. + +"Oh, yes, you are. You are blushing." + +"I am not." Then putting her hands up to her face and feeling it warm +she changed her tactics. "Well, what, if I am? I do care a lot about +Dick. I found out the other night that I cared a whole lot more than I +knew. It isn't like caring for Larry and Ted. It's different. For after +all he isn't my brother--never was--never will be. I'm a wretched flirt, +Alan. You know it as well as I do. I've let Dick keep on loving me, +knowing all the time I didn't mean to marry him. And I'm not a bit sure I +am going to marry you either." + +"Tony!" + +"Well, anyway not for a long, long time. I want to go on the stage. I +can't put all of myself into my work and give it to you at the same time. +I don't want to get married. I don't dare to. I don't dare even let +myself care too much. I want to be free." + +"You want to be loved." + +"Of course. Every woman does." + +Alan made an impatient gesture. + +"I don't mean lip-worship. You are a woman, not a piece of statuary. Come +on now. Let's dance." + +They danced. In her lover's arms, their feet keeping time to the +syncopated, stirring rhythms of the violins, their hearts beating to a +mightier harmony of nature's own brewing, Tony Holiday was far from being +a piece of statuary. She was all woman, a woman very much alive and very +much in love. + +Alan bent over her. + +"Tony, belovedest. There are more things than art in the world," he said +softly. "Don't you know it, feel it? There is life. And life is bigger +than your work or mine. We're both artists, but we'll be bigger artists +together. Marry me now. Don't make me wait. Don't make yourself wait. You +want it as much as I do. Say yes, sweetheart," he implored. + +Tony shook her head vehemently. She was afraid. She knew that just now +all her dreams of success in her chosen art, all her love for the dear +ones at home were as nothing in comparison with this greater thing which +Alan called life and which she felt surging mightily within her. But she +also knew that this way lay madness, disloyalty, regret. She must be +strong, strong for Alan as well as for herself. + +"Not yet," she whispered back. "Be patient, Alan. I love you, +dear. Wait." + +The music came to an end. Many eyes followed the two as they went back to +their places at the table. They were incomparable artists. It was worth +missing one's own dance to see them have theirs. Aside from his wonderful +dancing and striking personality Alan was at all times a marked figure, +attracting attention wherever he went and whatever he did. The public +knew he had a superlative fortune which he spent magnificently as a +prince, and that he had a superlative gift which for all they were aware +he had flung wantonly away as soon as the money came into his hands. +Moreover he was even more interesting because of his superlatively bad +reputation which still followed him. The public would have found it hard +to believe that at last Alan Massey was leading the most temperate and +arduous of lives and devoting himself exclusively to one woman whom he +treated as reverently as if she were a goddess. The gazes focussed upon +Alan now inevitably included the girl with him, as lovely and young as +spring itself. + +"Who was she?" they asked each other. "What was a girl like that doing +in Alan Massey's society?" To most of the observers it meant but one +thing, eventually if not now. Even the most cynical and world-hardened +thought it a pity, and these would have been confounded if they could +have heard just now his passionate plea for marriage. One did not +associate marriage with Alan Massey. One had not associated it too much +with his mother, one recalled. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +TROUBLED WATERS + + +Ted Holiday drifted into Berry's to buy floral offerings for the +reigning goddess who chanced still to be pretty Elsie Hathaway. Things +had gone on gayly since that night a month ago when he had stolen that +impudent kiss beneath the crescent moon. Not that there was anything at +all serious about the affair. College coquettes must have lovers, and +Ted Holiday would not have been himself if there had not been a pretty +sweetheart on hand. + +By this time Ted had far outdistanced the other claimants for Elsie's +favor. But the victory had come high. His bank account was again sadly +humble in porportions and his bills at Berry's and at the candy shops +were things not to be looked into too closely. Nevertheless he was in a +gala humor that November morning. Aside from chronic financial +complications things were going very well with him. He was working just +hard enough to satisfy his newly-awakened common sense or conscience, or +whatever it was that was operating. He was having a jolly good time with +Elsie and basket ball and other things and college life didn't seem quite +such a bore and burden as it had hitherto. Moreover Uncle Phil had just +written that he would waive the ten dollar automobile tax for December in +consideration of the approach of Christmas, possibly also in +consideration of his nephew's fairly creditable showing on the new leaf +of the ledger though he did not say so. In any case it was a jolly old +world if anybody asked Ted Holiday that morning as he entered Berry's. + +He made straight for Madeline as he invariably did. He was always +friendly and gay and casual with her, always careful to let no one +suspect he had ever known her any more intimately than at present--not +because he cared on his own account--Ted Holiday was no snob. But because +he had sense to see it was better for Madeline herself. + +He was genuinely sorry for the girl. He could not help seeing how her +despondency grew upon her from week to week and that she appeared +miserably sick as well as unhappy. She looked worse than usual to-day, he +thought, white and heavy-eyed and unmistakably heavy-hearted. It troubled +him to see her so. Ted had the kindest heart in the world and always +wanted every one else to be as blithely content with life as he was +himself. Accordingly now under cover of his purchase of chrysanthemums +for Elsie he managed to get in a word in her ear. + +"You look as if you needed cheering up a bit. How about the movies +to-night? Charlie's on. He'll fix you." + +"No, thank you, I couldn't." The girl's voice was also prudently low, +and she busied herself with the flowers instead of looking at Ted as +she spoke. + +"Why not?" he challenged, always impelled to insistence by denial. + +"Because I--" And then to Ted's consternation the flowers flew out of her +hands, scattering in all directions, her face went chalky white and she +fell forward in a heavy faint in Ted Holiday's arms. + +Ted got her to a chair, ordered another clerk to get water and spirits of +ammonia quick. His arm was still around her when Patrick Berry strayed +in from the back room. Berry's eyes narrowed. He looked the girl over +from head to foot, surveyed Ted Holiday also with sharp scrutiny and +knitted brows. The clerk returned with water and dashed off for the +ammonia as ordered. Madeline's eyes opened slowly, meeting Ted's anxious +blue ones as he bent over her. + +"Ted!" she gasped. "Oh, Ted!" + +Her eyes closed again wearily. Berry's frown deepened. His best +customer had hitherto in his hearing been invariably addressed by the +girl as Mr. Holiday. + +In a moment Madeline's eyes opened again and she almost pushed Ted away +from her, shooting a frightened, deprecating glance at her employer as +she did so. + +"I--I am all right now," she said, rising unsteadily. + +"You are nothing of the sort, Madeline," protested Ted, also forgetting +caution in his concern. "You are sick. I'll get a taxi and take you +home. Mr. Berry won't mind, will you Berry?" appealed the best +customer, completely unaware of the queer, sharp look the florist was +bending upon him. + +"No, she'd better go," agreed Berry shortly. "I'll call a cab." He walked +over to the telephone but paused, his hand on the receiver and looked +back at Ted. "Where does she live?" he asked. "Do you know?" + +"Forty-nine Cherry," returned Ted still unconsciously revelatory. + +The big Irishman got his number and called the cab. The clerk came back +with the ammonia and vanished with it into the back room. Berry walked +over to where Ted stood. + +"See here, Mr. Holiday," he said. "I don't often go out of my way to give +college boys advice. Advice is about the one thing in the world nobody +wants. But I'm going to give you a bit. I like you and I liked your +brother before you. Here's the advice. Stick to the campus. Don't get +mixed up with Cherry Street. You wanted the chrysanthemums sent to Miss +Hathaway, didn't you?" + +"I did." There was a flash in Ted's blue eyes. "Send 'em and send a dozen +of your best roses to Miss Madeline Taylor, forty-nine Cherry and mind +your business. There is the cab. Ready, Madeline?" As the girl appeared +in the doorway with her coat and hat on. "I'll take you home." + +"Oh, no, indeed, it isn't at all necessary," protested Madeline. "You +have done quite enough as it is, Mr. Holiday. You mustn't bother." The +speaker's tone was cool, almost cold and very formal. She did not know +that Patrick Berry had heard that very different, fervid, "Ted! Oh, Ted!" +if indeed she knew it had ever passed her lips as she came reluctantly +back to the world of realities. + +Ted held the door open for her. They passed out. But a moment later when +Berry peered out the window he saw the cab going in one direction and his +best customer strolling off in the other and nodded his satisfaction. + +Sauntering along his nonchalant course, Madeline Taylor already half +forgotten, Ted Holiday came face to face with old Doctor Hendricks, a +rosy cheeked, white bearded, twinkling eyed Santa Claus sort of person +who had known his father and uncle and brother and had pulled himself +through various minor itises and sprains. Seeing the doctor reminded him +of Madeline. + +"Hello, Doc. Just the man I wanted to see. Want a job?" + +"Got more jobs than I can tend to now, young man. Anything the matter +with you? You look as tough as a two year old rooster." + +The old man's small, kindly, shrewd eyes scanned the lad's face +as he spoke. + +"Smoking less, sleeping more, nerves steadier, working harder, playing +the devil lighter," he gummed up silently with satisfaction. "Good, he'll +come out a Holiday yet if we give him time." + +"I am tough," Ted grinned back, all unconscious that he had been +diagnosed in that flitting instant of time. "Never felt better in my +life. Always agrees with me to be in training." + +The old doctor nodded. + +"I know. You young idiots will mind your coaches when you won't your +fathers and your doctors. What about the job?" + +"There's a girl I know who works at Berry's flower shop. I am afraid she +is sick though she won't see a doctor. She fainted away just now while I +was in the store, keeled over into my arms, scared me half out of my +wits. I'm worried about her. I wish you would go and see her. She lives +down on Cherry Street." + +"H-m!" The doctor's eyes studied the boy's face again but with less +complacency this time. Like Patrick Berry he thought a young Holiday +would better stick to the campus, not run loose on Cherry Street. + +"Know the girl well?" he queried. + +Ted hesitated, flushed, looked unmistakably embarrassed. + +"Yes, rather," he admitted. "I ran round with her quite a little the +first of the summer. I got her the job at Berry's. Her grandfather, a +pious old stick in the mud, turned her out of his house. She had to do +something to earn her living. I hope she isn't going to be sick. It would +be an awful mess. She can't have much saved up. Go and see her, will you, +Doc? Forty-nine Cherry. Taylor is the name." + +"H-m." The doctor made a note of these facts. "All right, I'll go. But +you had better keep away from Cherry Street, young man. It is not the +environment you belong in." + +"Environment be--blessed!" said Ted. "Don't you begin on that sort of +rot, please, Doc. Old Pat Berry's just been giving me a lecture on the +same subject. You make me tired both of you. As if the girls on Cherry +Street weren't as good any day as the ones on the campus, just because +they work in shops and stores and the girls on the campus work--us," he +concluded with a grin. "I'm not an infant that has to be kept in a Kiddie +coop you know." + +"Look out you don't land in a chicken coop," sniffed the doctor. "Very +well, you young sinner. Don't listen to me if you don't want to. I know I +might as well talk to the wind. You always were open to all the fool +germs going, Ted Holiday. Some day you'll own the old Doc knew best." + +"I wouldn't admit to being so hanged well up on the chicken-roost +proposition myself if I were you," retorted Ted impudently. "So long. I'm +much obliged for your kind favors all but the moral sentiments. You can +have those back. You may need 'em to use over again." + +So Ted went on his way, dropped in to see Elsie, had a cup of tea and +innumerable small cakes, enjoyed a foxtrot to phonograph music with the +rug rolled up out of the way, conversed amicably with the Ancient History +Prof himself, who wasn't such a bad sort as Profs go and had the merit of +being one of the few instructors who had not flunked Ted Holiday in his +course the previous year. + +The next morning Ted found a letter from Doctor Hendricks in his mail +which he opened with some curiosity wondering what the old Doc could have +to say. He read the communication through in silence and tucking it in +his pocket walked out of the room as if he were in a dream, paying no +attention to the question somebody called after him as he went. He went +on to his classes but he hardly knew what was going on about him. His +mind seemed to have stopped dead like a stop watch with the reading of +the old doctor's letter. + +He understood at last the full force of the trouble which engulfed +Madeline Taylor and why she had said that it would have been better for +her if that mad joy ride with him had ended life for her. The doctor had +gone to her as he had promised and had extracted the whole miserable +story. It seemed Madeline had married, or thought she had married, +Willis Hubbard against her grandfather's express command, a few weeks +after Ted had parted from her in Holyoke. In less than two months +Hubbard had disappeared leaving behind him the ugly fact that he already +had one wife living in Kansas City in spite of the pretense of a wedding +ceremony which he had gone through with Madeline. Long since +disillusioned but still having power and pride to suffer intensely the +latter found herself in the tragic position of being-a wife and yet no +wife. In her desperate plight she besought her grandfather's clemency +and forgiveness but that rigid old covenanter had declared that even as +she had made her bed in willful disobedience to his command so she +should lie on it for all of him. + +It was then that she had turned as a last resort to Ted Holiday though +always hoping against hope that she could keep the real truth of her +unhappy situation from him. + +"It is a bad affair from beginning to end," wrote the doctor. "I'd like +to break every rotten bone in that scoundrel's body but he has taken +mighty good care to effect a complete disappearance. That kind is never +willing to foot the bills for their own villainy. I am telling you the +story in order to make it perfectly clear that you are to keep out of the +business from now on. You have burned your fingers quite enough as it is +I gather. Don't see the girl. Don't write her. Don't telephone her. Let +her alone absolutely. Mind, these aren't polite requests. They are +orders. And if you don't obey them I'll turn the whole thing over to your +uncle double quick and I don't think you want me to do that. Don't worry +about the girl. I'll look after her now and later when she is likely to +need me more. But you keep hands off. That is flat--the girl's wish as +well as my orders." + +And this was what Ted Holiday had to carry about with him all that bleak +day and a half sleepless, uneasy night. And in the morning he was +summoned home to the House on the Hill. Granny was dying. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN DARK PLACES + + +The House on the Hill was a strange place to Tony and Ted those November +days, stranger than to the others who had walked day by day with the +sense of the approaching shadow always with them. Death itself was an +awesome and unaccustomed thing to them. They did not see how the others +bore it so well, took it all so calmly. To make matters worse, Uncle Phil +who never failed any one was stricken down with a bad case of influenza +and was unable to leave his bed. This of course made Margery also +practically _hors de combat_. The little folks spent most of their time +across the street in motherly Mrs. Lambert's care. Upon Ned Holiday's +children rested the chief burden of the hour. + +Granny was rarely conscious and all three of her grandchildren coveted +the sad privilege of being near her when these brief moments of lucidity +came though Tony and Ted could not stand long periods of watching beside +the still form as Larry could and did. It was Larry that she most often +recognized. Sometimes though he was his father to her and she called him +"Ned" in such tones of yearning tenderness that it nearly broke down his +self control. Sometimes too he was Philip to her and this also was +bitterly hard for Larry missed his uncle's support woefully in this dark +hour. Ruth, Granny seemed to know, oftener indeed, than she did Tony to +the latter's keen grief though she acknowledged the justice of the stab. +For she had gone her selfish way leaving the stranger to play the loving +granddaughter's part. + +One night when the nurse was resting and Larry too had flung himself upon +the couch in the living room to snatch a little much needed relaxation, +leaving Ruth in charge of the sickroom, Ted drifted in and demanded to +take his turn at the watch, giving Ruth a chance to sleep. She demurred +at first, knowing how hard these vigils were for the restless, unhappy +lad. But seeing he was really in earnest she yielded. As she passed out +of the room her hand rested for a moment on the boy's bowed head. She had +come to care a great deal for sunny, kind-hearted Teddy, loved him for +himself and because she knew he loved Larry with deep devotion. + +He looked up with a faint smile and gave her hand a squeeze. + +"You are a darling, Ruthie," he murmured. "Don't know what we would ever +do without you." + +And then he was alone with death and his own somber thoughts. He could +not get away from the memory of Madeline, could not help feeling with a +terrible weight of responsibility that he was more than a little to blame +for her plight. Whether he liked to think it or not he couldn't help +knowing that the whole thing had started with that foolish joy ride with +himself. Madeline had never risked her grandfather's displeasure till she +risked it for him. She had never gone anywhere with Hubbard till she went +because she was bitterly angry with himself because he had not kept his +promise--a promise which never should have been made in the first place. +And if he had not gone to Holyoke, hadn't behaved like an idiot that last +night, hadn't deserted her like a selfish cad to save his own precious +self--if none of these things had happened would Madeline still have +gone to Hubbard? Perhaps. But in his heart Ted Holiday had a hateful +conviction that she would not, that her wretchedness now was indirectly +if not directly chargeable to his own folly. It was terrible that such +little things should have such tremendous consequences but there it was. + +All his life Ted Holiday had evaded responsibility and had found self +extenuation the easiest thing in the world. But somehow all at once he +seemed to have lost the power of letting himself off. He had no plea to +offer even to himself except "guilty." Was he going to do as Doctor +Hendricks commanded and let Madeline pay the price of her own folly alone +or was he going to pay with her? The night was full of the question. + +The quiet figure on the bed stirred. Instantly the boy had forgotten +himself, remembered only Granny. + +He bent over her. + +"Granny, don't you know me? It's Teddy," he pleaded. + +The white lips quivered into a faint smile. The frail hand on the cover +lid groped vaguely for his. + +"I know--Teddy," the lips formed slowly with an effort. + +Ted kissed her, tears in his eyes. + +"Be--a man, dear," the lips breathed softly. "Be--" and Granny was off +again to a world of unconsciousness from which she had returned a moment +to give her message to the grief stricken lad by her side. + +To Ted in his overwrought condition the words were almost like a voice +from heaven, a sacred command. To be a man meant to face the hardest +thing he had ever had to face in his life. It meant marrying Madeline +Taylor, not leaving her like a coward to pay by herself for something +which he himself had helped to start. He rose softly and went to the +window, staring out into the night. A few moments later he turned back +wearing a strange uplifted sort of look, a look perhaps such, as Percival +bore when he beheld the Grail. + +Strange forces were at work in the House on the Hill that night. Ruth +had gone to her room to rest as Ted bade her but she had not slept in +spite of her intense weariness. She had almost lost the way of sleep +latterly. She was always so afraid of not being near when Larry needed +her. The night watches they had shared so often now had brought them +very, very close to each other, made their love a very sacred as well as +very strong thing. + +Ruth knew that the time was near now when she would have to go away from +the Hill. After Granny went there would be no excuse for staying on. If +she did not go Larry would. Ruth knew that very well and did not intend +the latter should happen. + +She had laid her plans well. She would go and take a secretarial course +somewhere. She had made inquiries and found that there was always demand +for secretaries and that the training did not take so long as other +professional education did. She could sell her rings and live on the +money they brought her until she was self supporting. She did not want to +dispose of her pearls if she could help it. She wanted to hold on to them +as the link to her lost past. Yes, she would leave the Hill. It was quite +the right thing to do. + +But oh, what a hard thing it was! She did not see how she was ever going +to face life alone under such hard, queer conditions without Doctor +Philip, without dear Mrs. Margery and the children, without Larry, +especially without Larry. For that matter what would Larry do without +her? He needed her so, loved her so much. Poor Larry! + +And suddenly Ruth sat up in bed. As clearly as if he had been in the +room with her she heard Larry's voice calling to her. She sprang up +and threw a dark blue satin negligee around her, went out of the room, +down the stairs, seeming to know by an infallible instinct where her +lover was. + +On the threshold of the living room she paused. Larry was pacing the +floor nervously, his face drawn and gray in the dim light of the +flickering gas. Seeing her he made a swift stride in her direction, took +both her hands in his. + +"Ruth, why did you come?" There was an odd tension in his voice. + +"You called me, didn't you? I thought you did." Her eyes were wondering. +"I heard you say 'Ruth' as plain as anything." + +He shook his head. + +"No, I didn't call you out loud. Maybe I did with my heart though. I +wanted you so." + +He dropped her hands as abruptly as he had taken them. + +"Ruth, I've got to marry you. I can't go on like this. I've tried to +fight it, to be patient and hang on to myself as Uncle Phil wanted me to. +But I can't go on. I'm done." + +He flung himself into a chair. His head went down on the table. The clock +ticked quietly on the mantel. What was Death upstairs to Time? What were +Youth and Love and Grief down here? These things were merely eddies in +the great tide of Eternity. + +For a moment Ruth stood very still. Then she went over and laid a hand on +the bowed head, the hand that wore the wedding ring. + +"Larry, Larry dear," she said softly. "Don't give up like that. It +breaks my heart." There was a faint tremor in her voice, a hint of tears +not far off. + +He lifted his head, the strain of his long self mastering wearing thin +almost to the breaking point at last, for once all but at the mercy of +the dominant emotion which possessed him, his love for the girl at his +side who stood so close he could feel her breathing, got the faint violet +fragrance of her. And yet he must not so much as touch her hand. + +The clock struck three, solemn, inexorable strokes. Ruth and Larry and +the clock seemed the only living things in the quiet house. Larry brushed +his hand over his eyes, got to his feet. + +"Ruth, will you marry me?" + +"Yes, Larry." + +The shock of her quiet consent brought Larry back a little to realities. + +"Wait, Ruth. Don't agree too soon. Do you realize what it means to marry +me? You may be married already. Your husband may return and find you +living--illegally--with me." + +"I know," said Ruth steadily. "There must be something wrong with me, +Larry. I can't seem to care. I can't seem to make myself feel as if I +belonged to any one else except to you. I don't think I do belong to any +one else. I was born over in the wreck. I was born yours. You saved me. I +would have died if you hadn't gotten me out from under the beams and +worked over and brought me back to life when everybody else gave me up as +dead. I wouldn't have been alive for my husband if you hadn't saved me. I +am yours, Larry. If you want me to marry you I will. If you want me--any +way--I am yours. I love you." + +"Ruth!" + +Larry drew her into his arms and kissed her--the first time he had ever +kissed any girl in his life except his sister. She lay in his arms, her +fragrant pale gold hair brushing his cheek. He kissed her over and over +passionately, almostly roughly in the storm of his emotion suddenly +unpent. Then he was Larry Holiday again. He pushed her gently from him, +remorse in his gray eyes. + +"Forgive me, Ruth. It's all wrong. I'm all wrong. We can't do it. I +shouldn't have kissed you. I shouldn't have touched you--shouldn't have +let you come to me like this. You must go now, dear. I am sorry." + +Ruth faced him in silence a moment then bowed her head, turned and walked +away to the door meekly like a chidden child. Her loosened hair fell like +a golden shower over her shoulders. It was all Larry could do to keep +from going after her, taking her in his arms again. But he stood grimly +planted by the table, gripping its edge as if to keep himself anchored. +He dared not stir one inch toward that childish figure in the dark robe. + +On the threshold Ruth turned, flung back her hair and looked back at him. +There was a kind of fearless exaltation and pride on her lovely young +face and in her shining eyes. + +"I don't know whether you are right or wrong, Larry, or rather when you +are right and when you are wrong. It is all mixed up. It seems as if it +must be right to care or we wouldn't be doing it so hard, as if God +couldn't let us love like this if he didn't mean we should be happy +together, belong to each other. Why should He make love if He didn't want +lovers to be happy?" + +It was an argument as old as the garden of Eden but to Ruth and Larry it +was as if it were being pronounced for the first time for themselves, +here in the dead of night, in the old House on the Hill, as they felt +themselves drawn to each other by the all but irresistible impulse of +their mutual love. + +"Maybe," went on Ruth, "I forgot my morals along with the rest I forgot. +I don't seem to care very much about right and wrong to-night. You +called me. I heard you and I came. I am here." Her lovely, proud little +head was thrown back, her eyes still shining with that fearless elation. + +"Ruth! Don't, dear. You don't know what you are saying. I've got to care +about right and wrong for both of us. Please go. I--I can't stand it." + +He left his post by the table then came forward and held open the door +for her. She passed out, went up the stairs, her hair falling in a wave +of gold down to her waist. She did not turn back. + +Larry waited at the foot of the stairs until he heard the door of her +room close upon her and then he too went up, to Granny's room. Ted met +him at the threshold in a panic of fear and grief. + +"Larry--I think--oh--" and Ted bolted unable to finish what he had begun +to say or to linger on that threshold of death. + +The nurse was bending over Madame Holiday forcing some brandy between the +blue lips. Larry was by the bedside in an instant. The nurse stepped back +with a sad little shake of the head. There was nothing she could do and +she knew it, knew also there was nothing the young doctor could do +professionally. He knelt, chafed the cold hands. The pale lips quivered a +little, the glazed eyes opened for a second. + +"Ned--Larry--give Philip love--" That was all. The eyes closed. There was +a little flutter of passing breath. Granny was gone. + +It was two days after Granny's funeral. Ted had gone back to college. +Tony would leave for New York on the morrow. Life cannot wait on +death. It must go on its course as inevitably as a river must go its +way to the sea. + +Yet to Tony it seemed sad and heartless that it should be so. She was +troubled by her selfishness, first to Granny living and now to Granny +dead. She said as much to her uncle sorrowfully. + +"It isn't really heartless or unkind," he comforted her. "We have to go +on with our work. We can't lay it down or scamp it just because dear +Granny's work is done. It is no more wrong for you to go back to your +play than it is for me to go back to my doctoring." + +"I know," sighed Tony. "But I can't help feeling remorseful. I had so +much time and Granny had so little and yet I wasn't willing to give her +even a little of mine. I would have if I had known though. I knew I was +selfish but I didn't know how selfish. I wish you had told me, Uncle +Phil. Why didn't you? You told Ruth. You let her help. Why wouldn't you +let me?" she half reproached. + +"I tried to do what was best for us all. I wanted to find a reason for +keeping Ruth with us and I did not think then and I don't think now that +it was right or necessary to keep you back for the little comfort it +could have brought to Granny. You must not worry, dear child. The blame +if there is any is mine. I know you would have stayed if I had let you." + +Back in college Ted sorted out his personal letters from the sheaf of +bills. Among them was one from Madeline Taylor, presumably the answer to +the one Ted had written her from the House on the Hill. He stared at the +envelope, dreading to open it. He was too horribly afraid of what it +might contain. Suddenly he threw the letter down on the table and his +head went down on top of it. + +"I can't do it," he groaned. "I can't. I won't. It's too hard." + +But in a moment his head popped up again fiercely. + +"Confound you!" he muttered. "You can and you will. You've got to. +You've made your bed. Now lie on it." And he opened the letter. + +"I can't tell you," wrote the girl, "how your letter touched me. Don't +think I don't understand that it isn't because you love me or really want +to marry me that you are asking me to do it. It is all the finer and more +wonderful because you don't and couldn't, ever. You had nothing to +gain--everything to lose. Yet you offered it all as if it were the most +ordinary gift in the world instead of the biggest. + +"Of course, I can't let you sacrifice yourself like that for me. Did you +really think I would? I wouldn't let you be dragged down into my life +even if you loved me which you don't. Some day you will want to marry a +girl--not somebody like me--but your own kind and you can go to her clean +because you never hurt me, never did me anything but good ever. You +lifted me up always. But there must have been something still stronger +that pulled me down. I couldn't stay up. I was never your kind though I +loved you just as much as if I were. Forgive my saying it just this once. +It will be the last time. This is really good-by. Thank you over and over +for everything, + +"Madeline." + +A mist blurred Ted Holiday's eyes as he finished the letter. He was free. +The black winged vulture thing which had hovered over him for days was +gone. By and by he would be thankful for his deliverance but just now +there was room only in his chivalrous boy's heart for one overmastering +emotion, pity for the girl and her needlessly wrecked life. What a +hopeless mess the whole thing was! And what could he do to help her since +she would not take what he had offered in all sincerity? He must think +out a way somehow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE PEDIGREE OF PEARLS + + +"Where is Larry?" asked Doctor Holiday a few days later coming into the +dining room at supper time. "I haven't seen him all the afternoon." + +Margery dropped into her chair with a tired little sigh. + +"There is a note from him at your place. I think he has gone out of town. +John told me he took him to the three ten train." + +"H--m!" mused the doctor. "Where is Ruth?" he looked up to ask. + +"Ruth went to Boston at noon. At least so Bertha tells me." Bertha +was the maid. "She did not say good-by to me. I thought possibly she +had to you!" + +Her husband shook his head, perplexed and troubled. + +"Dear Uncle Phil," ran Larry's message. + +"Ruth has gone to Boston. She left a letter for me saying good-by and +asking me to say good-by to the rest of you for her. Said she would write +as soon as she had an address and that no one was to worry about her. She +would be quite all right and thought it was best not to bother us by +telling us about her plans until she was settled." + +"Of course I am going after her. I don't know where she is but I'll find +her. I've got to, especially as I was the one who drove her away. I broke +my promise to you. I did make love to her and asked her to marry me the +night Granny died. She said she would and then of course I said she +couldn't and we've not seen each other alone since so I don't know what +she thinks now. I don't know anything except that I'm half crazy." + +"I know it is horribly selfish to go off and leave you like this when you +need me especially. Please forgive me. I'll be back as soon as I can or +send Ruth or we'll both come. And don't worry. I'm not going to do +anything rash or wrong or anything that will hurt you or Ruth. I am sorry +about the other night. I didn't mean to smash up like that." + +The doctor handed the letter over to his wife. + +"Why didn't he wait until he had her address? How can he possibly find +her in a city like Boston with not the slightest thing to go on?" + +Doctor Holiday smiled wearily. + +"Wait! Do you see Larry waiting when Ruth is out of his sight? My dear, +don't you know Larry is the maddest of the three when he gets under way?" + +"The maddest and the finest. Don't worry, Phil. He is all right. He won't +do anything rash just as he tells you." + +"You can't trust a man in love, especially a young idiot who waited a +full quarter century to get the disease for the first time. But you are +right. I'd trust him anywhere, more rather than less because of that +confession of his. I've wondered that he didn't break his promise long +before this. He is only human and his restraint has been pretty nearly +super-human. I don't believe he would have smashed up now as he calls it +if his nerves hadn't been strained about to the limit by taking all the +responsibility for Granny at the end. It was terrible for the poor lad." + +"It was terrible for you too, Phil. Larry isn't the only one who has +suffered. I do wish those foolish youngsters could have waited a little +and not thrown a new anxiety on you just now. But I suppose we can't +blame them under the circumstances. Isn't it strange, dear? Except for +the children sleeping up in the nursery you and I are absolutely alone +for the first time since I came to the House on the Hill." + +He nodded a little sadly. His father was gone long since and now Granny +too. And Ned's children were all grown up, would perhaps none of them +ever come again in the old way. Their wings were strong enough now to +make strange flights. + +"We've filled your life rather full, Margery mine," he said. "I hope +there are easier days ahead." + +"I don't want any happier ones," said Margery as she slipped her +hand into his. + +The next few days were a perfect nightmare to Larry. Naturally he found +no trace of Ruth, did not know indeed under what name she had chosen to +go. The city had swallowed her up and the saddest part of it was she had +wanted to be swallowed, to get away from himself. She had gone for his +sake he knew, because he had told her he could endure things no longer. +She had taken him at his word and vanished utterly. For all her +gentleness and docility Ruth had tremendous fortitude. She had taken this +hard, rash step alone in the dark for love's sake, just as she was ready +that unforgettable night to take that rasher step with him to marriage or +something less than marriage had he permitted it. She would have +preferred to marry him, not to bother with abstractions of right and +wrong, to take happiness as it offered but since he would not have it so +she had lost herself. + +Despair, remorse, anxiety, loneliness held him-in thrall while he roamed +the streets of the old city, almost hopeless now of finding her but still +doggedly persistent in his search. Another man under such a strain of +mind and body would have gone on a stupendous thought drowning carouse. +Larry Holiday had no such refuge in his misery. He took it straight +without recourse to anaesthetic of any sort. And on the fourth day when +he had been about to give up in defeat and go home to the Hill to wait +for word of Ruth a crack of light dawned. + +Chancing to be strolling absent mindedly across the Gardens he ran into a +college classmate of his, one Gary Eldridge, who shook his hand with +crushing grip and announced that it was a funny thing Larry's bobbing up +like that because he had been hearing the latter's name pretty +consecutively all the previous afternoon on the lips of the daintiest +little blonde beauty it had been his luck to behold in many a moon, a +regular Greuze girl in fact, eyes and all. + +Naturally there was no escape for Eldridge after that. Larry Holiday +grabbed him firmly and demanded to know if he had seen Ruth Annersley and +if he had and knew where she was to tell him everything quick. It was +important. + +Considering Larry Holiday's haggard face and tense voice Eldridge +admitted the importance and spun his yarn. No, he did not know where Ruth +Annersley was nor if the Greuze girl was Ruth Annersley at all. He did +know the person he meant was in the possession of the famous Farringdon +pearls, a fact immensely interesting to Fitch and Larrabee, the jewelers +in whose employ he was. + +"Your Ruth Annersley or Farringdon or whoever she is brought the pearls +in to our place yesterday to have them appraised. You can bet we sat up +and took notice. We didn't know they had left Australia but here they +were right under our noses absolutely unmistakable, one of the finest +sets of matched pearls in the world. You Holidays are so hanged smart. I +wonder it didn't occur to you to bring 'em to us anyway. We're the boys +that can tell you who's who in the lapidary world. Pearls have pedigrees, +my dear fellow, quite as faithfully recorded as those of prize pigs." + +Larry thumped his cranium disgustedly. It did seem ridiculous now that +the very simple expedient of going to the master jewelers for information +had not struck any of them. But it hadn't and that was the end of it. He +made Eldridge sit down in the Gardens then and there however to tell him +all he knew about the pearls but first and most important did the other +have any idea where the owner of the pearls was? He had none. The girl +was coming in again in a few days to hear the result of a cable they had +sent to Australia where the pearls had been the last Larrabee and Fitch +knew. She had left no address. Eldridge rather thought she hadn't cared +to be found. Larry bit his lip at that and groaned inwardly. He too was +afraid it was only too true, and it was all his fault. + +This was the story of the pearls as his friend briefly outlined it for +Larry Holiday's benefit. The Farringdon pearls had originally belonged to +a Lady Jane Farringdon of Farringdon Court, England. They had been the +gift of a rejected lover who had gone to Africa to drown his +disappointment and had died there after having sent the pearls home to +the woman he had loved fruitlessly and who was by this time the wife of +another man, her distant cousin Sir James Farringdon. At her death Lady +Jane had given the pearls to her oldest son for his bride when he should +have one. He too had died however before he had attained to the bride. +The pearls went to his younger brother Roderick a sheep raiser in +Australia who had amassed a fortune and discarded the title. The sheep +raiser married an Australian girl and gave her the pearls. They had two +children, a girl and a boy. Roderick was since deceased. Possibly his +wife also was dead. They had cabled to find out details. But it looked as +if the little blonde lady who possessed the pearls although she did not +know where she got them was in all probability the daughter of Roderick +Farringdon, the granddaughter of the famous beauty, Lady Jane. She was +probably also a great heiress. The sheep raiser and his father-in-law had +both been reported to be wallowing in money. "Oh boy!" Eldridge had ended +significantly. + +"But if Ruth is a person of so much importance why did they let her +travel so far alone with those valuable pearls in her possession? Why +haven't they looked her up? I suppose she told you about the wreck +and--the rest of it?" + +"She did, sang the praises of the family of Holiday in a thousand keys. +Your advertisements were all on the Annersley track you see and they +would all be out on the Farringdon one. The paths didn't happen to cross +I suppose." + +"You don't know anything about, Geoffrey Annersley do you?" Larry asked +anxiously. + +"Not a thing. We are jewelers not detectives or clairvoyants. It is only +the pearls we are up on and we've evidently slipped a cog on them. We +should have known when they came to the States but we didn't." + +"I'll cable the American consul at Australia myself. It's the first +real clue we have had--the rest has been working in the dark. The first +thing though is to find Ruth." And Larry Holiday looked so very +determined and capable of doing anything he set out to do that Gary +Eldridge grinned a little. + +"Wonderful what falling in love will do for a chap," he reflected. "Used +to think old Larry was rather a slow poke but he seems to have developed +into some whirlwind. Don't wonder considering what a little peach the +girl is. Hope the good Lord has seen fit to recall Geoffrey Annersley to +his heaven if he really did marry her." + +Aloud he promised to telephone Larry the moment the owner of the pearls +crossed the threshold of Larrabee and Fitch and to hold her by main force +if necessary until Larry could get there. In the meantime he suggested +that she had seemed awfully interested in the Australia part of the story +and it was very possible she had gone to the-- + +"Library." Larry took the words out of his mouth and bolted without any +formality of farewell into the nearest subway entrance. + +His friend gazed after him. + +"And this is Larry Holiday who used to flee if a skirt fluttered in his +direction," he murmured. "Ah well, it takes us differently. But it gets +us all sooner or later." + +Larry's luck had turned at last. In the reading room of the Public +Library he discovered a familiar blonde head bent over a book. He strode +to the secluded corner where she sat "reading up" on Australia. + +"Ruth!" Larry tried to speak quietly though he felt like raising the +echoes of the sacred scholarly precincts. + +The reader looked up startled, wondering. Her face lit with quick +delight. + +"Larry, oh Larry, I'm finding myself," she whispered breathlessly. + +"I'm glad but I'm gladder that I'm finding--yourself. Come on outside +sweetheart. I want to shout. I can't whisper and I won't. I'll get us +both put out if you won't come peaceably." + +"I'll come," said Ruth meekly. + +Outside in the corridor she raised blue eyes to gray ones. + +"I didn't mean you to find me--yet," she sighed. + +"So I should judge. I didn't think a mite of a fairy girl like you could +be so cruel. Some day I'll exact full penance for all you've made me +suffer but just now we'll waive that and go over to the Plaza and have a +high tea and talk. But first I'm going to kiss you. I don't care if +people are looking. All Boston can look if it likes. I'm going to do it." + +But it was only a scrub woman and not all Boston who witnessed that kiss, +and she paid no attention to the performance. Even had she seen it is +hardly probable that she would have been vastly startled at the sight. +She was a very old woman and more than likely she had seen such sights +before. Perhaps she had even been kissed by a man herself, once upon a +time. We hope so. + +The next day Larry and Ruth came home to the Hill, radiantly happy and +full of their strange adventures. Ruth was wearing an immensely becoming +new dark blue velvet suit, squirrel furs and a new hat which to Margery's +shrewd feminine eyes betrayed a cost all out of proportion to its +minuteness. She was looking exquisitely lovely in her new finery. Scant +wonder Larry could not keep his eyes off of her. Margery and Philip were +something in the same state. + +"On the strength of my being an heiress maybe Larry thought I might +afford some new clothes," Ruth confessed. "Of course he paid for +them--temporarily," she had added with a charming blush and a side long, +deprecating glance at Doctor Holiday, senior. She did not want him to +disapprove of her for letting Larry buy her pretty clothes nor blame +Larry for doing it. + +But he only laughed and remarked that he would have gone shopping with +her himself if he had any idea the results would be so satisfactory. + +It was only when he was alone with Margery that he shook his head. + +"Those crazy children behave as if everything were quite all right and as +if they could run right out any minute and get married. She doesn't even +wear her ring any more and they both appear to think the fact it +presumably represents can be disposed of as summarily." + +"Let them alone," advised his wife. "They are all right. It won't do them +a bit of harm to let themselves go a bit. Larry does his worshiping with +his eyes and maybe with his tongue when they are alone. I don't blame +him. She is a perfect darling. And it is much better for him not to +pretend he doesn't care when we all know he does tremendously. It was +crushing it all back that made him so miserable and smash up as he wrote +you. I don't believe he smashed very irretrievably anyway. He is too much +of a Holiday." + +The doctor smiled a little grimly. + +"You honor us, my dear. Even Holidays are men!" + +"Thank heaven," said Margery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE FIERY FURNACE + + +A few days after the return of Larry and Ruth to the Hill Doctor Holiday +found among his mail an official looking document bearing the seal of the +college which Ted attended and which was also his own and Larry's alma +mater. He opened it carelessly supposing it to be an alumni appeal of +some sort but as his-eyes ran down the typed sheet his face grew grave +and his lips set in a tight line. The communication was from the +president and informed its recipient that his nephew Edward Holiday was +expelled from the college on the confessed charge of gambling. + +"We are particularly sorry to be obliged to take this action," wrote the +president, "inasmuch as Edward has shown recently a marked improvement +both in class-room work and general conduct which has gone far to +eradicate the unfortunate impression made by the lawlessness of his +earlier career. But we cannot overlook so flagrant an offense and are +regretfully forced to make an example of the offender. As you know +gambling is strictly against the rules of the institution and your nephew +played deliberately for high stakes as he admits and made a considerable +sum of money--three hundred dollars to be precise--which he disposed of +immediately for what purpose he refuses to tell. Again regretting," et +cetera, et cetera, the letter closed. + +But there was also a hand written postscript and an enclosure. + +The postscript ran as follows: + +"As a personal friend and not as the president of the college I am +sending on the enclosed which may or may not be of importance. A young +girl, Madeline Taylor by name, of Florence, Massachusetts, who has until +recently been employed in Berry's flower shop, was found dead this +morning with the gas jet fully turned on, the inference being clearly +suicide. A short time ago a servant from the lodging house where the +dead girl resided came to me with a letter addressed to your nephew. It +seems Miss Taylor had given the girl the letter to mail the previous +evening and had indeed made a considerable point of its being mailed. +Nevertheless the girl had forgotten to do so and the next day was too +frightened to do it fearing the thing might have some connection with +the suicide. She meant to give it to Ted in person but finding him out +decided at the last moment to deliver it to me instead. I am sending the +letter to you, as I received it, unopened, and have not and shall not +mention the incident to any one else. I should prefer and am sure that +you will also wish that your nephew's name shall not be associated in +any way with the dead girl's. Frankly I don't believe the thing contains +any dynamite whatever but I would rather you handled the thing instead +of myself. + +"Believe me, my dear Holiday, I am heartily sick, and sorry over the +whole matter of Ted's expulsion. If we had not had his own word for it I +should not have believed him guilty. Even now I have a feeling that there +was more behind the thing than we got, something perhaps more to his +credit than he was willing to tell." + +Philip Holiday picked up the enclosed letter addressed to Ted and looked +at it as dubiously as if indeed it might have contained dynamite. The +scrawling handwriting was painfully familiar. And the mention of +Florence as the dead girl's home was disagreeably corroborating evidence. +What indeed was behind it all? + +Steeling his will he tore open the sealed envelope. Save for a folded +slip of paper it was quite empty. The folded slip was a check for three +hundred dollars made payable to Madeline Taylor and signed with Ted +Holiday's name. + +Here was dynamite and to spare for Doctor Holiday. Beside the uneasy +questions this development conjured the catastrophe of the boy's +expulsion took second place. And yet he forced himself not to judge until +he had heard Ted's own story. What was love for if it could not find +faith in time of need? + +He said nothing to any one, even his wife, of the president's letter and +that disconcerting check which evidently represented the results of the +boy's law breaking. All day he looked for a letter from Ted himself and +hoped against hope that he would appear in person. His anxiety grew as he +heard nothing. What had become of the boy? Where had he betaken himself +with his shame and trouble? How grave was his trouble? It was a bad day +for Philip Holiday and a worse night. + +But the morning brought a letter from his nephew, mailed ominously enough +from a railway post office in northern Vermont. The doctor tore it open +with hands that trembled a little. One thing at least he was certain of. +However bad the story the lad had to tell it would be the truth. He could +count on that. + +"Dear Uncle Phil--" it ran. "By the time you get this I shall be over the +border and enlisted, I hope, with the Canadians. I am horribly sorry to +knife you like this and go off without saying good-by and leaving such a +mess behind but truly it is the best thing I could do for the rest of +you as well as myself. + +"They will write you from college and tell you I am fired--for gambling. +But they won't tell you the whole story because they don't know it. I +couldn't tell them. It concerned somebody else besides myself. But you +have a right to know everything and I am going to tell it to you and +there won't be anything shaved off or tacked on to save my face either. +It will be straight stuff on my honor as a Holiday which means as much to +me as it does to you and Larry whether you believe it or not." + +Then followed a straightforward account of events from the first +ill-judged pick-up on the train and the all but fatal joy ride to the +equally ill-judged kisses in Cousin Emma's garden. + +"I hate like the mischief to put such things down on paper," wrote the +boy, "but I said I'd tell the whole thing and I will, even if it does +come out hard, so you will know it isn't any worse than it is. It is bad +enough I'll admit, I hadn't any business to make fool love to her when I +really didn't care a picayune. And I hadn't any business to be there in +Holyoke at all when you thought I was at Hal's. I did go to Hal's but I +only stayed two days. The rest of the time I was with Madeline and knew I +was going to be when I left the Hill. That part can't look any worse to +you than it does to me. It was a low-down trick to play on you when you +had been so white about the car and everything. But I did it and I can't +undo it. I can only say I am sorry. I did try afterward to make up a +little bit by keeping my word about the studying. Maybe you'll let that +count a little on the other side of the ledger. Lord knows I need +anything I can get there. It is little enough, more shame to me!" + +Then followed the events of the immediately preceding months from +Madeline Taylor's arrival in the college town on to the stunning +revelation of old Doctor Hendricks' letter. + +"You don't know how the thing made me feel. I couldn't help feeling more +or less responsible. For after all I did start the thing and though +Madeline was always too good a sport to blame me I knew and I am sure she +knew that she wouldn't have taken up with Hubbard if I hadn't left her in +the lurch just when she had gotten to care a whole lot too much for me. +Besides I couldn't help thinking what it would have been like if Tony had +been caught in a trap like that. It didn't seem to me I could stand off +and let her go to smash alone though I could see Doc Hendricks had common +sense on his side when he ordered me to keep out of the whole business. + +"I had all this on my mind when I came home that last time when Granny +was dying. I had it lodged in my head that it was up to me to straighten +things out by marrying Madeline myself though I hated the idea like death +and destruction and I knew it would about kill the rest of you. I wrote +and asked her to marry me that night after Granny went. She wouldn't do +it. It wasn't because she didn't love me either. I guess it was rather +because she did that she wouldn't. She wouldn't pull me down in the quick +sands with her. Whatever you may think of what she was and did you will +have to admit that she was magnificent about this. She might have saved +herself at my expense and she wouldn't. Remember that, Uncle Phil, and +don't judge her about the rest." + +Doctor Holiday ceased reading a moment and gazed into the fire. By the +measure of his full realization of what such a marriage would have meant +to his young nephew he paid homage to the girl in her fine courage in +refusing to take advantage of a chivalrous boy's impulsive generosity +even though it left her the terrible alternative which later she had +taken. And he thought with a tender little smile that there was something +also rather magnificent about a lad who would offer himself thus +voluntarily and knowingly a living sacrifice for "dear Honor's sake." He +went back to the letter. + +"But I still felt I had to do something to help though she wouldn't +accept the way I first offered. I knew she needed money badly as she +wasn't able to work and I wanted to give her some of mine. I knew I had +plenty or would have next spring when I came of age. But I was sure you +wouldn't let me have any of it now without knowing why and Larry wouldn't +lend me any either, sight unseen. I wouldn't have blamed either of you +for refusing. I haven't deserved to be taken on trust. + +"The only other way I knew of to get money quick was to play for it. I +have fool's luck always at cards. Last year I played a lot for money. +Larry knew and rowed me like the devil for it last spring. No wonder. He +knew how Dad hated it. So did I. I'd heard him rave on the subject often +enough. But I did it just the same as I did a good many other things I am +not very proud to remember now. But I haven't done it this year--at least +only a few times. Once I played when I'd sent Madeline all the money I +had for her traveling expenses and once or twice beside I did it on my +own account because I was so darned sick of toeing a chalk mark I had to +go on a tangent or bust. I am not excusing it. I am not excusing +anything. I am just telling the truth. + +"Anyhow the other night I played again in good earnest. There were quite +a number of fellows in the game and we all got a bit excited and plunged +more than we meant to especially myself and Ned Delany who was out to +get me if he could. He hates me like the seven year itch anyway because I +caught him cheating at cards once and said so right out in meeting. I had +absolutely incredible luck. I guess the devil or the angels were on my +side. I swept everything, made about three hundred dollars in all. The +fellows paid up and I banked the stuff and mailed Madeline a check for +the whole amount the first thing. I don't know what would have happened +if I had lost instead of winning. I didn't think about that. A true +gambler never does I reckon. + +"But I want to say right here and now, Uncle Phil, that I am through with +the business. The other night sickened me of gambling for good and all. +Even Dad couldn't have hated it any more than I do this minute. It is +rotten for a man, kills his nerves and his morals and his common sense. +I'm done. I'll never make another penny that way as long as I live. But +I'm not sorry I did it this once no matter how hard I'm paying for it. If +I had it to do over again I'd do precisely the same thing. I wonder if +you can understand that, Uncle Phil, or whether you'll think I'm just +plain unregenerate. + +"I thought then I was finished with the business but as a matter of fact +I was just starting on it. Somebody turned state's evidence. I imagine it +was Delany though I don't know. Anyhow somebody wrote the president an +anonymous letter telling him there was a lot of gambling going on and I +was one of the worst offenders, and thoughtfully suggested the old boy +should ask me how much I made the other night and what I did with it. Of +course that finished me off. I was called before the board and put +through a holy inquisition. Gee! They piled up not only the gambling +business but all the other things I'd done and left undone for two years +and a half and dumped the whole avalanche on my head at once. Whew! It +was fierce. I am not saying I didn't deserve it. I did, if not for this +particular thing for a million other times when I've gone scot-free. + +"They tried to squeeze out of me who the other men involved were but I +wouldn't tell. I could have had a neat little come back on Delany if I +had chosen but I don't play the game that way and I reckon he knew it and +banked on my holding my tongue. I'd rather stand alone and take what was +coming to me and I got it too good and plenty. They tried to make me tell +what I did with the money. That riled me. It was none of their business +and I told 'em so. Anyway I couldn't have told even if it would have done +me any good on Madeline's account. I wouldn't drag her into it. + +"Finally they dismissed me and said they would let me know later what +they would do about my case. But there wasn't any doubt in my mind what +they were going to do nor in theirs either, I'll bet. I was damned. They +had to fire me--couldn't help it when I was caught with the goods under +their very noses. I think a good many of them wished I hadn't been +caught, that they could have let me off some way, particularly Prof. +Hathaway. He put out his hand and patted my shoulder when I went out and +I knew he was mighty sorry. He has been awfully decent to me always +especially since I have been playing round with his daughter Elsie this +fall and I guess it made him feel bad to have me turn out such a black +sheep. I wished I could tell him the whole story but I couldn't. I just +had to let him think it was as bad as it looked. + +"I had hardly gotten back into the Frat house when I was called to the +telephone. It was Madeline. She thanked me for sending her the money but +said she was sending the check back as she didn't need it, had found a +way out of her difficulties. She was going on a long, long journey in +fact, and wouldn't see me again. Said she wanted to say good-by and wish +me all kinds of luck and thank me for what she was pleased to call my +goodness to her. And then she hung up before I could ask any questions or +get it through my head what she meant by her long, long journey. My brain +wasn't working very lively after what I'd been through over there at the +board meeting anyway and I was too wrapped up in my own troubles to +bother much about hers at the moment, selfish brute that I am. + +"But the next morning I understood all right. She had found her way out +and no mistake, just turned on the gas and let herself go. She was dead +when they found her. I don't blame her, Uncle Phil. It was too hard for +her. She couldn't go through with it. Life had been too hard for her from +the beginning. She never had half a chance. And in the end we killed her +between us, her pious old psalm singing hypocrite of a grandfather, the +rotter who ruined her, and myself, the prince of fools. + +"I went to see her with the old Doc. And, Uncle Phil, she was beautiful. +Not even Granny looked more peaceful and happy than she did lying there +dead with the little smile on her lips as if she were having a pleasant +dream. But the scar was there on her forehead--the scar I put there. I've +got a scar of my own too. It doesn't show on the surface but it is there +for all that and always will be. I shan't talk about it but I'll never +forget as long as I live that part of the debt she paid was mine. It is +_mea culpa_ for me always so far as she is concerned. + +"Her grandfather arrived while I was there. If ever there was a man +broken, mind and body and spirit he was. I couldn't help feeling sorry +for him. Of the two I would much rather have been Madeline lying there +dead than that poor old chap living with her death on his conscience. + +"Later I got my official notice from the board. I was fired. I wanted to +get out of college. I'm out for better or worse. Uncle Phil, don't think +I don't care. I know how terribly you are going to be hurt and that it +will be just about the finish of poor old Larry. I am not very proud of +it myself--being catapulted out in disgrace where the rest of you left +trailing clouds of glory. It isn't only what I have done just now. It is +all the things I have done and haven't done before that has smashed me in +the end--my fool attitude of have a good time and damn the expense. I +didn't pay at the time. I am paying now compound interest accumulated. +Worst of it is the rest of you will have to pay with me. You told me once +we couldn't live to ourselves alone. I didn't understand then. I do now. +I am guilty but you have to suffer with me for my mistakes. It is that +that hurts worst of all. + +"You have been wonderful to me always, had oceans of patience when I +disappointed you and hurt you and worried you over and over again. And +now here is this last, worst thing of all to forgive. Can you do it, +Uncle Phil? Please try. And please don't worry about me, nor let the +others. I'll come through all right. And if I don't I am not afraid of +death. I have found out there are lots of worse things in the world. I +haven't any pipe dreams about coming out a hero of any sort but I do mean +to come out the kind of a man you won't be ashamed of and to try my +darnedest to live up a little bit to the Holiday specifications. Again, +dear Uncle Phil, please forgive me if you can and write as soon as I can +send an address." Then a brief postscript. "The check Madeline sent back +never got to me. If it is forwarded to the Hill please send it or rather +its equivalent to the president. I wouldn't touch the money with a ten +foot pole. I never wanted it for myself but only for Madeline and she is +beyond needing anything any of us can give her now." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE + + +Having read and reread the boy's letter Doctor Holiday sat long with it +in his hand staring into the fire. Poor Teddy for whom life had hitherto +been one grand and glorious festival! He was getting the other, the seamy +side of things, at last with a vengeance. Knowing with the sure intuition +of love how deeply the boy was suffering and how sincerely he repented +his blunders the doctor felt far more compassion than condemnation for +his nephew. The fineness and the folly of the thing were so inextricably +confused that there was little use trying to separate the two even if he +had cared to judge the lad which he did not, being content with the boy's +own judgment of himself. Bad as the gambling business was and deeply as +he regretted the expulsion from college the doctor could not help seeing +that there was some extenuation for Ted's conduct, that he had in the +main kept faith with himself, paid generously, far more than he owed, and +traveling through the fiery furnace had somehow managed to come out +unscathed, his soul intact. After all could one ask much more? + +It was considerably harder for Larry to accept the situation +philosophically than it was for the senior doctor's more tolerant and +mature mind. Larry loved Ted as he loved no one else in the world not +perhaps even excepting Ruth. But he loved the Holiday name too with a +fine, high pride and it was a bitter dose to swallow to have his younger +brother "catapulted in disgrace," as Ted himself put it, out of the +college which he himself so loved and honored. He was inclined to resent +what looked in retrospect as entirely unnecessary and uncalled for +generosity on Ted's part. + +"Nobody but Ted would ever have thought of doing such a fool thing," he +groaned. "Why didn't he pull out in the first place as Hendricks wanted +him to? He would have been entirely justified." + +But the older man smiled and shook his head. + +"Some people could have done it, not Ted," he said. "Ted isn't built that +way. He never deserted anybody in trouble in his life. I don't believe he +ever will. We can't expect him to have behaved differently in this one +affair just because we would have liked it better so. I am not sure but +we would be wrong and he right in any case." + +"Maybe. But it is a horrible mess. I can't get over the injustice of the +poor kid's paying so hard when he was just trying to do the decent, hard, +right thing." + +"You have it less straight than Ted has, Larry. He knows he is paying not +for what he did and thought right but for what he did and knew was wrong. +You can't feel worse than I do about it. I would give anything I have to +save Ted from the torture he is going through, has been going through +alone for days. But I would rather he learned his lesson thoroughly now, +suffering more than he deserves than have him suffer too little and fall +worse next time. No matter how badly we feel for him I think it is up to +us not to try to dilute his penitence and to leave a generous share of +the blame where he puts it himself--on his own shoulders." + +"I suppose you are right, Uncle Phil," sighed Larry. "You usually are. +But it's like having a piece taken right out of me to have him go off +like that. And the Canadians are the very devil of fighters. Always in +the thick of things." + +"That is where Ted would want to be, Larry. Let us not cross that +bridge until we have to. As he says himself there are worse things than +death anyway." + +"I know. Marrying the girl would have been worse. She was rather +magnificent, wasn't she, just as he says, not saving herself when she +might have at his expense?" + +"I think she was. I am almost glad the poor child is where she can suffer +no more at the hands of men." + +The next day came a wire from Ted announcing his acceptance in the +Canadian army and giving his address in the training camp. + +The doctor answered at once, writing a long, cheerful letter full of home +news especially the interesting developments in Ruth's romantic story. It +was only at the end that he referred to the big thing that had to be +faced between them. + +"I am not going to say a word that will add in any way to the burden you +are already carrying, Teddy, my lad. You know how sadly disappointed we +all are in your having to leave college this way but I understand and +sympathize fully with your reasons for doing what you did. Even though I +can't approve of the thing itself. I haven't a single reproach to offer. +You have had a harsh lesson. Learn it so well that you will never bring +yourself or the rest of us to such pain and shame again. Keep your scar. +I should be sorry to think you were so callous that you could pass +through an experience like that without carrying off an indelible mark +from it. But it isn't going to ruin your life. On the contrary it is +going to make a man of you, is doing that already if I may judge from +the spirit of your letter which goes far to atone for the rest. The +forgiveness is yours always, son, seventy times seven if need be. Never +doubt it. We shall miss you very much. I wonder if you know how dear to +us you are, Teddy lad. But we aren't going to borrow trouble of the +future. We shall say instead God speed. May he watch over you wherever +you are and bring you safe back to us in His good time!" + +And Ted reading the letter later in the Canadian training camp was not +ashamed of the tears that came stinging up in his eyes. He was woefully +homesick, wanted the home people, especially Uncle Phil desperately. +But the message from the Hill brought strength and comfort as well as +heart ache. + +"Dear Uncle Phil," he thought. "I will make it up to him somehow. I will. +He shan't ever have to be ashamed of me again." + +And so Ted Holiday girded on manhood along with his khaki and his Sam +Browne belt and started bravely up out of the pit which his own willful +folly had dug for him. + +Tony was not told the full story of her brother's fiasco. She only +knew that he had left college for some reason or other and had taken +French leave for the Canadian training camp. She was relieved to +discover that even in Larry's stern eyes the escapade, whatever it +was, had not apparently been a very damaging one and accepted +thankfully her uncle's assurance that there was nothing at all to +worry about and that Ted was no doubt very much better off where he +was than if he had stayed in college. + +As for the going to war part small blame had she for Ted in that. She +knew well it was precisely what she would have done herself in his case +and teemed with pride in her bonny, reckless, beloved soldier brother. + +She had small time to think much about anybody's affairs beside her own +just now. Any day now might come the word that little Cecilia had gone +and that Tony Holiday would take her place on the Broadway stage as a +real star if only for a brief space of twinkling. + +She saw very little even of Alan. He was tremendously busy and seemed, +oddly enough, to be drawing a little away from her, to be less jealously +exacting of her time and attention. It was not that he cared less, rather +more, Tony thought. His strange, tragic eyes rested hungrily upon her +whenever they were together and it seemed as if he would drink deep of +her youth and loveliness and joy, a draught deep enough to last a long, +long time, through days of parching thirst to follow. He was very gentle, +very quiet, very loveable, very tender. His stormy mood seemed to have +passed over leaving a great weariness in its wake. + +A very passion of creation was upon him. Seeing the canvases that +flowered into beauty beneath his hand Tony felt very small and humble, +knew that by comparison with her lover's genius her own facile gifts were +but as a firefly's glow to the light of a flaming torch. He was of the +masters. She saw that and was proud and glad and awed by the fact. But +she saw also that the artist was consuming himself by the very fire of +his own genius and the knowledge troubled her though she saw no way to +check or prevent the holocaust if such it was. + +Sometimes she was afraid. She knew that she would never be happy in the +every day way with Alan. Happiness did not grow in his sunless garden. +Married to him she would enter dark forests which were not her natural +environment. But it did not matter. She loved him. She came always back +to that. She was his, would always be his no matter what happened. She +was bound by the past, caught in its meshes forever. + +And then suddenly a new turn of the wheel took place. Word came just +before Christmas that Dick Carson was very ill, dying perhaps down in +Mexico, stricken with a malarial fever. + +A few moments after Tony received this stunning news Alan Massey's card +was brought to her. She went down to the reception room, gave him a limp +cold little hand in greeting and asked if he minded going out with her. +She had to talk with him. She couldn't talk here. + +Alan did not mind. A little later they were walking riverward toward a +brilliant orange sky, against which the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument +loomed gray and majestic. It was bitter cold. A stinging wind lashed the +girl's skirts around her and bit into her cheeks. But somehow she +welcomed the physical discomfort. It matched her mood. + +Then the story came out. Dick was sick, very sick, going to die maybe and +she, Tony Holiday couldn't stand it. + +Alan listened in tense silence. So Dick Carson might be going to be so +unexpectedly obliging as to die after all. If he had known how to pray he +would have done it, beseeched whatever gods there were to let the thing +come to an end at last, offered any bribe within his power if they would +set him free from his bondage by disposing of his cousin. + +But there beside him clinging to his arm was Tony Holiday aquiver with +grief for this same cousin. He saw that there were tears on her cheeks, +tears that the icy wind turned instantly to frosted silver. And suddenly +a new power was invoked--the power of love. + +"Tony, darling, don't cry," he beseeched. "I--can't stand it. He--he +won't die." + +And then and there a miracle took place. Alan Massey who had never +prayed in his life was praying to some God, somewhere to save John Massey +for Tony because she loved him and his dying would hurt her. Tony must +not be hurt. Any God could see that. It must not be permitted. + +Tony put up her hand and brushed away the frosted silver drops. + +"No, he isn't going to die. I'm not going to let him. I'm going to Mexico +to save him." + +Alan stopped short, pulling her to a halt beside him. + +"Tony, you can't," he gasped, too astonished for a moment even to be +angry. + +"I can and I am going to," she defied him. + +"But my dear, I tell you, you can't. It would be madness. Your uncle +wouldn't let you. I won't let you." + +"You can't stop me. Nobody can stop me. I'm going. Dick shan't die alone. +He shan't." + +"Tony, do you love him?" + +"I don't know. I don't want to talk about love--your kind. I do love him +one way with all my heart. I wish it were the way I love you. I'd go down +and marry him if I did. Maybe I'll marry him anyway. I would in a minute +if it would save him." + +"Tony!" Alan's face was dead white, his green eyes savage. "You promised +to stick to me through everything. Where is your Holiday honor that you +can talk like that about marrying another man?" Maddened, he branished +his words like whips, caring little whether they hurt or not. + +"I can't help it, Alan. I am sorry if I am hurting you. But I can't think +about anybody but Dick just now." + +"Forgive me, sweetheart. I know you didn't mean it, what you said about +marrying him and you didn't mean it about going to Mexico. You know you +can't. It is no place for a woman like you." + +"If Dick is there dying, it _is_ the place for me. I love you, Alan. But +there are some things that go even deeper, things that have their very +roots in me, the things that belong to the Hill. And Dick is a very big +part of them, sometimes I think he is the biggest part of all. I have to +go to him. Please don't try to stop me. It will only make us both unhappy +if you try." + +A bitter blast struck their faces with the force of a blow. Tony +shivered. + +"Let's go back. I'm cold--so dreadfully cold," she moaned clinging +to his arm. + +They turned in silence. There was nothing to say. The sunset glory had +faded now. Only a pale, cold mauve tint was left where the flame had +blazed. A star or two had come out. The river flowed sinister black, +showing white humps of foam here and there. + +At the Hostelry Jean Lambert met them in the hall. + +"Tony, where have you been? We have been trying everywhere to locate you. +Cecilia died this afternoon. You have to take Miss Clay's place tonight." + +Tony's face went white. She leaned against the wall trembling. + +"I forgot--I forgot about the play. I can't go to Mexico. Oh, what shall +I do? What shall I do?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +DWELLERS IN DREAMS + + +The last curtain had gone down on the "End of the Rainbow" and Tony +Holiday had made an undeniable hit, caught the popular fancy by her young +charm and vivid personality and fresh talents to such a degree that for +the moment at least even its idol of many seasons, Carol Clay, was +forgotten. The new arriving star filled the whole firmament. Broadway was +ready to worship at a new shrine. + +But Broadway did not know that there were two Tony Holidays that night, +the happy Tony who had taken its fickle, composite heart by storm and the +other Tony half distracted by grief and trapped bewilderment. Tony had +willed to exile that second self before she stepped out behind the foot +lights. She knew if she did not she never could play Madge as Madge had +the right to be played. For her own sake, for Max Hempel's sake because +he believed in her, for Carol Clay's sake because Tony loved her, she +meant to forget everything but Madge for those few hours. Later she would +remember that Dick was dying in Mexico, that she had hurt Alan cruelly +that afternoon, that she had a sad and vexed problem to solve to which +there seemed no solution. These things must wait. And they had waited but +they came crowding back upon her the moment the play was over and she saw +Alan waiting for her in the little room off the wings. + +He rose to meet her and oblivious of curious eyes about them drew +her into his arms and kissed her. And Tony utterly miserable in a +daze of conflicting emotions nestled in his embrace unresisting for a +second, not caring any more than Alan himself what any one saw or +thought upon seeing. + +"You were wonderful, belovedest," he whispered. "I never saw them go +madder over anybody, not even Carol herself." + +Tony glowed all over at his praise and begged that they might drive a +little in the park before they went home. She had to think. She couldn't +think in the Hostelry. It stifled her. Nothing loath Alan acquiesced, +hailed a cab and gave the necessary orders. For a moment they rode in +silence Tony relaxing for the first time in many hours in the comfort of +her lover's presence, his arm around her. Things were hard, terribly hard +but you could not feel utterly disconsolate when the man you loved best +in all the world was there right beside you looking at you with eyes that +told you how much you were beloved in return. + +"Tony, dear, I am going to surprise you," he said suddenly breaking the +silence. "I have decided to go to Mexico." + +"To go to Mexico! Alan! Why?" + +Tony drew away from her companion to study his face, with amazement +on her own. + +"To find Carson and look after him. Why else?" + +"But your exhibition? You can't go away now, Alan, even if I would let +you go to Dick that way." + +"Oh, yes I can. The arrangements are all made. Van Slyke can handle the +last stages of the thing far better than I can. I loathe hanging round +and hearing the fools rant about my stuff and wonder what the devil I +meant by this or that or if I didn't mean anything. I am infinitely +better off three thousand miles away." + +"But even so--I don't want to hurt you or act as if I didn't appreciate +what you are offering to do--but you hate Dick. I don't see how you could +help him." + +"I don't hate him any more, Tony. At least I don't think I do. At any +rate whether I do or don't won't make the slightest bit of difference. I +shall look after him as well as your uncle or your brothers would--better +perhaps because I know Mexico well and how to get things done down there. +I know how to get things done in most places." + +"Oh, I know. I have often thought you must have magic at your command the +way people fly to do your bidding. It is startling but it is awfully +convenient." + +"Money magic mostly," he retorted grimly. + +"Partly, not mostly. You are a born potentate. You must have been a +sultan or a pashaw or something in some previous incarnation. I don't +care what you are if you will find Dick and see that he gets well. Alan, +don't you think--couldn't I--wouldn't it be better--if I went too?" + +There was a sudden gleam in Alan's eyes. The hour was his. He could take +advantage of the situation, of the girl's anxiety for his cousin, her +love for himself while it was at high tide as it was at this over +stimulated hour of excitement. He could marry her. And once the rite was +spoken--not John Massey--not all Holiday Hill combined could take her +from him. She would be his and his alone to the end. Tony was ripe for +madness to-night, overwrought, ready to take any wild leap in the dark +with him. He could make her his. He felt the intoxicating truth quiver in +the touch of her hand, read it in her eager, dark eyes lifted to his for +his answer. + +Alan Massey was unused to putting away temptation but this, perhaps the +biggest and blackest that had ever assailed him he put by. + +"No, dear I'll go alone," he said. "You will just have to trust me, Tony. +I swear I'll do everything in the world that can be done for Carson. Let +us have just one dance though. I should like it to remember--in Mexico." + +Tony hesitated. It was very late. The Hostelry would ill approve of her +going anywhere to dance at such an hour. It ill approved of Alan Massey +any way. Still-- + +"I am going to-morrow. It is our last chance," he pleaded. "Just one +dance, _carissima_. It may have to last--a long, long time." + +And Tony yielded. After all they could not treat this night as if it were +like all the other nights in the calendar. They had the right to their +one more hour of happiness before Alan went away. They had the right to +this one last dance. + +The one dance turned into many before they were through. It seemed to +both as if they dared not stop lest somehow love and happiness should +stop too with the end of the music. They danced on and on "divinely" as +Alan had once called it. Tony thought the rest of his prophecy was +fulfilled at last, that they also loved each other divinely, as no man or +woman had ever loved since time began. + +But at last this too had to come to an end as perfect moments must in +this finite world and Alan and Tony went out of the brilliantly lighted +restaurant into white whirls of snow. For a storm had started while they +had been inside and was now well in progress. All too soon the cab +deposited them at the Hostelry. In the dimly lit hall Alan drew the girl +into his arms and kissed her passionately then suddenly almost flung her +from him, muttered a curt good-by and before Tony hardly realized he was +going, was gone, swallowed up in the night and storm. Alone Tony put her +hands over her hot cheeks. So this was love. It was terrible, but oh--it +was wonderful too. + +Soberly after a moment she went to change the damning OUT opposite her +name in the hall bulletin just as the clock struck the shocking hour of +three. But lo there was no damning OUT visible, only a meek and proper IN +after her name. For all the bulletin proclaimed Antoinette Holiday might +have been for hours wrapt in innocent slumber instead of speeding away +the wee' sma' hours in a public restaurant in the arms of a lover at whom +Madame Grundy and her allies looked awry. Somebody had tampered with the +thing to save Tony a reprimand or worse. But who? Jean? No, certainly not +Jean. Jean's conscience was as inelastic as a yard stick. Whoever had +committed the charitable act of mendacity it couldn't have been Jean. + +But when Tony opened her own door and switched on the light there was +Jean curled up asleep in the big arm chair. The sudden flare of light +roused the sleeper and she sat up blinking. + +"Wherever have you been, Tony? I have been worried to death about you. +I've been home from the theater for hours. I couldn't think what had +happened to you." + +"I am sorry you worried. You needn't have. I was with Alan, of course." + +"Tony, people say dreadful things about Mr. Massey. Aren't you ever +afraid of him yourself?" Jean surveyed the younger girl with +troubled eyes. + +Tony flung off her cloak impatiently. + +"Of course I am not afraid. People don't know him when they say such +things about him. You needn't ever worry, Jean. I am safer with Alan than +with any one else in the world. I'd know that to-night if I never knew it +before. We were dancing. I knew it was late but I didn't care. I +wouldn't have missed those dances if they had told me I had to pack my +trunk and leave to-morrow." Thus spoke the rebel always ready to fly out +like a Jack-in-the box from under the lid in Tony Holiday. + +"They won't," said Jean in a queer, compressed little voice. + +"Jean! Was it you that fixed that bulletin?" + +"Yes, it was. I know it wasn't a nice thing to do but I didn't want them +to scold you just now when you were so worried about Dick and +everything. I thought you would be in most any minute any way and I +waited up myself to tell you how I loved the play and how proud I was of +you. Then when you didn't come for so long I got really scared and then +I fell asleep and--" + +Tony came over and stopped the older girl's words with a kiss. + +"You are a sweet peach, Jean Lambert, and I am awfully grateful to you +for straining your conscience like that for my sake and awfully sorry I +worried you. I am afraid I always do worry good, sensible, proper people. +I'm made that way, mad north north west like Hamlet," she added +whimsically. "Maybe we Holidays are all mad that much, excepting Uncle +Phil of course. He's all that keeps the rest of us on the track of sanity +at all. But Alan is madder still. Jean, he is going to Mexico to take +care of Dick." + +"Mr. Massey is going to Mexico to take care of Dick!" Jean' stared. "Why, +Tony--I thought--" + +"Naturally. So did I. Who wouldn't think him the last person in the world +to do a thing like that? But he is going and it is his idea not mine. I +wanted to go too but he wouldn't let me," she added. + +Jean gasped. + +"Tony! You would have married him when your uncle--when everybody +doesn't want you to?" + +To Jean Lambert's well ordered, carefully fenced in mind such wild mental +leaps as Tony Holiday's were almost too much to contemplate. But worse +was to come. + +"Married him! Oh, I don't know. I didn't think about that. I would just +have gone with him. There wouldn't have been time to get a license. Of +course I couldn't though on account of the play." + +Jean gasped again. If it hadn't been for the play this astounding young +person before her would have gone gallivanting off with one man to whom +she was not married to the bedside, thousands of miles away, of another +man to whom she was also not married. Such simplicity of mental processes +surpassed any complexity Jean Lambert could possibly conceive. + +"Alan wouldn't let me," repeated the astounding Tony. "I suppose it is +better so. By to-morrow I will probably agree with him. When the wind is +southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw too. But the wind isn't southerly +to-night. It wasn't when I was dancing nor afterward," she added with a +flaming color in her cheeks remembering that moment in the Hostelry hall +when wisdom had mattered very little to her in comparison with love. "Oh, +Jean, what if something dreadful should happen to him down there! I can't +let him go. I can't. But Dick mustn't die alone either. Oh, what shall I +do? What shall I do?" + +And suddenly Tony threw herself face down on the bed sobbing great, heart +rending sobs, but whether she was crying for Dick or Alan or herself or +all three Jean was unable to decipher. Perhaps Tony did not know herself. + +The next morning when Tony awoke Alan had already left for his long +journey, but a great box full of roses told her she had been his last +thought. One by one she lifted them out of the box--great, gorgeous, +blood red beauties, royal, Tony thought, like the royal lover who had +sent them. The only message with the flowers was a bit of verse, a poem +of Tagore's whom Alan loved and had taught Tony to love too. + + You are the evening cloud floating in the sky of + my dreams. + I paint you and fashion you with my love longings. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my endless + dreams! + + Your feet are rosy-red with the glow of my heart's + desire, Gleaner of my sunset songs! + Your lips are bitter-sweet with the taste of my wine + of pain. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my lonesome + dreams! + + With the shadow of my passion have I darkened + your eyes, Haunter of the depth of my gaze! + I have caught you and wrapt you, my love, in the + net of my music. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my deathless + dreams! + +As she read the exquisite lines Antoinette Holiday knew it was all +true. The poet might have written his poem for her and Alan. Her lips +were indeed bitter-sweet with the taste of his wine of pain, her eyes +were darkened by his shadows. He had caught her and wrapt her in the +net of his love, which was a kind of music in itself--a music one +danced to. She was his, dweller in his dreams as he was always to dwell +in hers. It was fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +WAITING FOR THE END OF THE STORY + + +At home on the Hill Ruth's affairs developed slowly. It was in time +ascertained from Australia that the Farringdon pearls had come to America +in the possession of Miss Farringdon who was named Elinor Ruth, daughter +of Roderick and Esther Farringdon, both deceased. What had become of her +and her pearls no one knew. Grave fears had been entertained as to the +girl's safety because of her prolonged silence and the utter failure of +all the advertising for her which had gone on in English and American +papers. She had come to America to join an aunt, one Mrs. Robert Wright, +widow of a New York broker, but it had been later ascertained that Mrs. +Wright had left for England before her niece could have reached her and +had subsequently died having caught a fever while engaged in nursing in a +military hospital. Roderick Farringdon, the brother of Elinor Ruth, an +aviator in His Majesty's service, was reported missing, believed to be +dead or in a German prison somewhere. The lawyers in charge of the huge +business interests of the two young Farringdons were in grave distress +because of their inability to locate either of the owners and begged that +if Doctor Laurence Holiday knew anything of the whereabouts of Miss +Farringdon that he would communicate without delay with them. + +So far so good. Granted that Ruth was presumably Elinor Ruth Farringdon +of Australia. Was she or was she not married? There had been no +opportunity in the cables to make inquiry about one Geoffrey Annersley +though Larry had put that important question first in his letter to the +consul which as yet had received no answer. The lawyers stated that when +Miss Farringdon had left Australia she was not married but +unsubstantiated rumors had reached them from San Francisco hinting at her +possible marriage there. + +All this failed to stir Ruth's dormant memory in any degree. There was +nothing to do but wait until further information should be forthcoming. + +Not unnaturally these facts had a somewhat different effect upon the two +individuals most concerned. Ruth was frankly elated over the whole thing +and found it by no means impossible to believe that she was a princess in +disguise though she had played Cinderella contentedly enough. + +On the strength of her presumable princessship she had gone on another +excursion to Boston carrying the Lambert twins with her this time and had +returned laden with all manner of feminine fripperies. She had an +exquisite taste and made unerringly for the softest and finest of +fabrics, the hats with an "air," the dresses that were the simplest, the +most ravishing and it must be admitted also the most extravagant. If she +remembered nothing else Ruth remembered how to spend royally. + +She had consulted the senior doctor before making the splendid plunge. +She did not want to have Larry buy her anything more and she didn't want +Doctor Philip and Margery to think her stark mad to go behaving like a +princess before the princess purse was actually in her hands. But she had +to have pretty things, a lot of them, had to have them quick. Did the +doctor mind very much advancing her some money? He could keep her rings +as security. + +He had laughed indulgently and declared as the rings and the pearls too +for that matter were in his possession in the safe deposit box he should +worry. He also told her to go ahead and be as "princessy" as she liked. +He would take the risk. Whereupon he placed a generous sum of money at +her account in a Boston bank and sent her away with his blessing and an +amused smile at the femininity of females. And Ruth had gone and played +princess to her heart's content. But there was little enough of heart's +content in any of it for poor Larry. Day by day it seemed to him he could +see his fairy girl slipping away from him. Ruth was a great lady and +heiress. Who was Larry Holiday to take advantage of the fact that +circumstances had almost thrown her into his willing arms? + +Moreover the information afforded as to Roderick Farringdon had put a new +idea into his head. Roderick was reported "missing." Was it not possible +that Geoffrey Annersley might be in the same category? Missing men +sometimes stayed missing in war time but sometimes also they returned as +from the dead from enemy prisons or long illnesses. What if this should +be the case with the man who was presumably Ruth's husband? Certainly it +put out of the question, if there ever had been a question in Larry's +mind, his own right to marry the girl he loved until they knew absolutely +that the way was clear. + +Considering these things it was not strange that the new year found Larry +Holiday in heavy mood, morose, silent, curt and unresponsive even to his +uncle, inclined at times to snap even at his beloved little Goldilocks +whose shining new happiness exasperated him because he could not share +it. Of course he repented in sack cloth and ashes afterward, but +repentance did not prevent other offenses and altogether the young doctor +was ill to live with during those harrassed January days. + +It was not only Ruth. Larry could not take Ted's going with the quiet +fortitude with which his uncle met it. Those early weeks of nineteen +hundred and seventeen were black ones for many. The grim Moloch War +demanded more and ever more victims. Thousands of gay, brave, high +spirited lads like Ted were mown down daily by shrapnel and machine gun +or sent twisted and writhing to still more hideous death in the +unspeakable horror of noxious gases. It was all so unnecessary--so +senseless. Larry Holiday whose life was dedicated to the healing and +saving of men's bodies hated with bitter hate this opposing force which +was all for destruction and which held the groaning world in its +relentless grip. It would not have been so bad he thought if the Moloch +would have been content to take merely the old, the life weary, the +diseased, the vile. Not so. It demanded the young, the strong, the clean +and gallant hearted, took their bodies, maimed and tortured them, killed +them sooner or later, hurled them undiscriminatingly into the bottomless +pit of death. + +To Larry it all came back to Ted. Ted was the embodiment, the symbol of +the rest. He was the young, the strong, the clean and gallant +hearted--the youth of the world, a vain sacrifice to the cruel blindness +of a so called civilization which would not learn the futility of war and +all the ways of war. + +So while Ruth bought pretty clothes and basked in happy anticipations +which for her took the place of memories, poor Larry walked in dark +places and saw no single ray of light. + +One afternoon he was summoned to the telephone to receive the word that +there was a telegram for him at the office. It was Dunbury's informal +habit to telephone messages of this sort to the recipient instead of +delivering them in person. Larry took the repeated word in silence. A +question evidently followed from the other end. + +"Yes, I got it," Larry snapped back and threw the receiver back in place +with vicious energy. His uncle who had happened to be near looked up to +ask a question but the young doctor was already out of the room leaving +only the slam of the door in his wake. A few moments later the older man +saw the younger start off down the Hill in the car at a speed which was +not unlike Ted's at his worst before the smash on the Florence road. +Evidently Larry was on the war path. Why? + +The afternoon wore on. Larry did not return. His uncle began to be +seriously disturbed. A patient with whom the junior doctor had had an +appointment came and waited and finally went away somewhat indignant in +spite of all efforts to soothe her not unnatural wrath. Worse and +worse! Larry never failed his appointments, met every obligation +invariably as punctiliously as if for professional purposes he was +operated by clock work. + +At supper time Phil Lambert dropped in with the wire which had already +been reported to Larry and which the company with the same informality +already mentioned had asked him to deliver. Doctor Holiday was tempted to +read it but refrained. Surely the boy would be home soon. + +The evening meal was rather a silent one. Ruth was wearing a charming +dark blue velvet gown which Larry especially liked. The doctor guessed +that she had dressed particularly for her lover and was sadly +disappointed when he failed to put in his appearance. She drooped +perceptibly and her blue eyes were wistful. + +An hour later when the three, Margery, her husband, and Ruth, were +sitting quietly engaged in reading in the living room they heard the +sound of the returning car. All three were distinctly conscious of an +involuntary breath of relief which permeated the room. Nobody had said a +word but every one of them had been filled with foreboding. + +Presently Larry entered with the yellow envelope in his hand. He was pale +and very tired looking but obviously entirely in command of himself +whatever had been the case earlier in the day. He crossed the room to +where his uncle sat and handed him the telegram. + +"Please read it aloud," he said. "It--it concerns all of us." + +The older doctor complied with the request. + +_Arrive Dunbury January 18 nine forty_ A.M. So ran the brief though +pregnant message. It was signed _Captain Geoffrey Annersley_. + +The color went out of Ruth's face as she heard the name. She put her +hands over her eyes and uttered a little moan. Then abruptly she dropped +her hands, the color came surging back into her cheeks and she ran to +Larry, fairly throwing herself into his arms. + +"I don't want to see him. Don't let him come. I hate him. I don't want to +be Elinor Farringdon. I want to be just Ruth--Ruth Holiday," she +whispered the last in Larry's ear, her head on his shoulder. + +Larry kissed her for the first time before the others, then meeting his +uncle's grave eyes he put her gently from him and walked over to the +door. On the threshold he turned and faced them all. + +"Uncle Phil--Aunt Margery, help Ruth. I can't." And the door +closed upon him. + +Philip and Margery did their best to obey his parting injunction but it +was not an easy task. Ruth was possessed by a very panic of dread of +Geoffrey Annersley and an even more difficult to deal with flood of love +for Larry Holiday. + +"I don't want anybody but Larry," she wailed over and over. "It is Larry +I love. I don't love Geoffrey Annersley. I won't let him be my husband. I +don't want anybody but Larry." + +In vain they tried to comfort her, entreat her to wait until to-morrow +before she gave up. Perhaps Geoffrey Annersley wasn't her husband. +Perhaps everything was quite all right. She must try to have patience and +not let herself get sick worrying in advance. + +"He _is_ my husband," she suddenly announced with startling conviction. +"I remember his putting the ring on my finger. I remember his saying +'You've got to wear it. It is the only thing to do. You must.' I remember +what he looks like--almost. He is tall and he has a scar on his cheek +--here." She patted her own face feverishly to show the spot. "He made me +wear the ring and I didn't want to. I didn't want to. Oh, don't let me +remember. Don't let me," she implored. + +At this point the doctor took things in his own hands. The child was +obviously beginning to remember. The shock of the man's coming had +snapped something in her brain. They must not let things come back +too disastrously fast. He packed her off to bed with a stiff dose of +nerve quieting medicine. Margery sat with her arms tight around the +forlorn little sufferer and presently the dreary sobbing ceased and +the girl drifted off to exhausted sleep, nature's kindest panacea for +all human ills. + +Meanwhile the doctor sought out Larry. He found him in the office +apparently completely absorbed in the perusal of a medical magazine. He +looked up quickly as the older man entered and answered the question in +his eyes giving assurance that Ruth was quite all right, would soon be +asleep if she was not already. He made no mention of that disconcerting +flash of memory. Sufficient unto the day was the trouble thereof. + +He came over and laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder. + +"Keep up heart a little longer," he said. "By tomorrow you will +know where you stand and that will be something, no matter which +way it turns." + +"I should say it would," groaned Larry. "I'm sick of being in a +labyrinth. Even the worst can't be much worse than not knowing. You don't +know how tough it has been, Uncle Phil." + +"I can make a fairly good guess at it, my boy. I've seen and understood +more than you realize perhaps. You have put up a magnificent fight, son. +And you are the boy who once told me he was a coward." + +"I am afraid I still am, Uncle Phil,--sometimes." + +"We all are, Larry, cowards in our hearts, but that does not matter so +long as the yellow streak doesn't get into our acts. You have not let +that happen I think." + +Larry was silent. He was remembering that night when Ruth had come to +him. He wasn't very proud of the memory. He wondered if his uncle guessed +how near the yellow streak had come to the surface on that occasion. + +"I don't deserve as much credit as you are giving me," he said humbly. +"There have been times--at least one time--" He broke off. + +"You would have been less than a man if there had not been, Larry. I +understand all that. But on the whole you know and I know that you have a +clean slate to show. Don't let yourself get morbid worrying about things +you might have done and didn't. They don't worry me. They needn't worry +you. Forget it." + +"Uncle Phil! You are great the way you always clear away the fogs. But my +clean slate is a great deal thanks to you. I don't know where I would +have landed if you hadn't held me back, not so much by what you said as +what you are. Ted isn't the only one who has learned to appreciate what a +pillar of strength we all have in you. However this comes out I shan't +forget what you did for me, are doing all the time." + +"Thank you, Larry. It is good to hear things like that though I think you +underestimate your own strength. I am thankful if I have helped in any +degree. I have felt futile enough. We all have. At any rate the strain is +about over. The telegram must have been a knock down blow though. Where +were you this afternoon?" + +"I don't know. I just drove like the devil--anywhere. Did you worry? I am +sorry. Good Lord! I cut my appointment with Mrs. Blake, didn't I? I never +thought of it until this minute. Gee! I am worse than Ted. Used to think +I had some balance but evidently I am a plain nut. I'm disgusted with +myself and I should think you would be more disgusted with me." The boy +looked up at his uncle with eyes that were full of shamed compunction. + +But the latter smiled back consolingly. + +"Don't worry. There are worse things in the world than cutting an +appointment for good and sufficient reasons. You will get back your +balance when things get normal again. I have no complaint to make anyway. +You have kept up the professional end splendidly until now. What you need +is a good long vacation and I am going to pack you off on one at the +earliest opportunity. Do you want me to meet Captain Annersley for you +tomorrow?" he switched off to ask. + +Larry shook his head. + +"No, I'll meet him myself, thank you. It is my job. I am not going to +flunk it. If he is Ruth's husband I am going to be the first to shake +hands with him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO + + +And while things were moving toward their crisis for Larry and Ruth +another drama was progressing more or less swiftly to its conclusion +down in Vera Cruz. Alan Massey had found his cousin in a wretched, +vermin haunted shack, nursed in haphazard fashion by a slovenly, +ignorant half-breed woman under the ostensible professional care of a +mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough +whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself +continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New +York City. The doctor held the credulity of the men who mailed those +checks in fine contempt and proceeded to feather his nest valiantly +while his good luck continued, going on many a glorious spree at the +paper's expense while Dick Carson went down every day deeper into the +valley of the shadow of death. + +With the coming of Alan Massey however a new era began. Alan was apt to +leave transformation of one sort or another in his wake. It was not +merely his money magic though he wielded that magnificently as was his +habit and predilection, spent Mexican dollars with a superb disregard of +their value which won from the natives a respect akin to awe and wrought +miracles wherever the golden flow touched. But there was more than money +magic to Alan Massey's performance in Vera Cruz. There was also the +magic of his dominating, magnetic personality. He was a born master and +every one high or low who crossed his path recognized his rightful +ascendency and hastened to obey his royal will. + +His first step was to get the sick man transferred from the filthy hovel +in which he found him to clean, comfortable quarters in an ancient adobe +palace, screened, airy, spacious. The second step was to secure the +services of two competent and high priced nurses from Mexico City, one an +American, the other an English woman, both experienced, intrepid, +efficient. The third step taken simultaneously with the other two was to +dismiss the man who masqueraded as a physician though he was nothing in +reality but a cheap charlatan fattening himself at the expense of +weakness and disease. The man had been inclined to make trouble at first +about his unceremonious discharge. He had no mind to lose without a +protest such a convenient source of unearned increment as those checks +represented. He had intended to get in many another good carouse before +the sick man died or got well as nature willed. But a single interview +with Alan Massey sufficed to lay his objections to leaving the case. In +concise and forcible language couched in perfect Spanish Alan had made it +clear that if the so-called doctor came near his victim again he would be +shot down like a dog and if Carson died he would in any case be tried for +man slaughter and hanged on the spot. The last point had been further +punctuated by an expressive gesture on the speaker's part, pointing to +his own throat accompanied by a significant little gurgling sound. The +gesture and the gurgle had been convincing. The man surrendered the case +in some haste. He did not at all care for the style of conversation +indulged in by this tall, unsmiling, green-eyed man. Consequently he +immediately evaporated to all intents and purposes and was seen no more. +The new physician put in charge was a different breed entirely, a man who +had the authentic gift and passion for healing which the born doctor +always possesses, be he Christian or heathen, gypsy herb mixer or ten +thousand dollar specialist. Alan explained to this man precisely what was +required of him, explained in the same forcible, concise, perfect Spanish +that had banished the other so completely. His job was to cure the sick +man. If he succeeded there would be a generous remuneration. If he failed +through no fault of his there would still be fair remuneration though +nothing like what would be his in case of complete recovery. If he failed +through negligence--and here the expressive gesture and the gurgle were +repeated--. The sentence had not needed completion. The matter was +sufficiently elucidated. The man was a born healer as has been recorded +but even if he had not been he would still have felt obliged to move +heaven and earth so far as in him lay to cure Dick Carson. Alan Massey's +manner