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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/11721-0.txt b/11721-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b98b39 --- /dev/null +++ b/11721-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14941 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11721 *** + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1920 + +Chosen by the Society of Arts and Sciences + +With an Introduction by Blanche Colton Williams + +Author of "A Handbook on Story Writing," +"Our Short Story Writers," Etc. + +Associate Professor of English, Hunter College +of the City of New York. + +Instructor in Story Writing, Columbia University +(Extension Teaching and Summer Session). + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +EACH IN HIS GENERATION. By Maxwell Struthers Burt + +"CONTACT!" By Frances Noyes Hart + +THE CAMEL'S BACK. By F. Scott Fitzgerald + +BREAK-NECK HILL. By Esther Forbes + +BLACK ART AND AMBROSE. By Guy Gilpatric + +THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN. By Lee Foster Hartman + +THE ARGOSIES. By Alexander Hull + +ALMA MATER. By O. F. Lewis + +SLOW POISON. By Alice Duer Miller + +THE FACE IN THE WINDOW. By William Dudley Pelley + +A MATTER OF LOYALTY. By Lawrence Perry + +PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR. By L.H. Robbins + +THE THING THEY LOVED. By "Marice Rutledge" + +BUTTERFLIES. By "Rose Sidney" + +NO FLOWERS. By Gordon Arthur Smith + +FOOTFALLS. By Wilbur Daniel Steele + +THE LAST ROOM OF ALL. By Stephen French Whitman + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919, in its introduction, +rendered a brief account of the origin of this monument to O. +Henry's genius. Founded in 1918 by the Society of Arts and Sciences, +through the initiative of Managing Director John F. Tucker, it took +the form of two annual prizes of $500 and $250 for, respectively, +the best and second-best stories written by Americans and published +in America. + +The Committee of Award sifted the periodicals of 1919 and found +thirty-two which, in their opinion, were superior specimens of +short-story art. The prize-winners, determined in the manner set +forth, were Margaret Prescott Montague's "England to America" and +Wilbur Daniel Steele's "For They Know Not What They Do." For these +stories the authors duly received the awards, on the occasion of the +O. Henry Memorial dinner which was given by the Society at the Hotel +Astor, June 2, 1920. + +Since it appeared to be a fitting extension of the memorial to +incorporate in volume form the narratives chosen, they were included, +either by title or reprint, in the first book of the series of which +this is the second. Thus grouped, they are testimony to unprejudiced +selection on the part of the Committee of Award as they are evidence +of ability on the part of their authors. + +The first volume has met favour from critics and from laymen. For +the recognition of tedious, if pleasant, hours necessary to a +meticulous survey of twelve months' brief fiction, the Committee of +Award are grateful, as they are indebted to the generous coöperation +of authors and publishers, but for whom the work would have been +impossible of continuation. + +The committee express thanks for the approval which affirms that +"No more fitting tribute to the genius of William Sidney Porter +(O. Henry) could possibly have been devised than that of this +'Memorial Award,'" [1] which recognizes each story as "a definite +expression of American life--as O. Henry's was," [2] which knows by +inescapable logic that a story ranking second with five judges is +superior to one ranking first with only one of these. A number of +reviewers graciously showed awareness of this fact. + +[Footnote 1: _New York Times_, June 2, 1920.] + +[Footnote 2: _Chicago Tribune_, Paris Edition, August 7, 1920.] + +The Committee of Award for 1920 consisted of + + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D., Chairman | + EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. | JUDGES + ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD | + MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. | + and JOHN F. TUCKER, Managing Director of the Society, + Founder of the O. Henry Memorial. + + +As in preceding years the Committee held regular meetings at which +they weighed the merits of every story-candidate presented. By +January, 1921, one hundred and twenty-five remained, among which +those rated highest are as follows:[3] + + + Babcock, Edwina Stanton, Gargoyle (_Harper's_, Sept.) + Barrett, Richmond Brooks, The Daughter of the Bernsteins + (_Smart Set_, July). + "Belden, Jacques," The Duke's Opera (_Munsey's_, October). + Benét, Stephen Vincent, The Funeral of John Bixby (_Munsey's_, July). + Brooks, Jonathan, Bills Playable (_Collier's_, September 18). + Burt, Maxwell Struthers, A Dream or Two (_Harper's_, May); + Each in His Generation (_Scribner's_, July). + Cabell, James Branch, The Designs of Miramon (_Century_, August). + Child, Richard Washburn, A Thief Indeed (_Pictorial Review_, June). + Clausen, Carl, The Perfect Crime (_Saturday Evening Post_, Sept. 25). + Cram, Mildred, The Ember (_McCall's_, June); Odell (_Red + Book_, May); Wind (_Munsey's_, August). + Dobie, Charles Caldwell, Young China (_Ladies Home Journal_, August). + Edwards, Cleveland, Pride o' Name on Peachtree (_Live Stories_, Feb.). + Ferber, Edna, You've Got to Be Selfish (_McClure's_, April). + Fitzgerald, Scott, The Camel's Back (_Saturday Evening Post_, + Apr. 24); The Cut-Glass Bowl (_Scribner's_, May); + The Off-Shore Pirate (_Saturday Evening Post_, May 29). + Forbes, Esther, Break-Neck Hill (_Grinnell Review_, September). + Gilpatric, Guy, Black Art and Ambrose (_Collier's_, August 21). + Hartman, Lee Foster, The Judgment of Vulcan (_Harper's_, March). + Hergesheimer, Joseph, "Read Them and Weep" (_Century_, January). + Hooker, Brian, Branwen (_Romance_, June). + Hull, Alexander, The Argosies (_Scribner's_, September). + Hume, Wilkie, The Metamorphosis of High Yaller + (_Live Stories_, June). + Kabler, Hugh, Fools First (_Saturday Evening Post_, November 20). + Kerr, Sophie, Divine Waste (_Woman's Home Companion_, May). + La Motte, Widows and Orphans (_Century_, September). + Lewis, O. F., Alma Mater (_Red Book_, June). Sparks That Flash + in the Night (_Red Book_, October). + Marquis, Don Kale (_Everybody's_, September); Death and Old Man + Murtrie (_New Republic_, February 4). + Marshall, Edison, Brother Bill the Elk (_Blue Book_, May). + Means, E. K., The Ten-Share Horse (_Munsey's_, May). + Miller, Alice Duer, Slow Poison (_Saturday Evening Post_, June 12). + Montague, Margaret Prescott, Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge (_Atlantic + Monthly_, June). + [4]Mumford, Ethel Watts, A Look of the Copperleys (_Ladies Home + Journal_, April); Red Gulls (_Pictorial Review_, October). + Newell, Maude Woodruff, Salvage (_Green Book_, July). + Noyes, Frances Newbold, "Contact!" [5] (_Pictorial Review_, December). + Pelley, William Dudley, The Face in the Window (_Red Book_, May); + The Show-Down (_Red Book_, June). + Perry, Lawrence, The Real Game (_Everybody's_, July). A Matter of + Loyalty (_Red Book_, July); The Lothario of the Seabird + (_Ladies Home Journal_, August); The Rocks of Avalon + (_Red Book_, December). + Post, Melville Davisson, The House by the Loch (_Hearst's_, May). + Redington, Sarah, A Certain Rich Woman (_Outlook_, May 5). + Reid, M. F., Doodle Buys a Bull Pup (_Everybody's_, August). + Richardson, Norval, The Bracelet (_McClure's_, July). + Robbins, L.H., "Ain't This the Darnedest World?" (_American_, May); + Professor Todd's Used Car (_Everybody's_, July). + "Rutledge, Marice," The Thing They Loved (_Century_, May). + Ryan, Kathryn White, A Man of Cone (_Munsey's_, March). + Scarborough, Dorothy, The Drought (_Century_, May). + "Sidney, Rose," Butterflies (_Pictorial Review_, September). + Smith, Gordon Arthur, No Flowers (_Harper's_, May); The Aristocrat + (_Harper's_, November). + Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Both Judge and Jury (_Harper's_, January); + God's Mercy (_Pictorial Review_, July); Footfalls (_Pictorial + Review_, October). + Synon, Mary, On Scarlet Wings (_Red Book_, July). + Titus, Harold, Aliens (_Ladies Home Journal_, May). + Tuckerman, Arthur, Black Magic, (_Scribner's_, August). + Welles, Harriet, According to Ruskin (_Woman's Home Companion_, + June); + Distracting Adeline (_Scribner's_, May). + Whitman, Stephen French, The Last Room of All (_Harper's_, June). + Wilkes, Allene Tupper, Toop Goes Skating (_Woman's Home Companion_, + November). + +[Footnote 3: Listed alphabetically by authors.] + +[Footnote 4: A member of the Committee of Award, this author +refused as a matter of course to allow consideration of her stories +for republication here or for the prizes. But the other members +insist upon their being listed, and upon mention of "Red Gulls" as +one of the best stories of 1920.] + +[Footnote 5: Reprinted as by Frances Noyes Hart.] + +From this list were selected seventeen stories which, in the +judgment of the Committee, rank highest and which, therefore, are +reprinted in this volume. + +Since, as will be recalled from the conditions of the award, only +American authors were considered, certain familiar foreign names are +conspicuously absent. Achmed Abdullah, Stacy Aumonier, F. Britten +Austin, Phyllis Bottome, Thomas Burke, Coningsby Dawson, Mrs. Henry +Dudeney, Lord Dunsany, John Galsworthy, Perceval Gibbon, Blasco +Ibañez, Maurice Level, A. Neil Lyons, Seumas MacManus, Leonard Merrick, +Maria Moravsky, Alfred Noyes, May Sinclair and Hugh Walpole all +illustrate recovery from the world war. But with their stories the +Committee had nothing to do. The Committee cannot forbear mention, +however, of "Under the Tulips" (_Detective Stories_, February 10), +one of the two best horror specimens of the year. It is by an +Englishwoman, May Edginton. + +Half a dozen names from the foreign list just given are synonymous +with the best fiction of the period. Yet the short story as +practised in its native home continues to excel the short story +written in other lands. The English, the Russian, the French, it is +being contended in certain quarters, write better literature. They +do not, therefore, write better stories. If literature is of a +magnificent depth and intricate subtlety in a measure proportionate +to its reflection of the vast complexity of a nation that has +existed as such for centuries, conceivably it will be facile and +clever in a measure proportionate to its reflection of the spirit of +the commonwealth which in a few hundred years has acquired a place +with age-old empires. + +The American short-story is "simple, economical, and brilliantly +effective," H.L. Mencken admits.[6] "Yet the same hollowness that +marks the American novel," he continues, "also marks the short story." +And of "many current makers of magazine short stories," he +asseverates, "such stuff has no imaginable relation to life as men +live it in the world." He further comments, "the native author of any +genuine force and originality is almost invariably found to be under +strong foreign influences, either English or Continental." + +With due regard for the justice of this slant--that of a student of +Shaw, Ibsen, and Nietzsche--we believe that the best stories written +in America to-day reflect life, even life that is sordid and dreary +or only commonplace. In the New York _Evening Post_[7] the present +writer observed: + +"A backward glance over the short stories of the preceding twelve +months discovers two facts. There are many of them, approximately +between fifteen hundred and two thousand; there are, comparatively, +few of merit." + +[Footnote 6: The National Letters, in _Prejudices_, second series, +Knopf, N.Y., 1920.] + +[Footnote 7: April 24, 1920.] + +"You have looked from the rear platform of the limited, across the +widening distance, at a town passed a moment ago. A flourishing city, +according to the prospectus; a commonplace aggregation of +architecture, you say; respectable middle-class homes; time-serving +cottages built on the same plan; a heaven-seeking spire; perhaps a +work of art in library or townhall. You are rather glad that you +have left it behind; rather certain that soon you will have rolled +through another, its counterpart. + +"But there may be hope, here, of sorts. For a typical American town +represents twentieth century life and development, just as current +short stories reflect conditions. If the writer failed to represent +his age, to reflect its peculiar images, he would not serve it truly." + +It is significant that these words preceded by only a few months the +publication of Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," which illustrates in +a big and popular way the point in question. Work of satire that it +is, it cannot but hold out a solution of the problem presented: in +the sweep of the land to the Rockies lies a "dominion which will +rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile." + +America is young; its writers are young. But they are reflecting the +many-coloured, multiform life of America, in journalism and in art. +Quite naturally, they profit by all that has preceded them in other +literatures. Since their work stands rooted in romanticism it may +legitimately heighten the effects and lights of everyday life. + +A glance at the stories republished by the O. Henry Memorial Award +Committee for 1920 will reveal their varied nature. The _genus +Africanus_ is represented by "Black Art and Ambrose," which has a +close second in another on the list, "The Metamorphosis of High +Yaller," and a third in "The Ten-Share Horse" of E.K. Means. The +tabulation reveals a number of cosmic types--Jewish, Chinese, English, +French, Irish, Italian, American. The Chinese character is even more +ubiquitous than in 1919, but the tales wherein he figures appear to +the Committee to be the last drops in the bucket. Two exceptions +occur: "Young China," by Charles Caldwell Dobie, and "Widows and +Orphans," by Ellen La Motte. The former knows San Francisco Chinatown, +the latter is acquainted with the Oriental at home. One of the +Committee regards "The Daughter of the Bernsteins" as the best story +of Jewish character. Another sees in it a certain crudeness. Its +companions in the year were the tales of Bruno Lessing, Montague +Glass, and--in particular--a story by Leon Kelley entitled "Speeches +Ain't Business" (_Pictorial Review_, July). + +But this note on the list is a digression. With regard to the +stories reprinted, "The Last Room of All" illustrates old-world +influence, surely, in its recountal of events in an age long past, +the time of the Second Emperor Frederick of Swabia. In its revival +of old forms, old customs, it is a masquerade. But behold that it is +a gorgeous blood-coloured masquerade and that Cercamorte is a +distinct portrait of the swash-buckler hero of those times. + +The young Americans in "The Camel's Back" support a critical thesis +made for their author that he is evolving an idiom. It is the idiom +of young America. If you are over thirty, read one of this prodigy's +ten-thousand word narratives and discover for the first time that +you are separated by a hopeless chasm from the infant world. + +"Professor Todd's Used Car" and "Alma Mater" are two of the numerous +stories published in 1920 which take up the cudgels for the +undertrodden college professor. Incidentally, it is interesting to +read from a letter of Mr. Lewis: "The brevity--and the twist in the +plot at the end--were consciously patterned on O. Henry's methods." + +Without further enumeration of the human types, it is a matter of +observation that they exist in many moods and ages as they exist in +real life. A revenant who lived one hundred years ago might pick up +this volume and secure a fairly accurate idea of society to-day. A +visitor from another country might find it a guide to national +intelligence and feeling. + +A few stories appealed to the Committee for their poetry. "The +Funeral of John Bixby," by Stephen Vincent Benét, and "The Duke's +Opera," by "Jacques Belden" (the first an allegorical fantasy and +the second a poetic-romance) are at the head of this division. With +these should be included Don Marquis's "Death and Old Man Murtrie," +for its sardonic allegory, and "The Designs of Miramon," by James +Branch Cabell, for its social satire. Individual members of the +Committee would have liked to include these--different members +preferring different ones of the four--but the Committee as a whole +saw the allegory or satire or poetry predominant over story values. + +The mysterious and the tragic are found in the work of Mildred Cram +and Wilbur Daniel Steele. "Odell" and "Wind" illustrate Miss Cram's +particular genius in this direction: but "The Ember," it is voted, +ranks first of her publications. Mr. Steele's "Both Judge and Jury" +and "God's Mercy" are exotic, perhaps, but the atmosphere he creates +is beguiling in comparison with that of mere everyday. "Footfalls" +was selected out of an embarrassment of riches offered by this author. +The best horror story of the year is Rose Sidney's "Butterflies." It +is a Greek tragedy, unrelieved, to be taken or left without +palliation. + +Athletics, no one will deny, constitutes a definite phase of +American life. The sport-struggle is best illustrated in the fiction +of Lawrence Perry, whether it be that of a polo match, tennis game, +or crew race. "A Matter of Loyalty" is representative of this contest, +and in the combined judgment of the Committee the highest ranking of +all Mr. Perry's stories. "Bills Playable," by Jonathan Brooks, +conceives athletics in a more humorous spirit. + +Animal stories fill page upon page of 1920 magazines. Edison Marshall, +represented in the 1919 volume, by "The Elephant Remembers," has +delivered the epic of "Brother Bill the Elk." In spite of its length, +some fifteen thousand words, the Committee were mightily tempted to +request it for republication. Its Western author knows the animals in +their native lairs. "Break-Neck Hill," for which a member of the +Committee suggests the more poignant "Heart-Break Hill" as title, +expresses sympathy for the horse in a way the Committee believe +hitherto unexploited. "Aliens" received more votes as the best dog +story of the year. + +Among a number of sea-tales are those by Richard Matthews Hallet, +wherein Big Captain Hat appears. The woman sea-captain is by way of +being, for the moment, a novel figure. + +Anecdotal stories and very brief tales appear to have received +editorial sanction in 1920. "No Flowers" is of the former _genre_, +and whereas certain of the Committee see in the same author's +"The Aristocrat" a larger story, they agree with the majority that +the scintillance of this well-polished gem should give it setting +here. + +Variety of setting and diversity of emotion the reader will find in +greater measure, perhaps, than in the first volume of this series. +"Butterflies," for example, spells unrelieved horror; "The Face in +the Window" demands sympathetic admiration for its heroine; to read +"Contact!" means to suffer the familiar Aristotelian purging of the +emotions through tears. And their locales are as widely dissimilar +as are their emotional appeals. With these, all of which are +reprinted herein, the reader will do well to compare Dorothy +Scarborough's "Drought," for the pathos of a situation brought about +by the elements of nature in Texas. + +The Committee could not agree upon the first and second prize stories. +The leaders were: "Each in His Generation," "Contact!" "The Thing +They Loved," "The Last Room of All," "Slow Poison," "God's Mercy" +and "Alma Mater." No story headed more than one list. The point +system, to which resort was made, resulted in the first prize +falling to "Each in His Generation," by Maxwell Struthers Burt, and +the second to "Contact!", by Frances Newbold Noyes (now Frances +Noyes Hart). + +Mr. Burt's story of Henry McCain and his nephew Adrian compresses +within legitimate story limits the antagonism between successive +generations. Each representative, bound by traditions and customs of +the particular age to which he belongs, is bound also by the chain +of inheritance. One interested in the outcome of the struggle +between the inexorable thrall of "period" and the inevitable bond of +race will find the solution of the problem satisfactory, as will the +reader who enjoys the individual situation and wishes most to find +out whether Uncle Henry left his money to Adrian or rejected that +choice for marriage with the marvellous lady of his own era. + +"Contact!" is the first story by the author of "My A.E.F." and in +its every line testifies to the vital interest Miss Noyes had and +has in the boys who won the war--whether American, French or English. +So much one would know from a single rapid reading. A critic might +guess that it would have been impossible as a first story if the +author had not lived much abroad, as she has done since she was very +much of a child. At Oxford, or in the home of Gaston Paris, or +travelling around the globe, she received the foundation for the +understanding sympathy which endeared her as "Petite" to her soldier +boys. A critic might also aver that the steady moving forward of the +action, joined to the backward progress, yet both done so surely, +could not have been achieved without years of training. And in this +respect the narrative is little short of being a _tour de force_. But, +as a matter of fact. Miss Noyes dreamed the whole thing! Her +antecedent experience proved greater than mere technique. + +The Committee wish to comment upon the irregularity of the output of +fiction from month to month. May brought forth the greatest number +of good stories, as November reaped the fewest. They wish, also, to +register notice of the continued flexibility of the short story form. +"The Judgment of Vulcan," at one extreme, in some thirteen thousand +words none the less relates a short story; "Alma Mater," at the other, +accomplishes the same end in two thousand. It is a matter of record +that the Committee discovered a number of excellent examples +containing not more than two thirds this latter number, a fact that +argues against the merging of the short story and the novel. Finally, +the Committee believe the fiction of the year 1920 superior to that +of 1919. + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, + NEW YORK CITY, + March 3, 1921. + + + + + +EACH IN HIS GENERATION + + +BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT + +From _Scribner's Magazine_ + +Every afternoon at four o'clock, except when the weather was very +bad--autumn, winter, and spring--old Mr. Henry McCain drove up to +the small, discreet, polished front door, in the small, discreet, +fashionable street in which lived fairly old Mrs. Thomas Denby; got +out, went up the white marble steps, rang the bell, and was admitted +into the narrow but charming hall--dim turquoise-blue velvet +panelled into the walls, an etching or two: Whistler, Brangwyn--by a +trim parlour-maid. Ten generations, at least, of trim parlour-maids +had opened the door for Mr. McCain. They had seen the sparkling +victoria change, not too quickly, to a plum-coloured limousine; they +had seen Mr. McCain become perhaps a trifle thinner, the colour in +his cheeks become a trifle more confined and fixed, his white hair +grow somewhat sparser, but beyond that they had seen very little +indeed, although, when they had left Mr. McCain in the drawing-room +with the announcement that Mrs. Denby would be down immediately, and +were once again seeking the back of the house, no doubt their +eyebrows, blonde, brunette, or red, apexed to a questioning angle. + +In the manner of youth the parlour-maids had come, worked, fallen in +love and departed, but Mr. McCain, in the manner of increasing age, +had if anything grown more faithful and exact to the moment. If he +were late the fraction of five minutes, one suspected that he +regretted it, that it came near to spoiling his entire afternoon. He +was not articulate, but occasionally he expressed an idea and the +most common was that he "liked his things as he liked them"; +his eggs, in other words, boiled just so long, no more--after +sixty years of inner debate on the subject he had apparently +arrived at the conclusion that boiled eggs were the only kind of eggs +permissible--his life punctual and serene. The smallest manifestation +of unexpectedness disturbed him. Obviously that was one reason why, +after a youth not altogether constant, he had become so utterly +constant where Mrs. Denby was concerned. She had a quality of +perenniality, charming and assuring, even to each strand of her +delicate brown hair. Grayness should have been creeping upon her, +but it was not. It was doubtful if Mr. McCain permitted himself, +even secretly, to wonder why. Effects, fastidious and constant, were +all he demanded from life. + +This had been going on for twenty years--this afternoon call; this +slow drive afterward in the park; this return by dusk to the shining +small house in the shining small street; the good-by, reticently +ardent, as if it were not fully Mr. McCain's intention to return +again in the evening. Mr. McCain would kiss Mrs. Denby's hand--slim, +lovely, with a single gorgeous sapphire upon the third finger. +"Good-by, my dear," he would say, "you have given me the most +delightful afternoon of my life." For a moment Mrs. Denby's hand +would linger on the bowed head; then Mr. McCain would straighten up, +smile, square his shoulders in their smart, young-looking coat, and +depart to his club, or the large, softly lit house where he dwelt +alone. At dinner he would drink two glasses of champagne. Before he +drained the last sip of the second pouring he would hold the glass +up to the fire, so that the bronze coruscations at the heart of the +wine glowed like fireflies in a gold dusk. One imagined him saying +to himself: "A perfect woman! A perfect woman--God bless her!" +Saying "God bless" any one, mind you, with a distinct warming of the +heart, but a thoroughly late-Victorian disbelief in any god to bless.... +At least, you thought as much. + +And, of course, one had not the slightest notion whether he--old +Mr. Henry McCain--was aware that this twenty years of devotion on +his part to Mrs. Denby was the point upon which had come to focus +the not inconsiderable contempt and hatred for him of his nephew +Adrian. + +It was an obvious convergence, this devotion of all the traits which +composed, so Adrian imagined, the despicable soul that lay beneath +his uncle's unangled exterior: undeviating self-indulgence; secrecy; +utter selfishness--he was selfish even to the woman he was supposed +to love; that is, if he was capable of loving any one but himself--a +bland hypocrisy; an unthinking conformation to the dictates of an +unthinking world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, +here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor +vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; +a generation brittle as ice; a generation of secret diplomacy; a +generation that in its youth had covered a lack of bathing by a vast +amount of perfume. That was it--! That expressed it perfectly! The +just summation! Camellias, and double intentions in speech, and +unnecessary reticences, and refusals to meet the truth, and a +deliberate hiding of uglinesses! + +Most of the time Adrian was too busy to think about his uncle at +all--he was a very busy man with his writing: journalistic writing; +essays, political reviews, propaganda--and because he was busy he +was usually well-content, and not uncharitable, except professionally; +but once a month it was his duty to dine with his uncle, and then, +for the rest of the night, he was disturbed, and awoke the next +morning with the dusty feeling in his head of a man who has been +slightly drunk. Old wounds were recalled, old scars inflamed; a +childhood in which his uncle's figure had represented to him the +terrors of sarcasm and repression; a youth in which, as his guardian, +his uncle had deprecated all first fine hot-bloodednesses and +enthusiasms; a young manhood in which he had been told cynically +that the ways of society were good ways, and that the object of life +was material advancement; advice which had been followed by the +stimulus of an utter refusal to assist financially except where +absolutely necessary. There had been willingness, you understand, to +provide a gentleman's education, but no willingness to provide +beyond that any of a gentleman's perquisites. That much of his early +success had been due to this heroic upbringing, Adrian was too +honest not to admit, but then--by God, it had been hard! All the +colour of youth! No time to dream--except sorely! Some warping, some +perversion! A gasping, heart-breaking knowledge that you could not +possibly keep up with the people with whom, paradoxically enough, +you were supposed to spend your leisure hours. Here was the making +of a radical. And yet, despite all this, Adrian dined with his uncle +once a month. + +The mere fact that this was so, that it could be so, enraged him. It +seemed a renunciation of all he affirmed; an implicit falsehood. He +would have liked very much to have got to his feet, standing firmly +on his two long, well-made legs, and have once and for all delivered +himself of a final philippic. The philippic would have ended +something like this: + +"And this, sir, is the last time I sacrifice any of my good hours to +you. Not because you are old, and therefore think you are wise, when +you are not; not because you are blind and besotted and damned--a +trunk of a tree filled with dry rot that presently a clean wind will +blow away; not because your opinions, and the opinions of all like +you, have long ago been proven the lies and idiocies that they are; +not even because you haven't one single real right left to live--I +haven't come to tell you these things, although they are true; for +you are past hope and there is no use wasting words upon you; I have +come to tell you that you bore me inexpressibly. (That would be the +most dreadful revenge of all. He could see his uncle's face!) That +you have a genius for taking the wrong side of every question, and I +can no longer endure it. I dissipate my time. Good-night!" + +He wouldn't have said it in quite so stately a way, possibly, the +sentences would not have been quite so rounded, but the context +would have been the same. + +Glorious; but it wasn't said. Instead, once a month, he got into his +dinner-jacket, brushed his hair very sleekly, walked six blocks, +said good-evening to his uncle's butler, and went on back to the +library, where, in a room rich with costly bindings, and smelling +pleasantly of leather, and warmly yellow with the light of two +shaded lamps, he would find his uncle reading before a crackling +wood fire. What followed was almost a formula, an exquisite +presentation of stately manners, an exquisite avoidance of any topic +which might cause a real discussion. The dinner was invariably gentle, +persuasive, a thoughtful gastronomic achievement. Heaven might +become confused about its weather, and about wars, and things like +that, but Mr. McCain never became confused about his menus. He had a +habit of commending wine. "Try this claret, my dear fellow, I want +your opinion.... A drop of this Napoleonic brandy won't hurt you a +bit." He even sniffed the bouquet before each sip; passed, that is, +the glass under his nose and then drank. But Adrian, with a +preconceived image of the personality back of this, and the memory +of too many offences busy in his mind, saw nothing quaint or amusing. +His gorge rose. Damn his uncle's wines, and his mushrooms, and his +soft-footed servants, and his house of nuances and evasions, and his +white grapes, large and outwardly perfect, and inwardly sentimental +as the generation whose especial fruit they were. As for himself, he +had a recollection of ten years of poverty after leaving college; a +recollection of sweat and indignities; he had also a recollection of +some poor people whom he had known. + +Afterward, when the dinner was over, Adrian would go home and awake +his wife, Cecil, who, with the brutal honesty of an honest woman, +also some of the ungenerosity, had early in her married life flatly +refused any share in the ceremonies described. Cecil would lie in +her small white bed, the white of her boudoir-cap losing itself in +the white of the pillow, a little sleepy and a little angrily +perplexed at the perpetual jesuitical philosophy of the male. +"If you feel that way," she would ask, "why do you go there, then? +Why don't you banish your uncle utterly?" She asked this not without +malice, her long, violet, Slavic eyes widely open, and her red mouth, +a trifle too large, perhaps, a trifle cruel, fascinatingly +interrogative over her white teeth. She loved Adrian and had at times, +therefore, the right and desire to torture him. She knew perfectly +well why he went. He was his uncle's heir, and until such time as +money and other anachronisms of the present social system were done +away with, there was no use throwing a fortune into the gutter, even +if by your own efforts you were making an income just sufficiently +large to keep up with the increased cost of living. + +Sooner or later Adrian's mind reverted to Mrs. Denby. This was +usually after he had been in bed and had been thinking for a while +in the darkness. He could not understand Mrs. Denby. She affronted +his modern habit of thought. + +"The whole thing is so silly and adventitious!" + +"What thing?" + +Adrian was aware that his wife knew exactly of what he was talking, +but he had come to expect the question. "Mrs. Denby and my uncle." +He would grow rather gently cross. "It has always reminded me of +those present-day sword-and-cloak romances fat business men used to +write about ten years ago and sell so enormously--there's an +atmosphere of unnecessary intrigue. What's it all about? Here's the +point! Why, if she felt this way about things, didn't she divorce +that gentle drunkard of a husband of hers years ago and marry my +uncle outright and honestly? Or why, if she couldn't get a +divorce--which she could--didn't she leave her husband and go with +my uncle? Anything in the open! Make a break--have some courage of +her opinions! Smash things; build them up again! Thank God nowadays, +at least, we have come to believe in the cleanness of surgery rather +than the concealing palliatives of medicine. We're no longer--we +modern people--afraid of the world; and the world can never hurt for +any length of time any one who will stand up to it and tell it +courageously to go to hell. No! It comes back and licks hands." + +"I'll tell you why. My uncle and Mrs. Denby are the typical moral +cowards of their generation. There's selfishness, too. What a +travesty of love! Of course there's scandal, a perpetual scandal; +but it's a hidden, sniggering scandal they don't have to meet face +to face; and that's all they ask of life, they, and people like +them--never to have to meet anything face to face. So long as they +can bury their heads like ostriches! ... Faugh!" There would be a +moment's silence; then Adrian would complete his thought. "In my +uncle's case," he would grumble in the darkness, "one phase of the +selfishness is obvious. He couldn't even get himself originally, I +suppose, to face the inevitable matter-of-fact moments of marriage. +It began when he was middle-aged, a bachelor--I suppose he wants the +sort of Don Juan, eighteen-eighty, perpetual sort of romance that +doesn't exist outside the brains of himself and his like.... +Camellias!" + +Usually he tried to stir up argument with his wife, who in these +matters agreed with him utterly; even more than agreed with him, +since she was the escaped daughter of rich and stodgy people, and +had insisted upon earning her own living by portrait-painting. +Theoretically, therefore, she was, of course, an anarchist. But at +moments like the present her silent assent and the aura of slight +weariness over an ancient subject which emanated from her in the dusk, +affronted Adrian as much as positive opposition. + +"Why don't you try to understand me?" + +"I do, dearest!"--a pathetic attempt at eager agreement. + +"Well, then, if you do, why is the tone of your voice like that? You +know by now what I think. I'm not talking convention; I believe +there are no laws higher than the love of a man for a woman. It +should seek expression as a seed seeks sunlight. I'm talking about +honesty; bravery; a willingness to accept the consequences of one's +acts and come through; about the intention to sacrifice for love +just what has to be sacrificed. What's the use of it otherwise? +That's one real advance the modern mind has made, anyhow, despite +all the rest of the welter and uncertainty." + +"Of course, dearest." + +He would go on. After a while Cecil would awake guiltily and inject +a fresh, almost gay interest into her sleepy voice. She was not so +unfettered as not to dread the wounded esteem of the unlistened-to +male. She would lean over and kiss Adrian. + +"Do go to sleep, darling! What's the sense? Pretty soon your uncle +will be dead--wretched old man! Then you'll never have to think of +him again." Being a childless woman, her red, a trifle cruel mouth +would twist itself in the darkness into a small, secretive, maternal +smile. + +But old Mr. Henry McCain didn't die; instead he seemed to be caught +up in the condition of static good health which frequently +companions entire selfishness and a careful interest in oneself. His +butler died, which was very annoying. Mr. McCain seemed to consider +it the breaking of a promise made fifteen or so years before. It was +endlessly a trouble instructing a new man, and then, of course, +there was Adlington's family to be looked after, and taxes had gone +up, and Mrs. Adlington was a stout woman who, despite the fact that +Adlington, while alive, had frequently interrupted Mr. McCain's +breakfast newspaper reading by asserting that she was a person of no +character, now insisted upon weeping noisily every time Mr. McCain +granted her an interview. Also, and this was equally unexpected, +since one rather thought he would go on living forever, like one of +the damper sort of fungi, Mr. Denby came home from the club one +rainy spring night with a slight cold and died, three days later, +with extraordinary gentleness. + +"My uncle," said Adrian, "is one by one losing his accessories. +After a while it will be his teeth." + +Cecil was perplexed. "I don't know exactly what to do," she +complained. "I don't know whether to treat Mrs. Denby as a bereaved +aunt, a non-existent family skeleton, or a released menace. I dare +say now, pretty soon, she and your uncle will be married. Meanwhile, +I suppose it is rather silly of me not to call and see if I can help +her in any way. After all, we do know her intimately, whether we +want to or not, don't we? We meet her about all the time, even if +she wasn't motoring over to your uncle's place in the summer when we +stop there." + +So she went, being fundamentally kindly and fundamentally curious. +She spoke of the expedition as "a descent upon Fair Rosamund's tower." + +The small, yellow-panelled drawing-room, where she awaited Mrs. +Denby's coming, was lit by a single silver vase-lamp under an orange +shade and by a fire of thin logs, for the April evening was damp +with a hesitant rain. On the table, near the lamp, was a silver vase +with three yellow tulips in it, and Cecil, wandering about, came +upon a double photograph frame, back of the vase, that made her gasp. +She picked it up and stared at it. Between the alligator edgings, +facing each other obliquely, but with the greatest amity, were +Mr. Thomas Denby in the fashion of ten years before, very handsome, +very well-groomed, with the startled expression which any definite +withdrawal from his potational pursuits was likely to produce upon +his countenance, and her uncle-in-law, Mr. Henry McCain, also in the +fashion of ten years back. She was holding the photographs up to the +light, her lips still apart, when she heard a sound behind her, and, +putting the frame back guiltily, turned about. Mrs. Denby was +advancing toward her. She seemed entirely unaware of Cecil's +malfeasance; she was smiling faintly; her hand was cordial, grateful. + +"You are very good," she murmured. "Sit here by the fire. We will +have some tea directly." + +Cecil could not but admit that she was very lovely; particularly +lovely in the black of her mourning, with her slim neck, rising up +from its string of pearls, to a head small and like a delicate +white-and-gold flower. An extraordinarily well-bred woman, a sort of +misty Du Maurier woman, of a type that had become almost non-existent, +if ever it had existed in its perfection at all. And, curiously +enough, a woman whose beauty seemed to have been sharpened by many +fine-drawn renunciations. Now she looked at her hands as if expecting +Cecil to say something. + +"I think such calls as this are always very useless, but then--" + +"Exactly--but then! They mean more than anything else in the world, +don't they? When one reaches fifty-five one is not always used to +kindness.... You are very kind...." She raised her eyes. + +Cecil experienced a sudden impulsive warmth. "After all, what did +she or any one else know about other peoples' lives? Poor souls! +What a base thing life often was!" + +"I want you to understand that we are always so glad, both Adrian +and myself.... Any time we can help in any way, you know--" + +"Yes, I think you would. You--I have watched you both. You don't mind, +do you? I think you're both rather great people--at least, my idea +of greatness." + +Cecil's eyes shone just a little; then she sat back and drew +together her eager, rather childish mouth. This wouldn't do! She had +not come here to encourage sentimentalization. With a determined +effort she lifted her mind outside the circle of commiseration which +threatened to surround it. She deliberately reset the conversation +to impersonal limits. She was sure that Mrs. Denby was aware of her +intention, adroitly concealed as it was. This made her uncomfortable, +ashamed. And yet she was irritated with herself. Why should she +particularly care what this woman thought in ways as subtle as this? +Obvious kindness was her intention, not mental charity pursued into +tortuous by-paths. And, besides, her frank, boyish cynicism, its +wariness, revolted, even while she felt herself flattered at the +prospect of the confidences that seemed to tremble on Mrs. Denby's +lips. It wouldn't do to "let herself in for anything"; to "give +herself away." No! She adopted a manner of cool, entirely reflective +kindliness. But all along she was not sure that she was thoroughly +successful. There was a lingering impression that Mrs. Denby was +penetrating the surface to the unwilling interest beneath. Cecil +suspected that this woman was trained in discriminations and +half-lights to which she and her generation had joyfully made +themselves blind. She felt uncomfortably young; a little bit smiled +at in the most kindly of hidden ways. Just as she was leaving, the +subversive softness came close to her again, like a wave of too much +perfume as you open a church-door; as if some one were trying to +embrace her against her will. + +"You will understand," said Mrs. Denby, "that you have done the very +nicest thing in the world. I am horribly lonely. I have few women +friends. Perhaps it is too much to ask--but if you could call again +sometime. Yes ... I would appreciate it so greatly." + +She let go of Cecil's hand and walked to the door, and stood with +one long arm raised against the curtain, her face turned toward the +hall. + +"There is no use," she said, "in attempting to hide my husband's life, +for every one knows what it was, but then--yes, I think you will +understand. I am a childless woman, you see; he was infinitely +pathetic." + +Cecil felt that she must run away, instantly. "I do--" she said +brusquely. "I understand more than other women. Perfectly! Good-by!" + +She found herself brushing past the latest trim parlour-maid, and +out once more in the keen, sweet, young dampness. She strode briskly +down the deserted street. Her fine bronze eyebrows were drawn down +to where they met. "Good Lord! Damn!"--Cecil swore very prettily and +modernly--"What rotten taste! Not frankness, whatever it might seem +outwardly; not frankness, but devious excuses! Some more of Adrian's +hated past-generation stuff! And yet--no! The woman was +sincere--perfectly! She had meant it--that about her husband. And +she _was_ lovely--and she was fine, too! It was impossible to deny it. +But--a childless woman! About that drunken tailor's model of a +husband! And then--Uncle Henry! ..." Cecil threw back her head; her +eyes gleamed in the wet radiance of a corner lamp; she laughed +without making a sound, and entirely without amusement. + +But it is not true that good health is static, no matter how +carefully looked after. And, despite the present revolt against the +Greek spirit, Time persists in being bigotedly Greek. The +tragedy--provided one lives long enough--is always played out to its +logical conclusion. For every hour you have spent, no matter how +quietly or beautifully or wisely, Nemesis takes toll in the end. You +peter out; the engine dulls; the shining coin wears thin. If it's +only that it is all right; you are fortunate if you don't become +greasy, too, or blurred, or scarred. And Mr. McCain had not spent +all his hours wisely or beautifully, or even quietly, underneath the +surface. He suddenly developed what he called "acute indigestion." + +"Odd!" he complained, "and exceedingly tiresome! I've been able to +eat like an ostrich all my life." Adrian smiled covertly at the +simile, but his uncle was unaware that it was because in Adrian's +mind the simile applied to his uncle's conscience, not his stomach. + +It _was_ an odd disease, that "acute indigestion." It manifested +itself by an abrupt tragic stare in Mr. McCain's eyes, a whiteness of +cheek, a clutching at the left side of the breast; it resulted also +in his beginning to walk very slowly indeed. One day Adrian met +Carron, his uncle's physician, as he was leaving a club after +luncheon. Carron stopped him. "Look here, Adrian," he said, +"is that new man of your uncle's--that valet, or whatever he is--a +good man?" + +Adrian smiled. "I didn't hire him," he answered, "and I couldn't +discharge him if I wanted--in fact, any suggestion of that kind on my +part, would lead to his employment for life. Why?" + +"Because," said Carron, "he impresses me as being rather young and +flighty, and some day your uncle is going to die suddenly. He may +last five years; he may snuff out to-morrow. It's his heart." His +lips twisted pityingly. "He prefers to call it by some other name," +he added, "and he would never send for me again if he knew I had +told you, but you ought to know. He's a game old cock, isn't he?" + +"Oh, very!" agreed Adrian. "Yes, game! Very, indeed!" + +He walked slowly down the sunlit courtway on which the back door of +the club opened, swinging his stick and meditating. Spring was +approaching its zenith. In the warm May afternoon pigeons tumbled +about near-by church spires which cut brown inlays into the soft +blue sky. There was a feeling of open windows; a sense of unseen +tulips and hyacinths; of people playing pianos.... Too bad, an old +man dying that way, his hand furtively seeking his heart, when all +this spring was about! Terror in possession of him, too! People like +that hated to die; they couldn't see anything ahead. Well, Adrian +reflected, the real tragedy of it hadn't been his fault. He had +always been ready at the slightest signal to forget almost +everything--yes, almost everything. Even that time when, as a +sweating newspaper reporter, he had, one dusk, watched in the park +his uncle and Mrs. Denby drive past in the cool seclusion of a +shining victoria. Curious! In itself the incident was small, but it +had stuck in his memory more than others far more serious, as +concrete instances are likely to do.... No, he wasn't sorry; not a +bit! He was glad, despite the hesitation he experienced in saying to +himself the final word. He had done his best, and this would mean +his own release and Cecil's. It would mean at last the blessed +feeling that he could actually afford a holiday, and a little +unthinking laughter, and, at thirty-nine, the dreams for which, at +twenty-five, he had never had full time. He walked on down the +courtway more briskly. + +That Saturday night was the night he dined with his uncle. It had +turned very warm; unusually warm for the time of year. When he had +dressed and had sought out Cecil to say good-by to her he found her +by the big studio window on the top floor of the apartment where +they lived. She was sitting in the window-seat, her chin cupped in +her hand, looking out over the city, in the dark pool of which +lights were beginning to open like yellow water-lilies. Her white +arm gleamed in the gathering dusk, and she was dressed in some +diaphanous blue stuff that enhanced the bronze of her hair. Adrian +took his place silently beside her and leaned out. The air was very +soft and hot and embracing, and up here it was very quiet, as if one +floated above the lower clouds of perpetual sound. + +Cecil spoke at last. "It's lovely, isn't it?" she said. "I should +have come to find you, but I couldn't. These first warm nights! You +really understand why people live, after all, don't you? It's like a +pulse coming back to a hand you love." She was silent a moment. +"Kiss me," she said, finally. "I--I'm so glad I love you, and we're +young." + +He stooped down and put his arms about her. He could feel her tremble. +How fragrant she was, and queer, and mysterious, even if he had +lived with her now for almost fifteen years! He was infinitely glad +at the moment for his entire life. He kissed her again, kissed her +eyes, and she went down the stairs with him to the hall-door. She +was to stop for him at his uncle's, after a dinner to which she was +going. + +Adrian lit a cigarette and walked instead of taking the elevator. It +was appropriate to his mood that on the second floor some one with a +golden Italian voice should be singing "Louise." He paused for a +moment. He was reminded of a night long ago in Verona, when there +had been an open window and moonlight in the street. Then he looked +at his watch. He was late; he would have to hurry. It amused him +that at his age he should still fear the silent rebuke with which +his uncle punished unpunctuality. + +He arrived at his destination as a near-by church clock struck the +half-hour. The new butler admitted him and led him back to where his +uncle was sitting by an open window; the curtains stirred in the +languid breeze, the suave room was a little penetrated by the night, +as if some sly, disorderly spirit was investigating uninvited. It +was far too hot for the wood fire--that part of the formula had been +omitted, but otherwise each detail was the same. "The two hundredth +time!" Adrian thought to himself. "The two hundredth time, at least! +It will go on forever!" And then the formula was altered again, for +his uncle got to his feet, laying aside the evening paper with his +usual precise care. "My dear fellow," he began, "so good of you! On +the minute, too! I----" and then he stumbled and put out his hand. +"My glasses!" he said. + +Adrian caught him and held him upright. He swayed a little. +"I----Lately I have had to use them sometimes, even when not reading," +he murmured. "Thank you! Thank you!" + +Adrian went back to the chair where his uncle had been sitting. He +found the glasses--gold pince-nez--but they were broken neatly in +the middle, lying on the floor, as if they had dropped from +someone's hand. He looked at them for a moment, puzzled, before he +gave them back to his uncle. + +"Here they are, sir," he said. "But--it's very curious. They're +broken in such an odd way." + +His uncle peered down at them. He hesitated and cleared his throat. +"Yes," he began; then he stood up straight, with an unexpected twist +of his shoulders. "I was turning them between my fingers," he said, +"just before you came in. I had no idea--no, no idea! Shall we go in? +I think dinner has been announced." + +There was the sherry in the little, deeply cut glasses, and the +clear soup, with a dash of lemon in it, and the fish, and afterward +the roast chicken, with vegetables discreetly limited and designed +not to detract from the main dish; and there was a pint of champagne +for Adrian and a mild white wine for his uncle. The latter twisted +his mouth in a dry smile. "One finds it difficult to get old," he +said. "I have always been very fond of champagne. More aesthetically +I think than the actual taste. It seems to sum up so well the +evening mood--dinner and laughter and forgetting the day. But now----" +he flicked contemptuously the stem of his glass--"I am only allowed +this uninspired stuff." He stopped suddenly and his face twisted +into the slight grimace which Adrian in the last few weeks had been +permitted occasionally to see. His hand began to wander vaguely over +the white expanse of his shirt. + +Adrian pushed back his chair. "Let me--!" he began, but his uncle +waved a deprecating hand. "Sit down!" he managed to say. "Please!" +Adrian sank back again. The colour returned to his uncle's cheeks +and the staring question left his eyes. He took a sip of wine. + +"I cannot tell you," he observed with elaborate indifference, +"how humiliating this thing is becoming to me. I have always had a +theory that invalids and people when they begin to get old and infirm, +should be put away some place where they can undergo the unpleasant +struggle alone. It's purely selfish--there's something about the +sanctity of the individual. Dogs have it right--you know the way +they creep off? But I suppose I won't. Pride fails when the body +weakens, doesn't it, no matter what the will may be?" He lifted his +wine-glass. "I am afraid I am giving you a very dull evening, my +dear fellow," he apologized. "Forgive me! We will talk of more +pleasant things. I drink wine with you! How is Cecil? Doing well +with her painting?" + +Adrian attempted to relax his own inner grimness. He responded to +his uncle's toast. But he wished this old man, so very near the +mysterious crisis of his affairs, would begin to forego to some +extent the habit of a lifetime, become a little more human. This +ridiculous "façade"! The dinner progressed. + +Through an open window the night, full of soft, distant sound, made +itself felt once more. The candles, under their red shades, +flickered at intervals. The noiseless butler came and went. How old +his uncle was getting to look, Adrian reflected. There was a +grayness about his cheeks; fine, wire-like lines about his mouth. +And he was falling into that sure sign of age, a vacant +absent-mindedness. Half the time he was not listening to what he, +Adrian, was saying; instead, his eyes sought constantly the shadows +over the carved sideboard across the table from him. What did he see +there? What question was he asking? Adrian wondered. Only once was +his uncle very much interested, and that was when Adrian had spoken +of the war and the psychology left in its train. Adrian himself had +not long before been released from a weary round of training-camps, +where, in Texas dust, or the unpleasant resinous summer of the South, +he had gone through a repetition that in the end had threatened to +render him an imbecile. He was not illusioned. As separate +personalities, men had lost much of their glamour for him; there had +been too much sweat, too much crowding, too much invasion of dignity, +of everything for which the world claimed it had been struggling and +praying. But alongside of this revolt on his part had grown up an +immense pity and belief in humanity as a mass--struggling, worm-like, +aspiring, idiotic, heroic. The thought of it made him uncomfortable +and at the same time elate. + +His uncle shook a dissenting head. On this subject he permitted +himself mild discussion, but his voice was still that of an old, +wearied man, annoyed and bewildered. "Oh, no!" he said. "That's the +very feature of it that seems to me most dreadful; the vermicular +aspect; the massed uprising; the massed death. About professional +armies there was something decent--about professional killing. It +was cold-blooded and keen, anyway. But this modern war, and this +modern craze for self-revelation! Naked! Why, these books--the young +men kept their fingers on the pulses of their reactions. It isn't +clean; it makes the individual cheap. War is a dreadful thing; it +should be as hidden as murder." He sat back, smiled. "We seem to +have a persistent tendency to become serious to-night," he remarked. + +Serious! Adrian saw a vision of the drill-grounds, and smiled +sardonically; then he raised his head in surprise, for the new +butler had broken all the rules of the household and was summoning +his uncle to the telephone in the midst of dessert. He awaited the +expected rebuke, but it did not come. Instead, his uncle paused in +the middle of a sentence, stared, and looked up. "Ah, yes!" he said, +and arose from his chair. "Forgive me, Adrian, I will be back shortly." +He walked with a new, just noticeable, infirmness toward the door. +Once there he seemed to think an apology necessary, for he turned +and spoke with absent-minded courtesy. + +"You may not have heard," he said, "but Mrs. Denby is seriously ill. +Her nurse gives me constant bulletins over the telephone." + +Adrian started to his feet, then sat down again. "But--" he +stuttered--"but--is it as bad as all that?" + +"I am afraid," said his uncle gently, "it could not be worse." The +curtain fell behind him. + +Adrian picked up his fork and began to stir gently the melting ice +on the plate before him, but his eyes were fixed on the wall opposite, +where, across the shining table, from a mellow gold frame, a +portrait of his grandfather smiled with a benignity, utterly belying +his traditional character, into the shadows above the candles. But +Adrian was not thinking of his grandfather just then, he was +thinking of his uncle--and Mrs. Denby. What in the world----! +Dangerously ill, and yet here had been his uncle able to go through +with--not entirely calmly, to be sure; Adrian remembered the lack of +attention, the broken eye-glasses; and yet, still able to go through +with, not obviously shaken, this monthly farce; this dinner that in +reality mocked all the real meaning of blood-relationship. Good Lord! +To Adrian's modern mind, impatient and courageous, the situation was +preposterous, grotesque. He himself would have broken through to the +woman he loved, were she seriously ill, if all the city was cordoned +to keep him back. What could it mean? Entire selfishness on his +uncle's part? Surely not that! That was too inhuman! Adrian was +willing to grant his uncle exceptional expertness in the art of +self-protection, but there was a limit even to self-protection. +There must be some other reason. Discretion? More likely, and yet +how absurd! Had Mr. Denby been alive, a meticulous, a fantastic +delicacy might have intervened, but Mr. Denby was dead. Who were +there to wound, or who left for the telling of tales? A doctor and +the servants. This was not altogether reasonable, despite what he +knew of his uncle. Here was some oddity of psychology he could not +follow. He heard the curtains stir as his uncle reentered. He looked +up, attentive and curious, but his uncle's face was the mask to +which he was accustomed. + +"How is Mrs. Denby?" he asked. + +Mr. McCain hesitated for the fraction of a second. "I am afraid, +very ill," he said. "Very ill, indeed! It is pneumonia. I--the +doctor thinks it is only a question of a little time, but--well, I +shall continue to hope for the best." There was a metallic harshness +to his concluding words. "Shall we go into the library?" he continued. +"I think the coffee will be pleasanter there." + +They talked again of the war; of revolution; of the dark forces at +large in the world. + +Through that hour or two Adrian had a nakedness of perception +unusual even to his sensitive mind. It seemed to him three spirits +were abroad in the quiet, softly-lit, book-lined room; three +intentions that crept up to him like the waves of the sea, receded, +crept back again; or were they currents of air? or hesitant, unheard +feet that advanced and withdrew? In at the open windows poured at +times the warm, enveloping scent of the spring; pervading, easily +overlooked, lawless, persistent, inevitable. Adrian found himself +thinking it was like the presence of a woman. And then, overlapping +this, would come the careful, dry, sardonic tones of his uncle's +voice, as if insisting that the world was an ordinary world, and +that nothing, not even love or death, could lay disrespectful +fingers upon or hurry for a moment the trained haughtiness of the +will. Yet even this compelling arrogance was at times overtaken, +submerged, by a third presence, stronger even than the other two; a +presence that entered upon the heels of the night; the ceaseless +murmur of the streets; the purring of rubber tires upon asphalt; a +girl's laugh, high, careless, reckless. Life went on. Never for a +moment did it stop. + +"I am not sorry that I am getting old," said Mr. McCain. "I think +nowadays is an excellent time to die. Perhaps for the very young, +the strong--but for me, things are too busy, too hurried. I have +always liked my life like potpourri. I liked to keep it in a china +jar and occasionally take off the lid. Otherwise one's sense of +perfume becomes satiated. Take your young girls; they remain +faithful to a love that is not worth being faithful to--all noise, +and flushed laughter, and open doors." Quite unexpectedly he began +to talk in a way he had never talked before. He held his cigar in +his hand until the ash turned cold; his ringers trembled just a +little. + +"You have been very good to me," he said. Adrian raised startled eyes. +"Very good. I am quite aware that you dislike me"--he hesitated and +the ghost of a smile hovered about his lips--"and I have always +disliked you. Please!" He raised a silencing hand. "You don't mind +my saying so? No. Very well, then, there is something I want to tell +you. Afterward I will never mention it again. I dare say our mutual +dislike is due to the inevitable misunderstanding that exists +between the generations. But it is not important. The point is that +we have always been well-bred toward each other. Yes, that is the +point. You have always been a gentleman, very considerate, very +courteous, I cannot but admire you. And I think you will find I have +done the best I could. I am not a rich man, as such things go +nowadays, but I will hand you on the money that will be yours quite +unimpaired, possibly added to. I feel very strongly on that subject. +I am old-fashioned enough to consider the family the most important +thing in life. After all, we are the only two McCains left." He +hesitated again, and twisted for a moment his bloodless hands in his +lap, then he raised his eyes and spoke with a curious hurried +embarrassment. "I have sacrificed a great deal for that," he said. +"Yes, a great deal." + +The soft-footed butler stood at his elbow, like an actor in comedy +suddenly cast for the role of a portentous messenger. + +"Miss Niles is calling you again, sir," he said. + +"On, yes!--ah--Adrian, I am very sorry, my dear fellow. I will +finish the conversation when I come back." + +This time the telephone was within earshot; in the hall outside. +Adrian heard his uncle's slow steps end in the creaking of a chair +as he sat down; then the picking up of the receiver. The message was +a long one, for his uncle did not speak for fully a minute; finally +his voice drifted in through the curtained doorway. + +"You think ... only a few minutes?" + +"... Ah, yes! Conscious? Yes. Well, will you tell her, Miss Niles?--yes, +please listen very carefully--tell her this. That I am not there +because I dared not come. Yes; on her account. She will understand. +My heart--it's my heart. She will understand. I did not dare. For her +sake, not mine. Tell her that. She will understand. Please be very +careful in repeating the message, Miss Niles. Tell her I dared not +come because of my heart.... Yes; thank you. That's it.... What? Yes, +I will wait, Miss Niles." + +Adrian, sitting in the library, suddenly got to his feet and crossed +to the empty fireplace and stood with his back to it, enlightenment +and a puzzled frown struggling for possession of his face. His +uncle's heart! Ah, he understood, then! It was discretion, after all, +but not the kind he thought--a much more forgiveable discretion. And, +yet, what possible difference could it make should his uncle die +suddenly in Mrs. Denby's house? Fall dead across her bed, or die +kneeling beside it? Poor, twisted old fool, afraid even at the end +that death might catch him out; afraid of a final undignified gesture. + +A motor blew its horn for the street crossing. Another girl laughed; +a young, thin, excited girl, to judge by her laughter. The curtains +stirred and again there was that underlying scent of tulips and +hyacinths; and then, from the hall outside, came the muffled thud of +a receiver falling to the floor. Adrian waited. The receiver was not +picked up. He strode to the door. Crumpled up over the telephone was +old Mr. McCain. + +Cecil came later. She was very quick and helpful, and jealously +solicitous on Adrian's account, but in the taxicab going home she +said the one thing Adrian had hoped she wouldn't say, and yet was +sure she would. She belonged to a sex which, if it is honest at all, +is never reticently so. She believed that between the man she loved +and herself there were no possible mental withdrawals. "It is very +tragic," she said, "but much better--you know it is better. He +belonged to the cumberers of the earth. Yes, so much better; and this +way, too!" + +In the darkness her hand sought his. Adrian took it, but in his +heart was the same choked feeling, the same knowledge that something +was gone that could not be found again, that, as a little boy, he had +had when they sold, at his father's death, the country place where +he had spent his summers. Often he had lain awake at night, restless +with the memory of heliotrope, and phlox, and mignonette, and +afternoons quiet except for the sound of bees. + + + + +"CONTACT!" + + +BY FRANCES NOYES HART[8] + +[Footnote 8: Frances Newbold Noyes, in _Pictorial Review_ for +December, 1920.] + + +The first time she heard it was in the silk-hung and flower-scented +peace of the little drawing-room in Curzon Street. His sister Rosemary +had wanted to come up to London to get some clothes--Victory clothes +they called them in those first joyous months after the armistice, +and decked their bodies in scarlet and silver, even when their poor +hearts went in black--and Janet had been urged to leave her own drab +boarding-house room to stay with the forlorn small butterfly. They had +struggled through dinner somehow, and Janet had finished her coffee +and turned the great chair so that she could watch the dancing fire +(it was cool for May), her cloudy brown head tilted back against the +rose-red cushion, shadowy eyes half closed, idle hands linked across +her knees. She looked every one of her thirty years--and mortally +tired--and careless of both facts. But she managed an encouraging +smile at the sound of Rosemary's shy, friendly voice at her elbow. +"Janet, these are yours, aren't they? Mummy found them with some +things last week, and I thought that you might like to have them." + +She drew a quick breath at the sight of the shabby packet. + +"Why, yes," she said evenly. "That's good of you, Rosemary. Thanks a +lot." + +"That's all right," murmured Rosemary diffidently. "Wouldn't you +like something to read? There's a most frightfully exciting Western +novel----" + +The smile took on a slightly ironical edge. "Don't bother about me, +my dear. You see, I come from that frightfully exciting West, and I +know all about the pet rattlesnakes and the wildly Bohemian cowboys. +Run along and play with your book--I'll be off to bed in a few +minutes." + +Rosemary retired obediently to the deep chair in the corner, and +with the smile gone but the irony still hovering, she slipped the +cord off the packet. A meager and sorry enough array--words had +never been for her the swift, docile servitors that most people +found them. But the thin gray sheet in her fingers started out +gallantly enough--"Beloved." Beloved! She leaned far forward, +dropping it with deft precision into the glowing pocket of embers. +What next? This was more like--it began "Dear Captain Langdon" in +the small, contained, even writing that was her pride, and it went +on soberly enough, "I shall be glad to have tea with you next +Friday--not Thursday, because I must be at the hut then. It was +stupid of me to have forgotten you--next time I will try to do better." +Well, she had done better the next time. She had not forgotten him +again--never, never again. That had been her first letter; how +absurd of Jerry, the magnificently careless, to have treasured it +all that time, the miserable, stilted little thing! She touched it +with curious fingers. Surely, surely he must have cared, to have +cared so much for that! + +It seemed incredible that she hadn't remembered him at once when he +came into the hut that second time. Of course she had only seen him +for a moment and six months had passed--but he was so absurdly vivid, +every inch of him, from the top of his shining, dark head to the +heels of his shining, dark boots--and there were a great many inches! +How could she have forgotten, even for a minute, those eyes dancing +like blue fire in the brown young face, the swift, disarming charm +of his smile, and, above all, his voice--how, in the name of +absurdity could any one who had once heard it ever forget Jeremy +Langdon's voice? Even now she had only to close her eyes, and it +rang out again, with its clipped, British accent and its caressing +magic, as un-English as any Provincial troubadour's! And yet she had +forgotten--he had had to speak twice before she had even lifted her +head. + +"Miss America--oh, I say, she's forgotten me, and I thought that I'd +made such an everlasting impression!" The delighted amazement +reached even her tired ears, and she had smiled wanly as she pushed +the pile of coppers nearer to him. + +"Have you been in before? It's stupid of me, but there are such +hundreds of thousands of you, and you are gone in a minute, you see. +That's your change, I think." + +"Hundreds of thousands of me, hey?" He had leaned across the counter, +his face alight with mirth. "I wish to the Lord my angel mother +could hear you--it's what I'm forever tellin' her, though just +between us, it's stuff and nonsense. I've got a well-founded +suspicion that I'm absolutely unique. You wait and see!" + +And she had waited--and she had seen! She stirred a little, dropped +the note into the flames, and turned to the next, the quiet, mocking +mouth suddenly tortured and rebellious. + +"No, you must be mad," it ran, the trim writing strangely shaken. +"How often have you seen me--five times? Do you know how old I am. +How hard and tired and useless? No--no a thousand times. In a little +while we will wake up and find that we were dreaming." + +That had brought him to her swifter than Fate, triumphant mischief +in every line of his exultant face. "Just let those damned old cups +slip from your palsied fingers, will you? I'm goin' to take your +honourable age for a little country air--it may keep you out of the +grave for a few days longer. Never can tell! No use your scowlin' +like that--the car's outside, and the big chief says to be off with +you. Says you have no more colour than a banshee, and not half the +life--can't grasp the fact that it's just chronic antiquity. Fasten +the collar about your throat--no, higher! Darlin', darlin', think of +havin' a whole rippin' day to ourselves. You're glad, too, aren't you, +my little stubborn saint?" + +Oh, that joyous and heart-breaking voice, running on and on--it made +all the other voices that she had ever heard seem colourless and +unreal-- + +"Darlin' idiot, what do I care how old you are? Thirty, hey? Almost +old enough to be an ancestor! Look at me--no, look at me! Dare you +to say that you aren't mad about me!" + +Mad about him--mad, mad! She lifted her hands to her ears, but she +could no more shut out the exultant voice now than she could on that +windy afternoon. + +"Other fellow got tired of you, did he? Good luck for us, what? +You're a fearfully tiresome person, darlin'. It's goin' to take me +nine-tenths of eternity to tell you how tiresome you are. Give a +chap a chance, won't you? The tiresomest thing about you is the way +you leash up that dimple of yours. No, by George, there it is! Janie, +look at me----" + +She touched the place where the leashed dimple had hidden with a +delicate and wondering finger--of all Jerry's gifts to her the most +miraculous had been that small fugitive. Exiled now, forever and +forever. + +"Are you comin' down to White Orchards next week-end? I'm off for +France on the twelfth and you've simply got to meet my people. +You'll be insane about 'em--Rosemary's the most beguilin' +flibbertigibbet, and I can't wait to see you bein' a kind of an +elderly grandmother to her. What a bewitchin' little grandmother +you're goin' to be one of these days----" + +Oh, Jerry! Oh, Jerry, Jerry! She twisted in her chair, her face +suddenly a small mask of incredulous terror. No, no, it wasn't true, +it wasn't true--never--never--never! And then, for the first time, +she heard it. Far off but clear, a fine and vibrant humming, the +distant music of wings! The faint, steady pulsing was drawing nearer +and nearer--nearer still--it must be flying quite high. The hateful +letters scattered about her as she sprang to the open window--no, it +was too high to see, and too dark, though the sky was powdered with +stars--but she could hear it clearly, hovering and throbbing like +some gigantic bird. It must be almost directly over her head, if she +could only see it. + +"It sounds--it sounds the way a humming-bird would look through a +telescope," she said half aloud, and Rosemary murmured sleepily but +courteously, "What, Janet?" + +"Just an airplane--no, gone now. It sounded like a bird. Didn't you +hear it?" + +"No," replied Rosemary drowsily. "We get so used to the old things +that we don't even notice them any more. Queer time to be flying!" + +"It sounded rather--beautiful," said Janet, her face still turned to +the stars. "Far off, but so clear and sure. I wonder--I wonder +whether it will be coming back?" + +Well, it came back. She went down to White Orchards with Rosemary +for the following week-end, and after she had smoothed her hair and +given a scornful glance at the pale face in the mirror, with its +shadowy eyes and defiant mouth, she slipped out to the lower terrace +for a breath of the soft country air. Halfway down the flight of +steps she stumbled and caught at the balustrade, and stood shaking +for a moment, her face pressed against its rough surface. Once +before--once before she had stumbled on those steps, but it was not +the balustrade that had saved her. She could feel his arms about her +now, holding her up, holding her close and safe. The magical voice +was in her ears. "Let you go? I'll never let you go! Poor little feet, +stumblin' in the dark, what would you do without Jerry? Time's comin', +you cheeky little devils, when you'll come runnin' to him when he +whistles! No use tryin' to get away--you belong to him." + +Oh, whistle to them now, Jerry--they would run to you across the +stars! + +"How'd you like to marry me before I go back to-morrow? No? No +accountin' for tastes, Miss Abbott--lots of people would simply jump +at it! All right--April, then. Birds and flowers and all that kind +o' thing--pretty intoxicatin', what? No, keep still, darlin' goose. +What feller taught you to wear a dress that looks like roses and +smells like roses and feels like roses? This feller? Lord help us, +what a lovely liar!" + +And suddenly she found herself weeping helplessly, desperately, like +an exhausted child, shaken to the heart at the memory of the +rose-coloured dress. + +"You like me just a bit, don't you, funny, quiet little thing? But +you'd never lift a finger to hold me--that's the wonder of +you--that's why I'll never leave you. No, not for heaven. You can't +lose me--no use tryin'." + +But she had lost you, Jerry--you had left her, for all your promises, +to terrified weeping in the hushed loveliness of the terrace, where +your voice had turned her still heart to a dancing star, where your +fingers had touched her quiet blood to flowers and flames and +butterflies. She had believed you then--what would she ever +believe again? And then she caught back the despairing sobs +swiftly, for once more she heard, far off, the rushing of wings. +Nearer--nearer--humming and singing and hovering in the quiet dusk. +Why, it was over the garden! She flung back her head, suddenly eager +to see it; it was a friendly and thrilling sound in all that +stillness. Oh, it was coming lower--lower still--she could hear the +throb of the propellers clearly. Where _was_ it? Behind those trees, +perhaps? She raced up the flight of steps, dashing the treacherous +tears from her eyes, straining up on impatient tiptoes. Surely she +could see it now! But already it was growing fainter--drifting +steadily away, the distant hum growing lighter and lighter--lighter +still---- + +"Janet!" called Mrs. Langdon's pretty, patient voice. "Dinner-time, +dear! Is there any one with you?" + +"No one at all, Mrs. Langdon. I was just listening to an airplane." + +"An _airplane_? Oh, no, dear--they never pass this way any more. The +last one was in October, I think----" + +The soft, plaintive voice trailed off in the direction of the +dining-room and Janet followed it, a small, secure smile touching +her lips. The last one had not passed in October. It had passed a +few minutes before, over the lower garden. + +She quite forgot it by the next week--she was becoming an adept at +forgetting. That was all that was left for her to do! Day after day +and night after night she had raised the drawbridge between her +heart and memory, leaving the lonely thoughts to shiver desolately +on the other side of the moat. She was weary to the bone of suffering, +and they were enemies, for all their dear and friendly guise; they +would tear her to pieces if she ever let them in. No, no, she was +done with them. She would forget, as Jerry had forgotten. She would +destroy every link between herself and the past--and pack the neat +little steamer trunk neatly--and bid these kind and gentle people +good-by--and take herself and her bitterness and her dullness back +to the class-room in the Western university town--back to the +Romance languages. The Romance languages! + +She would finish it all that night, and leave as soon as possible. +There were some trinkets to destroy, and his letters from France to +burn--she would give Rosemary the rose-coloured dress--foolish, +lovely little Rosemary, whom he had loved, and who was lying now +fast asleep in the next room curled up like a kitten in the middle +of the great bed, her honey-coloured hair falling about her in a +shining mist. She swept back her own cloud of hair resolutely, +frowning at the candle-lit reflection in the mirror. Two desolate +pools in the small, pale oval of her face stared back at her--two +pools with something drowned in their lonely depths. Well, she would +drown it deeper! + +The letters first; how lucky that they still used candle-light! It +would make the task much simpler--the funeral pyre already lighted. +She moved one of the tall candelabra to the desk, sitting for a long +time quite still, her chin cupped in her hands, staring down at the +bits of paper. She could smell the wall-flowers under the window as +though they were in the room--drenched in dew and moonlight, they +were reckless of their fragrance. All this peace and cleanliness and +orderly beauty--what a ghastly trick for God to have played--to have +taught her to adore them, and then to snatch them away! All about her, +warm with candle-light, lay the gracious loveliness of the little +room with its dark waxed furniture, its bright glazed chintz, its +narrow bed with the cool linen sheets smelling of lavender, and its +straight, patterned curtains--oh, that hateful, mustard-coloured den +at home, with its golden-oak day-bed! + +She wrung her hands suddenly in a little hunted gesture. How could +he have left her to that, he who had sworn that he would never leave +her? In every one of those letters beneath her linked fingers he had +sworn it--in every one perjured--false half a hundred times. Pick up +any one of them at random-- + +"Janie, you darling stick, is 'dear Jerry' the best that you can do? +You ought to learn French! I took a perfectly ripping French kid out +to dinner last night--name's Liane, from the Varietés--and she was +calling me '_mon grand cheri_' before the salad, and '_mon p'tit +amour_' before the green mint. Maybe _that'll_ buck you up! And I'd +have you know that she's so pretty that it's ridiculous, with black +velvet hair that she wears like a little Oriental turban, and eyes +like golden pansies, and a mouth between a kiss and a prayer--and a +nice affable nature into the bargain. But I'm a ghastly jackass--I +didn't get any fun out of it at all--because I really didn't even +see her. Under the pink shaded candles to my blind eyes it seemed +that there was seated the coolest, quietest, whitest little thing, +with eyes that were as indifferent as my velvety Liane's were kind, +and mockery in her smile. Oh, little masquerader! If I could get +my arms about you even for a minute--if I could kiss so much as +the tips of your lashes--would you be cool and quiet and mocking +then? Janie, Janie, rosy-red as flowers on the terrace and +sweeter--sweeter--they're about you now--they'll be about you always!" + +Burn it fast, candle--faster, faster. Here's another for you. + +"So the other fellow cured you of using pretty names, did he--you +don't care much for dear and darling any more? Bit hard on me, +but fortunately for you, Janie Janet, I'm rather a dab at +languages--'specially when it comes to what the late lamented Boche +referred to as 'cosy names.' _Querida mi alma, douchka, Herzliebchen, +carissima_; and _bien, bien-aimée_, I'll not run out of salutations +for you this side of heaven--no--nor t'other. I adore the serene +grace with which you ignore the ravishing Liane. Haven't you any +curiosity at all, my Sphinx? No? Well, then, just to punish you, +I'll tell you all about it. She's married to the best fellow in the +world--a _liaison_ officer working with our squadron--and she +worships the ground that he walks on and the air that he occasionally +flies in. So whenever I run up to the City of Light, _en permission_, +I look her up, and take her the latest news--and for an hour, over +the candles, we pretend that I am Philippe, and that she is Janie. +Only she says that I don't pretend very well--and it's just possible +that she's right. + +"_Mon petit coeur et grand trésor_, I wish that I could take you +flying with me this evening. You'd be daft about it! Lots of it's a +rotten bore, of course, but there's something in me that doesn't +live at all when I'm on this too, too solid earth. Something that +lies there, crouched and dormant, waiting until I've climbed up into +the seat, and buckled the strap about me and laid my hands on the +'stick.' It's waiting--waiting for a word--and so am I. And I lean +far forward, watching the figure toiling out beyond till the call +comes back to me, clear and confident, 'Contact, sir?' And I shout +back, as restless and exultant as the first time that I answered +it--'Contact!' + +"And I'm off--and I'm alive--and I'm free! Ho, Janie! That's simpler +than Abracadabra or Open Sesame, isn't it? But it opens doors more +magical than ever they swung wide, and something in me bounds through, +more swift and eager than any Aladdin. Free! I'm a crazy sort of a +beggar, my little love--that same thing in me hungers and thirsts and +aches for freedom. I go half mad when people or events try to hold +me--you, wise beyond wisdom, never will. Somehow, between us, we've +struck the spark that turns a mere piece of machinery into a wonder +with wings--somehow, you are forever setting me free. It is your +voice--your voice of silver and peace--that's eternally whispering +'Contact!' to me--and I am released, heart, soul, and body! And +because you speed me on my way, Janie, I'll never fly so far, I'll +never fly so long, I'll never fly so high that I'll not return to you. +You hold me fast, forever and forever." + +You had flown high and far indeed, Jerry--and you had not returned. +Forever and forever! Burn faster, flame! + +"My blessed child, who's been frightening you? Airplanes are by all +odds safer than taxis--and no end safer than the infernal duffer +who's been chaffing you would be if I could once get my hands on him. +Damn fool! Don't care if you do hate swearing--damn fools are damn +fools, and there's an end to it. All those statistics are sheer +melodramatic rot--the chap who fired 'em at you probably has all his +money invested in submarines, and is fairly delirious with jealousy. +Peg (did I ever formally introduce you to Pegasus, the best +pursuit-plane in the R.F.C.--or out of it?)--Peg's about as likely +to let me down as you are! We'd do a good deal for each other, she +and I--nobody else can really fly her, the darling! But she'd go to +the stars for me--and farther still. Never you fear--we have charmed +lives, Peg and I--we belong to Janie. + +"I think that people make an idiotic row about dying, anyway. It's +probably jolly good fun--and I can't see what difference a few years +here would make if you're going to have all eternity to play with. +Of course you're a ghastly little heathen, and I can see you wagging +a mournful head over this already--but every time that I remember +what a shocking sell the After Life (exquisite phrase!) is going to +be for you, darling, I do a bit of head-wagging myself--and it's not +precisely mournful! I can't wait to see your blank consternation--and +you needn't expect any sympathy from _me_. My very first words will +be, 'I told you so!' Maybe I'll rap them out to you with a table-leg! + +"What do you think of all this Ouija Planchette rumpus, anyway? I +can't for the life of me see why any one with a whole new world to +explore should hang around chattering with this one. I know that I'd +be half mad with excitement to get at the new job, and that I'd find +re-assuring the loved ones (exquisite phrase number two) a hideous +bore. Still, I can see that it would be nice from their selfish +point of view! Well, I'm no ghost yet, thank God--nor yet are +you--but if ever I am one, I'll show you what devotion really is. +I'll come all the way back from heaven to play with foolish Janie, +who doesn't believe that there is one to come from. To foolish, +foolish Janie, who still will be dearer than the prettiest angel of +them all, no matter how alluringly her halo may be tilted or her +wings ruffled. To Janie who, Heaven forgive him, will be all that +one poor ghost has ever loved!" + +Had there come to him, the radiant and the confident, a moment of +terrible and shattering surprise--a moment when he realized that +there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to greet +him--a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming darkness, +blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew out the +little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held his +laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to have +spared him that moment! + +"My little Greatheart, did you think that I did not know how brave +you are? You are the truest soldier of us all, and I, who am not +much given to worship, am on my knees before that shy gallantry of +yours, which makes what courage we poor duffers have seem a vain and +boastful thing. When I see you as I saw you last, small and white +and clear and brave, I can't think of anything but the first +crocuses at White Orchards, shining out, demure and valiant, +fearless of wind and storm and cold--fearless of Fear itself. You see, +you're so very, very brave that you make me ashamed to be afraid of +poetry and sentiment and pretty words--things of which I have a good, +thumping Anglo-Saxon terror, I can tell you! It's because I know +what a heavenly brick you are that I could have killed that +statistical jackass for bothering you; but I'll forgive him, since +you say that it's all right. And so ghosts are the only things in +the world that frighten you--even though you know that there aren't +any. You and Madame de Staël, hey? 'I do not believe in ghosts, but I +fear them!' It's pretty painful to learn that the mere sight of one +would turn you into a gibbering lunatic. Nice sell for an +enthusiastic spirit who'd romped clear back from heaven to give you +a pleasant surprise--I _don't_ think! Well, no fear, young +Janie--I'll find some way if I'm put to it--some nice, safe, pretty +way that wouldn't scare a neurasthenic baby, let alone the dauntless +Miss Abbott. I'll find--" + +Oh, no more of that--no more! She crushed the sheet in her hands +fiercely, crumpling it into a little ball--the candle-flame was too +slow. No, she couldn't stand it--she couldn't--she couldn't, +and there was an end to it. She would go raving mad--she would +kill herself--she would--She lifted her head, wrenched suddenly +back from that chaos of despair, alert and intent. There it was +again, coming swiftly nearer and nearer from some immeasurable +distance--down--down--nearer still--the very room was humming and +throbbing with it--she could almost hear the singing in the wires. +She swung far out over the window edge, searching the moon-drenched +garden with eager eyes--surely, surely it would never fly so low +unless it were about to land! Engine trouble, perhaps--though she +could detect no break in the huge, rhythmic pulsing that was shaking +the night. Still-- + +"Rosemary!" she called urgently. "Rosemary--listen--is there a +place where it can land?" + +"Where what can land?" asked a drowsy voice. + +"An airplane. It's flying so low that it must be in some kind of +trouble--do come and see!" + +Rosemary came pattering obediently toward her, a small, docile figure, +dark eyes misted with dreams, wide with amazement. + +"I must be nine-tenths asleep," she murmured gently. "Because I +don't hear a single thing, Janet. Perhaps--" + +"Hush--listen!" begged Janet, raising an imperative hand--and then +her own eyes widened. "Why--it's _gone_!" There was a note of flat +incredulity in her voice. "Heavens, how those things must eat up +space! Not a minute, ago it was fairly shaking this room, and now--" + +Rosemary stifled a small pink yawn and smiled ingratiatingly. + +"Perhaps you were asleep too," she suggested humbly. "I don't +believe that airplanes ever fly this way any more. Or it might have +been that fat Hodges boy on his motorcycle--he does make the most +dreadful racket. Oh, Janet, what a perfectly _ripping_ night--do see!" + +They leaned together on the window-sill, silenced by the white and +shining beauty that had turned the pleasant garden into a place of +magic and enchantment. The corners of Janet's mouth lifted suddenly. +How absurd people were! The fat Hodges boy and his motorcycle! Did +they all regard her as an amiable lunatic--even little, lovely, +friendly Rosemary, wavering sleepily at her side? It really was +maddening. But she felt, amazingly enough, suddenly quiet and joyous +and indifferent--and passionately glad that the wanderer from the +skies had won safely through and was speeding home. Home! Oh, it was +a crying pity that it need ever land--anything so fleet and strong +and sure should fly forever! But if they must rest, those beating +wings--the old R.F.C. toast went singing through her head and she +flung it out into the moonlight, smiling--"Happy landings! Happy +landings, you!" + +The next day was the one that brought to White Orchards what was to +be known for many moons as "the Big Storm." It had been gathering +all afternoon, and by evening the heat had grown appalling and +incredible, even to Janet's American and exigent standards. The +smouldering copper sky looked as though it had caught fire from the +world and would burn forever; there was not so much as a whisper of +air to break the stillness--it seemed as though the whole tortured +earth were holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. +Every one had struggled through the day assuring one another that +when evening came it would be all right--dangling the alluring +thought of the cool darkness before each other's hot and weary eyes; +but the night proved even more outrageous than the day. To the +little group seated on the terrace, dispiritedly playing with their +coffee, it seemed almost a personal affront. The darkness closed in +on them, smothering, heavy, intolerable; they could feel its weight, +as though it were some hateful and tangible thing. + +"Like--like black cotton wool," explained Rosemary, stirred to +unwonted resentment. She had spent the day curled up in the largest +Indian chair on the terrace, round-eyed with fatigue and incredulity. + +"I honestly think that we must be dreaming," she murmured to her +feverish audience; "I do, honestly. Why, it's only _May_, and we +never, never--there was that day in August about five years ago that +was almost as bad, though. D'you remember, Mummy?" + +"It's hardly the kind of thing that one is likely to forget, love. +Do you think that it is necessary for us to talk? I feel somehow +that I could bear it much more easily if we kept quite quiet." + +Janet stirred a little, uneasily. She hated silence--that terrible, +empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts--why, the +idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too--she +closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing +against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and stiller, +but open-eyed or closed, she could not shut out memory. The very +touch of the bricks beneath her feet brought back that late October +day. She had been sitting curled up on the steps in the warm sunlight, +with the keen, sweet air stirring her hair and sending the +beech-leaves dancing down the flagged path--there had been a heavenly +smell of burning from the far meadow, and she was sniffing it +luxuriously, feeling warm and joyous and protected in Jerry's great +tweed coat--watching the tall figure swinging across from the lodge +gate with idle, happy eyes--not even curious. It was not until he +had almost reached the steps that she had noticed that he was +wearing a foreign uniform--and even then she had promptly placed him +as one of Rosemary's innumerable conquests, bestowing on him a +friendly and inquiring smile. + +"Were you looking for Miss Langdon?" Even now she could see the +courteous, grave young face soften as he turned quickly toward her, +baring his dark head with that swift foreign grace that turns our +perfunctory habits into something like a ritual. + +"But no," he had said gently, "I was looking for you, Miss Abbott." + +"Now will you please tell me how in the world you knew that I was +Miss Abbott?" + +And he had smiled--with his lips, not his eyes. + +"I should be dull indeed if that I did not know. I am Philippe +Laurent, Miss Abbott." + +And "Oh," she had cried joyously, "Liane's Philippe!" + +"But yes--Liane's Philippe. They are not here, the others? Madame +Langdon, the little Miss Rosemary?" + +"No, they've gone to some parish fair, and I've been wicked and +stayed home. Won't you sit down and talk to me? Please!" + +"Miss Abbott, it is not to you that I must talk. What I have to say +is indeed most difficult, and it is to Jeremy's Janie that I would +say it. May I, then?" + +It had seemed to Jeremy's Janie that the voice in which she answered +him came from a great distance, but she never took her eyes from the +grave and vivid face. + +"Yes. And quickly, please." + +So he had told her--quickly--in his exquisitely careful English, and +she had listened as attentively and politely, huddled up on the +brick steps in the sunlight, as though he were running over the +details of the last drive, instead of tearing her life to pieces +with every word. She remembered now that it hadn't seemed real at +all--if it had been to Jerry that these horrors had happened could +she have sat there so quietly, feeling the colour bright in her +cheeks, and the wind stirring in her hair, and the sunlight warm on +her hands? Why, for less than this people screamed, and fainted, and +went raving mad! + +"You say--that his back is broken?" + +"But yes, my dear," Liane's Philippe had told her, and she had seen +the tears shining in his gray eyes. + +"And he is badly burned?" + +"My brave Janie, these questions are not good to ask--not good, not +good to answer. This I will tell you. He lives, our Jerry--and so +dearly does he love you that he will drag back that poor body from +hell itself--because it is yours, not his. This he has sent me to +tell you, most lucky lady ever loved." + +"You mean--that he isn't going to die?" + +"I tell you that into those small hands of yours he has given his +life. Hold it fast." + +"Will he--will he get well?" "He will not walk again; but have you +not swift feet to run for him?" + +And there had come to her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine, +an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant. Now +he was hers forever, the restless wanderer--delivered to her bound +and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve and +slave for, his troth to Freedom broken--hers at last! + +"I'm coming," she had told the tall young Frenchman breathlessly. +"Take me to him--please let's hurry." + +"_Ma pauvre petite_, this is war. One does not come and go at will. +God knows by what miracle enough red tape unwound to let me through +to you, to bring my message and to take one back." + +"What message, Philippe?" + +"That is for you to say, little Janie. He told me, 'Say to her that +she has my heart--if she needs my body, I will live. Say to her that +it is an ugly, broken, and useless thing; still, hers. She must use +it as she sees fit. Say to her--no, say nothing more. She is my Janie, +and has no need of words. Tell her to send me only one, and I will +be content.' For that one word, Janie, I have come many miles. What +shall it be?" + +And she had cried out exultantly, "Why, tell him that I say--" But +the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had mutinied, +and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her +face--out of her heart--feeling her eyes turn back with sheer terror, +while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word +"Live!"--surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting +for, lying far away and still--schooled at last to patience, the +reckless and the restless! Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live! Even now she +could feel her mind, like some frantic little wild thing, racing, +racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her? "You, wise beyond +wisdom, will never hold me--you will never hold me--you will never--" + +And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and lifted +her eyes to Jerry's ambassador. + +"Will you please tell him--will you please tell him that I +say--'Contact'?" + +"Contact?" He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender. +"Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for +Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor +harsh word--there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in +aviation use that word--it is the signal that says--'Now, you can fly!' +You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?" + +"I know very little." + +"That is all then? No other message? He will understand, our Jerry?" + +And Janie had smiled--rather a terrible small smile. + +"Oh, yes," she told him. "He will understand. It is the word that he +is waiting for, you see." + +"I see." But there had been a grave wonder in his voice. + +"Would it----" she had framed the words as carefully as though it +were a strange tongue that she was speaking--"would it be possible +to buy his machine? He wouldn't want any one else to fly it." + +"Little Janie, never fear. The man does not live who shall fly poor +Peg again. Smashed to kindling-wood and burned to ashes, she has +taken her last flight to the heaven for good and brave birds of war. +Not enough was left of her to hold in your two hands." + +"I'm glad. Then that's all--isn't it? And thank you for coming." + +"It is I who thank you. What was hard as death you have made easy. I +had thought the lady to whom Jeremy Langdon gave his heart the +luckiest creature ever born--now I think him that luckiest one." The +grave grace with which he had bent to kiss her hand made of the +formal salutation an accolade--"My homage to you, Jerry's Janie!" A +quick salute, and he had turned on his heel, swinging off down the +flagged path with that swift, easy stride--past the sun-dial--past +the lily-pond--past the beech-trees--gone! For hours and hours after +he had passed out of sight she had sat staring after him, her hands +lying quite still in her lap--staring, staring--they had found her +there when they came back, sitting where Rosemary was seated now. Why, +there, on those same steps, a bare six months ago--Something snapped +in her head, and she stumbled to her feet, clinging to the arm of her +chair. + +"I can't _stand_ it!" she gasped. "No, no, it's no use--I can't, I +tell you. I--" + +Rosemary's arm was about her--Mrs. Langdon's soft voice in her +ears--a deeper note from Rosemary's engineer. + +"Oh, I say, poor girl! What is it, dear child--what's the matter? Is +it the heat, Janie?" + +"The heat!" She could hear herself laughing--frantic, hateful, +jangling laughter that wouldn't stop. "Oh, Jerry! Oh-h, Jerry, Jerry, +Jerry!" + +"It's this ghastly day. Let me get her some water, Mrs. Langdon. +Don't cry so, Janie--please, please don't, darling." + +"I c-can't help it--I c-can't----" She paused, listening intently, +her hand closing sharply over Rosemary's wrist. "Oh, listen, +listen--there it comes again--I told you so!" + +"Thank Heaven," murmured Mrs. Langdon devoutly, "I thought that it +never was going to rise this evening. It's from the south, too, so I +suppose that it means rain." + +"Rain?" repeated Janet vaguely. "Why in the world should it mean rain?" +Her small, pale face looked suddenly brilliant and enchanted, tilted +up to meet the thunderous music that was swinging nearer and nearer. +"Oh, do listen, you people! This time it's surely going to land!" + +Rosemary stared at her blankly. "Land? What _are_ you talking about, +Janie?" + +"My airplane--the one that you said was the fat Hodges boy on a +motorcycle! Is there any place near here that it can make a landing?" + +"Darling child--" Mrs. Langdon's gentle voice was gentler than ever-- +"darling child, it's this wretched heat. There isn't any airplane, +dear--it's just the wind rising in the beeches." + +"The wind?" Janet laughed aloud--they really were too absurd. +"Why, Mrs. Langdon, you can hear the _engines_, if you'll only listen! +You can hear them, can't you, Mr. Bain?" + +The young engineer shook his head. "No plane would risk flying with +this storm coming, Miss Abbott. There's been thunder for the last +hour or so, and it's getting nearer, too. It's only the wind, I think." + +"Oh, you're laughing at me--of course, of course you hear it. Why, +it's as clear as--as clear as--" Her voice trailed off into silence. +Quite suddenly, without any transition or warning, she knew. She +could feel her heart stand perfectly still for a minute, and then +plunge forward in mad flight, racing, racing--oh, it knew, too, that +eager heart! She took her hand from the arm of the chair, releasing +Rosemary's wrist very gently. + +"Yes, of course, it's the heat," she said quietly. She must be +careful not to frighten them, these kind ones. "If you don't mind, +Mrs. Langdon, I think that I'll go down to the gate to watch the +storm burst. No, please, don't any of you come--I'll promise to +change everything if I get caught--yes, everything! I won't be long; +don't wait for me." + +She walked sedately enough until she came to the turn in the path, +but after that she ran, only pausing for a minute to listen +breathlessly. Oh, yes--following, following, that gigantic music! +How he must be laughing at her now--blind, deaf, incredulous little +fool that she had been, to doubt that Jerry would find a way! But +where could he land? Not in the garden--not at the gates--oh, now +she had it--the far meadow. She turned sharply; it was dark, but the +path must be here. Yes, this was the wicket gate; her groping +fingers were quite steady--they found the latch--released it--the +gate swung to behind her flying footsteps. "Oh, Jerry, Jerry!" sang +her heart. Why hadn't she worn the rose-coloured frock? It was she +who would be a ghost in that trailing white thing. To the right +here--yes, there was the hawthorn hedge--only a few steps more--oh, +now! She stood as still as a small statue, not moving, not breathing, +her hands at her heart, her face turned to the black and torn sky. +Nearer, nearer, circling and darting and swooping--the gigantic +humming grew louder--louder still--it swept about her thunderously, +so close that she clapped her hands over her ears, but she stood her +ground, exultant and undaunted. Oh, louder still--and then suddenly +the storm broke. All the winds and the rains of the world were +unleashed, and fell howling and shrieking upon her, she staggered +under their onslaught, drenched to the bone, her dress whipping +frantically about her, blinded and deafened by that tumultuous +clamour. She had only one weapon against it--laughter--and she +laughed now--straight into its teeth. And as though hell itself must +yield to mirth, the fury wavered--failed--sank to muttering. But +Janie, beaten to her knees and laughing, never even heard it die. + +"Jerry?" she whispered into the darkness, "Jerry?" + +Oh, more wonderful than wonder, he was there! She could feel him stir, +even if she could not hear him--so close, so close was he that if she +even reached out her hand, she could touch him. She stretched it out +eagerly, but there was nothing there--only a small, remote sound of +withdrawal, as though some one had moved a little. + +"You're afraid that I'll be frightened, aren't you?" she asked +wistfully. "I wouldn't be--I wouldn't--please come back'" + +He was laughing at her, she knew, tender and mocking and caressing; +she smiled back, tremulously. + +"You're thinking, 'I told you so!' Have you come far to say it to me?" + +Only that little stir--the wind was rising again. + +"Jerry, come close--come closer still. What are you waiting for, +dear and dearest?" + +This time there was not even a stir to answer her; she felt suddenly +cold to the heart. What had he always waited for? + +"You aren't waiting--you aren't waiting to go?" She fought to keep +the terror out of her voice, but it had her by the throat. "Oh, no, +no--you can't--not again! Jerry, Jerry, don't go away and leave +me--truly and truly I can't stand it--truly!" + +She wrung her hands together desperately; she was on her knees to +him--did he wish her to go lower still? Oh, she had never learned to +beg! + +"I can't send you away again--I can't. When I sent you to France I +killed my heart--when I let you go to death, I crucified my soul. I +haven't anything left but my pride--you can have that, too. I can't +send you back to your heaven. Stay with me--stay with me, Jerry!" + +Not a sound--not a stir--but well she knew that he was standing there, +waiting. She rose slowly to her feet. + +"Very well--you've won," she said hardly. "Go back to your saints and +seraphs and angels; I'm beaten. I was mad to think that you ever +cared--go back!" She turned, stumbling, the sobs tearing at her +throat; he had gone several steps before she realized that he was +following her--and all the hardness and bitterness and despair fell +from her like a cloak. + +"Oh, Jerry," she whispered, "Jerry, darling, I'm so sorry. And +you've come so far--just to find this! What is it that you want; +can't you tell me?" + +She stood tense and still, straining eyes and ears for her +answer--but it was not to eyes or ears that it came. + +"Oh, of course!" she cried clearly. "Of course, my wanderer! Ready?" + +She stood poised for a second, head thrown back, arms flung wide--a +small figure of Victory, caught in the flying wind. + +And, "Contact, Jerry!" she called joyously into the darkness. +"Contact!" + +There was a mighty whirring, a thunder and a roaring above the storm. +She stood listening breathlessly to it rise and swell--and then grow +fainter--fainter still--dying, dying--dying-- + +But Janie, her small white face turned to the storm-swept sky behind +which shone the stars, was smiling radiantly. For she had sped her +wanderer on his way--she had not failed him! + + + + +THE CAMEL'S BACK + + +BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + +From _The Saturday Evening Post_ + +The restless, wearied eye of the tired magazine reader resting for a +critical second on the above title will judge it to be merely +metaphorical. Stories about the cup and the lip and the bad penny +and the new broom rarely have anything to do with cups and lips and +pennies and brooms. This story is the great exception. It has to do +with an actual, material, visible and large-as-life camel's back. + +Starting from the neck we shall work tailward. Meet Mr. Perry +Parkhurst, twenty-eight, lawyer, native of Toledo. Perry has nice +teeth, a Harvard education, and parts his hair in the middle. You +have met him before--in Cleveland, Portland, St. Paul, Indianapolis, +Kansas City and elsewhere. Baker Brothers, New York, pause on their +semi-annual trip through the West to clothe him; Montmorency & Co., +dispatch a young man posthaste every three months to see that he has +the correct number of little punctures on his shoes. He has a +domestic roadster now, will have a French roadster if he lives long +enough, and doubtless a Chinese one if it comes into fashion. He +looks like the advertisement of the young man rubbing his +sunset-coloured chest with liniment, goes East every year to the +Harvard reunion--does everything--smokes a little too much--Oh, +you've seen him. + +Meet his girl. Her name is Betty Medill, and she would take well in +the movies. Her father gives her two hundred a month to dress on and +she has tawny eyes and hair, and feather fans of three colours. Meet +her father, Cyrus Medill. Though he is to all appearances flesh and +blood he is, strange to say, commonly known in Toledo as the +Aluminum Man. But when he sits in his club window with two or three +Iron Men and the White Pine Man and the Brass Man they look very +much as you and I do, only more so, if you know what I mean. + +Meet the camel's back--or no--don't meet the camel's back yet. Meet +the story. + +During the Christmas holidays of 1919, the first real Christmas +holidays since the war, there took place in Toledo, counting only +the people with the italicized _the_, forty-one dinner parties, +sixteen dances, six luncheons male and female, eleven luncheons +female, twelve teas, four stag dinners, two weddings and thirteen +bridge parties. It was the cumulative effect of all this that moved +Perry Parkhurst on the twenty-ninth day of December to a desperate +decision. + +Betty Medill would marry him and she wouldn't marry him. She was +having such a good time that she hated to take such a definite step. +Meanwhile, their secret engagement had got so long that it seemed as +if any day it might break off of its own weight. A little man named +Warburton, who knew it all, persuaded Perry to superman her, to get +a marriage license and go up to the Medill house and tell her she'd +have to marry him at once or call it off forever. This is some +stunt--but Perry tried it on December the twenty-ninth. He presented +self, heart, license, and ultimatum, and within five minutes they +were in the midst of a violent quarrel, a burst of sporadic open +fighting such as occurs near the end of all long wars and engagements. +It brought about one of those ghastly lapses in which two people who +are in love pull up sharp, look at each other coolly and think it's +all been a mistake. Afterward they usually kiss wholesomely and +assure the other person it was all their fault. Say it all was my +fault! Say it was! I want to hear you say it! + +But while reconciliation was trembling in the air, while each was, +in a measure, stalling it off, so that they might the more +voluptuously and sentimentally enjoy it when it came, they were +permanently interrupted by a twenty-minute phone call for Betty from +a garrulous aunt who lived in the country. At the end of eighteen +minutes Perry Parkhurst, torn by pride and suspicion and urged on by +injured dignity, put on his long fur coat, picked up his light brown +soft hat and stalked out the door. + +"It's all over," he muttered brokenly as he tried to jam his car +into first. "It's all over--if I have to choke you for an hour, darn +you!" This last to the car, which had been standing some time and +was quite cold. + +He drove downtown--that is, he got into a snow rut that led him +downtown. + +He sat slouched down very low in his seat, much too dispirited to +care where he went. He was living over the next twenty years without +Betty. + +In front of the Clarendon Hotel he was hailed from the sidewalk by a +bad man named Baily, who had big huge teeth and lived at the hotel +and had never been in love. + +"Perry," said the bad man softly when the roadster drew up beside +him at the curb, "I've got six quarts of the dog-gonedest champagne +you ever tasted. A third of it's yours, Perry, if you'll come +upstairs and help Martin Macy and me drink it." + +"Baily," said Perry tensely. "I'll drink your champagne. I'll drink +every drop of it. I don't care if it kills me. I don't care if it's +fifty-proof wood alcohol." + +"Shut up, you nut!" said the bad man gently. "They don't put wood +alcohol in champagne. This is the stuff that proves the world is +more than six thousand years old. It's so ancient that the cork is +petrified. You have to pull it with a stone drill." + +"Take me upstairs," said Perry moodily. "If that cork sees my heart +it'll fall out from pure mortification." + +The room upstairs was full of those innocent hotel pictures of +little girls eating apples and sitting in swings and talking to dogs. +The other decorations were neckties and a pink man reading a pink +paper devoted to ladies in pink tights. + +"When you have to go into the highways and byways--" said the pink +man, looking reproachfully at Baily and Perry. + +"Hello, Martin Macy," said Perry shortly, "where's this stone-age +champagne?" + +"What's the rush? This isn't an operation, understand. This is a +party." + +Perry sat down dully and looked disapprovingly at all the neckties. + +Baily leisurely opened the door of a wardrobe and brought out six +wicked-looking bottles and three glasses. + +"Take off that darn fur coat!" said Martin Macy to Perry. "Or maybe +you'd like to have us open all the windows." "Give me champagne," +said Perry. + +"Going to the Townsends' circus ball to-night?" + +"Am not!" + +"'Vited?" + +"Uh-huh." + +"Why not go?" + +"Oh, I'm sick of parties," exclaimed Perry, "I'm sick of 'em. I've +been to so many that I'm sick of 'em." + +"Maybe you're going to the Howard Tates' party?" + +"No, I tell you; I'm sick of 'em." + +"Well," said Macy consolingly, "the Tates' is just for college kids +anyway." + +"I tell you--" + +"I thought you'd be going to one of 'em anyways. I see by the papers +you haven't missed a one this Christmas." + +"Hm," grunted Perry morosely. + +He would never go to any more parties. Classical phrases played in +his mind--that side of his life was closed, closed. Now when a man +says "closed, closed" like that, you can be pretty sure that some +woman has double-closed him, so to speak. Perry was also thinking +that other classical thought, about how cowardly suicide is. A noble +thought that one--warm and uplifting. Think of all the fine men we +should lose if suicide were not so cowardly! + +An hour later was six o'clock, and Perry had lost all resemblance to +the young man in the liniment advertisement. He looked like a rough +draft fur a riotous cartoon. They were singing--an impromptu song of +Baily's improvisation: + + + _One Lump Perry, the parlour snake, + Famous through the city for the way he drinks his tea; + Plays with it, toys with it, + Makes no noise with it, + Balanced on a napkin on his well-trained knee_. + + +"Trouble is," said Perry, who had just banged his hair with Bailey's +comb and was tying an orange tie round it to get the effect of +Julius Caesar, "that you fellas can't sing worth a damn. Soon's I +leave th' air an' start singin' tenor you start singin' tenor too." + +"'M a natural tenor," said Macy gravely. "Voice lacks cultivation, +tha's all. Gotta natural voice, m'aunt used say. Naturally good +singer." + +"Singers, singers, all good singers," remarked Baily, who was at the +telephone. "No, not the cabaret; I want night clerk. I mean +refreshment clerk or some dog-gone clerk 'at's got food--food! I +want----" + +"Julius Caesar," announced Perry, turning round from the mirror. +"Man of iron will and stern 'termination." + +"Shut up!" yelled Baily. "Say, iss Mr. Baily. Sen' up enormous supper. +Use y'own judgment. Right away." + +He connected the receiver and the hook with some difficulty and then +with his lips closed and an air of solemn intensity in his eyes went +to the lower drawer of his dresser and pulled it open. + +"Lookit!" he commanded. In his hands he held a truncated garment of +pink gingham. + +"Pants," he explained gravely. "Lookit!" This was a pink blouse, a +red tie and a Buster Brown collar. + +"Lookit!" he repeated. "Costume for the Townsends' circus ball. I'm +li'l' boy carries water for the elephants." + +Perry was impressed in spite of himself. + +"I'm going to be Julius Caesar," he announced after a moment of +concentration. + +"Thought you weren't going!" said Macy. + +"Me? Sure, I'm goin'. Never miss a party. Good for the nerves--like +celery." + +"Caesar!" scoffed Baily. "Can't be Caesar! He's not about a circus. +Caesar's Shakespeare. Go as a clown." + +Perry shook his head. + +"Nope; Caesar." + +"Caesar?" + +"Sure. Chariot." + +Light dawned on Baily. + +"That's right. Good idea." + +Perry looked round the room searchingly. + +"You lend me a bathrobe and this tie," he said finally. + +Baily considered. + +"No good." + +"Sure, tha's all I need. Caesar was a savage. They can't kick if I +come as Caesar if he was a savage." + +"No," said Baily, shaking his head slowly. "Get a costume over at a +costumer's. Over at Nolak's." + +"Closed up." + +"Find out." + +After a puzzling five minutes at the phone a small, weary voice +managed to convince Perry that it was Mr. Nolak speaking, and that +they would remain open until eight because of the Townsends' ball. +Thus assured, Perry ate a great amount of filet mignon and drank his +third of the last bottle of champagne. At eight-fifteen the man in +the tall hat who stands in front of the Clarendon found him trying +to start his roadster. + +"Froze up," said Perry wisely. "The cold froze it. The cold air." + +"Froze, eh?" + +"Yes. Cold air froze it." + +"Can't start it?" + +"Nope. Let it stand here till summer. One those hot ole August +days'll thaw it out awright." + +"Goin' let it stand?" + +"Sure. Let 'er stand. Take a hot thief to steal it. Gemme taxi." + +The man in the tall hat summoned a taxi. + +"Where to, mister?" + +"Go to Nolak's--costume fella." + + + + +II + +Mrs. Nolak was short and ineffectual looking, and on the cessation +of the world war had belonged for a while to one of the new +nationalities. Owing to the unsettled European conditions she had +never since been quite sure what she was. The shop in which she and +her husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly and +peopled with suits of armour and Chinese mandarins and enormous +papier-mâché birds suspended from the ceiling. In a vague background +many rows of masks glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were +glass cases full of crowns and scepters and jewels and enormous +stomachers and paints and powders and crape hair and face creams and +wigs of all colours. + +When Perry ambled into the shop Mrs. Nolak was folding up the last +troubles of a strenuous day, so she thought, in a drawer full of +pink silk stockings. + +"Something for you?" she queried pessimistically. + +"Want costume of Julius Hur, the charioteer." + +Mrs. Nolak was sorry, but every stitch of charioteer had been rented +long ago. Was it for the Townsends' circus ball? + +It was. + +"Sorry," she said, "but I don't think there's anything left that's +really circus." + +This was an obstacle. + +"Hm," said Perry. An idea struck him suddenly. "If you've got a piece +of canvas I could go's a tent." + +"Sorry, but we haven't anything like that. A hardware store is where +you'd have to go to. We have some very nice Confederate soldiers." + +"No, no soldiers." + +"And I have a very handsome king." + +He shook his head. + +"Several of the gentlemen," she continued hopefully, "are wearing +stovepipe hats and swallow-tail coats and going as ringmasters--but +we're all out of tall hats. I can let you have some crape hair for a +moustache." + +"Wantsomep'm 'stinctive." + +"Something--let's see. Well, we have a lion's head, and a goose, and +a camel--" + +"Camel?" The idea seized Perry's imagination, gripped it fiercely. + +"Yes, but it needs two people." + +"Camel. That's an idea. Lemme see it." + +The camel was produced from his resting place on a top shelf. At +first glance he appeared to consist entirely of a very gaunt, +cadaverous head and a sizable hump, but on being spread out he was +found to possess a dark brown, unwholesome-looking body made of thick, +cottony cloth. + +"You see it takes two people," explained Mrs. Nolak, holding the +camel up in frank admiration. "If you have a friend he could be part +of it. You see there's sorta pants for two people. One pair is for +the fella in front and the other pair for the fella in back. The +fella in front does the lookin' out through these here eyes an' the +fella in back he's just gotta stoop over an' folla the front fella +round." + +"Put it on," commanded Perry. + +Obediently Mrs. Nolak put her tabby-cat face inside the camel's head +and turned it from side to side ferociously. + +Perry was fascinated. + +"What noise does a camel make?" + +"What?" asked Mrs. Nolak as her face emerged, somewhat smudgy. +"Oh, what noise? Why, he sorta brays." + +"Lemme see it in a mirror." + +Before a wide mirror Perry tried on the head and turned from side to +side appraisingly. In the dim light the effect was distinctly +pleasing. The camel's face was a study in pessimism, decorated with +numerous abrasions, and it must be admitted that his coat was in +that state of general negligence peculiar to camels--in fact, he +needed to be cleaned and pressed--but distinctive he certainly was. +He was majestic. He would have attracted attention in any gathering +if only by his melancholy cast of feature and the look of pensive +hunger lurking round his shadowy eyes. + +"You see you have to have two people," said Mrs. Nolak again. + +Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and wrapped them +about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The +effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent--like one of +those medieval pictures of a monk changed into a beast by the +ministrations of Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a +humpbacked cow sitting on her haunches among blankets. + +"Don't look like anything at all," objected Perry gloomily. + +"No," said Mrs. Nolak; "you see you got to have two people." + +A solution flashed upon Perry. + +"You got a date to-night?" + +"Oh, I couldn't possibly--" + +"Oh, come on," said Perry encouragingly. "Sure you can! Here! Be a +good sport and climb into these hind legs." + +With difficulty he located them and extended their yawning depths +ingratiatingly. But Mrs. Nolak seemed loath. She backed perversely +away. + +"Oh, no--" + +"C'm on! Why, you can be the front if you want to. Or we'll flip a +coin." + +"Oh, no--" + +"Make it worth your while." + +Mrs. Nolak set her lips firmly together. + +"Now you just stop!" she said with no coyness implied. "None of the +gentlemen ever acted up this way before. My husband--" + +"You got a husband?" demanded Perry. "Where is he?" + +"He's home." + +"Wha's telephone number?" + +After considerable parley he obtained the telephone number +pertaining to the Nolak penates and got into communication with that +small, weary voice he had heard once before that day. But Mr. Nolak, +though taken off his guard and somewhat confused by Perry's +brilliant flow of logic, stuck staunchly to his point. He refused +firmly but with dignity to help out Mr. Parkhurst in the capacity of +back part of a camel. + +Having rung off, or rather having been rung off on, Perry sat down +on a three-legged stool to think it over. He named over to himself +those friends on whom he might call, and then his mind paused as +Betty Medill's name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He had a +sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love affair was over, +but she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much +to ask--to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one +short night. And if she insisted she could be the front part of the +camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His +mind even turned to rosy-coloured dreams of a tender reconciliation +inside the camel--there hidden away from all the world. + +"Now you'd better decide right off." + +The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his mellow fancies +and roused him to action. He went to the phone and called up the +Medill house. Miss Betty was out; had gone out to dinner. + +Then, when all seemed lost, the camel's back wandered curiously into +the store. He was a dilapidated individual with a cold in his head +and a general trend about him of downwardness. His cap was pulled +down low on his head, and his chin was pulled down low on his chest, +his coat hung down to his shoes, he looked run-down, down at the +heels, and--Salvation Army to the contrary--down and out. He said +that he was the taxicab driver that the gentleman had hired at the +Clarendon Hotel. He had been instructed to wait outside, but he had +waited some time and a suspicion had grown upon him that the +gentleman had gone out the back way with purpose to defraud +him--gentlemen sometimes did--so he had come in. He sank down on to +the three-legged stool. + +"Wanta go to a party?" demanded Perry sternly. + +"I gotta work," answered the taxi driver lugubriously. "I gotta keep +my job." + +"It's a very good party." + +"'S a very good job." + +"Come on!" urged Perry. "Be a good fella. See--it's pretty!" He held +the camel up and the taxi driver looked at it cynically. + +"Huh!" + +Perry searched feverishly among the folds of the cloth. + +"See!" he cried enthusiastically, holding up a selection of folds. +"This is your part. You don't even have to talk. All you have to do +is to walk--and sit down occasionally. You do all the sitting down. +Think of it. I'm on my feet all the time and you can sit down some +of the time. The only time I can sit down is when we're lying down, +and you can sit down when--oh, any time. See?" + +"What's 'at thing?" demanded the individual dubiously "A shroud?" + +"Not at all," said Perry hurriedly. "It's a camel." + +"Huh?" + +Then Perry mentioned a sum of money, and the conversation left the +land of grunts and assumed a practical tinge. Perry and the taxi +driver tried on the camel in front of the mirror. + +"You can't see it," explained Perry, peering anxiously out through +the eyeholes, "but honestly, ole man, you look sim'ly great! Honestly!" + +A grunt from the hump acknowledged this somewhat dubious compliment. + +"Honestly, you look great!" repeated Perry enthusiastically. +"Move round a little." + +The hind legs moved forward, giving the effect of a huge cat-camel +hunching his back preparatory to a spring. + +"No; move sideways." + +The camel's hips went neatly out of joint; a hula dancer would have +writhed in envy. + +"Good, isn't it?" demanded Perry, turning to Mrs. Nolak for approval. + +"It looks lovely," agreed Mrs. Nolak. + +"We'll take it," said Perry. + +The bundle was safely stowed under Perry's arm and they left the shop. + +"Go to the party!" he commanded as he took his seat in the back. + +"What party?" + +"Fanzy-dress party." + +"Where 'bouts is it?" + +This presented a new problem. Perry tried to remember, but the names +of all those who had given parties during the holidays danced +confusedly before his eyes. He could ask Mrs. Nolak, but on looking +out the window he saw that the shop was dark. Mrs. Nolak had already +faded out, a little black smudge far down the snowy street. + +"Drive uptown," directed Perry with fine confidence. "If you see a +party, stop. Otherwise I'll tell you when we get there." + +He fell into a hazy daydream and his thoughts wandered again to +Betty--he imagined vaguely that they had had a disagreement because +she refused to go to the party as the back part of the camel. He was +just slipping off into a chilly doze when he was wakened by the taxi +driver opening the door and shaking him by the arm. + +"Here we are, maybe." + +Perry looked out sleepily. A striped awning led from the curb up to +a spreading gray stone house, from inside which issued the low +drummy whine of expensive jazz. He recognized the Howard Tate house. + +"Sure," he said emphatically; "'at's it! Tate's party to-night. Sure, +everybody's goin'." + +"Say," said the individual anxiously after another look at the awning, +"you sure these people ain't gonna romp on me for comin' here?" + +Perry drew himself up with dignity. + +"'F anybody says anything to you, just tell 'em you're part of my +costume." + +The visualization of himself as a thing rather than a person seemed +to reassure the individual, + +"All right," he said reluctantly. + +Perry stepped out under the shelter of the awning and began +unrolling the camel. + +"Let's go," he commanded. + +Several minutes later a melancholy, hungry-looking camel, emitting +clouds of smoke from his mouth and from the tip of his noble hump, +might have been seen crossing the threshold of the Howard Tate +residence, passing a startled footman without so much as a snort, +and leading directly for the main stairs that led up to the ballroom. +The beast walked with a peculiar gait which varied between an +uncertain lockstep and a stampede--but can best be described by the +word "halting." The camel had a halting gait--and as he walked he +alternately elongated and contracted like a gigantic concertina. + + + + +III + +The Howard Tates are, as everyone who lives in Toledo knows, the +most formidable people in town. Mrs. Howard Tate was a Chicago Todd +before she became a Toledo Tate, and the family generally affect +that conscious simplicity which has begun to be the earmark of +American aristocracy. The Tates have reached the stage where they +talk about pigs and farms and look at you icy-eyed if you are not +amused. They have begun to prefer retainers rather than friends as +dinner guests, spend a lot of money in a quiet way and, having lost +all sense of competition, are in process of growing quite dull. + +The dance this evening was for little Millicent Tate, and though +there was a scattering of people of all ages present the dancers +were mostly from school and college--the younger married crowd was +at the Townsends' circus ball up at the Tallyho Club. Mrs. Tate was +standing just inside the ballroom, following Millicent round with +her eyes and beaming whenever she caught her eye. Beside her were +two middle-aged sycophants who were saying what a perfectly exquisite +child Millicent was. It was at this moment that Mrs. Tate was +grasped firmly by the skirt and her youngest daughter, Emily, aged +eleven, hurled herself with an "Oof--!" into her mother's arms. + +"Why, Emily, what's the trouble?" + +"Mamma," said Emily, wild-eyed but voluble, "there's something out +on the stairs." + +"What?" + +"There's a thing out on the stairs, mamma. I think it's a big dog, +mamma, but it doesn't look like a dog." + +"What do you mean, Emily?" + +The sycophants waved their heads and hemmed sympathetically. + +"Mamma, it looks like a--like a camel." + +Mrs. Tate laughed. + +"You saw a mean old shadow, dear, that's all." + +"No, I didn't. No, it was some kind of thing, mamma--big. I was +downstairs going to see if there were any more people and this dog +or something, he was coming upstairs. Kinda funny, mamma, like he +was lame. And then he saw me and gave a sort of growl and then he +slipped at the top of the landing and I ran." + +Mrs. Tate's laugh faded. + +"The child must have seen something," she said. + +The sycophants agreed that the child must have seen something--and +suddenly all three women took an instinctive step away from the door +as the sounds of muffled footsteps were audible just outside. + +And then three startled gasps rang out as a dark brown form rounded +the corner and they saw what was apparently a huge beast looking +down at them hungrily. + +"Oof!" cried Mrs. Tate. + +"O-o-oh!" cried the ladies in a chorus. + +The camel suddenly humped his back, and the gasps turned to shrieks. + +"Oh--look!" + +"What is it?" + +The dancing stopped, but the dancers hurrying over got quite a +different impression of the invader from that of the ladies by the +door; in fact, the young people immediately suspected that it was a +stunt, a hired entertainer come to amuse the party. The boys in long +trousers looked at it rather disdainfully and sauntered over with +their hands in their pockets, feeling that their intelligence was +being insulted. But the girls ran over with much handclapping and +many little shouts of glee. + +"It's a camel!" + +"Well, if he isn't the funniest!" + +The camel stood there uncertainly, swaying slightly from side to +side and seeming to take in the room in a careful, appraising glance; +then as if he had come to an abrupt decision he turned and ambled +swiftly out the door. + +Mr. Howard Tate had just come out of his den on the lower floor and +was standing chatting with a good-looking young man in the hall. +Suddenly they heard the noise of shouting upstairs and almost +immediately a succession of bumping sounds, followed by the +precipitous appearance at the foot of the stairway of a large brown +beast who seemed to be going somewhere in a great hurry. + +"Now what the devil!" said Mr. Tate, starting. + +The beast picked itself up with some dignity and affecting an air of +extreme nonchalance, as if he had just remembered an important +engagement, started at a mixed gait toward the front door. In fact, +his front legs began casually to run. + +"See here now," said Mr. Tate sternly. "Here! Grab it, Butterfield! +Grab it!" + +The young man enveloped the rear of the camel in a pair of brawny +arms, and evidently realizing that further locomotion was quite +impossible the front end submitted to capture and stood resignedly +in a state of some agitation. By this time a flood of young people +was pouring downstairs, and Mr. Tate, suspecting everything from an +ingenious burglar to an escaped lunatic, gave crisp directions to +the good-looking young man: + +"Hold him! Lead him in here; we'll soon see." + +The camel consented to be led into the den, and Mr. Tate, after +locking the door, took a revolver from a table drawer and instructed +the young man to take the thing's head off. Then he gasped and +returned the revolver to its hiding place. + +"Well, Perry Parkhurst!" he exclaimed in amazement. + +"'M in the wrong pew," said Perry sheepishly. "Got the wrong party, +Mr. Tate. Hope I didn't scare you." + +"Well--you gave us a thrill, Perry." Realization dawned on him. +"Why, of course; you're bound for the Townsends' circus ball." + +"That's the general idea." + +"Let me introduce Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Parkhurst. Parkhurst is our +most famous young bachelor here." Then turning to Perry: +"Butterfield is staying with us for a few days." + +"I got a little mixed up," mumbled Perry. "I'm very sorry." + +"Heavens, it's perfectly all right; most natural mistake in the world. +I've got a clown costume and I'm going down there myself after a +while. Silly idea for a man of my age." He turned to Butterfield. +"Better change your mind and come down with us." + +The good-looking young man demurred. He was going to bed. + +"Have a drink, Perry?" suggested Mr. Tate. + +"Thanks, I will." + +"And, say," continued Tate quickly, "I'd forgotten all about +your--friend here." He indicated the rear part of the camel. +"I didn't mean to seem discourteous. Is it any one I know? Bring him +out." + +"It's not a friend," explained Perry hurriedly. "I just rented him." + +"Does he drink?" + +"Do you?" demanded Perry, twisting himself tortuously round. + +There was a faint sound of assent. + +"Sure he does!" said Mr. Tate heartily. "A really efficient camel +ought to be able to drink enough so it'd last him three days." + +"Tell you, sir," said Perry anxiously, "he isn't exactly dressed up +enough to come out. If you give me the bottle I can hand it back to +him and he can take his inside." + +From under the cloth was audible the enthusiastic smacking sound +inspired by this suggestion. When a butler had appeared with bottles, +glasses, and siphon one of the bottles was handed back, and +thereafter the silent partner could be heard imbibing long potations +at frequent intervals. + +Thus passed a peaceful hour. At ten o'clock Mr. Tate decided that +they'd better be starting. He donned his clown's costume; Perry +replaced the camel's head with a sigh; side by side they progressed +on foot the single block between the Tate house and the Tallyho Club. + +The circus ball was in full swing. A great tent fly had been put up +inside the ballroom and round the walls had been built rows of +booths representing the various attractions of a circus side show, +but these were now vacated and on the floor swarmed a shouting, +laughing medley of youth and colour--clowns, bearded ladies, acrobats, +bareback riders, ringmasters, tattooed men and charioteers. The +Townsends had determined to assure their party of success, so a +great quantity of liquor had been surreptitiously brought over from +their house in automobiles and it was flowing freely. A green ribbon +ran along the wall completely round the ballroom, with pointing +arrows alongside of it and signs which instructed the uninitiated to +"Follow the green line'" The green line led down to the bar, where +waited pure punch and wicked punch and plain dark-green bottles. + +On the wall above the bar was another arrow, red and very wavy, and +under it the slogan: "Now follow this!" + +But even amid the luxury of costume and high spirits represented +there the entrance of the camel created something of a stir, and +Perry was immediately surrounded by a curious, laughing crowd who +were anxious to penetrate the identity of this beast who stood by +the wide doorway eyeing the dancers with his hungry, melancholy gaze. + +And then Perry saw Betty. She was standing in front of a booth +talking to a group of clowns, comic policemen and ringmasters. She +was dressed in the costume of an Egyptian snake charmer, a costume +carried out to the smallest detail. Her tawny hair was braided and +drawn through brass rings, the effect crowned with a glittering +Oriental tiara. Her fair face was stained to a warm olive glow and +on her bare arms and the half moon of her back writhed painted +serpents with single eyes of venomous green. Her feet were in +sandals and her skirt was slit to the knees, so that when she walked +one caught a glimpse of other slim serpents painted just above her +bare ankles. Wound about her neck was a huge, glittering, +cotton-stuffed cobra, and her bracelets were in the form of tiny +garter snakes. Altogether a very charming and beautiful costume--one +that made the more nervous among the older women shrink away from +her when she passed, and the more troublesome ones to make great +talk about "shouldn't be allowed" and "perfectly disgraceful." + +But Perry, peering through the uncertain eyes of the camel, saw only +her face, radiant, animated and glowing with excitement, and her arms +and shoulders, whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the +outstanding figure in any gathering. He was fascinated and his +fascination exercised a strangely sobering effect on him. With a +growing clarity the events of the day came back--he had lost forever +this shimmering princess in emerald green and black. Rage rose +within him, and with a half-formed intention of taking her away from +the crowd he started toward her--or rather he elongated slightly, +for he had neglected to issue the preparatory command necessary to +locomotion. + +But at this point fickle Kismet, who for a day had played with him +bitterly and sardonically, decided to reward him in full for the +amusement he had afforded her. Kismet turned the tawny eyes of the +snake charmer to the camel. Kismet led her to lean toward the man +beside her and say, "Who's that? That camel?" + +They all gazed. + +"Darned if I know." + +But a little man named Warburton, who knew it all, found it +necessary to hazard an opinion: + +"It came in with Mr. Tate. I think it's probably Warren Butterfield, +the architect, who's visiting the Tates." + +Something stirred in Betty Medill--that age-old interest of the +provincial girl in the visiting man. + +"Oh," she said casually after a slight pause. + +At the end of the next dance Betty and her partner finished up +within a few feet of the camel. With the informal audacity that was +the keynote of the evening she reached out and gently rubbed the +camel's nose. + +"Hello, old camel." + +The camel stirred uneasily. + +"You 'fraid of me?" said Betty, lifting her eyebrows in mock reproof. +"Don't be. You see I'm a snake charmer, but I'm pretty good at +camels too." + +The camel bowed very low and the groups round laughed and made the +obvious remark about the beauty and the beast. + +Mrs. Townsend came bustling up. + +"Well, Mr. Butterfield," she beamed, "I wouldn't have recognized you." + +Perry bowed again and smiled gleefully behind his mask. + +"And who is this with you?" she inquired. + +"Oh," said Perry in a disguised voice, muffled by the thick +cloth and quite unrecognizable, "he isn't a fellow, Mrs. Townsend. +He's just part of my costume." + +This seemed to get by, for Mrs. Townsend laughed and bustled away. +Perry turned again to Betty. + +"So," he thought, "this is how much she cares! On the very day of +our final rupture she starts a flirtation with another man--an +absolute stranger." + +On an impulse he gave her a soft nudge with his shoulder and waved +his head suggestively toward the hall, making it clear that he +desired her to leave her partner and accompany him. Betty seemed +quite willing. + +"By-by, Bobby," she called laughingly to her partner. "This old +camel's got me. Where are we going, Prince of Beasts?" + +The noble animal made no rejoinder, but stalked gravely along in the +direction of a secluded nook on the side stairs. + +There Betty seated herself, and the camel, after some seconds of +confusion which included gruff orders and sounds of a heated dispute +going on in his interior, placed himself beside her, his hind legs +stretching out uncomfortably across two steps. + +"Well, camel," said Betty cheerfully, "how do you like our happy +party?" + +The camel indicated that he liked it by rolling his head +ecstatically and executing a gleeful kick with his hoofs. + +"This is the first time that I ever had a tête-à -tête with a man's +valet round"--she pointed to the hind legs--"or whatever that is." + +"Oh," said Perry, "he's deaf and blind. Forget about him." + +"That sure is some costume! But I should think you'd feel rather +handicapped--you can't very well shimmy, even if you want to." + +The camel hung his head lugubriously. + +"I wish you'd say something," continued Betty sweetly. "Say you like +me, camel. Say you think I'm pretty. Say you'd like to belong to a +pretty snake charmer." + +The camel would. + +"Will you dance with me, camel?" + +The camel would try. + +Betty devoted half an hour to the camel. She devoted at least half +an hour to all visiting men. It was usually sufficient. When she +approached a new man the current débutantes were accustomed to +scatter right and left like a close column deploying before a +machine gun. And so to Perry Parkhurst was awarded the unique +privilege of seeing his love as others saw her. He was flirted with +violently! + + + + +IV + + +This paradise of frail foundation was broken into by the sound of a +general ingress to the ballroom; the cotillion was beginning. Betty +and the camel joined the crowd, her brown hand resting lightly on +his shoulder, defiantly symbolizing her complete adoption of him. + +When they entered, the couples were already seating themselves at +tables round the walls, and Mrs. Townsend, resplendent as a super +bareback rider with rather too rotund calves, was standing in the +centre with the ringmaster who was in charge of arrangements. At a +signal to the band everyone rose and began to dance. + +"Isn't it just slick!" breathed Betty. + +"You bet!" said the camel. + +"Do you think you can possibly dance?" + +Perry nodded enthusiastically. He felt suddenly exuberant. After all, +he was here incognito talking to his girl--he felt like winking +patronizingly at the world. + +"I think it's the best idea," cried Betty, "to give a party like this! +I don't see how they ever thought of it. Come on, let's dance!" + +So Perry danced the cotillion. I say danced, but that is stretching +the word far beyond the wildest dreams of the jazziest terpsichorean. +He suffered his partner to put her hands on his helpless shoulders +and pull him here and there gently over the floor while he hung his +huge head docilely over her shoulder and made futile dummy motions +with his feet. His hind legs danced in a manner all their own, +chiefly by hopping first on one foot and then on the other. Never +being sure whether dancing was going on or not, the hind legs played +safe by going through a series of steps whenever the music started +playing. So the spectacle was frequently presented of the front part +of the camel standing at ease and the rear keeping up a constant +energetic motion calculated to rouse a sympathetic perspiration in +any soft-hearted observer. + +He was frequently favoured. He danced first with a tall lady covered +with straw who announced jovially that she was a bale of hay and +coyly begged him not to eat her. + +"I'd like to; you're so sweet," said the camel gallantly. + +Each time the ringmaster shouted his call of "Men up!" he lumbered +ferociously for Betty with the cardboard wiener-wurst or the +photograph of the bearded lady or whatever the favour chanced to be. +Sometimes he reached her first, but usually his rushes were +unsuccessful and resulted in intense interior arguments. + +"For heaven's sake," Perry would snarl fiercely between his clenched +teeth, "get a little pep! I could have gotten her that time if you'd +picked your feet up." + +"Well, gimme a little warnin'!" + +"I did, darn you." + +"I can't see a dog-gone thing in here." + +"All you have to do is follow me. It's just like dragging a load of +sand round to walk with you." + +"Maybe you wanta try back here." + +"You shut up! If these people found you in this room they'd give you +the worst beating you ever had. They'd take your taxi license away +from you!" + +Perry surprised himself by the ease with which he made this +monstrous threat, but it seemed to have a soporific influence on his +companion, for he muttered an "aw gwan" and subsided into abashed +silence. + +The ringmaster mounted to the top of the piano and waved his hand +for silence. + +"Prizes!" he cried. "Gather round!" + +"Yea! Prizes!" + +Self-consciously the circle swayed forward. The rather pretty girl +who had mustered the nerve to come as a bearded lady trembled with +excitement, hoping to be rewarded for an evening's hideousness. The +man who had spent the afternoon having tattoo marks painted on him +by a sign painter skulked on the edge of the crowd, blushing +furiously when any one told him he was sure to get it. + +"Lady and gent performers of the circus," announced the ringmaster +jovially, "I am sure we will all agree that a good time has been had +by all. We will now bestow honour where honour is due by bestowing +the prizes. Mrs. Townsend has asked me to bestow the prizes. Now, +fellow performers, the first prize is for that lady who has +displayed this evening the most striking, becoming"--at this point +the bearded lady sighed resignedly--"and original costume." Here the +bale of hay pricked up her ears. "Now I am sure that the decision +which has been decided upon will be unanimous with all here present. +The first prize goes to Miss Betty Medill, the charming Egyptian +snake charmer." + +There was a great burst of applause, chiefly masculine, and +Miss Betty Medill, blushing beautifully through her olive paint, +was passed up to receive her award. With a tender glance the +ringmaster handed down to her a huge bouquet of orchids. + +"And now," he continued, looking round him, "the other prize is for +that man who has the most amusing and original costume. This prize +goes without dispute to a guest in our midst, a gentleman who is +visiting here but whose stay we will hope will be long and merry--in +short to the noble camel who has entertained us all by his hungry +look and his brilliant dancing throughout the evening." + +He ceased and there was a hearty burst of applause, for it was a +popular choice. The prize, a huge box of cigars, was put aside for +the camel, as he was anatomically unable to accept it in person. + +"And now," continued the ringmaster, "we will wind up the cotillion +with the marriage of Mirth to Folly! + +"Form for the grand wedding march, the beautiful snake charmer and +the noble camel in front!" + +Betty skipped forward cheerily and wound an olive arm round the +camel's neck. Behind them formed the procession of little boys, +little girls, country Jakes, policemen, fat ladies, thin men, sword +swallowers, wild men of Borneo, armless wonders and charioteers, +some of them well in their cups, all of them excited and happy and +dazzled by the flow of light and colour round them and by the +familiar faces strangely unfamiliar under bizarre wigs and barbaric +paint. The voluminous chords of the wedding march done in mad +syncopation issued in a delirious blend from the saxophones and +trombones--and the march began. + +"Aren't you glad, camel?" demanded Betty sweetly as they stepped off. +"Aren't you glad we're going to be married and you're going to +belong to the nice snake charmer ever afterward?" + +The camel's front legs pranced, expressing exceeding joy. + +"Minister, minister! Where's the minister?" cried voices out of the +revel. "Who's going to be the cler-gy-man?" + +The head of Jumbo, rotund negro waiter at the Tallyho Club for many +years, appeared rashly through a half-opened pantry door. + +"Oh, Jumbo!" + +"Get old Jumbo. He's the fella!" + +"Come on, Jumbo. How 'bout marrying us a couple?" + +"Yea!" + +Jumbo despite his protestations was seized by four brawny clowns, +stripped of his apron and escorted to a raised dais at the head of +the ball. There his collar was removed and replaced back side +forward to give him a sanctimonious effect. He stood there grinning +from ear to ear, evidently not a little pleased, while the parade +separated into two lines leaving an aisle for the bride and groom. + +"Lawdy, man," chuckled Jumbo, "Ah got ole Bible 'n' ev'ythin', sho +nuff." + +He produced a battered Bible from a mysterious interior + +"Yea. Old Jumbo's got a Bible!" + +"Razor, too, I'll bet!" + +"Marry 'em off, Jumbo!" + +Together the snake charmer and the camel ascended the cheering aisle +and stopped in front of Jumbo, who adopted a grave pontifical air. + +"Where's your license, camel?" + +"Make it legal, camel." + +A man near by prodded Perry. + +"Give him a piece of paper, camel. Anything'll do." + +Perry fumbled confusedly in his pocket, found a folded paper and +pushed it out through the camel's mouth. Holding it upside down +Jumbo pretended to scan it earnestly. + +"Dis yeah's a special camel's license," he said. "Get you ring ready, +camel." + +Inside the camel Perry turned round and addressed his latter half. + +"Gimme a ring, for Pete's sake!" + +"I ain't got none," protested a weary voice. + +"You have. I saw it." + +"I ain't goin' to take it offen my hand." + +"If you don't I'll kill you." + +There was a gasp and Perry felt a huge affair of rhinestone and +brass inserted into his hand. + +Again he was nudged from the outside. + +"Speak up!" + +"I do!" cried Perry quickly. + +He heard Betty's responses given in a laughing debonair tone, and +the sound of them even in this burlesque thrilled him. + +If it was only real! he thought. If it only was! + +Then he had pushed the rhinestone through a tear in the camel's coat +and was slipping it on her finger, muttering ancient and historic +words after Jumbo. He didn't want any one to know about this ever. +His one idea was to slip away without having to disclose his identity, +for Mr. Tate had so far kept his secret well. A dignified young man, +Perry--and this might injure his infant law practice. + +"Kiss her, camel!" + +"Embrace the bride!" + +"Unmask, camel, and kiss her!" + +Instinctively his heart beat high as Betty turned to him laughingly +and began playfully to stroke the cardboard muzzle. He felt his +self-control giving away, he longed to seize her in his arms and +declare his identity and kiss those scarlet lips that smiled +teasingly at him from only a foot away--when suddenly the laughter +and applause round them died away and a curious hush fell over the +hall. Perry and Betty looked up in surprise. Jumbo had given vent to +a huge "Hello!" in such a startled and amazed voice that all eyes +were bent on him. + +"Hello!" he said again. He had turned round the camel's marriage +license, which he had been holding upside down, produced spectacles +and was studying it intently. + +"Why," he exclaimed, and in the pervading silence his words were +heard plainly by everyone in the room, "this yeah's a sho-nuff +marriage permit." + +"What?" + +"Huh?" + +"Say it again, Jumbo!" + +"Sure you can read?" + +Jumbo waved them to silence and Perry's blood burned to fire in his +veins as he realized the break he had made. + +"Yassuh!" repeated Jumbo. "This yeah's a sho-nuff license, and the +pa'ties concerned one of 'em is dis yeah young lady, Miz Betty Medill, +and th' other's Mistah Perry Pa'khurst." + +There was a general gasp, and a low rumble broke out as all eyes +fell on the camel. Betty shrank away from him quickly, her tawny +eyes giving out sparks of fury. + +"Is you Mistah Pa'khurst, you camel?" + +Perry made no answer. The crowd pressed up closer and stared at him +as he stood frozen rigid with embarrassment, his cardboard face +still hungry and sardonic, regarding the ominous Jumbo. + +"You-all bettah speak up!" said Jumbo slowly, "this yeah's a mighty +serous mattah. Outside mah duties at this club ah happens to be a +sho-nuff minister in the Firs' Cullud Baptis' Church. It done look +to me as though you-all is gone an' got married." + + + +V + +The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the +Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, strong men swore, wild-eyed +débutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly +dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, +hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they +would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or someone and the Baptis' +preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur +lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, +ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any +hint or suspicion of prearrangement in what had occurred. + +On the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of +Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were +exchanging "all my fault's" volubly and voluminously. Outside on a +snow covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being +paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent +now to a grunt, now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild +pleadings that they'd just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously +attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most +exacting stage manager after one look at his face would have +acknowledged that any improvement in casting the part would have +been quite impossible. + +Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of the stage. +Betty Medill--or was it Betty Parkhurst?--weeping furiously, was +surrounded by the plainer girls--the prettier ones were too busy +talking about her to pay much attention to her--and over on the +other side of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his +head-piece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. Perry was +earnestly engaged in making protestations of his innocence to a ring +of angry, puzzled men. Every few minutes just as he had apparently +proved his case someone would mention the marriage certificate, and +the inquisition would begin again. + +A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second best belle of Toledo, +changed the gist of the situation by a remark she made to Betty. + +"Well," she said maliciously, "it'll all blow over, dear. The courts +will annul it without question." + +Betty's tears dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tightly +together, and she flashed a withering glance at Marion. Then she +rose and scattering her sympathizers right and left walked directly +across the room to Perry, who also rose and stood looking at her in +terror. Again silence crept down upon the room. + +"Will you have the decency," she said, "to grant me five minutes' +conversation--or wasn't that included in your plans?" + +He nodded, his mouth unable to form words. + +Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked out into the +hall with her chin uptilted and headed for the privacy of one of the +little card rooms. + +Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky halt by the +failure of his hind legs to function. + +"You stay here!" he commanded savagely. + +"I can't," whined a voice from the hump, "unless you get out first +and let me get out." + +Perry hesitated, but the curious crowd was unbearable, and unable +any longer to tolerate eyes he muttered a command and with as much +dignity as possible the camel moved carefully out on its four legs. + +Betty was waiting for him. + +"Well," she began furiously, "you see what you've done! You and that +crazy license! I told you, you shouldn't have gotten it! I told you!" + +"My dear girl, I----" + +"Don't dear-girl me! Save that for your real wife if you ever get +one after this disgraceful performance." + +"I----" + +"And don't try to pretend it wasn't all arranged. You know you gave +that coloured waiter money! You know you did! Do you mean to say you +didn't try to marry me?" + +"No--I mean, yes--of course----" + +"Yes, you'd better admit it! You tried it, and now what are you +going to do? Do you know my father's nearly crazy? It'll serve you +right if he tries to kill you. He'll take his gun and put some cold +steel in you. O-o-oh! Even if this marr--this thing can be annulled +it'll hang over me all the rest of my life!" + +Perry could not resist quoting softly: "'Oh, camel, wouldn't you +like to belong to the pretty snake charmer for all your----'" + +"Shut up!" cried Betty. + +There was a pause. + +"Betty," said Perry finally with a very faint hopefulness, "there's +only one thing to do that will really get us out clear. That's for +you to marry me." + +"Marry you!" + +"Yes. Really it's the only----" + +"You shut up! I wouldn't marry you if--if----" + +"I know. If I were the last man on earth. But if you care anything +about your reputation----" + +"Reputation!" she cried. "You're a nice one to think about my +reputation _now_. Why didn't you think about my reputation before +you hired that horrible Jumbo to--to----" + +Perry tossed up his hands hopelessly. + +"Very well. I'll do anything you want. Lord knows I renounce all +claims!" + +"But," said a new voice, "I don't." + +Perry and Betty started, and she put her hand to her heart. + +"For heaven's sake, what was that?" + +"It's me," said the camel's back. + +In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp +object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly +on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly before them. + +"Oh," cried Betty, tears starting again to her eyes, "you brought +that object in here to frighten me! You told me he was deaf--that +awful person!" + +The ex-camel's back sat down on a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. + +"Don't talk 'at way about me, lady. I ain't no person. I'm your +husband." + +"Husband!" + +The cry was wrung simultaneously from Betty and Perry. + +"Why, sure. I'm as much your husband as that gink is. The smoke +didn't marry you to the camel's front. He married you to the whole +camel. Why, that's my ring you got on your finger!" + +With a little cry she snatched the ring from her finger and flung it +passionately at the floor. + +"What's all this?" demanded Perry dazedly. + +"Jes' that you better fix me an' fix me right. If you don't I'm +a-gonna have the same claim you got to bein' married to her!" + +"That's bigamy," said Perry, turning gravely to Betty. + +Then came the supreme moment of Perry's early life, the ultimate +chance on which he risked his fortunes. He rose and looked first at +Betty, where she sat weakly, her face aghast at this new complication, +and then at the individual who swayed from side to side on his chair, +uncertainly yet menacingly. + +"Very well," said Perry slowly to the individual, "you can have her. +Betty, I'm going to prove to you that as far as I'm concerned our +marriage was entirely accidental. I'm going to renounce utterly my +rights to have you as my wife, and give you to--to the man whose +ring you wear--your lawful husband." + +There was a pause and four horror-stricken eyes were turned on him. + +"Good-by, Betty," he said brokenly. "Don't forget me in your +new-found happiness. I'm going to leave for the Far West on the +morning train. Think of me kindly, Betty." + +With a last glance at them he turned on his heel and his head bowed +on his chest as his hand touched the door knob. + +"Good-by," he repeated. He turned the door knob. + +But at these words a flying bundle of snakes and silk and tawny hair +hurled itself at him. + +"Oh, Perry, don't leave me! I can't face it alone! Perry, Perry, +take me with you!" + +Her tears rained down in a torrent and flowed damply on his neck. +Calmly he folded his arms about her. + +"I don't care," she cried tearfully. "I love you and if you can wake +up a minister at this hour and have it done over again I'll go West +with you." + +Over her shoulder the front part of the camel looked at the back +part of the camel--and they exchanged a particularly subtle, +esoteric sort of wink that only true camels can understand. + + + + +BREAK-NECK HILL + + +BY ESTHER FORBES + +From _The Grinnell Review_ + +Down Holly Street the tide had set in for church. It was a proper, +dilatory tide. Every silk-hat glistened, every shoe was blacked, the +flowers on the women's hats were as fresh as the daffodils against +the house fronts. Few met face to face, now and then a faster walker +would catch up with acquaintances and join them or, with a flash of +raised hat, bow, and pass on down the stream. + +Then the current met an obstacle. A man, young and graceful and very +much preoccupied, walked through the church-goers, faced in the +opposite direction. His riding breeches and boots showed in spite of +the loose overcoat worn to cover them. He bowed continually, like +royalty from a landau, almost as mechanically, and answered the +remarks that greeted him. + +"Hello, Geth." + +"Hello." + +"Good morning, Mr. Gething. Not going to church this morning." This +from a friend of his mother. + +"Good morning. No, not this morning." He met a chum. + +"Good riding day, eh?" + +"Great." + +"Well, Geth, don't break your neck." + +"You bet not." + +"I'll put a P.S. on the prayer for you," said the wag. + +"Thanks a lot." The wag was always late--even to church on Easter +morning. So Gething knew the tail of the deluge was reached and past. +He had the street almost to himself. It was noticeable that the man +had not once called an acquaintance by name or made the first remark. +His answers had been as reflex as his walking. Geth was thinking, +and in the sombre eyes was the dumb look of a pain that would not be +told--perhaps he considered it too slight. + +He left Holly Street and turned into Holly Park. Here from the grass +that bristled so freshly, so ferociously green, the tree trunks rose +black and damp. Brown pools of water reflected a blue radiant sky +through blossoming branches. Gething subsided on a bench well +removed from the children and nurse maids. First he glanced at the +corner of Holly Street and the Boulevard where a man from his +father's racing stable would meet him with his horse. His face, his +figure, his alert bearing, even his clothes promised a horse-man. +The way his stirrups had worn his boots would class him as a rider. +He rode with his foot "through" as the hunter, steeple chaser, and +polo-player do--not on the ball of his foot in park fashion. + +He pulled off his hat and ran his hand over his close-cropped head. +Evidently he was still thinking. Across his face the look of pain +ebbed and returned, then he grew impatient. His wrist-watch showed +him his horse was late and he was in a hurry to be started, for what +must be done had best be done quickly. Done quickly and forgotten, +then he could give his attention to the other horses. There was +Happiness--an hysterical child, and Goblin, who needed training over +water jumps, and Sans Souci, whose lame leg should be cocained to +locate the trouble--all of his father's stable of great thoroughbreds +needed something except Cuddy, who waited only for the bullet. +Gething's square brown hand went to his breeches pocket, settled on +something that was cold as ice and drew it out--the revolver. The +horse he had raced so many times at Piping Rock, Brookline, Saratoga +had earned the right to die by this hand which had guided him. +Cuddy's high-bred face came vividly before his eyes and the white +star would be the mark. He thrust the revolver back in his pocket +hastily for a child had stopped to look at him, then slowly rose and +fell to pacing the gravel walk. A jay screamed overhead, "Jay, jay, +jay!" + +"You fool," Geth called to him and then muttered to himself. +"Fool, fool--oh, Geth----" From the boulevard a voice called him. + +"Mr. Gething--if you please, sir----!" It was Willet the trainer. + +"All right, Willet." The trainer was mounted holding a lean +greyhound of a horse. Gething pulled down the stirrups. + +"I meant to tell you to bring Cuddy for me to ride, last time, you +know." + +"Not that devil. I could never lead him in. Frenchman, here, is well +behaved in cities." + +Gething swung up. He sat very relaxed upon a horse. There was a +lifetime of practice behind that graceful seat and manner with the +reins. The horse started a low shuffling gait that would take them +rapidly out of the city to the Gething country place and stables. + +"You know," Geth broke silence, "Cuddy's got his--going to be shot." + +"Not one of us, sir," said Willet, "but will sing Hallelujah! He +kicked a hole in Muggins yesterday. None of the boys dare touch him, +so he hasn't been groomed proper since your father said he was to go. +It's more dangerous wipin' him off than to steeplechase the others." +Geth agreed. "I know it isn't right to keep a brute like that." + +"No, sir. When he was young and winning stakes it seemed different. +I tell you what, we'll all pay a dollar a cake for soap made out 'er +old Cuddy." + +"There'll be no soap made out of old Cuddy," Gething interrupted him, +"I'll ride him out--up to the top of Break-Neck Hill and shoot him +there. You'd better begin the trench by noon. When it's dug I'll +take him to the top and----" + +"But nobody's been on his back since your father said it was useless +to try to make him over. Too old for steeplechasing and too much the +racer for anything else, and too much the devil to keep for a suvnor." + +"Well, I'll ride him once again." + +"But, Mr. Geth, he's just been standing in his box or the paddock +for four weeks now. We've been waiting for you to say when he was to +be shot. He's in a sweet temper and d' y'er know, I think, I do----" + +"What do you think?" Willet blushed purple. + +"I think Cuddy's got something in his head, some plan if he gets out. +I think he wants to kill some one before he dies. Yes, sir, _kill_ +him. And you know if he gets the start of you there is no stopping +the dirty devil." + +"Yes, he does tear a bit," Geth admitted. "But I never was on a +surer jumper. Lord! How the old horse can lift you!" Gething dropped +into a disconsolate silence, interrupted before long by Willet. + +"Happiness will get Cuddy's box--she's in a stall. Cuddy was always +mean to her--used to go out of his way to kick her--and she, sweet +as a kitten." + +"So you'll give her his box in revenge?" + +"Revenge? Oh, no sir. Just common sense." Any thought of a +sentimental revenge was distasteful to the trainer, but he was glad +that good Happiness should get his box and disappointed about the +soap. It would have lent relish to his somewhat perfunctory washings +to say to himself, "Doubtless this here bit of soap is a piece of +old Cuddy." + +"How long will the trench take?" + +"A good bit of time, sir. Cuddy isn't no kitten we're laying by. +I'll put them gardeners on the job--with your permission--and they +know how to shovel. You'll want an old saddle on him?" + +"No, no, the one I've raced him in, number twelve, and his old +bridle with the chain bit." + +"Well, well," said Willet rubbing his veiny nose. + +He considered the horse unworthy of any distinction, but in his +desire to please Geth, took pains to prepare Cuddy for his death and +burial. Gething was still at the big house although it was four +o'clock and the men on Break-Neck Hill were busy with their digging. +Willet called them the sextons. + +"And we, Joey," he addressed a stable boy, "we're the undertakers. +Handsome corpse, what?" Cuddy stood in the centre of the barn floor +fastened to be groomed. He was handsome, built on the cleanest lines +of speed and strength, lean as an anatomical study, perfect for his +type. The depth of chest made his legs, neck, and head look fragile. +His face was unusually beautiful--the white-starred face which had +been before Geth's eyes as he had sat in Holly Park. His pricked +ears strained to hear, his eyes to see. The men working over him +were beneath his notice. + +"Look at him," complained Joey, "he pays no more attention to us +than as if we weren't here." Cuddy usually kicked during grooming, +but his present indifference was more insulting. + +"Huh!" said Willet. "he knows them sextons went to Break-Neck to +dig the grave for him. Don't yer, Devil? Say, Joey, look at him +listening like he was counting the number of spadefuls it takes to +make a horse's grave. He's thinking, old Cuddy is, and scheming what +he'd like to do. I wouldn't ride him from here to Break-Neck, not +for a thousand dollars." He began rapidly with the body brush on +Cuddy's powerful haunch, then burst out: + +"He thinks he'll be good and we'll think he's hit the sawdust trail, +or perhaps he wants to look pretty in his coffin. Huh! Give me that +curry. You wash off his face a bit." Cuddy turned his aristocratic +face away from the wet cloth and blew tremulously. Joey tapped the +blazing star on his forehead. + +"Right there," he explained to Willet, "but anyhow he's begun to +show his age." He pointed the muzzle which had the run forward look +of an old horse and to the pits above the eyes. The grooming was +finished but neither Gething came to the stable from the big house +nor the trench diggers from Break-Neck to say that their work was +done. + +"Say, Joey," suggested Willet, "I'll do up his mane in red and +yellow worsteds, like he was going to be exhibited. Red and yellow +look well on a bay. You get to the paddock and see Frenchman hasn't +slipped his blanket while I fetch the worsteds from the office." + +Cuddy left alone, stopped his listening and began pulling at his +halter. It held him firm. From the brown dusk of their box-stalls +two lines of expectant horses' faces watched him. The pretty chestnut, +Happiness, already had been transferred to his old box, her white +striped face was barely visible. Farther down, on the same side, +Goblin stood staring stupidly and beyond were the heads of the three +brothers, Sans Pareil, Sans Peur and the famous Sans Souci who could +clear seven feet of timber (and now was lame.) Opposite stood Bohemia, +cold blood in her veins as a certain thickness about the throat +testified, and little Martini, the flat racer. On either side of him +were Hotspur and Meteor and there were a dozen others as famous. +Above each stall was hung the brass plate giving the name and +pedigree and above that up to the roof the hay was piled sweet and +dusty-smelling. The barn swallows twittered by an open window in the +loft. In front of Cuddy the great double doors were open to the +fields and pastures, the gray hills and the radiant sky. Cuddy +reared abruptly striking out with his front legs, crouched and +sprang against his halter again, but it held him fast. Willet, on +returning with his worsted, found him as he had left him, motionless +as a bronze horse on a black marble clock. + +Willet stood on a stool the better to work on the horse's neck. His +practised fingers twisted and knotted the mane and worsted, then cut +the ends into hard tassels. The horse's withers were reached and the +tassels bobbing rakishly gave a hilarious look to the condemned +animal. + +Four men, very sweaty, carrying spades entered. + +"It's done," said the first, nodding, "and it's a big grave. Glad +pet horses don't die oftener." + +"This ain't a pet," snapped Willet. "He's just that much property +and being of no more use is thrown away--just like an old tin can. +No more sense in burying one than the other. If I had my way about +it I'd----" But Geth entered. With his coat off he gave an +impression of greater size, like Cuddy his lines were graceful +enough to minimize his weight. + +"Hole dug? Well, let's saddle up and start out." He did not go up to +Cuddy to speak to him as he usually would have done, but as if +trying to avoid him, he fell to patting Happiness's striped face. +She was fretful in her new quarters. "Perhaps," thought Willet, +"she knows it's old Cuddy and _he's_ gone out for good." All the +horses seemed nervous and unhappy. It was as if they knew that one +of their number was to be taken out to an inglorious death--not the +fortune to die on the turf track as a steeple-chaser might wish, but +ignominiously, on a hill top, after a soft canter through spring +meadows. + +Cuddy stood saddled and bridled and then Willet turned in last +appeal to his master's son. + +"Mr. Geth, I wouldn't ride him--not even if I rode as well as you, +which I don't. That horse has grown worse and worse these last months. +He wants to kill some one, that's what he wants." Geth shook his head. + +"No use, Willet, trying to scare me. I know what I'm doing, eh Cuddy?" +He went to the horse and rubbed the base of his ears. The satin head +dropped forward on to the man's chest, a rare response from Cuddy. +Gething led him out of the stable, Willet held his head as the man +mounted. + +As he thrust his foot in the stirrup Cuddy lunged at Willet, his +savage yellow teeth crushed into his shoulder. The rider pulled him +off striking him with his heavy hunting whip. The horse squealed, +arched himself in the air and sidled down the driveway. He did not +try to run or buck, but seemed intent on twisting himself into +curves and figures. The two went past the big house with its gables +and numberless chimneys and down to the end of the driveway. + +There is a four foot masonry wall around the Gething country-place +("farm" they call it). The horse saw it and began jerking at his bit +and dancing, for ever since colt-hood walls had had but one meaning +for him. + +"Well, at it old man," laughed Gething. At a signal Cuddy flew at it, +rose into the air with magnificent strength and landed like +thistle-down. + +"Cuddy," cried the man, "there never was a jumper like you. +Break-Neck will keep, we'll find some more walls first." He crossed +the road and entered a rough pasture. It was a day of such abounding +life one could pity the worm the robin pulled. For on such a day +everything seemed to have the right to live and be happy. The crows +sauntered across the sky, care free as hoboes. Under foot the meadow +turf oozed water, the shad-bush petals fell like confetti before the +rough assault of horse and rider. Gething liked this day of wind and +sunshine. In the city there had been the smell of oiled streets to +show that spring had come, here was the smell of damp earth, pollen, +and burnt brush. Suddenly he realized that Cuddy, too, was pleased +and contented for he was going quietly now, occasionally he threw up +his head and blew "Heh, heh!" through his nostrils. Strange that +Willet had thought Cuddy wanted to kill some one--all he really +wanted was a bit of a canter. + +A brook was reached. It was wide, marshy, edged with cowslips. It +would take a long jump to clear it. Gething felt the back gather +beneath him, the tense body flung into the air, the flight through +space, then the landing well upon the firm bank. + +"Bravo, Cuddy!" the horse plunged and whipped his head between his +forelegs, trying to get the reins from the rider's hands. Gething +let himself be jerked forward until his face almost rested on the +veiny neck. + +"Old tricks, Cuddy. I knew _that_ one before you wore your first +shoes." He still had easy control and began to really let him out. +There was a succession of walls and fences and mad racing through +fields when the horse plunged in his gait and frightened birds +fluttered from the thicket and Gething hissed between his teeth as +he always did when he felt a horse going strong beneath him. + +Then they came to a hill that rose out of green meadows. It was +covered with dingy pine trees except the top that was bared like a +tonsure. A trail ran through the woods; a trail singularly morose +and unattractive. The pines looked shabby and black in comparison to +the sun on the spring meadows. This was Break-Neck Hill. Perhaps +Cuddy felt his rider stiffen in the saddle for he refused +passionately to take the path. He set his will against Gething's and +fought, bucking and rearing. When a horse is capable of a six foot +jump into the air his great strength and agility make his bucking +terrible. The broncho is a child in size and strength compared to +Cuddy's race of super-horse. Twice Geth went loose in his flat +saddle and once Cuddy almost threw himself. The chain bit had torn +the edges of his mouth and blood coloured his froth. Suddenly he +acquiesced and quiet again, he took the sombre path. Geth thrust his +right hand into his pocket, the revolver was still there. His hand +left it and rested on the bobbing, tasseled mane. + +"Old man," he addressed the horse, "I know you don't know where +you're going and I know you don't remember much, but you must +remember Saratoga and how we beat them all. And Cuddy, you'd +understand--if you could--how it's all over now and why I want to +do it for you myself." + +The woods were cleared. It was good to leave their muffled dampness +for the pure sunshine of the crest. On the very top of the hill +clean-cut against the sky stood a great wind-misshaped pine. At the +foot of this pine was a bank of fresh earth and Gething knew that +beyond the bank was the trench. He bent in his saddle and pressed +his forehead against the warm neck. Before his eyes was the past +they had been together, the sweep of the turf course, the grandstand +a-flutter, grooms with blankets, jockeys and gentlemen in silk, +owners' wives with cameras, then the race that always seemed so +short--a rush of horses, the stretching over the jumps, and the +purse or not, it did not matter. + +He straightened up with a grim set to his jaw and gathered the +loosened reins. Cuddy went into a canter and so approached the earth +bank. Suddenly he refused to advance and again the two wills fought, +but not so furiously. Cuddy was shaking with fear. The bank was a +strange thing, a fearsome thing, and the trench beyond, ghastly. His +neck stretched forward. "Heh, heh!" he blew through his nostrils. + +"Six steps nearer, Cuddy." Geth struck him lightly with his spurs. +The horse paused by the bank and began rocking slightly. + +"Sist! be quiet," for they were on the spot Gething wished. The +horse gathered himself, started to rear, then sprang into the air, +cleared earth-mound and trench and bounded down the hill. The +tremendous buck-jump he had so unexpectedly taken, combined with his +frantic descent, gave Gething no chance to get control until the +level was reached. Then, with the first pull on the bridle, he +realized it was too late. For a while at least Cuddy was in command. +Gething tried all his tricks with the reins, the horse dashed on +like a furious gust of wind, he whirled through the valley, across a +ploughed field, over a fence and into more pastures. Gething, never +cooler, fought for the control. The froth blown back against his +white shirt was rosy with blood. Cuddy was beyond realizing his bit. +Then Gething relaxed a little and let him go. He could guide him to +a certain extent. Stop him he could not. + +The horse was now running flatly and rapidly. He made no attempt to +throw his rider. What jumps were in his way he took precisely. +Unlike the crazed runaway of the city streets Cuddy never took +better care of himself. It seemed that he was running for some +purpose and Gething thought of Willet's often repeated remark, +"Look at 'im--old Cuddy, he's thinking." Two miles had been covered +and the gait had become business-like. Gething, guiding always to the +left, was turning him in a huge circle. The horse reeked with sweat. +"Now," thought Gething, "he's had enough," but at the first pressure +on the bit Cuddy increased his speed. His breath caught in his throat. +There was another mile and the wonderful run grew slower. The man +felt the great horse trip and recover himself. He was tired out. +Again the fight between master and horse began. Cuddy resisted weakly, +then threw up his beautiful, white-starred face as if in entreaty. + +"Oh, I'm----" muttered Gething and let the reins lie loose on his +neck, "your own way, Cuddy. Your way is better than mine. Old friend, +I'll not try to stop you again." For he knew if he tried he could +now gain control. The early dusk of spring had begun to settle on +the surface of the fields in a hazy radiance, a marvelous light that +seemed to breathe out from the earth and stream through the sky. A +mile to the east upon a hill was a farm house. The orange light from +the sunset found every window, blinded them and left them blank +oblongs of orange. The horse and rider passed closer to this farm. +Two collies rushed forward, then stopped to bark and jump. The light +enveloped them and gave each a golden halo. + +Again Gething turned still keeping toward the left. A hill began to +rise before them and up it the horse sped, his breath whirring and +rattling in his throat, but his strength still unspent. To the very +top he made his way and paused dazed. "Oh, Cuddy," cried Gething, +"this is Break-Neck." For there was the wind-warped pine, the bank +of earth, the trench. The horse came to a shivering standstill. The +bank looked strange to him. He stood sobbing, his body rocking +slightly, rocking gently, then with a sigh, came slowly down on to +the turf. Gething was on his feet, his hand on the dripping neck. + +"You always were a bad horse and I always loved you," he whispered, +"and that was a great ride, and now----" He rose abruptly and turned +away as he realized himself alone in the soft twilight. The horse +was dead. Then he returned to the tense body, so strangely thin and +wet, and removed saddle and bridle. With these hung on his arm he +took the sombre path through the pines for home. + + + + +_BLACK ART AND AMBROSE_ + + +BY GUY GILPATRIC + +From _Collier's, The National Weekly_ + +"... _The Naytives of the Seacoast told me many fearsome Tales of +these Magycians, or Voodoos, as they called Them. It would seem that +the Mystic Powers of these Magycians is hereditary, and that the +Spells, Incantacions, and other Secretts of their Profession are +passed on One to the Other and holden in great Awe by the People. +The Marke of this horride Culte is the Likeness of a great Human Eye, +carved in the Fleshe of the Backe, which rises in Ridges as it heals +and lasts Forever_ ..." + + + --Extract from "A Truthful Accounte of a Voyage and Journey + to the Land of Afrique, Together with Numerous Drawings and + Mappes, and a most Humble Petition Regarding the Same." + Presented by Roberte Waiting, Gent. in London, Anno D. 1651. + + +A few blocks west of the subway, and therefore off the beaten track +of the average New Yorker, is San Juan Hill. If you ever happen on +San Juan unawares, you will recognize it at once by its clustering +family of mammoth gas houses, its streets slanting down into the +North River, and the prevailing duskiness of the local complexion. +If you chance to stray into San Juan after sundown, you will be +relieved to note that policemen are plentiful, and that they walk in +pairs. This last observation describes the social status of San Juan +or any other neighbourhood better than volumes of detailed episodes +could begin to do. + +Of late years many of the Fust Famblies of San Juan have migrated +northward to the teeming negro districts of Harlem, but enough of +the old stock remains to lend the settlement its time-honoured touch +of gloom. Occasionally, too, it still makes its way to the public +notice by sanguinary affrays and race riots. San Juan Hill is a +geographical, racial, and sociological fact, and will remain so +until the day when safety razors become a universal institution. + +San Juan is a community in itself. It has its churches, its clubs, +its theatres, its stores, and--sighs of relief from the police--it +_used_ to have its saloons. It is a cosmopolitan community, too--as +cosmopolitan as it can be and still retain its Senegambian motif. + +Negroes from Haiti, Jamaica, Salvador, Cuba; from Morocco and Senegal; +blue-black negroes from the Pacific; ebony negroes from the South; +brown, tan, yellow, and buff negroes from everywhere inhabit San Juan. +Every language from Arabic to Spanish is spoken by these--the +cosmopolites of cosmopolitan San Juan. + +_Pussonally_, Mr. Ambrose de Vere Travis spoke only English. +Because he hailed from Galveston, Tex., he spoke it with a Gulf +intonation at once liquid, rich, and musical. He stood six feet five +on his bare soles, so his voice was somewhat reminiscent of the +Vatican organ. + +Ambrose was twenty-four years old. Our story finds him a New Yorker +of three years' standing, all of which he had spent as a dweller on +San Juan Hill. Originally the giant Mr. Travis had served as furnace +tender in the subterraneous portions of the Swalecliffe Arms +apartments, that turreted edifice in the Eighties that frowns across +at the Palisades from Riverside Drive. But his size and the size of +his smile had won for Ambrose the coveted and uniformed position of +door-man, a post at which he served with considerable success and +the incidental tips. + +The recently wealthy Mr. Braumbauer, for instance, really felt that +he _was_ somebody, when Ambrose opened the door of his car and bowed +him under the portcullis of Swalecliffe. And y'understand me, a +feller's willing he should pay a little something for service once +in a while. And so, one way and another, Ambrose managed to eke from +his job a great deal more than he drew on pay day. + +But Mr. Travis's source of income did not stop there--far from it. +He had brought from Galveston a genius for rolling sevens--or, if he +missed seven the first roll, he could generally make his point +within the next three tries. He could hold the dice longer than any +man within the San Juan memory, which, in view of the fact that +craps is to San Juan what bridge is to Boston, is saying a great deal. +Ambrose was simply a demon with the bones, and he was big enough to +get away with it. + +True, there had been difficulties. + +One evening at the Social Club Ambrose held the dice for a straight +sixteen passes. He and five other courtiers of fortune were bounding +the ivories off the cushion of a billiard table, to the end that the +contest be one of chance and not of science. In the midst of +Ambrose's stentorian protests that the baby needed footwear, one of +the losers forgot his breeding to the extent of claiming that +Ambrose had introduced a loaded die. As he seconded his claims with +a razor, the game met a temporary lull. + +When the furniture had ceased crashing, the members of the club +emerged from beneath the pool tables to see Mr. Travis tying up a +slashed hand, while he of the razor lay moaning over a broken +shoulder and exuding teeth in surprising quantities. + +After this little incident no one ever so far forgot himself as to +breathe the faintest aspersion on Mr. Travis, his dice, his way of +throwing them down or of picking them up. + +It was generally conceded that his conduct throughout the fray had +been of the best, and the affair did much to raise him in popular +esteem--especially as he was able to prove the caviler's charges to +be utterly unfounded. + +And so, with his physical beauty, his courage, and his wealth, +Mr. Ambrose de Vere Travis became something of a figure in San +Juan's social circles. + +Just when Ambrose fell in love with Miss Aphrodite Tate is not quite +clear. + +Aphrodite (pronounced just as spelled) was so named because her +father thought it had something to do with Africa. She was +astoundingly, absolutely, and gratifyingly black, and Ambrose was +sure that he had never seen any one quite so beautiful. + +Aphrodite lived with her parents, the ancient and revered +Fremont-Tates, patroons of San Juan. In the daytime she was engaged +as maid by a family that _suttingly_ treated her lovely; while in +the evening she could usually be found at the St. Benedict Young +People's Club. And it was here that Ambrose met her. + +True love ran smoothly for a long time. At last, when he felt the +tune was ripe, Ambrose pleaded urgent business for two evenings and +shook down the Social Club dice fanciers for the price of the ring. + +Then Mr. Dominique Raffin loomed dark on the horizon. Mr. Raffin did +not loom as dark as he might have loomed, however, because he was +half white. He hailed from Haiti, and was the son of a French sailor +and a transplanted Congo wench. He was slight of build and shifty of +eye. His excuse for being was a genius for music. He could play +anything, could this pasty Dominique, but of all instruments he was +at his tuneful best on the alto saxophone. + +"Lawd! _Oh_, Lawd!" his audience would ejaculate, as with closed +eyes and heads thrown back they would drink in the sonorous +emanations from the brazen tube. "Dat's de horn ob de Angel +Gabriel--dat's de heabenly music ob de spears!" And so Dominique's +popularity grew among the ladies of San Juan, even if among the +gentlemen it did not. + +To tell the truth, Dominique was something of a beau. Because he +played in an orchestra, he had ample opportunity to study the +deportment of people who passed as fashionable. His dress was +immaculate; his hair was not so kinky that it couldn't be plastered +down with brilliantine, and he perfumed himself copiously. His +fingers were heavily laden with rings. Dominique's voice was +whining--irritating. + +His native tongue was French, but he had learned to speak English in +Jamaica. Thus his accent was a curious mixture of French and Cockney, +lubricated with oily African. + +Altogether, it is not to be wondered that such sturdy sons of Ham as +Ambrose disliked the snaky Mr. Raffin. Disliked him the more when +his various musical and cultural accomplishments made him a general +favourite with the ladies. And then, when he absolutely cut +Mr. Travis from the affections of Miss Tate, the wrath of the +blacker and more wholesome San Juan citizens knew no bounds. + +As for Ambrose--he sulked. Even his friends, the fur-lined tenants +of Swalecliffe Arms, noticed that something worried the swart +guardian of their gate. In the evenings Ambrose gave his entire time +to frenzied rolling of the bones and was surprised to see that here, +at least, luck had not deserted him. + +On the few occasions when he forsook the green baize for an +evening's dancing at the St. Benedict Young People's Guild, the +sight of the coveted Miss Aphrodite whirling in the arms of the +hated Raffin almost overcame him. + +Finally the lovesick Mr. Travis decided to call upon the lady of his +heart and demand an explanation. After some rehearsal of what he +wanted to say, Ambrose betook himself to the tenement in which the +Tate family dwelt. At sight of her cast-off swain, Miss Aphrodite +showed the whites of her eyes and narrowed her lips to a thin +straight line--perhaps an inch and a half thin. Evidently she was +displeased. + +Aphrodite opened the interview by inquiring why she was being +pestered and intermediated by a low-down black nigger that didn't +have no mo' brains than he had manners. Her feelings was likely to +git the better of her at any moment; in which event Mr. Travis had +better watch out, that was all--jest watch out. + +The astounded Mr. Travis did his best to pacify this Amazon; to +explain that he had merely come to inquire the reason for her +displeasure; to learn in what respect Mr. Raffin had proved himself +so sweetly desirable. + +The answer was brief and crushing. It seemed that where Mr. Travis +was a big, bulky opener of doors, Mr. Raffin was a sleek and +cultured Chesterfield--a musician--an artist. Where Mr. Travis could +not dance without stepping on everybody in the room, Mr. Raffin was +a veritable Mordkin. Where Mr. Travis hung out with a bunch of +no-good crap-shooting black buck niggers, Mr. Raffin's orchestral +duties brought him into the most cultured s'ciety. In short, the +yellow man from Haiti was a gentleman; the black man from Texas was +a boor. + +This unexpected tirade made the unhappy Ambrose a trifle weak in the +knees. Then pride came to the rescue, and he drew himself to his +full and towering six feet five. He held out his mammoth hands +before Miss Aphrodite and warned her that with them, at the first +provocation, he would jest take and bust Mr. Raffin in two. This done, +he would throw the shuddering fragments into the street, and with +his feet--Exhibit B--would kick them the entire length and breadth +of the neighbourhood. + +This threat only aroused new fires of scorn and vituperation, and +Miss Tate informed her guest that, should he ever attempt the +punitive measures described, Mr. Raffin would cut him up into little +pieces. It seemed that Mr. Raffin carried a knife, and that he knew +how to use it. + +Mr. Travis snorted at this, and stamped out of the Tate apartment. + +At his exit, doors closed softly on every floor, because the +neighbours had listened to the tête-à -tête with intense interest. +Even people in the next house had been able to hear most of it. + +Ambrose made his furious way toward the Social Club, his mind set on +mortal encounter with the hated Dominique. But--here was an +inspiration!--why not win his money away from him first? To win away +his last cent--to humble him--to ruin him--and then to break him in +two and kick the pieces through the San Juan causeways, as per +programme! This would be a revenge indeed! + +Ambrose noted with satisfaction that Mr. Raffin was already at play, +and crossing the smoke-filled room he threw down some money and took +his place in the game. + +Now, Mr. Travis was ordinarily a very garrulous and vociferous crap +shooter, but to-night he was savagely silent. There was a disturbing, +electric _something_ in the air that the neutrals felt and feared. +There was a look in the Travis eye that boded ill for somebody, and +one by one the more prudent gamesters withdrew. + +Then suddenly the storm broke. + +Later accounts were not clear as to just what started the fray, but +start it did. + +Dominique's knife appeared from some place, and the table crashed. +Then the knife swished through space like a hornet and buried its +point harmlessly in a door across the room. + +What followed is still a subject of wondering conversation on San +Juan Hill. + +It seems that Mr. Travis seized Mr. Raffin by the collar of his coat, +and swung him round and round and over his head. Mr. Raffin streamed +almost straight out, like the imitation airplanes that whirl dizzily +about the tower in an amusement park. Suddenly there was a rending +of cloth, and Dominique shot through the air to encounter the wall +with a soul-satisfying thump. + +Ambrose looked bewildered at the torn clothing he held in his hand, +and then at the limp form of his late antagonist. Mr. Raffin lay +groaning, naked from the waist up. + +Ambrose strode across to administer further chastisement, but +was halted by a cry from one of the onlookers. This man stood +pointing at Dominique's naked back--pointing, and staring with eyes +that rolled with genuine negro terror. + +"Look!" gasped the affrighted one. "Look! It's de Voo-doo Eye-- +_dat man's a witch_! Ambrose, fo' de Lawd's sake, git away from +hyar!" + +"What you-all talkin' about?" scoffed Ambrose, striding closer, and +rolling Dominique so that the light shone full on his back. +"What you-all talkin'----_Good Lawd_"! + +This last ejaculation from Ambrose was caused by the sight that met +his gaze. + +There, on the yellow back before him, reaching from shoulder to +shoulder, was tattooed the likeness of a great human eye! + +Everyone saw it now. To some--the Northern darkies--it meant nothing. +But to the old-school Southern negroes it meant mystery--magic--death. +_It was the sign of the Voodoo_! + +Several of the more superstitious onlookers retreated in poor order, +their teeth chattering. Their mammies had told them about the Voodoo +Eye. They remembered the tales whispered in the slave quarters about +people being prayed to death by these baleful creatures of ill omen! +They weren't going to take any chances! + +Ambrose, for all his natural courage, was shaken. He remembered old +Tom Blue, the Texas Voodoo, who poisoned twenty-one people and came +to life after the white men lynched him. And now he had laid rough +hands on one of the deadly clan; had brought upon himself the wrath +of a man who could simply _wish_ him to death! + +Trembling, he stooped down and looked at the Devil's Sign. He looked +again--closely. Then he broke out into a ringing peal of wholesome +darky laughter. + +"Git up!" he shouted, as Dominique showed signs of life. "Git up, +Mr. Voodoo, befo' Ah gits impatient an' throws you out de window!" + +This recklessness--this defiance of the dread power--shocked even +the least superstitious of the audience. By this time they were all +under the spell of this mysterious mark. Those who hadn't recognized +it at once had been quickly enlightened by the others. + +Ambrose seized Dominique by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet. +Swaying unsteadily, the mulatto looked around him through eyes +closed to snakelike slits. + +"Raffin," said Ambrose, "you-all has on yo' back de Eye ob Voodoo. +Dese gennlemen hyar thinks yo' _is_ a Voodoo. Ah know yo' _ain't_!" + +"I _am_ a Voodoo! An' you, you _sacré cochon_," hissed Raffin, +"I'll make you wish you had nevaire been born!" + +"Well, jes' fo' de present," laughed Ambrose, good humour spreading +all over his face, "you-all had better git outa my way, an' stay +_out_! Git outa hyar _quick_!" + +Dominique, his evil face twitching with fury, picked up the ragged +shreds of his coat and walked unsteadily out. + +At his exit a dead silence fell upon the remaining members. Then +they gathered together in excited groups and discussed the incident +in heated undertones. Ambrose, quite unconcerned, took up a pack of +cards and commenced a game of solitaire. + +He wasn't worrying. He knew that Dominique was no more a Voodoo than +he was. Startled at first, he had noticed that the eye had not been +carved in Dominique's back, as it should have been, but had been +tattooed. This in itself made the thing doubtful. But more than this, +the marks were the unmistakably accurate work of an electric +tattooing machine. + +Ambrose had spent his youth on the Galveston water front, and knew +tattooing in all its forms. Electric tattooing on a Voodoo was about +as much in keeping with the ancient and awesome dignity of the cult +as spangled tights would be on the King of England. No--it was +ridiculous. Dominique was not a Voodoo! + +Ambrose continued his solitaire, humming as he played. Occasionally +he cast an amused eye at the excited groups across the room, and was +not surprised when Mr. Behemoth Scott, president of the club, at +last came over to him. + +"Mistah Travis," began Mr. Scott deferentially, clearing his throat, +"would you-all be good enough to jine our little gatherin' while we +confabulate on dis hyar recent contabulaneous incident?" + +"Suttingly, Mr. Scott, suttingly!" said Ambrose, pushing back his +chair, and crossing the room with the quaking official. "What can Ah +do fo' you-all?" + +"Well, jest this," said Mr. Scott. "You gennlemen kin'ly correc' me +or bear out what Ah say. Leavin' aside all argument whether they +_is_ sech things as Voodoos, Ah guess any of you gennlemen from +the South will remember Aunt Belle Agassiz and Tom Blue. Ah guess +yo' mammies all done tole 'bout the African Voodoos, an' how ebery +now an' den one of 'em crops up still. An' Ah guess dat we've seen +to-night dat we've got a Voodoo among us. Now, Mr. Travis"--here he +turned to Ambrose--"we know what Aunt Belle Agassiz done on de +Mathis Plantation in Georgia--_you_ ought to know what Tom Blue did +in Texas. So we wants to warn you, as a fren' an' membah of dis club +in good standin', dat you better leave town to-night." + +An assenting murmur arose from the crowd, with much rolling of eyes +and nodding of heads. + +Ambrose held up his hand for silence. A serious expression came over +his features, and he towered tall and straight before them. + +"Gennlemen," he said, "Ah sho appreciates yo' good sperit in dis +hyar unfo'tunate affair. But Ah tells you-all hyar an' now dat +Dominique Raffin ain't no mo' Voodoo den Ah is. Now, Ah ain't sayin' +dat he _ain't_ a Voodoo, an' Ah ain't sayin' dat Ah _am_ one. All Ah +says is dat Ah's as _much_ of a Voodoo as he is--an' Ah'm willin' to +prove it!" + +"How you-all do dat, Ambrose?" asked somebody. + +"Ah'm comin' to dat," replied Ambrose. "If you-all wants to decide +dis mattah beyont all doubt, Ah respekf'ly suggests dat we hold a +_see_-ance in dis hyar room, under any c'nditions dat you-all kin +d'vise. If Ah cain't show yo mo' supernat'ral man'festations dan he +can, Ah gives him fifty dollahs. If it's de oder way 'roun', he +leaves de city within twenty-fo' hours. Is dat fair?" + +"Well, it suttinly soun's puff'cly jest," replied Mr. Scott. +"We-all will appint a committee to frame de rules of de _see_-ance, +an' make 'em fair fo' both. You's been willin' to prove yo'-se'f, +Ambrose, an' yo' couldn't do mo'. If dis m'latter Voodoo don't want +to do lak'wise, he can leave dese pahts moughty sudden. Ain't dat so, +gennlemen?" + +"Yassuh--he'll leave _quick_!" was the threatening reply. + +"All right den, Ambrose," continued the spokesman, "we'll 'range fo' +dis sperit-summonin' contes' jes' as soon as we kin. We'll have it +nex' Satiddy night at lates'. Meanwhile we-all is moughty obleeged +to yo' for yo' willin'-ness to do de right thing." + +The great night arrived, and San Juan, dressed in its gala finery, +wended its chattering way to the Senegambian séance. But beneath the +finery and the chatter ran a subtle under-current of foreboding, for +your negro is superstitious, and, well, _Voodoos are Voodoos_! + +Dominique Raffin, dressed in somber black, went to the club alone +and unattended save by Miss Aphrodite Tate. San Juan, fearing the +Raffin mulatto and his ghostly powers, had held its respectful +distance ever since the evening when Ambrose and his rage had +revealed them. Familiarity breeding contempt, Miss Aphrodite knew +her man, and feared him not. + +They found the rooms of the social club full of excited negroes, for +never before in San Juan's history had such a momentous event been +scheduled. Raffin and Aphrodite were received with a fearsome +respect by Behemoth Scott, who had been appointed master of +ceremonies. + +"Jes' make yo'se'f to home," he greeted them. "Mista Travis ain't +come yit; we has ten minutes befo' de contes' styarts." + +At last, with a bare minute to spare, Ambrose smilingly entered. He +wore his splendid full-dress suit, a wonderful creation of San +Juan's leading tailor, who, at Ambrose's tasteful suggestion, had +faced the lapels with satin of the most royal purple. Set out by +this background of colourful lapel was a huge yellow chrysanthemum, +while on the broad red band that diagonally traversed his shining +shirt front glittered like a decoration, the insignia from his +Swalecliffe uniform cap. + +"Good evenin', folks," was his cheerful greeting. "If you-all is +quite ready fo' dis _see_-ance, an' provided mah--er--wuthy opponent +am ready, Ah'd jes' as soon _pro_ceed." + +Miss Aphrodite gazed on the imposing figure of Ambrose with more +than a little admiration. Comparing him with the trembling Raffin, +she found much in his favour. + +All but his footwear. Accustomed as she had become to the glistening +patent leathers affected by Raffin, Ambrose's clumsy congress +gaiters somewhat marred his gorgeousness. Nevertheless, she felt her +affections wavering. Her speculations were interrupted by the voice +of the master of ceremonies: + +"Ladies an' gennlemen," began Mr. Scott, "we-all has d 'cided to +form a circle of twelve of our membahs wif dese two Voodoo gennlemen +asettin' opp'site each oder in de circle. In o'dah to preclude any +poss'bility of either Mista Travis or Mista Raffin from leavin' dere +places, we has d'cided to tie dem to dere cheers by ropes passed +'roun' dere bodies an' fastened to de backs of de cheers. De lights +will den be distinguished. When he lights is tu'ned out, Mista +Raffin will be given fifteen minutes in which to summon de +supernat'ral proofs--whatevah dey may be--of his bein' Voodoo. Den +Mista Travis will be given his chanct." + +Amid the hushed whisperings of the assemblage the committee, six men +and six women, Aphrodite included, took their places in the circle. +Ambrose and the mulatto were seated opposite each other and were +perhaps twelve feet apart. Raffin, nervously licking his lips, sat +bolt upright while members of the committee passed ropes around him +and the back of his chair, and tied his hands. In direct contrast to +his rival, Ambrose slouched down in his seat and joked with the +trembling members as they secured him in his place. + +Those not on the committee crowded close to the chair backs of the +circle in order that nothing should escape them. The excitement was +tense, and everyone was breathing hard. When all was ready +Mr. Behemoth Scott took his place in the circle. Drawing a long +breath and grasping his chair for support, he spoke in a hushed +and husky voice: "All raidy, now? Ah asks silence from eve'body. +_Turn out de lights_"! + +At the fateful words Stygian darkness enveloped the crowded room. +The shades had been drawn and not the faintest ray from the dim +street lights penetrated the place. It was stifling hot, and the +assembled investigators were perspiring freely.... + +Silence--black, awe-inspired silence! Two hundred pairs of +superstitious eyes peered into the horrible gloom--two hundred pairs +of ears strained at the tomblike stillness. The suspense was awful, +and none dared move. Occasionally some familiar sound came from the +world outside: the clang of the Tenth Avenue car or the whistle of a +tugboat out in the river, but these sounds were of another +existence--they seemed distant and unfamiliar and wholly out of +place in the mystery and terror of the Voodoo seance. + +The minutes slid by, and nothing happened. The suspense was worse +than ever. Something stirred in the circle. Two hundred hearts +missed a beat. Then the whining, terror-stricken voice of the +mulatto broke the stillness: "Let Travis try," he whispered hoarsely. +"My spirits will not come until 'e 'as tried. Let 'im try fo' +fifteen minutes, and when 'e 'as failed I will summon the ghost of +Bula-Wayo, the king of all the tribes of the Niger. But let Travis +try first!" This last almost pleadingly. + +A moment more of silence and Ambrose's deep voice boomed forth in +the darkness. + +"Ah's willin'," he declared. "Anythin' dat now appears will be mah +doin'--ten minits is all Ah asks. Am dat sat'sfact'ry?" + +"Yaas," replied the voice of Behemoth Scott. "Go ahaid wif yo' +sperit-summonin', Mista Travis." + +"Ah'll cawncentrate now," replied Ambrose, "an' sho'tly you-all will +witness ample proof of mah bein' a genuine Voo-doo. _Ah's stahtin_'." + +Silence more terrible than ever fell upon the waiting negroes. +Then--horror of horrors! a peculiar grating, rustling sound came +from the vicinity of Ambrose--a slight creaking--and again silence. +The investigators held hands of neighbours who trembled from sheer +panic, whose breath came hard and panting from this awful suspense! + +Another creaking, as though Ambrose had shifted his weight in his +chair.... + +Then--baleful--in its green, ghastly glow--a dim, indistinct light +shone in the centre of the circle! Moving slowly, like a newly +awakened spirit, it waved in the very midst of the gasping committee. +Back and forth, up and down, it moved--glowing, vaporous, ghostly. +Two hundred pairs of bulging eyes saw the horror--and realized that +it was an enormous hand, terribly deformed! + +Some one moaned with terror--a woman screamed. "De hand ob death!" +shrieked a man. "Run--run fo' yo' lives!" + +The stampede was spontaneous! Chairs were overturned and tables +smashed in this frightful panic in the dark. No one thought of +turning on the lights--everyone's sole aim was to leave that +appalling shining hand--and get out! + +A crashing on the stairway marked where Raffin, chair and all, was +making his fear-stricken way to the street. In one brief minute the +place was apparently empty save for Ambrose. Still tied to his chair, +he inquired: "Is any one hyar?" + +For a second there was silence, then the dulcet tones of Miss +Aphrodite fell on the big negro's ear: "Ah's hyar, Ambrose," she said. + +"Well, den"--recognizing her voice--"would you mine lightin' de gas +till Ah can tie mahself loose from dis hyar throne ob glory?" + +In a moment a feeble gaslight shone, disclosing Aphrodite--somewhat +disarranged by the panic--standing smiling in front of the erstwhile +Voodoo. She looked down at his feet. There, sure enough, one huge +member was unshod and stockingless; the elastic-slit congress gaiter, +lost in the shuffle, lay out of the radius of Ambrose's long leg. +Miss Aphrodite picked it up and, stooping, slipped it over his +mighty toes, noticing as she did so the thick coating of +phosphorescent paint that still covered them. + +"Ambrose," she whispered, "Ah wasn't scaired. No ghos' eber was bohn +dat had han's de size ob yo' feet!" + +An embarrassed silence followed; the gas jet flickered weakly; then +Ambrose said: "Untie mah han's, Aphrodite--Ah'd jes' lak to hug you!" + +"Oh, Ambrose," she cried coyly. But she untied the rope just the same. + +Again came silence, broken only by a certain strange sound. Then +Ambrose's voice came softly through the gloom: "Aphrodite," it said, +"yo' lips am jes' lak plush!" + + + + +THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN + + +BY LEE FOSTER HARTMAN + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + +To dine on the veranda of the Marine Hotel is the one delightful +surprise which Port Charlotte affords the adventurer who has broken +from the customary paths of travel in the South Seas. On an eminence +above the town, solitary and aloof like a monastery, and deep in its +garden of lemon-trees, it commands a wide prospect of sea and sky. +By day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor, +with a blur of distant islands on the horizon--chief among them +Muloa, with its single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At +night, this smithy of Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing +faintly against the darkness, a capricious and sullen beacon +immeasurably removed from the path of men. Viewed from the veranda +of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the horizon seems hardly more +than an insignificant spark, like the glowing cigar-end of some guest +strolling in the garden after dinner. + +It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor +Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows. Her uncle, Major +Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the +respite from the queer business he had involved me in. The two of +us had returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him +in my schooner, the _Sylph_, to seek out Leavitt and make some +inquiries--very important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh's +behalf. + +Three days in Muloa, under the shadow of the grim and flame-throated +mountain, while I was forced to listen to Major Stanleigh's +persistent questionnaire and Leavitt's erratic and garrulous +responses--all this, as I was to discover later, at the instigation +of the Major's niece--had made me frankly curious about the girl. + +I had seen her only once, and then at a distance across the veranda, +one night when I had been dining there with a friend; but that +single vision of her remained vivid and unforgettable--a tall girl of +a slender shapeliness, crowned by a mass of reddish-gold hair that +smoldered above the clear olive pallor of her skin. With that +flawless and brilliant colouring she was marked for observation--had +doubtless been schooled to a perfect indifference to it, for the slow, +almost indolent, grace of her movements was that of a woman coldly +unmindful of the gazes lingering upon her. She could not have been +more than twenty-six or -seven, but I got an unmistakable impression +of weariness or balked purpose emanating from her in spite of her +youth and glorious physique. I looked up to see her crossing the +veranda to join her uncle and aunt--correct, well-to-do English +people that one placed instantly--and my stare was only one of many +that followed her as she took her seat and threw aside the light +scarf that swathed her bare and gleaming shoulders. + +My companion, who happened to be the editor of the local paper, +promptly informed me regarding her name and previous residence--the +gist of some "social item" which he had already put into print; but +these meant nothing, and I could only wonder what had brought her to +such an out-of-the-way part of the world as Port Charlotte. She did +not seem like a girl who was traveling with her uncle and aunt; +one got rather the impression that she was bent on a mission of her +own and was dragging her relatives along because the conventions +demanded it. I hazarded to my companion the notion that a woman like +Miss Stanleigh could have but one of two purposes in this lonely part +of the world--she was fleeing from a lover or seeking one. + +"In that case," rejoined my friend, with the cynical shrug of the +newspaper man, "she has very promptly succeeded. It's whispered that +she is going to marry Joyce--of Malduna Island, you know. Only met +him a fortnight ago. Quite a romance, I'm told." + +I lifted my eyebrows at that, and looked again at Miss Stanleigh. +Just at that instant she happened to look up. It was a wholly +indifferent gaze; I am confident that she was no more aware of me +than if I had been one of the veranda posts which her eyes bad +chanced to encounter. But in the indescribable sensation of that +moment I felt that here was a woman who bore a secret burden, +although, as my informing host put it, her heart had romantically +found its haven only two weeks ago. + +She was endeavouring to get trace of a man named Farquharson, as I +was permitted to learn a few days later. Ostensibly, it was Major +Stanleigh who was bent on locating this young Englishman--Miss +Stanleigh's interest in the quest was guardedly withheld--and the +trail had led them a pretty chase around the world until some clue, +which I never clearly understood, brought them to Port Charlotte. +The major's immediate objective was an eccentric chap named Leavitt +who had marooned himself in Muloa. The island offered an ideal +retreat for one bent on shunning his own kind, if he did not object +to the close proximity of a restive volcano. Clearly, Leavitt did not. +He had a scientific interest in the phenomena exhibited by volcanic +regions and was versed in geological lore, but the rumours about +Leavitt--practically no one ever visited Muloa--did not stop at that. +And, as Major Stanleigh and I were to discover, the fellow seemed to +have developed a genuine affection for Lakalatcha, as the smoking +cone was called by the natives of the adjoining islands. From long +association he had come to know its whims and moods as one comes to +know those of a petulant woman one lives with. It was a bizarre and +preposterous intimacy, in which Leavitt seemed to find a wholly +acceptable substitute for human society, and there was something +repellant about the man's eccentricity. He had various names for the +smoking cone that towered a mile or more above his head: "Old +Flame-eater," or "Lava-spitter," he would at times familiarly and +irreverently call it; or, again, "The Maiden Who Never Sleeps," or +"The Single-breasted Virgin"--these last, however, always in the +musical Malay equivalent. He had no end of names--romantic, splenetic, +of opprobrium, or outright endearment--to suit, I imagine, +Lakalatcha's varying moods. In one respect they puzzled me--they +were of conflicting genders, some feminine and some masculine, as if +in Leavitt's loose-frayed imagination the mountain that beguiled his +days and disturbed his nights were hermaphroditic. + +Leavitt as a source of information regarding the missing Farquharson +seemed preposterous when one reflected how out of touch with the +world he had been, but, to my astonishment, Major Stanleigh's clue +was right, for he had at last stumbled upon a man who had known +Farquharson well and who was voluminous about him--quite willingly so. +With the _Sylph_ at anchor, we lay off Muloa for three nights, and +Leavitt gave us our fill of Farquharson, along with innumerable +digressions about volcanoes, neoplatonism, the Single Tax, and what +not. There was no keeping Leavitt to a coherent narrative about the +missing Farquharson. He was incapable of it, and Major Stanleigh and +myself had simply to wait in patience while Leavitt, delighted to +have an audience, dumped out for us the fantastic contents of his +mind, odd vagaries, recondite trash, and all. He was always getting +away from Farquharson, but, then, he was unfailingly bound to come +back to him. We had only to wait and catch the solid grains that now +and then fell in the winnowing of that unending stream of chaff. It +was a tedious and exasperating process, but it had its compensations. +At times Leavitt could be as uncannily brilliant as he was dull and +boresome. The conviction grew upon me that he had become a little +demented, as if his brain had been tainted by the sulphurous fumes +exhaled by the smoking crater above his head. His mind smoked, +flickered, and flared like an unsteady lamp, blown upon by choking +gases, in which the oil had run low. + +But of the wanderer Farquharson he spoke with precision and authority, +for he had shared with Farquharson his bungalow there in Muloa--a +period of about six months, it seemed--and there Farquharson had +contracted a tropic fever and died. + +"Well, at last we have got all the facts," Major Stanleigh sighed +with satisfaction when the _Sylph_ was heading back to Port Charlotte. +Muloa, lying astern, we were no longer watching. Leavitt, at the +water's edge, had waved us a last good-by and had then abruptly +turned back into the forest, very likely to go clambering like a +demented goat up the flanks of his beloved volcano and to resume +poking about in its steaming fissures--an occupation of which he +never tired. + +"The evidence is conclusive, don't you think?--the grave, +Farquharson's personal effects, those pages of the poor devil's diary." + +I nodded assent. In my capacity as owner of the _Sylph_ I had merely +undertaken to furnish Major Stanleigh with passage to Muloa and back, +but the events of the last three days had made me a party to the +many conferences, and I was now on terms of something like intimacy +with the rather stiff and pompous English gentleman. How far I was +from sharing his real confidence I was to discover later when Eleanor +Stanleigh gave me hers. + +"My wife and niece will be much relieved to hear all this--a family +matter, you understand, Mr. Barnaby," he had said to me when we +landed. "I should like to present you to them before we leave Port +Charlotte for home." + +But, as it turned out, it was Eleanor Stanleigh who presented herself, +coming upon me quite unexpectedly that night after our return while +I sat smoking in the shadowy garden of the Marine Hotel. I had dined +with the major, after he had explained that the ladies were worn out +by the heat and general developments of the day and had begged to be +excused. And I was frankly glad not to have to endure another +discussion of the deceased Farquharson, of which I was heartily +tired after hearing little else for the last three days. I could not +help wondering how the verbose and pompous major had paraphrased and +condensed that inchoate mass of biography and reminiscence into an +orderly account for his wife and niece. He had doubtless devoted the +whole afternoon to it. Sitting under the cool green of the +lemon-trees, beneath a sky powdered with stars, I reflected that I, +at least, was done with Farquharson forever. But I was not, for just +then Eleanor Stanleigh appeared before me. + +I was startled to hear her addressing me by name, and then calmly +begging me to resume my seat on the bench under the arbor. She sat +down also, her flame-coloured hair and bare shoulders gleaming in +the darkness. She was the soul of directness and candour, and after +a thoughtful, searching look into my face she came to the point at +once. She wanted to hear about Farquharson--from me. + +"Of course, my uncle has given me a very full account of what he +learned from Mr. Leavitt, and yet many things puzzle me--this +Mr. Leavitt most of all." + +"A queer chap," I epitomized him. "Frankly, I don't quite make him +out, Miss Stanleigh--marooning himself on that infernal island and +seemingly content to spend his days there." + +"Is he so old?" she caught me up quickly. + +"No, he isn't," I reflected. "Of course, it's difficult to judge +ages out here. The climate, you know. Leavitt's well under forty, I +should say. But that's a most unhealthy spot he has chosen to live in." + +"Why does he stay there?" + +I explained about the volcano. "You can have no idea what an +obsession it is with him. There isn't a square foot of its steaming, +treacherous surface that he hasn't been over, mapping new fissures, +poking into old lava-beds, delving into the crater itself on +favourable days--" + +"Isn't it dangerous?" + +"In a way, yes. The volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes +unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to +obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to +spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides--just tamely +subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes. +But Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater, +half strangling himself in its poisonous fumes, scorching the shoes +off his feet, and once, I believe, he lost most of his hair and +eyebrows--a narrow squeak. He throws his head back and laughs at any +word of caution. To my notion, it's foolhardy to push a scientific +curiosity to that extreme." + +"Is it, then, just scientific curiosity?" mused Miss Stanleigh. + +Something in her tone made me stop short. Her eyes had lifted to +mine--almost appealingly, I fancied. Her innocence, her candour, her +warm beauty, which was like a pale phosphorescence in the starlit +darkness--all had their potent effect upon me in that moment. I felt +impelled to a sudden burst of confidence. + +"At times I wonder. I've caught a look in his eyes, when he's been +down on his hands and knees, staring into some infernal vent-hole--a +look that is--well, uncanny, as if he were peering into the bowels +of the earth for something quite outside the conceptions of science. +You might think that volcano had worked some spell over him, turned +his mind. He prattles to it or storms at it as if it were a living +creature. Queer, yes; and he's impressive, too, with a sort of +magnetic personality that attracts and repels you violently at the +same time. He's like a cake of ice dipped in alcohol and set aflame. +I can't describe him. When he talks--" + +"Does he talk about himself?" + +I had to confess that he had told us practically not a word. He had +discussed everything under heaven in his brilliant, erratic way, +with a fleer of cynicism toward it all, but he had left himself out +completely. He had given us Farquharson with relish, and in infinite +detail, from the time the poor fellow first turned up in Muloa, put +ashore by a native craft. Talking about Farquharson was second only +to his delight in talking about volcanoes. And the result for me had +been innumerable vivid but confused impressions of the young +Englishman who had by chance invaded Leavitt's solitude and had +lingered there, held by some attraction, until he sickened and died. +It was like a jumbled mosaic put together again by inexpert hands. + +"Did you get the impression that the two men had very much in common?" + +"Quite the contrary," I answered. "But Major Stanleigh should know--" + +"My uncle never met Mr. Farquharson." + +I was fairly taken aback at that, and a silence fell between us. It +was impossible to divine the drift of her questions. It was as if +some profound mistrust weighed upon her and she was not so much +seeking to interrogate me as she was groping blindly for some chance +word of mine that might illuminate her doubts. + +I looked at the girl in silent wonder, yes, and in admiration of her +bronze and ivory beauty in the full flower of her glorious +youth--and I thought of Joyce. I felt that it was like her to have +fallen in love simply but passionately at the mere lifting of the +finger of Fate. It was only another demonstration of the +unfathomable mystery, or miracle, which love is. Joyce was lucky, +indeed favoured of the gods, to have touched the spring in this +girl's heart which no other man could reach, and by the rarest of +chances--her coming out to this remote corner of the world. Lucky +Joyce! I knew him slightly--a straightforward young fellow, very +simple and whole-souled, enthusiastically absorbed in developing his +rubber lands in Malduna. + +Miss Stanleigh remained lost in thought while her fingers toyed with +the pendant of the chain that she wore. In the darkness I caught the +glitter of a small gold cross. + +"My. Barnaby," she finally broke the silence, and paused. "I have +decided to tell you something. This Mr. Farquharson was my husband." + +Again a silence fell, heavy and prolonged, in which I sat as if +drugged by the night air that hung soft and perfumed about us. It +seemed incredible that in that fleeting instant she had spoken at all. + +"I was young--and very foolish, I suppose." + +With that confession, spoken with simple dignity, she broke off again. +Clearly, some knowledge of the past she deemed it necessary to +impart to me. If she halted over her words, it was rather to dismiss +what was irrelevant to the matter in hand, in which she sought my +counsel. + +"I did not see him for four years--did not wish to.... And he +vanished completely.... Four years!--just a welcome blank!" + +Her shoulders lifted and a little shiver went over her. + +"But even a blank like that can become unendurable. To be always +dragging at a chain, and not knowing where it leads to...." Her +hand slipped from the gold cross on her breast and fell to the other +in her lap, which it clutched tightly. "Four years.... I tried to +make myself believe that he was gone forever--was dead. It was +wicked of me." + +My murmur of polite dissent led her to repeat her words. + +"Yes, and even worse than that. During the past month I have +actually prayed that he might be dead.... I shall be punished for it." + +I ventured no rejoinder to these words of self-condemnation. Joyce, +I reflected, mundanely, had clearly swept her off her feet in the +ardour of their first meeting and instant love. + +"It must be a great relief to you," I murmured at length, "to have +it all definitely settled at last." + +"If I could only feel that it was!" + +I turned in amazement, to see her leaning a little forward, her +hands still tightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the +distant horizon where the red spark of Lakalatcha's stertorous +breathing flamed and died away. Her breast rose and fell, as if +timed to the throbbing of that distant flare. "I want you to take me +to that island--to-morrow." + +"Why, surely, Miss Stanleigh," I burst forth, "there can't be any +reasonable doubt. Leavitt's mind may be a little flighty--he may +have embroidered his story with a few gratuitous details; but +Farquharson's books and things--the material evidence of his having +lived there--" + +"And having died there?" + +"Surely Leavitt wouldn't have fabricated that! If you had talked +with him--" + +"I should not care to talk with Mr. Leavitt," Miss Stanleigh cut me +short. "I want only to go and see--if he _is_ Mr. Leavitt." + +"If he _is_ Mr. Leavitt!" For a moment I was mystified, and then in +a sudden flash I understood. "But that's pre-posterous--impossible!" + +I tried to conceive of Leavitt in so monstrous a rôle, tried to +imagine the missing Farquharson still in the flesh and beguiling +Major Stanleigh and myself with so outlandish a story, devising all +that ingenious detail to trick us into a belief in his own death. It +would indeed have argued a warped mind, guided by some unfathomable +purpose. + +"I devoutly hope you are right," Miss Stanleigh was saying, with +deliberation. "But it is not preposterous, and it is not +impossible--if you had known Mr. Farquharson as I have." + +It was a discreet confession. She wished me to understand--without +the necessity of words. My surmise was that she had met and married +Farquharson, whoever he was, under the spell of some momentary +infatuation, and that he had proved himself to be an unspeakable +brute whom she had speedily abandoned. + +"I am determined to go to Muloa, Mr. Barnaby," she announced, with +decision. "I want you to make the arrangements, and with as much +secrecy as possible. I shall ask my aunt to go with me." + +I assured Miss Stanleigh that the _Sylph_ was at her service. + +Mrs. Stanleigh was a large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to +making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and +physical discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her +to make that surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two +days later, I have never been able to imagine. The accommodations +aboard the schooner were cramped, to say the least, and the good +lady had a perfect horror of volcanoes. The fact that Lakalatcha had +behind it a record of a century or more of good conduct did not +weigh with her in the least. She was convinced that it would blow +its head off the moment the _Sylph_ got within range. She was fidgety, +talkative, and continually concerned over the state of her complexion, +inspecting it in the mirror of her bag at frequent intervals and +using a powder-puff liberally to mitigate the pernicious effects of +the tropic sun. But once having been induced to make the voyage, I +must admit she stuck manfully by her decision, ensconcing herself on +deck with books and cushions and numerous other necessities to her +comfort, and making the best of the sleeping quarters below. As the +captain of the _Sylph_, she wanted me to understand that she had +intrusted her soul to my charge, declaring that she would not draw +an easy breath until we were safe again in Port Charlotte. + +"This dreadful business of Eleanor's," was the way she referred to +our mission, and she got round quite naturally to telling me of +Farquharson while acquainting me with her fears about volcanoes. +Some years before, Pompeii and Herculaneum had had a most unsettling +effect upon her nerves. Vesuvius was slightly in eruption at the time. +She confessed to never having had an easy moment while in Naples. And +it was in Naples that her niece and Farquharson had met. It had been, +as I surmised, a swift, romantic courtship, in which Farquharson, +quite irreproachable in antecedents and manners, had played the part +of an impetuous lover. Italian skies had done the rest. There was an +immediate marriage, in spite of Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, and the +young couple were off on a honeymoon trip by themselves. But when +Mrs. Stanleigh rejoined her husband at Nice, and together they +returned to their home in Sussex, a surprise was in store for them. +Eleanor was already there--alone, crushed, and with lips absolutely +sealed. She had divested herself of everything that linked her to +Farquharson; she refused to adopt her married name. + +"I shall bless every saint in heaven when we have quite done with +this dreadful business of Eleanor's," Mrs. Stanleigh confided to me +from her deck-chair. "This trip that she insists on making herself +seems quite uncalled for. But you needn't think, Captain Barnaby, +that I'm going to set foot on that dreadful island--not even for the +satisfaction of seeing Mr. Farquharson's grave--and I'm shameless +enough to say that it _would_ be a satisfaction. If you could +imagine the tenth part of what I have had to put up with, all these +months we've been traveling about trying to locate the wretch! No, +indeed--I shall stay right here on this boat and entrust Eleanor to +your care while ashore. And I should not think it ought to take long, +now should it?" + +I confessed aloud that I did not see how it could. If by any chance +the girl's secret conjecture about Leavitt's identity was right, it +would be verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, +and in that event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting +aunt the shock of that discovery. + +We reached Muloa just before nightfall, letting go the anchor in +placid water under the lee of the shore while the _Sylph_ swung to +and the sails fluttered and fell. A vast hush lay over the world. +From the shore the dark green of the forest confronted us with no +sound or sign of life. Above, and at this close distance blotting +out half the sky over our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha +with scarred and blackened flanks. It was in one of its querulous +moods. The feathery white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, +fantastic shapes, no longer capped the crater; its place had been +usurped by thick, dark fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In +the fading light I marked the red, malignant glow of a fissure newly +broken out in the side of the ragged cone, from which came a thin, +white trickle of lava. + +There was no sign of Leavitt, although the _Sylph_ must have been +visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island. I +fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of +his beloved volcano. Otherwise he would have wondered what was +bringing us back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill +would have greeted us from the shore. Instead, there confronted us +only the belt of dark, matted green girdling the huge bulk of +Lakalatcha which soared skyward, sinister, mysterious, eternal. + +In the brief twilight the shore vanished into dim obscurity. +Miss Stanleigh, who for the last hour had been standing by the rail, +silently watching the island, at last spoke to me over her shoulder: + +"Is it far inland--the place? Will it be difficult to find in the +dark?" + +Her question staggered me, for she was clearly bent on seeking out +Leavitt at once. A strange calmness overlay her. She paid no heed to +Lakalatcha's gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers +gripping the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest, +behind which lay the answer to her torturing doubt. + +I acceded to her wish without protest. Leavitt's bungalow lay a +quarter of a mile distant. There would be no difficulty in following +the path. I would have a boat put over at once, I announced in a +casual way which belied my real feelings, for I was beginning to +share some of her own secret tension at this night invasion of +Leavitt's haunts. + +This feeling deepened within me as we drew near the shore. Leavitt's +failure to appear seemed sinister and enigmatic. I began to evolve a +fantastic image of him as I recalled his queer ways and his uncanny +tricks of speech. It was as if we were seeking out the presiding +deity of the island, who had assumed the guise of a Caliban holding +unearthly sway over its unnatural processes. + +With Williams, the boatswain, carrying a lantern, we pushed into the +brush, following the choked trail that led to Leavitt's abode. But +the bungalow, when we had reached the clearing and could discern the +outlines of the building against the masses of the forest, was dark +and deserted. As we mounted the veranda, the loose boards creaked +hollowly under our tread; the doorway, from which depended a +tattered curtain of coarse burlap, gaped black and empty. + +The lantern, lifted high in the boatswain's hand, cleft at a stroke +the darkness within. On the writing-table, cluttered with papers and +bits of volcanic rock, stood a bottle and half-empty glass. Things +lay about in lugubrious disorder, as if the place had been hurriedly +ransacked by a thief. Some of the geological specimens had tumbled +from the table to the floor, and stray sheets of Leavitt's +manuscripts lay under his chair. Leavitt's books, ranged on shelving +against the wall, alone seemed undisturbed. Upon the top of the +shelving stood two enormous stuffed birds, moldering and decrepit, +regarding the sudden illumination with unblinking, bead-like eyes. +Between them a small dancing faun in greenish bronze tripped a +Bacchic measure with head thrown back in a transport of derisive +laughter. + +For a long moment the three of us faced the silent, disordered room, +in which the little bronze faun alone seemed alive, convulsed with +diabolical mirth at our entrance. Somehow it recalled to me +Leavitt's own cynical laugh. Suddenly Miss Stanleigh made toward the +photographs above the bookshelves. + +"This is he," she said, taking up one of the faded prints. + +"Yes--Leavitt," I answered. + +"_Leavitt_?" Her fingers tightened upon the photograph. Then, +abruptly, it fell to the floor. "Yes, yes--of course." Her eyes +closed very slowly, as if an extreme weakness had seized her. + +In the shock of that moment I reached out to support her, but she +checked my hand. Her gray eyes opened again. A shudder visibly went +over her, as if the night air had suddenly become chill. From the +shelf the two stuffed birds regarded us dolefully, while the dancing +faun, with head thrown back in an attitude of immortal art, laughed +derisively. + +"Where is he? I must speak to him," said Miss Stanleigh. + +"One might think he were deliberately hiding," I muttered, for I was +at a loss to account for Leavitt's absence. + +"Then find him," the girl commanded. I cut short my speculations to +direct Williams to search the hut in the rear of the bungalow, where, +behind bamboo palings, Leavitt's Malay servant maintained an aloof +and mysterious existence. I sat down beside Miss Stanleigh on the +veranda steps to find my hands sooty from the touch of the boards. A +fine volcanic ash was evidently drifting in the air, and now to my +ear, attuned to the profound stillness, the wind bore a faint +humming sound. + +"Do you hear that?" I whispered. It was like the far-off murmur of a +gigantic caldron, softly a-boil--a dull vibration that seemed to +reach us through the ground as well as through the air. + +The girl listened a moment, and then started up. "I hear +voices--somewhere," + +"Voices?" I strained my ears for sounds other than the insistent +ferment of the great cone above our heads. "Perhaps Leavitt----" + +"Why do you still call him Leavitt?" + +"Then you're quite certain----" I began, but an involuntary +exclamation from her cut me short. + +The light of Williams's lantern, emerging from behind the bamboo +palings, disclosed the burly form of the boatswain with a shrinking +Malay in tow. He was jabbering in his native tongue, with much +gesticulation of his thin arms, and going into contortions at every +dozen paces in a sort of pantomime to emphasize his words. Williams +urged him along unceremoniously to the steps of the veranda. + +"Perhaps you can get the straight of this, Mr. Barnaby," said the +boatswain. "He swears that the flame-devil in the volcano has +swallowed his master alive." + +The poor fellow seemed indeed in a state of complete funk. With his +thin legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed, +distorted tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt--or Farquharson, to +give him his real name--had awakened the high displeasure of the +flame-devil within the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone +was smoking furiously? And the dust and heavy taint of sulphur in +the air? Surely we could feel the very tremor of the ground under +our feet. All that day the enraged monster had been spouting mud and +lava down upon the white _tuan_ who had remained in the bungalow, +drinking heavily and bawling out maledictions upon his enemy. At +length, in spite of Wadakimba's efforts to dissuade him, he had set +out to climb to the crater, vowing to show the flame-devil who was +master. He had compelled the terrified Wadakimba to go with him a +part of the way. The white _tuan_--was he really a god, as he +declared himself to be?--had gone alone up the tortuous, fissured +slopes, at times lost to sight in yellowish clouds of gas and steam, +while his screams and threats of vengeance came back to Wadakimba's +ears. Overhead, Lakalatcha continued to rumble and quiver and clear +his throat with great showers of mud and stones. + +Farquharson must have indeed parted with his reason to have attempted +that grotesque sally. Listening to Wadakimba's tale, I pictured the +crazed man, scorched to tatters, heedless of bruises and burns, +scrambling up that difficult and perilous ascent, and hurling his +ridiculous blasphemy into the flares of smoke and steam that issued +from that vast caldron lit by subterranean fires. At its simmering +the whole island trembled. A mere whiff of the monster's breath and +he would have been snuffed out, annihilated in an instant. According +to Wadakimba, the end had indeed come in that fashion. It was as if +the mountain had suddenly given a deep sigh. The blast had carried +away solid rock. A sheet of flame had licked the spot where +Farquharson had been hurled headlong, and he was not. + +Wadakimba, viewing all this from afar, had scuttled off to his hut. +Later he had ventured back to the scene of the tragedy. He had +picked up Farquharson's scorched helmet, which had been blown off to +some distance, and he also exhibited a pair of binoculars washed +down by the tide of lava, scarred and twisted by the heat, from +which the lenses had melted away. + +I translated for Miss Stanleigh briefly, while she stood turning +over in her hands the twisted and blackened binoculars, which were +still warm. She heard me through without question or comment, and +when I proposed that we get back to the _Sylph_ at once, mindful of +her aunt's distressed nerves, she assented with a nod. She seemed to +have lost the power of speech. In a daze she followed as I led the +way back through the forest. + + * * * * * + +Major Stanleigh and his wife deferred their departure for England +until their niece should be properly married to Joyce. At Eleanor's +wish, it was a very simple affair, and as Joyce's bride she was as +eager to be off to his rubber-plantation in Malduna as he was to set +her up there as mistress of his household. I had agreed to give them +passage on the _Sylph_, since the next sailing of the mail-boat would +have necessitated a further fortnight's delay. + +Mrs. Stanleigh, with visions of seeing England again, and profoundly +grateful to a benevolent Providence that had not only brought +"this dreadful business of Eleanor's" to a happy termination, but +had averted Lakalatcha's baptism of fire from descending upon her +own head, thanked me profusely and a little tearfully. It was during +the general chorus of farewells at the last moment before the +_Sylph_ cast off. Her last appeal, cried after us from the wharf +where she stood frantically waving a wet handkerchief, was that I +should give Muloa a wide berth. + +It brought a laugh from Joyce. He had discovered the good lady's +extreme perturbation in regard to Lakalatcha, and had promptly +declared for spending a day there with his bride. It was an +exceptional opportunity to witness the volcano in its active mood. +Each time that Joyce had essayed this teasing pleasantry, which +never failed to draw Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, I observed that his +wife remained silent. I assumed that she had decided to keep her own +counsel in regard to the trip she had made there. + +"I'm trusting you not to take Eleanor near that dreadful island, +Mr. Barnaby," was the admonition shouted across the widening gap of +water. + +It was a quite unnecessary appeal, for Joyce, who was presently +sitting with his wife in a sheltered quarter of the deck, had not +the slightest interest in the smoking cone which was as yet a mere +smudge upon the horizon. Eleanor, with one hand in Joyce's possession, +at times watched it with a seemingly vast apathy until some ardent +word from Joyce would draw her eyes back to his and she would lift +to him a smile that was like a caress. The look of weariness and +balked purpose that had once marked her expression had vanished. In +the week since she had married Joyce she seemed to have grown +younger and to be again standing on the very threshold of life with +girlish eagerness. She hung on Joyce's every word, communing with +him hour after hour, utterly content, indifferent to all the world +about her. + +In the cabin that evening at dinner, when the two of them deigned to +take polite cognizance of my existence, I announced to Joyce that I +proposed to hug the island pretty close during the night. It would +save considerable time. + +"Just as you like, Captain," Joyce replied, indifferently. + +"We may get a shower of ashes by doing so, if the wind should shift." +I looked across the table at Mrs. Joyce. + +"But we shall reach Malduna that much sooner?" she queried. + +I nodded. "However, if you feel any uneasiness, I'll give the island +a wide berth." I didn't like the idea of dragging her--the bride of +a week--past that place with its unspeakable memories, if it should +really distress her. + +Her eyes thanked me silently across the table. "It's very kind of you, +but"--she chose her words with significant deliberation--"I haven't +a fear in the world, Mr. Barnaby." + +Evening had fallen when we came up on deck. Joyce bethought himself +of some cigars in his stateroom and went back. For the moment I was +alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to +prick through the darkening sky. The _Sylph_ was running smoothly, +with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the +occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the +silence that lay like a benediction upon the sea. + +"You may think it unfeeling of me," she began, quite abruptly, +"but all this past trouble of mine, now that it is ended, I have +completely dismissed. Already it begins to seem like a horrid dream. +And as for that island"--her eyes looked off toward Muloa now +impending upon us and lighting up the heavens with its sullen flare-- +"it seems incredible that I ever set foot upon it. + +"Perhaps you understand," she went on, after a pause, "that I have +not told my husband. But I have not deceived him. He knows that I +was once married, and that the man is no longer living. He does not +wish to know more. Of course he is aware that Uncle Geoffrey came +out here to--to see a Mr. Leavitt, a matter which he has no idea +concerned me. He thanks the stars for whatever it was that did bring +us out here, for otherwise he would not have met me." + +"It has turned out most happily," I murmured. + +"It was almost disaster. After meeting Mr. Joyce--and I was weak +enough to let myself become engaged--to have discovered that I was +still chained to a living creature like that.... I should have +killed myself." + +"But surely the courts--" + +She shook her head with decision. "My church does not recognize that +sort of freedom." + +We were drawing steadily nearer to Muloa. The mountain was breathing +slowly and heavily--a vast flare that lifted fanlike in the skies +and died away. Lightning played fitfully through the dense mass of +smoke and choking gases that hung like a pall over the great cone. +It was like the night sky that overhangs a city of gigantic +blast-furnaces, only infinitely multiplied. The sails of the _Sylph_ +caught the ruddy tinge like a phantom craft gliding through the black +night, its canvas still dyed with the sunset glow. The faces of the +crew, turned to watch the spectacle, curiously fixed and inhuman, +were picked out of the gloom by the same fantastic light. It was as +if the schooner, with masts and riggings etched black against the +lurid sky, sailed on into the Day of Judgment. + + * * * * * + +It was after midnight. The _Sylph_ came about, with sails trembling, +and lost headway. Suddenly she vibrated from stem to stern, and with +a soft grating sound that was unmistakable came to rest. We were +aground in what should have been clear water, with the forest-clad +shore of Muloa lying close off to port. + +The helmsman turned to me with a look of silly fright on his face, +as the wheel revolved useless in his hands. We had shelved with +scarcely a jar sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a +twinkling Jackson, the mate, appeared on deck in his pajamas, and +after a swift glance toward the familiar shore turned to me with the +same dumfounded look that had frozen upon the face of the steersman. + +"What do you make of this?" he exclaimed, as I called for the lead. + +"Be quiet about it," I said to the hands that had started into +movement. "Look sharp now, and make no noise." Then I turned to the +mate, who was perplexedly rubbing one bare foot against the other +and measuring with his eye our distance from the shore. The _Sylph_ +should have turned the point of the island without mishap, as she +had done scores of times. + +"It's the volcano we have to thank for this," was my conjecture. +"Its recent activity has caused some displacement of the sea bottom." + +Jackson's head went back in sudden comprehension. "It's a miracle +you didn't plow into it under full sail." + +We had indeed come about in the very nick of time to avoid disaster. +As matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to +float clear with the tide." + +The mate cocked a doubtful eye at Lakalatcha, uncomfortably close +above our heads, flaming at intervals and bathing the deck with an +angry glare of light. "If she should begin spitting up a little +livelier ..." he speculated with a shrug, and presently took +himself off to his bunk after an inspection below had shown that +none of the schooner's seams had started. There was nothing to do +but to wait for the tide to make and lift the vessel clear. It would +be a matter of three or four hours. I dismissed the helmsman; and the +watch forward, taking advantage of the respite from duty, were soon +recumbent in attitudes of heavy sleep. + +The wind had died out and a heavy torpor lay upon the water. It was +as if the stars alone held to their slow courses above a world rigid +and inanimate. The _Sylph_ lay with a slight list, her spars looking +inexpressibly helpless against the sky, and, as the minutes dragged, +a fine volcanic ash, like some mortal pestilence exhaled by the +monster cone, settled down upon the deck, where, forward in the +shadow, the watch lay curled like dead men. + +Alone, I paced back and forth--countless soft-footed miles, it seemed, +through interminable hours, until at length some obscure impulse +prompted me to pause before the open sky-light over the cabin and +thrust my head down. A lamp above the dining-table, left to burn +through the night, feebly illuminated the room. A faint snore issued +at regular intervals from the half-open door of the mate's stateroom. +The door of Joyce's stateroom opposite was also upon the hook for +the sake of air. + +Suddenly a soft thump against the side of the schooner, followed by +a scrambling noise, made me turn round. The dripping, bedraggled +figure of a man in a sleeping-suit mounted the rope ladder that hung +over the side, and paused, grasping the rail. I had withdrawn my +gaze so suddenly from the glow of the light in the cabin that for +several moments the intruder from out of the sea was only a blurred +form with one leg hung over the rail, where he hung as if spent by +his exertions. + +Just then the sooty vapours above the edged maw of the volcano were +rent by a flare of crimson, and in the fleeting instant of unnatural +daylight I beheld Farquharson, bare-footed, and dripping with +sea-water, confronting me with a sardonic, triumphant smile. The +light faded in a twinkling, but in the darkness he swung his other +leg over the rail and sat perched there, as if challenging the +testimony of my senses. + +"Farquharson!" I breathed aloud, utterly dumfounded. + +"Did you think I was a ghost?" I could hear him softly laughing to +himself in the interval that followed. "You should have witnessed +Wadakimba's fright at my coming back from the dead. Well, I'll admit +I almost was done for." + +Again the volcano breathed in torment. It was like the sudden +opening of a gigantic blast-furnace, and in that instant I saw him +vividly--his thin, saturnine face, his damp black hair pushed +sleekly back, his lips twisted to a cruel smile, his eyes craftily +alert, as if to some ambushed danger continually at hand. He was +watching me with a sort of malicious relish in the shock he had +given me. + +"It was not your intention to stop at Muloa," he observed, dryly, +for the plight of the schooner was obvious. + +"We'll float clear with the tide," I muttered. + +"But in the meantime"--there was something almost menacing in his +deliberate pause--"I have the pleasure of this little call upon you." + +A head lifted from among the inert figures and sleepily regarded us +before it dropped back into the shadows. The stranded ship, the +recumbent men, the mountain flaming overhead--it was like a phantom +world into which had been suddenly thrust this ghastly and +incredible reality. + +"Whatever possessed you to swim out here in the middle of the night?" +I demanded, in a harsh whisper. + +He chose to ignore the question, while I waited in a chill of +suspense. It was inconceivable that he could be aware of the truth +of the situation and deliberately bent on forcing it to its +unspeakable, tragic issue. + +"Of late, Captain Barnaby, we seem to have taken to visiting each +other rather frequently, don't you think?" + +It was lightly tossed off, but not without its evil implication; and +I felt his eyes intently fixed upon me as he sat hunched up on the +rail in his sodden sleeping-suit, like some huge, ill-omened bird of +prey. + +To get rid of him, to obliterate the horrible fact that he still +existed in the flesh, was the instinctive impulse of my staggered +brain. But the peril of discovery, the chance that those sleeping +below might waken and hear us, held me in a vise of indecision. + +"If I could bring myself to reproach you, Captain," he went on, +ironically polite, "I might protest that your last visit to this +island savoured of a too-inquisitive intrusion. You'll pardon my +frankness. I had convinced you and Major Stanleigh that Farquharson +was dead. To the world at large that should have sufficed. That I +choose to remain alive is my own affair. Your sudden return to +Muloa--with a lady--would have upset everything, if Fate and that +inspired fool of a Malay had not happily intervened. But now, surely, +there can be no doubt that I am dead?" + +I nodded assent in a dumb, helpless way. + +"And I have a notion that even you, Captain Barnaby, will never +dispute that fact." + +He threw back his head suddenly--for all the world like the dancing +faun--and laughed silently at the stars. + +My tongue was dry in my mouth as I tried to make some rejoinder. He +baffled me completely, and meanwhile I was in a tingle of fear lest +the mate should come up on deck to see what progress the tide had +made, or lest the sound of our voices might waken the girl in +Joyce's stateroom. + +"I can promise you that," I attempted to assure him in weak, +sepulchral tones. "And now, if you like, I'll put you ashore in the +small boat. You must be getting chilly in that wet sleeping-suit." + +"As a matter of fact I am, and I was wondering if you would not +offer me something to drink." + +"You shall have a bottle to take along," I promised, with alacrity, +but he demurred. + +"There is no sociability in that. And you seem very lonesome +here--stuck for two more hours at least. Come, Captain, fetch your +bottle and we will share it together." + +He got down from the rail, stretched his arms lazily above his head, +and dropped into one of the deck chairs that had been placed aft for +the convenience of my two passengers. + +"And cigars, too, Captain," he suggested, with a politeness that was +almost impertinence. "We'll have a cozy hour or two out of this +tedious wait for the tide to lift you off." + +I contemplated him helplessly. There was no alternative but to fall +in with whatever mad caprice might seize his brain. If I opposed him, +it would lead to high and querulous words; and the hideous fact of +his presence there--of his mere existence--I was bound to conceal at +all hazards. + +"I must ask you to keep quiet," I said, stiffly. + +"As a tomb," he agreed, and his eyes twinkled disagreeably in the +darkness. "You forget that I am supposed to be in one." + +I went stealthily down into the cabin, where I secured a box of +cigars and the first couple of bottles that my hands laid hold of in +the locker. They proved to contain an old Tokay wine which I had +treasured for several years to no particular purpose. The ancient +bottles clinked heavily in my grasp as I mounted again to the deck. + +"Now this is something like," he purred, watching like a cat my +every motion as I set the glasses forth and guardedly drew the cork. +He saluted me with a flourish and drank. + +To an onlooker that pantomime in the darkness would have seemed +utterly grotesque. I tasted the fragrant, heavy wine and +waited--waited in an agony of suspense--my ears strained desperately +to catch the least sound from below. But a profound silence +enveloped the schooner, broken only by the occasional rhythmic snore +of the mate. + +"You seem rather ill at ease," Farquharson observed from the depths +of the deck chair when he had his cigar comfortably aglow. "I trust +it isn't this little impromptu call of mine that's disturbing you. +After all, life has its unusual moments, and this, I think, is one +of them." He sniffed the bouquet of his wine and drank. "It is rare +moments like this--bizarre, incredible, what you like--that +compensate for the tedium of years." + +His disengaged hand had fallen to the side of the chair, and I now +observed in dismay that a scarf belonging to Joyce's wife had been +left lying in the chair, and that his fingers were absently twisting +the silken fringe. + +"I wonder that you stick it out, as you do, on this island," I +forced myself to observe, seeking safety in the commonplace, while +my eyes, as if fascinated, watched his fingers toying with the ends +of the scarf. I was forced to accept the innuendo beneath his +enigmatic utterances. His utter baseness and depravity, born perhaps +of a diseased mind, I could understand. I had led him to bait a trap +with the fiction of his own death, but he could not know that it had +been already sprung upon his unsuspecting victims. + +He seemed to regard me with contemptuous pity. "Naturally, you wonder. +A mere skipper like yourself fails to understand--many things. What +can you know of life cooped up in this schooner? You touch only the +surface of things just as this confounded boat of yours skims only +the top of the water. Once in a lifetime you may come to real grips +with life--strike bottom, eh?