diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:45:33 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:45:33 -0700 |
| commit | 1613485068268e69cf896571e769968618147528 (patch) | |
| tree | eebca237a32759e54e2aa2578f05d112c0e55d32 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-8.txt | 18341 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 328038 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 1097080 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/14852-h.htm | 15649 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/005.png | bin | 0 -> 3197 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 137937 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page130.jpg | bin | 0 -> 75855 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page154.jpg | bin | 0 -> 64242 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page20.jpg | bin | 0 -> 79101 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page240.jpg | bin | 0 -> 74495 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page288.jpg | bin | 0 -> 70438 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page368.jpg | bin | 0 -> 91402 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/facing_page500.jpg | bin | 0 -> 76146 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852-h/images/frontispiece.jpg | bin | 0 -> 85036 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852.txt | 18341 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 14852.zip | bin | 0 -> 327906 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
19 files changed, 52347 insertions, 0 deletions
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/14852-8.txt b/14852-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31802e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18341 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. Chambers + +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: The Younger Set + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: February 1, 2005 [EBook #14852] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGER SET *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + +_The_ YOUNGER SET + + +WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + THE YOUNGER SET + THE FIGHTING CHANCE + THE TREE OF HEAVEN + THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS + THE RECKONING + IOLE + Cardigan + The Maid-at-Arms + Lorraine + Maids of Paradise + Ashes of Empire + The Red Republic + The King in Yellow + A Maker of Moons + A King and a Few Dukes + The Conspirators + The Cambric Mask + The Haunts of Men + Outsiders + A Young Man in a Hurry + The Mystery of Choice + In Search of the Unknown + In the Quarter + + * * * * * + + FOR CHILDREN + + Garden-Land + Forest-Land + River-Land + Mountain-Land + Orchard-Land + Outdoorland + +[Illustration: "Gave into his keeping soul and body."--Page 513] + + + + +_The_ + +YOUNGER SET + +BY + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +AUTHOR OF + +"THE FIGHTING CHANCE," ETC. + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +G.C. WILMSHURST + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + +NEW YORK + +_Published August, 1907_ + + + + +TO + +MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I.--HIS OWN PEOPLE 1 + II.--A DREAM ENDS 43 + III.--UNDER THE ASHES 84 + IV.--MID-LENT 119 + V.--AFTERGLOW 161 + VI.--THE UNEXPECTED 194 + VII.--ERRANDS AND LETTERS 242 +VIII.--SILVERSIDE 280 + IX.--A NOVICE 324 + X.--LEX NON SCRIPTA 384 + XI.--HIS OWN WAY 420 + XII.--HER WAY 460 + ARS AMORIS 503 + + + + +THE YOUNGER SET + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER I + +HIS OWN PEOPLE + + +"You never met Selwyn, did you?" + +"No, sir." + +"Never heard anything definite about his trouble?" insisted Gerard. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" replied young Erroll, "I've heard a good deal about it. +Everybody has, you know." + +"Well, I _don't_ know," retorted Austin Gerard irritably, "what +'everybody' has heard, but I suppose it's the usual garbled version made +up of distorted fact and malicious gossip. That's why I sent for you. +Sit down." + +Gerald Erroll seated himself on the edge of the big, polished table in +Austin's private office, one leg swinging, an unlighted cigarette +between his lips. + +Austin Gerard, his late guardian, big, florid, with that peculiar blue +eye which seems to characterise hasty temper, stood by the window, +tossing up and catching the glittering gold piece--souvenir of the +directors' meeting which he had just left. + +"What has happened," he said, "is this. Captain Selwyn is back in +town--sent up his card to me, but they told him I was attending a +directors' meeting. When the meeting was over I found his card and a +message scribbled, saying he'd recently landed and was going uptown to +call on Nina. She'll keep him there, of course, until I get home, so I +shall see him this evening. Now, before you meet him, I want you to +plainly understand the truth about this unfortunate affair; and that's +why I telephoned your gimlet-eyed friend Neergard just now to let you +come around here for half an hour." + +The boy nodded and, drawing a gold matchbox from his waistcoat pocket, +lighted his cigarette. + +"Why the devil don't you smoke cigars?" growled Austin, more to himself +than to Gerald; then, pocketing the gold piece, seated himself heavily +in his big leather desk-chair. + +"In the first place," he said, "Captain Selwyn is my +brother-in-law--which wouldn't make an atom of difference to me in my +judgment of what has happened if he had been at fault. But the facts of +the case are these." He held up an impressive forefinger and laid it +flat across the large, ruddy palm of the other hand. "First of all, he +married a cat! C-a-t, cat. Is that clear, Gerald?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Good! What sort of a dance she led him out there in Manila, I've heard. +Never mind that, now. What I want you to know is how he behaved--with +what quiet dignity, steady patience, and sweet temper under constant +provocation and mortification, he conducted himself. Then that fellow +Ruthven turned up--and--Selwyn is above that sort of suspicion. Besides, +his scouts took the field within a week." + +He dropped a heavy, highly coloured fist on his desk with a bang. + +"After that hike, Selwyn came back, to find that Alixe had sailed with +Jack Ruthven. And what did he do; take legal measures to free himself, +as you or I or anybody with an ounce of temper in 'em would have done? +No; he didn't. That infernal Selwyn conscience began to get busy, making +him believe that if a woman kicks over the traces it must be because of +some occult shortcoming on his part. In some way or other that man +persuaded himself of his responsibility for her misbehaviour. He knew +what it meant if he didn't ask the law to aid him to get rid of her; he +knew perfectly well that his silence meant acknowledgment of +culpability; that he couldn't remain in the service under such +suspicion. + +"And now, Gerald," continued Austin, striking his broad palm with +extended forefinger and leaning heavily forward, "I'll tell you what +sort of a man Philip Selwyn is. He permitted Alixe to sue him for +absolute divorce--and, to give her every chance to marry Ruthven, he +refused to defend the suit. That sort of chivalry is very picturesque, +no doubt, but it cost him his career--set him adrift at thirty-five, a +man branded as having been divorced from his wife for cause, with no +profession left him, no business, not much money--a man in the prime of +life and hope and ambition, clean in thought and deed; an upright, just, +generous, sensitive man, whose whole career has been blasted because he +was too merciful, too generous to throw the blame where it belonged. And +it belongs on the shoulders of that Mrs. Jack Ruthven--Alixe +Ruthven--whose name you may see in the columns of any paper that +truckles to the sort of society she figures in." + +Austin stood up, thrust his big hands into his pockets, paced the room +for a few moments, and halted before Gerald. + +"If any woman ever played me a dirty trick," he said, "I'd see that the +public made no mistake in placing the blame. I'm that sort"--he +shrugged--"Phil Selwyn isn't; that's the difference--and it may be in +his favour from an ethical and sentimental point of view. All right; let +it go at that. But all I meant you to understand is that he is every +inch a man; and when you have the honour to meet him, keep that fact in +the back of your head, among the few brains with which Providence has +equipped you." + +"Thanks!" said Gerald, colouring up. He cast his cigarette into the +empty fireplace, slid off the edge of the table, and picked up his hat. +Austin eyed him without particular approval. + +"You buy too many clothes," he observed. "That's a new suit, isn't it?" + +"Certainly," said Gerald; "I needed it." + +"Oh! if you can afford it, all right. . . . How's the nimble Mr. +Neergard?" + +"Neergard is flourishing. We put through that Rose Valley deal. I tell +you what, Austin, I wish you could see your way clear to finance one or +two--" + +Austin's frown cut him short. + +"Oh, all right! You know your own business, of course," said the boy, a +little resentfully. "Only as Fane, Harmon & Co. have thought it worth +while--" + +"I don't care what Fane, Harmon think," growled Austin, touching a +button over his desk. His stenographer entered; he nodded a curt +dismissal to Gerald, adding, as the boy reached the door: + +"Your sister expects you to be on hand to-night--and so do we." + +Gerald halted. + +"I'd clean forgotten," he began; "I made another--a rather important +engagement--" + +But Austin was not listening; in fact, he had already begun to dictate +to his demure stenographer, and Gerald stood a moment, hesitating, then +turned on his heel and went away down the resounding marble corridor. + +"They never let me alone," he muttered; "they're always at me--following +me up as though I were a schoolboy. . . . Austin's the worst--never +satisfied. . . . What do I care for all these functions--sitting around +with the younger set and keeping the cradle of conversation rocking? I +won't go to that infernal baby-show!" + +He entered the elevator and shot down to the great rotunda, still +scowling over his grievance. For he had made arrangements to join a +card-party at Julius Neergard's rooms that night, and he had no +intention of foregoing that pleasure just because his sister's first +grown-up dinner-party was fixed for the same date. + +As for this man Selwyn, whom he had never met, he saw no reason why he +should drop business and scuttle uptown in order to welcome him. No +doubt he was a good fellow; no doubt he had behaved very decently in a +matter which, until a few moments before, he had heard little about. He +meant to be civil; he'd look up Selwyn when he had a chance, and ask him +to dine at the club. But this afternoon he couldn't do it; and, as for +the evening, he had made his arrangements, and he had no intention of +disturbing them on Austin's account. + +When he reached his office he picked up the telephone and called up +Gerard's house; but neither his sister nor anybody else was there except +the children and servants, and Captain Selwyn had not yet called. So he +left no message, merely saying that he'd call up again. Which he forgot +to do. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Captain Selwyn was sauntering along Fifth Avenue under the +leafless trees, scanning the houses of the rich and great across the +way; and these new houses of the rich and great stared back at him out +of a thousand casements as polished and expressionless as the monocles +of the mighty. + +And, strolling at leisure in the pleasant winter weather, he came +presently to a street, stretching eastward in all the cold +impressiveness of very new limestone and plate-glass. + +Could this be the street where his sister now lived? + +As usual when perplexed he slowly raised his hand to his moustache; and +his pleasant gray eyes, still slightly blood-shot from the glare of the +tropics, narrowed as he inspected this unfamiliar house. + +The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new. Winter +sunshine sparkled on lace-hung casement, on glass marquise, and the +burnished bronze foliations of grille and door. + +It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria +swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from +limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, +frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their +left arms, passed on the Park side. + +But the nods of recognition, lifted hats, the mellow warnings of motor +horns, clattering hoofs, the sun flashing on carriage wheels and +polished panels, on liveries, harness, on the satin coats of horses--a +gem like a spark of fire smothered by the sables at a woman's throat, +and the bright indifference of her beauty--all this had long since lost +any meaning for him. For him the pageant passed as the west wind passes +in Samar over the glimmering valley grasses; and he saw it through +sun-dazzled eyes--all this, and the leafless trees beyond against the +sky, and the trees mirrored in a little wintry lake as brown as the +brown of the eyes which were closed to him now forever. + +As he stood there, again he seemed to hear the whistle signal, clear, +distant, rippling across the wind-blown grasses where the brown +constabulary lay firing in the sunshine; but the rifle shots were the +crack of whips, and it was only a fat policeman of the traffic squad +whistling to clear the swarming jungle trails of the great metropolis. + +Again Selwyn turned to the house, hesitating, unreconciled. Every +sun-lit window stared back at him. + +He had not been prepared for so much limestone and marquise magnificence +where there was more renaissance than architecture and more bay-window +than both; but the number was the number of his sister's house; and, as +the street and the avenue corroborated the numbered information, he +mounted the doorstep, rang, and leisurely examined four stiff box-trees +flanking the ornate portal--meagre vegetation compared to what he had +been accustomed to for so many years. + +Nobody came; once or twice he fancied he heard sounds proceeding from +inside the house. He rang again and fumbled for his card case. Somebody +was coming. + +The moment that the door opened he was aware of a distant and curious +uproar--far away echoes of cheering, and the faint barking of dogs. +These seemed to cease as the man in waiting admitted him; but before he +could make an inquiry or produce a card, bedlam itself apparently broke +loose somewhere in the immediate upper landing--noise in its crudest +elemental definition--through which the mortified man at the door +strove to make himself heard: "Beg pardon, sir, it's the children broke +loose an' runnin' wild-like--" + +"The _what_?" + +"Only the children, sir--fox-huntin' the cat, sir--" + +His voice was lost in the yelling dissonance descending crescendo from +floor to floor. Then an avalanche of children and dogs poured down the +hall-stairs in pursuit of a rumpled and bored cat, tumbling with yelps +and cheers and thuds among the thick rugs on the floor. + +Here the cat turned and soundly cuffed a pair of fat beagle puppies, who +shrieked and fled, burrowing for safety into the yelling heap of +children and dogs on the floor. Above this heap legs, arms, and the +tails of dogs waved wildly for a moment, then a small boy, blond hair in +disorder, staggered to his knees, and, setting hollowed hand to cheek, +shouted: "Hi! for'rard! Harkaway for'rard! Take him, Rags! Now, Tatters! +After him, Owney! Get on, there, Schnitzel! Worry him, Stinger! +Tally-ho-o!" + +At which encouraging invitation the two fat beagle pups, a waddling +dachshund, a cocker, and an Irish terrier flew at Selwyn's nicely +creased trousers; and the small boy, rising to his feet, became aware of +that astonished gentleman for the first time. + +"Steady, there!" exclaimed Selwyn, bringing his walking stick to a brisk +bayonet defence; "steady, men! Prepare to receive infantry--and doggery, +too!" he added, backing away. "No quarter! Remember the Alamo!" + +The man at the door had been too horrified to speak, but he found his +voice now. + +"Oh, you hush up, Dawson!" said the boy; and to Selwyn he added +tentatively, "Hello!" + +"Hello yourself," replied Selwyn, keeping off the circling pups with the +point of his stick. "What is this, anyway--a Walpurgis hunt?--or Eliza +and the bloodhounds?" + +Several children, disentangling themselves from the heap, rose to +confront the visitor; the shocked man, Dawson, attempted to speak again, +but Selwyn's raised hand quieted him. + +The small boy with the blond hair stepped forward and dragged several +dogs from the vicinity of Selwyn's shins. + +"This is the Shallowbrook hunt," he explained; "I am Master of Hounds; +my sister Drina, there, is one of the whips. Part of the game is to all +fall down together and pretend we've come croppers. You see, don't you?" + +"I see," nodded Selwyn; "it's a pretty stiff hunting country, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is. There's wire, you know," volunteered the girl, Drina, +rubbing the bruises on her plump shins. + +"Exactly," agreed Selwyn; "bad thing, wire. Your whips should warn you." + +The big black cat, horribly bored by the proceedings, had settled down +on a hall seat, keeping one disdainful yellow eye on the dogs. + +"All the same, we had a pretty good run," said Drina, taking the cat +into her arms and seating herself on the cushions; "didn't we, Kit-Ki?" +And, turning to Selwyn, "Kit-Ki makes a pretty good fox--only she isn't +enough afraid of us to run away very fast. Won't you sit down? Our +mother is not at home, but we are." + +"Would you really like to have me stay?" asked Selwyn. + +"Well," admitted Drina frankly, "of course we can't tell yet how +interesting you are because we don't know you. We are trying to be +polite--" and, in a fierce whisper, turning on the smaller of the +boys--"Winthrop! take your finger out of your mouth and stop staring at +guests! Billy, you make him behave himself." + +The blond-haired M.F.H. reached for his younger brother; the infant +culprit avoided him and sullenly withdrew the sucked finger but not his +fascinated gaze. + +"I want to know who he ith," he lisped in a loud aside. + +"So do I," admitted a tiny maid in stickout skirts. + +Drina dropped the cat, swept the curly hair from her eyes, and stood up +very straight in her kilts and bare knees. + +"They don't really mean to be rude," she explained; "they're only +children." Then, detecting the glimmering smile in Selwyn's eyes, "But +perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us who you are because we all would +like to know, but we are not going to be ill-bred enough to ask." + +Their direct expectant gaze slightly embarrassed him; he laughed a +little, but there was no response from them. + +"Well," he said, "as a matter of fact and record, I am a sort of +relative of yours--a species of avuncular relation." + +"What is that?" asked Drina coldly. + +"That," said Selwyn, "means that I'm more or less of an uncle to you. +Hope you don't mind. You don't have to entertain me, you know." + +"An uncle!" repeated Drina. + +"Our uncle?" echoed Billy. "You are not our soldier uncle, are you? You +are not our Uncle Philip, are you?" + +"It amounts to that," admitted Selwyn. "Is it all right?" + +There was a dead silence, broken abruptly by Billy; "Where is your +sword, then?" + +"At the hotel. Would you like to see it, Billy?" + +The five children drew a step nearer, inspecting him with merciless +candour. + +"Is it all right?" asked Selwyn again, smilingly uneasy under the +concentrated scrutiny. "How about it, Drina? Shall we shake hands?" + +Drina spoke at last: "Ye-es," she said slowly, "I think it is all right +to shake hands." She took a step forward, stretching out her hand. + +Selwyn stooped; she laid her right hand across his, hesitated, looked up +fearlessly, and then, raising herself on tiptoe, placed both arms upon +his shoulders, offering her lips. + +One by one the other children came forward to greet this promising new +uncle whom the younger among them had never before seen, and whom Drina, +the oldest, had forgotten except as that fabled warrior of legendary +exploits whose name and fame had become cherished classics of their +nursery. + +And now children and dogs clustered amicably around him; under foot +tails wagged, noses sniffed; playful puppy teeth tweaked at his +coat-skirts; and in front and at either hand eager flushed little faces +were upturned to his, shy hands sought his and nestled confidently into +the hollow of his palms or took firm proprietary hold of sleeve and +coat. + +"I infer," observed Selwyn blandly, "that your father and mother are not +at home. Perhaps I'd better stop in later." + +"But you are going to stay here, aren't you?" exclaimed Drina in dismay. +"Don't you expect to tell us stories? Don't you expect to stay here and +live with us and put on your uniform for us and show us your swords and +pistols? _Don't_ you?" + +"We have waited such a very long time for you to do this," added Billy. + +"If you'll come up to the nursery we'll have a drag-hunt for you," +pleaded Drina. "Everybody is out of the house and we can make as much +noise as we please! Will you?" + +"Haven't you any governesses or nurses or something?" asked Selwyn, +finding himself already on the stairway, and still being dragged upward. + +"Our governess is away," said Billy triumphantly, "and our nurses can do +nothing with us." + +"I don't doubt it," murmured Selwyn; "but where are they?" + +"Somebody must have locked them in the schoolroom," observed Billy +carelessly. "Come on, Uncle Philip; we'll have a first-class drag-hunt +before we unlock the schoolroom and let them out." + +"Anyway, they can brew tea there if they are lonely," added Drina, +ushering Selwyn into the big sunny nursery, where he stood, irresolute, +looking about him, aware that he was conniving at open mutiny. From +somewhere on the floor above persistent hammering and muffled appeals +satisfied him as to the location and indignation of the schoolroom +prisoners. + +"You ought to let them out," he said. "You'll surely be punished." + +"We will let them out after we've made noise enough," said Billy calmly. +"We'll probably be punished anyway, so we may as well make a noise." + +"Yes," added Drina, "we are going to make all the noise we can while we +have the opportunity. Billy, is everything ready?" + +And before Selwyn understood precisely what was happening, he found +himself the centre of a circle of madly racing children and dogs. Round +and round him they tore. Billy yelled for the hurdles and Josephine +knocked over some chairs and dragged them across the course of the +route; and over them leaped and scrambled children and puppies, +splitting the air with that same quality of din which had greeted him +upon his entrance to his sister's house. + +When there was no more breath left in the children, and when the dogs +lay about, grinning and lolling, Drina approached him, bland and +dishevelled. + +"That circus," she explained, "was for your entertainment. Now will you +please do something for ours?" + +"Certainly," said Selwyn, looking about him vaguely; "shall +we--er--build blocks, or shall I read to you--er--out of that big +picture-book--" + +"_Picture_-book!" repeated Billy with scorn; "that's good enough for +nurses to read. You're a soldier, you know. Soldiers have real stories +to tell." + +"I see," he said meekly. "What am I to tell you about--our missionaries +in Sulu?" + +"In the first place," began Drina, "you are to lie down flat on the +floor and creep about and show us how the Moros wriggle through the +grass to bolo our sentinels." + +"Why, it's--it's this way," began Selwyn, leaning back in his +rocking-chair and comfortably crossing one knee over the other; "for +instance, suppose--" + +"Oh, but you must _show_ us!" interrupted Billy. "Get down on the floor +please, uncle." + +"I can tell it better!" protested Selwyn; "I can show you just the--" + +"Please lie down and show us how they wriggle?" begged Drina. + +"I don't want to get down on the floor," he said feebly; "is it +necessary?" + +But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had +it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, +impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over +Drina, whom he was stalking. + +And it was while all were passionately intent upon the pleasing and +snake-like progress of their uncle that a young girl in furs, ascending +the stairs two at a time, peeped perfunctorily into the nursery as she +passed the hallway--and halted amazed. + +Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having +boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the +sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure--a +glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, +half-buried in a muff. + +Mortified, he got to his feet, glanced out into the hallway, and began +adjusting his attire. + +"No, you don't!" he said mildly, "I decline to perform again. If you +want any more wriggling you must accomplish it yourselves. Drina, has +your governess--by any unfortunate chance--er--red hair?" + +"No," said the child; "and won't you _please_ crawl across the floor and +bolo me--just _once_ more?" + +"Bolo me!" insisted Billy. "I haven't been mangled yet!" + +"Let Billy assassinate somebody himself. And, by the way, Drina, are +there any maids or nurses or servants in this remarkable house who +occasionally wear copper-tinted hair and black fox furs?" + +"No. Eileen does. Won't you please wriggle--" + +"Who is Eileen?" + +"Eileen? Why--don't you know who Eileen is?" + +"No, I don't," began Captain Selwyn, when a delighted shout from the +children swung him toward the door again. His sister, Mrs. Gerard, stood +there in carriage gown and sables, radiant with surprise. + +"Phil! _You!_ Exactly like you, Philip, to come strolling in from the +antipodes--dear fellow!" recovering from the fraternal embrace and +holding both lapels of his coat in her gloved hands. "Six years!" she +said again and again, tenderly reproachful; "Alexandrine was a baby of +six--Drina, child, do you remember my brother--do you remember your +Uncle Philip? She doesn't remember; you can't expect her to recollect; +she is only twelve, Phil--" + +"I remember _one_ thing," observed Drina serenely. + +Brother and sister turned toward her in pride and delight; and the child +went on: "My Aunt Alixe; I remember her. She was _so_ pretty," concluded +Drina, nodding thoughtfully in the effort to remember more; "Uncle +Philip, where is she now?" + +But her uncle seemed to have lost his voice as well as his colour, and +Mrs. Gerard's gloved fingers tightened on the lapels of his coat. + +"Drina--child--" she faltered; but Drina, immersed in reflection, smiled +dreamily; "So pretty," she murmured; "I remember my Aunt Alixe--" + +"Drina!" repeated her mother sharply, "go and find Bridget this minute!" + +Selwyn's hesitating hand sought his moustache; he lifted his eyes--the +steady gray eyes, slightly bloodshot--to his sister's distressed face. + +"I never dreamed--" she began--"the child has never spoken of--of her +from that time to this! I never dreamed she could remember--" + +"I don't understand what you are talking about, mother," said Drina; but +her pretty mother caught her by the shoulders, striving to speak +lightly; "Where in the world is Bridget, child? Where is Katie? And what +is all this I hear from Dawson? It can't be possible that you have been +fox-hunting all over the house again! Your nurses know perfectly well +that you are not to hunt anywhere except in your own nursery." + +"I know it," said Drina, "but Kit-Ki got out and ran downstairs. We had +to follow her, you know, until she went to earth." + +Selwyn quietly bent over toward Billy: "'Ware wire, my friend," he said +under his breath; "_you'd_ better cut upstairs and unlock that +schoolroom." + +And while Mrs. Gerard turned her attention to the cluster of clamouring +younger children, the boy vanished only to reappear a moment later, +retreating before the vengeful exclamations of the lately imprisoned +nurses who pursued him, caps and aprons flying, bewailing aloud their +ignominious incarceration. + +"Billy!" exclaimed his mother, "_did_ you do that? Bridget, Master +William is to take supper by himself in the schoolroom--and _no_ +marmalade!--No, Billy, not one drop!" + +"We all saw him lock the door," said Drina honestly. + +"And you let him? Oh, Drina!--And Ellen! Katie! No marmalade for Miss +Drina--none for any of the children. Josie, mother feels dreadfully +because you all have been so naughty. Winthrop!--your finger! Instantly! +Clemence, baby, where on earth did you acquire all that grime on your +face and fists?" And to her brother: "Such a household, Phil! Everybody +incompetent--including me; everything topsy-turvy; and all five dogs +perfectly possessed to lie on that pink rug in the music room.--_Have_ +they been there to-day, Drina?--while you were practising?" + +"Yes, and there are some new spots, mother. I'm _very_ sorry." + +"Take the children away!" said Mrs. Gerard. But she bent over, kissing +each culprit as the file passed out, convoyed by the amply revenged +nurses. "No marmalade, remember; and mother has a great mind _not_ to +come up at bedtime and lean over you. Mother has no desire to lean over +her babies to-night." + +To "lean over" the children was always expected of this mother; the +direst punishment on the rather brief list was to omit this intimate +evening ceremony. + +"M-mother," stammered the Master of Fox Hounds, "you _will_ lean over +us, won't you?" + +"Mother hasn't decided--" + +"Oh, muvver!" wailed Josie; and a howl of grief and dismay rose from +Winthrop, modified to a gurgle by the forbidden finger. + +"You _will_, won't you?" begged Drina. "We've been pretty bad, but not +bad enough for that!" + +"I--Oh, yes, I will. Stop that noise, Winthrop! Josie, I'm going to lean +over you--and you, too, Clemence, baby. Katie, take those dogs away +immediately; and remember about the marmalade." + +Reassured, smiling through tears, the children trooped off, it being the +bathing hour; and Mrs. Gerard threw her fur stole over one shoulder and +linked her slender arm in her brother's. + +"You see, I'm not much of a mother," she said; "if I was I'd stay here +all day and every day, week in and year out, and try to make these poor +infants happy. I have no business to leave them for one second!" + +"Wouldn't they get too much of you?" suggested Selwyn. + +"Thanks. I suppose that even a mother had better practise an artistic +absence occasionally. Are they not sweet? _What_ do you think of them? +You never before saw the three youngest; you saw Drina when you went +east--and Billy was a few months old--what do you think of them? +Honestly, Phil?" + +"All to the good, Ninette; very ornamental. Drina--and that Josephine +kid are real beauties. I--er--take to Billy tremendously. He told me +that he'd locked up his nurses. I ought to have interfered. It was +really my fault, you see." + +"And you didn't make him let them out? You are not going to be very good +morally for my young. Tell me, Phil, have you seen Austin?" + +"I went to the Trust Company, but he was attending a directors' confab. +How is he? He's prosperous anyhow, I observe," with a humorous glance +around the elaborate hallway which they were traversing. + +"Don't dare laugh at us!" smiled his sister. "I wish we were back in +Tenth Street. But so many children came--Billy, Josephine, Winthrop, and +Tina--and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful +speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, +dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and +copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins. _Do_ you like +the house?" + +"It's--ah--roomy," he said cheerfully. + +"Oh! It isn't so bad from the outside. And we have just had it +redecorated inside. Mizner did it. Look, dear, isn't that a cunning +bedroom?" drawing him toward a partly open door. "Don't be so horridly +critical. Austin is becoming used to it now, so don't stir him up and +make fun of things. Anyway you're going to stay here." + +"No, I'm at the Holland." + +"Of _course_ you're to live with us. You've resigned from the service, +haven't you?" + +He looked at her sharply, but did not reply. + +A curious flash of telepathy passed between them; she hesitated, then: + +"You once promised Austin and me that you would stay with us." + +"But, Nina--" + +"No, no, no! Wait," pressing an electric button; "Watson, Captain +Selwyn's luggage is to be brought here immediately from the Holland! +Immediately!" And to Selwyn: "Austin will not be at home before +half-past six. Come up with me now and see your quarters--a perfectly +charming place for you, with your own smoking-room and dressing-closet +and bath. Wait, we'll take the elevator--as long as we have one." + +Smilingly protesting, yet touched by the undisguised sincerity of his +welcome, he suffered himself to be led into the elevator--a dainty white +and rose rococo affair. His sister adjusted a tiny lever; the car moved +smoothly upward and, presently stopped; and they emerged upon a wide +landing. + +"Here," said Nina, throwing open a door. "Isn't this comfortable? Is +there anything you don't fancy about it? If there is, tell me frankly." + +"Little sister," he said, imprisoning both her hands, "it is a +paradise--but I don't intend to come here and squat on my relatives, and +I won't!" + +"Philip! You are common!" + +"Oh, I know you and Austin _think_ you want me." + +"Phil!" + +"All right, dear. I'll--it's awfully generous of you--so I'll pay you a +visit--for a little while." + +"You'll live here, that's what you'll do--though I suppose you are +dreaming and scheming to have all sorts of secret caves and queer places +to yourself--horrid, grimy, smoky bachelor quarters where you can behave +_sans-façon_." + +"I've had enough of _sans-façon_" he said grimly. "After shacks and +bungalows and gun-boats and troopships, do you suppose this doesn't look +rather heavenly?" + +"Dear fellow!" she said, looking tenderly at him; and then under her +breath: "What a ghastly life you have led!" + +But he knew she did not refer to the military portion of his life. + +He threw back his coat, dug both hands into his pockets, and began to +wander about the rooms, halting sometimes to examine nondescript +articles of ornament or bits of furniture as though politely +interested. But she knew his thoughts were steadily elsewhere. + +[Illustration: "'There is no reason,' she said, 'why you should not call +this house home.'"] + +Sauntering about, aware at moments that her troubled eyes were following +him, he came back, presently, to where she sat perched upon his bed. + +"It all looks most inviting, Nina," he said cheerfully, seating himself +beside her. "I--well, you can scarcely be expected to understand how +this idea of a home takes hold of a man who has none." + +"Yes, I do," she said. + +"All this--" he paused, leisurely, to select his words--"all +this--you--the children--that jolly nursery--" he stopped again, looking +out of the window; and his sister looked at him through eyes grown +misty. + +"There is no reason," she said, "why you should not call this house +home." + +"N-no reason. Thank you. I will--for a few days." + +"_No_ reason, dear," she insisted. "We are your own people; we are all +you have, Phil!--the children adore you already; Austin--you know what +he thinks of you; and--and I--" + +"You are very kind, Ninette." He sat partly turned from her, staring at +the sunny window. Presently he slid his hand back along the bed-covers +until it touched and tightened over hers. And in silence she raised it +to her lips. + +They remained so for a while, he still partly turned from her, his +perplexed and narrowing gaze fixed on the window, she pressing his +clenched hand to her lips, thoughtful and silent. + +"Before Austin comes," he said at length, "let's get the thing over--and +buried--as long as it will stay buried." + +"Yes, dear." + +"Well, then--then--" but his throat closed tight with the effort. + +"Alixe is here," she said gently; "did you know it?" + +He nodded. + +"You know, of course, that she's married Jack Ruthven?" + +He nodded again. + +"Are you on leave, Phil, or have you really resigned?" + +"Resigned." + +"I knew it," she sighed. + +He said: "As I did not defend the suit I couldn't remain in the service. +There's too much said about us, anyway--about us who are appointed from +civil life. And then--to have _that_ happen!" + +"Phil?" + +"What?" + +"Will you answer me one thing?" + +"Yes, I guess so." + +"Do you still care for--her?" + +"I am sorry for her." + +After a painful silence his sister said: "Could you tell me how it +began, Phil?" + +"How it began? I don't know that, either. When Bannard's command took +the field I went with the scouts. Alixe remained in Manila. Ruthven was +there for Fane, Harmon & Co. That's how it began, I suppose; and it's a +rotten climate for morals; and that's how it began." + +"Only that?" + +"We had had differences. It's been one misunderstanding after another. +If you mean was I mixed up with another woman--no! She knew that." + +"She was very young, Phil." + +He nodded: "I don't blame her." + +"Couldn't anything have been done?" + +"If it could, neither she nor I did it--or knew how to do it, I suppose. +It went wrong from the beginning; it was founded on froth--she had been +engaged to Harmon, and she threw him over for 'Boots' Lansing. Then I +came along--Boots behaved like a thoroughbred--that is all there is to +it--inexperience, romance, trouble--a quick beginning, a quick parting, +and two more fools to give the lie to civilization, and justify the West +Pointers in their opinions of civil appointees." + +"Try not to be so bitter, Phil; did you know she was going before she +left Manila?" + +"I hadn't the remotest idea of the affair. I thought that we were trying +to learn something about life and about each other. . . . Then that +climax came." + +He turned and stared out of the window, dropping his sister's hand. "She +couldn't stand me, she couldn't stand the life, the climate, the +inconveniences, the absence of what she was accustomed to. She was dead +tired of it all. I can understand that. And I--I didn't know what to do +about it. . . . So we drifted; and the catastrophe came very quickly. +Let me tell you something; a West Pointer, an Annapolis man, knows what +sort of life he's going into and what he is to expect when he marries. +Usually, too, he marries into the Army or Navy set; and the girl knows, +too, what kind of a married life that means. + +"But I didn't. Neither did Alixe. And we went under; that's +all--fighting each other heart and soul to the end. . . . Is she happy +with Ruthven? I never knew him--and never cared to. I suppose they go +about in town among the yellow set. Do they?" + +"Yes. I've met Alixe once or twice. She was perfectly composed--formal +but unembarrassed. She has shifted her milieu somewhat--it began with +the influx of Ruthven's friends from the 'yellow' section of the younger +married set--the Orchils, Fanes, Minsters, and Delmour-Carnes. Which is +all right if she'd stay there. But in town you're likely to encounter +anybody where the somebodies of one set merge into the somebodies of +another. And we're always looking over our fences, you know. . . . By +the way," she added cheerfully, "I'm dipping into the younger set myself +to-night--on Eileen's account. I brought her out Thursday and I'm giving +a dinner for her to-night." + +"Who's Eileen?" he asked. + +"Eileen? Why, don't you--why, of _course_, you don't know yet that I've +taken Eileen for my own. I didn't want to write you; I wanted first to +see how it would turn out; and when I saw that it was turning out +perfectly, I thought it better to wait until you could return and hear +all about it from me, because one can't write that sort of thing--" + +"Nina!" + +"What, dear?" she said, startled. + +"Who the dickens _is_ Eileen?" + +"Philip! You are precisely like Austin; you grow impatient of +preliminary details when I'm doing my very best attempting to explain +just as clearly as I can. Now I will go on and say that Eileen is Molly +Erroll's daughter, and the courts appointed Austin and me guardians for +her and for her brother Gerald." + +"Oh!" + +"Now is it clear to you?" + +"Yes," he said, thinking of the tragedy which had left the child so +utterly alone in the world, save for her brother and a distant kinship +by marriage with the Gerards. + +For a while he sat brooding, arms loosely folded, immersed once more in +his own troubles. + +"It seems a shame," he said, "that a family like ours, whose name has +always spelled decency, should find themselves entangled in the very +things their race has always hated and managed to avoid. And through me, +too." + +"It was not your fault, Phil." + +"No, not the divorce part. Do you suppose I wouldn't have taken any kind +of medicine before resorting to that! But what's the use; for you can +try as you may to keep your name clean, and then you can fold your arms +and wait to see what a hopeless fool fate makes of you." + +"But no disgrace touches you, dear," she said tremulously. + +"I've been all over that, too," he said with quiet bitterness. "You are +partly right; nobody cares in this town. Even though I did not defend +the suit, nobody cares. And there's no disgrace, I suppose, if nobody +cares enough even to condone. Divorce is no longer noticed; it is a +matter of ordinary occurrence--a matter of routine in some sets. Who +cares?--except decent folk? And they only think it's a pity--and +wouldn't do it themselves. The horrified clamour comes from outside the +social registers and blue books; we know they're right, but it doesn't +affect us. What does affect us is that we _were_ the decent folk who +permitted ourselves the luxury of being sorry for others who resorted to +divorce as a remedy but wouldn't do it ourselves! . . . Now we've done +it and--" + +"Phil! I will not have you feel that way." + +"What way?" + +"The way you feel. We are older than we were--everybody is older--the +world is, too. What we were brought up to consider impossible--" + +"What we were brought up to consider impossible was what kept me up to +the mark out there, Nina." He made a gesture toward the East. "Now, I +come back here and learn that we've all outgrown those ideas--" + +"Phil! I never meant that." + +He said: "If Alixe found that she cared for Ruthven, I don't blame her. +Laws and statutes can't govern such matters. If she found she no longer +cared for me, I could not blame her. But two people, mismated, have only +one chance in this world--to live their tragedy through with dignity. +That is absolutely all life holds for them. Beyond that, outside of that +dead line--treachery to self and race and civilisation! That is my +conclusion after a year's experience in hell." He rose and began to pace +the floor, fingers worrying his moustache. "Law? Can a law, which I do +not accept, let me loose to risk it all again with another woman?" + +She said slowly, her hands folded in her lap: "It is well you've come to +me at last. You've been turning round and round in that wheeled cage +until you think you've made enormous progress; and you haven't. Dear, +listen to me; what you honestly believe to be unselfish and high-minded +adherence to principle, is nothing but the circling reasoning of a hurt +mind--an intelligence still numbed from shock, a mental and physical +life forced by sheer courage into mechanical routine. . . . Wait a +moment; there is nobody else to say this to you; and if I did not love +you I would not interfere with this great mistake you are so honestly +making of your life, and which, perhaps, is the only comfort left you. I +say, 'perhaps,' for I do not believe that life holds nothing happier for +you than the sullen content of martyrdom." + +"Nina!" + +"I am right!" she said, almost fiercely; "I've been married thirteen +years and I've lost that fear of men's portentous judgments which all +girls outgrow one day. And do you think I am going to acquiesce in this +attitude of yours toward life? Do you think I can't distinguish between +a tragical mistake and a mistaken tragedy? I tell you your life is not +finished; it is not yet begun!" + +He looked at her, incensed; but she sprang to the floor, her face bright +with colour, her eyes clear, determined: "I thought, when you took the +oath of military service, you swore to obey the laws of the land? And +the very first law that interferes with your preconceived +notions--crack!--you say it's not for you! Look at me--you great, big, +wise brother of mine--who knows enough to march a hundred and three men +into battle, but not enough to know where pride begins and conscience +ends. You're badly hurt; you are deeply humiliated over your +resignation; you believe that ambition for a career, for happiness, for +marriage, and for children is ended for you. You need fresh air--and I'm +going to see you have it. You need new duties, new faces, new scenes, +new problems. You shall have them. Dear, believe me, few men as young as +you--as attractive, as human, as lovable, as affectionate as you, +wilfully ruin their lives because of a hurt pride which they mistake for +conscience. You will understand that when you become convalescent. Now +kiss me and tell me you're much obliged--for I hear Austin's voice on +the stairs." + +He held her at arms' length, gazing at her, half amused, half indignant; +then, unbidden, a second flash of the old telepathy passed between +them--a pale glimmer lighted his own dark heart in sympathy; and for a +moment he seemed to have a brief glimpse of the truth; and the truth was +not as he had imagined it. But it was a glimpse only--a fleeting +suspicion of his own fallibility; then it vanished into the old, dull, +aching, obstinate humiliation. For truth would not be truth if it were +so easily discovered. + +"Well, we've buried it now," breathed Selwyn. "You're all right, +Nina--from your own standpoint--and I'm not going to make a stalking +nuisance of myself; no fear, little sister. Hello!"--turning +swiftly--"here's that preposterous husband of yours." + +They exchanged a firm hand clasp; Austin Gerard, big, smooth shaven, +humorously inclined toward the ruddy heaviness of successful middle age; +Selwyn, lean, bronzed, erect, and direct in all the powerful symmetry +and perfect health of a man within sight of maturity. + +"Hail to the chief--et cetera," said Austin, in his large, bantering +voice. "Glad to see you home, my bolo-punctured soldier boy. Welcome to +our city! I suppose you've both pockets stuffed with loot, now haven't +you?--pearls and sarongs and dattos--yes? Have you inspected the kids? +What's your opinion of the Gerard batallion? Pretty fit? Nina's +commanding, so it's up to her if we don't pass dress parade. By the +way, your enormous luggage is here--consisting of one dinky trunk and a +sword done up in chamois skin." + +"Nina's good enough to want me for a few days--" began Selwyn, but his +big brother-in-law laughed scornfully: + +"A few days! We've got you now!" And to his wife: "Nina, I suppose I'm +due to lean over those infernal kids before I can have a minute with +your brother. Are they in bed yet? All right, Phil; we'll be down in a +minute; there's tea and things in the library. Make Eileen give you +some." + +He turned, unaffectedly taking his pretty wife's hand in his large +florid paw, and Selwyn, intensely amused, saw them making for the +nursery absorbed in conjugal confab. He lingered to watch them go their +way, until they disappeared; and he stood a moment longer alone there in +the hallway; then the humour faded from his sun-burnt face; he swung +wearily on his heel, and descended the stairway, his hand heavy on the +velvet rail. + +The library was large and comfortable, full of agreeably wadded corners +and fat, helpless chairs--a big, inviting place, solidly satisfying in +dull reds and mahogany. The porcelain of tea paraphernalia caught the +glow of the fire; a reading lamp burned on a centre table, shedding +subdued lustre over ceiling, walls, books, and over the floor where lay +a few ancient rugs of Beloochistan, themselves full of mysterious, +sombre fire. + +Hands clasped behind his back, he stood in the centre of the room, +considering his environment with the grave, absent air habitual to him +when brooding. And, as he stood there, a sound at the door aroused him, +and he turned to confront a young girl in hat, veil, and furs, who was +leisurely advancing toward him, stripping the gloves from a pair of very +white hands. + +"How do you do, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I am Eileen Erroll and I am +commissioned to give you some tea. Nina and Austin are in the nursery +telling bedtime stories and hearing assorted prayers. The children seem +to be quite crazy about you--" She unfastened her veil, threw back stole +and coat, and, rolling up her gloves on her wrists, seated herself by +the table. "--_Quite_ crazy about you," she continued, "and you're to be +included in bedtime prayers, I believe--No sugar? Lemon?--Drina's mad +about you and threatens to give you her new maltese puppy. I +congratulate you on your popularity." + +"Did you see me in the nursery on all fours?" inquired Selwyn, +recognising her bronze-red hair. + +Unfeigned laughter was his answer. He laughed, too, not very heartily. + +"My first glimpse of our legendary nursery warrior was certainly +astonishing," she said, looking around at him with frank malice. Then, +quickly: "But you don't mind, do you? It's all in the family, of +course." + +"Of course," he agreed with good grace; "no use to pretend dignity here; +you all see through me in a few moments." + +She had given him his tea. Now she sat upright in her chair, smiling, +_distraite_, her hat casting a luminous shadow across her eyes; the +fluffy furs, fallen from throat and shoulder, settled loosely around her +waist. + +Glancing up from her short reverie she encountered his curious gaze. + +"To-night is to be my first dinner dance, you know," she said. Faint +tints of excitement stained her white skin; the vivid scarlet contrast +of her mouth was almost startling. "On Thursday I was introduced--" she +explained, "and now I'm to have the gayest winter I ever dreamed +of. . . . And I'm going to leave you in a moment if Nina doesn't hurry +and come. Do you mind?" + +"Of course I mind," he protested amiably, "but I suppose you wish to +devote several hours to dressing." + +She nodded. "Such a dream of a gown! Nina's present! You'll see it. I +hope Gerald will be here to see it. He promised. You'll say you like it +if you do like it, won't you?" + +"I'll say it, anyway." + +"Oh, well--if you are contented to be commonplace like other men--" + +"I've no ambition to be different at my age." + +"Your age?" she repeated, looking up quickly. "You are as young as Nina, +aren't you? Half the men in the younger set are no younger than you--and +you know it," she concluded--"you are only trying to make me say so--and +you've succeeded. I'm not very experienced yet. Does tea bring wisdom, +Captain Selwyn?" pouring herself a cup. "I'd better arm myself +immediately." She sank back into the depths of the chair, looking gaily +at him over her lifted cup. "To my rapid education in worldly wisdom!" +She nodded, and sipped the tea almost pensively. + +He certainly did seem young there in the firelight, his narrow, +thoroughbred head turned toward the fire. Youth, too, sat lightly on his +shoulders; and it was scarcely a noticeably mature hand that touched the +short sun-burnt moustache at intervals. From head to waist, from his +loosely coupled, well-made limbs to his strong, slim foot, strength +seemed to be the keynote to a physical harmony most agreeable to look +at. + +The idea entered her head that he might appear to advantage on +horseback. + +"We must ride together," she said, returning her teacup to the tray; "if +you don't mind riding with me? Do you? Gerald never has time, so I go +with a groom. But if you would care to go--" she laughed. "Oh, you see I +am already beginning a selfish family claim on you. I foresee that +you'll be very busy with us all persistently tugging at your +coat-sleeves; and what with being civil to me and a martyr to Drina, +you'll have very little time to yourself. And--I hope you'll like my +brother Gerald when you meet him. Now I _must_ go." + +Then, rising and partly turning to collect her furs: + +"It's quite exciting to have you here. We will be good friends, won't +we? . . . and I think I had better stop my chatter and go, because my +cunning little Alsatian maid is not very clever yet. . . . Good-bye." + +She stretched out one of her amazingly white hands across the table, +giving him a friendly leave-taking and welcome all in one frank +handshake; and left him standing there, the fresh contact still cool in +his palm. + +Nina came in presently to find him seated before the fire, one hand +shading his eyes; and, as he prepared to rise, she rested both arms on +his shoulders, forcing him into his chair again. + +"So you've bewitched Eileen, too, have you?" she said tenderly. "Isn't +she the sweetest little thing?" + +"She's--ah--as tall as I am," he said, blinking at the fire. + +"She's only nineteen; pathetically unspoiled--a perfect dear. Men are +going to rave over her and--_not_ spoil her. Did you ever see such +hair?--that thick, ruddy, lustrous, copper tint?--and sometimes it's +like gold afire. And a skin like snow and peaches!--she's sound to the +core. I've had her exercised and groomed and hardened and trained from +the very beginning--every inch of her minutely cared for exactly like my +own babies. I've done my best," she concluded with a satisfied sigh, and +dropped into a chair beside her brother. + +"Thoroughbred," commented Selwyn, "to be turned out to-night. Is she +bridle-wise and intelligent?" + +"More than sufficiently. That's one trouble--she's had, at times, a +depressing, sponge-like desire for absorbing all sorts of irrelevant +things that no girl ought to concern herself with. I--to tell the +truth--if I had not rigorously drilled her--she might have become a +trifle tiresome; I don't mean precisely frumpy--but one of those earnest +young things whose intellectual conversation becomes a visitation--one +of the wants-to-know-for-the-sake-of-knowledge sort--a dreadful human +blotter! Oh, dear; show me a girl with her mind soaking up 'isms' and +I'll show you a social failure with a wisp of hair on her cheek, who +looks the dowdier the more expensively she's gowned." + +"So you believe you've got that wisp of copper-tinted hair tucked up +snugly?" asked Selwyn, amused. + +"I--it's still a worry to me; at intervals she's inclined to let it +slop. Thank Heaven, I've made her spine permanently straight and her +head is screwed properly to her neck. There's not a slump to her from +crown to heel--_I_ know, you know. She's had specialists to forestall +every blemish. I made up my mind to do it; I'm doing it for my own +babies. That's what a mother is for--to turn out her offspring to the +world as flawless and wholesome as when they came into it!--physically +and mentally sound--or a woman betrays her stewardship. They must be as +healthy of body and limb as they are innocent and wholesome minded. The +happiest of all creatures are drilled thoroughbreds. Show me a young +girl, unspoiled mentally and spiritually untroubled, with a superb +physique, and I'll show you a girl equipped for the happiness of this +world. And that is what Eileen is." + +"I should say," observed Selwyn, "that she's equipped for the slaughter +of man." + +"Yes, but _I_ am selecting the victim," replied his sister demurely. + +"Oh! Have you? Already?" + +"Tentatively." + +"Who?" + +"Sudbury Gray, I think--with Scott Innis for an understudy--perhaps the +Draymore man as alternate--I don't know; there's time." + +"Plenty," he said vaguely, staring into the fire where a log had +collapsed into incandescent ashes. + +She continued to talk about Eileen until she noticed that his mind was +on other matters--his preoccupied stare enlightened her. She said +nothing for a while. + +But he woke up when Austin came in and settled his big body in a chair. + +"Drina, the little minx, called me back on some flimsy pretext," he +said, relighting his cigar; "I forgot that time was going--and she was +wily enough to keep me talking until Miss Paisely caught me at it and +showed me out. I tell you," turning on Selwyn--"children are what make +life worth wh--" He ceased abruptly at a gentle tap from his wife's +foot, and Selwyn looked up. + +Whether or not he divined the interference he said very quietly: "I'd +rather have had children than anything in the world. They're about the +best there is in life; I agree with you, Austin." + +His sister, watching him askance, was relieved to see his troubled face +become serene, though she divined the effort. + +"Kids are the best," he repeated, smiling at her. "Failing them, for +second choice, I've taken to the laboratory. Some day I'll invent +something and astonish you, Nina." + +"We'll fit you up a corking laboratory," began Austin cordially; "there +is--" + +"You're very good; perhaps you'll all be civil enough to move out of the +house if I need more room for bottles and retorts--" + +"Of _course_, Phil must have his laboratory," insisted Nina. "There's +loads of unused room in this big barn--only you don't mind being at the +top of the house, do you, Phil?" + +"Yes, I do; I want to be in the drawing-room--or somewhere so that you +all may enjoy the odours and get the benefit of premature explosions. +Oh, come now, Austin, if you think I'm going to plant myself here on +you--" + +"Don't notice him, Austin," said Nina, "he only wishes to be implored. +And, by the same token, you'd both better let me implore you to dress!" +She rose and bent forward in the firelight to peer at the clock. +"Goodness! Do you creatures think I'm going to give Eileen half an +hour's start with her maid?--and I carrying my twelve years' handicap, +too. No, indeed! I'm decrepit but I'm going to die fighting. Austin, get +up! You're horribly slow, anyhow. Phil, Austin's man--such as he +is--will be at your disposal, and your luggage is unpacked." + +"Am I really expected to grace this festival of babes?" inquired Selwyn. +"Can't you send me a tray of toast or a bowl of gruel and let me hide my +old bones in a dressing-gown somewhere?" + +"Oh, come on," said Austin, smothering the yawn in his voice and casting +his cigar into the ashes. "You're about ripe for the younger set--one of +them, anyhow. If you can't stand the intellectual strain we'll side-step +the show later and play a little--what do you call it in the +army?--pontoons?" + +They strolled toward the door, Nina's arms linked in theirs, her slim +fingers interlocked on her breast. + +"We are certainly going to be happy--we three--in this innocent _ménage +à trois_," she said. "I don't know what more you two men could ask +for--or I, either--or the children or Eileen. Only one thing; I think it +is perfectly horrid of Gerald not to be here." + +Traversing the hall she said: "It always frightens me to be perfectly +happy--and remember all the ghastly things that _could_ happen. . . . +I'm going to take a glance at the children before I dress. . . . Austin, +did you remember your tonic?" + +She looked up surprised when her husband laughed. + +"I've taken my tonic and nobody's kidnapped the kids," he said. She +hesitated, then picking up her skirts she ran upstairs for one more look +at her slumbering progeny. + +The two men glanced at one another; their silence was the tolerant, +amused silence of the wiser sex, posing as such for each other's +benefit; but deep under the surface stirred the tremors of the same +instinctive solicitude that had sent Nina to the nursery. + +"I used to think," said Gerard, "that the more kids you had the less +anxiety per kid. The contrary is true; you're more nervous over half a +dozen than you are over one, and your wife is always going to the +nursery to see that the cat hasn't got in or the place isn't afire or +spots haven't come out all over the children." + +They laughed tolerantly, lingering on the sill of Selwyn's bedroom. + +"Come in and smoke a cigarette," suggested the latter. "I have nothing +to do except to write some letters and dress." + +But Gerard said: "There seems to be a draught through this hallway; I'll +just step upstairs to be sure that the nursery windows are not too wide +open. See you later, Phil. If there's anything you need just dingle that +bell." + +And he went away upstairs, only to return in a few minutes, laughing +under his breath: "I say, Phil, don't you want to see the kids asleep? +Billy's flat on his back with a white 'Teddy bear' in either arm; and +Drina and Josephine are rolled up like two kittens in pajamas; and you +should see Winthrop's legs--" + +"Certainly," said Selwyn gravely, "I'll be with you in a second." + +And turning to his dresser he laid away the letters and the small +photograph which he had been examining under the drop-light, locking +them securely in the worn despatch box until he should have time to +decide whether to burn them all or only the picture. Then he slipped on +his smoking jacket. + +"--Ah, about Winthrop's legs--" he repeated vaguely, "certainly; I +should be very glad to examine them, Austin." + +"I don't want you to examine them," retorted Gerard resentfully, "I want +you to see them. There's nothing the matter with them, you understand." + +"Exactly," nodded Selwyn, following his big brother-in-law into the +hall, where, from beside a lamp-lit sewing table a trim maid rose +smiling: + +"Miss Erroll desires to know whether Captain Selwyn would care to see +her gown when she is ready to go down?" + +"By all means," said Selwyn, "I should like to see that, too. Will you +let me know when Miss Erroll is ready? Thank you." + +Austin said as they reached the nursery door: "Funny thing, feminine +vanity--almost pathetic, isn't it? . . . Don't make too much +noise! . . . What do you think of that pair of legs, Phil?--and he's not +yet five. . . . And I want you to speak frankly; _did_ you ever see +anything to beat that bunch of infants? Not because they're ours and we +happen to be your own people--" he checked himself and the smile faded +as he laid his big ruddy hand on Selwyn's shoulder;--"_your own people_, +Phil. Do you understand? . . . And if I have not ventured to say +anything about--what has happened--you understand that, too, don't you? +You know I'm just as loyal to you as Nina is--as it is natural and +fitting that your own people should be. Only a man finds it difficult to +convey his--his--" + +"Don't say 'sympathies'!" cut in Selwyn nervously. + +"I wasn't going to, confound you! I was going to say 'sentiments.' I'm +sorry I said anything. Go to the deuce!" + +Selwyn did not even deign to glance around at him. "You big red-pepper +box," he muttered affectionately, "you'll wake up Drina. Look at her in +her cunning pajamas! Oh, but she is a darling, Austin. And look at that +boy with his two white bears! He's a corker! He's a wonder--honestly, +Austin. As for that Josephine kid she can have me on demand; I'll answer +to voice, whistle, or hand. . . . I say, ought we to go away and leave +Winthrop's thumb in his mouth?" + +"I guess I can get it out without waking him," whispered Gerard. A +moment later he accomplished the office, leaned down and drew the +bed-covers closer to Tina's dimpled chin, then grasped Selwyn above the +elbow in sudden alarm: "If that trained terror, Miss Paisely, finds us +in here when she comes from dinner, we'll both catch it! Come on; I'll +turn off the light. Anyway, we ought to have been dressed long ago; but +you insisted on butting in here." + +In the hallway below they encountered a radiant and bewildering vision +awaiting them: Eileen, in all her glory. + +"Wonderful!" said Gerard, patting the vision's rounded bare arm as he +hurried past--"fine gown! fine girl!--but I've got to dress and so has +Philip--" He meant well. + +"_Do_ you like it, Captain Selwyn?" asked the girl, turning to confront +him, where he had halted. "Gerald isn't coming and--I thought perhaps +you'd be interested--" + +The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip remained +there, unsaid. He stood silent, touched by the faint under-ringing +wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his opinion; and +something within him responded in time: + +"Your gown is a beauty; such wonderful lace. Of course, anybody would +know it came straight from Paris or from some other celestial region--" + +"But it didn't!" cried the girl, delighted. "It looks it, doesn't it? +But it was made by Letellier! Is there anything you don't like about it, +Captain Selwyn? _Anything_?" + +"Nothing," he said solemnly; "it is as adorable as the girl inside it, +who makes it look like a Parisian importation from Paradise!" + +She colored enchantingly, and with pretty, frank impulse held out both +her hands to him: + +"You _are_ a dear, Captain Selwyn! It is my first real dinner gown and +I'm quite mad about it; and--somehow I wanted the family to share my +madness with me. Nina will--she gave it to me, the darling. Austin +admires it, too, of course, but he doesn't notice such things very +closely; and Gerald isn't here. . . . Thank you for letting me show it +to you before I go down." + +She gave both his hands a friendly little shake and, glancing down at +her skirt in blissful consciousness of its perfection, stepped backward +into her own room. + +Later, while he stood at his dresser constructing an immaculate knot in +his white tie, Nina knocked. + +"Hurry, Phil! Oh, may I come in? . . . You ought to be downstairs with +us, you know. . . . And it was very sweet of you to be so nice to +Eileen. The child had tears in her eyes when I went in. Oh, just a +single diamond drop in each eye; your sympathy and interest did +it. . . . I think the child misses her father on an occasion such as +this--the beginning of life--the first step out into the world. Men do +not understand what it means to us; Gerald doesn't, I'm sure. I've been +watching her, and I know the shadow of that dreadful tragedy falls on +her more often than Austin and I are aware of. . . . Shall I fix that +tie for you, dear? . . . Certainly I can; Austin won't let a man touch +him. . . . There, Phil. . . . Wait! . . . Now if you are decently +grateful you'll tell me I look well. Do I? Really? Nonsense, I _don't_ +look twenty; but--say it, Phil. Ah, that clever maid of mine knows some +secrets--never mind!--but Drina thinks I'm a beauty. . . . Come, dear; +and thank you for being kind to Eileen. One's own kin counts so much in +this world. And when a girl has none, except a useless brother, little +things like that mean a lot to her." She turned, her hand falling on his +sleeve. "_You_ are among your own people, anyhow!" + + * * * * * + +His own people! The impatient tenderness of his sister's words had been +sounding in his ears all through the evening. They rang out clear and +insistent amid the gay tumult of the dinner; he heard them in the +laughing confusion of youthful voices; they stole into the delicate +undertones of the music to mock him; the rustling of silk and lace +repeated them; the high heels of satin slippers echoed them in irony. + +His own people! + +The scent of overheated flowers, the sudden warm breeze eddying from a +capricious fan, the mourning thrill of the violins emphasised the +emphasis of the words. + +And they sounded sadder and more meaningless now to him, here in his +own room, until the monotony of their recurrent mockery began to unnerve +him. + +He turned on the electricity, shrank from it, extinguished it. And for a +long time he sat there in the darkness of early morning, his unfilled +pipe clutched in his nerveless hand. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A DREAM ENDS + + +To pick up once more and tighten and knot together the loosened threads +which represented the unfinished record that his race had woven into the +social fabric of the metropolis was merely an automatic matter for +Selwyn. + +His own people had always been among the makers of that fabric. Into +part of its vast and intricate pattern they had woven an inconspicuously +honourable record--chronicles of births and deaths and marriages, a +plain memorandum of plain living, and upright dealing with their fellow +men. + +Some public service of modest nature they had performed, not seeking it, +not shirking; accomplishing it cleanly when it was intrusted to them. + +His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men--physicians and +lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle +while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained +indefinitely at Malvern Hill; an only brother at Montauk Point having +sickened in the trenches before Santiago. + +His father's services as division medical officer in Sheridan's cavalry +had been, perhaps, no more devoted, no more loyal than the services of +thousands of officers and troopers; and his reward was a pension offer, +declined. He practised until his wife died, then retired to his country +home, from which house his daughter Nina was married to Austin Gerard. + +Mr. Selwyn, senior, continued to pay his taxes on his father's house in +Tenth Street, voted in that district, spent a month every year with the +Gerards, read a Republican morning newspaper, and judiciously enlarged +the family reservation in Greenwood--whither he retired, in due time, +without other ostentation than half a column in the _Evening Post_, +which paper he had, in life, avoided. + +The first gun off the Florida Keys sent Selwyn's only brother from his +law office in hot haste to San Antonio--the first _étape_ on his first +and last campaign with Wood's cavalry. + +That same gun interrupted Selwyn's connection with Neergard & Co., +operators in Long Island real estate; and, a year later, the captaincy +offered him in a Western volunteer regiment operating on the Island of +Leyte, completed the rupture. + + * * * * * + +And now he was back again, a chance career ended, with option of picking +up the severed threads--his inheritance at the loom--and of retying +them, warp and weft, and continuing the pattern according to the designs +of the tufted, tinted pile-yarn, knotted in by his ancestors before him. + +There was nothing else to do; so he did it. Civil and certain social +obligations were mechanically reassumed; he appeared in his sister's pew +for worship, he reënrolled in his clubs as a resident member once more; +the directors of such charities as he meddled with he notified of his +return; he remitted his dues to the various museums and municipal or +private organisations which had always expected support from his +family; he subscribed to the _Sun_. + +He was more conservative, however, in mending the purely social strands +so long relaxed or severed. The various registers and blue-books +recorded his residence under "dilatory domiciles"; he did not subscribe +to the opera, preferring to chance it in case harmony-hunger attacked +him; pre-Yuletide functions he dodged, considering that his sister's +days in January and attendance at other family formalities were +sufficient. + +Meanwhile he was looking for two things--an apartment and a job--the +first energetically combated by his immediate family. + +It was rather odd--the scarcity of jobs. Of course Austin offered him +one which Selwyn declined at once, comfortably enraging his +brother-in-law for nearly ten minutes. + +"But what do I know about the investment of trust funds?" demanded +Selwyn; "you wouldn't take me if I were not your wife's brother--and +that's nepotism." + +Austin's harmless fury raged for nearly ten minutes, after which he +cheered up, relighted his cigar, and resumed his discussion with Selwyn +concerning the merits of various boys' schools--the victim in +prospective being Billy. + +A little later, reverting to the subject of his own enforced idleness, +Selwyn said: "I've been on the point of going to see Neergard--but +somehow I can't quite bring myself to it--slinking into his office as a +rank failure in one profession, to ask him if he has any use for me +again." + +"Stuff and fancy!" growled Gerard; "it's all stuff and fancy about your +being any kind of a failure. If you want to resume with that Dutchman, +go to him and say so. If you want to invest anything in his Long Island +schemes he'll take you in fast enough. He took in Gerald and some twenty +thousand." + +"Isn't he very prosperous, Austin?" + +"Very--on paper. Long Island farm lands and mortgages on Hampton +hen-coops are not fragrant propositions to me. But there's always one +more way of making a living after you counted 'em all up on your +fingers. If you've any capital to offer Neergard, he won't shriek for +help." + +"But isn't suburban property--" + +"On the jump? Yes--both ways. Oh, I suppose that Neergard is all +right--if he wasn't I wouldn't have permitted Gerald to go into it. +Neergard sticks to his commissions and doesn't back his fancy in +certified checks. I don't know exactly how he operates; I only know that +we find nothing in that sort of thing for our own account. But Fane, +Harmon & Co. do. That's their affair, too; it's all a matter of taste, I +tell you." + +Selwyn reflected: "I believe I'd go and see Neergard if I were perfectly +sure of my personal sentiments toward him. . . . He's been civil enough +to me, of course, but I have always had a curious feeling about +Neergard--that he's for ever on the edge of doing something--doubtful--" + +"His business reputation is all right. He shaves the dead line like a +safety razor, but he's never yet cut through it. On principle, however, +look out for an apple-faced Dutchman with a thin nose and no lips. +Neither Jew, Yankee, nor American stands any chance in a deal with that +type of financier. Personally my feeling is this: if I've got to play +games with Julius Neergard, I'd prefer to be his partner. And so I told +Gerald. By the way--" + +Austin checked himself, looked down at his cigar, turned it over and +over several times, then continued quietly: + +--"By the way, I suppose Gerald is like other young men of his age and +times--immersed in his own affairs--thoughtless perhaps, perhaps a +trifle selfish in the cross-country gallop after pleasure. . . . I was +rather severe with him about his neglect of his sister. He ought to have +come here to pay his respects to you, too--" + +"Oh, don't put such notions into his head--" + +"Yes, I will!" insisted Austin; "however indifferent and thoughtless and +selfish he is to other people, he's got to be considerate toward his own +family. And I told him so. Have you seen him lately?" + +"N-o," admitted Selwyn. + +"Not since that first time when he came to do the civil by you?" + +"No; but don't--" + +"Yes, I will," repeated his brother-in-law; "and I'm going to have a +thorough explanation with him and learn what he's up to. He's got to be +decent to his sister; he ought to report to me occasionally; that's all +there is to it. He has entirely too much liberty with his bachelor +quarters and his junior whipper-snapper club, and his house parties and +his cruises on Neergard's boat!" + +He got up, casting his cigar from him, and moved about bulkily, +muttering of matters to be regulated, and firmly, too. But Selwyn, +looking out of the window across the Park, knew perfectly well that +young Erroll, now of age, with a small portion of his handsome income +at his mercy, was past the regulating stage and beyond the authority of +Austin. There was no harm in him; he was simply a joyous, +pleasure-loving cub, chock full of energetic instincts, good and bad, +right and wrong, out of which, formed from the acts which become habits, +character matures. This was his estimate of Gerald. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, riding in the Park with Eileen, he found a chance to +speak cordially of her brother. + +"I've meant to look up Gerald," he said, as though the neglect were his +own fault, "but every time something happens to switch me on to another +track." + +"I'm afraid that I do a great deal of the switching," she said; "don't +I? But you've been so nice to me and to the children that--" + +Miss Erroll's horse was behaving badly, and for a few moments she became +too thoroughly occupied with her mount to finish her sentence. + +The belted groom galloped up, prepared for emergencies, and he and +Selwyn sat their saddles watching a pretty battle for mastery between a +beautiful horse determined to be bad and a very determined young girl +who had decided he was going to be good. + +Once or twice the excitement of solicitude sent the colour flying into +Selwyn's temples; the bridle-path was narrow and stiff with freezing +sand, and the trees were too near for such lively manoeuvres; but Miss +Erroll had made up her mind--and Selwyn already had a humorous idea that +this was no light matter. The horse found it serious enough, too, and +suddenly concluded to be good. And the pretty scene ended so abruptly +that Selwyn laughed aloud as he rejoined her: + +"There was a man--'Boots' Lansing--in Bannard's command. One night on +Samar the bolo-men rushed us, and Lansing got into the six-foot major's +boots by mistake--seven-leaguers, you know--and his horse bucked him +clean out of them." + +"Hence his Christian name, I suppose," said the girl; "but why such a +story, Captain Selwyn? I believe I stuck to my saddle?" + +"With both hands," he said cordially, always alert to plague her. For +she was adorable when teased--especially in the beginning of their +acquaintance, before she had found out that it was a habit of his--and +her bright confusion always delighted him into further mischief. + +"But I wasn't a bit worried," he continued; "you had him so firmly +around the neck. Besides, what horse or man could resist such a pleading +pair of arms around the neck?" + +"What you saw," she said, flushing up, "is exactly the way I shall do +any pleading with the two animals you mention." + +"Spur and curb and thrash us? Oh, my!" + +"Not if you're bridle-wise, Captain Selwyn," she returned sweetly. "And +you know you always are. And sometimes"--she crossed her crop and looked +around at him reflectively--"_sometimes_, do you know, I am almost +afraid that you are so very, very good, that perhaps you are becoming +almost goody-good." + +"_What_!" he exclaimed indignantly; but his only answer was her head +thrown back and a ripple of enchanting laughter. + +Later she remarked: "It's just as Nina says, after all, isn't it?" + +"I suppose so," he replied suspiciously; "what?" + +"That Gerald isn't really very wicked, but he likes to have us think +so. It's a sign of extreme self-consciousness, isn't it," she added +innocently, "when a man is afraid that a woman thinks he is very, very +good?" + +"That," he said, "is the limit. I'm going to ride by myself." + +Her pleasure in Selwyn's society had gradually become such genuine +pleasure, her confidence in his kindness so unaffectedly sincere, that, +insensibly, she had fallen into something of his manner of +badinage--especially since she realised how much amusement he found in +her own smiling confusion when unexpectedly assailed. Also, to her +surprise, she found that he could be plagued very easily, though she did +not quite dare to at first, in view of his impressive years and +experience. + +But once goaded to it, she was astonished to find how suddenly it seemed +to readjust their personal relations--years and experience falling from +his shoulders like a cloak which had concealed a man very nearly her own +age; years and experience adding themselves to her, and at least an inch +to her stature to redress the balance between them. + +It had amused him immensely as he realised the subtle change; and it +pleased him, too, because no man of thirty-five cares to be treated _en +grandpère_ by a girl of nineteen, even if she has not yet worn the +polish from her first pair of high-heeled shoes. + +"It's astonishing," he said, "how little respect infirmity and age +command in these days." + +"I do respect you," she insisted, "especially your infirmity of purpose. +You said you were going to ride by yourself. But, do you know, I don't +believe you are of a particularly solitary disposition; are you?" + +He laughed at first, then suddenly his face fell. + +"Not from choice," he said, under his breath. Her quick ear heard, and +she turned, semi-serious, questioning him with raised eyebrows. + +"Nothing; I was just muttering. I've a villainous habit of muttering +mushy nothings--" + +"You _did_ say something!" + +"No; only ghoulish gabble; the mere murky mouthings of a meagre mind." + +"You _did_. It's rude not to repeat it when I ask you." + +"I didn't mean to be rude." + +"Then repeat what you said to yourself." + +"Do you wish me to?" he asked, raising his eyes so gravely that the +smile faded from lip and voice when she answered: "I beg your pardon, +Captain Selwyn. I did not know you were serious." + +"Oh, I'm not," he returned lightly, "I'm never serious. No man who +soliloquises can be taken seriously. Don't you know, Miss Erroll, that +the crowning absurdity of all tragedy is the soliloquy?" + +Her smile became delightfully uncertain; she did not quite understand +him--though her instinct warned her that, for a second, something had +menaced their understanding. + +Riding forward with him through the crisp sunshine of mid-December, the +word "tragedy" still sounding in her ears, her thoughts reverted +naturally to the only tragedy besides her own which had ever come very +near to her--his own. + +Could he have meant _that_? Did people mention such things after they +had happened? Did they not rather conceal them, hide them deeper and +deeper with the aid of time and the kindly years for a burial past all +recollection? + +Troubled, uncomfortably intent on evading every thought or train of +ideas evoked, she put her mount to a gallop. But thought kept pace with +her. + +She was, of course, aware of the situation regarding Selwyn's domestic +affairs; she could not very well have been kept long in ignorance of the +facts; so Nina had told her carefully, leaving in the young girl's mind +only a bewildered sympathy for man and wife whom a dreadful and +incomprehensible catastrophe had overtaken; only an impression of +something new and fearsome which she had hitherto been unaware of in the +world, and which was to be added to her small but, unhappily, growing +list of sad and incredible things. + +The finality of the affair, according to Nina, was what had seemed to +her the most distressing--as though those two were already dead people. +She was unable to understand it. Could no glimmer of hope remain that, +in that magic "some day" of all young minds, the evil mystery might +dissolve? Could there be no living "happily ever after" in the wake of +such a storm? She had managed to hope for that, and believe in it. + +Then, in some way, the news of Alixe's marriage to Ruthven filtered +through the family silence. She had gone straight to Nina, horrified, +unbelieving. And, when the long, tender, intimate interview was over, +another unhappy truth, very gently revealed, was added to the growing +list already learned by this young girl. + +Then Selwyn came. She had already learned something of the world's +customs and manners before his advent; she had learned more since his +advent; and she was learning something else, too--to understand how +happily ignorant of many matters she had been, had better be, and had +best remain. And she harboured no malsane desire to know more than was +necessary, and every innocent instinct to preserve her ignorance intact +as long as the world permitted. + +As for the man riding there at her side, his problem was simple enough +as he summed it up: to face the world, however it might chance to spin, +that small, ridiculous, haphazard world rattling like a rickety roulette +ball among the numbered nights and days where he had no longer any vital +stake at hazard--no longer any chance to win or lose. + +This was an unstable state of mind, particularly as he had not yet +destroyed the photograph which he kept locked in his despatch box. He +had not returned it, either; it was too late by several months to do +that, but he was still fool enough to consider the idea at +moments--sometimes after a nursery romp with the children, or after a +good-night kiss from Drina on the lamp-lit landing, or when some +commonplace episode of the domesticity around him hurt him, cutting him +to the quick with its very simplicity, as when Nina's hand fell +naturally into Austin's on their way to "lean over" the children at +bedtime, or their frank absorption in conjugal discussion to his own +exclusion as he sat brooding by the embers in the library. + +"I'm like a dead man at times," he said to himself; "nothing to expect +of a man who is done for; and worst of all, I no longer expect anything +of myself." + +This was sufficiently morbid, and he usually proved it by going early to +his own quarters, where dawn sometimes surprised him asleep in his +chair, white and worn, all the youth in his hollow face extinct, his +wife's picture fallen face downward on the floor. + +But he always picked it up again when he awoke, and carefully dusted +it, too, even when half stupefied with sleep. + + * * * * * + +Returning from their gallop, Miss Erroll had very little to say. Selwyn, +too, was silent and absent-minded. The girl glanced furtively at him +from time to time, not at all enlightened. Man, naturally, was to her an +unknown quantity. In fact she had no reason to suspect him of being +anything more intricate than the platitudinous dance or dinner partner +in black and white, or any frock-coated entity in the afternoon, or any +flannelled individual at the nets or on the links or cantering about the +veranda of club, casino, or cottage, in evident anxiety to be +considerate and agreeable. + +This one, however, appeared to have individual peculiarities; he +differed from his brother Caucasians, who should all resemble one +another to any normal girl. For one thing he was subject to illogical +moods--apparently not caring whether she noticed them or not. For +another, he permitted himself the liberty of long and unreasonable +silences whenever he pleased. This she had accepted unquestioningly in +the early days when she was a little in awe of him, when the discrepancy +of their ages and experiences had not been dissipated by her first +presumptuous laughter at his expense. + +Now it puzzled her, appearing as a specific trait differentiating him +from Man in the abstract. + +He had another trick, too, of retiring within himself, even when smiling +at her sallies or banteringly evading her challenge to a duel of wits. +At such times he no longer looked very young; she had noticed that more +than once. He looked old, and ill-tempered. + +Perhaps some sorrow--the actuality being vague in her mind; perhaps +some hidden suffering--but she learned that he had never been wounded in +battle and had never even had measles. + +The sudden sullen pallor, the capricious fits of silent reserve, the +smiling aloofness, she never attributed to the real source. How could +she? The Incomprehensible Thing was a Finality accomplished according to +law. And the woman concerned was now another man's wife. Which +conclusively proved that there could be no regret arising from the +Incomprehensible Finality, and that nobody involved cared, much less +suffered. Hence _that_ was certainly not the cause of any erratic or +specific phenomena exhibited by this sample of man who differed, as she +had noticed, somewhat from the rank and file of his neutral-tinted +brothers. + +"It's this particular specimen, _per se_," she concluded; "it's himself, +_sui generis_--just as I happen to have red hair. That is all." + +And she rode on quite happily, content, confident of his interest and +kindness. For she had never forgotten his warm response to her when she +stood on the threshold of her first real dinner party, in her first real +dinner gown--a trivial incident, trivial words! But they had meant more +to her than any man specimen could understand--including the man who had +uttered them; and the violets, which she found later with his card, must +remain for her ever after the delicately fragrant symbol of all he had +done for her in a solitude, the completeness of which she herself was +only vaguely beginning to realise. + +Thinking of this now, she thought of her brother--and the old hurt at +his absence on that night throbbed again. Forgive? Yes. But how could +she forget it? + +"I wish you knew Gerald well," she said impulsively; "he is such a dear +fellow; and I think you'd be good for him--and besides," she hastened to +add, with instinctive loyalty, lest he misconstrue, "Gerald would be +good for you. We were a great deal together--at one time." + +He nodded, smilingly attentive. + +"Of course when he went away to school it was different," she added. +"And then he went to Yale; that was four more years, you see." + +"I was a Yale man," remarked Selwyn; "did he--" but he broke off +abruptly, for he knew quite well that young Erroll could have made no +senior society without his hearing of it. And he had not heard of +it--not in the cane-brakes of Leyte where, on his sweat-soaked shirt, a +small pin of heavy gold had clung through many a hike and many a scout +and by many a camp-fire where the talk was of home and of the chances of +crews and of quarter-backs. + +"What were you going to ask me, Captain Selwyn?" + +"Did he row--your brother Gerald?" + +"No," she said. She did not add that he had broken training; that was +her own sorrow, to be concealed even from Gerald. "No; he played polo +sometimes. He rides beautifully, Captain Selwyn, and he is so clever +when he cares to be--at the traps, for example--and--oh--anything. He +once swam--oh, dear, I forget; was it five or fifteen or fifty miles? Is +that _too_ far? Do people swim those distances?" + +"Some of those distances," replied Selwyn. + +"Well, then, Gerald swam some of those distances--and everybody was +amazed. . . . I do wish you knew him well." + +"I mean to," he said. "I must look him up at his rooms or his club +or--perhaps--at Neergard & Co." + +"_Will_ you do this?" she asked, so earnestly that he glanced up +surprised. + +"Yes," he said; and after a moment: "I'll do it to-day, I think; this +afternoon." + +"Have you time? You mustn't let me--" + +"Time?" he repeated; "I have nothing else, except a watch to help me get +rid of it." + +"I'm afraid I help you get rid of it, too. I heard Nina warning the +children to let you alone occasionally--and I suppose she meant that for +me, too. But I only take your mornings, don't I? Nina is unreasonable; I +never bother you in the afternoons or evenings; do you know I have not +dined at home for nearly a month--except when we've asked people?" + +"Are you having a good time?" he asked condescendingly, but without +intention. + +"Heavenly. How can you ask that?