was persuasive. One did one's best to satisfy a person who spoke +such Spanish and made such ominous gestures. One did as one was +commanded. One dared do no other. + +As for the servants whom Alan rallied to his standard they were slaves +rather than servants. They recognized in him their preordained master, +were wax to his hands, mats to his feet. They obeyed his word as +obsequiously, faithfully and unquestioningly as if he could by a clap of +his lordly hands banish them to strange deaths. + +They talked in low tones about him among themselves behind his back. +This was no American they said. No American could command as this +green-eyed one commanded. No American had such gift of tongues, such +gestures, such picturesque and varied and awesome oaths. No American +carried small bright flashing daggers such as he carried in his inner +pockets, nor did Americans talk glibly as he talked of weird poisons, +not every day drugs, but marvelous, death dealing concoctions done up in +lustrous jewel-like capsules or diluted in sparkling, insidious gorgeous +hued fluids. The man was too wise--altogether too wise to be an +American. He had traveled much, knew strange secrets. They rather +thought he knew black art. Certainly he knew more of the arts of healing +than the doctor himself. There was nothing he did not know, the +green-eyed one. It was best to obey him. + +And while Alan Massey's various arts operated Dick Carson passed through +a series of mental and physical evolutions and came slowly back to +consciousness of what was going on. + +At first he was too close to the hinterland to know or care as to what +was happening here, though he did vaguely sense that he had left the +lower levels of Hell and was traversing a milder purgatorial region. He +did not question Alan's presence or recognize him. Alan was at first +simply another of those distrusted foreigners whose point of view and +character he comprehended as little as he did their jibbering tongues. + +Gradually however this one man seemed to stand out from the others and +finally took upon himself a name and an entity. By and by, Dick thought, +when he wasn't so infernally-tired as he was just now he would wonder why +Alan Massey was here and would try to recall why he had disliked him so, +some time a million years ago or so. He did not dislike him now. He was +too weak to dislike anybody in any case but he was beginning to connect +Alan vaguely but surely with the superior cleanliness and comfort and +care with which he was now surrounded. He knew now that he had been +sick, very sick and that he was getting better, knew that before long he +would find himself asking questions. Even now his eyes followed Alan +Massey as the latter came and went with an ever more insistent wonderment +though he had not yet the force of will or body to voice that pursuing +question as to why Alan Massey was here apparently taking charge of his +own slow return to health and consciousness. + +Meanwhile Alan wired Tony Holiday every day as to his patient's condition +though he wrote not at all and said nothing in his wires of himself. +Letters from Tony were now beginning to arrive, letters full of eager +gratitude and love for Alan and concern for Dick. + +And one day Dick's mind got suddenly very clear. He was alone with the +nurse at the time, the sympathetic American one whom he liked better and +was less afraid of than he was of the stolid, inexorable British lady. +And he began to ask questions, many questions and very definite ones. He +knew at last precisely what it was he wanted to know. + +He got a good deal of information though by no means all he sought. He +found out that he had been taken desperately ill, that he had been +summarily removed from his lodging place because of the owner's +superstitious dread of contagion into the miserable little thatch +roofed hut in which he had nearly died thanks to the mal-practice of +the rascally, drunken doctor and the ignorant half-breed nurse. He +learned how Alan Massey had suddenly appeared and taken things in his +own hands, discovered that in a nutshell the fact was he owed his life +to the other-man. But why? That was what he had to find out from Alan +Massey himself. + +The next day when Alan came in and the nurse went out he asked +his question. + +"That is easy," said Alan grimly. "I came on Tony's account." + +Dick winced. Of course that was it. Tony had sent Massey. He was here as +her emissary, naturally, no doubt as her accepted lover. It was kind. +Tony was always kind but he wished she had not done it. He did not want +to have his life saved by the man who was going to marry Tony Holiday. He +rather thought he did not want his life saved anyway by anybody. He +wished they hadn't done it. + +"I--I am much obliged to you and to Tony," he said a little stiffly. "I +fear it--it was hardly worth the effort." His eyes closed wearily. + +"Tony didn't send me though," observed Alan Massey as if he had read the +other's thought. "I sent myself." + +Dick's eyes opened. + +"That is odd if it is true," he said slowly. + +Alan dropped into a chair near the bed. + +"It is odd," he admitted. "But it happens to be true. It came about +simply enough. When Tony heard you were sick she went crazy, swore +she was coming down here in spite of us all to take care of you. Then +Miss Clay's child died and she had to go on the boards. You can +imagine what it meant to her--the two things coming at once. She +played that night--swept everything as you'd know she would--got 'em +all at her feet." + +Dick nodded, a faint flash of pleasure in his eyes. Down and out as he +was he could still be glad to hear of Tony's triumph. + +"She wanted to come to you," went on Alan. "She let me come instead +because she couldn't. I came for--for her sake." + +Dick nodded. + +"Naturally--for her sake," he said. "I could hardly have expected you to +come for mine. I would hardly have expected it in any case." + +"I would hardly have expected it of myself," acknowledged Alan with a wry +smile. "But I've had rather a jolly time at your expense. I've always +enjoyed working miracles and if you could have seen yourself the way you +were when I got here you would think there was a magic in it somehow." + +"I evidently owe you a great deal, Mr. Massey. I am grateful or at least +I presume I shall be later. Just now I feel a little--dumb." + +"My dear fellow, nothing would please me better than to have you continue +dumb on that subject. I did this thing as I've done most things in my +life to please myself. I don't want your thanks. I would like a little of +your liking though. You and I are likely to see quite a bit of each other +these next few weeks. Could you manage to forget the past and call a kind +of truce for a while? You have a good deal to forgive me--perhaps more +than you know. If you would be willing to let the little I have done down +here--and mind you I don't want to magnify that part--wipe off the slate +I should be glad. Could you manage it, Carson?" + +"It looks as if it hardly could be magnified," said Dick with sudden +heartiness. "I spoke grudgingly just now I am afraid. Please overlook it. +I am more than grateful for all you have done and more than glad to be +friends if you want it. I don't hate you. How could I when you have saved +my life and anyway I never hated you as you used to hate me. I've often +wondered why you did, especially at first before you knew how much I +cared for Tony. And even that shouldn't have made you hate me +because--you won." + +"Never mind why I hated you. I don't any more. Will you shake hands with +me, Carson, so we can begin again?" + +Dick pulled himself weakly up on the pillow. Their hands met. + +"Hang it, Massey," Dick said. "I am afraid I am going to like you. I've +heard you were hypnotic. I believe on my soul you came down here to make +me like you? Did you?" + +But Alan only smiled his ironic, noncommital smile and remarked it was +time for the invalid to take a nap. He had had enough conversation for +the first attempt. + +Dick soon drifted off to sleep but Alan Massey prowled the streets of the +Mexican city far into the night, with tireless, driven feet. The demons +were after him again. + +And far away in another city whose bright lights glow all night Tony +Holiday was still playing Madge to packed houses, happy in her triumph +but with heart very pitiful for her beloved Miss Clay whose sorrow and +continued illness had made possible the fruition of her own eager hopes. +Tony was sadly lonely without Alan, thought of him far more often and +with deeper affection even than she had while she had him at her beck and +call in the city, loved him with a new kind of love for his generous +kindness to Dick. She made up her mind that he had cleared the shield +forever by this splendid act and saw no reason why she should keep him +any longer on probation. Surely she knew by this time that he was a man +even a Holiday might be proud to marry. + +She wrote this decision to her uncle and asked to be relieved from +her promise. + +"I am sorry," she wrote, "if you cannot approve but I cannot help it. I +love him and I am going to be engaged to him as soon as he comes back to +New York if he wants it. I am afraid I would have married him and gone +to Mexico with him, given up the play and broken my promise to you, if he +would have let me. It goes that far and deep with me. + +"People are crazy over his pictures. The exhibition came off last week +and they say he is one of the greatest living painters with a wonderful +future ahead of him. I am so proud and happy. He is fine everyway now, +has really sloughed off the past just as he promised he would. So please, +dear Uncle Phil, forgive me if I do what you don't want me to. I have to +marry him. In my heart I am married to him already." + +And this was the letter Philip Holiday found at his place at breakfast on +the morning of the day Geoffrey Annersley was expected. He read it +gravely. Rash, loving, generous-hearted Tony. Where was she going? Ah +well, she was no longer a child to be protected from the storm and stress +of life. She was a woman grown, woman enough to love and to be loved +greatly, to sacrifice and suffer if need be for love's mighty sake. She +must go her way as Ted had gone his, as their father had gone his before +them. He could only pray that she was right in her faith that for love of +her Alan Massey had been born anew. + +His own deep affection for Ned's children seemed at the moment a sadly +powerless thing. He had coveted the best things of life for them, happy, +normal ways of peace and gentle living. Yet here was Ted at twenty +already lived through an experience, tragic enough to leave its scarlet +mark for all the rest of his life and even now on the verge of +voluntarily entering a terrific conflict from which few returned alive +and none came back unchanged. Here was Tony taking upon herself the +thraldom of a love, which try as he would Philip Holiday could not see +in any other light but as at best a cataclysmic risk. And at this very +hour Larry might be learning that the desire of his heart was dust and +ashes, his hope a vain thing, himself an exile henceforth from the things +that round out a man's life, make it full and rich and satisfying. + +And yet thinking of the three Philip Holiday found one clear ray of +comfort. With all their vagaries, their rash impulsions, their willful +blindness, their recklessness, they had each run splendidly true to type. +Not one of the three had failed in the things that really count. He had +faith that none of them ever would. They might blunder egregiously, +suffer immeasurably, pay extravagantly, but they would each keep that +vital spirit which they had in common, untarnished and undaunted, an +unconquerable thing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES + + +There were few passengers alighting from the south bound train from +Canada. Larry Holiday had no difficulty in picking out Geoffrey Annersley +among these, a tall young man, wearing the British uniform and supporting +himself with a walking stick. His face was lean and bronzed and lined, +the face of a man who has seen things which kill youth and laughter and +yet a serene face too as if its owner had found that after all nothing +mattered very much if you looked it square in the eye. + +Larry went to the stranger at once. + +"Captain Annersley?" he asked. "I am Laurence Holiday." + +The captain set down his bag, leaned on his stick, deliberately +scrutinized the other man. Larry returned the look frankly. They were of +nearly the same age but any one seeing them would have set the Englishman +as at least five years the senior of the young doctor. Geoffrey Annersley +had been trained in a stern school. A man does not wear a captain's bars +and four wound stripes for nothing. + +Then the Englishman held out his hand with a pleasant and unexpectedly +boyish smile. + +"So you are Larry," he said. "Your brother sent me to you." + +"Ted! You have seen him?" For a minute Larry forgot who Geoffrey +Annersley was, forgot Ruth, forgot himself, remembered only Ted and +gave his guest a heartier handshake than he had willed for his "Kid" +brother's sake. + +"Yes, I was with him day before yesterday and the night before that. He +was looking jolly well and sent all kinds of greetings to you all. See +here, Doctor Holiday, I have no end of things to say to you. Can we go +somewhere and talk?" + +"My car is outside. You will come up to the house will you not? We are +all expecting you." Larry tried hard to keep his voice quiet and +emotionless. Not for anything would he have had this gallant soldier +suspect how his knees were trembling. + +"Delighted," bowed the captain suavely and permitted Larry to take his +bag and lead the way to the car. Nothing more was said until the two men +were seated and the car had left the station yard. + +"I am afraid I should have made my wire a bit more explicit," observed +the captain turning to Larry. "My wife says I am too parsimonious with my +words in telegrams--a British trait possibly." He spoke deliberately and +his keen eyes studied his companion's face as he made the casual remark +which set Larry's brain reeling. "See here, Holiday, I'm a blunt brute. I +don't know how to break things gently to people. But I am here to tell +you if you care to know that Elinor Ruth Farringdon is no more married +than you are unless she is married to you. That was her mother's wedding +ring. Lord, man, do you always drive a car like this? I've been all but +killed once this year and I don't care to repeat the experiment." + +Larry grinned, flushed, apologized and moderated the speed of his motor. +He wondered that he could drive at all. He felt strangely light as if he +were stripped of his body and were nothing but spirit. + +"Do you mind if we drive about a bit and talk things over before I see +Elinor--Ruth, as you call her? I'm funking that a little though I've +been trying ever since your brother told me the story to get used to +the idea of her being, well not quite right, you know. But I can't +stick it somehow." + +"She is all right, perfectly normal every way except that she had +forgotten things." Larry's voice was faintly indignant. He resented +anybody's implying that Ruth was queer, unbalanced in any way. She +wasn't. She was absolutely sane, as sane as Captain Annersley himself, +considerably more sane than Larry Holiday could take oath he was at +this moment. + +"Good heavens! Isn't that enough?" groaned Annersley almost equally +indignant. "You forget or rather you don't know all she has forgotten. I +know. I was brought up with her. Her father was my uncle and guardian. We +played together, had the same tutor, rode the same ponies, got into the +same jolly old scrapes. Why, Elinor's like my own sister, man. I can't +swallow her forgetting me and her brother Rod and all the rest as easily +as you seem to do. It--well, it's the limit as you say in the states." +The captain wiped his forehead on which great drops of perspiration stood +in spite of the January chill in the air. There was agitation, suppressed +vehemence in his tone. + +"I suppose it is natural that you should feel that way." Larry spoke +thoughtfully as he turned the car away from the Hill in response to his +guest's request that he be permitted to postpone meeting Elinor Ruth +Farringdon a little while. "The remembering part hasn't bothered me so +much. Maybe I wasn't very keen on having her remember. Maybe I was afraid +she would remember too much," he added coloring a little. + +The frown on his companion's stern young face melted at that. The +frank, boyish smile appeared again. He liked Larry Holiday none the less +for his lack of pretense. He understood all that. The younger Holiday +had taken pains to make things perfectly clear to him. He knew precisely +what the young doctor was afraid of and why in case Elinor Farringdon's +memory returned. + +"My uncle thinks and I think too that her memory will come back now that +it has the external stimulus to waken it," Larry continued. "I shouldn't +be surprised if seeing you would give the necessary impetus. In fact I am +counting on that very thing happening, hoping for it with all my might. +That was one of the reasons I was glad to have you come. Please believe +that I should have been glad even if your coming had made her remember +she was your wife. Of course her recovery is the main thing. The rest +is--a side issue." + +"A jolly important side issue I take it for her and for you. I'm not a +stranger, Doctor Holiday. I am Elinor Ruth Farringdon's cousin, in her +brother's absence I represent her family and in that capacity I would +like to say before I am a minute older that what you and the rest of you +Holidays have done for Elinor passes anything I know of for sheer +fineness and generosity. I'm not a man of words. War would have knocked +them out of me if I had been but when I remember that you not only saved +Elinor's life but took care of her afterward when she apparently hadn't a +friend in the world--well, there isn't anything I can say but thank you +and tell you that if there is ever anything I can do in return for you or +yours you have only to ask. Neither Elinor nor I can ever repay you. It +is the sort of thing that is--unpayable." And again the captain wiped his +perspiring brow. He was deeply moved and emotion went hard with his +Anglo-Saxon temperament. + +"We did nothing but what anybody would have been glad to do. If there +are any thanks coming they are chiefly due to my uncle and his wife. But +we don't any of us want thanks. We love Ruth. Please forget the rest. We +would rather you would." + +The captain nodded quick approval. He had been told Americans were +boasters, given to Big-Itis. But either people got the Americans wrong or +these Holidays were an exception to the general run. He remembered that +other young Holiday whom he had met rather intimately in the Canadian +camp. There had been no side there either. His modesty had been one of +his chief charms. And here was the brother quietly putting aside credit +for a course of conduct which was simply immense in its quixotic +generosity. He liked these Holidays. There was something rather +magnificent about their simplicity--something almost British he thought. + +"That is all very well," he made answer. "I won't talk about it if you +prefer but you will pardon me if I don't forget that you saved my +cousin's life and looked after her when she was in a desperately unhappy +situation and her own people seemed to have utterly deserted her. And I +consider my running into your brother at camp one of the sheerest pieces +of good luck I've had these many days on all counts." + +"How did it happen?" asked Larry. + +"I was doing some recruiting work in the vicinity and they asked me to +say a few words to the lads in training. I did. Your brother was there +and lost no time in getting in touch with me when he heard who I was. And +jolly pleased I was to hear his story--all of it." + +The speaker smiled at his companion. + +"I mean that, Larry Holiday. Elinor and I were kid sweethearts. We used +to swear we were going to get married when we grew up. That was when she +was eight and I a man of twelve or so. I gave her the locket which made +some of the trouble as a sort of hostage for the future. We called her +Ruth in those days. It was her own fancy to change it to Elinor later. +She thought it more grown up and dignified I remember. Then I went back +to England to school. I didn't see her again until we were both grown up +and then I married her best friend with her blessing and approval. But +that is another story. Just now I am trying to tell you that I am ready +to congratulate my cousin with all my heart if it happens that you want +to marry her as your brother seems to think." + +"There is no doubt about what I want," said Larry grimly. "Whether it is +what she wants is another matter. We haven't been exactly in a position +to discuss marriage." + +"I understand. I'm beastly sorry to have been such an infernal dog in the +manger unwittingly. The only thing I can do to make, up is to give my +blessing and wish you best of luck in your wooing. Shall we shake on it, +Larry Holiday, and on the friendship I hope you and I are going to have?" + +And with a cordial man to man grip there was cemented a friendship which +was to last as long as they both lived. + +To relate briefly the links of the story some of which Larry Holiday now +heard as the car sped over the smooth, frost hardened roads which the +open winter had left unusually snowless and clean. Geoffrey Annersley had +been going his careless, happy go lucky way as an Oxford undergraduate +when the sudden firing of a far off shot had startled the world and made +war the one inevitable fact. The young man had enlisted promptly and had +been in practically continuous service of one sort or another ever since. +He had gone through desperate fighting, been four times wounded, and was +now at last definitely eliminated from active service by a semi-paralyzed +leg, the result of his last visit to "Blighty." He had been invalided the +previous spring and had been sent to Australia on a recruiting mission. +Here he had renewed his acquaintance with his cousins whom he had not +seen for years and promptly fell in love with and married pretty Nancy +Hallinger, his cousin Elinor's chum. + +The speedy wooing accomplished as well as the recruiting job which was +dispatched equally expeditiously and thoroughly Geoffrey prepared to +return to France to get in some more good work against the Huns while his +wife planned to enter Red Cross service as a nurse for which she had been +in training for some time. Roderick had entered the Australian air +service and was already in Flanders where he had the reputation of being +one of the youngest and most reckless aviators flying which was saying +considerable. + +It was imperative that some arrangement be made for Elinor who obviously +could not be left alone in Sydney. It was decided in family conclave that +she should go to America and accept the often proffered hospitality of +her aunt for a time at least. A cable to this effect had been dispatched +to Mrs. Wright which as later appeared never reached that lady as she was +already on her way to England and died there shortly after. + +Geoffrey had been exceedingly reluctant to have his young cousin take the +long journey alone though she had laughed at his fears and his wife had +abetted her in her disregard of possible disastrous consequences, telling +him that women no longer required wrapping in tissue paper. The war had +changed all that. + +At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother's +wedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that the +small gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardian +somewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned or +over bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried to +no small degree. + +They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May, +nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequent +strange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that they +heard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days. +Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderick +was by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeled +with that saddest of all tags--missing. It was not until Geoffrey was +out of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible, +more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that the +others began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the ken +of all who knew her. Some one who knew her by sight had chanced to see +her in California and had noted the wedding ring, hence the +"unsubstantiated rumor" of her marriage in San Francisco, a rumor which +Nancy half frantic over her husband's desperate illness was the only +person who was in a position to explain. + +When Geoffrey came slowly back to the land of the living it was to learn +that his cousin Roderick was still reported missing and that Elinor was +even more sadly and mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth in +spite of all effort to discover her fate. It had been a tragic coming +back for the sick man. But an Englishman is hard to down and gradually he +got back health and a degree of hope and happiness. There would be no +more fighting for him but the War Department assured him there were +plenty of other ways in which he could serve the cause and he had +readily placed himself at their disposal for the recruiting work in which +he had already demonstrated his power to success in Australia. + +Which brings us to the Canadian training camp and Ted Holiday. Captain +Annersley had been asked as he had told Larry to speak to the boys. He +had done so, given a little straight talk of what lay ahead of them and +what they were fighting for, bade them get in a few extra licks for him +since he was out of it for good, done for, "crocked." In conclusion he +had begged them give the Huns hell. It was all he asked of them and from +the look of them he jolly well knew they would do it. + +While he was speaking he was aware all the time of a tall, blue-eyed +youth who stood leaning against a post with a kind of nonchalant grace. +The boy's pose had been indolent but his eyes had been wide awake, +earnest, responsive. Little by little the captain found himself talking +directly to the lad. What he was saying might be over the heads of some +of them but not this chap's. He got you as the Americans say. He had the +vision, would go wherever the speaker could take him. One saw that. + +Afterwards the boy had sought out the recruiter to ask if by any chance +he knew a girl named Elinor Ruth Farringdon. It had been rather a +tremendous moment for both of them. Each had plenty to say that the other +wanted to hear. But the full story had to wait. Corporal Holiday couldn't +run around loose even talking to a distinguished British officer. There +would have to be special dispensation for that and special dispensations +take time in an army world. It would be forthcoming however--to-morrow. + +In the meantime Geoffrey Annersley had heard enough to want to know a +great deal more and thought he might as well make some inquiries on his +own. He wanted to find out who these American Holidays were, one of whom +had apparently saved his cousin Elinor's life and all of whom had, one +concluded, been amazingly kind to her though the blue-eyed boy had +gracefully made light of that side of the thing in the brief synopsis of +events he had had time to give to the Englishman. The captain had taken a +fancy to the narrator and was not averse to beginning his investigation +as to the Holiday family with the young corporal himself. + +Accordingly he tackled the boy's commanding officer, a young colonel with +whom he chanced to be dining. The colonel was willing to talk and +Geoffrey Annersley discovered that young Holiday was rather by way of +being a top-notcher. He had enlisted as a private only a short time ago +but had been shot speedily into his corporalship. Time pressed. Officers +were needed. The boy was officer stuff. He wouldn't stay a corporal. If +all went well he would go over as a sergeant. + +"We put him through though, just at first handled him rather nasty," the +colonel admitted with a reminiscent twinkle. "We do put the Americans +through somehow, though it isn't that we have any grudge against 'em. We +haven't. We like 'em--most of 'em and we have to admit it's rather decent +of them to be here at all when they don't have to. All the same we give +'em an extra twist of the discipline crank on general principles just to +see what they are made of. We found out mighty quick with this youngster. +He took it all and came back for more with a 'sir,' and a salute and a +devilish debonair, you-can't-down-me kind of grin that would have +disarmed a Turk." + +"He doesn't look precisely meek to me," Annersley had said remembering +the answering flash he had caught in those blue eyes when he was begging +the boys to get in an extra lick against the Huns for his sake. + +"Meek nothing! He has more spirit than any cub we've had to get into +shape this many a moon. It isn't that. It is just that he has the right +idea, had it from the start however he came by it. You know what it is, +captain. It is obedience, first, last and all the time, the will to be +willed. A soldier's job is to do what he is told whether he likes it or +not, whether it is his job or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether +he gets his orders from a man he looks up to and respects or whether he +gets them from a low down cur that he knows perfectly well isn't fit to +black his boots--none of that makes any difference. It is up to him to do +what he is told and he does it without a kick if he's wise. Young Holiday +is wise. He'd had his medicine sometime. One sees that. I don't know why +he dropped down on us like a shooting star the way he did, some college +fiasco I understand. He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs though +he is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look in +his eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thank +the Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him ace +high here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll bet +my best belt on that." + +This interested Geoffrey Annersley. He thought he understood what the +colonel meant. There was something in Ted Holiday's eyes which betrayed +that he had already been under fire somehow. He had seen it himself. + +"He is as smart as they make 'em," went on the colonel. "Quick as a flash +to think and to see and to act, never loses his head. And he's a wonder +with the men, jollies 'em along when they are grousing or homesick, sets +'em grinning from ear to ear when they are down-hearted, has a pat on the +shoulder for this one and a jeer for that one. Old and young they are +all crazy about him. They'd go anywhere he led. I tell you he's the stuff +that will take 'em over the top and make the boches feel cold in the pit +of their fat tumtums when they see him coming. Lord, but the uselessness +of it though! He'll get killed. His kind always does. They are always in +front. They are made that way. Can't help it. Sometimes they do come +through though." The colonel flashed a quick admiring glance at his guest +who had also been the kind that was always in front and yet had somehow +by the grace of something come through in spite of the hazards he had run +and the deaths he had all but died. "You are a living witness to that +little fact," he added. "Lord love us! It's all in the game anyway and a +man can die but once." + +The next day Corporal Holiday was given a brief leave of absence from +camp at the request of the distinguished British officer. Together the +two went over the strange story of Elinor Ruth Farringdon and the +Holidays' connection with the later chapters thereof. They decided not to +write to the Hill as Annersley was planning to go to Boston next day +whence he was to return soon to England his mission accomplished, and +could easily stop over in Dunbury on his way and set things right in +person, perhaps even by his personal presence renew Ruth's memory of +things she had forgotten. + +All through the pleasant dinner hour Ted kept wishing he could get the +captain to talking about himself and his battle experiences and had no +idea at all that he himself was being shrewdly studied as they talked. +"Good breeding, good blood-quality," the captain summed up. "If he is a +fair sample of young America then young America is a bit of all right." +And if he is a fair sample of the Holiday family then Elinor had indeed +fallen into the best of hands. Praise be! He wondered more than once what +the young-corporal's own story was, what was the nature of the fiasco +which had driven him into the Canadian training camp and what was behind +that unboyish look which came now and then into his boyish eyes. + +Later during the intimate evening over their cigarettes both had their +curiosity gratified. Captain Annersley was moved to relate some of his +hair breadth escapes and thrilling moments to an alert and hero +worshiping listener. And later still Ted too waxed autobiographical in +response to some clever baiting of which he was entirely unaware though +he did wonder afterward how he had happened to tell the thing he had kept +most secret to an entire stranger. It was an immense relief to the boy to +talk it all out. It would never haunt him again in quite the same way now +he had once broken the barriers of his reserve. Geoffrey Annersley served +his purpose for Ted as well as Larry Holiday. + +Annersley was immensely interested in the confession. It matched very +well he thought with that other story of a gallant young Holiday to whom +his cousin Elinor owed so much in more than one way. They were a queer +lot these Holidays. They had the courage of their convictions and tilted +at windmills right valiantly it seemed. + +And then he fell to talking straight talk to Ted Holiday, saying things +that only a man who has lived deeply can say with any effect. He urged +the boy not to worry about that smash of his. It was past history, over +and done with. He must look ahead not back and be thankful he had come +out as well as he had. + +"There is just one other thing I want to say," he added. "You think you +have had your lesson. Maybe it is enough but you'll find it a jolly lot +easier to slip up over there than it is at home. You lose your sense of +values when there is death and damnation going all around you, get to +feeling you have a right to take anything that comes your way to even it +up. Anyway I felt that way until I met the girl I wanted to marry. Then +the rest looked almighty different. I've given Nancy the best I had to +give but it wasn't good enough. She deserved more than I could give her. +That is plain speaking, Holiday. Men say war excuses justify anything. It +doesn't do anything of the sort. Some day you will be wanting to marry a +girl yourself. Don't let anything happen in this next year over there +that you will regret for a life-time. That is a queer preachment and I'm +a jolly rotten preacher. But somehow I felt I had to say it. You can +remember it or forget it as you like." + +Ted lit another cigarette, looked up straight into Geoffrey Annersley's +war lined face. + +"Thank you," he said. "I think I'll remember it. Anyway I appreciate your +saying it to me that way." + +The subject dropped then, went back to war and how men feel on the edge +of death, of the unimportance of death anyway. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET + + +Larry knocked at Ruth's door. It opened and a wan and pathetically +drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake +Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which +had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to +lift her eyes to her lover's face. But in a moment he had her in his +arms, a performance which banished the droop and brought a lovely color +back into the pale cheeks. + +"Larry, oh Larry, is it all right? I'm not his wife? He didn't marry me?" + +Larry kissed her. + +"He didn't marry you. Nobody's going to marry you but me. No, I didn't +mean to say that now. Forget it, sweetheart. You are free, and if you +want to say so I'll let you go. If you don't want--" + +"But I do want," she interrupted. "I want Larry Holiday and he is all I +want. Why won't you ever, ever believe I love you? I do, more than +anything in the world." + +"You darling! Will you marry me? I shouldn't have asked you that other +time. I hadn't the right. But I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so. +And I've waited so long." + +"Listen to me, Larry Holiday." Ruth held up a small warning forefinger. +"I'll marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross to me again. +I have shed quarts of tears because you were so unkind and--faithless. I +ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or +anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I +told you so but still you wouldn't believe." + +Larry shook his head remorsefully. + +"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I +have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for +anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a +devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is +any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie. +All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours--" He indicated +the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as--as an ash +can," he finished prosaically. + +Ruth's happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a +kiss. + +"I'll remember," she said. "You're not a brute, Larry. You're a darling +and I love you--oh immensely and I'll marry you just as quick as ever I +can and we'll be so happy you won't ever remember you have a +disposition." + +Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are +nobody's business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply +ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two +went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to +Elinor Farringdon. + +"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended. + +"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor +Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best +friend, Nan--" + +"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it's coming back. He married Nancy +Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of +hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the +addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why, +Larry, I'm remembering--really remembering," she stopped short on the +stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone. + +"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come +on down and remember the rest with Annersley's help. He is some cousin. +You'd better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and +wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and +decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his +cheek which he evidently didn't get shaving." + +Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her +tremble against his arm. He was more than a little anxious as to the +outcome of the thing itself. The shock and the strain of meeting Geoffrey +Annersley were going to be rather an ordeal he knew. + +They entered the living room and paused on the threshold, Larry's arm +still around the girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose. The +latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared at him an instant and then +flung herself away from Larry into the other man's arms. + +"Geoff! Geoff!" she cried. + +For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew herself away. + +"Geoffrey Annersley, why did you ever, ever make me wear that horrid +ring?" she demanded reproachfully. "Larry and I could have married each +other months ago if you hadn't. It was the silliest idea anyway and it's +all your fault--everything." + +He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled hearty laugh that came from the +depths of him. + +"That sounds natural," he said. "Every scrape you ever enticed me into as +a kid was always my fault somehow. Are you real, Elinor? I can't help +thinking I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?" anxiously. + +"Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff. Listen hard." + +And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty lips and whistled a merry, +lilting bar of melody. + +"By Jove!" exulted the captain. "That does sound like old times." + +"Don't tell me I don't remember," she flashed back happy and excited +beyond measure at playing this new remembering game. "That was our +special call, yours and Rod's and mine. Oh Rod!" And at that all the joy +went out of the eager, flushed face. She went back into her cousin's +arms again, sobbing in heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of +memory had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy. In Geoffrey +Annersley's arms Ruth mourned her brother's loss for the first time. +Larry sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room. The older +doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin were left alone to pick up the +dropped threads of the past. + +They all met again at luncheon however, Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and +red-eyed but on the whole none the worse for her journey back into the +land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the external stimulus of +actually seeing and hearing somebody out of that other life was enough to +start the train. What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and +little by little the past took on shape and substance and Elinor Ruth +Farringdon became once more a normal human being with a past as well as a +present which was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur of +her dear Rod's unknown fate. + +In the course of the conversation at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin +as Elinor and was promptly informed that she wasn't Elinor and was Ruth +and that he was to call her by that name or run the risk of being +disapproved of very heartily. + +He laughed, amused at this. + +"Now I know you are real," he said. "It is exactly the tone you used when +you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost the same words except +for the reversed titles. 'Don't call me Ruth, Geoff,'" he mimicked. "'I +am not going to be Ruth any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is a much +prettier name.'" + +"Well, I don't think so now," retorted Ruth. "I've changed my mind again. +I think Ruth is the nicest name there is because--well--" She blushed +adorably and looked across the table at the young doctor, "because Larry +likes it," she completed half defiantly. + +"Is that meant to be an official publishing of the bans?" teased her +cousin when the laugh that Ruth's naïve confession had raised subsided +leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot of cheek. + +"If you want to call it that," said Ruth. "Larry, I think you might say +something, not leave me everything to do myself. Tell them we are engaged +and are going to be married--" + +"To-morrow," put in Larry suddenly pushing back his chair and going +over to stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing the +others gallantly if obviously also embarrassedly over her shyly bent +blonde head. + +The blonde head went up at that, and was shaken very decidedly. + +"No indeed. That isn't right at all," she objected. "Don't listen to him +anybody. It isn't going to be tomorrow. I've got to have a wedding dress +and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding dress when it is the only +time you ever intend to be married. I have all the other +things--everything I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff. +That's why I went to Boston. I knew I was going to want pretty clothes +quick. I told Doctor Holiday so." She sent a charming, half merry, half +deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled back. + +"She most assuredly did," he corroborated. "I never suspected it was part +of a deep laid plot however. I thought it was just femininity cropping +out after a dull season. How was I to know it was because you were +planning to run off with my assistant that you wanted all the gay +plumage?" he teased. + +Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that. + +"That isn't a fair way to put it," she declared. "If I had been +planning to run away with Larry or he with me we would have done it +months ago, plumage or no plumage. I wanted to but he wouldn't anyway," +she confessed. "I like this way much, much better though. I don't want +to be married anywhere except right here in the heart of the House on +the Hill." + +She slipped out of her chair and away from Larry's hands at that and went +over to where Doctor Philip sat. + +"May we?" she asked like a child asking permission to run out and play. + +"It is what we all want more than anything in the world, dear child," he +said. "You belong with Larry in our hearts as well as in the heart of the +House. You know that, don't you?" + +"I know you are the dearest man that ever was, not even excepting Larry. +And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there. I can call you that +now, can't I? I've always wanted to." And fitting the deed to the word +Ruth bent over and gave Doctor Philip a fluttering little butterfly kiss. + +They rose from the table at that and Ruth was bidden go off to her room +and get a long rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly +repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed gravely for +them just as if his inner self were not executing wild fandangoes of joy. +Perhaps his patients did get a few waves of his happiness however for +there was not one of them who did not leave the office with greater hope +and strength and courage than he brought there. + +"The young doctor's getting to be a lot like his uncle," one of them said +to his wife later. "Just the very touch of his hand made me feel better +today, sort of toned up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer +how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes." + +Not so queer. Larry Holiday had just been himself electrified by love and +joy. No wonder he had new power that day and was a better healer than he +had ever been before. + +In the living room Doctor Philip and Captain Annersley held converse. The +captain expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to Australia. + +"If her brother is dead as we have every reason to fear, Elinor--Ruth--is +the sole owner of an immense amount of property. The lawyers are about +crazy trying to keep things going without either Roderick or Ruth. They +have been begging me to come out and take charge of things for months but +I haven't been able to see my way clear owing to one thing or another. +Somebody will have to go at once and of course it should be Ruth." + +"How would it do for her and Laurence both to go?" + +"Magnificent. I was hoping you would think that was a feasible project. +They will be glad to have a man to represent the family. My cousin knows +nothing about the business end of the thing. She has always approached it +exclusively from the spending side. Do you think your nephew would care +to settle there?" + +"Possibly," said the Doctor. "That will develop later. They will have to +work that out for themselves. I am rather sorry he is going to marry a +girl with so much money but I suppose it cannot be helped." + +"Some people wouldn't look at it that way, Doctor Holiday," grinned the +captain. "But I am prepared to accept the fact that you Holidays are in a +class by yourselves. We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a +victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can't tell you what a relief +it is to have her marry a man like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to +go through such a punishing period of suspense waiting for his happiness. +Since there wasn't really the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut +his scruples and married her long ago." + +"I don't agreed with you, Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them +worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that this is what they +both want. If he had taken the risk and married her when he knew he +hadn't the full right to do it he would have been miserable and made her +more so. Larry is an odd chap. There is a morbid streak in him. He +wouldn't have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing his own +self-respect would have been the worst thing that could have happened to +him. No amount of actual legality could have made up for starting out on +a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have to keep on moderately good +terms with ourselves to be happy," he added with a quiet smile. + +"I suppose you are right," admitted the Englishman. "Anyway the thing is +straight and clear now. He has earned every bit of happiness that is +coming to him and I hope it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of +indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth is enormous. I wish +there were some way of making adequate returns for it all. But it is too +big to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on your other nephew when +he gets over. I certainly should like to. I don't know when I've taken +such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a ripping sort." + +"Ted?" Doctor Holiday smiled a little. "Well, yes, I suppose he is what +you Britishers call ripping. It has been rather ripping in another sense +being his guardian sometimes." + +"I judge so by his own account of himself. Yoxi mustn't let that smash of +his worry you. He'll find something over there that will be worth a +hundred times what any college can give him, and as for the rest half the +lads of mettle in the world come to earth with a jolt over a girl sooner +or later and they don't all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did +by, a long shot." + +"So he told you about that affair? You must have gotten under his skin +rather surprisingly Ted doesn't talk much about himself and I fancy he +hasn't talked about that thing at all to any one. It went deep." + +"I know. He shows that in a hundred ways. But it hasn't crushed him or +made him reckless. It simply steadied him and I infer he needed some +steadying." + +Doctor Holiday nodded assent to that and asked if he thought the boy was +doing well up there. + +"Not a doubt of it," said the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief +synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in regard to his +youngest corporal. + +"That is rather astonishing," remarked Doctor Holiday. "Obedience +hasn't ever been one of Ted's strong points. In fact he has been a +rebel always." + +"Most boys are until they perceive that there is sense instead of tyranny +in law. Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard and he is +all the better for it tough as it was in the process. He is making good +up there. He will make good over seas. He is a born leader--a better +leader of men than his brother would be though maybe Larry is finer +stuff. I don't know." + +"They are very different but I like to think they are both rather fine +stuff. Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud of them both, +Ted as well as Larry." + +"You have every reason," approved the captain heartily. "I have seen a +good many splendid lads in the last four years and these two measure up +in a way which is an eye opener to me. In my stupid insular prejudice +maybe I had fallen to thinking that the particular quality that marks +them both was a distinctly British affair. Apparently you can breed it in +America too. I'm glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one other +thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C. and a lot of other junk like +that but I'd surrender every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought +that I would ever have a son that would worship me the way those lads of +yours worship you. It is an honor any man might well covet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +ALAN MASSEY LOSES HIMSELF + + +While Ruth and Larry steered their storm tossed craft of love into smooth +haven at last; while Ted came into his own in the Canadian training camp +and Tony played Broadway to her heart's content, the two Masseys down in +Mexico drifted into a strange pact of friendship. + +Had there been no other ministrations offered save those of creature +comfort alone Dick would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan +Massey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man +reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits +to militate against recovery. + +But there was more than creature comfort in Alan's service. Without the +latter's presence loneliness, homesickness and heartache would have +gnawed at the younger man retarding his physical gains. With Alan +Massey life even on a sick bed took on fascinating colors like a prism +in sunlight. + +For the sick lad's delectation Alan spun long thrilling tales, many of +them based on personal experience in his wide travels in many lands. He +was a magnificent raconteur and Dick propped up among his pillows drank +it all in, listening like another Desdemona to strange moving accidents +of fire and flood which his scribbling soul recognized as superb copy. + +Often too Alan read from books, called in the masters of the pen to set +the listener's eager mind atravel through wondrous, unexplored worlds. +Best of all perhaps were the twilight hours when Alan quoted long +passages of poetry from memory, lending to the magic of the poet's art +his own magic of voice and intonation. These were wonderful moments to +Dick, moments he was never to forget. He drank deep of the soul vintage +which the other man offered him out of the abundance of his experience as +a life long pilgrim in the service of beauty. + +It was a curious relation--this growing friendship between the two men. +In some respects they were as master and pupil, in others were as man and +man, friend and friend, almost brother and brother. When Alan Massey gave +at all he gave magnificently without stint or reservation. He did now. +And when he willed to conquer he seldom if ever failed. He did not now. +He won, won first his cousin's liking, respect, and gratitude and finally +his loyal friendship and something else that was akin to reverence. + +Tony Holiday's name was seldom mentioned between the two. Perhaps they +feared that with the name of the girl they both loved there might return +also the old antagonistic forces which had already wrought too much +havoc. Both sincerely desired peace and amity and therefore the woman who +held both their hearts in her keeping was almost banished from the talk +of the sick room though she was far from forgotten by either. + +So things went on. In time Dick was judged by the physician well enough +to take the long journey back to New York. Alan secured the tickets, made +all the arrangements, permitting Dick not so much as the lifting of a +finger in his own behalf. And just then came Tony Holiday's letter to +Alan telling him she was his whenever he wanted her since he had cleared +the shield forever in her eyes by what he had done for Dick. She trusted +him, knew he would not ask her to marry him unless he was quite free +morally and every other way to ask her. She wanted him, could not be +surer of his love or her own if she waited a dozen years. He meant more +to her than her work, more than her beloved freedom more even than +Holiday Hill itself although she felt that she was not so much deserting +the Hill as bringing Alan to it. The others would learn to love him too. +They must, because she loved him so much! But even if they did not she +had made her choice. She belonged to him first of all. + +"But think, dear," she finished. "Think well before you take me. Don't +come to me at all unless you can come free, with nothing on your soul +that is going to prevent your being happy with me. I shall ask no +questions if you come. I trust you to decide right for us both because +you lave me in the high way as well as all the other ways." + +Alan took this letter of Tony's out into the night, walked with it +through flaming valleys of hell. She was his. Of her own free will she +had given herself to him, placed him higher in her heart at last than +even her sacred Hill. And yet after all the Hill stood between them, in +the challenge she flung at him. She was his to take if he could come +free. She left the decision to him. She trusted him. + +Good God! Why should he hesitate to take what she was willing to give? He +had atoned, saved his cousin's life, lived decently, honorably as he had +promised, kept faith with Tony herself when he might perhaps have won her +on baser terms than he had made himself keep to because he loved her as +she said "in the high way as well as all the other ways." He would +contrive some way of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want +it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils +should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at +this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him +what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer +he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear +eyes but he was more afraid of something else--his own soul which somehow +Tony had created by loving and believing in him. + +All the next day, the day before they were to leave on the northern +journey, Alan behaved as if all the devils of hell which he had invoked +were with him. The old mocking bitterness of tongue was back, an even +more savage light than Dick remembered that night of their quarrel was in +his green eyes. The man was suddenly acidulated as if he had over night +suffered a chemical transformation which had affected both mind and body. +A wild beast tortured, evil, ready to pounce, looked out of his drawn, +white face. + +Dick wondered greatly what had caused the strange reaction and seeing +the other was suffering tremendously for some reason or other +unexplained and perhaps inexplicable was profoundly sorry. His +friendship for the man who had saved his life was altogether too strong +and deep to be shaken by this temporary lapse into brutality which he +had known all along was there although held miraculously in abeyance +these many weeks. The man was a genius, with all the temperamental +fluctuations of mood which are comprehensible and forgivable in a +genius. Dick did not begrudge the other any relief he might find in his +debauch of ill humor, was more than willing he should work it off on his +humble self if it could do any good though he would be immensely +relieved when the old friendly Alan came back. + +Twilight descended. Dick turned from the mirror after a critical survey +of his own lean, fever parched, yellow countenance. + +"Lord! I look like a peanut," he commenced disgustedly. "I say, Massey, +when we get back to New York I think I should choke anybody if I were you +who dared to say we looked alike. One must draw the line somewhere at +what constitutes a permissible insult." He grinned whimsically at his own +expense, turned back to the mirror. "Upon my word, though, I believe it +is true. We do look alike. I never saw it until this minute. Funny +things--resemblances." + +"This isn't so funny," drawled Alan. "We had the same great grandfather." + +Dick whirled about staring at the other man as if he thought him +suddenly gone mad. + +"What! What do you know about my great grandfather? Do you know +who I am?" + +"I do. You are John Massey, old John's grandson, the chap I told you once +was dead and decently buried. I hoped it was true at the time but it +wasn't a week before I knew it was a lie. I found out John Massey was +alive and that he was going under the name of Dick Carson. Do you wonder +I hated you?" + +Dick sat down, his face white. He looked and was utterly dazed. + +"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mind explaining? It--it is a +little hard to get all at once." + +And then Alan Massey told the story that no living being save himself +knew. He spared himself nothing, apologised for nothing, expressed no +regret, asked for no palliation of judgment, forgiveness or even +understanding. Quietly, apparently without emotion, he gave back to the +other man the birthright he had robbed him of by his selfish and +dishonorable connivance with a wicked old man now beyond the power of any +vengeance or penalty. Dick Carson was no longer nameless but as he +listened tensely to his cousin's revelations he almost found it in his +heart to wish he were. It was too terrible to have won his name at such a +cost. As he listened, watching Alan's eyes burn in the dusk in strange +contrast to his cool, liquid, studiously tranquil voice, Dick remembered +a line Alan himself had read him only the other day, "Hell, the shadow of +a soul on fire," the Persian phrased it. Watching, Dick Carson saw before +him a sadder thing, a soul which had once been on fire and was now but +gray ashes. The flame had blazed up, scorched and blackened its path. It +was over now, burnt out. At thirty-three Alan Massey was through, had +lived his life, had given up. The younger man saw this with a pang which +had no reactive thought of self, only compassion for the other. + +"That is all, I think," said Alan at last. "I have all the proofs of your +identity with me. I never could destroy them somehow though I have meant +to over and over again. On the same principle I suppose that the sinning +monk sears the sign of the cross on his breast though he makes no outward +confession to the world and means to make none. I never meant to make +mine. I don't know why I am doing it now. Or rather I do. I couldn't +marry Tony with this thing between us. I tried to think I could, that I'd +made up to you by saving your life, that I was free to take my happiness +with her because I loved her and she loved me. And she does love me. She +wrote me yesterday she would marry me whenever I wished. I could have had +her. But I couldn't take her that way. I couldn't have made her happy. +She would have read the thing in my soul. She is too clean and honest and +true herself not to feel the presence of the other thing when it came +near her. I have tried to tell myself love was enough, that it would make +up to her for the rest. It isn't enough. You can't build life or +happiness except on the quarry stuff they keep on Holiday Hill, right, +honor, decency. You know that. Tony forgave my past. I believe she is +generous enough to forgive even this and go on with me. But I shan't ask +her. I won't let her. I--I've given her up with the rest." + +The speaker came over to where Dick sat, silent, stunned. + +"Enough of that. I have no wish to appeal to you in any way. The next +move is yours. You can act as you please. You can brand me as a +criminal if you choose. It is what I am, guilty in the eyes of the law +as well as in my own eyes and yours. I am not pleading innocence. I am +pleading unqualified guilt. Understand that clearly. I knew what I was +doing when I did it. I have known ever since. I've never been blind to +the rottenness of the thing. At first I did it for the money because I +was afraid of poverty and honest work. And then I went on with it for +Tony, because I loved her and wouldn't give her up to you. Now I've +given up the last ditch. The name is yours and the money is yours and +if you can win Tony she is yours. I'm out of the face for good and all. +But we have to settle just how the thing is going to be done. And that +is for you to say." + +"I wish I needn't do anything about it," said Dick slowly after a moment. +"I don't want the money. I am almost afraid of it. It seems accursed +somehow considering what it did to you. Even the name I don't seem to +care so much about just now thought I have wanted a name as I have never +wanted anything else in the world except Tony. It was mostly for her I +wanted it. See here, Alan, why can't we make a compromise? You say +Roberts wrote two letters and you have both. Why can't we destroy the one +and send the other to the lawyers, the one that lets you out? It is +nobody's business but ours. We can say that the letter has just fallen +into your hands with the other proof that I am the John Massey that was +stolen. That would straighten the thing out for you. I've no desire to +brand you in any way. Why should I after all I owe you? You have made up +a million times by saving my life and by the way you have given the thing +over now. Anyway one doesn't exact payment from one's friends. And you +are my friend, Alan. You offered me friendship. I took it--was proud to +take it. I am proud now, prouder than ever." + +And rising Dick Carson who was no longer Dick Carson but John Massey held +out his hand to the man who had wronged him so bitterly. The paraquet in +the corner jibbered harshly. Thunder rumbled heavily outside. An eerily +vivid flash of lightning dispelled for a moment the gloom of the dusk as +the two men clasped hands. + +"John Massey!" Alan's voice with its deep cello quality was vibrant with +emotion. "You don't know what that means to me. Men have called me many +things but few have ever called me friend except in lip service for what +they thought they could get out of it. And from you--well, I can only +say, I thank you." + +"We are the only Masseys. We ought to stand together," said Dick simply. + +Alan smiled though the room was too dark for Dick to see. + +"We can't stand together. I have forfeited the right. You chose the high +road long ago and I chose the other. We have both to abide by our +choices. We can't change those things at will. Spare me the public +revelation if you care to. I shall be glad for Tony's sake. For myself it +doesn't matter much. I don't expect to cross your path or hers again. I +am going to lose myself. Maybe some day you will win her. She will be +worth the winning. But don't hurry her if you want to win. She will have +to get over me first and that will take time." + +"She will never get over you, Alan. I know her. Things go deep with her. +They do with all the Holidays. You shan't lose yourself. There is no need +of it. Tony loves you. You must stay and make her happy. You can now you +are free. She need never know the worst of this any more than the rest of +the world need know. We can divide the money. It is the only way I am +willing to have any of it." + +Alan shook his head. + +"We can divide nothing, not the money and not Tony's love. I told you I +was giving it all up. You cannot stop me. No man has ever stopped me from +doing what I willed to do. I have a letter or two to write now and so +I'll leave you. I am glad you don't hate me, John Massey. Shall we shake +hands once more and then--good-night?" + +Their hands met again. A sharp glare of lightning lit the room with +ominous brilliancy for a moment. The paraquet screamed raucously. And +then the door closed on Alan Massey. + +An hour later a servant brought word to Dick that an American was below +waiting to speak to him. He descended with the card in his hand. The name +was unfamiliar, Arthur Hallock of Chicago, mining engineer. + +The stranger stood in the hall waiting while Dick came down the stairs. +He was obviously ill at ease. + +"I am Hallock," announced the visitor. "You are Richard Carson?" + +Dick nodded. Already the name was beginning to sound strange on his ears. +In one hour he had gotten oddly accustomed to knowing that he was John +Massey. And no longer needed Tony's name, dear as it was. + +"I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, Mr. Carson," the stranger +proceeded. "You have a friend named Alan Massey living here with you?" + +Again Dick nodded. He was apprehensive at the mention of Alan's name. + +"There was a riot down there." The speaker pointed down the street. "A +fuss over an American flag some dirty German dog had spit at. It didn't +take long to start a life sized row. We are all spoiling for a chance to +stick a few of the pigs ourselves whether we're technically at war or +not. A lot of us collected, your friend Massey among the rest. I +remember particularly when he joined the mob because he was so much +taller than the rest of us and came strolling in as if he was going to +an afternoon tea instead of getting into an international mess with +nearly all the contracting parties drunk and disorderly. There was a +good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows +just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the +mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like +mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of +plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in +the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a +breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I +were the first to get to him but there wasn't anything to do but look in +his pockets and find out who he was. We found his name on a card with +this address and your name scribbled on it in pencil. I say, Mr. Carson, +I am horribly sorry," suddenly perceiving Dick's white face. "You care a +lot, don't you?" + +"I care a lot," said Dick woodenly. "He was my cousin and--my best +friend." + +"I am sorry," repeated the young engineer. "Mr. Carson, there is +something else I feel as if I had to say though I shan't say it to any +one else. Massey might have dodged with the rest of us. He saw it coming +just as we did. He waited for it and I saw him smile as it came--a queer +smile at that. Maybe I'm mistaken but I have a hunch he wanted that +dagger to find him. That was why he smiled." + +"I think you are entirely right, Mr. Hallock," said Dick. "I haven't any +doubt but that was why he smiled. He would smile just that way. Where +--where is he?" Dick brushed his hands across his eyes as he asked the +question. He had never felt so desolate, so utterly alone in his life. + +"They are bringing him here. Shall I stay? Can I help anyway?" + +Dick shook his head sadly. + +"Thank you. I don't think there is anything any one can do. I--I wish +there was." + +A little later Alan Massey's dead body lay in austere dignity in the +house in which he had saved his cousin's life and given him back his name +and fortune together with the right to win the girl he himself had loved +so well. The smile was still on his face and a strange serenity of +expression was there too. He slept well at last. He had lost himself as +he had proclaimed his intent to do and in losing had found himself. One +could not look upon that calm white sculptured face without feeling that. +Alan Massey had died a victor undaunted, a master of fate to the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE SONG IN THE NIGHT + + +Tony Holiday sat in the dressing room waiting her cue to go on the stage. +It was only a rehearsal however. Miss Clay was back now and Tony was once +more the humble understudy though with a heart full of happy knowledge of +what it is like to be a real actress with a doting public at her feet. + +While she waited she picked up a newspaper and carelessly scanned its +pages. Suddenly to the amazement and consternation of the other girl who +was dressing in the same room she uttered a sharp little cry and for the +first time in her healthy young life slid to the floor in a merciful +faint. Her frightened companion called for help instantly and it was only +a moment before Tony's brown eyes opened and she pulled herself up from +the couch where they had laid her. But she would not speak or tell them +what had happened and it was only when they had gotten her off in a cab +with a motherly, big hearted woman who played shrew's and villainess' +parts always on the stage but was the one person of the whole cast to +whom every one turned in time of trouble that the rest searched the paper +for the clew to the thing which had made Tony look like death itself. It +was not far to seek. Tony looked like death because Alan Massey was dead. + +They all knew Alan Massey and knew that he and Tony Holiday were intimate +friends, perhaps even betrothed. More than one of them had seen and +remembered how he had kissed her before them all on the night of Tony's +first Broadway triumph and some of them had wondered why he had not been +seen since with her. So he had been in Mexico and now he was dead, his +heart pierced by a Mexican dagger. And Tony--Tony of the gay tongue and +the quick laughter--had the dagger gone into her heart too? It looked so. +The "End of the Rainbow" cast felt very sad and sober that day. They +loved Tony and just now she was not an actress to them but a girl who had +loved a man, a man who was dead. + +Jean Lambert telegraphed at once for Doctor Holiday to come to Tony who +was in a bad way. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't eat. She did not sleep. +She did not cry. Jean thought if she cried her grief would not have been +so pitiful to behold. It was the stony, white silence of her that was +intolerable to witness. + +In her uncle's arms Tony's terrible calm gave way and she sobbed herself +to utter weariness and finally to sleep. But even to him she would not +talk much about Alan. He had not known Alan. He had never +understood--never would understand now how wonderful, how lovable, how +splendid her lover had been. For several days she was kept in bed and the +doctor hardly left her. It was a hard time for him as well as his +stricken niece. Even their love for each other did not serve to lighten +the pain to any great extent. It was not the same sorrow they had. Doctor +Holiday was suffering because his little girl suffered. Tony was +suffering because she loved Alan Massey who would never come to her +again. Neither could entirely share the grief of the other. Alan Massey +was between them still. + +Finally Dick came and was able to give what Doctor Philip could not. He +could sing Alan's praises, tell her how wonderful he had been, how +generous and kind. He could share her grief as no one else could because +he had learned to love Alan Massey almost as well as she did herself. + +Dick talked freely of Alan, told her of the strange discovery which they +had made that he and Alan were cousins and that he himself was John +Massey, the kidnapped baby whom he had been so sorry for when he had +looked up the Massey story at the time of the old man's death. Dick was +not an apt liar but he lied gallantly now for Alan's sake and for Tony's. +He told her that it was only since Alan had been in Mexico that he had +known who his cousin was and had immediately possessed the other of the +facts and turned over to him the proofs of his identity as John Massey. + +It was a good lie, well conceived and well delivered but the liar had not +reckoned on that fatal Holiday gift of intuition. Tony listened to the +story, shut her eyes and thought hard for a moment. Then she opened her +eyes again and looked straight at Dick. + +"That is not the truth," she said. "Alan knew before he went to Mexico. +He knew long before. That was the other ghost--the one he could not lay. +Don't lie to me. I know." + +And then yielding to her command Dick began again and told her the truth, +serving Alan's memory well by the relation. One thing only he kept back. +After all he had no proof that the young engineer had been right in his +conjecture that Alan had wanted the dagger to find him. There was no need +of hurting Tony with that. + +"Dick--I can't call you John yet. I can't even think about you to-night +though I am so thankful to have you back safe and well. I can't be glad +yet for you. I can't remember any one but Alan. You will forgive me, I +know. But tell me. It was a terrible thing he did to you. Do you forgive +him really?" The girl's deep shadowed eyes searched the young man's face, +challenging him to speak the truth and only that. + +He met the challenge willingly. He had nothing to conceal here. Tony +might read him through and through and she would find in him neither hate +nor rancor, nor condemnation. + +"Of course I forgive him, Tony. He did a terrible thing to me you say. +He did a much more terrible thing to himself. And he made up for +everything over and over by what he did for me in Mexico. He might have +let me die. I should have died if he had not come. There is no doubt in +the world of that. He could not have done more if he had been my own +brother. He meant me to like him. He did more. He made me love him. He +was my friend. We parted as friends with a handshake which was his +good-by though I didn't know it." + +It was a fatal speech. Too late Dick realized it as he saw Tony's face. + +"Dick, he meant to let himself get killed. I've thought so all along and +now I know you think so too." + +"I didn't mean to let that out. Maybe I am mistaken. We shall never know. +But I believe he was not sorry to let the dagger get him. He had given up +everything else. It wasn't so hard for him to give up the one thing +more--the thing he didn't want anyway--life. Life wasn't much to him +after he gave you up, Tony. His love was the biggest thing about him. I +love you myself but I am not ashamed to say that his love was a bigger +thing than mine every way, finer, more magnificent, the love of a genius +whereas mine is just the love of an every day man. It was love that +saved him." + +"Dick, do you believe that the real Alan is dust--nothing but dust down +in a grave?" demanded Tony suddenly. + +"No, Tony, I don't. I can't. The essence of what was best in him is alive +somewhere. I know it. It must be. His love for you--for all beauty--they +couldn't die, dear. They were big enough to be immortal." + +"And his dancing," sighed Tony. "His dancing couldn't die. It had a +soul." + +If she had not been sure already that Alan had meant to go out of her +life even if he had not meant to go to his death when he left New York +she would have been convinced a little later. Alan's Japanese servant +brought two gifts to her from his honorable master according to his +honorable master's orders should he not return from his journey. His +honorable master being unfortunately dead his unworthy servant laid the +gifts at Mees Holiday's honorable feet. Whereupon the bearer had departed +as quietly as death itself might come. + +One of the gifts was a picture, a painting which Tony had seen, and which +was she thought the most beautiful of all his beautiful creations. Its +sheer loveliness would have hurt her even if it had had no other +significance and it did have a very real message. + +At first sight the whole scene seemed enveloped in translucent, silver +mist. As one looked more closely however there was revealed the figure of +a man, black clad in pilgrim guise, kneeling on the verge of a +precipitous cliff which rose out of a seemingly bottomless abyss of +terrific blackness. Though in posture of prayer the pilgrim's head was +lifted and his face wore an expression of rapt adoration. Above a film +of fog in the heavens stretched a clear space of deep blue black sky in +which hung a single luminous star. From the star a line of golden light +of unearthly radiance descended and finding its way to the uplifted +transfigured face of the kneeling pilgrim ended there. + +Tony Holiday understood, got the message as clearly as if Alan himself +stood beside her to interpret it. She knew that he was telling her +through the picture that she had saved his soul, kept him out of the +abyss, that to the end she was what he had so often called her--his star. + +With tear blinded eyes she turned from the canvas to the little silver +box which the servant had placed in her hands together with a sealed +envelope. In the box was a gorgeous, unset ruby, the gem of Alan's +collection as Tony well knew having worshiped often at its shrine. It lay +there now against the austere purity of its white satin background--the +symbol of imperishable passion. + +Reverently Tony closed the little box and opened the sealed envelope +dreading yet longing to know its contents. Alan had sent her no word of +farewell, had not written to her that night before he went out into the +storm to meet his death, had made no response to the letter she herself +had written offering herself and her love and faith for his taking. At +first these things had hurt her. But these gifts of his were beginning to +make her understand his silence. Selfish and spectacular all his life at +his death Alan Massey had been surpassingly generous and simple. He had +chosen to bequeath his love to her not as an obsession and a bondage but +as an elemental thing like light and air. + +The message in the envelope was in its way as impersonal as the ruby had +been but Tony found it more hauntingly personal than she had ever found +his most impassioned love letter. Once more the words were couched in the +symbol tongue of the poet in India--in only two sentences, but sentences +so poignant that they stamped themselves forever on Tony Holiday's mind +as they stood out from the paper in Alan's beautiful, striking +handwriting. + +"When the lighted lamp is brought into the room + I shall go. + And then perhaps you will listen to the night, and + hear my song when I am silent." + +The lines were dated on that unforgettable night when Tony had played +Broadway and danced her last dance with her royal lover. So he had known +even then that he was giving her up. Realizing this Tony realized as she +never had before the high quality of his love. She could guess a little +of what that night had meant to him, how passionately he must have +desired to win through to the full fruition of his love before he gave +her up for all the rest of time. And she herself had been mad that night +Tony remembered. Ah well! He had been strong for them both. And now their +love would always stay upon the high levels, never descend to the ways of +earth. There would never be anything to regret, though Tony loving her +lover's memory as she did that moment was not so sure but she regretted +that most of all. + +Yet tragic as Alan's death was and bitterly and sincerely as she mourned +his loss Tony could see that he had after all chosen the happiest way +out for himself as well as for her and his cousin. It was not hard to +forgive a dead lover with a generous act of renunciation his last deed. +It would have been far less easy to forgive a living lover with such a +stain upon his life. Even though he tried to wash it away by his +surrender and she by her forgiveness the stain would have remained +ineradicable. There would always have been a barrier between them for +all his effort and her own. + +And his love would ill have borne denial or frustration. Without her he +would have gone down into dark pits if he had gone on living. Perhaps he +had known and feared this himself, willing to prevent it at any cost. +Perhaps he had known that so long as he lived she, Tony, would never have +been entirely her own again. His bondage would have been upon her even if +he never saw her again. Perhaps he had elected death most of all for this +reason, had loved her well enough to set her free. He had told her once +that love was twofold, a force of destruction and damnation but also a +force of purification and salvation. Alan had loved her greatly, perhaps +in the end his love had taken him in his own words "to the gate of +Heaven." Tony did not know but she thought if there really was a God he +would understand and forgive the soul of Alan Massey for that last +splendid sacrifice of his in the name of love. + +And whatever happened Tony Holiday knew that she would bear forever the +mark of Alan Massey's stormy, strange, and in the end all-beautiful love. +Perhaps some day the lighted lamp might be brought in. She did not know, +would not attempt to prophesy about that. She did not know that she would +always listen to the night for Alan Massey's sake and hear his song +though he was silent forever. + +The next day Richard Carson officially disappeared from the world and +John Massey appeared in his place. The papers made rather a striking +story of his romantic history and its startling denouement which had +come they said through the death bed confessions of the man Roberts which +had only just reached the older Massey's hands, strangely enough on the +eve of his own tragic death, which was again related to make the tale a +little more of a thriller. That was all the world knew, was ever to know +for the Holidays and John Massey kept the dead man's secret well. + +And the grass grew green on Alan Massey's grave. The sun and dew and rain +laid tender fingers upon it and great crimson and gold hearted roses +strewed their fragrant petals upon it year by year. The stars he had +loved so well shone down upon the lonely spot where his body slept quiet +at last after the torment of his brief and stormy life. But otherwise, as +John Massey and Tony Holiday believed, his undefeated spirit fared on +splendidly in its divine quest of beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL + + +The winter had at last decided to recapture its forsaken role of the Snow +King. For two days and as many nights the air had been one swirl of snow +which shut out earth and sky. But on the third morning the Hill woke to a +dazzling world of cloudless blue and trackless white. A resplendent +bride-like day it was and fitly so for before sundown the old House on +the Hill was to know another bride. Elinor Ruth Farringdon's affairs +required her immediate attention in Australia and she was leaving +to-night for that far away island which was again now dear to her heart +as the home of her happy childhood, the memory of which had now all +returned after months of strange obliteration. But she would not go as +Elinor Ruth Farringdon. That name was to be shed as absolutely as her +recollection of it had once been shed. She would go as Mrs. Laurence +Holiday with a real wedding ring all her own and a real husband also all +her own by her side. + +There were to be no guests outside the family except for the Lamberts, +Carlotta and Dick--John Massey, as they were now trying to learn to call +him. The wedding was to be very quiet not only because of Granny but +because they were all very pitiful of Tony's still fresh grief, the more +so because she bore it so bravely and quietly, anxious lest she cast any +shadow upon the happiness of the others, especially that of Larry and +Ruth. In any case a quiet wedding would have been the choice of the two +who were most concerned. They wanted only their near and dear about them +when they took upon themselves the rites which were to unite them for the +rest of their two lives. + +Aside from Tony's sorrow the only two regrets which marred the household +joy that bride white day were Ted's absence and imminent departure for +France and that other even soberer remembrance of that other gallant +young soldier, Ruth's brother Roderick of whom no news had come, though +Ruth insisted that Rod wasn't dead, that he would came back just as her +vivid memory of him had returned. + +And it happened that her faith was rewarded and on the very day of days +when one drop more of happiness made the cup fairly spill over. Larry was +summoned to the telephone just as he had been once before on a certain +memorable occasion to be told that a cabled message awaited him. The +message was from Geoffrey Annersley and bore besides his love and +congratulations the wonderful news that Roderick Farringdon had escaped +from a German prison camp and was safe in England. + +Ruth shed many happy tears over this best of all bridal gifts, not enough +to dim the shining blue of her eyes but enough to give them a lovely, +misty tenderness which made her sweeter than ever Larry thought, and who +should have magic eyes if not a bridegroom? + +A little later came Carlotta and Dick, the latter well and strong again +but thin and pale and rather sober. Tony loved him for grieving for Alan +as she knew he did. He too had known and loved the dead man and +understood him perhaps better than she had herself. For after all no man +and woman can ever fully understand each other especially if they are in +love. So many faint nuances of doubt and fear and pride and passion and +jealousy are forever drifting between lovers obscuring clarity of vision. + +Carlotta was prettier than ever with a new sweetness and womanliness +which her love had wrought in her during the year. People who had known +her mother said she was growing daily more like Rose though always before +they had traced a greater resemblance to the other side of the house, to +her Aunt Lottie particularly. She and Philip were to be married in the +spring. "When the orioles come" Carlotta had said remembering her +father's story of that other brief mating. + +Tony and Carlotta slipped away from the others to talk by +themselves. Carlotta too had known and liked Alan and to all such +Tony clung just now. + +"He was so different at the end," she said to her friend. "I wish you +could have known him that way--so dear and gentle and wonderful. He kept +his promise everyway, lived absolutely straight and clean and fine." + +"He did it for you, Tony. He never could have done it for himself. He +wouldn't have thought it worth while. Don't tell me if you don't want to +but I have guessed a good many things since I knew about Dick and I have +wondered if he wasn't rather glad--to get killed." + +"Yes, Dick thinks and I think too that he let the dagger find him. I +have always called him my royal lover. His death was the most royal +part of all." + +Carlotta was silent. She hoped that somewhere Alan was finding the +happiness he seemed always to have missed on earth. Then seeing her +friend's lovely eyes with the heavy shadow in them where there had been +only sunshine before her heart rebelled. Poor Tony! Why must she suffer +like this? She was so young. Was life really over for her? For Carlotta +in her own happiness life and love were synonymous terms. Something of +what was in her mind she said to her friend. + +"I don't know," confessed Tony. "It is too soon to tell. Just now Alan +fills every nook and cranny of me. I can't think of any other man or +imagine myself loving anybody else as I loved him. But I am a very much +alive person. I don't believe I shall give myself to death forever. Alan +himself wouldn't want it so. A part of me will always be his but there +are other margins of me that Alan never touched and these maybe I shall +give to some one else when the time comes." + +"Does that mean Dick--John Massey?" + +"Maybe. Maybe not. I have told him not to speak of love for a long, long +time. We must both be free. He is going to France as a war correspondent +next week." + +"Don't you hate to have him go?" + +"Yes, I do. But I can't be selfish enough to keep him hanging round me +forever on the slim chance that some time I shall be willing to marry +him. He is too fine to be treated like that. He wants to go overseas +unless I will marry him now and I can't do that. It is better that we +should be apart for a while. As for me I have my work and I am going to +plunge into it as deep and hard as I can. I am not going to be unhappy. +You can't be unhappy when you love your work as I love mine. Don't be +sorry for me, Carlotta. I am not sorry for myself. Even if I never loved +again and never was loved I should still have had enough for a life time. +It is more than many women have, more than I deserve." + +The bride white day wore on to twilight and as the clock struck the hour +of five Ruth Farringdon came down the broad oak staircase clad in the +shining splendor of the bridal gown she had "dreamed," wearing her +grandmother's pearls and the lace veil which Larry's lovely mother had +worn as Ned Holiday's bride long and long ago. At the foot of the stairs +Larry waited and took her hand. Eric and Hester flanking the living room +door pushed aside the curtains for the two who still hand in hand walked +past the children into the room where the others were assembled. Gravely +and brimming with importance the guard of honor followed, the latter +bearing the bride's bouquet, the former squeezing the wedding ring in his +small fist. Ruth took her place beside the senior doctor. The minister +opened his mouth to proceed with the ceremony, shut it again with a +little gasp. + +For suddenly the curtains were swept aside again, this time with a +breezier and less stately sweep and Ted Holiday in uniform and sergeant's +regalia plunged into the room, a thinner, browner, taller Ted, with a new +kind of dignity about him but withal the same blue-eyed lad with the old +heart warming smile, still always Teddy the beloved. + +"Don't mind me," he announced. "Please go on." And he slipped into +a place beside Tony drawing her hand in his with a warm pressure as +he did so. + +They went on. Laurence LaRue Holiday and Elinor Ruth Farringdon were made +man and wife till death did them part. The old clock on the mantel which +had looked down on these two on a less happy occasion looked on still, +ticking away calmly, telling no tales and asking no questions. What was a +marriage more or less to time? + +The ceremony over it was the newly arrived sergeant rather than the bride +and groom who was the center of attraction and none were better pleased +than Larry and Ruth to have it so. + +It was a flying visit on Ted's part. He had managed to secure a last +minute leave just before sailing from Montreal at which place he had to +report the day after to-morrow. + +"So let's eat, drink, and be merry," he finished his explanation gayly. +"But first, please, Larry, may I kiss the bride?" + +"Go to it," laughed his brother. "I'm so hanged glad to see you Kid, I've +half a mind to kiss you myself." + +Needing no further urging Ted availed himself of the proffered privilege +and kissed the bride, not once but three times, once on each rosy cheek, +and last full on her pretty mouth itself. + +"There!" he announced standing off to survey her, both her hands still in +his possession. "I've always wanted to do that and now I've done it. I +feel better." + +Everybody laughed at that not because what he said was so very +amusing as because their hearts were so full of joy to have the +irrepressible youngest Holiday at home again after the long anxious +weeks of his absence. + +Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth's ear, "Gee! But I'm +glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley +is some peach of a cousin, I'm telling you, though I'm confoundedly +glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast +clear for Larry." + +He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words +as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers +met and each looked into the other's face, for once unashamed of the +emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to +recover speech. + +"Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it +has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck +and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now. +Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close +to me lately especially since I've been in this war business." Then +seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old +man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever +happens. You know yourself death isn't so much--not such a horrible +calamity as we talk as if it were." + +"I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I +can't seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn't +have gone." + +"Don't let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself +before you know it and then I'd have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept +me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself. +I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and +when we have the Germans jolly well licked I'm coming home and find me as +pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry +her quick as lightning." + +Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And +irrationally enough he found himself more than a little reassured and +comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and +have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done. + +"And I say, Larry." Ted's voice was soberer now. "I have always wanted +to tell you how I appreciated your standing by me so magnificently in +that horrible mess of mine. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had felt +like throwing me over for life after my being such a tarnation idiot +and disgracing the family like that. I'll never forget how white you and +Uncle Phil both were about it every way and maybe you won't believe it +but there'll never be anything like that again. There are some things +I'm through with--at least if I'm not I'm even more of a fool than I +think I am." + +"Don't, Ted. I haven't been such a model of virtue and wisdom that I can +afford to sit in judgment on you. I've learned a few things myself this +year and I am not so cock sure in my views as I was by a long shot. +Anyway you have more than made up by what you have done since and what +you are going to do over there. Let's forget the rest and just remember +that we are both Holidays, and it is up to both of us to measure up to +Dad and Uncle Phil, far as we can." + +"Some stunt, what?" Thus Ted flippantly mixed his familiar American and +newly acquired British vernacular. "You are dead right, Larry. I am +afraid I'm doomed to land some nine miles or so below the mark but I'm +going to make a stab at it anyway." + +Later there was a gala dinner party, an occasion almost as gay as that +Round Table banquet over eight years ago had been when Dick Carson had +been formally inducted into the order and Doctor Holiday had announced +that he was going to marry Miss Margery. And as before there was +laughter and gay talk and teasing, affectionate jest and prophecy +mingled with the toasting. + +There were toasts to the reigning bride and groom, Larry and Ruth, to the +coming bride and groom Philip and Carlotta, to Tony, the understudy that +was, the star that was to be; to Dick Carson that had been, John Massey +that was, foreign correspondent, and future famous author. There was a +particularly stirring toast to Sergeant Ted who would some day be +returning to his native shore at least a captain if not a major with all +kinds of adventures and honors to his credit. Everybody smiled gallantly +over this toast. Not one of them would let a shadow of grief or dread for +Teddy the beloved cloud this one happy home evening of his before he left +the Hill perhaps forever. The Holidays were like that. + +And then Larry on his feet raised his hand for silence. + +"Last and best of all," he said, "I give you--the Head of the House of +Holiday--the best friend and the finest man I know--Uncle Phil!" + +Larry smiled down at his uncle as he spoke but there was deep +feeling in his fine gray eyes. Better than any one else he knew how +much of his present happiness he owed to that good friend and fine +man Philip Holiday. + +The whole table rose to this toast except the doctor, even to the small +Eric and Hester who had no idea what it was all about but found it all +very exciting and delightful and beautifully grown up. As they drank +the toast Ted's free hand rested with affectionate pressure on his +uncle's and Tony on the other side set down her glass and squeezed his +hand instead. They too were trying to tell him that what Larry had +spoken in his own behalf was true for them also. They wanted to have +him know how much he meant to them and how much they wanted to do and +be for his dear sake. + +Perhaps Philip Holiday won his order of distinguished service then and +there. At any rate with his own children and Ned's around him, with the +wife of his heart smiling down at him from across the table with proud, +happy, tear wet eyes, the Head of the House of Holiday was content. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Wings, by Margaret Rebecca Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD WINGS *** + +***** This file should be named 11165-8.txt or 11165-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/6/11165/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11165-8.zip b/old/11165-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5929f97 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11165-8.zip diff --git a/old/11165.txt b/old/11165.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51c16e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11165.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13997 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Wings, by Margaret Rebecca Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wild Wings + A Romance of Youth + +Author: Margaret Rebecca Piper + +Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11165] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD WINGS *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + WILD WINGS + + A ROMANCE OF YOUTH + + BY MARGARET REBECCA PIPER + + 1921 + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I MOSTLY TONY + + II WITH ROSALIND IN ARDEN + + III A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS + + IV A BOY WHO WASN'T AN ASS BUT BEHAVED LIKE ONE + + V WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH + + VI A SHADOW ON THE PATH + + VII DEVELOPMENTS BY MAIL + + VIII THE LITTLE LADY WHO FORGOT + + IX TEDDY SEIZES THE DAY + + X TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY + + XI THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD + + XII AND THERE IS A FLAME + + XIII BITTER FRUIT + + XIV SHACKLES + + XV ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE + + XVI IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED + + XVII A WEDDING RING IT WAS HARD TO REMEMBER + + XVIII A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE + + XIX TWO HOLIDAYS MAKE CONFESSION + + XX A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE + + XXI HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS + + XXII THE DUNBURY CURE + + XXIII SEPTEMBER CHANGES + + XXIV A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED + + XXV ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE + + XXVI THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES + + XXVII TROUBLED WATERS + + XXVIII IN DARK PLACES + + XXIX THE PEDIGREE OF PEARLS + + XXX THE FIERY FURNACE + + XXXI THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE + + XXXII DWELLERS IN DREAMS + + XXXIII WAITING FOR THE END OF THE STORY + + XXXIV IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO + + XXXV GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES + + XXXVI THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET + + XXXVII ALAN MASSEY LOSES HIMSELF + +XXXVIII THE SONG IN THE NIGHT + + XXXIX IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MOSTLY TONY + + +Among the voluble, excited, commencement-bound crowd that boarded the +Northampton train at Springfield two male passengers were conspicuous for +their silence as they sat absorbed in their respective newspapers which +each had hurriedly purchased in transit from train to train. + +A striking enough contrast otherwise, however, the two presented. The +man next the aisle was well past sixty, rotund of abdomen, rubicund +of countenance, beetle-browed. He was elaborately well-groomed, +almost foppish in attire, and wore the obvious stamp of worldly +success, the air of one accustomed to giving orders and seeing them +obeyed before his eyes. + +His companion and chance seat-mate was young, probably a scant five and +twenty, tall, lean, close-knit of frame with finely chiseled, almost +ascetic features, though the vigorous chin and generous sized mouth +forbade any hint of weakness or effeminacy. His deep-set, clear gray-blue +eyes were the eyes of youth; but they would have set a keen observer to +wondering what they had seen to leave that shadow of unyouthful gravity +upon them. + +It happened that both men--the elderly and the young--had their papers +folded at identically the same page, and both were studying intently the +face of the lovely, dark-eyed young girl who smiled out of the duplicate +printed sheets impartially at both. + +The legend beneath the cut explained that the dark-eyed young beauty +was Miss Antoinette Holiday, who would play Rosalind that night in the +Smith College annual senior dramatics. The interested reader was +further enlightened to the fact that Miss Holiday was the daughter of +the late Colonel Holiday and Laura LaRue, a well known actress of a +generation ago, and that the daughter inherited the gifts as well as +the beauty of her famous mother, and was said to be planning to follow +the stage herself, having made her debut as the charming heroine of "As +You Like It." + +The man next the aisle frowned a little as he came to this last sentence +and went back to the perusal of the girl's face. So this was Laura's +daughter. Well, they had not lied in one respect at least. She was a +winner for looks. That was plain to be seen even from the crude newspaper +reproduction. The girl was pretty. But what else did she have beside +prettiness? That was the question. Did she have any of the rest of +it--Laura's wit, her inimitable charm, her fire, her genius? Pshaw! No, +of course she hadn't. Nature did not make two Laura LaRue's in one +century. It was too much to expect. + +Lord, what a woman! And what a future she had had and thrown away for +love! Love! That wasn't it. She could have had love and still kept on +with her career. It was marriage that had been the catastrophe--the fatal +blunder. Marriage and domesticity for a woman like that! It was +asinine--worse--criminal! It ought to have been forbidden by law. And the +stubbornness of her! After all these years, remembering, Max Hempel could +have groaned aloud. Every stage manager in New York, including himself, +had been ready to bankrupt himself offering her what in those days were +almost incredible contracts to prevent her from the suicidal folly on +which she was bent. But to no avail. She had laughed at them all, laughed +and quit the stage at six and twenty, and a few years later her beauty +and genius were still--in death. What a waste! What a damnation waste! + +At this point in his animadversions Max Hempel again looked at the girl +in the newspaper, the girl who was the product of the very marriage he +had been cursing, LaRue's only daughter. If there had been no marriage, +neither would there have been this glorious, radiant, vividly alive young +creature. Men called Laura LaRue dead. But was she? Was she not +tremendously alive in the life of her lovely young daughter? Was it not +he, and the other childless ones who had treated matrimony as the one +supreme mistake, that would soon be very much dead, dead past any +resurrection? + +Pshaw! He was getting sentimental. He wasn't here for sentiment. He was +here for cold, hard business. He was taking this confounded journey to +witness an amateur performance of a Shakespeare play, when he loathed +traveling in hot weather, detested amateur performances of anything, +particularly of Shakespeare, on the millionth of a chance that +Antoinette Holiday might be possessed of a tithe of her mother's talent +and might eventually be starred as the new ingenue he was in need of, +afar off, so to speak. It was Carol Clay herself who had warned him. +Carol was wonderful--would always be wonderful. But time passes. There +would come a season when the public would begin to count back and +remember that Carol had been playing ingenue parts already for over a +decade. There must always be youth--fresh, flaming youth in the +offing. That was the stage and life. + +As for this Antoinette Holiday girl, he had none too much hope. Max +Hempel never hoped much on general principles, so far as potential stars +were concerned. He had seen too many of them go off fizz bang into +nothingness, like rockets. It was more than likely he was on a false +trail, that people who had seen the girl act in amateur things had +exaggerated her ability. He trusted no judgment but his own, which was +perhaps one of the reasons why he was one of the greatest living stage +managers. It was more than likely she had nothing but a pretty, shallow +little talent for play acting and no notion under the sun of giving up +society or matrimony or what-not for the devilish hard work of a stage +career. Very likely there was some young galoot waiting even now, to +whisk Laura LaRue's daughter off the stage before she ever got on. + +Moreover there was always her family to cope with, dyed in the wool New +Englanders at that, no doubt with the heavy Puritan mortmain upon them, +narrow as a shoe string, circumscribed as a duck pond, walled in by +ghastly respectability. Ten to one, if the girl had talent and ambition, +they would smother these things in her, balk her at every turn. They had +regarded Ned Holiday's marriage to Laura a misalliance, he recalled. +There had been quite a to-do about it at the time. Good God! It had been +a misalliance all right, but not as they reckoned it. It had not been +considered suitable for a Holiday to marry an actress. Probably it would +be considered more unsuitable for a Holiday to _be_ an actress. Suitable! +Bah! The question was not whether the career was fit for the girl, but +whether the girl could measure up to the career. And irascibly, +unreasonably indignant as if he had already been contending in argument +with legions of mythical, over-respectable Holidays, Max Hempel whipped +his paper open to another page, a page that told of a drive somewhere on +the western front that had failed miserably, for this was the year +nineteen hundred and sixteen and there was a war going on, "on the other +side." Oh, typically American phrase! + +Meanwhile the young man, too, had stopped staring at Antoinette Holiday's +pictured face and was staring out of the window instead at the fast +flying landscape. He had really no need anyway to look at a picture of +Tony. His head and heart were full of them. He had been storing them up +for over eight years and it was a considerable collection by now and one +in which he took great joy in lonely hours in his dingy little lodging +room, or in odd moments as he went his way at his task as a reporter for +a great New York daily. The perspicuous reader will not need to be told +that the young man was in love with Tony Holiday--desperately in love. + +Desperately was the word. Slight as Max Hempel's hope may have been that +Laura LaRue's daughter was to prove the ingenue he sought, infinitely +slighter was Dick Carson's hope of ever making Tony his wife. How could +it be otherwise? Tony Holiday was as far above him in his own eyes as the +top of Mount Tom was high above the onion beds of the valley. The very +name he used was his only because she had given it to him. Dick Nobody he +had been. Richard Carson he had become through grace of Tony. + +Like his companion the young man went back into the past, though not so +far a journey. As vividly as if it were but yesterday he remembered the +misery of flesh and spirit which had been his as he stowed himself away +in the hay loft in the Holiday's barn, that long ago summer dawn, too +sick to take another step and caring little whether he lived or died, +conscious vaguely, however, that death would be infinitely preferable to +going back to the life of the circus and the man Jim's coarse brutality +from which he had made his escape at last. + +And then he had opened his eyes, hours later, and there had been +Tony--and there had been chiefly Tony ever since, for him. + +If ever he amounted to anything, and he meant to amount to something, it +would be all due to Tony and her Uncle Phil. The two of them had saved +him in more ways than one, had faith in him when he wasn't much but a +scarecrow, ignorant, profane, unmoral, miserable, a "gutter brat" as some +one had once called him, a phrase he had never forgotten. It had seemed +to brand him, set him apart from people like the Holidays forever. But +Tony and Doctor Phil had shown him a different way of looking at it, +proved to him that nothing could really disgrace him but himself. They +had given him his chance and he had taken it. Please God he would make +himself yet into something they could be proud of, and it would all be +their doing. He would never forget that, whatever happened. + +A half hour later the train puffed and wheezed into the station at +Northampton. Dick Carson and Max Hempel, still close together, descended +into the swarming, chattering crowd which was delightfully if confusingly +congested with pretty girls, more pretty girls and still more pretty +girls. But Dick was not confused. Even before the train had come to a +full stop he had caught sight of Tony. He had a single track mind so far +as girls were concerned. From the moment his eyes discovered Tony Holiday +the rest simply did not exist for him. It is to be doubted whether he +knew they were there at all, in spite of their manifest ubiquity and +equally manifest pulchritude. + +Tony saw him, too, as he loomed up, taller than the others, bearing +resistlessly down upon her. She waved a gay greeting and smiled her +welcome to him through the throng. Max Hempel, close behind, caught the +message, too, and recognized the face of the girl who smiled as the +original of the newspaper cut he had just been studying so assiduously. +Deliberately he dogged the young man's heels. He wanted to get a close-up +view of Laura LaRue's daughter. She was much prettier than the picture. +Even from a distance he had made that out, as she stood there among the +crowd, vivacious, vivid, clad all in white except for the loose +coral-hued sweater which set off her warm brunette beauty and the slim +but charmingly rounded curves of her supple young body. Yes, she was like +Laura, like her and yet different, with a quality which he fancied +belonged to herself and none other. + +Almost jealously Hempel watched the meeting between the girl and the +youth who up to now had been negligible enough, but suddenly emerged into +significance as the possible young galoot already mentally warned off the +premises by the stage manager. + +"Dick! O Dick! I'm _so_ glad to see you," cried the girl, holding out +both hands to the new arrival. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. +She looked quite as glad as she proclaimed. + +As for the young man who had set down his suitcase and taken possession +of both the proffered hands, there wasn't the slightest doubt that he was +in the seventh heaven of bliss wherever that may be. Next door to Fool's +Paradise, Max Hempel hoped somewhat vindictively. + +"Just you wait, young man," he muttered to himself. "Bet you'll have to, +anyway. That glorious young thing isn't going to settle down to the +shallows of matrimony without trying the deep waters first, unless I'm +mightily mistaken. In the meantime we shall see what we shall see +to-night." And the man of power trudged away in the direction of a +taxicab, leaving youth alone with itself. + +"Everybody is here," bubbled Tony. "At least, nearly everybody. Larry +went to a horrid old medical convention at Chicago, and can't be here for +the play; but he's coming to commencement. Of course, Granny isn't able +to travel and Aunt Margery couldn't come because the kiddies have been +measling, but Ted is here, and Uncle Phil--bless him! He brought the +twins over from Dunbury in the car. Phil Lambert and everybody are +waiting down the street. Carlotta too! To think you haven't ever met her, +when she's been my roommate and best friend for two years! And, oh! +Dicky! I haven't seen you myself for most a year and I'm so glad." She +beamed up at him as she made this rather ambiguous statement. "And you +haven't said a word but just 'hello!' Aren't you glad to see me, Dicky?" +she reproached. + +He grunted at that. + +"About a thousand times gladder than if I were in Heaven, unless you +happened to be sitting beside me on the golden stairs. And if you think I +don't know how long it is since I've seen you, you are mightily mistaken. +It is precisely one million years in round numbers." + +"Oh, it is?" Tony smiled, appeased. "Why didn't you say so before, and +not leave me to squeeze it out of you like tooth-paste?" + +Dick grinned back happily. + +"Because you brought me up not to interrupt a lady. You seemed to have +the floor, so to speak." + +"So to speak, indeed," laughed Tony. "Carlotta says I exist for that +sole purpose. But come on. Everybody's crazy to see you and I've a +million things to do." And tucking her arm in his, Tony marshaled the +procession of two down the stairs to the street where the car and the old +Holiday Hill crowd waited to greet the newest comer to the ranks of the +commencement celebrants. + +With the exception of Carlotta Cressy, Tony's roommate, the occupants of +the car are known already to those who followed the earlier tale of +Holiday Hill.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The earlier experiences of the Holidays and their friends +are related in "The House on the Hill."] + +First of all there was the owner of the car, Dr. Philip Holiday +himself, a married man now, with a small son and daughter of his own, +"Miss Margery's" children. A little thicker of build and thinner of +hair was the doctor, but possessed of the same genial friendliness of +manner and whimsical humor, the same steady hand held out to help +wherever and whenever help was needed. He was head of the House of +Holiday now for his father, the saintly old pastor, had gone on to +other fields and his soldier brother Ned, Tony's father, had also gone, +in the prime of life, two years before, victim of typhus, leaving his +beloved little daughter, and his two sons just verging into manhood, in +the care of the younger Holiday. + +As Dick and the doctor exchanged cordial greetings, the latter's friendly +eyes challenged the young man's and were answered. Plainly as if words +had been spoken the doctor knew that Dick was keeping faith with the old +pact, living up to the name the little girl Tony had given him in her +impulsive generosity. + +"Something not quite right, though," he thought. "The boy isn't all +happy. Wonder what the trouble is. Probably a girl. Usually is at +that age." + +At the wheel beside the doctor was his namesake and neighbor, Philip +Lambert. Phil was graduating, himself, this year from the college across +the river, a sturdy athlete of some note and a Phi Beta Kappa man as +well. Out of a harum-scarum, willful boyhood he had emerged into a finely +tempered, steady young manhood. The Dunbury wiseacres who had been wont +to shake their heads over Phil's youthful escapades and prophesy a bad +end for such a devil-may-care youngster now patted themselves +complacently on the back, as wiseacres will, and declared they had always +known the boy would turn out a credit to his family and the town. + +On the back seat were Phil's sisters, the pretty twins, Charley and +Clare, still astonishingly alike at twenty, as they had been at twelve, +and still full of the high spirits and ready laughter and wit that had +made them the life of the Hill in the old days. Neither looked a day over +sixteen, but Clare had already been teaching two years in a Dunbury +public school and Charley was to go into nurse's training in the fall. + +Larry, the young doctor, as Dunbury had taken to calling him in +distinction from his uncle, was not yet arrived, as Tony had explained; +but Ted, her younger brother, was very much on the scene, arrayed in all +the extravagant niceties of modish attire affected by university +undergraduates. At twenty, Ted Holiday was as handsome as the traditional +young Greek god and possessed of a godlike propensity to do as he liked +and the devil take the consequences. Already Ned Holiday's younger son +had acquired something of a reputation as a high flier among his own sex, +and a heart breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly +irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely +dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible, +and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults. +His soberer brother Larry worried uselessly over Ted's misdeeds, and took +him sharply to task for them; but even Larry admitted that there was +something rather magnificent about Ted and that possibly in the end he +would come out the soundest Holiday of them all. + +There remains only Carlotta to be introduced. Carlotta was lovely to look +upon. A poet speaks somewhere of a face "made out of a rose." Carlotta +had that kind of a face and her eyes were of that deep, violet shade +which works mischief and magic in the hearts of men. As for her hair, it +might well have been the envy of any princess, in or out of the covers of +a book, so fine spun was it in texture, so pure gold in color, like the +warm, vivid shimmer of tropical sunshine. She lifted an inquiring gaze +now to Dick, as she held out her hand in acknowledgment of the +introduction, and Dick murmured something platitudinous, bowed politely +over the hand and never noticed what color her eyes were. A single track +mind is both a curse and a protection to a man. + +"Carlotta _would_ come," Tony was explaining gaily, "though I told her +there wasn't room. Let me inform you all that Carlotta is the most +completely, magnificently, delightfully spoiled young person in these +United States of America." + +"Barring you?" teased her uncle. + +"Barring none. By comparison with Carlotta, I am all the noble army of +saints, martyrs and seraphim on record combined. Carlotta is preordained +to have her own way. Everybody unites to give it to her. We can't help +it. She hypnotizes us. Some night you will miss the moon in its +accustomed place and you will find that she wanted it for a few moments +to play with." + +Philip Lambert had turned around in his seat and was surveying Carlotta +rather curiously during this teasing tirade of Tony's. + +"Oh, well," murmured Carlotta. "Your old moon can be put up again when I +am through with it. I shan't do it a bit of harm. Anyway, Mr. Carson must +not be told such horrid things about me the very first time he meets me, +must he, Phil? He might think they were true." She suddenly lifted her +eyes and smiled straight up into the face of the young man on the front +seat who was watching her so intently. + +"Well, aren't they?" returned the young man addressed, stooping to +examine the brake. + +Carlotta did not appear in the least offended at his curt comment. +Indeed the smile on her lips lingered as if it had some inner reason for +being there. + +"Hop in, Tony," ordered Ted with brotherly peremptoriness. "Carlotta, you +are one too many, my love. You will have to sit in my lap." + +"I'm getting out," said Phil. "I'm due across the river. Want Ted to take +the wheel, Doctor?" + +"I do not. I have a wife and children at home. I cannot afford to place +my life in jeopardy." The doctor's eyes twinkled as they rested a moment +on his youngest nephew. + +"Now, Uncle Phil, that's mean of you. You ought to see me drive." + +"I have," commented Dr. Holiday drily. "Come on over here, one of you +twinnies, if Phil must go. See you to-night, my boy?" he turned to his +namesake to ask as Charley accepted the invitation and clambered over the +back of the seat while the doctor took her brother's vacated post. + +Phil shook his head. + +"No. I was in on the dress rehearsal last night. I've had my share. But +you folks are going to see the jolliest Rosalind that ever grew in Arden +or out of it. That's one sure thing." + +Phil smiled at Tony as he spoke, and Dick, settling himself in the small +seat beside Ted, felt a small barbed dart of jealousy prick into him. + +Tony and Phil were obviously exceedingly good friends. They had, he +knew, seen much of each other during the past four years, with only a +river between. Phil was Tony's own kind, college-trained, with a +certified line of good old New England ancestry behind him. Moreover, he +was a darned fine fellow--one of the best, in fact. In spite of that +hateful little jabbing dart, Dick acknowledged that. Ah well, there was +more than a river between himself and Tony Holiday and there always +would be. Who was he, nameless as he was, to enter the lists against +Philip Lambert or any one else? + +The car sped away, leaving Phil standing bareheaded in the sunshine, +staring after it. The mocking silver lilt of Carlotta Cressy's laughter +drifted back to him. He shrugged, jammed on his hat and strode off in the +direction of the trolley car. + +Dick Carson might just as well have spared himself the pain of jealousy. +Phil had already forgotten Tony, was remembering only Carlotta, who would +never deliberately do a mite of harm to the moon, would merely want to +play with it at her fancy and leave it at her whim for somebody else to +replace, if anybody cared to take the pains. And what was a moon more or +less anyway? + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WITH ROSALIND IN ARDEN + + +Of course it is understood that every graduating class rightfully +asserts, and is backed up in its belief by doting and nobly partisan +relatives and blindly devoted, hyperbolic friends, that _its_ particular, +unique and proper senior dramatics is the most glorious and unforgettable +performance in all the histrionic annals of the college, a thing to make +Will Shakespeare himself rise and applaud from his high and far off hills +of Paradise. + +Certainly Tony's class knew, past any qualms of doubt, and made no bones +of proclaiming its conviction that there never had been such a wonderful +"As You Like It" and that never, so long as the stars kept their seats in +the heavens and senior classes produced Shakespeare--two practically +synonymous conditions--would there ever be such another Rosalind as Tony +Holiday, so fresh, so spontaneous, so happy in her acting, so +bewitchingly winsome to behold, so boyish, yet so exquisitely feminine in +her doublet and hose, so daring, so dainty, so full of wit and grace and +sparkle, so tender, so merry, so natural, so all-in-all and utterly as +Will himself would have liked his "right Rosalind" to be. + +So the class maintained and so they chanted soon and late, in many keys, +"with a hey and a ho and a hey nonino." And who so bold or malicious, or +age cankered as to dispute the dictum? Is it not youth's privilege to +fling enthusiasm and superlatives to the wind and to deal in glorious +arrogance? + +It must be admitted, however, in due justice, that the class that played +"As You Like It" that year had some grounds on which to base its +pretensions and vain-glory. For had not a great stage manager been +present and applauded until his palms were purple and perspiration +beaded his beak of a nose? Had he not, as the last curtain, descended, +blown his nose, mopped his brow, exclaimed "God bless my soul!" three +times in succession and demanded to be shown without delay into the +presence of Rosalind? + +As we know already, the great stage manager had not come over-willingly +or over-hopefully to Northampton to see Tony Holiday play Rosalind. +Indeed, when it had been first suggested that he do so, he had objected +violently and remarked with conviction that he would "be +da--er--_blessed_ if he would." But he had come and he had been blessed +involuntarily. + +For he had seen something he had not expected to see--a real play, with +real magic to it, such magic as all his cunning stage artifice, all the +studied artistry of his fearfully and wonderfully salaried stellar +attachments somehow missed achieving. He tried afterwards to explain to +Carol Clay, his favorite star, just what the quality of the magic was, +but somehow he could not get it into words. It wasn't exactly wordable +perhaps. It was something that rendered negligible the occasionally +creaking mechanism and crudeness of stage business and rendition; +something compounded of dew and sun and wind, such as could only be found +in a veritable Forest of Arden; something elusive, exquisite, iridescent; +something he had supposed had vanished from the world about the time they +put Pan out of business and stopped up the Pipes of Arcady. It was +enchanting, elemental, genuine Elizabethan, had the spirit of Master +Skylark himself in it. Maybe it was the spirit of youth itself, immortal +youth, playing immortal youth's supreme play? Who knows or can lay finger +upon the secret of the magic? The great stage manager did not and could +not. He only knew that, in spite of himself, he had drunk deep for a +moment of true elixir. + +But as for Rosalind herself that was another matter. Max Hempel was +entirely capable of analyzing his impressions there and correlating them +with the cold hard business on which he had come. Even if the play had +proved a greater bore than he had anticipated, the trip from Broadway to +the Academy of Music would still have been materially worth while. +Antoinette Holiday was a genuine find, authentic star stuff. They hadn't +spoiled her, plastered her over with meaningless mannerisms. She was +virgin material--untrained, with worlds to learn, of course; but with a +spark of the true fire in her--her mother's own daughter, which was the +most promising thing anybody could say of her. + +No wonder Max Hempel had peremptorily demanded to be shown behind the +scenes without an instant's delay. He was almost in a panic lest some +other manager should likewise have gotten wind of this Rosalind and be +lurking in the wings even now to pounce upon his own legitimate prey. He +couldn't quite forget either the tall young man of the afternoon's +encounter, his seatmate up from Springfield. He wasn't exactly afraid, +however, having seen the girl and watched her live Rosalind. The child +had wings and would want to fly far and free with them, unless he was +mightily mistaken in his reading of her. + +Tony was still resplendent in her wedding white, and with her arms full +of roses, when she obeyed the summons to the stage door on being told +that the great manager wished to see her. She came toward him, flushed, +excited, adorably pretty. She laid down her roses and held out her hand, +shy, but perfectly self-possessed. + +"'Well, this is the Forest of Arden,'" she quoted. "It must be or else I +am dreaming. As long as I can remember I have wanted to meet you, and +here you are, right on the edge of the forest." + +He bowed low over her hand and raised it gallantly to his lips. + +"I rather think I am still in Arden myself," he said. "My dear, you have +given me a treat such as I never expected to enjoy again in this world. +You made me forget I knew anything about plays or was seeing one. You +carried me off with you to Arden." + +"Did you really like the play?" begged Tony, shining-eyed at the praise +of the great man. + +"I liked it amazingly and I liked your playing even more amazingly. Is it +true that you are going on the stage?" He had dropped Arden now, gotten +down to what he would have called brass tacks. The difference was in his +voice. Tony sensed it vaguely and was suddenly a little frightened. + +"Why, I--I don't know," she faltered. "I hope so. Sometime." + +"Sometime is never," he snapped. "That won't do." + +The Arden magic was quite gone by this time. He was scowling a little and +thrust out his upper lip in a way Tony did not care for at all. It +occurred to her inconsequentially that he looked a good deal like the +wolf, in the story, who threatened to "huff and puff" until he blew in +the house of the little pigs. She didn't want her house blown in. She +wished Uncle Phil would come. She stooped to gather up her roses as if +they might serve as a barricade between her and the wolf. But suddenly +she forgot her misgivings again, for Max Hempel was saying incredible +things, things which set her imagination agog and her pulses leaping. He +was offering her a small role, a maid's part, in one of his road +companies. + +"Me!" she gasped from behind her roses. + +"You." + +"When?" + +"To-morrow--the day after--next week at the latest. Chances like that +don't go begging long, young lady. Will you take it?" + +"Oh, I wish I could!" sighed Tony. "But I am afraid I can't. Oh, there is +Uncle Phil!" she interrupted herself to exclaim with perceptible relief. + +In a moment Doctor Holiday was with them, his arm around Tony while he +acknowledged the introduction to the stage manager, who eyed him somewhat +uncordially. The two men took each the other's measure. Possibly a spark +of antagonism flashed between them for an instant. Each wanted the lovely +little Rosalind on his own side of the fence, and each suspected the +other of desiring to lure her to the other side if he could. For the +moment however, the advantage was all with the doctor, with his +protecting arm around Tony. + +"Holiday!" muttered Hempel. "There was a Holiday once who married one of +the finest actresses of the American stage--carried her off to nurse his +babies. I never forgave that man. He was a brute." + +Tony stiffened. Her eyes flashed. She drew away from her uncle and +confronted the stage manager angrily. + +"He wasn't a brute, if you mean my father!" she burst out. "My mother was +Laura LaRue." + +"I know it," grinned the manager, thoroughly delighted to have struck +fire. The girl was better even than he had thought. She was magnificent, +angry. "That's why I'm here," he added. "I just offered this young person +a part in a practically all-star cast, touring the West. Do you mind?" he +challenged Doctor Holiday. + +"I should mind her accepting," said the other man tranquilly. "As it is, +I am duly appreciative of the offer. Thank you." + +"What if I told you she had accepted?" the wolf snapped. + +Tony saw the swift shadow cloud her uncle's face and hated the manager +for hurting him like that. + +"I didn't," she protested indignantly. "You know I wouldn't promise +anything without talking to you, Uncle Phil. I told him I couldn't go." + +"But you wanted to," persisted the wolf, bound to get his fangs in +somewhere. + +Tony smiled a little wistfully. + +"I wanted to most awfully," she confessed, patting her uncle's arm to +take the sting out of her admission. "Will you ask me again some day?" +she appealed to the manager. + +He snorted at that. + +"You'll come asking me, young lady, and before long, too. Laura LaRue's +daughter isn't going to settle down to being either a butterfly or a +blue-stocking. You are going on the stage and you know it. No use, +Holiday. You won't be able to hold her back. It's in the blood. You may +be able to dam the tide for a time, but not forever." + +"I don't intend to dam it," said the doctor gravely. "If, when the time +comes, Tony wishes to go on the stage, I shall not try to prevent her. In +fact I shall help her in every way in my power." + +"Uncle Phil!" Tony's voice had a tiny catch in it. She knew her +grandmother would be bitterly opposed to her going on the stage, and had +imagined she would have to win even her uncle over by slow degrees to the +gratifying of this desire of her heart. It had hurt her even to think of +hurting him or going against him in any way--he who was, "father and +mother and a'" to her. Dear Uncle Phil! How he always understood and took +the big, broad viewpoint! + +The manager grunted approval at that. His belligerency waned. + +"Congratulate you, sir. That's spoken like a man of sense. Evidently you +are able to see over the wall farther than most of the witch-ridden New +Englanders I've met. I should like the chance to launch this Rosalind of +yours. But don't make it too far off. Youth is the biggest drawing card +in the world and--the most transient. You have to get in the game early +to get away with it. I'll start her whenever you say--next week--next +month--next year. Guarantee to have her ready to understudy a star in +three months and perhaps a star herself in six. She might jump into the +heavens overnight. Stranger things have happened. What do you say? May I +have an option on the young lady?" + +"That is rather too big a question to settle off hand at midnight. Tony +is barely twenty-two and she has home obligations which will have to be +considered. Her grandmother is old and frail and--a New Englander of the +old school." + +"Too bad," commiserated the manager. "But never mind all that. All I ask +is that you won't let her sign up with anybody else without giving me a +chance first." + +"I think we may safely promise that and thank you. Tony and I both +appreciate that you are doing her a good deal of honor for one small +school girl, eh Tony?" The doctor smiled down at his flushed, starry-eyed +niece. He understood precisely what a big moment it was for her. + +"Oh, I should think so!" sighed Tony. "You are awfully kind, Mr. Hempel. +It is like a wonderful dream--almost too good to be true." + +Both men smiled at that. For youth no dream is quite too extravagant or +incredible to be potentially true. No grim specters of failure and +disillusionment and frustration dog its bright path. All possibilities +are its divine inheritance. + +"Mr. Hempel, did you know my mother?" Tony asked suddenly, with a shadow +of wistfulness in her dark eyes. There were so few people whom she met +that had known her mother. It was as if Laura LaRue had moved in a +different orbit from that of her daughter. It always hurt Tony to feel +that. But here was one who was of her mother's own world. No wonder her +eyes were beseeching as they sought the great manager's. + +He bowed gravely. + +"I knew her very well. She was one of the most beautiful women I have +ever seen--and one of the greatest actresses. Your father was a lucky +man, my dear. Few women would have given up for any man what she gave +up for him." + +"Oh, but--she loved him," explained Laura LaRue's daughter simply. + +Again Hempel nodded. + +"She did," he admitted grimly. After all these years there was no use +admitting that that had been the deepest rub of all, that Laura had loved +Ned Holiday and had never, for even the span of a moment, thought of +caring for himself. "I repeat, your father was a very lucky man--a +damnably lucky one." + +And with that they shook hands and parted. + +It was many months before Tony was to see Max Hempel again and many +waters were to run under the bridge before the meeting came to pass. + +Outside in the car, Ted, Dick and the twins waited the arrival of the +heroine of the evening. The three latter greeted her with a burst of +prideful congratulation; the former, being merely a brother, was +distinctly cross at having been kept waiting so long and did not hesitate +to express his sentiments fully out loud. But Doctor Holiday cut short +his nephew's somewhat ungracious speech by a quiet reminder that the car +was here primarily for Tony's use, and the boy subsided, having no more +to say until, having deposited the occupants of the car at their various +destinations, he announced to his uncle with elaborate carelessness that +he would take the car around to the garage. + +But he did not turn in at the side street where the garage was. Instead +he shot out Elm Street, "hitting her up" at forty. There had been a +reason for his impatience. Ted Holiday had important private business to +transact ere cock crow. + +Tony lay awake a long time that night, dreaming dreams that carried her +far and far into the future, until Rosalind's happy triumph of the +evening almost faded away in the glory of the yet-to-be. It was +characteristic of the girl's stage of development that in all her dreams, +no lovers, much less a possible husband, ever once entered. Tony Holiday +was in love with life and life alone that wonderful June night. As Hempel +had shrewdly perceived she was conscious of having wings and desirous of +flying far and free with them ere she came to pause. + +She did remember, in passing however, how she had caught Dick's eyes +once as he sat in the box near the stage, and how his rapt gaze had +thrilled her to intenser playing of her part. And she remembered how +dear he was afterward in the car when he held her roses and told her +softly what a wonderful, wonderful Rosalind she was. But, on the whole, +Dick, like most of the rest of the people with whom she had held +converse since the curtain went down upon Arden, seemed unimportant and +indistinct, like courtiers and foresters, not specifically named among +the _dramatis personae_, just put in to fill out and make a more +effective stage setting. + +Dick, too, in his room on Greene Street, was wakeful. He sat by the +window far into the night. His heart was heavy within him. The gulf +between him and Tony had suddenly widened immeasureably. She was a real +actress. He hadn't needed a great manager's verdict to teach him that. He +had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, felt it with +his own heart. He had worshiped and adored and been made unutterably sad +and lonely by her dazzling success, glad as he was that it had come to +her. Tony would go on in her shining path. He would always lag behind in +the shadows. They would never come together as long as they both lived. +She had started too far ahead. He could never overtake her. + +If only there were some way of finding out who he was, get some clue as +to his parentage. He only knew that the man they called Jim, who had +kicked and beaten and sworn at him with foul oaths until he could bear it +no longer, was no kin of his, though the other had claimed the authority +to abuse him as he abused his horses and dogs when drink and ugliness +were upon him. If only he could find Jim again after all these years, +perhaps he could manage to get the truth out of him, find out what the +man knew of himself, and how he had come to be in a circus troupe. Yet +after all, perhaps it was better not to know. The facts might separate +him from Tony even more than he was separated by his ignorance of them. +As it was, he started even, with neither honor nor shame bequeathed him +from the past. What he was, he was in himself. And if by any miracle of +fortune Tony ever did come to care for him it would be just himself, +plain Dick, that she would love. He knew that. + +The thought was vaguely comforting and he, too, fell adreaming. Most of +us foiled humans learn to play the game of make-believe and to find such +consolation as we may therein. Often and often in his lonely hours Dick +Carson had summoned Tony Holiday to his side, a Tony as bright and +beautiful and all adorable as the real Tony, but a dream Tony, withal, a +Tony who loved him even as he loved her. And in his make-believe he was +no longer a nameless, impecunious cub reporter, but a man who had arrived +somewhere, made himself worthy, so far as any mere man could, of the +supreme gift of Tony's caring. + +To-night, too, Dick played the game determinedly, but somehow he found +its consolation rather meager, as cold and remote as the sparkle of the +June stars, millions of miles away up there in the velvet sky, after +having sat by the side of the living, breathing Tony and, looking into +her happy eyes, known how little, how very little, he was in her +thoughts. She liked him to be near her, he knew, just as she liked her +roses to be fragrant, but neither the roses nor himself was a vital +necessity to her. She could do very well without either. That was the +pity of it. + +At last he got up and went to bed. Falling into troubled sleep he dreamed +that he and Tony were wandering, hand in hand, in the Forest of Arden. +From afar off came the sound of music, airy voices chanting: + +"When birds do sing, hey ding a ding +Sweet lovers love the spring." + +And then somebody laughed mockingly, like Jacques, and somebody else, +clad in motley like Touchstone, but who seemed to speak in Dick's own +voice, murmured, "Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I." + +And even with these words the forest vanished and Tony with it and the +dreamer was left alone on a steep and dusty road, lost and aching for the +missing touch of her hand. + +But later he woke to the song of a thousand birds greeting the new day +with full-throated joy. And his heart, too, began to sing. For it was +indeed a new day--a day in which he should see Tony. He was irrationally +content. Of such is the kingdom of lad's love! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS + + +In the lee of a huge gray bowlder on the summit of Mount Tom sat +Philip Lambert and Carlotta Cressy. Below them stretched the wide +sweep of the river valley, amethyst and topaz and emerald, rich with +lush June verdure, soft shadowed, tranquil, in the late afternoon +sunshine. They had been silent for a little time but suddenly Carlotta +broke the silence. + +"Phil, do you know why I brought you up here?" she asked. As she spoke +she drew a little closer to him and her hand touched his as softly as a +drifting feather or a blown cherry blossom might have touched it. + +He turned to look at her. She was all in white like a lily, and otherwise +carried out the lily tradition of belonging obviously to the +non-toiling-and-spinning species, justifying the arrangement by looking +seraphically lovely in the fruits of the loom and labor of the rest of +the world. And after all, sheer loveliness is an end in itself. Nobody +expects a flower to give account of itself and flower-like Carlotta was +very, very lovely as she leaned against the granite rock with the valley +at her feet. So Phil Lambert's eyes told her eloquently. The valley was +not the only thing at Carlotta's feet. + +"I labored under the impression that I did the bringing up myself," he +remarked, his hand closing over hers. "However, the point is immaterial. +You are here and I am here. Is there a cosmic reason?" + +"There is." Carlotta's voice was dreamy. She watched a cloud shadow +creep over the green-plumed mountain opposite. "I brought you up here so +that you could propose to me suitably and without interruption." + +"Huh!" ejaculated Phil inelegantly, utterly taken by surprise by +Carlotta's announcement. "Do you mind repeating that? The altitude seems +to have affected my hearing." + +"You heard correctly. I said I brought you up here to propose to me." + +Phil shrugged. + +"Too much 'As You Like It,'" he observed. "These Shakespearean heroines +are a bad lot. May I ask just why you want me to propose to you, my dear? +Do you have to collect a certain number of scalps by this particular rare +day in June? Or is it that you think you would enjoy the exquisite +pleasure of seeing me writhe and wriggle when you refuse me?" + +Phil's tone was carefully light, and he smiled as he asked the questions, +but there was a tight drawn line about his mouth even as he smiled. + +"Through bush, through briar, +Through flood, through fire" + +he had followed the will o' the wisp, Carlotta, for two years now, +against his better judgment and to the undoing of his peace of mind and +heart. And play days were over for Phil Lambert. The work-a-day world +awaited him, a world where there would be neither space nor time for +chasing phantoms, however lovely and alluring. + +"Don't be horrid, Phil. I'm not like that. You know I'm not," denied +Carlotta reproachfully. "I have a surprise for you, Philip, my dear. I am +going to accept you." + +"No!" exclaimed Phil in unfeigned amazement. + +"Yes," declared Carlotta firmly. "I decided it in church this morning +when the man was telling us how fearfully real and earnest life is. Not +that I believe in the real-earnestness. I don't. It's bosh. Life was made +to be happy in and that is why I made up my mind to marry you. You might +manage to look a little bit pleased. Anybody would think you were about +to keep an appointment with a dentist, instead of having the inestimable +privilege of proposing to me with the inside information that I am going +to accept you." + +Phil drew away his hand from hers. His blue eyes were grave. + +"Don't, Carlotta! I am afraid the chap was right about the +real-earnestness. It may be a fine jest to you. It isn't to me. You see I +happen to be in love with you." + +"Of course," murmured Carlotta. "That is quite understood. Did you think +I would have bothered to drag you clear up on a mountain top to propose +to me if I hadn't known you were in love with me and--I with you?" she +added softly. + +"Carlotta! Do you mean it?" Phil's whole heart was in his honest +blue eyes. + +"Of course, I mean it. Foolish! Didn't you know? Would I have tormented +you so all these months if I hadn't cared?" + +"But, Carlotta, sweetheart, I can't believe you are in earnest even now. +Would you marry me really?" + +"_Would_ I? _Will_ I is the verb I brought you up here to use. Mind +your grammar." + +Phil clasped his hands behind him for safe keeping. + +"But I can't ask you to marry me--at least not to-day." + +Carlotta made a dainty little face at him. + +"And why not? Have you any religious scruples about proposing on +Sunday?" + +He grinned absent-mindedly and involuntarily at that. But he shook his +head and his hands stayed behind his back. + +"I can't propose to you because I haven't a red cent in the world--at +least not more than three red cents. I couldn't support an everyday wife +on 'em, not to mention a fairy princess." + +"As if that mattered," dismissed Carlotta airily. "You are in love with +me, aren't you?" + +"Lord help me!" groaned Phil. "You know I am." + +"And I am in love with you--for the present. You had better ask me while +the asking is good. The wind may veer by next week, or even by tomorrow. +There are other young men who do not require to be commanded to propose. +They spurt, automatically and often, like Old Faithful." + +Phil's ingenuous face clouded over. The other young men were no +fabrication, as he knew to his sorrow. He was forever stumbling over them +at Carlotta's careless feet. + +"Don't, Carlotta," he begged again. "You don't have to scare me into +subjection, you know. If I had anything to justify me for asking you to +marry me I'd do it this minute without prompting. You ought to know that. +And you know I'm jealous enough already of the rest of 'em, without your +rubbing it in now." + +"Don't worry, old dear," smiled Carlotta. "I don't care a snap of my +fingers for any of the poor worms, though I wouldn't needlessly set +foot on 'em. As for justifications I have a whole bag of them up my +sleeve ready to spill out like a pack of cards when the time comes. You +don't have to concern yourself in the least about them. Your business +is to propose. 'Come, woo me, woo, me, for now I am in a holiday humor +and like enough to consent'"--she quoted Tony's lines and, leaning +toward him, lifted her flower face close to his. "Shall I count ten?" +she teased. + +"Carlotta, have mercy. You are driving me crazy. Pretty thing it would be +for me to propose to you before I even got my sheepskin. Jolly pleased +your father would be, wouldn't he, to be presented with a jobless, +penniless son-in-law?" + +"Nonsense!" said Carlotta crisply. "It wouldn't matter if you didn't even +have a fig leaf. You wouldn't be either jobless or penniless if you were +his son-in-law. He has pennies enough for all of us and enough jobs for +you, which is quite sufficient unto the day. Don't be stiff and silly, +Phil. And don't set your jaw like that. I hate men who set their jaws. It +isn't at all becoming. I don't say my dear misguided Daddy wouldn't raise +a merry little row just at first. He often raises merry little rows over +things I want to do, but in the end he always comes round to my way of +thinking and wants precisely what I want. Everything will be smooth as +silk, I promise you. I know what I am talking about. I've thought it out +very carefully. I don't make up my mind in a hurry, but when I do decide +what I want I take it." + +"You can't take this," said Philip Lambert. + +Carlotta drew back and stared, her violet eyes very wide open. Never in +all her twenty two years had any man said "can't" to her in that tone. +It was a totally new experience. For a moment she was too astounded even +to be angry. + +"What do you mean?" she asked a little limply. + +"I mean I won't take your father's pennies nor hold down a pseudo-job +I'm not fitted for, even for the sake of being his son-in-law. And I +won't marry you until I am able to support you on the kind of job I am +fitted for." + +"And may I inquire what that is?" demanded Carlotta sharply, recovering +sufficiently to let the thorns she usually kept gracefully concealed +prick out from among the roses. + +Phil laughed shortly. + +"Don't faint, Carlotta. I am eminently fitted to be a village +store-keeper. In fact that is what I shall be in less than two weeks. I +am going into partnership with my father. The new sign _Stuart Lambert +and Son_ is being painted now." + +Carlotta gasped. + +"Phil! You wouldn't. You can't." + +"Oh yes, Carlotta. I not only could and would but I am going to. It has +been understood ever since I first went to college that when I was out +I'd put my shoulder to the wheel beside Dad's. He has been pushing alone +too long as it is. He needs me. You don't know how happy he and Mums are +about it. It is what they have dreamed about and planned, for years. I'm +the only son, you know. It's up to me." + +"But, Phil! It is an awful sacrifice for you." For once Carlotta forgot +herself completely. + +"Not a bit of it. It is a flourishing concern--not just a two-by-four +village shop--a real department store, doing real business and making +real money. Dad built it all up himself, too. He has a right to be proud +of it and I am lucky to be able to step in and enjoy the results of all +his years of hard work. I'm not fooling myself about that. Don't get the +impression I am being a martyr or anything of the sort. I most +distinctly am not." + +Carlotta made a little inarticulate exclamation. Mechanically she counted +the cars of the train which was winding its black, snake-like trail far +down below them in the valley. It hadn't occurred to her that the moon +would be difficult to dislodge. Perhaps Carlotta didn't know much about +moons, after all. + +Phil went on talking earnestly, putting his case before her as best he +might. He owed it to Carlotta to try to make her understand if he could. +He thought that, under all the whimsicalities, it was rather fine of her +to lay down her princess pride and let him see she cared, that she really +wanted him. It made her dearer, harder to resist than ever. If only he +could make her understand! + +"You see I'm not fitted for city life," he explained. "I hate it. I like +to live where everybody has a plot of green grass in front of his house +to set his rocking chair in Sunday afternoons; where people can have +trees that they know as well as they know their own family and don't have +to go to a park to look at 'em; where they can grow tulips and green +peas--and babies, too, if the lord is good to 'em. I want to plant my +roots where people are neighborly and interested in each other as human +beings, not shut away like cave dwellers in apartment houses, not knowing +or caring who is on the other side of the wall. I should get to hating +people if I had to be crowded into a subway with them, day after day, +treading on their toes, and they on mine. Altogether I am afraid I have a +small town mind, sweetheart." + +He smiled at Carlotta as he made the confession, but she did not respond. +Her face gave not the slightest indication as to what was going on in her +mind as he talked. + +"I wouldn't be any good at all in your father's establishment. I've +never wanted to make money on the grand scale. I wouldn't be my father's +son if I did. I couldn't be a banker or a broker if I tried, and I don't +want to try." + +"Not even for the sake of--having me?" Carlotta's voice was as +expressionless as her face. She still watched the train, almost +vanishing from sight now in the far distance, leaving a cloud of ugly +black smoke behind it to mar the lustrous azure of the June sky. + +Phil, too, looked out over the valley. He dared not look at Carlotta. He +was young and very much in love. He wanted Carlotta exceedingly. For a +minute everything blurred before his gaze. It seemed as if he would try +anything, risk anything, give up anything, ride rough shod over anything, +even his own ideals, to gain her. It was a tense moment. He came very +near surrendering and thereby making himself, and Carlotta too, unhappy +forever after. But something stronger held him back. Oddly enough he +seemed to see that sign _Stuart Lambert and Son_ written large all over +the valley. His gaze came back to Carlotta. Their eyes met. The hardness +was gone from the girl's, leaving a wistful tenderness, a sweet +surrender, no man had ever seen there before. A weaker lad would have +capitulated under that wonderful, new look of Carlotta's. It only +strengthened Philip Lambert. It was for her as well as himself. + +"I am sorry, Carlotta," he said. "I couldn't do it, though I'd give you +my heart to cut up into pieces if it could make you happy. Maybe I would +risk it for myself. But I can't go back on my father, even for you." + +"Then you don't love me." Carlotta's rare and lovely tenderness was +burned away on the instant in a quick blaze of anger. + +"Yes I do, dear. It is because I love you that I can't do it. I have to +give you the best of me, not the worst of me. And the best of me belongs +in Dunbury. I wish I could make you understand. And I wish with all my +heart that, since I can't come to you, you could care enough to come to +me. But I am not going to ask it--not now anyway. I haven't the right. +Perhaps in two years time, if you are still free, I shall; but not now. +It wouldn't be fair." + +"Two years from now, and long before, I shall be married," said +Carlotta with a sharp little metallic note in her voice. She was trying +to keep from crying but he did not know that and winced both at her +words and tone. + +"That must be as it will," he answered soberly. "I cannot do any +differently. I would if I could. It--it isn't so easy to give you up. Oh, +Carlotta! I love you." + +And suddenly, unexpectedly to himself and Carlotta, he had her in his +arms and was covering her face with kisses. Carlotta's cheeks flamed. She +was no longer a lily, but a red, red rose. Never in her life had she been +so frightened, so ecstatic. With all her dainty, capricious flirtations +she had always deliberately fenced herself behind barriers. No man had +ever held her or kissed her like this, the embrace and kisses of a lover +to whom she belonged. + +"Phil! Don't, dear--I mean, do, dear--I love you," she whispered. + +But her words brought Phil back to his senses. His arms dropped and he +drew away, ashamed, remorseful. He was no saint. According to his way of +thinking a man might kiss a girl now and then, under impulsion of +moonshine or mischief, but lightly always, like thistledown. A man didn't +kiss a girl as he had just kissed Carlotta unless he had the right to +marry her. It wasn't playing straight. + +"I'm sorry, Carlotta. I didn't mean to," he said miserably. + +"I'm not. I'm glad. I think way down in my heart I've always wanted you +to kiss me, though I didn't know it would be like that. I knew your +kisses would be different, because _you_ are different." + +"How am I different?" Phil's voice was humble. In his own eyes he seemed +pitifully undifferent, precisely like all the other rash, intemperate, +male fools in the world. + +"You are different every way. It would take too long to tell you all of +them, but maybe you are chiefly different because I love you and I don't +love the rest. Except for Daddy. I've never loved anybody but myself +before, and when you kissed me I just seemed to feel my _meness_ going +right out of me, as if I stopped belonging to myself and began to belong +to you forever and ever. It scared me but--I liked it." + +"You darling!" fatuously. "Carlotta, will you marry me?" + +It was out at last--the words she claimed she had brought him up the +mountain to say--the words he had willed not to speak. + +"Of course. Kiss me again, Phil. We'll wire Daddy tomorrow." + +"Wire him what?" The mention of Carlotta's father brought Phil back to +earth with a jolt. + +"That we are engaged and that he is to find a suitable job for you so we +can be married right away," chanted Carlotta happily. + +Phil's rainbow vanished almost as soon as it had appeared in the heavens. +He drew a long breath. + +"Carlotta, I didn't mean that. I can't be engaged to you that way. I +meant--will you marry me when I can afford to have a fairy princess +in my home?" + +Carlotta stared at him, her rainbow, too, fading. + +"You did?" she asked vaguely. "I thought--" + +"I know," groaned Phil. "It was stupid of me--worse than stupid. It +can't be helped now I suppose. The damage is done. Shall we take the next +car down? It is getting late." + +He rose and put out both hands to help her to her feet. For a moment they +stood silent in front of the gray bowlder. The end of the world seemed to +have come for them both. It was like Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses +and all the King's men couldn't restore things to their old state nor +bring back the lost happiness of that one perfect moment when they had +belonged to each other without reservations. Carlotta put out her hand +and touched Philip's. + +"Don't feel too badly, Phil," she said. "As you say, it can't be +helped--nothing can be helped. It just had to be this way. We can't +either of us make ourselves over or change the way we look at things +and want things. I wish I were different for both our sakes. I wish I +were big enough and brave enough and fine enough to say I would marry +you anyway, and stop being a princess. But I don't dare. I know myself +too well. I might think I could do it up here where it is all still and +purple and sweet and sacred. But when we got down to the valley again I +am afraid I couldn't live up to it, nor to you, Philip, my king. +Forgive me." + +Phil bent and kissed her again--not passionately this time, but with a +kind of reverent solemnity as if he were performing a rite. + +"Never mind, sweetheart. I don't blame you any more than you blame me. +We've got to take life as we find it, not try to make it over into +something different to please ourselves. If some day you meet the man who +can make you happy in your way, I'll not grudge him the right. I'm not +sure I shall even envy him. I've had my moment." + +"But Phil, you aren't going to be awfully unhappy about me?" sighed +Carlotta. "Promise you won't. You know I never wanted to hurt the +moon, dear." + +Philip shook his head. + +"Don't worry about the moon. It is a tough old orb. I shan't be too +unhappy. A man has a whole lot of things beside love in his life. I am +not going to let myself be such a fool as to be miserable because things +started out a little differently from what I would like to have them." +His smile was brave but his eyes belied the smile and Carlotta's heart +smote her. + +"You will forget me," she said. It was half a reproach, half a command. + +Again he shook his head in denial. + +"Do you remember the queen who claimed she had Calais stamped on her +heart? Well, open mine a hundred years from now and you'll read +_Carlotta_." + +"But won't you ever marry?" pursued Carlotta with youth's insistence on +probing wounds to the quick. + +"I don't know. Probably," he added honestly. "A man is a poor stick in +this world without a home and kiddies. If I do it will be a long time yet +though. It will be many a year before I see anybody but you, no matter +where I look." + +"But I am horrid--selfish, cowardly, altogether horrid." + +"Are you?" smiled Phil. "I wonder. Anyway I love you. Come on, dear. +We'll have to hurry. The car is nearly due." + +And, as twilight settled down over the valley like a great bird brooding +over its nest, Philip and Carlotta went down from the mountain. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A BOY WHO WASN'T AN ASS BUT BEHAVED LIKE ONE + + +Baccalaureate services being over and the graduates duly exhorted to the +wisdom of the ages, the latter were for a time permitted to alight from +their lofty pedestal in the public eye and to revert temporarily to the +comfortable if less exalted state of being plain every day human girls. + +While Philip and Carlotta went up on the heights fondly believing they +were settling their destinies forever, Tony had been enjoying an +afternoon _en famille_ with her uncle and her brother Ted. + +Suddenly she looked at her watch and sprang up from the arm of her +uncle's chair on which she had been perched, chattering and content, for +a couple of hours. + +"My goodness! It is most four o'clock. Dick will be here in a minute. May +I call up the garage and ask them to send the car around? I'm dying for a +ride. We can go over to South Hadley and get the twins, if you'd like. +I'm sure they must have had enough of Mt. Holyoke by this time." + +"Car's out of commission," grunted Ted from behind his sporting sheet. + +"Out of commission? Since when?" inquired Doctor Holiday. "It was all +right when you took it to the garage last night." + +"I went out for a joy ride and had a smash up," explained his nephew +nonchalantly, and still hidden behind the newspaper. + +"Oh Ted! How could you when you know we want to use the car every +minute?" There was sharp dismay and reproach in Tony's voice. + +"Well, I didn't smash it on purpose, did I?" grumbled her brother, +throwing down the paper. "I'm sorry, Tony. But it can't be helped now. +You'd better be thankful I'm not out of commission myself. Came darn +near being." + +"Oh Ted!" There was only concern and sympathy in his sister's exclamation +this time. Tony adored her brothers. She went over to Ted now, +scrutinizing him as if she half expected to see him minus an arm or a +leg. "You weren't hurt?" she begged reassurance. + +"Nope--nothing to signify. Got some purple patches on my person and a +twist to my wrist, but that's all. I was always a lucky devil. Got more +lives than a cat." + +He was obviously trying to carry matters off lightly, but never once +did he meet his uncle's eyes, though he was quite aware they were +fixed on him. + +Tony sighed and shook her head, troubled. + +"I wish you wouldn't take such risks," she mourned. "Some day you'll get +dreadfully hurt. Please be careful. Uncle Phil," she appealed to the +higher court, "do tell him he mustn't speed so. He won't listen to me." + +"If Ted hasn't learned the folly of speeding by now, I am afraid that +nothing I can say will have much effect. I wonder--" + +Just here the telephone interrupted with an announcement that Mr. +Carson was waiting downstairs. Tony flew from the phone to dab powder +on her nose. + +"Since we can't go riding I think I'll take Dick for a walk in Paradise," +she announced into the mirror. "Will you come, too, Uncle Phil?" + +"No, thank you, dear. Run along and tell Dick we expect him back to +supper with us." + +The doctor held open the door for his niece, then turned back to +Ted, who was also on his feet now, murmuring something about going +out for a stroll. + +"Wait a bit, son. Suppose you tell me first precisely what happened +last night." + +"Did tell you." The boy fumbled sulkily at the leaves of a magazine that +lay on the table. "I took the car out and, when I was speeding like Sam +Hill out on the Florence road, I struck a hole. She stood up on her ear +and pitched u--er--_me_ out in the gutter. Stuck her own nose into a +telephone pole. I telephoned the garage people to go after her this +morning. They told me a while ago she was pretty badly stove up and it +will probably take a couple of weeks to get her in order." The story came +out jerkily and the narrator kept his eyes consistently floorward during +the recital. + +"Is that all?" + +"What more do you want?" curtly. "I said I was sorry, if that is what +you mean." + +"It isn't what I mean, Ted. I assume you didn't deliberately go out to +break my car and that you are not particularly proud of the outcome of +your joy ride. I mean, exactly what I asked. Have you told me the +whole story?" + +Ted was silent, mechanically rolling the corner of the, rug under his +foot. His uncle studied the good-looking, unhappy young face. His mind +worked back to that inadvertent "u--er--_me_" of the confession. + +"Were you alone?" he asked. + +A scarlet flush swept the lad's face, died away, leaving it a +little white. + +"Yes." + +The answer was low but distinct. It was like a knife thrust to the +doctor. In all the eight years in which he had fathered Ned's sons, both +before and since his brother's death, never once to his knowledge had +either one lied to him, even to save himself discomfort, censure or +punishment. With all their boyish vagaries and misdeeds, it had been the +one thing he could count on absolutely, their unflinching, invariable +honesty. Yet, surely as the June sun was shining outside, Ted had lied to +him just now. Why? Rash twenty was too young to go its way unchallenged +and unguided. He was responsible for the lad whose dead father had +committed him to his charge. + +Only a few weeks before his death Ned had written with curious +prescience, "If I go out any time, Phil, I know you will look after the +children as I would myself or better. Keep your eye on Ted especially. +His heart is in the right place, but he has a reckless devil in him that +will bring him and all of us to grief if it isn't laid." + +Doctor Holiday went over and laid a hand on each of the lad's hunched +shoulders. + +"Look at me, Ted," he commanded gently. + +The old habit of obedience strong in spite of his twenty years, Ted +raised his eyes, but dropped them again on the instant as if they were +lead weighted. + +"That is the first time you ever lied to me, I think, lad," said the +doctor quietly. + +A quiver passed over the boy's face, but his lips set tighter than ever +and he pulled away from his uncle's hands and turned, staring out of the +window at a rather dusty and bedraggled looking hydrangea on the lawn. + +"I wonder if it was necessary," the quiet voice continued. "I haven't the +slightest wish to be hard on you. I just want to understand. You know +that, son, don't you?" + +The boy's head went up at that. His gaze deserted the hydrangea, for the +first time that day, met his uncle's, squarely if somewhat miserably. + +"It isn't that, Uncle Phil. You have every right to come down on me. I +hadn't any business to have the car out at all, much less take fool +chances with it. But honestly I have told you all--all I can tell. I did +lie to you just now. I wasn't alone. There was a--a girl with me." + +Ted's face was hot again as he made the confession. + +"I see," mused the doctor. "Was she hurt?" + +"No--that is--not much. She hurt her shoulder some and cut her head a +bit." The details came out reluctantly as if impelled by the doctor's +steady eyes. "She telephoned me today she was all right. It's a miracle +we weren't both killed though. We might have been as easy as anything. +You said just now nothing you could say would make me have sense about +speeding. I guess what happened last night ought to knock sense into me +if anything could. I say, Uncle Phil--" + +"Well?" as the boy paused obviously embarrassed. + +"If you don't mind I'd rather not say anything more about the girl. +She--I guess she'd rather I wouldn't," he wound up confusedly. + +"Very well. That is your affair and hers. Thank you for coming halfway to +meet me. It made it easier all around." + +The doctor held out his hand and the boy took it eagerly. + +"You are great to me, Uncle Phil--lots better than I deserve. Please +don't think I don't see that. And truly I am awfully ashamed of smashing +the car, and not telling you, as I ought to have this morning, and +spoiling Tony's fun and--and everything." Ted swallowed something down +hard as if the "everything" included a good deal. "I don't see why I have +to be always getting into scrapes. Can't seem to help it, somehow. Guess +I was made that way, just as Larry was born steady." + +"That is a spineless jellyfish point of view, Ted. Don't fool yourself +with it. There is no earthly reason why you should keep drifting from one +escapade to another. Get some backbone into you, son." + +Ted's face clouded again at that, though he wasn't sulky this time. He +was remembering some other disagreeable confessions he had to make before +long. He knew this was a good opening for them, but somehow he could not +drive himself to follow it up. He could only digest a limited amount of +humble pie at a time and had already swallowed nearly all he could stand. +Still he skirted warily along the edge of the dilemma. + +"I suppose you think I made an awful ass of myself at college this year," +he averred gloomily. + +"I don't think it. I know it." The doctor's eyes twinkled a little. Then +he grew sober. "Why do you, Ted? You aren't really an ass, you know. If +you were, there might be some excuse for behaving like one." + +Ted flushed. + +"That's what Larry told me last spring when he was pitching into me +about--well about something. I don't know why I do, Uncle Phil, honest I +don't. Maybe it is because I hate college so and all the stale old stuff +they try to cram down our throats. I get so mad and sick and disgusted +with the whole thing that I feel as if I had to do something to offset +it--something that is real and live, even if it isn't according to rules +and regulations. I hate rules and regulations. I'm not a mummy and I +don't want to be made to act as if I were. I'll be a long time dead and I +want to get a whole lot of fun out of life first. I hate studying. I want +to do things, Uncle Phil--" + +"Well?" + +"I don't want to go back to college." + +"What do you want to do?" + +"Join the Canadian forces. It makes me sick to have a war going on and +me not in it. Dad quit college for West Point and everybody thought it +was all right. I don't see why I shouldn't get into it. I wouldn't fall +down on that. I promise you. I'd make you proud of me instead of ashamed +the way you are now." The boy's voice and eyes were unusually earnest. + +His uncle did not answer instantly. He knew that there was some truth in +his nephew's analysis of the situation. It was his uneasy, superabundant +energy and craving for action that made him find the more or less +restricted life of the college, a burden, a bore and an exasperation, and +drove him to crazy escapades and deeds of flagrant lawlessness. He needed +no assurance that the boy would not "fall down" at soldiering. He would +take to it as a duck to water. And the discipline might be the making of +him, prove the way to exorcise the devil. Still there were other +considerations which to him seemed paramount for the time at least. + +"I understand how you feel, Ted," he said at last. "If we get into the +war ourselves I won't say a word against your going. I should expect you +to go. We all would. But in the meantime as I see it you are not quite a +free agent. Granny is old and very, very feeble. She hasn't gotten over +your father's death. She grieves over it still. If you went to war I +think it would kill her. She couldn't bear the strain and anxiety. +Patience, laddie. You don't want to hurt her, do you?" + +"I s'pose not," said Ted a little grudgingly. "Then it is no, +Uncle Phil?" + +"I think it ought to be no of your own will for Granny's sake. We don't +live to ourselves alone in this world. We can't. But aside from Granny I +am not at all certain I should approve of your leaving college just +because it doesn't happen to be exciting enough to meet your fancy and +means work you are too lazy and irresponsible to settle down to doing. +Looks a little like quitting to me and Holidays aren't usually quitters, +you know." + +He smiled at the boy but Ted did not smile back. The thrust about +Holidays and quitters went home. + +"I suppose it has got to be college again if you say so," he said +soberly after a minute. "Thank heaven there are three months ahead clear +though first." + +"To play in?" + +"Well, yes. Why not? It is all right to play in vacation, isn't it?" the +boy retorted, a shade aggressively. + +"Possibly if you have earned the vacation by working beforehand." + +Ted's eyes fell at that. This was dangerously near the ground of those +uncomfortable, inevitable confessions which he meant to put off as long +as possible. + +"Do you mind if I go out now?" he asked with unusual meekness after a +moment's rather awkward silence. + +"No, indeed. Go ahead. I've had my say. Be back for supper with us?" + +"Dunno." And Ted disappeared into the adjoining room which connected with +his uncle's. In a moment he was back, expensive panama hat in one hand +and a lighted cigarette held jauntily in the other. "I meant to tell you +you could take the car repairs out of my allowance," he remarked casually +but with his eye shrewdly on his guardian as he made the announcement. + +"Very well," replied the latter quietly. Then he smiled a little seeing +his nephew's crestfallen expression. "That wasn't just what you wanted me +to say, was it?" he added. + +"Not exactly," admitted the boy with a returning grin. "All right, Uncle +Phil. I'm game. I'll pay up." + +A moment later his uncle heard his whistle as he went down the driveway +apparently as care free as if narrow escapes from death were nothing in +his young life. The doctor shook his head dubiously as he watched him +from the window. He would have felt more dubious still had he seen the +boy board a Florence car a few minutes later on his way to keep a +rendezvous with the girl about whom he had not wished to talk. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WHEN YOUTH MEETS YOUTH + + +Three quarters of an hour later Ted was seated on a log, near a small +rustic bridge, beneath which flowed a limpid, gurgling stream. On a log +beside him sat a girl of perhaps eighteen years, exceedingly handsome +with the flaming kind of beauty like a poppy's, striking to the eye, +shallow-petaled. She was vividly effective against the background of deep +green spruces and white birch in her bright pink dress and large drooping +black hat. Her coloring was brilliant, her lips full, scarlet, ripely +sensuous. Beneath her straight black brows her sparkling, black eyes +gleamed with restless eagerness. An ugly, jagged, still fresh wound +showed beneath a carefully curled fringe of hair on her forehead. + +"I don't like meeting you this way," Ted was saying. "Are you sure your +grandfather would have cut up rough if I had come to the house and called +properly?" + +"You betcher," said his companion promptly. "You don't know grandpa. He's +death on young men. He won't let one come within a mile of me if he can +help it. He'd throw a fit if he knew I was here with you now. We should +worry. What he don't know won't hurt him," she concluded with a toss of +her head. Then, as Ted looked dubious, she added, "You just leave grandpa +to me. If you had had your way you would have spilled the beans by +telephoning me this morning at the wrong time. See how much better I +fixed it. I told him a piece of wood flew up and hit me when I was +chopping kindling before breakfast and that my head ached so I didn't +feel like going to church. Then the minute he was out of the yard I ran +to the 'phone and got you at the hotel. It was perfectly simple that +way--slick as grease. Easiest thing in the world to make a date. We +couldn't have gotten away with it otherwise." + +Ted still looked dubious. The phrase "gotten away with it" jarred. At the +moment he was not particularly proud of their mutual success in "getting +away with it." The girl wasn't his kind. He realized that, now he saw her +for the first time in daylight. + +She had looked all right to him on the train night before last. Indeed he +had been distinctly fascinated by her flashing, gypsy beauty, ready +laughter and quick, keen, half "fresh" repartee when he had started a +casual conversation with her when they chanced to be seat mates from +Holyoke on. + +Casual conversations were apt to turn into casual flirtations with Ted +Holiday. Afterward he wasn't sure whether she had dared him or he had +dared her to plan the midnight joy ride which had so narrowly missed +ending in a tragedy. Anyway it had seemed a jolly lark at the time--a +test of the mettle and mother wit of both of them to "get away with it." + +And she had looked good to him last night when he met her at the +appointed trysting place after "As You Like It." She had come out of the +shadows of the trees behind which she had been lurking, wearing a scarlet +tam-o'-shanter and a long dark cloak, her eyes shining like January +stars. He had liked her nerve in coming out like that to meet him alone +at midnight. He had liked the way she "sassed" him back and put him in +his place, when he had tried impudently enough to kiss her. He had liked +the way she laughed when he asked her if she was afraid to speed, on the +home stretch. It was her laugh that had spurred him on, intoxicated him, +made him send the car leaping faster and still faster, obeying his +reckless will. + +Then the crash had come. It was indeed a miracle that they had not both +been killed. No thanks to the rash young driver that they had not been. +It would be many a day before Ted Holiday would forget that nightmare of +dread and remorse which took possession of him as he pulled himself to +his feet and went over to where the girl's motionless form lay on the +grass, her face dead white, the blood flowing from her forehead. + +Never had he been so thankful for anything in his life as he was when he +saw her bright eyes snap open, and heard her unsteady little giggle as +she murmured, "My, but I thought I was dead, didn't you?" + +Game to her fingertips she had been. Ted acknowledged that, even now that +the glamour had worn off. Never once had she whimpered over her injuries, +never hurled a single word of blame at him for the misadventure that had +come within a hair's breadth of being the last for them both. + +"It wasn't a bit more your fault than mine," she had waived aside his +apologies. "And it was great while it lasted. I wouldn't have missed it +for anything, though I'm glad I'm not dead before I've had a chance to +really live. All I ask is that you won't tell a soul I was out with you. +Grandpa would think I was headed straight for purgatory if he knew." + +"I won't," Ted had promised glibly enough, and had kept his promise even +at the cost of lying to his uncle, a memory which hurt like the +toothache even now. + +But looking at the girl now in her tawdry, inappropriate garb he +suffered a revulsion of feeling. What he had admired in her as good sport +quality seemed cheap now, his own conduct even cheaper. His reaction +against himself was fully as poignant as his reaction against her. He was +suddenly ashamed of his joy ride, ashamed that he had ever wished or +tried to kiss her, ashamed that he had fallen in with her suggestion for +a clandestine meeting this afternoon. + +Possibly Madeline sensed that he was cold to her charms at the moment. +She flashed a shrewd glance at him. + +"You don't like me as well to-day as you did last night," she challenged. + +Caught, Ted tried half-heartedly to make denial, but the effort was +scarcely a success. He had yet to learn the art of lying gracefully +to a lady. + +"You don't," she repeated. "You needn't try to pretend you do. You can't +fool me. You're getting cold feet already. You're remembering I'm +just--just a pick-up." + +Ted winced again at that. He did not like the word "pick-up" either, +though to his shame he hadn't been above the thing itself. + +"Don't talk like that, Madeline. You know I like you. You were immense +last night. Any other girl I know, except my sister Tony, would have had +hysterics and fainting fits and lord knows what else with half the excuse +you had. And you never made a bit of fuss about your head, though it must +have hurt like the deuce. I say, you don't think it is going to leave a +scar, do you?" + +He leaned forward with genuine concern to examine the red wound. + +"I think it is more than likely. Lot you'll care, Ted Holiday. You'll +never come back to see whether it leaves a scar or not. See that bee over +there nosing around that elderberry. Think he'll come back next week? +Not much. I know your kind," scornfully. + +That bit into the lad's complacency. + +"Of course, I care and of course, I'll come back," he protested, though a +moment before he had had not the slightest wish or purpose to see her +again, rather to the contrary. + +"To see whether there is a scar?" + +"To see you," he played up gallantly. + +Her hard young face softened. + +"Will you, honest, Ted Holiday? Will you come back?" + +She put out her hand and touched his. Her eyes were suddenly wistful, +gentle, beseeching. + +"Sure I'll come back. Why wouldn't I?" The touch of her hand, the new +softness, almost pathos of her mood touched him, appealed to the chivalry +always latent in a Holiday. + +He heard her breath come quickly, saw her full bosom heave, felt the warm +pressure of her hand. He wanted to put his arm around her but he did not +follow the impulse. The code of Holiday "noblesse oblige" was operating. + +"I wish I could believe that," Madeline sighed, looking down into the +water which whirled and eddied in white foam and splash over the rocks. +"I'd like to think you really wanted to come--really cared about seeing +me again. I know I'm not your kind." + +He started involuntarily at her voicing unexpectedly his own +recent thought. + +"Oh, you needn't be surprised," she threw at him half angrily. "Don't you +suppose I know that better than you do. Don't you suppose I know what the +girls you are used to look like? Well, I do. I've watched 'em, on the +street, on the campus, in church, everywhere. I've even seen your sister +and watched her, too. Somebody pointed her out to me once when she had +made a hit in a play and I've seen her at Glee Club concerts and at +vespers in the choir. She is lovely--lovely the way I'd like to be. It +isn't that she's any prettier. She isn't. It's just that she's +different--acts different--looks different--dresses different from me. I +can't make myself like her and the rest, no matter how I try. And I do +try. You don't know how hard I try. I got this dress because I saw your +sister Tony wearing a pink dress once. I thought maybe it would make me +look more like her. But it doesn't. It makes me look more _not_ like her +than ever, doesn't it?" she appealed rather disconcertingly. "It's +horrid. I hate it." + +"I don't know much about girls' dresses," said Ted. "But, now you speak +of it, maybe it would be prettier if it were a little--" he paused for a +word--"quieter," he decided on. "Do you ever wear white? Tony wears it a +lot and I think she looks nice in it." + +"I've got a white dress. I thought about putting it on to-day. But +somehow it didn't look quite nice enough. I thought--well, I thought I +looked handsomer in the pink. I wanted to look pretty--for you." The last +was very low--scarcely audible. + +"You look good to me all right," said the boy heartily and he meant it. +He thought she looked prettier at the moment than she had looked at any +time since he had made her acquaintance. + +Perhaps he was right. She had laid aside for once her mask of hard +boldness and was just a simple, humble, rather pathetic little girl, +voicing secret aspirations toward a fineness life had denied her. + +"I say, Madeline," Ted went on. "You don't--meet other chaps the way you +met me to-day, do you?" Set the blind to lead the blind! If there was +anything absurd in scapegrace Ted's turning mentor he was unconscious of +the absurdity, was exceedingly in earnest. + +"What's that to you?" She snapped the mask back into place. + +"Nothing--that is--I wouldn't--that's all." + +She laughed shrilly. + +"You're a pretty one to talk," she scoffed. + +Ted flushed. + +"I know I am. See here, Madeline. You're dead right. I ought not to +have taken you out last night. I ought not to have let you meet me +here to-day." + +"I made you--I made you do both those things." + +Ted shook his head at that. + +"A man's to blame always," he asserted. + +"No, he isn't," denied Madeline. "A girl's to blame always." + +They stared at each other a moment while the brook tinkled through the +silence. Then they both laughed at the solemnity of their contradictions. + +"But there isn't a bit of harm done," went on Madeline. "You see, I knew +that first night on the train that you were a gentleman." + +"Some gentlemen are rotters," said Ted Holiday, with a wisdom beyond his +twenty years. + +"But you are not." + +"No, I'm not; but some other chap might be. That is why I wish you would +promise not to go in for this sort of thing." + +"With anybody but you," she stipulated. + +"Not with anybody at all," corrected Ted soberly, remembering his own +recent restrained impulse to put his arm around her. + +"Well, I don't want to--at least not with anybody but you. I never did it +before with anybody. Honest, Ted, I never did." + +"That's good. I felt sure that you hadn't." + +"Why?" + +He grinned sheepishly and stooped to break off a dry twig from a +nearby bush. + +"By the way you didn't let me kiss you," he admitted. "A fellow likes +that in a girl. Did you know it?" He tossed away the twig and looked back +at the girl as he asked the question. + +"I thought they liked--the other thing." + +"They do and they don't," said Ted, his paradox again betraying a +scarcely to be expected wisdom. "But that is neither here nor there. What +I started out to say was that I'm glad you don't make a practice of this +pick-up business. It--it's no good," he summed up. + +"I know." Madeline nodded understanding of the import of his warning. She +was far too handsome and too prematurely developed physically to be +devoid of experience of the ways of the opposite sex. Like Ophelia she +knew there were tricks in the world and she liked frank Ted Holiday the +better for reminding her of them. "I won't do it," she promised. "That +is, unless you don't ever come back yourself. I don't know what I'll do +then--something awful, maybe." + +"I'll come fast enough. I'll come to-morrow." he added obeying a sudden +impulse, Ted fashion. + +"Will you?" The girl's face flushed with delight. "When?" + +"To-morrow afternoon. I can't dodge the ivy stuff in the morning. Will +four o'clock do all right?" + +"Yes. Come here to this same place." + +"I say, Madeline, can't I come to the house? I hate doing it like this." + +"No, you can't. If you want to see me you'll have to do it this way. It's +lots nicer here than in the house, anyway." + +Ted acquiesced, since he had no choice, and rose, announcing that it was +time to go now. + +"We don't have to go yet. I told Grandpa I was going to spend the +evening with my friend, Linda Bates. He won't know. We can stay as long +as we like." + +"I am afraid we can't," said Ted decidedly. "Come on, my lady." He held +out both hands and Madeline let him draw her to her feet, though she was +pouting a little at his gainsaying of her wishes. + +"You may kiss me now," she said suddenly, lifting her face to his. + +But Ted backed away. The code was still on. A girl of his own kind he +would have kissed in a moment at such provocation, or none. But he had +an odd feeling of needing to protect this girl from herself as well as +from himself. + +"You had more sense than I did last night. Let's follow your lead instead +of mine," he said. "It's better." + +"But Ted, you will come to-morrow?" she pleaded. "You won't forget or go +back on your promise?" + +"Of course, I'll come," promised Ted again readily. + +Five minutes later they parted, he to take his car, and she to stroll in +the opposite direction toward her friend Linda's house. + +"He is a dear," she thought. "I'm glad he wouldn't kiss me, so there," +she said aloud to a dusty daisy that peered up at her rather mockingly +from the gutter. + +An automobile horn honked behind her. She stepped aside, but the +car stopped. + +"Well, here is luck. Where are you going, my pretty maid?" called a gay, +bold voice. + +She turned. The speaker was one Willis Hubbard, an automobile agent by +profession, lady's man and general Lothario by avocation. His handsome +dark face stood out clearly in the dusk. She could see the avid shine in +his eyes. She hated him all of a sudden, though hitherto she had secretly +rather admired him, though she had always steadily refused his +invitations. + +For Madeline was wary. She knew how other girls had gone out with Willis +in his smart car and come back to give rather sketchy accounts of the +evening's pleasure jaunt. Her friend Linda had tried it once and remarked +later that Willis was some speed and that Madeline had the right hunch to +keep away from him. + +But it happened that Madeline Taylor was the particular peach that Willis +Hubbard hankered after. He didn't like them too easy, ready to drop from +the bough at the first touch. All the same, he meant to have his way in +the end with Madeline. He had an excellent opinion of his powers as a +conquering male. He had, alas, plenty of data to warrant it in his +relations with the fair and sometimes weak sex. + +"What's your hurry, dearie?" he asked now. "Come on for a spin. It's the +pink of the evening." + +But she thanked him stiffly and refused, remembering Ted Holiday's honest +blue eyes. + +"What are you so almighty prunes and prisms for, all of a sudden? It's +the wrong game to play with a man, I can tell you, if you want to have a +good time in the world. I say, Maidie, be a good girl and come out with +me to-morrow night. We'll have dinner somewhere and dance and make a +night of it. Say yes, you beauty. A girl like you oughtn't to stay cooped +up at home forever. It's against nature." + +But again Madeline refused and moved away with dignity. + +"Your grandfather will never know. You can plan to stay with Linda +afterward. I'll meet you by the sycamore tree just beyond the Bates' +place at eight sharp--give you the best time you ever had in your life. +Believe me, I'm some little spender when I get to going." + +"No, thank you, Mr. Hubbard. I tell you I can't go." + +He stared at the finality of her manner. He had no means of knowing that +he was being measured up, to his infinite disadvantage, with a blue eyed +lad who had stirred something in the girl before him that he himself +could never have roused in a thousand years. But he did know he was being +snubbed and the knowledge disturbed his fond conceit of self. + +"Highty tighty with your 'Mr. Hubbards'! You will sing another tune by +to-morrow night. I'll wait at the sycamore and you'll be there. See if +you won't. You're no fool, Maidie. You want a good time and you know I'm +the boy to give it to you. So long! See you to-morrow night." He started +his motor, kissed his hand impudently to her and was off down the road, +leaving Madeline to follow slowly, in his dust. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A SHADOW ON THE PATH + + +Across the campus the ivy procession wound its lovely length, flanked by +rainbow clad Junior ushers immensely conscious of themselves and their +importance as they bore the looped laurel chains between which walked the +even more important Seniors, all in white and each bearing an American +Beauty rose before her proudly, like a wand of youth. + +At the head of the procession, as president of the class, walked +Antoinette Holiday, a little lady of quality, as none who saw her could +have helped recognizing. Her uncle, watching the procession from the +steps of a campus house, smiled and sighed as he beheld her. She was so +young, so blithe-hearted, so untouched by the sad and sordid things of +life. If only he could keep her so for a little, preserve the shining +splendor of her shield of innocent young joy. But, even as he thought, he +knew the folly of his wish. Tony would be the last to desire to have life +tempered or kept from her. She would want to drain the whole cup, bitter, +sweet and all. + +Farther back in the procession was Carlotta, looking as heavenly fair and +ethereal as if she had that morning been wafted down from the skies. Out +of the crowd Phil Lambert's eyes met hers and smiled. Very sensibly and +modernly these two had decided to remain the best of friends since fate +prevented their being lovers. But Phil's eyes were rather more than +friendly, resting on Carlotta, and, underneath the diaphanous, exquisite +white cloud of a gown that she wore, Carlotta's heart beat a little +faster for what she saw in his face. The hand that held her rose trembled +ever so slightly as she smiled bravely back at him. She could not forget +those "very different" kisses of his, nor, with all the will in the +world, could she go back to where she was before she went up the mountain +and came down again in the purple dusk. She knew she had to get used to a +strange, new world, a world without Philip Lambert, a rather empty world, +it seemed. She wondered if this new world would give her anything so +wonderful and sweet as this thing that she had by her own act +surrendered. Almost she thought not. + +Ted, standing beside his uncle, watching the procession, suddenly heard a +familiar whistle, a signal dating back to Holiday Hill days, as +unmistakable as the Star Spangled Banner itself, though who should be +using it here and why was a mystery. In a moment his roving gaze +discovered the solution. Standing upon a slight elevation on the campus +opposite he perceived Dick Carson. The latter beckoned peremptorily. Ted +wriggled out of the group, descended with one leap over the rail to the +lawn, and made his way to where the other youth waited. + +"What in Sam Hill's chewing you?" he demanded upon arrival. "You've made +me quit the only spot I've struck to-day where I had room to stand on my +own feet and see anything at the same time." + +"I say, Ted, what train was Larry coming on?" counterquestioned Dick. + +"Chicago Overland. Why?" + +"Are you sure?" + +"Of course I am sure. He wired Tony. What in thunder are you driving at? +Get it out for Pete's sake?" + +"The Chicago Overland smashed into a freight somewhere near Pittsburgh +this morning. There were hundreds of people killed. Oh, Lord, Ted! I +didn't mean to break it to you like that." Dick was aghast at his own +clumsiness as Ted leaned against the brick wall of the college building, +his face white as chalk. "I wasn't thinking--guess I wasn't thinking +about much of anything except Tony," he added. + +Ted groaned. + +"Don't wonder," he muttered. "Let's not let her get wind of it till we +have to. Are you sure there--there isn't any mistake?" Ted put up his +hand to brush back a refractory lock of hair and found his forehead wet +with cold perspiration. "There's got to be a mistake. Larry--I won't +believe it, so there!" + +"You don't have to believe it till you know. Even if he was on the train +it doesn't mean he is hurt." Dick would not name the harsher possibility +to Larry Holiday's brother. + +"Of course, it doesn't," snapped Ted. "I say, Dick, is it in the +papers yet?" + +"No, it will be in an hour though, as soon as the evening editions get +out." + +"Good! Dick, it's up to you to keep Tony from knowing. She is going to +sing in the concert at five. That will keep her occupied until six. But +from now till then nix on the news. Take her out on the fool pond, walk +her up Sunset Hill, quarrel with her, make love to her, anything, so she +won't guess. I don't dare go near her. I'd give it away in a minute, I'm +such an idiot. Besides I can't think of anything but Larry. Gee!" The boy +swept his hand across his eyes. "Last time I saw him I consigned him to +the devil because he told me some perfectly true things about myself and +tried to give me some perfectly sound advice. And now--I'm damned if I +believe it. Larry is all right. He's got to be," fiercely. + +"Of course, he is," soothed Dick. "And I'll try to do as you say about +Tony. I'm not much of an actor, but I guess I can carry it through +for--for her sake." + +The little break in the speaker's voice made Ted turn quickly and stare +at the other youth. + +"Dick, old chap, is it like that with you? I didn't know." + +Ted's hand went out and held the other's in a cordial grip. + +"Nobody knows. I--I didn't mean to show it then. It's no good. I know +that naturally." + +"I'm not so sure about that. I know one member of the family that would +be mighty proud to have you for a brother." + +The obvious ring of sincerity touched Dick. It was a good deal coming +from a Holiday. + +"Thank you, Ted. That means a lot, I can tell you. I'll never forget your +saying it like that. You won't give me away, I know." + +"Sure not, old man. Tony is way up in the clouds just now, anyway. We are +all mostly ants in our minor ant hills so far as she is concerned. Gee! I +hope it isn't this thing about Larry that is going to pull her down to +earth. If anything had to happen to any of us why couldn't it have been +me instead of Larry. He is worth ten of me." + +"We don't know that anything has happened to Larry yet," Dick reminded. +"I say, Ted, they must have got the ivy planted. Everybody's coming back. +Tony is lunching with me at Boyden's right away, and I'll see that she +has her hands full until it is time for the concert. You warn Miss +Carlotta, so she'll be on guard after I surrender her. I'm afraid you +will have to tell your uncle." + +"I will. Trot on, old man, and waylay Tony. I'll make a mess of things +sure as preaching if I run into her now." + +Tony thought she had never known Dick to be so entertaining or talkative +as he was during that luncheon hour. He regaled her with all kinds of +newspaper yarns and related some of his own once semi-tragic but now +humorous misadventures of his early cub days. He talked, too, on current +events and world history, talked well, with the quiet poise and +assurance of the reader and thinker, the man who has kept his eyes and +ears open to life. + +It was a revelation to Tony. For once their respective roles were +reversed, he the talker, she the listener. + +"Goodness me, Dick!" she exclaimed during a pause in what had become +almost a monologue. "Why haven't you ever talked like this before? I +always thought I had to do it all and here you talk better than I ever +thought of doing because you have something to say and mine is just +chatter and nonsense." + +He smiled at that. + +"I love your chatter. But you are tired to-day and it is my turn. Do you +know what we are going to do after luncheon?" + +"No, what?" + +"We are going to take a canoe out on your Paradise and get into a shady +spot somewhere along the bank and you will lean back against a whole lot +of becoming cushions and put up that red parasol of yours so nobody but +me can see your face and then--" + +"Dicky! Dicky! Whatever is in you to-day? Paradise, pillows and parasols +are familiar symptoms. You will be making love to me next." + +"I might, at that," murmured Dick. "But you did not hear the rest of +my proposition. And then--I shall read you a story--a story that I +wrote myself." + +"Dick!" Tony nearly upset her glass of iced tea in her amazement at this +unexpected announcement. "You don't mean you have really and truly +written a story!" + +"Honest to goodness--such as it is. Please to remember it is my maiden +effort and make a margin of allowance. But I want your criticism, +too--all the benefit of your superior academic training." + +"Superior academic bosh!" scoffed Tony. "I'll bet it is a corking +story," she added unacademically. "Come on. Let's go, quick. I can't +wait to hear it." + +Nothing loath to get away speedily before the newsboys began to cry the +accident through the streets, Dick escorted his pretty companion back to +the campus and on to Paradise, at which point they took a canoe and, +finally selecting a shady point under an over-reaching sycamore tree, +drifted in to shore where Tony leaned against the cushions, tilted her +parasol as specified at the angle which forbade any but Dick to see her +charming, expressive young face and commanded him to "shoot." + +Dick shot. Tony listened intently, watching his face as he read, feeling +as if this were a new Dick--a Dick she did not know at all, albeit a most +interesting person. + +"Why Dick Carson!" she exclaimed when he finished. "It is great--a real +story with real laughter and tears in it. I love it. It is so--so human." + +The author flushed and fidgeted and protested that it wasn't much--just a +sketch done from life with a very little dressing up and polishing down. + +"I have a lot more of them in my head, though," he added. "And I'm +going to grind them out as soon as I get time. I wish I had a bigger +vocabulary and knew more about the technical end of the writing game. +I am going to learn, though--going to take some night work at the +University next fall. Maybe I'll catch up a little yet if I keep +pegging away." + +"Catch up! Dick, you make me so ashamed. Here Larry and Ted and I have +had everything done for us all our lives and we've slipped along with the +current, following the line of least resistance. And you have had +everything to contend with and you are way ahead of the rest of us +already. But why didn't you tell me before about the story? I think you +might have, Dicky. You know I would be interested," reproachfully. + +"I--I wasn't talking much about it to anybody till I knew it was any +good. But I--just took a notion to read it to you to-day. That's all." + +It wasn't all, but he wanted Tony to think it was. Not for anything would +he have betrayed how reading the story was a desperate expedient to keep +her diverted and safe from news of the disaster on the Overland. + +He escorted Tony back to the campus house at the latest possible moment +and Carlotta, in the secret, pretended to upbraid her roommate for her +tardiness and flew about helping her to get dressed, talking +continuously the while and keeping a sharp eye on the door lest some +intruder burst in and say the very thing Tony Holiday must not be +permitted to hear. It would be so ridiculously easy for somebody to ask, +"Oh, did you hear about the awful wreck on the Overland?" and then the +fat would be in the fire. + +But, thanks to Carlotta, nobody had a chance to say it and later Tony +Holiday, standing in the twilight in front of College Hall's steps, sang +her solo, Gounod's beautiful Ave Maria, smiled happily down into the +faces of the dear folks from her beloved Hill and only regretted that +Larry was not there with the rest--Larry who, for all the others knew, +might never come again. + +After dinner Ted rushed off again to the telegraph office which he had +been haunting all the afternoon to see if any word had come from his +brother, and Doctor Holiday went on up to the campus to escort his niece +to the informal hop. He had decided to go on just as if nothing was +wrong. If Larry was safe then there was no need of clouding Tony's joy, +and if he wasn't--well, there would be time enough to grieve when they +knew. By virtue of his being a grave and reverend uncle he was admitted +to the sacred precincts of his niece's room and had hardly gotten seated +when the door flew open and Ted flew in waving two yellow telegraph +blanks triumphantly, one in each hand, and announcing that everything was +all right--Larry was all right, had wired from Pittsburgh. + +Before Tony had a chance to demand what it was all about the door opened +again and a righteously indignant house mother appeared on the threshold, +demanding by what right an unauthorized male had gone up her stairway and +entered a girl's room, without permission or escort. + +"I apologize," beamed Ted with his most engaging smile. "Come on outside, +Mrs. Maynerd and I'll tell you all about it." And tucking his arm in hers +the irrepressible youth conveyed the angry personage out into the hall, +leaving his uncle to explain the situation to Tony. + +In a moment he was back triumphant. + +"She says I may stay since I'm here, and Uncle Phil is here to play +dragon," he announced. "She thought at first Carlotta would have to be +expunged to make it legal, but I overruled her, told her you and I had +played tiddle-de-winks with each other in our cradles," he added with an +impish grin at his sister's roommate. "Of course I never laid eyes on +you till two years ago, but that doesn't matter. I have a true +tiddle-de-winks feeling for you, anyway, and that is what counts, isn't +it, sweetness?" + +Carlotta laughed and averred that she was going to expunge herself anyway +as Phil was waiting for her downstairs. She picked up a turquoise satin +mandarin cloak from the chair and Ted sprang to put it around her bare +shoulders, stooping to kiss the tip of her ear as he finished. + +"Lucky Phil!" he murmured. + +Carlotta shook her head at him and went over to Tony, over whom she bent +for an instant with unusual feeling in her lovely eyes. + +"Oh, my dear," she whispered. "I wish I could tell you how I feel. I'm so +glad--so glad." And then she was gone before Tony could answer. + +"Oh me!" she sighed. "She has been so wonderful. You all have. Ted--Uncle +Phil! Come over here. I want to hold you tight." + +And, with her brother on one side of her and her uncle on the other, Tony +gave a hand to each and for a moment no one spoke. Then Ted produced his +telegrams one of which was addressed to Tony and one to her uncle. Both +announced the young doctor's safety. "Staying over in Pittsburgh. Letter +follows," was in the doctor's message. "Sorry can't make commencement. +Love and congratulations," was in Tony's. + +"There, didn't I tell you he was all right?" demanded Ted, as if his +brother's safety were due to his own remarkably good management of the +affair. "Gee! Tony! If you knew how I felt when Dick told me this +morning. I pretty nearly disgraced myself by toppling over, just like a +girl, on the campus. Lord! It was fierce." + +"I know." Tony squeezed his hand sympathetically. "And Dick--why Dick +must have kept me out in Paradise on purpose." + +"Sure he did. Dick's a jim dandy and don't you forget it." + +"I shan't," said Tony, her eyes a little misty, remembering how Dick had +fought all day to keep her care-free happiness intact. "I don't know +whether to be angry at you all for keeping it from me or to fall on your +necks and weep because you were all so dear not to tell me. And oh! If +anything had happened to Larry! I don't see how I could have stood it. It +makes us all seem awfully near, doesn't it?" + +"You bet!" agreed Ted with more fervor than elegance. "If the old chap +had been done for I'd have felt like making for the river, myself. Funny, +now the scare is over and he is all safe, I shall probably cuss him out +as hard as ever next time he tries to preach at me." + +"You had better listen to him instead. Larry is apt to be right and you +are apt to be wrong, and you know it." + +"Maybe it is because I do know it and because he is so devilish right +that I damn him," observed the youngest Holiday sagely, his eyes meeting +his uncle's over his sister's head. + +It wasn't until he had danced and flirted and made merry for three +consecutive hours at the hop, and proposed in the exuberance of his mood +to at least three different charmers whose names he had forgotten by the +next day, that Ted Holiday remembered Madeline and his promise to keep +tryst with her that afternoon. Other things of more moment had swept her +clean from his mind. + +"Thunder!" he muttered to himself. "Wonder what she is thinking when I +swore by all that was holy to come. Oh well; I should worry. I couldn't +help it. I'll write and explain how it happened." + +So said, so done. He scribbled off a hasty note of explanation and +apology which he signed "Yours devotedly, Ted Holiday" and went out to +the corner mail box to dispatch the same so it would go out in the +early morning collection, and prepared to dismiss the matter from his +mind again. + +Coming back into his room he found his uncle standing on the threshold. + +"Had to get a letter off," murmured the young man as his uncle looked +inquiring. He turned to light a cigarette with an air of determined +casualness. He didn't care to have Uncle Phil know any more about the +Madeline affair. + +"It must have been important." + +"Was," curtly. "Did you think I was joy riding again?" + +"No, I heard you stirring and thought you might be sick. I haven't been +able to get to sleep myself." + +Seeing how utterly worn out his uncle looked, Ted's resentment took +quick, shamed flight. Poor Uncle Phil! He never spared himself, always +bore the brunt of everything for them all. And here he himself had just +snapped like a cur because he suspected his guardian of desiring to +interfere with his high and mighty private business. + +"Too bad," he said. "Wish you'd smoke, Uncle Phil. It's great to cool off +your nerves. Honest it is! Have one?" He held out his case. + +Doctor Holiday smiled at that, though he declined the proffered weed. He +understood very well that the boy was making tacit amends for his +ungraciousness of a moment before. + +"No, I'll get to sleep presently. It has been rather a wearing day." + +"Should say it had been. I hope Aunt Margery doesn't know about the +wreck. She'll worry, if she knew Larry was coming east." + +"I wired her this evening. I didn't want to take any chance of her +thinking he was in the smash." + +Ted laid down his cigarette. + +"You never forget anybody do you, Uncle Phil?" he said rather +soberly for him. + +"I never forget Margery. She is a very part of myself, lad." + +And when he was alone Ted pondered over that last speech of his uncle's. +He wondered if there would ever be a Margery for him, and, if so, what +she would think of the Madelines if she knew of them. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DEVELOPMENTS BY MAIL + + +After the family had reassembled on the Hill the promised letter from +Larry arrived. He was staying on so long as his services were needed. The +enormous number of victims of the wreck had strained to the uttermost the +city's supply of doctors and nurses, and there was more than enough work +for all. The writer spared them the details of the wreck so far as +possible; indeed, evidently was not anxious to relive the horrors on his +own account. He mentioned a few of the many sad cases only. One of these +was the instant death of a famous surgeon whose loss to the world seemed +tragic and pitifully wasteful to the young doctor. Another was the +crushing to death of a young mother who, with her two children, had been +happily on their way to meet the husband who had been in South America +for a year. Larry had made friends with her on the train and played with +the babies who reminded him of his small cousins, Eric and Hester, Doctor +Philip's children. + +A third case he went into more fully, that of a young woman--just a mere +girl in appearance though she wore a wedding ring--who had received a +terrible blow on the base of her brain which had driven out memory +entirely. She did not know who she was, where she was going, or whence +she had come. Her physical injuries, otherwise, were not serious, a +broken arm and some bad bruises, nothing but what she would easily +recover from in a short time; but, for all her effort, the past remained +as something on the other side of a strange, blank wall. + +"She tries pitifully hard to remember, and is so sweet and brave we are +all devoted to her. I always stop and talk to her when I go by her. She +seems to cling to me, rather, as if I could help her get things back. +Lord knows I wish I could. She is too dainty and fragile a morsel of +humanity to be left to fight such a thing alone. She is a regular little +Dresden shepherdess, with the tiniest feet and hands and the yellowest +hair and bluest eyes I ever saw. Her husband must be about crazy, poor +chap, not hearing from her. I suppose he will be turning up soon to claim +her. I hope so. I don't know what will become of her if he does not. + +"It is late and I must turn in. I don't know when I shall get home. I +don't flatter myself Dunbury will miss me much when it has you. Give +everybody my love and tell Tony I am awfully sorry I couldn't get to +commencement. I guess maybe she is glad enough to have me alive not to +mind much. I'm some glad to be alive myself." + +The letter ended with affectionate greetings to the older doctor from his +nephew and junior assistant. With it came another epistle from the same +city from an old doctor friend who had watched Philip Holiday, himself, +grow up, and had immediately set his eye on the younger Holiday, when he +had discovered the relationship. + +"You have a lad to be proud of in that Larry of yours," he wrote. "He is +on the job early and late, no smart Alecness, no shirking, no fool +questions, just there on the spot when you want him with cool head, +steady nerves and a hand as gentle as a woman's. I like his quality, +Phil. Quality shows up at a time like this. He is true Holiday, through +and through, and you can tell him I said so when you see him." + +The doctor smiled, well pleased at this tribute to Ned's son and this +letter, like Larry's, he handed to his wife Margery to read. + +The thirties had touched "Miss Margery" lightly. She was still slim and +girlish-looking. In her simple gown of that forgetmenot blue shade which +her husband particularly loved she seemed scarcely older than she had on +that day, some eight years earlier, when he had found her giving a Fourth +of July party to the Hill youngsters, and had begun to lose his heart to +her then and there. It was not by shedding care and responsibility, +however, that she had kept her youth. It was by no means the easiest +thing in the world to be a busy doctor's wife, the mother of two lively +children and faithful daughter to an invalid and rather "difficult" +mother-in-law, as well as to care for a big house and an elastic +household, which in vacation time included Ned Holiday's children and +their friends. Needless to say she did not do any painting these days. +But there is more than one way of being an artist, and of the art of +simple, lovely, human living Margery Holiday was past mistress. + +"Doesn't sound much like 'Lazy Larry' these days, does it?" she +commented, giving the letters back to her husband. "I know you are proud +of Doctor Fenton's letter, Phil. You ought to be. It is more than a +little due to you that Larry is what he is." + +"We are advertised by our loving wives," he misquoted teasingly. "I have +always observed that the things we approve of in the younger generation +are the fruit of seeds we planted. The things we disapprove of slipped in +inadvertedly like weeds." + +The same mail that brought Larry's letter brought one also to Ted from +Madeline Taylor, a letter which made him wriggle a little internally, +and pull his forelock, as was his habit when things were a bit +perturbing. + +Madeline had gone to bed that Sunday night after her meeting with Ted in +the woods, full of the happiest kind of anticipations and shy, foolish, +impossible dreams. Her mind told her it was the rankest of nonsense to +dream about Ted Holiday, but her heart would do it. She knew the affair +with Ted had begun wrong, but she couldn't help hoping it would come out +beautifully right. She couldn't help making believe she had found her +prince, a bonny laddie who liked her well enough to play straight with +her and to come again to see her. + +She meant to try so hard, so very hard, to make herself into the kind of +girl he was used to and liked. She cut out the picture of Tony Holiday +that Max Hempel and Dick Carson had studied that day on the train. She +studied it even harder and hid it away among her very special treasures +where she could take it out and look at it often and use it as a model. +She even snatched her hitherto precious earrings from their pink cotton +resting place and hurled them as far as she could into the night. She was +very sure Tony Holiday did not wear earrings, and she was even surer she +had seen Ted's eyes resting disapprovingly on hers. The earrings had to +go. They had gone. + +The next afternoon she had waited for a while patiently by the brook. The +distant clock struck the half hour, the three quarters, the full hour. No +Ted Holiday. By this time her patience had long since evaporated and now +blazed into blind rage. Ted had forgotten his promise, if indeed he had +ever meant to keep it. He was with those other girls--his kind. Maybe he +was laughing at her, telling them how "easy" she had been, how gullible. +No, he wouldn't! He would be ashamed to admit he had had anything to do +with her. Men did not boast of their conquest of one kind of girl to +another. She had read enough fiction to know that. + +In any case she hated Ted Holiday with a fine fury of resentment. She +wanted to make him suffer, even as she was suffering, though she sensed +vaguely that men couldn't suffer that way. It was only women who were +capable of such fine-drawn torture. Men went free. + +From her rage against her recreant cavalier she went on to rage against +life built on a man-made plan for the benefit of man. Women were hurt, no +matter what they did. Being good wasn't any use. You got hurt all the +worse if you were good. It was silly even to try. It was better to shut +your eyes and have a good time. + +Pursuing this reasoning brought Madeline Taylor to the sycamore tree that +night where Willis Hubbard's car waited. She went with Willis, not to +please him, not to please herself, but to spite Ted Holiday. She had +hinted to Ted she would do something desperate if he failed her. She had +done something desperate, but it was herself, not Ted, that had been +hurt. She discovered that too late. + +The next morning had brought Ted's pleasant, penitent note, explaining +his defection and expressing the hope that they might meet again soon, +signed hers "devotedly." Poor Madeline! The cup of her regret was very +bitter to the taste as she read that letter of Ted Holiday's. + +Something of her misery and self-abasement crept into the letter to Ted, +together with a passionate remorse for having doubted him and her even +more vehement regret for having gone out with Willis Hubbard. The whole +complex story of her emotional reactions was of course not written down +for Ted's eyes; but he read quite enough to permit him to guess more than +he cared to know. Hubbard was evidently something of a rotter. Maybe he +was a bit of a rotter himself. If he hadn't taken the girl out joy riding +himself she wouldn't have gone with the other two nights later. That was +plain to be seen with half an eye and Ted Holiday was man enough to look +at the fact straight and unblinking for a moment. + +Well! He should worry. It wasn't his fault if Madeline had been fool +enough to go out with Hubbard, when she knew what kind of a chap he was. +He wasn't her keeper. He didn't see why she had to ask him to forgive +her. It was none of his business. And he wished she hadn't begged so +earnestly and humbly that he would see her again soon. He didn't want to +see her. Yet, down underneath, Ted Holiday had an uneasy feeling he +ought to want it, ought to try to make up to her in some way for +something which was somehow his fault, even though he did disclaim the +responsibility. + +Two days later came another letter even more disturbing. It seemed +Madeline was going to Holyoke again soon to visit her Cousin Emma and +wanted Ted to join her. She was "dying" to see him. He could stay at +Cousin Emma's, but maybe he wouldn't like that because there was a raft +of children always under foot and Fred, Emma's husband, was a dreadful +"ordinary" person who smoked a smelly pipe and sat round in his shirt +sleeves. But if he would come and stay at a hotel they could have a +wonderful time. She did want to see him so much. Besides, Willis +pestered her all the time and said if she went away he would come down +in his car every night to see her. So if Ted didn't want her to run +around with Willis as he said in his last letter he had better come +himself. She didn't like Willis the way she did Ted, though. Some ways +she hated him and she wished awfully she hadn't ever had anything to do +with him. And finally she liked Ted better than anybody in the world, +and would he please, please come to Holyoke, because she wanted him to +so very, very much? + +And then the postscript. "The cut is going to leave a scar, I am most +sure. I don't care. I like it. It makes me think of you and what a +wonderful time we had together that night." + +Ted read the letter coming up the Hill, and for once forebore to whistle +as he made the ascent. His mind was busy. A week of Dunbury calm and +sweet do-nothing had sufficed to make him undeniably restless. Madeline's +proposal struck him as rather a jolly idea accordingly. After all, she +was a dandy little girl, and he owed her a lot for not making any fuss +over his nearly killing her. He didn't like this Hubbard fellow, either. +He rather thought it was his duty to go and send him about his business. +Ted was a bit of a knight, at heart, and felt now the chivalric urge, +combining with others less unselfish, to go to the rescue of the damsel +and set her free of the false besieger. + +Her undisguised admission of her caring for him was a bit +disconcerting, although perhaps also a little sweet to his youthful +male vanity. Her caring was a complication, made him feel as if somehow +he ought to make up to her for failing her in the big thing by granting +her the smaller favor. + +By the time he had reached the top of the Hill he was rather definitely +committed in his own mind to the Holyoke trip, if he could throw enough +dust in his uncle's eyes to get away with it. + +Arrived at the house he flung the other mail on the hall table and went +upstairs. As he passed his grandmother's room he noticed that the door +was ajar and stepped in for a word with her. She looked very still and +white as she lay there in the big, old fashioned four-poster bed! Poor +Granny! It was awfully sad to be old. Ted couldn't quite imagine it for +himself, somehow. + +"'Lo, Granny dear," he greeted, stooping to kiss the withered old cheek. +"How goes it?" + +"About as usual, dear. Any word from Larry?" There was a plaintive note +in Madame Holiday's voice. She was never quite content unless all the +"children" were under the family roof-tree. And Larry was particularly +dear to her heart. + +"Yes, I just brought a letter for Uncle Phil. The very idea of your +wanting Larry when you have Tony and me, and you haven't had us for +so long." Ted pretended to be reproachful and his grandmother reached +for his hand. + +"I know, dear boy. I am very glad to have you and Tony. But Larry is a +habit, like Philip. You mustn't mind my missing him." + +"Course I don't mind, Granny. I was just jossing. I don't blame you a bit +for missing Larry. He is a mighty good thing to have in the family. Wish +I were half as valuable." + +"You are, sonny. I am so happy to be having you here all summer." + +"Maybe not quite all summer. I'll be going off for little trips," he +prepared her gently. + +"Youth! Youth! Never still--always wanting to fly off somewhere!" + +"We all fly back mighty quick," comforted Ted. "There come the kiddies." + +A patter of small feet sounded down the hall. In the next moment they +were there--sturdy Eric, the six year old, apple-cheeked, incredibly +energetic, already bidding fair to equal if not to rival his cousin Ted's +reputation for juvenile naughtiness; and Hester, two years younger, a +rose-and-snow creation, cherubic, adorable, with bobbing silver curls, +delectably dimpled elbows and corn flower blue eyes. + +Fresh from the tub and the daily delightful frolic with Daddy, they now +appeared for that other ceremonial known as saying good-night to Granny. + +"Teddy! Teddy! Ride us to Granny," demanded Eric hilariously, jubilant at +finding his favorite tall cousin on the spot. + +"'Es, wide us, wide us," chimed in Hester, not to be outdone. + +"You fiends!" But Ted obediently got down on "all fours" while the small +folks clambered up on his back and he "rode" them over to the bed, their +bathrobes flying as they went. Arrived at the destination Ted deftly +deposited his load in a giggling, squirming heap on the rug and then +gathering up the small Hester, swung her aloft, bringing her down with +her rose bud of a mouth close to Granny's pale cheeks. + +"Kiss your flying angel, Granny, before she flies away again." + +"Me! Me!" clamored Eric vociferously, hugging Ted's knees. "Me flying +angel, too!" + +"Not much," objected Ted. "No angel about you. Too, too much solid flesh +and bones. Kiss Granny, quick. I hear your parents approaching." + +Philip and Margery appeared on the threshold, seeking their obstreperous +offspring. + +There was another stampede, this time in the direction of the "parents." + +"Ca'y me! Ca'y me, Daddy," chirruped Hester. + +"No, me. Ride me piggy-back," insisted Eric. + +"Such children!" smiled Margery. "Ted, you encourage them. They are more +barbarian than ever when you are here, and they are bad enough under +normal conditions." + +Ted chuckled at that. He and his Aunt Margery were the best of good +friends. They always had been since Ted had refused to join her Round +Table on the grounds that he might have to be sorry for being bad if he +did, though he had subsequently capitulated, in view of the manifest +advantages accruing to membership in the order. + +"That's right. Lay it to me. I don't believe Uncle Phil was a saint, +either, was he, Granny?" he appealed. "I'll bet the kids get some of +their deviltry by direct line of descent." + +His grandmother smiled. + +"We forget a good deal about our children's naughtinesses when they are +grown up," she said. "I've even forgotten some of yours, Teddy." + +"Lucky," grinned her grandson, stooping to kiss her again. "_Allons, +enfants_." + +Later, when the obstreperous ones were in bed and everything quiet Philip +and Margery sat together in the hammock, lovers still after eight years +of strenuous married life and discussed Larry's last letter, which had +contained the rather astonishing request that he be permitted to bring +the little lady who had forgotten her past to Holiday Hill with him. + +"Queer proposition!" murmured the doctor. "Doesn't sound like +sober Larry." + +"I am not so sure. There is a quixotic streak in him--in all you +Holidays, for that matter. You can't say much. Think of the stray boys +you have taken in at one time or another, some of them rather dubious +specimens, I infer." + +Margery's eyes smiled tender raillery at her husband. He chuckled at the +arraignment, and admitted its justice. Still, boys were not mystery +ladies. She must grant him that. Then he sobered. + +"It is only you that makes me hesitate, Margery mine. You are carrying +about as heavy a burden now as any one woman ought to take upon herself, +with me and the house and the children and Granny. And here is this crazy +nephew of mine proposing the addition to the family of a stranger who +hasn't any past and whose future seems wrapped mostly in a nebular +hypothesis. It is rather a large order, my dear." + +"Not too large. It isn't as if she were seriously ill, or would be a +burden in any way. Besides, it is Larry's home as well as ours, and he so +seldom asks anything for himself, and is always ready to help anywhere. +Do you really mind her coming, Phil?" + +"Not if you don't. I am glad to agree if it is not going to be too hard +for you. As you say, Larry doesn't ever ask much for himself and I am +interested in the case, anyway. Shall we wire him to bring her, then?" + +"Please do. I shall be very glad." + +"You are a wonder, Margery mine." And the doctor bent and kissed his wife +before going in to telephone the message to be sent his nephew that +night, a message bidding him and the little stranger welcome, whenever +they cared to come to the House on the Hill. + +And far away in Pittsburgh, Larry got the word that night and smiled +content. Bless Uncle Phil and Aunt Margery! They never failed you, no +matter what you asked of them. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LITTLE LADY WHO FORGOT + + +Larry Holiday was a rather startlingly energetic person when he once got +under way. The next morning he overruled the "Mystery Lady's" faint +demurs, successfully argued the senior doctor into agreement with his +somewhat surprising plan of procedure, wired his uncle, engaged train +reservations for that evening, secured a nurse, preempted the services of +a Red Cap who promised to be waiting with a chair at the station so that +the little invalid would not have to set foot upon the ground, and +finally carried the latter with his own strong young arms onto the train +and into a large, cool stateroom where a fan was already whirring and the +white-clad nurse waiting to minister to the needs of the frail traveler. + +In a few moments the train was slipping smoothly out of the station and +the girl who had forgotten most things else knew that she was being +spirited off to a delightful sounding place called Holiday Hill in the +charge of a gray-eyed young doctor who had made himself personally +responsible for her from the moment he had extricated her, more dead than +alive, from the wreckage. Somehow, for the moment she was quite content +with the knowledge. + +Leaving his charge in the nurse's care, Larry Holiday ensconced himself +in his seat not far from the stateroom and pretended to read his paper. +But it might just as well have been printed in ancient Sanscrit for all +the meaning its words conveyed to his brain. His corporeal self occupied +the green plush seat. His spiritual person was elsewhere. + +After fifteen minutes of futile effort at concentration he flung down the +paper and strode to the door of the stateroom. A white linen arm answered +his gentle knock. There was a moment's consultation, then the nurse came +out and Larry went in. + +On the couch the girl lay very still with half-closed eyes. Her long +blonde braids tied with blue ribbons lay on the pillow on either side of +her sweet, pale little face, making it look more childlike than ever. + +"I can't see why I can't remember," she said to Larry as he sat down on +the edge of the other cot opposite her. "I try so hard." + +"Don't try. You are just wearing yourself out doing it. It will be all +right in time. Don't worry." + +"I can't help worrying. It is--oh, it is horrible not to have any +past--to be different from everybody in the world." + +"I know. It is mighty tough and you have been wonderfully brave about it. +But truly I do believe it will all come back. And in the meanwhile you +are going to one of the best places in the world to get well in. Take my +word for it." + +"But I don't see why I should be going. It isn't as if I had any claim +on you or your people. Why are you taking me to your home?" The blue +eyes were wide open now, and looking straight up into Larry Holiday's +gray ones. + +Larry smiled and Larry's smile, coming out of the usual gravity and +repose of his face, was irresistible. More than one young woman, case and +non-case, had wished, seeing that smile, that its owner had eyes for +girls as such. + +"Because you are the most interesting patient I ever had. Don't begrudge +it to me. I get measles and sore throats mostly. Do you wonder I snatched +you as a dog grabs a bone?" Then he sobered. "Truly, Ruth--you don't mind +my calling you that, do you, since we don't know your other name?--the +Hill is the one place in the world for you just now. You will forgive my +kidnapping you when you see it and my people. You can't help liking it +and them." + +"I am not afraid of not liking it or them if--" She had meant to say "if +they are at all like you," but that seemed a little too personal to say +to one's doctor, even a doctor who had saved your life and had the most +wonderful smile that ever was, and the nicest eyes. "If they will let +me," she substituted. "But it is such a queer, kind thing to do. The +other doctors were interested in me, too, as a case. But it didn't occur +to any of them to offer me the hospitality of their homes and family for +an unlimited time. Are you Holidays all like that?" + +"More or less," admitted Larry with another smile. "Maybe we are a bit +vain-glorious about Holiday hospitality. It is rather a family tradition. +The House on the Hill has had open doors ever since the first Holiday +built it nearly two hundred years ago. You saw Uncle Phil's wire. He +meant that 'welcome ready.' You'll see. But anyway it won't be very hard +for them to open the door to you. They will all love you." + +She shut her eyes again at that. Possibly the young doctor's expression +was rather more un-professionally eloquent than he knew. + +"Tired?" he asked. + +"Not much--tired of wondering. Maybe my name isn't Ruth at all." + +"Maybe it isn't. But it is a name anyway, and you may as well use it for +the present until you can find your own. I think Ruth Annersley is a +pretty name myself," added the young doctor seriously. "I like it." + +"Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley," corrected the girl. "That is rather +pretty too." + +Larry agreed somewhat less enthusiastically. + +Ruth lifted her hand and fell to twisting the wedding ring which was very +loose on her thin little finger. + +"Think of being married and not knowing what your husband looks like. +Poor Geoffrey Annersley! I wonder if he cares a great deal for me." + +"It is quite possible," said Larry Holiday grimly. + +He had taken an absurd dislike to the very name of Geoffrey Annersley. +Why didn't the man appear and claim his wife? Practically every paper +from the Atlantic to the Pacific had advertised for him. If he was any +good and wanted to find his wife he would be half crazy looking for her +by this time. He must have seen the newspaper notices. There was +something queer about this Geoffrey Annersley. Larry Holiday detested him +cordially. + +"You don't suppose he was killed in the wreck, do you?" Ruth's mind +worked on, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. + +"You were traveling alone. Your chair was near mine. I noticed you +because I thought--" He broke off abruptly. + +"Thought what?" + +"That you were the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life," he admitted. "I +wanted to speak to you. Two or three times I was on the verge of it but I +never could quite get up the courage. I'm not much good at starting +conversations with girls. My kid brother, Ted, has the monopoly of that +sort of thing in my family." + +"Oh, if you only had," she sighed. "Maybe I would have told you +something about myself and where I was going when I got to New York." + +"I wish I had," regretted Larry. "Confound my shyness! I don't see why +anybody ever let you travel alone from San Francisco to New York anyway," +he added. "Your Geoffrey ought to have taken better care of you." + +"Maybe I haven't a Geoffrey. The fact that there was an envelope in my +bag addressed to Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley doesn't prove that I am Mrs. +Geoffrey Annersley." + +"No, still there is the ring." Larry frowned thoughtfully. "If you aren't +Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley you must be Mrs. Somebody Else, I suppose. And +the locket says _Ruth from Geoffrey_." + +"Oh, yes, I suppose I am Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley. It seems as if I must +be. But why can't I remember? It seems as if any one would remember the +man she was married to--as if one couldn't forget that, no matter what +happened. But if there is a Geoffrey Annersley why doesn't he come and +get me and make me remember him?" + +Larry shook his head. + +"Don't worry, please. We'll keep on advertising. He is bound to come +before long if he really is your husband. Some day he will be coming up +our hill and run away with you, worse luck!" + +Ruth's eyes were on the ring again. + +"It is funny," she said. "But I can't make myself _feel_ married. I can't +make the ring mean anything to me. I don't want it to mean anything. I +don't want to be married. Sometimes I dream that Geoffrey Annersley has +come and I put my hand over my eyes because I don't want to see him. +Isn't that dreadful?" she turned to Larry to ask. + +"You can't help it." Larry tried manfully to push back his own wholly +unreasonable satisfaction in her aversion to her presumptive husband. +"It is the blow and the shock of the whole thing. It will be all right in +time. You will fall on your Geoffrey's neck and call him blessed when the +time comes." + +"I don't believe he is coming," she announced suddenly with conviction. + +Larry got up and walked over to her couch. + +"What makes you say that?" he demanded. + +"I don't know. It was just a feeling I had. Something inside me said +right out loud: 'He isn't coming. He isn't your husband.' Maybe it is +because I don't want him to come and don't want him to be my husband. Oh, +dear! It is all so queer and mixed up and horrid. It is awful not to be +anybody--just a ghost. I wish I'd been killed. Why didn't you leave me? +Why did you dig me out? All the others said I was dead. Why didn't you +let me _be_ dead? It would have been better." + +She turned her face away and buried it in the pillow, sobbing softly, +suddenly like a child. + +This was too much for Larry. He dropped on his knees beside her and put +his arms around the quivering little figure. + +"Don't, Ruth," he implored. "Don't cry and don't--don't wish you were +dead. I--I can't stand it." + +There was a tap at the door. Larry got to his feet in guilty haste and +went to the door of the stateroom. + +"It is time for Mrs. Annersley's medicine," announced the nurse +impersonally, entering and going over to the wash stand for a glass. + +The white linen back safely turned, Larry gave one swift look at Ruth and +bolted, shutting the door behind him. The nurse turned to look at the +patient whose face was still hidden in the pillow and then her gaze +traveled meditatively toward the door out of which the young doctor had +shot so precipitately. Larry had forgotten that there was a mirror over +the wash stand and that nurses, however impersonal, are still women with +eyes in their heads. + +"H--m," reflected the onlooker. "I wouldn't have thought he was that +kind. You never can tell about men, especially doctors. I wish him joy +falling in love with a woman who doesn't know whether or not she has a +husband. Your tablets, Mrs. Annersley," she added aloud. + + * * * * * + +"Larry, I think your Ruth is the dearest thing I ever laid eyes on," +declared Tony next day to her brother. "Her name ought to be Titania. I'm +not very big myself, but I feel like an Amazon beside her. And her laugh +is the sweetest thing--so soft and silvery, like little bells. But she +doesn't laugh much, does she? Poor little thing!" + +"She is awfully up against it," said Larry with troubled eyes. "She can't +stop trying to remember. It is a regular obsession with her. And she is +very shy and sensitive and afraid of strangers." + +"She doesn't look at you as if you were a stranger. She adores you." + +"Nonsense!" said Larry sharply. + +Tony opened her eyes at her brother's tone. + +"Why, Larry! Of course, I didn't mean she was in love with you. She +couldn't be when she is married. I just meant she adored you--well, the +way Max adores me," she explained as the tawny-haired Irish setter came +and rested his head on her knee, raising solemn worshipful brown eyes to +her face. "Why shouldn't she? You saved her life and you have been +wonderful to her every way." + +"Nonsense!" said Larry again, though he said it in a different tone this +time. "I haven't done much. It is Uncle Phil and Aunt Margery who are the +wonderful ones. It is great the way they both said yes right away when I +asked if I could bring her here. I tell you, Tony, it means something to +have your own people the kind you can count on every time. And it is +great to have a home like this to bring her to. She is going to love it +as soon as she is able to get downstairs with us all." + +Up in her cool, spacious north chamber, lying in the big bed with the +smooth, fine linen, Ruth felt as if she loved it already, though she +found these Holidays even more amazing than ever, now that she was +actually in their midst. Were there any other people in the world like +them she wondered--so kind and simple and unfeignedly glad to take a +stranger into their home and a queer, mysterious, sick stranger at that! + +"If I have to begin living all over just like a baby I think I am the +luckiest girl that ever was to be able to start in a place like this with +such dear, kind people all around me," she told Doctor Holiday, senior, +to whom she had immediately lost her heart as soon as she saw his smile +and felt the touch of his strong, magnetic, healing hand. + +"We will get you out under the trees in a day or two," he said. "And then +your business will be to get well and strong as soon as possible and not +worry about anything any more than if you were the baby you were just +talking about. Can you manage that, young lady?" + +"I'll try. I would be horrid and ungrateful not to when you are all so +good to me. I don't believe my own people are half as nice as you +Holidays. I don't see how they could be." + +The doctor laughed at that. + +"We will let it go at that for the present. You will be singing another +tune when your Geoffrey Annersley comes up the Hill to claim you." + +The girl's expressive face clouded over at that. She did not quite dare +to tell Doctor Holiday as she had his nephew that she did not want to see +Geoffrey Annersley nor to have to know she was married to him. It sounded +horrid, but it was true. Sometimes she hated the very thought of Geoffrey +Annersley. + +Later Doctor Holiday and his nephew went over the girl's case together +from both the personal and professional angles. There was little enough +to go on in untangling her mystery. The railway tickets which had been +found in her purse were in an un-postmarked envelope bearing the name +Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley, but no address. The baggage train had been +destroyed by fire at the time of the accident, so there were no trunks to +give evidence. The small traveling bag she had carried with her bore +neither initial nor geographical designation, and contained nothing which +gave any clew as to its owner's identity save that she was presumably a +person of wealth, for her possessions were exquisite and obviously +costly. A small jewel box contained various valuable rings, one or two +pendants and a string of matched pearls which even to uninitiated eyes +spelled a fortune. Also, oddly enough, among the rest was an absurd +little childish gold locket inscribed "Ruth from Geoffrey." + +She had worn no rings at all except for a single platinum-set, and very +perfect, diamond and a plain gold band, obviously a wedding ring. The +inference was that she was married and that her husband's name was +Geoffrey Annersley, but where he was and why she was traveling across the +United States alone and from whence she had come remained utterly +unguessable. Larry had seen to it that advertisements for Geoffrey +Annersley were inserted in every important paper from coast to coast but +nothing had come of any of his efforts. + +As for the strange lapse of memory, there seemed nothing to do but wait +in the hope that recovered health and strength might bring it back. + +"It may come bit by bit or by a sudden bound or never," was Doctor +Holiday's opinion. "There is nothing that I know of that she or you or +any one can do except let nature take her course. It is a case of time +and patience. I am glad you brought her to us. Margery and I are very +glad to have her." + +"You are awfully good, Uncle Phil. I do appreciate it and it is great to +have you behind me professionally. I haven't got a great deal of +confidence in myself. Doctoring scares me sometimes. It is such a fearful +responsibility." + +"It is, but you are going to be equal to it. The confidence will come +with experience. You need have no lack of faith in yourself; I haven't. +There is no reason why I should have, when I get letters like this." + +The senior doctor leaned over and extracted old Doctor Fenton's letter +from a cubby hole in his desk and gave it to his nephew to read. The +latter perused it in silence with slightly heightened color. Praise +always embarrassed him. + +"He is too kind," he observed as he handed back the letter. "I didn't do +much out there, precious little in fact but what I was told to do. I +figured it out that we young ones were the privates and it was up to us +to take orders from the captains who knew their business better than we +did and get busy. I worked on that basis." + +"Sound basis. I am not afraid that a man who can obey well won't be able +to command well when the time comes. It isn't a small thing to be +recognized as a true Holiday, either. It is something to be proud of." + +"I am proud, Uncle Phil. There is nothing I would rather hear--and +deserve. But, if I am anywhere near the Holiday standard, it is you +mostly that brought me up to it. I don't mean any dispraise of Dad. He +was fine and I am proud to be his son. But he never understood me. I +didn't have enough dash and go to me for him. Ted and Tony are both +more his kind, though I don't believe either of them loved him as I +did. But you seemed to understand always. You helped me to believe in +myself. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, coming to +you when I did." + +Larry turned to the mantel and picked up a photograph of himself which +stood there, a lad of fifteen or so, facing the world with grave, +sensitive eyes, the Larry he had been when he came to the House on the +Hill. He smiled at his uncle over the boy's picture. + +"You burned out the plague spots, too, with a mighty hot iron, some of +them," he added. "I'll never forget your sitting there in that very chair +telling me I was a lazy, selfish snob and that, all things considered, I +didn't measure up for a nickel with Dick. Jerusalem! I wonder if you knew +how that hit. I had a fairly good opinion of Larry Holiday in some ways +and you rather knocked the spots out of it, comparing me to my +disadvantage with a circus runaway." + +He replaced the picture, the smile still lingering on his face. + +"It was the right medicine though. I needed it. I can see that now. +Speaking of doses I wish you would make Ted tutor this summer. I don't +know whether he has told you. I rather think not. But he flunked so many +courses he will have to drop back a year unless he makes up the work and +takes examinations in the fall." + +The senior doctor drummed thoughtfully on the desk. So that was what the +boy had on his mind. + +"Why not speak to him yourself?" he asked after a minute. + +"And be sent to warm regions as I was last spring when I ventured to give +his lord highmightiness some advice. No good, Uncle Phil. He won't listen +to me. He just gets mad and swings off in the other direction. I don't +handle him right. Haven't your patience and tact. I wonder if he ever +will get any sense into his head. He is the best hearted kid in the +world, and I'm crazy over him, but he does rile me to the limit with his +fifty-seven varieties of foolness." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TED SEIZES THE DAY + + +The next morning Ted strolled into his uncle's office to ask if the +latter had any objections to his accepting an invitation to a house-party +from Hal Underwood, a college classmate, at the latter's home near +Springfield. + +The doctor considered a moment before answering. He knew all about the +Underwoods and knew that his erratic nephew could not be in a safer, +pleasanter place. Also his quick wit saw a chance to put the screws on +the lad in connection with the tutoring business. + +"I suppose your June allowance is able to float your traveling expenses," +he remarked less guilelessly than the remark sounded. + +The June allowance was, it seemed, the missing link. + +"I thought maybe you would be willing to allow me a little extra this +month on account of commencement stunts. It is darned expensive sending +nosegays to sweet girl graduates. I couldn't help going broke. Honest I +couldn't, Uncle Phil." Then as his uncle did not leap at the suggestion +offered, the speaker changed his tack. "Anyway, you would be willing to +let me have my July money ahead of time, wouldn't you?" he ingratiated. +"It is only ten days to the first." + +But Doctor Holiday still chose to be inconveniently irrelevant. + +"Have you any idea how much my bill was for repairing the car?" he +asked. + +Ted shook his head shamefacedly, and bent to examine a picture in a +magazine which lay on the desk. He wasn't anxious to have the car +incident resurrected. He had thought it decently buried by this time, +having heard no more about it. + +"It was a little over a hundred dollars," continued the doctor. + +The boy looked up, genuinely distressed. + +"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's highway robbery." + +"Scarcely. All things considered, it was a very fair bill. A hundred +dollars is a good deal to pay for the pleasure of nearly getting yourself +and somebody else killed, Ted." + +Ted pulled his forelock and had nothing to say. + +"Were you in earnest about paying up for that particular bit of +folly, son?" + +"Why, yes. At least I didn't think it would be any such sum as that," Ted +hedged. "I'll be swamped if I try to pay it out of my allowance. I can't +come out even, as it is. Couldn't you take it out of my own money--what's +coming to me when I'm of age?" + +"I could, if getting myself paid were the chief consideration. As it +happens, it isn't. I'm sorry if I seem to be hard on you, but I am going +to hold you to your promise, even if it pinches a bit. I think you know +why. How about it, son?" + +"I suppose it has to go that way if you say so," said Ted a little +sulkily. "Can I pay it in small amounts?" + +"How small? Dollar a year? I'd hate to wait until I was a hundred and +forty or so to get my money back." + +The boy grinned reluctantly, answering the friendly twinkle in his +uncle's eyes. He was relieved that a joke had penetrated what had begun +to appear to be an unpleasantly jestless interview. He hated to be +called to account. Like many another older sinner he liked dancing, but +found paying the piper an irksome business. + +"Nonsense, Uncle Phil! I meant real paying. Will ten dollars a month do?" + +"It will, provided you don't try to borrow ahead each month from the +next one." + +"I won't," glibly. "If you will--" The boy broke off and had the grace to +look confused, realizing he had been about to do the very thing he had +promised in the same breath not to do. "Then that means I can't go to +Hal's," he added soberly. + +He felt sober. There was more than Hal and the house-party involved, +though the latter had fallen in peculiarly fortuitous with his other +plans. He had rashly written Madeline he would be in Holyoke next week as +she desired, and the first of July and his allowance would still be just +out of reach next week. It was a confounded nuisance, to say the least, +being broke just now, with Uncle Phil turned stuffy. + +"No, I don't want you to give up your house-party, though that rests with +you. I'll make a bargain with you. I'll advance your whole July allowance +minus ten dollars Saturday morning." + +Ted's face cleared, beamed like sudden sunshine on a cloudy March day. + +"You will! Uncle Phil, you certainly are a peach!" And in his exuberance +he tossed his cap to the ceiling, catching it deftly on his nose as it +descended. + +"Hold on. Don't rejoice too soon. It was to be a bargain, you know. You +have heard only one side." + +"Oh--h!" The exclamation was slightly crestfallen. + +"I understand that you fell down on most of your college work this +spring. Is that correct?" + +This was a new complication and just as he had thought he was safely +out of the woods, too. Ted hung his head, gave consent to his uncle's +question by silence and braced himself for a lecture, though he was a +little relieved that he need not bring up the subject of that +inconvenient flunking of his, himself; that his uncle was already +prepared, whoever it was that had told tales. The lecture did not +come, however. + +"Here is the bargain. I will advance the money as I said, provided +that as soon as you get back from Hal's you will make arrangements to +tutor with Mr. Caldwell this summer, in all the subjects you failed in +and promise to put in two months of good, solid cramming, no half way +about it." + +"Gee, Uncle Phil! It's vacation." + +"You don't need a vacation. If all I hear of you is true, or even half of +it, you made your whole college year one grand, sweet vacation. What is +the answer? Want time to think the proposition over?" + +"No--o. I guess I'll take you up. I suppose I'll have to tutor anyway if +I don't want to drop back a class, and I sure don't," Ted admitted +honestly. "Unless you'll let me quit and you won't. It is awfully tough, +though. You never made Tony or Larry kill themselves studying in +vacations. I don't see--" + +"Neither Tony or Larry ever flunked a college course. It remained for you +to be the first Holiday to wear a dunce cap." + +Ted flushed angrily at that. The shot went home, as the doctor intended +it should. He knew when to hit and how to do it hard, as Larry had +testified. + +"Fool's cap if you like, Uncle Phil. I am not a dunce." + +"I rather think that is true. Anyway, prove it to us this summer and +there is no one who will be gladder than I to take back the aspersion. Is +it understood then? You have your house-party and when you come back you +are pledged to honest work, no shirking, no requests for time off, no +complaints. Have I your word?" + +Ted considered. He thought he was paying a stiff price for his +house-party and his lark with Madeline. He could give up the first, +though a fellow always had a topping time at Hal's; but he couldn't quite +see himself owning ignominiously to Madeline that he couldn't keep his +promise to her because of empty pockets. Moreover, as he had admitted, he +would have to tutor anyway, probably, and he might as well get some gain +out of the pain. + +"I promise, Uncle Phil." + +"Good. Then that is settled. I am not going to say anything more about +the flunking. You know how we all feel about it. I think you have sense +enough and conscience enough to see it about the way the rest of us do." + +Ted's eyes were down again now. Somehow Uncle Phil always made him feel +worse by what he didn't say than a million sermons from other people +would have done. He would have gladly have given up the projected journey +and anything else he possessed this moment if he could have had a clean +slate to show. But it was too late for that now. He had to take the +consequences of his own folly. + +"I see it all right, Uncle Phil," he said looking up. "Trouble is I never +seem to have the sense to look until--afterward. You are awfully decent +about it and letting me go to Hal's and--everything. I--I'll be gone +about a week, do you mind?" + +"No. Stay as long as you like. I am satisfied with your promise to make +good when you do come." + +Ted slipped away quickly then. He was ashamed to meet his uncle's kind +eyes. He knew he was playing a crooked game with stacked cards. He hadn't +exactly lied--hadn't said a word that wasn't strictly true, indeed. He +was going to Hal's, but he had let his uncle think he was going to stay +there the whole week whereas in reality he meant to spend the greater +part of the time in Madeline Taylor's society, which was not in the +bargain at all. Well he would make up later by keeping his promise about +the studying. He would show them Larry wasn't the only Holiday who could +make good. The dunce cap jibe rankled. + +And so, having satisfied his sufficiently elastic conscience, he departed +on Saturday for Springfield and adjacent points. + +He had the usual "topping" time at Hal's and tore himself away with the +utmost reluctance from the house-party, had half a mind, indeed, to wire +Madeline he couldn't come to Holyoke. But after all that seemed rather a +mean thing to do after having treated her so rough before, and in the end +he had gone, only one day later than he had promised. + +It was characteristic that, arrived at his destination, he straightway +forgot the pleasures he was foregoing at Hal's and plunged +whole-heartedly into amusing himself to the utmost with Madeline Taylor. +_Carpe Diem_ was Ted Holiday's motto. + +Madeline had indeed proved unexpectedly pretty and attractive when she +opened the door to him on Cousin Emma's little box of a front porch, clad +all in white and wearing no extraneous ornament of any sort, blushing +delightfully and obviously more than glad of his coming. He would not +have been Ted Holiday if he hadn't risen to the occasion. The last girl +in sight was usually the only girl for him so long as she _was_ in sight +and sufficiently jolly and good to look upon. + +A little later Madeline donned a trim tailored black sailor hat and a +pretty and becoming pale green sweater and the two went down the steps +together, bound for an excursion to the park. As they descended Ted's +hand slipped gallantly under the girl's elbow and she leaned on it ever +so little, reveling in the ceremony and prolonging it as much as +possible. Well she knew that Cousin Emma and the children were peering +out from behind the curtains of the front bedroom upstairs, and that Mrs. +Bascom and her stuck up daughter Lily had their faces glued to the pane +next door. They would all see that this was no ordinary beau, but a real +swell like the magnificent young men in the movies. Perhaps as she +descended Cousin Emma's steps and went down the path between the tiger +lilies and peonies that flanked the graveled path with Ted Holiday beside +her, Madeline Taylor had her one perfect moment. + +Only the "ordinary" Fred, on hearing his wife's voluble descriptions +later of Madeline's "grand" young man failed to be suitably impressed. +"Them swells don't mean no girl no good no time," he had summed up his +views with sententious accumulation of negatives. + +But little enough did either Ted or Madeline reck of Fred's or any other +opinion as they fared their blithe and care-free way that gala week. The +rest of the world was supremely unimportant as they went canoeing and +motoring and trolley riding and mountain climbing and "movieing" +together. Madeline strove with all her might to dress and act and _be_ as +nearly like those other girls after whom she was modeling herself as +possible, to do nothing, which could jar on Ted in any way or remind him +that she was "different." In her happiness and sincere desire to please +she succeeded remarkably well in making herself superficially at least +very much like Ted's own "kind of girl" and though with true masculine +obtuseness he was entirely unaware of the conscious effort she was +putting into the performance nevertheless he enjoyed the results in full +and played up to her undeniable charms with his usual debonair and +heedless grace and gallantry. + +The one thing that had been left out of the program for lack of suitable +opportunity was dancing, an omission not to be tolerated by two strenuous +and modern young persons who would rather fox trot than eat any day. +Accordingly on Thursday it was agreed that they should repair to the +White Swan, a resort down the river, famous for its excellent cuisine, +its perfect dance floor and its "snappy" negro orchestra. Both Ted and +Madeline knew that the Swan had also a reputation of another less +desirable sort, but both were willing to ignore the fact for the sake of +enjoying the "jolliest jazz on the river" as the advertisement read. The +dance was the thing. + +It was, indeed. The evening was decidedly the best yet, as both averred, +pirouetting and spinning and romping through one fox trot and one step +after another. The excitement of the music, the general air of +exhilaration about the place and their own high-pitched mood made the +occasion different from the other gaieties of the week, merrier, madder, +a little more reckless. + +Once, seeing a painted, over-dressed or rather under-dressed, girl in the +arms of a pasty-faced, protruding-eyed roue, both obviously under the +spell of too much liquid inspiration, Ted suffered a momentary revulsion +and qualm of conscience. He shouldn't have brought Madeline here. It +wasn't the sort of place to bring a girl, no matter how good the music +was. Oh, well! What did it matter just this once? They were there now and +they might as well get all the fun they could out of it. The music +started up, he held out his hand to Madeline and they wheeled into the +maze of dancers, the girl's pliant body yielding to his arms, her eyes +brilliant with excitement. They danced on and on and it was amazingly and +imprudently late when they finally left the Swan and went home to Cousin +Emma's house. + +Ted had meant to leave Madeline at the gate, but somehow he lingered and +followed the girl out into the yard behind the house where they seated +themselves in the hammock in the shade of the lilac bushes. And suddenly, +without any warning, he had her in his arms and was kissing her +tempestuously. + +It was only for a moment, however. He pulled himself together, hot +cheeked and ashamed and flung himself out of the hammock. Madeline sat +very still, not saying a word, as she watched him march to and fro +between the beds of verbena and love-lies-bleeding and portulaca. +Presently he paused beside the hammock, looking down at the girl. + +"I am going home to-morrow," he said a little huskily. + +Madeline threw out one hand and clutched one of the boy's in a +feverish clasp. + +"No! No!" she cried. "You mustn't go. Please don't, Ted." + +"I've got to," stolidly. + +"Why?" + +"You know why." + +"You mean--what you did--just now?" + +He nodded miserably. + +"That doesn't matter. I'm not angry. I--I liked it." + +"I am afraid it does matter. It makes a mess of everything, and it's all +my fault. I spoiled things. I've got to go." + +"But you will come back?" she pleaded. + +He shook his head. + +"It is better not, Madeline. I'm sorry." + +She snatched her hand away from his, her eyes shooting sparks of anger. + +"I hate you, Ted Holiday. You make me care and then you go away and leave +me. You are cruel--selfish. I hate you--hate you." + +Ted stared down at her, helpless, miserable, ashamed. No man knows what +to do with a scene, especially one which his own folly has precipitated. + +"Willis Hubbard is coming down to-morrow night and if you don't stay as +you promised I'll go to the Swan with him. He has been teasing me to go +for ages and I wouldn't, but I will now, if you leave me. I'll--I'll do +anything." + +Ted was worried. He did not like the sound of the girl's threats though +he wasn't moved from his own purpose. + +"Don't go to the Swan with Hubbard, Madeline. You mustn't." + +"Why not? You took me." + +"I know I did, but that is different," he finished lamely. + +"I don't see anything very different," she retorted hotly. + +Ted bit his lip. Remembering his own recent aberration, he did not see as +much difference as he would have liked to see himself. + +"I suppose you wouldn't have taken _your_ kind of girl to the Swan," +taunted Madeline. + +"No, I--" + +It was a fatal admission. Ted hadn't meant to make it so bluntly, but it +was out. The damage was done. + +A demon of rage possessed the girl. Beside herself with anger she sprang +to her feet and delivered a stinging blow straight in the boy's face. +Then, her mood changing, she fell back into the hammock sobbing bitterly. + +For a moment Ted was too much astonished by this fish-wife exhibition +of temper even to be angry with himself. Then a hot wave of wrath and +shame surged over him. He put up his hand to his cheek as if to brush +away the indignity of the blow. But he was honest enough to realize +that maybe he had deserved the punishment, though not for the reason +the girl had dealt it. + +Looking down at her in her racked misery, his resentment vanished and +an odd impersonal kind of pity for her possessed him instead, though +her attraction was gone forever. He could see the scar on her forehead, +and it troubled and reproached him vaguely, seemed a symbol of a deeper +wound he had dealt her, though never meaning any harm. He bent over +her, gently. + +"Forgive me, Madeline," he said. "I am sorry--sorry for +everything. Goodby." + +In a moment he was gone, past the portulaca and love-lies-bleeding, past +Cousin Emma's unlit parlor windows, down the walk between the tiger +lilies and peonies, out into the street. And Madeline, suddenly +realizing that she was alone, rushed after him, calling his name softly +into the dark. But only the echo of his firm, buoyant young feet came +back to her straining ears. She fled back to the garden and, throwing +herself, face down, on the dew drenched grass, surrendered to a passion +of tearless grief. + +Ted astonished his uncle, first by coming home a whole day earlier than +he had been expected and second, by announcing his intention of seeing +Robert Caldwell and making arrangements about the tutoring that very +day. He was more than usually uncommunicative about his house-party +experiences the Doctor thought and fancied too that just at first after +his return the boy did not meet his eyes quite frankly. But this soon +passed away and he was delighted and it must be confessed considerably +astounded too to perceive that Ted really meant to keep his word about +the studying and settled down to genuine hard work for perhaps the first +time, in his idle, irresponsible young life. He had been prepared to put +on the screws if necessary. There had been no need. Ted had applied his +own screws and kept at his uncongenial task with such grim determination +that it almost alarmed his family, so contrary was his conduct to his +usual light-hearted shedding of all obligations which he could, by hook +or crook, evade. + +Among other things to be noted with relief the doctor counted the fact +that there were no more letters from Florence. Apparently that flame +which had blazed up rather brightly at first had died down as a good many +others had. Doctor Holiday was particularly glad in this case. He had not +liked the idea of his nephew's running around with a girl who would be +willing to go "joy-riding" with him after midnight, and still less had he +liked the idea of his nephew's issuing such invitations to any kind of +girl. Youth was youth and he had never kept a very tight rein on any of +Ned's children, believing he could trust them to run straight in the +main. Still there were things one drew the line at for a Holiday. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY + + +Tony was dressing for dinner on her first evening at Crest House. +Carlotta was perched on the arm of a chair near by, catching up on mutual +gossip as to events that had transpired since they parted a month before +at Northampton. + +"I have a brand new young man for you, Tony. Alan Massey--the artist. At +least he calls himself an artist, though he hasn't done a thing but +philander and travel two or three times around the globe, so near as I +can make out, since somebody died and left him a disgusting big fortune. +Aunt Lottie hints that he is very improper, but anyway he is amusing and +different and a dream of a dancer. It is funny, but he makes me think a +little bit once in a while of somebody we both know. I won't tell you +who, and see if the same thing strikes you." + +A little later Tony met the "new young man." She was standing with her +friend in the big living room waiting for the signal for dinner when she +felt suddenly conscious of a new presence. She turned quickly and saw a +stranger standing on the threshold regarding her with a rather +disconcertingly intent gaze. He was very tall and foreign-looking, +"different," as Carlotta had said, with thick, waving blue-black hair, a +clear, olive skin and deep-set, gray-green eyes. There was nothing about +him that suggested any resemblance to anyone she knew. Indeed she had a +feeling that there was nobody at all like him anywhere in the world. + +The newcomer walked toward her, their glances crossing. Tony stood very +still, but she had an unaccountable sensation of going to meet him, as if +he had drawn her to him, magnet-wise, by his strange, sweeping look. They +were introduced. He bowed low in courtly old world fashion over the +girl's hand. + +"I am enchanted to know Miss Holiday," he said. His voice was as unusual +as the rest of him, deep-throated, musical, vibrant--an unforgettable +voice it seemed to Tony who for a moment seemed to have lost her own. + +"I shall sit beside Miss Tony to-night, Carla," he added. It was not a +question, not a plea. It was clear assertion. + +"Not to-night, Alan. You are between Aunt Lottie and Mary Frances Day. +You liked Mary Frances yesterday. You flirted with her outrageously +last night." + +He shrugged. + +"Ah, but that was last night, my dear. And this is to-night. And I have +seen your Miss Tony. That alters everything, even your seating +arrangements. Change me, Carlotta." + +Carlotta laughed and capitulated. Alan's highhanded tactics always +amused her. + +"Not that you deserve it," she said. "Don't be too nice to him, Tony. He +is not a nice person at all." + +So it happened that Tony found herself at dinner between Ted's friend, +and her own, Hal Underwood, and this strange, impossible, arbitrary, +new personage who had hypnotized her into unwonted silence at their +first meeting. + +She had recovered her usual poise by this time, however, and was quite +prepared to keep Alan Massey in due subjection if necessary. She did not +like masterful men. They always roused her own none too dormant +willfulness. + +As they sat down he bent over to her. + +"You are glad I made Carlotta put us together," he said, and this, too, +was no question, but an assertion. + +Tony was in arms in a flash. + +"On the contrary, I am exceedingly sorry she gave in to you. You seem to +be altogether too accustomed to having your own way as it is." And rather +pointedly she turned her pretty shoulder on her too presuming neighbor +and proceeded to devote her undivided attention for two entire courses to +Hal Underwood. + +But, with the fish, Hal's partner on the other side, a slim young person +in a glittering green sequined gown, suggesting a fish herself, or, at +politest, a mermaid, challenged his notice and Tony returned perforce to +her left-hand companion who had not spoken a single word since she had +snubbed him as Tony was well aware, though she had seemed so entirely +absorbed in her own conversation with Hal. + +His gray-green eyes smiled imperturbably into hers. + +"Am I pardoned? Surely I have been punished enough for my sins, whatever +they may have been." + +"I hope so," said Tony. "Are you always so disagreeable?" + +"I am never disagreeable when I am having my own way. I am always good +when I am happy. At this moment I am very, very good." + +"It hardly seems possible," said Tony. "Carlotta said you were not +good at all." + +He shrugged, a favorite mannerism, it seemed. + +"Goodness is relative and a very dull topic in any case. Let us talk, +instead, of the most interesting subject in the universe--love. You +know, of course, I am madly in love with you." + +"Indeed, no. I didn't suspect it," parried Tony. "You fall in love +easily." + +"Scarcely easily, in this case. I should say rather upon tremendous +provocation. I suppose you know how beautiful you are." + +"I look in the mirror occasionally," admitted Tony with a glimmer of +mischief in her eyes. "Carlotta told me you were a philanderer. +Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Massey." + +"Ah, but this isn't philandery. It is truth." Suddenly the mockery had +died out of his voice and his eyes. "_Carissima,_ I have waited a very +long time for you--too long. Life has been an arid waste without you, +but, Allah be praised, you are here at last. You are going to love +me--ah, my Tony--how you are going to love me!" The last words were +spoken very low for the girl's ears alone, though more than one person at +the table seeing him bend over her, understood, that Alan Massey, that +professional master-lover was "off" again. + +"Don't, Mr. Massey. I don't care for that kind of jest." + +"Jest! Good God! Tony Holiday, don't you know that I mean it, that this, +is the real thing at last for me--and for you? Don't fight it, +Mademoiselle Beautiful. It will do no good. I love you and you are going +to love me--divinely." + +"I don't even like you," denied Tony hotly. + +"What of that? What do I care for your liking? That is for others. But +your loving--that shall be mine--all mine. You will see." + +"I am afraid you are very much mistaken if you do mean all you are +saying. Please talk to Miss Irvine now. You haven't said a word to her +since you sat down. I hate rudeness." + +Again Tony turned a cold shoulder upon her amazing dinner companion but +she did not do it so easily or so calmly this time. She was not unused +to the strange ways of men. Not for nothing had she spent so much of her +life at army posts where love-making is as familiar as brass buttons. +Sudden gusts of passion were no novelty to her, nor was it a new thing +to hear that a man thought he loved her. But Alan Massey was different. +She disliked him intensely, she resented the arrogance of his +assumptions with all her might, but he interested her amazingly. And, +incredible as it might seem and not to be admitted out loud, he was +speaking the truth, just now. He did love her. In her heart Tony knew +that she had felt his love before he had ever spoken a word to her when +their eyes had met as he stood on the threshold and she knew too +instinctively, that his love--if it was that--was not a thing to be +treated like the little summer day loves of the others. It was big, +rather fearful, not to be flouted or played with. One did not play with +a meteor when it crossed one's path. One fled from it or stayed and let +it destroy one if it would. + +She roused herself to think of other people, to forget Alan Massey and +his wonderful voice which had said such perturbing things. Over across +the table, Carlotta was talking vivaciously to a pasty-visaged, +narrow-chested, stoop-shouldered youth who scarcely opened his mouth +except to consume food, but whose eyes drank in every movement of +Carlotta's. One saw at a glance he was another of that spoiled little +coquette's many victims. Tony asked Hal who he was. He seemed scarcely +worth so many of Carlotta's sparkles, she thought. + +"Herb Lathrop--father is the big tea and coffee man--all rolled up in +millions. Carlotta's people are putting all the bets on him, apparently, +though for the life of me I can't see why. Don't see why people with +money are always expected to match up with somebody with a whole +caboodle of the same junk. Ought to be evened up I think, and a bit of +eugenics slipped in, instead of so much cash, for good measure. You can +see what a poor fish he is. In my opinion she had much better marry your +neighbor up there on the Hill. He is worth a gross of Herb Lathrops and +she knows it. Carlotta is no fool." + +"You mean Phil Lambert?" Tony was surprised. + +Hal nodded. + +"That's the chap. Only man I ever knew that could keep Carlotta in +order." + +"But Carlotta hasn't the slightest idea of marrying Phil," objected Tony. + +"Maybe not. I only say he is the man she ought to marry. I say, Tony, +does she seem happy to you?" + +"Carlotta! Why, yes. I hadn't thought. She seems gayer than usual, if +anything." Tony's eyes sought her friend's face. Was there something a +little forced about that gaiety of hers? For the first time it struck her +that there was a restlessness in the lovely violet eyes which was +unfamiliar. Was Carlotta unhappy? Evidently Hal thought so. "You have +sharp eyes, Hal," she commented. "I hadn't noticed." + +"Oh, I'm one of the singed moths you know. I know Carlotta pretty well +and I know she is fighting some kind of a fight--maybe with herself. I +rather think it is. Tell Phil Lambert to come down here and marry her out +of hand. I tell you Lambert's the man." + +"You think Carlotta loves Phil?" + +"I don't think. 'Tisn't my business prying into a girl's fancies. I'm +simply telling you Phil Lambert is the man that ought to marry her, and +if he doesn't get on to the job almighty quick that pop-eyed simpleton +over there will be prancing down the aisle to Lohengrin with Carlotta +before Christmas, and the jig will be up. You tell him what I say. And +study the thing a bit yourself while you are here, Tony. See if you can +get to the bottom of it. I hate to have her mess things up for herself +that way." + +Whereupon Hal once more proceeded to do his duty to the mermaid, leaving +Tony to her other partner. + +"Well," the latter murmured, seeing her free. "I have done the heavy +polite act, discussed D'Annunzio, polo and psycho-analysis and finished +all three subjects neatly. Do I get my reward?" + +"What do you ask?" + +"The first dance and then the garden and the moon and you--all to +myself." + +Tony shook her head. She was on guard. + +"I shall want more than one dance and more than one partner. I am afraid +I shan't have time for the moon and the garden to-night. I adore dancing. +I never stop until the music does." + +A flash of exultancy leaped into his eyes. + +"So? I might have known you would adore dancing. You shall have your +fill. You shall have many dances, but only one partner. I shall suffice. +I am one of the best dancers in the world." + +"And evidently one of the vainest men," coolly. + +"What of it? Vanity is good when it is not misplaced. But I was not +boasting. I _am_ one of the best dancers in the world. Why should I not +be? My mother was Lucia Vannini. She danced before princes." He might +have added, "She was a prince's mistress." It had been the truth. + +"Oh!" cried Tony. She had heard of Lucia Vannini--a famous Italian beauty +and dancer of three decades ago. So Alan Massey was her son. No wonder he +was foreign, different, in ways and looks. One could forgive his +extravagances when one knew. + +"Ah, you like that, my beauty? You will like it even better when you +have danced with me. It is then that you will know what it is to dance. +We shall dance and dance and--love. I shall make you mine dancing, +_Toinetta mia_." + +Tony shrank back from his ardent eyes and his veiled threat. She was a +passionate devotee of her own freedom. She did not want to be made his or +any man's--certainly not his. She decided not to dance with him at all. +But later, when the violins began to play and Alan Massey came and stood +before her, uttering no word but commanding her to him with his eyes and +his out-stretched, nervous, slender, strong, artist hands, she +yielded--could scarcely have refused if she had wanted to. But she did +not want to, though she told herself it was with Lucia Vannini's son +rather than with Alan Massey that she desired to dance. + +After that she thought not at all, gave herself up to the very ecstasy of +emotion. She had danced all her life, but, even as he had predicted, she +learned for the first time in this man's arms what dancing really was. It +was like nothing she had ever even dreamed of--pure poetry of motion, a +curious, rather alarming weaving into one of two vividly alive persons in +a kind of pagan harmony, a rhythmic rapture so intense it almost hurt. It +seemed as if she could have gone on thus forever. + +But suddenly she perceived that she and her partner had the floor alone, +the others had stopped to watch, though the musicians still played on +frenziedly, faster and faster. Flushed, embarrassed at finding herself +thus conspicuous, she drew herself away from Alan Massey. + +"We must stop," she murmured. "They are all looking at us." + +"What of it?" He bent over her, his passionate eyes a caress. "Did I not +tell you, _carissima_ Was it not very heaven?" + +Tony shook her head. + +"I am afraid there was nothing heavenly about it. But it was wonderful. I +forgive you your boasting. You are the best dancer in the world. I am +sure of it." + +"And you will dance with me again and again, my wonder-girl. You must. +You want to." + +"I want to," admitted Tony. "But I am not going to--at least not again +to-night. Take me to a seat." + +He did so and she sank down with a fluttering sigh beside Miss Lottie +Cressy, Carlotta's aunt. The latter stared at her, a little oddly she +thought, and then looked up at Alan Massey. + +"You don't change, do you, Alan?" observed Miss Cressy. + +"Oh yes, I change a great deal. I have been very different ever since I +met Miss Tony." His eyes fell on the girl, made no secret of his emotions +concerning her and her beauty. + +Miss Cressy laughed a little sardonically. + +"No doubt. You were always different after each new sweetheart, I recall. +So were they--some of them." + +"You do me too much honor," he retorted suavely. "Shall we not go out, +Miss Holiday? The garden is very beautiful by moonlight." + +She bowed assent, and together they passed out of the room through the +French window. Miss Cressy stared after them, the bitter little smile +still lingering on her lips. + +"Youth for Alan always," she said to herself. "Ah, well, I was young, +too, those days in Paris. I must tell Carlotta to warn Tony. It would be +a pity for the child to be tarnished so soon by touching his kind too +close. She is so young and so lovely." + +Alan and Tony strayed to a remote corner of the spacious gardens and +came to a pause beside the fountain which leaped and splashed and caught +the moonlight in its falling splendor. For a moment neither spoke. Tony +bent to dip her fingers in the cool water. She had an odd feeling of +needing lustration from something. The man's eyes were upon her. She was +very young, very lovely, as Miss Cressy had said. There was something +strangely moving to Alan Massey about her virginal freshness, her +moonshine beauty. He was unaccustomed to compunction, but for a fleeting +second, as he studied Tony Holiday standing there with bowed head, +laving her hands in the sparkling purity of the water, he had an impulse +to go away and leave her, lest he cast a shadow upon her by his +lingering near her. + +It was only for a moment. He was far too selfish to follow the brief urge +to renunciation. The girl stirred his passion too deeply, roused his will +to conquer too irresistibly to permit him to forego the privilege of the +place and hour. + +She looked up at him and he smiled down at her, once more the +master-lover. + +"I was right, was I not, _Toinetta mia_? I did make you a little bit +mine, did I not? Be honest. Tell me." He laid a hand on each of her bare +white shoulders, looked deep, deep into her brown eyes as if he would +read secret things in their depths. + +Tony drew away from his hands, dropped her gaze once more to the rippling +white of the water, which was less disconcerting than Alan Massey's too +ardent green eyes. + +"You danced with me divinely. I shall also make you love me divinely even +as I promised. You know it dear one. You cannot deny it," the magically +beautiful voice which pulled so oddly at her heart strings went on +softly, almost in a sort of chant. "You love me already, my white +moonshine girl," he whispered. "Tell me you do." + +"Ah but I don't," denied Tony. "I--I won't. I don't want to love +anybody." + +"You cannot help it, dear heart. Nature made you for loving and being +loved. And it is I that you are going to love. Mine that you shall +be. Tell me, did you ever feel before as you felt in there when we +were dancing?" + +"No," said Tony, her eyes still downcast. + +"I knew it. You are mine, belovedest. I knew it the moment I saw you. It +is Kismet. Kiss me." + +"No." The girl pulled herself away from him, her face aflame. + +"No? Then so." He drew her back to him, and lifted her face gently with +his two hands. He bent over her, his lips close to hers. + +"If you kiss me I'll never dance with you again as long as I live!" +she flashed. + +He laughed a little mockingly, but he lowered his hands, made no effort +to gainsay her will. + +"What a horrible threat, you cruel little moonbeam! But you wouldn't keep +it. You couldn't. You love to dance with me too well." + +"I would," she protested, the more sharply because she suspected he was +right, that she would dance with him again, no matter what he did. "Any +way I shall not dance with you again to-night. And I shall not stay out +here with you any longer." She turned to flee, but he put out his hand +and held her back. + +"Not so fast, my Tony. They have eyes and ears in there. If you run away +from me and go back with those glorious fires lit in your cheeks and in +your eyes they will believe I did kiss you-." + +"Oh!" gasped Tony, indignant but lingering, recognizing the probable +truth of his prediction. + +"We shall go together after a minute with sedateness, as if we had been +studying the stars. I am wise, my Tony. Trust me." + +"Very well," assented Tony. "How many stars are there in the Pleiades, +anyway?" she asked with sudden imps of mirth in her eyes. + +Again she felt on safe ground, sure that she had conquered and put a +too presuming male in his place. She had no idea that the laurels had +been chiefly not hers at all but Alan Massey's, who was quite as wise +as he boasted. + +But she kept her word and danced no more with Alan Massey that night. +She did not dare. She hated Alan Massey, disapproved of him heartily and +knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with +him, especially if she let herself dance often with him as they had +danced to-night. + +And so, her very first night at Crest House, Antoinette Holiday +discovered that, there was such a thing as love after all, and that it +had to be reckoned with whether you desired or not to welcome it at +your door. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD + + +After that first night in the garden Alan Massey did not try to make open +love to Tony again, but his eyes, following her wherever she moved, made +no secret of his adoration. He was nearly always by her side, driving off +other devotees when he chose with a cool high-handedness which sometimes +amused, sometimes infuriated Tony. She found the man a baffling and +fascinating combination of qualities, all petty selfishness and colossal +egotisms one minute, abounding in endless charms and graces and small +endearing chivalries the next; outrageously outspoken at times, at other +times, reticent to the point of secretiveness; now reaching the most +extravagant pitch of high spirits, and then, almost without warning, +submerged in moods of Stygian gloom from which nothing could rouse him. + +Tony came to know something of his romantic and rather mottled career +from Carlotta and others, even from Alan himself. She knew perfectly well +he was not the kind of man Larry or her uncle would approve or tolerate. +She disapproved of him rather heartily herself in many ways. At times she +disliked him passionately, made up her mind she would have no more to do +with him. At other times she was all but in love with him, and suspected +she would have found the world an intolerably dull place with Alan Massey +suddenly removed from it. When they danced together she was dangerously +near being what he had claimed she was or would be--all his. She knew +this, was afraid of it, yet she kept on dancing with him night after +night. It seemed as if she had to, as if she would have danced with him +even if she knew the next moment would send them both hurtling through +space, like Lucifer, down to damnation. + +It was not until Dick Carson came down for a week end, some time later, +that Tony discovered the resemblance in Alan to some one she knew of +which Carlotta had spoken. Incredibly and inexplicably Dick and Alan +possessed a shadowy sort of similarity. In most respects they were as +different in appearance as they were in personality. Dick's hair was +brown and straight; Alan's, black and wavy. Dick's eyes were steady +gray-blue; Alan's, shifty gray-green. Yet the resemblance was there, +elusive, though it was. Perhaps it lay in the curve of the sensitive +nostrils, perhaps in the firm contour of chin, perhaps in the arch of the +brow. Perhaps it was nothing so tangible, just a fleeting trick of +expression. Tony did not know, but she caught the thing just as Carlotta +had and it puzzled and interested her. + +She spoke of it to Alan the next morning after Dick's arrival, as they +idled together, stretched out on the sand, waiting for the others to come +out of the surf. + +To her surprise he was instantly highly annoyed and resentful. + +"For Heaven's sake, Tony, don't get the resemblance mania. It's a +disgusting habit. I knew a woman once who was always chasing likenesses +in people and prattling about them--got her in trouble once and served +her right. She told a young lieutenant that he looked extraordinarily +like a certain famous general of her acquaintance. It proved later that +the young man had been born at the post where the general was stationed +while the presumptive father was absent on a year's cruise. It had been +quite a prominent scandal at the time." + +"That isn't a nice story, Alan. Moreover it is entirely irrelevant. But +you and Dick do look alike. I am not the only or the first person who saw +it, either." + +Alan started and frowned. + +"Good Lord! Who else?" he demanded. + +"Carlotta!" + +"The devil she did!" Alan's eyes were vindictive. Then he laughed. +"Commend me to a girl's imagination! This Dick chap seems to be head over +heels in love with you," he added. + +"What nonsense!" denied Tony crisply, fashioning a miniature sand +mountain as she spoke. + +"No nonsense at all, my dear. Perfectly obvious fact. Don't you suppose I +know how a man looks when he is in love? I ought to. I've been in love +often enough." + +Tony demolished her mountain with a wrathful sweep of her hand. + +"And registered all the appropriate emotions before the mirror, I +suppose. You make me sick, Alan. You are all pose. I don't believe there +is a single sincere thing about you." + +"Oh, yes, there is--are--two." + +"What are they?" + +"One is my sincere devotion to yourself, my beautiful. The other--an +equally sincere devotion to--_myself_." + +"I grant you the second, at least." + +"Don't pose, yourself, my darling. You know I love you. You pretend you +don't believe it, but you do. And way down deep in your heart you love my +love. It makes your heart beat fast just to think of it. See! Did I not +tell you?" He had suddenly put out his hand and laid it over her heart. + +"Poor little wild bird! How its wings flutter!" + +Tony got up swiftly from the sand, her face scarlet. She was indignant, +self-conscious, betrayed. For her heart had been beating at a fearful +clip and she knew it. + +"How dare you touch me like that, Alan Massey? I detest you. I don't see +why I ever listen to you at all, or let you come near me." + +Alan Massey, still lounging at her feet, looked up at her as she stood +above him, slim, supple, softly rounded, adorably pretty and feminine in +her black satin bathing suit and vivid, emerald hued cap. + +"I know why," he said and rose, too, slowly, with the indolent grace of a +leopard. "So do you, my Tony," he added. "We both know. Will you dance +with me a great deal to-night?" + +"No." + +"How many times?" + +"Not at all." + +"Indeed! And does his Dick Highmightiness object to your dancing with +me?" + +"Dick! Of course not. He hasn't anything to do with it. I am not going to +dance with you because you are behaving abominably to-day, and you did +yesterday and the day before that. I think you are nearly always +abominable, in fact." + +"Still, I am one of the best dancers in the world. It is a temptation, is +it not, my own?" + +He smiled his slow, tantalizing smile and, in spite of herself, Tony +smiled back. + +"It is," she admitted. "You are a heavenly dancer, Alan. There is no +denying it. If you were Mephisto himself I think I would dance with +you--occasionally." + +"And to-night?" + +"Once," relented Tony. "There come the others at last." And she ran off +down the yellow sands like a modern Atalanta. + +"My, but Tony is pretty to-night!" murmured Carlotta to Alan, who +chanced to be standing near her as her friend fluttered by with Dick. +"She looks like a regular flame in that scarlet chiffon. It is awfully +daring, but she is wonderful in it." + +"She is always wonderful," muttered Alan moodily, watching the slender, +graceful figure whirl and trip and flash down the floor like a gay poppy +petal caught in the wind. + +Carlotta turned. Something in Alan's tone arrested her attention. + +"Alan, I believe, it is real with you at last," she said. Up to that +moment she had considered his affair with Tony as merely another of his +many adventures in romance, albeit possibly a slightly more extravagant +one than usual. + +"Of course it is real--real as Hell," he retorted. "I'm mad over her, +Carla. I am going to marry her if I have to kill every man in the path to +get to her," savagely. + +"I am sorry, Alan. You must see Tony is not for the like of you. You +can't get to her. I wish you wouldn't try." + +Dick and Tony passed close to them again. Tony was smiling up at her +partner and he was looking down at her with a gaze that betrayed his +caring. Neither saw Alan and Carlotta. The savage light gleamed brighter +in Alan's green eyes. + +"Carlotta, is there anything between them?" he demanded fiercely. + +"Nothing definite. He adores her, of course, and she is very fond of him. +She feels as if he sort of belonged to her, I think. You know the story?" + +"Tell me." + +Briefly Carlotta outlined the tale of how Dick had taken refuge in the +Holiday barn when he had run away from the circus, and how Tony had found +him, sick and exhausted from fatigue, hunger and abuse; how the Holidays +had taken him in and set him on his feet, and Tony had given him her own +middle name of Carson since he had none of his own. + +Alan listened intently. + +"Did he ever get any clue as to his identity?" he asked as +Carlotta paused. + +"Never." + +"Has he asked Tony to marry him?" + +"I don't think so. I doubt if he ever does, so long as he doesn't know +who he is. He is very proud and sensitive, and has an almost +superstitious veneration for the Holiday tradition. Being a Holiday in +New England is a little like being of royal blood, you know. I don't +believe you will ever have to make a corpse of poor Dick, Alan." + +"I don't mind making corpses. I rather think I should enjoy making one of +him. I detest the long, lean animal." + +Had Alan known it, Dick had taken quite as thorough a dislike to his +magnificent self. At that very moment indeed, as he and Tony strolled in +the garden, Dick had remarked that he wished Tony wouldn't dance with +"that Massey." + +"And why not?" she demanded, always quick to resent dictatorial airs. + +"Because he makes you--well--conspicuous. He hasn't any business to dance +with you the way he does. You aren't a professional but he makes you look +like one." + +"Thanks. A left-hand compliment but still a compliment!" + +"It wasn't meant for one," said Dick soberly. "I hate it. Of course you +dance wonderfully yourself. It isn't just dancing with you. It is poetry, +stuff of dreams and all the rest of it. I can see that, and I know it +must be a temptation to have a chance at a partner like that. Lord! Tony! +No man in every day life has a right to dance the way he can. He +out-classes Castle. I hate that kind of a man--half woman." + +"There isn't anything of a woman about Alan, Dick. He is the most +virulently male man I ever knew." + +Dick fell silent at that. Presently he began again. + +"Tony, please don't be offended at what I am going to say. I know it is +none of my business, but I wish you wouldn't keep on with this affair +with Massey." + +"Why not?" There was an aggressive sparkle in Tony's eyes. + +"People are talking. I heard them last night when you were dancing with +him. It hurts. Alan Massey isn't the kind of a man for a girl like you to +flirt with." + +"Stuff and nonsense, Dicky! Any kind of a man is the kind for a girl to +flirt with, if she keeps her head." + +"But Tony, honestly, this Massey hasn't a good reputation." + +"How do you know?" + +"Newspaper men know a great deal. They have to. Besides, Alan Massey is a +celebrity. He is written up in our files." + +"What does that mean?" + +"It means that if he should die to-morrow all we would have to do would +be to put in the last flip. The biographical data is all on the card +ready to shoot." + +"Dear me. That's rather gruesome, isn't it?" shivered Tony. "I'm glad I'm +not a celebrity. I'd hate to be stuck down on your old flies. Will I get +on Alan's card if I keep on flirting with him?" + +"Good Lord! I should hope not." + +"I suppose I wouldn't be in very good company. I don't mean Alan. I +mean--his ladies." + +"Tony! Then you know?" + +"About Alan's ladies? Oh, yes. He told me himself." + +Dick looked blank. What was a man to do in a case like this, finding his +big bugaboo no bugaboo at all? + +"I know a whole lot about Alan Massey, maybe more than is on your old +card. I know his mother was Lucia Vannini, so beautiful and so gifted +that she danced in every court in Europe and was loved by a prince. I +know how Cyril Massey, an American artist, painted her portrait and +loved her and married her. I know how she worshiped him and was +absolutely faithful to him to the day he died, when the very light of +life went out for her." + +"She managed to live rather cheerfully afterward, even without light, if +all the stories about her are true," observed Dick, with, for him, +unusual cynicism. + +"You don't understand. She had to live." + +"There are other ways of living than those she chose." + +"Not for her. She knew only two things--love and dancing. She was thrown +from a horse the next year after her husband died. Dancing was over for +her. There was only--her beauty left. Her husband's people wouldn't have +anything to do with her because she had been a dancer and because of the +prince. Old John Massey, Cyril's uncle, turned her and her baby from his +door, and his cousin John and his wife refused even to see her. She said +she would make them hear of her before she died. She did." + +"They heard all right. She, and her son too, must have been a thorn in +the flesh of the Masseys. They were all rigid Puritans I understand, +especially old John." + +"Serve him right," sniffed Tony. "They were rolling in wealth. They might +have helped her kept her from the other thing they condemned so. She +wanted money only for Alan, especially after he began to show that he had +more than his father's gifts. She earned it in the only way she knew. I +don't blame her." + +"Tony!" + +"I can't help it if I am shocking you, Dick. I can understand why she did +it. She didn't care anything about the lovers. She never cared for anyone +after Cyril died. She gave herself for Alan. Can't you see that there was +something rather fine about it? I can." + +Dick grunted. He remembered hearing something about a woman whose sins +were forgiven her because she loved much. But he couldn't reconcile +himself to hearing such stories from Tony Holiday's lips. They were +remote from the clean, sweet, wholesome atmosphere in which she belonged. + +"Anyway, Alan was a wonderful success. He studied in Paris and he had +pictures on exhibition in salons over there before he was twenty. He was +feted and courted and flattered and--loved, until he thought the world +was his and everything in it--including the ladies." Tony made a little +face at this. She did not care very-much for that part of Alan's story, +herself. "His mother was afraid he was going to have his head completely +turned and would lose all she had gained so hard for him, so she made him +come back to America and settle down. He did. He made a great name for +himself before he was twenty-five as a portrait painter and he and his +mother lived so happily together. She didn't need any more lovers then. +Alan was all she needed. And then she died, and he went nearly crazy with +grief, went all to pieces, every way. I suppose that part of his career +is what makes you say he isn't fit for me to flirt with." + +Dick nodded miserably. + +"It isn't very pleasant for me to think of, either," admitted Tony. "I +don't like it any better than you do. But he isn't like that any more. +When old John Massey died without leaving any will Alan got all the +money, because his cousin John and his stuck-up wife had died, too, and +there was nobody else. Alan pulled up stakes and traveled all over the +world, was gone two years and, when he came back, he wasn't dissipated +any more. I don't say he is a saint now. He isn't, I know. But he got +absolutely out of the pit he was in after his mother's death." + +"Lucky for him they never found the baby John Massey, who was stolen," +Dick remarked. "He would have been the heir if he could have appeared to +claim the money instead of Alan Massey, who was only a grand nephew." + +Tony stared. + +"There wasn't any baby," she exclaimed. + +"Oh yes, there was. John Massey, Junior, had a son John who was kidnapped +when he was asleep in the park and deserted by his nurse who had gone to +flirt with a policeman. There was a great fuss made about it at the time. +The Masseys offered fabulous sums of money for the return of the child, +but he never turned up. I had to dig up the story a few years ago when +old John died, which is why I know so much about it." + +"I don't believe Alan knew about the baby. He didn't tell me anything +about it." + +"I'll wager he knew, all right. It would be mighty unpleasant for him if +the other Massey turned up now." + +"Dick, I believe you would be glad if Alan lost the money," +reproached Tony. + +"Why no, Tony. It's nothing to me, but I've always been sorry for that +other Massey kid, though he doesn't know what he missed and is probably a +jail-bird or a janitor by this time, not knowing he is heir to one of +the biggest properties in America." + +"Sorry to disturb your theories, Mr.--er Carson," remarked Alan Massey, +suddenly appearing on the scene. "My cousin John happens to be neither a +jail-bird nor a janitor, but merely comfortably dead. Lucky John!" + +"But Dick said he wasn't dead--at least that nobody knew whether he was +or not," objected Tony. + +"Unfortunately your friend is in error. John Massey is entirely dead, I +assure you. And now, if he is quite through with me and my affairs, +perhaps Mr. Carson will excuse you. Come, dear." + +Alan laid a hand on Tony's arm with a proprietorial air which made Dick +writhe far more than his insulting manner to himself had done. Tony +looked quickly from one to the other. She hated the way Alan was +behaving, but she did not want to precipitate a scene and yielded, +leaving Dick, with a deprecatory glance, to go with Alan. + +"I don't like your manner," she told the latter. "You were abominably +rude just now." + +"Forgive me, sweetheart. I apologize. That young man of yours sets my +teeth on edge. I can't abide a predestined parson. I'll wager anything he +has been preaching at you." He smiled ironically as he saw the girl +flush. "So he did preach,--and against me, I suppose." + +"He did, and quite right, too. You are not at all a proper person for me +to flirt with, just as he said. Even Miss Lottie told me that and when +Miss Lottie objects to a man it means--" + +"That she has failed to hold him herself," said Alan cynically. "Stop, +Tony. I want to say something to you before we go in. I am not a proper +person. I told you that myself. There have been other women in my life--a +good many of them. I told you that, too. But that has absolutely nothing +to do with you and me. I love you. You are the only woman I ever have +loved in the big sense, at least the only one I have ever wanted to +marry. I am like my mother. She had many lesser loves. She had only one +great one. She married him. And I shall marry you." + +"Alan, don't. It is foolish--worse than foolish to talk like that. My +people would never let me marry you, even if I wanted to. Dick was +speaking for them just now when he warned me against you." + +"He was speaking for himself. Damn him!" + +"Alan!" + +"I beg your pardon, Tony. I'm a brute to-night. I am sorry. I won't +trouble you any more. I won't even keep you to your promise to dance once +with me if you wish to be let off." + +The music floated out to them, called insistently to Tony's rhythm-mad +feet and warm young blood. + +"Ah, but I do want to dance with you," she sighed. "I don't want to be +let off. Come." + +He bent over her, a flash of triumph in his eyes. + +"My own!" he exulted. "You are my own. Kiss me, belovedest." + +But Tony pulled away from him and he followed her. A moment later the +scarlet flame was in his arms whirling down the hall to the music of the +violins, and Dick, standing apart by the window watching, tasted the +dregs of the bitterest brew life had yet offered him. Better, far better +than Tony Holiday he knew where the scarlet flame was blowing. + +His dance with Tony over, Alan retired to the library where he used the +telephone to transmit a wire to Boston, a message addressed to one James +Roberts, a retired circus performer. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AND THERE IS A FLAME + + +When Alan Massey strayed into the breakfast room, one of the latest +arrivals at that very informal meal, he found a telegram awaiting him. It +was rather an odd message and ran thus, without capitalization or +punctuation. "Town named correct what is up let sleeping dogs lie sick." +Alan frowned as he thrust the yellow envelope into his pocket. + +"Does the fool mean he is sick, I wonder," he cogitated. "Lord, I wish I +could let well enough alone. But this sword of Damocles business is +beginning to get on my nerves. I have half a mind to take a run into town +this afternoon and see the old reprobate. I'll bet he doesn't know as +much as he claims to, but I'd like to be sure before he dies." + +Just then Tony Holiday entered, clad in a rose hued linen and looking +like a new blown rose herself. + +"You are the latest ever," greeted Carlotta. + +"On the contrary I have been up since the crack of dawn," denied Tony, +slipping into a seat beside her friend. + +Carlotta opened her eyes wide. Then she understood. + +"You got up to see Dick off," she announced. + +"I did. Please give me some strawberries, Hal, if you don't mean to eat +the whole pyramid yourself. I not only got up, but I went to the +station; not only went to the station, but I walked the whole mile and a +half. Can anybody beat that for a morning record?" Tony challenged as she +deluged her berries with cream. + +Alan Massey uttered a kind of a snarling sound such as a lion disturbed +from a nap might have emitted. He had thought he was through with Carson +when the latter had made his farewells the night before, saying +goodnight to Tony before them all. But Tony had gotten up at some +ridiculously early hour to escort him to the station, and did not mind +everybody's knowing it. He subsided into a dense mood of gloom. The +morning had begun badly. + +Later he discovered Tony in the rose garden with a big basket on her arm +and a charming drooping sun hat shading her even more charming face. She +waved him away as he approached. + +"Go away," she ordered. "I'm busy." + +"You mean you have made up your mind to be disagreeable to me," he +retorted, lighting a cigarette and looking as if he meant to fight it out +along that line if it took all summer. + +Tony snipped off a rose with her big shears and dropped it into her +basket. It rather looked as if she were meaning to snip off Alan Massey +figuratively in much the same ruthless manner. + +"Put it that way, if you like. Only stay away. I mean it." + +"Why?" he persisted. + +Thus pressed she turned and faced him. + +"It is a lovely morning--all blue and gold and clean-washed after last +night's storm--a good morning. I'm feeling good, too. The clean morning +has got inside of me. And when you come near me I feel a pricking in my +thumbs. You don't fit into my present, mood. Please go, Alan. I am +perfectly serious. I don't want to talk to you." + +"What have I done? I am no different from what I was yesterday." + +"I know. It isn't anything you have done. It isn't you at all. It is I +who am different--or want to be." Tony spoke earnestly. She was perfectly +sincere. She did want to be different. She had not slept well the night +before. She had thought a great deal about Holiday Hill and Uncle Phil +and her brothers and--well, yes--about Dick Carson. They all armed her +against Alan Massey. + +Alan threw away his cigarette with an angry gesture. + +"You can't play fast and loose with me, Tony Holiday. You have been +leading me on, playing the devil with me for days. You know you have. Now +you are scared, and want to get back to shallow water. It is too late. +You are in deep seas and you've got to stay there--with me." + +"I haven't _got_ to do anything, Alan. You are claiming more than you +have any right to claim." + +But he came nearer, towered above her, almost menacingly. + +"Because that nameless fool of a reporter with his sanctimonious airs and +impeccable morals, has put you against me you want to sack me. You can't +do it. Last night you were ready to go any lengths with me. You know it. +Do you think I am going to be balked by a miserable circus brat--a mere +nobody? Not so long as I am Alan Massey. Count on that." + +Tony's dark eyes were ablaze with anger. + +"Stop there, Alan. You are saying things that are not true. And I forbid +you ever to speak of Dick like that again to me." + +"Indeed! And how are you going to prevent my saying what I please about +your precious protege?" sneered Alan. + +"I shall tell Carlotta I won't stay under the same roof with anybody who +insults my friends. You won't have to restrain yourself long in any case. +I am leaving Saturday--perhaps sooner." + +"Tony!" The sneer died away from Alan's face, which had suddenly grown +white. "You mustn't go. I can't live without you, my darling. If you knew +how I worshiped you, how I cannot sleep of nights for wanting you, you +wouldn't talk of going away from me. I was brutal just now. I admit it. +It is because I love you so. The thought of your turning from me, +deserting me, maddened me. I am not responsible for what I said. You must +forgive me. But, oh my belovedest, you are mine! Don't try to deny it. We +have belonged to each other for always. You know it. You feel it. I have +seen the knowledge in your eyes, felt it flutter in your heart. Will you +marry me, Tony Holiday? You shall be loved as no woman was ever loved. +You shall be my queen. I will be true to you forever and ever, your +slave, your mate. Tony, Tony, say yes. You must!" + +But Tony drew back from him, frightened, repulsed, shocked, by the +storm of his passion which shook him as mighty trees are shaken by +tempests. She shrank from the hungry fires in his eyes, from the +abandon and fierceness of his wooing. It was an alien, disturbing, +dreadful thing to her. + +"Don't," she implored. "You mustn't love me like that, Alan. You +must not." + +"How can I help it, sweetheart? I am no iceberg. I am a man and you are +the one woman in the world for me. I love you--love you. I want you. I'm +going to have you--make you mine--marry you, bell and book, what you +will, so long as you are mine--mine--mine." + +Tony set down her basket, clasped her hands behind her and stood looking +straight up into his face. + +"Listen, Alan. I cannot marry you. I couldn't, even if I loved you, and +I don't think I do love you, though you fascinate me and, when we are +dancing, I forget all the other things in you that I hate. I have been +very foolish and maybe unkind to let it go on so far. I didn't quite know +what I was doing. Girls don't know. That is why they play with men as +they do. They don't mean to be cruel. They just don't know." + +"But you know now, my Tony?" His dark, stormy face was very close to +hers. Tony felt her heart leap but she did not flinch nor pull away +this time. + +"Yes, Alan, I know, in a way, at least. We mustn't go on like this. It is +bad for us both. I'll tell Carlotta I am going home to-morrow." + +"You want--to go away from me?" The haunting music of his voice, more +moving in its hurt than in its mastery of mood, stirred Tony Holiday +profoundly, but she steadied herself by a strong effort of will. She must +not let him sweep her away from her moorings. She must not. She must +remember Holiday Hill very hard. + +"I have to, Alan," she said. "I am very sorry if I have hurt you, am +hurting you. But I can't marry you. That is final. The sooner we end +things the better." + +"By God! It isn't final. It never will be so long as you and I are both +alive. You will come to me of your own accord. You will love me. You do +love me now. But you are letting the world come in between where it has +no right to come. I tell you you are mine--mine!" + +"No, no!" denied Tony. + +"And I say yes, my love. You are my love. I have set my seal upon you. +You can go away, back to your Hill, but you will not be happy without me. +You will never forget me for a waking moment. You cannot. You are a part +of me, forever." + +There was something solemn, inexorable in Alan's tones. A strange fear +clutched at Tony's heart. Was he right? Could she never forget him? +Would he always be a part of her--forever? No, that was nonsense! How +could it be true? How could he have set his seal upon her when he had +never even kissed her? She would not let him hypnotize her into +believing his prophecy. + +She stooped mechanically to pick up her roses and remembered the story +of Persephone gathering lilies in the vale of Enna and suddenly borne +off by the coal black horses of Dis to the dark kingdom of the lower +world. Was she Persephone? Had she eaten of the pomegranate seeds while +she danced night after night in Alan Massey's arms? No, she would not +believe it. She was free. She would exile Alan Massey from her heart and +life. She must. + +This resolve was in her eyes as she lifted them to Alan's. The fire had +died out of his now, and his face was gray and drawn in the sunshine. His +mood had changed as his moods so often did swiftly. + +"Forgive me, Tony," he said humbly. "I have troubled you, frightened you. +I am sorry. You needn't go away. I will go. I don't want to spoil one +moment of happiness for you. I never shall, except when the devil is in +me. Please try to remember that. Say always, 'Alan loves me. No matter +what he does or says, he loves me. His love is real, if nothing else +about him is.' You do believe that, don't you, dearest?" he pleaded. + +"I do, Alan. I have always believed it, I think, ever since that first +night, though I have tried not to. I am very sorry though. Love--your +kind of love is a fearful thing. I am afraid of it." + +"It is fearful, but beautiful too--very beautiful--like fire. Did you +ever think what a strange dual element fire is? It consumes--is a force +of destruction. But it also purifies, burns out dross. Love is like +that, my Tony. Mine for you may damn me forever, or it may take me to the +very gate of Heaven. I don't know myself which it will be." + +As he spoke there was a strange kind of illumination on his face, a look +almost of spiritual exaltation. It awed Tony, bereft her of words. This +was a new Alan Massey--an Alan Massey she had never seen before, and she +found herself looking up instead of down at him. + +He stooped and kissed her hand reverently, as a devotee might pay homage +at the shrine of a saint. + +"I shall not see you again until to-night, Tony. I am going into town. +But I shall be back--for one more dance with you, heart's dearest. And +then I promise I will go away and leave you tomorrow. You will dance with +me, Tony--once? We shall have that one perfect thing to remember?" + +Tony bowed assent. And in a moment she was alone with her roses. + +That afternoon she shut herself in her room to write letters to the home +people whom she had neglected badly of late. Every moment had been so +full since she had come to Carlotta's. There had been so little time to +write and when she had written it had given little of what she was really +living and feeling--just the mere externals and not all of them, as she +was very well aware. They would never understand her relation with Alan. +They would disapprove, just as Dick had disapproved. Perhaps she did not +understand, herself, why she had let herself get so deeply entangled in +something which could not go on, something, which was the profoundest +folly, if nothing worse. + +The morning had crystallized her fear of the growing complication of the +situation. She was glad Alan was going away, glad she had had the +strength of will to deny him his will, glad that she could now--after +to-night--come back into undisputed possession of the kingdom of herself. +But in her heart she was gladder that there was to-night and that one +last dance with Alan Massey before life became simple and sane and tame +again, and Alan and his wild love passed out of it forever. + +She finished her letters, which were not very satisfactory after all. +How could one write real letters when one's pen was writing one thing +and one's thoughts were darting hither and thither about very different +business? She threw herself in the chaise longue, not yet ready to +dress and go down to join the others. There was nobody there she cared +to talk to, somehow. Alan was not there. Nobody else mattered. It had +come to that. + +Idly she picked up a volume of verse that lay beside her on the table and +fluttered its pages, seeking something to meet her restless mood. +Presently in her vagrant seeking she chanced upon a little poem--a poem +she read and reread, twice, three times. + + "For there is a flame that has blown too near, +And there is a name that has grown too dear, + And there is a fear. +And to the still hills and cool earth and far sky I make moan. +The heart in my bosom is not my own! +Oh, would I were free as the wind on wing! +Love is a terrible thing!" + +Tony laid the book face down upon the table, still open at the little +verse. The shadows were growing long out there in the dusk. The late +afternoon sun was pale honey color. A soft little breeze stirred the +branches of a weeping willow tree and set them to swaying languorously. +Unseen birds twittered happily among the shrubbery. A golden butterfly +poised for a moment above the white holly hocks and then drifted off over +the flaming scarlet poppies and was lost to sight. + +It was all so beautiful, so serene. She felt that it should have come +like a benediction, cooling the fever of her tired mind, but it did not. +It could not even drive the words of the poem out of her head. + +Oh, would I were free as the wind on wing! +Love is a terrible thing! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BITTER FRUIT + + +From the North Station in Boston Alan Massey directed his course to a +small cigar store on Atlantic Avenue. A black eyed Italian lad in +attendance behind the counter looked up as he entered and surveyed him +with grave scrutiny. + +"I am Mr. Massey," announced Alan. "Mr. Roberts is expecting me. I +wired." + +"Jim's sick," said the boy briefly. + +"I am sorry. I hope he is not too sick to see me." + +"Naw, he'll see you. He wants to." The speaker motioned Alan to follow +him to the rear of the store. Together they mounted some narrow stairs, +passed through a hallway and into a bedroom, a disorderly, dingy, +obviously man-kept affair. On the bed lay a large framed, exceedingly +ugly looking man. His flesh was yellow and sagged loosely away from his +big bones. The impression he gave was one of huge animal bulk, shriveling +away in an unlovely manner, getting ready to disintegrate entirely. The +man was sick undoubtedly. Possibly dying. He looked it. + +The door shut with a soft click. The two men were alone. + +"Hello, Jim." Alan approached the bed. "Bad as this? I am sorry." He +spoke with the careless, easy friendliness he could assume when it +suited him. + +The man grinned, faintly, ironically. The grin did not lessen the +ugliness of his face, rather accentuated it. + +"It's not so bad," he drawled. "Nothing but death and what's that? I +don't suffer much--not now. It's cancer, keeps gnawing away like a rat in +the wall. By and by it will get up to my heart and then it's good-by Jim. +I shan't care. What's life good for that a chap should cling to it like a +barnacle on a rock?" + +"We do though," said Alan Massey. + +"Oh, yes, we do. It's the way we're made. We are always clinging to +something, good or bad. Life, love, home, drink, power, money! Always +something we are ready to sell our souls to get or keep. With you and me +it was money. You sold your soul to me to keep money and I took it to +get money." + +He laughed raucously and Alan winced at the sound and cursed the morbid +curiosity that had brought him to the bedside of this man who for three +years past had held his own future in his dirty hand, or claimed to hold +it. Alan Massey had paid, paid high for the privilege of not knowing +things he did not wish to know. + +"What kind of a trail had you struck when you wired me, Massey? I didn't +know you were anxious for details about young John Massey's career I +thought you preferred ignorance. It was what you bought of me." + +"I know it was," groaned Alan, dropping into a creaking rocker beside the +bed. "I am a fool. I admit it. But sometimes it seems to me I can't stand +not knowing. I want to squeeze what you know out of you as you would +squeeze a lemon until there was nothing left but bitter pulp. It is +driving me mad." + +The sick man eyed the speaker with a leer of malicious satisfaction. It +was meat to his soul to see this lordly young aristocrat racked with +misery and dread, to hold him in his power as a cat holds a mouse, which +it can crush and crunch at any moment if it will. Alan Massey's mood +filled Jim Roberts with exquisite enjoyment, enjoyment such as a gourmand +feels on setting his teeth in some rare morsel of food. + +"I know," he nodded. "It works like that often. They say a murderer can't +keep away from the scene of his crime if he is left at large. There is an +irresistible fascination to him about the spot where he damned his +immortal soul." + +"I'm not a criminal," snarled Alan. "Don't talk to me like that or you +will never see another cent of my money." + +"Money!" sneered the sick man. "What's that to me now? I've lost my taste +for money. It is no good to me any more. I've got enough laid by to bury +me and I can't take the rest with me. Your money is nothing to me, Alan +Massey. But you'll pay still, in a different way. I am glad you came. It +is doing me good." + +Alan made a gesture of disgust and got to his feet, pacing to and fro, +his face dark, his soul torn, between conflicting emotions. + +"I'll be dead soon," went on the malicious, purring voice from the bed. +"Don't begrudge me my last fling. When I am in my grave you will be safe. +Nobody in the living world but me knows young John Massey's alive. You +can keep your money then with perfect ease of mind until you get to where +I am now and then,--maybe you will find out the money will comfort you no +longer, that nothing but having a soul can get you over the river." + +The younger man's march came to a halt by the bedside. + +"You shan't die until you tell me what you know about John Massey," he +said fiercely. + +"You're a fool," said James Roberts. "What you don't know you are not +responsible for--you can forget in a way. If you insist on hearing the +whole story you will never be able to get away from it to your dying day. +John Massey as an abstraction is one thing. John Massey as a live human +being, whom you have cheated out of a name and a fortune, is another." + +"I never cheated him of a name. You did that." + +The man grunted. + +"Right. That is on my bill. Lord knows, I wish it wasn't. Little enough +did I ever get out of that particular piece of deviltry. I over-reached +myself, was a darned little bit too smart. I held on to the boy, thinking +I'd get more out of it later, and he slid out of my hands like an eel and +I had nothing to show for it, until you came along and I saw a chance to +make a new deal at your expense. You fell for it like a lamb to the +slaughter. I'll never forget your face when I told you John Massey was +alive and that I could produce him in a minute for the courts. If I had, +your name would have been Dutch, young man. You'd never have gotten a +look in on the money. You had the sense to see that. Old John died +without a will. His grandson and not his grand-nephew was his heir +provided anybody could dig up the fellow, and I was the boy that could do +that. I proved that to you, Alan Massey." + +"You proved nothing. You scared me into handing you over a whole lot of +money, you blackmailing rascal, I admit that. But you didn't prove +anything. You showed me the baby clothes you said John Massey wore when +he was stolen. The name might easily enough have been stamped on the +linen later. You showed me a silver rattle marked 'John Massey.' The +inscription might also easily enough have been added later at a crook's +convenience. You showed me some letters purporting to have been written +by the woman who stole the child and was too much frightened by her crime +to get the gains she planned to win from it. The letters, too, might +easily have been forgery. The whole thing might have been a cock and bull +story, fabricated by a rotten, clever mind like yours, to apply the money +screw to me." + +"True," chuckled Jim Roberts. "Quite true. I wondered at your credulity +at the time." + +"You rat! So it was all a fake, a trap?" + +"You would like to believe that, wouldn't you? You would like to have a +dying man's oath that there was nothing but a pack of lies to the whole +thing, blackmail of the crudest, most unsupportable variety?" + +Alan bent over the man, shook his fist in the evil, withered old face. + +"Damn you, Jim Roberts! Was it a lie or was it not?" + +"Keep your hands off me, Alan Massey. It was the truth. Sarah Nelson did +steal the child just as I told you. She gave the child to me when she was +dying a few months later. I'll give my oath on that if you like." + +Alan brushed his hand across his forehead, and sat down again limply in +the creaking rocker. + +"Oh, you are willing to believe that again now, are you?" mocked Roberts. + +"I've got to, I suppose. Go on. Tell me the rest. I've got to know. Did +you really make a circus brat of John Massey and did he really run away +from you? That is all you told me before, you remember." + +"It was all you wanted to know. Besides," the man smiled his diabolical +grin again, "there was a reason for going light on the details. At the +time I held you up I hadn't any more idea than you had where John Massey +was, nor whether he was even alive. It was the weak spot in my armor. +But you were so panic stricken at the thought of having to give up your +gentleman's fortune that you never looked at the hollowness of the thing. +You could have bowled over my whole scheme in a minute by being honest +and telling me to bring on your cousin, John Massey. But you didn't. You +were only too afraid I would bring him on before you could buy me off. I +knew I could count on your being blind and rotten. I knew my man." + +"Then you don't know now whether John Massey is alive or not?" Alan asked +after a pause during which he let the full irony of the man's confession +sink into his heart and turn there like a knife in a wound. + +"That is where you're dead wrong. I do know. I made it my business to +find out. It was too important to have an invulnerable shield not to +patch up the discrepancy as early as possible. It took me a year to get +my facts and it cost a good chink of the filthy, but I got them. I not +only know that John Massey is alive but I know where he is and what he is +doing. I could send for him to-morrow, and cook your goose for you +forever, young man." + +He pulled himself up on one elbow to peer into Alan's gloomy face. + +"I may do it yet," he added. "You needn't offer me hush money. It's no +good to me, as I told you. I don't want money. I only want to pass the +time until the reaper comes along. You'll grant that it would be amusing +to me to watch the see-saw tip once more, to see you go down and your +cousin John come up." + +Alan was on his feet again now, striding nervously from door to window +and back again. He had wanted to know. Now he knew. He had knowledge +bitter as wormwood. The man had lied before. He was not lying now. + +"What made you send that wire? Were you on the track, too, trying to +find out on your own where your cousin is?" + +"Not exactly. Lord knows I didn't want to know. But I had a queer hunch. +Some coincidences bobbed up under my nose that I didn't like the looks +of. I met a young man a few days ago that was about the age John would +have been, a chap with a past, who had run away from a circus. The thing +stuck in my crop, especially as there was a kind of shadowy resemblance +between us that people noticed." + +"That is interesting. And his name?" + +"He goes under the name of Carson--Richard Carson." + +Roberts nodded. + +"The same. Good boy. You have succeeded in finding your cousin. +Congratulations!" he cackled maliciously. + +"Then it really is he?" + +"Not a doubt of it. He was taken up by a family named Holiday in Dunbury, +Massachusetts. They gave him a home, saw that he got some schooling, +started him on a country newspaper. He was smart, took to books, got +ahead, was promoted from one paper to another. He is on a New York daily +now, making good still, I'm told. Does it tally?" + +Alan bowed assent. It tallied all too well. The lad he had insulted, +jeered at, hated with instinctive hate, was his cousin, John Massey, the +third, whom he had told the other was quite dead. John Massey was very +much alive and was the rightful heir to the fortune which Alan Massey was +spending as the heavens had spent rain yesterday. + +It was worse than that. If the other was no longer nameless, had the +right to the same fine, old name that Alan himself bore, and had too +often disgraced, the barrier between him and Tony Holiday was swept +away. That was the bitterest drop in the cup. No wonder he hated +Dick--hated him now with a cumulative, almost murderous intensity. He had +mocked at the other, but how should he stand against him in fair field? +It was he--Alan Massey--that was the outcast, his mother a woman of +doubtful fame, himself a follower of false fires, his life ignoble, +wayward, erratic, unclean? Would it not be John rather than Alan Massey +Tony Holiday would choose, if she knew all? This ugly, venomous, +sin-scarred old rascal held his fate in the hollow of his evil old hand. + +The other was watching him narrowly, evidently striving to follow +his thoughts. + +"Well?" he asked. "Going to beat me at my own game, give your +cousin his due?" + +"No," curtly. + +"Queer," mused the man. "A month ago I would have understood it. It would +have seemed sensible enough to hold on to the cold cash at any risk. Now +it looks different. Money is filthy stuff, man. It is what they put on +dead eye-lids to keep them down. Sometimes we put it on our own living +lids to keep us from seeing straight. You are sure the money's worth so +much to you, Alan Massey?" + +The man's eyes burned livid, like coals. It was a strange and rather +sickening thing, Alan Massey thought, to hear him talk like this after +having lived the rottenest kind of a life, sunk in slime for years. + +"The money is nothing to me," he flung back. "Not now. I thought it was +worth considerable when I drove that devilish bargain with you to keep +it. It has been worse than nothing, if you care to know. It killed my +art--the only decent thing about me--the only thing I had a right to take +honest pride in. John Massey might have every penny of it to-morrow for +all I care if that were all there were to it." + +"What else is there?" probed the old man. + +"None of your business," snarled Alan. Not for worlds would he have +spoken Tony Holiday's name in this spot, under the baleful gleam of those +dying eyes. + +The man chuckled maliciously. + +"You don't need to tell me, I know. There's always a woman in it when a +man takes the path to Hell. Does she want money? Is that why you must +hang on to the filthy stuff?" + +"She doesn't want anything except what I can't give her, thanks to you +and myself--the love of a decent man." + +"I see. When we meet _the_ woman we wish we'd sowed fewer wild oats. I +went through that myself once. She was a white lily sort of girl and +I--well, I'd gone the pace long before I met her. I wasn't fit to touch +her and I knew it. I went down fast after that--nothing to keep me back. +Old Shakespeare says something somewhere about our pleasant vices beings +whips to goad us with. You and I can understand that, Alan Massey. We've +both felt the lash." + +Alan made an impatient gesture. He did not care to be lumped with this +rotten piece of flesh lying there before him. + +"I suppose you are wondering what my next move is," went on Roberts. + +"I don't care." + +"Oh yes, you do. You care a good deal. I can break you, Alan Massey, and +you know it." + +"Go ahead and break and be damned if you choose," raged Alan. + +"Exactly. As I choose. And I can keep you dancing on some mighty hot +gridirons before I shuffle off. Don't forget that, Alan Massey. And +there will be several months to dance yet, if the doctors aren't off +their count." + +"Suit yourself. Don't hurry about dying on my account," said Alan with +ironical courtesy. + +A few moments later he was on his way back to the station. His universe +reeled. All he was sure was that he loved Tony Holiday and would fight to +the last ditch to win and keep her and that she would be in his arms +to-night for perhaps the last time. The rest was a hideous blur. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SHACKLES + + +The evening was a specially gala occasion, with a dinner dance on, the +last big party before Tony went home to her Hill. The great ball room at +Crest House had been decorated with a network of greenery and crimson +rambler roses. A ruinous-priced, _de luxe_ orchestra had been brought +down from the city. The girls had saved their prettiest gowns and looked +their rainbow loveliest for the crowning event. + +Tony was wearing an exquisite white chiffon and silver creation, with +silver slippers and a silver fillet binding her dark hair. Alan had sent +her some wonderful orchids tied with silver ribbon, and these she wore; +but no jewelry whatever, not even a ring. There was something +particularly radiant about her young loveliness that night. The young men +hovered about her like honey bees about a rose and at every dance they +cut in and cut in until her white and silver seemed to be drifting from +one pair of arms to another. + +Tony was very gay and bountiful and impartial in her smiles and favors, +but all the time she waited, knowing that presently would come the one +dance to which there would be no cutting in, the dance that would make +the others seem nothing but shadows. + +By and by the hour struck. She saw Alan leave his place by the window +where he had been moodily lounging, saw him come toward her, taller +than any man in the room, distinguished--a king among the rest, it +seemed to Tony, waiting, longing for his coming? yet half dreading it, +too. For the sooner he came, the sooner it must all end. She was with +Hal at the moment, waiting for the music to begin, but as Alan +approached she turned to her companion with a quick appeal in her eyes +and a warm flush on her cheeks. + +"I am sorry, Hal," she said, low in his ear. "But this is Alan's. He is +going away to-morrow. Forgive me." + +Hal turned, stared at Alan Massey, turned back to Tony, bowed and +moved away. + +"Hanged if there isn't something magnificent about the fellow," he +thought. "No matter how you detest him there is something about him that +gets you. I wonder how far he has gone with Tony. Gee! It's a rotten +combination. But Lordy! How they can dance--those two!" + +Never as long as she lived was Tony Holiday to forget that dance with +Alan Massey. As a musician pours himself into his violin, as a poet puts +his soul into his sonnet, as a sculptor chisels his dream in marble, so +her companion flung his passion and despair and imploring into his +dancing. They forgot the others, forgot everything but themselves. They +might have been dancing alone on the top of Olympus for all either knew +or cared for the rest of the world. + +It was Alan, not Tony, who brought it to an end, however. He whispered +something in the girl's ear and their feet paused. In a moment he was +holding open the French window for her to pass out into the night. The +white and silver vanished like a cloud. Alan Massey followed. The window +swung shut again. The music stopped abruptly as if now its inspiration +had come to an end. A single note of a violin quivered off into silence +after the others, like the breath of beauty itself passing. + +Carlotta and her aunt happened to be standing near each other. The girl's +eyes were troubled. She wished Alan had not come back at all from the +city. She hoped he really intended to go away to-morrow as he had told +her. More than all she hoped she was right in believing that Tony had +refused to marry him. Like Dick, Carlotta had reverence for the Holiday +tradition. She could not bear to think of Tony's marrying Alan. She felt +woefully responsible for having brought the two together. + +"Did you say he was going to-morrow?" asked her aunt. + +Carlotta nodded. + +"He won't go," prophesied Miss Cressy. + +"Oh, yes. I think he will. I don't know for certain but I have an idea +she refused him this morning." + +"Ah, but that was this morning. Things look very different by star light. +That child ought not to be out there with him. She is losing her head." + +"Aunt Lottie! Alan is a gentleman," demurred Carlotta. + +Miss Lottie smiled satirically. Her smile repeated Ted Holiday's verdict +that some gentlemen were rotters. + +"You forget, my dear, that I knew Alan Massey when you and Tony were in +short petticoats and pigtails. You can't trust too much to his +gentlemanliness." + +"Of course, I know he isn't a saint," admitted Carlotta. "But you don't +understand. It is real with Alan this time. He really cares. It isn't +just--just the one thing." + +"It is always the one thing with Alan Massey's kind. I know what I am +talking about, Carlotta. He was a little in love with me once. I dare say +we both thought it was different at the time. It wasn't. It was pretty +much the same thing. Don't cherish any romantic notions about love, +Carlotta. There isn't any love as you mean it." + +"Oh yes, there is," denied Carlotta suddenly, a little fiercely. +"There is love, but most of us aren't--aren't worthy of it. It is too +big for us. That is why we get the cheap _little_ stuff. It is all we +are fit for." + +Miss Carlotta stared at her niece. But before she could speak Hal +Underwood had claimed the latter for a dance. + +"H--m!" she mused looking after the two. "So even Carlotta isn't immune. +I wonder who he was." + +Meanwhile, out in the garden Tony and Alan had strayed over to the +fountain, just as they had that first evening after that first dance. + +"Tony, belovedest, let me speak. Listen to me just once more. You do love +me. Don't lie to me with your lips when your eyes told me the truth in +there. You are mine, mine, my beautiful, my love--all mine." + +He drew her into his arms, not passionately but gently. It was his +gentleness that conquered. A storm of unrestrained emotion would have +driven her away from him, but his sudden quiet strength and tenderness +melted her last reservation. She gave her lips unresisting to his kiss. +And with that kiss, desire of freedom and all fear left her. For the +moment, at least, love was all and enough. + +"Tony, my belovedest," he whispered. "Say it just once. Tell me you love +me." It was the old, old plea, but in Tony's ears it was immortally new. + +"I love you, Alan. I didn't want to. I have fought it all along as you +know. But it was no use. I do love you." + +"My darling! And I love you. You don't know how I love you. It is like +suddenly coming out into sunshine after having lived in a cave all my +life. Will you marry me to-morrow, _carissima_?" + +But she drew away from his arms at that. + +"Alan, I can't marry you ever. I can only love you." + +"Why not? You must, Tony!" The old masterfulness leaped into his voice. + +"I cannot, Alan. You know why." + +She lifted her eyes to his and in their clear depths he saw reflected his +own willful, stained, undisciplined past. He bowed his head in real shame +and remorse. Nothing stood between himself and Antoinette Holiday but +himself. He had sown the wind. He reaped the whirlwind. + +After a moment he looked up again. He made no pretence of +misunderstanding her meaning. + +"You couldn't forgive?" he pleaded brokenly. Gone was the royal-willed +Alan Massey. Only a beggar in the dust remained. + +"Yes, Alan. I could forgive. I do now. I think I can understand how such +things can be in a man's life though it would break my heart to think Ted +or Larry were like that. But you never had a chance. Nobody ever helped +you to keep your eyes on the stars." + +"They are there now," he groaned. "You are my star, Tony, and stars are +very, very far away from the like of me," he echoed Carlotta's phrase. + +For almost the first time in his life humility possessed him. Had he +known it, it lifted him higher in Tony's eyes than all his arrogance and +conceit of power had ever done. + +Gently she slid her hand into his. + +"I don't feel far away, Alan. I feel very near. But I can't marry +you--not now anyway. You will have to prove to them all--to me, too--that +you are a man a Holiday might be proud to marry. I could forget the +past. I think I could persuade Uncle Phil and the rest to forget it, too. +They are none of them self-righteous Puritans. They could understand, +just as I understand, that a man might fall in battle and carry scars of +defeat, but not be really conquered. Alan, tell me something. It isn't +easy to ask but I must. Are the things I have to forget far back in the +past or--nearer? I know they go back to Paris days, the days Miss Lottie +belongs to. Oh, yes," as he started at that. "I guessed that. You mustn't +blame her. She was merely trying to warn me. She meant it for my good, +not to be spiteful and not because she still cares, though I think she +does. And I know there are things that belong to the time after your +mother died, and you didn't care what you did because you were so +unhappy. But are they still nearer? How close are they, Alan?" + +He shook his head despairingly. + +"I wish I could lie to you, Tony. I can't. They are too close to be +pleasant to remember. But they never will be again. I swear it. Can you +believe it?" + +"I shall have to believe it--be convinced of it before I could marry +you. I can't marry you, not being certain of you, just because my heart +beats fast when you come near me, because I love your voice and your +kisses and would rather dance with you than to be sure of going to +Heaven. Marriage is a world without end business. I can't rush into it +blindfold. I won't." + +"You don't love me as I love you or you couldn't reason so coldly about +it," he reproached. "You would go blindfold anywhere--to Hell itself +even, with me." + +"I don't know, Alan. I could let myself go. While we were dancing in +there I am afraid I would have been willing to go even as far as you say +with you. But out here in the star-light I am back being myself. I want +to make my life into something clean and sweet and fine. I don't want to +let myself be driven to follow weak, selfish, rash impulses and do things +that will hurt other people and myself. I don't want to make my people +sorry. They are dearer than any happiness of my own. They would not let +me marry you now, even if I wished it. If I did what you want and what +maybe something in me wants too--run off and marry you tomorrow without +their consent--it would break their hearts and mine, afterward when I had +waked up to what I had done. Don't ask me, dear. I couldn't do it." + +"But what will you do, Tony? Won't you marry me ever?" Alan's tone was +helpless, desolate. He had run up against a power stronger than any he +had ever wielded, a force which left him baffled. + +"I don't know. It will depend upon you. A year from now, if you still +want me and I am still free, if you can come to me and tell me you have +lived for twelve months as a man who loves a woman ought to live, I will +marry you if I love you enough; and I think--I am sure, I shall, for I +love you very much this minute." + +"A year! Tony, I can't wait a year for you. I want you now." Alan's tone +was sharp with dismay. He was not used to waiting for what he desired. He +had taken it on the instant, as a rule, and as a rule, his takings had +been dust and ashes as soon as they were in his hands. + +"You cannot have me, Alan. You can never have me unless you earn the +right to win me--straight. Understand that once for all. I will not marry +a weakling. I will marry--a conquerer--perhaps." + +"You mean that, Tony?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Then, by God, I'll be a conquerer!" he boasted. + +"I hope you will. Oh, my dear, my dear! It will break my heart if you +fail. I love you." And suddenly Tony was clinging to him, just a woman +who cared, who wanted her lover, even as he wanted her. But in a +breath she pulled herself away. "Take me in, Alan, now," she said. +"Kiss me once before we go. I shall not see you in the morning. This +is really good-by." + +Later, Carlotta, coming in to say goodnight to Tony, found the latter +sitting in front of the mirror brushing out her abundant red-brown hair +and noticed how very scarlet her friend's cheeks were and what a +tell-tale shining glory there was in her eyes. + +"It was a lovely party," announced Tony casually, unaware how much +Carlotta had seen over her shoulder in the mirror. + +"Tony, are you in love with Alan Massey?" demanded Carlotta. + +Tony whirled around on the stool, her cheeks flying deeper crimson +banners at this unexpected challenge. + +"I am afraid I am, Carlotta," she admitted. "It is rather a mess, +isn't it?" + +Carlotta groaned and dropping into a chaise lounge encircled her knees +with her arms, staring with troubled eyes at her guest. + +"A mess? I should say it was--worse than a mess--a catastrophe. You know +what Alan is--isn't--" She floundered off into silence. + +"Oh, yes," said Tony, the more tranquil of the two. "I know what he is +and isn't, better than most people, I think. I ought to. But I love him. +I just discovered it to-night, or rather it is the first time I ever let +myself look straight at the fact. I think I have known it from the +beginning." + +"But Tony! You won't marry him. You can't. Your people will never let +you. They oughtn't to let you." + +Tony shook back her wavy mane of hair, sent it billowing over her +rose-colored satin kimono. + +"It don't matter if the whole world won't let me. If I decide to marry +Alan I shall do it." + +"Tony!" + +There was shocked consternation in Carlotta's tone and Tony relenting +burst into a low, tremulous little laugh. + +"Don't worry, Carlotta. I'm not so mad as I sound. I told Alan he would +have to wait a year. He has to prove to me he is--worth loving." + +"But you are engaged?" Carlotta was relieved, but not satisfied. + +Tony shook her head. + +"Absolutely not. We are both free as air--technically. If you were in +love yourself you would know how much that amounts to by way of freedom." + +Carlotta's golden head was bowed. She did not answer her friend's +implication that she could not be expected to comprehend the delicate, +invisible, omnipotent shackles of love. + +"Don't tell anyone, Carlotta, please. It is our secret--Alan's and mine. +Maybe it will always he a secret unless he--measures up." + +"You are not going to tell your uncle?" + +"There is nothing to tell yet." + +"And I suppose this is the end of poor Dick." + +"Don't be silly, Carlotta. Dick never said a word of love to me in +his life." + +"That doesn't mean he doesn't think 'em. You have convenient eyes, Tony +darling. You see only what you wish to see." + +"I didn't want to see Alan's love. I tried dreadfully hard not to. But it +set up a fire in my own house and blazed and smoked until I had to do +something about it. See here, Carlotta. I'd like to ask you a question or +two. You are not really going to marry Herbert Lathrop, are you?" + +A queer little shadow, almost like a veil, passed over Carlotta's face at +this counter charge. + +"Why not?" she parried. + +"You know why not. He is exactly what Hal Underwood calls him, a poor +fish. He is as close to being a nonentity as anything I ever saw." + +"Precisely why I selected him," drawled Carlotta. "I've got to marry +somebody and poor Herbert hasn't a vice except his excess of virtue. We +can't have another old maid in the family. Aunt Lottie is a shining +example of what to avoid. I am not going to be 'Lottie the second' I have +decided on that." + +"As if you could," protested Tony indignantly. + +"Oh, I could. You look at Aunt Lottie's pictures of fifteen years ago. +She was just as pretty as I am. She had loads of lovers but somehow they +all slipped through her fingers. She has been sex-starved. She ought to +have married and had children. I don't want to be a hungry spinster. They +are infernally miserable." + +"Carlotta!" Tony was a little shocked at her friend's bluntness, a +little puzzled as to what lay behind her arguments. "You don't have to +be a hungry spinster. There are other men besides Herbert that want to +marry you." + +"Certainly. Some of them want to marry my money. Some of them want to +marry my body. I grant you Herbert is a poor fish in some ways, but at +least he wants to marry me, myself, which is more than the others do." + +"That isn't true. Hal Underwood wants to marry you, yourself." + +"Oh, Hal!" conceded Carlotta. "I forgot him for a moment. You are right. +He is real--too real. I should hurt him marrying him and not caring +enough. That is why a nonentity is preferable. It doesn't know what it +is missing. Hal would know." + +"But there is no reason why you shouldn't wait until you find somebody +you could care for," persisted Tony. + +"That is all you know about it, my dear. There is the best reason in the +world. I found him--and lost him." + +"Carlotta--is it Phil?" + +Carlotta sprang up and went over to the window. She took the rose she had +been wearing, in her hands and deliberately pulled it apart letting the +petals drift one by one out into the night. Then she turned back to Tony. + +"Don't ask questions, Tony. I am not going to talk." But she lingered a +moment beside her friend. "You and I, Tony darling, don't seem to have +very much luck in love," she murmured. "I hope you will be happy with +Alan, if you do marry him. But happiness isn't exactly necessary. There +are other things--" She broke off and began again. "There are other +things in a man's life besides love. Somebody said that to me once and I +believe it is true. But there isn't so much besides that matters much to +a woman. I wish there were. I hate love." And pressing a rare kiss on her +friend's cheek Carlotta vanished for the night. + +Meanwhile Alan Massey smoked and thought and cursed the past that had him +in its hateful toils. Like the guilty king in Hamlet, his soul, +"struggling to be free" was "but the more engaged." He honestly desired +to be worthy of Tony Holiday, to stand clear in her eyes, but he did not +want it badly enough, to the "teeth and forehead of his faults to give in +evidence." He did not want to bare the one worst plague spot of all and +run the risk not only of losing Tony himself but perhaps also of clearing +the way to her for his cousin, John Massey. Small wonder he smoked gall +and wormwood in his cigarettes that night. + +And far away in the heat and grime and din of the great city, Dick Carson +the nameless, who was really John Massey and heir to a great fortune, sat +dreaming over a girl's picture, telling himself that Tony must care a +little to have gotten up in the silver gray of the morning to see him off +so kindly. Happily for the dreamer's peace of mind he had no means of +knowing that that very night, in the starlit garden by the sea, Tony +Holiday had taken upon herself the mad and sad and glad bondage of love. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE + + +Tony, getting off the train at Dunbury on Saturday, found her brothers +waiting for her with the car, and the kiddies on the back seat, "for +ballast" as Ted said. With one quick apprizing glance the girl took in +the two young men. + +Ted was brown and healthy looking, clear-eyed, steady-nerved, for once, +without the inevitable cigarette in his mouth. He was oddly improved +somehow, his sister thought, considering how short a time she had been +away from the Hill. She noticed also that he drove the car much less +recklessly than was his wont, took no chances on curves, slid by no +vehicles at hair-breadth space, speeded not at all, and though he kept +up a running fire of merry nonsense, had his eye on the road as he +drove. So far so good. That spill out on the Florence road wasn't all +loss, it seemed. + +Larry was more baffling. He was always quiet. He was quieter than ever +to-day. There was something in his gray eyes which spelled trouble, Tony +thought. What was it? Was he worried about a case? Was Granny worse? Was +Ted in some scrape? Something there certainly was on his mind. Tony was +sure of that, though she could not conjecture what. + +The Holidays had an almost uncanny way of understanding things about each +other, things which sometimes never rose to the surface at all. Perhaps +it was that they were so close together in sympathy that a kind of small +telepathic signal registered automatically when anything was wrong with +any of them. So far as her brothers were concerned Tony's intuition was +all but infallible. + +She found the family gift a shade disconcerting, a little later, when +after her uncle kissed her he held her off at arm's length and studied +her face. Tony's eyes fell beneath his questioning gaze. For almost the +first time in her life she had a secret to keep from him if she could. + +"What have they been doing to my little girl?" he asked. "They have taken +away her sunshininess." + +"Oh, no, they haven't," denied Tony quickly. "It is just that I am tired. +We have been on the go all the time and kept scandalously late hours. +I'll be all right as soon as I have caught up. I feel as if I could sleep +for a century and any prince who has the effrontery to wake me up will +fare badly." + +She laughed, but even in her own ears the laughter did not sound quite +natural and she was sure Uncle Phil thought the same, though he asked no +more questions. + +"It is like living in a palace being at Crest House," she went on. "I've +played princess to my heart's content--been waited on and feted and +flirted with until I'm tired to death of it all and want to be just plain +Tony again." + +She slid into her uncle's arms with a weary little sigh. It was good--oh +so good--to have him again! She hadn't known she had missed him so until +she felt the comfort of his presence. In his arms Alan Massey and all he +stood for seemed very far away. + +"Got letters for you this morning," announced Ted. "I forgot to give them +to you." He fished the aforesaid letters out of his pocket and examined +them before handing them over. "One is from Dick--the other"--he held the +large square envelope off and squinted at it teasingly. "Some scrawl!" +he commented. "Reckless display of ink and flourishes, I call it. Who's +the party?" + +Tony snatched the letters, her face rosy. + +"Give me Dick's. I haven't heard from him but once since he went back to +New York and that was just a card. Oh-h! Listen everybody. The Universal +has accepted his story and wants him to do a whole series of them. Oh, +isn't that just wonderful?" + +Tony's old sparkles were back now. There were no reservations necessary +here. Everybody knew and loved Dick and would be glad as she was herself +in his success. + +"Hail to Dicky Dumas!" she added, gaily waving the letter aloft. "I +always knew he would get there. And that was the very story he read me. +Wasn't it lucky I liked it really? If I hadn't, and it had turned out to +be good, wouldn't it have been awful?" + +Everybody laughed at that and perhaps nobody but the doctor noticed that +the other letter in the unfamiliar handwriting was tucked away very +quickly out of sight in her bag and no comments made. + +It was not until Tony had gone the rounds of the household and greeted +everyone from Granny down to Max that she read Alan's letter, as she sat +curled up in the cretonned window seat, just as the little girl Tony had +been wont to sit and devour love stories. This was a love story, too--her +own and with a sadly complicated plot at that. + +It was the first letter she had had from Alan and she found it very +wonderful and exciting reading. It was brimming over, as might have been +expected, with passionate lover's protests and extravagant endearments +which Tony could not have imagined her Anglo-Saxon relatives or friends +even conceiving, let alone putting on paper. But Alan was different. +These things were no affectation with him, but natural as breathing, part +and parcel of his personality. She could hear him now say "_carissima_" +in that low, deep-cadenced, musical voice of his and the word seemed very +sweet and beautiful to her as it sang in her heart and she read it in the +dashing script upon the paper. + +He was desolated without her, he wrote. Nothing was worth while. Nothing +interested him. He was refusing all invitations, went nowhere. He just +sat alone in the studio and dreamed about her or made sketches of her +from memory. She was everywhere, all about him. She filled the studio +with her voice, her laughter, her wonderful eyes. But oh, he was so +lonely, so unutterably lonely without her. Must he really wait a whole +year before he made her his? A year was twelve long, long months. +Anything could happen in a year. One of them might die and the other +would go frustrate and lonely forever, like a sad wind in the night. + +Tony caught her breath quickly at that sentence. The poetry of it +captivated her fancy, the dread of what it conjured clutched like cold +hands at her heart. She wanted Alan now, wanted love now. Already those +dear folks downstairs were beginning to seem like ghosts, she and Alan +the only real people. What if he should die, what if something should +happen to keep them forever apart, how could she bear it? How could she? + +She turned back to her letter which had turned into an impassioned plea +that she would never forsake him, no matter what happened, never drive +him over the precipice like the Gadderene swine. + +"You and your love are the only thing that can save me, dear heart," he +wrote. "Remember that always. Without you I shall go down, down into +blacker pits than I ever sank before. With you I shall come out into the +light. I swear it. But oh, beloved, pray for me, if you know how to pray. +I don't. I never had a god." + +There were tears in Tony's eyes as she finished her lover's letter. +His unwonted humility touched her as no arrogance could ever have +done. His appeal to his desperate need moved her profoundly as such +appeals will always move woman. It is an old tale and one oft +repeated. Man crying out at a woman's feet, "Save me! Save me! Myself +I cannot save!" Woman, believing, because she longs to believe it, +that salvation lies in her power, taking on herself the all but +impossible mission for love's high sake. + +Tony Holiday believed, as all the million other women have believed since +time began, that she could save her lover, loved him tenfold the more +because he threw himself upon her mercy, came indeed perhaps to truly +love him for the first time now with a kind of consecrated fervor which +belonged all to the spirit even as the love that had come to her while +they danced had belonged rather to the flesh. + + * * * * * + +And day by day Jim Roberts grew sicker and the gnawing thing crept up +nearer to his heart. Day by day he gloated over the goading whips he +brandished over Alan Massey's head, amused himself with the various +developments it lay in his power to give to the situation as he passed +out of life. + +He wrote two letters from his sick bed. The first one was addressed to +Dick Carson, telling the full story of his own and Alan Massey's share in +the deliberate defraudment of that young man of his rightful name and +estate. It pleased him to read and reread this letter and to reflect that +when it was mailed Alan Massey would drink the full cup of disgrace and +exposure while he who was infinitely guiltier would be sleeping very +quietly in a cool grave where hate, nor vengeance, nor even pity could +touch him. + +The other letter, which like the first he kept unmailed, was a less +honest and less incriminating letter, filled with plausible half truths, +telling how he had just become aware at last through coming into +possession of some old letters of the identity of the boy he had once had +in his keeping and who had run away from him, an identity which he now +hastened to reveal in the interests of tardy justice. The letter made no +mention of Alan Massey nor of the unlovely bargain he had driven with +that young man as the price of silence and the bliss of ignorance. It was +addressed to the lawyers who handled the Massey estate. + +Roberts had followed up various trails and discovered that Antoinette +Holiday was the girl Massey loved, discovered through the bribing of a +Crest House servant, that the young man they called Carson was also +presumably in love with the girl whose family had befriended him so +generously in his need. It was incredibly good he thought. He could +hardly have thought out a more diabolically clever plot if he had tried. +He could make Alan Massey writhe trebly, knowing these things. + +Pursuing his malignant whim he wrote to Alan Massey and told him of the +existence of the two letters, as yet unmailed, in his table drawer. He +made it clear that one of the letters damned Alan Massey utterly while +the other only robbed him of his ill-gotten fortune, made it clear also +that he himself did not know which of the two would be mailed in the end, +possibly he would decide it by a flip of a coin. Massey could only wait +and see what happened. + +"I suppose you think the girl is worth going to Hell for, even if the +money isn't," he had written. "Maybe she is. Some women are, perhaps. But +don't forget that if she loves you, you will be dragging her down there +too. Pretty thought, isn't it? I don't mean any future-life business +either. That's rot. I heard enough of that when I was a boy to sicken me +of it forever. It is the here and now Hell a man pays for his sins with, +and that is God's truth, Alan Massey." + +And Alan, sitting in his luxurious studio reading the letter, crushed +it in his hands and groaned aloud. He needed no commentary on the "here +and now Hell" from Jim Roberts. He was living it those summer days if +ever a man did. + +It wasn't the money now. Alan told himself he no longer cared for that, +hated it in fact. It was Tony now, all Tony, and the horrible fear lest +Roberts betray him and shut the gates of Paradise upon him forever. +Sometimes in his agony of fear he could almost have been glad to end it +all with one shot of the silver-mounted automatic he kept always near, to +beat Jim Roberts to the bliss of oblivion in the easiest way. + +But Alan Massey had an incorrigible belief in his luck. Just as he had +hoped, until he had all but believed, that his cousin John was as dead as +he had told that very person he was, so now he hoped against all reason +that he would be saved at the eleventh hour, that Roberts would go to his +death carrying with him the secret that would destroy himself if it +ceased to be a secret. + +Those unmailed letters haunted him, however, day and night, so much so, +in fact, that he took a journey to Boston one day and sought out the +little cigar store again. But this time he had not mounted the stairs. +His business was with the black-eyed boy. With one fifty dollar bill he +bought the lad's promise to destroy the letters and the packet in +Robert's drawer in the event of the latter's death; secured also the +promise that if at any time before his death Roberts gave orders that +either letter should be mailed, the boy would send the same not to the +address on the envelope but to Alan Massey. If the boy kept faith with +his pledges there would be another fifty coming to him after the death of +the man. He bought the lad even as Roberts had once bought himself. It +was a sickening transaction but it relieved his mind considerably and +catered in a measure to that incorrigible hope within him. + +But he paid a price too. Fifty miles away from Boston was Tony Holiday on +her Heaven kissing hill. He was mad to go to her but dared not, lest this +fresh corruption in some way betray itself to her clear gaze. + +So he went back to New York without seeing her and Tony never knew he had +been so near. + +And that night Jim Roberts took an unexpected turn for the worse and +died, foiled of that last highly anticipated spice of malice in flipping +the coin that was to decide Alan Massey's fate. + +In the end the boy had not had the courage to destroy the letters as he +had promised to do. Instead he sent them both, together with the packet +of evidence as to John Massey's identity, to Alan Massey. + +The thing was in Alan's own hands at last. Nothing could save or destroy +him but himself. And by a paradox his salvation depended upon his being +strong enough to bring himself to ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH PHIL GETS HIS EYES OPENED + + +At home on her Hill Tony Holiday settled down more or less happily after +her eventful sally into the great world. To the careless observer she was +quite the same Tony who went down the Hill a few weeks earlier. If at +times she was unusually quiet, had spells of sitting very still with +folded hands and far away dreams in her eyes, if she crept away by +herself to read the long letters that came so often, from many addresses +but always in the same bold, beautiful script and to pen long answers to +these; if she read more poetry than was her wont and sang love songs with +a new, exquisite, but rather heart breaking timbre in her lovely +contralto voice, no one paid much attention to these signs except +possibly Doctor Philip who saw most things. He perceived regretfully that +his little girl was slipping away from him, passing through some +experience that was by no means all joy or contentment and which was +making her grow up all too fast. But he said nothing, quietly bided the +hour of confidence which he felt sure would come sooner or later. + +Tony puzzled much over the complexities of life these days, puzzled over +other things beside her own perverse romance. Carlotta too was much on +her mind. She wished she could wave a magic wand and make things come +right for these two friends of hers who were evidently made for each +other as Hal had propounded. She wondered if Phil were as unhappy as +Carlotta was and meant to find out in her own time and way. + +She had seen almost nothing of him since her return to the Hill. He was +working very hard in the store and never appeared at any of the little +dances and picnics and teas with which the Dunbury younger set passed +away the summer days and nights, and which Ted and the twins and usually +Tony herself frequented. Larry never did. He hated things of that sort. +But Phil was different. He had always liked fun and parties and had +always been on hand and in great demand hitherto at every social function +from a Ladies' Aid strawberry festival to a grand Masonic ball. It wasn't +natural for Phil to shut himself out of things like that. It was a bad +sign Tony thought. + +At any rate she determined to find out for herself how the land lay if +she could. Having occasion to do some shopping she marched down the Hill +and presented herself at Stuart Lambert and Son's, demanding to be served +by no less a person than Philip himself. + +"I want a pair of black satin pumps with very frivolous heels," she +announced. "Produce them this instant, slave." She smiled at Phil and he +smiled back. He and Tony had always been the best of chums. + +"Cannzy ones?" he laughed. "That's what one of our customers calls them." + +And while he knelt before her with an array of shoe boxes around him, +fitting a dainty slipper on Tony's pretty foot, Tony herself looked not +at the slipper but at Philip, studying his face shrewdly. He looked +older, graver. There was less laughter in his blue eyes, a grimmer line +about his young mouth. Poor Phil! Evidently Carlotta wasn't the only one +who was paying the price of too much loving. Tony made up her mind to +rush in, though she knew it might be a case for angel hesitation. + +"I've never given you a message Hal Underwood sent you," she observed +irrelevantly. + +Philip looked up surprised. + +"Hal Underwood! What message did he send me? I hardly know him." + +"He seemed to know you rather well. He told me to tell you to come down +and marry Carlotta, that you were the only man that could keep her in +order. That is too big, Phil. Try a smaller one." The speaker kicked off +the offending slipper. Philip mechanically picked it up and replaced it +in the box. + +"That is rather a queer message," he commented. "I had an idea Underwood +wanted to marry Carlotta himself. Try this." He reached for another pump. +His eyes were lowered so Tony could not see them. She wished she could. + +"He does," she said. "She won't have him." + +"Is--is there--anybody she is likely to have?" The words jerked out as +the young man groped for the shoe horn which was almost beside his hand +but which apparently he did not see at all. + +"I am afraid she is likely to take Herbert Lathrop unless somebody +stops her by main force. Why don't you play Lochinvar yourself, Phil? +You could." + +Philip looked straight up at Tony then, the slipper forgotten in his +hand. + +"Tony, do you mean that?" he asked. + +"I certainly do. Make her marry you, Phil. It is the only way with +Carlotta." + +"I don't want to _make_ any girl marry me," he said. + +"Oh, hang your silly pride, Phil Lambert! Carlotta wants to marry you I +tell you though she would murder me if she knew I did tell you." + +"Maybe she does. But she doesn't want to live in Dunbury. I've good +reason to know that. We thrashed it out rather thoroughly on the top of +Mount Tom last June. She hasn't changed her mind." + +Tony sighed. She was afraid Phil was right. Carlotta hadn't changed her +mind. Was it because she was afraid she might, that she was determining +to marry Herbert? + +"And you can't leave Dunbury?" she asked soberly. + +Just at that moment Stuart Lambert approached, a tall fine looking man, +with the same blue eyes and fresh coloring as his son and brown hair only +slightly graying around the temples. He had an air of vigor and ageless +youth. Indeed a stranger might easily have taken the two men for brothers +instead of father and son. + +"Hello, Tony, my dear," he greeted cordially. "It is good to see you +round again. We have missed you. This boy of mine getting you what +you want?" + +"He is trying," smiled Tony. "A woman doesn't always know what she wants, +Mr. Lambert. The store is wonderful since it was enlarged and I see lots +of other improvements too." Her eyes swept her surroundings with sincere +appreciation. + +"Make your bow to Phil for all that. It is good to get fresh brains into +a business. We old fogies need jerking out of our ruts." + +The older man's eyes fell upon Phil's bowed head and Tony realized how +much it meant to him to have his son with him at last, pulling shoulder +to shoulder. + +"New brains nothing!" protested Phil. "Dad's got me skinned going and +coming for progressiveness. As for old fogies he's the youngest man I +know. Make all your bows to him, Tony. It is where they belong." And Phil +got to his feet and himself made a solemn obeisance in Stuart Lambert's +direction. + +Mr. Lambert chuckled. + +"Phil was always a blarney," he said. "Don't know where he got it. +Don't you believe a word he says, my dear." But Tony saw he was +immensely pleased with Phil's tribute for all that. "How do you like +the sign?" he asked. + +"Fine. Looks good to me and I know it does to you, Mr. Lambert." + +"Well, rather." The speaker rested his hand on Phil's shoulder a moment. +"I tell you it _is_ good, young lady, to have the son part added, worth +waiting for. I'm mighty proud of that sign. Between you and me, Miss +Tony, I'm proud of my son too." + +"Who is blarneying now?" laughed Phil. "Go on with you, Dad. You are +spoiling my sale." + +The father chuckled again and moved away. Phil looked down at the girl. + +"I think your question is answered. I can't leave Dunbury," he said. + +"Then Carlotta ought to come to you." + +"There are no oughts in Carlotta's bright lexicon. I don't blame her, +Tony. Dunbury is a dead hole from most points of view. I am afraid she +wouldn't be happy here. You wouldn't be yourself forever. Bet you are +planning to get away right now." + +Tony nodded ruefully. + +"I suppose I am, Phil. The modern young woman isn't much to pin one's +faith to I am afraid. Do I get another slipper? Or is one enough?" + +Phil came back from his mental aberration with a start and a grin at his +own expense. + +"I am afraid I am not a very good salesman today," he apologized. +"Honestly I do better usually but you hit me in a vulnerable spot." + +"You do care for Carlotta then?" probed Tony. + +"Care! I'm crazy over her. I'd go on my hands and knees to Crest House if +I thought I could get her to marry me by doing it." + +"You would much better go by train--the next one. That's my advice. Are +you coming to Sue Emerson's dance? That is why I am buying slippers. You +can dance with 'em if you'll come." + +"Sorry. I don't go to dances any more." + +"That is nonsense, Phil. It is the worst thing in the world for you to +make a hermit of yourself. No girl's worth it. Besides there are other +girls besides Carlotta." + +Phil shook his head as he finished replacing Tony's trim brown oxfords. + +"Unfortunately that isn't true for me," he said rising. "At present my +world consists of myself bounded, north, south, east and west by +Carlotta." + +And Tony passing out under the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON a few +minutes later sighed a little. Here was Carlotta with a real man for the +taking and too stubborn and foolish to put out her hand and here was +herself, Tony Holiday, tying herself all up in a strange snarl for the +sake of somebody who wasn't a man at all as Holiday Hill standards ran. +What queer creatures women were! + +Other people besides Tony were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a +hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the +subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy +Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he +announced that he wasn't going to attend the function. + +"I'm the authentic T.B.M.," he parried from his perch on the porch +railing. "I've cut out dancing." + +"More idiot you!" retorted Charley promptly. "Mums, do tell Phil it is +all nonsense making such an oyster in a shell of himself." + +Mrs. Lambert smiled and looked up at her tall young son, looked rather +hard for a moment. + +"I think the twins are right, Phil," she said. "You are working too hard. +You don't allow yourself any relaxation." + +"Oh, yes I do. Only my idea of relaxation doesn't happen to coincide with +the twins. Dancing in this sort of weather with your collar slumping and +the perspiration rolling in tidal waves down your manly brow doesn't +strike me as being a particularly desirable diversion." + +"H-mp!" sniffed Charley. "You didn't object to dancing last summer when +it was twice as hot. You went to a dance almost every night when Carlotta +was visiting Tony. You know you did." + +"I wasn't a member of the esteemed firm of Stuart Lambert and Son last +summer. A lily of the field can afford to dance all night. I'm a working +man I'd have you know." + +"Well, I think you might come just this once to please us," joined in +Clare, the other twin. "You are a gorgeous dancer, Phil. I'd rather have +a one step with you than any man I know." Clare always beguiled where +Charley bullied, a method much more successful in the long run as Charley +sometimes grudgingly admitted after the fact. + +Phil smiled now at pretty Clare and promised to think about it and the +twins flew off across the street to visit with Tony and Ruth whom the +whole Hill adored. + +"Phil dear, aren't you happy?" asked Mrs. Lambert. "Have we asked too +much of you expecting you to settle down at home with us?" + +"Why yes, Mums. I'm all right." Phil left his post on the rail and +dropped into a chair beside his mother. Perhaps he did it purposely lest +she see too much. "Don't get notions in your head. I like living in +Dunbury. I wouldn't live in a city for anything and I like being with Dad +not to mention the rest of you." + +Mrs. Lambert shifted her position also. She wanted to see her son's face; +just as much as he didn't want her to see it. + +"Possibly that is all so but you aren't happy for all that. You can't +fool mother eyes, my dear." + +Phil looked straight at her then with a little rueful smile. + +"I reckon I can't," he admitted. "Very well then. I am not entirely happy +but it is nobody's fault and nothing anybody can help." + +"Philip, is it a girl?" + +How they dread the _girl_ in their sons' lives--these mothers! The very +possibility of her in the abstract brings a shadow across the path. + +"Yes, Mums, it is a girl." + +Mrs. Lambert rose and went over to where her son sat, running her fingers +through his hair as she had been wont to do when the little boy Phil was +in trouble of any sort. + +"I am very sorry, dear boy," she said. "It won't help to talk about it?" + +"I am afraid not. Don't worry, Mums. It is just--well, it hurts a little +just now that's all." + +She kissed his forehead and went back to her chair. It hurt her to +know her boy was being hurt, hurt her almost as much to know she could +not help him, she must just let him close the door on his grief and +bear it alone. + +Yet she respected his reserve and loved him the better for it. Phil was +like that always. He never cried out when he was hurt. She remembered how +long ago the little boy Phil had come to her with a small finger just +released from a slamming door that had crushed it unmercifully, the +tears streaming down his cheeks but uttering no sound. She recalled +another incident of years later, when the coach had been obliged to put +some one else in Phil's place on the team the last minute because his +sprained ankle had been bothering. She and Stuart had come on for the +game. It had been a bitter disappointment to them all. To the boy it had +been little short of a tragedy. But he had smiled bravely at her in spite +of the trouble in his blue eyes. "Don't mind, Mums. It is all right," he +had said steadily. "We've got to win. We can't risk my darned ankle's +flopping. It's the bleachers for me. The game's the thing." + +The game had always been the thing for Phil. Even in his blundering, +willful boyhood he had played hard and played fair and taken defeat like +a man when things had gone against him. + +There was a moment's silence. Then Mrs. Lambert spoke again. + +"Phil, I wish you would go to the dance with the girls. It will please +them and be good for you. You can't shut yourself away from everything +the way you are doing, if you are going to make Dunbury your home. Your +father never has. He has always given himself freely to it, worked with +it, played with it, made it a real part of himself. You mustn't start out +by building a wall around yourself." + +"Am I doing that, Mums?" Phil's voice was sober. + +"I am afraid you are, Phil. It troubles your father. He was so +disappointed when you wouldn't serve on the library committee. They were +disappointed too. They didn't expect it of your father's son." + +"I--I wasn't interested." + +"No, you weren't interested. That was the trouble. You ought to have +been. You have had your college training, the world of books has been +thrown wide open for you. You come back here and aren't interested in +seeing that others less fortunate get the right kind of books into their +hands and heads. I don't want to preach, dear. But education isn't only a +privilege. It is a responsibility." + +"Maybe you are right, Mums. I didn't think of it that way. I just +didn't want to bother. I was--well, I was thinking too much about +myself I suppose." + +"Youth is apt to. There were other things too. When they asked you to +take charge of the Fourth of July pageant, to dig up Dunbury's past +history and make it live for us again, your father and I both thought you +would enjoy it. He was tremendously excited about it, full of ideas to +help. But the project fell through because nobody would undertake the +leadership. You were too busy. Every one was too busy." + +"But, Mums, I was busy," Phil defended himself. "It is no end of a job to +put things like that through properly." + +"Most things worth doing are no end of a job. Your father would have +taken it with all the rest he has on his hands and made a success of it. +But he was hurt by your high handed refusal to have anything to do with +it and he let it go, though you know having Fourth of July community +celebrations is one of his dearest hobbies--always has been since he used +to fight so hard to get rid of the old, wretched noise, law breaking and +rowdyism kind of village celebration you and the other young Dunbury +vandals delighted in." + +Phil flushed at that. The point went home. He remembered vividly his +boyish self tearing reluctantly from Doctor Holiday's fireworks impelled +by an unbearably guilty conscience to confess to Stuart Lambert that his +own son had been a transgressor against the law. Boy as he was, he had +gotten out of the interview with his father that night a glimpse into the +ideal citizenship which Stuart Lambert preached and lived and worked for. +He had understood a little then. He understood better now having stood +beside his father man to man. + +"I am sorry, Mums. I would have done the thing if I'd known Dad wanted me +to. Why didn't he say so?" + +Mrs. Lambert smiled. + +"Dad doesn't say much about what he wants. You will have to learn to keep +your eyes open and find out for yourself. I did." + +"Any more black marks on my score? I may as well eat the whole darned +pie at once." Phil's smile was humorous but his eyes were troubled. It +was a bit hard when you had been thinking you had played your part +fairly creditably to discover you had been fumbling your cues wretchedly +all along. + +"Only one other thing. We were both immensely disappointed when you +wouldn't take the scout-mastership they offered you. Father believes +tremendously in the movement. He thinks it is going to be the making of +the next generation of men. He would have liked you to be a Scoutmaster +and when you wouldn't he went on the Scout Troop Committee himself though +he really could not spare the time." + +"I see," said Phil. "I guess I've been pretty blind. Funny part of it is +I really wanted to take the Scoutmaster job but I thought Dad would think +it took too much of my time. Anything more?" he asked. + +"Not a thing. Haven't you had quite enough of a lecture for once?" his +mother smiled back. + +"I reckon I needed it. Thank you, Mums. I'll turn over a new leaf if it +isn't too late. I'll go to the dance and I'll ask them if there is still +a place for me on the library committee and I'll start a troop of Scouts +myself--another bunch I've had my eyes on for some time." + +"That will please Dad very much. It pleases me too. Boys are very dear to +my heart. I wonder if you can guess why, Philip, my son?" + +"I wish I'd been a better son, Mums. Some chaps never seem to cause +their-mothers any worry or heart ache. I wasn't that kind. I am afraid I +am not even yet." + +"No son is, dear, unless there is something wrong with him or the mother. +Mothering means heart ache and worries, plus joy and pride and the joy +and pride more than makes up for the rest. It has for me a hundred times +over even when I had a rather bad little boy on my hands and now I have a +man--a man I am glad and proud to call my son." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A WEDDING RING IT WAS HARD TO REMEMBER + + +It was a grilling hot August afternoon. The young Holidays were keeping +cool as best they could out in the yard. Ruth lay in the canopied hammock +against a background of a hedge of sweet peas, pink and white and +lavender, looking rather like a dainty, frail little flower herself. Tony +in cool white was seated on a scarlet Navajo blanket, leaning against the +apple tree. Around her was a litter of magazines and an open box of +bonbons. Ted was stretched at his ease on the grass, gazing skyward, a +cigarette in his lips, enjoying well-earned rest after toil. Larry +occupied the green garden bench in the lee, of the hammock. He was +unsolaced either by candy or smoke and looked tired and not particularly +happy. There were dark shadows under his gray eyes which betrayed that he +was not getting the quota of sleep that healthy youth demands. His eyes +were downcast now, apparently absorbed in contemplation of a belated +dandelion at his feet. + +"Ruth, why don't you come down to the dance with us tonight?" demanded +Tony suddenly dropping her magazine. "You are well enough now and I +know you would enjoy it. It is lovely down on the island where the +pavilion is--all quiet and pine-woodsy. You needn't dance if you don't +want to. You could just lie in the hammock and listen to the music and +the water. We'd come and talk to you between dances so you wouldn't be +lonesome. Do come." + +"Oh, I couldn't." Ruth's voice was dismayed, her blue eyes filled with +alarm at the suggestion. + +"Why couldn't you?" persisted Tony. "You aren't going to just hide away +forever are you? It is awfully foolish, isn't it, Larry?" she appealed to +her brother. + +He did not answer, but he did transfer his gaze from the dandelion to +Ruth as if he were considering his sister's proposition. + +"Sure, it's foolish," Ted replied for him, sitting up. "Come on down and +dance the first foxtrot with me, sweetness. You'll like it. Honest you +will, when you get started." + +"Oh, I couldn't" reiterated Ruth. + +"That is nonsense. Of course, you could," objected Tony. "It is just your +notion, Ruthie. You have kept away from people so long you are scared. +But you would get over that in a minute and truly it would be lots better +for you. Tell her it would, Larry. She is your patient." + +"I don't know whether it would or not," returned Larry in his deliberate +way, which occasionally exasperated the swift-minded, impulsive Tony. + +"Then you are a rotten doctor," she flung back. "I know better than that +myself and Uncle Phil agrees with me. I asked him." + +"Ruth's my patient, as you reminded me a moment ago. She isn't Uncle +Phil's." There was an unusual touchiness in the young doctor's voice. He +was not professionally aggressive as a rule. + +"Well, I wouldn't be a know-it-all, if she is," snapped Tony. "Maybe +Uncle Phil knows a thing or two more than you do yet. And anyway you are +only a man and I am a girl and I know that girls need people and fun and +dancing. It isn't good for anybody to hide away by herself. I believe you +are keeping Ruth away from everybody on purpose." + +The hot weather and other things were setting Tony's nerves a bit on +edge. She felt slightly belligerent and not precisely averse to +picking a quarrel with her aggravatingly quiet brother, if he gave her +half an opening. + +Larry flushed and scowled at that and ordered her sharply not to talk +nonsense. Whereupon Ted intervened. + +"I'm all on your side, Tony. Of course it is bad for Ruth not to see +anybody but us. Any fool would know that. Dancing may be the very thing +for her anyhow. You can't tell till you try. Maybe when you are +foxtrotting with me, goldilocks, you'll remember how it seemed to have +some other chap's arm around you. It might be like laying a fuse." + +"I'm glad you all know so much about my business," said Larry testily. +"You make me tired, both of you." + +"Oh," begged Ruth, her blue eyes full of trouble. "Please, please, don't +quarrel about me." + +"I beg your pardon," apologized Larry. "See here, would you be willing to +try it, just as an experiment? Would you go down there for a little while +tonight with us?" + +The blue eyes met the gray ones. + +"If you--wanted me to," faltered the blue-eyes. + +"Would you mind it very much?" Larry leaned forward. His voice was low, +solicitous. Tony, listening, resented it a little. She didn't see why +Larry had to keep his good manners for somebody outside the family. He +might have spoken a little more politely to herself, she thought. She had +only been trying to be nice to Ruth. + +"Not--if you would take care of me and not let people talk to me too +much," Ruth answered the solicitous tone. + +"I will," promised Larry. "You needn't talk to a soul if you don't +want to. I'll ward 'em off. And you can dance if you want to--one +dance anyway." + +"With me," announced Ted complacently from the grass. "My bid was in +first. Don't you forget, Miss Peaseblossom." Ted had a multitude of pet +names for Ruth. They slipped off his tongue easily, as water falling +over a cliff. + +"No, with me," said his brother shortly. + +"Gee, I wish I were a doctor! It gives you a hideous advantage." + +"But I haven't anything to wear," exclaimed Ruth, coming next to the +really sole and only supreme woman question. + +"We'll fix that easy as easy," said Tony, amicable again now. "I've a +darling blue organdy that will look sweet on you--just the color of your +eyes. Don't you worry a minute, honey. Your fairy godmother will see to +all that. All I ask is that you won't let that old ogre of an M.D. change +his mind and say you can't go. It isn't good for Larry to obey him so +meekly. He is getting to be a regular tyrant." + +A moment later Doctor Holiday joined the group, dropped on the bench +beside Larry and was informed by Tony that Ruth was to go on an adventure +down the Hill; to Sue Emerson's dance in fact. + +"Isn't that great?" she demanded. + +"Superb," he teased. Then he smiled approval at Ruth. "Good idea, Larry," +he added to his nephew. "Glad you thought of it." + +"I didn't think of it. Tony did. You really approve?" The gray eyes were +a little anxious. Larry was by no means a know-it-all doctor, as his +sister accused him. He had too little rather than too much confidence in +his own judgment in fact. + +"I certainly do. Go to it, little lady. May be the best medicine in the +world for you." + +"Now you are talking," exulted Ted. "That's what Tony and I said +and Larry wanted to execute us on the spot for daring to have an +opinion at all." + +"Scare you much to think of it?" Doctor Holiday asked Ruth, prudently +ignoring this last sally. + +"A good deal," sighed Ruth. "But I'll try not to be too much scared if +Larry will go too and not let people ask questions." + +The young doctor had long since become Larry to Ruth. It was too +confusing talking about two Doctor Holidays. Everybody in Dunbury said +Larry or Doctor Larry or at most, respectfully, Doctor Laurence. + +"I'll let nobody talk to you but myself," said Larry. + +"There you are!" flashed Tony. "You might just as well keep her penned up +here in the yard. You want to keep her all to yourself." + +She didn't mean anything in particular, only to be a little disagreeable, +to pay Larry back for being so snappy. But to her amazement Ruth was +suddenly blushing a lovely but startling blush and Larry was bending over +to examine the hammock-hook in obvious confusion. + +"Good gracious!" she thought in consternation. "Is that what's up? It +can't be. I'm just imagining it. Larry wouldn't fall in love with any one +who wore a wedding ring. He mustn't." + +But she knew in her heart that whether Larry must or must not he had. A +thousand signs betrayed the truth now that her eyes were open. Poor +Larry! No wonder he was cross and unlike himself. And Ruth was so +sweet--just the girl for him. And poor Uncle Phil! She herself was +hurting him dreadfully keeping her secret about Alan and nobody knew what +Ted had up his sleeve under his cloak of incredible virtue. And now here +was Larry with a worse complication still. Oh dear! Would the three of +them ever stop getting into scrapes as long as they lived? It was bad +enough when they were children. It was infinitely worse now they were +grown up and the scrapes were so horribly serious. + +"I suppose you can't tear yourself away from your studies to attend a +mere dance?" Doctor Holiday was asking of his younger nephew with a +twinkle in his eyes when Tony recovered enough to listen again. + +Ted sent his cigarette stub careening off into the shrubbery and grinned +back at his uncle, a grin half merry, half defiant. + +"Like fun, I can't!" he ejaculated. "I'm a union man, I am. I've done my +stunt for the day. If anybody thinks I'm going to stick my nose in +between the covers of a book before nine A.M. tomorrow he has a whole +orchard of brand new little thinks growing up to stub his toes on, +that's all." + +"So the student life doesn't improve with intimate acquaintance?" The +doctor's voice was still teasing, but there was more than teasing behind +his questions. He was really interested in his nephew's psychology. + +"Not a da--ahem--darling bit. If I had my way every book in existence +would be placed on a huge funeral pyre and conflagrated instantly. +Moreover, it would be a criminal offence punishable by the death sentence +for any person to bring another of the infernal nuisances into the world. +That is my private opinion publicly expressed." So saying Ted picked +himself up from the grass and sauntered off toward the house. + +His uncle chuckled. He was sorry the boy did not take more cordially to +books, since it looked as if there were a good two years of them ahead at +the least. But he liked the honesty that would not pretend to anything +it did not feel, and he liked even better the spirit that had kept the +lad true to his pledge of honest work without a squirm or grumble through +all these weeks of grilling summer weather when sustained effort of any +sort, particularly mental effort, was undoubtedly a weariness and +abomination to flesh and soul, to his restless, volatile, ease-addicted, +liberty loving young ward. The boy had certainly shown more grit and +grace than he had credited him with possessing. + +The village clock struck six. Tony sprang up from her blanket and began +to gather up her possessions. + +"I never get over a scared, going-to-be-scolded feeling running down my +spine when the clock strikes and I'm not ready for supper," she said. +"Poor dear Granny! She certainly worked hard trying to make truly proper +persons out of us wild Arabs. It isn't her fault if she didn't succeed, +is it Larry?" She smiled at her brother--a smile that meant in Tony +language "I am sorry I was cross. Let's make up." + +He smiled back in the same spirit. He rose taking the rug and magazines +from his sister's hand and walked with her toward the house. + +Ruth sat up in her hammock and smoothed her disarrayed blonde hair. + +"I am glad you are going down the Hill," said the doctor to her. "It is a +fine idea, little lady. Do you lots of good." + +"Doctor Holiday, I think I ought to go away," announced Ruth suddenly. "I +am perfectly well now, and there is no reason why I should stay." + +"Tired of us?" + +"Oh no! I could never be that. I love it here and love all of you. But +after all I am only a stranger." + +"Not to us, Ruthie. Listen. I would like to explain how I feel about +this, not from your point of view but from ours." + +Tony would be going away soon. They needed a home daughter very much, +needed Ruth particularly as she had such a wonderful way with the +children, who adored her, and because Granny loved her so well, though +she did not love many people who were not Holidays. And he and Larry +needed her good fairy ministrations. They had not been unmindful, though +perhaps manlike they had not expressed their appreciation of the way +fresh flowers found their way to the offices daily, and they were kept +from being snowed under by the newspapers of yester week. In short Doctor +Holiday made it very clear that, if Ruth cared to stay she was wanted and +needed very much in the House on the Hill. And Ruth touched and grateful +and happy promised to remain. + +"If you think it is all right--" she added with rather sudden blush, "for +me to stay when I am married or not married and don't know which." + +Whereupon Doctor Holiday, who happened not to observe the blush, remarked +that he couldn't see what that had to do with it. Anyway she seemed like +such a child to them that they hardly remembered the wedding ring at all. + +Ruth blushed again at that and wished she dared confess that she was +afraid the wedding ring had a good deal to do with the situation in the +eyes of one Holiday at least. But she could not bring herself to speak +the fatal word which might banish her from the dear Hill and from Larry, +who had come to be even dearer. + +A dozen times, while she was dressing for the dance later, Ruth felt like +crying out to Tony in the next room that she could not go, that she dared +not face strangers, that it was too hard. But she set her lips firmly +and did nothing of the sort. Larry wanted her to do it. She wouldn't +disappoint him if it killed her. + +Oh dear! Why did she always have to do everything as a case, never just +as a girl. She couldn't even be natural as a girl. She had to be maybe +married. She hated the ring which seemed to her a symbol of bondage to a +past that was dead and yet still clutched her with cold hands. She had a +childish impulse to fling the ring out of the window where she could +never--never see it again. If it wasn't for the ring-- + +She interrupted her own thoughts, blushing hotly again. She knew she had +meant to go on, "If it were not for the ring she could marry Larry +Holiday." She mustn't think about that. She must not forget the ring, nor +let Larry forget it. She must not let him love her. It was a terrible +thing she was doing. He was unhappy--dreadfully unhappy and it was all +her fault. And by and by they would all see it. Tony had seen it today, +she was almost sure. And Doctor Holiday would see it. He saw so much it +was a wonder he had not seen it long before this. They would hate her for +hurting Larry and spoiling his life. She could not bear to have them hate +her when she loved them so and they had been so kind and good to her. She +must go away. She must. Maybe Larry would forget her if she wasn't always +there right under his eyes. + +But how could she go? Doctor Philip would think it queer and ungrateful +of her after she had promised to stay. How could she desert him and the +children and dear Granny? And if she went what could she do? What use was +she anyway but to be a trouble and a burden to everybody? It would have +been better, much better, if Larry had left her to die in the wreck. + +Why didn't Geoffrey Annersley come and get her, if there was a Geoffrey +Annersley? She knew she would hate him, but she wished he would come for +all that. Anything was better than making Larry suffer, making all the +Holidays suffer through him. Oh why hadn't she died, why hadn't she? + +But in her heart Ruth knew she did not want to die. She wanted to live. +She wanted life and love and happiness and Larry Holiday. + +And then Tony stood on the threshold, smiling friendly encouragement. + +"Ready, hon? Oh, you look sweet! That blue is lovely for you. It never +suited me at all. Blue is angel color and I have too much--well, of the +other thing in my composition to wear it. Come on. The boys have been +whistling impatience for half an hour and I don't want to scare Larry out +of going. It is the first function he has condescended to attend in a +blue moon." + +On the porch Ted and Larry waited, two tall, sturdy, well-groomed, +fine-looking youths, bearing the indefinable stamp of good birth and +breeding, the inheritance of a long line of clean strong men and gentle +women--the kind of thing not forged in one generation but in many. + +They both rose as the girls appeared. Larry crossed over to Ruth. His +quick gaze took in her nervousness and trouble of mind. + +"Are you all right, Ruth? You mustn't let us bully you into going if you +really don't want to." + +"No, I am all right. I do want to--with you," she added softly. + +"We'll all go over in the launch," announced Ted, but Larry interposed +the fact that he and Ruth were going in the canoe. Ruth would get too +tired if she got into a crowd. + +"More professional graft," complained Ted. He was only joking but Tony +with her sharpened sight knew that it was thin ice for Larry and +suspected he had non-professional reasons for wanting Ruth alone in the +canoe with him that night. Poor Larry! It was all a horrible tangle, just +as her affair with Alan was. + +It was a night made for lovers, still and starry. Soft little breezes +came tiptoeing along the water from fragrant nooks ashore and stopped +in their course to kiss Ruth's face as she lay content and lovely among +the scarlet cushions, reading the eloquent message of Larry Holiday's +gray eyes. + +They did not talk much. They were both a little afraid of words. They +felt as if they could go on riding in perfect safety along the edge of +the precipice so long as neither looked over or admitted out loud that +there was a precipice. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE + + +The dance was well in progress when Larry and Ruth arrived. The latter +was greeted cordially and not too impressively by gay little Sue Emerson, +their hostess, and her friends. Ruth was ensconced comfortably in a big +chair where she could watch the dancers and talk as much or little as she +pleased. Everybody was so pleasant and natural and uncurious that she did +not feel frightened or strange at all, and really enjoyed the little +court she held between dances. Pretty girls and pleasant lads came to +talk with her, the latter besieging her with invitations to dance which +she refused so sweetly that they found the little Goldilocks more +charming than ever for her very denial. + +They rallied Larry however on his rigorous dragonship and finally Ruth +herself dismissed him to dance with his hostess as a proper guest should. +She never meant he must stick to her every moment anyway. That was +absurd. He rose to obey reluctantly; but paused to ask if she wouldn't +dance with him just once. No, she couldn't--didn't even know whether she +could. He mustn't try to make her. And seeing she was in earnest, Larry +left her. But Ted came skating down the floor to her and he begged for +just one dance. + +"Oh, I couldn't, Ted, truly I couldn't," she denied. + +But obeying a sudden impulse Ted had swooped down upon her, picked her up +and before she really knew what was happening she had slid into step +with him and was whirling off down the floor in his arms. + +"Didn't I tell you, sweetness?" he exulted. "Of course you can dance. +What fairy can't? Tired?" He bent over to ask with the instinctive +gentleness that was in all Holiday men. + +Ruth shook her head. She was exhilarated, excited, tense, happy. She +could dance--she could. It was as easy and natural as breathing. She did +not want to stop. She wanted to go on and on. Then suddenly something +snapped. They came opposite Sue and Larry. The former called a gay +greeting and approval. Larry said nothing. His face was dead white, his +gray eyes black with anger. Both Ted and Ruth saw and understood and the +lilt went out of the dance for both of them. + +"Oh Lord!" groaned Ted. "Now I've done it. I'm sorry, Ruth. I didn't +suppose the old man would care. Don't see why he should it you are +willing. Come on, just one more round before the music stops and we're +both beheaded." + +But Ruth shook her head. There was no more joy for her after that one +glimpse of Larry's face. + +"Take me to a seat, Ted, please. I'm tired." + +He obeyed and she sank down in the chair, white and trembling, utterly +exhausted. She was hurt and aching through and through. How could she? +How could she have done that to Larry when he loved her so? How could she +have let Ted make her dance with him when she had refused to dance with +Larry? No wonder he was angry. It was terrible--cruel. + +But he mustn't make a scene with Ted. He mustn't. She cast an +apprehensive glance around the room. Larry was invisible. A forlornness +came over her, a despair such as she had never experienced even in that +dreadful time after the wreck when she realized she had forgotten +everything. She felt as if she were sinking down, down in a fearful +black sea and that there was no help for her anywhere. Larry had deserted +her. Would he never come back? + +In a minute Tony and the others were beside her, full of sympathetic +questions. How had it seemed to dance again? Wasn't it great to find she +could still do it? How had she dared to do it while Larry was off guard? +Why wouldn't she, couldn't she dance with this one or that one if she +could dance with Ted Holiday? But they were quick to see she was really +tired and troubled and soon left her alone to Tony's ministrations. + +"Ruth, what is the trouble? Where is Larry? And Ted is gone, too. What +happened?" Tony's voice was anxious. She hadn't seen Larry's face, but +she knew Larry and could guess at the rest. + +"Ted made me dance with him. I didn't mean to. But when we got started I +couldn't bear to stop, it was so wonderful to do it and to find I could. +I--am afraid Larry didn't like it." + +"I presume he didn't," said Larry's sister drily. "Let him be angry if he +wants to be such a silly. It was quite all right, Ruthie. Ted has just as +much right to dance with you as Larry has." + +"I am afraid Larry doesn't think so and I don't think so either." + +Tony squeezed the other girl's hand. + +"Never mind, honey. You mustn't take it like that. You are all of a +tremble. Larry has a fearful temper, but he will hang on to it for your +sake if for no other reason. He won't really quarrel with Ted. He never +does any more. And he won't say a word to you." + +"I'd rather he would," sighed Ruth. "You are all so good to me and I--am +making a dreadful lot of trouble for you all the time, though I don't +mean to and I love you so." + +"It isn't your fault, Ruthie, not a single speck of it. Oh, yes. I mean +just what you mean. Not simply Larry's being so foolish as to lose his +temper about this little thing, but the whole big thing of your caring +for each other. It is all hard and mixed up and troublesome; but you are +not to blame, and Larry isn't to blame, and it will all come out right +somehow. It has to." + +As soon as Ted had assured himself that Ruth was all right in his +sister's charge he had looked about for Larry. Sue was perched on a table +eating marshmallows she had purloined from somewhere with Phil Lambert +beside her, but there was no Larry to be seen. + +Ted stepped outside the pavilion. He was honestly sorry his brother was +hurt and angry. He realized too late that maybe he hadn't behaved quite +fairly or wisely in capturing Ruth like that, though he hadn't meant any +harm, and had had not the faintest idea Larry would really care, care +enough to be angry as Ted had not seen him for many a long day. Larry's +temper had once been one of the most active of the family skeletons. It +had not risen easily, but when it did woe betide whatever or whomever it +met in collision. By comparison with Larry's rare outbursts of rage +Tony's frequent ebullitions were as summer zephyrs to whirlwinds. + +But that was long past history. Larry had worked manfully to conquer his +familiar demon and had so far succeeded that sunny Ted had all but +forgotten the demon ever existed. But he remembered now, had remembered +with consternation when he saw the black passion in the other's face as +they met on the floor of the dance hall. + +Puzzled and anxious he stared down the slope toward the water. Larry was +just stepping into the canoe. Was he going home, leaving Ruth to the +mercies of the rest of them, or was he just going off temporarily by +himself to fight his temper to a finish as he had been accustomed to do +long ago when he had learned to be afraid and ashamed of giving into it? +Ted hesitated a moment, debating whether to call him back and get the row +over, if row there was to be, or to let him get away by himself as he +probably desired. + +"Hang it! It's my fault. I can't let him go off like that. It just about +kills him to take it out of himself that way. I'd rather he'd take it +out of me." + +With which conclusion Ted shot down the bank whistling softly the old +Holiday Hill call, the one Dick had used that day on the campus to summon +himself to the news that maybe Larry was killed. + +Larry did not turn. Ted reached the shore with one stride. + +"Larry," he called. "I say, Larry." + +No answer. The older lad picked up the paddle, prepared grimly to push +off, deaf, to all intents and purposes to the appeal in the younger +one's voice. + +But Ted Holiday was not an easily daunted person. With one flying leap +he landed in the canoe, all but upsetting the craft in his sudden +descent upon it. + +The two youths faced each other. Larry was still white, and his sombre +eyes blazed with half subdued fires. He looked anything but hospitable to +advances, however well meant. + +"Better quit," he advised slowly in a queer, quiet voice which Ted knew +was quiet only because Larry was making it so by a mighty effort of +will. "I'm not responsible just now. We'll both be sorry if you don't +leave me alone." + +"I won't quit, Larry. I can't. It was my fault. Confound it, old man! +Please listen. I didn't mean to make you mad. Come ashore and punch my +fool head if it will make you feel any better." + +Still Larry said nothing, just sat hunched in a heap, running his +fingers over the handle of the paddle. He no longer even looked at Ted. +His mouth was set at its stubbornest. + +Ted rushed on, desperately in earnest, entirely sincere in his +willingness to undergo any punishment, himself, to help Larry. + +"Honest, I didn't mean to make trouble," he pleaded. "I just picked her +up and made her dance on impulse, though she told me she wouldn't and +couldn't. I never thought for a minute you would care. Maybe it was a +mean trick. I can see it might have looked so, but I didn't intend it +that way. Gee, Larry! Say something. Don't swallow it all like that. Get +it out of your system. I'd rather you'd give me a dozen black eyes than +sit still and feel like the devil." + +Larry looked up then. His face relaxed its sternness a little. Even the +hottest blaze of wrath could not burn quite so fiercely when exposed to a +generous penitence like his young brother's. He understood Ted was +working hard not only to make peace but to spare himself the sharp battle +with the demon which, as none knew better that Larry Holiday, did, +indeed, half kill. + +"Cut it, Ted," he ordered grimly. "'Nough said. I haven't the +slightest desire to give you even one black eye at present, though I +may as well admit if you had been in my hands five minutes ago +something would have smashed." + +"Don't I know it?" Ted grinned a little. "Gee, I thought my hour +had struck!" + +"What made you come after me then?" + +Ted's grin faded. + +"You know why I came, old man. You know I'd let you pommel my head off +any time if it could help you anyhow. Besides it was my fault as I told +you. I didn't mean to be mean. I'll do any penance you say." + +Larry picked up the paddle. + +"Your penance is to let me absolutely alone for fifteen minutes. You had +better go ashore though. You will miss a lot of dances." + +"Hang the dances! I'm staying." + +Ted settled down among the cushions against which Ruth's blonde head had +nestled a few hours ago. He took out his watch, struck a match, looked at +the time, lit a cigarette with the same match, replaced the watch and +relapsed into silence. + +The canoe shot down the lake impelled by long, fierce strokes. Larry was +working off the demon. Far away the rhythmic beat of dance music reached +them faintly. Now and then a fish leaped and splashed or a bull frog +bellowed his hoarse "Better go home" into the silence. Otherwise there +was no sound save the steady ripple of the water under the canoe. + +Presently Ted finished his cigarette, sent its still ruddy remains +flashing off into the lake where it fell with a soft hiss, took out his +watch again, lit another match, considered the time, subtracted gravely, +looked up and announced "Time's up, Larry." + +Larry laid down the paddle and a slow reluctant smile played around the +corners of his mouth, though there was sharp distress still in his +eyes. He loathed losing his temper like that. It sickened him, filled +him with spiritual nausea, a profound disgust for himself and his +mastering weakness. + +"I've been a fool, kid," he admitted. "I'm all right now. You were a +trump to stand by me. I appreciate it." + +"Don't mention it," nonchalantly from Ted "Going back to the pavilion?" + +His brother nodded, resumed the paddle and again the canoe shot through +the waters, this time toward the music instead of away from it. + +"I suppose you know why your dancing with Ruth made me go savage," said +Larry after a few moments of silence. + +"Damned if I do," said Ted cheerfully. "It doesn't matter. I don't need a +glossary and appendix. Suit yourself as to the explanations. I put my +foot in it. I've apologized. That is the end of it so far as I am +concerned unless you want to say something more yourself. You don't have +to you know." + +"It was plain, fool movie stuff jealousy. That is the sum and +substance of it. I'm in love with her. I couldn't stand her dancing +with you when she had refused me. I could almost have killed you for a +minute. I am ashamed but I couldn't help it. That is the way it was. +Now--forget it, please." + +Ted swallowed hard and pulled his forelock in genuine perturbation. + +"Good Lord, Larry!" he blurted. "I--" + +His brother held up an imperious warning hand. + +"I said 'forget it.' Don't make me want to dump you now, after coming +through the rest." + +Ted saluted promptly. + +"Ay, ay, sir! It's forgot. Only perhaps you'll let me apologize again, +underscored, now I understand. Honest, I'm no end sorry, Larry." + +The other nodded acceptance of the underscored apology and again silence +had its way. + +As they landed Ted fastened the canoe and for a moment the two brothers +stood side by side in the starlight. Larry put out his hand. Ted took it. +Their eyes met, said more than any words could have expressed. + +"Thank you, Ted. You've been great--helped a lot." + +Larry's voice was a little unsteady, his eyes were full of trouble +and shame. + +"Ought to, after starting the conflagration," said Ted. "I'll attend to +the general explanations. You go to Ruth." + +More than one person had wondered at the mysterious disappearance of the +two Holidays. It is quite usual, and far from unexpected, when two young +persons of the opposite sex drift off somewhere under the stars on a +summer night without giving any particular account of themselves; but one +scarcely looks for that sort of social--or unsocial--eccentricity from +two youths, especially two brothers. Nobody but Ruth and Tony, and +possibly shrewd-eyed Sue, suspected a quarrel, but everybody was curious +and ready to burst into interrogation upon the simultaneous return of the +two young men which was quite as sudden as their vanishing had been. + +"Larry and I had a wager up," announced Ted to Sue in a perfectly clear, +distinct voice which carried across the length of the small hall now that +the music was silent. "He said he could paddle down to the point, current +against him, faster than I could paddle back, current with me. We took a +notion to try it out tonight. Please forgive us, Susanna, my dear. A +Holiday is a creature of impulse you know." + +Sue made a little face at the speaker. She was quite sure he was lying +about the wager, but she was a good hostess and played up to his game. + +"You don't deserve to be forgiven, either of you," she sniffed. +"Especially Larry who never comes to parties and when he does has to go +off and do a silly thing like that. Who won though? I will ask that." She +smiled at Ted and he grinned back. + +"Larry, of course. Give me a dance, Sue. I've got my second wind." + +"Bless Ted!" thought Tony, listening to her brother's glib excuses. +"Thank goodness he can lie like that. Larry never could." And as her eyes +met Ted's a moment later when they passed each other in the maze of +dancers he murmured "All right" in her ear and she was well content. +Bless Ted, indeed! + +Meanwhile Larry had gone, as Ted bade him, straight to Ruth. He bent over +her tired little white face, an agony of remorse in his own. + +"Ruth, forgive me. I'll never forgive myself." + +"Don't, Larry. It is I who ought to be sorry and I am--oh so sorry--you +don't know. Ted didn't mean any harm. I ought not to have let him do it. +It was my fault." + +"There was nobody at fault except me and my fool temper. I am desperately +ashamed of myself Ruth. I've left you all alone all this time and I +promised I wouldn't. You'll never trust me again and I don't deserve to +be trusted. It doesn't do any good to say I am sorry. It can't undo what +I did. I didn't dare stay and that's the fact. I didn't know what I'd do +to Ted if he got in my way. I felt--murderous." + +"Larry!" + +"I know it sounds awful. It is awful. It is an old battle. I thought I'd +won it, but I haven't. Don't look so scared though. Nothing happened. Ted +came after me like the corking big-hearted kid he is and brought me to, +in half the time I could have done it for myself. It is thanks to him I'm +here now. But never mind that. It is only you that matters. Shall I take +you home? I don't deserve it, but if you will let me it will show you +forgive me a little bit anyway," he finished humbly. + +"Don't look so dreadfully unhappy, Larry. It is over now, and of course I +forgive you if you think there is anything to forgive. I'm so thankful +you didn't quarrel with Ted. I was awfully worried and so was Tony. She +watched the door every minute till you came back." + +"I suppose so," groaned Larry. "I made one horrible mess of everything +for you all. Are you ready to go?" + +"I'd like to dance with you once first, Larry, if--if you would like to." + +"Would I like to!" Larry's face lost its mantle of gloom, was sudden +sunshine all over. "Will you really dance with me--after the rotten way +I've behaved?" + +"Of course, I will. I wanted to all the time, but I was afraid. But when +Ted made me it all came back and I loved it, only it was you I wanted to +dance with most. You know that, don't you, Larry, dear?" The last word +was very low, scarcely more than a breath, but Larry heard it and it +nearly undid him. A flood of long-pent endearments trembled on his lips. +But Ruth held up a hand of warning. + +"Don't, Larry. We mustn't spoil it. We've got to remember the ring." + +"Damn the ring!" he exploded. "I beg your pardon." Larry was genuinely +shocked at his own bad manners. "I don't know why I'm such a brute +tonight. Let's dance." + +And to the delight and relief of the younger Holidays, Larry and Ruth +joined the dancers. + +The dance over, they made their farewells. Larry guided Ruth down the +slope, his arm around her ostensibly for her support, and helped her into +the canoe. Once more they floated off over the quiet water, under the +quiet stars. But their young hearts were anything but quiet. Their love +was no longer an unacknowledged thing. Neither knew just what was to be +done with it; but there it was in full sight, as both admitted in joy +and trepidation and silence. + +As Larry held open the door for her to step inside the quiet hall he bent +over the girl a moment, taking both her hands in his. Then he drew away +abruptly and bolted into the living room, leaving her to grope her way up +stairs in the dark alone. + +"I wonder," she murmured to herself later as she stood before her mirror +shaking out her rippling golden locks from their confining net. "I wonder +if it would have been so terrible if he had kissed me just that once. +Sometimes I wish he weren't quite so--so Holidayish." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +TWO HOLIDAYS MAKE CONFESSION + + +The next evening Doctor Holiday listened to a rather elaborate argument +on the part of his older nephew in favor of the latter's leaving Dunbury +immediately in pursuit of his specialist training that he had planned to +go in for eventually. + +"You are no longer contented here with me--with us?" questioned the older +man when the younger had ended his exposition. + +Larry's quick ear caught the faint hurt in his uncle's voice and hastened +to deny the inference. + +"It isn't that, Uncle Phil. I am perfectly satisfied--happier here with +you that I would be anywhere else in the world. You have been wonderful +to me. I am not such an ungrateful idiot as not to understand and +appreciate what a start it has given me to have you and your name and +work behind me. Only--maybe I've been under your wing long enough. Maybe +I ought to stand on my feet." + +Doctor Holiday studied the troubled young face opposite him. He was +fairly certain that he wasn't getting the whole or the chief reasons +which were behind this sudden proposition. + +"Do you wish to go at once?" he asked. "Or will the first of the year be +soon enough." + +Larry flushed and fell to fumbling with a paper knife that lay on the +desk. + +"I--I meant to go right away," he stammered. + +"Why?" + +Larry was silent. + +"I judge the evidence isn't all in," remarked the older doctor a little +drily. "Am I going to hear the rest of it--the real reason for your +decision to go just now?" + +Still silence on Larry's part, the old obstinate set to his lips. + +"Very well then. Suppose I take my turn. I think you haven't quite all +the evidence yourself. Do you know Granny is dying?" + +The paper knife fell with a click to the floor. + +"Uncle Phil! No, I didn't know. Of course I knew it was coming but you +mean--soon?" + +"Yes, Larry, I mean soon. How soon no one can tell, but I should say +three months would be too long to allow." + +The boy brushed his hand across his eyes. He loved Granny. He had always +seemed to understand her better than the others had and had been himself +always the favorite. Moreover he was bound to her by a peculiar tie, +having once saved her life, conquering his boyish fear to do so. It was +hard to realize she was really going, that no one could save her now. + +"I didn't know," he said again in a low voice. + +"Ted will go back to college. I shall let Tony go to New York to study as +she wishes, just as you had your chance. It isn't exactly the time for +you to desert us, my boy." + +"I won't, Uncle Phil. I'll stay." + +"Thank you, son. I felt sure you wouldn't fail us. You never have. But I +wish you felt as if you could tell me the other reason or reasons for +going which you are keeping back. If it is they are stronger than the one +I have given you for staying it is only fair that I should have them." + +Larry's eyes fell. A slow flush swept his face, ran up to his very hair. + +"My boy, is it Ruth?" + +The gray eyes lifted, met the older man's grave gaze unfalteringly. + +"Yes, Uncle Phil, it is Ruth. I thought you must have seen it before +this. It seemed as if I were giving myself away, everything I did or +didn't do." + +"I have thought of it occasionally, but dismissed the idea as too +fantastic. It hasn't been so obvious as it seemed to you no doubt. You +have not made love to her?" + +"Not in so many words. I might just as well have though. She knows. If it +weren't for the ring--well, I think she would care too." + +"I am very sorry, Larry. It looks like a bad business all round. Yet I +can't see that you have much to blame yourself for. I withdraw my +objections to your going away. If it seems best to you to go I haven't a +word to say." + +"I don't know whether it is best or not. I go round and round in circles +trying to work it out. It seems cowardly to run away from it, +particularly if I am needed here. A man ought not to pull up stakes just +because things get a little hard. Besides Ruth would think she had driven +me away. I know she would go herself if she guessed I was even thinking +of going. And I couldn't stand that. I'd go to the north pole myself and +stay forever before I would send her away from you all. I was so grateful +to you for asking her to stay and making her feel she was needed. She was +awfully touched and pleased. She told me last night." + +The senior doctor considered, thought back to his talk with Ruth. Poor +child! So that was what she had been trying to tell him. She had thought +she ought to go away on Larry's account, just as he was thinking he ought +to go on hers. Poor hapless youngsters caught in the mesh of +circumstances! It was certainly a knotty problem. + +"It isn't easy to say what is right and best to do," he said after a +moment. "It is something you will have to decide for yourself. When you +came to me you had decided it was best to go, had you not? Was there a +specially urgent reason?" + +Larry flushed again and related briefly the last night's unhappy +incident. + +"I'm horribly ashamed of the way I acted," he finished. "And the whole +thing showed me I couldn't count on my self-control as I thought I could. +I couldn't sleep last night, and I thought perhaps maybe the thing to do +was to get out quick before I did any real damage. It doesn't matter +about me. It is Ruth." + +"Do you think you can stay on and keep a steady head for her sake and +for ours?" + +"I can, Uncle Phil. It is up to me to stick and I'll do it. Uncle +Phil, how long must a woman in Ruth's position wait before she can +legally marry?" + +"Ruth's position is so unique that I doubt if there is any legal +precedent for it. Ordinarily when the husband fails to put in appearance +and the presumption is he is no longer living, the woman is considered +free in the eyes of the law, after a certain number of years, varying I +believe, in different states. With Ruth the affair doesn't seem to be a +case of law at all. She is in a position which requires the utmost +protection from those who love her as we do. The obligation is moral +rather than legal. I wouldn't let my mind run on the marrying aspects of +the case at present my boy." + +"I--Uncle Phil, sometimes I think I'll just marry her anyway and let the +rest of it take care of itself. There isn't any proof she is married--not +the slightest shadow of proof," Larry argued with sudden heat. + +His uncle's eyebrows went up. "Steady, Larry. A wedding ring is usually +considered presumptive evidence of marriage." + +"I don't care," flashed the boy, the tension of the past weeks suddenly +snapping. "She loves me. I don't see what right anything has to come +between us. What is a wedding ceremony when a man and woman belong to +each other as we belong? Hanged if I don't think I'd be justified in +marrying her tomorrow! There is nothing but a ring to prevent." + +"There is a good deal more than a ring to prevent," said Doctor Holiday +with some sternness. "What if you did do just that and her husband +appeared in two months or six?" + +"I don't believe she has a husband. If she had he would have come after +her before this. We've waited. He's had time." + +"You have waited scarcely two months, Larry. That is hardly enough time +upon which to base finalities." + +"What of it? I'm half crazy sometimes over the whole thing. I can't see +things straight. I don't want to. I don't want anything but Ruth, whether +she is married or not. I want her. Some day I'll ask her to go off with +me and she will go. She will do anything I ask." + +"Hold on, Larry lad. You are saying things you don't mean. You are the +last man in the world to take advantage of a girl's defenseless position +and her love for you to gratify your own selfish desires and perhaps +wreck her life and your own." + +Larry bit his lip, wheeled and went over to the window, staring out into +the night. At last he turned back, white, but master of himself again. + +"I beg your pardon, Uncle Phil. You are right. I was talking like a fool. +Of course I'll do nothing of the kind. I won't do anything to harm Ruth +anyway. I won't even make love to her--if I can help it," he qualified in +a little lower tone. + +"If you can't you had better go at once," said his uncle still a +bit sternly. Then more gently. "I know you don't want to play the +cad, Larry." + +"I won't, Uncle Phil. I promise." + +"Very well. I am satisfied with your word. Remember I am ready to +help any way and if it gets too hard I'll make it easy at any time +for you to go. But in the mean time we won't talk about it. The least +said the better." + +Larry nodded his assent to that and suddenly switched to another subject, +asking his uncle what he knew about this Alan Massey with whom Tony was +having such an extensive correspondence. + +His uncle admitted that he didn't know much of anything about him, except +that he was the inheritor of the rather famous Massey property and an +artist of some repute. + +"He has plenty of repute of other kinds," said Larry. "He is a +thorough-going rotter, I infer. I made some inquiries from a chap who +knows him. He has gone the pace and then some. It makes me sick to have +Tony mixed up with a chap like that." + +"You haven't said anything to her yourself?" + +"No. Don't dare. It would only make it worse for me to tackle her. +Neither she nor Ted will stand any interference from me. We are a cranky +lot I am afraid. We all have what Dad used to call the family devil. So +far as I know you are the only person on record that can manage him." + +And Larry smiled rather shame-facedly at his uncle. + +"I am afraid you will all three have to learn to manage your own +particular familiar. Devils are rather personal property, Larry." + +"Don't I know it? I got into mighty close range with mine last night, and +just now for that matter. Anyway I am not prepared to do any preaching at +anybody at present; but I would be awfully grateful to you if you will +speak to Tony. Somebody has to. And you can do it a million times better +than anyone else." + +"Very well. I will see what I can do." And thus quietly Doctor Holiday +accepted another burden on his broad shoulders. + +The next day he found Tony on the porch reading one of the long letters +which came to her so frequently in the now familiar, dashing script. + +"Got a minute for me, niece o' mine?" he asked. + +Tony slid Alan's letter back into its envelope and smiled up at +her uncle. + +"Dozens of them, nice uncle," she answered. + +"It is getting well along in the summer and high time we decided a few +things. Do you still want to go in for the stage business in the fall?" + +"I want to very much, Uncle Phil, if you think it isn't too much like +deserting Granny and the rest of you." + +"No, you have earned it. I want you to go. I don't suppose because you +haven't talked about Hempel's offer that it means you have forgotten it?" + +"Indeed, I haven't forgotten it. For myself I would much rather get +straight on the stage if I could and learn by doing it, but you would +prefer to have me go to a regular dramatic school, wouldn't you?" + +"Yes, Tony, I would. A year of preparation isn't a bit too much to get +your bearings in before you take the grand plunge. I want you to be very +sure that the stage is what you really want." + +"I am sure of that already. I've been sure for ages. But I am perfectly +willing to do the thing any way you want and I am more grateful than I +can tell you that you are on my side about it. Are you going to tell +Granny? It will about break her heart I am afraid." Tony's eyes were +troubled. She did hate to hurt Granny; but on the other hand she couldn't +wait forever to begin. + +She did not see the shadow that crept over her uncle's face. Well he knew +that long before Tony was before the footlights, Granny would be where +prejudices and misunderstandings were no more; but he had no wish to mar +the girl's happiness by betraying the truth just now. + +"I think we are justified in indulging in a little camouflage there," he +said. "We will tell Granny you are going to study art. Art covers a +multitude of sins," he added with a lightness he was far from feeling. +"One thing more, my dear. I have waited a good while to hear something +about the young man who writes these voluminous letters."' He nodded at +the envelope in Tony's lap. "I like his writing; but I should like to +know something about him,--himself." + +Tony flushed and averted her eyes for a moment. Then she looked up +frankly. + +"I haven't said anything because I didn't know what to say. He is Alan +Massey, the artist. I met him at Carlotta's. He wants to marry me." + +"But you have not already accepted him?" + +"No, I couldn't. He--he isn't the kind of man you would want me to marry. +He is trying to be, for my sake though. I think he will succeed. I told +him if he wanted to ask me again next summer I would tell him what my +answer would be." + +"He is on probation then?" + +"Yes." + +"And you care for him?" + +"I--think so." + +"You don't know it?" + +"No, Uncle Phil. I don't. He cares so much for me--so terribly much. And +I don't know whether I care enough or not. I should have to care a great +deal to overlook what he has been and done. Maybe it wasn't anything but +midsummer madness and his wonderful dancing. We danced almost every night +until I sent him away. And when we danced we seemed to be just one +person. Aside from his dancing he fascinated me. I couldn't forget him or +ignore him. He was--is--different from any man I ever knew. I feel +differently about him from what I ever felt about any other man. Maybe it +is love. Maybe it isn't. I--I thought it was last month." + +Doctor Holiday shook his head dubiously. + +"And you are not so sure now?" he questioned. + +"Not always," admitted Tony. "I didn't want to love him. I fought it with +all my might. I didn't want to be bothered with love. I wanted to be +happy and free and make a great success of my work. But after Alan came +all those things didn't seem to matter. I am afraid it goes rather deep, +Uncle Phil. Sometimes I think he means more to me than even you and Larry +and Ted do. It is strange. It isn't kind or loyal or decent. But that is +the way it is. I have to be honest, even if it hurts." + +Her dark eyes were wistful and beseeched forgiveness as they sought her +uncle's. He did not speak and she went on swiftly, earnestly. + +"Please don't ask me to break off with him, Uncle Phil. I couldn't do it, +not only because I care for him too much, but because it would be cruel +to him. He has gotten out of his dark forest. I don't want to drive him +back into it. And that is what it would mean if I deserted him now. I +have to go on, no matter what you or Larry or any one thinks about it." + +She had risen now and stood before her uncle earnestly pleading her +lover's cause and her own. + +"It isn't fair to condemn a man forever because he has made mistakes back +in the past. We don't any of us know what we would have been like if +things had been different. Larry and Ted are fine. I am proud of their +clean record. It would be horrible if people said things about either of +them such as they say about Alan. But Larry and Ted have every reason to +be fine. They have had you and Dad and Grandfather Holiday and the rest +of them to go by. They have lived all their lives in the Holiday +tradition of what a man should be. Alan has had nobody, nothing. Nobody +ever helped him to see the difference between right and wrong and why it +mattered which you chose. He does see now. He is trying to begin all over +again and begin right. And I'm going to stand by him. I have to--even if +I have to go against you, Uncle Phil." + +There was a quiver--almost a sob in Tony's voice Her uncle drew her +into his arms. + +"All right, little girl. It is not an easy thing to swallow. I hate to +have your shining whiteness touch pitch even for a minute. No, wait, +dear. I am not going to condemn your lover. If he is sincerely in earnest +in trying to clean the slate, I have only respect for the effort. You are +right about much of it. We can none of us afford to do over much judging. +We are all sinners, more or less. And there are a million things to be +taken into consideration before we may dare to sit in judgment upon any +human being. It takes a God to do that. I am not going to ask you to give +him up, or to stop writing or even seeing him. But I do want you to go +slow. Marriage is a solemn thing. Don't wreck your life from pity or +mistaken devotion. Better a heart-ache now than a life-long regret. Let +your lover prove himself just as you have set him to do. A woman can't +save a man. He has to save himself. But if he will save himself for love +of her the chances are he will stay saved and his love is the real thing. +I shall accept your decision. I shan't fight it in any way, whatever it +is. All I ask is that you will wait the full year before you make any +definite promise of marriage." + +"I will," said Tony. "I meant to do that any way. I am not such a foolish +child as maybe you have been thinking I was. I am pretty much grown up, +Uncle Phil. And I have plenty of sense. It I hadn't--I should be married +to Alan this minute." + +He smiled a little sadly at that. + +"Youth! Youth! Yes, Tony, I believe you have sense. Maybe I have +under-estimated it. Any way I thank the good Lord for it. No more +secrets? Everything clear?" + +He lifted her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes with tender +searching. + +"Not a secret. I am very glad to have you know. We all feel better the +moment we dump all our woes on you," she sighed. + +He smiled and stroked her hair. + +"I had much rather be a dumping ground than be shut out of the confidence +of any one of you. That hurts. We all have to stand by Larry, just now. +Not in words but in--well, we'll call it moral support. The poor lad +needs it." + +"Oh, Uncle Phil! Did he tell you or did you guess?" + +"A little of both. The boy is in a bad hole, Tony. But he will keep out +of the worst of the bog. He has grit and chivalry enough to pull through +somehow. And maybe before many weeks the mystery will be cleared for +better or worse. We can only hope for the best and hold on tight to +Larry, and Ruth too, till they are out of the woods." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE + + +Philip Lambert was rather taken by surprise when Harrison Cressy appeared +at the store one day late in August, announcing that he had come to talk +business and practically commanding the young man to lunch with him that +noon. It was Saturday and Phil had little time for idle conjecture, but +he did wonder every now and then that morning what business Carlotta's +father could possibly have with himself, and if by any chance Carlotta +had sent him. + +Later, seated in the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury's one +hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with +considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise of manner. + +Having left soup the waiter shuffled away with the congenital air of +discouragement which belongs to his class, and Harrison Cressy got down +to business in regard both to the soup and his mission in Dunbury. He was +starting a branch brokerage concern in a small city just out of Boston. +He needed a smart young man to put at the head of it. The smart young man +would get a salary of five thousand a year, plus his commissions to start +with. If he made good the salary would go up in proportion. In fact the +sky would be the limit. He offered the post to Philip Lambert. + +Phil laid down his soup spoon and stared at his companion. After a moment +he remarked that it was rather unusual, to say the least, to offer a +salary like that to an utter greenhorn in a business as technical as +brokerage, and that he was afraid he was not in the least fitted for the +position in question. + +"That is my look out," snapped Mr. Cressy. "Do I look like a born fool, +Philip Lambert? You don't suppose I am jumping in the dark do you? I have +gone to some pains to look up your record in college. I found out you +made good no matter what you attempted, on the gridiron, in the +classroom, everywhere else. I've been picking men for years and I've gone +on the principle that a man who makes good in one place will make good in +another if he has sufficient incentive." + +"I suppose the five thousand is to be considered in the light of an +incentive," said Phil. + +"It is five times the incentive and more than I had when I started out," +grunted his host. "What more do you want?" + +"Nothing. I don't want so much. I couldn't earn it. And in any case I +cannot consider any change at present. I have gone in with my father." + +"So I understood. But that is not a hard and fast arrangement. A young +man like you has to look ahead. Your father won't stand in the way of +your bettering yourself." Harrison Cressy spoke with conviction. Well he +might. Though Philip had not known it his companion had spent an hour in +earnest conversation with his father that morning. Harrison Cressy knew +his ground there. + +"Go ahead, Mr. Cressy," Stewart Lambert had said at the close of the +interview. "You have my full permission to offer the position to the +boy and he has my full permission to accept it. He is free to go +tomorrow if he cares to. If it is for his happiness it is what his +mother and I want." + +But the younger Lambert was yet to be reckoned with. + +"It is a hard and fast arrangement so far as I am concerned," he said +quietly now. "Dad can fire me. I shan't fire myself." + +Mr. Cressy made a savage lunge at a fly that had ventured to light on the +sugar bowl, not knowing it was for the time being Millionaire Cressy's +sugar bowl. He hated being balked, even temporarily. He had supposed the +hardest sledding would be over when he had won the father's consent. He +had authentic inside information that the son had stakes other than +financial. He counted on youth's imperious urge to happiness. The lad had +done without Carlotta for two months now. It had seemed probable he would +be more amenable to reason in August than he had been in June. But it did +not look like it just now. + +"You are a darn fool, my young man," he gnarled. + +"Very likely," said Phil Lambert, with the same quietness which had +marked his father's speech earlier in the day. "If you had a son, Mr. +Cressy, wouldn't you want him to be the same kind of a darn fool? Would +you expect him to take French leave the first time somebody offered him +more money?" + +Harrison Cressy snorted, beckoned to the waiter his face purple with +rage. Why in blankety blank blank et cetera, et cetera, didn't he bring +the fish? Did he think they were there for the season? Philip did not +know he had probed an old wound. The one great disappointment of Harrison +Cressy's career was the fact that he had no son, or had had one for such +a brief space of hours that he scarcely counted except as a pathetic +might-have-been And even as Phil had said, so he would have wanted his +son to behave. The boy was a man, every inch of him, just such a man as +Harrison Gressy had coveted for his own. + +"Hang the money part." he snapped back at Phil, after the interlude with +the harrassed waiter. "Let's drop it." + +"With all my heart," agreed Phil. "Considering the money part hanged what +is left to the offer? Carlotta?" + +Mr. Cressy dropped his fork with a resounding clatter to the floor and +swore muttered monotonous oaths at the waiter for not being +instantaneously on the spot to replace the implement. + +"Young man," he said to Phil. "You are too devilish smart. Carlotta--is +why I am here." + +"So I imagined. Did she send you?" + +"Great Scott, no! My life wouldn't be worth a brass nickel if she knew I +was here." + +"I am glad she didn't. I wouldn't like Carlotta to think I could +be--bribed." + +"She didn't. Carlotta has perfectly clear impressions as to where you +stand. She gives you entire credit for being the blind, stubborn, +pigheaded jack-ass that you are." + +Phil grinned faintly at this accumulation of epithets, but his blue eyes +had no mirth in them. The interview was beginning to be something of a +strain. He wished it were over. + +"That's good," he said. "Apparently we all know where we all stand. I +have no illusions about Carlotta's view-point either. There is no reason +I should have. I got it first hand." + +"Don't be an idiot," ordered Mr. Cressy. "A woman can have as many +view-points as there are days in the year, counting Sundays double. You +have no more idea this minute where Carlotta stands than--than I have," +he finished ignominiously, wiping his perspiring forehead with an +imported linen handkerchief. + +"Do you mind telling me just why you are here, if Carlotta didn't send +you? I don't flatter myself you automatically selected me for your new +post without some rather definite reason behind it." + +"I came because I had a notion you were the best man for another job--a +job that makes the whole brokerage business look like a game of +jack-straws--the job of marrying my daughter Carlotta." + +Phil stared. He had not expected Mr. Cressy to take this position. He had +been ready enough to believe Carlotta's prophecy that her parent would +raise a merry little row if she announced to him her intention of +marrying that obscure individual, Philip Lambert, of Dunbury, +Massachusetts. He thought that particular way of behavior on the parent's +part not only probable but more or less justifiable, all things +considered. He saw no reason now why Mr. Cressy should feel otherwise. + +Harrison Cressy drained a deep draught of water, once more wiped his +highly shining brow and leaned forward over the table toward his +puzzled guest. + +"You see, Philip," he went on using the young man's first name for the +first time. "Carlotta is in love with you." + +Philip flushed and his frank eyes betrayed that this, though not entirely +new news, was not unwelcome to hear. + +"In fact," continued Carlotta's father grimly, "she is so much in love +with you she is going to marry another man." + +The light went out of Phil's eyes at that, but he said nothing to this +any more than he had to the preceding statement. He waited for the other +man to get at what he wanted to say. + +"I can't stand Carlotta's being miserable. I never could. It is why I am +here, to see if I can't fix up a deal with you to straighten things out. +I am in your hands, boy, at your mercy. I have the reputation of being +hard as shingle nails. I'm soft as putty where the girl is concerned. It +kills me by inches to have her unhappy." + +"Is she--very unhappy?" Phil's voice was sober. He thought that he too +was soft as putty, or softer where Carlotta was concerned. It made him +sick all over to think of her being unhappy. + +"She is--damnably unhappy." Harrison Cressy blew his nose with a sound as +of a trumpet. "Here you," he bellowed at the waiter who was timidly +approaching. "Is that our steak at last? Bring it here, quick and don't +jibber. Are you deaf and dumb as well as paralyzed?" + +The host attacked the steak with ferocity, slammed a generous section on +a plate and fairly threw it at the young man opposite. Phil wasn't +interested in steak. He scarcely looked at it. His eyes were on Mr. +Cressy, his thoughts were on that gentleman's only daughter. + +"I am sorry she is unhappy," he said. "I don't know how much you know +about it all; but since you know so much I assume you also know that I +care for Carlotta just as much as she cares for me, possibly more. I +would marry her tomorrow if I could." + +"For the Lord Harry's sake, do it then. I'll put up the money." + +Phil's face hardened. + +"That is precisely the rock that Carlotta and I split on, Mr. Cressy. She +wanted to have you put up the money. I love Carlotta but I don't love her +enough to let her or you--buy me." + +The old man and the young faced each other across the table. There was a +deadlock between them and both knew it. + +"But this offer I've made you is a bona fide one. You'll make good. You +will be worth the five thousand and more in no time. I know your kind. I +told you I was a good picker. It isn't a question of buying. Can the +movie stuff. It's a fair give and take." + +"I have refused your offer, Mr. Cressy." + +"You refused it before you knew Carlotta was eating her heart out for +you. Doesn't that make any difference to you, my lad? You said you loved +her," reproachfully. + +A huge blue-bottle fly buzzed past the table, passed on to the window +where it fluttered about aimlessly, bumping itself against the pane here +and there. Mechanically Phil watched its gyrations. It was one of the +hardest moments of his life. + +"In one way it makes a great difference, Mr. Cressy," he answered slowly. +"It breaks my heart to have her unhappy. But it wouldn't make her happy +to have me do something I know isn't right or fair or wise. I know +Carlotta. Maybe I know her better than you do; I know she doesn't want me +that way." + +"But you can't expect her to live in a hole like this, on a yearly +income that is probably less than she spends in one month just for +nothing much." + +"I don't expect it," explained Phil patiently. "I've never blamed +Carlotta for deciding against it. But there is no use going over it all. +She and I had it out together. It is our affair, not yours, Mr. Cressy." + +"Philip Lambert, did you ever see Carlotta cry?" + +Phil winced. The shot went home. + +"No. I'd hate to," he admitted. + +"You would," seconded Harrison Cressy. "I hated it like the devil myself. +She cried all over my new dress suit the other night." + +Phil's heart was one gigantic ache. The thought of Carlotta in tears was +almost unbearable. Carlotta--his Carlotta--was all sunshine and laughter. + +"It was like this," went on Carlotta's parent. "Her aunt told me she was +going to marry young Lathrop--old skin-flint tea-and-coffee Lathrop's +son. I couldn't quite stomach it. The fellow's an ass, an unobjectionable +ass, it is true, but with all the ear marks. I tackled Carlotta about it. +She said she wasn't engaged but might be any minute. I said some fool +thing about wanting her to be happy, and the next thing I knew she was in +my arms crying like anything. I haven't seen her cry since she was a +little tot. She has laughed her way through life always up to now. I +couldn't bear it. I can't bear it now, even remembering it. I squeezed +the story out of her, drop at a time, till I got pretty much the whole +bucket full. I tell you, Phil Lambert, you've got to give in. I can't +have her heart broken. You can't have her heart broken. God, man, it's +your funeral too." + +Phil felt very much as if it were his own funeral. But he did not speak. +He couldn't. The other forged on, his big, mumbling bass mingled with the +buzz of the blue-bottle in the window. + +"I made up my mind something had to be done and done quick. I wasn't +going to have my little girl run her head into the noose by marrying +Lathrop when it was you she loved. I got busy, made inquiries about you +as I said. I had to before I offered you the job naturally, but it was +more than that. I had to find out whether you were the kind of man I +wanted my Carlotta to marry. I found out, and came up here to put the +proposition to you. I talked to your father first, by the way, and got +his consent to go ahead with my plans." + +"You went to my father!" There was concern and a trace of indignation in +Phil's voice. + +"Naturally I was playing to win. I had to hold all the trumps. I wanted +your father on my side--had to have him in fact. He came without a +murmur. He is a good sport. Said all he wanted was your happiness, same +as all I wanted was Carlotta's. We quite understood each other." + +Phil sat silent with down cast eyes on his almost untasted salad. He +couldn't bear to think of his father's being attacked like that, hit with +a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. The more he thought about it the +more he resented it. Of course Dad would agree. He was a good sport as +Mr. Cressy said. Rut that didn't make the thing any easier or more +justifiable. + +"Your father is willing. I want it. Carlotta wants it. You want it, +yourself. Lord, boy, be honest. You know you do. You'll never regret +giving in. Remember it is for Carlotta's happiness we are both looking +for." There was an almost pleading note in Harrison Cressy's voice--a +note few men had heard. He was more used to command than to sue for what +he desired. + +Phil rose from the table. His face was a little white as he stood there, +tall, quiet, perfectly master of himself and the situation. Even before +the young man spoke Harrison Cressy knew he had failed. + +"I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. If Carlotta wants happiness with me I am afraid +she will have to come to Dunbury." + +"You won't reconsider?" + +"There is nothing to reconsider. There never was any question. I am sorry +you even raised one in Dad's mind. You shouldn't have gone to him in the +first place. You should have come to me. It was for me to settle." + +"Highty, tighty!" fumed the exasperated magnate. "People don't tell me +what I should and should not do. They do what I tell 'em." + +"I don't," said Philip Lambert in much the same tone he had once said to +Carlotta, "You can't have this." "I am sorry, Mr. Cressy. I don't want to +be rude, or unkind or obstinate; but there are some things no man can +decide for me. And there are some things I won't do even to win +Carlotta." + +Harrison Cressy's head drooped for a moment. He was beaten for +once--beaten by a lad of twenty-three whose will was quite as strong as +his own. The worst of it was he had never liked any young man in his +life so well as he liked Philip Lambert at this minute, never so coveted +any thing for his daughter Carlotta as he coveted her marriage with +Philip Lambert. + +"That is final, I suppose," he asked after a moment, looking up at the +young man. + +"Absolutely, Mr. Cressy. I am sorry." + +Harrison Cressy lumbered to his feet. + +"I am sorry too," he said, "damnably sorry for Carlotta and for +myself. Will you shake hands with me, Philip? It is good to meet a man +now and then." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +HARRISON CRESSY REVERTS + + +Left to himself, Harrison Cressy discovered to his annoyance that there +was no train out of Dunbury for two hours. That was the worst of these +little one-horse towns. You might as well be dead as alive in 'em. By the +time he had smoked his after-dinner cigar he felt as if he might as well +be dead himself. He felt suddenly heavy, old, almost decrepit, though +that morning when he had left Boston he had considered himself in the +prime of life and vigor. Hang it! He was sixty-nine. A man was about done +for at sixty-nine, all but ready to turn into his grave. And he without +son or grandson. Lord! What a swindle life was anyway! + +Well, there was no use sitting still groaning. He would get up and take a +little walk until train time. Maybe it was his liver that made him feel +so confoundedly rotten and no count. A little exercise would do him good. + +Absentmindedly he noted, as he strolled down the elm-shaded streets, the +neatness of the lawns, the gay flower beds, the hammocks and swings out +under the trees as if people really lived out of doors here. There were +animate evidences of the fact everywhere. Children played here and there +in shady spaces under big trees. Pretty girls on wide, hospitable-looking +porches chatted and drank lemonade and knitted. A lithe, red-haired lass +in white played tennis on a smooth dirt court with a tall, clean looking +youth. As Mr. Cressy passed the girl cried out, "Love all" and the +millionaire smiled. It occurred to him it was not so hard to love all in +a village like this. It was only in cities that you hated your neighbor +and did him first lest you be done yourself. + +He hadn't been loose in a country town like this for years. He had almost +forgotten what they were like when you didn't shoot through them in a +motor car, rushing always to get somewhere else. His casual saunter down +the quiet street was oddly soothing to his nerves, awoke happy, yet +half-sad memories. + +He had met and loved Carlotta's mother in a country town. The lilacs had +been in bloom and the orioles had stood sponsor for his first Sunday +call. They had become engaged by the time the asters were out. The next +lilac time they had been married. A third spring and the little Carlotta +had come. They had both been disappointed at its not being a boy, but the +little girl was a wonder, with hair as gold as buttercups, eyes like wood +violets and a laugh that lilted and gurgled like the little brook down in +the meadow. + +And then, two years later, the boy had come, come and drifted off to some +far place. It had been a bitter blow to Rose as well as to Harrison +Cressy, especially as they said there never could be any more children. +Rose grew frail, did not rally or regain her strength. They advised a +sanitarium in the Adirondacks for her. She had gone, but it had been of +no use. By the time they brought in the first gentians Rose had drifted +off after her little son. Carlotta and her father were alone. + +By this time Harrison Cressy had begun to show the authentic Midas +touch. Only the little Carlotta stood between him and sheer, sordid +money grubbing. And even she was an excuse for the getting of always +more and more wealth. He told himself Carlotta should be a veritable +princess, should go always clad in the finest, have of the best, be +surrounded always by the most beautiful. She should know only joy and +light and laughter. + +Thinking these thoughts, Carlotta's father sighed. For now at last +Carlotta wanted something he could not give her, was learning after +twenty-two years of cloudless joy the bitter way of tears. Why hadn't +that stubborn boy surrendered? + +For that matter why didn't Carlotta surrender? This was a new idea to +Harrison Cressy. All the time he had been talking to Philip Lambert he +had been seeing Carlotta only in relation to Crest House and the Beacon +Street mansion. But just now he had been recalling her mother under very +different associations. Rose had been content with a tiny little cottage +set in a green yard gay with bright old fashioned flowers. He and Rose +had nested as happily as the orioles in the maples, especially after the +gold-haired baby came. Was Carlotta so different from Rose? Was her +happiness such a different kind of thing? Were women not pretty much +alike at heart? Did they not want about the same things? + +Carlotta loved this lad of hers as Rose had loved himself. Was it her own +father who was cheating her out of happiness because he had taught her to +believe that money and limousines and great houses and many servants and +silken robes are happiness? If he had talked to her of other things, told +her about her mother and the happy old days among the lilacs and orioles, +with little but love to nest with, couldn't he have made her see things +more truly, shown her that love was the main thing, that money could not +buy happiness? One could not buy much of anything that was worth buying +Harrison Cressy thought. One could purchase only the worthless. That was +the everlasting failure of money. + +He remembered the boy's, "I love Carlotta. But I don't love her enough to +let her or you buy me." It was true. Neither he nor his daughter had been +able to purchase the lad's integrity, his good faith, his ideals. And +Harrison Cressy was thankful from the bottom of his heart that it was so. + +He turned his steps back to the village and as he did so an oriole +flashed out of the shrubbery near him, and passed like a flame out of +sight among the trees. This was a good sign. Orioles had nested every +year in the maple tree by the little white house where Carlotta had been +born. Carlotta herself had always loved them. "Pretty, pretty, birdie!" +she had been wont to call out. "Come, daddy, let's follow him and see +where he goes." + +He would go home and tell Carlotta all this, make her see that her +happiness was in her own hands. No, it was the boy's story. If Carlotta +would not follow the orioles and her own heart for Philip Lambert she +would not for any argument of his. + +By this time a distant puff of smoke gave evidence that the Boston train +was already on its way, leaving Harrison Cressy in Dunbury. Not that he +cared. He had business still to transact ere he departed, a new battle to +fight. He walked with the firm elastic step of a youth back to town. What +did it matter if you were sixty-nine when the best things of life were +still ahead of you? + +Accordingly Phil was a second time that day surprised by the unheralded +arrival of Carlotta's father, a rather dusty, weary and limp-looking +gentleman this time, but exuding a sort of benignant serenity that had +not been there early in the day. + +"Hello," greeted the millionaire blandly. "Missed my train--got to +browsing round the town like an old billy goat. Not sorry though. It is a +nice little town. Mind if I sit down? I'm a bit blown." And dropping on a +stool Mr. Cressy fanned himself with his panama and grinned at Philip, a +grin the young man could not quite fathom. What new trick had the clever +old financier at the bottom of his mind? Phil hoped he had not got to go +through the thing again. Once had been quite enough for one day. + +"Let me send out for something cool to drink, Mr. Cressy. You must be +horribly hot. It is warm in here, even with all the fans going. Hi, +there, Tommy!" Philip summoned a freckled, red-haired youth from +somewhere in the background. "Run over to Greene's and get a lemonade for +this gentleman, will you?" + +"Right, Mr. Phil." The boy saluted--an odd salute, Mr. Cressy noted. It +was rendered with the right hand, the three middle fingers held up, the +thumb bent over touching the nail of the little finger. The saluter stood +very straight as he went through the ceremony and looked very serious +about it. "Queer!" thought the onlooker. The messenger boys he knew did +not behave like that when you gave them an order. + +Philip excused himself to attend to a customer and in a moment the +red-haired lad was back with a tall glass of lemonade clinking +delightfully with ice. Mr. Cressy took it and set it down on the counter +while he fumbled for his wallet and produced a dollar bill. + +To his amazement the boy's grin faded, and he drew himself up with +dignity. + +"No, thank you, sir," he said to the proffered greenback. "I'm a Scout +and Scouts don't take tips." + +"What!" gasped Harrison Cressy. In all his life he did not recall meeting +a boy who ever refused money before. He began to think there was +something uncanny about this town of Dunbury. First a young man who could +not be bought at any price. And now a boy who wouldn't take a tip for +service rendered. + +"I said I was a Scout," repeated the lad patiently. "And Scouts don't +take tips. We are supposed to do one good turn every day, anyway, and I +hadn't gotten mine in before. I'm only a Tenderfoot but I'm most ready +for my second class tests. Mr. Phil's going to try me out in first aid as +soon as he gets time." + +"Mr. Phil! What's he got to do with it?" inquired Mr. Cressy, after a +long, satisfying swig of lemonade. + +"He is our Scout-master and a peach of a one too. He is going to take us +on a hike tomorrow." + +"Tomorrow? Tomorrow is Sunday, young man." The Methodist in Harrison +Cressy rose to the surface. + +"I know. We all go to church and Sunday school in the morning. Mr. Phil +won't take us unless we do. But in the afternoon he thinks it is all +right to go on a hike. We don't practise signaling and things like that, +but we get in a lot of nature study. I can identify all my ten trees now +and a whole lot more besides, and I've got a bird list of over sixty." + +"You don't say so?" Harrison Cressy was plainly impressed. "So your Mr. +Phil gives a good deal of time to that sort of thing, does he?" he added, +his eyes seeking Philip Lambert in the distance. + +"Should say he did. I guess he gives about all the time he has outside +of the store. He's a dandy Scout-master. What he says goes, you betcher." + +Remembering the scene at the luncheon table that day, Harrison Cressy +thought it quite probable. What Philip had said had gone "you betcher" on +that occasion with a vengeance. So young Lambert gave his off hours to +business of this sort. Most of Carlotta's male friends gave most of +theirs to polo, jazz, and chorus girls. He began to covet Philip more +than ever for a possible, and he hoped probable, son-in-law. + +It played into his purposes excellently that Philip on returning invited +him to supper on the Hill that night. He wanted to meet the boy's people, +especially the mother. Carlotta had told him once that Philip's mother +was the most wonderful person in the world. + +Seated at the long table in the Lambert dining-room Harrison Cressy +enjoyed a meal such as his chef-ridden soul had almost forgotten could +exist--a meal so simple yet so delectable that he dreamed of it for days +afterward. + +But the food, excellent as it was, was only a small part of the +significance of the occasion. It was a revelation to the millionaire to +know that a family could gather around the board like this and have such +a thoroughly delightful time all round. There was gay talk and ready +laughter, a fine flavor of old-fashioned courtesy and hospitality and +good will in everything that was said or done. + +The Lambert girls--the pretty twins and the younger, slim slip of a +lassie, Elinor--were charming, fresh, natural, unspoiled, very different +from and far more to his taste than most of the young women who came to +Crest House--hot-house products, over-sophisticated, cynical, too +familiar with rouge and cigarettes and the game of love and lure, +huntresses more or less, the whole pack of them. It seemed girls could +still be plain girls on this enchanted Hill--girls who would make +wonderful wives some day for some lucky men. + +But the mother! She was the secret of it all, quite as remarkable as +Carlotta had said. She was extraordinarily well read, talked well on a +dozen subjects as to which he was himself but vaguely informed, and she +was evidently even more extraordinarily busy. There was talk of a Better +Babies movement in which she was interested, of a Red Cross Chapter at +which she had spent the afternoon, of a committee meeting of the local +Woman's Club which was bringing a noted English poet-lecturer to town. +There were Chatauqua plans in view, and a new children's reading room in +the public library with a story-telling hour of which Clare was to be in +charge. A hundred things indicated that Mrs. Lambert was by no means +confined to the four walls of her home for interests and activities. Yet +her home was exquisitely kept and she was a mother first of all. One +could see that every moment. It was "Mums, this" and "Mums, that" from +them all. The life of the home clearly pivoted about her. + +Harrison Cressy found himself wishing that Carlotta could have known a +motherhood like that. Rose had gone so soon. Carlotta had never known +what she missed. Perhaps Mr. Cressy himself had not known until he saw +Mrs. Lambert and realized what a mother might be. Poor Carlotta! He had +given her a great deal. At least, until this, afternoon, he had thought +he had. But he had never given her anything at all comparable to what +this quiet village store-keeper and his wife had given to their son and +daughters. He hadn't had it to give. He had been poor, after all, all +along. Though he hadn't suspected it until now. + +After supper Stuart Lambert had slipped quickly away, bidding his son +stay up on the Hill a little longer with their guest. Phil had demurred, +but had been quietly overruled and had acquiesced perforce. Poor Dad! +There had not been a moment all day to relieve his mind about Mr. +Cressy's offer. Not once had the father and son been alone. Phil was +afraid his father was taking the thing a good deal to heart, and it +worried him. He had counted on talking it over together as they went back +to the store but his father had willed otherwise. + +It was with Carlotta's father instead of his own that Philip talked first +after all. + +"See here, Philip," began Mr. Cressy as they descended the Hill in +"Lizzie." "I went at this all wrong. So did Carlotta. I understand +better now. I've been back in the past this afternoon, remembering what +it means to live in the country and love and mate there in the good +old-fashioned way as Carlotta's mother and I did. It is what I want her +to do with you. Do you get that, boy? I want her to come to Dunbury. I +want her to have a piece of your mother. Carlotta never knew what it was +to have a mother. It is mostly my fault she doesn't see any clearer. You +mustn't blame her, lad." + +"I don't," said Phil. "I love her." + +"I know you do. And she loves you. Go to her. Make her see. Make her +marry you and be happy." + +Phil was silent, not because he was not moved by the older man's plea but +because he was almost too moved to speak. It rather took his breath away +to have Harrison Cressy on his side like this. It was almost too +incredible, and yet there was no mistaking the sincerity in the other's +words or on his face. Carlotta's father did want Carlotta to come to him +on his Hill. + +But would Carlotta want it? That was the question. For himself he +sought no higher road to follow than the one where his father and +mother had blazed the trail through fair weather and stormy these many +years. But would Carlotta be content to travel so with him? He did not +know. At any rate he could ask her, try once more to make her see, as +her father put it. + +He turned to his companion with a sober smile at this point in his +reflections. + +"Thank you, Mr. Cressy. I will try again and I know it is going to make a +great deal of difference to Carlotta--and to me--to have you on my side. +Perhaps she will see it differently this time. I--hope so." + +"Lord, boy, so do I!" groaned Mr. Cressy. "You will come back to Crest +House tomorrow with me?" + +Phil hesitated, considered, shook his head. + +"I'll come next Saturday. I can't get away tomorrow," he said. + +"Why not? For the Lord's sake, boy, get it over!" + +Phil smiled but shook his head. He too wanted to get it over. He could +hardly wait to get to Carlotta, would have started that moment if he +could have done so. But there were clear-cut reasons why he could not go +tomorrow, obligations that held him fast in Dunbury. + +"I can't go tomorrow because I have promised my boys a hike," he +explained. + +Harrison Cressy nearly exploded. + +"Heavens, man! What does a parcel of kids amount to when it comes to +getting you a wife? You can call off your hike, can't you?" + +"I could, but it would be hard on a good many of them. They count on it a +good deal. Some of them have given up other pleasures they might have had +on account of it. Tommy has, for instance. His uncle asked him to go to +Worcester with him in his car, and he refused because of his date with +me. They are all bribed to church and Sunday School by the means. One of +the things Scouting stands for is sticking to your job and your word. I +don't think it is exactly up to the Scoutmaster to dodge his +responsibilities when he preaches the other kind of thing. Of course, if +it were a life and death matter, it would be different. It isn't. I have +waited a good many weeks to see Carlotta. I can wait one more." + +Harrison Cressy grunted. He hardly knew whether to fly into a rage with +this extraordinary young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he +liked him better and better every minute. He contented himself by +repeating a remark he had made earlier in the day. + +"You are a darn fool, young man." Then he added, half against his will, +"But I like your darnfoolness, hang me if I don't!" + +Phil had a strenuous two hours in the store with never a minute to get at +his father. It was not until the last customer had departed, the last +clerk fled away and the clock striking eleven that the father and son +were alone. + +Philip came over to where the older man stood. His heart smote him when +he saw how utterly worn and weary the other looked, as if he had suddenly +added a full ten years to his age since morning. His characteristic +buoyancy seemed to have deserted him for once. + +"Dad, I've not had a minute alone with you all day. I am sorry Mr. Cressy +bothered you about that blue sky proposition of his. I never would have +let him if I had known. Of course there was nothing in it. I didn't +consider it for a minute." + +Stuart Lambert smiled wearily and sat down on the counter. + +"I am afraid you have given up more than we realized, Philip, in coming +into the store. Mr. Cressy gave me a glimpse into things that I knew +nothing about. You should have told us." + +"There was nothing to tell. I've given up nothing that was mine. I told +Carlotta all along she would have to come to me. I couldn't come to her. +My whole life is here with you. It is what I have wanted ever since I had +the sense to want anything but to enjoy my fool self. But even then I +didn't appreciate what it would be like to be here with you. I couldn't, +till I had tried it and found out first hand what kind of a man my dad +was. I am absolutely satisfied. If Mr. Cressy had offered me a million a +year I wouldn't have taken it. It wouldn't have been the slightest +temptation even--" he smiled a little sadly--"even with Carlotta thrown +in. I don't want to get Carlotta that way." + +"You say you are satisfied, Philip. Maybe that is so. But you are +not happy." + +"I wasn't, just at first. I was a fool. I let the thing swamp me for +awhile. Mums helped pull me out of the slough and since then I've been +finding out that happiness is--well, a kind of by-product. Like the +kingdom of heaven it doesn't come for observation. I have had about as +much happiness here with you, and with Mums and the girls at home, and +with my Scouts in the woods, as I deserve, maybe more. I'm going to try +to get Carlotta. I haven't given up hope. I'm going down to Sea View next +week to ask her again and maybe things will be different this time. Her +father is on my side now, which is a great help. He has got the Holiday +Hill viewpoint all at once. He wants Carlotta to come to me--us. So do I, +with all my heart. But whether she does or doesn't, I am here with you as +long as you want me, first last and all the time and glad to be. Please +believe that, Dad, always." + +Stuart Lambert rose. + +"Philip, you don't know what it means to me to hear you say this." There +was a little break in the older man's voice, the suggestion of pent +emotion. "It nearly killed me to think I ought to give you up. You are +sure you are not making too much of a sacrifice?" + +"Dad! Please don't say that word to me. There isn't any sacrifice. It is +what I want. I haven't been a very good son always. Even this summer I am +afraid I haven't come up to all you expected of me, especially just at +first when I was wrapped up in myself and my own concerns too much to see +that doing a good job in the store was only a small part of what I was +here in Dunbury to do. But anyway I am prouder than I can tell you to be +your son and I am going to try my darndest to live up to the sign if you +will let me stay on being the minor part of it." + +He held out his hand and his father took it. There were tears in the +older man's eyes. A moment later the store was dark as the two passed out +shoulder to shoulder beneath the sign of STUART LAMBERT AND SON. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE DUNBURY CURE + + +Harrison Cressy awoke next morning to the cheerful chirrup of robins and +the pleasant far-off sound of church bells. He liked the bells. They +sounded different in the country he thought. You couldn't hear them in +the city anyway. There were too many noises to distract you. There was no +Sabbath stillness in the city. For that matter there wasn't much Sabbath. + +He got up out of bed and went and looked out of the window. There was a +heavenly hush everywhere. It was still very early. It had been the +Catholic bells ringing for mass that he had heard. The dew was a-dazzle +on every grass blade. The robins hopped briskly about at their business +of worm-gathering. The morning glories all in fresh bloom climbed +cheerfully over the picket fence. He hadn't seen a morning glory in +years. It set him dreaming again, took him back to his boyhood days. + +If only Carlotta would be sensible and yield to the boy's wooing. Dunbury +had cast a kind of spell upon him. He wanted his daughter to live here. +He wanted to come here to visit her. In his imagination he saw himself +coming to Carlotta's home--not too big a home--just big enough to live +and grow in and raise babies in. He saw himself playing with Carlotta's +little golden-haired violet-eyed daughters, and walking hand in hand with +her small son Harrison, just such a sturdy, good-looking, wide-awake +youngster as Philip Lambert had no doubt been. Harrison Cressy's mind +dwelt fondly upon this grandson of his. That was a boy indeed! + +Carlotta's son should not be permitted to grow up a money grubber. There +would be money of course. One couldn't very well avoid that under the +circumstances. The boy would be trained to the responsibilities of being +Harrison Cressy's heir. But he should be taught to see things in their +true values and proportions. He must not grow up money-blinded like +Carlotta. He should know that money was good--very good. But he should +know it was not the chief good, was never for an instant to be classed +with the abiding things--the real things, not to be purchased at a price. + +Mr. Cressy sighed a little at that point and crept back to bed. It +occurred to him he would have to leave this latter part of his grandson's +education to the Lambert side of the family. That was their business, +just as the money part was his. + +He fell asleep again and presently re-awoke in a kind of shivering panic. +What if Carlotta would not marry Philip after all? What if it was too +late already? What if his grandson turned out to be a second Herbert +Lathrop, an unobjectionable, possibly even an objectionable ass. +Perspiration beaded on the millionaire's brow. Why was that young idiot +on the Hill waiting? What were young men made of nowadays? Didn't Philip +Lambert know that you could lose a woman forever if you didn't jump +lively? Hanged if he wouldn't call the boy this minute and tell him he +just had to change his mind and go to Crest House that very morning +without a moment's delay. Delay might be fatal. Harrison Cressy sat up in +bed, fumbled for his slippers, shook his head gloomily and returned to +his place under the covers. + +It wasn't any use. He might as well give up. He couldn't make Philip +Lambert do anything he did not want to do. He had tried it twice and +failed ignominiously both times. He wouldn't tackle it again. The boy was +stronger than he was. He had to lie back and let things take their course +as best they might. + +"Cheer up! Cheer up!" counseled the robins outside, but millionaire +Cressy heeded not their injunctions. The balloon of his hopes lay pricked +and flat in the dust. + +He rose, dressed, breakfasted and discovered there was an eleven o'clock +train for Boston. He discovered also that he hadn't the slightest wish to +take it. He did not want to go to Boston. He did not want to go to Crest +House. And very particularly and definitely he did not want to see his +daughter Carlotta. Carlotta might ferret out his errand to Dunbury and be +bitterly angry at his interference with her affairs. Even if she were not +angry how could he meet her without telling her everything, including +things that were the boy's right to tell? It was safer to stay away from +Crest House entirely. That was it. He would telegraph Carlotta his gout +was worse, that he had gone to the country to take a cure. He would be +home Saturday. + +Immensely heartened he dispatched the wire. By this time it was +ten-thirty and the dew on the grass was all dry, the morning glories shut +tight and the robins vanished. The church bells were ringing again +however and Harrison Cressy decided to go to church, the white Methodist +church on the common. He wouldn't meet any of the Hill people there. The +Holidays were Episcopal, the Lamberts Unitarian--a loose, heterodox kind +of creed that. He wished Phil were Methodist. It would have given him +something to go by. Then he grinned a bit sheepishly at his own expense +and shook his head. He had had the Methodist creed to go by himself and +much good had it done him. Maybe it did not make so much difference what +you believed. It was how you acted that mattered. Why that was +Unitarianism itself, wasn't it? Queer. Maybe there was something in it +after all. + +Seated in the little church Harrison Cressy hardly listened to the +preacher's droning voice. He followed his own trend of thought instead, +recalling long-forgotten scriptural passages. "What shall it profit a man +though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" was one of the +recurring phrases. He applied it to Philip Lambert, applied it sadly to +himself and with a shake of his head to his daughter, Carlotta. He +remembered too the story of the rich young man. Had he made Carlotta as +the rich young man, cumbered her with so many worldly possessions and +standards that by his own hand he was keeping her out of the heaven of +happiness she might have otherwise inherited? He feared so. + +He bowed his head with the others but he did not pray. He could not. He +was too unhappy. And yet who knows? Perhaps his unwonted clarity of +vision and humility of soul were acceptable that morning in lieu of +prayer to Sandalphou. + +As he ate his solitary dinner his despondency grew upon him. He felt +almost positive Philip would fail in his mission, that Carlotta would go +her willful way to regret and disillusionment, and all these things gone +irretrievably wrong would be at bottom his own fault. + +Later he endeavored to distract himself from his dreary thoughts by +discoursing with his neighbor on the veranda, a tall, grizzled, soldierly +looking gentleman with shrewd but kind eyes and the brow of a scholar. + +As they talked desultorily a group of khaki clad youngsters filed past, +Philip Lambert among them, looking only an older and taller boy in their +midst. The lads looked happy, alert, vigorous, were of clean, upstanding +type, the pick of the town it seemed probable to Harrison Cressy who said +as much to his companion. + +The other smiled and shook his head. + +"You are mistaken, sir," he said. "Three months ago most of those fellows +were riffraff--the kind that hang around street corners smoking and +indulging in loose talk and profanity. Young Lambert, the chap with them, +their Scout-master, picked that kind from choice, turned down a +respectable church-mothered bunch for this one, left the other for a man +who wanted an easier row to hoe. It was some stunt, as the boys say. It +took a man like Phil Lambert to put it through. He has the crowd where he +wants them now though. They would go through fire and water if he led +them and he is a born leader." + +Harrison Cressy's eyes followed the departing group. Here was a new light +on his hoped-for son-in-law. So he picked "publicans-and sinners" to eat +with. Mr. Cressy rather liked that. He hated snobs and pharisees, +couldn't stomach either brand. + +"It means a good deal to a town like this when its college-bred boys come +back and lend a hand like that," the other man went on. "So many of them +rush off to the cities thinking there isn't scope enough for their +ineffable wisdom and surpassing talents in their own home town. A number +of people prophesied that young Lambert would do the same instead of +settling down with his father as we all wanted him to do. I wasn't much +afraid of that myself. Phil has sense enough to see rather straight +usually. He did about that. And then the kickers put up a howl that he +had a swelled head, felt above the rest of Dunbury because he had a +college education and his father was getting to be one of the most +prosperous men in town. They complained he wouldn't go in for things the +rest of the town was interested in, kept to himself when he was out of +the store. There were some grounds for the kick I will admit. But it +wasn't a month before he got his bearings, had his head out of the clouds +and was in the thick of everything. They swear by him now almost as much +as they do by his father which is saying a good deal for Dunbury has +revolved about Stuart Lambert for years. It is beginning to revolve about +Stuart Lambert and Son now. But I am boring you with all this. Phil +happens to be rather a favorite of mine." + +"You know him well?" questioned Mr. Cressy. + +"I ought to. I am Robert Caldwell, principal of the High School here. +I've known Phil since he was in knickerbockers and had him under my +direct eye for four years. He kept my eye sufficiently busy at that," he +added with a smile. "There wasn't much mischief that youngster and a +neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn't get into. Maybe that is why he +is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the +direction in which the khaki-clad lads had gone. + +"H-mm," observed Mr. Cressy. "I am rather glad to hear all this. You see +it happens that I came to Dunbury to offer Philip Lambert a position. My +name's Cressy--Harrison Cressy," he explained. + +His companion lifted his eye-brows a little dubiously. + +"I see. I didn't know I was discussing a young man you knew well enough +to offer a position to. May I ask if he accepted it?" "He did not," +admitted Harrison Cressy grimly. + +"Turned it down, eh?" The school man looked interested. + +"Turned it down, man? He made the proposition look flatter than a last +year's pan-cake and it was a mighty good proposition. At least I thought +it was," the magnate added with a faint grin remembering all that went +with that proposition. + +Robert Caldwell smiled. He rather liked the idea of one of his boys +making a proposition of millionaire Cressy's look like a last year's +pan-cake. It was what he would have expected of Phil Lambert. + +"I am sorry for you, Mr. Cressy," he said. "But I am glad for Dunbury. +Philip is the kind we need right here." + +"He is the kind we need right everywhere," grunted Mr. Cressy. "Only we +can't get 'em. They aren't for sale." + +"No," agreed Robert Caldwell. "They are not for sale. Ah, the Boston +train must be in. There is the stage." + +Mr. Cressy allowed his eyes to stray idly to the arriving bus and the +descending passengers. + +Suddenly he stiffened. + +"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, an exclamation called forth by the fact that +the last person to alight from the bus was a slim young person in a trim, +tailored, navy blue suit and a tiny black velvet toque whose air bespoke +Paris, a person with eyes which were precisely the color of violets which +grow in the deepest woods. + +A little later Harrison Cressy sat in a deep leather upholstered chair in +his bedroom with his daughter Carlotta in his lap. + +"Don't try to deceive me, Daddy darling," Carlotta was saying. "You were +worried--dreadfully worried because your little Carlotta wept salt tears +all over your shirt bosom. You thought that Carlotta must not be allowed +to be unhappy. Wars, earthquakes, ship sinkings, wrecks--anything might +be allowed to go on as usual but not Carlotta unhappy. You thought that, +didn't you, Daddy darling?" + +Daddy darling pleaded guilty. + +"Of course you did, you old dear. The moment I knew you were in Dunbury I +knew what you were up to. I understand perfectly how your mind works. I +ought to. Mine works very much the same way. It is a simple three stage +operation. First we decide we want a thing. Next we decide the surest, +quickest way to get it and third--we get it. At least we usually do. We +must do ourselves that much justice, must we not, Daddy darling?" + +Daddy darling merely grunted. + +"You came to Dunbury to tell Phil he had to marry me because I was in +love with him and wanted to marry him. He couldn't very well marry me and +keep on living in Dunbury because I wouldn't care to live in Dunbury. +Therefore he would have to emigrate to a place I would care to live in +and he couldn't very well do that unless he had a very considerable +income because spending money was one of my favorite sports both indoor +and outdoor and I wouldn't be happy if I didn't keep right on playing it +to the limit. Therefore, again, the very simple solution of the whole +thing was for you to offer Phil a suitable salary so that we could marry +at once and live in the suitable place and say, 'Go to it. Bless you my +children. Bring on your wedding bells--I mean bills. I'll foot 'em.' Put +in the rough, that was the plan wasn't it, my dear parent?" + +"Practically," admitted the dear parent with a wry grin. "How did you +work it out so accurately?" + +Carlotta made a face at him. + +"I worked it out so accurately because it was all old stuff. The plan +wasn't at all original with you. I drew the first draft of it myself last +June up on the top of Mount Tom, took Phil up there on purpose indeed to +exhibit it to him." + +"Humph!" muttered Harrison Cressy. + +"Unfortunately Phil didn't at all care for the exhibit because it +happened that I had fallen in love with a man instead of a puppet. I +could have told you coming to Dunbury was no earthly use if you had +consulted me. Phil did not take to your plan, did he?" + +"He did not." + +"And he told you--he didn't care for me any more?" Carlotta's voice was +suddenly a little low. + +"He did not. In fact I gathered he was fair-to-middling fond of you +still, in spite of your abominable behavior." + +"Phil, didn't say I had behaved abominably Daddy. You know he didn't. He +might think it but he wouldn't ever say it--not to you anyway." + +"He didn't. That is my contribution and opinion. Carlotta, I wish to the +Lord Harry you would marry Philip Lambert!" + +Carlotta's lovely eyes flashed surprise and delight before she +lowered them. + +"But, Daddy," she said. "He hasn't got very much money. And it takes a +great deal of money for me." + +"You had better learn to get along with less then," snapped Harrison +Cressy. "I tell you, Carlotta, money is nothing--the stupidest, most +useless, rottenest stuff in the world." + +Carlotta opened her eyes very wide. + +"Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?" she asked gravely. + +"No. It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury." + +"But you--you wouldn't want me to live here?" probed Carlotta. + +"My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole +world. I've traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in +the past with your mother. Things look different to me now. I don't want +what I did for you. At least what I want hasn't changed. That is the same +always--your happiness. But I have changed my mind as to what makes for +happiness." + +"I am awfully glad, Daddy darling," sighed Carlotta snuggling closer in +his arms. "Because I came up here on purpose to tell you that I've +changed my mind too. If Dunbury is good for gout maybe--maybe it will be +good for what ails me. Do you think it might, Daddy?" For answer he held +her very tight. + +"Do you mean it, child? Are you here to tell that lad of yours you are +ready to come up his Hill to him?" + +"If--if he still wants me," faltered Carlotta. "I'll have to find that +out for myself. I'll know as soon as I see Phil. There won't anything +have to be said. I am afraid there has been too much talking already. You +shouldn't have told him I cried," reproachfully. + +"How could I help it? That is, how the deuce did you know I did?" +floundered the trapped parent. + +"Daddy! You know you played on Phil's sympathy every way you could. It +was awful. At least it would have been awful if you had bought him +with my silly tears after you failed to buy him with your silly money. +But he didn't give in even for a moment--even when you told him I +cried, did he?" + +"Not even then. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care. He--" + +But Carlotta's hand was over his mouth at that. How much Phil cared she +wanted to hear from nobody but from Phil himself. + +Philip Lambert found a queer message waiting for him when he came in from +his hike. Some mysterious person who would give no name had telephoned +requesting him to be at the top of Sunset Hill at precisely seven o'clock +to hear some important information which vitally concerned the firm of +Stuart Lambert and Son. + +"Sounds like a hoax of some sort," remarked Phil. "But Lizzie has been +chafing at the bit all day in the garage and I don't mind a ride. Come +on, Dad, let's see what this bunk means." + +Stuart Lambert smiled assent. And at precisely seven o'clock when dusk +was settling gently over the valley and the glory in the western sky was +beginning to fade into pale heliotrope and rose tints Lizzie brought the +two Lamberts to the crest of Sunset Hill where another car waited, a +hired car from the Eagle garage. + +From the tonneau of the other car Harrison Cressy stepped out, somewhat +ponderously, followed by some one else, some one all in white with hair +that shone pure gold even in the gathering twilight. + +Phil made one leap and in another moment, before the eyes of his father +and Carlotta's, not to mention the interested stare of the Eagle garage +chauffeur, he swept his far-away princess into his arms. There was no +need of anybody's trying to make Carlotta see. Love had opened her +eyes. The two fathers smiled at each other, both a little glad and a +little sad. + +"Brother Lambert," said Mr. Cressy. "Suppose you and I ride down the +hill. I rather think this spot belongs to the children." + +"So it seems," agreed Stuart Lambert. "We will leave Lizzie for +chaperone. I think there will be a moon later." + +"Exactly. There always was a moon, I believe. It is quite customary." + +As Stuart Lambert got out of the small car Philip and Carlotta came to +him hand-in-hand like happy children. + +Carlotta slipped away from Phil, put out both hands to his father. He +took them with a happy smile. + +"I have a good many daughters, my dear," he said. "But I have always +wanted to welcome one more. Do you think you could take in another Dad?" + +"I know I could," said Carlotta lifting her flower face to him for a +daughterly kiss. + +"Come, come! Where do I come in on this deal? Where is my son, I'd like +to know?" demanded Mr. Cressy. + +"Right here at your service--darnfoolness and all," said Phil holding +out his hand. + +"Don't rub it in," snapped Harrison Cressy, though he gripped the +proffered hand hard. "Come on, Lambert. This is no place for us." + +And the two fathers went down the hill in the hired car leaving Lizzie +and the lovers in possession of the summit with the world which the moon +was just turning to silver at their feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SEPTEMBER CHANGES + + +When September came Carlotta, who had been ostensibly visiting Tony +though spending a good deal of her time "in the moon with Phil" as she +put it, departed for Crest House, carrying Philip with her "for +inspection," as he dubbed it somewhat ruefully. He wasn't particularly +enamored of the prospect of being passed upon by Carlotta's friends and +relatives. It was rather incongruous when you came to think of it that +the lovely Carlotta, who might have married any one in the world, should +elect an obscure village store keeper for a husband. But Carlotta herself +had no qualms. She was shrewd enough to know that with her father on her +side no one would do much disapproving. And in any case she had no fear +that any one even just looking at Phil would question her choice. +Carlotta was not the woman to choose a man she would have to apologize +for. Phil would hold his own with the best of them and she knew it. He +was a man every inch of him, and what more could any woman ask? + +Ted went up for his examinations and came back so soberly that the family +held its composite breath and wondered in secret whether he could +possibly have failed after all his really heroic effort. But presently +the word came that he had not only not failed but had rather covered +himself with glory. The Dean himself, an old friend of Doctor Holiday's, +wrote expressing his congratulations and the hope that this performance +of his nephew's was a pledge of better things in the future and that this +fourth Holiday to pass through the college might yet reflect credit upon +it and the Holiday name. + +Ted himself emphatically disclaimed all praise whatsoever in the matter +and cut short his uncle's attempt at expressing his appreciation not only +of the successful finish of the examinations but the whole summer's hard +work and steadiness. + +"I am glad if you are satisfied, Uncle Phil," he said. "But there isn't +any credit coming to me. It was the least I could do after making such a +confounded mess of things. Let's forget it." + +But Ted Holiday was not quite the same unthinking young barbarian in +September that he had been in June. Nobody could work as he had worked +that summer without gaining something in character and self-respect. +Moreover, being constantly as he was with his brother and uncle, he +would have been duller than he was not to get a "hunch," as he would +have called it, of what it meant to be a Holiday of the authentic sort. +Larry's example was particularly salutary. The younger Holiday could +not help comparing his own weak-willed irresponsibility of conduct with +the older one's quiet self-control and firmness of principle. Larry's +love for Ruth was the real thing. Ted could see that, and it made his +own random, ill-judged attraction to Madeline Taylor look crude and +cheap if nothing worse. He hated to remember that affair in Cousin +Emma's garden. He made up his mind there would be no more things like +that to have to remember. + +"You can tell old Bob Caldwell," he wrote from college to his uncle, +"that he'll sport no more caddies and golf balls at my expense. Flunking +is too damned expensive every way, saving your presence, Uncle Phil. No +more of it for this child. But don't get it into your head I am a +violently reformed character. I am nothing of the kind and don't want to +be. If I see any signs of angel pin-feathers cropping out I'll shave 'em. +I'd hate to be conspicuously virtuous. All the same if I have a few +grains more sense than I had last year they are mostly to your credit. +Fact is, Uncle Phil, you are a peach and I am just beginning to realize +it, more fool I." + +Tony also flitted from the Hill that September for her new work and life +in the big city. Rather against her will she had ensconced herself in a +Student Hostelry where Jean Lambert, Phil's older sister, had been living +several years very happily, first as a student and later as a successful +illustrator. Tony had objected that she did not want anything so +"schooly," and that the very fact that Jean liked the Hostelry would be +proof positive that she, Tony, would not like it. What she really wanted +to do was either to have a studio of her own or accept Felice Norman's +invitation to make her home with her. Mrs. Norman was a cousin of Tony's +mother, a charming widow of wealth and wide social connections whom Tony +had always adored and admired extravagantly. Just visiting her had always +been like taking a trip to fairy land and to live with her--well, it +would be just too wonderful, Tony thought. But Doctor Holiday had vetoed +decidedly both these pleasant and impractical propositions. Tony was far +too young and pretty to live alone. That was out of the question. And he +was scarcely more willing that she should go to Mrs. Norman, though he +liked the latter very well and was glad that his niece would have her to +go to in any emergency. He knew Tony, and knew that in such an +environment as Mrs. Norman's home offered the girl would all but +inevitably drift into being a gay little social butterfly and forget she +ever came to the city to do serious work. Life with Mrs. Norman would be +"too wonderful" indeed. + +So Tony went to the Hostelry with the understanding that if after a few +months' trial she really did dislike it as much as she declared she knew +she would they would make other arrangements. But rather to her chagrin +she found herself liking the place very much and enjoying the society of +the other girls who were all in the city as she and Jean were, pursuing +some art or other. + +The dramatic school work was all she had hoped and more, stimulating, +engrossing, altogether delightful. She made friends easily as always, +among teachers and pupils, slipped naturally here as in college into a +position of leadership. Tony Holiday was a born queen. + +She had plenty of outside diversion too. Cousin Felice was kind and +delighted to pet and exhibit her pretty little kinswoman. There were +fascinating glimpses into high society, delightful private dancing +parties in gorgeous ball rooms, motor trips, gay theater parties in +resplendent boxes, followed by suppers in brilliant restaurants--all the +pomp and glitter of life that youth loves. + +There were other no less genuinely happy occasions spent with Dick +Carson, way up near the roof in the theaters and opera house or in queer, +fascinating out-of-the-way foreign restaurants. The two had the jolliest +kind of time together, always like two children at a picnic. Tony was +very nice to Dick these days. He kept her from being too homesick for the +Hill and anyway she felt a wee bit sorry for him because he did not know +about Alan and those long letters which came so frequently from the +retreat in the mountains where the latter was sketching. She knew she +ought to tell Dick how far things had gone but somehow she couldn't quite +drive herself to do it. She didn't want to hurt him. And she did not want +to banish him from her life. She wanted him, needed him just where he +was, at her feet, and never bothering her with any inconvenient demands +or love-making. It was selfish but it was true. And in any case it would +be soon enough to worry Dick when Alan came back to town. + +And then without warning he was back, very much back. And with his return +the pleasant nicely balanced, casual scheme of things which she had been +following so contentedly was knocked sky high. She had to adjust herself +to a new heaven and a new earth with Alan Massey the center of both. In +her delight and intoxication at having her lover near her again, more +fascinating and lover-like than ever, Tony lost her head a little, +neglected her work, snubbed her friends, refused invitations from Dick +and Cousin Felice, and indeed from everybody except Alan. She went +everywhere with him, almost nowhere without him, spent her days and more +of her nights than was at all prudent or proper in his absorbing society, +had, in short, what she afterward described to Carlotta as a "perfect +orgy of Alan." + +At the end of ten days she called a halt, sat down and took honest +account of herself and her proceedings and found that this sort of thing +would not do. Alan was too expensive every way. She could not afford so +much of him. Accordingly with her usual decision and frankness she +explained the situation to him as she saw it and announced that +henceforth she would see him only twice a week and not as often if she +were especially busy. + +To this ultimatum she kept rigidly in spite of her lover's protests and +pleas and threats. She was inexorable. If Alan wanted to see her at all +he must do it on her terms. He yielded perforce and was madder over her +than ever, feted and worshiped and adored her inordinately when he was +with her, deluged her with flowers and poetry and letters between times, +called her up daily and nightly by telephone just to hear her voice, if +he might not see her face. + +So superficially Tony conquered. But she was not over-proud of her +victory. She knew that whether she saw Alan or not he was always in the +under-current of her thoughts and feelings. In the midst of other +occupations she caught herself wondering whether he had written her, +whether she would find his flowers when she got home, where he was, +what he was doing, if he was thinking of her as she of him. She wanted +him most irrationally when she forbade his coming to her. She looked +forward to those few hours spent with him as the only time when she was +fully alive, dreamed them over afterward, knew they meant a hundredfold +more to her than those she spent with any other man or woman. She wore +his flowers, pored over his long, beautiful, impassioned letters, +devoured the books of poetry he sent her, danced with him as often and +as long as she dared, gave her soul more and more into his keeping, the +more so perhaps in that he was so tenderly reverential of her body, +never even touching her lips with his, though his eyes often told a +less moderate story. + +The orgy over she was again doing well with her work at the school. She +knew that. Her teachers praised her gifts and her progress. Without any +vanity she could not help seeing that she was forging ahead of others who +had started even with her, had more real talent perhaps than most of +those with whom she worked and played. But she took no pride in these +things. For equally clearly she saw that she was not doing half what she +might have done, would have done, had there been no Alan Massey in the +city and in her heart. She had a divided allegiance and a divided +allegiance is a hard thing to live with as a daily companion. + +But she would not have had it otherwise. Not for a moment did she ever +wish to go back to those free days when love was but a name and the flame +had not blown so dangerously near. + +As for Alan Massey himself, he alternated between moods which were starry +pinnacles of ecstasy and others which were bottomless pits of despair. He +lived for two things only--his hours with Tony and his work. For he had +begun to paint again, magnificently, furiously, with all his old power +and a new almost godlike one added to it. As an artist it was his supreme +hour. He painted as he had never painted before. + +His love for Tony ran the whole gamut. He loved her passionately, found +it exquisite torture to have her in his arms when they danced and to +have still to bank the fires which consumed him and of which she only +dimly guessed. He loved her humbly, worshipfully as a moth might look to +a star. He loved her tenderly, protectingly, longed to shield her by his +own might from all griefs, troubles and petty annoyances, to guard her +day and night, lest any rough, unlovely or unseemly thing press near her +shining sphere. He desired to wrap her about with a magic mantle of +beauty and luxury and the quintessence of life, to keep her in a place +apart as he kept his priceless collection of rubies and emeralds. He +loved her jealously, was sick at the thought that some other man might +be near her when he might not, might dance with her, covet her, kiss +her. He hated all men because of her and particularly he hated with +black hate the man whom he was wronging daily by his silence, his +cousin, John Massey. + +Beneath all this strange, sad welter of emotion deeper still in Alan +Massey's heart lay the tragic conviction that he would never win Tony, +that his own sins would somehow rise to strike at him like a snake out of +the grass. He had lost faith in his luck, had lost it strangely enough +when luck had laid at his feet that most desirable of all gifts, Jim +Roberts' timely death. + +In the House on the Hill, things were very quiet, missing the gay +presence of the two younger Holidays and with those at home cumbered with +cares and perplexity and grief. + +Things were easier for Ruth than for Larry. It was less difficult for her +to play the part of quiet friendship than for him, partly because her +love was a much less tempestuous affair and partly because a woman nearly +always plays a part of any kind with more facility than a man does. And +Larry Holiday was temperamentally unfit to play any part whatsoever. He +was a Yea-Yea and Nay-Nay person. + +The simplicity of the girl's role was also very largely created by her +lover's rigid self control. She took her cue from his quietness and felt +that things could not be so bad after all. At least they were together. +Neither had driven the other away from the Hill by any unconsidered act +or word. Ruth had no idea that being with her under the tormenting +circumstances was scarcely undivided happiness for poor Larry or that her +peace of mind was more or less purchased at cost of his. + +Larry kept the promise he had made to his uncle more literally than the +latter had had any idea he would or could. He never sought out Ruth's +society, was never alone with her if he could help it, never so much as +touched her hand. Ruth being a very human and feminine little person +sometimes wished he were not quite so consistently, "Holidayish" in his +conduct. She missed the ardent gaze of those wonderful gray eyes which he +now kept studiously averted from hers. Privately she thought it would not +have mattered so fearfully if just once in a while he had forgotten the +ring. Life was very, very drab when you never forgot and let yourself go +the tiniest little bit. Child like little Ruth never guessed that a man +like Larry Holiday does not dare let himself go the tiniest little bit, +lest he go farther, far enough to regret. + +Doctor Holiday watching in silence out of the tail of his eye understood +better what was going on behind his nephew's quiet exterior demeanor, +and wondered sometimes if it had not been a mistake to keep the boy +bound to the wheel like that, if he should not rather have packed him +off to the uttermost parts of the earth, far away from the little lady +with the wedding ring who was so little married. And yet there was +Granny, growing perceptibly weaker day by day, clinging pathetically to +Larry's young strength. Poor Granny! And poor Larry! How little one +could do for either! + +Ruth's memory did not return. She remembered, or at least found familiar, +books she had read, songs she must have sung, drifted into doing a +hundred little simple everyday things she must have done before, since +they came to her with no effort. She could sew and knit and play the +piano exquisitely. But all this seemed rather a trick of the fingers than +of the mind. The people, the places, the life that lay behind that crash +on the Overland never returned to her consciousness for all her anxious +struggle to get them back. + +It began to look as if her husband, if she had one, were not going to +claim her. No one claimed her. Not a single response came from all the +extensive advertising which Larry still kept up in vain hope of success. +Apparently no one had missed the little Goldilocks. Precious as she was +none sought her. + +In the meanwhile she was an undisguised angel visitant to the House on +the Hill. If in his kindly hospitality Doctor Holiday had stretched a +point or two in the first place to make the little stranger feel at home +the case was different now. She was needed, badly needed and she played +the part of house daughter so sweetly and unselfishly that her presence +among them was a double blessing to them all, except perhaps to poor +Larry who loved her best of all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A PAST WHICH DID NOT STAY BURIED + + +Coming in from a lively game of tennis with Elsie Hathaway, his newest +sweetheart, the Ancient History Prof's pretty daughter, Ted Holiday found +awaiting him a letter from Madeline Taylor. He turned it over in his +hands with a keen distaste for opening it, had indeed almost a mind to +chuck it in the waste paper basket unread. Hang it all! Why had she +written? He didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to be reminded of +her existence. He wanted instead distinctly to forget there was a +Madeline Taylor and that he had been fool enough to make love to her +once. Nevertheless he opened the letter and pulled his forelock in +perturbation as he read it. + +She had quarrelled with her grandfather and he would not let her come +back home. She was with Emma just now but she couldn't stay. Fred was +behaving very nastily and he might tell Emma any day that she, Madeline, +had to go. They were all against her. Everything was against a girl +anyway. They never had a chance as a man did. She wished she had been +killed when she had been thrown out of the car that night. It would have +been much better for her than being as miserable as she was now. She +often wished she was dead. But what she had written to Ted Holiday for +was because she thought perhaps he could help her to find a job in the +college town. She had to earn some money right away. She would do +anything. She didn't care what and would be very grateful to Ted if he +would or could help her to find work. + +That was all. There was not a single personal note in the whole thing, no +reference to their flirtation of the early summer except the one allusion +to the accident, no attempt to revive such frail ties as had existed +between them, no reproaches to Ted for having broken these off so +summarily. It was simply and exclusively a plea for help from one human +being to another. + +Ted thrust the letter soberly in his pocket and went off for a shower. +But the thing went with him. He wished Madeline hadn't written, wished +she hadn't besought his aid, wished most of all she hadn't been such a +devilish good sport in it all. If she had whined, cast things up against +him as she might have done, thrown herself in any way upon him, he could +perhaps have ignored her and her plea. But she had done nothing of the +sort. She was deucedly game now just as she had been the night of the +smash. And by a queer trick of his mind her very gameness made Ted +Holiday feel more quiet and responsible, a frame of mind he heartily +resented. Hanged if he could see why it was his funeral! If that old +Hottentot of a grandfather of hers chose to turn her out without a cent +it wasn't his fault. For that matter he wasn't to blame for what Madeline +herself had done. He didn't suppose the old man would have cut so rough +without plenty of cause. Why did she have to bob up now and make him feel +so darned rotten? + +Unfortunately, even the briefest of episodes have a way of not erasing +themselves as conveniently as most of us would like to have them. The +thing was there and Ted Holiday had to look at it whether it made him +feel "darned rotten" or not. He did not want to help the girl, did not +even want to renew their acquaintance by even so much as a letter. The +whole thing was an infernal nuisance. But infernal nuisance or not, he +had to deal with it, could not funk it. He was a Holiday and no Holiday +ever shirked obligations he himself had incurred. He was a Holiday and no +Holiday ever let a woman ask for help, and not give It. By the time he +was back from the shower Ted knew precisely where he stood. Perhaps he +had known all along. + +The next day he bestirred himself, went to Berry the florist who he +happened to know was in need of a clerk, got the burly Irishman's consent +to give the girl a job at excellent wages, right away, the sooner the +better. Ted opened his mouth to ask for an advance of salary but thought +better of it before the words came out. Madeline might not like to have +anybody know she was up against it like that. He would have to see to +that part of it himself somehow. + +"You're a good customer, Mr. Holiday," the genial florist was saying. +"I'm tickled to be obligin' ye and mesilf at the same time. Anything in +the flower line, to-day, Mr. Holiday? Some roses now or violets? Got some +Jim dandies just in. Beauties, I'm tellin' you. Want to see 'em?" + +Ted hesitated. His exchecquer was low, very low. The first of the month +was also far away--too far, considering all things. His bill at Berry's +already passed the bounds of wisdom and the possibility of being paid in +full out of the next month's allowance without horribly crippling the +debtor. It was exceedingly annoying to have to forfeit that ten dollars +to Uncle Phil every month for that darned automobile business which it +seemed as if he never would get free of one way or another. He certainly +ought not to buy any more flowers this month. + +Still, there was the hop to-night. Elsie was going with him. He had run +a race with three other applicants for the privilege of escorting her and +being victor it behooved him to prove he appreciated his gains. He didn't +want Elsie to think he was a tight-wad, or worse still suspect him of +being broke. He fell, let Berry open the show case, debated seriously the +respective merits of roses and violets, having reluctantly relinquished +orchids as a little too ruinous even for a ruined young man. + +"If they are for Miss Hathaway," murmured a pretty, sympathetic clerk in +his ear, "Mr. Delany sent roses this morning and she likes violets best. +I've heard her say so." + +That settled it. Ted Holiday wasn't going to be beaten by a poor fish +like Ned Delany. The violets were bought and duly charged along with +those other too numerous items on Ted Holiday's account. Going home Ted +wrote a cheerful, friendly letter to Madeline Taylor reporting his +success in getting her a job and enclosing a check for twenty live +dollars, "just to tide you over," he had put in lightly, forbearing to +mention that the gift made his bank balance even lighter, so light in +fact that it approached complete invisibility. He added that he was sorry +things were in a mess for her but they would clear up soon, bound to, you +know. And nix on the wish-I-were-dead-stuff! It was really a jolly old +world as she would say herself when her luck turned. He remained hers +sincerely and so forth. + +This business off his mind, young Mr. Holiday felt highly relieved and +pleased with himself and the world which was such a jolly old affair as +he had just assured Madeline. Later he went to the hop and had a corking +time, stayed till the last violin swooned off into silence, then +sauntered with deliberate leisureliness toward Prof. Hathaway's house +with Elsie on his arm. On the Prof's porch he had lingered as long as was +prudent, perhaps a little longer, spooning discreetly the while as one +may, even with an Ancient History Prof's daughter. There was nothing +suggestive of Ancient History about Elsie. She was slim and young as the +little new moon they had both nearly broken their necks to see over their +right shoulders a few minutes before. Moreover she was exceedingly pretty +and as provocative as the dickens. In the end Ted stole a saucy kiss and +left her pretending to be as indignant as if a dozen other impudent +youths had not done precisely the same thing since the opening of the +college year. It was the lady's privilege to protest. Ted granted that, +but neither was he much taken in by injured innocence airs. Elsie was +quite as sophisticated as he was himself as he knew very well. No first +kiss business for either of them, he reflected as he went whistling back +to the frat house. It was all in the game and both knew it was nothing +but a game which made it perfectly pleasant and harmless. + +At the frat house he found a quiet little game of another sort in +progress, slid in, took a hand, got interested, played until three A.M. +and on quitting found himself in possession of some thirty odd dollars he +had not had when he sat in. Considering his recent financial depression +the thirty dollars was all to the good, covered Madeline's check and +Elsie's violets. It was indeed a jolly old world if you treated it right +and did not take it or yourself too seriously. + +Inasmuch as playing cards for money was strictly against college rules +and gambling had been the one vice of all vices the late Major Holiday +had hated with unrelenting hate, it might be a satisfaction to record +that the late Major's son took an uneasy conscience to bed that night, or +rather that morning, but truth is truth and we are compelled to state +that Ted Holiday did not suffer the faintest twinge of remorse and went +to sleep the moment his head touched the pillow as peacefully as a +guileless new born babe might have done. + +Moreover when he woke the next morning at an unconscionably late hour he +turned over, looked at the clock, grunted and grinned sleepily and lapsed +off again into blissful oblivion, thereby cutting all his morning classes +and generally submerging himself in the unregenerate ways of his +graceless sophomoric year. He had never contracted to be conspicuously +virtuous it will be recalled. + +The next day he secured a suitable lodging place for Madeline in an +inexpensive but respectable neighborhood and the day after that betook +himself to the station to meet the girl herself. Ted never did things by +halves. Having made up his mind to stand by he did it thoroughly, perhaps +the more punctiliously because in his heart he loathed the whole business +and wished he were well out of it. + +For a moment as Madeline came toward him he hardly recognized her. She +looked years older. The brilliancy of her beauty was curiously dimmed as +an electric light might be dimmed inside a dusty globe. There were hard +lines about her full lips and a sharp, driven look in her black eyes. The +two had met in June on equal terms of blithe youth. Now, only a few +months later, Ted was still a careless boy but Madeline Taylor had been +forced into premature womanhood and wore on her haggard young face, the +stamp of a woman's hard won wisdom. + +To the girl Ted Holiday appeared more the bonny Prince Charming than +ever only infinitely farther removed from her than he had seemed in +those happy summer days which were a million years ago to all intents +and purposes now. How good looking he was--how tall and clean and +manly looking! Her heart gave a quick jump seeing him again after all +these dreary months. But oh, she must be very careful--must never +forget for a moment that things were very, very different now from what +they were in June! + +There was a moment's slightly embarrassed silence as they shook hands. +Both were remembering all too vividly the scene in Cousin Emma's garden +upon the occasion of their last meeting. It was Ted who first found +tongue and announced casually that he was going to take her straight to +the house of Mrs. Bascom, her landlady to be. + +"She's a good sort," he added. "Mothery like you know. You'll like her." + +Madeline did not answer. She couldn't. Something choked in her throat. +The phrase, "mothery like" was almost too much for the girl who had +never had a mother to remember and wanted one now as she never had +wanted one in her life. Ted's kindness--the first she had received from +any one these many days--touched her deeply. For the first time in +months the tears brimmed up into her eyes as she followed her companion +to the cab and let him help her in. As the door closed upon them Ted +turned and faced the girl and seeing the tears put out his hand and +touched hers gently. + +"Don't worry, Madeline," he said. "Things are going to look up. And +please don't cry," he pleaded earnestly. + +She wiped away the tears and summoned a wan little smile to meet his. + +"I won't," she said. "Crying is silly and won't help anything. It is just +that I was awfully tired and your being so good to me upset me. You've +always been good even--when I thought you weren't. I understand better +now. And oh, Ted, you don't know how ashamed I am of the way I behaved +that night! It was awful--my striking you like that. It made me sick to +think of it afterward." + +"It needn't have. If anybody has any call to be ashamed of that night +it's yours truly. See here, Madeline, I've worried a lot about you though +maybe you won't believe it because I didn't write or act as if I were +sorry about things. I kept still because it seemed the straightest thing +to do all round, but I did think a great deal about you, honest I did, +and I've wondered millions of times if my darn-foolness set things going +wrong for you. Did it, Madeline?" he demanded. + +"No," she answered her gaze away from his out the cab window. +"You mustn't worry, Ted, or blame yourself. It--it's all my +fault--everything." + +"It's good of you to let me out but I am not so sure I ought to be let +out. I'd give a good deal this minute if I could go back and not take +Uncle Phil's car that night." Ted leaned forward suddenly and for a +startled instant Madeline thought he meant to kiss her. But nothing was +farther from his wish or thought. It was the scar he was looking for. He +had almost forgotten it, just as he had almost forgotten the episode it +represented. But there it was on her forehead. Even in the gathering +darkness it showed with perfect distinctness. "I hoped it had gone," he +added. "But it is still there, isn't it?" + +"The scar? Yes, it is still there." For a moment the ghost of a +smile played about the girl's lips. "I've always liked it. I'd miss +it if it went." + +"Well, I don't like it. I hate it," groaned the boy. "Why, Madeline I +might have killed you!" + +"I know. Sometimes I wish it had come out so. It--it would have +been better." + +"Don't Madeline. That is an awful thing to say. Things can't be as bad as +all that, you know they can't. By the way, can you tell me the whole +business or would you rather not?" + +The girl shivered. + +"No. Don't ask me, Ted. It--it's too awful. Don't bother about me. +You have done quite enough as it is. I am very grateful but truly I +would rather you wouldn't have anything more to do with me. Just +forget I am here." + +And because this injunction was precisely in line with his own +inclination Ted suspected its propriety and swung counterwise in true +Ted fashion. + +"I'll do just exactly as I please about that. I won't pester you but you +needn't think I'm going to leave you all soul alone in a strange place +when you are feeling rotten anyway. I'm pretty doggoned selfish but not +quite that bad." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE + + +Although Max Hempel had not openly sought out Tony Holiday he was +entirely aware of her presence in the city and in the dramatic school. +Whenever she played a role in the course of the latter's program he had +his trusted aides on the spot to watch her, gauge her progress, report +their finding to himself. Once or twice he had come himself, sat in a +dark corner and kept his eye unblinking from first to last upon the girl. + +In November it had seemed good to the school to revive The Killarney +Rose, a play which ten years ago had had a phenomenal run and ended as it +began with packed houses. It was past history now. Even the road +companies had lapsed, and its name was all but forgotten by the fickle +public which must and will have ever new sensations. + +Hempel was glad the school had made this particular selection, doubly +glad it had given Antoinette Holiday the title role. The play would show +whether the girl was ready for his purposes as he had about decided she +was. He would send Carol Clay to see her do the thing. Carol would know. +Who better? It was she who created the original Rose. + +Tony Holiday behind the scene on that momentous evening, on being +informed that Carol Clay--the famous Carol Clay herself--the real +Rose--was out there in a box, was paralyzed with fear, for the first +time in her life, victim of genuine stage fright. She was cold. She was +hot. She was one tremendous shake and shiver. She was a very lump of +stone. The orchestra was already playing. In a moment her call would +come and she was going to fail, fail miserably. And with Carol Clay +there to see. + +Some flowers and a card were brought in. The flowers were from Alan of +course, great crimson roses. It was dear of him to send them. Later she +would appreciate it. But just now not even Alan mattered. She glanced at +the card which had come separately, was not with the flowers. It was +Dick's. Hastily she read the pencil-written scrawl. "Am covering the +Rose. Will be close up. See you after the show. Best o' luck and love." + +Tony could almost have cried for joy over the message. Somehow the +knowledge of Dick's nearness gave her back her self-possession. She had +refused to let Alan come. His presence in the audience always distracted +her, made her nervous. But Dick was different. It was almost like having +Uncle Phil himself there. She wouldn't fail now. She couldn't. It was for +the honor of the Hill. + +A moment later, still clutching Dick's comforting card, she ran in on the +stage, swinging her sun-bonnet from its green ribbons with hoydenish +grace, chanting a gay little lilt of an Irish melody. Her fear had gone +even as the dew might have disappeared at the kiss of the sun upon the +Killarney greensward. + +Almost at once she discovered Dick and sang a part of her song straight +down at him. A little later she dared to let her eyes stray to the box +where Carol Clay sat. The actress smiled and Tony smiled back and then +forgot she was Tony, was henceforth only Rose of Killarney. + +It was a winsome, old-timey sort of play, with an almost Barriesque +charm and whimsicality to it. The witching little Rose laughed and danced +and sang and flirted and wept and loved her way through it and in the end +threw herself in the right lover's arms, presumably there to dwell happy +forever after. + +After the last curtain went down and she had smiled and bowed and kissed +her hand to the kindly audience over and over Tony fled to the dressing +room where she could still hear the intoxicating, delightful thunder of +applause. It had come. She could act. She could. Oh! She couldn't live +and be any happier. + +But, after all she could stand a little more joy without coming to an +untimely end, for there suddenly smiling at her from the threshold was +Carol Clay congratulating her and telling her what a pleasure to-night's +Rose had been to the Rose of yesterday. And before Tony could get her +breath to do more than utter a rather shy and gasping word of gratitude, +the actress had invited her to take tea with her on the next day and she +had accepted and Carol Clay was gone. + +It was in a wonderful world of dreams that Tony Holiday dwelt as she +removed a little of her makeup, gave orders to have all her flowers sent +to a near-by hospital, except Alan's, which she gathered up in her arms +and drawing her velvet cloak around her, stepped out into the +waiting-room. + +But it was a world of rather alarming realities that she went into. There +was Dick Carson waiting as she had bidden him to wait in the message she +had sent him. And there was Alan Massey, unbidden and unexpected. And +both these males with whom she had flirted unconscionably for weeks past +were ominously belligerent of manner and countenance. She would have +given anything to have had a wand to wave the two away, keep them from +spoiling her perfect evening. But it was too late. The hour of reckoning +which comes even to queens was here. + +"Hello, you two," she greeted, putting on a brave front for all her +sinking heart. She laid down the roses and gave a hand impartially to +each. "Awfully glad to see you, Dicky. Alan, I thought I told you not to +come. Were you here all the same?" + +"I was. I told you so in my note. Didn't you get it? I sent it in with +the roses." He nodded at the flowers she had just surrendered. + +Dick's eyes shadowed. Massey had scored there. He had not thought of +flowers. Indeed there had been no time to get any he had gotten the +assignment so late. There had been quantities of other flowers, he knew. +The usher had carried up tons of them it seemed to the popular Rose, but +she carried only Alan Massey's home with her. + +"I am sorry, Alan. I didn't see it. Maybe it was there; I didn't half +look at the flowers. Your message did me so much good, Dicky. I was +scared to death because they had just said Miss Clay was outside. And +somehow when I knew you were there I felt all right again. I carried your +card all through the first act and I know it was your wishing me the best +o' luck that brought it." + +She smiled at Dick and it was Alan's turn to glower. She had not looked +at his roses, had not cared to look for his message; but she carried the +other man's card, used it as a talisman. And she was glad. The other was +there, but she had forbidden himself--Alan Massey--to come, had even +reproached him for coming. + +A group of actors passed through the reception room, calling gay +goodnights and congratulations to Tony as they went and shooting glances +of friendly curiosity at the two, tall frowning men between whom the +vivacious Rose stood. + +"Tony Holiday doesn't keep all her lovers on the stage," laughed the +near-heroine as she was out of hearing. "Did you ever see two gentlemen +that hated each other more cordially?" + +"She is an arrant little flirt, isn't she, Micky?" The speaker challenged +the Irish lover of the play who had had the luck to win the sweet, thorny +little Killarney Rose in the end and to get a real, albeit a play kiss +from the pretty little heroine, who as Tony Holiday as well as Rose was +prone to make mischief in susceptible male hearts. + +"She can have me any minute, on the stage or off," answered Micky +promptly. "She's a winner. Got me going all right. Most forgot my lines +she was so darned pretty." + +Dick took advantage of the confusion of the interruption to get in his +word. + +"Will you come out with me for a bite somewhere, Tony. I won't keep you +late, but there are some things I want to talk over with you." + +Tony hesitated. She had caught the ominous flash of Alan's eyes. She was +desperately afraid there would be a scene if she said yes to Dick now in +Alan's hearing. The latter strode over to her instantly, and laid his +hand with a proprietorial air on her arm. From this point of vantage he +faced Dick insolently. + +"Miss Holiday is going out with me," he asserted. "You--clear out." + +The tone and manner even more than the words were deliberate insult. +Dick's face went white. His mouth set tight. There was almost as ugly a +look in his eyes as there was in Alan's. Tony had never seen him look +like that and was frightened. + +"I'll clear out when Miss Holiday asks me to and not before," he said in +a significantly quiet voice. "Don't go too far, Mr. Massey. I have taken +a good deal from you. There's a limit. Tony, I repeat my question. Will +you go out with me to-night?" + +Before Tony could speak Alan Massey's long right arm shot out in Dick's +direction. Dick dodged the blow coolly. + +"Hold on, Massey," he said. "I'm perfectly willing to smash your head any +time it is convenient. Nothing would afford me greater pleasure in fact. +But you will kindly keep from making trouble here. You can't get a +woman's name mixed up with a cheap brawl such as you are trying to start. +You know, it won't do." + +Alan Massey's white face turned a shade whiter. His arm fell. He turned +back to Tony, real anguish in his fire-shot eyes. + +"I beg your pardon, Tony dearest," he bent over to say. "Carson is right. +We'll fight it out elsewhere when you are not present. May I take you to +the taxi? I have one waiting outside." + +Another group of people passed through the vestibule, said goodnight and +went on out to the street exit. It made Tony sick to think of what they +would have seen if Dick had lost his self control as Alan had. She +thought she had never liked Dick as she did that moment, never despised +Alan Massey so utterly. Dick was a man. Alan was a spoiled child, a +weakling, the slave of his passions. It was no thanks to him that her +name was not already bandied about on people's lips, the name of a girl, +about whom men came to fist blows like a Bowery movie scene. She was +humiliated all over, enraged with Alan, enraged with herself for +stooping to care for a man like that. She waited until they were +absolutely alone again and then said what she had to say. She turned to +face Alan directly. + +"You may take me nowhere," she said. "I don't want to see you again as +long as I live." + +For an instant Alan stared at her, dazed, unable to grasp the force of +what she was saying, the significance of her tone. As a matter of fact +the artist in him had leaped to the surface, banished all other +considerations. He had never seen Tony Holiday really angry before. She +was magnificent with those flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks--a glorious +little Fury--a Valkyrie. He would paint her like that. She was +stupendous, the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen, like flame +itself, in her flaming anger. Then it came over him what she had said. + +"But, Tony," he pleaded, "my belovedest--" + +He put out both hands in supplication, but Tony whirled away from them. +She snatched the great bunch of red roses from the table, ran to the +window, flung up the sash, hurled them out into the night. Then she +turned back to Alan. + +"Now go," she commanded, pointing with a small, inexorable hand to the +door. + +Alan Massey went. + +Tony dropped in a chair, spent and trembling, all but in tears. The +disagreeable scene, the piled up complex of emotions coming on top of the +stress and strain of the play were almost too much for her. She was a +quivering bundle of nerves and misery at the moment. + +Dick came to her. + +"Forgive me, Tony. I shouldn't have forced the issue maybe. But I +couldn't stand any more from that cad." + +"I am glad you did exactly what you did do, Dick, and I am more grateful +than I can ever tell you for not letting Alan get you into a fight here +in this place with all these people coming and going. I would never have +gotten over it if anything like that had happened. It would have been +terrible. I couldn't ever have looked any of them in the face again." +She shivered and put her two hands over her eyes ashamed to the quick at +the thought. + +Dick sat down on the arm of her chair, one hand resting gently on the +girl's shoulder. + +"Don't cry, Tony," he begged. "I can't stand it. You needn't have +worried. There wasn't any danger of anything like that happening. I care +too much to let you in for anything of that sort. So does he for that +matter. He saw it in a minute. He really wouldn't want to do you any harm +anyway, Tony. Even I know that, and you must know it better than I." + +Tony put down her hands, looked at Dick. "I suppose that is true," she +sighed. "He does love me, Dick." + +"He does, Tony. I wish he didn't. And I wish with all my heart I were +sure you didn't love him." + +Tony sighed again and her eyes fell. + +"I wish--I were sure, too," she faltered. + +Dick winced at that. He had no answer. What was there to say? + +"I don't see why I should care. I don't see how I can care after +to-night. He is horrid in lots of ways--a cad--just as you called him. I +know Larry would feel just as you do and hate to have him come near me. +Larry and I have almost quarreled about it now. He thinks Uncle Phil is +all wrong not to forbid my seeing Alan at all. But Uncle Phil is too +wise. He doesn't want to have me marry Alan any more than the rest of you +do but he knows if he fights it it would put me on the other side in a +minute and I'd do it, maybe, in spite of everybody." + +"Tony, you aren't engaged to him?" + +She shook her head. + +"Not exactly. I am afraid I might as well be though. I said I didn't +ever want to see him again, but I didn't mean it. I shall want to see him +again by to-morrow. I always do no matter what he does. I always shall I +am afraid. It is like that with me. I'm sorry, Dicky. I ought to have +told you that before. I've been horrid not to, I know. Take me home now, +please. I'm tired--awfully tired." + +Going home in the cab neither spoke until just as they were within a few +blocks of the Hostelry when Dick broke the silence. + +"I am sorry all this had to happen to-night," he said. "Because, well, I +am going away tomorrow." + +"Going away! Dick! Where?" It was horribly selfish of her, Tony knew; +but it didn't seem as if she could bear to have Dick go. It seemed as if +the only thing that was stable in her reeling life would be gone if he +went. If he went she would belong to Alan more and more. There would be +nothing to hold her back. She was afraid. She clung to Dick. He alone of +the whole city full of human beings was a symbol of Holiday Hill. With +him gone it seemed to her as if she would be hopelessly adrift on +perilous seas. + +"To Mexico--Vera Cruz, I believe," he answered her question. + +"Vera Cruz! Dick, you mustn't! It is awful down there now. Everybody says +so." He smiled a little at that. + +"It is because it is more or less awful that they are sending me," he +said. "Journalism isn't much interested in placidity. A newspaper man has +to be where things are happening fast and plenty. If things are hot down +there so much the better. They will sizzle more in the copy." + +"Dick! I can't have you go. I can't bear it." Tony's hand crept into +his. "Something dreadful might happen to you," she wailed. + +He pressed her hand, grateful for her real trouble about him and for +her caring. + +"Oh no, dear. Nothing dreadful will happen to me. You mustn't worry," +he soothed. + +"But I do. I shall. How can I help it? It is just as if Larry or Ted were +going. It scares me." + +Dick drew away his hand suddenly. + +"For heaven's sake, Tony, please don't tell me again that I'm just like +Larry and Ted to you. It is bad enough to know it without your rubbing it +in all the time. I can't stand it--not to-night." + +"Dick!" Tony was startled, taken aback by his tone. Dick rarely let +himself go like that. + +In a moment he was all contrition. + +"Forgive me, Tony. I'm sorry I said that. I ought to be thankful you care +that much, and I am. It is dear of you and I do appreciate it." + +"Oh me!" sighed Tony. "Everything I do or say is wrong. I wish I did care +the other way for you, Dicky dear. Truly I do. It would be so much nicer +and simpler than caring for Alan," she added naively. + +"Life isn't fixed nice and simple, Tony. At least it never has +been for me." + +"Oh, Dick! Everything has been horribly hard for you always, and I'm +making it harder. I don't want to, Dicky dear. You know I don't. It is +just that I can't help it." + +"I know, Tony. You mustn't bother about me. I'm all right. Will you tell +me just one thing though? If you hadn't cared for Massey--no I won't put +it like that. If you had cared for me would my not having any name have +made any difference?" + +"Of course it wouldn't have made any difference, Dicky. What does a name +matter? You are you and that is what I would care for--do care for. The +rest doesn't matter. Besides, you are making a name for yourself." + +"I am doing it under your name--the one you gave me." + +"I am proud to have it used that way. Why wouldn't I be? It is honored. +You have not only lived up to it as you promised Uncle Phil. You have +made it stand for something fine. Your stories are splendid. You are +going to be famous and I--Why, Dicky, just think, it will be my name you +will take on up to the stars. Oh, we're here," as the cab jolted to a +halt in front of the Hostelry. + +The cabby flung open the door. Tony and Dick stepped out, went up the +steps. In a moment they were alone in the dimly lit hall. + +"Tony, would you mind letting me kiss you just once as you would Larry or +Ted if one of them were going off on a long journey away from you?" + +Dick's voice was humble, pleading. It touched Tony deeply, and sent the +quick tears welling up into her eyes as she raised her face to his. + +For a moment he held her close, kissed her on the cheek and then +released her. + +"Good-by, Tony. Thank you and God bless you," he said a little huskily as +he let her go. + +"Good-by, Dick." And then impulsively Tony put up her lips and kissed +him, the first time he ever remembered a woman's lips touching his. + +A second later the door closed upon him, shutting him out in the night. +He dismissed the cab driver and walked blindly off, not knowing or caring +in what direction he went. It was hours before he let himself into his +lodging house. It seemed as if he could have girdled the earth on the +strength of Tony Holiday's kiss. The next morning he was off for Mexico. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES + + +Tony slept late next morning and when she did open her eyes they fell +upon a huge florist box by the door and a special delivery letter on top +of it. The maid had set the two in an hour ago and tiptoed away lest she +waken the weary little sleeper. + +Tony got up and opened the box. Roses--dozens of them, worth the price of +a month's wages to many a worker in the city! Frail, exquisite, +shell-pink beauties, with gold at their hearts! Tony adored roses but she +almost hated these because it seemed to her Alan was bribing her +forgiveness by playing upon her worship of their beauty and fragrance. + +Still kneeling by the flowers she glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty! Dick +was already miles away on his hateful journey, had gone sad and hopeless +because she loved Alan Massey. Why did it have to be so? Why was love so +perverse and unreasonable a thing? Alan was not worthy to touch Dick's +hand, though in his arrogance he affected to despise the other. But it +was Alan she loved, not Dick. There must be something wrong with her, +dreadfully wrong that it should be so. After last night there could be no +doubt of that. + +She sat down on the floor, opened Alan's letter, despised herself for +letting its author's spell creep over her anew with every word. It was an +abject plea for mercy, for forgiveness, for restoration to favor. It had +been a devil of jealousy that had possessed him, he had not known what +he was doing. Surely she must know that he would not willingly harm or +hurt or anger her in any way. He loved her too much. Carson had behaved +like a man. Alan would apologize to him if the other man would accept the +apology. It was Tony really who had driven him mad by being so much +kinder to the other than to himself. She must realize what he was, not +drive him too far. + +"I am sending you roses," he ended. "Please don't throw them away as you +did the others. Keep them and let them plead for me. And don't ah Tony, +don't ever, ever say again what you said last night, that you never +wanted to see me again! You don't mean it, I know. But don't say it. It +kills me to hear you. If you throw me over I'll blow my brains out as +sure as I am a living man this moment. But you won't, you cannot, Tony +dearest. You will forgive me, stand by me, rotten as I am. You are mine. +You love me. You won't push me down to Hell." + +It was a cowardly letter Tony thought, a letter calculated to frighten +her, bring her to subjection again as well as to gratify the writer's own +Byronic instinct for pose. He had behaved badly. He acknowledged it but +claimed forgiveness on the grounds of love, his love for her which had +been goaded to mad jealousy by her thoughtless unkindness, her love for +him which would not desert him no matter what he did. + +But pose or not, Tony was obliged to admit there was some truth in it +all. Perhaps it was all true-too true. Even if he did not resort to the +pistol as he threatened he would find other means of slaying his soul if +not his body if she forsook him now. She could not do it. As he said she +loved him too well. She had gone too far in the path to turn back now. + +Ah why, why had she let it go so far? Why had she not listened to Dick, +to Uncle Phil, to Carlotta, even to Miss Lottie? They had all told her +there was no happiness for her in loving Alan Massey. She knew it herself +better than any of them could possibly know it. And yet she had to go on, +for his sake, for her own because she loved him. + +By this time she was no longer angry or resentful. She was just +sorry--sorry for Alan--sorry for herself. She knew just as she had known +all along that last night's incident would not really make any +difference. It would be put away in time with all the other things she +had to forgive. She had eaten her pomegranate seeds. She could not escape +the dark kingdom. She did not wish to. + +Later came violets from Dick which she put in a vase on her desk beside +Uncle Phil's picture. But it was the fragrance and color of Alan's roses +that filled the room, and presently she sat down and wrote her +ill-behaved lover a sweet, forgiving little note. She was sorry if she +had been unkind. She had not meant to be. As for what happened it was too +late to worry about it now. They had best forget it, if they could. He +couldn't very well apologize to Dick in person because he was already on +his way to Mexico. There was no need of any penance. Of course she +forgave him, knew he had not meant to hurt her, though he had horribly. +If he cared to do so he might take her to dinner tomorrow +night--somewhere where they could dance. And in conclusion she was always +his, Tony Holiday. + +Both Dick and Alan were driven out of her mind later that day by the +delightful and exciting interview over the tea table with Carol Clay. +Miss Clay was a charming hostess, drew the girl out without appearing to +do so, got her to talk naturally about many things, her life with her +father at army barracks, and with her uncle on her beloved Hill, of her +friends and brothers, her college life, of books and plays. Plays took +them to the Killarney Rose and once more Miss Clay expressed her pleasure +in the girl's rendering of one of her own favorite roles. + +"You acted as if you had been playing Rose all your life," she added +with a smile. + +"Maybe I have," said Tony. "Rose is--a good deal like me. Maybe that is +why I loved playing her so." + +"I shouldn't wonder. You are a real little actress, my dear. I wonder if +you are ready to pay the price of it. It is bitterly hard work and it +means giving up half the things women care for." + +The speaker's lovely eyes shadowed a little. Tony wondered what +Carol Clay had given up, was giving up for her art to bring that +look into them. + +"I am not afraid. I am willing to work. I love it. And I--I am willing to +give up a good deal." + +"Lovers?" smiled Miss Clay. + +"Must I? I thought actresses always had lovers, at least worshipers. +Can't I keep the lovers, Miss Clay?" There was a flash of mischief in +Tony's eyes as she asked the important question. + +"Better stick to worshipers. Lovers are risky. Husbands--fatal." + +Tony laughed outright at that. + +"I am willing to postpone the fatality," she murmured. + +"I am glad to hear it for I lured you here to take you into a deep-laid +plot. I suppose you did not suspect that it was Max Hempel who sent me to +see you play Rose?" + +"Mr. Hempel? I thought he had forgotten me." + +"He never forgets any one in whom he is interested. He has had his eye +on you ever since he saw you play Rosalind. He told me when he came back +from that trip that I had a rival coming on." + +"Oh, no!" Tony objected even in jest to such desecration. + +"Oh, yes," smiled her hostess. "Max Hempel is a brutally frank person. He +never spares one the truth, even the disagreeable truth. He has had his +eye out for a new ingenue for a long time. Ingenues do get old--at least +older you know." + +"Not you," denied Tony. + +"Even I, in time. I grant you not yet. It takes a degree of age and +sophistication to play youth and innocence. We do it better as a rule at +thirty than at twenty. We are far enough away from it to stand off and +observe how it behaves and can imitate it better than if we still had it. +That is one reason I was interested in your Rose last night. You played +like a little girl as Rose should. You looked like a little girl. But you +couldn't have given it that delightfully sure touch if you hadn't been a +little bit grown up. Do you understand?" + +Tony nodded. + +"I think so. You see I am--a little bit grown up." + +"Don't grow up any more. You are adorable as you are. But to business. +Have you seen my Madge?" + +"In the 'End of the Rainbow?' Yes, indeed. I love it. You like the part +too, don't you? You play it as if you did." + +"I do. I like it better than any I have had since Rose. Did it occur to +you that you would like to play Madge yourself?" + +Tony blushed ingenuously. + +"Well, yes, it did," she admitted half shyly. "Of course, I knew I +couldn't play it as you did. It takes years of experience and a real art +like yours to do it like that, but I did think I'd like to try it and see +what I could do." + +Miss Clay nodded, well pleased. + +"Of course you did. Why not? It is your kind of a role, just as Rose is. +You and I are the same types. Mr. Hempel has said that all along, ever +since he saw your Rosalind. But I won't keep you in suspense. The long +and short of all this preliminary is--how would you like to be my +understudy for Madge?" + +"Oh, Miss Clay!" Tony gasped. "Do you think I could?" + +"I know you could, my dear. I knew it all the time while I was +watching you play Rose. Mr. Hempel has known it even longer. I went to +see Rose to find out if there was a Madge in you. There is. I told Mr. +Hempel so this morning. He is brewing his contracts now so be +prepared. Will you try it?" + +"I'd love to if you and Mr. Hempel think I can. I promised Uncle Phil I +would take a year of the school work though. Will I have to drop that?" + +"I think so--most of it at least. You would have to be at the rehearsals +usually which are in the morning. You might have to play Madge quite +often then. There are reasons why I have to be away a great deal just +now." Again the shadow, darkened the star's eyes and a droop came to her +mouth. "It isn't even so impossible that you would be called upon to +play before the real Broadway audience in fact. Understudies sometimes +do you know." + +Miss Clay was smiling now, but the shadow in her eyes had not +lifted Tony saw. + +"I am particularly anxious to get a good understudy started in +immediately," the actress continued. "The one I had was impossible, did +not get the spirit of the thing at all. It is absolutely essential to +have some one ready and at once. My little daughter is in a sanitarium +dying with an incurable heart leakage. There will be a time--probably +within the next two months--when I shall have to be away." + +Tony put out her hand and let it rest upon the other woman's. There was +compassion in her young eyes. + +"I am so sorry," she said simply. "I didn't know you had a daughter. Of +course, I did know you weren't really Miss Clay, that you were Mrs. +Somebody, but I didn't think of your having children. Somehow we don't +remember actresses may be mothers too." + +"The actresses remember it--sometimes," said Miss Clay with a tremulous +little smile. "It isn't easy to laugh when your heart is heavy, Miss +Antoinette. It is all I can do to go on with 'Madge' sometimes. I just +have to forget--make myself forget I am a mother and a wife. Captain +Carey, my husband, is in the British Army. He is in Flanders now, or was +when I last heard." + +"Oh, I don't see how you can do it--play, I mean," sighed Tony aghast at +this new picture the actress's words brought up. + +"One learns, my dear. One has to. An actress is two distinct persons. +One of her belongs to the public. The other is just a plain woman. +Sometimes I feel as if I were far more the first than I am the second. +There wouldn't be any more contracts if I were not. But never mind that. +To come back to you. Mr. Hempel will send you a contract to-morrow. Will +you sign it?" + +"Yes, if Uncle Phil is willing. I'll wire him to-night. I am almost +positive he will say yes. He is very reasonable and he will see what a +wonderful, wonderful chance this is for me. I can't thank you enough, +Miss Clay. It all takes my breath away. But I am grateful and so happy; +you can't imagine it." + +Miss Clay smiled and drew on her gloves. The interview was over. + +"There is really nothing to thank me, for," she said. "The favor is on +the other side. It is I who am lucky. The perfect understudy like a +becoming hat is hard to find, but when found is absolutely beyond price. +May I send you a pass for to-morrow night to the 'End of the Rainbow'? +Perhaps you would like to see it again and play 'Madge' with me from a +box. The pass will admit two. Bring one of the lovers if you like." + +Tony wired her uncle that night. In the morning mail arrived Max Hempel's +contract as Miss Clay had promised. Tony regarded it with superstitious +awe. It was the first contract she had ever seen in her life, much less +had offered for her signature. The terms were, generous--appallingly so +it seemed to the girl who knew little of such things and was not inclined +to over-rate her powers financially speaking. She wisely took the +contract over to the school and got the manager's advice to "Go ahead." + +"We've nothing comparable to offer you, Miss Tony. With Hempel and Miss +Clay both behind you you are practically made. You are a lucky little +lady. I know a dozen experienced actresses in this city who would give +their best cigarette cases to be in your shoes." + +Arrived home at the Hostelry, armed with this approval, Tony found her +Uncle's answering wire bidding her do as she thought best and sending +heartiest love and congratulations. Dear Uncle Phil! + +And then she sat down and signed the impressive document that made her +Carol Clay's understudy and a real wage-earning person. + +All the afternoon she spent in long, delicious, dreamless slumber. At +five she was wakened by the maid bringing a letter from Alan, a +wonderful, extravagant lover-note such as only he could pen. Later she +bathed and dressed, donning the white and silver gown she had worn the +night when she had first admitted to Alan in Carlotta's garden that she +loved him, first took his kisses. It was rather a sacred little gown to +Tony, sacred to Alan and her own surrender to love. He called it her +starlight dress and loved it especially because it brought out the +springlike, virginal quality of her youth and loveliness as her other +more sophisticated gowns did not. Tony wore it for Alan to-night, +wanted him to think her lovely, to love her immensely. She wanted to +taste all life's joy at once, have a perfect deluge of happiness. Youth +must be served. + +Alan, graceful for being forgiven so easily, fell in with her mood and +was at his best, courtly, considerate, adoring. He exerted all the +magic of his not inconsiderable charm to make Tony forget that other +unfortunate night when he had appeared in other, less attractive +colors. And Tony was ready enough to forget beneath his worshiping +green eyes and under the spell of his wonderful voice. She meant to +shut out the unwelcome guests of fear and doubt from her heart, let +love alone have sway. + +They dined at a gorgeous restaurant in a great hotel. Tony reveled in the +splendor and richness of the setting, delighted in the flawless service, +the perfection of the strange and delectable viands which Alan ordered +for their consumption. Particularly she delighted in Alan himself and the +way he fitted into the richness and luxury. It was his rightful setting. +She could not imagine him in any of the shabby restaurants where she and +Dick had often dined so contentedly. Alan was a born aristocrat, +patrician of the patricians. His looks, his manner, everything about him +betrayed it. Most of all it was revealed in the way the waiters scurried +to do his bidding, bowed obsequiously before him, recognized him as the +authentic master, lord of the purple. + +"So Carson really has gone to Mexico," Alan murmured as they dallied over +their salads, looking mostly into each other's eyes. + +"Yes, he went yesterday. I hated to have him go. It is awfully +disagreeable and dangerous down there they say. He might get a fever or +get killed or something." Tony absent-mindedly nibbling a piece of roll +already saw Dick in her mind's eye the victim of an assassin's blade. + +"No such luck!" thought Alan Massey bitterly. The thought brought a flash +of venom into his eyes which Tony unluckily caught. + +"Alan! Why do you hate Dick so? He never did you any harm." + +Tony Holiday did not know what outrageous injury Dick had done his +cousin, Alan Massey. + +Alan was already suavely master of himself, the venom expunged +from his eyes. + +"Why wouldn't I hate him, _Antoinetta mia_? You are half in love +with him." + +"I am not," denied Tony indignantly. "He is just like Lar--." She broke +off abruptly, remembering Dick's flare of resentment at that familiar +formula, remembering too the kiss she had given him in the dimly-lit hall +in the Hostelry, the kiss which had not been precisely such a one as she +would have given Larry. + +Alan's face darkened again. + +"Oh, yes, you are. You are blushing." + +"I am not." Then putting her hands up to her face and feeling it warm +she changed her tactics. "Well, what, if I am? I do care a lot about +Dick. I found out the other night that I cared a whole lot more than I +knew. It isn't like caring for Larry and Ted. It's different. For after +all he isn't my brother--never was--never will be. I'm a wretched flirt, +Alan. You know it as well as I do. I've let Dick keep on loving me, +knowing all the time I didn't mean to marry him. And I'm not a bit sure I +am going to marry you either." + +"Tony!" + +"Well, anyway not for a long, long time. I want to go on the stage. I +can't put all of myself into my work and give it to you at the same time. +I don't want to get married. I don't dare to. I don't dare even let +myself care too much. I want to be free." + +"You want to be loved." + +"Of course. Every woman does." + +Alan made an impatient gesture. + +"I don't mean lip-worship. You are a woman, not a piece of statuary. Come +on now. Let's dance." + +They danced. In her lover's arms, their feet keeping time to the +syncopated, stirring rhythms of the violins, their hearts beating to a +mightier harmony of nature's own brewing, Tony Holiday was far from being +a piece of statuary. She was all woman, a woman very much alive and very +much in love. + +Alan bent over her. + +"Tony, belovedest. There are more things than art in the world," he said +softly. "Don't you know it, feel it? There is life. And life is bigger +than your work or mine. We're both artists, but we'll be bigger artists +together. Marry me now. Don't make me wait. Don't make yourself wait. You +want it as much as I do. Say yes, sweetheart," he implored. + +Tony shook her head vehemently. She was afraid. She knew that just now +all her dreams of success in her chosen art, all her love for the dear +ones at home were as nothing in comparison with this greater thing which +Alan called life and which she felt surging mightily within her. But she +also knew that this way lay madness, disloyalty, regret. She must be +strong, strong for Alan as well as for herself. + +"Not yet," she whispered back. "Be patient, Alan. I love you, +dear. Wait." + +The music came to an end. Many eyes followed the two as they went back to +their places at the table. They were incomparable artists. It was worth +missing one's own dance to see them have theirs. Aside from his wonderful +dancing and striking personality Alan was at all times a marked figure, +attracting attention wherever he went and whatever he did. The public +knew he had a superlative fortune which he spent magnificently as a +prince, and that he had a superlative gift which for all they were aware +he had flung wantonly away as soon as the money came into his hands. +Moreover he was even more interesting because of his superlatively bad +reputation which still followed him. The public would have found it hard +to believe that at last Alan Massey was leading the most temperate and +arduous of lives and devoting himself exclusively to one woman whom he +treated as reverently as if she were a goddess. The gazes focussed upon +Alan now inevitably included the girl with him, as lovely and young as +spring itself. + +"Who was she?" they asked each other. "What was a girl like that doing +in Alan Massey's society?" To most of the observers it meant but one +thing, eventually if not now. Even the most cynical and world-hardened +thought it a pity, and these would have been confounded if they could +have heard just now his passionate plea for marriage. One did not +associate marriage with Alan Massey. One had not associated it too much +with his mother, one recalled. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +TROUBLED WATERS + + +Ted Holiday drifted into Berry's to buy floral offerings for the +reigning goddess who chanced still to be pretty Elsie Hathaway. Things +had gone on gayly since that night a month ago when he had stolen that +impudent kiss beneath the crescent moon. Not that there was anything at +all serious about the affair. College coquettes must have lovers, and +Ted Holiday would not have been himself if there had not been a pretty +sweetheart on hand. + +By this time Ted had far outdistanced the other claimants for Elsie's +favor. But the victory had come high. His bank account was again sadly +humble in porportions and his bills at Berry's and at the candy shops +were things not to be looked into too closely. Nevertheless he was in a +gala humor that November morning. Aside from chronic financial +complications things were going very well with him. He was working just +hard enough to satisfy his newly-awakened common sense or conscience, or +whatever it was that was operating. He was having a jolly good time with +Elsie and basket ball and other things and college life didn't seem quite +such a bore and burden as it had hitherto. Moreover Uncle Phil had just +written that he would waive the ten dollar automobile tax for December in +consideration of the approach of Christmas, possibly also in +consideration of his nephew's fairly creditable showing on the new leaf +of the ledger though he did not say so. In any case it was a jolly old +world if anybody asked Ted Holiday that morning as he entered Berry's. + +He made straight for Madeline as he invariably did. He was always +friendly and gay and casual with her, always careful to let no one +suspect he had ever known her any more intimately than at present--not +because he cared on his own account--Ted Holiday was no snob. But because +he had sense to see it was better for Madeline herself. + +He was genuinely sorry for the girl. He could not help seeing how her +despondency grew upon her from week to week and that she appeared +miserably sick as well as unhappy. She looked worse than usual to-day, he +thought, white and heavy-eyed and unmistakably heavy-hearted. It troubled +him to see her so. Ted had the kindest heart in the world and always +wanted every one else to be as blithely content with life as he was +himself. Accordingly now under cover of his purchase of chrysanthemums +for Elsie he managed to get in a word in her ear. + +"You look as if you needed cheering up a bit. How about the movies +to-night? Charlie's on. He'll fix you." + +"No, thank you, I couldn't." The girl's voice was also prudently low, +and she busied herself with the flowers instead of looking at Ted as +she spoke. + +"Why not?" he challenged, always impelled to insistence by denial. + +"Because I--" And then to Ted's consternation the flowers flew out of her +hands, scattering in all directions, her face went chalky white and she +fell forward in a heavy faint in Ted Holiday's arms. + +Ted got her to a chair, ordered another clerk to get water and spirits of +ammonia quick. His arm was still around her when Patrick Berry strayed +in from the back room. Berry's eyes narrowed. He looked the girl over +from head to foot, surveyed Ted Holiday also with sharp scrutiny and +knitted brows. The clerk returned with water and dashed off for the +ammonia as ordered. Madeline's eyes opened slowly, meeting Ted's anxious +blue ones as he bent over her. + +"Ted!" she gasped. "Oh, Ted!" + +Her eyes closed again wearily. Berry's frown deepened. His best +customer had hitherto in his hearing been invariably addressed by the +girl as Mr. Holiday. + +In a moment Madeline's eyes opened again and she almost pushed Ted away +from her, shooting a frightened, deprecating glance at her employer as +she did so. + +"I--I am all right now," she said, rising unsteadily. + +"You are nothing of the sort, Madeline," protested Ted, also forgetting +caution in his concern. "You are sick. I'll get a taxi and take you +home. Mr. Berry won't mind, will you Berry?" appealed the best +customer, completely unaware of the queer, sharp look the florist was +bending upon him. + +"No, she'd better go," agreed Berry shortly. "I'll call a cab." He walked +over to the telephone but paused, his hand on the receiver and looked +back at Ted. "Where does she live?" he asked. "Do you know?" + +"Forty-nine Cherry," returned Ted still unconsciously revelatory. + +The big Irishman got his number and called the cab. The clerk came back +with the ammonia and vanished with it into the back room. Berry walked +over to where Ted stood. + +"See here, Mr. Holiday," he said. "I don't often go out of my way to give +college boys advice. Advice is about the one thing in the world nobody +wants. But I'm going to give you a bit. I like you and I liked your +brother before you. Here's the advice. Stick to the campus. Don't get +mixed up with Cherry Street. You wanted the chrysanthemums sent to Miss +Hathaway, didn't you?" + +"I did." There was a flash in Ted's blue eyes. "Send 'em and send a dozen +of your best roses to Miss Madeline Taylor, forty-nine Cherry and mind +your business. There is the cab. Ready, Madeline?" As the girl appeared +in the doorway with her coat and hat on. "I'll take you home." + +"Oh, no, indeed, it isn't at all necessary," protested Madeline. "You +have done quite enough as it is, Mr. Holiday. You mustn't bother." The +speaker's tone was cool, almost cold and very formal. She did not know +that Patrick Berry had heard that very different, fervid, "Ted! Oh, Ted!" +if indeed she knew it had ever passed her lips as she came reluctantly +back to the world of realities. + +Ted held the door open for her. They passed out. But a moment later when +Berry peered out the window he saw the cab going in one direction and his +best customer strolling off in the other and nodded his satisfaction. + +Sauntering along his nonchalant course, Madeline Taylor already half +forgotten, Ted Holiday came face to face with old Doctor Hendricks, a +rosy cheeked, white bearded, twinkling eyed Santa Claus sort of person +who had known his father and uncle and brother and had pulled himself +through various minor itises and sprains. Seeing the doctor reminded him +of Madeline. + +"Hello, Doc. Just the man I wanted to see. Want a job?" + +"Got more jobs than I can tend to now, young man. Anything the matter +with you? You look as tough as a two year old rooster." + +The old man's small, kindly, shrewd eyes scanned the lad's face +as he spoke. + +"Smoking less, sleeping more, nerves steadier, working harder, playing +the devil lighter," he gummed up silently with satisfaction. "Good, he'll +come out a Holiday yet if we give him time." + +"I am tough," Ted grinned back, all unconscious that he had been +diagnosed in that flitting instant of time. "Never felt better in my +life. Always agrees with me to be in training." + +The old doctor nodded. + +"I know. You young idiots will mind your coaches when you won't your +fathers and your doctors. What about the job?" + +"There's a girl I know who works at Berry's flower shop. I am afraid she +is sick though she won't see a doctor. She fainted away just now while I +was in the store, keeled over into my arms, scared me half out of my +wits. I'm worried about her. I wish you would go and see her. She lives +down on Cherry Street." + +"H-m!" The doctor's eyes studied the boy's face again but with less +complacency this time. Like Patrick Berry he thought a young Holiday +would better stick to the campus, not run loose on Cherry Street. + +"Know the girl well?" he queried. + +Ted hesitated, flushed, looked unmistakably embarrassed. + +"Yes, rather," he admitted. "I ran round with her quite a little the +first of the summer. I got her the job at Berry's. Her grandfather, a +pious old stick in the mud, turned her out of his house. She had to do +something to earn her living. I hope she isn't going to be sick. It would +be an awful mess. She can't have much saved up. Go and see her, will you, +Doc? Forty-nine Cherry. Taylor is the name." + +"H-m." The doctor made a note of these facts. "All right, I'll go. But +you had better keep away from Cherry Street, young man. It is not the +environment you belong in." + +"Environment be--blessed!" said Ted. "Don't you begin on that sort of +rot, please, Doc. Old Pat Berry's just been giving me a lecture on the +same subject. You make me tired both of you. As if the girls on Cherry +Street weren't as good any day as the ones on the campus, just because +they work in shops and stores and the girls on the campus work--us," he +concluded with a grin. "I'm not an infant that has to be kept in a Kiddie +coop you know." + +"Look out you don't land in a chicken coop," sniffed the doctor. "Very +well, you young sinner. Don't listen to me if you don't want to. I know I +might as well talk to the wind. You always were open to all the fool +germs going, Ted Holiday. Some day you'll own the old Doc knew best." + +"I wouldn't admit to being so hanged well up on the chicken-roost +proposition myself if I were you," retorted Ted impudently. "So long. I'm +much obliged for your kind favors all but the moral sentiments. You can +have those back. You may need 'em to use over again." + +So Ted went on his way, dropped in to see Elsie, had a cup of tea and +innumerable small cakes, enjoyed a foxtrot to phonograph music with the +rug rolled up out of the way, conversed amicably with the Ancient History +Prof himself, who wasn't such a bad sort as Profs go and had the merit of +being one of the few instructors who had not flunked Ted Holiday in his +course the previous year. + +The next morning Ted found a letter from Doctor Hendricks in his mail +which he opened with some curiosity wondering what the old Doc could have +to say. He read the communication through in silence and tucking it in +his pocket walked out of the room as if he were in a dream, paying no +attention to the question somebody called after him as he went. He went +on to his classes but he hardly knew what was going on about him. His +mind seemed to have stopped dead like a stop watch with the reading of +the old doctor's letter. + +He understood at last the full force of the trouble which engulfed +Madeline Taylor and why she had said that it would have been better for +her if that mad joy ride with him had ended life for her. The doctor had +gone to her as he had promised and had extracted the whole miserable +story. It seemed Madeline had married, or thought she had married, +Willis Hubbard against her grandfather's express command, a few weeks +after Ted had parted from her in Holyoke. In less than two months +Hubbard had disappeared leaving behind him the ugly fact that he already +had one wife living in Kansas City in spite of the pretense of a wedding +ceremony which he had gone through with Madeline. Long since +disillusioned but still having power and pride to suffer intensely the +latter found herself in the tragic position of being-a wife and yet no +wife. In her desperate plight she besought her grandfather's clemency +and forgiveness but that rigid old covenanter had declared that even as +she had made her bed in willful disobedience to his command so she +should lie on it for all of him. + +It was then that she had turned as a last resort to Ted Holiday though +always hoping against hope that she could keep the real truth of her +unhappy situation from him. + +"It is a bad affair from beginning to end," wrote the doctor. "I'd like +to break every rotten bone in that scoundrel's body but he has taken +mighty good care to effect a complete disappearance. That kind is never +willing to foot the bills for their own villainy. I am telling you the +story in order to make it perfectly clear that you are to keep out of the +business from now on. You have burned your fingers quite enough as it is +I gather. Don't see the girl. Don't write her. Don't telephone her. Let +her alone absolutely. Mind, these aren't polite requests. They are +orders. And if you don't obey them I'll turn the whole thing over to your +uncle double quick and I don't think you want me to do that. Don't worry +about the girl. I'll look after her now and later when she is likely to +need me more. But you keep hands off. That is flat--the girl's wish as +well as my orders." + +And this was what Ted Holiday had to carry about with him all that bleak +day and a half sleepless, uneasy night. And in the morning he was +summoned home to the House on the Hill. Granny was dying. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +IN DARK PLACES + + +The House on the Hill was a strange place to Tony and Ted those November +days, stranger than to the others who had walked day by day with the +sense of the approaching shadow always with them. Death itself was an +awesome and unaccustomed thing to them. They did not see how the others +bore it so well, took it all so calmly. To make matters worse, Uncle Phil +who never failed any one was stricken down with a bad case of influenza +and was unable to leave his bed. This of course made Margery also +practically _hors de combat_. The little folks spent most of their time +across the street in motherly Mrs. Lambert's care. Upon Ned Holiday's +children rested the chief burden of the hour. + +Granny was rarely conscious and all three of her grandchildren coveted +the sad privilege of being near her when these brief moments of lucidity +came though Tony and Ted could not stand long periods of watching beside +the still form as Larry could and did. It was Larry that she most often +recognized. Sometimes though he was his father to her and she called him +"Ned" in such tones of yearning tenderness that it nearly broke down his +self control. Sometimes too he was Philip to her and this also was +bitterly hard for Larry missed his uncle's support woefully in this dark +hour. Ruth, Granny seemed to know, oftener indeed, than she did Tony to +the latter's keen grief though she acknowledged the justice of the stab. +For she had gone her selfish way leaving the stranger to play the loving +granddaughter's part. + +One night when the nurse was resting and Larry too had flung himself upon +the couch in the living room to snatch a little much needed relaxation, +leaving Ruth in charge of the sickroom, Ted drifted in and demanded to +take his turn at the watch, giving Ruth a chance to sleep. She demurred +at first, knowing how hard these vigils were for the restless, unhappy +lad. But seeing he was really in earnest she yielded. As she passed out +of the room her hand rested for a moment on the boy's bowed head. She had +come to care a great deal for sunny, kind-hearted Teddy, loved him for +himself and because she knew he loved Larry with deep devotion. + +He looked up with a faint smile and gave her hand a squeeze. + +"You are a darling, Ruthie," he murmured. "Don't know what we would ever +do without you." + +And then he was alone with death and his own somber thoughts. He could +not get away from the memory of Madeline, could not help feeling with a +terrible weight of responsibility that he was more than a little to blame +for her plight. Whether he liked to think it or not he couldn't help +knowing that the whole thing had started with that foolish joy ride with +himself. Madeline had never risked her grandfather's displeasure till she +risked it for him. She had never gone anywhere with Hubbard till she went +because she was bitterly angry with himself because he had not kept his +promise--a promise which never should have been made in the first place. +And if he had not gone to Holyoke, hadn't behaved like an idiot that last +night, hadn't deserted her like a selfish cad to save his own precious +self--if none of these things had happened would Madeline still have +gone to Hubbard? Perhaps. But in his heart Ted Holiday had a hateful +conviction that she would not, that her wretchedness now was indirectly +if not directly chargeable to his own folly. It was terrible that such +little things should have such tremendous consequences but there it was. + +All his life Ted Holiday had evaded responsibility and had found self +extenuation the easiest thing in the world. But somehow all at once he +seemed to have lost the power of letting himself off. He had no plea to +offer even to himself except "guilty." Was he going to do as Doctor +Hendricks commanded and let Madeline pay the price of her own folly alone +or was he going to pay with her? The night was full of the question. + +The quiet figure on the bed stirred. Instantly the boy had forgotten +himself, remembered only Granny. + +He bent over her. + +"Granny, don't you know me? It's Teddy," he pleaded. + +The white lips quivered into a faint smile. The frail hand on the cover +lid groped vaguely for his. + +"I know--Teddy," the lips formed slowly with an effort. + +Ted kissed her, tears in his eyes. + +"Be--a man, dear," the lips breathed softly. "Be--" and Granny was off +again to a world of unconsciousness from which she had returned a moment +to give her message to the grief stricken lad by her side. + +To Ted in his overwrought condition the words were almost like a voice +from heaven, a sacred command. To be a man meant to face the hardest +thing he had ever had to face in his life. It meant marrying Madeline +Taylor, not leaving her like a coward to pay by herself for something +which he himself had helped to start. He rose softly and went to the +window, staring out into the night. A few moments later he turned back +wearing a strange uplifted sort of look, a look perhaps such, as Percival +bore when he beheld the Grail. + +Strange forces were at work in the House on the Hill that night. Ruth +had gone to her room to rest as Ted bade her but she had not slept in +spite of her intense weariness. She had almost lost the way of sleep +latterly. She was always so afraid of not being near when Larry needed +her. The night watches they had shared so often now had brought them +very, very close to each other, made their love a very sacred as well as +very strong thing. + +Ruth knew that the time was near now when she would have to go away from +the Hill. After Granny went there would be no excuse for staying on. If +she did not go Larry would. Ruth knew that very well and did not intend +the latter should happen. + +She had laid her plans well. She would go and take a secretarial course +somewhere. She had made inquiries and found that there was always demand +for secretaries and that the training did not take so long as other +professional education did. She could sell her rings and live on the +money they brought her until she was self supporting. She did not want to +dispose of her pearls if she could help it. She wanted to hold on to them +as the link to her lost past. Yes, she would leave the Hill. It was quite +the right thing to do. + +But oh, what a hard thing it was! She did not see how she was ever going +to face life alone under such hard, queer conditions without Doctor +Philip, without dear Mrs. Margery and the children, without Larry, +especially without Larry. For that matter what would Larry do without +her? He needed her so, loved her so much. Poor Larry! + +And suddenly Ruth sat up in bed. As clearly as if he had been in the +room with her she heard Larry's voice calling to her. She sprang up +and threw a dark blue satin negligee around her, went out of the room, +down the stairs, seeming to know by an infallible instinct where her +lover was. + +On the threshold of the living room she paused. Larry was pacing the +floor nervously, his face drawn and gray in the dim light of the +flickering gas. Seeing her he made a swift stride in her direction, took +both her hands in his. + +"Ruth, why did you come?" There was an odd tension in his voice. + +"You called me, didn't you? I thought you did." Her eyes were wondering. +"I heard you say 'Ruth' as plain as anything." + +He shook his head. + +"No, I didn't call you out loud. Maybe I did with my heart though. I +wanted you so." + +He dropped her hands as abruptly as he had taken them. + +"Ruth, I've got to marry you. I can't go on like this. I've tried to +fight it, to be patient and hang on to myself as Uncle Phil wanted me to. +But I can't go on. I'm done." + +He flung himself into a chair. His head went down on the table. The clock +ticked quietly on the mantel. What was Death upstairs to Time? What were +Youth and Love and Grief down here? These things were merely eddies in +the great tide of Eternity. + +For a moment Ruth stood very still. Then she went over and laid a hand on +the bowed head, the hand that wore the wedding ring. + +"Larry, Larry dear," she said softly. "Don't give up like that. It +breaks my heart." There was a faint tremor in her voice, a hint of tears +not far off. + +He lifted his head, the strain of his long self mastering wearing thin +almost to the breaking point at last, for once all but at the mercy of +the dominant emotion which possessed him, his love for the girl at his +side who stood so close he could feel her breathing, got the faint violet +fragrance of her. And yet he must not so much as touch her hand. + +The clock struck three, solemn, inexorable strokes. Ruth and Larry and +the clock seemed the only living things in the quiet house. Larry brushed +his hand over his eyes, got to his feet. + +"Ruth, will you marry me?" + +"Yes, Larry." + +The shock of her quiet consent brought Larry back a little to realities. + +"Wait, Ruth. Don't agree too soon. Do you realize what it means to marry +me? You may be married already. Your husband may return and find you +living--illegally--with me." + +"I know," said Ruth steadily. "There must be something wrong with me, +Larry. I can't seem to care. I can't seem to make myself feel as if I +belonged to any one else except to you. I don't think I do belong to any +one else. I was born over in the wreck. I was born yours. You saved me. I +would have died if you hadn't gotten me out from under the beams and +worked over and brought me back to life when everybody else gave me up as +dead. I wouldn't have been alive for my husband if you hadn't saved me. I +am yours, Larry. If you want me to marry you I will. If you want me--any +way--I am yours. I love you." + +"Ruth!" + +Larry drew her into his arms and kissed her--the first time he had ever +kissed any girl in his life except his sister. She lay in his arms, her +fragrant pale gold hair brushing his cheek. He kissed her over and over +passionately, almostly roughly in the storm of his emotion suddenly +unpent. Then he was Larry Holiday again. He pushed her gently from him, +remorse in his gray eyes. + +"Forgive me, Ruth. It's all wrong. I'm all wrong. We can't do it. I +shouldn't have kissed you. I shouldn't have touched you--shouldn't have +let you come to me like this. You must go now, dear. I am sorry." + +Ruth faced him in silence a moment then bowed her head, turned and walked +away to the door meekly like a chidden child. Her loosened hair fell like +a golden shower over her shoulders. It was all Larry could do to keep +from going after her, taking her in his arms again. But he stood grimly +planted by the table, gripping its edge as if to keep himself anchored. +He dared not stir one inch toward that childish figure in the dark robe. + +On the threshold Ruth turned, flung back her hair and looked back at him. +There was a kind of fearless exaltation and pride on her lovely young +face and in her shining eyes. + +"I don't know whether you are right or wrong, Larry, or rather when you +are right and when you are wrong. It is all mixed up. It seems as if it +must be right to care or we wouldn't be doing it so hard, as if God +couldn't let us love like this if he didn't mean we should be happy +together, belong to each other. Why should He make love if He didn't want +lovers to be happy?" + +It was an argument as old as the garden of Eden but to Ruth and Larry it +was as if it were being pronounced for the first time for themselves, +here in the dead of night, in the old House on the Hill, as they felt +themselves drawn to each other by the all but irresistible impulse of +their mutual love. + +"Maybe," went on Ruth, "I forgot my morals along with the rest I forgot. +I don't seem to care very much about right and wrong to-night. You +called me. I heard you and I came. I am here." Her lovely, proud little +head was thrown back, her eyes still shining with that fearless elation. + +"Ruth! Don't, dear. You don't know what you are saying. I've got to care +about right and wrong for both of us. Please go. I--I can't stand it." + +He left his post by the table then came forward and held open the door +for her. She passed out, went up the stairs, her hair falling in a wave +of gold down to her waist. She did not turn back. + +Larry waited at the foot of the stairs until he heard the door of her +room close upon her and then he too went up, to Granny's room. Ted met +him at the threshold in a panic of fear and grief. + +"Larry--I think--oh--" and Ted bolted unable to finish what he had begun +to say or to linger on that threshold of death. + +The nurse was bending over Madame Holiday forcing some brandy between the +blue lips. Larry was by the bedside in an instant. The nurse stepped back +with a sad little shake of the head. There was nothing she could do and +she knew it, knew also there was nothing the young doctor could do +professionally. He knelt, chafed the cold hands. The pale lips quivered a +little, the glazed eyes opened for a second. + +"Ned--Larry--give Philip love--" That was all. The eyes closed. There was +a little flutter of passing breath. Granny was gone. + +It was two days after Granny's funeral. Ted had gone back to college. +Tony would leave for New York on the morrow. Life cannot wait on +death. It must go on its course as inevitably as a river must go its +way to the sea. + +Yet to Tony it seemed sad and heartless that it should be so. She was +troubled by her selfishness, first to Granny living and now to Granny +dead. She said as much to her uncle sorrowfully. + +"It isn't really heartless or unkind," he comforted her. "We have to go +on with our work. We can't lay it down or scamp it just because dear +Granny's work is done. It is no more wrong for you to go back to your +play than it is for me to go back to my doctoring." + +"I know," sighed Tony. "But I can't help feeling remorseful. I had so +much time and Granny had so little and yet I wasn't willing to give her +even a little of mine. I would have if I had known though. I knew I was +selfish but I didn't know how selfish. I wish you had told me, Uncle +Phil. Why didn't you? You told Ruth. You let her help. Why wouldn't you +let me?" she half reproached. + +"I tried to do what was best for us all. I wanted to find a reason for +keeping Ruth with us and I did not think then and I don't think now that +it was right or necessary to keep you back for the little comfort it +could have brought to Granny. You must not worry, dear child. The blame +if there is any is mine. I know you would have stayed if I had let you." + +Back in college Ted sorted out his personal letters from the sheaf of +bills. Among them was one from Madeline Taylor, presumably the answer to +the one Ted had written her from the House on the Hill. He stared at the +envelope, dreading to open it. He was too horribly afraid of what it +might contain. Suddenly he threw the letter down on the table and his +head went down on top of it. + +"I can't do it," he groaned. "I can't. I won't. It's too hard." + +But in a moment his head popped up again fiercely. + +"Confound you!" he muttered. "You can and you will. You've got to. +You've made your bed. Now lie on it." And he opened the letter. + +"I can't tell you," wrote the girl, "how your letter touched me. Don't +think I don't understand that it isn't because you love me or really want +to marry me that you are asking me to do it. It is all the finer and more +wonderful because you don't and couldn't, ever. You had nothing to +gain--everything to lose. Yet you offered it all as if it were the most +ordinary gift in the world instead of the biggest. + +"Of course, I can't let you sacrifice yourself like that for me. Did you +really think I would? I wouldn't let you be dragged down into my life +even if you loved me which you don't. Some day you will want to marry a +girl--not somebody like me--but your own kind and you can go to her clean +because you never hurt me, never did me anything but good ever. You +lifted me up always. But there must have been something still stronger +that pulled me down. I couldn't stay up. I was never your kind though I +loved you just as much as if I were. Forgive my saying it just this once. +It will be the last time. This is really good-by. Thank you over and over +for everything, + +"Madeline." + +A mist blurred Ted Holiday's eyes as he finished the letter. He was free. +The black winged vulture thing which had hovered over him for days was +gone. By and by he would be thankful for his deliverance but just now +there was room only in his chivalrous boy's heart for one overmastering +emotion, pity for the girl and her needlessly wrecked life. What a +hopeless mess the whole thing was! And what could he do to help her since +she would not take what he had offered in all sincerity? He must think +out a way somehow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE PEDIGREE OF PEARLS + + +"Where is Larry?" asked Doctor Holiday a few days later coming into the +dining room at supper time. "I haven't seen him all the afternoon." + +Margery dropped into her chair with a tired little sigh. + +"There is a note from him at your place. I think he has gone out of town. +John told me he took him to the three ten train." + +"H--m!" mused the doctor. "Where is Ruth?" he looked up to ask. + +"Ruth went to Boston at noon. At least so Bertha tells me." Bertha +was the maid. "She did not say good-by to me. I thought possibly she +had to you!" + +Her husband shook his head, perplexed and troubled. + +"Dear Uncle Phil," ran Larry's message. + +"Ruth has gone to Boston. She left a letter for me saying good-by and +asking me to say good-by to the rest of you for her. Said she would write +as soon as she had an address and that no one was to worry about her. She +would be quite all right and thought it was best not to bother us by +telling us about her plans until she was settled." + +"Of course I am going after her. I don't know where she is but I'll find +her. I've got to, especially as I was the one who drove her away. I broke +my promise to you. I did make love to her and asked her to marry me the +night Granny died. She said she would and then of course I said she +couldn't and we've not seen each other alone since so I don't know what +she thinks now. I don't know anything except that I'm half crazy." + +"I know it is horribly selfish to go off and leave you like this when you +need me especially. Please forgive me. I'll be back as soon as I can or +send Ruth or we'll both come. And don't worry. I'm not going to do +anything rash or wrong or anything that will hurt you or Ruth. I am sorry +about the other night. I didn't mean to smash up like that." + +The doctor handed the letter over to his wife. + +"Why didn't he wait until he had her address? How can he possibly find +her in a city like Boston with not the slightest thing to go on?" + +Doctor Holiday smiled wearily. + +"Wait! Do you see Larry waiting when Ruth is out of his sight? My dear, +don't you know Larry is the maddest of the three when he gets under way?" + +"The maddest and the finest. Don't worry, Phil. He is all right. He won't +do anything rash just as he tells you." + +"You can't trust a man in love, especially a young idiot who waited a +full quarter century to get the disease for the first time. But you are +right. I'd trust him anywhere, more rather than less because of that +confession of his. I've wondered that he didn't break his promise long +before this. He is only human and his restraint has been pretty nearly +super-human. I don't believe he would have smashed up now as he calls it +if his nerves hadn't been strained about to the limit by taking all the +responsibility for Granny at the end. It was terrible for the poor lad." + +"It was terrible for you too, Phil. Larry isn't the only one who has +suffered. I do wish those foolish youngsters could have waited a little +and not thrown a new anxiety on you just now. But I suppose we can't +blame them under the circumstances. Isn't it strange, dear? Except for +the children sleeping up in the nursery you and I are absolutely alone +for the first time since I came to the House on the Hill." + +He nodded a little sadly. His father was gone long since and now Granny +too. And Ned's children were all grown up, would perhaps none of them +ever come again in the old way. Their wings were strong enough now to +make strange flights. + +"We've filled your life rather full, Margery mine," he said. "I hope +there are easier days ahead." + +"I don't want any happier ones," said Margery as she slipped her +hand into his. + +The next few days were a perfect nightmare to Larry. Naturally he found +no trace of Ruth, did not know indeed under what name she had chosen to +go. The city had swallowed her up and the saddest part of it was she had +wanted to be swallowed, to get away from himself. She had gone for his +sake he knew, because he had told her he could endure things no longer. +She had taken him at his word and vanished utterly. For all her +gentleness and docility Ruth had tremendous fortitude. She had taken this +hard, rash step alone in the dark for love's sake, just as she was ready +that unforgettable night to take that rasher step with him to marriage or +something less than marriage had he permitted it. She would have +preferred to marry him, not to bother with abstractions of right and +wrong, to take happiness as it offered but since he would not have it so +she had lost herself. + +Despair, remorse, anxiety, loneliness held him-in thrall while he roamed +the streets of the old city, almost hopeless now of finding her but still +doggedly persistent in his search. Another man under such a strain of +mind and body would have gone on a stupendous thought drowning carouse. +Larry Holiday had no such refuge in his misery. He took it straight +without recourse to anaesthetic of any sort. And on the fourth day when +he had been about to give up in defeat and go home to the Hill to wait +for word of Ruth a crack of light dawned. + +Chancing to be strolling absent mindedly across the Gardens he ran into a +college classmate of his, one Gary Eldridge, who shook his hand with +crushing grip and announced that it was a funny thing Larry's bobbing up +like that because he had been hearing the latter's name pretty +consecutively all the previous afternoon on the lips of the daintiest +little blonde beauty it had been his luck to behold in many a moon, a +regular Greuze girl in fact, eyes and all. + +Naturally there was no escape for Eldridge after that. Larry Holiday +grabbed him firmly and demanded to know if he had seen Ruth Annersley and +if he had and knew where she was to tell him everything quick. It was +important. + +Considering Larry Holiday's haggard face and tense voice Eldridge +admitted the importance and spun his yarn. No, he did not know where Ruth +Annersley was nor if the Greuze girl was Ruth Annersley at all. He did +know the person he meant was in the possession of the famous Farringdon +pearls, a fact immensely interesting to Fitch and Larrabee, the jewelers +in whose employ he was. + +"Your Ruth Annersley or Farringdon or whoever she is brought the pearls +in to our place yesterday to have them appraised. You can bet we sat up +and took notice. We didn't know they had left Australia but here they +were right under our noses absolutely unmistakable, one of the finest +sets of matched pearls in the world. You Holidays are so hanged smart. I +wonder it didn't occur to you to bring 'em to us anyway. We're the boys +that can tell you who's who in the lapidary world. Pearls have pedigrees, +my dear fellow, quite as faithfully recorded as those of prize pigs." + +Larry thumped his cranium disgustedly. It did seem ridiculous now that +the very simple expedient of going to the master jewelers for information +had not struck any of them. But it hadn't and that was the end of it. He +made Eldridge sit down in the Gardens then and there however to tell him +all he knew about the pearls but first and most important did the other +have any idea where the owner of the pearls was? He had none. The girl +was coming in again in a few days to hear the result of a cable they had +sent to Australia where the pearls had been the last Larrabee and Fitch +knew. She had left no address. Eldridge rather thought she hadn't cared +to be found. Larry bit his lip at that and groaned inwardly. He too was +afraid it was only too true, and it was all his fault. + +This was the story of the pearls as his friend briefly outlined it for +Larry Holiday's benefit. The Farringdon pearls had originally belonged to +a Lady Jane Farringdon of Farringdon Court, England. They had been the +gift of a rejected lover who had gone to Africa to drown his +disappointment and had died there after having sent the pearls home to +the woman he had loved fruitlessly and who was by this time the wife of +another man, her distant cousin Sir James Farringdon. At her death Lady +Jane had given the pearls to her oldest son for his bride when he should +have one. He too had died however before he had attained to the bride. +The pearls went to his younger brother Roderick a sheep raiser in +Australia who had amassed a fortune and discarded the title. The sheep +raiser married an Australian girl and gave her the pearls. They had two +children, a girl and a boy. Roderick was since deceased. Possibly his +wife also was dead. They had cabled to find out details. But it looked as +if the little blonde lady who possessed the pearls although she did not +know where she got them was in all probability the daughter of Roderick +Farringdon, the granddaughter of the famous beauty, Lady Jane. She was +probably also a great heiress. The sheep raiser and his father-in-law had +both been reported to be wallowing in money. "Oh boy!" Eldridge had ended +significantly. + +"But if Ruth is a person of so much importance why did they let her +travel so far alone with those valuable pearls in her possession? Why +haven't they looked her up? I suppose she told you about the wreck +and--the rest of it?" + +"She did, sang the praises of the family of Holiday in a thousand keys. +Your advertisements were all on the Annersley track you see and they +would all be out on the Farringdon one. The paths didn't happen to cross +I suppose." + +"You don't know anything about, Geoffrey Annersley do you?" Larry asked +anxiously. + +"Not a thing. We are jewelers not detectives or clairvoyants. It is only +the pearls we are up on and we've evidently slipped a cog on them. We +should have known when they came to the States but we didn't." + +"I'll cable the American consul at Australia myself. It's the first +real clue we have had--the rest has been working in the dark. The first +thing though is to find Ruth." And Larry Holiday looked so very +determined and capable of doing anything he set out to do that Gary +Eldridge grinned a little. + +"Wonderful what falling in love will do for a chap," he reflected. "Used +to think old Larry was rather a slow poke but he seems to have developed +into some whirlwind. Don't wonder considering what a little peach the +girl is. Hope the good Lord has seen fit to recall Geoffrey Annersley to +his heaven if he really did marry her." + +Aloud he promised to telephone Larry the moment the owner of the pearls +crossed the threshold of Larrabee and Fitch and to hold her by main force +if necessary until Larry could get there. In the meantime he suggested +that she had seemed awfully interested in the Australia part of the story +and it was very possible she had gone to the-- + +"Library." Larry took the words out of his mouth and bolted without any +formality of farewell into the nearest subway entrance. + +His friend gazed after him. + +"And this is Larry Holiday who used to flee if a skirt fluttered in his +direction," he murmured. "Ah well, it takes us differently. But it gets +us all sooner or later." + +Larry's luck had turned at last. In the reading room of the Public +Library he discovered a familiar blonde head bent over a book. He strode +to the secluded corner where she sat "reading up" on Australia. + +"Ruth!" Larry tried to speak quietly though he felt like raising the +echoes of the sacred scholarly precincts. + +The reader looked up startled, wondering. Her face lit with quick +delight. + +"Larry, oh Larry, I'm finding myself," she whispered breathlessly. + +"I'm glad but I'm gladder that I'm finding--yourself. Come on outside +sweetheart. I want to shout. I can't whisper and I won't. I'll get us +both put out if you won't come peaceably." + +"I'll come," said Ruth meekly. + +Outside in the corridor she raised blue eyes to gray ones. + +"I didn't mean you to find me--yet," she sighed. + +"So I should judge. I didn't think a mite of a fairy girl like you could +be so cruel. Some day I'll exact full penance for all you've made me +suffer but just now we'll waive that and go over to the Plaza and have a +high tea and talk. But first I'm going to kiss you. I don't care if +people are looking. All Boston can look if it likes. I'm going to do it." + +But it was only a scrub woman and not all Boston who witnessed that kiss, +and she paid no attention to the performance. Even had she seen it is +hardly probable that she would have been vastly startled at the sight. +She was a very old woman and more than likely she had seen such sights +before. Perhaps she had even been kissed by a man herself, once upon a +time. We hope so. + +The next day Larry and Ruth came home to the Hill, radiantly happy and +full of their strange adventures. Ruth was wearing an immensely becoming +new dark blue velvet suit, squirrel furs and a new hat which to Margery's +shrewd feminine eyes betrayed a cost all out of proportion to its +minuteness. She was looking exquisitely lovely in her new finery. Scant +wonder Larry could not keep his eyes off of her. Margery and Philip were +something in the same state. + +"On the strength of my being an heiress maybe Larry thought I might +afford some new clothes," Ruth confessed. "Of course he paid for +them--temporarily," she had added with a charming blush and a side long, +deprecating glance at Doctor Holiday, senior. She did not want him to +disapprove of her for letting Larry buy her pretty clothes nor blame +Larry for doing it. + +But he only laughed and remarked that he would have gone shopping with +her himself if he had any idea the results would be so satisfactory. + +It was only when he was alone with Margery that he shook his head. + +"Those crazy children behave as if everything were quite all right and as +if they could run right out any minute and get married. She doesn't even +wear her ring any more and they both appear to think the fact it +presumably represents can be disposed of as summarily." + +"Let them alone," advised his wife. "They are all right. It won't do them +a bit of harm to let themselves go a bit. Larry does his worshiping with +his eyes and maybe with his tongue when they are alone. I don't blame +him. She is a perfect darling. And it is much better for him not to +pretend he doesn't care when we all know he does tremendously. It was +crushing it all back that made him so miserable and smash up as he wrote +you. I don't believe he smashed very irretrievably anyway. He is too much +of a Holiday." + +The doctor smiled a little grimly. + +"You honor us, my dear. Even Holidays are men!" + +"Thank heaven," said Margery. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE FIERY FURNACE + + +A few days after the return of Larry and Ruth to the Hill Doctor Holiday +found among his mail an official looking document bearing the seal of the +college which Ted attended and which was also his own and Larry's alma +mater. He opened it carelessly supposing it to be an alumni appeal of +some sort but as his-eyes ran down the typed sheet his face grew grave +and his lips set in a tight line. The communication was from the +president and informed its recipient that his nephew Edward Holiday was +expelled from the college on the confessed charge of gambling. + +"We are particularly sorry to be obliged to take this action," wrote the +president, "inasmuch as Edward has shown recently a marked improvement +both in class-room work and general conduct which has gone far to +eradicate the unfortunate impression made by the lawlessness of his +earlier career. But we cannot overlook so flagrant an offense and are +regretfully forced to make an example of the offender. As you know +gambling is strictly against the rules of the institution and your nephew +played deliberately for high stakes as he admits and made a considerable +sum of money--three hundred dollars to be precise--which he disposed of +immediately for what purpose he refuses to tell. Again regretting," et +cetera, et cetera, the letter closed. + +But there was also a hand written postscript and an enclosure. + +The postscript ran as follows: + +"As a personal friend and not as the president of the college I am +sending on the enclosed which may or may not be of importance. A young +girl, Madeline Taylor by name, of Florence, Massachusetts, who has until +recently been employed in Berry's flower shop, was found dead this +morning with the gas jet fully turned on, the inference being clearly +suicide. A short time ago a servant from the lodging house where the +dead girl resided came to me with a letter addressed to your nephew. It +seems Miss Taylor had given the girl the letter to mail the previous +evening and had indeed made a considerable point of its being mailed. +Nevertheless the girl had forgotten to do so and the next day was too +frightened to do it fearing the thing might have some connection with +the suicide. She meant to give it to Ted in person but finding him out +decided at the last moment to deliver it to me instead. I am sending the +letter to you, as I received it, unopened, and have not and shall not +mention the incident to any one else. I should prefer and am sure that +you will also wish that your nephew's name shall not be associated in +any way with the dead girl's. Frankly I don't believe the thing contains +any dynamite whatever but I would rather you handled the thing instead +of myself. + +"Believe me, my dear Holiday, I am heartily sick, and sorry over the +whole matter of Ted's expulsion. If we had not had his own word for it I +should not have believed him guilty. Even now I have a feeling that there +was more behind the thing than we got, something perhaps more to his +credit than he was willing to tell." + +Philip Holiday picked up the enclosed letter addressed to Ted and looked +at it as dubiously as if indeed it might have contained dynamite. The +scrawling handwriting was painfully familiar. And the mention of +Florence as the dead girl's home was disagreeably corroborating evidence. +What indeed was behind it all? + +Steeling his will he tore open the sealed envelope. Save for a folded +slip of paper it was quite empty. The folded slip was a check for three +hundred dollars made payable to Madeline Taylor and signed with Ted +Holiday's name. + +Here was dynamite and to spare for Doctor Holiday. Beside the uneasy +questions this development conjured the catastrophe of the boy's +expulsion took second place. And yet he forced himself not to judge until +he had heard Ted's own story. What was love for if it could not find +faith in time of need? + +He said nothing to any one, even his wife, of the president's letter and +that disconcerting check which evidently represented the results of the +boy's law breaking. All day he looked for a letter from Ted himself and +hoped against hope that he would appear in person. His anxiety grew as he +heard nothing. What had become of the boy? Where had he betaken himself +with his shame and trouble? How grave was his trouble? It was a bad day +for Philip Holiday and a worse night. + +But the morning brought a letter from his nephew, mailed ominously enough +from a railway post office in northern Vermont. The doctor tore it open +with hands that trembled a little. One thing at least he was certain of. +However bad the story the lad had to tell it would be the truth. He could +count on that. + +"Dear Uncle Phil--" it ran. "By the time you get this I shall be over the +border and enlisted, I hope, with the Canadians. I am horribly sorry to +knife you like this and go off without saying good-by and leaving such a +mess behind but truly it is the best thing I could do for the rest of +you as well as myself. + +"They will write you from college and tell you I am fired--for gambling. +But they won't tell you the whole story because they don't know it. I +couldn't tell them. It concerned somebody else besides myself. But you +have a right to know everything and I am going to tell it to you and +there won't be anything shaved off or tacked on to save my face either. +It will be straight stuff on my honor as a Holiday which means as much to +me as it does to you and Larry whether you believe it or not." + +Then followed a straightforward account of events from the first +ill-judged pick-up on the train and the all but fatal joy ride to the +equally ill-judged kisses in Cousin Emma's garden. + +"I hate like the mischief to put such things down on paper," wrote the +boy, "but I said I'd tell the whole thing and I will, even if it does +come out hard, so you will know it isn't any worse than it is. It is bad +enough I'll admit, I hadn't any business to make fool love to her when I +really didn't care a picayune. And I hadn't any business to be there in +Holyoke at all when you thought I was at Hal's. I did go to Hal's but I +only stayed two days. The rest of the time I was with Madeline and knew I +was going to be when I left the Hill. That part can't look any worse to +you than it does to me. It was a low-down trick to play on you when you +had been so white about the car and everything. But I did it and I can't +undo it. I can only say I am sorry. I did try afterward to make up a +little bit by keeping my word about the studying. Maybe you'll let that +count a little on the other side of the ledger. Lord knows I need +anything I can get there. It is little enough, more shame to me!" + +Then followed the events of the immediately preceding months from +Madeline Taylor's arrival in the college town on to the stunning +revelation of old Doctor Hendricks' letter. + +"You don't know how the thing made me feel. I couldn't help feeling more +or less responsible. For after all I did start the thing and though +Madeline was always too good a sport to blame me I knew and I am sure she +knew that she wouldn't have taken up with Hubbard if I hadn't left her in +the lurch just when she had gotten to care a whole lot too much for me. +Besides I couldn't help thinking what it would have been like if Tony had +been caught in a trap like that. It didn't seem to me I could stand off +and let her go to smash alone though I could see Doc Hendricks had common +sense on his side when he ordered me to keep out of the whole business. + +"I had all this on my mind when I came home that last time when Granny +was dying. I had it lodged in my head that it was up to me to straighten +things out by marrying Madeline myself though I hated the idea like death +and destruction and I knew it would about kill the rest of you. I wrote +and asked her to marry me that night after Granny went. She wouldn't do +it. It wasn't because she didn't love me either. I guess it was rather +because she did that she wouldn't. She wouldn't pull me down in the quick +sands with her. Whatever you may think of what she was and did you will +have to admit that she was magnificent about this. She might have saved +herself at my expense and she wouldn't. Remember that, Uncle Phil, and +don't judge her about the rest." + +Doctor Holiday ceased reading a moment and gazed into the fire. By the +measure of his full realization of what such a marriage would have meant +to his young nephew he paid homage to the girl in her fine courage in +refusing to take advantage of a chivalrous boy's impulsive generosity +even though it left her the terrible alternative which later she had +taken. And he thought with a tender little smile that there was something +also rather magnificent about a lad who would offer himself thus +voluntarily and knowingly a living sacrifice for "dear Honor's sake." He +went back to the letter. + +"But I still felt I had to do something to help though she wouldn't +accept the way I first offered. I knew she needed money badly as she +wasn't able to work and I wanted to give her some of mine. I knew I had +plenty or would have next spring when I came of age. But I was sure you +wouldn't let me have any of it now without knowing why and Larry wouldn't +lend me any either, sight unseen. I wouldn't have blamed either of you +for refusing. I haven't deserved to be taken on trust. + +"The only other way I knew of to get money quick was to play for it. I +have fool's luck always at cards. Last year I played a lot for money. +Larry knew and rowed me like the devil for it last spring. No wonder. He +knew how Dad hated it. So did I. I'd heard him rave on the subject often +enough. But I did it just the same as I did a good many other things I am +not very proud to remember now. But I haven't done it this year--at least +only a few times. Once I played when I'd sent Madeline all the money I +had for her traveling expenses and once or twice beside I did it on my +own account because I was so darned sick of toeing a chalk mark I had to +go on a tangent or bust. I am not excusing it. I am not excusing +anything. I am just telling the truth. + +"Anyhow the other night I played again in good earnest. There were quite +a number of fellows in the game and we all got a bit excited and plunged +more than we meant to especially myself and Ned Delany who was out to +get me if he could. He hates me like the seven year itch anyway because I +caught him cheating at cards once and said so right out in meeting. I had +absolutely incredible luck. I guess the devil or the angels were on my +side. I swept everything, made about three hundred dollars in all. The +fellows paid up and I banked the stuff and mailed Madeline a check for +the whole amount the first thing. I don't know what would have happened +if I had lost instead of winning. I didn't think about that. A true +gambler never does I reckon. + +"But I want to say right here and now, Uncle Phil, that I am through with +the business. The other night sickened me of gambling for good and all. +Even Dad couldn't have hated it any more than I do this minute. It is +rotten for a man, kills his nerves and his morals and his common sense. +I'm done. I'll never make another penny that way as long as I live. But +I'm not sorry I did it this once no matter how hard I'm paying for it. If +I had it to do over again I'd do precisely the same thing. I wonder if +you can understand that, Uncle Phil, or whether you'll think I'm just +plain unregenerate. + +"I thought then I was finished with the business but as a matter of fact +I was just starting on it. Somebody turned state's evidence. I imagine it +was Delany though I don't know. Anyhow somebody wrote the president an +anonymous letter telling him there was a lot of gambling going on and I +was one of the worst offenders, and thoughtfully suggested the old boy +should ask me how much I made the other night and what I did with it. Of +course that finished me off. I was called before the board and put +through a holy inquisition. Gee! They piled up not only the gambling +business but all the other things I'd done and left undone for two years +and a half and dumped the whole avalanche on my head at once. Whew! It +was fierce. I am not saying I didn't deserve it. I did, if not for this +particular thing for a million other times when I've gone scot-free. + +"They tried to squeeze out of me who the other men involved were but I +wouldn't tell. I could have had a neat little come back on Delany if I +had chosen but I don't play the game that way and I reckon he knew it and +banked on my holding my tongue. I'd rather stand alone and take what was +coming to me and I got it too good and plenty. They tried to make me tell +what I did with the money. That riled me. It was none of their business +and I told 'em so. Anyway I couldn't have told even if it would have done +me any good on Madeline's account. I wouldn't drag her into it. + +"Finally they dismissed me and said they would let me know later what +they would do about my case. But there wasn't any doubt in my mind what +they were going to do nor in theirs either, I'll bet. I was damned. They +had to fire me--couldn't help it when I was caught with the goods under +their very noses. I think a good many of them wished I hadn't been +caught, that they could have let me off some way, particularly Prof. +Hathaway. He put out his hand and patted my shoulder when I went out and +I knew he was mighty sorry. He has been awfully decent to me always +especially since I have been playing round with his daughter Elsie this +fall and I guess it made him feel bad to have me turn out such a black +sheep. I wished I could tell him the whole story but I couldn't. I just +had to let him think it was as bad as it looked. + +"I had hardly gotten back into the Frat house when I was called to the +telephone. It was Madeline. She thanked me for sending her the money but +said she was sending the check back as she didn't need it, had found a +way out of her difficulties. She was going on a long, long journey in +fact, and wouldn't see me again. Said she wanted to say good-by and wish +me all kinds of luck and thank me for what she was pleased to call my +goodness to her. And then she hung up before I could ask any questions or +get it through my head what she meant by her long, long journey. My brain +wasn't working very lively after what I'd been through over there at the +board meeting anyway and I was too wrapped up in my own troubles to +bother much about hers at the moment, selfish brute that I am. + +"But the next morning I understood all right. She had found her way out +and no mistake, just turned on the gas and let herself go. She was dead +when they found her. I don't blame her, Uncle Phil. It was too hard for +her. She couldn't go through with it. Life had been too hard for her from +the beginning. She never had half a chance. And in the end we killed her +between us, her pious old psalm singing hypocrite of a grandfather, the +rotter who ruined her, and myself, the prince of fools. + +"I went to see her with the old Doc. And, Uncle Phil, she was beautiful. +Not even Granny looked more peaceful and happy than she did lying there +dead with the little smile on her lips as if she were having a pleasant +dream. But the scar was there on her forehead--the scar I put there. I've +got a scar of my own too. It doesn't show on the surface but it is there +for all that and always will be. I shan't talk about it but I'll never +forget as long as I live that part of the debt she paid was mine. It is +_mea culpa_ for me always so far as she is concerned. + +"Her grandfather arrived while I was there. If ever there was a man +broken, mind and body and spirit he was. I couldn't help feeling sorry +for him. Of the two I would much rather have been Madeline lying there +dead than that poor old chap living with her death on his conscience. + +"Later I got my official notice from the board. I was fired. I wanted to +get out of college. I'm out for better or worse. Uncle Phil, don't think +I don't care. I know how terribly you are going to be hurt and that it +will be just about the finish of poor old Larry. I am not very proud of +it myself--being catapulted out in disgrace where the rest of you left +trailing clouds of glory. It isn't only what I have done just now. It is +all the things I have done and haven't done before that has smashed me in +the end--my fool attitude of have a good time and damn the expense. I +didn't pay at the time. I am paying now compound interest accumulated. +Worst of it is the rest of you will have to pay with me. You told me once +we couldn't live to ourselves alone. I didn't understand then. I do now. +I am guilty but you have to suffer with me for my mistakes. It is that +that hurts worst of all. + +"You have been wonderful to me always, had oceans of patience when I +disappointed you and hurt you and worried you over and over again. And +now here is this last, worst thing of all to forgive. Can you do it, +Uncle Phil? Please try. And please don't worry about me, nor let the +others. I'll come through all right. And if I don't I am not afraid of +death. I have found out there are lots of worse things in the world. I +haven't any pipe dreams about coming out a hero of any sort but I do mean +to come out the kind of a man you won't be ashamed of and to try my +darnedest to live up a little bit to the Holiday specifications. Again, +dear Uncle Phil, please forgive me if you can and write as soon as I can +send an address." Then a brief postscript. "The check Madeline sent back +never got to me. If it is forwarded to the Hill please send it or rather +its equivalent to the president. I wouldn't touch the money with a ten +foot pole. I never wanted it for myself but only for Madeline and she is +beyond needing anything any of us can give her now." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE MOVING FINGER CONTINUES TO WRITE + + +Having read and reread the boy's letter Doctor Holiday sat long with it +in his hand staring into the fire. Poor Teddy for whom life had hitherto +been one grand and glorious festival! He was getting the other, the seamy +side of things, at last with a vengeance. Knowing with the sure intuition +of love how deeply the boy was suffering and how sincerely he repented +his blunders the doctor felt far more compassion than condemnation for +his nephew. The fineness and the folly of the thing were so inextricably +confused that there was little use trying to separate the two even if he +had cared to judge the lad which he did not, being content with the boy's +own judgment of himself. Bad as the gambling business was and deeply as +he regretted the expulsion from college the doctor could not help seeing +that there was some extenuation for Ted's conduct, that he had in the +main kept faith with himself, paid generously, far more than he owed, and +traveling through the fiery furnace had somehow managed to come out +unscathed, his soul intact. After all could one ask much more? + +It was considerably harder for Larry to accept the situation +philosophically than it was for the senior doctor's more tolerant and +mature mind. Larry loved Ted as he loved no one else in the world not +perhaps even excepting Ruth. But he loved the Holiday name too with a +fine, high pride and it was a bitter dose to swallow to have his younger +brother "catapulted in disgrace," as Ted himself put it, out of the +college which he himself so loved and honored. He was inclined to resent +what looked in retrospect as entirely unnecessary and uncalled for +generosity on Ted's part. + +"Nobody but Ted would ever have thought of doing such a fool thing," he +groaned. "Why didn't he pull out in the first place as Hendricks wanted +him to? He would have been entirely justified." + +But the older man smiled and shook his head. + +"Some people could have done it, not Ted," he said. "Ted isn't built that +way. He never deserted anybody in trouble in his life. I don't believe he +ever will. We can't expect him to have behaved differently in this one +affair just because we would have liked it better so. I am not sure but +we would be wrong and he right in any case." + +"Maybe. But it is a horrible mess. I can't get over the injustice of the +poor kid's paying so hard when he was just trying to do the decent, hard, +right thing." + +"You have it less straight than Ted has, Larry. He knows he is paying not +for what he did and thought right but for what he did and knew was wrong. +You can't feel worse than I do about it. I would give anything I have to +save Ted from the torture he is going through, has been going through +alone for days. But I would rather he learned his lesson thoroughly now, +suffering more than he deserves than have him suffer too little and fall +worse next time. No matter how badly we feel for him I think it is up to +us not to try to dilute his penitence and to leave a generous share of +the blame where he puts it himself--on his own shoulders." + +"I suppose you are right, Uncle Phil," sighed Larry. "You usually are. +But it's like having a piece taken right out of me to have him go off +like that. And the Canadians are the very devil of fighters. Always in +the thick of things." + +"That is where Ted would want to be, Larry. Let us not cross that +bridge until we have to. As he says himself there are worse things than +death anyway." + +"I know. Marrying the girl would have been worse. She was rather +magnificent, wasn't she, just as he says, not saving herself when she +might have at his expense?" + +"I think she was. I am almost glad the poor child is where she can suffer +no more at the hands of men." + +The next day came a wire from Ted announcing his acceptance in the +Canadian army and giving his address in the training camp. + +The doctor answered at once, writing a long, cheerful letter full of home +news especially the interesting developments in Ruth's romantic story. It +was only at the end that he referred to the big thing that had to be +faced between them. + +"I am not going to say a word that will add in any way to the burden you +are already carrying, Teddy, my lad. You know how sadly disappointed we +all are in your having to leave college this way but I understand and +sympathize fully with your reasons for doing what you did. Even though I +can't approve of the thing itself. I haven't a single reproach to offer. +You have had a harsh lesson. Learn it so well that you will never bring +yourself or the rest of us to such pain and shame again. Keep your scar. +I should be sorry to think you were so callous that you could pass +through an experience like that without carrying off an indelible mark +from it. But it isn't going to ruin your life. On the contrary it is +going to make a man of you, is doing that already if I may judge from +the spirit of your letter which goes far to atone for the rest. The +forgiveness is yours always, son, seventy times seven if need be. Never +doubt it. We shall miss you very much. I wonder if you know how dear to +us you are, Teddy lad. But we aren't going to borrow trouble of the +future. We shall say instead God speed. May he watch over you wherever +you are and bring you safe back to us in His good time!" + +And Ted reading the letter later in the Canadian training camp was not +ashamed of the tears that came stinging up in his eyes. He was woefully +homesick, wanted the home people, especially Uncle Phil desperately. +But the message from the Hill brought strength and comfort as well as +heart ache. + +"Dear Uncle Phil," he thought. "I will make it up to him somehow. I will. +He shan't ever have to be ashamed of me again." + +And so Ted Holiday girded on manhood along with his khaki and his Sam +Browne belt and started bravely up out of the pit which his own willful +folly had dug for him. + +Tony was not told the full story of her brother's fiasco. She only +knew that he had left college for some reason or other and had taken +French leave for the Canadian training camp. She was relieved to +discover that even in Larry's stern eyes the escapade, whatever it +was, had not apparently been a very damaging one and accepted +thankfully her uncle's assurance that there was nothing at all to +worry about and that Ted was no doubt very much better off where he +was than if he had stayed in college. + +As for the going to war part small blame had she for Ted in that. She +knew well it was precisely what she would have done herself in his case +and teemed with pride in her bonny, reckless, beloved soldier brother. + +She had small time to think much about anybody's affairs beside her own +just now. Any day now might come the word that little Cecilia had gone +and that Tony Holiday would take her place on the Broadway stage as a +real star if only for a brief space of twinkling. + +She saw very little even of Alan. He was tremendously busy and seemed, +oddly enough, to be drawing a little away from her, to be less jealously +exacting of her time and attention. It was not that he cared less, rather +more, Tony thought. His strange, tragic eyes rested hungrily upon her +whenever they were together and it seemed as if he would drink deep of +her youth and loveliness and joy, a draught deep enough to last a long, +long time, through days of parching thirst to follow. He was very gentle, +very quiet, very loveable, very tender. His stormy mood seemed to have +passed over leaving a great weariness in its wake. + +A very passion of creation was upon him. Seeing the canvases that +flowered into beauty beneath his hand Tony felt very small and humble, +knew that by comparison with her lover's genius her own facile gifts were +but as a firefly's glow to the light of a flaming torch. He was of the +masters. She saw that and was proud and glad and awed by the fact. But +she saw also that the artist was consuming himself by the very fire of +his own genius and the knowledge troubled her though she saw no way to +check or prevent the holocaust if such it was. + +Sometimes she was afraid. She knew that she would never be happy in the +every day way with Alan. Happiness did not grow in his sunless garden. +Married to him she would enter dark forests which were not her natural +environment. But it did not matter. She loved him. She came always back +to that. She was his, would always be his no matter what happened. She +was bound by the past, caught in its meshes forever. + +And then suddenly a new turn of the wheel took place. Word came just +before Christmas that Dick Carson was very ill, dying perhaps down in +Mexico, stricken with a malarial fever. + +A few moments after Tony received this stunning news Alan Massey's card +was brought to her. She went down to the reception room, gave him a limp +cold little hand in greeting and asked if he minded going out with her. +She had to talk with him. She couldn't talk here. + +Alan did not mind. A little later they were walking riverward toward a +brilliant orange sky, against which the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument +loomed gray and majestic. It was bitter cold. A stinging wind lashed the +girl's skirts around her and bit into her cheeks. But somehow she +welcomed the physical discomfort. It matched her mood. + +Then the story came out. Dick was sick, very sick, going to die maybe and +she, Tony Holiday couldn't stand it. + +Alan listened in tense silence. So Dick Carson might be going to be so +unexpectedly obliging as to die after all. If he had known how to pray he +would have done it, beseeched whatever gods there were to let the thing +come to an end at last, offered any bribe within his power if they would +set him free from his bondage by disposing of his cousin. + +But there beside him clinging to his arm was Tony Holiday aquiver with +grief for this same cousin. He saw that there were tears on her cheeks, +tears that the icy wind turned instantly to frosted silver. And suddenly +a new power was invoked--the power of love. + +"Tony, darling, don't cry," he beseeched. "I--can't stand it. He--he +won't die." + +And then and there a miracle took place. Alan Massey who had never +prayed in his life was praying to some God, somewhere to save John Massey +for Tony because she loved him and his dying would hurt her. Tony must +not be hurt. Any God could see that. It must not be permitted. + +Tony put up her hand and brushed away the frosted silver drops. + +"No, he isn't going to die. I'm not going to let him. I'm going to Mexico +to save him." + +Alan stopped short, pulling her to a halt beside him. + +"Tony, you can't," he gasped, too astonished for a moment even to be +angry. + +"I can and I am going to," she defied him. + +"But my dear, I tell you, you can't. It would be madness. Your uncle +wouldn't let you. I won't let you." + +"You can't stop me. Nobody can stop me. I'm going. Dick shan't die alone. +He shan't." + +"Tony, do you love him?" + +"I don't know. I don't want to talk about love--your kind. I do love him +one way with all my heart. I wish it were the way I love you. I'd go down +and marry him if I did. Maybe I'll marry him anyway. I would in a minute +if it would save him." + +"Tony!" Alan's face was dead white, his green eyes savage. "You promised +to stick to me through everything. Where is your Holiday honor that you +can talk like that about marrying another man?" Maddened, he branished +his words like whips, caring little whether they hurt or not. + +"I can't help it, Alan. I am sorry if I am hurting you. But I can't think +about anybody but Dick just now." + +"Forgive me, sweetheart. I know you didn't mean it, what you said about +marrying him and you didn't mean it about going to Mexico. You know you +can't. It is no place for a woman like you." + +"If Dick is there dying, it _is_ the place for me. I love you, Alan. But +there are some things that go even deeper, things that have their very +roots in me, the things that belong to the Hill. And Dick is a very big +part of them, sometimes I think he is the biggest part of all. I have to +go to him. Please don't try to stop me. It will only make us both unhappy +if you try." + +A bitter blast struck their faces with the force of a blow. Tony +shivered. + +"Let's go back. I'm cold--so dreadfully cold," she moaned clinging +to his arm. + +They turned in silence. There was nothing to say. The sunset glory had +faded now. Only a pale, cold mauve tint was left where the flame had +blazed. A star or two had come out. The river flowed sinister black, +showing white humps of foam here and there. + +At the Hostelry Jean Lambert met them in the hall. + +"Tony, where have you been? We have been trying everywhere to locate you. +Cecilia died this afternoon. You have to take Miss Clay's place tonight." + +Tony's face went white. She leaned against the wall trembling. + +"I forgot--I forgot about the play. I can't go to Mexico. Oh, what shall +I do? What shall I do?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +DWELLERS IN DREAMS + + +The last curtain had gone down on the "End of the Rainbow" and Tony +Holiday had made an undeniable hit, caught the popular fancy by her young +charm and vivid personality and fresh talents to such a degree that for +the moment at least even its idol of many seasons, Carol Clay, was +forgotten. The new arriving star filled the whole firmament. Broadway was +ready to worship at a new shrine. + +But Broadway did not know that there were two Tony Holidays that night, +the happy Tony who had taken its fickle, composite heart by storm and the +other Tony half distracted by grief and trapped bewilderment. Tony had +willed to exile that second self before she stepped out behind the foot +lights. She knew if she did not she never could play Madge as Madge had +the right to be played. For her own sake, for Max Hempel's sake because +he believed in her, for Carol Clay's sake because Tony loved her, she +meant to forget everything but Madge for those few hours. Later she would +remember that Dick was dying in Mexico, that she had hurt Alan cruelly +that afternoon, that she had a sad and vexed problem to solve to which +there seemed no solution. These things must wait. And they had waited but +they came crowding back upon her the moment the play was over and she saw +Alan waiting for her in the little room off the wings. + +He rose to meet her and oblivious of curious eyes about them drew +her into his arms and kissed her. And Tony utterly miserable in a +daze of conflicting emotions nestled in his embrace unresisting for a +second, not caring any more than Alan himself what any one saw or +thought upon seeing. + +"You were wonderful, belovedest," he whispered. "I never saw them go +madder over anybody, not even Carol herself." + +Tony glowed all over at his praise and begged that they might drive a +little in the park before they went home. She had to think. She couldn't +think in the Hostelry. It stifled her. Nothing loath Alan acquiesced, +hailed a cab and gave the necessary orders. For a moment they rode in +silence Tony relaxing for the first time in many hours in the comfort of +her lover's presence, his arm around her. Things were hard, terribly hard +but you could not feel utterly disconsolate when the man you loved best +in all the world was there right beside you looking at you with eyes that +told you how much you were beloved in return. + +"Tony, dear, I am going to surprise you," he said suddenly breaking the +silence. "I have decided to go to Mexico." + +"To go to Mexico! Alan! Why?" + +Tony drew away from her companion to study his face, with amazement +on her own. + +"To find Carson and look after him. Why else?" + +"But your exhibition? You can't go away now, Alan, even if I would let +you go to Dick that way." + +"Oh, yes I can. The arrangements are all made. Van Slyke can handle the +last stages of the thing far better than I can. I loathe hanging round +and hearing the fools rant about my stuff and wonder what the devil I +meant by this or that or if I didn't mean anything. I am infinitely +better off three thousand miles away." + +"But even so--I don't want to hurt you or act as if I didn't appreciate +what you are offering to do--but you hate Dick. I don't see how you could +help him." + +"I don't hate him any more, Tony. At least I don't think I do. At any +rate whether I do or don't won't make the slightest bit of difference. I +shall look after him as well as your uncle or your brothers would--better +perhaps because I know Mexico well and how to get things done down there. +I know how to get things done in most places." + +"Oh, I know. I have often thought you must have magic at your command the +way people fly to do your bidding. It is startling but it is awfully +convenient." + +"Money magic mostly," he retorted grimly. + +"Partly, not mostly. You are a born potentate. You must have been a +sultan or a pashaw or something in some previous incarnation. I don't +care what you are if you will find Dick and see that he gets well. Alan, +don't you think--couldn't I--wouldn't it be better--if I went too?" + +There was a sudden gleam in Alan's eyes. The hour was his. He could take +advantage of the situation, of the girl's anxiety for his cousin, her +love for himself while it was at high tide as it was at this over +stimulated hour of excitement. He could marry her. And once the rite was +spoken--not John Massey--not all Holiday Hill combined could take her +from him. She would be his and his alone to the end. Tony was ripe for +madness to-night, overwrought, ready to take any wild leap in the dark +with him. He could make her his. He felt the intoxicating truth quiver in +the touch of her hand, read it in her eager, dark eyes lifted to his for +his answer. + +Alan Massey was unused to putting away temptation but this, perhaps the +biggest and blackest that had ever assailed him he put by. + +"No, dear I'll go alone," he said. "You will just have to trust me, Tony. +I swear I'll do everything in the world that can be done for Carson. Let +us have just one dance though. I should like it to remember--in Mexico." + +Tony hesitated. It was very late. The Hostelry would ill approve of her +going anywhere to dance at such an hour. It ill approved of Alan Massey +any way. Still-- + +"I am going to-morrow. It is our last chance," he pleaded. "Just one +dance, _carissima_. It may have to last--a long, long time." + +And Tony yielded. After all they could not treat this night as if it were +like all the other nights in the calendar. They had the right to their +one more hour of happiness before Alan went away. They had the right to +this one last dance. + +The one dance turned into many before they were through. It seemed to +both as if they dared not stop lest somehow love and happiness should +stop too with the end of the music. They danced on and on "divinely" as +Alan had once called it. Tony thought the rest of his prophecy was +fulfilled at last, that they also loved each other divinely, as no man or +woman had ever loved since time began. + +But at last this too had to come to an end as perfect moments must in +this finite world and Alan and Tony went out of the brilliantly lighted +restaurant into white whirls of snow. For a storm had started while they +had been inside and was now well in progress. All too soon the cab +deposited them at the Hostelry. In the dimly lit hall Alan drew the girl +into his arms and kissed her passionately then suddenly almost flung her +from him, muttered a curt good-by and before Tony hardly realized he was +going, was gone, swallowed up in the night and storm. Alone Tony put her +hands over her hot cheeks. So this was love. It was terrible, but oh--it +was wonderful too. + +Soberly after a moment she went to change the damning OUT opposite her +name in the hall bulletin just as the clock struck the shocking hour of +three. But lo there was no damning OUT visible, only a meek and proper IN +after her name. For all the bulletin proclaimed Antoinette Holiday might +have been for hours wrapt in innocent slumber instead of speeding away +the wee' sma' hours in a public restaurant in the arms of a lover at whom +Madame Grundy and her allies looked awry. Somebody had tampered with the +thing to save Tony a reprimand or worse. But who? Jean? No, certainly not +Jean. Jean's conscience was as inelastic as a yard stick. Whoever had +committed the charitable act of mendacity it couldn't have been Jean. + +But when Tony opened her own door and switched on the light there was +Jean curled up asleep in the big arm chair. The sudden flare of light +roused the sleeper and she sat up blinking. + +"Wherever have you been, Tony? I have been worried to death about you. +I've been home from the theater for hours. I couldn't think what had +happened to you." + +"I am sorry you worried. You needn't have. I was with Alan, of course." + +"Tony, people say dreadful things about Mr. Massey. Aren't you ever +afraid of him yourself?" Jean surveyed the younger girl with +troubled eyes. + +Tony flung off her cloak impatiently. + +"Of course I am not afraid. People don't know him when they say such +things about him. You needn't ever worry, Jean. I am safer with Alan than +with any one else in the world. I'd know that to-night if I never knew it +before. We were dancing. I knew it was late but I didn't care. I +wouldn't have missed those dances if they had told me I had to pack my +trunk and leave to-morrow." Thus spoke the rebel always ready to fly out +like a Jack-in-the box from under the lid in Tony Holiday. + +"They won't," said Jean in a queer, compressed little voice. + +"Jean! Was it you that fixed that bulletin?" + +"Yes, it was. I know it wasn't a nice thing to do but I didn't want them +to scold you just now when you were so worried about Dick and +everything. I thought you would be in most any minute any way and I +waited up myself to tell you how I loved the play and how proud I was of +you. Then when you didn't come for so long I got really scared and then +I fell asleep and--" + +Tony came over and stopped the older girl's words with a kiss. + +"You are a sweet peach, Jean Lambert, and I am awfully grateful to you +for straining your conscience like that for my sake and awfully sorry I +worried you. I am afraid I always do worry good, sensible, proper people. +I'm made that way, mad north north west like Hamlet," she added +whimsically. "Maybe we Holidays are all mad that much, excepting Uncle +Phil of course. He's all that keeps the rest of us on the track of sanity +at all. But Alan is madder still. Jean, he is going to Mexico to take +care of Dick." + +"Mr. Massey is going to Mexico to take care of Dick!" Jean' stared. "Why, +Tony--I thought--" + +"Naturally. So did I. Who wouldn't think him the last person in the world +to do a thing like that? But he is going and it is his idea not mine. I +wanted to go too but he wouldn't let me," she added. + +Jean gasped. + +"Tony! You would have married him when your uncle--when everybody +doesn't want you to?" + +To Jean Lambert's well ordered, carefully fenced in mind such wild mental +leaps as Tony Holiday's were almost too much to contemplate. But worse +was to come. + +"Married him! Oh, I don't know. I didn't think about that. I would just +have gone with him. There wouldn't have been time to get a license. Of +course I couldn't though on account of the play." + +Jean gasped again. If it hadn't been for the play this astounding young +person before her would have gone gallivanting off with one man to whom +she was not married to the bedside, thousands of miles away, of another +man to whom she was also not married. Such simplicity of mental processes +surpassed any complexity Jean Lambert could possibly conceive. + +"Alan wouldn't let me," repeated the astounding Tony. "I suppose it is +better so. By to-morrow I will probably agree with him. When the wind is +southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw too. But the wind isn't southerly +to-night. It wasn't when I was dancing nor afterward," she added with a +flaming color in her cheeks remembering that moment in the Hostelry hall +when wisdom had mattered very little to her in comparison with love. "Oh, +Jean, what if something dreadful should happen to him down there! I can't +let him go. I can't. But Dick mustn't die alone either. Oh, what shall I +do? What shall I do?" + +And suddenly Tony threw herself face down on the bed sobbing great, heart +rending sobs, but whether she was crying for Dick or Alan or herself or +all three Jean was unable to decipher. Perhaps Tony did not know herself. + +The next morning when Tony awoke Alan had already left for his long +journey, but a great box full of roses told her she had been his last +thought. One by one she lifted them out of the box--great, gorgeous, +blood red beauties, royal, Tony thought, like the royal lover who had +sent them. The only message with the flowers was a bit of verse, a poem +of Tagore's whom Alan loved and had taught Tony to love too. + + You are the evening cloud floating in the sky of + my dreams. + I paint you and fashion you with my love longings. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my endless + dreams! + + Your feet are rosy-red with the glow of my heart's + desire, Gleaner of my sunset songs! + Your lips are bitter-sweet with the taste of my wine + of pain. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my lonesome + dreams! + + With the shadow of my passion have I darkened + your eyes, Haunter of the depth of my gaze! + I have caught you and wrapt you, my love, in the + net of my music. + You are my own, my own, Dweller in my deathless + dreams! + +As she read the exquisite lines Antoinette Holiday knew it was all +true. The poet might have written his poem for her and Alan. Her lips +were indeed bitter-sweet with the taste of his wine of pain, her eyes +were darkened by his shadows. He had caught her and wrapt her in the +net of his love, which was a kind of music in itself--a music one +danced to. She was his, dweller in his dreams as he was always to dwell +in hers. It was fate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +WAITING FOR THE END OF THE STORY + + +At home on the Hill Ruth's affairs developed slowly. It was in time +ascertained from Australia that the Farringdon pearls had come to America +in the possession of Miss Farringdon who was named Elinor Ruth, daughter +of Roderick and Esther Farringdon, both deceased. What had become of her +and her pearls no one knew. Grave fears had been entertained as to the +girl's safety because of her prolonged silence and the utter failure of +all the advertising for her which had gone on in English and American +papers. She had come to America to join an aunt, one Mrs. Robert Wright, +widow of a New York broker, but it had been later ascertained that Mrs. +Wright had left for England before her niece could have reached her and +had subsequently died having caught a fever while engaged in nursing in a +military hospital. Roderick Farringdon, the brother of Elinor Ruth, an +aviator in His Majesty's service, was reported missing, believed to be +dead or in a German prison somewhere. The lawyers in charge of the huge +business interests of the two young Farringdons were in grave distress +because of their inability to locate either of the owners and begged that +if Doctor Laurence Holiday knew anything of the whereabouts of Miss +Farringdon that he would communicate without delay with them. + +So far so good. Granted that Ruth was presumably Elinor Ruth Farringdon +of Australia. Was she or was she not married? There had been no +opportunity in the cables to make inquiry about one Geoffrey Annersley +though Larry had put that important question first in his letter to the +consul which as yet had received no answer. The lawyers stated that when +Miss Farringdon had left Australia she was not married but +unsubstantiated rumors had reached them from San Francisco hinting at her +possible marriage there. + +All this failed to stir Ruth's dormant memory in any degree. There was +nothing to do but wait until further information should be forthcoming. + +Not unnaturally these facts had a somewhat different effect upon the two +individuals most concerned. Ruth was frankly elated over the whole thing +and found it by no means impossible to believe that she was a princess in +disguise though she had played Cinderella contentedly enough. + +On the strength of her presumable princessship she had gone on another +excursion to Boston carrying the Lambert twins with her this time and had +returned laden with all manner of feminine fripperies. She had an +exquisite taste and made unerringly for the softest and finest of +fabrics, the hats with an "air," the dresses that were the simplest, the +most ravishing and it must be admitted also the most extravagant. If she +remembered nothing else Ruth remembered how to spend royally. + +She had consulted the senior doctor before making the splendid plunge. +She did not want to have Larry buy her anything more and she didn't want +Doctor Philip and Margery to think her stark mad to go behaving like a +princess before the princess purse was actually in her hands. But she had +to have pretty things, a lot of them, had to have them quick. Did the +doctor mind very much advancing her some money? He could keep her rings +as security. + +He had laughed indulgently and declared as the rings and the pearls too +for that matter were in his possession in the safe deposit box he should +worry. He also told her to go ahead and be as "princessy" as she liked. +He would take the risk. Whereupon he placed a generous sum of money at +her account in a Boston bank and sent her away with his blessing and an +amused smile at the femininity of females. And Ruth had gone and played +princess to her heart's content. But there was little enough of heart's +content in any of it for poor Larry. Day by day it seemed to him he could +see his fairy girl slipping away from him. Ruth was a great lady and +heiress. Who was Larry Holiday to take advantage of the fact that +circumstances had almost thrown her into his willing arms? + +Moreover the information afforded as to Roderick Farringdon had put a new +idea into his head. Roderick was reported "missing." Was it not possible +that Geoffrey Annersley might be in the same category? Missing men +sometimes stayed missing in war time but sometimes also they returned as +from the dead from enemy prisons or long illnesses. What if this should +be the case with the man who was presumably Ruth's husband? Certainly it +put out of the question, if there ever had been a question in Larry's +mind, his own right to marry the girl he loved until they knew absolutely +that the way was clear. + +Considering these things it was not strange that the new year found Larry +Holiday in heavy mood, morose, silent, curt and unresponsive even to his +uncle, inclined at times to snap even at his beloved little Goldilocks +whose shining new happiness exasperated him because he could not share +it. Of course he repented in sack cloth and ashes afterward, but +repentance did not prevent other offenses and altogether the young doctor +was ill to live with during those harrassed January days. + +It was not only Ruth. Larry could not take Ted's going with the quiet +fortitude with which his uncle met it. Those early weeks of nineteen +hundred and seventeen were black ones for many. The grim Moloch War +demanded more and ever more victims. Thousands of gay, brave, high +spirited lads like Ted were mown down daily by shrapnel and machine gun +or sent twisted and writhing to still more hideous death in the +unspeakable horror of noxious gases. It was all so unnecessary--so +senseless. Larry Holiday whose life was dedicated to the healing and +saving of men's bodies hated with bitter hate this opposing force which +was all for destruction and which held the groaning world in its +relentless grip. It would not have been so bad he thought if the Moloch +would have been content to take merely the old, the life weary, the +diseased, the vile. Not so. It demanded the young, the strong, the clean +and gallant hearted, took their bodies, maimed and tortured them, killed +them sooner or later, hurled them undiscriminatingly into the bottomless +pit of death. + +To Larry it all came back to Ted. Ted was the embodiment, the symbol of +the rest. He was the young, the strong, the clean and gallant +hearted--the youth of the world, a vain sacrifice to the cruel blindness +of a so called civilization which would not learn the futility of war and +all the ways of war. + +So while Ruth bought pretty clothes and basked in happy anticipations +which for her took the place of memories, poor Larry walked in dark +places and saw no single ray of light. + +One afternoon he was summoned to the telephone to receive the word that +there was a telegram for him at the office. It was Dunbury's informal +habit to telephone messages of this sort to the recipient instead of +delivering them in person. Larry took the repeated word in silence. A +question evidently followed from the other end. + +"Yes, I got it," Larry snapped back and threw the receiver back in place +with vicious energy. His uncle who had happened to be near looked up to +ask a question but the young doctor was already out of the room leaving +only the slam of the door in his wake. A few moments later the older man +saw the younger start off down the Hill in the car at a speed which was +not unlike Ted's at his worst before the smash on the Florence road. +Evidently Larry was on the war path. Why? + +The afternoon wore on. Larry did not return. His uncle began to be +seriously disturbed. A patient with whom the junior doctor had had an +appointment came and waited and finally went away somewhat indignant in +spite of all efforts to soothe her not unnatural wrath. Worse and +worse! Larry never failed his appointments, met every obligation +invariably as punctiliously as if for professional purposes he was +operated by clock work. + +At supper time Phil Lambert dropped in with the wire which had already +been reported to Larry and which the company with the same informality +already mentioned had asked him to deliver. Doctor Holiday was tempted to +read it but refrained. Surely the boy would be home soon. + +The evening meal was rather a silent one. Ruth was wearing a charming +dark blue velvet gown which Larry especially liked. The doctor guessed +that she had dressed particularly for her lover and was sadly +disappointed when he failed to put in his appearance. She drooped +perceptibly and her blue eyes were wistful. + +An hour later when the three, Margery, her husband, and Ruth, were +sitting quietly engaged in reading in the living room they heard the +sound of the returning car. All three were distinctly conscious of an +involuntary breath of relief which permeated the room. Nobody had said a +word but every one of them had been filled with foreboding. + +Presently Larry entered with the yellow envelope in his hand. He was pale +and very tired looking but obviously entirely in command of himself +whatever had been the case earlier in the day. He crossed the room to +where his uncle sat and handed him the telegram. + +"Please read it aloud," he said. "It--it concerns all of us." + +The older doctor complied with the request. + +_Arrive Dunbury January 18 nine forty_ A.M. So ran the brief though +pregnant message. It was signed _Captain Geoffrey Annersley_. + +The color went out of Ruth's face as she heard the name. She put her +hands over her eyes and uttered a little moan. Then abruptly she dropped +her hands, the color came surging back into her cheeks and she ran to +Larry, fairly throwing herself into his arms. + +"I don't want to see him. Don't let him come. I hate him. I don't want to +be Elinor Farringdon. I want to be just Ruth--Ruth Holiday," she +whispered the last in Larry's ear, her head on his shoulder. + +Larry kissed her for the first time before the others, then meeting his +uncle's grave eyes he put her gently from him and walked over to the +door. On the threshold he turned and faced them all. + +"Uncle Phil--Aunt Margery, help Ruth. I can't." And the door +closed upon him. + +Philip and Margery did their best to obey his parting injunction but it +was not an easy task. Ruth was possessed by a very panic of dread of +Geoffrey Annersley and an even more difficult to deal with flood of love +for Larry Holiday. + +"I don't want anybody but Larry," she wailed over and over. "It is Larry +I love. I don't love Geoffrey Annersley. I won't let him be my husband. I +don't want anybody but Larry." + +In vain they tried to comfort her, entreat her to wait until to-morrow +before she gave up. Perhaps Geoffrey Annersley wasn't her husband. +Perhaps everything was quite all right. She must try to have patience and +not let herself get sick worrying in advance. + +"He _is_ my husband," she suddenly announced with startling conviction. +"I remember his putting the ring on my finger. I remember his saying +'You've got to wear it. It is the only thing to do. You must.' I remember +what he looks like--almost. He is tall and he has a scar on his cheek +--here." She patted her own face feverishly to show the spot. "He made me +wear the ring and I didn't want to. I didn't want to. Oh, don't let me +remember. Don't let me," she implored. + +At this point the doctor took things in his own hands. The child was +obviously beginning to remember. The shock of the man's coming had +snapped something in her brain. They must not let things come back +too disastrously fast. He packed her off to bed with a stiff dose of +nerve quieting medicine. Margery sat with her arms tight around the +forlorn little sufferer and presently the dreary sobbing ceased and +the girl drifted off to exhausted sleep, nature's kindest panacea for +all human ills. + +Meanwhile the doctor sought out Larry. He found him in the office +apparently completely absorbed in the perusal of a medical magazine. He +looked up quickly as the older man entered and answered the question in +his eyes giving assurance that Ruth was quite all right, would soon be +asleep if she was not already. He made no mention of that disconcerting +flash of memory. Sufficient unto the day was the trouble thereof. + +He came over and laid a kindly, encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder. + +"Keep up heart a little longer," he said. "By tomorrow you will +know where you stand and that will be something, no matter which +way it turns." + +"I should say it would," groaned Larry. "I'm sick of being in a +labyrinth. Even the worst can't be much worse than not knowing. You don't +know how tough it has been, Uncle Phil." + +"I can make a fairly good guess at it, my boy. I've seen and understood +more than you realize perhaps. You have put up a magnificent fight, son. +And you are the boy who once told me he was a coward." + +"I am afraid I still am, Uncle Phil,--sometimes." + +"We all are, Larry, cowards in our hearts, but that does not matter so +long as the yellow streak doesn't get into our acts. You have not let +that happen I think." + +Larry was silent. He was remembering that night when Ruth had come to +him. He wasn't very proud of the memory. He wondered if his uncle guessed +how near the yellow streak had come to the surface on that occasion. + +"I don't deserve as much credit as you are giving me," he said humbly. +"There have been times--at least one time--" He broke off. + +"You would have been less than a man if there had not been, Larry. I +understand all that. But on the whole you know and I know that you have a +clean slate to show. Don't let yourself get morbid worrying about things +you might have done and didn't. They don't worry me. They needn't worry +you. Forget it." + +"Uncle Phil! You are great the way you always clear away the fogs. But my +clean slate is a great deal thanks to you. I don't know where I would +have landed if you hadn't held me back, not so much by what you said as +what you are. Ted isn't the only one who has learned to appreciate what a +pillar of strength we all have in you. However this comes out I shan't +forget what you did for me, are doing all the time." + +"Thank you, Larry. It is good to hear things like that though I think you +underestimate your own strength. I am thankful if I have helped in any +degree. I have felt futile enough. We all have. At any rate the strain is +about over. The telegram must have been a knock down blow though. Where +were you this afternoon?" + +"I don't know. I just drove like the devil--anywhere. Did you worry? I am +sorry. Good Lord! I cut my appointment with Mrs. Blake, didn't I? I never +thought of it until this minute. Gee! I am worse than Ted. Used to think +I had some balance but evidently I am a plain nut. I'm disgusted with +myself and I should think you would be more disgusted with me." The boy +looked up at his uncle with eyes that were full of shamed compunction. + +But the latter smiled back consolingly. + +"Don't worry. There are worse things in the world than cutting an +appointment for good and sufficient reasons. You will get back your +balance when things get normal again. I have no complaint to make anyway. +You have kept up the professional end splendidly until now. What you need +is a good long vacation and I am going to pack you off on one at the +earliest opportunity. Do you want me to meet Captain Annersley for you +tomorrow?" he switched off to ask. + +Larry shook his head. + +"No, I'll meet him myself, thank you. It is my job. I am not going to +flunk it. If he is Ruth's husband I am going to be the first to shake +hands with him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +IN WHICH TWO MASSEYS MEET IN MEXICO + + +And while things were moving toward their crisis for Larry and Ruth +another drama was progressing more or less swiftly to its conclusion +down in Vera Cruz. Alan Massey had found his cousin in a wretched, +vermin haunted shack, nursed in haphazard fashion by a slovenly, +ignorant half-breed woman under the ostensible professional care of a +mercenary, incompetent, drunken Mexican doctor who cared little enough +whether the dog of an American lived or died so long as he himself +continued to get the generous checks from a certain newspaper in New +York City. The doctor held the credulity of the men who mailed those +checks in fine contempt and proceeded to feather his nest valiantly +while his good luck continued, going on many a glorious spree at the +paper's expense while Dick Carson went down every day deeper into the +valley of the shadow of death. + +With the coming of Alan Massey however a new era began. Alan was apt to +leave transformation of one sort or another in his wake. It was not +merely his money magic though he wielded that magnificently as was his +habit and predilection, spent Mexican dollars with a superb disregard of +their value which won from the natives a respect akin to awe and wrought +miracles wherever the golden flow touched. But there was more than money +magic to Alan Massey's performance in Vera Cruz. There was also the +magic of his dominating, magnetic personality. He was a born master and +every one high or low who crossed his path recognized his rightful +ascendency and hastened to obey his royal will. + +His first step was to get the sick man transferred from the filthy hovel +in which he found him to clean, comfortable quarters in an ancient adobe +palace, screened, airy, spacious. The second step was to secure the +services of two competent and high priced nurses from Mexico City, one an +American, the other an English woman, both experienced, intrepid, +efficient. The third step taken simultaneously with the other two was to +dismiss the man who masqueraded as a physician though he was nothing in +reality but a cheap charlatan fattening himself at the expense of +weakness and disease. The man had been inclined to make trouble at first +about his unceremonious discharge. He had no mind to lose without a +protest such a convenient source of unearned increment as those checks +represented. He had intended to get in many another good carouse before +the sick man died or got well as nature willed. But a single interview +with Alan Massey sufficed to lay his objections to leaving the case. In +concise and forcible language couched in perfect Spanish Alan had made it +clear that if the so-called doctor came near his victim again he would be +shot down like a dog and if Carson died he would in any case be tried for +man slaughter and hanged on the spot. The last point had been further +punctuated by an expressive gesture on the speaker's part, pointing to +his own throat accompanied by a significant little gurgling sound. The +gesture and the gurgle had been convincing. The man surrendered the case +in some haste. He did not at all care for the style of conversation +indulged in by this tall, unsmiling, green-eyed man. Consequently he +immediately evaporated to all intents and purposes and was seen no more. +The new physician put in charge was a different breed entirely, a man who +had the authentic gift and passion for healing which the born doctor +always possesses, be he Christian or heathen, gypsy herb mixer or ten +thousand dollar specialist. Alan explained to this man precisely what was +required of him, explained in the same forcible, concise, perfect Spanish +that had banished the other so completely. His job was to cure the sick +man. If he succeeded there would be a generous remuneration. If he failed +through no fault of his there would still be fair remuneration though +nothing like what would be his in case of complete recovery. If he failed +through negligence--and here the expressive gesture and the gurgle were +repeated--. The sentence had not needed completion. The matter was +sufficiently elucidated. The man was a born healer as has been recorded +but even if he had not been he would still have felt obliged to move +heaven and earth so far as in him lay to cure Dick Carson. Alan Massey's +manner was persuasive. One did one's best to satisfy a person who spoke +such Spanish and made such ominous gestures. One did as one was +commanded. One dared do no other. + +As for the servants whom Alan rallied to his standard they were slaves +rather than servants. They recognized in him their preordained master, +were wax to his hands, mats to his feet. They obeyed his word as +obsequiously, faithfully and unquestioningly as if he could by a clap of +his lordly hands banish them to strange deaths. + +They talked in low tones about him among themselves behind his back. +This was no American they said. No American could command as this +green-eyed one commanded. No American had such gift of tongues, such +gestures, such picturesque and varied and awesome oaths. No American +carried small bright flashing daggers such as he carried in his inner +pockets, nor did Americans talk glibly as he talked of weird poisons, +not every day drugs, but marvelous, death dealing concoctions done up in +lustrous jewel-like capsules or diluted in sparkling, insidious gorgeous +hued fluids. The man was too wise--altogether too wise to be an +American. He had traveled much, knew strange secrets. They rather +thought he knew black art. Certainly he knew more of the arts of healing +than the doctor himself. There was nothing he did not know, the +green-eyed one. It was best to obey him. + +And while Alan Massey's various arts operated Dick Carson passed through +a series of mental and physical evolutions and came slowly back to +consciousness of what was going on. + +At first he was too close to the hinterland to know or care as to what +was happening here, though he did vaguely sense that he had left the +lower levels of Hell and was traversing a milder purgatorial region. He +did not question Alan's presence or recognize him. Alan was at first +simply another of those distrusted foreigners whose point of view and +character he comprehended as little as he did their jibbering tongues. + +Gradually however this one man seemed to stand out from the others and +finally took upon himself a name and an entity. By and by, Dick thought, +when he wasn't so infernally-tired as he was just now he would wonder why +Alan Massey was here and would try to recall why he had disliked him so, +some time a million years ago or so. He did not dislike him now. He was +too weak to dislike anybody in any case but he was beginning to connect +Alan vaguely but surely with the superior cleanliness and comfort and +care with which he was now surrounded. He knew now that he had been +sick, very sick and that he was getting better, knew that before long he +would find himself asking questions. Even now his eyes followed Alan +Massey as the latter came and went with an ever more insistent wonderment +though he had not yet the force of will or body to voice that pursuing +question as to why Alan Massey was here apparently taking charge of his +own slow return to health and consciousness. + +Meanwhile Alan wired Tony Holiday every day as to his patient's condition +though he wrote not at all and said nothing in his wires of himself. +Letters from Tony were now beginning to arrive, letters full of eager +gratitude and love for Alan and concern for Dick. + +And one day Dick's mind got suddenly very clear. He was alone with the +nurse at the time, the sympathetic American one whom he liked better and +was less afraid of than he was of the stolid, inexorable British lady. +And he began to ask questions, many questions and very definite ones. He +knew at last precisely what it was he wanted to know. + +He got a good deal of information though by no means all he sought. He +found out that he had been taken desperately ill, that he had been +summarily removed from his lodging place because of the owner's +superstitious dread of contagion into the miserable little thatch +roofed hut in which he had nearly died thanks to the mal-practice of +the rascally, drunken doctor and the ignorant half-breed nurse. He +learned how Alan Massey had suddenly appeared and taken things in his +own hands, discovered that in a nutshell the fact was he owed his life +to the other-man. But why? That was what he had to find out from Alan +Massey himself. + +The next day when Alan came in and the nurse went out he asked +his question. + +"That is easy," said Alan grimly. "I came on Tony's account." + +Dick winced. Of course that was it. Tony had sent Massey. He was here as +her emissary, naturally, no doubt as her accepted lover. It was kind. +Tony was always kind but he wished she had not done it. He did not want +to have his life saved by the man who was going to marry Tony Holiday. He +rather thought he did not want his life saved anyway by anybody. He +wished they hadn't done it. + +"I--I am much obliged to you and to Tony," he said a little stiffly. "I +fear it--it was hardly worth the effort." His eyes closed wearily. + +"Tony didn't send me though," observed Alan Massey as if he had read the +other's thought. "I sent myself." + +Dick's eyes opened. + +"That is odd if it is true," he said slowly. + +Alan dropped into a chair near the bed. + +"It is odd," he admitted. "But it happens to be true. It came about +simply enough. When Tony heard you were sick she went crazy, swore +she was coming down here in spite of us all to take care of you. Then +Miss Clay's child died and she had to go on the boards. You can +imagine what it meant to her--the two things coming at once. She +played that night--swept everything as you'd know she would--got 'em +all at her feet." + +Dick nodded, a faint flash of pleasure in his eyes. Down and out as he +was he could still be glad to hear of Tony's triumph. + +"She wanted to come to you," went on Alan. "She let me come instead +because she couldn't. I came for--for her sake." + +Dick nodded. + +"Naturally--for her sake," he said. "I could hardly have expected you to +come for mine. I would hardly have expected it in any case." + +"I would hardly have expected it of myself," acknowledged Alan with a wry +smile. "But I've had rather a jolly time at your expense. I've always +enjoyed working miracles and if you could have seen yourself the way you +were when I got here you would think there was a magic in it somehow." + +"I evidently owe you a great deal, Mr. Massey. I am grateful or at least +I presume I shall be later. Just now I feel a little--dumb." + +"My dear fellow, nothing would please me better than to have you continue +dumb on that subject. I did this thing as I've done most things in my +life to please myself. I don't want your thanks. I would like a little of +your liking though. You and I are likely to see quite a bit of each other +these next few weeks. Could you manage to forget the past and call a kind +of truce for a while? You have a good deal to forgive me--perhaps more +than you know. If you would be willing to let the little I have done down +here--and mind you I don't want to magnify that part--wipe off the slate +I should be glad. Could you manage it, Carson?" + +"It looks as if it hardly could be magnified," said Dick with sudden +heartiness. "I spoke grudgingly just now I am afraid. Please overlook it. +I am more than grateful for all you have done and more than glad to be +friends if you want it. I don't hate you. How could I when you have saved +my life and anyway I never hated you as you used to hate me. I've often +wondered why you did, especially at first before you knew how much I +cared for Tony. And even that shouldn't have made you hate me +because--you won." + +"Never mind why I hated you. I don't any more. Will you shake hands with +me, Carson, so we can begin again?" + +Dick pulled himself weakly up on the pillow. Their hands met. + +"Hang it, Massey," Dick said. "I am afraid I am going to like you. I've +heard you were hypnotic. I believe on my soul you came down here to make +me like you? Did you?" + +But Alan only smiled his ironic, noncommital smile and remarked it was +time for the invalid to take a nap. He had had enough conversation for +the first attempt. + +Dick soon drifted off to sleep but Alan Massey prowled the streets of the +Mexican city far into the night, with tireless, driven feet. The demons +were after him again. + +And far away in another city whose bright lights glow all night Tony +Holiday was still playing Madge to packed houses, happy in her triumph +but with heart very pitiful for her beloved Miss Clay whose sorrow and +continued illness had made possible the fruition of her own eager hopes. +Tony was sadly lonely without Alan, thought of him far more often and +with deeper affection even than she had while she had him at her beck and +call in the city, loved him with a new kind of love for his generous +kindness to Dick. She made up her mind that he had cleared the shield +forever by this splendid act and saw no reason why she should keep him +any longer on probation. Surely she knew by this time that he was a man +even a Holiday might be proud to marry. + +She wrote this decision to her uncle and asked to be relieved from +her promise. + +"I am sorry," she wrote, "if you cannot approve but I cannot help it. I +love him and I am going to be engaged to him as soon as he comes back to +New York if he wants it. I am afraid I would have married him and gone +to Mexico with him, given up the play and broken my promise to you, if he +would have let me. It goes that far and deep with me. + +"People are crazy over his pictures. The exhibition came off last week +and they say he is one of the greatest living painters with a wonderful +future ahead of him. I am so proud and happy. He is fine everyway now, +has really sloughed off the past just as he promised he would. So please, +dear Uncle Phil, forgive me if I do what you don't want me to. I have to +marry him. In my heart I am married to him already." + +And this was the letter Philip Holiday found at his place at breakfast on +the morning of the day Geoffrey Annersley was expected. He read it +gravely. Rash, loving, generous-hearted Tony. Where was she going? Ah +well, she was no longer a child to be protected from the storm and stress +of life. She was a woman grown, woman enough to love and to be loved +greatly, to sacrifice and suffer if need be for love's mighty sake. She +must go her way as Ted had gone his, as their father had gone his before +them. He could only pray that she was right in her faith that for love of +her Alan Massey had been born anew. + +His own deep affection for Ned's children seemed at the moment a sadly +powerless thing. He had coveted the best things of life for them, happy, +normal ways of peace and gentle living. Yet here was Ted at twenty +already lived through an experience, tragic enough to leave its scarlet +mark for all the rest of his life and even now on the verge of +voluntarily entering a terrific conflict from which few returned alive +and none came back unchanged. Here was Tony taking upon herself the +thraldom of a love, which try as he would Philip Holiday could not see +in any other light but as at best a cataclysmic risk. And at this very +hour Larry might be learning that the desire of his heart was dust and +ashes, his hope a vain thing, himself an exile henceforth from the things +that round out a man's life, make it full and rich and satisfying. + +And yet thinking of the three Philip Holiday found one clear ray of +comfort. With all their vagaries, their rash impulsions, their willful +blindness, their recklessness, they had each run splendidly true to type. +Not one of the three had failed in the things that really count. He had +faith that none of them ever would. They might blunder egregiously, +suffer immeasurably, pay extravagantly, but they would each keep that +vital spirit which they had in common, untarnished and undaunted, an +unconquerable thing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +GEOFFREY ANNERSLEY ARRIVES + + +There were few passengers alighting from the south bound train from +Canada. Larry Holiday had no difficulty in picking out Geoffrey Annersley +among these, a tall young man, wearing the British uniform and supporting +himself with a walking stick. His face was lean and bronzed and lined, +the face of a man who has seen things which kill youth and laughter and +yet a serene face too as if its owner had found that after all nothing +mattered very much if you looked it square in the eye. + +Larry went to the stranger at once. + +"Captain Annersley?" he asked. "I am Laurence Holiday." + +The captain set down his bag, leaned on his stick, deliberately +scrutinized the other man. Larry returned the look frankly. They were of +nearly the same age but any one seeing them would have set the Englishman +as at least five years the senior of the young doctor. Geoffrey Annersley +had been trained in a stern school. A man does not wear a captain's bars +and four wound stripes for nothing. + +Then the Englishman held out his hand with a pleasant and unexpectedly +boyish smile. + +"So you are Larry," he said. "Your brother sent me to you." + +"Ted! You have seen him?" For a minute Larry forgot who Geoffrey +Annersley was, forgot Ruth, forgot himself, remembered only Ted and +gave his guest a heartier handshake than he had willed for his "Kid" +brother's sake. + +"Yes, I was with him day before yesterday and the night before that. He +was looking jolly well and sent all kinds of greetings to you all. See +here, Doctor Holiday, I have no end of things to say to you. Can we go +somewhere and talk?" + +"My car is outside. You will come up to the house will you not? We are +all expecting you." Larry tried hard to keep his voice quiet and +emotionless. Not for anything would he have had this gallant soldier +suspect how his knees were trembling. + +"Delighted," bowed the captain suavely and permitted Larry to take his +bag and lead the way to the car. Nothing more was said until the two men +were seated and the car had left the station yard. + +"I am afraid I should have made my wire a bit more explicit," observed +the captain turning to Larry. "My wife says I am too parsimonious with my +words in telegrams--a British trait possibly." He spoke deliberately and +his keen eyes studied his companion's face as he made the casual remark +which set Larry's brain reeling. "See here, Holiday, I'm a blunt brute. I +don't know how to break things gently to people. But I am here to tell +you if you care to know that Elinor Ruth Farringdon is no more married +than you are unless she is married to you. That was her mother's wedding +ring. Lord, man, do you always drive a car like this? I've been all but +killed once this year and I don't care to repeat the experiment." + +Larry grinned, flushed, apologized and moderated the speed of his motor. +He wondered that he could drive at all. He felt strangely light as if he +were stripped of his body and were nothing but spirit. + +"Do you mind if we drive about a bit and talk things over before I see +Elinor--Ruth, as you call her? I'm funking that a little though I've +been trying ever since your brother told me the story to get used to +the idea of her being, well not quite right, you know. But I can't +stick it somehow." + +"She is all right, perfectly normal every way except that she had +forgotten things." Larry's voice was faintly indignant. He resented +anybody's implying that Ruth was queer, unbalanced in any way. She +wasn't. She was absolutely sane, as sane as Captain Annersley himself, +considerably more sane than Larry Holiday could take oath he was at +this moment. + +"Good heavens! Isn't that enough?" groaned Annersley almost equally +indignant. "You forget or rather you don't know all she has forgotten. I +know. I was brought up with her. Her father was my uncle and guardian. We +played together, had the same tutor, rode the same ponies, got into the +same jolly old scrapes. Why, Elinor's like my own sister, man. I can't +swallow her forgetting me and her brother Rod and all the rest as easily +as you seem to do. It--well, it's the limit as you say in the states." +The captain wiped his forehead on which great drops of perspiration stood +in spite of the January chill in the air. There was agitation, suppressed +vehemence in his tone. + +"I suppose it is natural that you should feel that way." Larry spoke +thoughtfully as he turned the car away from the Hill in response to his +guest's request that he be permitted to postpone meeting Elinor Ruth +Farringdon a little while. "The remembering part hasn't bothered me so +much. Maybe I wasn't very keen on having her remember. Maybe I was afraid +she would remember too much," he added coloring a little. + +The frown on his companion's stern young face melted at that. The +frank, boyish smile appeared again. He liked Larry Holiday none the less +for his lack of pretense. He understood all that. The younger Holiday +had taken pains to make things perfectly clear to him. He knew precisely +what the young doctor was afraid of and why in case Elinor Farringdon's +memory returned. + +"My uncle thinks and I think too that her memory will come back now that +it has the external stimulus to waken it," Larry continued. "I shouldn't +be surprised if seeing you would give the necessary impetus. In fact I am +counting on that very thing happening, hoping for it with all my might. +That was one of the reasons I was glad to have you come. Please believe +that I should have been glad even if your coming had made her remember +she was your wife. Of course her recovery is the main thing. The rest +is--a side issue." + +"A jolly important side issue I take it for her and for you. I'm not a +stranger, Doctor Holiday. I am Elinor Ruth Farringdon's cousin, in her +brother's absence I represent her family and in that capacity I would +like to say before I am a minute older that what you and the rest of you +Holidays have done for Elinor passes anything I know of for sheer +fineness and generosity. I'm not a man of words. War would have knocked +them out of me if I had been but when I remember that you not only saved +Elinor's life but took care of her afterward when she apparently hadn't a +friend in the world--well, there isn't anything I can say but thank you +and tell you that if there is ever anything I can do in return for you or +yours you have only to ask. Neither Elinor nor I can ever repay you. It +is the sort of thing that is--unpayable." And again the captain wiped his +perspiring brow. He was deeply moved and emotion went hard with his +Anglo-Saxon temperament. + +"We did nothing but what anybody would have been glad to do. If there +are any thanks coming they are chiefly due to my uncle and his wife. But +we don't any of us want thanks. We love Ruth. Please forget the rest. We +would rather you would." + +The captain nodded quick approval. He had been told Americans were +boasters, given to Big-Itis. But either people got the Americans wrong or +these Holidays were an exception to the general run. He remembered that +other young Holiday whom he had met rather intimately in the Canadian +camp. There had been no side there either. His modesty had been one of +his chief charms. And here was the brother quietly putting aside credit +for a course of conduct which was simply immense in its quixotic +generosity. He liked these Holidays. There was something rather +magnificent about their simplicity--something almost British he thought. + +"That is all very well," he made answer. "I won't talk about it if you +prefer but you will pardon me if I don't forget that you saved my +cousin's life and looked after her when she was in a desperately unhappy +situation and her own people seemed to have utterly deserted her. And I +consider my running into your brother at camp one of the sheerest pieces +of good luck I've had these many days on all counts." + +"How did it happen?" asked Larry. + +"I was doing some recruiting work in the vicinity and they asked me to +say a few words to the lads in training. I did. Your brother was there +and lost no time in getting in touch with me when he heard who I was. And +jolly pleased I was to hear his story--all of it." + +The speaker smiled at his companion. + +"I mean that, Larry Holiday. Elinor and I were kid sweethearts. We used +to swear we were going to get married when we grew up. That was when she +was eight and I a man of twelve or so. I gave her the locket which made +some of the trouble as a sort of hostage for the future. We called her +Ruth in those days. It was her own fancy to change it to Elinor later. +She thought it more grown up and dignified I remember. Then I went back +to England to school. I didn't see her again until we were both grown up +and then I married her best friend with her blessing and approval. But +that is another story. Just now I am trying to tell you that I am ready +to congratulate my cousin with all my heart if it happens that you want +to marry her as your brother seems to think." + +"There is no doubt about what I want," said Larry grimly. "Whether it is +what she wants is another matter. We haven't been exactly in a position +to discuss marriage." + +"I understand. I'm beastly sorry to have been such an infernal dog in the +manger unwittingly. The only thing I can do to make, up is to give my +blessing and wish you best of luck in your wooing. Shall we shake on it, +Larry Holiday, and on the friendship I hope you and I are going to have?" + +And with a cordial man to man grip there was cemented a friendship which +was to last as long as they both lived. + +To relate briefly the links of the story some of which Larry Holiday now +heard as the car sped over the smooth, frost hardened roads which the +open winter had left unusually snowless and clean. Geoffrey Annersley had +been going his careless, happy go lucky way as an Oxford undergraduate +when the sudden firing of a far off shot had startled the world and made +war the one inevitable fact. The young man had enlisted promptly and had +been in practically continuous service of one sort or another ever since. +He had gone through desperate fighting, been four times wounded, and was +now at last definitely eliminated from active service by a semi-paralyzed +leg, the result of his last visit to "Blighty." He had been invalided the +previous spring and had been sent to Australia on a recruiting mission. +Here he had renewed his acquaintance with his cousins whom he had not +seen for years and promptly fell in love with and married pretty Nancy +Hallinger, his cousin Elinor's chum. + +The speedy wooing accomplished as well as the recruiting job which was +dispatched equally expeditiously and thoroughly Geoffrey prepared to +return to France to get in some more good work against the Huns while his +wife planned to enter Red Cross service as a nurse for which she had been +in training for some time. Roderick had entered the Australian air +service and was already in Flanders where he had the reputation of being +one of the youngest and most reckless aviators flying which was saying +considerable. + +It was imperative that some arrangement be made for Elinor who obviously +could not be left alone in Sydney. It was decided in family conclave that +she should go to America and accept the often proffered hospitality of +her aunt for a time at least. A cable to this effect had been dispatched +to Mrs. Wright which as later appeared never reached that lady as she was +already on her way to England and died there shortly after. + +Geoffrey had been exceedingly reluctant to have his young cousin take the +long journey alone though she had laughed at his fears and his wife had +abetted her in her disregard of possible disastrous consequences, telling +him that women no longer required wrapping in tissue paper. The war had +changed all that. + +At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother's +wedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that the +small gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardian +somewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned or +over bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried to +no small degree. + +They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May, +nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequent +strange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that they +heard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days. +Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderick +was by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeled +with that saddest of all tags--missing. It was not until Geoffrey was +out of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible, +more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that the +others began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the ken +of all who knew her. Some one who knew her by sight had chanced to see +her in California and had noted the wedding ring, hence the +"unsubstantiated rumor" of her marriage in San Francisco, a rumor which +Nancy half frantic over her husband's desperate illness was the only +person who was in a position to explain. + +When Geoffrey came slowly back to the land of the living it was to learn +that his cousin Roderick was still reported missing and that Elinor was +even more sadly and mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth in +spite of all effort to discover her fate. It had been a tragic coming +back for the sick man. But an Englishman is hard to down and gradually he +got back health and a degree of hope and happiness. There would be no +more fighting for him but the War Department assured him there were +plenty of other ways in which he could serve the cause and he had +readily placed himself at their disposal for the recruiting work in which +he had already demonstrated his power to success in Australia. + +Which brings us to the Canadian training camp and Ted Holiday. Captain +Annersley had been asked as he had told Larry to speak to the boys. He +had done so, given a little straight talk of what lay ahead of them and +what they were fighting for, bade them get in a few extra licks for him +since he was out of it for good, done for, "crocked." In conclusion he +had begged them give the Huns hell. It was all he asked of them and from +the look of them he jolly well knew they would do it. + +While he was speaking he was aware all the time of a tall, blue-eyed +youth who stood leaning against a post with a kind of nonchalant grace. +The boy's pose had been indolent but his eyes had been wide awake, +earnest, responsive. Little by little the captain found himself talking +directly to the lad. What he was saying might be over the heads of some +of them but not this chap's. He got you as the Americans say. He had the +vision, would go wherever the speaker could take him. One saw that. + +Afterwards the boy had sought out the recruiter to ask if by any chance +he knew a girl named Elinor Ruth Farringdon. It had been rather a +tremendous moment for both of them. Each had plenty to say that the other +wanted to hear. But the full story had to wait. Corporal Holiday couldn't +run around loose even talking to a distinguished British officer. There +would have to be special dispensation for that and special dispensations +take time in an army world. It would be forthcoming however--to-morrow. + +In the meantime Geoffrey Annersley had heard enough to want to know a +great deal more and thought he might as well make some inquiries on his +own. He wanted to find out who these American Holidays were, one of whom +had apparently saved his cousin Elinor's life and all of whom had, one +concluded, been amazingly kind to her though the blue-eyed boy had +gracefully made light of that side of the thing in the brief synopsis of +events he had had time to give to the Englishman. The captain had taken a +fancy to the narrator and was not averse to beginning his investigation +as to the Holiday family with the young corporal himself. + +Accordingly he tackled the boy's commanding officer, a young colonel with +whom he chanced to be dining. The colonel was willing to talk and +Geoffrey Annersley discovered that young Holiday was rather by way of +being a top-notcher. He had enlisted as a private only a short time ago +but had been shot speedily into his corporalship. Time pressed. Officers +were needed. The boy was officer stuff. He wouldn't stay a corporal. If +all went well he would go over as a sergeant. + +"We put him through though, just at first handled him rather nasty," the +colonel admitted with a reminiscent twinkle. "We do put the Americans +through somehow, though it isn't that we have any grudge against 'em. We +haven't. We like 'em--most of 'em and we have to admit it's rather decent +of them to be here at all when they don't have to. All the same we give +'em an extra twist of the discipline crank on general principles just to +see what they are made of. We found out mighty quick with this youngster. +He took it all and came back for more with a 'sir,' and a salute and a +devilish debonair, you-can't-down-me kind of grin that would have +disarmed a Turk." + +"He doesn't look precisely meek to me," Annersley had said remembering +the answering flash he had caught in those blue eyes when he was begging +the boys to get in an extra lick against the Huns for his sake. + +"Meek nothing! He has more spirit than any cub we've had to get into +shape this many a moon. It isn't that. It is just that he has the right +idea, had it from the start however he came by it. You know what it is, +captain. It is obedience, first, last and all the time, the will to be +willed. A soldier's job is to do what he is told whether he likes it or +not, whether it is his job or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether +he gets his orders from a man he looks up to and respects or whether he +gets them from a low down cur that he knows perfectly well isn't fit to +black his boots--none of that makes any difference. It is up to him to do +what he is told and he does it without a kick if he's wise. Young Holiday +is wise. He'd had his medicine sometime. One sees that. I don't know why +he dropped down on us like a shooting star the way he did, some college +fiasco I understand. He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs though +he is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look in +his eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thank +the Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him ace +high here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll bet +my best belt on that." + +This interested Geoffrey Annersley. He thought he understood what the +colonel meant. There was something in Ted Holiday's eyes which betrayed +that he had already been under fire somehow. He had seen it himself. + +"He is as smart as they make 'em," went on the colonel. "Quick as a flash +to think and to see and to act, never loses his head. And he's a wonder +with the men, jollies 'em along when they are grousing or homesick, sets +'em grinning from ear to ear when they are down-hearted, has a pat on the +shoulder for this one and a jeer for that one. Old and young they are +all crazy about him. They'd go anywhere he led. I tell you he's the stuff +that will take 'em over the top and make the boches feel cold in the pit +of their fat tumtums when they see him coming. Lord, but the uselessness +of it though! He'll get killed. His kind always does. They are always in +front. They are made that way. Can't help it. Sometimes they do come +through though." The colonel flashed a quick admiring glance at his guest +who had also been the kind that was always in front and yet had somehow +by the grace of something come through in spite of the hazards he had run +and the deaths he had all but died. "You are a living witness to that +little fact," he added. "Lord love us! It's all in the game anyway and a +man can die but once." + +The next day Corporal Holiday was given a brief leave of absence from +camp at the request of the distinguished British officer. Together the +two went over the strange story of Elinor Ruth Farringdon and the +Holidays' connection with the later chapters thereof. They decided not to +write to the Hill as Annersley was planning to go to Boston next day +whence he was to return soon to England his mission accomplished, and +could easily stop over in Dunbury on his way and set things right in +person, perhaps even by his personal presence renew Ruth's memory of +things she had forgotten. + +All through the pleasant dinner hour Ted kept wishing he could get the +captain to talking about himself and his battle experiences and had no +idea at all that he himself was being shrewdly studied as they talked. +"Good breeding, good blood-quality," the captain summed up. "If he is a +fair sample of young America then young America is a bit of all right." +And if he is a fair sample of the Holiday family then Elinor had indeed +fallen into the best of hands. Praise be! He wondered more than once what +the young-corporal's own story was, what was the nature of the fiasco +which had driven him into the Canadian training camp and what was behind +that unboyish look which came now and then into his boyish eyes. + +Later during the intimate evening over their cigarettes both had their +curiosity gratified. Captain Annersley was moved to relate some of his +hair breadth escapes and thrilling moments to an alert and hero +worshiping listener. And later still Ted too waxed autobiographical in +response to some clever baiting of which he was entirely unaware though +he did wonder afterward how he had happened to tell the thing he had kept +most secret to an entire stranger. It was an immense relief to the boy to +talk it all out. It would never haunt him again in quite the same way now +he had once broken the barriers of his reserve. Geoffrey Annersley served +his purpose for Ted as well as Larry Holiday. + +Annersley was immensely interested in the confession. It matched very +well he thought with that other story of a gallant young Holiday to whom +his cousin Elinor owed so much in more than one way. They were a queer +lot these Holidays. They had the courage of their convictions and tilted +at windmills right valiantly it seemed. + +And then he fell to talking straight talk to Ted Holiday, saying things +that only a man who has lived deeply can say with any effect. He urged +the boy not to worry about that smash of his. It was past history, over +and done with. He must look ahead not back and be thankful he had come +out as well as he had. + +"There is just one other thing I want to say," he added. "You think you +have had your lesson. Maybe it is enough but you'll find it a jolly lot +easier to slip up over there than it is at home. You lose your sense of +values when there is death and damnation going all around you, get to +feeling you have a right to take anything that comes your way to even it +up. Anyway I felt that way until I met the girl I wanted to marry. Then +the rest looked almighty different. I've given Nancy the best I had to +give but it wasn't good enough. She deserved more than I could give her. +That is plain speaking, Holiday. Men say war excuses justify anything. It +doesn't do anything of the sort. Some day you will be wanting to marry a +girl yourself. Don't let anything happen in this next year over there +that you will regret for a life-time. That is a queer preachment and I'm +a jolly rotten preacher. But somehow I felt I had to say it. You can +remember it or forget it as you like." + +Ted lit another cigarette, looked up straight into Geoffrey Annersley's +war lined face. + +"Thank you," he said. "I think I'll remember it. Anyway I appreciate your +saying it to me that way." + +The subject dropped then, went back to war and how men feel on the edge +of death, of the unimportance of death anyway. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET + + +Larry knocked at Ruth's door. It opened and a wan and pathetically +drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake +Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which +had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to +lift her eyes to her lover's face. But in a moment he had her in his +arms, a performance which banished the droop and brought a lovely color +back into the pale cheeks. + +"Larry, oh Larry, is it all right? I'm not his wife? He didn't marry me?" + +Larry kissed her. + +"He didn't marry you. Nobody's going to marry you but me. No, I didn't +mean to say that now. Forget it, sweetheart. You are free, and if you +want to say so I'll let you go. If you don't want--" + +"But I do want," she interrupted. "I want Larry Holiday and he is all I +want. Why won't you ever, ever believe I love you? I do, more than +anything in the world." + +"You darling! Will you marry me? I shouldn't have asked you that other +time. I hadn't the right. But I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so. +And I've waited so long." + +"Listen to me, Larry Holiday." Ruth held up a small warning forefinger. +"I'll marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross to me again. +I have shed quarts of tears because you were so unkind and--faithless. I +ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or +anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I +told you so but still you wouldn't believe." + +Larry shook his head remorsefully. + +"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I +have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for +anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a +devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is +any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie. +All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours--" He indicated +the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as--as an ash +can," he finished prosaically. + +Ruth's happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a +kiss. + +"I'll remember," she said. "You're not a brute, Larry. You're a darling +and I love you--oh immensely and I'll marry you just as quick as ever I +can and we'll be so happy you won't ever remember you have a +disposition." + +Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are +nobody's business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply +ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two +went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to +Elinor Farringdon. + +"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended. + +"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor +Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best +friend, Nan--" + +"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it's coming back. He married Nancy +Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of +hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the +addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why, +Larry, I'm remembering--really remembering," she stopped short on the +stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone. + +"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come +on down and remember the rest with Annersley's help. He is some cousin. +You'd better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and +wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and +decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his +cheek which he evidently didn't get shaving." + +Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her +tremble against his arm. He was more than a little anxious as to the +outcome of the thing itself. The shock and the strain of meeting Geoffrey +Annersley were going to be rather an ordeal he knew. + +They entered the living room and paused on the threshold, Larry's arm +still around the girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose. The +latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared at him an instant and then +flung herself away from Larry into the other man's arms. + +"Geoff! Geoff!" she cried. + +For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew herself away. + +"Geoffrey Annersley, why did you ever, ever make me wear that horrid +ring?" she demanded reproachfully. "Larry and I could have married each +other months ago if you hadn't. It was the silliest idea anyway and it's +all your fault--everything." + +He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled hearty laugh that came from the +depths of him. + +"That sounds natural," he said. "Every scrape you ever enticed me into as +a kid was always my fault somehow. Are you real, Elinor? I can't help +thinking I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?" anxiously. + +"Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff. Listen hard." + +And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty lips and whistled a merry, +lilting bar of melody. + +"By Jove!" exulted the captain. "That does sound like old times." + +"Don't tell me I don't remember," she flashed back happy and excited +beyond measure at playing this new remembering game. "That was our +special call, yours and Rod's and mine. Oh Rod!" And at that all the joy +went out of the eager, flushed face. She went back into her cousin's +arms again, sobbing in heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of +memory had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy. In Geoffrey +Annersley's arms Ruth mourned her brother's loss for the first time. +Larry sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room. The older +doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin were left alone to pick up the +dropped threads of the past. + +They all met again at luncheon however, Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and +red-eyed but on the whole none the worse for her journey back into the +land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the external stimulus of +actually seeing and hearing somebody out of that other life was enough to +start the train. What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and +little by little the past took on shape and substance and Elinor Ruth +Farringdon became once more a normal human being with a past as well as a +present which was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur of +her dear Rod's unknown fate. + +In the course of the conversation at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin +as Elinor and was promptly informed that she wasn't Elinor and was Ruth +and that he was to call her by that name or run the risk of being +disapproved of very heartily. + +He laughed, amused at this. + +"Now I know you are real," he said. "It is exactly the tone you used when +you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost the same words except +for the reversed titles. 'Don't call me Ruth, Geoff,'" he mimicked. "'I +am not going to be Ruth any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is a much +prettier name.'" + +"Well, I don't think so now," retorted Ruth. "I've changed my mind again. +I think Ruth is the nicest name there is because--well--" She blushed +adorably and looked across the table at the young doctor, "because Larry +likes it," she completed half defiantly. + +"Is that meant to be an official publishing of the bans?" teased her +cousin when the laugh that Ruth's naive confession had raised subsided +leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot of cheek. + +"If you want to call it that," said Ruth. "Larry, I think you might say +something, not leave me everything to do myself. Tell them we are engaged +and are going to be married--" + +"To-morrow," put in Larry suddenly pushing back his chair and going +over to stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing the +others gallantly if obviously also embarrassedly over her shyly bent +blonde head. + +The blonde head went up at that, and was shaken very decidedly. + +"No indeed. That isn't right at all," she objected. "Don't listen to him +anybody. It isn't going to be tomorrow. I've got to have a wedding dress +and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding dress when it is the only +time you ever intend to be married. I have all the other +things--everything I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff. +That's why I went to Boston. I knew I was going to want pretty clothes +quick. I told Doctor Holiday so." She sent a charming, half merry, half +deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled back. + +"She most assuredly did," he corroborated. "I never suspected it was part +of a deep laid plot however. I thought it was just femininity cropping +out after a dull season. How was I to know it was because you were +planning to run off with my assistant that you wanted all the gay +plumage?" he teased. + +Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that. + +"That isn't a fair way to put it," she declared. "If I had been +planning to run away with Larry or he with me we would have done it +months ago, plumage or no plumage. I wanted to but he wouldn't anyway," +she confessed. "I like this way much, much better though. I don't want +to be married anywhere except right here in the heart of the House on +the Hill." + +She slipped out of her chair and away from Larry's hands at that and went +over to where Doctor Philip sat. + +"May we?" she asked like a child asking permission to run out and play. + +"It is what we all want more than anything in the world, dear child," he +said. "You belong with Larry in our hearts as well as in the heart of the +House. You know that, don't you?" + +"I know you are the dearest man that ever was, not even excepting Larry. +And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there. I can call you that +now, can't I? I've always wanted to." And fitting the deed to the word +Ruth bent over and gave Doctor Philip a fluttering little butterfly kiss. + +They rose from the table at that and Ruth was bidden go off to her room +and get a long rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly +repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed gravely for +them just as if his inner self were not executing wild fandangoes of joy. +Perhaps his patients did get a few waves of his happiness however for +there was not one of them who did not leave the office with greater hope +and strength and courage than he brought there. + +"The young doctor's getting to be a lot like his uncle," one of them said +to his wife later. "Just the very touch of his hand made me feel better +today, sort of toned up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer +how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes." + +Not so queer. Larry Holiday had just been himself electrified by love and +joy. No wonder he had new power that day and was a better healer than he +had ever been before. + +In the living room Doctor Philip and Captain Annersley held converse. The +captain expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to Australia. + +"If her brother is dead as we have every reason to fear, Elinor--Ruth--is +the sole owner of an immense amount of property. The lawyers are about +crazy trying to keep things going without either Roderick or Ruth. They +have been begging me to come out and take charge of things for months but +I haven't been able to see my way clear owing to one thing or another. +Somebody will have to go at once and of course it should be Ruth." + +"How would it do for her and Laurence both to go?" + +"Magnificent. I was hoping you would think that was a feasible project. +They will be glad to have a man to represent the family. My cousin knows +nothing about the business end of the thing. She has always approached it +exclusively from the spending side. Do you think your nephew would care +to settle there?" + +"Possibly," said the Doctor. "That will develop later. They will have to +work that out for themselves. I am rather sorry he is going to marry a +girl with so much money but I suppose it cannot be helped." + +"Some people wouldn't look at it that way, Doctor Holiday," grinned the +captain. "But I am prepared to accept the fact that you Holidays are in a +class by yourselves. We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a +victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can't tell you what a relief +it is to have her marry a man like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to +go through such a punishing period of suspense waiting for his happiness. +Since there wasn't really the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut +his scruples and married her long ago." + +"I don't agreed with you, Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them +worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that this is what they +both want. If he had taken the risk and married her when he knew he +hadn't the full right to do it he would have been miserable and made her +more so. Larry is an odd chap. There is a morbid streak in him. He +wouldn't have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing his own +self-respect would have been the worst thing that could have happened to +him. No amount of actual legality could have made up for starting out on +a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have to keep on moderately good +terms with ourselves to be happy," he added with a quiet smile. + +"I suppose you are right," admitted the Englishman. "Anyway the thing is +straight and clear now. He has earned every bit of happiness that is +coming to him and I hope it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of +indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth is enormous. I wish +there were some way of making adequate returns for it all. But it is too +big to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on your other nephew when +he gets over. I certainly should like to. I don't know when I've taken +such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a ripping sort." + +"Ted?" Doctor Holiday smiled a little. "Well, yes, I suppose he is what +you Britishers call ripping. It has been rather ripping in another sense +being his guardian sometimes." + +"I judge so by his own account of himself. Yoxi mustn't let that smash of +his worry you. He'll find something over there that will be worth a +hundred times what any college can give him, and as for the rest half the +lads of mettle in the world come to earth with a jolt over a girl sooner +or later and they don't all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did +by, a long shot." + +"So he told you about that affair? You must have gotten under his skin +rather surprisingly Ted doesn't talk much about himself and I fancy he +hasn't talked about that thing at all to any one. It went deep." + +"I know. He shows that in a hundred ways. But it hasn't crushed him or +made him reckless. It simply steadied him and I infer he needed some +steadying." + +Doctor Holiday nodded assent to that and asked if he thought the boy was +doing well up there. + +"Not a doubt of it," said the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief +synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in regard to his +youngest corporal. + +"That is rather astonishing," remarked Doctor Holiday. "Obedience +hasn't ever been one of Ted's strong points. In fact he has been a +rebel always." + +"Most boys are until they perceive that there is sense instead of tyranny +in law. Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard and he is +all the better for it tough as it was in the process. He is making good +up there. He will make good over seas. He is a born leader--a better +leader of men than his brother would be though maybe Larry is finer +stuff. I don't know." + +"They are very different but I like to think they are both rather fine +stuff. Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud of them both, +Ted as well as Larry." + +"You have every reason," approved the captain heartily. "I have seen a +good many splendid lads in the last four years and these two measure up +in a way which is an eye opener to me. In my stupid insular prejudice +maybe I had fallen to thinking that the particular quality that marks +them both was a distinctly British affair. Apparently you can breed it in +America too. I'm glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one other +thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C. and a lot of other junk like +that but I'd surrender every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought +that I would ever have a son that would worship me the way those lads of +yours worship you. It is an honor any man might well covet." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +ALAN MASSEY LOSES HIMSELF + + +While Ruth and Larry steered their storm tossed craft of love into smooth +haven at last; while Ted came into his own in the Canadian training camp +and Tony played Broadway to her heart's content, the two Masseys down in +Mexico drifted into a strange pact of friendship. + +Had there been no other ministrations offered save those of creature +comfort alone Dick would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan +Massey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man +reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits +to militate against recovery. + +But there was more than creature comfort in Alan's service. Without the +latter's presence loneliness, homesickness and heartache would have +gnawed at the younger man retarding his physical gains. With Alan +Massey life even on a sick bed took on fascinating colors like a prism +in sunlight. + +For the sick lad's delectation Alan spun long thrilling tales, many of +them based on personal experience in his wide travels in many lands. He +was a magnificent raconteur and Dick propped up among his pillows drank +it all in, listening like another Desdemona to strange moving accidents +of fire and flood which his scribbling soul recognized as superb copy. + +Often too Alan read from books, called in the masters of the pen to set +the listener's eager mind atravel through wondrous, unexplored worlds. +Best of all perhaps were the twilight hours when Alan quoted long +passages of poetry from memory, lending to the magic of the poet's art +his own magic of voice and intonation. These were wonderful moments to +Dick, moments he was never to forget. He drank deep of the soul vintage +which the other man offered him out of the abundance of his experience as +a life long pilgrim in the service of beauty. + +It was a curious relation--this growing friendship between the two men. +In some respects they were as master and pupil, in others were as man and +man, friend and friend, almost brother and brother. When Alan Massey gave +at all he gave magnificently without stint or reservation. He did now. +And when he willed to conquer he seldom if ever failed. He did not now. +He won, won first his cousin's liking, respect, and gratitude and finally +his loyal friendship and something else that was akin to reverence. + +Tony Holiday's name was seldom mentioned between the two. Perhaps they +feared that with the name of the girl they both loved there might return +also the old antagonistic forces which had already wrought too much +havoc. Both sincerely desired peace and amity and therefore the woman who +held both their hearts in her keeping was almost banished from the talk +of the sick room though she was far from forgotten by either. + +So things went on. In time Dick was judged by the physician well enough +to take the long journey back to New York. Alan secured the tickets, made +all the arrangements, permitting Dick not so much as the lifting of a +finger in his own behalf. And just then came Tony Holiday's letter to +Alan telling him she was his whenever he wanted her since he had cleared +the shield forever in her eyes by what he had done for Dick. She trusted +him, knew he would not ask her to marry him unless he was quite free +morally and every other way to ask her. She wanted him, could not be +surer of his love or her own if she waited a dozen years. He meant more +to her than her work, more than her beloved freedom more even than +Holiday Hill itself although she felt that she was not so much deserting +the Hill as bringing Alan to it. The others would learn to love him too. +They must, because she loved him so much! But even if they did not she +had made her choice. She belonged to him first of all. + +"But think, dear," she finished. "Think well before you take me. Don't +come to me at all unless you can come free, with nothing on your soul +that is going to prevent your being happy with me. I shall ask no +questions if you come. I trust you to decide right for us both because +you lave me in the high way as well as all the other ways." + +Alan took this letter of Tony's out into the night, walked with it +through flaming valleys of hell. She was his. Of her own free will she +had given herself to him, placed him higher in her heart at last than +even her sacred Hill. And yet after all the Hill stood between them, in +the challenge she flung at him. She was his to take if he could come +free. She left the decision to him. She trusted him. + +Good God! Why should he hesitate to take what she was willing to give? He +had atoned, saved his cousin's life, lived decently, honorably as he had +promised, kept faith with Tony herself when he might perhaps have won her +on baser terms than he had made himself keep to because he loved her as +she said "in the high way as well as all the other ways." He would +contrive some way of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want +it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils +should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at +this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him +what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer +he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear +eyes but he was more afraid of something else--his own soul which somehow +Tony had created by loving and believing in him. + +All the next day, the day before they were to leave on the northern +journey, Alan behaved as if all the devils of hell which he had invoked +were with him. The old mocking bitterness of tongue was back, an even +more savage light than Dick remembered that night of their quarrel was in +his green eyes. The man was suddenly acidulated as if he had over night +suffered a chemical transformation which had affected both mind and body. +A wild beast tortured, evil, ready to pounce, looked out of his drawn, +white face. + +Dick wondered greatly what had caused the strange reaction and seeing +the other was suffering tremendously for some reason or other +unexplained and perhaps inexplicable was profoundly sorry. His +friendship for the man who had saved his life was altogether too strong +and deep to be shaken by this temporary lapse into brutality which he +had known all along was there although held miraculously in abeyance +these many weeks. The man was a genius, with all the temperamental +fluctuations of mood which are comprehensible and forgivable in a +genius. Dick did not begrudge the other any relief he might find in his +debauch of ill humor, was more than willing he should work it off on his +humble self if it could do any good though he would be immensely +relieved when the old friendly Alan came back. + +Twilight descended. Dick turned from the mirror after a critical survey +of his own lean, fever parched, yellow countenance. + +"Lord! I look like a peanut," he commenced disgustedly. "I say, Massey, +when we get back to New York I think I should choke anybody if I were you +who dared to say we looked alike. One must draw the line somewhere at +what constitutes a permissible insult." He grinned whimsically at his own +expense, turned back to the mirror. "Upon my word, though, I believe it +is true. We do look alike. I never saw it until this minute. Funny +things--resemblances." + +"This isn't so funny," drawled Alan. "We had the same great grandfather." + +Dick whirled about staring at the other man as if he thought him +suddenly gone mad. + +"What! What do you know about my great grandfather? Do you know +who I am?" + +"I do. You are John Massey, old John's grandson, the chap I told you once +was dead and decently buried. I hoped it was true at the time but it +wasn't a week before I knew it was a lie. I found out John Massey was +alive and that he was going under the name of Dick Carson. Do you wonder +I hated you?" + +Dick sat down, his face white. He looked and was utterly dazed. + +"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mind explaining? It--it is a +little hard to get all at once." + +And then Alan Massey told the story that no living being save himself +knew. He spared himself nothing, apologised for nothing, expressed no +regret, asked for no palliation of judgment, forgiveness or even +understanding. Quietly, apparently without emotion, he gave back to the +other man the birthright he had robbed him of by his selfish and +dishonorable connivance with a wicked old man now beyond the power of any +vengeance or penalty. Dick Carson was no longer nameless but as he +listened tensely to his cousin's revelations he almost found it in his +heart to wish he were. It was too terrible to have won his name at such a +cost. As he listened, watching Alan's eyes burn in the dusk in strange +contrast to his cool, liquid, studiously tranquil voice, Dick remembered +a line Alan himself had read him only the other day, "Hell, the shadow of +a soul on fire," the Persian phrased it. Watching, Dick Carson saw before +him a sadder thing, a soul which had once been on fire and was now but +gray ashes. The flame had blazed up, scorched and blackened its path. It +was over now, burnt out. At thirty-three Alan Massey was through, had +lived his life, had given up. The younger man saw this with a pang which +had no reactive thought of self, only compassion for the other. + +"That is all, I think," said Alan at last. "I have all the proofs of your +identity with me. I never could destroy them somehow though I have meant +to over and over again. On the same principle I suppose that the sinning +monk sears the sign of the cross on his breast though he makes no outward +confession to the world and means to make none. I never meant to make +mine. I don't know why I am doing it now. Or rather I do. I couldn't +marry Tony with this thing between us. I tried to think I could, that I'd +made up to you by saving your life, that I was free to take my happiness +with her because I loved her and she loved me. And she does love me. She +wrote me yesterday she would marry me whenever I wished. I could have had +her. But I couldn't take her that way. I couldn't have made her happy. +She would have read the thing in my soul. She is too clean and honest and +true herself not to feel the presence of the other thing when it came +near her. I have tried to tell myself love was enough, that it would make +up to her for the rest. It isn't enough. You can't build life or +happiness except on the quarry stuff they keep on Holiday Hill, right, +honor, decency. You know that. Tony forgave my past. I believe she is +generous enough to forgive even this and go on with me. But I shan't ask +her. I won't let her. I--I've given her up with the rest." + +The speaker came over to where Dick sat, silent, stunned. + +"Enough of that. I have no wish to appeal to you in any way. The next +move is yours. You can act as you please. You can brand me as a +criminal if you choose. It is what I am, guilty in the eyes of the law +as well as in my own eyes and yours. I am not pleading innocence. I am +pleading unqualified guilt. Understand that clearly. I knew what I was +doing when I did it. I have known ever since. I've never been blind to +the rottenness of the thing. At first I did it for the money because I +was afraid of poverty and honest work. And then I went on with it for +Tony, because I loved her and wouldn't give her up to you. Now I've +given up the last ditch. The name is yours and the money is yours and +if you can win Tony she is yours. I'm out of the face for good and all. +But we have to settle just how the thing is going to be done. And that +is for you to say." + +"I wish I needn't do anything about it," said Dick slowly after a moment. +"I don't want the money. I am almost afraid of it. It seems accursed +somehow considering what it did to you. Even the name I don't seem to +care so much about just now thought I have wanted a name as I have never +wanted anything else in the world except Tony. It was mostly for her I +wanted it. See here, Alan, why can't we make a compromise? You say +Roberts wrote two letters and you have both. Why can't we destroy the one +and send the other to the lawyers, the one that lets you out? It is +nobody's business but ours. We can say that the letter has just fallen +into your hands with the other proof that I am the John Massey that was +stolen. That would straighten the thing out for you. I've no desire to +brand you in any way. Why should I after all I owe you? You have made up +a million times by saving my life and by the way you have given the thing +over now. Anyway one doesn't exact payment from one's friends. And you +are my friend, Alan. You offered me friendship. I took it--was proud to +take it. I am proud now, prouder than ever." + +And rising Dick Carson who was no longer Dick Carson but John Massey held +out his hand to the man who had wronged him so bitterly. The paraquet in +the corner jibbered harshly. Thunder rumbled heavily outside. An eerily +vivid flash of lightning dispelled for a moment the gloom of the dusk as +the two men clasped hands. + +"John Massey!" Alan's voice with its deep cello quality was vibrant with +emotion. "You don't know what that means to me. Men have called me many +things but few have ever called me friend except in lip service for what +they thought they could get out of it. And from you--well, I can only +say, I thank you." + +"We are the only Masseys. We ought to stand together," said Dick simply. + +Alan smiled though the room was too dark for Dick to see. + +"We can't stand together. I have forfeited the right. You chose the high +road long ago and I chose the other. We have both to abide by our +choices. We can't change those things at will. Spare me the public +revelation if you care to. I shall be glad for Tony's sake. For myself it +doesn't matter much. I don't expect to cross your path or hers again. I +am going to lose myself. Maybe some day you will win her. She will be +worth the winning. But don't hurry her if you want to win. She will have +to get over me first and that will take time." + +"She will never get over you, Alan. I know her. Things go deep with her. +They do with all the Holidays. You shan't lose yourself. There is no need +of it. Tony loves you. You must stay and make her happy. You can now you +are free. She need never know the worst of this any more than the rest of +the world need know. We can divide the money. It is the only way I am +willing to have any of it." + +Alan shook his head. + +"We can divide nothing, not the money and not Tony's love. I told you I +was giving it all up. You cannot stop me. No man has ever stopped me from +doing what I willed to do. I have a letter or two to write now and so +I'll leave you. I am glad you don't hate me, John Massey. Shall we shake +hands once more and then--good-night?" + +Their hands met again. A sharp glare of lightning lit the room with +ominous brilliancy for a moment. The paraquet screamed raucously. And +then the door closed on Alan Massey. + +An hour later a servant brought word to Dick that an American was below +waiting to speak to him. He descended with the card in his hand. The name +was unfamiliar, Arthur Hallock of Chicago, mining engineer. + +The stranger stood in the hall waiting while Dick came down the stairs. +He was obviously ill at ease. + +"I am Hallock," announced the visitor. "You are Richard Carson?" + +Dick nodded. Already the name was beginning to sound strange on his ears. +In one hour he had gotten oddly accustomed to knowing that he was John +Massey. And no longer needed Tony's name, dear as it was. + +"I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, Mr. Carson," the stranger +proceeded. "You have a friend named Alan Massey living here with you?" + +Again Dick nodded. He was apprehensive at the mention of Alan's name. + +"There was a riot down there." The speaker pointed down the street. "A +fuss over an American flag some dirty German dog had spit at. It didn't +take long to start a life sized row. We are all spoiling for a chance to +stick a few of the pigs ourselves whether we're technically at war or +not. A lot of us collected, your friend Massey among the rest. I +remember particularly when he joined the mob because he was so much +taller than the rest of us and came strolling in as if he was going to +an afternoon tea instead of getting into an international mess with +nearly all the contracting parties drunk and disorderly. There was a +good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows +just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the +mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like +mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of +plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in +the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a +breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I +were the first to get to him but there wasn't anything to do but look in +his pockets and find out who he was. We found his name on a card with +this address and your name scribbled on it in pencil. I say, Mr. Carson, +I am horribly sorry," suddenly perceiving Dick's white face. "You care a +lot, don't you?" + +"I care a lot," said Dick woodenly. "He was my cousin and--my best +friend." + +"I am sorry," repeated the young engineer. "Mr. Carson, there is +something else I feel as if I had to say though I shan't say it to any +one else. Massey might have dodged with the rest of us. He saw it coming +just as we did. He waited for it and I saw him smile as it came--a queer +smile at that. Maybe I'm mistaken but I have a hunch he wanted that +dagger to find him. That was why he smiled." + +"I think you are entirely right, Mr. Hallock," said Dick. "I haven't any +doubt but that was why he smiled. He would smile just that way. Where +--where is he?" Dick brushed his hands across his eyes as he asked the +question. He had never felt so desolate, so utterly alone in his life. + +"They are bringing him here. Shall I stay? Can I help anyway?" + +Dick shook his head sadly. + +"Thank you. I don't think there is anything any one can do. I--I wish +there was." + +A little later Alan Massey's dead body lay in austere dignity in the +house in which he had saved his cousin's life and given him back his name +and fortune together with the right to win the girl he himself had loved +so well. The smile was still on his face and a strange serenity of +expression was there too. He slept well at last. He had lost himself as +he had proclaimed his intent to do and in losing had found himself. One +could not look upon that calm white sculptured face without feeling that. +Alan Massey had died a victor undaunted, a master of fate to the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +THE SONG IN THE NIGHT + + +Tony Holiday sat in the dressing room waiting her cue to go on the stage. +It was only a rehearsal however. Miss Clay was back now and Tony was once +more the humble understudy though with a heart full of happy knowledge of +what it is like to be a real actress with a doting public at her feet. + +While she waited she picked up a newspaper and carelessly scanned its +pages. Suddenly to the amazement and consternation of the other girl who +was dressing in the same room she uttered a sharp little cry and for the +first time in her healthy young life slid to the floor in a merciful +faint. Her frightened companion called for help instantly and it was only +a moment before Tony's brown eyes opened and she pulled herself up from +the couch where they had laid her. But she would not speak or tell them +what had happened and it was only when they had gotten her off in a cab +with a motherly, big hearted woman who played shrew's and villainess' +parts always on the stage but was the one person of the whole cast to +whom every one turned in time of trouble that the rest searched the paper +for the clew to the thing which had made Tony look like death itself. It +was not far to seek. Tony looked like death because Alan Massey was dead. + +They all knew Alan Massey and knew that he and Tony Holiday were intimate +friends, perhaps even betrothed. More than one of them had seen and +remembered how he had kissed her before them all on the night of Tony's +first Broadway triumph and some of them had wondered why he had not been +seen since with her. So he had been in Mexico and now he was dead, his +heart pierced by a Mexican dagger. And Tony--Tony of the gay tongue and +the quick laughter--had the dagger gone into her heart too? It looked so. +The "End of the Rainbow" cast felt very sad and sober that day. They +loved Tony and just now she was not an actress to them but a girl who had +loved a man, a man who was dead. + +Jean Lambert telegraphed at once for Doctor Holiday to come to Tony who +was in a bad way. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't eat. She did not sleep. +She did not cry. Jean thought if she cried her grief would not have been +so pitiful to behold. It was the stony, white silence of her that was +intolerable to witness. + +In her uncle's arms Tony's terrible calm gave way and she sobbed herself +to utter weariness and finally to sleep. But even to him she would not +talk much about Alan. He had not known Alan. He had never +understood--never would understand now how wonderful, how lovable, how +splendid her lover had been. For several days she was kept in bed and the +doctor hardly left her. It was a hard time for him as well as his +stricken niece. Even their love for each other did not serve to lighten +the pain to any great extent. It was not the same sorrow they had. Doctor +Holiday was suffering because his little girl suffered. Tony was +suffering because she loved Alan Massey who would never come to her +again. Neither could entirely share the grief of the other. Alan Massey +was between them still. + +Finally Dick came and was able to give what Doctor Philip could not. He +could sing Alan's praises, tell her how wonderful he had been, how +generous and kind. He could share her grief as no one else could because +he had learned to love Alan Massey almost as well as she did herself. + +Dick talked freely of Alan, told her of the strange discovery which they +had made that he and Alan were cousins and that he himself was John +Massey, the kidnapped baby whom he had been so sorry for when he had +looked up the Massey story at the time of the old man's death. Dick was +not an apt liar but he lied gallantly now for Alan's sake and for Tony's. +He told her that it was only since Alan had been in Mexico that he had +known who his cousin was and had immediately possessed the other of the +facts and turned over to him the proofs of his identity as John Massey. + +It was a good lie, well conceived and well delivered but the liar had not +reckoned on that fatal Holiday gift of intuition. Tony listened to the +story, shut her eyes and thought hard for a moment. Then she opened her +eyes again and looked straight at Dick. + +"That is not the truth," she said. "Alan knew before he went to Mexico. +He knew long before. That was the other ghost--the one he could not lay. +Don't lie to me. I know." + +And then yielding to her command Dick began again and told her the truth, +serving Alan's memory well by the relation. One thing only he kept back. +After all he had no proof that the young engineer had been right in his +conjecture that Alan had wanted the dagger to find him. There was no need +of hurting Tony with that. + +"Dick--I can't call you John yet. I can't even think about you to-night +though I am so thankful to have you back safe and well. I can't be glad +yet for you. I can't remember any one but Alan. You will forgive me, I +know. But tell me. It was a terrible thing he did to you. Do you forgive +him really?" The girl's deep shadowed eyes searched the young man's face, +challenging him to speak the truth and only that. + +He met the challenge willingly. He had nothing to conceal here. Tony +might read him through and through and she would find in him neither hate +nor rancor, nor condemnation. + +"Of course I forgive him, Tony. He did a terrible thing to me you say. +He did a much more terrible thing to himself. And he made up for +everything over and over by what he did for me in Mexico. He might have +let me die. I should have died if he had not come. There is no doubt in +the world of that. He could not have done more if he had been my own +brother. He meant me to like him. He did more. He made me love him. He +was my friend. We parted as friends with a handshake which was his +good-by though I didn't know it." + +It was a fatal speech. Too late Dick realized it as he saw Tony's face. + +"Dick, he meant to let himself get killed. I've thought so all along and +now I know you think so too." + +"I didn't mean to let that out. Maybe I am mistaken. We shall never know. +But I believe he was not sorry to let the dagger get him. He had given up +everything else. It wasn't so hard for him to give up the one thing +more--the thing he didn't want anyway--life. Life wasn't much to him +after he gave you up, Tony. His love was the biggest thing about him. I +love you myself but I am not ashamed to say that his love was a bigger +thing than mine every way, finer, more magnificent, the love of a genius +whereas mine is just the love of an every day man. It was love that +saved him." + +"Dick, do you believe that the real Alan is dust--nothing but dust down +in a grave?" demanded Tony suddenly. + +"No, Tony, I don't. I can't. The essence of what was best in him is alive +somewhere. I know it. It must be. His love for you--for all beauty--they +couldn't die, dear. They were big enough to be immortal." + +"And his dancing," sighed Tony. "His dancing couldn't die. It had a +soul." + +If she had not been sure already that Alan had meant to go out of her +life even if he had not meant to go to his death when he left New York +she would have been convinced a little later. Alan's Japanese servant +brought two gifts to her from his honorable master according to his +honorable master's orders should he not return from his journey. His +honorable master being unfortunately dead his unworthy servant laid the +gifts at Mees Holiday's honorable feet. Whereupon the bearer had departed +as quietly as death itself might come. + +One of the gifts was a picture, a painting which Tony had seen, and which +was she thought the most beautiful of all his beautiful creations. Its +sheer loveliness would have hurt her even if it had had no other +significance and it did have a very real message. + +At first sight the whole scene seemed enveloped in translucent, silver +mist. As one looked more closely however there was revealed the figure of +a man, black clad in pilgrim guise, kneeling on the verge of a +precipitous cliff which rose out of a seemingly bottomless abyss of +terrific blackness. Though in posture of prayer the pilgrim's head was +lifted and his face wore an expression of rapt adoration. Above a film +of fog in the heavens stretched a clear space of deep blue black sky in +which hung a single luminous star. From the star a line of golden light +of unearthly radiance descended and finding its way to the uplifted +transfigured face of the kneeling pilgrim ended there. + +Tony Holiday understood, got the message as clearly as if Alan himself +stood beside her to interpret it. She knew that he was telling her +through the picture that she had saved his soul, kept him out of the +abyss, that to the end she was what he had so often called her--his star. + +With tear blinded eyes she turned from the canvas to the little silver +box which the servant had placed in her hands together with a sealed +envelope. In the box was a gorgeous, unset ruby, the gem of Alan's +collection as Tony well knew having worshiped often at its shrine. It lay +there now against the austere purity of its white satin background--the +symbol of imperishable passion. + +Reverently Tony closed the little box and opened the sealed envelope +dreading yet longing to know its contents. Alan had sent her no word of +farewell, had not written to her that night before he went out into the +storm to meet his death, had made no response to the letter she herself +had written offering herself and her love and faith for his taking. At +first these things had hurt her. But these gifts of his were beginning to +make her understand his silence. Selfish and spectacular all his life at +his death Alan Massey had been surpassingly generous and simple. He had +chosen to bequeath his love to her not as an obsession and a bondage but +as an elemental thing like light and air. + +The message in the envelope was in its way as impersonal as the ruby had +been but Tony found it more hauntingly personal than she had ever found +his most impassioned love letter. Once more the words were couched in the +symbol tongue of the poet in India--in only two sentences, but sentences +so poignant that they stamped themselves forever on Tony Holiday's mind +as they stood out from the paper in Alan's beautiful, striking +handwriting. + +"When the lighted lamp is brought into the room + I shall go. + And then perhaps you will listen to the night, and + hear my song when I am silent." + +The lines were dated on that unforgettable night when Tony had played +Broadway and danced her last dance with her royal lover. So he had known +even then that he was giving her up. Realizing this Tony realized as she +never had before the high quality of his love. She could guess a little +of what that night had meant to him, how passionately he must have +desired to win through to the full fruition of his love before he gave +her up for all the rest of time. And she herself had been mad that night +Tony remembered. Ah well! He had been strong for them both. And now their +love would always stay upon the high levels, never descend to the ways of +earth. There would never be anything to regret, though Tony loving her +lover's memory as she did that moment was not so sure but she regretted +that most of all. + +Yet tragic as Alan's death was and bitterly and sincerely as she mourned +his loss Tony could see that he had after all chosen the happiest way +out for himself as well as for her and his cousin. It was not hard to +forgive a dead lover with a generous act of renunciation his last deed. +It would have been far less easy to forgive a living lover with such a +stain upon his life. Even though he tried to wash it away by his +surrender and she by her forgiveness the stain would have remained +ineradicable. There would always have been a barrier between them for +all his effort and her own. + +And his love would ill have borne denial or frustration. Without her he +would have gone down into dark pits if he had gone on living. Perhaps he +had known and feared this himself, willing to prevent it at any cost. +Perhaps he had known that so long as he lived she, Tony, would never have +been entirely her own again. His bondage would have been upon her even if +he never saw her again. Perhaps he had elected death most of all for this +reason, had loved her well enough to set her free. He had told her once +that love was twofold, a force of destruction and damnation but also a +force of purification and salvation. Alan had loved her greatly, perhaps +in the end his love had taken him in his own words "to the gate of +Heaven." Tony did not know but she thought if there really was a God he +would understand and forgive the soul of Alan Massey for that last +splendid sacrifice of his in the name of love. + +And whatever happened Tony Holiday knew that she would bear forever the +mark of Alan Massey's stormy, strange, and in the end all-beautiful love. +Perhaps some day the lighted lamp might be brought in. She did not know, +would not attempt to prophesy about that. She did not know that she would +always listen to the night for Alan Massey's sake and hear his song +though he was silent forever. + +The next day Richard Carson officially disappeared from the world and +John Massey appeared in his place. The papers made rather a striking +story of his romantic history and its startling denouement which had +come they said through the death bed confessions of the man Roberts which +had only just reached the older Massey's hands, strangely enough on the +eve of his own tragic death, which was again related to make the tale a +little more of a thriller. That was all the world knew, was ever to know +for the Holidays and John Massey kept the dead man's secret well. + +And the grass grew green on Alan Massey's grave. The sun and dew and rain +laid tender fingers upon it and great crimson and gold hearted roses +strewed their fragrant petals upon it year by year. The stars he had +loved so well shone down upon the lonely spot where his body slept quiet +at last after the torment of his brief and stormy life. But otherwise, as +John Massey and Tony Holiday believed, his undefeated spirit fared on +splendidly in its divine quest of beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL + + +The winter had at last decided to recapture its forsaken role of the Snow +King. For two days and as many nights the air had been one swirl of snow +which shut out earth and sky. But on the third morning the Hill woke to a +dazzling world of cloudless blue and trackless white. A resplendent +bride-like day it was and fitly so for before sundown the old House on +the Hill was to know another bride. Elinor Ruth Farringdon's affairs +required her immediate attention in Australia and she was leaving +to-night for that far away island which was again now dear to her heart +as the home of her happy childhood, the memory of which had now all +returned after months of strange obliteration. But she would not go as +Elinor Ruth Farringdon. That name was to be shed as absolutely as her +recollection of it had once been shed. She would go as Mrs. Laurence +Holiday with a real wedding ring all her own and a real husband also all +her own by her side. + +There were to be no guests outside the family except for the Lamberts, +Carlotta and Dick--John Massey, as they were now trying to learn to call +him. The wedding was to be very quiet not only because of Granny but +because they were all very pitiful of Tony's still fresh grief, the more +so because she bore it so bravely and quietly, anxious lest she cast any +shadow upon the happiness of the others, especially that of Larry and +Ruth. In any case a quiet wedding would have been the choice of the two +who were most concerned. They wanted only their near and dear about them +when they took upon themselves the rites which were to unite them for the +rest of their two lives. + +Aside from Tony's sorrow the only two regrets which marred the household +joy that bride white day were Ted's absence and imminent departure for +France and that other even soberer remembrance of that other gallant +young soldier, Ruth's brother Roderick of whom no news had come, though +Ruth insisted that Rod wasn't dead, that he would came back just as her +vivid memory of him had returned. + +And it happened that her faith was rewarded and on the very day of days +when one drop more of happiness made the cup fairly spill over. Larry was +summoned to the telephone just as he had been once before on a certain +memorable occasion to be told that a cabled message awaited him. The +message was from Geoffrey Annersley and bore besides his love and +congratulations the wonderful news that Roderick Farringdon had escaped +from a German prison camp and was safe in England. + +Ruth shed many happy tears over this best of all bridal gifts, not enough +to dim the shining blue of her eyes but enough to give them a lovely, +misty tenderness which made her sweeter than ever Larry thought, and who +should have magic eyes if not a bridegroom? + +A little later came Carlotta and Dick, the latter well and strong again +but thin and pale and rather sober. Tony loved him for grieving for Alan +as she knew he did. He too had known and loved the dead man and +understood him perhaps better than she had herself. For after all no man +and woman can ever fully understand each other especially if they are in +love. So many faint nuances of doubt and fear and pride and passion and +jealousy are forever drifting between lovers obscuring clarity of vision. + +Carlotta was prettier than ever with a new sweetness and womanliness +which her love had wrought in her during the year. People who had known +her mother said she was growing daily more like Rose though always before +they had traced a greater resemblance to the other side of the house, to +her Aunt Lottie particularly. She and Philip were to be married in the +spring. "When the orioles come" Carlotta had said remembering her +father's story of that other brief mating. + +Tony and Carlotta slipped away from the others to talk by +themselves. Carlotta too had known and liked Alan and to all such +Tony clung just now. + +"He was so different at the end," she said to her friend. "I wish you +could have known him that way--so dear and gentle and wonderful. He kept +his promise everyway, lived absolutely straight and clean and fine." + +"He did it for you, Tony. He never could have done it for himself. He +wouldn't have thought it worth while. Don't tell me if you don't want to +but I have guessed a good many things since I knew about Dick and I have +wondered if he wasn't rather glad--to get killed." + +"Yes, Dick thinks and I think too that he let the dagger find him. I +have always called him my royal lover. His death was the most royal +part of all." + +Carlotta was silent. She hoped that somewhere Alan was finding the +happiness he seemed always to have missed on earth. Then seeing her +friend's lovely eyes with the heavy shadow in them where there had been +only sunshine before her heart rebelled. Poor Tony! Why must she suffer +like this? She was so young. Was life really over for her? For Carlotta +in her own happiness life and love were synonymous terms. Something of +what was in her mind she said to her friend. + +"I don't know," confessed Tony. "It is too soon to tell. Just now Alan +fills every nook and cranny of me. I can't think of any other man or +imagine myself loving anybody else as I loved him. But I am a very much +alive person. I don't believe I shall give myself to death forever. Alan +himself wouldn't want it so. A part of me will always be his but there +are other margins of me that Alan never touched and these maybe I shall +give to some one else when the time comes." + +"Does that mean Dick--John Massey?" + +"Maybe. Maybe not. I have told him not to speak of love for a long, long +time. We must both be free. He is going to France as a war correspondent +next week." + +"Don't you hate to have him go?" + +"Yes, I do. But I can't be selfish enough to keep him hanging round me +forever on the slim chance that some time I shall be willing to marry +him. He is too fine to be treated like that. He wants to go overseas +unless I will marry him now and I can't do that. It is better that we +should be apart for a while. As for me I have my work and I am going to +plunge into it as deep and hard as I can. I am not going to be unhappy. +You can't be unhappy when you love your work as I love mine. Don't be +sorry for me, Carlotta. I am not sorry for myself. Even if I never loved +again and never was loved I should still have had enough for a life time. +It is more than many women have, more than I deserve." + +The bride white day wore on to twilight and as the clock struck the hour +of five Ruth Farringdon came down the broad oak staircase clad in the +shining splendor of the bridal gown she had "dreamed," wearing her +grandmother's pearls and the lace veil which Larry's lovely mother had +worn as Ned Holiday's bride long and long ago. At the foot of the stairs +Larry waited and took her hand. Eric and Hester flanking the living room +door pushed aside the curtains for the two who still hand in hand walked +past the children into the room where the others were assembled. Gravely +and brimming with importance the guard of honor followed, the latter +bearing the bride's bouquet, the former squeezing the wedding ring in his +small fist. Ruth took her place beside the senior doctor. The minister +opened his mouth to proceed with the ceremony, shut it again with a +little gasp. + +For suddenly the curtains were swept aside again, this time with a +breezier and less stately sweep and Ted Holiday in uniform and sergeant's +regalia plunged into the room, a thinner, browner, taller Ted, with a new +kind of dignity about him but withal the same blue-eyed lad with the old +heart warming smile, still always Teddy the beloved. + +"Don't mind me," he announced. "Please go on." And he slipped into +a place beside Tony drawing her hand in his with a warm pressure as +he did so. + +They went on. Laurence LaRue Holiday and Elinor Ruth Farringdon were made +man and wife till death did them part. The old clock on the mantel which +had looked down on these two on a less happy occasion looked on still, +ticking away calmly, telling no tales and asking no questions. What was a +marriage more or less to time? + +The ceremony over it was the newly arrived sergeant rather than the bride +and groom who was the center of attraction and none were better pleased +than Larry and Ruth to have it so. + +It was a flying visit on Ted's part. He had managed to secure a last +minute leave just before sailing from Montreal at which place he had to +report the day after to-morrow. + +"So let's eat, drink, and be merry," he finished his explanation gayly. +"But first, please, Larry, may I kiss the bride?" + +"Go to it," laughed his brother. "I'm so hanged glad to see you Kid, I've +half a mind to kiss you myself." + +Needing no further urging Ted availed himself of the proffered privilege +and kissed the bride, not once but three times, once on each rosy cheek, +and last full on her pretty mouth itself. + +"There!" he announced standing off to survey her, both her hands still in +his possession. "I've always wanted to do that and now I've done it. I +feel better." + +Everybody laughed at that not because what he said was so very +amusing as because their hearts were so full of joy to have the +irrepressible youngest Holiday at home again after the long anxious +weeks of his absence. + +Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth's ear, "Gee! But I'm +glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley +is some peach of a cousin, I'm telling you, though I'm confoundedly +glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast +clear for Larry." + +He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words +as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers +met and each looked into the other's face, for once unashamed of the +emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to +recover speech. + +"Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it +has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck +and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now. +Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close +to me lately especially since I've been in this war business." Then +seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old +man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever +happens. You know yourself death isn't so much--not such a horrible +calamity as we talk as if it were." + +"I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I +can't seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn't +have gone." + +"Don't let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself +before you know it and then I'd have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept +me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself. +I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and +when we have the Germans jolly well licked I'm coming home and find me as +pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry +her quick as lightning." + +Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And +irrationally enough he found himself more than a little reassured and +comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and +have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done. + +"And I say, Larry." Ted's voice was soberer now. "I have always wanted +to tell you how I appreciated your standing by me so magnificently in +that horrible mess of mine. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had felt +like throwing me over for life after my being such a tarnation idiot +and disgracing the family like that. I'll never forget how white you and +Uncle Phil both were about it every way and maybe you won't believe it +but there'll never be anything like that again. There are some things +I'm through with--at least if I'm not I'm even more of a fool than I +think I am." + +"Don't, Ted. I haven't been such a model of virtue and wisdom that I can +afford to sit in judgment on you. I've learned a few things myself this +year and I am not so cock sure in my views as I was by a long shot. +Anyway you have more than made up by what you have done since and what +you are going to do over there. Let's forget the rest and just remember +that we are both Holidays, and it is up to both of us to measure up to +Dad and Uncle Phil, far as we can." + +"Some stunt, what?" Thus Ted flippantly mixed his familiar American and +newly acquired British vernacular. "You are dead right, Larry. I am +afraid I'm doomed to land some nine miles or so below the mark but I'm +going to make a stab at it anyway." + +Later there was a gala dinner party, an occasion almost as gay as that +Round Table banquet over eight years ago had been when Dick Carson had +been formally inducted into the order and Doctor Holiday had announced +that he was going to marry Miss Margery. And as before there was +laughter and gay talk and teasing, affectionate jest and prophecy +mingled with the toasting. + +There were toasts to the reigning bride and groom, Larry and Ruth, to the +coming bride and groom Philip and Carlotta, to Tony, the understudy that +was, the star that was to be; to Dick Carson that had been, John Massey +that was, foreign correspondent, and future famous author. There was a +particularly stirring toast to Sergeant Ted who would some day be +returning to his native shore at least a captain if not a major with all +kinds of adventures and honors to his credit. Everybody smiled gallantly +over this toast. Not one of them would let a shadow of grief or dread for +Teddy the beloved cloud this one happy home evening of his before he left +the Hill perhaps forever. The Holidays were like that. + +And then Larry on his feet raised his hand for silence. + +"Last and best of all," he said, "I give you--the Head of the House of +Holiday--the best friend and the finest man I know--Uncle Phil!" + +Larry smiled down at his uncle as he spoke but there was deep +feeling in his fine gray eyes. Better than any one else he knew how +much of his present happiness he owed to that good friend and fine +man Philip Holiday. + +The whole table rose to this toast except the doctor, even to the small +Eric and Hester who had no idea what it was all about but found it all +very exciting and delightful and beautifully grown up. As they drank +the toast Ted's free hand rested with affectionate pressure on his +uncle's and Tony on the other side set down her glass and squeezed his +hand instead. They too were trying to tell him that what Larry had +spoken in his own behalf was true for them also. They wanted to have +him know how much he meant to them and how much they wanted to do and +be for his dear sake. + +Perhaps Philip Holiday won his order of distinguished service then and +there. At any rate with his own children and Ned's around him, with the +wife of his heart smiling down at him from across the table with proud, +happy, tear wet eyes, the Head of the House of Holiday was content. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Wings, by Margaret Rebecca Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD WINGS *** + +***** This file should be named 11165.txt or 11165.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/6/11165/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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