--as your schooner has done now. Then +you're aground and quite helpless. What a pity!" + +He lifted his glass and drank it off, then thrust it out to be +refilled. "Life as the world lives it--bah!" he dismissed it with +the scorn of one who counts himself divested of all illusions. +"Life would be an infernal bore if it were not for its paradoxes. +Now you, Captain Barnaby, would never dream that in becoming dead to +the world--in other people's belief--I have become intensely alive. +There are opened up infinite possibilities--" + +He drank again and eyed me darkly, and then went on in his +crack-brained way. "What is life but a challenge to pretense, a +constant exercise in duplicity, with so few that come to master it +as an art? Every one goes about with something locked deep in his +heart. Take yourself, Captain Barnaby. You have your secrets--hidden +from me, from all the world--which, if they could be dragged out of +you--" + +His deep-set eyes bored through the darkness upon me. Hunched up in +the deck chair, with his legs crossed under him, he was like an +animated Buddha venting a dark philosophy and seeking to undermine +my mental balance with his sophistry. + +"I'm a plain man of the sea," I rejoined, bluntly. "I take life as +it comes." + +He smiled derisively, drained his glass, and held it out again. +"But you have your secrets, rather clumsily guarded, to be sure--" + +"What secrets?" I cried out, goaded almost beyond endurance. + +He seemed to deprecate the vigour of my retort and lifted a +cautioning hand. "Do you want every one on board to hear this +conversation?" At that moment the smoke-wrapped cone of Lakalatcha +was cleft by a sheet of flame, and we confronted each other in a +sort of blood-red dawn. + +"There is no reason why we should quarrel," he went on, after +darkness had enveloped us again. "But there are times which call +for plain speaking. Major Stanleigh is probably hardly aware of just +what he said to me under a little artful questioning. It seems that +a lady who--shall we say, whom we both have the honour of knowing? +--is in love. Love, mark you. It is always interesting to see that +flower bud twice from the same stalk. However, one naturally defers +to a lady, especially when one is very much in her way. _Place aux +dames_, eh? Exit poor Farquharson! You must admit that his was an +altruistic soul. Well, she has her freedom--if only to barter it for +a new bondage. Shall we drink to the happy future of that romance?" + +He lifted to me his glass with ironical invitation, while I sat +aghast and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This +intolerable colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I +should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the +soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all control and leap +up and brain him with the heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane +desire to spring at his throat and throttle his infamous bravado, +tumble him overboard and annihilate the last vestige of his existence. + +"Come, Captain," he urged, "you, too, have shared in smoothing the +path for these lovers. Shall we not drink to their happy union?" + +A feeling of utter loathing went over me. I set my glass down. +"It would be a more serviceable compliment to the lady in question +if I strangled you on the spot," I muttered, boldly. + +"But you are forgetting that I am already dead." He threw his head +back as if vastly amused, then lurched forward and held out his +glass a little unsteadily to be refilled. + +He gave me a quick, evil look. "Besides, the noise might disturb +your passengers." + +I could feel a cold perspiration suddenly breaking out upon my body. +Either the fellow had obtained an inkling of the truth in some +incredible way, or was blindly on the track of it, guided by some +diabolical scent. Under the spell of his eyes, I could not manage +the outright lie which stuck in my throat. + +"What makes you think I have passengers?" I parried, weakly. + +With intent or not, he was again fingering the fringe of the scarf +that hung over the arm of the chair. + +"It is not your usual practice, but you have been carrying them +lately." + +He drained his glass and sat staring into it, his head drooping a +little forward. The heavy wine was beginning to have its effect upon +him, but whether it would provoke him to some outright violence or +drag him down into a stupor, I could not predict. Suddenly the glass +slipped from his fingers and shivered to pieces on the deck. I +started violently at the sound, and in the silence that followed I +thought I heard a footfall in the cabin below. + +He looked up at length from his absorbed contemplation of the bits +of broken glass. "We were talking about love, were we not?" he +demanded, heavily. + +I did not answer. I was straining to catch a repetition of the sound +from below. Time was slipping rapidly away, and to sit on meant +inevitable discovery. The watch might waken or the mate appear to +surprise me in converse with my nocturnal visitor. It would be folly +to attempt to conceal his presence and I despaired of getting him +back to shore while his present mood held, although I remembered +that the small boat, which had been lowered after we went aground, +was still moored to the rail amidships. + +Refilling my own glass, I offered it to him. He lurched forward to +take it, but the fumes of the wine suddenly drifted clear of his +brain. "You seem very much distressed," he observed, with ironic +concern. "One might think you were actually sheltering these +precious love-birds." + +Perspiration broke out anew upon my face and neck. "I don't know what +you are talking about," I bluntly tried to fend off his implication. +I felt as if I were helplessly strapped down and that he was about +to probe me mercilessly with some sharp instrument. I strode to turn +the direction of his thoughts by saying, "I understand that the +Stanleighs are returning to England." + +"The Stanleighs--quite so," he nodded agreement, and fixed me with a +maudlin stare. Something prompted me to fill his glass again. He +drank it off mechanically. Again I poured, and he obediently drank. +With an effort he tried to pick up the thread of our conversation: + +"What did you say? Oh, the Stanleighs ... yes, yes, of course." He +slowly nodded his head and fell silent. "I was about to say ..." He +broke off again and seemed to ruminate profoundly.... "Love-birds--" +I caught the word feebly from his lips, spoken as if in a daze. The +glass hung dripping in his relaxed grasp. + +It was a crucial moment in which his purpose seemed to waver and die +in his clouded brain. A great hope sprang up in my heart, which was +hammering furiously. If I could divert his fuddled thoughts and get +him back to shore while the wine lulled him to forgetfulness. + +I leaned forward to take the glass which was all but slipping from +his hand, when Lakalatcha flamed with redoubled fury. It was as if +the mountain had suddenly bared its fiery heart to the heavens, and +a muffled detonation reached my ears. + +Farquharson straightened up with a jerk and scanned the smoking peak, +from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a +threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, +and began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his +faculties seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy +labouring of the mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were +a fractious child. When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made +no protest, but followed me into the boat. As I pushed off and took +up the oars he had eyes for nothing but the flaming cone, as if its +leaping fires held for him an Apocalyptic vision. + +I strained at the oars as if in a race, with all eternity at stake, +blindly urging the boat ahead through water that flashed crimson at +every stroke. The mountain now flamed like a beacon, and I rowed for +dear life over a sea of blood. + +Farquharson sat entranced before the spectacle, chanting to himself +a kind of insane ritual, like a Parsee fire-worshipper making +obeisance before his god. He was rapt away to some plane of mystic +exaltation, to some hinterland of the soul that merged upon madness. +When at length the boat crunched upon the sandy shore he got up +unsteadily from the stern and pointed to the pharos that flamed in +the heavens. + +"The fire upon the altar is lit," he addressed me, oracularly, while +the fanatic light of a devotee burned in his eyes. "Shall we ascend +and prepare the sacrifice?" + +I leaned over the oars, panting from my exertions, indifferent to +his rhapsody. + +"If you'll take my advice, you'll get back at once to your bungalow +and strip off that wet sleeping-suit," I bluntly counseled him, but +I might as well have argued with a man in a trance. + +He leaped over the gunwale and strode up the beach. Again he struck +his priest-like attitude and invoked me to follow. + +"The fire upon the altar waits," he repeated, solemnly. Suddenly he +broke into a shrill laugh and ran like a deer in the direction of the +forest that stretched up the slopes of the mountain. + +The mate's face, thrust over the rail as I drew alongside the +schooner, plainly bespoke his utter bewilderment. He must have +thought me bereft of my senses to be paddling about at that hour of +the night. The tide had made, and the _Sylph_, righting her listed +masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when +the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an +uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural +day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up +red-hot rocks to the accompaniment of dull sounds of explosion. + +My first glance about the deck had been one of relief to note that +Joyce and his wife were not there, although the commotion of getting +under sail must have awakened them. A breeze had sprung up which +would prove a fair wind as soon as the _Sylph_ stood clear of the +point. The mate gave a grunt of satisfaction when at length the +schooner began to dip her bow and lay over to the task. Leaving him +in charge, I started to go below, when suddenly Mrs. Joyce, fully +dressed, confronted me. She seemed to have materialized out of the +air like a ghost. Her hair glowed like burnished copper in the +unnatural illumination which bathed the deck, but her face was ashen, +and the challenge of her eyes made my heart stop short. + +"You have been awake long?" I ventured to ask. + +"Too long," she answered, significantly, with her face turned away, +looking down into the water. She had taken my arm and drawn me +toward the rail. Now I felt her fingers tighten convulsively. In the +droop of her head and the tense curve of her neck I sensed her mad +impulse which the dark water suggested. + +"Mrs. Joyce!" I remonstrated, sharply. + +She seemed to go limp all over at the words. I drew her along the +deck for a faltering step or two, while her eyes continued to brood +upon the water rushing past. Suddenly she spoke: + +"What other way out is there?" + +"Never that," I said, shortly. I urged her forward again. "Is your +husband asleep?" + +"Thank God, yes!" + +"Then you have been awake--" + +"For over an hour," she confessed, and I detected the shudder that +went over her body. + +"The man is mad--" + +"But I am married to him." She stopped and caught at the rail like a +prisoner gripping at the bars that confine him. "I cannot--cannot +endure it! Where are you taking me? Where _can_ you take me? Don't +you see that there is no escape--from this?" + +The _Sylph_ rose and sank to the first long roll of the open sea. + +"When we reach Malduna--" I began, but the words were only torture. + +"I cannot--cannot go on. Take me back!--to that island! Let me live +abandoned--or rather die--" + +"Mrs. Joyce, I beg of you...." + +The schooner rose and dipped again. + +For what seemed an interminable time we paced the deck together +while Lakalatcha flamed farther and farther astern. Her words came +in fitful snatches as if spoken in a delirium, and at times she +would pause and grip the rail to stare back, wild-eyed, at the +receding island. + +Suddenly she started, and in a sort of blinding, noon-day blaze I +saw her face blanch with horror. It was as if at that moment the +heavens had cracked asunder and the night had fallen away in chaos. +Turning, I saw the cone of the mountain lifting skyward in +fragments--and saw no more, for the blinding vision remained seared +upon the retina of my eyes. + +Across the water, slower paced, came the dread concussion of sound. + +"Good God! It's carried away the whole island!" I heard the mate's +voice bellowing above the cries of the men. The _Sylph_ scudded +before the approaching storm of fire redescending from the sky.... + +The first gray of the dawn disclosed Mrs. Joyce still standing by +the rail, her hand nestling within the arm of her husband, +indifferent to the heavy grayish dust that fell in benediction upon +her like a silent shower of snow. + +The island of Muloa remains to-day a charred cinder lapped about by +the blue Pacific. At times gulls circle over its blackened and +desolate surface devoid of every vestige of life. From the squat, +truncated mass of Lakalatcha, shorn of half its lordly height, a +feeble wisp of smoke still issues to the breeze, as if Vulcan, tired +of his forge, had banked its fire before abandoning it. + + + + +THE ARGOSIES + + +BY ALEXANDER HULL + +From _Scribner's Magazine_ + +There may have been some benevolent force watching over Harber. In +any case, that would be a comforting belief. Certainly Harber +himself so believed, and I know he had no trouble at all convincing +his wife. Yes, the Harbers believed. + +But credulity, you may say, was ever the surest part in love's young +golden dream: and you, perhaps, not having your eyes befuddled with +the rose-fog of romance, will see too clearly to believe. What can I +adduce for your conviction? The facts only. After all, that is the +single strength of my position. + +There was, of course, the strange forehanded, subtle planning of the +other girl, of Janet Spencer. Why did she do it? Was it that, +feeling her chances in Tawnleytown so few, counting the soil there +so barren, driven by an ambition beyond the imagination of staid, +stodgy, normal Tawnleytown girls, she felt she must create +opportunities where none were? She was very lovely, Harber tells me, +in a fiery rose-red of the fairy-tale way; though even without +beauty it needn't have been hard for her. Young blood is prone +enough to adventure; the merest spark will set it akindle. I should +like to have known that girl. She must have been very clever. Because, +of course, she couldn't have foreseen, even by the surest instinct, +the coincidence that brought Harber and Barton together. Yes, there +is a coincidence in it. It's precisely upon that, you see, that +Harber hangs his belief. + +I wonder, too, how many of those argosies she sent out seeking the +golden fleece returned to her? It's a fine point for speculation. If +one only knew.... ah, but it's pitiful how much one doesn't, and +can't, know in this hard and complex world! Or was it merely that +she tired of them and wanted to be rid of them? Or again, do I wrong +her there, and were there no more than the two of them, and did she +simply suffer a solitary revulsion of feeling, as Harber did? But no, +I'm sure I'm right in supposing Barton and Harber to have been but +two ventures out of many, two arrows out of a full quiver shot in +the dark at the bull's-eye of fortune. And, by heaven, it was +splendid shooting ... even if none of the other arrows scored! + +Harber tells me he was ripe for the thing without any encouragement +to speak of. Tawnleytown was dull plodding for hot youth. Half +hidden in the green of fir and oak and maple, slumberous with +midsummer heat, it lay when he left it. Thickly powdered with the +fine white dust of its own unpaven streets, dust that sent the +inhabitants chronically sneezing and weeping and red-eyed about town, +or sent them north to the lakes for exemption, dust that hung +impalpably suspended in the still air and turned the sunsets to +things of glorious rose and red and gold though there wasn't a single +cloud or streamer in the sky to catch the light, dust that lay upon +lawns and walks and houses in deep gray accumulation ... precisely +as if these were objects put away and never used and not disturbed +until they were white with the inevitable powdery accretion that +accompanies disuse. Indeed, he felt that way about Tawnleytown, as +if it were a closed room of the world, a room of long ago, unused now, +unimportant, forgotten. + +So unquestionably he was ready enough to go. He had all the fine and +far-flung dreams of surging youth. He peopled the world with his +fancies, built castles on every high hill. He felt the urge of +ambition fiercely stirring within him, latent power pulsing through +him. What would you? Wasn't he young and in love? + +For there had been, you must know, a good deal between them. What +does one do in these deadly dull little towns for amusement, when +one is young and fain and restless? Harber tells me they walked the +streets and shaded lanes in the dim green coolness of evening, +lounged in the orchard hammock, drifted down the little river, past +still pools, reed-bordered, under vaulting sycamores, over hurrying +reaches fretted with pebbles, forgot everything except one another +and their fancies and made, as youth must, love. That was the +programme complete, except for the talk, the fascinating, +never-ending talk. Volumes on volumes of it--whole libraries of it. + +So, under her veiled fostering, the feeling that he must leave +Tawnleytown kept growing upon Harber until one evening it +crystallized in decision. + +It was on a Sunday. They had taken a lunch and climbed Bald Knob, a +thousand feet above the town, late in the afternoon. The dying sun +and the trees had given them a splendid symphony in black and gold, +and had silenced them for a little. They sat looking down over the +valley in which the well-known landmarks slowly grew dark and +indistinguishable and dim lights blossomed one after another. The +sound of church bells rose faintly through the still air. The pale +last light faded in the sky. + +Harber and Janet sat in the long grass, their hearts stirring with +the same urgent, inarticulate thoughts, their hands clasped together. + +"Let's wait for Eighty-seven," she said. + +Harber pressed her hand for reply. + +In the mind of each of them Eighty-seven was the symbol of release +from Tawnleytown, of freedom, of romance. + +Presently a shifting light appeared in the east, a faint rumble +became perceptible and increased. The swaying shaft of light +intensified and a moment later the long-drawn poignancy of a +chime-whistle blowing for the river-road crossing, exquisitely +softened by distance, echoingly penetrated the still valley. + +A streak of thunderous light swam into view and passed them, +plunging into a gap in the west. The fire-box in the locomotive +opened and flung a flood of light upon a swirling cloud of smoke. A +sharp turn in the track, a weak blast of the whistle at the +bridge-head, and the "Limited," disdaining contemptible Tawnleytown, +had swept out of sight--into the world--at a mile to the minute. + +"If I were on it," said Harber slowly. + +Janet caught her breath sharply. "You're a man!" she said fiercely. +"You could be--so easily!" + +Harber was startled for a moment. Her kindling of his flame of +adventure had been very subtle until now. Perhaps she hadn't been +sure before to-day of her standing. But this afternoon, upon the +still isolation of Bald Knob, there had been many kisses exchanged, +and brave vows of undying love. And no doubt she felt certain of him +now. + +With Harber, however, the pathway had seemed leading otherwhere. He +wasn't the sort of youth to kiss and ride away. And, discounting +their adventurous talk, he had tacitly supposed that his course the +last few weeks spelled the confinement of the four walls of a +Tawnleytown cottage, the fetters of an early marriage. He had been +fighting his mounting fever for the great world, and thinking, as +the train sped by, that after all "home was best." It would be. It +must be. So, if his fine dreams were the price he must pay for Janet, +still he would pay them! And he was startled by her tone. + +Her slim fingers tightened upon his. + +"Why do you stay?" she cried passionately. "Why don't you go?" + +"There's you," he began. + +"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I'm selfish, maybe! I don't know! But +it's as much for me as for you that I say it!" + +Her words poured out tumultuously. + +"Where are all our wonderful dreams--if you stay here? Gone +aglimmering! Gone! I can't see them all go--I can't! Can you?" + +Was he to have, then, both Janet and his dreams? His heart quickened. +He leaned impulsively toward her. + +She pushed his face away with her free hand. + +"No--no! Wait till I'm through! We've always known we weren't like +other Tawnleytown folk, haven't we, dear? We've always said that we +wanted more out of life than they--that we wouldn't be content with +half a loaf--that we wanted the bravest adventures, the yellowest +gold, the finest emotions, the greater power! And if now ... + +"See those fights down there--so few--and so faint. We can't live +our lives there. Seventy-five dollars a month in the bank for +you--and dull, deadly monotony for both of us--no dreams--no +adventures--nothing big and fine! We can't be content with that! Why +don't you go, John? + +"Don't mind me--don't let me keep you--for as soon as you've won, +you can come back to me--and then--we'll see the world together!" + +"Janet--Janet!" said Harber, with pounding heart. "How do you +know--that I'll win?" + +"Ah," she said strangely, "I know! You can't fail--_I won't let you +fail_"! + +Harber caught her suddenly in his arms and kissed her as if it were +to be his last token of her. + +"I'm going then!" he whispered. "I'm going!" + +"When?" + +"There's no time to be lost!" he said, thinking fast. "If I had +known that you were willing, that you would wait--if ... Janet, I'm +going to-morrow!" + +Her arms tightened about him convulsively. "Promise me--promise me!" +she demanded tensely, "that you'll never, never forget me--that +you'll come back to me!" + +Harber laughed in her face. "Janet," he said solemnly, "I'll never +forget you. I'll come back to you. I'll come back--'though 'twere +ten thousand mile!'" + +And they walked home slowly, wrapt once more in their fascinating +talk, fanning the flames of one another's desires, painting for +their future the rich landscapes of paradise. Youth! Brave, hot youth! + +The next day Harber contemptuously threw over his job in the bank +and fared forth into the wide world that was calling. + + * * * * * + +Well, he went south, then east, then west, and west, and farther west. +So far that presently, after three years, he found himself not west +at all, but east--far east. There were between him and Janet Spencer +now thousands on thousands of miles of vast heaving seas, and +snow-capped mountain ranges, and limitless grassy plains. + +Three years of drifting! You'd say, perhaps, knowing the frailty of +vows, that the connection might have been lost. But it hadn't. +Harber was but twenty-three. Faithfulness, too, comes easier then +than later in life, when one has seen more of the world, when the +fine patina of illusion has worn off. Besides, there was, I'm sure, +a touch of genius about that girl, so that one wouldn't forget her +easily, certainly not in three years. And then, you know, Harber had +had her letters. Not many of them. Perhaps a dozen to the year. + +Pitifully few, but they were filled with a wonderful fascination +against which the realities of his wandering life had been powerless +to contend. Like a slender cable they bound him--they held him! + +Well, he was in Sydney now, standing on the water-front, beneath a +bright-blue Australian sky, watching the crinkling water in the +Circular Quay as it lifted and fell mightily but easily, and seeing +the black ships ... ah, the ships! Those masterful, much more than +human, entities that slipped about the great world nosing out, up +dark-green tropical rivers in black, fir-bound fjords, through the +white ice-flows of the Arctics, all its romance, all its gold! Three +years hadn't dulled the keen edge of his appetite for all that; +rather had whetted it. + +Nevertheless, as he stood there, he was thinking to himself that +he must have done with wandering; the old saw that a rolling +stone gathered no moss was cropping up sharply, warningly, in +his mind. He had in the three years, however--and this is rather +remarkable--accumulated about three thousand dollars. Three thousand +dollars! Why, in this quarter of the world, three thousand dollars +should be like three thousand of the scriptural mustard-seed--they +should grow a veritable forest! + +What was puzzling him, however, was where to plant the seed. He was +to meet here a man who had a plan for planting in the islands. There +were wild rumours afloat of the fortunes that could be made in +rubber and vanilla out in the Papuan "Back Beyond." Harber was only +half inclined to believe them, perhaps; but half persuaded is well +along the way. + +He heard his name called, and, turning, he saw a man coming toward +him with the rolling gait of the seaman. As he came closer, Harber +observed the tawny beard, the sea-blue eyes surrounded by the fine +wrinkles of humour, the neat black clothing, the polished boots, and, +above all, the gold earrings that marked the man in his mind as +Farringdon, the sea-captain who had been anxious to meet him. + +Harber answered the captain's gleam of teeth with one of his own, +and they turned their backs upon the water and went to Harber's room, +where they could have their fill of talk undisturbed. Harber says +they talked all that afternoon and evening, and well into the next +morning, enthusiastically finding one another the veritable salt of +the earth, honourable, level-headed, congenial, temperamentally +fitted for exactly what they had in mind--partnership. + +"How much can you put in?" asked Harber finally. + +"Five hundred pounds," said the captain. + +"I can match you," said Harber. + +"Man, but that's fine!" cried the captain. "I've been looking for +you--you, you know--_just you_--for the last two years! And when +Pierson told me about you ... why, it's luck, I say!" + +It was luck for Harber, too. Farringdon, you see, knew precisely +where he wanted to go, and he had his schooner, and he knew that +part of the world, as we say, like a man knows his own buttons. +Harber, then, was to manage the plantation; they were going to set +out rubber, both Para and native, and try hemp and maybe coffee +while they waited for the Haevia and the Ficus to yield. And +Farringdon was ready to put the earnings from his schooner against +Harber's wage as manager. The arrangement, you see, was ideal. + +Skip seven years with me, please. Consider the plantation affair +launched, carried, and consummated. Farringdon and Harber have sold +the rubber-trees as they neared bearing, and have sold them well. +They're out of that now. In all likelihood, Harber thinks, +permanently. For that seven years has seen other projects blossom. +Harber, says Farringdon, has "the golden touch." There has been +trading in the islands, and a short and fortunate little campaign on +the stock-market through Sydney brokers, and there has been, more +profitable than anything else, the salvaging of the Brent Interisland +Company's steamer _Pailula_ by Farringdon's schooner, in which +Harber had purchased a half-interest; so the partners are, on the +whole, rather well fixed. Harber might be rated at, perhaps, some +forty thousand pounds, not counting his interest in the schooner. + +One of Janet Spencer's argosies, then, its cargo laden, is ready to +set sail for the hills of home. In short, Harber is now in one of +the island ports of call, waiting for the steamer from Fiji. In six +weeks he will be in Tawnleytown if all goes well. + +It isn't, and yet it is, the same Harber. He's thirty now, lean and +bronzed and very fit. He can turn a hundred tricks now where then he +could turn one. The tropics have agreed with him. There seems to +have been some subtle affinity between them, and he almost wishes +that he weren't leaving them. He certainly wouldn't be, if it were +not for Janet. + +Yes, that slender thread has held him. Through ten years it has kept +him faithful. He has eyed askance, ignored, even rebuffed, women. +The letters, that still come, have turned the trick, perhaps, or +some clinging to a faith that is inherent in him. Or sheer obstinacy? +Forgive the cynicism. A little of each, no doubt. And then he hadn't +often seen the right sort of women. I say that deliberately, because: + +The night before the steamer was due there was a ball--yes, poor +island exiles, they called it that!--and Harber, one of some thirty +"Europeans" there, went to it, and on the very eve of safety ... + +The glare and the oily smell of the lanterns, the odour of jasmine, +frangipanni, vanilla, and human beings sickeningly mingled in the +heat, the jangling, out-of-tune music, the wearisome island gossip +and chatter, drove him at length out into the night, down a +black-shadowed pathway to the sea. The beach lay before him presently, +gleaming like silver in the soft blue radiance of the jewelled night. +As he stood there, lost in far memories, the mellow, lemon-coloured +lights from the commissioner's residence shone beautifully from the +fronded palms and the faint wave of the waltzes of yesteryear became +poignant and lovely, and the light trade-wind, clean here from the +reek of lamps and clothing and human beings, vaguely tanged with the +sea, blew upon him with a light, insistent pressure. Half dreaming, +he heard the sharp sputter of a launch--bearing belated comers to +the ball, no doubt--but he paid no attention to it. He may have been +on the beach an hour before he turned to ascend to the town. + +And just at the top of the slope he came upon a girl. + +She hadn't perceived him, and she stood there, slim and graceful, +the moonlight bright upon her rapt face, with her arms outstretched +and her head flung back, in an attitude of utter abandonment. Harber +felt his heart stir swiftly. He knew what she was feeling, as she +looked out over the shimmering half-moon of harbour, across the +moaning white feather of reef, out to the illimitable sea, and drank +in the essence of the beauty of the night. Just so, at first, had it +clutched him with the pain of ecstasy, and he had never forgotten it. +There would be no voicing that feeling; it must ever remain +inarticulate. Nor was the girl trying to voice it. Her exquisite +pantomime alone spelled her delight in it and her surrender to it. + +He saw at a glance that he didn't know her. She was "new" to the +islands. Her clothes were evidence enough for that. There was a +certain verve to them that spoke of a more sophisticated land. She +might have been twenty-five though she seemed younger. She was in +filmy white from slipper to throat, and over her slender shoulders +there drifted a gossamer banner of scarf, fluttering in the soft +trade-wind. Harber was very close to see this, and still she hadn't +observed him. + +"Don't let me startle you, please!" he said, as he stepped from the +shadow of the trumpet-flower bush that had hitherto concealed him. + +Her arms came down slowly, her chin lowered; her pose, if you will, +melted away. Her voice when she spoke was low and round and thrilled, +and it sent an answering thrill through Harber. + +"I'm mad!" she said. "Moon-mad--or tropic-mad. I didn't hear you. I +was worshipping the night!" + +"As I have been," said Harber, feeling a sudden pagan kinship with +her mood. + +She smiled, and her smile seemed the most precious thing in the world. +"You, too? But it isn't new to you ... and when the newness is gone +every one--here at least--seems dead to it!" + +"Sometimes I think it's always new," replied Harber. "And yet I've +had years of it ... but how did you know?" + +"You're Mr. Harber, aren't you?" + +"Yes. But---" + +"Only that I knew you were here, having heard of you from the +Tretheways, and I'd accounted for every one else. I couldn't stay +inside because it seemed to me that it was wicked when I had come so +far for just this, to be inside stuffily dancing. One can dance all +the rest of one's life in Michigan, you know! So----" + +"It's the better place to be--out here," said Harber abruptly. +"Need we go in?" + +"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "Maybe you can tell me. You see, +I've promised some dances. What's the usage here? Dare I run away +from them?" + +"Oh, it might prove a three-day scandal if you did," said Harber. +"But I know a bench off to the right, where it isn't likely you'll +be found by any questing partner, and you needn't confess to having +had a companion. Will you come and talk to me?" + +"I'm a bird of passage," she answered, smiling, "and I've only to +unfold my wings and fly away from the smoke of scandal. Yes, I'll +come--if you won't talk--too much. You see, after all, I won't +flatter you. It's the night I want, not talk ... the wonderful night!" + +But, of course, they did talk. She was an American girl, she told him, +and had studied art a little, but would never be much of a painter. +She had been teaching classes in a city high school in the Middle +West, when suddenly life there seemed to have gone humdrum and stale. +She had a little money saved, not much, but enough if she managed +well, and she'd boldly resigned and determined, once at least before +she was too old, to follow spring around the world. She had almost +given up the idea of painting now, but thought presently she might +go in for writing, where, after all, perhaps, her real talent lay. +She had gotten a letter of introduction in Suva to the Tretheways +and she would be here until the next steamer after the morrow's. + +These were the bare facts. Harber gave a good many more than he got, +he told me, upon the theory that nothing so provoked confidence as +giving it. He was a little mad himself that night, he admits, or +else very, very sane. As you will about that. But, from the moment +she began to talk, the thought started running through his head that +there was fate in this meeting. + +There was a sort of passionate fineness about her that caught and +answered some instinct in Harber ... and I'm afraid they talked more +warmly than the length of their acquaintance justified, that they +made one another half-promises, not definite, perhaps, but implied; +promises that.... + +"I _must_ go in," she said at last, reluctantly. + +He knew that she must, and he made no attempt to gainsay her. + +"You are going to America," she went on. "If you should----" + +And just at that moment, Harber says, anything seemed possible to him, +and he said eagerly: "Yes--if you will--I should like----" + +How well they understood one another is evident from that. Neither +had said it definitely, but each knew. + +"Have you a piece of paper?" she asked. + +Harber produced a pencil, and groped for something to write upon. +All that his pockets yielded was a sealed envelope. He gave it to her. + +She looked at it closely, and saw in the brilliant moonshine that it +was sealed and stamped and addressed. + +"I'll spoil it for mailing," she said. + +"It doesn't matter," Harber told her ineptly. "Or you can write it +lightly, and I'll erase it later." + +There was a little silence. Then suddenly she laughed softly, and +there was a tiny catch in the voice. "So that you can forget?" she +said bravely. "No! I'll write it fast and hard ... so that you can ... +never ... forget!" + +And she gave him first his pencil and envelope, and afterward her +hand, which Harber held for a moment that seemed like an eternity +and then let go. She went into the house, but Harber didn't follow +her. He went off to his so-called hotel. + +In his room, by the light of the kerosene-lamp, he took out the +envelope and reed what she had written. It was: + +Vanessa Simola, Claridon, Michigan. + +He turned over the envelope and looked at the address on the other +side, in his own handwriting: + +Miss Janet Spencer, Tawnleytown.... + +And the envelope dropped from his nerveless fingers to the table. + +Who shall say how love goes or comes? Its ways are a sacred, +insoluble mystery, no less. But it had gone for Harber: and just as +surely, though so suddenly, had it come! Yes, life had bitterly +tricked him at last. She had sent him this girl ... too late! The +letter in the envelope was written to tell Janet Spencer that within +six weeks he would be in Tawnleytown to claim her in marriage. + +One must be single-minded like Harber to appreciate his terrible +distress of mind. The facile infidelity of your ordinary mortal +wasn't for Harber. No, he had sterner stuff in him. + +Vanessa! The name seemed so beautiful ... like the girl herself, +like the things she had said. It was an Italian name. She had told +him her people had come from Venice, though she was herself +thoroughly a product of America. "So that you can never forget," she +had said. Ah, it was the warm blood of Italy in her veins that had +prompted that An American girl wouldn't have said that! + +He slit the envelope, letting the letter fall to the table, and put +it in his pocket. + +Yet why should he save it? He could never see her again, he knew. +Vain had been those half-promises, those wholly lies, that his eyes +and lips had given her. For there was Janet, with her prior promises. +Ten years Janet had waited for him ... ten years ... and suddenly, +aghast, he realized how long and how terrible the years are, how they +can efface memories and hopes and desires, and how cruelly they had +dealt with him, though he had not realized it until this moment. +Janet ... why, actually, Janet was a stranger, he didn't know Janet +any more! She was nothing but a frail phantom of recollection: the +years had erased her! But this girl--warm, alluring, immediate.... + +No--no! It couldn't be. + +So much will the force of an idea do for a man, you see. Because, of +course, it could have been. He had only to destroy the letter that +lay there before him, to wait on until the next sailing, to make +continued love to Vanessa, and never to go to Tawnleytown again. +There was little probability that Janet would come here for him. Ten +years and ten thousand miles ... despite all that he had vowed on +Bald Knob that Sunday so long ago, wouldn't you have said that was +barrier enough? + +Why, so should I! But it wasn't. + +For Harber took the letter and put it in a fresh envelope, and in +the morning he went aboard the steamer without seeing the girl again ... +unless that bit of white standing near the top of the slope, as the +ship churned the green harbour water heading out to sea, were she, +waving. + +But he kept the address she had written. + +Why? He never could use it. Well, perhaps he didn't want to forget +too soon, though it hurt him to remember. How many of us, after all, +have some little memory like that, some intimate communion with +romance, which we don't tell, but cling to? And perhaps the memory +is better than the reality would have been. We imagine ... but that +again is cynical. Harber will never be that now. Let me tell you why. + +It's because he hadn't been aboard ship on his crossing to Victoria +twenty-four hours before he met Clay Barton. + +Barton was rolled up in rugs, lying in a deck-chair, biting his +teeth hard together to keep them from chattering, though the +temperature was in the eighties, and most of the passengers in white. +Barton appeared to be a man of forty, whereas he turned out to be in +his early twenties. He was emaciated to an alarming degree and his +complexion was of the pale, yellow-green that spoke of many +recurrences of malaria. The signs were familiar to Harber. + +He sat down beside Barton, and, as the other looked at him half a +dozen times tentatively, he presently spoke to him. + +"You've had a bad time of it, haven't you?" + +"Terrible," said Barton frankly. "They say I'm convalescent now. I +don't know. Look at me. What would you say?" + +Harber shook his head. + +Barton laughed bitterly. "Yes, I'm pretty bad," he agreed readily. +And then, as he talked that day and the two following, he told +Harber a good many things. + +"I tell you, Harber," he said, "we'll do anything for money. Here I +am--and I knew damned well it was killing me, too. And yet I stuck +it out six months after I'd any earthly business to--just for a few +extra hundreds." + +"Where were you? What were you doing?" asked Harber. + +"Trading-post up a river in the Straits Settlements," said Barton. +"A crazy business from the beginning--and yet I made money. Made it +lots faster than I could have back home. Back there you're hedged +about with too many rules. And competition's too keen. You go into +some big corporation office at seventy-five a month, maybe, and +unless you have luck you're years getting near anything worth having. +And you've got to play politics, bootlick your boss--all that. So I +got out. + +"Went to California first, and got a place in an exporting firm in +San Francisco. They sent me to Sydney and then to Fiji. After I'd +been out for a while and got the hang of things, I cut loose from +them. + +"Then I got this last chance, and it looked mighty good--and I +expect I've done for myself by it. Five years or a little better. +That's how long I've lasted. Back home I'd have been good for +thirty-five. A short life and a merry one, they say. Merry. Good God!" + +He shook his head ironically. + +"The root of all evil," he resumed after a little. "Well, but you've +got to have it--can't get along without it in _this_ world. You've +done well, you say?" + +Harber nodded. + +"Well, so should I have, if the cursed fever had let me alone. In +another year or so I'd have been raking in the coin. And now here I +am--busted--done--;--_fini_, as the French say. I burned the candle +at both ends--and got just what was coming to me, I suppose. But how +_could_ I let go, just when everything was coming my way?" + +"I know," said Harber. "But unless you can use it----" + +"You're right there. Not much in it for me now. Still, the medicos +say a cold winter back home will.... I don't know. Sometimes I don't +think I'll last to.... + +"Where's the use, you ask, Harber? You ask me right now, and I can't +tell you. But if you'd asked me before I got like this, I could have +told you quick enough. With some men, I suppose, it's just an +acquisitive nature. With me, that didn't cut any figure. With me, it +was a girl. I wanted to make the most I could for her in the +shortest time. A girl ... well...." + +Harber nodded. "I understand. I came out for precisely the same +reason myself," he remarked. + +"You did?" said Barton, looking at him sadly. "Well, luck was with +you, then. You look so--so damned fit! You can go back to her ... +while I ... ain't it hell? Ain't it?" he demanded fiercely. +"Yes," admitted Harber, "it is. But at the same time, I'm not sure +that anything's ever really lost. If she's worth while----" + +Barton made a vehement sign of affirmation. + +"Why, she'll be terribly sorry for you, but she won't _care_," +concluded Harber. "I mean, she'll be waiting for you, and glad to +have you coming home, so glad that...." + +"Ah ... yes. That's what ... I haven't mentioned the fever in +writing to her, you see. It will be a shock." + +Harber, looking at him, thought that it would, indeed. + +"I had a letter from her just before we sailed," went on the other, +more cheerfully. "I'd like awfully, some time, to have you meet her. +She's a wonderful girl--wonderful. She's clever. She's much cleverer +than I am, really ... about most things. When we get to Victoria, +you must let me give you my address." + +"Thanks," said Harber. "I'll be glad to have it." + +That was the last Harber saw of him for five days. The weather +had turned rough, and he supposed the poor fellow was seasick, +and thought of him sympathetically, but let it rest there. Then, +one evening after dinner, the steward came for him and said that +Mr. Clay Barton wanted to see him. Harber followed to Barton's stateroom, +which the sick man was occupying alone. In the passageway near the +door, he met the ship's doctor. + +"Mr. Harber?" said the doctor. "Your friend in there--I'm sorry to +say--is----" + +"I suspected as much," said Harber. "He knows it himself, I think." + +"Does he?" said the doctor, obviously relieved. "Well, I hope that +he'll live till we get him ashore. There's just a chance, of course, +though his fever is very high now. He's quite lucid just now, and +has been insisting upon seeing you. Later he mayn't be conscious. +So----" + +Harber nodded. "I'll go in." + +Barton lay in his berth, still, terribly thin, and there were two +pink patches of fever burning upon his cheek-bones. He opened his +eyes with an infinite weariness as Harber entered the room, and +achieved a smile. + +"Hard luck, old fellow," said Harber, crossing to him. "'Sall +_up_!" said Barton, grinning gamely. "I'm through. Asked 'em to +send you in. Do something for me, Harber--tha's right, ain't +it--Harber's your name?" + +"Yes. What is it, Barton?" + +Barton closed his eyes, then opened them again. + +"Doggone memory--playin' tricks," he apologized faintly. "This, +Harber. Black-leather case inside leather grip there--by the wall. +Money in it--and letters. Everything goes--to the girl. Nobody else. +I know you're straight. Take 'em to her?" + +"Yes," said Harber. + +"Good," said Barton. "All right, then! Been expecting this. All ready +for it. Name--address--papers--all there. She'll have no +trouble--getting money. Thanks, Harber." And after a pause, he added: +"Better take it now--save trouble, you know." + +Harber got the leather case from the grip and took it at once to his +own stateroom. + +When he returned, Barton seemed for the moment, with the commission +off his mind, a little brighter. + +"No end obliged, Harber," he murmured. + +"All right," said Harber, "but ought you to talk?" + +"Won't matter now," said Barton grimly. "Feel like talking now. +To-morrow may be--too late!" And after another pause, he went on: +"The fine dreams of youth--odd where they end, isn't it? + +"This--and me--so different. So different! Failure. She was wise--but +she didn't know everything. The world was too big--too hard for me. +'You can't fail,' she said, '_I won't let you fail_!' But you see----" + +Harber's mind, slipping back down the years, with Barton, to his own +parting, stopped with a jerk. + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +Barton seemed drifting, half conscious, half unconscious of what he +was saying. He did not appear to have heard Harber's exclamation over +the phrase so like that Janet had given him. + +"We weren't like the rest," droned Barton. "No--we wanted more out of +life than they did. We couldn't be content--with half a loaf. We +wanted--the bravest adventures--the yellowest gold--the...." + +Picture that scene, if you will. What would _you_ have said? Harber +saw leaping up before him, with terrible clarity, as if it were +etched upon his mind, that night in Tawnleytown ten years before. It +was as if Barton, in his semidelirium, were reading the words from +_his_ past! + +"I won't let you fail! ... half a loaf ... the bravest adventures ... +the yellowest gold." Incredible thing! That Barton and _his_ girl +should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases! +And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber.... No! No! He spurned it. +It couldn't be. And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one +more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, +written to _him_, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be stark, +unassailable fact. + +He put his hand upon Barton's arm and gently pressed it. + +"Barton," he said, "tell me--Janet--Tawnleytown?" + +Barton stared with glassy, unseeing eyes for a moment; then his +eyelids fell. + +"The bravest adventures--the yellowest gold," he murmured. Then, so +faintly as almost to baffle hearing: "Where--all--our--dreams? +Gone--aglimmering. Gone." + +That was all. + +Impossible? No, just very, very improbable. But how, by its very +improbability, it does take on the semblance of design! See how by +slender a thread the thing hung, how every corner of the plan fitted. +Just one slip Janet Spencer made; she let her thoughts and her words +slip into a groove; she repeated herself. And how unerringly life +had put her finger upon that clew! So reasoned Harber. + +Well, if the indictment were true, there was proof to be had in +Barton's leather case! + +Harber, having called the doctor, went to his stateroom. + +He opened the leather case. Inside a cover of yellow oiled silk he +found first a certificate of deposit for three thousand pounds, and +beneath it a packet of letters. + +He unwrapped them. + +And, though somehow he had known it without the proof, at the sight +of them something caught at his heart with a clutch that made it +seem to have stopped beating for a long time. For the sprawling +script upon the letters was almost as familiar to him as his own. +Slowly he reached down and took up the topmost letter, drew the thin +shiny sheets from the envelope, fluttered them, dazed, and stared at +the signature: + +Yours, my dearest lover, JANET. + +Just so had she signed _his_ letters. It _was_ Janet Spencer. Two of +her argosies, each one laden with gold for her, had met in their +courses, had sailed for a little together. + +The first reasonable thought that came to Harber, when he was +convinced of the authenticity of the miracle, was that he was +free--free to go after the girl he loved, after Vanessa Simola. I +think that if he could have done it, he'd have turned the steamer +back to the Orient in that moment. The thought that the ship was +plunging eastward through a waste of smashing heavy seas was +maddening, no less! + +He didn't want to see Janet or Tawnleytown, again. He did have, he +told me, a fleeting desire to know just how many other ships Janet +might have launched, but it wasn't strong enough to take him to see +her. He sent her the papers and letters by registered mail under an +assumed name. + +And then he went to Claridon, Michigan, to learn of her people when +Vanessa might be expected home. They told him she was on her way. So, +fearing to miss her if he went seeking, he settled down there and +stayed until she came. It was seven months of waiting he had ... but +it was worth it in the end. + + * * * * * + +And that was Harber's romance. Just an incredible coincidence, you +say. I know it. I told Harber that. And Mrs. Harber. + +And _she_ said nothing at all, but looked at me inscrutably, with a +flicker of scorn in her sea-gray eyes. + +Harber smiled lazily and serenely, and leaned back in his chair, and +replied in a superior tone: "My dear Sterne, things that are made in +heaven--like my marriage--don't just happen. Can't you see that your +stand simply brands you an unbeliever?" + +And, of course, I _can_ see it. And Harber may be right. I don't know. +Does any one, I wonder? + + + + +ALMA MATER + + +BY O. F. LEWIS + +From _The Red Book_ + + +Professor Horace Irving had taught Latin for nearly forty years at +Huntington College. Then he had come back to Stuyvesant Square, in +New York. Now he lived in a little hall bedroom, four flights up, +overlooking the Square. + +Habitually he walked from the Square westward to Fourth Avenue, in +the afternoon, when the weather permitted. He had been born only +three doors from where he now lived. The house of his birth had gone. +It was sixty years since he had been a boy and played in this Square. +Now he would pause at the corner of Fourth Avenue in his walks, and +remember the Goelet's cow and the big garden and the high iron fence +at Nineteenth Street and Broadway. Great buildings now towered there. + +South along Fourth Avenue he would walk, a little man, scarcely five +feet four in height, even with the silk hat and the Prince Albert +coat. His white hair grew long over his collar, and people would +notice that almost more than anything else about him. He may have +weighed between ninety and a hundred pounds. The coat was worn and +shiny, but immaculate. The tall hat was of a certain type and year, +but carefully smoothed and still glossy. + +He would pause often, between Nineteenth Street and Eighteenth Street, +peopling the skyscrapers with ghosts of a former day, when houses +and green gardens lined the streets. The passers-by watched him +casually, perhaps as much as any one notices any one else in New York. +He was, in the Fourteenth Street district, a rarer specimen than +Hindus or Mexican medicine-men. Through the ten years since he had +come, pensioned, from Huntington College, he had become a walking +landmark in this region. + +He always walked down on the east side of the street, crossing at +Fourteenth Street. He was carefully piloted, and saluted, by the +traffic policeman. It was a bad crossing. Below Fourteenth Street +things looked much more as they had looked when he was young. + +The bookstores were an unceasing hobby to the old man. The +secondhand dealers never made any objection to his reading books +upon the shelves. His purchases were perhaps two books a week, at +ten or even five cents each. Now and again he would find one of his +own "Irving's Latin Prose Composition" texts in the five-cent pile. +Opening the book, he usually would discover strange pencilled +pictures drawn scrawlingly over many of the pages. His "Latin +Composition" wasn't published after 1882, the year the firm failed. +It might have been different for him, with a different publisher. + +Late one afternoon in April, Professor Irving stood in his customary +niche at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, watching the +traffic from a sheltered spot against the wall of the building. He +was becoming exceedingly anxious about the approaching storm. It had +come up since he left Stuyvesant Square, and he had no umbrella. He +must not get his silk hat wet. His thin overcoat was protecting him +but feebly from the wind, which with the disappearance of the sun +had grown sharp and biting. It was rapidly becoming dark. Lights +were flashing in the windows up and down the Avenue. + +The Professor decided to stand in a doorway till the shower had +passed over. The chimes in the Metropolitan Tower struck the first +quarter after four, the sounds welling in gusts to the old man's ears. +A little man came to stand in the doorway beside the Professor. The +latter saw that the little man had a big umbrella. Silk hats were so +fearfully expensive in these days! + +The heavy drops beat against the pavement in torrents. The first +flash of lightning of the year was followed by a deep roll of thunder. + +"I got to go!" said the little man. "Keep the umbrella! I got +another where I work. I'm only fifty-five. You're older than me, a +lot. You better start home. You'll get soaked, standing here!" And +the little man was gone before the Professor could reply. + +"An exceedingly kindly, simple man," thought the old Professor. He +had planned, while standing with his unknown benefactor, that he +would go into some store and wait. But now he would chance it, and +cross the street. He saw a lull in the traffic. He started and was +nearly swept off his feet. He got to the middle of the street. The +umbrella grew unwieldy, swinging this way and that, as if tugged by +unseen hands. It turned inside out. Blaring noises from the passing +cars confused the Professor. + +The shaft of the umbrella swung violently around and knocked the +silk hat from Professor Irving's head. His white hair was caught by +the wind. Lashed in another direction, the shaft now struck the +Professor's glasses, and they flew away. Now he could see little or +nothing. He became bewildered. + +Great glaring headlights broke upon him, passed him, and then +immediately other glaring lights flared up toward him out of the +sheets of water. He couldn't see because of his lost glasses and +because of the stinging rain. He rushed between two cars. He slipped.... + +The chimes on the Metropolitan Tower rang out, in wails of wild sound, +the half-hour after four. + + * * * * * + +The attendance that evening at the annual banquet of the New York +alumni of Huntington College exceeded all previous records. The +drive for two million five hundred thousand dollars was on. It was a +small college, but as Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth, there were +those who loved it. + +The east ballroom of the hotel was well filled with diners. +Recollections of college days were shouted across tables and over +intervening aisles. There was a million still to raise: but old +Huntington would put it across! They'd gotten out more of the older +men, the men with money, than had ever been seen before at an alumni +dinner. + +The income on one million would go into better salaries for the +professors and other teachers. They'd been shamefully underpaid--men +who'd been on the faculty twenty to thirty years getting two thousand! +Well, Huntington College had now a new president, one of the boys of +twenty years ago. Yes sir, things were different. It was in the air. + +In the midst of the dinner course, the toastmaster rapped loudly +with the gavel for attention. It was hard to obtain quiet. + +"Men," said the toastmaster, and there was a curious note in his +voice, "I ask your absolute silence. Middleton, whom you all know is +one of the editorial staff of the _Sphere_, has just come in. He can +stay only a few minutes. He came especially to tell you something." + +A man standing behind the toastmaster stepped into the toastmaster's +place. He was in business clothes, a sharp contrast to the rest of +the diners. He was loudly applauded. He raised his right hand and +shook his head. + +"Boys," he said, "I've got a tragic piece of news for you--for those +of you who were in college any time up to ten years ago." He paused +and looked the diners over. + +"Four fifths of you men who are here to-night knew old Hoddy Irving, +our 'prof' in Latin. He served old Huntington College for forty years, +the longest term any professor ever served. He made no demands--ever. +He took us freshmen under his wing. I used to walk now and then with +him, miles around the college, when it wasn't so built up as it now +is. He loved the fields and the animals and the trees. He taught me +a lot of things besides Latin. Don't you remember the funny little +walk he had, sort of a hop forward? Don't you remember the way he'd +come up to the college dormitories nights, sometimes, from his house +down on the Row, and knock timidly at our doors, and come in and +visit? Don't you remember that we used to clear some of those tables +mighty quickly, of the chips and the bottles?" + +There were titters, and some one shouted: "You said it!" + +"And then, don't you remember, that some ten years ago they turned +the old man off, with a pension--so-called--of half his salary. But +what was his salary? Two thousand dollars--two thousand dollars at +the end of forty years!! You and I, and old Huntington College, +turned old Hoddy out to pasture, this pasture, on a thousand a year! +And to-night, right now, he's lying in Bellevue, both legs broken, +skull fractured, and not a damn cent in the world except insurance +enough to bury him. And to-morrow he'll be ours to bury, boys--old +Hoddy Irving!" + +A confusion of voices rose in the room, and over them all a +"No!" from some one who seemed to cry out in pain. + +"Yes!" said Middleton as the murmurs ceased. "Our old Hoddy, starving, +loaded up with debt, alone, down in a miserable hall bedroom in +Stuyvesant Square. How did I come to know about it? One of our +reporters, who covers Bellevue, dug up the story in his day's work. +They brought in this old, disheveled, unconscious man--and in his +pocket was his name. Kenyon, the reporter, went over to the house on +the Square and found there another old fellow that old Hoddy chummed +some with, and who knew all the circumstances. + +"It seems Hoddy had an invalid old sister--and they hadn't any money +except this pension. How the two old souls got along no one will +never know. But she died awhile ago, and that put Hoddy into a lot +more debt. And this miserable little eighty dollars a month has had +to carry him and his debts. And not a whimper that old man utters. +Always kindly, Hoddy was, always telling stories from the forty years +at Huntington--and we fellows here, a lot of us rotten with money, +and not knowing that the old fellow---" + +Middleton's voice broke. It was some time before he proceeded. + +"This afternoon, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, +just as that tornado broke, he tried to cross the street. He got in +a jam of cars, and of course the windshields were all mussed up with +rain, and the chauffeurs couldn't see anything ahead--and they don't +know whose car it was. The police say it was just four thirty-one +when they picked him up. + +"Well, that's all, except that--I'm going down to Bellevue, and if +one or two of you want to come--perhaps old Hoddy will know us--even +this late." + +Middleton had finished. From various parts of the room came the words: +"I'll go! Let me go!" Men were frankly wiping their eyes. + +At a distant table arose Martin Delano. He was reputed to be the +wealthiest alumnus of Huntington. He was said to have made almost +fabulous millions during the war. In the Street he was known as +"Merciless Martin." They were planning to strike him this evening +for at least a hundred thousand. + +Martin Delano stood holding the edge of the table with one hand, the +other fingering a spoon on the table. He stood there long. Several +times he opened his lips as though to speak. He took out his +handkerchief and wiped his cheeks and forehead. Evidently he was +deeply moved. + +"Mr. Toastmaster, may I ask the privilege of going down to Bellevue +with Mr. Middleton? I would ask that I be allowed to insist on going +down. I have sinned, grievously sinned, in forgetting old Hoddy. Now, +when it's too late----Thirty years ago, and more, when I was a green, +frightened freshman from Vermont, he took me to his heart. He was +known as the Freshman's Friend. That's what Hoddy always did--take +the green and frightened freshman to his heart. Probably, if he +hadn't done that to me, I'd have gone back home in my lonesomeness. +And then---- + +"Yes, I have sinned--and it might have been so different. I want to +go down there! And I'm coming back here, before you men are through +to-night, and I'll tell you more." + +At about half-past ten Martin Delano came back. He walked into the +room just as one of the speakers had finished. The toastmaster +caught his eye and beckoned to him to come to the speaker's table. +Delano stood in front of the crowd. He had walked forward, seeing no +one on his way. + +"Hoddy--Hoddy has gone, boys!" + +Then quickly, silently, the three hundred men arose and stood. After +a time they heard Delano say: "Sit down, boys." + +He waited till they were seated. "There's a lot that I might tell, +men--terrible things--that I won't tell, for it's all over. Just +this--and I suppose you're about through now and breaking up. It was +the poor old Prof. of ours--shattered, deathly white, a lot older. +But will you believe it, the same dear old smile, or almost a smile, +on his face! Unconscious, but babbling. And about what? The +college--Alma Mater! Those were just the words--Alma Mater! The +college that gave him the half pay and forgot him on the very night +when we are trying to raise a miserable two million, that things like +this sha'n't happen again!" + +"And boys, when we bent over him and whispered our names, he seemed +after a while to understand that we were there--but in the classroom, +the old Number 3 in Holmes Hall! And fellows, he called on--on me to +recite----" + +Merciless Martin Delano couldn't go on. Finally he spoke. + +"And so, Mr. President, I wish, sir, as a slight token of my +appreciation of what that simple great man has done for Huntington +College to give to our Alma Mater--our Alma Mater, sir--the sum of +two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be used for the erection +of a suitable building, for whatever purpose is most necessary, and +that building to be called after Horace Irving. + +"And sir, I also desire to give to the fund for properly providing +for the salaries of our professors and other teachers, the sum of +two hundred and fifty thousand dollars--those men who teach in our +Alma Mater. + +"And I ask one word more: I have arranged that Professor Irving is +to be buried from my house. If you will permit me, I will leave now." + +The alumni of Huntington College were silent. There was no sound, +save the occasional pushing of a chair, or the click of a plate or a +glass upon the table, as Martin Delano passed from the room. + +It was after one o'clock. Martin Delano was in his library, his arms +flung across the table, his face between them. + +In the opaque blur of swirling rain, his car had passed the corner +of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street at precisely half-past four that +afternoon. He had happened to take out his watch at the moment the +Metropolitan clock struck the second quarter. + +He would never know whether it had been his car or another! + + + + +SLOW POISON + + +BY ALICE DUER MILLER + +From _The Saturday Evening Post_ + + +The Chelmsford divorce had been accomplished with the utmost decorum, +not only outwardly in the newspapers, but inwardly among a group of +intimate friends. They were a homogeneous couple--were liked by the +same people, enjoyed the same things, and held many friends in common. +These were able to say with some approach to certainty that everyone +had behaved splendidly, even the infant of twenty-three with whom +Julian had fallen in love. + +Of course there will always be the question--and we used to argue it +often in those days--how well a man can behave who, after fifteen +perfectly satisfactory years of married life, admits that he has +fallen in love with another woman. But if you believe in the +clap-of-thunder theory, as I do, why, then, for a man nearing forty, +taken off his feet by a blond-headed girl, Julian, too, behaved +admirably. + +As for Mrs. Julian, there was never any doubt as to her conduct. I +used to think her--and I was not alone in the opinion--the most +perfect combination of gentleness and power, and charity and humour, +that I had ever seen. She was a year or so older than Julian--though +she did not look it--and a good deal wiser, especially in the ways +of the world; and, oddly enough, one of the features that worried us +most in the whole situation was how he was ever going to get on, in +the worldly sense, without her. He was to suffer not only from the +loss of her counsel but from the lack of her indorsement. There are +certain women who are a form of insurance to a man; and Anne gave a +poise and solidity to Julian's presentation of himself which his own +flibbertigibbet manner made particularly necessary. + +I think this view of the matter disturbed Anne herself, though she +was too clever to say so; or perhaps too numbed by the utter wreck +of her own life to see as clearly as usual the rocks ahead of Julian. +It was she, I believe, who first mentioned, who first thought of +divorce, and certainly she who arranged the details. Julian, still +in the more ideal stage of his emotion, had hardly wakened to the +fact that his new love was marriageable. But Mrs. Julian, with the +practical eye of her sex, saw in a flash all it might mean to him, +at his age, to begin life again with a young beauty who adored him. + +She saw this, at least, as soon as she saw anything; for Julian, +like most of us when the occasion rises, developed a very pretty +power of concealment. He had for a month been seeing Miss Littell +every day before any of us knew that he went to see her at all. +Certainly Anne, unsuspicious by nature, was unprepared for the +revelation. + +It took place in the utterly futile, unnecessary way such +revelations always do take place. The two poor innocent dears had +allowed themselves a single indiscretion; they had gone out together, +a few days before Christmas, to buy some small gifts for each other. +They had had an adventure with a beggar, an old man wise enough to +take advantage of the holiday season, and the no less obvious +holiday in the hearts of this pair. He had forced them to listen to +some quaint variant of the old story, and they had between them +given him all the small change they had left--sixty-seven cents, I +think it was. + +That evening at dinner Julian, ever so slightly afraid of the long +pause, had told Anne the story as if it had happened to him alone. A +few days afterward the girl, whom she happened to meet somewhere or +other, displaying perhaps a similar nervousness, told the same story. +Even the number of cents agreed. + +I spoke a moment ago of the extraordinary power of concealment which +we all possess; but I should have said the negative power to avoid +exciting suspicion. Before that moment, before the finger points at +us, the fool can deceive the sage; and afterward not even the sage +can deceive the veriest fool. + +Julian had no desire to lie to his wife. Indeed, he told me he had +felt from the first that she would be his fittest confidante. He +immediately told her everything--a dream rather than a narrative. + +Nowhere did Anne show her magnanimity more than in accepting the +rather extravagant financial arrangements which Julian insisted on +making for her. He was not a rich man, and she the better economist +of the two. We knew she saw that in popular esteem Julian would pay +the price of her pride if she refused, and that in this ticklish +moment of his life the least she could do was to let him have the +full credit for his generosity. + +"And after all," as she said to me, "young love can afford to go +without a good many things necessary to old age." + +It was the nearest I heard her come to a complaint. + +As soon as everything was settled she sailed for Florence, where she +had friends and where, she intimated, she meant to spend most of her +time. + +I said good-by to her with real emotion, and the phrase I used as to +my wish to serve her was anything but a convention. + +Nor did she take it so. + +"Help Julian through this next year," she said. "People will take it +harder than he knows. He'll need you all." And she was kind enough +to add something about my tact. Poor lady! She must have mentally +withdrawn her little compliment before we met many times again. + + + + +II + + +Perhaps the only fault in Anne's education of her husband had been +her inability to cling. In his new menage this error was rectified, +and the effect on him was conspicuously good; in fact, I think Rose's +confidence in his greatness pulled them through the difficult time. + +For there was no denying that it was difficult. Many people looked +coldly on them, and I know there was even some talk of asking him to +resign from the firm of architects of which he was a member. The +other men were all older, and very conservative. Julian represented +to them everything that was modern and dangerous. Granger, the +leading spirit, was in the habit of describing himself as holding +old-fashioned views, by which he meant that he had all the virtues +of the Pilgrim Fathers and none of their defects. I never liked him, +but I could not help respecting him. The worst you could say of him +was that his high standards were always successful. + +You felt that so fanatical a sense of duty ought to have required +some sacrifices. + +To such a man Julian's conduct appeared not only immoral but +inadvisable, and unfitting in a young man, especially without +consulting his senior partners. + +We used to say among ourselves that Granger's reason for wanting to +get rid of Julian was not any real affection for the dim old moral +code, but rather his acute realization that without Anne his junior +partner was a less valuable asset. + +Things were still hanging fire when I paid her the first of my +annual visits. She was dreadfully distressed at my account of the +situation. She had the manner one sometimes sees in dismissed nurses +who meet their former little charges unwashed or uncared for. She +could hardly believe it was no longer her business to put the whole +matter right. + +"Can't she do something for him?" she said. "Make her bring him a +great building. That would save him." + +It was this message that I carried home to Rose; at least I suggested +the idea to her as if it were my own. I had my doubts of her being +able to carry it out. + +Out of loyalty to Julian, or perhaps I ought to say out of loyalty to +Anne, we had all accepted Rose, but we should soon have loved her in +any case. She was extraordinarily sweet and docile, and gave us, +those at least who were not parents, our first window to the east, +our first link with the next generation, just at the moment when we +were relinquishing the title ourselves. I am afraid that some of the +males among us envied Julian more than perhaps in the old days we +had ever envied him Anne. + +But we hardly expected her to further his career as Anne had done, +and yet, oddly enough, that was exactly what she did. Her methods +had all the effectiveness of youth and complete conviction. She +forced Julian on her friends and relations, not so much on his +account as on theirs. She wanted them to be sure of the best. The +result was that orders flowed in. Things took a turn for the better +and continued to improve, as I was able to report to Anne when I +went to see her at Florence or at Paris. She was always well lodged, +well served, and surrounded by the pleasantest people, yet each time +I saw her she had a look exiled and circumscribed, a look I can only +describe as that of a spirit in reduced circumstances. + +She was always avid for details of Julian and all that concerned him, +and as times improved I was stupid enough to suppose I pleased her by +giving them from the most favourable angle. It seemed to me quite +obvious, as I saw how utterly she had ruined her own life, that she +ought at least to have the comfort of knowing that she had not +sacrificed it in vain. And so I allowed myself, not an exaggeration +but a candour more unrestrained than would be usual in the +circumstances. + +Led on by her burning interest I told her many things I might much +better have kept to myself; not only accounts of his work and his +household and any new friends in our old circle, but we had all been +amazed to see a sense of responsibility develop in Julian in answer +to his new wife's dependence on him. With this had come a certain +thoughtfulness in small attentions, which, I saw too late, Anne must +always have missed in him. She was so much more competent in the +smaller achievements of life than he that it had been wisdom to leave +them to her; and Anne had often traveled alone and attended to the +luggage, when now Rose was personally conducted like a young empress. +The explanation was simple enough: Anne had the ability to do it, +and the other had not. Even if I had stopped to think, I might fairly +have supposed that Anne would find some flattery in the contrast. I +should have been wrong. + +Almost the first thing she asked me was whether he came home to +luncheon. In old times, though his house was only a few blocks from +his office, he had always insisted that it took too much time. Anne +had never gained her point with him, though she put some force into +the effort. Now I had to confess he did. + +"It's much better for him," she said with pleasure, and quite +deceived me; herself, too, perhaps. + +Yet even I, for all my blindness, felt some uneasiness the year +Rose's son was born. I do not think the desire for offspring had +ever taken up a great deal of room in Julian's consciousness, but of +course Anne had wanted children, and I felt very cruel, sitting in +her little apartment in Paris, describing the baby who ought to have +been hers. How different her position would have been now if she had +some thin-legged little girl to educate or some raw-boned boy to +worry over; and there was that overblessed woman at home, necessary +not only to Julian but to Julian's son. + +It was this same year, but at a later visit, that I first became +aware of a change in Anne. At first the charm of her surroundings, +her pretty clothes, even to the bright little buckles on her shoes, +blinded me to the fact that she herself was changed. I do not mean +that she was aged. One of the delightful things about her was that +she was obviously going to make an admirable old lady; the delicate +boniness of her face and the clearness of her skin assured that. +This was a change more fundamental. Even in her most distracted days +Anne had always maintained a certain steadiness of head. She had +trodden thorny paths, but she had always known where she was going. +I had seen her eyelids red, but I had never failed to find in the +eyes themselves the promise of a purpose. But now it was gone. I +felt as if I were looking into a little pool which had been troubled +by a stone, and I waiting vainly for the reflection to re-form itself. + +So painful was the impression that before I sailed for home I tried +to convey to her the dangers of her mood. + +"I think you are advising me to be happy," she said. + +"I am advising no such thing," I answered. "I am merely pointing out +that you run the risk of being more unhappy than you are. My +visits--or rather the news I bring you--are too important to you. +You make me feel as if it were the only event of the year--to you +who have always had such an interesting life of your own." + +"I have not had a life of my own since I was twenty," she returned. +It was at twenty she had married. + +"Then think of Julian," I said, annoyed not only at my own clumsiness +but at the absence of anything of Anne's old heroic spirit. +"For his sake, at least, you must keep your head. Why, my dear woman, +one look at your face, grown as desperate as it sometimes appears now, +would ruin Julian with the whole world. Even I, knowing the whole +story, would find it hard to forgive him if you should fail to +continue to be the splendid triumphant creature whom we know you +were designed to be." + +She gave me a long queer look, which meant something tremendous. +Evidently my words had made an impression. + +They had, but not just the one I intended. + + + +III + +One of the first people I always saw on returning was Julian. How +often he thought of Anne I do not know, but he spoke of her with the +greatest effort. He invariably took care to assure himself that she +was physically well, but beyond this it would have been a brave +person who dared to go. He did not want to hear the details of her +life and appearance. + +It was with some trepidation, therefore, that a few months after +this I came to tell him that Anne was about to return to America. +Why she was coming, or for how long, her letter did not say. I only +knew that the second Saturday in December would see her among us +again. It seemed fair to assume that her stay would not be long. +Julian evidently thought so for he arranged to be in the West for +three or four weeks. + +I went to meet her. The day was cold and rainy, and as soon as I saw +her I made up my mind that the crossing had been a bad one, and I +was glad no one else had come to the wharf with me. She was standing +by the rail, wrapped in a voluminous fur coat--the fashions were +slim in the extreme--and her hat was tied on by a blue veil. + +I may as well admit that from the moment I heard of her projected +return I feared that her real motive for coming, conscious or +unconscious, was to see Julian again. So when I told her of his +absence I was immensely relieved that she took it as a matter of +course. + +"I suppose we might have met," she observed. "As it is, I can go +about without any fear of an awkward encounter." I say I was relieved, +but I was also excessively puzzled. Why had Anne come home? + +It was a question I was to hear answered in a variety of ways during +the next few months, by many of Anne's friends and partisans; for, +as I think I have said, Anne had inspired great attachment since her +earliest days. Why had she come home? they exclaimed. Why not, pray? +Had she done anything criminal that she was to be exiled? Did I +think it pleasant to live abroad on a small income? Even if she +could get on without her friends, could they do without her? + +The tone of these questions annoyed me not a little when I heard them, +which was not for some time. Soon after Anne's arrival I, too, was +called away, and it was not until February that I returned and was +met by the carefully set piece--Anne the Victim. + +With that ill-advised self-confidence of which I have already made +mention, I at once set about demolishing this picture. I told Anne's +friends, who were also mine, that she would thank them very little +for their attitude. I found myself painting her life abroad as a +delirium of intellect and luxury. I even found myself betraying +professional secrets and arguing with total strangers as to the +amount of her income. + +Even in Montreal faint echoes of this state of things had reached me, +but not until I went to see Anne on my return did I get any idea of +their cause. She had taken a furnished apartment from a friend, in a +dreary building in one of the West Forties. Only a jutting front of +limestone and an elevator man in uniform saved it, or so it seemed +to me, from being an old-fashioned boarding house. Its windows, small, +as if designed for an African sun, looked northward upon a darkened +street. Anne's apartment was on the second floor, and the +requirements of some caryatids on the outside rendered her +fenestration particularly meager. Her friend, if indeed it were a +friend, had not treated her generously in the matter of furniture. +She had left nothing superfluous but two green glass jugs on the +mantelpiece, and had covered the chairs with a chintz, the +groundwork of which was mustard colour. + +Another man who was there when I came in, who evidently had known +Anne in different surroundings, expressed the most hopeful view +possible when he said that doubtless it would all look charming when +she had arranged her own belongings. + +Anne made a little gesture. "I haven't any belongings," she said. + +I didn't know what she meant, perhaps merely a protest against the +tyranny of things, but I saw the effect her speech produced on her +auditor. Perhaps she saw it too, for presently she added: "Oh, yes! +I have one." + +And she went away, and came back carrying a beautiful old silver +loving cup. I knew it well. It came from Julian's forebears. Anne +had always loved it, and I was delighted that she should have it now. +She set it on a table before a mirror, and here it did a double +share to make the room possible. + +When we were alone I expressed my opinion of her choice of lodgings. + +"This sunless cavern!" I said. "This parlour-car furniture!" + +She looked a little hurt. "You don't like it?" she said. + +"Do you?" I snapped back. + +After a time I had recourse to the old argument that it didn't look +well; that it wasn't fair to Julian. But she had been expecting this. + +"My dear Walter," she answered, "you must try to be more consistent. +In Paris you told me that I must cease to regulate my life by Julian. +You were quite right. This place pleases me, and I don't intend to go +to a hotel, which I hate, or to take a house, which is a bother, in +order to soothe Julian's feelings. I have begun to lead my life to +suit myself." + +The worst of it was, I could think of no answer. + +A few evenings afterward we dined at the same house. Anne arrived +with a scarf on her head, under the escort of a maid. She had come +in a trolley car. Nobody's business but her own, perhaps, if she +would have allowed it to remain so, but when she got up to go, and +other people were talking of their motors' being late, Anne had to +say: "Mine is never late; it goes past the corner every minute." + +I could almost hear a sigh, "Poor angel!" go round the room. + +The next thing that happened was that Julian sent for me. He was in +what we used to call in the nursery "a state." + +"What's this I hear about Anne's being hard up?" he said. "Living in +a nasty flat, and going out to dinner in the cars?" And he wouldn't +listen to an explanation. "She must take more; she must be made to +take more." + +I had one of my most unfortunate inspirations. I thought I saw an +opportunity for Julian to make an impression. + +"I don't think she would listen to me," I said. "Why don't you get +Mr. Granger to speak to her?" + +The idea appealed to Julian. He admired Mr. Granger, and remembered +that he and Anne had been friends. Whereas I thought, of course, that +Mr. Granger would thus be made to see that the fault, if there were +a fault, was not of Julian's generosity. Stupidly enough I failed to +see that if Julian's offer was graceful Anne's gesture of refusal +would be upon a splendid scale. + +And it must have been very large, indeed, to stir old Granger as it +did. He told me there had been tears in his eyes while she spoke of +her husband's kindness. Kindness! He could not but compare her +surroundings with the little house, all geraniums and muslin curtains, +in which the new Mrs. Chelmsford was lodged. Anne had refused, of +course. In the circumstances she could not accept. She said she had +quite enough for a single woman. The phrase struck Granger as almost +unbearably pathetic. + +One day I noticed the loving cup--which was always on Anne's table, +which was admired by everyone who came to the apartment, and was +said to recall her, herself, so pure and graceful and perfect--one +day the loving cup was gone. + +I was so surprised when my eye fell on its vacant place that I +blurted out: "Goodness, Anne, where's your cup?" + +The next moment I could have bitten out my tongue. Anne stood still +in the middle of the room, twisting her hands a little, and +everyone--there were three or four of us there--stopped talking. + +"Oh," she said, "oh, Walter, I know you'll scold me for being +officious and wrong-headed, but I have sent the cup back to Julian's +son. I think he ought to have it." + +Everyone else thought the deed extremely noble. I took my hat and +went to Rose. Rose was not very enthusiastic. A beautiful letter had +accompanied the cup. We discussed the advisability of sending it back; +but of course that would have done no good. The devilish part of a +favour is that to accept or reject it is often equally incriminating. +Anne held the situation in the hollow of her hand. Besides, as Rose +pointed out, we couldn't very well return it without asking Julian, +and we had both agreed that for the present Julian had better remain +in ignorance of the incident. He would have thought it mean-spirited +to allow any instance of Anne's generosity to remain concealed from +the public. Rose and I were willing to allow it to drop. + +I was sorry, therefore, when I found, soon after, not only that +everyone knew of the gift but that phrases of the beautiful letter +itself were current, with marks of authenticity upon them. It was +not hard to trace them to Anne's intimates. + +I have no idea to this day whether Anne was deliberately trying to +ruin the man for whom she had sacrificed so much; or whether one of +those large, unconscious, self-indulgent movements of our natures +was carrying her along the line of least resistance. There are some +people, I know, who can behave well only so long as they have the +centre of the stage, and are driven by a necessity almost moral to +regain such a place at any cost, so that they may once again begin +the exercise of their virtues. + +Anne's performance was too perfect, I thought, for conscious art, +and she was not a genius. She was that most dangerous of all engines, +a good person behaving wickedly. All her past of high-mindedness and +kindness protected her now like an armour from the smallest suspicion. +All the grandeur of her conduct at the time of the divorce was +remembered as a proof that she at least had a noble soul. Who could +doubt that she wished him well? + +If so, she soon appeared to be the only person who did. For, as we +all know, pity is one of the most dangerous passions to unloose. It +demands a victim. We rise to pathos, only over the dead bodies of +our nearest and dearest. + +Every phrase, every gesture of Anne's stirred one profoundly, and it +was inevitable, I suppose, that Julian should be selected as the +sacrifice. I noticed that people began to speak of him in the past, +though he was still moving among us--"As Julian used to say." + +He and Anne fortunately never met, but she and the new Mrs. Julian +had one encounter in public. If even then Anne would have shown the +slightest venom all might still have been well. But, no, the worn, +elderly woman, face to face with the young beauty who had possessed +herself of everything in the world, showed nothing but a tenderness +so perfect that every heart was wrung. I heard Rose criticized for +not receiving her in the same spirit. + +The next day Julian was blackballed at a philanthropic club at which +he had allowed himself to be proposed merely from a sense of civic +duty. + +Over the incident I know Anne wept. I heard her tears. + +"Oh, if I could have spared him that!" she said. + +My eyes were cold, but those of Mr. Granger, who came in while her +eyelids were still red, were full of fire. + +She spent a week with the Grangers that summer. The whole +family--wife, sons and daughters--had all yielded to the great +illusion. + +It must not be supposed that I had failed to warn Julian. The +supineness of his attitude was one of the most irritating features +of the case. He answered me as if I were violating the dead; asked +me if by any chance I didn't see he deserved all he was getting. + +No one was surprised when in the autumn he resigned from his firm. +There had been friction between the partners for some time. Soon +afterward he and Rose sailed for Italy, where they have lived ever +since. He had scarcely any income except that which he made in his +profession; his capital had gone to Anne. He probably thought that +what he had would go further abroad. + +I do not know just how Anne took his departure, except that I am +sure she was wonderful about it. I had ceased to see her. She has, +however, any number of new friends, whose fresh interest in her +story keeps it continually alive. She has given up her ugly flat and +taken a nice little house, and in summer I notice she has red +geraniums in the window boxes. I often see a nice little motor +standing before her door--the result doubtless of a year's economy. + +Whenever her friends congratulate her on the improvement in her +finances she says she owes it all to me--I am such an excellent man +of business. + +"I admire Walter so much," I am told she says, "though I'm afraid I +have lost him as a friend. But then, in the last few years I have +lost so much." And she smiles that brave sad smile of hers. + + + + +THE FACE IN THE WINDOW + + +BY WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY + +From _The Red Book_ + + +At nine o'clock this morning Sheriff Crumpett entered our New England +town post-office for his mail. From his box he extracted his monthly +Grand Army paper and a letter in a long yellow envelope. This +envelope bore the return-stamp of a prominent Boston lumber-company. +The old man crossed the lobby to the writing-shelf under the Western +Union clock, hooked black-rimmed glasses on a big nose and tore a +generous inch from the end of the envelope. + +The first inclosure which met his eyes was a check. It was heavy and +pink and crisp, and was attached to the single sheet of letter-paper +with a clip. Impressed into the fabric of the safety-paper were the +indelible figures of a protector: _Not over Five Thousand_ ($5000) +_Dollars_. + +The sheriff read the name of the person to whom it was payable and +gulped. His gnarled old hand trembled with excitement as he glanced +over the clipped letter and then went through it again. + + + November 10, 1919. + + MY DEAR SHERIFF: + + Enclosed please find my personal check for five thousand dollars. + It is made out to Mrs. McBride. Never having known the lady + personally, + and because you have evidently represented her with the authorities, + I am sending it to you for proper delivery. I feel, from your + enthusiastic account of her recent experience, that it will give + you + pleasure to present it to her. + + Under the circumstances I do not begrudge the money. When first + advised of Ruggam's escape, it was hot-headed impulse which + prompted + me to offer a reward so large. The old clan-blood of the Wileys + must + have made me murder-mad that Ruggam should regain his freedom + permanently + after the hellish thing he did to my brother. The newspapers heard + of it, + and then I could not retract. + + That, however, is a thing of the past. I always did detest a + welcher, + and if this money is going to a woman to whom it will be manna from + heaven--to use your words--I am satisfied. Convey to her my + personal + congratulations, gratitude and best wishes. + + Cordially yours, + + C. V. D. WILEY. + + +"Good old Chris!" muttered the sheriff. "He's rich because he's white." +He thrust both check and letter back into the long envelope and +headed for the office of our local daily paper at a smart pace. + +The earning of five thousand dollars reward-money by Cora McBride +made an epochal news-item, and in that night's paper we headlined it +accordingly--not omitting proper mention of the sheriff and giving +him appropriate credit. + +Having so started the announcement permeating through the community, +the old man employed the office phone and called the local +livery-stable. He ordered a rig in which he might drive at once to +the McBride house in the northern part of town. + +"But half that money ought to be yourn!" protested the proprietor of +the stable as the sheriff helped him "gear up the horse" a few +minutes later. + +"Under the circumstances, Joseph, can you see me takin' it? No; it +ain't in me to horn in for no rake-off on one o' the Lord's miracles." + +The old man climbed into the sleigh, took the reins from the +liveryman and started the horse from the livery yard. + +Two weeks ago--on Monday, the twenty-seventh of the past October--the +telephone-bell rang sharply in our newspaper-office a few moments +before the paper went to press. Now, the telephone-bell often rings +in our newspaper-office a few moments before going to press. The +confusion on this particular Monday afternoon, however, resulted from +Albany calling on the long-distance. Albany--meaning the nearest +office of the international press-association of which our paper is +a member--called just so, out of a clear sky, on the day McKinley +was assassinated, on the day the _Titanic_ foundered and on the day +Austria declared war on Serbia. + +The connection was made, and over the wire came the voice of young +Stewart, crisp as lettuce. + +"Special dispatch ... Wyndgate, Vermont, October 27th ... Ready?" +The editor of our paper answered in the affirmative. The rest of us +grouped anxiously around his chair. Stewart proceeded: + +"'Hapwell Ruggam, serving a life-sentence for the murder of Deputy +Sheriff Martin Wiley at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two years ago, +killed Jacob Lambwell, his guard, and escaped from prison at noon +to-day. + +"'Ruggam had been given some repair work to do near the outer +prison-gate. It was opened to admit a tradesman's automobile. As +Guard Lambwell turned to close the gate, Ruggam felled him with his +shovel. He escaped to the adjacent railroad-yards, stole a corduroy +coat and pair of blue overalls hanging in a switchman's shanty and +caught the twelve-forty freight up Green River.'" + +Stewart had paused. The editor scribbled frantically. In a few words +aside he explained to us what Stewart was sending. Then he ordered +the latter to proceed. + +"'Freight Number Eight was stopped by telegraph near Norwall. The +fugitive, assuming correctly that it was slowing down for search, +was seen by a brakeman fleeing across a pasture between the tracks +and the eastern edge of Haystack Mountain. Several posses have +already started after him, and sheriffs all through northern New +England are being notified. + +"'Christopher Wiley, lumber magnate and brother of Ruggam's former +victim, on being told of the escape, has offered a reward of five +thousand dollars for Ruggam's capture, dead or alive. Guard Lambwell +was removed to a hospital, where he died at one-thirty'.... _All +right_?" + +The connection was broken, and the editor removed the headpiece. He +began giving orders. We were twenty minutes behind usual time with +the papers, but we made all the trains. + +When the big Duplex was grinding out newsprint with a roar that shook +the building, the boys and girls gathered around to discuss the thing +which had happened. + +The Higgins boy, saucer-eyed over the experience of being "on the +inside" during the handling of the first sizable news-story since he +had become our local reporter, voiced the interrogation on the faces +of other office newcomers. + +"Ruggam," the editor explained, "is a poor unfortunate who should +have been sent to an asylum instead of the penitentiary. He killed +Mart Wiley, a deputy sheriff, at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two +years ago." + +"Where's the Lost Nation?" + +"It's a term applied to most of the town of Partridgeville in the +northern part of the county--an inaccessible district back in the +mountains peopled with gone-to-seed stock and half-civilized +illiterates who only get into the news when they load up with +squirrel whisky and start a programme of progressive hell. Ruggam +was the local blacksmith." + +"What's a kitchen-dance?" + +"Ordinarily a kitchen-dance is harmless enough. But the Lost Nation +folks use it as an excuse for a debauch. They gather in some sizable +shack, set the stove out into the yard, soak themselves in aromatic +spirits of deviltry and dance from Saturday night until Monday +noon----" + +"And this Ruggam killed a sheriff at one of them?" + +"He got into a brawl with another chap about his wife. Someone +passing saw the fight and sent for an officer. Mart Wiley was deputy, +afraid of neither man, God nor devil. Martin had grown disgusted +over the petty crime at these kitchen-dances and started out to +clean up this one right. Hap Ruggam killed him. He must have had help, +because he first got Mart tied to a tree in the yard. Most of the +crowd was pie-eyed by this time, anyhow, and would fight at the drop +of a hat. After tying him securely, Ruggam caught up a billet of +wood and--and killed him with that." + +"Why didn't they electrocute him?" demanded young Higgins. + +"Well, the murder wasn't exactly premeditated. Hap wasn't himself; +he was drunk--not even able to run away when Sheriff Crumpett +arrived in the neighbourhood to take him into custody. Then there +was Hap's bringing up. All these made extenuating circumstances." + +"There was something about Sheriff Wiley's pompadour," suggested our +little lady proofreader. + +"Yes," returned the editor. "Mart had a queer head of hair. It was +dark and stiff, and he brushed it straight back in a pompadour. When +he was angry or excited, it actually rose on his scalp like wire. +Hap's counsel made a great fuss over Mart's pompadour and the part +it sort of played in egging Hap on. The sight of it, stiffening and +rising the way it did maddened Ruggam so that he beat it down +hysterically in retaliation for the many grudges he fancied +he owed the officer. No, it was all right to make the sentence +life-imprisonment, only it should have been an asylum. Hap's not +right. You'd know it without being told. I guess it's his eyes. They +aren't mates. They light up weirdly when he's drunk or excited, and +if you know what's healthy, you get out of the way." + +By eight o'clock that evening most of the valley's deer-hunters, all +of the local adventurers who could buy, borrow or beg a rifle, and +the usual quota of high-school sons of thoughtless parents were off +on the man-hunt in the eastern mountains. + +Among them was Sheriff Crumpett's party. On reaching the timberline +they separated. It was agreed that if any of them found signs of +Ruggam, the signal for assistance was five shots in quick succession +"and keep shooting at intervals until the rest come up." + +We newspaper folk awaited the capture with professional interest and +pardonable excitement.... + +In the northern part of our town, a mile out on the Wickford road, +is the McBride place. It is a small white house with a red barn in +the rear and a neat rail fence inclosing the whole. Six years ago +Cora McBride was bookkeeper in the local garage. Her maiden name was +Allen. The town called her "Tomboy Allen." She was the only daughter +of old Zeb Allen, for many years our county game-warden. Cora, as we +had always known--and called--her, was a full-blown, red-blooded, +athletic girl who often drove cars for her employer in the days when +steering-wheels manipulated by women were offered as clinching proof +that society was headed for the dogs. + +Duncan McBride was chief mechanic in the garage repairshop. He was +an affable, sober, steady chap, popularly known as "Dunk the +Dauntless" because of an uncanny ability to cope successfully with +the ailments of 90 per cent, of the internal-combustion hay-balers +and refractory tin-Lizzies in the county when other mechanics had +given them up in disgust. + +When he married his employer's bookkeeper, Cora's folks gave her a +wedding that carried old Zeb within half an hour of insolvency and +ran to four columns in the local daily. Duncan and the Allen girl +motored to Washington in a demonstration-car, and while Dunk was +absent, the yard of the garage resembled the premises about a +junkshop. On their return they bought the Johnson place, and Cora +quickly demonstrated the same furious enthusiasm for homemaking and +motherhood that she had for athletics and carburetors. + +Three years passed, and two small boys crept about the yard behind +the white rail fence. Then--when Duncan and his wife were "making a +great go of matrimony" in typical Yankee fashion--came the tragedy +that took all the vim out of Cora, stole the ruddy glow from her +girlish features and made her middle-aged in a twelvemonth. In the +infantile-paralysis epidemic which passed over New England three +years ago the McBrides suffered the supreme sorrow--twice. Those +small boys died within two weeks of each other. + +Duncan of course kept on with his work at the garage. He was quieter +and steadier than ever. But when we drove into the place to have a +carburetor adjusted or a rattle tightened, we saw only too plainly +that on his heart was a wound the scars of which would never heal. +As for Cora, she was rarely seen in the village. + +Troubles rarely come singly. One afternoon this past August, Duncan +completed repairs on Doc Potter's runabout. Cranking the machine to +run it from the workshop, the "dog" on the safety-clutch failed to +hold. The acceleration of the engine threw the machine into high. +Dunk was pinned in front while the roadster leaped ahead and rammed +the delivery truck of the Red Front Grocery. + +Duncan was taken to our memorial hospital with internal injuries and +dislocation of his spine. He remained there many weeks. In fact, he +had been home only a couple of days when the evening stage left in +the McBride letter-box the daily paper containing the story of +Ruggam's "break" and of the reward offered for his capture. + +Cora returned to the kitchen after obtaining the paper and sank +wearily into a wooden chair beside the table with the red cloth. +Spreading out the paper, she sought the usual mental distraction in +the three-and four-line bits which make up our local columns. + +As the headlines caught her eye, she picked up the paper and entered +the bedroom where Duncan lay. There were telltale traces of tears on +his unshaven face, and an ache in his discouraged heart that would +not be assuaged, for it was becoming rumoured about the village that +Dunk the Dauntless might never operate on the vitals of an ailing +tin-Lizzie again. + +"Dunnie," cried his wife, "Hap Ruggam's escaped!" Sinking down beside +the bedroom lamp, she read him the article aloud. + +Her husband's name was mentioned therein; for when the sheriff had +commandeered an automobile from the local garage to convey him and +his posse to Lost Nation and secure Ruggam, Duncan had been called +forth to preside at the steering-wheel. He had thus assisted in the +capture and later had been a witness at the trial. + +The reading ended, the man rolled his head. + +"If I wasn't held here, I might go!" he said. "I might try for that +five thousand myself!" + +Cora was sympathetic enough, of course, but she was fast approaching +the stage where she needed sympathy herself. + +"We caught him over on the Purcell farm," mused Duncan. "Something +ailed Ruggam. He was drunk and couldn't run. But that wasn't all. He +had had some kind of crazy-spell during or after the killing and +wasn't quite over it. We tied him and lifted him into the auto. His +face was a sight. His eyes aren't mates, anyhow, and they were wild +and unnatural. He kept shrieking something about a head of +hair--black hair--sticks up like wire. He must have had an awful +impression of Mart's face and that hair of his." + +"I remember about Aunt Mary Crumpett's telling me of the trouble her +husband had with his prisoner in the days before the trial," his +wife replied. "He had those crazy-spells often, nights. He kept +yelling that he saw Martin Wiley's head with its peculiar hair, and +his face peering in at him through the cell window. Sometimes he +became so bad that Sheriff Crumpett thought he'd have apoplexy +Finally he had to call Dr. Johnson to attend him." + +"Five thousand dollars!" muttered Duncan. "Gawd! I'd hunt the devil +_for nothing_ if I only had a chance of getting out of this bed." + +Cora smoothed her husband's rumpled bed, comforted him and laid her +own tired head down beside his hand. When he had dozed off, she +arose and left the room. + +In the kitchen she resumed her former place beside the table with +the cheap red cloth; and there, with her face in her hands, she +stared into endless distance. + +"Five thousand dollars! Five thousand dollars!" Over and over she +whispered the words, with no one to hear. + +The green-birch fire snapped merrily in the range. The draft sang in +the flue. Outside, a soft, feathery snow was falling, for winter +came early in the uplands of Vermont this past year. To Cora McBride, +however, the winter meant only hardship. Within another week she +must go into town and secure work. Not that she minded the labour +nor the trips through the vicious weather! The anguish was leaving +Duncan through those monotonous days before he should be up and +around. Those dreary winter days! What might they not do to +him--alone. + +Five thousand dollars! Like many others in the valley that night she +pictured with fluttering heart what it would mean to possess such a +sum of money; but not once in her pitiful flight of fancy did she +disregard the task which must be performed to gain that wealth. + +It meant traveling upward in the great snowbound reaches of Vermont +mountain-country and tracking down a murderer who had killed a +second time to gain his freedom and would stop at nothing again. + +And yet--_five thousand dollars_! + +How much will a person do, how far will a normal human being travel, +to earn five thousand dollars--if the need is sufficiently +provocative? + +As Cora McBride sat there in the homely little farmhouse kitchen and +thought of the debts still existent, contracted to save the already +stricken lives of two little lads forgotten now by all but herself +and Duncan and God, of the chances of losing their home if Duncan +could work no more and pay up the balance of their mortgage, of the +days when Duncan must lie in the south bedroom alone and count the +figures on the wallpaper--as she sat there and contemplated these +things, into Cora McBride's heart crept determination. + +At first it was only a faint challenge to her courage. As the +minutes passed, however, her imagination ran riot, with five +thousand dollars to help them in their predicament. The challenge +grew. Multitudes of women down all the years had attempted wilder +ventures for those who were dear to them. Legion in number had been +those who set their hands and hearts to greater tasks, made more +improbable sacrifices, taken greater chances. Multitudes of them, too, +had won--on little else than the courage of ignorance and the +strength of desperation. + +She had no fear of the great outdoors, for she had lived close to +the mountains from childhood and much of her old physical resiliency +and youthful daredeviltry remained. And the need was terrible; no +one anywhere in the valley, not even her own people, knew how +terrible. + +Cora McBride, alone by her table in the kitchen, that night made her +decision. + +She took the kitchen lamp and went upstairs. Lifting the top of a +leather trunk, she found her husband's revolver. With it was a belt +and holster, the former filled with cartridges. In the storeroom +over the back kitchen she unhooked Duncan's mackinaw and found her +own toboggan-cap. From a corner behind some fishing-rods she +salvaged a pair of summer-dried snowshoes; they had facilitated many +a previous hike in the winter woods with her man of a thousand +adventures. She searched until she found the old army-haversack +Duncan used as a game-bag. Its shoulder-straps were broken but a +length of rope sufficed to bind it about her shoulders, after she +had filled it with provisions. + +With this equipment she returned below-stairs. She drew on heavy +woollen stockings and buckled on arctics. She entered the cold +pantry and packed the knapsack with what supplies she could find at +the hour. She did not forget a drinking-cup, a hunting-knife or +matches. In her blouse she slipped a household flash-lamp. + +Dressed finally for the adventure, from the kitchen she called +softly to her husband. He did not answer. She was overwhelmed by a +desire to go into the south bedroom and kiss him, so much might +happen before she saw him again. But she restrained herself. She +must not waken him. + +She blew out the kerosene lamp, gave a last glance about +her familiar kitchen and went out through the shed door, closing it +softly behind her. + +It was one of those close, quiet nights when the bark of a distant +dog or whinny of a horse sounds very near at hand. The snow was +falling feathery. + +An hour later found her far to the eastward, following an old side +road that led up to the Harrison lumber-job. She had meantime paid +Dave Sheldon, a neighbour's boy, encountered by his gate, to stay +with Duncan during her absence which she explained with a white lie. +But her conscience did not bother. Her conscience might be called +upon to smother much more before the adventure was ended. + +Off in the depths of the snowing night she strode along, a weird +figure against the eerie whiteness that illumined the winter world. +She felt a strange wild thrill in the infinite out-of-doors. The +woodsman's blood of her father was having its little hour. + +And she knew the woods. Intuitively she felt that if Ruggam was on +Haystack Mountain making his way toward Lost Nation, he would strike +for the shacks of the Green Mountain Club or the deserted +logging-camps along the trail, secreting himself in them during his +pauses for rest, for he had no food, and provisions were often left +in these structures by hunters and mountain hikers. Her plan was +simple. She would investigate each group of buildings. She had the +advantage of starting on the northwest side of Haystack. She would +be working toward Ruggam, while the rest of the posses were trailing +him. + +Mile after mile she covered. She decided it must be midnight when +she reached the ghostly buildings of the Harrison tract, lying white +and silent under the thickening snow. It was useless to search these +cabins; they were too near civilization. Besides, if Ruggam had left +the freight at Norwall on the eastern side of Haystack at noon, he +had thirty miles to travel before reaching the territory from which +she was starting. So she skirted the abandoned quiet of the clearing, +laid the snowshoes properly down before her and bound the thongs +securely about her ankles. + +She had plenty of time to think of Ruggam as she padded along. He +had no snowshoes to aid him, unless he had managed to secure a pair +by burglary, which was improbable. So it was not difficult to +calculate about where she should begin watching for him. She +believed he would keep just off the main trail to avoid detection, +yet take its general direction in order to secure shelter and +possible food from the mountain buildings. When she reached the +country in which she might hope to encounter him, she would zigzag +across that main trail in order to pick up his foot-tracks if he had +passed her undetected. In that event she would turn and follow. She +knew that the snow was falling too heavily to continue in such +volume indefinitely; it would stop as suddenly as it had started. + +The hours of the night piled up. The silent, muffling snowfall +continued. And Cora McBride began to sense an alarming weariness. It +finally dawned upon her that her old-time vigour was missing. The +strength of youth was hers no longer. Two experiences of motherhood +and no more exercise than was afforded by the tasks of her household, +had softened her muscles. Their limitations were now disclosed. + +The realization of those limitations was accompanied by panic. She +was still many miles even from Blind Brook Cabin, and her limbs were +afire from the unaccustomed effort. This would never do. After +pauses for breath that were coming closer and closer together, she +set her lips each time grimly. "Tomboy Allen" had not counted on +succumbing to physical fatigue before she had climbed as far as +Blind Brook. If she were weakening already, what of those many miles +on the other side? + +Tuesday the twenty-eighth of October passed with no tidings of +Ruggam's capture. The Holmes boy was fatally shot by a rattleheaded +searcher near Five-Mile Pond, and distraught parents began to take +thought of their own lads missing from school. Adam MacQuarry broke +his leg near the Hell Hollow schoolhouse and was sent back by +friends on a borrowed bobsled. Several ne'er-do-wells, long on +impulse and short on stickability, drifted back to more comfortable +quarters during the day, contending that if Hap were captured, the +officers would claim the reward anyhow--so what was the use bucking +the System? + +The snowfall stopped in the early morning. Sunrise disclosed the +world trimmed from horizon to horizon in fairy fluff. Householders +jocosely shoveled their walks; small children resurrected attic sleds; +here and there a farmer appeared on Main Street during the forenoon +in a pung-sleigh or cutter with jingling bells. The sun soared higher, +and the day grew warmer. Eaves began dripping during the noon hour, +to stop when the sun sank about four o'clock behind Bancroft's hill. + +After the sunset came a perfect evening. The starlight was magic. +Many people called in at the newspaper-office, after the movies, to +learn if the man hunt had brought results. + +Between ten and eleven o'clock the lights on the valley floor +blinked out; the town had gone to bed--that is, the lights blinked +out in all homes excepting those on the eastern outskirts, where +nervous people worried over the possibilities of a hungry, hunted +convict's burglarizing their premises, or drawn-faced mothers lived +mentally through a score of calamities befalling red-blooded sons +who had now been absent twenty-four hours. + +Sometime between nine o'clock and midnight--she had no way of +telling accurately--Cora McBride stumbled into the Lyons clearing. +No one would have recognized in the staggering, bedraggled +apparition that emerged from the silhouette of the timber the figure +that had started so confidently from the Harrison tract the previous +evening. + +For over an hour she had hobbled blindly. It was wholly by accident +that she had stumbled into the clearing. And the capture of Ruggam +had diminished in importance. Warm food, water that would not tear +her raw throat, a place to lie and recoup her strength after the +chilling winter night--these were the only things that counted now. +Though she knew it not, in her eyes burned the faint light of fever. +When a snag caught her snowshoe and tripped her, there was hysteria +in her cry of resentment. + +As she moved across from the timber-line her hair was revealed +fallen down; she had lost a glove, and one hand and wrist were +cruelly red where she had plunged them several times into the snow +to save herself from falling upon her face. She made but a few yards +before the icy thong of her right snowshoe snapped. She did not +bother to repair it. Carrying it beneath her arm, she hobbled +brokenly toward the shelter of the buildings. + +Her failure at the other cabins, the lack, thus far, of all signs of +the fugitive, the vastness of the hunting-ground magnified by the +loneliness of winter, had convinced her finally that her quest was +futile. It was all a venture of madness. The idea that a woman, +alone and single-handed, with no weapon but a revolver, could track +down and subdue a desperate murderer in winter mountains where +hardly a wild thing stirred, and make him return with her to the +certain penalty--this proved how much mental mischief had again been +caused by the lure of money. The glittering seduction of gold had +deranged her. She realized it now, her mind normal in an exhausted +body. So she gained the walls of the buildings and stumbled around +them, thoughtless of any possible signs of the fugitive. + +The stars were out in myriads. The Milky Way was a spectacle to +recall vividly the sentiment of the Nineteenth Psalm. The +log-buildings of the clearing, every tree-trunk and bough in the +woods beyond, the distant skyline of stump and hollow, all stood out +sharply against the peculiar radiance of the snow. The night was as +still as the spaces between the planets. + +Like some wild creature of those winter woods the woman clumped and +stumbled around the main shack, seeking the door. + +Finding it, she stopped; the snowshoe slipped from beneath her arm; +one numb hand groped for the log door-casing in support; the other +fumbled for the revolver. + +Tracks led into that cabin! + +A paralysis of fright gripped Cora McBride. Something told her +intuitively that she stood face to face at last with what she had +traveled all this mountain wilderness to find. Yet with sinking +heart it also came to her that if Hap Ruggam had made these tracks +and were still within, she must face him in her exhausted condition +and at once make that tortuous return trip to civilization. There +would be no one to help her. + +She realized in that moment that she was facing the primal. And she +was not primal. She was a normal woman, weakened to near-prostration +by the trek of the past twenty-four hours. Was it not better to turn +away while there was time? + +She stood debating thus, the eternal silence blanketing forest-world +and clearing. But she was allowed to make no decision. + +A living body sprang suddenly upon her. Before she could cry out, +she was borne down precipitously from behind. + +She tried to turn the revolver against the Thing upon her, but the +gun was twisted from her raw, red fingers. The snow into which she +had been precipitated blinded her. She smeared an arm across her eyes, +but before clear sight was regained, talon fingers had gripped her +shoulders. She was half lifted, half dragged through the doorway, +and there she was dropped on the plank flooring. Her assailant, +turning, made to close and bar the door. + +When she could see clearly, she perceived a weak illumination in the +cabin. On the rough bench-table, shaded by two slabs of bark, burned +the stub of a tallow candle probably left by some hunting-party. + +The windows were curtained with rotting blankets. Some rough +furniture lay about; rusted cooking-utensils littered the tables, +and at one end was a sheet-iron stove. The place had been equipped +after a fashion by deer-hunters or mountain hikers, who brought +additional furnishings to the place each year and left mouldy +provisions and unconsumed firewood behind. + +The man succeeded finally in closing the door. He turned upon her. + +He was short and stocky. The stolen corduroy coat covered +blacksmith's muscles now made doubly powerful by dementia. His hair +was lifeless black and clipped close, prison-fashion. His low +forehead hung over burning, mismated eyes. From her helplessness on +the floor Cora McBride stared up at him. + +He came closer. + +"Get up!" he ordered. "Take that chair. And don't start no +rough-house; whether you're a woman or not, I'll drill you!" + +She groped to the indicated chair and raised herself, the single +snowshoe still dragging from one foot. Again the man surveyed her. +She saw his eyes and gave another inarticulate cry. + +"Shut your mouth and keep it shut! You hear me?" + +She obeyed. + +The greenish light burned brighter in his mismated eyes, which gazed +intently at the top of her head as though it held something unearthly. + +"Take off your hat!" was his next command. + +She pulled off the toque. Her hair fell in a mass on her +snow-blotched shoulders. Her captor advanced upon her. He reached out +and satisfied himself by touch that something was not there which he +dreaded. In hypnotic fear she suffered that touch. It reassured him. + +"Your hair now," he demanded; "it don't stand up, does it? No, o' +course it don't. You ain't _him_; you're a woman. But if your hair +comes up, I'll kill you--understand? If your hair comes up, _I'll +kill you_!" + +She understood. She understood only too well. She was not only housed +with a murderer; she was housed with a maniac. She sensed, also, why +he had come to this mountain shack so boldly. In his dementia he knew +no better. And she was alone with him, unarmed now. + +"I'll keep it down," she whispered, watching his face out of +fear-distended eyes. + +The wind blew one of the rotten blankets inward. Thereby she knew +that the window-aperture on the south wall contained no sash. He +must have removed it to provide means of escape in case he were +attacked from the east door. He must have climbed out that window +when she came around the shack; that is how he had felled her from +behind. + +He stepped backward now until he felt the edge of the bench touch +his calves. Then he sank down, one arm stretched along the table's +rim, the hand clutching the revolver. + +"Who are you?" he demanded. + +"I'm Cora McB----" She stopped--she recalled in a flash the part her +husband had played in his former capture and trial. "I'm Cora Allen," +she corrected. Then she waited, her wits in chaos. She was fighting +desperately to bring order out of that chaos. + +"What you doin' up here?" + +"I started for Millington, over the mountain. I lost my way." + +"Why didn't you go by the road?" + +"It's further." + +"That's a lie! It ain't. And don't lie to me, or I'll kill you!" + +"Who are you?" she heard herself asking. "And why are you acting +this way with me?" + +The man leaned suddenly forward. + +"You mean to tell me you don't know?" + +"A lumberjack, maybe, who's lost his way like myself?" + +His expression changed abruptly. + +"What you luggin' _this_ for?" He indicated the revolver. + +"For protection." + +"From what?" + +"Wild things." + +"There ain't no wild things in these mountains this time o' year; +they're snowed up, and you know it." + +"I just felt safer to have it along." + +"To protect you from men-folks, maybe?" + +"There are no men in these mountains I'm afraid of!" She made the +declaration with pathetic bravado. + +His eyes narrowed. + +"I think I better kill you," he decided. "You've seen me; you'll +tell you seen me. Why shouldn't I kill you? You'd only tell." + +"Why? What have I done to you?" she managed to stammer. "Why should +you object to being seen?" + +It was an unfortunate demand. He sprang up with a snarl. Pointing +the revolver from his hip, he drew back the hammer. + +"_Don't_!" she shrieked. "Are you crazy? Don't you know how to treat +a woman--in distress?" + +"Distress, _hell_! You know who I be. And I don't care whether +you're a woman or not, I ain't goin' to be took--you understand?" + +"Certainly I understand." + +She said it in such a way that he eased the hammer back into place +and lowered the gun. For the moment again she was safe. In response +to her terrible need, some of her latent Yankee courage came now to +aid her. "I don't see what you're making all this rumpus about," she +told him in as indifferent a voice as she could command. "I don't +see why you should want to kill a friend who might help you--if +you're really in need of help." + +"I want to get to Partridgeville," he muttered after a moment. + +"You're not far from there. How long have you been on the road?" + +"None of your business." + +"Have you had any food?" + +"No." + +"If you'll put up that gun and let me get off this snowshoe and pack, +I'll share with you some of the food I have." + +"Never you mind what I do with this gun. Go ahead and fix your foot, +and let's see what you got for grub." The man resumed his seat. + +She twisted up her tangled hair, replaced her toque and untied the +dangling snowshoe. + +Outside a tree cracked in the frost. He started in hair-trigger +fright. Creeping to the window, he peeped cautiously between casing +and blanket. Convinced that it was nothing, he returned to his seat +by the table. + +"It's too bad we couldn't have a fire," suggested the woman then. +"I'd make us something hot." The stove was there, rusted but still +serviceable; available wood was scattered around. But the man shook +his bullet head. + +After a trying time unfastening the frosted knots of the ropes that +had bound the knapsack upon her back, she emptied it onto the table. +She kept her eye, however, on the gun. He had disposed of it by +thrusting it into his belt. Plainly she would never recover it +without a struggle. And she was in no condition for physical conflict. + +"You're welcome to anything I have," she told him. + +"Little you got to say about it! If you hadn't given it up, I'd took +it away from you. So what's the difference?" + +She shrugged her shoulders. She started around behind him but he +sprang toward her. + +"Don't try no monkey-shines with me!" he snarled. "You stay here in +front where I can see you." + +She obeyed, watching him make what poor meal he could from the +contents of her bag. + +She tried to reason out what the denouement of the situation was to +be. He would not send her away peacefully, for she knew he dared not +risk the story she would tell regardless of any promises of secrecy +she might give him. If he left her bound in the cabin, she would +freeze before help came--if it ever arrived. + +No, either they were going to leave the place and journey forth +together--the Lord only knew where or with what outcome--or the life +of one of them was to end in this tragic place within the coming few +minutes. For she realized she must use that gun with deadly effect +if it were to come again into her possession. + +The silence was broken only by the noises of his lips as he ate +ravenously. Outside, not a thing stirred in that snowbound world. +Not a sound of civilization reached them. They were a man and woman +in the primal, in civilization and yet a million miles from it. + +"The candle's going out," she announced. "Is there another?" + +"There'll be light enough for what I got to do," he growled. + +Despite her effort to appear indifferent, her great fear showed +plainly in her eyes. + +"Are we going to stay here all night?" she asked with a pathetic +attempt at lightness. + +"That's my business." + +"Don't you want me to help you?" + +"You've helped me all you can with the gun and food." + +"If you're going to Partridgeville, I'd go along and show you the way." + +He leaped up. + +"_Now I know you been lyin_!'" he bellowed. "You said you was headed +for Millington. And you ain't at all. You're watchin' your chance to +get the drop on me and have me took--that's what you're doin'!" + +"Wait!" she pleaded desperately. "I _was_ going to Millington. But +I'd turn back and show you the way to Partridgeville to help you." + +"What's it to you?" He had drawn the gun from his belt and now was +fingering it nervously. + +"You're lost up here in the mountains, aren't you?" she said. +"I couldn't let you stay lost if it was possible for me to direct +you on your way." + +"You said you was lost yourself." + +"I was lost--until I stumbled into this clearing. That gave me my +location." + + +"Smart, ain't you? Damn' smart, but not too smart for me, you woman!" +The flare flamed up again in his crooked eyes. "You know who I be, +all right. You know what I'm aimin' to do. And you're stallin' for +time till you can put one over. But you can't--see? I'll have this +business done with. I'll end this business!" + +She felt herself sinking to her knees. He advanced and gripped her +left wrist. The crunch of his iron fingers sent an arrow of pain +through her arm. It bore her down. + +"For God's sake--_don't_!" she whispered hoarsely, overwhelmed with +horror. For the cold, sharp nose of the revolver suddenly punched +her neck. + +"I ain't leavin' no traces behind. Might as well be hung for a sheep +as a lamb. Never mind if I do----" + +"Look!" she cried wildly. "Look, look, _look_!" And with her free +hand she pointed behind him. + +It was an old trick. There was nothing behind him. But in that +instant of desperation instinct had guided her. + +Involuntarily he turned. + +With a scream of pain she twisted from his grasp and blotted out the +candle. + +A long, livid pencil of orange flame spurted from the gun-point. She +sensed the powder-flare in her face. He had missed. + +She scrambled for shelter beneath the table. The cabin was now in +inky blackness. Across that black four more threads of scarlet light +were laced. The man stumbled about seeking her, cursing with +blood-curdling blasphemy. + +Suddenly he tripped and went sprawling. The gun clattered from his +bruised fingers; it struck the woman's knee. + +Swiftly her hand closed upon it. The hot barrel burned her palm. + +She was on her feet in an instant. Her left hand fumbled in her +blouse, and she found what had been there all along--the flash-lamp. + +With her back against the door, she pulled it forth. With the gun +thrust forward for action she pressed the button. + +"I've got the gun--_get up_!" she ordered. "Don't come too near me +or I'll shoot. Back up against that wall." + +The bull's-eye of radiance blinded him. When his eyes became +accustomed to the light, he saw its reflection on the barrel of the +revolver. He obeyed. + +"Put up your hands. Put 'em up _high_!" + +"Suppose I won't?" + +"I'll kill you." + +"What'll you gain by that?" + +"Five thousand dollars." + +"Then you know who I be?" + +"Yes." + +"And was aimin' to take me in?" + +"Yes." + +"How you goin' to do that if I won't go?" + +"You're goin' to find out." + +"You won't get no money shootin' me." + +"Yes, I will--just as much--dead as alive." + +With his hands raised a little way above the level of his shoulders, +he stood rigidly at bay in the circle of light. + +"Well," he croaked at last, "go ahead and shoot. I ain't aimin' to +be took--not by no woman. Shoot, damn you, and have it done with. +I'm waitin'!" + +"Keep up those hands!" + +"I won't!" He lowered them defiantly. "I w-wanted to m-make +Partridgeville and see the old lady. She'd 'a' helped me. But +anything's better'n goin' back to that hell where I been the last +two years. Go on! Why don't you shoot?" + +"You wanted to make Partridgeville and see--_who_?" + +"My mother--and my wife." + +"Have you got a mother? Have you got a--wife?" + +"Yes, and three kids. Why don't you shoot?" + +It seemed an eon that they stood so. The McBride woman was trying to +find the nerve to fire. She could not. In that instant she made a +discovery that many luckless souls make too late: _to kill a man_ is +easy to talk about, easy to write about. But to stand deliberately +face to face with a fellow-human--alive, pulsing, breathing, fearing, +hoping, loving, living,--point a weapon at him that would take his +life, blot him from the earth, negate twenty or thirty years of +childhood, youth, maturity, and make of him in an instant--nothing! +--that is quite another matter. + +He was helpless before her now. Perhaps the expression on his face +had something to do with the sudden revulsion that halted her finger. +Facing certain death, some of the evil in those crooked eyes seemed +to die out, and the terrible personality of the man to fade. +Regardless of her danger, regardless of what he would have done to +her if luck had not turned the tables, Cora McBride saw before her +only a lone man with all society's hand against him, realizing he +had played a bad game to the limit and lost, two big tears creeping +down his unshaved face, waiting for the end. + +"Three children!" she whispered faintly. + +"Yes." + +"You're going back to see them?" + +"Yes, and my mother. Mother'd help me get to Canada--somehow." + +Cora McBride had forgotten all about the five thousand dollars. She +was stunned by the announcement that this man had relatives--a mother, +a wife, _three_ babies. The human factor had not before occurred to +her. Murderers! They have no license to let their eyes well with +tears, to have wives and babies, to possess mothers who will help +them get to Canada regardless of what their earthly indiscretions +may have been. + +At this revelation the gun-point wavered. The sight of those tears +on his face sapped her will-power even as a wound in her breast +might have drained her life-blood. + +Her great moment had been given her. She was letting it slip away. +She had her reward in her hand for the mere pulling of a trigger and +no incrimination for the result. For a bit of human sentiment she +was bungling the situation unpardonably, fatally. + +Why did she not shoot? Because she was a woman. Because it is the +God-given purpose of womanhood to give life, not take it. + +The gun sank, sank--down out of the light, down out of sight. + +And the next instant he was upon her. + +The flash-lamp was knocked from her hand and blinked out. It struck +the stove and she heard the tinkle of the broken lens. The woman's +hand caught at the sacking before the window at her left shoulder. +Gripping it wildly to save herself from that onslaught, she tore it +away. For the second time the revolver was twisted from her raw +fingers. + +The man reared upward, over her. + +"Where are you?" he roared again and again. "I'll show you! Lemme at +you!" + +Outside the great yellow moon of early winter, arising late, was +coming up over the silhouetted line of purple mountains to the +eastward. It illumined the cabin with a faint radiance, disclosing +the woman crouching beneath the table. + +The man saw her, pointed his weapon point-blank at her face and fired. + +To Cora McBride, prostrate there in her terror, the impact of the +bullet felt like the blow of a stick upon her cheek-bone rocking her +head. Her cheek felt warmly numb. She pressed a quick hand +involuntarily against it, and drew it away sticky with blood. + +_Click! Click! Click_! + +Three times the revolver mechanism was worked to accomplish her +destruction. But there was no further report. The cylinder was empty. + +"Oh, God!" the woman moaned. "I fed you and offered to help you. I +refused to shoot you because of your mother--your wife--your babies. +And yet you----" + +"Where's your cartridges?" he cried wildly. "You got more; gimme +that belt!" + +She felt his touch upon her. His crazy fingers tried to unbutton the +clasp of the belt and holster. But he could secure neither while she +fought him. He pinioned her at length with his knee. His fingers +secured a fistful of the cylinders from her girdle, and he opened +the chamber of the revolver. + +She realized the end was but a matter of moments. Nothing but a +miracle could save her now. + +Convulsively she groped about for something with which to strike. +Nothing lay within reach of her bleeding fingers, however, but a +little piece of dried sapling. She tried to struggle loose, but the +lunatic held her mercilessly. He continued the mechanical loading of +the revolver. + +The semi-darkness of the hut, the outline of the moon afar through +the uncurtained window--these swam before her.... Suddenly her eyes +riveted on that curtainless window and she uttered a terrifying cry. + +Ruggam turned. + +Outlined in the window aperture against the low-hung moon _Martin +Wiley, the murdered deputy, was staring into the cabin_! + +From the fugitive's throat came a gurgle. Some of the cartridges he +held spilled to the flooring. Above her his figure became rigid. +There was no mistaking the identity of the apparition. They saw the +man's hatless head and some of his neck. They saw his dark pompadour +and the outline of his skull. As that horrible silhouette remained +there, Wiley's pompadour lifted slightly as it had done in life. + +The cry in the convict's throat broke forth into words. + +"Mart Wiley!" he cried, "Mart Wiley! _Mart--Wiley_!" + +Clear, sharp, distinct was the shape of that never-to-be-forgotten +pompadour against the disk of the winter moon. His features could +not be discerned, for the source of light was behind him, but the +silhouette was sufficient. It was Martin Wiley; he was alive. His +head and his wirelike hair were moving--rising, falling. + +Ruggam, his eyes riveted upon the phantom, recoiled mechanically to +the western wall. He finished loading the revolver by the sense of +touch. Then: + +Spurt after spurt of fire lanced the darkness, directed at the Thing +in the window. While the air of the hut reeked with the acrid smoke, +the echo of the volley sounded through the silent forest-world miles +away. + +But the silhouette in the window remained. + +Once or twice it moved slightly as though in surprise; that was all. +The pompadour rose in bellicose retaliation--the gesture that had +always ensued when Wiley was angered or excited. But to bullets +fired from an earthly gun the silhouette of the murdered deputy's +ghost, arisen in these winter woods to prevent another slaughter, +was impervious. + +Ruggam saw; he shrieked. He broke the gun and spilled out the empty +shells. He fumbled in more cartridges, locked the barrel and fired +again and again, until once more it was empty. + +Still the apparition remained. + +The man in his dementia hurled the weapon; it struck the sash and +caromed off, hitting the stove. Then Hap Ruggam collapsed upon the +floor. + +The woman sprang up. She found the rope thongs which had bound her +pack to her shoulders. With steel-taut nerves, she rolled the +insensible Ruggam over. + +She tied his hands; she tied his ankles. With her last bit of rope +she connected the two bindings tightly behind him so that if he +recovered, he would be at her mercy. Her task accomplished, on her +knees beside his prone figure, she thought to glance up at the window. + +Wiley's ghost had disappeared. + +Sheriff Crumpett and his party broke into the Lyons clearing within +an hour. They had arrived in answer to five successive shots given a +few moments apart, the signal agreed upon. The mystery to them, +however, was that those five shots had been fired by some one not of +their party. + +The sheriff and his men found the McBride woman, her clothing half +torn from her body, her features powder-marked and blood-stained; +but she was game to the last, woman-fashion weeping only now that +all was over. They found, too, the man they had combed the country +to find--struggling fruitlessly in his bonds, her prisoner. + +And they likewise found the miracle. + +On the snow outside under the window they came upon a black +porcupine about the size of a man's head which, scenting food within +the cabin, had climbed to the sill, and after the habit of these +little animals whose number is legion all over the Green Mountains, +had required fifteen bullets pumped into its carcass before it would +release its hold. + +Even in death its quills were raised in uncanny duplication of Mart +Wiley's pompadour. + + + + +A MATTER OF LOYALTY + + +BY LAWRENCE PERRY + +From _The Red Book_ + +Standing in the bow of the launch, Dr. Nicholls, coach of the Baliol +crew, leaned upon his megaphone, his eyes fixed upon two eight-oared +crews resting upon their oars a hundred feet away. From his hand +dangled a stop-watch. The two crews had just completed a four-mile +race against the watch. + +A grim light came into the deeply set gray eyes of Jim Deacon as the +coach put the watch into his pocket. Deacon was the stroke of the +second varsity, an outfit which in aquatics bears the same relation +to a university eight as the scrub team does to a varsity football +eleven. But in the race just completed the second varsity had been +much of a factor--surprisingly, dishearteningly so. Nip and tuck it +had been, the varsity straining to drop the rival boat astern, but +unable to do so. At the finish not a quarter of a length, not fifteen +feet, had separated the two prows; a poor showing for the varsity to +have made with the great rowing classic of the season coming on +apace--a poor showing, that is, assuming the time consumed in the +four-mile trip was not especially low. + +Only the coach could really know whether the time was satisfactory +or not. But Jim Deacon suspected that it was poor, his idea being +based upon knowledge he had concerning the capabilities of his own +crew; in other words, he knew it was only an average second varsity +outfit. The coach knew it too. That was the reason his jaws were set, +his eyes vacant. At length he shook his head. + +"Not good, boys--not good." His voice was gentle, though usually he +was a rip-roaring mentor. "Varsity, you weren't rowing. That's the +answer--not rowing together. What's the matter, eh?" + +"I thought, Dr. Nicholls, that the rhythm was very good----" + +The coach interrupted Rollins, the captain, with a gesture. + +"Oh, rhythm! Yes, you row prettily enough. You look well. I should +hope so, at this time of the season. But you're not shoving the boat +fast; you don't pick up and get her moving. You're leaking power +somewhere; as a matter of fact, I suspect you're not putting the +power in. I know you're not. Ashburton, didn't that lowering of your +seat fix you? Well, then,"--as the young man nodded affirmatively-- +"how about your stretcher, Innis? Does it suit you now?" + +As Innis nodded, signifying that it did, Deacon saw the coach's eyes +turn to Doane, who sat at stroke of the varsity. + +"Now," muttered the stroke of the second varsity, his eyes gleaming, +"we'll hear something." + +"Doane, is there anything the trouble with you? You're feeling well, +aren't you?" + +"Yes sir. Sure!" The boy flushed. Tall, straight, handsome he sat in +the boat, fingering the oar-handle nervously. In appearance he was +the ideal oarsman. And yet---- + +Deacon, watching the coach, could almost see his mind working. Now +the time had come, the issue clearly defined. Another stroke must be +tried and found not wanting, else the annual eight-oared rowing +classic between those ancient universities Baliol and Shelburne +would be decided before it was rowed. + +Deacon flushed as the coach's glittering eyeglasses turned toward him. +It was the big moment of the senior's four years at college. Four +years! And six months of each of those years a galley-slave--on the +machines in the rowing-room of the gymnasium, on the ice-infested +river with the cutting winds of March sweeping free; then the more +genial months with the voice of coach or assistant coach lashing him. +Four years of dogged, unremitting toil with never the reward of a +varsity seat, and now with the great regatta less than a week away, +the big moment, the crown of all he had done. + +Words seemed on the verge of the coach's lips. Deacon's eyes +strained upon them as he sat stiffly in his seat. But no words came; +the coach turned away. + +"All right," he said spiritlessly. "Paddle back to the float." + +The coxswains barked their orders; sixteen oars rattled in their +locks; the glistening shells moved slowly homeward. + +Tingling from his plunge in the river, Jim Deacon walked up the +bluff from the boathouse to the group of cottages which constituted +Baliol's rowing-quarters. Some of the freshman crew were playing +indoor baseball on the lawn under the gnarled trees, and their +shouts and laughter echoed over the river. Deacon stood watching them. +His face was of the roughhewn type, in his two upper-class years his +heavy frame had taken on a vast amount of brawn and muscle. Now his +neck was meet for his head and for his chest and shoulders; long, +slightly bowed limbs filled out a picture of perfect physique. + +No one had known him really well in college. He was working his way +through. Besides, he was a student in one of the highly scientific +engineering courses which demanded a great deal of steady application. +With no great aptitude for football--he was a bit slow-footed--with +little tune or inclination for social activities, he had +concentrated upon rowing, not only as a diversion from his arduous +studies, an ordered outlet for physical energy, but with the idea of +going out into the world with that hallmark of a Baliol varsity oar +which he had heard and believed was likely to stand him in stead in +life. Baliol alumni, which include so many men of wealth and power, +had a habit of not overlooking young graduates who have brought fame +to their alma mater. + +As Deacon stood watching the freshmen at play, Dick Rollins, the +crew captain, came up. + +"They sent down the time-trial results from the Shelburne quarters, +Deacon." + +Never in his life had one of the great men of the university spoken +that many words, or half as many, to Jim Deacon, who stared at the +speaker. + +"The time--oh, yes; I see." + +"They did twenty minutes, thirty seconds." + +Deacon whistled. + +"Well," he said at length, "you didn't get the boat moving much +to-day." He wanted to say more, but could think of nothing. Words +came rather hard with him. + +"You nearly lugged the second shell ahead of us to-day, hang you." + +"No use letting a patient die because he doesn't know he's sick." + +Rollins grimaced. + +"Yes, we were sick. Doc Nicholls knows a sick crew when he sees one. +He--he thinks you're the needed tonic, Deacon." + +"Eh?" + +"He told me you were to sit in at stroke in Junior Doane's place +to-morrow. I'd been pulling for the change the past few days. Now he +sees it." + +"You were pulling----But you're Doane's roommate." + +"Yes, it's tough. But Baliol first, you know." + +Deacon stared at the man. He wanted to say something but couldn't. +The captain smiled. + +"Look here, Deacon; let's walk over toward the railroad a bit. I +want to talk to you." Linking his arm through Deacon's, he set out +through the yard toward the quaint old road with its little cluster +of farm cottages and rolling stone-walled meadow-land bathed in the +light of the setting sun. + +"Jim, old boy, you're a queer sort of a chap, and--and--the fact is, +the situation will be a bit ticklish. You know what it means for a +fellow to be thrown out of his seat just before a race upon which he +has been counting heart and soul." + +"I don't know. I can imagine." + +"You see, it's Doane. You know about his father----" + +"I know all about his father," was the reply. + +"Eh?" Rollins stared at him, then smiled. "I suppose every rowing +man at Baliol does. But you don't know as much as I do. On the quiet, +he's the man who gave us the new boathouse last year. He's our best +spender. He was an old varsity oar himself." + +"Sure, I know." + +"That's the reason the situation is delicate. Frankly, Jim, Doc +Nicholls and the rest of us would have liked to see Junior Doane +come through. I think you get what I mean. He's a senior; he's my +best friend." + +"He stroked the boat last year." + +"Yes, and Shelburne beat us. Naturally he wants to get back at that +crowd." + +"But he can't--not if he strokes the boat, Rollins. If you don't +know it, I'm telling you. If I thought different, I'd say so." +Deacon abruptly paused after so long a speech. + +"You don't have to tell me. I know it. We're not throwing a race to +Shelburne simply to please old Cephas Doane, naturally. I know what +you've got, Jim. So does Dr. Nicholls. You'll be in the varsity +to-morrow. But here's the point of what I've been trying to say; +Junior Doane hasn't been very decent to you--" + +"Oh, he's been all right." + +"Yes, I know. But he's a funny fellow; not a bit of a snob--I don't +mean that, but--but--" + +"You mean he hasn't paid much attention to me." Deacon smiled grimly. +"Well, that's all right. As a matter of fact, I never really have +got to know him. Still, I haven't got to know many of the fellows. +Too busy. You haven't paid much attention to me, either; but I like +you." + +Rollins, whose father was a multimillionaire with family roots going +deep among the rocks of Manhattan Island, laughed. + +"Bully for you! You won't mind my saying so, Jim, but I had it in my +mind to ask you to be a bit inconsequential--especially when Doane +was around--about your taking his place. But I guess it isn't +necessary." + +"No,"--Deacon's voice was short--"it isn't." + +"Junior Doane, of course, will be hard hit. He'll be game. He'll try +to win back his seat. And he may; I warn you." + +"If he can win it back, I want him to." + +"Good enough!" The captain started to walk away, then turned back +with sudden interest. "By the way, Jim, I was looking through the +college catalogue this morning. You and Doane both come from +Philadelphia, don't you?" + +"Yes." + +"I asked Doane if he knew you there. Apparently not." + +"No, he didn't." Deacon paused as though deliberating. Suddenly he +spoke. "I knew of him, though. You see, my father works in the bank +of which Mr. Doane is president." + +"Oh!" Rollins blinked. "I see." + +Deacon stepped forward, placing his hand upon the captain's arm. + +"I don't know why I told you that. It isn't important at all. Don't +say anything to Doane, will you? Not that I care. It--it just isn't +important." + +"No. I get you, Jim. It isn't important." He flung an arm over the +young man's shoulder. "Let's go back to dinner. That rotten time-row +has given me an appetite." + +There was that quiet in the Baliol dining room that evening which +one might expect to find after an unsatisfactory time-trial. Nations +might be falling, cities burning, important men dying; to these boys +such events would be as nothing in the face of the fact that the +crew of a traditional rival was to be met within the week--and that +they were not proving themselves equipped for the meeting. + +"If any of you fellows wish to motor down to the Groton Hotel on the +Point for an hour or two, you may go," said the coach, pushing back +his chair. He had begun to fear that his charges might be coming to +too fine a point of condition and had decided that the relaxation of +a bit of dancing might do no harm. + +"Yeaa!" In an instant that subdued dining apartment was tumultuous +with vocal outcry, drawing to the doorway a crowd of curious freshmen +who were finishing dinner in their room. + +"All right!" Dr. Nicholls grinned. "I gather all you varsity and +second varsity men want to go. I'll have the big launch ready at +eight. And--oh, Dick Rollins, don't forget; that boat leaves the +hotel dock at ten-forty-five precisely." + +"Got you sir. Come on, fellows. Look out, you freshmen." With a yell +and a dive the oarsmen went through the doors. + +Deacon followed at a more leisurely gait with that faint gleam of +amusement in his eyes which was so characteristic. His first impulse +was not to go, but upon second thought he decided that he would. +Jane Bostwick was stopping at the Groton. Her father was a successful +promoter and very close to Cephas Doane, Sr., whose bank stood back +of most of his operations. Deacon had known her rather well in the +days when her father was not a successful promoter. In fact, the two +had been neighbours as boy and girl, had played together in front of +a row of prim brick houses. He had not seen her in recent years until +the previous afternoon, when as he was walking along the country road, +she had pulled up in her roadster. + +"Don't pretend you don't remember me, Jim Deacon," she had laughed +as the boy had stared at the stunning young woman. + +Jim remembered her, all right. They talked as though so many +significant years had not elapsed. She was greatly interested, +exceedingly gracious. + +"Do you know," she said, "it never occurred to me that Deacon, the +Baliol rowing man, was none other than Jim Deacon. Silly of me, +wasn't it? But then I didn't even know you were in Baliol. I'm +perfectly crazy about the crew, you know. And Mother, I think, is a +worse fan than I am. You know Junior Doane, of course." + +"Oh, yes--that is, I--why, yes, I know him." + +"Yes." She smiled down upon him. "If you're ever down to the Groton, +do drop in. Mother would love to see you. She often speaks of your +mother." With a wave of her hand she had sped on her way. + +Curiously, that evening he had heard Doane talking to her over the +telephone, and there was a great deal in his manner of speaking that +indicated something more than mere acquaintance. + +But Deacon did not see Jane Bostwick at the hotel--not to speak to, +at least. He was not a good dancer and held aloof when those of his +fellows who were not acquainted with guests were introduced around. +Finding a wicker settee among some palms at one side of the orchestra, +Deacon sat drinking in the scene. + +It was not until the hour set for the return had almost arrived that +Deacon saw Jane Bostwick, and then his attention was directed to her +by her appearance with Junior Doane in one of the open French +windows at his right. Evidently the two had spent the evening in the +sequestered darkness of the veranda. No pair in the room filled the +eye so gratefully; the girl, tall, blonde, striking in a pale blue +evening gown; the man, broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, with the +handsome high-held head of a patrician. + +A wave of something akin to bitterness passed over Deacon--bitterness +having nothing to do with self. For the boy was ruggedly independent. +He believed in himself; knew what he was going to do in the world. +He was thinking of his father, and of the fathers of that young man +and girl before him. His father was painstaking, honourable, +considerate--a nobleman every inch of him; a man who deserved +everything that the world had to give, a man who had everything save +the quality of acquisition. And Doane's father? And Jane Bostwick's +father? + +Of the elder Doane he knew by hearsay--a proud, intolerant wholly +worldly man whose passions, aside from finance, were his son and +Baliol aquatics. And Jane Bostwick's father he had known as a boy--a +soft-footed, sly-faced velvety sort of a man noted for converting +back lots into oil-fields and ash-dumps into mines yielding precious +metals. Jim Deacon was not so old that he had come to philosophy +concerning the way of the world. + +But so far as his immediate world was concerned, Junior Doane was +going out of the varsity boat in the morning--and he, Jim Deacon, +was going to sit in his place. + +It came the next morning. When the oarsmen went down to the boathouse +to dress for their morning row, the arrangement of the various crews +posted on the bulletin-board gave Deacon the seat at stroke in the +varsity boat; Junior Doane's name appeared at stroke in the second +varsity list. + +There had been rumours of some sort of a shift, but no one seemed to +have considered the probability of Doane's losing his seat--Doane +least of all. For a moment the boy stood rigid, looking up at the +bulletin-board. Then suddenly he laughed. + +"All right, Carry," he said, turning to the captain of the second +varsity. "Come on; we'll show 'em what a rudder looks like." + +But it was not to be. In three consecutive dashes of a mile each, +the varsity boat moved with such speed as it had not shown all season. +There was life in the boat. Deacon, rowing in perfect form, passed +the stroke up forward with a kick and a bite, handling his oar with a +precision that made the eye of the coach glisten. And when the +nervous little coxswain called for a rousing ten strokes, the shell +seemed fairly to lift out of the water. + +In the last mile dash Dr. Nicholls surreptitiously took his +stop-watch from his pocket and timed the sprint. When he replaced +the timepiece, the lines of care which had seamed his face for the +past few days vanished. + +"All right, boys. Paddle in. Day after to-morrow we'll hold the +final time-trial. Deacon, be careful; occasionally you clip your +stroke at the finish." + +But Deacon didn't mind the admonition. He knew the coach's policy of +not letting a man think he was too good. + +"You certainly bucked up that crew to-day, Deacon." Jim Deacon, who +had been lying at full length on the turf at the top of the bluff +watching the shadows creep over the purpling waters of the river, +looked up to see Doane standing over him. His first emotion was one +of triumph. Doane, the son of Cephas Doane, his father's employer, +had definitely noticed him at last. Then the dominant emotion +came--one of sympathy. + +"Well, the second crew moved better too." + +"Oh, I worked like a dog." Doane laughed. "Of course you know I'm +going to get my place back, if I can." + +"Of course." Deacon plucked a blade of grass and placed it in his +mouth. There was rather a constrained silence for a moment. + +"I didn't know you came from my city, Deacon. I--Jane Bostwick told +me about you last night." + +"I see. I used to know her." Inwardly Deacon cursed his natural +inability to converse easily, partly fearing that Doane would +mistake his reticence for embarrassment in his presence, or on the +other hand set him down as churlish and ill bred. + +For his part Doane seemed a bit ill at ease. + +"I didn't know, of course, anything Jane told me. If I had, of course, +I'd have looked you up more at the college." + +"We're both busy there in our different ways." + +Doane stood awkwardly for a moment and then walked away, not knowing +that however he may have felt about the conversation, he had at +least increased his stature in the mind of Jim Deacon. + +Next day on the river Junior Doane's desperation at the outset +brought upon his head the criticism of the coach. + +"Doane! Doane! You're rushing your slide. Finish out your stroke, +for heaven's sake." + +Deacon, watching the oarsman's face, saw it grow rigid, saw his +mouth set. Well he knew the little tragedy through which Doane was +living. + +Doane did better after that. The second boat gave the varsity some +sharp brushes while the coxswains barked and the coach shouted +staccato objurgation and comment through his megaphone, and the +rival oarsmen swung backward and forward in the expenditure of +ultimate power and drive. + +But Jim Deacon was the man for varsity stroke. There was not the +least doubt about that. The coach could see it; the varsity could +feel it; but of them all Deacon alone knew why. He knew that Doane +was practically as strong an oar as he was, certainly as finished. +And Doane's experience was greater. The difficulty as Deacon grasped +it was that the boy had not employed all the material of his +experience. The coxswain, Seagraves, was a snappy little chap, with +an excellent opinion of his head. But Deacon had doubts as to his +racing sense. He could shoot ginger into his men, could lash them +along with a fine rhythm, but in negotiating a hard-fought race he +had his shortcomings. At least so Deacon had decided in the brushes +against the varsity shell when he was stroking the second varsity. + +Deacon thanked no coxswain to tell him how to row a race, when to +sprint, when to dog along at a steady, swinging thirty; nor did he +require advice on the pacing and general condition of a rival crew. +As he swung forward for the catch, his practice was to turn his head +slightly to one side, chin along the shoulder, thus gaining through +the tail of his eye a glimpse of any boat that happened to be abeam, +slightly ahead or slightly astern. This glance told him everything +he wished to know. The coach did not know the reason for this +peculiarity in Deacon's style, but since it did not affect his rowing, +he very wisely said nothing. To his mind the varsity boat had at +last begun to arrive, and this was no time for minor points. + +Two days before the Shelburne race the Baliol varsity in its final +time-trial came within ten seconds of equalling the lowest +downstream trial-record ever established--a record made by a +Shelburne eight of the early eighties. There was no doubt in the +mind of any one about the Baliol crew quarters that Deacon would be +the man to set the pace for his university in the supreme test +swiftly approaching. + +News of Baliol's improved form began to be disseminated in the daily +press by qualified observers of rowing form who were beginning to +flock to the scene of the regatta from New York, Philadelphia, and +various New England cities. Dr. Nicholls was reticent, but no one +could say that his demeanour was marked by gloom. Perhaps his +optimism would have been more marked had the information he +possessed concerning Shelburne been less disturbing. As a fact there +was every indication that the rival university would be represented +by one of the best crews in her history--which was to say a very +great deal. In truth, Baliol rowing enthusiasts had not seen their +shell cross the line ahead of a Shelburne varsity boat in three +consecutive years, a depressing state of affairs which in the +present season had filled every Baliol rowing man with grim +determination and the graduates with alternate hope and despair. + +"Jim," said the coach, drawing Deacon from the float upon which he +had been standing, watching the antics of a crew of former Baliol +oarsmen who had come from far and wide to row the mile race of +"Gentlemen's Eights" which annually marked the afternoon preceding +the classic regatta day, "Jim, you're not worried at all, are you? +You're such a quiet sort of a chap, I can't seem to get you." + +Deacon smiled faintly. + +"No, I'm not worried--not a bit, sir. I mean I'm going to do my best, +and if that's good enough, why--well, we win." + +"I want you to do more than your best to-morrow, Jim. It's got to be +a super-effort. You're up against a great Shelburne crew, the +greatest I ever saw--that means twelve years back. I wouldn't talk +to every man this way, but I think you're a stroke who can stand +responsibility. I think you're a man who can work the better when he +knows the size of his job. It's a big one, boy--the biggest I've +ever tackled." + +"Yes, sir." + +The coach studied him a minute. + +"How do you feel about beating Shelburne? What I mean," he went on as +the oarsman regarded him, puzzled, "is, would it break your heart to +lose? Is the thought of being beaten so serious that you can't--that +you won't consider it?" + +"No sir, I won't consider it. I don't go into anything without +wanting to come out ahead. I've worked three years to get into the +varsity. I realize the position you've given me will help me, make +me stand out after graduation, mean almost as much as my +diploma--provided we can win." + +"What about Baliol? Do you think of the college, too, and what a +victory will mean to her? What defeat will mean?" + +"Oh," Deacon shrugged; "of course," he went on a bit carelessly, +"we want to see Baliol on top as often----" He stopped, then broke +into a chuckle as the stroke of the gentlemen's eight suddenly +produced from the folds of his sweater a bottle from which he drank +with dramatic unction while his fellow-oarsmen clamoured to share +the libation and the coxswain abused them all roundly. + +The eyes of the coach never left the young man's face. But he said +nothing while Deacon took his fill of enjoyment of the jovial scene, +apparently forgetting the sentence which he had broken in the middle. + +But that evening something of the coach's meaning came to Deacon as +he sat on a rustic bench watching the colours fade from one of those +sunset skies which have ever in the hearts of rowing men who have +ever spent a hallowed June on the heights of that broad placid stream. +The Baliol graduates had lost their race against the gentlemen of +Shelburne, having rowed just a bit worse than their rivals. And now +the two crews were celebrating their revival of the ways of youth +with a dinner provided by the defeated eight. Their laughter and +their songs went out through the twilight and were lost in the +recesses of the river. One song with a haunting melody caught +Deacon's attention; he listened to get the words. + + + Then raise the rosy goblet high, + The senior's chalice and belie + The tongues that trouble and defile, + For we have yet a little while + To linger, you and youth and I, + In college days. + + +A group of oarsmen down on the lawn caught up the song and sent it +winging through the twilight, soberly, impressively, with +ever-surging harmony. College days! For a moment a dim light burned +in the back of his mind. It went out suddenly. Jim Deacon shrugged +and thought of the morrow's race. It was good to know he was going +to be a part of it. He could feel the gathering of enthusiasm, +exhilaration in the atmosphere--pent-up emotion which on the morrow +would burst like a thunderclap. In the quaint city five miles down +the river hotels were filling with the vanguard of the boat-race +throng--boys fresh from the poetry of Commencement; their older +brothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, living again the thrill +of youth and the things thereof. And mothers and sisters and +sweethearts! Deacon's nerves tingled pleasantly in response to the +glamour of the hour. + +"Oh, Jim Deacon!" + +"Hello!" Deacon turned his face toward the building whence the voice +came. + +"Somebody wants to see you on the road by the bridge over the +railroad." + +"See me? All right." + +Filled with wonder, Deacon walked leisurely out of the yard and then +reaching the road, followed in the wake of an urchin of the +neighbourhood who had brought the summons, and could tell Deacon +only that it was some one in an automobile. + +It was, in fact, Jane Bostwick. + +"Jump up here in the car, won't you, Jim?" Her voice was somewhat +tense. "No, I'm not going to drive," she added as Deacon hesitated. +"We can talk better." + +"Have you heard from your father lately?" she asked as the young man +sprang into the seat at her side. + +He started. + +"No, not in a week. Why, is there anything the matter with him?" + +"Of course not." She touched him lightly upon the arm. "You knew that +Mr. Bell, cashier of the National Penn Bank, had died?" + +"No. Is that so! That's too bad." Then suddenly Deacon sat erect. +"By George! Father is one of the assistant cashiers there. I wonder +if he'll be promoted." He turned upon the girl. "Is that what you +wanted to tell me?" + +She waited a bit before replying. + +"No--not exactly that." + +"Not exactly----What do you mean?" + +"Do you know how keen Mr. Doane, I mean Junior's father is on rowing? +Well,"--as Deacon nodded,--"have you thought how he might feel +toward the father of the man who is going to sit in his son's seat +in the race to-morrow? Would it make him keen to put that father in +Mr. Bell's place?" + +Deacon's exclamation was sharp. + +"Who asked you to put that thought in my mind?" + +"Ah!" Her hand went out, lying upon his arm. "I was afraid you were +going to take it that way. Mother was talking this afternoon. I +thought you should know. As for Junior Doane, I'm frank to admit I'm +awfully keen about him. But that isn't why I came here. I remember +how close you and your father used to be. I--I thought perhaps you'd +thank me, if--if----" + +"What you mean is that because I have beaten Doane out for stroke, +his father may be sore and not promote my father at the bank." + +"There's no 'may' about it. Mr. Doane will be sore. He'll be sore at +Junior, of course. But he'll be sore secretly at you, and where +there is a question of choice of cashier between _your_ father and +another man--even though the other man has not been so long in the +bank--how do you think his mind will work; I mean, if you lose? Of +course, if you can win, then I am sure everything will be all right. +You must----" + +"If I can win! What difference would that----" He stopped suddenly. +"I've caught what you mean." He laughed bitterly. "Parental jealousy. +All right! All right!" + +"Jim, I don't want you----" + +"Don't bother. I've heard all I can stand, Jane. Thank you." He +lurched out of the car and hurried away. + +She called him. No answer. Waiting a moment, the girl sighed, +touched the self-starter and drove away. + +Deacon had no idea of any lapse of time between the departure of the +car and himself in his cot prepared for sleep--with, however, no +idea that sleep would come. His mood was pitiable. His mind was a +mass of whirling thoughts in the midst of which he could recognize +pictures of his boyhood, a little boy doing many things--with a hand +always tucked within the fingers of a great big man who knew +everything, who could do everything, who could always explain all the +mysteries of the big, strange, booming world. There were many such +pictures, pictures not only relating to boyhood, but to his own +struggle at Baliol, to the placid little home in Philadelphia and +all that it had meant, all that it still meant, to his father, to +his mother, to him, Any act of his that would bring sorrow or dismay +or the burden of defeated hope to that home! + +But on the other hand, the morrow was to bring him the crown of +toilsome years, was to make his name one to conjure with wherever +Baliol was loved or known. He knew what the varsity _cachet_ would +do for his prospects in the world. And after all, he had his own +life to live, had he not? Would not the selfish, or rather the +rigorous, settlement of this problem, be for the best in the end, +since his making good would simply be making good for his father and +his mother? But how about his father's chance for making good on his +own account? + +A comrade in the cot adjoining heard a groan. + +"Eh! Are you sick, Deacon? Are you all right?" + +"Sure--dreaming," came the muffled reply. + +There was something unreal to Deacon about the morning. The sunlight +was filled with sinister glow; the voices of the rowing men were +strange; the whole environment seemed to have changed. It was +difficult for Jim Deacon to look upon the bronzed faces of the +fellows about the breakfast table, upon the coach with his stiff +moustache and glittering eyeglasses--difficult to look upon them and +realize that within a few hours his name would be anathema to them, +that forever where loyal men of Baliol gather he would be an outcast, +a pariah. + +That was what he would be--an outcast. For he had come to his +decision: Just what he would do he did not know. He did not know +that he would not stroke the Baliol varsity. Out of all the welter +of thought and travail had been resolved one dominant idea. His +father came first: there was no evading it. With all the +consequences that would follow the execution of his decision he was +familiar. He had come now to know what Baliol meant to him as a +place not only of education, but a place to be loved, honoured, +revered. He knew what his future might be. But--his father came first. +Arising from the breakfast-table, he spoke to but one man, Junior +Doane. + +"Doane," he said, drawing him to one side, "you will row at stroke +this afternoon." + +The man stared at him. "Are you crazy, Deacon?" + +"No, not crazy. I'm not feeling well; that's all." + +"But look here, Deacon--you want to see the coach. You're off your +head or something. Wait here, just a minute." As Doane hurried away +in search of Dr. Nicholls, Deacon turned blindly through the yard +and so out to the main road leading to a picturesque little river +city about nine miles up the stream. + +June was at her loveliest in this lovable country with its walled +fields, its serene uplands and glowing pastures, its lush river +meadows and wayside flowers. But of all this Deacon marked nothing +as with head down he tramped along with swift, dogged stride. Up the +river three or four miles farther on was the little city of which he +had so often heard but never seen, the little city of Norton, so +like certain English river-cities according to a veteran Oxford +oarsman who had visited the Baliol quarters the previous season. +Deacon had an interest in strange places; he had an eye for the +picturesque and the colourful. He would wander about the place, +filling his mind with impressions. He had always wanted to go to +Norton; it had seemed like a dream city to him. + +He was in fact striding along in the middle of the road when the +horn of a motorcar coming close behind startled him. As he turned, +the vehicle sped up to his side and then stopped with a grinding of +brakes. + +Dr. Nicholls, the coach, rose to his full height in the roadster and +glared down at Deacon, while Junior Doane, who had been driving, +stared fixedly over the wheel. The coach's voice was merely a series +of profane roars. He had ample lungs, and the things he said seemed +to echo far and wide. His stentorian anger afforded so material a +contrast to the placid environment that Deacon stood dazed under the +vocal avalanche, hearing but a blur of objurgation. + +"Eh?" He paused as Junior Doane placed an admonishing hand upon his +arm. + +"I beg your pardon, Doctor; but I don't think that is the right way. +May I say something to Deacon?" + +The coach, out of breath, nodded and gestured, sinking into his seat. +"Look here, Jim Deacon, we've come to take you back. You can't buck +out the race this way, you know. It isn't done. Now, wait a minute!" +he cried sharply as the boy in the road made to speak. "I know why +you ran away. Jane Bostwick called me up and told me everything. She +hadn't realized quite what she was doing----" + +"She--she bungled everything." + +"Bungled! What do you mean, Dr. Nicholls?" + +"Nothing--nothing! You young idiot, don't you realize you're trying +to kill yourself for life? Jump into the car." + +"I'm not going to row." Deacon's eyes smoldered upon the two. + +Studying him a moment, Dr. Nicholls suddenly grasped the seriousness +of Deacon's mood. He leaped from the car and walked up to him, +placing a hand upon his shoulder. + +"Look here, my boy: You've let a false ideal run away with you. Do +you realize that some twenty-five thousand people throughout this +country are having their interests tossed away by you? You represent +them. They didn't ask you to. You came out for the crew and worked +until you won a place for yourself, a place no one but you can fill. +There are men, there are families on this riverside to-day, who have +traveled from San Francisco, from all parts of the country, to see +Baliol at her best. There are thousands who have the right to ask us +that Shelburne is not permitted to win this afternoon. Do you +realize your respons----" + +Deacon raised his hand. + +"I've heard it said often, Dr. Nicholls, that any one who gets in +Cephas Doane's way gets crushed. I'm not afraid of him, nor of any +one else, on my own account; but I'm afraid of him because of my +father. My father is getting to be an old man. Do you think I am +going to do anyth----" Deacon's voice, which had been gathering in +intensity, broke suddenly. He couldn't go on. + +"Jim Deacon!" There was a note of exhilaration in Junior Doane's +voice. He hastily climbed out of the car and joined the coach at +Deacon's side. "I'm not going to defend my father now. No one knows +him as I do; no one knows as I do the great big stuff that is in him. +He and I have always been close, and----" + +"Then you know how he'd feel about any one who took your place in +the boat. He can't hurt me. But he can break my father's heart----" + +"Deacon, is that the opinion you have of my father!" + +"Tell me the truth, Doane; is there the chance under the conditions +that with a choice between two men in the bank he might fail to see +Father? Isn't it human nature for a man as dominant and strong as he +is, who has always had or got most of the things he wants, to feel +that way?" + +"Perhaps. But not if you can win out against Shelburne. Can't you +see your chance, Deacon? Go in and beat Shelburne; Father'll be so +glad he'll fall off the observation-train. You know how he hates +Shelburne. Any soreness he has about my missing out at stroke will +be directed at me--and it won't be soreness, merely regret. Don't you +get it?" + +"And if we lose----" + +"If we lose, there's the chance that we're all in the soup." + +"I'm not, if I keep out of this thing----" + +"If we lose with _me_ at stroke, do you suppose it will help you or +any one related to you with my father when he learns that Baliol +_would probably have won with you stroking_? + +"My Lord, Jim Deacon," Doane went on as the other did not reply, +"do you suppose this is any fun for me, arguing with you to swing an +oar this afternoon when I would give my heart's blood to swing it in +your place?" + +"Why do you do it, then?" + +"Why do I do it? Because I love Baliol. Because her interests stand +above mine. Because more than anything I want to see her win. I +didn't feel this way when you beat me out for stroke. I'll admit it. +I didn't show my feelings, but I was thinking of nothing but my +licking----" + +"Ah!" + +"Just a minute, Jim. I didn't realize the bigness of the thing, +didn't appreciate that what I wanted to do didn't count for a damn. +Baliol, only Baliol! It all came to me when you bucked out. Baliol +is all that counts, Jim. If I can help her win by rooting from the +observation-car, all right! But--don't think it's any fun for me +urging you to come back and row. For I wanted to row this race, old +boy. I--I----" + +Doane's voice faltered. "But I can't; that's all. Baliol needs a +better man--needs you. As for you, you've no right to consider +anything else. You go in--and win." + +"Win!" Jim Deacon stood in the road, rigid, his voice falling to a +whisper. "Win!" Into his eyes came a vacant expression. For a moment +the group stood in the middle of the road as though transfixed. Then +the coach placed his hand upon Deacon's arm, gently. + +"Come Jim," he said. + +The afternoon had gone silently on. Jim Deacon sat on the veranda of +the crew-quarters, his eyes fixed upon the river. Some of the crew +were trying to read; others lounged about talking in low voices. +Occasionally the referee's launch would appear off the float, the +official exchanging some words with the coach while the oarsmen +watched eagerly. Then the launch would turn and disappear. + +"Too rough yet, boys. They're going to postpone another hour." Twice +had the coach brought this word to the group of pent-up young men +who in a manner of speaking were sharing the emotions of the +condemned awaiting the executioner's summons. Would the up-river +breeze never subside and give them conditions that would be +satisfactory to the meticulous referee? + +Deacon lurched heavily in his seat. + +"What difference does it make so long as the shells won't sink?" he +asked. + +"We're ready," replied Dick Rollins. "It's Shelburne holding things +up; she wants smooth water, of course. It suits me, though. Things +will soften up by sunset." + +"Sunset!" Deacon scowled at the western skies. "Well, sunset isn't +so far off as it was." + +Word came, as a matter of fact, shortly after five o'clock. The coach, +with solemn face, came up to the cottage, bringing the summons. +After that for a little while Jim Deacon passed through a series of +vague impressions rather than living experience. There was the swift +changing of clothes in the cavernous boathouse, the bearing of the +boat high overhead to the edge of the float, the splash as it was +lowered into the water. Mechanically he leaned forward to lace the +stretcher-shoes, letting the handle of his oar rest against his +stomach; mechanically he tried to slide, tested the oarlock. + +Then some one gripped the blade of his oar, pushing gently outward. +The shell floated gingerly out into the stream. + +"Starboard oars, paddle." Responsive to the coxswain's sharp command +Deacon plied his blade, and in the act there came to him clarity of +perception. He was out here to win, to win not only for Baliol, but +for himself, for his father. There could be no thought of not winning; +the imminence of the supreme test had served to fill him with the +consciousness of indomitable strength, to thrill his muscles with +the call for tremendous action. + +As the shell swept around a point of land, a volume of sound rolled +across the waters. Out of the corner of his eye he caught view of +the long observation-train, vibrant with animation, the rival +colours commingled so that all emblem of collegiate affiliation was +lost in a merger of quivering hue. A hill near the starting-line on +the other side of the river was black with spectators, who indeed +filled points of vantage all down the four miles of the course. The +clouds above the western hills were turning crimson; the waters had +deepened to purple and were still and silent. + +"There, you hell-dogs!" The voice of the coxswain rasped in its +combativeness. "Out there is Shelburne; ahead of us at the line. Who +says it'll be the last time she'll be ahead of us?" + +Along the beautiful line of brown, swinging bodies went a low growl, +a more vicious rattle of the oarlocks. + +Suddenly as Jim Deacon swung forward, a moored skiff swept past his +blade, the starting-line. + +"Weigh all." The coxswain's command was immediately followed by +others designed to work the boat back to proper starting-position. +Deacon could easily see the Shelburne crew now--big men all, ideal +oarsmen to look at. Their faces were set and grim, their eyes +straight ahead. So far as they gave indication, their shell might +have been alone on the river. Now the Baliol shell had made sternway +sufficient for the man in the skiff to seize the rudder. The +Shelburne boat was already secured. Astern hovered the referee's boat, +the official standing in the bow directing operations. Still astern +was a larger craft filled with favoured representatives of the two +colleges, the rival coaches, the crew-managers and the like. + +"Are you all ready, Baliol?" + +"Yes, sir." Deacon, leaning forward, felt his arms grow tense. + +"Are you all ready, Shelburne?" + +The affirmative was followed by the sharp report of a pistol. With a +snap of his wrist Deacon beveled his oar, which bit cleanly into the +water and pulled. There followed an interval of hectic stroking, +oars in and out of the water as fast as could be done, while spray +rose in clouds and the coxswain screamed the measure of the beat. + +"Fine, Baliol." The coxswain's voice went past Deacon's ear like a +bullet. "Both away together and now a little ahead at forty-two to +the minute. But down now. Down--down--down--down! That's +it--thirty-two to the minute. It's a long race, remember. +Shelburne's dropping the beat, too. You listen to Papa, all of you; +he'll keep you wise. Number three, for God's sake don't lift all the +water in the river up on your blade at the finish. Shelburne's +hitting it up a bit. Make it thirty-four." + +"Not yet." Deacon scowled at the tense little coxswain. "I'll do the +timing." Chick Seagraves nodded. + +"Right. Thirty-two." + +Swinging forward to the catch, his chin turned against his shoulder, +Deacon studied the rival crew which with the half-mile flags +flashing by had attained a lead of some ten feet. Their blades were +biting the water hardly fifty feet from the end of his blade, the +naked brown bodies moving back and forth in perfect rhythm and with +undeniable power registered in the snap of the legs on the +stretchers and the pull of the arms. Deacon's eyes swept the face of +the Shelburne coxswain; it was composed. He glanced at the stroke. +The work, apparently, was costing him nothing. + +"They're up to thirty-four," cried Seagraves as the mile flags drew +swiftly up. + +"They're jockeying us, Chick. We'll show our fire when we get ready. +Let 'em rave." + +Vaguely there came to Deacon a sound from the river-bank--Shelburne +enthusiasts acclaiming a lead of a neat half a length. + +"Too much--too much." Deacon shook his head. Either Shelburne was +setting out to row her rival down at the start, or else, as Deacon +suspected, she was trying to smoke Baliol out, to learn at an early +juncture just what mettle was in the rival boat. A game, +stout-hearted, confident crew will always do this, it being the part +of good racing policy to make a rival know fear as early as possible. +And Shelburne believed in herself, beyond any question of doubt. + +And whether she was faking, or since Baliol could not afford to let +the bid go unanswered, a lead of a quarter of a length at the mile +had to be challenged: + +"Give 'em ten at thirty-six!" Deacon's voice was thick with +gathering effort. "Talk it up, Chick." + +From the coxswain's throat issued a machine-gun fusillade of +whiplash words. + +"Ten, boys! A rouser now. Ten! Come on. One--two--three--four--oh, +boy! Are we walking! Five--six--are they anchored over there? +Seven--oh, you big brown babies! Eight--Shelburne, good +night--nine--wow!--ten!" + +Deacon, driving backward and forward with fiery intensity, feeling +within him the strength of some huge propulsive machine, was getting +his first real thrill of conflict--the thrill not only of actual +competition, but of all it meant to him, personally: his father's +well-being, his own career--everything was merged in a luminous +background of emotion for which that glittering oar he held was the +outlet. + +Shelburne had met the spurt, but the drive of the Baliol boat was +not to be denied. Gradually the two prows came abreast, and then +Deacon, not stopping at the call of ten, but fairly carrying the +crew along with him, swung on with undiminished ferocity, while +Seagraves' voice rose into a shrill crescendo of triumph as Baliol +forged to the lead. + +"They know a little now." Deacon's voice was a growl as gradually he +reduced the beat to thirty-two, Shelburne already having diminished +the stroke. + +Deacon studied them. They were rowing along steadily, the eyes of +their coxswain turned curiously upon the Baliol shell. He suspected +the little man would like nothing better than to have Baliol break +her back to the two-mile mark and thus dig a watery grave. He +suspected also, that, failing Baliol's willingness to do this, the +test would now be forced upon her. For Shelburne was a heavy crew +with all sorts of staying power. What Deacon had to keep in mind was +that his eight was not so rugged and had therefore to be nursed along, +conserving energy wherever possible. + +It was in the third mile that the battle of wits and judgment had to +be carried to conclusion, the fourth mile lurking as a mere matter +of staying power and ability to stand the gaff. Deacon's idea was +that at present his crew was leading because Shelburne was not +unwilling for the present that this should be. How true this was +became evident after the two-mile flags had passed, when the +Shelburne oarsmen began to lay to their strokes with tremendous drive, +the boat creeping foot by foot upon the rival shell until the Baliol +lead had been overcome and Shelburne herself swept to the fore. + +Deacon raised the stroke slightly, to thirty-three, but soon dropped +to thirty-two, watching Shelburne carefully lest she make a +runaway then and there. Baliol was half a length astern at the +two-and-a-half mile mark, passing which the Shelburne crew gave +themselves up to a tremendous effort to kill off her rival then and +there. + +"Jim! They're doing thirty-six--walking away." + +The coxswain's face was white and drawn. + +But Deacon continued to pass up a thirty-two stroke while the +Shelburne boat slid gradually away until at the three-mile mark +there was a foot of clear water between its rudder and the prow of +the Baliol shell. + +Deacon glanced at the coxswain. A mile to go--one deadly mile. + +"Thirty-six," he said. "Shelburne's can't have much more left." + +The time had passed for study now. Gritting his teeth, Deacon bent +to his work, his eyes fixed upon the swaying body of the coxswain, +whose sharp staccato voice snapped out the measure; the beat of the +oars in the locks came as one sound. + +"Right, boys! Up we come. Bully--bully--bully! Half a length now. Do +you hear? Half a length! Give me a quarter, boys. Eh, Godfrey! We've +got it. Now up and at 'em, Baliol. Oh, you hell-dogs!" + +As in a dream Deacon saw the Shelburne boat drift into view, saw the +various oarsmen slide past until he and the rival stroke were rowing +practically abeam. + +"That's for you, Dad," he muttered--and smiled. + +He saw the men swing with quickened rhythm, saw the spray fly like +bullets from the Shelburne blades. + +"Look out." There was a note of anguish in Seagraves' voice. +"Shelburne's spurting again." + +A malediction trembled upon Deacon's lips. So here was the joker +held in reserve by the rival crew! Had Baliol anything left? Had he +anything left? Grave doubt was mounting in his soul. Away swept the +Shelburne boat inches at a stroke until the difference in their +positions was nearly a length. Three miles and a half! Not an +observer but believed that this gruelling contest had been worked out. +Seagraves, his eyes running tears, believed it as he swung backward +and forward exhorting his men. Half a mile more! The crews were now +rowing between the anchored lines of yachts and excursion-craft. The +finish boat was in sight. + +And now Deacon, exalted by something nameless, uttered a cry and +began to give to Baliol more than he really had. Surely, steadily, +he raised his stroke while his comrades, like the lion-hearts they +were, took it up and put the sanction of common authority upon it. +Thirty-four! Thirty-six! Not the spurt of physical prowess, but of +indomitable mentality. + +"Up we come!" Seagraves' voice was shrill like a bugle. He could see +expressions of stark fear in the faces of the rival oarsmen. They +had given all they had to give, had given enough to win almost any +race. But here in this race they had not given enough. + +On came the Baliol shell with terrific impulse. Quarter of a mile; +Shelburne passed, her prow hanging doggedly on to the Baliol rudder. + +Victory! Deacon's head became clear. None of the physical torture he +had felt in the past mile was now registered upon his consciousness. +No thought but that of impending victory! + +"Less than a quarter of a mile, boys. In the stretch. Now--my God!" + +Following the coxswain's broken exclamation, Deacon felt an +increased resistance upon his blade. + +"Eh?" + +"Innis has carried away his oarlock." The eyes of the coxswain +strained upon Deacon's face. + +Deacon gulped. Strangely a picture of his father filled his mind. +His face hardened. + +"All right! Tell him to throw his oar away and swing with the rest. +Don't move your rudder now. Keep it straight as long as you can." + +From astern the sharp eyes of the Shelburne cox had detected the +accident to Baliol's Number Six. His voice was chattering stridently. + +Deacon, now doing the work practically of two men, was undergoing +torture which shortly would have one of two effects. Either he would +collapse or his spirit would carry him beyond the claims of +overtaxed physique. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes--a groan +escaped his lips. Then so far as personality, personal emotions, +personal feelings were concerned, Jim Deacon ceased to function. He +became merely part of the mechanism of a great effort, the principal +guiding part. + +And of all those rowing men of Baliol only the coxswain saw the +Shelburne boat creeping up slowly, inexorably--eight men against +seven. For nearly a quarter of a mile the grim fight was waged. + +"Ten strokes more, boys!" + +The prow of the Shelburne shell was on a line with Baliol's Number +Two. + +"One--two--three--four----" The bow of the Shelburne boat plunged up +abeam Baliol's bow oar. + +"Five--six--God, boys!--seven----" + +The voice of the coxswain swept upward in a shrill scream. A gun +boomed; the air rocked with the screech and roar of whistles. + +Slowly Deacon opened his eyes. Seagraves, the coxswain, was standing +up waving his megaphone. Rollins, at Number Seven, lay prone over +his oar. Innis, who had broken his oarlock, sat erect; Wallace, at +Number Five, was down. So was the bow oar. Mechanically Deacon's +hand sought the water, splashing the body of the man in front of him. +Then suddenly a mahogany launch dashed alongside. In the bow was a +large man with white moustache and florid face and burning black eyes. +His lips were drawn in a broad grin which seemed an anomaly upon the +face of Cephas Doane. + +If so he immediately presented a still greater anomaly. He laughed +aloud. + +"Poor old Shelburne! I--George! The first in four years! I never saw +anything quite like that. We've talked of Baliol's rowing-spirit--eh! +Here, you Deacon, let me give you a hand out of the shell. We'll run +you back to quarters." + +Deacon, wondering, was pulled to the launch and then suddenly +stepped back, his jaw falling, his eyes alight as a man advanced +from the stern. + +"Dad!" + +"Yes," chuckled Doane. "We came up together--to celebrate." + +"You mean--you mean--" Jim Deacon's voice faltered. + +"Yes, I mean--" Cephas Doane stopped suddenly. "I think in justice +to my daughter-in-law to be, Jane Bostwick, that some explanation is +in order." + +"Yes, sir." Deacon, his arm about his father's shoulder, stared at +the man. + +"You see, Dr. Nicholls had the idea that you needed a finer edge put +on your rowing spirit. So I got Jane to cook up the story about that +cashier business at the bank." + +"You did!" + +"Yes. Of course your father was appointed. The only trouble was that +Jane, bright and clever as she is, bungled her lines." + +"Bungled!" Deacon's face cleared. "That's what Dr. Nicholls said +about her on the road, the day I bucked out. I remember the word +somehow." + +"She bungled, yes. She was to have made it very clear that by +winning you would escape my alleged wrath--or rather, your father +would. I knew you would row hard for Baliol, but I thought you might +row superhumanly for your father." + +"Well," Jim Deacon flushed, then glanced proudly at his father-- +"you were right, sir--I would." + + + + +PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR + + +BY L. H. ROBBINS + +From _Everybody's Magazine_ + +He was a meek little man with sagging frame, dim lamps and feeble +ignition. Anxiously he pressed the salesman to tell him which of us +used cars in the wareroom was the slowest and safest. + +The salesman laid his hand upon me and declared soberly: "You can't +possibly go wrong on this one, Mr. Todd." To a red-haired boy he +called, "Willie, drive Mr. Todd out for a lesson." + +We ran to the park and stopped beside a lawn. "Take the wheel," said +Willie. + +Mr. Todd demurred. "Let me watch you awhile," he pleaded. "You see, +I'm new at this sort of thing. In mechanical matters I am helpless. +I might run somebody down or crash into a tree. I--I don't feel +quite up to it to-day, so just let me ride around with you and get +used to the--the motion, as it were." + +"All you need is nerve," Willie replied. "The quickest way for you +to get nerve is to grab hold here and, as it were, drive." + +"Driving, they say, _does_ give a man self-confidence," our +passenger observed tremulously. "Quite recently I saw an +illustration of it. I saw an automobilist slap his wife's face while +traveling thirty miles an hour." + +"They will get careless," said Willie. + +Mr. Todd clasped the wheel with quivering hands and braced himself +for the ordeal. + +"Set her in low till her speed's up," Willie directed. "Then wiggle +her into high." + +It was too mechanical for Mr. Todd. Willie translated with scornful +particularity. Under our pupil's diffident manipulation we began to +romp through the park at the rate of one mile an hour. + +Willie fretted. "Shoot her some gas," said he. "Give it to her. +Don't be a-scared." He pulled down the throttle-lever himself. + +My sudden roaring was mingled with frightened outcries from Todd. +"Stop! Wait a minute! Whoa! Help!" + +Fortunately for my radiator, the lamp-post into which he steered me +was poorly rooted. He looked at the wreckage of the glass globe on +the grass, and declared he had taken as much of the theory of +motoring as he could absorb in one session. + +"This is the only lesson I can give you free," said Willie. +"You'd better keep on while the learning's cheap." + +To free education and to compulsory education Mr. Todd pronounced +himself opposed. Cramming was harmful to the student; the elective +method was the only humane one. He put off the evil hour by engaging +Willie as a private tutor for the remaining afternoons of the month. + +I have met many rabbits but only one Todd. He would visit me in the +barn and look at me in awe by the half-hour. Yet I liked him; I felt +drawn toward him in sympathy, for he and I were fellow victims of +the hauteur of Mrs. Todd. + +In my travels I have never encountered a glacier. When I do run +across one I shall be reminded, I am certain, of Mr. Todd's lady. + +"So you are still alive?" were her cordial words as we rolled into +the yard on the first afternoon. + +"Yes, my dear." His tone was almost apologetic. + +"Did he drive it?" she asked Willie. + +"I'll say so, ma'am." + +She looked me over coldly. When she finished, I had shrunk to the +dimensions of a wheelbarrow. When Todd sized me up in the warehouse +only an hour before, I had felt as imposing as a furniture van. + +"Put it in the barn," said Mrs. Todd, "before a bird carries it off." + +I began to suspect that a certain little stranger was not unanimously +welcome in that household. For a moment I was reassured, but only +for a moment. + +"John Quincy Burton says," she observed, "that a little old used car +like this is sometimes a very good thing to own." + +"That is encouraging," said Todd, brightening. In his relief he +explained to Willie that John Quincy Burton drove the largest car in +the neighbourhood and was therefore to be regarded as an authority. + +"Yes," Mrs. Todd concluded, "he says he thinks of buying one himself +to carry in his tool-box." + +Willie was an excellent teacher, though a severe disciplinarian. + +But by way of amends for the rigours of the training, Willie would +take Mr. Todd after the practice hour for a spin around the park. At +those times I came to learn that the collision I had had with a +trolley-car before Todd bought me had not left me with any +constitutional defect. I still had power under my hood, and speed in +my wheels. But what good were power and speed to me now? I doubted +that Todd would ever push me beyond a crawl. + +Yet I had hope, for when his relaxation from the tension of a lesson +had loosened his tongue he would chatter to Willie about +self-confidence. + +"Some day you say, I shall be able to drive without thinking?" + +"Sure! You won't have to use your bean any more'n when you walk." + +At nights, when no one knew, Mr. Todd would steal into the barn and, +after performing the motions of winding me up, would sit at the +wheel and make believe to drive. + +"I advance the spark," he would mutter, "I release the brake, I set +the gear, and ever so gently I let in the clutch. Ha! We move, we +are off! As we gather speed I pull the gear-lever back, then over, +then forward. Now, was that right? At any rate we are going north, +let us say, in Witherspoon Street. I observe a limousine approaching +from the east in a course perpendicular to mine. It has the right of +way, Willie says, so I slip the clutch out, at the same time +checking the flow of gasoline...." + +Thus in imagination he would drive; get out, crank, get in again, +and roll away in fancy, earnestly practising by the hour in the dark +and silent barn. + +"I'm getting it," he would declare. "I really believe I'm getting it!" + +And he got it. In his driving examination he stalled only once, +stopping dead across a trolley track in deference to a push-cart. +But he was out and in and off again in ten seconds, upbraiding me +like an old-timer. + +Said the inspector, stepping out at last and surely offering a +prayer of thanks to his patron saint: "You're pretty reckless yet on +corners, my friend." But he scribbled his O.K. + +The written examination in the City Hall Mr. Todd passed with high +honours. Willie, who was with us on the fateful morning, exclaimed +in admiration: "One hundred! Well, Mr. Todd, you're alive, after +all--from the neck up, at least." + +In gratitude for the compliment, the glowing graduate pressed a +bonus of two dollars into the panegyrist's palm. "Willie," he exulted, +"did you hear the inspector call me reckless?" + +I can scarcely think of the Todd of the succeeding weeks as the same +Todd who bought me. He changed even in looks. He would always be a +second, of course, but his frame had rigidity now, his lamps sparkled, +he gripped the wheel with purposeful hands and trampled the pedals +in the way an engine likes. In his new assurance he reminded me +strongly of a man who drove me for a too brief while in my younger +days--a rare fellow, now doing time, I believe, in the penitentiary. + +No longer Todd and I needed the traffic cop's "Get on out of +there, you corn-sheller!" to push us past the busy intersection +of Broad and Main streets. We conquered our tendency to scamper +panic-stricken for the sidewalk at the raucous bark of a jitney bus. +In the winding roads of the park we learned to turn corners on two +wheels and rest the other pair for the reverse curve. + +One remembered day we went for a run in the country. On a ten-mile +piece of new macadam he gave me all the gas I craved. It was the +final test, the consummation, and little old Mr. Todd was all there. +I felt so good I could have blown my radiator cap off to him. + +For he was a master I could trust--and all my brother used cars, +whether manufactured or merely born, will understand what comfort +that knowledge gives a fellow. I vowed I would do anything for that +man! On that very trip, indeed, I carried him the last homeward mile +on nothing in my tank but a faint odour. + + + +II + +Mrs. Todd was one of those gentle souls who get their happiness in +being unhappy in the presence of their so-called loved ones. She was +perpetually displeased with Todd. + +His Christian name was James, but she did not speak Christian to him. +When she hailed him from the house she called him "Jay-eems"--the +"eems" an octave higher than the "Jay." + +He would drop the grease-can or the monkey-wrench to rush to her side. + +"Look at your sleeves!" she would say. "Your best shirt!" Words +failing her, she would sigh and go into a silence that was worse +than words. He was a great burden to her. + +Humbly he entreated her one day for an obsolete tooth-brush. +"I want to clean spark-plugs with it," he explained. + +"Next," she replied, icily, "you'll be taking your little pet to the +dentist, I suppose." + +From such encounters Jay-eems would creep back to the barn and seek +consolation in tinkering around me. + +He liked to take the lid off my transmission-box and gaze at my +wondrous works. He was always tightening my axle-burrs, or dosing me +with kerosene through my hot-air pipe, or toying with my timer. +While he was never so smart as Willie about such things, he was +intelligent and quick to learn; and this was not surprising to me +after I discovered the nature of his occupation in life. + +I had taken him to be a retired silk-worm fancier, a chronic juryman, +or something of the sort. But shiver my windshield if he wasn't a +professor in a college! + +On the morning when first he dared to drive me to his work, the +college must have got wind of our coming, for the students turned +out in a body to cheer him as he steered in at the campus gate, and +the faculty gathered on the steps to shake his hand. + +A bald-headed preceptor asked him if he meant to cyanide me and +mount me on a pin for preservation in the college museum. The +chancellor inquired if Todd had identified me. Todd said he had. He +said I was a perfect specimen of _Automobilum cursus gandium_, the +most beautiful species of the _Golikellece_ family. It was the +nearest he ever came to profanity in my hearing. I suppose he got it +from associating with Willie. + +They demanded a speech, and he made one--about me. He said that my +name was _Hilaritas_, signifying joy. He said, among other +flattering things, that I was no common mundane contraption, though +such I might seem to the untutored eye. In their studies of the +Greek drama they had read of gods from the machine. I was a machine +from the gods. In my cylinders I consumed nectar vapour, in my +goo-cups ambrosia, in my radiator flowed the crystal waters of the +Fount of Bandusia. + +Three other items of his eulogium I remember: The breath of Pan +inflated my tires, I could climb Olympus in high, and he, James Todd, +a mere professor in a college, while sitting at my wheel, would not +bare his head to Zeus himself, no, nor even to the chairman of the +college board of trustees. + +His nonsense appeared to be as popular in that part of town as it +was unpopular in another. They gave the varsity yell with his name +at the end. + +The day came when Mrs. Todd risked her life in our sportive company. +She made it clear to us that she went protesting. She began her +pleasantries by complaining that my doors were trivial. +Straightening her hat, she remarked that the John Quincy Burtons' +car top never took a woman's scalp off. + +"But theirs is only a one-man top," Todd hinted vaguely. + +"Whatever you mean by that is too deep for me," she said, adding +bitterly, "Yours is a one-boy top, I presume." + +He waived the point and asked where she preferred to make her début +as an automobilist. + +"Back roads, by all means," she answered. + +As we gained the street a pea-green Mammoth purred past, the +passengers putting out their heads to look at us. + +"Goodness!" she sighed. "There go the John Quincy Burtons now." + +"We can soon join them," said Todd confidently. + +She expostulated. "Do you think I have no pride?" Yet we went in +pursuit of the John Quincy Burton dust-cloud as it moved toward the +park. + +"Since you have no regard for my feelings," said she, "you may let +me out." + +"Oh, no, Amanda, my dear. Why, I'm going to give you a spin to +Mountaindale!" + +"I do not care to be dragged there," she declared. "That is where +the John Quincy Burtons ride." + +"Aren't they nice people? It seems to me I've heard you sing +hosannas to their name these last twenty years." + +They were nice people indeed. That was just it, she said. Did he +suspect her of yearning to throw herself in the way of nice people +on the day of her abasement? If he chose to ignore her sentiments in +the matter, he might at least consider his own interests. Had he +forgotten that John Quincy Burton was chairman of the board of +trustees of the college? Would the head of the department of +classical languages acquire merit in Mr. Burton's eyes through +dashing about under Mr. Burton's nose in a pitiable little +last-century used car that squeaked? + +Todd gripped the wheel tighter and gave me gas. + +"You missed that storm sewer by an inch!" she exclaimed. + +"My aim is somewhat wild yet," he admitted. "Perhaps I'll get the +next one." + +"Jay-eems!" + +"My dear, we have a horn, remember." + +"You did not see that baby carriage until we were right upon it! +Don't tell me you did, sir, for I know better." + +"I saw it," said Todd, "and I was sure it wouldn't run over us. As +you see, it didn't. Trust a baby carriage my love." + +His humour, she informed him, was on a par with his driving. Also it +was in poor taste at such a moment. + +In time of danger, he replied, the brave man jests. + +We were now in the park. We clipped a spray of leaves off a syringia +bush. On a curve we slid in loose gravel to the wrong side. + +"James Todd!" + +"Yes, my dear?" + +"Let me out! I decline to be butchered to make a holiday for a +motormaniac." + +"Don't talk to the motormaniac," said Todd. + +She clutched a top support and gasped for breath, appalled at his +audacity, or my speed, or both. In the straight reaches I could see +the Burton Mammoth a quarter of a mile ahead. When it swung into the +broad avenue that leads to the mountain, we were holding our own. + +"You are following them--deliberately," said Mrs. Todd. + +"Yet not so deliberately, at that. Do you feel us pick up my dear, +when I give her gas? Aha!" he laughed. "I agree with you, however, +that the order of precedence is unsatisfactory. Why should we follow +the Burtons, indeed?" + +We went after them; we gave them the horn and overtook and passed +them on a stiff grade, amid cheers from both cars. But all of our +cheering was done by Todd. + +"Now they are following us," said he. "Do you feel better, my dear?" + +"Better!" she lamented. "How can I ever look them in the face again?" + +"Turn around," he suggested, "and direct your gaze through the +little window in the back curtain." + +She bade him stop at the next corner. She would walk home. She was +humiliated. Never had she felt so ashamed. + +"Isn't that an odd way to feel when we have beaten the shoes off them?" + +"But they will think we tried to." + +"So we did," he chuckled; "and we walked right past them, in high, +while Burton was fussing with his gear shift. Give our little engine +a fair go at a hill, my dear----" + +"I am not in the least interested in engines, sir. I am only +mortified beyond words." + +She had words a-plenty, however. + +"Isn't it bad enough for you to drive your little rattletrap to +college and get into the paper about it? No; you have to show it off +in a fashionable avenue, and run races with the best people in +Ashland, and scream at them like a freshman, and make an exhibition +of me!" + +His attention was absorbed in hopping out from under a truck coming +in from a side street. A foolish driver would have slowed and crashed. +I was proud of Todd. But his lady was not. + +"You have no right to go like this. You don't know enough. You will +break something." + +He had already broken the speed law. Unknown to him, a motor-cycle +cop was tagging close behind us on our blind side. + +"If you think this is going, my dear," said Todd reassuringly, +"wait till we strike the turnpike. Then I'll show you what little +Hilaritas can really do." + +"Stop at the car barns," she commanded. + +We crossed the car-barn tracks at a gallop. The cop rode abreast of +us now. "Cut it out, Bill," he warned. + +"You see?" she crowed. "You will wind up in jail and give the papers +another scandal. Why didn't you stop at the car barns?" + +"Because we are going to Mountaindale," he explained cheerily; +"where the nice people drive. Perhaps we shall see the John Quincy +Burtons again--as we come back." + +"If we ever do come back!" + +"Or how would you like to have supper with them up there?" + +She had gone into one of her silences. + + + +Ill + +We settled down for the long pull over First Mountain. Todd slowed +my spark and gave me my head. Then he addressed the partner of his +joy-ride in a new voice: "Amanda, my dear, you and I need to have a +frank little understanding." + +She agreed. + +"For some years past," he began, "I have borne without complaint, +even without resentment, a certain attitude that you have seen fit +to adopt toward me. I have borne it patiently because I felt that to +an extent I deserved it." + +My floor boards creaked as she gathered her forces for the counter +attack. He went on recklessly: + +"In the beginning of our life together, Amanda, you were ambitious. +You longed for wealth and position and that sort of thing, in which +respect you were like the rest of men and women. Like most people, +my dear, you have been disappointed; but unlike most of them you +persist in quarrelling with the awards of fortune, just as to-day +you are quarrelling with this plebeian car of ours. As you speak of +Hilaritas, so you speak of me. At breakfast this morning, for example, +you reminded me, for perhaps the tenth time since Sunday, that you +are chained to a failure. Those were your words, my dear--chained to +a failure." + +"Do you call yourself a dazzling success?" she asked. + +"Not dazzling, perhaps," he replied, "and yet--yes--yes, I believe I +do." + +"What I told you at breakfast was that Freddy Burton makes one +hundred dollars a week, and he is only twenty-four--not half as old +as you." + +"Freddy Burton is engaged in the important occupation of selling +pickles," Todd answered, "and I am only an educator of youth. Long +ago I reached my maximum--three thousand dollars. From one point of +view I don't blame you for looking upon me as a futility. I presume +I am. Nor will I chide you for not taking the luck of life in a +sportsmanlike spirit. But I do insist----" + +"At last!" she broke in. "At last I understand some pencil notes +that I found yesterday when I cleaned out your desk. A minute ago I +thought you were out of your head. Now I see that this--this +frightfulness of yours is premeditated. Premeditated, James Todd! +You prepared this speech in advance!" + +Between you and me, she was right. I had heard him practise it in +the barn. + +He took her arraignment calmly, "Hereafter," said he, "please +refrain from cleaning out my desk." + +I heard her catch her breath. "You have never talked to me like this +before; never!" she said. "You have never dared. And that is +precisely the trouble with you, James Todd. You won't talk back; you +won't speak up for your rights. It is the cross of my life." + +From the sound, I think she wept. + +"You are the same in the outside world as you are at home. You let +the college trustees pay you what they please. You slave and slave +and wear yourself out for three thousand a year when we might have +twenty if you went into something else. And when your building-loan +stock matures and you do get a little money, you spend it for +this--this underbred little sewing-machine, and lure me out in it, +and lecture me, as if I--as if I were to blame. I don't know what +has come over you." + +I knew what had come over him. I knew the secret of the new spirit +animating the frail personality of Professor Todd. And Willie knew. +I recalled that boy's prophetic words: "The quickest way to get +nerve is to grab hold here and drive." I worried, nevertheless. I +wondered if my little man could finish what he had started. + +He could. As we rolled down the mountain into the ten-mile turnpike +where he and I had rediscovered our youth, he concluded his +discourse without missing an explosion. I knew his peroration by +heart. + +"To end this painful matter, my dear, I shall ask you in future to +accord me at least the civility, if not the respect, to which a +hard-working man and a faithful husband is entitled. I speak in all +kindliness when I say that I have decided to endure no more hazing. +I hope you understand that I have made this decision for your sake +as well as for mine, for the psychological effect of hazing is quite +as harmful to the hazer as to the hazed. Please govern yourself +accordingly." + +He opened the throttle wide, and we touched thirty-five miles. I +felt a wild wabble in my steering-gear. I heard Todd's sharp +command--"Kindly keep your hands off the wheel while I am driving." + +At the Mountain Dale Club Todd descended. + +"Will you come in and have a lemonade, my dear?" he asked. There was +a heartbroken little squeak in his voice. + +"Thank you," she replied frigidly. "I have had all the acid I can +assimilate in one pleasant day." + +"May I remind you," said he, stiffening with the gentle insistence +of a steel spring, "that I am not to be addressed in sarcastic tones +any longer?" + +The Mammoth slid up beside us. The stout John Quincy Burton at the +wheel shouted jovially: "I tell you what, Todd, when our soberest +university professors get the speed bug, I tremble for civilization!" + +My owner grinned with pleasure. + +"Mrs. Todd," said Burton, "after that trimming from your +road-burning husband, I'll stand treat. Won't you join us?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Todd, do be persuaded," Mrs. Burton chimed in. "After +twenty miles with your Barney Oldfield you need nourishment, I'm sure. +You and I can talk about his recklessness while he and Mr. Burton +have their little conference." + +If Todd had an appointment for a conference there at that hour with +Burton, I am positive it was news to Mrs. Todd and me. I could feel +her weight growing heavier on my cushion springs. + +"Thank you for the invitation," she replied, "but I am so badly +shaken up, I prefer to sit out here." + +To which her husband added, laughingly: "She wouldn't risk having +her new car stolen for anything." + +It was twilight before we started for home, the Burtons pulling out +ahead of us. At the beginning of the climb over the mountain I saw +the Mammoth stop. We drew alongside. + +"Out of gas, confound it," growled Burton, "and five miles from a +service station!" + +"I'd lend you some, only I haven't much myself," said Todd. +"Got a rope?