--with every day filled and a chance to +decline something every day. If you'd only go to one--just one of the +dances and teas and dinners, you'd be able to see for yourself what a +good time I am having. . . . I don't know why I should be so +delightfully lucky, but everybody asks me to dance, and every man I meet +is particularly nice, and nobody has been very horrid to me; perhaps +because I like everybody--" + +She rode on beside him; they were walking their horses now; and as her +silken-coated mount paced forward through the sunshine she sat at ease, +straight as a slender Amazon in her habit, ruddy hair glistening at the +nape of her neck, the scarlet of her lips always a vivid contrast to +that wonderful unblemished skin of snow. + +He thought to himself, quite impersonally: "She's a real beauty, that +youngster. No wonder they ask her to dance and nobody is horrid. Men are +likely enough to go quite mad about her as Nina predicts: probably some +of 'em have already--that chuckle-headed youth who was there Tuesday, +gulping up the tea--" And, "What was his name?" he asked aloud. + +"Whose name?" she inquired, roused by his voice from smiling +retrospection. + +"That chuckle head--the young man who continued to haunt you so +persistently when you poured tea for Nina on Tuesday. Of course they +_all_ haunted you," he explained politely, as she shook her head in sign +of non-comprehension; "but there was one who--ah--gulped at his cup." + +"Please--you are rather dreadful, aren't you?" + +"Yes. So was he; I mean the infatuated chinless gentleman whose facial +ensemble remotely resembled the features of a pleased and placid lizard +of the Reptilian period." + +"Oh, George Fane! That is particularly disagreeable of you, Captain +Selwyn, because his wife has been very nice to me--Rosamund Fane--and +she spoke most cordially of you--" + +"Which one was she?" + +"The Dresden china one. She looks--she simply cannot look as though she +were married. It's most amusing--for people always take her for +somebody's youngest sister who will be out next winter. . . . Don't you +remember seeing her?" + +"No, I don't. But there were dozens coming and going every minute whom I +didn't know. Still, I behaved well, didn't I?" + +"Pretty badly--to Kathleen Lawn, whom you cornered so that she couldn't +escape until her mother made her go without any tea." + +"Was _that_ the reason that old lady looked at me so queerly?" + +"Probably. I did, too, but you were taking chances, not hints. . . . She +_is_ attractive, isn't she?" + +"Very fetching," he said, leaning down to examine his stirrup leathers +which he had already lengthened twice. "I've got to have Cummins punch +these again," he muttered; "or am I growing queer-legged in my old age?" + +As he straightened up, Miss Erroll said: "Here comes Mr. Fane now--with +a strikingly pretty girl. How beautifully they are mounted"--smilingly +returning Fane's salute--"and she--oh! so you _do_ know her, Captain +Selwyn? Who is she?" + +Crop raised mechanically in dazed salute, Selwyn's light touch on the +bridle had tightened to a nervous clutch which brought his horse up +sharply. + +"What is it?" she asked, drawing bridle in her turn and looking back +into his white, stupefied face. + +"Pain," he said, unconscious that he spoke. At the same instant the +stunned eyes found their focus--and found her beside his stirrup, +leaning wide from her seat in sweet concern, one gloved hand resting on +the pommel of his saddle. + +"Are you ill?" she asked; "shall we dismount? If you feel dizzy, please +lean against me." + +"I am all right," he said coolly; and as she recovered her seat he set +his horse in motion. His face had become very red now; he looked at her, +then beyond her, with all the deliberate concentration of aloof +indifference. + +Confused, conscious that something had happened which she did not +comprehend, and sensitively aware of the preoccupation which, if it did +not ignore her, accepted her presence as of no consequence, she +permitted her horse to set his own pace. + +Neither self-command nor self-control was lacking now in Selwyn; he +simply was too self-absorbed to care what she thought--whether she +thought at all. And into his consciousness, throbbing heavily under the +rushing reaction from shock, crowded the crude fact that Alixe was no +longer an apparition evoked in sleeplessness, in sun-lit brooding; +in the solitude of crowded avenues and swarming streets; she +was an actual presence again in his life--she was here, bodily, +unchanged--unchanged!--for he had conceived a strange idea that she must +have changed physically, that her appearance had altered. He knew it was +a grotesquely senseless idea, but it clung to him, and he had nursed it +unconsciously. + +He had, truly enough, expected to encounter her in life +again--somewhere; though what he had been preparing to see, Heaven alone +knew; but certainly not the supple, laughing girl he had known--that +smooth, slender, dark-eyed, dainty visitor who had played at marriage +with him through a troubled and unreal dream; and was gone when he +awoke--so swift the brief two years had passed, as swift in sorrow as in +happiness. + +Two vision-tinted years!--ended as an hour ends with the muffled chimes +of a clock, leaving the air of an empty room vibrant. Two years!--a +swift, restless dream aglow with exotic colour, echoing with laughter +and bugle-call and the noise of the surf on Samar rocks--a dream through +which stirred the rustle of strange brocades and the whisper of breezes +blowing over the grasses of Leyte; and the light, dry report of rifles, +and the shuffle of bare feet in darkened bungalows, and the whisper of +dawn in Manila town. + +Two years!--wherever they came from, wherever they had gone. And now, +out of the ghostly, shadowy memory, behold _her_ stepping into the world +again!--living, breathing, quickening with the fire of life undimmed in +her. And he had seen the bright colour spreading to her eyes, and the +dark eyes widen to his stare; he had seen the vivid blush, the forced +smile, the nod, the voiceless parting of her stiffened lips. Then she +was gone, leaving the whole world peopled with her living presence and +the very sky ringing with the words her lips had never uttered, never +would utter while sun and moon and stars endured. + +Shrinking from the clamouring tumult of his thoughts he looked around, +hard-eyed and drawn of mouth, to find Miss Erroll riding a length in +advance, her gaze fixed resolutely between her horse's ears. + +How much had she noticed? How much had she divined?--this straight, +white-throated young girl, with her self-possession and her rounded, +firm young figure, this child with the pure, curved cheek, the clear, +fearless eyes, untainted, ignorant, incredulous of shame, of evil. + +Severe, confident, untroubled in the freshness of adolescence, she rode +on, straight before her, symbolic innocence leading the disillusioned. +And he followed, hard, dry eyes narrowing, ever narrowing and flinching +under the smiling gaze of the dark-eyed, red-mouthed ghost that sat +there on his saddle bow, facing him, almost in his very arms. + + * * * * * + +Luncheon had not been served when they returned. Without lingering on +the landing as usual, they exchanged a formal word or two, then Eileen +mounted to her own quarters and Selwyn walked nervously through the +library, where he saw Nina evidently prepared for some mid-day +festivity, for she wore hat and furs, and the brougham was outside. + +"Oh, Phil," she said, "Eileen probably forgot that I was going out; it's +a directors' luncheon at the exchange. Please tell Eileen that I can't +wait for her; where is she?" + +"Dressing, I suppose. Nina, I--" + +"One moment, dear. I promised the children that you would lunch with +them in the nursery. Do you mind? I did it to keep them quiet; I was +weak enough to compromise between a fox hunt or fudge; so I said you'd +lunch with them.. Will you?" + +"Certainly. . . . And, Nina--what sort of a man is this George Fane?" + +"Fane?" + +"Yes--the chinless gentleman with gentle brown and protruding eyes and +the expression of a tame brontosaurus." + +"Why--how do you mean, Phil? What sort of man? He's a banker. He isn't +very pretty, but he's popular." + +"Oh, popular!" he nodded, as close to a sneer as he could ever get. + +"He has a very popular wife, too; haven't you met Rosamund? People like +him; he's about everywhere--very useful, very devoted to pretty women; +but I'm really in a hurry, Phil. Won't you please explain to Eileen that +I couldn't wait? You and she were almost an hour late. Now I must pick +up my skirts and fly, or there'll be some indignant dowagers +downtown. . . . Good-bye, dear. . . . And _don't_ let the children eat +too fast! Make Drina take thirty-six chews to every bite; and Winthrop +is to have no bread if he has potatoes--" Her voice dwindled and died, +away through the hall; the front door clanged. + +He went to his quarters, drove out Austin's man, arranged his own fresh +linen, took a sulky plunge; and, an unlighted cigarette between his +teeth, completed his dressing in sullen introspection. + +When he had tied his scarf and bitten his cigarette to pieces, he paced +the room once or twice, squared his shoulders, breathed deeply, and, +unbending his eyebrows, walked off to the nursery. + +"Hello, you kids!" he said, with an effort. "I've come to luncheon. Very +nice of you to want me, Drina." + +"I wanted you, too!" said Billy; "I'm to sit beside you--" + +"So am I," observed Drina, pushing Winthrop out of the chair and sliding +in close to Selwyn. She had the cat, Kit-Ki, in her arms. Kit-Ki, +divining nourishment, was purring loudly. + +Josephine and Clemence, in pinafores and stickout skirts, sat wriggling, +with Winthrop between them; the five dogs sat in a row behind; Katie and +Bridget assumed the functions of Hibernian Hebes; and luncheon began +with a clatter of spoons. + +It being also the children's dinner--supper and bed occurring from five +to six--meat figured on the card, and Kit-Ki's purring increased to an +ecstatic and wheezy squeal, and her rigid tail, as she stood up on +Drina's lap, was constantly brushing Selwyn's features. + +"The cat is shedding, too," he remarked, as he dodged her caudal +appendage for the twentieth time; "it will go in with the next +spoonful, Drina, if you're not careful about opening your mouth." + +"I love Kit-Ki," said Drina placidly. "I have written a poem to +her--where is it?--hand it to me, Bridget." + +And, laying down her fork and crossing her bare legs under the table, +Drina took breath and read rapidly: + + "LINES TO MY CAT + + "Why + Do I love Kit-Ki + And run after + Her with laughter + And rub her fur + So she will purr? + Why do I know + That Kit-Ki loves me so? + I know it if + Her tail stands up stiff + And she beguiles + Me with smiles--" + +"Huh!" said Billy, "cats don't smile!" + +"They do. When they look pleasant they smile," said Drina, and continued +reading from her own works: + + "Be kind in all + You say and do + For God made Kit-Ki + The same as you. + "Yours truly, + "ALEXANDRINA GERARD. + +She looked doubtfully at Selwyn. "Is it all right to sign a poem? I +believe that poets sign their works, don't they, Uncle Philip?" + +"Certainly. Drina, I'll give you a dollar for that poem." + +"You may have it, anyway," said Drina, generously; and, as an +after-thought: "My birthday is next Wednesday." + +"What a hint!" jeered Billy, casting a morsel at the dogs. + +"It isn't a hint. It had nothing to do with my poem, and I'll write you +several more, Uncle Philip," protested the child, cuddling against him, +spoon in hand, and inadvertently decorating his sleeve with cranberry +sauce. + +Cat hairs and cranberry are a great deal for a man to endure, but he +gave Drina a reassuring hug and a whisper, and leaned back to remove +traces of the affectionate encounter just as Miss Erroll entered. + +"Oh, Eileen! Eileen!" cried the children; "are you coming to luncheon +with us?" + +As Selwyn rose, she nodded, amused. + +"I am rather hurt," she said. "I went down to luncheon, but as soon as I +heard where you all were I marched straight up here to demand the reason +of my ostracism." + +"We thought you had gone with mother," explained Drina, looking about +for a chair. + +Selwyn brought it. "I was commissioned to say that Nina couldn't +wait--dowagers and cakes and all that, you know. Won't you sit down? +It's rather messy and the cat is the guest of honour." + +"We have three guests of honour," said Drina; "you, Eileen, and Kit-Ki. +Uncle Philip, mother has forbidden me to speak of it, so I shall tell +her and be punished--but _wouldn't_ it be splendid if Aunt Alixe were +only here with us?" + +Selwyn turned sharply, every atom of colour gone; and the child smiled +up at him. "_Wouldn't_ it?" she pleaded. + +"Yes," he said, so quietly that something silenced the child. And +Eileen, giving ostentatious and undivided attention to the dogs, was now +enveloped by snooping, eager muzzles and frantically wagging tails. + +"My lap is full of paws!" she exclaimed; "take them away, Katie! And +oh!--my gown, my gown!--Billy, stop waving your tumbler around my face! +If you spill that milk on me I shall ask your Uncle Philip to put you in +the guard-house!" + +"You're going to bolo us, aren't you, Uncle Philip?" inquired Billy. +"It's my turn to be killed, you remember--" + +"I have an idea," said Selwyn, "that Miss Erroll is going to play for +you to sing." + +They liked that. The infant Gerards were musically inclined, and nothing +pleased them better than to lift their voices in unison. Besides, it +always distressed Kit-Ki, and they never tired laughing to see the +unhappy cat retreat before the first minor chord struck on the piano. +More than that, the dogs always protested, noses pointed heavenward. It +meant noise, which was always welcome in any form. + +"Will you play, Miss Erroll?" inquired Selwyn. + +Miss Erroll would play. + +"Why do you always call her 'Miss Erroll'?" asked Billy. "Why don't you +say 'Eileen'?" + +Selwyn laughed. "I don't know, Billy; ask her; perhaps she knows." + +Eileen laughed, too, delicately embarrassed and aware of his teasing +smile. But Drina, always impressed by formality, said: "Uncle Philip +isn't Eileen's uncle. People who are not relations say _Miss and Mrs_." + +"Are faver and muvver relations?" asked Josephine timidly. + +"Y-es--no!--I don't know," admitted Drina; "_are_ they, Eileen?" + +"Why, yes--that is--that is to say--" And turning to Selwyn: "What +dreadful questions. _Are_ they relations, Captain Selwyn? Of course they +are!" + +"They were not before they were married," he said, laughing. + +"If you married Eileen," began Billy, "you'd call her Eileen, I +suppose." + +"Certainly," said Selwyn. + +"Why don't you?" + +"That is another thing you must ask her, my son." + +"Well, then, Eileen--" + +But Miss Erroll was already seated at the nursery piano, and his demands +were drowned in a decisive chord which brought the children clustering +around her, while their nurses ran among them untying bibs and scrubbing +faces and fingers in fresh water. + +They sang like seraphs, grouped around the piano, fingers linked behind +their backs. First it was "The Vicar of Bray." Then--and the cat fled at +the first chord--"Lochleven Castle": + + "Put off, put off, + And row with speed + For now is the time and the hour of need." + +Miss Erroll sang, too; her voice leading--a charmingly trained, but +childlike voice, of no pretensions, as fresh and unspoiled as the girl +herself. + +There was an interval after "Castles in the Air"; Eileen sat, with her +marvellously white hands resting on the keys, awaiting further +suggestion. + +"Sing that funny song, Uncle Philip!" pleaded Billy; "you know--the one +about: + + "She hit him with a shingle + Which made his breeches tingle + Because he pinched his little baby brother; + And he ran down the lane + With his pants full of pain. + Oh, a boy's best friend is his mother!" + +"_Billy!_" gasped Miss Erroll. + +Selwyn, mortified, said severely: "That is a very dreadful song, +Billy--" + +"But _you_ taught it to me--" + +Eileen swung around on the piano stool, but Selwyn had seized Billy and +was promising to bolo him as soon as he wished. + +And Eileen, surveying the scene from her perch, thought that Selwyn's +years seemed to depend entirely upon his occupation, for he looked very +boyish down there on his knees among the children; and she had not yet +forgotten the sunken pallor of his features in the Park--no, nor her own +question to him, still unanswered. For she had asked him who that woman +was who had been so direct in her smiling salute. And he had not yet +replied; probably never would; for she did not expect to ask him again. + +Meanwhile the bolo-men were rushing the outposts to the outposts' +intense satisfaction. + +"Bang-bang!" repeated Winthrop; "I hit you, Uncle Philip. You are dead, +you know!" + +"Yes, but here comes another! Fire!" shouted Billy. "Save the flag! +Hurrah! Pound on the piano, Eileen, and pretend it's cannon." + +Chord after chord reverberated through the big sunny room, punctuated by +all the cavalry music she had picked up from West Point and her friends +in the squadron. + + "We can't get 'em up! + We can't get 'em up! + We can't get 'em up + In the morning!" + +she sang, calmly watching the progress of the battle, until Selwyn +disengaged himself from the _mêlée_ and sank breathlessly into a chair. + +"All over," he said, declining further combat. "Play the 'Star-spangled +Banner,' Miss Erroll." + +"Boom!" crashed the chord for the sunset gun; then she played the +anthem; Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute. + +The party was over. + +Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery and down +the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange of badinage +again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, he retorting in +kind. + +"Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy," she +concluded. + +"Not as dreadful as the chorus," he remarked, wincing. + +"You're exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look like one +now--so sheepish! I've seen Gerald attempt to avoid admonition in +exactly that fashion." + +"How about a jolly brisk walk?" he inquired blandly; "unless you've +something on. I suppose you have." + +"Yes, I have; a tea at the Fanes, a function at the Grays. . . . Do you +know Sudbury Gray? It's his mother." + +They had strolled into the living room--a big, square, sunny place, in +golden greens and browns, where a bay-window overlooked the Park. + +Kneeling on the cushions of the deep window seat she flattened her +delicate nose against the glass, peering out through the lace hangings. + +"Everybody and his family are driving," she said over her shoulder. "The +rich and great are cornering the fresh-air supply. It's interesting, +isn't it, merely to sit here and count coteries! There is Mrs. +Vendenning and Gladys Orchil of the Black Fells set; there is that +pretty Mrs. Delmour-Carnes; Newport! Here come some Cedarhurst +people--the Fleetwoods. It always surprises one to see them out of the +saddle. There is Evelyn Cardwell; she came out when I did; and there +comes Sandon Craig with a very old lady--there, in that old-fashioned +coach--oh, it is Mrs. Jan Van Elten, senior. What a very, very quaint +old lady! I have been presented at court," she added, with a little +laugh, "and now all the law has been fulfilled." + +For a while she kneeled there, silently intent on the passing pageant +with all the unconscious curiosity of a child. Presently, without +turning: "They speak of the younger set--but what is its limit? So many, +so many people! The hunting crowd--the silly crowd--the wealthy +sets--the dreadful yellow set--then all those others made out of +metals--copper and coal and iron and--" She shrugged her youthful +shoulders, still intent on the passing show. + +"Then there are the intellectuals--the artistic, the illuminated, the +musical sorts. I--I wish I knew more of them. They were my father's +friends--some of them." She looked over her shoulder to see where Selwyn +was, and whether he was listening; smiled at him, and turned, resting +one hand on the window seat. "So many kinds of people," she said, with a +shrug. + +"Yes," said Selwyn lazily, "there are all kinds of kinds. You remember +that beautiful nature-poem: + + "'The sea-gull + And the eagul + And the dipper-dapper-duck + And the Jew-fish + And the blue-fish + And the turtle in the muck; + And the squir'l + And the girl + And the flippy floppy bat + Are differ-ent + As gent from gent. + So let it go at that!'" + +"What hideous nonsense," she laughed, in open encouragement; but he +could recall nothing more--or pretended he couldn't. + +"You asked me," he said, "whether I know Sudbury Gray. I do, slightly. +What about him?" And he waited, remembering Nina's suggestion as to that +wealthy young man's eligibility. + +"He's one of the nicest men I know," she replied frankly. + +"Yes, but you don't know 'Boots' Lansing." + +"The gentleman who was bucked out of his footwear? Is he attractive?" + +"Rather. Shrieks rent the air when 'Boots' left Manila." + +"Feminine shrieks?" + +"Exclusively. The men were glad enough. He has three months' leave this +winter, so you'll see him soon." + +She thanked him mockingly for the promise, watching him from amused +eyes. After a moment she said: + +"I ought to arise and go forth with timbrels and with dances; but, do +you know, I am not inclined to revels? There has been a little--just a +very little bit too much festivity so far. . . . Not that I don't adore +dinners and gossip and dances; not that I do not love to pervade bright +and glittering places. Oh, no. Only--I--" + +She looked shyly a moment at Selwyn: "I sometimes feel a curious desire +for other things. I have been feeling it all day." + +"What things?" + +"I--don't know--exactly; substantial things. I'd like to learn about +things. My father was the head of the American School of Archæology in +Crete. My mother was his intellectual equal, I believe--" + +Her voice had fallen as she spoke. "Do you wonder that physical pleasure +palls a little at times? I inherit something besides a capacity for +dancing." + +He nodded, watching her with an interest and curiosity totally new. + +"When I was ten years old I was taken abroad for the winter. I saw the +excavations in Crete for the buried city which father discovered near +Præsos. We lived for a while with Professor Flanders in the Fayum +district; I saw the ruins of Kahun, built nearly three thousand years +before the coming of Christ; I myself picked up a scarab as old as the +ruins! . . . Captain Selwyn--I was only a child of ten; I could +understand very little of what I saw and heard, but I have never, never +forgotten the happiness of that winter! . . . And that is why, at times, +pleasures tire me a little; and a little discontent creeps in. It is +ungrateful and ungracious of me to say so, but I did wish so much to go +to college--to have something to care for--as mother cared for father's +work. Why, do you know that my mother accidentally discovered the +thirty-seventh sign in the Karian Signary?" + +"No," said Selwyn, "I did not know that." He forbore to add that he did +not know what a Signary resembled or where Karia might be. + +Miss Erroll's elbow was on her knee, her chin resting within her open +palm. + +"Do you know about my parents?" she asked. "They were lost in the +_Argolis_ off Cyprus. You have heard. I think they meant that I should +go to college--as well as Gerald; I don't know. Perhaps after all it is +better for me to do what other young girls do. Besides, I enjoy it; and +my mother did, too, when she was my age, they say. She was very much +gayer than I am; my mother was a beauty and a brilliant woman. . . . But +there were other qualities. I--have her letters to father when Gerald +and I were very little; and her letters to us from London. . . . I have +missed her more, this winter, it seems to me, than even in that dreadful +time--" + +She sat silent, chin in hand, delicate fingers restlessly worrying her +red lips; then, in quick impulse: + +"You will not mistake me, Captain Selwyn! Nina and Austin have been +perfectly sweet to me and to Gerald." + +"I am not mistaking a word you utter," he said. + +"No, of course not. . . . Only there are times . . . moments . . ." + +Her voice died; her clear eyes looked out into space while the silent +seconds lengthened into minutes. One slender finger had slipped between +her lips and teeth; the burnished strand of hair which Nina dreaded lay +neglected against her cheek. + +"I should like to know," she began, as though to herself, "something +about everything. That being out of the question, I should like to know +everything about something. That also being out of the question, for +third choice I should like to know something about something. I am not +too ambitious, am I?" + +Selwyn did not offer to answer. + +"_Am_ I?" she repeated, looking directly at him. + +"I thought you were asking yourself." + +"But you need not reply; there is no sense in my question." + +She stood up, indifferent, absent-eyed, half turning toward the window; +and, raising her hand, she carelessly brought the rebel strand of hair +under discipline. + +"You _said_ you were going to look up Gerald," she observed. + +"I am; now. What are you going to do?" + +"I? Oh, dress, I suppose. Nina ought to be back now, and she expects me +to go out with her." + +She nodded a smiling termination of their duet, and moved toward the +door. Then, on impulse, she turned, a question on her lips--left +unuttered through instinct. It had to do with the identity of the pretty +woman who had so directly saluted him in the Park--a perfectly +friendly, simple, and natural question. Yet it remained unuttered. + +She turned again to the doorway; a maid stood there holding a note on a +salver. + +"For Captain Selwyn, please," murmured the maid. + +Miss Erroll passed out. + +Selwyn took the note and broke the seal: + + "MY DEAR SELWYN: I'm in a beastly fix--an I.O.U. due to-night and + _pas de quoi_! Obviously I don't want Neergard to know, being + associated as I am with him in business. As for Austin, he's a + peppery old boy, bless his heart, and I'm not very secure in his + good graces at present. Fact is I got into a rather stiff game last + night--and it's a matter of honour. So can you help me to tide it + over? I'll square it on the first of the month. + + "Yours sincerely, + + "GERALD ERROLL. + + "P.S.--I've meant to look you up for ever so long, and will the + first moment I have free." + +Below this was pencilled the amount due; and Selwyn's face grew very +serious. + +The letter he wrote in return ran: + + "DEAR GERALD: Check enclosed to your order. By the way, can't you + lunch with me at the Lenox Club some day this week? Write, wire, or + telephone when. + + "Yours, + + "SELWYN." + +When he had sent the note away by the messenger he walked back to the +bay-window, hands in his pockets, a worried expression in his gray +eyes. This sort of thing must not be repeated; the boy must halt in his +tracks and face sharply the other way. Besides, his own income was +limited--much too limited to admit of many more loans of that sort. + +He ought to see Gerald at once, but somehow he could not in decency +appear personally on the heels of his loan. A certain interval must +elapse between the loan and the lecture; in fact he didn't see very well +how he could admonish and instruct until the loan had been +cancelled--that is, until the first of the New Year. + +Pacing the floor, disturbed, uncertain as to the course he should +pursue, he looked up presently to see Miss Erroll descending the stairs, +fresh and sweet in her radiant plumage. As she caught his eye she waved +a silvery chinchilla muff at him--a marching salute--and passed on, +calling back to him: "Don't forget Gerald!" + +"No," he said, "I won't forget Gerald." He stood a moment at the window +watching the brougham below where Nina awaited Miss Erroll. Then, +abruptly, he turned back into the room and picked up the telephone +receiver, muttering: "This is no time to mince matters for the sake of +appearances." And he called up Gerald at the offices of Neergard & Co. + +"Is it you, Gerald?" he asked pleasantly. "It's all right about that +matter; I've sent you a note by your messenger. But I want to talk to +you about another matter--something concerning myself--I want to ask +your advice, in a way. Can you be at the Lenox by six? . . . You have an +engagement at eight? Oh, that's all right; I won't keep you. . . . It's +understood, then; the Lenox at six. . . . Good-bye." + +There was the usual early evening influx of men at the Lenox who dropped +in for a glance at the ticker, or for a cocktail or a game of billiards +or a bit of gossip before going home to dress. + +Selwyn sauntered over to the basket, inspected a yard or two of tape, +then strolled toward the window, nodding to Bradley Harmon and Sandon +Craig. + +As he turned his face to the window and his back to the room, Harmon +came up rather effusively, offering an unusually thin flat hand and +further hospitality, pleasantly declined by Selwyn. + +"Horrible thing, a cocktail," observed Harmon, after giving his own +order and seating himself opposite Selwyn. "I don't usually do it. Here +comes the man who persuades me!--my own partner--" + +Selwyn looked up to see Fane approaching; and instantly a dark flush +overspread his face. + +"You know George Fane, don't you?" continued Harmon easily; "well, +that's odd; I thought, of course--Captain Selwyn, Mr. Fane. It's not +usual--but it's done." + +They exchanged formalities--dry and brief on Selwyn's part, gracefully +urbane on Fane's. + +"I've heard so pleasantly of you from Gerald Erroll," he said, "and of +course our people have always been on cordial terms. Neither Mrs. Fane +nor I was fortunate enough to meet you last Tuesday at the Gerards--such +a crush, you know. Are you not joining us, Captain Selwyn?" as the +servant appeared to take orders. + +Selwyn declined again, glancing at Harmon--a large-framed, bony young +man with blond, closely trimmed and pointed beard, and the fair colour +of a Swede. He had the high, flat cheek-bones of one, too; and a +thicket of corn-tinted hair, which was usually damp at the ends, and +curled flat against his forehead. He seemed to be always in a slight +perspiration--he had been, anyway, every time Selwyn met him anywhere. + +Sandon Craig and Billy Fleetwood came wandering up and joined them; one +or two other men, drifting by, adhered to the group. + +Selwyn, involved in small talk, glanced sideways at the great clock, and +gathered himself together for departure. + +Fleetwood was saying to Craig: "Certainly it was a stiff game--Bradley, +myself, Gerald Erroll, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes, and the Ruthvens." + +"Were you hit?" asked Craig, interested. + +"No; about even. Gerald got it good and plenty, though. The Ruthvens +were ahead as usual--" + +Selwyn, apparently hearing nothing, quietly rose and stepped out of the +circle, paused to set fire to a cigarette, and then strolled off toward +the visitors' room, where Gerald was now due. + +Fane stretched his neck, looking curiously after him. Then he said to +Fleetwood: "Why begin to talk about Mrs. Ruthven when our friend yonder +is about? Rotten judgment you show, Billy." + +"Well, I clean forgot," said Fleetwood; "what did I say, anyway? A man +can't always remember who's divorced from who in this town." + +Harmon, whose civility to Selwyn had possibly been based on his desire +for pleasant relations with Austin Gerard and the Arickaree Loan and +Trust Company, looked at Fleetwood thoroughly vexed. But nobody could +have suspected vexation in that high-boned smile which showed such very +red lips through the blond beard. + +Fane, too, smiled; his prominent soft brown eyes expressed gentlest +good-humour, and he passed his hand reflectively over his unusually +small and retreating chin. Perhaps he was thinking of the meeting in the +Park that morning. It was amusing; but men do not speak of such things +at their clubs, no matter how amusing. Besides, if the story were aired +and were traced to him, Ruthven might turn ugly. There was no counting +on Ruthven. + +Meanwhile Selwyn, perplexed and worried, found young Erroll just +entering the visitors' room, and greeted him with nervous cordiality. + +"If you can't stay and dine with me," he said, "I won't put you down. +You know, of course, I can only ask you once in a year, so we'll stay +here and chat a bit." + +"Right you are," said young Erroll, flinging off his very new and very +fashionable overcoat--a wonderfully handsome boy, with all the +attraction that a quick, warm, impulsive manner carries. "And I say, +Selwyn, it was awfully decent of you to--" + +"Bosh! Friends are for that sort of thing, Gerald. Sit here--" He looked +at the young man hesitatingly; but Gerald calmly took the matter out of +his jurisdiction by nodding his order to the club attendant. + +"Lord, but I'm tired," he said, sinking back into a big arm-chair; "I +was up till daylight, and then I had to be in the office by nine, and +to-night Billy Fleetwood is giving--oh, something or other. By the way, +the market isn't doing a thing to the shorts! You're not in, are you, +Selwyn?" + +"No, not that way. I hope you are not, either; are you, Gerald?" + +"Oh, it's all right," replied the young fellow confidently; and raising +his glass, he nodded at Selwyn with a smile. + +"You were mighty nice to me, anyhow," he said, setting his glass aside +and lighting a cigar. "You see, I went to a dance, and after a while +some of us cleared out, and Jack Ruthven offered us trouble; so half a +dozen of us went there. I had the worst cards a man ever drew to a +kicker. That was all about it." + +The boy was utterly unconscious that he was treading on delicate ground +as he rattled on in his warmhearted, frank, and generous way. Totally +oblivious that the very name of Ruthven must be unwelcome if not +offensive to his listener, he laughed through a description of the +affair, its thrilling episodes, and Mrs. Jack Ruthven's blind luck in +the draw. + +"One moment," interrupted Selwyn, very gently; "do you mind saying +whether you banked my check and drew against it?" + +"Why, no; I just endorsed it over." + +"To--to whom?--if I may venture--" + +"Certainly," he said, with a laugh; "to Mrs. Jack--" Then, in a flash, +for the first time the boy realised what he was saying, and stopped +aghast, scarlet to his hair. + +Selwyn's face had little colour remaining in it, but he said very +kindly: "It's all right, Gerald; don't worry--" + +"I'm a beast!" broke out the boy; "I beg your pardon a thousand times." + +"Granted, old chap. But, Gerald, may I say one thing--or perhaps two?" + +"Go ahead! Give it to me good and plenty!" + +"It's only this: couldn't you and I see one another a little oftener? +Don't be afraid of me; I'm no wet blanket. I'm not so very aged, +either; I know something of the world--I understand something of men. +I'm pretty good company, Gerald. What do you say?" + +"I say, _sure_!" cried the boy warmly. + +"It's a go, then. And one thing more: couldn't you manage to come up to +the house a little oftener? Everybody misses you, of course; I think +your sister is a trifle sensitive--" + +"I will!" said Gerald, blushing. "Somehow I've had such a lot on +hand--all day at the office, and something on every evening. I know +perfectly well I've neglected Eily--and everybody. But the first moment +I can find free--" + +Selwyn nodded. "And last of all," he said, "there's something about my +own affairs that I thought you might advise me on." + +Gerald, proud, enchanted, stood very straight; the older man continued +gravely: + +"I've a little capital to invest--not very much. Suppose--and this, I +need not add, is in confidence between us--suppose I suggested to Mr. +Neergard--" + +"Oh," cried young Erroll, delighted, "that is fine! Neergard would be +glad enough. Why, we've got that Valleydale tract in shape now, and +there are scores of schemes in the air--scores of them--important moves +which may mean--anything!" he ended, excitedly. + +"Then you think it would be all right--in case Neergard likes the idea?" + +Gerald was enthusiastic. After a while they shook hands, it being time +to separate. And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone in the visitors' +room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of cannel coal. + +How to be friends with this boy without openly playing the mentor; how +to gain his confidence without appearing to seek it; how to influence +him without alarming him! No; there was no great harm in him yet; only +the impulse of inconsiderate youth; only an enthusiastic capacity for +pleasure. + +One thing was imperative--the boy must cut out his card-playing for +stakes at once; and there was a way to accomplish that by impressing +Gerald with the idea that to do anything behind Neergard's back which he +would not care to tell him about was a sort of treachery. + +Who were these people, anyway, who would permit a boy of that age, and +in a responsible position, to play for such stakes? Who were they to +encourage such--? + +Selwyn's tightening grasp on his chair suddenly relaxed; he sank back, +staring at the brilliant coals. He, too, had forgotten. + +Now he remembered, in humiliation unspeakable, in bitterness past all +belief. + +Time sped, and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the bitterness +became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on drifting, back through +the exotic sorcery of dead years--back into the sun again, where honour +was bright and life was young--where all the world awaited happy +conquest--where there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to +day, because the golden light had turned to silver; but where the +earliest hint of dawn was a challenge, and where every yellow star +whispered "Awake!" + +And out of the magic _she_ had come into his world again! + +Sooner or later he would meet her now. That was sure. When? Where? And +of what significance was it, after all? + +Whom did it concern? Him? Her? And what had he to say to her, after all? +Or she to him? + +Not one word. + + * * * * * + +About midnight he roused himself and picked up his hat and coat. + +"Do you wish a cab, please?" whispered the club servant who held his +coat; "it is snowing very hard, sir." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +UNDER THE ASHES + + +He had neither burned nor returned the photograph to Mrs. Ruthven. The +prospect perplexed and depressed Selwyn. + +He was sullenly aware that in a town where the divorced must ever be +reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, there is always +some thoughtless hostess--and sometimes a mischievous one; and the +chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven would collide, either through +the forgetfulness or malice of somebody or, through sheer hazard, at +some large affair where Destiny and Fate work busily together in +criminal copartnership. + +And he encountered her first at a masque and revel given by Mrs. +Delmour-Carnes where Fate contrived that he should dance in the same set +with his _ci-devant_ wife before the unmasking, and where, unaware, they +gaily exchanged salute and hand-clasp before the jolly _mêlée_ of +unmasking revealed how close together two people could come after +parting for ever and a night at the uttermost ends of the earth. + +When masks at last were off there was neither necessity nor occasion for +the two surprised and rather pallid young people to renew civilities; +but later, Destiny, the saturnine partner in the business, interfered; +and some fool in the smoking room tried to introduce Selwyn to Ruthven. +The slightest mistake on their parts would have rendered the incident +ridiculous; and Ruthven made that mistake. + +That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time +afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say +something amiable to one of the débutante Craig girls--and Selwyn found +himself again facing Alixe. + +If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they both +knew that they were in full view of the house. + +A cool bow and its cooler acknowledgment, a formal word and more formal +reply; and Selwyn made his way to the corridor, hot with vexation, +unaware of where he was going, and oblivious of the distressed and +apologetic young man, who so contritely kept step with him through the +brilliantly crowded promenade. + +That was the second time--not counting distant glimpses in crowded +avenues, in the Park, at Sherry's, or across the hazy glitter of +thronged theatres. But the third encounter was different. + +It was all a mistake, born of the haste of a heedless and elderly +matron, celebrated for managing to do the wrong thing, but who had been +excessively nice to him that winter, and whose position in Manhattan was +not to be assailed. + +"Dear Captain Selwyn," she wheezed over the telephone, "I'm short one +man; and we dine at eight and it's that now. _Could_ you help me? It's +the rich and yellow, this time, but you won't mind, will you?" + +Selwyn, standing at the lower telephone in the hall, asked her to hold +the wire a moment, and glanced up at his sister who was descending the +stairs with Eileen, dinner having at that instant been announced. + +"Mrs. T. West Minster--flying signals of distress," he said, carefully +covering the transmitter as he spoke; "man overboard, and will I kindly +take a turn at the wheel?" + +"What a shame!" said Eileen; "you are going to spoil the first home +dinner we have had together in weeks!" + +"Tell her to get some yellow pup!" growled Austin, from above. + +"As though anybody could get a yellow pup when they whistle," said Nina +hopelessly. + +"That's true," nodded Selwyn; "I'm the original old dog Tray. Whistle, +and I come padding up. Ever faithful, you see." + +And he uncovered the transmitter and explained to Mrs. T. West Minster +his absurd delight at being whistled at. Then he sent for a cab and +sauntered into the dining-room, where he was received with undisguised +hostility. + +"She's been civil to me," he said; "_jeunesse oblige_, you know. And +that's why I--" + +"There'll be a lot of débutantes there! What do you want to go for, you +cradle robber!" protested Austin--"a lot of water-bibbing, olive-eating, +talcum-powdered débutantes--" + +Eileen straightened up stiffly, and Selwyn's teasing smile and his +offered hand in adieu completed her indignation. + +"Oh, good-bye! No, I won't shake hands. There's your cab, now. I wish +you'd take Austin, too; Nina and I are tired of dining with the +prematurely aged." + +"Indeed, we are," said Mrs. Gerard; "go to your club, Austin, and give +me a chance to telephone to somebody under the anesthetic age." + +Selwyn departed, laughing, but he yawned in his cab all the way to +Fifty-third Street, where he entered in the wake of the usual laggards +and, surrendering hat and coat in the cloak room, picked up the small +slim envelope bearing his name. + +The card within disclosed the information that he was to take in Mrs. +Somebody-or-Other; he made his way through a great many people, found +his hostess, backed off, stood on one leg for a moment like a reflective +water-fowl, then found Mrs. Somebody-or-Other and was absently good to +her through a great deal of noise and some Spanish music, which seemed +to squirt through a thicket of palms and bespatter everybody. + +"Wonderful music," observed his dinner partner, with singular +originality; "_so_ like Carmen." + +"Is it?" he replied, and took her away at a nod from his hostess, whose +daughter Dorothy leaned forward from her partner's arm at the same +moment, and whispered: "I _must_ speak to you, mamma! You _can't_ put +Captain Selwyn there because--" + +But her mother was deaf and smilingly sensitive about it, so she merely +guessed what reply her child expected: "It's all settled, dear; Captain +Selwyn arrived a moment ago." And she closed the file. + +It was already too late, anyhow; and presently, turning to see who was +seated on his left, Selwyn found himself gazing into the calm, flushed +face of Alixe Ruthven. It was their third encounter. + +They exchanged a dazed nod of recognition, a meaningless murmur, and +turned again, apparently undisturbed, to their respective dinner +partners. + +A great many curious eyes, lingering on them, shifted elsewhere, in +reluctant disappointment. + +As for the hostess, she had, for one instant, come as near to passing +heavenward as she could without doing it when she discovered the +situation. Then she accepted it with true humour. She could afford to. +But her daughters, Sheila and Dorothy, suffered acutely, being of this +year's output and martyrs to responsibility. + +Meanwhile, Selwyn, grimly aware of an accident somewhere, and perfectly +conscious of the feelings which must by this time dominate his hostess, +was wondering how best to avoid anything that might resemble a +situation. + +Instead of two or three dozen small tables, scattered among the palms of +the winter garden, their hostess had preferred to construct a great oval +board around the aquarium. The arrangement made it a little easier for +Selwyn and Mrs. Ruthven. He talked to his dinner partner until she began +to respond in monosyllables, which closed each subject that he opened +and wearied him as much as he was boring her. But Bradley Harmon, the +man on her right, evidently had better fortune; and presently Selwyn +found himself with nobody to talk to, which came as near to embarrassing +him as anything could, and which so enraged his hostess that she struck +his partner's name from her lists for ever. People were already glancing +at him askance in sly amusement or cold curiosity. + +Then he did a thing which endeared him to Mrs. T. West Minster and to +her two disconsolate children. + +"Mrs. Ruthven," he said, very naturally and pleasantly, "I think perhaps +we had better talk for a moment or two--if you don't mind." + +She said quietly, "I don't mind," and turned with charming composure. +Every eye shifted to them, then obeyed decency or training; and the +slightest break in the gay tumult was closed up with chatter and +laughter. + +"Plucky," said Sandon Craig to his fair neighbour; "but by what chance +did our unfortunate hostess do it?" + +"She's usually doing it, isn't she? What occupies me," returned his +partner, "is how on earth Alixe could have thrown away that adorable man +for Jack Ruthven. Why, he is already trying to scramble into Rosamund +Fane's lap--the horrid little poodle!--always curled up on the edge of +your skirt!" + +She stared at Mrs. Ruthven across the crystal reservoir brimming with +rose and ivory-tinted water-lilies. + +"That girl is marked for destruction," she said slowly; "the gods have +done their work already." + +But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to her +little world only a pale brunette symmetry--a strange and changeless +lustre, varying as little as the moon's phases; and like that burnt-out +planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her clear, young beauty +seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden fire. + +Selwyn, outwardly amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice: "My +dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be here as +a filler in--commanded to the presence only a few minutes ago. It's a +pardonable error; I bear no malice. But I'm sorry for you." + +There was a silence; Alixe straightened her slim figure, and turned; but +young Innis, who had taken her in, had become confidential with Mrs. +Fane. As for Selwyn's partner, she probably divined his conversational +designs on her, but she merely turned her bare shoulder a trifle more +unmistakably and continued her gossip with Bradley Harmon. + +Alixe broke a tiny morsel from her bread, sensible of the tension. + +"I suppose," she said, as though reciting to some new acquaintance an +amusing bit of gossip--"that we are destined to this sort of thing +occasionally and had better get used to it." + +"I suppose so." + +"Please," she added, after a pause, "aid me a little." + +"I will if I can. What am I to say?" + +"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, smiling; "it need not be very +civil, you know--as long as nobody hears you." + +To school his features for the deception of others, to school his voice +and manner and at the same time look smilingly into the grave of his +youth and hope called for the sort of self-command foreign to his +character. Glancing at him under her smoothly fitted mask of amiability, +she slowly grew afraid of the situation--but not of her ability to +sustain her own part. + +They exchanged a few meaningless phrases, then she resolutely took young +Innis away from Rosamund Fane, leaving Selwyn to count the bubbles in +his wine-glass. + +But in a few moments, whether by accident or deliberate design, Rosamund +interfered again, and Mrs. Ruthven was confronted with the choice of a +squabble for possession of young Innis, of conspicuous silence, or of +resuming once more with Selwyn. And she chose the last resort. + +"You are living in town?" she asked pleasantly. + +"Yes." + +"Of course; I forgot. I met a man last night who said you had entered +the firm of Neergard & Co." + +"I have. Who was the man?" + +"You can never guess, Captain Selwyn." + +"I don't want to. Who was he?" + +"Please don't terminate so abruptly the few subjects we have in reserve. +We may be obliged to talk to each other for a number of minutes if +Rosamund doesn't let us alone. . . . The man was 'Boots' Lansing." + +"'Boots!' Here!" + +"Arrived from Manila Sunday. _Sans gêne_ as usual he introduced you as +the subject, and told me--oh, dozens of things about you. I suppose he +began inquiring for you before he crossed the troopers' gangplank; and +somebody sent him to Neergard & Co. Haven't you seen him?" + +"No," he said, staring at the brilliant fish, which glided along the +crystal tank, goggling their eyes at the lights. + +"You--you are living with the Gerards, I believe," she said carelessly. + +"For a while." + +"Oh, 'Boots' says that he is expecting to take an apartment with you +somewhere." + +"What! Has 'Boots' resigned?" + +"So he says. He told me that you had resigned. I did not understand +that; I imagined you were here on leave until I heard about Neergard & +Co." + +"Do you suppose I could have remained in the service?" he demanded. His +voice was dry and almost accentless. + +"Why not?" she returned, paling. + +"You may answer that question more pleasantly than I can." + +She usually avoided champagne; but she had to do something for herself +now. As for him, he took what was offered without noticing what he took, +and grew whiter and whiter; but a fixed glow gradually appeared and +remained on her cheeks; courage, impatience, a sudden anger at the +forced conditions steadied her nerves. + +"Will you please prove equal to the situation?" she said under her +breath, but with a charming smile. "Do you know you are scowling? These +people here are ready to laugh; and I'd much prefer that they tear us to +rags on suspicion of our over-friendliness." + +"Who is that fool woman who is monopolising your partner?" + +"Rosamund Fane; she's doing it on purpose. You must try to smile now and +then." + +"My face is stiff with grinning," he said, "but I'll do what I can for +you--" + +"Please include yourself, too." + +"Oh, I can stand their opinions," he said; "I only meet the yellow sort +occasionally; I don't herd with them." + +"I do, thank you." + +"How do you like them? What is your opinion of the yellow set? Here they +sit all about you--the Phoenix Mottlys, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes yonder, the +Draymores, the Orchils, the Vendenning lady, the Lawns of Westlawn--" he +paused, then deliberately--"and the 'Jack' Ruthvens. I forgot, Alixe, +that you are now perfectly equipped to carry aloft the golden hod." + +"Go on," she said, drawing a deep breath, but the fixed smile never +altered. + +"No," he said; "I can't talk. I thought I could, but I can't. Take that +boy away from Mrs. Fane as soon as you can." + +"I can't yet. You must go on. I ask your aid to carry this thing +through. I--I am afraid of their ridicule. Could you try to help me a +little?" + +"If you put it that way, of course." And, after a silence, "What am I to +say? What in God's name shall I say to you, Alixe?" + +"Anything bitter--as long as you control your voice and features. Try to +smile at me when you speak, Philip." + +"All right. I have no reason to be bitter, anyway," he said; "and every +reason to be otherwise." + +"That is not true. You tell me that I have ruined your career in the +army. I did not know I was doing it. Can you believe me?" + +And, as he made no response: "I did not dream you would have to resign. +Do you believe me?" + +"There is no choice," he said coldly. "Drop the subject!" + +"That is brutal. I never thought--" She forced a smile and drew her +glass toward her. The straw-tinted wine slopped over and frothed on the +white skin of her arm. + +"Well," she breathed, "this ghastly dinner is nearly ended." + +He nodded pleasantly. + +"And--Phil?"--a bit tremulous. + +"What?" + +"Was it all my fault? I mean in the beginning? I've wanted to ask you +that--to know your view of it. Was it?" + +"No. It was mine, most of it." + +"Not all--not half! We did not know how; that is the wretched +explanation of it all." + +"And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. But the +fault is not there." + +"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'" + +"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name, +Alixe!" + +After a silence, she began: "One more thing--I must know it; and I am +going to ask you--if I may. Shall I?" + +He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful +bit of news to him: + +"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?" + +"I do not--dislike you." + +"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?" + +"Y-es." + +"Contempt?" + +"No." + +"What is it?" + +"It is that--I have not yet--become--reconciled." + +"To my--folly?" + +"To mine." + +She strove to laugh lightly, and failing, raised her glass to her lips +again. + +"Now you know," he said, pitching his tones still lower. "I am glad +after all that we have had this plain understanding. I have never felt +unkindly toward you. I can't. What you did I might have prevented had I +known enough; but I cannot help it now; nor can you if you would." + +"If I would," she repeated gaily--for the people opposite were staring. + +"We are done for," he said, nodding carelessly to a servant to refill +his glass; "and I abide by conditions because I choose to; not," he +added contemptuously, "because a complacent law has tethered you to--to +the thing that has crawled up on your knees to have its ears rubbed." + +The level insult to her husband stunned her; she sat there, upright, the +white smile stamped on her stiffened lips, fingers tightening about the +stem of her wine-glass. + +He began to toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to himself +in an ugly way. "_I_ wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, only look at +_him_!--Look at his gold wristlets; listen to his simper, his lisp. +Little girl--oh, little girl, what have you done to yourself?--for you +have done nothing to me, child, that can match it in sheer atrocity!" + +Her colour was long in returning. + +"Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand this--" + +"Yes, you can." + +"I am too close to the wall. I--" + +"Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that will tide +you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how they rush and +flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it--for people with the +intellects of canaries. . . . Will you please try to say something? Mrs. +T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms of a hen turkey at sundown +and we'll all go to roost in another minute. . . . Don't shiver that +way!" + +"I c-can't control it; I will in a moment. . . . Give me a chance; talk +to me, Phil." + +"Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most +stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman +was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning. . . . More time, +Alixe? . . . With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate +castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the _Tribune_ in +his pocket--the verdict being in accordance with fact; the Panama +Canal--" + +But it was over at last; a flurry of sweeping skirts; ranks of black and +white in escort to the passage of the fluttering silken procession. + +"Good-bye," she said; "I am not staying for the dance." + +"Good-bye," he said pleasantly; "I wish you better fortune for the +future. I'm sorry I was rough." + +He was not staying, either. A dull excitement possessed him, resembling +suspense--as though he were awaiting a dénouement; as though there was +yet some crisis to come. + +Several men leaned forward to talk to him; he heard without heeding, +replied at hazard, lighted his cigar with the others, and leaned back, +his coffee before him--a smiling, attractive young fellow, apparently in +lazy enjoyment of the time and place and without one care in the world +he found so pleasant. + +For a while his mind seemed to be absolutely blank; voices were voices +only; he saw lights, and figures moving through a void. Then reality +took shape sharply; and his pulses began again hammering out the +irregular measure of suspense, though what it was that he was awaiting, +what expecting, Heaven alone knew. + +And after a while he found himself in the ballroom. + +The younger set was arriving; he recognised several youthful people, +friends of Eileen Erroll; and taking his bearings among these bright, +fresh faces--amid this animated throng, constantly increased by the +arrival of others, he started to find his hostess, now lost to sight in +the breezy circle of silk and lace setting in from the stairs. + +He heard names announced which meant nothing to him, which stirred no +memory; names which sounded vaguely familiar; names which caused him to +turn quickly--but seldom were the faces as familiar as the names. + +He said to a girl, behind whose chair he was standing: "All the younger +brothers and sisters are coming here to confound me; I hear a Miss Innis +announced, but it turns out to be her younger sister--" + +"By the way, do you know my name?" she asked. + +"No," he said frankly, "do you know mine?" + +"Of course, I do; I listened breathlessly when somebody presented you +wholesale at your sister's the other day. I'm Rosamund Fane. You might +as well be instructed because you're to take me in at the Orchils' next +Thursday night, I believe." + +"Rosamund Fane," he repeated coolly. "I wonder how we've avoided each +other so consistently this winter? I never before had a good view of +you, though I heard you talking to young Innis at dinner. And yet," he +added, smiling, "if I had been instructed to look around and select +somebody named Rosamund, I certainly should have decided on you." + +"A compliment?" she asked, raising her delicate eyebrows. + +"Ask yourself," he said. + +"I do; and I get snubbed." + +And, smiling still, he said: "Do you know the most mischievous air that +Schubert ever worried us with?" + +"'Rosamund,'" she said; "and--thank you, Captain Selwyn." She had +coloured to the hair. + +"'Rosamund,'" he nodded carelessly--"the most mischievous of melodies--" +He stopped short, then coolly resumed: "That mischievous quality is +largely a matter of accident, I fancy. Schubert never meant that +'Rosamund' should interfere with anybody's business." + +"And--when did you first encounter the malice in 'Rosamund,' Captain +Selwyn?" she asked with perfect self-possession. + +He did not answer immediately; his smile had died out. Then: "The first +time I really understood 'Rosamund' was when I heard Rosamund during a +very delightful dinner." + +She said: "If a woman keeps at a man long enough she'll extract +compliments or yawns." And looking up at a chinless young man who had +halted near her: "George, Captain Selwyn has acquired such a charmingly +Oriental fluency during his residence in the East that I thought--if you +ever desired to travel again--" She shrugged, and, glancing at Selwyn: +"Have you met my husband? Oh, of course." + +They exchanged a commonplace or two, then other people separated them +without resistance on their part. And Selwyn found himself drifting, +mildly interested in the vapid exchange of civilities which cost nobody +a mental effort. + +His sister, he had once thought, was certainly the most delightfully +youthful matron in New York. But now he made an exception of Mrs. Fane; +Rosamund Fane was much younger--must have been younger, for she still +had something of that volatile freshness--that vague atmosphere of +immaturity clinging to her like a perfume almost too delicate to detect. +And under that the most profound capacity for mischief he had ever known +of. Sauntering amiably amid the glittering groups continually forming +and disintegrating under the clustered lights, he finally succeeded in +reaching his hostess. + +And Mrs. T. West Minster disengaged herself from the throng with +intention as he approached. + +No--and he was so sorry; and it was very amiable of his hostess to want +him, but he was not remaining for the dance. + +So much for the hostess, who stood there massive and gem-laden, her +kindly and painted features tinted now with genuine emotion. + +"_Je m'accuse, mon fils_!--but you acted like a perfect dear," she said. +"_Mea culpa, mea culpa_; and _can_ you forgive a very much mortified old +lady who is really and truly fond of you?" + +He laughed, holding her fat, ringed hands in both of his with all the +attractive deference that explained his popularity. Rising excitement +had sent the colour into his face and cleared his pleasant gray eyes; +and he looked very young and handsome, his broad shoulders bent a trifle +before the enamelled and bejewelled matron. + +"Forgive you?" he repeated with a laugh of protest; "on the contrary, I +thank you. Mrs. Ruthven is one of the most charming women I know, if +that is what you mean?" + +Looking after him as he made his way toward the cloak room: "The boy is +thoroughbred," she reflected cynically; "and the only amusement anybody +can get out of it will be at my expense! Rosamund is a perfect cat!" + + * * * * * + +He had sent for his cab, which, no doubt, was in line somewhere, wedged +among the ranks of carriages stretching east and west along the snowy +street; and he stood on the thick crimson carpet under the awning while +it was being summoned. A few people like himself were not staying for +the dance; others who had dined by prearrangement with other hostesses, +had now begun to arrive, and the confusion grew as coach and brougham +and motor came swaying up through the falling snow to deposit their +jewelled cargoes of silks and laces under the vast awning picketed by +policemen and lined with fur-swathed grooms and spindle-legged +chauffeurs in coats of pony-skin. + +The Cornelius Suydams, emerging from the house, offered Selwyn tonneau +room, but he smilingly declined, having a mind for solitude and the +Lenox Club. A phalanx of débutantes, opera bound, also left. Then the +tide set heavily the other way, and there seemed no end to the line of +arriving vehicles and guests, until he heard a name pronounced; a +policeman warned back an approaching Fiat; and Selwyn saw Mrs. Ruthven, +enveloped in white furs, step from the portal. + +She saw him as he moved back, nodded, passed directly to her brougham, +and set foot on the step. Pausing here, she looked about her, right and +left, then over her shoulder straight back at Selwyn; and as she stood +in silence evidently awaiting him, it became impossible for him any +longer to misunderstand without a public affront to her. + +When he started toward her she spoke to her maid, and the latter moved +aside with a word to the groom in waiting. + +"My maid will dismiss your carriage," she said pleasantly when he halted +beside her. "There is one thing more which I must say to you." + +Was this what he had expected hazard might bring to him?--was this the +prophecy of his hammering pulses? + +"Please hurry before people come out," she added, and entered the +brougham. + +"I can't do this," he muttered. + +"I've sent away my maid," she said. "Nobody has noticed; those are +servants out there. Will you please come before anybody arriving or +departing does notice?" + +And, as he did not move: "Are you going to make me conspicuous by this +humiliation before servants?" + +He said something between his set teeth and entered the brougham. + +"Do you know what you've done?" he demanded harshly. + +"Yes; nothing yet. But you would have done enough to stir this borough +if you had delayed another second." + +"Your maid saw--" + +"My maid is _my_ maid." + +He leaned back in his corner, gray eyes narrowing. + +"Naturally," he said, "you are the one to be considered, not the man in +the case." + +"Thank you. _Are_ you the man in the case?" + +"There is no case," he said coolly. + +"Then why worry about me?" + +He folded his arms, sullenly at bay; yet had no premonition of what to +expect from her. + +"You were very brutal to me," she said at length. + +"I know it; and I did not intend to be. The words came." + +"You had me at your mercy; and showed me little--a very little at first. +Afterward, none." + +"The words came," he repeated; "I'm sick with self-contempt, I tell +you." + +She set her white-gloved elbow on the window sill and rested her chin in +her palm. + +"That--money," she said with an effort. "You set--some--aside for me." + +"Half," he nodded calmly. + +"Why?" + +He was silent. + +"_Why_? I did not ask for it? There was nothing in the--the legal +proceedings to lead you to believe that I desired it; was there?" + +"No." + +"Well, then," her breath came unsteadily, "what was there in _me_ to +make you think I would accept it?" + +He did not reply. + +"Answer me. This is the time to answer me." + +"The answer is simple enough," he said in a low voice. "Together we had +made a failure of partnership. When that partnership was dissolved, +there remained the joint capital to be divided. And I divided it. Why +not?" + +"That capital was yours in the beginning; not mine. What I had of my own +you never controlled; and I took it with me when I went." + +"It was very little," he said. + +"What of that? Did that concern you? Did you think I would have accepted +anything from you? A thousand times I have been on the point of +notifying you through attorney that the deposit now standing in my name +is at your disposal." + +"Why didn't you notify me then?" he asked, reddening to the temples. + +"Because--I did not wish to hurt you--by doing it that way. . . . And I +had not the courage to say it kindly over my own signature. That is why, +Captain Selwyn." + +And, as he remained silent: "That is what I had to say; not +all--because--I wish to--to thank you for offering it. . . . You did not +have very much, either; and you divided what you had. So I thank +you--and I return it.". . . The tension forced her to attempt a laugh. +"So we stand once more on equal terms; unless you have anything of mine +to return--" + +"I have your photograph," he said. + +The silence lasted until he straightened up and, rubbing the fog from +the window glass, looked out. + +"We are in the Park," he remarked, turning toward her. + +"Yes; I did not know how long it might take to explain matters. You are +free of me now whenever you wish." + +He picked up the telephone, hesitated: "Home?" he inquired with an +effort. And at the forgotten word they looked at one another in stricken +silence. + +"Y-yes; to _your_ home first, if you will let me drop you there--" + +"Thank you; that might be imprudent." + +"No, I think not. You say you are living at the Gerards?" + +"Yes, temporarily. But I've already taken another place." + +"Where?" + +"Oh, it's only a bachelor's kennel--a couple of rooms--" + +"Where, please?" + +"Near Lexington and Sixty-sixth. I could go there; it's only partly +furnished yet--" + +"Then tell Hudson to drive there." + +"Thank you, but it is not necessary--" + +"Please let me; tell Hudson, or I will." + +"You are very kind," he said; and gave the order. + +Silence grew between them like a wall. She lay back in her corner, +swathed to the eyes in her white furs; he in his corner sat upright, +arms loosely folded, staring ahead at nothing. After a while he rubbed +the moisture from the pane again. + +"Still in the Park! He must have driven us nearly to Harlem Mere. It +_is_ the Mere! See the café lights yonder. It all looks rather gay +through the snow." + +"Very gay," she said, without moving. And, a moment later: "Will you +tell me something? . . . You see"--with a forced laugh--"I can't keep my +mind--from it." + +"From what?" he asked. + +"The--tragedy; ours." + +"It has ceased to be that; hasn't it?" + +"Has it? You said--you said that w-what I did to you was n-not as +terrible as what I d-did to myself." + +"That is true," he admitted grimly. + +"Well, then, may I ask my question?" + +"Ask it, child." + +"Then--are you happy?" + +He did not answer. + +"--Because I desire it, Philip. I want you to be. You will be, won't +you? I did not dream that I was ruining your army career when I--went +mad--" + +"How did it happen, Alixe?" he asked, with a cold curiosity that chilled +her. "How did it come about?--wretched as we seemed to be +together--unhappy, incapable of understanding each other--" + +"Phil! There _were_ days--" + +He raised his eyes. + +"You speak only of the unhappy ones," she said; "but there were +moments--" + +"Yes; I know it. And so I ask you, _why_?" + +"Phil, I don't know. There was that last bitter quarrel--the night you +left for Leyte after the dance. . . . I--it all grew suddenly +intolerable. _You_ seemed so horribly unreal--everything seemed unreal +in that ghastly city--you, I, our marriage of crazy impulse--the people, +the sunlight, the deathly odours, the torturing, endless creak of the +punkha. . . . It was not a question of--of love, of anger, of hate. I +tell you I was stunned--I had no emotions concerning you or +myself--after that last scene--only a stupefied, blind necessity to get +away; a groping instinct to move toward home--to make my way home and be +rid for ever of the dream that drugged me! . . . And then--and then--" + +"_He_ came," said Selwyn very quietly. "Go on." + +But she had nothing more to say. + +"Alixe!" + +She shook her head, closing her eyes. + +"Little girl!--oh, little girl!" he said softly, the old familiar phrase +finding its own way to his lips--and she trembled slightly; "was there +no other way but that? Had marriage made the world such a living hell +for you that there was no other way but _that_?" + +"Phil, I helped to make it a hell." + +"Yes--because I was pitiably inadequate to design anything better for +us. I didn't know how. I didn't understand. I, the architect of our +future--failed." + +"It was worse than that, Phil; we"--she looked blindly at him--"we had +yet to learn what love might be. We did not know. . . . If we could have +waited--only waited!--perhaps--because there _were_ moments--" She +flushed crimson. + +"I could not make you love me," he repeated; "I did not know how." + +"Because you yourself had not learned how. But--at times--now looking +back to it--I think--I think we were very near to it--at moments. . . . +And then that dreadful dream closed down on us again. . . . And +then--the end." + +"If you could have held out," he breathed; "if I could have helped! It +was I who failed you after all!" + +For a long while they sat in silence; Mrs. Ruthven's white furs now +covered her face. At last the carriage stopped. + +As he sprang to the curb he became aware of another vehicle standing in +front of the house--a cab--from which Mrs. Ruthven's maid descended. + +"What is she doing here?" he asked, turning in astonishment to Mrs. +Ruthven. + +"Phil," she said in a low voice, "I knew you had taken this place. +Gerald told me. Forgive me--but when I saw you under the awning it came +to me in a flash what to do. And I've done it. . . . Are you sorry?" + +"No. . . . Did Gerald tell you that I had taken this place?" + +"Yes; I asked him." + +Selwyn looked at her gravely; and she looked him very steadily in the +eyes. + +"Before I go--may I say one more word?" he asked gently. + +"Yes--if you please. Is it about Gerald?" + +"Yes. Don't let him gamble. . . . You saw the signature on that check?" + +"Yes, Phil." + +"Then you understand. Don't let him do it again." + +"No. And--Phil?" + +"What?" + +"That check is--is deposited to your credit--with the rest. I have never +dreamed of using it." Her cheeks were afire again, but with shame this +time. + +"You will have to accept it, Alixe." + +"I cannot." + +"You must! Don't you see you will affront Gerald? He has repaid me; that +check is not mine, nor is it his." + +"I can't take it," she said with a shudder. "What shall I do with it?" + +"There are ways--hospitals, if you care to. . . . Good-night, child." + +She stretched out her gloved arm to him; he took her hand very gently +and retained it while he spoke. + +"I wish you happiness," he said; "I ask your forgiveness." + +"Give me mine, then." + +"Yes--if there is anything to forgive. Good-night." + +"Good-night--boy," she gasped. + +He turned sharply, quivering under the familiar name. Her maid, standing +in the snow, moved forward, and he motioned her to enter the brougham. + +"Home," he said unsteadily; and stood there very still for a minute or +two, even after the carriage had whirled away into the storm. Then, +looking up at the house, he felt for his keys; but a sudden horror of +being alone arrested him, and he stepped back, calling out to his +cabman, who was already turning his horse's head, "Wait a moment; I +think I'll drive back to Mrs. Gerard's. . . . And take your time." + + * * * * * + +It was still early--lacking a quarter of an hour to midnight--when he +arrived. Nina had retired, but Austin sat in the library, obstinately +plodding through the last chapters of a brand-new novel. + +"This is a wretched excuse for sitting up," he yawned, laying the book +flat on the table, but still open. "I ought never to be trusted alone +with any book." Then he removed his reading glasses, yawned again, and +surveyed Selwyn from head to foot. + +"Very pretty," he said. "Well, how are the yellow ones, Phil? Or was it +all débutante and slop-twaddle?" + +"Few from the cradle, but bunches were arriving for the dance as I +left." + +"Eileen went at half-past eleven." + +"I didn't know she was going," said Selwyn, surprised. + +"She didn't want you to. The Playful Kitten business, you know--frisks +apropos of nothing to frisk about. But we all fancied you'd stay for the +dance." He yawned mightily, and gazed at Selwyn with ruddy gravity. + +"Whisk?" he inquired. + +"No." + +"Cigar?"--mildly urgent. + +"No, thanks." + +"Bed?" + +"I think so. But don't wait for me, Austin. . . . Is that the evening +paper? Where is St. Paul?" + +Austin passed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately +yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel. + +"Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!" he muttered, closing the book and +pushing it from him across the table; "love, as usual, grossly out of +proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the earth's rotation, you +know; all these absurd books are built on it. Why do men read 'em? They +grin when they do it! Love is only the sixth sense--just one-sixth of a +man's existence. The other five-sixths of his time he's using his other +senses working for a living." + +Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it. + +"In these novels," continued Gerard, irritably, "five-sixths of the +pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it +controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it +prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces +agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors. . . . Does it act that +way in real life?" + +"Not usually," said Selwyn. + +"Nobody else thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the truth? Why +doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins +to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy +from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he's usually at the +club, or dining out, or asleep; isn't he? Well, then, how much time +does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the +result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper +importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man's entire +life." + +He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a +fixed proportion in the ingredients of life. + +"If I had time," he said, "I could tell them how to write a book--" He +paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. Selwyn stared at +space. + +"What does a young man know about love, anyway?" demanded his +brother-in-law. + +"Nothing," replied Selwyn listlessly. + +"Of course not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a pink and +white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another. That's +wholesome and natural; and that's the way things really are. Look at +Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of what love is?" + +"Naturally not," said Selwyn. + +"Correct. Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper emotions to a +child like that. What does she know about anything? Love isn't a mere +emotion, either--that is all fol-de-rol and fizzle!--it's the false +basis of modern romance. Love is reason--not a nervous phenomenon. Love +is a sane passion, founded on a basic knowledge of good and evil. That's +what love is; the rest!"--he lifted the book, waved it contemptuously, +and pushed it farther away--"the rest is neuritis; the remedy a pill. +I'm going to bed; are you?" + +But Selwyn had lighted a cigar, and was again unfolding his evening +paper; so his brother-in-law moved ponderously away, yawning frightfully +at every heavy stride, and the younger man settled back in his chair, a +fragrant cigar balanced between his strong, slim fingers, one leg +dropped loosely over the other. After a while the newspaper fell to the +floor. + +He sat there without moving for a long time; his cigar, burning close, +had gone out. The reading-lamp spread a circle of soft light over the +floor; on the edge of it lay Kit-Ki, placid, staring at him. After a +while he noticed her. "You?" he said absently; "you hid so they couldn't +put you out." + +At the sound of his voice she began to purr. + +"Oh, it's all very well," he nodded; "but it's against the law. +However," he added, "I'm rather tired of rules and regulations myself. +Besides, the world outside is very cold to-night. Purr away, old lady; +I'm going to bed." + +But he did not stir. + +A little later, the fire having burned low, he rose, laid a pair of +heavy logs across the coals, dragged his chair to the hearth, and +settled down in it deeply. Then he lifted the cat to his knees. Kit-Ki +sang blissfully, spreading and relaxing her claws at intervals as she +gazed at the mounting blaze. + +"I'm going to bed, Kit-Ki," he repeated absently, "because that's a +pretty good place for me . . . far better than sitting up here with +you--and conscience." + +But he only lay back deeper in the velvet chair and lighted another +cigar. + +"Kit-Ki," he said, "the words men utter count in the reckoning; but not +as heavily as the words men leave unuttered; and what a man does scores +deeply; but--alas for the scars of the deeds he has left undone." + +The logs were now wrapped in flame, and their low mellow roaring +mingled to a monotone with the droning of the cat on his knees. + +Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. +When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids +fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he +opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on +the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little +Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons. + +"Upon my word!" he murmured, confused; then rising quickly, "Is that +you, Miss Erroll? What time is it?" + +"Four o'clock in the morning, Captain Selwyn," she said, straightening +up to her full height. "This room is icy; are you frozen?" + +Chilled through, he stood looking about in a dazed way, incredulous of +the hour and of his own slumber. + +"I was conversing with Kit-Ki a moment ago," he protested, in such a +tone of deep reproach that Eileen laughed while her maid relieved her of +furs and scarf. + +"Susanne, just unhook those two that I can't manage; light the fire in +my bedroom; _et merci bien, ma petite!_" + +The little maid vanished; Kit-Ki, who had been unceremoniously spilled +from Selwyn's knees, sat yawning, then rose and walked noiselessly to +the hearth. + +"I don't know how I happened to do it," he muttered, still abashed by +his plight. + +"We rekindled the fire for your benefit," she said; "you had better use +it before you retire." And she seated herself in the arm-chair, +stretching out her ungloved hands to the blaze--smooth, innocent hands, +so soft, so amazingly fresh and white. + +He moved a step forward into the warmth, stood a moment, then reached +forward for a chair and drew it up beside hers. + +"Do you mean to say you are not sleepy?" he asked. + +"I? No, not in the least. I will be to-morrow, though." + +"Did you have a good time?" + +"Yes--rather." + +"Wasn't it gay?" + +"Gay? Oh, very." + +Her replies were unusually short--almost preoccupied. She was generally +more communicative. + +"You danced a lot, I dare say," he ventured. + +"Yes--a lot," studying the floor. + +"Decent partners?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Who was there?" + +She looked up at him. "_You_ were not there," she said, smiling. + +"No; I cut it. But I did not know you were going; you said nothing about +it." + +"Of course, you would have stayed if you had known, Captain Selwyn?" She +was still smiling. + +"Of course," he replied. + +"Would you really?" + +"Why, yes." + +There was something not perfectly familiar to him in the girl's bright +brevity, in her direct personal inquiry; for between them, hitherto, the +gaily impersonal had ruled except in moments of lightest badinage. + +"Was it an amusing dinner?" she asked, in her turn. + +"Rather." Then he looked up at her, but she had stretched her slim +silk-shod feet to the fender, and her head was bent aside, so that he +could see only the curve of the cheek and the little close-set ear +under its ruddy mass of gold. + +"Who was there?" she asked, too, carelessly. + +For a moment he did not speak; under his bronzed cheek the flat muscles +stirred. Had some meddling, malicious fool ventured to whisper an unfit +jest to this young girl? Had a word--or a smile and a phrase cut in +two--awakened her to a sorry wisdom at his expense? Something had +happened; and the idea stirred him to wrath--as when a child is wantonly +frightened or a dumb creature misused. + +"What did you ask me?" he inquired gently. + +"I asked you who was there, Captain Selwyn." + +He recalled some names, and laughingly mentioned his dinner partner's +preference for Harmon. She listened absently, her chin nestling in her +palm, only the close-set, perfect ear turned toward him. + +"Who led the cotillion?" he asked. + +"Jack Ruthven--dancing with Rosamund Fane." + +She drew her feet from the fender and crossed them, still turned away +from him; and so they remained in silence until again she shifted her +position, almost impatiently. + +"You are very tired," he said. + +"No; wide awake." + +"Don't you think it best for you to go to bed?" + +"No. But you may go." + +And, as he did not stir: "I mean that you are not to sit here because I +do." And she looked around at him. + +"What has gone wrong, Eileen?" he said quietly. + +He had never before used her given name, and she flushed up. + +"There is nothing the matter, Captain Selwyn. Why do you ask?" + +"Yes, there is," he said. + +"There is not, I tell you--" + +"--And, if it is something you cannot understand," he continued +pleasantly, "perhaps it might be well to ask Nina to explain it to you." + +"There is nothing to explain." + +"--Because," he went on, very gently, "one is sometimes led by malicious +suggestion to draw false and unpleasant inferences from harmless +facts--" + +"Captain Selwyn--" + +"Yes, Eileen." + +But she could not go on; speech and thought itself remained sealed; only +a confused consciousness of being hurt remained--somehow to be remedied +by something he might say--might deny. Yet how could it help her for him +to deny what she herself refused to believe?--refused through sheer +instinct while ignorant of its meaning. + +Even if he had done what she heard Rosamund Fane say he had done, it had +remained meaningless to her save for the manner of the telling. But +now--but now! Why had they laughed--why had their attitudes and manner +and the disconnected phrases in French left her flushed and rigid among +the idle group at supper? Why had they suddenly seemed to remember her +presence--and express their abrupt consciousness of it in such furtive +signals and silence? + +It was false, anyway--whatever it meant. And, anyway, it was false that +he had driven away in Mrs. Ruthven's brougham. But, oh, if he had only +stayed--if he had only remained!--this friend of hers who had been so +nice to her from the moment he came into her life--so generous, so +considerate, so lovely to her--and to Gerald! + +For a moment the glow remained, then a chill doubt crept in; would he +have remained had he known she was to be there? _Where_ did he go after +the dinner? As for what they said, it was absurd. And yet--and yet-- + +He sat, savagely intent upon the waning fire; she turned restlessly +again, elbows close together on her knees, face framed in her hands. + +"You ask me if I am tired," she said. "I am--of the froth of life." + +His face changed instantly. "What?" he exclaimed, laughing. + +But she, very young and seriously intent, was now wrestling with the +mighty platitudes of youth. First of all she desired to know what +meaning life held for humanity. Then she expressed a doubt as to the +necessity for human happiness; duty being her discovery as sufficient +substitute. + +But he heard in her childish babble the minor murmur of an undercurrent +quickening for the first time; and he listened patiently and answered +gravely, touched by her irremediable loneliness. + +For Nina must remain but a substitute at best; what was wanting must +remain wanting; and race and blood must interpret for itself the subtler +and unasked questions of an innocence slowly awaking to a wisdom which +makes us all less wise. + +So when she said that she was tired of gaiety, that she would like to +study, he said that he would take up anything she chose with her. And +when she spoke vaguely of a life devoted to good works--of the wiser +charity, of being morally equipped to aid those who required material +aid, he was very serious, but ventured to suggest that she dance her +first season through as a sort of flesh-mortifying penance preliminary +to her spiritual novitiate. + +"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully; "you are right. Nina would feel +dreadfully if I did not go on--or if she imagined I cared so little for +it all. But one season is enough to waste. Don't you think so?" + +"Quite enough," he assured her. + +"--And--why should I ever marry?" she demanded, lifting her clear, sweet +eyes to his. + +"Why indeed?" he repeated with conviction. "I can see no reason." + +"I am glad you understand me," she said. "I am not a marrying woman." + +"Not at all," he assured her. + +"No, I am not; and Nina--the darling--doesn't understand. Why, what do +you suppose!