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"Oh, we can. We can pull you and never know it. Hitch on behind. We +like to travel in stylish company, Mrs. Todd and I." + +So we towed them over the mountain and left them at a red pump. John +Quincy Burton's gratitude was immense. + +"The pleasure is all ours," Todd assured him. "But, say, old man!" + +"Well?" + +"You ought to buy a little old used car like this some time to carry +in your tool-box." + +They were still laughing when we drove away. + +Not a word did Mrs. Todd utter on the homeward journey; but in the +privacy of our humble barn-- + +"Oh!" she cried. "I could _die_! Why did you have to say that to +Mr. Burton?" + +"Amanda!" + +She subsided, but she had not surrendered. + +"You didn't tell me you had an engagement with him. What----" + +Todd laughed. "I was chosen this week, my dear, as a grievance +committee of one, representing the teaching staff at the college, to +put a few cold facts into John Quincy Burton's ear." + +"You?" + +"Precisely, my dear. I was the only man in the faculty who seemed to +have the--the self-confidence necessary. And I made Burton see the +point. I have his promise that the college trustees will campaign +the state this summer for a half-million-dollar emergency fund, a +good slice of which will go toward salary increases." + +"Well! I must say----" + +She did not say it. Silently she left us. + +He lingered a while in the barn. He opened my hood, for I was quite +warm from the towing job. He examined a new cut in one of my tires +and loosened my hand-brake a notch. He couldn't seem to find enough +to do for me. + +From the house came a hail. I am not sure that he did not hold his +breath as he listened. + +"James, dear!" again. + +"Hello!" he answered. + +"James, dear, won't you bring your automobile pliers, please, and +see if you can open this jar of marmalade?" + +My little man went in whistling. + + + + +THE THING THEY LOVED + + +BY MARICE RUTLEDGE + +From _The Century Magazine_ + +"_They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their +love was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human +beings can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a +supreme moment_." + +When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a +series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift +response. She was confident that anything touching on her +professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, +in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind +of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; +he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship +he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, +she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to +sing David Cannon's songs under such conditions, presented good +fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly. + +But his "Why, my dear, South America!" came flatly upon her +announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, +his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, +for he added hastily, with happier effect: "It's a wonderful chance, +dearest, isn't it?" His voice by then had gained in heartiness, and +his smile, always worshipful when turned on her, contained this time +something of apology. So close were they, though, in thought, spoken +or unspoken, that he had sounded a tiny alarm. Her radiance +perceptibly waned. A moment before she had stood, a glowing, vital +creature, beside him, eyes and lips singing a duet of delight; now +with questioning heart she leaned toward her loved one. + +"What is it? Don't you want me to go? I thought you liked David. +Can't you come, too, Oliver?" + +"You know I can't, dear," she heard him say with an attempt at +lightness. Then he added: "But it's a great chance for you. You'll +take it, of course. It was only the thought of losing you even for a +little while. What selfish brutes we men are!" He had recovered +himself, had defined his passing reserve in loverlike terms, and was +newly aware of unworthiness. The luxury of tender persuasion, of +arguing her into a sense of sweet security, concerned him next. He +could not say enough, and said too much. + +They were mellow against an intimate background of yellow walls lit +by fire and lamps. Myra's grand piano projected sleek and dark from +a corner of warm shadow. The silver tea-set gleamed pale on a +slender-legged table; a fragrance of narcissus spread dreamily. +Oliver sank on the couch, drawing her down where she could become +all feminine. She was that, and most adorably, her bright hair soft +about lax brows, her full lips parted, her strong white hands lying +in his like brooding birds. He talked on, and she played content for +a while; but a moment came when with a sudden maternal gesture she +drew his dark, willing head to her shoulder. + +"Let's forget South America for to-night," she said. + +He would not, could not, drop the subject. He had been so clumsy in +not realizing what it all meant to her; but her news had come as +such a surprise. She had seen David Cannon, then, that afternoon? + +Yes, he was on his way down to her to settle the date of their +concert and to propose this South American scheme. But she need not +decide immediately. + +He protested that her triumph there would crown him. If he were not +a poor young architect attached to his blue prints, he would follow +her. As it was, his duller duty lay at home. She caught a flatness +of tone, and met it with a vigorous profession of faith in his work. +His art was more useful than hers, more enduring. His music was in +stone; hers was no greater than the trilling of a bird. He thought +this over, moved from her embrace, sat erect, and patted his tie. +Well, he summed up, each had a working life converging to a common +end. Let her sing Cannon's songs to South America. Her voice would +reach him. Then let her come back quickly. He could not conceive of +life without her. It would seem strange to be a bachelor again, he +went on, with a sigh meant to be comical. He supposed he would eat at +his club when he was not invited out. He hoped her friends would +take pity on him. + +"You mean our friends," she corrected. + +"You're the magnet, dear." + +"I attracted you," she conceded happily. Then, with a start, she said: +"Do you know what time it is? And we're dining with the Wickeses at +seven." + +"I never have you to myself any more," he objected. "If I were an +old-fashioned husband, I should be jealous of every one who sees or +talks to you." + +"But you're not an old-fashioned husband," she reminded him. + +"I try not to be." He had risen from the couch, and was making his +way to the door, where he paused to look back at her. "Wear the blue +brocade to-night, dear, and do your hair that new way." + +"The way Martigues suggested? I thought you didn't like it." + +He hesitated only a second. + +"It's a bit extreme," he had to confess, "but it suits you." + +She came toward him then, laughing. + +"You see, you give me over to them." + +"I can afford to," he said. + +They were late, of course, to the dinner. Despite her effort at +brightness, Oliver felt her graver mood. He watched her with a +shadowy anxiety. Her smile, when her glance sought him out among the +chattering guests, did not entirely reassure him. He had never loved +her more than this evening when she seemed so removed from him, so +easily and brilliantly a guest of honor. What hold had these +strangers on her? They could only misread the superficial sparkle of +her eyes, the gracious movements of her uncovered neck and arms. He +decided then that the blue brocade was too conspicuous. She must not +wear it in South America. And her honey-coloured hair, piled high, +with a fantastic Spanish comb flaring above the topmost curls, +struck him as needlessly theatrical. He blamed Martigues for that. +His humour was not improved by the Basque painter's voluble +compliments on the success of a coiffure he felt to be his own +creation. The fellow was too familiar, thought Oliver, with +increasing irritation. He darkened, grew glum and silent; and when, +after dinner, Martigues approached him with a luckless tribute to +Madame Shaw's superlative loveliness, he answered curtly, and turned +on his heel. Myra witnessed the brief discourtesy, and later very +gently taxed him with it. What had the unfortunate artist done? He +faced her like a sulky boy and would not answer; but she was quick +to penetrate his grievance. She laughed then, as a woman laughs who +has nothing to conceal, declaring that Martigues's taste was not +infallible, and that Oliver knew best what became his Myra. She soon +wooed him back to his old charming self, and the incident passed. +But there were others on the following days, and Myra grew thoughtful. + +She and Oliver were seldom alone. Her joy of life, her vitality, her +very talent, depended on a multitude of impressions, on innumerable +personal contacts. She belonged to a rich, throbbing world of +emotions; she gathered passion for her song from the yearnings, the +anonymous aspirations, even the crudities of the human forces about +her. + +She was Oliver's most gloriously when most surrounded. His pride was +centred on her; it was centred, however, on the brilliant returns of +her actual presence--a presence which was never too far removed in +flesh or spirit to deprive him of a certain naive assumption of +ownership. That she should continue all the dear, familiar +fascinations beyond his sight or touch, in a far-away land, with +David Cannon as a daily companion, was another matter. Not that he +was jealous of David. No one man stood out as a rival. But Cannon +travelling with Myra, sharing artistic triumphs with her, escorting +her to entertainments given in her honour, Cannon, in fact, +associated in foreign minds with the beautiful cantatrice, offended +the inviolable rights of his lover's vanity. He would have her less +beautiful, less gifted, not more faithful. + +Exquisitely sensitive where he was concerned, Myra detected this +subtle change in his attitude toward her and her work. The origins +of the change, she knew, were obscurely lodged in the male egoism. +He himself was not aware of them. He seemed nearer and dearer than +ever, even more ardent. He wanted her constantly within range of his +eyes and hands that he might in a thousand coaxing or, often, +petulant ways assert a fond dominion. She yielded gladly to that +sweet pressure. Strangely enough for a woman of her independent +habits, to be so loved, roused elemental instincts the more powerful +since she had never before given them outlet. So she allowed his +illusions of mastery full play, which was dangerous, as gradually +she altered the delicate balance of their relationship. + +A restless month went by. It was February. + +Unfortunately, Oliver's work failed to engross him. He grew moodier, +more exacting. If Myra arrived home late, he wanted to know where +she had been, whom she had seen. Were they dining out, he muttered +unsociable objections; were people coming to the house, he +complained of the lack of privacy. What a whirl they lived in! So +they did, but what was the remedy? Myra herself felt helpless in a +tangle of engagements. They overpowered her. She could not seem to +cut her way through them. Then there were rehearsals for the concert. +David Cannon came to her or she went to him nearly every day. +Usually Oliver was present, putting in his opinion between each song. +Did David think the South Americans would appreciate that kind of +music? How did he think they would like Myra? And so on and on. + +David Cannon, never patient, a rough-tongued, self-absorbed genius, +resented these interruptions, and was brief in his methods of +expressing as much. Even Myra, the most tactful of diplomatists, +could not smooth over occasional ugly moments between the two men. +She understood Oliver better than he understood himself. His +unreasoning love, his apprehensive vanity, would have unsettled a +less maternal spirit; but she found a kind of mystic wonder in it, he +battled so blindly for possession of her. He was in her way, and she +could not advance without pushing him aside. Had he come to her and +blustered, "You shall not leave me for any purpose whatsoever," she +would have denied him the right of dictation; but there was no such +conflict of wills. + +They were both involved in this love of their making--a love whose +demands were treacherous. Each day brought up trivial attacks, +fancied grievances, little fears unavowed; but when she sought to +meet the issue squarely, it eluded her. Oliver's nightly repentance +for his daily whims and suspicions drew her nightly into his arms. +Enfolded there, she felt moored to his love; and, sleepless, she +questioned any life apart. + +Two days before the recital, David Cannon, with whom she was going +over the programme for the last time, turned suddenly from the piano +with an impatient shrug of his shoulders. + +"Rotten!" he said brutally, peering up at her. "You're not doing +yourself justice. What's the matter with you?" Beneath the strong, +overhanging brow his little eyes glowered fiercely. + +They happened to be alone that afternoon in his great bare studio, +where no soft background or dim lights conspired to hide her +dejection. She had sung badly. She knew it, but she could not answer +such a brusque attack, could not defend herself against harsh +questioning. + +"I don't know. Perhaps I'm tired," she said. + +David Cannon rose from the piano with the powerful lunging movement +of a bull. + +"You tired? Nonsense!" His charge sent him beyond her a pace. He +wheeled and came up close. He was shorter than she, but the sheer +force of the man topped her. His keen little eyes looked her over, +took in her bright, drooping head, and her sloping-shouldered, +slim-waisted health. "Tired!" he grunted. "That's an excuse, not a +reason." He tapped his heart and forehead. "Your troubles lie here +and here." + +She tried to smile, with a lift of her eyebrows. + +"What do you know about it?" + +"I know more than you think I do," he flung at her, frowning. +"You're worried about something, and when you worry, you can't sing. +You're made that way, and I suppose you can't help it. Don't +interrupt yet," he fairly shouted at her as she began to protest. +"I've watched over and taught you for three years. I ought to know." + +"I owe you a lot," she said faintly. + +"You owe me nothing," he snapped. "Your debt is to yourself." + +She could not fend off that merciless look, which went through and +through her. "If my debt is to myself, I need pay only if I choose," +she tried to jest. + +"Don't make that mistake," he warned. "Your work is your life. I +tell you that, and I know." + +"I wonder," she said more to herself than to him. + +He looked at her grimly. + +"Just as I thought. Same old question--marriage. You're jealous, or +he's jealous of God knows whom or what. And your voice goes to pieces. +Which is it?" he demanded. "Is Oliver misbehaving?" + +"Of course not," she said indignantly. + +"Humph! Well, he's faithful, you're faithful. You've both got talent, +friends, a home, a profession. What more do you want?" + +"There are other--jealousies," she said slowly, and with gathering +passion she went on: "I suppose I owe you some explanation, David, +though you won't understand. Oliver is the most wonderful person in +the world. I never thought I could love any one as I love him. And +it's the same with him. But he wants me all to himself." Her hands +fluttered together in nervous appeal. "Can't you see how it is? Since +we've been married we've never been separated a day. And now this +South-American thing has come up, and he's felt--oh, I can't explain. +But I'm so afraid--" + +"Afraid of what?" + +"It's hard to put into words," she said hopelessly. "I suppose I'm +afraid of losing my happiness. Oliver's right in many ways. He never +does have me to himself; I belong to so many people. It's always +been my life, you know. But I thought I could combine everything +when I married, and I'm beginning to see that it can't be done." + +"He knew what your life was," said David. + +"Does one ever know?" she said sadly. "This concert, you see, is my +first important appearance since our marriage. And then my going +away right after--" + +David strode over to the piano and sat there silent, his head sunk +on his chest, his short arms stiffly before him. + +"I realize how absurd it is," she murmured; "but it isn't just those +few months. He trusts me. It's the feeling he has that this is only +a beginning. I know what he means so well," she ended helplessly. +David's short fingers moved over the keys. A music wild and pagan +rose up, filled the room with rhythms of free dancing creatures, +sank to a minor plaint, and broke off on a harsh discord as the +door-bell jangled. + +"There's your Oliver," he said, and went to let him in. + +It was the day of the concert, and Myra wanted above all to be alone. +She had never felt this way before. She dreaded the evening, dreaded +facing a critical audience; she had fretted herself into a fever +over it. But when she tried to explain her state of mind to Oliver +that morning at breakfast, he would not hear of any prescription for +nerves which did not include his company. Why should she want to be +alone? If she was ill or troubled, his place was beside her. He had +planned to lunch and spend the afternoon with her. Her faintly +irritable "I wish you wouldn't," only wounded and shocked him. Her +strength was not equal to discussion, and in the end she yielded. + +For the rest of the morning he followed her about, tenderly opposing +any exertion. + +"I must have you at your best to-night, dear," he kept on saying. +"I'm going to be proud of my Myra." He was so eager, wistful, and +loving, she could not resent his care. She gave in to it with a +sense of helplessness. + +Soon after lunch her head started aching. She suggested a brisk walk. +The air might do her good. But he persuaded her to lie down on the +couch instead. The touch of his fingers on her hot forehead was +soothing, too soothing. She relaxed luxuriously, closing her eyes, +subdued, indifferent. + +He was saying: + +"What will you do, beloved, if you are taken ill in South America? +No Oliver to care for you. I can't bear to think of it." Suddenly, +he laid his cheek against hers. "If anything happens to you, I shall +go mad." + +She sat up with a swift movement that brought back an almost +intolerable pain. + +"Nothing will happen," she tried to say, and found herself weakly +sobbing in his arms. + +It was time to dress. She did her hair, to please Oliver, in a +girlish way, parted and knotted low. Her gown, designed by Martigues, +did not fit in with this simple coiffure. She was aware of an +incongruity between the smooth, yellow bands of hair meekly +confining her small head, and the daring peacock-blue draperies +flowing in long, free lines from her shoulders, held lightly in at +the waist by a golden cord. + +"One will get the better of the other before the evening is over," +she thought with a sigh, turning away from her mirror. + +"My beautiful Myra!" Oliver said as if to cheer her. + +"I have never looked worse," she retorted a trifle impatiently, and +would not argue the point as they drove up town. + +"We'll see what I really amount to now," she told herself. + +She had never before so tensely faced an audience, but there was +more at stake than she cared to confess, and she was not equal to it. +She shone, but did not blind those thousand eyes; she sang but did +not cast enchantment. And David Cannon would not help her. He sat at +the piano, uncouth, impassive, deliberately detached, as if he gave +her and his music over to an anonymous crowd of whose existence he +was hardly aware. There was something huge and static about him, +something elemental as an earth-shape, containing in and by itself +mysterious rhythms. His songs were things of faun-like humours, +terrible, tender, mocking, compassionate. They called for an entire +abandon, for witchery, for passion swayed and swaying; but although +at times Myra's voice held a Pan-like flutiness, although an +occasional note true and sweet as a mate-call stirred that dark +fronting mass, she failed to sustain the spell. She was too aware of +Oliver leaning forward in his box, applauding louder than any one. +His loyalty would force out of this fastidious audience an ovation +she did not deserve. She would not look his way. "I can't sing," she +thought mournfully. + +Had David Cannon shown any annoyance, she might have been goaded on +to a supreme effort; but he avoided her. When once she went up to +him during an intermission and said timidly: + +"I'm sorry, David; I'm spoiling everything," he answered +indifferently: + +"My songs can stand it." + +She wished then that she had not begged Oliver to keep away from her +until the end. She felt lonely and near to tears. As the evening +wore on, lightened by spasmodic applause, she became very quiet. She +even sang better, and felt rather than saw Oliver brighten. But it +was too late; she had lost her audience. There were now gaps in the +earlier unbroken rows; a well-known critic trod softly out; little +nervous coughs and rustlings rose up. + +At last it was all over. She wanted only to hide, but she was not to +escape another ordeal. She and Oliver had arranged for a supper +party that evening. To it they had bidden many musical personalities +and several of Oliver's architect friends. She had meant to announce +then the South-American recitals. The prospect of such an +entertainment was now almost unendurable. She knew well what these +people would say and think. Driving home with Oliver, she relaxed +limp against his shoulder, her eyes closed. That haven could at +least always be counted on, she reflected with passionate gratitude. +His voice sounded from a distance as he talked on and on, explaining, +excusing, what he could not honestly ignore. She had worked too hard. +She was tired out. There was the headache, too. But she had sung +wonderfully all the same. + +"Please, Oliver!" she faintly interrupted. + +"You made the best of it," he insisted. "David's songs, though, are +beyond me." + +She sat up very straight at this. + +"My dear," she said in a cold voice, "I made a mess of it, and you +know it. There _is_ no excuse. David has every reason to be furious." + +"I'd like to see him dare--" + +"Please, Oliver!" she said again on a warning note of hysteria. She +stared out of the window at the blur of passing lights. It was +misting; the streets gleamed wet and wan beneath the lamps. + +Oliver's arm went around her. + +"I'm sorry, dear. Nothing matters, after all, but you and I together," +he whispered. + +"Nothing else does matter, does it?" she cried suddenly. "Love me a +great deal, Oliver, a great, great deal. That's all I ask." + +They drove on in silence for a while. She sat very quiet, her face +half hidden in the high fur collar of her cloak. Now and then she +glanced at Oliver, her eyes wistful. + +"Oliver," she said at last, "would it make any difference to you if +I never sang again?" + +"Never sang again," he echoed. "I don't understand." + +"I want you and my home," came from her slowly. "I've been wondering +for some time how much my singing really meant to me. To-night I +think I've found out. I can't seem to keep everything I started out +with and be happy. I'm not big enough," she added sadly. + +He was startled, incredulous. + +"Myra, you don't realize what you're saying. You're tired to-night. +I could not let you give up your singing. You are an artist, a big +artist." + +She shook her head and sighed. + +"I might have been, perhaps; but no, I'm not. David could tell you +that. He knows." + +"It's been my fault, then, if you feel this way," he said in a +melancholy voice. "I've been selfish and stupid." + +The taxi slowed down before the red-brick entrance of the apartment +house. She put her hand impulsively on his arm. + +"Oliver, promise me something." + +"Whatever you ask." + +"Don't mention South America to any one. You promise?" + +"But, Myra----" + +"Promise." + +"I won't, then. But----" + +"I see Walter Mason and Martigues waiting for us," she said quickly. +"Remember, not a word." She was out of the cab, hurrying forward to +greet her guests. Oliver followed, his eyes mutely pleading. But she +seemed her old self again, graciously animated, laughing at Martigues, +who sulked because he did not like the way her hair was done. + +Soon other guests arrived, and still others, all of them primed with +compliments carefully prepared. + +Last of all came David Cannon, who brushed away flattery with curt +gestures and grunts. He sat heavily down in a corner of the room, a +plate of cheese sandwiches and a frosted glass of beer before him, +and turned an unsociable eye on all intruders. Myra, knowing his mood, +left him alone. + +"You are different to-night," Martigues whispered to her. "There is +something I do not understand. You have the Madonna smile." + +"I am happy," she said, and her eyes turned to Oliver, who held the +look and gave it back with deeper meaning. + +When later Martigues asked her to sing, she glanced again at Oliver, +who nodded and smiled. + +"If David will accompany me," she said then. David left sandwiches +and beer but without enthusiasm. He crossed over to the piano, and +peered up at her with a kind of sombre malice. + +"So you will sing now," he said. "Will this do?" He played a few +notes softly, and she nodded with a little smile. + +It was a song about the love of a white-throated sparrow for a +birch-tree of the North. All summer long the bird lived on the +topmost branch and sang most beautifully. The season of southward +journey came, but the white throated sparrow would not leave her tree. +She stayed on alone, singing while the leaves turned gold and fell. +She sang more faintly as the land grew white with the first snows +and when she could sing no longer for the cold, she nestled down in +a bare hollow of the white tree and let the driving flakes of the +North cover her. + +Oliver stood near the piano. Myra sang to and for him. She stood +very tall and straight, her hair, loosened from its tight bands, +soft around her face. Her voice thrilled out in the mate-call, grew +fainter and sweeter as winter came on, grew poignant under the cold, +quivered on the last note. As David Cannon ended with the fate theme +of the tree, a genuine shiver went through the little group. There +was no hesitation this time in the applause. They swept forward, +surrounding her, begging her to sing again. But it was to Oliver +that she turned. + +"It pleased you? I'm glad." + +David Cannon said nothing. He sat, his shoulders hunched, his +fingers on the keys until she had refused to sing again. + +"I didn't think you would," he said then, and abruptly left his post +to go back to beer and sandwiches. Soon after he slipped out. Myra +went with him to the hall, where they talked for a while in low +voices. When she came back into the room she was smiling serenely. + +She and Oliver were alone at last. + +"You glorious creature!" he cried. "I'm so proud of you! Everyone +was crazy about the way you sang." She walked slowly toward him. + +"Oliver," she said, "I told David this evening that I wouldn't go to +South America with him." + +"You didn't!" His voice rose sharp and shocked. + +She nodded, beaming almost mischievously. + +"But I did, and nothing will make me change my mind." + +"How could you be so impulsive, so foolish!" he cried. + +She was looking at him now more soberly. + +"Aren't you glad?" + +"Myra, you mustn't! I'll telephone David at once.. I'll--you did +this for me. I won't have it. You should have asked me----" + +"It's no use; I'm not going," she said. + +He dropped on the couch and hid his face in his hands. + +"You're giving this up because of me." + +She went to him. + +"Oliver, look at me." + +Slowly he raised his head. + +"I don't see why----" he began, but she was so beautiful, so radiant, +that he caught his breath and faltered. + +She sat down beside him. + +"Ah, but you will," she said. "It's very simple, dear. Even David +understands." + +"What does he think?" + +"He thinks as I do," she said quickly. "He was quite relieved; +honestly, dear. He didn't want any homesick woman spoiling his songs +for him in South America. And then I suggested Frances Maury in my +place. She has a lovely voice, and she'll jump at the chance." + +"I've never heard her, but I'm sure she can't sing as well as you," +he said, with returning gloom. "And it was only for two months." + +She laughed as at an unreasonable child. + +"It isn't the two months, dear. It's our whole life. There would be +other partings, you see, other interests drawing me away. And if it +became easier to leave you, then I should know that everything was +wrong between us; but if it kept on being hard to divide myself +between you and my work, then my work would suffer and so would you. +Either way, it couldn't go on. I'm not big enough to do both," she +said. + +"I can't accept such a sacrifice." + +"Don't you want me with you always?" + +He seized her hands and passionately drew her close to him. + +"Want you? I can tell you now. I've been jealous, terribly so, of +everyone, everything that touched you." + +"I knew it," she said. "That's one reason why I didn't sing well +to-night. Now I'm free"--she threw her arms out with the gesture of +flying--"I'm free to love just you. We'll start another life, Oliver, +a life of our own. We'll be fire-side people, dear, homely lovers +content to sit and talk of an evening. You'll find me very valuable, +really, as a partner," she said eagerly. "I've never been near +enough to your work. And it's such wonderful work!" With an impulsive +movement she went over and closed the piano. "I'll only open it when +you ask me to," she said. + +The process of elimination was simple enough. There was a touch of +melancholy in Myra's measurement of relationships, in her +consciousness of their frailty. People fell away easily, leaving her +and Oliver to their chosen isolation. A dozen regrets or so to +invitations, a week or two of evasions over the telephone, a few +friends like Martigues turned away at the door when obviously she +was at home, a refusal to sing at a charity concert and, most +conclusive of all, David Cannon's advertised departure with another +artist, and the thing was virtually done. + +Then came a succession of long intimate evenings, she and Oliver +left to their caprice, she and Oliver walking and driving together, +wandering where their fancy took them in the springtime of city and +country. She laughed sometimes at him, he seemed so dazed by the +consciousness of utter possession. "You are sure you are not bored, +darling?" he would often ask these first days. She could not +reassure him enough; could not find ways enough to prove to him that +when a woman like herself gave of body, mind, and spirit, it was a +full giving. There was exquisite pain in that giving; it was almost +a terrifying thing. She was a vital creature, and must spend that +which was hers, wisely or foolishly. Her ceaseless energy had always +before found an outlet in her work. Now her only expression lay in +Oliver. Her mind, never at rest, seized upon his working life, made +it hers. But she soon learned that he regarded her self-appointed +post of partner with a tender condescension edged with intolerance. +She learned with a tiny shock that although in matters musical he +trusted absolutely to her judgment, he did not consider the feminine +intellect as equal to his own. Music, she discovered, had always +been defined by him as something feminine in its application to the +arts. + +She became gradually aware that he objected to her visits to his +office. His glance did not brighten at her entrance. He was not +amused as he had been at first, when she bent over the sketches or +ran her slim fingers along the tracery of blue prints, daring to +question them. Sometimes she had a feeling that she did not entirely +know Oliver; that there were plans of his, thoughts of his, which +she did not share. She had not missed these before when her own life +was full. She had time now during their long hours together to +observe reactions of the cause of which she knew nothing. He was +absent-minded, off on a trail that led away from her. + +There came a week when he allowed her the brunt of wooing; a new +dress failed to bring forth the usual compliment; a question lay +unanswered where in pride she left it. Then one morning with a new +crisp note in his voice, he telephoned, telling her that he must +meet a man at his club for dinner that evening. Mechanically she +answered, dully heard his voice warm to a sweetness that should have +comforted her. + +"You know I wouldn't leave you unless it were important, dearest. I +can't explain now, but I may have great news for you when I come home." + +She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, and turned to an apartment +which seemed suddenly dreary and empty. She had no purpose in her day. +The twilight hour loomed in prospect an endless, dusky loneliness. +For a moment she thought of ringing him up and proposing to meet him +downtown for lunch; then restrained the impulse. Was she to turn +into a nagging wife! She longed now for some friend with whom she +could spend the day; but she could think of none. Since her marriage +with Oliver she had not encouraged intimacies. On his account she +had estranged the few women to whom she might now have turned. +Oliver had never understood friendships among women. + +The day dragged by. For the first time in months she found herself +wishing that she was going out that evening. She thought almost +guiltily of David Cannon and Frances Maury, imagining herself in +Frances's place. She went to the piano, tried to sing, and realized +with dismay that she was sadly out of practice. After all, what did +it matter? she decided moodily. Oliver rarely asked her for music. + +She took up a novel and dozed over it. + +At eleven o'clock Oliver came home. She knew by the way he opened +the front door that the news was good. She ran to meet him; her +dullness vanished. + +He took her by the hand and led her into the softly lit room which +seemed suddenly warm again with his presence. Then he whirled her, +facing him. Her smile was a happy reflection of his own brightness. + +"You'll never guess what's happened," he began. + +"Tell me quickly!" she begged. + +He waited a moment, with an eye to dramatic effect. + +"Well, then," he said proudly, "I've been appointed on a special +committee of reconstruction in France. Malcolm Wild--you've heard me +speak of him--came down from Washington to-day to propose it to me. +There are six of us on the committee, and I'm the youngest." + +"Oliver!" She put into the exclamation something of what he expected, +for he seemed satisfied. He lifted his head with a young, triumphant +gesture. "It is my chance to do a great and useful work," he said. +"I needn't tell you what it means. I never hoped, _I_ never dreamed +of such an honour." + +"I'm so proud of you!" she cried. + +He hardly seemed to hear her. + +"Think of it, just think of it--to be invited to go over there with +five of the biggest architects here, American money backing us! +We've been given a whole section to rebuild; I forget how many +villages. It's like a dream." He passed his hand over his eyes. + +"France!" she heard herself saying. "But, Oliver, it's the work of +months." + +He nodded happily. + +"That's what it is." + +"France!" she murmured in a kind of ecstasy. "I'm just getting it." +She clasped her hands together. "I've always wanted to be in France +with you. My dear, when do we start?" + +He gave her a swift, bewildered look. + +"Why, Myra, didn't you understand? I can't take you right away with +me. Later, of course, you'll join me. It won't be long, a few months +at most." + +"I'm not to go when you go?" + +Her voice, low and strained, drove straight to his heart. + +"Myra, I never thought--it's a man's trip just now, darling. +I--couldn't take you with me," he stammered miserably. "Passports +are almost impossible to get; and then conditions over there----" + +She backed away from him, her arms stiff at her sides. + +"When were you--planning to go?" + +He stared at her pitifully. + +"Beloved, don't look at me that way!" + +"When were you planning to go?" she repeated. + +"Next week," he said in an altered voice. "I never thought you would +take it this way. I never thought--it's a great chance." + +"That's what I once told you," she said slowly, and turned away that +he might not see her face. "Don't touch me!" she cried as he came +nearer. "Don't! I've been nervous all day, and lonely." She tried to +control herself, but as his arms went around her, she began to sob +like a hurt child. "If you leave me, I shall die. I can't bear it. I +know it's wicked of me." Her words reached him brokenly. "It's only +because you're all I have. I've given up everything; and now----" + +He stood very still, staring into space, his hold on her never +loosening. She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her +heart until this moment. She told him things she had never thought +she could betray to any one--things she had never even dared +formulate. When she had done, he said in a strange, gentle voice: + +"I didn't know you depended so on me. But it's all right; I won't +leave you, ever. It's all right. There, dear, I understand." + +She struggled free from his hold, and dried her eyes with a sudden +passionate gesture of scattering tears. + +"You shall go," she said fiercely. "I hate myself for acting this way. +It was only because----" She could get no further. + +He did not attempt to touch her again. They stood facing one another, +measuring their love. + +"I might go," he said at last, as if to himself; "but in going I +should spoil something very precious. You deny it now, but you would +remember your own sacrifice. And then, of course, you would go back +to your work. I should want you to. But it would never be the same +again, never." + +"I won't go back." + +He shook his head. + +"If you didn't, you would never forgive me. Every day you spent here +alone and idle would break one of those fragile bonds that hold us +so closely. If only you hadn't given up South America!" + +"I was wrong," she said drearily. + +At last he held out his arms. + +"Myra," he said, "you mean more than anything else to me. This offer +pleased me; I admit it. But I can work on just as well here. I have +the Cromwell house, you know, and the Newburghs may build soon. +Don't let's think of it again." + +She held back a moment, afraid to yield; but there was no resisting +her longing, and she ran to him with a little sigh, which he softly +echoed as he took her and held her close. + +They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their love +was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human beings +can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a supreme +moment. Emotional as she was in her gratitude, Myra would have kept +on sounding that note through the days and nights. She would not +allow Oliver to forget what he had given up for her sake. + +More than ever she sought to associate herself with his work. He was +forced to recognize her personality there. For when skilfully she +led the talk on his plans, she hunted down elusive problems, +grappled with them, and offered him the solutions of a sure instinct. +She did not reckon with his vanity. She was too eager to make up for +a lost opportunity, as she too often explained. He came gradually to +brood over what he now consented to consider a sacrifice. In passing +moments of irritation he even referred to it. He broke out +occasionally in fits of nerves, certain that he would be humoured +and petted back to the normal. He knew well how a frown dismayed her, +how deep a word could strike, what tiny wounds he could inflict. It +would seem sometimes as if one or the other deliberately created a +short, violent scene over a trivial difference just to relieve +routine. The domestic low-lands stretched beyond the eye. He missed +the broken country, the unexpected dips and curves of the unknown. +Not that his heart went adventuring. He was faithful in body and +spirit, but there was discontent in the looks he turned on her. + +One afternoon she read in the papers that David Cannon and Frances +Maury were back from South America after a triumphant series of +recitals. They were to give a concert the following month. Her +indifference to the news, she thought drearily, was an indication of +how far she had travelled away from her old life. She did not even +want to see David Cannon. + +It was Oliver who brought up the subject that evening. + +"David's back. If you'd been with him, how excited I should have +felt to-day!" he remarked. "Odd, isn't it?" + +"You would have been in France," she reminded him. + +They sat on in silence for a while. + +He laid his book aside with a sudden brisk movement. + +"Myra, why don't you sing again?" + +"For you, to-night?" + +"I mean professionally," he blurted out. + +She drifted across the room to a shadowy corner. + +"I don't know," she said rather flatly, bending over a bowl of white +roses. "I suppose I don't feel like it any more. It's hard to take +things up again." + +He fingered his book; then, as if despite himself, he said; + +"I'm afraid, dear, that we're letting ourselves grow old." + +She swung sharply about, catching her breath. + +"You mean I am?" + +"Both of us." He was cautious, tender even, but she was not deceived. +It was almost a relief that he had spoken. + +"Tell me, dear," she said from her corner. "You're bored, aren't you? +Oh, not with me"--she forestalled his protest--"but just plain bored. +Isn't it so?" Her voice was deceptively quiet. + +He stirred in his chair, fidgeted under the direct attack, and +decided not to evade it. + +"I think we've been buried long enough," he finally confessed. +"I love our evenings together, of course; but a little change now +and then might be agreeable. Perhaps it isn't a good thing for two +people to be thrown entirely on each other's company. And I've been +wondering, dear"--he hesitated, carefully picking his words-- +"I've been wondering if you would not be happier if you had other +interests--interests of your own." + +"Suppose I don't want any?" She did not give this out as a challenge, +but he frowned a trifle impatiently. + +"I can't believe it possible," he said. "Have you lost all touch +with the world?" + +She came slowly forward into the warm circle of light. + +"I don't seem to care for people and things as I used to. Look at me. +I'm not the same Myra." + +She stared at him with a deep, searching expression, and what she +saw drew her up with a sudden movement of decision. Her voice, when +next she spoke, was lighter, more animated. + +"You're right, dear. We're growing poky. I tell you what we'll do," +she continued in a playful manner. Her lips smiled, and her eyes +watched as she knelt beside him, her head tilted, her fingers +straying over the rough surface of his coat. He never dressed for +dinner in these days. "We'll give a party, shall we?" she said. +"And then everyone will know that we're still--alive." + +If she had wanted to test his state of mind, she could not have +found a better way. Instantly he was all eagerness. Nothing would do +but that they should plan the party at once, set the date, make out +a list of friends to be invited. + +She was ready with pad and pencil and her old address-book, which +had lain for many days untouched in her desk. + +"Shall we have Frances Maury?" she suggested. "She'll remind you of +me as I was before we married." + +"What a gorgeous little devil you were!" he murmured reminiscently. + +She wished he had not said that. Yet how absurd it was to be jealous +of oneself! + +Well, they would entertain again, since it pleased him. But she had +lost her social instinct. This party seemed a great enterprise. She +had to pretend to an enthusiasm which she did not really feel. +"Am I growing old?" she wondered more than once. She had to confess +to a panic of shyness when she thought of herself as hostess. That +was all she would be this time. Frances Maury held the rôle of prima +donna. + +There were no regrets to her invitations. They came, these old +friends and acquaintances, with familiar voices and gestures. They +seemed genuinely glad to see her, but they did not spare her. She +had grown a little stouter, had she not? Ah, well happy people +risked that. And they did not need to be told how happy she was. In +quite an old-fashioned way, too. Myra domesticated--how quaint that +was! Did she sing any more? No? What a pity! + +Her rooms had lain quiet too long. So much noise deafened her. She +was suddenly aware that she _had_ grown stouter. Her new gown, made +for the occasion, should have been more cleverly designed. Martigues +as much as told her so. She had, also, lost the power of attraction. +She could not hold people's attention as she used to. She was +sensitively aware of how readily one and the other drifted away +after a few words. Had she not been hostess, she would often have +found herself alone. + +David Cannon and Miss Maury came late. Frances was fond of dramatic +entrances; she had the stage sense. Myra hurried forward, aware, as +she did so, that her greeting held a maternal note; that Cannon was +looking through and through her with those small, relentless eyes of +his. Then Oliver came up, and from the corner of her eyes she saw +Frances attach herself to him. She had known that would happen. + +Frances Maury was indeed a lovely creature, vivid, electric, swift, +and free of movement, mellow of voice. She was like a bell. Touch +her and she chimed. Oliver on one side, Martigues on the other, she +made her vivacious way through the room, and was soon surrounded. +Very prettily she moved her court toward Myra, drew Myra into the +circle of her warmth with a gracious friendliness. + +Martigues, in raptures, explained that it was he who had designed +the very modern jewel she wore, a moonstone set in silver. "Isn't +she adorable!" he kept on repeating. + +Oliver had bent over to look at this ornament and was fingering it, +his dark head close to hers. She whispered to him, and he whispered +back. They were already on the best of terms. + +David Cannon trod up to Myra. + +"What do you think of her?" he asked abruptly. "Her high notes are +not as fine as yours were, but she is improving. If she doesn't fall +in love, I shall make something of her." He frowned at Oliver. + +Myra flushed. + +"She seems very clever," was all she could manage. + +"I'll make her sing," said Cannon, and elbowed a path to her side. +She pouted a little, declared she could never resist him, and moved +to the piano. + +Myra drew a short breath. She herself had not intended to sing, but +she had hoped that Oliver or David would give her a chance to refuse. +She did not feel angry or envious of this girl, she was incapable of +pettiness; but she felt old and dull and lonely. Her trained smile +was her only shield. She held it while Frances Maury sang. She did +not look at Oliver, but his delight reached her as if she had caused +it. She felt him hovering close to the piano. She knew how he was +standing, how his eyes were shining. She knew, because as the warm, +rich voice rose up, as Cannon's strange rhythms filled the room with +a wild pagan grace, she withdrew into her memory and found there all +that went on. She herself was singing; she stood free and beautiful +before them all; she met Oliver's eyes. + +Frances sang again and again. Oliver led the applause, and Myra sat +on, smiling, her steady gaze turned inward. When it was over, she +took Frances by the hand, and it was as if she were thanking herself +and bidding that self adieu. + +Later in the evening David Cannon came up to her and gruffly +suggested that she sing. + +She shook her head. + +"No, my good friend." + +"Why not?" He stood over her, ugly, masterful. + +Her smile softened to a sweet, sad flutter of lip. + +"You know why." + +"Nonsense!" + +"You can't bully me any more, David," she told him gently. "That's +the tragic part of it," she added under her breath. She liked David, +but she wished he would go. She wished they would all go. It must be +very late. + +It was still later, however, before the last guest departed. That +last guest was Frances Maury, escorted by a glum David. Oliver had +kept her on. + +"Myra and I always get to bed so early that it's a relief to stay up +for once," he had said. + +"Of course it's much more sensible to go to bed early." Miss Maury's +voice did not sound as if sensible things appealed to her. + +"Oliver has to be at his office so early in the morning," Myra put +in almost as an apology. + +"She sees to that," came from Oliver, with a humorous inflection. + +Frances Maury playfully shuddered. + +"Wives have too many duties for me. I shall never marry." + +"Don't," said Oliver, and realized his blunder. He glanced quickly +at Myra, and was relieved to observe that she did not seem troubled. + +It was David, at last, who insisted on going home. Frances obeyed +him with a laughing apology. + +"You've given me such a good time. I forgot the hour. May I come +again?" + +"Indeed you must," Myra answered hospitably. + +She would not leave, however, until they had promised to come to her +concert. She would send them tickets. And they must have tea with +her soon. Would they chaperon her once in a while? Oliver eagerly +promised to be at her beck and call. He followed her out into the +hall, unmindful of David's vile temper. + +Myra turned slowly back into the room, noting with jaded eyes the +empty beer-bottles, crusts of sandwiches, ashes on the rugs, chairs +pulled crazily about. The place still resounded with chatter and song. +It no longer seemed her home. + +Presently Oliver joined her. + +"Well, I enjoyed that," he said with a boyish ring. "Come, now, +wasn't it jolly to see people again? Everyone had a wonderful time." +He hummed as he walked lightly over to the table and helped himself +to a cigarette. + +She dropped on the couch. + +"I'm a little tired." + +He lit his cigarette, staring at her over the tiny flame of the +match before he blew it out. + +"Why, I never noticed. You do look all in." + +She straightened with an effort, put a hand to her hair. + +"I'm afraid I've lost the habit." + +"You'll have to get it again," he said happily. "We're going to give +lots of parties. It's good for my business, too. Walter Mason +brought a man here to-night who is thinking of building a house on +Long Island. Walter tells me he went away quite won over." + +She was all interest at once. + +"Why didn't you tell me? I might have made a special effort to be +nice to him." + +"Oh, he had a good time," he said carelessly. "I say, Myra, your +friend Miss Maury is fascinating. Sings divinely." He moved over to +the couch and sat on the edge of it, absent-mindedly toying with her +hand. + +"She's very lovely," Myra agreed. + +"Why didn't you sing?" he suddenly asked. + +"I didn't need to." The little smile was back, fastened to her lips. +A certain unfamiliar embarrassment fell between them. She made no +effort to dissipate it. + +He yawned. + +"Well, you should have. Heavens! it's late! Two o'clock. I'm off to +bed." He kissed her lightly on the forehead. + +"I'll be along in a moment," she said. + +She heard him humming in the next room, heard him moving about, +heard the bump of his shoes on the floor. She lay, her eyes closed. +Presently she got up, went to the piano and let her fingers wander +over the keys. Then she began to sing softly. Her fine critical +faculties were awake. She listened while she sang--listened as if +some one else would rise or fall on her verdict. There was a curious +lack of vibrancy in her notes. They did not come from the heart. + +Suddenly she stopped. Oliver was calling "Myra." + +She thrilled with a swift hope that brought her to her feet, flushed +and tremulous. + +"Aren't you coming to bed soon? It's too late for music," drifted +faintly querulous down the hall. + +The light went out of her face. + +"I'm coming." A leaden weariness was over her. Slowly she closed the +piano. + +He was already asleep when she tiptoed into the room. She stood a +moment staring down at him. + +"The worst of it is that I shall sleep, too," she thought. + + + + +_BUTTERFLIES_ + + +BY ROSE SIDNEY + +From _The Pictorial Review_ + +The wind rose in a sharp gust, rattling the insecure windows and +sighing forlornly about the corners of the house. The door unlatched +itself, swung inward hesitatingly, and hung wavering for a moment on +its sagging hinges. A formless cloud of gray fog blew into the warm, +steamy room. But whatever ghostly visitant had paused upon the +threshold, he had evidently decided not to enter, for the catch +snapped shut with a quick, passionate vigour. The echo of the +slamming door rang eerily through the house. + +Mart Brenner's wife laid down the ladle with which she had been +stirring the contents of a pot that was simmering on the big, black +stove, and, dragging her crippled foot behind her, she hobbled +heavily to the door. + +As she opened it a new horde of fog-wraiths blew in. The world was a +gray, wet blanket. Not a light from the village below pierced the +mist, and the lonely army of tall cedars on the black hill back of +the house was hidden completely. + +"Who's there?" Mrs. Brenner hailed. But her voice fell flat and +muffled. Far off on the beach she could dimly hear the long wail of +a fog-horn. + +The faint throb of hope stilled in her breast. She had not really +expected to find any one at the door unless perhaps it should be a +stranger who had missed his way at the cross-roads. There had been +one earlier in the afternoon when the fog first came. But her +husband had been at home then and his surly manner quickly cut short +the stranger's attempts at friendliness. This ugly way of Mart's had +isolated them from all village intercourse early in their life on +Cedar Hill. + +Like a buzzard's nest their home hung over the village on the +unfriendly sides of the bleak slope. Visitors were few and always +reluctant, even strangers, for the village told weird tales of Mart +Brenner and his kin. The village said that he--and all those who +belonged to him as well--were marked for evil and disaster. Disaster +had truly written itself through-out their history. His mother was +mad, a tragic madness of bloody prophecies and dim fears; his only +son a witless creature of eighteen, who, for all his height and bulk, +spent his days catching butterflies in the woods on the hill, and his +nights in laboriously pinning them, wings outspread, upon the bare +walls of the house. + +The room where the Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was +tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread +yellow butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to +the black rafters overhead. + +Olga Brenner herself was no less tragic than her family. On her face, +written in the acid of pain, was the history of the blows and +cruelty that had warped her active body. Because of her crippled foot, +her entire left side sagged hopelessly and her arm swung away, above +it, like a branch from a decayed tree. But more saddening than her +distorted body was the lonely soul that looked out of her tired, +faded eyes. + +She was essentially a village woman with a profound love of its +intimacies and gossip, its fence-corner neighbourliness. The horror +with which the village regarded her, as the wife of Mart Brenner, +was an eating sore. It was greater than the tragedy of her poor, +witless son, the hatred of old Mrs. Brenner, and her ever-present +fear of Mart. She had never quite given up her unreasoning hope that +some day some one might come to the house in one of Mart's long, +unexplained absences and sit down and talk with her over a cup of tea. +She put away the feeble hope again as she turned back into the dim +room and closed the door behind her. + +"Must have been that bit of wind," she meditated. "It plays queer +tricks sometimes" + +She went to the mantel and lighted the dull lamp. By the flicker she +read the face of the clock. + +"Tobey's late!" she exclaimed uneasily. Her mind never rested from +its fear for Tobey. His childlike mentality made him always the same +burden as when she had rocked him hour after hour, a scrawny mite of +a baby on her breast. + +"It's a fearful night for him to be out!" she muttered. + +"Blood! Blood!" said a tragic voice from a dark corner by the stove. +Barely visible in the ruddy half-dark of the room a pair of demoniac +eyes met hers. + +Mrs. Brenner threw her shrivelled and wizened mother-in-law an angry +and contemptuous glance. + +"Be still!" she commanded. "'Pears to me that's all you ever +say--blood!" + +The glittering eyes fell away from hers in a sullen obedience. But +the tragic voice went on intoning stubbornly, "Blood on his hands! +Red! Dripping! I see blood!" + +Mrs. Brenner shuddered. "Seems like you could shut up a spell!" she +complained. + +The old woman's voice trailed into a broken and fitful whispering. +Olga's commands were the only laws she knew, and she obeyed them. +Mrs. Brenner went back to the stove. But her eyes kept returning to +the clock and thence to the darkening square of window where the fog +pressed heavily into the very room. + +Out of the gray silence came a shattering sound that sent the ladle +crashing out of Mrs. Brenner's nerveless hand and brought a moan +from the dozing old woman! It was a scream, a long, piercing scream, +so intense, so agonized that it went echoing about the room as +though a disembodied spirit were shrieking under the rafters! It was +a scream of terror, an innocent, a heart-broken scream! + +"Tobey!" cried Mrs. Brenner, her face rigid. + +The old woman began to pick at her ragged skirt, mumbling, "Blood! +Blood on his hands! I see it." + +"That was on the hill," said Mrs. Brenner slowly, steadying her voice. + +She put her calloused hand against her lips and stood listening with +agonized intentness. But now the heavy, foggy silence had fallen +again. At intervals came the long, faint wail of the fog-horn. There +was no other sound. Even the old woman in the shadowy corner had +ceased her mouthing. + +Mrs. Brenner stood motionless, with her hand against her trembling +lips, her head bent forward for four of the dull intervals between +the siren-call. + +Then there came the sound of steps stumbling around the house. +Mrs. Brenner, with her painful hobble, reached the door before the +steps paused there, and threw it open. + +The feeble light fell on the round, vacant face of her son his +inevitable pasteboard box, grimy with much handling, clutched close +to his big breast, and in it the soft beating and thudding of +imprisoned wings. + +Mrs. Brenner's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, "Tobey!" but +it rose shrilly as she cried, "Where you been? What was that scream?" + +Tobey stumbled past her headlong into the house, muttering, +"I'm cold!" + +She shut the door and followed him to the stove, where he stood +shaking himself and beating at his damp clothes with clumsy fingers. + +"What was that scream?" she asked him tensely. She knotted her rough +fingers as she waited for his answer. + +"I dunno," he grunted sullenly. His thick lower lip shoved itself +forward, baby-fashion. + +"Where you been?" she persisted. + +As he did not answer she coaxed him, "Aw, come on, Tobey. Tell Ma. +Where you been?" + +"I been catching butterflies," he answered. "I got a big one this +time," with an air of triumph. + +"Where was you when you heard the scream?" she asked him cunningly. + +He gave a slow shake of his head. "I dunno," he answered in his dull +voice. + +A big shiver shook him. His teeth chattered and he crouched down on +his knees before the open oven-door. + +"I'm cold," he complained. Mrs. Brenner came close to him and laid +her hand on his wet, matted hair. "Tobey's a bad boy," she scolded. +"You mustn't go out in the wet like this. Your hair's soaked." + +She got down stiffly on her lame knees. "Sit down," she ordered, +"and I'll take off your shoes. They're as wet as a dish-rag." + +"They're full of water, too," Tobey grumbled as he sprawled on the +floor, sticking one big, awkward foot into her lap. "The water in +there makes me cold." + +"You spoil all your pa's shoes that a-way," said Mrs. Brenner, her +head bent over her task. "He told you not to go round in the wet +with 'em any more. He'll give you a lashing if he comes in and sees +your shoes. I'll have to try and get 'em dry before he comes home. +Anyways," with a breath of deep relief, "I'm glad it ain't that red +clay from the hill. That never comes off." + +The boy paid no attention to her. He was investigating the contents +of his box, poking a fat, dirty forefinger around among its +fluttering contents. There was a flash of yellow wings, and with a +crow of triumph the boy shut the lid. + +"The big one's just more than flapping," he chuckled. "I had an +awful hard time to catch him. I had to run and run. Look at him, Ma," +the boy urged. She shook her head. + +"I ain't got the time," she said, almost roughly. "I got to get +these shoes off'n you afore your father gets home, Tobey, or you'll +get a awful hiding. Like as not you'll get it anyways, if he's mad. +Better get into bed." + +"Naw!" Tobey protested. "I seen Pa already. I want my supper out here! +I don't want to go to bed!" + +Mrs. Brenner paused. "Where was Pa?" she asked. + +But Tobey's stretch of coherent thinking was past. "I dunno!" he +muttered. + +Mrs. Brenner sighed. She pulled off the sticky shoes and rose stiffly. + +"Go get in bed," she said. + +"Aw, Ma, I want to stay up with my butterflies," the boy pleaded. +Two big tears rolled down his fat cheeks. In his queer, clouded +world he had learned one certain fact. He could almost always move +his mother with tears. + +But this time she was firm. "Do as I told you!" she ordered him. +"Mebbe if you're in bed your father won't be thinking about you. And +I'll try to dry these shoes afore he thinks about them." She took +the grimy box from his resisting fingers, and, holding it in one hand, +pulled him to his feet and pushed him off to his bedroom. + +When she had closed the door on his wail she returned and laid the +box on the shelf. Then she hurried to gather up the shoes. Something +on her hand as she put it out for the sodden shoes caught her eye +and she straightened, holding her hand up where the feeble light +from the shelf caught it. + +"I've cut myself," she said aloud. "There's blood on my hand. It +must 'a' been on those lacings of Tobeys." + +The old woman in the corner roused. "Blood!" she screeched. +"Olga! Blood on his hands!" + +Mrs. Brenner jumped. "You old screech-owl!" she cried. She wiped her +hand quickly on her dirty apron and held it up again to see the cut. +But there was no cut on her hand! Where had that blood come from? +From Tobey's shoes? + +And who was it that had screamed on the hill? She felt herself +enwrapped in a mist of puzzling doubts. + +She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes. But +the wet and pulpy mass had no stain. Only the wet sands and the +slimy water-weeds of the beach clung to them. + +Then where had the blood come from? It was at this instant that she +became conscious of shouts on the hillside. She limped to the door +and held it open a crack. Very faintly she could see the bobbing +lights of torches. A voice carried down to her. + +"Here's where I found his hat. That's why I turned off back of these +trees. And right there I found his body!" + +"Are you sure he's dead?" quavered another voice. + +"Stone-dead!'" + +Olga Brenner shut the door. But she did not leave it immediately. +She stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring +eyes glazing. + +Tobey was strong. He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had +hurt her with his undisciplined strength. Where was Mart? Tobey had +seen him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further. +But little subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and +feared his father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his +half-witted son. What _had_ happened? And yet no matter what had +occurred, Tobey had not been on the hill. His shoes bore mute +testimony to that. And the scream had been on the slope. She frowned. + +Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove +and laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to +the rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again +the sound of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not +stumble. They were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the +shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings +caught on a nail on the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, +and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter +they fell at her feet. + +In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway. Poverty, avarice, +and evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil's coin. His +shaggy head lowered in his powerful shoulders. His long arms, apelike, +hung almost to his knees. Behind him the fog pressed in, and his +rough, bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture. + +"Well?" he snapped. A sardonic smile twisted his face. "Caught you, +didn't I?" + +He strode forward. His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering +terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril, +that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left +a wet track on the rough floor. + +"He didn't do 'em no harm," she babbled. "They're just wet. Please, +Mart, they ain't harmed a mite. Just wet. That's all. Tobey went on +the beach with 'em. It won't take but a little spell to dry 'em." + +Her husband stooped and snatched up the shoes. She shrank into +herself, waiting the inevitable torrent of his passion and the +probable blow. Instead, as he stood up he was smiling. Bewildered, +she stared at him in a dull silence. + +"No harm done," he said, almost amiably. Shaking with relief, she +stretched out her hand. + +"I'll dry 'em," she said. "Give me your shoes and I'll get the mud +off." + +Her husband shook his head. He was still smiling. + +"Don't need to dry 'em. I'll put 'em away," he replied, and, still +tracking his wet mud, he went into Tobey's room. + +Her fear flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his +black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability. +Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained her ears +to listen. + +A long silence followed his exit. But there was no outcry from Tobey, +no muttering nor blows. After a few moments, moving quickly, her +husband came out. She raised her heavy eyes to stare at him. He +stopped and looked intently at his own muddy tracks. + +"I'll get a rag and wipe up the mud right off." + +As she started toward the nail where the rag hung, her husband put +out a long arm and detained her. "Leave it be," he said. He smiled +again. + +She noticed, then, that he had removed his muddy shoes and wore the +wet ones. He had fully laced them, and she had almost a +compassionate moment as she thought how wet and +cold his feet must be. + +"You can put your feet in the oven, Mart, to dry 'em." + +Close on her words she heard the sound of footsteps and a sharp +knock followed on the sagging door. Mart Brenner sat down on a chair +close to the stove and lifted one foot into the oven. "See who's +there!" he ordered. + +She opened the door and peered out. A group of men stood on the step, +the faint light of the room picking out face after face that she +recognized--Sheriff Munn; Jim Barker, who kept the grocery in the +village; Cottrell Hampstead, who lived in the next house below them; +young Dick Roamer, Munn's deputy; and several strangers. + +"Well?" she asked ungraciously. + +"We want to see Brenner!" one of them said. + +She stepped back. "Come in," she told them. They came in, pulling +off their caps, and stood huddled in a group in the centre of the +room. + +Her husband reluctantly stood up. + +"Evening!" he said, with his unusual smile. "Bad out, ain't it?" + +"Yep!" Munn replied. "Heavy fog. We're soaked." + +Olga Brenner's pitiful instinct of hospitality rose in her breast. + +"I got some hot soup on the stove. Set a spell and I'll dish you some," +she urged. + +The men looked at each other in some uncertainty. After a moment +Munn said, "All right, if it ain't too much bother, Mrs. Brenner." + +"Not a bit," she cried eagerly. She bustled about, searching her +meagre stock of chinaware for uncracked bowls. + +"Set down?" suggested Mart. + +Munn sat down with a sign, and his companions followed his example. +Mart resumed his position before the stove, lifting one foot into +the capacious black maw of the oven. + +"Must 'a' got your feet wet, Brenner?" the sheriff said with heavy +jocularity. + +Brenner nodded, "You bet I did," he replied. "Been down on the beach +all afternoon." + +"Didn't happen to hear any unusual noise down there, did you?" Munn +spoke with his eyes on Mrs. Brenner, at her task of ladling out the +thick soup. She paused as though transfixed, her ladle poised in the +air. + +Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became +fixed on the tracks of red clay. + +"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside tonight, for the +bay was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly. + +"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn +persisted. + +"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?" + +"Oh--nothing," said Munn. + +Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the +table. + +Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished +his soup before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As +Munn finished the last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a +wicked-looking black pipe, crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it. + +Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired, +"Been any strangers around to-day?" + +Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon. +He was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till +the sun come out. I don't know whether he did or not." + +"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?" + +Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass +nobody." + +The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours +still catching butterflies?" he asked presently. + +Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their +floods of butterflies. But he did not answer. + +"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He +puffed several times before he spoke again. + +"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?" + +Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced ringers +locking themselves. + +"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart +said carelessly. + +"Yes." Her voice was a breath. + +"Was your boy out to-day?" + +Mart looked at his wife. "I dunno." + +Munn's glance came to the wife. + +"Yes." + +"How long ago did he come in?" + +"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless. + +"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent. + +Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!" +she said in a defiant tone. + +Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his +face. He still wore his peculiar affable smile. + +"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?" + +Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner. + +"What's that to you?" she flared. + +She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones. "Now, now, +Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who +made these tracks." + +"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of +a falling trap. + +Mart smiled still more broadly. + +"Look here, Olga, don't get so warm over it. You're nervous now. +Tell the gentlemen who made those tracks." + +She turned to Munn desperately. "What do you want to know for?" she +asked him. + +The sharpness of her voice roused old Mrs. Brenner, drowsing in her +corner. + +"Blood!" she cried suddenly. "Blood on his hands!" + +In the silence that followed, the eyes of the men turned curiously +toward the old woman and then sought each other with speculative +stares. Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances, +said roughly. "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you +bothering us for?" + +Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the +arm. There was something touching in her frightened old face. + +"A man--a stranger was killed up on the hill," Munn told her. + +"What's that got to do with us?" she countered. + +"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure +where every man in the village was this afternoon." + +Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness +of Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did +not miss the tremor in her eyes. + +"Where was your son this afternoon?" + +She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach." + +"Whose room is that?" Munn's forefinger pointed to Tobey's closed +door. + +"That's Tobey's room," said his mother. + +"The mud tracks go into that room. Did he make those tracks, +Mrs. Brenner?" + +"No! Oh, no! No!" she cried desperately. "Mart made those when he +came in. He went into Tobey's room!" + +"How about it, Brenner?" + +Mart smiled with an indulgent air. "Heard what she said, didn't you?" + +"Is it true?" + +Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree +with her," he said. + +"Let's see your shoes, Brenner?" + +Without hesitation Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for +Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward to examine +them. + +"Nothing but pieces of seaweed," said Cottrell Hampstead, + +Munn eyed them. Then he turned to look at the floor. + +"Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner. But they were +made in red clay. How do you account for that?" + +"Tobey wears my shoes,'" said Brenner. + +Mrs. Brenner gasped. She advanced to Munn. + +"What you asking all these questions for?" she pleaded. + +Munn did not answer her. After a moment he asked. "Did you hear a +scream this afternoon?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +"How long after the screaming did your son come in?" + +She hesitated. What was the best answer to make? Bewildered, she +tried to decide. "Ten minutes or so," she said. + +"Just so," agreed Munn. "Brenner, when did you come in?" + +A trace of Mart's sullenness rose in his face. "I told you that once," +he said. + +"I mean how long after Tobey?" + +"I dunno," said Mart. + +"How long, Mrs. Brenner?" + +She hesitated again. She scented a trap. "Oh, 'bout ten to fifteen +minutes, I guess," she said. + +Suddenly she burst out passionately. "What you hounding us for? We +don't know nothing about the man on the hill. You ain't after the +rest of the folks in the village like you are after us. Why you +doing it? We ain't done nothing." + +Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door, +and opened it. He reached out into the darkness. Then he turned. He +was holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see +what it was. + +"You chop your wood with a short, heavy axe, don't you, Brenner?" +said Munn. + +Brenner nodded. + +"It's marked with your name, isn't it?" + +Brenner nodded again. + +"_Is this the axe_?" + +Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream. Red and clotted, even the +handle marked with bloody spots, the axe was theirs. + +Brenner started to his feet. "God!" he yelped, "that's where that +axe went! Tobey took it!" More calmly he proceeded, "This afternoon +before I went down on the beach I thought I'd chop some wood on the +hill. But the axe was gone. So after I'd looked sharp for it and +couldn't find it, I gave it up." + +"Tobey didn't do it!" Mrs. Brenner cried thinly. "He's as harmless +as a baby! He didn't do it! He didn't do it!" + +"How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner? There is red clay on the +hill where the man was killed. There is red clay on your floor." +Munn spoke kindly. + +"Mart tracked in that clay. He changed shoes with Tobey. I tell you +that's the truth." She was past caring for any harm that might +befall her. + +Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance. "It's likely, ain't it, that +I'd change into shoes as wet as these?" + +"Those tracks are Mart's!" Olga reiterated hysterically. + +"They lead into your son's room, Mrs. Brenner. And we find your axe +not far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill." +Munn's eyes were grave. + +The old woman in the corner began to whimper, "Blood and trouble! +Blood and trouble all my days! Red on his hands! Dripping! Olga! +Blood!" + +"But the road to the beach begins there too," Mrs. Brenner cried, +above the cracked voice, "and Tobey saw his pa before he came home. +He said he did. I tell you, Mart was on the hill. He put on Tobey's +shoes. Before God I'm telling you the truth." + +Dick Roamer spoke hesitatingly, "Mebbe the old woman's right, Munn. +Mebbe those tracks are Brenner's." + +Mrs. Brenner turned to him in wild gratitude. + +"You believe me, don't you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her +face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it +might swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof! +More proof! She must bring more proof of Tobey's innocence! + +She snatched up his box of butterflies and came back to Munn. + +"This is what Tobey was doin' this afternoon!" she cried in triumph. +"He was catchin' butterflies! That ain't murder, is it?" + +"Nobody catches butterflies in a fog," said Munn. + +"Well, Tobey did. Here they are," Mrs. Brenner held out the box. +Munn took it from her shaking hand. He looked at it. After a moment +he turned it over. His eyes narrowed. Mrs. Brenner turned sick. The +room went swimming around before her in a bluish haze. She had +forgotten the blood on her hand that she had wiped off before Mart +came home. Suppose the blood had been on the box. + +The sheriff opened the box. A bruised butterfly, big, golden, +fluttered up out of it. Very quietly the sheriff closed the box, and +turned to Mrs. Brenner. + +"Call your son," he said. + +"What do you want of him? Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin' +to do to him?" + +"There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner." + +"Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was +chalky white. + +"In the box, Mrs. Brenner, _is a gold watch and chain_. The man who +was killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in +his buttonhole. _The rest of it had been torn off_" + +Olga made no sound. Her burning eyes turned toward Mart. In them was +all of a heart's anguish and despair. + +"Tell 'em, Mart! Tell 'em he didn't do it!" she finally pleaded. + +Mart's face was inscrutable. + +Munn rose. The other men got to their feet. + +"Will you get the boy or shall I?" the sheriff said directly to +Mrs. Brenner. + +With a rush Mrs. Brenner was on her knees before Munn, clutching him +about the legs with twining arms. Tears of agony dripped over her +seamed face. + +"He didn't do it! Don't take him! He's my baby! He never harmed +anybody! He's my baby!" Then with a shriek, as Munn unclasped her +arms, "Oh, my God! My God!" + +Munn helped her to her feet. "Now, now, Mrs. Brenner, don't take on +so," he said awkwardly. "There ain't going to be no harm come to +your boy. It's to keep him from getting into harm that I'm taking him. +The village is a mite worked up over this murder and they might get +kind of upset if they thought Tobey was still loose. Better go and +get him, Mrs. Brenner." + +As she stood unheeding, he went on, "Now, don't be afraid. +Nothing'll happen to him. No jedge would sentence him like a regular +criminal. The most that'll happen will be to put him some safe place +where he can't do himself nor no one else any more harm." + +But still Mrs. Brenner's set expression did not change. + +After a moment she shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to +Tobey's door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the +latch, her eyes searching the faces of the men in the room. With a +gesture of dreary resignation she opened the door and entered, +closing it behind her. + +Tobey lay in his bed, asleep. His rumpled hair was still damp from +the fog. His mother stroked it softly while her slow tears dropped +down on his face with its expression of peaceful childhood. + +"Tobey!" she called. Her voice broke in her throat. The tears fell +faster. + +"Huh!" He sat up, blinking at her. + +"Get into your clothes, now! Right away!" she said. + +He stared at her tears. A dismal sort of foreboding seemed to seize +upon him. His face began to pucker. But he crawled out of his bed +and began to dress himself in his awkward fashion, casting wistful +and wondering glances in her direction. + +She watched him, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no +one to protect Tobey. She could not make those strangers believe +that Mart had changed shoes with Tobey. Neither could she account +for the blood-stained box and the watch with its length of broken +chain. But if Tobey had been on the beach he had not been on the hill, +and if he hadn't been on the hill he couldn't have killed the man +they claimed he had killed. Mart had been on the hill. Her head +whirled. Some place fate, destiny, something had blundered. She +wrung her knotted hands together. + +Presently Tobey was dressed. She took him by the hand. Her own hand +was shaking, and very cold and clammy. Her knees were weak as she +led him toward the door. She could feel them trembling so that every +step was an effort. And her hand on the knob had barely strength to +turn it. But turn it she did and opened the door. + +"Here he is!" she cried chokingly. She freed her hand and laid it on +his shoulder. + +"Look at him," she moaned. "He couldn't 'a' done it. He's--he's just +a boy!" + +Sheriff Munn rose. His men rose with him. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brenner," he said. "Terrible sorry. But you can see +how it is. Things look pretty black for him." + +He paused, looked around, hesitated for a moment. Finally he said, +"Well, I guess we'd better be getting along." + +Mrs. Brenner's hand closed with convulsive force on Tobey's shoulder. + +"Tobey!" she screamed desperately, "where was you this afternoon? +All afternoon?" + +"On the beach," mumbled Tobey, shrinking into himself. + +"Tobey! Tobey! Where'd you get blood on the box?" + +He looked around. His cloudy eyes rested on her face helplessly. + +"I dunno," he said. + +Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other +shoulder. + +"Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch, +the pretty watch that was in your box?" + +He blinked at her. + +"The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?" + +His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile. + +"I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on +his face. + +"But where? What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks. + +He shook his head. "I dunno." + +Mrs. Brenner would not give up. + +"You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly. + +He nodded. + +"Where'd you see him?" she breathed. + +He frowned. "I--saw pa----" he began, straining to pierce the cloud +that covered him. + +"Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner. She half rose, her head +thrust forward on her shrivelled neck. + +Tobey paused, confused. "I dunno," he said. + +"Did he give you the pretty bright thing? And did he give you the +axe--" she paused and repeated the word loudly--"the axe to bring +home?" + +Tobey caught at the word. "The axe?" he cried. "The axe! Ugh! It +was all sticky!" He shuddered. + +"Did pa give you the axe?" + +But the cloud had settled. Tobey shook his head. "I dunno," he +repeated his feeble denial. + +Munn advanced. "No use, Mrs. Brenner, you see. Tobey, you'll have to +come along with us." + +Even to Tobey's brain some of the strain in the atmosphere must have +penetrated, for he drew back. "Naw," he protested sulkily, "I don't +want to." + +Dick Roamer stepped to his side. He laid his hand on Tobey's arm. +"Come along," he urged. + +Mrs. Brenner gave a smothered gasp. Tobey woke to terror. He turned +to run. In an instant the men surrounded him. Trapped, he stood still, +his head lowered in his shoulders. + +"Ma!" he screamed suddenly. "Ma! I don't want to go! Ma!" + +He fell on his knees. Heavy childish sobs racked him. Deserted, +terrified, he called upon the only friend he knew. + +"Ma! Please, Ma!" + +Munn lifted him up. Dick Roamer helped him, and between them they +drew him to the door, his heart-broken calls and cries piercing +every corner of the room. + +They whisked him out of Mrs. Brenner's sight as quickly as they could. +The other men piled out of the door, blocking the last vision of her +son, but his bleating cries came shrilling back on the foggy air. + +Mart closed the door. Mrs. Brenner stood where she had been when +Tobey had first felt the closing of the trap and had started to run. +She looked as though she might have been carved there. Her light +breath seemed to do little more than lift her flat chest. + +Mart turned from the door. His eyes glittered. He advanced upon her +hungrily like a huge cat upon an enchanted mouse. + +"So you thought you'd yelp on me, did you?" he snarled, licking his +lips. "Thought you'd put me away, didn't you? Get me behind the bars, +eh?" + +"Blood!" moaned the old woman in the corner. "Blood!" + +Mart strode to the table, pulling out from the bosom of his shirt a +lumpy package wrapped in his handkerchief. He threw it down on the +table. It fell heavily with a sharp ringing of coins. + +"But I fooled you this time! Mart wasn't so dull this time, eh?" He +turned toward her again. + +Between them, disturbed in his resting-place on the table, the big +bruised yellow butterfly raised himself on his sweeping wings. + +Mart drew back a little. The butterfly flew toward Olga and brushed +her face with a velvety softness. + +Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm +upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a +gleam of light showed. + +"You devil!" she said, in a whispering voice. "You killed that man! +You gave Tobey the watch and the axe! You changed shoes with him! +You devil! You devil!" + +He drew back for a blow. She did not move. Instead she mocked him, +trying to smile. + +"You whelp!" she taunted him. "Go on and hit me! I ain't running! +And if you don't break me to bits I'm going to the sheriff and I'll +tell him what you said to me just now. And he'll wonder how you got +all that money in your pockets. He knows we're as poor as church mice. +How you going to explain what you got?" + +"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed +with venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it +where I'm going to put it!" + +The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of +exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you, +Mart!" she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you +for Tobey! You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you! +You're trapped, I tell you! And I done it!" + +She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank +window with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the +unseen. He couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw +that he was wet with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage +him. She counted on that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury. +She leaned toward him, inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the +torch that will make their pile of fagots a blazing bier. + +He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion +that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid +fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained +consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet +achieved that for which she was fighting. + +The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood +drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering +feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only +friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across +the table. She stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment. +Then with a thin wail, "He's killing her!" she ran around them and +gained the door. + +With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face, +swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her +almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman. + +"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!" + +The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the +door and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It +came to Mart that the woman running through the night with the wail +of terror was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw +his look of sick terror. He started to spring after the mad woman, +forgetful of the half-conscious creature on her knees before him. + +But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion, +forced strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she +sprawled herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for +the table, and fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a +near-by chair. Olga raised herself on her shaking arms and looked at +him. Minute after minute passed, and yet he lay still. A second long +ten minutes ticked itself off on the clock, which Olga could barely +see. Then Mart opened his eyes, sat up, and staggered to his feet. + +Before full consciousness could come to him again, his wife crawled +forward painfully and swiftly coiled herself about his legs. He +struggled, still dizzy from his fall, bent over and tore at her +twining arms, but the more he pulled the tighter she clung, +fastening her misshapen fingers in the lacing of his shoes. He swore! +And he became panic-stricken. He began to kick at her, to make +lunges toward the distant door. Kicking and fighting, dragging her +clinging body with him at every move, that body which drew him back +one step for every two forward steps he took, at last he reached the +wall. He clutched it, and as his hand slipped along trying to find a +more secure hold he touched the cold iron of a long-handled pan +hanging there. + +With a snarl he snatched it down, raised it over his head, and +brought it down upon his wife's back. Her hands opened spasmodically +and fell flat at her sides. Her body rolled over, limp and broken. +And a low whimper came from her bleeding lips. + +Satisfied, Mart paused to regain his breath. He had no way of +knowing how long this unequal fight had been going on. + +But he was free. The way of escape was open. He laid his hand on the +door. + +There were voices. He cowered, cast hunted glances at the bloody +figure on the floor, bit his knuckles in a frenzy. + +As he looked, the eyes opened in his wife's swollen face, eyes aglow +with triumph. "You'll swing for it, Mart!" she whispered faintly. +"And the money's on the table! Tobey's saved!" + +Rough hands were on the door. A flutter of breath like a sigh of +relief crossed her lips and her lids dropped as the door burst open +to a tide of men. + +The big yellow butterfly swung low on his golden wings and came to +rest on her narrow, sunken breast. + + + + +NO FLOWERS + + +BY GORDON ARTHUR SMITH + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + +Steve Dempsey was a conspicuously ingenious chief machinist's +mate--one of the most ingenious in the Naval Aviation Forces, +Foreign Service, and he was ingenious not only with his hands, but +with his tongue. That is why I cannot guarantee the veracity of what +follows; I can but guarantee that he guaranteed it. + +Steve had had a varied and highly coloured career, and I think that +the war, or so much of it as he was permitted to see, seemed to him +a comparatively tame affair--something all in the year's work. When +he was fifteen years old he was conducting his father's public +garage in a town not far from Denver; at that age he knew as much +about motors as the men who built them, and he had, moreover, the +invaluable knack of putting his finger immediately on a piece of +erring mechanism and, with the aid of a bit of wire and a pair of +pliers, setting it to rights. Given enough wire and a pair of pliers, +I believe that he could have built the Eiffel Tower. + +Becoming restless in the garage, he determined to make his fortune +quickly, and accordingly went out prospecting in the vicinity of the +Little Annie mine. He bought himself a small patch of promising +ground and he and another fellow shovelled away until they had no +money left. So then he took up aviation. + +He was one of the pioneers of the flying-men in this country. He +used to fly at country fairs in an old ramshackle bus of the Wright +model--a thing of sticks and canvas and wires precariously hung +together. But he flew it. And he rehabilitated his finances. + +When war was declared he enlisted as a gob and was sent on sea duty. +He knew, of course, nothing of sea duty, but lack of knowledge of a +subject had never daunted him, for he had the faculty of learning +things quickly by himself and for himself. His mechanical ability +asserting itself, he was made a machinist's mate, second class, and +transferred over to the Aviation. When I knew him he had proved so +valuable at the various air stations that he had been advanced to +chief machinist's mate and was an assistant in the Technical Division +at Paris headquarters. + +He was a very friendly soul, always respectful enough, even when +outspoken, and no more in fear of an admiral than of--well, he +would have said than of a marine. During his year of service, you see, +he had absorbed most of the navy traditions. He spoke the navy +speech like an old-timer, and undoubtedly amplified the regular navy +vocabulary with picturesque expressions of his own. Of course he was +very profane.... + +Sunday morning at headquarters was apt to be a slack morning, with +not much work to do; but in intervals of idleness one could always +be certain of finding something of interest to see or hear in +Steve's office. Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board +working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a +self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying _through_ +the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet +to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower on +its girders, were two of his pet projects. + +On a Sunday in August of 1918 there were assembled around his +drafting-board an interested and receptive audience of four--Peters, +an ensign attached to the "lighter-than-air" section; Madden, a +pilot on his way up from Italy to the Northern Bombing Group; Erskine, +a lieutenant in the Operations Division; and Matthews, a chief yeoman. + +"Yes," Dempsey was saying, "I'm _beaucoup_ sorry for these here +frawgs. They're just bein' massacred--that's all it is--_massacred_. +And there don't anybody take much notice, either. Say, somebody was +tellin' me the other day just how many the French has lost since the +beginnin' of the war. Just about one million. I wouldn't believe it, +but it's straight. It was a French colonel that was tellin' me out +to the Hispano factory day before yesterday, and he'd oughta know +because he was through the battle of the Marne and the Soam, and +everything." + +"Did he tell you in French?" inquired Ensign Peters, meaningly, for +Dempsey's French was admittedly limited. + +"Pardon?" said Dempsey, and then, grasping the innuendo: "No, sir, +he did _not_. Why, he talks English as good as you and me. That's +another thing about these frawgs--they can all _parlez-vous_ any +language. I never yet seen a Frenchie I couldn't talk to yet." + +"Did you ever see anybody you couldn't talk to yet, Steve?" +suggested the chief yeoman. + +"Here, you, how d'ya get that way? Who was it I seen th' other night +out walking in the Boy de Bullone with a skirt? And I guess you +wasn't talkin'--why, you was talkin' so fast you had to help out +with your hands, just like a frawg.... No, as I say, I feel sorry +for these French in more ways than one." + +"Just how do you display that sorrow?" asked Ensign Madden. + +Dempsey hesitated an instant, scratched his head, and very carefully +drew a line on the tracing-paper in front of him. + +"Well, sir," he said, finally, "I displayed it last Sunday." + +Then he relapsed into silence, and resumed work on the drawing. But +as he worked he grinned quietly--a provocative grin which inspired +curiosity. + +"What did you do last Sunday?" prodded Peters. + +The grin widened as Steve glanced up from the board. He laid aside +his instruments, tilted back in his chair, and said: "Well, it +wasn't very regular, what I done last Sunday, but I'll tell you if +you don't have me up before a court.... You remember last Sunday +was a swell day? Spring in the air, I guess, and everything, and +everybody was out walking like Matthews, here, with a Jane. I 'ain't +got a Jane, of course----" + +"What!" roared Matthews. + +"I 'ain't got a Jane, of course, so I decides to take a little look +around all by myself. Well, I goes down the Chomps-Eleezy feelin' +pretty good and sorta peppy and lookin' for trouble. I see all them +army heroes--the vets and the dentists and the S O S--each with a +skirt, and I passes Matthews, here, with _his_ skirt clingin' to him +like a cootie." + +"Cut it out, you big stiff," interposed Matthews. + +"Like a cootie," continued Steve, "and I got sorta de-pressed. So I +sez, me for the quiet, unfrequented streets over acrost the river. +Well, sir, I was just passin' the Loover--that big museum, or +whatever it is--when I see a hearse comin' in the opposite direction. +It was a pretty sick-lookin' hearse, too. It had a coupla animals +hitched to it that was probably called horses when they was young, +and that didn't have a steak minoot left on 'em. But they was all +covered with mangy black plumes and tassels and things--you know, the +way they rig 'em up when the corpse is takin' his last drive. And +there was an old bird sittin' up on the box-seat with a hat like +Napoleon One. + +"Well, at first it looked to me like it was just the regular frawg +funeral, and I didn't pay no special attention, only I give it the +salute when I got opposite. Then I see that there weren't no flowers +nor tin wreaths on the coffin--except there was one little buncha +pinks, and they was a pretty sad-lookin' buncha pinks, too, sir. +Then I see that there weren't no procession walkin' along +behind--except there was one little old woman all in black and +lookin' sorta sick and scared. Yes, sir, there she was walkin' all +by herself and lookin' lonelier 'n hell. + +"So I sez to myself: 'It's all wrong, Steve, it's all wrong. Here's +a poor dead frawg, the only son of his mother and her a +widow'--that's Bible stuff, sir--'goin' out to be planted with none +of the gang around. It's tough,' I sez. 'I'll say it is.' Well, I +told you I didn't have nothin' much to do, so I sez, 'Laffyette, +cheeri-o,' and steps up beside the old lady. That makes two mourners, +anyhow. + +"Well, the old lady give me the once over and seen Mr. Daniels's +uniform and the rooster on my sleeve, and I guess decides that I'm +eligible to the club. Anyway, she sorta nodded at me and pretty soon +begun to snuffle and look for her handkerchief. It wasn't no use, +though, for she didn't have any. + +"Meanwhile we was crossin' one of them bridges--just crawlin' along +like one of the motors had quit and the other was hittin' only on +three. If we'd been in the air we'd stalled sure and gone into a +tail-spin. All the time I was thinkin' how to say 'Cheer up' to the +old dame in French, but all I could think of at first was 'Bravo' +and '_Vous-ate tray jolee_!' Still it was sorta stupid walkin' along +and no conversation, so I guess I musta had an inspiration or +something, and I sez, pointing ahead at the coffin, '_Mort avec mon +Dieu_.' The old lady lost her step at that, because I suppose she +was surprised by a Yank speakin' good French, most of 'em relyin', +like Matthews here, on the sign language, although I'll say that +Matthews gets plenty far enough with that. Why, they're four girls +and a widow at home that if they knew how far Matthews was gettin' +with the sign language they'd be gray-headed to-day.... Aw, well, +Matthews, quit spoilin' this drawin'. Do you wanta get me and +Admiral Sims into trouble with the department?" + +"Go ahead with your funeral, Steve," said Lieutenant Erskine--"unless +your power of invention has failed you." + +Dempsey looked up with a hurt and innocent expression on his face. + +"Oh, lootenant," he exclaimed, "what I'm tellin' is gospel. It's as +true--it's as true as the communikays." + +"All right," said Erskine, "issue another, then." + +"Well," Steve continued, "where was I? Oh yes, we was on the bridge +and I'd just told the old lady that the dead soldier was in heaven +by now." + +"Soldier?" repeated Erskine. "What made you believe he was a soldier?" + +"Why, ain't every frawg a soldier now, sir." + +"How did you know, even, that it was a male frog?" + +"I'm comin' to that, sir," replied Steve. "That comes next. You see, +once the old lady knew I could _parlez-vous_ with the best of 'em, +she continued the conversation and sez, '_Mon pover fees_.' Get that? +'_Mon pover fees_.' Well, that means, translated, 'My poor son.'" + +At this revelation of startling linguistic ability Steve paused to +receive felicitations. When they were forthcoming he proceeded. + +"So, of course, I know then that the corpse is a dead soldier, and I +decides to see him through until he's made a safe landing somewhere. +Well, just as we was acrost the bridge, the two ex-horses doin' fine +on the down grade, I seen a marine standin' on the corner tellin' a +buncha girls all about Château-Teery. Well, I thought that maybe it +'ud be a good thing if he joined the funeral, because, anyway, the +girls could hear all about Chateau-Teery the next marine they saw. +So I yell out at him: 'Hey, you! Come and join the navy and see the +world!' + +"Well, he looks around, and, although I guess he didn't much wanta +leave them girls, he decides that he'll come and see what the big +game is. So he salutes the corpse and steps in beside me and whispers, +'Say, chief, what's the idea?' + +"'Whadd 'ya think, you poor cheese?' I sez. 'D'ya think it's a +weddin'? Get in step. We're goin' to bury a French _poiloo_.' + +"'Is that so?' he sez." + +"'Yes, that's so,' I sez. 'Get over acrost on the other side of the +widowed mother and say somethin' cheerful to her in French--if you +know any.'" + +"'If I know any!' sez he. 'Wasn't I at Château-Teery?'" + +"'Well,' I sez, 'don't tell her about that. Tell her somethin' she +ain't heard already.'" + +"'You go to blazes!' he sez, and crosses over like I told him. And +pretty soon I seen him gettin' all red and I knew he was goin' to +shoot some French at the old lady, and, sure enough, out he come with, +'_Madame je swee enchantay_.'" + +"Well, sir, I like to 've died tryin' to keep from laughin' at that, +because what it means translated is, 'Madam, I'm deelighted.' Trust +them marines to say the right thing at the wrong time--I'll say they +do." + +"By the time I get under control we're opposite the French Aviation +Headquarters--you know, the Service Technique on the Bullyvard +Saint-Germain. Well, there was a lot of doughboys hangin' around +there wastin' time, and I see one on a motor-cycle with a sergeant +sittin' in the side-car. So I step out of the ranks and sez to the +sergeant, 'What ya doin'?' And he sez, 'Waitin'--but there's nobody +home at all, at all.' So I sez: 'Well, you and your side-car is +commandeered for this funeral. We're buryin' a frawg and we need +some more mourners. The old lady is his widowed mother, and the +corpse, he's her only son and her a widow.' He sez: 'Shure, Oi'll +come, an' Oi'll be afther gettin' some o' thim other divvles to jine. +Me name is Roilly.' 'Right-o, old dear,' I sez. 'I didn't think it +was Moses and Straus.'" + +"Well, sir, Reilly was a good scout, and inside of a minute he had +six doughboys lined up behind the hearse and him bringin' up the +rear in the side-car. The side-car kept backfirin', and it sounded +like we was firin' salutes to the dead all the way to the park. + +"I wanta tell ya, that old lady was tickled. Why, there we was +already ten strong, with more to come, because I drafted three gobs +at the Bullyvard Raspail. They wasn't quite sober, but I kep' my eye +on 'em and they behaved fine. I sez to them: 'You drunken bums, you! +You join this funeral or I'll see you're put in the brig to-night.' +But to make sure they'd not disgrace Mr. Daniels's uniform I put 'em +right behind the widow and the marine and me. + +"Well, it appears that one of 'em talks French good--real good, I +mean, sir--like a frawg waiter or a coacher." + +"Or a what?" interjected Erskine. + +"Or a coacher," repeated Steve, with dignity. "The fact is, he +talked it so good that--well, never mind that yet. He's a smart +fellow, though, Mr. Erskine, by the name of Rathbone. Well, never +mind--only he's a good fellow and 'ud be pretty useful here, with +his French and everything. + +"Well, anyway, I begun to wonder after a while where that fellow +driving the hearse was takin' us to. We'd gone out the old Bullyvard +Raspail a deuce of a way, and Napoleon One showed no signs of +stoppin' them horses, and I didn't see no cemetery. + +"I sez to the marine, 'I guess we're not goin' to stop till we get +to Château-Teery,' and he sez, 'You go to hell and stop _there_.' So +I sez, 'I hope the poor old lady don't understand your English.' + +"The old dame, I could see, was beginnin' to get weak in the knees +and was walkin' about as unsteady as the three gobs behind us. So me +and the marine each grabbed an arm and she sez, '_Mercy_,' and tried +to start a smile. I guess it was pretty hard goin', because the +smile didn't get far. + +"Well, anyway, we kep' right on and passed that stone lion out there +and went right through the gates, the boys all marchin' strong and +the motor-bike makin' one hell of a noise aft. When we get through +the gates I fall back and I sez to the gob, 'Rathbone,' I sez, 'ask +the lady where we're headed and if she trusts the driver.' So +Rathbone moves up and has quite a _parlez-vous_ with her. + +"'Well,' I sez, 'what's she say?' + +"'She sez,' sez Rathbone, 'that we're goin' to bury him in a field +out here, and that there ain't no priest will bury him and there +ain't no cemetery she can bury him in.' + +"'That's funny,' I sez--'too poor, I guess. Well, anyway, it's a +shame--I'll say it is--it's a shame.' + +"'Yes,' sez Rathbone, slowly, as if he was thinkin'--'yes, it's a +damn shame!'" + +"And the other two gobs who wasn't as sober as Rathbone, they sez, +too, 'Yes, it's a damn shame.'" + +"'That makes the navy unanimous,' I sez, and then I begin to work my +bean. I was still workin' it and it was respondin' about as well as +one of them black Kabyles that are pretendin' to help build our +station at Lacanau--I was still workin' it, when the old hearse +swings to the right through a gate in a stone wall and brings up +short in a field. There was grass in the field and daisies and things, +and a lotta tin crosses stuck on mounds that I guessed was graves. +It woulda been a pretty cheerful old field, I guess, if they'd let +it alone, but them tin crosses looked pretty sick and the paint was +peelin' off the tin flowers that people had stuck on the graves, and +I guess the head gardener wasn't much of a hand at weedin'." + +"Well, anyway, we all line up in a sorta circle and every one looks +pretty downhearted and the three gobs gets perfectly sober, which +was a relief. Then Napoleon One climbs down from his box and says +somethin' in French to the old widow and points to two birds who're +diggin' a hole half-way acrost the field. Rathbone sez that he sez +that that is the grave and that the two birds is the grave-diggers +and pall-bearers combined." + +"'They are, are they?' I sez. 'This is a military funeral, ain't it? +A military funeral conducted by the navy with the army for +pall-bearers. And I call on Sergeant Reilly to back me up.' + +"'Shure,' sez Reilly, 'but who'll be providin' the priest?' + +"Well, when he sez that my old bean give a sort of throb, and I sez: +'Don't bother your nut about the priest. He'll be forthcomin' when +and if needed.' + +"So, while Reilly was explainin' to his six doughboys and Rathbone +was bringin' Napoleon One up to date, me and the widow and the +marine goes over to superintend the two birds diggin' the grave. +They was two funny-lookin' old birds, too--I'll say they was. They +was about a hundred years old apiece and had long white whiskers +like St. Peter, and, say, they talked a whole lot more than they dug. +I guess they musta been workin' on that grave for a coupla weeks--you +know, ten minutes _parlez-vous_ and then one shovela dirt. Me and +the marine had to grab their shovels and finish the job or there +wouldn't 'a' been no funeral _that_ day. + +"When we get back the six doughboys is all ready to give first aid +to the coffin, and Rathbone is talkin' to Napoleon One like they was +brothers. So I go up to them and I sez to Rathbone: + +"'Looka here, Rathbone. I'm the priest at this party. See?' + +"'What's that?' sez Rathbone. 'Come again.' + +"'I say I'm the priest. This dead _poiloo_ ain't gotta priest nor +nothin' and there's his poor mother and her a widow. So I'm that +missin' priest, and I'm not too proud to perform free and gratis. +Get that?' + +"'Hold on, chief,' sez Rathbone. 'You ain't got nothin' to wear.' + +"'Nothin' to wear!' I sez. 'You poor cheese, I'm a navy chaplain.' + +"'You look more like a Charlie Chaplin,' sez Rathbone. + +"I guess that bird wasn't sober yet, after all, because he thought +he was funny. + +"'Can the comedy,' I sez, 'and you go tell the widow that Father +Dempsey, the head chaplain of the U.S. Navy, has consented to +perform this afternoon. Now, get it straight, and for Gawd's sake +don't go and laugh or I'll put you in the brig.' + +"Well, Rathbone looks at me like I was goin' to my death. + +"'Good-by, chief,' he sez. 'Wait till the admiral hears of this.' + +"'Haw,' I sez--'if he does I'll get decorated.' + +"Well, I give Reilly the high sign and out comes the coffin on the +doughboys' shoulders. Napoleon One leads the way, and Rathbone and +the widow step in after the coffin, and I see that they is talkin' +together _beaucoup_ earnestly. + +"When we get to the grave the doughboys set down the coffin beside +it and all forms in a circle with me and the widow facin' each other. +And then there's an anxious silence. I'll say right here that I was +the most anxious, and I was sweatin' more than I guess any chaplain +oughta sweat. But, by luck, I happen to think that I have my old +logarithm-book in my pocket--you know, the one that's bound in black +patent-leather. Looks sorta as if it might be a prayer-book or +somethin' like that. Anyway, the widow, bein' a frawg widow, I +figgered how she'd think maybe it was a Yank Bible issued special to +the A.E.F. and condensed like malted milk or somethin'. + +"So I draw the old logarithm-book outa my coat and ease up gently to +the edge of the grave. The doughboys and the gobs, all except +Rathbone, who is wise, acourse, begin to nudge each other and snicker. +I oughta warned 'em what was comin', but I didn't have no time, it +come to me so quick. So I pretended to read from the book, and sez, +in a low voice and very solemn, like I was openin' the funeral, 'If +any you birds here starts laughin' I'll see him after the show and +I'll knock the daylight outa him.' + +"'Amen,' sez Rathbone, very piously. + +"'We've come here to-day,' I sez, always like I was readin' from the +book--'we've come here to-day to plant a frawg soldier who's the +only son of his mother and her a widow. And she's so broke that +there ain't no regular priest or no regular cemetery that'll offer +their services. So I'm the priest, and it's goin' to make a lotta +difference to that poor widow's feelin's when she thinks her son's +got a swell U. S. Navy priest administering the rites. Now, get that +straight and don't start whinnyin' like a buncha horses and gum the +game.' + +"Well, I stop there for breath, and Rathbone, who's right on the job, +comes across with another 'Amen,' and Reilly, who's a good Catholic, +sez, _'Pax vobiscum_.' + +"So that's all right, and I give her the gun and go ahead. + +"'This here _poiloo_,' I sez, 'I don't know much about him, but he +was a regular fellow and a good old bird and treated his mother +swell and everything, and I guess if we was wise to everything he'd +done we'd be proud to be here and we'd 'a' brung a lotta flowers and +things. He most likely was at the battle of the Marne and the Soam +and Verdun, and maybe he was at Château-Teery. Anyway, he was a +grand fighter, and done his bit all the time and kep' the Huns from +passin'." + +'And I wanta tell you that we gotta hand it to these French, because +they may be little guys, but they carry the longest bayonets I ever +see in any man's army.' + +"'Amen,' sez all the doughboys and the gobs, except one that yells, +'Alleluia!' He musta been from the South or somewheres. + +"'And so,' I sez, 'we're proud to give this frawg a good send-off, +and even if we ain't got a real chaplain and the guns to fire a +salute with, we're doin' the poor widow a lotta good, and that's +somethin'--I'll say it is.' + +"'Amen,' sez the audience. + +"Then I sez, 'Glory be,' and cross myself and signal the doughboys +to lower away on the coffin, and I flung a handfula dirt in on top +like I see 'em do always. + +"Well, the poor old widow near collapsed and Rathbone and the marine +had to hold hard to keep her on her pins. But Reilly created a +diversion by startin' up the motor-bike, and it back-fired like a +buncha rookies tryin' to fire a volley. If we'd hadda bugle we +coulda sounded taps, and the musical accompaniment woulda been +complete. + +"Napoleon One come up and shake hands with me like I'd won the +Medeye Militaire, and, before I could side-step, the widow had her +arms round my neck and was kissin' me on both cheeks. Napoleon sez +it was a '_Beau geste_' which I thought meant a fine joke, and I was +afraid the bird was wise, but Rathbone sez no, that it meant a swell +action; and the widow sez, over and over again, '_Ces braves +Americains--ces braves Americains_!' The cordial entente was pretty +cordial on the whole! I'll say it was." + +At this point Steve Dempsey paused and glanced about as who should +say, "Are there any comments or questions?" For a while there was +none forthcoming, but finally Lieutenant Erskine ventured a remark. + +"This occurred last Sunday?" he inquired, mildly. + +"Yes, sir," said Steve--"last Sunday." + +"Um," said Erskine, and without further remarks left the office. + +On his return he bore a copy of _Le Matin_ in his hand. He sat down +and leisurely and silently unfolded the sheet. Steve had resumed his +work, but I noticed that he kept an eye on Erskine. + +"I wonder," said Erskine, smoothing out the newspaper on his knees-- +"I wonder, Steve, if you happened to see this very interesting +article." + +"No, sir," said Steve. "I don't read French like I speak it." + +"Well," said Erskine, "I'll translate. This paper is dated last +Monday, and on page two occurs the following announcement:" + + + "_American soldiers, sailors, and marines attend funeral of + notorious apache. Jean the Rat, convicted murderer and suicide + and denied the offices of the Catholic Church, is buried by + stalwart Americans. + Department of Foreign Affairs reluctant to file protest at + present time. + Strange demonstration believed to be unofficial and without U.S. + government sanction, although U. S. Navy chaplain delivers + eloquent peroration in English_." + + +Erskine put aside the paper in silence, and we all turned to watch +Steve. He was very red, even to his ears. + +"Gawd!" he spluttered. "Does it really say that, sir? Honest?" + +Erskine nodded. "Yes," he said. "We'll be lucky if we avoid +international complications." + +"An apache murderer," Steve groaned--"and me thinkin' it was a frawg +hero. Will I get a court martial for it, sir?" + +"I doubt it," said Erskine, "but I don't think you'll get the +Congressional Medal or the Legion of Honour, either. Maybe, though, +the President, in recognition of your services toward cementing the +entente, will appoint you the next ambassador to France." + +"Well, anyway," said Steve, still violently red about the face and +ears--"well, anyway, I don't care. Even if it weren't a first-class +corpse, it was a first-class funeral." + + + + +FOOTFALLS + + +BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE + +From _The Pictorial Review_ + +This is not an easy story; not a road for tender or for casual feet. +Better the meadows. Let me warn you, it is as hard as that old man's +soul and as sunless as his eyes. It has its inception in catastrophe, +and its end in an act of almost incredible violence; between them it +tells barely how one long blind can become also deaf and dumb. + +He lived in one of those old Puritan sea towns where the strain has +come down austere and moribund, so that his act would not be quite +unbelievable. Except that the town is no longer Puritan and Yankee. +It has been betrayed; it has become an outpost of the Portuguese +islands. + +This man, this blind cobbler himself, was a Portuguese from St. +Michael, in the Western Islands, and his name was Boaz Negro. + +He was happy. An unquenchable exuberance lived in him. When he arose +in the morning he made vast, as it were uncontrollable, gestures +with his stout arms. He came into his shop singing. His voice, +strong and deep as the chest from which it emanated, rolled out +through the doorway and along the street, and the fishermen, done +with their morning work and lounging and smoking along the wharfs, +said, "Boaz is to work already." Then they came up to sit in the shop. + +In that town a cobbler's shop is a club. One sees the interior +always dimly thronged. They sit on the benches watching the artizan +at his work for hours, and they talk about everything in the world. +A cobbler is known by the company he keeps. + +Boaz Negro kept young company. He would have nothing to do with the +old. On his own head the gray hairs set thickly. + +He had a grown son. But the benches in his shop were for the lusty +and valiant young, men who could spend the night drinking, and then +at three o'clock in the morning turn out in the rain and dark to +pull at the weirs, sing songs, buffet one another among the slippery +fish in the boat's bottom, and make loud jokes about the fundamental +things, love and birth and death. Harkening to their boasts and +strong prophecies his breast heaved and his heart beat faster. He +was a large, full-blooded fellow, fashioned for exploits; the flame +in his darkness burned higher even to hear of them. + +It is scarcely conceivable how Boaz Negro could have come through +this much of his life still possessed of that unquenchable and +priceless exuberance; how he would sing in the dawn; how, simply +listening to the recital of deeds in gale or brawl, he could easily +forget himself a blind man, tied to a shop and a last; easily make +of himself a lusty young fellow breasting the sunlit and adventurous +tide of life. + +He had had a wife, whom he had loved. Fate, which had scourged him +with the initial scourge of blindness, had seen fit to take his +Angelina away. He had had four sons. Three, one after another, had +been removed, leaving only Manuel, the youngest. Recovering slowly, +with agony, from each of these recurrent blows, his unquenchable +exuberance had lived. And there was another thing quite as +extraordinary. He had never done anything but work, and that sort of +thing may kill the flame where an abrupt catastrophe fails. Work in +the dark. Work, work, work! And accompanied by privation; an almost +miserly scale of personal economy. Yes, indeed, he had "skinned his +fingers," especially in the earlier years. When it tells most. + +How he had worked! Not alone in the daytime, but also sometimes, +when orders were heavy, far into the night. It was strange for one, +passing along that deserted street at midnight, to hear issuing from +the black shop of Boaz Negro the rhythmical tap-tap-tap of hammer on +wooden peg. + +Nor was that sound all: no man in town could get far past that shop +in his nocturnal wandering unobserved. No more than a dozen footfalls, +and from the darkness Boaz's voice rolled forth, fraternal, +stentorian, "Good night, Antone!" "Good night to you, Caleb Snow!" + +To Boaz Negro it was still broad day. + +Now, because of this, he was what might be called a substantial man. +He owned his place, his shop, opening on the sidewalk, and behind it +the dwelling-house with trellised galleries upstairs and down. + +And there was always something for his son, a "piece for the pocket," +a dollar-, five-, even a ten-dollar bill if he had "got to have it." +Manuel was "a good boy." Boaz not only said this, he felt that he +was assured of it in his understanding, to the infinite peace of his +heart. + +It was curious that he should be ignorant only of the one nearest to +him. Not because he was physically blind. Be certain he knew more of +other men and of other men's sons than they or their neighbours did. +More, that is to say, of their hearts, their understandings, their +idiosyncrasies, and their ultimate weight in the balance-pan of +eternity. + +His simple explanation of Manuel was that Manuel "wasn't too stout." +To others he said this, and to himself. Manuel was not indeed too +robust. How should he be vigorous when he never did anything to make +him so? He never worked. Why should he work, when existence was +provided for, and when there was always that "piece for the pocket"? +Even a ten-dollar bill on a Saturday night! No, Manuel "wasn't too +stout." + +In the shop they let it go at that. The missteps and frailties of +every one else in the world were canvassed there with the most +shameless publicity. But Boaz Negro was a blind man, and in a sense +their host. Those reckless, strong young fellows respected and loved +him. It was allowed to stand at that. Manuel was "a good boy." Which +did not prevent them, by the way, from joining later in the general +condemnation of that father's laxity--"the ruination of the boy!" + +"He should have put him to work, that's what." + +"He should have said to Manuel, 'Look here, if you want a dollar, go +earn it first.'" + +As a matter of fact, only one man ever gave Boaz the advice direct. +That was Campbell Wood. And Wood never sat in that shop. + +In every small town there is one young man who is spoken of as +"rising." As often as not he is not a native, but "from away." + +In this town Campbell Wood was that man. He had come from another +part of the state to take a place in the bank. He lived in the upper +story of Boaz Negro's house, the ground floor now doing for Boaz and +the meagre remnant of his family. The old woman who came in to tidy +up for the cobbler looked after Wood's rooms as well. + +Dealing with Wood, one had first of all the sense of his +incorruptibility. A little ruthless perhaps, as if one could imagine +him, in defence of his integrity, cutting off his friend, cutting +off his own hand, cutting off the very stream flowing out from the +wellsprings of human kindness. An exaggeration, perhaps. + +He was by long odds the most eligible young man in town; good +looking in a spare, ruddy, sandy-haired Scottish fashion; important, +incorruptible, "rising." But he took good care of his heart. +Precisely that; like a sharp-eyed duenna to his own heart. One felt +that here was the man, if ever was the man, who held his destiny in +his own hand. Failing, of course, some quite gratuitous and +unforeseeable catastrophe. + +Not that he was not human, or even incapable of laughter or passion. +He was, in a way, immensely accessible. He never clapped one on the +shoulder; on the other hand, he never failed to speak. Not even to +Boaz. + +Returning from the bank in the afternoon, he had always a word for +the cobbler. Passing out again to supper at his boarding-place, he +had another, about the weather, the prospects of rain. And if Boaz +were at work in the dark when he returned from an evening at the +Board of Trade, there was a "Good night, Mr. Negro!" + +On Boaz's part, his attitude toward his lodger was curious and +paradoxical. He did not pretend to anything less than reverence for +the young man's position; precisely on account of that position he +was conscious toward Wood of a vague distrust. This was because he +was an uneducated fellow. + +To the uneducated the idea of large finance is as uncomfortable as +the idea of the law. It must be said for Boaz that, responsive to +Wood's unfailing civility, he fought against this sensation of dim +and somehow shameful distrust. + +Nevertheless his whole parental soul was in arms that evening, when, +returning from the bank and finding the shop empty of loungers, Wood +paused a moment to propose the bit of advice already referred to. + +"Haven't you ever thought of having Manuel learn the trade?" + +A suspicion, a kind of premonition, lighted the fires of defence. + +"Shoemaking," said Boaz, "is good enough for a blind man." + +"Oh, I don't know. At least it's better than doing nothing at all." + +Boaz's hammer was still. He sat silent, monumental. Outwardly. For +once his unfailing response had failed him, "Manuel ain't too stout, +you know." Perhaps it had become suddenly inadequate. + +He hated Wood; he despised Wood; more than ever before, a +hundredfold more, quite abruptly, he distrusted Wood. + +How could a man say such things as Wood had said? And where Manuel +himself might hear! + +Where Manuel _had_ heard! Boaz's other emotions--hatred and contempt +and distrust--were overshadowed. Sitting in darkness, no sound had +come to his ears, no footfall, no infinitesimal creaking of a +floor-plank. Yet by some sixth uncanny sense of the blind he was +aware that Manuel was standing in the dusk of the entry joining the +shop to the house. + +Boaz made a Herculean effort. The voice came out of his throat, harsh, +bitter, and loud enough to have carried ten times the distance to +his son's ears. + +"Manuel is a good boy!" + +"Yes--h'm--yes--I suppose so." + +Wood shifted his weight. He seemed uncomfortable. + +"Well. I'll be running along, I----ugh! Heavens!" + +Something was happening. Boaz heard exclamations, breathings, the +rustle of sleeve-cloth in large, frantic, and futile graspings--all +without understanding. Immediately there was an impact on the floor, +and with it the unmistakable clink of metal. Boaz even heard that +the metal was minted, and that the coins were gold. He understood. A +coin-sack, gripped not quite carefully enough for a moment under the +other's overcoat, had shifted, slipped, escaped, and fallen. + +And Manuel had heard! + +It was a dreadful moment for Boaz, dreadful in its native sense, as +full of dread. Why? It was a moment of horrid revelation, ruthless +clarification. His son, his link with the departed Angelina, that +"good boy"--Manuel, standing in the shadow of the entry, visible +alone to the blind, had heard the clink of falling gold, and-- +_and Boaz wished that he had not_! + +There, amazing, disconcerting, destroying, stood the sudden fact. + +Sitting as impassive and monumental as ever, his strong, bleached +hands at rest on his work, round drops of sweat came out on Boaz's +forehead. He scarcely took the sense of what Wood was saying. Only +fragments. + +"Government money, understand--for the breakwater +workings--huge--too many people know here, everywhere--don't trust +the safe--tin safe--'Noah's Ark'--give you my word--Heavens, no!" + +It boiled down to this--the money, more money than was good for that +antiquated "Noah's Ark" at the bank--and whose contemplated sojourn +there overnight was public to too many minds--in short, Wood was not +only incorruptible, he was canny. To what one of those minds, now, +would it occur that he should take away that money bodily, under +casual cover of his coat, to his own lodgings behind the +cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro? For this one, this important night! + +He was sorry the coin-sack had slipped, because he did not like to +have the responsibility of secret sharer cast upon any one, even +upon Boaz, even by accident. On the other hand, how tremendously +fortunate that it had been Boaz and not another. So far as that went, +Wood had no more anxiety now than before. One incorruptible knows +another. + +"I'd trust you, Mr. Negro" (that was one of the fragments which came +and stuck in the cobbler's brain), "as far as I would myself. As +long as it's only you. I'm just going up here and throw it under the +bed. Oh, yes, certainly." + +Boaz ate no supper. For the first time in his life food was dry in +his gullet. Even under those other successive crushing blows of Fate +the full and generous habit of his functionings had carried on +unabated; he had always eaten what was set before him. To-night, +over his untouched plate, he watched Manuel with his sightless eyes, +keeping track of his every mouthful, word, intonation, breath. What +profit he expected to extract from this catlike surveillance it is +impossible to say. + +When they arose from the supper-table Boaz made another Herculean +effort. "Manuel, you're a good boy!" + +The formula had a quality of appeal, of despair, and of command. + +"Manuel, you should be short of money, maybe. Look, what's this? A +tenner? Well, there's a piece for the pocket; go and enjoy yourself." + +He would have been frightened had Manuel, upsetting tradition, +declined the offering. With the morbid contrariness of the human +imagination, the boy's avid grasping gave him no comfort. + +He went out into the shop, where it was already dark, drew to him +his last, his tools, mallets, cutters, pegs, leather. And having +prepared to work, he remained idle. He found himself listening. + +It has been observed that the large phenomena of sunlight and +darkness were nothing to Boaz Negro. A busy night was broad day. Yet +there was a difference; he knew it with the blind man's eyes, the +ears. + +Day was a vast confusion, or rather a wide fabric, of sounds; great +and little sounds all woven together, voices, footfalls, wheels, +far-off whistles and foghorns, flies buzzing in the sun. Night was +another thing. Still there were voices and footfalls, but rarer, +emerging from the large, pure body of silence as definite, surprising, +and yet familiar entities. + +To-night there was an easterly wind, coming off the water and +carrying the sound of waves. So far as other fugitive sounds were +concerned it was the same as silence. The wind made little +difference to the ears. It nullified, from one direction at least, +the other two visual processes of the blind, the sense of touch and +the sense of smell. It blew away from the shop, toward the +living-house. + +As has been said, Boaz found himself listening, scrutinizing with an +extraordinary attention, this immense background of sound. He heard +footfalls. The story of that night was written, for him, in footfalls. + +He heard them moving about the house, the lower floor, prowling here, +there, halting for long spaces, advancing, retreating softly on the +planks. About this aimless, interminable perambulation there was +something to twist the nerves, something led and at the same time +driven like a succession of frail and indecisive charges. + +Boaz lifted himself from his chair. All his impulse called him to +make a stir, join battle, cast in the breach the re-enforcement of +his presence, authority, good will. He sank back again; his hands +fell down. The curious impotence of the spectator held him. + +He heard footfalls, too, on the upper floor, a little fainter, borne +to the inner rather than the outer ear, along the solid causeway of +partitions and floor, the legs of his chair, the bony framework of +his body. Very faint indeed. Sinking back easily into the background +of the wind. They, too, came and went, this room, that, to the +passage, the stair-head, and away. About them too there was the same +quality of being led and at the same time of being driven. + +Time went by. In his darkness it seemed to Boaz that hours must have +passed. He heard voices. Together with the footfalls, that abrupt, +brief, and (in view of Wood's position) astounding interchange of +sentences made up his history of the night. Wood must have opened the +door at the head of the stair; by the sound of his voice he would be +standing there, peering below perhaps; perhaps listening. + +"What's wrong down there?" he called. "Why don't you go to bed?" + +After a moment, came Manual's voice, "Ain't sleepy." + +"Neither am I. Look here, do you like to play cards?" + +"What kind? Euchre! I like euchre all right. Or pitch." + +"Well, what would you say to coming up and having a game of euchre +then, Manuel? If you can't sleep?" + +"That'd be all right." + +The lower footfalls ascended to join the footfalls on the upper floor. +There was the sound of a door closing. + +Boaz sat still. In the gloom he might have been taken for a piece of +furniture, of machinery, an extraordinary lay figure, perhaps, for +the trying on of the boots he made. He seemed scarcely to breathe, +only the sweat starting from his brow giving him an aspect of life. + +He ought to have run, and leaped up that inner stair and pounded +with his fists on that door. He seemed unable to move. At rare +intervals feet passed on the sidewalk outside, just at his elbow, so +to say, and yet somehow, to-night, immeasurably far away. Beyond the +orbit of the moon. He heard Rugg, the policeman, noting the silence +of the shop, muttering, "Boaz is to bed to-night," as he passed. + +The wind increased. It poured against the shop with its deep, +continuous sound of a river. Submerged in its body, Boaz caught the +note of the town bell striking midnight. + +Once more, after a long time, he heard footfalls. He heard them +coming around the corner of the shop from the house, footfalls half +swallowed by the wind, passing discreetly, without haste, retreating, +merging step by step with the huge, incessant background of the wind. + +Boaz's muscles tightened all over him. He had the impulse to start up, +to fling open the door, shout into the night, "What are you doing? +Stop there! Say! What are you doing and where are you going?" + +And as before, the curious impotence of the spectator held him +motionless. He had not stirred in his chair. And those footfalls, +upon which hinged, as it were, that momentous decade of his life, +were gone. + +There was nothing to listen for now. Yet he continued to listen. +Once or twice, half arousing himself, he drew toward him his +unfinished work. And then relapsed into immobility. + +As has been said, the wind, making little difference to the ears, +made all the difference in the world with the sense of feeling and +the sense of smell. From the one important direction of the house. +That is how it could come about that Boaz Negro could sit, waiting +and listening to nothing in the shop and remain ignorant of disaster +until the alarm had gone away and come back again, pounding, shouting, +clanging. + +"_Fire_!" he heard them bawling in the street. "_Fire! Fire_!" + +Only slowly did he understand that the fire was in his own house. + +There is nothing stiller in the world than the skeleton of a house +in the dawn after a fire. It is as if everything living, positive, +violent, had been completely drained in the one flaming act of +violence, leaving nothing but negation till the end of time. It is +worse than a tomb. A monstrous stillness! Even the footfalls of the +searchers can not disturb it, for they are separate and superficial. +In its presence they are almost frivolous. + +Half an hour after dawn the searchers found the body, if what was +left from that consuming ordeal might be called a body. The +discovery came as a shock. It seemed incredible that the occupant of +that house, no cripple or invalid but an able man in the prime of +youth, should not have awakened and made good his escape. It was the +upper floor which had caught; the stairs had stood to the last. It +was beyond calculation. Even if he had been asleep! + +And he had not been asleep. This second and infinitely more +appalling discovery began to be known. Slowly. By a hint, a breath +of rumour here; there an allusion, half taken back. The man, whose +incinerated body still lay curled in its bed of cinders, had been +dressed at the moment of disaster; even to the watch, the +cuff-buttons, the studs, the very scarf-pin. Fully clothed to the +last detail, precisely as those who had dealings at the bank might +have seen Campbell Wood any week-day morning for the past eight +months. A man does not sleep with his clothes on. The skull of the +man had been broken, as if with a blunt instrument of iron. On the +charred lacework of the floor lay the leg of an old andiron with +which Boaz Negro and his Angelina had set up housekeeping in that +new house. + +It needed only Mr. Asa Whitelaw, coming up the street from that +gaping "Noah's Ark" at the bank, to round out the scandalous circle +of circumstance. + +"Where is Manuel?" + +Boaz Negro still sat in his shop, impassive, monumental, his thick, +hairy arms resting on the arms of his chair. The tools and materials +of his work remained scattered about him, as his irresolute +gathering of the night before had left them. Into his eyes no change +could come. He had lost his house, the visible monument of all those +years of "skinning his fingers." It would seem that he had lost his +son. And he had lost something incalculably precious--that hitherto +unquenchable exuberance of the man. + +"Where is Manuel?" + +When he spoke his voice was unaccented and stale, like the voice of +a man already dead. + +"Yes, where is Manuel?" + +He had answered them with their own question. + +"When did you last see him?" + +Neither he nor they seemed to take note of that profound irony. + +"At supper." + +"Tell us, Boaz; you knew about this money?" + +The cobbler nodded his head. + +"And did Manuel?" + +He might have taken sanctuary in a legal doubt. How did he know what +Manuel knew? Precisely! As before, he nodded his head. + +"After supper, Boaz, you were in the shop? But you heard something?" + +He went on to tell them what he had heard: the footfalls, below and +above, the extraordinary conversation which had broken for a moment +the silence of the inner hall. The account was bare, the phrases +monosyllabic. He reported only what had been registered on the +sensitive tympanums of his ears, to the last whisper of footfalls +stealing past the dark wall of the shop. Of all the formless tangle +of thoughts, suspicions, interpretations, and the special and +personal knowledge given to the blind which moved in his brain, he +said nothing. + +He shut his lips there. He felt himself on the defensive. Just as he +distrusted the higher ramifications of finance (his house had gone +down uninsured), so before the rites and processes of that +inscrutable creature, the Law, he felt himself menaced by the +invisible and the unknown, helpless, oppressed; in an abject sense, +skeptical. + +"Keep clear of the Law!" they had told him in his youth. The monster +his imagination had summoned up then still stood beside him in his +age. + +Having exhausted his monosyllabic and superficial evidence, they +could move him no farther. He became deaf and dumb. He sat before +them, an image cast in some immensely heavy stuff, inanimate. His +lack of visible emotion impressed them. Remembering his exuberance, +it was only the stranger to see him unmoving and unmoved. Only once +did they catch sight of something beyond. As they were preparing to +leave he opened his mouth. What he said was like a swan-song to the +years of his exuberant happiness. Even now there was no colour of +expression in his words, which sounded mechanical. + +"Now I have lost everything. My house. My last son. Even my honour. +You would not think I would like to live. But I go to live. I go to +work. That _cachorra_, one day he shall come back again, in the dark +night, to have a look. I shall go to show you all. That _cachorra_!" + +(And from that time on, it was noted, he never referred to the +fugitive by any other name than _cachorra_, which is a kind of dog. +"That _cachorra_!" As if he had forfeited the relationship not only +of the family, but of the very genus, the very race! "That _cachorra_!") + +He pronounced this resolution without passion. When they assured him +that the culprit would come back again indeed, much sooner than he +expected, "with a rope around his neck," he shook his head slowly. + +"No, you shall not catch that _cachorra_ now. But one day--" + +There was something about its very colourlessness which made it +sound oracular. It was at least prophetic. They searched, laid their +traps, proceeded with all their placards, descriptions, rewards, +clues, trails. But on Manuel Negro they never laid their hands. + +Months passed and became years. Boaz Negro did not rebuild his house. +He might have done so, out of his earnings, for upon himself he +spent scarcely anything, reverting to his old habit of an almost +miserly economy. Yet perhaps it would have been harder after all. +For his earnings were less and less. In that town a cobbler who sits +in an empty shop is apt to want for trade. Folk take their boots to +mend where they take their bodies to rest and their minds to be +edified. + +No longer did the walls of Boaz's shop resound to the boastful +recollections of young men. Boaz had changed. He had become not only +different, but opposite. A metaphor will do best. The spirit of Boaz +Negro had been a meadowed hillside giving upon the open sea, the sun, +the warm, wild winds from beyond the blue horizon. And covered with +flowers, always hungry and thirsty for the sun and the fabulous wind +and bright showers of rain. It had become an entrenched camp, lying +silent, sullen, verdureless, under a gray sky. He stood solitary +against the world. His approaches were closed. He was blind, and he +was also deaf and dumb. + +Against that what can young fellows do who wish for nothing but to +rest themselves and talk about their friends and enemies? They had +come and they had tried. They had raised their voices even higher +than before. Their boasts had grown louder, more presumptuous, more +preposterous, until, before the cold separation of that unmoving and +as if contemptuous presence in the cobbler's chair, they burst of +their own air, like toy balloons. And they went and left Boaz alone. + +There was another thing which served, if not to keep them away, at +least not to entice them back. That was the aspect of the place. It +was not cheerful. It invited no one. In its way that fire-bitten +ruin grew to be almost as great a scandal as the act itself had been. +It was plainly an eyesore. A valuable property, on the town's main +thoroughfare--and an eyesore! The neighbouring owners protested. + +Their protestations might as well have gone against a stone wall. +That man was deaf and dumb. He had become, in a way, a kind of +vegetable, for the quality of a vegetable is that, while it is +endowed with life, it remains fixed in one spot. For years Boaz was +scarcely seen to move foot out of that shop that was left him, a +small square, blistered promontory on the shores of ruin. + +He must indeed have carried out some rudimentary sort of domestic +programme under the débris at the rear (he certainly did not sleep +or eat in the shop). One or two lower rooms were left fairly intact. +The outward aspect of the place was formless; it grew to be no more +than a mound in time; the charred timbers, one or two still standing, +lean and naked against the sky, lost their blackness and faded to a +silvery gray. It would have seemed strange, had they not grown +accustomed to the thought, to imagine that blind man, like a mole, +or some slow slug, turning himself mysteriously in the bowels of +that gray mound--that time-silvered "eye-sore." + +When they saw him, however, he was in the shop. They opened the door +to take in their work (when other cobblers turned them off), and +they saw him seated in his chair in the half darkness, his whole +person, legs, torso, neck, head, as motionless as the vegetable of +which we have spoken--only his hands and his bare arms endowed with +visible life. The gloom had bleached the skin to the colour of damp +ivory, and against the background of his immobility they moved with +a certain amazing monstrousness, interminably. No, they were never +still. One wondered what they could be at. Surely he could not have +had enough work now to keep those insatiable hands so monstrously in +motion. Even far into the night. Tap-tap-tap! Blows continuous and +powerful. On what? On nothing? On the bare iron last? And for what +purpose? To what conceivable end? + +Well, one could imagine those arms, growing paler, also growing +thicker and more formidable with that unceasing labour; the muscles +feeding themselves omnivorously on their own waste, the cords +toughening, the bone-tissues revitalizing themselves without end. +One could imagine the whole aspiration of that mute and motionless +man pouring itself out into those pallid arms, and the arms taking it +up with a kind of blind greed. Storing it up. Against a day! + +"That _cachorra_! One day--" + +What were the thoughts of the man? What moved within that motionless +cranium covered with long hair? Who can say? Behind everything, of +course, stood that bitterness against the world--the blind +world--blinder than he would ever be. And against "that _cachorra_." +But this was no longer a thought; it was the man. + +Just as all muscular aspiration flowed into his arms, so all the +energies of his senses turned to his ears. The man had become, you +might say, two arms and two ears. Can you imagine a man listening, +intently, through the waking hours of nine years? + +Listening to footfalls. Marking with a special emphasis of +concentration the beginning, rise, full passage, falling away, and +dying of all the footfalls. By day, by night, winter and summer and +winter again. Unravelling the skein of footfalls passing up and down +the street! + +For three years he wondered when they would come. For the next three +years he wondered if they would ever come. It was during the last +three that a doubt began to trouble him. It gnawed at his huge moral +strength. Like a hidden seepage of water, it undermined (in +anticipation) his terrible resolution. It was a sign perhaps of age, +a slipping away of the reckless infallibility of youth. + +Supposing, after all, that his ears should fail him. Supposing they +were capable of being tricked, without his being able to know it. +Supposing that that _cachorra_ should come and go, and he, Boaz, +living in some vast delusion, some unrealized distortion of memory, +should let him pass unknown. Supposing precisely this thing had +already happened! + +Or the other way around. What if he should hear the footfalls coming, +even into the very shop itself? What if he should be as sure of them +as of his own soul? What, then, if he should strike? And what then, +if it were not that _cachorra_ after all? How many tens and hundreds +of millions of people were there in the world? Was it possible for +them all to have footfalls distinct and different? + +Then they would take him and hang him. And that _cachorra_ might +then come and go at his own will, undisturbed. + +As he sat there sometimes the sweat rolled down his nose, cold as +rain. + +Supposing! + +Sometimes, quite suddenly, in broad day, in the booming silence of +the night, he would start. Not outwardly. But beneath the pale +integument of his skin all his muscles tightened and his nerves sang. +His breathing stopped. It seemed almost as if his heart stopped. + +Was that it? Were those the feet, there, emerging faintly from the +distance? Yes, there was something about them. Yes! Memory was in +travail. Yes, yes, yes! No! How could he be sure? Ice ran down into +his empty eyes. The footfalls were already passing. They were gone, +swallowed up already by time and space. Had that been that _cachorra_? + +Nothing in his life had been so hard to meet as this insidious drain +of distrust in his own powers; this sense of a traitor within the +walls. His iron-gray hair had turned white. It was always this now, +from the beginning of the day to the end of the night: how was he to +know? How was he to be inevitably, unshakably, sure? + +Curiously, after all this purgatory of doubts, he did know them. For +a moment at least, when he had heard them, he was unshakably sure. + +It was on an evening of the winter holidays, the Portuguese festival +of _Menin' Jesus_. Christ was born again in a hundred mangers on a +hundred tiny altars; there was cake and wine; songs went shouting by +to the accompaniment of mandolins and tramping feet. The wind blew +cold under a clear sky. In all the houses there were lights; even in +Boaz Negro's shop a lamp was lit just now, for a man had been in for +a pair of boots which Boaz had patched. The man had gone out again. +Boaz was thinking of blowing out the light. It meant nothing to him. + +He leaned forward, judging the position of the lamp-chimney by the +heat on his face, and puffed out his cheeks to blow. Then his cheeks +collapsed suddenly, and he sat back again. + +It was not odd that he had failed to hear the footfalls until they +were actually within the door. A crowd of merry-makers was passing +just then; their songs and tramping almost shook the shop. + +Boaz sat back. Beneath his passive exterior his nerves thrummed; his +muscles had grown as hard as wood. Yes! Yes! But no! He had heard +nothing; no more than a single step, a single foot-pressure on the +planks within the door. Dear God! He could not tell! + +Going through the pain of an enormous effort, he opened his lips. + +"What can I do for you?" + +"Well, I--I don't know. To tell the truth--" + +The voice was unfamiliar, but it might be assumed. Boaz held himself. +His face remained blank, interrogating, slightly helpless. "I am a +little deaf," he said. "Come nearer." + +The footfalls came half way across the intervening floor, and there +appeared to hesitate. The voice, too, had a note of uncertainty. + +"I was just looking around. I have a pair of--well, you mend shoes?" + +Boaz nodded his head. It was not in response to the words, for they +meant nothing. What he had heard was the footfalls on the floor. + +Now he was sure. As has been said, for a moment at least after he +had heard them he was unshakably sure. The congestion of his muscles +had passed. He was at peace. + +The voice became audible once more. Before the massive preoccupation +of the blind man it became still less certain of itself. + +"Well, I haven't got the shoes with me. I was--just looking around." + +It was amazing to Boaz, this miraculous sensation of peace. + +"Wait!" Then, bending his head as if listening to the winter wind, +"It's cold to-night. You've left the door open. But wait!" Leaning +down, his hand fell on a rope's end hanging by the chair. The +gesture was one continuous, undeviating movement of the hand. No +hesitation. No groping. How many hundreds, how many thousands of +times, had his hand schooled itself in that gesture! + +A single strong pull. With a little _bang_ the front door had swung +to and latched itself. Not only the front door. The other door, +leading to the rear, had closed too and latched itself with a little +_bang_. And leaning forward from his chair, Boaz blew out the light. + +There was not a sound in the shop. Outside, feet continued to go by, +ringing on the frozen road; voices were lifted; the wind hustled +about the corners of the wooden shell with a continuous, shrill note +of whistling. All of this outside, as on another planet. Within the +blackness of the shop the complete silence persisted, + +Boaz listened. Sitting on the edge of his chair, half-crouching, his +head, with its long, unkempt, white hair, bent slightly to one side, +he concentrated upon this chambered silence the full powers of his +senses. He hardly breathed. + +The other person in that room could not be breathing at all, it +seemed. + +No, there was not a breath, not the stirring of a sole on wood, not +the infinitesimal rustle of any fabric. It was as if in this utter +stoppage of sound, even the blood had ceased to flow in the veins +and arteries of that man, who was like a rat caught in a trap. + +It was appalling even to Boaz; even to the cat. Listening became +more than a labour. He began to have to fight against a growing +impulse to shout out loud, to leap, sprawl forward without aim in +that unstirred darkness--do something. Sweat rolled down from behind +his ears, into his shirt-collar. He gripped the chair-arms. To keep +quiet he sank his teeth into his lower lip. He would not! He would +not! + +And of a sudden he heard before him, in the centre of the room, an +outburst of breath, an outrush from lungs in the extremity of pain, +thick, laborious, fearful. A coughing up of dammed air. + +Pushing himself from the arms of the chair, Boaz leaped. + +His fingers, passing swiftly through the air, closed on something. +It was a sheaf of hair, bristly and thick. It was a man's beard. + +On the road outside, up and down the street for a hundred yards, +merry-making people turned to look at one another. With an abrupt +cessation of laughter, of speech. Inquiringly. Even with an +unconscious dilation of the pupils of their eyes. + +"What was that?" + +There had been a scream. There could be no doubt of that. A single, +long-drawn note. Immensely high-pitched. Not as if it were human. + +"God's sake! What was that? Where'd it come from?" + +Those nearest said it came from the cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro. + +They went and tried the door. It was closed; even locked, as if for +the night. There was no light behind the window-shade. But Boaz +would not have a light. They beat on the door. No answer. + +But from where, then, had that prolonged, as if animal, note come? + +They ran about, penetrating into the side lanes, interrogating, +prying. Coming back at last, inevitably, to the neighbourhood of +Boaz Negro's shop. + +The body lay on the floor at Boaz's feet, where it had tumbled down +slowly after a moment from the spasmodic embrace of his arms; those +ivory-coloured arms which had beaten so long upon the bare iron +surface of a last. Blows continuous and powerful. It seemed +incredible. They were so weak now. They could not have lifted the +hammer now. + +But that beard! That bristly, thick, square beard of a stranger! + +His hands remembered it. Standing with his shoulders fallen forward +and his weak arms hanging down, Boaz began to shiver. The whole +thing was incredible. What was on the floor there, upheld in the +vast gulf of darkness, he could not see. Neither could he hear it; +smell it. Nor (if he did not move his foot) could he feel it. What +he did not hear, smell, or touch did not exist. It was not there. +Incredible! + +But that beard! All the accumulated doubtings of those years fell +down upon him. After all, the thing he had been so fearful of in his +weak imaginings had happened. He had killed a stranger. He, Boaz +Negro, had murdered an innocent man! + +And all on account of that beard. His deep panic made him +light-headed. He began to confuse cause and effect. If it were not +for that beard, it would have been that _cachorra_. + +On this basis he began to reason with a crazy directness. And to act. +He went and pried open the door into the entry. From a shelf he took +down his razor. A big, heavy-heeled strop. His hands began to hurry. +And the mug, half full of soap. And water. It would have to be cold +water. But after all, he thought (light-headedly), at this time of +night---- + +Outside, they were at the shop again. The crowd's habit is to forget +a thing quickly, once it is out of sight and hearing. But there had +been something about that solitary cry which continued to bother them, +even in memory. Where had it been? Where had it come from? And those +who had stood nearest the cobbler-shop were heard again. They were +certain now, dead certain. They could swear! + +In the end they broke down the door. + +If Boaz heard them he gave no sign. An absorption as complete as it +was monstrous wrapped him. Kneeling in the glare of the lantern they +had brought, as impervious as his own shadow sprawling behind him, +he continued to shave the dead man on the floor. + +No one touched him. Their minds and imaginations were arrested by +the gigantic proportions of the act. The unfathomable presumption of +the act. As throwing murder in their faces to the tune of a jig in a +barber-shop. It is a fact that none of them so much as thought of +touching him. No less than all of them, together with all other men, +shorn of their imaginations--that is to say, the expressionless and +imperturbable creature of the Law--would be sufficient to touch that +ghastly man. + +On the other hand, they could not leave him alone. They could not go +away. They watched. They saw the damp, lather-soaked beard of that +victimized stranger falling away, stroke by stroke of the flashing, +heavy razor. The dead denuded by the blind! + +It was seen that Boaz was about to speak. It was something important +he was about to utter; something, one would say, fatal. The words +would not come all at once. They swelled his cheeks out. His razor +was arrested. Lifting his face, he encircled the watchers with a +gaze at once of imploration and of command. As if he could see them. +As if he could read his answer in the expressions of their faces. + +"Tell me one thing now. Is it that _cachorra_?" + +For the first time those men in the room made sounds. They shuffled +their feet. It was as if an uncontrollable impulse to ejaculation, +laughter, derision, forbidden by the presence of death, had gone +down into their boot-soles. + +"Manuel?" one of them said. "You mean _Manuel_?" + +Boaz laid the razor down on the floor beside its work. He got up +from his knees slowly, as if his joints hurt. He sat down in his +chair, rested his hands on the arms, and once more encircled the +company with his sightless gaze. + +"Not Manuel. Manuel was a good boy. But tell me now, is it that +_cachorra_?" + +Here was something out of their calculations; something for them, +mentally, to chew on. Mystification is a good thing sometimes. It +gives the brain a fillip, stirs memory, puts the gears of +imagination in mesh. One man, an old, tobacco-chewing fellow, began +to stare harder at the face on the floor. Something moved in his +intellect. + +"No, but look here now, by God----" + +He had even stopped chewing. But he was forestalled by another. + +"Say now, if it don't look like that fellow Wood, himself. The bank +fellow--that was burned--remember? Himself." + +"That _cachorra_ was not burned. Not that Wood. You darned fool!" + +Boaz spoke from his chair. They hardly knew his voice, emerging from +its long silence; it was so didactic and arid. + +"That _cachorra_ was not burned. It was my boy that was burned. It +was that _cachorra_ called my boy upstairs. That _cachorra_ killed +my boy. That _cachorra_ put his clothes on my boy, and he set my +house on fire. I knew that all the time. Because when I heard those +feet come out of my house and go away, I knew they were the feet of +that _cachorra_ from the bank. I did not know where he was going to. +Something said to me--you better ask him where he is going to. But +then I said, you are foolish. He had the money from the bank. I did +not know. And then my house was on fire. No, it was not my boy that +went away; it was that _cachorra_ all the time. You darned fools! +Did you think I was waiting for my own boy?" + +"Now I show you all," he said at the end. "And now I can get hanged." + +No one ever touched Boaz Negro for that murder. For murder it was in +the eye and letter of the Law. The Law in a small town is sometimes +a curious creature; it is sometimes blind only in one eye. + +Their minds and imaginations in that town were arrested by the +romantic proportions of the act. Simply, no one took it up. I +believe the man, Wood, was understood to have died of heart-failure. + +When they asked Boaz why he had not told what he knew as to the +identity of that fugitive in the night, he seemed to find it hard to +say exactly. How could a man of no education define for them his own +but half-denied misgivings about the Law, his sense of oppression, +constraint and awe, of being on the defensive, even, in an abject way, +his skepticism? About his wanting, come what might, to "keep clear +of the Law"? + +He did say this, "You would have laughed at me." + +And this, "If I told folk it was Wood went away, then I say he would +not dare come back again." + +That was the last. Very shortly he began to refuse to talk about the +thing at all. The act was completed. Like the creature of fable, it +had consumed itself. Out of that old man's consciousness it had +departed. Amazingly. Like a dream dreamed out. + +Slowly at first, in a makeshift, piece-at-a-time, poor man's way, +Boaz commenced to rebuild his house. That "eyesore" vanished. + +And slowly at first, like the miracle of a green shoot pressing out +from the dead earth, that priceless and unquenchable exuberance of +the man was seen returning. Unquenchable, after all. + + + + +THE LAST ROOM OF ALL + + +BY STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + + +In those days all Italy was in turmoil and Lombardy lay covered with +blood and fire. The emperor, the second Frederick of Swabia, was out +to conquer once for all. His man Salinguerra held the town of Ferrara. +The Marquis Azzo, being driven forth, could slake his rage only on +such outlying castles as favoured the imperial cause. + +Of these castles the Marquis Azzo himself sacked and burned many. +But against the castle of Grangioia, remote in the hills, he sent +his captain, Lapo Cercamorte. + +This Lapo Cercamorte was nearly forty years old, a warrior from +boyhood, uncouth, barbaric, ferocious. One could think of no current +danger that he had not encountered, no horror that he had not +witnessed. His gaunt face was dull red, as if baked by the heat of +blazing towns. His coarse black hair had been thinned by the +friction of his helmet. His nose was broken, his arms and legs were +covered with scars, and under his chin ran a seam made by a woman who +had tried to cut off his head while he lay asleep. From this wound +Lapo Cercamorte's voice was husky and uncertain. + +With a hundred men at his back he rode by night to Grangioia Castle. +As day was breaking, by a clever bit of stratagem he rushed the gate. + +Then in that towering, thick-walled fortress, which had suddenly +become a trap, sounded the screaming of women, the boom of yielding +doors, the clang of steel on black staircases, the battlecries, wild +songs, and laughter of Lapo Cercamorte's soldiers. + +He found the family at bay in their hall, the father and his three +sons naked except for the shirts of mail that they had hastily +slipped on. Behind these four huddled the Grangioia women and +children, for the most part pallid from fury rather than from fear, +silently awaiting the end. + +However, Cercamorte's purpose was not to destroy this clan, but to +force it into submission to his marquis. So, when he had persuaded +them to throw down their swords, he put off his flat-topped helmet +and seated himself with the Grangioia men. + +A bargain ensued; he gave them their lives in exchange for their +allegiance. And it would have ended there had not the sun, reaching +in through a casement toward the group of silent women, touched the +face of old Grangioia's youngest daughter, Madonna Gemma. + +From the crown of her head, whence her hair fell in bright ripples +like a gush of gold from the ladle of a goldsmith, to her white feet, +bare on the pavement, Madonna Gemma was one fragile piece of beauty. +In this hall heavy with torch smoke, and the sweat of many soldiers, +in this ring of blood-stained weapons and smouldering eyes, she +appeared like a delicate dreamer enveloped by a nightmare. Yet even +the long stare of Lapo Cercamorte she answered with a look of +defiance. + +The conqueror rose, went jingling to her, thumbed a strand of her +bright hair, touched her soft cheek with his fingers, which smelled +of leather and horses. Grasping her by the elbow, he led her forward. + +"Is this your daughter, Grangioia? Good. I will take her as a pledge +of your loyalty." + +With a gesture old Grangioia commanded his sons to sit still. After +glowering round him at the wall of mail, he let his head sink down, +and faltered: + +"Do you marry her, Cercamorte?" + +"Why not?" croaked Lapo. "Having just made a peace shall I give +offence so soon? No, in this case I will do everything according to +honour." + +That morning Lapo Cercamorte espoused Madonna Gemma Grangioia. Then, +setting her behind his saddle on a cushion, he took her away to his +own castle. This possession, too, he had won for himself with his +sword. It was called the Vespaione, the Big Hornets' Nest. Rude and +strong, it crowned a rocky hilltop in a lonely region. At the base of +the hill clustered a few huts; beyond lay some little fields; then +the woods spread their tangles afar. + +Madonna Gemma, finding herself in this prison, did not weep or utter +a sound for many days. + + * * * * * + +Here Lapo Cercamorte, pouncing upon such a treasure as had never +come within his reach before, met his first defeat. His fire proved +unable to melt that ice. His coarse mind was benumbed by the +exquisiteness of his antagonist. Now, instead of terror and +self-abasement, he met scorn--the cold contempt of a being rarefied, +and raised above him by centuries of gentler thought and living. +When he laid his paws on her shoulders he felt that he held there a +pale, soft shell empty of her incomprehensible spirit, which at his +touch had vanished into space. + +So he stood baffled, with a new longing that groped blindly through +the veils of flesh and blood, like a brute tormented by the dawning +of some insatiable aspiration. + +It occurred to him that the delicate creature might be pleased if +her surroundings were less soldierly. So oiled linen was stretched +across her windows, and a carpet laid for her feet at table in the +hall. The board was spread with a white cloth on which she might +wipe her lips, and in spring the pavement of her bower was strewn +with scented herbs. Also he saw to it that her meat was seasoned +with quinces, that her wine was spiced on feast-days. + +He got her a little greyhound, but it sickened and died. Remembering +that a comrade-in-arms possessed a Turkish dwarf with an abnormally +large head, he cast about to procure some such monstrosity for her +amusement. He sent her jewellery--necklaces torn by his soldiers +from the breasts of ladies in surrendered towns, rings wrested from +fingers raised in supplication. + +She wore none of these trinkets. Indeed, she seemed oblivious of all +his efforts to change her. + +He left her alone. + +Finally, whenever Lapo Cercamorte met her in the hall his face +turned dark and bitter. Throughout the meal there was no sound +except the growling of dogs among the bones beneath the table, the +hushed voices of the soldiers eating in the body of the hall. Old +one-eyed Baldo, Cercamorte's lieutenant, voiced the general +sentiment when he muttered into his cup: + +"This house has become a tomb, and I have a feeling that presently +there may be corpses in it." + +"She has the evil eye," another assented. + +Furtively making horns with their fingers, they looked up askance +toward the dais, at her pale young beauty glimmering through rays of +dusty sunshine. + +"Should there come an alarm our shield-straps would burst and our +weapons crack like glass. If only, when we took Grangioia Castle, a +sword had accidentally cut off her nose!" + +"God give us our next fighting in the open, far away from this +_jettatrice_!" + +It presently seemed as if that wish were to be granted. All the +Guelph party were then preparing to take the field together. In +Cercamorte's castle, dice-throwing and drinking gave place to +drinking and plotting. Strange messengers appeared. In an upper +chamber a shabby priest from the nearest town--the stronghold of +Count Nicolotto Muti--neatly wrote down, at Lapo's dictation, the +tally of available men, horses, and arms. Then one morning Cercamorte +said to Baldo, his lieutenant: + +"I am off for a talk with Nicolotto Muti. The house is in your care." + +And glumly Lapo rode down from his castle, without a glance toward +the casements of Madonna Gemma's bower. + +She watched him depart alone, his helmet dangling from his saddle-bow. +Then she saw, below her on the hillside, also watching him, the +horse-boy, Foresto, his graceful figure hinting at an origin +superior to his station, his dark, peaked face seeming to mask some +avid and sinister dream. Was she wrong in suspecting that Foresto +hated Lapo Cercamorte? Might he not become an ally against her +husband? + +Her gaze travelled on to the houses at the foot of the hill, to the +hut where, under Lapo's protection, dwelt a renegade Arabian, +reputed to be a sorcerer. No doubt the Arabian knew of subtle poisons, +charms that withered men's bodies, enchantments that wrecked the +will and reduced the mind to chaos. + +But soon these thoughts were scattered by the touch of the spring +breeze. She sank into a vague wonder at life, which had so cruelly +requited the fervours of her girlhood. + +On the third day of Cercamorte's absence, while Madonna Gemma was +leaning on the parapet of the keep, there appeared at the edge of +the woods a young man in light-blue tunic and hood, a small gilded +harp under his arm. + + * * * * * + +Because he was the young brother of Nicolotto Muti they admitted him +into the castle. + +His countenance was effeminate, fervent, and artful. The elegance of +his manner was nearly Oriental. The rough soldiers grinned in +amusement, or frowned in disgust. Madonna Gemma, confronted by his +strangeness and complexity, neither frowned nor smiled, but looked +more wan than ever. + +Perfumed with sandalwood, in a white, gold-stitched robe, its bodice +tight, its skirts voluminous, she welcomed him in the hall. The +reception over, old Baldo spoke with the crone who served Madonna +Gemma as maid: + +"I do not know what this pretty little fellow has in mind. +While I watch him for spying, do you watch him for love-making. +If we discover him at either, perhaps he has caught that new +green-sickness from the north, and thinks himself a singing-bird." + +A singing-bird was what Raffaele Muti proved to be. + +In the Mediterranean lands a new idea was beginning to alter the +conduct of society. Woman, so long regarded as a soulless animal, +born only to drag men down, was being transfigured into an +immaculate goddess, an angel in human shape, whose business was +man's reformation, whose right was man's worship. + +That cult of Woman had been invented by the lute-playing nobles of +Provence. But quickly it had begun to spread from court to court, +from one land to another. So now, in Italy, as in southern France, +sometimes in wild hill castles as well as in the city palaces, a +hymn of adoration rose to the new divinity. + +This was the song that Raffaele Muti, plucking at his twelve harp +strings, raised in the hall of the Big Hornets' Nest at twilight. + +He sat by the fireplace on the guests' settee, beside Madonna Gemma. +The torches, dripping fire in the wall-rings, cast their light over +the faces of the wondering servants. The harp twanged its plaintive +interlude; then the song continued, quavering, soaring, athrob with +this new pathos and reverence, that had crept like the counterfeit +of a celestial dawn upon a world long obscured by a brutish dusk. + +Raffaele Muti sang of a woman exalted far above him by her womanhood, +which rivalled Godhood in containing all the virtues requisite for +his redemption. Man could no longer sin when once she had thought +pityingly of him. Every deed must be noble if rooted in love of her. +All that one asked was to worship her ineffable superiority. How +grievously should one affront her virtue if ever one dreamed of +kisses! But should one dream of them, pray God she might never stoop +that far in mercy! No, passion must never mar this shrine at which +Raffaele knelt. + +In the ensuing silence, which quivered from that cry, there stole +into the heart of Madonna Gemma an emotion more precious, just then, +than the peace that follows absolution--a new-born sense of feminine +dignity, a glorious blossoming of pride, commingled with the +tenderness of an immeasurable gratitude. + +About to part for the night, they exchanged a look of tremulous +solemnity. + +Her beauty was no longer bleak, but rich--all at once too warm, +perhaps, for a divinity whose only office was the guidance of a +troubadour toward asceticism. His frail comeliness was radiant from +his poetical ecstasy--of a sudden too flushed, one would think, for +a youth whose aspirations were all toward the intangible. Then each +emerged with a start from that delicious spell, to remember the +staring servants. + +They said good-night. Madonna Gemma ascended to her chamber. + +It was the horse-boy Foresto who, with a curious solicitude and +satisfaction, lighted Raffaele Muti up to bed. + +But old Baldo, strolling thoughtfully in the courtyard, caught a +young cricket chirping in the grass between two paving-stones. On +the cricket's back, with a straw and white paint, he traced the Muti +device--a tree transfixed by an arrow. Then he put the cricket into +a little iron box together with a rose, and gave the box to a +man-at-arms, saying: + +"Ride to Lapo Cercamorte and deliver this into his hands." + +Next day, on the sunny tower, high above the hillside covered with +spring flowers, Raffaele resumed his song. He sat at the feet of +Madonna Gemma, who wore a grass-green gown embroidered with unicorns, +emblems of purity. The crone was there also, pretending to doze in +the shadows; and so was Foresto the horse-boy, whose dark, still +face seemed now and again to mirror Raffaele's look of exultation--a +look that came only when Madonna Gemma gazed away from him. + +But for the most part she gazed down at Raffaele's singing lips, on +which she discerned no guile. + +Tireless, he sang to her of a world fairer even than that of her +maidenhood. It was a region where for women all feeling of abasement +ceased, because there the troubadour, by his homage, raised one's +soul high above the tyranny of uncomprehending husbands. + +She learned--for so it had been decided in Provence--that high +sentiment was impossible in wedlock at its best; that between +husband and wife there was no room for love. Thus, according to the +Regula Amoris, it was not only proper, but also imperative, to seek +outside the married life some lofty love-alliance. + +The day wore on thus. The sun had distilled from many blossoms the +whole intoxicating fragrance of the springtime. A golden haze was +changing Madonna Gemma's prison into a paradise. + +Her vision was dimmed by a glittering film of tears. Her fingers +helplessly unfolded on her lap. She believed that at last she had +learned love's meaning. And Raffaele, for all his youth no novice at +this game, believed that this dove, too, was fluttering into his cage. + +By sunset their cheeks were flaming. At twilight their hands turned +cold. + +Then they heard the bang of the gate and the croaking voice of Lapo +Cercamorte. + +He entered the hall as he had so often entered the houses of +terror-stricken enemies, clashing at each ponderous, swift step, his +mail dusty, his hair wet and dishevelled, his dull-red face +resembling a mask of heated iron. That atmosphere just now swimming +in languor, was instantly permeated by a wave of force, issuing from +this herculean body and barbaric brain. When he halted before those +two they seemed to feel the heat that seethed in his steel-bound +breast. + +His disfigured face still insolvable, Lapo Cercamorte plunged his +stare into Madonna Gemma's eyes, then looked into the eyes of +Raffaele. His hoarse voice broke the hush; he said to the young man: + +"So you are the sister of my friend Count Nicolloto?" + +Raffaele, having licked his lips, managed to answer: + +"You mean his brother, sir." + +Lapo Cercamorte laughed loud; but his laugh was the bark of a hyena, +and his eyes were balls of fire. + +"No! with these legs and ringlets? Come here, Baldo. Here is a girl +who says she is a man. What do you say, to speak only of this pretty +skin of hers?" + +And with his big hand suddenly he ripped open Raffaele's tunic half +way to the waist, exposing the fair white flesh. The troubadour, +though quivering with shame and rage, remained motionless, staring +at the great sword that hung in its scarlet sheath from Lapo's +harness. + +Old one-eyed Baldo, plucking his master by the elbow, whispered: +"Take care, Cercamorte. His brother Nicolotto is your ally. Since +after all, nothing much has happened, do not carry the offence too +far." + +"Are you in your dotage?" Lapo retorted, still glaring with a +dreadful interest at Raffaele's flesh. "Do you speak of giving +offence, when all I desire is to be as courteous as my uneducated +nature will allow? She must pardon me that slip of the hand; I meant +only to stroke her cheek in compliment but instead I tore her dress. +Yet I will be a proper courtier to her still. Since she is now set +on going home, I myself, alone, will escort her clear to the forest, +in order to set her upon the safe road." + +And presently Madonna Gemma, peering from her chamber window, saw +her husband, with a ghastly pretense of care, lead young Raffaele +Muti down the hill into the darkness from which there came never a +sound. It was midnight when Lapo Cercamorte rëentered the castle, +and called for food and drink. + +Now the shadow over the Big Hornets' Nest obscured even the glare of +the summer sun. No winsome illusion of nature's could brighten this +little world that had at last turned quite sinister. In the air that +Madonna Gemma breathed was always a chill of horror. At night the +thick walls seemed to sweat with it, and the silence was like a great +hand pressed across a mouth struggling to give vent to a scream. + +At dinner in the hall she ate nothing, but drank her wine as though +burning with a fever. Sometimes, when the stillness had become +portentous, Lapo rolled up his sleeves, inspected his scarred, +swarthy arms, and mumbled, with the grin of a man stretched on the +rack: + +"Ah, Father and Son! if only one had a skin as soft, white, and +delicate as a girl's!" + +At this Madonna Gemma left the table. + +Once more her brow became bleaker than a winter mountain; her eyes +were haggard from nightmares; she trembled at every sound. Pacing +her bower, interminably she asked herself one question. And at last, +when Lapo would have passed her on the stairs, she hurled into his +face: + +"What did you do to Raffaele Muti?" + +He started, so little did he expect to hear her voice. His battered +countenance turned redder, as he noted that for the sake of the +other she was like an overstretched bow, almost breaking. Then a +pang stabbed him treacherously. Fearing that she might discern his +misery, he turned back, leaving her limp against the wall. + +He took to walking the runway of the ramparts, gnawing his fingers +and muttering to himself, shaking his tousled hair. With a sigh, as +if some thoughts were too heavy a burden for that iron frame, he sat +down on an archer's ledge, to stare toward the hut of the renegade +Arabian. Often at night he sat thus, hour after hour, a coarse +creature made romantic by a flood of moonlight. And as he bowed his +head the sentinel heard him fetch a groan such as one utters whose +life escapes through a sword-wound. + +One-eyed Baldo also groaned at these goings-on, and swallowed many +angry speeches. But Foresto the horse-boy began to hum at his work. + +This Foresto had attached himself to Lapo's force in the Ferrarese +campaign. His habits were solitary. Often when his work was done he +wandered into the woods to return with a capful of berries or a +squirrel that he had snared. Because he was silent, deft, and +daintier than a horse-boy ought to be, Lapo finally bade him serve +Madonna Gemma. + +Watching his dark, blank face as he strewed fresh herbs on her +pavement, she wondered: + +"Does he know the truth?" + +Their glances met; he seemed to send her a veiled look of +comprehension and promise. But whenever he appeared the crone was +there. + +One morning however, Foresto had time to whisper: + +"The Arabian." + +What did that mean? Was the Arab magician, recluse in his wretched +hut below the castle, prepared to serve her? Was it through him and +Foresto that she might hope to escape or at least to manage some +revenge? Thereafter she often watched the renegade's window, from +which, no matter how late the hour, shone a glimmering of lamplight. +Was he busy at his magic? Could those spells be enlisted on her side? + +Then, under an ashen sky of autumn, as night was creeping in, she +saw the Arabian ascending the hill to the castle. His tall figure, +as fleshless as a mummy's, was swathed in a white robe like a +winding sheet; his beaked face and hollow eye-sockets were like a +vision of Death. Without taking her eyes from him, Madonna Gemma +crossed herself. + +Baldo came to the gate. The ghostly Arabian uttered: + +"Peace be with you. I have here, under my robe, a packet for your +master." + +"Good! Pass it over to me, unless it will turn my nose into a carrot, +or add a tail to my spine." + +The foreigner, shaking his skull-like head, responded: + +"I must give this packet into no hands but his." + +So Baldo led the sorcerer to Cercamorte, and for a long while those +two talked together in private. + + * * * * * + +Next day Madonna Gemma noted that Lapo had on a new, short, +sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its +edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel. In this +festive garment, so different from his usual attire, the grim tyrant +was ill at ease, secretly anxious, almost timid. Avoiding her eye, +he assumed an elaborate carelessness, like that of a boy who had +been up to some deviltry. Madonna Gemma soon found herself +connecting this change in him with the fancy white-leather vest. + +In the hall, while passing a platter of figs, Foresto praised the +new garment obsequiously. He murmured: + +"And what a fine skin it is made of! So soft, so delicate, so +lustrous in its finish! Is it pigskin, master? Ah, no; it is finer +than that. Kidskin? But a kid could not furnish a skin as large as +this one. No doubt it is made from some queer foreign animal, +perhaps from a beast of Greece or Arabia?" + +While speaking these words, Foresto flashed one look, mournful and +eloquent, at Madonna Gemma, then softly withdrew from the hall. + +She sat motionless, wave after wave of cold flowing in through her +limbs to her heart. She stared, as though at a basilisk, at Lapo's +new vest, in which she seemed to find the answer so long denied her. +The hall grew dusky; she heard a far-off cry, and when she meant to +flee, she fainted in her chair. + +For a week Madonna Gemma did not rise from her bed. When finally she +did rise she refused to leave her room. + +But suddenly Lapo Cercamorte was gayer than he had been since the +fall of Grangioia Castle. Every morning, when he had inquired after +Madonna Gemma's health, and had sent her all kinds of tidbits, he +went down to sit among his men, to play morra, to test swordblades, +to crack salty jokes, to let loose his husky guffaw. At times, +cocking his eye toward certain upper casements, he patted his fine +vest furtively, with a gleeful and mischievous grin. To Baldo, after +some mysterious nods and winks, he confided: + +"Everything will be different when she is well again." + +"No doubt," snarled old Baldo, scrubbing at his mail shirt viciously. +"Though I am not in your confidence, I agree that a nice day is +coming, a beautiful day--like a pig. Look you, Cercamorte, shake off +this strange spell of folly. Prepare for early trouble. Just as a +Venetian sailor can feel a storm of water brewing, so can I feel, +gathering far off, a storm of arrows. Do you notice that the crows +hereabouts have never been so thick? Perhaps, too, I have seen a face +peeping out of the woods, about the time that Foresto goes down to +pick berries." + +"You chatter like an old woman at a fountain," said Lapo, still +caressing his vest with his palms. "I shall be quite happy soon--yes, +even before the Lombard league takes the field." + +Baldo raised his shoulders, pressed his withered eyelids together, +and answered, in disgust: + +"God pity you, Cercamorte! You are certainly changed these days. +Evidently your Arabian has given you a charm that turns men's brains +into goose-eggs." + +Lapo stamped away angrily, yet he was soon smiling again. + +And now his coarse locks were not unkempt, but cut square across +brow and neck. Every week he trimmed his fingernails; every day or so, +with a flush and a hangdog look, he drenched himself with perfume. +Even while wearing that garment--at thought of which Madonna Gemma, +isolate in her chamber, still shivered and moaned--Cercamorte +resembled one who prepares himself for a wedding, or gallant +rendezvous, that may take place any moment. + +Sometimes, reeking with civet-oil, he crept to her door, eavesdropped, +pondered the quality of her sighs, stood hesitant, then stealthily +withdrew, grinding his teeth and wheezing: + +"Not yet. Sweet saints in heaven, what a time it takes!" + +He loathed his bed, because of the long hours of sleeplessness. He +no longer slept naked. At night, too, his body was encased in the +vest of whitish soft skin. + + * * * * * + +One morning a horseman in green and yellow scallops appeared before +the castle. It was Count Nicolotto Muti, elder brother of the +troubadour Raffaele. + +Lapo, having arranged his features, came down to meet the count. +They kissed, and entered the keep with their arms round each other's +shoulders. Foresto brought in the guest-cup. + +Nicolotto Muti was a thin, calm politician, elegant in his manners +and speech, his lips always wearing a sympathetic smile. By the +fireplace, after chatting of this and that, he remarked, with his +hand affectionately on Cercamorte's knee: + +"I am trying to find trace of my little Raffaele, who has vanished +like a mist. It is said that he was last seen in this neighbourhood. +Can you tell me anything?" + +Lapo, his face expressionless, took thought, then carefully answered: + +"Muti, because we are friends as well as allies I will answer you +honestly. Returning from my visit with you, I found him in this hall, +plucking a harp and singing love-songs to my wife. I say frankly +that if he had not been your brother I should have cut off his hands +and his tongue. Instead, I escorted him to the forest, and set him +on the home road. I admit that before I parted from him I preached +him a sermon on the duties of boys toward the friends of their +families. Nay, fearing that he might not relate his adventure to you, +in that discourse I somewhat pounded the pulpit. Well, yes, I +confess that I gave him a little spanking." + +Count Nicolotto, without showing any surprise, or losing his fixed +smile, declared: + +"Dear comrade, it was a young man, not a child, whom you chastised +in that way. In another instance, as of course you know, such an +action would have been a grievous insult to all his relatives. +Besides, I am sure that he meant no more than homage to your lady--a +compliment common enough in these modern times, and honourably +reflected upon the husband. However, I can understand the feelings +of one who has been too much in the field to learn those innocent +new gallantries. Indeed, I presume that I should thank you for what +you believed to be a generous forbearance. But all this does not +find me my brother." + +And with a sad, gentle smile Count Nicolotto closed his frosty eyes. + +Cercamorte, despite all this cooing, received an impression of enmity. +As always when danger threatened, he became still and wary, much +more resourceful than ordinarily, as if perils were needed to render +him complete. Smoothing his vest with his fingers that were +flattened from so much sword-work, Lapo said: + +"I feel now that I may have been wrong to put such shame upon him. +On account of it, no doubt, he has sought retirement. Or maybe he +has journeyed abroad, say to Provence, a land free from such +out-of-date bunglers as I." + +Nicolotto Muti made a deprecatory gesture, then rose with a rustle +of his green and yellow scallops, from which was shaken a fragrance +of attar. + +"My good friend, let us hope so." + +It was Foresto who, in the courtyard held Muti's stirrup, and +secretly pressed into the visitor's hand a pellet of parchment. For +Foresto could write excellent Latin. + +No sooner had Count Nicolotto regained his strong town than a +shocking rumour spread round--Lapo Cercamorte had made Raffaele +Muti's skin into a vest, with which to drive his wife mad. + +In those petty Guelph courts, wherever the tender lore of Provence +had sanctified the love of troubadour for great lady, the noblemen +cried out in fury; the noblewomen, transformed into tigresses, +demanded Lapo's death. Old Grangioia and his three sons arrived at +the Muti fortress raving for sudden vengeance. There they were +joined by others, rich troubadours, backed by many lances, whose +rage could not have been hotter had Lapo, that "wild beast in human +form," defaced the Holy Sepulchre. At last the Marquis Azzo was +forced to reflect: + +"Cercamorte has served me well, but if I keep them from him our +league may be torn asunder. Let them have him. But he will die hard." + +Round the Big Hornets' Nest the crows were thicker than ever. + + * * * * * + +One cold, foggy evening Lapo Cercamorte at last pushed open his +wife's chamber door. Madonna Gemma was alone, wrapped in a fur-lined +mantle, warming her hands over an earthen pot full of embers. +Standing awkwardly before her, Lapo perceived that her beauty was +fading away in this unhappy solitude. On her countenance was no +trace of that which he had hoped to see. He swore softly, cast down +from feverish expectancy into bewilderment. + +"No," he said, at length, his voice huskier than usual, "this cannot +continue. You are a flower transplanted into a dungeon, and dying on +the stalk. One cannot refashion the past. The future remains. +Perhaps you would flourish again if I sent you back to your father?" + +He went to the casement with a heavy step, and stared through a rent +in the oiled linen at the mist, which clung round the castle like a +pall. + +"Madonna," he continued, more harshly than ever, in order that she +might not rejoice at his pain, "I ask pardon for the poorness of my +house. Even had my sword made me wealthy I should not have known how +to provide appointments pleasing to a delicate woman. My manners also, +as I have learned since our meeting, are unsuitable. The camps were +my school and few ladies came into them. It was not strange that +when Raffaele Muti presented himself you should have found him more +to your taste. But if on my sudden return I did what I did, and thus +prevented him from boasting up and down Lombardy of another conquest, +it was because I had regard not only for my honour, but for yours. +So I am not asking your pardon on that score." + +Lowering her face toward the red embers, she whispered: + +"A beast believes all men to be beasts." + +"Kiss of Judas! Are women really trapped, then, by that gibberish? +Madonna, these miaowing troubadours have concocted a world that they +themselves will not live in. Have I not sat swigging in tents with +great nobles, and heard all the truth about it? Those fellows always +have, besides the lady that they pretend to worship as inviolate, a +dozen others with whom the harp-twanging stage is stale." + +"All false, every word," Madonna Gemma answered. + +"Because ladies choose to think so the game goes on. Well, Madonna, +remember this. From the moment when I first saw you I, at least, did +you no dishonour, but married you promptly, and sought your +satisfaction by the means that I possessed. I was not unaware that +few wives come to their husbands with affection. Certainly I did not +expect affection from you at the first, but hoped that it might ensue. +So even Lapo Cercamorte became a flabby fool, when he met one in +comparison with whom all other women seemed mawkish. Since it was +such a fit of drivelling, let us put an end to it. At sunrise the +horses will be ready. Good night." + +Leaving her beside the dying embers, he went out upon the ramparts. +The fog was impenetrable; one could not even see the light in the +sorcerer's window. + +"Damned Arabian!" growled Lapo, brandishing his fist. He sat down +beside the gate-tower, and rested his chin on his hands. + +"How cold it is," he thought, "how lonely and dismal! Warfare is +what I need. Dear Lord, let me soon be killing men briskly, and +warming myself in the burning streets of Ferrara. That is what I was +begotten for. I have been lost in a maze." + +Dawn approached, and Lapo was still dozing beside the gate-tower. + +With the first hint of light the sentinel challenged; voices +answered outside the gate. It was old Grangioia and his sons, +calling up that they had come to visit their daughter. + +"Well arrived," Lapo grunted, his brain and body sluggish from the +chill. He ordered the gate swung open. + +Too late, as they rode into the courtyard, he saw that there were +nearly a score of them, all with their helmets on. Then in the fog +he heard a noise like an avalanche of ice--the clatter of countless +steel-clad men scrambling up the hillside. + +While running along the wall, Lapo Cercamorte noted that the +horsemen were hanging back, content to hold the gate till reinforced. +On each side of the courtyard his soldiers were tumbling out of +their barracks and fleeing toward the keep, that inner stronghold +which was now their only haven. Dropping at last from the ramparts, +he joined this retreat. But on gaining the keep he found with him +only some thirty of his men; the rest had been caught in their beds. + +Old Baldo gave him a coat of mail. Young Foresto brought him his +sword and shield. Climbing the keep-wall, Cercamorte squinted down +into the murky courtyard. That whole place now swarmed with his foes. + +Arrows began to fly. A round object sailed through the air and +landed in the keep; it was the head of the Arabian. + +"Who are these people?" asked Baldo, while rapidly shooting at them +with a bow. "There seem to be many knights; half the shields carry +devices. Ai! they have fired the barracks. Now we shall make them out." + +The flames leaped up in great sheets, producing the effect of an +infernal noon. The masses in the courtyard, inhuman-looking in their +ponderous, barrel-shaped helmets, surged forward at the keep with a +thunderous outcry: + +"Grangioia! Grangioia! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +"Muti! Muti! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +"God and the Monfalcone!" + +"Strike for Zaladino! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +Lapo bared his teeth at them. "By the Five Wounds! half of Lombardy +seems to be here. Well, my Baldo, before they make an end of us +shall we show them some little tricks?" + +"You have said it, Cercamorte. One more good scuffle, with a parade +of all our talent." + +The assailants tried beams against the keep gate; the defenders shot +them down or hurled rocks upon their heads. But on the wall of the +keep Cercamorte's half-clad men fell sprawling, abristle with +feathered shafts. A beam reached the gate and shook it on its hinges. +Lapo, one ear shot away, drew his surviving soldiers back into the +hall. + +He ordered torches stuck into all the wall-rings, and ranged his men +on the dais. Behind them, in the doorway leading to the upper +chambers and the high tower, he saw his wife, wild-looking, and +whiter than her robe. + +"Go back, Madonna. It is only your family calling with some of their +friends. I entered Grangioia Castle abruptly; now it is tit for tat." + +The crone brought two helmets, which Lapo and Baldo put on. Then, +drawing their long swords, they awaited the onset. + +The keep gate yielded, and into the hall came rushing a wave of +peaked and painted shields. But before the dais the wave paused, +since in it were those who could not forego the joy of taunting Lapo +Cercamorte before killing him. So suddenly, all his antagonists +contemplated him in silence, as he crouched above them with his +sword and shield half raised, his very armour seeming to emanate +force, cunning, and peril. + +"Foul monster!" a muffled voice shouted. "Now you come to your death!" + +"Now we will give your carcass to the wild beasts, your brothers!" + +"Let my daughter pass through," bawled old Grangioia; then, +receiving no response, struck clumsily at Lapo. + +With a twist of his sword Lapo disarmed the old man, calling out: +"Keep off, kinsman! I will not shed Grangioia blood unless you force +me to it. Let Muti come forward. Or yonder gentleman dressed up in +the white eagles of Este, which should hide their heads with their +wings, so long and faithfully have I served them." + +But none was ignorant of Cercamorte's prowess; so, after a moment of +seething, they all came at him together. + +The swordblades rose and fell so swiftly that they seemed to be arcs +of light; the deafening clangour was pierced by the howls of the +dying. The dais turned red--men slipped on it; Cercamorte's sword +caught them; they did not rise. He seemed indeed to wield more +swords than one, so terrible was his fighting. At his back stood +Baldo, his helmet caved in, his mail shirt in ribbons, his abdomen +slashed open. Both at once they saw that all their men were down. +Hewing to right and left they broke through, gained the tower +staircase, and locked the door behind them. + + * * * * * + +On the dark stairway they leaned against the wall, their helmets off, +gasping for breath, while the enemy hammered the door. + +"How is it with you?" puffed Lapo, putting his arm round Baldo's neck. + +"They have wrecked my belly for me. I am finished." + +Lapo Cercamorte hung his head and sobbed, "My old Baldo, my comrade, +it is my folly that has killed you." + +"No, no. It was only that I had survived too many tussles; then all +at once our Lord recalled my case to his mind. But we have had some +high times together, eh?" + +Lapo, weeping aloud from remorse, patted Baldo's shoulder and kissed +his withered cheek. Lamplight flooded the staircase; it was Foresto +softly descending. The rays illuminated Madonna Gemma, who all the +while had been standing close beside them. + +"Lady," said Baldo, feebly, "can you spare me a bit of your veil? +Before the door falls I must climb these steps, and that would be +easier if I could first bind in my entrails." + +They led him upstairs, Lapo on one side, Madonna Gemma on the other, +and Foresto lighting the way. They came to the topmost chamber in +the high tower--the last room of all. + +Here Cercamorte kept his treasures--his scraps of looted finery, the +weapons taken from fallen knights, the garrison's surplus of arms. +When he had locked the door and with Foresto's slow help braced some +pike-shafts against it, he tried to make Baldo lie down. + +The old man vowed profanely that he would die on his feet. Shambling +to the casement niche, he gaped forth at the dawn. Below him a +frosty world was emerging from the mist. He saw the ring of the +ramparts, and in the courtyard the barrack ruins smouldering. Beyond, +the hillside also smoked, with shredding vapours; and at the foot of +the hill he observed a strange sight--the small figure of a man in +tunic and hood, feylike amid the mist, that danced and made gestures +of joy. Baldo, clinging to the casement-sill on bending legs, +summoned Cercamorte to look at the dancing figure. + +"What is it, Lapo? A devil?" + +"One of our guests, no doubt," said Cercamorte, dashing the tears +from his eyes. "Hark! the door at the foot of the staircase has +fallen. Now we come to our parting, old friend." + +"Give me a bow and an arrow," cried Baldo, with a rattle in his +throat. "Whoever that zany is, he shall not dance at our funeral. +Just one more shot, my Lapo. You shall see that I still have it in me." + +Cercamorte could not deny him this last whim. He found and strung a +bow, and chose a Ghibelline war-arrow. Behind them, young Foresto +drew in his breath with a hiss, laid his hand on his dagger, and +turned the colour of clay. Old Baldo raised the bow, put all his +remaining strength into the draw, and uttered a cracking shout of +bliss. The mannikin no longer danced; but toward him, from the +hillside, some men in steel were running. Baldo, sinking back into +Cercamorte's arms, at last allowed himself to be laid down. + +Through the door filtered the rising tumult of the enemy. + +Lapo Cercamorte's blood-smeared visage turned business-like. Before +grasping his sword, he bent to rub his palms on the grit of the +pavement. While he was stooping, young Foresto unsheathed his dagger, +made a catlike step, and stabbed at his master's neck. But quicker +than Foresto was Madonna Gemma, who, with a deer's leap, imprisoned +his arms from behind. Cercamorte discovered them thus, struggling +fiercely in silence. + +"Stand aside," he said to her, and, when he had struck Foresto down, +"Thank you for that, Madonna. With such spirit to help me, I might +have had worthy sons. Well, here they come, and this door is a +flimsy thing. Get yourself into the casement niche, away from the +swing of my blade." + +A red trickle was running down his legs; he was standing in a red +pool. + +It began again, the splitting of panels, the cracking of hinges. The +door was giving; now only the pike-shafts held it. Then came a pause. +From far down the staircase a murmur of amazement swept upward; a +babble of talk ensued. Silence fell. Cercamorte let out a harsh laugh. + +"What new device is this? Does it need so much chicanery to finish +one man?" + +Time passed, and there was no sound except a long clattering from +the courtyard. Of a sudden a new voice called through the broken door: + +"Open, Cercamorte. I am one man alone." + +"Come in without ceremony. Here am I, waiting to embrace you." + +"I am Ercole Azzanera, the Marquis Azzo's cousin, and your true +friend. I swear on my honour that I stand here alone with sheathed +sword." + +Lapo kicked the pike-shafts away, and, as the door fell inward, +jumped back on guard. At the threshold, unhelmeted, stood the knight +whose long surcoat was covered with the white eagles of Este. He +spoke as follows: + +"Cercamorte, this array came up against you because it was published +that you had killed and flayed Raffaele Muti, and, out of jealous +malignancy, were wearing his skin as a vest. But just now a +marvellous thing has happened, for at the foot of the hill Raffaele +Muti has been found, freshly slain by a wandered arrow. Save for +that wound his skin is without flaw. Moreover, he lived and breathed +but a moment ago. So the whole tale was false, and this war against +you outrageous. All the gentlemen who came here have gone away in +great amazement and shame, leaving me to ask pardon for what they +have done. Forgive them, Cercamorte, in the name of Christ, for they +believed themselves to be performing a proper deed." + +And when Lapo found no reply in his head, Ercole Azzanera, with a +humble bow, descended from the high tower and followed the others +away. + +Lapo Cercamorte sat down on a stool. "All my good men," he murmured, +"and my dear gossip, Baldo! My castle rushed by so shabby a ruse; my +name a laughing-stock! And the Marquis Azzo gave them my house as +one gives a child a leaden gimcrack to stamp on. All because of this +damned vest, this silly talisman which was to gain me her love. 'In +the name of Christ,' says my friend, Ercole Azzanera. By the Same! +If I live I will go away to the heathen, for there is no more +pleasure in Christendom." + +So he sat for a while, maundering dismally, then stood up and made +for the door. He reeled. He sank down with a clash. Madonna Gemma, +stealing out from the casement niche, knelt beside him, peered into +his face, and ran like the wind down the staircase. In the hall, +with lifted robe she sped over the corpses of Cercamorte's soldiers, +seeking wine and water. These obtained, she flew back to Lapo. There +the crone found her. Between them those two dragged him down to +Madonna Gemma's chamber, stripped him, tended his wounds, and +hoisted him into the bed. + +Flat on his back, Cercamorte fought over all his battles. He +quarrelled with Baldo. Again he pondered anxiously outside of +Madonna Gemma's door. He instructed the Arabian to fashion him a +charm that would overspread his ugly face with comeliness, change +his uncouthness into geniality. He insisted on wearing the vest, the +under side of which was scribbled with magical signs. + +Madonna Gemma sat by the bed all day, and lay beside him at night. +On rising, she attired herself in a vermilion gown over which she +drew a white jacket of Eastern silk embroidered with nightingales. +Into her golden tresses she braided the necklaces that he had +offered her. Her tapering milky fingers sparkled with rings. Her +former beauty had not returned--another, greater beauty had taken +its place. + +A day came when he recognized her face. Leaning down like a flower +of paradise, she kissed his lips. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11721 *** 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..b8e1f63 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11721 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11721) diff --git a/old/11721-8.txt b/old/11721-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fac166 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11721-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15368 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of +1920, by Various, et al + + +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: O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 25, 2004 [eBook #11721] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE +STORIES OF 1920*** + + +E-text prepared by Stan Goodman + + + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1920 + +Chosen by the Society of Arts and Sciences + +With an Introduction by Blanche Colton Williams + +Author of "A Handbook on Story Writing," +"Our Short Story Writers," Etc. + +Associate Professor of English, Hunter College +of the City of New York. + +Instructor in Story Writing, Columbia University +(Extension Teaching and Summer Session). + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +EACH IN HIS GENERATION. By Maxwell Struthers Burt + +"CONTACT!" By Frances Noyes Hart + +THE CAMEL'S BACK. By F. Scott Fitzgerald + +BREAK-NECK HILL. By Esther Forbes + +BLACK ART AND AMBROSE. By Guy Gilpatric + +THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN. By Lee Foster Hartman + +THE ARGOSIES. By Alexander Hull + +ALMA MATER. By O. F. Lewis + +SLOW POISON. By Alice Duer Miller + +THE FACE IN THE WINDOW. By William Dudley Pelley + +A MATTER OF LOYALTY. By Lawrence Perry + +PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR. By L.H. Robbins + +THE THING THEY LOVED. By "Marice Rutledge" + +BUTTERFLIES. By "Rose Sidney" + +NO FLOWERS. By Gordon Arthur Smith + +FOOTFALLS. By Wilbur Daniel Steele + +THE LAST ROOM OF ALL. By Stephen French Whitman + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919, in its introduction, +rendered a brief account of the origin of this monument to O. +Henry's genius. Founded in 1918 by the Society of Arts and Sciences, +through the initiative of Managing Director John F. Tucker, it took +the form of two annual prizes of $500 and $250 for, respectively, +the best and second-best stories written by Americans and published +in America. + +The Committee of Award sifted the periodicals of 1919 and found +thirty-two which, in their opinion, were superior specimens of +short-story art. The prize-winners, determined in the manner set +forth, were Margaret Prescott Montague's "England to America" and +Wilbur Daniel Steele's "For They Know Not What They Do." For these +stories the authors duly received the awards, on the occasion of the +O. Henry Memorial dinner which was given by the Society at the Hotel +Astor, June 2, 1920. + +Since it appeared to be a fitting extension of the memorial to +incorporate in volume form the narratives chosen, they were included, +either by title or reprint, in the first book of the series of which +this is the second. Thus grouped, they are testimony to unprejudiced +selection on the part of the Committee of Award as they are evidence +of ability on the part of their authors. + +The first volume has met favour from critics and from laymen. For +the recognition of tedious, if pleasant, hours necessary to a +meticulous survey of twelve months' brief fiction, the Committee of +Award are grateful, as they are indebted to the generous coöperation +of authors and publishers, but for whom the work would have been +impossible of continuation. + +The committee express thanks for the approval which affirms that +"No more fitting tribute to the genius of William Sidney Porter +(O. Henry) could possibly have been devised than that of this +'Memorial Award,'" [1] which recognizes each story as "a definite +expression of American life--as O. Henry's was," [2] which knows by +inescapable logic that a story ranking second with five judges is +superior to one ranking first with only one of these. A number of +reviewers graciously showed awareness of this fact. + +[Footnote 1: _New York Times_, June 2, 1920.] + +[Footnote 2: _Chicago Tribune_, Paris Edition, August 7, 1920.] + +The Committee of Award for 1920 consisted of + + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D., Chairman | + EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. | JUDGES + ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD | + MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. | + and JOHN F. TUCKER, Managing Director of the Society, + Founder of the O. Henry Memorial. + + +As in preceding years the Committee held regular meetings at which +they weighed the merits of every story-candidate presented. By +January, 1921, one hundred and twenty-five remained, among which +those rated highest are as follows:[3] + + + Babcock, Edwina Stanton, Gargoyle (_Harper's_, Sept.) + Barrett, Richmond Brooks, The Daughter of the Bernsteins + (_Smart Set_, July). + "Belden, Jacques," The Duke's Opera (_Munsey's_, October). + Benét, Stephen Vincent, The Funeral of John Bixby (_Munsey's_, July). + Brooks, Jonathan, Bills Playable (_Collier's_, September 18). + Burt, Maxwell Struthers, A Dream or Two (_Harper's_, May); + Each in His Generation (_Scribner's_, July). + Cabell, James Branch, The Designs of Miramon (_Century_, August). + Child, Richard Washburn, A Thief Indeed (_Pictorial Review_, June). + Clausen, Carl, The Perfect Crime (_Saturday Evening Post_, Sept. 25). + Cram, Mildred, The Ember (_McCall's_, June); Odell (_Red + Book_, May); Wind (_Munsey's_, August). + Dobie, Charles Caldwell, Young China (_Ladies Home Journal_, August). + Edwards, Cleveland, Pride o' Name on Peachtree (_Live Stories_, Feb.). + Ferber, Edna, You've Got to Be Selfish (_McClure's_, April). + Fitzgerald, Scott, The Camel's Back (_Saturday Evening Post_, + Apr. 24); The Cut-Glass Bowl (_Scribner's_, May); + The Off-Shore Pirate (_Saturday Evening Post_, May 29). + Forbes, Esther, Break-Neck Hill (_Grinnell Review_, September). + Gilpatric, Guy, Black Art and Ambrose (_Collier's_, August 21). + Hartman, Lee Foster, The Judgment of Vulcan (_Harper's_, March). + Hergesheimer, Joseph, "Read Them and Weep" (_Century_, January). + Hooker, Brian, Branwen (_Romance_, June). + Hull, Alexander, The Argosies (_Scribner's_, September). + Hume, Wilkie, The Metamorphosis of High Yaller + (_Live Stories_, June). + Kabler, Hugh, Fools First (_Saturday Evening Post_, November 20). + Kerr, Sophie, Divine Waste (_Woman's Home Companion_, May). + La Motte, Widows and Orphans (_Century_, September). + Lewis, O. F., Alma Mater (_Red Book_, June). Sparks That Flash + in the Night (_Red Book_, October). + Marquis, Don Kale (_Everybody's_, September); Death and Old Man + Murtrie (_New Republic_, February 4). + Marshall, Edison, Brother Bill the Elk (_Blue Book_, May). + Means, E. K., The Ten-Share Horse (_Munsey's_, May). + Miller, Alice Duer, Slow Poison (_Saturday Evening Post_, June 12). + Montague, Margaret Prescott, Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge (_Atlantic + Monthly_, June). + [4]Mumford, Ethel Watts, A Look of the Copperleys (_Ladies Home + Journal_, April); Red Gulls (_Pictorial Review_, October). + Newell, Maude Woodruff, Salvage (_Green Book_, July). + Noyes, Frances Newbold, "Contact!" [5] (_Pictorial Review_, December). + Pelley, William Dudley, The Face in the Window (_Red Book_, May); + The Show-Down (_Red Book_, June). + Perry, Lawrence, The Real Game (_Everybody's_, July). A Matter of + Loyalty (_Red Book_, July); The Lothario of the Seabird + (_Ladies Home Journal_, August); The Rocks of Avalon + (_Red Book_, December). + Post, Melville Davisson, The House by the Loch (_Hearst's_, May). + Redington, Sarah, A Certain Rich Woman (_Outlook_, May 5). + Reid, M. F., Doodle Buys a Bull Pup (_Everybody's_, August). + Richardson, Norval, The Bracelet (_McClure's_, July). + Robbins, L.H., "Ain't This the Darnedest World?" (_American_, May); + Professor Todd's Used Car (_Everybody's_, July). + "Rutledge, Marice," The Thing They Loved (_Century_, May). + Ryan, Kathryn White, A Man of Cone (_Munsey's_, March). + Scarborough, Dorothy, The Drought (_Century_, May). + "Sidney, Rose," Butterflies (_Pictorial Review_, September). + Smith, Gordon Arthur, No Flowers (_Harper's_, May); The Aristocrat + (_Harper's_, November). + Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Both Judge and Jury (_Harper's_, January); + God's Mercy (_Pictorial Review_, July); Footfalls (_Pictorial + Review_, October). + Synon, Mary, On Scarlet Wings (_Red Book_, July). + Titus, Harold, Aliens (_Ladies Home Journal_, May). + Tuckerman, Arthur, Black Magic, (_Scribner's_, August). + Welles, Harriet, According to Ruskin (_Woman's Home Companion_, + June); + Distracting Adeline (_Scribner's_, May). + Whitman, Stephen French, The Last Room of All (_Harper's_, June). + Wilkes, Allene Tupper, Toop Goes Skating (_Woman's Home Companion_, + November). + +[Footnote 3: Listed alphabetically by authors.] + +[Footnote 4: A member of the Committee of Award, this author +refused as a matter of course to allow consideration of her stories +for republication here or for the prizes. But the other members +insist upon their being listed, and upon mention of "Red Gulls" as +one of the best stories of 1920.] + +[Footnote 5: Reprinted as by Frances Noyes Hart.] + +From this list were selected seventeen stories which, in the +judgment of the Committee, rank highest and which, therefore, are +reprinted in this volume. + +Since, as will be recalled from the conditions of the award, only +American authors were considered, certain familiar foreign names are +conspicuously absent. Achmed Abdullah, Stacy Aumonier, F. Britten +Austin, Phyllis Bottome, Thomas Burke, Coningsby Dawson, Mrs. Henry +Dudeney, Lord Dunsany, John Galsworthy, Perceval Gibbon, Blasco +Ibañez, Maurice Level, A. Neil Lyons, Seumas MacManus, Leonard Merrick, +Maria Moravsky, Alfred Noyes, May Sinclair and Hugh Walpole all +illustrate recovery from the world war. But with their stories the +Committee had nothing to do. The Committee cannot forbear mention, +however, of "Under the Tulips" (_Detective Stories_, February 10), +one of the two best horror specimens of the year. It is by an +Englishwoman, May Edginton. + +Half a dozen names from the foreign list just given are synonymous +with the best fiction of the period. Yet the short story as +practised in its native home continues to excel the short story +written in other lands. The English, the Russian, the French, it is +being contended in certain quarters, write better literature. They +do not, therefore, write better stories. If literature is of a +magnificent depth and intricate subtlety in a measure proportionate +to its reflection of the vast complexity of a nation that has +existed as such for centuries, conceivably it will be facile and +clever in a measure proportionate to its reflection of the spirit of +the commonwealth which in a few hundred years has acquired a place +with age-old empires. + +The American short-story is "simple, economical, and brilliantly +effective," H.L. Mencken admits.[6] "Yet the same hollowness that +marks the American novel," he continues, "also marks the short story." +And of "many current makers of magazine short stories," he +asseverates, "such stuff has no imaginable relation to life as men +live it in the world." He further comments, "the native author of any +genuine force and originality is almost invariably found to be under +strong foreign influences, either English or Continental." + +With due regard for the justice of this slant--that of a student of +Shaw, Ibsen, and Nietzsche--we believe that the best stories written +in America to-day reflect life, even life that is sordid and dreary +or only commonplace. In the New York _Evening Post_[7] the present +writer observed: + +"A backward glance over the short stories of the preceding twelve +months discovers two facts. There are many of them, approximately +between fifteen hundred and two thousand; there are, comparatively, +few of merit." + +[Footnote 6: The National Letters, in _Prejudices_, second series, +Knopf, N.Y., 1920.] + +[Footnote 7: April 24, 1920.] + +"You have looked from the rear platform of the limited, across the +widening distance, at a town passed a moment ago. A flourishing city, +according to the prospectus; a commonplace aggregation of +architecture, you say; respectable middle-class homes; time-serving +cottages built on the same plan; a heaven-seeking spire; perhaps a +work of art in library or townhall. You are rather glad that you +have left it behind; rather certain that soon you will have rolled +through another, its counterpart. + +"But there may be hope, here, of sorts. For a typical American town +represents twentieth century life and development, just as current +short stories reflect conditions. If the writer failed to represent +his age, to reflect its peculiar images, he would not serve it truly." + +It is significant that these words preceded by only a few months the +publication of Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," which illustrates in +a big and popular way the point in question. Work of satire that it +is, it cannot but hold out a solution of the problem presented: in +the sweep of the land to the Rockies lies a "dominion which will +rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile." + +America is young; its writers are young. But they are reflecting the +many-coloured, multiform life of America, in journalism and in art. +Quite naturally, they profit by all that has preceded them in other +literatures. Since their work stands rooted in romanticism it may +legitimately heighten the effects and lights of everyday life. + +A glance at the stories republished by the O. Henry Memorial Award +Committee for 1920 will reveal their varied nature. The _genus +Africanus_ is represented by "Black Art and Ambrose," which has a +close second in another on the list, "The Metamorphosis of High +Yaller," and a third in "The Ten-Share Horse" of E.K. Means. The +tabulation reveals a number of cosmic types--Jewish, Chinese, English, +French, Irish, Italian, American. The Chinese character is even more +ubiquitous than in 1919, but the tales wherein he figures appear to +the Committee to be the last drops in the bucket. Two exceptions +occur: "Young China," by Charles Caldwell Dobie, and "Widows and +Orphans," by Ellen La Motte. The former knows San Francisco Chinatown, +the latter is acquainted with the Oriental at home. One of the +Committee regards "The Daughter of the Bernsteins" as the best story +of Jewish character. Another sees in it a certain crudeness. Its +companions in the year were the tales of Bruno Lessing, Montague +Glass, and--in particular--a story by Leon Kelley entitled "Speeches +Ain't Business" (_Pictorial Review_, July). + +But this note on the list is a digression. With regard to the +stories reprinted, "The Last Room of All" illustrates old-world +influence, surely, in its recountal of events in an age long past, +the time of the Second Emperor Frederick of Swabia. In its revival +of old forms, old customs, it is a masquerade. But behold that it is +a gorgeous blood-coloured masquerade and that Cercamorte is a +distinct portrait of the swash-buckler hero of those times. + +The young Americans in "The Camel's Back" support a critical thesis +made for their author that he is evolving an idiom. It is the idiom +of young America. If you are over thirty, read one of this prodigy's +ten-thousand word narratives and discover for the first time that +you are separated by a hopeless chasm from the infant world. + +"Professor Todd's Used Car" and "Alma Mater" are two of the numerous +stories published in 1920 which take up the cudgels for the +undertrodden college professor. Incidentally, it is interesting to +read from a letter of Mr. Lewis: "The brevity--and the twist in the +plot at the end--were consciously patterned on O. Henry's methods." + +Without further enumeration of the human types, it is a matter of +observation that they exist in many moods and ages as they exist in +real life. A revenant who lived one hundred years ago might pick up +this volume and secure a fairly accurate idea of society to-day. A +visitor from another country might find it a guide to national +intelligence and feeling. + +A few stories appealed to the Committee for their poetry. "The +Funeral of John Bixby," by Stephen Vincent Benét, and "The Duke's +Opera," by "Jacques Belden" (the first an allegorical fantasy and +the second a poetic-romance) are at the head of this division. With +these should be included Don Marquis's "Death and Old Man Murtrie," +for its sardonic allegory, and "The Designs of Miramon," by James +Branch Cabell, for its social satire. Individual members of the +Committee would have liked to include these--different members +preferring different ones of the four--but the Committee as a whole +saw the allegory or satire or poetry predominant over story values. + +The mysterious and the tragic are found in the work of Mildred Cram +and Wilbur Daniel Steele. "Odell" and "Wind" illustrate Miss Cram's +particular genius in this direction: but "The Ember," it is voted, +ranks first of her publications. Mr. Steele's "Both Judge and Jury" +and "God's Mercy" are exotic, perhaps, but the atmosphere he creates +is beguiling in comparison with that of mere everyday. "Footfalls" +was selected out of an embarrassment of riches offered by this author. +The best horror story of the year is Rose Sidney's "Butterflies." It +is a Greek tragedy, unrelieved, to be taken or left without +palliation. + +Athletics, no one will deny, constitutes a definite phase of +American life. The sport-struggle is best illustrated in the fiction +of Lawrence Perry, whether it be that of a polo match, tennis game, +or crew race. "A Matter of Loyalty" is representative of this contest, +and in the combined judgment of the Committee the highest ranking of +all Mr. Perry's stories. "Bills Playable," by Jonathan Brooks, +conceives athletics in a more humorous spirit. + +Animal stories fill page upon page of 1920 magazines. Edison Marshall, +represented in the 1919 volume, by "The Elephant Remembers," has +delivered the epic of "Brother Bill the Elk." In spite of its length, +some fifteen thousand words, the Committee were mightily tempted to +request it for republication. Its Western author knows the animals in +their native lairs. "Break-Neck Hill," for which a member of the +Committee suggests the more poignant "Heart-Break Hill" as title, +expresses sympathy for the horse in a way the Committee believe +hitherto unexploited. "Aliens" received more votes as the best dog +story of the year. + +Among a number of sea-tales are those by Richard Matthews Hallet, +wherein Big Captain Hat appears. The woman sea-captain is by way of +being, for the moment, a novel figure. + +Anecdotal stories and very brief tales appear to have received +editorial sanction in 1920. "No Flowers" is of the former _genre_, +and whereas certain of the Committee see in the same author's +"The Aristocrat" a larger story, they agree with the majority that +the scintillance of this well-polished gem should give it setting +here. + +Variety of setting and diversity of emotion the reader will find in +greater measure, perhaps, than in the first volume of this series. +"Butterflies," for example, spells unrelieved horror; "The Face in +the Window" demands sympathetic admiration for its heroine; to read +"Contact!" means to suffer the familiar Aristotelian purging of the +emotions through tears. And their locales are as widely dissimilar +as are their emotional appeals. With these, all of which are +reprinted herein, the reader will do well to compare Dorothy +Scarborough's "Drought," for the pathos of a situation brought about +by the elements of nature in Texas. + +The Committee could not agree upon the first and second prize stories. +The leaders were: "Each in His Generation," "Contact!" "The Thing +They Loved," "The Last Room of All," "Slow Poison," "God's Mercy" +and "Alma Mater." No story headed more than one list. The point +system, to which resort was made, resulted in the first prize +falling to "Each in His Generation," by Maxwell Struthers Burt, and +the second to "Contact!", by Frances Newbold Noyes (now Frances +Noyes Hart). + +Mr. Burt's story of Henry McCain and his nephew Adrian compresses +within legitimate story limits the antagonism between successive +generations. Each representative, bound by traditions and customs of +the particular age to which he belongs, is bound also by the chain +of inheritance. One interested in the outcome of the struggle +between the inexorable thrall of "period" and the inevitable bond of +race will find the solution of the problem satisfactory, as will the +reader who enjoys the individual situation and wishes most to find +out whether Uncle Henry left his money to Adrian or rejected that +choice for marriage with the marvellous lady of his own era. + +"Contact!" is the first story by the author of "My A.E.F." and in +its every line testifies to the vital interest Miss Noyes had and +has in the boys who won the war--whether American, French or English. +So much one would know from a single rapid reading. A critic might +guess that it would have been impossible as a first story if the +author had not lived much abroad, as she has done since she was very +much of a child. At Oxford, or in the home of Gaston Paris, or +travelling around the globe, she received the foundation for the +understanding sympathy which endeared her as "Petite" to her soldier +boys. A critic might also aver that the steady moving forward of the +action, joined to the backward progress, yet both done so surely, +could not have been achieved without years of training. And in this +respect the narrative is little short of being a _tour de force_. But, +as a matter of fact. Miss Noyes dreamed the whole thing! Her +antecedent experience proved greater than mere technique. + +The Committee wish to comment upon the irregularity of the output of +fiction from month to month. May brought forth the greatest number +of good stories, as November reaped the fewest. They wish, also, to +register notice of the continued flexibility of the short story form. +"The Judgment of Vulcan," at one extreme, in some thirteen thousand +words none the less relates a short story; "Alma Mater," at the other, +accomplishes the same end in two thousand. It is a matter of record +that the Committee discovered a number of excellent examples +containing not more than two thirds this latter number, a fact that +argues against the merging of the short story and the novel. Finally, +the Committee believe the fiction of the year 1920 superior to that +of 1919. + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, + NEW YORK CITY, + March 3, 1921. + + + + + +EACH IN HIS GENERATION + + +BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT + +From _Scribner's Magazine_ + +Every afternoon at four o'clock, except when the weather was very +bad--autumn, winter, and spring--old Mr. Henry McCain drove up to +the small, discreet, polished front door, in the small, discreet, +fashionable street in which lived fairly old Mrs. Thomas Denby; got +out, went up the white marble steps, rang the bell, and was admitted +into the narrow but charming hall--dim turquoise-blue velvet +panelled into the walls, an etching or two: Whistler, Brangwyn--by a +trim parlour-maid. Ten generations, at least, of trim parlour-maids +had opened the door for Mr. McCain. They had seen the sparkling +victoria change, not too quickly, to a plum-coloured limousine; they +had seen Mr. McCain become perhaps a trifle thinner, the colour in +his cheeks become a trifle more confined and fixed, his white hair +grow somewhat sparser, but beyond that they had seen very little +indeed, although, when they had left Mr. McCain in the drawing-room +with the announcement that Mrs. Denby would be down immediately, and +were once again seeking the back of the house, no doubt their +eyebrows, blonde, brunette, or red, apexed to a questioning angle. + +In the manner of youth the parlour-maids had come, worked, fallen in +love and departed, but Mr. McCain, in the manner of increasing age, +had if anything grown more faithful and exact to the moment. If he +were late the fraction of five minutes, one suspected that he +regretted it, that it came near to spoiling his entire afternoon. He +was not articulate, but occasionally he expressed an idea and the +most common was that he "liked his things as he liked them"; +his eggs, in other words, boiled just so long, no more--after +sixty years of inner debate on the subject he had apparently +arrived at the conclusion that boiled eggs were the only kind of eggs +permissible--his life punctual and serene. The smallest manifestation +of unexpectedness disturbed him. Obviously that was one reason why, +after a youth not altogether constant, he had become so utterly +constant where Mrs. Denby was concerned. She had a quality of +perenniality, charming and assuring, even to each strand of her +delicate brown hair. Grayness should have been creeping upon her, +but it was not. It was doubtful if Mr. McCain permitted himself, +even secretly, to wonder why. Effects, fastidious and constant, were +all he demanded from life. + +This had been going on for twenty years--this afternoon call; this +slow drive afterward in the park; this return by dusk to the shining +small house in the shining small street; the good-by, reticently +ardent, as if it were not fully Mr. McCain's intention to return +again in the evening. Mr. McCain would kiss Mrs. Denby's hand--slim, +lovely, with a single gorgeous sapphire upon the third finger. +"Good-by, my dear," he would say, "you have given me the most +delightful afternoon of my life." For a moment Mrs. Denby's hand +would linger on the bowed head; then Mr. McCain would straighten up, +smile, square his shoulders in their smart, young-looking coat, and +depart to his club, or the large, softly lit house where he dwelt +alone. At dinner he would drink two glasses of champagne. Before he +drained the last sip of the second pouring he would hold the glass +up to the fire, so that the bronze coruscations at the heart of the +wine glowed like fireflies in a gold dusk. One imagined him saying +to himself: "A perfect woman! A perfect woman--God bless her!" +Saying "God bless" any one, mind you, with a distinct warming of the +heart, but a thoroughly late-Victorian disbelief in any god to bless.... +At least, you thought as much. + +And, of course, one had not the slightest notion whether he--old +Mr. Henry McCain--was aware that this twenty years of devotion on +his part to Mrs. Denby was the point upon which had come to focus +the not inconsiderable contempt and hatred for him of his nephew +Adrian. + +It was an obvious convergence, this devotion of all the traits which +composed, so Adrian imagined, the despicable soul that lay beneath +his uncle's unangled exterior: undeviating self-indulgence; secrecy; +utter selfishness--he was selfish even to the woman he was supposed +to love; that is, if he was capable of loving any one but himself--a +bland hypocrisy; an unthinking conformation to the dictates of an +unthinking world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, +here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor +vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; +a generation brittle as ice; a generation of secret diplomacy; a +generation that in its youth had covered a lack of bathing by a vast +amount of perfume. That was it--! That expressed it perfectly! The +just summation! Camellias, and double intentions in speech, and +unnecessary reticences, and refusals to meet the truth, and a +deliberate hiding of uglinesses! + +Most of the time Adrian was too busy to think about his uncle at +all--he was a very busy man with his writing: journalistic writing; +essays, political reviews, propaganda--and because he was busy he +was usually well-content, and not uncharitable, except professionally; +but once a month it was his duty to dine with his uncle, and then, +for the rest of the night, he was disturbed, and awoke the next +morning with the dusty feeling in his head of a man who has been +slightly drunk. Old wounds were recalled, old scars inflamed; a +childhood in which his uncle's figure had represented to him the +terrors of sarcasm and repression; a youth in which, as his guardian, +his uncle had deprecated all first fine hot-bloodednesses and +enthusiasms; a young manhood in which he had been told cynically +that the ways of society were good ways, and that the object of life +was material advancement; advice which had been followed by the +stimulus of an utter refusal to assist financially except where +absolutely necessary. There had been willingness, you understand, to +provide a gentleman's education, but no willingness to provide +beyond that any of a gentleman's perquisites. That much of his early +success had been due to this heroic upbringing, Adrian was too +honest not to admit, but then--by God, it had been hard! All the +colour of youth! No time to dream--except sorely! Some warping, some +perversion! A gasping, heart-breaking knowledge that you could not +possibly keep up with the people with whom, paradoxically enough, +you were supposed to spend your leisure hours. Here was the making +of a radical. And yet, despite all this, Adrian dined with his uncle +once a month. + +The mere fact that this was so, that it could be so, enraged him. It +seemed a renunciation of all he affirmed; an implicit falsehood. He +would have liked very much to have got to his feet, standing firmly +on his two long, well-made legs, and have once and for all delivered +himself of a final philippic. The philippic would have ended +something like this: + +"And this, sir, is the last time I sacrifice any of my good hours to +you. Not because you are old, and therefore think you are wise, when +you are not; not because you are blind and besotted and damned--a +trunk of a tree filled with dry rot that presently a clean wind will +blow away; not because your opinions, and the opinions of all like +you, have long ago been proven the lies and idiocies that they are; +not even because you haven't one single real right left to live--I +haven't come to tell you these things, although they are true; for +you are past hope and there is no use wasting words upon you; I have +come to tell you that you bore me inexpressibly. (That would be the +most dreadful revenge of all. He could see his uncle's face!) That +you have a genius for taking the wrong side of every question, and I +can no longer endure it. I dissipate my time. Good-night!" + +He wouldn't have said it in quite so stately a way, possibly, the +sentences would not have been quite so rounded, but the context +would have been the same. + +Glorious; but it wasn't said. Instead, once a month, he got into his +dinner-jacket, brushed his hair very sleekly, walked six blocks, +said good-evening to his uncle's butler, and went on back to the +library, where, in a room rich with costly bindings, and smelling +pleasantly of leather, and warmly yellow with the light of two +shaded lamps, he would find his uncle reading before a crackling +wood fire. What followed was almost a formula, an exquisite +presentation of stately manners, an exquisite avoidance of any topic +which might cause a real discussion. The dinner was invariably gentle, +persuasive, a thoughtful gastronomic achievement. Heaven might +become confused about its weather, and about wars, and things like +that, but Mr. McCain never became confused about his menus. He had a +habit of commending wine. "Try this claret, my dear fellow, I want +your opinion.... A drop of this Napoleonic brandy won't hurt you a +bit." He even sniffed the bouquet before each sip; passed, that is, +the glass under his nose and then drank. But Adrian, with a +preconceived image of the personality back of this, and the memory +of too many offences busy in his mind, saw nothing quaint or amusing. +His gorge rose. Damn his uncle's wines, and his mushrooms, and his +soft-footed servants, and his house of nuances and evasions, and his +white grapes, large and outwardly perfect, and inwardly sentimental +as the generation whose especial fruit they were. As for himself, he +had a recollection of ten years of poverty after leaving college; a +recollection of sweat and indignities; he had also a recollection of +some poor people whom he had known. + +Afterward, when the dinner was over, Adrian would go home and awake +his wife, Cecil, who, with the brutal honesty of an honest woman, +also some of the ungenerosity, had early in her married life flatly +refused any share in the ceremonies described. Cecil would lie in +her small white bed, the white of her boudoir-cap losing itself in +the white of the pillow, a little sleepy and a little angrily +perplexed at the perpetual jesuitical philosophy of the male. +"If you feel that way," she would ask, "why do you go there, then? +Why don't you banish your uncle utterly?" She asked this not without +malice, her long, violet, Slavic eyes widely open, and her red mouth, +a trifle too large, perhaps, a trifle cruel, fascinatingly +interrogative over her white teeth. She loved Adrian and had at times, +therefore, the right and desire to torture him. She knew perfectly +well why he went. He was his uncle's heir, and until such time as +money and other anachronisms of the present social system were done +away with, there was no use throwing a fortune into the gutter, even +if by your own efforts you were making an income just sufficiently +large to keep up with the increased cost of living. + +Sooner or later Adrian's mind reverted to Mrs. Denby. This was +usually after he had been in bed and had been thinking for a while +in the darkness. He could not understand Mrs. Denby. She affronted +his modern habit of thought. + +"The whole thing is so silly and adventitious!" + +"What thing?" + +Adrian was aware that his wife knew exactly of what he was talking, +but he had come to expect the question. "Mrs. Denby and my uncle." +He would grow rather gently cross. "It has always reminded me of +those present-day sword-and-cloak romances fat business men used to +write about ten years ago and sell so enormously--there's an +atmosphere of unnecessary intrigue. What's it all about? Here's the +point! Why, if she felt this way about things, didn't she divorce +that gentle drunkard of a husband of hers years ago and marry my +uncle outright and honestly? Or why, if she couldn't get a +divorce--which she could--didn't she leave her husband and go with +my uncle? Anything in the open! Make a break--have some courage of +her opinions! Smash things; build them up again! Thank God nowadays, +at least, we have come to believe in the cleanness of surgery rather +than the concealing palliatives of medicine. We're no longer--we +modern people--afraid of the world; and the world can never hurt for +any length of time any one who will stand up to it and tell it +courageously to go to hell. No! It comes back and licks hands." + +"I'll tell you why. My uncle and Mrs. Denby are the typical moral +cowards of their generation. There's selfishness, too. What a +travesty of love! Of course there's scandal, a perpetual scandal; +but it's a hidden, sniggering scandal they don't have to meet face +to face; and that's all they ask of life, they, and people like +them--never to have to meet anything face to face. So long as they +can bury their heads like ostriches! ... Faugh!" There would be a +moment's silence; then Adrian would complete his thought. "In my +uncle's case," he would grumble in the darkness, "one phase of the +selfishness is obvious. He couldn't even get himself originally, I +suppose, to face the inevitable matter-of-fact moments of marriage. +It began when he was middle-aged, a bachelor--I suppose he wants the +sort of Don Juan, eighteen-eighty, perpetual sort of romance that +doesn't exist outside the brains of himself and his like.... +Camellias!" + +Usually he tried to stir up argument with his wife, who in these +matters agreed with him utterly; even more than agreed with him, +since she was the escaped daughter of rich and stodgy people, and +had insisted upon earning her own living by portrait-painting. +Theoretically, therefore, she was, of course, an anarchist. But at +moments like the present her silent assent and the aura of slight +weariness over an ancient subject which emanated from her in the dusk, +affronted Adrian as much as positive opposition. + +"Why don't you try to understand me?" + +"I do, dearest!"--a pathetic attempt at eager agreement. + +"Well, then, if you do, why is the tone of your voice like that? You +know by now what I think. I'm not talking convention; I believe +there are no laws higher than the love of a man for a woman. It +should seek expression as a seed seeks sunlight. I'm talking about +honesty; bravery; a willingness to accept the consequences of one's +acts and come through; about the intention to sacrifice for love +just what has to be sacrificed. What's the use of it otherwise? +That's one real advance the modern mind has made, anyhow, despite +all the rest of the welter and uncertainty." + +"Of course, dearest." + +He would go on. After a while Cecil would awake guiltily and inject +a fresh, almost gay interest into her sleepy voice. She was not so +unfettered as not to dread the wounded esteem of the unlistened-to +male. She would lean over and kiss Adrian. + +"Do go to sleep, darling! What's the sense? Pretty soon your uncle +will be dead--wretched old man! Then you'll never have to think of +him again." Being a childless woman, her red, a trifle cruel mouth +would twist itself in the darkness into a small, secretive, maternal +smile. + +But old Mr. Henry McCain didn't die; instead he seemed to be caught +up in the condition of static good health which frequently +companions entire selfishness and a careful interest in oneself. His +butler died, which was very annoying. Mr. McCain seemed to consider +it the breaking of a promise made fifteen or so years before. It was +endlessly a trouble instructing a new man, and then, of course, +there was Adlington's family to be looked after, and taxes had gone +up, and Mrs. Adlington was a stout woman who, despite the fact that +Adlington, while alive, had frequently interrupted Mr. McCain's +breakfast newspaper reading by asserting that she was a person of no +character, now insisted upon weeping noisily every time Mr. McCain +granted her an interview. Also, and this was equally unexpected, +since one rather thought he would go on living forever, like one of +the damper sort of fungi, Mr. Denby came home from the club one +rainy spring night with a slight cold and died, three days later, +with extraordinary gentleness. + +"My uncle," said Adrian, "is one by one losing his accessories. +After a while it will be his teeth." + +Cecil was perplexed. "I don't know exactly what to do," she +complained. "I don't know whether to treat Mrs. Denby as a bereaved +aunt, a non-existent family skeleton, or a released menace. I dare +say now, pretty soon, she and your uncle will be married. Meanwhile, +I suppose it is rather silly of me not to call and see if I can help +her in any way. After all, we do know her intimately, whether we +want to or not, don't we? We meet her about all the time, even if +she wasn't motoring over to your uncle's place in the summer when we +stop there." + +So she went, being fundamentally kindly and fundamentally curious. +She spoke of the expedition as "a descent upon Fair Rosamund's tower." + +The small, yellow-panelled drawing-room, where she awaited Mrs. +Denby's coming, was lit by a single silver vase-lamp under an orange +shade and by a fire of thin logs, for the April evening was damp +with a hesitant rain. On the table, near the lamp, was a silver vase +with three yellow tulips in it, and Cecil, wandering about, came +upon a double photograph frame, back of the vase, that made her gasp. +She picked it up and stared at it. Between the alligator edgings, +facing each other obliquely, but with the greatest amity, were +Mr. Thomas Denby in the fashion of ten years before, very handsome, +very well-groomed, with the startled expression which any definite +withdrawal from his potational pursuits was likely to produce upon +his countenance, and her uncle-in-law, Mr. Henry McCain, also in the +fashion of ten years back. She was holding the photographs up to the +light, her lips still apart, when she heard a sound behind her, and, +putting the frame back guiltily, turned about. Mrs. Denby was +advancing toward her. She seemed entirely unaware of Cecil's +malfeasance; she was smiling faintly; her hand was cordial, grateful. + +"You are very good," she murmured. "Sit here by the fire. We will +have some tea directly." + +Cecil could not but admit that she was very lovely; particularly +lovely in the black of her mourning, with her slim neck, rising up +from its string of pearls, to a head small and like a delicate +white-and-gold flower. An extraordinarily well-bred woman, a sort of +misty Du Maurier woman, of a type that had become almost non-existent, +if ever it had existed in its perfection at all. And, curiously +enough, a woman whose beauty seemed to have been sharpened by many +fine-drawn renunciations. Now she looked at her hands as if expecting +Cecil to say something. + +"I think such calls as this are always very useless, but then--" + +"Exactly--but then! They mean more than anything else in the world, +don't they? When one reaches fifty-five one is not always used to +kindness.... You are very kind...." She raised her eyes. + +Cecil experienced a sudden impulsive warmth. "After all, what did +she or any one else know about other peoples' lives? Poor souls! +What a base thing life often was!" + +"I want you to understand that we are always so glad, both Adrian +and myself.... Any time we can help in any way, you know--" + +"Yes, I think you would. You--I have watched you both. You don't mind, +do you? I think you're both rather great people--at least, my idea +of greatness." + +Cecil's eyes shone just a little; then she sat back and drew +together her eager, rather childish mouth. This wouldn't do! She had +not come here to encourage sentimentalization. With a determined +effort she lifted her mind outside the circle of commiseration which +threatened to surround it. She deliberately reset the conversation +to impersonal limits. She was sure that Mrs. Denby was aware of her +intention, adroitly concealed as it was. This made her uncomfortable, +ashamed. And yet she was irritated with herself. Why should she +particularly care what this woman thought in ways as subtle as this? +Obvious kindness was her intention, not mental charity pursued into +tortuous by-paths. And, besides, her frank, boyish cynicism, its +wariness, revolted, even while she felt herself flattered at the +prospect of the confidences that seemed to tremble on Mrs. Denby's +lips. It wouldn't do to "let herself in for anything"; to "give +herself away." No! She adopted a manner of cool, entirely reflective +kindliness. But all along she was not sure that she was thoroughly +successful. There was a lingering impression that Mrs. Denby was +penetrating the surface to the unwilling interest beneath. Cecil +suspected that this woman was trained in discriminations and +half-lights to which she and her generation had joyfully made +themselves blind. She felt uncomfortably young; a little bit smiled +at in the most kindly of hidden ways. Just as she was leaving, the +subversive softness came close to her again, like a wave of too much +perfume as you open a church-door; as if some one were trying to +embrace her against her will. + +"You will understand," said Mrs. Denby, "that you have done the very +nicest thing in the world. I am horribly lonely. I have few women +friends. Perhaps it is too much to ask--but if you could call again +sometime. Yes ... I would appreciate it so greatly." + +She let go of Cecil's hand and walked to the door, and stood with +one long arm raised against the curtain, her face turned toward the +hall. + +"There is no use," she said, "in attempting to hide my husband's life, +for every one knows what it was, but then--yes, I think you will +understand. I am a childless woman, you see; he was infinitely +pathetic." + +Cecil felt that she must run away, instantly. "I do--" she said +brusquely. "I understand more than other women. Perfectly! Good-by!" + +She found herself brushing past the latest trim parlour-maid, and +out once more in the keen, sweet, young dampness. She strode briskly +down the deserted street. Her fine bronze eyebrows were drawn down +to where they met. "Good Lord! Damn!"--Cecil swore very prettily and +modernly--"What rotten taste! Not frankness, whatever it might seem +outwardly; not frankness, but devious excuses! Some more of Adrian's +hated past-generation stuff! And yet--no! The woman was +sincere--perfectly! She had meant it--that about her husband. And +she _was_ lovely--and she was fine, too! It was impossible to deny it. +But--a childless woman! About that drunken tailor's model of a +husband! And then--Uncle Henry! ..." Cecil threw back her head; her +eyes gleamed in the wet radiance of a corner lamp; she laughed +without making a sound, and entirely without amusement. + +But it is not true that good health is static, no matter how +carefully looked after. And, despite the present revolt against the +Greek spirit, Time persists in being bigotedly Greek. The +tragedy--provided one lives long enough--is always played out to its +logical conclusion. For every hour you have spent, no matter how +quietly or beautifully or wisely, Nemesis takes toll in the end. You +peter out; the engine dulls; the shining coin wears thin. If it's +only that it is all right; you are fortunate if you don't become +greasy, too, or blurred, or scarred. And Mr. McCain had not spent +all his hours wisely or beautifully, or even quietly, underneath the +surface. He suddenly developed what he called "acute indigestion." + +"Odd!" he complained, "and exceedingly tiresome! I've been able to +eat like an ostrich all my life." Adrian smiled covertly at the +simile, but his uncle was unaware that it was because in Adrian's +mind the simile applied to his uncle's conscience, not his stomach. + +It _was_ an odd disease, that "acute indigestion." It manifested +itself by an abrupt tragic stare in Mr. McCain's eyes, a whiteness of +cheek, a clutching at the left side of the breast; it resulted also +in his beginning to walk very slowly indeed. One day Adrian met +Carron, his uncle's physician, as he was leaving a club after +luncheon. Carron stopped him. "Look here, Adrian," he said, +"is that new man of your uncle's--that valet, or whatever he is--a +good man?" + +Adrian smiled. "I didn't hire him," he answered, "and I couldn't +discharge him if I wanted--in fact, any suggestion of that kind on my +part, would lead to his employment for life. Why?" + +"Because," said Carron, "he impresses me as being rather young and +flighty, and some day your uncle is going to die suddenly. He may +last five years; he may snuff out to-morrow. It's his heart." His +lips twisted pityingly. "He prefers to call it by some other name," +he added, "and he would never send for me again if he knew I had +told you, but you ought to know. He's a game old cock, isn't he?" + +"Oh, very!" agreed Adrian. "Yes, game! Very, indeed!" + +He walked slowly down the sunlit courtway on which the back door of +the club opened, swinging his stick and meditating. Spring was +approaching its zenith. In the warm May afternoon pigeons tumbled +about near-by church spires which cut brown inlays into the soft +blue sky. There was a feeling of open windows; a sense of unseen +tulips and hyacinths; of people playing pianos.... Too bad, an old +man dying that way, his hand furtively seeking his heart, when all +this spring was about! Terror in possession of him, too! People like +that hated to die; they couldn't see anything ahead. Well, Adrian +reflected, the real tragedy of it hadn't been his fault. He had +always been ready at the slightest signal to forget almost +everything--yes, almost everything. Even that time when, as a +sweating newspaper reporter, he had, one dusk, watched in the park +his uncle and Mrs. Denby drive past in the cool seclusion of a +shining victoria. Curious! In itself the incident was small, but it +had stuck in his memory more than others far more serious, as +concrete instances are likely to do.... No, he wasn't sorry; not a +bit! He was glad, despite the hesitation he experienced in saying to +himself the final word. He had done his best, and this would mean +his own release and Cecil's. It would mean at last the blessed +feeling that he could actually afford a holiday, and a little +unthinking laughter, and, at thirty-nine, the dreams for which, at +twenty-five, he had never had full time. He walked on down the +courtway more briskly. + +That Saturday night was the night he dined with his uncle. It had +turned very warm; unusually warm for the time of year. When he had +dressed and had sought out Cecil to say good-by to her he found her +by the big studio window on the top floor of the apartment where +they lived. She was sitting in the window-seat, her chin cupped in +her hand, looking out over the city, in the dark pool of which +lights were beginning to open like yellow water-lilies. Her white +arm gleamed in the gathering dusk, and she was dressed in some +diaphanous blue stuff that enhanced the bronze of her hair. Adrian +took his place silently beside her and leaned out. The air was very +soft and hot and embracing, and up here it was very quiet, as if one +floated above the lower clouds of perpetual sound. + +Cecil spoke at last. "It's lovely, isn't it?" she said. "I should +have come to find you, but I couldn't. These first warm nights! You +really understand why people live, after all, don't you? It's like a +pulse coming back to a hand you love." She was silent a moment. +"Kiss me," she said, finally. "I--I'm so glad I love you, and we're +young." + +He stooped down and put his arms about her. He could feel her tremble. +How fragrant she was, and queer, and mysterious, even if he had +lived with her now for almost fifteen years! He was infinitely glad +at the moment for his entire life. He kissed her again, kissed her +eyes, and she went down the stairs with him to the hall-door. She +was to stop for him at his uncle's, after a dinner to which she was +going. + +Adrian lit a cigarette and walked instead of taking the elevator. It +was appropriate to his mood that on the second floor some one with a +golden Italian voice should be singing "Louise." He paused for a +moment. He was reminded of a night long ago in Verona, when there +had been an open window and moonlight in the street. Then he looked +at his watch. He was late; he would have to hurry. It amused him +that at his age he should still fear the silent rebuke with which +his uncle punished unpunctuality. + +He arrived at his destination as a near-by church clock struck the +half-hour. The new butler admitted him and led him back to where his +uncle was sitting by an open window; the curtains stirred in the +languid breeze, the suave room was a little penetrated by the night, +as if some sly, disorderly spirit was investigating uninvited. It +was far too hot for the wood fire--that part of the formula had been +omitted, but otherwise each detail was the same. "The two hundredth +time!" Adrian thought to himself. "The two hundredth time, at least! +It will go on forever!" And then the formula was altered again, for +his uncle got to his feet, laying aside the evening paper with his +usual precise care. "My dear fellow," he began, "so good of you! On +the minute, too! I----" and then he stumbled and put out his hand. +"My glasses!" he said. + +Adrian caught him and held him upright. He swayed a little. +"I----Lately I have had to use them sometimes, even when not reading," +he murmured. "Thank you! Thank you!" + +Adrian went back to the chair where his uncle had been sitting. He +found the glasses--gold pince-nez--but they were broken neatly in +the middle, lying on the floor, as if they had dropped from +someone's hand. He looked at them for a moment, puzzled, before he +gave them back to his uncle. + +"Here they are, sir," he said. "But--it's very curious. They're +broken in such an odd way." + +His uncle peered down at them. He hesitated and cleared his throat. +"Yes," he began; then he stood up straight, with an unexpected twist +of his shoulders. "I was turning them between my fingers," he said, +"just before you came in. I had no idea--no, no idea! Shall we go in? +I think dinner has been announced." + +There was the sherry in the little, deeply cut glasses, and the +clear soup, with a dash of lemon in it, and the fish, and afterward +the roast chicken, with vegetables discreetly limited and designed +not to detract from the main dish; and there was a pint of champagne +for Adrian and a mild white wine for his uncle. The latter twisted +his mouth in a dry smile. "One finds it difficult to get old," he +said. "I have always been very fond of champagne. More aesthetically +I think than the actual taste. It seems to sum up so well the +evening mood--dinner and laughter and forgetting the day. But now----" +he flicked contemptuously the stem of his glass--"I am only allowed +this uninspired stuff." He stopped suddenly and his face twisted +into the slight grimace which Adrian in the last few weeks had been +permitted occasionally to see. His hand began to wander vaguely over +the white expanse of his shirt. + +Adrian pushed back his chair. "Let me--!" he began, but his uncle +waved a deprecating hand. "Sit down!" he managed to say. "Please!" +Adrian sank back again. The colour returned to his uncle's cheeks +and the staring question left his eyes. He took a sip of wine. + +"I cannot tell you," he observed with elaborate indifference, +"how humiliating this thing is becoming to me. I have always had a +theory that invalids and people when they begin to get old and infirm, +should be put away some place where they can undergo the unpleasant +struggle alone. It's purely selfish--there's something about the +sanctity of the individual. Dogs have it right--you know the way +they creep off? But I suppose I won't. Pride fails when the body +weakens, doesn't it, no matter what the will may be?" He lifted his +wine-glass. "I am afraid I am giving you a very dull evening, my +dear fellow," he apologized. "Forgive me! We will talk of more +pleasant things. I drink wine with you! How is Cecil? Doing well +with her painting?" + +Adrian attempted to relax his own inner grimness. He responded to +his uncle's toast. But he wished this old man, so very near the +mysterious crisis of his affairs, would begin to forego to some +extent the habit of a lifetime, become a little more human. This +ridiculous "façade"! The dinner progressed. + +Through an open window the night, full of soft, distant sound, made +itself felt once more. The candles, under their red shades, +flickered at intervals. The noiseless butler came and went. How old +his uncle was getting to look, Adrian reflected. There was a +grayness about his cheeks; fine, wire-like lines about his mouth. +And he was falling into that sure sign of age, a vacant +absent-mindedness. Half the time he was not listening to what he, +Adrian, was saying; instead, his eyes sought constantly the shadows +over the carved sideboard across the table from him. What did he see +there? What question was he asking? Adrian wondered. Only once was +his uncle very much interested, and that was when Adrian had spoken +of the war and the psychology left in its train. Adrian himself had +not long before been released from a weary round of training-camps, +where, in Texas dust, or the unpleasant resinous summer of the South, +he had gone through a repetition that in the end had threatened to +render him an imbecile. He was not illusioned. As separate +personalities, men had lost much of their glamour for him; there had +been too much sweat, too much crowding, too much invasion of dignity, +of everything for which the world claimed it had been struggling and +praying. But alongside of this revolt on his part had grown up an +immense pity and belief in humanity as a mass--struggling, worm-like, +aspiring, idiotic, heroic. The thought of it made him uncomfortable +and at the same time elate. + +His uncle shook a dissenting head. On this subject he permitted +himself mild discussion, but his voice was still that of an old, +wearied man, annoyed and bewildered. "Oh, no!" he said. "That's the +very feature of it that seems to me most dreadful; the vermicular +aspect; the massed uprising; the massed death. About professional +armies there was something decent--about professional killing. It +was cold-blooded and keen, anyway. But this modern war, and this +modern craze for self-revelation! Naked! Why, these books--the young +men kept their fingers on the pulses of their reactions. It isn't +clean; it makes the individual cheap. War is a dreadful thing; it +should be as hidden as murder." He sat back, smiled. "We seem to +have a persistent tendency to become serious to-night," he remarked. + +Serious! Adrian saw a vision of the drill-grounds, and smiled +sardonically; then he raised his head in surprise, for the new +butler had broken all the rules of the household and was summoning +his uncle to the telephone in the midst of dessert. He awaited the +expected rebuke, but it did not come. Instead, his uncle paused in +the middle of a sentence, stared, and looked up. "Ah, yes!" he said, +and arose from his chair. "Forgive me, Adrian, I will be back shortly." +He walked with a new, just noticeable, infirmness toward the door. +Once there he seemed to think an apology necessary, for he turned +and spoke with absent-minded courtesy. + +"You may not have heard," he said, "but Mrs. Denby is seriously ill. +Her nurse gives me constant bulletins over the telephone." + +Adrian started to his feet, then sat down again. "But--" he +stuttered--"but--is it as bad as all that?" + +"I am afraid," said his uncle gently, "it could not be worse." The +curtain fell behind him. + +Adrian picked up his fork and began to stir gently the melting ice +on the plate before him, but his eyes were fixed on the wall opposite, +where, across the shining table, from a mellow gold frame, a +portrait of his grandfather smiled with a benignity, utterly belying +his traditional character, into the shadows above the candles. But +Adrian was not thinking of his grandfather just then, he was +thinking of his uncle--and Mrs. Denby. What in the world----! +Dangerously ill, and yet here had been his uncle able to go through +with--not entirely calmly, to be sure; Adrian remembered the lack of +attention, the broken eye-glasses; and yet, still able to go through +with, not obviously shaken, this monthly farce; this dinner that in +reality mocked all the real meaning of blood-relationship. Good Lord! +To Adrian's modern mind, impatient and courageous, the situation was +preposterous, grotesque. He himself would have broken through to the +woman he loved, were she seriously ill, if all the city was cordoned +to keep him back. What could it mean? Entire selfishness on his +uncle's part? Surely not that! That was too inhuman! Adrian was +willing to grant his uncle exceptional expertness in the art of +self-protection, but there was a limit even to self-protection. +There must be some other reason. Discretion? More likely, and yet +how absurd! Had Mr. Denby been alive, a meticulous, a fantastic +delicacy might have intervened, but Mr. Denby was dead. Who were +there to wound, or who left for the telling of tales? A doctor and +the servants. This was not altogether reasonable, despite what he +knew of his uncle. Here was some oddity of psychology he could not +follow. He heard the curtains stir as his uncle reentered. He looked +up, attentive and curious, but his uncle's face was the mask to +which he was accustomed. + +"How is Mrs. Denby?" he asked. + +Mr. McCain hesitated for the fraction of a second. "I am afraid, +very ill," he said. "Very ill, indeed! It is pneumonia. I--the +doctor thinks it is only a question of a little time, but--well, I +shall continue to hope for the best." There was a metallic harshness +to his concluding words. "Shall we go into the library?" he continued. +"I think the coffee will be pleasanter there." + +They talked again of the war; of revolution; of the dark forces at +large in the world. + +Through that hour or two Adrian had a nakedness of perception +unusual even to his sensitive mind. It seemed to him three spirits +were abroad in the quiet, softly-lit, book-lined room; three +intentions that crept up to him like the waves of the sea, receded, +crept back again; or were they currents of air? or hesitant, unheard +feet that advanced and withdrew? In at the open windows poured at +times the warm, enveloping scent of the spring; pervading, easily +overlooked, lawless, persistent, inevitable. Adrian found himself +thinking it was like the presence of a woman. And then, overlapping +this, would come the careful, dry, sardonic tones of his uncle's +voice, as if insisting that the world was an ordinary world, and +that nothing, not even love or death, could lay disrespectful +fingers upon or hurry for a moment the trained haughtiness of the +will. Yet even this compelling arrogance was at times overtaken, +submerged, by a third presence, stronger even than the other two; a +presence that entered upon the heels of the night; the ceaseless +murmur of the streets; the purring of rubber tires upon asphalt; a +girl's laugh, high, careless, reckless. Life went on. Never for a +moment did it stop. + +"I am not sorry that I am getting old," said Mr. McCain. "I think +nowadays is an excellent time to die. Perhaps for the very young, +the strong--but for me, things are too busy, too hurried. I have +always liked my life like potpourri. I liked to keep it in a china +jar and occasionally take off the lid. Otherwise one's sense of +perfume becomes satiated. Take your young girls; they remain +faithful to a love that is not worth being faithful to--all noise, +and flushed laughter, and open doors." Quite unexpectedly he began +to talk in a way he had never talked before. He held his cigar in +his hand until the ash turned cold; his ringers trembled just a +little. + +"You have been very good to me," he said. Adrian raised startled eyes. +"Very good. I am quite aware that you dislike me"--he hesitated and +the ghost of a smile hovered about his lips--"and I have always +disliked you. Please!" He raised a silencing hand. "You don't mind +my saying so? No. Very well, then, there is something I want to tell +you. Afterward I will never mention it again. I dare say our mutual +dislike is due to the inevitable misunderstanding that exists +between the generations. But it is not important. The point is that +we have always been well-bred toward each other. Yes, that is the +point. You have always been a gentleman, very considerate, very +courteous, I cannot but admire you. And I think you will find I have +done the best I could. I am not a rich man, as such things go +nowadays, but I will hand you on the money that will be yours quite +unimpaired, possibly added to. I feel very strongly on that subject. +I am old-fashioned enough to consider the family the most important +thing in life. After all, we are the only two McCains left." He +hesitated again, and twisted for a moment his bloodless hands in his +lap, then he raised his eyes and spoke with a curious hurried +embarrassment. "I have sacrificed a great deal for that," he said. +"Yes, a great deal." + +The soft-footed butler stood at his elbow, like an actor in comedy +suddenly cast for the role of a portentous messenger. + +"Miss Niles is calling you again, sir," he said. + +"On, yes!--ah--Adrian, I am very sorry, my dear fellow. I will +finish the conversation when I come back." + +This time the telephone was within earshot; in the hall outside. +Adrian heard his uncle's slow steps end in the creaking of a chair +as he sat down; then the picking up of the receiver. The message was +a long one, for his uncle did not speak for fully a minute; finally +his voice drifted in through the curtained doorway. + +"You think ... only a few minutes?" + +"... Ah, yes! Conscious? Yes. Well, will you tell her, Miss Niles?--yes, +please listen very carefully--tell her this. That I am not there +because I dared not come. Yes; on her account. She will understand. +My heart--it's my heart. She will understand. I did not dare. For her +sake, not mine. Tell her that. She will understand. Please be very +careful in repeating the message, Miss Niles. Tell her I dared not +come because of my heart.... Yes; thank you. That's it.... What? Yes, +I will wait, Miss Niles." + +Adrian, sitting in the library, suddenly got to his feet and crossed +to the empty fireplace and stood with his back to it, enlightenment +and a puzzled frown struggling for possession of his face. His +uncle's heart! Ah, he understood, then! It was discretion, after all, +but not the kind he thought--a much more forgiveable discretion. And, +yet, what possible difference could it make should his uncle die +suddenly in Mrs. Denby's house? Fall dead across her bed, or die +kneeling beside it? Poor, twisted old fool, afraid even at the end +that death might catch him out; afraid of a final undignified gesture. + +A motor blew its horn for the street crossing. Another girl laughed; +a young, thin, excited girl, to judge by her laughter. The curtains +stirred and again there was that underlying scent of tulips and +hyacinths; and then, from the hall outside, came the muffled thud of +a receiver falling to the floor. Adrian waited. The receiver was not +picked up. He strode to the door. Crumpled up over the telephone was +old Mr. McCain. + +Cecil came later. She was very quick and helpful, and jealously +solicitous on Adrian's account, but in the taxicab going home she +said the one thing Adrian had hoped she wouldn't say, and yet was +sure she would. She belonged to a sex which, if it is honest at all, +is never reticently so. She believed that between the man she loved +and herself there were no possible mental withdrawals. "It is very +tragic," she said, "but much better--you know it is better. He +belonged to the cumberers of the earth. Yes, so much better; and this +way, too!" + +In the darkness her hand sought his. Adrian took it, but in his +heart was the same choked feeling, the same knowledge that something +was gone that could not be found again, that, as a little boy, he had +had when they sold, at his father's death, the country place where +he had spent his summers. Often he had lain awake at night, restless +with the memory of heliotrope, and phlox, and mignonette, and +afternoons quiet except for the sound of bees. + + + + +"CONTACT!" + + +BY FRANCES NOYES HART[8] + +[Footnote 8: Frances Newbold Noyes, in _Pictorial Review_ for +December, 1920.] + + +The first time she heard it was in the silk-hung and flower-scented +peace of the little drawing-room in Curzon Street. His sister Rosemary +had wanted to come up to London to get some clothes--Victory clothes +they called them in those first joyous months after the armistice, +and decked their bodies in scarlet and silver, even when their poor +hearts went in black--and Janet had been urged to leave her own drab +boarding-house room to stay with the forlorn small butterfly. They had +struggled through dinner somehow, and Janet had finished her coffee +and turned the great chair so that she could watch the dancing fire +(it was cool for May), her cloudy brown head tilted back against the +rose-red cushion, shadowy eyes half closed, idle hands linked across +her knees. She looked every one of her thirty years--and mortally +tired--and careless of both facts. But she managed an encouraging +smile at the sound of Rosemary's shy, friendly voice at her elbow. +"Janet, these are yours, aren't they? Mummy found them with some +things last week, and I thought that you might like to have them." + +She drew a quick breath at the sight of the shabby packet. + +"Why, yes," she said evenly. "That's good of you, Rosemary. Thanks a +lot." + +"That's all right," murmured Rosemary diffidently. "Wouldn't you +like something to read? There's a most frightfully exciting Western +novel----" + +The smile took on a slightly ironical edge. "Don't bother about me, +my dear. You see, I come from that frightfully exciting West, and I +know all about the pet rattlesnakes and the wildly Bohemian cowboys. +Run along and play with your book--I'll be off to bed in a few +minutes." + +Rosemary retired obediently to the deep chair in the corner, and +with the smile gone but the irony still hovering, she slipped the +cord off the packet. A meager and sorry enough array--words had +never been for her the swift, docile servitors that most people +found them. But the thin gray sheet in her fingers started out +gallantly enough--"Beloved." Beloved! She leaned far forward, +dropping it with deft precision into the glowing pocket of embers. +What next? This was more like--it began "Dear Captain Langdon" in +the small, contained, even writing that was her pride, and it went +on soberly enough, "I shall be glad to have tea with you next +Friday--not Thursday, because I must be at the hut then. It was +stupid of me to have forgotten you--next time I will try to do better." +Well, she had done better the next time. She had not forgotten him +again--never, never again. That had been her first letter; how +absurd of Jerry, the magnificently careless, to have treasured it +all that time, the miserable, stilted little thing! She touched it +with curious fingers. Surely, surely he must have cared, to have +cared so much for that! + +It seemed incredible that she hadn't remembered him at once when he +came into the hut that second time. Of course she had only seen him +for a moment and six months had passed--but he was so absurdly vivid, +every inch of him, from the top of his shining, dark head to the +heels of his shining, dark boots--and there were a great many inches! +How could she have forgotten, even for a minute, those eyes dancing +like blue fire in the brown young face, the swift, disarming charm +of his smile, and, above all, his voice--how, in the name of +absurdity could any one who had once heard it ever forget Jeremy +Langdon's voice? Even now she had only to close her eyes, and it +rang out again, with its clipped, British accent and its caressing +magic, as un-English as any Provincial troubadour's! And yet she had +forgotten--he had had to speak twice before she had even lifted her +head. + +"Miss America--oh, I say, she's forgotten me, and I thought that I'd +made such an everlasting impression!" The delighted amazement +reached even her tired ears, and she had smiled wanly as she pushed +the pile of coppers nearer to him. + +"Have you been in before? It's stupid of me, but there are such +hundreds of thousands of you, and you are gone in a minute, you see. +That's your change, I think." + +"Hundreds of thousands of me, hey?" He had leaned across the counter, +his face alight with mirth. "I wish to the Lord my angel mother +could hear you--it's what I'm forever tellin' her, though just +between us, it's stuff and nonsense. I've got a well-founded +suspicion that I'm absolutely unique. You wait and see!" + +And she had waited--and she had seen! She stirred a little, dropped +the note into the flames, and turned to the next, the quiet, mocking +mouth suddenly tortured and rebellious. + +"No, you must be mad," it ran, the trim writing strangely shaken. +"How often have you seen me--five times? Do you know how old I am. +How hard and tired and useless? No--no a thousand times. In a little +while we will wake up and find that we were dreaming." + +That had brought him to her swifter than Fate, triumphant mischief +in every line of his exultant face. "Just let those damned old cups +slip from your palsied fingers, will you? I'm goin' to take your +honourable age for a little country air--it may keep you out of the +grave for a few days longer. Never can tell! No use your scowlin' +like that--the car's outside, and the big chief says to be off with +you. Says you have no more colour than a banshee, and not half the +life--can't grasp the fact that it's just chronic antiquity. Fasten +the collar about your throat--no, higher! Darlin', darlin', think of +havin' a whole rippin' day to ourselves. You're glad, too, aren't you, +my little stubborn saint?" + +Oh, that joyous and heart-breaking voice, running on and on--it made +all the other voices that she had ever heard seem colourless and +unreal-- + +"Darlin' idiot, what do I care how old you are? Thirty, hey? Almost +old enough to be an ancestor! Look at me--no, look at me! Dare you +to say that you aren't mad about me!" + +Mad about him--mad, mad! She lifted her hands to her ears, but she +could no more shut out the exultant voice now than she could on that +windy afternoon. + +"Other fellow got tired of you, did he? Good luck for us, what? +You're a fearfully tiresome person, darlin'. It's goin' to take me +nine-tenths of eternity to tell you how tiresome you are. Give a +chap a chance, won't you? The tiresomest thing about you is the way +you leash up that dimple of yours. No, by George, there it is! Janie, +look at me----" + +She touched the place where the leashed dimple had hidden with a +delicate and wondering finger--of all Jerry's gifts to her the most +miraculous had been that small fugitive. Exiled now, forever and +forever. + +"Are you comin' down to White Orchards next week-end? I'm off for +France on the twelfth and you've simply got to meet my people. +You'll be insane about 'em--Rosemary's the most beguilin' +flibbertigibbet, and I can't wait to see you bein' a kind of an +elderly grandmother to her. What a bewitchin' little grandmother +you're goin' to be one of these days----" + +Oh, Jerry! Oh, Jerry, Jerry! She twisted in her chair, her face +suddenly a small mask of incredulous terror. No, no, it wasn't true, +it wasn't true--never--never--never! And then, for the first time, +she heard it. Far off but clear, a fine and vibrant humming, the +distant music of wings! The faint, steady pulsing was drawing nearer +and nearer--nearer still--it must be flying quite high. The hateful +letters scattered about her as she sprang to the open window--no, it +was too high to see, and too dark, though the sky was powdered with +stars--but she could hear it clearly, hovering and throbbing like +some gigantic bird. It must be almost directly over her head, if she +could only see it. + +"It sounds--it sounds the way a humming-bird would look through a +telescope," she said half aloud, and Rosemary murmured sleepily but +courteously, "What, Janet?" + +"Just an airplane--no, gone now. It sounded like a bird. Didn't you +hear it?" + +"No," replied Rosemary drowsily. "We get so used to the old things +that we don't even notice them any more. Queer time to be flying!" + +"It sounded rather--beautiful," said Janet, her face still turned to +the stars. "Far off, but so clear and sure. I wonder--I wonder +whether it will be coming back?" + +Well, it came back. She went down to White Orchards with Rosemary +for the following week-end, and after she had smoothed her hair and +given a scornful glance at the pale face in the mirror, with its +shadowy eyes and defiant mouth, she slipped out to the lower terrace +for a breath of the soft country air. Halfway down the flight of +steps she stumbled and caught at the balustrade, and stood shaking +for a moment, her face pressed against its rough surface. Once +before--once before she had stumbled on those steps, but it was not +the balustrade that had saved her. She could feel his arms about her +now, holding her up, holding her close and safe. The magical voice +was in her ears. "Let you go? I'll never let you go! Poor little feet, +stumblin' in the dark, what would you do without Jerry? Time's comin', +you cheeky little devils, when you'll come runnin' to him when he +whistles! No use tryin' to get away--you belong to him." + +Oh, whistle to them now, Jerry--they would run to you across the +stars! + +"How'd you like to marry me before I go back to-morrow? No? No +accountin' for tastes, Miss Abbott--lots of people would simply jump +at it! All right--April, then. Birds and flowers and all that kind +o' thing--pretty intoxicatin', what? No, keep still, darlin' goose. +What feller taught you to wear a dress that looks like roses and +smells like roses and feels like roses? This feller? Lord help us, +what a lovely liar!" + +And suddenly she found herself weeping helplessly, desperately, like +an exhausted child, shaken to the heart at the memory of the +rose-coloured dress. + +"You like me just a bit, don't you, funny, quiet little thing? But +you'd never lift a finger to hold me--that's the wonder of +you--that's why I'll never leave you. No, not for heaven. You can't +lose me--no use tryin'." + +But she had lost you, Jerry--you had left her, for all your promises, +to terrified weeping in the hushed loveliness of the terrace, where +your voice had turned her still heart to a dancing star, where your +fingers had touched her quiet blood to flowers and flames and +butterflies. She had believed you then--what would she ever +believe again? And then she caught back the despairing sobs +swiftly, for once more she heard, far off, the rushing of wings. +Nearer--nearer--humming and singing and hovering in the quiet dusk. +Why, it was over the garden! She flung back her head, suddenly eager +to see it; it was a friendly and thrilling sound in all that +stillness. Oh, it was coming lower--lower still--she could hear the +throb of the propellers clearly. Where _was_ it? Behind those trees, +perhaps? She raced up the flight of steps, dashing the treacherous +tears from her eyes, straining up on impatient tiptoes. Surely she +could see it now! But already it was growing fainter--drifting +steadily away, the distant hum growing lighter and lighter--lighter +still---- + +"Janet!" called Mrs. Langdon's pretty, patient voice. "Dinner-time, +dear! Is there any one with you?" + +"No one at all, Mrs. Langdon. I was just listening to an airplane." + +"An _airplane_? Oh, no, dear--they never pass this way any more. The +last one was in October, I think----" + +The soft, plaintive voice trailed off in the direction of the +dining-room and Janet followed it, a small, secure smile touching +her lips. The last one had not passed in October. It had passed a +few minutes before, over the lower garden. + +She quite forgot it by the next week--she was becoming an adept at +forgetting. That was all that was left for her to do! Day after day +and night after night she had raised the drawbridge between her +heart and memory, leaving the lonely thoughts to shiver desolately +on the other side of the moat. She was weary to the bone of suffering, +and they were enemies, for all their dear and friendly guise; they +would tear her to pieces if she ever let them in. No, no, she was +done with them. She would forget, as Jerry had forgotten. She would +destroy every link between herself and the past--and pack the neat +little steamer trunk neatly--and bid these kind and gentle people +good-by--and take herself and her bitterness and her dullness back +to the class-room in the Western university town--back to the +Romance languages. The Romance languages! + +She would finish it all that night, and leave as soon as possible. +There were some trinkets to destroy, and his letters from France to +burn--she would give Rosemary the rose-coloured dress--foolish, +lovely little Rosemary, whom he had loved, and who was lying now +fast asleep in the next room curled up like a kitten in the middle +of the great bed, her honey-coloured hair falling about her in a +shining mist. She swept back her own cloud of hair resolutely, +frowning at the candle-lit reflection in the mirror. Two desolate +pools in the small, pale oval of her face stared back at her--two +pools with something drowned in their lonely depths. Well, she would +drown it deeper! + +The letters first; how lucky that they still used candle-light! It +would make the task much simpler--the funeral pyre already lighted. +She moved one of the tall candelabra to the desk, sitting for a long +time quite still, her chin cupped in her hands, staring down at the +bits of paper. She could smell the wall-flowers under the window as +though they were in the room--drenched in dew and moonlight, they +were reckless of their fragrance. All this peace and cleanliness and +orderly beauty--what a ghastly trick for God to have played--to have +taught her to adore them, and then to snatch them away! All about her, +warm with candle-light, lay the gracious loveliness of the little +room with its dark waxed furniture, its bright glazed chintz, its +narrow bed with the cool linen sheets smelling of lavender, and its +straight, patterned curtains--oh, that hateful, mustard-coloured den +at home, with its golden-oak day-bed! + +She wrung her hands suddenly in a little hunted gesture. How could +he have left her to that, he who had sworn that he would never leave +her? In every one of those letters beneath her linked fingers he had +sworn it--in every one perjured--false half a hundred times. Pick up +any one of them at random-- + +"Janie, you darling stick, is 'dear Jerry' the best that you can do? +You ought to learn French! I took a perfectly ripping French kid out +to dinner last night--name's Liane, from the Varietés--and she was +calling me '_mon grand cheri_' before the salad, and '_mon p'tit +amour_' before the green mint. Maybe _that'll_ buck you up! And I'd +have you know that she's so pretty that it's ridiculous, with black +velvet hair that she wears like a little Oriental turban, and eyes +like golden pansies, and a mouth between a kiss and a prayer--and a +nice affable nature into the bargain. But I'm a ghastly jackass--I +didn't get any fun out of it at all--because I really didn't even +see her. Under the pink shaded candles to my blind eyes it seemed +that there was seated the coolest, quietest, whitest little thing, +with eyes that were as indifferent as my velvety Liane's were kind, +and mockery in her smile. Oh, little masquerader! If I could get +my arms about you even for a minute--if I could kiss so much as +the tips of your lashes--would you be cool and quiet and mocking +then? Janie, Janie, rosy-red as flowers on the terrace and +sweeter--sweeter--they're about you now--they'll be about you always!" + +Burn it fast, candle--faster, faster. Here's another for you. + +"So the other fellow cured you of using pretty names, did he--you +don't care much for dear and darling any more? Bit hard on me, +but fortunately for you, Janie Janet, I'm rather a dab at +languages--'specially when it comes to what the late lamented Boche +referred to as 'cosy names.' _Querida mi alma, douchka, Herzliebchen, +carissima_; and _bien, bien-aimée_, I'll not run out of salutations +for you this side of heaven--no--nor t'other. I adore the serene +grace with which you ignore the ravishing Liane. Haven't you any +curiosity at all, my Sphinx? No? Well, then, just to punish you, +I'll tell you all about it. She's married to the best fellow in the +world--a _liaison_ officer working with our squadron--and she +worships the ground that he walks on and the air that he occasionally +flies in. So whenever I run up to the City of Light, _en permission_, +I look her up, and take her the latest news--and for an hour, over +the candles, we pretend that I am Philippe, and that she is Janie. +Only she says that I don't pretend very well--and it's just possible +that she's right. + +"_Mon petit coeur et grand trésor_, I wish that I could take you +flying with me this evening. You'd be daft about it! Lots of it's a +rotten bore, of course, but there's something in me that doesn't +live at all when I'm on this too, too solid earth. Something that +lies there, crouched and dormant, waiting until I've climbed up into +the seat, and buckled the strap about me and laid my hands on the +'stick.' It's waiting--waiting for a word--and so am I. And I lean +far forward, watching the figure toiling out beyond till the call +comes back to me, clear and confident, 'Contact, sir?' And I shout +back, as restless and exultant as the first time that I answered +it--'Contact!' + +"And I'm off--and I'm alive--and I'm free! Ho, Janie! That's simpler +than Abracadabra or Open Sesame, isn't it? But it opens doors more +magical than ever they swung wide, and something in me bounds through, +more swift and eager than any Aladdin. Free! I'm a crazy sort of a +beggar, my little love--that same thing in me hungers and thirsts and +aches for freedom. I go half mad when people or events try to hold +me--you, wise beyond wisdom, never will. Somehow, between us, we've +struck the spark that turns a mere piece of machinery into a wonder +with wings--somehow, you are forever setting me free. It is your +voice--your voice of silver and peace--that's eternally whispering +'Contact!' to me--and I am released, heart, soul, and body! And +because you speed me on my way, Janie, I'll never fly so far, I'll +never fly so long, I'll never fly so high that I'll not return to you. +You hold me fast, forever and forever." + +You had flown high and far indeed, Jerry--and you had not returned. +Forever and forever! Burn faster, flame! + +"My blessed child, who's been frightening you? Airplanes are by all +odds safer than taxis--and no end safer than the infernal duffer +who's been chaffing you would be if I could once get my hands on him. +Damn fool! Don't care if you do hate swearing--damn fools are damn +fools, and there's an end to it. All those statistics are sheer +melodramatic rot--the chap who fired 'em at you probably has all his +money invested in submarines, and is fairly delirious with jealousy. +Peg (did I ever formally introduce you to Pegasus, the best +pursuit-plane in the R.F.C.--or out of it?)--Peg's about as likely +to let me down as you are! We'd do a good deal for each other, she +and I--nobody else can really fly her, the darling! But she'd go to +the stars for me--and farther still. Never you fear--we have charmed +lives, Peg and I--we belong to Janie. + +"I think that people make an idiotic row about dying, anyway. It's +probably jolly good fun--and I can't see what difference a few years +here would make if you're going to have all eternity to play with. +Of course you're a ghastly little heathen, and I can see you wagging +a mournful head over this already--but every time that I remember +what a shocking sell the After Life (exquisite phrase!) is going to +be for you, darling, I do a bit of head-wagging myself--and it's not +precisely mournful! I can't wait to see your blank consternation--and +you needn't expect any sympathy from _me_. My very first words will +be, 'I told you so!' Maybe I'll rap them out to you with a table-leg! + +"What do you think of all this Ouija Planchette rumpus, anyway? I +can't for the life of me see why any one with a whole new world to +explore should hang around chattering with this one. I know that I'd +be half mad with excitement to get at the new job, and that I'd find +re-assuring the loved ones (exquisite phrase number two) a hideous +bore. Still, I can see that it would be nice from their selfish +point of view! Well, I'm no ghost yet, thank God--nor yet are +you--but if ever I am one, I'll show you what devotion really is. +I'll come all the way back from heaven to play with foolish Janie, +who doesn't believe that there is one to come from. To foolish, +foolish Janie, who still will be dearer than the prettiest angel of +them all, no matter how alluringly her halo may be tilted or her +wings ruffled. To Janie who, Heaven forgive him, will be all that +one poor ghost has ever loved!" + +Had there come to him, the radiant and the confident, a moment of +terrible and shattering surprise--a moment when he realized that +there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to greet +him--a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming darkness, +blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew out the +little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held his +laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to have +spared him that moment! + +"My little Greatheart, did you think that I did not know how brave +you are? You are the truest soldier of us all, and I, who am not +much given to worship, am on my knees before that shy gallantry of +yours, which makes what courage we poor duffers have seem a vain and +boastful thing. When I see you as I saw you last, small and white +and clear and brave, I can't think of anything but the first +crocuses at White Orchards, shining out, demure and valiant, +fearless of wind and storm and cold--fearless of Fear itself. You see, +you're so very, very brave that you make me ashamed to be afraid of +poetry and sentiment and pretty words--things of which I have a good, +thumping Anglo-Saxon terror, I can tell you! It's because I know +what a heavenly brick you are that I could have killed that +statistical jackass for bothering you; but I'll forgive him, since +you say that it's all right. And so ghosts are the only things in +the world that frighten you--even though you know that there aren't +any. You and Madame de Staël, hey? 'I do not believe in ghosts, but I +fear them!' It's pretty painful to learn that the mere sight of one +would turn you into a gibbering lunatic. Nice sell for an +enthusiastic spirit who'd romped clear back from heaven to give you +a pleasant surprise--I _don't_ think! Well, no fear, young +Janie--I'll find some way if I'm put to it--some nice, safe, pretty +way that wouldn't scare a neurasthenic baby, let alone the dauntless +Miss Abbott. I'll find--" + +Oh, no more of that--no more! She crushed the sheet in her hands +fiercely, crumpling it into a little ball--the candle-flame was too +slow. No, she couldn't stand it--she couldn't--she couldn't, +and there was an end to it. She would go raving mad--she would +kill herself--she would--She lifted her head, wrenched suddenly +back from that chaos of despair, alert and intent. There it was +again, coming swiftly nearer and nearer from some immeasurable +distance--down--down--nearer still--the very room was humming and +throbbing with it--she could almost hear the singing in the wires. +She swung far out over the window edge, searching the moon-drenched +garden with eager eyes--surely, surely it would never fly so low +unless it were about to land! Engine trouble, perhaps--though she +could detect no break in the huge, rhythmic pulsing that was shaking +the night. Still-- + +"Rosemary!" she called urgently. "Rosemary--listen--is there a +place where it can land?" + +"Where what can land?" asked a drowsy voice. + +"An airplane. It's flying so low that it must be in some kind of +trouble--do come and see!" + +Rosemary came pattering obediently toward her, a small, docile figure, +dark eyes misted with dreams, wide with amazement. + +"I must be nine-tenths asleep," she murmured gently. "Because I +don't hear a single thing, Janet. Perhaps--" + +"Hush--listen!" begged Janet, raising an imperative hand--and then +her own eyes widened. "Why--it's _gone_!" There was a note of flat +incredulity in her voice. "Heavens, how those things must eat up +space! Not a minute, ago it was fairly shaking this room, and now--" + +Rosemary stifled a small pink yawn and smiled ingratiatingly. + +"Perhaps you were asleep too," she suggested humbly. "I don't +believe that airplanes ever fly this way any more. Or it might have +been that fat Hodges boy on his motorcycle--he does make the most +dreadful racket. Oh, Janet, what a perfectly _ripping_ night--do see!" + +They leaned together on the window-sill, silenced by the white and +shining beauty that had turned the pleasant garden into a place of +magic and enchantment. The corners of Janet's mouth lifted suddenly. +How absurd people were! The fat Hodges boy and his motorcycle! Did +they all regard her as an amiable lunatic--even little, lovely, +friendly Rosemary, wavering sleepily at her side? It really was +maddening. But she felt, amazingly enough, suddenly quiet and joyous +and indifferent--and passionately glad that the wanderer from the +skies had won safely through and was speeding home. Home! Oh, it was +a crying pity that it need ever land--anything so fleet and strong +and sure should fly forever! But if they must rest, those beating +wings--the old R.F.C. toast went singing through her head and she +flung it out into the moonlight, smiling--"Happy landings! Happy +landings, you!" + +The next day was the one that brought to White Orchards what was to +be known for many moons as "the Big Storm." It had been gathering +all afternoon, and by evening the heat had grown appalling and +incredible, even to Janet's American and exigent standards. The +smouldering copper sky looked as though it had caught fire from the +world and would burn forever; there was not so much as a whisper of +air to break the stillness--it seemed as though the whole tortured +earth were holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. +Every one had struggled through the day assuring one another that +when evening came it would be all right--dangling the alluring +thought of the cool darkness before each other's hot and weary eyes; +but the night proved even more outrageous than the day. To the +little group seated on the terrace, dispiritedly playing with their +coffee, it seemed almost a personal affront. The darkness closed in +on them, smothering, heavy, intolerable; they could feel its weight, +as though it were some hateful and tangible thing. + +"Like--like black cotton wool," explained Rosemary, stirred to +unwonted resentment. She had spent the day curled up in the largest +Indian chair on the terrace, round-eyed with fatigue and incredulity. + +"I honestly think that we must be dreaming," she murmured to her +feverish audience; "I do, honestly. Why, it's only _May_, and we +never, never--there was that day in August about five years ago that +was almost as bad, though. D'you remember, Mummy?" + +"It's hardly the kind of thing that one is likely to forget, love. +Do you think that it is necessary for us to talk? I feel somehow +that I could bear it much more easily if we kept quite quiet." + +Janet stirred a little, uneasily. She hated silence--that terrible, +empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts--why, the +idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too--she +closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing +against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and stiller, +but open-eyed or closed, she could not shut out memory. The very +touch of the bricks beneath her feet brought back that late October +day. She had been sitting curled up on the steps in the warm sunlight, +with the keen, sweet air stirring her hair and sending the +beech-leaves dancing down the flagged path--there had been a heavenly +smell of burning from the far meadow, and she was sniffing it +luxuriously, feeling warm and joyous and protected in Jerry's great +tweed coat--watching the tall figure swinging across from the lodge +gate with idle, happy eyes--not even curious. It was not until he +had almost reached the steps that she had noticed that he was +wearing a foreign uniform--and even then she had promptly placed him +as one of Rosemary's innumerable conquests, bestowing on him a +friendly and inquiring smile. + +"Were you looking for Miss Langdon?" Even now she could see the +courteous, grave young face soften as he turned quickly toward her, +baring his dark head with that swift foreign grace that turns our +perfunctory habits into something like a ritual. + +"But no," he had said gently, "I was looking for you, Miss Abbott." + +"Now will you please tell me how in the world you knew that I was +Miss Abbott?" + +And he had smiled--with his lips, not his eyes. + +"I should be dull indeed if that I did not know. I am Philippe +Laurent, Miss Abbott." + +And "Oh," she had cried joyously, "Liane's Philippe!" + +"But yes--Liane's Philippe. They are not here, the others? Madame +Langdon, the little Miss Rosemary?" + +"No, they've gone to some parish fair, and I've been wicked and +stayed home. Won't you sit down and talk to me? Please!" + +"Miss Abbott, it is not to you that I must talk. What I have to say +is indeed most difficult, and it is to Jeremy's Janie that I would +say it. May I, then?" + +It had seemed to Jeremy's Janie that the voice in which she answered +him came from a great distance, but she never took her eyes from the +grave and vivid face. + +"Yes. And quickly, please." + +So he had told her--quickly--in his exquisitely careful English, and +she had listened as attentively and politely, huddled up on the +brick steps in the sunlight, as though he were running over the +details of the last drive, instead of tearing her life to pieces +with every word. She remembered now that it hadn't seemed real at +all--if it had been to Jerry that these horrors had happened could +she have sat there so quietly, feeling the colour bright in her +cheeks, and the wind stirring in her hair, and the sunlight warm on +her hands? Why, for less than this people screamed, and fainted, and +went raving mad! + +"You say--that his back is broken?" + +"But yes, my dear," Liane's Philippe had told her, and she had seen +the tears shining in his gray eyes. + +"And he is badly burned?" + +"My brave Janie, these questions are not good to ask--not good, not +good to answer. This I will tell you. He lives, our Jerry--and so +dearly does he love you that he will drag back that poor body from +hell itself--because it is yours, not his. This he has sent me to +tell you, most lucky lady ever loved." + +"You mean--that he isn't going to die?" + +"I tell you that into those small hands of yours he has given his +life. Hold it fast." + +"Will he--will he get well?" "He will not walk again; but have you +not swift feet to run for him?" + +And there had come to her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine, +an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant. Now +he was hers forever, the restless wanderer--delivered to her bound +and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve and +slave for, his troth to Freedom broken--hers at last! + +"I'm coming," she had told the tall young Frenchman breathlessly. +"Take me to him--please let's hurry." + +"_Ma pauvre petite_, this is war. One does not come and go at will. +God knows by what miracle enough red tape unwound to let me through +to you, to bring my message and to take one back." + +"What message, Philippe?" + +"That is for you to say, little Janie. He told me, 'Say to her that +she has my heart--if she needs my body, I will live. Say to her that +it is an ugly, broken, and useless thing; still, hers. She must use +it as she sees fit. Say to her--no, say nothing more. She is my Janie, +and has no need of words. Tell her to send me only one, and I will +be content.' For that one word, Janie, I have come many miles. What +shall it be?" + +And she had cried out exultantly, "Why, tell him that I say--" But +the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had mutinied, +and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her +face--out of her heart--feeling her eyes turn back with sheer terror, +while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word +"Live!"--surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting +for, lying far away and still--schooled at last to patience, the +reckless and the restless! Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live! Even now she +could feel her mind, like some frantic little wild thing, racing, +racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her? "You, wise beyond +wisdom, will never hold me--you will never hold me--you will never--" + +And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and lifted +her eyes to Jerry's ambassador. + +"Will you please tell him--will you please tell him that I +say--'Contact'?" + +"Contact?" He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender. +"Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for +Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor +harsh word--there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in +aviation use that word--it is the signal that says--'Now, you can fly!' +You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?" + +"I know very little." + +"That is all then? No other message? He will understand, our Jerry?" + +And Janie had smiled--rather a terrible small smile. + +"Oh, yes," she told him. "He will understand. It is the word that he +is waiting for, you see." + +"I see." But there had been a grave wonder in his voice. + +"Would it----" she had framed the words as carefully as though it +were a strange tongue that she was speaking--"would it be possible +to buy his machine? He wouldn't want any one else to fly it." + +"Little Janie, never fear. The man does not live who shall fly poor +Peg again. Smashed to kindling-wood and burned to ashes, she has +taken her last flight to the heaven for good and brave birds of war. +Not enough was left of her to hold in your two hands." + +"I'm glad. Then that's all--isn't it? And thank you for coming." + +"It is I who thank you. What was hard as death you have made easy. I +had thought the lady to whom Jeremy Langdon gave his heart the +luckiest creature ever born--now I think him that luckiest one." The +grave grace with which he had bent to kiss her hand made of the +formal salutation an accolade--"My homage to you, Jerry's Janie!" A +quick salute, and he had turned on his heel, swinging off down the +flagged path with that swift, easy stride--past the sun-dial--past +the lily-pond--past the beech-trees--gone! For hours and hours after +he had passed out of sight she had sat staring after him, her hands +lying quite still in her lap--staring, staring--they had found her +there when they came back, sitting where Rosemary was seated now. Why, +there, on those same steps, a bare six months ago--Something snapped +in her head, and she stumbled to her feet, clinging to the arm of her +chair. + +"I can't _stand_ it!" she gasped. "No, no, it's no use--I can't, I +tell you. I--" + +Rosemary's arm was about her--Mrs. Langdon's soft voice in her +ears--a deeper note from Rosemary's engineer. + +"Oh, I say, poor girl! What is it, dear child--what's the matter? Is +it the heat, Janie?" + +"The heat!" She could hear herself laughing--frantic, hateful, +jangling laughter that wouldn't stop. "Oh, Jerry! Oh-h, Jerry, Jerry, +Jerry!" + +"It's this ghastly day. Let me get her some water, Mrs. Langdon. +Don't cry so, Janie--please, please don't, darling." + +"I c-can't help it--I c-can't----" She paused, listening intently, +her hand closing sharply over Rosemary's wrist. "Oh, listen, +listen--there it comes again--I told you so!" + +"Thank Heaven," murmured Mrs. Langdon devoutly, "I thought that it +never was going to rise this evening. It's from the south, too, so I +suppose that it means rain." + +"Rain?" repeated Janet vaguely. "Why in the world should it mean rain?" +Her small, pale face looked suddenly brilliant and enchanted, tilted +up to meet the thunderous music that was swinging nearer and nearer. +"Oh, do listen, you people! This time it's surely going to land!" + +Rosemary stared at her blankly. "Land? What _are_ you talking about, +Janie?" + +"My airplane--the one that you said was the fat Hodges boy on a +motorcycle! Is there any place near here that it can make a landing?" + +"Darling child--" Mrs. Langdon's gentle voice was gentler than ever-- +"darling child, it's this wretched heat. There isn't any airplane, +dear--it's just the wind rising in the beeches." + +"The wind?" Janet laughed aloud--they really were too absurd. +"Why, Mrs. Langdon, you can hear the _engines_, if you'll only listen! +You can hear them, can't you, Mr. Bain?" + +The young engineer shook his head. "No plane would risk flying with +this storm coming, Miss Abbott. There's been thunder for the last +hour or so, and it's getting nearer, too. It's only the wind, I think." + +"Oh, you're laughing at me--of course, of course you hear it. Why, +it's as clear as--as clear as--" Her voice trailed off into silence. +Quite suddenly, without any transition or warning, she knew. She +could feel her heart stand perfectly still for a minute, and then +plunge forward in mad flight, racing, racing--oh, it knew, too, that +eager heart! She took her hand from the arm of the chair, releasing +Rosemary's wrist very gently. + +"Yes, of course, it's the heat," she said quietly. She must be +careful not to frighten them, these kind ones. "If you don't mind, +Mrs. Langdon, I think that I'll go down to the gate to watch the +storm burst. No, please, don't any of you come--I'll promise to +change everything if I get caught--yes, everything! I won't be long; +don't wait for me." + +She walked sedately enough until she came to the turn in the path, +but after that she ran, only pausing for a minute to listen +breathlessly. Oh, yes--following, following, that gigantic music! +How he must be laughing at her now--blind, deaf, incredulous little +fool that she had been, to doubt that Jerry would find a way! But +where could he land? Not in the garden--not at the gates--oh, now +she had it--the far meadow. She turned sharply; it was dark, but the +path must be here. Yes, this was the wicket gate; her groping +fingers were quite steady--they found the latch--released it--the +gate swung to behind her flying footsteps. "Oh, Jerry, Jerry!" sang +her heart. Why hadn't she worn the rose-coloured frock? It was she +who would be a ghost in that trailing white thing. To the right +here--yes, there was the hawthorn hedge--only a few steps more--oh, +now! She stood as still as a small statue, not moving, not breathing, +her hands at her heart, her face turned to the black and torn sky. +Nearer, nearer, circling and darting and swooping--the gigantic +humming grew louder--louder still--it swept about her thunderously, +so close that she clapped her hands over her ears, but she stood her +ground, exultant and undaunted. Oh, louder still--and then suddenly +the storm broke. All the winds and the rains of the world were +unleashed, and fell howling and shrieking upon her, she staggered +under their onslaught, drenched to the bone, her dress whipping +frantically about her, blinded and deafened by that tumultuous +clamour. She had only one weapon against it--laughter--and she +laughed now--straight into its teeth. And as though hell itself must +yield to mirth, the fury wavered--failed--sank to muttering. But +Janie, beaten to her knees and laughing, never even heard it die. + +"Jerry?" she whispered into the darkness, "Jerry?" + +Oh, more wonderful than wonder, he was there! She could feel him stir, +even if she could not hear him--so close, so close was he that if she +even reached out her hand, she could touch him. She stretched it out +eagerly, but there was nothing there--only a small, remote sound of +withdrawal, as though some one had moved a little. + +"You're afraid that I'll be frightened, aren't you?" she asked +wistfully. "I wouldn't be--I wouldn't--please come back'" + +He was laughing at her, she knew, tender and mocking and caressing; +she smiled back, tremulously. + +"You're thinking, 'I told you so!' Have you come far to say it to me?" + +Only that little stir--the wind was rising again. + +"Jerry, come close--come closer still. What are you waiting for, +dear and dearest?" + +This time there was not even a stir to answer her; she felt suddenly +cold to the heart. What had he always waited for? + +"You aren't waiting--you aren't waiting to go?" She fought to keep +the terror out of her voice, but it had her by the throat. "Oh, no, +no--you can't--not again! Jerry, Jerry, don't go away and leave +me--truly and truly I can't stand it--truly!" + +She wrung her hands together desperately; she was on her knees to +him--did he wish her to go lower still? Oh, she had never learned to +beg! + +"I can't send you away again--I can't. When I sent you to France I +killed my heart--when I let you go to death, I crucified my soul. I +haven't anything left but my pride--you can have that, too. I can't +send you back to your heaven. Stay with me--stay with me, Jerry!" + +Not a sound--not a stir--but well she knew that he was standing there, +waiting. She rose slowly to her feet. + +"Very well--you've won," she said hardly. "Go back to your saints and +seraphs and angels; I'm beaten. I was mad to think that you ever +cared--go back!" She turned, stumbling, the sobs tearing at her +throat; he had gone several steps before she realized that he was +following her--and all the hardness and bitterness and despair fell +from her like a cloak. + +"Oh, Jerry," she whispered, "Jerry, darling, I'm so sorry. And +you've come so far--just to find this! What is it that you want; +can't you tell me?" + +She stood tense and still, straining eyes and ears for her +answer--but it was not to eyes or ears that it came. + +"Oh, of course!" she cried clearly. "Of course, my wanderer! Ready?" + +She stood poised for a second, head thrown back, arms flung wide--a +small figure of Victory, caught in the flying wind. + +And, "Contact, Jerry!" she called joyously into the darkness. +"Contact!" + +There was a mighty whirring, a thunder and a roaring above the storm. +She stood listening breathlessly to it rise and swell--and then grow +fainter--fainter still--dying, dying--dying-- + +But Janie, her small white face turned to the storm-swept sky behind +which shone the stars, was smiling radiantly. For she had sped her +wanderer on his way--she had not failed him! + + + + +THE CAMEL'S BACK + + +BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + +From _The Saturday Evening Post_ + +The restless, wearied eye of the tired magazine reader resting for a +critical second on the above title will judge it to be merely +metaphorical. Stories about the cup and the lip and the bad penny +and the new broom rarely have anything to do with cups and lips and +pennies and brooms. This story is the great exception. It has to do +with an actual, material, visible and large-as-life camel's back. + +Starting from the neck we shall work tailward. Meet Mr. Perry +Parkhurst, twenty-eight, lawyer, native of Toledo. Perry has nice +teeth, a Harvard education, and parts his hair in the middle. You +have met him before--in Cleveland, Portland, St. Paul, Indianapolis, +Kansas City and elsewhere. Baker Brothers, New York, pause on their +semi-annual trip through the West to clothe him; Montmorency & Co., +dispatch a young man posthaste every three months to see that he has +the correct number of little punctures on his shoes. He has a +domestic roadster now, will have a French roadster if he lives long +enough, and doubtless a Chinese one if it comes into fashion. He +looks like the advertisement of the young man rubbing his +sunset-coloured chest with liniment, goes East every year to the +Harvard reunion--does everything--smokes a little too much--Oh, +you've seen him. + +Meet his girl. Her name is Betty Medill, and she would take well in +the movies. Her father gives her two hundred a month to dress on and +she has tawny eyes and hair, and feather fans of three colours. Meet +her father, Cyrus Medill. Though he is to all appearances flesh and +blood he is, strange to say, commonly known in Toledo as the +Aluminum Man. But when he sits in his club window with two or three +Iron Men and the White Pine Man and the Brass Man they look very +much as you and I do, only more so, if you know what I mean. + +Meet the camel's back--or no--don't meet the camel's back yet. Meet +the story. + +During the Christmas holidays of 1919, the first real Christmas +holidays since the war, there took place in Toledo, counting only +the people with the italicized _the_, forty-one dinner parties, +sixteen dances, six luncheons male and female, eleven luncheons +female, twelve teas, four stag dinners, two weddings and thirteen +bridge parties. It was the cumulative effect of all this that moved +Perry Parkhurst on the twenty-ninth day of December to a desperate +decision. + +Betty Medill would marry him and she wouldn't marry him. She was +having such a good time that she hated to take such a definite step. +Meanwhile, their secret engagement had got so long that it seemed as +if any day it might break off of its own weight. A little man named +Warburton, who knew it all, persuaded Perry to superman her, to get +a marriage license and go up to the Medill house and tell her she'd +have to marry him at once or call it off forever. This is some +stunt--but Perry tried it on December the twenty-ninth. He presented +self, heart, license, and ultimatum, and within five minutes they +were in the midst of a violent quarrel, a burst of sporadic open +fighting such as occurs near the end of all long wars and engagements. +It brought about one of those ghastly lapses in which two people who +are in love pull up sharp, look at each other coolly and think it's +all been a mistake. Afterward they usually kiss wholesomely and +assure the other person it was all their fault. Say it all was my +fault! Say it was! I want to hear you say it! + +But while reconciliation was trembling in the air, while each was, +in a measure, stalling it off, so that they might the more +voluptuously and sentimentally enjoy it when it came, they were +permanently interrupted by a twenty-minute phone call for Betty from +a garrulous aunt who lived in the country. At the end of eighteen +minutes Perry Parkhurst, torn by pride and suspicion and urged on by +injured dignity, put on his long fur coat, picked up his light brown +soft hat and stalked out the door. + +"It's all over," he muttered brokenly as he tried to jam his car +into first. "It's all over--if I have to choke you for an hour, darn +you!" This last to the car, which had been standing some time and +was quite cold. + +He drove downtown--that is, he got into a snow rut that led him +downtown. + +He sat slouched down very low in his seat, much too dispirited to +care where he went. He was living over the next twenty years without +Betty. + +In front of the Clarendon Hotel he was hailed from the sidewalk by a +bad man named Baily, who had big huge teeth and lived at the hotel +and had never been in love. + +"Perry," said the bad man softly when the roadster drew up beside +him at the curb, "I've got six quarts of the dog-gonedest champagne +you ever tasted. A third of it's yours, Perry, if you'll come +upstairs and help Martin Macy and me drink it." + +"Baily," said Perry tensely. "I'll drink your champagne. I'll drink +every drop of it. I don't care if it kills me. I don't care if it's +fifty-proof wood alcohol." + +"Shut up, you nut!" said the bad man gently. "They don't put wood +alcohol in champagne. This is the stuff that proves the world is +more than six thousand years old. It's so ancient that the cork is +petrified. You have to pull it with a stone drill." + +"Take me upstairs," said Perry moodily. "If that cork sees my heart +it'll fall out from pure mortification." + +The room upstairs was full of those innocent hotel pictures of +little girls eating apples and sitting in swings and talking to dogs. +The other decorations were neckties and a pink man reading a pink +paper devoted to ladies in pink tights. + +"When you have to go into the highways and byways--" said the pink +man, looking reproachfully at Baily and Perry. + +"Hello, Martin Macy," said Perry shortly, "where's this stone-age +champagne?" + +"What's the rush? This isn't an operation, understand. This is a +party." + +Perry sat down dully and looked disapprovingly at all the neckties. + +Baily leisurely opened the door of a wardrobe and brought out six +wicked-looking bottles and three glasses. + +"Take off that darn fur coat!" said Martin Macy to Perry. "Or maybe +you'd like to have us open all the windows." "Give me champagne," +said Perry. + +"Going to the Townsends' circus ball to-night?" + +"Am not!" + +"'Vited?" + +"Uh-huh." + +"Why not go?" + +"Oh, I'm sick of parties," exclaimed Perry, "I'm sick of 'em. I've +been to so many that I'm sick of 'em." + +"Maybe you're going to the Howard Tates' party?" + +"No, I tell you; I'm sick of 'em." + +"Well," said Macy consolingly, "the Tates' is just for college kids +anyway." + +"I tell you--" + +"I thought you'd be going to one of 'em anyways. I see by the papers +you haven't missed a one this Christmas." + +"Hm," grunted Perry morosely. + +He would never go to any more parties. Classical phrases played in +his mind--that side of his life was closed, closed. Now when a man +says "closed, closed" like that, you can be pretty sure that some +woman has double-closed him, so to speak. Perry was also thinking +that other classical thought, about how cowardly suicide is. A noble +thought that one--warm and uplifting. Think of all the fine men we +should lose if suicide were not so cowardly! + +An hour later was six o'clock, and Perry had lost all resemblance to +the young man in the liniment advertisement. He looked like a rough +draft fur a riotous cartoon. They were singing--an impromptu song of +Baily's improvisation: + + + _One Lump Perry, the parlour snake, + Famous through the city for the way he drinks his tea; + Plays with it, toys with it, + Makes no noise with it, + Balanced on a napkin on his well-trained knee_. + + +"Trouble is," said Perry, who had just banged his hair with Bailey's +comb and was tying an orange tie round it to get the effect of +Julius Caesar, "that you fellas can't sing worth a damn. Soon's I +leave th' air an' start singin' tenor you start singin' tenor too." + +"'M a natural tenor," said Macy gravely. "Voice lacks cultivation, +tha's all. Gotta natural voice, m'aunt used say. Naturally good +singer." + +"Singers, singers, all good singers," remarked Baily, who was at the +telephone. "No, not the cabaret; I want night clerk. I mean +refreshment clerk or some dog-gone clerk 'at's got food--food! I +want----" + +"Julius Caesar," announced Perry, turning round from the mirror. +"Man of iron will and stern 'termination." + +"Shut up!" yelled Baily. "Say, iss Mr. Baily. Sen' up enormous supper. +Use y'own judgment. Right away." + +He connected the receiver and the hook with some difficulty and then +with his lips closed and an air of solemn intensity in his eyes went +to the lower drawer of his dresser and pulled it open. + +"Lookit!" he commanded. In his hands he held a truncated garment of +pink gingham. + +"Pants," he explained gravely. "Lookit!" This was a pink blouse, a +red tie and a Buster Brown collar. + +"Lookit!" he repeated. "Costume for the Townsends' circus ball. I'm +li'l' boy carries water for the elephants." + +Perry was impressed in spite of himself. + +"I'm going to be Julius Caesar," he announced after a moment of +concentration. + +"Thought you weren't going!" said Macy. + +"Me? Sure, I'm goin'. Never miss a party. Good for the nerves--like +celery." + +"Caesar!" scoffed Baily. "Can't be Caesar! He's not about a circus. +Caesar's Shakespeare. Go as a clown." + +Perry shook his head. + +"Nope; Caesar." + +"Caesar?" + +"Sure. Chariot." + +Light dawned on Baily. + +"That's right. Good idea." + +Perry looked round the room searchingly. + +"You lend me a bathrobe and this tie," he said finally. + +Baily considered. + +"No good." + +"Sure, tha's all I need. Caesar was a savage. They can't kick if I +come as Caesar if he was a savage." + +"No," said Baily, shaking his head slowly. "Get a costume over at a +costumer's. Over at Nolak's." + +"Closed up." + +"Find out." + +After a puzzling five minutes at the phone a small, weary voice +managed to convince Perry that it was Mr. Nolak speaking, and that +they would remain open until eight because of the Townsends' ball. +Thus assured, Perry ate a great amount of filet mignon and drank his +third of the last bottle of champagne. At eight-fifteen the man in +the tall hat who stands in front of the Clarendon found him trying +to start his roadster. + +"Froze up," said Perry wisely. "The cold froze it. The cold air." + +"Froze, eh?" + +"Yes. Cold air froze it." + +"Can't start it?" + +"Nope. Let it stand here till summer. One those hot ole August +days'll thaw it out awright." + +"Goin' let it stand?" + +"Sure. Let 'er stand. Take a hot thief to steal it. Gemme taxi." + +The man in the tall hat summoned a taxi. + +"Where to, mister?" + +"Go to Nolak's--costume fella." + + + + +II + +Mrs. Nolak was short and ineffectual looking, and on the cessation +of the world war had belonged for a while to one of the new +nationalities. Owing to the unsettled European conditions she had +never since been quite sure what she was. The shop in which she and +her husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly and +peopled with suits of armour and Chinese mandarins and enormous +papier-mâché birds suspended from the ceiling. In a vague background +many rows of masks glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were +glass cases full of crowns and scepters and jewels and enormous +stomachers and paints and powders and crape hair and face creams and +wigs of all colours. + +When Perry ambled into the shop Mrs. Nolak was folding up the last +troubles of a strenuous day, so she thought, in a drawer full of +pink silk stockings. + +"Something for you?" she queried pessimistically. + +"Want costume of Julius Hur, the charioteer." + +Mrs. Nolak was sorry, but every stitch of charioteer had been rented +long ago. Was it for the Townsends' circus ball? + +It was. + +"Sorry," she said, "but I don't think there's anything left that's +really circus." + +This was an obstacle. + +"Hm," said Perry. An idea struck him suddenly. "If you've got a piece +of canvas I could go's a tent." + +"Sorry, but we haven't anything like that. A hardware store is where +you'd have to go to. We have some very nice Confederate soldiers." + +"No, no soldiers." + +"And I have a very handsome king." + +He shook his head. + +"Several of the gentlemen," she continued hopefully, "are wearing +stovepipe hats and swallow-tail coats and going as ringmasters--but +we're all out of tall hats. I can let you have some crape hair for a +moustache." + +"Wantsomep'm 'stinctive." + +"Something--let's see. Well, we have a lion's head, and a goose, and +a camel--" + +"Camel?" The idea seized Perry's imagination, gripped it fiercely. + +"Yes, but it needs two people." + +"Camel. That's an idea. Lemme see it." + +The camel was produced from his resting place on a top shelf. At +first glance he appeared to consist entirely of a very gaunt, +cadaverous head and a sizable hump, but on being spread out he was +found to possess a dark brown, unwholesome-looking body made of thick, +cottony cloth. + +"You see it takes two people," explained Mrs. Nolak, holding the +camel up in frank admiration. "If you have a friend he could be part +of it. You see there's sorta pants for two people. One pair is for +the fella in front and the other pair for the fella in back. The +fella in front does the lookin' out through these here eyes an' the +fella in back he's just gotta stoop over an' folla the front fella +round." + +"Put it on," commanded Perry. + +Obediently Mrs. Nolak put her tabby-cat face inside the camel's head +and turned it from side to side ferociously. + +Perry was fascinated. + +"What noise does a camel make?" + +"What?" asked Mrs. Nolak as her face emerged, somewhat smudgy. +"Oh, what noise? Why, he sorta brays." + +"Lemme see it in a mirror." + +Before a wide mirror Perry tried on the head and turned from side to +side appraisingly. In the dim light the effect was distinctly +pleasing. The camel's face was a study in pessimism, decorated with +numerous abrasions, and it must be admitted that his coat was in +that state of general negligence peculiar to camels--in fact, he +needed to be cleaned and pressed--but distinctive he certainly was. +He was majestic. He would have attracted attention in any gathering +if only by his melancholy cast of feature and the look of pensive +hunger lurking round his shadowy eyes. + +"You see you have to have two people," said Mrs. Nolak again. + +Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and wrapped them +about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The +effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent--like one of +those medieval pictures of a monk changed into a beast by the +ministrations of Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a +humpbacked cow sitting on her haunches among blankets. + +"Don't look like anything at all," objected Perry gloomily. + +"No," said Mrs. Nolak; "you see you got to have two people." + +A solution flashed upon Perry. + +"You got a date to-night?" + +"Oh, I couldn't possibly--" + +"Oh, come on," said Perry encouragingly. "Sure you can! Here! Be a +good sport and climb into these hind legs." + +With difficulty he located them and extended their yawning depths +ingratiatingly. But Mrs. Nolak seemed loath. She backed perversely +away. + +"Oh, no--" + +"C'm on! Why, you can be the front if you want to. Or we'll flip a +coin." + +"Oh, no--" + +"Make it worth your while." + +Mrs. Nolak set her lips firmly together. + +"Now you just stop!" she said with no coyness implied. "None of the +gentlemen ever acted up this way before. My husband--" + +"You got a husband?" demanded Perry. "Where is he?" + +"He's home." + +"Wha's telephone number?" + +After considerable parley he obtained the telephone number +pertaining to the Nolak penates and got into communication with that +small, weary voice he had heard once before that day. But Mr. Nolak, +though taken off his guard and somewhat confused by Perry's +brilliant flow of logic, stuck staunchly to his point. He refused +firmly but with dignity to help out Mr. Parkhurst in the capacity of +back part of a camel. + +Having rung off, or rather having been rung off on, Perry sat down +on a three-legged stool to think it over. He named over to himself +those friends on whom he might call, and then his mind paused as +Betty Medill's name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He had a +sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love affair was over, +but she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much +to ask--to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one +short night. And if she insisted she could be the front part of the +camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His +mind even turned to rosy-coloured dreams of a tender reconciliation +inside the camel--there hidden away from all the world. + +"Now you'd better decide right off." + +The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his mellow fancies +and roused him to action. He went to the phone and called up the +Medill house. Miss Betty was out; had gone out to dinner. + +Then, when all seemed lost, the camel's back wandered curiously into +the store. He was a dilapidated individual with a cold in his head +and a general trend about him of downwardness. His cap was pulled +down low on his head, and his chin was pulled down low on his chest, +his coat hung down to his shoes, he looked run-down, down at the +heels, and--Salvation Army to the contrary--down and out. He said +that he was the taxicab driver that the gentleman had hired at the +Clarendon Hotel. He had been instructed to wait outside, but he had +waited some time and a suspicion had grown upon him that the +gentleman had gone out the back way with purpose to defraud +him--gentlemen sometimes did--so he had come in. He sank down on to +the three-legged stool. + +"Wanta go to a party?" demanded Perry sternly. + +"I gotta work," answered the taxi driver lugubriously. "I gotta keep +my job." + +"It's a very good party." + +"'S a very good job." + +"Come on!" urged Perry. "Be a good fella. See--it's pretty!" He held +the camel up and the taxi driver looked at it cynically. + +"Huh!" + +Perry searched feverishly among the folds of the cloth. + +"See!" he cried enthusiastically, holding up a selection of folds. +"This is your part. You don't even have to talk. All you have to do +is to walk--and sit down occasionally. You do all the sitting down. +Think of it. I'm on my feet all the time and you can sit down some +of the time. The only time I can sit down is when we're lying down, +and you can sit down when--oh, any time. See?" + +"What's 'at thing?" demanded the individual dubiously "A shroud?" + +"Not at all," said Perry hurriedly. "It's a camel." + +"Huh?" + +Then Perry mentioned a sum of money, and the conversation left the +land of grunts and assumed a practical tinge. Perry and the taxi +driver tried on the camel in front of the mirror. + +"You can't see it," explained Perry, peering anxiously out through +the eyeholes, "but honestly, ole man, you look sim'ly great! Honestly!" + +A grunt from the hump acknowledged this somewhat dubious compliment. + +"Honestly, you look great!" repeated Perry enthusiastically. +"Move round a little." + +The hind legs moved forward, giving the effect of a huge cat-camel +hunching his back preparatory to a spring. + +"No; move sideways." + +The camel's hips went neatly out of joint; a hula dancer would have +writhed in envy. + +"Good, isn't it?" demanded Perry, turning to Mrs. Nolak for approval. + +"It looks lovely," agreed Mrs. Nolak. + +"We'll take it," said Perry. + +The bundle was safely stowed under Perry's arm and they left the shop. + +"Go to the party!" he commanded as he took his seat in the back. + +"What party?" + +"Fanzy-dress party." + +"Where 'bouts is it?" + +This presented a new problem. Perry tried to remember, but the names +of all those who had given parties during the holidays danced +confusedly before his eyes. He could ask Mrs. Nolak, but on looking +out the window he saw that the shop was dark. Mrs. Nolak had already +faded out, a little black smudge far down the snowy street. + +"Drive uptown," directed Perry with fine confidence. "If you see a +party, stop. Otherwise I'll tell you when we get there." + +He fell into a hazy daydream and his thoughts wandered again to +Betty--he imagined vaguely that they had had a disagreement because +she refused to go to the party as the back part of the camel. He was +just slipping off into a chilly doze when he was wakened by the taxi +driver opening the door and shaking him by the arm. + +"Here we are, maybe." + +Perry looked out sleepily. A striped awning led from the curb up to +a spreading gray stone house, from inside which issued the low +drummy whine of expensive jazz. He recognized the Howard Tate house. + +"Sure," he said emphatically; "'at's it! Tate's party to-night. Sure, +everybody's goin'." + +"Say," said the individual anxiously after another look at the awning, +"you sure these people ain't gonna romp on me for comin' here?" + +Perry drew himself up with dignity. + +"'F anybody says anything to you, just tell 'em you're part of my +costume." + +The visualization of himself as a thing rather than a person seemed +to reassure the individual, + +"All right," he said reluctantly. + +Perry stepped out under the shelter of the awning and began +unrolling the camel. + +"Let's go," he commanded. + +Several minutes later a melancholy, hungry-looking camel, emitting +clouds of smoke from his mouth and from the tip of his noble hump, +might have been seen crossing the threshold of the Howard Tate +residence, passing a startled footman without so much as a snort, +and leading directly for the main stairs that led up to the ballroom. +The beast walked with a peculiar gait which varied between an +uncertain lockstep and a stampede--but can best be described by the +word "halting." The camel had a halting gait--and as he walked he +alternately elongated and contracted like a gigantic concertina. + + + + +III + +The Howard Tates are, as everyone who lives in Toledo knows, the +most formidable people in town. Mrs. Howard Tate was a Chicago Todd +before she became a Toledo Tate, and the family generally affect +that conscious simplicity which has begun to be the earmark of +American aristocracy. The Tates have reached the stage where they +talk about pigs and farms and look at you icy-eyed if you are not +amused. They have begun to prefer retainers rather than friends as +dinner guests, spend a lot of money in a quiet way and, having lost +all sense of competition, are in process of growing quite dull. + +The dance this evening was for little Millicent Tate, and though +there was a scattering of people of all ages present the dancers +were mostly from school and college--the younger married crowd was +at the Townsends' circus ball up at the Tallyho Club. Mrs. Tate was +standing just inside the ballroom, following Millicent round with +her eyes and beaming whenever she caught her eye. Beside her were +two middle-aged sycophants who were saying what a perfectly exquisite +child Millicent was. It was at this moment that Mrs. Tate was +grasped firmly by the skirt and her youngest daughter, Emily, aged +eleven, hurled herself with an "Oof--!" into her mother's arms. + +"Why, Emily, what's the trouble?" + +"Mamma," said Emily, wild-eyed but voluble, "there's something out +on the stairs." + +"What?" + +"There's a thing out on the stairs, mamma. I think it's a big dog, +mamma, but it doesn't look like a dog." + +"What do you mean, Emily?" + +The sycophants waved their heads and hemmed sympathetically. + +"Mamma, it looks like a--like a camel." + +Mrs. Tate laughed. + +"You saw a mean old shadow, dear, that's all." + +"No, I didn't. No, it was some kind of thing, mamma--big. I was +downstairs going to see if there were any more people and this dog +or something, he was coming upstairs. Kinda funny, mamma, like he +was lame. And then he saw me and gave a sort of growl and then he +slipped at the top of the landing and I ran." + +Mrs. Tate's laugh faded. + +"The child must have seen something," she said. + +The sycophants agreed that the child must have seen something--and +suddenly all three women took an instinctive step away from the door +as the sounds of muffled footsteps were audible just outside. + +And then three startled gasps rang out as a dark brown form rounded +the corner and they saw what was apparently a huge beast looking +down at them hungrily. + +"Oof!" cried Mrs. Tate. + +"O-o-oh!" cried the ladies in a chorus. + +The camel suddenly humped his back, and the gasps turned to shrieks. + +"Oh--look!" + +"What is it?" + +The dancing stopped, but the dancers hurrying over got quite a +different impression of the invader from that of the ladies by the +door; in fact, the young people immediately suspected that it was a +stunt, a hired entertainer come to amuse the party. The boys in long +trousers looked at it rather disdainfully and sauntered over with +their hands in their pockets, feeling that their intelligence was +being insulted. But the girls ran over with much handclapping and +many little shouts of glee. + +"It's a camel!" + +"Well, if he isn't the funniest!" + +The camel stood there uncertainly, swaying slightly from side to +side and seeming to take in the room in a careful, appraising glance; +then as if he had come to an abrupt decision he turned and ambled +swiftly out the door. + +Mr. Howard Tate had just come out of his den on the lower floor and +was standing chatting with a good-looking young man in the hall. +Suddenly they heard the noise of shouting upstairs and almost +immediately a succession of bumping sounds, followed by the +precipitous appearance at the foot of the stairway of a large brown +beast who seemed to be going somewhere in a great hurry. + +"Now what the devil!" said Mr. Tate, starting. + +The beast picked itself up with some dignity and affecting an air of +extreme nonchalance, as if he had just remembered an important +engagement, started at a mixed gait toward the front door. In fact, +his front legs began casually to run. + +"See here now," said Mr. Tate sternly. "Here! Grab it, Butterfield! +Grab it!" + +The young man enveloped the rear of the camel in a pair of brawny +arms, and evidently realizing that further locomotion was quite +impossible the front end submitted to capture and stood resignedly +in a state of some agitation. By this time a flood of young people +was pouring downstairs, and Mr. Tate, suspecting everything from an +ingenious burglar to an escaped lunatic, gave crisp directions to +the good-looking young man: + +"Hold him! Lead him in here; we'll soon see." + +The camel consented to be led into the den, and Mr. Tate, after +locking the door, took a revolver from a table drawer and instructed +the young man to take the thing's head off. Then he gasped and +returned the revolver to its hiding place. + +"Well, Perry Parkhurst!" he exclaimed in amazement. + +"'M in the wrong pew," said Perry sheepishly. "Got the wrong party, +Mr. Tate. Hope I didn't scare you." + +"Well--you gave us a thrill, Perry." Realization dawned on him. +"Why, of course; you're bound for the Townsends' circus ball." + +"That's the general idea." + +"Let me introduce Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Parkhurst. Parkhurst is our +most famous young bachelor here." Then turning to Perry: +"Butterfield is staying with us for a few days." + +"I got a little mixed up," mumbled Perry. "I'm very sorry." + +"Heavens, it's perfectly all right; most natural mistake in the world. +I've got a clown costume and I'm going down there myself after a +while. Silly idea for a man of my age." He turned to Butterfield. +"Better change your mind and come down with us." + +The good-looking young man demurred. He was going to bed. + +"Have a drink, Perry?" suggested Mr. Tate. + +"Thanks, I will." + +"And, say," continued Tate quickly, "I'd forgotten all about +your--friend here." He indicated the rear part of the camel. +"I didn't mean to seem discourteous. Is it any one I know? Bring him +out." + +"It's not a friend," explained Perry hurriedly. "I just rented him." + +"Does he drink?" + +"Do you?" demanded Perry, twisting himself tortuously round. + +There was a faint sound of assent. + +"Sure he does!" said Mr. Tate heartily. "A really efficient camel +ought to be able to drink enough so it'd last him three days." + +"Tell you, sir," said Perry anxiously, "he isn't exactly dressed up +enough to come out. If you give me the bottle I can hand it back to +him and he can take his inside." + +From under the cloth was audible the enthusiastic smacking sound +inspired by this suggestion. When a butler had appeared with bottles, +glasses, and siphon one of the bottles was handed back, and +thereafter the silent partner could be heard imbibing long potations +at frequent intervals. + +Thus passed a peaceful hour. At ten o'clock Mr. Tate decided that +they'd better be starting. He donned his clown's costume; Perry +replaced the camel's head with a sigh; side by side they progressed +on foot the single block between the Tate house and the Tallyho Club. + +The circus ball was in full swing. A great tent fly had been put up +inside the ballroom and round the walls had been built rows of +booths representing the various attractions of a circus side show, +but these were now vacated and on the floor swarmed a shouting, +laughing medley of youth and colour--clowns, bearded ladies, acrobats, +bareback riders, ringmasters, tattooed men and charioteers. The +Townsends had determined to assure their party of success, so a +great quantity of liquor had been surreptitiously brought over from +their house in automobiles and it was flowing freely. A green ribbon +ran along the wall completely round the ballroom, with pointing +arrows alongside of it and signs which instructed the uninitiated to +"Follow the green line'" The green line led down to the bar, where +waited pure punch and wicked punch and plain dark-green bottles. + +On the wall above the bar was another arrow, red and very wavy, and +under it the slogan: "Now follow this!" + +But even amid the luxury of costume and high spirits represented +there the entrance of the camel created something of a stir, and +Perry was immediately surrounded by a curious, laughing crowd who +were anxious to penetrate the identity of this beast who stood by +the wide doorway eyeing the dancers with his hungry, melancholy gaze. + +And then Perry saw Betty. She was standing in front of a booth +talking to a group of clowns, comic policemen and ringmasters. She +was dressed in the costume of an Egyptian snake charmer, a costume +carried out to the smallest detail. Her tawny hair was braided and +drawn through brass rings, the effect crowned with a glittering +Oriental tiara. Her fair face was stained to a warm olive glow and +on her bare arms and the half moon of her back writhed painted +serpents with single eyes of venomous green. Her feet were in +sandals and her skirt was slit to the knees, so that when she walked +one caught a glimpse of other slim serpents painted just above her +bare ankles. Wound about her neck was a huge, glittering, +cotton-stuffed cobra, and her bracelets were in the form of tiny +garter snakes. Altogether a very charming and beautiful costume--one +that made the more nervous among the older women shrink away from +her when she passed, and the more troublesome ones to make great +talk about "shouldn't be allowed" and "perfectly disgraceful." + +But Perry, peering through the uncertain eyes of the camel, saw only +her face, radiant, animated and glowing with excitement, and her arms +and shoulders, whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the +outstanding figure in any gathering. He was fascinated and his +fascination exercised a strangely sobering effect on him. With a +growing clarity the events of the day came back--he had lost forever +this shimmering princess in emerald green and black. Rage rose +within him, and with a half-formed intention of taking her away from +the crowd he started toward her--or rather he elongated slightly, +for he had neglected to issue the preparatory command necessary to +locomotion. + +But at this point fickle Kismet, who for a day had played with him +bitterly and sardonically, decided to reward him in full for the +amusement he had afforded her. Kismet turned the tawny eyes of the +snake charmer to the camel. Kismet led her to lean toward the man +beside her and say, "Who's that? That camel?" + +They all gazed. + +"Darned if I know." + +But a little man named Warburton, who knew it all, found it +necessary to hazard an opinion: + +"It came in with Mr. Tate. I think it's probably Warren Butterfield, +the architect, who's visiting the Tates." + +Something stirred in Betty Medill--that age-old interest of the +provincial girl in the visiting man. + +"Oh," she said casually after a slight pause. + +At the end of the next dance Betty and her partner finished up +within a few feet of the camel. With the informal audacity that was +the keynote of the evening she reached out and gently rubbed the +camel's nose. + +"Hello, old camel." + +The camel stirred uneasily. + +"You 'fraid of me?" said Betty, lifting her eyebrows in mock reproof. +"Don't be. You see I'm a snake charmer, but I'm pretty good at +camels too." + +The camel bowed very low and the groups round laughed and made the +obvious remark about the beauty and the beast. + +Mrs. Townsend came bustling up. + +"Well, Mr. Butterfield," she beamed, "I wouldn't have recognized you." + +Perry bowed again and smiled gleefully behind his mask. + +"And who is this with you?" she inquired. + +"Oh," said Perry in a disguised voice, muffled by the thick +cloth and quite unrecognizable, "he isn't a fellow, Mrs. Townsend. +He's just part of my costume." + +This seemed to get by, for Mrs. Townsend laughed and bustled away. +Perry turned again to Betty. + +"So," he thought, "this is how much she cares! On the very day of +our final rupture she starts a flirtation with another man--an +absolute stranger." + +On an impulse he gave her a soft nudge with his shoulder and waved +his head suggestively toward the hall, making it clear that he +desired her to leave her partner and accompany him. Betty seemed +quite willing. + +"By-by, Bobby," she called laughingly to her partner. "This old +camel's got me. Where are we going, Prince of Beasts?" + +The noble animal made no rejoinder, but stalked gravely along in the +direction of a secluded nook on the side stairs. + +There Betty seated herself, and the camel, after some seconds of +confusion which included gruff orders and sounds of a heated dispute +going on in his interior, placed himself beside her, his hind legs +stretching out uncomfortably across two steps. + +"Well, camel," said Betty cheerfully, "how do you like our happy +party?" + +The camel indicated that he liked it by rolling his head +ecstatically and executing a gleeful kick with his hoofs. + +"This is the first time that I ever had a tête-à-tête with a man's +valet round"--she pointed to the hind legs--"or whatever that is." + +"Oh," said Perry, "he's deaf and blind. Forget about him." + +"That sure is some costume! But I should think you'd feel rather +handicapped--you can't very well shimmy, even if you want to." + +The camel hung his head lugubriously. + +"I wish you'd say something," continued Betty sweetly. "Say you like +me, camel. Say you think I'm pretty. Say you'd like to belong to a +pretty snake charmer." + +The camel would. + +"Will you dance with me, camel?" + +The camel would try. + +Betty devoted half an hour to the camel. She devoted at least half +an hour to all visiting men. It was usually sufficient. When she +approached a new man the current débutantes were accustomed to +scatter right and left like a close column deploying before a +machine gun. And so to Perry Parkhurst was awarded the unique +privilege of seeing his love as others saw her. He was flirted with +violently! + + + + +IV + + +This paradise of frail foundation was broken into by the sound of a +general ingress to the ballroom; the cotillion was beginning. Betty +and the camel joined the crowd, her brown hand resting lightly on +his shoulder, defiantly symbolizing her complete adoption of him. + +When they entered, the couples were already seating themselves at +tables round the walls, and Mrs. Townsend, resplendent as a super +bareback rider with rather too rotund calves, was standing in the +centre with the ringmaster who was in charge of arrangements. At a +signal to the band everyone rose and began to dance. + +"Isn't it just slick!" breathed Betty. + +"You bet!" said the camel. + +"Do you think you can possibly dance?" + +Perry nodded enthusiastically. He felt suddenly exuberant. After all, +he was here incognito talking to his girl--he felt like winking +patronizingly at the world. + +"I think it's the best idea," cried Betty, "to give a party like this! +I don't see how they ever thought of it. Come on, let's dance!" + +So Perry danced the cotillion. I say danced, but that is stretching +the word far beyond the wildest dreams of the jazziest terpsichorean. +He suffered his partner to put her hands on his helpless shoulders +and pull him here and there gently over the floor while he hung his +huge head docilely over her shoulder and made futile dummy motions +with his feet. His hind legs danced in a manner all their own, +chiefly by hopping first on one foot and then on the other. Never +being sure whether dancing was going on or not, the hind legs played +safe by going through a series of steps whenever the music started +playing. So the spectacle was frequently presented of the front part +of the camel standing at ease and the rear keeping up a constant +energetic motion calculated to rouse a sympathetic perspiration in +any soft-hearted observer. + +He was frequently favoured. He danced first with a tall lady covered +with straw who announced jovially that she was a bale of hay and +coyly begged him not to eat her. + +"I'd like to; you're so sweet," said the camel gallantly. + +Each time the ringmaster shouted his call of "Men up!" he lumbered +ferociously for Betty with the cardboard wiener-wurst or the +photograph of the bearded lady or whatever the favour chanced to be. +Sometimes he reached her first, but usually his rushes were +unsuccessful and resulted in intense interior arguments. + +"For heaven's sake," Perry would snarl fiercely between his clenched +teeth, "get a little pep! I could have gotten her that time if you'd +picked your feet up." + +"Well, gimme a little warnin'!" + +"I did, darn you." + +"I can't see a dog-gone thing in here." + +"All you have to do is follow me. It's just like dragging a load of +sand round to walk with you." + +"Maybe you wanta try back here." + +"You shut up! If these people found you in this room they'd give you +the worst beating you ever had. They'd take your taxi license away +from you!" + +Perry surprised himself by the ease with which he made this +monstrous threat, but it seemed to have a soporific influence on his +companion, for he muttered an "aw gwan" and subsided into abashed +silence. + +The ringmaster mounted to the top of the piano and waved his hand +for silence. + +"Prizes!" he cried. "Gather round!" + +"Yea! Prizes!" + +Self-consciously the circle swayed forward. The rather pretty girl +who had mustered the nerve to come as a bearded lady trembled with +excitement, hoping to be rewarded for an evening's hideousness. The +man who had spent the afternoon having tattoo marks painted on him +by a sign painter skulked on the edge of the crowd, blushing +furiously when any one told him he was sure to get it. + +"Lady and gent performers of the circus," announced the ringmaster +jovially, "I am sure we will all agree that a good time has been had +by all. We will now bestow honour where honour is due by bestowing +the prizes. Mrs. Townsend has asked me to bestow the prizes. Now, +fellow performers, the first prize is for that lady who has +displayed this evening the most striking, becoming"--at this point +the bearded lady sighed resignedly--"and original costume." Here the +bale of hay pricked up her ears. "Now I am sure that the decision +which has been decided upon will be unanimous with all here present. +The first prize goes to Miss Betty Medill, the charming Egyptian +snake charmer." + +There was a great burst of applause, chiefly masculine, and +Miss Betty Medill, blushing beautifully through her olive paint, +was passed up to receive her award. With a tender glance the +ringmaster handed down to her a huge bouquet of orchids. + +"And now," he continued, looking round him, "the other prize is for +that man who has the most amusing and original costume. This prize +goes without dispute to a guest in our midst, a gentleman who is +visiting here but whose stay we will hope will be long and merry--in +short to the noble camel who has entertained us all by his hungry +look and his brilliant dancing throughout the evening." + +He ceased and there was a hearty burst of applause, for it was a +popular choice. The prize, a huge box of cigars, was put aside for +the camel, as he was anatomically unable to accept it in person. + +"And now," continued the ringmaster, "we will wind up the cotillion +with the marriage of Mirth to Folly! + +"Form for the grand wedding march, the beautiful snake charmer and +the noble camel in front!" + +Betty skipped forward cheerily and wound an olive arm round the +camel's neck. Behind them formed the procession of little boys, +little girls, country Jakes, policemen, fat ladies, thin men, sword +swallowers, wild men of Borneo, armless wonders and charioteers, +some of them well in their cups, all of them excited and happy and +dazzled by the flow of light and colour round them and by the +familiar faces strangely unfamiliar under bizarre wigs and barbaric +paint. The voluminous chords of the wedding march done in mad +syncopation issued in a delirious blend from the saxophones and +trombones--and the march began. + +"Aren't you glad, camel?" demanded Betty sweetly as they stepped off. +"Aren't you glad we're going to be married and you're going to +belong to the nice snake charmer ever afterward?" + +The camel's front legs pranced, expressing exceeding joy. + +"Minister, minister! Where's the minister?" cried voices out of the +revel. "Who's going to be the cler-gy-man?" + +The head of Jumbo, rotund negro waiter at the Tallyho Club for many +years, appeared rashly through a half-opened pantry door. + +"Oh, Jumbo!" + +"Get old Jumbo. He's the fella!" + +"Come on, Jumbo. How 'bout marrying us a couple?" + +"Yea!" + +Jumbo despite his protestations was seized by four brawny clowns, +stripped of his apron and escorted to a raised dais at the head of +the ball. There his collar was removed and replaced back side +forward to give him a sanctimonious effect. He stood there grinning +from ear to ear, evidently not a little pleased, while the parade +separated into two lines leaving an aisle for the bride and groom. + +"Lawdy, man," chuckled Jumbo, "Ah got ole Bible 'n' ev'ythin', sho +nuff." + +He produced a battered Bible from a mysterious interior + +"Yea. Old Jumbo's got a Bible!" + +"Razor, too, I'll bet!" + +"Marry 'em off, Jumbo!" + +Together the snake charmer and the camel ascended the cheering aisle +and stopped in front of Jumbo, who adopted a grave pontifical air. + +"Where's your license, camel?" + +"Make it legal, camel." + +A man near by prodded Perry. + +"Give him a piece of paper, camel. Anything'll do." + +Perry fumbled confusedly in his pocket, found a folded paper and +pushed it out through the camel's mouth. Holding it upside down +Jumbo pretended to scan it earnestly. + +"Dis yeah's a special camel's license," he said. "Get you ring ready, +camel." + +Inside the camel Perry turned round and addressed his latter half. + +"Gimme a ring, for Pete's sake!" + +"I ain't got none," protested a weary voice. + +"You have. I saw it." + +"I ain't goin' to take it offen my hand." + +"If you don't I'll kill you." + +There was a gasp and Perry felt a huge affair of rhinestone and +brass inserted into his hand. + +Again he was nudged from the outside. + +"Speak up!" + +"I do!" cried Perry quickly. + +He heard Betty's responses given in a laughing debonair tone, and +the sound of them even in this burlesque thrilled him. + +If it was only real! he thought. If it only was! + +Then he had pushed the rhinestone through a tear in the camel's coat +and was slipping it on her finger, muttering ancient and historic +words after Jumbo. He didn't want any one to know about this ever. +His one idea was to slip away without having to disclose his identity, +for Mr. Tate had so far kept his secret well. A dignified young man, +Perry--and this might injure his infant law practice. + +"Kiss her, camel!" + +"Embrace the bride!" + +"Unmask, camel, and kiss her!" + +Instinctively his heart beat high as Betty turned to him laughingly +and began playfully to stroke the cardboard muzzle. He felt his +self-control giving away, he longed to seize her in his arms and +declare his identity and kiss those scarlet lips that smiled +teasingly at him from only a foot away--when suddenly the laughter +and applause round them died away and a curious hush fell over the +hall. Perry and Betty looked up in surprise. Jumbo had given vent to +a huge "Hello!" in such a startled and amazed voice that all eyes +were bent on him. + +"Hello!" he said again. He had turned round the camel's marriage +license, which he had been holding upside down, produced spectacles +and was studying it intently. + +"Why," he exclaimed, and in the pervading silence his words were +heard plainly by everyone in the room, "this yeah's a sho-nuff +marriage permit." + +"What?" + +"Huh?" + +"Say it again, Jumbo!" + +"Sure you can read?" + +Jumbo waved them to silence and Perry's blood burned to fire in his +veins as he realized the break he had made. + +"Yassuh!" repeated Jumbo. "This yeah's a sho-nuff license, and the +pa'ties concerned one of 'em is dis yeah young lady, Miz Betty Medill, +and th' other's Mistah Perry Pa'khurst." + +There was a general gasp, and a low rumble broke out as all eyes +fell on the camel. Betty shrank away from him quickly, her tawny +eyes giving out sparks of fury. + +"Is you Mistah Pa'khurst, you camel?" + +Perry made no answer. The crowd pressed up closer and stared at him +as he stood frozen rigid with embarrassment, his cardboard face +still hungry and sardonic, regarding the ominous Jumbo. + +"You-all bettah speak up!" said Jumbo slowly, "this yeah's a mighty +serous mattah. Outside mah duties at this club ah happens to be a +sho-nuff minister in the Firs' Cullud Baptis' Church. It done look +to me as though you-all is gone an' got married." + + + +V + +The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the +Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, strong men swore, wild-eyed +débutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly +dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, +hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they +would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or someone and the Baptis' +preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur +lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, +ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any +hint or suspicion of prearrangement in what had occurred. + +On the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of +Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were +exchanging "all my fault's" volubly and voluminously. Outside on a +snow covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being +paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent +now to a grunt, now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild +pleadings that they'd just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously +attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most +exacting stage manager after one look at his face would have +acknowledged that any improvement in casting the part would have +been quite impossible. + +Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of the stage. +Betty Medill--or was it Betty Parkhurst?--weeping furiously, was +surrounded by the plainer girls--the prettier ones were too busy +talking about her to pay much attention to her--and over on the +other side of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his +head-piece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. Perry was +earnestly engaged in making protestations of his innocence to a ring +of angry, puzzled men. Every few minutes just as he had apparently +proved his case someone would mention the marriage certificate, and +the inquisition would begin again. + +A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second best belle of Toledo, +changed the gist of the situation by a remark she made to Betty. + +"Well," she said maliciously, "it'll all blow over, dear. The courts +will annul it without question." + +Betty's tears dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tightly +together, and she flashed a withering glance at Marion. Then she +rose and scattering her sympathizers right and left walked directly +across the room to Perry, who also rose and stood looking at her in +terror. Again silence crept down upon the room. + +"Will you have the decency," she said, "to grant me five minutes' +conversation--or wasn't that included in your plans?" + +He nodded, his mouth unable to form words. + +Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked out into the +hall with her chin uptilted and headed for the privacy of one of the +little card rooms. + +Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky halt by the +failure of his hind legs to function. + +"You stay here!" he commanded savagely. + +"I can't," whined a voice from the hump, "unless you get out first +and let me get out." + +Perry hesitated, but the curious crowd was unbearable, and unable +any longer to tolerate eyes he muttered a command and with as much +dignity as possible the camel moved carefully out on its four legs. + +Betty was waiting for him. + +"Well," she began furiously, "you see what you've done! You and that +crazy license! I told you, you shouldn't have gotten it! I told you!" + +"My dear girl, I----" + +"Don't dear-girl me! Save that for your real wife if you ever get +one after this disgraceful performance." + +"I----" + +"And don't try to pretend it wasn't all arranged. You know you gave +that coloured waiter money! You know you did! Do you mean to say you +didn't try to marry me?" + +"No--I mean, yes--of course----" + +"Yes, you'd better admit it! You tried it, and now what are you +going to do? Do you know my father's nearly crazy? It'll serve you +right if he tries to kill you. He'll take his gun and put some cold +steel in you. O-o-oh! Even if this marr--this thing can be annulled +it'll hang over me all the rest of my life!" + +Perry could not resist quoting softly: "'Oh, camel, wouldn't you +like to belong to the pretty snake charmer for all your----'" + +"Shut up!" cried Betty. + +There was a pause. + +"Betty," said Perry finally with a very faint hopefulness, "there's +only one thing to do that will really get us out clear. That's for +you to marry me." + +"Marry you!" + +"Yes. Really it's the only----" + +"You shut up! I wouldn't marry you if--if----" + +"I know. If I were the last man on earth. But if you care anything +about your reputation----" + +"Reputation!" she cried. "You're a nice one to think about my +reputation _now_. Why didn't you think about my reputation before +you hired that horrible Jumbo to--to----" + +Perry tossed up his hands hopelessly. + +"Very well. I'll do anything you want. Lord knows I renounce all +claims!" + +"But," said a new voice, "I don't." + +Perry and Betty started, and she put her hand to her heart. + +"For heaven's sake, what was that?" + +"It's me," said the camel's back. + +In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp +object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly +on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly before them. + +"Oh," cried Betty, tears starting again to her eyes, "you brought +that object in here to frighten me! You told me he was deaf--that +awful person!" + +The ex-camel's back sat down on a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. + +"Don't talk 'at way about me, lady. I ain't no person. I'm your +husband." + +"Husband!" + +The cry was wrung simultaneously from Betty and Perry. + +"Why, sure. I'm as much your husband as that gink is. The smoke +didn't marry you to the camel's front. He married you to the whole +camel. Why, that's my ring you got on your finger!" + +With a little cry she snatched the ring from her finger and flung it +passionately at the floor. + +"What's all this?" demanded Perry dazedly. + +"Jes' that you better fix me an' fix me right. If you don't I'm +a-gonna have the same claim you got to bein' married to her!" + +"That's bigamy," said Perry, turning gravely to Betty. + +Then came the supreme moment of Perry's early life, the ultimate +chance on which he risked his fortunes. He rose and looked first at +Betty, where she sat weakly, her face aghast at this new complication, +and then at the individual who swayed from side to side on his chair, +uncertainly yet menacingly. + +"Very well," said Perry slowly to the individual, "you can have her. +Betty, I'm going to prove to you that as far as I'm concerned our +marriage was entirely accidental. I'm going to renounce utterly my +rights to have you as my wife, and give you to--to the man whose +ring you wear--your lawful husband." + +There was a pause and four horror-stricken eyes were turned on him. + +"Good-by, Betty," he said brokenly. "Don't forget me in your +new-found happiness. I'm going to leave for the Far West on the +morning train. Think of me kindly, Betty." + +With a last glance at them he turned on his heel and his head bowed +on his chest as his hand touched the door knob. + +"Good-by," he repeated. He turned the door knob. + +But at these words a flying bundle of snakes and silk and tawny hair +hurled itself at him. + +"Oh, Perry, don't leave me! I can't face it alone! Perry, Perry, +take me with you!" + +Her tears rained down in a torrent and flowed damply on his neck. +Calmly he folded his arms about her. + +"I don't care," she cried tearfully. "I love you and if you can wake +up a minister at this hour and have it done over again I'll go West +with you." + +Over her shoulder the front part of the camel looked at the back +part of the camel--and they exchanged a particularly subtle, +esoteric sort of wink that only true camels can understand. + + + + +BREAK-NECK HILL + + +BY ESTHER FORBES + +From _The Grinnell Review_ + +Down Holly Street the tide had set in for church. It was a proper, +dilatory tide. Every silk-hat glistened, every shoe was blacked, the +flowers on the women's hats were as fresh as the daffodils against +the house fronts. Few met face to face, now and then a faster walker +would catch up with acquaintances and join them or, with a flash of +raised hat, bow, and pass on down the stream. + +Then the current met an obstacle. A man, young and graceful and very +much preoccupied, walked through the church-goers, faced in the +opposite direction. His riding breeches and boots showed in spite of +the loose overcoat worn to cover them. He bowed continually, like +royalty from a landau, almost as mechanically, and answered the +remarks that greeted him. + +"Hello, Geth." + +"Hello." + +"Good morning, Mr. Gething. Not going to church this morning." This +from a friend of his mother. + +"Good morning. No, not this morning." He met a chum. + +"Good riding day, eh?" + +"Great." + +"Well, Geth, don't break your neck." + +"You bet not." + +"I'll put a P.S. on the prayer for you," said the wag. + +"Thanks a lot." The wag was always late--even to church on Easter +morning. So Gething knew the tail of the deluge was reached and past. +He had the street almost to himself. It was noticeable that the man +had not once called an acquaintance by name or made the first remark. +His answers had been as reflex as his walking. Geth was thinking, +and in the sombre eyes was the dumb look of a pain that would not be +told--perhaps he considered it too slight. + +He left Holly Street and turned into Holly Park. Here from the grass +that bristled so freshly, so ferociously green, the tree trunks rose +black and damp. Brown pools of water reflected a blue radiant sky +through blossoming branches. Gething subsided on a bench well +removed from the children and nurse maids. First he glanced at the +corner of Holly Street and the Boulevard where a man from his +father's racing stable would meet him with his horse. His face, his +figure, his alert bearing, even his clothes promised a horse-man. +The way his stirrups had worn his boots would class him as a rider. +He rode with his foot "through" as the hunter, steeple chaser, and +polo-player do--not on the ball of his foot in park fashion. + +He pulled off his hat and ran his hand over his close-cropped head. +Evidently he was still thinking. Across his face the look of pain +ebbed and returned, then he grew impatient. His wrist-watch showed +him his horse was late and he was in a hurry to be started, for what +must be done had best be done quickly. Done quickly and forgotten, +then he could give his attention to the other horses. There was +Happiness--an hysterical child, and Goblin, who needed training over +water jumps, and Sans Souci, whose lame leg should be cocained to +locate the trouble--all of his father's stable of great thoroughbreds +needed something except Cuddy, who waited only for the bullet. +Gething's square brown hand went to his breeches pocket, settled on +something that was cold as ice and drew it out--the revolver. The +horse he had raced so many times at Piping Rock, Brookline, Saratoga +had earned the right to die by this hand which had guided him. +Cuddy's high-bred face came vividly before his eyes and the white +star would be the mark. He thrust the revolver back in his pocket +hastily for a child had stopped to look at him, then slowly rose and +fell to pacing the gravel walk. A jay screamed overhead, "Jay, jay, +jay!" + +"You fool," Geth called to him and then muttered to himself. +"Fool, fool--oh, Geth----" From the boulevard a voice called him. + +"Mr. Gething--if you please, sir----!" It was Willet the trainer. + +"All right, Willet." The trainer was mounted holding a lean +greyhound of a horse. Gething pulled down the stirrups. + +"I meant to tell you to bring Cuddy for me to ride, last time, you +know." + +"Not that devil. I could never lead him in. Frenchman, here, is well +behaved in cities." + +Gething swung up. He sat very relaxed upon a horse. There was a +lifetime of practice behind that graceful seat and manner with the +reins. The horse started a low shuffling gait that would take them +rapidly out of the city to the Gething country place and stables. + +"You know," Geth broke silence, "Cuddy's got his--going to be shot." + +"Not one of us, sir," said Willet, "but will sing Hallelujah! He +kicked a hole in Muggins yesterday. None of the boys dare touch him, +so he hasn't been groomed proper since your father said he was to go. +It's more dangerous wipin' him off than to steeplechase the others." +Geth agreed. "I know it isn't right to keep a brute like that." + +"No, sir. When he was young and winning stakes it seemed different. +I tell you what, we'll all pay a dollar a cake for soap made out 'er +old Cuddy." + +"There'll be no soap made out of old Cuddy," Gething interrupted him, +"I'll ride him out--up to the top of Break-Neck Hill and shoot him +there. You'd better begin the trench by noon. When it's dug I'll +take him to the top and----" + +"But nobody's been on his back since your father said it was useless +to try to make him over. Too old for steeplechasing and too much the +racer for anything else, and too much the devil to keep for a suvnor." + +"Well, I'll ride him once again." + +"But, Mr. Geth, he's just been standing in his box or the paddock +for four weeks now. We've been waiting for you to say when he was to +be shot. He's in a sweet temper and d' y'er know, I think, I do----" + +"What do you think?" Willet blushed purple. + +"I think Cuddy's got something in his head, some plan if he gets out. +I think he wants to kill some one before he dies. Yes, sir, _kill_ +him. And you know if he gets the start of you there is no stopping +the dirty devil." + +"Yes, he does tear a bit," Geth admitted. "But I never was on a +surer jumper. Lord! How the old horse can lift you!" Gething dropped +into a disconsolate silence, interrupted before long by Willet. + +"Happiness will get Cuddy's box--she's in a stall. Cuddy was always +mean to her--used to go out of his way to kick her--and she, sweet +as a kitten." + +"So you'll give her his box in revenge?" + +"Revenge? Oh, no sir. Just common sense." Any thought of a +sentimental revenge was distasteful to the trainer, but he was glad +that good Happiness should get his box and disappointed about the +soap. It would have lent relish to his somewhat perfunctory washings +to say to himself, "Doubtless this here bit of soap is a piece of +old Cuddy." + +"How long will the trench take?" + +"A good bit of time, sir. Cuddy isn't no kitten we're laying by. +I'll put them gardeners on the job--with your permission--and they +know how to shovel. You'll want an old saddle on him?" + +"No, no, the one I've raced him in, number twelve, and his old +bridle with the chain bit." + +"Well, well," said Willet rubbing his veiny nose. + +He considered the horse unworthy of any distinction, but in his +desire to please Geth, took pains to prepare Cuddy for his death and +burial. Gething was still at the big house although it was four +o'clock and the men on Break-Neck Hill were busy with their digging. +Willet called them the sextons. + +"And we, Joey," he addressed a stable boy, "we're the undertakers. +Handsome corpse, what?" Cuddy stood in the centre of the barn floor +fastened to be groomed. He was handsome, built on the cleanest lines +of speed and strength, lean as an anatomical study, perfect for his +type. The depth of chest made his legs, neck, and head look fragile. +His face was unusually beautiful--the white-starred face which had +been before Geth's eyes as he had sat in Holly Park. His pricked +ears strained to hear, his eyes to see. The men working over him +were beneath his notice. + +"Look at him," complained Joey, "he pays no more attention to us +than as if we weren't here." Cuddy usually kicked during grooming, +but his present indifference was more insulting. + +"Huh!" said Willet. "he knows them sextons went to Break-Neck to +dig the grave for him. Don't yer, Devil? Say, Joey, look at him +listening like he was counting the number of spadefuls it takes to +make a horse's grave. He's thinking, old Cuddy is, and scheming what +he'd like to do. I wouldn't ride him from here to Break-Neck, not +for a thousand dollars." He began rapidly with the body brush on +Cuddy's powerful haunch, then burst out: + +"He thinks he'll be good and we'll think he's hit the sawdust trail, +or perhaps he wants to look pretty in his coffin. Huh! Give me that +curry. You wash off his face a bit." Cuddy turned his aristocratic +face away from the wet cloth and blew tremulously. Joey tapped the +blazing star on his forehead. + +"Right there," he explained to Willet, "but anyhow he's begun to +show his age." He pointed the muzzle which had the run forward look +of an old horse and to the pits above the eyes. The grooming was +finished but neither Gething came to the stable from the big house +nor the trench diggers from Break-Neck to say that their work was +done. + +"Say, Joey," suggested Willet, "I'll do up his mane in red and +yellow worsteds, like he was going to be exhibited. Red and yellow +look well on a bay. You get to the paddock and see Frenchman hasn't +slipped his blanket while I fetch the worsteds from the office." + +Cuddy left alone, stopped his listening and began pulling at his +halter. It held him firm. From the brown dusk of their box-stalls +two lines of expectant horses' faces watched him. The pretty chestnut, +Happiness, already had been transferred to his old box, her white +striped face was barely visible. Farther down, on the same side, +Goblin stood staring stupidly and beyond were the heads of the three +brothers, Sans Pareil, Sans Peur and the famous Sans Souci who could +clear seven feet of timber (and now was lame.) Opposite stood Bohemia, +cold blood in her veins as a certain thickness about the throat +testified, and little Martini, the flat racer. On either side of him +were Hotspur and Meteor and there were a dozen others as famous. +Above each stall was hung the brass plate giving the name and +pedigree and above that up to the roof the hay was piled sweet and +dusty-smelling. The barn swallows twittered by an open window in the +loft. In front of Cuddy the great double doors were open to the +fields and pastures, the gray hills and the radiant sky. Cuddy +reared abruptly striking out with his front legs, crouched and +sprang against his halter again, but it held him fast. Willet, on +returning with his worsted, found him as he had left him, motionless +as a bronze horse on a black marble clock. + +Willet stood on a stool the better to work on the horse's neck. His +practised fingers twisted and knotted the mane and worsted, then cut +the ends into hard tassels. The horse's withers were reached and the +tassels bobbing rakishly gave a hilarious look to the condemned +animal. + +Four men, very sweaty, carrying spades entered. + +"It's done," said the first, nodding, "and it's a big grave. Glad +pet horses don't die oftener." + +"This ain't a pet," snapped Willet. "He's just that much property +and being of no more use is thrown away--just like an old tin can. +No more sense in burying one than the other. If I had my way about +it I'd----" But Geth entered. With his coat off he gave an +impression of greater size, like Cuddy his lines were graceful +enough to minimize his weight. + +"Hole dug? Well, let's saddle up and start out." He did not go up to +Cuddy to speak to him as he usually would have done, but as if +trying to avoid him, he fell to patting Happiness's striped face. +She was fretful in her new quarters. "Perhaps," thought Willet, +"she knows it's old Cuddy and _he's_ gone out for good." All the +horses seemed nervous and unhappy. It was as if they knew that one +of their number was to be taken out to an inglorious death--not the +fortune to die on the turf track as a steeple-chaser might wish, but +ignominiously, on a hill top, after a soft canter through spring +meadows. + +Cuddy stood saddled and bridled and then Willet turned in last +appeal to his master's son. + +"Mr. Geth, I wouldn't ride him--not even if I rode as well as you, +which I don't. That horse has grown worse and worse these last months. +He wants to kill some one, that's what he wants." Geth shook his head. + +"No use, Willet, trying to scare me. I know what I'm doing, eh Cuddy?" +He went to the horse and rubbed the base of his ears. The satin head +dropped forward on to the man's chest, a rare response from Cuddy. +Gething led him out of the stable, Willet held his head as the man +mounted. + +As he thrust his foot in the stirrup Cuddy lunged at Willet, his +savage yellow teeth crushed into his shoulder. The rider pulled him +off striking him with his heavy hunting whip. The horse squealed, +arched himself in the air and sidled down the driveway. He did not +try to run or buck, but seemed intent on twisting himself into +curves and figures. The two went past the big house with its gables +and numberless chimneys and down to the end of the driveway. + +There is a four foot masonry wall around the Gething country-place +("farm" they call it). The horse saw it and began jerking at his bit +and dancing, for ever since colt-hood walls had had but one meaning +for him. + +"Well, at it old man," laughed Gething. At a signal Cuddy flew at it, +rose into the air with magnificent strength and landed like +thistle-down. + +"Cuddy," cried the man, "there never was a jumper like you. +Break-Neck will keep, we'll find some more walls first." He crossed +the road and entered a rough pasture. It was a day of such abounding +life one could pity the worm the robin pulled. For on such a day +everything seemed to have the right to live and be happy. The crows +sauntered across the sky, care free as hoboes. Under foot the meadow +turf oozed water, the shad-bush petals fell like confetti before the +rough assault of horse and rider. Gething liked this day of wind and +sunshine. In the city there had been the smell of oiled streets to +show that spring had come, here was the smell of damp earth, pollen, +and burnt brush. Suddenly he realized that Cuddy, too, was pleased +and contented for he was going quietly now, occasionally he threw up +his head and blew "Heh, heh!" through his nostrils. Strange that +Willet had thought Cuddy wanted to kill some one--all he really +wanted was a bit of a canter. + +A brook was reached. It was wide, marshy, edged with cowslips. It +would take a long jump to clear it. Gething felt the back gather +beneath him, the tense body flung into the air, the flight through +space, then the landing well upon the firm bank. + +"Bravo, Cuddy!" the horse plunged and whipped his head between his +forelegs, trying to get the reins from the rider's hands. Gething +let himself be jerked forward until his face almost rested on the +veiny neck. + +"Old tricks, Cuddy. I knew _that_ one before you wore your first +shoes." He still had easy control and began to really let him out. +There was a succession of walls and fences and mad racing through +fields when the horse plunged in his gait and frightened birds +fluttered from the thicket and Gething hissed between his teeth as +he always did when he felt a horse going strong beneath him. + +Then they came to a hill that rose out of green meadows. It was +covered with dingy pine trees except the top that was bared like a +tonsure. A trail ran through the woods; a trail singularly morose +and unattractive. The pines looked shabby and black in comparison to +the sun on the spring meadows. This was Break-Neck Hill. Perhaps +Cuddy felt his rider stiffen in the saddle for he refused +passionately to take the path. He set his will against Gething's and +fought, bucking and rearing. When a horse is capable of a six foot +jump into the air his great strength and agility make his bucking +terrible. The broncho is a child in size and strength compared to +Cuddy's race of super-horse. Twice Geth went loose in his flat +saddle and once Cuddy almost threw himself. The chain bit had torn +the edges of his mouth and blood coloured his froth. Suddenly he +acquiesced and quiet again, he took the sombre path. Geth thrust his +right hand into his pocket, the revolver was still there. His hand +left it and rested on the bobbing, tasseled mane. + +"Old man," he addressed the horse, "I know you don't know where +you're going and I know you don't remember much, but you must +remember Saratoga and how we beat them all. And Cuddy, you'd +understand--if you could--how it's all over now and why I want to +do it for you myself." + +The woods were cleared. It was good to leave their muffled dampness +for the pure sunshine of the crest. On the very top of the hill +clean-cut against the sky stood a great wind-misshaped pine. At the +foot of this pine was a bank of fresh earth and Gething knew that +beyond the bank was the trench. He bent in his saddle and pressed +his forehead against the warm neck. Before his eyes was the past +they had been together, the sweep of the turf course, the grandstand +a-flutter, grooms with blankets, jockeys and gentlemen in silk, +owners' wives with cameras, then the race that always seemed so +short--a rush of horses, the stretching over the jumps, and the +purse or not, it did not matter. + +He straightened up with a grim set to his jaw and gathered the +loosened reins. Cuddy went into a canter and so approached the earth +bank. Suddenly he refused to advance and again the two wills fought, +but not so furiously. Cuddy was shaking with fear. The bank was a +strange thing, a fearsome thing, and the trench beyond, ghastly. His +neck stretched forward. "Heh, heh!" he blew through his nostrils. + +"Six steps nearer, Cuddy." Geth struck him lightly with his spurs. +The horse paused by the bank and began rocking slightly. + +"Sist! be quiet," for they were on the spot Gething wished. The +horse gathered himself, started to rear, then sprang into the air, +cleared earth-mound and trench and bounded down the hill. The +tremendous buck-jump he had so unexpectedly taken, combined with his +frantic descent, gave Gething no chance to get control until the +level was reached. Then, with the first pull on the bridle, he +realized it was too late. For a while at least Cuddy was in command. +Gething tried all his tricks with the reins, the horse dashed on +like a furious gust of wind, he whirled through the valley, across a +ploughed field, over a fence and into more pastures. Gething, never +cooler, fought for the control. The froth blown back against his +white shirt was rosy with blood. Cuddy was beyond realizing his bit. +Then Gething relaxed a little and let him go. He could guide him to +a certain extent. Stop him he could not. + +The horse was now running flatly and rapidly. He made no attempt to +throw his rider. What jumps were in his way he took precisely. +Unlike the crazed runaway of the city streets Cuddy never took +better care of himself. It seemed that he was running for some +purpose and Gething thought of Willet's often repeated remark, +"Look at 'im--old Cuddy, he's thinking." Two miles had been covered +and the gait had become business-like. Gething, guiding always to the +left, was turning him in a huge circle. The horse reeked with sweat. +"Now," thought Gething, "he's had enough," but at the first pressure +on the bit Cuddy increased his speed. His breath caught in his throat. +There was another mile and the wonderful run grew slower. The man +felt the great horse trip and recover himself. He was tired out. +Again the fight between master and horse began. Cuddy resisted weakly, +then threw up his beautiful, white-starred face as if in entreaty. + +"Oh, I'm----" muttered Gething and let the reins lie loose on his +neck, "your own way, Cuddy. Your way is better than mine. Old friend, +I'll not try to stop you again." For he knew if he tried he could +now gain control. The early dusk of spring had begun to settle on +the surface of the fields in a hazy radiance, a marvelous light that +seemed to breathe out from the earth and stream through the sky. A +mile to the east upon a hill was a farm house. The orange light from +the sunset found every window, blinded them and left them blank +oblongs of orange. The horse and rider passed closer to this farm. +Two collies rushed forward, then stopped to bark and jump. The light +enveloped them and gave each a golden halo. + +Again Gething turned still keeping toward the left. A hill began to +rise before them and up it the horse sped, his breath whirring and +rattling in his throat, but his strength still unspent. To the very +top he made his way and paused dazed. "Oh, Cuddy," cried Gething, +"this is Break-Neck." For there was the wind-warped pine, the bank +of earth, the trench. The horse came to a shivering standstill. The +bank looked strange to him. He stood sobbing, his body rocking +slightly, rocking gently, then with a sigh, came slowly down on to +the turf. Gething was on his feet, his hand on the dripping neck. + +"You always were a bad horse and I always loved you," he whispered, +"and that was a great ride, and now----" He rose abruptly and turned +away as he realized himself alone in the soft twilight. The horse +was dead. Then he returned to the tense body, so strangely thin and +wet, and removed saddle and bridle. With these hung on his arm he +took the sombre path through the pines for home. + + + + +_BLACK ART AND AMBROSE_ + + +BY GUY GILPATRIC + +From _Collier's, The National Weekly_ + +"... _The Naytives of the Seacoast told me many fearsome Tales of +these Magycians, or Voodoos, as they called Them. It would seem that +the Mystic Powers of these Magycians is hereditary, and that the +Spells, Incantacions, and other Secretts of their Profession are +passed on One to the Other and holden in great Awe by the People. +The Marke of this horride Culte is the Likeness of a great Human Eye, +carved in the Fleshe of the Backe, which rises in Ridges as it heals +and lasts Forever_ ..." + + + --Extract from "A Truthful Accounte of a Voyage and Journey + to the Land of Afrique, Together with Numerous Drawings and + Mappes, and a most Humble Petition Regarding the Same." + Presented by Roberte Waiting, Gent. in London, Anno D. 1651. + + +A few blocks west of the subway, and therefore off the beaten track +of the average New Yorker, is San Juan Hill. If you ever happen on +San Juan unawares, you will recognize it at once by its clustering +family of mammoth gas houses, its streets slanting down into the +North River, and the prevailing duskiness of the local complexion. +If you chance to stray into San Juan after sundown, you will be +relieved to note that policemen are plentiful, and that they walk in +pairs. This last observation describes the social status of San Juan +or any other neighbourhood better than volumes of detailed episodes +could begin to do. + +Of late years many of the Fust Famblies of San Juan have migrated +northward to the teeming negro districts of Harlem, but enough of +the old stock remains to lend the settlement its time-honoured touch +of gloom. Occasionally, too, it still makes its way to the public +notice by sanguinary affrays and race riots. San Juan Hill is a +geographical, racial, and sociological fact, and will remain so +until the day when safety razors become a universal institution. + +San Juan is a community in itself. It has its churches, its clubs, +its theatres, its stores, and--sighs of relief from the police--it +_used_ to have its saloons. It is a cosmopolitan community, too--as +cosmopolitan as it can be and still retain its Senegambian motif. + +Negroes from Haiti, Jamaica, Salvador, Cuba; from Morocco and Senegal; +blue-black negroes from the Pacific; ebony negroes from the South; +brown, tan, yellow, and buff negroes from everywhere inhabit San Juan. +Every language from Arabic to Spanish is spoken by these--the +cosmopolites of cosmopolitan San Juan. + +_Pussonally_, Mr. Ambrose de Vere Travis spoke only English. +Because he hailed from Galveston, Tex., he spoke it with a Gulf +intonation at once liquid, rich, and musical. He stood six feet five +on his bare soles, so his voice was somewhat reminiscent of the +Vatican organ. + +Ambrose was twenty-four years old. Our story finds him a New Yorker +of three years' standing, all of which he had spent as a dweller on +San Juan Hill. Originally the giant Mr. Travis had served as furnace +tender in the subterraneous portions of the Swalecliffe Arms +apartments, that turreted edifice in the Eighties that frowns across +at the Palisades from Riverside Drive. But his size and the size of +his smile had won for Ambrose the coveted and uniformed position of +door-man, a post at which he served with considerable success and +the incidental tips. + +The recently wealthy Mr. Braumbauer, for instance, really felt that +he _was_ somebody, when Ambrose opened the door of his car and bowed +him under the portcullis of Swalecliffe. And y'understand me, a +feller's willing he should pay a little something for service once +in a while. And so, one way and another, Ambrose managed to eke from +his job a great deal more than he drew on pay day. + +But Mr. Travis's source of income did not stop there--far from it. +He had brought from Galveston a genius for rolling sevens--or, if he +missed seven the first roll, he could generally make his point +within the next three tries. He could hold the dice longer than any +man within the San Juan memory, which, in view of the fact that +craps is to San Juan what bridge is to Boston, is saying a great deal. +Ambrose was simply a demon with the bones, and he was big enough to +get away with it. + +True, there had been difficulties. + +One evening at the Social Club Ambrose held the dice for a straight +sixteen passes. He and five other courtiers of fortune were bounding +the ivories off the cushion of a billiard table, to the end that the +contest be one of chance and not of science. In the midst of +Ambrose's stentorian protests that the baby needed footwear, one of +the losers forgot his breeding to the extent of claiming that +Ambrose had introduced a loaded die. As he seconded his claims with +a razor, the game met a temporary lull. + +When the furniture had ceased crashing, the members of the club +emerged from beneath the pool tables to see Mr. Travis tying up a +slashed hand, while he of the razor lay moaning over a broken +shoulder and exuding teeth in surprising quantities. + +After this little incident no one ever so far forgot himself as to +breathe the faintest aspersion on Mr. Travis, his dice, his way of +throwing them down or of picking them up. + +It was generally conceded that his conduct throughout the fray had +been of the best, and the affair did much to raise him in popular +esteem--especially as he was able to prove the caviler's charges to +be utterly unfounded. + +And so, with his physical beauty, his courage, and his wealth, +Mr. Ambrose de Vere Travis became something of a figure in San +Juan's social circles. + +Just when Ambrose fell in love with Miss Aphrodite Tate is not quite +clear. + +Aphrodite (pronounced just as spelled) was so named because her +father thought it had something to do with Africa. She was +astoundingly, absolutely, and gratifyingly black, and Ambrose was +sure that he had never seen any one quite so beautiful. + +Aphrodite lived with her parents, the ancient and revered +Fremont-Tates, patroons of San Juan. In the daytime she was engaged +as maid by a family that _suttingly_ treated her lovely; while in +the evening she could usually be found at the St. Benedict Young +People's Club. And it was here that Ambrose met her. + +True love ran smoothly for a long time. At last, when he felt the +tune was ripe, Ambrose pleaded urgent business for two evenings and +shook down the Social Club dice fanciers for the price of the ring. + +Then Mr. Dominique Raffin loomed dark on the horizon. Mr. Raffin did +not loom as dark as he might have loomed, however, because he was +half white. He hailed from Haiti, and was the son of a French sailor +and a transplanted Congo wench. He was slight of build and shifty of +eye. His excuse for being was a genius for music. He could play +anything, could this pasty Dominique, but of all instruments he was +at his tuneful best on the alto saxophone. + +"Lawd! _Oh_, Lawd!" his audience would ejaculate, as with closed +eyes and heads thrown back they would drink in the sonorous +emanations from the brazen tube. "Dat's de horn ob de Angel +Gabriel--dat's de heabenly music ob de spears!" And so Dominique's +popularity grew among the ladies of San Juan, even if among the +gentlemen it did not. + +To tell the truth, Dominique was something of a beau. Because he +played in an orchestra, he had ample opportunity to study the +deportment of people who passed as fashionable. His dress was +immaculate; his hair was not so kinky that it couldn't be plastered +down with brilliantine, and he perfumed himself copiously. His +fingers were heavily laden with rings. Dominique's voice was +whining--irritating. + +His native tongue was French, but he had learned to speak English in +Jamaica. Thus his accent was a curious mixture of French and Cockney, +lubricated with oily African. + +Altogether, it is not to be wondered that such sturdy sons of Ham as +Ambrose disliked the snaky Mr. Raffin. Disliked him the more when +his various musical and cultural accomplishments made him a general +favourite with the ladies. And then, when he absolutely cut +Mr. Travis from the affections of Miss Tate, the wrath of the +blacker and more wholesome San Juan citizens knew no bounds. + +As for Ambrose--he sulked. Even his friends, the fur-lined tenants +of Swalecliffe Arms, noticed that something worried the swart +guardian of their gate. In the evenings Ambrose gave his entire time +to frenzied rolling of the bones and was surprised to see that here, +at least, luck had not deserted him. + +On the few occasions when he forsook the green baize for an +evening's dancing at the St. Benedict Young People's Guild, the +sight of the coveted Miss Aphrodite whirling in the arms of the +hated Raffin almost overcame him. + +Finally the lovesick Mr. Travis decided to call upon the lady of his +heart and demand an explanation. After some rehearsal of what he +wanted to say, Ambrose betook himself to the tenement in which the +Tate family dwelt. At sight of her cast-off swain, Miss Aphrodite +showed the whites of her eyes and narrowed her lips to a thin +straight line--perhaps an inch and a half thin. Evidently she was +displeased. + +Aphrodite opened the interview by inquiring why she was being +pestered and intermediated by a low-down black nigger that didn't +have no mo' brains than he had manners. Her feelings was likely to +git the better of her at any moment; in which event Mr. Travis had +better watch out, that was all--jest watch out. + +The astounded Mr. Travis did his best to pacify this Amazon; to +explain that he had merely come to inquire the reason for her +displeasure; to learn in what respect Mr. Raffin had proved himself +so sweetly desirable. + +The answer was brief and crushing. It seemed that where Mr. Travis +was a big, bulky opener of doors, Mr. Raffin was a sleek and +cultured Chesterfield--a musician--an artist. Where Mr. Travis could +not dance without stepping on everybody in the room, Mr. Raffin was +a veritable Mordkin. Where Mr. Travis hung out with a bunch of +no-good crap-shooting black buck niggers, Mr. Raffin's orchestral +duties brought him into the most cultured s'ciety. In short, the +yellow man from Haiti was a gentleman; the black man from Texas was +a boor. + +This unexpected tirade made the unhappy Ambrose a trifle weak in the +knees. Then pride came to the rescue, and he drew himself to his +full and towering six feet five. He held out his mammoth hands +before Miss Aphrodite and warned her that with them, at the first +provocation, he would jest take and bust Mr. Raffin in two. This done, +he would throw the shuddering fragments into the street, and with +his feet--Exhibit B--would kick them the entire length and breadth +of the neighbourhood. + +This threat only aroused new fires of scorn and vituperation, and +Miss Tate informed her guest that, should he ever attempt the +punitive measures described, Mr. Raffin would cut him up into little +pieces. It seemed that Mr. Raffin carried a knife, and that he knew +how to use it. + +Mr. Travis snorted at this, and stamped out of the Tate apartment. + +At his exit, doors closed softly on every floor, because the +neighbours had listened to the tête-à-tête with intense interest. +Even people in the next house had been able to hear most of it. + +Ambrose made his furious way toward the Social Club, his mind set on +mortal encounter with the hated Dominique. But--here was an +inspiration!--why not win his money away from him first? To win away +his last cent--to humble him--to ruin him--and then to break him in +two and kick the pieces through the San Juan causeways, as per +programme! This would be a revenge indeed! + +Ambrose noted with satisfaction that Mr. Raffin was already at play, +and crossing the smoke-filled room he threw down some money and took +his place in the game. + +Now, Mr. Travis was ordinarily a very garrulous and vociferous crap +shooter, but to-night he was savagely silent. There was a disturbing, +electric _something_ in the air that the neutrals felt and feared. +There was a look in the Travis eye that boded ill for somebody, and +one by one the more prudent gamesters withdrew. + +Then suddenly the storm broke. + +Later accounts were not clear as to just what started the fray, but +start it did. + +Dominique's knife appeared from some place, and the table crashed. +Then the knife swished through space like a hornet and buried its +point harmlessly in a door across the room. + +What followed is still a subject of wondering conversation on San +Juan Hill. + +It seems that Mr. Travis seized Mr. Raffin by the collar of his coat, +and swung him round and round and over his head. Mr. Raffin streamed +almost straight out, like the imitation airplanes that whirl dizzily +about the tower in an amusement park. Suddenly there was a rending +of cloth, and Dominique shot through the air to encounter the wall +with a soul-satisfying thump. + +Ambrose looked bewildered at the torn clothing he held in his hand, +and then at the limp form of his late antagonist. Mr. Raffin lay +groaning, naked from the waist up. + +Ambrose strode across to administer further chastisement, but +was halted by a cry from one of the onlookers. This man stood +pointing at Dominique's naked back--pointing, and staring with eyes +that rolled with genuine negro terror. + +"Look!" gasped the affrighted one. "Look! It's de Voo-doo Eye-- +_dat man's a witch_! Ambrose, fo' de Lawd's sake, git away from +hyar!" + +"What you-all talkin' about?" scoffed Ambrose, striding closer, and +rolling Dominique so that the light shone full on his back. +"What you-all talkin'----_Good Lawd_"! + +This last ejaculation from Ambrose was caused by the sight that met +his gaze. + +There, on the yellow back before him, reaching from shoulder to +shoulder, was tattooed the likeness of a great human eye! + +Everyone saw it now. To some--the Northern darkies--it meant nothing. +But to the old-school Southern negroes it meant mystery--magic--death. +_It was the sign of the Voodoo_! + +Several of the more superstitious onlookers retreated in poor order, +their teeth chattering. Their mammies had told them about the Voodoo +Eye. They remembered the tales whispered in the slave quarters about +people being prayed to death by these baleful creatures of ill omen! +They weren't going to take any chances! + +Ambrose, for all his natural courage, was shaken. He remembered old +Tom Blue, the Texas Voodoo, who poisoned twenty-one people and came +to life after the white men lynched him. And now he had laid rough +hands on one of the deadly clan; had brought upon himself the wrath +of a man who could simply _wish_ him to death! + +Trembling, he stooped down and looked at the Devil's Sign. He looked +again--closely. Then he broke out into a ringing peal of wholesome +darky laughter. + +"Git up!" he shouted, as Dominique showed signs of life. "Git up, +Mr. Voodoo, befo' Ah gits impatient an' throws you out de window!" + +This recklessness--this defiance of the dread power--shocked even +the least superstitious of the audience. By this time they were all +under the spell of this mysterious mark. Those who hadn't recognized +it at once had been quickly enlightened by the others. + +Ambrose seized Dominique by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet. +Swaying unsteadily, the mulatto looked around him through eyes +closed to snakelike slits. + +"Raffin," said Ambrose, "you-all has on yo' back de Eye ob Voodoo. +Dese gennlemen hyar thinks yo' _is_ a Voodoo. Ah know yo' _ain't_!" + +"I _am_ a Voodoo! An' you, you _sacré cochon_," hissed Raffin, +"I'll make you wish you had nevaire been born!" + +"Well, jes' fo' de present," laughed Ambrose, good humour spreading +all over his face, "you-all had better git outa my way, an' stay +_out_! Git outa hyar _quick_!" + +Dominique, his evil face twitching with fury, picked up the ragged +shreds of his coat and walked unsteadily out. + +At his exit a dead silence fell upon the remaining members. Then +they gathered together in excited groups and discussed the incident +in heated undertones. Ambrose, quite unconcerned, took up a pack of +cards and commenced a game of solitaire. + +He wasn't worrying. He knew that Dominique was no more a Voodoo than +he was. Startled at first, he had noticed that the eye had not been +carved in Dominique's back, as it should have been, but had been +tattooed. This in itself made the thing doubtful. But more than this, +the marks were the unmistakably accurate work of an electric +tattooing machine. + +Ambrose had spent his youth on the Galveston water front, and knew +tattooing in all its forms. Electric tattooing on a Voodoo was about +as much in keeping with the ancient and awesome dignity of the cult +as spangled tights would be on the King of England. No--it was +ridiculous. Dominique was not a Voodoo! + +Ambrose continued his solitaire, humming as he played. Occasionally +he cast an amused eye at the excited groups across the room, and was +not surprised when Mr. Behemoth Scott, president of the club, at +last came over to him. + +"Mistah Travis," began Mr. Scott deferentially, clearing his throat, +"would you-all be good enough to jine our little gatherin' while we +confabulate on dis hyar recent contabulaneous incident?" + +"Suttingly, Mr. Scott, suttingly!" said Ambrose, pushing back his +chair, and crossing the room with the quaking official. "What can Ah +do fo' you-all?" + +"Well, jest this," said Mr. Scott. "You gennlemen kin'ly correc' me +or bear out what Ah say. Leavin' aside all argument whether they +_is_ sech things as Voodoos, Ah guess any of you gennlemen from +the South will remember Aunt Belle Agassiz and Tom Blue. Ah guess +yo' mammies all done tole 'bout the African Voodoos, an' how ebery +now an' den one of 'em crops up still. An' Ah guess dat we've seen +to-night dat we've got a Voodoo among us. Now, Mr. Travis"--here he +turned to Ambrose--"we know what Aunt Belle Agassiz done on de +Mathis Plantation in Georgia--_you_ ought to know what Tom Blue did +in Texas. So we wants to warn you, as a fren' an' membah of dis club +in good standin', dat you better leave town to-night." + +An assenting murmur arose from the crowd, with much rolling of eyes +and nodding of heads. + +Ambrose held up his hand for silence. A serious expression came over +his features, and he towered tall and straight before them. + +"Gennlemen," he said, "Ah sho appreciates yo' good sperit in dis +hyar unfo'tunate affair. But Ah tells you-all hyar an' now dat +Dominique Raffin ain't no mo' Voodoo den Ah is. Now, Ah ain't sayin' +dat he _ain't_ a Voodoo, an' Ah ain't sayin' dat Ah _am_ one. All Ah +says is dat Ah's as _much_ of a Voodoo as he is--an' Ah'm willin' to +prove it!" + +"How you-all do dat, Ambrose?" asked somebody. + +"Ah'm comin' to dat," replied Ambrose. "If you-all wants to decide +dis mattah beyont all doubt, Ah respekf'ly suggests dat we hold a +_see_-ance in dis hyar room, under any c'nditions dat you-all kin +d'vise. If Ah cain't show yo mo' supernat'ral man'festations dan he +can, Ah gives him fifty dollahs. If it's de oder way 'roun', he +leaves de city within twenty-fo' hours. Is dat fair?" + +"Well, it suttinly soun's puff'cly jest," replied Mr. Scott. +"We-all will appint a committee to frame de rules of de _see_-ance, +an' make 'em fair fo' both. You's been willin' to prove yo'-se'f, +Ambrose, an' yo' couldn't do mo'. If dis m'latter Voodoo don't want +to do lak'wise, he can leave dese pahts moughty sudden. Ain't dat so, +gennlemen?" + +"Yassuh--he'll leave _quick_!" was the threatening reply. + +"All right den, Ambrose," continued the spokesman, "we'll 'range fo' +dis sperit-summonin' contes' jes' as soon as we kin. We'll have it +nex' Satiddy night at lates'. Meanwhile we-all is moughty obleeged +to yo' for yo' willin'-ness to do de right thing." + +The great night arrived, and San Juan, dressed in its gala finery, +wended its chattering way to the Senegambian séance. But beneath the +finery and the chatter ran a subtle under-current of foreboding, for +your negro is superstitious, and, well, _Voodoos are Voodoos_! + +Dominique Raffin, dressed in somber black, went to the club alone +and unattended save by Miss Aphrodite Tate. San Juan, fearing the +Raffin mulatto and his ghostly powers, had held its respectful +distance ever since the evening when Ambrose and his rage had +revealed them. Familiarity breeding contempt, Miss Aphrodite knew +her man, and feared him not. + +They found the rooms of the social club full of excited negroes, for +never before in San Juan's history had such a momentous event been +scheduled. Raffin and Aphrodite were received with a fearsome +respect by Behemoth Scott, who had been appointed master of +ceremonies. + +"Jes' make yo'se'f to home," he greeted them. "Mista Travis ain't +come yit; we has ten minutes befo' de contes' styarts." + +At last, with a bare minute to spare, Ambrose smilingly entered. He +wore his splendid full-dress suit, a wonderful creation of San +Juan's leading tailor, who, at Ambrose's tasteful suggestion, had +faced the lapels with satin of the most royal purple. Set out by +this background of colourful lapel was a huge yellow chrysanthemum, +while on the broad red band that diagonally traversed his shining +shirt front glittered like a decoration, the insignia from his +Swalecliffe uniform cap. + +"Good evenin', folks," was his cheerful greeting. "If you-all is +quite ready fo' dis _see_-ance, an' provided mah--er--wuthy opponent +am ready, Ah'd jes' as soon _pro_ceed." + +Miss Aphrodite gazed on the imposing figure of Ambrose with more +than a little admiration. Comparing him with the trembling Raffin, +she found much in his favour. + +All but his footwear. Accustomed as she had become to the glistening +patent leathers affected by Raffin, Ambrose's clumsy congress +gaiters somewhat marred his gorgeousness. Nevertheless, she felt her +affections wavering. Her speculations were interrupted by the voice +of the master of ceremonies: + +"Ladies an' gennlemen," began Mr. Scott, "we-all has d 'cided to +form a circle of twelve of our membahs wif dese two Voodoo gennlemen +asettin' opp'site each oder in de circle. In o'dah to preclude any +poss'bility of either Mista Travis or Mista Raffin from leavin' dere +places, we has d'cided to tie dem to dere cheers by ropes passed +'roun' dere bodies an' fastened to de backs of de cheers. De lights +will den be distinguished. When he lights is tu'ned out, Mista +Raffin will be given fifteen minutes in which to summon de +supernat'ral proofs--whatevah dey may be--of his bein' Voodoo. Den +Mista Travis will be given his chanct." + +Amid the hushed whisperings of the assemblage the committee, six men +and six women, Aphrodite included, took their places in the circle. +Ambrose and the mulatto were seated opposite each other and were +perhaps twelve feet apart. Raffin, nervously licking his lips, sat +bolt upright while members of the committee passed ropes around him +and the back of his chair, and tied his hands. In direct contrast to +his rival, Ambrose slouched down in his seat and joked with the +trembling members as they secured him in his place. + +Those not on the committee crowded close to the chair backs of the +circle in order that nothing should escape them. The excitement was +tense, and everyone was breathing hard. When all was ready +Mr. Behemoth Scott took his place in the circle. Drawing a long +breath and grasping his chair for support, he spoke in a hushed +and husky voice: "All raidy, now? Ah asks silence from eve'body. +_Turn out de lights_"! + +At the fateful words Stygian darkness enveloped the crowded room. +The shades had been drawn and not the faintest ray from the dim +street lights penetrated the place. It was stifling hot, and the +assembled investigators were perspiring freely.... + +Silence--black, awe-inspired silence! Two hundred pairs of +superstitious eyes peered into the horrible gloom--two hundred pairs +of ears strained at the tomblike stillness. The suspense was awful, +and none dared move. Occasionally some familiar sound came from the +world outside: the clang of the Tenth Avenue car or the whistle of a +tugboat out in the river, but these sounds were of another +existence--they seemed distant and unfamiliar and wholly out of +place in the mystery and terror of the Voodoo seance. + +The minutes slid by, and nothing happened. The suspense was worse +than ever. Something stirred in the circle. Two hundred hearts +missed a beat. Then the whining, terror-stricken voice of the +mulatto broke the stillness: "Let Travis try," he whispered hoarsely. +"My spirits will not come until 'e 'as tried. Let 'im try fo' +fifteen minutes, and when 'e 'as failed I will summon the ghost of +Bula-Wayo, the king of all the tribes of the Niger. But let Travis +try first!" This last almost pleadingly. + +A moment more of silence and Ambrose's deep voice boomed forth in +the darkness. + +"Ah's willin'," he declared. "Anythin' dat now appears will be mah +doin'--ten minits is all Ah asks. Am dat sat'sfact'ry?" + +"Yaas," replied the voice of Behemoth Scott. "Go ahaid wif yo' +sperit-summonin', Mista Travis." + +"Ah'll cawncentrate now," replied Ambrose, "an' sho'tly you-all will +witness ample proof of mah bein' a genuine Voo-doo. _Ah's stahtin_'." + +Silence more terrible than ever fell upon the waiting negroes. +Then--horror of horrors! a peculiar grating, rustling sound came +from the vicinity of Ambrose--a slight creaking--and again silence. +The investigators held hands of neighbours who trembled from sheer +panic, whose breath came hard and panting from this awful suspense! + +Another creaking, as though Ambrose had shifted his weight in his +chair.... + +Then--baleful--in its green, ghastly glow--a dim, indistinct light +shone in the centre of the circle! Moving slowly, like a newly +awakened spirit, it waved in the very midst of the gasping committee. +Back and forth, up and down, it moved--glowing, vaporous, ghostly. +Two hundred pairs of bulging eyes saw the horror--and realized that +it was an enormous hand, terribly deformed! + +Some one moaned with terror--a woman screamed. "De hand ob death!" +shrieked a man. "Run--run fo' yo' lives!" + +The stampede was spontaneous! Chairs were overturned and tables +smashed in this frightful panic in the dark. No one thought of +turning on the lights--everyone's sole aim was to leave that +appalling shining hand--and get out! + +A crashing on the stairway marked where Raffin, chair and all, was +making his fear-stricken way to the street. In one brief minute the +place was apparently empty save for Ambrose. Still tied to his chair, +he inquired: "Is any one hyar?" + +For a second there was silence, then the dulcet tones of Miss +Aphrodite fell on the big negro's ear: "Ah's hyar, Ambrose," she said. + +"Well, den"--recognizing her voice--"would you mine lightin' de gas +till Ah can tie mahself loose from dis hyar throne ob glory?" + +In a moment a feeble gaslight shone, disclosing Aphrodite--somewhat +disarranged by the panic--standing smiling in front of the erstwhile +Voodoo. She looked down at his feet. There, sure enough, one huge +member was unshod and stockingless; the elastic-slit congress gaiter, +lost in the shuffle, lay out of the radius of Ambrose's long leg. +Miss Aphrodite picked it up and, stooping, slipped it over his +mighty toes, noticing as she did so the thick coating of +phosphorescent paint that still covered them. + +"Ambrose," she whispered, "Ah wasn't scaired. No ghos' eber was bohn +dat had han's de size ob yo' feet!" + +An embarrassed silence followed; the gas jet flickered weakly; then +Ambrose said: "Untie mah han's, Aphrodite--Ah'd jes' lak to hug you!" + +"Oh, Ambrose," she cried coyly. But she untied the rope just the same. + +Again came silence, broken only by a certain strange sound. Then +Ambrose's voice came softly through the gloom: "Aphrodite," it said, +"yo' lips am jes' lak plush!" + + + + +THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN + + +BY LEE FOSTER HARTMAN + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + +To dine on the veranda of the Marine Hotel is the one delightful +surprise which Port Charlotte affords the adventurer who has broken +from the customary paths of travel in the South Seas. On an eminence +above the town, solitary and aloof like a monastery, and deep in its +garden of lemon-trees, it commands a wide prospect of sea and sky. +By day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor, +with a blur of distant islands on the horizon--chief among them +Muloa, with its single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At +night, this smithy of Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing +faintly against the darkness, a capricious and sullen beacon +immeasurably removed from the path of men. Viewed from the veranda +of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the horizon seems hardly more +than an insignificant spark, like the glowing cigar-end of some guest +strolling in the garden after dinner. + +It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor +Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows. Her uncle, Major +Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the +respite from the queer business he had involved me in. The two of +us had returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him +in my schooner, the _Sylph_, to seek out Leavitt and make some +inquiries--very important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh's +behalf. + +Three days in Muloa, under the shadow of the grim and flame-throated +mountain, while I was forced to listen to Major Stanleigh's +persistent questionnaire and Leavitt's erratic and garrulous +responses--all this, as I was to discover later, at the instigation +of the Major's niece--had made me frankly curious about the girl. + +I had seen her only once, and then at a distance across the veranda, +one night when I had been dining there with a friend; but that +single vision of her remained vivid and unforgettable--a tall girl of +a slender shapeliness, crowned by a mass of reddish-gold hair that +smoldered above the clear olive pallor of her skin. With that +flawless and brilliant colouring she was marked for observation--had +doubtless been schooled to a perfect indifference to it, for the slow, +almost indolent, grace of her movements was that of a woman coldly +unmindful of the gazes lingering upon her. She could not have been +more than twenty-six or -seven, but I got an unmistakable impression +of weariness or balked purpose emanating from her in spite of her +youth and glorious physique. I looked up to see her crossing the +veranda to join her uncle and aunt--correct, well-to-do English +people that one placed instantly--and my stare was only one of many +that followed her as she took her seat and threw aside the light +scarf that swathed her bare and gleaming shoulders. + +My companion, who happened to be the editor of the local paper, +promptly informed me regarding her name and previous residence--the +gist of some "social item" which he had already put into print; but +these meant nothing, and I could only wonder what had brought her to +such an out-of-the-way part of the world as Port Charlotte. She did +not seem like a girl who was traveling with her uncle and aunt; +one got rather the impression that she was bent on a mission of her +own and was dragging her relatives along because the conventions +demanded it. I hazarded to my companion the notion that a woman like +Miss Stanleigh could have but one of two purposes in this lonely part +of the world--she was fleeing from a lover or seeking one. + +"In that case," rejoined my friend, with the cynical shrug of the +newspaper man, "she has very promptly succeeded. It's whispered that +she is going to marry Joyce--of Malduna Island, you know. Only met +him a fortnight ago. Quite a romance, I'm told." + +I lifted my eyebrows at that, and looked again at Miss Stanleigh. +Just at that instant she happened to look up. It was a wholly +indifferent gaze; I am confident that she was no more aware of me +than if I had been one of the veranda posts which her eyes bad +chanced to encounter. But in the indescribable sensation of that +moment I felt that here was a woman who bore a secret burden, +although, as my informing host put it, her heart had romantically +found its haven only two weeks ago. + +She was endeavouring to get trace of a man named Farquharson, as I +was permitted to learn a few days later. Ostensibly, it was Major +Stanleigh who was bent on locating this young Englishman--Miss +Stanleigh's interest in the quest was guardedly withheld--and the +trail had led them a pretty chase around the world until some clue, +which I never clearly understood, brought them to Port Charlotte. +The major's immediate objective was an eccentric chap named Leavitt +who had marooned himself in Muloa. The island offered an ideal +retreat for one bent on shunning his own kind, if he did not object +to the close proximity of a restive volcano. Clearly, Leavitt did not. +He had a scientific interest in the phenomena exhibited by volcanic +regions and was versed in geological lore, but the rumours about +Leavitt--practically no one ever visited Muloa--did not stop at that. +And, as Major Stanleigh and I were to discover, the fellow seemed to +have developed a genuine affection for Lakalatcha, as the smoking +cone was called by the natives of the adjoining islands. From long +association he had come to know its whims and moods as one comes to +know those of a petulant woman one lives with. It was a bizarre and +preposterous intimacy, in which Leavitt seemed to find a wholly +acceptable substitute for human society, and there was something +repellant about the man's eccentricity. He had various names for the +smoking cone that towered a mile or more above his head: "Old +Flame-eater," or "Lava-spitter," he would at times familiarly and +irreverently call it; or, again, "The Maiden Who Never Sleeps," or +"The Single-breasted Virgin"--these last, however, always in the +musical Malay equivalent. He had no end of names--romantic, splenetic, +of opprobrium, or outright endearment--to suit, I imagine, +Lakalatcha's varying moods. In one respect they puzzled me--they +were of conflicting genders, some feminine and some masculine, as if +in Leavitt's loose-frayed imagination the mountain that beguiled his +days and disturbed his nights were hermaphroditic. + +Leavitt as a source of information regarding the missing Farquharson +seemed preposterous when one reflected how out of touch with the +world he had been, but, to my astonishment, Major Stanleigh's clue +was right, for he had at last stumbled upon a man who had known +Farquharson well and who was voluminous about him--quite willingly so. +With the _Sylph_ at anchor, we lay off Muloa for three nights, and +Leavitt gave us our fill of Farquharson, along with innumerable +digressions about volcanoes, neoplatonism, the Single Tax, and what +not. There was no keeping Leavitt to a coherent narrative about the +missing Farquharson. He was incapable of it, and Major Stanleigh and +myself had simply to wait in patience while Leavitt, delighted to +have an audience, dumped out for us the fantastic contents of his +mind, odd vagaries, recondite trash, and all. He was always getting +away from Farquharson, but, then, he was unfailingly bound to come +back to him. We had only to wait and catch the solid grains that now +and then fell in the winnowing of that unending stream of chaff. It +was a tedious and exasperating process, but it had its compensations. +At times Leavitt could be as uncannily brilliant as he was dull and +boresome. The conviction grew upon me that he had become a little +demented, as if his brain had been tainted by the sulphurous fumes +exhaled by the smoking crater above his head. His mind smoked, +flickered, and flared like an unsteady lamp, blown upon by choking +gases, in which the oil had run low. + +But of the wanderer Farquharson he spoke with precision and authority, +for he had shared with Farquharson his bungalow there in Muloa--a +period of about six months, it seemed--and there Farquharson had +contracted a tropic fever and died. + +"Well, at last we have got all the facts," Major Stanleigh sighed +with satisfaction when the _Sylph_ was heading back to Port Charlotte. +Muloa, lying astern, we were no longer watching. Leavitt, at the +water's edge, had waved us a last good-by and had then abruptly +turned back into the forest, very likely to go clambering like a +demented goat up the flanks of his beloved volcano and to resume +poking about in its steaming fissures--an occupation of which he +never tired. + +"The evidence is conclusive, don't you think?--the grave, +Farquharson's personal effects, those pages of the poor devil's diary." + +I nodded assent. In my capacity as owner of the _Sylph_ I had merely +undertaken to furnish Major Stanleigh with passage to Muloa and back, +but the events of the last three days had made me a party to the +many conferences, and I was now on terms of something like intimacy +with the rather stiff and pompous English gentleman. How far I was +from sharing his real confidence I was to discover later when Eleanor +Stanleigh gave me hers. + +"My wife and niece will be much relieved to hear all this--a family +matter, you understand, Mr. Barnaby," he had said to me when we +landed. "I should like to present you to them before we leave Port +Charlotte for home." + +But, as it turned out, it was Eleanor Stanleigh who presented herself, +coming upon me quite unexpectedly that night after our return while +I sat smoking in the shadowy garden of the Marine Hotel. I had dined +with the major, after he had explained that the ladies were worn out +by the heat and general developments of the day and had begged to be +excused. And I was frankly glad not to have to endure another +discussion of the deceased Farquharson, of which I was heartily +tired after hearing little else for the last three days. I could not +help wondering how the verbose and pompous major had paraphrased and +condensed that inchoate mass of biography and reminiscence into an +orderly account for his wife and niece. He had doubtless devoted the +whole afternoon to it. Sitting under the cool green of the +lemon-trees, beneath a sky powdered with stars, I reflected that I, +at least, was done with Farquharson forever. But I was not, for just +then Eleanor Stanleigh appeared before me. + +I was startled to hear her addressing me by name, and then calmly +begging me to resume my seat on the bench under the arbor. She sat +down also, her flame-coloured hair and bare shoulders gleaming in +the darkness. She was the soul of directness and candour, and after +a thoughtful, searching look into my face she came to the point at +once. She wanted to hear about Farquharson--from me. + +"Of course, my uncle has given me a very full account of what he +learned from Mr. Leavitt, and yet many things puzzle me--this +Mr. Leavitt most of all." + +"A queer chap," I epitomized him. "Frankly, I don't quite make him +out, Miss Stanleigh--marooning himself on that infernal island and +seemingly content to spend his days there." + +"Is he so old?" she caught me up quickly. + +"No, he isn't," I reflected. "Of course, it's difficult to judge +ages out here. The climate, you know. Leavitt's well under forty, I +should say. But that's a most unhealthy spot he has chosen to live in." + +"Why does he stay there?" + +I explained about the volcano. "You can have no idea what an +obsession it is with him. There isn't a square foot of its steaming, +treacherous surface that he hasn't been over, mapping new fissures, +poking into old lava-beds, delving into the crater itself on +favourable days--" + +"Isn't it dangerous?" + +"In a way, yes. The volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes +unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to +obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to +spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides--just tamely +subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes. +But Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater, +half strangling himself in its poisonous fumes, scorching the shoes +off his feet, and once, I believe, he lost most of his hair and +eyebrows--a narrow squeak. He throws his head back and laughs at any +word of caution. To my notion, it's foolhardy to push a scientific +curiosity to that extreme." + +"Is it, then, just scientific curiosity?" mused Miss Stanleigh. + +Something in her tone made me stop short. Her eyes had lifted to +mine--almost appealingly, I fancied. Her innocence, her candour, her +warm beauty, which was like a pale phosphorescence in the starlit +darkness--all had their potent effect upon me in that moment. I felt +impelled to a sudden burst of confidence. + +"At times I wonder. I've caught a look in his eyes, when he's been +down on his hands and knees, staring into some infernal vent-hole--a +look that is--well, uncanny, as if he were peering into the bowels +of the earth for something quite outside the conceptions of science. +You might think that volcano had worked some spell over him, turned +his mind. He prattles to it or storms at it as if it were a living +creature. Queer, yes; and he's impressive, too, with a sort of +magnetic personality that attracts and repels you violently at the +same time. He's like a cake of ice dipped in alcohol and set aflame. +I can't describe him. When he talks--" + +"Does he talk about himself?" + +I had to confess that he had told us practically not a word. He had +discussed everything under heaven in his brilliant, erratic way, +with a fleer of cynicism toward it all, but he had left himself out +completely. He had given us Farquharson with relish, and in infinite +detail, from the time the poor fellow first turned up in Muloa, put +ashore by a native craft. Talking about Farquharson was second only +to his delight in talking about volcanoes. And the result for me had +been innumerable vivid but confused impressions of the young +Englishman who had by chance invaded Leavitt's solitude and had +lingered there, held by some attraction, until he sickened and died. +It was like a jumbled mosaic put together again by inexpert hands. + +"Did you get the impression that the two men had very much in common?" + +"Quite the contrary," I answered. "But Major Stanleigh should know--" + +"My uncle never met Mr. Farquharson." + +I was fairly taken aback at that, and a silence fell between us. It +was impossible to divine the drift of her questions. It was as if +some profound mistrust weighed upon her and she was not so much +seeking to interrogate me as she was groping blindly for some chance +word of mine that might illuminate her doubts. + +I looked at the girl in silent wonder, yes, and in admiration of her +bronze and ivory beauty in the full flower of her glorious +youth--and I thought of Joyce. I felt that it was like her to have +fallen in love simply but passionately at the mere lifting of the +finger of Fate. It was only another demonstration of the +unfathomable mystery, or miracle, which love is. Joyce was lucky, +indeed favoured of the gods, to have touched the spring in this +girl's heart which no other man could reach, and by the rarest of +chances--her coming out to this remote corner of the world. Lucky +Joyce! I knew him slightly--a straightforward young fellow, very +simple and whole-souled, enthusiastically absorbed in developing his +rubber lands in Malduna. + +Miss Stanleigh remained lost in thought while her fingers toyed with +the pendant of the chain that she wore. In the darkness I caught the +glitter of a small gold cross. + +"My. Barnaby," she finally broke the silence, and paused. "I have +decided to tell you something. This Mr. Farquharson was my husband." + +Again a silence fell, heavy and prolonged, in which I sat as if +drugged by the night air that hung soft and perfumed about us. It +seemed incredible that in that fleeting instant she had spoken at all. + +"I was young--and very foolish, I suppose." + +With that confession, spoken with simple dignity, she broke off again. +Clearly, some knowledge of the past she deemed it necessary to +impart to me. If she halted over her words, it was rather to dismiss +what was irrelevant to the matter in hand, in which she sought my +counsel. + +"I did not see him for four years--did not wish to.... And he +vanished completely.... Four years!--just a welcome blank!" + +Her shoulders lifted and a little shiver went over her. + +"But even a blank like that can become unendurable. To be always +dragging at a chain, and not knowing where it leads to...." Her +hand slipped from the gold cross on her breast and fell to the other +in her lap, which it clutched tightly. "Four years.... I tried to +make myself believe that he was gone forever--was dead. It was +wicked of me." + +My murmur of polite dissent led her to repeat her words. + +"Yes, and even worse than that. During the past month I have +actually prayed that he might be dead.... I shall be punished for it." + +I ventured no rejoinder to these words of self-condemnation. Joyce, +I reflected, mundanely, had clearly swept her off her feet in the +ardour of their first meeting and instant love. + +"It must be a great relief to you," I murmured at length, "to have +it all definitely settled at last." + +"If I could only feel that it was!" + +I turned in amazement, to see her leaning a little forward, her +hands still tightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the +distant horizon where the red spark of Lakalatcha's stertorous +breathing flamed and died away. Her breast rose and fell, as if +timed to the throbbing of that distant flare. "I want you to take me +to that island--to-morrow." + +"Why, surely, Miss Stanleigh," I burst forth, "there can't be any +reasonable doubt. Leavitt's mind may be a little flighty--he may +have embroidered his story with a few gratuitous details; but +Farquharson's books and things--the material evidence of his having +lived there--" + +"And having died there?" + +"Surely Leavitt wouldn't have fabricated that! If you had talked +with him--" + +"I should not care to talk with Mr. Leavitt," Miss Stanleigh cut me +short. "I want only to go and see--if he _is_ Mr. Leavitt." + +"If he _is_ Mr. Leavitt!" For a moment I was mystified, and then in +a sudden flash I understood. "But that's pre-posterous--impossible!" + +I tried to conceive of Leavitt in so monstrous a rôle, tried to +imagine the missing Farquharson still in the flesh and beguiling +Major Stanleigh and myself with so outlandish a story, devising all +that ingenious detail to trick us into a belief in his own death. It +would indeed have argued a warped mind, guided by some unfathomable +purpose. + +"I devoutly hope you are right," Miss Stanleigh was saying, with +deliberation. "But it is not preposterous, and it is not +impossible--if you had known Mr. Farquharson as I have." + +It was a discreet confession. She wished me to understand--without +the necessity of words. My surmise was that she had met and married +Farquharson, whoever he was, under the spell of some momentary +infatuation, and that he had proved himself to be an unspeakable +brute whom she had speedily abandoned. + +"I am determined to go to Muloa, Mr. Barnaby," she announced, with +decision. "I want you to make the arrangements, and with as much +secrecy as possible. I shall ask my aunt to go with me." + +I assured Miss Stanleigh that the _Sylph_ was at her service. + +Mrs. Stanleigh was a large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to +making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and +physical discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her +to make that surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two +days later, I have never been able to imagine. The accommodations +aboard the schooner were cramped, to say the least, and the good +lady had a perfect horror of volcanoes. The fact that Lakalatcha had +behind it a record of a century or more of good conduct did not +weigh with her in the least. She was convinced that it would blow +its head off the moment the _Sylph_ got within range. She was fidgety, +talkative, and continually concerned over the state of her complexion, +inspecting it in the mirror of her bag at frequent intervals and +using a powder-puff liberally to mitigate the pernicious effects of +the tropic sun. But once having been induced to make the voyage, I +must admit she stuck manfully by her decision, ensconcing herself on +deck with books and cushions and numerous other necessities to her +comfort, and making the best of the sleeping quarters below. As the +captain of the _Sylph_, she wanted me to understand that she had +intrusted her soul to my charge, declaring that she would not draw +an easy breath until we were safe again in Port Charlotte. + +"This dreadful business of Eleanor's," was the way she referred to +our mission, and she got round quite naturally to telling me of +Farquharson while acquainting me with her fears about volcanoes. +Some years before, Pompeii and Herculaneum had had a most unsettling +effect upon her nerves. Vesuvius was slightly in eruption at the time. +She confessed to never having had an easy moment while in Naples. And +it was in Naples that her niece and Farquharson had met. It had been, +as I surmised, a swift, romantic courtship, in which Farquharson, +quite irreproachable in antecedents and manners, had played the part +of an impetuous lover. Italian skies had done the rest. There was an +immediate marriage, in spite of Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, and the +young couple were off on a honeymoon trip by themselves. But when +Mrs. Stanleigh rejoined her husband at Nice, and together they +returned to their home in Sussex, a surprise was in store for them. +Eleanor was already there--alone, crushed, and with lips absolutely +sealed. She had divested herself of everything that linked her to +Farquharson; she refused to adopt her married name. + +"I shall bless every saint in heaven when we have quite done with +this dreadful business of Eleanor's," Mrs. Stanleigh confided to me +from her deck-chair. "This trip that she insists on making herself +seems quite uncalled for. But you needn't think, Captain Barnaby, +that I'm going to set foot on that dreadful island--not even for the +satisfaction of seeing Mr. Farquharson's grave--and I'm shameless +enough to say that it _would_ be a satisfaction. If you could +imagine the tenth part of what I have had to put up with, all these +months we've been traveling about trying to locate the wretch! No, +indeed--I shall stay right here on this boat and entrust Eleanor to +your care while ashore. And I should not think it ought to take long, +now should it?" + +I confessed aloud that I did not see how it could. If by any chance +the girl's secret conjecture about Leavitt's identity was right, it +would be verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, +and in that event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting +aunt the shock of that discovery. + +We reached Muloa just before nightfall, letting go the anchor in +placid water under the lee of the shore while the _Sylph_ swung to +and the sails fluttered and fell. A vast hush lay over the world. +From the shore the dark green of the forest confronted us with no +sound or sign of life. Above, and at this close distance blotting +out half the sky over our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha +with scarred and blackened flanks. It was in one of its querulous +moods. The feathery white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, +fantastic shapes, no longer capped the crater; its place had been +usurped by thick, dark fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In +the fading light I marked the red, malignant glow of a fissure newly +broken out in the side of the ragged cone, from which came a thin, +white trickle of lava. + +There was no sign of Leavitt, although the _Sylph_ must have been +visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island. I +fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of +his beloved volcano. Otherwise he would have wondered what was +bringing us back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill +would have greeted us from the shore. Instead, there confronted us +only the belt of dark, matted green girdling the huge bulk of +Lakalatcha which soared skyward, sinister, mysterious, eternal. + +In the brief twilight the shore vanished into dim obscurity. +Miss Stanleigh, who for the last hour had been standing by the rail, +silently watching the island, at last spoke to me over her shoulder: + +"Is it far inland--the place? Will it be difficult to find in the +dark?" + +Her question staggered me, for she was clearly bent on seeking out +Leavitt at once. A strange calmness overlay her. She paid no heed to +Lakalatcha's gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers +gripping the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest, +behind which lay the answer to her torturing doubt. + +I acceded to her wish without protest. Leavitt's bungalow lay a +quarter of a mile distant. There would be no difficulty in following +the path. I would have a boat put over at once, I announced in a +casual way which belied my real feelings, for I was beginning to +share some of her own secret tension at this night invasion of +Leavitt's haunts. + +This feeling deepened within me as we drew near the shore. Leavitt's +failure to appear seemed sinister and enigmatic. I began to evolve a +fantastic image of him as I recalled his queer ways and his uncanny +tricks of speech. It was as if we were seeking out the presiding +deity of the island, who had assumed the guise of a Caliban holding +unearthly sway over its unnatural processes. + +With Williams, the boatswain, carrying a lantern, we pushed into the +brush, following the choked trail that led to Leavitt's abode. But +the bungalow, when we had reached the clearing and could discern the +outlines of the building against the masses of the forest, was dark +and deserted. As we mounted the veranda, the loose boards creaked +hollowly under our tread; the doorway, from which depended a +tattered curtain of coarse burlap, gaped black and empty. + +The lantern, lifted high in the boatswain's hand, cleft at a stroke +the darkness within. On the writing-table, cluttered with papers and +bits of volcanic rock, stood a bottle and half-empty glass. Things +lay about in lugubrious disorder, as if the place had been hurriedly +ransacked by a thief. Some of the geological specimens had tumbled +from the table to the floor, and stray sheets of Leavitt's +manuscripts lay under his chair. Leavitt's books, ranged on shelving +against the wall, alone seemed undisturbed. Upon the top of the +shelving stood two enormous stuffed birds, moldering and decrepit, +regarding the sudden illumination with unblinking, bead-like eyes. +Between them a small dancing faun in greenish bronze tripped a +Bacchic measure with head thrown back in a transport of derisive +laughter. + +For a long moment the three of us faced the silent, disordered room, +in which the little bronze faun alone seemed alive, convulsed with +diabolical mirth at our entrance. Somehow it recalled to me +Leavitt's own cynical laugh. Suddenly Miss Stanleigh made toward the +photographs above the bookshelves. + +"This is he," she said, taking up one of the faded prints. + +"Yes--Leavitt," I answered. + +"_Leavitt_?" Her fingers tightened upon the photograph. Then, +abruptly, it fell to the floor. "Yes, yes--of course." Her eyes +closed very slowly, as if an extreme weakness had seized her. + +In the shock of that moment I reached out to support her, but she +checked my hand. Her gray eyes opened again. A shudder visibly went +over her, as if the night air had suddenly become chill. From the +shelf the two stuffed birds regarded us dolefully, while the dancing +faun, with head thrown back in an attitude of immortal art, laughed +derisively. + +"Where is he? I must speak to him," said Miss Stanleigh. + +"One might think he were deliberately hiding," I muttered, for I was +at a loss to account for Leavitt's absence. + +"Then find him," the girl commanded. I cut short my speculations to +direct Williams to search the hut in the rear of the bungalow, where, +behind bamboo palings, Leavitt's Malay servant maintained an aloof +and mysterious existence. I sat down beside Miss Stanleigh on the +veranda steps to find my hands sooty from the touch of the boards. A +fine volcanic ash was evidently drifting in the air, and now to my +ear, attuned to the profound stillness, the wind bore a faint +humming sound. + +"Do you hear that?" I whispered. It was like the far-off murmur of a +gigantic caldron, softly a-boil--a dull vibration that seemed to +reach us through the ground as well as through the air. + +The girl listened a moment, and then started up. "I hear +voices--somewhere," + +"Voices?" I strained my ears for sounds other than the insistent +ferment of the great cone above our heads. "Perhaps Leavitt----" + +"Why do you still call him Leavitt?" + +"Then you're quite certain----" I began, but an involuntary +exclamation from her cut me short. + +The light of Williams's lantern, emerging from behind the bamboo +palings, disclosed the burly form of the boatswain with a shrinking +Malay in tow. He was jabbering in his native tongue, with much +gesticulation of his thin arms, and going into contortions at every +dozen paces in a sort of pantomime to emphasize his words. Williams +urged him along unceremoniously to the steps of the veranda. + +"Perhaps you can get the straight of this, Mr. Barnaby," said the +boatswain. "He swears that the flame-devil in the volcano has +swallowed his master alive." + +The poor fellow seemed indeed in a state of complete funk. With his +thin legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed, +distorted tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt--or Farquharson, to +give him his real name--had awakened the high displeasure of the +flame-devil within the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone +was smoking furiously? And the dust and heavy taint of sulphur in +the air? Surely we could feel the very tremor of the ground under +our feet. All that day the enraged monster had been spouting mud and +lava down upon the white _tuan_ who had remained in the bungalow, +drinking heavily and bawling out maledictions upon his enemy. At +length, in spite of Wadakimba's efforts to dissuade him, he had set +out to climb to the crater, vowing to show the flame-devil who was +master. He had compelled the terrified Wadakimba to go with him a +part of the way. The white _tuan_--was he really a god, as he +declared himself to be?--had gone alone up the tortuous, fissured +slopes, at times lost to sight in yellowish clouds of gas and steam, +while his screams and threats of vengeance came back to Wadakimba's +ears. Overhead, Lakalatcha continued to rumble and quiver and clear +his throat with great showers of mud and stones. + +Farquharson must have indeed parted with his reason to have attempted +that grotesque sally. Listening to Wadakimba's tale, I pictured the +crazed man, scorched to tatters, heedless of bruises and burns, +scrambling up that difficult and perilous ascent, and hurling his +ridiculous blasphemy into the flares of smoke and steam that issued +from that vast caldron lit by subterranean fires. At its simmering +the whole island trembled. A mere whiff of the monster's breath and +he would have been snuffed out, annihilated in an instant. According +to Wadakimba, the end had indeed come in that fashion. It was as if +the mountain had suddenly given a deep sigh. The blast had carried +away solid rock. A sheet of flame had licked the spot where +Farquharson had been hurled headlong, and he was not. + +Wadakimba, viewing all this from afar, had scuttled off to his hut. +Later he had ventured back to the scene of the tragedy. He had +picked up Farquharson's scorched helmet, which had been blown off to +some distance, and he also exhibited a pair of binoculars washed +down by the tide of lava, scarred and twisted by the heat, from +which the lenses had melted away. + +I translated for Miss Stanleigh briefly, while she stood turning +over in her hands the twisted and blackened binoculars, which were +still warm. She heard me through without question or comment, and +when I proposed that we get back to the _Sylph_ at once, mindful of +her aunt's distressed nerves, she assented with a nod. She seemed to +have lost the power of speech. In a daze she followed as I led the +way back through the forest. + + * * * * * + +Major Stanleigh and his wife deferred their departure for England +until their niece should be properly married to Joyce. At Eleanor's +wish, it was a very simple affair, and as Joyce's bride she was as +eager to be off to his rubber-plantation in Malduna as he was to set +her up there as mistress of his household. I had agreed to give them +passage on the _Sylph_, since the next sailing of the mail-boat would +have necessitated a further fortnight's delay. + +Mrs. Stanleigh, with visions of seeing England again, and profoundly +grateful to a benevolent Providence that had not only brought +"this dreadful business of Eleanor's" to a happy termination, but +had averted Lakalatcha's baptism of fire from descending upon her +own head, thanked me profusely and a little tearfully. It was during +the general chorus of farewells at the last moment before the +_Sylph_ cast off. Her last appeal, cried after us from the wharf +where she stood frantically waving a wet handkerchief, was that I +should give Muloa a wide berth. + +It brought a laugh from Joyce. He had discovered the good lady's +extreme perturbation in regard to Lakalatcha, and had promptly +declared for spending a day there with his bride. It was an +exceptional opportunity to witness the volcano in its active mood. +Each time that Joyce had essayed this teasing pleasantry, which +never failed to draw Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, I observed that his +wife remained silent. I assumed that she had decided to keep her own +counsel in regard to the trip she had made there. + +"I'm trusting you not to take Eleanor near that dreadful island, +Mr. Barnaby," was the admonition shouted across the widening gap of +water. + +It was a quite unnecessary appeal, for Joyce, who was presently +sitting with his wife in a sheltered quarter of the deck, had not +the slightest interest in the smoking cone which was as yet a mere +smudge upon the horizon. Eleanor, with one hand in Joyce's possession, +at times watched it with a seemingly vast apathy until some ardent +word from Joyce would draw her eyes back to his and she would lift +to him a smile that was like a caress. The look of weariness and +balked purpose that had once marked her expression had vanished. In +the week since she had married Joyce she seemed to have grown +younger and to be again standing on the very threshold of life with +girlish eagerness. She hung on Joyce's every word, communing with +him hour after hour, utterly content, indifferent to all the world +about her. + +In the cabin that evening at dinner, when the two of them deigned to +take polite cognizance of my existence, I announced to Joyce that I +proposed to hug the island pretty close during the night. It would +save considerable time. + +"Just as you like, Captain," Joyce replied, indifferently. + +"We may get a shower of ashes by doing so, if the wind should shift." +I looked across the table at Mrs. Joyce. + +"But we shall reach Malduna that much sooner?" she queried. + +I nodded. "However, if you feel any uneasiness, I'll give the island +a wide berth." I didn't like the idea of dragging her--the bride of +a week--past that place with its unspeakable memories, if it should +really distress her. + +Her eyes thanked me silently across the table. "It's very kind of you, +but"--she chose her words with significant deliberation--"I haven't +a fear in the world, Mr. Barnaby." + +Evening had fallen when we came up on deck. Joyce bethought himself +of some cigars in his stateroom and went back. For the moment I was +alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to +prick through the darkening sky. The _Sylph_ was running smoothly, +with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the +occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the +silence that lay like a benediction upon the sea. + +"You may think it unfeeling of me," she began, quite abruptly, +"but all this past trouble of mine, now that it is ended, I have +completely dismissed. Already it begins to seem like a horrid dream. +And as for that island"--her eyes looked off toward Muloa now +impending upon us and lighting up the heavens with its sullen flare-- +"it seems incredible that I ever set foot upon it. + +"Perhaps you understand," she went on, after a pause, "that I have +not told my husband. But I have not deceived him. He knows that I +was once married, and that the man is no longer living. He does not +wish to know more. Of course he is aware that Uncle Geoffrey came +out here to--to see a Mr. Leavitt, a matter which he has no idea +concerned me. He thanks the stars for whatever it was that did bring +us out here, for otherwise he would not have met me." + +"It has turned out most happily," I murmured. + +"It was almost disaster. After meeting Mr. Joyce--and I was weak +enough to let myself become engaged--to have discovered that I was +still chained to a living creature like that.... I should have +killed myself." + +"But surely the courts--" + +She shook her head with decision. "My church does not recognize that +sort of freedom." + +We were drawing steadily nearer to Muloa. The mountain was breathing +slowly and heavily--a vast flare that lifted fanlike in the skies +and died away. Lightning played fitfully through the dense mass of +smoke and choking gases that hung like a pall over the great cone. +It was like the night sky that overhangs a city of gigantic +blast-furnaces, only infinitely multiplied. The sails of the _Sylph_ +caught the ruddy tinge like a phantom craft gliding through the black +night, its canvas still dyed with the sunset glow. The faces of the +crew, turned to watch the spectacle, curiously fixed and inhuman, +were picked out of the gloom by the same fantastic light. It was as +if the schooner, with masts and riggings etched black against the +lurid sky, sailed on into the Day of Judgment. + + * * * * * + +It was after midnight. The _Sylph_ came about, with sails trembling, +and lost headway. Suddenly she vibrated from stem to stern, and with +a soft grating sound that was unmistakable came to rest. We were +aground in what should have been clear water, with the forest-clad +shore of Muloa lying close off to port. + +The helmsman turned to me with a look of silly fright on his face, +as the wheel revolved useless in his hands. We had shelved with +scarcely a jar sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a +twinkling Jackson, the mate, appeared on deck in his pajamas, and +after a swift glance toward the familiar shore turned to me with the +same dumfounded look that had frozen upon the face of the steersman. + +"What do you make of this?" he exclaimed, as I called for the lead. + +"Be quiet about it," I said to the hands that had started into +movement. "Look sharp now, and make no noise." Then I turned to the +mate, who was perplexedly rubbing one bare foot against the other +and measuring with his eye our distance from the shore. The _Sylph_ +should have turned the point of the island without mishap, as she +had done scores of times. + +"It's the volcano we have to thank for this," was my conjecture. +"Its recent activity has caused some displacement of the sea bottom." + +Jackson's head went back in sudden comprehension. "It's a miracle +you didn't plow into it under full sail." + +We had indeed come about in the very nick of time to avoid disaster. +As matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to +float clear with the tide." + +The mate cocked a doubtful eye at Lakalatcha, uncomfortably close +above our heads, flaming at intervals and bathing the deck with an +angry glare of light. "If she should begin spitting up a little +livelier ..." he speculated with a shrug, and presently took +himself off to his bunk after an inspection below had shown that +none of the schooner's seams had started. There was nothing to do +but to wait for the tide to make and lift the vessel clear. It would +be a matter of three or four hours. I dismissed the helmsman; and the +watch forward, taking advantage of the respite from duty, were soon +recumbent in attitudes of heavy sleep. + +The wind had died out and a heavy torpor lay upon the water. It was +as if the stars alone held to their slow courses above a world rigid +and inanimate. The _Sylph_ lay with a slight list, her spars looking +inexpressibly helpless against the sky, and, as the minutes dragged, +a fine volcanic ash, like some mortal pestilence exhaled by the +monster cone, settled down upon the deck, where, forward in the +shadow, the watch lay curled like dead men. + +Alone, I paced back and forth--countless soft-footed miles, it seemed, +through interminable hours, until at length some obscure impulse +prompted me to pause before the open sky-light over the cabin and +thrust my head down. A lamp above the dining-table, left to burn +through the night, feebly illuminated the room. A faint snore issued +at regular intervals from the half-open door of the mate's stateroom. +The door of Joyce's stateroom opposite was also upon the hook for +the sake of air. + +Suddenly a soft thump against the side of the schooner, followed by +a scrambling noise, made me turn round. The dripping, bedraggled +figure of a man in a sleeping-suit mounted the rope ladder that hung +over the side, and paused, grasping the rail. I had withdrawn my +gaze so suddenly from the glow of the light in the cabin that for +several moments the intruder from out of the sea was only a blurred +form with one leg hung over the rail, where he hung as if spent by +his exertions. + +Just then the sooty vapours above the edged maw of the volcano were +rent by a flare of crimson, and in the fleeting instant of unnatural +daylight I beheld Farquharson, bare-footed, and dripping with +sea-water, confronting me with a sardonic, triumphant smile. The +light faded in a twinkling, but in the darkness he swung his other +leg over the rail and sat perched there, as if challenging the +testimony of my senses. + +"Farquharson!" I breathed aloud, utterly dumfounded. + +"Did you think I was a ghost?" I could hear him softly laughing to +himself in the interval that followed. "You should have witnessed +Wadakimba's fright at my coming back from the dead. Well, I'll admit +I almost was done for." + +Again the volcano breathed in torment. It was like the sudden +opening of a gigantic blast-furnace, and in that instant I saw him +vividly--his thin, saturnine face, his damp black hair pushed +sleekly back, his lips twisted to a cruel smile, his eyes craftily +alert, as if to some ambushed danger continually at hand. He was +watching me with a sort of malicious relish in the shock he had +given me. + +"It was not your intention to stop at Muloa," he observed, dryly, +for the plight of the schooner was obvious. + +"We'll float clear with the tide," I muttered. + +"But in the meantime"--there was something almost menacing in his +deliberate pause--"I have the pleasure of this little call upon you." + +A head lifted from among the inert figures and sleepily regarded us +before it dropped back into the shadows. The stranded ship, the +recumbent men, the mountain flaming overhead--it was like a phantom +world into which had been suddenly thrust this ghastly and +incredible reality. + +"Whatever possessed you to swim out here in the middle of the night?" +I demanded, in a harsh whisper. + +He chose to ignore the question, while I waited in a chill of +suspense. It was inconceivable that he could be aware of the truth +of the situation and deliberately bent on forcing it to its +unspeakable, tragic issue. + +"Of late, Captain Barnaby, we seem to have taken to visiting each +other rather frequently, don't you think?" + +It was lightly tossed off, but not without its evil implication; and +I felt his eyes intently fixed upon me as he sat hunched up on the +rail in his sodden sleeping-suit, like some huge, ill-omened bird of +prey. + +To get rid of him, to obliterate the horrible fact that he still +existed in the flesh, was the instinctive impulse of my staggered +brain. But the peril of discovery, the chance that those sleeping +below might waken and hear us, held me in a vise of indecision. + +"If I could bring myself to reproach you, Captain," he went on, +ironically polite, "I might protest that your last visit to this +island savoured of a too-inquisitive intrusion. You'll pardon my +frankness. I had convinced you and Major Stanleigh that Farquharson +was dead. To the world at large that should have sufficed. That I +choose to remain alive is my own affair. Your sudden return to +Muloa--with a lady--would have upset everything, if Fate and that +inspired fool of a Malay had not happily intervened. But now, surely, +there can be no doubt that I am dead?" + +I nodded assent in a dumb, helpless way. + +"And I have a notion that even you, Captain Barnaby, will never +dispute that fact." + +He threw back his head suddenly--for all the world like the dancing +faun--and laughed silently at the stars. + +My tongue was dry in my mouth as I tried to make some rejoinder. He +baffled me completely, and meanwhile I was in a tingle of fear lest +the mate should come up on deck to see what progress the tide had +made, or lest the sound of our voices might waken the girl in +Joyce's stateroom. + +"I can promise you that," I attempted to assure him in weak, +sepulchral tones. "And now, if you like, I'll put you ashore in the +small boat. You must be getting chilly in that wet sleeping-suit." + +"As a matter of fact I am, and I was wondering if you would not +offer me something to drink." + +"You shall have a bottle to take along," I promised, with alacrity, +but he demurred. + +"There is no sociability in that. And you seem very lonesome +here--stuck for two more hours at least. Come, Captain, fetch your +bottle and we will share it together." + +He got down from the rail, stretched his arms lazily above his head, +and dropped into one of the deck chairs that had been placed aft for +the convenience of my two passengers. + +"And cigars, too, Captain," he suggested, with a politeness that was +almost impertinence. "We'll have a cozy hour or two out of this +tedious wait for the tide to lift you off." + +I contemplated him helplessly. There was no alternative but to fall +in with whatever mad caprice might seize his brain. If I opposed him, +it would lead to high and querulous words; and the hideous fact of +his presence there--of his mere existence--I was bound to conceal at +all hazards. + +"I must ask you to keep quiet," I said, stiffly. + +"As a tomb," he agreed, and his eyes twinkled disagreeably in the +darkness. "You forget that I am supposed to be in one." + +I went stealthily down into the cabin, where I secured a box of +cigars and the first couple of bottles that my hands laid hold of in +the locker. They proved to contain an old Tokay wine which I had +treasured for several years to no particular purpose. The ancient +bottles clinked heavily in my grasp as I mounted again to the deck. + +"Now this is something like," he purred, watching like a cat my +every motion as I set the glasses forth and guardedly drew the cork. +He saluted me with a flourish and drank. + +To an onlooker that pantomime in the darkness would have seemed +utterly grotesque. I tasted the fragrant, heavy wine and +waited--waited in an agony of suspense--my ears strained desperately +to catch the least sound from below. But a profound silence +enveloped the schooner, broken only by the occasional rhythmic snore +of the mate. + +"You seem rather ill at ease," Farquharson observed from the depths +of the deck chair when he had his cigar comfortably aglow. "I trust +it isn't this little impromptu call of mine that's disturbing you. +After all, life has its unusual moments, and this, I think, is one +of them." He sniffed the bouquet of his wine and drank. "It is rare +moments like this--bizarre, incredible, what you like--that +compensate for the tedium of years." + +His disengaged hand had fallen to the side of the chair, and I now +observed in dismay that a scarf belonging to Joyce's wife had been +left lying in the chair, and that his fingers were absently twisting +the silken fringe. + +"I wonder that you stick it out, as you do, on this island," I +forced myself to observe, seeking safety in the commonplace, while +my eyes, as if fascinated, watched his fingers toying with the ends +of the scarf. I was forced to accept the innuendo beneath his +enigmatic utterances. His utter baseness and depravity, born perhaps +of a diseased mind, I could understand. I had led him to bait a trap +with the fiction of his own death, but he could not know that it had +been already sprung upon his unsuspecting victims. + +He seemed to regard me with contemptuous pity. "Naturally, you wonder. +A mere skipper like yourself fails to understand--many things. What +can you know of life cooped up in this schooner? You touch only the +surface of things just as this confounded boat of yours skims only +the top of the water. Once in a lifetime you may come to real grips +with life--strike bottom, eh?--as your schooner has done now. Then +you're aground and quite helpless. What a pity!" + +He lifted his glass and drank it off, then thrust it out to be +refilled. "Life as the world lives it--bah!" he dismissed it with +the scorn of one who counts himself divested of all illusions. +"Life would be an infernal bore if it were not for its paradoxes. +Now you, Captain Barnaby, would never dream that in becoming dead to +the world--in other people's belief--I have become intensely alive. +There are opened up infinite possibilities--" + +He drank again and eyed me darkly, and then went on in his +crack-brained way. "What is life but a challenge to pretense, a +constant exercise in duplicity, with so few that come to master it +as an art? Every one goes about with something locked deep in his +heart. Take yourself, Captain Barnaby. You have your secrets--hidden +from me, from all the world--which, if they could be dragged out of +you--" + +His deep-set eyes bored through the darkness upon me. Hunched up in +the deck chair, with his legs crossed under him, he was like an +animated Buddha venting a dark philosophy and seeking to undermine +my mental balance with his sophistry. + +"I'm a plain man of the sea," I rejoined, bluntly. "I take life as +it comes." + +He smiled derisively, drained his glass, and held it out again. +"But you have your secrets, rather clumsily guarded, to be sure--" + +"What secrets?" I cried out, goaded almost beyond endurance. + +He seemed to deprecate the vigour of my retort and lifted a +cautioning hand. "Do you want every one on board to hear this +conversation?" At that moment the smoke-wrapped cone of Lakalatcha +was cleft by a sheet of flame, and we confronted each other in a +sort of blood-red dawn. + +"There is no reason why we should quarrel," he went on, after +darkness had enveloped us again. "But there are times which call +for plain speaking. Major Stanleigh is probably hardly aware of just +what he said to me under a little artful questioning. It seems that +a lady who--shall we say, whom we both have the honour of knowing? +--is in love. Love, mark you. It is always interesting to see that +flower bud twice from the same stalk. However, one naturally defers +to a lady, especially when one is very much in her way. _Place aux +dames_, eh? Exit poor Farquharson! You must admit that his was an +altruistic soul. Well, she has her freedom--if only to barter it for +a new bondage. Shall we drink to the happy future of that romance?" + +He lifted to me his glass with ironical invitation, while I sat +aghast and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This +intolerable colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I +should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the +soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all control and leap +up and brain him with the heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane +desire to spring at his throat and throttle his infamous bravado, +tumble him overboard and annihilate the last vestige of his existence. + +"Come, Captain," he urged, "you, too, have shared in smoothing the +path for these lovers. Shall we not drink to their happy union?" + +A feeling of utter loathing went over me. I set my glass down. +"It would be a more serviceable compliment to the lady in question +if I strangled you on the spot," I muttered, boldly. + +"But you are forgetting that I am already dead." He threw his head +back as if vastly amused, then lurched forward and held out his +glass a little unsteadily to be refilled. + +He gave me a quick, evil look. "Besides, the noise might disturb +your passengers." + +I could feel a cold perspiration suddenly breaking out upon my body. +Either the fellow had obtained an inkling of the truth in some +incredible way, or was blindly on the track of it, guided by some +diabolical scent. Under the spell of his eyes, I could not manage +the outright lie which stuck in my throat. + +"What makes you think I have passengers?" I parried, weakly. + +With intent or not, he was again fingering the fringe of the scarf +that hung over the arm of the chair. + +"It is not your usual practice, but you have been carrying them +lately." + +He drained his glass and sat staring into it, his head drooping a +little forward. The heavy wine was beginning to have its effect upon +him, but whether it would provoke him to some outright violence or +drag him down into a stupor, I could not predict. Suddenly the glass +slipped from his fingers and shivered to pieces on the deck. I +started violently at the sound, and in the silence that followed I +thought I heard a footfall in the cabin below. + +He looked up at length from his absorbed contemplation of the bits +of broken glass. "We were talking about love, were we not?" he +demanded, heavily. + +I did not answer. I was straining to catch a repetition of the sound +from below. Time was slipping rapidly away, and to sit on meant +inevitable discovery. The watch might waken or the mate appear to +surprise me in converse with my nocturnal visitor. It would be folly +to attempt to conceal his presence and I despaired of getting him +back to shore while his present mood held, although I remembered +that the small boat, which had been lowered after we went aground, +was still moored to the rail amidships. + +Refilling my own glass, I offered it to him. He lurched forward to +take it, but the fumes of the wine suddenly drifted clear of his +brain. "You seem very much distressed," he observed, with ironic +concern. "One might think you were actually sheltering these +precious love-birds." + +Perspiration broke out anew upon my face and neck. "I don't know what +you are talking about," I bluntly tried to fend off his implication. +I felt as if I were helplessly strapped down and that he was about +to probe me mercilessly with some sharp instrument. I strode to turn +the direction of his thoughts by saying, "I understand that the +Stanleighs are returning to England." + +"The Stanleighs--quite so," he nodded agreement, and fixed me with a +maudlin stare. Something prompted me to fill his glass again. He +drank it off mechanically. Again I poured, and he obediently drank. +With an effort he tried to pick up the thread of our conversation: + +"What did you say? Oh, the Stanleighs ... yes, yes, of course." He +slowly nodded his head and fell silent. "I was about to say ..." He +broke off again and seemed to ruminate profoundly.... "Love-birds--" +I caught the word feebly from his lips, spoken as if in a daze. The +glass hung dripping in his relaxed grasp. + +It was a crucial moment in which his purpose seemed to waver and die +in his clouded brain. A great hope sprang up in my heart, which was +hammering furiously. If I could divert his fuddled thoughts and get +him back to shore while the wine lulled him to forgetfulness. + +I leaned forward to take the glass which was all but slipping from +his hand, when Lakalatcha flamed with redoubled fury. It was as if +the mountain had suddenly bared its fiery heart to the heavens, and +a muffled detonation reached my ears. + +Farquharson straightened up with a jerk and scanned the smoking peak, +from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a +threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, +and began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his +faculties seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy +labouring of the mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were +a fractious child. When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made +no protest, but followed me into the boat. As I pushed off and took +up the oars he had eyes for nothing but the flaming cone, as if its +leaping fires held for him an Apocalyptic vision. + +I strained at the oars as if in a race, with all eternity at stake, +blindly urging the boat ahead through water that flashed crimson at +every stroke. The mountain now flamed like a beacon, and I rowed for +dear life over a sea of blood. + +Farquharson sat entranced before the spectacle, chanting to himself +a kind of insane ritual, like a Parsee fire-worshipper making +obeisance before his god. He was rapt away to some plane of mystic +exaltation, to some hinterland of the soul that merged upon madness. +When at length the boat crunched upon the sandy shore he got up +unsteadily from the stern and pointed to the pharos that flamed in +the heavens. + +"The fire upon the altar is lit," he addressed me, oracularly, while +the fanatic light of a devotee burned in his eyes. "Shall we ascend +and prepare the sacrifice?" + +I leaned over the oars, panting from my exertions, indifferent to +his rhapsody. + +"If you'll take my advice, you'll get back at once to your bungalow +and strip off that wet sleeping-suit," I bluntly counseled him, but +I might as well have argued with a man in a trance. + +He leaped over the gunwale and strode up the beach. Again he struck +his priest-like attitude and invoked me to follow. + +"The fire upon the altar waits," he repeated, solemnly. Suddenly he +broke into a shrill laugh and ran like a deer in the direction of the +forest that stretched up the slopes of the mountain. + +The mate's face, thrust over the rail as I drew alongside the +schooner, plainly bespoke his utter bewilderment. He must have +thought me bereft of my senses to be paddling about at that hour of +the night. The tide had made, and the _Sylph_, righting her listed +masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when +the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an +uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural +day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up +red-hot rocks to the accompaniment of dull sounds of explosion. + +My first glance about the deck had been one of relief to note that +Joyce and his wife were not there, although the commotion of getting +under sail must have awakened them. A breeze had sprung up which +would prove a fair wind as soon as the _Sylph_ stood clear of the +point. The mate gave a grunt of satisfaction when at length the +schooner began to dip her bow and lay over to the task. Leaving him +in charge, I started to go below, when suddenly Mrs. Joyce, fully +dressed, confronted me. She seemed to have materialized out of the +air like a ghost. Her hair glowed like burnished copper in the +unnatural illumination which bathed the deck, but her face was ashen, +and the challenge of her eyes made my heart stop short. + +"You have been awake long?" I ventured to ask. + +"Too long," she answered, significantly, with her face turned away, +looking down into the water. She had taken my arm and drawn me +toward the rail. Now I felt her fingers tighten convulsively. In the +droop of her head and the tense curve of her neck I sensed her mad +impulse which the dark water suggested. + +"Mrs. Joyce!" I remonstrated, sharply. + +She seemed to go limp all over at the words. I drew her along the +deck for a faltering step or two, while her eyes continued to brood +upon the water rushing past. Suddenly she spoke: + +"What other way out is there?" + +"Never that," I said, shortly. I urged her forward again. "Is your +husband asleep?" + +"Thank God, yes!" + +"Then you have been awake--" + +"For over an hour," she confessed, and I detected the shudder that +went over her body. + +"The man is mad--" + +"But I am married to him." She stopped and caught at the rail like a +prisoner gripping at the bars that confine him. "I cannot--cannot +endure it! Where are you taking me? Where _can_ you take me? Don't +you see that there is no escape--from this?" + +The _Sylph_ rose and sank to the first long roll of the open sea. + +"When we reach Malduna--" I began, but the words were only torture. + +"I cannot--cannot go on. Take me back!--to that island! Let me live +abandoned--or rather die--" + +"Mrs. Joyce, I beg of you...." + +The schooner rose and dipped again. + +For what seemed an interminable time we paced the deck together +while Lakalatcha flamed farther and farther astern. Her words came +in fitful snatches as if spoken in a delirium, and at times she +would pause and grip the rail to stare back, wild-eyed, at the +receding island. + +Suddenly she started, and in a sort of blinding, noon-day blaze I +saw her face blanch with horror. It was as if at that moment the +heavens had cracked asunder and the night had fallen away in chaos. +Turning, I saw the cone of the mountain lifting skyward in +fragments--and saw no more, for the blinding vision remained seared +upon the retina of my eyes. + +Across the water, slower paced, came the dread concussion of sound. + +"Good God! It's carried away the whole island!" I heard the mate's +voice bellowing above the cries of the men. The _Sylph_ scudded +before the approaching storm of fire redescending from the sky.... + +The first gray of the dawn disclosed Mrs. Joyce still standing by +the rail, her hand nestling within the arm of her husband, +indifferent to the heavy grayish dust that fell in benediction upon +her like a silent shower of snow. + +The island of Muloa remains to-day a charred cinder lapped about by +the blue Pacific. At times gulls circle over its blackened and +desolate surface devoid of every vestige of life. From the squat, +truncated mass of Lakalatcha, shorn of half its lordly height, a +feeble wisp of smoke still issues to the breeze, as if Vulcan, tired +of his forge, had banked its fire before abandoning it. + + + + +THE ARGOSIES + + +BY ALEXANDER HULL + +From _Scribner's Magazine_ + +There may have been some benevolent force watching over Harber. In +any case, that would be a comforting belief. Certainly Harber +himself so believed, and I know he had no trouble at all convincing +his wife. Yes, the Harbers believed. + +But credulity, you may say, was ever the surest part in love's young +golden dream: and you, perhaps, not having your eyes befuddled with +the rose-fog of romance, will see too clearly to believe. What can I +adduce for your conviction? The facts only. After all, that is the +single strength of my position. + +There was, of course, the strange forehanded, subtle planning of the +other girl, of Janet Spencer. Why did she do it? Was it that, +feeling her chances in Tawnleytown so few, counting the soil there +so barren, driven by an ambition beyond the imagination of staid, +stodgy, normal Tawnleytown girls, she felt she must create +opportunities where none were? She was very lovely, Harber tells me, +in a fiery rose-red of the fairy-tale way; though even without +beauty it needn't have been hard for her. Young blood is prone +enough to adventure; the merest spark will set it akindle. I should +like to have known that girl. She must have been very clever. Because, +of course, she couldn't have foreseen, even by the surest instinct, +the coincidence that brought Harber and Barton together. Yes, there +is a coincidence in it. It's precisely upon that, you see, that +Harber hangs his belief. + +I wonder, too, how many of those argosies she sent out seeking the +golden fleece returned to her? It's a fine point for speculation. If +one only knew.... ah, but it's pitiful how much one doesn't, and +can't, know in this hard and complex world! Or was it merely that +she tired of them and wanted to be rid of them? Or again, do I wrong +her there, and were there no more than the two of them, and did she +simply suffer a solitary revulsion of feeling, as Harber did? But no, +I'm sure I'm right in supposing Barton and Harber to have been but +two ventures out of many, two arrows out of a full quiver shot in +the dark at the bull's-eye of fortune. And, by heaven, it was +splendid shooting ... even if none of the other arrows scored! + +Harber tells me he was ripe for the thing without any encouragement +to speak of. Tawnleytown was dull plodding for hot youth. Half +hidden in the green of fir and oak and maple, slumberous with +midsummer heat, it lay when he left it. Thickly powdered with the +fine white dust of its own unpaven streets, dust that sent the +inhabitants chronically sneezing and weeping and red-eyed about town, +or sent them north to the lakes for exemption, dust that hung +impalpably suspended in the still air and turned the sunsets to +things of glorious rose and red and gold though there wasn't a single +cloud or streamer in the sky to catch the light, dust that lay upon +lawns and walks and houses in deep gray accumulation ... precisely +as if these were objects put away and never used and not disturbed +until they were white with the inevitable powdery accretion that +accompanies disuse. Indeed, he felt that way about Tawnleytown, as +if it were a closed room of the world, a room of long ago, unused now, +unimportant, forgotten. + +So unquestionably he was ready enough to go. He had all the fine and +far-flung dreams of surging youth. He peopled the world with his +fancies, built castles on every high hill. He felt the urge of +ambition fiercely stirring within him, latent power pulsing through +him. What would you? Wasn't he young and in love? + +For there had been, you must know, a good deal between them. What +does one do in these deadly dull little towns for amusement, when +one is young and fain and restless? Harber tells me they walked the +streets and shaded lanes in the dim green coolness of evening, +lounged in the orchard hammock, drifted down the little river, past +still pools, reed-bordered, under vaulting sycamores, over hurrying +reaches fretted with pebbles, forgot everything except one another +and their fancies and made, as youth must, love. That was the +programme complete, except for the talk, the fascinating, +never-ending talk. Volumes on volumes of it--whole libraries of it. + +So, under her veiled fostering, the feeling that he must leave +Tawnleytown kept growing upon Harber until one evening it +crystallized in decision. + +It was on a Sunday. They had taken a lunch and climbed Bald Knob, a +thousand feet above the town, late in the afternoon. The dying sun +and the trees had given them a splendid symphony in black and gold, +and had silenced them for a little. They sat looking down over the +valley in which the well-known landmarks slowly grew dark and +indistinguishable and dim lights blossomed one after another. The +sound of church bells rose faintly through the still air. The pale +last light faded in the sky. + +Harber and Janet sat in the long grass, their hearts stirring with +the same urgent, inarticulate thoughts, their hands clasped together. + +"Let's wait for Eighty-seven," she said. + +Harber pressed her hand for reply. + +In the mind of each of them Eighty-seven was the symbol of release +from Tawnleytown, of freedom, of romance. + +Presently a shifting light appeared in the east, a faint rumble +became perceptible and increased. The swaying shaft of light +intensified and a moment later the long-drawn poignancy of a +chime-whistle blowing for the river-road crossing, exquisitely +softened by distance, echoingly penetrated the still valley. + +A streak of thunderous light swam into view and passed them, +plunging into a gap in the west. The fire-box in the locomotive +opened and flung a flood of light upon a swirling cloud of smoke. A +sharp turn in the track, a weak blast of the whistle at the +bridge-head, and the "Limited," disdaining contemptible Tawnleytown, +had swept out of sight--into the world--at a mile to the minute. + +"If I were on it," said Harber slowly. + +Janet caught her breath sharply. "You're a man!" she said fiercely. +"You could be--so easily!" + +Harber was startled for a moment. Her kindling of his flame of +adventure had been very subtle until now. Perhaps she hadn't been +sure before to-day of her standing. But this afternoon, upon the +still isolation of Bald Knob, there had been many kisses exchanged, +and brave vows of undying love. And no doubt she felt certain of him +now. + +With Harber, however, the pathway had seemed leading otherwhere. He +wasn't the sort of youth to kiss and ride away. And, discounting +their adventurous talk, he had tacitly supposed that his course the +last few weeks spelled the confinement of the four walls of a +Tawnleytown cottage, the fetters of an early marriage. He had been +fighting his mounting fever for the great world, and thinking, as +the train sped by, that after all "home was best." It would be. It +must be. So, if his fine dreams were the price he must pay for Janet, +still he would pay them! And he was startled by her tone. + +Her slim fingers tightened upon his. + +"Why do you stay?" she cried passionately. "Why don't you go?" + +"There's you," he began. + +"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I'm selfish, maybe! I don't know! But +it's as much for me as for you that I say it!" + +Her words poured out tumultuously. + +"Where are all our wonderful dreams--if you stay here? Gone +aglimmering! Gone! I can't see them all go--I can't! Can you?" + +Was he to have, then, both Janet and his dreams? His heart quickened. +He leaned impulsively toward her. + +She pushed his face away with her free hand. + +"No--no! Wait till I'm through! We've always known we weren't like +other Tawnleytown folk, haven't we, dear? We've always said that we +wanted more out of life than they--that we wouldn't be content with +half a loaf--that we wanted the bravest adventures, the yellowest +gold, the finest emotions, the greater power! And if now ... + +"See those fights down there--so few--and so faint. We can't live +our lives there. Seventy-five dollars a month in the bank for +you--and dull, deadly monotony for both of us--no dreams--no +adventures--nothing big and fine! We can't be content with that! Why +don't you go, John? + +"Don't mind me--don't let me keep you--for as soon as you've won, +you can come back to me--and then--we'll see the world together!" + +"Janet--Janet!" said Harber, with pounding heart. "How do you +know--that I'll win?" + +"Ah," she said strangely, "I know! You can't fail--_I won't let you +fail_"! + +Harber caught her suddenly in his arms and kissed her as if it were +to be his last token of her. + +"I'm going then!" he whispered. "I'm going!" + +"When?" + +"There's no time to be lost!" he said, thinking fast. "If I had +known that you were willing, that you would wait--if ... Janet, I'm +going to-morrow!" + +Her arms tightened about him convulsively. "Promise me--promise me!" +she demanded tensely, "that you'll never, never forget me--that +you'll come back to me!" + +Harber laughed in her face. "Janet," he said solemnly, "I'll never +forget you. I'll come back to you. I'll come back--'though 'twere +ten thousand mile!'" + +And they walked home slowly, wrapt once more in their fascinating +talk, fanning the flames of one another's desires, painting for +their future the rich landscapes of paradise. Youth! Brave, hot youth! + +The next day Harber contemptuously threw over his job in the bank +and fared forth into the wide world that was calling. + + * * * * * + +Well, he went south, then east, then west, and west, and farther west. +So far that presently, after three years, he found himself not west +at all, but east--far east. There were between him and Janet Spencer +now thousands on thousands of miles of vast heaving seas, and +snow-capped mountain ranges, and limitless grassy plains. + +Three years of drifting! You'd say, perhaps, knowing the frailty of +vows, that the connection might have been lost. But it hadn't. +Harber was but twenty-three. Faithfulness, too, comes easier then +than later in life, when one has seen more of the world, when the +fine patina of illusion has worn off. Besides, there was, I'm sure, +a touch of genius about that girl, so that one wouldn't forget her +easily, certainly not in three years. And then, you know, Harber had +had her letters. Not many of them. Perhaps a dozen to the year. + +Pitifully few, but they were filled with a wonderful fascination +against which the realities of his wandering life had been powerless +to contend. Like a slender cable they bound him--they held him! + +Well, he was in Sydney now, standing on the water-front, beneath a +bright-blue Australian sky, watching the crinkling water in the +Circular Quay as it lifted and fell mightily but easily, and seeing +the black ships ... ah, the ships! Those masterful, much more than +human, entities that slipped about the great world nosing out, up +dark-green tropical rivers in black, fir-bound fjords, through the +white ice-flows of the Arctics, all its romance, all its gold! Three +years hadn't dulled the keen edge of his appetite for all that; +rather had whetted it. + +Nevertheless, as he stood there, he was thinking to himself that +he must have done with wandering; the old saw that a rolling +stone gathered no moss was cropping up sharply, warningly, in +his mind. He had in the three years, however--and this is rather +remarkable--accumulated about three thousand dollars. Three thousand +dollars! Why, in this quarter of the world, three thousand dollars +should be like three thousand of the scriptural mustard-seed--they +should grow a veritable forest! + +What was puzzling him, however, was where to plant the seed. He was +to meet here a man who had a plan for planting in the islands. There +were wild rumours afloat of the fortunes that could be made in +rubber and vanilla out in the Papuan "Back Beyond." Harber was only +half inclined to believe them, perhaps; but half persuaded is well +along the way. + +He heard his name called, and, turning, he saw a man coming toward +him with the rolling gait of the seaman. As he came closer, Harber +observed the tawny beard, the sea-blue eyes surrounded by the fine +wrinkles of humour, the neat black clothing, the polished boots, and, +above all, the gold earrings that marked the man in his mind as +Farringdon, the sea-captain who had been anxious to meet him. + +Harber answered the captain's gleam of teeth with one of his own, +and they turned their backs upon the water and went to Harber's room, +where they could have their fill of talk undisturbed. Harber says +they talked all that afternoon and evening, and well into the next +morning, enthusiastically finding one another the veritable salt of +the earth, honourable, level-headed, congenial, temperamentally +fitted for exactly what they had in mind--partnership. + +"How much can you put in?" asked Harber finally. + +"Five hundred pounds," said the captain. + +"I can match you," said Harber. + +"Man, but that's fine!" cried the captain. "I've been looking for +you--you, you know--_just you_--for the last two years! And when +Pierson told me about you ... why, it's luck, I say!" + +It was luck for Harber, too. Farringdon, you see, knew precisely +where he wanted to go, and he had his schooner, and he knew that +part of the world, as we say, like a man knows his own buttons. +Harber, then, was to manage the plantation; they were going to set +out rubber, both Para and native, and try hemp and maybe coffee +while they waited for the Haevia and the Ficus to yield. And +Farringdon was ready to put the earnings from his schooner against +Harber's wage as manager. The arrangement, you see, was ideal. + +Skip seven years with me, please. Consider the plantation affair +launched, carried, and consummated. Farringdon and Harber have sold +the rubber-trees as they neared bearing, and have sold them well. +They're out of that now. In all likelihood, Harber thinks, +permanently. For that seven years has seen other projects blossom. +Harber, says Farringdon, has "the golden touch." There has been +trading in the islands, and a short and fortunate little campaign on +the stock-market through Sydney brokers, and there has been, more +profitable than anything else, the salvaging of the Brent Interisland +Company's steamer _Pailula_ by Farringdon's schooner, in which +Harber had purchased a half-interest; so the partners are, on the +whole, rather well fixed. Harber might be rated at, perhaps, some +forty thousand pounds, not counting his interest in the schooner. + +One of Janet Spencer's argosies, then, its cargo laden, is ready to +set sail for the hills of home. In short, Harber is now in one of +the island ports of call, waiting for the steamer from Fiji. In six +weeks he will be in Tawnleytown if all goes well. + +It isn't, and yet it is, the same Harber. He's thirty now, lean and +bronzed and very fit. He can turn a hundred tricks now where then he +could turn one. The tropics have agreed with him. There seems to +have been some subtle affinity between them, and he almost wishes +that he weren't leaving them. He certainly wouldn't be, if it were +not for Janet. + +Yes, that slender thread has held him. Through ten years it has kept +him faithful. He has eyed askance, ignored, even rebuffed, women. +The letters, that still come, have turned the trick, perhaps, or +some clinging to a faith that is inherent in him. Or sheer obstinacy? +Forgive the cynicism. A little of each, no doubt. And then he hadn't +often seen the right sort of women. I say that deliberately, because: + +The night before the steamer was due there was a ball--yes, poor +island exiles, they called it that!--and Harber, one of some thirty +"Europeans" there, went to it, and on the very eve of safety ... + +The glare and the oily smell of the lanterns, the odour of jasmine, +frangipanni, vanilla, and human beings sickeningly mingled in the +heat, the jangling, out-of-tune music, the wearisome island gossip +and chatter, drove him at length out into the night, down a +black-shadowed pathway to the sea. The beach lay before him presently, +gleaming like silver in the soft blue radiance of the jewelled night. +As he stood there, lost in far memories, the mellow, lemon-coloured +lights from the commissioner's residence shone beautifully from the +fronded palms and the faint wave of the waltzes of yesteryear became +poignant and lovely, and the light trade-wind, clean here from the +reek of lamps and clothing and human beings, vaguely tanged with the +sea, blew upon him with a light, insistent pressure. Half dreaming, +he heard the sharp sputter of a launch--bearing belated comers to +the ball, no doubt--but he paid no attention to it. He may have been +on the beach an hour before he turned to ascend to the town. + +And just at the top of the slope he came upon a girl. + +She hadn't perceived him, and she stood there, slim and graceful, +the moonlight bright upon her rapt face, with her arms outstretched +and her head flung back, in an attitude of utter abandonment. Harber +felt his heart stir swiftly. He knew what she was feeling, as she +looked out over the shimmering half-moon of harbour, across the +moaning white feather of reef, out to the illimitable sea, and drank +in the essence of the beauty of the night. Just so, at first, had it +clutched him with the pain of ecstasy, and he had never forgotten it. +There would be no voicing that feeling; it must ever remain +inarticulate. Nor was the girl trying to voice it. Her exquisite +pantomime alone spelled her delight in it and her surrender to it. + +He saw at a glance that he didn't know her. She was "new" to the +islands. Her clothes were evidence enough for that. There was a +certain verve to them that spoke of a more sophisticated land. She +might have been twenty-five though she seemed younger. She was in +filmy white from slipper to throat, and over her slender shoulders +there drifted a gossamer banner of scarf, fluttering in the soft +trade-wind. Harber was very close to see this, and still she hadn't +observed him. + +"Don't let me startle you, please!" he said, as he stepped from the +shadow of the trumpet-flower bush that had hitherto concealed him. + +Her arms came down slowly, her chin lowered; her pose, if you will, +melted away. Her voice when she spoke was low and round and thrilled, +and it sent an answering thrill through Harber. + +"I'm mad!" she said. "Moon-mad--or tropic-mad. I didn't hear you. I +was worshipping the night!" + +"As I have been," said Harber, feeling a sudden pagan kinship with +her mood. + +She smiled, and her smile seemed the most precious thing in the world. +"You, too? But it isn't new to you ... and when the newness is gone +every one--here at least--seems dead to it!" + +"Sometimes I think it's always new," replied Harber. "And yet I've +had years of it ... but how did you know?" + +"You're Mr. Harber, aren't you?" + +"Yes. But---" + +"Only that I knew you were here, having heard of you from the +Tretheways, and I'd accounted for every one else. I couldn't stay +inside because it seemed to me that it was wicked when I had come so +far for just this, to be inside stuffily dancing. One can dance all +the rest of one's life in Michigan, you know! So----" + +"It's the better place to be--out here," said Harber abruptly. +"Need we go in?" + +"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "Maybe you can tell me. You see, +I've promised some dances. What's the usage here? Dare I run away +from them?" + +"Oh, it might prove a three-day scandal if you did," said Harber. +"But I know a bench off to the right, where it isn't likely you'll +be found by any questing partner, and you needn't confess to having +had a companion. Will you come and talk to me?" + +"I'm a bird of passage," she answered, smiling, "and I've only to +unfold my wings and fly away from the smoke of scandal. Yes, I'll +come--if you won't talk--too much. You see, after all, I won't +flatter you. It's the night I want, not talk ... the wonderful night!" + +But, of course, they did talk. She was an American girl, she told him, +and had studied art a little, but would never be much of a painter. +She had been teaching classes in a city high school in the Middle +West, when suddenly life there seemed to have gone humdrum and stale. +She had a little money saved, not much, but enough if she managed +well, and she'd boldly resigned and determined, once at least before +she was too old, to follow spring around the world. She had almost +given up the idea of painting now, but thought presently she might +go in for writing, where, after all, perhaps, her real talent lay. +She had gotten a letter of introduction in Suva to the Tretheways +and she would be here until the next steamer after the morrow's. + +These were the bare facts. Harber gave a good many more than he got, +he told me, upon the theory that nothing so provoked confidence as +giving it. He was a little mad himself that night, he admits, or +else very, very sane. As you will about that. But, from the moment +she began to talk, the thought started running through his head that +there was fate in this meeting. + +There was a sort of passionate fineness about her that caught and +answered some instinct in Harber ... and I'm afraid they talked more +warmly than the length of their acquaintance justified, that they +made one another half-promises, not definite, perhaps, but implied; +promises that.... + +"I _must_ go in," she said at last, reluctantly. + +He knew that she must, and he made no attempt to gainsay her. + +"You are going to America," she went on. "If you should----" + +And just at that moment, Harber says, anything seemed possible to him, +and he said eagerly: "Yes--if you will--I should like----" + +How well they understood one another is evident from that. Neither +had said it definitely, but each knew. + +"Have you a piece of paper?" she asked. + +Harber produced a pencil, and groped for something to write upon. +All that his pockets yielded was a sealed envelope. He gave it to her. + +She looked at it closely, and saw in the brilliant moonshine that it +was sealed and stamped and addressed. + +"I'll spoil it for mailing," she said. + +"It doesn't matter," Harber told her ineptly. "Or you can write it +lightly, and I'll erase it later." + +There was a little silence. Then suddenly she laughed softly, and +there was a tiny catch in the voice. "So that you can forget?" she +said bravely. "No! I'll write it fast and hard ... so that you can ... +never ... forget!" + +And she gave him first his pencil and envelope, and afterward her +hand, which Harber held for a moment that seemed like an eternity +and then let go. She went into the house, but Harber didn't follow +her. He went off to his so-called hotel. + +In his room, by the light of the kerosene-lamp, he took out the +envelope and reed what she had written. It was: + +Vanessa Simola, Claridon, Michigan. + +He turned over the envelope and looked at the address on the other +side, in his own handwriting: + +Miss Janet Spencer, Tawnleytown.... + +And the envelope dropped from his nerveless fingers to the table. + +Who shall say how love goes or comes? Its ways are a sacred, +insoluble mystery, no less. But it had gone for Harber: and just as +surely, though so suddenly, had it come! Yes, life had bitterly +tricked him at last. She had sent him this girl ... too late! The +letter in the envelope was written to tell Janet Spencer that within +six weeks he would be in Tawnleytown to claim her in marriage. + +One must be single-minded like Harber to appreciate his terrible +distress of mind. The facile infidelity of your ordinary mortal +wasn't for Harber. No, he had sterner stuff in him. + +Vanessa! The name seemed so beautiful ... like the girl herself, +like the things she had said. It was an Italian name. She had told +him her people had come from Venice, though she was herself +thoroughly a product of America. "So that you can never forget," she +had said. Ah, it was the warm blood of Italy in her veins that had +prompted that An American girl wouldn't have said that! + +He slit the envelope, letting the letter fall to the table, and put +it in his pocket. + +Yet why should he save it? He could never see her again, he knew. +Vain had been those half-promises, those wholly lies, that his eyes +and lips had given her. For there was Janet, with her prior promises. +Ten years Janet had waited for him ... ten years ... and suddenly, +aghast, he realized how long and how terrible the years are, how they +can efface memories and hopes and desires, and how cruelly they had +dealt with him, though he had not realized it until this moment. +Janet ... why, actually, Janet was a stranger, he didn't know Janet +any more! She was nothing but a frail phantom of recollection: the +years had erased her! But this girl--warm, alluring, immediate.... + +No--no! It couldn't be. + +So much will the force of an idea do for a man, you see. Because, of +course, it could have been. He had only to destroy the letter that +lay there before him, to wait on until the next sailing, to make +continued love to Vanessa, and never to go to Tawnleytown again. +There was little probability that Janet would come here for him. Ten +years and ten thousand miles ... despite all that he had vowed on +Bald Knob that Sunday so long ago, wouldn't you have said that was +barrier enough? + +Why, so should I! But it wasn't. + +For Harber took the letter and put it in a fresh envelope, and in +the morning he went aboard the steamer without seeing the girl again ... +unless that bit of white standing near the top of the slope, as the +ship churned the green harbour water heading out to sea, were she, +waving. + +But he kept the address she had written. + +Why? He never could use it. Well, perhaps he didn't want to forget +too soon, though it hurt him to remember. How many of us, after all, +have some little memory like that, some intimate communion with +romance, which we don't tell, but cling to? And perhaps the memory +is better than the reality would have been. We imagine ... but that +again is cynical. Harber will never be that now. Let me tell you why. + +It's because he hadn't been aboard ship on his crossing to Victoria +twenty-four hours before he met Clay Barton. + +Barton was rolled up in rugs, lying in a deck-chair, biting his +teeth hard together to keep them from chattering, though the +temperature was in the eighties, and most of the passengers in white. +Barton appeared to be a man of forty, whereas he turned out to be in +his early twenties. He was emaciated to an alarming degree and his +complexion was of the pale, yellow-green that spoke of many +recurrences of malaria. The signs were familiar to Harber. + +He sat down beside Barton, and, as the other looked at him half a +dozen times tentatively, he presently spoke to him. + +"You've had a bad time of it, haven't you?" + +"Terrible," said Barton frankly. "They say I'm convalescent now. I +don't know. Look at me. What would you say?" + +Harber shook his head. + +Barton laughed bitterly. "Yes, I'm pretty bad," he agreed readily. +And then, as he talked that day and the two following, he told +Harber a good many things. + +"I tell you, Harber," he said, "we'll do anything for money. Here I +am--and I knew damned well it was killing me, too. And yet I stuck +it out six months after I'd any earthly business to--just for a few +extra hundreds." + +"Where were you? What were you doing?" asked Harber. + +"Trading-post up a river in the Straits Settlements," said Barton. +"A crazy business from the beginning--and yet I made money. Made it +lots faster than I could have back home. Back there you're hedged +about with too many rules. And competition's too keen. You go into +some big corporation office at seventy-five a month, maybe, and +unless you have luck you're years getting near anything worth having. +And you've got to play politics, bootlick your boss--all that. So I +got out. + +"Went to California first, and got a place in an exporting firm in +San Francisco. They sent me to Sydney and then to Fiji. After I'd +been out for a while and got the hang of things, I cut loose from +them. + +"Then I got this last chance, and it looked mighty good--and I +expect I've done for myself by it. Five years or a little better. +That's how long I've lasted. Back home I'd have been good for +thirty-five. A short life and a merry one, they say. Merry. Good God!" + +He shook his head ironically. + +"The root of all evil," he resumed after a little. "Well, but you've +got to have it--can't get along without it in _this_ world. You've +done well, you say?" + +Harber nodded. + +"Well, so should I have, if the cursed fever had let me alone. In +another year or so I'd have been raking in the coin. And now here I +am--busted--done--;--_fini_, as the French say. I burned the candle +at both ends--and got just what was coming to me, I suppose. But how +_could_ I let go, just when everything was coming my way?" + +"I know," said Harber. "But unless you can use it----" + +"You're right there. Not much in it for me now. Still, the medicos +say a cold winter back home will.... I don't know. Sometimes I don't +think I'll last to.... + +"Where's the use, you ask, Harber? You ask me right now, and I can't +tell you. But if you'd asked me before I got like this, I could have +told you quick enough. With some men, I suppose, it's just an +acquisitive nature. With me, that didn't cut any figure. With me, it +was a girl. I wanted to make the most I could for her in the +shortest time. A girl ... well...." + +Harber nodded. "I understand. I came out for precisely the same +reason myself," he remarked. + +"You did?" said Barton, looking at him sadly. "Well, luck was with +you, then. You look so--so damned fit! You can go back to her ... +while I ... ain't it hell? Ain't it?" he demanded fiercely. +"Yes," admitted Harber, "it is. But at the same time, I'm not sure +that anything's ever really lost. If she's worth while----" + +Barton made a vehement sign of affirmation. + +"Why, she'll be terribly sorry for you, but she won't _care_," +concluded Harber. "I mean, she'll be waiting for you, and glad to +have you coming home, so glad that...." + +"Ah ... yes. That's what ... I haven't mentioned the fever in +writing to her, you see. It will be a shock." + +Harber, looking at him, thought that it would, indeed. + +"I had a letter from her just before we sailed," went on the other, +more cheerfully. "I'd like awfully, some time, to have you meet her. +She's a wonderful girl--wonderful. She's clever. She's much cleverer +than I am, really ... about most things. When we get to Victoria, +you must let me give you my address." + +"Thanks," said Harber. "I'll be glad to have it." + +That was the last Harber saw of him for five days. The weather +had turned rough, and he supposed the poor fellow was seasick, +and thought of him sympathetically, but let it rest there. Then, +one evening after dinner, the steward came for him and said that +Mr. Clay Barton wanted to see him. Harber followed to Barton's stateroom, +which the sick man was occupying alone. In the passageway near the +door, he met the ship's doctor. + +"Mr. Harber?" said the doctor. "Your friend in there--I'm sorry to +say--is----" + +"I suspected as much," said Harber. "He knows it himself, I think." + +"Does he?" said the doctor, obviously relieved. "Well, I hope that +he'll live till we get him ashore. There's just a chance, of course, +though his fever is very high now. He's quite lucid just now, and +has been insisting upon seeing you. Later he mayn't be conscious. +So----" + +Harber nodded. "I'll go in." + +Barton lay in his berth, still, terribly thin, and there were two +pink patches of fever burning upon his cheek-bones. He opened his +eyes with an infinite weariness as Harber entered the room, and +achieved a smile. + +"Hard luck, old fellow," said Harber, crossing to him. "'Sall +_up_!" said Barton, grinning gamely. "I'm through. Asked 'em to +send you in. Do something for me, Harber--tha's right, ain't +it--Harber's your name?" + +"Yes. What is it, Barton?" + +Barton closed his eyes, then opened them again. + +"Doggone memory--playin' tricks," he apologized faintly. "This, +Harber. Black-leather case inside leather grip there--by the wall. +Money in it--and letters. Everything goes--to the girl. Nobody else. +I know you're straight. Take 'em to her?" + +"Yes," said Harber. + +"Good," said Barton. "All right, then! Been expecting this. All ready +for it. Name--address--papers--all there. She'll have no +trouble--getting money. Thanks, Harber." And after a pause, he added: +"Better take it now--save trouble, you know." + +Harber got the leather case from the grip and took it at once to his +own stateroom. + +When he returned, Barton seemed for the moment, with the commission +off his mind, a little brighter. + +"No end obliged, Harber," he murmured. + +"All right," said Harber, "but ought you to talk?" + +"Won't matter now," said Barton grimly. "Feel like talking now. +To-morrow may be--too late!" And after another pause, he went on: +"The fine dreams of youth--odd where they end, isn't it? + +"This--and me--so different. So different! Failure. She was wise--but +she didn't know everything. The world was too big--too hard for me. +'You can't fail,' she said, '_I won't let you fail_!' But you see----" + +Harber's mind, slipping back down the years, with Barton, to his own +parting, stopped with a jerk. + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +Barton seemed drifting, half conscious, half unconscious of what he +was saying. He did not appear to have heard Harber's exclamation over +the phrase so like that Janet had given him. + +"We weren't like the rest," droned Barton. "No--we wanted more out of +life than they did. We couldn't be content--with half a loaf. We +wanted--the bravest adventures--the yellowest gold--the...." + +Picture that scene, if you will. What would _you_ have said? Harber +saw leaping up before him, with terrible clarity, as if it were +etched upon his mind, that night in Tawnleytown ten years before. It +was as if Barton, in his semidelirium, were reading the words from +_his_ past! + +"I won't let you fail! ... half a loaf ... the bravest adventures ... +the yellowest gold." Incredible thing! That Barton and _his_ girl +should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases! +And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber.... No! No! He spurned it. +It couldn't be. And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one +more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, +written to _him_, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be stark, +unassailable fact. + +He put his hand upon Barton's arm and gently pressed it. + +"Barton," he said, "tell me--Janet--Tawnleytown?" + +Barton stared with glassy, unseeing eyes for a moment; then his +eyelids fell. + +"The bravest adventures--the yellowest gold," he murmured. Then, so +faintly as almost to baffle hearing: "Where--all--our--dreams? +Gone--aglimmering. Gone." + +That was all. + +Impossible? No, just very, very improbable. But how, by its very +improbability, it does take on the semblance of design! See how by +slender a thread the thing hung, how every corner of the plan fitted. +Just one slip Janet Spencer made; she let her thoughts and her words +slip into a groove; she repeated herself. And how unerringly life +had put her finger upon that clew! So reasoned Harber. + +Well, if the indictment were true, there was proof to be had in +Barton's leather case! + +Harber, having called the doctor, went to his stateroom. + +He opened the leather case. Inside a cover of yellow oiled silk he +found first a certificate of deposit for three thousand pounds, and +beneath it a packet of letters. + +He unwrapped them. + +And, though somehow he had known it without the proof, at the sight +of them something caught at his heart with a clutch that made it +seem to have stopped beating for a long time. For the sprawling +script upon the letters was almost as familiar to him as his own. +Slowly he reached down and took up the topmost letter, drew the thin +shiny sheets from the envelope, fluttered them, dazed, and stared at +the signature: + +Yours, my dearest lover, JANET. + +Just so had she signed _his_ letters. It _was_ Janet Spencer. Two of +her argosies, each one laden with gold for her, had met in their +courses, had sailed for a little together. + +The first reasonable thought that came to Harber, when he was +convinced of the authenticity of the miracle, was that he was +free--free to go after the girl he loved, after Vanessa Simola. I +think that if he could have done it, he'd have turned the steamer +back to the Orient in that moment. The thought that the ship was +plunging eastward through a waste of smashing heavy seas was +maddening, no less! + +He didn't want to see Janet or Tawnleytown, again. He did have, he +told me, a fleeting desire to know just how many other ships Janet +might have launched, but it wasn't strong enough to take him to see +her. He sent her the papers and letters by registered mail under an +assumed name. + +And then he went to Claridon, Michigan, to learn of her people when +Vanessa might be expected home. They told him she was on her way. So, +fearing to miss her if he went seeking, he settled down there and +stayed until she came. It was seven months of waiting he had ... but +it was worth it in the end. + + * * * * * + +And that was Harber's romance. Just an incredible coincidence, you +say. I know it. I told Harber that. And Mrs. Harber. + +And _she_ said nothing at all, but looked at me inscrutably, with a +flicker of scorn in her sea-gray eyes. + +Harber smiled lazily and serenely, and leaned back in his chair, and +replied in a superior tone: "My dear Sterne, things that are made in +heaven--like my marriage--don't just happen. Can't you see that your +stand simply brands you an unbeliever?" + +And, of course, I _can_ see it. And Harber may be right. I don't know. +Does any one, I wonder? + + + + +ALMA MATER + + +BY O. F. LEWIS + +From _The Red Book_ + + +Professor Horace Irving had taught Latin for nearly forty years at +Huntington College. Then he had come back to Stuyvesant Square, in +New York. Now he lived in a little hall bedroom, four flights up, +overlooking the Square. + +Habitually he walked from the Square westward to Fourth Avenue, in +the afternoon, when the weather permitted. He had been born only +three doors from where he now lived. The house of his birth had gone. +It was sixty years since he had been a boy and played in this Square. +Now he would pause at the corner of Fourth Avenue in his walks, and +remember the Goelet's cow and the big garden and the high iron fence +at Nineteenth Street and Broadway. Great buildings now towered there. + +South along Fourth Avenue he would walk, a little man, scarcely five +feet four in height, even with the silk hat and the Prince Albert +coat. His white hair grew long over his collar, and people would +notice that almost more than anything else about him. He may have +weighed between ninety and a hundred pounds. The coat was worn and +shiny, but immaculate. The tall hat was of a certain type and year, +but carefully smoothed and still glossy. + +He would pause often, between Nineteenth Street and Eighteenth Street, +peopling the skyscrapers with ghosts of a former day, when houses +and green gardens lined the streets. The passers-by watched him +casually, perhaps as much as any one notices any one else in New York. +He was, in the Fourteenth Street district, a rarer specimen than +Hindus or Mexican medicine-men. Through the ten years since he had +come, pensioned, from Huntington College, he had become a walking +landmark in this region. + +He always walked down on the east side of the street, crossing at +Fourteenth Street. He was carefully piloted, and saluted, by the +traffic policeman. It was a bad crossing. Below Fourteenth Street +things looked much more as they had looked when he was young. + +The bookstores were an unceasing hobby to the old man. The +secondhand dealers never made any objection to his reading books +upon the shelves. His purchases were perhaps two books a week, at +ten or even five cents each. Now and again he would find one of his +own "Irving's Latin Prose Composition" texts in the five-cent pile. +Opening the book, he usually would discover strange pencilled +pictures drawn scrawlingly over many of the pages. His "Latin +Composition" wasn't published after 1882, the year the firm failed. +It might have been different for him, with a different publisher. + +Late one afternoon in April, Professor Irving stood in his customary +niche at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, watching the +traffic from a sheltered spot against the wall of the building. He +was becoming exceedingly anxious about the approaching storm. It had +come up since he left Stuyvesant Square, and he had no umbrella. He +must not get his silk hat wet. His thin overcoat was protecting him +but feebly from the wind, which with the disappearance of the sun +had grown sharp and biting. It was rapidly becoming dark. Lights +were flashing in the windows up and down the Avenue. + +The Professor decided to stand in a doorway till the shower had +passed over. The chimes in the Metropolitan Tower struck the first +quarter after four, the sounds welling in gusts to the old man's ears. +A little man came to stand in the doorway beside the Professor. The +latter saw that the little man had a big umbrella. Silk hats were so +fearfully expensive in these days! + +The heavy drops beat against the pavement in torrents. The first +flash of lightning of the year was followed by a deep roll of thunder. + +"I got to go!" said the little man. "Keep the umbrella! I got +another where I work. I'm only fifty-five. You're older than me, a +lot. You better start home. You'll get soaked, standing here!" And +the little man was gone before the Professor could reply. + +"An exceedingly kindly, simple man," thought the old Professor. He +had planned, while standing with his unknown benefactor, that he +would go into some store and wait. But now he would chance it, and +cross the street. He saw a lull in the traffic. He started and was +nearly swept off his feet. He got to the middle of the street. The +umbrella grew unwieldy, swinging this way and that, as if tugged by +unseen hands. It turned inside out. Blaring noises from the passing +cars confused the Professor. + +The shaft of the umbrella swung violently around and knocked the +silk hat from Professor Irving's head. His white hair was caught by +the wind. Lashed in another direction, the shaft now struck the +Professor's glasses, and they flew away. Now he could see little or +nothing. He became bewildered. + +Great glaring headlights broke upon him, passed him, and then +immediately other glaring lights flared up toward him out of the +sheets of water. He couldn't see because of his lost glasses and +because of the stinging rain. He rushed between two cars. He slipped.... + +The chimes on the Metropolitan Tower rang out, in wails of wild sound, +the half-hour after four. + + * * * * * + +The attendance that evening at the annual banquet of the New York +alumni of Huntington College exceeded all previous records. The +drive for two million five hundred thousand dollars was on. It was a +small college, but as Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth, there were +those who loved it. + +The east ballroom of the hotel was well filled with diners. +Recollections of college days were shouted across tables and over +intervening aisles. There was a million still to raise: but old +Huntington would put it across! They'd gotten out more of the older +men, the men with money, than had ever been seen before at an alumni +dinner. + +The income on one million would go into better salaries for the +professors and other teachers. They'd been shamefully underpaid--men +who'd been on the faculty twenty to thirty years getting two thousand! +Well, Huntington College had now a new president, one of the boys of +twenty years ago. Yes sir, things were different. It was in the air. + +In the midst of the dinner course, the toastmaster rapped loudly +with the gavel for attention. It was hard to obtain quiet. + +"Men," said the toastmaster, and there was a curious note in his +voice, "I ask your absolute silence. Middleton, whom you all know is +one of the editorial staff of the _Sphere_, has just come in. He can +stay only a few minutes. He came especially to tell you something." + +A man standing behind the toastmaster stepped into the toastmaster's +place. He was in business clothes, a sharp contrast to the rest of +the diners. He was loudly applauded. He raised his right hand and +shook his head. + +"Boys," he said, "I've got a tragic piece of news for you--for those +of you who were in college any time up to ten years ago." He paused +and looked the diners over. + +"Four fifths of you men who are here to-night knew old Hoddy Irving, +our 'prof' in Latin. He served old Huntington College for forty years, +the longest term any professor ever served. He made no demands--ever. +He took us freshmen under his wing. I used to walk now and then with +him, miles around the college, when it wasn't so built up as it now +is. He loved the fields and the animals and the trees. He taught me +a lot of things besides Latin. Don't you remember the funny little +walk he had, sort of a hop forward? Don't you remember the way he'd +come up to the college dormitories nights, sometimes, from his house +down on the Row, and knock timidly at our doors, and come in and +visit? Don't you remember that we used to clear some of those tables +mighty quickly, of the chips and the bottles?" + +There were titters, and some one shouted: "You said it!" + +"And then, don't you remember, that some ten years ago they turned +the old man off, with a pension--so-called--of half his salary. But +what was his salary? Two thousand dollars--two thousand dollars at +the end of forty years!! You and I, and old Huntington College, +turned old Hoddy out to pasture, this pasture, on a thousand a year! +And to-night, right now, he's lying in Bellevue, both legs broken, +skull fractured, and not a damn cent in the world except insurance +enough to bury him. And to-morrow he'll be ours to bury, boys--old +Hoddy Irving!" + +A confusion of voices rose in the room, and over them all a +"No!" from some one who seemed to cry out in pain. + +"Yes!" said Middleton as the murmurs ceased. "Our old Hoddy, starving, +loaded up with debt, alone, down in a miserable hall bedroom in +Stuyvesant Square. How did I come to know about it? One of our +reporters, who covers Bellevue, dug up the story in his day's work. +They brought in this old, disheveled, unconscious man--and in his +pocket was his name. Kenyon, the reporter, went over to the house on +the Square and found there another old fellow that old Hoddy chummed +some with, and who knew all the circumstances. + +"It seems Hoddy had an invalid old sister--and they hadn't any money +except this pension. How the two old souls got along no one will +never know. But she died awhile ago, and that put Hoddy into a lot +more debt. And this miserable little eighty dollars a month has had +to carry him and his debts. And not a whimper that old man utters. +Always kindly, Hoddy was, always telling stories from the forty years +at Huntington--and we fellows here, a lot of us rotten with money, +and not knowing that the old fellow---" + +Middleton's voice broke. It was some time before he proceeded. + +"This afternoon, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, +just as that tornado broke, he tried to cross the street. He got in +a jam of cars, and of course the windshields were all mussed up with +rain, and the chauffeurs couldn't see anything ahead--and they don't +know whose car it was. The police say it was just four thirty-one +when they picked him up. + +"Well, that's all, except that--I'm going down to Bellevue, and if +one or two of you want to come--perhaps old Hoddy will know us--even +this late." + +Middleton had finished. From various parts of the room came the words: +"I'll go! Let me go!" Men were frankly wiping their eyes. + +At a distant table arose Martin Delano. He was reputed to be the +wealthiest alumnus of Huntington. He was said to have made almost +fabulous millions during the war. In the Street he was known as +"Merciless Martin." They were planning to strike him this evening +for at least a hundred thousand. + +Martin Delano stood holding the edge of the table with one hand, the +other fingering a spoon on the table. He stood there long. Several +times he opened his lips as though to speak. He took out his +handkerchief and wiped his cheeks and forehead. Evidently he was +deeply moved. + +"Mr. Toastmaster, may I ask the privilege of going down to Bellevue +with Mr. Middleton? I would ask that I be allowed to insist on going +down. I have sinned, grievously sinned, in forgetting old Hoddy. Now, +when it's too late----Thirty years ago, and more, when I was a green, +frightened freshman from Vermont, he took me to his heart. He was +known as the Freshman's Friend. That's what Hoddy always did--take +the green and frightened freshman to his heart. Probably, if he +hadn't done that to me, I'd have gone back home in my lonesomeness. +And then---- + +"Yes, I have sinned--and it might have been so different. I want to +go down there! And I'm coming back here, before you men are through +to-night, and I'll tell you more." + +At about half-past ten Martin Delano came back. He walked into the +room just as one of the speakers had finished. The toastmaster +caught his eye and beckoned to him to come to the speaker's table. +Delano stood in front of the crowd. He had walked forward, seeing no +one on his way. + +"Hoddy--Hoddy has gone, boys!" + +Then quickly, silently, the three hundred men arose and stood. After +a time they heard Delano say: "Sit down, boys." + +He waited till they were seated. "There's a lot that I might tell, +men--terrible things--that I won't tell, for it's all over. Just +this--and I suppose you're about through now and breaking up. It was +the poor old Prof. of ours--shattered, deathly white, a lot older. +But will you believe it, the same dear old smile, or almost a smile, +on his face! Unconscious, but babbling. And about what? The +college--Alma Mater! Those were just the words--Alma Mater! The +college that gave him the half pay and forgot him on the very night +when we are trying to raise a miserable two million, that things like +this sha'n't happen again!" + +"And boys, when we bent over him and whispered our names, he seemed +after a while to understand that we were there--but in the classroom, +the old Number 3 in Holmes Hall! And fellows, he called on--on me to +recite----" + +Merciless Martin Delano couldn't go on. Finally he spoke. + +"And so, Mr. President, I wish, sir, as a slight token of my +appreciation of what that simple great man has done for Huntington +College to give to our Alma Mater--our Alma Mater, sir--the sum of +two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be used for the erection +of a suitable building, for whatever purpose is most necessary, and +that building to be called after Horace Irving. + +"And sir, I also desire to give to the fund for properly providing +for the salaries of our professors and other teachers, the sum of +two hundred and fifty thousand dollars--those men who teach in our +Alma Mater. + +"And I ask one word more: I have arranged that Professor Irving is +to be buried from my house. If you will permit me, I will leave now." + +The alumni of Huntington College were silent. There was no sound, +save the occasional pushing of a chair, or the click of a plate or a +glass upon the table, as Martin Delano passed from the room. + +It was after one o'clock. Martin Delano was in his library, his arms +flung across the table, his face between them. + +In the opaque blur of swirling rain, his car had passed the corner +of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street at precisely half-past four that +afternoon. He had happened to take out his watch at the moment the +Metropolitan clock struck the second quarter. + +He would never know whether it had been his car or another! + + + + +SLOW POISON + + +BY ALICE DUER MILLER + +From _The Saturday Evening Post_ + + +The Chelmsford divorce had been accomplished with the utmost decorum, +not only outwardly in the newspapers, but inwardly among a group of +intimate friends. They were a homogeneous couple--were liked by the +same people, enjoyed the same things, and held many friends in common. +These were able to say with some approach to certainty that everyone +had behaved splendidly, even the infant of twenty-three with whom +Julian had fallen in love. + +Of course there will always be the question--and we used to argue it +often in those days--how well a man can behave who, after fifteen +perfectly satisfactory years of married life, admits that he has +fallen in love with another woman. But if you believe in the +clap-of-thunder theory, as I do, why, then, for a man nearing forty, +taken off his feet by a blond-headed girl, Julian, too, behaved +admirably. + +As for Mrs. Julian, there was never any doubt as to her conduct. I +used to think her--and I was not alone in the opinion--the most +perfect combination of gentleness and power, and charity and humour, +that I had ever seen. She was a year or so older than Julian--though +she did not look it--and a good deal wiser, especially in the ways +of the world; and, oddly enough, one of the features that worried us +most in the whole situation was how he was ever going to get on, in +the worldly sense, without her. He was to suffer not only from the +loss of her counsel but from the lack of her indorsement. There are +certain women who are a form of insurance to a man; and Anne gave a +poise and solidity to Julian's presentation of himself which his own +flibbertigibbet manner made particularly necessary. + +I think this view of the matter disturbed Anne herself, though she +was too clever to say so; or perhaps too numbed by the utter wreck +of her own life to see as clearly as usual the rocks ahead of Julian. +It was she, I believe, who first mentioned, who first thought of +divorce, and certainly she who arranged the details. Julian, still +in the more ideal stage of his emotion, had hardly wakened to the +fact that his new love was marriageable. But Mrs. Julian, with the +practical eye of her sex, saw in a flash all it might mean to him, +at his age, to begin life again with a young beauty who adored him. + +She saw this, at least, as soon as she saw anything; for Julian, +like most of us when the occasion rises, developed a very pretty +power of concealment. He had for a month been seeing Miss Littell +every day before any of us knew that he went to see her at all. +Certainly Anne, unsuspicious by nature, was unprepared for the +revelation. + +It took place in the utterly futile, unnecessary way such +revelations always do take place. The two poor innocent dears had +allowed themselves a single indiscretion; they had gone out together, +a few days before Christmas, to buy some small gifts for each other. +They had had an adventure with a beggar, an old man wise enough to +take advantage of the holiday season, and the no less obvious +holiday in the hearts of this pair. He had forced them to listen to +some quaint variant of the old story, and they had between them +given him all the small change they had left--sixty-seven cents, I +think it was. + +That evening at dinner Julian, ever so slightly afraid of the long +pause, had told Anne the story as if it had happened to him alone. A +few days afterward the girl, whom she happened to meet somewhere or +other, displaying perhaps a similar nervousness, told the same story. +Even the number of cents agreed. + +I spoke a moment ago of the extraordinary power of concealment which +we all possess; but I should have said the negative power to avoid +exciting suspicion. Before that moment, before the finger points at +us, the fool can deceive the sage; and afterward not even the sage +can deceive the veriest fool. + +Julian had no desire to lie to his wife. Indeed, he told me he had +felt from the first that she would be his fittest confidante. He +immediately told her everything--a dream rather than a narrative. + +Nowhere did Anne show her magnanimity more than in accepting the +rather extravagant financial arrangements which Julian insisted on +making for her. He was not a rich man, and she the better economist +of the two. We knew she saw that in popular esteem Julian would pay +the price of her pride if she refused, and that in this ticklish +moment of his life the least she could do was to let him have the +full credit for his generosity. + +"And after all," as she said to me, "young love can afford to go +without a good many things necessary to old age." + +It was the nearest I heard her come to a complaint. + +As soon as everything was settled she sailed for Florence, where she +had friends and where, she intimated, she meant to spend most of her +time. + +I said good-by to her with real emotion, and the phrase I used as to +my wish to serve her was anything but a convention. + +Nor did she take it so. + +"Help Julian through this next year," she said. "People will take it +harder than he knows. He'll need you all." And she was kind enough +to add something about my tact. Poor lady! She must have mentally +withdrawn her little compliment before we met many times again. + + + + +II + + +Perhaps the only fault in Anne's education of her husband had been +her inability to cling. In his new menage this error was rectified, +and the effect on him was conspicuously good; in fact, I think Rose's +confidence in his greatness pulled them through the difficult time. + +For there was no denying that it was difficult. Many people looked +coldly on them, and I know there was even some talk of asking him to +resign from the firm of architects of which he was a member. The +other men were all older, and very conservative. Julian represented +to them everything that was modern and dangerous. Granger, the +leading spirit, was in the habit of describing himself as holding +old-fashioned views, by which he meant that he had all the virtues +of the Pilgrim Fathers and none of their defects. I never liked him, +but I could not help respecting him. The worst you could say of him +was that his high standards were always successful. + +You felt that so fanatical a sense of duty ought to have required +some sacrifices. + +To such a man Julian's conduct appeared not only immoral but +inadvisable, and unfitting in a young man, especially without +consulting his senior partners. + +We used to say among ourselves that Granger's reason for wanting to +get rid of Julian was not any real affection for the dim old moral +code, but rather his acute realization that without Anne his junior +partner was a less valuable asset. + +Things were still hanging fire when I paid her the first of my +annual visits. She was dreadfully distressed at my account of the +situation. She had the manner one sometimes sees in dismissed nurses +who meet their former little charges unwashed or uncared for. She +could hardly believe it was no longer her business to put the whole +matter right. + +"Can't she do something for him?" she said. "Make her bring him a +great building. That would save him." + +It was this message that I carried home to Rose; at least I suggested +the idea to her as if it were my own. I had my doubts of her being +able to carry it out. + +Out of loyalty to Julian, or perhaps I ought to say out of loyalty to +Anne, we had all accepted Rose, but we should soon have loved her in +any case. She was extraordinarily sweet and docile, and gave us, +those at least who were not parents, our first window to the east, +our first link with the next generation, just at the moment when we +were relinquishing the title ourselves. I am afraid that some of the +males among us envied Julian more than perhaps in the old days we +had ever envied him Anne. + +But we hardly expected her to further his career as Anne had done, +and yet, oddly enough, that was exactly what she did. Her methods +had all the effectiveness of youth and complete conviction. She +forced Julian on her friends and relations, not so much on his +account as on theirs. She wanted them to be sure of the best. The +result was that orders flowed in. Things took a turn for the better +and continued to improve, as I was able to report to Anne when I +went to see her at Florence or at Paris. She was always well lodged, +well served, and surrounded by the pleasantest people, yet each time +I saw her she had a look exiled and circumscribed, a look I can only +describe as that of a spirit in reduced circumstances. + +She was always avid for details of Julian and all that concerned him, +and as times improved I was stupid enough to suppose I pleased her by +giving them from the most favourable angle. It seemed to me quite +obvious, as I saw how utterly she had ruined her own life, that she +ought at least to have the comfort of knowing that she had not +sacrificed it in vain. And so I allowed myself, not an exaggeration +but a candour more unrestrained than would be usual in the +circumstances. + +Led on by her burning interest I told her many things I might much +better have kept to myself; not only accounts of his work and his +household and any new friends in our old circle, but we had all been +amazed to see a sense of responsibility develop in Julian in answer +to his new wife's dependence on him. With this had come a certain +thoughtfulness in small attentions, which, I saw too late, Anne must +always have missed in him. She was so much more competent in the +smaller achievements of life than he that it had been wisdom to leave +them to her; and Anne had often traveled alone and attended to the +luggage, when now Rose was personally conducted like a young empress. +The explanation was simple enough: Anne had the ability to do it, +and the other had not. Even if I had stopped to think, I might fairly +have supposed that Anne would find some flattery in the contrast. I +should have been wrong. + +Almost the first thing she asked me was whether he came home to +luncheon. In old times, though his house was only a few blocks from +his office, he had always insisted that it took too much time. Anne +had never gained her point with him, though she put some force into +the effort. Now I had to confess he did. + +"It's much better for him," she said with pleasure, and quite +deceived me; herself, too, perhaps. + +Yet even I, for all my blindness, felt some uneasiness the year +Rose's son was born. I do not think the desire for offspring had +ever taken up a great deal of room in Julian's consciousness, but of +course Anne had wanted children, and I felt very cruel, sitting in +her little apartment in Paris, describing the baby who ought to have +been hers. How different her position would have been now if she had +some thin-legged little girl to educate or some raw-boned boy to +worry over; and there was that overblessed woman at home, necessary +not only to Julian but to Julian's son. + +It was this same year, but at a later visit, that I first became +aware of a change in Anne. At first the charm of her surroundings, +her pretty clothes, even to the bright little buckles on her shoes, +blinded me to the fact that she herself was changed. I do not mean +that she was aged. One of the delightful things about her was that +she was obviously going to make an admirable old lady; the delicate +boniness of her face and the clearness of her skin assured that. +This was a change more fundamental. Even in her most distracted days +Anne had always maintained a certain steadiness of head. She had +trodden thorny paths, but she had always known where she was going. +I had seen her eyelids red, but I had never failed to find in the +eyes themselves the promise of a purpose. But now it was gone. I +felt as if I were looking into a little pool which had been troubled +by a stone, and I waiting vainly for the reflection to re-form itself. + +So painful was the impression that before I sailed for home I tried +to convey to her the dangers of her mood. + +"I think you are advising me to be happy," she said. + +"I am advising no such thing," I answered. "I am merely pointing out +that you run the risk of being more unhappy than you are. My +visits--or rather the news I bring you--are too important to you. +You make me feel as if it were the only event of the year--to you +who have always had such an interesting life of your own." + +"I have not had a life of my own since I was twenty," she returned. +It was at twenty she had married. + +"Then think of Julian," I said, annoyed not only at my own clumsiness +but at the absence of anything of Anne's old heroic spirit. +"For his sake, at least, you must keep your head. Why, my dear woman, +one look at your face, grown as desperate as it sometimes appears now, +would ruin Julian with the whole world. Even I, knowing the whole +story, would find it hard to forgive him if you should fail to +continue to be the splendid triumphant creature whom we know you +were designed to be." + +She gave me a long queer look, which meant something tremendous. +Evidently my words had made an impression. + +They had, but not just the one I intended. + + + +III + +One of the first people I always saw on returning was Julian. How +often he thought of Anne I do not know, but he spoke of her with the +greatest effort. He invariably took care to assure himself that she +was physically well, but beyond this it would have been a brave +person who dared to go. He did not want to hear the details of her +life and appearance. + +It was with some trepidation, therefore, that a few months after +this I came to tell him that Anne was about to return to America. +Why she was coming, or for how long, her letter did not say. I only +knew that the second Saturday in December would see her among us +again. It seemed fair to assume that her stay would not be long. +Julian evidently thought so for he arranged to be in the West for +three or four weeks. + +I went to meet her. The day was cold and rainy, and as soon as I saw +her I made up my mind that the crossing had been a bad one, and I +was glad no one else had come to the wharf with me. She was standing +by the rail, wrapped in a voluminous fur coat--the fashions were +slim in the extreme--and her hat was tied on by a blue veil. + +I may as well admit that from the moment I heard of her projected +return I feared that her real motive for coming, conscious or +unconscious, was to see Julian again. So when I told her of his +absence I was immensely relieved that she took it as a matter of +course. + +"I suppose we might have met," she observed. "As it is, I can go +about without any fear of an awkward encounter." I say I was relieved, +but I was also excessively puzzled. Why had Anne come home? + +It was a question I was to hear answered in a variety of ways during +the next few months, by many of Anne's friends and partisans; for, +as I think I have said, Anne had inspired great attachment since her +earliest days. Why had she come home? they exclaimed. Why not, pray? +Had she done anything criminal that she was to be exiled? Did I +think it pleasant to live abroad on a small income? Even if she +could get on without her friends, could they do without her? + +The tone of these questions