--but _would_ it be a breach of confidence to anybody if I +told you?" + +"I doubt it," he said; "what is it you have to tell me?" + +"Only--it's very, very silly--only several men--and one nice enough to +know better--Sudbury Gray--" + +"Asked you to marry them?" he finished, nodding his head at the cat. + +"Yes," she admitted, frankly astonished; "but how did you know?" + +"Inferred it. Go on." + +"There is nothing more," she said, without embarrassment. "I told Nina +each time; but she confused me by asking for details; and the details +were too foolish and too annoying to repeat. . . . I do not wish to +marry anybody. I think I made that very plain to--everybody." + +"Right as usual," he said cheerfully; "you are too intelligent to +consider that sort of thing just now." + +"You _do_ understand me, don't you?" she said gratefully. "There are so +many serious things in life to learn and to think of, and that is the +very last thing I should ever consider. . . . I am very, very glad I had +this talk with you. Now I am rested and I shall retire for a good long +sleep." + +With which paradox she stood up, stifling a tiny yawn, and looked +smilingly at him, all the old sweet confidence in her eyes. Then, +suddenly mocking: + +"Who suggested that you call me by my first name?" she asked. + +"Some good angel or other. May I?" + +"If you please; I rather like it. But I couldn't very well call you +anything except 'Captain Selwyn.'" + +"On account of my age?" + +"Your _age_!"--contemptuous in her confident equality. + +"Oh, my wisdom, then? You probably reverence me too deeply." + +"Probably not. I don't know; I couldn't do it--somehow--" + +"Try it--unless you're afraid." + +"I'm not afraid!" + +"Yes, you are, if you don't take a dare." + +"You dare me?" + +"I do." + +"Philip," she said, hesitating, adorable in her embarrassment. "No! No! +No! I can't do it that way in cold blood. It's got to be 'Captain +Selwyn'. . . for a while, anyway. . . . Good-night." + +He took her outstretched hand, laughing; the usual little friendly shake +followed; then she turned gaily away, leaving him standing before the +whitening ashes. + +He thought the fire was dead; but when he turned out the lamp an hour +later, under the ashes embers glowed in the darkness of the winter +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MID-LENT + + +"Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for +church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday +supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent +from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the +grippe, and now moaned all day: "_Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir!_" + +Boots Lansing called to see Eileen, but she wouldn't come down, saying +her nose was too pink. Drina entertained Boots, and then Selwyn returned +and talked army talk with him until tea was served. Drina poured tea +very prettily; Nina had driven Austin to vespers. The family dined at +seven so Drina could sit up; special treat on account of Boots's +presence at table. Gerald was expected, but did not come. + +The next morning, Selwyn went downtown at the usual hour and found +Gerald, pale and shaky, hanging over his desk and trying to dictate +letters to an uncomfortable stenographer. + +So he dismissed the abashed girl for the moment, closed the door, and +sat down beside the young man. + +"Go home, Gerald" he said with decision; "when Neergard comes in I'll +tell him you are not well. And, old fellow, don't ever come near the +office again when you're in this condition." + +"I'm a perfect fool," faltered the boy, his voice trembling; "I don't +really care for that sort of thing, either; but you know how it is in +that set--" + +"What set?" + +"Oh, the Fanes--the Ruthv--" He stammered himself into silence. + +"I see. What happened last night?" + +"The usual; two tables full of it. There was a wheel, too. . . . I had +no intention--but you know yourself how it parches your throat--the +jollying and laughing and excitement. . . . I forgot all about what +you--what we talked over. . . . I'm ashamed and sorry; but I can stay +here and attend to things, of course--" + +"I don't want Neergard to see you," repeated Selwyn. + +"W-why," stammered the boy, "do I look as rocky as that?" + +"Yes. See here, you are not afraid of me, are you?" + +"No--" + +"You don't think I'm one of those long-faced, blue-nosed butters-in, do +you? You have confidence in me, haven't you? You know I'm an average and +normally sinful man who has made plenty of mistakes and who understands +how others make them--you know that, don't you, old chap?" + +"Y-es." + +"Then you _will_ listen, won't you, Gerald?" + +The boy laid his arms on the desk and hid his face in them. Then he +nodded. + +For ten minutes Selwyn talked to him with all the terse and colloquial +confidence of a comradeship founded upon respect for mutual fallibility. +No instruction, no admonition, no blame, no reproach--only an +affectionately logical review of matters as they stood--and as they +threatened to stand. + +The boy, fortunately, was still pliable and susceptible, still unalarmed +and frank. It seemed that he had lost money again--this time to Jack +Ruthven; and Selwyn's teeth remained sternly interlocked as, bit by bit, +the story came out. But in the telling the boy was not quite as frank as +he might have been; and Selwyn supposed he was able to stand his loss +without seeking aid. + +"Anyway," said Gerald in a muffled voice, "I've learned one lesson--that +a business man can't acquire the habits and keep the infernal hours that +suit people who can take all day to sleep it off." + +"Right," said Selwyn. + +"Besides, my income can't stand it," added Gerald naïvely. + +"Neither could mine, old fellow. And, Gerald, cut out this card +business; it's the final refuge of the feebleminded. . . . You like it? +Oh, well, if you've got to play--if you've no better resource for +leisure, and if non-participation isolates you too completely from other +idiots--play the imbecile gentleman's game; which means a game where +nobody need worry over the stakes." + +"But--they'd laugh at me!" + +"I know; but Boots Lansing wouldn't--and you have considerable respect +for him." + +Gerald nodded; he had immediately succumbed to Lansing like everybody +else. + +"And one thing more," said Selwyn; "don't play for stakes--no matter how +insignificant--where women sit in the game. Fashionable or not, it is +rotten sport--whatever the ethics may be. And, Gerald, tainted sport and +a clean record can't take the same fence together." + +The boy looked up, flushed and perplexed. "Why, every woman in town--" + +"Oh, no. How about your sister and mine?" + +"Of course not; they are different. Only--well, you approve of Rosamund +Fane and--Gladys Orchil--don't you?" + +"Gerald, men don't ask each other such questions--except as you ask, +without expecting or desiring an answer from me, and merely to be saying +something nice about two pretty women." + +The reproof went home, deeply, but without a pang; and the boy sat +silent, studying the blotter between his elbows. + +A little later he started for home at Selwyn's advice. But the memory of +his card losses frightened him, and he stopped on the way to see what +money Austin would advance him. + +Julius Neergard came up from Long Island, arriving at the office about +noon. The weather was evidently cold on Long Island; he had the +complexion of a raw ham, but the thick, fat hand, with its bitten nails, +which he offered Selwyn as he entered his office, was unpleasantly hot, +and, on the thin nose which split the broad expanse of face, a bead or +two of sweat usually glistened, winter and summer. + +"Where's Gerald?" he asked as an office-boy relieved him of his heavy +box coat and brought his mail to him. + +"I advised Gerald to go home," observed Selwyn carelessly; "he is not +perfectly well." + +Neergard's tiny mouse-like eyes, set close together, stole brightly in +Selwyn's direction; but they usually looked just a little past a man, +seldom at him. + +"Grippe?" he asked. + +"I don't think so," said Selwyn. + +"Lots of grippe 'round town," observed Neergard, as though satisfied +that Gerald had it. Then he sat down and rubbed his large, membranous +ears. + +"Captain Selwyn," he began, "I'm satisfied that it's a devilish good +thing." + +"Are you?" + +"Emphatically. I've mastered the details--virtually all of 'em. Here's +the situation in a grain of wheat!--the Siowitha Club owns a thousand or +so acres of oak scrub, pine scrub, sand and weeds, and controls four +thousand more; that is to say--the club pays the farmers' rents and +fixes their fences and awards them odd jobs and prizes for the farm +sustaining the biggest number of bevies. Also the club pays them to +maintain the millet and buckwheat patches and to act as wardens. In +return the farmers post their four thousand acres for the exclusive +benefit of the club. Is that plain?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Very well, then. Now the Siowitha is largely composed of very rich +men--among them Bradley Harmon, Jack Ruthven, George Fane, Sanxon +Orchil, the Hon. Delmour-Carnes--_that_ crowd--rich and stingy. That's +why they are contented with a yearly agreement with the farmers instead +of buying the four thousand acres. Why put a lot of good money out of +commission when they can draw interest on it and toss an insignificant +fraction of that interest as a sop to the farmers? Do you see? That's +your millionaire method--and it's what makes 'em in the first place." + +He drew a large fancy handkerchief from his pistol-pocket and wiped the +beads from the bridge of his limber nose. But they reappeared again. + +"Now," he said, "I am satisfied that, working very carefully, we can +secure options on every acre of the four thousand. There is money in it +either way and any way we work it; we get it coming and going. First of +all, if the Siowitha people find that they really cannot get on without +controlling these acres--why"--and he snickered so that his nose curved +into a thin, ruddy beak--"why, Captain, I suppose we _could_ let them +have the land. Eh? Oh, yes--if they _must_ have it!" + +Selwyn frowned slightly. + +"But the point is," continued Neergard, "that it borders the railroad on +the north; and where the land is not wavy it's flat as a pancake, +and"--he sank his husky voice--"it's fairly riddled with water. I paid a +thousand dollars for six tests." + +"Water!" repeated Selwyn wonderingly; "why, it's dry as a desert!" + +"_Underground water_!--only about forty feet on the average. Why, man, I +can hit a well flowing three thousand gallons almost anywhere. It's a +gold mine. I don't care what you do with the acreage--split it up into +lots and advertise, or club the Siowitha people into submission--it's +all the same; it's a gold mine--to be swiped and developed. Now there +remains the title searching and the damnable job of financing +it--because we've got to move cautiously, and knock softly at the doors +of the money vaults, or we'll be waking up some Wall Street relatives or +secret business associates of the yellow crowd; and if anybody bawls +for help we'll be up in the air next New Year's, and still hiking +skyward." + +He stood up, gathering together the mail matter which his secretary had +already opened for his attention. "There's plenty of time yet; their +leases were renewed the first of this year, and they'll run the year +out. But it's something to think about. Will you talk to Gerald, or +shall I?" + +"You," said Selwyn. "I'll think the matter over and give you my opinion. +May I speak to my brother-in-law about it?" + +Neergard turned in his tracks and looked almost at him. + +"Do you think there's any chance of his financing the thing?" + +"I haven't the slightest idea of what he might do. Especially"--he +hesitated--"as you never have had any loans from his people--I +understand--" + +"No," said Neergard; "I haven't." + +"It's rather out of their usual, I believe--" + +"So they say. But Long Island acreage needn't beg favours now. That's +all over, Captain Selwyn. Fane, Harmon & Co. know that; Mr. Gerard ought +to know it, too." + +Selwyn looked troubled. "Shall I consult Mr. Gerard?" he repeated. "I +should like to if you have no objection." + +Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just beyond +Selwyn's left shoulder. + +"Suppose you sound him," he suggested, "in strictest--" + +"Naturally," cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered desk, +opened the first letter his hand encountered. Now that his head was +turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a long minute, +then went out silently. + + * * * * * + +That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to his own +rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the matter before +him exactly as Neergard had put it. + +"You see," he added, "that I'm a sort of an ass about business methods. +What I like--what I understand, is to use good judgment, go in and +boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it becomes more valuable, +either through improvements or the natural enhancement of good value, +then take a legitimate profit, and repeat the process. That, in outline, +is what I understand. But, Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and +clubbing other people's money out of them with it--this slyly acquiring +land that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him +up--I don't like. There's always something of this sort that prevents my +cordial co-operation with Neergard--always something in the schemes +which hints of--of squeezing--of something underground--" + +"Like the water which he's going to squeeze out of the wells?" + +Selwyn laughed. + +"Phil," said his brother-in-law, "if you think anybody can do a +profitable business except at other people's expense, you are an ass." + +"Am I?" asked Selwyn, still laughing frankly. + +"Certainly. The land is there, plain enough for anybody to see. It's +always been there; it's likely to remain for a few æons, I fancy. + +"Now, along comes Meynheer Julius Neergard--the only man who seems to +have brains enough to see the present value of that parcel to the +Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; nobody except +Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't he profit by it?" + +"Yes--but if he'd be satisfied to cut it up into lots and do what is +fair--" + +"Cut it up into nothing! Man alive, do you suppose the Siowitha people +would let him? They've only a few thousand acres; they've _got_ to +control that land. What good is their club without it? Do you imagine +they'd let a town grow up on three sides of their precious +game-preserve? And, besides, I'll bet you that half of their streams and +lakes take rise on other people's property--and that Neergard knows +it--the Dutch fox!" + +"That sort of--of business--that kind of coercion, does not appeal to +me," said Selwyn gravely. + +"Then you'd better go into something besides business in this town," +observed Austin, turning red. "Good Lord, man, where would my Loan and +Trust Company be if we never foreclosed, never swallowed a good thing +when we see it?" + +"But you don't threaten people." + +Austin turned redder. "If people or corporations stand in our way and +block progress, of course we threaten. Threaten? Isn't the threat of +punishment the very basis of law and order itself? What are laws for? +And we have laws, too--laws, under the law--" + +"Of the State of New Jersey," said Selwyn, laughing. "Don't flare up, +Austin; I'm probably not cut out for a business career, as you +point out--otherwise I would not have consulted you. I know +some laws--including 'The Survival of the Fittest,' and the +'Chain-of-Destruction'; and I have read the poem beginning + + "'Big bugs have little bugs to bite 'em.' + +"That's all right, too; but speaking of laws, I'm always trying to +formulate one for my particular self-government; and you don't mind, do +you?" + +"No," said Gerard, much amused, "I don't mind. Only when you talk +ethics--talk sense at the same time." + +"I wish I knew how," he said. + +They discussed Neergard's scheme for a little while longer; Austin, +shrewd and cautious, declined any personal part in the financing of the +deal, although he admitted the probability of prospective profits. + +"Our investments and our loans are of a different character," he +explained, "but I have no doubt that Fane, Harmon & Co.--" + +"Why, both Fane and Harmon are members of the club!" laughed Selwyn. +"You don't expect Neergard to go to them?" + +A peculiar expression flickered in Gerard's heavy features; perhaps he +thought that Fane and Harmon and Jack Ruthven were not above exploiting +their own club under certain circumstances. But whatever his opinion, he +said nothing further; and, suggesting that Selwyn remain to dine, went +off to dress. + +A few moments later he returned, crestfallen and conciliatory: + +"I forgot, Nina and I are dining at the Orchils. Come up a moment; she +wants to speak to you." + +So they took the rose-tinted rococo elevator; Austin went away to his +own quarters, and Selwyn tapped at Nina's boudoir. + +"Is that you, Phil? One minute; Watson is finishing my hair. . . . Come +in, now; and kindly keep your distance, my friend. Do you suppose I want +Rosamund to know what brand of war-paint I use?" + +"Rosamund," he repeated, with a good-humoured shrug; "it's likely--isn't +it?" + +"Certainly it's likely. You'd never know you were telling her +anything--but she'd extract every detail in ten seconds. . . . I +understand she adores you, Phil. What have you done to her?" + +"That's likely, too," he remarked, remembering his savagely polite +rebuke to that young matron after the Minster dinner. + +"Well, she does; you've probably piqued her; that's the sort of man she +likes. . . . Look at my hair--how bright and wavy it is, Phil. Tell me, +_do_ I appear fairly pretty to-night?" + +"You're all right, Nina; I mean it," he said. "How are the kids? How is +Eileen?" + +"That's why I sent for you. Eileen is furious at being left here all +alone; she's practically well and she's to dine with Drina in the +library. Would you be good enough to dine there with them? Eileen, poor +child, is heartily sick of her imprisonment; it would be a mercy, Phil." + +"Why, yes, I'll do it, of course; only I've some matters at home--" + +"Home! You call those stuffy, smoky, impossible, half-furnished rooms +_home_! Phil, when are you ever going to get some pretty furniture and +art things? Eileen and I have been talking it over, and we've decided to +go there and see what you need and then order it, whether you like it or +not." + +"Thanks," he said, laughing; "it's just what I've tried to avoid. I've +got things where I want them now--but I knew it was too comfortable to +last. Boots said that some woman would be sure to be good to me with an +art-nouveau rocking-chair." + +"A perfect sample of man's gratitude," said Nina, exasperated; "for I've +ordered two beautiful art-nouveau rocking-chairs, one for you and one +for Mr. Lansing. Now you can go and humiliate poor little Eileen, who +took so much pleasure in planning with me for your comfort. As for your +friend Boots, he's unspeakable--with my compliments." + +Selwyn stayed until he made peace with his sister, then he mounted to +the nursery to "lean over" the younger children and preside at prayers. +This being accomplished, he descended to the library, where Eileen +Erroll in a filmy, lace-clouded gown, full of turquoise tints, reclined +with her arm around Drina amid heaps of cushions, watching the waitress +prepare a table for two. + +He took the fresh, cool hand she extended and sat down on the edge of +her couch. + +"All O.K. again?" he inquired, retaining Eileen's hand in his. + +"Thank you--quite. Are you really going to dine with us? Are you sure +you want to? Oh, I know you've given up some very gay dinner +somewhere--" + +"I was going to dine with Boots when Nina rescued me. Poor Boots!--I +think I'll telephone--" + +"Telephone him to come here!" begged Drina. "Would he come? Oh, +please--I'd love to have him." + +"I wish you would ask him," said Eileen; "it's been so lonely and stupid +to lie in bed with a red nose and fishy eyes and pains in one's back and +limbs. Please do let us have a party." + +[Illustration: "'Two pillows,' said Drina sweetly."] + +So Selwyn went to the telephone, and presently returned, saying that +Boots was overwhelmed and would be present at the festivities; and +Drina, enraptured, ordered flowers to be brought from the dining-room +and a large table set for four, with particular pomp and circumstance. + +Mr. Archibald Lansing arrived very promptly--a short, stocky young man +of clean and powerful build, with dark, keen eyes always alert, and +humorous lips ever on the edge of laughter under his dark moustache. + +His manner with Drina was always delightful--a mixture of self-repressed +idolatry and busily naïve belief in a thorough understanding between +them to exclude Selwyn from their company. + +"This Selwyn fellow here!" he exclaimed. "I warned him over the 'phone +we'd not tolerate him, Drina. I explained to him very carefully that you +and I were dining together in strictest privacy--" + +"He begged so hard," said Eileen. "Will somebody place an extra pillow +for Drina?" + +They seized the same pillow fiercely, confronting each other; massacre +appeared imminent. + +"_Two_ pillows," said Drina sweetly; and extermination was averted. The +child laughed happily, covering one of Boots's hands with both of hers. + +"So you've left the service, Mr. Lansing?" began Eileen, lying back and +looking smilingly at Boots. + +"Had to, Miss Erroll. Seven millionaires ran into my quarters and chased +me out and down Broadway into the offices of the Westchester Air Line +Company. Then these seven merciless multi-millionaires in buckram bound +and gagged me, stuffed my pockets full of salary, and forced me to +typewrite a fearful and secret oath to serve them for five long, weary +years. That's a sample of how the wealthy grind the noses of the poor, +isn't it, Drina?" + +The child slipped her hand from his, smiling uncertainly. + +"You don't mean all that, do you?" + +"Indeed I do, sweetheart." + +"Are you not a soldier lieutenant any more, then?" she inquired, +horribly disappointed. + +"Only a private in the workman's battalion, Drina." + +"I don't care," retorted the child obstinately; "I like you just as +much." + +"Have you really done it?" asked Selwyn as the first course was served. + +"_I?_ No. _They?_ Yes. We'll probably lose the Philippines now," he +added gloomily; "but it's my thankless country's fault; you all had a +chance to make me dictator, you know. Miss Erroll, do you want a +second-hand sword? Of course there are great dents in it--" + +"I'd rather have those celebrated boots," she replied demurely; and Mr. +Lansing groaned. + +"How tall you're growing, Drina," remarked Selwyn. + +"Probably the early spring weather," added Boots. "You're twelve, aren't +you?" + +"Thirteen," said Drina gravely. + +"Almost time to elope with me," nodded Boots. + +"I'll do it now," she said--"as soon as my new gowns are made--if you'll +take me to Manila. Will you? I believe my Aunt Alixe is there--" + +She caught Eileen's eye and stopped short. "I forgot," she murmured; "I +beg your pardon, Uncle Philip--" + +Boots was talking very fast and laughing a great deal; Eileen's plate +claimed her undivided attention; Selwyn quietly finished his claret; the +child looked at them all. + +"By the way," said Boots abruptly, "what's the matter with Gerald? He +came in before noon looking very seedy--" Selwyn glanced up quietly. + +"Wasn't he at the office?" asked Eileen anxiously. + +"Oh, yes," replied Selwyn; "he felt a trifle under the weather, so I +sent him home." + +"Is it the grippe?" + +"N-no, I believe not--" + +"Do you think he had better have a doctor? Where is he?" + +"He was here," observed Drina composedly, "and father was angry with +him." + +"What?" exclaimed Eileen. "When?" + +"This morning, before father went downtown." + +Both Selwyn and Lansing cut in coolly, dismissing the matter with a +careless word or two; and coffee was served--cambric tea in Drina's +case. + +"Come on," said Boots, slipping a bride-rose into Drina's curls; "I'm +ready for confidences." + +"Confidences" had become an established custom with Drina and Boots; it +meant that every time they saw one another they were pledged to tell +each other everything that had occurred in their lives since their last +meeting. + +So Drina, excitedly requesting to be excused, jumped up and, taking +Lansing's hand in hers, led him to a sofa in a distant corner, where +they immediately installed themselves and began an earnest and whispered +exchange of confidences, punctuated by little whirlwinds of laughter +from the child. + +Eileen settled deeper among her pillows as the table was removed, and +Selwyn drew his chair forward. + +"Suppose," she said, looking thoughtfully at him, "that you and I make a +vow to exchange confidences? Shall we, Captain Selwyn?" + +"Good heavens," he protested; "I--confess to _you_! You'd faint dead +away, Eileen." + +"Perhaps. . . . But will you?" + +He gaily evaded an answer, and after a while he fancied she had +forgotten. They spoke of other things, of her convalescence, of the +engagements she had been obliged to cancel, of the stupid hours in her +room--doubly stupid, as the doctor had not permitted her to read or sew. + +"And every day violets from you," she said; "it was certainly nice of +you. And--do you know that somehow--just because you have never yet +failed me--I thought perhaps--when I asked your confidence a moment +ago--" + +He looked up quickly. + +"_What_ is the matter with Gerald?" she asked. "Could you tell me?" + +"Nothing serious is the matter, Eileen." + +"Is he not ill?" + +"Not very." + +She lay still a moment, then with the slightest gesture: "Come here." + +He seated himself near her; she laid her hand fearlessly on his arm. + +"Tell me," she demanded. And, as he remained silent: "Once," she said, +"I came suddenly into the library. Austin and Gerald were there; Austin +seemed to be very angry with my brother. I heard him say something that +worried me; and I slipped out before they saw me." + +Selwyn remained silent. + +"Was _that_ it?" + +"I--don't know what you heard." + +"_Don't_ you understand me?" + +"Not exactly." + +"Well, then"--she crimsoned--"has Gerald m-misbehaved again?" + +"What did you hear Austin say?" he demanded. + +"I heard--something about dissipation. He was very angry with Gerald. It +is not the best way, I think, to become angry with either of us--either +me or Gerald--because then we are usually inclined to do it +again--whatever it is. . . . I do not mean for one moment to be disloyal +to Austin; you know that. . . . But I am so thankful that Gerald is fond +of you. . . . You like him, too, don't you?" + +"I am very fond of him." + +"Well, then," she said, "you will talk to him pleasantly--won't you? He +is _such_ a boy; and he adores you. It is easy to influence a boy like +that, you know--easy to shame him out of the silly things he does. . . . +That is all the confidence I wanted, Captain Selwyn. And you haven't +told me a word, you see--and I have not fainted--have I?" + +They laughed a little; her fingers, which had tightened on his arm, +relaxed; her hand fell away, and she straightened up, sitting Turk +fashion, and smoothing her hair which contact with the pillows had +disarranged so that it threatened to come tumbling over eyes and cheeks. + +"Oh, hair, hair!" she murmured, "you're Nina's despair and my endless +punishment. I'd twist and pin you tight if I dared--some day I will, +too. . . . What are you looking at so curiously, Captain Selwyn? My +mop?" + +"It's about the most stunningly beautiful thing I ever saw," he said, +still curious. + +She nodded gaily, both hands still busy with the lustrous strands. "It +_is_ nice; but I never supposed you noticed it. It falls to my waist; +I'll show it to you some time. . . . But I had no idea _you_ noticed +such things," she repeated, as though to herself. + +"Oh, I'm apt to notice all sorts of things," he said, looking so +provokingly wise that she dropped her hair and clapped both hands over +her eyes. + +"Now," she said, "if you are so observing, you'll know the colour of my +eyes. What are they?" + +"Blue--with a sort of violet tint," he said promptly. + +She laughed and lowered her hands. + +"All that personal attention paid to me!" she exclaimed. "You are +turning my head, Captain Selwyn. Besides, you are astonishing me, +because you never seem to know what women wear or what they resemble +when I ask you to describe the girls with whom you have been dining or +dancing." + +It was a new note in their cordial intimacy--this nascent intrusion of +the personal. To her it merely meant his very charming recognition of +her maturity--she was fast becoming a woman like other women, to be +looked at and remembered as an individual, and no longer classed vaguely +as one among hundreds of the newly emerged whose soft, unexpanded +personalities all resembled one another. + +For some time, now, she had cherished this tiny grudge in her +heart--that he had never seemed to notice anything in particular about +her except when he tried to be agreeable concerning some new gown. The +contrast had become the sharper, too, since she had awakened to the +admiration of other men. And the awakening was only a half-convinced +happiness mingled with shy surprise that the wise world should really +deem her so lovely. + +"A red-headed girl," she said teasingly; "I thought you had better taste +than--than--" + +"Than to think you a raving beauty?" + +"Oh," she said, "you don't think that!" + +As a matter of fact he himself had become aware of it so suddenly that +he had no time to think very much about it. It was rather strange, too, +that he had not always been aware of it; or was it partly the mellow +light from the lamp tinting her till she glowed and shimmered like a +young sorceress, sitting so straight there in her turquoise silk and +misty lace? + +Delicate luminous shadow banded her eyes; her hair, partly in shadow, +too, became a sombre mystery in rose-gold. + +"Whatever _are_ you staring at?" she laughed. "Me? I don't believe it! +Never have you so honoured me with your fixed attention, Captain Selwyn. +You really glare at me as though I were interesting. And I know you +don't consider me that; do you?" + +"How old are you, anyway?" he asked curiously. + +"Thank you, I'll be delighted to inform you when I'm twenty." + +"You look like a mixture of fifteen and twenty-five to-night," he said +deliberately; "and the answer is more and less than nineteen." + +"And you," she said, "talk like a frivolous sage, and your wisdom is as +weighty as the years you carry. And what is the answer to that? Do you +know, Captain Selwyn, that when you talk to me this way you look about +as inexperienced as Gerald?" + +"And do _you_ know," he said, "that I feel as inexperienced--when I talk +to you this way?" + +She nodded. "It's probably good for us both; I age, you renew the +frivolous days of youth when you were young enough to notice the colour +of a girl's hair and eyes. Besides, I'm very grateful to you. Hereafter +you won't dare sit about and cross your knees and look like the picture +of an inattentive young man by Gibson. You've admitted that you like two +of my features, and I shall expect you to notice and _admit_ that you +notice the rest." + +"I admit it now," he said, laughing. + +"You mustn't; I won't let you. Two kinds of dessert are sufficient at a +time. But to-morrow--or perhaps the day after, you may confess to me +your approbation of one more feature--only one, remember!--just one more +agreeable feature. In that way I shall be able to hold out for quite a +while, you see--counting my fingers as separate features! Oh, you've +given me a taste of it; it's your own fault, Captain Selwyn, and now I +desire more if you please--in semi-weekly lingering doses--" + +A perfect gale of laughter from the sofa cut her short. + +"Drina!" she exclaimed; "it's after eight!--and I completely forgot." + +"Oh, dear!" protested the child, "he's being so funny about the war in +Samar. Couldn't I stay up--just five more minutes, Eileen? Besides, I +haven't told him about Jessie Orchil's party--" + +"Drina, dear, you _know_ I can't let you. Say good-night, now--if you +want Mr. Lansing and your Uncle Philip to come to another party." + +"I'll just whisper one more confidence very fast," she said to Boots. He +inclined his head; she placed both hands on his shoulders, and, kneeling +on the sofa, laid her lips close to his ear. Eileen and Selwyn waited. + +When the child had ended and had taken leave of all, Boots also took his +leave; and Selwyn rose, too, a troubled, careworn expression replacing +the careless gaiety which had made him seem so young in Miss Erroll's +youthful eyes. + +"Wait, Boots," he said; "I'm going home with you." And, to Eileen, +almost absently: "Good-night; I'm so very glad you are well again." + +"Good-night," she said, looking up at him. The faintest sense of +disappointment came over her--at what, she did not know. Was it because, +in his completely altered face she realised the instant and easy +detachment from herself, and what concerned her?--was it because other +people, like Mr. Lansing--other interests--like those which so plainly, +in his face, betrayed his preoccupation--had so easily replaced an +intimacy which had seemed to grow newer and more delightful with every +meeting? + +What was it, then, that he found more interesting, more important, than +their friendship, their companionship? Was she never to grow old enough, +or wise enough, or experienced enough to exact--without exacting--his +paramount consideration and interest? Was there no common level of +mental equality where they could meet?--where termination of interviews +might be mutual--might be fairer to her? + +Now he went away, utterly detached from her and what concerned her--to +seek other interests of which she knew nothing; absorbed in them to her +utter exclusion, leaving her here with the long evening before her and +nothing to do--because her eyes were not yet strong enough to use for +reading. + +Lansing was saying: "I'll drive as far as the club with you, and then +you can drop me and come back later." + +"Right, my son; I'll finish a letter and then come back--" + +"Can't you write it at the club?" + +"Not that letter," he replied in a low voice; and, turning to Eileen, +smiled his absent, detached smile, offering his hand. + +But she lay back, looking straight up at him. + +"Are you going?" + +"Yes; I have several--" + +"Stay with me," she said in a low voice. + +For a moment the words meant nothing; then blank surprise silenced him, +followed by curiosity. + +"Is there something you wished to tell me?" he asked. + +"N-no." + +His perplexity and surprise grew. "Wait a second, Boots," he said; and +Mr. Lansing, being a fairly intelligent young man, went out and down the +stairway. + +"Now," he said, too kindly, too soothingly, "what is it, Eileen?" + +"Nothing. I thought--but I don't care. Please go, Captain Selwyn." + +"No, I shall not until you tell me what troubles you." + +"I can't." + +"Try, Eileen." + +"Why, it is nothing; truly it is nothing. . . . Only I was--it is so +early--only a quarter past eight--" + +He stood there looking down at her, striving to understand. + +"That is all," she said, flushing a trifle; "I can't read and I can't +sew and there's nobody here. . . . I don't mean to bother you--" + +"Child," he exclaimed, "do you _want_ me to stay?" + +"Yes," she said; "will you?" + +He walked swiftly to the landing outside and looked down. + +"Boots!" he called in a low voice, "I'm not going home yet. Don't wait +for me at the Lenox." + +"All right," returned Mr. Lansing cheerfully. A moment later the front +door closed below. Then Selwyn came back into the library. + +For an hour he sat there telling her the gayest stories and talking the +most delightful nonsense, alternating with interesting incisions into +serious subjects: which it enchanted her to dissect under his confident +guidance. + +Alert, intelligent, all aquiver between laughter and absorption, she had +sat up among her silken pillows, resting her weight on one rounded arm, +her splendid young eyes fixed on him to detect and follow and interpret +every change in his expression personal to the subject and to her share +in it. + +His old self again! What could be more welcome? Not one shadow in his +pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray aloofness. +How jolly, how young he was after all! + +They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a gesture +a thousand matters of common interest in that swift hour--incredibly +swift, unless the hall clock's deadened chimes were mocking Time itself +with mischievous effrontery. + +She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, listening, +meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed. When the last chime had +sounded she lay back among her cushions. + +"Thank you for staying," she said quite happily. + +"Am I to go?" + +Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows: + +"Where were you going when I--spoiled it all? For you were going +somewhere--out there"--with a gesture toward the darkness +outside--"somewhere where men go to have the good times they always seem +to have. . . . Was it to your club? What do men do there? Is it very gay +at men's clubs? . . . It must be interesting to go where men have such +jolly times--where men gather to talk that mysterious man-talk which we +so often wonder at--and pretend we are indifferent. But we are very +curious, nevertheless--even about the boys of Gerald's age--whom we +laugh at and torment; and we can't help wondering how they talk to each +other--what they say that is so interesting; for they somehow manage to +convey that impression to us--even against our will. . . . If you stay, +I shall never have done with chattering. When you sit there with one +lazy knee so leisurely draped over the other, and your eyes laughing at +me through your cigar-smoke, about a million ideas flash up in me which +I desire to discuss with you. . . . So you had better go." + +"I am happier here," he said, watching her. + +"Really?" + +"Really." + +"Then--then--am _I_, also, one of the 'good times' a man can have?--when +he is at liberty to reflect and choose as he idles over his coffee?" + +"A man is fortunate if you permit that choice." + +"Are you serious? I mean a man, not a boy--not a dance or dinner +partner, or one of the men one meets about--everywhere from pillar to +post. Do you think me interesting to real men?--like you and Boots?" + +"Yes," he said deliberately, "I do. I don't know how interesting, +because--I never quite realised how--how you had matured. . . . That was +my stupidity." + +"Captain Selwyn!" in confused triumph; "you never gave me a chance; I +mean, you always were nice in--in the same way you are to Drina. . . . I +liked it--don't please misunderstand--only I knew there was something +else to me--something more nearly your own age. It was jolly to know you +were really fond of me--but youthful sisters grow faster than you +imagine. . . . And now, when you come, I shall venture to believe it is +not wholly to do me a kindness--but--a little--to do yourself one, too. +Is that not the basis of friendship?" + +"Yes." + +"Community and equality of interests?--isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"--And--in which the--the charity of superior experience and the +inattention of intellectual preoccupation and the amused concession to +ignorance must steadily, if gradually, disappear? Is that it, too?" + +Astonishment and chagrin at his misconception of her gave place to +outright laughter at his own expense. + +"Where on earth did you--I mean that I am quite overwhelmed under your +cutting indictment of me. Old duffers of my age--" + +"Don't say that," she said; "that is pleading guilty to the indictment, +and reverting to the old footing. I shall not permit you to go back." + +"I don't want to, Eileen--" + +"I am wondering," she said airily, "about that 'Eileen.' I'm not sure +but that easy and fluent 'Eileen' is part of the indictment. What do you +call Gladys Orchil, for example?" + +"What do I care what I call anybody?" he retorted, laughing, "as long as +they + + "'Answer to "Hi!" + Or to any loud cry'?" + +"But _I_ won't answer to 'Hi!'" she retorted very promptly; "and now +that you admit that I am a 'good time,' a mature individual with +distinguishing characteristics, and your intellectual equal if not your +peer in experience, I'm not sure that I shall answer at all whenever you +begin 'Eileen.' Or I shall take my time about it--or I may even reflect +and look straight through you before I reply--or," she added, "I may be +so profoundly preoccupied with important matters which do not concern +you, that I might not even hear you speak at all." + +Their light-hearted laughter mingled delightfully--fresh, free, +uncontrolled, peal after peal. She sat huddled up like a schoolgirl, +lovely head thrown back, her white hands clasping her knees; he, both +feet squarely on the floor, leaned forward, his laughter echoing hers. + +"What nonsense! What blessed nonsense you and I are talking!" she said, +"but it has made me quite happy. Now you may go to your club and your +mysterious man-talk--" + +"I don't want to--" + +"Oh, but you must!"--_she_ was now dismissing _him_--"because, although +I am convalescent, I am a little tired, and Nina's maid is waiting to +tuck me in." + +"So you send me away?" + +"_Send_ you--" She hesitated, delightfully confused in the reversal of +roles--not quite convinced of this new power which, of itself, had +seemed to invest her with authority over man. "Yes," she said, "I must +send you away." And her heart beat a little faster in her uncertainty as +to his obedience--then leaped in triumph as he rose with a reluctance +perfectly visible. + +"To-morrow," she said, "I am to drive for the first time. In the evening +I may be permitted to go to the Grays' mid-Lent dance--but not to dance +much. Will you be there? Didn't they ask you? I shall tell Suddy Gray +what I think of him--I don't care whether it's for the younger set +or not! Goodness me, aren't you as young as anybody! . . . Well, +then! . . . So we won't see each other to-morrow. And the day after +that--oh, I wish I had my engagement list. Never mind, I will telephone +you when I'm to be at home--or wherever I'm going to be. But it won't be +anywhere in particular because it's Lent, of course. . . . Good-night, +Captain Selwyn; you've been very sweet to me, and I've enjoyed every +single instant." + +When he had gone she rose, a trifle excited in the glow of abstract +happiness, and walked erratically about, smiling to herself, touching +and rearranging objects that caught her attention. Then an innocent +instinct led her to the mirror, where she stood a moment looking back +into the lovely reflected face with its disordered hair. + +"After all," she said, "I'm not as aged as I pretended. . . . I wonder +if he is laughing at me now. . . . But he was very, very nice to +me--wherever he has gone in quest of that 'good time' and to talk his +man-talk to other men--" + +In a reverie she stood at the mirror considering her own flushed cheeks +and brilliant eyes. + +"What a curiously interesting man he is," she murmured naïvely. "I shall +telephone him that I am not going to that _mi-carême_ dance. . . . +Besides, Suddy Gray is a bore with the martyred smile he's been +cultivating. . . . As though a happy girl would dream of marrying +anybody with all life before her to learn important things in! . . . +And that dreadful, downy Scott Innis--trying to make me listen +to _him_! . . . until I was ashamed to be alive! And Bradley +Harmon--ugh!--and oh, that mushy widower, Percy Draymore, who got hold +of my arm before I dreamed--" + +She shuddered and turned back into the room, frowning and counting her +slow steps across the floor. + +"After all," she said, "their silliness may be their greatest +mystery--but I don't include Captain Selwyn," she added loyally; "he is +far too intelligent to be like other men." + + * * * * * + +Yet, like other men, at that very moment Captain Selwyn was playing the +fizzing contents of a siphon upon the iced ingredients of a tall, thin +glass which stood on a table in the Lenox Club. + +The governor's room being deserted except by himself and Mr. Lansing, he +continued the animated explanation of his delay in arriving. + +"So I stayed," he said to Boots with an enthusiasm quite boyish, "and I +had a perfectly bully time. She's just as clever as she can +be--startling at moments. I never half appreciated her--she formerly +appealed to me in a different way--a young girl knocking at the door of +the world, and no mother or father to open for her and show her the +gimcracks and the freaks and the side-shows. Do you know, Boots, that +some day that girl is going to marry somebody, and it worries me, +knowing men as I do--unless you should think of--" + +"Great James!" faltered Mr. Lansing, "are you turning into a schatschen? +Are you planning to waddle through the world making matches for your +friends? If you are I'm quitting you right here." + +"It's only because you are the decentest man I happen to know," said +Selwyn resentfully. "Probably she'd turn you down, anyway. But--" and he +brightened up, "I dare say she'll choose the best to be had; it's a pity +though--" + +"What's a pity?" + +"That a charming, intellectual, sensitive, innocent girl like that +should be turned over to a plain lump of a man." + +"When you've finished your eulogy on our sex," said Lansing, "I'll walk +home with you." + +"Come on, then; I can talk while I walk; did you think I couldn't?" + +And as they struck through the first cross street toward Lexington +Avenue: "It's a privilege for a fellow to know that sort of a girl--so +many surprises in her--the charmingly unexpected and unsuspected!--the +pretty flashes of wit, the naïve egotism which is as amusing as it is +harmless. . . . I had no idea how complex she is. . . . If you think you +have the simple feminine on your hands--forget it, Boots!--for she's as +evanescent as a helio-flash and as stunningly luminous as a searchlight. +. . . And here I've been doing the benevolent prig, bestowing society +upon her as a man doles out indigestible stuff to a kid, using a sort of +guilty discrimination in the distribution--" + +"What on earth is all this?" demanded Lansing; "are you perhaps _non +compos_, dear friend?" + +"I'm trying to tell you and explain to myself that little Miss Erroll is +a rare and profoundly interesting specimen of a genus not usually too +amusing," he replied with growing enthusiasm. "Of course, Holly Erroll +was her father, and that accounts for something; and her mother seems to +have been a wit as well as a beauty--which helps you to understand; but +the brilliancy of the result--aged nineteen, mind you--is out of all +proportion; cause and effect do not balance. . . . Why, Boots, an +ordinary man--I mean an everyday fellow who dines and dances and does +the harmlessly usual about town, dwindles to anæmic insignificance when +compared to that young girl--even now when she's practically +undeveloped--when her intelligence is like an uncut gem still in the +matrix of inexperience--" + +"Help!" said Boots feebly, attempting to bolt; but Selwyn hooked arms +with him, laughing excitedly. In fact Lansing had not seen his friend in +such excellent spirits for many, many months; and it made him +exceedingly light-hearted, so that he presently began to chant the old +service canticle: + + "I have another, he's just as bad, + He almost drives me crazy--" + +And arm in arm they swung into the dark avenue, singing "Barney Riley" +in resonant undertones, while overhead the chilly little Western stars +looked down through pallid convolutions of moving clouds, and the wind +in the gas-lit avenue grew keener on the street-corners. + +"Cooler followed by clearing," observed Boots in disgust. "Ugh; it's the +limit, this nipping, howling hemisphere." And he turned up his overcoat +collar. + +"I prefer it to a hemisphere that smells like a cheap joss-stick," said +Selwyn. + +"After all, they're about alike," retorted Boots--"even to the ladrones +of Broad Street and the dattos of Wall. . . . And here's our bally +bungalow now," he added, fumbling for his keys and whistling "taps" +under his breath. + +As the two men entered and started to ascend the stairs, a door on the +parlour floor opened and their landlady appeared, enveloped in a soiled +crimson kimona and a false front which had slipped sideways. + +"There's the Sultana," whispered Lansing, "and she's making +sign-language at you. Wig-wag her, Phil. Oh . . . good-evening, Mrs. +Greeve; did you wish to speak to me? Oh!--to Captain Selwyn. Of course." + +"If _you_ please," said Mrs. Greeve ominously, so Lansing continued +upward; Selwyn descended; Mrs. Greeve waved him into the icy parlour, +where he presently found her straightening her "front" with work-worn +fingers. + +"Captain Selwyn, I deemed it my duty to set up in order to inform you of +certain special doin's," she said haughtily. + +"What 'doings'?" he inquired. + +"Mr. Erroll's, sir. Last night he evidentially found difficulty with the +stairs and I seen him asleep on the parlour sofa when I come down to +answer the milkman, a-smokin' a cigar that wasn't lit, with his feet on +the angelus." + +"I'm very, very sorry, Mrs. Greeve," he said--"and so is Mr. Erroll. He +and I had a little talk to-day, and I am sure that he will be more +careful hereafter." + +"There is cigar-holes burned into the carpet," insisted Mrs. Greeve, +"and a mercy we wasn't all insinuated in our beds, one window-pane +broken and the gas a blue an' whistlin' streak with the curtains blowin' +into it an' a strange cat on to that satin dozy-do; the proof being the +repugnant perfume." + +"All of which," said Selwyn, "Mr. Erroll will make every possible amends +for. He is very young, Mrs. Greeve, and very much ashamed, I am sure. So +please don't make it too hard for him." + +She stood, little slippered feet planted sturdily in the first position +in dancing, fat, bare arms protruding from the kimona, her work-stained +fingers linked together in front of her. With a soiled thumb she turned +a ring on her third finger. + +"I ain't a-goin' to be mean to nobody," she said; "my gentlemen is +always refined, even if they do sometimes forget theirselves when young +and sporty. Mr. Erroll is now a-bed, sir, and asleep like a cherub, ice +havin' been served three times with towels, extra. Would you be good +enough to mention the bill to him in the morning?--the grocer bein' +sniffy." And she handed the wadded and inky memorandum of damages to +Selwyn, who pocketed it with a nod of assurance. + +"There was," she added, following him to the door, "a lady here to see +you twice, leavin' no name or intentions otherwise than business affairs +of a pressin' nature." + +"A--lady?" he repeated, halting short on the stairs. + +"Young an' refined, allowin' for a automobile veil." + +"She--she asked for me?" he repeated, astonished. + +"Yes, sir. She wanted to see your rooms. But havin' no orders, Captain +Selwyn--although I must say she was that polite and ladylike and," added +Mrs. Greeve irrelevantly, "a art rocker come for you, too, and another +for Mr. Lansing, which I placed in your respective settin'-rooms." + +"Oh," said Selwyn, laughing in relief, "it's all right, Mrs. Greeve. The +lady who came is my sister, Mrs. Gerard; and whenever she comes you are +to admit her whether or not I am here." + +"She said she might come again," nodded Mrs. Greeve as he mounted the +stairs; "am I to show her up any time she comes?" + +"Certainly--thank you," he called back--"and Mr. Gerard, too, if he +calls." + +He looked into Boots's room as he passed; that gentleman, in bedroom +costume of peculiar exotic gorgeousness, sat stuffing a pipe with shag, +and poring over a mass of papers pertaining to the Westchester Air +Line's property and prospective developments. + +"Come in, Phil," he called out; "and look at the dinky chair somebody +sent me!" But Selwyn shook his head. + +"Come into my rooms when you're ready," he said, and closed the door +again, smiling and turning away toward his own quarters. + +Before he entered, however, he walked the length of the hall and +cautiously tried the handle of Gerald's door. It yielded; he lighted a +match and gazed at the sleeping boy where he lay very peacefully among +his pillows. Then, without a sound, he reclosed the door and withdrew to +his apartment. + +As he emerged from the bedroom in his dressing-gown he heard the front +door-bell below peal twice, but paid no heed, his attention being +concentrated on the chair which Nina had sent him. First he walked +gingerly all around it, then he ventured nearer to examine it in detail, +and presently he tried it. + +"Of course," he sighed--"bless her heart!--it's a perfectly impossible +chair. It squeaks, too." But he was mistaken; the creak came from the +old stairway outside his door, weighted with the tread of Mrs. Greeve. +The tread and the creaking ceased; there came a knock, then heavy +descending footsteps on the aged stairway, every separate step +protesting until the incubus had sunk once more into the depths from +which it had emerged. + +As this happened to be the night for his laundry, he merely called out, +"All right!" and remained incurious, seated in the new chair and +striving to adjust its stiff and narrow architecture to his own broad +shoulders. Finally he got up and filled his pipe, intending to try the +chair once more under the most favourable circumstances. + +As he lighted his pipe there came a hesitating knock at the door; he +jerked his head sharply; the knock was repeated. + +Something--a faintest premonition--the vaguest stirring of foreboding +committed him to silence--and left him there motionless. The match +burned close to his fingers; he dropped it and set his heel upon the +sparks. + +Then he walked swiftly to the door, flung it open full width--and stood +stock still. + +And Mrs. Ruthven entered the room, partly closing the door behind, her +gloved hand still resting on the knob. + +For a moment they confronted one another, he tall, rigid, astounded; she +pale, supple, relaxing a trifle against the half-closed door behind her, +which yielded and closed with a low click. + +At the sound of the closing door he found his voice; it did not resemble +his own voice either to himself or to her; but she answered his +bewildered question: + +"I don't know why I came. Is it so very dreadful? Have I offended +you? . . . I did not suppose that men cared about conventions." + +"But--why on earth--did you come?" he repeated. "Are you in trouble?" + +"I seem to be now," she said with a tremulous laugh; "you are +frightening me to death, Captain Selwyn." + +Still dazed, he found the first chair at hand and dragged it toward her. + +She hesitated at the offer; then: "Thank you," she said, passing before +him. She laid her hand on the chair, looked a moment at him, and sank +into it. + +Resting there, her pale cheek against her muff, she smiled at him, and +every nerve in him quivered with pity. + +"World without end; amen," she said. "Let the judgment of man pass." + +"The judgment of this man passes very gently," he said, looking down at +her. "What brings you here, Mrs. Ruthven?" + +"Will you believe me?" + +"Yes." + +"Then--it is simply the desire of the friendless for a friend. Nothing +else--nothing more subtle, nothing of effrontery; n-nothing worse. Do +you believe me?" + +"I don't understand--" + +"Try to." + +"Do you mean that you have differed with--" + +"Him?" She laughed. "Oh, no; I was talking of real people, not of myths. +And real people are not very friendly to me, always--not that they are +disagreeable, you understand, only a trifle overcordial; and my most +intimate friend kisses me a little too frequently. By the way, she has +quite succumbed to you, I hear." + +"Who do you mean?" + +"Why, Rosamund." + +He said something under his breath and looked at her impatiently. + +"Didn't you know it?" she asked, smiling. + +"Know what?" + +"That Rosamund is quite crazy about you?" + +"Good Lord! Do you suppose that any of the monkey set are interested in +me or I in them?" he said, disgusted. "Do I ever go near them or meet +them at all except by accident in the routine of the machinery which +sometimes sews us in tangent patches on this crazy-quilt called +society?" + +[Illustration: "'I don't know why I came.'"] + +"But Rosamund," she said, laughing, "is now cultivating Mrs. Gerard." + +"What of it?" he demanded. + +"Because," she replied, still laughing, "I tell you, she is perfectly +mad about you. There's no use scowling and squaring your chin. Oh, I +ought to know what that indicates! I've watched you do it often enough; +but the fact is that the handsomest and smartest woman in town is for +ever dinning your perfections into my ears--" + +"I know," he said, "that this sort of stuff passes in your set for wit; +but let me tell you that any man who cares for that brand of humour can +have it any time he chooses. However, he goes outside the residence +district to find it." + +She flushed scarlet at his brutality; he drew up a chair, seated himself +very deliberately, and spoke, his unlighted pipe in his left hand: + +"The girl I left--the girl who left me--was a modest, clean-thinking, +clean-minded girl, who also had a brain to use, and employed it. +Whatever conclusion that girl arrived at concerning the importance of +marriage-vows is no longer my business; but the moment she confronts me +again, offering friendship, then I may use a friend's privilege, as I +do. And so I tell you that loosely fashionable badinage bores me. And +another matter--privileged by the friendship you acknowledge--forces me +to ask you a question, and I ask it, point-blank: Why have you again +permitted Gerald to play cards for stakes at your house, after promising +you would not do so?" + +The colour receded from her face and her gloved fingers tightened on the +arms of her chair. + +"That is one reason I came," she said; "to explain--" + +"You could have written." + +"I say it was _one_ reason; the other I have already given you--because +I--I felt that you were friendly." + +"I am. Go on." + +"I don't know whether you are friendly to me; I thought you were--that +night. . . . I did not sleep a wink after it . . . because I was quite +happy. . . . But now--I don't know--" + +"Whether I am still friendly? Well, I am. So please explain about +Gerald." + +"Are you sure?" raising her dark eyes, "that you mean to be kind?" + +"Yes, sure," he said harshly. "Go on." + +"You are a little rough with me; a-almost insolent--" + +"I--I have to be. Good God! Alixe, do you think this is nothing to +me?--this wretched mess we have made of life! Do you think my roughness +and abruptness comes from anything but pity?--pity for us both, I tell +you. Do you think I can remain unmoved looking on the atrocious +punishment you have inflicted on yourself?--tethered to--to _that_!--for +life!--the poison of the contact showing in your altered voice and +manner!--in the things you laugh at, in the things you live for--in the +twisted, misshapen ideals that your friends set up on a heap of nuggets +for you to worship? Even if we've passed through the sea of mire, can't +we at least clear the filth from our eyes and see straight and steer +straight to the anchorage?" + +She had covered her pallid face with her muff; he bent forward, his hand +on the arm of her chair. + +"Alixe, was there nothing to you, after all? Was it only a tinted ghost +that was blown into my bungalow that night--only a twist of shredded +marsh mist without substance, without being, without soul?--to be blown +away into the shadows with the next and stronger wind--and again to +drift out across the waste places of the world? I thought I knew a +sweet, impulsive comrade of flesh and blood; warm, quick, generous, +intelligent--and very, very young--too young and spirited, perhaps, to +endure the harness which coupled her with a man who failed her--and +failed himself. + +"That she has made another--and perhaps more heart-breaking mistake, is +bitter for me, too--because--because--I have not yet forgotten. And even +if I ceased to remember, the sadness of it must touch me. But I have not +forgotten, and because I have not, I say to you, anchor! and hold fast. +Whatever _he_ does, whatever you suffer, whatever happens, steer +straight on to the anchorage. Do you understand me?" + +Her gloved hand, moving at random, encountered his and closed on it +convulsively. + +"Do you understand?" he repeated. + +"Y-es, Phil." + +Head still sinking, face covered with the silvery fur, the tremors from +her body set her hand quivering on his. + +Heart-sick, he forbore to ask for the explanation; he knew the real +answer, anyway--whatever she might say--and he understood that any game +in that house was Ruthven's game, and the guests his guests; and that +Gerald was only one of the younger men who had been wrung dry in that +house. + +No doubt at all that Ruthven needed the money; he was only a male geisha +for the set that harboured him, anyway--picked up by a big, hard-eyed +woman, who had almost forgotten how to laugh, until she found him +furtively muzzling her diamond-laden fingers. So, when she discovered +that he could sit up and beg and roll over at a nod, she let him follow +her; and since then he had become indispensable and had curled up on +many a soft and silken knee, and had sought and fetched and carried for +many a pretty woman what she herself did not care to touch, even with +white-gloved fingers. + +What had she expected when she married him? Only innocent ignorance of +the set he ornamented could account for the horror of her disillusion. +What splendours had she dreamed of from the outside? What flashing and +infernal signal had beckoned her to enter? What mute eyes had promised? +What silent smile invited? All skulls seem to grin; but the world has +yet to hear them laugh. + + * * * * * + +"Philip?" + +"Yes, Alixe." + +"I did my best, w-without offending Gerald. Can you believe me?" + +"I know you did. . . . Don't mind what I said--" + +"N-no, not now. . . . You do believe me, don't you?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"Thank you. . . . And, Phil, I will try to s-steer straight--because you +ask me." + +"You must." + +"I will. . . . It is good to be here. . . . I must not come again, must +I?" + +"Not again, Alixe." + +"On your account?" + +"On your own. . . . What do _I_ care?" + +"I didn't know. They say--" + +"What?" he asked sharply. + +"A rumour--I heard it--others speak of it--perhaps to be disagreeable to +me--" + +"What have you heard?" + +"That--that you might marry again--" + +"Well, you can nail that lie," he said hotly. + +"Then it is not true?" + +"True! Do you think I'd take that chance again even if I felt free to do +it?" + +"Free?" she faltered; "but you _are_ free, Phil!" + +"I am not," he said fiercely; "no man is free to marry twice under such +conditions. It's a jest at decency and a slap in the face of +civilisation! I'm done for--finished; I had my chance and I failed. Do +you think I consider myself free to try again with the chance of further +bespattering my family?" + +"Wait until you really love," she said tremulously. + +He laughed incredulously. + +"I am glad that it is not true. . . . I am glad," she said. "Oh, Phil! +Phil!--for a single one of the chances we had again and again and +again!--and we did not know--we did not know! And yet--there were +moments--" + +Dry-lipped he looked at her, and dry of eye and lip she raised her head +and stared at him--through him--far beyond at the twin ghosts floating +under the tropic stars locked fast in their first embrace. + +Then she rose, blindly, covering her face with her hands, and he +stumbled to his feet, shrinking back from her--because dead fires were +flickering again, and the ashes of dead roses stirred above the scented +embers--and the magic of all the East was descending like a veil upon +them, and the Phantom of the Past drew nearer, smiling, wide-armed, +crowned with living blossoms. + +The tide rose, swaying her where she stood; her hands fell from her +face. Between them the grave they had dug seemed almost filled with +flowers now--was filling fast. And across it they looked at one another +as though stunned. Then his face paled and he stepped back, staring at +her from stern eyes. + +"Phil," she faltered, bewildered by the mirage, "is it only a bad dream, +after all?" And as the false magic glowed into blinding splendour to +engulf them: "Oh, boy! boy!--is it hell or heaven where we've fallen--?" + +There came a loud rapping at the door. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AFTERGLOW + + +"Phil," she wrote, "I am a little frightened. Do you suppose Boots +suspected who it was? I must have been perfectly mad to go to your rooms +that night; and we both were--to leave the door unlocked with the chance +of somebody walking in. But, Phil, how could I know it was the fashion +for your friends to bang like that and then come in without the excuse +of a response from you? + +"I have been so worried, so anxious, hoping from day to day that you +would write to reassure me that Boots did not recognise me with my back +turned to him and my muff across my eyes. + +"But scared and humiliated as I am I realise that it was well that he +knocked. Even as I write to you here in my own room, behind locked +doors, I am burning with the shame of it. + +"But I am _not_ that kind of woman, Phil; truly, truly, I am not. When +the foolish impulse seized me I had no clear idea of what I wanted +except to see you and learn for myself what you thought about Gerald's +playing at my house after I had promised not to let him. + +"Of course, I understood what I risked in going; I realised what common +interpretation might be put upon what I was doing. But ugly as it might +appear to anybody except you, my motive, you see, must have been quite +innocent--else I should have gone about it in a very different manner. + +"I wanted to see you, that is absolutely all; I was lonely for a +word--even a harsh one--from the sort of man you are. I wanted you to +believe it was in spite of me that Gerald came and played that night. + +"He came without my knowledge. I did not know he was invited. And when +he appeared I did everything to prevent him from playing; _you_ will +never know what took place--what I submitted to-- + +"I am trying to be truthful, Phil; I want to lay my heart bare for +you--but there are things a woman cannot wholly confess. Believe me, I +did what I could. . . . And _that_ is all I can say. Oh, I know what it +costs you to be mixed up in such contemptible complications. I, for my +part, can scarcely bear to have you know so much about me--and what I am +come to. That is my real punishment, Phil--not what you said it was. + +"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about me. It is +not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold front--or to +deceive any man in it. But our own little world is being rapidly +undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in it has seen my gay +mask stripped off--which is not well for a woman, Phil. + +"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these +haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms--for the honour of what +we once were to each other before the world. But steering a ghost-ship +through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind--a +little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel. + +"And now--with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I +draw toward me another sheet--the last I have still unstained; to ask at +last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages--and +for which these pages alone were written: + + "_What_ do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I care; + dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page. + _What_ do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable about Boots, + but that is partly fright--though I know I am safe enough with such + a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so that I cannot bear to + face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear of what _you_ must + think of me in the still, secret places of that heart of yours, + which I never, never understood. ALIXE." + +It was a week before he sent his reply--although he wrote many answers, +each in turn revised, corrected, copied, and recopied, only to be +destroyed in the end. But at last he forced himself to meet truth with +truth, cutting what crudity he could from his letter: + + "You ask me what I think of you; but that question should properly + come from me. What do _you_ think of a man who exhorts and warns a + woman to stand fast, and then stands dumb at the first impact of + temptation? + + "A sight for gods and men--that man! Is there any use for me to + stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I + am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and + it's high time I realised it. + + "If words of commendation, of courage, of kindly counsel, are + needed by anybody in this world, I am not the man to utter them. + What a hypocrite must I seem to you! I who sat there beside you + preaching platitudes in strong self-complacency, instructing you + how morally edifying it is to be good and unhappy. + + "Then, what happened? I don't know exactly; but I'm trying to be + honest, and I'll tell you what I think happened: + + "You are--you; I am--I; and we are still those same two people who + understood neither the impulse that once swept us together, nor the + forces that tore us apart--ah, more than that! we never understood + each other! And we do not now. + + "That is what happened. We were too near together again; the same + spark leaped, the same blindness struck us, the same impulse swayed + us--call it what we will!--and it quickened out of chaos, grew from + nothing into unreasoning existence. It was the terrific menace of + emotion, stunning us both--simply because you are you and I am I. + And that is what happened. + + "We cannot deny it; we may not have believed it possible--or in + fact considered it at all. I did not; I am sure you did not. Yet it + occurred, and we cannot deny it, and we can no more explain or + understand it than we can understand each other. + + "But one thing we do know--not through reason but through sheer + instinct: We cannot venture to meet again--that way. For I, it + seems, am a man like other men except that I lack character; and + you are--_you_! still unchanged--with all the mystery of + attraction, all the magic force of vitality, all the esoteric + subtlety with which you enveloped me the first moment my eyes met + yours. + + "There was no more reason for it then than there is now; and, as + you admit, it was not love--though, as you also admit, there were + moments approaching it. But nothing can have real being without a + basis of reason; and so, whatever it was, it vanished. This, + perhaps, is only the infernal afterglow. + + "As for me, I am, as you are, all at sea, self-confidence gone, + self-faith lost--a very humble person, without conceit, dazed, + perplexed, but still attempting to steer through toward that safe + anchorage which I dared lately to recommend to you. + + "And it is really there, Alixe, despite the fool who recites his + creed so tritely. + + "All this in attempt to bring order into my own mental confusion; + and the result is that I have formulated nothing. + + "So now I end where I began with that question which answers yours + without the faintest suspicion of reproach: What can you think of + such a man as I am? And in the presence of my _second_ failure your + answer must be that you now think what you once thought of him when + you first realised that he had failed you, PHILIP SELWYN." + +That very night brought him her reply: + + "Phil, dear, I do not blame you for one instant. Why do you say you + ever failed in anything? It was entirely my fault. But I am so + happy that you wrote as you did, taking all the blame, which is + like you. I can look into my mirror now--for a moment or two. + + "It is brave of you to be so frank about what you think came over + us. I can discuss nothing, admit nothing; but you always did reason + more clearly than I. Still, whatever spell it was that menaced us I + know very well could not have threatened you seriously; I know it + because you reason about it so logically. So it could have been + nothing serious. Love alone is serious; and it sometimes comes + slowly, sometimes goes slowly; but if you desire it to come + quickly, close your eves! And if you wish it to vanish, _reason + about it_! + + "We are on very safe ground again, Phil; you see we are making + little epigrams about love. + + "Rosamund is impatient--it's a symphony concert, and I must go--the + horrid little cynic!--I half believe she suspects that I'm writing + to you and tearing off yards of sentiment. It is likely I'd do + that, isn't it!--but I don't care what she thinks. Besides, it + behooves her to be agreeable, and she knows that I know it does! + _Voilà_! + + "By the way, I saw Mrs. Gerard's pretty ward at the theatre last + night--Miss Erroll. She certainly is stunning--" + +Selwyn flattened out the letter and deliberately tore out the last +paragraph. Then he set it afire with a match. + +"At least," he said with an ugly look, "I can keep _her_ out of this"; +and he dropped the brittle blackened paper and set his heel on it. Then +he resumed his perusal of the mutilated letter, reread it, and finally +destroyed it. + + "Alixe," he wrote in reply, "we had better stop this letter-writing + before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make mischief might + very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of course, could not + close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so without any fear + that you will fail to understand why I ask it. Will you?" + +To which she replied: + + "Yes, Phil. Good-bye. + + "ALIXE." + +A box of roses left her his debtor; she was too intelligent to +acknowledge them. Besides, matters were going better with her. + +And that was all for a while. + +Meanwhile Lent had gone, and with it the last soiled snow of winter. It +was an unusually early spring; tulips in Union Square appeared +coincident with crocus and snow-drop; high above the city's haze +wavering wedges of wild-fowl drifted toward the Canadas; a golden +perfumed bloom clotted the naked branches of the park shrubs; Japanese +quince burst into crimson splendour; tender chestnut leaves unfolded; +the willows along the Fifty-ninth Street wall waved banners of gilded +green; and through the sunshine battered butterflies floated, and the +wild bees reappeared, scrambling frantically, powdered to the thighs in +the pollen of a million dandelions. + + "Spring, with that nameless fragrance in the air + Which breathes of all things fair," + +sang a young girl riding in the Park. And she smiled to herself as she +guided her mare through the flowering labyrinths. Other notes of the +Southern poet's haunting song stole soundless from her lips; for it was +only her heart that was singing there in the sun, while her silent, +smiling mouth mocked the rushing melody of the birds. + +Behind her, powerfully mounted, ambled the belted groom; she was riding +alone in the golden weather because her good friend Selwyn was very busy +in his office downtown, and Gerald, who now rode with her occasionally, +was downtown also, and there remained nobody else to ride with. Also the +horses were to be sent to Silverside soon, and she wanted to use them as +much as possible while the Park was at its loveliest. + +She, therefore, galloped conscientiously every morning, sometimes with +Nina, but usually alone. And every afternoon she and Nina drove there, +drinking the freshness of the young year--the most beautiful year of her +life, she told herself, in all the exquisite maturity of her +adolescence. + +So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking face +and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring eternal, whose +voiceless melody parted her lips. + +Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their +perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers +of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she +saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers +flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines. + +From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green +fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets the under-wood +world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning +fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big +cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year's +leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this +earthly paradise. + +It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted +her, and wheeling, joined her--a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted, +smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless +and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure. + +"Upon my word," she said gaily, "you are certainly spring incarnate, +Miss Erroll--the living embodiment of all this!" She swung her +riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her perfect teeth. "But +where is that faithful attendant cavalier of yours this morning? Is he +so grossly material that he prefers Wall Street, as does my good lord +and master?" + +"Do you mean Gerald?" asked Eileen innocently, "or Captain Selwyn?" + +"Oh, either," returned Rosamund airily; "a girl should have something +masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that she should +have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come, +D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent--smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me! +All these wretched birds a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin, +lacking even my own Gilpin! Shall we gallop?" + +Eileen nodded. + +When at length they pulled up along the reservoir, Eileen's hair had +rebelled as usual and one bright strand eurled like a circle of ruddy +light across her cheek; but Rosamund drew bridle as immaculate as ever +and coolly inspected her companion. + +"What gorgeous hair," she said, staring. "It's worth a coronet, you +know--if you ever desire one." + +"I don't," said the girl, laughing and attempting to bring the insurgent +curl under discipline. + +"I dare say you're right; coronets are out of vogue among us now. It's +the fashion to marry our own good people. By the way, you are +continuing to astonish the town, I hear." + +"What do you mean, Mrs. Fane?" + +"Why, first it was Sudbury, then Draymore, and how everybody says that +Boots--" + +"Boots!" repeated Miss Erroll blankly, then laughed deliciously. + +"Poor, poor Boots! Did they say _that_ about him? Oh, it really is too +bad, Mrs. Fane; it is certainly horridly impertinent of people to say +such things. My only consolation is that Boots won't care; and if he +doesn't, why should I?" + +Rosamund nodded, crossing her crop. + +"At first, though, I did care," continued the girl. "I was so ashamed +that people should gossip whenever a man was trying to be nice to me--" + +"Pooh! It's always the men's own faults. Don't you suppose the martyr's +silence is noisier than a shriek of pain from the house-tops? I know--a +little about men," added Rosamund modestly, "and they invariably say to +themselves after a final rebuff: 'Now, I'll be patient and brave and +I'll bear with noble dignity this cataclysm which has knocked the world +galley-west for me and loosened the moon in its socket and spoiled the +symmetry of the sun.' And they go about being so conspicuously brave +that any débutante can tell what hurts them." + +Eileen was still laughing, but not quite at her ease--the theme being +too personal to suit her. In fact, there usually seemed to be too much +personality in Rosamund's conversation--a certain artificial +indifference to convention, which she, Eileen, did not feel any desire +to disregard. For the elements of reticence and of delicacy were +inherent in her; the training of a young girl had formalised them into +rules. But since her début she had witnessed and heard so many +violations of convention that now she philosophically accepted such, +when they came from her elders, merely reserving her own convictions in +matters of personal taste and conduct. + +For a while, as they rode, Rosamund was characteristically amusing, +sailing blandly over the shoals of scandal, though Eileen never +suspected it--wittily gay at her own expense, as well as at others, +flitting airily from topic to topic on the wings of a self-assurance +that becomes some women if they know when to stop. But presently the +mischievous perversity in her bubbled up again; she was tired of being +good; she had often meant to try the effect of a gentle shock on Miss +Erroll; and, besides, she wondered just how much truth there might be in +the unpleasantly persistent rumour of the girl's unannounced engagement +to Selwyn. + +"It _would_ be amusing, wouldn't it?" she asked with guileless +frankness; "but, of course, it is not true--this report of their +reconciliation." + +"Whose reconciliation?" asked Miss Erroll innocently. + +"Why, Alixe Ruthven and Captain Selwyn. Everybody is discussing it, you +know." + +"Reconciled? I don't understand," said Eileen, astonished. "They can't +be; how can--" + +"But it _would_ be amusing, wouldn't it? and she could very easily get +rid of Jack Ruthven--any woman could. So if they really mean to +remarry--" + +The girl stared, breathless, astounded, bolt upright in her saddle. + +"Oh!" she protested, while the hot blood mantled throat and cheek, "it +is wickedly untrue. How could such a thing be true, Mrs. Fane! It is--is +so senseless--" + +"That is what I say," nodded Rosamund; "it's so perfectly senseless that +it's amusing--even if they have become such amazingly good friends +again. _I_ never believed there was anything seriously sentimental in +the situation; and their renewed interest in each other is quite the +most frankly sensible way out of any awkwardness," she added cordially. + +Miserably uncomfortable, utterly unable to comprehend, the girl rode on +in silence, her ears ringing with Rosamund's words. And Rosamund, riding +beside her, cool, blond, and cynically amused, continued the theme with +admirable pretence of indifference: + +"It's a pity that ill-natured people are for ever discussing them; and +it makes me indignant, because I've always been very fond of Alixe +Ruthven, and I am positive that she does _not_ correspond with Captain +Selwyn. A girl in her position would be crazy to invite suspicion by +doing the things they say she is doing--" + +"Don't, Mrs. Fane, please, don't!" stammered Eileen; "I--I really can't +listen. I simply will not!" Then bewildered, hurt, and blindly confused +as she was, the instinct to defend flashed up--though from what she was +defending him she did not realise: "It is utterly untrue!" she exclaimed +hotly--"all that yo--all that _they_ say!--whoever they are--whatever +they mean. I cannot understand it--I don't understand, and I will not! +Nor will _he_!" she added with a scornful conviction that disconcerted +Rosamund; "for if you knew him as I do, Mrs. Fane, you would never, +never have spoken as you have." + +Mrs. Fane relished neither the naïve rebuke nor the intimation that her +own acquaintance with Selwyn was so limited; and least of all did she +relish the implied intimacy between this red-haired young girl and +Captain Selwyn. + +"Dear Miss Erroll," she said blandly, "I spoke as I did only to assure +you that I, also, disregard such malicious gossip--" + +"But if you disregard it, Mrs. Fane, why do you repeat it?" + +"Merely to emphasise to you my disbelief in it, child," returned +Rosamund. "Do you understand?" + +"Y-es; thank you. Yet, I should never have heard of it at all if you had +not told me." + +Rosamund's colour rose one degree: + +"It is better to hear such things from a friend, is it not?" + +"I didn't know that one's friends said such things; but perhaps it is +better that way, as you say, only, I cannot understand the necessity of +my knowing--of my hearing--because it is Captain Selwyn's affair, after +all." + +"And that," said Rosamund deliberately, "is why I told _you_." + +"Told _me_? Oh--because he and I are such close friends?" + +"Yes--such very close friends that I"--she laughed--"I am informed that +your interests are soon to be identical." + +The girl swung round, self-possessed, but dreadfully pale. + +"If you believed that," she said, "it was vile of you to say what you +said, Mrs. Fane." + +"But I did _not_ believe it, child!" stammered Rosamund, several +degrees redder than became her, and now convinced that it was true. "I +n-never dreamed of offending you, Miss Erroll--" + +"Do you suppose I am too ignorant to take offence?" said the girl +unsteadily. "I told you very plainly that I did not understand the +matters you chose for discussion; but I do understand impertinence when +I am driven to it." + +"I am very, very sorry that you believe I meant it that way," said +Rosamund, biting her lips. + +"What did you mean? You are older than I, you are certainly experienced; +besides, you are married. If you can give it a gentler name than +insolence I would be glad--for your sake, Mrs. Fane. I only know that +you have spoiled my ride, spoiled the day for me, hurt me, humiliated +me, and awakened, not curiosity, not suspicion, but the horror of it, in +me. You did it once before--at the Minsters' dance; not, perhaps, that +you deliberately meant to; but you did it. And your subject was then, as +it is now, Captain Selwyn--my friend--" + +Her voice became unsteady again and her mouth curved; but she held her +head high and her eyes were as fearlessly direct as a child's. + +"And now," she said calmly, "you know where I stand and what I will not +stand. Natural deference to an older woman, the natural self-distrust of +a girl in the presence of social experience--and under its protection as +she had a right to suppose--prevented me from checking you when your +conversation became distasteful. You, perhaps, mistook my reticence for +acquiescence; and you were mistaken. I am still quite willing to remain +on agreeable terms with you, if you wish, and to forget what you have +done to me this morning." + +If Rosamund had anything left to say, or any breath to say it, there +were no indications of it. Never in her flippant existence had she been +so absolutely flattened by any woman. As for this recent graduate from +fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise how utterly and finally she +had been silenced by her. Incredulity, exasperation, amazement had +succeeded each other while Miss Erroll was speaking; chagrin, shame, +helplessness followed as bitter residue. But, in the end, the very +incongruity of the situation came to her aid; for Rosamund very easily +fell a prey to the absurd--even when the amusement was furnished at her +own expense; and a keen sense of the ridiculous had more than once saved +her dainty skirts from a rumpling that her modesty perhaps might have +forgiven. + +"I'm certainly a little beast," she said impulsively, "but I really do +like you. Will you forgive?" + +No genuine appeal to the young girl's generosity had ever been in vain; +she forgave almost as easily as she breathed. Even now in the flush of +just resentment it was not hard for her to forgive; she hesitated only +in order to adjust matters in her own mind. + +Mrs. Fane swung her horse and held out her right hand: + +"Is it _pax_, Miss Erroll? I'm really ashamed of myself. Won't you +forgive me?" + +"Yes," said the young girl, laying her gloved hand on Rosamund's very +lightly; "I've often thought," she added naïvely, "that I could like +you, Mrs. Fane, if you would only give me a chance." + +"I'll try--you blessed innocent! You've torn me into rags and tatters, +and you did it adorably. What I said was idle, half-witted, gossiping +nonsense. So forget every atom of it as soon as you can, my dear, and +let me prove that I'm not an utter idiot, if _I_ can." + +"That will be delightful," said Eileen with a demure smile; and Rosamund +laughed, too, with full-hearted laughter; for trouble sat very lightly +on her perfect shoulders in the noontide of her strength and youth. Sin +and repentance were rapid matters with Rosamund; cause, effect, and +remorse a quick sequence to be quickly reckoned up, checked off, and +cancelled; and the next blank page turned over to be ruled and filled +with the next impeachment. + +There was, in her, more of mischief than of real malice; and if she did +pinch people to see them wiggle it was partly because she supposed that +the pain would be as momentary as the pinch; for nothing lasted with +her, not even the wiggle. So why should the pain produced by a furtive +tweak interfere with the amusement she experienced in the victim's jump? + +But what had often saved her from a social lynching was her ability to +laugh at her own discomfiture, and her unfeigned liking and respect for +the turning worm. + + * * * * * + +"And, my dear," she said, concluding the account of the adventure to +Mrs. Ruthven that afternoon at Sherry's, "I've never been so roundly +abused and so soundly trounced in my life as I was this blessed morning +by that red-headed novice! Oh, my! Oh, la! I could have screamed with +laughter at my own undoing." + +"It's what you deserved," said Alixe, intensely annoyed, although +Rosamund had not told her all that she had so kindly and gratuitously +denied concerning her relations with Selwyn. "It was sheer effrontery of +you, Rosamund, to put such notions into the head of a child and stir +her up into taking a fictitious interest in Philip Selwyn which I +know--which is perfectly plain to m--to anybody never existed!" + +"Of course it existed!" retorted Rosamund, delighted now to worry Alixe. +"She didn't know it; that is all. It really was simple charity to wake +her up. It's a good match, too, and so obviously and naturally +inevitable that there's no harm in playing prophetess. . . . Anyway, +what do _we_ care, dear? Unless you--" + +"Rosamund!" said Mrs. Ruthven exasperated, "will you ever acquire the +elements of reticence? I don't know why people endure you; I don't, +indeed! And they won't much longer--" + +"Yes, they will, dear; that's what society is for--a protective +association for the purpose of enduring impossible people. . . . I +wish," she added, "that it included husbands, because in some sets it's +getting to be one dreadful case of who's whose. Don't you think so?" + +Alixe, externally calm but raging inwardly, sat pulling on her gloves, +heartily sorry she had lunched with Rosamund. + +The latter, already gloved, had risen and was coolly surveying the room. + +"_Tiens!_" she said, "there is the youthful brother of our red-haired +novice, now. He sees us and he's coming to inflict himself--with another +moon-faced creature. Shall we bolt?" + +Alixe turned and stared at Gerald, who came up boyishly red and +impetuous: + +"How d'ye do, Mrs. Ruthven; did you get my note? How d'ye do, Mrs. Fane; +awf'fly jolly to collide this way. Would you mind if--" + +"You," interrupted Rosamund, "ought to be _down_town--unless you've +concluded to retire and let Wall Street go to smash. What are you +pretending to do in Sherry's at this hour, you very dreadful infant?" + +"I've been lunching with Mr. Neergard--and _would_ you mind--" + +"Yes, I would," began Rosamund, promptly, but Alixe interrupted: "Bring +him over, Gerald." And as the boy thanked her and turned back: + +"I've a word to administer to that boy, Rosamund, so attack the Neergard +creature with moderation, please. You owe me _that_ at least." + +"No, I don't!" said Rosamund, disgusted; "I _won't_ be afflicted with +a--" + +"Nobody wants you to be too civil to him, silly! But Gerald is in his +office, and I want Gerald to do something for me. Please, Rosamund." + +"Oh, well, if you--" + +"Yes, I do. Here he is now; and _don't_ be impossible and frighten him, +Rosamund." + +The presentation of Neergard was accomplished without disaster to +anybody. On his thin nose the dew glistened, and his thick fat hands +were hot; but Rosamund was too bored to be rude to him, and Alixe turned +immediately to Gerald: + +"Yes, I did get your note, but I'm not at home on Tuesday. Can't you +come--wait a moment!--what are you doing this afternoon?" + +"Why, I'm going back to the office with Mr. Neergard--" + +"Nonsense! Oh, Mr. Neergard, _would_ you mind"--very sweetly--"if Mr. +Erroll did not go to the office this afternoon?" + +Neergard looked at her--almost--a fixed and uncomfortable smirk on his +round, red face: "Not at all, Mrs. Ruthven, if you have anything better +for him--" + +"I have--an allopathic dose of it. Thank you, Mr. Neergard. +Rosamund, we ought to start, you know: Gerald!"--with quiet +significance--"_good_-bye, Mr. Neergard. Please do not buy up the rest +of Long Island, because we need a new kitchen-garden very badly." + +Rosamund scarcely nodded his dismissal. And the next moment Neergard +found himself quite alone, standing with the smirk still stamped on his +stiffened features, his hat-brim and gloves crushed in his rigid +fingers, his little black mousy eyes fixed on nothing, as usual. + +A wandering head-waiter thought they were fixed on him and sidled up +hopeful of favours, but Neergard suddenly snarled in his face and moved +toward the door, wiping the perspiration from his nose with the most +splendid handkerchief ever displayed east of Sixth Avenue and west of +Third. + +Mrs. Ruthven's motor moved up from its waiting station; Rosamund was +quite ready to enter when Alixe said cordially: "Where can we drop you, +dear? _Do_ let us take you to the exchange if you are going there--" + +Now Rosamund had meant to go wherever they were going, merely because +they evidently wished to be alone. The abruptness of the check both +irritated and amused her. + +"If I knew anybody in the Bronx I'd make you take me there," she said +vindictively; "but as I don't you may drop me at the Orchils'--you +uncivil creatures. Gerald, I know _you_ want me, anyway, because you've +promised to adore, honour, and obey me. . . . If you'll come with me now +I'll play double dummy with you. No? Well, of all ingratitude! . . . +Thank you, dear, I perceive that this is Fifth Avenue, and furthermore +that this ramshackle chassis of yours has apparently broken down at the +Orchils' curb. . . . Good-bye, Gerald; it never did run smooth, you +know. I mean the course of T.L. as well as this motor. Try to be a good +boy and keep moving; a rolling stone acquires a polish, and you are not +in the moss-growing business, I'm sure--" + +"Rosamund! For goodness' sake!" protested Alixe, her gloved hands at her +ears. + +"Dear!" said Rosamund cheerfully, "take your horrid little boy!" + +And she smiled dazzlingly upon Gerald, then turned up her pretty nose at +him, but permitted him to attend her to the door. + +When he returned to Alixe, and the car was speeding Parkward, he began +again, eagerly: + +"Jack asked me to come up and, of course, I let you know, as I promised +I would. But it's all right, Mrs. Ruthven, because Jack said the stakes +will not be high this time--" + +"You accepted!" demanded Alixe, in quick displeasure. + +"Why, yes--as the stakes are not to amount to anything--" + +"Gerald!" + +"What?" he said uneasily. + +"You promised me that you would not play again in my house!" + +"I--I said, for more than I could afford--" + +"No, you said you would not play; that is what you promised, Gerald." + +"Well, I meant for high stakes; I--well, you don't want to drive me out +altogether--even from the perfectly harmless pleasure of playing for +nominal stakes--" + +"Yes, I do!" + +"W-why?" asked the boy in hurt surprise. + +"Because it is dangerous sport, Gerald--" + +"What! To play for a few cents a point--" + +"Yes, to play for anything. And as far as that goes there will be no +such play as you imagine." + +"Yes, there will--I beg your pardon--but Jack Ruthven said so--" + +"Gerald, listen to me. A bo--a man like yourself has no business playing +with people whose losses never interfere with their appetites next day. +A business man has no right to play such a game, anyway. I wonder what +Mr. Neergard would say if he knew you--" + +"Neergard! Why, he does know." + +"You confessed to him?" + +"Y-es; I had to. I was obliged to--to ask somebody for an advance--" + +"You went to him? Why didn't you go to Captain Selwyn?--or to Mr. +Gerard?" + +"I did!--not to Captain Selwyn--I was ashamed to. But I went to Austin +and he fired up and lit into me--and we had a muss-up--and I've stayed +away since." + +"Oh, Gerald! And it simply proves me right." + +"No, it doesn't; I did go to Neergard and made a clean breast of it. And +he let me have what I wanted like a good fellow--" + +"And made you promise not to do it again!" + +"No, he didn't; he only laughed. Besides, he said that he wished he had +been in the game--" + +"What!" exclaimed Alixe. + +"He's a first-rate fellow," insisted Gerald, reddening; "and it was very +nice of you to let me bring him over to-day. . . . And he knows +everybody downtown, too. He comes from a very old Dutch family, but he +had to work pretty hard and do without college. . . . I'd like it +awfully if you'd let me--if you wouldn't mind being civil to him--once +or twice, you know--" + +Mrs. Ruthven lay back in her seat, thoroughly annoyed. + +"My theory," insisted the boy with generous conviction, "is that a man +is what he makes himself. People talk about climbers and butters-in, but +where would anybody be in this town if nobody had ever butted in? It's +all rot, this aping the caste rules of established aristocracies; a +decent fellow ought to be encouraged. Anyway, I'm going to propose, him +for the Stuyvesant and the Proscenium. Why not?" + +"I see. And now you propose to bring him to my house?" + +"If you'll let me. I asked Jack and he seemed to think it might be all +right if you cared to ask him to play--" + +"I won't!" cried Alixe, revolted. "I will not turn my drawing-rooms into +a clearing-house for every money-laden social derelict in town! I've had +enough of that; I've endured the accumulated wreckage too long!--weird +treasure-craft full of steel and oil and coal and wheat and Heaven knows +what!--I won't do it, Gerald; I'm sick of it all--sick! sick!" + +The sudden, flushed outburst stunned the boy. Bewildered, he stared +round-eyed at the excited young matron who was growing more incensed and +more careless of what she exposed every second: + +"I will not make a public gambling-hell out of my own house!" she +repeated, dark eyes very bright and cheeks afire; "I will not continue +to stand sponsor for a lot of queer people simply because they don't +care what they lose in Mrs. Ruthven's house! You babble to me of limits, +Gerald; this is the limit! Do you--or does anybody else suppose that I +don't know what is being said about us?--that play is too high in our +house?--that we are not too difficile in our choice of intimates as long +as they can stand the pace!" + +"I--I never believed that," insisted the boy, miserable to see the tears +flash in her eyes and her mouth quiver. + +"You may as well believe it for it's true!" she said, exasperated. + +"T-true!--Mrs. Ruthven!" + +"Yes, true, Gerald! I--I don't care whether you know it; I don't care, +as long as you stay away. I'm sick of it all, I tell you. Do you think I +was educated for this?--for the wife of a chevalier of industry--" + +"M-Mrs. Ruthven!" he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless now--and +beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy's honour. She knew +he was to be trusted--was the safest receptacle for wrath so long +repressed. She let prudence go with a parting and vindictive slap, and +opened her heart to the astounded boy. The tempest lasted a few seconds; +then she ended as abruptly as she began. + +To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is to a +well-bred but hare-brained youth just untethered. Their acquaintance +had been for him a combination of charming experiences diluted with +gratitude for her interest and a harmless _soupçon_ of sentimentality. +In her particular case, however, there was a little something more--a +hint of the forbidden--a troubled enjoyment, because he knew, of course, +that Mrs. Ruthven was on no footing at all with the Gerards. So in her +friendship he savoured a piquancy not at all distasteful to a very young +man's palate. + +But now!--he had never, never seen her like this--nor any woman, for +that matter--and he did not know where to look or what to do. + +She was sitting back in the limousine, very limp and flushed; and the +quiver of her under lip and the slightest dimness of her averted brown +eyes distressed him dreadfully. + +"Dear Mrs. Ruthven," he blurted out with clumsy sympathy, "you mustn't +think such things, b-because they're all rot, you see; and if any fellow +ever said those things to me I'd jolly soon--" + +"Do you mean to say you've never heard us criticised?" + +"I--well--everybody is--criticised, of course--" + +"But not as we are! Do you read the papers? Well, then, do you +understand how a woman must feel to have her husband continually made +the butt of foolish, absurd, untrue stories--as though he were a +performing poodle! I--I'm sick of that, too, for another thing. Week +after week, month by month, unpleasant things have been accumulating; +and they're getting too heavy, Gerald--too crushing for my +shoulders. . . . Men call me restless. What wonder! Women link my name +with any man who is k-kind to me! Is there no excuse then for what they +call my restlessness? . . . What woman would not be restless whose +private affairs are the gossip of everybody? Was it not enough that I +endured terrific publicity when--when trouble overtook me two years +ago? . . . I suppose I'm a fool to talk like this; but a girl must do it +some time or burst!--and to whom am I to go? . . . There was only one +person; and I can't talk to--that one; he--that person knows too much +about me, anyway; which is not good for a woman, Gerald, not good for a +good woman. . . . I mean a pretty good woman; the kind people's sisters +can still talk to, you know. . . . For I'm nothing more interesting than +a _divorcée_, Gerald; nothing more dangerous than an unhappy little +fool. . . . I wish I were. . . . But I'm still at the wheel! . . . A +man I know calls it hard steering but assures me that there's anchorage +ahead. . . . He's a splendid fellow, Gerald; you ought to know +him--well--some day; he's just a clean-cut, human, blundering, erring, +unreasonable,lovable man whom any woman, who is not a fool herself, +could manage. . . . Some day I should like to have you know +him--intimately. He's good for people of your sort--even good for a +restless, purposeless woman of my sort. Peace to him!--if there's any +in the world. . . . Turn your back; I'm sniveling." + +A moment afterward she had calmed completely; and now she stole a +curious side glance at the boy and blushed a little when he looked back +at her earnestly. Then she smiled and quietly withdrew the hand he had +been holding so tightly in both of his. + +"So there we are, my poor friend," she concluded with a shrug; "the old +penny shocker, you know, 'Alone in a great city!'--I've dropped my +handkerchief." + +"I want you to believe me your friend," said Gerald, in the low, +resolute voice of unintentional melodrama. + +"Why, thank you; are you so sure you want that, Gerald?" + +"Yes, as long as I live!" he declared, generous emotion in the +ascendant. A pretty woman upset him very easily even under normal +circumstances. But beauty in distress knocked him flat--as it does every +wholesome boy who is worth his salt. + +And he said so in his own naïve fashion; and the more eloquent he grew +the more excited he grew and the deeper and blacker appeared her wrongs +to him. + +At first she humoured him, and rather enjoyed his fresh, eager sympathy; +after a little his increasing ardour inclined her to laugh; but it was +very splendid and chivalrous and genuine ardour, and the inclination to +laugh died out, for emotion is contagious, and his earnestness not only +flattered her legitimately but stirred the slackened tension of her +heart-strings until, tightening again, they responded very faintly. + +"I had no idea that _you_ were lonely," he declared. + +"Sometimes I am, a little, Gerald." She ought to have known better. +Perhaps she did. + +"Well," he began, "couldn't I come and--" + +"No, Gerald." + +"I mean just to see you sometimes and have another of these jolly +talks--" + +"Do you call this a jolly talk?"--with deep reproach. + +"Why--not exactly; but I'm awfully interested, Mrs. Ruthven, and we +understand each other so well--" + +"I don't understand _you_", she was imprudent enough to say. + +This was delightful! Certainly he must be a particularly sad and subtle +dog if this clever but misunderstood young matron found him what in +romance is known as an "enigma." + +So he protested with smiling humility that he was quite transparent; she +insisted on doubting him and contrived to look disturbed in her mind +concerning the probable darkness of that past so dear to any young man +who has had none. + +As for Alixe, she also was mildly flattered--a trifle disdainfully +perhaps, but still genuinely pleased at the honesty of this crude +devotion. She was touched, too; and, besides, she trusted him; for he +was clearly as transparent as the spring air. Also most women lugged a +boy about with them; she had had several, but none as nice as Gerald. To +tie him up and tack his license on was therefore natural to her; and if +she hesitated to conclude his subjection in short order it was that, far +in a corner of her restless soul, there hid an ever-latent fear of +Selwyn; of his opinions concerning her fitness to act mentor to the boy +of whom he was fond, and whose devotion to him was unquestioned. + +Yet now, in spite of that--perhaps even partly because of it, she +decided on the summary taming of Gerald; so she let her hand fall, by +accident, close to his on the cushioned seat, to see what he'd do about +it. + +It took him some time to make up his mind; but when he did he held it so +gingerly, so respectfully, that she was obliged to look out of the +window. Clearly he was quite the safest and nicest of all the unfledged +she had ever possessed. + +"Please, don't," she said sadly. + +And by that token she took him for her own. + + * * * * * + +She was very light-hearted that evening when she dropped him at the +Stuyvesant Club and whizzed away to her own house, for he had promised +not to play again on her premises, and she had promised to be nice to +him and take him about when she was shy of an escort. She also repeated +that he was truly an "enigma" and that she was beginning to be a little +afraid of him, which was an economical way of making him very proud and +happy. Being his first case of beauty in distress, and his first +harmless love-affair with a married woman, he looked about him as he +entered the club and felt truly that he had already outgrown the young +and callow innocents who haunted it. + + * * * * * + +On her way home Alixe smilingly reviewed the episode until doubt of +Selwyn's approval crept in again; and her amused smile had faded when +she reached her home. + +The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone affair, +between Madison and Fifth; a pocket-edition of the larger mansions of +their friends, but with less excuse for the overelaboration since the +dimensions were only twenty by a hundred. As a matter of fact its narrow +ornate facade presented not a single quiet space the eyes might rest on +after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, +and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as +"near-aissance." + +However, into this limestone bonbon-box tripped Mrs. Ruthven, mounted +the miniature stairs with a whirl of her scented skirts, peeped into the +drawing-room, but continued mounting until she whipped into her own +apartments, separated from those of her lord and master by a locked +door. + +That is, the door had been locked for a long, long time; but presently, +to her intense surprise and annoyance, it slowly opened, and a little +man appeared in slippered feet. + +He was a little man, and plump, and at first glance his face appeared +boyish and round and quite guiltless of hair or of any hope of it. + +But, as he came into the electric light, the hardness of his features +was apparent; he was no boy; a strange idea that he had never been +assailed some people. His face was puffy and pallid and faint blue +shadows hinted of closest shaving; and the line from the wing of the +nostrils to the nerveless corners of his thin, hard mouth had been +deeply bitten by the acid of unrest. + +For the remainder he wore pale-rose pajamas under a silk-and-silver +kimona, an obi pierced with a jewelled scarf-pin; and he was smoking a +cigarette as thin as a straw. + +"Well!" said his young wife in astonished displeasure, instinctively +tucking her feet--from which her maid had just removed the shoes--under +her own chamber-robe. + +"Send her out a moment," he said, with a nod of his head toward the +maid. His voice was agreeable and full--a trifle precise and +overcultivated, perhaps. + +When the maid retired, Alixe sat up on the lounge, drawing her skirts +down over her small stockinged feet. + +"What on earth is the matter?" she demanded. + +"The matter is," he said, "that Gerald has just telephoned me from the +Stuyvesant that he isn't coming." + +"Well?" + +"No, it isn't well. This is some of your meddling." + +"What if it is?" she retorted; but her breath was coming quicker. + +"I'll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you expect +him to-night." + +She shook her head, eyeing him all the while. + +"I won't do it, Jack. What do you want him for? He can't play with the +people who play here; he doesn't know the rudiments of play. He's only a +boy; his money is so tied up that he has to borrow if he loses very +much. There's no sport in playing with a boy like that--" + +"So you've said before, I believe, but I'm better qualified to judge +than you are. Are you going to call him up?" + +"No, I am not." + +He turned paler. "Get up and go to that telephone!" + +"You little whippet," she said slowly, "I was once a soldier's wife--the +only decent thing I ever have been. This bullying ends now--here, at +this instant! If you've any dirty work to do, do it yourself. I've done +my share and I've finished." + +He was astonished; that was plain enough. But it was the sudden +overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, hand +outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair. Rage, even real anger, were +emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a very tired and bored +and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion was not good for his +arteries, the doctors told him. + +He found his chair, stood a moment with his back toward his wife, then +very slowly let himself down into the chair and sat facing her. There +was moisture on his soft, pallid skin, a nervous twitching of the under +lip; he passed one heavily ringed hand across his closely shaven jaw, +still staring at her. + +"I want to tell you something," he said. "You've got to stop your +interference with my affairs, and stop it now." + +"I am not interested in your affairs," she said unsteadily, still shaken +by her own revolt, still under the shock of her own arousing to a +resistance that had been long, long overdue. "If you mean," she went on, +"that the ruin of this boy is your affair, then I'll make it mine from +this moment. I've told you that he shall not play; and he shall not. And +while I'm about it I'll admit what you are preparing to accuse me of; I +_did_ make Sandon Craig promise to keep away; I _did_ try to make that +little fool Scott Innis promise, too; and when he wouldn't I informed +his father. . . . And every time you try your dirty bucket-shop methods +on boys like that, I'll do the same." + +He swore at her quite calmly; she smiled, shrugged, and, imprisoning her +knees in her clasped hands, leaned back and looked at him. + +"What a ninny I have been," she said, "to be afraid of you so long!" + +A gleam crossed his faded eyes, but he let her remark pass for the +moment. Then, when he was quite sure that violent emotion had been +exhausted within him: + +"Do you want your bills paid?" he asked. "Because, if you do, Fane, +Harmon & Co. are not going to pay them." + +"We are living beyond our means?" she inquired disdainfully. + +"Not if you will be good enough to mind your business, my friend. I've +managed this establishment on our winnings for two years. It's a detail; +but you might as well know it. My association with Fane, Harmon & Co. +runs the Newport end of it, and nothing more." + +"What did you marry me for?" she asked curiously. + +A slight colour came into his face: "Because that damned Rosamund Fane +lied about you." + +"Oh! . . . You knew that in Manila? You'd heard about it, hadn't +you--the Western timber-lands? Rosamund didn't mean to lie--only the +titles were all wrong, you know. . . . And so you made a bad break, +Jack; is that it?" + +"Yes, that is it." + +"And it cost you a fortune, and me a--husband. Is that it, my friend?" + +"I can afford you if you will stop your meddling," he said coolly. + +"I see; I am to stop my meddling and you are to continue your downtown +gambling in your own house in the evenings." + +"Precisely. It happens that I am sufficiently familiar with the +stock-market to make a decent living out of the Exchange; and it also +happens that I am sufficiently fortunate with cards to make the pleasure +of playing fairly remunerative. Any man who can put up proper margin has +a right to my services; any man whom I invite and who can take up his +notes, has a right to play under my roof. If his note goes to protest, +he forfeits that right. Now will you kindly explain to yourself exactly +how this matter can be of any interest to you?" + +"I have explained it," she said wearily. "Will you please go, now?" + +He sat a moment, then rose: + +"You make a point of excluding Gerald?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well; I'll telephone Draymore. And"--he looked back from the door +of his own apartments--"I got Julius Neergard on the wire this afternoon +and he'll dine with us." + +He gathered up his shimmering kimona, hesitated, halted, and again +looked back. + +"When you're dressed," he drawled, "I've a word to say to you about the +game to-night, and another about Gerald." + +"I shall not play," she retorted scornfully, "nor will Gerald." + +"Oh, yes, you will--and play your best, too. And I'll expect him next +time." + +"I shall not play!" + +He said deliberately: "You will not only play, but play cleverly; and in +the interim, while dressing, you will reflect how much more agreeable it +is to play cards here than the fool at ten o'clock at night in the +bachelor apartments of your late lamented." + +And he entered his room; and his wife, getting blindly to her feet, +every atom of colour gone from lip and cheek, stood rigid, both small +hands clutching the foot-board of the gilded bed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE UNEXPECTED + + +Differences of opinion between himself and Neergard concerning the +ethics of good taste involved in forcing the Siowitha Club matter, +Gerald's decreasing attention to business and increasing intimacy with +the Fane-Ruthven coterie, began to make Selwyn very uncomfortable. The +boy's close relations with Neergard worried him most of all; and though +Neergard finally agreed to drop the Siowitha matter as a fixed policy in +which Selwyn had been expected to participate at some indefinite date, +the arrangement seemed only to cement the man's confidential +companionship with Gerald. + +This added to Selwyn's restlessness; and one day in early spring he had +a long conference with Gerald--a most unsatisfactory one. Gerald, for +the first time, remained reticent; and when Selwyn, presuming on the +cordial understanding between them, pressed him a little, the boy turned +sullen; and Selwyn let the matter drop very quickly. + +But neither tact nor caution seemed to serve now; Gerald, more and more +engrossed in occult social affairs of which he made no mention to +Selwyn, was still amiable and friendly, even at times cordial and +lovable; but he was no longer frank or even communicative; and Selwyn, +fearing to arouse him again to sullenness or perhaps even to suspicious +defiance, forbore to press him beyond the most tentative advances +toward the regaining of his confidence. + +This, very naturally, grieved and mortified the elder man; but what +troubled him still more was that Gerald and Neergard were becoming so +amazingly companionable; for it was easy to see that they had in common +a number of personal interests which he did not share, and that their +silence concerning these interests amounted to a secrecy almost +offensive. + +Again and again, coming unexpectedly upon them, he noticed that their +confab ceased with his appearance. Often, too, glances of warning +intelligence passed between them in his presence, which, no doubt, they +supposed were unnoticed by him. + +They left the office together frequently, now; they often lunched +uptown. Whether they were in each other's company evenings, Selwyn did +not know, for Gerald no longer volunteered information as to his +whereabouts or doings. And all this hurt Selwyn, and alarmed him, too, +for he was slowly coming to the conclusion that he did not like +Neergard, that he would never sign articles of partnership with him, and +that even his formal associateship with the company was too close a +relation for his own peace of mind. But on Gerald's account he stayed +on; he did not like to leave the boy alone for his sister's sake as well +as for his own. + +Matters drifted that way through early spring. He actually grew to +dislike both Neergard and the business of Neergard & Co.--for no one +particular reason, perhaps, but in general; though he did not yet care +to ask himself to be more precise in his unuttered criticisms. + +However, detail and routine, the simpler alphabet of the business, +continued to occupy him. He consulted both Neergard and Gerald as usual; +they often consulted him or pretended to do so. Land was bought and +sold and resold, new projects discussed, new properties appraised, new +mortgage loans negotiated; and solely because of his desire to remain +near Gerald, this sort of thing might have continued indefinitely. But +Neergard broke his word to him. + +And one morning, before he left his rooms at Mrs. Greeve's lodgings to +go downtown, Percy Draymore called him up on the telephone; and as that +overfed young man's usual rising hour was notoriously nearer noon than +eight o'clock, it surprised Selwyn to be asked to remain in his rooms +for a little while until Draymore and one or two friends could call on +him personally concerning a matter of importance. + +He therefore breakfasted leisurely; and he was still scanning the real +estate columns of a morning paper when Mrs. Greeve came panting to his +door and ushered in a file of rather sleepy but important looking +gentlemen, evidently unaccustomed to being abroad so early, and bored to +death with their experience. + +They were men he knew only formally, or, at best, merely as fellow club +members; men whom he met when a dance or dinner took him out of the less +pretentious sets he personally affected; men whom the newspapers and the +public knew too well to speak of as "well known." + +First there was Percy Draymore, overgroomed for a gentleman, fat, +good-humoured, and fashionable--one of the famous Draymore family noted +solely for their money and their tight grip on it; then came Sanxon +Orchil, the famous banker and promoter, small, urbane, dark, with that +rich almost oriental coloring which he may have inherited from his +Cordova ancestors who found it necessary to dehumanise their names when +Rome offered them the choice with immediate eternity as alternative. + +Then came a fox-faced young man, Phoenix Mottly, elegant arbiter of all +pertaining to polo and the hunt--slim-legged, hatchet-faced--and more +presentable in the saddle than out of it. He was followed by Bradley +Harmon, with his washed-out colouring of a consumptive Swede and his +corn-coloured beard; and, looming in the rear like an amiable +brontasaurus, George Fane, whose swaying neck carried his head as a +camel carries his, nodding as he walks. + +"Well!" said Selwyn, perplexed but cordial as he exchanged amenities +with each gentleman who entered, "this is a killing combination of +pleasure and mortification--because I haven't any more breakfast to +offer you unless you'll wait until I ring for the Sultana--" + +"Breakfast! Oh, damn! I've breakfasted on a pill and a glass of vichy +for ten years," protested Draymore, "and the others either have +swallowed their cocktails, or won't do it until luncheon. I say, Selwyn, +you must think this a devilishly unusual proceeding." + +"Pleasantly unusual, Draymore. Is this a delegation to tend me the +nomination for the down-and-out club, perhaps?" + +Fane spoke up languidly: "It rather looks as though we were the +down-and-out delegation at present; doesn't it, Orchil?" + +"I don't know," said Orchil; "it seems a trifle more promising to me +since I've had the pleasure of seeing Captain Selwyn face to face. Go +on, Percy; let the horrid facts be known." + +"Well--er--oh, hang it all!" blurted out Draymore, "we heard last night +how that fellow--how Neergard has been tampering with our farmers--what +underhand tricks he has been playing us; and I frankly admit to you +that we're a worried lot of near-sports. That's what this dismal matinee +signifies; and we've come to ask you what it all really means." + +"We lost no time, you see," added Orchil, caressing the long pomaded +ends of his kinky moustache and trying to catch a glimpse of them out of +his languid oriental eyes. He had been trying to catch this glimpse for +thirty years; he was a persistent man with plenty of leisure. + +"We lost no time," repeated Draymore, "because it's a devilish unsavoury +situation for us. The Siowitha Club fully realises it, Captain Selwyn, +and its members--some of 'em--thought that perhaps--er--you--ah--being +the sort of man who can--ah--understand the sort of language we +understand, it might not be amiss to--to--" + +"Why did you not call on Mr. Neergard?" asked Selwyn coolly. Yet he was +taken completely by surprise, for he did not know that Neergard had gone +ahead and secured options on his own responsibility--which practically +amounted to a violation of the truce between them. + +Draymore hesitated, then with the brutality characteristic of the +overfed: "I don't give a damn, Captain Selwyn, what Neergard thinks; but +I do want to know what a gentleman like yourself, accidentally +associated with that man, thinks of this questionable proceeding." + +"Do you mean by 'questionable proceeding' your coming here?--or do you +refer to the firm's position in this matter?" asked Selwyn sharply. +"Because, Draymore, I am not very widely experienced in the customs and +usages of commercial life, and I do not know whether it is usual for an +associate member of a firm to express, unauthorised, his views on +matters concerning the firm to any Tom, Dick, and Harry who questions +him." + +"But you know what is the policy of your own firm," suggested Harmon, +wincing, and displaying his teeth under his bright red lips; "and all we +wish to know is, what Neergard expects us to pay for this rascally +lesson in the a-b-c of Long Island realty." + +"I don't know," replied Selwyn, bitterly annoyed, "what Mr. Neergard +proposes to do. And if I did I should refer you to him." + +"May I ask," began Orchil, "whether the land will be ultimately for +sale?" + +"Oh, everything's always for sale," broke in Mottly impatiently; "what's +the use of asking that? What you meant to inquire was the price we're +expected to pay for this masterly squeeze in realty." + +"And to that," replied Selwyn more sharply still, "I must answer again +that I don't know. I know nothing about it; I did not know that Mr. +Neergard had acquired control of the property; I don't know what he +means to do with it. And, gentlemen, may I ask why you feel at liberty +to come to me instead of to Mr. Neergard?" + +"A desire to deal with one of our own kind, I suppose," returned +Draymore bluntly. "And, for that matter," he said, turning to the +others, "we might have known that Captain Selwyn could have had no hand +in and no knowledge of such an underbred and dirty--" + +Harmon plucked him by the sleeve, but Draymore shook him off, his little +piggish eyes sparkling. + +"What do I care!" he sneered, losing his temper; "we're in the clutches +of a vulgar, skinflint Dutchman, and he'll wring _us_ dry whether or +not we curse _him_ out. Didn't I tell you that Philip Selwyn had nothing +to do with it? If he had, and I was wrong, our journey here might as +well have been made to Neergard's office. For any man who will do such a +filthy thing--" + +"One moment, Draymore," cut in Selwyn; and his voice rang unpleasantly; +"if you are simply complaining because you have been outwitted, go +ahead; but if you think there has been any really dirty business in this +matter, go to Mr. Neergard. Otherwise, being his associate, I shall not +only decline to listen but also ask you to leave my apartments." + +"Captain Selwyn is perfectly right," observed Orchil coolly. "Do you +think, Draymore, that it is very good taste in you to come into a man's +place and begin slanging and cursing a member of his firm for crooked +work?" + +"Besides," added Mottly, "it's not crooked; it's only contemptible. +Anyway, we know with whom we have to deal, now; but some of you fellows +must do the dealing--I'd rather pay and keep away than ask Neergard to +go easy--and have him do it." + +"I don't know," said Fane, grinning his saurian grin, "why you all +assume that Neergard is such a social outcast. I played cards with him +last week and he lost like a gentleman." + +"I didn't say he was a social outcast," retorted Mottly--"because he's +never been inside of anything to be cast out, you know." + +"He seems to be inside this deal," ventured Orchil with his suave smile. +And to Selwyn, who had been restlessly facing first one, then another: +"We came--it was the idea of several among us--to put the matter up to +you. Which was rather foolish, because you couldn't have engineered the +thing and remained what we know you to be. So--" + +"Wait!" said Selwyn brusquely; "I do not admit for one moment that there +is anything dishonourable in this deal!--nor do I accept your right to +question it from that standpoint. As far as I can see, it is one of +those operations which is considered clever among business folk, and +which is admired and laughed over in reputable business circles. And I +have no doubt that hundreds of well-meaning business men do that sort of +thing daily--yes, thousands!" He shrugged his broad shoulders. +"Because I personally have not chosen to engage in matters of +this--ah--description, is no reason for condemning the deal or its +method--" + +"Every reason!" said Orchil, laughing cordially--"_every_ reason, +Captain Selwyn. Thank you; we know now exactly where we stand. It was +very good of you to let us come, and I'm sorry some of us had the bad +taste to show any temper--" + +"He means me," added Draymore, offering his hand; "good-bye, Captain +Selwyn; I dare say we are up against it hard." + +"Because we've got to buy in that property or close up the Siowitha," +added Mottly, coming over to make his adieux. "By the way, Selwyn, you +ought to be one of us in the Siowitha--" + +"Thank you, but isn't this rather an awkward time to suggest it?" said +Selwyn good-humouredly. + +Fane burst into a sonorous laugh and wagged his neck, saying: "Not at +all! Not at all! Your reward for having the decency to stay out of the +deal is an invitation from us to come in and be squeezed into a jelly by +Mr. Neergard. Haw! Haw!" + +And so, one by one, with formal or informal but evidently friendly +leave-taking, they went away. And Selwyn followed them presently, +walking until he took the Subway at Forty-second Street for his office. + +As he entered the elaborate suite of rooms he noticed some bright new +placards dangling from the walls of the general office, and halted to +read them: + + "WHY PAY RENT! + +What would you say if we built a house for you in Beautiful Siowitha +Park and gave you ten years to pay for it! + + If anybody says + + YOU ARE A FOOL! + +to expect this, refer him to us and we will answer him according to his +folly. + + TO PAY RENT + +when you might own a home in Beautiful Siowitha Park, is not wise. We +expect to furnish plans, or build after your own plans. + + All City Improvements + Are Contemplated! + Map and Plans of + Beautiful Siowitha Park + Will probably be ready + In the Near Future. + + Julius Neergard & Co. + Long Island Real Estate." + +Selwyn reddened with anger and beckoned to a clerk: + +"Is Mr. Neergard in his office?" + +"Yes, sir, with Mr. Erroll." + +"Please say that I wish to see him." + +He went into his own office, pocketed his mail, and still wearing hat +and gloves came out again just as Gerald was leaving Neergard's office. + +"Hello, Gerald!" he said pleasantly; "have you anything on for +to-night?" + +"Y-es," said the hoy, embarrassed--"but if there is anything I can do +for you--" + +"Not unless you are free for the evening," returned the other; "are +you?" + +"I'm awfully sorry--" + +"Oh, all right. Let me know when you expect to be free--telephone me at +my rooms--" + +"I'll let you know when I see you here to-morrow," said the boy; but +Selwyn shook his head: "I'm not coming here to-morrow, Gerald"; and he +walked leisurely into Neergard's office and seated himself. + +"So you have committed the firm to the Siowitha deal?" he inquired +coolly. + +Neergard looked up--and then past him: "No, not the firm. You did not +seem to be interested in the scheme, so I went on without you. I'm +swinging it for my personal account." + +"Is Mr. Erroll in it?" + +"I said that it was a private matter," replied Neergard, but his manner +was affable. + +"I thought so; it appears to me like a matter quite personal to you and +characteristic of you, Mr. Neergard. And that being established, I am +now ready to dissolve whatever very loose ties have ever bound me in any +association with this company and yourself." + +Neergard's close-set black eyes shifted a point nearer to Selwyn's; the +sweat on his nose glistened. + +"Why do you do this?" he asked slowly. "Has anybody offended you?" + +"Do you _really_ wish to know?" + +"Yes, I certainly do, Captain Selwyn." + +"Very well; it's because I don't like your business methods, I don't +like--several other things that are happening in this office. It's +purely a difference of views; and that is enough explanation, Mr. +Neergard." + +"I think our views may very easily coincide--" + +"You are wrong; they could not. I ought to have known that when I came +back here. And now I have only to thank you for receiving me, at my own +request, for a six months' trial, and to admit that I am not qualified +to co-operate with this kind of a firm." + +"That," said Neergard angrily, "amounts to an indictment of the firm. If +you express yourself in that manner outside, the firm will certainly +resent it!" + +"My personal taste will continue to govern my expressions, Mr. Neergard; +and I believe will prevent any further business relations between us. +And, as we never had any other kind of relations, I have merely to +arrange the details through an attorney." + +Neergard looked after him in silence; the tiny beads of sweat on his +nose united and rolled down in a big shining drop, and the sneer etched +on his broad and brightly mottled features deepened to a snarl when +Selwyn had disappeared. + +For the social prestige which Selwyn's name had brought the firm, he had +patiently endured his personal dislike and contempt for the man after he +found he could do nothing with him in any way. + +He had accepted Selwyn purely in the hope of social advantage, and with +the knowledge that Selwyn could have done much for him after business +hours; if not from friendship, at least from interest, or a lively sense +of benefits to come. For that reason he had invited him to participate +in the valuable Siowitha deal, supposing a man as comparatively poor as +Selwyn would not only jump at the opportunity, but also prove +sufficiently grateful later. And he had been amazed and disgusted at +Selwyn's attitude. But he had not supposed the man would sever his +connection with the firm if he, Neergard, went ahead on his own +responsibility. It astonished and irritated him; it meant, instead of +selfish or snobbish indifference to his own social ambitions, an enemy +to block his entrance into what he desired--the society of those made +notorious in the columns of the daily press. + +For Neergard cared only for the notorious in the social scheme; nothing +else appealed to him. He had, all his life, read with avidity of the +extravagances, the ostentation, the luxurious effrontery, the thinly +veiled viciousness of what he believed to be society, and he craved it +from the first, working his thick hands to the bone in dogged +determination to one day participate in and satiate himself with the +easy morality of what he read about in his penny morning paper--in the +days when even a penny was to be carefully considered. + +That was what he wanted from society--the best to be had in vice. That +was why he had denied himself in better days. It was for that he hoarded +every cent while actual want sharpened his wits and his thin nose; it +was in that hope that he received Selwyn so cordially as a possible +means of entrance into regions he could not attain unaided; it was for +that reason he was now binding Gerald to him through remission of +penalties for slackness, through loans and advances, through a +companionship which had already landed him in the Ruthven's card-room, +and promised even more from Mr. Fane, who had won his money very easily. + +For Neergard did not care how he got in, front door or back door, +through kitchen or card-room, as long as he got in somehow. All he +desired was the chance to use opportunity in his own fashion, and wring +from the forbidden circle all and more than they had unconsciously wrung +from him in the squalid days of a poverty for which no equality he might +now enjoy, no liberty of license, no fraternity in dissipation, could +wholly compensate. + +He was fairly on the outer boundary now, though still very far outside. +But a needy gentleman inside was already compromised and practically +pledged to support him; for his meeting with Jack Ruthven through Gerald +had proven of greatest importance. He had lost gracefully to Ruthven; +and in doing it had taken that gentleman's measure. And though Ruthven +himself was a member of the Siowitha, Neergard had made no error in +taking him secretly into the deal where together they were now in a +position to exploit the club, from which Ruthven, of course, would +resign in time to escape any assessment himself. + +Neergard's progress had now reached this stage; his programme was +simple--to wallow among the wealthy until satiated, then to marry into +that agreeable community and found the house of Neergard. And to that +end he had already bought a building site on Fifth Avenue, but held it +in the name of the firm as though it had been acquired for purposes +purely speculative. + + * * * * * + +About that time Boots Lansing very quietly bought a house on Manhattan +Island. It was a small, narrow, three-storied house of brick, rather +shabby on the outside, and situated on a modest block between Lexington +and Park avenues, where the newly married of the younger set were +arriving in increasing numbers, prepared to pay the penalty for all love +matches. + +It was an unexpected move to Selwyn; he had not been aware of Lansing's +contemplated desertion; and that morning, returning from his final +interview with Neergard, he was astonished to find his comrade's room +bare of furniture, and a hasty and exclamatory note on his own table: + +"Phil! I've bought a house! Come and see it! You'll find me in it! +Carpetless floors and unpapered walls! It's the happiest day of my life! + + "Boots!!!! House-owner!!!" + +And Selwyn, horribly depressed, went down after a solitary luncheon and +found Lansing sitting on a pile of dusty rugs, ecstatically inspecting +the cracked ceiling. + +"So this is the House that Boots built!" he said. + +"Phil! It's a dream!" + +"Yes--a bad one. What the devil do you mean by clearing out? What do you +want with a house, anyhow?--you infernal idiot!" + +"A house? Man, I've always wanted one! I've dreamed of a dinky little +house like this--dreamed and ached for it there in Manila--on blistering +hikes, on wibbly-wabbly gunboats--knee-deep in sprouting rice--I've +dreamed of a house in New York like this! slopping through the steaming +paddy-fields, sweating up the heights, floundering through smelly hemp, +squatting by green fires at night! always, always I've longed for a +home of my own. Now I've got it, and I'm the happiest man on Manhattan +Island!" + +"O Lord!" said Selwyn, staring, "if you feel that way! You never said +anything about it--" + +"Neither did you, Phil; but I bet you want one, too. Come now; don't +you?" + +"Yes, I do," nodded Selwyn; "but I can't afford one yet"--his face +darkened--"not for a while; but," and his features cleared, "I'm +delighted, old fellow, that _you_ have one. This certainly is a jolly +little kennel--you can fix it up in splendid shape--rugs and mahogany +and what-nots and ding-dongs--and a couple of tabby cats and a good +dog--" + +"Isn't it fascinating!" cried Boots. "Phil, all this real estate is +mine! And the idea makes me silly-headed. I've been sitting on this pile +of rugs pretending that I'm in the midst of vast and expensive +improvements and alterations; and estimating the cost of them has +frightened me half to death. I tell you I never had such fun, Phil. Come +on; we'll start at the cellar--there is some coal and wood and some +wonderful cobwebs down there--and then we'll take in the back yard; I +mean to have no end of a garden out there, and real clothes-dryers and +some wistaria and sparrows--just like real back yards. I want to hear +cats make harrowing music on my own back fence; I want to see a tidy +laundress pinning up intimate and indescribable garments on my own +clothes-lines; I want to have maddening trouble with plumbers and +roofers; I want to--" + +"Come on, then, for Heaven's sake!" said Selwyn, laughing; and the two +men, arm in arm, began a minute tour of the house. + +"Isn't it a corker! Isn't it fine!" repeated Lansing every few minutes. +"I wouldn't exchange it for any mansion on Fifth Avenue!" + +"You'd be a fool to," agreed Selwyn gravely. + +"Certainly I would. Anyway, prices are going up like rockets in this +section--not that I'd think of selling out at any price--but it's +comfortable to know it. Why, a real-estate man told me--Hello! What was +that? Something fell somewhere!" + +"A section of the bath-room ceiling, I think," said Selwyn; "we mustn't +step too heavily on the floors at first, you know." + +"Oh, I'm going to have the entire thing done over--room by room--when I +can afford it. Meanwhile _j'y suis, j'y reste_. . . . Look there, Phil! +That's to be your room." + +"Thanks, old fellow--not now." + +"Why, yes! I expected you'd have your room here, Phil--" + +"It's very good of you, Boots, but I can't do it." + +Lansing faced him: "_Won't_ you?" + +Selwyn, smiling, shook his head; and the other knew it was final. + +"Well, the room will be there--furnished the way you and I like it. When +you want it, make smoke signals or wig-wag." + +"I will; thank you, Boots." + +Lansing said unaffectedly, "How soon do you think you can afford a house +like this?" + +"I don't know; you see, I've only my income now--" + +"Plus what you make at the office--" + +"I've left Neergard." + +"What!" + +"This morning; for good." + +"The deuce!" he murmured, looking at Selwyn; but the latter volunteered +no further information, and Lansing, having given him the chance, +cheerfully switched to the other track: + +"Shall I see whether the Air Line has anything in _your_ line, Phil? No? +Well, what are you going to do?" + +"I don't exactly know what I shall do. . . . If I had capital--enough--I +think I'd start in making bulk and dense powders--all sorts; gun-cotton, +nitro-powders--" + +"You mean you'd like to go on with your own invention--Chaosite?" + +"I'd like to keep on experimenting with it if I could afford to. Perhaps +I will. But it's not yet a commercial possibility--if it ever is to be. +I wish I could control it; the ignition is simultaneous and absolutely +complete, and there is not a trace of ash, not an unburned or partly +burned particle. But it's not to be trusted, and I don't know what +happens to it after a year's storage." + +For a while they discussed the commercial possibilities of Chaosite, and +how capital might be raised for a stock company; but Selwyn was not +sanguine, and something of his mental depression returned as he sat +there by the curtainless window, his head on his closed hand, looking +out into the sunny street. + +"Anyway," said Lansing, "you've nothing to worry over." + +"No, nothing," assented Selwyn listlessly. + +After a silence Lansing added: "But you do a lot of worrying all the +same, Phil." + +Selwyn flushed up and denied it. + +"Yes, you do! I don't believe you realise how much of the time you are +out of spirits." + +"Does it impress you that way?" asked Selwyn, mortified; "because I'm +really all right." + +"Of course you are, Phil; I know it, but you don't seem to realise it. +You're morbid, I'm afraid." + +"You've been talking to my sister!" + +"What of it? Besides, I knew there was something the matter--" + +"You know what it is, too. And isn't it enough to subdue a man's spirits +occasionally?" + +"No," said Lansing--"if you mean your--mistake--two years ago. That +isn't enough to spoil life for a man. I've wanted to tell you so for a +long time." + +And, as Selwyn said nothing: "For Heaven's sake make up your mind to +enjoy your life! You are fitted to enjoy it. Get that absurd notion out +of your head that you're done for--that you've no home life in prospect, +no family life, no children--" + +Selwyn turned sharply, but the other went on: "You can swear at me if +you like, but you've no business to go through the world cuddling your +own troubles closer and closer and squinting at everybody out of +disenchanted eyes. It's selfish, for one thing; you're thinking +altogether too much about yourself." + +Selwyn, too annoyed to answer, glared at his friend. + +"Oh, I know you don't like it, Phil, but what I'm saying may do you +good. It's fine physic, to learn what others think about you; as for me, +you can't mistake my friendship--or your sister's--or Miss Erroll's, or +Mr. Gerard's. And one and all are of one opinion, that you have +everything before you, including domestic happiness, which you care for +more than anything. And there is no reason why you should not have +it--no reason why you should not feel perfectly free to marry, and have +a bunch of corking kids. It's not only your right, it's your business; +and you're selfish if you don't!" + +"Boots! I--I--" + +"Go on!" + +"I'm not going to swear; I'm only hurt, Boots--" + +"Sure you are! Medicine's working, that's all. We strive to please, we +kill to cure. Of course it hurts, man! But you know it will do you good; +you know what I say is true. You've no right to club the natural and +healthy inclinations out of yourself. The day for fanatics and dippy, +dotty flagellants is past. Fox's martyrs are out of date. The man who +grabs life in both fists and twists the essence out of it, counts. He is +living as he ought to, he is doing the square thing by his country and +his community--by every man, woman, and child in it! He's giving +everybody, including himself, a square deal. But the man who has been +upper-cut and floored, and who takes the count, and then goes and squats +in a corner to brood over the fancy licks that Fate handed him--_he_ +isn't dealing fairly and squarely by his principles or by a decent and +generous world that stands to back him for the next round. Is he, Phil?" + +"Do you mean to say, Boots, that you think a man who has made the +ghastly mess of his life that I have, ought to feel free to marry?" + +"Think it! Man, I know it. Certainly you ought to marry if you +wish--but, above all, you ought to feel free to marry. That is the +essential equipment of a man; he isn't a man if he feels that he isn't +free to marry. He may not want to do it, he may not be in love. That's +neither here nor there; the main thing is that he is as free as a man +should be to take any good opportunity--and marriage is included in the +list of good opportunities. If you become a slave to morbid notions, no +wonder you are depressed. Slaves usually are. Do you want to slink +through life? Then shake yourself, I tell you; learn to understand that +you're free to do what any decent man may do. That will take the +morbidness out of you. That will colour life for you. I don't say go +hunting for some one to love; I do say, don't avoid her when you meet +her." + +"You preach a very gay sermon, Boots," he said, folding his arms. "I've +heard something similar from my sister. As a matter of fact I think you +are partly right, too; but if the inclination for the freedom you insist +I take is wanting, then what? I don't wish to marry, Boots; I am not in +love, therefore the prospect of home and kids is premature and vague, +isn't it?" + +"As long as it's a prospect or a possibility I don't care how vague it +is," said the other cordially. "Will you admit it's a possibility? +That's all I ask." + +"If it will please you, yes, I will admit it. I have altered certain +ideas, Boots; I cannot, just now, conceive of any circumstances under +which I should feel justified in marrying, but such circumstances might +arise; I'll say that much." + +Yet until that moment he had not dreamed of admitting as much to +anybody, even to himself; but Lansing's logic, his own loneliness, his +disappointment in Gerald, had combined to make him doubt his own +methods of procedure. Too, the interview with Alixe Ruthven had not only +knocked all complacency and conceit out of him, but had made him so +self-distrustful that he was in a mood to listen respectfully to his +peers on any question. + +He was wondering now whether Boots had recognised Alixe when he had +blundered into the room that night. He had never asked the question; he +was very much inclined to, now. However, Boots's reply could be only the +negative answer that any decent man must give. + +Sitting there in the carpetless room piled high with dusty, +linen-shrouded furniture, he looked around, an involuntary smile +twitching his mouth. Somehow he had not felt so light-hearted for a +long, long while--and whether it came from his comrade's sermon, or his +own unexpected acknowledgment of its truth, or whether it was pure +amusement at Boots in the rôle of householder and taxpayer, he could not +decide. But he was curiously happy of a sudden; and he smiled broadly +upon Mr. Lansing: + +"What about _your_ marrying," he said--"after all this talk about mine! +What about it, Boots? Is this new house the first modest step toward the +matrimony you laud so loudly?" + +"Sure," said that gentleman airily; "that's what I'm here for." + +"Really?" + +"Well, of course, idiot. I've always been in love." + +"You mean you actually have somebody in view--?" + +"No, son. I've always been in love with--love. I'm a sentimental sentry +on the ramparts of reason. I'm properly armed for trouble, now, so if +I'm challenged I won't let my chance slip by me. Do you see? There are +two kinds of sentimental warriors in this amorous world: the man and the +nincompoop. The one brings in his prisoner, the other merely howls for +her. So I'm all ready for the only girl in the world; and if she ever +gets away from me I'll give you my house, cellar, and back yard, +including the wistaria and both cats--" + +"You have neither wistaria nor cats--yet." + +"Neither am I specifically in love--yet. So that's all right--Philip. +Come on; let's take another look at that fascinating cellar of mine!" + +But Selwyn laughingly declined, and after a little while he went away, +first to look up a book which he was having bound for Eileen, then to +call on his sister who, with Eileen, had just returned from a week at +Silverside with the children, preliminary to moving the entire +establishment there for the coming summer; for the horses and dogs had +already gone; also Kit-Ki, a pessimistic parrot, and the children's two +Norwegian ponies. + +"Silverside is too lovely for words!" exclaimed Nina as Selwyn entered +the library. "The children almost went mad. You should have seen the +dogs, too--tearing round and round the lawn in circles--poor things! +They were crazy for the fresh, new turf. And Kit-Ki! she lay in the sun +and rolled and rolled until her fur was perfectly filthy. Nobody wanted +to come away; Eileen made straight for the surf; but it was an arctic +sea, and as soon as I found out what she was doing I made her come out." + +"I should think you would," he said; "nobody can do that and thrive." + +"She seems to," said Nina; "she was simply glorious after the swim, and +I hated to put a stop to it. And you should see her drying her hair and +helping Plunket to roll the tennis-courts--that hair of hers blowing +like gold flames, and her sleeves rolled to her arm-pits!--and you +should see her down in the dirt playing marbles with Billy and +Drina--shooting away excitedly and exclaiming 'fen-dubs!' and +'knuckle-down, Billy!'--like any gamin you ever heard of. Totally +unspoiled, Phil!--in spite of all the success of her first winter!--and +do you know that she had no end of men seriously entangled? I don't mind +your knowing--but Sudbury Gray came to me, and I told him he'd better +wait, but in he blundered and--he's done for, now; and so are my plans. +He's an imbecile! And then, who on earth do you think came waddling into +the arena? Percy Draymore! Phil, it was an anxious problem for me--and +although I didn't really want Eileen to marry into that set--still--with +the Draymores' position and tremendous influence--But she merely stared +at him in cold astonishment. And there were others, too, callow for the +most part. . . . Phil?" + +"What?" he said, laughing. + +His sister regarded him smilingly, then partly turned around and perched +herself on the padded arm of a great chair. + +"Phil, _am_ I garrulous?" + +"No, dear; you are far too reticent." + +"Pooh! Suppose I do talk a great deal. I like to. Besides, I always have +something interesting to say, don't I?" + +"Always!" + +"Well, then, why do you look at me so humorously out of those nice gray +eyes? . . . Phil, you are growing handsome! Do you know it?" + +"For Heaven's sake!" he protested, red and uncomfortable, "what utter +nonsense you--" + +"Of course it bores you to be told so; and you look so delightfully +ashamed--like a reproved setter-puppy! Well, then, don't laugh at my +loquacity again!--because I'm going to say something else. . . . Come +over here, Phil; no--close to me. I wish to put my hands on your +shoulders; like that. Now look at me! Do you really love me?" + +"Sure thing, Ninette." + +"And you know I adore you; don't you?" + +"Madly, dear, but I forgive you." + +"No; I want you to be serious. Because I'm pretty serious. See, I'm not +smiling now; I don't feel like it. Because it is a very, very important +matter, Phil--this thing that has--has--almost happened. . . . It's +about Eileen. . . . And it really has happened." + +"What has she done?" he asked curiously. + +His sister's eyes were searching his very diligently, as though in quest +of something elusive; and he gazed serenely back, the most unsuspicious +of smiles touching his mouth. + +"Phil, dear, a young girl--a very young girl--is a vapid and +uninteresting proposition to a man of thirty-five; isn't she?" + +"Rather--in some ways." + +"In what way is she not?" + +"Well--to me, for example--she is acceptable as children are +acceptable--a blessed, sweet, clean relief from the women of the Fanes' +set, for example?" + +"Like Rosamund?" + +"Yes. And, Ninette, you and Austin seem to be drifting out of the old +circles--the sort that you and I were accustomed to. You don't mind my +saying it, do you?--but there were so many people in this town who had +something besides millions--amusing, well-bred, jolly people who had no +end of good times, but who didn't gamble and guzzle and stuff themselves +and their friends--who were not eternally hanging around other people's +wives. Where are they, dear?" + +"If you are indicting all of my friends, Phil--" + +"I don't mean all of your friends--only a small proportion--which, +however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless +bunch--the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the +worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital, +the chlorotic squatters on huge yachts, the speed-mad fugitives from the +furies of ennui, the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled +animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard--!" + +"Philip!" + +"Oh, I don't mean that they are any more vicious than the idle and +mentally incompetent in any walk of life. East Side, West Side, Harlem, +Hell's Kitchen, Fifth Avenue, Avenue A, and Abingdon Square--the +denizens are only locally different, not specifically--the species +remains unchanged. But everywhere, in every quarter and class and set +and circle there is always the depraved; and the logical links that +connect them are unbroken from Fifth Avenue to Chinatown, from the +half-crazed extravagances of the Orchils' Louis XIV ball to a New Year's +reception at the Haymarket where Troy Lil's diamonds outshine the phony +pearls of Hoboken Fanny, and Hatpin Molly leads the spiel with Clarence +the Pig." + +"Phil, you are too disgusting!" + +"I'm sorry--it isn't very nice of me, I suppose. But, dear, I'm dead +tired of moral squalor. I do like the brightness of things, too, but I +don't care for the phosphorescence of social decay." + +"What in the world is the matter?" she exclaimed in dismay. "You are +talking like the wildest socialist." + +He laughed. "We have become a nation of what you call +'socialists'--though there are other names for us which mean more. I am +not discontented, if that is what you mean; I am only impatient; and +there is a difference. . . . And you have just asked me whether a young +girl is interesting to me. I answer, yes, thank God!--for the cleaner, +saner, happier hours I have spent this winter among my own kind have +been spent where the younger set dominated. + +"They are good for us, Nina; they are the hope of our own +kind--well-taught, well-drilled, wholesome even when negative in mind; +and they come into our world so diffident yet so charmingly eager, so +finished yet so unspoiled, that--how can they fail to touch a man and +key him to his best? How can they fail to arouse in us the best of +sympathy, of chivalry, of anxious solicitude lest they become some day +as we are and stare at life out of the faded eyes of knowledge!" + +He laid his hands in hers, smiling a little at his own earnestness. + +"Alarmist? No! The younger set are better than those who bred them; and +if, in time, they, too, fall short, they will not fall as far as their +parents. And, in their turn, when they look around them at the younger +set whom they have taught in the light and wisdom of their own +shortcomings, they will see fresher, sweeter, lovelier young people than +we see now. And it will continue so, dear, through the jolly +generations. Life is all right, only, like art, it is very, very long +sometimes." + +"Good out of evil, Phil?" asked his sister, smiling; "innocence from the +hotbeds of profligacy? purity out of vulgarity? sanity from hideous +ostentation? Is that what you come preaching?" + +"Yes; and isn't it curious! Look at that old harridan, Mrs. Sanxon +Orchil! There are no more innocent and charming girls in Manhattan than +her daughters. She _knew_ enough to make them different; so does the +majority of that sort. Look at the Cardwell girl and the Innis girl and +the Craig girl! Look at Mrs. Delmour-Carnes's children! And, Nina--even +Molly Hatpin's wastrel waif shall never learn what her mother knows if +Destiny will help Madame Molly ever so little. And I think that Destiny +is often very kind--even to the Hatpin offspring." + +Nina sat silent on the padded arm of her chair, looking up at her +brother. + +"Mad preacher! Mad Mullah!--dear, dear fellow!" she said tenderly; "all +ills of the world canst thou discount, but not thine own." + +"Those, too," he insisted, laughing; "I had a talk with Boots--but, +anyway, I'd already arrived at my own conclusion that--that--I'm rather +overdoing this blighted business--" + +"Phil!"--in quick delight. + +"Yes," he said, reddening nicely; "between you and Boots and myself I've +decided that I'm going in for--for whatever any man is going in +for--life! Ninette, life to the full and up to the hilt for mine!--not +side-stepping anything. . . . Because I--because, Nina, it's shameful +for a man to admit to himself that he cannot make good, no matter how +thoroughly he's been hammered to the ropes. And so I'm starting out +again--not hunting trouble like him of La Mancha--but, like him in this, +that I shall not avoid it. . . . Is _that_ plain to you, little sister?" + +"Yes, oh, yes, it is!" she murmured; "I am so happy, so proud--but I +knew it was in your blood, Phil; I knew that you were merely hurt and +stunned--badly hurt, but not fatally!--you could not be; no weaklings +come from our race." + +"But still our race has always been law-abiding--observant of civil and +religious law. If I make myself free again, I take some laws into my own +hands.". + +"How do you mean?" she asked. + +"Well," he said grimly, "for example, I am forbidden, in some States, to +marry again--" + +"But you _know_ there was no reason for _that_!" + +"Yes, I do happen to know; but still I am taking the liberty of +disregarding the law if I do. Then, what clergyman, of our faith, would +marry me to anybody?" + +"That, too, you know is not just, Phil. You were innocent of +wrong-doing; you were chivalrous enough to make no defence--" + +"Wrong-doing? Nina, I was such a fool that I was innocent of sense +enough to do either good or evil. Yet I did do harm; there never was +such a thing as a harmless fool. But all I can do is to go and sin no +more; yet there is little merit in good conduct if one hides in a hole +too small to admit temptation. No; there are laws civil and laws +ecclesiastical; and sometimes I think a man is justified in repealing +the form and retaining the substance of them, and remoulding it for +purposes of self-government; as I do, now. . . . Once, oppressed by form +and theory, I told you that to remarry after divorce was a slap at +civilisation. . . . Which is true sometimes and sometimes not. Common +sense, not laws, must govern a man in that matter. But if any motive +except desire to be a decent citizen sways a self-punished man toward +self-leniency, then is he unpardonable if he breaks those laws which +truly were fashioned for such as he!" + +"Saint Simon! Saint Simon! Will you please arise, stretch your limbs, +and descend from your pillar?" said Nina; "because I am going to say +something that is very, very serious; and very near my heart." + +"I remember," he said; "it's about Eileen, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is about Eileen." + +He waited; and again his sister's eyes began restlessly searching his +for something that she seemed unable to find. + +"You make it a little difficult, Phil; I don't believe I had better +speak of it." + +"Why not?" + +"Why, just because you ask me 'why not?' for example." + +"Is it anything that worries you about Eileen?" + +"N-no; not exactly. It is--it may be a phase; and yet I know that if it +is anything at all it is not a passing phase. She is different from the +majority, you see--very intelligent, very direct. She never +forgets--for example. Her loyalty is quite remarkable, Phil. She is very +intense in her--her beliefs--the more so because she is unusually free +from impulse--even quite ignorant of the deeper emotions; or so I +believed until--until--" + +"Is she in _love_?" he asked. + +"A little, Phil." + +"Does she admit it?" he demanded, unpleasantly astonished. + +"She admits it in a dozen innocent ways to me who can understand her; +but to herself she has not admitted it, I think--could not admit it yet; +because--because--" + +"Who is it?" asked Selwyn; and there was in his voice the slightest +undertone of a growl. + +"Dear, shall I tell you?" + +"Why not?" + +"Because--because--Phil, I think that our pretty Eileen is a little in +love with--you." + +He straightened out to his full height, scarlet to the temples; she +dropped her linked fingers in her lap, gazing at him almost sadly. + +"Dear, all the things you are preparing to shout at me are quite +useless; I _know_; I don't imagine, I don't forestall, I don't predict. +I am not discounting any hopes of mine, because, Phil, I had not +thought--had not planned such a thing--between you and Eileen--I don't +know why. But I had not; there was Suddy Gray--a nice boy, perfectly +qualified; and there were alternates more worldly, perhaps. But I did +not think of you; and that is what now amazes and humiliates me; because +it was the obvious that I overlooked--the most perfectly natural--" + +"Nina! you are madder than a March heiress!" + +"Air your theories, Phil, then come back to realities. The conditions +remain; Eileen is certainly a little in love with you; and a little with +her means something. And you, evidently, have never harboured any +serious intentions toward the child; I can see that, because you are the +most transparent man I ever knew. Now, the question is, what is to be +done?" + +"Done? Good heavens! Nothing, of course! There's nothing to do anything +about! Nina, you are the most credulous little matchmaker that ever--" + +"Oh, Phil, _must_ I listen to all those fulminations before you come +down to the plain fact? And it's plain to me as the nose on your +countenance; and I don't know what to do about it! I certainly was a +perfect fool to confide in you, for you are exhibiting the coolness and +sagacity of a stampeded chicken." + +He laughed in spite of himself; then, realising a little what her +confidence had meant, he turned a richer red and slowly lifted his +fingers to his moustache, while his perplexed gray eyes began to narrow +as though sun-dazzled. + +"I am, of course, obliged to believe that you are mistaken," he said; "a +man cannot choose but believe in that manner. . . . There is no very +young girl--nobody, old or young, whom I like as thoroughly as I do +Eileen Erroll. She knows it; so do you, Nina. It is open and +above-board. . . . I should be very unhappy if anything marred or +distorted our friendship. . . . I am quite confident that nothing will." + +"In that frame of mind," said his sister, smiling, "you are the +healthiest companion in the world for her, for you will either cure her, +or she you; and it is all right either way." + +"Certainly it will be all right," he said confidently. + +For a few moments he paced the room, reflective, quickening his pace all +the while; and his sister watched him, silent in her indecision. + +"I'm going up to see the kids," he said abruptly. + +The children, one and all, were in the Park; but Eileen was sewing in +the nursery, and his sister did not call him back as he swung out of the +room and up the stairs. But when he had disappeared, Nina dropped into +her chair, aware that she had played her best card prematurely; forced +by Rosamund, who had just told her that rumour continued to be very busy +coupling her brother's name with the name of the woman who once had been +his wife. + +Nina was now thoroughly convinced of Alixe's unusual capacity for making +mischief. + +She had known Alixe always--and she had seen her develop from a +talented, restless, erratic, emotional girl, easily moved to generosity, +into an impulsive woman, reckless to the point of ruthlessness when +ennui and unhappiness stampeded her; a woman not deliberately selfish, +not wittingly immoral, for she lacked the passion which her emotion was +sometimes mistaken for; and she was kind by instinct. + +Sufficiently intelligent to suffer from the lack of it in others, +cultured to the point of recognising culture, her dangerous unsoundness +lay in her utter lack of mental stamina when conditions became +unpleasant beyond her will, not her ability to endure them. + +The consequences of her own errors she refused to be burdened with; to +escape somehow, was her paramount impulse, and she always tried to--had +always attempted it even in school-days--and farther back when Nina +first remembered her as a thin, eager, restless little girl scampering +from one scrape into another at full speed. Even in those days there +were moments when Nina believed her to be actually irrational, but there +was every reason not to say so to the heedless scatterbrain whose +father, in the prime of life, sat all day in his room, his faded eyes +fixed wistfully on the childish toys which his attendant brought to him +from his daughter's nursery. + +All this Nina was remembering; and again she wondered bitterly at +Alixe's treatment of her brother, and what explanation there could ever +be for it--except one. + +Lately, too, Alixe had scarcely been at pains to conceal her contempt +for her husband, if what Rosamund related was true. It was only one more +headlong scrape, this second marriage, and Nina knew Alixe well enough +to expect the usual stampede toward that gay phantom which was always +beckoning onward to promised happiness--that goal of heart's desire +already lying so far behind her--and farther still for every step her +little flying feet were taking in the oldest, the vainest, the most +hopeless chase in the world--the headlong hunt for happiness. + +And if that blind hunt should lead once more toward Selwyn? Suppose, +freed from Ruthven, she turned in her tracks and threw herself and her +youthful unhappiness straight at the man who had not yet destroyed the +picture that Nina found when she visited her brother's rooms with the +desire to be good to him with rocking-chairs! + +Not that she really believed or feared that Philip would consider such +an impossible reconciliation; pride, and a sense of the absurd, must +always check any such weird caprice of her brother's conscience; and +yet--and yet other amazing and mismated couples had done it--had been +reunited. + +And Nina was mightily troubled, for Alixe's capacity for mischief was +boundless; and that she, in some manner, had already succeeded in +stirring up Philip, was a rumour that persisted and would not be +annihilated. + +To inform a man frankly that a young girl is a little in love with him +is one of the oldest, simplest, and easiest methods of interesting that +man--unless he happen to be in love with somebody else. And Nina had +taken her chances that the picture of Alixe was already too unimportant +for the ceremony of incineration. Besides, what she had ventured to say +to him was her belief; the child appeared to be utterly absorbed in her +increasing intimacy with Selwyn. She talked of little else; her theme +was Selwyn--his influence on Gerald, and her delight in his +companionship. They had, at his suggestion, taken up together the study +of Cretan antiquities--a sort of tender pilgrimage for her, because, +with the aid of her father's and mother's letters, note-books, and +papers, she and Selwyn were following on the map the journeys and +discoveries of her father. + +But this was not all; Nina's watchful eyes opened wider and wider as she +witnessed in Eileen the naissance of an unconscious and delicate +coquetry, quite unabashed, yet the more significant for that; and Nina, +intent on the new phenomena, began to divine more about Eileen in a +single second, than the girl could have suspected of herself in a month +of introspection and of prayer. + +Love was not there; Nina understood that; but its germ was--still +dormant, but bedded deliciously in congenial soil--the living germ in +all its latent promise, ready to swell with the first sudden heart-beat, +quicken with the first quickening of the pulse, unfold into perfect +symmetry if ever the warm, even current in the veins grew swift and hot +under the first scorching whisper of Truth. + + * * * * * + +Eileen, sewing by the nursery window, looked up; her little Alsatian +maid, cross-legged on the floor at her feet, sewing away diligently, +also looked up, then scrambled to her feet as Selwyn halted on the +threshold of the room. + +"Why, how odd you look!" said Eileen, laughing: "come in, please; +Susanne and I are only mending some of my summer things. Were you in +search of the children?--don't say so if you were, because I'm quite +happy in believing that you knew I was here. Did you?" + +"Where are the children?" he asked. + +"In the Park, my very rude friend. You will find them on the Mall if you +start at once." + +He hesitated, but finally seated himself, omitting the little formal +hand-shake with which they always met, even after an hour's separation. +Of course she noticed this, and, bending low above her sewing, wondered +why. + +It seemed to him, for a moment, as though he were looking at a woman he +had heard about and had just met for the first time. His observation of +her now was leisurely, calm, and thorough--not so calm, however, when, +impatient of his reticence, bending there over her work, she raised her +dark-blue eyes to his, her head remaining lowered. The sweet, silent +inspection lasted but a moment, then she resumed her stitches, aware +that something in him had changed since she last had seen him; but she +merely smiled quietly to herself, confident of his unaltered devotion in +spite of the strangely hard and unresponsive gaze that had uneasily +evaded hers. + +As her white fingers flew with the glimmering needle she reflected on +conditions as she had left them a week ago. A week ago, between him and +her the most perfect of understandings existed; and the consciousness of +it she had carried with her every moment in the country--amid the icy +tumble of the surf, on long vigorous walks over the greening hills where +wild moorland winds whipped like a million fairy switches till the young +blood fairly sang, pouring through her veins. + +Since that--some time within the week, _something_ evidently had +happened to him, here in the city while she had been away. What? + +As she bent above the fine linen garment on her knee, needle flying, a +sudden memory stirred coldly--the recollection of her ride with +Rosamund; and instinctively her clear eyes flew open and she raised her +head, turning directly toward him a disturbed gaze he did not this time +evade. + +In silence their regard lingered; then, satisfied, she smiled again, +saying: "Have I been away so long that we must begin all over, Captain +Selwyn?" + +"Begin what, Eileen?" + +"To remember that the silence of selfish preoccupation is a privilege I +have not accorded you?" + +"I didn't mean to be preoccupied--" + +"Oh, worse and worse!" She shook her head and began to thread the +needle. "I see that my week's absence has not been very good +for you. I knew it the moment you came in with all that guilty +absent-minded effrontery which I have forbidden. Now, I suppose I +shall have to recommence your subjection. Ring for tea, please. And, +Susanne"--speaking in French and gathering up a fluffy heap of mended +summer waists--"these might as well be sent to the laundress--thank you, +little one; your sewing is always beautiful." + +The small maid, blushing with pleasure, left the room, both arms full of +feminine apparel; Selwyn rang for tea, then strolled back to the window, +where he stood with both hands thrust into his coat-pockets, staring out +at the sunset. + +A primrose light bathed the city. Below, through the new foliage of the +Park, the little lake reflected it in tints of deeper gold and amber +where children clustered together, sailing toy ships. But there was no +wind; the tiny sails and flags hung motionless, and out and in, among +the craft becalmed, steered a family of wild ducks, the downy yellow +fledglings darting hither and thither in chase of gnats, the mother bird +following in leisurely solicitude. + +And, as he stood there, absently intent on sky and roof and foliage, her +soft bantering voice aroused him; and turning he found her beside him, +her humorous eyes fixed on his face. + +"Suppose," she said, "that we go back to first principles and resume +life properly by shaking hands. Shall we?" + +He coloured up as he took her hand in his; then they both laughed at the +very vigorous shake. + +"What a horribly unfriendly creature you _can_ be," she said. "Never a +greeting, never even a formal expression of pleasure at my return--" + +"You have not _returned_!" he said, smiling; "you have been with me +every moment, Eileen." + +"What a pretty tribute!" she exclaimed; "I am beginning to recognise +traces of my training after all. And it is high time, Captain Selwyn, +because I was half convinced that you had escaped to the woods again. +What, if you please, have you been doing in town since I paroled you? +Nothing? Oh, it's very likely. You're probably too ashamed to tell me. +Now note the difference between us; _I_ have been madly tearing over +turf and dune, up hills, down hillocks, along headlands, shores, and +shingle; and I had the happiness of being half-frozen in the surf before +Nina learned of it and stopped me. . . . Come; sit over here; because +I'm quite crazy to tell you everything as usual--about how I played +marbles with the children--yes, indeed!--down on my knees and shooting +hard! Oh, it is divine, that sea-girdled, wind-drenched waste of moor +and thicket!--the strange little stunted forests in the hollows of the +miniature hills--do you remember? The trees, you know, grow only to the +wind-level, then spread out like those grotesque trees in fairy-haunted +forests--so old, so fantastic are these curious patches of woods that I +am for ever watching to see something magic moving far in the twilight +of the trees! . . . And one night I went out on the moors; oh, heavenly! +celestial!--under the stretch of stars! Elf-land in silence, save for +the bewitched wind. And the fairy forests drew me toward their edges, +down, down into the hollow, with delicious shivers. + +"Once I trembled indeed, for the starlight on the swamp was suddenly +splintered into millions of flashes; and my heart leaped in pure fright! +. . . It was only a wild duck whirring headlong into the woodland +waters--but oh, if you had been there to see the weird beauty of its +coming--and the star-splashed blackness! You _must_ see that with me, +some time. . . . When are you coming to Silverside? We go back very +soon, now. . . . And I don't feel at all like permitting you to run wild +in town when I'm away and playing hopscotch on the lawn with Drina!" + +She lay back in her chair, laughing, her hands linked together behind +her head. + +"Really, Captain Selwyn, I confess I missed you. It's much better fun +when two can see all those things that I saw--the wild roses just a +tangle of slender green-mossed stems, the new grass so intensely green, +with a touch of metallic iridescence; the cat's-paws chasing each other +across the purple inland ponds--and that cheeky red fox that came +trotting out of the briers near Wonder Head, and, when he saw me, coolly +attempted to stare me out of countenance! Oh, it's all very well to tell +you about it, but there is a little something lacking in unshared +pleasures. . . . Yes, a great deal lacking. . . . And here is our +tea-tray at last." + +Nina came up to join them. Her brother winced as she smiled triumphantly +at him, and the colour continued vivid in his face while she remained in +the room. Then the children charged upstairs, fresh from the Park, +clamouring for food; and they fell upon Selwyn's neck, and disarranged +his scarf-pin, and begged for buttered toast and crumpets, and got what +they demanded before Nina's authority could prevent. + +"I saw a rabbit at Silverside!" said Billy, "but do you know, Uncle +Philip, that hunting pack of ours is no good! Not one dog paid any +attention to the rabbit though Drina and I did our best--didn't we, +Drina?" + +"You should have seen them," murmured Eileen, leaning close to whisper +to Selwyn; "the children had fits when the rabbit came hopping across +the road out of the Hither Woods. But the dogs all ran madly the other +way, and I thought Billy would die of mortification." + +Nina stood up, waving a crumpet which she had just rescued from +Winthrop. "Hark!" she said, "there's the nursery curfew!