annoyed me not a little when I heard them, +which was not for some time. Soon after Anne's arrival I, too, was +called away, and it was not until February that I returned and was +met by the carefully set piece--Anne the Victim. + +With that ill-advised self-confidence of which I have already made +mention, I at once set about demolishing this picture. I told Anne's +friends, who were also mine, that she would thank them very little +for their attitude. I found myself painting her life abroad as a +delirium of intellect and luxury. I even found myself betraying +professional secrets and arguing with total strangers as to the +amount of her income. + +Even in Montreal faint echoes of this state of things had reached me, +but not until I went to see Anne on my return did I get any idea of +their cause. She had taken a furnished apartment from a friend, in a +dreary building in one of the West Forties. Only a jutting front of +limestone and an elevator man in uniform saved it, or so it seemed +to me, from being an old-fashioned boarding house. Its windows, small, +as if designed for an African sun, looked northward upon a darkened +street. Anne's apartment was on the second floor, and the +requirements of some caryatids on the outside rendered her +fenestration particularly meager. Her friend, if indeed it were a +friend, had not treated her generously in the matter of furniture. +She had left nothing superfluous but two green glass jugs on the +mantelpiece, and had covered the chairs with a chintz, the +groundwork of which was mustard colour. + +Another man who was there when I came in, who evidently had known +Anne in different surroundings, expressed the most hopeful view +possible when he said that doubtless it would all look charming when +she had arranged her own belongings. + +Anne made a little gesture. "I haven't any belongings," she said. + +I didn't know what she meant, perhaps merely a protest against the +tyranny of things, but I saw the effect her speech produced on her +auditor. Perhaps she saw it too, for presently she added: "Oh, yes! +I have one." + +And she went away, and came back carrying a beautiful old silver +loving cup. I knew it well. It came from Julian's forebears. Anne +had always loved it, and I was delighted that she should have it now. +She set it on a table before a mirror, and here it did a double +share to make the room possible. + +When we were alone I expressed my opinion of her choice of lodgings. + +"This sunless cavern!" I said. "This parlour-car furniture!" + +She looked a little hurt. "You don't like it?" she said. + +"Do you?" I snapped back. + +After a time I had recourse to the old argument that it didn't look +well; that it wasn't fair to Julian. But she had been expecting this. + +"My dear Walter," she answered, "you must try to be more consistent. +In Paris you told me that I must cease to regulate my life by Julian. +You were quite right. This place pleases me, and I don't intend to go +to a hotel, which I hate, or to take a house, which is a bother, in +order to soothe Julian's feelings. I have begun to lead my life to +suit myself." + +The worst of it was, I could think of no answer. + +A few evenings afterward we dined at the same house. Anne arrived +with a scarf on her head, under the escort of a maid. She had come +in a trolley car. Nobody's business but her own, perhaps, if she +would have allowed it to remain so, but when she got up to go, and +other people were talking of their motors' being late, Anne had to +say: "Mine is never late; it goes past the corner every minute." + +I could almost hear a sigh, "Poor angel!" go round the room. + +The next thing that happened was that Julian sent for me. He was in +what we used to call in the nursery "a state." + +"What's this I hear about Anne's being hard up?" he said. "Living in +a nasty flat, and going out to dinner in the cars?" And he wouldn't +listen to an explanation. "She must take more; she must be made to +take more." + +I had one of my most unfortunate inspirations. I thought I saw an +opportunity for Julian to make an impression. + +"I don't think she would listen to me," I said. "Why don't you get +Mr. Granger to speak to her?" + +The idea appealed to Julian. He admired Mr. Granger, and remembered +that he and Anne had been friends. Whereas I thought, of course, that +Mr. Granger would thus be made to see that the fault, if there were +a fault, was not of Julian's generosity. Stupidly enough I failed to +see that if Julian's offer was graceful Anne's gesture of refusal +would be upon a splendid scale. + +And it must have been very large, indeed, to stir old Granger as it +did. He told me there had been tears in his eyes while she spoke of +her husband's kindness. Kindness! He could not but compare her +surroundings with the little house, all geraniums and muslin curtains, +in which the new Mrs. Chelmsford was lodged. Anne had refused, of +course. In the circumstances she could not accept. She said she had +quite enough for a single woman. The phrase struck Granger as almost +unbearably pathetic. + +One day I noticed the loving cup--which was always on Anne's table, +which was admired by everyone who came to the apartment, and was +said to recall her, herself, so pure and graceful and perfect--one +day the loving cup was gone. + +I was so surprised when my eye fell on its vacant place that I +blurted out: "Goodness, Anne, where's your cup?" + +The next moment I could have bitten out my tongue. Anne stood still +in the middle of the room, twisting her hands a little, and +everyone--there were three or four of us there--stopped talking. + +"Oh," she said, "oh, Walter, I know you'll scold me for being +officious and wrong-headed, but I have sent the cup back to Julian's +son. I think he ought to have it." + +Everyone else thought the deed extremely noble. I took my hat and +went to Rose. Rose was not very enthusiastic. A beautiful letter had +accompanied the cup. We discussed the advisability of sending it back; +but of course that would have done no good. The devilish part of a +favour is that to accept or reject it is often equally incriminating. +Anne held the situation in the hollow of her hand. Besides, as Rose +pointed out, we couldn't very well return it without asking Julian, +and we had both agreed that for the present Julian had better remain +in ignorance of the incident. He would have thought it mean-spirited +to allow any instance of Anne's generosity to remain concealed from +the public. Rose and I were willing to allow it to drop. + +I was sorry, therefore, when I found, soon after, not only that +everyone knew of the gift but that phrases of the beautiful letter +itself were current, with marks of authenticity upon them. It was +not hard to trace them to Anne's intimates. + +I have no idea to this day whether Anne was deliberately trying to +ruin the man for whom she had sacrificed so much; or whether one of +those large, unconscious, self-indulgent movements of our natures +was carrying her along the line of least resistance. There are some +people, I know, who can behave well only so long as they have the +centre of the stage, and are driven by a necessity almost moral to +regain such a place at any cost, so that they may once again begin +the exercise of their virtues. + +Anne's performance was too perfect, I thought, for conscious art, +and she was not a genius. She was that most dangerous of all engines, +a good person behaving wickedly. All her past of high-mindedness and +kindness protected her now like an armour from the smallest suspicion. +All the grandeur of her conduct at the time of the divorce was +remembered as a proof that she at least had a noble soul. Who could +doubt that she wished him well? + +If so, she soon appeared to be the only person who did. For, as we +all know, pity is one of the most dangerous passions to unloose. It +demands a victim. We rise to pathos, only over the dead bodies of +our nearest and dearest. + +Every phrase, every gesture of Anne's stirred one profoundly, and it +was inevitable, I suppose, that Julian should be selected as the +sacrifice. I noticed that people began to speak of him in the past, +though he was still moving among us--"As Julian used to say." + +He and Anne fortunately never met, but she and the new Mrs. Julian +had one encounter in public. If even then Anne would have shown the +slightest venom all might still have been well. But, no, the worn, +elderly woman, face to face with the young beauty who had possessed +herself of everything in the world, showed nothing but a tenderness +so perfect that every heart was wrung. I heard Rose criticized for +not receiving her in the same spirit. + +The next day Julian was blackballed at a philanthropic club at which +he had allowed himself to be proposed merely from a sense of civic +duty. + +Over the incident I know Anne wept. I heard her tears. + +"Oh, if I could have spared him that!" she said. + +My eyes were cold, but those of Mr. Granger, who came in while her +eyelids were still red, were full of fire. + +She spent a week with the Grangers that summer. The whole +family--wife, sons and daughters--had all yielded to the great +illusion. + +It must not be supposed that I had failed to warn Julian. The +supineness of his attitude was one of the most irritating features +of the case. He answered me as if I were violating the dead; asked +me if by any chance I didn't see he deserved all he was getting. + +No one was surprised when in the autumn he resigned from his firm. +There had been friction between the partners for some time. Soon +afterward he and Rose sailed for Italy, where they have lived ever +since. He had scarcely any income except that which he made in his +profession; his capital had gone to Anne. He probably thought that +what he had would go further abroad. + +I do not know just how Anne took his departure, except that I am +sure she was wonderful about it. I had ceased to see her. She has, +however, any number of new friends, whose fresh interest in her +story keeps it continually alive. She has given up her ugly flat and +taken a nice little house, and in summer I notice she has red +geraniums in the window boxes. I often see a nice little motor +standing before her door--the result doubtless of a year's economy. + +Whenever her friends congratulate her on the improvement in her +finances she says she owes it all to me--I am such an excellent man +of business. + +"I admire Walter so much," I am told she says, "though I'm afraid I +have lost him as a friend. But then, in the last few years I have +lost so much." And she smiles that brave sad smile of hers. + + + + +THE FACE IN THE WINDOW + + +BY WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY + +From _The Red Book_ + + +At nine o'clock this morning Sheriff Crumpett entered our New England +town post-office for his mail. From his box he extracted his monthly +Grand Army paper and a letter in a long yellow envelope. This +envelope bore the return-stamp of a prominent Boston lumber-company. +The old man crossed the lobby to the writing-shelf under the Western +Union clock, hooked black-rimmed glasses on a big nose and tore a +generous inch from the end of the envelope. + +The first inclosure which met his eyes was a check. It was heavy and +pink and crisp, and was attached to the single sheet of letter-paper +with a clip. Impressed into the fabric of the safety-paper were the +indelible figures of a protector: _Not over Five Thousand_ ($5000) +_Dollars_. + +The sheriff read the name of the person to whom it was payable and +gulped. His gnarled old hand trembled with excitement as he glanced +over the clipped letter and then went through it again. + + + November 10, 1919. + + MY DEAR SHERIFF: + + Enclosed please find my personal check for five thousand dollars. + It is made out to Mrs. McBride. Never having known the lady + personally, + and because you have evidently represented her with the authorities, + I am sending it to you for proper delivery. I feel, from your + enthusiastic account of her recent experience, that it will give + you + pleasure to present it to her. + + Under the circumstances I do not begrudge the money. When first + advised of Ruggam's escape, it was hot-headed impulse which + prompted + me to offer a reward so large. The old clan-blood of the Wileys + must + have made me murder-mad that Ruggam should regain his freedom + permanently + after the hellish thing he did to my brother. The newspapers heard + of it, + and then I could not retract. + + That, however, is a thing of the past. I always did detest a + welcher, + and if this money is going to a woman to whom it will be manna from + heaven--to use your words--I am satisfied. Convey to her my + personal + congratulations, gratitude and best wishes. + + Cordially yours, + + C. V. D. WILEY. + + +"Good old Chris!" muttered the sheriff. "He's rich because he's white." +He thrust both check and letter back into the long envelope and +headed for the office of our local daily paper at a smart pace. + +The earning of five thousand dollars reward-money by Cora McBride +made an epochal news-item, and in that night's paper we headlined it +accordingly--not omitting proper mention of the sheriff and giving +him appropriate credit. + +Having so started the announcement permeating through the community, +the old man employed the office phone and called the local +livery-stable. He ordered a rig in which he might drive at once to +the McBride house in the northern part of town. + +"But half that money ought to be yourn!" protested the proprietor of +the stable as the sheriff helped him "gear up the horse" a few +minutes later. + +"Under the circumstances, Joseph, can you see me takin' it? No; it +ain't in me to horn in for no rake-off on one o' the Lord's miracles." + +The old man climbed into the sleigh, took the reins from the +liveryman and started the horse from the livery yard. + +Two weeks ago--on Monday, the twenty-seventh of the past October--the +telephone-bell rang sharply in our newspaper-office a few moments +before the paper went to press. Now, the telephone-bell often rings +in our newspaper-office a few moments before going to press. The +confusion on this particular Monday afternoon, however, resulted from +Albany calling on the long-distance. Albany--meaning the nearest +office of the international press-association of which our paper is +a member--called just so, out of a clear sky, on the day McKinley +was assassinated, on the day the _Titanic_ foundered and on the day +Austria declared war on Serbia. + +The connection was made, and over the wire came the voice of young +Stewart, crisp as lettuce. + +"Special dispatch ... Wyndgate, Vermont, October 27th ... Ready?" +The editor of our paper answered in the affirmative. The rest of us +grouped anxiously around his chair. Stewart proceeded: + +"'Hapwell Ruggam, serving a life-sentence for the murder of Deputy +Sheriff Martin Wiley at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two years ago, +killed Jacob Lambwell, his guard, and escaped from prison at noon +to-day. + +"'Ruggam had been given some repair work to do near the outer +prison-gate. It was opened to admit a tradesman's automobile. As +Guard Lambwell turned to close the gate, Ruggam felled him with his +shovel. He escaped to the adjacent railroad-yards, stole a corduroy +coat and pair of blue overalls hanging in a switchman's shanty and +caught the twelve-forty freight up Green River.'" + +Stewart had paused. The editor scribbled frantically. In a few words +aside he explained to us what Stewart was sending. Then he ordered +the latter to proceed. + +"'Freight Number Eight was stopped by telegraph near Norwall. The +fugitive, assuming correctly that it was slowing down for search, +was seen by a brakeman fleeing across a pasture between the tracks +and the eastern edge of Haystack Mountain. Several posses have +already started after him, and sheriffs all through northern New +England are being notified. + +"'Christopher Wiley, lumber magnate and brother of Ruggam's former +victim, on being told of the escape, has offered a reward of five +thousand dollars for Ruggam's capture, dead or alive. Guard Lambwell +was removed to a hospital, where he died at one-thirty'.... _All +right_?" + +The connection was broken, and the editor removed the headpiece. He +began giving orders. We were twenty minutes behind usual time with +the papers, but we made all the trains. + +When the big Duplex was grinding out newsprint with a roar that shook +the building, the boys and girls gathered around to discuss the thing +which had happened. + +The Higgins boy, saucer-eyed over the experience of being "on the +inside" during the handling of the first sizable news-story since he +had become our local reporter, voiced the interrogation on the faces +of other office newcomers. + +"Ruggam," the editor explained, "is a poor unfortunate who should +have been sent to an asylum instead of the penitentiary. He killed +Mart Wiley, a deputy sheriff, at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two +years ago." + +"Where's the Lost Nation?" + +"It's a term applied to most of the town of Partridgeville in the +northern part of the county--an inaccessible district back in the +mountains peopled with gone-to-seed stock and half-civilized +illiterates who only get into the news when they load up with +squirrel whisky and start a programme of progressive hell. Ruggam +was the local blacksmith." + +"What's a kitchen-dance?" + +"Ordinarily a kitchen-dance is harmless enough. But the Lost Nation +folks use it as an excuse for a debauch. They gather in some sizable +shack, set the stove out into the yard, soak themselves in aromatic +spirits of deviltry and dance from Saturday night until Monday +noon----" + +"And this Ruggam killed a sheriff at one of them?" + +"He got into a brawl with another chap about his wife. Someone +passing saw the fight and sent for an officer. Mart Wiley was deputy, +afraid of neither man, God nor devil. Martin had grown disgusted +over the petty crime at these kitchen-dances and started out to +clean up this one right. Hap Ruggam killed him. He must have had help, +because he first got Mart tied to a tree in the yard. Most of the +crowd was pie-eyed by this time, anyhow, and would fight at the drop +of a hat. After tying him securely, Ruggam caught up a billet of +wood and--and killed him with that." + +"Why didn't they electrocute him?" demanded young Higgins. + +"Well, the murder wasn't exactly premeditated. Hap wasn't himself; +he was drunk--not even able to run away when Sheriff Crumpett +arrived in the neighbourhood to take him into custody. Then there +was Hap's bringing up. All these made extenuating circumstances." + +"There was something about Sheriff Wiley's pompadour," suggested our +little lady proofreader. + +"Yes," returned the editor. "Mart had a queer head of hair. It was +dark and stiff, and he brushed it straight back in a pompadour. When +he was angry or excited, it actually rose on his scalp like wire. +Hap's counsel made a great fuss over Mart's pompadour and the part +it sort of played in egging Hap on. The sight of it, stiffening and +rising the way it did maddened Ruggam so that he beat it down +hysterically in retaliation for the many grudges he fancied +he owed the officer. No, it was all right to make the sentence +life-imprisonment, only it should have been an asylum. Hap's not +right. You'd know it without being told. I guess it's his eyes. They +aren't mates. They light up weirdly when he's drunk or excited, and +if you know what's healthy, you get out of the way." + +By eight o'clock that evening most of the valley's deer-hunters, all +of the local adventurers who could buy, borrow or beg a rifle, and +the usual quota of high-school sons of thoughtless parents were off +on the man-hunt in the eastern mountains. + +Among them was Sheriff Crumpett's party. On reaching the timberline +they separated. It was agreed that if any of them found signs of +Ruggam, the signal for assistance was five shots in quick succession +"and keep shooting at intervals until the rest come up." + +We newspaper folk awaited the capture with professional interest and +pardonable excitement.... + +In the northern part of our town, a mile out on the Wickford road, +is the McBride place. It is a small white house with a red barn in +the rear and a neat rail fence inclosing the whole. Six years ago +Cora McBride was bookkeeper in the local garage. Her maiden name was +Allen. The town called her "Tomboy Allen." She was the only daughter +of old Zeb Allen, for many years our county game-warden. Cora, as we +had always known--and called--her, was a full-blown, red-blooded, +athletic girl who often drove cars for her employer in the days when +steering-wheels manipulated by women were offered as clinching proof +that society was headed for the dogs. + +Duncan McBride was chief mechanic in the garage repairshop. He was +an affable, sober, steady chap, popularly known as "Dunk the +Dauntless" because of an uncanny ability to cope successfully with +the ailments of 90 per cent, of the internal-combustion hay-balers +and refractory tin-Lizzies in the county when other mechanics had +given them up in disgust. + +When he married his employer's bookkeeper, Cora's folks gave her a +wedding that carried old Zeb within half an hour of insolvency and +ran to four columns in the local daily. Duncan and the Allen girl +motored to Washington in a demonstration-car, and while Dunk was +absent, the yard of the garage resembled the premises about a +junkshop. On their return they bought the Johnson place, and Cora +quickly demonstrated the same furious enthusiasm for homemaking and +motherhood that she had for athletics and carburetors. + +Three years passed, and two small boys crept about the yard behind +the white rail fence. Then--when Duncan and his wife were "making a +great go of matrimony" in typical Yankee fashion--came the tragedy +that took all the vim out of Cora, stole the ruddy glow from her +girlish features and made her middle-aged in a twelvemonth. In the +infantile-paralysis epidemic which passed over New England three +years ago the McBrides suffered the supreme sorrow--twice. Those +small boys died within two weeks of each other. + +Duncan of course kept on with his work at the garage. He was quieter +and steadier than ever. But when we drove into the place to have a +carburetor adjusted or a rattle tightened, we saw only too plainly +that on his heart was a wound the scars of which would never heal. +As for Cora, she was rarely seen in the village. + +Troubles rarely come singly. One afternoon this past August, Duncan +completed repairs on Doc Potter's runabout. Cranking the machine to +run it from the workshop, the "dog" on the safety-clutch failed to +hold. The acceleration of the engine threw the machine into high. +Dunk was pinned in front while the roadster leaped ahead and rammed +the delivery truck of the Red Front Grocery. + +Duncan was taken to our memorial hospital with internal injuries and +dislocation of his spine. He remained there many weeks. In fact, he +had been home only a couple of days when the evening stage left in +the McBride letter-box the daily paper containing the story of +Ruggam's "break" and of the reward offered for his capture. + +Cora returned to the kitchen after obtaining the paper and sank +wearily into a wooden chair beside the table with the red cloth. +Spreading out the paper, she sought the usual mental distraction in +the three-and four-line bits which make up our local columns. + +As the headlines caught her eye, she picked up the paper and entered +the bedroom where Duncan lay. There were telltale traces of tears on +his unshaven face, and an ache in his discouraged heart that would +not be assuaged, for it was becoming rumoured about the village that +Dunk the Dauntless might never operate on the vitals of an ailing +tin-Lizzie again. + +"Dunnie," cried his wife, "Hap Ruggam's escaped!" Sinking down beside +the bedroom lamp, she read him the article aloud. + +Her husband's name was mentioned therein; for when the sheriff had +commandeered an automobile from the local garage to convey him and +his posse to Lost Nation and secure Ruggam, Duncan had been called +forth to preside at the steering-wheel. He had thus assisted in the +capture and later had been a witness at the trial. + +The reading ended, the man rolled his head. + +"If I wasn't held here, I might go!" he said. "I might try for that +five thousand myself!" + +Cora was sympathetic enough, of course, but she was fast approaching +the stage where she needed sympathy herself. + +"We caught him over on the Purcell farm," mused Duncan. "Something +ailed Ruggam. He was drunk and couldn't run. But that wasn't all. He +had had some kind of crazy-spell during or after the killing and +wasn't quite over it. We tied him and lifted him into the auto. His +face was a sight. His eyes aren't mates, anyhow, and they were wild +and unnatural. He kept shrieking something about a head of +hair--black hair--sticks up like wire. He must have had an awful +impression of Mart's face and that hair of his." + +"I remember about Aunt Mary Crumpett's telling me of the trouble her +husband had with his prisoner in the days before the trial," his +wife replied. "He had those crazy-spells often, nights. He kept +yelling that he saw Martin Wiley's head with its peculiar hair, and +his face peering in at him through the cell window. Sometimes he +became so bad that Sheriff Crumpett thought he'd have apoplexy +Finally he had to call Dr. Johnson to attend him." + +"Five thousand dollars!" muttered Duncan. "Gawd! I'd hunt the devil +_for nothing_ if I only had a chance of getting out of this bed." + +Cora smoothed her husband's rumpled bed, comforted him and laid her +own tired head down beside his hand. When he had dozed off, she +arose and left the room. + +In the kitchen she resumed her former place beside the table with +the cheap red cloth; and there, with her face in her hands, she +stared into endless distance. + +"Five thousand dollars! Five thousand dollars!" Over and over she +whispered the words, with no one to hear. + +The green-birch fire snapped merrily in the range. The draft sang in +the flue. Outside, a soft, feathery snow was falling, for winter +came early in the uplands of Vermont this past year. To Cora McBride, +however, the winter meant only hardship. Within another week she +must go into town and secure work. Not that she minded the labour +nor the trips through the vicious weather! The anguish was leaving +Duncan through those monotonous days before he should be up and +around. Those dreary winter days! What might they not do to +him--alone. + +Five thousand dollars! Like many others in the valley that night she +pictured with fluttering heart what it would mean to possess such a +sum of money; but not once in her pitiful flight of fancy did she +disregard the task which must be performed to gain that wealth. + +It meant traveling upward in the great snowbound reaches of Vermont +mountain-country and tracking down a murderer who had killed a +second time to gain his freedom and would stop at nothing again. + +And yet--_five thousand dollars_! + +How much will a person do, how far will a normal human being travel, +to earn five thousand dollars--if the need is sufficiently +provocative? + +As Cora McBride sat there in the homely little farmhouse kitchen and +thought of the debts still existent, contracted to save the already +stricken lives of two little lads forgotten now by all but herself +and Duncan and God, of the chances of losing their home if Duncan +could work no more and pay up the balance of their mortgage, of the +days when Duncan must lie in the south bedroom alone and count the +figures on the wallpaper--as she sat there and contemplated these +things, into Cora McBride's heart crept determination. + +At first it was only a faint challenge to her courage. As the +minutes passed, however, her imagination ran riot, with five +thousand dollars to help them in their predicament. The challenge +grew. Multitudes of women down all the years had attempted wilder +ventures for those who were dear to them. Legion in number had been +those who set their hands and hearts to greater tasks, made more +improbable sacrifices, taken greater chances. Multitudes of them, too, +had won--on little else than the courage of ignorance and the +strength of desperation. + +She had no fear of the great outdoors, for she had lived close to +the mountains from childhood and much of her old physical resiliency +and youthful daredeviltry remained. And the need was terrible; no +one anywhere in the valley, not even her own people, knew how +terrible. + +Cora McBride, alone by her table in the kitchen, that night made her +decision. + +She took the kitchen lamp and went upstairs. Lifting the top of a +leather trunk, she found her husband's revolver. With it was a belt +and holster, the former filled with cartridges. In the storeroom +over the back kitchen she unhooked Duncan's mackinaw and found her +own toboggan-cap. From a corner behind some fishing-rods she +salvaged a pair of summer-dried snowshoes; they had facilitated many +a previous hike in the winter woods with her man of a thousand +adventures. She searched until she found the old army-haversack +Duncan used as a game-bag. Its shoulder-straps were broken but a +length of rope sufficed to bind it about her shoulders, after she +had filled it with provisions. + +With this equipment she returned below-stairs. She drew on heavy +woollen stockings and buckled on arctics. She entered the cold +pantry and packed the knapsack with what supplies she could find at +the hour. She did not forget a drinking-cup, a hunting-knife or +matches. In her blouse she slipped a household flash-lamp. + +Dressed finally for the adventure, from the kitchen she called +softly to her husband. He did not answer. She was overwhelmed by a +desire to go into the south bedroom and kiss him, so much might +happen before she saw him again. But she restrained herself. She +must not waken him. + +She blew out the kerosene lamp, gave a last glance about +her familiar kitchen and went out through the shed door, closing it +softly behind her. + +It was one of those close, quiet nights when the bark of a distant +dog or whinny of a horse sounds very near at hand. The snow was +falling feathery. + +An hour later found her far to the eastward, following an old side +road that led up to the Harrison lumber-job. She had meantime paid +Dave Sheldon, a neighbour's boy, encountered by his gate, to stay +with Duncan during her absence which she explained with a white lie. +But her conscience did not bother. Her conscience might be called +upon to smother much more before the adventure was ended. + +Off in the depths of the snowing night she strode along, a weird +figure against the eerie whiteness that illumined the winter world. +She felt a strange wild thrill in the infinite out-of-doors. The +woodsman's blood of her father was having its little hour. + +And she knew the woods. Intuitively she felt that if Ruggam was on +Haystack Mountain making his way toward Lost Nation, he would strike +for the shacks of the Green Mountain Club or the deserted +logging-camps along the trail, secreting himself in them during his +pauses for rest, for he had no food, and provisions were often left +in these structures by hunters and mountain hikers. Her plan was +simple. She would investigate each group of buildings. She had the +advantage of starting on the northwest side of Haystack. She would +be working toward Ruggam, while the rest of the posses were trailing +him. + +Mile after mile she covered. She decided it must be midnight when +she reached the ghostly buildings of the Harrison tract, lying white +and silent under the thickening snow. It was useless to search these +cabins; they were too near civilization. Besides, if Ruggam had left +the freight at Norwall on the eastern side of Haystack at noon, he +had thirty miles to travel before reaching the territory from which +she was starting. So she skirted the abandoned quiet of the clearing, +laid the snowshoes properly down before her and bound the thongs +securely about her ankles. + +She had plenty of time to think of Ruggam as she padded along. He +had no snowshoes to aid him, unless he had managed to secure a pair +by burglary, which was improbable. So it was not difficult to +calculate about where she should begin watching for him. She +believed he would keep just off the main trail to avoid detection, +yet take its general direction in order to secure shelter and +possible food from the mountain buildings. When she reached the +country in which she might hope to encounter him, she would zigzag +across that main trail in order to pick up his foot-tracks if he had +passed her undetected. In that event she would turn and follow. She +knew that the snow was falling too heavily to continue in such +volume indefinitely; it would stop as suddenly as it had started. + +The hours of the night piled up. The silent, muffling snowfall +continued. And Cora McBride began to sense an alarming weariness. It +finally dawned upon her that her old-time vigour was missing. The +strength of youth was hers no longer. Two experiences of motherhood +and no more exercise than was afforded by the tasks of her household, +had softened her muscles. Their limitations were now disclosed. + +The realization of those limitations was accompanied by panic. She +was still many miles even from Blind Brook Cabin, and her limbs were +afire from the unaccustomed effort. This would never do. After +pauses for breath that were coming closer and closer together, she +set her lips each time grimly. "Tomboy Allen" had not counted on +succumbing to physical fatigue before she had climbed as far as +Blind Brook. If she were weakening already, what of those many miles +on the other side? + +Tuesday the twenty-eighth of October passed with no tidings of +Ruggam's capture. The Holmes boy was fatally shot by a rattleheaded +searcher near Five-Mile Pond, and distraught parents began to take +thought of their own lads missing from school. Adam MacQuarry broke +his leg near the Hell Hollow schoolhouse and was sent back by +friends on a borrowed bobsled. Several ne'er-do-wells, long on +impulse and short on stickability, drifted back to more comfortable +quarters during the day, contending that if Hap were captured, the +officers would claim the reward anyhow--so what was the use bucking +the System? + +The snowfall stopped in the early morning. Sunrise disclosed the +world trimmed from horizon to horizon in fairy fluff. Householders +jocosely shoveled their walks; small children resurrected attic sleds; +here and there a farmer appeared on Main Street during the forenoon +in a pung-sleigh or cutter with jingling bells. The sun soared higher, +and the day grew warmer. Eaves began dripping during the noon hour, +to stop when the sun sank about four o'clock behind Bancroft's hill. + +After the sunset came a perfect evening. The starlight was magic. +Many people called in at the newspaper-office, after the movies, to +learn if the man hunt had brought results. + +Between ten and eleven o'clock the lights on the valley floor +blinked out; the town had gone to bed--that is, the lights blinked +out in all homes excepting those on the eastern outskirts, where +nervous people worried over the possibilities of a hungry, hunted +convict's burglarizing their premises, or drawn-faced mothers lived +mentally through a score of calamities befalling red-blooded sons +who had now been absent twenty-four hours. + +Sometime between nine o'clock and midnight--she had no way of +telling accurately--Cora McBride stumbled into the Lyons clearing. +No one would have recognized in the staggering, bedraggled +apparition that emerged from the silhouette of the timber the figure +that had started so confidently from the Harrison tract the previous +evening. + +For over an hour she had hobbled blindly. It was wholly by accident +that she had stumbled into the clearing. And the capture of Ruggam +had diminished in importance. Warm food, water that would not tear +her raw throat, a place to lie and recoup her strength after the +chilling winter night--these were the only things that counted now. +Though she knew it not, in her eyes burned the faint light of fever. +When a snag caught her snowshoe and tripped her, there was hysteria +in her cry of resentment. + +As she moved across from the timber-line her hair was revealed +fallen down; she had lost a glove, and one hand and wrist were +cruelly red where she had plunged them several times into the snow +to save herself from falling upon her face. She made but a few yards +before the icy thong of her right snowshoe snapped. She did not +bother to repair it. Carrying it beneath her arm, she hobbled +brokenly toward the shelter of the buildings. + +Her failure at the other cabins, the lack, thus far, of all signs of +the fugitive, the vastness of the hunting-ground magnified by the +loneliness of winter, had convinced her finally that her quest was +futile. It was all a venture of madness. The idea that a woman, +alone and single-handed, with no weapon but a revolver, could track +down and subdue a desperate murderer in winter mountains where +hardly a wild thing stirred, and make him return with her to the +certain penalty--this proved how much mental mischief had again been +caused by the lure of money. The glittering seduction of gold had +deranged her. She realized it now, her mind normal in an exhausted +body. So she gained the walls of the buildings and stumbled around +them, thoughtless of any possible signs of the fugitive. + +The stars were out in myriads. The Milky Way was a spectacle to +recall vividly the sentiment of the Nineteenth Psalm. The +log-buildings of the clearing, every tree-trunk and bough in the +woods beyond, the distant skyline of stump and hollow, all stood out +sharply against the peculiar radiance of the snow. The night was as +still as the spaces between the planets. + +Like some wild creature of those winter woods the woman clumped and +stumbled around the main shack, seeking the door. + +Finding it, she stopped; the snowshoe slipped from beneath her arm; +one numb hand groped for the log door-casing in support; the other +fumbled for the revolver. + +Tracks led into that cabin! + +A paralysis of fright gripped Cora McBride. Something told her +intuitively that she stood face to face at last with what she had +traveled all this mountain wilderness to find. Yet with sinking +heart it also came to her that if Hap Ruggam had made these tracks +and were still within, she must face him in her exhausted condition +and at once make that tortuous return trip to civilization. There +would be no one to help her. + +She realized in that moment that she was facing the primal. And she +was not primal. She was a normal woman, weakened to near-prostration +by the trek of the past twenty-four hours. Was it not better to turn +away while there was time? + +She stood debating thus, the eternal silence blanketing forest-world +and clearing. But she was allowed to make no decision. + +A living body sprang suddenly upon her. Before she could cry out, +she was borne down precipitously from behind. + +She tried to turn the revolver against the Thing upon her, but the +gun was twisted from her raw, red fingers. The snow into which she +had been precipitated blinded her. She smeared an arm across her eyes, +but before clear sight was regained, talon fingers had gripped her +shoulders. She was half lifted, half dragged through the doorway, +and there she was dropped on the plank flooring. Her assailant, +turning, made to close and bar the door. + +When she could see clearly, she perceived a weak illumination in the +cabin. On the rough bench-table, shaded by two slabs of bark, burned +the stub of a tallow candle probably left by some hunting-party. + +The windows were curtained with rotting blankets. Some rough +furniture lay about; rusted cooking-utensils littered the tables, +and at one end was a sheet-iron stove. The place had been equipped +after a fashion by deer-hunters or mountain hikers, who brought +additional furnishings to the place each year and left mouldy +provisions and unconsumed firewood behind. + +The man succeeded finally in closing the door. He turned upon her. + +He was short and stocky. The stolen corduroy coat covered +blacksmith's muscles now made doubly powerful by dementia. His hair +was lifeless black and clipped close, prison-fashion. His low +forehead hung over burning, mismated eyes. From her helplessness on +the floor Cora McBride stared up at him. + +He came closer. + +"Get up!" he ordered. "Take that chair. And don't start no +rough-house; whether you're a woman or not, I'll drill you!" + +She groped to the indicated chair and raised herself, the single +snowshoe still dragging from one foot. Again the man surveyed her. +She saw his eyes and gave another inarticulate cry. + +"Shut your mouth and keep it shut! You hear me?" + +She obeyed. + +The greenish light burned brighter in his mismated eyes, which gazed +intently at the top of her head as though it held something unearthly. + +"Take off your hat!" was his next command. + +She pulled off the toque. Her hair fell in a mass on her +snow-blotched shoulders. Her captor advanced upon her. He reached out +and satisfied himself by touch that something was not there which he +dreaded. In hypnotic fear she suffered that touch. It reassured him. + +"Your hair now," he demanded; "it don't stand up, does it? No, o' +course it don't. You ain't _him_; you're a woman. But if your hair +comes up, I'll kill you--understand? If your hair comes up, _I'll +kill you_!" + +She understood. She understood only too well. She was not only housed +with a murderer; she was housed with a maniac. She sensed, also, why +he had come to this mountain shack so boldly. In his dementia he knew +no better. And she was alone with him, unarmed now. + +"I'll keep it down," she whispered, watching his face out of +fear-distended eyes. + +The wind blew one of the rotten blankets inward. Thereby she knew +that the window-aperture on the south wall contained no sash. He +must have removed it to provide means of escape in case he were +attacked from the east door. He must have climbed out that window +when she came around the shack; that is how he had felled her from +behind. + +He stepped backward now until he felt the edge of the bench touch +his calves. Then he sank down, one arm stretched along the table's +rim, the hand clutching the revolver. + +"Who are you?" he demanded. + +"I'm Cora McB----" She stopped--she recalled in a flash the part her +husband had played in his former capture and trial. "I'm Cora Allen," +she corrected. Then she waited, her wits in chaos. She was fighting +desperately to bring order out of that chaos. + +"What you doin' up here?" + +"I started for Millington, over the mountain. I lost my way." + +"Why didn't you go by the road?" + +"It's further." + +"That's a lie! It ain't. And don't lie to me, or I'll kill you!" + +"Who are you?" she heard herself asking. "And why are you acting +this way with me?" + +The man leaned suddenly forward. + +"You mean to tell me you don't know?" + +"A lumberjack, maybe, who's lost his way like myself?" + +His expression changed abruptly. + +"What you luggin' _this_ for?" He indicated the revolver. + +"For protection." + +"From what?" + +"Wild things." + +"There ain't no wild things in these mountains this time o' year; +they're snowed up, and you know it." + +"I just felt safer to have it along." + +"To protect you from men-folks, maybe?" + +"There are no men in these mountains I'm afraid of!" She made the +declaration with pathetic bravado. + +His eyes narrowed. + +"I think I better kill you," he decided. "You've seen me; you'll +tell you seen me. Why shouldn't I kill you? You'd only tell." + +"Why? What have I done to you?" she managed to stammer. "Why should +you object to being seen?" + +It was an unfortunate demand. He sprang up with a snarl. Pointing +the revolver from his hip, he drew back the hammer. + +"_Don't_!" she shrieked. "Are you crazy? Don't you know how to treat +a woman--in distress?" + +"Distress, _hell_! You know who I be. And I don't care whether +you're a woman or not, I ain't goin' to be took--you understand?" + +"Certainly I understand." + +She said it in such a way that he eased the hammer back into place +and lowered the gun. For the moment again she was safe. In response +to her terrible need, some of her latent Yankee courage came now to +aid her. "I don't see what you're making all this rumpus about," she +told him in as indifferent a voice as she could command. "I don't +see why you should want to kill a friend who might help you--if +you're really in need of help." + +"I want to get to Partridgeville," he muttered after a moment. + +"You're not far from there. How long have you been on the road?" + +"None of your business." + +"Have you had any food?" + +"No." + +"If you'll put up that gun and let me get off this snowshoe and pack, +I'll share with you some of the food I have." + +"Never you mind what I do with this gun. Go ahead and fix your foot, +and let's see what you got for grub." The man resumed his seat. + +She twisted up her tangled hair, replaced her toque and untied the +dangling snowshoe. + +Outside a tree cracked in the frost. He started in hair-trigger +fright. Creeping to the window, he peeped cautiously between casing +and blanket. Convinced that it was nothing, he returned to his seat +by the table. + +"It's too bad we couldn't have a fire," suggested the woman then. +"I'd make us something hot." The stove was there, rusted but still +serviceable; available wood was scattered around. But the man shook +his bullet head. + +After a trying time unfastening the frosted knots of the ropes that +had bound the knapsack upon her back, she emptied it onto the table. +She kept her eye, however, on the gun. He had disposed of it by +thrusting it into his belt. Plainly she would never recover it +without a struggle. And she was in no condition for physical conflict. + +"You're welcome to anything I have," she told him. + +"Little you got to say about it! If you hadn't given it up, I'd took +it away from you. So what's the difference?" + +She shrugged her shoulders. She started around behind him but he +sprang toward her. + +"Don't try no monkey-shines with me!" he snarled. "You stay here in +front where I can see you." + +She obeyed, watching him make what poor meal he could from the +contents of her bag. + +She tried to reason out what the denouement of the situation was to +be. He would not send her away peacefully, for she knew he dared not +risk the story she would tell regardless of any promises of secrecy +she might give him. If he left her bound in the cabin, she would +freeze before help came--if it ever arrived. + +No, either they were going to leave the place and journey forth +together--the Lord only knew where or with what outcome--or the life +of one of them was to end in this tragic place within the coming few +minutes. For she realized she must use that gun with deadly effect +if it were to come again into her possession. + +The silence was broken only by the noises of his lips as he ate +ravenously. Outside, not a thing stirred in that snowbound world. +Not a sound of civilization reached them. They were a man and woman +in the primal, in civilization and yet a million miles from it. + +"The candle's going out," she announced. "Is there another?" + +"There'll be light enough for what I got to do," he growled. + +Despite her effort to appear indifferent, her great fear showed +plainly in her eyes. + +"Are we going to stay here all night?" she asked with a pathetic +attempt at lightness. + +"That's my business." + +"Don't you want me to help you?" + +"You've helped me all you can with the gun and food." + +"If you're going to Partridgeville, I'd go along and show you the way." + +He leaped up. + +"_Now I know you been lyin_!'" he bellowed. "You said you was headed +for Millington. And you ain't at all. You're watchin' your chance to +get the drop on me and have me took--that's what you're doin'!" + +"Wait!" she pleaded desperately. "I _was_ going to Millington. But +I'd turn back and show you the way to Partridgeville to help you." + +"What's it to you?" He had drawn the gun from his belt and now was +fingering it nervously. + +"You're lost up here in the mountains, aren't you?" she said. +"I couldn't let you stay lost if it was possible for me to direct +you on your way." + +"You said you was lost yourself." + +"I was lost--until I stumbled into this clearing. That gave me my +location." + + +"Smart, ain't you? Damn' smart, but not too smart for me, you woman!" +The flare flamed up again in his crooked eyes. "You know who I be, +all right. You know what I'm aimin' to do. And you're stallin' for +time till you can put one over. But you can't--see? I'll have this +business done with. I'll end this business!" + +She felt herself sinking to her knees. He advanced and gripped her +left wrist. The crunch of his iron fingers sent an arrow of pain +through her arm. It bore her down. + +"For God's sake--_don't_!" she whispered hoarsely, overwhelmed with +horror. For the cold, sharp nose of the revolver suddenly punched +her neck. + +"I ain't leavin' no traces behind. Might as well be hung for a sheep +as a lamb. Never mind if I do----" + +"Look!" she cried wildly. "Look, look, _look_!" And with her free +hand she pointed behind him. + +It was an old trick. There was nothing behind him. But in that +instant of desperation instinct had guided her. + +Involuntarily he turned. + +With a scream of pain she twisted from his grasp and blotted out the +candle. + +A long, livid pencil of orange flame spurted from the gun-point. She +sensed the powder-flare in her face. He had missed. + +She scrambled for shelter beneath the table. The cabin was now in +inky blackness. Across that black four more threads of scarlet light +were laced. The man stumbled about seeking her, cursing with +blood-curdling blasphemy. + +Suddenly he tripped and went sprawling. The gun clattered from his +bruised fingers; it struck the woman's knee. + +Swiftly her hand closed upon it. The hot barrel burned her palm. + +She was on her feet in an instant. Her left hand fumbled in her +blouse, and she found what had been there all along--the flash-lamp. + +With her back against the door, she pulled it forth. With the gun +thrust forward for action she pressed the button. + +"I've got the gun--_get up_!" she ordered. "Don't come too near me +or I'll shoot. Back up against that wall." + +The bull's-eye of radiance blinded him. When his eyes became +accustomed to the light, he saw its reflection on the barrel of the +revolver. He obeyed. + +"Put up your hands. Put 'em up _high_!" + +"Suppose I won't?" + +"I'll kill you." + +"What'll you gain by that?" + +"Five thousand dollars." + +"Then you know who I be?" + +"Yes." + +"And was aimin' to take me in?" + +"Yes." + +"How you goin' to do that if I won't go?" + +"You're goin' to find out." + +"You won't get no money shootin' me." + +"Yes, I will--just as much--dead as alive." + +With his hands raised a little way above the level of his shoulders, +he stood rigidly at bay in the circle of light. + +"Well," he croaked at last, "go ahead and shoot. I ain't aimin' to +be took--not by no woman. Shoot, damn you, and have it done with. +I'm waitin'!" + +"Keep up those hands!" + +"I won't!" He lowered them defiantly. "I w-wanted to m-make +Partridgeville and see the old lady. She'd 'a' helped me. But +anything's better'n goin' back to that hell where I been the last +two years. Go on! Why don't you shoot?" + +"You wanted to make Partridgeville and see--_who_?" + +"My mother--and my wife." + +"Have you got a mother? Have you got a--wife?" + +"Yes, and three kids. Why don't you shoot?" + +It seemed an eon that they stood so. The McBride woman was trying to +find the nerve to fire. She could not. In that instant she made a +discovery that many luckless souls make too late: _to kill a man_ is +easy to talk about, easy to write about. But to stand deliberately +face to face with a fellow-human--alive, pulsing, breathing, fearing, +hoping, loving, living,--point a weapon at him that would take his +life, blot him from the earth, negate twenty or thirty years of +childhood, youth, maturity, and make of him in an instant--nothing! +--that is quite another matter. + +He was helpless before her now. Perhaps the expression on his face +had something to do with the sudden revulsion that halted her finger. +Facing certain death, some of the evil in those crooked eyes seemed +to die out, and the terrible personality of the man to fade. +Regardless of her danger, regardless of what he would have done to +her if luck had not turned the tables, Cora McBride saw before her +only a lone man with all society's hand against him, realizing he +had played a bad game to the limit and lost, two big tears creeping +down his unshaved face, waiting for the end. + +"Three children!" she whispered faintly. + +"Yes." + +"You're going back to see them?" + +"Yes, and my mother. Mother'd help me get to Canada--somehow." + +Cora McBride had forgotten all about the five thousand dollars. She +was stunned by the announcement that this man had relatives--a mother, +a wife, _three_ babies. The human factor had not before occurred to +her. Murderers! They have no license to let their eyes well with +tears, to have wives and babies, to possess mothers who will help +them get to Canada regardless of what their earthly indiscretions +may have been. + +At this revelation the gun-point wavered. The sight of those tears +on his face sapped her will-power even as a wound in her breast +might have drained her life-blood. + +Her great moment had been given her. She was letting it slip away. +She had her reward in her hand for the mere pulling of a trigger and +no incrimination for the result. For a bit of human sentiment she +was bungling the situation unpardonably, fatally. + +Why did she not shoot? Because she was a woman. Because it is the +God-given purpose of womanhood to give life, not take it. + +The gun sank, sank--down out of the light, down out of sight. + +And the next instant he was upon her. + +The flash-lamp was knocked from her hand and blinked out. It struck +the stove and she heard the tinkle of the broken lens. The woman's +hand caught at the sacking before the window at her left shoulder. +Gripping it wildly to save herself from that onslaught, she tore it +away. For the second time the revolver was twisted from her raw +fingers. + +The man reared upward, over her. + +"Where are you?" he roared again and again. "I'll show you! Lemme at +you!" + +Outside the great yellow moon of early winter, arising late, was +coming up over the silhouetted line of purple mountains to the +eastward. It illumined the cabin with a faint radiance, disclosing +the woman crouching beneath the table. + +The man saw her, pointed his weapon point-blank at her face and fired. + +To Cora McBride, prostrate there in her terror, the impact of the +bullet felt like the blow of a stick upon her cheek-bone rocking her +head. Her cheek felt warmly numb. She pressed a quick hand +involuntarily against it, and drew it away sticky with blood. + +_Click! Click! Click_! + +Three times the revolver mechanism was worked to accomplish her +destruction. But there was no further report. The cylinder was empty. + +"Oh, God!" the woman moaned. "I fed you and offered to help you. I +refused to shoot you because of your mother--your wife--your babies. +And yet you----" + +"Where's your cartridges?" he cried wildly. "You got more; gimme +that belt!" + +She felt his touch upon her. His crazy fingers tried to unbutton the +clasp of the belt and holster. But he could secure neither while she +fought him. He pinioned her at length with his knee. His fingers +secured a fistful of the cylinders from her girdle, and he opened +the chamber of the revolver. + +She realized the end was but a matter of moments. Nothing but a +miracle could save her now. + +Convulsively she groped about for something with which to strike. +Nothing lay within reach of her bleeding fingers, however, but a +little piece of dried sapling. She tried to struggle loose, but the +lunatic held her mercilessly. He continued the mechanical loading of +the revolver. + +The semi-darkness of the hut, the outline of the moon afar through +the uncurtained window--these swam before her.... Suddenly her eyes +riveted on that curtainless window and she uttered a terrifying cry. + +Ruggam turned. + +Outlined in the window aperture against the low-hung moon _Martin +Wiley, the murdered deputy, was staring into the cabin_! + +From the fugitive's throat came a gurgle. Some of the cartridges he +held spilled to the flooring. Above her his figure became rigid. +There was no mistaking the identity of the apparition. They saw the +man's hatless head and some of his neck. They saw his dark pompadour +and the outline of his skull. As that horrible silhouette remained +there, Wiley's pompadour lifted slightly as it had done in life. + +The cry in the convict's throat broke forth into words. + +"Mart Wiley!" he cried, "Mart Wiley! _Mart--Wiley_!" + +Clear, sharp, distinct was the shape of that never-to-be-forgotten +pompadour against the disk of the winter moon. His features could +not be discerned, for the source of light was behind him, but the +silhouette was sufficient. It was Martin Wiley; he was alive. His +head and his wirelike hair were moving--rising, falling. + +Ruggam, his eyes riveted upon the phantom, recoiled mechanically to +the western wall. He finished loading the revolver by the sense of +touch. Then: + +Spurt after spurt of fire lanced the darkness, directed at the Thing +in the window. While the air of the hut reeked with the acrid smoke, +the echo of the volley sounded through the silent forest-world miles +away. + +But the silhouette in the window remained. + +Once or twice it moved slightly as though in surprise; that was all. +The pompadour rose in bellicose retaliation--the gesture that had +always ensued when Wiley was angered or excited. But to bullets +fired from an earthly gun the silhouette of the murdered deputy's +ghost, arisen in these winter woods to prevent another slaughter, +was impervious. + +Ruggam saw; he shrieked. He broke the gun and spilled out the empty +shells. He fumbled in more cartridges, locked the barrel and fired +again and again, until once more it was empty. + +Still the apparition remained. + +The man in his dementia hurled the weapon; it struck the sash and +caromed off, hitting the stove. Then Hap Ruggam collapsed upon the +floor. + +The woman sprang up. She found the rope thongs which had bound her +pack to her shoulders. With steel-taut nerves, she rolled the +insensible Ruggam over. + +She tied his hands; she tied his ankles. With her last bit of rope +she connected the two bindings tightly behind him so that if he +recovered, he would be at her mercy. Her task accomplished, on her +knees beside his prone figure, she thought to glance up at the window. + +Wiley's ghost had disappeared. + +Sheriff Crumpett and his party broke into the Lyons clearing within +an hour. They had arrived in answer to five successive shots given a +few moments apart, the signal agreed upon. The mystery to them, +however, was that those five shots had been fired by some one not of +their party. + +The sheriff and his men found the McBride woman, her clothing half +torn from her body, her features powder-marked and blood-stained; +but she was game to the last, woman-fashion weeping only now that +all was over. They found, too, the man they had combed the country +to find--struggling fruitlessly in his bonds, her prisoner. + +And they likewise found the miracle. + +On the snow outside under the window they came upon a black +porcupine about the size of a man's head which, scenting food within +the cabin, had climbed to the sill, and after the habit of these +little animals whose number is legion all over the Green Mountains, +had required fifteen bullets pumped into its carcass before it would +release its hold. + +Even in death its quills were raised in uncanny duplication of Mart +Wiley's pompadour. + + + + +A MATTER OF LOYALTY + + +BY LAWRENCE PERRY + +From _The Red Book_ + +Standing in the bow of the launch, Dr. Nicholls, coach of the Baliol +crew, leaned upon his megaphone, his eyes fixed upon two eight-oared +crews resting upon their oars a hundred feet away. From his hand +dangled a stop-watch. The two crews had just completed a four-mile +race against the watch. + +A grim light came into the deeply set gray eyes of Jim Deacon as the +coach put the watch into his pocket. Deacon was the stroke of the +second varsity, an outfit which in aquatics bears the same relation +to a university eight as the scrub team does to a varsity football +eleven. But in the race just completed the second varsity had been +much of a factor--surprisingly, dishearteningly so. Nip and tuck it +had been, the varsity straining to drop the rival boat astern, but +unable to do so. At the finish not a quarter of a length, not fifteen +feet, had separated the two prows; a poor showing for the varsity to +have made with the great rowing classic of the season coming on +apace--a poor showing, that is, assuming the time consumed in the +four-mile trip was not especially low. + +Only the coach could really know whether the time was satisfactory +or not. But Jim Deacon suspected that it was poor, his idea being +based upon knowledge he had concerning the capabilities of his own +crew; in other words, he knew it was only an average second varsity +outfit. The coach knew it too. That was the reason his jaws were set, +his eyes vacant. At length he shook his head. + +"Not good, boys--not good." His voice was gentle, though usually he +was a rip-roaring mentor. "Varsity, you weren't rowing. That's the +answer--not rowing together. What's the matter, eh?" + +"I thought, Dr. Nicholls, that the rhythm was very good----" + +The coach interrupted Rollins, the captain, with a gesture. + +"Oh, rhythm! Yes, you row prettily enough. You look well. I should +hope so, at this time of the season. But you're not shoving the boat +fast; you don't pick up and get her moving. You're leaking power +somewhere; as a matter of fact, I suspect you're not putting the +power in. I know you're not. Ashburton, didn't that lowering of your +seat fix you? Well, then,"--as the young man nodded affirmatively-- +"how about your stretcher, Innis? Does it suit you now?" + +As Innis nodded, signifying that it did, Deacon saw the coach's eyes +turn to Doane, who sat at stroke of the varsity. + +"Now," muttered the stroke of the second varsity, his eyes gleaming, +"we'll hear something." + +"Doane, is there anything the trouble with you? You're feeling well, +aren't you?" + +"Yes sir. Sure!" The boy flushed. Tall, straight, handsome he sat in +the boat, fingering the oar-handle nervously. In appearance he was +the ideal oarsman. And yet---- + +Deacon, watching the coach, could almost see his mind working. Now +the time had come, the issue clearly defined. Another stroke must be +tried and found not wanting, else the annual eight-oared rowing +classic between those ancient universities Baliol and Shelburne +would be decided before it was rowed. + +Deacon flushed as the coach's glittering eyeglasses turned toward him. +It was the big moment of the senior's four years at college. Four +years! And six months of each of those years a galley-slave--on the +machines in the rowing-room of the gymnasium, on the ice-infested +river with the cutting winds of March sweeping free; then the more +genial months with the voice of coach or assistant coach lashing him. +Four years of dogged, unremitting toil with never the reward of a +varsity seat, and now with the great regatta less than a week away, +the big moment, the crown of all he had done. + +Words seemed on the verge of the coach's lips. Deacon's eyes +strained upon them as he sat stiffly in his seat. But no words came; +the coach turned away. + +"All right," he said spiritlessly. "Paddle back to the float." + +The coxswains barked their orders; sixteen oars rattled in their +locks; the glistening shells moved slowly homeward. + +Tingling from his plunge in the river, Jim Deacon walked up the +bluff from the boathouse to the group of cottages which constituted +Baliol's rowing-quarters. Some of the freshman crew were playing +indoor baseball on the lawn under the gnarled trees, and their +shouts and laughter echoed over the river. Deacon stood watching them. +His face was of the roughhewn type, in his two upper-class years his +heavy frame had taken on a vast amount of brawn and muscle. Now his +neck was meet for his head and for his chest and shoulders; long, +slightly bowed limbs filled out a picture of perfect physique. + +No one had known him really well in college. He was working his way +through. Besides, he was a student in one of the highly scientific +engineering courses which demanded a great deal of steady application. +With no great aptitude for football--he was a bit slow-footed--with +little tune or inclination for social activities, he had +concentrated upon rowing, not only as a diversion from his arduous +studies, an ordered outlet for physical energy, but with the idea of +going out into the world with that hallmark of a Baliol varsity oar +which he had heard and believed was likely to stand him in stead in +life. Baliol alumni, which include so many men of wealth and power, +had a habit of not overlooking young graduates who have brought fame +to their alma mater. + +As Deacon stood watching the freshmen at play, Dick Rollins, the +crew captain, came up. + +"They sent down the time-trial results from the Shelburne quarters, +Deacon." + +Never in his life had one of the great men of the university spoken +that many words, or half as many, to Jim Deacon, who stared at the +speaker. + +"The time--oh, yes; I see." + +"They did twenty minutes, thirty seconds." + +Deacon whistled. + +"Well," he said at length, "you didn't get the boat moving much +to-day." He wanted to say more, but could think of nothing. Words +came rather hard with him. + +"You nearly lugged the second shell ahead of us to-day, hang you." + +"No use letting a patient die because he doesn't know he's sick." + +Rollins grimaced. + +"Yes, we were sick. Doc Nicholls knows a sick crew when he sees one. +He--he thinks you're the needed tonic, Deacon." + +"Eh?" + +"He told me you were to sit in at stroke in Junior Doane's place +to-morrow. I'd been pulling for the change the past few days. Now he +sees it." + +"You were pulling----But you're Doane's roommate." + +"Yes, it's tough. But Baliol first, you know." + +Deacon stared at the man. He wanted to say something but couldn't. +The captain smiled. + +"Look here, Deacon; let's walk over toward the railroad a bit. I +want to talk to you." Linking his arm through Deacon's, he set out +through the yard toward the quaint old road with its little cluster +of farm cottages and rolling stone-walled meadow-land bathed in the +light of the setting sun. + +"Jim, old boy, you're a queer sort of a chap, and--and--the fact is, +the situation will be a bit ticklish. You know what it means for a +fellow to be thrown out of his seat just before a race upon which he +has been counting heart and soul." + +"I don't know. I can imagine." + +"You see, it's Doane. You know about his father----" + +"I know all about his father," was the reply. + +"Eh?" Rollins stared at him, then smiled. "I suppose every rowing +man at Baliol does. But you don't know as much as I do. On the quiet, +he's the man who gave us the new boathouse last year. He's our best +spender. He was an old varsity oar himself." + +"Sure, I know." + +"That's the reason the situation is delicate. Frankly, Jim, Doc +Nicholls and the rest of us would have liked to see Junior Doane +come through. I think you get what I mean. He's a senior; he's my +best friend." + +"He stroked the boat last year." + +"Yes, and Shelburne beat us. Naturally he wants to get back at that +crowd." + +"But he can't--not if he strokes the boat, Rollins. If you don't +know it, I'm telling you. If I thought different, I'd say so." +Deacon abruptly paused after so long a speech. + +"You don't have to tell me. I know it. We're not throwing a race to +Shelburne simply to please old Cephas Doane, naturally. I know what +you've got, Jim. So does Dr. Nicholls. You'll be in the varsity +to-morrow. But here's the point of what I've been trying to say; +Junior Doane hasn't been very decent to you--" + +"Oh, he's been all right." + +"Yes, I know. But he's a funny fellow; not a bit of a snob--I don't +mean that, but--but--" + +"You mean he hasn't paid much attention to me." Deacon smiled grimly. +"Well, that's all right. As a matter of fact, I never really have +got to know him. Still, I haven't got to know many of the fellows. +Too busy. You haven't paid much attention to me, either; but I like +you." + +Rollins, whose father was a multimillionaire with family roots going +deep among the rocks of Manhattan Island, laughed. + +"Bully for you! You won't mind my saying so, Jim, but I had it in my +mind to ask you to be a bit inconsequential--especially when Doane +was around--about your taking his place. But I guess it isn't +necessary." + +"No,"--Deacon's voice was short--"it isn't." + +"Junior Doane, of course, will be hard hit. He'll be game. He'll try +to win back his seat. And he may; I warn you." + +"If he can win it back, I want him to." + +"Good enough!" The captain started to walk away, then turned back +with sudden interest. "By the way, Jim, I was looking through the +college catalogue this morning. You and Doane both come from +Philadelphia, don't you?" + +"Yes." + +"I asked Doane if he knew you there. Apparently not." + +"No, he didn't." Deacon paused as though deliberating. Suddenly he +spoke. "I knew of him, though. You see, my father works in the bank +of which Mr. Doane is president." + +"Oh!" Rollins blinked. "I see." + +Deacon stepped forward, placing his hand upon the captain's arm. + +"I don't know why I told you that. It isn't important at all. Don't +say anything to Doane, will you? Not that I care. It--it just isn't +important." + +"No. I get you, Jim. It isn't important." He flung an arm over the +young man's shoulder. "Let's go back to dinner. That rotten time-row +has given me an appetite." + +There was that quiet in the Baliol dining room that evening which +one might expect to find after an unsatisfactory time-trial. Nations +might be falling, cities burning, important men dying; to these boys +such events would be as nothing in the face of the fact that the +crew of a traditional rival was to be met within the week--and that +they were not proving themselves equipped for the meeting. + +"If any of you fellows wish to motor down to the Groton Hotel on the +Point for an hour or two, you may go," said the coach, pushing back +his chair. He had begun to fear that his charges might be coming to +too fine a point of condition and had decided that the relaxation of +a bit of dancing might do no harm. + +"Yeaa!" In an instant that subdued dining apartment was tumultuous +with vocal outcry, drawing to the doorway a crowd of curious freshmen +who were finishing dinner in their room. + +"All right!" Dr. Nicholls grinned. "I gather all you varsity and +second varsity men want to go. I'll have the big launch ready at +eight. And--oh, Dick Rollins, don't forget; that boat leaves the +hotel dock at ten-forty-five precisely." + +"Got you sir. Come on, fellows. Look out, you freshmen." With a yell +and a dive the oarsmen went through the doors. + +Deacon followed at a more leisurely gait with that faint gleam of +amusement in his eyes which was so characteristic. His first impulse +was not to go, but upon second thought he decided that he would. +Jane Bostwick was stopping at the Groton. Her father was a successful +promoter and very close to Cephas Doane, Sr., whose bank stood back +of most of his operations. Deacon had known her rather well in the +days when her father was not a successful promoter. In fact, the two +had been neighbours as boy and girl, had played together in front of +a row of prim brick houses. He had not seen her in recent years until +the previous afternoon, when as he was walking along the country road, +she had pulled up in her roadster. + +"Don't pretend you don't remember me, Jim Deacon," she had laughed +as the boy had stared at the stunning young woman. + +Jim remembered her, all right. They talked as though so many +significant years had not elapsed. She was greatly interested, +exceedingly gracious. + +"Do you know," she said, "it never occurred to me that Deacon, the +Baliol rowing man, was none other than Jim Deacon. Silly of me, +wasn't it? But then I didn't even know you were in Baliol. I'm +perfectly crazy about the crew, you know. And Mother, I think, is a +worse fan than I am. You know Junior Doane, of course." + +"Oh, yes--that is, I--why, yes, I know him." + +"Yes." She smiled down upon him. "If you're ever down to the Groton, +do drop in. Mother would love to see you. She often speaks of your +mother." With a wave of her hand she had sped on her way. + +Curiously, that evening he had heard Doane talking to her over the +telephone, and there was a great deal in his manner of speaking that +indicated something more than mere acquaintance. + +But Deacon did not see Jane Bostwick at the hotel--not to speak to, +at least. He was not a good dancer and held aloof when those of his +fellows who were not acquainted with guests were introduced around. +Finding a wicker settee among some palms at one side of the orchestra, +Deacon sat drinking in the scene. + +It was not until the hour set for the return had almost arrived that +Deacon saw Jane Bostwick, and then his attention was directed to her +by her appearance with Junior Doane in one of the open French +windows at his right. Evidently the two had spent the evening in the +sequestered darkness of the veranda. No pair in the room filled the +eye so gratefully; the girl, tall, blonde, striking in a pale blue +evening gown; the man, broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, with the +handsome high-held head of a patrician. + +A wave of something akin to bitterness passed over Deacon--bitterness +having nothing to do with self. For the boy was ruggedly independent. +He believed in himself; knew what he was going to do in the world. +He was thinking of his father, and of the fathers of that young man +and girl before him. His father was painstaking, honourable, +considerate--a nobleman every inch of him; a man who deserved +everything that the world had to give, a man who had everything save +the quality of acquisition. And Doane's father? And Jane Bostwick's +father? + +Of the elder Doane he knew by hearsay--a proud, intolerant wholly +worldly man whose passions, aside from finance, were his son and +Baliol aquatics. And Jane Bostwick's father he had known as a boy--a +soft-footed, sly-faced velvety sort of a man noted for converting +back lots into oil-fields and ash-dumps into mines yielding precious +metals. Jim Deacon was not so old that he had come to philosophy +concerning the way of the world. + +But so far as his immediate world was concerned, Junior Doane was +going out of the varsity boat in the morning--and he, Jim Deacon, +was going to sit in his place. + +It came the next morning. When the oarsmen went down to the boathouse +to dress for their morning row, the arrangement of the various crews +posted on the bulletin-board gave Deacon the seat at stroke in the +varsity boat; Junior Doane's name appeared at stroke in the second +varsity list. + +There had been rumours of some sort of a shift, but no one seemed to +have considered the probability of Doane's losing his seat--Doane +least of all. For a moment the boy stood rigid, looking up at the +bulletin-board. Then suddenly he laughed. + +"All right, Carry," he said, turning to the captain of the second +varsity. "Come on; we'll show 'em what a rudder looks like." + +But it was not to be. In three consecutive dashes of a mile each, +the varsity boat moved with such speed as it had not shown all season. +There was life in the boat. Deacon, rowing in perfect form, passed +the stroke up forward with a kick and a bite, handling his oar with a +precision that made the eye of the coach glisten. And when the +nervous little coxswain called for a rousing ten strokes, the shell +seemed fairly to lift out of the water. + +In the last mile dash Dr. Nicholls surreptitiously took his +stop-watch from his pocket and timed the sprint. When he replaced +the timepiece, the lines of care which had seamed his face for the +past few days vanished. + +"All right, boys. Paddle in. Day after to-morrow we'll hold the +final time-trial. Deacon, be careful; occasionally you clip your +stroke at the finish." + +But Deacon didn't mind the admonition. He knew the coach's policy of +not letting a man think he was too good. + +"You certainly bucked up that crew to-day, Deacon." Jim Deacon, who +had been lying at full length on the turf at the top of the bluff +watching the shadows creep over the purpling waters of the river, +looked up to see Doane standing over him. His first emotion was one +of triumph. Doane, the son of Cephas Doane, his father's employer, +had definitely noticed him at last. Then the dominant emotion +came--one of sympathy. + +"Well, the second crew moved better too." + +"Oh, I worked like a dog." Doane laughed. "Of course you know I'm +going to get my place back, if I can." + +"Of course." Deacon plucked a blade of grass and placed it in his +mouth. There was rather a constrained silence for a moment. + +"I didn't know you came from my city, Deacon. I--Jane Bostwick told +me about you last night." + +"I see. I used to know her." Inwardly Deacon cursed his natural +inability to converse easily, partly fearing that Doane would +mistake his reticence for embarrassment in his presence, or on the +other hand set him down as churlish and ill bred. + +For his part Doane seemed a bit ill at ease. + +"I didn't know, of course, anything Jane told me. If I had, of course, +I'd have looked you up more at the college." + +"We're both busy there in our different ways." + +Doane stood awkwardly for a moment and then walked away, not knowing +that however he may have felt about the conversation, he had at +least increased his stature in the mind of Jim Deacon. + +Next day on the river Junior Doane's desperation at the outset +brought upon his head the criticism of the coach. + +"Doane! Doane! You're rushing your slide. Finish out your stroke, +for heaven's sake." + +Deacon, watching the oarsman's face, saw it grow rigid, saw his +mouth set. Well he knew the little tragedy through which Doane was +living. + +Doane did better after that. The second boat gave the varsity some +sharp brushes while the coxswains barked and the coach shouted +staccato objurgation and comment through his megaphone, and the +rival oarsmen swung backward and forward in the expenditure of +ultimate power and drive. + +But Jim Deacon was the man for varsity stroke. There was not the +least doubt about that. The coach could see it; the varsity could +feel it; but of them all Deacon alone knew why. He knew that Doane +was practically as strong an oar as he was, certainly as finished. +And Doane's experience was greater. The difficulty as Deacon grasped +it was that the boy had not employed all the material of his +experience. The coxswain, Seagraves, was a snappy little chap, with +an excellent opinion of his head. But Deacon had doubts as to his +racing sense. He could shoot ginger into his men, could lash them +along with a fine rhythm, but in negotiating a hard-fought race he +had his shortcomings. At least so Deacon had decided in the brushes +against the varsity shell when he was stroking the second varsity. + +Deacon thanked no coxswain to tell him how to row a race, when to +sprint, when to dog along at a steady, swinging thirty; nor did he +require advice on the pacing and general condition of a rival crew. +As he swung forward for the catch, his practice was to turn his head +slightly to one side, chin along the shoulder, thus gaining through +the tail of his eye a glimpse of any boat that happened to be abeam, +slightly ahead or slightly astern. This glance told him everything +he wished to know. The coach did not know the reason for this +peculiarity in Deacon's style, but since it did not affect his rowing, +he very wisely said nothing. To his mind the varsity boat had at +last begun to arrive, and this was no time for minor points. + +Two days before the Shelburne race the Baliol varsity in its final +time-trial came within ten seconds of equalling the lowest +downstream trial-record ever established--a record made by a +Shelburne eight of the early eighties. There was no doubt in the +mind of any one about the Baliol crew quarters that Deacon would be +the man to set the pace for his university in the supreme test +swiftly approaching. + +News of Baliol's improved form began to be disseminated in the daily +press by qualified observers of rowing form who were beginning to +flock to the scene of the regatta from New York, Philadelphia, and +various New England cities. Dr. Nicholls was reticent, but no one +could say that his demeanour was marked by gloom. Perhaps his +optimism would have been more marked had the information he +possessed concerning Shelburne been less disturbing. As a fact there +was every indication that the rival university would be represented +by one of the best crews in her history--which was to say a very +great deal. In truth, Baliol rowing enthusiasts had not seen their +shell cross the line ahead of a Shelburne varsity boat in three +consecutive years, a depressing state of affairs which in the +present season had filled every Baliol rowing man with grim +determination and the graduates with alternate hope and despair. + +"Jim," said the coach, drawing Deacon from the float upon which he +had been standing, watching the antics of a crew of former Baliol +oarsmen who had come from far and wide to row the mile race of +"Gentlemen's Eights" which annually marked the afternoon preceding +the classic regatta day, "Jim, you're not worried at all, are you? +You're such a quiet sort of a chap, I can't seem to get you." + +Deacon smiled faintly. + +"No, I'm not worried--not a bit, sir. I mean I'm going to do my best, +and if that's good enough, why--well, we win." + +"I want you to do more than your best to-morrow, Jim. It's got to be +a super-effort. You're up against a great Shelburne crew, the +greatest I ever saw--that means twelve years back. I wouldn't talk +to every man this way, but I think you're a stroke who can stand +responsibility. I think you're a man who can work the better when he +knows the size of his job. It's a big one, boy--the biggest I've +ever tackled." + +"Yes, sir." + +The coach studied him a minute. + +"How do you feel about beating Shelburne? What I mean," he went on as +the oarsman regarded him, puzzled, "is, would it break your heart to +lose? Is the thought of being beaten so serious that you can't--that +you won't consider it?" + +"No sir, I won't consider it. I don't go into anything without +wanting to come out ahead. I've worked three years to get into the +varsity. I realize the position you've given me will help me, make +me stand out after graduation, mean almost as much as my +diploma--provided we can win." + +"What about Baliol? Do you think of the college, too, and what a +victory will mean to her? What defeat will mean?" + +"Oh," Deacon shrugged; "of course," he went on a bit carelessly, +"we want to see Baliol on top as often----" He stopped, then broke +into a chuckle as the stroke of the gentlemen's eight suddenly +produced from the folds of his sweater a bottle from which he drank +with dramatic unction while his fellow-oarsmen clamoured to share +the libation and the coxswain abused them all roundly. + +The eyes of the coach never left the young man's face. But he said +nothing while Deacon took his fill of enjoyment of the jovial scene, +apparently forgetting the sentence which he had broken in the middle. + +But that evening something of the coach's meaning came to Deacon as +he sat on a rustic bench watching the colours fade from one of those +sunset skies which have ever in the hearts of rowing men who have +ever spent a hallowed June on the heights of that broad placid stream. +The Baliol graduates had lost their race against the gentlemen of +Shelburne, having rowed just a bit worse than their rivals. And now +the two crews were celebrating their revival of the ways of youth +with a dinner provided by the defeated eight. Their laughter and +their songs went out through the twilight and were lost in the +recesses of the river. One song with a haunting melody caught +Deacon's attention; he listened to get the words. + + + Then raise the rosy goblet high, + The senior's chalice and belie + The tongues that trouble and defile, + For we have yet a little while + To linger, you and youth and I, + In college days. + + +A group of oarsmen down on the lawn caught up the song and sent it +winging through the twilight, soberly, impressively, with +ever-surging harmony. College days! For a moment a dim light burned +in the back of his mind. It went out suddenly. Jim Deacon shrugged +and thought of the morrow's race. It was good to know he was going +to be a part of it. He could feel the gathering of enthusiasm, +exhilaration in the atmosphere--pent-up emotion which on the morrow +would burst like a thunderclap. In the quaint city five miles down +the river hotels were filling with the vanguard of the boat-race +throng--boys fresh from the poetry of Commencement; their older +brothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, living again the thrill +of youth and the things thereof. And mothers and sisters and +sweethearts! Deacon's nerves tingled pleasantly in response to the +glamour of the hour. + +"Oh, Jim Deacon!" + +"Hello!" Deacon turned his face toward the building whence the voice +came. + +"Somebody wants to see you on the road by the bridge over the +railroad." + +"See me? All right." + +Filled with wonder, Deacon walked leisurely out of the yard and then +reaching the road, followed in the wake of an urchin of the +neighbourhood who had brought the summons, and could tell Deacon +only that it was some one in an automobile. + +It was, in fact, Jane Bostwick. + +"Jump up here in the car, won't you, Jim?" Her voice was somewhat +tense. "No, I'm not going to drive," she added as Deacon hesitated. +"We can talk better." + +"Have you heard from your father lately?" she asked as the young man +sprang into the seat at her side. + +He started. + +"No, not in a week. Why, is there anything the matter with him?" + +"Of course not." She touched him lightly upon the arm. "You knew that +Mr. Bell, cashier of the National Penn Bank, had died?" + +"No. Is that so! That's too bad." Then suddenly Deacon sat erect. +"By George! Father is one of the assistant cashiers there. I wonder +if he'll be promoted." He turned upon the girl. "Is that what you +wanted to tell me?" + +She waited a bit before replying. + +"No--not exactly that." + +"Not exactly----What do you mean?" + +"Do you know how keen Mr. Doane, I mean Junior's father is on rowing? +Well,"--as Deacon nodded,--"have you thought how he might feel +toward the father of the man who is going to sit in his son's seat +in the race to-morrow? Would it make him keen to put that father in +Mr. Bell's place?" + +Deacon's exclamation was sharp. + +"Who asked you to put that thought in my mind?" + +"Ah!" Her hand went out, lying upon his arm. "I was afraid you were +going to take it that way. Mother was talking this afternoon. I +thought you should know. As for Junior Doane, I'm frank to admit I'm +awfully keen about him. But that isn't why I came here. I remember +how close you and your father used to be. I--I thought perhaps you'd +thank me, if--if----" + +"What you mean is that because I have beaten Doane out for stroke, +his father may be sore and not promote my father at the bank." + +"There's no 'may' about it. Mr. Doane will be sore. He'll be sore at +Junior, of course. But he'll be sore secretly at you, and where +there is a question of choice of cashier between _your_ father and +another man--even though the other man has not been so long in the +bank--how do you think his mind will work; I mean, if you lose? Of +course, if you can win, then I am sure everything will be all right. +You must----" + +"If I can win! What difference would that----" He stopped suddenly. +"I've caught what you mean." He laughed bitterly. "Parental jealousy. +All right! All right!" + +"Jim, I don't want you----" + +"Don't bother. I've heard all I can stand, Jane. Thank you." He +lurched out of the car and hurried away. + +She called him. No answer. Waiting a moment, the girl sighed, +touched the self-starter and drove away. + +Deacon had no idea of any lapse of time between the departure of the +car and himself in his cot prepared for sleep--with, however, no +idea that sleep would come. His mood was pitiable. His mind was a +mass of whirling thoughts in the midst of which he could recognize +pictures of his boyhood, a little boy doing many things--with a hand +always tucked within the fingers of a great big man who knew +everything, who could do everything, who could always explain all the +mysteries of the big, strange, booming world. There were many such +pictures, pictures not only relating to boyhood, but to his own +struggle at Baliol, to the placid little home in Philadelphia and +all that it had meant, all that it still meant, to his father, to +his mother, to him, Any act of his that would bring sorrow or dismay +or the burden of defeated hope to that home! + +But on the other hand, the morrow was to bring him the crown of +toilsome years, was to make his name one to conjure with wherever +Baliol was loved or known. He knew what the varsity _cachet_ would +do for his prospects in the world. And after all, he had his own +life to live, had he not? Would not the selfish, or rather the +rigorous, settlement of this problem, be for the best in the end, +since his making good would simply be making good for his father and +his mother? But how about his father's chance for making good on his +own account? + +A comrade in the cot adjoining heard a groan. + +"Eh! Are you sick, Deacon? Are you all right?" + +"Sure--dreaming," came the muffled reply. + +There was something unreal to Deacon about the morning. The sunlight +was filled with sinister glow; the voices of the rowing men were +strange; the whole environment seemed to have changed. It was +difficult for Jim Deacon to look upon the bronzed faces of the +fellows about the breakfast table, upon the coach with his stiff +moustache and glittering eyeglasses--difficult to look upon them and +realize that within a few hours his name would be anathema to them, +that forever where loyal men of Baliol gather he would be an outcast, +a pariah. + +That was what he would be--an outcast. For he had come to his +decision: Just what he would do he did not know. He did not know +that he would not stroke the Baliol varsity. Out of all the welter +of thought and travail had been resolved one dominant idea. His +father came first: there was no evading it. With all the +consequences that would follow the execution of his decision he was +familiar. He had come now to know what Baliol meant to him as a +place not only of education, but a place to be loved, honoured, +revered. He knew what his future might be. But--his father came first. +Arising from the breakfast-table, he spoke to but one man, Junior +Doane. + +"Doane," he said, drawing him to one side, "you will row at stroke +this afternoon." + +The man stared at him. "Are you crazy, Deacon?" + +"No, not crazy. I'm not feeling well; that's all." + +"But look here, Deacon--you want to see the coach. You're off your +head or something. Wait here, just a minute." As Doane hurried away +in search of Dr. Nicholls, Deacon turned blindly through the yard +and so out to the main road leading to a picturesque little river +city about nine miles up the stream. + +June was at her loveliest in this lovable country with its walled +fields, its serene uplands and glowing pastures, its lush river +meadows and wayside flowers. But of all this Deacon marked nothing +as with head down he tramped along with swift, dogged stride. Up the +river three or four miles farther on was the little city of which he +had so often heard but never seen, the little city of Norton, so +like certain English river-cities according to a veteran Oxford +oarsman who had visited the Baliol quarters the previous season. +Deacon had an interest in strange places; he had an eye for the +picturesque and the colourful. He would wander about the place, +filling his mind with impressions. He had always wanted to go to +Norton; it had seemed like a dream city to him. + +He was in fact striding along in the middle of the road when the +horn of a motorcar coming close behind startled him. As he turned, +the vehicle sped up to his side and then stopped with a grinding of +brakes. + +Dr. Nicholls, the coach, rose to his full height in the roadster and +glared down at Deacon, while Junior Doane, who had been driving, +stared fixedly over the wheel. The coach's voice was merely a series +of profane roars. He had ample lungs, and the things he said seemed +to echo far and wide. His stentorian anger afforded so material a +contrast to the placid environment that Deacon stood dazed under the +vocal avalanche, hearing but a blur of objurgation. + +"Eh?" He paused as Junior Doane placed an admonishing hand upon his +arm. + +"I beg your pardon, Doctor; but I don't think that is the right way. +May I say something to Deacon?" + +The coach, out of breath, nodded and gestured, sinking into his seat. +"Look here, Jim Deacon, we've come to take you back. You can't buck +out the race this way, you know. It isn't done. Now, wait a minute!" +he cried sharply as the boy in the road made to speak. "I know why +you ran away. Jane Bostwick called me up and told me everything. She +hadn't realized quite what she was doing----" + +"She--she bungled everything." + +"Bungled! What do you mean, Dr. Nicholls?" + +"Nothing--nothing! You young idiot, don't you realize you're trying +to kill yourself for life? Jump into the car." + +"I'm not going to row." Deacon's eyes smoldered upon the two. + +Studying him a moment, Dr. Nicholls suddenly grasped the seriousness +of Deacon's mood. He leaped from the car and walked up to him, +placing a hand upon his shoulder. + +"Look here, my boy: You've let a false ideal run away with you. Do +you realize that some twenty-five thousand people throughout this +country are having their interests tossed away by you? You represent +them. They didn't ask you to. You came out for the crew and worked +until you won a place for yourself, a place no one but you can fill. +There are men, there are families on this riverside to-day, who have +traveled from San Francisco, from all parts of the country, to see +Baliol at her best. There are thousands who have the right to ask us +that Shelburne is not permitted to win this afternoon. Do you +realize your respons----" + +Deacon raised his hand. + +"I've heard it said often, Dr. Nicholls, that any one who gets in +Cephas Doane's way gets crushed. I'm not afraid of him, nor of any +one else, on my own account; but I'm afraid of him because of my +father. My father is getting to be an old man. Do you think I am +going to do anyth----" Deacon's voice, which had been gathering in +intensity, broke suddenly. He couldn't go on. + +"Jim Deacon!" There was a note of exhilaration in Junior Doane's +voice. He hastily climbed out of the car and joined the coach at +Deacon's side. "I'm not going to defend my father now. No one knows +him as I do; no one knows as I do the great big stuff that is in him. +He and I have always been close, and----" + +"Then you know how he'd feel about any one who took your place in +the boat. He can't hurt me. But he can break my father's heart----" + +"Deacon, is that the opinion you have of my father!" + +"Tell me the truth, Doane; is there the chance under the conditions +that with a choice between two men in the bank he might fail to see +Father? Isn't it human nature for a man as dominant and strong as he +is, who has always had or got most of the things he wants, to feel +that way?" + +"Perhaps. But not if you can win out against Shelburne. Can't you +see your chance, Deacon? Go in and beat Shelburne; Father'll be so +glad he'll fall off the observation-train. You know how he hates +Shelburne. Any soreness he has about my missing out at stroke will +be directed at me--and it won't be soreness, merely regret. Don't you +get it?" + +"And if we lose----" + +"If we lose, there's the chance that we're all in the soup." + +"I'm not, if I keep out of this thing----" + +"If we lose with _me_ at stroke, do you suppose it will help you or +any one related to you with my father when he learns that Baliol +_would probably have won with you stroking_? + +"My Lord, Jim Deacon," Doane went on as the other did not reply, +"do you suppose this is any fun for me, arguing with you to swing an +oar this afternoon when I would give my heart's blood to swing it in +your place?" + +"Why do you do it, then?" + +"Why do I do it? Because I love Baliol. Because her interests stand +above mine. Because more than anything I want to see her win. I +didn't feel this way when you beat me out for stroke. I'll admit it. +I didn't show my feelings, but I was thinking of nothing but my +licking----" + +"Ah!" + +"Just a minute, Jim. I didn't realize the bigness of the thing, +didn't appreciate that what I wanted to do didn't count for a damn. +Baliol, only Baliol! It all came to me when you bucked out. Baliol +is all that counts, Jim. If I can help her win by rooting from the +observation-car, all right! But--don't think it's any fun for me +urging you to come back and row. For I wanted to row this race, old +boy. I--I----" + +Doane's voice faltered. "But I can't; that's all. Baliol needs a +better man--needs you. As for you, you've no right to consider +anything else. You go in--and win." + +"Win!" Jim Deacon stood in the road, rigid, his voice falling to a +whisper. "Win!" Into his eyes came a vacant expression. For a moment +the group stood in the middle of the road as though transfixed. Then +the coach placed his hand upon Deacon's arm, gently. + +"Come Jim," he said. + +The afternoon had gone silently on. Jim Deacon sat on the veranda of +the crew-quarters, his eyes fixed upon the river. Some of the crew +were trying to read; others lounged about talking in low voices. +Occasionally the referee's launch would appear off the float, the +official exchanging some words with the coach while the oarsmen +watched eagerly. Then the launch would turn and disappear. + +"Too rough yet, boys. They're going to postpone another hour." Twice +had the coach brought this word to the group of pent-up young men +who in a manner of speaking were sharing the emotions of the +condemned awaiting the executioner's summons. Would the up-river +breeze never subside and give them conditions that would be +satisfactory to the meticulous referee? + +Deacon lurched heavily in his seat. + +"What difference does it make so long as the shells won't sink?" he +asked. + +"We're ready," replied Dick Rollins. "It's Shelburne holding things +up; she wants smooth water, of course. It suits me, though. Things +will soften up by sunset." + +"Sunset!" Deacon scowled at the western skies. "Well, sunset isn't +so far off as it was." + +Word came, as a matter of fact, shortly after five o'clock. The coach, +with solemn face, came up to the cottage, bringing the summons. +After that for a little while Jim Deacon passed through a series of +vague impressions rather than living experience. There was the swift +changing of clothes in the cavernous boathouse, the bearing of the +boat high overhead to the edge of the float, the splash as it was +lowered into the water. Mechanically he leaned forward to lace the +stretcher-shoes, letting the handle of his oar rest against his +stomach; mechanically he tried to slide, tested the oarlock. + +Then some one gripped the blade of his oar, pushing gently outward. +The shell floated gingerly out into the stream. + +"Starboard oars, paddle." Responsive to the coxswain's sharp command +Deacon plied his blade, and in the act there came to him clarity of +perception. He was out here to win, to win not only for Baliol, but +for himself, for his father. There could be no thought of not winning; +the imminence of the supreme test had served to fill him with the +consciousness of indomitable strength, to thrill his muscles with +the call for tremendous action. + +As the shell swept around a point of land, a volume of sound rolled +across the waters. Out of the corner of his eye he caught view of +the long observation-train, vibrant with animation, the rival +colours commingled so that all emblem of collegiate affiliation was +lost in a merger of quivering hue. A hill near the starting-line on +the other side of the river was black with spectators, who indeed +filled points of vantage all down the four miles of the course. The +clouds above the western hills were turning crimson; the waters had +deepened to purple and were still and silent. + +"There, you hell-dogs!" The voice of the coxswain rasped in its +combativeness. "Out there is Shelburne; ahead of us at the line. Who +says it'll be the last time she'll be ahead of us?" + +Along the beautiful line of brown, swinging bodies went a low growl, +a more vicious rattle of the oarlocks. + +Suddenly as Jim Deacon swung forward, a moored skiff swept past his +blade, the starting-line. + +"Weigh all." The coxswain's command was immediately followed by +others designed to work the boat back to proper starting-position. +Deacon could easily see the Shelburne crew now--big men all, ideal +oarsmen to look at. Their faces were set and grim, their eyes +straight ahead. So far as they gave indication, their shell might +have been alone on the river. Now the Baliol shell had made sternway +sufficient for the man in the skiff to seize the rudder. The +Shelburne boat was already secured. Astern hovered the referee's boat, +the official standing in the bow directing operations. Still astern +was a larger craft filled with favoured representatives of the two +colleges, the rival coaches, the crew-managers and the like. + +"Are you all ready, Baliol?" + +"Yes, sir." Deacon, leaning forward, felt his arms grow tense. + +"Are you all ready, Shelburne?" + +The affirmative was followed by the sharp report of a pistol. With a +snap of his wrist Deacon beveled his oar, which bit cleanly into the +water and pulled. There followed an interval of hectic stroking, +oars in and out of the water as fast as could be done, while spray +rose in clouds and the coxswain screamed the measure of the beat. + +"Fine, Baliol." The coxswain's voice went past Deacon's ear like a +bullet. "Both away together and now a little ahead at forty-two to +the minute. But down now. Down--down--down--down! That's +it--thirty-two to the minute. It's a long race, remember. +Shelburne's dropping the beat, too. You listen to Papa, all of you; +he'll keep you wise. Number three, for God's sake don't lift all the +water in the river up on your blade at the finish. Shelburne's +hitting it up a bit. Make it thirty-four." + +"Not yet." Deacon scowled at the tense little coxswain. "I'll do the +timing." Chick Seagraves nodded. + +"Right. Thirty-two." + +Swinging forward to the catch, his chin turned against his shoulder, +Deacon studied the rival crew which with the half-mile flags +flashing by had attained a lead of some ten feet. Their blades were +biting the water hardly fifty feet from the end of his blade, the +naked brown bodies moving back and forth in perfect rhythm and with +undeniable power registered in the snap of the legs on the +stretchers and the pull of the arms. Deacon's eyes swept the face of +the Shelburne coxswain; it was composed. He glanced at the stroke. +The work, apparently, was costing him nothing. + +"They're up to thirty-four," cried Seagraves as the mile flags drew +swiftly up. + +"They're jockeying us, Chick. We'll show our fire when we get ready. +Let 'em rave." + +Vaguely there came to Deacon a sound from the river-bank--Shelburne +enthusiasts acclaiming a lead of a neat half a length. + +"Too much--too much." Deacon shook his head. Either Shelburne was +setting out to row her rival down at the start, or else, as Deacon +suspected, she was trying to smoke Baliol out, to learn at an early +juncture just what mettle was in the rival boat. A game, +stout-hearted, confident crew will always do this, it being the part +of good racing policy to make a rival know fear as early as possible. +And Shelburne believed in herself, beyond any question of doubt. + +And whether she was faking, or since Baliol could not afford to let +the bid go unanswered, a lead of a quarter of a length at the mile +had to be challenged: + +"Give 'em ten at thirty-six!" Deacon's voice was thick with +gathering effort. "Talk it up, Chick." + +From the coxswain's throat issued a machine-gun fusillade of +whiplash words. + +"Ten, boys! A rouser now. Ten! Come on. One--two--three--four--oh, +boy! Are we walking! Five--six--are they anchored over there? +Seven--oh, you big brown babies! Eight--Shelburne, good +night--nine--wow!--ten!" + +Deacon, driving backward and forward with fiery intensity, feeling +within him the strength of some huge propulsive machine, was getting +his first real thrill of conflict--the thrill not only of actual +competition, but of all it meant to him, personally: his father's +well-being, his own career--everything was merged in a luminous +background of emotion for which that glittering oar he held was the +outlet. + +Shelburne had met the spurt, but the drive of the Baliol boat was +not to be denied. Gradually the two prows came abreast, and then +Deacon, not stopping at the call of ten, but fairly carrying the +crew along with him, swung on with undiminished ferocity, while +Seagraves' voice rose into a shrill crescendo of triumph as Baliol +forged to the lead. + +"They know a little now." Deacon's voice was a growl as gradually he +reduced the beat to thirty-two, Shelburne already having diminished +the stroke. + +Deacon studied them. They were rowing along steadily, the eyes of +their coxswain turned curiously upon the Baliol shell. He suspected +the little man would like nothing better than to have Baliol break +her back to the two-mile mark and thus dig a watery grave. He +suspected also, that, failing Baliol's willingness to do this, the +test would now be forced upon her. For Shelburne was a heavy crew +with all sorts of staying power. What Deacon had to keep in mind was +that his eight was not so rugged and had therefore to be nursed along, +conserving energy wherever possible. + +It was in the third mile that the battle of wits and judgment had to +be carried to conclusion, the fourth mile lurking as a mere matter +of staying power and ability to stand the gaff. Deacon's idea was +that at present his crew was leading because Shelburne was not +unwilling for the present that this should be. How true this was +became evident after the two-mile flags had passed, when the +Shelburne oarsmen began to lay to their strokes with tremendous drive, +the boat creeping foot by foot upon the rival shell until the Baliol +lead had been overcome and Shelburne herself swept to the fore. + +Deacon raised the stroke slightly, to thirty-three, but soon dropped +to thirty-two, watching Shelburne carefully lest she make a +runaway then and there. Baliol was half a length astern at the +two-and-a-half mile mark, passing which the Shelburne crew gave +themselves up to a tremendous effort to kill off her rival then and +there. + +"Jim! They're doing thirty-six--walking away." + +The coxswain's face was white and drawn. + +But Deacon continued to pass up a thirty-two stroke while the +Shelburne boat slid gradually away until at the three-mile mark +there was a foot of clear water between its rudder and the prow of +the Baliol shell. + +Deacon glanced at the coxswain. A mile to go--one deadly mile. + +"Thirty-six," he said. "Shelburne's can't have much more left." + +The time had passed for study now. Gritting his teeth, Deacon bent +to his work, his eyes fixed upon the swaying body of the coxswain, +whose sharp staccato voice snapped out the measure; the beat of the +oars in the locks came as one sound. + +"Right, boys! Up we come. Bully--bully--bully! Half a length now. Do +you hear? Half a length! Give me a quarter, boys. Eh, Godfrey! We've +got it. Now up and at 'em, Baliol. Oh, you hell-dogs!" + +As in a dream Deacon saw the Shelburne boat drift into view, saw the +various oarsmen slide past until he and the rival stroke were rowing +practically abeam. + +"That's for you, Dad," he muttered--and smiled. + +He saw the men swing with quickened rhythm, saw the spray fly like +bullets from the Shelburne blades. + +"Look out." There was a note of anguish in Seagraves' voice. +"Shelburne's spurting again." + +A malediction trembled upon Deacon's lips. So here was the joker +held in reserve by the rival crew! Had Baliol anything left? Had he +anything left? Grave doubt was mounting in his soul. Away swept the +Shelburne boat inches at a stroke until the difference in their +positions was nearly a length. Three miles and a half! Not an +observer but believed that this gruelling contest had been worked out. +Seagraves, his eyes running tears, believed it as he swung backward +and forward exhorting his men. Half a mile more! The crews were now +rowing between the anchored lines of yachts and excursion-craft. The +finish boat was in sight. + +And now Deacon, exalted by something nameless, uttered a cry and +began to give to Baliol more than he really had. Surely, steadily, +he raised his stroke while his comrades, like the lion-hearts they +were, took it up and put the sanction of common authority upon it. +Thirty-four! Thirty-six! Not the spurt of physical prowess, but of +indomitable mentality. + +"Up we come!" Seagraves' voice was shrill like a bugle. He could see +expressions of stark fear in the faces of the rival oarsmen. They +had given all they had to give, had given enough to win almost any +race. But here in this race they had not given enough. + +On came the Baliol shell with terrific impulse. Quarter of a mile; +Shelburne passed, her prow hanging doggedly on to the Baliol rudder. + +Victory! Deacon's head became clear. None of the physical torture he +had felt in the past mile was now registered upon his consciousness. +No thought but that of impending victory! + +"Less than a quarter of a mile, boys. In the stretch. Now--my God!" + +Following the coxswain's broken exclamation, Deacon felt an +increased resistance upon his blade. + +"Eh?" + +"Innis has carried away his oarlock." The eyes of the coxswain +strained upon Deacon's face. + +Deacon gulped. Strangely a picture of his father filled his mind. +His face hardened. + +"All right! Tell him to throw his oar away and swing with the rest. +Don't move your rudder now. Keep it straight as long as you can." + +From astern the sharp eyes of the Shelburne cox had detected the +accident to Baliol's Number Six. His voice was chattering stridently. + +Deacon, now doing the work practically of two men, was undergoing +torture which shortly would have one of two effects. Either he would +collapse or his spirit would carry him beyond the claims of +overtaxed physique. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes--a groan +escaped his lips. Then so far as personality, personal emotions, +personal feelings were concerned, Jim Deacon ceased to function. He +became merely part of the mechanism of a great effort, the principal +guiding part. + +And of all those rowing men of Baliol only the coxswain saw the +Shelburne boat creeping up slowly, inexorably--eight men against +seven. For nearly a quarter of a mile the grim fight was waged. + +"Ten strokes more, boys!" + +The prow of the Shelburne shell was on a line with Baliol's Number +Two. + +"One--two--three--four----" The bow of the Shelburne boat plunged up +abeam Baliol's bow oar. + +"Five--six--God, boys!--seven----" + +The voice of the coxswain swept upward in a shrill scream. A gun +boomed; the air rocked with the screech and roar of whistles. + +Slowly Deacon opened his eyes. Seagraves, the coxswain, was standing +up waving his megaphone. Rollins, at Number Seven, lay prone over +his oar. Innis, who had broken his oarlock, sat erect; Wallace, at +Number Five, was down. So was the bow oar. Mechanically Deacon's +hand sought the water, splashing the body of the man in front of him. +Then suddenly a mahogany launch dashed alongside. In the bow was a +large man with white moustache and florid face and burning black eyes. +His lips were drawn in a broad grin which seemed an anomaly upon the +face of Cephas Doane. + +If so he immediately presented a still greater anomaly. He laughed +aloud. + +"Poor old Shelburne! I--George! The first in four years! I never saw +anything quite like that. We've talked of Baliol's rowing-spirit--eh! +Here, you Deacon, let me give you a hand out of the shell. We'll run +you back to quarters." + +Deacon, wondering, was pulled to the launch and then suddenly +stepped back, his jaw falling, his eyes alight as a man advanced +from the stern. + +"Dad!" + +"Yes," chuckled Doane. "We came up together--to celebrate." + +"You mean--you mean--" Jim Deacon's voice faltered. + +"Yes, I mean--" Cephas Doane stopped suddenly. "I think in justice +to my daughter-in-law to be, Jane Bostwick, that some explanation is +in order." + +"Yes, sir." Deacon, his arm about his father's shoulder, stared at +the man. + +"You see, Dr. Nicholls had the idea that you needed a finer edge put +on your rowing spirit. So I got Jane to cook up the story about that +cashier business at the bank." + +"You did!" + +"Yes. Of course your father was appointed. The only trouble was that +Jane, bright and clever as she is, bungled her lines." + +"Bungled!" Deacon's face cleared. "That's what Dr. Nicholls said +about her on the road, the day I bucked out. I remember the word +somehow." + +"She bungled, yes. She was to have made it very clear that by +winning you would escape my alleged wrath--or rather, your father +would. I knew you would row hard for Baliol, but I thought you might +row superhumanly for your father." + +"Well," Jim Deacon flushed, then glanced proudly at his father-- +"you were right, sir--I would." + + + + +PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR + + +BY L. H. ROBBINS + +From _Everybody's Magazine_ + +He was a meek little man with sagging frame, dim lamps and feeble +ignition. Anxiously he pressed the salesman to tell him which of us +used cars in the wareroom was the slowest and safest. + +The salesman laid his hand upon me and declared soberly: "You can't +possibly go wrong on this one, Mr. Todd." To a red-haired boy he +called, "Willie, drive Mr. Todd out for a lesson." + +We ran to the park and stopped beside a lawn. "Take the wheel," said +Willie. + +Mr. Todd demurred. "Let me watch you awhile," he pleaded. "You see, +I'm new at this sort of thing. In mechanical matters I am helpless. +I might run somebody down or crash into a tree. I--I don't feel +quite up to it to-day, so just let me ride around with you and get +used to the--the motion, as it were." + +"All you need is nerve," Willie replied. "The quickest way for you +to get nerve is to grab hold here and, as it were, drive." + +"Driving, they say, _does_ give a man self-confidence," our +passenger observed tremulously. "Quite recently I saw an +illustration of it. I saw an automobilist slap his wife's face while +traveling thirty miles an hour." + +"They will get careless," said Willie. + +Mr. Todd clasped the wheel with quivering hands and braced himself +for the ordeal. + +"Set her in low till her speed's up," Willie directed. "Then wiggle +her into high." + +It was too mechanical for Mr. Todd. Willie translated with scornful +particularity. Under our pupil's diffident manipulation we began to +romp through the park at the rate of one mile an hour. + +Willie fretted. "Shoot her some gas," said he. "Give it to her. +Don't be a-scared." He pulled down the throttle-lever himself. + +My sudden roaring was mingled with frightened outcries from Todd. +"Stop! Wait a minute! Whoa! Help!" + +Fortunately for my radiator, the lamp-post into which he steered me +was poorly rooted. He looked at the wreckage of the glass globe on +the grass, and declared he had taken as much of the theory of +motoring as he could absorb in one session. + +"This is the only lesson I can give you free," said Willie. +"You'd better keep on while the learning's cheap." + +To free education and to compulsory education Mr. Todd pronounced +himself opposed. Cramming was harmful to the student; the elective +method was the only humane one. He put off the evil hour by engaging +Willie as a private tutor for the remaining afternoons of the month. + +I have met many rabbits but only one Todd. He would visit me in the +barn and look at me in awe by the half-hour. Yet I liked him; I felt +drawn toward him in sympathy, for he and I were fellow victims of +the hauteur of Mrs. Todd. + +In my travels I have never encountered a glacier. When I do run +across one I shall be reminded, I am certain, of Mr. Todd's lady. + +"So you are still alive?" were her cordial words as we rolled into +the yard on the first afternoon. + +"Yes, my dear." His tone was almost apologetic. + +"Did he drive it?" she asked Willie. + +"I'll say so, ma'am." + +She looked me over coldly. When she finished, I had shrunk to the +dimensions of a wheelbarrow. When Todd sized me up in the warehouse +only an hour before, I had felt as imposing as a furniture van. + +"Put it in the barn," said Mrs. Todd, "before a bird carries it off." + +I began to suspect that a certain little stranger was not unanimously +welcome in that household. For a moment I was reassured, but only +for a moment. + +"John Quincy Burton says," she observed, "that a little old used car +like this is sometimes a very good thing to own." + +"That is encouraging," said Todd, brightening. In his relief he +explained to Willie that John Quincy Burton drove the largest car in +the neighbourhood and was therefore to be regarded as an authority. + +"Yes," Mrs. Todd concluded, "he says he thinks of buying one himself +to carry in his tool-box." + +Willie was an excellent teacher, though a severe disciplinarian. + +But by way of amends for the rigours of the training, Willie would +take Mr. Todd after the practice hour for a spin around the park. At +those times I came to learn that the collision I had had with a +trolley-car before Todd bought me had not left me with any +constitutional defect. I still had power under my hood, and speed in +my wheels. But what good were power and speed to me now? I doubted +that Todd would ever push me beyond a crawl. + +Yet I had hope, for when his relaxation from the tension of a lesson +had loosened his tongue he would chatter to Willie about +self-confidence. + +"Some day you say, I shall be able to drive without thinking?" + +"Sure! You won't have to use your bean any more'n when you walk." + +At nights, when no one knew, Mr. Todd would steal into the barn and, +after performing the motions of winding me up, would sit at the +wheel and make believe to drive. + +"I advance the spark," he would mutter, "I release the brake, I set +the gear, and ever so gently I let in the clutch. Ha! We move, we +are off! As we gather speed I pull the gear-lever back, then over, +then forward. Now, was that right? At any rate we are going north, +let us say, in Witherspoon Street. I observe a limousine approaching +from the east in a course perpendicular to mine. It has the right of +way, Willie says, so I slip the clutch out, at the same time +checking the flow of gasoline...." + +Thus in imagination he would drive; get out, crank, get in again, +and roll away in fancy, earnestly practising by the hour in the dark +and silent barn. + +"I'm getting it," he would declare. "I really believe I'm getting it!" + +And he got it. In his driving examination he stalled only once, +stopping dead across a trolley track in deference to a push-cart. +But he was out and in and off again in ten seconds, upbraiding me +like an old-timer. + +Said the inspector, stepping out at last and surely offering a +prayer of thanks to his patron saint: "You're pretty reckless yet on +corners, my friend." But he scribbled his O.K. + +The written examination in the City Hall Mr. Todd passed with high +honours. Willie, who was with us on the fateful morning, exclaimed +in admiration: "One hundred! Well, Mr. Todd, you're alive, after +all--from the neck up, at least." + +In gratitude for the compliment, the glowing graduate pressed a +bonus of two dollars into the panegyrist's palm. "Willie," he exulted, +"did you hear the inspector call me reckless?" + +I can scarcely think of the Todd of the succeeding weeks as the same +Todd who bought me. He changed even in looks. He would always be a +second, of course, but his frame had rigidity now, his lamps sparkled, +he gripped the wheel with purposeful hands and trampled the pedals +in the way an engine likes. In his new assurance he reminded me +strongly of a man who drove me for a too brief while in my younger +days--a rare fellow, now doing time, I believe, in the penitentiary. + +No longer Todd and I needed the traffic cop's "Get on out of +there, you corn-sheller!" to push us past the busy intersection +of Broad and Main streets. We conquered our tendency to scamper +panic-stricken for the sidewalk at the raucous bark of a jitney bus. +In the winding roads of the park we learned to turn corners on two +wheels and rest the other pair for the reverse curve. + +One remembered day we went for a run in the country. On a ten-mile +piece of new macadam he gave me all the gas I craved. It was the +final test, the consummation, and little old Mr. Todd was all there. +I felt so good I could have blown my radiator cap off to him. + +For he was a master I could trust--and all my brother used cars, +whether manufactured or merely born, will understand what comfort +that knowledge gives a fellow. I vowed I would do anything for that +man! On that very trip, indeed, I carried him the last homeward mile +on nothing in my tank but a faint odour. + + + +II + +Mrs. Todd was one of those gentle souls who get their happiness in +being unhappy in the presence of their so-called loved ones. She was +perpetually displeased with Todd. + +His Christian name was James, but she did not speak Christian to him. +When she hailed him from the house she called him "Jay-eems"--the +"eems" an octave higher than the "Jay." + +He would drop the grease-can or the monkey-wrench to rush to her side. + +"Look at your sleeves!" she would say. "Your best shirt!" Words +failing her, she would sigh and go into a silence that was worse +than words. He was a great burden to her. + +Humbly he entreated her one day for an obsolete tooth-brush. +"I want to clean spark-plugs with it," he explained. + +"Next," she replied, icily, "you'll be taking your little pet to the +dentist, I suppose." + +From such encounters Jay-eems would creep back to the barn and seek +consolation in tinkering around me. + +He liked to take the lid off my transmission-box and gaze at my +wondrous works. He was always tightening my axle-burrs, or dosing me +with kerosene through my hot-air pipe, or toying with my timer. +While he was never so smart as Willie about such things, he was +intelligent and quick to learn; and this was not surprising to me +after I discovered the nature of his occupation in life. + +I had taken him to be a retired silk-worm fancier, a chronic juryman, +or something of the sort. But shiver my windshield if he wasn't a +professor in a college! + +On the morning when first he dared to drive me to his work, the +college must have got wind of our coming, for the students turned +out in a body to cheer him as he steered in at the campus gate, and +the faculty gathered on the steps to shake his hand. + +A bald-headed preceptor asked him if he meant to cyanide me and +mount me on a pin for preservation in the college museum. The +chancellor inquired if Todd had identified me. Todd said he had. He +said I was a perfect specimen of _Automobilum cursus gandium_, the +most beautiful species of the _Golikellece_ family. It was the +nearest he ever came to profanity in my hearing. I suppose he got it +from associating with Willie. + +They demanded a speech, and he made one--about me. He said that my +name was _Hilaritas_, signifying joy. He said, among other +flattering things, that I was no common mundane contraption, though +such I might seem to the untutored eye. In their studies of the +Greek drama they had read of gods from the machine. I was a machine +from the gods. In my cylinders I consumed nectar vapour, in my +goo-cups ambrosia, in my radiator flowed the crystal waters of the +Fount of Bandusia. + +Three other items of his eulogium I remember: The breath of Pan +inflated my tires, I could climb Olympus in high, and he, James Todd, +a mere professor in a college, while sitting at my wheel, would not +bare his head to Zeus himself, no, nor even to the chairman of the +college board of trustees. + +His nonsense appeared to be as popular in that part of town as it +was unpopular in another. They gave the varsity yell with his name +at the end. + +The day came when Mrs. Todd risked her life in our sportive company. +She made it clear to us that she went protesting. She began her +pleasantries by complaining that my doors were trivial. +Straightening her hat, she remarked that the John Quincy Burtons' +car top never took a woman's scalp off. + +"But theirs is only a one-man top," Todd hinted vaguely. + +"Whatever you mean by that is too deep for me," she said, adding +bitterly, "Yours is a one-boy top, I presume." + +He waived the point and asked where she preferred to make her début +as an automobilist. + +"Back roads, by all means," she answered. + +As we gained the street a pea-green Mammoth purred past, the +passengers putting out their heads to look at us. + +"Goodness!" she sighed. "There go the John Quincy Burtons now." + +"We can soon join them," said Todd confidently. + +She expostulated. "Do you think I have no pride?" Yet we went in +pursuit of the John Quincy Burton dust-cloud as it moved toward the +park. + +"Since you have no regard for my feelings," said she, "you may let +me out." + +"Oh, no, Amanda, my dear. Why, I'm going to give you a spin to +Mountaindale!" + +"I do not care to be dragged there," she declared. "That is where +the John Quincy Burtons ride." + +"Aren't they nice people? It seems to me I've heard you sing +hosannas to their name these last twenty years." + +They were nice people indeed. That was just it, she said. Did he +suspect her of yearning to throw herself in the way of nice people +on the day of her abasement? If he chose to ignore her sentiments in +the matter, he might at least consider his own interests. Had he +forgotten that John Quincy Burton was chairman of the board of +trustees of the college? Would the head of the department of +classical languages acquire merit in Mr. Burton's eyes through +dashing about under Mr. Burton's nose in a pitiable little +last-century used car that squeaked? + +Todd gripped the wheel tighter and gave me gas. + +"You missed that storm sewer by an inch!" she exclaimed. + +"My aim is somewhat wild yet," he admitted. "Perhaps I'll get the +next one." + +"Jay-eems!" + +"My dear, we have a horn, remember." + +"You did not see that baby carriage until we were right upon it! +Don't tell me you did, sir, for I know better." + +"I saw it," said Todd, "and I was sure it wouldn't run over us. As +you see, it didn't. Trust a baby carriage my love." + +His humour, she informed him, was on a par with his driving. Also it +was in poor taste at such a moment. + +In time of danger, he replied, the brave man jests. + +We were now in the park. We clipped a spray of leaves off a syringia +bush. On a curve we slid in loose gravel to the wrong side. + +"James Todd!" + +"Yes, my dear?" + +"Let me out! I decline to be butchered to make a holiday for a +motormaniac." + +"Don't talk to the motormaniac," said Todd. + +She clutched a top support and gasped for breath, appalled at his +audacity, or my speed, or both. In the straight reaches I could see +the Burton Mammoth a quarter of a mile ahead. When it swung into the +broad avenue that leads to the mountain, we were holding our own. + +"You are following them--deliberately," said Mrs. Todd. + +"Yet not so deliberately, at that. Do you feel us pick up my dear, +when I give her gas? Aha!" he laughed. "I agree with you, however, +that the order of precedence is unsatisfactory. Why should we follow +the Burtons, indeed?" + +We went after them; we gave them the horn and overtook and passed +them on a stiff grade, amid cheers from both cars. But all of our +cheering was done by Todd. + +"Now they are following us," said he. "Do you feel better, my dear?" + +"Better!" she lamented. "How can I ever look them in the face again?" + +"Turn around," he suggested, "and direct your gaze through the +little window in the back curtain." + +She bade him stop at the next corner. She would walk home. She was +humiliated. Never had she felt so ashamed. + +"Isn't that an odd way to feel when we have beaten the shoes off them?" + +"But they will think we tried to." + +"So we did," he chuckled; "and we walked right past them, in high, +while Burton was fussing with his gear shift. Give our little engine +a fair go at a hill, my dear----" + +"I am not in the least interested in engines, sir. I am only +mortified beyond words." + +She had words a-plenty, however. + +"Isn't it bad enough for you to drive your little rattletrap to +college and get into the paper about it? No; you have to show it off +in a fashionable avenue, and run races with the best people in +Ashland, and scream at them like a freshman, and make an exhibition +of me!" + +His attention was absorbed in hopping out from under a truck coming +in from a side street. A foolish driver would have slowed and crashed. +I was proud of Todd. But his lady was not. + +"You have no right to go like this. You don't know enough. You will +break something." + +He had already broken the speed law. Unknown to him, a motor-cycle +cop was tagging close behind us on our blind side. + +"If you think this is going, my dear," said Todd reassuringly, +"wait till we strike the turnpike. Then I'll show you what little +Hilaritas can really do." + +"Stop at the car barns," she commanded. + +We crossed the car-barn tracks at a gallop. The cop rode abreast of +us now. "Cut it out, Bill," he warned. + +"You see?" she crowed. "You will wind up in jail and give the papers +another scandal. Why didn't you stop at the car barns?" + +"Because we are going to Mountaindale," he explained cheerily; +"where the nice people drive. Perhaps we shall see the John Quincy +Burtons again--as we come back." + +"If we ever do come back!" + +"Or how would you like to have supper with them up there?" + +She had gone into one of her silences. + + + +Ill + +We settled down for the long pull over First Mountain. Todd slowed +my spark and gave me my head. Then he addressed the partner of his +joy-ride in a new voice: "Amanda, my dear, you and I need to have a +frank little understanding." + +She agreed. + +"For some years past," he began, "I have borne without complaint, +even without resentment, a certain attitude that you have seen fit +to adopt toward me. I have borne it patiently because I felt that to +an extent I deserved it." + +My floor boards creaked as she gathered her forces for the counter +attack. He went on recklessly: + +"In the beginning of our life together, Amanda, you were ambitious. +You longed for wealth and position and that sort of thing, in which +respect you were like the rest of men and women. Like most people, +my dear, you have been disappointed; but unlike most of them you +persist in quarrelling with the awards of fortune, just as to-day +you are quarrelling with this plebeian car of ours. As you speak of +Hilaritas, so you speak of me. At breakfast this morning, for example, +you reminded me, for perhaps the tenth time since Sunday, that you +are chained to a failure. Those were your words, my dear--chained to +a failure." + +"Do you call yourself a dazzling success?" she asked. + +"Not dazzling, perhaps," he replied, "and yet--yes--yes, I believe I +do." + +"What I told you at breakfast was that Freddy Burton makes one +hundred dollars a week, and he is only twenty-four--not half as old +as you." + +"Freddy Burton is engaged in the important occupation of selling +pickles," Todd answered, "and I am only an educator of youth. Long +ago I reached my maximum--three thousand dollars. From one point of +view I don't blame you for looking upon me as a futility. I presume +I am. Nor will I chide you for not taking the luck of life in a +sportsmanlike spirit. But I do insist----" + +"At last!" she broke in. "At last I understand some pencil notes +that I found yesterday when I cleaned out your desk. A minute ago I +thought you were out of your head. Now I see that this--this +frightfulness of yours is premeditated. Premeditated, James Todd! +You prepared this speech in advance!" + +Between you and me, she was right. I had heard him practise it in +the barn. + +He took her arraignment calmly, "Hereafter," said he, "please +refrain from cleaning out my desk." + +I heard her catch her breath. "You have never talked to me like this +before; never!" she said. "You have never dared. And that is +precisely the trouble with you, James Todd. You won't talk back; you +won't speak up for your rights. It is the cross of my life." + +From the sound, I think she wept. + +"You are the same in the outside world as you are at home. You let +the college trustees pay you what they please. You slave and slave +and wear yourself out for three thousand a year when we might have +twenty if you went into something else. And when your building-loan +stock matures and you do get a little money, you spend it for +this--this underbred little sewing-machine, and lure me out in it, +and lecture me, as if I--as if I were to blame. I don't know what +has come over you." + +I knew what had come over him. I knew the secret of the new spirit +animating the frail personality of Professor Todd. And Willie knew. +I recalled that boy's prophetic words: "The quickest way to get +nerve is to grab hold here and drive." I worried, nevertheless. I +wondered if my little man could finish what he had started. + +He could. As we rolled down the mountain into the ten-mile turnpike +where he and I had rediscovered our youth, he concluded his +discourse without missing an explosion. I knew his peroration by +heart. + +"To end this painful matter, my dear, I shall ask you in future to +accord me at least the civility, if not the respect, to which a +hard-working man and a faithful husband is entitled. I speak in all +kindliness when I say that I have decided to endure no more hazing. +I hope you understand that I have made this decision for your sake +as well as for mine, for the psychological effect of hazing is quite +as harmful to the hazer as to the hazed. Please govern yourself +accordingly." + +He opened the throttle wide, and we touched thirty-five miles. I +felt a wild wabble in my steering-gear. I heard Todd's sharp +command--"Kindly keep your hands off the wheel while I am driving." + +At the Mountain Dale Club Todd descended. + +"Will you come in and have a lemonade, my dear?" he asked. There was +a heartbroken little squeak in his voice. + +"Thank you," she replied frigidly. "I have had all the acid I can +assimilate in one pleasant day." + +"May I remind you," said he, stiffening with the gentle insistence +of a steel spring, "that I am not to be addressed in sarcastic tones +any longer?" + +The Mammoth slid up beside us. The stout John Quincy Burton at the +wheel shouted jovially: "I tell you what, Todd, when our soberest +university professors get the speed bug, I tremble for civilization!" + +My owner grinned with pleasure. + +"Mrs. Todd," said Burton, "after that trimming from your +road-burning husband, I'll stand treat. Won't you join us?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Todd, do be persuaded," Mrs. Burton chimed in. "After +twenty miles with your Barney Oldfield you need nourishment, I'm sure. +You and I can talk about his recklessness while he and Mr. Burton +have their little conference." + +If Todd had an appointment for a conference there at that hour with +Burton, I am positive it was news to Mrs. Todd and me. I could feel +her weight growing heavier on my cushion springs. + +"Thank you for the invitation," she replied, "but I am so badly +shaken up, I prefer to sit out here." + +To which her husband added, laughingly: "She wouldn't risk having +her new car stolen for anything." + +It was twilight before we started for home, the Burtons pulling out +ahead of us. At the beginning of the climb over the mountain I saw +the Mammoth stop. We drew alongside. + +"Out of gas, confound it," growled Burton, "and five miles from a +service station!" + +"I'd lend you some, only I haven't much myself," said Todd. +"Got a rope?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"Oh, we can. We can pull you and never know it. Hitch on behind. We +like to travel in stylish company, Mrs. Todd and I." + +So we towed them over the mountain and left them at a red pump. John +Quincy Burton's gratitude was immense. + +"The pleasure is all ours," Todd assured him. "But, say, old man!" + +"Well?" + +"You ought to buy a little old used car like this some time to carry +in your tool-box." + +They were still laughing when we drove away. + +Not a word did Mrs. Todd utter on the homeward journey; but in the +privacy of our humble barn-- + +"Oh!" she cried. "I could _die_! Why did you have to say that to +Mr. Burton?" + +"Amanda!" + +She subsided, but she had not surrendered. + +"You didn't tell me you had an engagement with him. What----" + +Todd laughed. "I was chosen this week, my dear, as a grievance +committee of one, representing the teaching staff at the college, to +put a few cold facts into John Quincy Burton's ear." + +"You?" + +"Precisely, my dear. I was the only man in the faculty who seemed to +have the--the self-confidence necessary. And I made Burton see the +point. I have his promise that the college trustees will campaign +the state this summer for a half-million-dollar emergency fund, a +good slice of which will go toward salary increases." + +"Well! I must say----" + +She did not say it. Silently she left us. + +He lingered a while in the barn. He opened my hood, for I was quite +warm from the towing job. He examined a new cut in one of my tires +and loosened my hand-brake a notch. He couldn't seem to find enough +to do for me. + +From the house came a hail. I am not sure that he did not hold his +breath as he listened. + +"James, dear!" again. + +"Hello!" he answered. + +"James, dear, won't you bring your automobile pliers, please, and +see if you can open this jar of marmalade?" + +My little man went in whistling. + + + + +THE THING THEY LOVED + + +BY MARICE RUTLEDGE + +From _The Century Magazine_ + +"_They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their +love was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human +beings can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a +supreme moment_." + +When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a +series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift +response. She was confident that anything touching on her +professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, +in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind +of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; +he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship +he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, +she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to +sing David Cannon's songs under such conditions, presented good +fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly. + +But his "Why, my dear, South America!" came flatly upon her +announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, +his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, +for he added hastily, with happier effect: "It's a wonderful chance, +dearest, isn't it?" His voice by then had gained in heartiness, and +his smile, always worshipful when turned on her, contained this time +something of apology. So close were they, though, in thought, spoken +or unspoken, that he had sounded a tiny alarm. Her radiance +perceptibly waned. A moment before she had stood, a glowing, vital +creature, beside him, eyes and lips singing a duet of delight; now +with questioning heart she leaned toward her loved one. + +"What is it? Don't you want me to go? I thought you liked David. +Can't you come, too, Oliver?" + +"You know I can't, dear," she heard him say with an attempt at +lightness. Then he added: "But it's a great chance for you. You'll +take it, of course. It was only the thought of losing you even for a +little while. What selfish brutes we men are!" He had recovered +himself, had defined his passing reserve in loverlike terms, and was +newly aware of unworthiness. The luxury of tender persuasion, of +arguing her into a sense of sweet security, concerned him next. He +could not say enough, and said too much. + +They were mellow against an intimate background of yellow walls lit +by fire and lamps. Myra's grand piano projected sleek and dark from +a corner of warm shadow. The silver tea-set gleamed pale on a +slender-legged table; a fragrance of narcissus spread dreamily. +Oliver sank on the couch, drawing her down where she could become +all feminine. She was that, and most adorably, her bright hair soft +about lax brows, her full lips parted, her strong white hands lying +in his like brooding birds. He talked on, and she played content for +a while; but a moment came when with a sudden maternal gesture she +drew his dark, willing head to her shoulder. + +"Let's forget South America for to-night," she said. + +He would not, could not, drop the subject. He had been so clumsy in +not realizing what it all meant to her; but her news had come as +such a surprise. She had seen David Cannon, then, that afternoon? + +Yes, he was on his way down to her to settle the date of their +concert and to propose this South American scheme. But she need not +decide immediately. + +He protested that her triumph there would crown him. If he were not +a poor young architect attached to his blue prints, he would follow +her. As it was, his duller duty lay at home. She caught a flatness +of tone, and met it with a vigorous profession of faith in his work. +His art was more useful than hers, more enduring. His music was in +stone; hers was no greater than the trilling of a bird. He thought +this over, moved from her embrace, sat erect, and patted his tie. +Well, he summed up, each had a working life converging to a common +end. Let her sing Cannon's songs to South America. Her voice would +reach him. Then let her come back quickly. He could not conceive of +life without her. It would seem strange to be a bachelor again, he +went on, with a sigh meant to be comical. He supposed he would eat at +his club when he was not invited out. He hoped her friends would +take pity on him. + +"You mean our friends," she corrected. + +"You're the magnet, dear." + +"I attracted you," she conceded happily. Then, with a start, she said: +"Do you know what time it is? And we're dining with the Wickeses at +seven." + +"I never have you to myself any more," he objected. "If I were an +old-fashioned husband, I should be jealous of every one who sees or +talks to you." + +"But you're not an old-fashioned husband," she reminded him. + +"I try not to be." He had risen from the couch, and was making his +way to the door, where he paused to look back at her. "Wear the blue +brocade to-night, dear, and do your hair that new way." + +"The way Martigues suggested? I thought you didn't like it." + +He hesitated only a second. + +"It's a bit extreme," he had to confess, "but it suits you." + +She came toward him then, laughing. + +"You see, you give me over to them." + +"I can afford to," he said. + +They were late, of course, to the dinner. Despite her effort at +brightness, Oliver felt her graver mood. He watched her with a +shadowy anxiety. Her smile, when her glance sought him out among the +chattering guests, did not entirely reassure him. He had never loved +her more than this evening when she seemed so removed from him, so +easily and brilliantly a guest of honor. What hold had these +strangers on her? They could only misread the superficial sparkle of +her eyes, the gracious movements of her uncovered neck and arms. He +decided then that the blue brocade was too conspicuous. She must not +wear it in South America. And her honey-coloured hair, piled high, +with a fantastic Spanish comb flaring above the topmost curls, +struck him as needlessly theatrical. He blamed Martigues for that. +His humour was not improved by the Basque painter's voluble +compliments on the success of a coiffure he felt to be his own +creation. The fellow was too familiar, thought Oliver, with +increasing irritation. He darkened, grew glum and silent; and when, +after dinner, Martigues approached him with a luckless tribute to +Madame Shaw's superlative loveliness, he answered curtly, and turned +on his heel. Myra witnessed the brief discourtesy, and later very +gently taxed him with it. What had the unfortunate artist done? He +faced her like a sulky boy and would not answer; but she was quick +to penetrate his grievance. She laughed then, as a woman laughs who +has nothing to conceal, declaring that Martigues's taste was not +infallible, and that Oliver knew best what became his Myra. She soon +wooed him back to his old charming self, and the incident passed. +But there were others on the following days, and Myra grew thoughtful. + +She and Oliver were seldom alone. Her joy of life, her vitality, her +very talent, depended on a multitude of impressions, on innumerable +personal contacts. She belonged to a rich, throbbing world of +emotions; she gathered passion for her song from the yearnings, the +anonymous aspirations, even the crudities of the human forces about +her. + +She was Oliver's most gloriously when most surrounded. His pride was +centred on her; it was centred, however, on the brilliant returns of +her actual presence--a presence which was never too far removed in +flesh or spirit to deprive him of a certain naive assumption of +ownership. That she should continue all the dear, familiar +fascinations beyond his sight or touch, in a far-away land, with +David Cannon as a daily companion, was another matter. Not that he +was jealous of David. No one man stood out as a rival. But Cannon +travelling with Myra, sharing artistic triumphs with her, escorting +her to entertainments given in her honour, Cannon, in fact, +associated in foreign minds with the beautiful cantatrice, offended +the inviolable rights of his lover's vanity. He would have her less +beautiful, less gifted, not more faithful. + +Exquisitely sensitive where he was concerned, Myra detected this +subtle change in his attitude toward her and her work. The origins +of the change, she knew, were obscurely lodged in the male egoism. +He himself was not aware of them. He seemed nearer and dearer than +ever, even more ardent. He wanted her constantly within range of his +eyes and hands that he might in a thousand coaxing or, often, +petulant ways assert a fond dominion. She yielded gladly to that +sweet pressure. Strangely enough for a woman of her independent +habits, to be so loved, roused elemental instincts the more powerful +since she had never before given them outlet. So she allowed his +illusions of mastery full play, which was dangerous, as gradually +she altered the delicate balance of their relationship. + +A restless month went by. It was February. + +Unfortunately, Oliver's work failed to engross him. He grew moodier, +more exacting. If Myra arrived home late, he wanted to know where +she had been, whom she had seen. Were they dining out, he muttered +unsociable objections; were people coming to the house, he +complained of the lack of privacy. What a whirl they lived in! So +they did, but what was the remedy? Myra herself felt helpless in a +tangle of engagements. They overpowered her. She could not seem to +cut her way through them. Then there were rehearsals for the concert. +David Cannon came to her or she went to him nearly every day. +Usually Oliver was present, putting in his opinion between each song. +Did David think the South Americans would appreciate that kind of +music? How did he think they would like Myra? And so on and on. + +David Cannon, never patient, a rough-tongued, self-absorbed genius, +resented these interruptions, and was brief in his methods of +expressing as much. Even Myra, the most tactful of diplomatists, +could not smooth over occasional ugly moments between the two men. +She understood Oliver better than he understood himself. His +unreasoning love, his apprehensive vanity, would have unsettled a +less maternal spirit; but she found a kind of mystic wonder in it, he +battled so blindly for possession of her. He was in her way, and she +could not advance without pushing him aside. Had he come to her and +blustered, "You shall not leave me for any purpose whatsoever," she +would have denied him the right of dictation; but there was no such +conflict of wills. + +They were both involved in this love of their making--a love whose +demands were treacherous. Each day brought up trivial attacks, +fancied grievances, little fears unavowed; but when she sought to +meet the issue squarely, it eluded her. Oliver's nightly repentance +for his daily whims and suspicions drew her nightly into his arms. +Enfolded there, she felt moored to his love; and, sleepless, she +questioned any life apart. + +Two days before the recital, David Cannon, with whom she was going +over the programme for the last time, turned suddenly from the piano +with an impatient shrug of his shoulders. + +"Rotten!" he said brutally, peering up at her. "You're not doing +yourself justice. What's the matter with you?" Beneath the strong, +overhanging brow his little eyes glowered fiercely. + +They happened to be alone that afternoon in his great bare studio, +where no soft background or dim lights conspired to hide her +dejection. She had sung badly. She knew it, but she could not answer +such a brusque attack, could not defend herself against harsh +questioning. + +"I don't know. Perhaps I'm tired," she said. + +David Cannon rose from the piano with the powerful lunging movement +of a bull. + +"You tired? Nonsense!" His charge sent him beyond her a pace. He +wheeled and came up close. He was shorter than she, but the sheer +force of the man topped her. His keen little eyes looked her over, +took in her bright, drooping head, and her sloping-shouldered, +slim-waisted health. "Tired!" he grunted. "That's an excuse, not a +reason." He tapped his heart and forehead. "Your troubles lie here +and here." + +She tried to smile, with a lift of her eyebrows. + +"What do you know about it?" + +"I know more than you think I do," he flung at her, frowning. +"You're worried about something, and when you worry, you can't sing. +You're made that way, and I suppose you can't help it. Don't +interrupt yet," he fairly shouted at her as she began to protest. +"I've watched over and taught you for three years. I ought to know." + +"I owe you a lot," she said faintly. + +"You owe me nothing," he snapped. "Your debt is to yourself." + +She could not fend off that merciless look, which went through and +through her. "If my debt is to myself, I need pay only if I choose," +she tried to jest. + +"Don't make that mistake," he warned. "Your work is your life. I +tell you that, and I know." + +"I wonder," she said more to herself than to him. + +He looked at her grimly. + +"Just as I thought. Same old question--marriage. You're jealous, or +he's jealous of God knows whom or what. And your voice goes to pieces. +Which is it?" he demanded. "Is Oliver misbehaving?" + +"Of course not," she said indignantly. + +"Humph! Well, he's faithful, you're faithful. You've both got talent, +friends, a home, a profession. What more do you want?" + +"There are other--jealousies," she said slowly, and with gathering +passion she went on: "I suppose I owe you some explanation, David, +though you won't understand. Oliver is the most wonderful person in +the world. I never thought I could love any one as I love him. And +it's the same with him. But he wants me all to himself." Her hands +fluttered together in nervous appeal. "Can't you see how it is? Since +we've been married we've never been separated a day. And now this +South-American thing has come up, and he's felt--oh, I can't explain. +But I'm so afraid--" + +"Afraid of what?" + +"It's hard to put into words," she said hopelessly. "I suppose I'm +afraid of losing my happiness. Oliver's right in many ways. He never +does have me to himself; I belong to so many people. It's always +been my life, you know. But I thought I could combine everything +when I married, and I'm beginning to see that it can't be done." + +"He knew what your life was," said David. + +"Does one ever know?" she said sadly. "This concert, you see, is my +first important appearance since our marriage. And then my going +away right after--" + +David strode over to the piano and sat there silent, his head sunk +on his chest, his short arms stiffly before him. + +"I realize how absurd it is," she murmured; "but it isn't just those +few months. He trusts me. It's the feeling he has that this is only +a beginning. I know what he means so well," she ended helplessly. +David's short fingers moved over the keys. A music wild and pagan +rose up, filled the room with rhythms of free dancing creatures, +sank to a minor plaint, and broke off on a harsh discord as the +door-bell jangled. + +"There's your Oliver," he said, and went to let him in. + +It was the day of the concert, and Myra wanted above all to be alone. +She had never felt this way before. She dreaded the evening, dreaded +facing a critical audience; she had fretted herself into a fever +over it. But when she tried to explain her state of mind to Oliver +that morning at breakfast, he would not hear of any prescription for +nerves which did not include his company. Why should she want to be +alone? If she was ill or troubled, his place was beside her. He had +planned to lunch and spend the afternoon with her. Her faintly +irritable "I wish you wouldn't," only wounded and shocked him. Her +strength was not equal to discussion, and in the end she yielded. + +For the rest of the morning he followed her about, tenderly opposing +any exertion. + +"I must have you at your best to-night, dear," he kept on saying. +"I'm going to be proud of my Myra." He was so eager, wistful, and +loving, she could not resent his care. She gave in to it with a +sense of helplessness. + +Soon after lunch her head started aching. She suggested a brisk walk. +The air might do her good. But he persuaded her to lie down on the +couch instead. The touch of his fingers on her hot forehead was +soothing, too soothing. She relaxed luxuriously, closing her eyes, +subdued, indifferent. + +He was saying: + +"What will you do, beloved, if you are taken ill in South America? +No Oliver to care for you. I can't bear to think of it." Suddenly, +he laid his cheek against hers. "If anything happens to you, I shall +go mad." + +She sat up with a swift movement that brought back an almost +intolerable pain. + +"Nothing will happen," she tried to say, and found herself weakly +sobbing in his arms. + +It was time to dress. She did her hair, to please Oliver, in a +girlish way, parted and knotted low. Her gown, designed by Martigues, +did not fit in with this simple coiffure. She was aware of an +incongruity between the smooth, yellow bands of hair meekly +confining her small head, and the daring peacock-blue draperies +flowing in long, free lines from her shoulders, held lightly in at +the waist by a golden cord. + +"One will get the better of the other before the evening is over," +she thought with a sigh, turning away from her mirror. + +"My beautiful Myra!" Oliver said as if to cheer her. + +"I have never looked worse," she retorted a trifle impatiently, and +would not argue the point as they drove up town. + +"We'll see what I really amount to now," she told herself. + +She had never before so tensely faced an audience, but there was +more at stake than she cared to confess, and she was not equal to it. +She shone, but did not blind those thousand eyes; she sang but did +not cast enchantment. And David Cannon would not help her. He sat at +the piano, uncouth, impassive, deliberately detached, as if he gave +her and his music over to an anonymous crowd of whose existence he +was hardly aware. There was something huge and static about him, +something elemental as an earth-shape, containing in and by itself +mysterious rhythms. His songs were things of faun-like humours, +terrible, tender, mocking, compassionate. They called for an entire +abandon, for witchery, for passion swayed and swaying; but although +at times Myra's voice held a Pan-like flutiness, although an +occasional note true and sweet as a mate-call stirred that dark +fronting mass, she failed to sustain the spell. She was too aware of +Oliver leaning forward in his box, applauding louder than any one. +His loyalty would force out of this fastidious audience an ovation +she did not deserve. She would not look his way. "I can't sing," she +thought mournfully. + +Had David Cannon shown any annoyance, she might have been goaded on +to a supreme effort; but he avoided her. When once she went up to +him during an intermission and said timidly: + +"I'm sorry, David; I'm spoiling everything," he answered +indifferently: + +"My songs can stand it." + +She wished then that she had not begged Oliver to keep away from her +until the end. She felt lonely and near to tears. As the evening +wore on, lightened by spasmodic applause, she became very quiet. She +even sang better, and felt rather than saw Oliver brighten. But it +was too late; she had lost her audience. There were now gaps in the +earlier unbroken rows; a well-known critic trod softly out; little +nervous coughs and rustlings rose up. + +At last it was all over. She wanted only to hide, but she was not to +escape another ordeal. She and Oliver had arranged for a supper +party that evening. To it they had bidden many musical personalities +and several of Oliver's architect friends. She had meant to announce +then the South-American recitals. The prospect of such an +entertainment was now almost unendurable. She knew well what these +people would say and think. Driving home with Oliver, she relaxed +limp against his shoulder, her eyes closed. That haven could at +least always be counted on, she reflected with passionate gratitude. +His voice sounded from a distance as he talked on and on, explaining, +excusing, what he could not honestly ignore. She had worked too hard. +She was tired out. There was the headache, too. But she had sung +wonderfully all the same. + +"Please, Oliver!" she faintly interrupted. + +"You made the best of it," he insisted. "David's songs, though, are +beyond me." + +She sat up very straight at this. + +"My dear," she said in a cold voice, "I made a mess of it, and you +know it. There _is_ no excuse. David has every reason to be furious." + +"I'd like to see him dare--" + +"Please, Oliver!" she said again on a warning note of hysteria. She +stared out of the window at the blur of passing lights. It was +misting; the streets gleamed wet and wan beneath the lamps. + +Oliver's arm went around her. + +"I'm sorry, dear. Nothing matters, after all, but you and I together," +he whispered. + +"Nothing else does matter, does it?" she cried suddenly. "Love me a +great deal, Oliver, a great, great deal. That's all I ask." + +They drove on in silence for a while. She sat very quiet, her face +half hidden in the high fur collar of her cloak. Now and then she +glanced at Oliver, her eyes wistful. + +"Oliver," she said at last, "would it make any difference to you if +I never sang again?" + +"Never sang again," he echoed. "I don't understand." + +"I want you and my home," came from her slowly. "I've been wondering +for some time how much my singing really meant to me. To-night I +think I've found out. I can't seem to keep everything I started out +with and be happy. I'm not big enough," she added sadly. + +He was startled, incredulous. + +"Myra, you don't realize what you're saying. You're tired to-night. +I could not let you give up your singing. You are an artist, a big +artist." + +She shook her head and sighed. + +"I might have been, perhaps; but no, I'm not. David could tell you +that. He knows." + +"It's been my fault, then, if you feel this way," he said in a +melancholy voice. "I've been selfish and stupid." + +The taxi slowed down before the red-brick entrance of the apartment +house. She put her hand impulsively on his arm. + +"Oliver, promise me something." + +"Whatever you ask." + +"Don't mention South America to any one. You promise?" + +"But, Myra----" + +"Promise." + +"I won't, then. But----" + +"I see Walter Mason and Martigues waiting for us," she said quickly. +"Remember, not a word." She was out of the cab, hurrying forward to +greet her guests. Oliver followed, his eyes mutely pleading. But she +seemed her old self again, graciously animated, laughing at Martigues, +who sulked because he did not like the way her hair was done. + +Soon other guests arrived, and still others, all of them primed with +compliments carefully prepared. + +Last of all came David Cannon, who brushed away flattery with curt +gestures and grunts. He sat heavily down in a corner of the room, a +plate of cheese sandwiches and a frosted glass of beer before him, +and turned an unsociable eye on all intruders. Myra, knowing his mood, +left him alone. + +"You are different to-night," Martigues whispered to her. "There is +something I do not understand. You have the Madonna smile." + +"I am happy," she said, and her eyes turned to Oliver, who held the +look and gave it back with deeper meaning. + +When later Martigues asked her to sing, she glanced again at Oliver, +who nodded and smiled. + +"If David will accompany me," she said then. David left sandwiches +and beer but without enthusiasm. He crossed over to the piano, and +peered up at her with a kind of sombre malice. + +"So you will sing now," he said. "Will this do?" He played a few +notes softly, and she nodded with a little smile. + +It was a song about the love of a white-throated sparrow for a +birch-tree of the North. All summer long the bird lived on the +topmost branch and sang most beautifully. The season of southward +journey came, but the white throated sparrow would not leave her tree. +She stayed on alone, singing while the leaves turned gold and fell. +She sang more faintly as the land grew white with the first snows +and when she could sing no longer for the cold, she nestled down in +a bare hollow of the white tree and let the driving flakes of the +North cover her. + +Oliver stood near the piano. Myra sang to and for him. She stood +very tall and straight, her hair, loosened from its tight bands, +soft around her face. Her voice thrilled out in the mate-call, grew +fainter and sweeter as winter came on, grew poignant under the cold, +quivered on the last note. As David Cannon ended with the fate theme +of the tree, a genuine shiver went through the little group. There +was no hesitation this time in the applause. They swept forward, +surrounding her, begging her to sing again. But it was to Oliver +that she turned. + +"It pleased you? I'm glad." + +David Cannon said nothing. He sat, his shoulders hunched, his +fingers on the keys until she had refused to sing again. + +"I didn't think you would," he said then, and abruptly left his post +to go back to beer and sandwiches. Soon after he slipped out. Myra +went with him to the hall, where they talked for a while in low +voices. When she came back into the room she was smiling serenely. + +She and Oliver were alone at last. + +"You glorious creature!" he cried. "I'm so proud of you! Everyone +was crazy about the way you sang." She walked slowly toward him. + +"Oliver," she said, "I told David this evening that I wouldn't go to +South America with him." + +"You didn't!" His voice rose sharp and shocked. + +She nodded, beaming almost mischievously. + +"But I did, and nothing will make me change my mind." + +"How could you be so impulsive, so foolish!" he cried. + +She was looking at him now more soberly. + +"Aren't you glad?" + +"Myra, you mustn't! I'll telephone David at once.. I'll--you did +this for me. I won't have it. You should have asked me----" + +"It's no use; I'm not going," she said. + +He dropped on the couch and hid his face in his hands. + +"You're giving this up because of me." + +She went to him. + +"Oliver, look at me." + +Slowly he raised his head. + +"I don't see why----" he began, but she was so beautiful, so radiant, +that he caught his breath and faltered. + +She sat down beside him. + +"Ah, but you will," she said. "It's very simple, dear. Even David +understands." + +"What does he think?" + +"He thinks as I do," she said quickly. "He was quite relieved; +honestly, dear. He didn't want any homesick woman spoiling his songs +for him in South America. And then I suggested Frances Maury in my +place. She has a lovely voice, and she'll jump at the chance." + +"I've never heard her, but I'm sure she can't sing as well as you," +he said, with returning gloom. "And it was only for two months." + +She laughed as at an unreasonable child. + +"It isn't the two months, dear. It's our whole life. There would be +other partings, you see, other interests drawing me away. And if it +became easier to leave you, then I should know that everything was +wrong between us; but if it kept on being hard to divide myself +between you and my work, then my work would suffer and so would you. +Either way, it couldn't go on. I'm not big enough to do both," she +said. + +"I can't accept such a sacrifice." + +"Don't you want me with you always?" + +He seized her hands and passionately drew her close to him. + +"Want you? I can tell you now. I've been jealous, terribly so, of +everyone, everything that touched you." + +"I knew it," she said. "That's one reason why I didn't sing well +to-night. Now I'm free"--she threw her arms out with the gesture of +flying--"I'm free to love just you. We'll start another life, Oliver, +a life of our own. We'll be fire-side people, dear, homely lovers +content to sit and talk of an evening. You'll find me very valuable, +really, as a partner," she said eagerly. "I've never been near +enough to your work. And it's such wonderful work!" With an impulsive +movement she went over and closed the piano. "I'll only open it when +you ask me to," she said. + +The process of elimination was simple enough. There was a touch of +melancholy in Myra's measurement of relationships, in her +consciousness of their frailty. People fell away easily, leaving her +and Oliver to their chosen isolation. A dozen regrets or so to +invitations, a week or two of evasions over the telephone, a few +friends like Martigues turned away at the door when obviously she +was at home, a refusal to sing at a charity concert and, most +conclusive of all, David Cannon's advertised departure with another +artist, and the thing was virtually done. + +Then came a succession of long intimate evenings, she and Oliver +left to their caprice, she and Oliver walking and driving together, +wandering where their fancy took them in the springtime of city and +country. She laughed sometimes at him, he seemed so dazed by the +consciousness of utter possession. "You are sure you are not bored, +darling?" he would often ask these first days. She could not +reassure him enough; could not find ways enough to prove to him that +when a woman like herself gave of body, mind, and spirit, it was a +full giving. There was exquisite pain in that giving; it was almost +a terrifying thing. She was a vital creature, and must spend that +which was hers, wisely or foolishly. Her ceaseless energy had always +before found an outlet in her work. Now her only expression lay in +Oliver. Her mind, never at rest, seized upon his working life, made +it hers. But she soon learned that he regarded her self-appointed +post of partner with a tender condescension edged with intolerance. +She learned with a tiny shock that although in matters musical he +trusted absolutely to her judgment, he did not consider the feminine +intellect as equal to his own. Music, she discovered, had always +been defined by him as something feminine in its application to the +arts. + +She became gradually aware that he objected to her visits to his +office. His glance did not brighten at her entrance. He was not +amused as he had been at first, when she bent over the sketches or +ran her slim fingers along the tracery of blue prints, daring to +question them. Sometimes she had a feeling that she did not entirely +know Oliver; that there were plans of his, thoughts of his, which +she did not share. She had not missed these before when her own life +was full. She had time now during their long hours together to +observe reactions of the cause of which she knew nothing. He was +absent-minded, off on a trail that led away from her. + +There came a week when he allowed her the brunt of wooing; a new +dress failed to bring forth the usual compliment; a question lay +unanswered where in pride she left it. Then one morning with a new +crisp note in his voice, he telephoned, telling her that he must +meet a man at his club for dinner that evening. Mechanically she +answered, dully heard his voice warm to a sweetness that should have +comforted her. + +"You know I wouldn't leave you unless it were important, dearest. I +can't explain now, but I may have great news for you when I come home." + +She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, and turned to an apartment +which seemed suddenly dreary and empty. She had no purpose in her day. +The twilight hour loomed in prospect an endless, dusky loneliness. +For a moment she thought of ringing him up and proposing to meet him +downtown for lunch; then restrained the impulse. Was she to turn +into a nagging wife! She longed now for some friend with whom she +could spend the day; but she could think of none. Since her marriage +with Oliver she had not encouraged intimacies. On his account she +had estranged the few women to whom she might now have turned. +Oliver had never understood friendships among women. + +The day dragged by. For the first time in months she found herself +wishing that she was going out that evening. She thought almost +guiltily of David Cannon and Frances Maury, imagining herself in +Frances's place. She went to the piano, tried to sing, and realized +with dismay that she was sadly out of practice. After all, what did +it matter? she decided moodily. Oliver rarely asked her for music. + +She took up a novel and dozed over it. + +At eleven o'clock Oliver came home. She knew by the way he opened +the front door that the news was good. She ran to meet him; her +dullness vanished. + +He took her by the hand and led her into the softly lit room which +seemed suddenly warm again with his presence. Then he whirled her, +facing him. Her smile was a happy reflection of his own brightness. + +"You'll never guess what's happened," he began. + +"Tell me quickly!" she begged. + +He waited a moment, with an eye to dramatic effect. + +"Well, then," he said proudly, "I've been appointed on a special +committee of reconstruction in France. Malcolm Wild--you've heard me +speak of him--came down from Washington to-day to propose it to me. +There are six of us on the committee, and I'm the youngest." + +"Oliver!" She put into the exclamation something of what he expected, +for he seemed satisfied. He lifted his head with a young, triumphant +gesture. "It is my chance to do a great and useful work," he said. +"I needn't tell you what it means. I never hoped, _I_ never dreamed +of such an honour." + +"I'm so proud of you!" she cried. + +He hardly seemed to hear her. + +"Think of it, just think of it--to be invited to go over there with +five of the biggest architects here, American money backing us! +We've been given a whole section to rebuild; I forget how many +villages. It's like a dream." He passed his hand over his eyes. + +"France!" she heard herself saying. "But, Oliver, it's the work of +months." + +He nodded happily. + +"That's what it is." + +"France!" she murmured in a kind of ecstasy. "I'm just getting it." +She clasped her hands together. "I've always wanted to be in France +with you. My dear, when do we start?" + +He gave her a swift, bewildered look. + +"Why, Myra, didn't you understand? I can't take you right away with +me. Later, of course, you'll join me. It won't be long, a few months +at most." + +"I'm not to go when you go?" + +Her voice, low and strained, drove straight to his heart. + +"Myra, I never thought--it's a man's trip just now, darling. +I--couldn't take you with me," he stammered miserably. "Passports +are almost impossible to get; and then conditions over there----" + +She backed away from him, her arms stiff at her sides. + +"When were you--planning to go?" + +He stared at her pitifully. + +"Beloved, don't look at me that way!" + +"When were you planning to go?" she repeated. + +"Next week," he said in an altered voice. "I never thought you would +take it this way. I never thought--it's a great chance." + +"That's what I once told you," she said slowly, and turned away that +he might not see her face. "Don't touch me!" she cried as he came +nearer. "Don't! I've been nervous all day, and lonely." She tried to +control herself, but as his arms went around her, she began to sob +like a hurt child. "If you leave me, I shall die. I can't bear it. I +know it's wicked of me." Her words reached him brokenly. "It's only +because you're all I have. I've given up everything; and now----" + +He stood very still, staring into space, his hold on her never +loosening. She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her +heart until this moment. She told him things she had never thought +she could betray to any one--things she had never even dared +formulate. When she had done, he said in a strange, gentle voice: + +"I didn't know you depended so on me. But it's all right; I won't +leave you, ever. It's all right. There, dear, I understand." + +She struggled free from his hold, and dried her eyes with a sudden +passionate gesture of scattering tears. + +"You shall go," she said fiercely. "I hate myself for acting this way. +It was only because----" She could get no further. + +He did not attempt to touch her again. They stood facing one another, +measuring their love. + +"I might go," he said at last, as if to himself; "but in going I +should spoil something very precious. You deny it now, but you would +remember your own sacrifice. And then, of course, you would go back +to your work. I should want you to. But it would never be the same +again, never." + +"I won't go back." + +He shook his head. + +"If you didn't, you would never forgive me. Every day you spent here +alone and idle would break one of those fragile bonds that hold us +so closely. If only you hadn't given up South America!" + +"I was wrong," she said drearily. + +At last he held out his arms. + +"Myra," he said, "you mean more than anything else to me. This offer +pleased me; I admit it. But I can work on just as well here. I have +the Cromwell house, you know, and the Newburghs may build soon. +Don't let's think of it again." + +She held back a moment, afraid to yield; but there was no resisting +her longing, and she ran to him with a little sigh, which he softly +echoed as he took her and held her close. + +They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their love +was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human beings +can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a supreme +moment. Emotional as she was in her gratitude, Myra would have kept +on sounding that note through the days and nights. She would not +allow Oliver to forget what he had given up for her sake. + +More than ever she sought to associate herself with his work. He was +forced to recognize her personality there. For when skilfully she +led the talk on his plans, she hunted down elusive problems, +grappled with them, and offered him the solutions of a sure instinct. +She did not reckon with his vanity. She was too eager to make up for +a lost opportunity, as she too often explained. He came gradually to +brood over what he now consented to consider a sacrifice. In passing +moments of irritation he even referred to it. He broke out +occasionally in fits of nerves, certain that he would be humoured +and petted back to the normal. He knew well how a frown dismayed her, +how deep a word could strike, what tiny wounds he could inflict. It +would seem sometimes as if one or the other deliberately created a +short, violent scene over a trivial difference just to relieve +routine. The domestic low-lands stretched beyond the eye. He missed +the broken country, the unexpected dips and curves of the unknown. +Not that his heart went adventuring. He was faithful in body and +spirit, but there was discontent in the looks he turned on her. + +One afternoon she read in the papers that David Cannon and Frances +Maury were back from South America after a triumphant series of +recitals. They were to give a concert the following month. Her +indifference to the news, she thought drearily, was an indication of +how far she had travelled away from her old life. She did not even +want to see David Cannon. + +It was Oliver who brought up the subject that evening. + +"David's back. If you'd been with him, how excited I should have +felt to-day!" he remarked. "Odd, isn't it?" + +"You would have been in France," she reminded him. + +They sat on in silence for a while. + +He laid his book aside with a sudden brisk movement. + +"Myra, why don't you sing again?" + +"For you, to-night?" + +"I mean professionally," he blurted out. + +She drifted across the room to a shadowy corner. + +"I don't know," she said rather flatly, bending over a bowl of white +roses. "I suppose I don't feel like it any more. It's hard to take +things up again." + +He fingered his book; then, as if despite himself, he said; + +"I'm afraid, dear, that we're letting ourselves grow old." + +She swung sharply about, catching her breath. + +"You mean I am?" + +"Both of us." He was cautious, tender even, but she was not deceived. +It was almost a relief that he had spoken. + +"Tell me, dear," she said from her corner. "You're bored, aren't you? +Oh, not with me"--she forestalled his protest--"but just plain bored. +Isn't it so?" Her voice was deceptively quiet. + +He stirred in his chair, fidgeted under the direct attack, and +decided not to evade it. + +"I think we've been buried long enough," he finally confessed. +"I love our evenings together, of course; but a little change now +and then might be agreeable. Perhaps it isn't a good thing for two +people to be thrown entirely on each other's company. And I've been +wondering, dear"--he hesitated, carefully picking his words-- +"I've been wondering if you would not be happier if you had other +interests--interests of your own." + +"Suppose I don't want any?" She did not give this out as a challenge, +but he frowned a trifle impatiently. + +"I can't believe it possible," he said. "Have you lost all touch +with the world?" + +She came slowly forward into the warm circle of light. + +"I don't seem to care for people and things as I used to. Look at me. +I'm not the same Myra." + +She stared at him with a deep, searching expression, and what she +saw drew her up with a sudden movement of decision. Her voice, when +next she spoke, was lighter, more animated. + +"You're right, dear. We're growing poky. I tell you what we'll do," +she continued in a playful manner. Her lips smiled, and her eyes +watched as she knelt beside him, her head tilted, her fingers +straying over the rough surface of his coat. He never dressed for +dinner in these days. "We'll give a party, shall we?" she said. +"And then everyone will know that we're still--alive." + +If she had wanted to test his state of mind, she could not have +found a better way. Instantly he was all eagerness. Nothing would do +but that they should plan the party at once, set the date, make out +a list of friends to be invited. + +She was ready with pad and pencil and her old address-book, which +had lain for many days untouched in her desk. + +"Shall we have Frances Maury?" she suggested. "She'll remind you of +me as I was before we married." + +"What a gorgeous little devil you were!" he murmured reminiscently. + +She wished he had not said that. Yet how absurd it was to be jealous +of oneself! + +Well, they would entertain again, since it pleased him. But she had +lost her social instinct. This party seemed a great enterprise. She +had to pretend to an enthusiasm which she did not really feel. +"Am I growing old?" she wondered more than once. She had to confess +to a panic of shyness when she thought of herself as hostess. That +was all she would be this time. Frances Maury held the rôle of prima +donna. + +There were no regrets to her invitations. They came, these old +friends and acquaintances, with familiar voices and gestures. They +seemed genuinely glad to see her, but they did not spare her. She +had grown a little stouter, had she not? Ah, well happy people +risked that. And they did not need to be told how happy she was. In +quite an old-fashioned way, too. Myra domesticated--how quaint that +was! Did she sing any more? No? What a pity! + +Her rooms had lain quiet too long. So much noise deafened her. She +was suddenly aware that she _had_ grown stouter. Her new gown, made +for the occasion, should have been more cleverly designed. Martigues +as much as told her so. She had, also, lost the power of attraction. +She could not hold people's attention as she used to. She was +sensitively aware of how readily one and the other drifted away +after a few words. Had she not been hostess, she would often have +found herself alone. + +David Cannon and Miss Maury came late. Frances was fond of dramatic +entrances; she had the stage sense. Myra hurried forward, aware, as +she did so, that her greeting held a maternal note; that Cannon was +looking through and through her with those small, relentless eyes of +his. Then Oliver came up, and from the corner of her eyes she saw +Frances attach herself to him. She had known that would happen. + +Frances Maury was indeed a lovely creature, vivid, electric, swift, +and free of movement, mellow of voice. She was like a bell. Touch +her and she chimed. Oliver on one side, Martigues on the other, she +made her vivacious way through the room, and was soon surrounded. +Very prettily she moved her court toward Myra, drew Myra into the +circle of her warmth with a gracious friendliness. + +Martigues, in raptures, explained that it was he who had designed +the very modern jewel she wore, a moonstone set in silver. "Isn't +she adorable!" he kept on repeating. + +Oliver had bent over to look at this ornament and was fingering it, +his dark head close to hers. She whispered to him, and he whispered +back. They were already on the best of terms. + +David Cannon trod up to Myra. + +"What do you think of her?" he asked abruptly. "Her high notes are +not as fine as yours were, but she is improving. If she doesn't fall +in love, I shall make something of her." He frowned at Oliver. + +Myra flushed. + +"She seems very clever," was all she could manage. + +"I'll make her sing," said Cannon, and elbowed a path to her side. +She pouted a little, declared she could never resist him, and moved +to the piano. + +Myra drew a short breath. She herself had not intended to sing, but +she had hoped that Oliver or David would give her a chance to refuse. +She did not feel angry or envious of this girl, she was incapable of +pettiness; but she felt old and dull and lonely. Her trained smile +was her only shield. She held it while Frances Maury sang. She did +not look at Oliver, but his delight reached her as if she had caused +it. She felt him hovering close to the piano. She knew how he was +standing, how his eyes were shining. She knew, because as the warm, +rich voice rose up, as Cannon's strange rhythms filled the room with +a wild pagan grace, she withdrew into her memory and found there all +that went on. She herself was singing; she stood free and beautiful +before them all; she met Oliver's eyes. + +Frances sang again and again. Oliver led the applause, and Myra sat +on, smiling, her steady gaze turned inward. When it was over, she +took Frances by the hand, and it was as if she were thanking herself +and bidding that self adieu. + +Later in the evening David Cannon came up to her and gruffly +suggested that she sing. + +She shook her head. + +"No, my good friend." + +"Why not?" He stood over her, ugly, masterful. + +Her smile softened to a sweet, sad flutter of lip. + +"You know why." + +"Nonsense!" + +"You can't bully me any more, David," she told him gently. "That's +the tragic part of it," she added under her breath. She liked David, +but she wished he would go. She wished they would all go. It must be +very late. + +It was still later, however, before the last guest departed. That +last guest was Frances Maury, escorted by a glum David. Oliver had +kept her on. + +"Myra and I always get to bed so early that it's a relief to stay up +for once," he had said. + +"Of course it's much more sensible to go to bed early." Miss Maury's +voice did not sound as if sensible things appealed to her. + +"Oliver has to be at his office so early in the morning," Myra put +in almost as an apology. + +"She sees to that," came from Oliver, with a humorous inflection. + +Frances Maury playfully shuddered. + +"Wives have too many duties for me. I shall never marry." + +"Don't," said Oliver, and realized his blunder. He glanced quickly +at Myra, and was relieved to observe that she did not seem troubled. + +It was David, at last, who insisted on going home. Frances obeyed +him with a laughing apology. + +"You've given me such a good time. I forgot the hour. May I come +again?" + +"Indeed you must," Myra answered hospitably. + +She would not leave, however, until they had promised to come to her +concert. She would send them tickets. And they must have tea with +her soon. Would they chaperon her once in a while? Oliver eagerly +promised to be at her beck and call. He followed her out into the +hall, unmindful of David's vile temper. + +Myra turned slowly back into the room, noting with jaded eyes the +empty beer-bottles, crusts of sandwiches, ashes on the rugs, chairs +pulled crazily about. The place still resounded with chatter and song. +It no longer seemed her home. + +Presently Oliver joined her. + +"Well, I enjoyed that," he said with a boyish ring. "Come, now, +wasn't it jolly to see people again? Everyone had a wonderful time." +He hummed as he walked lightly over to the table and helped himself +to a cigarette. + +She dropped on the couch. + +"I'm a little tired." + +He lit his cigarette, staring at her over the tiny flame of the +match before he blew it out. + +"Why, I never noticed. You do look all in." + +She straightened with an effort, put a hand to her hair. + +"I'm afraid I've lost the habit." + +"You'll have to get it again," he said happily. "We're going to give +lots of parties. It's good for my business, too. Walter Mason +brought a man here to-night who is thinking of building a house on +Long Island. Walter tells me he went away quite won over." + +She was all interest at once. + +"Why didn't you tell me? I might have made a special effort to be +nice to him." + +"Oh, he had a good time," he said carelessly. "I say, Myra, your +friend Miss Maury is fascinating. Sings divinely." He moved over to +the couch and sat on the edge of it, absent-mindedly toying with her +hand. + +"She's very lovely," Myra agreed. + +"Why didn't you sing?" he suddenly asked. + +"I didn't need to." The little smile was back, fastened to her lips. +A certain unfamiliar embarrassment fell between them. She made no +effort to dissipate it. + +He yawned. + +"Well, you should have. Heavens! it's late! Two o'clock. I'm off to +bed." He kissed her lightly on the forehead. + +"I'll be along in a moment," she said. + +She heard him humming in the next room, heard him moving about, +heard the bump of his shoes on the floor. She lay, her eyes closed. +Presently she got up, went to the piano and let her fingers wander +over the keys. Then she began to sing softly. Her fine critical +faculties were awake. She listened while she sang--listened as if +some one else would rise or fall on her verdict. There was a curious +lack of vibrancy in her notes. They did not come from the heart. + +Suddenly she stopped. Oliver was calling "Myra." + +She thrilled with a swift hope that brought her to her feet, flushed +and tremulous. + +"Aren't you coming to bed soon? It's too late for music," drifted +faintly querulous down the hall. + +The light went out of her face. + +"I'm coming." A leaden weariness was over her. Slowly she closed the +piano. + +He was already asleep when she tiptoed into the room. She stood a +moment staring down at him. + +"The worst of it is that I shall sleep, too," she thought. + + + + +_BUTTERFLIES_ + + +BY ROSE SIDNEY + +From _The Pictorial Review_ + +The wind rose in a sharp gust, rattling the insecure windows and +sighing forlornly about the corners of the house. The door unlatched +itself, swung inward hesitatingly, and hung wavering for a moment on +its sagging hinges. A formless cloud of gray fog blew into the warm, +steamy room. But whatever ghostly visitant had paused upon the +threshold, he had evidently decided not to enter, for the catch +snapped shut with a quick, passionate vigour. The echo of the +slamming door rang eerily through the house. + +Mart Brenner's wife laid down the ladle with which she had been +stirring the contents of a pot that was simmering on the big, black +stove, and, dragging her crippled foot behind her, she hobbled +heavily to the door. + +As she opened it a new horde of fog-wraiths blew in. The world was a +gray, wet blanket. Not a light from the village below pierced the +mist, and the lonely army of tall cedars on the black hill back of +the house was hidden completely. + +"Who's there?" Mrs. Brenner hailed. But her voice fell flat and +muffled. Far off on the beach she could dimly hear the long wail of +a fog-horn. + +The faint throb of hope stilled in her breast. She had not really +expected to find any one at the door unless perhaps it should be a +stranger who had missed his way at the cross-roads. There had been +one earlier in the afternoon when the fog first came. But her +husband had been at home then and his surly manner quickly cut short +the stranger's attempts at friendliness. This ugly way of Mart's had +isolated them from all village intercourse early in their life on +Cedar Hill. + +Like a buzzard's nest their home hung over the village on the +unfriendly sides of the bleak slope. Visitors were few and always +reluctant, even strangers, for the village told weird tales of Mart +Brenner and his kin. The village said that he--and all those who +belonged to him as well--were marked for evil and disaster. Disaster +had truly written itself through-out their history. His mother was +mad, a tragic madness of bloody prophecies and dim fears; his only +son a witless creature of eighteen, who, for all his height and bulk, +spent his days catching butterflies in the woods on the hill, and his +nights in laboriously pinning them, wings outspread, upon the bare +walls of the house. + +The room where the Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was +tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread +yellow butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to +the black rafters overhead. + +Olga Brenner herself was no less tragic than her family. On her face, +written in the acid of pain, was the history of the blows and +cruelty that had warped her active body. Because of her crippled foot, +her entire left side sagged hopelessly and her arm swung away, above +it, like a branch from a decayed tree. But more saddening than her +distorted body was the lonely soul that looked out of her tired, +faded eyes. + +She was essentially a village woman with a profound love of its +intimacies and gossip, its fence-corner neighbourliness. The horror +with which the village regarded her, as the wife of Mart Brenner, +was an eating sore. It was greater than the tragedy of her poor, +witless son, the hatred of old Mrs. Brenner, and her ever-present +fear of Mart. She had never quite given up her unreasoning hope that +some day some one might come to the house in one of Mart's long, +unexplained absences and sit down and talk with her over a cup of tea. +She put away the feeble hope again as she turned back into the dim +room and closed the door behind her. + +"Must have been that bit of wind," she meditated. "It plays queer +tricks sometimes" + +She went to the mantel and lighted the dull lamp. By the flicker she +read the face of the clock. + +"Tobey's late!" she exclaimed uneasily. Her mind never rested from +its fear for Tobey. His childlike mentality made him always the same +burden as when she had rocked him hour after hour, a scrawny mite of +a baby on her breast. + +"It's a fearful night for him to be out!" she muttered. + +"Blood! Blood!" said a tragic voice from a dark corner by the stove. +Barely visible in the ruddy half-dark of the room a pair of demoniac +eyes met hers. + +Mrs. Brenner threw her shrivelled and wizened mother-in-law an angry +and contemptuous glance. + +"Be still!" she commanded. "'Pears to me that's all you ever +say--blood!" + +The glittering eyes fell away from hers in a sullen obedience. But +the tragic voice went on intoning stubbornly, "Blood on his hands! +Red! Dripping! I see blood!" + +Mrs. Brenner shuddered. "Seems like you could shut up a spell!" she +complained. + +The old woman's voice trailed into a broken and fitful whispering. +Olga's commands were the only laws she knew, and she obeyed them. +Mrs. Brenner went back to the stove. But her eyes kept returning to +the clock and thence to the darkening square of window where the fog +pressed heavily into the very room. + +Out of the gray silence came a shattering sound that sent the ladle +crashing out of Mrs. Brenner's nerveless hand and brought a moan +from the dozing old woman! It was a scream, a long, piercing scream, +so intense, so agonized that it went echoing about the room as +though a disembodied spirit were shrieking under the rafters! It was +a scream of terror, an innocent, a heart-broken scream! + +"Tobey!" cried Mrs. Brenner, her face rigid. + +The old woman began to pick at her ragged skirt, mumbling, "Blood! +Blood on his hands! I see it." + +"That was on the hill," said Mrs. Brenner slowly, steadying her voice. + +She put her calloused hand against her lips and stood listening with +agonized intentness. But now the heavy, foggy silence had fallen +again. At intervals came the long, faint wail of the fog-horn. There +was no other sound. Even the old woman in the shadowy corner had +ceased her mouthing. + +Mrs. Brenner stood motionless, with her hand against her trembling +lips, her head bent forward for four of the dull intervals between +the siren-call. + +Then there came the sound of steps stumbling around the house. +Mrs. Brenner, with her painful hobble, reached the door before the +steps paused there, and threw it open. + +The feeble light fell on the round, vacant face of her son his +inevitable pasteboard box, grimy with much handling, clutched close +to his big breast, and in it the soft beating and thudding of +imprisoned wings. + +Mrs. Brenner's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, "Tobey!" but +it rose shrilly as she cried, "Where you been? What was that scream?" + +Tobey stumbled past her headlong into the house, muttering, +"I'm cold!" + +She shut the door and followed him to the stove, where he stood +shaking himself and beating at his damp clothes with clumsy fingers. + +"What was that scream?" she asked him tensely. She knotted her rough +fingers as she waited for his answer. + +"I dunno," he grunted sullenly. His thick lower lip shoved itself +forward, baby-fashion. + +"Where you been?" she persisted. + +As he did not answer she coaxed him, "Aw, come on, Tobey. Tell Ma. +Where you been?" + +"I been catching butterflies," he answered. "I got a big one this +time," with an air of triumph. + +"Where was you when you heard the scream?" she asked him cunningly. + +He gave a slow shake of his head. "I dunno," he answered in his dull +voice. + +A big shiver shook him. His teeth chattered and he crouched down on +his knees before the open oven-door. + +"I'm cold," he complained. Mrs. Brenner came close to him and laid +her hand on his wet, matted hair. "Tobey's a bad boy," she scolded. +"You mustn't go out in the wet like this. Your hair's soaked." + +She got down stiffly on her lame knees. "Sit down," she ordered, +"and I'll take off your shoes. They're as wet as a dish-rag." + +"They're full of water, too," Tobey grumbled as he sprawled on the +floor, sticking one big, awkward foot into her lap. "The water in +there makes me cold." + +"You spoil all your pa's shoes that a-way," said Mrs. Brenner, her +head bent over her task. "He told you not to go round in the wet +with 'em any more. He'll give you a lashing if he comes in and sees +your shoes. I'll have to try and get 'em dry before he comes home. +Anyways," with a breath of deep relief, "I'm glad it ain't that red +clay from the hill. That never comes off." + +The boy paid no attention to her. He was investigating the contents +of his box, poking a fat, dirty forefinger around among its +fluttering contents. There was a flash of yellow wings, and with a +crow of triumph the boy shut the lid. + +"The big one's just more than flapping," he chuckled. "I had an +awful hard time to catch him. I had to run and run. Look at him, Ma," +the boy urged. She shook her head. + +"I ain't got the time," she said, almost roughly. "I got to get +these shoes off'n you afore your father gets home, Tobey, or you'll +get a awful hiding. Like as not you'll get it anyways, if he's mad. +Better get into bed." + +"Naw!" Tobey protested. "I seen Pa already. I want my supper out here! +I don't want to go to bed!" + +Mrs. Brenner paused. "Where was Pa?" she asked. + +But Tobey's stretch of coherent thinking was past. "I dunno!" he +muttered. + +Mrs. Brenner sighed. She pulled off the sticky shoes and rose stiffly. + +"Go get in bed," she said. + +"Aw, Ma, I want to stay up with my butterflies," the boy pleaded. +Two big tears rolled down his fat cheeks. In his queer, clouded +world he had learned one certain fact. He could almost always move +his mother with tears. + +But this time she was firm. "Do as I told you!" she ordered him. +"Mebbe if you're in bed your father won't be thinking about you. And +I'll try to dry these shoes afore he thinks about them." She took +the grimy box from his resisting fingers, and, holding it in one hand, +pulled him to his feet and pushed him off to his bedroom. + +When she had closed the door on his wail she returned and laid the +box on the shelf. Then she hurried to gather up the shoes. Something +on her hand as she put it out for the sodden shoes caught her eye +and she straightened, holding her hand up where the feeble light +from the shelf caught it. + +"I've cut myself," she said aloud. "There's blood on my hand. It +must 'a' been on those lacings of Tobeys." + +The old woman in the corner roused. "Blood!" she screeched. +"Olga! Blood on his hands!" + +Mrs. Brenner jumped. "You old screech-owl!" she cried. She wiped her +hand quickly on her dirty apron and held it up again to see the cut. +But there was no cut on her hand! Where had that blood come from? +From Tobey's shoes? + +And who was it that had screamed on the hill? She felt herself +enwrapped in a mist of puzzling doubts. + +She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes. But +the wet and pulpy mass had no stain. Only the wet sands and the +slimy water-weeds of the beach clung to them. + +Then where had the blood come from? It was at this instant that she +became conscious of shouts on the hillside. She limped to the door +and held it open a crack. Very faintly she could see the bobbing +lights of torches. A voice carried down to her. + +"Here's where I found his hat. That's why I turned off back of these +trees. And right there I found his body!" + +"Are you sure he's dead?" quavered another voice. + +"Stone-dead!'" + +Olga Brenner shut the door. But she did not leave it immediately. +She stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring +eyes glazing. + +Tobey was strong. He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had +hurt her with his undisciplined strength. Where was Mart? Tobey had +seen him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further. +But little subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and +feared his father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his +half-witted son. What _had_ happened? And yet no matter what had +occurred, Tobey had not been on the hill. His shoes bore mute +testimony to that. And the scream had been on the slope. She frowned. + +Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove +and laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to +the rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again +the sound of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not +stumble. They were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the +shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings +caught on a nail on the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, +and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter +they fell at her feet. + +In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway. Poverty, avarice, +and evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil's coin. His +shaggy head lowered in his powerful shoulders. His long arms, apelike, +hung almost to his knees. Behind him the fog pressed in, and his +rough, bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture. + +"Well?" he snapped. A sardonic smile twisted his face. "Caught you, +didn't I?" + +He strode forward. His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering +terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril, +that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left +a wet track on the rough floor. + +"He didn't do 'em no harm," she babbled. "They're just wet. Please, +Mart, they ain't harmed a mite. Just wet. That's all. Tobey went on +the beach with 'em. It won't take but a little spell to dry 'em." + +Her husband stooped and snatched up the shoes. She shrank into +herself, waiting the inevitable torrent of his passion and the +probable blow. Instead, as he stood up he was smiling. Bewildered, +she stared at him in a dull silence. + +"No harm done," he said, almost amiably. Shaking with relief, she +stretched out her hand. + +"I'll dry 'em," she said. "Give me your shoes and I'll get the mud +off." + +Her husband shook his head. He was still smiling. + +"Don't need to dry 'em. I'll put 'em away," he replied, and, still +tracking his wet mud, he went into Tobey's room. + +Her fear flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his +black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability. +Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained her ears +to listen. + +A long silence followed his exit. But there was no outcry from Tobey, +no muttering nor blows. After a few moments, moving quickly, her +husband came out. She raised her heavy eyes to stare at him. He +stopped and looked intently at his own muddy tracks. + +"I'll get a rag and wipe up the mud right off." + +As she started toward the nail where the rag hung, her husband put +out a long arm and detained her. "Leave it be," he said. He smiled +again. + +She noticed, then, that he had removed his muddy shoes and wore the +wet ones. He had fully laced them, and she had almost a +compassionate moment as she thought how wet and +cold his feet must be. + +"You can put your feet in the oven, Mart, to dry 'em." + +Close on her words she heard the sound of footsteps and a sharp +knock followed on the sagging door. Mart Brenner sat down on a chair +close to the stove and lifted one foot into the oven. "See who's +there!" he ordered. + +She opened the door and peered out. A group of men stood on the step, +the faint light of the room picking out face after face that she +recognized--Sheriff Munn; Jim Barker, who kept the grocery in the +village; Cottrell Hampstead, who lived in the next house below them; +young Dick Roamer, Munn's deputy; and several strangers. + +"Well?" she asked ungraciously. + +"We want to see Brenner!" one of them said. + +She stepped back. "Come in," she told them. They came in, pulling +off their caps, and stood huddled in a group in the centre of the +room. + +Her husband reluctantly stood up. + +"Evening!" he said, with his unusual smile. "Bad out, ain't it?" + +"Yep!" Munn replied. "Heavy fog. We're soaked." + +Olga Brenner's pitiful instinct of hospitality rose in her breast. + +"I got some hot soup on the stove. Set a spell and I'll dish you some," +she urged. + +The men looked at each other in some uncertainty. After a moment +Munn said, "All right, if it ain't too much bother, Mrs. Brenner." + +"Not a bit," she cried eagerly. She bustled about, searching her +meagre stock of chinaware for uncracked bowls. + +"Set down?" suggested Mart. + +Munn sat down with a sign, and his companions followed his example. +Mart resumed his position before the stove, lifting one foot into +the capacious black maw of the oven. + +"Must 'a' got your feet wet, Brenner?" the sheriff said with heavy +jocularity. + +Brenner nodded, "You bet I did," he replied. "Been down on the beach +all afternoon." + +"Didn't happen to hear any unusual noise down there, did you?" Munn +spoke with his eyes on Mrs. Brenner, at her task of ladling out the +thick soup. She paused as though transfixed, her ladle poised in the +air. + +Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became +fixed on the tracks of red clay. + +"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside tonight, for the +bay was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly. + +"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn +persisted. + +"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?" + +"Oh--nothing," said Munn. + +Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the +table. + +Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished +his soup before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As +Munn finished the last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a +wicked-looking black pipe, crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it. + +Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired, +"Been any strangers around to-day?" + +Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon. +He was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till +the sun come out. I don't know whether he did or not." + +"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?" + +Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass +nobody." + +The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours +still catching butterflies?" he asked presently. + +Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their +floods of butterflies. But he did not answer. + +"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He +puffed several times before he spoke again. + +"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?" + +Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced ringers +locking themselves. + +"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart +said carelessly. + +"Yes." Her voice was a breath. + +"Was your boy out to-day?" + +Mart looked at his wife. "I dunno." + +Munn's glance came to the wife. + +"Yes." + +"How long ago did he come in?" + +"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless. + +"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent. + +Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!" +she said in a defiant tone. + +Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his +face. He still wore his peculiar affable smile. + +"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?" + +Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner. + +"What's that to you?" she flared. + +She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones. "Now, now, +Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who +made these tracks." + +"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of +a falling trap. + +Mart smiled still more broadly. + +"Look here, Olga, don't get so warm over it. You're nervous now. +Tell the gentlemen who made those tracks." + +She turned to Munn desperately. "What do you want to know for?" she +asked him. + +The sharpness of her voice roused old Mrs. Brenner, drowsing in her +corner. + +"Blood!" she cried suddenly. "Blood on his hands!" + +In the silence that followed, the eyes of the men turned curiously +toward the old woman and then sought each other with speculative +stares. Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances, +said roughly. "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you +bothering us for?" + +Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the +arm. There was something touching in her frightened old face. + +"A man--a stranger was killed up on the hill," Munn told her. + +"What's that got to do with us?" she countered. + +"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure +where every man in the village was this afternoon." + +Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness +of Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did +not miss the tremor in her eyes. + +"Where was your son this afternoon?" + +She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach." + +"Whose room is that?" Munn's forefinger pointed to Tobey's closed +door. + +"That's Tobey's room," said his mother. + +"The mud tracks go into that room. Did he make those tracks, +Mrs. Brenner?" + +"No! Oh, no! No!" she cried desperately. "Mart made those when he +came in. He went into Tobey's room!" + +"How about it, Brenner?" + +Mart smiled with an indulgent air. "Heard what she said, didn't you?" + +"Is it true?" + +Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree +with her," he said. + +"Let's see your shoes, Brenner?" + +Without hesitation Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for +Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward to examine +them. + +"Nothing but pieces of seaweed," said Cottrell Hampstead, + +Munn eyed them. Then he turned to look at the floor. + +"Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner. But they were +made in red clay. How do you account for that?" + +"Tobey wears my shoes,'" said Brenner. + +Mrs. Brenner gasped. She advanced to Munn. + +"What you asking all these questions for?" she pleaded. + +Munn did not answer her. After a moment he asked. "Did you hear a +scream this afternoon?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +"How long after the screaming did your son come in?" + +She hesitated. What was the best answer to make? Bewildered, she +tried to decide. "Ten minutes or so," she said. + +"Just so," agreed Munn. "Brenner, when did you come in?" + +A trace of Mart's sullenness rose in his face. "I told you that once," +he said. + +"I mean how long after Tobey?" + +"I dunno," said Mart. + +"How long, Mrs. Brenner?" + +She hesitated again. She scented a trap. "Oh, 'bout ten to fifteen +minutes, I guess," she said. + +Suddenly she burst out passionately. "What you hounding us for? We +don't know nothing about the man on the hill. You ain't after the +rest of the folks in the village like you are after us. Why you +doing it? We ain't done nothing." + +Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door, +and opened it. He reached out into the darkness. Then he turned. He +was holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see +what it was. + +"You chop your wood with a short, heavy axe, don't you, Brenner?" +said Munn. + +Brenner nodded. + +"It's marked with your name, isn't it?" + +Brenner nodded again. + +"_Is this the axe_?" + +Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream. Red and clotted, even the +handle marked with bloody spots, the axe was theirs. + +Brenner started to his feet. "God!" he yelped, "that's where that +axe went! Tobey took it!" More calmly he proceeded, "This afternoon +before I went down on the beach I thought I'd chop some wood on the +hill. But the axe was gone. So after I'd looked sharp for it and +couldn't find it, I gave it up." + +"Tobey didn't do it!" Mrs. Brenner cried thinly. "He's as harmless +as a baby! He didn't do it! He didn't do it!" + +"How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner? There is red clay on the +hill where the man was killed. There is red clay on your floor." +Munn spoke kindly. + +"Mart tracked in that clay. He changed shoes with Tobey. I tell you +that's the truth." She was past caring for any harm that might +befall her. + +Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance. "It's likely, ain't it, that +I'd change into shoes as wet as these?" + +"Those tracks are Mart's!" Olga reiterated hysterically. + +"They lead into your son's room, Mrs. Brenner. And we find your axe +not far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill." +Munn's eyes were grave. + +The old woman in the corner began to whimper, "Blood and trouble! +Blood and trouble all my days! Red on his hands! Dripping! Olga! +Blood!" + +"But the road to the beach begins there too," Mrs. Brenner cried, +above the cracked voice, "and Tobey saw his pa before he came home. +He said he did. I tell you, Mart was on the hill. He put on Tobey's +shoes. Before God I'm telling you the truth." + +Dick Roamer spoke hesitatingly, "Mebbe the old woman's right, Munn. +Mebbe those tracks are Brenner's." + +Mrs. Brenner turned to him in wild gratitude. + +"You believe me, don't you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her +face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it +might swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof! +More proof! She must bring more proof of Tobey's innocence! + +She snatched up his box of butterflies and came back to Munn. + +"This is what Tobey was doin' this afternoon!" she cried in triumph. +"He was catchin' butterflies! That ain't murder, is it?" + +"Nobody catches butterflies in a fog," said Munn. + +"Well, Tobey did. Here they are," Mrs. Brenner held out the box. +Munn took it from her shaking hand. He looked at it. After a moment +he turned it over. His eyes narrowed. Mrs. Brenner turned sick. The +room went swimming around before her in a bluish haze. She had +forgotten the blood on her hand that she had wiped off before Mart +came home. Suppose the blood had been on the box. + +The sheriff opened the box. A bruised butterfly, big, golden, +fluttered up out of it. Very quietly the sheriff closed the box, and +turned to Mrs. Brenner. + +"Call your son," he said. + +"What do you want of him? Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin' +to do to him?" + +"There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner." + +"Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was +chalky white. + +"In the box, Mrs. Brenner, _is a gold watch and chain_. The man who +was killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in +his buttonhole. _The rest of it had been torn off_" + +Olga made no sound. Her burning eyes turned toward Mart. In them was +all of a heart's anguish and despair. + +"Tell 'em, Mart! Tell 'em he didn't do it!" she finally pleaded. + +Mart's face was inscrutable. + +Munn rose. The other men got to their feet. + +"Will you get the boy or shall I?" the sheriff said directly to +Mrs. Brenner. + +With a rush Mrs. Brenner was on her knees before Munn, clutching him +about the legs with twining arms. Tears of agony dripped over her +seamed face. + +"He didn't do it! Don't take him! He's my baby! He never harmed +anybody! He's my baby!" Then with a shriek, as Munn unclasped her +arms, "Oh, my God! My God!" + +Munn helped her to her feet. "Now, now, Mrs. Brenner, don't take on +so," he said awkwardly. "There ain't going to be no harm come to +your boy. It's to keep him from getting into harm that I'm taking him. +The village is a mite worked up over this murder and they might get +kind of upset if they thought Tobey was still loose. Better go and +get him, Mrs. Brenner." + +As she stood unheeding, he went on, "Now, don't be afraid. +Nothing'll happen to him. No jedge would sentence him like a regular +criminal. The most that'll happen will be to put him some safe place +where he can't do himself nor no one else any more harm." + +But still Mrs. Brenner's set expression did not change. + +After a moment she shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to +Tobey's door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the +latch, her eyes searching the faces of the men in the room. With a +gesture of dreary resignation she opened the door and entered, +closing it behind her. + +Tobey lay in his bed, asleep. His rumpled hair was still damp from +the fog. His mother stroked it softly while her slow tears dropped +down on his face with its expression of peaceful childhood. + +"Tobey!" she called. Her voice broke in her throat. The tears fell +faster. + +"Huh!" He sat up, blinking at her. + +"Get into your clothes, now! Right away!" she said. + +He stared at her tears. A dismal sort of foreboding seemed to seize +upon him. His face began to pucker. But he crawled out of his bed +and began to dress himself in his awkward fashion, casting wistful +and wondering glances in her direction. + +She watched him, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no +one to protect Tobey. She could not make those strangers believe +that Mart had changed shoes with Tobey. Neither could she account +for the blood-stained box and the watch with its length of broken +chain. But if Tobey had been on the beach he had not been on the hill, +and if he hadn't been on the hill he couldn't have killed the man +they claimed he had killed. Mart had been on the hill. Her head +whirled. Some place fate, destiny, something had blundered. She +wrung her knotted hands together. + +Presently Tobey was dressed. She took him by the hand. Her own hand +was shaking, and very cold and clammy. Her knees were weak as she +led him toward the door. She could feel them trembling so that every +step was an effort. And her hand on the knob had barely strength to +turn it. But turn it she did and opened the door. + +"Here he is!" she cried chokingly. She freed her hand and laid it on +his shoulder. + +"Look at him," she moaned. "He couldn't 'a' done it. He's--he's just +a boy!" + +Sheriff Munn rose. His men rose with him. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brenner," he said. "Terrible sorry. But you can see +how it is. Things look pretty black for him." + +He paused, looked around, hesitated for a moment. Finally he said, +"Well, I guess we'd better be getting along." + +Mrs. Brenner's hand closed with convulsive force on Tobey's shoulder. + +"Tobey!" she screamed desperately, "where was you this afternoon? +All afternoon?" + +"On the beach," mumbled Tobey, shrinking into himself. + +"Tobey! Tobey! Where'd you get blood on the box?" + +He looked around. His cloudy eyes rested on her face helplessly. + +"I dunno," he said. + +Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other +shoulder. + +"Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch, +the pretty watch that was in your box?" + +He blinked at her. + +"The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?" + +His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile. + +"I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on +his face. + +"But where? What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks. + +He shook his head. "I dunno." + +Mrs. Brenner would not give up. + +"You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly. + +He nodded. + +"Where'd you see him?" she breathed. + +He frowned. "I--saw pa----" he began, straining to pierce the cloud +that covered him. + +"Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner. She half rose, her head +thrust forward on her shrivelled neck. + +Tobey paused, confused. "I dunno," he said. + +"Did he give you the pretty bright thing? And did he give you the +axe--" she paused and repeated the word loudly--"the axe to bring +home?" + +Tobey caught at the word. "The axe?" he cried. "The axe! Ugh! It +was all sticky!" He shuddered. + +"Did pa give you the axe?" + +But the cloud had settled. Tobey shook his head. "I dunno," he +repeated his feeble denial. + +Munn advanced. "No use, Mrs. Brenner, you see. Tobey, you'll have to +come along with us." + +Even to Tobey's brain some of the strain in the atmosphere must have +penetrated, for he drew back. "Naw," he protested sulkily, "I don't +want to." + +Dick Roamer stepped to his side. He laid his hand on Tobey's arm. +"Come along," he urged. + +Mrs. Brenner gave a smothered gasp. Tobey woke to terror. He turned +to run. In an instant the men surrounded him. Trapped, he stood still, +his head lowered in his shoulders. + +"Ma!" he screamed suddenly. "Ma! I don't want to go! Ma!" + +He fell on his knees. Heavy childish sobs racked him. Deserted, +terrified, he called upon the only friend he knew. + +"Ma! Please, Ma!" + +Munn lifted him up. Dick Roamer helped him, and between them they +drew him to the door, his heart-broken calls and cries piercing +every corner of the room. + +They whisked him out of Mrs. Brenner's sight as quickly as they could. +The other men piled out of the door, blocking the last vision of her +son, but his bleating cries came shrilling back on the foggy air. + +Mart closed the door. Mrs. Brenner stood where she had been when +Tobey had first felt the closing of the trap and had started to run. +She looked as though she might have been carved there. Her light +breath seemed to do little more than lift her flat chest. + +Mart turned from the door. His eyes glittered. He advanced upon her +hungrily like a huge cat upon an enchanted mouse. + +"So you thought you'd yelp on me, did you?" he snarled, licking his +lips. "Thought you'd put me away, didn't you? Get me behind the bars, +eh?" + +"Blood!" moaned the old woman in the corner. "Blood!" + +Mart strode to the table, pulling out from the bosom of his shirt a +lumpy package wrapped in his handkerchief. He threw it down on the +table. It fell heavily with a sharp ringing of coins. + +"But I fooled you this time! Mart wasn't so dull this time, eh?" He +turned toward her again. + +Between them, disturbed in his resting-place on the table, the big +bruised yellow butterfly raised himself on his sweeping wings. + +Mart drew back a little. The butterfly flew toward Olga and brushed +her face with a velvety softness. + +Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm +upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a +gleam of light showed. + +"You devil!" she said, in a whispering voice. "You killed that man! +You gave Tobey the watch and the axe! You changed shoes with him! +You devil! You devil!" + +He drew back for a blow. She did not move. Instead she mocked him, +trying to smile. + +"You whelp!" she taunted him. "Go on and hit me! I ain't running! +And if you don't break me to bits I'm going to the sheriff and I'll +tell him what you said to me just now. And he'll wonder how you got +all that money in your pockets. He knows we're as poor as church mice. +How you going to explain what you got?" + +"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed +with venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it +where I'm going to put it!" + +The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of +exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you, +Mart!" she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you +for Tobey! You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you! +You're trapped, I tell you! And I done it!" + +She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank +window with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the +unseen. He couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw +that he was wet with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage +him. She counted on that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury. +She leaned toward him, inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the +torch that will make their pile of fagots a blazing bier. + +He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion +that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid +fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained +consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet +achieved that for which she was fighting. + +The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood +drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering +feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only +friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across +the table. She stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment. +Then with a thin wail, "He's killing her!" she ran around them and +gained the door. + +With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face, +swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her +almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman. + +"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!" + +The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the +door and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It +came to Mart that the woman running through the night with the wail +of terror was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw +his look of sick terror. He started to spring after the mad woman, +forgetful of the half-conscious creature on her knees before him. + +But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion, +forced strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she +sprawled herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for +the table, and fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a +near-by chair. Olga raised herself on her shaking arms and looked at +him. Minute after minute passed, and yet he lay still. A second long +ten minutes ticked itself off on the clock, which Olga could barely +see. Then Mart opened his eyes, sat up, and staggered to his feet. + +Before full consciousness could come to him again, his wife crawled +forward painfully and swiftly coiled herself about his legs. He +struggled, still dizzy from his fall, bent over and tore at her +twining arms, but the more he pulled the tighter she clung, +fastening her misshapen fingers in the lacing of his shoes. He swore! +And he became panic-stricken. He began to kick at her, to make +lunges toward the distant door. Kicking and fighting, dragging her +clinging body with him at every move, that body which drew him back +one step for every two forward steps he took, at last he reached the +wall. He clutched it, and as his hand slipped along trying to find a +more secure hold he touched the cold iron of a long-handled pan +hanging there. + +With a snarl he snatched it down, raised it over his head, and +brought it down upon his wife's back. Her hands opened spasmodically +and fell flat at her sides. Her body rolled over, limp and broken. +And a low whimper came from her bleeding lips. + +Satisfied, Mart paused to regain his breath. He had no way of +knowing how long this unequal fight had been going on. + +But he was free. The way of escape was open. He laid his hand on the +door. + +There were voices. He cowered, cast hunted glances at the bloody +figure on the floor, bit his knuckles in a frenzy. + +As he looked, the eyes opened in his wife's swollen face, eyes aglow +with triumph. "You'll swing for it, Mart!" she whispered faintly. +"And the money's on the table! Tobey's saved!" + +Rough hands were on the door. A flutter of breath like a sigh of +relief crossed her lips and her lids dropped as the door burst open +to a tide of men. + +The big yellow butterfly swung low on his golden wings and came to +rest on her narrow, sunken breast. + + + + +NO FLOWERS + + +BY GORDON ARTHUR SMITH + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + +Steve Dempsey was a conspicuously ingenious chief machinist's +mate--one of the most ingenious in the Naval Aviation Forces, +Foreign Service, and he was ingenious not only with his hands, but +with his tongue. That is why I cannot guarantee the veracity of what +follows; I can but guarantee that he guaranteed it. + +Steve had had a varied and highly coloured career, and I think that +the war, or so much of it as he was permitted to see, seemed to him +a comparatively tame affair--something all in the year's work. When +he was fifteen years old he was conducting his father's public +garage in a town not far from Denver; at that age he knew as much +about motors as the men who built them, and he had, moreover, the +invaluable knack of putting his finger immediately on a piece of +erring mechanism and, with the aid of a bit of wire and a pair of +pliers, setting it to rights. Given enough wire and a pair of pliers, +I believe that he could have built the Eiffel Tower. + +Becoming restless in the garage, he determined to make his fortune +quickly, and accordingly went out prospecting in the vicinity of the +Little Annie mine. He bought himself a small patch of promising +ground and he and another fellow shovelled away until they had no +money left. So then he took up aviation. + +He was one of the pioneers of the flying-men in this country. He +used to fly at country fairs in an old ramshackle bus of the Wright +model--a thing of sticks and canvas and wires precariously hung +together. But he flew it. And he rehabilitated his finances. + +When war was declared he enlisted as a gob and was sent on sea duty. +He knew, of course, nothing of sea duty, but lack of knowledge of a +subject had never daunted him, for he had the faculty of learning +things quickly by himself and for himself. His mechanical ability +asserting itself, he was made a machinist's mate, second class, and +transferred over to the Aviation. When I knew him he had proved so +valuable at the various air stations that he had been advanced to +chief machinist's mate and was an assistant in the Technical Division +at Paris headquarters. + +He was a very friendly soul, always respectful enough, even when +outspoken, and no more in fear of an admiral than of--well, he +would have said than of a marine. During his year of service, you see, +he had absorbed most of the navy traditions. He spoke the navy +speech like an old-timer, and undoubtedly amplified the regular navy +vocabulary with picturesque expressions of his own. Of course he was +very profane.... + +Sunday morning at headquarters was apt to be a slack morning, with +not much work to do; but in intervals of idleness one could always +be certain of finding something of interest to see or hear in +Steve's office. Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board +working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a +self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying _through_ +the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet +to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower on +its girders, were two of his pet projects. + +On a Sunday in August of 1918 there were assembled around his +drafting-board an interested and receptive audience of four--Peters, +an ensign attached to the "lighter-than-air" section; Madden, a +pilot on his way up from Italy to the Northern Bombing Group; Erskine, +a lieutenant in the Operations Division; and Matthews, a chief yeoman. + +"Yes," Dempsey was saying, "I'm _beaucoup_ sorry for these here +frawgs. They're just bein' massacred--that's all it is--_massacred_. +And there don't anybody take much notice, either. Say, somebody was +tellin' me the other day just how many the French has lost since the +beginnin' of the war. Just about one million. I wouldn't believe it, +but it's straight. It was a French colonel that was tellin' me out +to the Hispano factory day before yesterday, and he'd oughta know +because he was through the battle of the Marne and the Soam, and +everything." + +"Did he tell you in French?" inquired Ensign Peters, meaningly, for +Dempsey's French was admittedly limited. + +"Pardon?" said Dempsey, and then, grasping the innuendo: "No, sir, +he did _not_. Why, he talks English as good as you and me. That's +another thing about these frawgs--they can all _parlez-vous_ any +language. I never yet seen a Frenchie I couldn't talk to yet." + +"Did you ever see anybody you couldn't talk to yet, Steve?" +suggested the chief yeoman. + +"Here, you, how d'ya get that way? Who was it I seen th' other night +out walking in the Boy de Bullone with a skirt? And I guess you +wasn't talkin'--why, you was talkin' so fast you had to help out +with your hands, just like a frawg.... No, as I say, I feel sorry +for these French in more ways than one." + +"Just how do you display that sorrow?" asked Ensign Madden. + +Dempsey hesitated an instant, scratched his head, and very carefully +drew a line on the tracing-paper in front of him. + +"Well, sir," he said, finally, "I displayed it last Sunday." + +Then he relapsed into silence, and resumed work on the drawing. But +as he worked he grinned quietly--a provocative grin which inspired +curiosity. + +"What did you do last Sunday?" prodded Peters. + +The grin widened as Steve glanced up from the board. He laid aside +his instruments, tilted back in his chair, and said: "Well, it +wasn't very regular, what I done last Sunday, but I'll tell you if +you don't have me up before a court.... You remember last Sunday +was a swell day? Spring in the air, I guess, and everything, and +everybody was out walking like Matthews, here, with a Jane. I 'ain't +got a Jane, of course----" + +"What!" roared Matthews. + +"I 'ain't got a Jane, of course, so I decides to take a little look +around all by myself. Well, I goes down the Chomps-Eleezy feelin' +pretty good and sorta peppy and lookin' for trouble. I see all them +army heroes--the vets and the dentists and the S O S--each with a +skirt, and I passes Matthews, here, with _his_ skirt clingin' to him +like a cootie." + +"Cut it out, you big stiff," interposed Matthews. + +"Like a cootie," continued Steve, "and I got sorta de-pressed. So I +sez, me for the quiet, unfrequented streets over acrost the river. +Well, sir, I was just passin' the Loover--that big museum, or +whatever it is--when I see a hearse comin' in the opposite direction. +It was a pretty sick-lookin' hearse, too. It had a coupla animals +hitched to it that was probably called horses when they was young, +and that didn't have a steak minoot left on 'em. But they was all +covered with mangy black plumes and tassels and things--you know, the +way they rig 'em up when the corpse is takin' his last drive. And +there was an old bird sittin' up on the box-seat with a hat like +Napoleon One. + +"Well, at first it looked to me like it was just the regular frawg +funeral, and I didn't pay no special attention, only I give it the +salute when I got opposite. Then I see that there weren't no flowers +nor tin wreaths on the coffin--except there was one little buncha +pinks, and they was a pretty sad-lookin' buncha pinks, too, sir. +Then I see that there weren't no procession walkin' along +behind--except there was one little old woman all in black and +lookin' sorta sick and scared. Yes, sir, there she was walkin' all +by herself and lookin' lonelier 'n hell. + +"So I sez to myself: 'It's all wrong, Steve, it's all wrong. Here's +a poor dead frawg, the only son of his mother and her a +widow'--that's Bible stuff, sir--'goin' out to be planted with none +of the gang around. It's tough,' I sez. 'I'll say it is.' Well, I +told you I didn't have nothin' much to do, so I sez, 'Laffyette, +cheeri-o,' and steps up beside the old lady. That makes two mourners, +anyhow. + +"Well, the old lady give me the once over and seen Mr. Daniels's +uniform and the rooster on my sleeve, and I guess decides that I'm +eligible to the club. Anyway, she sorta nodded at me and pretty soon +begun to snuffle and look for her handkerchief. It wasn't no use, +though, for she didn't have any. + +"Meanwhile we was crossin' one of them bridges--just crawlin' along +like one of the motors had quit and the other was hittin' only on +three. If we'd been in the air we'd stalled sure and gone into a +tail-spin. All the time I was thinkin' how to say 'Cheer up' to the +old dame in French, but all I could think of at first was 'Bravo' +and '_Vous-ate tray jolee_!' Still it was sorta stupid walkin' along +and no conversation, so I guess I musta had an inspiration or +something, and I sez, pointing ahead at the coffin, '_Mort avec mon +Dieu_.' The old lady lost her step at that, because I suppose she +was surprised by a Yank speakin' good French, most of 'em relyin', +like Matthews here, on the sign language, although I'll say that +Matthews gets plenty far enough with that. Why, they're four girls +and a widow at home that if they knew how far Matthews was gettin' +with the sign language they'd be gray-headed to-day.... Aw, well, +Matthews, quit spoilin' this drawin'. Do you wanta get me and +Admiral Sims into trouble with the department?" + +"Go ahead with your funeral, Steve," said Lieutenant Erskine--"unless +your power of invention has failed you." + +Dempsey looked up with a hurt and innocent expression on his face. + +"Oh, lootenant," he exclaimed, "what I'm tellin' is gospel. It's as +true--it's as true as the communikays." + +"All right," said Erskine, "issue another, then." + +"Well," Steve continued, "where was I? Oh yes, we was on the bridge +and I'd just told the old lady that the dead soldier was in heaven +by now." + +"Soldier?" repeated Erskine. "What made you believe he was a soldier?" + +"Why, ain't every frawg a soldier now, sir." + +"How did you know, even, that it was a male frog?" + +"I'm comin' to that, sir," replied Steve. "That comes next. You see, +once the old lady knew I could _parlez-vous_ with the best of 'em, +she continued the conversation and sez, '_Mon pover fees_.' Get that? +'_Mon pover fees_.' Well, that means, translated, 'My poor son.'" + +At this revelation of startling linguistic ability Steve paused to +receive felicitations. When they were forthcoming he proceeded. + +"So, of course, I know then that the corpse is a dead soldier, and I +decides to see him through until he's made a safe landing somewhere. +Well, just as we was acrost the bridge, the two ex-horses doin' fine +on the down grade, I seen a marine standin' on the corner tellin' a +buncha girls all about Château-Teery. Well, I thought that maybe it +'ud be a good thing if he joined the funeral, because, anyway, the +girls could hear all about Chateau-Teery the next marine they saw. +So I yell out at him: 'Hey, you! Come and join the navy and see the +world!' + +"Well, he looks around, and, although I guess he didn't much wanta +leave them girls, he decides that he'll come and see what the big +game is. So he salutes the corpse and steps in beside me and whispers, +'Say, chief, what's the idea?' + +"'Whadd 'ya think, you poor cheese?' I sez. 'D'ya think it's a +weddin'? Get in step. We're goin' to bury a French _poiloo_.' + +"'Is that so?' he sez." + +"'Yes, that's so,' I sez. 'Get over acrost on the other side of the +widowed mother and say somethin' cheerful to her in French--if you +know any.'" + +"'If I know any!' sez he. 'Wasn't I at Château-Teery?'" + +"'Well,' I sez, 'don't tell her about that. Tell her somethin' she +ain't heard already.'" + +"'You go to blazes!' he sez, and crosses over like I told him. And +pretty soon I seen him gettin' all red and I knew he was goin' to +shoot some French at the old lady, and, sure enough, out he come with, +'_Madame je swee enchantay_.'" + +"Well, sir, I like to 've died tryin' to keep from laughin' at that, +because what it means translated is, 'Madam, I'm deelighted.' Trust +them marines to say the right thing at the wrong time--I'll say they +do." + +"By the time I get under control we're opposite the French Aviation +Headquarters--you know, the Service Technique on the Bullyvard +Saint-Germain. Well, there was a lot of doughboys hangin' around +there wastin' time, and I see one on a motor-cycle with a sergeant +sittin' in the side-car. So I step out of the ranks and sez to the +sergeant, 'What ya doin'?' And he sez, 'Waitin'--but there's nobody +home at all, at all.' So I sez: 'Well, you and your side-car is +commandeered for this funeral. We're buryin' a frawg and we need +some more mourners. The old lady is his widowed mother, and the +corpse, he's her only son and her a widow.' He sez: 'Shure, Oi'll +come, an' Oi'll be afther gettin' some o' thim other divvles to jine. +Me name is Roilly.' 'Right-o, old dear,' I sez. 'I didn't think it +was Moses and Straus.'" + +"Well, sir, Reilly was a good scout, and inside of a minute he had +six doughboys lined up behind the hearse and him bringin' up the +rear in the side-car. The side-car kept backfirin', and it sounded +like we was firin' salutes to the dead all the way to the park. + +"I wanta tell ya, that old lady was tickled. Why, there we was +already ten strong, with more to come, because I drafted three gobs +at the Bullyvard Raspail. They wasn't quite sober, but I kep' my eye +on 'em and they behaved fine. I sez to them: 'You drunken bums, you! +You join this funeral or I'll see you're put in the brig to-night.' +But to make sure they'd not disgrace Mr. Daniels's uniform I put 'em +right behind the widow and the marine and me. + +"Well, it appears that one of 'em talks French good--real good, I +mean, sir--like a frawg waiter or a coacher." + +"Or a what?" interjected Erskine. + +"Or a coacher," repeated Steve, with dignity. "The fact is, he +talked it so good that--well, never mind that yet. He's a smart +fellow, though, Mr. Erskine, by the name of Rathbone. Well, never +mind--only he's a good fellow and 'ud be pretty useful here, with +his French and everything. + +"Well, anyway, I begun to wonder after a while where that fellow +driving the hearse was takin' us to. We'd gone out the old Bullyvard +Raspail a deuce of a way, and Napoleon One showed no signs of +stoppin' them horses, and I didn't see no cemetery. + +"I sez to the marine, 'I guess we're not goin' to stop till we get +to Château-Teery,' and he sez, 'You go to hell and stop _there_.' So +I sez, 'I hope the poor old lady don't understand your English.' + +"The old dame, I could see, was beginnin' to get weak in the knees +and was walkin' about as unsteady as the three gobs behind us. So me +and the marine each grabbed an arm and she sez, '_Mercy_,' and tried +to start a smile. I guess it was pretty hard goin', because the +smile didn't get far. + +"Well, anyway, we kep' right on and passed that stone lion out there +and went right through the gates, the boys all marchin' strong and +the motor-bike makin' one hell of a noise aft. When we get through +the gates I fall back and I sez to the gob, 'Rathbone,' I sez, 'ask +the lady where we're headed and if she trusts the driver.' So +Rathbone moves up and has quite a _parlez-vous_ with her. + +"'Well,' I sez, 'what's she say?' + +"'She sez,' sez Rathbone, 'that we're goin' to bury him in a field +out here, and that there ain't no priest will bury him and there +ain't no cemetery she can bury him in.' + +"'That's funny,' I sez--'too poor, I guess. Well, anyway, it's a +shame--I'll say it is--it's a shame.' + +"'Yes,' sez Rathbone, slowly, as if he was thinkin'--'yes, it's a +damn shame!'" + +"And the other two gobs who wasn't as sober as Rathbone, they sez, +too, 'Yes, it's a damn shame.'" + +"'That makes the navy unanimous,' I sez, and then I begin to work my +bean. I was still workin' it and it was respondin' about as well as +one of them black Kabyles that are pretendin' to help build our +station at Lacanau--I was still workin' it, when the old hearse +swings to the right through a gate in a stone wall and brings up +short in a field. There was grass in the field and daisies and things, +and a lotta tin crosses stuck on mounds that I guessed was graves. +It woulda been a pretty cheerful old field, I guess, if they'd let +it alone, but them tin crosses looked pretty sick and the paint was +peelin' off the tin flowers that people had stuck on the graves, and +I guess the head gardener wasn't much of a hand at weedin'." + +"Well, anyway, we all line up in a sorta circle and every one looks +pretty downhearted and the three gobs gets perfectly sober, which +was a relief. Then Napoleon One climbs down from his box and says +somethin' in French to the old widow and points to two birds who're +diggin' a hole half-way acrost the field. Rathbone sez that he sez +that that is the grave and that the two birds is the grave-diggers +and pall-bearers combined." + +"'They are, are they?' I sez. 'This is a military funeral, ain't it? +A military funeral conducted by the navy with the army for +pall-bearers. And I call on Sergeant Reilly to back me up.' + +"'Shure,' sez Reilly, 'but who'll be providin' the priest?' + +"Well, when he sez that my old bean give a sort of throb, and I sez: +'Don't bother your nut about the priest. He'll be forthcomin' when +and if needed.' + +"So, while Reilly was explainin' to his six doughboys and Rathbone +was bringin' Napoleon One up to date, me and the widow and the +marine goes over to superintend the two birds diggin' the grave. +They was two funny-lookin' old birds, too--I'll say they was. They +was about a hundred years old apiece and had long white whiskers +like St. Peter, and, say, they talked a whole lot more than they dug. +I guess they musta been workin' on that grave for a coupla weeks--you +know, ten minutes _parlez-vous_ and then one shovela dirt. Me and +the marine had to grab their shovels and finish the job or there +wouldn't 'a' been no funeral _that_ day. + +"When we get back the six doughboys is all ready to give first aid +to the coffin, and Rathbone is talkin' to Napoleon One like they was +brothers. So I go up to them and I sez to Rathbone: + +"'Looka here, Rathbone. I'm the priest at this party. See?' + +"'What's that?' sez Rathbone. 'Come again.' + +"'I say I'm the priest. This dead _poiloo_ ain't gotta priest nor +nothin' and there's his poor mother and her a widow. So I'm that +missin' priest, and I'm not too proud to perform free and gratis. +Get that?' + +"'Hold on, chief,' sez Rathbone. 'You ain't got nothin' to wear.' + +"'Nothin' to wear!' I sez. 'You poor cheese, I'm a navy chaplain.' + +"'You look more like a Charlie Chaplin,' sez Rathbone. + +"I guess that bird wasn't sober yet, after all, because he thought +he was funny. + +"'Can the comedy,' I sez, 'and you go tell the widow that Father +Dempsey, the head chaplain of the U.S. Navy, has consented to +perform this afternoon. Now, get it straight, and for Gawd's sake +don't go and laugh or I'll put you in the brig.' + +"Well, Rathbone looks at me like I was goin' to my death. + +"'Good-by, chief,' he sez. 