--and not one +wretched infant bathed! Billy! March bathward, my son! Drina, +sweetheart, take command. Prune soufflé for the obedient, dry bread for +rebels! Come, children!--don't let mother speak to you twice." + +"Let's go down to the library," said Eileen to Selwyn--"you are dining +with us, of course. . . . What? Yes, indeed, you are. The idea of your +attempting to escape to some dreadful club and talk man-talk all the +evening when I have not begun to tell you what I did at Silverside!" + +They left the nursery together and descended the stairs to the library. +Austin had just come in, and he looked up from his solitary cup of tea +as they entered: + +"Hello, youngsters! What conspiracy are you up to now? I suppose you +sniffed the tea and have come to deprive me. By the way, Phil, I hear +that you've sprung the trap on those Siowitha people." + +"Neergard has, I believe." + +"Well, isn't it all one?" + +"No, it is not!" retorted Selwyn so bluntly that Eileen turned from the +window at a sound in his voice which she had never before heard. + +"Oh!" Austin stared over his suspended teacup, then drained it. "Trouble +with our friend Julius?" he inquired. + +"No trouble. I merely severed my connection with him." + +"Ah! When?" + +"This morning." + +"In that case," said Austin, laughing, "I've a job for you--" + +"No, old fellow; and thank you with all my heart. I've half made up my +mind to live on my income for a while and take up that Chaosite matter +again--" + +"And blow yourself to smithereens! Why spatter Nature thus?" + +"No fear," said Selwyn, laughing. "And, if it promises anything, I may +come to you for advice on how to start it commercially." + +"If it doesn't start you heavenward you shall have my advice from a safe +distance. I'll telegraph it," said Austin. "But, if it's not personal, +why on earth have you shaken Neergard?" + +And Selwyn answered simply: "I don't like him. That is the reason, +Austin." + +The children from the head of the stairs were now shouting demands for +their father; and Austin rose, pretending to grumble: + +"Those confounded kids! A man is never permitted a moment to himself. Is +Nina up there, Eileen! Oh, all right. Excuses et cetera; I'll be back +pretty soon. You'll stay to dine, Phil?" + +"I don't think so--" + +"Yes, he will stay," said Eileen calmly. + +And, when Austin had gone, she walked swiftly over to where Selwyn was +standing, and looked him directly in the eyes. + +"Is all well with Gerald?" + +"Y-yes, I suppose so." + +"Is he still with Neergard & Co.?" + +"Yes, Eileen." + +"And _you_ don't like Mr. Neergard?" + +"N-no." + +"Then Gerald must not remain." + +He said very quietly: "Eileen, Gerald no longer takes me into his +confidence. I am afraid--I know, in fact--that I have little influence +with him now. I am sorry; it hurts; but your brother is his own master, +and he is at liberty to choose his own friends and his own business +policy. I cannot influence him; I have learned that thoroughly. Better +that I retain what real friendship he has left for me than destroy it by +any attempt, however gentle, to interfere in his affairs." + +She stood before him, straight, slender, her face grave and troubled. + +"I cannot understand," she said, "how he could refuse to listen to a man +like you." + +"A man like me, Eileen? Well, if I were worth listening to, no doubt +he'd listen. But the fact remains that I have not been able to hold his +interest--" + +"Don't give him up," she said, still looking straight into his eyes. "If +you care for me, don't give him up." + +"Care for you, Eileen! You know I do." + +"Yes, I know it. So you will not give up Gerald, will you? He is--is +only a boy--you know that; you know he has been--perhaps--indiscreet. +But Gerald is only a boy. Stand by him, Captain Selwyn; because Austin +does not know how to manage him--really he doesn't. . . . There has been +another unpleasant scene between them; Gerald told me." + +"Did he tell you why, Eileen?" + +"Yes. He told me that he had played cards for money, and he was in debt. +I know that sounds--almost disgraceful; but is not his need of help all +the greater?" + +Selwyn's eyes suddenly narrowed: "Did _you_ help him out, this time?" + +"I--I--how do you mean, Captain Selwyn?" But the splendid colour in her +face confirmed his certainty that she had used her own resources to help +her brother pay the gambling debt; and he turned away his eyes, angry +and silent. + +"Yes," she said under her breath, "I did aid him. What of it? Could I +refuse?" + +"I know. Don't aid him again--_that_ way." + +She stared: "You mean--" + +"Send him to me, child. I understand such matters; I--that is--" and in +sudden exasperation inexplicable, for the moment, to them both: "Don't +touch such matters again! They soil, I tell you. I will not have Gerald +go to you about such things!" + +"My own brother! What do you mean?" + +"I mean that, brother or not, he shall not bring such matters near you!" + +"Am I to count for nothing, then, when Gerald is in trouble?" she +demanded, flushing up. + +"Count! Count!" he repeated impatiently; "of course you count! Good +heavens! it's women like you who count--and no others--not one single +other sort is of the slightest consequence in the world or to it. +Count? Child, you control us all; everything of human goodness, of human +hope hinges and hangs on you--is made possible, inevitable, because of +you! And you ask me whether you count! You, who control us all, and +always will--as long as you are you!" + +She had turned a little pale under his vehemence, watching him out of +wide and beautiful eyes. + +What she understood--how much of his incoherence she was able to +translate, is a question; but in his eyes and voice there was something +simpler to divine; and she stood very still while his roused emotions +swept her till her heart leaped up and every vein in her ran fiery +pride. + +"I am--overwhelmed . . . I did not consider that I counted--so +vitally--in the scheme of things. But I must try to--if you believe all +this of me--only you must teach me how to count for something in the +world. Will you?" + +"Teach you, Eileen. What winning mockery! _I_ teach _you_? Well, then--I +teach you this--that a man's blunder is best healed by a man's sympathy; +. . . I will stand by Gerald as long as he will let me do so--not alone +for your sake, nor only for his, but for my own. I promise you that. Are +you contented?" + +"Yes." + +She slowly raised one hand, laying it fearlessly in both of his. + +"He is all I have left," she said. "You know that." + +"I know, child." + +"Then--thank you, Captain Selwyn." + +"No; I thank you for giving me this charge. It means that a man must +raise his own standard of living before he can accept such +responsibility. . . . You endow me with all that a man ought to be; and +my task is doubled; for it is not only Gerald but I myself who require +surveillance." + +He looked up, smilingly serious: "Such women as you alone can fit your +brother and me for an endless guard duty over the white standard you +have planted on the outer walls of the world." + +"You say things to me--sometimes--" she faltered, "that almost hurt with +the pleasure they give." + +"Did that give you pleasure?" + +"Y-yes; the surprise of it was almost too--too keen. I wish you would +not--but I am glad you did. . . . You see"--dropping into a great velvet +chair--"having been of no serious consequence to anybody for so many +years--to be told, suddenly, that I--that I count so vitally with men--a +man like you--" + +She sank back, drew one small hand across her eyes, and rested a moment; +then leaning forward, she set her elbow on one knee and bracketed her +chin between forefinger and thumb. + +"_You_ don't know," she said, smiling faintly, "but, oh, the exalted +dreams young girls indulge in! And one and all centre around some +power-inspired attitude of our own when a great crisis comes. And most +of all we dream of counting heavily; and more than all we clothe +ourselves in the celestial authority which dares to forgive. . . . Is it +not pathetically amusing--the mental process of a young girl?--and the +paramount theme of her dream is power!--such power as will permit the +renunciation of vengeance; such power as will justify the happiness of +forgiving? . . . And every dream of hers is a dream of power; and, +often, the happiness of forbearing to wield it. All dreams lead to it, +all mean it; for instance, half-awake, then faintly conscious in +slumber, I lie dreaming of power--always power; the triumph of +attainment, of desire for wisdom and knowledge satisfied. I dream of +friendships--wonderful intimacies exquisitely satisfying; I dream of +troubles, and my moral power to sweep them out of existence; I dream of +self-sacrifice, and of the spiritual power to endure it; I dream--I +dream--sometimes--of more material power--of splendours and imposing +estates, of a paradise all my own. And when I have been selfishly happy +long enough, I dream of a vast material power fitting me to wipe poverty +from the world; I plan it out in splendid generalities, sometimes in +minute detail. . . . Of men, we naturally dream; but vaguely, in a +curious and confused way. . . . Once, when I was fourteen, I saw a +volunteer regiment passing; and it halted for a while in front of our +house; and a brilliant being on a black horse turned lazily in his +saddle and glanced up at our window. . . . Captain Selwyn, it is quite +useless for you to imagine what fairy scenes, what wondrous perils, what +happy adventures that gilt-corded adjutant and I went through in my +dreams. Marry him? Indeed I did, scores of times. Rescue him? Regularly. +He was wounded, he was attacked by fevers unnumbered, he fled in peril +of his life, he vegetated in countless prisons, he was misunderstood, he +was a martyr to suspicion, he was falsely accused, falsely condemned. +And then, just before the worst occurred, _I_ appear!--the inevitable +I." + +She dropped back into the chair, laughing. Her colour was high, her eyes +brilliant; she laid her arms along the velvet arms of the chair and +looked at him. + +"I've not had you to talk to for a whole week," she said; "and you'll +let me; won't you? I can't help it, anyway, because as soon as I see +you--crack! a million thoughts wake up in me and clipper-clapper goes my +tongue. . . . You are very good for me. You are so thoroughly +satisfactory--except when your eyes narrow in that dreadful far-away +gaze--which I've forbidden, you understand. . . . _What_ have you done +to your moustache?" + +"Clipped it." + +"Oh, I don't like it too short. Can you get hold of it to pull it? It's +the only thing that helps you in perplexity to solve problems. You'd be +utterly helpless, mentally, without your moustache. . . . When are we to +take up our Etruscan symbols again?--or was it Evans's monograph we were +laboriously dissecting? Certainly it was; don't you remember the Hittite +hieroglyph of Jerabis?--and how you and I fought over those wretched +floral symbols? You don't? And it was only a week ago? . . . And listen! +Down at Silverside I've been reading the most delicious thing--the Mimes +of Herodas!--oh, so charmingly quaint, so perfectly human, that it seems +impossible that they were written two thousand years ago. There's a +maid, in one scene, Threissa, who is precisely like anybody's maid--and +an old lady, Gyllis--perfectly human, and not Greek, but Yankee of +to-day! Shall we reread it together?--when you come down to stay with us +at Silverside?" + +"Indeed we shall," he said, smiling; "which also reminds me--" + +He drew from his breast-pocket a thin, flat box, turned it round and +round, glanced at her, balancing it teasingly in the palm of his hand. + +"Is it for me? Really? Oh, please don't be provoking! Is it _really_ for +me? Then give it to me this instant!" + +[Illustration: "Turning, looked straight at Selwyn."] + +He dropped the box into the pink hollow of her supplicating palms. For a +moment she was very busy with the tissue-paper; then: + +"Oh! it is perfectly sweet of you!" turning the small book bound in +heavy Etruscan gold; "whatever can it be?" and, rising, she opened it, +stepping to the window so that she could see. + +Within, the pages were closely covered with the minute, careful +handwriting of her father; it was the first note-book he ever kept; and +Selwyn had had it bound for her in gold. + +For an instant she gazed, breathless, lips parted; then slowly she +placed the yellowed pages against her lips and, turning, looked straight +at Selwyn, the splendour of her young eyes starred with tears. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ERRANDS AND LETTERS + + +Alixe Ruthven had not yet dared tell Selwyn that her visit to his rooms +was known to her husband. Sooner or later she meant to tell him; it was +only fair to him that he should be prepared for anything that might +happen; but as yet, though her first instinct, born of sheer fright, +urged her to seek instant council with Selwyn, fear of him was greater +than the alarm caused her by her husband's knowledge. + +She was now afraid of her husband's malice, afraid of Selwyn's opinion, +afraid of herself most of all, for she understood herself well enough to +realise that, if conditions became intolerable, the first and easiest +course out of it would be the course she'd take--wherever it led, +whatever it cost, or whoever was involved. + +In addition to her dread and excitement, she was deeply chagrined and +unhappy; and, although Jack Ruthven did not again refer to the +matter--indeed appeared to have forgotten it--her alarm and humiliation +remained complete, for Gerald now came and played and went as he chose; +and in her disconcerted cowardice she dared not do more than plead with +Gerald in secret, until she began to find the emotion consequent upon +such intimacy unwise for them both. + +Neergard, too, was becoming a familiar figure in her drawing-room; and, +though at first she detested him, his patience and unfailing good +spirits, and his unconcealed admiration for her softened her manner +toward him to the point of toleration. + +And Neergard, from his equivocal footing in the house of Ruthven, +obtained another no less precarious in the house of Fane--all in the +beginning on a purely gaming basis. However, Gerald had already proposed +him for the Stuyvesant and Proscenium clubs; and, furthermore, a stormy +discussion was now in progress among the members of the famous Siowitha +over an amazing proposition from their treasurer, Jack Ruthven. + +This proposal was nothing less than to admit Neergard to membership in +that wealthy and exclusive country club, as a choice of the lesser evil; +for it appeared, according to Ruthven, that Neergard, if admitted, was +willing to restore to the club, free of rent, the thousands of acres +vitally necessary to the club's existence as a game preserve, merely +retaining the title to these lands for himself. + +Draymore was incensed at the proposal, Harmon, Orchil, and Fane were +disgustedly non-committal, but Phoenix Mottly was perhaps the angriest +man on Long Island. + +"In the name of decency, Jack," he said, "what are you dreaming of? Is +it not enough that this man, Neergard, holds us up once? Do I understand +that he has the impudence to do it again with your connivance? Are you +going to let him sandbag us into electing him? Is that the sort of +hold-up you stand for? Well, then, I tell you I'll never vote for him. +I'd rather see these lakes and streams of ours dry up; I'd rather see +the last pheasant snared and the last covey leave for the other end of +the island, than buy off that Dutchman with a certificate of membership +in the Siowitha!" + +"In that case," retorted Ruthven, "we'd better wind up our affairs and +make arrangements for an auctioneer." + +"All right; wind up and be damned!" said Mottly; "there'll be at least +sufficient self-respect left in the treasury to go round." + +Which was all very fine, and Mottly meant it at the time; but, outside +of the asset of self-respect, there was too much money invested in the +lands, plant, and buildings, in the streams, lakes, hatcheries, and +forests of the Siowitha. The enormously wealthy seldom stand long upon +dignity if that dignity is going to be very expensive. Only the poor can +afford disastrous self-respect. + +So the chances were that Neergard would become a member--which was why +he had acquired the tract--and the price he would have to pay was not +only in taxes upon the acreage, but, secretly, a solid sum in addition +to little Mr. Ruthven whom he was binding to him by every tie he could +pay for. + +Neergard did not regret the expense. He had long since discounted the +cost; and he also continued to lose money at the card-table to those who +could do him the most good. + +Away somewhere in the back of his round, squat, busy head he had an +inkling that some day he would even matters with some people. Meanwhile +he was patient, good-humoured, amusing when given a chance, and, as the +few people he knew found out, inventive and resourceful in suggesting +new methods of time-killing to any wealthy and fashionable victim of a +vacant mind. + +And as this faculty has always been the real key to the inner Temple of +the Ten Thousand Disenchantments, the entrance of Mr. Neergard appeared +to be only a matter of time and opportunity, and his ultimate welcome at +the naked altar a conclusion foregone. + +In the interim, however, he suffered Gerald and little Ruthven to pilot +him; he remained cheerfully oblivious to the snubs and indifference +accorded him by Mrs. Ruthven, Mrs. Fane, and others of their entourage +whom he encountered over the card-tables or at card-suppers. And all the +while he was attending to his business with an energy and activity that +ought to have shamed Gerald, and did, at times, particularly when he +arrived at the office utterly unfit for the work before him. + +But Neergard continued astonishingly tolerant and kind, lending him +money, advancing him what he required, taking up or renewing notes for +him, until the boy, heavily in his debt, plunged more heavily still in +sheer desperation, only to flounder the deeper at every struggle to +extricate himself. + +Alixe Ruthven suspected something of this, but it was useless as well as +perilous in other ways for her to argue with Gerald, for the boy had +come to a point where even his devotion to her could not stop him. He +_must_ go on. He did not say so to Alixe; he merely laughed, assuring +her that he was all right; that he knew how much he could afford to +lose, and that he would stop when his limit was in sight. Alas, he had +passed his limit long since; and already it was so far behind him that +he dared not look back--dared no longer even look forward. + +Meanwhile the Ruthvens were living almost lavishly, and keeping four +more horses; but Eileen Erroll's bank balance had now dwindled to three +figures; and Gerald had not only acted offensively toward Selwyn, but +had quarrelled so violently with Austin that the latter, thoroughly +incensed and disgusted, threatened to forbid him the house. + +"The little fool!" he said to Selwyn, "came here last night, stinking of +wine, and attempted to lay down the law to me!--tried to dragoon me into +a compromise with him over the investments I have made for him. By God, +Phil, he shall not control one cent until the trust conditions are +fulfilled, though it was left to my discretion, too. And I told him so +flatly; I told him he wasn't fit to be trusted with the coupons of a +repudiated South American bond--" + +"Hold on, Austin. That isn't the way to tackle a boy like that!" + +"Isn't it? Well, why not? Do you expect me to dicker with him?" + +"No; but, Austin, you've always been a little brusque with him. Don't +you think--" + +"No, I don't. It's discipline he needs, and he'll get it good and plenty +every time he comes here." + +"I--I'm afraid he may cease coming here. That's the worst of it. For his +sister's sake I think we ought to try to put up with--" + +"Put up! Put up! I've been doing nothing else since he came of age. He's +turned out a fool of a puppy, I tell you; he's idle, lazy, dissipated, +impudent, conceited, insufferable--" + +"But not vicious, Austin, and not untruthful. Where his affections are +centred he is always generous; where they should be centred he is merely +thoughtless, not deliberately selfish--" + +"See here, Phil, how much good has your molly-coddling done him? You +warned him to be cautious in his intimacy with Neergard, and he was +actually insulting to you--" + +"I know; but I understood. He probably had some vague idea of loyalty to +a man whom he had known longer than he knew me. That was all; that was +what I feared, too. But it had to be done--I was determined to venture +it; and it seems I accomplished nothing. But don't think that Gerald's +attitude toward me makes any difference, Austin. It doesn't; I'm just as +devoted to the boy, just as sorry for him, just as ready to step in when +the chance comes, as it surely will, Austin. He's only running a bit +wilder than the usual colt; it takes longer to catch and bridle him--" + +"Somebody'll rope him pretty roughly before you run him down," said +Gerard. + +"I hope not. Of course it's a chance he takes, and we can't help it; but +I'm trying to believe he'll tire out in time and come back to us for his +salt. And, Austin, we've simply got to believe in him, you know--on +Eileen's account." + +Austin grew angrier and redder: + +"Eileen's account? Do you mean her bank account? It's easy enough to +believe in him if you inspect his sister's bank account. Believe in him? +Oh, certainly I do; I believe he's pup enough to come sneaking to his +sister to pay for all the damfooleries he's engaged in. . . . And I've +positively forbidden her to draw another check to his order--" + +"It's that little bangled whelp, Ruthven," said Selwyn between his +teeth. "I warned Gerald most solemnly of that man, but--" He shrugged +his shoulders and glanced about him at the linen-covered furniture and +bare floors. After a moment he looked up: "The game there is of course +notorious. I--if matters did not stand as they do"--he flushed +painfully--"I'd go straight to Ruthven and find out whether or not this +business could be stopped." + +"Stopped? No, it can't be. How are you going to stop a man from playing +cards in his own house? They all do it--that sort. Fane's rather +notorious himself; they call his house the house of ill-Fane, you know. +If you or I or any of our family were on any kind of terms with the +Ruthvens, they might exclude Gerald to oblige us. We are not, however; +and, anyway, if Gerald means to make a gambler and a souse of himself at +twenty-one, he'll do it. But it's pretty rough on us." + +"It's rougher on him, Austin; and it's roughest on his sister. Well"--he +held out his hand--"good-bye. No, thanks, I won't stop to see Nina and +Eileen; I'm going to try to think up some way out of this. And--if +Gerald comes to you again--try another tack--just try it. You know, old +fellow, that, between ourselves, you and I are sometimes short of temper +and long of admonition. Let's try reversing the combination with +Gerald." + +But Austin only growled from the depths of his linen-shrouded arm-chair, +and Selwyn turned away, wondering what in the world he could do in a +matter already far beyond the jurisdiction of either Austin or himself. + +If Alixe had done her best to keep Gerald away, she appeared to be quite +powerless in the matter; and it was therefore useless to go to her. +Besides, he had every inclination to avoid her. He had learned his +lesson. + +To whom then could he go? Through whom could he reach Gerald? Through +Nina? Useless. And Gerald had already defied Austin. Through Neergard, +then? But he was on no terms with Neergard; how could he go to him? +Through Rosamund Fane? At the thought he made a wry face. Any advances +from him she would wilfully misinterpret. And Ruthven? How on earth +could he bring himself to approach him? + +And the problem therefore remained as it was; the only chance of any +solution apparently depending upon these friends of Gerald's, not one of +whom was a friend of Selwyn; indeed some among them were indifferent to +the verge of open enmity. + +And yet he had promised Eileen to do what he could. What merit lay in +performing an easy obligation? What courage was required to keep a +promise easily kept? If he cared anything for her--if he really cared +for Gerald, he owed them more than effortless fulfilment. And here there +could be no fulfilment without effort, without the discarding from self +of the last rags of pride. And even then, what hope was there--after the +sacrifice of self and the disregard of almost certain humiliation? + +It was horribly hard for him; there seemed to be no chance in sight. But +forlorn hope was slowly rousing the soldier in him--the grim, dogged, +desperate necessity of doing his duty to the full and of leaving +consequences to that Destiny, which some call by a name more reverent. + +So first of all, when at length he had decided, he nerved himself to +strike straight at the centre; and within the hour he found Gerald at +the Stuyvesant Club. + +The boy descended to the visitors' rooms, Selwyn's card in his hand and +distrust written on every feature. And at Selwyn's first frank and +friendly words he reddened to the temples and checked him. + +"I won't listen," he said. "They--Austin and--and everybody have been +putting you up to this until I'm tired of it. Do they think I'm a baby? +Do they suppose I don't know enough to take care of myself? Are they +trying to make me ridiculous? I tell you they'd better let me alone. My +friends are my friends, and I won't listen to any criticism of them, and +that settles it." + +"Gerald--" + +"Oh, I know perfectly well that you dislike Neergard. I don't, and +that's the difference." + +"I'm not speaking of Mr. Neergard, Gerald; I'm only trying to tell you +what this man Ruthven really is doing--" + +"What do I care what he is doing!" cried Gerald angrily. "And, anyway, +it isn't likely I'd come to you to find out anything about Mrs. +Ruthven's second husband!" + +Selwyn rose, very white and still. After a moment he drew a quiet +breath, his clinched hands relaxed, and he picked up his hat and gloves. + +"They are my friends," muttered Gerald, as pale as he. "You drove me +into speaking that way." + +"Perhaps I did, my boy. . . . I don't judge you. . . . If you ever find +you need help, come to me; and if you can't come, and still need me, +send for me. I'll do what I can--always. I know you better than you know +yourself. Good-bye." + +He turned to the door; and Gerald burst out: "Why can't you let my +friends alone? I liked you before you began this sort of thing!" + +"I will let them alone if you will," said Selwyn, halting. "I can't +stand by and see you exploited and used and perverted. Will you give me +one chance to talk it over, Gerald?" + +"No, I wont!" returned Gerald hotly; "I'll stand for my friends every +time! There's no treachery in me!" + +"You are not standing by me very fast," said the elder man gently. + +"I said I was standing by my _friends_!" repeated the boy. + +"Very well, Gerald; but it's at the expense of your own people, I'm +afraid." + +"That's my business, and you're not one of 'em!" retorted the boy, +infuriated; "and you won't be, either, if I can prevent it, no matter +whether people say that you're engaged to her--" + +"What!" whispered Selwyn, wheeling like a flash. The last vestige of +colour had fled from his face; and Gerald caught his breath, almost +blinded by the blaze of fury in the elder man's eyes. + +Neither spoke again; and after a moment Selwyn's eyes fell, he turned +heavily on his heel and walked away, head bent, gray eyes narrowing to +slits. + +Yet, through the brain's chaos and the heart's loud tumult and the +clamour of pulses run wild at the insult flung into his very face, the +grim instinct to go on persisted. And he went on, and on, for _her_ +sake--on--he knew not how--until he came to Neergard's apartment in one +of the vast West-Side constructions, bearing the name of a sovereign +state; and here, after an interval, he followed his card to Neergard's +splendid suite, where a man-servant received him and left him seated by +a sunny window overlooking the blossoming foliage of the Park. + +When Neergard came in, and stood on the farther side of a big oak table, +Selwyn rose, returning the cool, curt nod. + +"Mr. Neergard," he said, "it is not easy for me to come here after what +I said to you when I severed my connection with your firm. You have +every reason to be unfriendly toward me; but I came on the chance that +whatever resentment you may feel will not prevent you from hearing me +out." + +"Personal resentment," said Neergard slowly, "never interferes with my +business. I take it, of course, that you have called upon a business +matter. Will you sit down?" + +"Thank you; I have only a moment. And what I am here for is to ask you, +as Mr. Erroll's friend, to use your influence on Mr. Erroll--every atom +of your influence--to prevent him from ruining himself financially +through his excesses. I ask you, for his family's sake, to +discountenance any more gambling; to hold him strictly to his duties in +your office, to overlook no more shortcomings of his, but to demand from +him what any trained business man demands of his associates as well as +of his employees. I ask this for the boy's sake." + +Neergard's close-set eyes focussed a trifle closer to Selwyn's, yet did +not meet them. + +"Mr. Selwyn," he said, "have you come here to criticise the conduct of +my business?" + +"Criticise! No, I have not. I merely ask you--" + +"You are merely asking me," cut in Neergard, "to run my office, my +clerks, and my associate in business after some theory of your own." + +Selwyn looked at the man and knew he had lost; yet he forced himself to +go on: + +"The boy regards you as his friend. Could you not, as his friend, +discourage his increasing tendency toward dissipation--" + +"I am not aware that he is dissipated." + +"What!" + +"I say that I am not aware that Gerald requires any interference from +me--or from you, either," said Neergard coolly. "And as far as that +goes, I and my business require no interference either. And I believe +that settles it." + +He touched a button; the man-servant appeared to usher Selwyn out. + +The latter set his teeth in his under lip and looked straight and hard +at Neergard, but Neergard thrust both hands in his pockets, turned +squarely on his heel, and sauntered out of the room, yawning as he went. + +It bid fair to become a hard day for Selwyn; he foresaw it, for there +was more for him to do, and the day was far from ended, and his +self-restraint was nearly exhausted! + +An hour later he sent his card in to Rosamund Fane; and Rosamund came +down, presently, mystified, flattered, yet shrewdly alert and prepared +for anything since the miracle of his coming justified such preparation. + +"Why in the world," she said with a flushed gaiety perfectly genuine, +"did you ever come to see _me_? Will you please sit here, rather near +me?--or I shall not dare believe that you are that same Captain Selwyn +who once was so deliciously rude to me at the Minster's dance." + +"Was there not a little malice--just a very little--on your part to +begin it?" he asked, smiling. + +"Malice? Why? Just because I wanted to see how you and Alixe Ruthven +would behave when thrust into each other's arms? Oh, Captain +Selwyn--what a harmless little jest of mine to evoke all that bitterness +you so smilingly poured out on me! . . . But I forgave you; I'll forgive +you more than that--if you ask me. Do you know"--and she laid her small +head on one side and smiled at him out of her pretty doll's eyes--"do +you know that there are very few things I might not be persuaded to +pardon you? Perhaps"--with laughing audacity--"there are not any at all. +Try, if you please." + +"Then you surely will forgive me for what I have come to ask you," he +said lightly. "Won't you?" + +"Yes," she said, her pink-and-white prettiness challenging him from +every delicate feature--"yes--I will pardon you--on one condition." + +"And what is that, Mrs. Fane?" + +"That you are going to ask me something quite unpardonable!" she said +with a daring little laugh. "For if it's anything less improper than an +impropriety I won't forgive you. Besides, there'd be nothing to forgive. +So please begin, Captain Selwyn." + +"It's only this," he said: "I am wondering whether you would do anything +for me?" + +"_Any_thing! _Merci_! Isn't that extremely general, Captain Selwyn? But +you never can tell; ask me." + +So he bent forward, his clasped hands between his knees, and told her +very earnestly of his fears about Gerald, asking her to use her +undoubted influence with the boy to shame him from the card-tables, +explaining how utterly disastrous to him and his family his present +course was. + +"He is very fond of you, Mrs. Fane--and you know how easy it is for a +boy to be laughed out of excesses by a pretty woman of experience. You +see I am desperately put to it or I would never have ventured to trouble +you--" + +"I see," she said, looking at him out of eyes bright with +disappointment. + +"Could you help us, then?" he asked pleasantly. + +"Help _us_, Captain Selwyn? Who is the 'us,' please?" + +"Why, Gerald and me--and his family," he added, meeting her eyes. The +eyes began to dance with malice. + +"His family," repeated Rosamund; "that is to say, his sister, Miss +Erroll. His family, I believe, ends there; does it not?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Fane." + +"I see. . . . Miss Erroll is naturally worried over him. But I wonder +why she did not come to me herself instead of sending you as her errant +ambassador?" + +"Miss Erroll did not send me," he said, flushing up. And, looking +steadily into the smiling doll's face confronting him, he knew again +that he had failed. + +"I am not inclined to be very much flattered after all," said Rosamund. +"You should have come on your own errand, Captain Selwyn, if you +expected a woman to listen to you. Did you not know that?" + +"It is not a question of errands or of flattery," he said wearily; "I +thought you might care to influence a boy who is headed for serious +trouble--that is all, Mrs. Fane." + +She smiled: "Come to me on your _own_ errand--for Gerald's sake, for +anybody's sake--for your own, preferably, and I'll listen. But don't +come to me on another woman's errands, for I won't listen--even to you." + +"I _have_ come on my own errand!" he repeated coldly. "Miss Erroll knew +nothing about it, and shall not hear of it from me. Can you not help me, +Mrs. Fane?" + +But Rosamund's rose-china features had hardened into a polished smile; +and Selwyn stood up, wearily, to make his adieux. + +But, as he entered his hansom before the door, he knew the end was not +yet; and once more he set his face toward the impossible; and once more +the hansom rolled away over the asphalt, and once more it stopped--this +time before the house of Ruthven. + +Every step he took now was taken through sheer force of will--and in +_her_ service; because, had it been, now, only for Gerald's sake, he +knew he must have weakened--and properly, perhaps, for a man owes +something to himself. But what he was now doing was for a young girl who +trusted him with all the fervour and faith of her heart and soul; and he +could spare himself in nowise if, in his turn, he responded heart and +soul to the solemn appeal. + +Mr. Ruthven, it appeared, was at home and would receive Captain Selwyn +in his own apartment. + +Which he did--after Selwyn had been seated for twenty minutes--strolling +in clad only in silken lounging clothes, and belting about his waist, as +he entered, the sash of a kimona, stiff with gold. + +His greeting was a pallid stare; but, as Selwyn made no motion to rise, +he lounged over to a couch and, half reclining among the cushions, shot +an insolent glance at Selwyn, then yawned and examined the bangles on +his wrist. + +After a moment Selwyn said: "Mr. Ruthven, you are no doubt surprised +that I am here--" + +"I'm not surprised if it's my wife you've come to see," drawled Ruthven. +"If I'm the object of your visit, I confess to some surprise--as much as +the visit is worth, and no more." + +The vulgarity of the insult under the man's own roof scarcely moved +Selwyn to any deeper contempt, and certainly not to anger. + +"I did not come here to ask a favour of you," he said coolly--"for that +is out of the question, Mr. Ruthven. But I came to tell you that Mr. +Erroll's family has forbidden him to continue his gambling in this house +and in your company anywhere or at any time." + +"Most extraordinary," murmured Ruthven, passing his ringed fingers over +his minutely shaven face--that strange face of a boy hardened by the +depravity of ages. + +"So I must request you," continued Selwyn, "to refuse him the +opportunity of gambling here. Will you do it--voluntarily?" + +"No." + +"Then I shall use my judgment in the matter." + +"And what may your judgment in the matter be?" + +"I have not yet decided; for one thing I might enter a complaint with +the police that a boy is being morally and materially ruined in your +private gambling establishment." + +"Is that a threat?" + +"No. I will act, not threaten." + +"Ah," drawled Ruthven, "I may do the same the next time my wife spends +the evening in your apartment." + +"You lie," said Selwyn in a voice made low by surprise. + +"Oh, no, I don't. Very chivalrous of you--quite proper for you to deny +it like a gentleman--but useless, quite useless. So the less said about +invoking the law, the better for--some people. You'll agree with me, I +dare say. . . . And now, concerning your friend, Gerald Erroll--I have +not the slightest desire to see him play cards. Whether or not he plays +is a matter perfectly indifferent to me, and you had better understand +it. But if you come here demanding that I arrange my guest-lists to suit +you, you are losing time." + +Selwyn, almost stunned at Ruthven's knowledge of the episode in his +rooms, had risen as he gave the man the lie direct. + +For an instant, now, as he stared at him, there was murder in his eye. +Then the utter hopeless helplessness of his position overwhelmed him, as +Ruthven, with danger written all over him, stood up, his soft smooth +thumbs hooked in the glittering sash of his kimona. + +"Scowl if you like," he said, backing away instinctively, but still +nervously impertinent; "and keep your distance! If you've anything +further to say to me, write it." Then, growing bolder as Selwyn made no +offensive move, "Write to me," he repeated with a venomous smirk; "it's +safer for you to figure as _my_ correspondent than as my wife's +co-respondent--L-let go of me! W-what the devil are you d-d-doing--" + +For Selwyn had him fast--one sinewy hand twisted in his silken collar, +holding him squirming at arm's length. + +"M-murder!" stammered Mr. Ruthven. + +"No," said Selwyn, "not this time. But be very, very careful after +this." + +And he let him go with an involuntary shudder, and wiped his hands on +his handkerchief. + +Ruthven stood quite still; and after a moment the livid terror died out +in his face and a rushing flush spread over it--a strange, dreadful +shade, curiously opaque; and he half turned, dizzily, hands outstretched +for self-support. + +Selwyn coolly watched him as he sank on to the couch and sat huddled +together and leaning forward, his soft, ringed fingers covering his +impurpled face. + +Then Selwyn went away with a shrug of utter loathing; but after he had +gone, and Ruthven's servants had discovered him and summoned a +physician, their master lay heavily amid his painted draperies and +cushions, his congested features set, his eyes partly open and +possessing sight, but the whites of them had disappeared and the eyes +themselves, save for the pupils, were like two dark slits filled with +blood. + +There was no doubt about it; the doctors, one and all, knew their +business when they had so often cautioned Mr. Ruthven to avoid sudden +and excessive emotions. + +That night Selwyn wrote briefly to Mrs. Ruthven: + + "I saw your husband this afternoon. He is at liberty to inform you + of what passed. But in case he does not, there is one detail which + you ought to know: your husband believes that you once paid a visit + to my apartments. It is unlikely that he will repeat the accusation + and I think there is no occasion for you to worry. However, it is + only proper that you should know this--which is my only excuse for + writing you a letter that requires no acknowledgment. Very truly + yours, + + "PHILIP SELWYN." + +To this letter she wrote an excited and somewhat incoherent reply; and +rereading it in troubled surprise, he began to recognise in it +something of the strange, illogical, impulsive attitude which had +confronted him in the first weeks of his wedded life. + +Here was the same minor undertone of unrest sounding ominously through +every line; the same illogical, unhappy attitude which implied so much +and said so little, leaving him uneasy and disconcerted, conscious of +the vague recklessness and veiled reproach--dragging him back from the +present through the dead years to confront once more the old pain, the +old bewilderment at the hopeless misunderstanding between them. + +He wrote in answer: + + "For the first time in my life I am going to write you some + unpleasant truths. I cannot comprehend what you have written; I + cannot interpret what you evidently imagine I must divine in these + pages--yet, as I read, striving to understand, all the old familiar + pain returns--the hopeless attempt to realise wherein I failed in + what you expected of me. + + "But how can I, now, be held responsible for your unhappiness and + unrest--for the malicious attitude, as you call it, of the world + toward you? Years ago you felt that there existed some occult + coalition against you, and that I was either privy to it or + indifferent. I was not indifferent, but I did not believe there + existed any reason for your suspicions. This was the beginning of + my failure to understand you; I was sensible enough that we were + unhappy, yet could not see any reason for it--could see no reason + for the increasing restlessness and discontent which came over you + like successive waves following some brief happy interval when your + gaiety and beauty and wit fairly dazzled me and everybody who came + near you. And then, always hateful and irresistible, followed the + days of depression, of incomprehensible impulses, of that strange + unreasoning resentment toward me. + + "What could I do? I don't for a moment say that there was nothing I + might have done. Certainly there must have been something; but I + did not know what. And often in my confusion and bewilderment I was + quick-tempered, impatient to the point of exasperation--so utterly + unable was I to understand wherein I was failing to make you + contented. + + "Of course I could not shirk or avoid field duty or any of the + details which so constantly took me away from you. Also I began to + understand your impatience of garrison life, of the monotony of the + place, of the climate, of the people. But all this, which I could + not help, did not account for those dreadful days together when I + could see that every minute was widening the breach between us. + + "Alixe--your letter has brought it all back, vivid, distressing, + exasperating; and this time I _know_ that I could have done nothing + to render you unhappy, because the time when I was responsible for + such matters is past. + + "And this--forgive me if I say it--arouses a doubt in me--the first + honest doubt I have had of my own unshared culpability. Perhaps + after all a little more was due from you than what you brought to + our partnership--a little more patience, a little more appreciation + of my own inexperience and of my efforts to make you happy. You + were, perhaps, unwittingly exacting--even a little bit selfish. And + those sudden, impulsive caprices for a change of environment--an + escape from the familiar--were they not rather hard on me who + could do nothing--who had no choice in the matter of obedience to + my superiors? + + "Again and again I asked you to go to some decent climate and wait + for me until I could get leave. I stood ready and willing to make + any arrangement for you, and you made no decision. + + "Then when Barnard's command moved out we had our last distressing + interview. And, if that night I spoke of your present husband and + asked you to be a little wiser and use a little more discretion to + avoid malicious comment--it was not because I dreamed of + distrusting you--it was merely for your own guidance and because + you had so often complained of other people's gossip about you. + + "To say I was stunned, crushed, when I learned of what had happened + in my absence, is to repeat a trite phrase. What it cost me is of + no consequence now; what it is now costing you I cannot help. + + "Yet, your letter, in every line, seems to imply some strange + responsibility on my part for what you speak of as the degrading + position you now occupy. + + "Degradation or not--let us leave that aside; you cannot now avoid + being his wife. But as for any hostile attitude of society in your + regard--any league or coalition to discredit you--that is not + apparent to me. Nor can it occur if your personal attitude toward + the world is correct. Discretion and circumspection, a happy, + confident confronting of life--these, and a wise recognition of + conditions, constitute sufficient safeguard for a woman in your + delicately balanced position. + + "And now, one thing more. You ask me to meet you at Sherry's for a + conference. I don't care to, Alixe. There is nothing to be said + except what can be written on letter-paper. And I can see neither + the necessity nor the wisdom of our writing any more letters." + +For a few days no reply came; then he received such a strange, unhappy, +and desperate letter, that, astonished, alarmed, and apprehensive, he +went straight to his sister, who had run up to town for the day from +Silverside, and who had telephoned him to take her somewhere for +luncheon. + +Nina appeared very gay and happy and youthful in her spring plumage, but +she exclaimed impatiently at his tired and careworn pallor; and when a +little later they were seated tête-à-tête in the rococo dining-room of a +popular French restaurant, she began to urge him to return with her, +insisting that a week-end at Silverside was what he needed to avert +physical disintegration. + +"What is there to keep you in town?" she demanded, breaking bits from +the stick of crisp bread. "The children have been clamouring for you day +and night, and Eileen has been expecting a letter--You promised to write +her, Phil--!" + +"I'm going to write to her," he said impatiently; "wait a moment, +Nina--don't speak of anything pleasant or--or intimate just +now--because--because I've got to bring up another matter--something not +very pleasant to me or to you. May I begin?" + +"What is it, Phil?" she asked, her quick, curious eyes intent on his +troubled face. + +"It is about--Alixe." + +"What about her?" returned his sister calmly. + +"You knew her in school--years ago. You have always known her--" + +"Yes." + +"You--did you ever visit her?--stay at the Varians' house?" + +"Yes." + +"In--in her own home in Westchester?" + +"Yes." + +There was a silence; his eyes shifted to his plate; remained fixed as he +said: + +"Then you knew her--father?" + +"Yes, Phil," she said quietly, "I knew Mr. Varian." + +"Was there anything--anything unusual--about him--in those days?" + +"Have you heard that for the first time?" asked his sister. + +He looked up: "Yes. What was it, Nina?" + +She became busy with her plate for a while; he sat rigid, patient, one +hand resting on his claret-glass. And presently she said without meeting +his eyes: + +"It was even farther back--her grandparents--one of them--" She lifted +her head slowly--"That is why it so deeply concerned us, Phil, when we +heard of your marriage." + +"What concerned you?" + +"The chance of inheritance--the risk of the taint--of transmitting it. +Her father's erratic brilliancy became more than eccentricity before I +knew him. I would have told you that had I dreamed that you ever could +have thought of marrying Alixe Varian. But how could I know you would +meet her out there in the Orient! It was--your cable to us was like a +thunderbolt. . . . And when she--she left you so suddenly--Phil, dear--I +_feared_ the true reason--the only possible reason that could be +responsible for such an insane act." + +"What was the truth about her father?" he said doggedly. "He was +eccentric; was he ever worse than that?" + +"The truth was that he became mentally irresponsible before his death." + +"You _know_ this?" + +"Alixe told me when we were schoolgirls. And for days she was haunted +with the fear of what might one day be her inheritance. That is all I +know, Phil." + +He nodded and for a while made some pretence of eating, but presently +leaned back and looked at his sister out of dazed eyes. + +"Do you suppose," he said heavily, "that _she_ was not entirely +responsible when--when she went away?" + +"I have wondered," said Nina simply. "Austin believes it." + +"But--but--how in God's name could that be possible? She was so +brilliant--so witty, so charmingly and capriciously normal--" + +"Her father was brilliant and popular--when he was young. Austin knew +him, Phil. I have often, often wondered whether Alixe realises what she +is about. Her restless impulses, her intervals of curious resentment--so +many things which I remember and which, now, I cannot believe were +entirely normal. . . . It is a dreadful surmise to make about anybody so +youthful, so pretty, so lovable--and yet, it is the kindest way to +account for her strange treatment of you--" + +"I can't believe it," he said, staring at vacancy. "I refuse to." And, +thinking of her last frightened and excited letter imploring an +interview with him and giving the startling reason: "What a scoundrel +that fellow Ruthven is," he said with a shudder. + +"Why, what has he--" + +"Nothing. I can't discuss it, Nina--" + +"Please tell me, Phil!" + +"There is nothing to tell." + +She said deliberately: "I hope there is not, Phil. Nor do I credit any +mischievous gossip which ventures to link my brother's name with the +name of Mrs. Ruthven." + +He paid no heed to what she hinted, and he was still thinking of Ruthven +when he said: "The most contemptible and cowardly thing a man can do is +to fail a person dependent on him--when that person is in prospective +danger. The dependence, the threatened helplessness _must_ appeal to any +man! How can he, then, fail to stand by a person in trouble--a person +linked to him by every tie, every obligation. Why--why to fail at such a +time is dastardly--and to--to make a possible threatened infirmity a +reason for abandoning a woman is monstrous--!" + +"Phil! I never for a moment supposed that even if you suspected Alixe to +be not perfectly responsible you would have abandoned her--" + +"_I?_ Abandon _her!_" He laughed bitterly. "I was not speaking of +myself," he said. . . . And to himself he wondered: "Was it +_that_--after all? Is that the key to my dreadful inability to +understand? I cannot--I cannot accept it. I know her; it was not that; +it--it must not be!" + +And that night he wrote to her: + + "If he threatens you with divorce on such a ground he himself is + likely to be adjudged mentally unsound. It was a brutal, stupid + threat, nothing more; and his insult to your father's memory was + more brutal still. Don't be stampeded by such threats. Disprove + them by your calm self-control under provocation; disprove them by + your discretion and self-confidence. Give nobody a single possible + reason for gossip. And above all, Alixe, don't become worried and + morbid over anything you might dread as inheritance, for you are as + sound to-day as you were when I first met you; and you shall not + doubt that you could ever be anything else. Be the woman you can + be! Show the pluck and courage to make the very best out of life. I + have slowly learned to attempt it; and it is not difficult if you + convince yourself that it can be done." + +To this she answered the next day: + + "I will do my best. There is danger and treachery everywhere; and + if it becomes unendurable I shall put an end to it in one way or + another. As for his threat--incident on my admitting that I did go + to your room, and defying him to dare believe evil of me for doing + it--I can laugh at it now--though, when I wrote you, I was + terrified--remembering how mentally broken my father was when he + died. + + "But, as you say, I _am_ sound, body and mind. I _know_ it; I don't + doubt it for one moment--except--at long intervals when, apropos of + nothing, a faint sensation of dread comes creeping. + + "But I am _sound_! I know it so absolutely that I sometimes wonder + at my own perfect sanity and understanding; and so clearly, so + faultlessly, so precisely does my mind work that--and this I never + told you--I am often and often able to detect mental inadequacy in + many people around me--the slightest deviation from the normal, the + least degree of mental instability. Phil, so sensitive to + extraneous impression is my mind that you would be astonished to + know how instantly perceptible to me is mental degeneration in + other people. And it would amaze you, too, if I should tell you how + many, many people you know are, in some degree, more or less + insane. + + "But there is no use in going into such matters; all I meant to + convey to you was that I am not frightened now at any threat of + that sort from him. + + "I don't know what passed between you and him; he won't tell me; + but I do know from the servants that he has been quite ill--I was + in Westchester that night--and that something happened to his + eyes--they were dreadful for a while. I imagine it has something to + do with veins and arteries; and it's understood that he's to avoid + sudden excitement. + + "However, he's only serenely disagreeable to me now, and we see + almost nothing of one another except over the card-tables. Gerald + has been winning rather heavily, I am glad to say--glad, as long as + I cannot prevent him from playing. And yet I may be able to + accomplish that yet--in a roundabout way--because the apple-visaged + and hawk-beaked Mr. Neergard has apparently become my slavish + creature; quite infatuated. And as soon as I've fastened on his + collar, and made sure that Rosamund can't unhook it, I'll try to + make him shut down on Gerald's playing. This for your sake, + Phil--because you ask me. And because you must always stand for all + that is upright and good and manly in my eyes. Ah, Phil! what a + fool I was! And all, all my own fault, too. + + "Alixe." + +This ended the sudden eruption of correspondence; for he did not reply +to this letter, though in it he read enough to make him gravely uneasy; +and he fell, once more, into the habit of brooding, from which both +Boots Lansing and Eileen had almost weaned him. + +Also he began to take long solitary walks in the Park when not occupied +in conferences with the representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder +Works--a company which had recently approached him in behalf of his +unperfected explosive, Chaosite. + +This hermit life might have continued in town indefinitely had he not, +one morning, been surprised by a note from Eileen--the first he had ever +had from her. + +It was only a very brief missive--piquant, amusing, innocently audacious +in closing--a mere reminder that he had promised to write to her; and +she ended it by asking him very plainly whether he had not missed her, +in terms so frank, so sweet, so confident of his inevitable answer, that +all the enchantment of their delightful intimacy surged back in one +quick tremor of happiness, washing from his heart and soul the clinging, +sordid, evil things which were creeping closer, closer to torment and +overwhelm him. + +And all that day he went about his business quite happily, her letter in +his pocket; and that night, taking a new pen and pen holder, he laid out +his very best letter-paper, and began the first letter he had ever +written to Eileen Erroll. + + "DEAR EILEEN: I have your charming little note from Silverside + reminding me that I had promised to write you. But I needed no + reminder; you know that. Then why have I not written? I couldn't, + off-hand. And every day and evening except to-day and this evening + I have been in conference with Edgerton Lawn and other + representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company; and have come to + a sort of semi-agreement with them concerning a high explosive + called Chaosite, which they desire to control the sale of as soon + as I can control its tendency to misbehave. This I expect to do + this summer; and Austin has very kindly offered me a tiny cottage + out on the moors too far from anybody or anything to worry people. + + "I know you will be glad to hear that I have such attractive + business prospects in view. I dare say I shall scarcely know what + to do with my enormous profits a year or two hence. Have you any + suggestions? + + "Meanwhile, however, your letter and its questions await answers; + and here they are: + + "Yes, I saw Gerald once at his club and had a short talk with him. + He was apparently well. You should not feel so anxious about him. + He is very young, yet, but he comes from good stock. Sooner or + later he is bound to find himself; you must not doubt that. Also he + knows that he can always come to me when he wishes. + + "No, I have not ridden in the Park since you and Nina and the + children went to Silverside. I walked there Sunday, and it was most + beautiful, especially through the Ramble. In his later years my + father was fond of walking there with me. That is one reason I go + there; he seems to be very near me when I stand under the familiar + trees or move along the flowering walks he loved so well. I wish + you had known him. It is curious how often this wish recurs to me; + and so persistent was it in the Park that lovely Sunday that, at + moments, it seemed as though we three were walking there + together--he and you and I--quite happy in the silence of + companionship which seemed not of yesterday but of years. + + "It is rather a comforting faculty I have--this unconscious + companionship with the absent. Once I told you that you had been + with me while you supposed yourself to be at Silverside. Do you + remember? Now, here in the city, I walk with you constantly; and we + often keep pace together through crowded streets and avenues; and + in the quiet hours you are very often, seated not far from where I + sit. . . . If I turned around now--so real has been your presence + in my room to-night--that it seems as though I could not help but + surprise you here--just yonder on the edges of the lamp glow-- + + "But I know you had rather remain at Silverside, so I won't turn + around and surprise you here in Manhattan town. + + "And now your next question: Yes, Boots is well, and I will give + him Drina's love, and I will try my best to bring him to Silverside + when I come. Boots is still crazed with admiration for his house. + He has two cats, a housekeeper, and a jungle of shrubs and vines in + the back yard, which he plays the hose on; and he has also acquired + some really beautiful old rugs--a Herez which has all the tints of + a living sapphire, and a charming antique Shiraz, rose, gold, and + that rare old Persian blue. To mention symbols for a moment, + apropos of our archaeological readings together, Boots has an + antique Asia Minor rug in which I discovered not only the Swastika, + but also a fire-altar, a Rhodian lily border, and a Mongolian motif + which appears to resemble the cloud-band. It was quite an Anatshair + jumble in fact, very characteristic. We must capture Nina some day + and she and you and I will pay a visit to Boots's rugs and study + these old dyes and mystic symbols of the East. Shall we? + + "And now your last question. And I answer: Yes, I do miss you--so + badly that I often take refuge in summoning you in spirit. The + other day I had occasion to see Austin; and we sat in the library + where all the curtains are in linen bags and all the furniture in + overalls, and where the rugs are rolled in tarred paper and the + pictures are muffled in cheese-cloth. + + "And after our conference had ended and I was on my way to the hall + below, suddenly on my ear, faint but clear, I heard your voice, + sweet as the odour of blossoms in an empty room. No--it neither + deceived nor startled me; I have often heard it before, when you + were nowhere near. And, that I may answer your question more + completely, I answer it again: Yes, I miss you; so that I hear your + voice through every silence; all voids are gay with it; there are + no lonely places where my steps pass, because you are always near; + no stillness through which your voice does not sound; no + unhappiness, no sordid cares which the memory of you does not make + easier to endure. + + "Have I answered? And now, good-night. Gerald has just come in; I + hear him passing through the hall to his own apartments. So I'll + drop in for a smoke with him before I start to search for you in + dreamland. Good-night, Eileen. PHILIP SELWYN." + +When he had finished, sealed, and stamped his letter he leaned back in +his chair, smiling to himself, still under the spell which the thought +of her so often now cast over him. Life and the world were younger, +cleaner, fresher; the charming energy of her physical vigour and youth +and beauty tinted all things with the splendid hue of inspiration. But +most of all it was the exquisite fastidiousness of her thoughts that had +begun to inthral him--that crystal clear intelligence, so direct, so +generous--the splendid wholesome attitude toward life--and her dauntless +faith in the goodness of it. + +Breathing deeply, he drew in the fragrance of her memory, and the +bitterness of things was dulled with every quiet respiration. + +He smiled again, too; how utterly had his sister mistaken their frank +companionship! How stupidly superfluous was it to pretend to detect, in +their comradeship, the commonplaces of sentiment--as though such a girl +as Eileen Erroll were of the common self-conscious mould--as though in +their cordial understanding there was anything less simple than +community of taste and the mutual attraction of intelligence! + +Then, the memory of what his sister had said drove the smile from his +face and he straightened up impatiently. Love! What unfortunate +hallucination had obsessed Nina to divine what did not exist?--what need +not exist? How could a woman like his sister fall into such obvious +error; how could she mistake such transparent innocence, such visible +freedom from motive in this young girl's pure friendship for himself? + +And, as for him, he had never thought of Eileen--he could not bring +himself to think of her so materially or sentimentally. For, although he +now understood that he had never known what love, might be--its coarser +mask, infatuation, he had learned to see through; and, as that is all he +had ever known concerning love, the very hint of it had astonished and +repelled him, as though the mere suggestion had been a rudeness offered +to this delicate and delicious friendship blossoming into his life--a +life he had lately thought so barren and laid waste. + +No, his sister was mistaken; but her mistake must not disturb the +blossoming of this unstained flower. Sufficient that Eileen and he +disdainfully ignore the trite interpretation those outside might offer +them unasked; sufficient that their confidence in one another remain +without motive other than the happiness of unembarrassed people who find +a pleasure in sharing an intelligent curiosity concerning men and things +and the world about them. + +Thinking of these matters, lying back there in his desk chair, he +suddenly remembered that Gerald had come in. They had scarcely seen one +another since that unhappy meeting in the Stuyvesant Club; and now, +remembering what he had written to Eileen, he emerged with a start from +his contented dreaming, sobered by the prospect of seeking Gerald. + +For a moment or two he hesitated; but he had said in his letter that he +was going to do it; and now he rose, looked around for his pipe, found +it, filled and lighted it, and, throwing on his dressing-gown, went out +into the corridor, tying the tasselled cords around his waist as he +walked. + +His first knock remaining unanswered, he knocked more sharply. Then he +heard from within the muffled creak of a bed, heavy steps across the +floor. The door opened with a jerk; Gerald stood there, eyes swollen, +hair in disorder, his collar crushed, and the white evening tie +unknotted and dangling over his soiled shirt-front. + +"Hello," said Selwyn simply; "may I come in?" + +The boy passed his hand across his eyes as though confused by the light; +then he turned and walked back toward the bed, still rubbing his eyes, +and sat down on the edge. + +Selwyn closed the door and seated himself, apparently not noticing +Gerald's dishevelment. + +"Thought I'd drop in for a good-night pipe," he said quietly. "By the +way, Gerald, I'm going down to Silverside next week. Nina has asked +Boots, too. Couldn't you fix it to come along with us?" + +"I don't know," said the boy in a low voice; "I'd like to." + +"Good business! That will be fine! What you and I need is a good stiff +tramp across the moors, or a gallop, if you like. It's great for mental +cobwebs, and my brain is disgracefully unswept. By the way, somebody +said that you'd joined the Siowitha Club." + +"Yes," said the boy listlessly. + +"Well, you'll get some lively trout fishing there now. It's only thirty +miles from Silverside, you know--you can run over in the motor very +easily." + +Gerald nodded, sitting silent, his handsome head supported in both +hands, his eyes on the floor. + +That something was very wrong with him appeared plainly enough; but +Selwyn, touched to the heart and miserably apprehensive, dared not +question him, unasked. + +And so they sat there for a while, Selwyn making what conversation he +could; and at length Gerald turned and dragged himself across the bed, +dropping his head back on the disordered pillows. + +"Go on," he said; "I'm listening." + +So Selwyn continued his pleasant, inconsequential observations, and +Gerald lay with closed eyes, quite motionless, until, watching him, +Selwyn saw his hand was trembling where it lay clinched beside him. And +presently the boy turned his face to the wall. + +Toward midnight Selwyn rose quietly, removed his unlighted pipe from +between his teeth, knocked the ashes from it, and pocketed it. Then he +walked to the bed and seated himself on the edge. + +"What's the trouble, old man?" he asked coolly. + +There was no answer. He placed his hand over Gerald's; the boy's hand +lay inert, then quivered and closed on Selwyn's convulsively. + +"That's right," said the elder man; "that's what I'm here for--to stand +by when you hoist signals. Go on." + +The boy shook his head and buried it deeper in the pillow. + +"Bad as that?" commented Selwyn quietly. "Well, what of it? I'm standing +by, I tell you. . . . That's right"--as Gerald broke down, his body +quivering under the spasm of soundless grief--"that's the safety-valve +working. Good business. Take your time." + +It took a long time; and Selwyn sat silent and motionless, his whole arm +numb from its position and Gerald's crushing grasp. And at last, seeing +that was the moment to speak: + +"Now let's fix up this matter, Gerald. Come on!" + +"Good heavens! h-how can it be f-fixed--" + +"I'll tell you when you tell me. It's a money difficulty, I suppose; +isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Cards?" + +"P-partly." + +"Oh, a note? Case of honour? Where is this I.O.U. that you gave?" + +"It's worse than that. The--the note is paid. Good God--I can't tell +you--" + +"You must. That's why I'm here, Gerald." + +"Well, then, I--I drew a check--knowing that I had no funds. If it--if +they return it, marked--" + +"I see. . . . What are the figures?" + +The boy stammered them out; Selwyn's grave face grew graver still. + +"That is bad," he said slowly--"very bad. Have you--but of course you +couldn't have seen Austin--" + +"I'd kill myself first!" said Gerald fiercely. + +"No, you wouldn't do that. You're not _that_ kind. . . . Keep perfectly +cool, Gerald; because it is going to be fixed. The method only remains +to be decided upon--" + +"I can't take your money!" stammered the boy; "I can't take a cent from +you--after what I've said--the beastly things I've said--" + +"It isn't the things you say to me, Gerald, that matter. . . . Let me +think a bit--and don't worry. Just lie quietly, and understand that I'll +do the worrying. And while I'm amusing myself with a little quiet +reflection as to ways and means, just take your own bearings from this +reef; and set a true course once more, Gerald. That is all the reproach, +all the criticism you are going to get from me. Deal with yourself and +your God in silence." + +And in silence and heavy dismay Selwyn confronted the sacrifice he must +make to save the honour of the house of Erroll. + +It meant more than temporary inconvenience to himself; it meant that he +must go into the market and sell securities which were partly his +capital, and from which came the modest income that enabled him to live +as he did. + +There was no other way, unless he went to Austin. But he dared not do +that--dared not think what Austin's action in the matter might be. And +he knew that if Gerald were ever driven into hopeless exile with +Austin's knowledge of his disgrace rankling, the boy's utter ruin must +result inevitably. + +Yet--yet--how could he afford to do this--unoccupied, earning nothing, +bereft of his profession, with only the chance in view that his Chaosite +might turn out stable enough to be marketable? How could he dare so +strip himself? Yet, there was no other way; it had to be done; and done +at once--the very first thing in the morning before it became too late. + +And at first, in the bitter resentment of the necessity, his impulse was +to turn on Gerald and bind him to good conduct by every pledge the boy +could give. At least there would be compensation. Yet, with the thought +came the clear conviction of its futility. The boy had brushed too close +to dishonour not to recognise it. And if this were not a lifelong lesson +to him, no promises forced from him in his dire need and distress, no +oaths, no pledges could bind him; no blame, no admonition, no scorn, no +contempt, no reproach could help him to see more clearly the pit of +destruction than he could see now. + +"You need sleep, Gerald," he said quietly. "Don't worry; I'll see that +your check is not dishonoured; all you have to see to is yourself. +Good-night, my boy." + +But Gerald could not speak; and so Selwyn left him and walked slowly +back to his own room, where he seated himself at his desk, grave, +absent-eyed, his unfilled pipe between his teeth. + +And he sat there until he had bitten clean through the amber mouthpiece, +so that the brier bowl fell clattering to the floor. By that time it was +full daylight; but Gerald was still asleep. He slept late into the +afternoon; but that evening, when Selwyn and Lansing came in to +persuade him to go with them to Silverside, Gerald was gone. + +They waited another day for him; he did not appear. And that night they +left for Silverside without him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SILVERSIDE + + +During that week-end at Silverside Boots behaved like a school-lad run +wild. With Drina's hand in his, half a dozen dogs as advanced guard, and +heavily flanked by the Gerard battalion, he scoured the moorlands from +Surf Point to the Hither Woods; from Wonder Head to Sky Pond. + +Ever hopeful of rabbit and fox, Billy urged on his cheerful waddling +pack and the sea wind rang with the crack of his whip and the treble +note of his whistle. Drina, lately inoculated with the virus of +nature-study, carried a green gauze butterfly net, while Boots's pockets +bulged with various lethal bottles and perforated tin boxes for the +reception of caterpillars. The other children, like the puppies of +Billy's pack, ran haphazard, tireless and eager little opportunists, +eternal prisoners of hope, tripped flat by creepers, scratched and +soiled in thicket and bog, but always up and forward again, ranging out, +nose in the wind, dauntless, expectant, wonder-eyed. + +Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn formed a lagging and leisurely rear-guard, +though always within signalling distance of Boots and the main body; +and, when necessary, the two ex-army men wig-wagged to each other across +the uplands to the endless excitement and gratification of the +children. + +It was a perfect week-end; the sky, pale as a robin's egg at morn and +even, deepened to royal blue under the noon-day sun; and all the +world--Long Island--seemed but a gigantic gold-green boat stemming the +running purple of the sea and Sound. + +The air, when still, quivered in that deep, rich silence instinct with +the perpetual monotone of the sea; stiller for the accentless call of +some lone moorland bird, or the gauzy clatter of a dragon-fly in reedy +reaches. But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges +stirred, and the cat's-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far +surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, +earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony--a harmony of +sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon. + +Then, through the tinted mystery the wild ducks, low flying, drove like +a flight of witches through the dusk; and unseen herons called from +their heronry, fainter, fainter till their goblin yelps died out in the +swelling murmur of a million wind-whipped leaves. + +Then was the moorland waste bewitching in its alternation of softly +checkered gray and shade, where acres of feathery grasses flowed in +wind-blown furrows; where in the purple obscurity of hollows the strange +and aged little forests grew restless and full of echoes; where shadowy +reeds like elfin swords clattered and thrust and parried across the +darkling pools of haunted waters unstirred save for the swirl of a +startled fish or the smoothly spreading wake of some furry creature +swimming without a sound. + +Into this magic borderland, dimmer for moonlit glimpses in ghostly +contrast to the shadow shape of wood and glade, Eileen conducted Selwyn; +and they heard the whirr of painted wood-ducks passing in obscurity, +and the hymn of the four winds off Wonder Head; and they heard the +herons, noisy in their heronry, and a young fox yapping on a moon-struck +dune. + +But Selwyn cared more for the sun and the infinite blue above, and the +vast cloud-forms piled up in argent splendour behind a sea of amethyst. + +"The darker, vaguer phases of beauty," he said to Eileen, smiling, +"attract and fascinate those young in experience. Tragedy is always +better appreciated and better rendered by those who have never lived it. +The anatomy of sadness, the subtler fascination of life brooding in +shadow, appeals most keenly to those who can study and reflect, then +dismiss it all and return again to the brightness of existence which has +not yet for them been tarnished." + +He had never before, even by slightest implication, referred to his own +experience with life. She was not perfectly certain that he did so now. + +They were standing on one of the treeless hills--a riotous tangle of +grasses and wild flowers--looking out to sea across Sky Pond. He had a +rod; and as he stood he idly switched the gaily coloured flies backward +and forward. + +"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit +side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I +prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an +etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like +dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects; and anything called 'an +arrangement' on canvas, or anything called 'a human document' or 'an +appreciation' in literature, or anything 'precious' in art, or any +author who 'weaves' instead of writes his stories--all these irritate +me when they do not first bore me to the verge of anæsthesia." + +He switched his trout-flies defiantly, hopeful of an indignant retort +from her; but she only laughed and glanced at him, and shook her pretty +head. + +"There's just enough truth in what you say to make a dispute quite +profitless. Besides, I don't feel like single combat; I'm too glad to +have you here." + +Standing there--fairly swimming--in the delicious upper-air currents, +she looked blissfully across the rolling moors, while the sunlight +drenched her and the salt wind winnowed the ruddy glory of her hair, and +from the tangle of tender blossoming green things a perfume mounted, +saturating her senses as she breathed it deeper in the happiness of +desire fulfilled and content quite absolute. + +"After all," she said, "what more is there than this? Earth and sea and +sky and sun, and a friend to show them to. . . . Because, as I wrote +you, the friend is quite necessary in the scheme of things--to round out +the symmetry of it all. . . . I suppose you're dying to dangle those +flies in Brier Water to see whether there are any trout there. Well, +there are; Austin stocked it years ago, and he never fishes, so no doubt +it's full of fish. . . . What is that black thing moving along the edge +of the Golden Marsh?" + +"A mink," he said, looking. + +She seated herself cross-legged on the hill-top to watch the mink at her +leisure. But the lithe furry creature took to the water, dived, and +vanished, and she turned her attention to the landscape. + +"Do you see that lighthouse far to the south?" she asked; "that is +Frigate Light. West of it lies Surf Point, and the bay between is Surf +Bay. That's where I nearly froze solid in my first ocean bath of the +year. A little later we can bathe in that cove to the north--the Bay of +Shoals. You see it, don't you?--there, lying tucked in between Wonder +Head and the Hither Woods; but I forgot! Of course you've been here +before; and you know all this; don't you?" + +"Yes," he said quietly, "my brother and I came here as boys." + +"Have you not been here since?" + +"Once." He turned and looked down at the sea-battered wharf jutting into +the Bay of Shoals. "Once, since I was a boy," he repeated; "but I came +alone. The transports landed at that wharf after the Spanish war. The +hospital camp was yonder. . . . My brother died there." + +She lifted her clear eyes to his; he was staring at the outline of the +Hither Woods fringing the ochre-tinted heights. + +"There was no companion like him," he said; "there is no one to take his +place. Still, time helps--in a measure." + +But he looked out across the sea with a grief for ever new. + +She, too, had been helped by time; she was very young when the distant +and fabled seas took father and mother; and it was not entirely their +memory, but more the wistful lack of ability to remember that left her +so hopelessly alone. + +Sharper his sorrow; but there was the comfort of recollection in it; and +she looked at him and, for an instant, envied him his keener grief. Then +leaning a little toward him where he reclined, the weight of his body +propped up on one arm, she laid her hand across his hand half buried in +the grass. + +"It's only another tie between us," she said--"the memory of your dead +and mine. . . . Will you tell me about him?" + +And leaning there, eyes on the sea, and her smooth, young hand covering +his, he told her of the youth who had died there in the first flush of +manhood and achievement. + +His voice, steady and grave, came to her through hushed intervals when +the noise of the surf died out as the wind veered seaward. And she +listened, heart intent, until he spoke no more; and the sea-wind rose +again filling her ears with the ceaseless menace of the surf. + +After a while he picked up his rod, and sat erect and cross-legged as +she sat, and flicked the flies, absently, across the grass, aiming at +wind-blown butterflies. + +"All these changes!" he exclaimed with a sweep of the rod-butt toward +Widgeon Bay. "When I was here as a boy there were no fine estates, no +great houses, no country clubs, no game preserves--only a few +fishermen's hovels along the Bay of Shoals, and Frigate Light +yonder. . . . Then Austin built Silverside out of a much simpler, +grand-paternal bungalow; then came Sanxon Orchil and erected Hitherwood +House on the foundations of his maternal great-grandfather's cabin; and +then the others came; the Minsters built gorgeous Brookminster--you can +just make out their big summer palace--that white spot beyond Surf +Point!--and then the Lawns came and built Southlawn; and, beyond, the +Siowitha people arrived on scout, land-hungry and rich; and the tiny +hamlet of Wyossett grew rapidly into the town it now is. Truly this +island with its hundred miles of length has become but a formal garden +of the wealthy. Alas! I knew it as a stretch of woods, dunes, and +old-time villages where life had slumbered for two hundred years!" + +He fell silent, but she nodded him to go on. + +"Brooklyn was a quiet tree-shaded town," he continued thoughtfully, +"unvexed by dreams of traffic; Flatbush an old Dutch village buried in +the scented bloom of lilac, locust, and syringa, asleep under its +ancient gables, hip-roofs, and spreading trees. Bath, Utrecht, Canarsie, +Gravesend were little more than cross-road taverns dreaming in the sun; +and that vile and noise-cursed island beyond the Narrows was a stretch +of unpolluted beauty in an untainted sea--nothing but whitest sand and +dunes and fragrant bayberry and a blaze of wild flowers. Why"--and he +turned impatiently to the girl beside him--"why, I have seen the wild +geese settle in Sheepshead Bay, and the wild duck circling over it; and +I am not very aged. Think of it! Think of what this was but a few years +ago, and think of what 'progress' has done to lay it waste! What will it +be to-morrow?" + +"Oh--oh!" she protested, laughing; "I did not suppose you were that kind +of a Jeremiah!" + +"Well, I am. I see no progress in prostrate forests, in soft-coal smoke, +in noise! I see nothing gained in trimming and cutting and ploughing and +macadamising a heavenly wilderness into mincing little gardens for the +rich." He was smiling at his own vehemence, but she knew that he was +more than half serious. + +She liked him so; she always denied and disputed when he became +declamatory, though usually, in her heart, she agreed with him. + +"Oh--oh!" she protested, shaking her head; "your philosophy is that of +all reactionaries--emotional arguments which never can be justified. +Why, if the labouring man delights in the harmless hurdy-gurdy and +finds his pleasure mounted on a wooden horse, should you say that the +island of his delight is 'vile'? All fulfilment of harmless happiness is +progress, my poor friend--" + +"But my harmless happiness lay in seeing the wild-fowl splashing where +nothing splashes now except beer and the bathing rabble. If progress is +happiness--where is mine? Gone with the curlew and the wild duck! +Therefore, there is no progress. _Quod erat_, my illogical friend." + +"But _your_ happiness in such things was an exception--" + +"Exceptions prove anything!" + +"Yes--but--no, they don't, either! What nonsense you can talk when you +try to. . . . As for me I'm going down to the Brier Water to look into +it. If there are any trout there foolish enough to bite at those +gaudy-feathered hooks I'll call you--" + +"I'm going with you," he said, rising to his feet. She smilingly ignored +his offered hands and sprang erect unaided. + +The Brier Water, a cold, deep, leisurely stream, deserved its name. +Rising from a small spring-pond almost at the foot of Silverside lawn, +it wound away through tangles of bull-brier and wild-rose, under arches +of weed and grass and clustered thickets of mint, north through one of +the strange little forests where it became a thread edged with a +duck-haunted bog, then emerging as a clear deep stream once more it +curved sharply south, recurved north again, and flowed into Shell Pond +which, in turn, had an outlet into the Sound a mile east of Wonder Head. + +If anybody ever haunted it with hostile designs upon its fishy +denizens, Austin at least never did. Belted kingfisher, heron, mink, and +perhaps a furtive small boy with pole and sinker and barnyard +worm--these were the only foes the trout might dread. As for a man and a +fly-rod, they knew him not, nor was there much chance for casting a +line, because the water everywhere flowed under weeds, arched thickets +of brier and grass, and leafy branches criss-crossed above. + +"This place is impossible," said Selwyn scornfully. "What is Austin +about to let it all grow up and run wild--" + +"You _said_," observed Eileen, "that you preferred an untrimmed +wilderness; didn't you?" + +He laughed and reeled in his line until only six inches of the gossamer +leader remained free. From this dangled a single silver-bodied fly, +glittering in the wind. + +"There's a likely pool hidden under those briers," he said; "I'm going +to poke the tip of my rod under--this way--Hah!" as a heavy splash +sounded from depths unseen and the reel screamed as he struck. + +Up and down, under banks and over shallows rushed the invisible fish; +and Selwyn could do nothing for a while but let him go when he insisted, +and check and recover when the fish permitted. + +Eileen, a spray of green mint between her vivid lips, watched the +performance with growing interest; but when at length a big, fat, +struggling speckled trout was cautiously but successfully lifted out +into the grass, she turned her back until the gallant fighter had +departed this life under a merciful whack from a stick. + +"That," she said faintly, "is the part I don't care for. . . . Is he out +of all pain? . . . What? Didn't feel any? Oh, are you quite sure?" + +[Illustration: "Eileen watched the performance with growing +interest."] + +She walked over to him and looked down at the beautiful victim of craft. + +"Oh, well," she sighed, "you are very clever, of course, and I suppose +I'll eat him; but I wish he were alive again, down there in those cool, +sweet depths." + +"Killing frogs and insects and his smaller brother fish?" + +"Did he do _that_?" + +"No doubt of it. And if I hadn't landed him, a heron or a mink would +have done it sooner or later. That's what a trout is for: to kill and be +killed." + +She smiled, then sighed. The taking of life and the giving of it were +mysteries to her. She had never wittingly killed anything. + +"Do you say that it doesn't hurt the trout?" she asked. + +"There are no nerves in the jaw muscles of a trout--Hah!" as his rod +twitched and swerved under water and his reel sang again. + +And again she watched the performance, and once more turned her back. + +"Let me try," she said, when the _coup-de-grâce_ had been administered +to a lusty, brilliant-tinted bulltrout. And, rod in hand, she bent +breathless and intent over the bushes, cautiously thrusting the tip +through a thicket of mint. + +She lost two fish, then hooked a third--a small one; but when she lifted +it gasping into the sunlight, she shivered and called to Selwyn: + +"Unhook it and throw it back! I--I simply can't stand that!" + +Splash! went the astonished trout; and she sighed her relief. + +"There's no doubt about it," she said, "you and I certainly do belong +to different species of the same genus; men and women _are_ separate +species. Do you deny it?" + +"I should hate to lose you that way," he returned teasingly. + +"Well, you can't avoid it. I gladly admit that woman is not too closely +related to man. We don't like to kill things; it's an ingrained +distaste, not merely a matter of ethical philosophy. You like to kill; +and it's a trait common also to children and other predatory animals. +Which fact," she added airily, "convinces me of woman's higher +civilisation." + +"It would convince me, too," he said, "if woman didn't eat the things +that man kills for her." + +"I know; isn't it horrid! Oh, dear, we're neither of us very high in the +scale yet--particularly you." + +"Well, I've advanced some since the good old days when a man went wooing +with a club," he suggested. + +"_You_ may have. But, anyway, you don't go wooing. As for man +collectively, he has not progressed so very far," she added demurely. +"As an example, that dreadful Draymore man actually hurt my wrist." + +Selwyn looked up quickly, a shade of frank annoyance on his face and a +vision of the fat sybarite before his eyes. He turned again to his +fishing, but his shrug was more of a shudder than appeared to be +complimentary to Percy Draymore. + +She had divined, somehow, that it annoyed Selwyn to know that men had +importuned her. She had told him of her experience as innocently as she +had told Nina, and with even less embarrassment. But that had been long +ago; and now, without any specific reason, she was not certain that she +had acted wisely, although it always amused her to see Selwyn's +undisguised impatience whenever mention was made of such incidents. + +So, to torment him, she said: "Of course it is somewhat exciting to be +asked to marry people--rather agreeable than otherwise--" + +"What!" + +Waist deep in bay-bushes he turned toward her where she sat on the trunk +of an oak which had fallen across the stream. Her arms balanced her +body; her ankles were interlocked. She swung her slim russet-shod feet +above the brook and looked at him with a touch of _gaminerie_ new to her +and to him. + +"Of course it's amusing to be told you are the only woman in the world," +she said, "particularly when a girl has a secret fear that men don't +consider her quite grown up." + +"You once said," he began impatiently, "that the idiotic importunities +of those men annoyed you." + +"Why do you call them idiotic?"