'Wait till the admiral hears of this.' + +"'Haw,' I sez--'if he does I'll get decorated.' + +"Well, I give Reilly the high sign and out comes the coffin on the +doughboys' shoulders. Napoleon One leads the way, and Rathbone and +the widow step in after the coffin, and I see that they is talkin' +together _beaucoup_ earnestly. + +"When we get to the grave the doughboys set down the coffin beside +it and all forms in a circle with me and the widow facin' each other. +And then there's an anxious silence. I'll say right here that I was +the most anxious, and I was sweatin' more than I guess any chaplain +oughta sweat. But, by luck, I happen to think that I have my old +logarithm-book in my pocket--you know, the one that's bound in black +patent-leather. Looks sorta as if it might be a prayer-book or +somethin' like that. Anyway, the widow, bein' a frawg widow, I +figgered how she'd think maybe it was a Yank Bible issued special to +the A.E.F. and condensed like malted milk or somethin'. + +"So I draw the old logarithm-book outa my coat and ease up gently to +the edge of the grave. The doughboys and the gobs, all except +Rathbone, who is wise, acourse, begin to nudge each other and snicker. +I oughta warned 'em what was comin', but I didn't have no time, it +come to me so quick. So I pretended to read from the book, and sez, +in a low voice and very solemn, like I was openin' the funeral, 'If +any you birds here starts laughin' I'll see him after the show and +I'll knock the daylight outa him.' + +"'Amen,' sez Rathbone, very piously. + +"'We've come here to-day,' I sez, always like I was readin' from the +book--'we've come here to-day to plant a frawg soldier who's the +only son of his mother and her a widow. And she's so broke that +there ain't no regular priest or no regular cemetery that'll offer +their services. So I'm the priest, and it's goin' to make a lotta +difference to that poor widow's feelin's when she thinks her son's +got a swell U. S. Navy priest administering the rites. Now, get that +straight and don't start whinnyin' like a buncha horses and gum the +game.' + +"Well, I stop there for breath, and Rathbone, who's right on the job, +comes across with another 'Amen,' and Reilly, who's a good Catholic, +sez, _'Pax vobiscum_.' + +"So that's all right, and I give her the gun and go ahead. + +"'This here _poiloo_,' I sez, 'I don't know much about him, but he +was a regular fellow and a good old bird and treated his mother +swell and everything, and I guess if we was wise to everything he'd +done we'd be proud to be here and we'd 'a' brung a lotta flowers and +things. He most likely was at the battle of the Marne and the Soam +and Verdun, and maybe he was at Château-Teery. Anyway, he was a +grand fighter, and done his bit all the time and kep' the Huns from +passin'." + +'And I wanta tell you that we gotta hand it to these French, because +they may be little guys, but they carry the longest bayonets I ever +see in any man's army.' + +"'Amen,' sez all the doughboys and the gobs, except one that yells, +'Alleluia!' He musta been from the South or somewheres. + +"'And so,' I sez, 'we're proud to give this frawg a good send-off, +and even if we ain't got a real chaplain and the guns to fire a +salute with, we're doin' the poor widow a lotta good, and that's +somethin'--I'll say it is.' + +"'Amen,' sez the audience. + +"Then I sez, 'Glory be,' and cross myself and signal the doughboys +to lower away on the coffin, and I flung a handfula dirt in on top +like I see 'em do always. + +"Well, the poor old widow near collapsed and Rathbone and the marine +had to hold hard to keep her on her pins. But Reilly created a +diversion by startin' up the motor-bike, and it back-fired like a +buncha rookies tryin' to fire a volley. If we'd hadda bugle we +coulda sounded taps, and the musical accompaniment woulda been +complete. + +"Napoleon One come up and shake hands with me like I'd won the +Medeye Militaire, and, before I could side-step, the widow had her +arms round my neck and was kissin' me on both cheeks. Napoleon sez +it was a '_Beau geste_' which I thought meant a fine joke, and I was +afraid the bird was wise, but Rathbone sez no, that it meant a swell +action; and the widow sez, over and over again, '_Ces braves +Americains--ces braves Americains_!' The cordial entente was pretty +cordial on the whole! I'll say it was." + +At this point Steve Dempsey paused and glanced about as who should +say, "Are there any comments or questions?" For a while there was +none forthcoming, but finally Lieutenant Erskine ventured a remark. + +"This occurred last Sunday?" he inquired, mildly. + +"Yes, sir," said Steve--"last Sunday." + +"Um," said Erskine, and without further remarks left the office. + +On his return he bore a copy of _Le Matin_ in his hand. He sat down +and leisurely and silently unfolded the sheet. Steve had resumed his +work, but I noticed that he kept an eye on Erskine. + +"I wonder," said Erskine, smoothing out the newspaper on his knees-- +"I wonder, Steve, if you happened to see this very interesting +article." + +"No, sir," said Steve. "I don't read French like I speak it." + +"Well," said Erskine, "I'll translate. This paper is dated last +Monday, and on page two occurs the following announcement:" + + + "_American soldiers, sailors, and marines attend funeral of + notorious apache. Jean the Rat, convicted murderer and suicide + and denied the offices of the Catholic Church, is buried by + stalwart Americans. + Department of Foreign Affairs reluctant to file protest at + present time. + Strange demonstration believed to be unofficial and without U.S. + government sanction, although U. S. Navy chaplain delivers + eloquent peroration in English_." + + +Erskine put aside the paper in silence, and we all turned to watch +Steve. He was very red, even to his ears. + +"Gawd!" he spluttered. "Does it really say that, sir? Honest?" + +Erskine nodded. "Yes," he said. "We'll be lucky if we avoid +international complications." + +"An apache murderer," Steve groaned--"and me thinkin' it was a frawg +hero. Will I get a court martial for it, sir?" + +"I doubt it," said Erskine, "but I don't think you'll get the +Congressional Medal or the Legion of Honour, either. Maybe, though, +the President, in recognition of your services toward cementing the +entente, will appoint you the next ambassador to France." + +"Well, anyway," said Steve, still violently red about the face and +ears--"well, anyway, I don't care. Even if it weren't a first-class +corpse, it was a first-class funeral." + + + + +FOOTFALLS + + +BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE + +From _The Pictorial Review_ + +This is not an easy story; not a road for tender or for casual feet. +Better the meadows. Let me warn you, it is as hard as that old man's +soul and as sunless as his eyes. It has its inception in catastrophe, +and its end in an act of almost incredible violence; between them it +tells barely how one long blind can become also deaf and dumb. + +He lived in one of those old Puritan sea towns where the strain has +come down austere and moribund, so that his act would not be quite +unbelievable. Except that the town is no longer Puritan and Yankee. +It has been betrayed; it has become an outpost of the Portuguese +islands. + +This man, this blind cobbler himself, was a Portuguese from St. +Michael, in the Western Islands, and his name was Boaz Negro. + +He was happy. An unquenchable exuberance lived in him. When he arose +in the morning he made vast, as it were uncontrollable, gestures +with his stout arms. He came into his shop singing. His voice, +strong and deep as the chest from which it emanated, rolled out +through the doorway and along the street, and the fishermen, done +with their morning work and lounging and smoking along the wharfs, +said, "Boaz is to work already." Then they came up to sit in the shop. + +In that town a cobbler's shop is a club. One sees the interior +always dimly thronged. They sit on the benches watching the artizan +at his work for hours, and they talk about everything in the world. +A cobbler is known by the company he keeps. + +Boaz Negro kept young company. He would have nothing to do with the +old. On his own head the gray hairs set thickly. + +He had a grown son. But the benches in his shop were for the lusty +and valiant young, men who could spend the night drinking, and then +at three o'clock in the morning turn out in the rain and dark to +pull at the weirs, sing songs, buffet one another among the slippery +fish in the boat's bottom, and make loud jokes about the fundamental +things, love and birth and death. Harkening to their boasts and +strong prophecies his breast heaved and his heart beat faster. He +was a large, full-blooded fellow, fashioned for exploits; the flame +in his darkness burned higher even to hear of them. + +It is scarcely conceivable how Boaz Negro could have come through +this much of his life still possessed of that unquenchable and +priceless exuberance; how he would sing in the dawn; how, simply +listening to the recital of deeds in gale or brawl, he could easily +forget himself a blind man, tied to a shop and a last; easily make +of himself a lusty young fellow breasting the sunlit and adventurous +tide of life. + +He had had a wife, whom he had loved. Fate, which had scourged him +with the initial scourge of blindness, had seen fit to take his +Angelina away. He had had four sons. Three, one after another, had +been removed, leaving only Manuel, the youngest. Recovering slowly, +with agony, from each of these recurrent blows, his unquenchable +exuberance had lived. And there was another thing quite as +extraordinary. He had never done anything but work, and that sort of +thing may kill the flame where an abrupt catastrophe fails. Work in +the dark. Work, work, work! And accompanied by privation; an almost +miserly scale of personal economy. Yes, indeed, he had "skinned his +fingers," especially in the earlier years. When it tells most. + +How he had worked! Not alone in the daytime, but also sometimes, +when orders were heavy, far into the night. It was strange for one, +passing along that deserted street at midnight, to hear issuing from +the black shop of Boaz Negro the rhythmical tap-tap-tap of hammer on +wooden peg. + +Nor was that sound all: no man in town could get far past that shop +in his nocturnal wandering unobserved. No more than a dozen footfalls, +and from the darkness Boaz's voice rolled forth, fraternal, +stentorian, "Good night, Antone!" "Good night to you, Caleb Snow!" + +To Boaz Negro it was still broad day. + +Now, because of this, he was what might be called a substantial man. +He owned his place, his shop, opening on the sidewalk, and behind it +the dwelling-house with trellised galleries upstairs and down. + +And there was always something for his son, a "piece for the pocket," +a dollar-, five-, even a ten-dollar bill if he had "got to have it." +Manuel was "a good boy." Boaz not only said this, he felt that he +was assured of it in his understanding, to the infinite peace of his +heart. + +It was curious that he should be ignorant only of the one nearest to +him. Not because he was physically blind. Be certain he knew more of +other men and of other men's sons than they or their neighbours did. +More, that is to say, of their hearts, their understandings, their +idiosyncrasies, and their ultimate weight in the balance-pan of +eternity. + +His simple explanation of Manuel was that Manuel "wasn't too stout." +To others he said this, and to himself. Manuel was not indeed too +robust. How should he be vigorous when he never did anything to make +him so? He never worked. Why should he work, when existence was +provided for, and when there was always that "piece for the pocket"? +Even a ten-dollar bill on a Saturday night! No, Manuel "wasn't too +stout." + +In the shop they let it go at that. The missteps and frailties of +every one else in the world were canvassed there with the most +shameless publicity. But Boaz Negro was a blind man, and in a sense +their host. Those reckless, strong young fellows respected and loved +him. It was allowed to stand at that. Manuel was "a good boy." Which +did not prevent them, by the way, from joining later in the general +condemnation of that father's laxity--"the ruination of the boy!" + +"He should have put him to work, that's what." + +"He should have said to Manuel, 'Look here, if you want a dollar, go +earn it first.'" + +As a matter of fact, only one man ever gave Boaz the advice direct. +That was Campbell Wood. And Wood never sat in that shop. + +In every small town there is one young man who is spoken of as +"rising." As often as not he is not a native, but "from away." + +In this town Campbell Wood was that man. He had come from another +part of the state to take a place in the bank. He lived in the upper +story of Boaz Negro's house, the ground floor now doing for Boaz and +the meagre remnant of his family. The old woman who came in to tidy +up for the cobbler looked after Wood's rooms as well. + +Dealing with Wood, one had first of all the sense of his +incorruptibility. A little ruthless perhaps, as if one could imagine +him, in defence of his integrity, cutting off his friend, cutting +off his own hand, cutting off the very stream flowing out from the +wellsprings of human kindness. An exaggeration, perhaps. + +He was by long odds the most eligible young man in town; good +looking in a spare, ruddy, sandy-haired Scottish fashion; important, +incorruptible, "rising." But he took good care of his heart. +Precisely that; like a sharp-eyed duenna to his own heart. One felt +that here was the man, if ever was the man, who held his destiny in +his own hand. Failing, of course, some quite gratuitous and +unforeseeable catastrophe. + +Not that he was not human, or even incapable of laughter or passion. +He was, in a way, immensely accessible. He never clapped one on the +shoulder; on the other hand, he never failed to speak. Not even to +Boaz. + +Returning from the bank in the afternoon, he had always a word for +the cobbler. Passing out again to supper at his boarding-place, he +had another, about the weather, the prospects of rain. And if Boaz +were at work in the dark when he returned from an evening at the +Board of Trade, there was a "Good night, Mr. Negro!" + +On Boaz's part, his attitude toward his lodger was curious and +paradoxical. He did not pretend to anything less than reverence for +the young man's position; precisely on account of that position he +was conscious toward Wood of a vague distrust. This was because he +was an uneducated fellow. + +To the uneducated the idea of large finance is as uncomfortable as +the idea of the law. It must be said for Boaz that, responsive to +Wood's unfailing civility, he fought against this sensation of dim +and somehow shameful distrust. + +Nevertheless his whole parental soul was in arms that evening, when, +returning from the bank and finding the shop empty of loungers, Wood +paused a moment to propose the bit of advice already referred to. + +"Haven't you ever thought of having Manuel learn the trade?" + +A suspicion, a kind of premonition, lighted the fires of defence. + +"Shoemaking," said Boaz, "is good enough for a blind man." + +"Oh, I don't know. At least it's better than doing nothing at all." + +Boaz's hammer was still. He sat silent, monumental. Outwardly. For +once his unfailing response had failed him, "Manuel ain't too stout, +you know." Perhaps it had become suddenly inadequate. + +He hated Wood; he despised Wood; more than ever before, a +hundredfold more, quite abruptly, he distrusted Wood. + +How could a man say such things as Wood had said? And where Manuel +himself might hear! + +Where Manuel _had_ heard! Boaz's other emotions--hatred and contempt +and distrust--were overshadowed. Sitting in darkness, no sound had +come to his ears, no footfall, no infinitesimal creaking of a +floor-plank. Yet by some sixth uncanny sense of the blind he was +aware that Manuel was standing in the dusk of the entry joining the +shop to the house. + +Boaz made a Herculean effort. The voice came out of his throat, harsh, +bitter, and loud enough to have carried ten times the distance to +his son's ears. + +"Manuel is a good boy!" + +"Yes--h'm--yes--I suppose so." + +Wood shifted his weight. He seemed uncomfortable. + +"Well. I'll be running along, I----ugh! Heavens!" + +Something was happening. Boaz heard exclamations, breathings, the +rustle of sleeve-cloth in large, frantic, and futile graspings--all +without understanding. Immediately there was an impact on the floor, +and with it the unmistakable clink of metal. Boaz even heard that +the metal was minted, and that the coins were gold. He understood. A +coin-sack, gripped not quite carefully enough for a moment under the +other's overcoat, had shifted, slipped, escaped, and fallen. + +And Manuel had heard! + +It was a dreadful moment for Boaz, dreadful in its native sense, as +full of dread. Why? It was a moment of horrid revelation, ruthless +clarification. His son, his link with the departed Angelina, that +"good boy"--Manuel, standing in the shadow of the entry, visible +alone to the blind, had heard the clink of falling gold, and-- +_and Boaz wished that he had not_! + +There, amazing, disconcerting, destroying, stood the sudden fact. + +Sitting as impassive and monumental as ever, his strong, bleached +hands at rest on his work, round drops of sweat came out on Boaz's +forehead. He scarcely took the sense of what Wood was saying. Only +fragments. + +"Government money, understand--for the breakwater +workings--huge--too many people know here, everywhere--don't trust +the safe--tin safe--'Noah's Ark'--give you my word--Heavens, no!" + +It boiled down to this--the money, more money than was good for that +antiquated "Noah's Ark" at the bank--and whose contemplated sojourn +there overnight was public to too many minds--in short, Wood was not +only incorruptible, he was canny. To what one of those minds, now, +would it occur that he should take away that money bodily, under +casual cover of his coat, to his own lodgings behind the +cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro? For this one, this important night! + +He was sorry the coin-sack had slipped, because he did not like to +have the responsibility of secret sharer cast upon any one, even +upon Boaz, even by accident. On the other hand, how tremendously +fortunate that it had been Boaz and not another. So far as that went, +Wood had no more anxiety now than before. One incorruptible knows +another. + +"I'd trust you, Mr. Negro" (that was one of the fragments which came +and stuck in the cobbler's brain), "as far as I would myself. As +long as it's only you. I'm just going up here and throw it under the +bed. Oh, yes, certainly." + +Boaz ate no supper. For the first time in his life food was dry in +his gullet. Even under those other successive crushing blows of Fate +the full and generous habit of his functionings had carried on +unabated; he had always eaten what was set before him. To-night, +over his untouched plate, he watched Manuel with his sightless eyes, +keeping track of his every mouthful, word, intonation, breath. What +profit he expected to extract from this catlike surveillance it is +impossible to say. + +When they arose from the supper-table Boaz made another Herculean +effort. "Manuel, you're a good boy!" + +The formula had a quality of appeal, of despair, and of command. + +"Manuel, you should be short of money, maybe. Look, what's this? A +tenner? Well, there's a piece for the pocket; go and enjoy yourself." + +He would have been frightened had Manuel, upsetting tradition, +declined the offering. With the morbid contrariness of the human +imagination, the boy's avid grasping gave him no comfort. + +He went out into the shop, where it was already dark, drew to him +his last, his tools, mallets, cutters, pegs, leather. And having +prepared to work, he remained idle. He found himself listening. + +It has been observed that the large phenomena of sunlight and +darkness were nothing to Boaz Negro. A busy night was broad day. Yet +there was a difference; he knew it with the blind man's eyes, the +ears. + +Day was a vast confusion, or rather a wide fabric, of sounds; great +and little sounds all woven together, voices, footfalls, wheels, +far-off whistles and foghorns, flies buzzing in the sun. Night was +another thing. Still there were voices and footfalls, but rarer, +emerging from the large, pure body of silence as definite, surprising, +and yet familiar entities. + +To-night there was an easterly wind, coming off the water and +carrying the sound of waves. So far as other fugitive sounds were +concerned it was the same as silence. The wind made little +difference to the ears. It nullified, from one direction at least, +the other two visual processes of the blind, the sense of touch and +the sense of smell. It blew away from the shop, toward the +living-house. + +As has been said, Boaz found himself listening, scrutinizing with an +extraordinary attention, this immense background of sound. He heard +footfalls. The story of that night was written, for him, in footfalls. + +He heard them moving about the house, the lower floor, prowling here, +there, halting for long spaces, advancing, retreating softly on the +planks. About this aimless, interminable perambulation there was +something to twist the nerves, something led and at the same time +driven like a succession of frail and indecisive charges. + +Boaz lifted himself from his chair. All his impulse called him to +make a stir, join battle, cast in the breach the re-enforcement of +his presence, authority, good will. He sank back again; his hands +fell down. The curious impotence of the spectator held him. + +He heard footfalls, too, on the upper floor, a little fainter, borne +to the inner rather than the outer ear, along the solid causeway of +partitions and floor, the legs of his chair, the bony framework of +his body. Very faint indeed. Sinking back easily into the background +of the wind. They, too, came and went, this room, that, to the +passage, the stair-head, and away. About them too there was the same +quality of being led and at the same time of being driven. + +Time went by. In his darkness it seemed to Boaz that hours must have +passed. He heard voices. Together with the footfalls, that abrupt, +brief, and (in view of Wood's position) astounding interchange of +sentences made up his history of the night. Wood must have opened the +door at the head of the stair; by the sound of his voice he would be +standing there, peering below perhaps; perhaps listening. + +"What's wrong down there?" he called. "Why don't you go to bed?" + +After a moment, came Manual's voice, "Ain't sleepy." + +"Neither am I. Look here, do you like to play cards?" + +"What kind? Euchre! I like euchre all right. Or pitch." + +"Well, what would you say to coming up and having a game of euchre +then, Manuel? If you can't sleep?" + +"That'd be all right." + +The lower footfalls ascended to join the footfalls on the upper floor. +There was the sound of a door closing. + +Boaz sat still. In the gloom he might have been taken for a piece of +furniture, of machinery, an extraordinary lay figure, perhaps, for +the trying on of the boots he made. He seemed scarcely to breathe, +only the sweat starting from his brow giving him an aspect of life. + +He ought to have run, and leaped up that inner stair and pounded +with his fists on that door. He seemed unable to move. At rare +intervals feet passed on the sidewalk outside, just at his elbow, so +to say, and yet somehow, to-night, immeasurably far away. Beyond the +orbit of the moon. He heard Rugg, the policeman, noting the silence +of the shop, muttering, "Boaz is to bed to-night," as he passed. + +The wind increased. It poured against the shop with its deep, +continuous sound of a river. Submerged in its body, Boaz caught the +note of the town bell striking midnight. + +Once more, after a long time, he heard footfalls. He heard them +coming around the corner of the shop from the house, footfalls half +swallowed by the wind, passing discreetly, without haste, retreating, +merging step by step with the huge, incessant background of the wind. + +Boaz's muscles tightened all over him. He had the impulse to start up, +to fling open the door, shout into the night, "What are you doing? +Stop there! Say! What are you doing and where are you going?" + +And as before, the curious impotence of the spectator held him +motionless. He had not stirred in his chair. And those footfalls, +upon which hinged, as it were, that momentous decade of his life, +were gone. + +There was nothing to listen for now. Yet he continued to listen. +Once or twice, half arousing himself, he drew toward him his +unfinished work. And then relapsed into immobility. + +As has been said, the wind, making little difference to the ears, +made all the difference in the world with the sense of feeling and +the sense of smell. From the one important direction of the house. +That is how it could come about that Boaz Negro could sit, waiting +and listening to nothing in the shop and remain ignorant of disaster +until the alarm had gone away and come back again, pounding, shouting, +clanging. + +"_Fire_!" he heard them bawling in the street. "_Fire! Fire_!" + +Only slowly did he understand that the fire was in his own house. + +There is nothing stiller in the world than the skeleton of a house +in the dawn after a fire. It is as if everything living, positive, +violent, had been completely drained in the one flaming act of +violence, leaving nothing but negation till the end of time. It is +worse than a tomb. A monstrous stillness! Even the footfalls of the +searchers can not disturb it, for they are separate and superficial. +In its presence they are almost frivolous. + +Half an hour after dawn the searchers found the body, if what was +left from that consuming ordeal might be called a body. The +discovery came as a shock. It seemed incredible that the occupant of +that house, no cripple or invalid but an able man in the prime of +youth, should not have awakened and made good his escape. It was the +upper floor which had caught; the stairs had stood to the last. It +was beyond calculation. Even if he had been asleep! + +And he had not been asleep. This second and infinitely more +appalling discovery began to be known. Slowly. By a hint, a breath +of rumour here; there an allusion, half taken back. The man, whose +incinerated body still lay curled in its bed of cinders, had been +dressed at the moment of disaster; even to the watch, the +cuff-buttons, the studs, the very scarf-pin. Fully clothed to the +last detail, precisely as those who had dealings at the bank might +have seen Campbell Wood any week-day morning for the past eight +months. A man does not sleep with his clothes on. The skull of the +man had been broken, as if with a blunt instrument of iron. On the +charred lacework of the floor lay the leg of an old andiron with +which Boaz Negro and his Angelina had set up housekeeping in that +new house. + +It needed only Mr. Asa Whitelaw, coming up the street from that +gaping "Noah's Ark" at the bank, to round out the scandalous circle +of circumstance. + +"Where is Manuel?" + +Boaz Negro still sat in his shop, impassive, monumental, his thick, +hairy arms resting on the arms of his chair. The tools and materials +of his work remained scattered about him, as his irresolute +gathering of the night before had left them. Into his eyes no change +could come. He had lost his house, the visible monument of all those +years of "skinning his fingers." It would seem that he had lost his +son. And he had lost something incalculably precious--that hitherto +unquenchable exuberance of the man. + +"Where is Manuel?" + +When he spoke his voice was unaccented and stale, like the voice of +a man already dead. + +"Yes, where is Manuel?" + +He had answered them with their own question. + +"When did you last see him?" + +Neither he nor they seemed to take note of that profound irony. + +"At supper." + +"Tell us, Boaz; you knew about this money?" + +The cobbler nodded his head. + +"And did Manuel?" + +He might have taken sanctuary in a legal doubt. How did he know what +Manuel knew? Precisely! As before, he nodded his head. + +"After supper, Boaz, you were in the shop? But you heard something?" + +He went on to tell them what he had heard: the footfalls, below and +above, the extraordinary conversation which had broken for a moment +the silence of the inner hall. The account was bare, the phrases +monosyllabic. He reported only what had been registered on the +sensitive tympanums of his ears, to the last whisper of footfalls +stealing past the dark wall of the shop. Of all the formless tangle +of thoughts, suspicions, interpretations, and the special and +personal knowledge given to the blind which moved in his brain, he +said nothing. + +He shut his lips there. He felt himself on the defensive. Just as he +distrusted the higher ramifications of finance (his house had gone +down uninsured), so before the rites and processes of that +inscrutable creature, the Law, he felt himself menaced by the +invisible and the unknown, helpless, oppressed; in an abject sense, +skeptical. + +"Keep clear of the Law!" they had told him in his youth. The monster +his imagination had summoned up then still stood beside him in his +age. + +Having exhausted his monosyllabic and superficial evidence, they +could move him no farther. He became deaf and dumb. He sat before +them, an image cast in some immensely heavy stuff, inanimate. His +lack of visible emotion impressed them. Remembering his exuberance, +it was only the stranger to see him unmoving and unmoved. Only once +did they catch sight of something beyond. As they were preparing to +leave he opened his mouth. What he said was like a swan-song to the +years of his exuberant happiness. Even now there was no colour of +expression in his words, which sounded mechanical. + +"Now I have lost everything. My house. My last son. Even my honour. +You would not think I would like to live. But I go to live. I go to +work. That _cachorra_, one day he shall come back again, in the dark +night, to have a look. I shall go to show you all. That _cachorra_!" + +(And from that time on, it was noted, he never referred to the +fugitive by any other name than _cachorra_, which is a kind of dog. +"That _cachorra_!" As if he had forfeited the relationship not only +of the family, but of the very genus, the very race! "That _cachorra_!") + +He pronounced this resolution without passion. When they assured him +that the culprit would come back again indeed, much sooner than he +expected, "with a rope around his neck," he shook his head slowly. + +"No, you shall not catch that _cachorra_ now. But one day--" + +There was something about its very colourlessness which made it +sound oracular. It was at least prophetic. They searched, laid their +traps, proceeded with all their placards, descriptions, rewards, +clues, trails. But on Manuel Negro they never laid their hands. + +Months passed and became years. Boaz Negro did not rebuild his house. +He might have done so, out of his earnings, for upon himself he +spent scarcely anything, reverting to his old habit of an almost +miserly economy. Yet perhaps it would have been harder after all. +For his earnings were less and less. In that town a cobbler who sits +in an empty shop is apt to want for trade. Folk take their boots to +mend where they take their bodies to rest and their minds to be +edified. + +No longer did the walls of Boaz's shop resound to the boastful +recollections of young men. Boaz had changed. He had become not only +different, but opposite. A metaphor will do best. The spirit of Boaz +Negro had been a meadowed hillside giving upon the open sea, the sun, +the warm, wild winds from beyond the blue horizon. And covered with +flowers, always hungry and thirsty for the sun and the fabulous wind +and bright showers of rain. It had become an entrenched camp, lying +silent, sullen, verdureless, under a gray sky. He stood solitary +against the world. His approaches were closed. He was blind, and he +was also deaf and dumb. + +Against that what can young fellows do who wish for nothing but to +rest themselves and talk about their friends and enemies? They had +come and they had tried. They had raised their voices even higher +than before. Their boasts had grown louder, more presumptuous, more +preposterous, until, before the cold separation of that unmoving and +as if contemptuous presence in the cobbler's chair, they burst of +their own air, like toy balloons. And they went and left Boaz alone. + +There was another thing which served, if not to keep them away, at +least not to entice them back. That was the aspect of the place. It +was not cheerful. It invited no one. In its way that fire-bitten +ruin grew to be almost as great a scandal as the act itself had been. +It was plainly an eyesore. A valuable property, on the town's main +thoroughfare--and an eyesore! The neighbouring owners protested. + +Their protestations might as well have gone against a stone wall. +That man was deaf and dumb. He had become, in a way, a kind of +vegetable, for the quality of a vegetable is that, while it is +endowed with life, it remains fixed in one spot. For years Boaz was +scarcely seen to move foot out of that shop that was left him, a +small square, blistered promontory on the shores of ruin. + +He must indeed have carried out some rudimentary sort of domestic +programme under the débris at the rear (he certainly did not sleep +or eat in the shop). One or two lower rooms were left fairly intact. +The outward aspect of the place was formless; it grew to be no more +than a mound in time; the charred timbers, one or two still standing, +lean and naked against the sky, lost their blackness and faded to a +silvery gray. It would have seemed strange, had they not grown +accustomed to the thought, to imagine that blind man, like a mole, +or some slow slug, turning himself mysteriously in the bowels of +that gray mound--that time-silvered "eye-sore." + +When they saw him, however, he was in the shop. They opened the door +to take in their work (when other cobblers turned them off), and +they saw him seated in his chair in the half darkness, his whole +person, legs, torso, neck, head, as motionless as the vegetable of +which we have spoken--only his hands and his bare arms endowed with +visible life. The gloom had bleached the skin to the colour of damp +ivory, and against the background of his immobility they moved with +a certain amazing monstrousness, interminably. No, they were never +still. One wondered what they could be at. Surely he could not have +had enough work now to keep those insatiable hands so monstrously in +motion. Even far into the night. Tap-tap-tap! Blows continuous and +powerful. On what? On nothing? On the bare iron last? And for what +purpose? To what conceivable end? + +Well, one could imagine those arms, growing paler, also growing +thicker and more formidable with that unceasing labour; the muscles +feeding themselves omnivorously on their own waste, the cords +toughening, the bone-tissues revitalizing themselves without end. +One could imagine the whole aspiration of that mute and motionless +man pouring itself out into those pallid arms, and the arms taking it +up with a kind of blind greed. Storing it up. Against a day! + +"That _cachorra_! One day--" + +What were the thoughts of the man? What moved within that motionless +cranium covered with long hair? Who can say? Behind everything, of +course, stood that bitterness against the world--the blind +world--blinder than he would ever be. And against "that _cachorra_." +But this was no longer a thought; it was the man. + +Just as all muscular aspiration flowed into his arms, so all the +energies of his senses turned to his ears. The man had become, you +might say, two arms and two ears. Can you imagine a man listening, +intently, through the waking hours of nine years? + +Listening to footfalls. Marking with a special emphasis of +concentration the beginning, rise, full passage, falling away, and +dying of all the footfalls. By day, by night, winter and summer and +winter again. Unravelling the skein of footfalls passing up and down +the street! + +For three years he wondered when they would come. For the next three +years he wondered if they would ever come. It was during the last +three that a doubt began to trouble him. It gnawed at his huge moral +strength. Like a hidden seepage of water, it undermined (in +anticipation) his terrible resolution. It was a sign perhaps of age, +a slipping away of the reckless infallibility of youth. + +Supposing, after all, that his ears should fail him. Supposing they +were capable of being tricked, without his being able to know it. +Supposing that that _cachorra_ should come and go, and he, Boaz, +living in some vast delusion, some unrealized distortion of memory, +should let him pass unknown. Supposing precisely this thing had +already happened! + +Or the other way around. What if he should hear the footfalls coming, +even into the very shop itself? What if he should be as sure of them +as of his own soul? What, then, if he should strike? And what then, +if it were not that _cachorra_ after all? How many tens and hundreds +of millions of people were there in the world? Was it possible for +them all to have footfalls distinct and different? + +Then they would take him and hang him. And that _cachorra_ might +then come and go at his own will, undisturbed. + +As he sat there sometimes the sweat rolled down his nose, cold as +rain. + +Supposing! + +Sometimes, quite suddenly, in broad day, in the booming silence of +the night, he would start. Not outwardly. But beneath the pale +integument of his skin all his muscles tightened and his nerves sang. +His breathing stopped. It seemed almost as if his heart stopped. + +Was that it? Were those the feet, there, emerging faintly from the +distance? Yes, there was something about them. Yes! Memory was in +travail. Yes, yes, yes! No! How could he be sure? Ice ran down into +his empty eyes. The footfalls were already passing. They were gone, +swallowed up already by time and space. Had that been that _cachorra_? + +Nothing in his life had been so hard to meet as this insidious drain +of distrust in his own powers; this sense of a traitor within the +walls. His iron-gray hair had turned white. It was always this now, +from the beginning of the day to the end of the night: how was he to +know? How was he to be inevitably, unshakably, sure? + +Curiously, after all this purgatory of doubts, he did know them. For +a moment at least, when he had heard them, he was unshakably sure. + +It was on an evening of the winter holidays, the Portuguese festival +of _Menin' Jesus_. Christ was born again in a hundred mangers on a +hundred tiny altars; there was cake and wine; songs went shouting by +to the accompaniment of mandolins and tramping feet. The wind blew +cold under a clear sky. In all the houses there were lights; even in +Boaz Negro's shop a lamp was lit just now, for a man had been in for +a pair of boots which Boaz had patched. The man had gone out again. +Boaz was thinking of blowing out the light. It meant nothing to him. + +He leaned forward, judging the position of the lamp-chimney by the +heat on his face, and puffed out his cheeks to blow. Then his cheeks +collapsed suddenly, and he sat back again. + +It was not odd that he had failed to hear the footfalls until they +were actually within the door. A crowd of merry-makers was passing +just then; their songs and tramping almost shook the shop. + +Boaz sat back. Beneath his passive exterior his nerves thrummed; his +muscles had grown as hard as wood. Yes! Yes! But no! He had heard +nothing; no more than a single step, a single foot-pressure on the +planks within the door. Dear God! He could not tell! + +Going through the pain of an enormous effort, he opened his lips. + +"What can I do for you?" + +"Well, I--I don't know. To tell the truth--" + +The voice was unfamiliar, but it might be assumed. Boaz held himself. +His face remained blank, interrogating, slightly helpless. "I am a +little deaf," he said. "Come nearer." + +The footfalls came half way across the intervening floor, and there +appeared to hesitate. The voice, too, had a note of uncertainty. + +"I was just looking around. I have a pair of--well, you mend shoes?" + +Boaz nodded his head. It was not in response to the words, for they +meant nothing. What he had heard was the footfalls on the floor. + +Now he was sure. As has been said, for a moment at least after he +had heard them he was unshakably sure. The congestion of his muscles +had passed. He was at peace. + +The voice became audible once more. Before the massive preoccupation +of the blind man it became still less certain of itself. + +"Well, I haven't got the shoes with me. I was--just looking around." + +It was amazing to Boaz, this miraculous sensation of peace. + +"Wait!" Then, bending his head as if listening to the winter wind, +"It's cold to-night. You've left the door open. But wait!" Leaning +down, his hand fell on a rope's end hanging by the chair. The +gesture was one continuous, undeviating movement of the hand. No +hesitation. No groping. How many hundreds, how many thousands of +times, had his hand schooled itself in that gesture! + +A single strong pull. With a little _bang_ the front door had swung +to and latched itself. Not only the front door. The other door, +leading to the rear, had closed too and latched itself with a little +_bang_. And leaning forward from his chair, Boaz blew out the light. + +There was not a sound in the shop. Outside, feet continued to go by, +ringing on the frozen road; voices were lifted; the wind hustled +about the corners of the wooden shell with a continuous, shrill note +of whistling. All of this outside, as on another planet. Within the +blackness of the shop the complete silence persisted, + +Boaz listened. Sitting on the edge of his chair, half-crouching, his +head, with its long, unkempt, white hair, bent slightly to one side, +he concentrated upon this chambered silence the full powers of his +senses. He hardly breathed. + +The other person in that room could not be breathing at all, it +seemed. + +No, there was not a breath, not the stirring of a sole on wood, not +the infinitesimal rustle of any fabric. It was as if in this utter +stoppage of sound, even the blood had ceased to flow in the veins +and arteries of that man, who was like a rat caught in a trap. + +It was appalling even to Boaz; even to the cat. Listening became +more than a labour. He began to have to fight against a growing +impulse to shout out loud, to leap, sprawl forward without aim in +that unstirred darkness--do something. Sweat rolled down from behind +his ears, into his shirt-collar. He gripped the chair-arms. To keep +quiet he sank his teeth into his lower lip. He would not! He would +not! + +And of a sudden he heard before him, in the centre of the room, an +outburst of breath, an outrush from lungs in the extremity of pain, +thick, laborious, fearful. A coughing up of dammed air. + +Pushing himself from the arms of the chair, Boaz leaped. + +His fingers, passing swiftly through the air, closed on something. +It was a sheaf of hair, bristly and thick. It was a man's beard. + +On the road outside, up and down the street for a hundred yards, +merry-making people turned to look at one another. With an abrupt +cessation of laughter, of speech. Inquiringly. Even with an +unconscious dilation of the pupils of their eyes. + +"What was that?" + +There had been a scream. There could be no doubt of that. A single, +long-drawn note. Immensely high-pitched. Not as if it were human. + +"God's sake! What was that? Where'd it come from?" + +Those nearest said it came from the cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro. + +They went and tried the door. It was closed; even locked, as if for +the night. There was no light behind the window-shade. But Boaz +would not have a light. They beat on the door. No answer. + +But from where, then, had that prolonged, as if animal, note come? + +They ran about, penetrating into the side lanes, interrogating, +prying. Coming back at last, inevitably, to the neighbourhood of +Boaz Negro's shop. + +The body lay on the floor at Boaz's feet, where it had tumbled down +slowly after a moment from the spasmodic embrace of his arms; those +ivory-coloured arms which had beaten so long upon the bare iron +surface of a last. Blows continuous and powerful. It seemed +incredible. They were so weak now. They could not have lifted the +hammer now. + +But that beard! That bristly, thick, square beard of a stranger! + +His hands remembered it. Standing with his shoulders fallen forward +and his weak arms hanging down, Boaz began to shiver. The whole +thing was incredible. What was on the floor there, upheld in the +vast gulf of darkness, he could not see. Neither could he hear it; +smell it. Nor (if he did not move his foot) could he feel it. What +he did not hear, smell, or touch did not exist. It was not there. +Incredible! + +But that beard! All the accumulated doubtings of those years fell +down upon him. After all, the thing he had been so fearful of in his +weak imaginings had happened. He had killed a stranger. He, Boaz +Negro, had murdered an innocent man! + +And all on account of that beard. His deep panic made him +light-headed. He began to confuse cause and effect. If it were not +for that beard, it would have been that _cachorra_. + +On this basis he began to reason with a crazy directness. And to act. +He went and pried open the door into the entry. From a shelf he took +down his razor. A big, heavy-heeled strop. His hands began to hurry. +And the mug, half full of soap. And water. It would have to be cold +water. But after all, he thought (light-headedly), at this time of +night---- + +Outside, they were at the shop again. The crowd's habit is to forget +a thing quickly, once it is out of sight and hearing. But there had +been something about that solitary cry which continued to bother them, +even in memory. Where had it been? Where had it come from? And those +who had stood nearest the cobbler-shop were heard again. They were +certain now, dead certain. They could swear! + +In the end they broke down the door. + +If Boaz heard them he gave no sign. An absorption as complete as it +was monstrous wrapped him. Kneeling in the glare of the lantern they +had brought, as impervious as his own shadow sprawling behind him, +he continued to shave the dead man on the floor. + +No one touched him. Their minds and imaginations were arrested by +the gigantic proportions of the act. The unfathomable presumption of +the act. As throwing murder in their faces to the tune of a jig in a +barber-shop. It is a fact that none of them so much as thought of +touching him. No less than all of them, together with all other men, +shorn of their imaginations--that is to say, the expressionless and +imperturbable creature of the Law--would be sufficient to touch that +ghastly man. + +On the other hand, they could not leave him alone. They could not go +away. They watched. They saw the damp, lather-soaked beard of that +victimized stranger falling away, stroke by stroke of the flashing, +heavy razor. The dead denuded by the blind! + +It was seen that Boaz was about to speak. It was something important +he was about to utter; something, one would say, fatal. The words +would not come all at once. They swelled his cheeks out. His razor +was arrested. Lifting his face, he encircled the watchers with a +gaze at once of imploration and of command. As if he could see them. +As if he could read his answer in the expressions of their faces. + +"Tell me one thing now. Is it that _cachorra_?" + +For the first time those men in the room made sounds. They shuffled +their feet. It was as if an uncontrollable impulse to ejaculation, +laughter, derision, forbidden by the presence of death, had gone +down into their boot-soles. + +"Manuel?" one of them said. "You mean _Manuel_?" + +Boaz laid the razor down on the floor beside its work. He got up +from his knees slowly, as if his joints hurt. He sat down in his +chair, rested his hands on the arms, and once more encircled the +company with his sightless gaze. + +"Not Manuel. Manuel was a good boy. But tell me now, is it that +_cachorra_?" + +Here was something out of their calculations; something for them, +mentally, to chew on. Mystification is a good thing sometimes. It +gives the brain a fillip, stirs memory, puts the gears of +imagination in mesh. One man, an old, tobacco-chewing fellow, began +to stare harder at the face on the floor. Something moved in his +intellect. + +"No, but look here now, by God----" + +He had even stopped chewing. But he was forestalled by another. + +"Say now, if it don't look like that fellow Wood, himself. The bank +fellow--that was burned--remember? Himself." + +"That _cachorra_ was not burned. Not that Wood. You darned fool!" + +Boaz spoke from his chair. They hardly knew his voice, emerging from +its long silence; it was so didactic and arid. + +"That _cachorra_ was not burned. It was my boy that was burned. It +was that _cachorra_ called my boy upstairs. That _cachorra_ killed +my boy. That _cachorra_ put his clothes on my boy, and he set my +house on fire. I knew that all the time. Because when I heard those +feet come out of my house and go away, I knew they were the feet of +that _cachorra_ from the bank. I did not know where he was going to. +Something said to me--you better ask him where he is going to. But +then I said, you are foolish. He had the money from the bank. I did +not know. And then my house was on fire. No, it was not my boy that +went away; it was that _cachorra_ all the time. You darned fools! +Did you think I was waiting for my own boy?" + +"Now I show you all," he said at the end. "And now I can get hanged." + +No one ever touched Boaz Negro for that murder. For murder it was in +the eye and letter of the Law. The Law in a small town is sometimes +a curious creature; it is sometimes blind only in one eye. + +Their minds and imaginations in that town were arrested by the +romantic proportions of the act. Simply, no one took it up. I +believe the man, Wood, was understood to have died of heart-failure. + +When they asked Boaz why he had not told what he knew as to the +identity of that fugitive in the night, he seemed to find it hard to +say exactly. How could a man of no education define for them his own +but half-denied misgivings about the Law, his sense of oppression, +constraint and awe, of being on the defensive, even, in an abject way, +his skepticism? About his wanting, come what might, to "keep clear +of the Law"? + +He did say this, "You would have laughed at me." + +And this, "If I told folk it was Wood went away, then I say he would +not dare come back again." + +That was the last. Very shortly he began to refuse to talk about the +thing at all. The act was completed. Like the creature of fable, it +had consumed itself. Out of that old man's consciousness it had +departed. Amazingly. Like a dream dreamed out. + +Slowly at first, in a makeshift, piece-at-a-time, poor man's way, +Boaz commenced to rebuild his house. That "eyesore" vanished. + +And slowly at first, like the miracle of a green shoot pressing out +from the dead earth, that priceless and unquenchable exuberance of +the man was seen returning. Unquenchable, after all. + + + + +THE LAST ROOM OF ALL + + +BY STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + + +In those days all Italy was in turmoil and Lombardy lay covered with +blood and fire. The emperor, the second Frederick of Swabia, was out +to conquer once for all. His man Salinguerra held the town of Ferrara. +The Marquis Azzo, being driven forth, could slake his rage only on +such outlying castles as favoured the imperial cause. + +Of these castles the Marquis Azzo himself sacked and burned many. +But against the castle of Grangioia, remote in the hills, he sent +his captain, Lapo Cercamorte. + +This Lapo Cercamorte was nearly forty years old, a warrior from +boyhood, uncouth, barbaric, ferocious. One could think of no current +danger that he had not encountered, no horror that he had not +witnessed. His gaunt face was dull red, as if baked by the heat of +blazing towns. His coarse black hair had been thinned by the +friction of his helmet. His nose was broken, his arms and legs were +covered with scars, and under his chin ran a seam made by a woman who +had tried to cut off his head while he lay asleep. From this wound +Lapo Cercamorte's voice was husky and uncertain. + +With a hundred men at his back he rode by night to Grangioia Castle. +As day was breaking, by a clever bit of stratagem he rushed the gate. + +Then in that towering, thick-walled fortress, which had suddenly +become a trap, sounded the screaming of women, the boom of yielding +doors, the clang of steel on black staircases, the battlecries, wild +songs, and laughter of Lapo Cercamorte's soldiers. + +He found the family at bay in their hall, the father and his three +sons naked except for the shirts of mail that they had hastily +slipped on. Behind these four huddled the Grangioia women and +children, for the most part pallid from fury rather than from fear, +silently awaiting the end. + +However, Cercamorte's purpose was not to destroy this clan, but to +force it into submission to his marquis. So, when he had persuaded +them to throw down their swords, he put off his flat-topped helmet +and seated himself with the Grangioia men. + +A bargain ensued; he gave them their lives in exchange for their +allegiance. And it would have ended there had not the sun, reaching +in through a casement toward the group of silent women, touched the +face of old Grangioia's youngest daughter, Madonna Gemma. + +From the crown of her head, whence her hair fell in bright ripples +like a gush of gold from the ladle of a goldsmith, to her white feet, +bare on the pavement, Madonna Gemma was one fragile piece of beauty. +In this hall heavy with torch smoke, and the sweat of many soldiers, +in this ring of blood-stained weapons and smouldering eyes, she +appeared like a delicate dreamer enveloped by a nightmare. Yet even +the long stare of Lapo Cercamorte she answered with a look of +defiance. + +The conqueror rose, went jingling to her, thumbed a strand of her +bright hair, touched her soft cheek with his fingers, which smelled +of leather and horses. Grasping her by the elbow, he led her forward. + +"Is this your daughter, Grangioia? Good. I will take her as a pledge +of your loyalty." + +With a gesture old Grangioia commanded his sons to sit still. After +glowering round him at the wall of mail, he let his head sink down, +and faltered: + +"Do you marry her, Cercamorte?" + +"Why not?" croaked Lapo. "Having just made a peace shall I give +offence so soon? No, in this case I will do everything according to +honour." + +That morning Lapo Cercamorte espoused Madonna Gemma Grangioia. Then, +setting her behind his saddle on a cushion, he took her away to his +own castle. This possession, too, he had won for himself with his +sword. It was called the Vespaione, the Big Hornets' Nest. Rude and +strong, it crowned a rocky hilltop in a lonely region. At the base of +the hill clustered a few huts; beyond lay some little fields; then +the woods spread their tangles afar. + +Madonna Gemma, finding herself in this prison, did not weep or utter +a sound for many days. + + * * * * * + +Here Lapo Cercamorte, pouncing upon such a treasure as had never +come within his reach before, met his first defeat. His fire proved +unable to melt that ice. His coarse mind was benumbed by the +exquisiteness of his antagonist. Now, instead of terror and +self-abasement, he met scorn--the cold contempt of a being rarefied, +and raised above him by centuries of gentler thought and living. +When he laid his paws on her shoulders he felt that he held there a +pale, soft shell empty of her incomprehensible spirit, which at his +touch had vanished into space. + +So he stood baffled, with a new longing that groped blindly through +the veils of flesh and blood, like a brute tormented by the dawning +of some insatiable aspiration. + +It occurred to him that the delicate creature might be pleased if +her surroundings were less soldierly. So oiled linen was stretched +across her windows, and a carpet laid for her feet at table in the +hall. The board was spread with a white cloth on which she might +wipe her lips, and in spring the pavement of her bower was strewn +with scented herbs. Also he saw to it that her meat was seasoned +with quinces, that her wine was spiced on feast-days. + +He got her a little greyhound, but it sickened and died. Remembering +that a comrade-in-arms possessed a Turkish dwarf with an abnormally +large head, he cast about to procure some such monstrosity for her +amusement. He sent her jewellery--necklaces torn by his soldiers +from the breasts of ladies in surrendered towns, rings wrested from +fingers raised in supplication. + +She wore none of these trinkets. Indeed, she seemed oblivious of all +his efforts to change her. + +He left her alone. + +Finally, whenever Lapo Cercamorte met her in the hall his face +turned dark and bitter. Throughout the meal there was no sound +except the growling of dogs among the bones beneath the table, the +hushed voices of the soldiers eating in the body of the hall. Old +one-eyed Baldo, Cercamorte's lieutenant, voiced the general +sentiment when he muttered into his cup: + +"This house has become a tomb, and I have a feeling that presently +there may be corpses in it." + +"She has the evil eye," another assented. + +Furtively making horns with their fingers, they looked up askance +toward the dais, at her pale young beauty glimmering through rays of +dusty sunshine. + +"Should there come an alarm our shield-straps would burst and our +weapons crack like glass. If only, when we took Grangioia Castle, a +sword had accidentally cut off her nose!" + +"God give us our next fighting in the open, far away from this +_jettatrice_!" + +It presently seemed as if that wish were to be granted. All the +Guelph party were then preparing to take the field together. In +Cercamorte's castle, dice-throwing and drinking gave place to +drinking and plotting. Strange messengers appeared. In an upper +chamber a shabby priest from the nearest town--the stronghold of +Count Nicolotto Muti--neatly wrote down, at Lapo's dictation, the +tally of available men, horses, and arms. Then one morning Cercamorte +said to Baldo, his lieutenant: + +"I am off for a talk with Nicolotto Muti. The house is in your care." + +And glumly Lapo rode down from his castle, without a glance toward +the casements of Madonna Gemma's bower. + +She watched him depart alone, his helmet dangling from his saddle-bow. +Then she saw, below her on the hillside, also watching him, the +horse-boy, Foresto, his graceful figure hinting at an origin +superior to his station, his dark, peaked face seeming to mask some +avid and sinister dream. Was she wrong in suspecting that Foresto +hated Lapo Cercamorte? Might he not become an ally against her +husband? + +Her gaze travelled on to the houses at the foot of the hill, to the +hut where, under Lapo's protection, dwelt a renegade Arabian, +reputed to be a sorcerer. No doubt the Arabian knew of subtle poisons, +charms that withered men's bodies, enchantments that wrecked the +will and reduced the mind to chaos. + +But soon these thoughts were scattered by the touch of the spring +breeze. She sank into a vague wonder at life, which had so cruelly +requited the fervours of her girlhood. + +On the third day of Cercamorte's absence, while Madonna Gemma was +leaning on the parapet of the keep, there appeared at the edge of +the woods a young man in light-blue tunic and hood, a small gilded +harp under his arm. + + * * * * * + +Because he was the young brother of Nicolotto Muti they admitted him +into the castle. + +His countenance was effeminate, fervent, and artful. The elegance of +his manner was nearly Oriental. The rough soldiers grinned in +amusement, or frowned in disgust. Madonna Gemma, confronted by his +strangeness and complexity, neither frowned nor smiled, but looked +more wan than ever. + +Perfumed with sandalwood, in a white, gold-stitched robe, its bodice +tight, its skirts voluminous, she welcomed him in the hall. The +reception over, old Baldo spoke with the crone who served Madonna +Gemma as maid: + +"I do not know what this pretty little fellow has in mind. +While I watch him for spying, do you watch him for love-making. +If we discover him at either, perhaps he has caught that new +green-sickness from the north, and thinks himself a singing-bird." + +A singing-bird was what Raffaele Muti proved to be. + +In the Mediterranean lands a new idea was beginning to alter the +conduct of society. Woman, so long regarded as a soulless animal, +born only to drag men down, was being transfigured into an +immaculate goddess, an angel in human shape, whose business was +man's reformation, whose right was man's worship. + +That cult of Woman had been invented by the lute-playing nobles of +Provence. But quickly it had begun to spread from court to court, +from one land to another. So now, in Italy, as in southern France, +sometimes in wild hill castles as well as in the city palaces, a +hymn of adoration rose to the new divinity. + +This was the song that Raffaele Muti, plucking at his twelve harp +strings, raised in the hall of the Big Hornets' Nest at twilight. + +He sat by the fireplace on the guests' settee, beside Madonna Gemma. +The torches, dripping fire in the wall-rings, cast their light over +the faces of the wondering servants. The harp twanged its plaintive +interlude; then the song continued, quavering, soaring, athrob with +this new pathos and reverence, that had crept like the counterfeit +of a celestial dawn upon a world long obscured by a brutish dusk. + +Raffaele Muti sang of a woman exalted far above him by her womanhood, +which rivalled Godhood in containing all the virtues requisite for +his redemption. Man could no longer sin when once she had thought +pityingly of him. Every deed must be noble if rooted in love of her. +All that one asked was to worship her ineffable superiority. How +grievously should one affront her virtue if ever one dreamed of +kisses! But should one dream of them, pray God she might never stoop +that far in mercy! No, passion must never mar this shrine at which +Raffaele knelt. + +In the ensuing silence, which quivered from that cry, there stole +into the heart of Madonna Gemma an emotion more precious, just then, +than the peace that follows absolution--a new-born sense of feminine +dignity, a glorious blossoming of pride, commingled with the +tenderness of an immeasurable gratitude. + +About to part for the night, they exchanged a look of tremulous +solemnity. + +Her beauty was no longer bleak, but rich--all at once too warm, +perhaps, for a divinity whose only office was the guidance of a +troubadour toward asceticism. His frail comeliness was radiant from +his poetical ecstasy--of a sudden too flushed, one would think, for +a youth whose aspirations were all toward the intangible. Then each +emerged with a start from that delicious spell, to remember the +staring servants. + +They said good-night. Madonna Gemma ascended to her chamber. + +It was the horse-boy Foresto who, with a curious solicitude and +satisfaction, lighted Raffaele Muti up to bed. + +But old Baldo, strolling thoughtfully in the courtyard, caught a +young cricket chirping in the grass between two paving-stones. On +the cricket's back, with a straw and white paint, he traced the Muti +device--a tree transfixed by an arrow. Then he put the cricket into +a little iron box together with a rose, and gave the box to a +man-at-arms, saying: + +"Ride to Lapo Cercamorte and deliver this into his hands." + +Next day, on the sunny tower, high above the hillside covered with +spring flowers, Raffaele resumed his song. He sat at the feet of +Madonna Gemma, who wore a grass-green gown embroidered with unicorns, +emblems of purity. The crone was there also, pretending to doze in +the shadows; and so was Foresto the horse-boy, whose dark, still +face seemed now and again to mirror Raffaele's look of exultation--a +look that came only when Madonna Gemma gazed away from him. + +But for the most part she gazed down at Raffaele's singing lips, on +which she discerned no guile. + +Tireless, he sang to her of a world fairer even than that of her +maidenhood. It was a region where for women all feeling of abasement +ceased, because there the troubadour, by his homage, raised one's +soul high above the tyranny of uncomprehending husbands. + +She learned--for so it had been decided in Provence--that high +sentiment was impossible in wedlock at its best; that between +husband and wife there was no room for love. Thus, according to the +Regula Amoris, it was not only proper, but also imperative, to seek +outside the married life some lofty love-alliance. + +The day wore on thus. The sun had distilled from many blossoms the +whole intoxicating fragrance of the springtime. A golden haze was +changing Madonna Gemma's prison into a paradise. + +Her vision was dimmed by a glittering film of tears. Her fingers +helplessly unfolded on her lap. She believed that at last she had +learned love's meaning. And Raffaele, for all his youth no novice at +this game, believed that this dove, too, was fluttering into his cage. + +By sunset their cheeks were flaming. At twilight their hands turned +cold. + +Then they heard the bang of the gate and the croaking voice of Lapo +Cercamorte. + +He entered the hall as he had so often entered the houses of +terror-stricken enemies, clashing at each ponderous, swift step, his +mail dusty, his hair wet and dishevelled, his dull-red face +resembling a mask of heated iron. That atmosphere just now swimming +in languor, was instantly permeated by a wave of force, issuing from +this herculean body and barbaric brain. When he halted before those +two they seemed to feel the heat that seethed in his steel-bound +breast. + +His disfigured face still insolvable, Lapo Cercamorte plunged his +stare into Madonna Gemma's eyes, then looked into the eyes of +Raffaele. His hoarse voice broke the hush; he said to the young man: + +"So you are the sister of my friend Count Nicolloto?" + +Raffaele, having licked his lips, managed to answer: + +"You mean his brother, sir." + +Lapo Cercamorte laughed loud; but his laugh was the bark of a hyena, +and his eyes were balls of fire. + +"No! with these legs and ringlets? Come here, Baldo. Here is a girl +who says she is a man. What do you say, to speak only of this pretty +skin of hers?" + +And with his big hand suddenly he ripped open Raffaele's tunic half +way to the waist, exposing the fair white flesh. The troubadour, +though quivering with shame and rage, remained motionless, staring +at the great sword that hung in its scarlet sheath from Lapo's +harness. + +Old one-eyed Baldo, plucking his master by the elbow, whispered: +"Take care, Cercamorte. His brother Nicolotto is your ally. Since +after all, nothing much has happened, do not carry the offence too +far." + +"Are you in your dotage?" Lapo retorted, still glaring with a +dreadful interest at Raffaele's flesh. "Do you speak of giving +offence, when all I desire is to be as courteous as my uneducated +nature will allow? She must pardon me that slip of the hand; I meant +only to stroke her cheek in compliment but instead I tore her dress. +Yet I will be a proper courtier to her still. Since she is now set +on going home, I myself, alone, will escort her clear to the forest, +in order to set her upon the safe road." + +And presently Madonna Gemma, peering from her chamber window, saw +her husband, with a ghastly pretense of care, lead young Raffaele +Muti down the hill into the darkness from which there came never a +sound. It was midnight when Lapo Cercamorte rëentered the castle, +and called for food and drink. + +Now the shadow over the Big Hornets' Nest obscured even the glare of +the summer sun. No winsome illusion of nature's could brighten this +little world that had at last turned quite sinister. In the air that +Madonna Gemma breathed was always a chill of horror. At night the +thick walls seemed to sweat with it, and the silence was like a great +hand pressed across a mouth struggling to give vent to a scream. + +At dinner in the hall she ate nothing, but drank her wine as though +burning with a fever. Sometimes, when the stillness had become +portentous, Lapo rolled up his sleeves, inspected his scarred, +swarthy arms, and mumbled, with the grin of a man stretched on the +rack: + +"Ah, Father and Son! if only one had a skin as soft, white, and +delicate as a girl's!" + +At this Madonna Gemma left the table. + +Once more her brow became bleaker than a winter mountain; her eyes +were haggard from nightmares; she trembled at every sound. Pacing +her bower, interminably she asked herself one question. And at last, +when Lapo would have passed her on the stairs, she hurled into his +face: + +"What did you do to Raffaele Muti?" + +He started, so little did he expect to hear her voice. His battered +countenance turned redder, as he noted that for the sake of the +other she was like an overstretched bow, almost breaking. Then a +pang stabbed him treacherously. Fearing that she might discern his +misery, he turned back, leaving her limp against the wall. + +He took to walking the runway of the ramparts, gnawing his fingers +and muttering to himself, shaking his tousled hair. With a sigh, as +if some thoughts were too heavy a burden for that iron frame, he sat +down on an archer's ledge, to stare toward the hut of the renegade +Arabian. Often at night he sat thus, hour after hour, a coarse +creature made romantic by a flood of moonlight. And as he bowed his +head the sentinel heard him fetch a groan such as one utters whose +life escapes through a sword-wound. + +One-eyed Baldo also groaned at these goings-on, and swallowed many +angry speeches. But Foresto the horse-boy began to hum at his work. + +This Foresto had attached himself to Lapo's force in the Ferrarese +campaign. His habits were solitary. Often when his work was done he +wandered into the woods to return with a capful of berries or a +squirrel that he had snared. Because he was silent, deft, and +daintier than a horse-boy ought to be, Lapo finally bade him serve +Madonna Gemma. + +Watching his dark, blank face as he strewed fresh herbs on her +pavement, she wondered: + +"Does he know the truth?" + +Their glances met; he seemed to send her a veiled look of +comprehension and promise. But whenever he appeared the crone was +there. + +One morning however, Foresto had time to whisper: + +"The Arabian." + +What did that mean? Was the Arab magician, recluse in his wretched +hut below the castle, prepared to serve her? Was it through him and +Foresto that she might hope to escape or at least to manage some +revenge? Thereafter she often watched the renegade's window, from +which, no matter how late the hour, shone a glimmering of lamplight. +Was he busy at his magic? Could those spells be enlisted on her side? + +Then, under an ashen sky of autumn, as night was creeping in, she +saw the Arabian ascending the hill to the castle. His tall figure, +as fleshless as a mummy's, was swathed in a white robe like a +winding sheet; his beaked face and hollow eye-sockets were like a +vision of Death. Without taking her eyes from him, Madonna Gemma +crossed herself. + +Baldo came to the gate. The ghostly Arabian uttered: + +"Peace be with you. I have here, under my robe, a packet for your +master." + +"Good! Pass it over to me, unless it will turn my nose into a carrot, +or add a tail to my spine." + +The foreigner, shaking his skull-like head, responded: + +"I must give this packet into no hands but his." + +So Baldo led the sorcerer to Cercamorte, and for a long while those +two talked together in private. + + * * * * * + +Next day Madonna Gemma noted that Lapo had on a new, short, +sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its +edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel. In this +festive garment, so different from his usual attire, the grim tyrant +was ill at ease, secretly anxious, almost timid. Avoiding her eye, +he assumed an elaborate carelessness, like that of a boy who had +been up to some deviltry. Madonna Gemma soon found herself +connecting this change in him with the fancy white-leather vest. + +In the hall, while passing a platter of figs, Foresto praised the +new garment obsequiously. He murmured: + +"And what a fine skin it is made of! So soft, so delicate, so +lustrous in its finish! Is it pigskin, master? Ah, no; it is finer +than that. Kidskin? But a kid could not furnish a skin as large as +this one. No doubt it is made from some queer foreign animal, +perhaps from a beast of Greece or Arabia?" + +While speaking these words, Foresto flashed one look, mournful and +eloquent, at Madonna Gemma, then softly withdrew from the hall. + +She sat motionless, wave after wave of cold flowing in through her +limbs to her heart. She stared, as though at a basilisk, at Lapo's +new vest, in which she seemed to find the answer so long denied her. +The hall grew dusky; she heard a far-off cry, and when she meant to +flee, she fainted in her chair. + +For a week Madonna Gemma did not rise from her bed. When finally she +did rise she refused to leave her room. + +But suddenly Lapo Cercamorte was gayer than he had been since the +fall of Grangioia Castle. Every morning, when he had inquired after +Madonna Gemma's health, and had sent her all kinds of tidbits, he +went down to sit among his men, to play morra, to test swordblades, +to crack salty jokes, to let loose his husky guffaw. At times, +cocking his eye toward certain upper casements, he patted his fine +vest furtively, with a gleeful and mischievous grin. To Baldo, after +some mysterious nods and winks, he confided: + +"Everything will be different when she is well again." + +"No doubt," snarled old Baldo, scrubbing at his mail shirt viciously. +"Though I am not in your confidence, I agree that a nice day is +coming, a beautiful day--like a pig. Look you, Cercamorte, shake off +this strange spell of folly. Prepare for early trouble. Just as a +Venetian sailor can feel a storm of water brewing, so can I feel, +gathering far off, a storm of arrows. Do you notice that the crows +hereabouts have never been so thick? Perhaps, too, I have seen a face +peeping out of the woods, about the time that Foresto goes down to +pick berries." + +"You chatter like an old woman at a fountain," said Lapo, still +caressing his vest with his palms. "I shall be quite happy soon--yes, +even before the Lombard league takes the field." + +Baldo raised his shoulders, pressed his withered eyelids together, +and answered, in disgust: + +"God pity you, Cercamorte! You are certainly changed these days. +Evidently your Arabian has given you a charm that turns men's brains +into goose-eggs." + +Lapo stamped away angrily, yet he was soon smiling again. + +And now his coarse locks were not unkempt, but cut square across +brow and neck. Every week he trimmed his fingernails; every day or so, +with a flush and a hangdog look, he drenched himself with perfume. +Even while wearing that garment--at thought of which Madonna Gemma, +isolate in her chamber, still shivered and moaned--Cercamorte +resembled one who prepares himself for a wedding, or gallant +rendezvous, that may take place any moment. + +Sometimes, reeking with civet-oil, he crept to her door, eavesdropped, +pondered the quality of her sighs, stood hesitant, then stealthily +withdrew, grinding his teeth and wheezing: + +"Not yet. Sweet saints in heaven, what a time it takes!" + +He loathed his bed, because of the long hours of sleeplessness. He +no longer slept naked. At night, too, his body was encased in the +vest of whitish soft skin. + + * * * * * + +One morning a horseman in green and yellow scallops appeared before +the castle. It was Count Nicolotto Muti, elder brother of the +troubadour Raffaele. + +Lapo, having arranged his features, came down to meet the count. +They kissed, and entered the keep with their arms round each other's +shoulders. Foresto brought in the guest-cup. + +Nicolotto Muti was a thin, calm politician, elegant in his manners +and speech, his lips always wearing a sympathetic smile. By the +fireplace, after chatting of this and that, he remarked, with his +hand affectionately on Cercamorte's knee: + +"I am trying to find trace of my little Raffaele, who has vanished +like a mist. It is said that he was last seen in this neighbourhood. +Can you tell me anything?" + +Lapo, his face expressionless, took thought, then carefully answered: + +"Muti, because we are friends as well as allies I will answer you +honestly. Returning from my visit with you, I found him in this hall, +plucking a harp and singing love-songs to my wife. I say frankly +that if he had not been your brother I should have cut off his hands +and his tongue. Instead, I escorted him to the forest, and set him +on the home road. I admit that before I parted from him I preached +him a sermon on the duties of boys toward the friends of their +families. Nay, fearing that he might not relate his adventure to you, +in that discourse I somewhat pounded the pulpit. Well, yes, I +confess that I gave him a little spanking." + +Count Nicolotto, without showing any surprise, or losing his fixed +smile, declared: + +"Dear comrade, it was a young man, not a child, whom you chastised +in that way. In another instance, as of course you know, such an +action would have been a grievous insult to all his relatives. +Besides, I am sure that he meant no more than homage to your lady--a +compliment common enough in these modern times, and honourably +reflected upon the husband. However, I can understand the feelings +of one who has been too much in the field to learn those innocent +new gallantries. Indeed, I presume that I should thank you for what +you believed to be a generous forbearance. But all this does not +find me my brother." + +And with a sad, gentle smile Count Nicolotto closed his frosty eyes. + +Cercamorte, despite all this cooing, received an impression of enmity. +As always when danger threatened, he became still and wary, much +more resourceful than ordinarily, as if perils were needed to render +him complete. Smoothing his vest with his fingers that were +flattened from so much sword-work, Lapo said: + +"I feel now that I may have been wrong to put such shame upon him. +On account of it, no doubt, he has sought retirement. Or maybe he +has journeyed abroad, say to Provence, a land free from such +out-of-date bunglers as I." + +Nicolotto Muti made a deprecatory gesture, then rose with a rustle +of his green and yellow scallops, from which was shaken a fragrance +of attar. + +"My good friend, let us hope so." + +It was Foresto who, in the courtyard held Muti's stirrup, and +secretly pressed into the visitor's hand a pellet of parchment. For +Foresto could write excellent Latin. + +No sooner had Count Nicolotto regained his strong town than a +shocking rumour spread round--Lapo Cercamorte had made Raffaele +Muti's skin into a vest, with which to drive his wife mad. + +In those petty Guelph courts, wherever the tender lore of Provence +had sanctified the love of troubadour for great lady, the noblemen +cried out in fury; the noblewomen, transformed into tigresses, +demanded Lapo's death. Old Grangioia and his three sons arrived at +the Muti fortress raving for sudden vengeance. There they were +joined by others, rich troubadours, backed by many lances, whose +rage could not have been hotter had Lapo, that "wild beast in human +form," defaced the Holy Sepulchre. At last the Marquis Azzo was +forced to reflect: + +"Cercamorte has served me well, but if I keep them from him our +league may be torn asunder. Let them have him. But he will die hard." + +Round the Big Hornets' Nest the crows were thicker than ever. + + * * * * * + +One cold, foggy evening Lapo Cercamorte at last pushed open his +wife's chamber door. Madonna Gemma was alone, wrapped in a fur-lined +mantle, warming her hands over an earthen pot full of embers. +Standing awkwardly before her, Lapo perceived that her beauty was +fading away in this unhappy solitude. On her countenance was no +trace of that which he had hoped to see. He swore softly, cast down +from feverish expectancy into bewilderment. + +"No," he said, at length, his voice huskier than usual, "this cannot +continue. You are a flower transplanted into a dungeon, and dying on +the stalk. One cannot refashion the past. The future remains. +Perhaps you would flourish again if I sent you back to your father?" + +He went to the casement with a heavy step, and stared through a rent +in the oiled linen at the mist, which clung round the castle like a +pall. + +"Madonna," he continued, more harshly than ever, in order that she +might not rejoice at his pain, "I ask pardon for the poorness of my +house. Even had my sword made me wealthy I should not have known how +to provide appointments pleasing to a delicate woman. My manners also, +as I have learned since our meeting, are unsuitable. The camps were +my school and few ladies came into them. It was not strange that +when Raffaele Muti presented himself you should have found him more +to your taste. But if on my sudden return I did what I did, and thus +prevented him from boasting up and down Lombardy of another conquest, +it was because I had regard not only for my honour, but for yours. +So I am not asking your pardon on that score." + +Lowering her face toward the red embers, she whispered: + +"A beast believes all men to be beasts." + +"Kiss of Judas! Are women really trapped, then, by that gibberish? +Madonna, these miaowing troubadours have concocted a world that they +themselves will not live in. Have I not sat swigging in tents with +great nobles, and heard all the truth about it? Those fellows always +have, besides the lady that they pretend to worship as inviolate, a +dozen others with whom the harp-twanging stage is stale." + +"All false, every word," Madonna Gemma answered. + +"Because ladies choose to think so the game goes on. Well, Madonna, +remember this. From the moment when I first saw you I, at least, did +you no dishonour, but married you promptly, and sought your +satisfaction by the means that I possessed. I was not unaware that +few wives come to their husbands with affection. Certainly I did not +expect affection from you at the first, but hoped that it might ensue. +So even Lapo Cercamorte became a flabby fool, when he met one in +comparison with whom all other women seemed mawkish. Since it was +such a fit of drivelling, let us put an end to it. At sunrise the +horses will be ready. Good night." + +Leaving her beside the dying embers, he went out upon the ramparts. +The fog was impenetrable; one could not even see the light in the +sorcerer's window. + +"Damned Arabian!" growled Lapo, brandishing his fist. He sat down +beside the gate-tower, and rested his chin on his hands. + +"How cold it is," he thought, "how lonely and dismal! Warfare is +what I need. Dear Lord, let me soon be killing men briskly, and +warming myself in the burning streets of Ferrara. That is what I was +begotten for. I have been lost in a maze." + +Dawn approached, and Lapo was still dozing beside the gate-tower. + +With the first hint of light the sentinel challenged; voices +answered outside the gate. It was old Grangioia and his sons, +calling up that they had come to visit their daughter. + +"Well arrived," Lapo grunted, his brain and body sluggish from the +chill. He ordered the gate swung open. + +Too late, as they rode into the courtyard, he saw that there were +nearly a score of them, all with their helmets on. Then in the fog +he heard a noise like an avalanche of ice--the clatter of countless +steel-clad men scrambling up the hillside. + +While running along the wall, Lapo Cercamorte noted that the +horsemen were hanging back, content to hold the gate till reinforced. +On each side of the courtyard his soldiers were tumbling out of +their barracks and fleeing toward the keep, that inner stronghold +which was now their only haven. Dropping at last from the ramparts, +he joined this retreat. But on gaining the keep he found with him +only some thirty of his men; the rest had been caught in their beds. + +Old Baldo gave him a coat of mail. Young Foresto brought him his +sword and shield. Climbing the keep-wall, Cercamorte squinted down +into the murky courtyard. That whole place now swarmed with his foes. + +Arrows began to fly. A round object sailed through the air and +landed in the keep; it was the head of the Arabian. + +"Who are these people?" asked Baldo, while rapidly shooting at them +with a bow. "There seem to be many knights; half the shields carry +devices. Ai! they have fired the barracks. Now we shall make them out." + +The flames leaped up in great sheets, producing the effect of an +infernal noon. The masses in the courtyard, inhuman-looking in their +ponderous, barrel-shaped helmets, surged forward at the keep with a +thunderous outcry: + +"Grangioia! Grangioia! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +"Muti! Muti! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +"God and the Monfalcone!" + +"Strike for Zaladino! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +Lapo bared his teeth at them. "By the Five Wounds! half of Lombardy +seems to be here. Well, my Baldo, before they make an end of us +shall we show them some little tricks?" + +"You have said it, Cercamorte. One more good scuffle, with a parade +of all our talent." + +The assailants tried beams against the keep gate; the defenders shot +them down or hurled rocks upon their heads. But on the wall of the +keep Cercamorte's half-clad men fell sprawling, abristle with +feathered shafts. A beam reached the gate and shook it on its hinges. +Lapo, one ear shot away, drew his surviving soldiers back into the +hall. + +He ordered torches stuck into all the wall-rings, and ranged his men +on the dais. Behind them, in the doorway leading to the upper +chambers and the high tower, he saw his wife, wild-looking, and +whiter than her robe. + +"Go back, Madonna. It is only your family calling with some of their +friends. I entered Grangioia Castle abruptly; now it is tit for tat." + +The crone brought two helmets, which Lapo and Baldo put on. Then, +drawing their long swords, they awaited the onset. + +The keep gate yielded, and into the hall came rushing a wave of +peaked and painted shields. But before the dais the wave paused, +since in it were those who could not forego the joy of taunting Lapo +Cercamorte before killing him. So suddenly, all his antagonists +contemplated him in silence, as he crouched above them with his +sword and shield half raised, his very armour seeming to emanate +force, cunning, and peril. + +"Foul monster!" a muffled voice shouted. "Now you come to your death!" + +"Now we will give your carcass to the wild beasts, your brothers!" + +"Let my daughter pass through," bawled old Grangioia; then, +receiving no response, struck clumsily at Lapo. + +With a twist of his sword Lapo disarmed the old man, calling out: +"Keep off, kinsman! I will not shed Grangioia blood unless you force +me to it. Let Muti come forward. Or yonder gentleman dressed up in +the white eagles of Este, which should hide their heads with their +wings, so long and faithfully have I served them." + +But none was ignorant of Cercamorte's prowess; so, after a moment of +seething, they all came at him together. + +The swordblades rose and fell so swiftly that they seemed to be arcs +of light; the deafening clangour was pierced by the howls of the +dying. The dais turned red--men slipped on it; Cercamorte's sword +caught them; they did not rise. He seemed indeed to wield more +swords than one, so terrible was his fighting. At his back stood +Baldo, his helmet caved in, his mail shirt in ribbons, his abdomen +slashed open. Both at once they saw that all their men were down. +Hewing to right and left they broke through, gained the tower +staircase, and locked the door behind them. + + * * * * * + +On the dark stairway they leaned against the wall, their helmets off, +gasping for breath, while the enemy hammered the door. + +"How is it with you?" puffed Lapo, putting his arm round Baldo's neck. + +"They have wrecked my belly for me. I am finished." + +Lapo Cercamorte hung his head and sobbed, "My old Baldo, my comrade, +it is my folly that has killed you." + +"No, no. It was only that I had survived too many tussles; then all +at once our Lord recalled my case to his mind. But we have had some +high times together, eh?" + +Lapo, weeping aloud from remorse, patted Baldo's shoulder and kissed +his withered cheek. Lamplight flooded the staircase; it was Foresto +softly descending. The rays illuminated Madonna Gemma, who all the +while had been standing close beside them. + +"Lady," said Baldo, feebly, "can you spare me a bit of your veil? +Before the door falls I must climb these steps, and that would be +easier if I could first bind in my entrails." + +They led him upstairs, Lapo on one side, Madonna Gemma on the other, +and Foresto lighting the way. They came to the topmost chamber in +the high tower--the last room of all. + +Here Cercamorte kept his treasures--his scraps of looted finery, the +weapons taken from fallen knights, the garrison's surplus of arms. +When he had locked the door and with Foresto's slow help braced some +pike-shafts against it, he tried to make Baldo lie down. + +The old man vowed profanely that he would die on his feet. Shambling +to the casement niche, he gaped forth at the dawn. Below him a +frosty world was emerging from the mist. He saw the ring of the +ramparts, and in the courtyard the barrack ruins smouldering. Beyond, +the hillside also smoked, with shredding vapours; and at the foot of +the hill he observed a strange sight--the small figure of a man in +tunic and hood, feylike amid the mist, that danced and made gestures +of joy. Baldo, clinging to the casement-sill on bending legs, +summoned Cercamorte to look at the dancing figure. + +"What is it, Lapo? A devil?" + +"One of our guests, no doubt," said Cercamorte, dashing the tears +from his eyes. "Hark! the door at the foot of the staircase has +fallen. Now we come to our parting, old friend." + +"Give me a bow and an arrow," cried Baldo, with a rattle in his +throat. "Whoever that zany is, he shall not dance at our funeral. +Just one more shot, my Lapo. You shall see that I still have it in me." + +Cercamorte could not deny him this last whim. He found and strung a +bow, and chose a Ghibelline war-arrow. Behind them, young Foresto +drew in his breath with a hiss, laid his hand on his dagger, and +turned the colour of clay. Old Baldo raised the bow, put all his +remaining strength into the draw, and uttered a cracking shout of +bliss. The mannikin no longer danced; but toward him, from the +hillside, some men in steel were running. Baldo, sinking back into +Cercamorte's arms, at last allowed himself to be laid down. + +Through the door filtered the rising tumult of the enemy. + +Lapo Cercamorte's blood-smeared visage turned business-like. Before +grasping his sword, he bent to rub his palms on the grit of the +pavement. While he was stooping, young Foresto unsheathed his dagger, +made a catlike step, and stabbed at his master's neck. But quicker +than Foresto was Madonna Gemma, who, with a deer's leap, imprisoned +his arms from behind. Cercamorte discovered them thus, struggling +fiercely in silence. + +"Stand aside," he said to her, and, when he had struck Foresto down, +"Thank you for that, Madonna. With such spirit to help me, I might +have had worthy sons. Well, here they come, and this door is a +flimsy thing. Get yourself into the casement niche, away from the +swing of my blade." + +A red trickle was running down his legs; he was standing in a red +pool. + +It began again, the splitting of panels, the cracking of hinges. The +door was giving; now only the pike-shafts held it. Then came a pause. +From far down the staircase a murmur of amazement swept upward; a +babble of talk ensued. Silence fell. Cercamorte let out a harsh laugh. + +"What new device is this? Does it need so much chicanery to finish +one man?" + +Time passed, and there was no sound except a long clattering from +the courtyard. Of a sudden a new voice called through the broken door: + +"Open, Cercamorte. I am one man alone." + +"Come in without ceremony. Here am I, waiting to embrace you." + +"I am Ercole Azzanera, the Marquis Azzo's cousin, and your true +friend. I swear on my honour that I stand here alone with sheathed +sword." + +Lapo kicked the pike-shafts away, and, as the door fell inward, +jumped back on guard. At the threshold, unhelmeted, stood the knight +whose long surcoat was covered with the white eagles of Este. He +spoke as follows: + +"Cercamorte, this array came up against you because it was published +that you had killed and flayed Raffaele Muti, and, out of jealous +malignancy, were wearing his skin as a vest. But just now a +marvellous thing has happened, for at the foot of the hill Raffaele +Muti has been found, freshly slain by a wandered arrow. Save for +that wound his skin is without flaw. Moreover, he lived and breathed +but a moment ago. So the whole tale was false, and this war against +you outrageous. All the gentlemen who came here have gone away in +great amazement and shame, leaving me to ask pardon for what they +have done. Forgive them, Cercamorte, in the name of Christ, for they +believed themselves to be performing a proper deed." + +And when Lapo found no reply in his head, Ercole Azzanera, with a +humble bow, descended from the high tower and followed the others +away. + +Lapo Cercamorte sat down on a stool. "All my good men," he murmured, +"and my dear gossip, Baldo! My castle rushed by so shabby a ruse; my +name a laughing-stock! And the Marquis Azzo gave them my house as +one gives a child a leaden gimcrack to stamp on. All because of this +damned vest, this silly talisman which was to gain me her love. 'In +the name of Christ,' says my friend, Ercole Azzanera. By the Same! +If I live I will go away to the heathen, for there is no more +pleasure in Christendom." + +So he sat for a while, maundering dismally, then stood up and made +for the door. He reeled. He sank down with a clash. Madonna Gemma, +stealing out from the casement niche, knelt beside him, peered into +his face, and ran like the wind down the staircase. In the hall, +with lifted robe she sped over the corpses of Cercamorte's soldiers, +seeking wine and water. These obtained, she flew back to Lapo. There +the crone found her. Between them those two dragged him down to +Madonna Gemma's chamber, stripped him, tended his wounds, and +hoisted him into the bed. + +Flat on his back, Cercamorte fought over all his battles. He +quarrelled with Baldo. Again he pondered anxiously outside of +Madonna Gemma's door. He instructed the Arabian to fashion him a +charm that would overspread his ugly face with comeliness, change +his uncouthness into geniality. He insisted on wearing the vest, the +under side of which was scribbled with magical signs. + +Madonna Gemma sat by the bed all day, and lay beside him at night. +On rising, she attired herself in a vermilion gown over which she +drew a white jacket of Eastern silk embroidered with nightingales. +Into her golden tresses she braided the necklaces that he had +offered her. Her tapering milky fingers sparkled with rings. Her +former beauty had not returned--another, greater beauty had taken +its place. + +A day came when he recognized her face. Leaning down like a flower +of paradise, she kissed his lips. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O. 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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 + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/11721-8.zip b/old/11721-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5687dcc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11721-8.zip diff --git a/old/11721.txt b/old/11721.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..69aba4e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11721.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15368 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of +1920, by Various, et al + + +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: O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 25, 2004 [eBook #11721] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE +STORIES OF 1920*** + + +E-text prepared by Stan Goodman + + + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1920 + +Chosen by the Society of Arts and Sciences + +With an Introduction by Blanche Colton Williams + +Author of "A Handbook on Story Writing," +"Our Short Story Writers," Etc. + +Associate Professor of English, Hunter College +of the City of New York. + +Instructor in Story Writing, Columbia University +(Extension Teaching and Summer Session). + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +EACH IN HIS GENERATION. By Maxwell Struthers Burt + +"CONTACT!" By Frances Noyes Hart + +THE CAMEL'S BACK. By F. Scott Fitzgerald + +BREAK-NECK HILL. By Esther Forbes + +BLACK ART AND AMBROSE. By Guy Gilpatric + +THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN. By Lee Foster Hartman + +THE ARGOSIES. By Alexander Hull + +ALMA MATER. By O. F. Lewis + +SLOW POISON. By Alice Duer Miller + +THE FACE IN THE WINDOW. By William Dudley Pelley + +A MATTER OF LOYALTY. By Lawrence Perry + +PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR. By L.H. Robbins + +THE THING THEY LOVED. By "Marice Rutledge" + +BUTTERFLIES. By "Rose Sidney" + +NO FLOWERS. By Gordon Arthur Smith + +FOOTFALLS. By Wilbur Daniel Steele + +THE LAST ROOM OF ALL. By Stephen French Whitman + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919, in its introduction, +rendered a brief account of the origin of this monument to O. +Henry's genius. Founded in 1918 by the Society of Arts and Sciences, +through the initiative of Managing Director John F. Tucker, it took +the form of two annual prizes of $500 and $250 for, respectively, +the best and second-best stories written by Americans and published +in America. + +The Committee of Award sifted the periodicals of 1919 and found +thirty-two which, in their opinion, were superior specimens of +short-story art. The prize-winners, determined in the manner set +forth, were Margaret Prescott Montague's "England to America" and +Wilbur Daniel Steele's "For They Know Not What They Do." For these +stories the authors duly received the awards, on the occasion of the +O. Henry Memorial dinner which was given by the Society at the Hotel +Astor, June 2, 1920. + +Since it appeared to be a fitting extension of the memorial to +incorporate in volume form the narratives chosen, they were included, +either by title or reprint, in the first book of the series of which +this is the second. Thus grouped, they are testimony to unprejudiced +selection on the part of the Committee of Award as they are evidence +of ability on the part of their authors. + +The first volume has met favour from critics and from laymen. For +the recognition of tedious, if pleasant, hours necessary to a +meticulous survey of twelve months' brief fiction, the Committee of +Award are grateful, as they are indebted to the generous cooeperation +of authors and publishers, but for whom the work would have been +impossible of continuation. + +The committee express thanks for the approval which affirms that +"No more fitting tribute to the genius of William Sidney Porter +(O. Henry) could possibly have been devised than that of this +'Memorial Award,'" [1] which recognizes each story as "a definite +expression of American life--as O. Henry's was," [2] which knows by +inescapable logic that a story ranking second with five judges is +superior to one ranking first with only one of these. A number of +reviewers graciously showed awareness of this fact. + +[Footnote 1: _New York Times_, June 2, 1920.] + +[Footnote 2: _Chicago Tribune_, Paris Edition, August 7, 1920.] + +The Committee of Award for 1920 consisted of + + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D., Chairman | + EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. | JUDGES + ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD | + MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. | + and JOHN F. TUCKER, Managing Director of the Society, + Founder of the O. Henry Memorial. + + +As in preceding years the Committee held regular meetings at which +they weighed the merits of every story-candidate presented. By +January, 1921, one hundred and twenty-five remained, among which +those rated highest are as follows:[3] + + + Babcock, Edwina Stanton, Gargoyle (_Harper's_, Sept.) + Barrett, Richmond Brooks, The Daughter of the Bernsteins + (_Smart Set_, July). + "Belden, Jacques," The Duke's Opera (_Munsey's_, October). + Benet, Stephen Vincent, The Funeral of John Bixby (_Munsey's_, July). + Brooks, Jonathan, Bills Playable (_Collier's_, September 18). + Burt, Maxwell Struthers, A Dream or Two (_Harper's_, May); + Each in His Generation (_Scribner's_, July). + Cabell, James Branch, The Designs of Miramon (_Century_, August). + Child, Richard Washburn, A Thief Indeed (_Pictorial Review_, June). + Clausen, Carl, The Perfect Crime (_Saturday Evening Post_, Sept. 25). + Cram, Mildred, The Ember (_McCall's_, June); Odell (_Red + Book_, May); Wind (_Munsey's_, August). + Dobie, Charles Caldwell, Young China (_Ladies Home Journal_, August). + Edwards, Cleveland, Pride o' Name on Peachtree (_Live Stories_, Feb.). + Ferber, Edna, You've Got to Be Selfish (_McClure's_, April). + Fitzgerald, Scott, The Camel's Back (_Saturday Evening Post_, + Apr. 24); The Cut-Glass Bowl (_Scribner's_, May); + The Off-Shore Pirate (_Saturday Evening Post_, May 29). + Forbes, Esther, Break-Neck Hill (_Grinnell Review_, September). + Gilpatric, Guy, Black Art and Ambrose (_Collier's_, August 21). + Hartman, Lee Foster, The Judgment of Vulcan (_Harper's_, March). + Hergesheimer, Joseph, "Read Them and Weep" (_Century_, January). + Hooker, Brian, Branwen (_Romance_, June). + Hull, Alexander, The Argosies (_Scribner's_, September). + Hume, Wilkie, The Metamorphosis of High Yaller + (_Live Stories_, June). + Kabler, Hugh, Fools First (_Saturday Evening Post_, November 20). + Kerr, Sophie, Divine Waste (_Woman's Home Companion_, May). + La Motte, Widows and Orphans (_Century_, September). + Lewis, O. F., Alma Mater (_Red Book_, June). Sparks That Flash + in the Night (_Red Book_, October). + Marquis, Don Kale (_Everybody's_, September); Death and Old Man + Murtrie (_New Republic_, February 4). + Marshall, Edison, Brother Bill the Elk (_Blue Book_, May). + Means, E. K., The Ten-Share Horse (_Munsey's_, May). + Miller, Alice Duer, Slow Poison (_Saturday Evening Post_, June 12). + Montague, Margaret Prescott, Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge (_Atlantic + Monthly_, June). + [4]Mumford, Ethel Watts, A Look of the Copperleys (_Ladies Home + Journal_, April); Red Gulls (_Pictorial Review_, October). + Newell, Maude Woodruff, Salvage (_Green Book_, July). + Noyes, Frances Newbold, "Contact!" [5] (_Pictorial Review_, December). + Pelley, William Dudley, The Face in the Window (_Red Book_, May); + The Show-Down (_Red Book_, June). + Perry, Lawrence, The Real Game (_Everybody's_, July). A Matter of + Loyalty (_Red Book_, July); The Lothario of the Seabird + (_Ladies Home Journal_, August); The Rocks of Avalon + (_Red Book_, December). + Post, Melville Davisson, The House by the Loch (_Hearst's_, May). + Redington, Sarah, A Certain Rich Woman (_Outlook_, May 5). + Reid, M. F., Doodle Buys a Bull Pup (_Everybody's_, August). + Richardson, Norval, The Bracelet (_McClure's_, July). + Robbins, L.H., "Ain't This the Darnedest World?" (_American_, May); + Professor Todd's Used Car (_Everybody's_, July). + "Rutledge, Marice," The Thing They Loved (_Century_, May). + Ryan, Kathryn White, A Man of Cone (_Munsey's_, March). + Scarborough, Dorothy, The Drought (_Century_, May). + "Sidney, Rose," Butterflies (_Pictorial Review_, September). + Smith, Gordon Arthur, No Flowers (_Harper's_, May); The Aristocrat + (_Harper's_, November). + Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Both Judge and Jury (_Harper's_, January); + God's Mercy (_Pictorial Review_, July); Footfalls (_Pictorial + Review_, October). + Synon, Mary, On Scarlet Wings (_Red Book_, July). + Titus, Harold, Aliens (_Ladies Home Journal_, May). + Tuckerman, Arthur, Black Magic, (_Scribner's_, August). + Welles, Harriet, According to Ruskin (_Woman's Home Companion_, + June); + Distracting Adeline (_Scribner's_, May). + Whitman, Stephen French, The Last Room of All (_Harper's_, June). + Wilkes, Allene Tupper, Toop Goes Skating (_Woman's Home Companion_, + November). + +[Footnote 3: Listed alphabetically by authors.] + +[Footnote 4: A member of the Committee of Award, this author +refused as a matter of course to allow consideration of her stories +for republication here or for the prizes. But the other members +insist upon their being listed, and upon mention of "Red Gulls" as +one of the best stories of 1920.] + +[Footnote 5: Reprinted as by Frances Noyes Hart.] + +From this list were selected seventeen stories which, in the +judgment of the Committee, rank highest and which, therefore, are +reprinted in this volume. + +Since, as will be recalled from the conditions of the award, only +American authors were considered, certain familiar foreign names are +conspicuously absent. Achmed Abdullah, Stacy Aumonier, F. Britten +Austin, Phyllis Bottome, Thomas Burke, Coningsby Dawson, Mrs. Henry +Dudeney, Lord Dunsany, John Galsworthy, Perceval Gibbon, Blasco +Ibanez, Maurice Level, A. Neil Lyons, Seumas MacManus, Leonard Merrick, +Maria Moravsky, Alfred Noyes, May Sinclair and Hugh Walpole all +illustrate recovery from the world war. But with their stories the +Committee had nothing to do. The Committee cannot forbear mention, +however, of "Under the Tulips" (_Detective Stories_, February 10), +one of the two best horror specimens of the year. It is by an +Englishwoman, May Edginton. + +Half a dozen names from the foreign list just given are synonymous +with the best fiction of the period. Yet the short story as +practised in its native home continues to excel the short story +written in other lands. The English, the Russian, the French, it is +being contended in certain quarters, write better literature. They +do not, therefore, write better stories. If literature is of a +magnificent depth and intricate subtlety in a measure proportionate +to its reflection of the vast complexity of a nation that has +existed as such for centuries, conceivably it will be facile and +clever in a measure proportionate to its reflection of the spirit of +the commonwealth which in a few hundred years has acquired a place +with age-old empires. + +The American short-story is "simple, economical, and brilliantly +effective," H.L. Mencken admits.[6] "Yet the same hollowness that +marks the American novel," he continues, "also marks the short story." +And of "many current makers of magazine short stories," he +asseverates, "such stuff has no imaginable relation to life as men +live it in the world." He further comments, "the native author of any +genuine force and originality is almost invariably found to be under +strong foreign influences, either English or Continental." + +With due regard for the justice of this slant--that of a student of +Shaw, Ibsen, and Nietzsche--we believe that the best stories written +in America to-day reflect life, even life that is sordid and dreary +or only commonplace. In the New York _Evening Post_[7] the present +writer observed: + +"A backward glance over the short stories of the preceding twelve +months discovers two facts. There are many of them, approximately +between fifteen hundred and two thousand; there are, comparatively, +few of merit." + +[Footnote 6: The National Letters, in _Prejudices_, second series, +Knopf, N.Y., 1920.] + +[Footnote 7: April 24, 1920.] + +"You have looked from the rear platform of the limited, across the +widening distance, at a town passed a moment ago. A flourishing city, +according to the prospectus; a commonplace aggregation of +architecture, you say; respectable middle-class homes; time-serving +cottages built on the same plan; a heaven-seeking spire; perhaps a +work of art in library or townhall. You are rather glad that you +have left it behind; rather certain that soon you will have rolled +through another, its counterpart. + +"But there may be hope, here, of sorts. For a typical American town +represents twentieth century life and development, just as current +short stories reflect conditions. If the writer failed to represent +his age, to reflect its peculiar images, he would not serve it truly." + +It is significant that these words preceded by only a few months the +publication of Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," which illustrates in +a big and popular way the point in question. Work of satire that it +is, it cannot but hold out a solution of the problem presented: in +the sweep of the land to the Rockies lies a "dominion which will +rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile." + +America is young; its writers are young. But they are reflecting the +many-coloured, multiform life of America, in journalism and in art. +Quite naturally, they profit by all that has preceded them in other +literatures. Since their work stands rooted in romanticism it may +legitimately heighten the effects and lights of everyday life. + +A glance at the stories republished by the O. Henry Memorial Award +Committee for 1920 will reveal their varied nature. The _genus +Africanus_ is represented by "Black Art and Ambrose," which has a +close second in another on the list, "The Metamorphosis of High +Yaller," and a third in "The Ten-Share Horse" of E.K. Means. The +tabulation reveals a number of cosmic types--Jewish, Chinese, English, +French, Irish, Italian, American. The Chinese character is even more +ubiquitous than in 1919, but the tales wherein he figures appear to +the Committee to be the last drops in the bucket. Two exceptions +occur: "Young China," by Charles Caldwell Dobie, and "Widows and +Orphans," by Ellen La Motte. The former knows San Francisco Chinatown, +the latter is acquainted with the Oriental at home. One of the +Committee regards "The Daughter of the Bernsteins" as the best story +of Jewish character. Another sees in it a certain crudeness. Its +companions in the year were the tales of Bruno Lessing, Montague +Glass, and--in particular--a story by Leon Kelley entitled "Speeches +Ain't Business" (_Pictorial Review_, July). + +But this note on the list is a digression. With regard to the +stories reprinted, "The Last Room of All" illustrates old-world +influence, surely, in its recountal of events in an age long past, +the time of the Second Emperor Frederick of Swabia. In its revival +of old forms, old customs, it is a masquerade. But behold that it is +a gorgeous blood-coloured masquerade and that Cercamorte is a +distinct portrait of the swash-buckler hero of those times. + +The young Americans in "The Camel's Back" support a critical thesis +made for their author that he is evolving an idiom. It is the idiom +of young America. If you are over thirty, read one of this prodigy's +ten-thousand word narratives and discover for the first time that +you are separated by a hopeless chasm from the infant world. + +"Professor Todd's Used Car" and "Alma Mater" are two of the numerous +stories published in 1920 which take up the cudgels for the +undertrodden college professor. Incidentally, it is interesting to +read from a letter of Mr. Lewis: "The brevity--and the twist in the +plot at the end--were consciously patterned on O. Henry's methods." + +Without further enumeration of the human types, it is a matter of +observation that they exist in many moods and ages as they exist in +real life. A revenant who lived one hundred years ago might pick up +this volume and secure a fairly accurate idea of society to-day. A +visitor from another country might find it a guide to national +intelligence and feeling. + +A few stories appealed to the Committee for their poetry. "The +Funeral of John Bixby," by Stephen Vincent Benet, and "The Duke's +Opera," by "Jacques Belden" (the first an allegorical fantasy and +the second a poetic-romance) are at the head of this division. With +these should be included Don Marquis's "Death and Old Man Murtrie," +for its sardonic allegory, and "The Designs of Miramon," by James +Branch Cabell, for its social satire. Individual members of the +Committee would have liked to include these--different members +preferring different ones of the four--but the Committee as a whole +saw the allegory or satire or poetry predominant over story values. + +The mysterious and the tragic are found in the work of Mildred Cram +and Wilbur Daniel Steele. "Odell" and "Wind" illustrate Miss Cram's +particular genius in this direction: but "The Ember," it is voted, +ranks first of her publications. Mr. Steele's "Both Judge and Jury" +and "God's Mercy" are exotic, perhaps, but the atmosphere he creates +is beguiling in comparison with that of mere everyday. "Footfalls" +was selected out of an embarrassment of riches offered by this author. +The best horror story of the year is Rose Sidney's "Butterflies." It +is a Greek tragedy, unrelieved, to be taken or left without +palliation. + +Athletics, no one will deny, constitutes a definite phase of +American life. The sport-struggle is best illustrated in the fiction +of Lawrence Perry, whether it be that of a polo match, tennis game, +or crew race. "A Matter of Loyalty" is representative of this contest, +and in the combined judgment of the Committee the highest ranking of +all Mr. Perry's stories. "Bills Playable," by Jonathan Brooks, +conceives athletics in a more humorous spirit. + +Animal stories fill page upon page of 1920 magazines. Edison Marshall, +represented in the 1919 volume, by "The Elephant Remembers," has +delivered the epic of "Brother Bill the Elk." In spite of its length, +some fifteen thousand words, the Committee were mightily tempted to +request it for republication. Its Western author knows the animals in +their native lairs. "Break-Neck Hill," for which a member of the +Committee suggests the more poignant "Heart-Break Hill" as title, +expresses sympathy for the horse in a way the Committee believe +hitherto unexploited. "Aliens" received more votes as the best dog +story of the year. + +Among a number of sea-tales are those by Richard Matthews Hallet, +wherein Big Captain Hat appears. The woman sea-captain is by way of +being, for the moment, a novel figure. + +Anecdotal stories and very brief tales appear to have received +editorial sanction in 1920. "No Flowers" is of the former _genre_, +and whereas certain of the Committee see in the same author's +"The Aristocrat" a larger story, they agree with the majority that +the scintillance of this well-polished gem should give it setting +here. + +Variety of setting and diversity of emotion the reader will find in +greater measure, perhaps, than in the first volume of this series. +"Butterflies," for example, spells unrelieved horror; "The Face in +the Window" demands sympathetic admiration for its heroine; to read +"Contact!" means to suffer the familiar Aristotelian purging of the +emotions through tears. And their locales are as widely dissimilar +as are their emotional appeals. With these, all of which are +reprinted herein, the reader will do well to compare Dorothy +Scarborough's "Drought," for the pathos of a situation brought about +by the elements of nature in Texas. + +The Committee could not agree upon the first and second prize stories. +The leaders were: "Each in His Generation," "Contact!" "The Thing +They Loved," "The Last Room of All," "Slow Poison," "God's Mercy" +and "Alma Mater." No story headed more than one list. The point +system, to which resort was made, resulted in the first prize +falling to "Each in His Generation," by Maxwell Struthers Burt, and +the second to "Contact!", by Frances Newbold Noyes (now Frances +Noyes Hart). + +Mr. Burt's story of Henry McCain and his nephew Adrian compresses +within legitimate story limits the antagonism between successive +generations. Each representative, bound by traditions and customs of +the particular age to which he belongs, is bound also by the chain +of inheritance. One interested in the outcome of the struggle +between the inexorable thrall of "period" and the inevitable bond of +race will find the solution of the problem satisfactory, as will the +reader who enjoys the individual situation and wishes most to find +out whether Uncle Henry left his money to Adrian or rejected that +choice for marriage with the marvellous lady of his own era. + +"Contact!" is the first story by the author of "My A.E.F." and in +its every line testifies to the vital interest Miss Noyes had and +has in the boys who won the war--whether American, French or English. +So much one would know from a single rapid reading. A critic might +guess that it would have been impossible as a first story if the +author had not lived much abroad, as she has done since she was very +much of a child. At Oxford, or in the home of Gaston Paris, or +travelling around the globe, she received the foundation for the +understanding sympathy which endeared her as "Petite" to her soldier +boys. A critic might also aver that the steady moving forward of the +action, joined to the backward progress, yet both done so surely, +could not have been achieved without years of training. And in this +respect the narrative is little short of being a _tour de force_. But, +as a matter of fact. Miss Noyes dreamed the whole thing! Her +antecedent experience proved greater than mere technique. + +The Committee wish to comment upon the irregularity of the output of +fiction from month to month. May brought forth the greatest number +of good stories, as November reaped the fewest. They wish, also, to +register notice of the continued flexibility of the short story form. +"The Judgment of Vulcan," at one extreme, in some thirteen thousand +words none the less relates a short story; "Alma Mater," at the other, +accomplishes the same end in two thousand. It is a matter of record +that the Committee discovered a number of excellent examples +containing not more than two thirds this latter number, a fact that +argues against the merging of the short story and the novel. Finally, +the Committee believe the fiction of the year 1920 superior to that +of 1919. + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, + NEW YORK CITY, + March 3, 1921. + + + + + +EACH IN HIS GENERATION + + +BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT + +From _Scribner's Magazine_ + +Every afternoon at four o'clock, except when the weather was very +bad--autumn, winter, and spring--old Mr. Henry McCain drove up to +the small, discreet, polished front door, in the small, discreet, +fashionable street in which lived fairly old Mrs. Thomas Denby; got +out, went up the white marble steps, rang the bell, and was admitted +into the narrow but charming hall--dim turquoise-blue velvet +panelled into the walls, an etching or two: Whistler, Brangwyn--by a +trim parlour-maid. Ten generations, at least, of trim parlour-maids +had opened the door for Mr. McCain. They had seen the sparkling +victoria change, not too quickly, to a plum-coloured limousine; they +had seen Mr. McCain become perhaps a trifle thinner, the colour in +his cheeks become a trifle more confined and fixed, his white hair +grow somewhat sparser, but beyond that they had seen very little +indeed, although, when they had left Mr. McCain in the drawing-room +with the announcement that Mrs. Denby would be down immediately, and +were once again seeking the back of the house, no doubt their +eyebrows, blonde, brunette, or red, apexed to a questioning angle. + +In the manner of youth the parlour-maids had come, worked, fallen in +love and departed, but Mr. McCain, in the manner of increasing age, +had if anything grown more faithful and exact to the moment. If he +were late the fraction of five minutes, one suspected that he +regretted it, that it came near to spoiling his entire afternoon. He +was not articulate, but occasionally he expressed an idea and the +most common was that he "liked his things as he liked them"; +his eggs, in other words, boiled just so long, no more--after +sixty years of inner debate on the subject he had apparently +arrived at the conclusion that boiled eggs were the only kind of eggs +permissible--his life punctual and serene. The smallest manifestation +of unexpectedness disturbed him. Obviously that was one reason why, +after a youth not altogether constant, he had become so utterly +constant where Mrs. Denby was concerned. She had a quality of +perenniality, charming and assuring, even to each strand of her +delicate brown hair. Grayness should have been creeping upon her, +but it was not. It was doubtful if Mr. McCain permitted himself, +even secretly, to wonder why. Effects, fastidious and constant, were +all he demanded from life. + +This had been going on for twenty years--this afternoon call; this +slow drive afterward in the park; this return by dusk to the shining +small house in the shining small street; the good-by, reticently +ardent, as if it were not fully Mr. McCain's intention to return +again in the evening. Mr. McCain would kiss Mrs. Denby's hand--slim, +lovely, with a single gorgeous sapphire upon the third finger. +"Good-by, my dear," he would say, "you have given me the most +delightful afternoon of my life." For a moment Mrs. Denby's hand +would linger on the bowed head; then Mr. McCain would straighten up, +smile, square his shoulders in their smart, young-looking coat, and +depart to his club, or the large, softly lit house where he dwelt +alone. At dinner he would drink two glasses of champagne. Before he +drained the last sip of the second pouring he would hold the glass +up to the fire, so that the bronze coruscations at the heart of the +wine glowed like fireflies in a gold dusk. One imagined him saying +to himself: "A perfect woman! A perfect woman--God bless her!" +Saying "God bless" any one, mind you, with a distinct warming of the +heart, but a thoroughly late-Victorian disbelief in any god to bless.... +At least, you thought as much. + +And, of course, one had not the slightest notion whether he--old +Mr. Henry McCain--was aware that this twenty years of devotion on +his part to Mrs. Denby was the point upon which had come to focus +the not inconsiderable contempt and hatred for him of his nephew +Adrian. + +It was an obvious convergence, this devotion of all the traits which +composed, so Adrian imagined, the despicable soul that lay beneath +his uncle's unangled exterior: undeviating self-indulgence; secrecy; +utter selfishness--he was selfish even to the woman he was supposed +to love; that is, if he was capable of loving any one but himself--a +bland hypocrisy; an unthinking conformation to the dictates of an +unthinking world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, +here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor +vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; +a generation brittle as ice; a generation of secret diplomacy; a +generation that in its youth had covered a lack of bathing by a vast +amount of perfume. That was it--! That expressed it perfectly! The +just summation! Camellias, and double intentions in speech, and +unnecessary reticences, and refusals to meet the truth, and a +deliberate hiding of uglinesses! + +Most of the time Adrian was too busy to think about his uncle at +all--he was a very busy man with his writing: journalistic writing; +essays, political reviews, propaganda--and because he was busy he +was usually well-content, and not uncharitable, except professionally; +but once a month it was his duty to dine with his uncle, and then, +for the rest of the night, he was disturbed, and awoke the next +morning with the dusty feeling in his head of a man who has been +slightly drunk. Old wounds were recalled, old scars inflamed; a +childhood in which his uncle's figure had represented to him the +terrors of sarcasm and repression; a youth in which, as his guardian, +his uncle had deprecated all first fine hot-bloodednesses and +enthusiasms; a young manhood in which he had been told cynically +that the ways of society were good ways, and that the object of life +was material advancement; advice which had been followed by the +stimulus of an utter refusal to assist financially except where +absolutely necessary. There had been willingness, you understand, to +provide a gentleman's education, but no willingness to provide +beyond that any of a gentleman's perquisites. That much of his early +success had been due to this heroic upbringing, Adrian was too +honest not to admit, but then--by God, it had been hard! All the +colour of youth! No time to dream--except sorely! Some warping, some +perversion! A gasping, heart-breaking knowledge that you could not +possibly keep up with the people with whom, paradoxically enough, +you were supposed to spend your leisure hours. Here was the making +of a radical. And yet, despite all this, Adrian dined with his uncle +once a month. + +The mere fact that this was so, that it could be so, enraged him. It +seemed a renunciation of all he affirmed; an implicit falsehood. He +would have liked very much to have got to his feet, standing firmly +on his two long, well-made legs, and have once and for all delivered +himself of a final philippic. The philippic would have ended +something like this: + +"And this, sir, is the last time I sacrifice any of my good hours to +you. Not because you are old, and therefore think you are wise, when +you are not; not because you are blind and besotted and damned--a +trunk of a tree filled with dry rot that presently a clean wind will +blow away; not because your opinions, and the opinions of all like +you, have long ago been proven the lies and idiocies that they are; +not even because you haven't one single real right left to live--I +haven't come to tell you these things, although they are true; for +you are past hope and there is no use wasting words upon you; I have +come to tell you that you bore me inexpressibly. (That would be the +most dreadful revenge of all. He could see his uncle's face!) That +you have a genius for taking the wrong side of every question, and I +can no longer endure it. I dissipate my time. Good-night!" + +He wouldn't have said it in quite so stately a way, possibly, the +sentences would not have been quite so rounded, but the context +would have been the same. + +Glorious; but it wasn't said. Instead, once a month, he got into his +dinner-jacket, brushed his hair very sleekly, walked six blocks, +said good-evening to his uncle's butler, and went on back to the +library, where, in a room rich with costly bindings, and smelling +pleasantly of leather, and warmly yellow with the light of two +shaded lamps, he would find his uncle reading before a crackling +wood fire. What followed was almost a formula, an exquisite +presentation of stately manners, an exquisite avoidance of any topic +which might cause a real discussion. The dinner was invariably gentle, +persuasive, a thoughtful gastronomic achievement. Heaven might +become confused about its weather, and about wars, and things like +that, but Mr. McCain never became confused about his menus. He had a +habit of commending wine. "Try this claret, my dear fellow, I want +your opinion.... A drop of this Napoleonic brandy won't hurt you a +bit." He even sniffed the bouquet before each sip; passed, that is, +the glass under his nose and then drank. But Adrian, with a +preconceived image of the personality back of this, and the memory +of too many offences busy in his mind, saw nothing quaint or amusing. +His gorge rose. Damn his uncle's wines, and his mushrooms, and his +soft-footed servants, and his house of nuances and evasions, and his +white grapes, large and outwardly perfect, and inwardly sentimental +as the generation whose especial fruit they were. As for himself, he +had a recollection of ten years of poverty after leaving college; a +recollection of sweat and indignities; he had also a recollection of +some poor people whom he had known. + +Afterward, when the dinner was over, Adrian would go home and awake +his wife, Cecil, who, with the brutal honesty of an honest woman, +also some of the ungenerosity, had early in her married life flatly +refused any share in the ceremonies described. Cecil would lie in +her small white bed, the white of her boudoir-cap losing itself in +the white of the pillow, a little sleepy and a little angrily +perplexed at the perpetual jesuitical philosophy of the male. +"If you feel that way," she would ask, "why do you go there, then? +Why don't you banish your uncle utterly?" She asked this not without +malice, her long, violet, Slavic eyes widely open, and her red mouth, +a trifle too large, perhaps, a trifle cruel, fascinatingly +interrogative over her white teeth. She loved Adrian and had at times, +therefore, the right and desire to torture him. She knew perfectly +well why he went. He was his uncle's heir, and until such time as +money and other anachronisms of the present social system were done +away with, there was no use throwing a fortune into the gutter, even +if by your own efforts you were making an income just sufficiently +large to keep up with the increased cost of living. + +Sooner or later Adrian's mind reverted to Mrs. Denby. This was +usually after he had been in bed and had been thinking for a while +in the darkness. He could not understand Mrs. Denby. She affronted +his modern habit of thought. + +"The whole thing is so silly and adventitious!" + +"What thing?" + +Adrian was aware that his wife knew exactly of what he was talking, +but he had come to expect the question. "Mrs. Denby and my uncle." +He would grow rather gently cross. "It has always reminded me of +those present-day sword-and-cloak romances fat business men used to +write about ten years ago and sell so enormously--there's an +atmosphere of unnecessary intrigue. What's it all about? Here's the +point! Why, if she felt this way about things, didn't she divorce +that gentle drunkard of a husband of hers years ago and marry my +uncle outright and honestly? Or why, if she couldn't get a +divorce--which she could--didn't she leave her husband and go with +my uncle? Anything in the open! Make a break--have some courage of +her opinions! Smash things; build them up again! Thank God nowadays, +at least, we have come to believe in the cleanness of surgery rather +than the concealing palliatives of medicine. We're no longer--we +modern people--afraid of the world; and the world can never hurt for +any length of time any one who will stand up to it and tell it +courageously to go to hell. No! It comes back and licks hands." + +"I'll tell you why. My uncle and Mrs. Denby are the typical moral +cowards of their generation. There's selfishness, too. What a +travesty of love! Of course there's scandal, a perpetual scandal; +but it's a hidden, sniggering scandal they don't have to meet face +to face; and that's all they ask of life, they, and people like +them--never to have to meet anything face to face. So long as they +can bury their heads like ostriches! ... Faugh!" There would be a +moment's silence; then Adrian would complete his thought. "In my +uncle's case," he would grumble in the darkness, "one phase of the +selfishness is obvious. He couldn't even get himself originally, I +suppose, to face the inevitable matter-of-fact moments of marriage. +It began when he was middle-aged, a bachelor--I suppose he wants the +sort of Don Juan, eighteen-eighty, perpetual sort of romance that +doesn't exist outside the brains of himself and his like.... +Camellias!" + +Usually he tried to stir up argument with his wife, who in these +matters agreed with him utterly; even more than agreed with him, +since she was the escaped daughter of rich and stodgy people, and +had insisted upon earning her own living by portrait-painting. +Theoretically, therefore, she was, of course, an anarchist. But at +moments like the present her silent assent and the aura of slight +weariness over an ancient subject which emanated from her in the dusk, +affronted Adrian as much as positive opposition. + +"Why don't you try to understand me?" + +"I do, dearest!"--a pathetic attempt at eager agreement. + +"Well, then, if you do, why is the tone of your voice like that? You +know by now what I think. I'm not talking convention; I believe +there are no laws higher than the love of a man for a woman. It +should seek expression as a seed seeks sunlight. I'm talking about +honesty; bravery; a willingness to accept the consequences of one's +acts and come through; about the intention to sacrifice for love +just what has to be sacrificed. What's the use of it otherwise? +That's one real advance the modern mind has made, anyhow, despite +all the rest of the welter and uncertainty." + +"Of course, dearest." + +He would go on. After a while Cecil would awake guiltily and inject +a fresh, almost gay interest into her sleepy voice. She was not so +unfettered as not to dread the wounded esteem of the unlistened-to +male. She would lean over and kiss Adrian. + +"Do go to sleep, darling! What's the sense? Pretty soon your uncle +will be dead--wretched old man! Then you'll never have to think of +him again." Being a childless woman, her red, a trifle cruel mouth +would twist itself in the darkness into a small, secretive, maternal +smile. + +But old Mr. Henry McCain didn't die; instead he seemed to be caught +up in the condition of static good health which frequently +companions entire selfishness and a careful interest in oneself. His +butler died, which was very annoying. Mr. McCain seemed to consider +it the breaking of a promise made fifteen or so years before. It was +endlessly a trouble instructing a new man, and then, of course, +there was Adlington's family to be looked after, and taxes had gone +up, and Mrs. Adlington was a stout woman who, despite the fact that +Adlington, while alive, had frequently interrupted Mr. McCain's +breakfast newspaper reading by asserting that she was a person of no +character, now insisted upon weeping noisily every time Mr. McCain +granted her an interview. Also, and this was equally unexpected, +since one rather thought he would go on living forever, like one of +the damper sort of fungi, Mr. Denby came home from the club one +rainy spring night with a slight cold and died, three days later, +with extraordinary gentleness. + +"My uncle," said Adrian, "is one by one losing his accessories. +After a while it will be his teeth." + +Cecil was perplexed. "I don't know exactly what to do," she +complained. "I don't know whether to treat Mrs. Denby as a bereaved +aunt, a non-existent family skeleton, or a released menace. I dare +say now, pretty soon, she and your uncle will be married. Meanwhile, +I suppose it is rather silly of me not to call and see if I can help +her in any way. After all, we do know her intimately, whether we +want to or not, don't we? We meet her about all the time, even if +she wasn't motoring over to your uncle's place in the summer when we +stop there." + +So she went, being fundamentally kindly and fundamentally curious. +She spoke of the expedition as "a descent upon Fair Rosamund's tower." + +The small, yellow-panelled drawing-room, where she awaited Mrs. +Denby's coming, was lit by a single silver vase-lamp under an orange +shade and by a fire of thin logs, for the April evening was damp +with a hesitant rain. On the table, near the lamp, was a silver vase +with three yellow tulips in it, and Cecil, wandering about, came +upon a double photograph frame, back of the vase, that made her gasp. +She picked it up and stared at it. Between the alligator edgings, +facing each other obliquely, but with the greatest amity, were +Mr. Thomas Denby in the fashion of ten years before, very handsome, +very well-groomed, with the startled expression which any definite +withdrawal from his potational pursuits was likely to produce upon +his countenance, and her uncle-in-law, Mr. Henry McCain, also in the +fashion of ten years back. She was holding the photographs up to the +light, her lips still apart, when she heard a sound behind her, and, +putting the frame back guiltily, turned about. Mrs. Denby was +advancing toward her. She seemed entirely unaware of Cecil's +malfeasance; she was smiling faintly; her hand was cordial, grateful. + +"You are very good," she murmured. "Sit here by the fire. We will +have some tea directly." + +Cecil could not but admit that she was very lovely; particularly +lovely in the black of her mourning, with her slim neck, rising up +from its string of pearls, to a head small and like a delicate +white-and-gold flower. An extraordinarily well-bred woman, a sort of +misty Du Maurier woman, of a type that had become almost non-existent, +if ever it had existed in its perfection at all. And, curiously +enough, a woman whose beauty seemed to have been sharpened by many +fine-drawn renunciations. Now she looked at her hands as if expecting +Cecil to say something. + +"I think such calls as this are always very useless, but then--" + +"Exactly--but then! They mean more than anything else in the world, +don't they? When one reaches fifty-five one is not always used to +kindness.... You are very kind...." She raised her eyes. + +Cecil experienced a sudden impulsive warmth. "After all, what did +she or any one else know about other peoples' lives? Poor souls! +What a base thing life often was!" + +"I want you to understand that we are always so glad, both Adrian +and myself.... Any time we can help in any way, you know--" + +"Yes, I think you would. You--I have watched you both. You don't mind, +do you? I think you're both rather great people--at least, my idea +of greatness." + +Cecil's eyes shone just a little; then she sat back and drew +together her eager, rather childish mouth. This wouldn't do! She had +not come here to encourage sentimentalization. With a determined +effort she lifted her mind outside the circle of commiseration which +threatened to surround it. She deliberately reset the conversation +to impersonal limits. She was sure that Mrs. Denby was aware of her +intention, adroitly concealed as it was. This made her uncomfortable, +ashamed. And yet she was irritated with herself. Why should she +particularly care what this woman thought in ways as subtle as this? +Obvious kindness was her intention, not mental charity pursued into +tortuous by-paths. And, besides, her frank, boyish cynicism, its +wariness, revolted, even while she felt herself flattered at the +prospect of the confidences that seemed to tremble on Mrs. Denby's +lips. It wouldn't do to "let herself in for anything"; to "give +herself away." No! She adopted a manner of cool, entirely reflective +kindliness. But all along she was not sure that she was thoroughly +successful. There was a lingering impression that Mrs. Denby was +penetrating the surface to the unwilling interest beneath. Cecil +suspected that this woman was trained in discriminations and +half-lights to which she and her generation had joyfully made +themselves blind. She felt uncomfortably young; a little bit smiled +at in the most kindly of hidden ways. Just as she was leaving, the +subversive softness came close to her again, like a wave of too much +perfume as you open a church-door; as if some one were trying to +embrace her against her will. + +"You will understand," said Mrs. Denby, "that you have done the very +nicest thing in the world. I am horribly lonely. I have few women +friends. Perhaps it is too much to ask--but if you could call again +sometime. Yes ... I would appreciate it so greatly." + +She let go of Cecil's hand and walked to the door, and stood with +one long arm raised against the curtain, her face turned toward the +hall. + +"There is no use," she said, "in attempting to hide my husband's life, +for every one knows what it was, but then--yes, I think you will +understand. I am a childless woman, you see; he was infinitely +pathetic." + +Cecil felt that she must run away, instantly. "I do--" she said +brusquely. "I understand more than other women. Perfectly! Good-by!" + +She found herself brushing past the latest trim parlour-maid, and +out once more in the keen, sweet, young dampness. She strode briskly +down the deserted street. Her fine bronze eyebrows were drawn down +to where they met. "Good Lord! Damn!"--Cecil swore very prettily and +modernly--"What rotten taste! Not frankness, whatever it might seem +outwardly; not frankness, but devious excuses! Some more of Adrian's +hated past-generation stuff! And yet--no! The woman was +sincere--perfectly! She had meant it--that about her husband. And +she _was_ lovely--and she was fine, too! It was impossible to deny it. +But--a childless woman! About that drunken tailor's model of a +husband! And then--Uncle Henry! ..." Cecil threw back her head; her +eyes gleamed in the wet radiance of a corner lamp; she laughed +without making a sound, and entirely without amusement. + +But it is not true that good health is static, no matter how +carefully looked after. And, despite the present revolt against the +Greek spirit, Time persists in being bigotedly Greek. The +tragedy--provided one lives long enough--is always played out to its +logical conclusion. For every hour you have spent, no matter how +quietly or beautifully or wisely, Nemesis takes toll in the end. You +peter out; the engine dulls; the shining coin wears thin. If it's +only that it is all right; you are fortunate if you don't become +greasy, too, or blurred, or scarred. And Mr. McCain had not spent +all his hours wisely or beautifully, or even quietly, underneath the +surface. He suddenly developed what he called "acute indigestion." + +"Odd!" he complained, "and exceedingly tiresome! I've been able to +eat like an ostrich all my life." Adrian smiled covertly at the +simile, but his uncle was unaware that it was because in Adrian's +mind the simile applied to his uncle's conscience, not his stomach. + +It _was_ an odd disease, that "acute indigestion." It manifested +itself by an abrupt tragic stare in Mr. McCain's eyes, a whiteness of +cheek, a clutching at the left side of the breast; it resulted also +in his beginning to walk very slowly indeed. One day Adrian met +Carron, his uncle's physician, as he was leaving a club after +luncheon. Carron stopped him. "Look here, Adrian," he said, +"is that new man of your uncle's--that valet, or whatever he is--a +good man?" + +Adrian smiled. "I didn't hire him," he answered, "and I couldn't +discharge him if I wanted--in fact, any suggestion of that kind on my +part, would lead to his employment for life. Why?" + +"Because," said Carron, "he impresses me as being rather young and +flighty, and some day your uncle is going to die suddenly. He may +last five years; he may snuff out to-morrow. It's his heart." His +lips twisted pityingly. "He prefers to call it by some other name," +he added, "and he would never send for me again if he knew I had +told you, but you ought to know. He's a game old cock, isn't he?" + +"Oh, very!" agreed Adrian. "Yes, game! Very, indeed!" + +He walked slowly down the sunlit courtway on which the back door of +the club opened, swinging his stick and meditating. Spring was +approaching its zenith. In the warm May afternoon pigeons tumbled +about near-by church spires which cut brown inlays into the soft +blue sky. There was a feeling of open windows; a sense of unseen +tulips and hyacinths; of people playing pianos.... Too bad, an old +man dying that way, his hand furtively seeking his heart, when all +this spring was about! Terror in possession of him, too! People like +that hated to die; they couldn't see anything ahead. Well, Adrian +reflected, the real tragedy of it hadn't been his fault. He had +always been ready at the slightest signal to forget almost +everything--yes, almost everything. Even that time when, as a +sweating newspaper reporter, he had, one dusk, watched in the park +his uncle and Mrs. Denby drive past in the cool seclusion of a +shining victoria. Curious! In itself the incident was small, but it +had stuck in his memory more than others far more serious, as +concrete instances are likely to do.... No, he wasn't sorry; not a +bit! He was glad, despite the hesitation he experienced in saying to +himself the final word. He had done his best, and this would mean +his own release and Cecil's. It would mean at last the blessed +feeling that he could actually afford a holiday, and a little +unthinking laughter, and, at thirty-nine, the dreams for which, at +twenty-five, he had never had full time. He walked on down the +courtway more briskly. + +That Saturday night was the night he dined with his uncle. It had +turned very warm; unusually warm for the time of year. When he had +dressed and had sought out Cecil to say good-by to her he found her +by the big studio window on the top floor of the apartment where +they lived. She was sitting in the window-seat, her chin cupped in +her hand, looking out over the city, in the dark pool of which +lights were beginning to open like yellow water-lilies. Her white +arm gleamed in the gathering dusk, and she was dressed in some +diaphanous blue stuff that enhanced the bronze of her hair. Adrian +took his place silently beside her and leaned out. The air was very +soft and hot and embracing, and up here it was very quiet, as if one +floated above the lower clouds of perpetual sound. + +Cecil spoke at last. "It's lovely, isn't it?" she said. "I should +have come to find you, but I couldn't. These first warm nights! You +really understand why people live, after all, don't you? It's like a +pulse coming back to a hand you love." She was silent a moment. +"Kiss me," she said, finally. "I--I'm so glad I love you, and we're +young." + +He stooped down and put his arms about her. He could feel her tremble. +How fragrant she was, and queer, and mysterious, even if he had +lived with her now for almost fifteen years! He was infinitely glad +at the moment for his entire life. He kissed her again, kissed her +eyes, and she went down the stairs with him to the hall-door. She +was to stop for him at his uncle's, after a dinner to which she was +going. + +Adrian lit a cigarette and walked instead of taking the elevator. It +was appropriate to his mood that on the second floor some one with a +golden Italian voice should be singing "Louise." He paused for a +moment. He was reminded of a night long ago in Verona, when there +had been an open window and moonlight in the street. Then he looked +at his watch. He was late; he would have to hurry. It amused him +that at his age he should still fear the silent rebuke with which +his uncle punished unpunctuality. + +He arrived at his destination as a near-by church clock struck the +half-hour. The new butler admitted him and led him back to where his +uncle was sitting by an open window; the curtains stirred in the +languid breeze, the suave room was a little penetrated by the night, +as if some sly, disorderly spirit was investigating uninvited. It +was far too hot for the wood fire--that part of the formula had been +omitted, but otherwise each detail was the same. "The two hundredth +time!" Adrian thought to himself. "The two hundredth time, at least! +It will go on forever!" And then the formula was altered again, for +his uncle got to his feet, laying aside the evening paper with his +usual precise care. "My dear fellow," he began, "so good of you! On +the minute, too! I----" and then he stumbled and put out his hand. +"My glasses!" he said. + +Adrian caught him and held him upright. He swayed a little. +"I----Lately I have had to use them sometimes, even when not reading," +he murmured. "Thank you! Thank you!" + +Adrian went back to the chair where his uncle had been sitting. He +found the glasses--gold pince-nez--but they were broken neatly in +the middle, lying on the floor, as if they had dropped from +someone's hand. He looked at them for a moment, puzzled, before he +gave them back to his uncle. + +"Here they are, sir," he said. "But--it's very curious. They're +broken in such an odd way." + +His uncle peered down at them. He hesitated and cleared his throat. +"Yes," he began; then he stood up straight, with an unexpected twist +of his shoulders. "I was turning them between my fingers," he said, +"just before you came in. I had no idea--no, no idea! Shall we go in? +I think dinner has been announced." + +There was the sherry in the little, deeply cut glasses, and the +clear soup, with a dash of lemon in it, and the fish, and afterward +the roast chicken, with vegetables discreetly limited and designed +not to detract from the main dish; and there was a pint of champagne +for Adrian and a mild white wine for his uncle. The latter twisted +his mouth in a dry smile. "One finds it difficult to get old," he +said. "I have always been very fond of champagne. More aesthetically +I think than the actual taste. It seems to sum up so well the +evening mood--dinner and laughter and forgetting the day. But now----" +he flicked contemptuously the stem of his glass--"I am only allowed +this uninspired stuff." He stopped suddenly and his face twisted +into the slight grimace which Adrian in the last few weeks had been +permitted occasionally to see. His hand began to wander vaguely over +the white expanse of his shirt. + +Adrian pushed back his chair. "Let me--!" he began, but his uncle +waved a deprecating hand. "Sit down!" he managed to say. "Please!" +Adrian sank back again. The colour returned to his uncle's cheeks +and the staring question left his eyes. He took a sip of wine. + +"I cannot tell you," he observed with elaborate indifference, +"how humiliating this thing is becoming to me. I have always had a +theory that invalids and people when they begin to get old and infirm, +should be put away some place where they can undergo the unpleasant +struggle alone. It's purely selfish--there's something about the +sanctity of the individual. Dogs have it right--you know the way +they creep off? But I suppose I won't. Pride fails when the body +weakens, doesn't it, no matter what the will may be?" He lifted his +wine-glass. "I am afraid I am giving you a very dull evening, my +dear fellow," he apologized. "Forgive me! We will talk of more +pleasant things. I drink wine with you! How is Cecil? Doing well +with her painting?" + +Adrian attempted to relax his own inner grimness. He responded to +his uncle's toast. But he wished this old man, so very near the +mysterious crisis of his affairs, would begin to forego to some +extent the habit of a lifetime, become a little more human. This +ridiculous "facade"! The dinner progressed. + +Through an open window the night, full of soft, distant sound, made +itself felt once more. The candles, under their red shades, +flickered at intervals. The noiseless butler came and went. How old +his uncle was getting to look, Adrian reflected. There was a +grayness about his cheeks; fine, wire-like lines about his mouth. +And he was falling into that sure sign of age, a vacant +absent-mindedness. Half the time he was not listening to what he, +Adrian, was saying; instead, his eyes sought constantly the shadows +over the carved sideboard across the table from him. What did he see +there? What question was he asking? Adrian wondered. Only once was +his uncle very much interested, and that was when Adrian had spoken +of the war and the psychology left in its train. Adrian himself had +not long before been released from a weary round of training-camps, +where, in Texas dust, or the unpleasant resinous summer of the South, +he had gone through a repetition that in the end had threatened to +render him an imbecile. He was not illusioned. As separate +personalities, men had lost much of their glamour for him; there had +been too much sweat, too much crowding, too much invasion of dignity, +of everything for which the world claimed it had been struggling and +praying. But alongside of this revolt on his part had grown up an +immense pity and belief in humanity as a mass--struggling, worm-like, +aspiring, idiotic, heroic. The thought of it made him uncomfortable +and at the same time elate. + +His uncle shook a dissenting head. On this subject he permitted +himself mild discussion, but his voice was still that of an old, +wearied man, annoyed and bewildered. "Oh, no!" he said. "That's the +very feature of it that seems to me most dreadful; the vermicular +aspect; the massed uprising; the massed death. About professional +armies there was something decent--about professional killing. It +was cold-blooded and keen, anyway. But this modern war, and this +modern craze for self-revelation! Naked! Why, these books--the young +men kept their fingers on the pulses of their reactions. It isn't +clean; it makes the individual cheap. War is a dreadful thing; it +should be as hidden as murder." He sat back, smiled. "We seem to +have a persistent tendency to become serious to-night," he remarked. + +Serious! Adrian saw a vision of the drill-grounds, and smiled +sardonically; then he raised his head in surprise, for the new +butler had broken all the rules of the household and was summoning +his uncle to the telephone in the midst of dessert. He awaited the +expected rebuke, but it did not come. Instead, his uncle paused in +the middle of a sentence, stared, and looked up. "Ah, yes!" he said, +and arose from his chair. "Forgive me, Adrian, I will be back shortly." +He walked with a new, just noticeable, infirmness toward the door. +Once there he seemed to think an apology necessary, for he turned +and spoke with absent-minded courtesy. + +"You may not have heard," he said, "but Mrs. Denby is seriously ill. +Her nurse gives me constant bulletins over the telephone." + +Adrian started to his feet, then sat down again. "But--" he +stuttered--"but--is it as bad as all that?" + +"I am afraid," said his uncle gently, "it could not be worse." The +curtain fell behind him. + +Adrian picked up his fork and began to stir gently the melting ice +on the plate before him, but his eyes were fixed on the wall opposite, +where, across the shining table, from a mellow gold frame, a +portrait of his grandfather smiled with a benignity, utterly belying +his traditional character, into the shadows above the candles. But +Adrian was not thinking of his grandfather just then, he was +thinking of his uncle--and Mrs. Denby. What in the world----! +Dangerously ill, and yet here had been his uncle able to go through +with--not entirely calmly, to be sure; Adrian remembered the lack of +attention, the broken eye-glasses; and yet, still able to go through +with, not obviously shaken, this monthly farce; this dinner that in +reality mocked all the real meaning of blood-relationship. Good Lord! +To Adrian's modern mind, impatient and courageous, the situation was +preposterous, grotesque. He himself would have broken through to the +woman he loved, were she seriously ill, if all the city was cordoned +to keep him back. What could it mean? Entire selfishness on his +uncle's part? Surely not that! That was too inhuman! Adrian was +willing to grant his uncle exceptional expertness in the art of +self-protection, but there was a limit even to self-protection. +There must be some other reason. Discretion? More likely, and yet +how absurd! Had Mr. Denby been alive, a meticulous, a fantastic +delicacy might have intervened, but Mr. Denby was dead. Who were +there to wound, or who left for the telling of tales? A doctor and +the servants. This was not altogether reasonable, despite what he +knew of his uncle. Here was some oddity of psychology he could not +follow. He heard the curtains stir as his uncle reentered. He looked +up, attentive and curious, but his uncle's face was the mask to +which he was accustomed. + +"How is Mrs. Denby?" he asked. + +Mr. McCain hesitated for the fraction of a second. "I am afraid, +very ill," he said. "Very ill, indeed! It is pneumonia. I--the +doctor thinks it is only a question of a little time, but--well, I +shall continue to hope for the best." There was a metallic harshness +to his concluding words. "Shall we go into the library?" he continued. +"I think the coffee will be pleasanter there." + +They talked again of the war; of revolution; of the dark forces at +large in the world. + +Through that hour or two Adrian had a nakedness of perception +unusual even to his sensitive mind. It seemed to him three spirits +were abroad in the quiet, softly-lit, book-lined room; three +intentions that crept up to him like the waves of the sea, receded, +crept back again; or were they currents of air? or hesitant, unheard +feet that advanced and withdrew? In at the open windows poured at +times the warm, enveloping scent of the spring; pervading, easily +overlooked, lawless, persistent, inevitable. Adrian found himself +thinking it was like the presence of a woman. And then, overlapping +this, would come the careful, dry, sardonic tones of his uncle's +voice, as if insisting that the world was an ordinary world, and +that nothing, not even love or death, could lay disrespectful +fingers upon or hurry for a moment the trained haughtiness of the +will. Yet even this compelling arrogance was at times overtaken, +submerged, by a third presence, stronger even than the other two; a +presence that entered upon the heels of the night; the ceaseless +murmur of the streets; the purring of rubber tires upon asphalt; a +girl's laugh, high, careless, reckless. Life went on. Never for a +moment did it stop. + +"I am not sorry that I am getting old," said Mr. McCain. "I think +nowadays is an excellent time to die. Perhaps for the very young, +the strong--but for me, things are too busy, too hurried. I have +always liked my life like potpourri. I liked to keep it in a china +jar and occasionally take off the lid. Otherwise one's sense of +perfume becomes satiated. Take your young girls; they remain +faithful to a love that is not worth being faithful to--all noise, +and flushed laughter, and open doors." Quite unexpectedly he began +to talk in a way he had never talked before. He held his cigar in +his hand until the ash turned cold; his ringers trembled just a +little. + +"You have been very good to me," he said. Adrian raised startled eyes. +"Very good. I am quite aware that you dislike me"--he hesitated and +the ghost of a smile hovered about his lips--"and I have always +disliked you. Please!" He raised a silencing hand. "You don't mind +my saying so? No. Very well, then, there is something I want to tell +you. Afterward I will never mention it again. I dare say our mutual +dislike is due to the inevitable misunderstanding that exists +between the generations. But it is not important. The point is that +we have always been well-bred toward each other. Yes, that is the +point. You have always been a gentleman, very considerate, very +courteous, I cannot but admire you. And I think you will find I have +done the best I could. I am not a rich man, as such things go +nowadays, but I will hand you on the money that will be yours quite +unimpaired, possibly added to. I feel very strongly on that subject. +I am old-fashioned enough to consider the family the most important +thing in life. After all, we are the only two McCains left." He +hesitated again, and twisted for a moment his bloodless hands in his +lap, then he raised his eyes and spoke with a curious hurried +embarrassment. "I have sacrificed a great deal for that," he said. +"Yes, a great deal." + +The soft-footed butler stood at his elbow, like an actor in comedy +suddenly cast for the role of a portentous messenger. + +"Miss Niles is calling you again, sir," he said. + +"On, yes!--ah--Adrian, I am very sorry, my dear fellow. I will +finish the conversation when I come back." + +This time the telephone was within earshot; in the hall outside. +Adrian heard his uncle's slow steps end in the creaking of a chair +as he sat down; then the picking up of the receiver. The message was +a long one, for his uncle did not speak for fully a minute; finally +his voice drifted in through the curtained doorway. + +"You think ... only a few minutes?" + +"... Ah, yes! Conscious? Yes. Well, will you tell her, Miss Niles?--yes, +please listen very carefully--tell her this. That I am not there +because I dared not come. Yes; on her account. She will understand. +My heart--it's my heart. She will understand. I did not dare. For her +sake, not mine. Tell her that. She will understand. Please be very +careful in repeating the message, Miss Niles. Tell her I dared not +come because of my heart.... Yes; thank you. That's it.... What? Yes, +I will wait, Miss Niles." + +Adrian, sitting in the library, suddenly got to his feet and crossed +to the empty fireplace and stood with his back to it, enlightenment +and a puzzled frown struggling for possession of his face. His +uncle's heart! Ah, he understood, then! It was discretion, after all, +but not the kind he thought--a much more forgiveable discretion. And, +yet, what possible difference could it make should his uncle die +suddenly in Mrs. Denby's house? Fall dead across her bed, or die +kneeling beside it? Poor, twisted old fool, afraid even at the end +that death might catch him out; afraid of a final undignified gesture. + +A motor blew its horn for the street crossing. Another girl laughed; +a young, thin, excited girl, to judge by her laughter. The curtains +stirred and again there was that underlying scent of tulips and +hyacinths; and then, from the hall outside, came the muffled thud of +a receiver falling to the floor. Adrian waited. The receiver was not +picked up. He strode to the door. Crumpled up over the telephone was +old Mr. McCain. + +Cecil came later. She was very quick and helpful, and jealously +solicitous on Adrian's account, but in the taxicab going home she +said the one thing Adrian had hoped she wouldn't say, and yet was +sure she would. She belonged to a sex which, if it is honest at all, +is never reticently so. She believed that between the man she loved +and herself there were no possible mental withdrawals. "It is very +tragic," she said, "but much better--you know it is better. He +belonged to the cumberers of the earth. Yes, so much better; and this +way, too!" + +In the darkness her hand sought his. Adrian took it, but in his +heart was the same choked feeling, the same knowledge that something +was gone that could not be found again, that, as a little boy, he had +had when they sold, at his father's death, the country place where +he had spent his summers. Often he had lain awake at night, restless +with the memory of heliotrope, and phlox, and mignonette, and +afternoons quiet except for the sound of bees. + + + + +"CONTACT!" + + +BY FRANCES NOYES HART[8] + +[Footnote 8: Frances Newbold Noyes, in _Pictorial Review_ for +December, 1920.] + + +The first time she heard it was in the silk-hung and flower-scented +peace of the little drawing-room in Curzon Street. His sister Rosemary +had wanted to come up to London to get some clothes--Victory clothes +they called them in those first joyous months after the armistice, +and decked their bodies in scarlet and silver, even when their poor +hearts went in black--and Janet had been urged to leave her own drab +boarding-house room to stay with the forlorn small butterfly. They had +struggled through dinner somehow, and Janet had finished her coffee +and turned the great chair so that she could watch the dancing fire +(it was cool for May), her cloudy brown head tilted back against the +rose-red cushion, shadowy eyes half closed, idle hands linked across +her knees. She looked every one of her thirty years--and mortally +tired--and careless of both facts. But she managed an encouraging +smile at the sound of Rosemary's shy, friendly voice at her elbow. +"Janet, these are yours, aren't they? Mummy found them with some +things last week, and I thought that you might like to have them." + +She drew a quick breath at the sight of the shabby packet. + +"Why, yes," she said evenly. "That's good of you, Rosemary. Thanks a +lot." + +"That's all right," murmured Rosemary diffidently. "Wouldn't you +like something to read? There's a most frightfully exciting Western +novel----" + +The smile took on a slightly ironical edge. "Don't bother about me, +my dear. You see, I come from that frightfully exciting West, and I +know all about the pet rattlesnakes and the wildly Bohemian cowboys. +Run along and play with your book--I'll be off to bed in a few +minutes." + +Rosemary retired obediently to the deep chair in the corner, and +with the smile gone but the irony still hovering, she slipped the +cord off the packet. A meager and sorry enough array--words had +never been for her the swift, docile servitors that most people +found them. But the thin gray sheet in her fingers started out +gallantly enough--"Beloved." Beloved! She leaned far forward, +dropping it with deft precision into the glowing pocket of embers. +What next? This was more like--it began "Dear Captain Langdon" in +the small, contained, even writing that was her pride, and it went +on soberly enough, "I shall be glad to have tea with you next +Friday--not Thursday, because I must be at the hut then. It was +stupid of me to have forgotten you--next time I will try to do better." +Well, she had done better the next time. She had not forgotten him +again--never, never again. That had been her first letter; how +absurd of Jerry, the magnificently careless, to have treasured it +all that time, the miserable, stilted little thing! She touched it +with curious fingers. Surely, surely he must have cared, to have +cared so much for that! + +It seemed incredible that she hadn't remembered him at once when he +came into the hut that second time. Of course she had only seen him +for a moment and six months had passed--but he was so absurdly vivid, +every inch of him, from the top of his shining, dark head to the +heels of his shining, dark boots--and there were a great many inches! +How could she have forgotten, even for a minute, those eyes dancing +like blue fire in the brown young face, the swift, disarming charm +of his smile, and, above all, his voice--how, in the name of +absurdity could any one who had once heard it ever forget Jeremy +Langdon's voice? Even now she had only to close her eyes, and it +rang out again, with its clipped, British accent and its caressing +magic, as un-English as any Provincial troubadour's! And yet she had +forgotten--he had had to speak twice before she had even lifted her +head. + +"Miss America--oh, I say, she's forgotten me, and I thought that I'd +made such an everlasting impression!" The delighted amazement +reached even her tired ears, and she had smiled wanly as she pushed +the pile of coppers nearer to him. + +"Have you been in before? It's stupid of me, but there are such +hundreds of thousands of you, and you are gone in a minute, you see. +That's your change, I think." + +"Hundreds of thousands of me, hey?" He had leaned across the counter, +his face alight with mirth. "I wish to the Lord my angel mother +could hear you--it's what I'm forever tellin' her, though just +between us, it's stuff and nonsense. I've got a well-founded +suspicion that I'm absolutely unique. You wait and see!" + +And she had waited--and she had seen! She stirred a little, dropped +the note into the flames, and turned to the next, the quiet, mocking +mouth suddenly tortured and rebellious. + +"No, you must be mad," it ran, the trim writing strangely shaken. +"How often have you seen me--five times? Do you know how old I am. +How hard and tired and useless? No--no a thousand times. In a little +while we will wake up and find that we were dreaming." + +That had brought him to her swifter than Fate, triumphant mischief +in every line of his exultant face. "Just let those damned old cups +slip from your palsied fingers, will you? I'm goin' to take your +honourable age for a little country air--it may keep you out of the +grave for a few days longer. Never can tell! No use your scowlin' +like that--the car's outside, and the big chief says to be off with +you. Says you have no more colour than a banshee, and not half the +life--can't grasp the fact that it's just chronic antiquity. Fasten +the collar about your throat--no, higher! Darlin', darlin', think of +havin' a whole rippin' day to ourselves. You're glad, too, aren't you, +my little stubborn saint?" + +Oh, that joyous and heart-breaking voice, running on and on--it made +all the other voices that she had ever heard seem colourless and +unreal-- + +"Darlin' idiot, what do I care how old you are? Thirty, hey? Almost +old enough to be an ancestor! Look at me--no, look at me! Dare you +to say that you aren't mad about me!" + +Mad about him--mad, mad! She lifted her hands to her ears, but she +could no more shut out the exultant voice now than she could on that +windy afternoon. + +"Other fellow got tired of you, did he? Good luck for us, what? +You're a fearfully tiresome person, darlin'. It's goin' to take me +nine-tenths of eternity to tell you how tiresome you are. Give a +chap a chance, won't you? The tiresomest thing about you is the way +you leash up that dimple of yours. No, by George, there it is! Janie, +look at me----" + +She touched the place where the leashed dimple had hidden with a +delicate and wondering finger--of all Jerry's gifts to her the most +miraculous had been that small fugitive. Exiled now, forever and +forever. + +"Are you comin' down to White Orchards next week-end? I'm off for +France on the twelfth and you've simply got to meet my people. +You'll be insane about 'em--Rosemary's the most beguilin' +flibbertigibbet, and I can't wait to see you bein' a kind of an +elderly grandmother to her. What a bewitchin' little grandmother +you're goin' to be one of these days----" + +Oh, Jerry! Oh, Jerry, Jerry! She twisted in her chair, her face +suddenly a small mask of incredulous terror. No, no, it wasn't true, +it wasn't true--never--never--never! And then, for the first time, +she heard it. Far off but clear, a fine and vibrant humming, the +distant music of wings! The faint, steady pulsing was drawing nearer +and nearer--nearer still--it must be flying quite high. The hateful +letters scattered about her as she sprang to the open window--no, it +was too high to see, and too dark, though the sky was powdered with +stars--but she could hear it clearly, hovering and throbbing like +some gigantic bird. It must be almost directly over her head, if she +could only see it. + +"It sounds--it sounds the way a humming-bird would look through a +telescope," she said half aloud, and Rosemary murmured sleepily but +courteously, "What, Janet?" + +"Just an airplane--no, gone now. It sounded like a bird. Didn't you +hear it?" + +"No," replied Rosemary drowsily. "We get so used to the old things +that we don't even notice them any more. Queer time to be flying!" + +"It sounded rather--beautiful," said Janet, her face still turned to +the stars. "Far off, but so clear and sure. I wonder--I wonder +whether it will be coming back?" + +Well, it came back. She went down to White Orchards with Rosemary +for the following week-end, and after she had smoothed her hair and +given a scornful glance at the pale face in the mirror, with its +shadowy eyes and defiant mouth, she slipped out to the lower terrace +for a breath of the soft country air. Halfway down the flight of +steps she stumbled and caught at the balustrade, and stood shaking +for a moment, her face pressed against its rough surface. Once +before--once before she had stumbled on those steps, but it was not +the balustrade that had saved her. She could feel his arms about her +now, holding her up, holding her close and safe. The magical voice +was in her ears. "Let you go? I'll never let you go! Poor little feet, +stumblin' in the dark, what would you do without Jerry? Time's comin', +you cheeky little devils, when you'll come runnin' to him when he +whistles! No use tryin' to get away--you belong to him." + +Oh, whistle to them now, Jerry--they would run to you across the +stars! + +"How'd you like to marry me before I go back to-morrow? No? No +accountin' for tastes, Miss Abbott--lots of people would simply jump +at it! All right--April, then. Birds and flowers and all that kind +o' thing--pretty intoxicatin', what? No, keep still, darlin' goose. +What feller taught you to wear a dress that looks like roses and +smells like roses and feels like roses? This feller? Lord help us, +what a lovely liar!" + +And suddenly she found herself weeping helplessly, desperately, like +an exhausted child, shaken to the heart at the memory of the +rose-coloured dress. + +"You like me just a bit, don't you, funny, quiet little thing? But +you'd never lift a finger to hold me--that's the wonder of +you--that's why I'll never leave you. No, not for heaven. You can't +lose me--no use tryin'." + +But she had lost you, Jerry--you had left her, for all your promises, +to terrified weeping in the hushed loveliness of the terrace, where +your voice had turned her still heart to a dancing star, where your +fingers had touched her quiet blood to flowers and flames and +butterflies. She had believed you then--what would she ever +believe again? And then she caught back the despairing sobs +swiftly, for once more she heard, far off, the rushing of wings. +Nearer--nearer--humming and singing and hovering in the quiet dusk. +Why, it was over the garden! She flung back her head, suddenly eager +to see it; it was a friendly and thrilling sound in all that +stillness. Oh, it was coming lower--lower still--she could hear the +throb of the propellers clearly. Where _was_ it? Behind those trees, +perhaps? She raced up the flight of steps, dashing the treacherous +tears from her eyes, straining up on impatient tiptoes. Surely she +could see it now! But already it was growing fainter--drifting +steadily away, the distant hum growing lighter and lighter--lighter +still---- + +"Janet!" called Mrs. Langdon's pretty, patient voice. "Dinner-time, +dear! Is there any one with you?" + +"No one at all, Mrs. Langdon. I was just listening to an airplane." + +"An _airplane_? Oh, no, dear--they never pass this way any more. The +last one was in October, I think----" + +The soft, plaintive voice trailed off in the direction of the +dining-room and Janet followed it, a small, secure smile touching +her lips. The last one had not passed in October. It had passed a +few minutes before, over the lower garden. + +She quite forgot it by the next week--she was becoming an adept at +forgetting. That was all that was left for her to do! Day after day +and night after night she had raised the drawbridge between her +heart and memory, leaving the lonely thoughts to shiver desolately +on the other side of the moat. She was weary to the bone of suffering, +and they were enemies, for all their dear and friendly guise; they +would tear her to pieces if she ever let them in. No, no, she was +done with them. She would forget, as Jerry had forgotten. She would +destroy every link between herself and the past--and pack the neat +little steamer trunk neatly--and bid these kind and gentle people +good-by--and take herself and her bitterness and her dullness back +to the class-room in the Western university town--back to the +Romance languages. The Romance languages! + +She would finish it all that night, and leave as soon as possible. +There were some trinkets to destroy, and his letters from France to +burn--she would give Rosemary the rose-coloured dress--foolish, +lovely little Rosemary, whom he had loved, and who was lying now +fast asleep in the next room curled up like a kitten in the middle +of the great bed, her honey-coloured hair falling about her in a +shining mist. She swept back her own cloud of hair resolutely, +frowning at the candle-lit reflection in the mirror. Two desolate +pools in the small, pale oval of her face stared back at her--two +pools with something drowned in their lonely depths. Well, she would +drown it deeper! + +The letters first; how lucky that they still used candle-light! It +would make the task much simpler--the funeral pyre already lighted. +She moved one of the tall candelabra to the desk, sitting for a long +time quite still, her chin cupped in her hands, staring down at the +bits of paper. She could smell the wall-flowers under the window as +though they were in the room--drenched in dew and moonlight, they +were reckless of their fragrance. All this peace and cleanliness and +orderly beauty--what a ghastly trick for God to have played--to have +taught her to adore them, and then to snatch them away! All about her, +warm with candle-light, lay the gracious loveliness of the little +room with its dark waxed furniture, its bright glazed chintz, its +narrow bed with the cool linen sheets smelling of lavender, and its +straight, patterned curtains--oh, that hateful, mustard-coloured den +at home, with its golden-oak day-bed! + +She wrung her hands suddenly in a little hunted gesture. How could +he have left her to that, he who had sworn that he would never leave +her? In every one of those letters beneath her linked fingers he had +sworn it--in every one perjured--false half a hundred times. Pick up +any one of them at random-- + +"Janie, you darling stick, is 'dear Jerry' the best that you can do? +You ought to learn French! I took a perfectly ripping French kid out +to dinner last night--name's Liane, from the Varietes--and she was +calling me '_mon grand cheri_' before the salad, and '_mon p'tit +amour_' before the green mint. Maybe _that'll_ buck you up! And I'd +have you know that she's so pretty that it's ridiculous, with black +velvet hair that she wears like a little Oriental turban, and eyes +like golden pansies, and a mouth between a kiss and a prayer--and a +nice affable nature into the bargain. But I'm a ghastly jackass--I +didn't get any fun out of it at all--because I really didn't even +see her. Under the pink shaded candles to my blind eyes it seemed +that there was seated the coolest, quietest, whitest little thing, +with eyes that were as indifferent as my velvety Liane's were kind, +and mockery in her smile. Oh, little masquerader! If I could get +my arms about you even for a minute--if I could kiss so much as +the tips of your lashes--would you be cool and quiet and mocking +then? Janie, Janie, rosy-red as flowers on the terrace and +sweeter--sweeter--they're about you now--they'll be about you always!" + +Burn it fast, candle--faster, faster. Here's another for you. + +"So the other fellow cured you of using pretty names, did he--you +don't care much for dear and darling any more? Bit hard on me, +but fortunately for you, Janie Janet, I'm rather a dab at +languages--'specially when it comes to what the late lamented Boche +referred to as 'cosy names.' _Querida mi alma, douchka, Herzliebchen, +carissima_; and _bien, bien-aimee_, I'll not run out of salutations +for you this side of heaven--no--nor t'other. I adore the serene +grace with which you ignore the ravishing Liane. Haven't you any +curiosity at all, my Sphinx? No? Well, then, just to punish you, +I'll tell you all about it. She's married to the best fellow in the +world--a _liaison_ officer working with our squadron--and she +worships the ground that he walks on and the air that he occasionally +flies in. So whenever I run up to the City of Light, _en permission_, +I look her up, and take her the latest news--and for an hour, over +the candles, we pretend that I am Philippe, and that she is Janie. +Only she says that I don't pretend very well--and it's just possible +that she's right. + +"_Mon petit coeur et grand tresor_, I wish that I could take you +flying with me this evening. You'd be daft about it! Lots of it's a +rotten bore, of course, but there's something in me that doesn't +live at all when I'm on this too, too solid earth. Something that +lies there, crouched and dormant, waiting until I've climbed up into +the seat, and buckled the strap about me and laid my hands on the +'stick.' It's waiting--waiting for a word--and so am I. And I lean +far forward, watching the figure toiling out beyond till the call +comes back to me, clear and confident, 'Contact, sir?' And I shout +back, as restless and exultant as the first time that I answered +it--'Contact!' + +"And I'm off--and I'm alive--and I'm free! Ho, Janie! That's simpler +than Abracadabra or Open Sesame, isn't it? But it opens doors more +magical than ever they swung wide, and something in me bounds through, +more swift and eager than any Aladdin. Free! I'm a crazy sort of a +beggar, my little love--that same thing in me hungers and thirsts and +aches for freedom. I go half mad when people or events try to hold +me--you, wise beyond wisdom, never will. Somehow, between us, we've +struck the spark that turns a mere piece of machinery into a wonder +with wings--somehow, you are forever setting me free. It is your +voice--your voice of silver and peace--that's eternally whispering +'Contact!' to me--and I am released, heart, soul, and body! And +because you speed me on my way, Janie, I'll never fly so far, I'll +never fly so long, I'll never fly so high that I'll not return to you. +You hold me fast, forever and forever." + +You had flown high and far indeed, Jerry--and you had not returned. +Forever and forever! Burn faster, flame! + +"My blessed child, who's been frightening you? Airplanes are by all +odds safer than taxis--and no end safer than the infernal duffer +who's been chaffing you would be if I could once get my hands on him. +Damn fool! Don't care if you do hate swearing--damn fools are damn +fools, and there's an end to it. All those statistics are sheer +melodramatic rot--the chap who fired 'em at you probably has all his +money invested in submarines, and is fairly delirious with jealousy. +Peg (did I ever formally introduce you to Pegasus, the best +pursuit-plane in the R.F.C.--or out of it?)--Peg's about as likely +to let me down as you are! We'd do a good deal for each other, she +and I--nobody else can really fly her, the darling! But she'd go to +the stars for me--and farther still. Never you fear--we have charmed +lives, Peg and I--we belong to Janie. + +"I think that people make an idiotic row about dying, anyway. It's +probably jolly good fun--and I can't see what difference a few years +here would make if you're going to have all eternity to play with. +Of course you're a ghastly little heathen, and I can see you wagging +a mournful head over this already--but every time that I remember +what a shocking sell the After Life (exquisite phrase!) is going to +be for you, darling, I do a bit of head-wagging myself--and it's not +precisely mournful! I can't wait to see your blank consternation--and +you needn't expect any sympathy from _me_. My very first words will +be, 'I told you so!' Maybe I'll rap them out to you with a table-leg! + +"What do you think of all this Ouija Planchette rumpus, anyway? I +can't for the life of me see why any one with a whole new world to +explore should hang around chattering with this one. I know that I'd +be half mad with excitement to get at the new job, and that I'd find +re-assuring the loved ones (exquisite phrase number two) a hideous +bore. Still, I can see that it would be nice from their selfish +point of view! Well, I'm no ghost yet, thank God--nor yet are +you--but if ever I am one, I'll show you what devotion really is. +I'll come all the way back from heaven to play with foolish Janie, +who doesn't believe that there is one to come from. To foolish, +foolish Janie, who still will be dearer than the prettiest angel of +them all, no matter how alluringly her halo may be tilted or her +wings ruffled. To Janie who, Heaven forgive him, will be all that +one poor ghost has ever loved!" + +Had there come to him, the radiant and the confident, a moment of +terrible and shattering surprise--a moment when he realized that +there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to greet +him--a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming darkness, +blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew out the +little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held his +laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to have +spared him that moment! + +"My little Greatheart, did you think that I did not know how brave +you are? You are the truest soldier of us all, and I, who am not +much given to worship, am on my knees before that shy gallantry of +yours, which makes what courage we poor duffers have seem a vain and +boastful thing. When I see you as I saw you last, small and white +and clear and brave, I can't think of anything but the first +crocuses at White Orchards, shining out, demure and valiant, +fearless of wind and storm and cold--fearless of Fear itself. You see, +you're so very, very brave that you make me ashamed to be afraid of +poetry and sentiment and pretty words--things of which I have a good, +thumping Anglo-Saxon terror, I can tell you! It's because I know +what a heavenly brick you are that I could have killed that +statistical jackass for bothering you; but I'll forgive him, since +you say that it's all right. And so ghosts are the only things in +the world that frighten you--even though you know that there aren't +any. You and Madame de Stael, hey? 'I do not believe in ghosts, but I +fear them!' It's pretty painful to learn that the mere sight of one +would turn you into a gibbering lunatic. Nice sell for an +enthusiastic spirit who'd romped clear back from heaven to give you +a pleasant surprise--I _don't_ think! Well, no fear, young +Janie--I'll find some way if I'm put to it--some nice, safe, pretty +way that wouldn't scare a neurasthenic baby, let alone the dauntless +Miss Abbott. I'll find--" + +Oh, no more of that--no more! She crushed the sheet in her hands +fiercely, crumpling it into a little ball--the candle-flame was too +slow. No, she couldn't stand it--she couldn't--she couldn't, +and there was an end to it. She would go raving mad--she would +kill herself--she would--She lifted her head, wrenched suddenly +back from that chaos of despair, alert and intent. There it was +again, coming swiftly nearer and nearer from some immeasurable +distance--down--down--nearer still--the very room was humming and +throbbing with it--she could almost hear the singing in the wires. +She swung far out over the window edge, searching the moon-drenched +garden with eager eyes--surely, surely it would never fly so low +unless it were about to land! Engine trouble, perhaps--though she +could detect no break in the huge, rhythmic pulsing that was shaking +the night. Still-- + +"Rosemary!" she called urgently. "Rosemary--listen--is there a +place where it can land?" + +"Where what can land?" asked a drowsy voice. + +"An airplane. It's flying so low that it must be in some kind of +trouble--do come and see!" + +Rosemary came pattering obediently toward her, a small, docile figure, +dark eyes misted with dreams, wide with amazement. + +"I must be nine-tenths asleep," she murmured gently. "Because I +don't hear a single thing, Janet. Perhaps--" + +"Hush--listen!" begged Janet, raising an imperative hand--and then +her own eyes widened. "Why--it's _gone_!" There was a note of flat +incredulity in her voice. "Heavens, how those things must eat up +space! Not a minute, ago it was fairly shaking this room, and now--" + +Rosemary stifled a small pink yawn and smiled ingratiatingly. + +"Perhaps you were asleep too," she suggested humbly. "I don't +believe that airplanes ever fly this way any more. Or it might have +been that fat Hodges boy on his motorcycle--he does make the most +dreadful racket. Oh, Janet, what a perfectly _ripping_ night--do see!" + +They leaned together on the window-sill, silenced by the white and +shining beauty that had turned the pleasant garden into a place of +magic and enchantment. The corners of Janet's mouth lifted suddenly. +How absurd people were! The fat Hodges boy and his motorcycle! Did +they all regard her as an amiable lunatic--even little, lovely, +friendly Rosemary, wavering sleepily at her side? It really was +maddening. But she felt, amazingly enough, suddenly quiet and joyous +and indifferent--and passionately glad that the wanderer from the +skies had won safely through and was speeding home. Home! Oh, it was +a crying pity that it need ever land--anything so fleet and strong +and sure should fly forever! But if they must rest, those beating +wings--the old R.F.C. toast went singing through her head and she +flung it out into the moonlight, smiling--"Happy landings! Happy +landings, you!" + +The next day was the one that brought to White Orchards what was to +be known for many moons as "the Big Storm." It had been gathering +all afternoon, and by evening the heat had grown appalling and +incredible, even to Janet's American and exigent standards. The +smouldering copper sky looked as though it had caught fire from the +world and would burn forever; there was not so much as a whisper of +air to break the stillness--it seemed as though the whole tortured +earth were holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next. +Every one had struggled through the day assuring one another that +when evening came it would be all right--dangling the alluring +thought of the cool darkness before each other's hot and weary eyes; +but the night proved even more outrageous than the day. To the +little group seated on the terrace, dispiritedly playing with their +coffee, it seemed almost a personal affront. The darkness closed in +on them, smothering, heavy, intolerable; they could feel its weight, +as though it were some hateful and tangible thing. + +"Like--like black cotton wool," explained Rosemary, stirred to +unwonted resentment. She had spent the day curled up in the largest +Indian chair on the terrace, round-eyed with fatigue and incredulity. + +"I honestly think that we must be dreaming," she murmured to her +feverish audience; "I do, honestly. Why, it's only _May_, and we +never, never--there was that day in August about five years ago that +was almost as bad, though. D'you remember, Mummy?" + +"It's hardly the kind of thing that one is likely to forget, love. +Do you think that it is necessary for us to talk? I feel somehow +that I could bear it much more easily if we kept quite quiet." + +Janet stirred a little, uneasily. She hated silence--that terrible, +empty space waiting to be filled up with your thoughts--why, the +idlest chatter spared you that. She hated the terrace, too--she +closed her eyes to shut out the ugly darkness that was pressing +against her; behind the shelter of her lids it was cooler and stiller, +but open-eyed or closed, she could not shut out memory. The very +touch of the bricks beneath her feet brought back that late October +day. She had been sitting curled up on the steps in the warm sunlight, +with the keen, sweet air stirring her hair and sending the +beech-leaves dancing down the flagged path--there had been a heavenly +smell of burning from the far meadow, and she was sniffing it +luxuriously, feeling warm and joyous and protected in Jerry's great +tweed coat--watching the tall figure swinging across from the lodge +gate with idle, happy eyes--not even curious. It was not until he +had almost reached the steps that she had noticed that he was +wearing a foreign uniform--and even then she had promptly placed him +as one of Rosemary's innumerable conquests, bestowing on him a +friendly and inquiring smile. + +"Were you looking for Miss Langdon?" Even now she could see the +courteous, grave young face soften as he turned quickly toward her, +baring his dark head with that swift foreign grace that turns our +perfunctory habits into something like a ritual. + +"But no," he had said gently, "I was looking for you, Miss Abbott." + +"Now will you please tell me how in the world you knew that I was +Miss Abbott?" + +And he had smiled--with his lips, not his eyes. + +"I should be dull indeed if that I did not know. I am Philippe +Laurent, Miss Abbott." + +And "Oh," she had cried joyously, "Liane's Philippe!" + +"But yes--Liane's Philippe. They are not here, the others? Madame +Langdon, the little Miss Rosemary?" + +"No, they've gone to some parish fair, and I've been wicked and +stayed home. Won't you sit down and talk to me? Please!" + +"Miss Abbott, it is not to you that I must talk. What I have to say +is indeed most difficult, and it is to Jeremy's Janie that I would +say it. May I, then?" + +It had seemed to Jeremy's Janie that the voice in which she answered +him came from a great distance, but she never took her eyes from the +grave and vivid face. + +"Yes. And quickly, please." + +So he had told her--quickly--in his exquisitely careful English, and +she had listened as attentively and politely, huddled up on the +brick steps in the sunlight, as though he were running over the +details of the last drive, instead of tearing her life to pieces +with every word. She remembered now that it hadn't seemed real at +all--if it had been to Jerry that these horrors had happened could +she have sat there so quietly, feeling the colour bright in her +cheeks, and the wind stirring in her hair, and the sunlight warm on +her hands? Why, for less than this people screamed, and fainted, and +went raving mad! + +"You say--that his back is broken?" + +"But yes, my dear," Liane's Philippe had told her, and she had seen +the tears shining in his gray eyes. + +"And he is badly burned?" + +"My brave Janie, these questions are not good to ask--not good, not +good to answer. This I will tell you. He lives, our Jerry--and so +dearly does he love you that he will drag back that poor body from +hell itself--because it is yours, not his. This he has sent me to +tell you, most lucky lady ever loved." + +"You mean--that he isn't going to die?" + +"I tell you that into those small hands of yours he has given his +life. Hold it fast." + +"Will he--will he get well?" "He will not walk again; but have you +not swift feet to run for him?" + +And there had come to her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine, +an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant. Now +he was hers forever, the restless wanderer--delivered to her bound +and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve and +slave for, his troth to Freedom broken--hers at last! + +"I'm coming," she had told the tall young Frenchman breathlessly. +"Take me to him--please let's hurry." + +"_Ma pauvre petite_, this is war. One does not come and go at will. +God knows by what miracle enough red tape unwound to let me through +to you, to bring my message and to take one back." + +"What message, Philippe?" + +"That is for you to say, little Janie. He told me, 'Say to her that +she has my heart--if she needs my body, I will live. Say to her that +it is an ugly, broken, and useless thing; still, hers. She must use +it as she sees fit. Say to her--no, say nothing more. She is my Janie, +and has no need of words. Tell her to send me only one, and I will +be content.' For that one word, Janie, I have come many miles. What +shall it be?" + +And she had cried out exultantly, "Why, tell him that I say--" But +the word had died in her throat. Her treacherous lips had mutinied, +and she had sat there, feeling the blood drain back out of her +face--out of her heart--feeling her eyes turn back with sheer terror, +while she fought with those stiffened rebels. Such a little word +"Live!"--surely they could say that. Was it not what he was waiting +for, lying far away and still--schooled at last to patience, the +reckless and the restless! Oh, Jerry, Jerry, live! Even now she +could feel her mind, like some frantic little wild thing, racing, +racing to escape Memory. What had he said to her? "You, wise beyond +wisdom, will never hold me--you will never hold me--you will never--" + +And suddenly she had dropped her twisted hands in her lap and lifted +her eyes to Jerry's ambassador. + +"Will you please tell him--will you please tell him that I +say--'Contact'?" + +"Contact?" He had stood smiling down at her, ironical and tender. +"Ah, what a race! That is the prettiest word that you can find for +Jerry? But then it means to come very close, to touch, that poor +harsh word--there he must find what comfort he can. We, too, in +aviation use that word--it is the signal that says--'Now, you can fly!' +You do not know our vocabulary, perhaps?" + +"I know very little." + +"That is all then? No other message? He will understand, our Jerry?" + +And Janie had smiled--rather a terrible small smile. + +"Oh, yes," she told him. "He will understand. It is the word that he +is waiting for, you see." + +"I see." But there had been a grave wonder in his voice. + +"Would it----" she had framed the words as carefully as though it +were a strange tongue that she was speaking--"would it be possible +to buy his machine? He wouldn't want any one else to fly it." + +"Little Janie, never fear. The man does not live who shall fly poor +Peg again. Smashed to kindling-wood and burned to ashes, she has +taken her last flight to the heaven for good and brave birds of war. +Not enough was left of her to hold in your two hands." + +"I'm glad. Then that's all--isn't it? And thank you for coming." + +"It is I who thank you. What was hard as death you have made easy. I +had thought the lady to whom Jeremy Langdon gave his heart the +luckiest creature ever born--now I think him that luckiest one." The +grave grace with which he had bent to kiss her hand made of the +formal salutation an accolade--"My homage to you, Jerry's Janie!" A +quick salute, and he had turned on his heel, swinging off down the +flagged path with that swift, easy stride--past the sun-dial--past +the lily-pond--past the beech-trees--gone! For hours and hours after +he had passed out of sight she had sat staring after him, her hands +lying quite still in her lap--staring, staring--they had found her +there when they came back, sitting where Rosemary was seated now. Why, +there, on those same steps, a bare six months ago--Something snapped +in her head, and she stumbled to her feet, clinging to the arm of her +chair. + +"I can't _stand_ it!" she gasped. "No, no, it's no use--I can't, I +tell you. I--" + +Rosemary's arm was about her--Mrs. Langdon's soft voice in her +ears--a deeper note from Rosemary's engineer. + +"Oh, I say, poor girl! What is it, dear child--what's the matter? Is +it the heat, Janie?" + +"The heat!" She could hear herself laughing--frantic, hateful, +jangling laughter that wouldn't stop. "Oh, Jerry! Oh-h, Jerry, Jerry, +Jerry!" + +"It's this ghastly day. Let me get her some water, Mrs. Langdon. +Don't cry so, Janie--please, please don't, darling." + +"I c-can't help it--I c-can't----" She paused, listening intently, +her hand closing sharply over Rosemary's wrist. "Oh, listen, +listen--there it comes again--I told you so!" + +"Thank Heaven," murmured Mrs. Langdon devoutly, "I thought that it +never was going to rise this evening. It's from the south, too, so I +suppose that it means rain." + +"Rain?" repeated Janet vaguely. "Why in the world should it mean rain?" +Her small, pale face looked suddenly brilliant and enchanted, tilted +up to meet the thunderous music that was swinging nearer and nearer. +"Oh, do listen, you people! This time it's surely going to land!" + +Rosemary stared at her blankly. "Land? What _are_ you talking about, +Janie?" + +"My airplane--the one that you said was the fat Hodges boy on a +motorcycle! Is there any place near here that it can make a landing?" + +"Darling child--" Mrs. Langdon's gentle voice was gentler than ever-- +"darling child, it's this wretched heat. There isn't any airplane, +dear--it's just the wind rising in the beeches." + +"The wind?" Janet laughed aloud--they really were too absurd. +"Why, Mrs. Langdon, you can hear the _engines_, if you'll only listen! +You can hear them, can't you, Mr. Bain?" + +The young engineer shook his head. "No plane would risk flying with +this storm coming, Miss Abbott. There's been thunder for the last +hour or so, and it's getting nearer, too. It's only the wind, I think." + +"Oh, you're laughing at me--of course, of course you hear it. Why, +it's as clear as--as clear as--" Her voice trailed off into silence. +Quite suddenly, without any transition or warning, she knew. She +could feel her heart stand perfectly still for a minute, and then +plunge forward in mad flight, racing, racing--oh, it knew, too, that +eager heart! She took her hand from the arm of the chair, releasing +Rosemary's wrist very gently. + +"Yes, of course, it's the heat," she said quietly. She must be +careful not to frighten them, these kind ones. "If you don't mind, +Mrs. Langdon, I think that I'll go down to the gate to watch the +storm burst. No, please, don't any of you come--I'll promise to +change everything if I get caught--yes, everything! I won't be long; +don't wait for me." + +She walked sedately enough until she came to the turn in the path, +but after that she ran, only pausing for a minute to listen +breathlessly. Oh, yes--following, following, that gigantic music! +How he must be laughing at her now--blind, deaf, incredulous little +fool that she had been, to doubt that Jerry would find a way! But +where could he land? Not in the garden--not at the gates--oh, now +she had it--the far meadow. She turned sharply; it was dark, but the +path must be here. Yes, this was the wicket gate; her groping +fingers were quite steady--they found the latch--released it--the +gate swung to behind her flying footsteps. "Oh, Jerry, Jerry!" sang +her heart. Why hadn't she worn the rose-coloured frock? It was she +who would be a ghost in that trailing white thing. To the right +here--yes, there was the hawthorn hedge--only a few steps more--oh, +now! She stood as still as a small statue, not moving, not breathing, +her hands at her heart, her face turned to the black and torn sky. +Nearer, nearer, circling and darting and swooping--the gigantic +humming grew louder--louder still--it swept about her thunderously, +so close that she clapped her hands over her ears, but she stood her +ground, exultant and undaunted. Oh, louder still--and then suddenly +the storm broke. All the winds and the rains of the world were +unleashed, and fell howling and shrieking upon her, she staggered +under their onslaught, drenched to the bone, her dress whipping +frantically about her, blinded and deafened by that tumultuous +clamour. She had only one weapon against it--laughter--and she +laughed now--straight into its teeth. And as though hell itself must +yield to mirth, the fury wavered--failed--sank to muttering. But +Janie, beaten to her knees and laughing, never even heard it die. + +"Jerry?" she whispered into the darkness, "Jerry?" + +Oh, more wonderful than wonder, he was there! She could feel him stir, +even if she could not hear him--so close, so close was he that if she +even reached out her hand, she could touch him. She stretched it out +eagerly, but there was nothing there--only a small, remote sound of +withdrawal, as though some one had moved a little. + +"You're afraid that I'll be frightened, aren't you?" she asked +wistfully. "I wouldn't be--I wouldn't--please come back'" + +He was laughing at her, she knew, tender and mocking and caressing; +she smiled back, tremulously. + +"You're thinking, 'I told you so!' Have you come far to say it to me?" + +Only that little stir--the wind was rising again. + +"Jerry, come close--come closer still. What are you waiting for, +dear and dearest?" + +This time there was not even a stir to answer her; she felt suddenly +cold to the heart. What had he always waited for? + +"You aren't waiting--you aren't waiting to go?" She fought to keep +the terror out of her voice, but it had her by the throat. "Oh, no, +no--you can't--not again! Jerry, Jerry, don't go away and leave +me--truly and truly I can't stand it--truly!" + +She wrung her hands together desperately; she was on her knees to +him--did he wish her to go lower still? Oh, she had never learned to +beg! + +"I can't send you away again--I can't. When I sent you to France I +killed my heart--when I let you go to death, I crucified my soul. I +haven't anything left but my pride--you can have that, too. I can't +send you back to your heaven. Stay with me--stay with me, Jerry!" + +Not a sound--not a stir--but well she knew that he was standing there, +waiting. She rose slowly to her feet. + +"Very well--you've won," she said hardly. "Go back to your saints and +seraphs and angels; I'm beaten. I was mad to think that you ever +cared--go back!" She turned, stumbling, the sobs tearing at her +throat; he had gone several steps before she realized that he was +following her--and all the hardness and bitterness and despair fell +from her like a cloak. + +"Oh, Jerry," she whispered, "Jerry, darling, I'm so sorry. And +you've come so far--just to find this! What is it that you want; +can't you tell me?" + +She stood tense and still, straining eyes and ears for her +answer--but it was not to eyes or ears that it came. + +"Oh, of course!" she cried clearly. "Of course, my wanderer! Ready?" + +She stood poised for a second, head thrown back, arms flung wide--a +small figure of Victory, caught in the flying wind. + +And, "Contact, Jerry!" she called joyously into the darkness. +"Contact!" + +There was a mighty whirring, a thunder and a roaring above the storm. +She stood listening breathlessly to it rise and swell--and then grow +fainter--fainter still--dying, dying--dying-- + +But Janie, her small white face turned to the storm-swept sky behind +which shone the stars, was smiling radiantly. For she had sped her +wanderer on his way--she had not failed him! + + + + +THE CAMEL'S BACK + + +BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD + +From _The Saturday Evening Post_ + +The restless, wearied eye of the tired magazine reader resting for a +critical second on the above title will judge it to be merely +metaphorical. Stories about the cup and the lip and the bad penny +and the new broom rarely have anything to do with cups and lips and +pennies and brooms. This story is the great exception. It has to do +with an actual, material, visible and large-as-life camel's back. + +Starting from the neck we shall work tailward. Meet Mr. Perry +Parkhurst, twenty-eight, lawyer, native of Toledo. Perry has nice +teeth, a Harvard education, and parts his hair in the middle. You +have met him before--in Cleveland, Portland, St. Paul, Indianapolis, +Kansas City and elsewhere. Baker Brothers, New York, pause on their +semi-annual trip through the West to clothe him; Montmorency & Co., +dispatch a young man posthaste every three months to see that he has +the correct number of little punctures on his shoes. He has a +domestic roadster now, will have a French roadster if he lives long +enough, and doubtless a Chinese one if it comes into fashion. He +looks like the advertisement of the young man rubbing his +sunset-coloured chest with liniment, goes East every year to the +Harvard reunion--does everything--smokes a little too much--Oh, +you've seen him. + +Meet his girl. Her name is Betty Medill, and she would take well in +the movies. Her father gives her two hundred a month to dress on and +she has tawny eyes and hair, and feather fans of three colours. Meet +her father, Cyrus Medill. Though he is to all appearances flesh and +blood he is, strange to say, commonly known in Toledo as the +Aluminum Man. But when he sits in his club window with two or three +Iron Men and the White Pine Man and the Brass Man they look very +much as you and I do, only more so, if you know what I mean. + +Meet the camel's back--or no--don't meet the camel's back yet. Meet +the story. + +During the Christmas holidays of 1919, the first real Christmas +holidays since the war, there took place in Toledo, counting only +the people with the italicized _the_, forty-one dinner parties, +sixteen dances, six luncheons male and female, eleven luncheons +female, twelve teas, four stag dinners, two weddings and thirteen +bridge parties. It was the cumulative effect of all this that moved +Perry Parkhurst on the twenty-ninth day of December to a desperate +decision. + +Betty Medill would marry him and she wouldn't marry him. She was +having such a good time that she hated to take such a definite step. +Meanwhile, their secret engagement had got so long that it seemed as +if any day it might break off of its own weight. A little man named +Warburton, who knew it all, persuaded Perry to superman her, to get +a marriage license and go up to the Medill house and tell her she'd +have to marry him at once or call it off forever. This is some +stunt--but Perry tried it on December the twenty-ninth. He presented +self, heart, license, and ultimatum, and within five minutes they +were in the midst of a violent quarrel, a burst of sporadic open +fighting such as occurs near the end of all long wars and engagements. +It brought about one of those ghastly lapses in which two people who +are in love pull up sharp, look at each other coolly and think it's +all been a mistake. Afterward they usually kiss wholesomely and +assure the other person it was all their fault. Say it all was my +fault! Say it was! I want to hear you say it! + +But while reconciliation was trembling in the air, while each was, +in a measure, stalling it off, so that they might the more +voluptuously and sentimentally enjoy it when it came, they were +permanently interrupted by a twenty-minute phone call for Betty from +a garrulous aunt who lived in the country. At the end of eighteen +minutes Perry Parkhurst, torn by pride and suspicion and urged on by +injured dignity, put on his long fur coat, picked up his light brown +soft hat and stalked out the door. + +"It's all over," he muttered brokenly as he tried to jam his car +into first. "It's all over--if I have to choke you for an hour, darn +you!" This last to the car, which had been standing some time and +was quite cold. + +He drove downtown--that is, he got into a snow rut that led him +downtown. + +He sat slouched down very low in his seat, much too dispirited to +care where he went. He was living over the next twenty years without +Betty. + +In front of the Clarendon Hotel he was hailed from the sidewalk by a +bad man named Baily, who had big huge teeth and lived at the hotel +and had never been in love. + +"Perry," said the bad man softly when the roadster drew up beside +him at the curb, "I've got six quarts of the dog-gonedest champagne +you ever tasted. A third of it's yours, Perry, if you'll come +upstairs and help Martin Macy and me drink it." + +"Baily," said Perry tensely. "I'll drink your champagne. I'll drink +every drop of it. I don't care if it kills me. I don't care if it's +fifty-proof wood alcohol." + +"Shut up, you nut!" said the bad man gently. "They don't put wood +alcohol in champagne. This is the stuff that proves the world is +more than six thousand years old. It's so ancient that the cork is +petrified. You have to pull it with a stone drill." + +"Take me upstairs," said Perry moodily. "If that cork sees my heart +it'll fall out from pure mortification." + +The room upstairs was full of those innocent hotel pictures of +little girls eating apples and sitting in swings and talking to dogs. +The other decorations were neckties and a pink man reading a pink +paper devoted to ladies in pink tights. + +"When you have to go into the highways and byways--" said the pink +man, looking reproachfully at Baily and Perry. + +"Hello, Martin Macy," said Perry shortly, "where's this stone-age +champagne?" + +"What's the rush? This isn't an operation, understand. This is a +party." + +Perry sat down dully and looked disapprovingly at all the neckties. + +Baily leisurely opened the door of a wardrobe and brought out six +wicked-looking bottles and three glasses. + +"Take off that darn fur coat!" said Martin Macy to Perry. "Or maybe +you'd like to have us open all the windows." "Give me champagne," +said Perry. + +"Going to the Townsends' circus ball to-night?" + +"Am not!" + +"'Vited?" + +"Uh-huh." + +"Why not go?" + +"Oh, I'm sick of parties," exclaimed Perry, "I'm sick of 'em. I've +been to so many that I'm sick of 'em." + +"Maybe you're going to the Howard Tates' party?" + +"No, I tell you; I'm sick of 'em." + +"Well," said Macy consolingly, "the Tates' is just for college kids +anyway." + +"I tell you--" + +"I thought you'd be going to one of 'em anyways. I see by the papers +you haven't missed a one this Christmas." + +"Hm," grunted Perry morosely. + +He would never go to any more parties. Classical phrases played in +his mind--that side of his life was closed, closed. Now when a man +says "closed, closed" like that, you can be pretty sure that some +woman has double-closed him, so to speak. Perry was also thinking +that other classical thought, about how cowardly suicide is. A noble +thought that one--warm and uplifting. Think of all the fine men we +should lose if suicide were not so cowardly! + +An hour later was six o'clock, and Perry had lost all resemblance to +the young man in the liniment advertisement. He looked like a rough +draft fur a riotous cartoon. They were singing--an impromptu song of +Baily's improvisation: + + + _One Lump Perry, the parlour snake, + Famous through the city for the way he drinks his tea; + Plays with it, toys with it, + Makes no noise with it, + Balanced on a napkin on his well-trained knee_. + + +"Trouble is," said Perry, who had just banged his hair with Bailey's +comb and was tying an orange tie round it to get the effect of +Julius Caesar, "that you fellas can't sing worth a damn. Soon's I +leave th' air an' start singin' tenor you start singin' tenor too." + +"'M a natural tenor," said Macy gravely. "Voice lacks cultivation, +tha's all. Gotta natural voice, m'aunt used say. Naturally good +singer." + +"Singers, singers, all good singers," remarked Baily, who was at the +telephone. "No, not the cabaret; I want night clerk. I mean +refreshment clerk or some dog-gone clerk 'at's got food--food! I +want----" + +"Julius Caesar," announced Perry, turning round from the mirror. +"Man of iron will and stern 'termination." + +"Shut up!" yelled Baily. "Say, iss Mr. Baily. Sen' up enormous supper. +Use y'own judgment. Right away." + +He connected the receiver and the hook with some difficulty and then +with his lips closed and an air of solemn intensity in his eyes went +to the lower drawer of his dresser and pulled it open. + +"Lookit!" he commanded. In his hands he held a truncated garment of +pink gingham. + +"Pants," he explained gravely. "Lookit!" This was a pink blouse, a +red tie and a Buster Brown collar. + +"Lookit!" he repeated. "Costume for the Townsends' circus ball. I'm +li'l' boy carries water for the elephants." + +Perry was impressed in spite of himself. + +"I'm going to be Julius Caesar," he announced after a moment of +concentration. + +"Thought you weren't going!" said Macy. + +"Me? Sure, I'm goin'. Never miss a party. Good for the nerves--like +celery." + +"Caesar!" scoffed Baily. "Can't be Caesar! He's not about a circus. +Caesar's Shakespeare. Go as a clown." + +Perry shook his head. + +"Nope; Caesar." + +"Caesar?" + +"Sure. Chariot." + +Light dawned on Baily. + +"That's right. Good idea." + +Perry looked round the room searchingly. + +"You lend me a bathrobe and this tie," he said finally. + +Baily considered. + +"No good." + +"Sure, tha's all I need. Caesar was a savage. They can't kick if I +come as Caesar if he was a savage." + +"No," said Baily, shaking his head slowly. "Get a costume over at a +costumer's. Over at Nolak's." + +"Closed up." + +"Find out." + +After a puzzling five minutes at the phone a small, weary voice +managed to convince Perry that it was Mr. Nolak speaking, and that +they would remain open until eight because of the Townsends' ball. +Thus assured, Perry ate a great amount of filet mignon and drank his +third of the last bottle of champagne. At eight-fifteen the man in +the tall hat who stands in front of the Clarendon found him trying +to start his roadster. + +"Froze up," said Perry wisely. "The cold froze it. The cold air." + +"Froze, eh?" + +"Yes. Cold air froze it." + +"Can't start it?" + +"Nope. Let it stand here till summer. One those hot ole August +days'll thaw it out awright." + +"Goin' let it stand?" + +"Sure. Let 'er stand. Take a hot thief to steal it. Gemme taxi." + +The man in the tall hat summoned a taxi. + +"Where to, mister?" + +"Go to Nolak's--costume fella." + + + + +II + +Mrs. Nolak was short and ineffectual looking, and on the cessation +of the world war had belonged for a while to one of the new +nationalities. Owing to the unsettled European conditions she had +never since been quite sure what she was. The shop in which she and +her husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly and +peopled with suits of armour and Chinese mandarins and enormous +papier-mache birds suspended from the ceiling. In a vague background +many rows of masks glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were +glass cases full of crowns and scepters and jewels and enormous +stomachers and paints and powders and crape hair and face creams and +wigs of all colours. + +When Perry ambled into the shop Mrs. Nolak was folding up the last +troubles of a strenuous day, so she thought, in a drawer full of +pink silk stockings. + +"Something for you?" she queried pessimistically. + +"Want costume of Julius Hur, the charioteer." + +Mrs. Nolak was sorry, but every stitch of charioteer had been rented +long ago. Was it for the Townsends' circus ball? + +It was. + +"Sorry," she said, "but I don't think there's anything left that's +really circus." + +This was an obstacle. + +"Hm," said Perry. An idea struck him suddenly. "If you've got a piece +of canvas I could go's a tent." + +"Sorry, but we haven't anything like that. A hardware store is where +you'd have to go to. We have some very nice Confederate soldiers." + +"No, no soldiers." + +"And I have a very handsome king." + +He shook his head. + +"Several of the gentlemen," she continued hopefully, "are wearing +stovepipe hats and swallow-tail coats and going as ringmasters--but +we're all out of tall hats. I can let you have some crape hair for a +moustache." + +"Wantsomep'm 'stinctive." + +"Something--let's see. Well, we have a lion's head, and a goose, and +a camel--" + +"Camel?" The idea seized Perry's imagination, gripped it fiercely. + +"Yes, but it needs two people." + +"Camel. That's an idea. Lemme see it." + +The camel was produced from his resting place on a top shelf. At +first glance he appeared to consist entirely of a very gaunt, +cadaverous head and a sizable hump, but on being spread out he was +found to possess a dark brown, unwholesome-looking body made of thick, +cottony cloth. + +"You see it takes two people," explained Mrs. Nolak, holding the +camel up in frank admiration. "If you have a friend he could be part +of it. You see there's sorta pants for two people. One pair is for +the fella in front and the other pair for the fella in back. The +fella in front does the lookin' out through these here eyes an' the +fella in back he's just gotta stoop over an' folla the front fella +round." + +"Put it on," commanded Perry. + +Obediently Mrs. Nolak put her tabby-cat face inside the camel's head +and turned it from side to side ferociously. + +Perry was fascinated. + +"What noise does a camel make?" + +"What?" asked Mrs. Nolak as her face emerged, somewhat smudgy. +"Oh, what noise? Why, he sorta brays." + +"Lemme see it in a mirror." + +Before a wide mirror Perry tried on the head and turned from side to +side appraisingly. In the dim light the effect was distinctly +pleasing. The camel's face was a study in pessimism, decorated with +numerous abrasions, and it must be admitted that his coat was in +that state of general negligence peculiar to camels--in fact, he +needed to be cleaned and pressed--but distinctive he certainly was. +He was majestic. He would have attracted attention in any gathering +if only by his melancholy cast of feature and the look of pensive +hunger lurking round his shadowy eyes. + +"You see you have to have two people," said Mrs. Nolak again. + +Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and wrapped them +about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The +effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent--like one of +those medieval pictures of a monk changed into a beast by the +ministrations of Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a +humpbacked cow sitting on her haunches among blankets. + +"Don't look like anything at all," objected Perry gloomily. + +"No," said Mrs. Nolak; "you see you got to have two people." + +A solution flashed upon Perry. + +"You got a date to-night?" + +"Oh, I couldn't possibly--" + +"Oh, come on," said Perry encouragingly. "Sure you can! Here! Be a +good sport and climb into these hind legs." + +With difficulty he located them and extended their yawning depths +ingratiatingly. But Mrs. Nolak seemed loath. She backed perversely +away. + +"Oh, no--" + +"C'm on! Why, you can be the front if you want to. Or we'll flip a +coin." + +"Oh, no--" + +"Make it worth your while." + +Mrs. Nolak set her lips firmly together. + +"Now you just stop!" she said with no coyness implied. "None of the +gentlemen ever acted up this way before. My husband--" + +"You got a husband?" demanded Perry. "Where is he?" + +"He's home." + +"Wha's telephone number?" + +After considerable parley he obtained the telephone number +pertaining to the Nolak penates and got into communication with that +small, weary voice he had heard once before that day. But Mr. Nolak, +though taken off his guard and somewhat confused by Perry's +brilliant flow of logic, stuck staunchly to his point. He refused +firmly but with dignity to help out Mr. Parkhurst in the capacity of +back part of a camel. + +Having rung off, or rather having been rung off on, Perry sat down +on a three-legged stool to think it over. He named over to himself +those friends on whom he might call, and then his mind paused as +Betty Medill's name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He had a +sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love affair was over, +but she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much +to ask--to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one +short night. And if she insisted she could be the front part of the +camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His +mind even turned to rosy-coloured dreams of a tender reconciliation +inside the camel--there hidden away from all the world. + +"Now you'd better decide right off." + +The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his mellow fancies +and roused him to action. He went to the phone and called up the +Medill house. Miss Betty was out; had gone out to dinner. + +Then, when all seemed lost, the camel's back wandered curiously into +the store. He was a dilapidated individual with a cold in his head +and a general trend about him of downwardness. His cap was pulled +down low on his head, and his chin was pulled down low on his chest, +his coat hung down to his shoes, he looked run-down, down at the +heels, and--Salvation Army to the contrary--down and out. He said +that he was the taxicab driver that the gentleman had hired at the +Clarendon Hotel. He had been instructed to wait outside, but he had +waited some time and a suspicion had grown upon him that the +gentleman had gone out the back way with purpose to defraud +him--gentlemen sometimes did--so he had come in. He sank down on to +the three-legged stool. + +"Wanta go to a party?" demanded Perry sternly. + +"I gotta work," answered the taxi driver lugubriously. "I gotta keep +my job." + +"It's a very good party." + +"'S a very good job." + +"Come on!" urged Perry. "Be a good fella. See--it's pretty!" He held +the camel up and the taxi driver looked at it cynically. + +"Huh!" + +Perry searched feverishly among the folds of the cloth. + +"See!" he cried enthusiastically, holding up a selection of folds. +"This is your part. You don't even have to talk. All you have to do +is to walk--and sit down occasionally. You do all the sitting down. +Think of it. I'm on my feet all the time and you can sit down some +of the time. The only time I can sit down is when we're lying down, +and you can sit down when--oh, any time. See?" + +"What's 'at thing?" demanded the individual dubiously "A shroud?" + +"Not at all," said Perry hurriedly. "It's a camel." + +"Huh?" + +Then Perry mentioned a sum of money, and the conversation left the +land of grunts and assumed a practical tinge. Perry and the taxi +driver tried on the camel in front of the mirror. + +"You can't see it," explained Perry, peering anxiously out through +the eyeholes, "but honestly, ole man, you look sim'ly great! Honestly!" + +A grunt from the hump acknowledged this somewhat dubious compliment. + +"Honestly, you look great!" repeated Perry enthusiastically. +"Move round a little." + +The hind legs moved forward, giving the effect of a huge cat-camel +hunching his back preparatory to a spring. + +"No; move sideways." + +The camel's hips went neatly out of joint; a hula dancer would have +writhed in envy. + +"Good, isn't it?" demanded Perry, turning to Mrs. Nolak for approval. + +"It looks lovely," agreed Mrs. Nolak. + +"We'll take it," said Perry. + +The bundle was safely stowed under Perry's arm and they left the shop. + +"Go to the party!" he commanded as he took his seat in the back. + +"What party?" + +"Fanzy-dress party." + +"Where 'bouts is it?" + +This presented a new problem. Perry tried to remember, but the names +of all those who had given parties during the holidays danced +confusedly before his eyes. He could ask Mrs. Nolak, but on looking +out the window he saw that the shop was dark. Mrs. Nolak had already +faded out, a little black smudge far down the snowy street. + +"Drive uptown," directed Perry with fine confidence. "If you see a +party, stop. Otherwise I'll tell you when we get there." + +He fell into a hazy daydream and his thoughts wandered again to +Betty--he imagined vaguely that they had had a disagreement because +she refused to go to the party as the back part of the camel. He was +just slipping off into a chilly doze when he was wakened by the taxi +driver opening the door and shaking him by the arm. + +"Here we are, maybe." + +Perry looked out sleepily. A striped awning led from the curb up to +a spreading gray stone house, from inside which issued the low +drummy whine of expensive jazz. He recognized the Howard Tate house. + +"Sure," he said emphatically; "'at's it! Tate's party to-night. Sure, +everybody's goin'." + +"Say," said the individual anxiously after another look at the awning, +"you sure these people ain't gonna romp on me for comin' here?" + +Perry drew himself up with dignity. + +"'F anybody says anything to you, just tell 'em you're part of my +costume." + +The visualization of himself as a thing rather than a person seemed +to reassure the individual, + +"All right," he said reluctantly. + +Perry stepped out under the shelter of the awning and began +unrolling the camel. + +"Let's go," he commanded. + +Several minutes later a melancholy, hungry-looking camel, emitting +clouds of smoke from his mouth and from the tip of his noble hump, +might have been seen crossing the threshold of the Howard Tate +residence, passing a startled footman without so much as a snort, +and leading directly for the main stairs that led up to the ballroom. +The beast walked with a peculiar gait which varied between an +uncertain lockstep and a stampede--but can best be described by the +word "halting." The camel had a halting gait--and as he walked he +alternately elongated and contracted like a gigantic concertina. + + + + +III + +The Howard Tates are, as everyone who lives in Toledo knows, the +most formidable people in town. Mrs. Howard Tate was a Chicago Todd +before she became a Toledo Tate, and the family generally affect +that conscious simplicity which has begun to be the earmark of +American aristocracy. The Tates have reached the stage where they +talk about pigs and farms and look at you icy-eyed if you are not +amused. They have begun to prefer retainers rather than friends as +dinner guests, spend a lot of money in a quiet way and, having lost +all sense of competition, are in process of growing quite dull. + +The dance this evening was for little Millicent Tate, and though +there was a scattering of people of all ages present the dancers +were mostly from school and college--the younger married crowd was +at the Townsends' circus ball up at the Tallyho Club. Mrs. Tate was +standing just inside the ballroom, following Millicent round with +her eyes and beaming whenever she caught her eye. Beside her were +two middle-aged sycophants who were saying what a perfectly exquisite +child Millicent was. It was at this moment that Mrs. Tate was +grasped firmly by the skirt and her youngest daughter, Emily, aged +eleven, hurled herself with an "Oof--!" into her mother's arms. + +"Why, Emily, what's the trouble?" + +"Mamma," said Emily, wild-eyed but voluble, "there's something out +on the stairs." + +"What?" + +"There's a thing out on the stairs, mamma. I think it's a big dog, +mamma, but it doesn't look like a dog." + +"What do you mean, Emily?" + +The sycophants waved their heads and hemmed sympathetically. + +"Mamma, it looks like a--like a camel." + +Mrs. Tate laughed. + +"You saw a mean old shadow, dear, that's all." + +"No, I didn't. No, it was some kind of thing, mamma--big. I was +downstairs going to see if there were any more people and this dog +or something, he was coming upstairs. Kinda funny, mamma, like he +was lame. And then he saw me and gave a sort of growl and then he +slipped at the top of the landing and I ran." + +Mrs. Tate's laugh faded. + +"The child must have seen something," she said. + +The sycophants agreed that the child must have seen something--and +suddenly all three women took an instinctive step away from the door +as the sounds of muffled footsteps were audible just outside. + +And then three startled gasps rang out as a dark brown form rounded +the corner and they saw what was apparently a huge beast looking +down at them hungrily. + +"Oof!" cried Mrs. Tate. + +"O-o-oh!" cried the ladies in a chorus. + +The camel suddenly humped his back, and the gasps turned to shrieks. + +"Oh--look!" + +"What is it?" + +The dancing stopped, but the dancers hurrying over got quite a +different impression of the invader from that of the ladies by the +door; in fact, the young people immediately suspected that it was a +stunt, a hired entertainer come to amuse the party. The boys in long +trousers looked at it rather disdainfully and sauntered over with +their hands in their pockets, feeling that their intelligence was +being insulted. But the girls ran over with much handclapping and +many little shouts of glee. + +"It's a camel!" + +"Well, if he isn't the funniest!" + +The camel stood there uncertainly, swaying slightly from side to +side and seeming to take in the room in a careful, appraising glance; +then as if he had come to an abrupt decision he turned and ambled +swiftly out the door. + +Mr. Howard Tate had just come out of his den on the lower floor and +was standing chatting with a good-looking young man in the hall. +Suddenly they heard the noise of shouting upstairs and almost +immediately a succession of bumping sounds, followed by the +precipitous appearance at the foot of the stairway of a large brown +beast who seemed to be going somewhere in a great hurry. + +"Now what the devil!" said Mr. Tate, starting. + +The beast picked itself up with some dignity and affecting an air of +extreme nonchalance, as if he had just remembered an important +engagement, started at a mixed gait toward the front door. In fact, +his front legs began casually to run. + +"See here now," said Mr. Tate sternly. "Here! Grab it, Butterfield! +Grab it!" + +The young man enveloped the rear of the camel in a pair of brawny +arms, and evidently realizing that further locomotion was quite +impossible the front end submitted to capture and stood resignedly +in a state of some agitation. By this time a flood of young people +was pouring downstairs, and Mr. Tate, suspecting everything from an +ingenious burglar to an escaped lunatic, gave crisp directions to +the good-looking young man: + +"Hold him! Lead him in here; we'll soon see." + +The camel consented to be led into the den, and Mr. Tate, after +locking the door, took a revolver from a table drawer and instructed +the young man to take the thing's head off. Then he gasped and +returned the revolver to its hiding place. + +"Well, Perry Parkhurst!" he exclaimed in amazement. + +"'M in the wrong pew," said Perry sheepishly. "Got the wrong party, +Mr. Tate. Hope I didn't scare you." + +"Well--you gave us a thrill, Perry." Realization dawned on him. +"Why, of course; you're bound for the Townsends' circus ball." + +"That's the general idea." + +"Let me introduce Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Parkhurst. Parkhurst is our +most famous young bachelor here." Then turning to Perry: +"Butterfield is staying with us for a few days." + +"I got a little mixed up," mumbled Perry. "I'm very sorry." + +"Heavens, it's perfectly all right; most natural mistake in the world. +I've got a clown costume and I'm going down there myself after a +while. Silly idea for a man of my age." He turned to Butterfield. +"Better change your mind and come down with us." + +The good-looking young man demurred. He was going to bed. + +"Have a drink, Perry?" suggested Mr. Tate. + +"Thanks, I will." + +"And, say," continued Tate quickly, "I'd forgotten all about +your--friend here." He indicated the rear part of the camel. +"I didn't mean to seem discourteous. Is it any one I know? Bring him +out." + +"It's not a friend," explained Perry hurriedly. "I just rented him." + +"Does he drink?" + +"Do you?" demanded Perry, twisting himself tortuously round. + +There was a faint sound of assent. + +"Sure he does!" said Mr. Tate heartily. "A really efficient camel +ought to be able to drink enough so it'd last him three days." + +"Tell you, sir," said Perry anxiously, "he isn't exactly dressed up +enough to come out. If you give me the bottle I can hand it back to +him and he can take his inside." + +From under the cloth was audible the enthusiastic smacking sound +inspired by this suggestion. When a butler had appeared with bottles, +glasses, and siphon one of the bottles was handed back, and +thereafter the silent partner could be heard imbibing long potations +at frequent intervals. + +Thus passed a peaceful hour. At ten o'clock Mr. Tate decided that +they'd better be starting. He donned his clown's costume; Perry +replaced the camel's head with a sigh; side by side they progressed +on foot the single block between the Tate house and the Tallyho Club. + +The circus ball was in full swing. A great tent fly had been put up +inside the ballroom and round the walls had been built rows of +booths representing the various attractions of a circus side show, +but these were now vacated and on the floor swarmed a shouting, +laughing medley of youth and colour--clowns, bearded ladies, acrobats, +bareback riders, ringmasters, tattooed men and charioteers. The +Townsends had determined to assure their party of success, so a +great quantity of liquor had been surreptitiously brought over from +their house in automobiles and it was flowing freely. A green ribbon +ran along the wall completely round the ballroom, with pointing +arrows alongside of it and signs which instructed the uninitiated to +"Follow the green line'" The green line led down to the bar, where +waited pure punch and wicked punch and plain dark-green bottles. + +On the wall above the bar was another arrow, red and very wavy, and +under it the slogan: "Now follow this!" + +But even amid the luxury of costume and high spirits represented +there the entrance of the camel created something of a stir, and +Perry was immediately surrounded by a curious, laughing crowd who +were anxious to penetrate the identity of this beast who stood by +the wide doorway eyeing the dancers with his hungry, melancholy gaze. + +And then Perry saw Betty. She was standing in front of a booth +talking to a group of clowns, comic policemen and ringmasters. She +was dressed in the costume of an Egyptian snake charmer, a costume +carried out to the smallest detail. Her tawny hair was braided and +drawn through brass rings, the effect crowned with a glittering +Oriental tiara. Her fair face was stained to a warm olive glow and +on her bare arms and the half moon of her back writhed painted +serpents with single eyes of venomous green. Her feet were in +sandals and her skirt was slit to the knees, so that when she walked +one caught a glimpse of other slim serpents painted just above her +bare ankles. Wound about her neck was a huge, glittering, +cotton-stuffed cobra, and her bracelets were in the form of tiny +garter snakes. Altogether a very charming and beautiful costume--one +that made the more nervous among the older women shrink away from +her when she passed, and the more troublesome ones to make great +talk about "shouldn't be allowed" and "perfectly disgraceful." + +But Perry, peering through the uncertain eyes of the camel, saw only +her face, radiant, animated and glowing with excitement, and her arms +and shoulders, whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the +outstanding figure in any gathering. He was fascinated and his +fascination exercised a strangely sobering effect on him. With a +growing clarity the events of the day came back--he had lost forever +this shimmering princess in emerald green and black. Rage rose +within him, and with a half-formed intention of taking her away from +the crowd he started toward her--or rather he elongated slightly, +for he had neglected to issue the preparatory command necessary to +locomotion. + +But at this point fickle Kismet, who for a day had played with him +bitterly and sardonically, decided to reward him in full for the +amusement he had afforded her. Kismet turned the tawny eyes of the +snake charmer to the camel. Kismet led her to lean toward the man +beside her and say, "Who's that? That camel?" + +They all gazed. + +"Darned if I know." + +But a little man named Warburton, who knew it all, found it +necessary to hazard an opinion: + +"It came in with Mr. Tate. I think it's probably Warren Butterfield, +the architect, who's visiting the Tates." + +Something stirred in Betty Medill--that age-old interest of the +provincial girl in the visiting man. + +"Oh," she said casually after a slight pause. + +At the end of the next dance Betty and her partner finished up +within a few feet of the camel. With the informal audacity that was +the keynote of the evening she reached out and gently rubbed the +camel's nose. + +"Hello, old camel." + +The camel stirred uneasily. + +"You 'fraid of me?" said Betty, lifting her eyebrows in mock reproof. +"Don't be. You see I'm a snake charmer, but I'm pretty good at +camels too." + +The camel bowed very low and the groups round laughed and made the +obvious remark about the beauty and the beast. + +Mrs. Townsend came bustling up. + +"Well, Mr. Butterfield," she beamed, "I wouldn't have recognized you." + +Perry bowed again and smiled gleefully behind his mask. + +"And who is this with you?" she inquired. + +"Oh," said Perry in a disguised voice, muffled by the thick +cloth and quite unrecognizable, "he isn't a fellow, Mrs. Townsend. +He's just part of my costume." + +This seemed to get by, for Mrs. Townsend laughed and bustled away. +Perry turned again to Betty. + +"So," he thought, "this is how much she cares! On the very day of +our final rupture she starts a flirtation with another man--an +absolute stranger." + +On an impulse he gave her a soft nudge with his shoulder and waved +his head suggestively toward the hall, making it clear that he +desired her to leave her partner and accompany him. Betty seemed +quite willing. + +"By-by, Bobby," she called laughingly to her partner. "This old +camel's got me. Where are we going, Prince of Beasts?" + +The noble animal made no rejoinder, but stalked gravely along in the +direction of a secluded nook on the side stairs. + +There Betty seated herself, and the camel, after some seconds of +confusion which included gruff orders and sounds of a heated dispute +going on in his interior, placed himself beside her, his hind legs +stretching out uncomfortably across two steps. + +"Well, camel," said Betty cheerfully, "how do you like our happy +party?" + +The camel indicated that he liked it by rolling his head +ecstatically and executing a gleeful kick with his hoofs. + +"This is the first time that I ever had a tete-a-tete with a man's +valet round"--she pointed to the hind legs--"or whatever that is." + +"Oh," said Perry, "he's deaf and blind. Forget about him." + +"That sure is some costume! But I should think you'd feel rather +handicapped--you can't very well shimmy, even if you want to." + +The camel hung his head lugubriously. + +"I wish you'd say something," continued Betty sweetly. "Say you like +me, camel. Say you think I'm pretty. Say you'd like to belong to a +pretty snake charmer." + +The camel would. + +"Will you dance with me, camel?" + +The camel would try. + +Betty devoted half an hour to the camel. She devoted at least half +an hour to all visiting men. It was usually sufficient. When she +approached a new man the current debutantes were accustomed to +scatter right and left like a close column deploying before a +machine gun. And so to Perry Parkhurst was awarded the unique +privilege of seeing his love as others saw her. He was flirted with +violently! + + + + +IV + + +This paradise of frail foundation was broken into by the sound of a +general ingress to the ballroom; the cotillion was beginning. Betty +and the camel joined the crowd, her brown hand resting lightly on +his shoulder, defiantly symbolizing her complete adoption of him. + +When they entered, the couples were already seating themselves at +tables round the walls, and Mrs. Townsend, resplendent as a super +bareback rider with rather too rotund calves, was standing in the +centre with the ringmaster who was in charge of arrangements. At a +signal to the band everyone rose and began to dance. + +"Isn't it just slick!" breathed Betty. + +"You bet!" said the camel. + +"Do you think you can possibly dance?" + +Perry nodded enthusiastically. He felt suddenly exuberant. After all, +he was here incognito talking to his girl--he felt like winking +patronizingly at the world. + +"I think it's the best idea," cried Betty, "to give a party like this! +I don't see how they ever thought of it. Come on, let's dance!" + +So Perry danced the cotillion. I say danced, but that is stretching +the word far beyond the wildest dreams of the jazziest terpsichorean. +He suffered his partner to put her hands on his helpless shoulders +and pull him here and there gently over the floor while he hung his +huge head docilely over her shoulder and made futile dummy motions +with his feet. His hind legs danced in a manner all their own, +chiefly by hopping first on one foot and then on the other. Never +being sure whether dancing was going on or not, the hind legs played +safe by going through a series of steps whenever the music started +playing. So the spectacle was frequently presented of the front part +of the camel standing at ease and the rear keeping up a constant +energetic motion calculated to rouse a sympathetic perspiration in +any soft-hearted observer. + +He was frequently favoured. He danced first with a tall lady covered +with straw who announced jovially that she was a bale of hay and +coyly begged him not to eat her. + +"I'd like to; you're so sweet," said the camel gallantly. + +Each time the ringmaster shouted his call of "Men up!" he lumbered +ferociously for Betty with the cardboard wiener-wurst or the +photograph of the bearded lady or whatever the favour chanced to be. +Sometimes he reached her first, but usually his rushes were +unsuccessful and resulted in intense interior arguments. + +"For heaven's sake," Perry would snarl fiercely between his clenched +teeth, "get a little pep! I could have gotten her that time if you'd +picked your feet up." + +"Well, gimme a little warnin'!" + +"I did, darn you." + +"I can't see a dog-gone thing in here." + +"All you have to do is follow me. It's just like dragging a load of +sand round to walk with you." + +"Maybe you wanta try back here." + +"You shut up! If these people found you in this room they'd give you +the worst beating you ever had. They'd take your taxi license away +from you!" + +Perry surprised himself by the ease with which he made this +monstrous threat, but it seemed to have a soporific influence on his +companion, for he muttered an "aw gwan" and subsided into abashed +silence. + +The ringmaster mounted to the top of the piano and waved his hand +for silence. + +"Prizes!" he cried. "Gather round!" + +"Yea! Prizes!" + +Self-consciously the circle swayed forward. The rather pretty girl +who had mustered the nerve to come as a bearded lady trembled with +excitement, hoping to be rewarded for an evening's hideousness. The +man who had spent the afternoon having tattoo marks painted on him +by a sign painter skulked on the edge of the crowd, blushing +furiously when any one told him he was sure to get it. + +"Lady and gent performers of the circus," announced the ringmaster +jovially, "I am sure we will all agree that a good time has been had +by all. We will now bestow honour where honour is due by bestowing +the prizes. Mrs. Townsend has asked me to bestow the prizes. Now, +fellow performers, the first prize is for that lady who has +displayed this evening the most striking, becoming"--at this point +the bearded lady sighed resignedly--"and original costume." Here the +bale of hay pricked up her ears. "Now I am sure that the decision +which has been decided upon will be unanimous with all here present. +The first prize goes to Miss Betty Medill, the charming Egyptian +snake charmer." + +There was a great burst of applause, chiefly masculine, and +Miss Betty Medill, blushing beautifully through her olive paint, +was passed up to receive her award. With a tender glance the +ringmaster handed down to her a huge bouquet of orchids. + +"And now," he continued, looking round him, "the other prize is for +that man who has the most amusing and original costume. This prize +goes without dispute to a guest in our midst, a gentleman who is +visiting here but whose stay we will hope will be long and merry--in +short to the noble camel who has entertained us all by his hungry +look and his brilliant dancing throughout the evening." + +He ceased and there was a hearty burst of applause, for it was a +popular choice. The prize, a huge box of cigars, was put aside for +the camel, as he was anatomically unable to accept it in person. + +"And now," continued the ringmaster, "we will wind up the cotillion +with the marriage of Mirth to Folly! + +"Form for the grand wedding march, the beautiful snake charmer and +the noble camel in front!" + +Betty skipped forward cheerily and wound an olive arm round the +camel's neck. Behind them formed the procession of little boys, +little girls, country Jakes, policemen, fat ladies, thin men, sword +swallowers, wild men of Borneo, armless wonders and charioteers, +some of them well in their cups, all of them excited and happy and +dazzled by the flow of light and colour round them and by the +familiar faces strangely unfamiliar under bizarre wigs and barbaric +paint. The voluminous chords of the wedding march done in mad +syncopation issued in a delirious blend from the saxophones and +trombones--and the march began. + +"Aren't you glad, camel?" demanded Betty sweetly as they stepped off. +"Aren't you glad we're going to be married and you're going to +belong to the nice snake charmer ever afterward?" + +The camel's front legs pranced, expressing exceeding joy. + +"Minister, minister! Where's the minister?" cried voices out of the +revel. "Who's going to be the cler-gy-man?" + +The head of Jumbo, rotund negro waiter at the Tallyho Club for many +years, appeared rashly through a half-opened pantry door. + +"Oh, Jumbo!" + +"Get old Jumbo. He's the fella!" + +"Come on, Jumbo. How 'bout marrying us a couple?" + +"Yea!" + +Jumbo despite his protestations was seized by four brawny clowns, +stripped of his apron and escorted to a raised dais at the head of +the ball. There his collar was removed and replaced back side +forward to give him a sanctimonious effect. He stood there grinning +from ear to ear, evidently not a little pleased, while the parade +separated into two lines leaving an aisle for the bride and groom. + +"Lawdy, man," chuckled Jumbo, "Ah got ole Bible 'n' ev'ythin', sho +nuff." + +He produced a battered Bible from a mysterious interior + +"Yea. Old Jumbo's got a Bible!" + +"Razor, too, I'll bet!" + +"Marry 'em off, Jumbo!" + +Together the snake charmer and the camel ascended the cheering aisle +and stopped in front of Jumbo, who adopted a grave pontifical air. + +"Where's your license, camel?" + +"Make it legal, camel." + +A man near by prodded Perry. + +"Give him a piece of paper, camel. Anything'll do." + +Perry fumbled confusedly in his pocket, found a folded paper and +pushed it out through the camel's mouth. Holding it upside down +Jumbo pretended to scan it earnestly. + +"Dis yeah's a special camel's license," he said. "Get you ring ready, +camel." + +Inside the camel Perry turned round and addressed his latter half. + +"Gimme a ring, for Pete's sake!" + +"I ain't got none," protested a weary voice. + +"You have. I saw it." + +"I ain't goin' to take it offen my hand." + +"If you don't I'll kill you." + +There was a gasp and Perry felt a huge affair of rhinestone and +brass inserted into his hand. + +Again he was nudged from the outside. + +"Speak up!" + +"I do!" cried Perry quickly. + +He heard Betty's responses given in a laughing debonair tone, and +the sound of them even in this burlesque thrilled him. + +If it was only real! he thought. If it only was! + +Then he had pushed the rhinestone through a tear in the camel's coat +and was slipping it on her finger, muttering ancient and historic +words after Jumbo. He didn't want any one to know about this ever. +His one idea was to slip away without having to disclose his identity, +for Mr. Tate had so far kept his secret well. A dignified young man, +Perry--and this might injure his infant law practice. + +"Kiss her, camel!" + +"Embrace the bride!" + +"Unmask, camel, and kiss her!" + +Instinctively his heart beat high as Betty turned to him laughingly +and began playfully to stroke the cardboard muzzle. He felt his +self-control giving away, he longed to seize her in his arms and +declare his identity and kiss those scarlet lips that smiled +teasingly at him from only a foot away--when suddenly the laughter +and applause round them died away and a curious hush fell over the +hall. Perry and Betty looked up in surprise. Jumbo had given vent to +a huge "Hello!" in such a startled and amazed voice that all eyes +were bent on him. + +"Hello!" he said again. He had turned round the camel's marriage +license, which he had been holding upside down, produced spectacles +and was studying it intently. + +"Why," he exclaimed, and in the pervading silence his words were +heard plainly by everyone in the room, "this yeah's a sho-nuff +marriage permit." + +"What?" + +"Huh?" + +"Say it again, Jumbo!" + +"Sure you can read?" + +Jumbo waved them to silence and Perry's blood burned to fire in his +veins as he realized the break he had made. + +"Yassuh!" repeated Jumbo. "This yeah's a sho-nuff license, and the +pa'ties concerned one of 'em is dis yeah young lady, Miz Betty Medill, +and th' other's Mistah Perry Pa'khurst." + +There was a general gasp, and a low rumble broke out as all eyes +fell on the camel. Betty shrank away from him quickly, her tawny +eyes giving out sparks of fury. + +"Is you Mistah Pa'khurst, you camel?" + +Perry made no answer. The crowd pressed up closer and stared at him +as he stood frozen rigid with embarrassment, his cardboard face +still hungry and sardonic, regarding the ominous Jumbo. + +"You-all bettah speak up!" said Jumbo slowly, "this yeah's a mighty +serous mattah. Outside mah duties at this club ah happens to be a +sho-nuff minister in the Firs' Cullud Baptis' Church. It done look +to me as though you-all is gone an' got married." + + + +V + +The scene that followed will go down forever in the annals of the +Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, strong men swore, wild-eyed +debutantes babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and instantly +dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, +hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they +would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or someone and the Baptis' +preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur +lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, +ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any +hint or suspicion of prearrangement in what had occurred. + +On the corner Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on the shoulder of +Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying vainly to comfort her; they were +exchanging "all my fault's" volubly and voluminously. Outside on a +snow covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminum Man, was being +paced slowly up and down between two brawny charioteers, giving vent +now to a grunt, now to a string of unrepeatables, now to wild +pleadings that they'd just let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously +attired for the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most +exacting stage manager after one look at his face would have +acknowledged that any improvement in casting the part would have +been quite impossible. + +Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of the stage. +Betty Medill--or was it Betty Parkhurst?