--with pretence of hurt surprise. "A girl +is honoured--" + +"Oh, bosh!" + +"Captain Selwyn!" + +"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily; and fumbled with his reel. + +She surveyed him, head a trifle on one side--the very incarnation of +youthful malice in process of satisfying a desire for tormenting. Never +before had she experienced that desire so keenly, so unreasoningly; +never before had she found such a curious pleasure in punishing without +cause. A perfectly inexplicable exhilaration possessed her--a gaiety +quite reasonless, until every pulse in her seemed singing with laughter +and quickening with the desire for his torment. + +"When I pretended I was annoyed by what men said to me, I was only a +yearling," she observed. "Now I'm a two-year, Captain Selwyn. . . . Who +can tell what may happen in my second season?" + +"You said that you were _not_ the--the marrying sort," he insisted. + +"Nonsense. All girls are. Once I sat in a high chair and wore a bib and +banqueted on cambric-tea and prunes. I don't do it now; I've advanced. +It's probably part of that progress which you are so opposed to." + +He did not answer, but stood, head bent, looping on a new leader. + +"All progress is admirable," she suggested. + +No answer. + +So, to goad him: + +"There _are_ men," she said dreamily, "who might hope for a kinder +reception next winter--" + +"Oh, no," he said coolly, "there are no such gentlemen. If there were +you wouldn't say so." + +"Yes, I would. And there are!" + +"How many?" jeeringly, and now quite reassured. + +"One!" + +"You can't frighten me"--with a shade less confidence. "You wouldn't +tell if there was." + +"I'd tell _you_." + +"Me?"--with a sudden slump in his remaining stock of reassurance. + +"Certainly. I tell you and Nina things of that sort. And when I have +fully decided to marry I shall, of course, tell you both before I inform +other people." + +How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with laughter! +How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she could give +neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all was--whatever it was +that amused her in this man's uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an +irritation as unreasoning as the source of it! + +"Really, Captain Selwyn," she said, "you are not one of those +old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to +a girl's marrying--are you?" + +"Yes," he said, "I am." + +"You are quite serious?" + +"Quite." + +"You won't _let_ me?" + +"No, I won't." + +"Why?" + +"I want you myself," he said, smiling at last. + +"That is flattering but horridly selfish. In other words you won't marry +me and you won't let anybody else do it." + +"That is the situation," he admitted, freeing his line and trying to +catch the crinkled silvery snell of the new leader. It persistently +avoided him; he lowered the rod toward Miss Erroll; she gingerly +imprisoned the feathered fly between pink-tipped thumb and forefinger +and looked questioningly at him. + +"Am I to sit here holding this?" she inquired. + +"Only a moment; I'll have to soak that leader. Is the water visible +under that log you're sitting on?" + +She nodded. + +So he made his way through the brush toward her, mounted the log, and, +seating himself beside her, legs dangling, thrust the rod tip and leader +straight down into the stream below. + +Glancing around at her he caught her eyes, bright with mischief. + +"You're capable of anything to-day," he said. "Were you considering the +advisability of starting me overboard?" And he nodded toward the water +beneath their feet. + +"But you say that you won't let me throw you overboard, Captain Selwyn!" + +"I mean it, too," he returned. + +"And I'm not to marry that nice young man?"--mockingly sweet. "No? +What!--not anybody at all--ever and ever?" + +"Me," he suggested, "if you're as thoroughly demoralised as that." + +"Oh! Must a girl be pretty thoroughly demoralised to marry you?" + +"I don't suppose she'd do it if she wasn't," he admitted, laughing. + +She considered him, head on one side: + +"You are ornamental, anyway," she concluded. + +"Well, then," he said, lifting the leader from the water to inspect it, +"will you have me?" + +"Oh, but is there nothing to recommend you except your fatal beauty?" + +"My moustache," he ventured; "it's considered very useful when I'm +mentally perplexed." + +"It's clipped too close; I have told you again and again that I don't +care for it clipped like that. Your mind would be a perfect blank if you +couldn't get hold of it." + +"And to become imbecile," he said, "I've only to shave it." + +She threw back her head and her clear laughter thrilled the silence. He +laughed, too, and sat with elbows on his thighs, dabbling the crinkled +leader to and fro in the pool below. + +"So you won't have me?" he said. + +"You haven't asked me--have you?" + +"Well, I do now." + +She mused, the smile resting lightly on lips and eyes. + +"_Wouldn't_ such a thing astonish Nina!" she said. + +He did not answer; a slight colour tinged the new sunburn on his cheeks. + +She laughed to herself, clasped her hands, crossed her slender feet, and +bent her eyes on the pool below. + +"Marriage," she said, pursuing her thoughts aloud, "is curiously +unnecessary to happiness. Take our pleasure in each other, for example. +It has, from the beginning, been perfectly free from silliness and +sentiment." + +"Naturally," he said. "I'm old enough to be safe." + +"You are not!" she retorted. "What a ridiculous thing to say!" + +"Well, then," he said, "I'm dreadfully unsafe, but yet you've managed to +escape. Is that it?" + +"Perhaps. You _are_ attractive to women! I've heard that often enough to +be convinced. Why, even I can see what attracts them"--she turned to +look at him--"the way your head and shoulders set--and--well, the--rest. +. . . It's rather superior of me to have escaped sentiment, don't you +think so?" + +"Indeed I do. Few--few escape where many meet to worship at my frisky +feet, and this I say without conceit is due to my mustachios. Tangled in +those like web-tied flies, imprisoned hearts complain in sighs--in fact, +the situation vies with moments in Boccaccio." + +Her running comment was her laughter, ringing deliciously amid the trees +until a wild bird, restlessly attentive, ventured a long, sweet response +from the tangled green above them. + +After their laughter the soberness of reaction left them silent for a +while. The wild bird sang and sang, dropping fearlessly nearer from +branch to branch, until in his melody she found the key to her dreamy +thoughts. + +"Because," she said, "you are so unconscious of your own value, I like +you best, I think. I never before quite realised just what it was in +you." + +"My value," he said, "is what you care to make it." + +"Then nobody can afford to take you away from me, Captain Selwyn." + +He flushed with pleasure: "That is the prettiest thing a woman ever +admitted to a man," he said. + +"You have said nicer things to me. That is your reward. I wonder if you +remember any of the nice things you say to me? Oh, don't look so hurt +and astonished--because I don't believe you do. . . . Isn't it jolly to +sit here and let life drift past us? Out there in the world"--she nodded +backward toward the open--"out yonder all that 'progress' is whirling +around the world, and here we sit--just you and I--quite happily, +swinging our feet in perfect content and talking nonsense. . . . What +more is there after all than a companionship that admits both sense and +nonsense?" + +She laughed, turning her chin on her shoulder to glance at him; and when +the laugh had died out she still sat lightly poised, chin nestling in +the hollow of her shoulder, considering him out of friendly beautiful +eyes in which no mockery remained. + +"What more is there than our confidence in each other and our content?" +she said. + +And, as he did not respond: "I wonder if you realise how perfectly +lovely you have been to me since you have come into my life? Do you? Do +you remember the first day--the very first--how I sent word to you that +I wished you to see my first real dinner gown? Smile if you wish--Ah, +but you don't, you _don't_ understand, my poor friend, how much you +became to me in that little interview. . . . Men's kindness is a strange +thing; they may try and try, and a girl may know they are trying and, in +her turn, try to be grateful. But it is all effort on both sides. +Then--with a word--an impulse born of chance or instinct--a man may say +and do that which a woman can never forget--and would not if she could." + +"Have I done--that?" + +"Yes. Didn't you understand? Do you suppose any other man in the world +could have what you have had of me--of my real self? Do you suppose for +one instant that any other man than you could ever obtain from me the +confidence I offer you unasked? Do I not tell you everything that enters +my head and heart? Do you not know that I care for you more than for +anybody alive?" + +"Gerald--" + +She looked him straight in the eyes; her breath caught, but she steadied +her voice: + +"I've got to be truthful," she said; "I care for you more than for +Gerald." + +"And I for you more than anybody living," he said. + +"Is it true?" + +"It is the truth, Eileen." + +"You--you make me very happy, Captain Selwyn." + +"But--did you not know it before I told you?" + +"I--y-yes; I hoped so." In the exultant reaction from the delicious +tension of avowal she laughed lightly, not knowing why. + +"The pleasure in it," she said, "is the certainty that I am capable of +making you happy. You have no idea how I desire to do it. I've wanted to +ever since I knew you--I've wanted to be capable of doing it. And you +tell me that I do; and I am utterly and foolishly happy." The quick +mischievous sparkle of _gaminerie_ flashed up, transforming her for an +instant--"Ah, yes; and I can make you unhappy, too, it seems, by talking +of marriage! That, too, is something--a delightful power--but"--the +malice dying to a spark in her brilliant eyes--"I shall not torment +you, Captain Selwyn. Will it make you happier if I say, 'No; I shall +never marry as long as I have you'? Will it really? Then I say it; +never, never will I marry as long as I have your confidence and +friendship. . . . But I want it _all_!--every bit, please. And if ever +there is another woman--if ever you fall in love!--crack!--away I +go"--she snapped her white fingers--"like that!" she added, "only +quicker! Well, then! Be very, very careful, my friend! . . . I wish +there were some place here where I could curl up indefinitely and listen +to your views on life. You brought a book to read, didn't you?" + +He gave her a funny embarrassed glance: "Yes; I brought a sort of a +book." + +"Then I'm all ready to be read to, thank you. . . . Please steady me +while I try to stand up on this log--one hand will do--" + +Scarcely in contact with him she crossed the log, sprang blithely to the +ground, and, lifting the hem of her summer gown an inch or two, picked +her way toward the bank above. + +"We can see Nina when she signals us from the lawn to come to luncheon," +she said, gazing out across the upland toward the silvery tinted +hillside where Silverside stood, every pane glittering with the white +eastern sunlight. + +In the dry, sweet grass she found a place for a nest, and settled into +it, head prone on a heap of scented bay leaves, elbows skyward, and +fingers linked across her chin. One foot was hidden, the knee, doubled, +making a tent of her white skirt, from an edge of which a russet shoe +projected, revealing the contour of a slim ankle. + +"What book did you bring?" she asked dreamily. + +He turned red: "It's--it's just a chapter from a little book I'm trying +to write--a--a sort of suggestion for the establishment of native +regiments in the Philippines. I thought, perhaps, you might not mind +listening--" + +Her delighted surprise and quick cordiality quite overwhelmed him, so, +sitting flat on the grass, hat off and the hill wind furrowing his +bright crisp hair, he began, naïvely, like a schoolboy; and Eileen lay +watching him, touched and amused at his eager interest in reading aloud +to her this mass of co-ordinated fact and detail. + +There was, in her, one quality to which he had never appealed in +vain--her loyalty. Confident of that, and of her intelligence, he wasted +no words in preliminary explanation, but began at once his argument in +favour of a native military establishment erected on the general lines +of the British organisation in India. + +He wrote simply and without self-consciousness; loyalty aroused her +interest, intelligence sustained it; and when the end came, it came too +quickly for her, and she said so frankly, which delighted him. + +At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse +military accuracy; and what she liked best and best understood was +avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality +into pabulum. + +Lying there in the fragrant verdure, blue eyes skyward or slanting +sideways to watch his face, she listened, answered, questioned, or +responded by turns; until their voices grew lazy and the light reaction +from things serious awakened the gaiety always latent when they were +together. + +"Proceed," she smiled; "_Arma virumque_--a noble theme, Captain Selwyn. +Sing on!" + +He shook his head, quoting from "The Dedication": + + "Arms and the Man! + A noble theme I ween! + Alas! I cannot sing of these, Eileen; + Only of maids and men and meadow-grass, + Of sea and tree and woodlands where I pass-- + Nothing but these I know, Eileen--alas! + + * * * * * + + Clear eyes, that lifted up to me + Free heart and soul of vanity; + Blue eyes, that speak so wistfully-- + Nothing but these I know, alas!" + +She laughed her acknowledgment, and lying there, face to the sky, began +to sing to herself, under her breath, fragments of that ancient +war-song: + + "Le bon Roi Dagobert + Avait un grand sabre de fer; + Le grand Saint Éloi + Lui dit: 'O mon Roi + Vôtre Majesté + Pourrait se blesser!' + 'C'est vrai,' lui dit le Roi, + 'Qu'on me donne un sabre de bois!'" + +"In that verse," observed Selwyn, smiling, "lies the true key to the +millennium--international disarmament and moral suasion." + +"Nonsense," she said lazily; "the millennium will arrive when the false +balance between man and woman is properly adjusted--not before. And that +means universal education. . . . Did you ever hear that old, old song, +written two centuries ago--the 'Education of Phyllis'? No? Listen then +and be ashamed." + +And lying there, the back of one hand above her eyes, she sang in a +sweet, childish, mocking voice, tremulous with hidden laughter, the song +of Phyllis the shepherdess and Sylvandre the shepherd--how Phyllis, more +avaricious than sentimental, made Sylvandre pay her thirty sheep for one +kiss; how, next day, the price shifted to one sheep for thirty kisses; +and then the dreadful demoralisation of Phyllis: + + "Le lendemain, Philis, plus tendre + Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre + Trente moutons pour un baiser! + + * * * * * + + Le lendemain, Philis, peu sage, + Aurait donné moutons et chien + Pour un baiser que le volage + À Lisette donnait pour rien!" + +"And there we are," said Eileen, sitting up abruptly and levelling the +pink-tipped finger of accusation at him--"_there_, if you please, lies +the woe of the world--not in the armaments of nations! That old French +poet understood in half a second more than your Hague tribunal could +comprehend in its first Cathayan cycle! There lies the hope of your +millennium--in the higher education of the modern Phyllis." + +"And the up-to-date Sylvandre," added Selwyn. + +"He knows too much already," she retorted, delicate nose in the +air. . . . "Hark! Ear to the ground! My atavistic and wilder instincts +warn me that somebody is coming!" + +"Boots and Drina," said Selwyn; and he hailed them as they came into +view above. Then he sprang to his feet, calling out: "And Gerald, too! +Hello, old fellow! This is perfectly fine! When did you arrive?" + +"Oh, Gerald!" cried Eileen, both hands outstretched--"it's splendid of +you to come! Dear fellow! have you seen Nina and Austin? And were they +not delighted? And you've come to stay, haven't you? There, I won't +begin to urge you. . . . Look, Gerald--look, Boots--and Drina, too--only +look at those beautiful big plump trout in Captain Selwyn's creel!" + +"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Gerald, "you didn't take those in that little +brook--did you, Philip? Well, wouldn't that snare you! I'm coming down +here after luncheon; I sure am." + +"You will, too, won't you?" asked Drina, jealous lest Boots, her idol, +miss his due share of piscatorial glory. "If you'll wait until I finish +my French I'll come with you." + +"Of course I will," said Lansing reproachfully; "you don't suppose +there's any fun anywhere for me without you, do you?" + +"No," said Drina simply, "I don't." + +"Another Phyllis in embryo," murmured Eileen to Selwyn. "Alas! for +education!" + +Selwyn laughed and turned to Gerald. "I hunted high and low for you +before I came to Silverside. You found my note?" + +"Yes; I--I'll explain later," said the boy, colouring. "Come ahead, +Eily; Boots and I will take you on at tennis--and Philip, too. We've an +hour or so before luncheon. Is it a go?" + +"Certainly," replied his sister, unaware of Selwyn's proficiency, but +loyal even in doubt. And the five, walking abreast, moved off across the +uplands toward the green lawns of Silverside, where, under a gay lawn +parasol, Nina sat, a "Nature book" in hand, the centre of an attentive +gathering composed of dogs, children, and the cat, Kit-Ki, blinking her +topaz-tinted eyes in the sunshine. + +The young mother looked up happily as the quintet came strolling across +the lawn: "Please don't wander away again before luncheon," she said; +"Gerald, I suppose you are starved, but you've only an hour to wait--Oh, +Phil! what wonderful trout! Children, kindly arise and admire the +surpassing skill of your frivolous uncle!" And, as the children and dogs +came crowding around the opened fish-basket she said to her brother in a +low, contented voice: "Gerald has quite made it up with Austin, dear; I +think we have to thank you, haven't we?" + +"Has he really squared matters with Austin? That's good--that's fine! +Oh, no, I had nothing to do with it--practically nothing. The boy is +sound at the core--that's what did it." And to Gerald, who was hailing +him from the veranda, "Yes, I've plenty of tennis-shoes. Help yourself, +old chap." + +Eileen had gone to her room to don a shorter skirt and rubber-soled +shoes; Lansing followed her example; and Selwyn, entering his own room, +found Gerald trying on a pair of white foot-gear. + +The boy looked up, smiled, and, crossing one knee, began to tie the +laces: + +"I told Austin that I meant to slow down," he said. "We're on terms +again. He was fairly decent." + +"Good business!" commented Selwyn vigorously. + +"And I'm cutting out cards and cocktails," continued the boy, eager as a +little lad who tells how good he has been all day--"I made it plain to +the fellows that there was nothing in it for me. And, Philip, I'm boning +down like thunder at the office--I'm horribly in debt and I'm hustling +to pay up and make a clean start. You," he added, colouring, "will come +first--" + +"At your convenience," said Selwyn, smiling. + +"Not at all! Yours is the first account to be squared; then Neergard--" + +"Do you owe _him_, Gerald?" + +"Do I? Oh, Lord! But he's a patient soul--really, Philip, I wish you +didn't dislike him so thoroughly, because he's good company and besides +that he's a very able man. . . . Well, we won't talk about him, then. +Come on; I'll lick the very life out of you over the net!" + +A few moments later the white balls were flying over the white net, and +active white-flannelled figures were moving swiftly over the velvet +turf. + +Drina, aloft on the umpire's perch, calmly scored and decided each point +impartially, though her little heart was beating fast in desire for her +idol's supremacy; and it was all her official composure could endure to +see how Eileen at the net beat down his defence, driving him with her +volleys to the service line. + +Selwyn's game proved to be steady, old-fashioned, but logical; Eileen, +sleeves at her elbows, red-gold hair in splendid disorder, carried the +game through Boots straight at her brother--and the contest was really a +brilliant duel between them, Lansing and Selwyn assisting when a rare +chance came their way. The pace was too fast for them, however; they +were in a different class and they knew it; and after two terrific sets +had gone against Gerald and Boots, the latter, signalling Selwyn, +dropped out and climbed up beside Drina to watch a furious single +between Eileen and Gerald. + +"Oh, Boots, Boots!" said Drina, "why _didn't_ you stay forward and kill +her drives and make her lob? I just know you could do it if you had only +thought to play forward! What on earth was the matter?" + +"Age," said Mr. Lansing serenely--"decrepitude, Drina. I am a Was, +sweetheart, but Eileen still remains an Is." + +"I won't let you say it! You are _not_ a Was!" said the child fiercely. +"After luncheon you can take me on for practice. Then you can just give +it to her!" + +"It would gratify me to hand a few swift ones to somebody," he said. +"Look at that demon girl, yonder! She's hammering Gerald to the service +line! Oh, my, oh, me! I'm only fit for hat-ball with Billy or +cat's-cradle with Kit-Ki. Drina, do you realise that I am nearly +thirty?" + +"Pooh! I'm past thirteen. In five years I'll be eighteen. I expect to +marry you at eighteen. You promised." + +"Sure thing," admitted Boots; "I've bought the house, you know." + +"I know it," said the child gravely. + +Boots looked down at her; she smiled and laid her head, with its +clustering curls, against his shoulder, watching the game below with the +quiet composure of possession. + +Their relations, hers and Lansing's, afforded infinite amusement to the +Gerards. It had been a desperate case from the very first; and the child +took it so seriously, and considered her claim on Boots so absolute, +that neither that young man nor anybody else dared make a jest of the +affair within her hearing. + +From a dimple-kneed, despotic, strenuous youngster, ruling the nursery +with a small hand of iron, in half a year Drina had grown into a rather +slim, long-legged, coolly active child; and though her hair had not been +put up, her skirts had been lowered, and shoes and stockings substituted +for half-hose and sandals. + +Weighted with this new dignity she had put away dolls, officially. +Unofficially she still dressed, caressed, forgave, or spanked Rosalinda +and Beatrice--but she excluded the younger children from the nursery +when she did it. + +However, the inborn necessity for mimicry and romance remained; and she +satisfied it by writing stories--marvellous ones--which she read to +Boots. Otherwise she was the same active, sociable, wholesome, +intelligent child, charmingly casual and inconsistent; and the list of +her youthful admirers at dancing-school and parties required the +alphabetical classification of Mr. Lansing. + +But Boots was her own particular possession; he was her chattel, her +thing; and he and other people knew that it was no light affair to +meddle with the personal property of Drina Gerard. + +Her curly head resting against his arm, she was now planning his future +movements for the day: + +"You may do what you please while I'm having French," she said +graciously; "after that we will go fishing in Brier Water; then I'll +come home to practice, while you sit on the veranda and listen; then +I'll take you on at tennis, and by that time the horses will be brought +around and we'll ride to the Falcon. You won't forget any of this, will +you? Come on; Eileen and Gerald have finished and there's Dawson to +announce luncheon!" And to Gerald, as she climbed down to the ground: +"Oh, what a muff! to let Eileen beat you six--five, six--three! . . . +Where's my hat? . . . Oh, the dogs have got it and are tearing it to +rags!" + +And she dashed in among the dogs, slapping right and left, while a +facetious dachshund seized the tattered bit of lace and muslin and fled +at top speed. + +"That is pleasant," observed Nina; "it's her best hat, too--worn to-day +in your honour, Boots. . . . Children! Hands and faces! There is Bridget +waiting! Come, Phil; there's no law against talking at table, and +there's no use trying to run an establishment if you make a mockery of +the kitchen." + +Eileen, one bare arm around her brother's shoulders, strolled houseward +across the lawn, switching the shaven sod with her tennis-bat. + +"What are you doing this afternoon?" she said to Selwyn. "Gerald"--she +touched her brother's smooth cheek--"means to fish; Boots and Drina are +keen on it, too; and Nina is driving to Wyossett with the children." + +"And you?" he asked, smiling. + +"Whatever you wish"--confident that he wanted her, whatever he had on +hand. + +"I ought to walk over to Storm Head," he said, "and get things +straightened out." + +"Your laboratory?" asked Gerald. "Austin told me when I saw him in town +that you were going to have the cottage on Storm Head to make powder +in." + +"Only in minute quantities, Gerald," explained Selwyn; "I just want to +try a few things. . . . And if they turn out all right, what do you say +to taking a look in--if Austin approves?" + +"Oh, please, Gerald," whispered his sister. + +"Do you really believe there is anything in it?" asked the boy. +"Because, if you are sure--" + +"There certainly is if I can prove that my powder is able to resist +heat, cold, and moisture. The Lawn people stand ready to talk matters +over as soon as I am satisfied. . . . There's plenty of time--but keep +the suggestion in the back of your head, Gerald." + +The boy smiled, nodded importantly, and went off to remove the stains of +tennis from his person; and Eileen went, too, turning around to look +back at Selwyn: + +"Thank you for asking Gerald! I'm sure he will love to go into anything +you think safe." + +"Will you join us, too?" he called back, smilingly--"we may need +capital!" + +"I'll remember that!" she said; and, turning once more as she reached +the landing: "Good-bye--until luncheon!" And touched her lips with the +tips of her fingers, flinging him a gay salute. + +In parting and meeting--even after the briefest of intervals--it was +always the same with her; always she had for him some informal hint of +the formality of parting; always some recognition of their meeting--in +the light touching of hands as though the symbol of ceremony, at least, +was due to him, to herself, and to the occasion. + +Luncheon at Silverside was anything but a function--with the children at +table and the dogs in a semicircle, and the nurses tying bibs and +admonishing the restless or belligerent, and the wide French windows +open, and the sea wind lifting the curtains and stirring the cluster of +wild flowers in the centre of the table. + +Kit-Ki's voice was gently raised at intervals; at intervals some +grinning puppy, unable to longer endure the nourishing odours, lost +self-control and yapped, then lowered his head, momentarily overcome +with mortification. + +All the children talked continuously, unlimited conversation being +permitted until it led to hostilities or puppy-play. The elders +conducted such social intercourse as was possible under the conditions, +but luncheon was the children's hour at Silverside. + +Nina and Eileen talked garden talk--they both were quite mad about their +fruit-trees and flower-beds; Selwyn, Gerald, and Boots discussed +stables, golf links, and finally the new business which Selwyn hoped to +develop. + +Afterward, when the children had been excused, and Drina had pulled her +chair close to Lansing's to listen--and after that, on the veranda, +when the men sat smoking and Drina was talking French, and Nina and +Eileen had gone off with baskets, trowels, and pruning-shears--Selwyn +still continued in conference with Boots and Gerald; and it was plain +that his concise, modest explanation of what he had accomplished in his +experiments with Chaosite seriously impressed the other men. + +Boots frankly admitted it: "Besides," he said, "if the Lawn people are +so anxious for you to give them first say in the matter I don't see why +we shouldn't have faith in it--enough, I mean, to be good to ourselves +by offering to be good to you, Phil." + +"Wait until Austin comes down--and until I've tried one or two new +ideas," said Selwyn. "Nothing on earth would finish me quicker than to +get anybody who trusted me into a worthless thing." + +"It's plain," observed Boots, "that although you may have been an army +captain you're no captain of industry--you're not even a non-com.!" + +Selwyn laughed: "Do you really believe that ordinary decency is +uncommon?" + +"Look at Long Island," returned Boots. "Where does the boom of worthless +acreage and paper cities land investors when it explodes?" + +Gerald had flushed up at the turn in the conversation; and Selwyn +steered Lansing into other and safer channels until Gerald went away to +find a rod. + +And, as Drina had finished her French lesson, she and Lansing presently +departed, brandishing fishing-rods adorned with the gaudiest of flies. + + * * * * * + +The house and garden at Silverside seemed to be logical parts of a +landscape, which included uplands, headlands, sky, and water--a silvery +harmonious ensemble, where the artificial portion was neither +officiously intrusive nor, on the other hand, meagre and insignificant. + +The house, a long two-storied affair with white shutters and pillared +veranda, was built of gray stone; the garden was walled with it--a +precaution against no rougher intruder than the wind, which would have +whipped unsheltered flowers and fruit-trees into ribbons. + +Walks of hardened earth, to which green mould clung in patches, wound +through the grounds and threaded the three little groves of oak, +chestnut, and locust, in the centres of which, set in circular lawns, +were the three axes of interest--the stone-edged fish-pond, the spouting +fountain, and the ancient ship's figurehead--a wind-worn, sea-battered +mermaid cuddling a tiny, finny sea-child between breast and lips. + +Whoever the unknown wood-carver had been he had been an artist, too, and +a good one; and when the big China trader, the _First Born_, went to +pieces off Frigate Light, fifty years ago, this figurehead had been cast +up from the sea. + +Wandering into the garden, following the first path at random, Selwyn +chanced upon it, and stood, pipe in his mouth, hands in his pockets, +surprised and charmed. + +Plunkitt, the head gardener, came along, trundling a mowing-machine. + +"Ain't it kind 'er nice," he said, lingering. "When I pass here +moonlight nights, it seems like that baby was a-smilin' right up into +his mamma's face, an' that there fish-tailed girl was laughin' back at +him. Come here some night when there's a moon, Cap'in Selwyn." + +Selwyn stood for a while listening to the musical click of the machine, +watching the green shower flying into the sunshine, and enjoying the raw +perfume of juicy, new-cut grass; then he wandered on in quest of Miss +Erroll. + +Tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and other bulbs were entirely out of +bloom, but the earlier herbaceous borders had come into flower, and he +passed through masses of pink and ivory-tinted peonies--huge, heavy, +double blossoms, fragrant and delicate as roses. Patches of late iris +still lifted crested heads above pale sword-bladed leaves; sheets of +golden pansies gilded spaces steeped in warm transparent shade, but +larkspur and early rocket were as yet only scarcely budded promises; the +phlox-beds but green carpets; and zinnia, calendula, poppy, and +coreopsis were symphonies in shades of green against the dropping pink +of bleeding-hearts or the nascent azure of flax and spiderwort. + +In the rose garden, and along that section of the wall included in it, +the rich, dry, porous soil glimmered like gold under the sun; and here +Selwyn discovered Nina and Eileen busily solicitous over the tender +shoots of favourite bushes. A few long-stemmed early rosebuds lay in +their baskets; Selwyn drew one through his buttonhole and sat down on a +wheelbarrow, amiably disposed to look on and let the others work. + +"Not much!" said Nina. "You can start in and 'pinch back' this prairie +climber--do you hear, Phil? I won't let you dawdle around and yawn while +I'm pricking my fingers every instant! Make him move, Eileen." + +Eileen came over to him, fingers doubled into her palm and small thumb +extended. + +"Thorns and prickles, please," she said; and he took her hand in his and +proceeded to extract them while she looked down at her almost invisible +wounds, tenderly amused at his fear of hurting her. + +"Do you know," she said, "that people are beginning to open their houses +yonder?" She nodded toward the west: "The Minsters are on the way to +Brookminster, the Orchils have already arrived at Hitherwood House, and +the coachmen and horses were housed at Southlawn last night. I rather +dread the dinners and country formality that always interfere with the +jolly times we have; but it will be rather good fun at the +bathing-beach. . . . Do you swim well? But of course you do." + +"Pretty well; do you?" + +"I'm a fish. Gladys Orchil and I would never leave the surf if they +didn't literally drag us home. . . . You know Gladys Orchil? . . . She's +very nice; so is Sheila Minster; you'll like her better in the country +than you do in town. Kathleen Lawn is nice, too. Alas! I see many a +morning where Drina and I twirl our respective thumbs while you and +Boots are off with a gayer set. . . . Oh, don't interrupt! No mortal man +is proof against Sheila and Gladys and Kathleen--and you're not a +demi-god--are you? . . . Thank you for your surgery upon my thumb--" She +naïvely placed the tip of it between her lips and looked at him, +standing there like a schoolgirl in her fresh gown, burnished hair +loosened and curling in riotous beauty across cheeks and ears. + +He had seated himself on the wheelbarrow again; she stood looking down +at him, hands now bracketed on her narrow hips--so close that the fresh +fragrance of her grew faintly perceptible--a delicate atmosphere of +youth mingling with the perfume of the young garden. + +Nina, basket on her arm, snipping away with her garden shears, glanced +over her shoulder--and went on, snipping. They did not notice how far +away her agricultural ardour led her--did not notice when she stood a +moment at the gate looking back at them, or when she passed out, pretty +head bent thoughtfully, the shears swinging loose at her girdle. + +The prairie rosebuds in Eileen's basket exhaled their wild, sweet odour; +and Selwyn, breathing it, removed his hat like one who faces a cooling +breeze, and looked up at the young girl standing before him as though +she were the source of all things sweet and freshening in this opening +of the youngest year of his life. + +She said, smiling absently at his question: "Certainly one can grow +younger; and you have done it in a day, here with me." + +She looked down at his hair; it was bright and inclined to wave a +little, but whether the lighter colour at the temples was really +silvered or only a paler tint she was not sure. + +"You are very like a boy, sometimes," she said--"as young as Gerald, I +often think--especially when your hat is off. You always look so +perfectly groomed: I wonder--I wonder what you would look like if your +hair were rumpled?" + +"Try it," he suggested lazily. + +"I? I don't think I dare--" She raised her hand, hesitated, the gay +daring in her eyes deepening to audacity. "Shall I?" + +"Why not?" + +"T-touch your hair?--rumple it?--as I would Gerald's! . . . I'm tempted +to--only--only--" + +"What?" + +"I don't know; I couldn't. I--it was only the temptation of a second--" +She laughed uncertainly. The suggestion of the intimacy tinted her +cheeks with its reaction; she took a short step backward; instinct, +blindly stirring, sobered her; and as the smile faded from eye and lip, +his face changed, too. And far, very far away in the silent cells of his +heart a distant pulse awoke. + +She turned to her roses again, moving at random among the bushes, +disciplining with middle-finger and thumb a translucent, amber-tinted +shoot here and there. And when the silence had lasted too long, she +broke it without turning toward him: + +"After all, if it were left to me, I had rather be merciful to these +soft little buds and sprays, and let the sun and the showers take +charge. A whole cluster of blossoms left free to grow as Fate fashions +them!--Why not? It is certainly very officious of me to strip a stem of +its hopes just for the sake of one pampered blossom. . . . +Non-interference is a safe creed, isn't it?" + +But she continued moving along among the bushes, pinching back here, +snipping, trimming, clipping there; and after a while she had wandered +quite beyond speaking distance; and, at leisurely intervals she +straightened up and turned to look back across the roses at him--quiet, +unsmiling gaze in exchange for his unchanging eyes, which never left +her. + +She was at the farther edge of the rose garden now where a boy knelt, +weeding; and Selwyn saw her speak to him and give him her basket and +shears; and saw the boy start away toward the house, leaving her leaning +idly above the sun-dial, elbows on the weather-beaten stone, studying +the carved figures of the dial. And every line and contour and curve of +her figure--even the lowered head, now resting between both +hands--summoned him. + +She heard his step, but did not move; and when he leaned above the dial, +resting on his elbows, beside her, she laid her finger on the shadow of +the dial. + +"Time," she said, "is trying to frighten me. It pretends to be nearly +five o'clock; do you believe it?" + +"Time is running very fast with me," he said. + +"With me, too; I don't wish it to; I don't care for third speed forward +all the time." + +He was bending closer above the stone dial, striving to decipher the +inscription on it: + + "Under blue skies + My shadow lies. + Under gray skies + My shadow dies. + + "If over me + Two Lovers leaning + Would solve my Mystery + And read my Meaning, + --Or clear, or overcast the Skies-- + The Answer always lies within their Eyes. + Look long! Look long! For there, and there alone + Time solves the Riddle graven on this Stone!" + +Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost +obliterated lines engraved there. + +"I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult +meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? _I'm_ sure I don't want to read +riddles in a strange gentleman's optics." + +"The verses," he explained, "are evidently addressed to the spooney, so +why should you resent them?" + +"I don't. . . . I can be spoons, too, for that matter; I mean I could +once." + +"But you're past spooning now," he concluded. + +"Am I? I rather resent your saying it--your calmly excluding me from +anything I might choose to do," she said. "If I cared--if I chose--if I +really wanted to--" + +"You could still spoon? Impossible! At your age? Nonsense!" + +"It isn't at all impossible. Wait until there's a moon, and a canoe, and +a nice boy who is young enough to be frightened easily!" + +"And I," he retorted, "am too old to be frightened; so there's no moon, +no canoe, no pretty girl, no spooning for me. Is that it, Eileen?" + +"Oh, Gladys and Sheila will attend to you, Captain Selwyn." + +"Why Gladys Orchil? Why Sheila Minster? And why _not_ Eileen Erroll?" + +"Spoon? With _you_!" + +"You are quite right," he said, smiling; "it would be poor sport." + +There had been no change in his amused eyes, in his voice; yet, +sensitive to the imperceptible, the girl looked up quickly. He laughed +and straightened up; and presently his eyes grew absent and his +sun-burned hand sought his moustache. + +"Have you misunderstood me?" she asked in a low voice. + +"How, child?" + +"I don't know. . . . Shall we walk a little?" + +When they came to the stone fish-pond she seated herself for a moment on +a marble bench, then, curiously restless, rose again; and again they +moved forward at hazard, past the spouting fountain, which was a driven +well, out of which a crystal column of water rose, geyser-like, dazzling +in the westering sun rays. + +"Nina tells me that this water rises in the Connecticut hills," he said, +"and flows as a subterranean sheet under the Sound, spouting up here on +Long Island when you drive a well." + +She looked at the column of flashing water, nodding silent assent. + +They moved on, the girl curiously reserved, non-communicative, head +slightly lowered; the man vague-eyed, thoughtful, pacing slowly at her +side. Behind them their long shadows trailed across the brilliant grass. + +Traversing the grove which encircled the newly clipped lawn, now +fragrant with sun-crisped grass-tips left in the wake of the mower, he +glanced up at the pretty mermaid mother cuddling her tiny offspring +against her throat. Across her face a bar of pink sunlight fell, making +its contour exquisite. + +"Plunkitt tells me that they really laugh at each other in the +moonlight," he said. + +She glanced up; then away from him: + +"You seem to be enamoured of the moonlight," she said. + +"I like to prowl in it." + +"Alone?" + +"Sometimes." + +"And--at other times?" + +He laughed: "Oh, I'm past that, as you reminded me a moment ago." + +"Then you _did_ misunderstand me!" + +"Why, no--" + +"Yes, you did! But I supposed you knew." + +"Knew what, Eileen?" "What I meant." + +"You meant that I am _hors de concours_." + +"I didn't!" + +"But I am, child. I was, long ago." + +She looked up: "Do you really think that, Captain Selwyn? If you do--I +am glad." + +He laughed outright. "You are glad that I'm safely past the spooning +age?" he inquired, moving forward. + +She halted: "Yes. Because I'm quite sure of you if you are; I mean that +I can always keep you for myself. Can't I?" + +She was smiling and her eyes were clear and fearless, but there was a +wild-rose tint on her cheeks which deepened a little as he turned short +in his tracks, gazing straight at her. + +"You wish to keep me--for yourself?" he repeated, laughing. + +"Yes, Captain Selwyn." + +"Until you marry. Is that it, Eileen?" + +"Yes, until I marry." + +"And then we'll let each other go; is that it?" + +"Yes. But I think I told you that I would never marry. Didn't I?" + +"Oh! Then ours is to be a lifelong and anti-sentimental contract!" + +"Yes, unless _you_ marry." + +"I promise not to," he said, "unless you do." + +"I promise not to," she said gaily, "unless you do." + +"There remains," he observed, "but one way for you and I ever to marry +anybody. And as I'm _hors de concours_, even that hope is ended." + +She flushed; her lips parted, but she checked what she had meant to say, +and they walked forward together in silence for a while until she had +made up her mind what to say and how to express it: + +"Captain Selwyn, there are two things that you do which seem to me +unfair. You still have, at times, that far-away, absent expression which +excludes me; and when I venture to break the silence, you have a way of +answering, 'Yes, child,' and 'No, child'--as though you were +inattentive, and I had not yet become an adult. _That_ is my first +complaint! . . . _What_ are you laughing at? It is true; and it confuses +and hurts me; because I _know_ I am intelligent enough and old enough +to--to be treated as a woman!--a woman attractive enough to be reckoned +with! But I never seem to be wholly so to you." + +The laugh died out as she ended; for a moment they stood there, +confronting one another. + +"Do you imagine," he said in a low voice, "that I do not know all that?" + +"I don't know whether you do. For all your friendship--for all your +liking and your kindness to me--somehow--I--I don't seem to stand with +you as other women do; I don't seem to stand their chances." + +"What chances?" + +"The--the consideration; you don't call any other woman 'child,' do you? +You don't constantly remind other women of the difference in your ages, +do you? You don't _feel_ with other women that you are--as you please to +call it--_hors de concours_--out of the running. And somehow, with me, +it humiliates. Because even if I--if I am the sort of a girl who never +means to marry, you--your attitude seems to take away the possibility of +my changing my mind; it dictates to me, giving me no choice, no liberty, +no personal freedom in the matter. . . . It's as though you considered +me somehow utterly out of the question--radically unthinkable as a +woman. And you assume to take for granted that I also regard you as--as +_hors de concours_. . . . Those are my grievances, Captain Selwyn. . . . +And I _don't_ regard you so. And I--and it troubles me to be +excluded--to be found wanting, inadequate in anything that a woman +should be. I know that you and I have no desire to marry each +other--but--but please don't make the reason for it either your age or +my physical immaturity or intellectual inexperience." + +Another of those weather-stained seats of Georgia marble stood embedded +under the trees near where she had halted; and she seated herself, +outwardly composed, and inwardly a little frightened at what she had +said. + +As for Selwyn, he remained where he had been standing on the lawn's +velvet edge; and, raising her eyes again, her heart misgave her that she +had wantonly strained a friendship which had been all but perfect; and +now he was moving across the path toward her--a curious look in his face +which she could not interpret. She looked up as he approached and +stretched out her hand: + +"Forgive me, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I _am_ a child--a spoiled one; +and I have proved it to you. Will you sit here beside me and tell me +very gently what a fool I am to risk straining the friendship dearest to +me in the whole world? And will you fix my penance?" + +"You have fixed it yourself," he said. + +"How?" + +"By the challenge of your womanhood." + +"I did not challenge--" + +"No; you defended. You are right. The girl I cared for--the girl who was +there with me on Brier Water--so many, many centuries ago--the girl who, +years ago, leaned there beside me on the sun-dial--has become a +memory." + +"What do you mean?" she asked faintly. + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Yes." + +"You will not be unhappy if I tell you?" + +"N-no." + +"Have you any idea what I am going to say, Eileen?" + +She looked up quickly, frightened at the tremor in his voice: + +"Don't--don't say it, Captain Selwyn!" + +"Will you listen--as a penance?" + +"I--no, I cannot--" + +He said quietly: "I was afraid you could not listen. You see, Eileen, +that, after all, a man does know when he is done for--" + +"Captain Selwyn!" She turned and caught his hands in both of hers, her +eyes bright with tears: "Is that the penalty for what I said? Did you +think I invited this--" + +"Invited! No, child," he said gently. "I was fool enough to believe in +myself; that is all. I have always been on the edge of loving you. Only +in dreams did I ever dare set foot across that frontier. Now I have +dared. I love you. That is all; and it must not distress you." + +"But it does not," she said; "I have always loved you--dearly, +dearly. . . . Not in that way. . . . I don't know how. . . . Must it be +in _that_ way, Captain Selwyn? Can we not go on in the other way--that +dear way which I--I have--almost spoiled? Must we be like other +people--must sentiment turn it all to commonplace? . . . Listen to me; I +do love you; it is perfectly easy and simple to say it. But it is not +emotional, it is not sentimental. Can't you see that in little +things--in my ways with you? I--if I were sentimental about you I would +call you Ph--by your first name, I suppose. But I can't; I've tried +to--and it's very, very hard--and makes me self-conscious. It is an +effort, you see--and so would it be for me to think of you sentimentally. +Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!--you, so much of a man, so strong and +generous and experienced and clever--so perfectly the embodiment of +everything I care for in a man! I love you dearly; but--you saw! I +could--could not bring myself to touch even your hair--even in pure +mischief. . . . And--sentiment chills me; I--there are times when it +would be unendurable--I could not use an endearing term--nor suffer a--a +caress. . . . So you see--don't you? And won't you take me for what I +am?--and as I am?--a girl--still young, devoted to you with all her +soul--happy with you, believing implicitly in you, deeply, deeply +sensible of your goodness and sweetness and loyalty to her. I am not a +woman; I was a fool to say so. But you--you are so overwhelmingly a man +that if it were in me to love--in that way--it would be you! . . . Do +you understand me? Or have I lost a friend? Will you forgive my foolish +boast? Can you still keep me first in your heart--as you are in mine? +And pardon in me all that I am not? Can you do these things because I +ask you?" + +"Yes," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A NOVICE + + +Gerald came to Silverside two or three times during the early summer, +arriving usually on Friday and remaining until the following Monday +morning. + +All his youthful admiration and friendship for Selwyn had returned; that +was plainly evident--and with it something less of callow +self-sufficiency. He did not appear to be as cock-sure of himself and +the world as he had been; there was less bumptiousness about him, less +aggressive complacency. Somewhere and somehow somebody or something had +come into collision with him; but who or what this had been he did not +offer to confide in Selwyn; and the older man, dreading to disturb the +existing accord between them, forbore to question him or invite, even +indirectly, any confidence not offered. + +Selwyn had slowly become conscious of this change in Gerald. In the +boy's manner toward others there seemed to be hints of that seriousness +which maturity or the first pressure of responsibility brings, even to +the more thoughtless. Plainly enough some experience, not wholly +agreeable, was teaching him the elements of consideration for others; he +was less impulsive, more tolerant; yet, at times, Selwyn and Eileen also +noticed that he became very restless toward the end of his visits at +Silverside; as though something in the city awaited him--some duty, or +responsibility not entirely pleasant. + +There was, too, something of soberness, amounting, at moments, to +discontented listlessness--not solitary brooding; for at such moments he +stuck to Selwyn, following him about and remaining rather close to him, +as though the elder man's mere presence was a comfort--even a +protection. + +At such intervals Selwyn longed to invite the boy's confidence, knowing +that he had some phase of life to face for which his experience was +evidently inadequate. But Gerald gave no sign of invitation; and Selwyn +dared not speak lest he undo what time and his forbearance were slowly +repairing. + +So their relations remained during the early summer; and everybody +supposed that Gerald's two weeks' vacation would be spent there at +Silverside. Apparently the boy himself thought so, too, for he made some +plans ahead, and Austin sent down a very handsome new motor-boat for +him. + +Then, at the last minute, a telegram arrived, saying that he had sailed +for Newport on Neergard's big yacht! And for two weeks no word was +received from him at Silverside. + +Late in August, however, he wrote a rather colourless letter to Selwyn, +saying that he was tired and would be down for the week-end. + +He came, thinner than usual, with the city pallor showing through traces +of the sea tan. And it appeared that he was really tired; for he seemed +inclined to lounge on the veranda, satisfied as long as Selwyn remained +in sight. But, when Selwyn moved, he got up and followed. + +So subdued, so listless, so gentle in manner and speech had he become +that somebody, in his temporary absence, wondered whether the boy were +perfectly well--which voiced the general doubt hitherto unexpressed. + +But Austin laughed and said that the boy was merely finding himself; and +everybody acquiesced, much relieved at the explanation, though to Selwyn +the explanation was not at all satisfactory. + +There was trouble somewhere, stress of doubt, pressure of apprehension, +the gravity of immaturity half realising its own inexperience. And one +day in September he wrote Gerald, asking him to bring Edgerton Lawn and +come down to Silverside for the purpose of witnessing some experiments +with the new smokeless explosive, Chaosite. + +Young Lawn came by the first train; Gerald wired that he would arrive +the following morning. + +He did arrive, unusually pallid, almost haggard; and Selwyn, who met him +at the station and drove him over from Wyossett, ventured at last to +give the boy a chance. + +But Gerald remained utterly unresponsive--stolidly so--and the other +instantly relinquished the hope of any confidence at that time--shifting +the conversation at once to the object and reason of Gerald's coming, +and gaily expressing his belief that the time was very near at hand when +Chaosite would figure heavily in the world's list of commercially +valuable explosives. + +It was early in August that Selwyn had come to the conclusion that his +Chaosite was likely to prove a commercial success. And now, in +September, his experiments had advanced so far that he had ventured to +invite Austin, Gerald, Lansing, and Edgerton Lawn, of the Lawn +Nitro-Powder Company, to witness a few tests at his cottage laboratory +on Storm Head; but at the same time he informed them with characteristic +modesty that he was not yet prepared to guarantee the explosive. + +About noon his guests arrived before the cottage in a solemn file, +halted, and did not appear overanxious to enter the laboratory on Storm +Head. Also they carefully cast away their cigars when they did enter, +and seated themselves in a nervous circle in the largest room of the +cottage. Here their eyes instantly became glued to a great bowl which +was piled high with small rose-tinted cubes of some substance which +resembled symmetrical and translucent crystals of pink quartz. That was +Chaosite enough to blow the entire cliff into smithereens; and they were +aware of it, and they eyed it with respect. + +First of all Selwyn laid a cubic crystal on an anvil, and struck it +sharply and repeatedly with a hammer. Austin's thin hair rose, and +Edgerton Lawn swallowed nothing several times; but nobody went to +heaven, and the little cube merely crumbled into a flaky pink powder. + +Then Selwyn took three cubes, dropped them into boiling milk, fished +them out again, twisted them into a waxy taper, placed it in a +candle-stick, and set fire to it. The taper burned with a flaring +brilliancy but without odour. + +Then Selwyn placed several cubes in a mortar, pounded them to powder +with an iron pestle, and, measuring out the tiniest pinch--scarcely +enough to cover the point of a penknife, placed a few grains in several +paper cartridges. Two wads followed the powder, then an ounce and a half +of shot, then a wad, and then the crimping. + +The guests stepped gratefully outside; Selwyn, using a light +fowling-piece, made pattern after pattern for them; and then they all +trooped solemnly indoors again; and Selwyn froze Chaosite and boiled it +and baked it and melted it and took all sorts of hair-raising liberties +with it; and after that he ground it to powder, placed a few generous +pinches in a small hand-grenade, and affixed a primer, the secret +composition of which he alone knew. That was the key to the secret--the +composition of the primer charge. + +"I used to play base-ball in college," he observed smiling--"and I used +to be a pretty good shot with a snowball." + +They followed him to the cliff's edge, always with great respect for the +awful stuff he handled with such apparent carelessness. There was a +black sea-soaked rock jutting out above the waves; Selwyn pointed at it, +poised himself, and, with the long, overhand, straight throw of a +trained ball player, sent the grenade like a bullet at the rock. + +There came a blinding flash, a stunning, clean-cut report--but what the +others took to be a vast column of black smoke was really a pillar of +dust--all that was left of the rock. And this slowly floated, settling +like mist over the waves, leaving nothing where the rock had been. + +"I think," said Edgerton Lawn, wiping the starting perspiration from his +forehead, "that you have made good, Captain Selwyn. Dense or bulk, your +Chaosite and impact primer seem to do the business; and I think I may +say that the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company is ready to do business, too. Can +you come to town to-morrow? It's merely a matter of figures and +signatures now, if you say so. It is entirely up to you." + +But Selwyn only laughed. He looked at Austin. + +"I suppose," said Edgerton Lawn good-naturedly, "that you intend to make +us sit up and beg; or do you mean to absorb us?" + +But Selwyn said: "I want more time on this thing. I want to know what it +does to the interior of loaded shells and in fixed ammunition when it is +stored for a year. I want to know whether it is necessary to use a +solvent after firing it in big guns. As a bursting charge I'm +practically satisfied with it; but time is required to know how it acts +on steel in storage or on the bores of guns when exploded as a +propelling charge. Meanwhile," turning to Lawn, "I'm tremendously +obliged to you for coming--and for your offer. You see how it is, don't +you? I couldn't risk taking money for a thing which might, at the end, +prove dear at any price." + +"I cheerfully accept that risk," insisted young Lawn; "I am quite ready +to do all the worrying, Captain Selwyn." + +But Selwyn merely shook his head, repeating: "You see how it is, don't +you?" + +"I see that you possess a highly developed conscience," said Edgerton +Lawn, laughing; "and when I tell you that we are more than willing to +take every chance of failure--" + +But Selwyn shook his head: "Not yet," he said; "don't worry; I need the +money, and I'll waste no time when a square deal is possible. But I +ought to tell you this: that first of all I must offer it to the +Government. That is only decent, you see--" + +"Who ever heard of the Government's gratitude?" broke in Austin. +"Nonsense, Phil; you are wasting time!" + +"I've got to do it," said Selwyn; "you must see that, of course." + +"But I don't see it," began Lawn--"because you are not in the Government +service now--" + +"Besides," added Austin, "you were not a West Pointer; you never were +under obligations to the Government!" + +"Are we not all under obligation?" asked Selwyn so simply that Austin +flushed. + +"Oh, of course--patriotism and all that--naturally--Confound it, I don't +suppose you'd go and offer it to Germany or Japan before our own +Government had the usual chance to turn it down and break your heart. +But why can't the Government make arrangements with Lawn's Company--if +it desires to?" + +"A man can't exploit his own Government; you all know that as well as I +do," returned Selwyn, smiling. "_Pro aris et focis_, you know--_ex +necessitate rei_." + +"When the inventor goes to the Government," said Austin, with a +shrug--"_vestigia nulla retrorsum_." + +"_Spero meliora_," retorted Selwyn, laughing; but there remained the +obstinate squareness of jaw, and his amused eyes were clear and steady. +Young Lawn looked into them and the hope in him flickered; Austin +looked, and shrugged; but as they all turned away to retrace their steps +across the moors in the direction of Silverside, Lansing lightly hooked +his arm into Selwyn's; and Gerald, walking thoughtfully on the other +side, turned over and over in his mind the proposition offered him--the +spectacle of a modern and needy man to whom money appeared to be the +last consideration in a plain matter of business. Also he turned over +other matters in his mind; and moved closer to Selwyn, walking beside +him with grave eyes bent on the ground. + + * * * * * + +The matter of business arrangements apparently ended then and there; +Lawn's company sent several men to Selwyn and wrote him a great many +letters--unlike the Government, which had not replied to his briefly +tentative suggestion that Chaosite be conditionally examined, tested, +and considered. + +So the matter remained in abeyance, and Selwyn employed two extra men +and continued storage tests and experimented with rifled and smooth-bore +tubes, watchfully uncertain yet as to the necessity of inventing a +solvent to neutralise possible corrosion after a propelling charge had +been exploded. + +Everybody in the vicinity had heard about his experiments; everybody +pretended interest, but few were sincere; and of the sincere, few were +unselfishly interested--his sister, Eileen, Drina, and Lansing--and +maybe one or two others. + +However, the younger set, now predominant from Wyossett to Wonder Head, +made up parties to visit Selwyn's cottage, which had become known as The +Chrysalis; and Selwyn good-naturedly exploded a pinch or two of the +stuff for their amusement, and never betrayed the slightest annoyance or +boredom. In fact, he behaved so amiably during gratuitous interruptions +that he won the hearts of the younger set, who presently came to the +unanimous conclusion that there was Romance in the air. And they sniffed +it with delicate noses uptilted and liked the aroma. + +Kathleen Lawn, a big, leisurely, blond-skinned girl, who showed her +teeth when she laughed and shook hands like a man, declared him +"adorable" but "unsatisfactory," which started one of the Dresden-china +twins, Dorothy Minster, and she, in turn, ventured the innocent opinion +that Selwyn was misunderstood by most people--an inference that she +herself understood him. And she smiled to herself when she made this +observation, up to her neck in the surf; and Eileen, hearing the remark, +smiled to herself, too. But she felt the slightest bit uncomfortable +when that animated brunette Gladys Orchil, climbing up dripping on to +the anchored float beyond the breakers, frankly confessed that the +tinge of mystery enveloping Selwyn's career made him not only adorable, +but agreeably "unfathomable"; and that she meant to experiment with him +at every opportunity. + +Sheila Minster, seated on the raft's edge, swinging her stockinged legs +in the green swells that swept steadily shoreward, modestly admitted +that Selwyn was "sweet," particularly in a canoe on a moonlight +night--in spite of her weighty mother heavily afloat in the vicinity. + +"He's nice every minute," she said--"every fibre of him is nice in the +nicest sense. He never talks 'down' at you--like an insufferable +undergraduate; and he is so much of a man--such a real man!--that I like +him," she added naïvely; "and I'm quite sure he likes me, because he +said so." + +"I like him," said Gladys Orchil, "because he has a sense of humour and +stands straight. I like a sense of humour and--good shoulders. He's an +enigma; and I like that, too. . . . I'm going to investigate him every +chance I get." + +Dorothy Minster liked him, too: "He's such a regular boy at times," she +explained; "I do love to see him without his hat sauntering along beside +me--and not talking every minute when you don't wish to talk. Friends," +she added--"true friends are most eloquent in their mutual silence. +Ahem!" + +Eileen Erroll, standing near on the pitching raft, listened intently, +but curiously enough said nothing either in praise or blame. + +"He is exactly the right age," insisted Gladys--as though somebody had +said he was not--"the age when a man is most interesting." + +The Minster twins twiddled their legs and looked sentimentally at the +ocean. They were a pair of pink and white little things with china-blue +eyes and the fairest of hair, and they were very impressionable; and +when they thought of Selwyn they looked unutterable things at the +Atlantic Ocean. + +One man, often the least suitable, is usually the unanimous choice of +the younger sort where, in the disconcerting summer time, the youthful +congregate in garrulous segregation. + +Their choice they expressed frankly and innocently; they admitted +cheerfully that Selwyn was their idol. But that gentleman remained +totally unconscious that he had been set up by them upon the shores of +the summer sea. + +In leisure moments he often came down to the bathing-beach at the hour +made fashionable; he conducted himself amiably with dowager and +chaperon, with portly father and nimble brother, with the late +débutantes of the younger set and the younger matrons, individually, +collectively, impartially. + +He and Gerald usually challenged the rollers in a sponson canoe when +Gerald was there for the week-end; or, when Lansing came down, the two +took long swims seaward or cruised about in Gerald's dory, clad in their +swimming-suits; and Selwyn's youth became renewed in a manner almost +ridiculous, so that the fine lines which had threatened the corners of +his mouth and eyes disappeared, and the clear sun tan of the tropics, +which had never wholly faded, came back over a smooth skin as clear as a +boy's, though not as smoothly rounded. His hair, too, crisped and grew +lighter under the burning sun, which revealed, at the temples, the +slightest hint of silver. And this deepened the fascination of the +younger sort for the idol they had set up upon the sands of Silverside. + +Gladys was still eloquent on the subject, lying flat on the raft where +all were now gathered in a wet row, indulging in sunshine and the two +minutes of gossip which always preceded their return swim to the beach. + +"It is partly his hair," she said gravely, "that makes him so +distinguished in his appearance--just that touch of silver; and you keep +looking and looking until you scarcely know whether it's really +beginning to turn a little gray or whether it's only a lighter colour at +the temples. How insipid is a mere boy after such a man as Captain +Selwyn! . . . I have dreamed of such a man--several times." + +The Minster twins gazed soulfully at the Atlantic; Eileen Erroll bit her +under lip and stood up suddenly. "Come on," she said; joined her hands +skyward, poised, and plunged. One after another the others followed and, +rising to the surface, struck out shoreward. + +On the sunlit sands dozens of young people were hurling tennis-balls at +each other. Above the beach, under the long pavilions, sat mothers and +chaperons. Motors, beach-carts, and victorias were still arriving to +discharge gaily dressed fashionables--for the hour was early--and up and +down the inclined wooden walk leading from the bathing-pavilion to the +sands, a constant procession of bathers passed with nod and gesture of +laughing salutation, some already retiring to the showers after a brief +ocean plunge, the majority running down to the shore, eager for the +first frosty and aromatic embrace of the surf rolling in under a +cloudless sky of blue. + +As Eileen Erroll emerged from the surf and came wading shoreward through +the seething shallows, she caught sight of Selwyn sauntering across the +sands toward the water, and halted, knee-deep, smilingly expectant, +certain that he had seen her. + +Gladys Orchil, passing her, saw Selwyn at the same moment, and her +clear, ringing salute and slender arm aloft, arrested his attention; and +the next moment they were off together, swimming toward the sponson +canoe which Gerald had just launched with the assistance of Sandon Craig +and Scott Innis. + +For a moment Eileen stood there, motionless. Knee-high the flat ebb +boiled and hissed, dragging at her stockinged feet as though to draw her +seaward with the others. Yesterday she would have gone, without a +thought, to join the others; but yesterday is yesterday. It seemed to +her, as she stood there, that something disquieting had suddenly come +into the world; something unpleasant--but indefinite--yet sufficient to +leave her vaguely apprehensive. + +The saner emotions which have their birth in reason she was not ignorant +of; emotion arising from nothing at all disconcerted her--nor could she +comprehend the slight quickening of her heart-beats as she waded to the +beach, while every receding film of water tugged at her limbs as though +to draw her backward in the wake of her unquiet thoughts. + +Somebody threw a tennis-ball at her; she caught it and hurled it in +return; and for a few minutes the white, felt-covered balls flew back +and forth from scores of graceful, eager hands. A moment or two passed +when no balls came her way; she turned and walked to the foot of a dune +and seated herself cross-legged on the hot sand. + +Sometimes she watched the ball players, sometimes she exchanged a word +of amiable commonplace with people who passed or halted to greet her. +But she invited nobody to remain, and nobody ventured to, not even +several very young and ardent gentlemen who had acquired only the +rudiments of social sense. For there was a sweet but distant look in her +dark-blue eyes and a certain reserved preoccupation in her +acknowledgment of salutations. And these kept the would-be adorer +moving--wistful, lagging, but still moving along the edge of that +invisible barrier set between her and the world with her absent-minded +greeting, and her serious, beautiful eyes fixed so steadily on a distant +white spot--the sponson canoe where Gladys and Selwyn sat, their paddle +blades flashing in the sun. + +How far away they were. . . . Gerald was with them. . . . Curious that +Selwyn had not seen her waiting for him, knee-deep in the surf--curious +that he had seen Gladys instead. . . . True, Gladys had called to him +and signalled him, white arm upflung. . . . Gladys was very pretty--with +her heavy, dark hair and melting, Spanish eyes, and her softly rounded, +olive-skinned figure. . . . Gladys had called to him, and _she_ had not. +. . . That was true; and lately--for the last few days--or perhaps +more--she herself had been a trifle less impulsive in her greeting of +Selwyn--a little less _sans-façon_ with him. . . . After all, a man +comes when it pleases him. Why should a girl call him?--unless +she--unless--unless-- + +Perplexed, her grave eyes fixed on the sea where now the white canoe +pitched nearer, she dropped both hands to the sand--those once +wonderfully white hands, now creamed with sun tan; and her arms, too, +were tinted from shoulder to finger-tip. Then she straightened her +legs, crossed her feet, and leaned a trifle forward, balancing her body +on both palms flat on the sand. The sun beat down on her; she loosened +her hair to dry it, and as she shook her delicate head the superb +red-gold mass came tumbling about her face and shoulders. Under its +glimmering splendour, and through it, she stared seaward out of wide, +preoccupied eyes; and in her breast, stirring uneasily, a pulse, +intermittent yet dully importunate, persisted. + +The canoe, drifting toward the surf, was close in, now. Gerald rose and +dived; Gladys, steadying herself by a slim hand on Selwyn's shoulder, +stood up on the bow, ready to plunge clear when the canoe capsized. + +How wonderfully pretty she was, balanced there, her hand on his +shoulder, ready for a leap, lest the heavy canoe, rolling over in the +froth, strike her under the smother of foam and water. . . . How +marvellously pretty she was. . . . Her hand on his shoulder. . . . + +Miss Erroll sat very still; but the pulse within her was not still. + +When the canoe suddenly capsized, Gladys jumped, but Selwyn went with +it, boat and man tumbling into the tumult over and over; and the usual +laughter from the onlookers rang out, and a dozen young people rushed +into the surf to right the canoe and push it out into the surf again and +clamber into it. + +Gerald was among the number; Gladys swam toward it, beckoning +imperiously to Selwyn; but he had his back to the sea and was moving +slowly out through the flat swirling ebb. And as Eileen looked, she saw +a dark streak leap across his face--saw him stoop and wash it off and +stand, looking blindly about, while again the sudden dark line +criss-crossed his face from temple to chin, and spread wider like a +stain. + +"Philip!" she called, springing to her feet and scarcely knowing that +she had spoken. + +He heard her, and came toward her in a halting, dazed way, stopping +twice to cleanse his face of the bright blood that streaked it. + +"It's nothing," he said--"the infernal thing hit me. . . . Oh, don't use +_that_!" as she drenched her kerchief in cold sea-water and held it +toward him with both hands. + +"Take it!--I--I beg of you," she stammered. "Is it s-serious?" + +"Why, no," he said, his senses clearing; "it was only a rap on the +head--and this blood is merely a nuisance. . . . Thank you, I will use +your kerchief if you insist. . . . It'll stop in a moment, anyway." + +"Please sit here," she said--"here where I've been sitting." + +He did so, muttering: "What a nuisance. It will stop in a second. . . . +You needn't remain here with me, you know. Go in; it is simply +glorious." + +"I've been in; I was drying my hair." + +He glanced up, smiling; then, as the wet kerchief against his forehead +reddened, he started to rise, but she took it from his fingers, hastened +to the water's edge, rinsed it, and brought it back cold and wet. + +"Please sit perfectly still," she said; "a girl likes to do this sort of +thing for a man." + +"If I'd known that," he laughed, "I'd have had it happen frequently." + +She only shook her head, watching him unsmiling. But the pulse in her +had become very quiet again. + +"It's no end of fun in that canoe," he observed. "Gladys Orchil and I +work it beautifully." + +"I saw you did," she nodded. + +"Oh! Where were you? Why didn't you come?" + +"I don't know. Gladys called you. I was waiting for you--expecting you. +Then Gladys called you." + +"I didn't see you," he said. + +"I didn't call you," she observed serenely. And, after a moment: "Do you +see only those who hail you, Captain Selwyn?" + +He laughed: "In this life's cruise a good sailor always answers a +friendly hail." + +"So do I," she said. "Please hail me after this--because I don't care to +take the initiative. If you neglect to do it, don't count on my hailing +you . . . any more." + +The stain spread on the kerchief; once more she went to the water's +edge, rinsed it, and returned with it. + +"I think it has almost stopped bleeding," she remarked as he laid the +cloth against his forehead. "You frightened me, Captain Selwyn. I am not +easily frightened." + +"I know it." + +"Did you know I was frightened?" + +"Of course I did." + +"Oh," she said, vexed, "how could you know it? I didn't do anything +silly, did I?" + +"No; you very sensibly called me Philip. That's how I knew you were +frightened." + +A slow bright colour stained face and neck. + +"So I was silly, after all," she said, biting at her under lip and +trying to meet his humorous gray eyes with unconcern. But her face was +burning now, and, aware of it, she turned her gaze resolutely on the +sea. Also, to her further annoyance, her heart awoke, beating +unwarrantably, absurdly, until the dreadful idea seized her that he +could hear it. Disconcerted, she stood up--a straight youthful figure +against the sea. The wind blowing her dishevelled hair across her cheeks +and shoulders, fluttered her clinging skirts as she rested both hands on +her hips and slowly walked toward the water's edge. + +"Shall we swim?" he asked her. + +She half turned and looked around and down at him. + +"I'm all right; it's stopped bleeding. Shall we?" he inquired, looking +up at her. "You've got to wash your hair again, anyhow." + +She said, feeling suddenly stupid and childish, and knowing she was +speaking stupidly: "Would you not rather join Gladys again? I thought +that--that--" + +"Thought _what_?" + +"Nothing," she said, furious at herself; "I am going to the showers. +Good-bye." + +"Good-bye," he said, troubled--"unless we walk to the pavilion +together--" + +"But you are going in again; are you not?" + +"Not unless you do." + +"W-what have I to do with it, Captain Selwyn?" + +"It's a big ocean--and rather lonely without you," he said so seriously +that she looked around again and laughed. + +"It's full of pretty girls just now. Plunge in, my melancholy friend. +The whole ocean is a dream of fair women to-day." + +"'If they be not fair to me, what care I how fair they be,'" he +paraphrased, springing to his feet and keeping step beside her. + +"Really, that won't do," she said; "much moonlight and Gladys and the +Minster twins convict you. Do you remember that I told you one day in +early summer--that Sheila and Dorothy and Gladys would mark you for +their own? Oh, my inconstant courtier, they are yonder!--And I absolve +you. Adieu!" + +"Do you remember what _I_ told _you_--one day in early summer?" he +returned coolly. + +Her heart began its absurd beating again--but now there was no trace of +pain in it--nothing of apprehension in the echo of the pulse either. + +"You protested so many things, Captain Selwyn--" + +"Yes; and one thing in particular. You've forgotten it, I see." And he +looked her in the eye. + +"No," she said, "you are wrong. I have not forgotten." + +"Nor I." + +He halted, looking out over the shining breakers. "I'm glad you have not +forgotten what I said; because, you see, I'm forbidden to repeat it. So +I shall be quite helpless to aid you in case your memory fails." + +"I don't think it will fail," she said, looking at the flashing sea. A +curious tingling sensation of fright had seized her--something entirely +unknown to her heretofore. She spoke again because frightened; the +heavy, hard pulse in breast and throat played tricks with her voice and +she swallowed and attempted to steady it: "I--if--if I ever forget, you +will know it as soon as I do--" + +Her throat seemed to close in a quick, unsteady breath; she halted, both +small hands clinched: + +"_Don't_ talk this way!" she said, exasperated under a rush of +sensations utterly incomprehensible--stinging, confused emotions that +beat chaotic time to the clamour of her pulses. "Why d-do you speak of +such things?" she repeated with a fierce little indrawn breath--"why do +you?--when you know--when I said--explained everything?" She looked at +him fearfully: "You are somehow spoiling our friendship," she said; "and +I don't exactly know how you are doing it, but something of the comfort +of it is being taken away from me--and don't! don't! don't do it!" + +She covered her eyes with her clinched hands, stood a moment, +motionless; then her arms dropped, and she turned sharply with a gesture +which left him standing there and walked rapidly across the beach to the +pavilion. + +After a little while he followed, pursuing his way very leisurely to his +own quarters. Half an hour later when she emerged with her maid, Selwyn +was not waiting for her as usual; and, scarcely understanding that she +was finding an excuse for lingering, she stood for ten minutes on the +step of the Orchils' touring-car, talking to Gladys about the lantern +fête and dance to be given that night at Hitherwood House. + +Evidently Selwyn had already gone home. Gerald came lagging up with +Sheila Minster; but his sister did not ask him whether Selwyn had gone. +Yesterday she would have done so; but to-day had brought to her the +strangest sensation of her young life--a sudden and overpowering fear of +a friend; and yet, strangest of all, the very friend she feared she was +waiting for--contriving to find excuses to wait for. Surely he could not +have finished dressing and have gone. He had never before done that. Why +did he not come? It was late; people were leaving the pavilion; +victorias and beach-phaetons were trundling off loaded to the water-line +with fat dowagers; gay groups passed, hailing her or waving adieux; +Drina drove up in her village-cart, calling out: "Are you coming, +Eileen, or are you going to walk over? Hurry up! I'm hungry." + +"I'll go with you," she said, nodding adieu to Gladys; and she swung off +the step and crossed the shell road. + +"Jump in," urged the child; "I'm in a dreadful hurry, and Odin can't +trot very fast." + +"I'd prefer to drive slowly," said Miss Erroll in a colourless voice; +and seated herself in the village-cart. + +"Why must I drive slowly?" demanded the child. "I'm hungry; besides, I +haven't seen Boots this morning. I don't want to drive slowly; must I?" + +"Which are you most in a hurry for?" asked Eileen curiously; "luncheon +or Boots?" + +"Both--I don't know. What a silly question. Boots of course! But I'm +starving, too." + +"Boots? Of course?" + +"Certainly. He always comes first--just like Captain Selwyn with you." + +"Like Captain Selwyn with me," she repeated absently; "certainly; +Captain Selwyn should be first, everything else second. But how did you +find out that, Drina?" + +"Why, anybody can see that," said the child contemptuously; "you are as +fast friends with Uncle Philip as I am with Boots. And why you don't +marry him I can't see--unless you're not old enough. Are you?" + +"Yes. . . . I am old enough, dear." + +"Then why don't you? If I was old enough to marry Boots I'd do it. Why +don't you?" + +"I don't know," said Miss Erroll, as though speaking to herself. + +Drina glanced at her, then flourished her be-ribboned whip, which +whistling threat had no perceptible effect on the fat, red, Norwegian +pony. + +"I'll tell you what," said the child, "if you don't ask Uncle Philip +pretty soon somebody will ask him first, and you'll be too late. As soon +as I saw Boots I knew that I wanted him for myself, and I told him so. +He said he was very glad I had spoken, because he was expecting a +proposal by wireless from the young Sultana-elect of Leyte. Now," added +the child with satisfaction, "she can't have him. It's better to be in +time, you see." + +Eileen nodded: "Yes, it is better to be in plenty of time. You can't +tell what Sultana may forestall you." + +"So you'll tell him, won't you?" inquired Drina with business-like +briskness. + +Miss Erroll looked absently at her: "Tell who what?" + +"Uncle Philip--that you're going to marry him when you're old enough." + +"Yes--when I'm old enough--I'll tell him, Drina." + +"Oh, no; I mean you'll marry him when you're old enough, but you'd +better tell him right away." + +"I see; I'd better speak immediately. Thank you, dear, for suggesting +it." + +"You're quite welcome," said the child seriously; "and I hope you'll be +as happy as I am." + +"I hope so," said Eileen as the pony-cart drew up by the veranda and a +groom took the pony's head. + +Luncheon being the children's hour, Miss Erroll's silence remained +unnoticed in the jolly uproar; besides, Gerald and Boots were discussing +the huge house-party, lantern fête, and dance which the Orchils were +giving that night for the younger sets; and Selwyn, too, seemed to take +unusual interest in the discussion, though Eileen's part in the +conference was limited to an occasional nod or monosyllable. + +Drina was wild to go and furious at not having been asked, but when +Boots offered to stay home, she resolutely refused to accept the +sacrifice. + +"No," she said; "they are pigs not to ask girls of my age, but you may +go, Boots, and I'll promise not to be unhappy." And she leaned over and +added in a whisper to Eileen: "You see how sensible it is to make +arrangements beforehand! Because somebody, grown-up, might take him away +at this very party. That's the reason why it is best to speak promptly. +Please pass me another peach, Eileen." + +"What are you two children whispering about?" inquired Selwyn, glancing +at Eileen. + +"Oho!" exclaimed Drina; "you may know before long! May he not, Eileen? +It's about you," she said; "something splendid that somebody is going to +do to you! Isn't it, Eileen?" + +Miss Erroll looked smilingly at Selwyn, a gay jest on her lips; but the +sudden clamour of pulses in her throat closed her lips, cutting the +phrase in two, and the same strange fright seized her--an utterly +unreasoning fear of him. + +At the same moment Mrs. Gerard gave the rising signal, and Selwyn was +swept away in the rushing herd of children, out on to the veranda, where +for a while he smoked and drew pictures for the younger Gerards. Later, +some of the children were packed off for a nap; Billy with his assorted +puppies went away with Drina and Boots, ever hopeful of a fox or rabbit; +Nina Gerard curled herself up in a hammock, and Selwyn seated himself +beside her, an uncut magazine on his knees. Eileen had disappeared. + +For a while Nina swung there in silence, her pretty eyes fixed on her +brother. He had nearly finished cutting the leaves of the magazine +before she spoke, mentioning the fact of Rosamund Fane's arrival at the +Minsters' house, Brookminster. + +The slightest frown gathered and passed from her brother's sun-bronzed +forehead, but he made no comment. + +"Mr. Neergard is a guest, too," she observed. + +"What?" exclaimed Selwyn, in disgust. + +"Yes; he came ashore with the Fanes." + +Selwyn flushed a little but went on cutting the pages of the magazine. +When he had finished he flattened the pages between both covers, and +said, without raising his eyes: + +"I'm sorry that crowd is to be in evidence." + +"They always are and always will be," smiled his sister. + +He looked up at her: "Do you mean that anybody _else_ is a guest at +Brookminster?" + +"Yes, Phil." + +"Alixe?" + +"Yes." + +He looked down at the book on his knees and began to furrow the pages +absently. + +"Phil," she said, "have you heard anything this summer--lately--about +the Ruthvens?" + +"No." + +"Nothing at all?" + +"Not a word." + +"You knew they were at Newport as usual." + +"I took it for granted." + +"And you have heard no rumours?--no gossip concerning them? Nothing +about a yacht?" + +"Where was I to hear it? What gossip? What yacht?" + +His sister said very seriously: "Alixe has been very careless." + +"Everybody is. What of it?" + +"It is understood that she and Jack Ruthven have separated." + +He looked up quickly: "Who told you that?" + +"A woman wrote me from Newport. . . . And Alixe is here and Jack Ruthven +is in New York. Several people have--I have heard about it from several +sources. I'm afraid it's true, Phil." + +They looked into each other's troubled eyes; and he said: "If she has +done this it is the worse of two evils she has chosen. To live with him +was bad enough, but this is the limit." + +"I know it. She cannot afford to do such a thing again. . . . Phil, what +is the matter with her? She simply cannot be sane and do such a +thing--can she?" + +"I don't know," he said. + +"Well, I do. She is not sane. She has made herself horridly conspicuous +among conspicuous people; she has been indiscreet to the outer edge of +effrontery. Even that set won't stand it always--especially as their men +folk are quite crazy about her, and she leads a train of them about +wherever she goes--the little fool! + +"And now, if it's true, that there's to be a separation--what on earth +will become of her? I ask you, Phil, for I don't know. But men know what +becomes eventually of women who slap the world across the face with +over-ringed fingers. + +"If--if there's any talk about it--if there's newspaper talk--if +there's a divorce--who will ask her to their houses? Who will condone +this thing? Who will tolerate it, or her? Men--and men only--the odious +sort that fawn on her now and follow her about half-sneeringly. They'll +tolerate it; but their wives won't; and the kind of women who will +receive and tolerate her are not included in my personal experience. +What a fool she has been!--good heavens, what a fool!" + +A trifle paler than usual, he said: "There is no real harm in her. I +know there is not." + +"You are very generous, Phil--" + +"No, I am trying to be truthful. And I say there is no harm in her. I +have made up my mind on that score." He leaned nearer his sister and +laid one hand on hers where it lay across the hammock's edge: + +"Nina; no woman could have done what she has done, and continue to do +what she does, and be mentally sound. This, at last, is my conclusion." + +"It has long been my conclusion," she said under her breath. + +He stared at the floor out of gray eyes grown dull and hopeless. + +"Phil," whispered his sister, "suppose--suppose--what happened to her +father--" + +"I know." + +She said again: "It was slow at first, a brilliant eccentricity--that +gradually became--something else less pleasant. Oh, Phil! Phil!" + +"It was softening of the brain," he said, "was it not?" + +"Yes--he entertained a delusion of conspiracy against him--also a +complacent conviction of the mental instability of others. Yet, at +intervals he remained clever and witty and charming." + +"And then?" + +"Phil--he became violent at times." + +"Yes. And the end?" he asked quietly. + +"A little child again--quite happy and content--playing with toys--very +gentle, very pitiable--" The hot tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Phil!" she +sobbed and hid her face on his shoulder. + +Over the soft, faintly fragrant hair he stared stupidly, lips apart, +chin loose. + +A little later, Nina sat up in the hammock, daintily effacing the traces +of tears. Selwyn was saying: "If this is so, that Ruthven man has got to +stand by her. Where could she go--if such trouble is to come upon her? +To whom can she turn if not to him? He is responsible for her--doubly +so, if her condition is to be--_that_! By every law of manhood he is +bound to stand by her now; by every law of decency and humanity he +cannot desert her now. If she does these--these indiscreet things--and +if he knows she is not altogether mentally responsible--he cannot fail +to stand by her! How can he, in God's name!" + +"Phil," she said, "you speak like a man, but she has no man to stand +loyally by her in the direst need a human soul may know. He is only a +thing--no man at all--only a loathsome accident of animated decadence." + +He looked up quickly, amazed at her sudden bitterness; and she looked +back at him almost fiercely. + +"I may as well tell you what I've heard," she said; "I was not going to, +at first; but it will be all around town sooner or later. Rosamund told +me. She learned--as she manages to learn everything a little before +anybody else hears of it--that Jack Ruthven found out that Alixe was +behaving very carelessly with some man--some silly, callow, and +probably harmless youth. But there was a disgraceful scene on Mr. +Neergard's yacht, the _Niobrara_. I don't know who the people were, but +Ruthven acted abominably. . . . The _Niobrara_ anchored in Widgeon Bay +yesterday; and Alixe is aboard, and her husband is in New York, and +Rosamund says he means to divorce her in one way or another! Ugh! the +horrible little man with his rings and bangles!" + +She shuddered: "Why, the mere bringing of such a suit means her social +ruin no matter what verdict is brought in! Her only salvation has +been in remaining inconspicuous; and a sane girl would have realised +it. But"--and she made a gesture of despair--"you see what she has +done. . . . And Phil--you know what she has done to you--what a mad risk +she took in going to your rooms that night--" + +"Who said she had ever been in my rooms?" he demanded, flushing darkly +in his surprise. + +"Did you suppose I didn't know it?" she asked quietly. "Oh, but I did; +and it kept me awake nights, worrying. Yet I knew it must have been all +right--knowing you as I do. But do you suppose other people would hold +you as innocent as I do? Even Eileen--the sweetest, whitest, most loyal +little soul in the world--was troubled when Rosamund hinted at some +scandal touching you and Alixe. She told me--but she did not tell me +what Rosamund had said--the mischief maker!" + +His face had become quite colourless; he raised an unsteady hand to his +mouth, touching his moustache; and his gray eyes narrowed menacingly. + +"Rosamund--spoke of scandal to--Eileen?" he repeated. "Is that +possible?" + +"How long do you suppose a girl can live and not hear scandal of some +sort?" said Nina. "It's bound to rain some time or other, but I prepared +my little duck's back to shed some things." + +"You say," insisted Selwyn, "that Rosamund spoke of me--in that way--to +Eileen?" + +"Yes. It only made the child angry, Phil; so don't worry." + +"No; I won't worry. No, I--I won't. You are quite right, Nina. But the +pity of it; that tight, hard-shelled woman of the world--to do such a +thing--to a young girl." + +"Rosamund is Rosamund," said Nina with a shrug; "the antidote to her +species is obvious." + +"Right, thank God!" said Selwyn between his teeth; "_Mens sana in +corpore sano_! bless her little heart! I'm glad you told me this, Nina." + +He rose and laughed a little--a curious sort of laugh; and Nina watched +him, perplexed. + +"Where are you going, Phil?" she asked. + +"I don't know. I--where is Eileen?" + +"She's lying down--a headache; probably too much sun and salt water. +Shall I send for her?" + +"No; I'll go up and inquire how she is. Susanne is there, isn't she?" + +And he entered the house and ascended the stairs. + +The little Alsatian maid was seated in a corner of the upper hall, +sewing; and she informed Selwyn that mademoiselle "had bad in ze h'ead." + +But at the sound of conversation in the corridor Eileen's gay voice came +to them from her room, asking who it was; and she evidently knew, for +there was a hint of laughter in her tone. + +"It is I. Are you better?" said Selwyn. + +"Yes. D-did you wish to see me?" + +"I always do." + +"Thank you. . . . I mean, do you wish to see me now? Because I'm very +much occupied in trying to go to sleep." + +"Yes, I wish to see you at once." + +"Particularly?" + +"Very particularly." + +"Oh, if it's as serious as that, you alarm me. I'm afraid to come." + +"I'm afraid to have you. But please come." + +He heard her laugh to herself; then her clear, amused voice: "What are +you going to say to me if I come out?" + +"Something dreadful! Hurry!" + +"Oh, if that's the case I'll hurry," she returned, and a moment later +the door opened and she emerged in a breezy flutter of silvery ribbons +and loosened ruddy hair. + +She was dressed in some sort of delicate misty stuff that alternately +clung and floated, outlining or clouding her glorious young figure as +she moved with leisurely free-limbed grace across the hall to meet him. + +The pretty greeting she always reserved for him, even if their +separation had been for a few minutes only, she now offered, hand +extended; a cool, fragrant hand which lay for a second in his, closed, +and withdrew, leaving her eyes very friendly. + +"Come out on the west veranda," she said; "I know what you wish to say +to me. Besides, I have something to confide to you, too. And I'm very +impatient to do it." + +He followed her to the veranda; she seated herself in the broad swing, +and moved so that her invitation to him was unmistakable. Then when he +had taken the place beside her she turned toward him very frankly, and +he looked up to encounter her beautiful direct gaze. + +"What is disturbing our friendship?" she asked. "Do you know? I don't. I +went to my room after luncheon and lay down on my bed and quietly +deliberated. And do you know what conclusion I have reached?" + +"What?" he asked. + +"That there is nothing at all to disturb our friendship. And that what I +said to you on the beach was foolish. I don't know why I said it; I'm +not the sort of girl who says such stupid things--though I was +apparently, for that one moment. And what I said about Gladys was +childish; I am not jealous of her, Captain Selwyn. Don't think me silly +or perverse or sentimental, will you?" + +"No, I won't." + +She smiled at him with a trifle less courage--a trifle more +self-consciousness: "And--and as for what I called you--" + +"You mean when you called me by my first name, and I teased you?" + +"Y-es. I was silly to do it; sillier to be ashamed of doing it. There's +a great deal of the callow schoolgirl in me yet, you see. The wise, +amused smile of a man can sometimes stampede my self-possession and +leave me blushing like any ninny in dire confusion. . . . It was very, +very mean of you--for the blood across your face did shock me. . . . +And, by myself, and in my very private thoughts, I do sometimes call +you--by your first name. . . . And that explains it. . . . Now, what +have you to say to me?" + +"I wish to ask you something." + +"With pleasure," she said; "go ahead." And she settled back, fearlessly +expectant. + +"Very well, then," he said, striving to speak coolly. "It is this: Will +you marry me, Eileen?" + +She turned perfectly white and stared at him, stunned. And he repeated +his question, speaking slowly, but unsteadily. + +"N-no," she said; "I cannot. Why--why, you know that, don't you?" + +"Will you tell me why, Eileen?" + +"I--I don't know why. I think--I suppose that it is because I do not +love you--that way." + +"Yes," he said, "that, of course, is the reason. I wonder--do you +suppose that--in time--perhaps--you might care for me--that way?" + +"I don't know." She glanced up at him fearfully, fascinated, yet +repelled. "I don't know," she repeated pitifully. "Is it--can't you help +thinking of me in that way? Can't you be as you were?" + +"No, I can no longer help it. I don't want to help it, Eileen." + +"But--I wish you to," she said in a low voice. "It is that which is +coming between us. Oh, don't you see it is? Don't you feel it--feel what +it is doing to us? Don't you understand how it is driving me back into +myself? Whom am I to go to if not to you? What am I to do if your +affection turns into this--this different attitude toward me? You were +so perfectly sweet and reasonable--so good, so patient; and now--and now +I am losing confidence in you--in myself--in our friendship. +I'm no longer frank with you; I'm afraid at times--afraid and +self-conscious--conscious of you, too--afraid of what seemed once the +most natural of intimacies. I--I loved you so dearly--so fearlessly--" + +Tears blinded her; she bent her head, and they fell on the soft delicate +stuff of her gown, flashing downward in the sunlight. + +"Dear," he said gently, "nothing is altered between us. I love you in +that way, too." + +"D-do you--really?" she stammered, shrinking away from him. + +"Truly. Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is weakened. +On the contrary, it is strengthened. You cannot understand that now. But +what you are to believe and always understand is that our friendship +must endure. Will you believe it?" + +"Y-yes--" She buried her face in her handkerchief and sat very still for +a long time. He had risen and walked to the farther end of the veranda; +and for a minute he stood there, his narrowed eyes following the sky +flight of the white gulls off Wonder Head. + +When at length he returned to her she was sitting low in the swing, both +arms extended along the back of the seat. Evidently she had been waiting +for him; and her face was very grave and sorrowful. + +"I want to ask you something," she said--"merely to prove that you are a +little bit illogical. May I?" + +He nodded, smiling. + +"Could you and I care for each other more than we now do, if we were +married?" + +"I think so," he said. + +"Why?" she demanded, astonished. Evidently she had expected another +answer. + +He made no reply; and she lay back among the cushions considering what +he had said, the flush of surprise still lingering in her cheeks. + +"How can I marry you," she asked, "when I would--would not care to +endure a--a caress from any man--even from you? It--such things--would +spoil it all. I _don't_ love you--that way. . . . Oh! _Don't_ look at me +that way! Have I hurt you?--dear Captain Selwyn? . . . I did not mean +to. . . . Oh, what has become of our happiness! What has become of it!" +And she turned, full length in the swing, and hid her face in the silken +pillows. + +For a long while she lay there, the western sun turning her crown of +hair to fire above the white nape of her slender neck; and he saw her +hands clasping, unclasping, or crushing the tiny handkerchief deep into +one palm. + +There was a chair near; he drew it toward her, and sat down, steadying +the swing with one hand on the chain. + +"Dearest," he said under his breath, "I am very selfish to have done +this; but I--I thought--perhaps--you might have cared enough to--to +venture--" + +"I do care; you are very cruel to me." The voice was childishly broken +and muffled. He looked down at her, slowly realising that it was a child +he still was dealing with--a child with a child's innocence, repelled by +the graver phase of love, unresponsive to the deeper emotions, +bewildered by the glimpse of the mature rôle his attitude had compelled +her to accept. That she already had reached that mile-stone and, for a +moment, had turned involuntarily to look back and find her childhood +already behind her, frightened her. + +Thinking, perhaps, of his own years, and of what lay behind him, he +sighed and looked out over the waste of moorland where the Atlantic was +battering the sands of Surf Point. Then his patient gaze shifted to the +east, and he saw the surface of Sky Pond, blue as the eyes of the girl +who lay crouching in the cushioned corner of the swinging seat, small +hands clinched over the handkerchief--a limp bit of stuff damp with her +tears. + +"There is one thing," he said, "that we mustn't do--cry about it--must +we, Eileen?" + +"No-o." + +"Certainly not. Because there is nothing to make either of us unhappy; +is there?" + +"Oh-h, no." + +"Exactly. So we're not going to be unhappy; not one bit. First because +we love each other, anyway; don't we?" + +"Y-yes." + +"Of course we do. And now, just because I happen to love you in that way +and also in a different sort of way, in addition to that way, why, it's +nothing for anybody to cry about it; is it, Eileen?" + +"No. . . . No, it is not. . . . But I c-can't help it." + +"Oh, but you're going to help it, aren't you?" + +"I--I hope so." + +He was silent; and presently she said: "I--the reason of it--my +crying--is b-b-because I don't wish you to be unhappy." + +"But, dear, dear little girl, I am not!" + +"Really?" + +"No, indeed! Why should I be? You do love me; don't you?" + +"You know I do." + +"But not in _that_ way." + +"N-no; not in _that_ way. . . . I w-wish I did." + +A thrill passed through him; after a moment he relaxed and leaned +forward, his chin resting on his clinched hands: "Then let us go back to +the old footing, Eileen." + +"Can we?" + +"Yes, we can; and we will--back to the old footing--when nothing of +deeper sentiment disturbed us. . . . It was my fault, little girl. Some +day you will understand that it was not a wholly selfish fault--because +I believed--perhaps only dreamed--that I could make you happier by +loving you in--both ways. That is all; it is your happiness--our +happiness that we must consider; and if it is to last and endure, we +must be very, very careful that nothing really disturbs it again. And +that means that the love, which is sometimes called friendship, must be +recognised as sufficient. . . . You know how it is; a man who is locked +up in Paradise is never satisfied until he can climb the wall and look +over! Now I have climbed and looked; and now I climb back into the +garden of your dear friendship, very glad to be there again with +you--very, very thankful, dear. . . . Will you welcome me back?" + +She lay quite still a minute, then sat up straight, stretching out both +hands to him, her beautiful, fearless eyes brilliant as rain-washed +stars. + +"Don't go away," she said--"don't ever go away from our garden again." + +"No, Eileen." + +"Is it a promise . . . Philip?" + +Her voice fell exquisitely low. + +"Yes, a promise. Do you take me back, Eileen?" + +"Yes; I take you. . . . Take me back, too, Philip." Her hands tightened +in his; she looked up at him, faltered, waited; then in a fainter voice: +"And--and be of g-good courage. . . . I--I am not very old yet." + +She withdrew her hands and bent her head, sitting there, still as a +white-browed novice, listlessly considering the lengthening shadows at +her feet. But, as he rose and looked out across the waste with enchanted +eyes that saw nothing, his heart suddenly leaped up quivering, as though +his very soul had been drenched in immortal sunshine. + +An hour later, when Nina discovered them there together, Eileen, curled +up among the cushions in the swinging seat, was reading aloud "Evidences +of Asiatic Influence on the Symbolism of Ancient Yucatan"; and Selwyn, +astride a chair, chin on his folded arms, was listening with evident +rapture. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Nina, "the blue-stocking and the fogy!--and yours +_are_ pale blue, Eileen!--you're about as self-conscious as +Drina--slumping there with your hair tumbling _à la_ Mérode! Oh, it's +very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is +better. Get up, little blue-stockings and we'll have our hair done--if +you expect to appear at Hitherwood House with me!" + +Eileen laughed, calmly smoothing out her skirt over her slim ankles; +then she closed the book, sat up, and looked happily at Selwyn. + +"Fogy and _Bas-bleu_," she repeated. "But it _is_ fascinating, isn't +it?--even if my hair is across my ears and you sit that chair like a +polo player! Nina, dearest, what is your mature opinion concerning the +tomoya and the Buddhist cross?" + +"I know more about a tomboy-a than a tomoya, my saucy friend," observed +Nina, surveying her with disapproval--"and I can be as cross about it as +any Buddhist, too. You are, to express it as pleasantly as possible, a +sight! Child, what on earth have you been doing? There are two smears +on your cheeks!" + +"I've been crying," said the girl, with an amused sidelong flutter of +her lids toward Selwyn. + +"Crying!" repeated Nina incredulously. Then, disarmed by the serene +frankness of the girl, she added: "A blue-stocking is bad enough, but a +grimy one is impossible. _Allons! Vite_!" she insisted, driving Eileen +before her; "the country is demoralising you. Philip, we're dining +early, so please make your arrangements to conform. Come, Eileen; have +you never before seen Philip Selwyn?" + +"I am not sure that I ever have," she replied, with a curious little +smile at Selwyn. Nina had her by the hand, but she dragged back like a +mischievously reluctant child hustled bedward: + +"Good-bye," she said, stretching out her hand to Selwyn--"good-bye, my +unfortunate fellow fogy! I go, slumpy, besmudged, but happy; I return, +superficially immaculate--but my stockings will still be blue! . . . +Nina, dear, if you don't stop dragging me I'll pick you up in my +arms!--indeed I will--" + +There was a laugh, a smothered cry of protest; and Selwyn was the amused +spectator of his sister suddenly seized and lifted into a pair of +vigorous young arms, and carried into the house by this tall, laughing +girl who, an hour before, had lain there among the cushions, frightened, +unconvinced, clinging instinctively to the last gay rags and tatters of +the childhood which she feared were to be stripped from her for ever. + +It was clear starlight when they were ready to depart. Austin had +arrived unexpectedly, and he, Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn were to drive to +Hitherwood House, Lansing and Gerald going in the motor-boat. + +There was a brief scene between Drina and Boots--the former fiercely +pointing out the impropriety of a boy like Gerald being invited where +she, Drina, was ignored. But there was no use in Boots offering to +remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, anyway; so she kissed +him good-bye very tearfully, and generously forgave Gerald; and +comforted herself before she retired by putting on one of her mother's +gowns and pinning up her hair and parading before a pier-glass until her +nurse announced that her bath was waiting. + + * * * * * + +The drive to Hitherwood House was a dream of loveliness; under the stars +the Bay of Shoals sparkled in the blue darkness set with the gemmed ruby +and sapphire and emerald of ships' lanterns glowing from unseen yachts +at anchor. + +The great flash-light on Wonder Head broke out in brilliancy, faded, +died to a cinder, grew perceptible again, and again blazed blindingly in +its endless monotonous routine; far lights twinkled on the Sound, and +farther away still, at sea. Then the majestic velvety shadow of the +Hither Woods fell over them; and they passed in among the trees, the +lamps of the depot wagon shining golden in the forest gloom. + +Selwyn turned instinctively to the young girl beside him. Her face was +in shadow, but she responded with the slightest movement toward him: + +"This dusk is satisfying--like sleep--this wide, quiet shadow over the +world. Once--and not so very long ago--I thought it a pity that the sun +should ever set. . . . I wonder if I am growing old--because I feel the +least bit tired to-night. For the first time that I can remember a day +has been a little too long for me." + +She evidently did not ascribe her slight sense of fatigue to the scene +on the veranda; perhaps she was too innocent to surmise that any +physical effect could follow that temporary stress of emotion. A quiet +sense of relief in relaxation from effort came over her as she leaned +back, conscious that there was happiness in rest and silence and the +soft envelopment of darkness. + +"If it would only last," she murmured lazily. + +"What, Eileen?" + +"This heavenly darkness--and our drive, together. . . . You are quite +right not to talk to me; I won't, either. . . . Only I'll drone on and +on from time to time--so that you won't forget that I am here beside +you." + +She lay so still for a while that at last Nina leaned forward to look at +her; then laughed. + +"She's asleep," she said to Austin. + +"No, I'm not," murmured the girl, unclosing her eyes; "Captain Selwyn +knows; don't you? . . . What is that sparkling--a fire-fly?" + +But it was the first paper lantern glimmering through the Hitherwood +trees from the distant lawn. + +"Oh, dear," sighed Eileen, sitting up with an effort, and looking +sleepily at Selwyn. "_J'ai sommeil--besoin--dormir_--" + +But a few minutes later they were in the great hall of Hitherwood House, +opened from end to end to the soft sea wind, and crowded with the +gayest, noisiest throng that had gathered there in a twelvemonth. + +Everywhere the younger set were in evidence; slim, fresh, girlish +figures passed and gathered and crowded the stairs and galleries with a +flirt and flutter of winnowing skirts, delicate and light as +powder-puffs. + +Mrs. Sanxon Orchil, a hard, highly coloured, tight-lipped little woman +with electric-blue eyes, was receiving with her slim brunette daughter, +Gladys. + +"A tight little craft," was Austin's invariable comment on the matron; +and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a +converted yacht cleared for action. + +Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and +from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed +expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé +moustache. + +The Lawns were there, the Minsters, the Craigs from Wyossett, the Grays +of Shadow Lake, the Draymores, Fanes, Mottlys, Cardwells--in fact, it +seemed as though all Long Island had been drained from Cedarhurst to +Islip and from Oyster Bay to Wyossett, to pour a stream of garrulous and +animated youth and beauty into the halls and over the verandas and +terraces and lawns of Hitherwood House. + +It was to be a lantern frolic and a lantern dance and supper, all most +formally and impressively _sans façon_. And it began with a candle-race +for a big silver gilt cup--won by Sandon Craig and his partner, Evelyn +Cardwell, who triumphantly bore their lighted taper safely among the +throngs of hostile contestants, through the wilderness of flitting +lights, and across the lawn to the goal where they planted it, +unextinguished, in the big red paper lantern. + +Selwyn and Eileen came up breathless and laughing with the others, she +holding aloft their candle, which somebody had succeeded in blowing out; +and everybody cheered the winners, significantly, for it was expected +that Miss Cardwell's engagement to young Craig would be announced before +very long. + +Then rockets began to rush aloft, starring the black void with +iridescent fire; and everybody went to the lawn's edge where, below on +the bay, a dozen motor-boats, dressed fore and aft with necklaces of +electric lights, crossed the line at the crack of a cannon in a race for +another trophy. + +Bets flew as the excitement grew, Eileen confining hers to gloves and +bonbons, and Selwyn loyally taking any offers of any kind as he +uncompromisingly backed Gerald and Boots in the new motor-boat--the +_Blue Streak_--Austin's contribution to the Silverside navy. + +And sure enough, at last a blue rocket soared aloft, bursting into azure +magnificence in the zenith; and Gerald and Boots came climbing up to the +lawn to receive prize and compliments, and hasten away to change their +oilskins for attire more suitable. + +Eileen, turning to Selwyn, held up her booking list in laughing dismay: +"I've won about a ton of bonbons," she said, "and too many pairs of +gloves to feel quite comfortable." + +"You needn't wear them all at once, you know," he assured her. + +"Nonsense! I mean that I don't care to win things. Oh!"--and she laid +her hand impulsively on his arm as a huge sheaf of rockets roared +skyward, apparently from the water. + +Then, suddenly, Neergard's yacht sprang into view, outlined in +electricity from stem to stern, every spar and funnel and contour of +hull and superstructure twinkling in jewelled brilliancy. + +On a great improvised open pavilion set up in the Hither Woods, +garlanded and hung thick with multi-coloured paper lanterns, dancing had +already begun; but Selwyn and Eileen lingered on the lawn for a while, +fascinated by the beauty of the fireworks pouring skyward from the +_Niobrara_. + +"They seem to be very gay aboard her," murmured the girl. "Once you said +that you did not like Mr. Neergard. Do you remember saying it?" + +He replied simply, "I don't like him; and I remember saying so." + +"It is strange," she said, "that Gerald does." + +Selwyn looked at the illuminated yacht. . . . "I wonder whether any of +Neergard's crowd is expected ashore here. Do you happen to know?" + +She did not know. A moment later, to his annoyance, Edgerton Lawn came +up and asked her to dance; and she went with a smile and a whispered: +"Wait for me--if you don't mind. I'll come back to you." + +It was all very well to wait for her--and even to dance with her after +that; but there appeared to be no peace for him in prospect, for Scott +Innis came and took her away, and Gladys Orchil offered herself to him +very prettily, and took him away; and after that, to his perplexity and +consternation, a perfect furor for him seemed to set in and grow among +the younger set, and the Minster twins had him, and Hilda Innis +appropriated him, and Evelyn Cardwell, and even Mrs. Delmour-Carnes took +a hand in the badgering. + +At intervals he caught glimpses of Eileen through the gay crush around +him; he danced with Nina, and suggested to her it was time to leave, but +that young matron had tasted just enough to want more; and Eileen, too, +was evidently having a most delightful time. So he settled into the +harness of pleasure and was good to the pink-and-white ones; and they +told each other what a "dear" he was, and adored him more inconveniently +than ever. + +Truly enough, as he had often said, these younger ones were the +charmingly wholesome and refreshing antidote to the occasional +misbehaviour of the mature. They were, as he also asserted, the hope and +promise of the social fabric of a nation--this younger set--always a +little better, a little higher-minded than their predecessors as the +wheel of the years slowly turned them out in gay, eager, fearless +throngs to teach a cynical generation the rudiments of that wisdom which +blossoms most perfectly in the hearts of the unawakened. + +Yes, he had frequently told himself all this; told it to others, too. +But, now, the younger set, _en masse_ and in detail, had become a little +bit _cramponné_--a trifle too all-pervading. And it was because his +regard for them, in the abstract, had become centred in a single +concrete example that he began to find the younger set a nuisance. But +others, it seemed, were quite as mad about Eileen Erroll as he was; and +there seemed to be small chance for him to possess himself of her, +unless he were prepared to make the matter of possession a pointed +episode. This he knew he had no right to do; she had conferred no such +privilege upon him; and he was obliged to be careful of what he did and +said lest half a thousand bright unwinking eyes wink too knowingly--lest +frivolous tongues go clip-clap, and idle brains infer that which, alas! +did not exist except in his vision of desire. + +The Hither Woods had been hung with myriads of lanterns. From every +branch they swung in clusters or stretched away into perspective, +turning the wooded aisles to brilliant vistas. Under them the more +romantic and the dance-worn strolled in animated groups or quieter twos; +an army of servants flitted hither and thither, serving the acre or so +of small tables over each of which an electric cluster shed yellow +light. + +Supper, and then the Woodland cotillon was the programme; and almost all +the tables were filled before Selwyn had an opportunity to collect Nina +and Austin and capture Eileen from a very rosy-cheeked and indignant boy +who had quite lost his head and heart and appeared to be on the verge of +a headlong declaration. + +"It's only Percy Draymore's kid brother," she explained, passing her arm +through his with a little sigh of satisfaction. "Where have you been all +the while?--and with whom have you danced, please?--and who is the +pretty girl you paid court to during that last dance? What? _Didn't_ pay +court to her? Do you expect me to believe that? . . . Oh, here comes +Nina and Austin. . . . How pretty the tables look, all lighted up among +the trees! And such an uproar!"--as they came into the jolly tumult and +passed in among a labyrinth of tables, greeted laughingly from every +side. + +Under a vigorous young oak-tree thickly festooned with lanterns Austin +found an unoccupied table. There was a great deal of racket and laughter +from the groups surrounding them, but this seemed to be the only +available spot; besides, Austin was hungry, and he said so. + +Nina, with Selwyn on her left, looked around for Gerald and Lansing. +When the latter came sauntering up, Austin questioned him, but he +replied carelessly that Gerald had gone to join some people whom he, +Lansing, did not know very well. + +"Why, there he is now!" exclaimed Eileen, catching sight of her brother +seated among a very noisy group on the outer edge of the illuminated +zone. "Who are those people, Nina? Oh! Rosamund Fane is there, too; +and--and--" + +She ceased speaking so abruptly that Selwyn turned around; and Nina bit +her lip in vexation and glanced at her husband. For, among the +overanimated and almost boisterous group which was attracting the +attention of everybody in the vicinity sat Mrs. Jack Ruthven. And Selwyn +saw her. + +For a moment he looked at her--looked at Gerald beside her, and Neergard +on the other side, and Rosamund opposite; and at the others, whom he had +never before seen. Then quietly, but with heightened colour, he turned +his attention to the glass which the servant had just filled for him, +and, resting his hand on the stem, stared at the bubbles crowding upward +through it to the foamy brim. + +Nina and Boots had begun, ostentatiously, an exceedingly animated +conversation; and they became almost aggressive, appealing to Austin, +who sat back with a frown on his heavy face--and to Eileen, who was +sipping her mineral water and staring thoughtfully at a big, round, +orange-tinted lantern which hung like the harvest moon behind Gerald, +throwing his curly head into silhouette. + +[Illustration: "Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side."] + +What conversation there was to carry, Boots and Nina carried. Austin +silently satisfied his hunger, eating and drinking with a sullen +determination to make no pretence of ignoring a situation that plainly +angered him deeply. And from minute to minute he raised his head to +glare across at Gerald, who evidently was unconscious of the presence of +his own party. + +When Nina spoke to Eileen, the girl answered briefly but with perfect +composure. Selwyn, too, added a quiet word at intervals, speaking in a +voice that sounded a little tired and strained. + +It was that note of fatigue in his voice which aroused Eileen to +effort--the instinctive move to protect--to sustain him. Conscious of +Austin's suppressed but increasing anger at her brother, amazed and +distressed at what Gerald had done--for the boy's very presence there +was an affront to them all--she was still more sensitive to Selwyn's +voice; and in her heart she responded passionately. + +Nina looked up, surprised at the sudden transformation in the girl, who +had turned on Boots with a sudden flow of spirits and the gayest of +challenges; and their laughter and badinage became so genuine and so +persistent that, combining with Nina, they fairly swept Austin from his +surly abstraction into their toils; and Selwyn's subdued laugh, if +forced, sounded pleasantly, now, and his drawn face seemed to relax a +little for the time being. + +Once she turned, under cover of the general conversation which she had +set going, and looked straight into Selwyn's eyes, flashing to him a +message of purest loyalty; and his silent gaze in response sent the +colour flying to her cheeks. + +It was all very well for a while--a brave, sweet effort; but ears could +not remain deaf to the increasing noise and laughter--to familiar +voices, half-caught phrases, indiscreet even in the fragments +understood. Besides, Gerald had seen them, and the boy's face had become +almost ghastly. + +Alixe, unusually flushed, was conducting herself without restraint; +Neergard's snickering laugh grew more significant and persistent; even +Rosamund spoke too loudly at moments; and once she looked around at Nina +and Selwyn while her pretty, accentless laughter, rippling with its +undertone of malice, became more frequent in the increasing tumult. + +There was no use in making a pretence of further gaiety. Austin had +begun to scowl again; Nina, with one shocked glance at Alixe, leaned +over toward her brother: + +"It is incredible!" she murmured; "she must be perfectly mad to make +such an exhibition of herself. Can't anybody stop her? Can't anybody +send her home?" + +Austin said sullenly but distinctly: "The thing for us to do is to get +out. . . . Nina--if you are ready--" + +"But--but what about Gerald?" faltered Eileen, turning piteously to +Selwyn. "We can't leave him--there!" + +The man straightened up and turned his drawn face toward her: + +"Do you wish me to get him?" + +"Y-you can't do that--can you?" + +"Yes, I can; if you wish it. Do you think there is anything in the world +I can't do, if you wish it?" + +As he rose she laid her hand on his arm: + +"I--I don't ask it--" she began. + +"You do not have to ask it," he said with a smile almost genuine. +"Austin, I'm going to get Gerald--and Nina will explain to you that +he's to be left to me if any sermon is required. I'll go back with him +in the motor-boat. Boots, you'll drive home in my place." + +As he turned, still smiling and self-possessed, Eileen whispered +rapidly: "Don't go. I care for you too much to ask it." + +He said under his breath: "Dearest, you cannot understand." + +"Yes--I do! Don't go. Philip--don't go near--her--" + +"I must." + +"If you do--if you go--h-how can you c-care for me as you say you +do?--when I ask you not to--when I cannot endure--to--" + +She turned swiftly and stared across at Alixe; and Alixe, unsteady in +the flushed brilliancy of her youthful beauty, half rose in her seat and +stared back. + +Instinctively the young girl's hand tightened on Selwyn's arm: "She--she +is beautiful!" she faltered; but he turned and led her from the table, +following Austin, his sister, and Lansing; and she clung to him almost +convulsively when he halted on the edge of the lawn. + +"I must go back," he whispered--"dearest--dearest--I must." + +"T-to Gerald? Or--_her_?" + +But he only muttered: "They don't know what they're doing. Let me go, +Eileen"--gently detaching her fingers, which left her hands lying in +both of his. + +She said, looking up at him: "If you go--if you go--whatever time you +return--no matter what hour--knock at my door. Do you promise? I shall +be awake. Do you promise?" + +"Yes," he said with a trace of impatience--the only hint of his anger at +the prospect of the duty before him. + +So she went away with Nina and Austin and Boots; and Selwyn turned back, +sauntering quietly toward the table where already the occupants had +apparently forgotten him and the episode in the riotous gaiety +increasing with the accession of half a dozen more men. + +When Selwyn approached, Neergard saw him first, stared at him, and +snickered; but he greeted everybody with smiling composure, nodding to +those he knew--a trifle more formally to Mrs. Ruthven--and, coolly +pulling up a chair, seated himself beside Gerald. + +"Boots has driven home with the others," he said in a low voice; "I'm +going back in the motor-boat with you. Don't worry about Austin. Are you +ready?" + +The boy had evidently let the wine alone, or else fright had sobered +him, for he looked terribly white and tired: "Yes," he said, "I'll go +when you wish. I suppose they'll never forgive me for this. Come on." + +"One moment, then," nodded Selwyn; "I want to speak to Mrs. Ruthven." +And, quietly turning to Alixe, and dropping his voice to a tone too low +for Neergard to hear--for he was plainly attempting to listen: + +"You are making a mistake; do you understand? Whoever is your +hostess--wherever you are staying--find her and go there before it is +too late." + +She inclined her pretty head thoughtfully, eyes on the wine-glass which +she was turning round and round between her slender fingers. "What do +you mean by 'too late'?" she asked. "Don't you know that everything is +too late for me now?" + +"What do _you_ mean, Alixe?" he returned, watching her intently. + +"What I say. I have not seen Jack Ruthven for two months. Do you know +what that means? I have not heard from him for two months. Do you know +what _that_ means? No? Well, I'll tell you, Philip; it means that when I +do hear from him it will be through his attorneys." + +He turned slightly paler: "Why"?" + +"Divorce," she said with a reckless little laugh--"and the end of things +for me." + +"On what grounds?" he demanded doggedly. "Does he threaten you?" + +She made no movement or reply, reclining there, one hand on her +wine-glass, the smile still curving her lips. And he repeated his +question in a low, distinct voice--too low for Neergard to hear; and he +was still listening. + +"Grounds? Oh, he thinks I've misbehaved with--never mind who. It is not +true--but he cares nothing about that, either. You see"--and she bent +nearer, confidentially, with a mysterious little nod of her pretty +head--"you see, Jack Ruthven is a little insane. . . . You are +surprised? Pooh! I've suspected it for months." + +He stared at her; then: "Where are you stopping?" + +"Aboard the _Niobrara_." + +"Is Mrs. Fane a guest there, too?" + +He spoke loud enough for Rosamund to hear; and she answered for herself +with a smile at him, brimful of malice: + +"Delighted to have you come aboard, Captain Selwyn. Is that what you are +asking permission to do?" + +"Thanks," he returned dryly; and to Alixe: "If you are ready, Gerald and +I will take you over to the _Niobrara_ in the motor-boat--" + +"Oh, no, you won't!" broke in Neergard with a sneer--"you'll mind your +own business, my intrusive friend, and I'll take care of my guests +without your assistance." + +Selwyn appeared not to hear him: "Come on, Gerald," he said pleasantly; +"Mrs. Ruthven is going over to the _Niobrara_--" + +"For God's sake," whispered Gerald, white as a sheet, "don't force me +into trouble with Neergard." + +Selwyn turned on him an astonished gaze: "Are you _afraid_ of that +whelp?" + +"Yes," muttered the boy--"I--I'll explain later. But don't force things +now, I beg you." + +Mrs. Ruthven coolly leaned over and spoke to Gerald in a low voice; +then, to Selwyn, she said with a smile: "Rosamund and I are going to +Brookminster, anyway, so you and Gerald need not wait. . . . And thank +you for coming over. It was rather nice of you"--she glanced insolently +at Neergard--"considering the crowd we're with. _Good_-night, Captain +Selwyn! _Good_-night, Gerald. So very jolly to have seen you again!" +And, under her breath to Selwyn: "You need not worry; I am going in a +moment. Good-bye and--thank you, Phil. It _is_ good to see somebody of +one's own caste again." + +A few moments later, Selwyn and Gerald in their oilskins were dashing +eastward along the coast in the swiftest motor-boat south of the +Narrows. + + * * * * * + +The boy seemed deathly tired as they crossed the dim lawn at Silverside. +Once, on the veranda steps he stumbled, and Selwyn's arm sustained him; +but the older man forbore to question him, and Gerald, tight-lipped and +haggard, offered no confidence until, at the door of his bedroom, he +turned and laid an unsteady hand on Selwyn's shoulder: "I want to talk +with you--to-morrow. May I?" + +"You know you may, Gerald. I am always ready to stand your friend." + +"I know. . . . I must have been crazy to doubt it. You are very good to +me. I--I am in a very bad fix. I've got to tell you." + +"Then we'll get you out of it, old fellow," said Selwyn cheerfully. +"That's what friends are for, too." + +The boy shivered--looked at the floor, then, without raising his eyes, +said good-night, and, entering his bedroom, closed the door. + +As Selwyn passed back along the corridor, the door of his sister's room +opened, and Austin and Nina confronted him. + +"Has that damfool boy come in?" demanded his brother-in-law, anxiety +making his voice tremulous under its tone of contempt. + +"Yes. Leave him to me, please. Good-night"--submitting to a tender +embrace from his sister--"I suppose Eileen has retired, hasn't she? It's +an ungodly hour--almost sunrise." + +"I don't know whether Eileen is asleep," said Nina; "she expected a word +with you, I understand. But don't sit up--don't let her sit up late. +We'll be a company of dreadful wrecks at breakfast, anyway." + +And his sister gently closed the door while he continued on to the end +of the corridor and halted before Eileen's room. A light came through +the transom; he waited a moment, then knocked very softly. + +"Is it you?" she asked in a low voice. + +"Yes. I didn't wake you, did I?" + +"No. Is Gerald here?" + +"Yes, in his own room. . . . Did you wish to speak to me about +anything?" + +"Yes." + +He heard her coming to the door; it opened a very little. "Good-night," +she whispered, stretching toward him her hand--"that was all I +wanted--to--to touch you before I closed my eyes to-night." + +He bent and looked at the hand lying within his own--the little hand +with its fresh fragrant palm upturned and the white fingers relaxed, +drooping inward above it--at the delicate bluish vein in the smooth +wrist. + +Then he released the hand, untouched by his lips; and she withdrew it +and closed the door; and he heard her laugh softly, and lean against it, +whispering: + +"Now that I am safely locked in--I merely wish to say that--in the old +days--a lady's hand was sometimes--kissed. . . . Oh, but you are too +late, my poor friend! I can't come out; and I wouldn't if I could--not +after what I dared to say to you. . . . In fact, I shall probably remain +locked up here for days and days. . . . Besides, what I said is out of +fashion--has no significance nowadays--or, perhaps, too much. . . . No, +I won't dress and come out--even for you. _Je me déshabille--je fais ma +toilette de nuit, monsieur--et je vais maintenant m'agenouiller et faire +ma prière. Donc--bon soir--et bonne nuit_--" + +And, too low for him to hear even the faintest breathing whisper of her +voice--"Good-night. I love you with all my heart--with all my heart--in +my own fashion." + + * * * * * + +He had been asleep an hour, perhaps more, when something awakened him, +and he found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, dawn already +whitening his windows. + +Somebody was knocking. He swung out of bed, stepped into his +bath-slippers, and, passing swiftly to the door, opened it. Gerald stood +there, fully dressed. + +"I'm going to town on the early train," began the boy--"I thought I'd +tell you--" + +"Nonsense! Gerald, go back to bed!" + +"I can't sleep, Philip--" + +"Can't sleep? Oh, that's the trouble, is it? Well, then, sit here and +talk to me." He gave a mighty yawn--"I'm not sleepy, either; I can go +days without it. Here!--here's a comfortable chair to sprawl in. . . . +It's daylight already; doesn't the morning air smell sweet? I've a jug +of milk and some grapes and peaches in my ice-cupboard if you feel +inclined. No? All right; stretch out, sight for a thousand yards, and +fire at will." + +Gerald strove to smile; for a while he lay loosely in the arm-chair, his +listless eyes intent on the strange, dim light which fell across the +waste of sea fog. Only the water along the shore's edge remained +visible; all else was a blank wall behind which, stretching to the +horizon, lay the unseen ocean. Already a few restless gulls were on the +wing, sheering inland; and their raucous, treble cries accented the +pallid stillness. + +But the dawn was no paler than the boy's face--no more desolate. Trouble +was his, the same old trouble that has dogged the trail of folly since +time began; and Selwyn knew it and waited. + +At last the boy broke out: "This is a cowardly trick--this slinking in +to you with all my troubles after what you've done for me--after the +rotten way I've treated you--" + +"Look here, my boy!" said Selwyn coolly, crossing one knee over the +other and dropping both hands into the pockets of his pajamas--"I asked +you to come to me, didn't I? Well, then; don't criticise my judgment in +doing it. It isn't likely I'd ask you to do a cowardly thing." + +"You don't understand what a wretched scrape I'm in--" + +"I don't yet; but you're going to tell me--" + +"Philip, I can't--I simply cannot. It's so contemptible--and you warned +me--and I owe you already so much--" + +"You owe me a little money," observed Selwyn with a careless smile, "and +you've a lifetime to pay it in. What is the trouble now; do you need +more? I haven't an awful lot, old fellow--worse luck!--but what I have +is at your call--as you know perfectly well. Is that all that is +worrying you?" + +"No--not all. I--Neergard has lent me money--done things--placed me +under obligations. . . . I liked him, you know; I trusted him. . . . +People he desired to know I made him known to. He was a--a trifle +peremptory at times--as though my obligations to him left me no choice +but to take him to such people as he desired to meet. . . . We--we had +trouble--recently." + +"What sort?" + +"Personal. I felt--began to feel--the pressure on me. There was, at +moments, something almost of menace in his requests and suggestions--an +importunity I did not exactly understand. . . . And then he said +something to me--" + +"Go on; what?" + +"He'd been hinting at it before; and even when I found him jolliest and +most amusing and companionable I never thought of him as a--a social +possibility--I mean among those who really count--like my own people--" + +"Oh! he asked you to introduce him into your own family circle?" + +"Yes--I didn't understand it at first--until somehow I began to feel the +pressure of it--the vague but constant importunity. . . . He was a good +fellow--at least I thought so; I hated to hurt him--to assume any +attitude that might wound him. But, good heavens!--he couldn't seem to +understand that nobody in our family would receive him--although he had +a certain footing with the Fanes and Harmons and a few others--like the +Siowitha people--or at least the men of those families. Don't you see, +Philip?" + +"Yes, my boy, I see. Go on! When did he ask to be presented to--your +sister?" + +"W-who told you that?" asked the boy with an angry flush. + +"You did--almost. You were going to, anyway. So that was it, was it? +That was when you realised a few things--understood one or two things; +was it not? . . . And how did you reply? Arrogantly, I suppose." + +"Yes." + +"With--a--some little show of--a--contempt?" + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"Exactly. And Neergard--was put out--slightly?" + +"Yes," said the boy, losing some of his colour. "I--a moment afterward I +was sorry I had spoken so plainly; but I need not have been. . . . He +was very ugly about it." + +"Threats of calling loans?" asked Selwyn, smiling. + +"Hints; not exactly threats. I was in a bad way, too--" The boy winced +and swallowed hard; then, with sudden white desperation stamped on his +drawn face: "Oh, Philip--it--it is disgraceful enough--but how am I +going to tell you the rest?--how can I speak of this matter to you--" + +"What matter?" + +"A--about--about Mrs. Ruthven--" + +"_What_ matter?" repeated Selwyn. His voice rang a little, but the +colour had fled from his face. + +"She was--Jack Ruthven charged her with--and me--charged me with--" + +"_You_!" + +"Yes." + +"Well--it was a lie, wasn't it?" Selwyn's ashy lips scarcely moved, but +his eyes were narrowing to a glimmer. "It was a lie, wasn't it?" he +repeated. + +"Yes--a lie. I'd say it, anyway, you understand--but it really was a +lie." + +Selwyn quietly leaned back in his chair; a little colour returned to his +cheeks. + +"All right--old fellow"--his voice scarcely quivered--"all right; go on. +I knew, of course, that Ruthven lied, but it was part of the story to +hear you say so. Go on. What did Ruthven do?" + +"There has been a separation," said the boy in a low voice. "He behaved +like a dirty cad--she had no resources--no means of support--" He +hesitated, moistening his dry lips with his tongue. "Mrs. Ruthven has +been very, very kind to me. I was--I am fond of her; oh, I know well +enough I never had any business to meet her; I behaved abominably toward +you--and the family. But it was done; I knew her, and liked her +tremendously. She was the only one who was decent to me--who tried to +keep me from acting like a fool about cards--" + +_Did_ she try?" + +"Yes--indeed, yes! . . . and, Phil--she--I don't know how to say it--but +she--when she spoke of--of you--begged me to try to be like you. . . . +And it is a lie what people say about her!--what gossip says. I know; I +have known her so well--and--I was like other men--charmed and +fascinated by her; but the women of that set are a pack of cats, and the +men--well, none of them ever ventured to say anything to me! . . . And +that is all, Philip. I was horribly in debt to Neergard; then Ruthven +turned on me--and on her; and I borrowed more from Neergard and went to +her bank and deposited it to the credit of her account--but she doesn't +know it was from me--she supposes Jack Ruthven did it out of ordinary +decency, for she said so to me. And that is how matters stand; Neergard +is ugly, and grows more threatening about those loans--and I haven't any +money, and Mrs. Ruthven will require more very soon--" + +"Is that _all_?" demanded Selwyn sharply. + +"Yes--all. . . . I know I have behaved shamefully--" + +"I've seen," observed Selwyn in a dry, hard voice, "worse behaviour than +yours. . . . Have you a pencil, Gerald? Get a sheet of paper from that +desk. Now, write out a list of the loans made you by Neergard. . . . +Every cent, if you please. . . . And the exact amount you placed to Mrs. +Ruthven's credit. . . . Have you written that? Let me see it." + +The boy handed him the paper. He studied it without the slightest change +of expression--knowing all the while what it meant to him; knowing that +this burden must be assumed by himself because Austin would never +assume it. + +And he sat there staring at space over the top of the pencilled sheet of +paper, striving to find some help in the matter. But he knew Austin; he +knew what would happen to Gerald if, after the late reconciliation with +his ex-guardian, he came once more to him with such a confession of debt +and disgrace. + +No; Austin must be left out; there were three things to do: One of them +was to pay Neergard; another to sever Gerald's connection with him for +ever; and the third thing to be done was something which did not concern +Gerald or Austin--perhaps, not even Ruthven. It was to be done, no +matter what the cost. But the thought of the cost sent a shiver over +him, and left his careworn face gray. + +His head sank; he fixed his narrowing eyes on the floor and held them +there, silent, unmoved, while within the tempests of terror, temptation, +and doubt assailed him, dragging at the soul of him, where it clung +blindly to its anchorage. And it held fast--raging, despairing in the +bitterness of renunciation, but still held on through the most dreadful +tempest that ever swept him. Courage, duty, reparation--the words +drummed in his brain, stupefying him with their dull clamour; but he +understood and listened, knowing the end--knowing that the end must +always be the same for him. It was the revolt of instinct against +drilled and ingrained training, inherited and re-schooled--the insurgent +clamour of desire opposed to that stern self-repression characteristic +of generations of Selwyns, who had held duty important enough to follow, +even when their bodies died in its wake. + +And it were easier for him, perhaps, if his body died. + +He rose and walked to the window. Over the Bay of Shoals the fog was +lifting; and he saw the long gray pier jutting northward--the pier where +the troopships landed their dead and dying when the Spanish war was +ended. + +And he looked at the hill where the field hospital had once been. His +brother died there--in the wake of that same duty which no Selwyn could +ignore. + +After a moment he turned to Gerald, a smile on his colourless face: + +"It will be all right, my boy. You are not to worry--do you understand +me? Go to bed, now; you need the sleep. Go to bed, I tell you--I'll +stand by you. You must begin all over again, Gerald--and so must I; and +so must I." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LEX NON SCRIPTA + + +Selwyn had gone to New York with Gerald, "for a few days," as he +expressed it; but it was now the first week in October, and he had not +yet returned to Silverside. + +A brief note to Nina thanking her for having had him at Silverside, and +speaking vaguely of some business matters which might detain him +indefinitely--a briefer note to Eileen regretting his inability to +return for the present--were all the communication they had from him +except news brought by Austin, who came down from town every Friday. + +A long letter to him from Nina still remained unanswered; Austin had +seen him only once in town; Lansing, now back in New York, wrote a +postscript in a letter to Drina, asking for Selwyn's new address--the +first intimation anybody had that he had given up his lodgings on +Lexington Avenue. + +"I was perfectly astonished to find he had gone, leaving no address," +wrote Boots; "and nobody knows anything about him at his clubs. I have +an idea that he may have gone to Washington to see about the Chaosite +affair; but if you have any address except his clubs, please send it to +me." + +Eileen had not written him; his sudden leave-taking nearly a month ago +had so astounded her that she could not believe he meant to be gone +more than a day or two. Then came his note, written at the Patroons' +Club--very brief, curiously stilted and formal, with a strange tone of +finality through it, as though he were taking perfunctory leave of +people who had come temporarily into his life, and as though the chances +were agreeably even of his ever seeing them again. + +The girl was not hurt, as yet; she remained merely confused, +incredulous, unreconciled. That there was to be some further explanation +of his silence she never dreamed of doubting; and there seemed to be +nothing to do in the interval but await it. As for writing him, some +instinct forbade it, even when Nina suggested that she write, adding +laughingly that nothing else seemed likely to stir her brother. + +For the first few days the children clamoured intermittently for him; +but children forget, and Billy continued to cast out his pack in undying +hope of a fox or bunny, and the younger children brought their +butterfly-nets and sand-shovels to Austin and Nina for repairs; and +Drina, when Boots deserted her for his Air Line Company, struck up a +wholesome and lively friendship with a dozen subfreshmen and the younger +Orchil girls, and began to play golf like a little fiend. + +It was possible, now, to ride cross-country; and Nina, who was always in +terror of an added ounce to her perfect figure, rode every day with +Eileen; and Austin, on a big hunter, joined them two days in the week. + +There were dances, too, and Nina went to some of them. So did Eileen, +who had created a furor among the younger brothers and undergraduates; +and the girl was busy enough with sailing and motoring and dashing +through the Sound in all sorts of power boats. + +Once, under Austin's and young Craig's supervision, she tried +shore-bird shooting; but the first broken wing from the gun on her left +settled the thing for ever for her, and the horror of the +blood-sprinkled, kicking mass of feathers haunted her dreams for a week. + +Youths, however, continued to hover numerously about her. They sat in +soulful rows upon the veranda at Silverside; they played guitars at her +in canoes, accompanying the stringy thrumming with the peculiarly +exasperating vocal noises made only by very young undergraduates; they +rode with her and Nina; they pervaded her vicinity with a tireless +constancy amounting to obsession. + +She liked it well enough; she was as interested in everything as usual; +as active at the nets, playing superbly, and with all her heart in the +game--while it lasted; she swung her slim brassy with all the old-time +fire and satisfaction in the clean, sharp whack, as the ball flew +through the sunshine, rising beautifully in a long, low trajectory +against the velvet fair-green. + +It was unalloyed happiness for her to sit her saddle, feeling under her +the grand stride of her powerful hunter on a headlong cross-country +gallop; it was purest pleasure for her to lean forward in her oilskins, +her eyes almost blinded with salt spray, while the low motor-boat rushed +on and on through cataracts of foam, and the heaving, green sea-miles +fled away, away, in the hissing furrow of the wake. + +Truly, for her, the world was still green, the sun bright, the high sky +blue; but she had not forgotten that the earth had been greener, the sun +brighter, the azure above her more splendid--once upon a time--like the +first phrase of a tale that is told. And if she were at times listless, +absent-eyed, subdued--a trifle graver, or unusually silent, seeking the +still paths of the garden as though in need of youthful meditation and +the quiet of the sunset hour, she never doubted that that tale would be +retold for her again. Only--alas!--the fair days were passing, and the +russet rustle of October sounded already among the curling leaves in the +garden; and he had been away a long time--a very long time. And she +could not understand. + +On one of Austin's week-end visits, the hour for conjugal confab having +arrived and husband and wife locked in the seclusion of their +bedroom--being old-fashioned enough to occupy the same--he said, with a +trace of irritation in his voice: + +"I don't know where Phil is, or what he's about. I'm wondering--he's got +the Selwyn conscience, you know--what he's up to--and if it's any kind +of dam-foolishness. Haven't you heard a word from him, Nina?" + +Nina, in her pretty night attire, had emerged from her dressing-room, +locked out Kit-Ki and her maid, and had curled up in a big, soft +armchair, cradling her bare ankles in her hand. + +"I haven't heard from him," she said. "Rosamund saw him in +Washington--passed him on the street. He was looking horridly thin and +worn, she wrote. He did not see her." + +"Now what in the name of common sense is he doing in Washington!" +exclaimed Austin wrathfully. "Probably breaking his heart because nobody +cares to examine his Chaosite. I told him, as long as he insisted on +bothering the Government with it instead of making a deal with the Lawn +people, that I'd furnish him with a key to the lobby. I told him I knew +the right people, could get him the right lawyers, and start the thing +properly. Why didn't he come to me about it? There's only one way to +push such things, and he's as ignorant of it as a boatswain in the +marine cavalry." + +Nina said thoughtfully: "You always were impatient of people, dear. +Perhaps Phil may get them to try his Chaosite without any wire-pulling. +. . . I do wish he'd write. I can't understand his continued silence. +Hasn't Boots heard from him? Hasn't Gerald?" + +"Not a word. And by the way, Nina, Gerald has done rather an unexpected +thing. I saw him last night; he came to the house and told me that he +had just severed his connection with Julius Neergard's company." + +"I'm glad of it!" exclaimed Nina; "I'm glad he showed the good sense to +do it!" + +"Well--yes. As a matter of fact, Neergard is going to be a very rich man +some day; and Gerald might have--But I am not displeased. What appeals +to me is the spectacle of the boy acting with conviction on his own +initiative. Whether or not he is making a mistake has nothing to do with +the main thing, and that is that Gerald, for the first time in his +rather colourless career, seems to have developed the rudiments of a +backbone out of the tail which I saw so frequently either flourishing +defiance at me or tucked sullenly between his hind legs. I had quite a +talk with him last night; he behaved very decently, and with a certain +modesty which may, one day, develop into something approaching dignity. +We spoke of his own affairs--in which, for the first time, he appeared +to take an intelligent interest. Besides that, he seemed willing enough +to ask my judgment in several matters--a radical departure from his cub +days." + +"What are you going to do for him, dear?" asked his wife, rather +bewildered at the unexpected news. "Of course he must go into some sort +of business again--" + +"Certainly. And, to my astonishment, he actually came and solicited my +advice. I--I was so amazed, Nina, that I could scarcely credit my own +senses. I managed to say that I'd think it over. Of course he can, if he +chooses, begin everything again and come in with me. Or--if I am +satisfied that he has any ability--he can set up some sort of a +real-estate office on his own hook. I could throw a certain amount of +business in his way--but it's all in the air, yet. I'll see him Monday, +and we'll have another talk. By gad! Nina," he added, with a flush of +half-shy satisfaction on his ruddy face, "it's--it's almost like having +a grown-up son coming bothering me with his affairs; ah--rather +agreeable than otherwise. There's certainly something in that boy. +I--perhaps I have been, at moments, a trifle impatient. But I did not +mean to be. You know that, dear, don't you?" + +His wife looked up at her big husband in quiet amusement. "Oh, yes! I +know a little about you," she said, "and a little about Gerald, too. He +is only a masculine edition of Eileen--the irresponsible freedom of life +brought out all his faults at once, like a horrid rash; it's due to the +masculine notion of masculine education. His sister's education was +essentially the contrary: humours were eradicated before first symptoms +became manifest. The moral, mental, and physical drilling and schooling +was undertaken and accepted without the slightest hope--and later +without the slightest desire--for any relaxation of the rigour when she +became of age and mistress of herself. That's the difference: a boy +looks forward to the moment when he can flourish his heels and wag his +ears and bray; a girl has no such prospect. Gerald has brayed; Eileen +never will flourish her heels unless she becomes fashionable after +marriage--which isn't very likely--" + +Nina hesitated, another idea intruding. + +"By the way, Austin; the Orchil boy--the one in Harvard--proposed to +Eileen--the little idiot! She told me--thank goodness! she still does +tell me things. Also the younger and chubbier Draymore youth has offered +himself--after a killingly proper interview with me. I thought it might +amuse you to hear of it." + +"It might amuse me more if Eileen would get busy and bring Philip into +camp," observed her husband. "And why the devil they don't make up their +minds to it is beyond me. That brother of yours is the limit sometimes. +I'm fond of him--you know it--but he certainly can be the limit +sometimes." + +"Do you know," said Nina, "that I believe he is in love with her?" + +"Then, why doesn't--" + +"I don't know. I was sure--I am sure now--that the girl cares more for +him than for anybody. And yet--and yet I don't believe she is actually +in love with him. Several times I supposed she was--or near it, anyway. +. . . But they are a curious pair, Austin--so quaint about it; so slow +and old-fashioned. . . . And the child is the most innocent being--in +some ways. . . . Which is all right unless she becomes one of those +pokey, earnest, knowledge-absorbing young things with the very germ of +vitality dried up and withered in her before she awakens. . . . I don't +know--I really don't. For a girl _must_ have something of the human +about her to attract a man, and be attracted. . . . Not that she need +know anything about love--or even suspect it. But there must be some +response in her, some--some--" + +"Deviltry?" suggested Austin. + +His pretty wife laughed and dropped one knee over the other, leaning +back to watch him finish his good-night cigarette. After a moment her +face grew grave, and she bent forward. + +"Speaking of Rosamund a moment ago reminds me of something else she +wrote--it's about Alixe. Have you heard anything?" + +"Not a word," said Austin, with a frank scowl, "and don't want to." + +"It's only this--that Alixe is ill. Nobody seems to know what the matter +is; nobody has seen her. But she's at Clifton, with a couple of nurses, +and Rosamund heard rumours that she is very ill indeed. . . . People go +to Clifton for shattered nerves, you know." + +"Yes; for bridge-fidgets, neurosis, pip, and the various jumps that +originate in the simpler social circles. What's the particular matter +with her? Too many cocktails? Or a dearth of grand slams?" + +"You are brutal, Austin. Besides, I don't know. She's had a perfectly +dreary life with her husband. . . . I--I can't forget how fond I was of +her in spite of what she did to Phil. . . . Besides, I'm beginning to be +certain that it was not entirely her fault." + +"What? Do you think Phil--" + +"No, no, no! Don't be an utter idiot. All I mean to say is that Alixe +was always nervous and high-strung; odd at times; eccentric--_more_ than +merely eccentric--" + +"You mean dippy?" + +"Oh, Austin, you're horrid. I mean that there is mental trouble in that +family. You have heard of it as well as I; you know her father died of +it--" + +"The usual defence in criminal cases," observed Austin, flicking his +cigarette-end into the grate. "I'm sorry, dear, that Alixe has the +jumps; hope she'll get over 'em. But as for pretending I've any use for +her, I can't and don't and won't. She spoiled life for the best man I +know; she kicked his reputation into a cocked hat, and he, with his +chivalrous Selwyn conscience, let her do it. I did like her once; I +don't like her now, and that's natural and it winds up the matter. Dear +friend, shall we, perhaps, to bed presently our way wend--yess?" + +"Yes, dear; but you are not very charitable about Alixe. And I tell +you I've my own ideas about her illness--especially as she is at +Clifton. . . . I wonder where her little beast of a husband is?" + +But Austin only yawned and looked at the toes of his slippers, and then +longingly at the pillows. + + * * * * * + +Had Nina known it, the husband of Mrs. Ruthven, whom she had +characterised so vividly, was at that very moment seated in a private +card-room at the Stuyvesant Club with Sanxon Orchil, George Fane, and +Bradley Harmon; and the game had been bridge, as usual, and had gone +very heavily against him. + +Several things had gone against Mr. Ruthven recently; for one thing, he +was beginning to realise that he had made a vast mistake in mixing +himself up in any transactions with Neergard. + +When he, at Neergard's cynical suggestion, had consented to exploit his +own club--the Siowitha--and had consented to resign from it to do so, he +had every reason to believe that Neergard meant to either mulct them +heavily or buy them out. In either case, having been useful to Neergard, +his profits from the transaction would have been considerable. + +But, even while he was absorbed in figuring them up--and he needed the +money, as usual--Neergard coolly informed him of his election to the +club, and Ruthven, thunder-struck, began to perceive the depth of the +underground mole tunnels which Neergard had dug to undermine and capture +the stronghold which had now surrendered to him. + +Rage made him ill for a week; but there was nothing to do about it. He +had been treacherous to his club and to his own caste, and Neergard knew +it--and knew perfectly well that Ruthven dared not protest--dared not +even whimper. + +Then Neergard began to use Ruthven when he needed him; and he began to +permit himself to win at cards in Ruthven's house--a thing he had not +dared to do before. He also permitted himself more ease and freedom in +that house--a sort of intimacy _sans façon_--even a certain jocularity. +He also gave himself the privilege of inviting the Ruthvens on board the +_Niobrara_; and Ruthven went, furious at being forced to stamp with his +open approval an episode which made Neergard a social probability. + +How it happened that Rosamund divined something of the situation is not +quite clear; but she always had a delicate nose for anything not +intended for her, and the thing amused her immensely, particularly +because what viciousness had been so long suppressed in Neergard was now +tentatively making itself apparent in his leering ease among women he so +recently feared. + +This, also, was gall and wormwood to Ruthven, so long the official +lap-dog of the very small set he kennelled with; and the women of that +set were perverse enough to find Neergard amusing, and his fertility in +contriving new extravagances for them interested these people, whose +only interest had always been centred in themselves. + +Meanwhile, Neergard had almost finished with Gerald--he had only one +further use for him; and as his social success became more pronounced +with the people he had crowded in among, he became bolder and more +insolent, no longer at pains to mole-tunnel toward the object desired, +no longer overcareful about his mask. And one day he asked the boy very +plainly why he had never invited him to meet his sister. And he got an +answer that he never forgot. + +And all the while Ruthven squirmed under the light but steadily +inflexible pressure of the curb which Neergard had slipped on him so +deftly; he had viewed with indifference Gerald's boyish devotion to his +wife, which was even too open and naïve to be of interest to those who +witnessed it. But he had not counted on Neergard's sudden hatred of +Gerald; and the first token of that hatred fell upon the boy like a +thunderbolt when Neergard whispered to Ruthven, one night at the +Stuyvesant Club, and Ruthven, exasperated, had gone straight home, to +find his wife in tears, and the boy clumsily attempting to comfort her, +both her hands in his. + +"Perhaps," said Ruthven coldly, "you have some plausible explanation for +this sort of thing. If you haven't, you'd better trump up one together, +and I'll send you my attorney to hear it. In that event," he added, +"you'd better leave your joint address when you find a more convenient +house than mine." + +As a matter of fact, he had really meant nothing more than the threat +and the insult, the situation permitting him a heavier hold upon his +wife and a new grip on Gerald in case he ever needed him; but threat and +insult were very real to the boy, and he knocked Mr. Ruthven flat on his +back--the one thing required to change that gentleman's pretence to +deadly earnest. + +Ruthven scrambled to his feet; Gerald did it again; and, after that, Mr. +Ruthven prudently remained prone during the delivery of a terse but +concise opinion of him expressed by Gerald. + +After Gerald had gone, Ruthven opened first one eye, then the other, +then his mouth, and finally sat up; and his wife, who had been curiously +observing him, smiled. + +"It is strange," she said serenely, "that I never thought of that +method. I wonder why I never thought of it," lazily stretching her firm +young arms and glancing casually at their symmetry and smooth-skinned +strength. "Go into your own quarters," she added, as he rose, shaking +with fury: "I've endured the last brutality I shall ever suffer from +you." + +She dropped her folded hands into her lap, gazing coolly at him; but +there was a glitter in her eyes which arrested his first step toward +her. + +"I think," she said, "that you mean my ruin. Well, we began it long ago, +and I doubt if I have anything of infamy to learn, thanks to my thorough +schooling as your wife. . . . But knowledge is not necessarily practice, +and it happens that I have not cared to commit the particular +indiscretion so fashionable among the friends you have surrounded me +with. I merely mention this for your information, not because I am +particularly proud of it. It is not anything to be proud of, in my +case--it merely happened so; a matter, perhaps of personal taste, +perhaps because of lack of opportunity; and there is a remote +possibility that belated loyalty to a friend I once betrayed may have +kept me personally chaste in this rotting circus circle you have driven +me around in, harnessed to your vicious caprice, dragging the weight of +your corruption--" + +She laughed. "I had no idea that I could be so eloquent, Jack. But my +mind has become curiously clear during the last year--strangely and +unusually limpid and precise. Why, my poor friend, every plot of yours +and of your friends--every underhand attempt to discredit and injure me +has been perfectly apparent to me. You supposed that my headaches, my +outbursts of anger, my wretched nights, passed in tears--and the long, +long days spent kneeling in the ashes of dead memories--all these you +supposed had weakened--perhaps unsettled--my mind. . . . You lie if you +deny it, for you have had doctors watching me for months. . . . You +didn't know I was aware of it, did you? But I was, and I am. . . . And +you told them that my father died of--of brain trouble, you coward!" + +Still he stood there, jaw loose, gazing at her as though fascinated; and +she smiled and settled deeper in her chair, framing the gilded +foliations of the back with her beautiful arms. + +"We might as well understand one another now," she said languidly. "If +you mean to get rid of me, there is no use in attempting to couple my +name with that of any man; first, because it is untrue, and you not only +know it, but you know you can't prove it. There remains the cowardly +method you have been nerving yourself to attempt, never dreaming that I +was aware of your purpose." + +A soft, triumphant little laugh escaped her. There was something almost +childish in her delight at outwitting him, and, very slowly, into his +worn and faded eyes a new expression began to dawn--the flickering stare +of suspicion. And in it the purely personal impression of rage and +necessity of vengeance subsided; he eyed her intently, curiously, and +with a cool persistence which finally began to irritate her. + +"What a credulous fool you are," she said, "to build your hopes of a +separation on any possible mental disability of mine." + +He stood a moment without answering, then quietly seated himself. The +suspicious glimmer in his faded eyes had become the concentration of a +curiosity almost apprehensive. + +"Go on," he said; "what else?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"You have been saying several things--about doctors whom I have set to +watch you--for a year or more." + +"Do you deny it?" she retorted angrily. + +"No--no, I do not deny anything. But--who are these doctors--whom you +have noticed?" + +"I don't know who they are," she replied impatiently. "I've seen them +often enough--following me on the street, or in public places--watching +me. They are everywhere--you have them well paid, evidently; I suppose +you can afford it. But you are wasting your time." + +"You think so?" + +"Yes!" she cried in a sudden violence that startled him, "you are +wasting your time! And so am I--talking to you--enduring your personal +affronts and brutal sneers. Sufficient for you that I know my enemies, +and that I am saner, thank God, than any of them!" She flashed a look of +sudden fury at him, and rose from her chair. He also rose with a +promptness that bordered on precipitation. + +"For the remainder of the spring and summer," she said, "I shall make my +plans regardless of you. I shall not go to Newport; you are at liberty +to use the house there as you choose. And as for this incident with +Gerald, you had better not pursue it any further. Do you understand?" + +He nodded, dropping his hands into his coat-pockets. + +"Now you may go," she said coolly. + +He went--not, however, to his room, but straight to the house of the +fashionable physician who ministered to wealth with an unction and +success that had permitted him, in summer time, to occupy his own villa +at Newport and dispense further ministrations when requested. + + * * * * * + +On the night of the conjugal conference between Nina Gerard and her +husband--and almost at the same hour--Jack Ruthven, hard hit in the +card-room of the Stuyvesant Club, sat huddled over the table, figuring +up what sort of checks he was to draw to the credit of George Fane and +Sanxon Orchil. + +Matters had been going steadily against him for some time--almost +everything, in fact, except the opinions of several physicians in a +matter concerning his wife. For, in that scene between them in early +spring, his wife had put that into his head which had never before been +there--suspicion of her mental soundness. + +And now, as he sat there, pencil in hand, adding up the score-cards, he +remembered that he was to interview his attorney that evening at his own +house--a late appointment, but necessary to insure the presence of one +or two physicians at a consultation to definitely decide what course of +action might be taken. + +He had not laid eyes on his wife that summer, but for the first time he +had really had her watched during her absence. What she lived on--how +she managed--he had not the least idea, and less concern. All he knew +was that he had contributed nothing, and he was quite certain that her +balance at her own bank had been nonexistent for months. + +But any possible additional grounds for putting her away from him that +might arise in a question as to her sources of support no longer +interested him. That line of attack was unnecessary; besides, he had no +suspicion concerning her personal chastity. But Alixe, that evening in +early spring, had unwittingly suggested to him the use of a weapon the +existence of which he had never dreamed of. And he no longer entertained +any doubts of its efficiency as a means of finally ridding him of a wife +whom he had never been able to fully subdue or wholly corrupt, and who, +as a mate for him in his schemes for the pecuniary maintenance of his +household, had proven useless and almost ruinous. + +He had not seen her during the summer. In the autumn he had heard of her +conduct at Hitherwood House. And, a week later, to his astonishment, he +learned of her serious illness, and that she had been taken to Clifton. +It was the only satisfactory news he had had of her in months. + +So now he sat there at the bridge-table in the private card-room of the +Stuyvesant Club, deftly adding up the score that had gone against him, +but consoled somewhat at the remembrance of his appointment, and of the +probability of an early release from the woman who had been to him only +a source of social mistakes, domestic unhappiness, and financial +disappointment. + +When he had finished his figuring he fished out a check-book, detached a +tiny gold fountain-pen from the bunch of seals and knick-knacks on his +watch-chain, and, filling in the checks, passed them over without +comment. + +Fane rose, stretching his long neck, gazed about through his spectacles, +like a benevolent saurian, and finally fixed his mild, protruding eyes +upon Orchil. + +"There'll be a small game at the Fountain Club," he said, with a grin +which creased his cheeks until his retreating chin almost disappeared +under the thick lower lip. + +Orchil twiddled his long, crinkly, pointed moustache and glanced +interrogatively at Harmon; then he yawned, stretched his arms, and rose, +pocketing the check, which Ruthven passed to him, with a careless nod of +thanks. + +As they filed out of the card-room into the dim passageway, Orchil +leading, a tall, shadowy figure in evening dress stepped back from the +door of the card-room against the wall to give them right of way, and +Orchil, peering at him without recognition in the dull light, bowed +suavely as he passed, as did Fane, craning his curved neck, and Harmon +also, who followed in his wake. + +But when Ruthven came abreast of the figure in the passage and bowed his +way past, a low voice from the courteous unknown, pronouncing his name, +halted him short. + +"I want a word with you, Mr. Ruthven," added Selwyn; "that card-room +will suit me, if you please." + +But Ruthven, recovering from the shock of Selwyn's voice, started to +pass him without a word. + +"I said that I wanted to speak to you!" repeated Selwyn. + +Ruthven, deigning no reply, attempted to shove by him; and Selwyn, +placing one hand flat against the other's shoulder, pushed him violently +back into the card-room he had just left, and, stepping in behind him, +closed and locked the door. + +"W-what the devil do you mean!" gasped Ruthven, his hard, minutely +shaven face turning a deep red. + +"What I say," replied Selwyn; "that I want a word or two with you." + +He stood still for a moment, in the centre of the little room, tall, +gaunt of feature, and very pale. The close, smoky atmosphere of the +place evidently annoyed him; he glanced about at the scattered cards, +the empty oval bottles in their silver stands, the half-burned remains +of cigars on the green-topped table. Then he stepped over and opened the +only window. + +"Sit down," he said, turning on Ruthven; and he seated himself and +crossed one leg over the other. Ruthven remained standing. + +"This--this thing," began Ruthven in a voice made husky and indistinct +through fury, "this ruffianly behaviour amounts to assault." + +"As you choose," nodded Selwyn, almost listlessly, "but be quiet; I've +something to think of besides your convenience." + +For a few moments he sat silent, thoughtful, narrowing eyes considering +the patterns on the rug at his feet; and Ruthven, weak with rage and +apprehension, was forced to stand there awaiting the pleasure of a man +of whom he had suddenly become horribly afraid. + +And at last Selwyn, emerging from his pallid reverie, straightened out, +shaking his broad shoulders as though to free him of that black spectre +perching there. + +"Ruthven," he said, "a few years ago you persuaded my wife to leave me; +and I have never punished you. There were two reasons why I did not: the +first was because I did not wish to punish her, and any blow at you +would have reached her heavily. The second reason, subordinate to the +first, is obvious: decent men, in these days, have tacitly agreed to +suspend a violent appeal to the unwritten law as a concession to +civilisation. This second reason, however, depends entirely upon the +first, as you see." + +He leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, and recrossed his legs. + +"I did not ask you into this room," he said, with a slight smile, "to +complain of the wrong you have committed against me, or to retail to you +the consequences of your act as they may or may not have affected me and +my career; I have--ah--invited you here to explain to you the present +condition of your own domestic affairs"--he looked at Ruthven full in +the face--"to explain them to you, and to lay down for you the course of +conduct which you are to follow." + +"By God!--" began Ruthven, stepping back, one hand reaching for the +door-knob; but Selwyn's voice rang out clean and sharp: + +"Sit down!" + +And, as Ruthven glared at him out of his little eyes: + +"You'd better sit down, I think," said Selwyn softly. + +Ruthven turned, took two unsteady steps forward, and laid his heavily +ringed hand on the back of a chair. Selwyn smiled, and Ruthven sat down. + +"Now," continued Selwyn, "for certain rules of conduct to govern you +during the remainder of your wife's lifetime. . . . And your wife is +ill, Mr. Ruthven--sick of a sickness which may last for a great many +years, or may be terminated in as many days. Did you know it?" + +Ruthven snarled. + +"Yes, of course you knew it, or you suspected it. Your wife is in a +sanitarium, as you have discovered. She is mentally ill--rational at +times--violent at moments, and for long periods quite docile, gentle, +harmless--content to be talked to, read to, advised, persuaded. But +during the last week a change of a certain nature has occurred +which--which, I am told by competent physicians, not only renders her +case beyond all hope of ultimate recovery, but threatens an earlier +termination than was at first looked for. It is this: your wife has +become like a child again--occupied contentedly and quite happily with +childish things. She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone. How +much she does remember it is impossible to say." + +His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at his +feet. After a while he looked up. + +"It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven--she is so young--with all her physical +charm and attraction quite unimpaired. But the mind is gone--quite gone, +sir. Some sudden strain--and the tension has been great for years--some +abrupt overdraft upon her mental resource, perhaps; God knows how it +came--from sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured--" + +Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, Ruthven +lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then moistened his dry +lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a glance at the locked door. + +"I understand," said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, "that you are +contemplating proceedings against your wife. Are you?" + +Ruthven made no reply. + +"_Are_ you?" repeated Selwyn. His face had altered; a dim glimmer played +in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at dusk. + +"Yes, I am," said Ruthven. + +"On the grounds of her mental incapacity?