--weeping furiously, was +surrounded by the plainer girls--the prettier ones were too busy +talking about her to pay much attention to her--and over on the +other side of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his +head-piece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. Perry was +earnestly engaged in making protestations of his innocence to a ring +of angry, puzzled men. Every few minutes just as he had apparently +proved his case someone would mention the marriage certificate, and +the inquisition would begin again. + +A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second best belle of Toledo, +changed the gist of the situation by a remark she made to Betty. + +"Well," she said maliciously, "it'll all blow over, dear. The courts +will annul it without question." + +Betty's tears dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tightly +together, and she flashed a withering glance at Marion. Then she +rose and scattering her sympathizers right and left walked directly +across the room to Perry, who also rose and stood looking at her in +terror. Again silence crept down upon the room. + +"Will you have the decency," she said, "to grant me five minutes' +conversation--or wasn't that included in your plans?" + +He nodded, his mouth unable to form words. + +Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked out into the +hall with her chin uptilted and headed for the privacy of one of the +little card rooms. + +Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky halt by the +failure of his hind legs to function. + +"You stay here!" he commanded savagely. + +"I can't," whined a voice from the hump, "unless you get out first +and let me get out." + +Perry hesitated, but the curious crowd was unbearable, and unable +any longer to tolerate eyes he muttered a command and with as much +dignity as possible the camel moved carefully out on its four legs. + +Betty was waiting for him. + +"Well," she began furiously, "you see what you've done! You and that +crazy license! I told you, you shouldn't have gotten it! I told you!" + +"My dear girl, I----" + +"Don't dear-girl me! Save that for your real wife if you ever get +one after this disgraceful performance." + +"I----" + +"And don't try to pretend it wasn't all arranged. You know you gave +that coloured waiter money! You know you did! Do you mean to say you +didn't try to marry me?" + +"No--I mean, yes--of course----" + +"Yes, you'd better admit it! You tried it, and now what are you +going to do? Do you know my father's nearly crazy? It'll serve you +right if he tries to kill you. He'll take his gun and put some cold +steel in you. O-o-oh! Even if this marr--this thing can be annulled +it'll hang over me all the rest of my life!" + +Perry could not resist quoting softly: "'Oh, camel, wouldn't you +like to belong to the pretty snake charmer for all your----'" + +"Shut up!" cried Betty. + +There was a pause. + +"Betty," said Perry finally with a very faint hopefulness, "there's +only one thing to do that will really get us out clear. That's for +you to marry me." + +"Marry you!" + +"Yes. Really it's the only----" + +"You shut up! I wouldn't marry you if--if----" + +"I know. If I were the last man on earth. But if you care anything +about your reputation----" + +"Reputation!" she cried. "You're a nice one to think about my +reputation _now_. Why didn't you think about my reputation before +you hired that horrible Jumbo to--to----" + +Perry tossed up his hands hopelessly. + +"Very well. I'll do anything you want. Lord knows I renounce all +claims!" + +"But," said a new voice, "I don't." + +Perry and Betty started, and she put her hand to her heart. + +"For heaven's sake, what was that?" + +"It's me," said the camel's back. + +In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp +object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly +on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly before them. + +"Oh," cried Betty, tears starting again to her eyes, "you brought +that object in here to frighten me! You told me he was deaf--that +awful person!" + +The ex-camel's back sat down on a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. + +"Don't talk 'at way about me, lady. I ain't no person. I'm your +husband." + +"Husband!" + +The cry was wrung simultaneously from Betty and Perry. + +"Why, sure. I'm as much your husband as that gink is. The smoke +didn't marry you to the camel's front. He married you to the whole +camel. Why, that's my ring you got on your finger!" + +With a little cry she snatched the ring from her finger and flung it +passionately at the floor. + +"What's all this?" demanded Perry dazedly. + +"Jes' that you better fix me an' fix me right. If you don't I'm +a-gonna have the same claim you got to bein' married to her!" + +"That's bigamy," said Perry, turning gravely to Betty. + +Then came the supreme moment of Perry's early life, the ultimate +chance on which he risked his fortunes. He rose and looked first at +Betty, where she sat weakly, her face aghast at this new complication, +and then at the individual who swayed from side to side on his chair, +uncertainly yet menacingly. + +"Very well," said Perry slowly to the individual, "you can have her. +Betty, I'm going to prove to you that as far as I'm concerned our +marriage was entirely accidental. I'm going to renounce utterly my +rights to have you as my wife, and give you to--to the man whose +ring you wear--your lawful husband." + +There was a pause and four horror-stricken eyes were turned on him. + +"Good-by, Betty," he said brokenly. "Don't forget me in your +new-found happiness. I'm going to leave for the Far West on the +morning train. Think of me kindly, Betty." + +With a last glance at them he turned on his heel and his head bowed +on his chest as his hand touched the door knob. + +"Good-by," he repeated. He turned the door knob. + +But at these words a flying bundle of snakes and silk and tawny hair +hurled itself at him. + +"Oh, Perry, don't leave me! I can't face it alone! Perry, Perry, +take me with you!" + +Her tears rained down in a torrent and flowed damply on his neck. +Calmly he folded his arms about her. + +"I don't care," she cried tearfully. "I love you and if you can wake +up a minister at this hour and have it done over again I'll go West +with you." + +Over her shoulder the front part of the camel looked at the back +part of the camel--and they exchanged a particularly subtle, +esoteric sort of wink that only true camels can understand. + + + + +BREAK-NECK HILL + + +BY ESTHER FORBES + +From _The Grinnell Review_ + +Down Holly Street the tide had set in for church. It was a proper, +dilatory tide. Every silk-hat glistened, every shoe was blacked, the +flowers on the women's hats were as fresh as the daffodils against +the house fronts. Few met face to face, now and then a faster walker +would catch up with acquaintances and join them or, with a flash of +raised hat, bow, and pass on down the stream. + +Then the current met an obstacle. A man, young and graceful and very +much preoccupied, walked through the church-goers, faced in the +opposite direction. His riding breeches and boots showed in spite of +the loose overcoat worn to cover them. He bowed continually, like +royalty from a landau, almost as mechanically, and answered the +remarks that greeted him. + +"Hello, Geth." + +"Hello." + +"Good morning, Mr. Gething. Not going to church this morning." This +from a friend of his mother. + +"Good morning. No, not this morning." He met a chum. + +"Good riding day, eh?" + +"Great." + +"Well, Geth, don't break your neck." + +"You bet not." + +"I'll put a P.S. on the prayer for you," said the wag. + +"Thanks a lot." The wag was always late--even to church on Easter +morning. So Gething knew the tail of the deluge was reached and past. +He had the street almost to himself. It was noticeable that the man +had not once called an acquaintance by name or made the first remark. +His answers had been as reflex as his walking. Geth was thinking, +and in the sombre eyes was the dumb look of a pain that would not be +told--perhaps he considered it too slight. + +He left Holly Street and turned into Holly Park. Here from the grass +that bristled so freshly, so ferociously green, the tree trunks rose +black and damp. Brown pools of water reflected a blue radiant sky +through blossoming branches. Gething subsided on a bench well +removed from the children and nurse maids. First he glanced at the +corner of Holly Street and the Boulevard where a man from his +father's racing stable would meet him with his horse. His face, his +figure, his alert bearing, even his clothes promised a horse-man. +The way his stirrups had worn his boots would class him as a rider. +He rode with his foot "through" as the hunter, steeple chaser, and +polo-player do--not on the ball of his foot in park fashion. + +He pulled off his hat and ran his hand over his close-cropped head. +Evidently he was still thinking. Across his face the look of pain +ebbed and returned, then he grew impatient. His wrist-watch showed +him his horse was late and he was in a hurry to be started, for what +must be done had best be done quickly. Done quickly and forgotten, +then he could give his attention to the other horses. There was +Happiness--an hysterical child, and Goblin, who needed training over +water jumps, and Sans Souci, whose lame leg should be cocained to +locate the trouble--all of his father's stable of great thoroughbreds +needed something except Cuddy, who waited only for the bullet. +Gething's square brown hand went to his breeches pocket, settled on +something that was cold as ice and drew it out--the revolver. The +horse he had raced so many times at Piping Rock, Brookline, Saratoga +had earned the right to die by this hand which had guided him. +Cuddy's high-bred face came vividly before his eyes and the white +star would be the mark. He thrust the revolver back in his pocket +hastily for a child had stopped to look at him, then slowly rose and +fell to pacing the gravel walk. A jay screamed overhead, "Jay, jay, +jay!" + +"You fool," Geth called to him and then muttered to himself. +"Fool, fool--oh, Geth----" From the boulevard a voice called him. + +"Mr. Gething--if you please, sir----!" It was Willet the trainer. + +"All right, Willet." The trainer was mounted holding a lean +greyhound of a horse. Gething pulled down the stirrups. + +"I meant to tell you to bring Cuddy for me to ride, last time, you +know." + +"Not that devil. I could never lead him in. Frenchman, here, is well +behaved in cities." + +Gething swung up. He sat very relaxed upon a horse. There was a +lifetime of practice behind that graceful seat and manner with the +reins. The horse started a low shuffling gait that would take them +rapidly out of the city to the Gething country place and stables. + +"You know," Geth broke silence, "Cuddy's got his--going to be shot." + +"Not one of us, sir," said Willet, "but will sing Hallelujah! He +kicked a hole in Muggins yesterday. None of the boys dare touch him, +so he hasn't been groomed proper since your father said he was to go. +It's more dangerous wipin' him off than to steeplechase the others." +Geth agreed. "I know it isn't right to keep a brute like that." + +"No, sir. When he was young and winning stakes it seemed different. +I tell you what, we'll all pay a dollar a cake for soap made out 'er +old Cuddy." + +"There'll be no soap made out of old Cuddy," Gething interrupted him, +"I'll ride him out--up to the top of Break-Neck Hill and shoot him +there. You'd better begin the trench by noon. When it's dug I'll +take him to the top and----" + +"But nobody's been on his back since your father said it was useless +to try to make him over. Too old for steeplechasing and too much the +racer for anything else, and too much the devil to keep for a suvnor." + +"Well, I'll ride him once again." + +"But, Mr. Geth, he's just been standing in his box or the paddock +for four weeks now. We've been waiting for you to say when he was to +be shot. He's in a sweet temper and d' y'er know, I think, I do----" + +"What do you think?" Willet blushed purple. + +"I think Cuddy's got something in his head, some plan if he gets out. +I think he wants to kill some one before he dies. Yes, sir, _kill_ +him. And you know if he gets the start of you there is no stopping +the dirty devil." + +"Yes, he does tear a bit," Geth admitted. "But I never was on a +surer jumper. Lord! How the old horse can lift you!" Gething dropped +into a disconsolate silence, interrupted before long by Willet. + +"Happiness will get Cuddy's box--she's in a stall. Cuddy was always +mean to her--used to go out of his way to kick her--and she, sweet +as a kitten." + +"So you'll give her his box in revenge?" + +"Revenge? Oh, no sir. Just common sense." Any thought of a +sentimental revenge was distasteful to the trainer, but he was glad +that good Happiness should get his box and disappointed about the +soap. It would have lent relish to his somewhat perfunctory washings +to say to himself, "Doubtless this here bit of soap is a piece of +old Cuddy." + +"How long will the trench take?" + +"A good bit of time, sir. Cuddy isn't no kitten we're laying by. +I'll put them gardeners on the job--with your permission--and they +know how to shovel. You'll want an old saddle on him?" + +"No, no, the one I've raced him in, number twelve, and his old +bridle with the chain bit." + +"Well, well," said Willet rubbing his veiny nose. + +He considered the horse unworthy of any distinction, but in his +desire to please Geth, took pains to prepare Cuddy for his death and +burial. Gething was still at the big house although it was four +o'clock and the men on Break-Neck Hill were busy with their digging. +Willet called them the sextons. + +"And we, Joey," he addressed a stable boy, "we're the undertakers. +Handsome corpse, what?" Cuddy stood in the centre of the barn floor +fastened to be groomed. He was handsome, built on the cleanest lines +of speed and strength, lean as an anatomical study, perfect for his +type. The depth of chest made his legs, neck, and head look fragile. +His face was unusually beautiful--the white-starred face which had +been before Geth's eyes as he had sat in Holly Park. His pricked +ears strained to hear, his eyes to see. The men working over him +were beneath his notice. + +"Look at him," complained Joey, "he pays no more attention to us +than as if we weren't here." Cuddy usually kicked during grooming, +but his present indifference was more insulting. + +"Huh!" said Willet. "he knows them sextons went to Break-Neck to +dig the grave for him. Don't yer, Devil? Say, Joey, look at him +listening like he was counting the number of spadefuls it takes to +make a horse's grave. He's thinking, old Cuddy is, and scheming what +he'd like to do. I wouldn't ride him from here to Break-Neck, not +for a thousand dollars." He began rapidly with the body brush on +Cuddy's powerful haunch, then burst out: + +"He thinks he'll be good and we'll think he's hit the sawdust trail, +or perhaps he wants to look pretty in his coffin. Huh! Give me that +curry. You wash off his face a bit." Cuddy turned his aristocratic +face away from the wet cloth and blew tremulously. Joey tapped the +blazing star on his forehead. + +"Right there," he explained to Willet, "but anyhow he's begun to +show his age." He pointed the muzzle which had the run forward look +of an old horse and to the pits above the eyes. The grooming was +finished but neither Gething came to the stable from the big house +nor the trench diggers from Break-Neck to say that their work was +done. + +"Say, Joey," suggested Willet, "I'll do up his mane in red and +yellow worsteds, like he was going to be exhibited. Red and yellow +look well on a bay. You get to the paddock and see Frenchman hasn't +slipped his blanket while I fetch the worsteds from the office." + +Cuddy left alone, stopped his listening and began pulling at his +halter. It held him firm. From the brown dusk of their box-stalls +two lines of expectant horses' faces watched him. The pretty chestnut, +Happiness, already had been transferred to his old box, her white +striped face was barely visible. Farther down, on the same side, +Goblin stood staring stupidly and beyond were the heads of the three +brothers, Sans Pareil, Sans Peur and the famous Sans Souci who could +clear seven feet of timber (and now was lame.) Opposite stood Bohemia, +cold blood in her veins as a certain thickness about the throat +testified, and little Martini, the flat racer. On either side of him +were Hotspur and Meteor and there were a dozen others as famous. +Above each stall was hung the brass plate giving the name and +pedigree and above that up to the roof the hay was piled sweet and +dusty-smelling. The barn swallows twittered by an open window in the +loft. In front of Cuddy the great double doors were open to the +fields and pastures, the gray hills and the radiant sky. Cuddy +reared abruptly striking out with his front legs, crouched and +sprang against his halter again, but it held him fast. Willet, on +returning with his worsted, found him as he had left him, motionless +as a bronze horse on a black marble clock. + +Willet stood on a stool the better to work on the horse's neck. His +practised fingers twisted and knotted the mane and worsted, then cut +the ends into hard tassels. The horse's withers were reached and the +tassels bobbing rakishly gave a hilarious look to the condemned +animal. + +Four men, very sweaty, carrying spades entered. + +"It's done," said the first, nodding, "and it's a big grave. Glad +pet horses don't die oftener." + +"This ain't a pet," snapped Willet. "He's just that much property +and being of no more use is thrown away--just like an old tin can. +No more sense in burying one than the other. If I had my way about +it I'd----" But Geth entered. With his coat off he gave an +impression of greater size, like Cuddy his lines were graceful +enough to minimize his weight. + +"Hole dug? Well, let's saddle up and start out." He did not go up to +Cuddy to speak to him as he usually would have done, but as if +trying to avoid him, he fell to patting Happiness's striped face. +She was fretful in her new quarters. "Perhaps," thought Willet, +"she knows it's old Cuddy and _he's_ gone out for good." All the +horses seemed nervous and unhappy. It was as if they knew that one +of their number was to be taken out to an inglorious death--not the +fortune to die on the turf track as a steeple-chaser might wish, but +ignominiously, on a hill top, after a soft canter through spring +meadows. + +Cuddy stood saddled and bridled and then Willet turned in last +appeal to his master's son. + +"Mr. Geth, I wouldn't ride him--not even if I rode as well as you, +which I don't. That horse has grown worse and worse these last months. +He wants to kill some one, that's what he wants." Geth shook his head. + +"No use, Willet, trying to scare me. I know what I'm doing, eh Cuddy?" +He went to the horse and rubbed the base of his ears. The satin head +dropped forward on to the man's chest, a rare response from Cuddy. +Gething led him out of the stable, Willet held his head as the man +mounted. + +As he thrust his foot in the stirrup Cuddy lunged at Willet, his +savage yellow teeth crushed into his shoulder. The rider pulled him +off striking him with his heavy hunting whip. The horse squealed, +arched himself in the air and sidled down the driveway. He did not +try to run or buck, but seemed intent on twisting himself into +curves and figures. The two went past the big house with its gables +and numberless chimneys and down to the end of the driveway. + +There is a four foot masonry wall around the Gething country-place +("farm" they call it). The horse saw it and began jerking at his bit +and dancing, for ever since colt-hood walls had had but one meaning +for him. + +"Well, at it old man," laughed Gething. At a signal Cuddy flew at it, +rose into the air with magnificent strength and landed like +thistle-down. + +"Cuddy," cried the man, "there never was a jumper like you. +Break-Neck will keep, we'll find some more walls first." He crossed +the road and entered a rough pasture. It was a day of such abounding +life one could pity the worm the robin pulled. For on such a day +everything seemed to have the right to live and be happy. The crows +sauntered across the sky, care free as hoboes. Under foot the meadow +turf oozed water, the shad-bush petals fell like confetti before the +rough assault of horse and rider. Gething liked this day of wind and +sunshine. In the city there had been the smell of oiled streets to +show that spring had come, here was the smell of damp earth, pollen, +and burnt brush. Suddenly he realized that Cuddy, too, was pleased +and contented for he was going quietly now, occasionally he threw up +his head and blew "Heh, heh!" through his nostrils. Strange that +Willet had thought Cuddy wanted to kill some one--all he really +wanted was a bit of a canter. + +A brook was reached. It was wide, marshy, edged with cowslips. It +would take a long jump to clear it. Gething felt the back gather +beneath him, the tense body flung into the air, the flight through +space, then the landing well upon the firm bank. + +"Bravo, Cuddy!" the horse plunged and whipped his head between his +forelegs, trying to get the reins from the rider's hands. Gething +let himself be jerked forward until his face almost rested on the +veiny neck. + +"Old tricks, Cuddy. I knew _that_ one before you wore your first +shoes." He still had easy control and began to really let him out. +There was a succession of walls and fences and mad racing through +fields when the horse plunged in his gait and frightened birds +fluttered from the thicket and Gething hissed between his teeth as +he always did when he felt a horse going strong beneath him. + +Then they came to a hill that rose out of green meadows. It was +covered with dingy pine trees except the top that was bared like a +tonsure. A trail ran through the woods; a trail singularly morose +and unattractive. The pines looked shabby and black in comparison to +the sun on the spring meadows. This was Break-Neck Hill. Perhaps +Cuddy felt his rider stiffen in the saddle for he refused +passionately to take the path. He set his will against Gething's and +fought, bucking and rearing. When a horse is capable of a six foot +jump into the air his great strength and agility make his bucking +terrible. The broncho is a child in size and strength compared to +Cuddy's race of super-horse. Twice Geth went loose in his flat +saddle and once Cuddy almost threw himself. The chain bit had torn +the edges of his mouth and blood coloured his froth. Suddenly he +acquiesced and quiet again, he took the sombre path. Geth thrust his +right hand into his pocket, the revolver was still there. His hand +left it and rested on the bobbing, tasseled mane. + +"Old man," he addressed the horse, "I know you don't know where +you're going and I know you don't remember much, but you must +remember Saratoga and how we beat them all. And Cuddy, you'd +understand--if you could--how it's all over now and why I want to +do it for you myself." + +The woods were cleared. It was good to leave their muffled dampness +for the pure sunshine of the crest. On the very top of the hill +clean-cut against the sky stood a great wind-misshaped pine. At the +foot of this pine was a bank of fresh earth and Gething knew that +beyond the bank was the trench. He bent in his saddle and pressed +his forehead against the warm neck. Before his eyes was the past +they had been together, the sweep of the turf course, the grandstand +a-flutter, grooms with blankets, jockeys and gentlemen in silk, +owners' wives with cameras, then the race that always seemed so +short--a rush of horses, the stretching over the jumps, and the +purse or not, it did not matter. + +He straightened up with a grim set to his jaw and gathered the +loosened reins. Cuddy went into a canter and so approached the earth +bank. Suddenly he refused to advance and again the two wills fought, +but not so furiously. Cuddy was shaking with fear. The bank was a +strange thing, a fearsome thing, and the trench beyond, ghastly. His +neck stretched forward. "Heh, heh!" he blew through his nostrils. + +"Six steps nearer, Cuddy." Geth struck him lightly with his spurs. +The horse paused by the bank and began rocking slightly. + +"Sist! be quiet," for they were on the spot Gething wished. The +horse gathered himself, started to rear, then sprang into the air, +cleared earth-mound and trench and bounded down the hill. The +tremendous buck-jump he had so unexpectedly taken, combined with his +frantic descent, gave Gething no chance to get control until the +level was reached. Then, with the first pull on the bridle, he +realized it was too late. For a while at least Cuddy was in command. +Gething tried all his tricks with the reins, the horse dashed on +like a furious gust of wind, he whirled through the valley, across a +ploughed field, over a fence and into more pastures. Gething, never +cooler, fought for the control. The froth blown back against his +white shirt was rosy with blood. Cuddy was beyond realizing his bit. +Then Gething relaxed a little and let him go. He could guide him to +a certain extent. Stop him he could not. + +The horse was now running flatly and rapidly. He made no attempt to +throw his rider. What jumps were in his way he took precisely. +Unlike the crazed runaway of the city streets Cuddy never took +better care of himself. It seemed that he was running for some +purpose and Gething thought of Willet's often repeated remark, +"Look at 'im--old Cuddy, he's thinking." Two miles had been covered +and the gait had become business-like. Gething, guiding always to the +left, was turning him in a huge circle. The horse reeked with sweat. +"Now," thought Gething, "he's had enough," but at the first pressure +on the bit Cuddy increased his speed. His breath caught in his throat. +There was another mile and the wonderful run grew slower. The man +felt the great horse trip and recover himself. He was tired out. +Again the fight between master and horse began. Cuddy resisted weakly, +then threw up his beautiful, white-starred face as if in entreaty. + +"Oh, I'm----" muttered Gething and let the reins lie loose on his +neck, "your own way, Cuddy. Your way is better than mine. Old friend, +I'll not try to stop you again." For he knew if he tried he could +now gain control. The early dusk of spring had begun to settle on +the surface of the fields in a hazy radiance, a marvelous light that +seemed to breathe out from the earth and stream through the sky. A +mile to the east upon a hill was a farm house. The orange light from +the sunset found every window, blinded them and left them blank +oblongs of orange. The horse and rider passed closer to this farm. +Two collies rushed forward, then stopped to bark and jump. The light +enveloped them and gave each a golden halo. + +Again Gething turned still keeping toward the left. A hill began to +rise before them and up it the horse sped, his breath whirring and +rattling in his throat, but his strength still unspent. To the very +top he made his way and paused dazed. "Oh, Cuddy," cried Gething, +"this is Break-Neck." For there was the wind-warped pine, the bank +of earth, the trench. The horse came to a shivering standstill. The +bank looked strange to him. He stood sobbing, his body rocking +slightly, rocking gently, then with a sigh, came slowly down on to +the turf. Gething was on his feet, his hand on the dripping neck. + +"You always were a bad horse and I always loved you," he whispered, +"and that was a great ride, and now----" He rose abruptly and turned +away as he realized himself alone in the soft twilight. The horse +was dead. Then he returned to the tense body, so strangely thin and +wet, and removed saddle and bridle. With these hung on his arm he +took the sombre path through the pines for home. + + + + +_BLACK ART AND AMBROSE_ + + +BY GUY GILPATRIC + +From _Collier's, The National Weekly_ + +"... _The Naytives of the Seacoast told me many fearsome Tales of +these Magycians, or Voodoos, as they called Them. It would seem that +the Mystic Powers of these Magycians is hereditary, and that the +Spells, Incantacions, and other Secretts of their Profession are +passed on One to the Other and holden in great Awe by the People. +The Marke of this horride Culte is the Likeness of a great Human Eye, +carved in the Fleshe of the Backe, which rises in Ridges as it heals +and lasts Forever_ ..." + + + --Extract from "A Truthful Accounte of a Voyage and Journey + to the Land of Afrique, Together with Numerous Drawings and + Mappes, and a most Humble Petition Regarding the Same." + Presented by Roberte Waiting, Gent. in London, Anno D. 1651. + + +A few blocks west of the subway, and therefore off the beaten track +of the average New Yorker, is San Juan Hill. If you ever happen on +San Juan unawares, you will recognize it at once by its clustering +family of mammoth gas houses, its streets slanting down into the +North River, and the prevailing duskiness of the local complexion. +If you chance to stray into San Juan after sundown, you will be +relieved to note that policemen are plentiful, and that they walk in +pairs. This last observation describes the social status of San Juan +or any other neighbourhood better than volumes of detailed episodes +could begin to do. + +Of late years many of the Fust Famblies of San Juan have migrated +northward to the teeming negro districts of Harlem, but enough of +the old stock remains to lend the settlement its time-honoured touch +of gloom. Occasionally, too, it still makes its way to the public +notice by sanguinary affrays and race riots. San Juan Hill is a +geographical, racial, and sociological fact, and will remain so +until the day when safety razors become a universal institution. + +San Juan is a community in itself. It has its churches, its clubs, +its theatres, its stores, and--sighs of relief from the police--it +_used_ to have its saloons. It is a cosmopolitan community, too--as +cosmopolitan as it can be and still retain its Senegambian motif. + +Negroes from Haiti, Jamaica, Salvador, Cuba; from Morocco and Senegal; +blue-black negroes from the Pacific; ebony negroes from the South; +brown, tan, yellow, and buff negroes from everywhere inhabit San Juan. +Every language from Arabic to Spanish is spoken by these--the +cosmopolites of cosmopolitan San Juan. + +_Pussonally_, Mr. Ambrose de Vere Travis spoke only English. +Because he hailed from Galveston, Tex., he spoke it with a Gulf +intonation at once liquid, rich, and musical. He stood six feet five +on his bare soles, so his voice was somewhat reminiscent of the +Vatican organ. + +Ambrose was twenty-four years old. Our story finds him a New Yorker +of three years' standing, all of which he had spent as a dweller on +San Juan Hill. Originally the giant Mr. Travis had served as furnace +tender in the subterraneous portions of the Swalecliffe Arms +apartments, that turreted edifice in the Eighties that frowns across +at the Palisades from Riverside Drive. But his size and the size of +his smile had won for Ambrose the coveted and uniformed position of +door-man, a post at which he served with considerable success and +the incidental tips. + +The recently wealthy Mr. Braumbauer, for instance, really felt that +he _was_ somebody, when Ambrose opened the door of his car and bowed +him under the portcullis of Swalecliffe. And y'understand me, a +feller's willing he should pay a little something for service once +in a while. And so, one way and another, Ambrose managed to eke from +his job a great deal more than he drew on pay day. + +But Mr. Travis's source of income did not stop there--far from it. +He had brought from Galveston a genius for rolling sevens--or, if he +missed seven the first roll, he could generally make his point +within the next three tries. He could hold the dice longer than any +man within the San Juan memory, which, in view of the fact that +craps is to San Juan what bridge is to Boston, is saying a great deal. +Ambrose was simply a demon with the bones, and he was big enough to +get away with it. + +True, there had been difficulties. + +One evening at the Social Club Ambrose held the dice for a straight +sixteen passes. He and five other courtiers of fortune were bounding +the ivories off the cushion of a billiard table, to the end that the +contest be one of chance and not of science. In the midst of +Ambrose's stentorian protests that the baby needed footwear, one of +the losers forgot his breeding to the extent of claiming that +Ambrose had introduced a loaded die. As he seconded his claims with +a razor, the game met a temporary lull. + +When the furniture had ceased crashing, the members of the club +emerged from beneath the pool tables to see Mr. Travis tying up a +slashed hand, while he of the razor lay moaning over a broken +shoulder and exuding teeth in surprising quantities. + +After this little incident no one ever so far forgot himself as to +breathe the faintest aspersion on Mr. Travis, his dice, his way of +throwing them down or of picking them up. + +It was generally conceded that his conduct throughout the fray had +been of the best, and the affair did much to raise him in popular +esteem--especially as he was able to prove the caviler's charges to +be utterly unfounded. + +And so, with his physical beauty, his courage, and his wealth, +Mr. Ambrose de Vere Travis became something of a figure in San +Juan's social circles. + +Just when Ambrose fell in love with Miss Aphrodite Tate is not quite +clear. + +Aphrodite (pronounced just as spelled) was so named because her +father thought it had something to do with Africa. She was +astoundingly, absolutely, and gratifyingly black, and Ambrose was +sure that he had never seen any one quite so beautiful. + +Aphrodite lived with her parents, the ancient and revered +Fremont-Tates, patroons of San Juan. In the daytime she was engaged +as maid by a family that _suttingly_ treated her lovely; while in +the evening she could usually be found at the St. Benedict Young +People's Club. And it was here that Ambrose met her. + +True love ran smoothly for a long time. At last, when he felt the +tune was ripe, Ambrose pleaded urgent business for two evenings and +shook down the Social Club dice fanciers for the price of the ring. + +Then Mr. Dominique Raffin loomed dark on the horizon. Mr. Raffin did +not loom as dark as he might have loomed, however, because he was +half white. He hailed from Haiti, and was the son of a French sailor +and a transplanted Congo wench. He was slight of build and shifty of +eye. His excuse for being was a genius for music. He could play +anything, could this pasty Dominique, but of all instruments he was +at his tuneful best on the alto saxophone. + +"Lawd! _Oh_, Lawd!" his audience would ejaculate, as with closed +eyes and heads thrown back they would drink in the sonorous +emanations from the brazen tube. "Dat's de horn ob de Angel +Gabriel--dat's de heabenly music ob de spears!" And so Dominique's +popularity grew among the ladies of San Juan, even if among the +gentlemen it did not. + +To tell the truth, Dominique was something of a beau. Because he +played in an orchestra, he had ample opportunity to study the +deportment of people who passed as fashionable. His dress was +immaculate; his hair was not so kinky that it couldn't be plastered +down with brilliantine, and he perfumed himself copiously. His +fingers were heavily laden with rings. Dominique's voice was +whining--irritating. + +His native tongue was French, but he had learned to speak English in +Jamaica. Thus his accent was a curious mixture of French and Cockney, +lubricated with oily African. + +Altogether, it is not to be wondered that such sturdy sons of Ham as +Ambrose disliked the snaky Mr. Raffin. Disliked him the more when +his various musical and cultural accomplishments made him a general +favourite with the ladies. And then, when he absolutely cut +Mr. Travis from the affections of Miss Tate, the wrath of the +blacker and more wholesome San Juan citizens knew no bounds. + +As for Ambrose--he sulked. Even his friends, the fur-lined tenants +of Swalecliffe Arms, noticed that something worried the swart +guardian of their gate. In the evenings Ambrose gave his entire time +to frenzied rolling of the bones and was surprised to see that here, +at least, luck had not deserted him. + +On the few occasions when he forsook the green baize for an +evening's dancing at the St. Benedict Young People's Guild, the +sight of the coveted Miss Aphrodite whirling in the arms of the +hated Raffin almost overcame him. + +Finally the lovesick Mr. Travis decided to call upon the lady of his +heart and demand an explanation. After some rehearsal of what he +wanted to say, Ambrose betook himself to the tenement in which the +Tate family dwelt. At sight of her cast-off swain, Miss Aphrodite +showed the whites of her eyes and narrowed her lips to a thin +straight line--perhaps an inch and a half thin. Evidently she was +displeased. + +Aphrodite opened the interview by inquiring why she was being +pestered and intermediated by a low-down black nigger that didn't +have no mo' brains than he had manners. Her feelings was likely to +git the better of her at any moment; in which event Mr. Travis had +better watch out, that was all--jest watch out. + +The astounded Mr. Travis did his best to pacify this Amazon; to +explain that he had merely come to inquire the reason for her +displeasure; to learn in what respect Mr. Raffin had proved himself +so sweetly desirable. + +The answer was brief and crushing. It seemed that where Mr. Travis +was a big, bulky opener of doors, Mr. Raffin was a sleek and +cultured Chesterfield--a musician--an artist. Where Mr. Travis could +not dance without stepping on everybody in the room, Mr. Raffin was +a veritable Mordkin. Where Mr. Travis hung out with a bunch of +no-good crap-shooting black buck niggers, Mr. Raffin's orchestral +duties brought him into the most cultured s'ciety. In short, the +yellow man from Haiti was a gentleman; the black man from Texas was +a boor. + +This unexpected tirade made the unhappy Ambrose a trifle weak in the +knees. Then pride came to the rescue, and he drew himself to his +full and towering six feet five. He held out his mammoth hands +before Miss Aphrodite and warned her that with them, at the first +provocation, he would jest take and bust Mr. Raffin in two. This done, +he would throw the shuddering fragments into the street, and with +his feet--Exhibit B--would kick them the entire length and breadth +of the neighbourhood. + +This threat only aroused new fires of scorn and vituperation, and +Miss Tate informed her guest that, should he ever attempt the +punitive measures described, Mr. Raffin would cut him up into little +pieces. It seemed that Mr. Raffin carried a knife, and that he knew +how to use it. + +Mr. Travis snorted at this, and stamped out of the Tate apartment. + +At his exit, doors closed softly on every floor, because the +neighbours had listened to the tete-a-tete with intense interest. +Even people in the next house had been able to hear most of it. + +Ambrose made his furious way toward the Social Club, his mind set on +mortal encounter with the hated Dominique. But--here was an +inspiration!--why not win his money away from him first? To win away +his last cent--to humble him--to ruin him--and then to break him in +two and kick the pieces through the San Juan causeways, as per +programme! This would be a revenge indeed! + +Ambrose noted with satisfaction that Mr. Raffin was already at play, +and crossing the smoke-filled room he threw down some money and took +his place in the game. + +Now, Mr. Travis was ordinarily a very garrulous and vociferous crap +shooter, but to-night he was savagely silent. There was a disturbing, +electric _something_ in the air that the neutrals felt and feared. +There was a look in the Travis eye that boded ill for somebody, and +one by one the more prudent gamesters withdrew. + +Then suddenly the storm broke. + +Later accounts were not clear as to just what started the fray, but +start it did. + +Dominique's knife appeared from some place, and the table crashed. +Then the knife swished through space like a hornet and buried its +point harmlessly in a door across the room. + +What followed is still a subject of wondering conversation on San +Juan Hill. + +It seems that Mr. Travis seized Mr. Raffin by the collar of his coat, +and swung him round and round and over his head. Mr. Raffin streamed +almost straight out, like the imitation airplanes that whirl dizzily +about the tower in an amusement park. Suddenly there was a rending +of cloth, and Dominique shot through the air to encounter the wall +with a soul-satisfying thump. + +Ambrose looked bewildered at the torn clothing he held in his hand, +and then at the limp form of his late antagonist. Mr. Raffin lay +groaning, naked from the waist up. + +Ambrose strode across to administer further chastisement, but +was halted by a cry from one of the onlookers. This man stood +pointing at Dominique's naked back--pointing, and staring with eyes +that rolled with genuine negro terror. + +"Look!" gasped the affrighted one. "Look! It's de Voo-doo Eye-- +_dat man's a witch_! Ambrose, fo' de Lawd's sake, git away from +hyar!" + +"What you-all talkin' about?" scoffed Ambrose, striding closer, and +rolling Dominique so that the light shone full on his back. +"What you-all talkin'----_Good Lawd_"! + +This last ejaculation from Ambrose was caused by the sight that met +his gaze. + +There, on the yellow back before him, reaching from shoulder to +shoulder, was tattooed the likeness of a great human eye! + +Everyone saw it now. To some--the Northern darkies--it meant nothing. +But to the old-school Southern negroes it meant mystery--magic--death. +_It was the sign of the Voodoo_! + +Several of the more superstitious onlookers retreated in poor order, +their teeth chattering. Their mammies had told them about the Voodoo +Eye. They remembered the tales whispered in the slave quarters about +people being prayed to death by these baleful creatures of ill omen! +They weren't going to take any chances! + +Ambrose, for all his natural courage, was shaken. He remembered old +Tom Blue, the Texas Voodoo, who poisoned twenty-one people and came +to life after the white men lynched him. And now he had laid rough +hands on one of the deadly clan; had brought upon himself the wrath +of a man who could simply _wish_ him to death! + +Trembling, he stooped down and looked at the Devil's Sign. He looked +again--closely. Then he broke out into a ringing peal of wholesome +darky laughter. + +"Git up!" he shouted, as Dominique showed signs of life. "Git up, +Mr. Voodoo, befo' Ah gits impatient an' throws you out de window!" + +This recklessness--this defiance of the dread power--shocked even +the least superstitious of the audience. By this time they were all +under the spell of this mysterious mark. Those who hadn't recognized +it at once had been quickly enlightened by the others. + +Ambrose seized Dominique by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet. +Swaying unsteadily, the mulatto looked around him through eyes +closed to snakelike slits. + +"Raffin," said Ambrose, "you-all has on yo' back de Eye ob Voodoo. +Dese gennlemen hyar thinks yo' _is_ a Voodoo. Ah know yo' _ain't_!" + +"I _am_ a Voodoo! An' you, you _sacre cochon_," hissed Raffin, +"I'll make you wish you had nevaire been born!" + +"Well, jes' fo' de present," laughed Ambrose, good humour spreading +all over his face, "you-all had better git outa my way, an' stay +_out_! Git outa hyar _quick_!" + +Dominique, his evil face twitching with fury, picked up the ragged +shreds of his coat and walked unsteadily out. + +At his exit a dead silence fell upon the remaining members. Then +they gathered together in excited groups and discussed the incident +in heated undertones. Ambrose, quite unconcerned, took up a pack of +cards and commenced a game of solitaire. + +He wasn't worrying. He knew that Dominique was no more a Voodoo than +he was. Startled at first, he had noticed that the eye had not been +carved in Dominique's back, as it should have been, but had been +tattooed. This in itself made the thing doubtful. But more than this, +the marks were the unmistakably accurate work of an electric +tattooing machine. + +Ambrose had spent his youth on the Galveston water front, and knew +tattooing in all its forms. Electric tattooing on a Voodoo was about +as much in keeping with the ancient and awesome dignity of the cult +as spangled tights would be on the King of England. No--it was +ridiculous. Dominique was not a Voodoo! + +Ambrose continued his solitaire, humming as he played. Occasionally +he cast an amused eye at the excited groups across the room, and was +not surprised when Mr. Behemoth Scott, president of the club, at +last came over to him. + +"Mistah Travis," began Mr. Scott deferentially, clearing his throat, +"would you-all be good enough to jine our little gatherin' while we +confabulate on dis hyar recent contabulaneous incident?" + +"Suttingly, Mr. Scott, suttingly!" said Ambrose, pushing back his +chair, and crossing the room with the quaking official. "What can Ah +do fo' you-all?" + +"Well, jest this," said Mr. Scott. "You gennlemen kin'ly correc' me +or bear out what Ah say. Leavin' aside all argument whether they +_is_ sech things as Voodoos, Ah guess any of you gennlemen from +the South will remember Aunt Belle Agassiz and Tom Blue. Ah guess +yo' mammies all done tole 'bout the African Voodoos, an' how ebery +now an' den one of 'em crops up still. An' Ah guess dat we've seen +to-night dat we've got a Voodoo among us. Now, Mr. Travis"--here he +turned to Ambrose--"we know what Aunt Belle Agassiz done on de +Mathis Plantation in Georgia--_you_ ought to know what Tom Blue did +in Texas. So we wants to warn you, as a fren' an' membah of dis club +in good standin', dat you better leave town to-night." + +An assenting murmur arose from the crowd, with much rolling of eyes +and nodding of heads. + +Ambrose held up his hand for silence. A serious expression came over +his features, and he towered tall and straight before them. + +"Gennlemen," he said, "Ah sho appreciates yo' good sperit in dis +hyar unfo'tunate affair. But Ah tells you-all hyar an' now dat +Dominique Raffin ain't no mo' Voodoo den Ah is. Now, Ah ain't sayin' +dat he _ain't_ a Voodoo, an' Ah ain't sayin' dat Ah _am_ one. All Ah +says is dat Ah's as _much_ of a Voodoo as he is--an' Ah'm willin' to +prove it!" + +"How you-all do dat, Ambrose?" asked somebody. + +"Ah'm comin' to dat," replied Ambrose. "If you-all wants to decide +dis mattah beyont all doubt, Ah respekf'ly suggests dat we hold a +_see_-ance in dis hyar room, under any c'nditions dat you-all kin +d'vise. If Ah cain't show yo mo' supernat'ral man'festations dan he +can, Ah gives him fifty dollahs. If it's de oder way 'roun', he +leaves de city within twenty-fo' hours. Is dat fair?" + +"Well, it suttinly soun's puff'cly jest," replied Mr. Scott. +"We-all will appint a committee to frame de rules of de _see_-ance, +an' make 'em fair fo' both. You's been willin' to prove yo'-se'f, +Ambrose, an' yo' couldn't do mo'. If dis m'latter Voodoo don't want +to do lak'wise, he can leave dese pahts moughty sudden. Ain't dat so, +gennlemen?" + +"Yassuh--he'll leave _quick_!" was the threatening reply. + +"All right den, Ambrose," continued the spokesman, "we'll 'range fo' +dis sperit-summonin' contes' jes' as soon as we kin. We'll have it +nex' Satiddy night at lates'. Meanwhile we-all is moughty obleeged +to yo' for yo' willin'-ness to do de right thing." + +The great night arrived, and San Juan, dressed in its gala finery, +wended its chattering way to the Senegambian seance. But beneath the +finery and the chatter ran a subtle under-current of foreboding, for +your negro is superstitious, and, well, _Voodoos are Voodoos_! + +Dominique Raffin, dressed in somber black, went to the club alone +and unattended save by Miss Aphrodite Tate. San Juan, fearing the +Raffin mulatto and his ghostly powers, had held its respectful +distance ever since the evening when Ambrose and his rage had +revealed them. Familiarity breeding contempt, Miss Aphrodite knew +her man, and feared him not. + +They found the rooms of the social club full of excited negroes, for +never before in San Juan's history had such a momentous event been +scheduled. Raffin and Aphrodite were received with a fearsome +respect by Behemoth Scott, who had been appointed master of +ceremonies. + +"Jes' make yo'se'f to home," he greeted them. "Mista Travis ain't +come yit; we has ten minutes befo' de contes' styarts." + +At last, with a bare minute to spare, Ambrose smilingly entered. He +wore his splendid full-dress suit, a wonderful creation of San +Juan's leading tailor, who, at Ambrose's tasteful suggestion, had +faced the lapels with satin of the most royal purple. Set out by +this background of colourful lapel was a huge yellow chrysanthemum, +while on the broad red band that diagonally traversed his shining +shirt front glittered like a decoration, the insignia from his +Swalecliffe uniform cap. + +"Good evenin', folks," was his cheerful greeting. "If you-all is +quite ready fo' dis _see_-ance, an' provided mah--er--wuthy opponent +am ready, Ah'd jes' as soon _pro_ceed." + +Miss Aphrodite gazed on the imposing figure of Ambrose with more +than a little admiration. Comparing him with the trembling Raffin, +she found much in his favour. + +All but his footwear. Accustomed as she had become to the glistening +patent leathers affected by Raffin, Ambrose's clumsy congress +gaiters somewhat marred his gorgeousness. Nevertheless, she felt her +affections wavering. Her speculations were interrupted by the voice +of the master of ceremonies: + +"Ladies an' gennlemen," began Mr. Scott, "we-all has d 'cided to +form a circle of twelve of our membahs wif dese two Voodoo gennlemen +asettin' opp'site each oder in de circle. In o'dah to preclude any +poss'bility of either Mista Travis or Mista Raffin from leavin' dere +places, we has d'cided to tie dem to dere cheers by ropes passed +'roun' dere bodies an' fastened to de backs of de cheers. De lights +will den be distinguished. When he lights is tu'ned out, Mista +Raffin will be given fifteen minutes in which to summon de +supernat'ral proofs--whatevah dey may be--of his bein' Voodoo. Den +Mista Travis will be given his chanct." + +Amid the hushed whisperings of the assemblage the committee, six men +and six women, Aphrodite included, took their places in the circle. +Ambrose and the mulatto were seated opposite each other and were +perhaps twelve feet apart. Raffin, nervously licking his lips, sat +bolt upright while members of the committee passed ropes around him +and the back of his chair, and tied his hands. In direct contrast to +his rival, Ambrose slouched down in his seat and joked with the +trembling members as they secured him in his place. + +Those not on the committee crowded close to the chair backs of the +circle in order that nothing should escape them. The excitement was +tense, and everyone was breathing hard. When all was ready +Mr. Behemoth Scott took his place in the circle. Drawing a long +breath and grasping his chair for support, he spoke in a hushed +and husky voice: "All raidy, now? Ah asks silence from eve'body. +_Turn out de lights_"! + +At the fateful words Stygian darkness enveloped the crowded room. +The shades had been drawn and not the faintest ray from the dim +street lights penetrated the place. It was stifling hot, and the +assembled investigators were perspiring freely.... + +Silence--black, awe-inspired silence! Two hundred pairs of +superstitious eyes peered into the horrible gloom--two hundred pairs +of ears strained at the tomblike stillness. The suspense was awful, +and none dared move. Occasionally some familiar sound came from the +world outside: the clang of the Tenth Avenue car or the whistle of a +tugboat out in the river, but these sounds were of another +existence--they seemed distant and unfamiliar and wholly out of +place in the mystery and terror of the Voodoo seance. + +The minutes slid by, and nothing happened. The suspense was worse +than ever. Something stirred in the circle. Two hundred hearts +missed a beat. Then the whining, terror-stricken voice of the +mulatto broke the stillness: "Let Travis try," he whispered hoarsely. +"My spirits will not come until 'e 'as tried. Let 'im try fo' +fifteen minutes, and when 'e 'as failed I will summon the ghost of +Bula-Wayo, the king of all the tribes of the Niger. But let Travis +try first!" This last almost pleadingly. + +A moment more of silence and Ambrose's deep voice boomed forth in +the darkness. + +"Ah's willin'," he declared. "Anythin' dat now appears will be mah +doin'--ten minits is all Ah asks. Am dat sat'sfact'ry?" + +"Yaas," replied the voice of Behemoth Scott. "Go ahaid wif yo' +sperit-summonin', Mista Travis." + +"Ah'll cawncentrate now," replied Ambrose, "an' sho'tly you-all will +witness ample proof of mah bein' a genuine Voo-doo. _Ah's stahtin_'." + +Silence more terrible than ever fell upon the waiting negroes. +Then--horror of horrors! a peculiar grating, rustling sound came +from the vicinity of Ambrose--a slight creaking--and again silence. +The investigators held hands of neighbours who trembled from sheer +panic, whose breath came hard and panting from this awful suspense! + +Another creaking, as though Ambrose had shifted his weight in his +chair.... + +Then--baleful--in its green, ghastly glow--a dim, indistinct light +shone in the centre of the circle! Moving slowly, like a newly +awakened spirit, it waved in the very midst of the gasping committee. +Back and forth, up and down, it moved--glowing, vaporous, ghostly. +Two hundred pairs of bulging eyes saw the horror--and realized that +it was an enormous hand, terribly deformed! + +Some one moaned with terror--a woman screamed. "De hand ob death!" +shrieked a man. "Run--run fo' yo' lives!" + +The stampede was spontaneous! Chairs were overturned and tables +smashed in this frightful panic in the dark. No one thought of +turning on the lights--everyone's sole aim was to leave that +appalling shining hand--and get out! + +A crashing on the stairway marked where Raffin, chair and all, was +making his fear-stricken way to the street. In one brief minute the +place was apparently empty save for Ambrose. Still tied to his chair, +he inquired: "Is any one hyar?" + +For a second there was silence, then the dulcet tones of Miss +Aphrodite fell on the big negro's ear: "Ah's hyar, Ambrose," she said. + +"Well, den"--recognizing her voice--"would you mine lightin' de gas +till Ah can tie mahself loose from dis hyar throne ob glory?" + +In a moment a feeble gaslight shone, disclosing Aphrodite--somewhat +disarranged by the panic--standing smiling in front of the erstwhile +Voodoo. She looked down at his feet. There, sure enough, one huge +member was unshod and stockingless; the elastic-slit congress gaiter, +lost in the shuffle, lay out of the radius of Ambrose's long leg. +Miss Aphrodite picked it up and, stooping, slipped it over his +mighty toes, noticing as she did so the thick coating of +phosphorescent paint that still covered them. + +"Ambrose," she whispered, "Ah wasn't scaired. No ghos' eber was bohn +dat had han's de size ob yo' feet!" + +An embarrassed silence followed; the gas jet flickered weakly; then +Ambrose said: "Untie mah han's, Aphrodite--Ah'd jes' lak to hug you!" + +"Oh, Ambrose," she cried coyly. But she untied the rope just the same. + +Again came silence, broken only by a certain strange sound. Then +Ambrose's voice came softly through the gloom: "Aphrodite," it said, +"yo' lips am jes' lak plush!" + + + + +THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN + + +BY LEE FOSTER HARTMAN + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + +To dine on the veranda of the Marine Hotel is the one delightful +surprise which Port Charlotte affords the adventurer who has broken +from the customary paths of travel in the South Seas. On an eminence +above the town, solitary and aloof like a monastery, and deep in its +garden of lemon-trees, it commands a wide prospect of sea and sky. +By day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor, +with a blur of distant islands on the horizon--chief among them +Muloa, with its single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At +night, this smithy of Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing +faintly against the darkness, a capricious and sullen beacon +immeasurably removed from the path of men. Viewed from the veranda +of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the horizon seems hardly more +than an insignificant spark, like the glowing cigar-end of some guest +strolling in the garden after dinner. + +It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor +Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows. Her uncle, Major +Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the +respite from the queer business he had involved me in. The two of +us had returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him +in my schooner, the _Sylph_, to seek out Leavitt and make some +inquiries--very important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh's +behalf. + +Three days in Muloa, under the shadow of the grim and flame-throated +mountain, while I was forced to listen to Major Stanleigh's +persistent questionnaire and Leavitt's erratic and garrulous +responses--all this, as I was to discover later, at the instigation +of the Major's niece--had made me frankly curious about the girl. + +I had seen her only once, and then at a distance across the veranda, +one night when I had been dining there with a friend; but that +single vision of her remained vivid and unforgettable--a tall girl of +a slender shapeliness, crowned by a mass of reddish-gold hair that +smoldered above the clear olive pallor of her skin. With that +flawless and brilliant colouring she was marked for observation--had +doubtless been schooled to a perfect indifference to it, for the slow, +almost indolent, grace of her movements was that of a woman coldly +unmindful of the gazes lingering upon her. She could not have been +more than twenty-six or -seven, but I got an unmistakable impression +of weariness or balked purpose emanating from her in spite of her +youth and glorious physique. I looked up to see her crossing the +veranda to join her uncle and aunt--correct, well-to-do English +people that one placed instantly--and my stare was only one of many +that followed her as she took her seat and threw aside the light +scarf that swathed her bare and gleaming shoulders. + +My companion, who happened to be the editor of the local paper, +promptly informed me regarding her name and previous residence--the +gist of some "social item" which he had already put into print; but +these meant nothing, and I could only wonder what had brought her to +such an out-of-the-way part of the world as Port Charlotte. She did +not seem like a girl who was traveling with her uncle and aunt; +one got rather the impression that she was bent on a mission of her +own and was dragging her relatives along because the conventions +demanded it. I hazarded to my companion the notion that a woman like +Miss Stanleigh could have but one of two purposes in this lonely part +of the world--she was fleeing from a lover or seeking one. + +"In that case," rejoined my friend, with the cynical shrug of the +newspaper man, "she has very promptly succeeded. It's whispered that +she is going to marry Joyce--of Malduna Island, you know. Only met +him a fortnight ago. Quite a romance, I'm told." + +I lifted my eyebrows at that, and looked again at Miss Stanleigh. +Just at that instant she happened to look up. It was a wholly +indifferent gaze; I am confident that she was no more aware of me +than if I had been one of the veranda posts which her eyes bad +chanced to encounter. But in the indescribable sensation of that +moment I felt that here was a woman who bore a secret burden, +although, as my informing host put it, her heart had romantically +found its haven only two weeks ago. + +She was endeavouring to get trace of a man named Farquharson, as I +was permitted to learn a few days later. Ostensibly, it was Major +Stanleigh who was bent on locating this young Englishman--Miss +Stanleigh's interest in the quest was guardedly withheld--and the +trail had led them a pretty chase around the world until some clue, +which I never clearly understood, brought them to Port Charlotte. +The major's immediate objective was an eccentric chap named Leavitt +who had marooned himself in Muloa. The island offered an ideal +retreat for one bent on shunning his own kind, if he did not object +to the close proximity of a restive volcano. Clearly, Leavitt did not. +He had a scientific interest in the phenomena exhibited by volcanic +regions and was versed in geological lore, but the rumours about +Leavitt--practically no one ever visited Muloa--did not stop at that. +And, as Major Stanleigh and I were to discover, the fellow seemed to +have developed a genuine affection for Lakalatcha, as the smoking +cone was called by the natives of the adjoining islands. From long +association he had come to know its whims and moods as one comes to +know those of a petulant woman one lives with. It was a bizarre and +preposterous intimacy, in which Leavitt seemed to find a wholly +acceptable substitute for human society, and there was something +repellant about the man's eccentricity. He had various names for the +smoking cone that towered a mile or more above his head: "Old +Flame-eater," or "Lava-spitter," he would at times familiarly and +irreverently call it; or, again, "The Maiden Who Never Sleeps," or +"The Single-breasted Virgin"--these last, however, always in the +musical Malay equivalent. He had no end of names--romantic, splenetic, +of opprobrium, or outright endearment--to suit, I imagine, +Lakalatcha's varying moods. In one respect they puzzled me--they +were of conflicting genders, some feminine and some masculine, as if +in Leavitt's loose-frayed imagination the mountain that beguiled his +days and disturbed his nights were hermaphroditic. + +Leavitt as a source of information regarding the missing Farquharson +seemed preposterous when one reflected how out of touch with the +world he had been, but, to my astonishment, Major Stanleigh's clue +was right, for he had at last stumbled upon a man who had known +Farquharson well and who was voluminous about him--quite willingly so. +With the _Sylph_ at anchor, we lay off Muloa for three nights, and +Leavitt gave us our fill of Farquharson, along with innumerable +digressions about volcanoes, neoplatonism, the Single Tax, and what +not. There was no keeping Leavitt to a coherent narrative about the +missing Farquharson. He was incapable of it, and Major Stanleigh and +myself had simply to wait in patience while Leavitt, delighted to +have an audience, dumped out for us the fantastic contents of his +mind, odd vagaries, recondite trash, and all. He was always getting +away from Farquharson, but, then, he was unfailingly bound to come +back to him. We had only to wait and catch the solid grains that now +and then fell in the winnowing of that unending stream of chaff. It +was a tedious and exasperating process, but it had its compensations. +At times Leavitt could be as uncannily brilliant as he was dull and +boresome. The conviction grew upon me that he had become a little +demented, as if his brain had been tainted by the sulphurous fumes +exhaled by the smoking crater above his head. His mind smoked, +flickered, and flared like an unsteady lamp, blown upon by choking +gases, in which the oil had run low. + +But of the wanderer Farquharson he spoke with precision and authority, +for he had shared with Farquharson his bungalow there in Muloa--a +period of about six months, it seemed--and there Farquharson had +contracted a tropic fever and died. + +"Well, at last we have got all the facts," Major Stanleigh sighed +with satisfaction when the _Sylph_ was heading back to Port Charlotte. +Muloa, lying astern, we were no longer watching. Leavitt, at the +water's edge, had waved us a last good-by and had then abruptly +turned back into the forest, very likely to go clambering like a +demented goat up the flanks of his beloved volcano and to resume +poking about in its steaming fissures--an occupation of which he +never tired. + +"The evidence is conclusive, don't you think?--the grave, +Farquharson's personal effects, those pages of the poor devil's diary." + +I nodded assent. In my capacity as owner of the _Sylph_ I had merely +undertaken to furnish Major Stanleigh with passage to Muloa and back, +but the events of the last three days had made me a party to the +many conferences, and I was now on terms of something like intimacy +with the rather stiff and pompous English gentleman. How far I was +from sharing his real confidence I was to discover later when Eleanor +Stanleigh gave me hers. + +"My wife and niece will be much relieved to hear all this--a family +matter, you understand, Mr. Barnaby," he had said to me when we +landed. "I should like to present you to them before we leave Port +Charlotte for home." + +But, as it turned out, it was Eleanor Stanleigh who presented herself, +coming upon me quite unexpectedly that night after our return while +I sat smoking in the shadowy garden of the Marine Hotel. I had dined +with the major, after he had explained that the ladies were worn out +by the heat and general developments of the day and had begged to be +excused. And I was frankly glad not to have to endure another +discussion of the deceased Farquharson, of which I was heartily +tired after hearing little else for the last three days. I could not +help wondering how the verbose and pompous major had paraphrased and +condensed that inchoate mass of biography and reminiscence into an +orderly account for his wife and niece. He had doubtless devoted the +whole afternoon to it. Sitting under the cool green of the +lemon-trees, beneath a sky powdered with stars, I reflected that I, +at least, was done with Farquharson forever. But I was not, for just +then Eleanor Stanleigh appeared before me. + +I was startled to hear her addressing me by name, and then calmly +begging me to resume my seat on the bench under the arbor. She sat +down also, her flame-coloured hair and bare shoulders gleaming in +the darkness. She was the soul of directness and candour, and after +a thoughtful, searching look into my face she came to the point at +once. She wanted to hear about Farquharson--from me. + +"Of course, my uncle has given me a very full account of what he +learned from Mr. Leavitt, and yet many things puzzle me--this +Mr. Leavitt most of all." + +"A queer chap," I epitomized him. "Frankly, I don't quite make him +out, Miss Stanleigh--marooning himself on that infernal island and +seemingly content to spend his days there." + +"Is he so old?" she caught me up quickly. + +"No, he isn't," I reflected. "Of course, it's difficult to judge +ages out here. The climate, you know. Leavitt's well under forty, I +should say. But that's a most unhealthy spot he has chosen to live in." + +"Why does he stay there?" + +I explained about the volcano. "You can have no idea what an +obsession it is with him. There isn't a square foot of its steaming, +treacherous surface that he hasn't been over, mapping new fissures, +poking into old lava-beds, delving into the crater itself on +favourable days--" + +"Isn't it dangerous?" + +"In a way, yes. The volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes +unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to +obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to +spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides--just tamely +subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes. +But Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater, +half strangling himself in its poisonous fumes, scorching the shoes +off his feet, and once, I believe, he lost most of his hair and +eyebrows--a narrow squeak. He throws his head back and laughs at any +word of caution. To my notion, it's foolhardy to push a scientific +curiosity to that extreme." + +"Is it, then, just scientific curiosity?" mused Miss Stanleigh. + +Something in her tone made me stop short. Her eyes had lifted to +mine--almost appealingly, I fancied. Her innocence, her candour, her +warm beauty, which was like a pale phosphorescence in the starlit +darkness--all had their potent effect upon me in that moment. I felt +impelled to a sudden burst of confidence. + +"At times I wonder. I've caught a look in his eyes, when he's been +down on his hands and knees, staring into some infernal vent-hole--a +look that is--well, uncanny, as if he were peering into the bowels +of the earth for something quite outside the conceptions of science. +You might think that volcano had worked some spell over him, turned +his mind. He prattles to it or storms at it as if it were a living +creature. Queer, yes; and he's impressive, too, with a sort of +magnetic personality that attracts and repels you violently at the +same time. He's like a cake of ice dipped in alcohol and set aflame. +I can't describe him. When he talks--" + +"Does he talk about himself?" + +I had to confess that he had told us practically not a word. He had +discussed everything under heaven in his brilliant, erratic way, +with a fleer of cynicism toward it all, but he had left himself out +completely. He had given us Farquharson with relish, and in infinite +detail, from the time the poor fellow first turned up in Muloa, put +ashore by a native craft. Talking about Farquharson was second only +to his delight in talking about volcanoes. And the result for me had +been innumerable vivid but confused impressions of the young +Englishman who had by chance invaded Leavitt's solitude and had +lingered there, held by some attraction, until he sickened and died. +It was like a jumbled mosaic put together again by inexpert hands. + +"Did you get the impression that the two men had very much in common?" + +"Quite the contrary," I answered. "But Major Stanleigh should know--" + +"My uncle never met Mr. Farquharson." + +I was fairly taken aback at that, and a silence fell between us. It +was impossible to divine the drift of her questions. It was as if +some profound mistrust weighed upon her and she was not so much +seeking to interrogate me as she was groping blindly for some chance +word of mine that might illuminate her doubts. + +I looked at the girl in silent wonder, yes, and in admiration of her +bronze and ivory beauty in the full flower of her glorious +youth--and I thought of Joyce. I felt that it was like her to have +fallen in love simply but passionately at the mere lifting of the +finger of Fate. It was only another demonstration of the +unfathomable mystery, or miracle, which love is. Joyce was lucky, +indeed favoured of the gods, to have touched the spring in this +girl's heart which no other man could reach, and by the rarest of +chances--her coming out to this remote corner of the world. Lucky +Joyce! I knew him slightly--a straightforward young fellow, very +simple and whole-souled, enthusiastically absorbed in developing his +rubber lands in Malduna. + +Miss Stanleigh remained lost in thought while her fingers toyed with +the pendant of the chain that she wore. In the darkness I caught the +glitter of a small gold cross. + +"My. Barnaby," she finally broke the silence, and paused. "I have +decided to tell you something. This Mr. Farquharson was my husband." + +Again a silence fell, heavy and prolonged, in which I sat as if +drugged by the night air that hung soft and perfumed about us. It +seemed incredible that in that fleeting instant she had spoken at all. + +"I was young--and very foolish, I suppose." + +With that confession, spoken with simple dignity, she broke off again. +Clearly, some knowledge of the past she deemed it necessary to +impart to me. If she halted over her words, it was rather to dismiss +what was irrelevant to the matter in hand, in which she sought my +counsel. + +"I did not see him for four years--did not wish to.... And he +vanished completely.... Four years!--just a welcome blank!" + +Her shoulders lifted and a little shiver went over her. + +"But even a blank like that can become unendurable. To be always +dragging at a chain, and not knowing where it leads to...." Her +hand slipped from the gold cross on her breast and fell to the other +in her lap, which it clutched tightly. "Four years.... I tried to +make myself believe that he was gone forever--was dead. It was +wicked of me." + +My murmur of polite dissent led her to repeat her words. + +"Yes, and even worse than that. During the past month I have +actually prayed that he might be dead.... I shall be punished for it." + +I ventured no rejoinder to these words of self-condemnation. Joyce, +I reflected, mundanely, had clearly swept her off her feet in the +ardour of their first meeting and instant love. + +"It must be a great relief to you," I murmured at length, "to have +it all definitely settled at last." + +"If I could only feel that it was!" + +I turned in amazement, to see her leaning a little forward, her +hands still tightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the +distant horizon where the red spark of Lakalatcha's stertorous +breathing flamed and died away. Her breast rose and fell, as if +timed to the throbbing of that distant flare. "I want you to take me +to that island--to-morrow." + +"Why, surely, Miss Stanleigh," I burst forth, "there can't be any +reasonable doubt. Leavitt's mind may be a little flighty--he may +have embroidered his story with a few gratuitous details; but +Farquharson's books and things--the material evidence of his having +lived there--" + +"And having died there?" + +"Surely Leavitt wouldn't have fabricated that! If you had talked +with him--" + +"I should not care to talk with Mr. Leavitt," Miss Stanleigh cut me +short. "I want only to go and see--if he _is_ Mr. Leavitt." + +"If he _is_ Mr. Leavitt!" For a moment I was mystified, and then in +a sudden flash I understood. "But that's pre-posterous--impossible!" + +I tried to conceive of Leavitt in so monstrous a role, tried to +imagine the missing Farquharson still in the flesh and beguiling +Major Stanleigh and myself with so outlandish a story, devising all +that ingenious detail to trick us into a belief in his own death. It +would indeed have argued a warped mind, guided by some unfathomable +purpose. + +"I devoutly hope you are right," Miss Stanleigh was saying, with +deliberation. "But it is not preposterous, and it is not +impossible--if you had known Mr. Farquharson as I have." + +It was a discreet confession. She wished me to understand--without +the necessity of words. My surmise was that she had met and married +Farquharson, whoever he was, under the spell of some momentary +infatuation, and that he had proved himself to be an unspeakable +brute whom she had speedily abandoned. + +"I am determined to go to Muloa, Mr. Barnaby," she announced, with +decision. "I want you to make the arrangements, and with as much +secrecy as possible. I shall ask my aunt to go with me." + +I assured Miss Stanleigh that the _Sylph_ was at her service. + +Mrs. Stanleigh was a large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to +making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and +physical discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her +to make that surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two +days later, I have never been able to imagine. The accommodations +aboard the schooner were cramped, to say the least, and the good +lady had a perfect horror of volcanoes. The fact that Lakalatcha had +behind it a record of a century or more of good conduct did not +weigh with her in the least. She was convinced that it would blow +its head off the moment the _Sylph_ got within range. She was fidgety, +talkative, and continually concerned over the state of her complexion, +inspecting it in the mirror of her bag at frequent intervals and +using a powder-puff liberally to mitigate the pernicious effects of +the tropic sun. But once having been induced to make the voyage, I +must admit she stuck manfully by her decision, ensconcing herself on +deck with books and cushions and numerous other necessities to her +comfort, and making the best of the sleeping quarters below. As the +captain of the _Sylph_, she wanted me to understand that she had +intrusted her soul to my charge, declaring that she would not draw +an easy breath until we were safe again in Port Charlotte. + +"This dreadful business of Eleanor's," was the way she referred to +our mission, and she got round quite naturally to telling me of +Farquharson while acquainting me with her fears about volcanoes. +Some years before, Pompeii and Herculaneum had had a most unsettling +effect upon her nerves. Vesuvius was slightly in eruption at the time. +She confessed to never having had an easy moment while in Naples. And +it was in Naples that her niece and Farquharson had met. It had been, +as I surmised, a swift, romantic courtship, in which Farquharson, +quite irreproachable in antecedents and manners, had played the part +of an impetuous lover. Italian skies had done the rest. There was an +immediate marriage, in spite of Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, and the +young couple were off on a honeymoon trip by themselves. But when +Mrs. Stanleigh rejoined her husband at Nice, and together they +returned to their home in Sussex, a surprise was in store for them. +Eleanor was already there--alone, crushed, and with lips absolutely +sealed. She had divested herself of everything that linked her to +Farquharson; she refused to adopt her married name. + +"I shall bless every saint in heaven when we have quite done with +this dreadful business of Eleanor's," Mrs. Stanleigh confided to me +from her deck-chair. "This trip that she insists on making herself +seems quite uncalled for. But you needn't think, Captain Barnaby, +that I'm going to set foot on that dreadful island--not even for the +satisfaction of seeing Mr. Farquharson's grave--and I'm shameless +enough to say that it _would_ be a satisfaction. If you could +imagine the tenth part of what I have had to put up with, all these +months we've been traveling about trying to locate the wretch! No, +indeed--I shall stay right here on this boat and entrust Eleanor to +your care while ashore. And I should not think it ought to take long, +now should it?" + +I confessed aloud that I did not see how it could. If by any chance +the girl's secret conjecture about Leavitt's identity was right, it +would be verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, +and in that event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting +aunt the shock of that discovery. + +We reached Muloa just before nightfall, letting go the anchor in +placid water under the lee of the shore while the _Sylph_ swung to +and the sails fluttered and fell. A vast hush lay over the world. +From the shore the dark green of the forest confronted us with no +sound or sign of life. Above, and at this close distance blotting +out half the sky over our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha +with scarred and blackened flanks. It was in one of its querulous +moods. The feathery white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, +fantastic shapes, no longer capped the crater; its place had been +usurped by thick, dark fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In +the fading light I marked the red, malignant glow of a fissure newly +broken out in the side of the ragged cone, from which came a thin, +white trickle of lava. + +There was no sign of Leavitt, although the _Sylph_ must have been +visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island. I +fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of +his beloved volcano. Otherwise he would have wondered what was +bringing us back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill +would have greeted us from the shore. Instead, there confronted us +only the belt of dark, matted green girdling the huge bulk of +Lakalatcha which soared skyward, sinister, mysterious, eternal. + +In the brief twilight the shore vanished into dim obscurity. +Miss Stanleigh, who for the last hour had been standing by the rail, +silently watching the island, at last spoke to me over her shoulder: + +"Is it far inland--the place? Will it be difficult to find in the +dark?" + +Her question staggered me, for she was clearly bent on seeking out +Leavitt at once. A strange calmness overlay her. She paid no heed to +Lakalatcha's gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers +gripping the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest, +behind which lay the answer to her torturing doubt. + +I acceded to her wish without protest. Leavitt's bungalow lay a +quarter of a mile distant. There would be no difficulty in following +the path. I would have a boat put over at once, I announced in a +casual way which belied my real feelings, for I was beginning to +share some of her own secret tension at this night invasion of +Leavitt's haunts. + +This feeling deepened within me as we drew near the shore. Leavitt's +failure to appear seemed sinister and enigmatic. I began to evolve a +fantastic image of him as I recalled his queer ways and his uncanny +tricks of speech. It was as if we were seeking out the presiding +deity of the island, who had assumed the guise of a Caliban holding +unearthly sway over its unnatural processes. + +With Williams, the boatswain, carrying a lantern, we pushed into the +brush, following the choked trail that led to Leavitt's abode. But +the bungalow, when we had reached the clearing and could discern the +outlines of the building against the masses of the forest, was dark +and deserted. As we mounted the veranda, the loose boards creaked +hollowly under our tread; the doorway, from which depended a +tattered curtain of coarse burlap, gaped black and empty. + +The lantern, lifted high in the boatswain's hand, cleft at a stroke +the darkness within. On the writing-table, cluttered with papers and +bits of volcanic rock, stood a bottle and half-empty glass. Things +lay about in lugubrious disorder, as if the place had been hurriedly +ransacked by a thief. Some of the geological specimens had tumbled +from the table to the floor, and stray sheets of Leavitt's +manuscripts lay under his chair. Leavitt's books, ranged on shelving +against the wall, alone seemed undisturbed. Upon the top of the +shelving stood two enormous stuffed birds, moldering and decrepit, +regarding the sudden illumination with unblinking, bead-like eyes. +Between them a small dancing faun in greenish bronze tripped a +Bacchic measure with head thrown back in a transport of derisive +laughter. + +For a long moment the three of us faced the silent, disordered room, +in which the little bronze faun alone seemed alive, convulsed with +diabolical mirth at our entrance. Somehow it recalled to me +Leavitt's own cynical laugh. Suddenly Miss Stanleigh made toward the +photographs above the bookshelves. + +"This is he," she said, taking up one of the faded prints. + +"Yes--Leavitt," I answered. + +"_Leavitt_?" Her fingers tightened upon the photograph. Then, +abruptly, it fell to the floor. "Yes, yes--of course." Her eyes +closed very slowly, as if an extreme weakness had seized her. + +In the shock of that moment I reached out to support her, but she +checked my hand. Her gray eyes opened again. A shudder visibly went +over her, as if the night air had suddenly become chill. From the +shelf the two stuffed birds regarded us dolefully, while the dancing +faun, with head thrown back in an attitude of immortal art, laughed +derisively. + +"Where is he? I must speak to him," said Miss Stanleigh. + +"One might think he were deliberately hiding," I muttered, for I was +at a loss to account for Leavitt's absence. + +"Then find him," the girl commanded. I cut short my speculations to +direct Williams to search the hut in the rear of the bungalow, where, +behind bamboo palings, Leavitt's Malay servant maintained an aloof +and mysterious existence. I sat down beside Miss Stanleigh on the +veranda steps to find my hands sooty from the touch of the boards. A +fine volcanic ash was evidently drifting in the air, and now to my +ear, attuned to the profound stillness, the wind bore a faint +humming sound. + +"Do you hear that?" I whispered. It was like the far-off murmur of a +gigantic caldron, softly a-boil--a dull vibration that seemed to +reach us through the ground as well as through the air. + +The girl listened a moment, and then started up. "I hear +voices--somewhere," + +"Voices?" I strained my ears for sounds other than the insistent +ferment of the great cone above our heads. "Perhaps Leavitt----" + +"Why do you still call him Leavitt?" + +"Then you're quite certain----" I began, but an involuntary +exclamation from her cut me short. + +The light of Williams's lantern, emerging from behind the bamboo +palings, disclosed the burly form of the boatswain with a shrinking +Malay in tow. He was jabbering in his native tongue, with much +gesticulation of his thin arms, and going into contortions at every +dozen paces in a sort of pantomime to emphasize his words. Williams +urged him along unceremoniously to the steps of the veranda. + +"Perhaps you can get the straight of this, Mr. Barnaby," said the +boatswain. "He swears that the flame-devil in the volcano has +swallowed his master alive." + +The poor fellow seemed indeed in a state of complete funk. With his +thin legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed, +distorted tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt--or Farquharson, to +give him his real name--had awakened the high displeasure of the +flame-devil within the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone +was smoking furiously? And the dust and heavy taint of sulphur in +the air? Surely we could feel the very tremor of the ground under +our feet. All that day the enraged monster had been spouting mud and +lava down upon the white _tuan_ who had remained in the bungalow, +drinking heavily and bawling out maledictions upon his enemy. At +length, in spite of Wadakimba's efforts to dissuade him, he had set +out to climb to the crater, vowing to show the flame-devil who was +master. He had compelled the terrified Wadakimba to go with him a +part of the way. The white _tuan_--was he really a god, as he +declared himself to be?--had gone alone up the tortuous, fissured +slopes, at times lost to sight in yellowish clouds of gas and steam, +while his screams and threats of vengeance came back to Wadakimba's +ears. Overhead, Lakalatcha continued to rumble and quiver and clear +his throat with great showers of mud and stones. + +Farquharson must have indeed parted with his reason to have attempted +that grotesque sally. Listening to Wadakimba's tale, I pictured the +crazed man, scorched to tatters, heedless of bruises and burns, +scrambling up that difficult and perilous ascent, and hurling his +ridiculous blasphemy into the flares of smoke and steam that issued +from that vast caldron lit by subterranean fires. At its simmering +the whole island trembled. A mere whiff of the monster's breath and +he would have been snuffed out, annihilated in an instant. According +to Wadakimba, the end had indeed come in that fashion. It was as if +the mountain had suddenly given a deep sigh. The blast had carried +away solid rock. A sheet of flame had licked the spot where +Farquharson had been hurled headlong, and he was not. + +Wadakimba, viewing all this from afar, had scuttled off to his hut. +Later he had ventured back to the scene of the tragedy. He had +picked up Farquharson's scorched helmet, which had been blown off to +some distance, and he also exhibited a pair of binoculars washed +down by the tide of lava, scarred and twisted by the heat, from +which the lenses had melted away. + +I translated for Miss Stanleigh briefly, while she stood turning +over in her hands the twisted and blackened binoculars, which were +still warm. She heard me through without question or comment, and +when I proposed that we get back to the _Sylph_ at once, mindful of +her aunt's distressed nerves, she assented with a nod. She seemed to +have lost the power of speech. In a daze she followed as I led the +way back through the forest. + + * * * * * + +Major Stanleigh and his wife deferred their departure for England +until their niece should be properly married to Joyce. At Eleanor's +wish, it was a very simple affair, and as Joyce's bride she was as +eager to be off to his rubber-plantation in Malduna as he was to set +her up there as mistress of his household. I had agreed to give them +passage on the _Sylph_, since the next sailing of the mail-boat would +have necessitated a further fortnight's delay. + +Mrs. Stanleigh, with visions of seeing England again, and profoundly +grateful to a benevolent Providence that had not only brought +"this dreadful business of Eleanor's" to a happy termination, but +had averted Lakalatcha's baptism of fire from descending upon her +own head, thanked me profusely and a little tearfully. It was during +the general chorus of farewells at the last moment before the +_Sylph_ cast off. Her last appeal, cried after us from the wharf +where she stood frantically waving a wet handkerchief, was that I +should give Muloa a wide berth. + +It brought a laugh from Joyce. He had discovered the good lady's +extreme perturbation in regard to Lakalatcha, and had promptly +declared for spending a day there with his bride. It was an +exceptional opportunity to witness the volcano in its active mood. +Each time that Joyce had essayed this teasing pleasantry, which +never failed to draw Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, I observed that his +wife remained silent. I assumed that she had decided to keep her own +counsel in regard to the trip she had made there. + +"I'm trusting you not to take Eleanor near that dreadful island, +Mr. Barnaby," was the admonition shouted across the widening gap of +water. + +It was a quite unnecessary appeal, for Joyce, who was presently +sitting with his wife in a sheltered quarter of the deck, had not +the slightest interest in the smoking cone which was as yet a mere +smudge upon the horizon. Eleanor, with one hand in Joyce's possession, +at times watched it with a seemingly vast apathy until some ardent +word from Joyce would draw her eyes back to his and she would lift +to him a smile that was like a caress. The look of weariness and +balked purpose that had once marked her expression had vanished. In +the week since she had married Joyce she seemed to have grown +younger and to be again standing on the very threshold of life with +girlish eagerness. She hung on Joyce's every word, communing with +him hour after hour, utterly content, indifferent to all the world +about her. + +In the cabin that evening at dinner, when the two of them deigned to +take polite cognizance of my existence, I announced to Joyce that I +proposed to hug the island pretty close during the night. It would +save considerable time. + +"Just as you like, Captain," Joyce replied, indifferently. + +"We may get a shower of ashes by doing so, if the wind should shift." +I looked across the table at Mrs. Joyce. + +"But we shall reach Malduna that much sooner?" she queried. + +I nodded. "However, if you feel any uneasiness, I'll give the island +a wide berth." I didn't like the idea of dragging her--the bride of +a week--past that place with its unspeakable memories, if it should +really distress her. + +Her eyes thanked me silently across the table. "It's very kind of you, +but"--she chose her words with significant deliberation--"I haven't +a fear in the world, Mr. Barnaby." + +Evening had fallen when we came up on deck. Joyce bethought himself +of some cigars in his stateroom and went back. For the moment I was +alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to +prick through the darkening sky. The _Sylph_ was running smoothly, +with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the +occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the +silence that lay like a benediction upon the sea. + +"You may think it unfeeling of me," she began, quite abruptly, +"but all this past trouble of mine, now that it is ended, I have +completely dismissed. Already it begins to seem like a horrid dream. +And as for that island"--her eyes looked off toward Muloa now +impending upon us and lighting up the heavens with its sullen flare-- +"it seems incredible that I ever set foot upon it. + +"Perhaps you understand," she went on, after a pause, "that I have +not told my husband. But I have not deceived him. He knows that I +was once married, and that the man is no longer living. He does not +wish to know more. Of course he is aware that Uncle Geoffrey came +out here to--to see a Mr. Leavitt, a matter which he has no idea +concerned me. He thanks the stars for whatever it was that did bring +us out here, for otherwise he would not have met me." + +"It has turned out most happily," I murmured. + +"It was almost disaster. After meeting Mr. Joyce--and I was weak +enough to let myself become engaged--to have discovered that I was +still chained to a living creature like that.... I should have +killed myself." + +"But surely the courts--" + +She shook her head with decision. "My church does not recognize that +sort of freedom." + +We were drawing steadily nearer to Muloa. The mountain was breathing +slowly and heavily--a vast flare that lifted fanlike in the skies +and died away. Lightning played fitfully through the dense mass of +smoke and choking gases that hung like a pall over the great cone. +It was like the night sky that overhangs a city of gigantic +blast-furnaces, only infinitely multiplied. The sails of the _Sylph_ +caught the ruddy tinge like a phantom craft gliding through the black +night, its canvas still dyed with the sunset glow. The faces of the +crew, turned to watch the spectacle, curiously fixed and inhuman, +were picked out of the gloom by the same fantastic light. It was as +if the schooner, with masts and riggings etched black against the +lurid sky, sailed on into the Day of Judgment. + + * * * * * + +It was after midnight. The _Sylph_ came about, with sails trembling, +and lost headway. Suddenly she vibrated from stem to stern, and with +a soft grating sound that was unmistakable came to rest. We were +aground in what should have been clear water, with the forest-clad +shore of Muloa lying close off to port. + +The helmsman turned to me with a look of silly fright on his face, +as the wheel revolved useless in his hands. We had shelved with +scarcely a jar sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a +twinkling Jackson, the mate, appeared on deck in his pajamas, and +after a swift glance toward the familiar shore turned to me with the +same dumfounded look that had frozen upon the face of the steersman. + +"What do you make of this?" he exclaimed, as I called for the lead. + +"Be quiet about it," I said to the hands that had started into +movement. "Look sharp now, and make no noise." Then I turned to the +mate, who was perplexedly rubbing one bare foot against the other +and measuring with his eye our distance from the shore. The _Sylph_ +should have turned the point of the island without mishap, as she +had done scores of times. + +"It's the volcano we have to thank for this," was my conjecture. +"Its recent activity has caused some displacement of the sea bottom." + +Jackson's head went back in sudden comprehension. "It's a miracle +you didn't plow into it under full sail." + +We had indeed come about in the very nick of time to avoid disaster. +As matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to +float clear with the tide." + +The mate cocked a doubtful eye at Lakalatcha, uncomfortably close +above our heads, flaming at intervals and bathing the deck with an +angry glare of light. "If she should begin spitting up a little +livelier ..." he speculated with a shrug, and presently took +himself off to his bunk after an inspection below had shown that +none of the schooner's seams had started. There was nothing to do +but to wait for the tide to make and lift the vessel clear. It would +be a matter of three or four hours. I dismissed the helmsman; and the +watch forward, taking advantage of the respite from duty, were soon +recumbent in attitudes of heavy sleep. + +The wind had died out and a heavy torpor lay upon the water. It was +as if the stars alone held to their slow courses above a world rigid +and inanimate. The _Sylph_ lay with a slight list, her spars looking +inexpressibly helpless against the sky, and, as the minutes dragged, +a fine volcanic ash, like some mortal pestilence exhaled by the +monster cone, settled down upon the deck, where, forward in the +shadow, the watch lay curled like dead men. + +Alone, I paced back and forth--countless soft-footed miles, it seemed, +through interminable hours, until at length some obscure impulse +prompted me to pause before the open sky-light over the cabin and +thrust my head down. A lamp above the dining-table, left to burn +through the night, feebly illuminated the room. A faint snore issued +at regular intervals from the half-open door of the mate's stateroom. +The door of Joyce's stateroom opposite was also upon the hook for +the sake of air. + +Suddenly a soft thump against the side of the schooner, followed by +a scrambling noise, made me turn round. The dripping, bedraggled +figure of a man in a sleeping-suit mounted the rope ladder that hung +over the side, and paused, grasping the rail. I had withdrawn my +gaze so suddenly from the glow of the light in the cabin that for +several moments the intruder from out of the sea was only a blurred +form with one leg hung over the rail, where he hung as if spent by +his exertions. + +Just then the sooty vapours above the edged maw of the volcano were +rent by a flare of crimson, and in the fleeting instant of unnatural +daylight I beheld Farquharson, bare-footed, and dripping with +sea-water, confronting me with a sardonic, triumphant smile. The +light faded in a twinkling, but in the darkness he swung his other +leg over the rail and sat perched there, as if challenging the +testimony of my senses. + +"Farquharson!" I breathed aloud, utterly dumfounded. + +"Did you think I was a ghost?" I could hear him softly laughing to +himself in the interval that followed. "You should have witnessed +Wadakimba's fright at my coming back from the dead. Well, I'll admit +I almost was done for." + +Again the volcano breathed in torment. It was like the sudden +opening of a gigantic blast-furnace, and in that instant I saw him +vividly--his thin, saturnine face, his damp black hair pushed +sleekly back, his lips twisted to a cruel smile, his eyes craftily +alert, as if to some ambushed danger continually at hand. He was +watching me with a sort of malicious relish in the shock he had +given me. + +"It was not your intention to stop at Muloa," he observed, dryly, +for the plight of the schooner was obvious. + +"We'll float clear with the tide," I muttered. + +"But in the meantime"--there was something almost menacing in his +deliberate pause--"I have the pleasure of this little call upon you." + +A head lifted from among the inert figures and sleepily regarded us +before it dropped back into the shadows. The stranded ship, the +recumbent men, the mountain flaming overhead--it was like a phantom +world into which had been suddenly thrust this ghastly and +incredible reality. + +"Whatever possessed you to swim out here in the middle of the night?" +I demanded, in a harsh whisper. + +He chose to ignore the question, while I waited in a chill of +suspense. It was inconceivable that he could be aware of the truth +of the situation and deliberately bent on forcing it to its +unspeakable, tragic issue. + +"Of late, Captain Barnaby, we seem to have taken to visiting each +other rather frequently, don't you think?" + +It was lightly tossed off, but not without its evil implication; and +I felt his eyes intently fixed upon me as he sat hunched up on the +rail in his sodden sleeping-suit, like some huge, ill-omened bird of +prey. + +To get rid of him, to obliterate the horrible fact that he still +existed in the flesh, was the instinctive impulse of my staggered +brain. But the peril of discovery, the chance that those sleeping +below might waken and hear us, held me in a vise of indecision. + +"If I could bring myself to reproach you, Captain," he went on, +ironically polite, "I might protest that your last visit to this +island savoured of a too-inquisitive intrusion. You'll pardon my +frankness. I had convinced you and Major Stanleigh that Farquharson +was dead. To the world at large that should have sufficed. That I +choose to remain alive is my own affair. Your sudden return to +Muloa--with a lady--would have upset everything, if Fate and that +inspired fool of a Malay had not happily intervened. But now, surely, +there can be no doubt that I am dead?" + +I nodded assent in a dumb, helpless way. + +"And I have a notion that even you, Captain Barnaby, will never +dispute that fact." + +He threw back his head suddenly--for all the world like the dancing +faun--and laughed silently at the stars. + +My tongue was dry in my mouth as I tried to make some rejoinder. He +baffled me completely, and meanwhile I was in a tingle of fear lest +the mate should come up on deck to see what progress the tide had +made, or lest the sound of our voices might waken the girl in +Joyce's stateroom. + +"I can promise you that," I attempted to assure him in weak, +sepulchral tones. "And now, if you like, I'll put you ashore in the +small boat. You must be getting chilly in that wet sleeping-suit." + +"As a matter of fact I am, and I was wondering if you would not +offer me something to drink." + +"You shall have a bottle to take along," I promised, with alacrity, +but he demurred. + +"There is no sociability in that. And you seem very lonesome +here--stuck for two more hours at least. Come, Captain, fetch your +bottle and we will share it together." + +He got down from the rail, stretched his arms lazily above his head, +and dropped into one of the deck chairs that had been placed aft for +the convenience of my two passengers. + +"And cigars, too, Captain," he suggested, with a politeness that was +almost impertinence. "We'll have a cozy hour or two out of this +tedious wait for the tide to lift you off." + +I contemplated him helplessly. There was no alternative but to fall +in with whatever mad caprice might seize his brain. If I opposed him, +it would lead to high and querulous words; and the hideous fact of +his presence there--of his mere existence--I was bound to conceal at +all hazards. + +"I must ask you to keep quiet," I said, stiffly. + +"As a tomb," he agreed, and his eyes twinkled disagreeably in the +darkness. "You forget that I am supposed to be in one." + +I went stealthily down into the cabin, where I secured a box of +cigars and the first couple of bottles that my hands laid hold of in +the locker. They proved to contain an old Tokay wine which I had +treasured for several years to no particular purpose. The ancient +bottles clinked heavily in my grasp as I mounted again to the deck. + +"Now this is something like," he purred, watching like a cat my +every motion as I set the glasses forth and guardedly drew the cork. +He saluted me with a flourish and drank. + +To an onlooker that pantomime in the darkness would have seemed +utterly grotesque. I tasted the fragrant, heavy wine and +waited--waited in an agony of suspense--my ears strained desperately +to catch the least sound from below. But a profound silence +enveloped the schooner, broken only by the occasional rhythmic snore +of the mate. + +"You seem rather ill at ease," Farquharson observed from the depths +of the deck chair when he had his cigar comfortably aglow. "I trust +it isn't this little impromptu call of mine that's disturbing you. +After all, life has its unusual moments, and this, I think, is one +of them." He sniffed the bouquet of his wine and drank. "It is rare +moments like this--bizarre, incredible, what you like--that +compensate for the tedium of years." + +His disengaged hand had fallen to the side of the chair, and I now +observed in dismay that a scarf belonging to Joyce's wife had been +left lying in the chair, and that his fingers were absently twisting +the silken fringe. + +"I wonder that you stick it out, as you do, on this island," I +forced myself to observe, seeking safety in the commonplace, while +my eyes, as if fascinated, watched his fingers toying with the ends +of the scarf. I was forced to accept the innuendo beneath his +enigmatic utterances. His utter baseness and depravity, born perhaps +of a diseased mind, I could understand. I had led him to bait a trap +with the fiction of his own death, but he could not know that it had +been already sprung upon his unsuspecting victims. + +He seemed to regard me with contemptuous pity. "Naturally, you wonder. +A mere skipper like yourself fails to understand--many things. What +can you know of life cooped up in this schooner? You touch only the +surface of things just as this confounded boat of yours skims only +the top of the water. Once in a lifetime you may come to real grips +with life--strike bottom, eh?--as your schooner has done now. Then +you're aground and quite helpless. What a pity!" + +He lifted his glass and drank it off, then thrust it out to be +refilled. "Life as the world lives it--bah!" he dismissed it with +the scorn of one who counts himself divested of all illusions. +"Life would be an infernal bore if it were not for its paradoxes. +Now you, Captain Barnaby, would never dream that in becoming dead to +the world--in other people's belief--I have become intensely alive. +There are opened up infinite possibilities--" + +He drank again and eyed me darkly, and then went on in his +crack-brained way. "What is life but a challenge to pretense, a +constant exercise in duplicity, with so few that come to master it +as an art? Every one goes about with something locked deep in his +heart. Take yourself, Captain Barnaby. You have your secrets--hidden +from me, from all the world--which, if they could be dragged out of +you--" + +His deep-set eyes bored through the darkness upon me. Hunched up in +the deck chair, with his legs crossed under him, he was like an +animated Buddha venting a dark philosophy and seeking to undermine +my mental balance with his sophistry. + +"I'm a plain man of the sea," I rejoined, bluntly. "I take life as +it comes." + +He smiled derisively, drained his glass, and held it out again. +"But you have your secrets, rather clumsily guarded, to be sure--" + +"What secrets?" I cried out, goaded almost beyond endurance. + +He seemed to deprecate the vigour of my retort and lifted a +cautioning hand. "Do you want every one on board to hear this +conversation?" At that moment the smoke-wrapped cone of Lakalatcha +was cleft by a sheet of flame, and we confronted each other in a +sort of blood-red dawn. + +"There is no reason why we should quarrel," he went on, after +darkness had enveloped us again. "But there are times which call +for plain speaking. Major Stanleigh is probably hardly aware of just +what he said to me under a little artful questioning. It seems that +a lady who--shall we say, whom we both have the honour of knowing? +--is in love. Love, mark you. It is always interesting to see that +flower bud twice from the same stalk. However, one naturally defers +to a lady, especially when one is very much in her way. _Place aux +dames_, eh? Exit poor Farquharson! You must admit that his was an +altruistic soul. Well, she has her freedom--if only to barter it for +a new bondage. Shall we drink to the happy future of that romance?" + +He lifted to me his glass with ironical invitation, while I sat +aghast and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This +intolerable colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I +should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the +soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all control and leap +up and brain him with the heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane +desire to spring at his throat and throttle his infamous bravado, +tumble him overboard and annihilate the last vestige of his existence. + +"Come, Captain," he urged, "you, too, have shared in smoothing the +path for these lovers. Shall we not drink to their happy union?" + +A feeling of utter loathing went over me. I set my glass down. +"It would be a more serviceable compliment to the lady in question +if I strangled you on the spot," I muttered, boldly. + +"But you are forgetting that I am already dead." He threw his head +back as if vastly amused, then lurched forward and held out his +glass a little unsteadily to be refilled. + +He gave me a quick, evil look. "Besides, the noise might disturb +your passengers." + +I could feel a cold perspiration suddenly breaking out upon my body. +Either the fellow had obtained an inkling of the truth in some +incredible way, or was blindly on the track of it, guided by some +diabolical scent. Under the spell of his eyes, I could not manage +the outright lie which stuck in my throat. + +"What makes you think I have passengers?" I parried, weakly. + +With intent or not, he was again fingering the fringe of the scarf +that hung over the arm of the chair. + +"It is not your usual practice, but you have been carrying them +lately." + +He drained his glass and sat staring into it, his head drooping a +little forward. The heavy wine was beginning to have its effect upon +him, but whether it would provoke him to some outright violence or +drag him down into a stupor, I could not predict. Suddenly the glass +slipped from his fingers and shivered to pieces on the deck. I +started violently at the sound, and in the silence that followed I +thought I heard a footfall in the cabin below. + +He looked up at length from his absorbed contemplation of the bits +of broken glass. "We were talking about love, were we not?" he +demanded, heavily. + +I did not answer. I was straining to catch a repetition of the sound +from below. Time was slipping rapidly away, and to sit on meant +inevitable discovery. The watch might waken or the mate appear to +surprise me in converse with my nocturnal visitor. It would be folly +to attempt to conceal his presence and I despaired of getting him +back to shore while his present mood held, although I remembered +that the small boat, which had been lowered after we went aground, +was still moored to the rail amidships. + +Refilling my own glass, I offered it to him. He lurched forward to +take it, but the fumes of the wine suddenly drifted clear of his +brain. "You seem very much distressed," he observed, with ironic +concern. "One might think you were actually sheltering these +precious love-birds." + +Perspiration broke out anew upon my face and neck. "I don't know what +you are talking about," I bluntly tried to fend off his implication. +I felt as if I were helplessly strapped down and that he was about +to probe me mercilessly with some sharp instrument. I strode to turn +the direction of his thoughts by saying, "I understand that the +Stanleighs are returning to England." + +"The Stanleighs--quite so," he nodded agreement, and fixed me with a +maudlin stare. Something prompted me to fill his glass again. He +drank it off mechanically. Again I poured, and he obediently drank. +With an effort he tried to pick up the thread of our conversation: + +"What did you say? Oh, the Stanleighs ... yes, yes, of course." He +slowly nodded his head and fell silent. "I was about to say ..." He +broke off again and seemed to ruminate profoundly.... "Love-birds--" +I caught the word feebly from his lips, spoken as if in a daze. The +glass hung dripping in his relaxed grasp. + +It was a crucial moment in which his purpose seemed to waver and die +in his clouded brain. A great hope sprang up in my heart, which was +hammering furiously. If I could divert his fuddled thoughts and get +him back to shore while the wine lulled him to forgetfulness. + +I leaned forward to take the glass which was all but slipping from +his hand, when Lakalatcha flamed with redoubled fury. It was as if +the mountain had suddenly bared its fiery heart to the heavens, and +a muffled detonation reached my ears. + +Farquharson straightened up with a jerk and scanned the smoking peak, +from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a +threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, +and began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his +faculties seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy +labouring of the mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were +a fractious child. When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made +no protest, but followed me into the boat. As I pushed off and took +up the oars he had eyes for nothing but the flaming cone, as if its +leaping fires held for him an Apocalyptic vision. + +I strained at the oars as if in a race, with all eternity at stake, +blindly urging the boat ahead through water that flashed crimson at +every stroke. The mountain now flamed like a beacon, and I rowed for +dear life over a sea of blood. + +Farquharson sat entranced before the spectacle, chanting to himself +a kind of insane ritual, like a Parsee fire-worshipper making +obeisance before his god. He was rapt away to some plane of mystic +exaltation, to some hinterland of the soul that merged upon madness. +When at length the boat crunched upon the sandy shore he got up +unsteadily from the stern and pointed to the pharos that flamed in +the heavens. + +"The fire upon the altar is lit," he addressed me, oracularly, while +the fanatic light of a devotee burned in his eyes. "Shall we ascend +and prepare the sacrifice?" + +I leaned over the oars, panting from my exertions, indifferent to +his rhapsody. + +"If you'll take my advice, you'll get back at once to your bungalow +and strip off that wet sleeping-suit," I bluntly counseled him, but +I might as well have argued with a man in a trance. + +He leaped over the gunwale and strode up the beach. Again he struck +his priest-like attitude and invoked me to follow. + +"The fire upon the altar waits," he repeated, solemnly. Suddenly he +broke into a shrill laugh and ran like a deer in the direction of the +forest that stretched up the slopes of the mountain. + +The mate's face, thrust over the rail as I drew alongside the +schooner, plainly bespoke his utter bewilderment. He must have +thought me bereft of my senses to be paddling about at that hour of +the night. The tide had made, and the _Sylph_, righting her listed +masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when +the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an +uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural +day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up +red-hot rocks to the accompaniment of dull sounds of explosion. + +My first glance about the deck had been one of relief to note that +Joyce and his wife were not there, although the commotion of getting +under sail must have awakened them. A breeze had sprung up which +would prove a fair wind as soon as the _Sylph_ stood clear of the +point. The mate gave a grunt of satisfaction when at length the +schooner began to dip her bow and lay over to the task. Leaving him +in charge, I started to go below, when suddenly Mrs. Joyce, fully +dressed, confronted me. She seemed to have materialized out of the +air like a ghost. Her hair glowed like burnished copper in the +unnatural illumination which bathed the deck, but her face was ashen, +and the challenge of her eyes made my heart stop short. + +"You have been awake long?" I ventured to ask. + +"Too long," she answered, significantly, with her face turned away, +looking down into the water. She had taken my arm and drawn me +toward the rail. Now I felt her fingers tighten convulsively. In the +droop of her head and the tense curve of her neck I sensed her mad +impulse which the dark water suggested. + +"Mrs. Joyce!" I remonstrated, sharply. + +She seemed to go limp all over at the words. I drew her along the +deck for a faltering step or two, while her eyes continued to brood +upon the water rushing past. Suddenly she spoke: + +"What other way out is there?" + +"Never that," I said, shortly. I urged her forward again. "Is your +husband asleep?" + +"Thank God, yes!" + +"Then you have been awake--" + +"For over an hour," she confessed, and I detected the shudder that +went over her body. + +"The man is mad--" + +"But I am married to him." She stopped and caught at the rail like a +prisoner gripping at the bars that confine him. "I cannot--cannot +endure it! Where are you taking me? Where _can_ you take me? Don't +you see that there is no escape--from this?" + +The _Sylph_ rose and sank to the first long roll of the open sea. + +"When we reach Malduna--" I began, but the words were only torture. + +"I cannot--cannot go on. Take me back!--to that island! Let me live +abandoned--or rather die--" + +"Mrs. Joyce, I beg of you...." + +The schooner rose and dipped again. + +For what seemed an interminable time we paced the deck together +while Lakalatcha flamed farther and farther astern. Her words came +in fitful snatches as if spoken in a delirium, and at times she +would pause and grip the rail to stare back, wild-eyed, at the +receding island. + +Suddenly she started, and in a sort of blinding, noon-day blaze I +saw her face blanch with horror. It was as if at that moment the +heavens had cracked asunder and the night had fallen away in chaos. +Turning, I saw the cone of the mountain lifting skyward in +fragments--and saw no more, for the blinding vision remained seared +upon the retina of my eyes. + +Across the water, slower paced, came the dread concussion of sound. + +"Good God! It's carried away the whole island!" I heard the mate's +voice bellowing above the cries of the men. The _Sylph_ scudded +before the approaching storm of fire redescending from the sky.... + +The first gray of the dawn disclosed Mrs. Joyce still standing by +the rail, her hand nestling within the arm of her husband, +indifferent to the heavy grayish dust that fell in benediction upon +her like a silent shower of snow. + +The island of Muloa remains to-day a charred cinder lapped about by +the blue Pacific. At times gulls circle over its blackened and +desolate surface devoid of every vestige of life. From the squat, +truncated mass of Lakalatcha, shorn of half its lordly height, a +feeble wisp of smoke still issues to the breeze, as if Vulcan, tired +of his forge, had banked its fire before abandoning it. + + + + +THE ARGOSIES + + +BY ALEXANDER HULL + +From _Scribner's Magazine_ + +There may have been some benevolent force watching over Harber. In +any case, that would be a comforting belief. Certainly Harber +himself so believed, and I know he had no trouble at all convincing +his wife. Yes, the Harbers believed. + +But credulity, you may say, was ever the surest part in love's young +golden dream: and you, perhaps, not having your eyes befuddled with +the rose-fog of romance, will see too clearly to believe. What can I +adduce for your conviction? The facts only. After all, that is the +single strength of my position. + +There was, of course, the strange forehanded, subtle planning of the +other girl, of Janet Spencer. Why did she do it? Was it that, +feeling her chances in Tawnleytown so few, counting the soil there +so barren, driven by an ambition beyond the imagination of staid, +stodgy, normal Tawnleytown girls, she felt she must create +opportunities where none were? She was very lovely, Harber tells me, +in a fiery rose-red of the fairy-tale way; though even without +beauty it needn't have been hard for her. Young blood is prone +enough to adventure; the merest spark will set it akindle. I should +like to have known that girl. She must have been very clever. Because, +of course, she couldn't have foreseen, even by the surest instinct, +the coincidence that brought Harber and Barton together. Yes, there +is a coincidence in it. It's precisely upon that, you see, that +Harber hangs his belief. + +I wonder, too, how many of those argosies she sent out seeking the +golden fleece returned to her? It's a fine point for speculation. If +one only knew.... ah, but it's pitiful how much one doesn't, and +can't, know in this hard and complex world! Or was it merely that +she tired of them and wanted to be rid of them? Or again, do I wrong +her there, and were there no more than the two of them, and did she +simply suffer a solitary revulsion of feeling, as Harber did? But no, +I'm sure I'm right in supposing Barton and Harber to have been but +two ventures out of many, two arrows out of a full quiver shot in +the dark at the bull's-eye of fortune. And, by heaven, it was +splendid shooting ... even if none of the other arrows scored! + +Harber tells me he was ripe for the thing without any encouragement +to speak of. Tawnleytown was dull plodding for hot youth. Half +hidden in the green of fir and oak and maple, slumberous with +midsummer heat, it lay when he left it. Thickly powdered with the +fine white dust of its own unpaven streets, dust that sent the +inhabitants chronically sneezing and weeping and red-eyed about town, +or sent them north to the lakes for exemption, dust that hung +impalpably suspended in the still air and turned the sunsets to +things of glorious rose and red and gold though there wasn't a single +cloud or streamer in the sky to catch the light, dust that lay upon +lawns and walks and houses in deep gray accumulation ... precisely +as if these were objects put away and never used and not disturbed +until they were white with the inevitable powdery accretion that +accompanies disuse. Indeed, he felt that way about Tawnleytown, as +if it were a closed room of the world, a room of long ago, unused now, +unimportant, forgotten. + +So unquestionably he was ready enough to go. He had all the fine and +far-flung dreams of surging youth. He peopled the world with his +fancies, built castles on every high hill. He felt the urge of +ambition fiercely stirring within him, latent power pulsing through +him. What would you? Wasn't he young and in love? + +For there had been, you must know, a good deal between them. What +does one do in these deadly dull little towns for amusement, when +one is young and fain and restless? Harber tells me they walked the +streets and shaded lanes in the dim green coolness of evening, +lounged in the orchard hammock, drifted down the little river, past +still pools, reed-bordered, under vaulting sycamores, over hurrying +reaches fretted with pebbles, forgot everything except one another +and their fancies and made, as youth must, love. That was the +programme complete, except for the talk, the fascinating, +never-ending talk. Volumes on volumes of it--whole libraries of it. + +So, under her veiled fostering, the feeling that he must leave +Tawnleytown kept growing upon Harber until one evening it +crystallized in decision. + +It was on a Sunday. They had taken a lunch and climbed Bald Knob, a +thousand feet above the town, late in the afternoon. The dying sun +and the trees had given them a splendid symphony in black and gold, +and had silenced them for a little. They sat looking down over the +valley in which the well-known landmarks slowly grew dark and +indistinguishable and dim lights blossomed one after another. The +sound of church bells rose faintly through the still air. The pale +last light faded in the sky. + +Harber and Janet sat in the long grass, their hearts stirring with +the same urgent, inarticulate thoughts, their hands clasped together. + +"Let's wait for Eighty-seven," she said. + +Harber pressed her hand for reply. + +In the mind of each of them Eighty-seven was the symbol of release +from Tawnleytown, of freedom, of romance. + +Presently a shifting light appeared in the east, a faint rumble +became perceptible and increased. The swaying shaft of light +intensified and a moment later the long-drawn poignancy of a +chime-whistle blowing for the river-road crossing, exquisitely +softened by distance, echoingly penetrated the still valley. + +A streak of thunderous light swam into view and passed them, +plunging into a gap in the west. The fire-box in the locomotive +opened and flung a flood of light upon a swirling cloud of smoke. A +sharp turn in the track, a weak blast of the whistle at the +bridge-head, and the "Limited," disdaining contemptible Tawnleytown, +had swept out of sight--into the world--at a mile to the minute. + +"If I were on it," said Harber slowly. + +Janet caught her breath sharply. "You're a man!" she said fiercely. +"You could be--so easily!" + +Harber was startled for a moment. Her kindling of his flame of +adventure had been very subtle until now. Perhaps she hadn't been +sure before to-day of her standing. But this afternoon, upon the +still isolation of Bald Knob, there had been many kisses exchanged, +and brave vows of undying love. And no doubt she felt certain of him +now. + +With Harber, however, the pathway had seemed leading otherwhere. He +wasn't the sort of youth to kiss and ride away. And, discounting +their adventurous talk, he had tacitly supposed that his course the +last few weeks spelled the confinement of the four walls of a +Tawnleytown cottage, the fetters of an early marriage. He had been +fighting his mounting fever for the great world, and thinking, as +the train sped by, that after all "home was best." It would be. It +must be. So, if his fine dreams were the price he must pay for Janet, +still he would pay them! And he was startled by her tone. + +Her slim fingers tightened upon his. + +"Why do you stay?" she cried passionately. "Why don't you go?" + +"There's you," he began. + +"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I'm selfish, maybe! I don't know! But +it's as much for me as for you that I say it!" + +Her words poured out tumultuously. + +"Where are all our wonderful dreams--if you stay here? Gone +aglimmering! Gone! I can't see them all go--I can't! Can you?" + +Was he to have, then, both Janet and his dreams? His heart quickened. +He leaned impulsively toward her. + +She pushed his face away with her free hand. + +"No--no! Wait till I'm through! We've always known we weren't like +other Tawnleytown folk, haven't we, dear? We've always said that we +wanted more out of life than they--that we wouldn't be content with +half a loaf--that we wanted the bravest adventures, the yellowest +gold, the finest emotions, the greater power! And if now ... + +"See those fights down there--so few--and so faint. We can't live +our lives there. Seventy-five dollars a month in the bank for +you--and dull, deadly monotony for both of us--no dreams--no +adventures--nothing big and fine! We can't be content with that! Why +don't you go, John? + +"Don't mind me--don't let me keep you--for as soon as you've won, +you can come back to me--and then--we'll see the world together!" + +"Janet--Janet!" said Harber, with pounding heart. "How do you +know--that I'll win?" + +"Ah," she said strangely, "I know! You can't fail--_I won't let you +fail_"! + +Harber caught her suddenly in his arms and kissed her as if it were +to be his last token of her. + +"I'm going then!" he whispered. "I'm going!" + +"When?" + +"There's no time to be lost!" he said, thinking fast. "If I had +known that you were willing, that you would wait--if ... Janet, I'm +going to-morrow!" + +Her arms tightened about him convulsively. "Promise me--promise me!" +she demanded tensely, "that you'll never, never forget me--that +you'll come back to me!" + +Harber laughed in her face. "Janet," he said solemnly, "I'll never +forget you. I'll come back to you. I'll come back--'though 'twere +ten thousand mile!'" + +And they walked home slowly, wrapt once more in their fascinating +talk, fanning the flames of one another's desires, painting for +their future the rich landscapes of paradise. Youth! Brave, hot youth! + +The next day Harber contemptuously threw over his job in the bank +and fared forth into the wide world that was calling. + + * * * * * + +Well, he went south, then east, then west, and west, and farther west. +So far that presently, after three years, he found himself not west +at all, but east--far east. There were between him and Janet Spencer +now thousands on thousands of miles of vast heaving seas, and +snow-capped mountain ranges, and limitless grassy plains. + +Three years of drifting! You'd say, perhaps, knowing the frailty of +vows, that the connection might have been lost. But it hadn't. +Harber was but twenty-three. Faithfulness, too, comes easier then +than later in life, when one has seen more of the world, when the +fine patina of illusion has worn off. Besides, there was, I'm sure, +a touch of genius about that girl, so that one wouldn't forget her +easily, certainly not in three years. And then, you know, Harber had +had her letters. Not many of them. Perhaps a dozen to the year. + +Pitifully few, but they were filled with a wonderful fascination +against which the realities of his wandering life had been powerless +to contend. Like a slender cable they bound him--they held him! + +Well, he was in Sydney now, standing on the water-front, beneath a +bright-blue Australian sky, watching the crinkling water in the +Circular Quay as it lifted and fell mightily but easily, and seeing +the black ships ... ah, the ships! Those masterful, much more than +human, entities that slipped about the great world nosing out, up +dark-green tropical rivers in black, fir-bound fjords, through the +white ice-flows of the Arctics, all its romance, all its gold! Three +years hadn't dulled the keen edge of his appetite for all that; +rather had whetted it. + +Nevertheless, as he stood there, he was thinking to himself that +he must have done with wandering; the old saw that a rolling +stone gathered no moss was cropping up sharply, warningly, in +his mind. He had in the three years, however--and this is rather +remarkable--accumulated about three thousand dollars. Three thousand +dollars! Why, in this quarter of the world, three thousand dollars +should be like three thousand of the scriptural mustard-seed--they +should grow a veritable forest! + +What was puzzling him, however, was where to plant the seed. He was +to meet here a man who had a plan for planting in the islands. There +were wild rumours afloat of the fortunes that could be made in +rubber and vanilla out in the Papuan "Back Beyond." Harber was only +half inclined to believe them, perhaps; but half persuaded is well +along the way. + +He heard his name called, and, turning, he saw a man coming toward +him with the rolling gait of the seaman. As he came closer, Harber +observed the tawny beard, the sea-blue eyes surrounded by the fine +wrinkles of humour, the neat black clothing, the polished boots, and, +above all, the gold earrings that marked the man in his mind as +Farringdon, the sea-captain who had been anxious to meet him. + +Harber answered the captain's gleam of teeth with one of his own, +and they turned their backs upon the water and went to Harber's room, +where they could have their fill of talk undisturbed. Harber says +they talked all that afternoon and evening, and well into the next +morning, enthusiastically finding one another the veritable salt of +the earth, honourable, level-headed, congenial, temperamentally +fitted for exactly what they had in mind--partnership. + +"How much can you put in?" asked Harber finally. + +"Five hundred pounds," said the captain. + +"I can match you," said Harber. + +"Man, but that's fine!" cried the captain. "I've been looking for +you--you, you know--_just you_--for the last two years! And when +Pierson told me about you ... why, it's luck, I say!" + +It was luck for Harber, too. Farringdon, you see, knew precisely +where he wanted to go, and he had his schooner, and he knew that +part of the world, as we say, like a man knows his own buttons. +Harber, then, was to manage the plantation; they were going to set +out rubber, both Para and native, and try hemp and maybe coffee +while they waited for the Haevia and the Ficus to yield. And +Farringdon was ready to put the earnings from his schooner against +Harber's wage as manager. The arrangement, you see, was ideal. + +Skip seven years with me, please. Consider the plantation affair +launched, carried, and consummated. Farringdon and Harber have sold +the rubber-trees as they neared bearing, and have sold them well. +They're out of that now. In all likelihood, Harber thinks, +permanently. For that seven years has seen other projects blossom. +Harber, says Farringdon, has "the golden touch." There has been +trading in the islands, and a short and fortunate little campaign on +the stock-market through Sydney brokers, and there has been, more +profitable than anything else, the salvaging of the Brent Interisland +Company's steamer _Pailula_ by Farringdon's schooner, in which +Harber had purchased a half-interest; so the partners are, on the +whole, rather well fixed. Harber might be rated at, perhaps, some +forty thousand pounds, not counting his interest in the schooner. + +One of Janet Spencer's argosies, then, its cargo laden, is ready to +set sail for the hills of home. In short, Harber is now in one of +the island ports of call, waiting for the steamer from Fiji. In six +weeks he will be in Tawnleytown if all goes well. + +It isn't, and yet it is, the same Harber. He's thirty now, lean and +bronzed and very fit. He can turn a hundred tricks now where then he +could turn one. The tropics have agreed with him. There seems to +have been some subtle affinity between them, and he almost wishes +that he weren't leaving them. He certainly wouldn't be, if it were +not for Janet. + +Yes, that slender thread has held him. Through ten years it has kept +him faithful. He has eyed askance, ignored, even rebuffed, women. +The letters, that still come, have turned the trick, perhaps, or +some clinging to a faith that is inherent in him. Or sheer obstinacy? +Forgive the cynicism. A little of each, no doubt. And then he hadn't +often seen the right sort of women. I say that deliberately, because: + +The night before the steamer was due there was a ball--yes, poor +island exiles, they called it that!--and Harber, one of some thirty +"Europeans" there, went to it, and on the very eve of safety ... + +The glare and the oily smell of the lanterns, the odour of jasmine, +frangipanni, vanilla, and human beings sickeningly mingled in the +heat, the jangling, out-of-tune music, the wearisome island gossip +and chatter, drove him at length out into the night, down a +black-shadowed pathway to the sea. The beach lay before him presently, +gleaming like silver in the soft blue radiance of the jewelled night. +As he stood there, lost in far memories, the mellow, lemon-coloured +lights from the commissioner's residence shone beautifully from the +fronded palms and the faint wave of the waltzes of yesteryear became +poignant and lovely, and the light trade-wind, clean here from the +reek of lamps and clothing and human beings, vaguely tanged with the +sea, blew upon him with a light, insistent pressure. Half dreaming, +he heard the sharp sputter of a launch--bearing belated comers to +the ball, no doubt--but he paid no attention to it. He may have been +on the beach an hour before he turned to ascend to the town. + +And just at the top of the slope he came upon a girl. + +She hadn't perceived him, and she stood there, slim and graceful, +the moonlight bright upon her rapt face, with her arms outstretched +and her head flung back, in an attitude of utter abandonment. Harber +felt his heart stir swiftly. He knew what she was feeling, as she +looked out over the shimmering half-moon of harbour, across the +moaning white feather of reef, out to the illimitable sea, and drank +in the essence of the beauty of the night. Just so, at first, had it +clutched him with the pain of ecstasy, and he had never forgotten it. +There would be no voicing that feeling; it must ever remain +inarticulate. Nor was the girl trying to voice it. Her exquisite +pantomime alone spelled her delight in it and her surrender to it. + +He saw at a glance that he didn't know her. She was "new" to the +islands. Her clothes were evidence enough for that. There was a +certain verve to them that spoke of a more sophisticated land. She +might have been twenty-five though she seemed younger. She was in +filmy white from slipper to throat, and over her slender shoulders +there drifted a gossamer banner of scarf, fluttering in the soft +trade-wind. Harber was very close to see this, and still she hadn't +observed him. + +"Don't let me startle you, please!" he said, as he stepped from the +shadow of the trumpet-flower bush that had hitherto concealed him. + +Her arms came down slowly, her chin lowered; her pose, if you will, +melted away. Her voice when she spoke was low and round and thrilled, +and it sent an answering thrill through Harber. + +"I'm mad!" she said. "Moon-mad--or tropic-mad. I didn't hear you. I +was worshipping the night!" + +"As I have been," said Harber, feeling a sudden pagan kinship with +her mood. + +She smiled, and her smile seemed the most precious thing in the world. +"You, too? But it isn't new to you ... and when the newness is gone +every one--here at least--seems dead to it!" + +"Sometimes I think it's always new," replied Harber. "And yet I've +had years of it ... but how did you know?" + +"You're Mr. Harber, aren't you?" + +"Yes. But---" + +"Only that I knew you were here, having heard of you from the +Tretheways, and I'd accounted for every one else. I couldn't stay +inside because it seemed to me that it was wicked when I had come so +far for just this, to be inside stuffily dancing. One can dance all +the rest of one's life in Michigan, you know! So----" + +"It's the better place to be--out here," said Harber abruptly. +"Need we go in?" + +"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "Maybe you can tell me. You see, +I've promised some dances. What's the usage here? Dare I run away +from them?" + +"Oh, it might prove a three-day scandal if you did," said Harber. +"But I know a bench off to the right, where it isn't likely you'll +be found by any questing partner, and you needn't confess to having +had a companion. Will you come and talk to me?" + +"I'm a bird of passage," she answered, smiling, "and I've only to +unfold my wings and fly away from the smoke of scandal. Yes, I'll +come--if you won't talk--too much. You see, after all, I won't +flatter you. It's the night I want, not talk ... the wonderful night!" + +But, of course, they did talk. She was an American girl, she told him, +and had studied art a little, but would never be much of a painter. +She had been teaching classes in a city high school in the Middle +West, when suddenly life there seemed to have gone humdrum and stale. +She had a little money saved, not much, but enough if she managed +well, and she'd boldly resigned and determined, once at least before +she was too old, to follow spring around the world. She had almost +given up the idea of painting now, but thought presently she might +go in for writing, where, after all, perhaps, her real talent lay. +She had gotten a letter of introduction in Suva to the Tretheways +and she would be here until the next steamer after the morrow's. + +These were the bare facts. Harber gave a good many more than he got, +he told me, upon the theory that nothing so provoked confidence as +giving it. He was a little mad himself that night, he admits, or +else very, very sane. As you will about that. But, from the moment +she began to talk, the thought started running through his head that +there was fate in this meeting. + +There was a sort of passionate fineness about her that caught and +answered some instinct in Harber ... and I'm afraid they talked more +warmly than the length of their acquaintance justified, that they +made one another half-promises, not definite, perhaps, but implied; +promises that.... + +"I _must_ go in," she said at last, reluctantly. + +He knew that she must, and he made no attempt to gainsay her. + +"You are going to America," she went on. "If you should----" + +And just at that moment, Harber says, anything seemed possible to him, +and he said eagerly: "Yes--if you will--I should like----" + +How well they understood one another is evident from that. Neither +had said it definitely, but each knew. + +"Have you a piece of paper?" she asked. + +Harber produced a pencil, and groped for something to write upon. +All that his pockets yielded was a sealed envelope. He gave it to her. + +She looked at it closely, and saw in the brilliant moonshine that it +was sealed and stamped and addressed. + +"I'll spoil it for mailing," she said. + +"It doesn't matter," Harber told her ineptly. "Or you can write it +lightly, and I'll erase it later." + +There was a little silence. Then suddenly she laughed softly, and +there was a tiny catch in the voice. "So that you can forget?" she +said bravely. "No! I'll write it fast and hard ... so that you can ... +never ... forget!" + +And she gave him first his pencil and envelope, and afterward her +hand, which Harber held for a moment that seemed like an eternity +and then let go. She went into the house, but Harber didn't follow +her. He went off to his so-called hotel. + +In his room, by the light of the kerosene-lamp, he took out the +envelope and reed what she had written. It was: + +Vanessa Simola, Claridon, Michigan. + +He turned over the envelope and looked at the address on the other +side, in his own handwriting: + +Miss Janet Spencer, Tawnleytown.... + +And the envelope dropped from his nerveless fingers to the table. + +Who shall say how love goes or comes? Its ways are a sacred, +insoluble mystery, no less. But it had gone for Harber: and just as +surely, though so suddenly, had it come! Yes, life had bitterly +tricked him at last. She had sent him this girl ... too late! The +letter in the envelope was written to tell Janet Spencer that within +six weeks he would be in Tawnleytown to claim her in marriage. + +One must be single-minded like Harber to appreciate his terrible +distress of mind. The facile infidelity of your ordinary mortal +wasn't for Harber. No, he had sterner stuff in him. + +Vanessa! The name seemed so beautiful ... like the girl herself, +like the things she had said. It was an Italian name. She had told +him her people had come from Venice, though she was herself +thoroughly a product of America. "So that you can never forget," she +had said. Ah, it was the warm blood of Italy in her veins that had +prompted that An American girl wouldn't have said that! + +He slit the envelope, letting the letter fall to the table, and put +it in his pocket. + +Yet why should he save it? He could never see her again, he knew. +Vain had been those half-promises, those wholly lies, that his eyes +and lips had given her. For there was Janet, with her prior promises. +Ten years Janet had waited for him ... ten years ... and suddenly, +aghast, he realized how long and how terrible the years are, how they +can efface memories and hopes and desires, and how cruelly they had +dealt with him, though he had not realized it until this moment. +Janet ... why, actually, Janet was a stranger, he didn't know Janet +any more! She was nothing but a frail phantom of recollection: the +years had erased her! But this girl--warm, alluring, immediate.... + +No--no! It couldn't be. + +So much will the force of an idea do for a man, you see. Because, of +course, it could have been. He had only to destroy the letter that +lay there before him, to wait on until the next sailing, to make +continued love to Vanessa, and never to go to Tawnleytown again. +There was little probability that Janet would come here for him. Ten +years and ten thousand miles ... despite all that he had vowed on +Bald Knob that Sunday so long ago, wouldn't you have said that was +barrier enough? + +Why, so should I! But it wasn't. + +For Harber took the letter and put it in a fresh envelope, and in +the morning he went aboard the steamer without seeing the girl again ... +unless that bit of white standing near the top of the slope, as the +ship churned the green harbour water heading out to sea, were she, +waving. + +But he kept the address she had written. + +Why? He never could use it. Well, perhaps he didn't want to forget +too soon, though it hurt him to remember. How many of us, after all, +have some little memory like that, some intimate communion with +romance, which we don't tell, but cling to? And perhaps the memory +is better than the reality would have been. We imagine ... but that +again is cynical. Harber will never be that now. Let me tell you why. + +It's because he hadn't been aboard ship on his crossing to Victoria +twenty-four hours before he met Clay Barton. + +Barton was rolled up in rugs, lying in a deck-chair, biting his +teeth hard together to keep them from chattering, though the +temperature was in the eighties, and most of the passengers in white. +Barton appeared to be a man of forty, whereas he turned out to be in +his early twenties. He was emaciated to an alarming degree and his +complexion was of the pale, yellow-green that spoke of many +recurrences of malaria. The signs were familiar to Harber. + +He sat down beside Barton, and, as the other looked at him half a +dozen times tentatively, he presently spoke to him. + +"You've had a bad time of it, haven't you?" + +"Terrible," said Barton frankly. "They say I'm convalescent now. I +don't know. Look at me. What would you say?" + +Harber shook his head. + +Barton laughed bitterly. "Yes, I'm pretty bad," he agreed readily. +And then, as he talked that day and the two following, he told +Harber a good many things. + +"I tell you, Harber," he said, "we'll do anything for money. Here I +am--and I knew damned well it was killing me, too. And yet I stuck +it out six months after I'd any earthly business to--just for a few +extra hundreds." + +"Where were you? What were you doing?" asked Harber. + +"Trading-post up a river in the Straits Settlements," said Barton. +"A crazy business from the beginning--and yet I made money. Made it +lots faster than I could have back home. Back there you're hedged +about with too many rules. And competition's too keen. You go into +some big corporation office at seventy-five a month, maybe, and +unless you have luck you're years getting near anything worth having. +And you've got to play politics, bootlick your boss--all that. So I +got out. + +"Went to California first, and got a place in an exporting firm in +San Francisco. They sent me to Sydney and then to Fiji. After I'd +been out for a while and got the hang of things, I cut loose from +them. + +"Then I got this last chance, and it looked mighty good--and I +expect I've done for myself by it. Five years or a little better. +That's how long I've lasted. Back home I'd have been good for +thirty-five. A short life and a merry one, they say. Merry. Good God!" + +He shook his head ironically. + +"The root of all evil," he resumed after a little. "Well, but you've +got to have it--can't get along without it in _this_ world. You've +done well, you say?" + +Harber nodded. + +"Well, so should I have, if the cursed fever had let me alone. In +another year or so I'd have been raking in the coin. And now here I +am--busted--done--;--_fini_, as the French say. I burned the candle +at both ends--and got just what was coming to me, I suppose. But how +_could_ I let go, just when everything was coming my way?" + +"I know," said Harber. "But unless you can use it----" + +"You're right there. Not much in it for me now. Still, the medicos +say a cold winter back home will.... I don't know. Sometimes I don't +think I'll last to.... + +"Where's the use, you ask, Harber? You ask me right now, and I can't +tell you. But if you'd asked me before I got like this, I could have +told you quick enough. With some men, I suppose, it's just an +acquisitive nature. With me, that didn't cut any figure. With me, it +was a girl. I wanted to make the most I could for her in the +shortest time. A girl ... well...." + +Harber nodded. "I understand. I came out for precisely the same +reason myself," he remarked. + +"You did?" said Barton, looking at him sadly. "Well, luck was with +you, then. You look so--so damned fit! You can go back to her ... +while I ... ain't it hell? Ain't it?" he demanded fiercely. +"Yes," admitted Harber, "it is. But at the same time, I'm not sure +that anything's ever really lost. If she's worth while----" + +Barton made a vehement sign of affirmation. + +"Why, she'll be terribly sorry for you, but she won't _care_," +concluded Harber. "I mean, she'll be waiting for you, and glad to +have you coming home, so glad that...." + +"Ah ... yes. That's what ... I haven't mentioned the fever in +writing to her, you see. It will be a shock." + +Harber, looking at him, thought that it would, indeed. + +"I had a letter from her just before we sailed," went on the other, +more cheerfully. "I'd like awfully, some time, to have you meet her. +She's a wonderful girl--wonderful. She's clever. She's much cleverer +than I am, really ... about most things. When we get to Victoria, +you must let me give you my address." + +"Thanks," said Harber. "I'll be glad to have it." + +That was the last Harber saw of him for five days. The weather +had turned rough, and he supposed the poor fellow was seasick, +and thought of him sympathetically, but let it rest there. Then, +one evening after dinner, the steward came for him and said that +Mr. Clay Barton wanted to see him. Harber followed to Barton's stateroom, +which the sick man was occupying alone. In the passageway near the +door, he met the ship's doctor. + +"Mr. Harber?" said the doctor. "Your friend in there--I'm sorry to +say--is----" + +"I suspected as much," said Harber. "He knows it himself, I think." + +"Does he?" said the doctor, obviously relieved. "Well, I hope that +he'll live till we get him ashore. There's just a chance, of course, +though his fever is very high now. He's quite lucid just now, and +has been insisting upon seeing you. Later he mayn't be conscious. +So----" + +Harber nodded. "I'll go in." + +Barton lay in his berth, still, terribly thin, and there were two +pink patches of fever burning upon his cheek-bones. He opened his +eyes with an infinite weariness as Harber entered the room, and +achieved a smile. + +"Hard luck, old fellow," said Harber, crossing to him. "'Sall +_up_!" said Barton, grinning gamely. "I'm through. Asked 'em to +send you in. Do something for me, Harber--tha's right, ain't +it--Harber's your name?" + +"Yes. What is it, Barton?" + +Barton closed his eyes, then opened them again. + +"Doggone memory--playin' tricks," he apologized faintly. "This, +Harber. Black-leather case inside leather grip there--by the wall. +Money in it--and letters. Everything goes--to the girl. Nobody else. +I know you're straight. Take 'em to her?" + +"Yes," said Harber. + +"Good," said Barton. "All right, then! Been expecting this. All ready +for it. Name--address--papers--all there. She'll have no +trouble--getting money. Thanks, Harber." And after a pause, he added: +"Better take it now--save trouble, you know." + +Harber got the leather case from the grip and took it at once to his +own stateroom. + +When he returned, Barton seemed for the moment, with the commission +off his mind, a little brighter. + +"No end obliged, Harber," he murmured. + +"All right," said Harber, "but ought you to talk?" + +"Won't matter now," said Barton grimly. "Feel like talking now. +To-morrow may be--too late!" And after another pause, he went on: +"The fine dreams of youth--odd where they end, isn't it? + +"This--and me--so different. So different! Failure. She was wise--but +she didn't know everything. The world was too big--too hard for me. +'You can't fail,' she said, '_I won't let you fail_!' But you see----" + +Harber's mind, slipping back down the years, with Barton, to his own +parting, stopped with a jerk. + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +Barton seemed drifting, half conscious, half unconscious of what he +was saying. He did not appear to have heard Harber's exclamation over +the phrase so like that Janet had given him. + +"We weren't like the rest," droned Barton. "No--we wanted more out of +life than they did. We couldn't be content--with half a loaf. We +wanted--the bravest adventures--the yellowest gold--the...." + +Picture that scene, if you will. What would _you_ have said? Harber +saw leaping up before him, with terrible clarity, as if it were +etched upon his mind, that night in Tawnleytown ten years before. It +was as if Barton, in his semidelirium, were reading the words from +_his_ past! + +"I won't let you fail! ... half a loaf ... the bravest adventures ... +the yellowest gold." Incredible thing! That Barton and _his_ girl +should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases! +And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber.... No! No! He spurned it. +It couldn't be. And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one +more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, +written to _him_, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be stark, +unassailable fact. + +He put his hand upon Barton's arm and gently pressed it. + +"Barton," he said, "tell me--Janet--Tawnleytown?" + +Barton stared with glassy, unseeing eyes for a moment; then his +eyelids fell. + +"The bravest adventures--the yellowest gold," he murmured. Then, so +faintly as almost to baffle hearing: "Where--all--our--dreams? +Gone--aglimmering. Gone." + +That was all. + +Impossible? No, just very, very improbable. But how, by its very +improbability, it does take on the semblance of design! See how by +slender a thread the thing hung, how every corner of the plan fitted. +Just one slip Janet Spencer made; she let her thoughts and her words +slip into a groove; she repeated herself. And how unerringly life +had put her finger upon that clew! So reasoned Harber. + +Well, if the indictment were true, there was proof to be had in +Barton's leather case! + +Harber, having called the doctor, went to his stateroom. + +He opened the leather case. Inside a cover of yellow oiled silk he +found first a certificate of deposit for three thousand pounds, and +beneath it a packet of letters. + +He unwrapped them. + +And, though somehow he had known it without the proof, at the sight +of them something caught at his heart with a clutch that made it +seem to have stopped beating for a long time. For the sprawling +script upon the letters was almost as familiar to him as his own. +Slowly he reached down and took up the topmost letter, drew the thin +shiny sheets from the envelope, fluttered them, dazed, and stared at +the signature: + +Yours, my dearest lover, JANET. + +Just so had she signed _his_ letters. It _was_ Janet Spencer. Two of +her argosies, each one laden with gold for her, had met in their +courses, had sailed for a little together. + +The first reasonable thought that came to Harber, when he was +convinced of the authenticity of the miracle, was that he was +free--free to go after the girl he loved, after Vanessa Simola. I +think that if he could have done it, he'd have turned the steamer +back to the Orient in that moment. The thought that the ship was +plunging eastward through a waste of smashing heavy seas was +maddening, no less! + +He didn't want to see Janet or Tawnleytown, again. He did have, he +told me, a fleeting desire to know just how many other ships Janet +might have launched, but it wasn't strong enough to take him to see +her. He sent her the papers and letters by registered mail under an +assumed name. + +And then he went to Claridon, Michigan, to learn of her people when +Vanessa might be expected home. They told him she was on her way. So, +fearing to miss her if he went seeking, he settled down there and +stayed until she came. It was seven months of waiting he had ... but +it was worth it in the end. + + * * * * * + +And that was Harber's romance. Just an incredible coincidence, you +say. I know it. I told Harber that. And Mrs. Harber. + +And _she_ said nothing at all, but looked at me inscrutably, with a +flicker of scorn in her sea-gray eyes. + +Harber smiled lazily and serenely, and leaned back in his chair, and +replied in a superior tone: "My dear Sterne, things that are made in +heaven--like my marriage--don't just happen. Can't you see that your +stand simply brands you an unbeliever?" + +And, of course, I _can_ see it. And Harber may be right. I don't know. +Does any one, I wonder? + + + + +ALMA MATER + + +BY O. F. LEWIS + +From _The Red Book_ + + +Professor Horace Irving had taught Latin for nearly forty years at +Huntington College. Then he had come back to Stuyvesant Square, in +New York. Now he lived in a little hall bedroom, four flights up, +overlooking the Square. + +Habitually he walked from the Square westward to Fourth Avenue, in +the afternoon, when the weather permitted. He had been born only +three doors from where he now lived. The house of his birth had gone. +It was sixty years since he had been a boy and played in this Square. +Now he would pause at the corner of Fourth Avenue in his walks, and +remember the Goelet's cow and the big garden and the high iron fence +at Nineteenth Street and Broadway. Great buildings now towered there. + +South along Fourth Avenue he would walk, a little man, scarcely five +feet four in height, even with the silk hat and the Prince Albert +coat. His white hair grew long over his collar, and people would +notice that almost more than anything else about him. He may have +weighed between ninety and a hundred pounds. The coat was worn and +shiny, but immaculate. The tall hat was of a certain type and year, +but carefully smoothed and still glossy. + +He would pause often, between Nineteenth Street and Eighteenth Street, +peopling the skyscrapers with ghosts of a former day, when houses +and green gardens lined the streets. The passers-by watched him +casually, perhaps as much as any one notices any one else in New York. +He was, in the Fourteenth Street district, a rarer specimen than +Hindus or Mexican medicine-men. Through the ten years since he had +come, pensioned, from Huntington College, he had become a walking +landmark in this region. + +He always walked down on the east side of the street, crossing at +Fourteenth Street. He was carefully piloted, and saluted, by the +traffic policeman. It was a bad crossing. Below Fourteenth Street +things looked much more as they had looked when he was young. + +The bookstores were an unceasing hobby to the old man. The +secondhand dealers never made any objection to his reading books +upon the shelves. His purchases were perhaps two books a week, at +ten or even five cents each. Now and again he would find one of his +own "Irving's Latin Prose Composition" texts in the five-cent pile. +Opening the book, he usually would discover strange pencilled +pictures drawn scrawlingly over many of the pages. His "Latin +Composition" wasn't published after 1882, the year the firm failed. +It might have been different for him, with a different publisher. + +Late one afternoon in April, Professor Irving stood in his customary +niche at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, watching the +traffic from a sheltered spot against the wall of the building. He +was becoming exceedingly anxious about the approaching storm. It had +come up since he left Stuyvesant Square, and he had no umbrella. He +must not get his silk hat wet. His thin overcoat was protecting him +but feebly from the wind, which with the disappearance of the sun +had grown sharp and biting. It was rapidly becoming dark. Lights +were flashing in the windows up and down the Avenue. + +The Professor decided to stand in a doorway till the shower had +passed over. The chimes in the Metropolitan Tower struck the first +quarter after four, the sounds welling in gusts to the old man's ears. +A little man came to stand in the doorway beside the Professor. The +latter saw that the little man had a big umbrella. Silk hats were so +fearfully expensive in these days! + +The heavy drops beat against the pavement in torrents. The first +flash of lightning of the year was followed by a deep roll of thunder. + +"I got to go!" said the little man. "Keep the umbrella! I got +another where I work. I'm only fifty-five. You're older than me, a +lot. You better start home. You'll get soaked, standing here!" And +the little man was gone before the Professor could reply. + +"An exceedingly kindly, simple man," thought the old Professor. He +had planned, while standing with his unknown benefactor, that he +would go into some store and wait. But now he would chance it, and +cross the street. He saw a lull in the traffic. He started and was +nearly swept off his feet. He got to the middle of the street. The +umbrella grew unwieldy, swinging this way and that, as if tugged by +unseen hands. It turned inside out. Blaring noises from the passing +cars confused the Professor. + +The shaft of the umbrella swung violently around and knocked the +silk hat from Professor Irving's head. His white hair was caught by +the wind. Lashed in another direction, the shaft now struck the +Professor's glasses, and they flew away. Now he could see little or +nothing. He became bewildered. + +Great glaring headlights broke upon him, passed him, and then +immediately other glaring lights flared up toward him out of the +sheets of water. He couldn't see because of his lost glasses and +because of the stinging rain. He rushed between two cars. He slipped.... + +The chimes on the Metropolitan Tower rang out, in wails of wild sound, +the half-hour after four. + + * * * * * + +The attendance that evening at the annual banquet of the New York +alumni of Huntington College exceeded all previous records. The +drive for two million five hundred thousand dollars was on. It was a +small college, but as Daniel Webster said of Dartmouth, there were +those who loved it. + +The east ballroom of the hotel was well filled with diners. +Recollections of college days were shouted across tables and over +intervening aisles. There was a million still to raise: but old +Huntington would put it across! They'd gotten out more of the older +men, the men with money, than had ever been seen before at an alumni +dinner. + +The income on one million would go into better salaries for the +professors and other teachers. They'd been shamefully underpaid--men +who'd been on the faculty twenty to thirty years getting two thousand! +Well, Huntington College had now a new president, one of the boys of +twenty years ago. Yes sir, things were different. It was in the air. + +In the midst of the dinner course, the toastmaster rapped loudly +with the gavel for attention. It was hard to obtain quiet. + +"Men," said the toastmaster, and there was a curious note in his +voice, "I ask your absolute silence. Middleton, whom you all know is +one of the editorial staff of the _Sphere_, has just come in. He can +stay only a few minutes. He came especially to tell you something." + +A man standing behind the toastmaster stepped into the toastmaster's +place. He was in business clothes, a sharp contrast to the rest of +the diners. He was loudly applauded. He raised his right hand and +shook his head. + +"Boys," he said, "I've got a tragic piece of news for you--for those +of you who were in college any time up to ten years ago." He paused +and looked the diners over. + +"Four fifths of you men who are here to-night knew old Hoddy Irving, +our 'prof' in Latin. He served old Huntington College for forty years, +the longest term any professor ever served. He made no demands--ever. +He took us freshmen under his wing. I used to walk now and then with +him, miles around the college, when it wasn't so built up as it now +is. He loved the fields and the animals and the trees. He taught me +a lot of things besides Latin. Don't you remember the funny little +walk he had, sort of a hop forward? Don't you remember the way he'd +come up to the college dormitories nights, sometimes, from his house +down on the Row, and knock timidly at our doors, and come in and +visit? Don't you remember that we used to clear some of those tables +mighty quickly, of the chips and the bottles?" + +There were titters, and some one shouted: "You said it!" + +"And then, don't you remember, that some ten years ago they turned +the old man off, with a pension--so-called--of half his salary. But +what was his salary? Two thousand dollars--two thousand dollars at +the end of forty years!! You and I, and old Huntington College, +turned old Hoddy out to pasture, this pasture, on a thousand a year! +And to-night, right now, he's lying in Bellevue, both legs broken, +skull fractured, and not a damn cent in the world except insurance +enough to bury him. And to-morrow he'll be ours to bury, boys--old +Hoddy Irving!" + +A confusion of voices rose in the room, and over them all a +"No!" from some one who seemed to cry out in pain. + +"Yes!" said Middleton as the murmurs ceased. "Our old Hoddy, starving, +loaded up with debt, alone, down in a miserable hall bedroom in +Stuyvesant Square. How did I come to know about it? One of our +reporters, who covers Bellevue, dug up the story in his day's work. +They brought in this old, disheveled, unconscious man--and in his +pocket was his name. Kenyon, the reporter, went over to the house on +the Square and found there another old fellow that old Hoddy chummed +some with, and who knew all the circumstances. + +"It seems Hoddy had an invalid old sister--and they hadn't any money +except this pension. How the two old souls got along no one will +never know. But she died awhile ago, and that put Hoddy into a lot +more debt. And this miserable little eighty dollars a month has had +to carry him and his debts. And not a whimper that old man utters. +Always kindly, Hoddy was, always telling stories from the forty years +at Huntington--and we fellows here, a lot of us rotten with money, +and not knowing that the old fellow---" + +Middleton's voice broke. It was some time before he proceeded. + +"This afternoon, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, +just as that tornado broke, he tried to cross the street. He got in +a jam of cars, and of course the windshields were all mussed up with +rain, and the chauffeurs couldn't see anything ahead--and they don't +know whose car it was. The police say it was just four thirty-one +when they picked him up. + +"Well, that's all, except that--I'm going down to Bellevue, and if +one or two of you want to come--perhaps old Hoddy will know us--even +this late." + +Middleton had finished. From various parts of the room came the words: +"I'll go! Let me go!" Men were frankly wiping their eyes. + +At a distant table arose Martin Delano. He was reputed to be the +wealthiest alumnus of Huntington. He was said to have made almost +fabulous millions during the war. In the Street he was known as +"Merciless Martin." They were planning to strike him this evening +for at least a hundred thousand. + +Martin Delano stood holding the edge of the table with one hand, the +other fingering a spoon on the table. He stood there long. Several +times he opened his lips as though to speak. He took out his +handkerchief and wiped his cheeks and forehead. Evidently he was +deeply moved. + +"Mr. Toastmaster, may I ask the privilege of going down to Bellevue +with Mr. Middleton? I would ask that I be allowed to insist on going +down. I have sinned, grievously sinned, in forgetting old Hoddy. Now, +when it's too late----Thirty years ago, and more, when I was a green, +frightened freshman from Vermont, he took me to his heart. He was +known as the Freshman's Friend. That's what Hoddy always did--take +the green and frightened freshman to his heart. Probably, if he +hadn't done that to me, I'd have gone back home in my lonesomeness. +And then---- + +"Yes, I have sinned--and it might have been so different. I want to +go down there! And I'm coming back here, before you men are through +to-night, and I'll tell you more." + +At about half-past ten Martin Delano came back. He walked into the +room just as one of the speakers had finished. The toastmaster +caught his eye and beckoned to him to come to the speaker's table. +Delano stood in front of the crowd. He had walked forward, seeing no +one on his way. + +"Hoddy--Hoddy has gone, boys!" + +Then quickly, silently, the three hundred men arose and stood. After +a time they heard Delano say: "Sit down, boys." + +He waited till they were seated. "There's a lot that I might tell, +men--terrible things--that I won't tell, for it's all over. Just +this--and I suppose you're about through now and breaking up. It was +the poor old Prof. of ours--shattered, deathly white, a lot older. +But will you believe it, the same dear old smile, or almost a smile, +on his face! Unconscious, but babbling. And about what? The +college--Alma Mater! Those were just the words--Alma Mater! The +college that gave him the half pay and forgot him on the very night +when we are trying to raise a miserable two million, that things like +this sha'n't happen again!" + +"And boys, when we bent over him and whispered our names, he seemed +after a while to understand that we were there--but in the classroom, +the old Number 3 in Holmes Hall! And fellows, he called on--on me to +recite----" + +Merciless Martin Delano couldn't go on. Finally he spoke. + +"And so, Mr. President, I wish, sir, as a slight token of my +appreciation of what that simple great man has done for Huntington +College to give to our Alma Mater--our Alma Mater, sir--the sum of +two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be used for the erection +of a suitable building, for whatever purpose is most necessary, and +that building to be called after Horace Irving. + +"And sir, I also desire to give to the fund for properly providing +for the salaries of our professors and other teachers, the sum of +two hundred and fifty thousand dollars--those men who teach in our +Alma Mater. + +"And I ask one word more: I have arranged that Professor Irving is +to be buried from my house. If you will permit me, I will leave now." + +The alumni of Huntington College were silent. There was no sound, +save the occasional pushing of a chair, or the click of a plate or a +glass upon the table, as Martin Delano passed from the room. + +It was after one o'clock. Martin Delano was in his library, his arms +flung across the table, his face between them. + +In the opaque blur of swirling rain, his car had passed the corner +of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street at precisely half-past four that +afternoon. He had happened to take out his watch at the moment the +Metropolitan clock struck the second quarter. + +He would never know whether it had been his car or another! + + + + +SLOW POISON + + +BY ALICE DUER MILLER + +From _The Saturday Evening Post_ + + +The Chelmsford divorce had been accomplished with the utmost decorum, +not only outwardly in the newspapers, but inwardly among a group of +intimate friends. They were a homogeneous couple--were liked by the +same people, enjoyed the same things, and held many friends in common. +These were able to say with some approach to certainty that everyone +had behaved splendidly, even the infant of twenty-three with whom +Julian had fallen in love. + +Of course there will always be the question--and we used to argue it +often in those days--how well a man can behave who, after fifteen +perfectly satisfactory years of married life, admits that he has +fallen in love with another woman. But if you believe in the +clap-of-thunder theory, as I do, why, then, for a man nearing forty, +taken off his feet by a blond-headed girl, Julian, too, behaved +admirably. + +As for Mrs. Julian, there was never any doubt as to her conduct. I +used to think her--and I was not alone in the opinion--the most +perfect combination of gentleness and power, and charity and humour, +that I had ever seen. She was a year or so older than Julian--though +she did not look it--and a good deal wiser, especially in the ways +of the world; and, oddly enough, one of the features that worried us +most in the whole situation was how he was ever going to get on, in +the worldly sense, without her. He was to suffer not only from the +loss of her counsel but from the lack of her indorsement. There are +certain women who are a form of insurance to a man; and Anne gave a +poise and solidity to Julian's presentation of himself which his own +flibbertigibbet manner made particularly necessary. + +I think this view of the matter disturbed Anne herself, though she +was too clever to say so; or perhaps too numbed by the utter wreck +of her own life to see as clearly as usual the rocks ahead of Julian. +It was she, I believe, who first mentioned, who first thought of +divorce, and certainly she who arranged the details. Julian, still +in the more ideal stage of his emotion, had hardly wakened to the +fact that his new love was marriageable. But Mrs. Julian, with the +practical eye of her sex, saw in a flash all it might mean to him, +at his age, to begin life again with a young beauty who adored him. + +She saw this, at least, as soon as she saw anything; for Julian, +like most of us when the occasion rises, developed a very pretty +power of concealment. He had for a month been seeing Miss Littell +every day before any of us knew that he went to see her at all. +Certainly Anne, unsuspicious by nature, was unprepared for the +revelation. + +It took place in the utterly futile, unnecessary way such +revelations always do take place. The two poor innocent dears had +allowed themselves a single indiscretion; they had gone out together, +a few days before Christmas, to buy some small gifts for each other. +They had had an adventure with a beggar, an old man wise enough to +take advantage of the holiday season, and the no less obvious +holiday in the hearts of this pair. He had forced them to listen to +some quaint variant of the old story, and they had between them +given him all the small change they had left--sixty-seven cents, I +think it was. + +That evening at dinner Julian, ever so slightly afraid of the long +pause, had told Anne the story as if it had happened to him alone. A +few days afterward the girl, whom she happened to meet somewhere or +other, displaying perhaps a similar nervousness, told the same story. +Even the number of cents agreed. + +I spoke a moment ago of the extraordinary power of concealment which +we all possess; but I should have said the negative power to avoid +exciting suspicion. Before that moment, before the finger points at +us, the fool can deceive the sage; and afterward not even the sage +can deceive the veriest fool. + +Julian had no desire to lie to his wife. Indeed, he told me he had +felt from the first that she would be his fittest confidante. He +immediately told her everything--a dream rather than a narrative. + +Nowhere did Anne show her magnanimity more than in accepting the +rather extravagant financial arrangements which Julian insisted on +making for her. He was not a rich man, and she the better economist +of the two. We knew she saw that in popular esteem Julian would pay +the price of her pride if she refused, and that in this ticklish +moment of his life the least she could do was to let him have the +full credit for his generosity. + +"And after all," as she said to me, "young love can afford to go +without a good many things necessary to old age." + +It was the nearest I heard her come to a complaint. + +As soon as everything was settled she sailed for Florence, where she +had friends and where, she intimated, she meant to spend most of her +time. + +I said good-by to her with real emotion, and the phrase I used as to +my wish to serve her was anything but a convention. + +Nor did she take it so. + +"Help Julian through this next year," she said. "People will take it +harder than he knows. He'll need you all." And she was kind enough +to add something about my tact. Poor lady! She must have mentally +withdrawn her little compliment before we met many times again. + + + + +II + + +Perhaps the only fault in Anne's education of her husband had been +her inability to cling. In his new menage this error was rectified, +and the effect on him was conspicuously good; in fact, I think Rose's +confidence in his greatness pulled them through the difficult time. + +For there was no denying that it was difficult. Many people looked +coldly on them, and I know there was even some talk of asking him to +resign from the firm of architects of which he was a member. The +other men were all older, and very conservative. Julian represented +to them everything that was modern and dangerous. Granger, the +leading spirit, was in the habit of describing himself as holding +old-fashioned views, by which he meant that he had all the virtues +of the Pilgrim Fathers and none of their defects. I never liked him, +but I could not help respecting him. The worst you could say of him +was that his high standards were always successful. + +You felt that so fanatical a sense of duty ought to have required +some sacrifices. + +To such a man Julian's conduct appeared not only immoral but +inadvisable, and unfitting in a young man, especially without +consulting his senior partners. + +We used to say among ourselves that Granger's reason for wanting to +get rid of Julian was not any real affection for the dim old moral +code, but rather his acute realization that without Anne his junior +partner was a less valuable asset. + +Things were still hanging fire when I paid her the first of my +annual visits. She was dreadfully distressed at my account of the +situation. She had the manner one sometimes sees in dismissed nurses +who meet their former little charges unwashed or uncared for. She +could hardly believe it was no longer her business to put the whole +matter right. + +"Can't she do something for him?" she said. "Make her bring him a +great building. That would save him." + +It was this message that I carried home to Rose; at least I suggested +the idea to her as if it were my own. I had my doubts of her being +able to carry it out. + +Out of loyalty to Julian, or perhaps I ought to say out of loyalty to +Anne, we had all accepted Rose, but we should soon have loved her in +any case. She was extraordinarily sweet and docile, and gave us, +those at least who were not parents, our first window to the east, +our first link with the next generation, just at the moment when we +were relinquishing the title ourselves. I am afraid that some of the +males among us envied Julian more than perhaps in the old days we +had ever envied him Anne. + +But we hardly expected her to further his career as Anne had done, +and yet, oddly enough, that was exactly what she did. Her methods +had all the effectiveness of youth and complete conviction. She +forced Julian on her friends and relations, not so much on his +account as on theirs. She wanted them to be sure of the best. The +result was that orders flowed in. Things took a turn for the better +and continued to improve, as I was able to report to Anne when I +went to see her at Florence or at Paris. She was always well lodged, +well served, and surrounded by the pleasantest people, yet each time +I saw her she had a look exiled and circumscribed, a look I can only +describe as that of a spirit in reduced circumstances. + +She was always avid for details of Julian and all that concerned him, +and as times improved I was stupid enough to suppose I pleased her by +giving them from the most favourable angle. It seemed to me quite +obvious, as I saw how utterly she had ruined her own life, that she +ought at least to have the comfort of knowing that she had not +sacrificed it in vain. And so I allowed myself, not an exaggeration +but a candour more unrestrained than would be usual in the +circumstances. + +Led on by her burning interest I told her many things I might much +better have kept to myself; not only accounts of his work and his +household and any new friends in our old circle, but we had all been +amazed to see a sense of responsibility develop in Julian in answer +to his new wife's dependence on him. With this had come a certain +thoughtfulness in small attentions, which, I saw too late, Anne must +always have missed in him. She was so much more competent in the +smaller achievements of life than he that it had been wisdom to leave +them to her; and Anne had often traveled alone and attended to the +luggage, when now Rose was personally conducted like a young empress. +The explanation was simple enough: Anne had the ability to do it, +and the other had not. Even if I had stopped to think, I might fairly +have supposed that Anne would find some flattery in the contrast. I +should have been wrong. + +Almost the first thing she asked me was whether he came home to +luncheon. In old times, though his house was only a few blocks from +his office, he had always insisted that it took too much time. Anne +had never gained her point with him, though she put some force into +the effort. Now I had to confess he did. + +"It's much better for him," she said with pleasure, and quite +deceived me; herself, too, perhaps. + +Yet even I, for all my blindness, felt some uneasiness the year +Rose's son was born. I do not think the desire for offspring had +ever taken up a great deal of room in Julian's consciousness, but of +course Anne had wanted children, and I felt very cruel, sitting in +her little apartment in Paris, describing the baby who ought to have +been hers. How different her position would have been now if she had +some thin-legged little girl to educate or some raw-boned boy to +worry over; and there was that overblessed woman at home, necessary +not only to Julian but to Julian's son. + +It was this same year, but at a later visit, that I first became +aware of a change in Anne. At first the charm of her surroundings, +her pretty clothes, even to the bright little buckles on her shoes, +blinded me to the fact that she herself was changed. I do not mean +that she was aged. One of the delightful things about her was that +she was obviously going to make an admirable old lady; the delicate +boniness of her face and the clearness of her skin assured that. +This was a change more fundamental. Even in her most distracted days +Anne had always maintained a certain steadiness of head. She had +trodden thorny paths, but she had always known where she was going. +I had seen her eyelids red, but I had never failed to find in the +eyes themselves the promise of a purpose. But now it was gone. I +felt as if I were looking into a little pool which had been troubled +by a stone, and I waiting vainly for the reflection to re-form itself. + +So painful was the impression that before I sailed for home I tried +to convey to her the dangers of her mood. + +"I think you are advising me to be happy," she said. + +"I am advising no such thing," I answered. "I am merely pointing out +that you run the risk of being more unhappy than you are. My +visits--or rather the news I bring you--are too important to you. +You make me feel as if it were the only event of the year--to you +who have always had such an interesting life of your own." + +"I have not had a life of my own since I was twenty," she returned. +It was at twenty she had married. + +"Then think of Julian," I said, annoyed not only at my own clumsiness +but at the absence of anything of Anne's old heroic spirit. +"For his sake, at least, you must keep your head. Why, my dear woman, +one look at your face, grown as desperate as it sometimes appears now, +would ruin Julian with the whole world. Even I, knowing the whole +story, would find it hard to forgive him if you should fail to +continue to be the splendid triumphant creature whom we know you +were designed to be." + +She gave me a long queer look, which meant something tremendous. +Evidently my words had made an impression. + +They had, but not just the one I intended. + + + +III + +One of the first people I always saw on returning was Julian. How +often he thought of Anne I do not know, but he spoke of her with the +greatest effort. He invariably took care to assure himself that she +was physically well, but beyond this it would have been a brave +person who dared to go. He did not want to hear the details of her +life and appearance. + +It was with some trepidation, therefore, that a few months after +this I came to tell him that Anne was about to return to America. +Why she was coming, or for how long, her letter did not say. I only +knew that the second Saturday in December would see her among us +again. It seemed fair to assume that her stay would not be long. +Julian evidently thought so for he arranged to be in the West for +three or four weeks. + +I went to meet her. The day was cold and rainy, and as soon as I saw +her I made up my mind that the crossing had been a bad one, and I +was glad no one else had come to the wharf with me. She was standing +by the rail, wrapped in a voluminous fur coat--the fashions were +slim in the extreme--and her hat was tied on by a blue veil. + +I may as well admit that from the moment I heard of her projected +return I feared that her real motive for coming, conscious or +unconscious, was to see Julian again. So when I told her of his +absence I was immensely relieved that she took it as a matter of +course. + +"I suppose we might have met," she observed. "As it is, I can go +about without any fear of an awkward encounter." I say I was relieved, +but I was also excessively puzzled. Why had Anne come home? + +It was a question I was to hear answered in a variety of ways during +the next few months, by many of Anne's friends and partisans; for, +as I think I have said, Anne had inspired great attachment since her +earliest days. Why had she come home? they exclaimed. Why not, pray? +Had she done anything criminal that she was to be exiled? Did I +think it pleasant to live abroad on a small income? Even if she +could get on without her friends, could they do without her? + +The tone of these questions annoyed me not a little when I heard them, +which was not for some time. Soon after Anne's arrival I, too, was +called away, and it was not until February that I returned and was +met by the carefully set piece--Anne the Victim. + +With that ill-advised self-confidence of which I have already made +mention, I at once set about demolishing this picture. I told Anne's +friends, who were also mine, that she would thank them very little +for their attitude. I found myself painting her life abroad as a +delirium of intellect and luxury. I even found myself betraying +professional secrets and arguing with total strangers as to the +amount of her income. + +Even in Montreal faint echoes of this state of things had reached me, +but not until I went to see Anne on my return did I get any idea of +their cause. She had taken a furnished apartment from a friend, in a +dreary building in one of the West Forties. Only a jutting front of +limestone and an elevator man in uniform saved it, or so it seemed +to me, from being an old-fashioned boarding house. Its windows, small, +as if designed for an African sun, looked northward upon a darkened +street. Anne's apartment was on the second floor, and the +requirements of some caryatids on the outside rendered her +fenestration particularly meager. Her friend, if indeed it were a +friend, had not treated her generously in the matter of furniture. +She had left nothing superfluous but two green glass jugs on the +mantelpiece, and had covered the chairs with a chintz, the +groundwork of which was mustard colour. + +Another man who was there when I came in, who evidently had known +Anne in different surroundings, expressed the most hopeful view +possible when he said that doubtless it would all look charming when +she had arranged her own belongings. + +Anne made a little gesture. "I haven't any belongings," she said. + +I didn't know what she meant, perhaps merely a protest against the +tyranny of things, but I saw the effect her speech produced on her +auditor. Perhaps she saw it too, for presently she added: "Oh, yes! +I have one." + +And she went away, and came back carrying a beautiful old silver +loving cup. I knew it well. It came from Julian's forebears. Anne +had always loved it, and I was delighted that she should have it now. +She set it on a table before a mirror, and here it did a double +share to make the room possible. + +When we were alone I expressed my opinion of her choice of lodgings. + +"This sunless cavern!" I said. "This parlour-car furniture!" + +She looked a little hurt. "You don't like it?" she said. + +"Do you?" I snapped back. + +After a time I had recourse to the old argument that it didn't look +well; that it wasn't fair to Julian. But she had been expecting this. + +"My dear Walter," she answered, "you must try to be more consistent. +In Paris you told me that I must cease to regulate my life by Julian. +You were quite right. This place pleases me, and I don't intend to go +to a hotel, which I hate, or to take a house, which is a bother, in +order to soothe Julian's feelings. I have begun to lead my life to +suit myself." + +The worst of it was, I could think of no answer. + +A few evenings afterward we dined at the same house. Anne arrived +with a scarf on her head, under the escort of a maid. She had come +in a trolley car. Nobody's business but her own, perhaps, if she +would have allowed it to remain so, but when she got up to go, and +other people were talking of their motors' being late, Anne had to +say: "Mine is never late; it goes past the corner every minute." + +I could almost hear a sigh, "Poor angel!" go round the room. + +The next thing that happened was that Julian sent for me. He was in +what we used to call in the nursery "a state." + +"What's this I hear about Anne's being hard up?" he said. "Living in +a nasty flat, and going out to dinner in the cars?" And he wouldn't +listen to an explanation. "She must take more; she must be made to +take more." + +I had one of my most unfortunate inspirations. I thought I saw an +opportunity for Julian to make an impression. + +"I don't think she would listen to me," I said. "Why don't you get +Mr. Granger to speak to her?" + +The idea appealed to Julian. He admired Mr. Granger, and remembered +that he and Anne had been friends. Whereas I thought, of course, that +Mr. Granger would thus be made to see that the fault, if there were +a fault, was not of Julian's generosity. Stupidly enough I failed to +see that if Julian's offer was graceful Anne's gesture of refusal +would be upon a splendid scale. + +And it must have been very large, indeed, to stir old Granger as it +did. He told me there had been tears in his eyes while she spoke of +her husband's kindness. Kindness! He could not but compare her +surroundings with the little house, all geraniums and muslin curtains, +in which the new Mrs. Chelmsford was lodged. Anne had refused, of +course. In the circumstances she could not accept. She said she had +quite enough for a single woman. The phrase struck Granger as almost +unbearably pathetic. + +One day I noticed the loving cup--which was always on Anne's table, +which was admired by everyone who came to the apartment, and was +said to recall her, herself, so pure and graceful and perfect--one +day the loving cup was gone. + +I was so surprised when my eye fell on its vacant place that I +blurted out: "Goodness, Anne, where's your cup?" + +The next moment I could have bitten out my tongue. Anne stood still +in the middle of the room, twisting her hands a little, and +everyone--there were three or four of us there--stopped talking. + +"Oh," she said, "oh, Walter, I know you'll scold me for being +officious and wrong-headed, but I have sent the cup back to Julian's +son. I think he ought to have it." + +Everyone else thought the deed extremely noble. I took my hat and +went to Rose. Rose was not very enthusiastic. A beautiful letter had +accompanied the cup. We discussed the advisability of sending it back; +but of course that would have done no good. The devilish part of a +favour is that to accept or reject it is often equally incriminating. +Anne held the situation in the hollow of her hand. Besides, as Rose +pointed out, we couldn't very well return it without asking Julian, +and we had both agreed that for the present Julian had better remain +in ignorance of the incident. He would have thought it mean-spirited +to allow any instance of Anne's generosity to remain concealed from +the public. Rose and I were willing to allow it to drop. + +I was sorry, therefore, when I found, soon after, not only that +everyone knew of the gift but that phrases of the beautiful letter +itself were current, with marks of authenticity upon them. It was +not hard to trace them to Anne's intimates. + +I have no idea to this day whether Anne was deliberately trying to +ruin the man for whom she had sacrificed so much; or whether one of +those large, unconscious, self-indulgent movements of our natures +was carrying her along the line of least resistance. There are some +people, I know, who can behave well only so long as they have the +centre of the stage, and are driven by a necessity almost moral to +regain such a place at any cost, so that they may once again begin +the exercise of their virtues. + +Anne's performance was too perfect, I thought, for conscious art, +and she was not a genius. She was that most dangerous of all engines, +a good person behaving wickedly. All her past of high-mindedness and +kindness protected her now like an armour from the smallest suspicion. +All the grandeur of her conduct at the time of the divorce was +remembered as a proof that she at least had a noble soul. Who could +doubt that she wished him well? + +If so, she soon appeared to be the only person who did. For, as we +all know, pity is one of the most dangerous passions to unloose. It +demands a victim. We rise to pathos, only over the dead bodies of +our nearest and dearest. + +Every phrase, every gesture of Anne's stirred one profoundly, and it +was inevitable, I suppose, that Julian should be selected as the +sacrifice. I noticed that people began to speak of him in the past, +though he was still moving among us--"As Julian used to say." + +He and Anne fortunately never met, but she and the new Mrs. Julian +had one encounter in public. If even then Anne would have shown the +slightest venom all might still have been well. But, no, the worn, +elderly woman, face to face with the young beauty who had possessed +herself of everything in the world, showed nothing but a tenderness +so perfect that every heart was wrung. I heard Rose criticized for +not receiving her in the same spirit. + +The next day Julian was blackballed at a philanthropic club at which +he had allowed himself to be proposed merely from a sense of civic +duty. + +Over the incident I know Anne wept. I heard her tears. + +"Oh, if I could have spared him that!" she said. + +My eyes were cold, but those of Mr. Granger, who came in while her +eyelids were still red, were full of fire. + +She spent a week with the Grangers that summer. The whole +family--wife, sons and daughters--had all yielded to the great +illusion. + +It must not be supposed that I had failed to warn Julian. The +supineness of his attitude was one of the most irritating features +of the case. He answered me as if I were violating the dead; asked +me if by any chance I didn't see he deserved all he was getting. + +No one was surprised when in the autumn he resigned from his firm. +There had been friction between the partners for some time. Soon +afterward he and Rose sailed for Italy, where they have lived ever +since. He had scarcely any income except that which he made in his +profession; his capital had gone to Anne. He probably thought that +what he had would go further abroad. + +I do not know just how Anne took his departure, except that I am +sure she was wonderful about it. I had ceased to see her. She has, +however, any number of new friends, whose fresh interest in her +story keeps it continually alive. She has given up her ugly flat and +taken a nice little house, and in summer I notice she has red +geraniums in the window boxes. I often see a nice little motor +standing before her door--the result doubtless of a year's economy. + +Whenever her friends congratulate her on the improvement in her +finances she says she owes it all to me--I am such an excellent man +of business. + +"I admire Walter so much," I am told she says, "though I'm afraid I +have lost him as a friend. But then, in the last few years I have +lost so much." And she smiles that brave sad smile of hers. + + + + +THE FACE IN THE WINDOW + + +BY WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY + +From _The Red Book_ + + +At nine o'clock this morning Sheriff Crumpett entered our New England +town post-office for his mail. From his box he extracted his monthly +Grand Army paper and a letter in a long yellow envelope. This +envelope bore the return-stamp of a prominent Boston lumber-company. +The old man crossed the lobby to the writing-shelf under the Western +Union clock, hooked black-rimmed glasses on a big nose and tore a +generous inch from the end of the envelope. + +The first inclosure which met his eyes was a check. It was heavy and +pink and crisp, and was attached to the single sheet of letter-paper +with a clip. Impressed into the fabric of the safety-paper were the +indelible figures of a protector: _Not over Five Thousand_ ($5000) +_Dollars_. + +The sheriff read the name of the person to whom it was payable and +gulped. His gnarled old hand trembled with excitement as he glanced +over the clipped letter and then went through it again. + + + November 10, 1919. + + MY DEAR SHERIFF: + + Enclosed please find my personal check for five thousand dollars. + It is made out to Mrs. McBride. Never having known the lady + personally, + and because you have evidently represented her with the authorities, + I am sending it to you for proper delivery. I feel, from your + enthusiastic account of her recent experience, that it will give + you + pleasure to present it to her. + + Under the circumstances I do not begrudge the money. When first + advised of Ruggam's escape, it was hot-headed impulse which + prompted + me to offer a reward so large. The old clan-blood of the Wileys + must + have made me murder-mad that Ruggam should regain his freedom + permanently + after the hellish thing he did to my brother. The newspapers heard + of it, + and then I could not retract. + + That, however, is a thing of the past. I always did detest a + welcher, + and if this money is going to a woman to whom it will be manna from + heaven--to use your words--I am satisfied. Convey to her my + personal + congratulations, gratitude and best wishes. + + Cordially yours, + + C. V. D. WILEY. + + +"Good old Chris!" muttered the sheriff. "He's rich because he's white." +He thrust both check and letter back into the long envelope and +headed for the office of our local daily paper at a smart pace. + +The earning of five thousand dollars reward-money by Cora McBride +made an epochal news-item, and in that night's paper we headlined it +accordingly--not omitting proper mention of the sheriff and giving +him appropriate credit. + +Having so started the announcement permeating through the community, +the old man employed the office phone and called the local +livery-stable. He ordered a rig in which he might drive at once to +the McBride house in the northern part of town. + +"But half that money ought to be yourn!" protested the proprietor of +the stable as the sheriff helped him "gear up the horse" a few +minutes later. + +"Under the circumstances, Joseph, can you see me takin' it? No; it +ain't in me to horn in for no rake-off on one o' the Lord's miracles." + +The old man climbed into the sleigh, took the reins from the +liveryman and started the horse from the livery yard. + +Two weeks ago--on Monday, the twenty-seventh of the past October--the +telephone-bell rang sharply in our newspaper-office a few moments +before the paper went to press. Now, the telephone-bell often rings +in our newspaper-office a few moments before going to press. The +confusion on this particular Monday afternoon, however, resulted from +Albany calling on the long-distance. Albany--meaning the nearest +office of the international press-association of which our paper is +a member--called just so, out of a clear sky, on the day McKinley +was assassinated, on the day the _Titanic_ foundered and on the day +Austria declared war on Serbia. + +The connection was made, and over the wire came the voice of young +Stewart, crisp as lettuce. + +"Special dispatch ... Wyndgate, Vermont, October 27th ... Ready?" +The editor of our paper answered in the affirmative. The rest of us +grouped anxiously around his chair. Stewart proceeded: + +"'Hapwell Ruggam, serving a life-sentence for the murder of Deputy +Sheriff Martin Wiley at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two years ago, +killed Jacob Lambwell, his guard, and escaped from prison at noon +to-day. + +"'Ruggam had been given some repair work to do near the outer +prison-gate. It was opened to admit a tradesman's automobile. As +Guard Lambwell turned to close the gate, Ruggam felled him with his +shovel. He escaped to the adjacent railroad-yards, stole a corduroy +coat and pair of blue overalls hanging in a switchman's shanty and +caught the twelve-forty freight up Green River.'" + +Stewart had paused. The editor scribbled frantically. In a few words +aside he explained to us what Stewart was sending. Then he ordered +the latter to proceed. + +"'Freight Number Eight was stopped by telegraph near Norwall. The +fugitive, assuming correctly that it was slowing down for search, +was seen by a brakeman fleeing across a pasture between the tracks +and the eastern edge of Haystack Mountain. Several posses have +already started after him, and sheriffs all through northern New +England are being notified. + +"'Christopher Wiley, lumber magnate and brother of Ruggam's former +victim, on being told of the escape, has offered a reward of five +thousand dollars for Ruggam's capture, dead or alive. Guard Lambwell +was removed to a hospital, where he died at one-thirty'.... _All +right_?" + +The connection was broken, and the editor removed the headpiece. He +began giving orders. We were twenty minutes behind usual time with +the papers, but we made all the trains. + +When the big Duplex was grinding out newsprint with a roar that shook +the building, the boys and girls gathered around to discuss the thing +which had happened. + +The Higgins boy, saucer-eyed over the experience of being "on the +inside" during the handling of the first sizable news-story since he +had become our local reporter, voiced the interrogation on the faces +of other office newcomers. + +"Ruggam," the editor explained, "is a poor unfortunate who should +have been sent to an asylum instead of the penitentiary. He killed +Mart Wiley, a deputy sheriff, at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two +years ago." + +"Where's the Lost Nation?" + +"It's a term applied to most of the town of Partridgeville in the +northern part of the county--an inaccessible district back in the +mountains peopled with gone-to-seed stock and half-civilized +illiterates who only get into the news when they load up with +squirrel whisky and start a programme of progressive hell. Ruggam +was the local blacksmith." + +"What's a kitchen-dance?" + +"Ordinarily a kitchen-dance is harmless enough. But the Lost Nation +folks use it as an excuse for a debauch. They gather in some sizable +shack, set the stove out into the yard, soak themselves in aromatic +spirits of deviltry and dance from Saturday night until Monday +noon----" + +"And this Ruggam killed a sheriff at one of them?" + +"He got into a brawl with another chap about his wife. Someone +passing saw the fight and sent for an officer. Mart Wiley was deputy, +afraid of neither man, God nor devil. Martin had grown disgusted +over the petty crime at these kitchen-dances and started out to +clean up this one right. Hap Ruggam killed him. He must have had help, +because he first got Mart tied to a tree in the yard. Most of the +crowd was pie-eyed by this time, anyhow, and would fight at the drop +of a hat. After tying him securely, Ruggam caught up a billet of +wood and--and killed him with that." + +"Why didn't they electrocute him?" demanded young Higgins. + +"Well, the murder wasn't exactly premeditated. Hap wasn't himself; +he was drunk--not even able to run away when Sheriff Crumpett +arrived in the neighbourhood to take him into custody. Then there +was Hap's bringing up. All these made extenuating circumstances." + +"There was something about Sheriff Wiley's pompadour," suggested our +little lady proofreader. + +"Yes," returned the editor. "Mart had a queer head of hair. It was +dark and stiff, and he brushed it straight back in a pompadour. When +he was angry or excited, it actually rose on his scalp like wire. +Hap's counsel made a great fuss over Mart's pompadour and the part +it sort of played in egging Hap on. The sight of it, stiffening and +rising the way it did maddened Ruggam so that he beat it down +hysterically in retaliation for the many grudges he fancied +he owed the officer. No, it was all right to make the sentence +life-imprisonment, only it should have been an asylum. Hap's not +right. You'd know it without being told. I guess it's his eyes. They +aren't mates. They light up weirdly when he's drunk or excited, and +if you know what's healthy, you get out of the way." + +By eight o'clock that evening most of the valley's deer-hunters, all +of the local adventurers who could buy, borrow or beg a rifle, and +the usual quota of high-school sons of thoughtless parents were off +on the man-hunt in the eastern mountains. + +Among them was Sheriff Crumpett's party. On reaching the timberline +they separated. It was agreed that if any of them found signs of +Ruggam, the signal for assistance was five shots in quick succession +"and keep shooting at intervals until the rest come up." + +We newspaper folk awaited the capture with professional interest and +pardonable excitement.... + +In the northern part of our town, a mile out on the Wickford road, +is the McBride place. It is a small white house with a red barn in +the rear and a neat rail fence inclosing the whole. Six years ago +Cora McBride was bookkeeper in the local garage. Her maiden name was +Allen. The town called her "Tomboy Allen." She was the only daughter +of old Zeb Allen, for many years our county game-warden. Cora, as we +had always known--and called--her, was a full-blown, red-blooded, +athletic girl who often drove cars for her employer in the days when +steering-wheels manipulated by women were offered as clinching proof +that society was headed for the dogs. + +Duncan McBride was chief mechanic in the garage repairshop. He was +an affable, sober, steady chap, popularly known as "Dunk the +Dauntless" because of an uncanny ability to cope successfully with +the ailments of 90 per cent, of the internal-combustion hay-balers +and refractory tin-Lizzies in the county when other mechanics had +given them up in disgust. + +When he married his employer's bookkeeper, Cora's folks gave her a +wedding that carried old Zeb within half an hour of insolvency and +ran to four columns in the local daily. Duncan and the Allen girl +motored to Washington in a demonstration-car, and while Dunk was +absent, the yard of the garage resembled the premises about a +junkshop. On their return they bought the Johnson place, and Cora +quickly demonstrated the same furious enthusiasm for homemaking and +motherhood that she had for athletics and carburetors. + +Three years passed, and two small boys crept about the yard behind +the white rail fence. Then--when Duncan and his wife were "making a +great go of matrimony" in typical Yankee fashion--came the tragedy +that took all the vim out of Cora, stole the ruddy glow from her +girlish features and made her middle-aged in a twelvemonth. In the +infantile-paralysis epidemic which passed over New England three +years ago the McBrides suffered the supreme sorrow--twice. Those +small boys died within two weeks of each other. + +Duncan of course kept on with his work at the garage. He was quieter +and steadier than ever. But when we drove into the place to have a +carburetor adjusted or a rattle tightened, we saw only too plainly +that on his heart was a wound the scars of which would never heal. +As for Cora, she was rarely seen in the village. + +Troubles rarely come singly. One afternoon this past August, Duncan +completed repairs on Doc Potter's runabout. Cranking the machine to +run it from the workshop, the "dog" on the safety-clutch failed to +hold. The acceleration of the engine threw the machine into high. +Dunk was pinned in front while the roadster leaped ahead and rammed +the delivery truck of the Red Front Grocery. + +Duncan was taken to our memorial hospital with internal injuries and +dislocation of his spine. He remained there many weeks. In fact, he +had been home only a couple of days when the evening stage left in +the McBride letter-box the daily paper containing the story of +Ruggam's "break" and of the reward offered for his capture. + +Cora returned to the kitchen after obtaining the paper and sank +wearily into a wooden chair beside the table with the red cloth. +Spreading out the paper, she sought the usual mental distraction in +the three-and four-line bits which make up our local columns. + +As the headlines caught her eye, she picked up the paper and entered +the bedroom where Duncan lay. There were telltale traces of tears on +his unshaven face, and an ache in his discouraged heart that would +not be assuaged, for it was becoming rumoured about the village that +Dunk the Dauntless might never operate on the vitals of an ailing +tin-Lizzie again. + +"Dunnie," cried his wife, "Hap Ruggam's escaped!" Sinking down beside +the bedroom lamp, she read him the article aloud. + +Her husband's name was mentioned therein; for when the sheriff had +commandeered an automobile from the local garage to convey him and +his posse to Lost Nation and secure Ruggam, Duncan had been called +forth to preside at the steering-wheel. He had thus assisted in the +capture and later had been a witness at the trial. + +The reading ended, the man rolled his head. + +"If I wasn't held here, I might go!" he said. "I might try for that +five thousand myself!" + +Cora was sympathetic enough, of course, but she was fast approaching +the stage where she needed sympathy herself. + +"We caught him over on the Purcell farm," mused Duncan. "Something +ailed Ruggam. He was drunk and couldn't run. But that wasn't all. He +had had some kind of crazy-spell during or after the killing and +wasn't quite over it. We tied him and lifted him into the auto. His +face was a sight. His eyes aren't mates, anyhow, and they were wild +and unnatural. He kept shrieking something about a head of +hair--black hair--sticks up like wire. He must have had an awful +impression of Mart's face and that hair of his." + +"I remember about Aunt Mary Crumpett's telling me of the trouble her +husband had with his prisoner in the days before the trial," his +wife replied. "He had those crazy-spells often, nights. He kept +yelling that he saw Martin Wiley's head with its peculiar hair, and +his face peering in at him through the cell window. Sometimes he +became so bad that Sheriff Crumpett thought he'd have apoplexy +Finally he had to call Dr. Johnson to attend him." + +"Five thousand dollars!" muttered Duncan. "Gawd! I'd hunt the devil +_for nothing_ if I only had a chance of getting out of this bed." + +Cora smoothed her husband's rumpled bed, comforted him and laid her +own tired head down beside his hand. When he had dozed off, she +arose and left the room. + +In the kitchen she resumed her former place beside the table with +the cheap red cloth; and there, with her face in her hands, she +stared into endless distance. + +"Five thousand dollars! Five thousand dollars!" Over and over she +whispered the words, with no one to hear. + +The green-birch fire snapped merrily in the range. The draft sang in +the flue. Outside, a soft, feathery snow was falling, for winter +came early in the uplands of Vermont this past year. To Cora McBride, +however, the winter meant only hardship. Within another week she +must go into town and secure work. Not that she minded the labour +nor the trips through the vicious weather! The anguish was leaving +Duncan through those monotonous days before he should be up and +around. Those dreary winter days! What might they not do to +him--alone. + +Five thousand dollars! Like many others in the valley that night she +pictured with fluttering heart what it would mean to possess such a +sum of money; but not once in her pitiful flight of fancy did she +disregard the task which must be performed to gain that wealth. + +It meant traveling upward in the great snowbound reaches of Vermont +mountain-country and tracking down a murderer who had killed a +second time to gain his freedom and would stop at nothing again. + +And yet--_five thousand dollars_! + +How much will a person do, how far will a normal human being travel, +to earn five thousand dollars--if the need is sufficiently +provocative? + +As Cora McBride sat there in the homely little farmhouse kitchen and +thought of the debts still existent, contracted to save the already +stricken lives of two little lads forgotten now by all but herself +and Duncan and God, of the chances of losing their home if Duncan +could work no more and pay up the balance of their mortgage, of the +days when Duncan must lie in the south bedroom alone and count the +figures on the wallpaper--as she sat there and contemplated these +things, into Cora McBride's heart crept determination. + +At first it was only a faint challenge to her courage. As the +minutes passed, however, her imagination ran riot, with five +thousand dollars to help them in their predicament. The challenge +grew. Multitudes of women down all the years had attempted wilder +ventures for those who were dear to them. Legion in number had been +those who set their hands and hearts to greater tasks, made more +improbable sacrifices, taken greater chances. Multitudes of them, too, +had won--on little else than the courage of ignorance and the +strength of desperation. + +She had no fear of the great outdoors, for she had lived close to +the mountains from childhood and much of her old physical resiliency +and youthful daredeviltry remained. And the need was terrible; no +one anywhere in the valley, not even her own people, knew how +terrible. + +Cora McBride, alone by her table in the kitchen, that night made her +decision. + +She took the kitchen lamp and went upstairs. Lifting the top of a +leather trunk, she found her husband's revolver. With it was a belt +and holster, the former filled with cartridges. In the storeroom +over the back kitchen she unhooked Duncan's mackinaw and found her +own toboggan-cap. From a corner behind some fishing-rods she +salvaged a pair of summer-dried snowshoes; they had facilitated many +a previous hike in the winter woods with her man of a thousand +adventures. She searched until she found the old army-haversack +Duncan used as a game-bag. Its shoulder-straps were broken but a +length of rope sufficed to bind it about her shoulders, after she +had filled it with provisions. + +With this equipment she returned below-stairs. She drew on heavy +woollen stockings and buckled on arctics. She entered the cold +pantry and packed the knapsack with what supplies she could find at +the hour. She did not forget a drinking-cup, a hunting-knife or +matches. In her blouse she slipped a household flash-lamp. + +Dressed finally for the adventure, from the kitchen she called +softly to her husband. He did not answer. She was overwhelmed by a +desire to go into the south bedroom and kiss him, so much might +happen before she saw him again. But she restrained herself. She +must not waken him. + +She blew out the kerosene lamp, gave a last glance about +her familiar kitchen and went out through the shed door, closing it +softly behind her. + +It was one of those close, quiet nights when the bark of a distant +dog or whinny of a horse sounds very near at hand. The snow was +falling feathery. + +An hour later found her far to the eastward, following an old side +road that led up to the Harrison lumber-job. She had meantime paid +Dave Sheldon, a neighbour's boy, encountered by his gate, to stay +with Duncan during her absence which she explained with a white lie. +But her conscience did not bother. Her conscience might be called +upon to smother much more before the adventure was ended. + +Off in the depths of the snowing night she strode along, a weird +figure against the eerie whiteness that illumined the winter world. +She felt a strange wild thrill in the infinite out-of-doors. The +woodsman's blood of her father was having its little hour. + +And she knew the woods. Intuitively she felt that if Ruggam was on +Haystack Mountain making his way toward Lost Nation, he would strike +for the shacks of the Green Mountain Club or the deserted +logging-camps along the trail, secreting himself in them during his +pauses for rest, for he had no food, and provisions were often left +in these structures by hunters and mountain hikers. Her plan was +simple. She would investigate each group of buildings. She had the +advantage of starting on the northwest side of Haystack. She would +be working toward Ruggam, while the rest of the posses were trailing +him. + +Mile after mile she covered. She decided it must be midnight when +she reached the ghostly buildings of the Harrison tract, lying white +and silent under the thickening snow. It was useless to search these +cabins; they were too near civilization. Besides, if Ruggam had left +the freight at Norwall on the eastern side of Haystack at noon, he +had thirty miles to travel before reaching the territory from which +she was starting. So she skirted the abandoned quiet of the clearing, +laid the snowshoes properly down before her and bound the thongs +securely about her ankles. + +She had plenty of time to think of Ruggam as she padded along. He +had no snowshoes to aid him, unless he had managed to secure a pair +by burglary, which was improbable. So it was not difficult to +calculate about where she should begin watching for him. She +believed he would keep just off the main trail to avoid detection, +yet take its general direction in order to secure shelter and +possible food from the mountain buildings. When she reached the +country in which she might hope to encounter him, she would zigzag +across that main trail in order to pick up his foot-tracks if he had +passed her undetected. In that event she would turn and follow. She +knew that the snow was falling too heavily to continue in such +volume indefinitely; it would stop as suddenly as it had started. + +The hours of the night piled up. The silent, muffling snowfall +continued. And Cora McBride began to sense an alarming weariness. It +finally dawned upon her that her old-time vigour was missing. The +strength of youth was hers no longer. Two experiences of motherhood +and no more exercise than was afforded by the tasks of her household, +had softened her muscles. Their limitations were now disclosed. + +The realization of those limitations was accompanied by panic. She +was still many miles even from Blind Brook Cabin, and her limbs were +afire from the unaccustomed effort. This would never do. After +pauses for breath that were coming closer and closer together, she +set her lips each time grimly. "Tomboy Allen" had not counted on +succumbing to physical fatigue before she had climbed as far as +Blind Brook. If she were weakening already, what of those many miles +on the other side? + +Tuesday the twenty-eighth of October passed with no tidings of +Ruggam's capture. The Holmes boy was fatally shot by a rattleheaded +searcher near Five-Mile Pond, and distraught parents began to take +thought of their own lads missing from school. Adam MacQuarry broke +his leg near the Hell Hollow schoolhouse and was sent back by +friends on a borrowed bobsled. Several ne'er-do-wells, long on +impulse and short on stickability, drifted back to more comfortable +quarters during the day, contending that if Hap were captured, the +officers would claim the reward anyhow--so what was the use bucking +the System? + +The snowfall stopped in the early morning. Sunrise disclosed the +world trimmed from horizon to horizon in fairy fluff. Householders +jocosely shoveled their walks; small children resurrected attic sleds; +here and there a farmer appeared on Main Street during the forenoon +in a pung-sleigh or cutter with jingling bells. The sun soared higher, +and the day grew warmer. Eaves began dripping during the noon hour, +to stop when the sun sank about four o'clock behind Bancroft's hill. + +After the sunset came a perfect evening. The starlight was magic. +Many people called in at the newspaper-office, after the movies, to +learn if the man hunt had brought results. + +Between ten and eleven o'clock the lights on the valley floor +blinked out; the town had gone to bed--that is, the lights blinked +out in all homes excepting those on the eastern outskirts, where +nervous people worried over the possibilities of a hungry, hunted +convict's burglarizing their premises, or drawn-faced mothers lived +mentally through a score of calamities befalling red-blooded sons +who had now been absent twenty-four hours. + +Sometime between nine o'clock and midnight--she had no way of +telling accurately--Cora McBride stumbled into the Lyons clearing. +No one would have recognized in the staggering, bedraggled +apparition that emerged from the silhouette of the timber the figure +that had started so confidently from the Harrison tract the previous +evening. + +For over an hour she had hobbled blindly. It was wholly by accident +that she had stumbled into the clearing. And the capture of Ruggam +had diminished in importance. Warm food, water that would not tear +her raw throat, a place to lie and recoup her strength after the +chilling winter night--these were the only things that counted now. +Though she knew it not, in her eyes burned the faint light of fever. +When a snag caught her snowshoe and tripped her, there was hysteria +in her cry of resentment. + +As she moved across from the timber-line her hair was revealed +fallen down; she had lost a glove, and one hand and wrist were +cruelly red where she had plunged them several times into the snow +to save herself from falling upon her face. She made but a few yards +before the icy thong of her right snowshoe snapped. She did not +bother to repair it. Carrying it beneath her arm, she hobbled +brokenly toward the shelter of the buildings. + +Her failure at the other cabins, the lack, thus far, of all signs of +the fugitive, the vastness of the hunting-ground magnified by the +loneliness of winter, had convinced her finally that her quest was +futile. It was all a venture of madness. The idea that a woman, +alone and single-handed, with no weapon but a revolver, could track +down and subdue a desperate murderer in winter mountains where +hardly a wild thing stirred, and make him return with her to the +certain penalty--this proved how much mental mischief had again been +caused by the lure of money. The glittering seduction of gold had +deranged her. She realized it now, her mind normal in an exhausted +body. So she gained the walls of the buildings and stumbled around +them, thoughtless of any possible signs of the fugitive. + +The stars were out in myriads. The Milky Way was a spectacle to +recall vividly the sentiment of the Nineteenth Psalm. The +log-buildings of the clearing, every tree-trunk and bough in the +woods beyond, the distant skyline of stump and hollow, all stood out +sharply against the peculiar radiance of the snow. The night was as +still as the spaces between the planets. + +Like some wild creature of those winter woods the woman clumped and +stumbled around the main shack, seeking the door. + +Finding it, she stopped; the snowshoe slipped from beneath her arm; +one numb hand groped for the log door-casing in support; the other +fumbled for the revolver. + +Tracks led into that cabin! + +A paralysis of fright gripped Cora McBride. Something told her +intuitively that she stood face to face at last with what she had +traveled all this mountain wilderness to find. Yet with sinking +heart it also came to her that if Hap Ruggam had made these tracks +and were still within, she must face him in her exhausted condition +and at once make that tortuous return trip to civilization. There +would be no one to help her. + +She realized in that moment that she was facing the primal. And she +was not primal. She was a normal woman, weakened to near-prostration +by the trek of the past twenty-four hours. Was it not better to turn +away while there was time? + +She stood debating thus, the eternal silence blanketing forest-world +and clearing. But she was allowed to make no decision. + +A living body sprang suddenly upon her. Before she could cry out, +she was borne down precipitously from behind. + +She tried to turn the revolver against the Thing upon her, but the +gun was twisted from her raw, red fingers. The snow into which she +had been precipitated blinded her. She smeared an arm across her eyes, +but before clear sight was regained, talon fingers had gripped her +shoulders. She was half lifted, half dragged through the doorway, +and there she was dropped on the plank flooring. Her assailant, +turning, made to close and bar the door. + +When she could see clearly, she perceived a weak illumination in the +cabin. On the rough bench-table, shaded by two slabs of bark, burned +the stub of a tallow candle probably left by some hunting-party. + +The windows were curtained with rotting blankets. Some rough +furniture lay about; rusted cooking-utensils littered the tables, +and at one end was a sheet-iron stove. The place had been equipped +after a fashion by deer-hunters or mountain hikers, who brought +additional furnishings to the place each year and left mouldy +provisions and unconsumed firewood behind. + +The man succeeded finally in closing the door. He turned upon her. + +He was short and stocky. The stolen corduroy coat covered +blacksmith's muscles now made doubly powerful by dementia. His hair +was lifeless black and clipped close, prison-fashion. His low +forehead hung over burning, mismated eyes. From her helplessness on +the floor Cora McBride stared up at him. + +He came closer. + +"Get up!" he ordered. "Take that chair. And don't start no +rough-house; whether you're a woman or not, I'll drill you!" + +She groped to the indicated chair and raised herself, the single +snowshoe still dragging from one foot. Again the man surveyed her. +She saw his eyes and gave another inarticulate cry. + +"Shut your mouth and keep it shut! You hear me?" + +She obeyed. + +The greenish light burned brighter in his mismated eyes, which gazed +intently at the top of her head as though it held something unearthly. + +"Take off your hat!" was his next command. + +She pulled off the toque. Her hair fell in a mass on her +snow-blotched shoulders. Her captor advanced upon her. He reached out +and satisfied himself by touch that something was not there which he +dreaded. In hypnotic fear she suffered that touch. It reassured him. + +"Your hair now," he demanded; "it don't stand up, does it? No, o' +course it don't. You ain't _him_; you're a woman. But if your hair +comes up, I'll kill you--understand? If your hair comes up, _I'll +kill you_!" + +She understood. She understood only too well. She was not only housed +with a murderer; she was housed with a maniac. She sensed, also, why +he had come to this mountain shack so boldly. In his dementia he knew +no better. And she was alone with him, unarmed now. + +"I'll keep it down," she whispered, watching his face out of +fear-distended eyes. + +The wind blew one of the rotten blankets inward. Thereby she knew +that the window-aperture on the south wall contained no sash. He +must have removed it to provide means of escape in case he were +attacked from the east door. He must have climbed out that window +when she came around the shack; that is how he had felled her from +behind. + +He stepped backward now until he felt the edge of the bench touch +his calves. Then he sank down, one arm stretched along the table's +rim, the hand clutching the revolver. + +"Who are you?" he demanded. + +"I'm Cora McB----" She stopped--she recalled in a flash the part her +husband had played in his former capture and trial. "I'm Cora Allen," +she corrected. Then she waited, her wits in chaos. She was fighting +desperately to bring order out of that chaos. + +"What you doin' up here?" + +"I started for Millington, over the mountain. I lost my way." + +"Why didn't you go by the road?" + +"It's further." + +"That's a lie! It ain't. And don't lie to me, or I'll kill you!" + +"Who are you?" she heard herself asking. "And why are you acting +this way with me?" + +The man leaned suddenly forward. + +"You mean to tell me you don't know?" + +"A lumberjack, maybe, who's lost his way like myself?" + +His expression changed abruptly. + +"What you luggin' _this_ for?" He indicated the revolver. + +"For protection." + +"From what?" + +"Wild things." + +"There ain't no wild things in these mountains this time o' year; +they're snowed up, and you know it." + +"I just felt safer to have it along." + +"To protect you from men-folks, maybe?" + +"There are no men in these mountains I'm afraid of!" She made the +declaration with pathetic bravado. + +His eyes narrowed. + +"I think I better kill you," he decided. "You've seen me; you'll +tell you seen me. Why shouldn't I kill you? You'd only tell." + +"Why? What have I done to you?" she managed to stammer. "Why should +you object to being seen?" + +It was an unfortunate demand. He sprang up with a snarl. Pointing +the revolver from his hip, he drew back the hammer. + +"_Don't_!" she shrieked. "Are you crazy? Don't you know how to treat +a woman--in distress?" + +"Distress, _hell_! You know who I be. And I don't care whether +you're a woman or not, I ain't goin' to be took--you understand?" + +"Certainly I understand." + +She said it in such a way that he eased the hammer back into place +and lowered the gun. For the moment again she was safe. In response +to her terrible need, some of her latent Yankee courage came now to +aid her. "I don't see what you're making all this rumpus about," she +told him in as indifferent a voice as she could command. "I don't +see why you should want to kill a friend who might help you--if +you're really in need of help." + +"I want to get to Partridgeville," he muttered after a moment. + +"You're not far from there. How long have you been on the road?" + +"None of your business." + +"Have you had any food?" + +"No." + +"If you'll put up that gun and let me get off this snowshoe and pack, +I'll share with you some of the food I have." + +"Never you mind what I do with this gun. Go ahead and fix your foot, +and let's see what you got for grub." The man resumed his seat. + +She twisted up her tangled hair, replaced her toque and untied the +dangling snowshoe. + +Outside a tree cracked in the frost. He started in hair-trigger +fright. Creeping to the window, he peeped cautiously between casing +and blanket. Convinced that it was nothing, he returned to his seat +by the table. + +"It's too bad we couldn't have a fire," suggested the woman then. +"I'd make us something hot." The stove was there, rusted but still +serviceable; available wood was scattered around. But the man shook +his bullet head. + +After a trying time unfastening the frosted knots of the ropes that +had bound the knapsack upon her back, she emptied it onto the table. +She kept her eye, however, on the gun. He had disposed of it by +thrusting it into his belt. Plainly she would never recover it +without a struggle. And she was in no condition for physical conflict. + +"You're welcome to anything I have," she told him. + +"Little you got to say about it! If you hadn't given it up, I'd took +it away from you. So what's the difference?" + +She shrugged her shoulders. She started around behind him but he +sprang toward her. + +"Don't try no monkey-shines with me!" he snarled. "You stay here in +front where I can see you." + +She obeyed, watching him make what poor meal he could from the +contents of her bag. + +She tried to reason out what the denouement of the situation was to +be. He would not send her away peacefully, for she knew he dared not +risk the story she would tell regardless of any promises of secrecy +she might give him. If he left her bound in the cabin, she would +freeze before help came--if it ever arrived. + +No, either they were going to leave the place and journey forth +together--the Lord only knew where or with what outcome--or the life +of one of them was to end in this tragic place within the coming few +minutes. For she realized she must use that gun with deadly effect +if it were to come again into her possession. + +The silence was broken only by the noises of his lips as he ate +ravenously. Outside, not a thing stirred in that snowbound world. +Not a sound of civilization reached them. They were a man and woman +in the primal, in civilization and yet a million miles from it. + +"The candle's going out," she announced. "Is there another?" + +"There'll be light enough for what I got to do," he growled. + +Despite her effort to appear indifferent, her great fear showed +plainly in her eyes. + +"Are we going to stay here all night?" she asked with a pathetic +attempt at lightness. + +"That's my business." + +"Don't you want me to help you?" + +"You've helped me all you can with the gun and food." + +"If you're going to Partridgeville, I'd go along and show you the way." + +He leaped up. + +"_Now I know you been lyin_!'" he bellowed. "You said you was headed +for Millington. And you ain't at all. You're watchin' your chance to +get the drop on me and have me took--that's what you're doin'!" + +"Wait!" she pleaded desperately. "I _was_ going to Millington. But +I'd turn back and show you the way to Partridgeville to help you." + +"What's it to you?" He had drawn the gun from his belt and now was +fingering it nervously. + +"You're lost up here in the mountains, aren't you?" she said. +"I couldn't let you stay lost if it was possible for me to direct +you on your way." + +"You said you was lost yourself." + +"I was lost--until I stumbled into this clearing. That gave me my +location." + + +"Smart, ain't you? Damn' smart, but not too smart for me, you woman!" +The flare flamed up again in his crooked eyes. "You know who I be, +all right. You know what I'm aimin' to do. And you're stallin' for +time till you can put one over. But you can't--see? I'll have this +business done with. I'll end this business!" + +She felt herself sinking to her knees. He advanced and gripped her +left wrist. The crunch of his iron fingers sent an arrow of pain +through her arm. It bore her down. + +"For God's sake--_don't_!" she whispered hoarsely, overwhelmed with +horror. For the cold, sharp nose of the revolver suddenly punched +her neck. + +"I ain't leavin' no traces behind. Might as well be hung for a sheep +as a lamb. Never mind if I do----" + +"Look!" she cried wildly. "Look, look, _look_!" And with her free +hand she pointed behind him. + +It was an old trick. There was nothing behind him. But in that +instant of desperation instinct had guided her. + +Involuntarily he turned. + +With a scream of pain she twisted from his grasp and blotted out the +candle. + +A long, livid pencil of orange flame spurted from the gun-point. She +sensed the powder-flare in her face. He had missed. + +She scrambled for shelter beneath the table. The cabin was now in +inky blackness. Across that black four more threads of scarlet light +were laced. The man stumbled about seeking her, cursing with +blood-curdling blasphemy. + +Suddenly he tripped and went sprawling. The gun clattered from his +bruised fingers; it struck the woman's knee. + +Swiftly her hand closed upon it. The hot barrel burned her palm. + +She was on her feet in an instant. Her left hand fumbled in her +blouse, and she found what had been there all along--the flash-lamp. + +With her back against the door, she pulled it forth. With the gun +thrust forward for action she pressed the button. + +"I've got the gun--_get up_!" she ordered. "Don't come too near me +or I'll shoot. Back up against that wall." + +The bull's-eye of radiance blinded him. When his eyes became +accustomed to the light, he saw its reflection on the barrel of the +revolver. He obeyed. + +"Put up your hands. Put 'em up _high_!" + +"Suppose I won't?" + +"I'll kill you." + +"What'll you gain by that?" + +"Five thousand dollars." + +"Then you know who I be?" + +"Yes." + +"And was aimin' to take me in?" + +"Yes." + +"How you goin' to do that if I won't go?" + +"You're goin' to find out." + +"You won't get no money shootin' me." + +"Yes, I will--just as much--dead as alive." + +With his hands raised a little way above the level of his shoulders, +he stood rigidly at bay in the circle of light. + +"Well," he croaked at last, "go ahead and shoot. I ain't aimin' to +be took--not by no woman. Shoot, damn you, and have it done with. +I'm waitin'!" + +"Keep up those hands!" + +"I won't!" He lowered them defiantly. "I w-wanted to m-make +Partridgeville and see the old lady. She'd 'a' helped me. But +anything's better'n goin' back to that hell where I been the last +two years. Go on! Why don't you shoot?" + +"You wanted to make Partridgeville and see--_who_?" + +"My mother--and my wife." + +"Have you got a mother? Have you got a--wife?" + +"Yes, and three kids. Why don't you shoot?" + +It seemed an eon that they stood so. The McBride woman was trying to +find the nerve to fire. She could not. In that instant she made a +discovery that many luckless souls make too late: _to kill a man_ is +easy to talk about, easy to write about. But to stand deliberately +face to face with a fellow-human--alive, pulsing, breathing, fearing, +hoping, loving, living,--point a weapon at him that would take his +life, blot him from the earth, negate twenty or thirty years of +childhood, youth, maturity, and make of him in an instant--nothing! +--that is quite another matter. + +He was helpless before her now. Perhaps the expression on his face +had something to do with the sudden revulsion that halted her finger. +Facing certain death, some of the evil in those crooked eyes seemed +to die out, and the terrible personality of the man to fade. +Regardless of her danger, regardless of what he would have done to +her if luck had not turned the tables, Cora McBride saw before her +only a lone man with all society's hand against him, realizing he +had played a bad game to the limit and lost, two big tears creeping +down his unshaved face, waiting for the end. + +"Three children!" she whispered faintly. + +"Yes." + +"You're going back to see them?" + +"Yes, and my mother. Mother'd help me get to Canada--somehow." + +Cora McBride had forgotten all about the five thousand dollars. She +was stunned by the announcement that this man had relatives--a mother, +a wife, _three_ babies. The human factor had not before occurred to +her. Murderers! They have no license to let their eyes well with +tears, to have wives and babies, to possess mothers who will help +them get to Canada regardless of what their earthly indiscretions +may have been. + +At this revelation the gun-point wavered. The sight of those tears +on his face sapped her will-power even as a wound in her breast +might have drained her life-blood. + +Her great moment had been given her. She was letting it slip away. +She had her reward in her hand for the mere pulling of a trigger and +no incrimination for the result. For a bit of human sentiment she +was bungling the situation unpardonably, fatally. + +Why did she not shoot? Because she was a woman. Because it is the +God-given purpose of womanhood to give life, not take it. + +The gun sank, sank--down out of the light, down out of sight. + +And the next instant he was upon her. + +The flash-lamp was knocked from her hand and blinked out. It struck +the stove and she heard the tinkle of the broken lens. The woman's +hand caught at the sacking before the window at her left shoulder. +Gripping it wildly to save herself from that onslaught, she tore it +away. For the second time the revolver was twisted from her raw +fingers. + +The man reared upward, over her. + +"Where are you?" he roared again and again. "I'll show you! Lemme at +you!" + +Outside the great yellow moon of early winter, arising late, was +coming up over the silhouetted line of purple mountains to the +eastward. It illumined the cabin with a faint radiance, disclosing +the woman crouching beneath the table. + +The man saw her, pointed his weapon point-blank at her face and fired. + +To Cora McBride, prostrate there in her terror, the impact of the +bullet felt like the blow of a stick upon her cheek-bone rocking her +head. Her cheek felt warmly numb. She pressed a quick hand +involuntarily against it, and drew it away sticky with blood. + +_Click! Click! Click_! + +Three times the revolver mechanism was worked to accomplish her +destruction. But there was no further report. The cylinder was empty. + +"Oh, God!" the woman moaned. "I fed you and offered to help you. I +refused to shoot you because of your mother--your wife--your babies. +And yet you----" + +"Where's your cartridges?" he cried wildly. "You got more; gimme +that belt!" + +She felt his touch upon her. His crazy fingers tried to unbutton the +clasp of the belt and holster. But he could secure neither while she +fought him. He pinioned her at length with his knee. His fingers +secured a fistful of the cylinders from her girdle, and he opened +the chamber of the revolver. + +She realized the end was but a matter of moments. Nothing but a +miracle could save her now. + +Convulsively she groped about for something with which to strike. +Nothing lay within reach of her bleeding fingers, however, but a +little piece of dried sapling. She tried to struggle loose, but the +lunatic held her mercilessly. He continued the mechanical loading of +the revolver. + +The semi-darkness of the hut, the outline of the moon afar through +the uncurtained window--these swam before her.... Suddenly her eyes +riveted on that curtainless window and she uttered a terrifying cry. + +Ruggam turned. + +Outlined in the window aperture against the low-hung moon _Martin +Wiley, the murdered deputy, was staring into the cabin_! + +From the fugitive's throat came a gurgle. Some of the cartridges he +held spilled to the flooring. Above her his figure became rigid. +There was no mistaking the identity of the apparition. They saw the +man's hatless head and some of his neck. They saw his dark pompadour +and the outline of his skull. As that horrible silhouette remained +there, Wiley's pompadour lifted slightly as it had done in life. + +The cry in the convict's throat broke forth into words. + +"Mart Wiley!" he cried, "Mart Wiley! _Mart--Wiley_!" + +Clear, sharp, distinct was the shape of that never-to-be-forgotten +pompadour against the disk of the winter moon. His features could +not be discerned, for the source of light was behind him, but the +silhouette was sufficient. It was Martin Wiley; he was alive. His +head and his wirelike hair were moving--rising, falling. + +Ruggam, his eyes riveted upon the phantom, recoiled mechanically to +the western wall. He finished loading the revolver by the sense of +touch. Then: + +Spurt after spurt of fire lanced the darkness, directed at the Thing +in the window. While the air of the hut reeked with the acrid smoke, +the echo of the volley sounded through the silent forest-world miles +away. + +But the silhouette in the window remained. + +Once or twice it moved slightly as though in surprise; that was all. +The pompadour rose in bellicose retaliation--the gesture that had +always ensued when Wiley was angered or excited. But to bullets +fired from an earthly gun the silhouette of the murdered deputy's +ghost, arisen in these winter woods to prevent another slaughter, +was impervious. + +Ruggam saw; he shrieked. He broke the gun and spilled out the empty +shells. He fumbled in more cartridges, locked the barrel and fired +again and again, until once more it was empty. + +Still the apparition remained. + +The man in his dementia hurled the weapon; it struck the sash and +caromed off, hitting the stove. Then Hap Ruggam collapsed upon the +floor. + +The woman sprang up. She found the rope thongs which had bound her +pack to her shoulders. With steel-taut nerves, she rolled the +insensible Ruggam over. + +She tied his hands; she tied his ankles. With her last bit of rope +she connected the two bindings tightly behind him so that if he +recovered, he would be at her mercy. Her task accomplished, on her +knees beside his prone figure, she thought to glance up at the window. + +Wiley's ghost had disappeared. + +Sheriff Crumpett and his party broke into the Lyons clearing within +an hour. They had arrived in answer to five successive shots given a +few moments apart, the signal agreed upon. The mystery to them, +however, was that those five shots had been fired by some one not of +their party. + +The sheriff and his men found the McBride woman, her clothing half +torn from her body, her features powder-marked and blood-stained; +but she was game to the last, woman-fashion weeping only now that +all was over. They found, too, the man they had combed the country +to find--struggling fruitlessly in his bonds, her prisoner. + +And they likewise found the miracle. + +On the snow outside under the window they came upon a black +porcupine about the size of a man's head which, scenting food within +the cabin, had climbed to the sill, and after the habit of these +little animals whose number is legion all over the Green Mountains, +had required fifteen bullets pumped into its carcass before it would +release its hold. + +Even in death its quills were raised in uncanny duplication of Mart +Wiley's pompadour. + + + + +A MATTER OF LOYALTY + + +BY LAWRENCE PERRY + +From _The Red Book_ + +Standing in the bow of the launch, Dr. Nicholls, coach of the Baliol +crew, leaned upon his megaphone, his eyes fixed upon two eight-oared +crews resting upon their oars a hundred feet away. From his hand +dangled a stop-watch. The two crews had just completed a four-mile +race against the watch. + +A grim light came into the deeply set gray eyes of Jim Deacon as the +coach put the watch into his pocket. Deacon was the stroke of the +second varsity, an outfit which in aquatics bears the same relation +to a university eight as the scrub team does to a varsity football +eleven. But in the race just completed the second varsity had been +much of a factor--surprisingly, dishearteningly so. Nip and tuck it +had been, the varsity straining to drop the rival boat astern, but +unable to do so. At the finish not a quarter of a length, not fifteen +feet, had separated the two prows; a poor showing for the varsity to +have made with the great rowing classic of the season coming on +apace--a poor showing, that is, assuming the time consumed in the +four-mile trip was not especially low. + +Only the coach could really know whether the time was satisfactory +or not. But Jim Deacon suspected that it was poor, his idea being +based upon knowledge he had concerning the capabilities of his own +crew; in other words, he knew it was only an average second varsity +outfit. The coach knew it too. That was the reason his jaws were set, +his eyes vacant. At length he shook his head. + +"Not good, boys--not good." His voice was gentle, though usually he +was a rip-roaring mentor. "Varsity, you weren't rowing. That's the +answer--not rowing together. What's the matter, eh?" + +"I thought, Dr. Nicholls, that the rhythm was very good----" + +The coach interrupted Rollins, the captain, with a gesture. + +"Oh, rhythm! Yes, you row prettily enough. You look well. I should +hope so, at this time of the season. But you're not shoving the boat +fast; you don't pick up and get her moving. You're leaking power +somewhere; as a matter of fact, I suspect you're not putting the +power in. I know you're not. Ashburton, didn't that lowering of your +seat fix you? Well, then,"--as the young man nodded affirmatively-- +"how about your stretcher, Innis? Does it suit you now?" + +As Innis nodded, signifying that it did, Deacon saw the coach's eyes +turn to Doane, who sat at stroke of the varsity. + +"Now," muttered the stroke of the second varsity, his eyes gleaming, +"we'll hear something." + +"Doane, is there anything the trouble with you? You're feeling well, +aren't you?" + +"Yes sir. Sure!" The boy flushed. Tall, straight, handsome he sat in +the boat, fingering the oar-handle nervously. In appearance he was +the ideal oarsman. And yet---- + +Deacon, watching the coach, could almost see his mind working. Now +the time had come, the issue clearly defined. Another stroke must be +tried and found not wanting, else the annual eight-oared rowing +classic between those ancient universities Baliol and Shelburne +would be decided before it was rowed. + +Deacon flushed as the coach's glittering eyeglasses turned toward him. +It was the big moment of the senior's four years at college. Four +years! And six months of each of those years a galley-slave--on the +machines in the rowing-room of the gymnasium, on the ice-infested +river with the cutting winds of March sweeping free; then the more +genial months with the voice of coach or assistant coach lashing him. +Four years of dogged, unremitting toil with never the reward of a +varsity seat, and now with the great regatta less than a week away, +the big moment, the crown of all he had done. + +Words seemed on the verge of the coach's lips. Deacon's eyes +strained upon them as he sat stiffly in his seat. But no words came; +the coach turned away. + +"All right," he said spiritlessly. "Paddle back to the float." + +The coxswains barked their orders; sixteen oars rattled in their +locks; the glistening shells moved slowly homeward. + +Tingling from his plunge in the river, Jim Deacon walked up the +bluff from the boathouse to the group of cottages which constituted +Baliol's rowing-quarters. Some of the freshman crew were playing +indoor baseball on the lawn under the gnarled trees, and their +shouts and laughter echoed over the river. Deacon stood watching them. +His face was of the roughhewn type, in his two upper-class years his +heavy frame had taken on a vast amount of brawn and muscle. Now his +neck was meet for his head and for his chest and shoulders; long, +slightly bowed limbs filled out a picture of perfect physique. + +No one had known him really well in college. He was working his way +through. Besides, he was a student in one of the highly scientific +engineering courses which demanded a great deal of steady application. +With no great aptitude for football--he was a bit slow-footed--with +little tune or inclination for social activities, he had +concentrated upon rowing, not only as a diversion from his arduous +studies, an ordered outlet for physical energy, but with the idea of +going out into the world with that hallmark of a Baliol varsity oar +which he had heard and believed was likely to stand him in stead in +life. Baliol alumni, which include so many men of wealth and power, +had a habit of not overlooking young graduates who have brought fame +to their alma mater. + +As Deacon stood watching the freshmen at play, Dick Rollins, the +crew captain, came up. + +"They sent down the time-trial results from the Shelburne quarters, +Deacon." + +Never in his life had one of the great men of the university spoken +that many words, or half as many, to Jim Deacon, who stared at the +speaker. + +"The time--oh, yes; I see." + +"They did twenty minutes, thirty seconds." + +Deacon whistled. + +"Well," he said at length, "you didn't get the boat moving much +to-day." He wanted to say more, but could think of nothing. Words +came rather hard with him. + +"You nearly lugged the second shell ahead of us to-day, hang you." + +"No use letting a patient die because he doesn't know he's sick." + +Rollins grimaced. + +"Yes, we were sick. Doc Nicholls knows a sick crew when he sees one. +He--he thinks you're the needed tonic, Deacon." + +"Eh?" + +"He told me you were to sit in at stroke in Junior Doane's place +to-morrow. I'd been pulling for the change the past few days. Now he +sees it." + +"You were pulling----But you're Doane's roommate." + +"Yes, it's tough. But Baliol first, you know." + +Deacon stared at the man. He wanted to say something but couldn't. +The captain smiled. + +"Look here, Deacon; let's walk over toward the railroad a bit. I +want to talk to you." Linking his arm through Deacon's, he set out +through the yard toward the quaint old road with its little cluster +of farm cottages and rolling stone-walled meadow-land bathed in the +light of the setting sun. + +"Jim, old boy, you're a queer sort of a chap, and--and--the fact is, +the situation will be a bit ticklish. You know what it means for a +fellow to be thrown out of his seat just before a race upon which he +has been counting heart and soul." + +"I don't know. I can imagine." + +"You see, it's Doane. You know about his father----" + +"I know all about his father," was the reply. + +"Eh?" Rollins stared at him, then smiled. "I suppose every rowing +man at Baliol does. But you don't know as much as I do. On the quiet, +he's the man who gave us the new boathouse last year. He's our best +spender. He was an old varsity oar himself." + +"Sure, I know." + +"That's the reason the situation is delicate. Frankly, Jim, Doc +Nicholls and the rest of us would have liked to see Junior Doane +come through. I think you get what I mean. He's a senior; he's my +best friend." + +"He stroked the boat last year." + +"Yes, and Shelburne beat us. Naturally he wants to get back at that +crowd." + +"But he can't--not if he strokes the boat, Rollins. If you don't +know it, I'm telling you. If I thought different, I'd say so." +Deacon abruptly paused after so long a speech. + +"You don't have to tell me. I know it. We're not throwing a race to +Shelburne simply to please old Cephas Doane, naturally. I know what +you've got, Jim. So does Dr. Nicholls. You'll be in the varsity +to-morrow. But here's the point of what I've been trying to say; +Junior Doane hasn't been very decent to you--" + +"Oh, he's been all right." + +"Yes, I know. But he's a funny fellow; not a bit of a snob--I don't +mean that, but--but--" + +"You mean he hasn't paid much attention to me." Deacon smiled grimly. +"Well, that's all right. As a matter of fact, I never really have +got to know him. Still, I haven't got to know many of the fellows. +Too busy. You haven't paid much attention to me, either; but I like +you." + +Rollins, whose father was a multimillionaire with family roots going +deep among the rocks of Manhattan Island, laughed. + +"Bully for you! You won't mind my saying so, Jim, but I had it in my +mind to ask you to be a bit inconsequential--especially when Doane +was around--about your taking his place. But I guess it isn't +necessary." + +"No,"--Deacon's voice was short--"it isn't." + +"Junior Doane, of course, will be hard hit. He'll be game. He'll try +to win back his seat. And he may; I warn you." + +"If he can win it back, I want him to." + +"Good enough!" The captain started to walk away, then turned back +with sudden interest. "By the way, Jim, I was looking through the +college catalogue this morning. You and Doane both come from +Philadelphia, don't you?" + +"Yes." + +"I asked Doane if he knew you there. Apparently not." + +"No, he didn't." Deacon paused as though deliberating. Suddenly he +spoke. "I knew of him, though. You see, my father works in the bank +of which Mr. Doane is president." + +"Oh!" Rollins blinked. "I see." + +Deacon stepped forward, placing his hand upon the captain's arm. + +"I don't know why I told you that. It isn't important at all. Don't +say anything to Doane, will you? Not that I care. It--it just isn't +important." + +"No. I get you, Jim. It isn't important." He flung an arm over the +young man's shoulder. "Let's go back to dinner. That rotten time-row +has given me an appetite." + +There was that quiet in the Baliol dining room that evening which +one might expect to find after an unsatisfactory time-trial. Nations +might be falling, cities burning, important men dying; to these boys +such events would be as nothing in the face of the fact that the +crew of a traditional rival was to be met within the week--and that +they were not proving themselves equipped for the meeting. + +"If any of you fellows wish to motor down to the Groton Hotel on the +Point for an hour or two, you may go," said the coach, pushing back +his chair. He had begun to fear that his charges might be coming to +too fine a point of condition and had decided that the relaxation of +a bit of dancing might do no harm. + +"Yeaa!" In an instant that subdued dining apartment was tumultuous +with vocal outcry, drawing to the doorway a crowd of curious freshmen +who were finishing dinner in their room. + +"All right!" Dr. Nicholls grinned. "I gather all you varsity and +second varsity men want to go. I'll have the big launch ready at +eight. And--oh, Dick Rollins, don't forget; that boat leaves the +hotel dock at ten-forty-five precisely." + +"Got you sir. Come on, fellows. Look out, you freshmen." With a yell +and a dive the oarsmen went through the doors. + +Deacon followed at a more leisurely gait with that faint gleam of +amusement in his eyes which was so characteristic. His first impulse +was not to go, but upon second thought he decided that he would. +Jane Bostwick was stopping at the Groton. Her father was a successful +promoter and very close to Cephas Doane, Sr., whose bank stood back +of most of his operations. Deacon had known her rather well in the +days when her father was not a successful promoter. In fact, the two +had been neighbours as boy and girl, had played together in front of +a row of prim brick houses. He had not seen her in recent years until +the previous afternoon, when as he was walking along the country road, +she had pulled up in her roadster. + +"Don't pretend you don't remember me, Jim Deacon," she had laughed +as the boy had stared at the stunning young woman. + +Jim remembered her, all right. They talked as though so many +significant years had not elapsed. She was greatly interested, +exceedingly gracious. + +"Do you know," she said, "it never occurred to me that Deacon, the +Baliol rowing man, was none other than Jim Deacon. Silly of me, +wasn't it? But then I didn't even know you were in Baliol. I'm +perfectly crazy about the crew, you know. And Mother, I think, is a +worse fan than I am. You know Junior Doane, of course." + +"Oh, yes--that is, I--why, yes, I know him." + +"Yes." She smiled down upon him. "If you're ever down to the Groton, +do drop in. Mother would love to see you. She often speaks of your +mother." With a wave of her hand she had sped on her way. + +Curiously, that evening he had heard Doane talking to her over the +telephone, and there was a great deal in his manner of speaking that +indicated something more than mere acquaintance. + +But Deacon did not see Jane Bostwick at the hotel--not to speak to, +at least. He was not a good dancer and held aloof when those of his +fellows who were not acquainted with guests were introduced around. +Finding a wicker settee among some palms at one side of the orchestra, +Deacon sat drinking in the scene. + +It was not until the hour set for the return had almost arrived that +Deacon saw Jane Bostwick, and then his attention was directed to her +by her appearance with Junior Doane in one of the open French +windows at his right. Evidently the two had spent the evening in the +sequestered darkness of the veranda. No pair in the room filled the +eye so gratefully; the girl, tall, blonde, striking in a pale blue +evening gown; the man, broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, with the +handsome high-held head of a patrician. + +A wave of something akin to bitterness passed over Deacon--bitterness +having nothing to do with self. For the boy was ruggedly independent. +He believed in himself; knew what he was going to do in the world. +He was thinking of his father, and of the fathers of that young man +and girl before him. His father was painstaking, honourable, +considerate--a nobleman every inch of him; a man who deserved +everything that the world had to give, a man who had everything save +the quality of acquisition. And Doane's father? And Jane Bostwick's +father? + +Of the elder Doane he knew by hearsay--a proud, intolerant wholly +worldly man whose passions, aside from finance, were his son and +Baliol aquatics. And Jane Bostwick's father he had known as a boy--a +soft-footed, sly-faced velvety sort of a man noted for converting +back lots into oil-fields and ash-dumps into mines yielding precious +metals. Jim Deacon was not so old that he had come to philosophy +concerning the way of the world. + +But so far as his immediate world was concerned, Junior Doane was +going out of the varsity boat in the morning--and he, Jim Deacon, +was going to sit in his place. + +It came the next morning. When the oarsmen went down to the boathouse +to dress for their morning row, the arrangement of the various crews +posted on the bulletin-board gave Deacon the seat at stroke in the +varsity boat; Junior Doane's name appeared at stroke in the second +varsity list. + +There had been rumours of some sort of a shift, but no one seemed to +have considered the probability of Doane's losing his seat--Doane +least of all. For a moment the boy stood rigid, looking up at the +bulletin-board. Then suddenly he laughed. + +"All right, Carry," he said, turning to the captain of the second +varsity. "Come on; we'll show 'em what a rudder looks like." + +But it was not to be. In three consecutive dashes of a mile each, +the varsity boat moved with such speed as it had not shown all season. +There was life in the boat. Deacon, rowing in perfect form, passed +the stroke up forward with a kick and a bite, handling his oar with a +precision that made the eye of the coach glisten. And when the +nervous little coxswain called for a rousing ten strokes, the shell +seemed fairly to lift out of the water. + +In the last mile dash Dr. Nicholls surreptitiously took his +stop-watch from his pocket and timed the sprint. When he replaced +the timepiece, the lines of care which had seamed his face for the +past few days vanished. + +"All right, boys. Paddle in. Day after to-morrow we'll hold the +final time-trial. Deacon, be careful; occasionally you clip your +stroke at the finish." + +But Deacon didn't mind the admonition. He knew the coach's policy of +not letting a man think he was too good. + +"You certainly bucked up that crew to-day, Deacon." Jim Deacon, who +had been lying at full length on the turf at the top of the bluff +watching the shadows creep over the purpling waters of the river, +looked up to see Doane standing over him. His first emotion was one +of triumph. Doane, the son of Cephas Doane, his father's employer, +had definitely noticed him at last. Then the dominant emotion +came--one of sympathy. + +"Well, the second crew moved better too." + +"Oh, I worked like a dog." Doane laughed. "Of course you know I'm +going to get my place back, if I can." + +"Of course." Deacon plucked a blade of grass and placed it in his +mouth. There was rather a constrained silence for a moment. + +"I didn't know you came from my city, Deacon. I--Jane Bostwick told +me about you last night." + +"I see. I used to know her." Inwardly Deacon cursed his natural +inability to converse easily, partly fearing that Doane would +mistake his reticence for embarrassment in his presence, or on the +other hand set him down as churlish and ill bred. + +For his part Doane seemed a bit ill at ease. + +"I didn't know, of course, anything Jane told me. If I had, of course, +I'd have looked you up more at the college." + +"We're both busy there in our different ways." + +Doane stood awkwardly for a moment and then walked away, not knowing +that however he may have felt about the conversation, he had at +least increased his stature in the mind of Jim Deacon. + +Next day on the river Junior Doane's desperation at the outset +brought upon his head the criticism of the coach. + +"Doane! Doane! You're rushing your slide. Finish out your stroke, +for heaven's sake." + +Deacon, watching the oarsman's face, saw it grow rigid, saw his +mouth set. Well he knew the little tragedy through which Doane was +living. + +Doane did better after that. The second boat gave the varsity some +sharp brushes while the coxswains barked and the coach shouted +staccato objurgation and comment through his megaphone, and the +rival oarsmen swung backward and forward in the expenditure of +ultimate power and drive. + +But Jim Deacon was the man for varsity stroke. There was not the +least doubt about that. The coach could see it; the varsity could +feel it; but of them all Deacon alone knew why. He knew that Doane +was practically as strong an oar as he was, certainly as finished. +And Doane's experience was greater. The difficulty as Deacon grasped +it was that the boy had not employed all the material of his +experience. The coxswain, Seagraves, was a snappy little chap, with +an excellent opinion of his head. But Deacon had doubts as to his +racing sense. He could shoot ginger into his men, could lash them +along with a fine rhythm, but in negotiating a hard-fought race he +had his shortcomings. At least so Deacon had decided in the brushes +against the varsity shell when he was stroking the second varsity. + +Deacon thanked no coxswain to tell him how to row a race, when to +sprint, when to dog along at a steady, swinging thirty; nor did he +require advice on the pacing and general condition of a rival crew. +As he swung forward for the catch, his practice was to turn his head +slightly to one side, chin along the shoulder, thus gaining through +the tail of his eye a glimpse of any boat that happened to be abeam, +slightly ahead or slightly astern. This glance told him everything +he wished to know. The coach did not know the reason for this +peculiarity in Deacon's style, but since it did not affect his rowing, +he very wisely said nothing. To his mind the varsity boat had at +last begun to arrive, and this was no time for minor points. + +Two days before the Shelburne race the Baliol varsity in its final +time-trial came within ten seconds of equalling the lowest +downstream trial-record ever established--a record made by a +Shelburne eight of the early eighties. There was no doubt in the +mind of any one about the Baliol crew quarters that Deacon would be +the man to set the pace for his university in the supreme test +swiftly approaching. + +News of Baliol's improved form began to be disseminated in the daily +press by qualified observers of rowing form who were beginning to +flock to the scene of the regatta from New York, Philadelphia, and +various New England cities. Dr. Nicholls was reticent, but no one +could say that his demeanour was marked by gloom. Perhaps his +optimism would have been more marked had the information he +possessed concerning Shelburne been less disturbing. As a fact there +was every indication that the rival university would be represented +by one of the best crews in her history--which was to say a very +great deal. In truth, Baliol rowing enthusiasts had not seen their +shell cross the line ahead of a Shelburne varsity boat in three +consecutive years, a depressing state of affairs which in the +present season had filled every Baliol rowing man with grim +determination and the graduates with alternate hope and despair. + +"Jim," said the coach, drawing Deacon from the float upon which he +had been standing, watching the antics of a crew of former Baliol +oarsmen who had come from far and wide to row the mile race of +"Gentlemen's Eights" which annually marked the afternoon preceding +the classic regatta day, "Jim, you're not worried at all, are you? +You're such a quiet sort of a chap, I can't seem to get you." + +Deacon smiled faintly. + +"No, I'm not worried--not a bit, sir. I mean I'm going to do my best, +and if that's good enough, why--well, we win." + +"I want you to do more than your best to-morrow, Jim. It's got to be +a super-effort. You're up against a great Shelburne crew, the +greatest I ever saw--that means twelve years back. I wouldn't talk +to every man this way, but I think you're a stroke who can stand +responsibility. I think you're a man who can work the better when he +knows the size of his job. It's a big one, boy--the biggest I've +ever tackled." + +"Yes, sir." + +The coach studied him a minute. + +"How do you feel about beating Shelburne? What I mean," he went on as +the oarsman regarded him, puzzled, "is, would it break your heart to +lose? Is the thought of being beaten so serious that you can't--that +you won't consider it?" + +"No sir, I won't consider it. I don't go into anything without +wanting to come out ahead. I've worked three years to get into the +varsity. I realize the position you've given me will help me, make +me stand out after graduation, mean almost as much as my +diploma--provided we can win." + +"What about Baliol? Do you think of the college, too, and what a +victory will mean to her? What defeat will mean?" + +"Oh," Deacon shrugged; "of course," he went on a bit carelessly, +"we want to see Baliol on top as often----" He stopped, then broke +into a chuckle as the stroke of the gentlemen's eight suddenly +produced from the folds of his sweater a bottle from which he drank +with dramatic unction while his fellow-oarsmen clamoured to share +the libation and the coxswain abused them all roundly. + +The eyes of the coach never left the young man's face. But he said +nothing while Deacon took his fill of enjoyment of the jovial scene, +apparently forgetting the sentence which he had broken in the middle. + +But that evening something of the coach's meaning came to Deacon as +he sat on a rustic bench watching the colours fade from one of those +sunset skies which have ever in the hearts of rowing men who have +ever spent a hallowed June on the heights of that broad placid stream. +The Baliol graduates had lost their race against the gentlemen of +Shelburne, having rowed just a bit worse than their rivals. And now +the two crews were celebrating their revival of the ways of youth +with a dinner provided by the defeated eight. Their laughter and +their songs went out through the twilight and were lost in the +recesses of the river. One song with a haunting melody caught +Deacon's attention; he listened to get the words. + + + Then raise the rosy goblet high, + The senior's chalice and belie + The tongues that trouble and defile, + For we have yet a little while + To linger, you and youth and I, + In college days. + + +A group of oarsmen down on the lawn caught up the song and sent it +winging through the twilight, soberly, impressively, with +ever-surging harmony. College days! For a moment a dim light burned +in the back of his mind. It went out suddenly. Jim Deacon shrugged +and thought of the morrow's race. It was good to know he was going +to be a part of it. He could feel the gathering of enthusiasm, +exhilaration in the atmosphere--pent-up emotion which on the morrow +would burst like a thunderclap. In the quaint city five miles down +the river hotels were filling with the vanguard of the boat-race +throng--boys fresh from the poetry of Commencement; their older +brothers, their fathers, their grandfathers, living again the thrill +of youth and the things thereof. And mothers and sisters and +sweethearts! Deacon's nerves tingled pleasantly in response to the +glamour of the hour. + +"Oh, Jim Deacon!" + +"Hello!" Deacon turned his face toward the building whence the voice +came. + +"Somebody wants to see you on the road by the bridge over the +railroad." + +"See me? All right." + +Filled with wonder, Deacon walked leisurely out of the yard and then +reaching the road, followed in the wake of an urchin of the +neighbourhood who had brought the summons, and could tell Deacon +only that it was some one in an automobile. + +It was, in fact, Jane Bostwick. + +"Jump up here in the car, won't you, Jim?" Her voice was somewhat +tense. "No, I'm not going to drive," she added as Deacon hesitated. +"We can talk better." + +"Have you heard from your father lately?" she asked as the young man +sprang into the seat at her side. + +He started. + +"No, not in a week. Why, is there anything the matter with him?" + +"Of course not." She touched him lightly upon the arm. "You knew that +Mr. Bell, cashier of the National Penn Bank, had died?" + +"No. Is that so! That's too bad." Then suddenly Deacon sat erect. +"By George! Father is one of the assistant cashiers there. I wonder +if he'll be promoted." He turned upon the girl. "Is that what you +wanted to tell me?" + +She waited a bit before replying. + +"No--not exactly that." + +"Not exactly----What do you mean?" + +"Do you know how keen Mr. Doane, I mean Junior's father is on rowing? +Well,"--as Deacon nodded,--"have you thought how he might feel +toward the father of the man who is going to sit in his son's seat +in the race to-morrow? Would it make him keen to put that father in +Mr. Bell's place?" + +Deacon's exclamation was sharp. + +"Who asked you to put that thought in my mind?" + +"Ah!" Her hand went out, lying upon his arm. "I was afraid you were +going to take it that way. Mother was talking this afternoon. I +thought you should know. As for Junior Doane, I'm frank to admit I'm +awfully keen about him. But that isn't why I came here. I remember +how close you and your father used to be. I--I thought perhaps you'd +thank me, if--if----" + +"What you mean is that because I have beaten Doane out for stroke, +his father may be sore and not promote my father at the bank." + +"There's no 'may' about it. Mr. Doane will be sore. He'll be sore at +Junior, of course. But he'll be sore secretly at you, and where +there is a question of choice of cashier between _your_ father and +another man--even though the other man has not been so long in the +bank--how do you think his mind will work; I mean, if you lose? Of +course, if you can win, then I am sure everything will be all right. +You must----" + +"If I can win! What difference would that----" He stopped suddenly. +"I've caught what you mean." He laughed bitterly. "Parental jealousy. +All right! All right!" + +"Jim, I don't want you----" + +"Don't bother. I've heard all I can stand, Jane. Thank you." He +lurched out of the car and hurried away. + +She called him. No answer. Waiting a moment, the girl sighed, +touched the self-starter and drove away. + +Deacon had no idea of any lapse of time between the departure of the +car and himself in his cot prepared for sleep--with, however, no +idea that sleep would come. His mood was pitiable. His mind was a +mass of whirling thoughts in the midst of which he could recognize +pictures of his boyhood, a little boy doing many things--with a hand +always tucked within the fingers of a great big man who knew +everything, who could do everything, who could always explain all the +mysteries of the big, strange, booming world. There were many such +pictures, pictures not only relating to boyhood, but to his own +struggle at Baliol, to the placid little home in Philadelphia and +all that it had meant, all that it still meant, to his father, to +his mother, to him, Any act of his that would bring sorrow or dismay +or the burden of defeated hope to that home! + +But on the other hand, the morrow was to bring him the crown of +toilsome years, was to make his name one to conjure with wherever +Baliol was loved or known. He knew what the varsity _cachet_ would +do for his prospects in the world. And after all, he had his own +life to live, had he not? Would not the selfish, or rather the +rigorous, settlement of this problem, be for the best in the end, +since his making good would simply be making good for his father and +his mother? But how about his father's chance for making good on his +own account? + +A comrade in the cot adjoining heard a groan. + +"Eh! Are you sick, Deacon? Are you all right?" + +"Sure--dreaming," came the muffled reply. + +There was something unreal to Deacon about the morning. The sunlight +was filled with sinister glow; the voices of the rowing men were +strange; the whole environment seemed to have changed. It was +difficult for Jim Deacon to look upon the bronzed faces of the +fellows about the breakfast table, upon the coach with his stiff +moustache and glittering eyeglasses--difficult to look upon them and +realize that within a few hours his name would be anathema to them, +that forever where loyal men of Baliol gather he would be an outcast, +a pariah. + +That was what he would be--an outcast. For he had come to his +decision: Just what he would do he did not know. He did not know +that he would not stroke the Baliol varsity. Out of all the welter +of thought and travail had been resolved one dominant idea. His +father came first: there was no evading it. With all the +consequences that would follow the execution of his decision he was +familiar. He had come now to know what Baliol meant to him as a +place not only of education, but a place to be loved, honoured, +revered. He knew what his future might be. But--his father came first. +Arising from the breakfast-table, he spoke to but one man, Junior +Doane. + +"Doane," he said, drawing him to one side, "you will row at stroke +this afternoon." + +The man stared at him. "Are you crazy, Deacon?" + +"No, not crazy. I'm not feeling well; that's all." + +"But look here, Deacon--you want to see the coach. You're off your +head or something. Wait here, just a minute." As Doane hurried away +in search of Dr. Nicholls, Deacon turned blindly through the yard +and so out to the main road leading to a picturesque little river +city about nine miles up the stream. + +June was at her loveliest in this lovable country with its walled +fields, its serene uplands and glowing pastures, its lush river +meadows and wayside flowers. But of all this Deacon marked nothing +as with head down he tramped along with swift, dogged stride. Up the +river three or four miles farther on was the little city of which he +had so often heard but never seen, the little city of Norton, so +like certain English river-cities according to a veteran Oxford +oarsman who had visited the Baliol quarters the previous season. +Deacon had an interest in strange places; he had an eye for the +picturesque and the colourful. He would wander about the place, +filling his mind with impressions. He had always wanted to go to +Norton; it had seemed like a dream city to him. + +He was in fact striding along in the middle of the road when the +horn of a motorcar coming close behind startled him. As he turned, +the vehicle sped up to his side and then stopped with a grinding of +brakes. + +Dr. Nicholls, the coach, rose to his full height in the roadster and +glared down at Deacon, while Junior Doane, who had been driving, +stared fixedly over the wheel. The coach's voice was merely a series +of profane roars. He had ample lungs, and the things he said seemed +to echo far and wide. His stentorian anger afforded so material a +contrast to the placid environment that Deacon stood dazed under the +vocal avalanche, hearing but a blur of objurgation. + +"Eh?" He paused as Junior Doane placed an admonishing hand upon his +arm. + +"I beg your pardon, Doctor; but I don't think that is the right way. +May I say something to Deacon?" + +The coach, out of breath, nodded and gestured, sinking into his seat. +"Look here, Jim Deacon, we've come to take you back. You can't buck +out the race this way, you know. It isn't done. Now, wait a minute!" +he cried sharply as the boy in the road made to speak. "I know why +you ran away. Jane Bostwick called me up and told me everything. She +hadn't realized quite what she was doing----" + +"She--she bungled everything." + +"Bungled! What do you mean, Dr. Nicholls?" + +"Nothing--nothing! You young idiot, don't you realize you're trying +to kill yourself for life? Jump into the car." + +"I'm not going to row." Deacon's eyes smoldered upon the two. + +Studying him a moment, Dr. Nicholls suddenly grasped the seriousness +of Deacon's mood. He leaped from the car and walked up to him, +placing a hand upon his shoulder. + +"Look here, my boy: You've let a false ideal run away with you. Do +you realize that some twenty-five thousand people throughout this +country are having their interests tossed away by you? You represent +them. They didn't ask you to. You came out for the crew and worked +until you won a place for yourself, a place no one but you can fill. +There are men, there are families on this riverside to-day, who have +traveled from San Francisco, from all parts of the country, to see +Baliol at her best. There are thousands who have the right to ask us +that Shelburne is not permitted to win this afternoon. Do you +realize your respons----" + +Deacon raised his hand. + +"I've heard it said often, Dr. Nicholls, that any one who gets in +Cephas Doane's way gets crushed. I'm not afraid of him, nor of any +one else, on my own account; but I'm afraid of him because of my +father. My father is getting to be an old man. Do you think I am +going to do anyth----" Deacon's voice, which had been gathering in +intensity, broke suddenly. He couldn't go on. + +"Jim Deacon!" There was a note of exhilaration in Junior Doane's +voice. He hastily climbed out of the car and joined the coach at +Deacon's side. "I'm not going to defend my father now. No one knows +him as I do; no one knows as I do the great big stuff that is in him. +He and I have always been close, and----" + +"Then you know how he'd feel about any one who took your place in +the boat. He can't hurt me. But he can break my father's heart----" + +"Deacon, is that the opinion you have of my father!" + +"Tell me the truth, Doane; is there the chance under the conditions +that with a choice between two men in the bank he might fail to see +Father? Isn't it human nature for a man as dominant and strong as he +is, who has always had or got most of the things he wants, to feel +that way?" + +"Perhaps. But not if you can win out against Shelburne. Can't you +see your chance, Deacon? Go in and beat Shelburne; Father'll be so +glad he'll fall off the observation-train. You know how he hates +Shelburne. Any soreness he has about my missing out at stroke will +be directed at me--and it won't be soreness, merely regret. Don't you +get it?" + +"And if we lose----" + +"If we lose, there's the chance that we're all in the soup." + +"I'm not, if I keep out of this thing----" + +"If we lose with _me_ at stroke, do you suppose it will help you or +any one related to you with my father when he learns that Baliol +_would probably have won with you stroking_? + +"My Lord, Jim Deacon," Doane went on as the other did not reply, +"do you suppose this is any fun for me, arguing with you to swing an +oar this afternoon when I would give my heart's blood to swing it in +your place?" + +"Why do you do it, then?" + +"Why do I do it? Because I love Baliol. Because her interests stand +above mine. Because more than anything I want to see her win. I +didn't feel this way when you beat me out for stroke. I'll admit it. +I didn't show my feelings, but I was thinking of nothing but my +licking----" + +"Ah!" + +"Just a minute, Jim. I didn't realize the bigness of the thing, +didn't appreciate that what I wanted to do didn't count for a damn. +Baliol, only Baliol! It all came to me when you bucked out. Baliol +is all that counts, Jim. If I can help her win by rooting from the +observation-car, all right! But--don't think it's any fun for me +urging you to come back and row. For I wanted to row this race, old +boy. I--I----" + +Doane's voice faltered. "But I can't; that's all. Baliol needs a +better man--needs you. As for you, you've no right to consider +anything else. You go in--and win." + +"Win!" Jim Deacon stood in the road, rigid, his voice falling to a +whisper. "Win!" Into his eyes came a vacant expression. For a moment +the group stood in the middle of the road as though transfixed. Then +the coach placed his hand upon Deacon's arm, gently. + +"Come Jim," he said. + +The afternoon had gone silently on. Jim Deacon sat on the veranda of +the crew-quarters, his eyes fixed upon the river. Some of the crew +were trying to read; others lounged about talking in low voices. +Occasionally the referee's launch would appear off the float, the +official exchanging some words with the coach while the oarsmen +watched eagerly. Then the launch would turn and disappear. + +"Too rough yet, boys. They're going to postpone another hour." Twice +had the coach brought this word to the group of pent-up young men +who in a manner of speaking were sharing the emotions of the +condemned awaiting the executioner's summons. Would the up-river +breeze never subside and give them conditions that would be +satisfactory to the meticulous referee? + +Deacon lurched heavily in his seat. + +"What difference does it make so long as the shells won't sink?" he +asked. + +"We're ready," replied Dick Rollins. "It's Shelburne holding things +up; she wants smooth water, of course. It suits me, though. Things +will soften up by sunset." + +"Sunset!" Deacon scowled at the western skies. "Well, sunset isn't +so far off as it was." + +Word came, as a matter of fact, shortly after five o'clock. The coach, +with solemn face, came up to the cottage, bringing the summons. +After that for a little while Jim Deacon passed through a series of +vague impressions rather than living experience. There was the swift +changing of clothes in the cavernous boathouse, the bearing of the +boat high overhead to the edge of the float, the splash as it was +lowered into the water. Mechanically he leaned forward to lace the +stretcher-shoes, letting the handle of his oar rest against his +stomach; mechanically he tried to slide, tested the oarlock. + +Then some one gripped the blade of his oar, pushing gently outward. +The shell floated gingerly out into the stream. + +"Starboard oars, paddle." Responsive to the coxswain's sharp command +Deacon plied his blade, and in the act there came to him clarity of +perception. He was out here to win, to win not only for Baliol, but +for himself, for his father. There could be no thought of not winning; +the imminence of the supreme test had served to fill him with the +consciousness of indomitable strength, to thrill his muscles with +the call for tremendous action. + +As the shell swept around a point of land, a volume of sound rolled +across the waters. Out of the corner of his eye he caught view of +the long observation-train, vibrant with animation, the rival +colours commingled so that all emblem of collegiate affiliation was +lost in a merger of quivering hue. A hill near the starting-line on +the other side of the river was black with spectators, who indeed +filled points of vantage all down the four miles of the course. The +clouds above the western hills were turning crimson; the waters had +deepened to purple and were still and silent. + +"There, you hell-dogs!" The voice of the coxswain rasped in its +combativeness. "Out there is Shelburne; ahead of us at the line. Who +says it'll be the last time she'll be ahead of us?" + +Along the beautiful line of brown, swinging bodies went a low growl, +a more vicious rattle of the oarlocks. + +Suddenly as Jim Deacon swung forward, a moored skiff swept past his +blade, the starting-line. + +"Weigh all." The coxswain's command was immediately followed by +others designed to work the boat back to proper starting-position. +Deacon could easily see the Shelburne crew now--big men all, ideal +oarsmen to look at. Their faces were set and grim, their eyes +straight ahead. So far as they gave indication, their shell might +have been alone on the river. Now the Baliol shell had made sternway +sufficient for the man in the skiff to seize the rudder. The +Shelburne boat was already secured. Astern hovered the referee's boat, +the official standing in the bow directing operations. Still astern +was a larger craft filled with favoured representatives of the two +colleges, the rival coaches, the crew-managers and the like. + +"Are you all ready, Baliol?" + +"Yes, sir." Deacon, leaning forward, felt his arms grow tense. + +"Are you all ready, Shelburne?" + +The affirmative was followed by the sharp report of a pistol. With a +snap of his wrist Deacon beveled his oar, which bit cleanly into the +water and pulled. There followed an interval of hectic stroking, +oars in and out of the water as fast as could be done, while spray +rose in clouds and the coxswain screamed the measure of the beat. + +"Fine, Baliol." The coxswain's voice went past Deacon's ear like a +bullet. "Both away together and now a little ahead at forty-two to +the minute. But down now. Down--down--down--down! That's +it--thirty-two to the minute. It's a long race, remember. +Shelburne's dropping the beat, too. You listen to Papa, all of you; +he'll keep you wise. Number three, for God's sake don't lift all the +water in the river up on your blade at the finish. Shelburne's +hitting it up a bit. Make it thirty-four." + +"Not yet." Deacon scowled at the tense little coxswain. "I'll do the +timing." Chick Seagraves nodded. + +"Right. Thirty-two." + +Swinging forward to the catch, his chin turned against his shoulder, +Deacon studied the rival crew which with the half-mile flags +flashing by had attained a lead of some ten feet. Their blades were +biting the water hardly fifty feet from the end of his blade, the +naked brown bodies moving back and forth in perfect rhythm and with +undeniable power registered in the snap of the legs on the +stretchers and the pull of the arms. Deacon's eyes swept the face of +the Shelburne coxswain; it was composed. He glanced at the stroke. +The work, apparently, was costing him nothing. + +"They're up to thirty-four," cried Seagraves as the mile flags drew +swiftly up. + +"They're jockeying us, Chick. We'll show our fire when we get ready. +Let 'em rave." + +Vaguely there came to Deacon a sound from the river-bank--Shelburne +enthusiasts acclaiming a lead of a neat half a length. + +"Too much--too much." Deacon shook his head. Either Shelburne was +setting out to row her rival down at the start, or else, as Deacon +suspected, she was trying to smoke Baliol out, to learn at an early +juncture just what mettle was in the rival boat. A game, +stout-hearted, confident crew will always do this, it being the part +of good racing policy to make a rival know fear as early as possible. +And Shelburne believed in herself, beyond any question of doubt. + +And whether she was faking, or since Baliol could not afford to let +the bid go unanswered, a lead of a quarter of a length at the mile +had to be challenged: + +"Give 'em ten at thirty-six!" Deacon's voice was thick with +gathering effort. "Talk it up, Chick." + +From the coxswain's throat issued a machine-gun fusillade of +whiplash words. + +"Ten, boys! A rouser now. Ten! Come on. One--two--three--four--oh, +boy! Are we walking! Five--six--are they anchored over there? +Seven--oh, you big brown babies! Eight--Shelburne, good +night--nine--wow!--ten!" + +Deacon, driving backward and forward with fiery intensity, feeling +within him the strength of some huge propulsive machine, was getting +his first real thrill of conflict--the thrill not only of actual +competition, but of all it meant to him, personally: his father's +well-being, his own career--everything was merged in a luminous +background of emotion for which that glittering oar he held was the +outlet. + +Shelburne had met the spurt, but the drive of the Baliol boat was +not to be denied. Gradually the two prows came abreast, and then +Deacon, not stopping at the call of ten, but fairly carrying the +crew along with him, swung on with undiminished ferocity, while +Seagraves' voice rose into a shrill crescendo of triumph as Baliol +forged to the lead. + +"They know a little now." Deacon's voice was a growl as gradually he +reduced the beat to thirty-two, Shelburne already having diminished +the stroke. + +Deacon studied them. They were rowing along steadily, the eyes of +their coxswain turned curiously upon the Baliol shell. He suspected +the little man would like nothing better than to have Baliol break +her back to the two-mile mark and thus dig a watery grave. He +suspected also, that, failing Baliol's willingness to do this, the +test would now be forced upon her. For Shelburne was a heavy crew +with all sorts of staying power. What Deacon had to keep in mind was +that his eight was not so rugged and had therefore to be nursed along, +conserving energy wherever possible. + +It was in the third mile that the battle of wits and judgment had to +be carried to conclusion, the fourth mile lurking as a mere matter +of staying power and ability to stand the gaff. Deacon's idea was +that at present his crew was leading because Shelburne was not +unwilling for the present that this should be. How true this was +became evident after the two-mile flags had passed, when the +Shelburne oarsmen began to lay to their strokes with tremendous drive, +the boat creeping foot by foot upon the rival shell until the Baliol +lead had been overcome and Shelburne herself swept to the fore. + +Deacon raised the stroke slightly, to thirty-three, but soon dropped +to thirty-two, watching Shelburne carefully lest she make a +runaway then and there. Baliol was half a length astern at the +two-and-a-half mile mark, passing which the Shelburne crew gave +themselves up to a tremendous effort to kill off her rival then and +there. + +"Jim! They're doing thirty-six--walking away." + +The coxswain's face was white and drawn. + +But Deacon continued to pass up a thirty-two stroke while the +Shelburne boat slid gradually away until at the three-mile mark +there was a foot of clear water between its rudder and the prow of +the Baliol shell. + +Deacon glanced at the coxswain. A mile to go--one deadly mile. + +"Thirty-six," he said. "Shelburne's can't have much more left." + +The time had passed for study now. Gritting his teeth, Deacon bent +to his work, his eyes fixed upon the swaying body of the coxswain, +whose sharp staccato voice snapped out the measure; the beat of the +oars in the locks came as one sound. + +"Right, boys! Up we come. Bully--bully--bully! Half a length now. Do +you hear? Half a length! Give me a quarter, boys. Eh, Godfrey! We've +got it. Now up and at 'em, Baliol. Oh, you hell-dogs!" + +As in a dream Deacon saw the Shelburne boat drift into view, saw the +various oarsmen slide past until he and the rival stroke were rowing +practically abeam. + +"That's for you, Dad," he muttered--and smiled. + +He saw the men swing with quickened rhythm, saw the spray fly like +bullets from the Shelburne blades. + +"Look out." There was a note of anguish in Seagraves' voice. +"Shelburne's spurting again." + +A malediction trembled upon Deacon's lips. So here was the joker +held in reserve by the rival crew! Had Baliol anything left? Had he +anything left? Grave doubt was mounting in his soul. Away swept the +Shelburne boat inches at a stroke until the difference in their +positions was nearly a length. Three miles and a half! Not an +observer but believed that this gruelling contest had been worked out. +Seagraves, his eyes running tears, believed it as he swung backward +and forward exhorting his men. Half a mile more! The crews were now +rowing between the anchored lines of yachts and excursion-craft. The +finish boat was in sight. + +And now Deacon, exalted by something nameless, uttered a cry and +began to give to Baliol more than he really had. Surely, steadily, +he raised his stroke while his comrades, like the lion-hearts they +were, took it up and put the sanction of common authority upon it. +Thirty-four! Thirty-six! Not the spurt of physical prowess, but of +indomitable mentality. + +"Up we come!" Seagraves' voice was shrill like a bugle. He could see +expressions of stark fear in the faces of the rival oarsmen. They +had given all they had to give, had given enough to win almost any +race. But here in this race they had not given enough. + +On came the Baliol shell with terrific impulse. Quarter of a mile; +Shelburne passed, her prow hanging doggedly on to the Baliol rudder. + +Victory! Deacon's head became clear. None of the physical torture he +had felt in the past mile was now registered upon his consciousness. +No thought but that of impending victory! + +"Less than a quarter of a mile, boys. In the stretch. Now--my God!" + +Following the coxswain's broken exclamation, Deacon felt an +increased resistance upon his blade. + +"Eh?" + +"Innis has carried away his oarlock." The eyes of the coxswain +strained upon Deacon's face. + +Deacon gulped. Strangely a picture of his father filled his mind. +His face hardened. + +"All right! Tell him to throw his oar away and swing with the rest. +Don't move your rudder now. Keep it straight as long as you can." + +From astern the sharp eyes of the Shelburne cox had detected the +accident to Baliol's Number Six. His voice was chattering stridently. + +Deacon, now doing the work practically of two men, was undergoing +torture which shortly would have one of two effects. Either he would +collapse or his spirit would carry him beyond the claims of +overtaxed physique. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes--a groan +escaped his lips. Then so far as personality, personal emotions, +personal feelings were concerned, Jim Deacon ceased to function. He +became merely part of the mechanism of a great effort, the principal +guiding part. + +And of all those rowing men of Baliol only the coxswain saw the +Shelburne boat creeping up slowly, inexorably--eight men against +seven. For nearly a quarter of a mile the grim fight was waged. + +"Ten strokes more, boys!" + +The prow of the Shelburne shell was on a line with Baliol's Number +Two. + +"One--two--three--four----" The bow of the Shelburne boat plunged up +abeam Baliol's bow oar. + +"Five--six--God, boys!--seven----" + +The voice of the coxswain swept upward in a shrill scream. A gun +boomed; the air rocked with the screech and roar of whistles. + +Slowly Deacon opened his eyes. Seagraves, the coxswain, was standing +up waving his megaphone. Rollins, at Number Seven, lay prone over +his oar. Innis, who had broken his oarlock, sat erect; Wallace, at +Number Five, was down. So was the bow oar. Mechanically Deacon's +hand sought the water, splashing the body of the man in front of him. +Then suddenly a mahogany launch dashed alongside. In the bow was a +large man with white moustache and florid face and burning black eyes. +His lips were drawn in a broad grin which seemed an anomaly upon the +face of Cephas Doane. + +If so he immediately presented a still greater anomaly. He laughed +aloud. + +"Poor old Shelburne! I--George! The first in four years! I never saw +anything quite like that. We've talked of Baliol's rowing-spirit--eh! +Here, you Deacon, let me give you a hand out of the shell. We'll run +you back to quarters." + +Deacon, wondering, was pulled to the launch and then suddenly +stepped back, his jaw falling, his eyes alight as a man advanced +from the stern. + +"Dad!" + +"Yes," chuckled Doane. "We came up together--to celebrate." + +"You mean--you mean--" Jim Deacon's voice faltered. + +"Yes, I mean--" Cephas Doane stopped suddenly. "I think in justice +to my daughter-in-law to be, Jane Bostwick, that some explanation is +in order." + +"Yes, sir." Deacon, his arm about his father's shoulder, stared at +the man. + +"You see, Dr. Nicholls had the idea that you needed a finer edge put +on your rowing spirit. So I got Jane to cook up the story about that +cashier business at the bank." + +"You did!" + +"Yes. Of course your father was appointed. The only trouble was that +Jane, bright and clever as she is, bungled her lines." + +"Bungled!" Deacon's face cleared. "That's what Dr. Nicholls said +about her on the road, the day I bucked out. I remember the word +somehow." + +"She bungled, yes. She was to have made it very clear that by +winning you would escape my alleged wrath--or rather, your father +would. I knew you would row hard for Baliol, but I thought you might +row superhumanly for your father." + +"Well," Jim Deacon flushed, then glanced proudly at his father-- +"you were right, sir--I would." + + + + +PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR + + +BY L. H. ROBBINS + +From _Everybody's Magazine_ + +He was a meek little man with sagging frame, dim lamps and feeble +ignition. Anxiously he pressed the salesman to tell him which of us +used cars in the wareroom was the slowest and safest. + +The salesman laid his hand upon me and declared soberly: "You can't +possibly go wrong on this one, Mr. Todd." To a red-haired boy he +called, "Willie, drive Mr. Todd out for a lesson." + +We ran to the park and stopped beside a lawn. "Take the wheel," said +Willie. + +Mr. Todd demurred. "Let me watch you awhile," he pleaded. "You see, +I'm new at this sort of thing. In mechanical matters I am helpless. +I might run somebody down or crash into a tree. I--I don't feel +quite up to it to-day, so just let me ride around with you and get +used to the--the motion, as it were." + +"All you need is nerve," Willie replied. "The quickest way for you +to get nerve is to grab hold here and, as it were, drive." + +"Driving, they say, _does_ give a man self-confidence," our +passenger observed tremulously. "Quite recently I saw an +illustration of it. I saw an automobilist slap his wife's face while +traveling thirty miles an hour." + +"They will get careless," said Willie. + +Mr. Todd clasped the wheel with quivering hands and braced himself +for the ordeal. + +"Set her in low till her speed's up," Willie directed. "Then wiggle +her into high." + +It was too mechanical for Mr. Todd. Willie translated with scornful +particularity. Under our pupil's diffident manipulation we began to +romp through the park at the rate of one mile an hour. + +Willie fretted. "Shoot her some gas," said he. "Give it to her. +Don't be a-scared." He pulled down the throttle-lever himself. + +My sudden roaring was mingled with frightened outcries from Todd. +"Stop! Wait a minute! Whoa! Help!" + +Fortunately for my radiator, the lamp-post into which he steered me +was poorly rooted. He looked at the wreckage of the glass globe on +the grass, and declared he had taken as much of the theory of +motoring as he could absorb in one session. + +"This is the only lesson I can give you free," said Willie. +"You'd better keep on while the learning's cheap." + +To free education and to compulsory education Mr. Todd pronounced +himself opposed. Cramming was harmful to the student; the elective +method was the only humane one. He put off the evil hour by engaging +Willie as a private tutor for the remaining afternoons of the month. + +I have met many rabbits but only one Todd. He would visit me in the +barn and look at me in awe by the half-hour. Yet I liked him; I felt +drawn toward him in sympathy, for he and I were fellow victims of +the hauteur of Mrs. Todd. + +In my travels I have never encountered a glacier. When I do run +across one I shall be reminded, I am certain, of Mr. Todd's lady. + +"So you are still alive?" were her cordial words as we rolled into +the yard on the first afternoon. + +"Yes, my dear." His tone was almost apologetic. + +"Did he drive it?" she asked Willie. + +"I'll say so, ma'am." + +She looked me over coldly. When she finished, I had shrunk to the +dimensions of a wheelbarrow. When Todd sized me up in the warehouse +only an hour before, I had felt as imposing as a furniture van. + +"Put it in the barn," said Mrs. Todd, "before a bird carries it off." + +I began to suspect that a certain little stranger was not unanimously +welcome in that household. For a moment I was reassured, but only +for a moment. + +"John Quincy Burton says," she observed, "that a little old used car +like this is sometimes a very good thing to own." + +"That is encouraging," said Todd, brightening. In his relief he +explained to Willie that John Quincy Burton drove the largest car in +the neighbourhood and was therefore to be regarded as an authority. + +"Yes," Mrs. Todd concluded, "he says he thinks of buying one himself +to carry in his tool-box." + +Willie was an excellent teacher, though a severe disciplinarian. + +But by way of amends for the rigours of the training, Willie would +take Mr. Todd after the practice hour for a spin around the park. At +those times I came to learn that the collision I had had with a +trolley-car before Todd bought me had not left me with any +constitutional defect. I still had power under my hood, and speed in +my wheels. But what good were power and speed to me now? I doubted +that Todd would ever push me beyond a crawl. + +Yet I had hope, for when his relaxation from the tension of a lesson +had loosened his tongue he would chatter to Willie about +self-confidence. + +"Some day you say, I shall be able to drive without thinking?" + +"Sure! You won't have to use your bean any more'n when you walk." + +At nights, when no one knew, Mr. Todd would steal into the barn and, +after performing the motions of winding me up, would sit at the +wheel and make believe to drive. + +"I advance the spark," he would mutter, "I release the brake, I set +the gear, and ever so gently I let in the clutch. Ha! We move, we +are off! As we gather speed I pull the gear-lever back, then over, +then forward. Now, was that right? At any rate we are going north, +let us say, in Witherspoon Street. I observe a limousine approaching +from the east in a course perpendicular to mine. It has the right of +way, Willie says, so I slip the clutch out, at the same time +checking the flow of gasoline...." + +Thus in imagination he would drive; get out, crank, get in again, +and roll away in fancy, earnestly practising by the hour in the dark +and silent barn. + +"I'm getting it," he would declare. "I really believe I'm getting it!" + +And he got it. In his driving examination he stalled only once, +stopping dead across a trolley track in deference to a push-cart. +But he was out and in and off again in ten seconds, upbraiding me +like an old-timer. + +Said the inspector, stepping out at last and surely offering a +prayer of thanks to his patron saint: "You're pretty reckless yet on +corners, my friend." But he scribbled his O.K. + +The written examination in the City Hall Mr. Todd passed with high +honours. Willie, who was with us on the fateful morning, exclaimed +in admiration: "One hundred! Well, Mr. Todd, you're alive, after +all--from the neck up, at least." + +In gratitude for the compliment, the glowing graduate pressed a +bonus of two dollars into the panegyrist's palm. "Willie," he exulted, +"did you hear the inspector call me reckless?" + +I can scarcely think of the Todd of the succeeding weeks as the same +Todd who bought me. He changed even in looks. He would always be a +second, of course, but his frame had rigidity now, his lamps sparkled, +he gripped the wheel with purposeful hands and trampled the pedals +in the way an engine likes. In his new assurance he reminded me +strongly of a man who drove me for a too brief while in my younger +days--a rare fellow, now doing time, I believe, in the penitentiary. + +No longer Todd and I needed the traffic cop's "Get on out of +there, you corn-sheller!" to push us past the busy intersection +of Broad and Main streets. We conquered our tendency to scamper +panic-stricken for the sidewalk at the raucous bark of a jitney bus. +In the winding roads of the park we learned to turn corners on two +wheels and rest the other pair for the reverse curve. + +One remembered day we went for a run in the country. On a ten-mile +piece of new macadam he gave me all the gas I craved. It was the +final test, the consummation, and little old Mr. Todd was all there. +I felt so good I could have blown my radiator cap off to him. + +For he was a master I could trust--and all my brother used cars, +whether manufactured or merely born, will understand what comfort +that knowledge gives a fellow. I vowed I would do anything for that +man! On that very trip, indeed, I carried him the last homeward mile +on nothing in my tank but a faint odour. + + + +II + +Mrs. Todd was one of those gentle souls who get their happiness in +being unhappy in the presence of their so-called loved ones. She was +perpetually displeased with Todd. + +His Christian name was James, but she did not speak Christian to him. +When she hailed him from the house she called him "Jay-eems"--the +"eems" an octave higher than the "Jay." + +He would drop the grease-can or the monkey-wrench to rush to her side. + +"Look at your sleeves!" she would say. "Your best shirt!" Words +failing her, she would sigh and go into a silence that was worse +than words. He was a great burden to her. + +Humbly he entreated her one day for an obsolete tooth-brush. +"I want to clean spark-plugs with it," he explained. + +"Next," she replied, icily, "you'll be taking your little pet to the +dentist, I suppose." + +From such encounters Jay-eems would creep back to the barn and seek +consolation in tinkering around me. + +He liked to take the lid off my transmission-box and gaze at my +wondrous works. He was always tightening my axle-burrs, or dosing me +with kerosene through my hot-air pipe, or toying with my timer. +While he was never so smart as Willie about such things, he was +intelligent and quick to learn; and this was not surprising to me +after I discovered the nature of his occupation in life. + +I had taken him to be a retired silk-worm fancier, a chronic juryman, +or something of the sort. But shiver my windshield if he wasn't a +professor in a college! + +On the morning when first he dared to drive me to his work, the +college must have got wind of our coming, for the students turned +out in a body to cheer him as he steered in at the campus gate, and +the faculty gathered on the steps to shake his hand. + +A bald-headed preceptor asked him if he meant to cyanide me and +mount me on a pin for preservation in the college museum. The +chancellor inquired if Todd had identified me. Todd said he had. He +said I was a perfect specimen of _Automobilum cursus gandium_, the +most beautiful species of the _Golikellece_ family. It was the +nearest he ever came to profanity in my hearing. I suppose he got it +from associating with Willie. + +They demanded a speech, and he made one--about me. He said that my +name was _Hilaritas_, signifying joy. He said, among other +flattering things, that I was no common mundane contraption, though +such I might seem to the untutored eye. In their studies of the +Greek drama they had read of gods from the machine. I was a machine +from the gods. In my cylinders I consumed nectar vapour, in my +goo-cups ambrosia, in my radiator flowed the crystal waters of the +Fount of Bandusia. + +Three other items of his eulogium I remember: The breath of Pan +inflated my tires, I could climb Olympus in high, and he, James Todd, +a mere professor in a college, while sitting at my wheel, would not +bare his head to Zeus himself, no, nor even to the chairman of the +college board of trustees. + +His nonsense appeared to be as popular in that part of town as it +was unpopular in another. They gave the varsity yell with his name +at the end. + +The day came when Mrs. Todd risked her life in our sportive company. +She made it clear to us that she went protesting. She began her +pleasantries by complaining that my doors were trivial. +Straightening her hat, she remarked that the John Quincy Burtons' +car top never took a woman's scalp off. + +"But theirs is only a one-man top," Todd hinted vaguely. + +"Whatever you mean by that is too deep for me," she said, adding +bitterly, "Yours is a one-boy top, I presume." + +He waived the point and asked where she preferred to make her debut +as an automobilist. + +"Back roads, by all means," she answered. + +As we gained the street a pea-green Mammoth purred past, the +passengers putting out their heads to look at us. + +"Goodness!" she sighed. "There go the John Quincy Burtons now." + +"We can soon join them," said Todd confidently. + +She expostulated. "Do you think I have no pride?" Yet we went in +pursuit of the John Quincy Burton dust-cloud as it moved toward the +park. + +"Since you have no regard for my feelings," said she, "you may let +me out." + +"Oh, no, Amanda, my dear. Why, I'm going to give you a spin to +Mountaindale!" + +"I do not care to be dragged there," she declared. "That is where +the John Quincy Burtons ride." + +"Aren't they nice people? It seems to me I've heard you sing +hosannas to their name these last twenty years." + +They were nice people indeed. That was just it, she said. Did he +suspect her of yearning to throw herself in the way of nice people +on the day of her abasement? If he chose to ignore her sentiments in +the matter, he might at least consider his own interests. Had he +forgotten that John Quincy Burton was chairman of the board of +trustees of the college? Would the head of the department of +classical languages acquire merit in Mr. Burton's eyes through +dashing about under Mr. Burton's nose in a pitiable little +last-century used car that squeaked? + +Todd gripped the wheel tighter and gave me gas. + +"You missed that storm sewer by an inch!" she exclaimed. + +"My aim is somewhat wild yet," he admitted. "Perhaps I'll get the +next one." + +"Jay-eems!" + +"My dear, we have a horn, remember." + +"You did not see that baby carriage until we were right upon it! +Don't tell me you did, sir, for I know better." + +"I saw it," said Todd, "and I was sure it wouldn't run over us. As +you see, it didn't. Trust a baby carriage my love." + +His humour, she informed him, was on a par with his driving. Also it +was in poor taste at such a moment. + +In time of danger, he replied, the brave man jests. + +We were now in the park. We clipped a spray of leaves off a syringia +bush. On a curve we slid in loose gravel to the wrong side. + +"James Todd!" + +"Yes, my dear?" + +"Let me out! I decline to be butchered to make a holiday for a +motormaniac." + +"Don't talk to the motormaniac," said Todd. + +She clutched a top support and gasped for breath, appalled at his +audacity, or my speed, or both. In the straight reaches I could see +the Burton Mammoth a quarter of a mile ahead. When it swung into the +broad avenue that leads to the mountain, we were holding our own. + +"You are following them--deliberately," said Mrs. Todd. + +"Yet not so deliberately, at that. Do you feel us pick up my dear, +when I give her gas? Aha!" he laughed. "I agree with you, however, +that the order of precedence is unsatisfactory. Why should we follow +the Burtons, indeed?" + +We went after them; we gave them the horn and overtook and passed +them on a stiff grade, amid cheers from both cars. But all of our +cheering was done by Todd. + +"Now they are following us," said he. "Do you feel better, my dear?" + +"Better!" she lamented. "How can I ever look them in the face again?" + +"Turn around," he suggested, "and direct your gaze through the +little window in the back curtain." + +She bade him stop at the next corner. She would walk home. She was +humiliated. Never had she felt so ashamed. + +"Isn't that an odd way to feel when we have beaten the shoes off them?" + +"But they will think we tried to." + +"So we did," he chuckled; "and we walked right past them, in high, +while Burton was fussing with his gear shift. Give our little engine +a fair go at a hill, my dear----" + +"I am not in the least interested in engines, sir. I am only +mortified beyond words." + +She had words a-plenty, however. + +"Isn't it bad enough for you to drive your little rattletrap to +college and get into the paper about it? No; you have to show it off +in a fashionable avenue, and run races with the best people in +Ashland, and scream at them like a freshman, and make an exhibition +of me!" + +His attention was absorbed in hopping out from under a truck coming +in from a side street. A foolish driver would have slowed and crashed. +I was proud of Todd. But his lady was not. + +"You have no right to go like this. You don't know enough. You will +break something." + +He had already broken the speed law. Unknown to him, a motor-cycle +cop was tagging close behind us on our blind side. + +"If you think this is going, my dear," said Todd reassuringly, +"wait till we strike the turnpike. Then I'll show you what little +Hilaritas can really do." + +"Stop at the car barns," she commanded. + +We crossed the car-barn tracks at a gallop. The cop rode abreast of +us now. "Cut it out, Bill," he warned. + +"You see?" she crowed. "You will wind up in jail and give the papers +another scandal. Why didn't you stop at the car barns?" + +"Because we are going to Mountaindale," he explained cheerily; +"where the nice people drive. Perhaps we shall see the John Quincy +Burtons again--as we come back." + +"If we ever do come back!" + +"Or how would you like to have supper with them up there?" + +She had gone into one of her silences. + + + +Ill + +We settled down for the long pull over First Mountain. Todd slowed +my spark and gave me my head. Then he addressed the partner of his +joy-ride in a new voice: "Amanda, my dear, you and I need to have a +frank little understanding." + +She agreed. + +"For some years past," he began, "I have borne without complaint, +even without resentment, a certain attitude that you have seen fit +to adopt toward me. I have borne it patiently because I felt that to +an extent I deserved it." + +My floor boards creaked as she gathered her forces for the counter +attack. He went on recklessly: + +"In the beginning of our life together, Amanda, you were ambitious. +You longed for wealth and position and that sort of thing, in which +respect you were like the rest of men and women. Like most people, +my dear, you have been disappointed; but unlike most of them you +persist in quarrelling with the awards of fortune, just as to-day +you are quarrelling with this plebeian car of ours. As you speak of +Hilaritas, so you speak of me. At breakfast this morning, for example, +you reminded me, for perhaps the tenth time since Sunday, that you +are chained to a failure. Those were your words, my dear--chained to +a failure." + +"Do you call yourself a dazzling success?" she asked. + +"Not dazzling, perhaps," he replied, "and yet--yes--yes, I believe I +do." + +"What I told you at breakfast was that Freddy Burton makes one +hundred dollars a week, and he is only twenty-four--not half as old +as you." + +"Freddy Burton is engaged in the important occupation of selling +pickles," Todd answered, "and I am only an educator of youth. Long +ago I reached my maximum--three thousand dollars. From one point of +view I don't blame you for looking upon me as a futility. I presume +I am. Nor will I chide you for not taking the luck of life in a +sportsmanlike spirit. But I do insist----" + +"At last!" she broke in. "At last I understand some pencil notes +that I found yesterday when I cleaned out your desk. A minute ago I +thought you were out of your head. Now I see that this--this +frightfulness of yours is premeditated. Premeditated, James Todd! +You prepared this speech in advance!" + +Between you and me, she was right. I had heard him practise it in +the barn. + +He took her arraignment calmly, "Hereafter," said he, "please +refrain from cleaning out my desk." + +I heard her catch her breath. "You have never talked to me like this +before; never!" she said. "You have never dared. And that is +precisely the trouble with you, James Todd. You won't talk back; you +won't speak up for your rights. It is the cross of my life." + +From the sound, I think she wept. + +"You are the same in the outside world as you are at home. You let +the college trustees pay you what they please. You slave and slave +and wear yourself out for three thousand a year when we might have +twenty if you went into something else. And when your building-loan +stock matures and you do get a little money, you spend it for +this--this underbred little sewing-machine, and lure me out in it, +and lecture me, as if I--as if I were to blame. I don't know what +has come over you." + +I knew what had come over him. I knew the secret of the new spirit +animating the frail personality of Professor Todd. And Willie knew. +I recalled that boy's prophetic words: "The quickest way to get +nerve is to grab hold here and drive." I worried, nevertheless. I +wondered if my little man could finish what he had started. + +He could. As we rolled down the mountain into the ten-mile turnpike +where he and I had rediscovered our youth, he concluded his +discourse without missing an explosion. I knew his peroration by +heart. + +"To end this painful matter, my dear, I shall ask you in future to +accord me at least the civility, if not the respect, to which a +hard-working man and a faithful husband is entitled. I speak in all +kindliness when I say that I have decided to endure no more hazing. +I hope you understand that I have made this decision for your sake +as well as for mine, for the psychological effect of hazing is quite +as harmful to the hazer as to the hazed. Please govern yourself +accordingly." + +He opened the throttle wide, and we touched thirty-five miles. I +felt a wild wabble in my steering-gear. I heard Todd's sharp +command--"Kindly keep your hands off the wheel while I am driving." + +At the Mountain Dale Club Todd descended. + +"Will you come in and have a lemonade, my dear?" he asked. There was +a heartbroken little squeak in his voice. + +"Thank you," she replied frigidly. "I have had all the acid I can +assimilate in one pleasant day." + +"May I remind you," said he, stiffening with the gentle insistence +of a steel spring, "that I am not to be addressed in sarcastic tones +any longer?" + +The Mammoth slid up beside us. The stout John Quincy Burton at the +wheel shouted jovially: "I tell you what, Todd, when our soberest +university professors get the speed bug, I tremble for civilization!" + +My owner grinned with pleasure. + +"Mrs. Todd," said Burton, "after that trimming from your +road-burning husband, I'll stand treat. Won't you join us?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Todd, do be persuaded," Mrs. Burton chimed in. "After +twenty miles with your Barney Oldfield you need nourishment, I'm sure. +You and I can talk about his recklessness while he and Mr. Burton +have their little conference." + +If Todd had an appointment for a conference there at that hour with +Burton, I am positive it was news to Mrs. Todd and me. I could feel +her weight growing heavier on my cushion springs. + +"Thank you for the invitation," she replied, "but I am so badly +shaken up, I prefer to sit out here." + +To which her husband added, laughingly: "She wouldn't risk having +her new car stolen for anything." + +It was twilight before we started for home, the Burtons pulling out +ahead of us. At the beginning of the climb over the mountain I saw +the Mammoth stop. We drew alongside. + +"Out of gas, confound it," growled Burton, "and five miles from a +service station!" + +"I'd lend you some, only I haven't much myself," said Todd. +"Got a rope?" + +"Yes, but----" + +"Oh, we can. We can pull you and never know it. Hitch on behind. We +like to travel in stylish company, Mrs. Todd and I." + +So we towed them over the mountain and left them at a red pump. John +Quincy Burton's gratitude was immense. + +"The pleasure is all ours," Todd assured him. "But, say, old man!" + +"Well?" + +"You ought to buy a little old used car like this some time to carry +in your tool-box." + +They were still laughing when we drove away. + +Not a word did Mrs. Todd utter on the homeward journey; but in the +privacy of our humble barn-- + +"Oh!" she cried. "I could _die_! Why did you have to say that to +Mr. Burton?" + +"Amanda!" + +She subsided, but she had not surrendered. + +"You didn't tell me you had an engagement with him. What----" + +Todd laughed. "I was chosen this week, my dear, as a grievance +committee of one, representing the teaching staff at the college, to +put a few cold facts into John Quincy Burton's ear." + +"You?" + +"Precisely, my dear. I was the only man in the faculty who seemed to +have the--the self-confidence necessary. And I made Burton see the +point. I have his promise that the college trustees will campaign +the state this summer for a half-million-dollar emergency fund, a +good slice of which will go toward salary increases." + +"Well! I must say----" + +She did not say it. Silently she left us. + +He lingered a while in the barn. He opened my hood, for I was quite +warm from the towing job. He examined a new cut in one of my tires +and loosened my hand-brake a notch. He couldn't seem to find enough +to do for me. + +From the house came a hail. I am not sure that he did not hold his +breath as he listened. + +"James, dear!" again. + +"Hello!" he answered. + +"James, dear, won't you bring your automobile pliers, please, and +see if you can open this jar of marmalade?" + +My little man went in whistling. + + + + +THE THING THEY LOVED + + +BY MARICE RUTLEDGE + +From _The Century Magazine_ + +"_They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their +love was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human +beings can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a +supreme moment_." + +When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a +series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift +response. She was confident that anything touching on her +professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, +in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind +of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; +he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship +he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, +she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to +sing David Cannon's songs under such conditions, presented good +fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly. + +But his "Why, my dear, South America!" came flatly upon her +announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, +his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, +for he added hastily, with happier effect: "It's a wonderful chance, +dearest, isn't it?" His voice by then had gained in heartiness, and +his smile, always worshipful when turned on her, contained this time +something of apology. So close were they, though, in thought, spoken +or unspoken, that he had sounded a tiny alarm. Her radiance +perceptibly waned. A moment before she had stood, a glowing, vital +creature, beside him, eyes and lips singing a duet of delight; now +with questioning heart she leaned toward her loved one. + +"What is it? Don't you want me to go? I thought you liked David. +Can't you come, too, Oliver?" + +"You know I can't, dear," she heard him say with an attempt at +lightness. Then he added: "But it's a great chance for you. You'll +take it, of course. It was only the thought of losing you even for a +little while. What selfish brutes we men are!" He had recovered +himself, had defined his passing reserve in loverlike terms, and was +newly aware of unworthiness. The luxury of tender persuasion, of +arguing her into a sense of sweet security, concerned him next. He +could not say enough, and said too much. + +They were mellow against an intimate background of yellow walls lit +by fire and lamps. Myra's grand piano projected sleek and dark from +a corner of warm shadow. The silver tea-set gleamed pale on a +slender-legged table; a fragrance of narcissus spread dreamily. +Oliver sank on the couch, drawing her down where she could become +all feminine. She was that, and most adorably, her bright hair soft +about lax brows, her full lips parted, her strong white hands lying +in his like brooding birds. He talked on, and she played content for +a while; but a moment came when with a sudden maternal gesture she +drew his dark, willing head to her shoulder. + +"Let's forget South America for to-night," she said. + +He would not, could not, drop the subject. He had been so clumsy in +not realizing what it all meant to her; but her news had come as +such a surprise. She had seen David Cannon, then, that afternoon? + +Yes, he was on his way down to her to settle the date of their +concert and to propose this South American scheme. But she need not +decide immediately. + +He protested that her triumph there would crown him. If he were not +a poor young architect attached to his blue prints, he would follow +her. As it was, his duller duty lay at home. She caught a flatness +of tone, and met it with a vigorous profession of faith in his work. +His art was more useful than hers, more enduring. His music was in +stone; hers was no greater than the trilling of a bird. He thought +this over, moved from her embrace, sat erect, and patted his tie. +Well, he summed up, each had a working life converging to a common +end. Let her sing Cannon's songs to South America. Her voice would +reach him. Then let her come back quickly. He could not conceive of +life without her. It would seem strange to be a bachelor again, he +went on, with a sigh meant to be comical. He supposed he would eat at +his club when he was not invited out. He hoped her friends would +take pity on him. + +"You mean our friends," she corrected. + +"You're the magnet, dear." + +"I attracted you," she conceded happily. Then, with a start, she said: +"Do you know what time it is? And we're dining with the Wickeses at +seven." + +"I never have you to myself any more," he objected. "If I were an +old-fashioned husband, I should be jealous of every one who sees or +talks to you." + +"But you're not an old-fashioned husband," she reminded him. + +"I try not to be." He had risen from the couch, and was making his +way to the door, where he paused to look back at her. "Wear the blue +brocade to-night, dear, and do your hair that new way." + +"The way Martigues suggested? I thought you didn't like it." + +He hesitated only a second. + +"It's a bit extreme," he had to confess, "but it suits you." + +She came toward him then, laughing. + +"You see, you give me over to them." + +"I can afford to," he said. + +They were late, of course, to the dinner. Despite her effort at +brightness, Oliver felt her graver mood. He watched her with a +shadowy anxiety. Her smile, when her glance sought him out among the +chattering guests, did not entirely reassure him. He had never loved +her more than this evening when she seemed so removed from him, so +easily and brilliantly a guest of honor. What hold had these +strangers on her? They could only misread the superficial sparkle of +her eyes, the gracious movements of her uncovered neck and arms. He +decided then that the blue brocade was too conspicuous. She must not +wear it in South America. And her honey-coloured hair, piled high, +with a fantastic Spanish comb flaring above the topmost curls, +struck him as needlessly theatrical. He blamed Martigues for that. +His humour was not improved by the Basque painter's voluble +compliments on the success of a coiffure he felt to be his own +creation. The fellow was too familiar, thought Oliver, with +increasing irritation. He darkened, grew glum and silent; and when, +after dinner, Martigues approached him with a luckless tribute to +Madame Shaw's superlative loveliness, he answered curtly, and turned +on his heel. Myra witnessed the brief discourtesy, and later very +gently taxed him with it. What had the unfortunate artist done? He +faced her like a sulky boy and would not answer; but she was quick +to penetrate his grievance. She laughed then, as a woman laughs who +has nothing to conceal, declaring that Martigues's taste was not +infallible, and that Oliver knew best what became his Myra. She soon +wooed him back to his old charming self, and the incident passed. +But there were others on the following days, and Myra grew thoughtful. + +She and Oliver were seldom alone. Her joy of life, her vitality, her +very talent, depended on a multitude of impressions, on innumerable +personal contacts. She belonged to a rich, throbbing world of +emotions; she gathered passion for her song from the yearnings, the +anonymous aspirations, even the crudities of the human forces about +her. + +She was Oliver's most gloriously when most surrounded. His pride was +centred on her; it was centred, however, on the brilliant returns of +her actual presence--a presence which was never too far removed in +flesh or spirit to deprive him of a certain naive assumption of +ownership. That she should continue all the dear, familiar +fascinations beyond his sight or touch, in a far-away land, with +David Cannon as a daily companion, was another matter. Not that he +was jealous of David. No one man stood out as a rival. But Cannon +travelling with Myra, sharing artistic triumphs with her, escorting +her to entertainments given in her honour, Cannon, in fact, +associated in foreign minds with the beautiful cantatrice, offended +the inviolable rights of his lover's vanity. He would have her less +beautiful, less gifted, not more faithful. + +Exquisitely sensitive where he was concerned, Myra detected this +subtle change in his attitude toward her and her work. The origins +of the change, she knew, were obscurely lodged in the male egoism. +He himself was not aware of them. He seemed nearer and dearer than +ever, even more ardent. He wanted her constantly within range of his +eyes and hands that he might in a thousand coaxing or, often, +petulant ways assert a fond dominion. She yielded gladly to that +sweet pressure. Strangely enough for a woman of her independent +habits, to be so loved, roused elemental instincts the more powerful +since she had never before given them outlet. So she allowed his +illusions of mastery full play, which was dangerous, as gradually +she altered the delicate balance of their relationship. + +A restless month went by. It was February. + +Unfortunately, Oliver's work failed to engross him. He grew moodier, +more exacting. If Myra arrived home late, he wanted to know where +she had been, whom she had seen. Were they dining out, he muttered +unsociable objections; were people coming to the house, he +complained of the lack of privacy. What a whirl they lived in! So +they did, but what was the remedy? Myra herself felt helpless in a +tangle of engagements. They overpowered her. She could not seem to +cut her way through them. Then there were rehearsals for the concert. +David Cannon came to her or she went to him nearly every day. +Usually Oliver was present, putting in his opinion between each song. +Did David think the South Americans would appreciate that kind of +music? How did he think they would like Myra? And so on and on. + +David Cannon, never patient, a rough-tongued, self-absorbed genius, +resented these interruptions, and was brief in his methods of +expressing as much. Even Myra, the most tactful of diplomatists, +could not smooth over occasional ugly moments between the two men. +She understood Oliver better than he understood himself. His +unreasoning love, his apprehensive vanity, would have unsettled a +less maternal spirit; but she found a kind of mystic wonder in it, he +battled so blindly for possession of her. He was in her way, and she +could not advance without pushing him aside. Had he come to her and +blustered, "You shall not leave me for any purpose whatsoever," she +would have denied him the right of dictation; but there was no such +conflict of wills. + +They were both involved in this love of their making--a love whose +demands were treacherous. Each day brought up trivial attacks, +fancied grievances, little fears unavowed; but when she sought to +meet the issue squarely, it eluded her. Oliver's nightly repentance +for his daily whims and suspicions drew her nightly into his arms. +Enfolded there, she felt moored to his love; and, sleepless, she +questioned any life apart. + +Two days before the recital, David Cannon, with whom she was going +over the programme for the last time, turned suddenly from the piano +with an impatient shrug of his shoulders. + +"Rotten!" he said brutally, peering up at her. "You're not doing +yourself justice. What's the matter with you?" Beneath the strong, +overhanging brow his little eyes glowered fiercely. + +They happened to be alone that afternoon in his great bare studio, +where no soft background or dim lights conspired to hide her +dejection. She had sung badly. She knew it, but she could not answer +such a brusque attack, could not defend herself against harsh +questioning. + +"I don't know. Perhaps I'm tired," she said. + +David Cannon rose from the piano with the powerful lunging movement +of a bull. + +"You tired? Nonsense!" His charge sent him beyond her a pace. He +wheeled and came up close. He was shorter than she, but the sheer +force of the man topped her. His keen little eyes looked her over, +took in her bright, drooping head, and her sloping-shouldered, +slim-waisted health. "Tired!" he grunted. "That's an excuse, not a +reason." He tapped his heart and forehead. "Your troubles lie here +and here." + +She tried to smile, with a lift of her eyebrows. + +"What do you know about it?" + +"I know more than you think I do," he flung at her, frowning. +"You're worried about something, and when you worry, you can't sing. +You're made that way, and I suppose you can't help it. Don't +interrupt yet," he fairly shouted at her as she began to protest. +"I've watched over and taught you for three years. I ought to know." + +"I owe you a lot," she said faintly. + +"You owe me nothing," he snapped. "Your debt is to yourself." + +She could not fend off that merciless look, which went through and +through her. "If my debt is to myself, I need pay only if I choose," +she tried to jest. + +"Don't make that mistake," he warned. "Your work is your life. I +tell you that, and I know." + +"I wonder," she said more to herself than to him. + +He looked at her grimly. + +"Just as I thought. Same old question--marriage. You're jealous, or +he's jealous of God knows whom or what. And your voice goes to pieces. +Which is it?" he demanded. "Is Oliver misbehaving?" + +"Of course not," she said indignantly. + +"Humph! Well, he's faithful, you're faithful. You've both got talent, +friends, a home, a profession. What more do you want?" + +"There are other--jealousies," she said slowly, and with gathering +passion she went on: "I suppose I owe you some explanation, David, +though you won't understand. Oliver is the most wonderful person in +the world. I never thought I could love any one as I love him. And +it's the same with him. But he wants me all to himself." Her hands +fluttered together in nervous appeal. "Can't you see how it is? Since +we've been married we've never been separated a day. And now this +South-American thing has come up, and he's felt--oh, I can't explain. +But I'm so afraid--" + +"Afraid of what?" + +"It's hard to put into words," she said hopelessly. "I suppose I'm +afraid of losing my happiness. Oliver's right in many ways. He never +does have me to himself; I belong to so many people. It's always +been my life, you know. But I thought I could combine everything +when I married, and I'm beginning to see that it can't be done." + +"He knew what your life was," said David. + +"Does one ever know?" she said sadly. "This concert, you see, is my +first important appearance since our marriage. And then my going +away right after--" + +David strode over to the piano and sat there silent, his head sunk +on his chest, his short arms stiffly before him. + +"I realize how absurd it is," she murmured; "but it isn't just those +few months. He trusts me. It's the feeling he has that this is only +a beginning. I know what he means so well," she ended helplessly. +David's short fingers moved over the keys. A music wild and pagan +rose up, filled the room with rhythms of free dancing creatures, +sank to a minor plaint, and broke off on a harsh discord as the +door-bell jangled. + +"There's your Oliver," he said, and went to let him in. + +It was the day of the concert, and Myra wanted above all to be alone. +She had never felt this way before. She dreaded the evening, dreaded +facing a critical audience; she had fretted herself into a fever +over it. But when she tried to explain her state of mind to Oliver +that morning at breakfast, he would not hear of any prescription for +nerves which did not include his company. Why should she want to be +alone? If she was ill or troubled, his place was beside her. He had +planned to lunch and spend the afternoon with her. Her faintly +irritable "I wish you wouldn't," only wounded and shocked him. Her +strength was not equal to discussion, and in the end she yielded. + +For the rest of the morning he followed her about, tenderly opposing +any exertion. + +"I must have you at your best to-night, dear," he kept on saying. +"I'm going to be proud of my Myra." He was so eager, wistful, and +loving, she could not resent his care. She gave in to it with a +sense of helplessness. + +Soon after lunch her head started aching. She suggested a brisk walk. +The air might do her good. But he persuaded her to lie down on the +couch instead. The touch of his fingers on her hot forehead was +soothing, too soothing. She relaxed luxuriously, closing her eyes, +subdued, indifferent. + +He was saying: + +"What will you do, beloved, if you are taken ill in South America? +No Oliver to care for you. I can't bear to think of it." Suddenly, +he laid his cheek against hers. "If anything happens to you, I shall +go mad." + +She sat up with a swift movement that brought back an almost +intolerable pain. + +"Nothing will happen," she tried to say, and found herself weakly +sobbing in his arms. + +It was time to dress. She did her hair, to please Oliver, in a +girlish way, parted and knotted low. Her gown, designed by Martigues, +did not fit in with this simple coiffure. She was aware of an +incongruity between the smooth, yellow bands of hair meekly +confining her small head, and the daring peacock-blue draperies +flowing in long, free lines from her shoulders, held lightly in at +the waist by a golden cord. + +"One will get the better of the other before the evening is over," +she thought with a sigh, turning away from her mirror. + +"My beautiful Myra!" Oliver said as if to cheer her. + +"I have never looked worse," she retorted a trifle impatiently, and +would not argue the point as they drove up town. + +"We'll see what I really amount to now," she told herself. + +She had never before so tensely faced an audience, but there was +more at stake than she cared to confess, and she was not equal to it. +She shone, but did not blind those thousand eyes; she sang but did +not cast enchantment. And David Cannon would not help her. He sat at +the piano, uncouth, impassive, deliberately detached, as if he gave +her and his music over to an anonymous crowd of whose existence he +was hardly aware. There was something huge and static about him, +something elemental as an earth-shape, containing in and by itself +mysterious rhythms. His songs were things of faun-like humours, +terrible, tender, mocking, compassionate. They called for an entire +abandon, for witchery, for passion swayed and swaying; but although +at times Myra's voice held a Pan-like flutiness, although an +occasional note true and sweet as a mate-call stirred that dark +fronting mass, she failed to sustain the spell. She was too aware of +Oliver leaning forward in his box, applauding louder than any one. +His loyalty would force out of this fastidious audience an ovation +she did not deserve. She would not look his way. "I can't sing," she +thought mournfully. + +Had David Cannon shown any annoyance, she might have been goaded on +to a supreme effort; but he avoided her. When once she went up to +him during an intermission and said timidly: + +"I'm sorry, David; I'm spoiling everything," he answered +indifferently: + +"My songs can stand it." + +She wished then that she had not begged Oliver to keep away from her +until the end. She felt lonely and near to tears. As the evening +wore on, lightened by spasmodic applause, she became very quiet. She +even sang better, and felt rather than saw Oliver brighten. But it +was too late; she had lost her audience. There were now gaps in the +earlier unbroken rows; a well-known critic trod softly out; little +nervous coughs and rustlings rose up. + +At last it was all over. She wanted only to hide, but she was not to +escape another ordeal. She and Oliver had arranged for a supper +party that evening. To it they had bidden many musical personalities +and several of Oliver's architect friends. She had meant to announce +then the South-American recitals. The prospect of such an +entertainment was now almost unendurable. She knew well what these +people would say and think. Driving home with Oliver, she relaxed +limp against his shoulder, her eyes closed. That haven could at +least always be counted on, she reflected with passionate gratitude. +His voice sounded from a distance as he talked on and on, explaining, +excusing, what he could not honestly ignore. She had worked too hard. +She was tired out. There was the headache, too. But she had sung +wonderfully all the same. + +"Please, Oliver!" she faintly interrupted. + +"You made the best of it," he insisted. "David's songs, though, are +beyond me." + +She sat up very straight at this. + +"My dear," she said in a cold voice, "I made a mess of it, and you +know it. There _is_ no excuse. David has every reason to be furious." + +"I'd like to see him dare--" + +"Please, Oliver!" she said again on a warning note of hysteria. She +stared out of the window at the blur of passing lights. It was +misting; the streets gleamed wet and wan beneath the lamps. + +Oliver's arm went around her. + +"I'm sorry, dear. Nothing matters, after all, but you and I together," +he whispered. + +"Nothing else does matter, does it?" she cried suddenly. "Love me a +great deal, Oliver, a great, great deal. That's all I ask." + +They drove on in silence for a while. She sat very quiet, her face +half hidden in the high fur collar of her cloak. Now and then she +glanced at Oliver, her eyes wistful. + +"Oliver," she said at last, "would it make any difference to you if +I never sang again?" + +"Never sang again," he echoed. "I don't understand." + +"I want you and my home," came from her slowly. "I've been wondering +for some time how much my singing really meant to me. To-night I +think I've found out. I can't seem to keep everything I started out +with and be happy. I'm not big enough," she added sadly. + +He was startled, incredulous. + +"Myra, you don't realize what you're saying. You're tired to-night. +I could not let you give up your singing. You are an artist, a big +artist." + +She shook her head and sighed. + +"I might have been, perhaps; but no, I'm not. David could tell you +that. He knows." + +"It's been my fault, then, if you feel this way," he said in a +melancholy voice. "I've been selfish and stupid." + +The taxi slowed down before the red-brick entrance of the apartment +house. She put her hand impulsively on his arm. + +"Oliver, promise me something." + +"Whatever you ask." + +"Don't mention South America to any one. You promise?" + +"But, Myra----" + +"Promise." + +"I won't, then. But----" + +"I see Walter Mason and Martigues waiting for us," she said quickly. +"Remember, not a word." She was out of the cab, hurrying forward to +greet her guests. Oliver followed, his eyes mutely pleading. But she +seemed her old self again, graciously animated, laughing at Martigues, +who sulked because he did not like the way her hair was done. + +Soon other guests arrived, and still others, all of them primed with +compliments carefully prepared. + +Last of all came David Cannon, who brushed away flattery with curt +gestures and grunts. He sat heavily down in a corner of the room, a +plate of cheese sandwiches and a frosted glass of beer before him, +and turned an unsociable eye on all intruders. Myra, knowing his mood, +left him alone. + +"You are different to-night," Martigues whispered to her. "There is +something I do not understand. You have the Madonna smile." + +"I am happy," she said, and her eyes turned to Oliver, who held the +look and gave it back with deeper meaning. + +When later Martigues asked her to sing, she glanced again at Oliver, +who nodded and smiled. + +"If David will accompany me," she said then. David left sandwiches +and beer but without enthusiasm. He crossed over to the piano, and +peered up at her with a kind of sombre malice. + +"So you will sing now," he said. "Will this do?" He played a few +notes softly, and she nodded with a little smile. + +It was a song about the love of a white-throated sparrow for a +birch-tree of the North. All summer long the bird lived on the +topmost branch and sang most beautifully. The season of southward +journey came, but the white throated sparrow would not leave her tree. +She stayed on alone, singing while the leaves turned gold and fell. +She sang more faintly as the land grew white with the first snows +and when she could sing no longer for the cold, she nestled down in +a bare hollow of the white tree and let the driving flakes of the +North cover her. + +Oliver stood near the piano. Myra sang to and for him. She stood +very tall and straight, her hair, loosened from its tight bands, +soft around her face. Her voice thrilled out in the mate-call, grew +fainter and sweeter as winter came on, grew poignant under the cold, +quivered on the last note. As David Cannon ended with the fate theme +of the tree, a genuine shiver went through the little group. There +was no hesitation this time in the applause. They swept forward, +surrounding her, begging her to sing again. But it was to Oliver +that she turned. + +"It pleased you? I'm glad." + +David Cannon said nothing. He sat, his shoulders hunched, his +fingers on the keys until she had refused to sing again. + +"I didn't think you would," he said then, and abruptly left his post +to go back to beer and sandwiches. Soon after he slipped out. Myra +went with him to the hall, where they talked for a while in low +voices. When she came back into the room she was smiling serenely. + +She and Oliver were alone at last. + +"You glorious creature!" he cried. "I'm so proud of you! Everyone +was crazy about the way you sang." She walked slowly toward him. + +"Oliver," she said, "I told David this evening that I wouldn't go to +South America with him." + +"You didn't!" His voice rose sharp and shocked. + +She nodded, beaming almost mischievously. + +"But I did, and nothing will make me change my mind." + +"How could you be so impulsive, so foolish!" he cried. + +She was looking at him now more soberly. + +"Aren't you glad?" + +"Myra, you mustn't! I'll telephone David at once.. I'll--you did +this for me. I won't have it. You should have asked me----" + +"It's no use; I'm not going," she said. + +He dropped on the couch and hid his face in his hands. + +"You're giving this up because of me." + +She went to him. + +"Oliver, look at me." + +Slowly he raised his head. + +"I don't see why----" he began, but she was so beautiful, so radiant, +that he caught his breath and faltered. + +She sat down beside him. + +"Ah, but you will," she said. "It's very simple, dear. Even David +understands." + +"What does he think?" + +"He thinks as I do," she said quickly. "He was quite relieved; +honestly, dear. He didn't want any homesick woman spoiling his songs +for him in South America. And then I suggested Frances Maury in my +place. She has a lovely voice, and she'll jump at the chance." + +"I've never heard her, but I'm sure she can't sing as well as you," +he said, with returning gloom. "And it was only for two months." + +She laughed as at an unreasonable child. + +"It isn't the two months, dear. It's our whole life. There would be +other partings, you see, other interests drawing me away. And if it +became easier to leave you, then I should know that everything was +wrong between us; but if it kept on being hard to divide myself +between you and my work, then my work would suffer and so would you. +Either way, it couldn't go on. I'm not big enough to do both," she +said. + +"I can't accept such a sacrifice." + +"Don't you want me with you always?" + +He seized her hands and passionately drew her close to him. + +"Want you? I can tell you now. I've been jealous, terribly so, of +everyone, everything that touched you." + +"I knew it," she said. "That's one reason why I didn't sing well +to-night. Now I'm free"--she threw her arms out with the gesture of +flying--"I'm free to love just you. We'll start another life, Oliver, +a life of our own. We'll be fire-side people, dear, homely lovers +content to sit and talk of an evening. You'll find me very valuable, +really, as a partner," she said eagerly. "I've never been near +enough to your work. And it's such wonderful work!" With an impulsive +movement she went over and closed the piano. "I'll only open it when +you ask me to," she said. + +The process of elimination was simple enough. There was a touch of +melancholy in Myra's measurement of relationships, in her +consciousness of their frailty. People fell away easily, leaving her +and Oliver to their chosen isolation. A dozen regrets or so to +invitations, a week or two of evasions over the telephone, a few +friends like Martigues turned away at the door when obviously she +was at home, a refusal to sing at a charity concert and, most +conclusive of all, David Cannon's advertised departure with another +artist, and the thing was virtually done. + +Then came a succession of long intimate evenings, she and Oliver +left to their caprice, she and Oliver walking and driving together, +wandering where their fancy took them in the springtime of city and +country. She laughed sometimes at him, he seemed so dazed by the +consciousness of utter possession. "You are sure you are not bored, +darling?" he would often ask these first days. She could not +reassure him enough; could not find ways enough to prove to him that +when a woman like herself gave of body, mind, and spirit, it was a +full giving. There was exquisite pain in that giving; it was almost +a terrifying thing. She was a vital creature, and must spend that +which was hers, wisely or foolishly. Her ceaseless energy had always +before found an outlet in her work. Now her only expression lay in +Oliver. Her mind, never at rest, seized upon his working life, made +it hers. But she soon learned that he regarded her self-appointed +post of partner with a tender condescension edged with intolerance. +She learned with a tiny shock that although in matters musical he +trusted absolutely to her judgment, he did not consider the feminine +intellect as equal to his own. Music, she discovered, had always +been defined by him as something feminine in its application to the +arts. + +She became gradually aware that he objected to her visits to his +office. His glance did not brighten at her entrance. He was not +amused as he had been at first, when she bent over the sketches or +ran her slim fingers along the tracery of blue prints, daring to +question them. Sometimes she had a feeling that she did not entirely +know Oliver; that there were plans of his, thoughts of his, which +she did not share. She had not missed these before when her own life +was full. She had time now during their long hours together to +observe reactions of the cause of which she knew nothing. He was +absent-minded, off on a trail that led away from her. + +There came a week when he allowed her the brunt of wooing; a new +dress failed to bring forth the usual compliment; a question lay +unanswered where in pride she left it. Then one morning with a new +crisp note in his voice, he telephoned, telling her that he must +meet a man at his club for dinner that evening. Mechanically she +answered, dully heard his voice warm to a sweetness that should have +comforted her. + +"You know I wouldn't leave you unless it were important, dearest. I +can't explain now, but I may have great news for you when I come home." + +She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, and turned to an apartment +which seemed suddenly dreary and empty. She had no purpose in her day. +The twilight hour loomed in prospect an endless, dusky loneliness. +For a moment she thought of ringing him up and proposing to meet him +downtown for lunch; then restrained the impulse. Was she to turn +into a nagging wife! She longed now for some friend with whom she +could spend the day; but she could think of none. Since her marriage +with Oliver she had not encouraged intimacies. On his account she +had estranged the few women to whom she might now have turned. +Oliver had never understood friendships among women. + +The day dragged by. For the first time in months she found herself +wishing that she was going out that evening. She thought almost +guiltily of David Cannon and Frances Maury, imagining herself in +Frances's place. She went to the piano, tried to sing, and realized +with dismay that she was sadly out of practice. After all, what did +it matter? she decided moodily. Oliver rarely asked her for music. + +She took up a novel and dozed over it. + +At eleven o'clock Oliver came home. She knew by the way he opened +the front door that the news was good. She ran to meet him; her +dullness vanished. + +He took her by the hand and led her into the softly lit room which +seemed suddenly warm again with his presence. Then he whirled her, +facing him. Her smile was a happy reflection of his own brightness. + +"You'll never guess what's happened," he began. + +"Tell me quickly!" she begged. + +He waited a moment, with an eye to dramatic effect. + +"Well, then," he said proudly, "I've been appointed on a special +committee of reconstruction in France. Malcolm Wild--you've heard me +speak of him--came down from Washington to-day to propose it to me. +There are six of us on the committee, and I'm the youngest." + +"Oliver!" She put into the exclamation something of what he expected, +for he seemed satisfied. He lifted his head with a young, triumphant +gesture. "It is my chance to do a great and useful work," he said. +"I needn't tell you what it means. I never hoped, _I_ never dreamed +of such an honour." + +"I'm so proud of you!" she cried. + +He hardly seemed to hear her. + +"Think of it, just think of it--to be invited to go over there with +five of the biggest architects here, American money backing us! +We've been given a whole section to rebuild; I forget how many +villages. It's like a dream." He passed his hand over his eyes. + +"France!" she heard herself saying. "But, Oliver, it's the work of +months." + +He nodded happily. + +"That's what it is." + +"France!" she murmured in a kind of ecstasy. "I'm just getting it." +She clasped her hands together. "I've always wanted to be in France +with you. My dear, when do we start?" + +He gave her a swift, bewildered look. + +"Why, Myra, didn't you understand? I can't take you right away with +me. Later, of course, you'll join me. It won't be long, a few months +at most." + +"I'm not to go when you go?" + +Her voice, low and strained, drove straight to his heart. + +"Myra, I never thought--it's a man's trip just now, darling. +I--couldn't take you with me," he stammered miserably. "Passports +are almost impossible to get; and then conditions over there----" + +She backed away from him, her arms stiff at her sides. + +"When were you--planning to go?" + +He stared at her pitifully. + +"Beloved, don't look at me that way!" + +"When were you planning to go?" she repeated. + +"Next week," he said in an altered voice. "I never thought you would +take it this way. I never thought--it's a great chance." + +"That's what I once told you," she said slowly, and turned away that +he might not see her face. "Don't touch me!" she cried as he came +nearer. "Don't! I've been nervous all day, and lonely." She tried to +control herself, but as his arms went around her, she began to sob +like a hurt child. "If you leave me, I shall die. I can't bear it. I +know it's wicked of me." Her words reached him brokenly. "It's only +because you're all I have. I've given up everything; and now----" + +He stood very still, staring into space, his hold on her never +loosening. She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her +heart until this moment. She told him things she had never thought +she could betray to any one--things she had never even dared +formulate. When she had done, he said in a strange, gentle voice: + +"I didn't know you depended so on me. But it's all right; I won't +leave you, ever. It's all right. There, dear, I understand." + +She struggled free from his hold, and dried her eyes with a sudden +passionate gesture of scattering tears. + +"You shall go," she said fiercely. "I hate myself for acting this way. +It was only because----" She could get no further. + +He did not attempt to touch her again. They stood facing one another, +measuring their love. + +"I might go," he said at last, as if to himself; "but in going I +should spoil something very precious. You deny it now, but you would +remember your own sacrifice. And then, of course, you would go back +to your work. I should want you to. But it would never be the same +again, never." + +"I won't go back." + +He shook his head. + +"If you didn't, you would never forgive me. Every day you spent here +alone and idle would break one of those fragile bonds that hold us +so closely. If only you hadn't given up South America!" + +"I was wrong," she said drearily. + +At last he held out his arms. + +"Myra," he said, "you mean more than anything else to me. This offer +pleased me; I admit it. But I can work on just as well here. I have +the Cromwell house, you know, and the Newburghs may build soon. +Don't let's think of it again." + +She held back a moment, afraid to yield; but there was no resisting +her longing, and she ran to him with a little sigh, which he softly +echoed as he took her and held her close. + +They had vowed to live only for one another. The theme of their love +was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible. Human beings +can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a supreme +moment. Emotional as she was in her gratitude, Myra would have kept +on sounding that note through the days and nights. She would not +allow Oliver to forget what he had given up for her sake. + +More than ever she sought to associate herself with his work. He was +forced to recognize her personality there. For when skilfully she +led the talk on his plans, she hunted down elusive problems, +grappled with them, and offered him the solutions of a sure instinct. +She did not reckon with his vanity. She was too eager to make up for +a lost opportunity, as she too often explained. He came gradually to +brood over what he now consented to consider a sacrifice. In passing +moments of irritation he even referred to it. He broke out +occasionally in fits of nerves, certain that he would be humoured +and petted back to the normal. He knew well how a frown dismayed her, +how deep a word could strike, what tiny wounds he could inflict. It +would seem sometimes as if one or the other deliberately created a +short, violent scene over a trivial difference just to relieve +routine. The domestic low-lands stretched beyond the eye. He missed +the broken country, the unexpected dips and curves of the unknown. +Not that his heart went adventuring. He was faithful in body and +spirit, but there was discontent in the looks he turned on her. + +One afternoon she read in the papers that David Cannon and Frances +Maury were back from South America after a triumphant series of +recitals. They were to give a concert the following month. Her +indifference to the news, she thought drearily, was an indication of +how far she had travelled away from her old life. She did not even +want to see David Cannon. + +It was Oliver who brought up the subject that evening. + +"David's back. If you'd been with him, how excited I should have +felt to-day!" he remarked. "Odd, isn't it?" + +"You would have been in France," she reminded him. + +They sat on in silence for a while. + +He laid his book aside with a sudden brisk movement. + +"Myra, why don't you sing again?" + +"For you, to-night?" + +"I mean professionally," he blurted out. + +She drifted across the room to a shadowy corner. + +"I don't know," she said rather flatly, bending over a bowl of white +roses. "I suppose I don't feel like it any more. It's hard to take +things up again." + +He fingered his book; then, as if despite himself, he said; + +"I'm afraid, dear, that we're letting ourselves grow old." + +She swung sharply about, catching her breath. + +"You mean I am?" + +"Both of us." He was cautious, tender even, but she was not deceived. +It was almost a relief that he had spoken. + +"Tell me, dear," she said from her corner. "You're bored, aren't you? +Oh, not with me"--she forestalled his protest--"but just plain bored. +Isn't it so?" Her voice was deceptively quiet. + +He stirred in his chair, fidgeted under the direct attack, and +decided not to evade it. + +"I think we've been buried long enough," he finally confessed. +"I love our evenings together, of course; but a little change now +and then might be agreeable. Perhaps it isn't a good thing for two +people to be thrown entirely on each other's company. And I've been +wondering, dear"--he hesitated, carefully picking his words-- +"I've been wondering if you would not be happier if you had other +interests--interests of your own." + +"Suppose I don't want any?" She did not give this out as a challenge, +but he frowned a trifle impatiently. + +"I can't believe it possible," he said. "Have you lost all touch +with the world?" + +She came slowly forward into the warm circle of light. + +"I don't seem to care for people and things as I used to. Look at me. +I'm not the same Myra." + +She stared at him with a deep, searching expression, and what she +saw drew her up with a sudden movement of decision. Her voice, when +next she spoke, was lighter, more animated. + +"You're right, dear. We're growing poky. I tell you what we'll do," +she continued in a playful manner. Her lips smiled, and her eyes +watched as she knelt beside him, her head tilted, her fingers +straying over the rough surface of his coat. He never dressed for +dinner in these days. "We'll give a party, shall we?" she said. +"And then everyone will know that we're still--alive." + +If she had wanted to test his state of mind, she could not have +found a better way. Instantly he was all eagerness. Nothing would do +but that they should plan the party at once, set the date, make out +a list of friends to be invited. + +She was ready with pad and pencil and her old address-book, which +had lain for many days untouched in her desk. + +"Shall we have Frances Maury?" she suggested. "She'll remind you of +me as I was before we married." + +"What a gorgeous little devil you were!" he murmured reminiscently. + +She wished he had not said that. Yet how absurd it was to be jealous +of oneself! + +Well, they would entertain again, since it pleased him. But she had +lost her social instinct. This party seemed a great enterprise. She +had to pretend to an enthusiasm which she did not really feel. +"Am I growing old?" she wondered more than once. She had to confess +to a panic of shyness when she thought of herself as hostess. That +was all she would be this time. Frances Maury held the role of prima +donna. + +There were no regrets to her invitations. They came, these old +friends and acquaintances, with familiar voices and gestures. They +seemed genuinely glad to see her, but they did not spare her. She +had grown a little stouter, had she not? Ah, well happy people +risked that. And they did not need to be told how happy she was. In +quite an old-fashioned way, too. Myra domesticated--how quaint that +was! Did she sing any more? No? What a pity! + +Her rooms had lain quiet too long. So much noise deafened her. She +was suddenly aware that she _had_ grown stouter. Her new gown, made +for the occasion, should have been more cleverly designed. Martigues +as much as told her so. She had, also, lost the power of attraction. +She could not hold people's attention as she used to. She was +sensitively aware of how readily one and the other drifted away +after a few words. Had she not been hostess, she would often have +found herself alone. + +David Cannon and Miss Maury came late. Frances was fond of dramatic +entrances; she had the stage sense. Myra hurried forward, aware, as +she did so, that her greeting held a maternal note; that Cannon was +looking through and through her with those small, relentless eyes of +his. Then Oliver came up, and from the corner of her eyes she saw +Frances attach herself to him. She had known that would happen. + +Frances Maury was indeed a lovely creature, vivid, electric, swift, +and free of movement, mellow of voice. She was like a bell. Touch +her and she chimed. Oliver on one side, Martigues on the other, she +made her vivacious way through the room, and was soon surrounded. +Very prettily she moved her court toward Myra, drew Myra into the +circle of her warmth with a gracious friendliness. + +Martigues, in raptures, explained that it was he who had designed +the very modern jewel she wore, a moonstone set in silver. "Isn't +she adorable!" he kept on repeating. + +Oliver had bent over to look at this ornament and was fingering it, +his dark head close to hers. She whispered to him, and he whispered +back. They were already on the best of terms. + +David Cannon trod up to Myra. + +"What do you think of her?" he asked abruptly. "Her high notes are +not as fine as yours were, but she is improving. If she doesn't fall +in love, I shall make something of her." He frowned at Oliver. + +Myra flushed. + +"She seems very clever," was all she could manage. + +"I'll make her sing," said Cannon, and elbowed a path to her side. +She pouted a little, declared she could never resist him, and moved +to the piano. + +Myra drew a short breath. She herself had not intended to sing, but +she had hoped that Oliver or David would give her a chance to refuse. +She did not feel angry or envious of this girl, she was incapable of +pettiness; but she felt old and dull and lonely. Her trained smile +was her only shield. She held it while Frances Maury sang. She did +not look at Oliver, but his delight reached her as if she had caused +it. She felt him hovering close to the piano. She knew how he was +standing, how his eyes were shining. She knew, because as the warm, +rich voice rose up, as Cannon's strange rhythms filled the room with +a wild pagan grace, she withdrew into her memory and found there all +that went on. She herself was singing; she stood free and beautiful +before them all; she met Oliver's eyes. + +Frances sang again and again. Oliver led the applause, and Myra sat +on, smiling, her steady gaze turned inward. When it was over, she +took Frances by the hand, and it was as if she were thanking herself +and bidding that self adieu. + +Later in the evening David Cannon came up to her and gruffly +suggested that she sing. + +She shook her head. + +"No, my good friend." + +"Why not?" He stood over her, ugly, masterful. + +Her smile softened to a sweet, sad flutter of lip. + +"You know why." + +"Nonsense!" + +"You can't bully me any more, David," she told him gently. "That's +the tragic part of it," she added under her breath. She liked David, +but she wished he would go. She wished they would all go. It must be +very late. + +It was still later, however, before the last guest departed. That +last guest was Frances Maury, escorted by a glum David. Oliver had +kept her on. + +"Myra and I always get to bed so early that it's a relief to stay up +for once," he had said. + +"Of course it's much more sensible to go to bed early." Miss Maury's +voice did not sound as if sensible things appealed to her. + +"Oliver has to be at his office so early in the morning," Myra put +in almost as an apology. + +"She sees to that," came from Oliver, with a humorous inflection. + +Frances Maury playfully shuddered. + +"Wives have too many duties for me. I shall never marry." + +"Don't," said Oliver, and realized his blunder. He glanced quickly +at Myra, and was relieved to observe that she did not seem troubled. + +It was David, at last, who insisted on going home. Frances obeyed +him with a laughing apology. + +"You've given me such a good time. I forgot the hour. May I come +again?" + +"Indeed you must," Myra answered hospitably. + +She would not leave, however, until they had promised to come to her +concert. She would send them tickets. And they must have tea with +her soon. Would they chaperon her once in a while? Oliver eagerly +promised to be at her beck and call. He followed her out into the +hall, unmindful of David's vile temper. + +Myra turned slowly back into the room, noting with jaded eyes the +empty beer-bottles, crusts of sandwiches, ashes on the rugs, chairs +pulled crazily about. The place still resounded with chatter and song. +It no longer seemed her home. + +Presently Oliver joined her. + +"Well, I enjoyed that," he said with a boyish ring. "Come, now, +wasn't it jolly to see people again? Everyone had a wonderful time." +He hummed as he walked lightly over to the table and helped himself +to a cigarette. + +She dropped on the couch. + +"I'm a little tired." + +He lit his cigarette, staring at her over the tiny flame of the +match before he blew it out. + +"Why, I never noticed. You do look all in." + +She straightened with an effort, put a hand to her hair. + +"I'm afraid I've lost the habit." + +"You'll have to get it again," he said happily. "We're going to give +lots of parties. It's good for my business, too. Walter Mason +brought a man here to-night who is thinking of building a house on +Long Island. Walter tells me he went away quite won over." + +She was all interest at once. + +"Why didn't you tell me? I might have made a special effort to be +nice to him." + +"Oh, he had a good time," he said carelessly. "I say, Myra, your +friend Miss Maury is fascinating. Sings divinely." He moved over to +the couch and sat on the edge of it, absent-mindedly toying with her +hand. + +"She's very lovely," Myra agreed. + +"Why didn't you sing?" he suddenly asked. + +"I didn't need to." The little smile was back, fastened to her lips. +A certain unfamiliar embarrassment fell between them. She made no +effort to dissipate it. + +He yawned. + +"Well, you should have. Heavens! it's late! Two o'clock. I'm off to +bed." He kissed her lightly on the forehead. + +"I'll be along in a moment," she said. + +She heard him humming in the next room, heard him moving about, +heard the bump of his shoes on the floor. She lay, her eyes closed. +Presently she got up, went to the piano and let her fingers wander +over the keys. Then she began to sing softly. Her fine critical +faculties were awake. She listened while she sang--listened as if +some one else would rise or fall on her verdict. There was a curious +lack of vibrancy in her notes. They did not come from the heart. + +Suddenly she stopped. Oliver was calling "Myra." + +She thrilled with a swift hope that brought her to her feet, flushed +and tremulous. + +"Aren't you coming to bed soon? It's too late for music," drifted +faintly querulous down the hall. + +The light went out of her face. + +"I'm coming." A leaden weariness was over her. Slowly she closed the +piano. + +He was already asleep when she tiptoed into the room. She stood a +moment staring down at him. + +"The worst of it is that I shall sleep, too," she thought. + + + + +_BUTTERFLIES_ + + +BY ROSE SIDNEY + +From _The Pictorial Review_ + +The wind rose in a sharp gust, rattling the insecure windows and +sighing forlornly about the corners of the house. The door unlatched +itself, swung inward hesitatingly, and hung wavering for a moment on +its sagging hinges. A formless cloud of gray fog blew into the warm, +steamy room. But whatever ghostly visitant had paused upon the +threshold, he had evidently decided not to enter, for the catch +snapped shut with a quick, passionate vigour. The echo of the +slamming door rang eerily through the house. + +Mart Brenner's wife laid down the ladle with which she had been +stirring the contents of a pot that was simmering on the big, black +stove, and, dragging her crippled foot behind her, she hobbled +heavily to the door. + +As she opened it a new horde of fog-wraiths blew in. The world was a +gray, wet blanket. Not a light from the village below pierced the +mist, and the lonely army of tall cedars on the black hill back of +the house was hidden completely. + +"Who's there?" Mrs. Brenner hailed. But her voice fell flat and +muffled. Far off on the beach she could dimly hear the long wail of +a fog-horn. + +The faint throb of hope stilled in her breast. She had not really +expected to find any one at the door unless perhaps it should be a +stranger who had missed his way at the cross-roads. There had been +one earlier in the afternoon when the fog first came. But her +husband had been at home then and his surly manner quickly cut short +the stranger's attempts at friendliness. This ugly way of Mart's had +isolated them from all village intercourse early in their life on +Cedar Hill. + +Like a buzzard's nest their home hung over the village on the +unfriendly sides of the bleak slope. Visitors were few and always +reluctant, even strangers, for the village told weird tales of Mart +Brenner and his kin. The village said that he--and all those who +belonged to him as well--were marked for evil and disaster. Disaster +had truly written itself through-out their history. His mother was +mad, a tragic madness of bloody prophecies and dim fears; his only +son a witless creature of eighteen, who, for all his height and bulk, +spent his days catching butterflies in the woods on the hill, and his +nights in laboriously pinning them, wings outspread, upon the bare +walls of the house. + +The room where the Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was +tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread +yellow butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to +the black rafters overhead. + +Olga Brenner herself was no less tragic than her family. On her face, +written in the acid of pain, was the history of the blows and +cruelty that had warped her active body. Because of her crippled foot, +her entire left side sagged hopelessly and her arm swung away, above +it, like a branch from a decayed tree. But more saddening than her +distorted body was the lonely soul that looked out of her tired, +faded eyes. + +She was essentially a village woman with a profound love of its +intimacies and gossip, its fence-corner neighbourliness. The horror +with which the village regarded her, as the wife of Mart Brenner, +was an eating sore. It was greater than the tragedy of her poor, +witless son, the hatred of old Mrs. Brenner, and her ever-present +fear of Mart. She had never quite given up her unreasoning hope that +some day some one might come to the house in one of Mart's long, +unexplained absences and sit down and talk with her over a cup of tea. +She put away the feeble hope again as she turned back into the dim +room and closed the door behind her. + +"Must have been that bit of wind," she meditated. "It plays queer +tricks sometimes" + +She went to the mantel and lighted the dull lamp. By the flicker she +read the face of the clock. + +"Tobey's late!" she exclaimed uneasily. Her mind never rested from +its fear for Tobey. His childlike mentality made him always the same +burden as when she had rocked him hour after hour, a scrawny mite of +a baby on her breast. + +"It's a fearful night for him to be out!" she muttered. + +"Blood! Blood!" said a tragic voice from a dark corner by the stove. +Barely visible in the ruddy half-dark of the room a pair of demoniac +eyes met hers. + +Mrs. Brenner threw her shrivelled and wizened mother-in-law an angry +and contemptuous glance. + +"Be still!" she commanded. "'Pears to me that's all you ever +say--blood!" + +The glittering eyes fell away from hers in a sullen obedience. But +the tragic voice went on intoning stubbornly, "Blood on his hands! +Red! Dripping! I see blood!" + +Mrs. Brenner shuddered. "Seems like you could shut up a spell!" she +complained. + +The old woman's voice trailed into a broken and fitful whispering. +Olga's commands were the only laws she knew, and she obeyed them. +Mrs. Brenner went back to the stove. But her eyes kept returning to +the clock and thence to the darkening square of window where the fog +pressed heavily into the very room. + +Out of the gray silence came a shattering sound that sent the ladle +crashing out of Mrs. Brenner's nerveless hand and brought a moan +from the dozing old woman! It was a scream, a long, piercing scream, +so intense, so agonized that it went echoing about the room as +though a disembodied spirit were shrieking under the rafters! It was +a scream of terror, an innocent, a heart-broken scream! + +"Tobey!" cried Mrs. Brenner, her face rigid. + +The old woman began to pick at her ragged skirt, mumbling, "Blood! +Blood on his hands! I see it." + +"That was on the hill," said Mrs. Brenner slowly, steadying her voice. + +She put her calloused hand against her lips and stood listening with +agonized intentness. But now the heavy, foggy silence had fallen +again. At intervals came the long, faint wail of the fog-horn. There +was no other sound. Even the old woman in the shadowy corner had +ceased her mouthing. + +Mrs. Brenner stood motionless, with her hand against her trembling +lips, her head bent forward for four of the dull intervals between +the siren-call. + +Then there came the sound of steps stumbling around the house. +Mrs. Brenner, with her painful hobble, reached the door before the +steps paused there, and threw it open. + +The feeble light fell on the round, vacant face of her son his +inevitable pasteboard box, grimy with much handling, clutched close +to his big breast, and in it the soft beating and thudding of +imprisoned wings. + +Mrs. Brenner's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, "Tobey!" but +it rose shrilly as she cried, "Where you been? What was that scream?" + +Tobey stumbled past her headlong into the house, muttering, +"I'm cold!" + +She shut the door and followed him to the stove, where he stood +shaking himself and beating at his damp clothes with clumsy fingers. + +"What was that scream?" she asked him tensely. She knotted her rough +fingers as she waited for his answer. + +"I dunno," he grunted sullenly. His thick lower lip shoved itself +forward, baby-fashion. + +"Where you been?" she persisted. + +As he did not answer she coaxed him, "Aw, come on, Tobey. Tell Ma. +Where you been?" + +"I been catching butterflies," he answered. "I got a big one this +time," with an air of triumph. + +"Where was you when you heard the scream?" she asked him cunningly. + +He gave a slow shake of his head. "I dunno," he answered in his dull +voice. + +A big shiver shook him. His teeth chattered and he crouched down on +his knees before the open oven-door. + +"I'm cold," he complained. Mrs. Brenner came close to him and laid +her hand on his wet, matted hair. "Tobey's a bad boy," she scolded. +"You mustn't go out in the wet like this. Your hair's soaked." + +She got down stiffly on her lame knees. "Sit down," she ordered, +"and I'll take off your shoes. They're as wet as a dish-rag." + +"They're full of water, too," Tobey grumbled as he sprawled on the +floor, sticking one big, awkward foot into her lap. "The water in +there makes me cold." + +"You spoil all your pa's shoes that a-way," said Mrs. Brenner, her +head bent over her task. "He told you not to go round in the wet +with 'em any more. He'll give you a lashing if he comes in and sees +your shoes. I'll have to try and get 'em dry before he comes home. +Anyways," with a breath of deep relief, "I'm glad it ain't that red +clay from the hill. That never comes off." + +The boy paid no attention to her. He was investigating the contents +of his box, poking a fat, dirty forefinger around among its +fluttering contents. There was a flash of yellow wings, and with a +crow of triumph the boy shut the lid. + +"The big one's just more than flapping," he chuckled. "I had an +awful hard time to catch him. I had to run and run. Look at him, Ma," +the boy urged. She shook her head. + +"I ain't got the time," she said, almost roughly. "I got to get +these shoes off'n you afore your father gets home, Tobey, or you'll +get a awful hiding. Like as not you'll get it anyways, if he's mad. +Better get into bed." + +"Naw!" Tobey protested. "I seen Pa already. I want my supper out here! +I don't want to go to bed!" + +Mrs. Brenner paused. "Where was Pa?" she asked. + +But Tobey's stretch of coherent thinking was past. "I dunno!" he +muttered. + +Mrs. Brenner sighed. She pulled off the sticky shoes and rose stiffly. + +"Go get in bed," she said. + +"Aw, Ma, I want to stay up with my butterflies," the boy pleaded. +Two big tears rolled down his fat cheeks. In his queer, clouded +world he had learned one certain fact. He could almost always move +his mother with tears. + +But this time she was firm. "Do as I told you!" she ordered him. +"Mebbe if you're in bed your father won't be thinking about you. And +I'll try to dry these shoes afore he thinks about them." She took +the grimy box from his resisting fingers, and, holding it in one hand, +pulled him to his feet and pushed him off to his bedroom. + +When she had closed the door on his wail she returned and laid the +box on the shelf. Then she hurried to gather up the shoes. Something +on her hand as she put it out for the sodden shoes caught her eye +and she straightened, holding her hand up where the feeble light +from the shelf caught it. + +"I've cut myself," she said aloud. "There's blood on my hand. It +must 'a' been on those lacings of Tobeys." + +The old woman in the corner roused. "Blood!" she screeched. +"Olga! Blood on his hands!" + +Mrs. Brenner jumped. "You old screech-owl!" she cried. She wiped her +hand quickly on her dirty apron and held it up again to see the cut. +But there was no cut on her hand! Where had that blood come from? +From Tobey's shoes? + +And who was it that had screamed on the hill? She felt herself +enwrapped in a mist of puzzling doubts. + +She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes. But +the wet and pulpy mass had no stain. Only the wet sands and the +slimy water-weeds of the beach clung to them. + +Then where had the blood come from? It was at this instant that she +became conscious of shouts on the hillside. She limped to the door +and held it open a crack. Very faintly she could see the bobbing +lights of torches. A voice carried down to her. + +"Here's where I found his hat. That's why I turned off back of these +trees. And right there I found his body!" + +"Are you sure he's dead?" quavered another voice. + +"Stone-dead!'" + +Olga Brenner shut the door. But she did not leave it immediately. +She stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring +eyes glazing. + +Tobey was strong. He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had +hurt her with his undisciplined strength. Where was Mart? Tobey had +seen him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further. +But little subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and +feared his father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his +half-witted son. What _had_ happened? And yet no matter what had +occurred, Tobey had not been on the hill. His shoes bore mute +testimony to that. And the scream had been on the slope. She frowned. + +Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove +and laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to +the rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again +the sound of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not +stumble. They were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the +shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings +caught on a nail on the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, +and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter +they fell at her feet. + +In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway. Poverty, avarice, +and evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil's coin. His +shaggy head lowered in his powerful shoulders. His long arms, apelike, +hung almost to his knees. Behind him the fog pressed in, and his +rough, bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture. + +"Well?" he snapped. A sardonic smile twisted his face. "Caught you, +didn't I?" + +He strode forward. His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering +terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril, +that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left +a wet track on the rough floor. + +"He didn't do 'em no harm," she babbled. "They're just wet. Please, +Mart, they ain't harmed a mite. Just wet. That's all. Tobey went on +the beach with 'em. It won't take but a little spell to dry 'em." + +Her husband stooped and snatched up the shoes. She shrank into +herself, waiting the inevitable torrent of his passion and the +probable blow. Instead, as he stood up he was smiling. Bewildered, +she stared at him in a dull silence. + +"No harm done," he said, almost amiably. Shaking with relief, she +stretched out her hand. + +"I'll dry 'em," she said. "Give me your shoes and I'll get the mud +off." + +Her husband shook his head. He was still smiling. + +"Don't need to dry 'em. I'll put 'em away," he replied, and, still +tracking his wet mud, he went into Tobey's room. + +Her fear flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his +black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability. +Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained her ears +to listen. + +A long silence followed his exit. But there was no outcry from Tobey, +no muttering nor blows. After a few moments, moving quickly, her +husband came out. She raised her heavy eyes to stare at him. He +stopped and looked intently at his own muddy tracks. + +"I'll get a rag and wipe up the mud right off." + +As she started toward the nail where the rag hung, her husband put +out a long arm and detained her. "Leave it be," he said. He smiled +again. + +She noticed, then, that he had removed his muddy shoes and wore the +wet ones. He had fully laced them, and she had almost a +compassionate moment as she thought how wet and +cold his feet must be. + +"You can put your feet in the oven, Mart, to dry 'em." + +Close on her words she heard the sound of footsteps and a sharp +knock followed on the sagging door. Mart Brenner sat down on a chair +close to the stove and lifted one foot into the oven. "See who's +there!" he ordered. + +She opened the door and peered out. A group of men stood on the step, +the faint light of the room picking out face after face that she +recognized--Sheriff Munn; Jim Barker, who kept the grocery in the +village; Cottrell Hampstead, who lived in the next house below them; +young Dick Roamer, Munn's deputy; and several strangers. + +"Well?" she asked ungraciously. + +"We want to see Brenner!" one of them said. + +She stepped back. "Come in," she told them. They came in, pulling +off their caps, and stood huddled in a group in the centre of the +room. + +Her husband reluctantly stood up. + +"Evening!" he said, with his unusual smile. "Bad out, ain't it?" + +"Yep!" Munn replied. "Heavy fog. We're soaked." + +Olga Brenner's pitiful instinct of hospitality rose in her breast. + +"I got some hot soup on the stove. Set a spell and I'll dish you some," +she urged. + +The men looked at each other in some uncertainty. After a moment +Munn said, "All right, if it ain't too much bother, Mrs. Brenner." + +"Not a bit," she cried eagerly. She bustled about, searching her +meagre stock of chinaware for uncracked bowls. + +"Set down?" suggested Mart. + +Munn sat down with a sign, and his companions followed his example. +Mart resumed his position before the stove, lifting one foot into +the capacious black maw of the oven. + +"Must 'a' got your feet wet, Brenner?" the sheriff said with heavy +jocularity. + +Brenner nodded, "You bet I did," he replied. "Been down on the beach +all afternoon." + +"Didn't happen to hear any unusual noise down there, did you?" Munn +spoke with his eyes on Mrs. Brenner, at her task of ladling out the +thick soup. She paused as though transfixed, her ladle poised in the +air. + +Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became +fixed on the tracks of red clay. + +"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside tonight, for the +bay was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly. + +"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn +persisted. + +"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?" + +"Oh--nothing," said Munn. + +Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the +table. + +Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished +his soup before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As +Munn finished the last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a +wicked-looking black pipe, crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it. + +Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired, +"Been any strangers around to-day?" + +Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon. +He was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till +the sun come out. I don't know whether he did or not." + +"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?" + +Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass +nobody." + +The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours +still catching butterflies?" he asked presently. + +Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their +floods of butterflies. But he did not answer. + +"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He +puffed several times before he spoke again. + +"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?" + +Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced ringers +locking themselves. + +"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart +said carelessly. + +"Yes." Her voice was a breath. + +"Was your boy out to-day?" + +Mart looked at his wife. "I dunno." + +Munn's glance came to the wife. + +"Yes." + +"How long ago did he come in?" + +"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless. + +"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent. + +Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!" +she said in a defiant tone. + +Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his +face. He still wore his peculiar affable smile. + +"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?" + +Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner. + +"What's that to you?" she flared. + +She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones. "Now, now, +Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who +made these tracks." + +"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of +a falling trap. + +Mart smiled still more broadly. + +"Look here, Olga, don't get so warm over it. You're nervous now. +Tell the gentlemen who made those tracks." + +She turned to Munn desperately. "What do you want to know for?" she +asked him. + +The sharpness of her voice roused old Mrs. Brenner, drowsing in her +corner. + +"Blood!" she cried suddenly. "Blood on his hands!" + +In the silence that followed, the eyes of the men turned curiously +toward the old woman and then sought each other with speculative +stares. Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances, +said roughly. "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you +bothering us for?" + +Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the +arm. There was something touching in her frightened old face. + +"A man--a stranger was killed up on the hill," Munn told her. + +"What's that got to do with us?" she countered. + +"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure +where every man in the village was this afternoon." + +Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness +of Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did +not miss the tremor in her eyes. + +"Where was your son this afternoon?" + +She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach." + +"Whose room is that?" Munn's forefinger pointed to Tobey's closed +door. + +"That's Tobey's room," said his mother. + +"The mud tracks go into that room. Did he make those tracks, +Mrs. Brenner?" + +"No! Oh, no! No!" she cried desperately. "Mart made those when he +came in. He went into Tobey's room!" + +"How about it, Brenner?" + +Mart smiled with an indulgent air. "Heard what she said, didn't you?" + +"Is it true?" + +Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree +with her," he said. + +"Let's see your shoes, Brenner?" + +Without hesitation Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for +Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward to examine +them. + +"Nothing but pieces of seaweed," said Cottrell Hampstead, + +Munn eyed them. Then he turned to look at the floor. + +"Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner. But they were +made in red clay. How do you account for that?" + +"Tobey wears my shoes,'" said Brenner. + +Mrs. Brenner gasped. She advanced to Munn. + +"What you asking all these questions for?" she pleaded. + +Munn did not answer her. After a moment he asked. "Did you hear a +scream this afternoon?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +"How long after the screaming did your son come in?" + +She hesitated. What was the best answer to make? Bewildered, she +tried to decide. "Ten minutes or so," she said. + +"Just so," agreed Munn. "Brenner, when did you come in?" + +A trace of Mart's sullenness rose in his face. "I told you that once," +he said. + +"I mean how long after Tobey?" + +"I dunno," said Mart. + +"How long, Mrs. Brenner?" + +She hesitated again. She scented a trap. "Oh, 'bout ten to fifteen +minutes, I guess," she said. + +Suddenly she burst out passionately. "What you hounding us for? We +don't know nothing about the man on the hill. You ain't after the +rest of the folks in the village like you are after us. Why you +doing it? We ain't done nothing." + +Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door, +and opened it. He reached out into the darkness. Then he turned. He +was holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see +what it was. + +"You chop your wood with a short, heavy axe, don't you, Brenner?" +said Munn. + +Brenner nodded. + +"It's marked with your name, isn't it?" + +Brenner nodded again. + +"_Is this the axe_?" + +Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream. Red and clotted, even the +handle marked with bloody spots, the axe was theirs. + +Brenner started to his feet. "God!" he yelped, "that's where that +axe went! Tobey took it!" More calmly he proceeded, "This afternoon +before I went down on the beach I thought I'd chop some wood on the +hill. But the axe was gone. So after I'd looked sharp for it and +couldn't find it, I gave it up." + +"Tobey didn't do it!" Mrs. Brenner cried thinly. "He's as harmless +as a baby! He didn't do it! He didn't do it!" + +"How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner? There is red clay on the +hill where the man was killed. There is red clay on your floor." +Munn spoke kindly. + +"Mart tracked in that clay. He changed shoes with Tobey. I tell you +that's the truth." She was past caring for any harm that might +befall her. + +Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance. "It's likely, ain't it, that +I'd change into shoes as wet as these?" + +"Those tracks are Mart's!" Olga reiterated hysterically. + +"They lead into your son's room, Mrs. Brenner. And we find your axe +not far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill." +Munn's eyes were grave. + +The old woman in the corner began to whimper, "Blood and trouble! +Blood and trouble all my days! Red on his hands! Dripping! Olga! +Blood!" + +"But the road to the beach begins there too," Mrs. Brenner cried, +above the cracked voice, "and Tobey saw his pa before he came home. +He said he did. I tell you, Mart was on the hill. He put on Tobey's +shoes. Before God I'm telling you the truth." + +Dick Roamer spoke hesitatingly, "Mebbe the old woman's right, Munn. +Mebbe those tracks are Brenner's." + +Mrs. Brenner turned to him in wild gratitude. + +"You believe me, don't you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her +face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it +might swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof! +More proof! She must bring more proof of Tobey's innocence! + +She snatched up his box of butterflies and came back to Munn. + +"This is what Tobey was doin' this afternoon!" she cried in triumph. +"He was catchin' butterflies! That ain't murder, is it?" + +"Nobody catches butterflies in a fog," said Munn. + +"Well, Tobey did. Here they are," Mrs. Brenner held out the box. +Munn took it from her shaking hand. He looked at it. After a moment +he turned it over. His eyes narrowed. Mrs. Brenner turned sick. The +room went swimming around before her in a bluish haze. She had +forgotten the blood on her hand that she had wiped off before Mart +came home. Suppose the blood had been on the box. + +The sheriff opened the box. A bruised butterfly, big, golden, +fluttered up out of it. Very quietly the sheriff closed the box, and +turned to Mrs. Brenner. + +"Call your son," he said. + +"What do you want of him? Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin' +to do to him?" + +"There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner." + +"Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was +chalky white. + +"In the box, Mrs. Brenner, _is a gold watch and chain_. The man who +was killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in +his buttonhole. _The rest of it had been torn off_" + +Olga made no sound. Her burning eyes turned toward Mart. In them was +all of a heart's anguish and despair. + +"Tell 'em, Mart! Tell 'em he didn't do it!" she finally pleaded. + +Mart's face was inscrutable. + +Munn rose. The other men got to their feet. + +"Will you get the boy or shall I?" the sheriff said directly to +Mrs. Brenner. + +With a rush Mrs. Brenner was on her knees before Munn, clutching him +about the legs with twining arms. Tears of agony dripped over her +seamed face. + +"He didn't do it! Don't take him! He's my baby! He never harmed +anybody! He's my baby!" Then with a shriek, as Munn unclasped her +arms, "Oh, my God! My God!" + +Munn helped her to her feet. "Now, now, Mrs. Brenner, don't take on +so," he said awkwardly. "There ain't going to be no harm come to +your boy. It's to keep him from getting into harm that I'm taking him. +The village is a mite worked up over this murder and they might get +kind of upset if they thought Tobey was still loose. Better go and +get him, Mrs. Brenner." + +As she stood unheeding, he went on, "Now, don't be afraid. +Nothing'll happen to him. No jedge would sentence him like a regular +criminal. The most that'll happen will be to put him some safe place +where he can't do himself nor no one else any more harm." + +But still Mrs. Brenner's set expression did not change. + +After a moment she shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to +Tobey's door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the +latch, her eyes searching the faces of the men in the room. With a +gesture of dreary resignation she opened the door and entered, +closing it behind her. + +Tobey lay in his bed, asleep. His rumpled hair was still damp from +the fog. His mother stroked it softly while her slow tears dropped +down on his face with its expression of peaceful childhood. + +"Tobey!" she called. Her voice broke in her throat. The tears fell +faster. + +"Huh!" He sat up, blinking at her. + +"Get into your clothes, now! Right away!" she said. + +He stared at her tears. A dismal sort of foreboding seemed to seize +upon him. His face began to pucker. But he crawled out of his bed +and began to dress himself in his awkward fashion, casting wistful +and wondering glances in her direction. + +She watched him, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no +one to protect Tobey. She could not make those strangers believe +that Mart had changed shoes with Tobey. Neither could she account +for the blood-stained box and the watch with its length of broken +chain. But if Tobey had been on the beach he had not been on the hill, +and if he hadn't been on the hill he couldn't have killed the man +they claimed he had killed. Mart had been on the hill. Her head +whirled. Some place fate, destiny, something had blundered. She +wrung her knotted hands together. + +Presently Tobey was dressed. She took him by the hand. Her own hand +was shaking, and very cold and clammy. Her knees were weak as she +led him toward the door. She could feel them trembling so that every +step was an effort. And her hand on the knob had barely strength to +turn it. But turn it she did and opened the door. + +"Here he is!" she cried chokingly. She freed her hand and laid it on +his shoulder. + +"Look at him," she moaned. "He couldn't 'a' done it. He's--he's just +a boy!" + +Sheriff Munn rose. His men rose with him. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brenner," he said. "Terrible sorry. But you can see +how it is. Things look pretty black for him." + +He paused, looked around, hesitated for a moment. Finally he said, +"Well, I guess we'd better be getting along." + +Mrs. Brenner's hand closed with convulsive force on Tobey's shoulder. + +"Tobey!" she screamed desperately, "where was you this afternoon? +All afternoon?" + +"On the beach," mumbled Tobey, shrinking into himself. + +"Tobey! Tobey! Where'd you get blood on the box?" + +He looked around. His cloudy eyes rested on her face helplessly. + +"I dunno," he said. + +Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other +shoulder. + +"Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch, +the pretty watch that was in your box?" + +He blinked at her. + +"The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?" + +His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile. + +"I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on +his face. + +"But where? What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks. + +He shook his head. "I dunno." + +Mrs. Brenner would not give up. + +"You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly. + +He nodded. + +"Where'd you see him?" she breathed. + +He frowned. "I--saw pa----" he began, straining to pierce the cloud +that covered him. + +"Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner. She half rose, her head +thrust forward on her shrivelled neck. + +Tobey paused, confused. "I dunno," he said. + +"Did he give you the pretty bright thing? And did he give you the +axe--" she paused and repeated the word loudly--"the axe to bring +home?" + +Tobey caught at the word. "The axe?" he cried. "The axe! Ugh! It +was all sticky!" He shuddered. + +"Did pa give you the axe?" + +But the cloud had settled. Tobey shook his head. "I dunno," he +repeated his feeble denial. + +Munn advanced. "No use, Mrs. Brenner, you see. Tobey, you'll have to +come along with us." + +Even to Tobey's brain some of the strain in the atmosphere must have +penetrated, for he drew back. "Naw," he protested sulkily, "I don't +want to." + +Dick Roamer stepped to his side. He laid his hand on Tobey's arm. +"Come along," he urged. + +Mrs. Brenner gave a smothered gasp. Tobey woke to terror. He turned +to run. In an instant the men surrounded him. Trapped, he stood still, +his head lowered in his shoulders. + +"Ma!" he screamed suddenly. "Ma! I don't want to go! Ma!" + +He fell on his knees. Heavy childish sobs racked him. Deserted, +terrified, he called upon the only friend he knew. + +"Ma! Please, Ma!" + +Munn lifted him up. Dick Roamer helped him, and between them they +drew him to the door, his heart-broken calls and cries piercing +every corner of the room. + +They whisked him out of Mrs. Brenner's sight as quickly as they could. +The other men piled out of the door, blocking the last vision of her +son, but his bleating cries came shrilling back on the foggy air. + +Mart closed the door. Mrs. Brenner stood where she had been when +Tobey had first felt the closing of the trap and had started to run. +She looked as though she might have been carved there. Her light +breath seemed to do little more than lift her flat chest. + +Mart turned from the door. His eyes glittered. He advanced upon her +hungrily like a huge cat upon an enchanted mouse. + +"So you thought you'd yelp on me, did you?" he snarled, licking his +lips. "Thought you'd put me away, didn't you? Get me behind the bars, +eh?" + +"Blood!" moaned the old woman in the corner. "Blood!" + +Mart strode to the table, pulling out from the bosom of his shirt a +lumpy package wrapped in his handkerchief. He threw it down on the +table. It fell heavily with a sharp ringing of coins. + +"But I fooled you this time! Mart wasn't so dull this time, eh?" He +turned toward her again. + +Between them, disturbed in his resting-place on the table, the big +bruised yellow butterfly raised himself on his sweeping wings. + +Mart drew back a little. The butterfly flew toward Olga and brushed +her face with a velvety softness. + +Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm +upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a +gleam of light showed. + +"You devil!" she said, in a whispering voice. "You killed that man! +You gave Tobey the watch and the axe! You changed shoes with him! +You devil! You devil!" + +He drew back for a blow. She did not move. Instead she mocked him, +trying to smile. + +"You whelp!" she taunted him. "Go on and hit me! I ain't running! +And if you don't break me to bits I'm going to the sheriff and I'll +tell him what you said to me just now. And he'll wonder how you got +all that money in your pockets. He knows we're as poor as church mice. +How you going to explain what you got?" + +"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed +with venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it +where I'm going to put it!" + +The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of +exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you, +Mart!" she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you +for Tobey! You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you! +You're trapped, I tell you! And I done it!" + +She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank +window with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the +unseen. He couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw +that he was wet with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage +him. She counted on that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury. +She leaned toward him, inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the +torch that will make their pile of fagots a blazing bier. + +He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion +that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid +fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained +consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet +achieved that for which she was fighting. + +The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood +drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering +feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only +friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across +the table. She stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment. +Then with a thin wail, "He's killing her!" she ran around them and +gained the door. + +With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face, +swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her +almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman. + +"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!" + +The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the +door and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It +came to Mart that the woman running through the night with the wail +of terror was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw +his look of sick terror. He started to spring after the mad woman, +forgetful of the half-conscious creature on her knees before him. + +But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion, +forced strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she +sprawled herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for +the table, and fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a +near-by chair. Olga raised herself on her shaking arms and looked at +him. Minute after minute passed, and yet he lay still. A second long +ten minutes ticked itself off on the clock, which Olga could barely +see. Then Mart opened his eyes, sat up, and staggered to his feet. + +Before full consciousness could come to him again, his wife crawled +forward painfully and swiftly coiled herself about his legs. He +struggled, still dizzy from his fall, bent over and tore at her +twining arms, but the more he pulled the tighter she clung, +fastening her misshapen fingers in the lacing of his shoes. He swore! +And he became panic-stricken. He began to kick at her, to make +lunges toward the distant door. Kicking and fighting, dragging her +clinging body with him at every move, that body which drew him back +one step for every two forward steps he took, at last he reached the +wall. He clutched it, and as his hand slipped along trying to find a +more secure hold he touched the cold iron of a long-handled pan +hanging there. + +With a snarl he snatched it down, raised it over his head, and +brought it down upon his wife's back. Her hands opened spasmodically +and fell flat at her sides. Her body rolled over, limp and broken. +And a low whimper came from her bleeding lips. + +Satisfied, Mart paused to regain his breath. He had no way of +knowing how long this unequal fight had been going on. + +But he was free. The way of escape was open. He laid his hand on the +door. + +There were voices. He cowered, cast hunted glances at the bloody +figure on the floor, bit his knuckles in a frenzy. + +As he looked, the eyes opened in his wife's swollen face, eyes aglow +with triumph. "You'll swing for it, Mart!" she whispered faintly. +"And the money's on the table! Tobey's saved!" + +Rough hands were on the door. A flutter of breath like a sigh of +relief crossed her lips and her lids dropped as the door burst open +to a tide of men. + +The big yellow butterfly swung low on his golden wings and came to +rest on her narrow, sunken breast. + + + + +NO FLOWERS + + +BY GORDON ARTHUR SMITH + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + +Steve Dempsey was a conspicuously ingenious chief machinist's +mate--one of the most ingenious in the Naval Aviation Forces, +Foreign Service, and he was ingenious not only with his hands, but +with his tongue. That is why I cannot guarantee the veracity of what +follows; I can but guarantee that he guaranteed it. + +Steve had had a varied and highly coloured career, and I think that +the war, or so much of it as he was permitted to see, seemed to him +a comparatively tame affair--something all in the year's work. When +he was fifteen years old he was conducting his father's public +garage in a town not far from Denver; at that age he knew as much +about motors as the men who built them, and he had, moreover, the +invaluable knack of putting his finger immediately on a piece of +erring mechanism and, with the aid of a bit of wire and a pair of +pliers, setting it to rights. Given enough wire and a pair of pliers, +I believe that he could have built the Eiffel Tower. + +Becoming restless in the garage, he determined to make his fortune +quickly, and accordingly went out prospecting in the vicinity of the +Little Annie mine. He bought himself a small patch of promising +ground and he and another fellow shovelled away until they had no +money left. So then he took up aviation. + +He was one of the pioneers of the flying-men in this country. He +used to fly at country fairs in an old ramshackle bus of the Wright +model--a thing of sticks and canvas and wires precariously hung +together. But he flew it. And he rehabilitated his finances. + +When war was declared he enlisted as a gob and was sent on sea duty. +He knew, of course, nothing of sea duty, but lack of knowledge of a +subject had never daunted him, for he had the faculty of learning +things quickly by himself and for himself. His mechanical ability +asserting itself, he was made a machinist's mate, second class, and +transferred over to the Aviation. When I knew him he had proved so +valuable at the various air stations that he had been advanced to +chief machinist's mate and was an assistant in the Technical Division +at Paris headquarters. + +He was a very friendly soul, always respectful enough, even when +outspoken, and no more in fear of an admiral than of--well, he +would have said than of a marine. During his year of service, you see, +he had absorbed most of the navy traditions. He spoke the navy +speech like an old-timer, and undoubtedly amplified the regular navy +vocabulary with picturesque expressions of his own. Of course he was +very profane.... + +Sunday morning at headquarters was apt to be a slack morning, with +not much work to do; but in intervals of idleness one could always +be certain of finding something of interest to see or hear in +Steve's office. Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board +working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a +self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying _through_ +the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet +to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower on +its girders, were two of his pet projects. + +On a Sunday in August of 1918 there were assembled around his +drafting-board an interested and receptive audience of four--Peters, +an ensign attached to the "lighter-than-air" section; Madden, a +pilot on his way up from Italy to the Northern Bombing Group; Erskine, +a lieutenant in the Operations Division; and Matthews, a chief yeoman. + +"Yes," Dempsey was saying, "I'm _beaucoup_ sorry for these here +frawgs. They're just bein' massacred--that's all it is--_massacred_. +And there don't anybody take much notice, either. Say, somebody was +tellin' me the other day just how many the French has lost since the +beginnin' of the war. Just about one million. I wouldn't believe it, +but it's straight. It was a French colonel that was tellin' me out +to the Hispano factory day before yesterday, and he'd oughta know +because he was through the battle of the Marne and the Soam, and +everything." + +"Did he tell you in French?" inquired Ensign Peters, meaningly, for +Dempsey's French was admittedly limited. + +"Pardon?" said Dempsey, and then, grasping the innuendo: "No, sir, +he did _not_. Why, he talks English as good as you and me. That's +another thing about these frawgs--they can all _parlez-vous_ any +language. I never yet seen a Frenchie I couldn't talk to yet." + +"Did you ever see anybody you couldn't talk to yet, Steve?" +suggested the chief yeoman. + +"Here, you, how d'ya get that way? Who was it I seen th' other night +out walking in the Boy de Bullone with a skirt? And I guess you +wasn't talkin'--why, you was talkin' so fast you had to help out +with your hands, just like a frawg.... No, as I say, I feel sorry +for these French in more ways than one." + +"Just how do you display that sorrow?" asked Ensign Madden. + +Dempsey hesitated an instant, scratched his head, and very carefully +drew a line on the tracing-paper in front of him. + +"Well, sir," he said, finally, "I displayed it last Sunday." + +Then he relapsed into silence, and resumed work on the drawing. But +as he worked he grinned quietly--a provocative grin which inspired +curiosity. + +"What did you do last Sunday?" prodded Peters. + +The grin widened as Steve glanced up from the board. He laid aside +his instruments, tilted back in his chair, and said: "Well, it +wasn't very regular, what I done last Sunday, but I'll tell you if +you don't have me up before a court.... You remember last Sunday +was a swell day? Spring in the air, I guess, and everything, and +everybody was out walking like Matthews, here, with a Jane. I 'ain't +got a Jane, of course----" + +"What!" roared Matthews. + +"I 'ain't got a Jane, of course, so I decides to take a little look +around all by myself. Well, I goes down the Chomps-Eleezy feelin' +pretty good and sorta peppy and lookin' for trouble. I see all them +army heroes--the vets and the dentists and the S O S--each with a +skirt, and I passes Matthews, here, with _his_ skirt clingin' to him +like a cootie." + +"Cut it out, you big stiff," interposed Matthews. + +"Like a cootie," continued Steve, "and I got sorta de-pressed. So I +sez, me for the quiet, unfrequented streets over acrost the river. +Well, sir, I was just passin' the Loover--that big museum, or +whatever it is--when I see a hearse comin' in the opposite direction. +It was a pretty sick-lookin' hearse, too. It had a coupla animals +hitched to it that was probably called horses when they was young, +and that didn't have a steak minoot left on 'em. But they was all +covered with mangy black plumes and tassels and things--you know, the +way they rig 'em up when the corpse is takin' his last drive. And +there was an old bird sittin' up on the box-seat with a hat like +Napoleon One. + +"Well, at first it looked to me like it was just the regular frawg +funeral, and I didn't pay no special attention, only I give it the +salute when I got opposite. Then I see that there weren't no flowers +nor tin wreaths on the coffin--except there was one little buncha +pinks, and they was a pretty sad-lookin' buncha pinks, too, sir. +Then I see that there weren't no procession walkin' along +behind--except there was one little old woman all in black and +lookin' sorta sick and scared. Yes, sir, there she was walkin' all +by herself and lookin' lonelier 'n hell. + +"So I sez to myself: 'It's all wrong, Steve, it's all wrong. Here's +a poor dead frawg, the only son of his mother and her a +widow'--that's Bible stuff, sir--'goin' out to be planted with none +of the gang around. It's tough,' I sez. 'I'll say it is.' Well, I +told you I didn't have nothin' much to do, so I sez, 'Laffyette, +cheeri-o,' and steps up beside the old lady. That makes two mourners, +anyhow. + +"Well, the old lady give me the once over and seen Mr. Daniels's +uniform and the rooster on my sleeve, and I guess decides that I'm +eligible to the club. Anyway, she sorta nodded at me and pretty soon +begun to snuffle and look for her handkerchief. It wasn't no use, +though, for she didn't have any. + +"Meanwhile we was crossin' one of them bridges--just crawlin' along +like one of the motors had quit and the other was hittin' only on +three. If we'd been in the air we'd stalled sure and gone into a +tail-spin. All the time I was thinkin' how to say 'Cheer up' to the +old dame in French, but all I could think of at first was 'Bravo' +and '_Vous-ate tray jolee_!' Still it was sorta stupid walkin' along +and no conversation, so I guess I musta had an inspiration or +something, and I sez, pointing ahead at the coffin, '_Mort avec mon +Dieu_.' The old lady lost her step at that, because I suppose she +was surprised by a Yank speakin' good French, most of 'em relyin', +like Matthews here, on the sign language, although I'll say that +Matthews gets plenty far enough with that. Why, they're four girls +and a widow at home that if they knew how far Matthews was gettin' +with the sign language they'd be gray-headed to-day.... Aw, well, +Matthews, quit spoilin' this drawin'. Do you wanta get me and +Admiral Sims into trouble with the department?" + +"Go ahead with your funeral, Steve," said Lieutenant Erskine--"unless +your power of invention has failed you." + +Dempsey looked up with a hurt and innocent expression on his face. + +"Oh, lootenant," he exclaimed, "what I'm tellin' is gospel. It's as +true--it's as true as the communikays." + +"All right," said Erskine, "issue another, then." + +"Well," Steve continued, "where was I? Oh yes, we was on the bridge +and I'd just told the old lady that the dead soldier was in heaven +by now." + +"Soldier?" repeated Erskine. "What made you believe he was a soldier?" + +"Why, ain't every frawg a soldier now, sir." + +"How did you know, even, that it was a male frog?" + +"I'm comin' to that, sir," replied Steve. "That comes next. You see, +once the old lady knew I could _parlez-vous_ with the best of 'em, +she continued the conversation and sez, '_Mon pover fees_.' Get that? +'_Mon pover fees_.' Well, that means, translated, 'My poor son.'" + +At this revelation of startling linguistic ability Steve paused to +receive felicitations. When they were forthcoming he proceeded. + +"So, of course, I know then that the corpse is a dead soldier, and I +decides to see him through until he's made a safe landing somewhere. +Well, just as we was acrost the bridge, the two ex-horses doin' fine +on the down grade, I seen a marine standin' on the corner tellin' a +buncha girls all about Chateau-Teery. Well, I thought that maybe it +'ud be a good thing if he joined the funeral, because, anyway, the +girls could hear all about Chateau-Teery the next marine they saw. +So I yell out at him: 'Hey, you! Come and join the navy and see the +world!' + +"Well, he looks around, and, although I guess he didn't much wanta +leave them girls, he decides that he'll come and see what the big +game is. So he salutes the corpse and steps in beside me and whispers, +'Say, chief, what's the idea?' + +"'Whadd 'ya think, you poor cheese?' I sez. 'D'ya think it's a +weddin'? Get in step. We're goin' to bury a French _poiloo_.' + +"'Is that so?' he sez." + +"'Yes, that's so,' I sez. 'Get over acrost on the other side of the +widowed mother and say somethin' cheerful to her in French--if you +know any.'" + +"'If I know any!' sez he. 'Wasn't I at Chateau-Teery?'" + +"'Well,' I sez, 'don't tell her about that. Tell her somethin' she +ain't heard already.'" + +"'You go to blazes!' he sez, and crosses over like I told him. And +pretty soon I seen him gettin' all red and I knew he was goin' to +shoot some French at the old lady, and, sure enough, out he come with, +'_Madame je swee enchantay_.'" + +"Well, sir, I like to 've died tryin' to keep from laughin' at that, +because what it means translated is, 'Madam, I'm deelighted.' Trust +them marines to say the right thing at the wrong time--I'll say they +do." + +"By the time I get under control we're opposite the French Aviation +Headquarters--you know, the Service Technique on the Bullyvard +Saint-Germain. Well, there was a lot of doughboys hangin' around +there wastin' time, and I see one on a motor-cycle with a sergeant +sittin' in the side-car. So I step out of the ranks and sez to the +sergeant, 'What ya doin'?' And he sez, 'Waitin'--but there's nobody +home at all, at all.' So I sez: 'Well, you and your side-car is +commandeered for this funeral. We're buryin' a frawg and we need +some more mourners. The old lady is his widowed mother, and the +corpse, he's her only son and her a widow.' He sez: 'Shure, Oi'll +come, an' Oi'll be afther gettin' some o' thim other divvles to jine. +Me name is Roilly.' 'Right-o, old dear,' I sez. 'I didn't think it +was Moses and Straus.'" + +"Well, sir, Reilly was a good scout, and inside of a minute he had +six doughboys lined up behind the hearse and him bringin' up the +rear in the side-car. The side-car kept backfirin', and it sounded +like we was firin' salutes to the dead all the way to the park. + +"I wanta tell ya, that old lady was tickled. Why, there we was +already ten strong, with more to come, because I drafted three gobs +at the Bullyvard Raspail. They wasn't quite sober, but I kep' my eye +on 'em and they behaved fine. I sez to them: 'You drunken bums, you! +You join this funeral or I'll see you're put in the brig to-night.' +But to make sure they'd not disgrace Mr. Daniels's uniform I put 'em +right behind the widow and the marine and me. + +"Well, it appears that one of 'em talks French good--real good, I +mean, sir--like a frawg waiter or a coacher." + +"Or a what?" interjected Erskine. + +"Or a coacher," repeated Steve, with dignity. "The fact is, he +talked it so good that--well, never mind that yet. He's a smart +fellow, though, Mr. Erskine, by the name of Rathbone. Well, never +mind--only he's a good fellow and 'ud be pretty useful here, with +his French and everything. + +"Well, anyway, I begun to wonder after a while where that fellow +driving the hearse was takin' us to. We'd gone out the old Bullyvard +Raspail a deuce of a way, and Napoleon One showed no signs of +stoppin' them horses, and I didn't see no cemetery. + +"I sez to the marine, 'I guess we're not goin' to stop till we get +to Chateau-Teery,' and he sez, 'You go to hell and stop _there_.' So +I sez, 'I hope the poor old lady don't understand your English.' + +"The old dame, I could see, was beginnin' to get weak in the knees +and was walkin' about as unsteady as the three gobs behind us. So me +and the marine each grabbed an arm and she sez, '_Mercy_,' and tried +to start a smile. I guess it was pretty hard goin', because the +smile didn't get far. + +"Well, anyway, we kep' right on and passed that stone lion out there +and went right through the gates, the boys all marchin' strong and +the motor-bike makin' one hell of a noise aft. When we get through +the gates I fall back and I sez to the gob, 'Rathbone,' I sez, 'ask +the lady where we're headed and if she trusts the driver.' So +Rathbone moves up and has quite a _parlez-vous_ with her. + +"'Well,' I sez, 'what's she say?' + +"'She sez,' sez Rathbone, 'that we're goin' to bury him in a field +out here, and that there ain't no priest will bury him and there +ain't no cemetery she can bury him in.' + +"'That's funny,' I sez--'too poor, I guess. Well, anyway, it's a +shame--I'll say it is--it's a shame.' + +"'Yes,' sez Rathbone, slowly, as if he was thinkin'--'yes, it's a +damn shame!'" + +"And the other two gobs who wasn't as sober as Rathbone, they sez, +too, 'Yes, it's a damn shame.'" + +"'That makes the navy unanimous,' I sez, and then I begin to work my +bean. I was still workin' it and it was respondin' about as well as +one of them black Kabyles that are pretendin' to help build our +station at Lacanau--I was still workin' it, when the old hearse +swings to the right through a gate in a stone wall and brings up +short in a field. There was grass in the field and daisies and things, +and a lotta tin crosses stuck on mounds that I guessed was graves. +It woulda been a pretty cheerful old field, I guess, if they'd let +it alone, but them tin crosses looked pretty sick and the paint was +peelin' off the tin flowers that people had stuck on the graves, and +I guess the head gardener wasn't much of a hand at weedin'." + +"Well, anyway, we all line up in a sorta circle and every one looks +pretty downhearted and the three gobs gets perfectly sober, which +was a relief. Then Napoleon One climbs down from his box and says +somethin' in French to the old widow and points to two birds who're +diggin' a hole half-way acrost the field. Rathbone sez that he sez +that that is the grave and that the two birds is the grave-diggers +and pall-bearers combined." + +"'They are, are they?' I sez. 'This is a military funeral, ain't it? +A military funeral conducted by the navy with the army for +pall-bearers. And I call on Sergeant Reilly to back me up.' + +"'Shure,' sez Reilly, 'but who'll be providin' the priest?' + +"Well, when he sez that my old bean give a sort of throb, and I sez: +'Don't bother your nut about the priest. He'll be forthcomin' when +and if needed.' + +"So, while Reilly was explainin' to his six doughboys and Rathbone +was bringin' Napoleon One up to date, me and the widow and the +marine goes over to superintend the two birds diggin' the grave. +They was two funny-lookin' old birds, too--I'll say they was. They +was about a hundred years old apiece and had long white whiskers +like St. Peter, and, say, they talked a whole lot more than they dug. +I guess they musta been workin' on that grave for a coupla weeks--you +know, ten minutes _parlez-vous_ and then one shovela dirt. Me and +the marine had to grab their shovels and finish the job or there +wouldn't 'a' been no funeral _that_ day. + +"When we get back the six doughboys is all ready to give first aid +to the coffin, and Rathbone is talkin' to Napoleon One like they was +brothers. So I go up to them and I sez to Rathbone: + +"'Looka here, Rathbone. I'm the priest at this party. See?' + +"'What's that?' sez Rathbone. 'Come again.' + +"'I say I'm the priest. This dead _poiloo_ ain't gotta priest nor +nothin' and there's his poor mother and her a widow. So I'm that +missin' priest, and I'm not too proud to perform free and gratis. +Get that?' + +"'Hold on, chief,' sez Rathbone. 'You ain't got nothin' to wear.' + +"'Nothin' to wear!' I sez. 'You poor cheese, I'm a navy chaplain.' + +"'You look more like a Charlie Chaplin,' sez Rathbone. + +"I guess that bird wasn't sober yet, after all, because he thought +he was funny. + +"'Can the comedy,' I sez, 'and you go tell the widow that Father +Dempsey, the head chaplain of the U.S. Navy, has consented to +perform this afternoon. Now, get it straight, and for Gawd's sake +don't go and laugh or I'll put you in the brig.' + +"Well, Rathbone looks at me like I was goin' to my death. + +"'Good-by, chief,' he sez. 'Wait till the admiral hears of this.' + +"'Haw,' I sez--'if he does I'll get decorated.' + +"Well, I give Reilly the high sign and out comes the coffin on the +doughboys' shoulders. Napoleon One leads the way, and Rathbone and +the widow step in after the coffin, and I see that they is talkin' +together _beaucoup_ earnestly. + +"When we get to the grave the doughboys set down the coffin beside +it and all forms in a circle with me and the widow facin' each other. +And then there's an anxious silence. I'll say right here that I was +the most anxious, and I was sweatin' more than I guess any chaplain +oughta sweat. But, by luck, I happen to think that I have my old +logarithm-book in my pocket--you know, the one that's bound in black +patent-leather. Looks sorta as if it might be a prayer-book or +somethin' like that. Anyway, the widow, bein' a frawg widow, I +figgered how she'd think maybe it was a Yank Bible issued special to +the A.E.F. and condensed like malted milk or somethin'. + +"So I draw the old logarithm-book outa my coat and ease up gently to +the edge of the grave. The doughboys and the gobs, all except +Rathbone, who is wise, acourse, begin to nudge each other and snicker. +I oughta warned 'em what was comin', but I didn't have no time, it +come to me so quick. So I pretended to read from the book, and sez, +in a low voice and very solemn, like I was openin' the funeral, 'If +any you birds here starts laughin' I'll see him after the show and +I'll knock the daylight outa him.' + +"'Amen,' sez Rathbone, very piously. + +"'We've come here to-day,' I sez, always like I was readin' from the +book--'we've come here to-day to plant a frawg soldier who's the +only son of his mother and her a widow. And she's so broke that +there ain't no regular priest or no regular cemetery that'll offer +their services. So I'm the priest, and it's goin' to make a lotta +difference to that poor widow's feelin's when she thinks her son's +got a swell U. S. Navy priest administering the rites. Now, get that +straight and don't start whinnyin' like a buncha horses and gum the +game.' + +"Well, I stop there for breath, and Rathbone, who's right on the job, +comes across with another 'Amen,' and Reilly, who's a good Catholic, +sez, _'Pax vobiscum_.' + +"So that's all right, and I give her the gun and go ahead. + +"'This here _poiloo_,' I sez, 'I don't know much about him, but he +was a regular fellow and a good old bird and treated his mother +swell and everything, and I guess if we was wise to everything he'd +done we'd be proud to be here and we'd 'a' brung a lotta flowers and +things. He most likely was at the battle of the Marne and the Soam +and Verdun, and maybe he was at Chateau-Teery. Anyway, he was a +grand fighter, and done his bit all the time and kep' the Huns from +passin'." + +'And I wanta tell you that we gotta hand it to these French, because +they may be little guys, but they carry the longest bayonets I ever +see in any man's army.' + +"'Amen,' sez all the doughboys and the gobs, except one that yells, +'Alleluia!' He musta been from the South or somewheres. + +"'And so,' I sez, 'we're proud to give this frawg a good send-off, +and even if we ain't got a real chaplain and the guns to fire a +salute with, we're doin' the poor widow a lotta good, and that's +somethin'--I'll say it is.' + +"'Amen,' sez the audience. + +"Then I sez, 'Glory be,' and cross myself and signal the doughboys +to lower away on the coffin, and I flung a handfula dirt in on top +like I see 'em do always. + +"Well, the poor old widow near collapsed and Rathbone and the marine +had to hold hard to keep her on her pins. But Reilly created a +diversion by startin' up the motor-bike, and it back-fired like a +buncha rookies tryin' to fire a volley. If we'd hadda bugle we +coulda sounded taps, and the musical accompaniment woulda been +complete. + +"Napoleon One come up and shake hands with me like I'd won the +Medeye Militaire, and, before I could side-step, the widow had her +arms round my neck and was kissin' me on both cheeks. Napoleon sez +it was a '_Beau geste_' which I thought meant a fine joke, and I was +afraid the bird was wise, but Rathbone sez no, that it meant a swell +action; and the widow sez, over and over again, '_Ces braves +Americains--ces braves Americains_!' The cordial entente was pretty +cordial on the whole! I'll say it was." + +At this point Steve Dempsey paused and glanced about as who should +say, "Are there any comments or questions?" For a while there was +none forthcoming, but finally Lieutenant Erskine ventured a remark. + +"This occurred last Sunday?" he inquired, mildly. + +"Yes, sir," said Steve--"last Sunday." + +"Um," said Erskine, and without further remarks left the office. + +On his return he bore a copy of _Le Matin_ in his hand. He sat down +and leisurely and silently unfolded the sheet. Steve had resumed his +work, but I noticed that he kept an eye on Erskine. + +"I wonder," said Erskine, smoothing out the newspaper on his knees-- +"I wonder, Steve, if you happened to see this very interesting +article." + +"No, sir," said Steve. "I don't read French like I speak it." + +"Well," said Erskine, "I'll translate. This paper is dated last +Monday, and on page two occurs the following announcement:" + + + "_American soldiers, sailors, and marines attend funeral of + notorious apache. Jean the Rat, convicted murderer and suicide + and denied the offices of the Catholic Church, is buried by + stalwart Americans. + Department of Foreign Affairs reluctant to file protest at + present time. + Strange demonstration believed to be unofficial and without U.S. + government sanction, although U. S. Navy chaplain delivers + eloquent peroration in English_." + + +Erskine put aside the paper in silence, and we all turned to watch +Steve. He was very red, even to his ears. + +"Gawd!" he spluttered. "Does it really say that, sir? Honest?" + +Erskine nodded. "Yes," he said. "We'll be lucky if we avoid +international complications." + +"An apache murderer," Steve groaned--"and me thinkin' it was a frawg +hero. Will I get a court martial for it, sir?" + +"I doubt it," said Erskine, "but I don't think you'll get the +Congressional Medal or the Legion of Honour, either. Maybe, though, +the President, in recognition of your services toward cementing the +entente, will appoint you the next ambassador to France." + +"Well, anyway," said Steve, still violently red about the face and +ears--"well, anyway, I don't care. Even if it weren't a first-class +corpse, it was a first-class funeral." + + + + +FOOTFALLS + + +BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE + +From _The Pictorial Review_ + +This is not an easy story; not a road for tender or for casual feet. +Better the meadows. Let me warn you, it is as hard as that old man's +soul and as sunless as his eyes. It has its inception in catastrophe, +and its end in an act of almost incredible violence; between them it +tells barely how one long blind can become also deaf and dumb. + +He lived in one of those old Puritan sea towns where the strain has +come down austere and moribund, so that his act would not be quite +unbelievable. Except that the town is no longer Puritan and Yankee. +It has been betrayed; it has become an outpost of the Portuguese +islands. + +This man, this blind cobbler himself, was a Portuguese from St. +Michael, in the Western Islands, and his name was Boaz Negro. + +He was happy. An unquenchable exuberance lived in him. When he arose +in the morning he made vast, as it were uncontrollable, gestures +with his stout arms. He came into his shop singing. His voice, +strong and deep as the chest from which it emanated, rolled out +through the doorway and along the street, and the fishermen, done +with their morning work and lounging and smoking along the wharfs, +said, "Boaz is to work already." Then they came up to sit in the shop. + +In that town a cobbler's shop is a club. One sees the interior +always dimly thronged. They sit on the benches watching the artizan +at his work for hours, and they talk about everything in the world. +A cobbler is known by the company he keeps. + +Boaz Negro kept young company. He would have nothing to do with the +old. On his own head the gray hairs set thickly. + +He had a grown son. But the benches in his shop were for the lusty +and valiant young, men who could spend the night drinking, and then +at three o'clock in the morning turn out in the rain and dark to +pull at the weirs, sing songs, buffet one another among the slippery +fish in the boat's bottom, and make loud jokes about the fundamental +things, love and birth and death. Harkening to their boasts and +strong prophecies his breast heaved and his heart beat faster. He +was a large, full-blooded fellow, fashioned for exploits; the flame +in his darkness burned higher even to hear of them. + +It is scarcely conceivable how Boaz Negro could have come through +this much of his life still possessed of that unquenchable and +priceless exuberance; how he would sing in the dawn; how, simply +listening to the recital of deeds in gale or brawl, he could easily +forget himself a blind man, tied to a shop and a last; easily make +of himself a lusty young fellow breasting the sunlit and adventurous +tide of life. + +He had had a wife, whom he had loved. Fate, which had scourged him +with the initial scourge of blindness, had seen fit to take his +Angelina away. He had had four sons. Three, one after another, had +been removed, leaving only Manuel, the youngest. Recovering slowly, +with agony, from each of these recurrent blows, his unquenchable +exuberance had lived. And there was another thing quite as +extraordinary. He had never done anything but work, and that sort of +thing may kill the flame where an abrupt catastrophe fails. Work in +the dark. Work, work, work! And accompanied by privation; an almost +miserly scale of personal economy. Yes, indeed, he had "skinned his +fingers," especially in the earlier years. When it tells most. + +How he had worked! Not alone in the daytime, but also sometimes, +when orders were heavy, far into the night. It was strange for one, +passing along that deserted street at midnight, to hear issuing from +the black shop of Boaz Negro the rhythmical tap-tap-tap of hammer on +wooden peg. + +Nor was that sound all: no man in town could get far past that shop +in his nocturnal wandering unobserved. No more than a dozen footfalls, +and from the darkness Boaz's voice rolled forth, fraternal, +stentorian, "Good night, Antone!" "Good night to you, Caleb Snow!" + +To Boaz Negro it was still broad day. + +Now, because of this, he was what might be called a substantial man. +He owned his place, his shop, opening on the sidewalk, and behind it +the dwelling-house with trellised galleries upstairs and down. + +And there was always something for his son, a "piece for the pocket," +a dollar-, five-, even a ten-dollar bill if he had "got to have it." +Manuel was "a good boy." Boaz not only said this, he felt that he +was assured of it in his understanding, to the infinite peace of his +heart. + +It was curious that he should be ignorant only of the one nearest to +him. Not because he was physically blind. Be certain he knew more of +other men and of other men's sons than they or their neighbours did. +More, that is to say, of their hearts, their understandings, their +idiosyncrasies, and their ultimate weight in the balance-pan of +eternity. + +His simple explanation of Manuel was that Manuel "wasn't too stout." +To others he said this, and to himself. Manuel was not indeed too +robust. How should he be vigorous when he never did anything to make +him so? He never worked. Why should he work, when existence was +provided for, and when there was always that "piece for the pocket"? +Even a ten-dollar bill on a Saturday night! No, Manuel "wasn't too +stout." + +In the shop they let it go at that. The missteps and frailties of +every one else in the world were canvassed there with the most +shameless publicity. But Boaz Negro was a blind man, and in a sense +their host. Those reckless, strong young fellows respected and loved +him. It was allowed to stand at that. Manuel was "a good boy." Which +did not prevent them, by the way, from joining later in the general +condemnation of that father's laxity--"the ruination of the boy!" + +"He should have put him to work, that's what." + +"He should have said to Manuel, 'Look here, if you want a dollar, go +earn it first.'" + +As a matter of fact, only one man ever gave Boaz the advice direct. +That was Campbell Wood. And Wood never sat in that shop. + +In every small town there is one young man who is spoken of as +"rising." As often as not he is not a native, but "from away." + +In this town Campbell Wood was that man. He had come from another +part of the state to take a place in the bank. He lived in the upper +story of Boaz Negro's house, the ground floor now doing for Boaz and +the meagre remnant of his family. The old woman who came in to tidy +up for the cobbler looked after Wood's rooms as well. + +Dealing with Wood, one had first of all the sense of his +incorruptibility. A little ruthless perhaps, as if one could imagine +him, in defence of his integrity, cutting off his friend, cutting +off his own hand, cutting off the very stream flowing out from the +wellsprings of human kindness. An exaggeration, perhaps. + +He was by long odds the most eligible young man in town; good +looking in a spare, ruddy, sandy-haired Scottish fashion; important, +incorruptible, "rising." But he took good care of his heart. +Precisely that; like a sharp-eyed duenna to his own heart. One felt +that here was the man, if ever was the man, who held his destiny in +his own hand. Failing, of course, some quite gratuitous and +unforeseeable catastrophe. + +Not that he was not human, or even incapable of laughter or passion. +He was, in a way, immensely accessible. He never clapped one on the +shoulder; on the other hand, he never failed to speak. Not even to +Boaz. + +Returning from the bank in the afternoon, he had always a word for +the cobbler. Passing out again to supper at his boarding-place, he +had another, about the weather, the prospects of rain. And if Boaz +were at work in the dark when he returned from an evening at the +Board of Trade, there was a "Good night, Mr. Negro!" + +On Boaz's part, his attitude toward his lodger was curious and +paradoxical. He did not pretend to anything less than reverence for +the young man's position; precisely on account of that position he +was conscious toward Wood of a vague distrust. This was because he +was an uneducated fellow. + +To the uneducated the idea of large finance is as uncomfortable as +the idea of the law. It must be said for Boaz that, responsive to +Wood's unfailing civility, he fought against this sensation of dim +and somehow shameful distrust. + +Nevertheless his whole parental soul was in arms that evening, when, +returning from the bank and finding the shop empty of loungers, Wood +paused a moment to propose the bit of advice already referred to. + +"Haven't you ever thought of having Manuel learn the trade?" + +A suspicion, a kind of premonition, lighted the fires of defence. + +"Shoemaking," said Boaz, "is good enough for a blind man." + +"Oh, I don't know. At least it's better than doing nothing at all." + +Boaz's hammer was still. He sat silent, monumental. Outwardly. For +once his unfailing response had failed him, "Manuel ain't too stout, +you know." Perhaps it had become suddenly inadequate. + +He hated Wood; he despised Wood; more than ever before, a +hundredfold more, quite abruptly, he distrusted Wood. + +How could a man say such things as Wood had said? And where Manuel +himself might hear! + +Where Manuel _had_ heard! Boaz's other emotions--hatred and contempt +and distrust--were overshadowed. Sitting in darkness, no sound had +come to his ears, no footfall, no infinitesimal creaking of a +floor-plank. Yet by some sixth uncanny sense of the blind he was +aware that Manuel was standing in the dusk of the entry joining the +shop to the house. + +Boaz made a Herculean effort. The voice came out of his throat, harsh, +bitter, and loud enough to have carried ten times the distance to +his son's ears. + +"Manuel is a good boy!" + +"Yes--h'm--yes--I suppose so." + +Wood shifted his weight. He seemed uncomfortable. + +"Well. I'll be running along, I----ugh! Heavens!" + +Something was happening. Boaz heard exclamations, breathings, the +rustle of sleeve-cloth in large, frantic, and futile graspings--all +without understanding. Immediately there was an impact on the floor, +and with it the unmistakable clink of metal. Boaz even heard that +the metal was minted, and that the coins were gold. He understood. A +coin-sack, gripped not quite carefully enough for a moment under the +other's overcoat, had shifted, slipped, escaped, and fallen. + +And Manuel had heard! + +It was a dreadful moment for Boaz, dreadful in its native sense, as +full of dread. Why? It was a moment of horrid revelation, ruthless +clarification. His son, his link with the departed Angelina, that +"good boy"--Manuel, standing in the shadow of the entry, visible +alone to the blind, had heard the clink of falling gold, and-- +_and Boaz wished that he had not_! + +There, amazing, disconcerting, destroying, stood the sudden fact. + +Sitting as impassive and monumental as ever, his strong, bleached +hands at rest on his work, round drops of sweat came out on Boaz's +forehead. He scarcely took the sense of what Wood was saying. Only +fragments. + +"Government money, understand--for the breakwater +workings--huge--too many people know here, everywhere--don't trust +the safe--tin safe--'Noah's Ark'--give you my word--Heavens, no!" + +It boiled down to this--the money, more money than was good for that +antiquated "Noah's Ark" at the bank--and whose contemplated sojourn +there overnight was public to too many minds--in short, Wood was not +only incorruptible, he was canny. To what one of those minds, now, +would it occur that he should take away that money bodily, under +casual cover of his coat, to his own lodgings behind the +cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro? For this one, this important night! + +He was sorry the coin-sack had slipped, because he did not like to +have the responsibility of secret sharer cast upon any one, even +upon Boaz, even by accident. On the other hand, how tremendously +fortunate that it had been Boaz and not another. So far as that went, +Wood had no more anxiety now than before. One incorruptible knows +another. + +"I'd trust you, Mr. Negro" (that was one of the fragments which came +and stuck in the cobbler's brain), "as far as I would myself. As +long as it's only you. I'm just going up here and throw it under the +bed. Oh, yes, certainly." + +Boaz ate no supper. For the first time in his life food was dry in +his gullet. Even under those other successive crushing blows of Fate +the full and generous habit of his functionings had carried on +unabated; he had always eaten what was set before him. To-night, +over his untouched plate, he watched Manuel with his sightless eyes, +keeping track of his every mouthful, word, intonation, breath. What +profit he expected to extract from this catlike surveillance it is +impossible to say. + +When they arose from the supper-table Boaz made another Herculean +effort. "Manuel, you're a good boy!" + +The formula had a quality of appeal, of despair, and of command. + +"Manuel, you should be short of money, maybe. Look, what's this? A +tenner? Well, there's a piece for the pocket; go and enjoy yourself." + +He would have been frightened had Manuel, upsetting tradition, +declined the offering. With the morbid contrariness of the human +imagination, the boy's avid grasping gave him no comfort. + +He went out into the shop, where it was already dark, drew to him +his last, his tools, mallets, cutters, pegs, leather. And having +prepared to work, he remained idle. He found himself listening. + +It has been observed that the large phenomena of sunlight and +darkness were nothing to Boaz Negro. A busy night was broad day. Yet +there was a difference; he knew it with the blind man's eyes, the +ears. + +Day was a vast confusion, or rather a wide fabric, of sounds; great +and little sounds all woven together, voices, footfalls, wheels, +far-off whistles and foghorns, flies buzzing in the sun. Night was +another thing. Still there were voices and footfalls, but rarer, +emerging from the large, pure body of silence as definite, surprising, +and yet familiar entities. + +To-night there was an easterly wind, coming off the water and +carrying the sound of waves. So far as other fugitive sounds were +concerned it was the same as silence. The wind made little +difference to the ears. It nullified, from one direction at least, +the other two visual processes of the blind, the sense of touch and +the sense of smell. It blew away from the shop, toward the +living-house. + +As has been said, Boaz found himself listening, scrutinizing with an +extraordinary attention, this immense background of sound. He heard +footfalls. The story of that night was written, for him, in footfalls. + +He heard them moving about the house, the lower floor, prowling here, +there, halting for long spaces, advancing, retreating softly on the +planks. About this aimless, interminable perambulation there was +something to twist the nerves, something led and at the same time +driven like a succession of frail and indecisive charges. + +Boaz lifted himself from his chair. All his impulse called him to +make a stir, join battle, cast in the breach the re-enforcement of +his presence, authority, good will. He sank back again; his hands +fell down. The curious impotence of the spectator held him. + +He heard footfalls, too, on the upper floor, a little fainter, borne +to the inner rather than the outer ear, along the solid causeway of +partitions and floor, the legs of his chair, the bony framework of +his body. Very faint indeed. Sinking back easily into the background +of the wind. They, too, came and went, this room, that, to the +passage, the stair-head, and away. About them too there was the same +quality of being led and at the same time of being driven. + +Time went by. In his darkness it seemed to Boaz that hours must have +passed. He heard voices. Together with the footfalls, that abrupt, +brief, and (in view of Wood's position) astounding interchange of +sentences made up his history of the night. Wood must have opened the +door at the head of the stair; by the sound of his voice he would be +standing there, peering below perhaps; perhaps listening. + +"What's wrong down there?" he called. "Why don't you go to bed?" + +After a moment, came Manual's voice, "Ain't sleepy." + +"Neither am I. Look here, do you like to play cards?" + +"What kind? Euchre! I like euchre all right. Or pitch." + +"Well, what would you say to coming up and having a game of euchre +then, Manuel? If you can't sleep?" + +"That'd be all right." + +The lower footfalls ascended to join the footfalls on the upper floor. +There was the sound of a door closing. + +Boaz sat still. In the gloom he might have been taken for a piece of +furniture, of machinery, an extraordinary lay figure, perhaps, for +the trying on of the boots he made. He seemed scarcely to breathe, +only the sweat starting from his brow giving him an aspect of life. + +He ought to have run, and leaped up that inner stair and pounded +with his fists on that door. He seemed unable to move. At rare +intervals feet passed on the sidewalk outside, just at his elbow, so +to say, and yet somehow, to-night, immeasurably far away. Beyond the +orbit of the moon. He heard Rugg, the policeman, noting the silence +of the shop, muttering, "Boaz is to bed to-night," as he passed. + +The wind increased. It poured against the shop with its deep, +continuous sound of a river. Submerged in its body, Boaz caught the +note of the town bell striking midnight. + +Once more, after a long time, he heard footfalls. He heard them +coming around the corner of the shop from the house, footfalls half +swallowed by the wind, passing discreetly, without haste, retreating, +merging step by step with the huge, incessant background of the wind. + +Boaz's muscles tightened all over him. He had the impulse to start up, +to fling open the door, shout into the night, "What are you doing? +Stop there! Say! What are you doing and where are you going?" + +And as before, the curious impotence of the spectator held him +motionless. He had not stirred in his chair. And those footfalls, +upon which hinged, as it were, that momentous decade of his life, +were gone. + +There was nothing to listen for now. Yet he continued to listen. +Once or twice, half arousing himself, he drew toward him his +unfinished work. And then relapsed into immobility. + +As has been said, the wind, making little difference to the ears, +made all the difference in the world with the sense of feeling and +the sense of smell. From the one important direction of the house. +That is how it could come about that Boaz Negro could sit, waiting +and listening to nothing in the shop and remain ignorant of disaster +until the alarm had gone away and come back again, pounding, shouting, +clanging. + +"_Fire_!" he heard them bawling in the street. "_Fire! Fire_!" + +Only slowly did he understand that the fire was in his own house. + +There is nothing stiller in the world than the skeleton of a house +in the dawn after a fire. It is as if everything living, positive, +violent, had been completely drained in the one flaming act of +violence, leaving nothing but negation till the end of time. It is +worse than a tomb. A monstrous stillness! Even the footfalls of the +searchers can not disturb it, for they are separate and superficial. +In its presence they are almost frivolous. + +Half an hour after dawn the searchers found the body, if what was +left from that consuming ordeal might be called a body. The +discovery came as a shock. It seemed incredible that the occupant of +that house, no cripple or invalid but an able man in the prime of +youth, should not have awakened and made good his escape. It was the +upper floor which had caught; the stairs had stood to the last. It +was beyond calculation. Even if he had been asleep! + +And he had not been asleep. This second and infinitely more +appalling discovery began to be known. Slowly. By a hint, a breath +of rumour here; there an allusion, half taken back. The man, whose +incinerated body still lay curled in its bed of cinders, had been +dressed at the moment of disaster; even to the watch, the +cuff-buttons, the studs, the very scarf-pin. Fully clothed to the +last detail, precisely as those who had dealings at the bank might +have seen Campbell Wood any week-day morning for the past eight +months. A man does not sleep with his clothes on. The skull of the +man had been broken, as if with a blunt instrument of iron. On the +charred lacework of the floor lay the leg of an old andiron with +which Boaz Negro and his Angelina had set up housekeeping in that +new house. + +It needed only Mr. Asa Whitelaw, coming up the street from that +gaping "Noah's Ark" at the bank, to round out the scandalous circle +of circumstance. + +"Where is Manuel?" + +Boaz Negro still sat in his shop, impassive, monumental, his thick, +hairy arms resting on the arms of his chair. The tools and materials +of his work remained scattered about him, as his irresolute +gathering of the night before had left them. Into his eyes no change +could come. He had lost his house, the visible monument of all those +years of "skinning his fingers." It would seem that he had lost his +son. And he had lost something incalculably precious--that hitherto +unquenchable exuberance of the man. + +"Where is Manuel?" + +When he spoke his voice was unaccented and stale, like the voice of +a man already dead. + +"Yes, where is Manuel?" + +He had answered them with their own question. + +"When did you last see him?" + +Neither he nor they seemed to take note of that profound irony. + +"At supper." + +"Tell us, Boaz; you knew about this money?" + +The cobbler nodded his head. + +"And did Manuel?" + +He might have taken sanctuary in a legal doubt. How did he know what +Manuel knew? Precisely! As before, he nodded his head. + +"After supper, Boaz, you were in the shop? But you heard something?" + +He went on to tell them what he had heard: the footfalls, below and +above, the extraordinary conversation which had broken for a moment +the silence of the inner hall. The account was bare, the phrases +monosyllabic. He reported only what had been registered on the +sensitive tympanums of his ears, to the last whisper of footfalls +stealing past the dark wall of the shop. Of all the formless tangle +of thoughts, suspicions, interpretations, and the special and +personal knowledge given to the blind which moved in his brain, he +said nothing. + +He shut his lips there. He felt himself on the defensive. Just as he +distrusted the higher ramifications of finance (his house had gone +down uninsured), so before the rites and processes of that +inscrutable creature, the Law, he felt himself menaced by the +invisible and the unknown, helpless, oppressed; in an abject sense, +skeptical. + +"Keep clear of the Law!" they had told him in his youth. The monster +his imagination had summoned up then still stood beside him in his +age. + +Having exhausted his monosyllabic and superficial evidence, they +could move him no farther. He became deaf and dumb. He sat before +them, an image cast in some immensely heavy stuff, inanimate. His +lack of visible emotion impressed them. Remembering his exuberance, +it was only the stranger to see him unmoving and unmoved. Only once +did they catch sight of something beyond. As they were preparing to +leave he opened his mouth. What he said was like a swan-song to the +years of his exuberant happiness. Even now there was no colour of +expression in his words, which sounded mechanical. + +"Now I have lost everything. My house. My last son. Even my honour. +You would not think I would like to live. But I go to live. I go to +work. That _cachorra_, one day he shall come back again, in the dark +night, to have a look. I shall go to show you all. That _cachorra_!" + +(And from that time on, it was noted, he never referred to the +fugitive by any other name than _cachorra_, which is a kind of dog. +"That _cachorra_!" As if he had forfeited the relationship not only +of the family, but of the very genus, the very race! "That _cachorra_!") + +He pronounced this resolution without passion. When they assured him +that the culprit would come back again indeed, much sooner than he +expected, "with a rope around his neck," he shook his head slowly. + +"No, you shall not catch that _cachorra_ now. But one day--" + +There was something about its very colourlessness which made it +sound oracular. It was at least prophetic. They searched, laid their +traps, proceeded with all their placards, descriptions, rewards, +clues, trails. But on Manuel Negro they never laid their hands. + +Months passed and became years. Boaz Negro did not rebuild his house. +He might have done so, out of his earnings, for upon himself he +spent scarcely anything, reverting to his old habit of an almost +miserly economy. Yet perhaps it would have been harder after all. +For his earnings were less and less. In that town a cobbler who sits +in an empty shop is apt to want for trade. Folk take their boots to +mend where they take their bodies to rest and their minds to be +edified. + +No longer did the walls of Boaz's shop resound to the boastful +recollections of young men. Boaz had changed. He had become not only +different, but opposite. A metaphor will do best. The spirit of Boaz +Negro had been a meadowed hillside giving upon the open sea, the sun, +the warm, wild winds from beyond the blue horizon. And covered with +flowers, always hungry and thirsty for the sun and the fabulous wind +and bright showers of rain. It had become an entrenched camp, lying +silent, sullen, verdureless, under a gray sky. He stood solitary +against the world. His approaches were closed. He was blind, and he +was also deaf and dumb. + +Against that what can young fellows do who wish for nothing but to +rest themselves and talk about their friends and enemies? They had +come and they had tried. They had raised their voices even higher +than before. Their boasts had grown louder, more presumptuous, more +preposterous, until, before the cold separation of that unmoving and +as if contemptuous presence in the cobbler's chair, they burst of +their own air, like toy balloons. And they went and left Boaz alone. + +There was another thing which served, if not to keep them away, at +least not to entice them back. That was the aspect of the place. It +was not cheerful. It invited no one. In its way that fire-bitten +ruin grew to be almost as great a scandal as the act itself had been. +It was plainly an eyesore. A valuable property, on the town's main +thoroughfare--and an eyesore! The neighbouring owners protested. + +Their protestations might as well have gone against a stone wall. +That man was deaf and dumb. He had become, in a way, a kind of +vegetable, for the quality of a vegetable is that, while it is +endowed with life, it remains fixed in one spot. For years Boaz was +scarcely seen to move foot out of that shop that was left him, a +small square, blistered promontory on the shores of ruin. + +He must indeed have carried out some rudimentary sort of domestic +programme under the debris at the rear (he certainly did not sleep +or eat in the shop). One or two lower rooms were left fairly intact. +The outward aspect of the place was formless; it grew to be no more +than a mound in time; the charred timbers, one or two still standing, +lean and naked against the sky, lost their blackness and faded to a +silvery gray. It would have seemed strange, had they not grown +accustomed to the thought, to imagine that blind man, like a mole, +or some slow slug, turning himself mysteriously in the bowels of +that gray mound--that time-silvered "eye-sore." + +When they saw him, however, he was in the shop. They opened the door +to take in their work (when other cobblers turned them off), and +they saw him seated in his chair in the half darkness, his whole +person, legs, torso, neck, head, as motionless as the vegetable of +which we have spoken--only his hands and his bare arms endowed with +visible life. The gloom had bleached the skin to the colour of damp +ivory, and against the background of his immobility they moved with +a certain amazing monstrousness, interminably. No, they were never +still. One wondered what they could be at. Surely he could not have +had enough work now to keep those insatiable hands so monstrously in +motion. Even far into the night. Tap-tap-tap! Blows continuous and +powerful. On what? On nothing? On the bare iron last? And for what +purpose? To what conceivable end? + +Well, one could imagine those arms, growing paler, also growing +thicker and more formidable with that unceasing labour; the muscles +feeding themselves omnivorously on their own waste, the cords +toughening, the bone-tissues revitalizing themselves without end. +One could imagine the whole aspiration of that mute and motionless +man pouring itself out into those pallid arms, and the arms taking it +up with a kind of blind greed. Storing it up. Against a day! + +"That _cachorra_! One day--" + +What were the thoughts of the man? What moved within that motionless +cranium covered with long hair? Who can say? Behind everything, of +course, stood that bitterness against the world--the blind +world--blinder than he would ever be. And against "that _cachorra_." +But this was no longer a thought; it was the man. + +Just as all muscular aspiration flowed into his arms, so all the +energies of his senses turned to his ears. The man had become, you +might say, two arms and two ears. Can you imagine a man listening, +intently, through the waking hours of nine years? + +Listening to footfalls. Marking with a special emphasis of +concentration the beginning, rise, full passage, falling away, and +dying of all the footfalls. By day, by night, winter and summer and +winter again. Unravelling the skein of footfalls passing up and down +the street! + +For three years he wondered when they would come. For the next three +years he wondered if they would ever come. It was during the last +three that a doubt began to trouble him. It gnawed at his huge moral +strength. Like a hidden seepage of water, it undermined (in +anticipation) his terrible resolution. It was a sign perhaps of age, +a slipping away of the reckless infallibility of youth. + +Supposing, after all, that his ears should fail him. Supposing they +were capable of being tricked, without his being able to know it. +Supposing that that _cachorra_ should come and go, and he, Boaz, +living in some vast delusion, some unrealized distortion of memory, +should let him pass unknown. Supposing precisely this thing had +already happened! + +Or the other way around. What if he should hear the footfalls coming, +even into the very shop itself? What if he should be as sure of them +as of his own soul? What, then, if he should strike? And what then, +if it were not that _cachorra_ after all? How many tens and hundreds +of millions of people were there in the world? Was it possible for +them all to have footfalls distinct and different? + +Then they would take him and hang him. And that _cachorra_ might +then come and go at his own will, undisturbed. + +As he sat there sometimes the sweat rolled down his nose, cold as +rain. + +Supposing! + +Sometimes, quite suddenly, in broad day, in the booming silence of +the night, he would start. Not outwardly. But beneath the pale +integument of his skin all his muscles tightened and his nerves sang. +His breathing stopped. It seemed almost as if his heart stopped. + +Was that it? Were those the feet, there, emerging faintly from the +distance? Yes, there was something about them. Yes! Memory was in +travail. Yes, yes, yes! No! How could he be sure? Ice ran down into +his empty eyes. The footfalls were already passing. They were gone, +swallowed up already by time and space. Had that been that _cachorra_? + +Nothing in his life had been so hard to meet as this insidious drain +of distrust in his own powers; this sense of a traitor within the +walls. His iron-gray hair had turned white. It was always this now, +from the beginning of the day to the end of the night: how was he to +know? How was he to be inevitably, unshakably, sure? + +Curiously, after all this purgatory of doubts, he did know them. For +a moment at least, when he had heard them, he was unshakably sure. + +It was on an evening of the winter holidays, the Portuguese festival +of _Menin' Jesus_. Christ was born again in a hundred mangers on a +hundred tiny altars; there was cake and wine; songs went shouting by +to the accompaniment of mandolins and tramping feet. The wind blew +cold under a clear sky. In all the houses there were lights; even in +Boaz Negro's shop a lamp was lit just now, for a man had been in for +a pair of boots which Boaz had patched. The man had gone out again. +Boaz was thinking of blowing out the light. It meant nothing to him. + +He leaned forward, judging the position of the lamp-chimney by the +heat on his face, and puffed out his cheeks to blow. Then his cheeks +collapsed suddenly, and he sat back again. + +It was not odd that he had failed to hear the footfalls until they +were actually within the door. A crowd of merry-makers was passing +just then; their songs and tramping almost shook the shop. + +Boaz sat back. Beneath his passive exterior his nerves thrummed; his +muscles had grown as hard as wood. Yes! Yes! But no! He had heard +nothing; no more than a single step, a single foot-pressure on the +planks within the door. Dear God! He could not tell! + +Going through the pain of an enormous effort, he opened his lips. + +"What can I do for you?" + +"Well, I--I don't know. To tell the truth--" + +The voice was unfamiliar, but it might be assumed. Boaz held himself. +His face remained blank, interrogating, slightly helpless. "I am a +little deaf," he said. "Come nearer." + +The footfalls came half way across the intervening floor, and there +appeared to hesitate. The voice, too, had a note of uncertainty. + +"I was just looking around. I have a pair of--well, you mend shoes?" + +Boaz nodded his head. It was not in response to the words, for they +meant nothing. What he had heard was the footfalls on the floor. + +Now he was sure. As has been said, for a moment at least after he +had heard them he was unshakably sure. The congestion of his muscles +had passed. He was at peace. + +The voice became audible once more. Before the massive preoccupation +of the blind man it became still less certain of itself. + +"Well, I haven't got the shoes with me. I was--just looking around." + +It was amazing to Boaz, this miraculous sensation of peace. + +"Wait!" Then, bending his head as if listening to the winter wind, +"It's cold to-night. You've left the door open. But wait!" Leaning +down, his hand fell on a rope's end hanging by the chair. The +gesture was one continuous, undeviating movement of the hand. No +hesitation. No groping. How many hundreds, how many thousands of +times, had his hand schooled itself in that gesture! + +A single strong pull. With a little _bang_ the front door had swung +to and latched itself. Not only the front door. The other door, +leading to the rear, had closed too and latched itself with a little +_bang_. And leaning forward from his chair, Boaz blew out the light. + +There was not a sound in the shop. Outside, feet continued to go by, +ringing on the frozen road; voices were lifted; the wind hustled +about the corners of the wooden shell with a continuous, shrill note +of whistling. All of this outside, as on another planet. Within the +blackness of the shop the complete silence persisted, + +Boaz listened. Sitting on the edge of his chair, half-crouching, his +head, with its long, unkempt, white hair, bent slightly to one side, +he concentrated upon this chambered silence the full powers of his +senses. He hardly breathed. + +The other person in that room could not be breathing at all, it +seemed. + +No, there was not a breath, not the stirring of a sole on wood, not +the infinitesimal rustle of any fabric. It was as if in this utter +stoppage of sound, even the blood had ceased to flow in the veins +and arteries of that man, who was like a rat caught in a trap. + +It was appalling even to Boaz; even to the cat. Listening became +more than a labour. He began to have to fight against a growing +impulse to shout out loud, to leap, sprawl forward without aim in +that unstirred darkness--do something. Sweat rolled down from behind +his ears, into his shirt-collar. He gripped the chair-arms. To keep +quiet he sank his teeth into his lower lip. He would not! He would +not! + +And of a sudden he heard before him, in the centre of the room, an +outburst of breath, an outrush from lungs in the extremity of pain, +thick, laborious, fearful. A coughing up of dammed air. + +Pushing himself from the arms of the chair, Boaz leaped. + +His fingers, passing swiftly through the air, closed on something. +It was a sheaf of hair, bristly and thick. It was a man's beard. + +On the road outside, up and down the street for a hundred yards, +merry-making people turned to look at one another. With an abrupt +cessation of laughter, of speech. Inquiringly. Even with an +unconscious dilation of the pupils of their eyes. + +"What was that?" + +There had been a scream. There could be no doubt of that. A single, +long-drawn note. Immensely high-pitched. Not as if it were human. + +"God's sake! What was that? Where'd it come from?" + +Those nearest said it came from the cobbler-shop of Boaz Negro. + +They went and tried the door. It was closed; even locked, as if for +the night. There was no light behind the window-shade. But Boaz +would not have a light. They beat on the door. No answer. + +But from where, then, had that prolonged, as if animal, note come? + +They ran about, penetrating into the side lanes, interrogating, +prying. Coming back at last, inevitably, to the neighbourhood of +Boaz Negro's shop. + +The body lay on the floor at Boaz's feet, where it had tumbled down +slowly after a moment from the spasmodic embrace of his arms; those +ivory-coloured arms which had beaten so long upon the bare iron +surface of a last. Blows continuous and powerful. It seemed +incredible. They were so weak now. They could not have lifted the +hammer now. + +But that beard! That bristly, thick, square beard of a stranger! + +His hands remembered it. Standing with his shoulders fallen forward +and his weak arms hanging down, Boaz began to shiver. The whole +thing was incredible. What was on the floor there, upheld in the +vast gulf of darkness, he could not see. Neither could he hear it; +smell it. Nor (if he did not move his foot) could he feel it. What +he did not hear, smell, or touch did not exist. It was not there. +Incredible! + +But that beard! All the accumulated doubtings of those years fell +down upon him. After all, the thing he had been so fearful of in his +weak imaginings had happened. He had killed a stranger. He, Boaz +Negro, had murdered an innocent man! + +And all on account of that beard. His deep panic made him +light-headed. He began to confuse cause and effect. If it were not +for that beard, it would have been that _cachorra_. + +On this basis he began to reason with a crazy directness. And to act. +He went and pried open the door into the entry. From a shelf he took +down his razor. A big, heavy-heeled strop. His hands began to hurry. +And the mug, half full of soap. And water. It would have to be cold +water. But after all, he thought (light-headedly), at this time of +night---- + +Outside, they were at the shop again. The crowd's habit is to forget +a thing quickly, once it is out of sight and hearing. But there had +been something about that solitary cry which continued to bother them, +even in memory. Where had it been? Where had it come from? And those +who had stood nearest the cobbler-shop were heard again. They were +certain now, dead certain. They could swear! + +In the end they broke down the door. + +If Boaz heard them he gave no sign. An absorption as complete as it +was monstrous wrapped him. Kneeling in the glare of the lantern they +had brought, as impervious as his own shadow sprawling behind him, +he continued to shave the dead man on the floor. + +No one touched him. Their minds and imaginations were arrested by +the gigantic proportions of the act. The unfathomable presumption of +the act. As throwing murder in their faces to the tune of a jig in a +barber-shop. It is a fact that none of them so much as thought of +touching him. No less than all of them, together with all other men, +shorn of their imaginations--that is to say, the expressionless and +imperturbable creature of the Law--would be sufficient to touch that +ghastly man. + +On the other hand, they could not leave him alone. They could not go +away. They watched. They saw the damp, lather-soaked beard of that +victimized stranger falling away, stroke by stroke of the flashing, +heavy razor. The dead denuded by the blind! + +It was seen that Boaz was about to speak. It was something important +he was about to utter; something, one would say, fatal. The words +would not come all at once. They swelled his cheeks out. His razor +was arrested. Lifting his face, he encircled the watchers with a +gaze at once of imploration and of command. As if he could see them. +As if he could read his answer in the expressions of their faces. + +"Tell me one thing now. Is it that _cachorra_?" + +For the first time those men in the room made sounds. They shuffled +their feet. It was as if an uncontrollable impulse to ejaculation, +laughter, derision, forbidden by the presence of death, had gone +down into their boot-soles. + +"Manuel?" one of them said. "You mean _Manuel_?" + +Boaz laid the razor down on the floor beside its work. He got up +from his knees slowly, as if his joints hurt. He sat down in his +chair, rested his hands on the arms, and once more encircled the +company with his sightless gaze. + +"Not Manuel. Manuel was a good boy. But tell me now, is it that +_cachorra_?" + +Here was something out of their calculations; something for them, +mentally, to chew on. Mystification is a good thing sometimes. It +gives the brain a fillip, stirs memory, puts the gears of +imagination in mesh. One man, an old, tobacco-chewing fellow, began +to stare harder at the face on the floor. Something moved in his +intellect. + +"No, but look here now, by God----" + +He had even stopped chewing. But he was forestalled by another. + +"Say now, if it don't look like that fellow Wood, himself. The bank +fellow--that was burned--remember? Himself." + +"That _cachorra_ was not burned. Not that Wood. You darned fool!" + +Boaz spoke from his chair. They hardly knew his voice, emerging from +its long silence; it was so didactic and arid. + +"That _cachorra_ was not burned. It was my boy that was burned. It +was that _cachorra_ called my boy upstairs. That _cachorra_ killed +my boy. That _cachorra_ put his clothes on my boy, and he set my +house on fire. I knew that all the time. Because when I heard those +feet come out of my house and go away, I knew they were the feet of +that _cachorra_ from the bank. I did not know where he was going to. +Something said to me--you better ask him where he is going to. But +then I said, you are foolish. He had the money from the bank. I did +not know. And then my house was on fire. No, it was not my boy that +went away; it was that _cachorra_ all the time. You darned fools! +Did you think I was waiting for my own boy?" + +"Now I show you all," he said at the end. "And now I can get hanged." + +No one ever touched Boaz Negro for that murder. For murder it was in +the eye and letter of the Law. The Law in a small town is sometimes +a curious creature; it is sometimes blind only in one eye. + +Their minds and imaginations in that town were arrested by the +romantic proportions of the act. Simply, no one took it up. I +believe the man, Wood, was understood to have died of heart-failure. + +When they asked Boaz why he had not told what he knew as to the +identity of that fugitive in the night, he seemed to find it hard to +say exactly. How could a man of no education define for them his own +but half-denied misgivings about the Law, his sense of oppression, +constraint and awe, of being on the defensive, even, in an abject way, +his skepticism? About his wanting, come what might, to "keep clear +of the Law"? + +He did say this, "You would have laughed at me." + +And this, "If I told folk it was Wood went away, then I say he would +not dare come back again." + +That was the last. Very shortly he began to refuse to talk about the +thing at all. The act was completed. Like the creature of fable, it +had consumed itself. Out of that old man's consciousness it had +departed. Amazingly. Like a dream dreamed out. + +Slowly at first, in a makeshift, piece-at-a-time, poor man's way, +Boaz commenced to rebuild his house. That "eyesore" vanished. + +And slowly at first, like the miracle of a green shoot pressing out +from the dead earth, that priceless and unquenchable exuberance of +the man was seen returning. Unquenchable, after all. + + + + +THE LAST ROOM OF ALL + + +BY STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN + +From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ + + +In those days all Italy was in turmoil and Lombardy lay covered with +blood and fire. The emperor, the second Frederick of Swabia, was out +to conquer once for all. His man Salinguerra held the town of Ferrara. +The Marquis Azzo, being driven forth, could slake his rage only on +such outlying castles as favoured the imperial cause. + +Of these castles the Marquis Azzo himself sacked and burned many. +But against the castle of Grangioia, remote in the hills, he sent +his captain, Lapo Cercamorte. + +This Lapo Cercamorte was nearly forty years old, a warrior from +boyhood, uncouth, barbaric, ferocious. One could think of no current +danger that he had not encountered, no horror that he had not +witnessed. His gaunt face was dull red, as if baked by the heat of +blazing towns. His coarse black hair had been thinned by the +friction of his helmet. His nose was broken, his arms and legs were +covered with scars, and under his chin ran a seam made by a woman who +had tried to cut off his head while he lay asleep. From this wound +Lapo Cercamorte's voice was husky and uncertain. + +With a hundred men at his back he rode by night to Grangioia Castle. +As day was breaking, by a clever bit of stratagem he rushed the gate. + +Then in that towering, thick-walled fortress, which had suddenly +become a trap, sounded the screaming of women, the boom of yielding +doors, the clang of steel on black staircases, the battlecries, wild +songs, and laughter of Lapo Cercamorte's soldiers. + +He found the family at bay in their hall, the father and his three +sons naked except for the shirts of mail that they had hastily +slipped on. Behind these four huddled the Grangioia women and +children, for the most part pallid from fury rather than from fear, +silently awaiting the end. + +However, Cercamorte's purpose was not to destroy this clan, but to +force it into submission to his marquis. So, when he had persuaded +them to throw down their swords, he put off his flat-topped helmet +and seated himself with the Grangioia men. + +A bargain ensued; he gave them their lives in exchange for their +allegiance. And it would have ended there had not the sun, reaching +in through a casement toward the group of silent women, touched the +face of old Grangioia's youngest daughter, Madonna Gemma. + +From the crown of her head, whence her hair fell in bright ripples +like a gush of gold from the ladle of a goldsmith, to her white feet, +bare on the pavement, Madonna Gemma was one fragile piece of beauty. +In this hall heavy with torch smoke, and the sweat of many soldiers, +in this ring of blood-stained weapons and smouldering eyes, she +appeared like a delicate dreamer enveloped by a nightmare. Yet even +the long stare of Lapo Cercamorte she answered with a look of +defiance. + +The conqueror rose, went jingling to her, thumbed a strand of her +bright hair, touched her soft cheek with his fingers, which smelled +of leather and horses. Grasping her by the elbow, he led her forward. + +"Is this your daughter, Grangioia? Good. I will take her as a pledge +of your loyalty." + +With a gesture old Grangioia commanded his sons to sit still. After +glowering round him at the wall of mail, he let his head sink down, +and faltered: + +"Do you marry her, Cercamorte?" + +"Why not?" croaked Lapo. "Having just made a peace shall I give +offence so soon? No, in this case I will do everything according to +honour." + +That morning Lapo Cercamorte espoused Madonna Gemma Grangioia. Then, +setting her behind his saddle on a cushion, he took her away to his +own castle. This possession, too, he had won for himself with his +sword. It was called the Vespaione, the Big Hornets' Nest. Rude and +strong, it crowned a rocky hilltop in a lonely region. At the base of +the hill clustered a few huts; beyond lay some little fields; then +the woods spread their tangles afar. + +Madonna Gemma, finding herself in this prison, did not weep or utter +a sound for many days. + + * * * * * + +Here Lapo Cercamorte, pouncing upon such a treasure as had never +come within his reach before, met his first defeat. His fire proved +unable to melt that ice. His coarse mind was benumbed by the +exquisiteness of his antagonist. Now, instead of terror and +self-abasement, he met scorn--the cold contempt of a being rarefied, +and raised above him by centuries of gentler thought and living. +When he laid his paws on her shoulders he felt that he held there a +pale, soft shell empty of her incomprehensible spirit, which at his +touch had vanished into space. + +So he stood baffled, with a new longing that groped blindly through +the veils of flesh and blood, like a brute tormented by the dawning +of some insatiable aspiration. + +It occurred to him that the delicate creature might be pleased if +her surroundings were less soldierly. So oiled linen was stretched +across her windows, and a carpet laid for her feet at table in the +hall. The board was spread with a white cloth on which she might +wipe her lips, and in spring the pavement of her bower was strewn +with scented herbs. Also he saw to it that her meat was seasoned +with quinces, that her wine was spiced on feast-days. + +He got her a little greyhound, but it sickened and died. Remembering +that a comrade-in-arms possessed a Turkish dwarf with an abnormally +large head, he cast about to procure some such monstrosity for her +amusement. He sent her jewellery--necklaces torn by his soldiers +from the breasts of ladies in surrendered towns, rings wrested from +fingers raised in supplication. + +She wore none of these trinkets. Indeed, she seemed oblivious of all +his efforts to change her. + +He left her alone. + +Finally, whenever Lapo Cercamorte met her in the hall his face +turned dark and bitter. Throughout the meal there was no sound +except the growling of dogs among the bones beneath the table, the +hushed voices of the soldiers eating in the body of the hall. Old +one-eyed Baldo, Cercamorte's lieutenant, voiced the general +sentiment when he muttered into his cup: + +"This house has become a tomb, and I have a feeling that presently +there may be corpses in it." + +"She has the evil eye," another assented. + +Furtively making horns with their fingers, they looked up askance +toward the dais, at her pale young beauty glimmering through rays of +dusty sunshine. + +"Should there come an alarm our shield-straps would burst and our +weapons crack like glass. If only, when we took Grangioia Castle, a +sword had accidentally cut off her nose!" + +"God give us our next fighting in the open, far away from this +_jettatrice_!" + +It presently seemed as if that wish were to be granted. All the +Guelph party were then preparing to take the field together. In +Cercamorte's castle, dice-throwing and drinking gave place to +drinking and plotting. Strange messengers appeared. In an upper +chamber a shabby priest from the nearest town--the stronghold of +Count Nicolotto Muti--neatly wrote down, at Lapo's dictation, the +tally of available men, horses, and arms. Then one morning Cercamorte +said to Baldo, his lieutenant: + +"I am off for a talk with Nicolotto Muti. The house is in your care." + +And glumly Lapo rode down from his castle, without a glance toward +the casements of Madonna Gemma's bower. + +She watched him depart alone, his helmet dangling from his saddle-bow. +Then she saw, below her on the hillside, also watching him, the +horse-boy, Foresto, his graceful figure hinting at an origin +superior to his station, his dark, peaked face seeming to mask some +avid and sinister dream. Was she wrong in suspecting that Foresto +hated Lapo Cercamorte? Might he not become an ally against her +husband? + +Her gaze travelled on to the houses at the foot of the hill, to the +hut where, under Lapo's protection, dwelt a renegade Arabian, +reputed to be a sorcerer. No doubt the Arabian knew of subtle poisons, +charms that withered men's bodies, enchantments that wrecked the +will and reduced the mind to chaos. + +But soon these thoughts were scattered by the touch of the spring +breeze. She sank into a vague wonder at life, which had so cruelly +requited the fervours of her girlhood. + +On the third day of Cercamorte's absence, while Madonna Gemma was +leaning on the parapet of the keep, there appeared at the edge of +the woods a young man in light-blue tunic and hood, a small gilded +harp under his arm. + + * * * * * + +Because he was the young brother of Nicolotto Muti they admitted him +into the castle. + +His countenance was effeminate, fervent, and artful. The elegance of +his manner was nearly Oriental. The rough soldiers grinned in +amusement, or frowned in disgust. Madonna Gemma, confronted by his +strangeness and complexity, neither frowned nor smiled, but looked +more wan than ever. + +Perfumed with sandalwood, in a white, gold-stitched robe, its bodice +tight, its skirts voluminous, she welcomed him in the hall. The +reception over, old Baldo spoke with the crone who served Madonna +Gemma as maid: + +"I do not know what this pretty little fellow has in mind. +While I watch him for spying, do you watch him for love-making. +If we discover him at either, perhaps he has caught that new +green-sickness from the north, and thinks himself a singing-bird." + +A singing-bird was what Raffaele Muti proved to be. + +In the Mediterranean lands a new idea was beginning to alter the +conduct of society. Woman, so long regarded as a soulless animal, +born only to drag men down, was being transfigured into an +immaculate goddess, an angel in human shape, whose business was +man's reformation, whose right was man's worship. + +That cult of Woman had been invented by the lute-playing nobles of +Provence. But quickly it had begun to spread from court to court, +from one land to another. So now, in Italy, as in southern France, +sometimes in wild hill castles as well as in the city palaces, a +hymn of adoration rose to the new divinity. + +This was the song that Raffaele Muti, plucking at his twelve harp +strings, raised in the hall of the Big Hornets' Nest at twilight. + +He sat by the fireplace on the guests' settee, beside Madonna Gemma. +The torches, dripping fire in the wall-rings, cast their light over +the faces of the wondering servants. The harp twanged its plaintive +interlude; then the song continued, quavering, soaring, athrob with +this new pathos and reverence, that had crept like the counterfeit +of a celestial dawn upon a world long obscured by a brutish dusk. + +Raffaele Muti sang of a woman exalted far above him by her womanhood, +which rivalled Godhood in containing all the virtues requisite for +his redemption. Man could no longer sin when once she had thought +pityingly of him. Every deed must be noble if rooted in love of her. +All that one asked was to worship her ineffable superiority. How +grievously should one affront her virtue if ever one dreamed of +kisses! But should one dream of them, pray God she might never stoop +that far in mercy! No, passion must never mar this shrine at which +Raffaele knelt. + +In the ensuing silence, which quivered from that cry, there stole +into the heart of Madonna Gemma an emotion more precious, just then, +than the peace that follows absolution--a new-born sense of feminine +dignity, a glorious blossoming of pride, commingled with the +tenderness of an immeasurable gratitude. + +About to part for the night, they exchanged a look of tremulous +solemnity. + +Her beauty was no longer bleak, but rich--all at once too warm, +perhaps, for a divinity whose only office was the guidance of a +troubadour toward asceticism. His frail comeliness was radiant from +his poetical ecstasy--of a sudden too flushed, one would think, for +a youth whose aspirations were all toward the intangible. Then each +emerged with a start from that delicious spell, to remember the +staring servants. + +They said good-night. Madonna Gemma ascended to her chamber. + +It was the horse-boy Foresto who, with a curious solicitude and +satisfaction, lighted Raffaele Muti up to bed. + +But old Baldo, strolling thoughtfully in the courtyard, caught a +young cricket chirping in the grass between two paving-stones. On +the cricket's back, with a straw and white paint, he traced the Muti +device--a tree transfixed by an arrow. Then he put the cricket into +a little iron box together with a rose, and gave the box to a +man-at-arms, saying: + +"Ride to Lapo Cercamorte and deliver this into his hands." + +Next day, on the sunny tower, high above the hillside covered with +spring flowers, Raffaele resumed his song. He sat at the feet of +Madonna Gemma, who wore a grass-green gown embroidered with unicorns, +emblems of purity. The crone was there also, pretending to doze in +the shadows; and so was Foresto the horse-boy, whose dark, still +face seemed now and again to mirror Raffaele's look of exultation--a +look that came only when Madonna Gemma gazed away from him. + +But for the most part she gazed down at Raffaele's singing lips, on +which she discerned no guile. + +Tireless, he sang to her of a world fairer even than that of her +maidenhood. It was a region where for women all feeling of abasement +ceased, because there the troubadour, by his homage, raised one's +soul high above the tyranny of uncomprehending husbands. + +She learned--for so it had been decided in Provence--that high +sentiment was impossible in wedlock at its best; that between +husband and wife there was no room for love. Thus, according to the +Regula Amoris, it was not only proper, but also imperative, to seek +outside the married life some lofty love-alliance. + +The day wore on thus. The sun had distilled from many blossoms the +whole intoxicating fragrance of the springtime. A golden haze was +changing Madonna Gemma's prison into a paradise. + +Her vision was dimmed by a glittering film of tears. Her fingers +helplessly unfolded on her lap. She believed that at last she had +learned love's meaning. And Raffaele, for all his youth no novice at +this game, believed that this dove, too, was fluttering into his cage. + +By sunset their cheeks were flaming. At twilight their hands turned +cold. + +Then they heard the bang of the gate and the croaking voice of Lapo +Cercamorte. + +He entered the hall as he had so often entered the houses of +terror-stricken enemies, clashing at each ponderous, swift step, his +mail dusty, his hair wet and dishevelled, his dull-red face +resembling a mask of heated iron. That atmosphere just now swimming +in languor, was instantly permeated by a wave of force, issuing from +this herculean body and barbaric brain. When he halted before those +two they seemed to feel the heat that seethed in his steel-bound +breast. + +His disfigured face still insolvable, Lapo Cercamorte plunged his +stare into Madonna Gemma's eyes, then looked into the eyes of +Raffaele. His hoarse voice broke the hush; he said to the young man: + +"So you are the sister of my friend Count Nicolloto?" + +Raffaele, having licked his lips, managed to answer: + +"You mean his brother, sir." + +Lapo Cercamorte laughed loud; but his laugh was the bark of a hyena, +and his eyes were balls of fire. + +"No! with these legs and ringlets? Come here, Baldo. Here is a girl +who says she is a man. What do you say, to speak only of this pretty +skin of hers?" + +And with his big hand suddenly he ripped open Raffaele's tunic half +way to the waist, exposing the fair white flesh. The troubadour, +though quivering with shame and rage, remained motionless, staring +at the great sword that hung in its scarlet sheath from Lapo's +harness. + +Old one-eyed Baldo, plucking his master by the elbow, whispered: +"Take care, Cercamorte. His brother Nicolotto is your ally. Since +after all, nothing much has happened, do not carry the offence too +far." + +"Are you in your dotage?" Lapo retorted, still glaring with a +dreadful interest at Raffaele's flesh. "Do you speak of giving +offence, when all I desire is to be as courteous as my uneducated +nature will allow? She must pardon me that slip of the hand; I meant +only to stroke her cheek in compliment but instead I tore her dress. +Yet I will be a proper courtier to her still. Since she is now set +on going home, I myself, alone, will escort her clear to the forest, +in order to set her upon the safe road." + +And presently Madonna Gemma, peering from her chamber window, saw +her husband, with a ghastly pretense of care, lead young Raffaele +Muti down the hill into the darkness from which there came never a +sound. It was midnight when Lapo Cercamorte reentered the castle, +and called for food and drink. + +Now the shadow over the Big Hornets' Nest obscured even the glare of +the summer sun. No winsome illusion of nature's could brighten this +little world that had at last turned quite sinister. In the air that +Madonna Gemma breathed was always a chill of horror. At night the +thick walls seemed to sweat with it, and the silence was like a great +hand pressed across a mouth struggling to give vent to a scream. + +At dinner in the hall she ate nothing, but drank her wine as though +burning with a fever. Sometimes, when the stillness had become +portentous, Lapo rolled up his sleeves, inspected his scarred, +swarthy arms, and mumbled, with the grin of a man stretched on the +rack: + +"Ah, Father and Son! if only one had a skin as soft, white, and +delicate as a girl's!" + +At this Madonna Gemma left the table. + +Once more her brow became bleaker than a winter mountain; her eyes +were haggard from nightmares; she trembled at every sound. Pacing +her bower, interminably she asked herself one question. And at last, +when Lapo would have passed her on the stairs, she hurled into his +face: + +"What did you do to Raffaele Muti?" + +He started, so little did he expect to hear her voice. His battered +countenance turned redder, as he noted that for the sake of the +other she was like an overstretched bow, almost breaking. Then a +pang stabbed him treacherously. Fearing that she might discern his +misery, he turned back, leaving her limp against the wall. + +He took to walking the runway of the ramparts, gnawing his fingers +and muttering to himself, shaking his tousled hair. With a sigh, as +if some thoughts were too heavy a burden for that iron frame, he sat +down on an archer's ledge, to stare toward the hut of the renegade +Arabian. Often at night he sat thus, hour after hour, a coarse +creature made romantic by a flood of moonlight. And as he bowed his +head the sentinel heard him fetch a groan such as one utters whose +life escapes through a sword-wound. + +One-eyed Baldo also groaned at these goings-on, and swallowed many +angry speeches. But Foresto the horse-boy began to hum at his work. + +This Foresto had attached himself to Lapo's force in the Ferrarese +campaign. His habits were solitary. Often when his work was done he +wandered into the woods to return with a capful of berries or a +squirrel that he had snared. Because he was silent, deft, and +daintier than a horse-boy ought to be, Lapo finally bade him serve +Madonna Gemma. + +Watching his dark, blank face as he strewed fresh herbs on her +pavement, she wondered: + +"Does he know the truth?" + +Their glances met; he seemed to send her a veiled look of +comprehension and promise. But whenever he appeared the crone was +there. + +One morning however, Foresto had time to whisper: + +"The Arabian." + +What did that mean? Was the Arab magician, recluse in his wretched +hut below the castle, prepared to serve her? Was it through him and +Foresto that she might hope to escape or at least to manage some +revenge? Thereafter she often watched the renegade's window, from +which, no matter how late the hour, shone a glimmering of lamplight. +Was he busy at his magic? Could those spells be enlisted on her side? + +Then, under an ashen sky of autumn, as night was creeping in, she +saw the Arabian ascending the hill to the castle. His tall figure, +as fleshless as a mummy's, was swathed in a white robe like a +winding sheet; his beaked face and hollow eye-sockets were like a +vision of Death. Without taking her eyes from him, Madonna Gemma +crossed herself. + +Baldo came to the gate. The ghostly Arabian uttered: + +"Peace be with you. I have here, under my robe, a packet for your +master." + +"Good! Pass it over to me, unless it will turn my nose into a carrot, +or add a tail to my spine." + +The foreigner, shaking his skull-like head, responded: + +"I must give this packet into no hands but his." + +So Baldo led the sorcerer to Cercamorte, and for a long while those +two talked together in private. + + * * * * * + +Next day Madonna Gemma noted that Lapo had on a new, short, +sleeveless surcoat, or vest, of whitish leather, trimmed on its +edges with vair, and laced down the sides with tinsel. In this +festive garment, so different from his usual attire, the grim tyrant +was ill at ease, secretly anxious, almost timid. Avoiding her eye, +he assumed an elaborate carelessness, like that of a boy who had +been up to some deviltry. Madonna Gemma soon found herself +connecting this change in him with the fancy white-leather vest. + +In the hall, while passing a platter of figs, Foresto praised the +new garment obsequiously. He murmured: + +"And what a fine skin it is made of! So soft, so delicate, so +lustrous in its finish! Is it pigskin, master? Ah, no; it is finer +than that. Kidskin? But a kid could not furnish a skin as large as +this one. No doubt it is made from some queer foreign animal, +perhaps from a beast of Greece or Arabia?" + +While speaking these words, Foresto flashed one look, mournful and +eloquent, at Madonna Gemma, then softly withdrew from the hall. + +She sat motionless, wave after wave of cold flowing in through her +limbs to her heart. She stared, as though at a basilisk, at Lapo's +new vest, in which she seemed to find the answer so long denied her. +The hall grew dusky; she heard a far-off cry, and when she meant to +flee, she fainted in her chair. + +For a week Madonna Gemma did not rise from her bed. When finally she +did rise she refused to leave her room. + +But suddenly Lapo Cercamorte was gayer than he had been since the +fall of Grangioia Castle. Every morning, when he had inquired after +Madonna Gemma's health, and had sent her all kinds of tidbits, he +went down to sit among his men, to play morra, to test swordblades, +to crack salty jokes, to let loose his husky guffaw. At times, +cocking his eye toward certain upper casements, he patted his fine +vest furtively, with a gleeful and mischievous grin. To Baldo, after +some mysterious nods and winks, he confided: + +"Everything will be different when she is well again." + +"No doubt," snarled old Baldo, scrubbing at his mail shirt viciously. +"Though I am not in your confidence, I agree that a nice day is +coming, a beautiful day--like a pig. Look you, Cercamorte, shake off +this strange spell of folly. Prepare for early trouble. Just as a +Venetian sailor can feel a storm of water brewing, so can I feel, +gathering far off, a storm of arrows. Do you notice that the crows +hereabouts have never been so thick? Perhaps, too, I have seen a face +peeping out of the woods, about the time that Foresto goes down to +pick berries." + +"You chatter like an old woman at a fountain," said Lapo, still +caressing his vest with his palms. "I shall be quite happy soon--yes, +even before the Lombard league takes the field." + +Baldo raised his shoulders, pressed his withered eyelids together, +and answered, in disgust: + +"God pity you, Cercamorte! You are certainly changed these days. +Evidently your Arabian has given you a charm that turns men's brains +into goose-eggs." + +Lapo stamped away angrily, yet he was soon smiling again. + +And now his coarse locks were not unkempt, but cut square across +brow and neck. Every week he trimmed his fingernails; every day or so, +with a flush and a hangdog look, he drenched himself with perfume. +Even while wearing that garment--at thought of which Madonna Gemma, +isolate in her chamber, still shivered and moaned--Cercamorte +resembled one who prepares himself for a wedding, or gallant +rendezvous, that may take place any moment. + +Sometimes, reeking with civet-oil, he crept to her door, eavesdropped, +pondered the quality of her sighs, stood hesitant, then stealthily +withdrew, grinding his teeth and wheezing: + +"Not yet. Sweet saints in heaven, what a time it takes!" + +He loathed his bed, because of the long hours of sleeplessness. He +no longer slept naked. At night, too, his body was encased in the +vest of whitish soft skin. + + * * * * * + +One morning a horseman in green and yellow scallops appeared before +the castle. It was Count Nicolotto Muti, elder brother of the +troubadour Raffaele. + +Lapo, having arranged his features, came down to meet the count. +They kissed, and entered the keep with their arms round each other's +shoulders. Foresto brought in the guest-cup. + +Nicolotto Muti was a thin, calm politician, elegant in his manners +and speech, his lips always wearing a sympathetic smile. By the +fireplace, after chatting of this and that, he remarked, with his +hand affectionately on Cercamorte's knee: + +"I am trying to find trace of my little Raffaele, who has vanished +like a mist. It is said that he was last seen in this neighbourhood. +Can you tell me anything?" + +Lapo, his face expressionless, took thought, then carefully answered: + +"Muti, because we are friends as well as allies I will answer you +honestly. Returning from my visit with you, I found him in this hall, +plucking a harp and singing love-songs to my wife. I say frankly +that if he had not been your brother I should have cut off his hands +and his tongue. Instead, I escorted him to the forest, and set him +on the home road. I admit that before I parted from him I preached +him a sermon on the duties of boys toward the friends of their +families. Nay, fearing that he might not relate his adventure to you, +in that discourse I somewhat pounded the pulpit. Well, yes, I +confess that I gave him a little spanking." + +Count Nicolotto, without showing any surprise, or losing his fixed +smile, declared: + +"Dear comrade, it was a young man, not a child, whom you chastised +in that way. In another instance, as of course you know, such an +action would have been a grievous insult to all his relatives. +Besides, I am sure that he meant no more than homage to your lady--a +compliment common enough in these modern times, and honourably +reflected upon the husband. However, I can understand the feelings +of one who has been too much in the field to learn those innocent +new gallantries. Indeed, I presume that I should thank you for what +you believed to be a generous forbearance. But all this does not +find me my brother." + +And with a sad, gentle smile Count Nicolotto closed his frosty eyes. + +Cercamorte, despite all this cooing, received an impression of enmity. +As always when danger threatened, he became still and wary, much +more resourceful than ordinarily, as if perils were needed to render +him complete. Smoothing his vest with his fingers that were +flattened from so much sword-work, Lapo said: + +"I feel now that I may have been wrong to put such shame upon him. +On account of it, no doubt, he has sought retirement. Or maybe he +has journeyed abroad, say to Provence, a land free from such +out-of-date bunglers as I." + +Nicolotto Muti made a deprecatory gesture, then rose with a rustle +of his green and yellow scallops, from which was shaken a fragrance +of attar. + +"My good friend, let us hope so." + +It was Foresto who, in the courtyard held Muti's stirrup, and +secretly pressed into the visitor's hand a pellet of parchment. For +Foresto could write excellent Latin. + +No sooner had Count Nicolotto regained his strong town than a +shocking rumour spread round--Lapo Cercamorte had made Raffaele +Muti's skin into a vest, with which to drive his wife mad. + +In those petty Guelph courts, wherever the tender lore of Provence +had sanctified the love of troubadour for great lady, the noblemen +cried out in fury; the noblewomen, transformed into tigresses, +demanded Lapo's death. Old Grangioia and his three sons arrived at +the Muti fortress raving for sudden vengeance. There they were +joined by others, rich troubadours, backed by many lances, whose +rage could not have been hotter had Lapo, that "wild beast in human +form," defaced the Holy Sepulchre. At last the Marquis Azzo was +forced to reflect: + +"Cercamorte has served me well, but if I keep them from him our +league may be torn asunder. Let them have him. But he will die hard." + +Round the Big Hornets' Nest the crows were thicker than ever. + + * * * * * + +One cold, foggy evening Lapo Cercamorte at last pushed open his +wife's chamber door. Madonna Gemma was alone, wrapped in a fur-lined +mantle, warming her hands over an earthen pot full of embers. +Standing awkwardly before her, Lapo perceived that her beauty was +fading away in this unhappy solitude. On her countenance was no +trace of that which he had hoped to see. He swore softly, cast down +from feverish expectancy into bewilderment. + +"No," he said, at length, his voice huskier than usual, "this cannot +continue. You are a flower transplanted into a dungeon, and dying on +the stalk. One cannot refashion the past. The future remains. +Perhaps you would flourish again if I sent you back to your father?" + +He went to the casement with a heavy step, and stared through a rent +in the oiled linen at the mist, which clung round the castle like a +pall. + +"Madonna," he continued, more harshly than ever, in order that she +might not rejoice at his pain, "I ask pardon for the poorness of my +house. Even had my sword made me wealthy I should not have known how +to provide appointments pleasing to a delicate woman. My manners also, +as I have learned since our meeting, are unsuitable. The camps were +my school and few ladies came into them. It was not strange that +when Raffaele Muti presented himself you should have found him more +to your taste. But if on my sudden return I did what I did, and thus +prevented him from boasting up and down Lombardy of another conquest, +it was because I had regard not only for my honour, but for yours. +So I am not asking your pardon on that score." + +Lowering her face toward the red embers, she whispered: + +"A beast believes all men to be beasts." + +"Kiss of Judas! Are women really trapped, then, by that gibberish? +Madonna, these miaowing troubadours have concocted a world that they +themselves will not live in. Have I not sat swigging in tents with +great nobles, and heard all the truth about it? Those fellows always +have, besides the lady that they pretend to worship as inviolate, a +dozen others with whom the harp-twanging stage is stale." + +"All false, every word," Madonna Gemma answered. + +"Because ladies choose to think so the game goes on. Well, Madonna, +remember this. From the moment when I first saw you I, at least, did +you no dishonour, but married you promptly, and sought your +satisfaction by the means that I possessed. I was not unaware that +few wives come to their husbands with affection. Certainly I did not +expect affection from you at the first, but hoped that it might ensue. +So even Lapo Cercamorte became a flabby fool, when he met one in +comparison with whom all other women seemed mawkish. Since it was +such a fit of drivelling, let us put an end to it. At sunrise the +horses will be ready. Good night." + +Leaving her beside the dying embers, he went out upon the ramparts. +The fog was impenetrable; one could not even see the light in the +sorcerer's window. + +"Damned Arabian!" growled Lapo, brandishing his fist. He sat down +beside the gate-tower, and rested his chin on his hands. + +"How cold it is," he thought, "how lonely and dismal! Warfare is +what I need. Dear Lord, let me soon be killing men briskly, and +warming myself in the burning streets of Ferrara. That is what I was +begotten for. I have been lost in a maze." + +Dawn approached, and Lapo was still dozing beside the gate-tower. + +With the first hint of light the sentinel challenged; voices +answered outside the gate. It was old Grangioia and his sons, +calling up that they had come to visit their daughter. + +"Well arrived," Lapo grunted, his brain and body sluggish from the +chill. He ordered the gate swung open. + +Too late, as they rode into the courtyard, he saw that there were +nearly a score of them, all with their helmets on. Then in the fog +he heard a noise like an avalanche of ice--the clatter of countless +steel-clad men scrambling up the hillside. + +While running along the wall, Lapo Cercamorte noted that the +horsemen were hanging back, content to hold the gate till reinforced. +On each side of the courtyard his soldiers were tumbling out of +their barracks and fleeing toward the keep, that inner stronghold +which was now their only haven. Dropping at last from the ramparts, +he joined this retreat. But on gaining the keep he found with him +only some thirty of his men; the rest had been caught in their beds. + +Old Baldo gave him a coat of mail. Young Foresto brought him his +sword and shield. Climbing the keep-wall, Cercamorte squinted down +into the murky courtyard. That whole place now swarmed with his foes. + +Arrows began to fly. A round object sailed through the air and +landed in the keep; it was the head of the Arabian. + +"Who are these people?" asked Baldo, while rapidly shooting at them +with a bow. "There seem to be many knights; half the shields carry +devices. Ai! they have fired the barracks. Now we shall make them out." + +The flames leaped up in great sheets, producing the effect of an +infernal noon. The masses in the courtyard, inhuman-looking in their +ponderous, barrel-shaped helmets, surged forward at the keep with a +thunderous outcry: + +"Grangioia! Grangioia! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +"Muti! Muti! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +"God and the Monfalcone!" + +"Strike for Zaladino! Havoc on Cercamorte!" + +Lapo bared his teeth at them. "By the Five Wounds! half of Lombardy +seems to be here. Well, my Baldo, before they make an end of us +shall we show them some little tricks?" + +"You have said it, Cercamorte. One more good scuffle, with a parade +of all our talent." + +The assailants tried beams against the keep gate; the defenders shot +them down or hurled rocks upon their heads. But on the wall of the +keep Cercamorte's half-clad men fell sprawling, abristle with +feathered shafts. A beam reached the gate and shook it on its hinges. +Lapo, one ear shot away, drew his surviving soldiers back into the +hall. + +He ordered torches stuck into all the wall-rings, and ranged his men +on the dais. Behind them, in the doorway leading to the upper +chambers and the high tower, he saw his wife, wild-looking, and +whiter than her robe. + +"Go back, Madonna. It is only your family calling with some of their +friends. I entered Grangioia Castle abruptly; now it is tit for tat." + +The crone brought two helmets, which Lapo and Baldo put on. Then, +drawing their long swords, they awaited the onset. + +The keep gate yielded, and into the hall came rushing a wave of +peaked and painted shields. But before the dais the wave paused, +since in it were those who could not forego the joy of taunting Lapo +Cercamorte before killing him. So suddenly, all his antagonists +contemplated him in silence, as he crouched above them with his +sword and shield half raised, his very armour seeming to emanate +force, cunning, and peril. + +"Foul monster!" a muffled voice shouted. "Now you come to your death!" + +"Now we will give your carcass to the wild beasts, your brothers!" + +"Let my daughter pass through," bawled old Grangioia; then, +receiving no response, struck clumsily at Lapo. + +With a twist of his sword Lapo disarmed the old man, calling out: +"Keep off, kinsman! I will not shed Grangioia blood unless you force +me to it. Let Muti come forward. Or yonder gentleman dressed up in +the white eagles of Este, which should hide their heads with their +wings, so long and faithfully have I served them." + +But none was ignorant of Cercamorte's prowess; so, after a moment of +seething, they all came at him together. + +The swordblades rose and fell so swiftly that they seemed to be arcs +of light; the deafening clangour was pierced by the howls of the +dying. The dais turned red--men slipped on it; Cercamorte's sword +caught them; they did not rise. He seemed indeed to wield more +swords than one, so terrible was his fighting. At his back stood +Baldo, his helmet caved in, his mail shirt in ribbons, his abdomen +slashed open. Both at once they saw that all their men were down. +Hewing to right and left they broke through, gained the tower +staircase, and locked the door behind them. + + * * * * * + +On the dark stairway they leaned against the wall, their helmets off, +gasping for breath, while the enemy hammered the door. + +"How is it with you?" puffed Lapo, putting his arm round Baldo's neck. + +"They have wrecked my belly for me. I am finished." + +Lapo Cercamorte hung his head and sobbed, "My old Baldo, my comrade, +it is my folly that has killed you." + +"No, no. It was only that I had survived too many tussles; then all +at once our Lord recalled my case to his mind. But we have had some +high times together, eh?" + +Lapo, weeping aloud from remorse, patted Baldo's shoulder and kissed +his withered cheek. Lamplight flooded the staircase; it was Foresto +softly descending. The rays illuminated Madonna Gemma, who all the +while had been standing close beside them. + +"Lady," said Baldo, feebly, "can you spare me a bit of your veil? +Before the door falls I must climb these steps, and that would be +easier if I could first bind in my entrails." + +They led him upstairs, Lapo on one side, Madonna Gemma on the other, +and Foresto lighting the way. They came to the topmost chamber in +the high tower--the last room of all. + +Here Cercamorte kept his treasures--his scraps of looted finery, the +weapons taken from fallen knights, the garrison's surplus of arms. +When he had locked the door and with Foresto's slow help braced some +pike-shafts against it, he tried to make Baldo lie down. + +The old man vowed profanely that he would die on his feet. Shambling +to the casement niche, he gaped forth at the dawn. Below him a +frosty world was emerging from the mist. He saw the ring of the +ramparts, and in the courtyard the barrack ruins smouldering. Beyond, +the hillside also smoked, with shredding vapours; and at the foot of +the hill he observed a strange sight--the small figure of a man in +tunic and hood, feylike amid the mist, that danced and made gestures +of joy. Baldo, clinging to the casement-sill on bending legs, +summoned Cercamorte to look at the dancing figure. + +"What is it, Lapo? A devil?" + +"One of our guests, no doubt," said Cercamorte, dashing the tears +from his eyes. "Hark! the door at the foot of the staircase has +fallen. Now we come to our parting, old friend." + +"Give me a bow and an arrow," cried Baldo, with a rattle in his +throat. "Whoever that zany is, he shall not dance at our funeral. +Just one more shot, my Lapo. You shall see that I still have it in me." + +Cercamorte could not deny him this last whim. He found and strung a +bow, and chose a Ghibelline war-arrow. Behind them, young Foresto +drew in his breath with a hiss, laid his hand on his dagger, and +turned the colour of clay. Old Baldo raised the bow, put all his +remaining strength into the draw, and uttered a cracking shout of +bliss. The mannikin no longer danced; but toward him, from the +hillside, some men in steel were running. Baldo, sinking back into +Cercamorte's arms, at last allowed himself to be laid down. + +Through the door filtered the rising tumult of the enemy. + +Lapo Cercamorte's blood-smeared visage turned business-like. Before +grasping his sword, he bent to rub his palms on the grit of the +pavement. While he was stooping, young Foresto unsheathed his dagger, +made a catlike step, and stabbed at his master's neck. But quicker +than Foresto was Madonna Gemma, who, with a deer's leap, imprisoned +his arms from behind. Cercamorte discovered them thus, struggling +fiercely in silence. + +"Stand aside," he said to her, and, when he had struck Foresto down, +"Thank you for that, Madonna. With such spirit to help me, I might +have had worthy sons. Well, here they come, and this door is a +flimsy thing. Get yourself into the casement niche, away from the +swing of my blade." + +A red trickle was running down his legs; he was standing in a red +pool. + +It began again, the splitting of panels, the cracking of hinges. The +door was giving; now only the pike-shafts held it. Then came a pause. +From far down the staircase a murmur of amazement swept upward; a +babble of talk ensued. Silence fell. Cercamorte let out a harsh laugh. + +"What new device is this? Does it need so much chicanery to finish +one man?" + +Time passed, and there was no sound except a long clattering from +the courtyard. Of a sudden a new voice called through the broken door: + +"Open, Cercamorte. I am one man alone." + +"Come in without ceremony. Here am I, waiting to embrace you." + +"I am Ercole Azzanera, the Marquis Azzo's cousin, and your true +friend. I swear on my honour that I stand here alone with sheathed +sword." + +Lapo kicked the pike-shafts away, and, as the door fell inward, +jumped back on guard. At the threshold, unhelmeted, stood the knight +whose long surcoat was covered with the white eagles of Este. He +spoke as follows: + +"Cercamorte, this array came up against you because it was published +that you had killed and flayed Raffaele Muti, and, out of jealous +malignancy, were wearing his skin as a vest. But just now a +marvellous thing has happened, for at the foot of the hill Raffaele +Muti has been found, freshly slain by a wandered arrow. Save for +that wound his skin is without flaw. Moreover, he lived and breathed +but a moment ago. So the whole tale was false, and this war against +you outrageous. All the gentlemen who came here have gone away in +great amazement and shame, leaving me to ask pardon for what they +have done. Forgive them, Cercamorte, in the name of Christ, for they +believed themselves to be performing a proper deed." + +And when Lapo found no reply in his head, Ercole Azzanera, with a +humble bow, descended from the high tower and followed the others +away. + +Lapo Cercamorte sat down on a stool. "All my good men," he murmured, +"and my dear gossip, Baldo! My castle rushed by so shabby a ruse; my +name a laughing-stock! And the Marquis Azzo gave them my house as +one gives a child a leaden gimcrack to stamp on. All because of this +damned vest, this silly talisman which was to gain me her love. 'In +the name of Christ,' says my friend, Ercole Azzanera. By the Same! +If I live I will go away to the heathen, for there is no more +pleasure in Christendom." + +So he sat for a while, maundering dismally, then stood up and made +for the door. He reeled. He sank down with a clash. Madonna Gemma, +stealing out from the casement niche, knelt beside him, peered into +his face, and ran like the wind down the staircase. In the hall, +with lifted robe she sped over the corpses of Cercamorte's soldiers, +seeking wine and water. These obtained, she flew back to Lapo. There +the crone found her. Between them those two dragged him down to +Madonna Gemma's chamber, stripped him, tended his wounds, and +hoisted him into the bed. + +Flat on his back, Cercamorte fought over all his battles. He +quarrelled with Baldo. Again he pondered anxiously outside of +Madonna Gemma's door. He instructed the Arabian to fashion him a +charm that would overspread his ugly face with comeliness, change +his uncouthness into geniality. He insisted on wearing the vest, the +under side of which was scribbled with magical signs. + +Madonna Gemma sat by the bed all day, and lay beside him at night. +On rising, she attired herself in a vermilion gown over which she +drew a white jacket of Eastern silk embroidered with nightingales. +Into her golden tresses she braided the necklaces that he had +offered her. Her tapering milky fingers sparkled with rings. Her +former beauty had not returned--another, greater beauty had taken +its place. + +A day came when he recognized her face. Leaning down like a flower +of paradise, she kissed his lips. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK O. 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