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break every +law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to abandon. Is +that it?" + +Ruthven made no reply. + +"You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by beginning +proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your wife's infirmity by +divorcing her." + +"Sane or insane," burst out Ruthven, "she was riding for a fall--and +she's going to get it! What the devil are you talking about? I'm not +accountable to you. I'll do what I please; I'll manage my own affairs--" + +"No," said Selwyn, "I'll manage this particular affair. And now I'll +tell you how I'm going to do it. I have in my lodgings--or rather in the +small hall bedroom which I now occupy--an army service revolver, in +fairly good condition. The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when +I looked at it, but I've oiled it with No. 27--an excellent rust solvent +and lubricant, Mr. Ruthven--and now the cylinder spins around in a +manner perfectly trustworthy. So, as I was saying, I have this very +excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the pleasure of +using it on you if you ever commence any such action for divorce or +separation against your wife. This is final." + +Ruthven stared at him as though hypnotised. + +"Don't mistake me," added Selwyn, a trifle wearily. "I am not compelling +you to decency for the purpose of punishing _you_; men never trouble +themselves to punish vermin--they simply exterminate them, or they +retreat and avoid them. I merely mean that you shall never again bring +publicity and shame upon your wife--even though now, mercifully enough, +she has not the faintest idea that you are what a complacent law calls +her husband." + +A slow blaze lighted up his eyes, and he got up from his chair. + +"You decadent little beast!" he said slowly, "do you suppose that the +dirty accident of your intrusion into an honest man's life could +dissolve the divine compact of wedlock? Soil it--yes; besmirch it, +render it superficially unclean, unfit, nauseous--yes. But neither you +nor your vile code nor the imbecile law you invoked to legalise the +situation really ever deprived me of my irrevocable status and +responsibility. . . . I--even I--was once--for a while--persuaded that +it did; that the laws of the land could do this--could free me from a +faithless wife, and regularise her position in your household. The laws +of the land say so, and I--I said so at last--persuaded because I +desired to be persuaded. . . . It was a lie. My wife, shamed or +unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to +them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife. +And it is a higher law that corroborates me--higher than you can +understand--a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very +foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely +dependent for its existence intact. But"--with a contemptuous +shrug--"you won't understand; all you can understand is the +gratification of your senses and the fear of something interfering with +that gratification--like death, for instance. Therefore I am satisfied +that you understand enough of what I said to discontinue any legal +proceedings which would tend to discredit, expose, or cast odium on a +young wife very sorely stricken--very, very ill--whom God, in his mercy, +has blinded to the infamy where you have dragged her--under the law of +the land." + +He turned on his heel, paced the little room once or twice, then swung +round again: + +"Keep your filthy money--wrung from women and boys over card-tables. +Even if some blind, wormlike process of instinct stirred the shame in +you, and you ventured to offer belated aid to the woman who bears your +name, I forbid it--I do not permit you the privilege. Except that she +retains your name--and the moment you attempt to rob her of that I shall +destroy you!--except for that, you have no further relations with +her--nothing to do or undo; no voice as to the disposal of what remains +of her; no power, no will, no influence in her fate. _I_ supplant you; I +take my own again; I reassume a responsibility temporarily taken from +me. And _now_, I think, you understand!" + +He gave him one level and deadly stare; then his pallid features +relaxed, he slowly walked past Ruthven, grave, preoccupied; unlocked the +door, and passed out. + + * * * * * + +His lodgings were not imposing in their furnishings or dimensions--a +very small bedroom in the neighbourhood of Sixth Avenue and Washington +Square--but the heavy and increasing drain on his resources permitted +nothing better now; and what with settling Gerald's complications and +providing two nurses and a private suite at Clifton for Alixe Ruthven, +he had been obliged to sell a number of securities, which reduced his +income to a figure too absurd to worry over. + +However, the Government had at last signified its intention of testing +his invention--Chaosite--and there was that chance for better things in +prospect. Also, in time, Gerald would probably be able to return +something of the loans made. But these things did not alleviate present +stringent conditions, nor were they likely to for a long while; and +Selwyn, tired and perplexed, mounted the stairs of his lodging-house and +laid his overcoat on the iron bed, and, divesting himself of the +garments of ceremony as a matter of economy, pulled on an old tweed +shooting-jacket and trousers. + +Then, lighting his pipe--cigars being now on the expensive and forbidden +list--he drew a chair to his table and sat down, resting his worn face +between both hands. Truly the world was not going very well with him in +these days. + +For some time, now, it had been his custom to face his difficulties here +in the silence of his little bedroom, seated alone at his table, pipe +gripped between his firm teeth, his strong hands framing his face. Here +he would sit for hours, the long day ended, staring steadily at the +blank wall, the gas-jet flickering overhead; and here, slowly, +painfully, with doubt and hesitation, out of the moral confusion in his +weary mind he evolved the theory of personal responsibility. + +With narrowing eyes, from which slowly doubt faded, he gazed at duty +with all the calm courage of his race, not at first recognising it as +duty in its new and dreadful guise. + +But night after night, patiently perplexed, he retraced his errant +pathway through life, back to the source of doubt and pain; and, once +arrived there, he remained, gazing with impartial eyes upon the ruin two +young souls had wrought of their twin lives; and always, always somehow, +confronting him among the débris, rose the spectre of their deathless +responsibility to one another; and the inexorable life-sentence sounded +ceaselessly in his ears: "For better or for worse--for better or for +worse--till death do us part--till death--till death!" + +Dreadful his duty--for man already had dared to sunder them, and he had +acquiesced to save her in the eyes of the world! Dreadful, +indeed--because he knew that he had never loved her, never could love +her! Dreadful--doubly dreadful--for he now knew what love might be; and +it was not what he had believed it when he executed the contract which +must bind him while life endured. + +Once, and not long since, he thought that, freed from the sad disgrace +of the shadowy past, he had begun life anew. They told him--and he told +himself--that a man had that right; that a man was no man who stood +stunned and hopeless, confronting the future in fetters of conscience. +And by that token he had accepted the argument as truth--because he +desired to believe it--and he had risen erect and shaken himself free of +the past--as he supposed; as though the past, which becomes part of us, +can be shaken from tired shoulders with the first shudder of revolt! + +No; he understood now that the past was part of him--as his limbs and +head and body and mind were part of him. It had to be reckoned +with--what he had done to himself, to the young girl united to him in +bonds indissoluble except in death. + +That she had strayed--under man-made laws held guiltless--could not +shatter the tie. That he, blinded by hope, had hoped to remake a life +already made, and had dared to masquerade before his own soul as a man +free to come, to go, and free to love, could not alter what had been +done. Back, far back of it all lay the deathless pact--for better or for +worse. And nothing man might wish or say or do could change it. Always, +always he must remain bound by that, no matter what others did or +thought; always, always he was under obligations to the end. + +And now, alone, abandoned, helplessly sick, utterly dependent upon the +decency, the charity, the mercy of her legal paramour, the young girl +who had once been his wife had not turned to him in vain. + +Before the light of her shaken mind had gone out she had written him, +incoherently, practically _in extremis_; and if he had hitherto doubted +where his duty lay, from that moment he had no longer any doubt. And +very quietly, hopelessly, and irrevocably he had crushed out of his soul +the hope and promise of the new life dawning for him above the dead +ashes of the past. + + * * * * * + +It was not easy to do; he had not ended it yet. He did not know how. +There were ties to be severed, friendships to be gently broken, old +scenes to be forgotten, memories to kill. There was also love--to be +disposed of. And he did not know how. + +First of all, paramount in his hopeless trouble, the desire to save +others from pain persisted. + +For that reason he had been careful that Gerald should not know where +and how he was now obliged to live--lest the boy suspect and understand +how much of Selwyn's little fortune it had taken to settle his debts of +"honour" and free him from the sinister pressure of Neergard's +importunities. + +For that reason, too, he dreaded to have Austin know, because, if the +truth were exposed, nothing in the world could prevent a violent and +final separation between him and the foolish boy who now, at last, was +beginning to show the first glimmering traces of character and common +sense. + +So he let it be understood that his address was his club for the +present; for he also desired no scene with Boots, whom he knew would +attempt to force him to live with him in his cherished and brand-new +house. And even if he cared to accept and permit Boots to place him +under such obligations, it would only hamper him in his duties. + +Because now, what remained of his income must be devoted to Alixe. + +Even before her case had taken the more hopeless turn, he had understood +that she could not remain at Clifton. Such cases were neither desired +nor treated there; he understood that. And so he had taken, for her, a +pretty little villa at Edgewater, with two trained nurses to care for +her, and a phaeton for her to drive. + +And now she was installed there, properly cared for, surrounded by every +comfort, contented--except in the black and violent crises which still +swept her in recurrent storms--indeed, tranquil and happy; for through +the troubled glimmer of departing reason, her eyes were already opening +in the calm, unearthly dawn of second childhood. + +Pain, sadness, the desolate awakening to dishonour had been forgotten; +to her, the dead now lived; to her, the living who had been children +with her were children again, and she a child among them. Outside of +that dead garden of the past, peopled by laughing phantoms of her youth, +but one single extraneous memory persisted--the memory of +Selwyn--curiously twisted and readjusted to the comprehension of a +child's mind--vague at times, at times wistfully elusive and +incoherent--but it remained always a memory, and always a happy one. + +He was obliged to go to her every three or four days. In the interim she +seemed quite satisfied and happy, busy with the simple and pretty things +she now cared for; but toward the third day of his absence she usually +became restless, asking for him, and why he did not come. And then they +telegraphed him, and he left everything and went, white-faced, stern of +lip, to endure the most dreadful ordeal a man may face--to force the +smile to his lips and gaiety into the shrinking soul of him, and sit +with her in the pretty, sunny room, listening to her prattle, answering +the childish questions, watching her, seated in her rocking-chair, +singing contentedly to herself, and playing with her dolls and +ribbons--dressing them, undressing, mending, arranging--until the heart +within him quivered under the misery of it, and he turned to the +curtained window, hands clinching convulsively, and teeth set to force +back the strangling agony in his throat. + +And the dreadful part of it all was that her appearance had remained +unchanged--unless, perhaps, she was prettier, lovelier of face and +figure than ever before; but in her beautiful dark eyes only the direct +intelligence of a child answered his gaze of inquiry; and her voice, +too, had become soft and hesitating, and the infantile falsetto sounded +in it at times, sweet, futile, immature. + + * * * * * + +Thinking of these things now, he leaned heavily forward, elbows on the +little table. And, suddenly unbidden, before his haunted eyes rose the +white portico of Silverside, and the greensward glimmered, drenched in +sunshine, and a slim figure in white stood there, arms bare, tennis-bat +swinging in one tanned little hand. + +Voices were sounding in his ears--Drina's laughter, Lansing's protest; +Billy shouting to his eager pack; his sister's calm tones, admonishing +the young--and through it all, _her_ voice, clear, hauntingly sweet, +pronouncing his name. + +And he set his lean jaws tight and took a new grip on his pipe-stem, and +stared, with pain-dulled eyes, at the white wall opposite. + +But on the blank expanse the faintest tinge of colour appeared, growing +clearer, taking shape as he stared; and slowly, slowly, under the soft +splendour of her hair, two clear eyes of darkest blue opened under the +languid lids and looked at him, and looked and looked until he closed +his own, unable to endure the agony. + +But even through his sealed lids he saw her; and her clear gaze pierced +him, blinded as he was, leaning there, both hands pressed across his +eyes. + +Sooner or later--sooner or later he must write to her and tell what must +be told. How to do it, when to do it, he did not know. What to say he +did not know; but that there was something due her from him--something +to say, something to confess--to ask her pardon for--he understood. + +Happily for her--happily for him, alas!--love, in its full miracle, had +remained beyond her comprehension. That she cared for him with all her +young heart he knew; that she had not come to love him he knew, too. So +that crowning misery of happiness was spared him. + +Yet he knew, too, that there had been a chance for him; that her +awakening had not been wholly impossible. Loyal in his soul to the dread +duty before him, he must abandon hope; loyal in his heart to her, he +must abandon her, lest, by chance, in the calm, still happiness of their +intimacy the divine moment, unheralded, flash out through the veil, +dazzling, blinding them with the splendour of its truth and beauty. + +And now, leaning there, his face buried in his hands, hours that he +spent with her came crowding back upon him, and in his ears her voice +echoed and echoed, and his hands trembled with the scented memory of her +touch, and his soul quivered and cried out for her. + +Storm after storm swept him; and in the tempest he abandoned reason, +blinded, stunned, crouching there with head lowered and his clenched +hands across his face. + +But storms, given right of way, pass on and over, and tempests sweep +hearts cleaner; and after a long while he lifted his bowed head and sat +up, squaring his shoulders. + +Presently he picked up his pipe again, held it a moment, then laid it +aside. Then he leaned forward, breathing deeply but quietly, and picked +up a pen and a sheet of paper. For the time had come for his letter to +her, and he was ready. + +The letter he wrote was one of those gay, cheerful, inconsequential +letters which, from the very beginning of their occasional +correspondence, had always been to her most welcome and delightful. + +Ignoring that maturity in her with which he had lately dared to reckon, +he reverted to the tone which he had taken and maintained with her +before the sweetness and seriousness of their relations had deepened to +an intimacy which had committed him to an avowal. + +News of all sorts humorously retailed--an amusing sketch of his recent +journey to Washington and its doubtful results--matters that they both +were interested in, details known only to them, a little harmless +gossip--these things formed the body of his letter. There was never a +hint of sorrow or discouragement--nothing to intimate that life had so +utterly and absolutely changed for him--only a jolly, friendly +badinage--an easy, light-hearted narrative, ending in messages to all +and a frank regret that the pursuit of business and happiness appeared +incompatible at the present moment. + +His address, he wrote, was his club; he sent her, he said, under +separate cover, a rather interesting pamphlet--a monograph on the +symbolism displayed by the designs in Samarcand rugs and textiles of +the Ming dynasty. And he ended, closing with a gentle jest concerning +blue-stockings and rebellious locks of ruddy hair. + +And signed his name. + + * * * * * + +Nina and Eileen, in travelling gowns and veils, stood on the porch at +Silverside, waiting for the depot wagon, when Selwyn's letter was handed +to Eileen. + +The girl flushed up, then, avoiding Nina's eyes, turned and entered the +house. Once out of sight, she swiftly mounted to her own room and +dropped, breathless, on the bed, tearing the envelope from end to end. +And from end to end, and back again and over again, she read the +letter--at first in expectancy, lips parted, colour brilliant, then with +the smile still curving her cheeks--but less genuine now--almost +mechanical--until the smile stamped on her stiffening lips faded, and +the soft contours relaxed, and she lifted her eyes, staring into space +with a wistful, questioning lift of the pure brows. + +What more had she expected? What more had she desired? Nothing, surely, +of that emotion which she declined to recognise; surely not that +sentiment of which she had admitted her ignorance to him. Again her eyes +sought the pages, following the inked writing from end to end. What was +she seeking there that he had left unwritten? What was she searching +for, of which there was not one hint in all these pages? + +And now Nina was calling her from the hall below; and she answered gaily +and, hiding the letter in her long glove, came down the stairs. + +"I'll tell you all about the letter in the train," she said; "he is +perfectly well, and evidently quite happy; and Nina--" + +"What, dear?" + +"I want to send him a telegram. May I?" + +"A dozen, if you wish," said Mrs. Gerard, "only, if you don't climb into +that vehicle, we'll miss the train." + +So on the way to Wyossette station Eileen sat very still, gloved hands +folded in her lap, composing her telegram to Selwyn. And, once in the +station, having it by heart already, she wrote it rapidly: + + "Nina and I are on our way to the Berkshires for a week. + House-party at the Craigs'. We stay overnight in town. E.E." + +But the telegram went to his club, and waited for him there; and +meanwhile another telegram arrived at his lodgings, signed by a trained +nurse; and while Miss Erroll, in the big, dismantled house, lay in a +holland-covered armchair, waiting for him, while Nina and Austin, +reading their evening papers, exchanged significant glances from time to +time, the man she awaited sat in the living-room in a little villa at +Edgewater. And a slim young nurse stood beside him, cool and composed in +her immaculate uniform, watching the play of light and shadow on a woman +who lay asleep on the couch, fresh, young face flushed and upturned, a +child's doll cradled between arm and breast. + + * * * * * + +"How long has she been asleep?" asked Selwyn under his breath. + +"An hour. She fretted a good deal because you had not come. This +afternoon she said she wished to drive, and I had the phaeton brought +around; but when she saw it she changed her mind. I was rather afraid of +an outburst--they come sometimes from less cause than that--so I did not +urge her to go out. She played on the piano for a long while, and sang +some songs--those curious native songs she learned in Manila. It seemed +to soothe her; she played with her little trifles quite contentedly for +a time, but soon began fretting again, and asking why you had not come. +She had a bad hour later--she is quite exhausted now. Could you stay +to-night, Captain Selwyn?" + +"Y-es, if you think it better. . . . Wait a moment; I think she has +awakened." + +Alixe had turned her head, her lovely eyes wide open. + +"Phil!" she cried, "is it you?" + +He went forward and took the uplifted hands, smiling down at her. + +"Such a horrid dream!" she said pettishly, "about a soft, plump man with +ever so many rings on his hands. . . . Oh, I am glad you came. . . . +Look at this child of mine!" cuddling the staring wax doll closer; +"she's not undressed yet, and it's long, long after bedtime. Hand me her +night-clothes, Phil." + +The slim young nurse bent and disentangled a bit of lace and cambric +from a heap on the floor, offering it to Selwyn. He laid it in the hand +Alixe held out, and she began to undress the doll in her arms, prattling +softly all the while: + +"Late--oh, so very, very late! I must be more careful of her, Phil; +because, if you and I grow up, some day we may marry, and we ought to +know all about children. It would be great fun, wouldn't it?" + +He nodded, forcing a smile. + +"Don't you think so?" she persisted. + +"Yes--yes, indeed," he said gently. + +She laughed, contented with his answer, and laid her lips against the +painted face of the doll. + +"When we grow up, years from now--then we'll understand, won't we, Phil? +. . . I am tired with playing. . . . And Phil--let me whisper something. +Is that person gone?" + +He turned and signed to the nurse, who quietly withdrew. + +"Is she gone?" repeated Alixe. + +"Yes." + +"Then listen, Phil. Do you know what she and the other one are about all +day? _I_ know; I pretend not to, but I know. They are watching me every +moment--always watching me, because they want to make you believe that I +am forgetting you. But I am not. That is why I made them send for you so +I could tell you myself that I could never, never forget you. . . . I +think of you always while I am playing--always--always I am thinking of +you. You will believe it, won't you?" + +"Yes," he said. + +Contented, she turned to her doll again, undressing it deftly, tenderly. + +"At moments," she said, "I have an odd idea that it is real. I am not +quite sure even now. Do you believe it is alive, Phil? Perhaps, at +night, when I am asleep, it becomes alive. . . . This morning I awoke, +laughing, laughing in delight--thinking I heard you laughing, too--as +once--in the dusk where there were many roses and many stars--big stars, +and very, very bright--I saw you--saw you--and the roses--" + +She paused with a pained, puzzled look of appeal. + +"Where was it, Phil?" + +"In Manila town." + +"Yes; and there were roses. But I was never there." + +"You came out on the veranda and pelted me with roses. There were others +there--officers and their wives. Everybody was laughing." + +"Yes--but I was not there, Phil. . . . Who--who was the tall, thin +bugler who sounded taps?" + +"Corrigan." + +"And--the little, girl-shaped, brown men?" + +"My constabulary." + +"I can't recollect," she said listlessly, laying the doll against her +breast. "I think, Phil, that you had better be a little quiet now--she +may wish to sleep. And I am sleepy, too," lifting her slender hand as a +sign for him to take his leave. + +As he went out the nurse said: "If you wish to return to town, you may, +I think. She will forget about you for two or three days, as usual. +Shall I telegraph if she becomes restless?" + +"Yes. What does the doctor say to-day?" + +The slim nurse looked at him under level brows. + +"There is no change," she said. + +"No hope." It was not even a question. + +"No hope, Captain Selwyn." + +He stood silent, tapping his leg with the stiff brim of his hat; then, +wearily: "Is there anything more I can do for her?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Thank you." + +He turned away, bidding her good-night in a low voice. + + * * * * * + +He arrived in town about midnight, but did not go to any of his clubs. +At one of them a telegram was awaiting him; and in a dismantled and +summer-shrouded house a young girl was still expecting him, lying with +closed eyes in a big holland-covered arm-chair, listening to the rare +footfalls in the street outside. + +But of these things he knew nothing; and he went wearily to his lodgings +and climbed the musty stairs, and sat down in his old attitude before +the table and the blank wall behind it, waiting for the magic frescoes +to appear in all the vague loveliness of their hues and dyes, painting +for him upon his chamber-walls the tinted paradise now lost to him for +ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HIS OWN WAY + + +The winter promised to be a busy one for Selwyn. If at first he had had +any dread of enforced idleness, that worry, at least, vanished before +the first snow flew. For there came to him a secret communication from +the Government suggesting, among other things, that he report, three +times a week, at the proving grounds on Sandy Hook; that experiments +with Chaosite as a bursting charge might begin as soon as he was ready +with his argon primer; that officers connected with the bureau of +ordnance and the marine laboratory had recommended the advisability of +certain preliminary tests, and that the general staff seemed inclined to +consider the matter seriously. + +This meant work--hard, constant, patient work. But it did not mean money +to help him support the heavy burdens he had assumed. If there were to +be any returns, all that part of it lay in the future, and the future +could not help him now. + +Yet, unless still heavier burdens were laid upon him, he could hold on +for the present; his bedroom cost him next to nothing; breakfast he +cooked for himself, luncheon he dispensed with, and he dined at +random--anywhere that appeared to promise seclusion, cheapness, and +immunity from anybody he had ever known. + +A minute and rather finicky care of his wardrobe had been second nature +to him--the habits of a soldier systematised the routine--and he was +satisfied that his clothes would outlast winter demands, although +laundry expenses appalled him. + +As for his clubs, he hung on to them, knowing the importance of +appearances in a town which is made up of them. But this expense was all +he could carry, for the demands of the establishment at Edgewater were +steadily increasing with the early coming of winter; he was sent for +oftener, and a physician was now in practically continual attendance. + +Also, three times a week he boarded the Sandy Hook boat, returning +always at night because he dared not remain at the reservation lest an +imperative telegram from Edgewater find him unable to respond. + +So, when in November the first few hurrying snow-flakes whirled in among +the city's canons of masonry and iron, Selwyn had already systematised +his winter schedule; and when Nina opened her house, returning from +Lenox with Eileen to do so, she found that Selwyn had made his own +arrangements for the winter, and that, according to the programme, +neither she nor anybody else was likely to see him oftener than one +evening in a week. + +To Boots she complained bitterly, having had visions of Selwyn and +Gerald as permanent fixtures of family support during the season now +imminent. + +"I cannot understand," she said, "why Philip is acting this way. He need +not work like that; there is no necessity, because he has a comfortable +income. If he is determined to maintain a stuffy apartment somewhere, of +course I won't insist on his coming to us as he ought to, but to abandon +us in this manner makes me almost indignant. Besides, it's having +anything but a salutary effect on Eileen." + +"What effect is it having on Eileen?" inquired Boots curiously. + +"Oh, I don't know," said Nina, coming perilously close to a pout; "but I +see symptoms--indeed I do, Boots!--symptoms of shirking the winter's +routine. It's to be a gay season, too, and it's only her second. The +idea of a child of that age informing me that she's had enough of the +purely social phases of this planet! Did you ever hear anything like it? +One season, if you please--and she finds it futile, stale, and +unprofitable to fulfil the duties expected of her!" + +Boots began to laugh, but it was no laughing matter to Nina, and she +said so vigorously. + +"It's Philip's fault. If he'd stand by us this winter she'd go +anywhere--and enjoy it, too. Besides, he's the only man able to satisfy +the blue-stocking in her between dances. But he's got this obstinate +mania for seclusion, and he seldom comes near us, and it's driving +Eileen into herself, Boots--and every day I catch her hair slumping over +her ears--and once I discovered a lead-pencil behind 'em!--and a +monograph on the Ming dynasty in her lap, all marked up with notes! Oh, +Boots! Boots! I've given up all hopes of that brother of mine for +her--but she could marry anybody, if she chose--_anybody_!--and she +could twist the entire social circus into a court of her own and +dominate everything. Everybody knows it; everybody says it! . . . And +look at her!--indifferent, listless, scarcely civil any longer to her +own sort, but galvanised into animation the moment some impossible +professor or artist or hairy scientist flutters batlike into a +drawing-room where he doesn't belong unless he's hired to be amusing! +And that sounds horridly snobbish, I know; I _am_ a snob about Eileen, +but not about myself because it doesn't harm me to make round +wonder-eyes at a Herr Professor or gaze intensely into the eyes of an +artist when he's ornamental; it doesn't make my hair come down over my +ears to do that sort of thing, and it doesn't corrupt me into slinking +off to museum lectures or spending mornings prowling about the Society +Library or the Chinese jades in the Metropolitan--" + +Boots's continuous and unfeigned laughter checked the pretty, excited +little matron, and after a moment she laughed, too. + +"Dear Boots," she said, "can't you help me a little? I really am +serious. I don't know what to do with the girl. Philip never comes near +us--once a week for an hour or two, which is nothing--and the child +misses him. There--the murder is out! Eileen misses him. Oh, she doesn't +say so--she doesn't hint it, or look it; but I know her; I know. She +misses him; she's lonely. And what to do about it I don't know, Boots, I +don't know." + +Lansing had ceased laughing. He had been indulging in tea--a shy vice of +his which led him to haunt houses where that out-of-fashion beverage +might still be had. And now he sat, cup suspended, saucer held meekly +against his chest, gazing out at the pelting snow-flakes. + +"Boots, dear," said Nina, who adored him, "tell me what to do. Tell me +what has gone amiss between my brother and Eileen. Something has. And +whatever it is, it began last autumn--that day when--you remember the +incident?" + +Boots nodded. + +"Well, it seemed to upset everybody, somehow. Philip left the next day; +do you remember? And Eileen has never been quite the same. Of course, I +don't ascribe it to that unpleasant episode--even a young girl gets over +a shock in a day. But the--the change--or whatever it is--dated from +that night. . . . They--Philip and Eileen--had been inseparable. It was +good for them--for her, too. And as for Phil--why, he looked about +twenty-one! . . . Boots, I--I had hoped--expected--and I was right! They +_were_ on the verge of it!" + +"I think so, too," he said. + +She looked up curiously. + +"Did Philip ever say--" + +"No; he never _says_, you know." + +"I thought that men--close friends--sometimes did." + +"Sometimes--in romantic fiction. Phil wouldn't; nor," he added +smilingly, "would I." + +"How do you know, Boots?" she asked, leaning back to watch him out of +mischievous eyes. "How do you know what you'd do if you were in +love--with Gladys, for example?" + +"I know perfectly well," he said, "because I am." + +"In love!" incredulously. + +"Of course." + +"Oh--you mean Drina." + +"Who else?" he asked lightly. + +"I thought you were speaking seriously. I"--all her latent instinct for +such meddling aroused--"I thought perhaps you meant Gladys." + +"Gladys who?" he asked blandly. + +"Gladys Orchil, silly! People said--" + +"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed; "if people 'said,' then it's all over. Nina! +do I look like a man on a still hunt for a million?" + +"Gladys is a beauty!" retorted Nina indignantly. + +"With the intellect of a Persian kitten," he nodded. "I--that was not a +nice thing to say. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed. But, do you know, I have come +to regard my agreement with Drina so seriously that I take absolutely no +interest in anybody else." + +"Try to be serious, Boots," said Nina. "There are dozens of nice girls +you ought to be agreeable to. Austin and I were saying only last night +what a pity it is that you don't find either of the Minster twins +interesting--" + +"I might find them compoundly interesting," he admitted, "but +unfortunately there's no chance in this country for multiple domesticity +and the simpler pleasures of a compound life. It's no use, Nina; I'm not +going to marry any girl for ever so long--anyway, not until Drina +releases me on her eighteenth birthday. Hello!--somebody's coming--and +I'm off!" + +"I'm not at home; don't go!" said Nina, laying one hand on his arm to +detain him as a card was brought up. "Oh, it's only Rosamund Fane! I +_did_ promise to go to the Craigs' with her. . . . Do you mind if she +comes up?" + +"Not if you don't," said Boots blandly. He could not endure Rosamund and +she detested him; and Nina, who was perfectly aware of this, had just +enough of perversity in her to enjoy their meeting. + +Rosamund came in breezily, sables powdered with tiny flecks of snow, +cheeks like damask roses, eyes of turquoise. + +"How d'ye do!" she nodded, greeting Boots askance as she closed with +Nina. "I came, you see, but _do_ you want to be jammed and mauled and +trodden on at the Craigs'? No? That's perfect!--neither do I. Where is +the adorable Eileen? Nobody sees her any more." + +"She was at the Delmour-Carnes's yesterday." + +"Was she? Curious I didn't see her. Tea? With gratitude, dear, if it's +Scotch." + +She sat erect, the furs sliding to the back of the chair, revealing the +rather accented details of her perfectly turned figure; and rolling up +her gloves she laid her pretty head on one side and considered Boots +with very bright and malicious eyes. + +"They say," she said, smiling, "that some very heavy play goes on in +that cunning little new house of yours, Mr. Lansing." + +"Really?" he asked blandly. + +"Yes; and I'm wondering if it is true." + +"I shouldn't think you'd care, Mrs. Fane, as long as it makes a good +story." + +Rosamund flushed. Then, always alive to humour, laughed frankly. + +"What a nasty thing to say to a woman!" she observed; "it fairly reeks +impertinence. Mr. Lansing, you don't like me very well, do you?" + +"I dare not," he said, "because you are married. If you were only free +_a vinculo matrimonii_--" + +Rosamund laughed again, and sat stroking her muff and smiling. "Curious, +isn't it?" she said to Nina--"the inborn antipathy of two agreeable +human bipeds for one another. _Similis simili gaudet_--as my learned +friend will admit. But with us it's the old, old case of that eminent +practitioner, the late Dr. Fell. _Esto perpetua!_ Oh, well! We can't +help it, can we, Mr. Lansing?" And again to Nina: "Dear, _have_ you +heard anything about Alixe Ruthven? I think it is the strangest thing +that nobody seems to know where she is. And all anybody can get out of +Jack is that she's in a nerve factory--or some such retreat--and a +perfect wreck. She might as well be dead, you know." + +"In that case," observed Lansing, "it might be best to shift the centre +of gossip. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_--which is simple enough for +anybody to comprehend." + +"That is rude, Mr. Lansing," flashed out Rosamund; and to his +astonishment he saw the tears start to her eyes. + +"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily. + +"You do well to. I care more for Alixe Ruthven than--than you give me +credit for caring about anybody. People are never wholly worthless, Mr. +Lansing--only the very young think that. Give me credit for one wholly +genuine affection, and you will not be too credulous; and perhaps in +future you and I may better be able to endure one another when Fate +lands us at the same tea-table." + +Boots said respectfully: "I am sorry for what I said, Mrs. Pane. I hope +that your friend Mrs. Ruthven will soon recover." + +Rosamund looked at Nina, the tears still rimming her lids. "I miss her +frightfully," she said. "If somebody would only tell me where she +is--I--I know it could do no harm for me to see her. I _can_ be as +gentle and loyal as anybody--when I really care for a person. . . . Do +_you_ know where she might be, Nina?" + +"I? No, I do not. I'd tell you if I did, Rosamund." + +"_Don't_ you know?" + +"Why, no," said Nina, surprised at her persistence. + +"Because," continued Rosamund, "your brother does." + +Nina straightened up, flushed and astonished. + +"Why do you say that?" she asked. + +"Because he does know. He sent her to Clifton. The maid who accompanied +her is in my service now. It's a low way of finding out things, but we +all do it." + +"He--sent Alixe to--to Clifton!" repeated Nina incredulously. "Your maid +told you that?" + +Rosamund finished the contents of her slim glass and rose. "Yes; and it +was a brave and generous and loyal thing for him to do. I supposed you +knew it. Jack has been too beastly to her; she was on the verge of +breaking down when I saw her on the _Niobrara_, and she told me then +that her husband had practically repudiated her. . . . Then she suddenly +disappeared; and her maid, later, came to me seeking a place. That's how +I knew, and that's all I know. And I care for Alixe; and I honour your +brother for what he did." + +She stood with pretty golden head bent, absently arranging the sables +around her neck and shoulders. + +"I have been very horrid to Captain Selwyn," she said quietly. "Tell him +I am sorry; that he has my respect. . . . And--if he cares to tell me +where Alixe is I shall be grateful and do no harm." + +She turned toward the door, stopped short, came back, and made her +adieux, then started again toward the door, not noticing Lansing. + +"With your permission," said Boots at her shoulder in a very low voice. + +She looked up, surprised, her eyes still wet. Then comprehending the +compliment of his attendance, acknowledged it with a faint smile. + +"Good-night," he said to Nina. Then he took Rosamund down to her +brougham with a silent formality that touched her present sentimental +mood. + +She leaned from her carriage-window, looking at him where he stood, hat +in hand, in the thickly falling snow. + +"Please--without ceremony, Mr. Lansing." And, as he covered himself, +"May I not drop you at your destination?" + +"Thank you"--in refusal. + +"I thank you for being nice to me. . . . Please believe there is often +less malice than perversity in me. I--I have a heart, Mr. Lansing--such +as it is. And often those I torment most I care for most. It was so with +Alixe. Good-bye." + +Boots's salute was admirably formal; then he went on through the +thickening snow, swung vigorously across the Avenue to the Park-wall, +and, turning south, continued on parallel to it under the naked trees. + +It must have been thick weather on the river and along the docks, for +the deep fog-horns sounded persistently over the city, and the haunted +warning of the sirens filled the leaden sky lowering through the white +veil descending in flakes that melted where they fell. + +And, as Lansing strode on, hands deep in his overcoat, more than one +mystery was unravelling before his keen eyes that blinked and winked as +the clinging snow blotted his vision. + +Now he began to understand something of the strange effacement of his +friend Selwyn; he began to comprehend the curious economies practised, +the continued absence from club and coterie, the choice of the sordid +lodging whither Boots, one night, seeing him on the street by chance, +had shamelessly tracked him--with no excuse for the intrusion save his +affection for this man and his secret doubts of the man's ability to +take care of himself and his occult affairs. + +Now he was going there, exactly what to do he did not yet know, but with +the vague determination to do something. + +On the wet pavements and reeking iron overhead structure along Sixth +Avenue the street lights glimmered, lending to the filthy avenue under +its rusty tunnel a mystery almost picturesque. + +Into it he turned, swung aboard a car as it shot groaning and clanking +around the curve from Fifty-ninth Street, and settled down to brood and +ponder and consider until it was time for him to swing off the car into +the slimy street once more. + +Silvery pools of light inlaid the dim expanse of Washington Square. He +turned east, then south, then east again, and doubled into a dim street, +where old-time houses with toppling dormers crowded huddling together as +though in the cowering contact there was safety from the destroyer who +must one day come, bringing steel girders and cement to mark their +graves with sky-scraping monuments of stone. + +Into the doorway of one of these houses Lansing turned. When the town +was young a Lansing had lived there in pomp and circumstance--his own +great-grandfather--and he smiled grimly, amused at the irony of things +terrestrial. + +A slattern at the door halted him: + +"Nobody ain't let up them stairs without my knowin' why," she mumbled. + +"I want to see Captain Selwyn," he explained. + +"Hey?" + +"Captain Selwyn!" + +"Hey? I'm a little deef!" screeched the old crone. "Is it Cap'n Selwyn +you want?" + +Above, Selwyn, hearing his name screamed through the shadows of the +ancient house, came to the stairwell and looked down into the blackness. + +"What is it, Mrs. Glodden?" he said sharply; then, catching sight of a +dim figure springing up the stairs: + +"Here! this way. Is it for me?" and as Boots came into the light from +his open door: "Oh!" he whispered, deadly pale under the reaction; "I +thought it was a telegram. Come in." + +Boots shook the snow from his hat and coat into the passageway and took +the single chair; Selwyn, tall and gaunt in his shabby dressing-gown, +stood looking at him and plucking nervously at the frayed and tasselled +cord around his waist. + +"I don't know how you came to stumble in here," he said at length, "but +I'm glad to see you." + +"Thanks," replied Boots, gazing shamelessly and inquisitively about. +There was nothing to see except a few books, a pipe or two, toilet +articles, and a shaky gas-jet. The flat military trunk was under the +iron bed. + +"I--it's not much of a place," observed Selwyn, forcing a smile. +"However, you see I'm so seldom in town; I'm busy at the Hook, you know. +So I don't require anything elaborate." + +"Yes, I know," said Boots solemnly. A silence. + +"H--have a pipe?" inquired Selwyn uneasily. He had nothing else to +offer. + +Boots leaned back in his stiff chair, crossed his legs, and filled a +pipe. When he had lighted it he said: + +"How are things, Phil?" + +"All right. First rate, thank you." + +Boots removed the pipe from his lips and swore at him; and Selwyn +listened with head obstinately lowered and lean hands plucking at his +frayed girdle. And when Boots had ended his observations with an +emphatic question, Selwyn shook his head: + +"No, Boots. You're very good to ask me to stop with you, but I can't. +I'd be hampered; there are matters--affairs that concern me--that need +instant attention at times--at certain times. I must be free to go, free +to come. I couldn't be in your house. Don't ask me. But I'm--I thank you +for offering--" + +"Phil!" + +"What?" + +"Are you broke?" + +"Ah--a little"--with a smile. + +"Will you take what you require from me?" + +"No." + +"Oh--very well. I was horribly afraid you would." + +Selwyn laughed and leaned back, indenting his meagre pillow. + +"Come, Boots," he said, "you and I have often had worse quarters than +this. To tell you the truth I rather like it than otherwise." + +"Oh, damn!" said Boots, disgusted; "the same old conscience in the same +old mule! Who likes squalidity? I don't. You don't! What if Fate has hit +you a nasty swipe! Suppose Fortune has landed you a few in the slats! +It's only temporary and you know it. All business in the world is +conducted on borrowed capital. It's your business to live in decent +quarters, and I'm here to lend you the means of conducting that +business. Oh, come on, Phil, for Heaven's sake! If there were really any +reason--any logical reason for this genius-in-the-garret business, I'd +not say a word. But there isn't; you're going to make money--" + +"Oh, yes, I've got to," said Selwyn simply. + +"Well, then! In the meanwhile--" + +"No. Listen, Boots; I couldn't be free in your house. I--they--there are +telegrams--unexpected ones--at all hours." + +"What of it?" + +"You don't understand." + +"Wait a bit! How do you know I don't? Do the telegrams come from Sandy +Hook?" + +"No." + +Boots looked him calmly in the eye. "Then I _do_ understand, old man. +Come on out of this, in Heaven's name! Come, now! Get your dressing-gown +off and your coat on! Don't you think I understand? I tell you I _do_! +Yes, the whole blessed, illogical, chivalrous business. . . . Never mind +how I know--for I won't tell you! Oh, I'm not trying to interfere with +you; I know enough to shun buzz-saws. All I want is for you to come and +take that big back room and help a fellow live in a lonely house--help a +man to make it cheerful. I can't stand it alone any longer; and it will +be four years before Drina is eighteen." + +"Drina!" repeated Selwyn blankly--then he laughed. It was genuine +laughter, too; and Boots grinned and puffed at his pipe, and recrossed +his legs, watching Selwyn out of eyes brightening with expectancy. + +"Then it's settled," he said. + +"What? Your ultimate career with Drina?" + +"Oh, yes; that also. But I referred to your coming to live with me." + +"Boots--" + +"Oh, fizz! Come on. I don't like the way you act, Phil." + +Selwyn said slowly: "Do you make it a personal matter--" + +"Yes, I do; dam'f I don't! You'll be perfectly free there. I don't care +what you do or where you go or what hours you keep. You can run up and +down Broadway all night, if you want to, or you can stop at home and +play with the cats. I've three fine ones"--he made a cup of his hands +and breathed into them, for the room was horribly cold--"three fine +tabbies, and a good fire for 'em to blink at when they start purring." + +He looked kindly but anxiously at Selwyn, waiting for a word; and as +none came he said: + +"Old fellow, you can't fool me with your talk about needing nothing +better because you're out of town all the time. You know what you and I +used to talk about in the old days--our longing for a home and an open +fire and a brace of cats and bedroom slippers. Now I've got 'em, and I +make Ardois signals at you. If your shelter-tent got afire or blew away, +wouldn't you crawl into mine? And are you going to turn down an old +tent-mate because his shack happens to be built of bricks?" + +"Do you put it that way?" + +"Yes, I do. Why, in Heaven's name, do you want to stay in a vile hole +like this--unless you're smitten with Mrs. Glodden? Phil, I _want_ you +to come. Will you?" + +"Then--I'll accept a corner of your blanket--for a day or two," said +Selwyn wearily. . . . "You'll let me go when I want to?" + +"I'll do more; I'll make you go when _I_ want you to. Come on; pay Mrs. +Glodden and have your trunk sent." + +Selwyn forced a laugh, then sat up on the bed's edge and looked around +at the unpapered walls. + +"Boots--you won't say to--to anybody what sort of a place I've been +living in--" + +"No; but I will if you try to come back here." + +So Selwyn stood up and began to remove his dressing-gown, and Lansing +dragged out the little flat trunk and began to pack it. + +An hour later they went away together through the falling snow. + + * * * * * + +For a week Boots let him alone. He had a big, comfortable room, +dressing-closet, and bath adjoining the suite occupied by his host; he +was absolutely free to go and come, and for a week or ten days Boots +scarcely laid eyes on him, except at breakfast, for Selwyn's visits to +Sandy Hook became a daily routine except when a telegram arrived from +Edgewater calling him there. + +But matters at Edgewater were beginning to be easier in one way for him. +Alixe appeared to forget him for days at a time; she was less irritable, +less restless and exacting. A sweet-tempered and childish docility made +the care of her a simpler matter for the nurses and for him; her +discontent had disappeared; she made fewer demands. She did ask for a +sleigh to replace the phaeton, and Selwyn managed to get one for her; +and Miss Casson, one of the nurses, wrote him how delighted Alixe had +been, and how much good the sleighing was doing her. + +"Yesterday," continued the nurse in her letter, "there was a +consultation here between Drs. Vail, Wesson, and Morrison--as you +requested. They have not changed their opinions--indeed, they are +convinced that there is no possible chance of the recovery you hoped for +when you talked with Dr. Morrison. They all agree that Mrs. Ruthven is +in excellent physical condition--young, strong, vigorous--and may live +for years; may outlive us all. But there is nothing else to expect." + +The letter ran on: + +"I am enclosing the bills you desired to have sent you. Fuel is very +expensive, as you will see. The items for fruits, too, seems +unreasonably large, but grapes are two dollars a pound and fresh +vegetables dreadfully expensive. + +"Mrs. Ruthven is comfortable and happy in the luxury provided. She is +very sweet and docile with us all--and we are careful not to irritate +her or to have anything intrude which might excite or cause the +slightest shock to her. + +"Yesterday, standing at the window, she caught sight of a passing negro, +and she turned to me like a flash and said: + +"'The Tenth Cavalry were there!' + +"She seemed rather excited for a moment--not unpleasantly--but when I +ventured to ask her a question, she had quite forgotten it all. + +"I meant to thank you for sending me the revolver and cartridges. It +seemed a silly request, but we are in a rather lonely place, and I think +Miss Bond and I feel a little safer knowing that, in case of necessity, +we have _something_ to frighten away any roaming intruder who might take +it into his head to visit us. + +"One thing we must be careful about: yesterday Mrs. Ruthven had a doll +on my bed, and I sat sewing by the window, not noticing what she was +doing until I heard her pretty, pathetic little laugh. + +"And _what_ do you think she had done? She had discovered your revolver +under my pillow, and she had tied her handkerchief around it, and was +using it as a doll! + + "I got it away with a little persuasion, but at times she still + asks for her 'army' doll--saying that a boy she knew, named Philip, + had sent it to her from Manila, where he was living. + + "This, Captain Selwyn, is all the news. I do not think she will + begin to fret for you again for some time. At first, you remember, + it was every other day, then every three or four days. It has now + been a week since she asked for you. When she does I will, as + usual, telegraph you. + + "With many thanks for your kindness to us all, "Very respectfully + yours, + + "Mary Casson." + +Selwyn read this letter sitting before the fire in the living-room, feet +on the fender, pipe between his teeth. It was the first day of absolute +rest he had had in a long while. + +The day before he had been at the Hook until almost dark, watching the +firing of a big gun, and the results had been so satisfactory that he +was venturing to give himself a holiday--unless wanted at Edgewater. + +But the morning had brought this letter; Alixe was contented and +comfortable. So when Boots, after breakfast, went off to his Air Line +office, Selwyn permitted himself the luxury of smoking-jacket and +slippers, and settled down before the fire to reread the letter and +examine the enclosed bills, and ponder and worry over them at his ease. +To have leisure to worry over perplexities was something; to worry in +such luxury as this seemed something so very near to happiness that as +he refolded the last bill for household expenses he smiled faintly to +himself. + +Boots's three tabby-cats were disposed comfortably before the blaze, +fore paws folded under, purring and blinking lazily at the grate. All +around were evidences of Boots's personal taste in pretty wall-paper and +hangings, a few handsome Shiraz rugs underfoot, deep, comfortable +chairs, low, open bookcases full of promising literature--the more +promising because not contemporary. + +Selwyn loved such a room as this--where all was comfort, and nothing in +the quiet, but cheerful, ensemble disturbed the peaceful homeliness. + +Once--and not very long since--he had persuaded himself that there had +been a chance for him to have such a home, and live in it--_not_ alone. +That chance had gone--had never really existed, he knew now. For sooner +or later he must have awakened from the pleasant dreams of +self-persuasion to the reality of his relentless responsibility. No, +there had never been such a chance; and he thanked God that he had +learned before it was too late that for him there could be no earthly +paradise, no fireside _à deux_, no home, no hope of it. + +As long as Alixe lived his spiritual responsibility must endure. And +they had just told him that she might easily outlive them all. + +He turned heavily in his chair and stared at the fire. Perhaps he saw +infernal visions in the flames; perhaps the blaze meant nothing more to +him than an example of chemical reaction, for his face was set and +colourless and vacant, and his hands lay loosely along the padded arms +of his easy-chair. + +The hardest lesson he had to learn in these days was to avoid thinking. +Or, if he must surrender to the throbbing, unbidden memories which came +crowding in hordes to carry him by the suddenness of their assault, that +he learn to curb and subdue and direct them in pity toward that +hopeless, helpless, stricken creature who was so utterly dependent upon +him in her dreadful isolation. + +And he could not so direct them. + +Loyal in act and deed, his thoughts betrayed him. Memories, insurgent, +turned on him to stab him; and he shrank from them, cowering among his +pillows at midnight. But memory is merciless, and what has been is +without pity; and so remembrance rose at midnight from its cerements, +like a spectre, floating before his covered eyes, wearing the shape of +youth and love, crowned with the splendour of _her_ hair, looking at him +out of those clear, sweet eyes whose gaze was purity and truth eternal. + +And truth is truth, though he might lie with hands clinched across his +brow to shut out the wraith of it that haunted him; though he might set +his course by the faith that was in him, and put away the hope of the +world--whose hope is love--the truth was there, staring, staring at him +out of Eileen Erroll's dark-blue eyes. + + * * * * * + +He had seen her seldom that winter. When he had seen her their relations +appeared to be as happy, as friendly as before; there was no apparent +constraint, nothing from her to indicate that she noticed an absence for +which his continual business with the Government seemed sufficient +excuse. + +Besides, her days were full days, consequent upon Nina's goading and +indefatigable activity; and Eileen danced and received, and she bridged +and lunched, and she heard opera Wednesdays and was good to the poor on +Fridays; and there were balls, and theatres, and classes for +intellectual improvement, and routine duties incident to obligations +born with those inhabitants of Manhattan who are numbered among the +thousand caryatides that support upon their jewelled necks and naked +shoulders the social structure of the metropolis. + +But Selwyn, unable longer to fulfil his social obligations, was being +quietly eliminated from the social scheme of things. Passed over here, +dropped there, counted out as one more man not to be depended upon, it +was not a question of loss of caste; he simply stayed away, and his +absence was accepted by people who, in the breathless pleasure chase, +have no leisure to inquire why a man has lagged behind. + +There were rumours, however, that he had merely temporarily donned +overalls for the purpose of making a gigantic fortune; and many an +envious young fellow asked his pretty partner in the dance if it was +true, and many a young girl frankly hoped it was, and that the fortune +would be quick in the making. For Selwyn was well liked in the younger +set, and that he was in process of becoming eligible interested +everybody except Gladys and the Minster twins, who considered him +sufficiently eligible without the material additions required by their +cynical seniors, and would rather have had him penniless and present +than absent and opulent. + +But they were young and foolish, and after a while they forgot to miss +him, particularly Gladys, whose mother had asked her not to dance quite +so often with Gerald, and to favour him a trifle less frequently in +cotillon. Which prevoyance had been coped with successfully by Nina, +who, noticing it, at first took merely a perverse pleasure in foiling +Mrs. Orchil; but afterward, as the affair became noticeable, animated by +the instinct of the truly clever opportunist, she gave Gerald every +fighting chance. Whatever came of it--and, no doubt, the Orchils had +more ambitious views for Gladys--it was well to have Gerald mentioned in +such a fashionable episode, whether anything came of it or not. + +Gerald, in the early days of his affair with Gladys, and before even it +had assumed the proportions of an affair, had shyly come to Selwyn, not +for confession but with the crafty purpose of introducing her name into +the conversation so that he might have the luxury of talking about her +to somebody who would neither quiz him nor suspect him. + +Selwyn, of course, ultimately suspected him; but as he never quizzed +him, Gerald continued his elaborate system of subterfuges to make her +personality and doings a topic for him to expand upon and Selwyn to +listen to. + +It had amused Selwyn; he thought of it now--a gay memory like a ray of +light flung for a moment across the sombre background of his own +sadness. Fortunate or unfortunate, Gerald was still lucky in his freedom +to hazard it with chance and fate. + +Freedom to love! That alone was blessed, though that love be unreturned. +Without that right--the right to love--a man was no man. Lansing had +been correct: such a man was a spectre in a living world--the ghost of +what he had been. But there was no help for it, and there Lansing had +been in the wrong. No hope, no help, nothing for it but to set a true +course and hang to it. + +And Selwyn's dull eyes rested upon the ashes of the fire, and he saw his +dead youth among them; and, in the flames, his maturity burning to +embers. + +If he outlived Alixe, his life would lie as the ashes lay at his feet. +If she outlived him--and they had told him there was every chance of +it--at least he would have something to busy himself with in life if he +was to leave her provided for when he was no longer there to stand +between her and charity. + +That meant work--the hard, incessant, blinding, stupefying work which +stuns thought and makes such a life endurable. + +Not that he had ever desired death as a refuge or as a solution of +despair; there was too much of the soldier in him. Besides, it is so +impossible for youth to believe in death, to learn to apply the word to +themselves. He had not learned to, and he had seen death, and watched +it; but for himself he had not learned to believe in it. When one turns +forty it is easier to credit it. + +Thinking of death, impersonally, he sat watching the flames playing +above the heavy log; and as he lay there in his chair, the unlighted +pipe drooping in his hands, the telephone on the desk rang, and he rose +and unhooked the receiver. + +Drina's voice sounded afar, and: "Hello, sweetheart!" he said gaily; "is +there anything I can do for your youthful highness?" + +"I've been talking over the 'phone to Boots," she said. "You know, +whenever I have nothing to do I call up Boots at his office and talk to +him." + +"That must please him," suggested Selwyn gravely. + +"It does. Boots says you are not going to business to-day. So I thought +I'd call you up." + +"Thank you," said Selwyn. + +"You are welcome. What are you doing over there in Boots's house?" + +"Looking at the fire, Drina, and listening to the purring of three fat +tabby-cats." + +"Oh! Mother and Eileen have gone somewhere. I haven't anything to do +for an hour. Can't you come around?" + +"Why, yes, if you want me." + +"Yes, I do. Of course I can't have Boots, and I prefer you next. The +children are fox-hunting, and it bores me. Will you come?" + +"Yes. When?" + +"Now. And would you mind bringing me a box of mint-paste? Mother won't +object. Besides, I'll tell her, anyway, after I've eaten them." + +"All right!" said Selwyn, laughing and hanging up the receiver. + +On his way to the Gerards' he bought a box of the confection dear to +Drina. But as he dropped the packet into his overcoat-pocket, the memory +of the past rose up suddenly, halting him. He could not bear to go to +the house without some little gift for Eileen, and it was violets now as +it was in the days that could never dawn again--a great, fragrant bunch +of them, which he would leave for her after his brief play-hour with +Drina was ended. + +The child was glad to see him, and expressed herself so, coming across +to the chair where he sat and leaning against him, one arm on his +shoulder. + +"Do you know," she said, "that I miss you ever so much? Do you know, +also, that I am nearly fourteen, and that there is nobody in this house +near enough my age to be very companionable? I have asked them to send +me to school, and mother is considering it." + +She leaned against his shoulder, curly head bent, thoughtfully studying +the turquoise ring on her slim finger. It was her first ring. Nina had +let Boots give it to her. + +"What a tall girl you are growing into!" he said, encircling her waist +with one arm. "Your mother was like you at fourteen. . . . Did she ever +tell you how she first met your father? Well, I'll tell you then. Your +father was a schoolboy of fifteen, and one day he saw the most wonderful +little girl riding a polo pony out of the Park. Her mother was riding +with her. And he lost his head, and ran after her until she rode into +the Academy stables. And in he went, headlong, after her, and found her +dismounted and standing with her mother; and he took off his hat, and he +said to her mother: 'I've run quite a long way to tell you who I am: I +am Colonel Gerard's son, Austin. Would you care to know me?' + +"And he looked at the little girl, who had curls precisely like yours, +and the same little nose and mouth. And that little girl, who is now +your mother, said very simply: 'Won't you come home to luncheon with us? +May he, mother? He has run a very long way to be polite to us.' + +"And your mother's mother looked at the boy for a moment, smiling, for +he was the image of his father, who had been at school with her. Then +she said: 'Come to luncheon and tell me about your father. Your father +once came a thousand miles to see me, but I had started the day before +on my wedding-trip.' + + * * * * * + +"And that is how your father first met your mother, when she was a +little girl." + +Drina laughed: "What a funny boy father was to run after a strange girl +on a polo pony! . . . Suppose--suppose he had not seen her, and had not +run after her. . . . Where would I be now, Uncle Philip? . . . Could you +please tell me?" + +"Still aloft among the cherubim, sweetheart." + +"But--whose uncle would you be? And who would Boots have found for a +comrade like me? . . . It's a good thing that father ran after that polo +pony. . . . Probably God arranged it. Do you think so?" + +"There is no harm in thinking it," he said, smiling. + +"No; no harm. I've known for a long while that He was taking care of +Boots for me until I grow up. Meanwhile, I know some very nice Harvard +freshmen and two boys from St. Paul and five from Groton. That helps, +you know." + +"Helps what?" asked Selwyn, vastly amused. + +"To pass the time until I am eighteen," said the child serenely, helping +herself to another soft, pale-green chunk of the aromatic paste. "Uncle +Philip, mother has forbidden me--and I'll tell her and take my +punishment--but would you mind telling me how you first met my Aunt +Alixe?" + +Selwyn's arm around her relaxed, then tightened. + +"Why do you ask, dear?" he said very quietly. + +"Because I was just wondering whether God arranged that, too." + +Selwyn looked at her a moment. "Yes," he said grimly; "nothing happens +by chance." + +"Then, when God arranges such things, He does not always consider our +happiness." + +"He gives us our chance, Drina." + +"Oh! Did you have a chance? I heard mother say to Eileen that you had +never had a chance for happiness. I thought it was very sad. I had gone +into the clothes-press to play with my dolls--you know I still do play +with them--that is, I go into some secret place and look at them at +times when the children are not around. So I was in there, sitting on +the cedar-chest, and I couldn't help hearing what they said." + +She extracted another bonbon, bit into it, and shook her head: + +"And mother said to Eileen: 'Dearest, can't you learn to care for him?' +And Eileen--" + +"Drina!" he interrupted sharply, "you must not repeat things you +overhear." + +"Oh, I didn't hear anything more," said the child, "because I remembered +that I shouldn't listen, and I came out of the closet. Mother was +standing by the bed, and Eileen was lying on the bed with her hands over +her eyes; and I didn't know she had been crying until I said: 'Please +excuse me for listening,' and she sat up very quickly, and I saw her +face was flushed and her eyes wet. . . . Isn't it possible for you to +marry anybody, Uncle Philip?" + +"No, Drina." + +"Not even if Eileen would marry you?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"You could not understand, dear. Even your mother cannot quite +understand. So we won't ever speak of it again, Drina." + +The child balanced a bonbon between thumb and forefinger, considering it +very gravely. + +"I know something that mother does not," she said. And as he betrayed no +curiosity: + +"Eileen _is_ in love. I heard her say so." + +He straightened up sharply, turning to look at her. + +"I was sleeping with her. I was still awake, and I heard her say: 'I +_do_ love you--I _do_ love you.' She said it very softly, and I cuddled +up, supposing she meant me. But she was asleep." + +"She certainly meant you," said Selwyn, forcing his stiffened lips into +a smile. + +The child shook her head, looking down at the ring which she was turning +on her finger: + +"No; she did not mean me." + +"H-how do you know?" + +"Because she said a man's name." + +The silence lengthened; he sat, tilted a little forward, blank gaze +focussed on the snowy window; Drina, standing, leaned back into the +hollow of his arm, absently studying her ring. + +A few moments later her music-teacher arrived, and Drina was obliged to +leave him. + +"If you don't wait until I have finished my music," she said, "you won't +see mother and Eileen. They are coming to take me to the riding-school +at four o'clock." + +He said that he couldn't stay that day; and when she had gone away to +the schoolroom he walked slowly to the window and looked out across the +snowy Park, where hundreds of children were floundering about with gaily +painted sleds. It was a pretty scene in the sunshine; crimson sweaters +and toboggan caps made vivid spots of colour on the white expanse. +Beyond, through the naked trees, he could see the drive, and the sleighs +with their brilliant scarlet plumes and running-gear flashing in the +sun. Overhead was the splendid winter blue of the New York sky, in +which, at a vast height, sea-birds circled. + +Meaning to go--for the house and its associations made him restless--he +picked up the box of violets and turned to ring for a maid to take +charge of them--and found himself confronting Eileen, who, in her furs +and gloves, was just entering the room. + +"I came up," she said; "they told me you were here, calling very +formally upon Drina, if you please. What with her monopoly of you and +Boots, there seems to be no chance for Nina and me." + +They shook hands pleasantly; he offered her the box of violets, and she +thanked him and opened it, and, lifting the heavy, perfumed bunch, bent +her fresh young face to it. For a moment she stood inhaling the scent, +then stretched out her arm, offering their fragrance to him. + +"The first night I ever knew you, you sent me about a wagon-load of +violets," she said carelessly. + +He nodded pleasantly; she tossed her muff on to the library table, +stripped off her gloves, and began to unhook her fur coat, declining his +aid with a quick shake of her head. + +"It is easy--you see!"--as the sleeves slid from her arms and the soft +mass of fur fell into a chair. "And, by the way, Drina said that you +couldn't wait to see Nina," she continued, turning to face a mirror and +beginning to withdraw the jewelled pins from her hat, "so you won't for +a moment consider it necessary to remain just because I wandered +in--will you?" + +He made no reply; she was still busy with her veil and hat and her +bright, glossy hair, the ends of which curled up at the temples--a +burnished frame for her cheeks which the cold had delicately flushed to +a wild-rost tint. Then, brushing back the upcurled tendrils of her hair, +she turned to confront him, faintly smiling, brows lifted in silent +repetition of her question. + +"I will stay until Nina comes, if I may," he said slowly. + +She seated herself. "You may," she said mockingly; "we don't allow you +in the house very often, so when you do come you may remain until the +entire family can congregate to inspect you." She leaned back, looking +at him; then look and manner changed, and she bent impulsively forward: + +"You don't look very well, Captain Selwyn; are you?" + +"Perfectly. I"--he laughed--"I am growing old; that is all." + +"Do you say that to annoy me?" she asked, with a disdainful shrug, "or +to further impress me?" + +He shook his head and touched the hair at his temples significantly. + +"Pooh!" she retorted. "It is becoming--is that what you mean?" + +"I hope it is. There's no reason why a man should not grow old +gracefully--" + +"Captain Selwyn! But of course you only say it to bring out that latent +temper of mine. It's about the only thing that does it, too. . . . And +please don't plague me--if you've only a few moments to stay. . . . It +may amuse you to know that I, too, am exhibiting signs of increasing +infirmity; my temper, if you please, is not what it once was." + +"Worse than ever?" he asked in pretended astonishment. + +"Far worse. It is vicious. Kit-Ki took a nap on a new dinner-gown of +mine, and I slapped her. And the other day Drina hid in a clothes-press +while Nina was discussing my private affairs, and when the little imp +emerged I could have shaken her. Oh, I am certainly becoming infirm; so +if you are, too, comfort yourself with the knowledge that I am keeping +pace with you through the winter of our discontent." + +At the mention of the incident of which Drina had already spoken to him, +Selwyn raised his head and looked at the girl curiously. Then he +laughed. + +"I am wondering," he said in a bantering voice, "what secrets Drina +heard. I think I'd better ask her--" + +"You had better not! Besides, _I_ said nothing at all." + +"But Nina did." + +She nodded, lying there, arms raised, hands clasping the upholstered +wings of the big chair, and gazing at him out of indolent, amused eyes. + +"Would you like to know what Nina was saying to me?" she asked. + +"I'd rather hear what you said to her." + +"I told you that I said nothing." + +"Not a word?" he insisted. + +"Not a word." + +"Not even a sound?" + +"N--well--I won't answer that." + +"Oho!" he laughed. "So you did make some sort of inarticulate reply! +Were you laughing or weeping?" + +"Perhaps I was yawning. How do you know?" she smiled. + +After a moment he said, still curious: "_Why_ were you crying, Eileen?" + +"Crying! I didn't say I was crying." + +"I assume it." + +"To prove or disprove that assumption," she said coolly, amused, "let us +hunt up a motive for a possible display of tears. What, Captain Selwyn, +have I to cry about? Is there anything in the world that I lack? +Anything that I desire and cannot have?" + +"_Is_ there?" he repeated. + +"I asked you, Captain Selwyn." + +"And, unable to reply," he said, "I ask you." + +"And I," she retorted, "refuse to answer." + +"Oho! So there _is_, then, something you lack? There _is_ a motive for +possible tears?" + +"You have not proven it," she said. + +"You have not denied it." + +She tipped back her head, linked her fingers under her chin, and looked +at him across the smooth curve of her cheeks. + +"Well--yes," she admitted, "I was crying--if you insist on knowing. Now +that you have so cleverly driven me to admit that, can you also force me +to tell you _why_ I was so tearful?" + +"Certainly," he said promptly; "it was something Nina said that made you +cry." + +They both laughed. + +"Oh, what a come-down!" she said teasingly. "You knew that before. But +can you force me to confess to you _what_ Nina was saying? If you can +you are the cleverest cross-examiner in the world, for I'd rather perish +than tell you--" + +"Oh," he said instantly, "then it was something about love!" + +He had not meant to say it; he had spoken too quickly, and the flush of +surprise on the girl's face was matched by the colour rising to his own +temples. And, to retrieve the situation, he spoke too quickly again--and +too lightly. + +"A girl would rather perish than admit that she is in love?" he said, +forcing a laugh. "That is rather a clever deduction, I think. +Unfortunately, however, I happen to know to the contrary, so all my +cleverness comes to nothing." + +The surprise had faded from her face, but the colour remained; and with +it something else--something in the blue eyes which he had never before +encountered there--the faintest trace of recoil, of shrinking away from +him. + +And she herself did not know it was there--did not quite realise that +she had been hurt. Surprise that he had chanced so abruptly, so +unerringly upon the truth had startled and confused her; but that he had +made free of the truth so lightly, so carelessly, laughingly amused, +left her without an answering smile. + +That it had been an accident--a chance surmise which perhaps he himself +did not credit--which he could not believe--made it no easier for her. +For the first time in his life he had said something which left her +unresponsive, with a sense of bruised delicacy and of privacy invaded. A +tinge of fear of him crept in, too. She did not misconstrue what he had +said under privilege of a jest, but after what had once passed between +them she had not considered that love, even in the abstract, might serve +as a mocking text for any humour or jesting sermon from a man who had +asked her what he once asked--the man she had loved enough to weep for +when she had refused him only because she lacked what he asked for. +Knowing that she loved him in her own innocent fashion, scarcely +credulous that he ever could be dearer to her, yet shyly wistful for +whatever more the years might add to her knowledge of a love so far +immune from stress or doubt or the mounting thrill of a deeper emotion, +she had remained confidently passive, warmly loyal, reverencing the +mystery of the love he offered, though she could not understand it or +respond. + +And now--now a chance turn; of a word--a trend to an idle train of +thought, jestingly followed!--and, without warning, they had stumbled on +a treasured memory, too frail, too delicately fragile, to endure the +shock. + +And now fear crept in--fear that he had forgotten, had changed. Else how +could he have spoken so? . . . And the tempered restraint of her +quivered at the thought--all the serenity, the confidence in life and in +him began to waver. And her first doubt crept in upon her. + +She turned her expressionless face from him and, resting her cheek +against the velvet back of the chair, looked out into the late afternoon +sunshine. + +All the long autumn without him, all her long, lonely, leisure hours in +the golden weather, his silence, his withdrawal into himself, and his +work, hitherto she had not misconstrued, though often she confused +herself in explaining it. Impatience of his absence, too, had stimulated +her to understand the temporary state of things--to know that time away +from him meant for her only existence in suspense. + +Very, very slowly, by degrees imperceptible, alone with memories of him +and of their summer's happiness already behind her, she had learned that +time added things to what she had once considered her full capacity for +affection. + +Alone with her memories of him, at odd moments during the day--often in +the gay clamour and crush of the social routine--or driving with Nina, +or lying, wide-eyed, on her pillow at night, she became conscious that +time, little by little, very gradually but very surely, was adding to +her regard for him frail, new, elusive elements that stole in to awake +an unquiet pulse or stir her heart into a sudden thrill, leaving it +fluttering, and a faint glow gradually spreading through her every vein. + +She was beginning to love him no longer in her own sweet fashion, but in +his; and she was vaguely aware of it, yet curiously passive and content +to put no question to herself whether it was true or false. And how it +might be with him she evaded asking herself, too; only the quickening of +breath and pulse questioned the pure thoughts unvoiced; only the +increasing impatience of her suspense confirmed the answer which now, +perhaps, she might give him one day while the blessed world was young. + +At the thought she moved uneasily, shifting her position in the chair. +Sunset, and the swift winter twilight, had tinted, then dimmed, the +light in the room. On the oak-beamed ceiling, across the ivory rosettes, +a single bar of red sunlight lay, broken by rafter and plaster +foliation. She watched it turn to rose, to ashes. And, closing her eyes, +she lay very still and motionless in the gray shadows closing over all. + +He had not yet spoken when again she lifted her eyes and saw him sitting +in the dusk, one arm resting across his knee, his body bent slightly +forward, his gaze vacant. + +Into himself again!--silently companioned by the shadows of old +thoughts; far from her--farther than he had ever been. For a while she +lay there, watching him, scarcely breathing; then a faint shiver of +utter loneliness came over her--of desire for his attention, his voice, +his friendship, and the expression of it. But he never moved; his eyes +seemed dull and unseeing; his face strangely gaunt to her, unfamiliar, +hard. In the dim light he seemed but the ghost of what she had known, of +what she had thought him--a phantom, growing vaguer, more unreal, +slipping away from her through the fading light. And the impulse to +arouse herself and him from the dim danger--to arrest the spell, to +break it, and seize what was their own in life overwhelmed her; and she +sat up, grasping the great arms of her chair, slender, straight, +white-faced in the gloom. + +But he did not stir. Then unreasoning, instinctive fear confused her, +and she heard her own voice, sounding strangely in the twilight: + +"What has come between us, Captain Selwyn? What has happened to us? +Something is all wrong, and I--I ask you what it is, because I don't +know. Tell me." + +He had lifted his head at her first word, hesitatingly, as though dazed. + +"Could you tell me?" she asked faintly. + +"Tell you what, child?" + +"Why you are so silent with me; what has crept in between us? I"--the +innocent courage sustaining her--"I have not changed--except a little +in--in the way you wished. Have you?" + +"No," he said in an altered voice. + +"Then--what is it? I have been--you have left me so much alone this +winter--and I supposed I understood--" + +"My work," he said; but she scarcely knew the voice for his. + +"I know; you have had no time. I know that; I ought to know it by this +time, for I have told myself often enough. And yet--when we _are_ +together, it is--it has been--different. Can you tell me why? Do you +think me changed?" + +"You must not change," he said. + +"No," she breathed, wondering, "I could not--except--a little, as I told +you." + +"You must not change--not even that way!" he repeated in a voice so low +she could scarcely hear him--and believed she had misunderstood him. + +"I did not hear you," she said faintly. "What did you say to me?" + +"I cannot say it again." + +She slowly shook her head, not comprehending, and for a while sat +silent, struggling with her own thoughts. Then, suddenly instinct with +the subtle fear which had driven her into speech: + +"When I said--said that to you--last summer; when I cried in the +swinging seat there--because I could not answer you--as I wished to--did +_that_ change you, Captain Selwyn?" + +"No." + +"Then y-you are unchanged?" + +"Yes, Eileen." + +The first thrill of deep emotion struck through and through her. + +"Then--then _that_ is not it," she faltered. "I was afraid--I have +sometimes wondered if it was. . . . I am very glad, Captain +Selwyn. . . . Will you wait a--a little longer--for me to--to change?" + +He stood up suddenly in the darkness, and she sprang to her feet, +breathless; for she had caught the low exclamation, and the strange +sound that stifled it in his throat. + +"Tell me," she stammered, "w-what has happened. D-don't turn away to the +window; don't leave me all alone to endure this--this _something_ I have +known was drawing you away--I don't know where! What is it? Could you +not tell _me_, Captain Selwyn? I--I have been very frank with you; I +have been truthful--and loyal. I gave you, from the moment I knew you, +all of me there was to give. And--and if there is more to give--now--it +was yours when it came to me. + +"Do you think I am too young to know what I am saying? Solitude is a +teacher. I--I am still a scholar, perhaps, but I think that you could +teach me what my drill-master, Solitude, could not . . . if it--it is +true you love me." + +The mounting sea of passion swept him; he turned on her, unsteadily, his +hands clenched, not daring to touch her. Shame, contrition, horror that +the damage was already done, all were forgotten; only the deadly grim +duty of the moment held him back. + +"Dear," he said, "because I am unchanged--because I--I love you so--help +me!--and God help us both." + +"Tell me," she said steadily, but it was fear that stilled her voice. +She laid one slim hand on the table, bearing down on the points of her +fingers until the nails whitened, but her head was high and her eyes met +his, straight, unwavering. + +"I--I knew it," she said; "I understood there was something. If it is +trouble--and I see it is--bring it to me. If I am the woman you took me +for, give me my part in this. It is the quickest way to my heart, +Captain Selwyn." + +But he had grown afraid, horribly afraid. All the cowardice in him was +in the ascendant. But that passed; watching his worn face, she saw it +passing. Fear clutched at her; for the first time in her life she +desired to go to him, hold fast to him, seeking in contact the +reassurance of his strength; but she only stood straighter, a little +paler, already half divining in the clairvoyance of her young soul what +lay still hidden. + +"Do you ask a part in this?" he said at last. + +"I ask it." + +"Why?" + +Her eyes wavered, then returned his gaze: + +"For love of you," she said, as white as death. + +He caught his breath sharply and straightened out, passing one hand +across his eyes. When she saw his face again in the dim light it was +ghastly. + +"There was a woman," he said, "for whom I was once responsible." He +spoke wearily, head bent, resting the weight of one arm on the table +against which she leaned. "Do you understand?" he asked. + +"Yes. You mean--Mrs. Ruthven." + +"I mean--her. Afterward--when matters had altered--I came--home." + +He raised his head and looked about him in the darkness. + +"Came home," he repeated, "no longer a man; the shadow of a man, with no +hope, no outlook, no right to hope." + +He leaned heavily on the table, his arm rigid, looking down at the floor +as he spoke. + +"No right to hope. Others told me that I still possessed that right. I +knew they were wrong; I do not mean that they persuaded me--I persuaded +myself that, after all, perhaps my right to hope remained to me. I +persuaded myself that I might be, after all, the substance, not the +shadow." + +He looked up at her: + +"And so I dared to love you." + +She gazed at him, scarcely breathing. + +"Then," he said, "came the awakening. My dream had ended." + +She waited, the lace on her breast scarce stirring, so still she stood, +so pitifully still. + +"Such responsibility cannot die while those live who undertook it. I +believed it until I desired to believe it no longer. But a man's +self-persuasion cannot alter such laws--nor can human laws confirm or +nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than admit their truth, +basing its creed upon such laws. . . . No man can put asunder, no laws +of man undo the burden. . . . And, to my shame and disgrace, I have had +to relearn this after offering you a love I had no right to offer--a +life which is not my own to give." + +He took one step toward her, and his voice fell so low that she could +just hear him: + +"She has lost her mind, and the case is hopeless. Those to whom the laws +of the land have given care of her turned on her, threatened her with +disgrace. And when one friend of hers halted this miserable conspiracy, +her malady came swiftly upon her, and suddenly she found herself +helpless, penniless, abandoned, her mind already clouded, and clouding +faster! . . . Eileen, was there then the shadow of a doubt as to the +responsibility? Because a man's son was named in the parable, does the +lesson end there--and are there no others as prodigal--no other bonds +that hold as inexorably as the bond of love? + +"Men--a lawyer or two--a referee--decided to remove a burden; but a +higher court has replaced it." + +He came and stood directly before her: + +"I dare not utter one word of love to you; I dare not touch you. What +chance is there for such a man as I?" + +"No chance--for us," she whispered. "Go!" + +For a second he stood motionless, then, swaying slightly, turned on his +heel. + +And long after he had left the house she still stood there, eyes closed, +colourless lips set, her slender body quivering, racked with the first +fierce grief of a woman's love for a man. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HER WAY + + +Neergard had already begun to make mistakes. The first was in thinking +that, among those whose only distinction was their wealth, his own +wealth permitted him the same insolence and ruthlessness that so +frequently characterised them. + +Clever, vindictively patient, circumspect, and commercially competent as +he had been, his intelligence was not of a high order. The intelligent +never wilfully make enemies; Neergard made them gratuitously, cynically +kicking from under him the props he used in mounting the breach, and +which he fancied he no longer needed as a scaffolding now that he had +obtained a foothold on the outer wall. Thus he had sneeringly dispensed +with Gerald; thus he had shouldered Fane and Harmon out of his way when +they objected to the purchase of Neergard's acreage adjoining the +Siowitha preserve, and its incorporation as an integral portion of the +club tract; thus he was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another +reason. But he was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he +wanted a little more out of him--just enough to place himself on a +secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as hack +cotillon leader, was regarded by the young with wide-eyed awe. + +Why Neergard, who had forced himself into the Siowitha, ever came to +commit so gross a blunder as to dragoon, or even permit, the club to +acquire the acreage, the exploiting of which had threatened their +existence, is not very clear. + +Once within the club he may have supposed himself perpetually safe, not +only because of his hold on Ruthven, but also because, back of his +unflagging persistence, back of his determination to shoulder and push +deep into the gilded, perfumed crush where purse-strings and morals were +loosened with every heave and twist in the panting struggle around the +raw gold altar--back of the sordid past, back of all the resentment, and +the sinister memory of wrongs and grievances, still unbalanced, lay an +enormous vanity. + +It was the vanity in him--even in the bitter days--that throbbed with +the agony of the bright world's insolence; it was vanity which sustained +him in better days where he sat nursing in his crooked mind the crooked +thoughts that swarmed there. His desire for position and power was that; +even his yearning for corruption was but the desire for the satiation of +a vanity as monstrous as it was passionless. His to have what was shared +by those he envied--the power to pick and choose, to ignore, to punish. +His to receive, not to seek; to dispense, not to stand waiting for his +portion; his the freedom of the forbidden, of everything beyond him, of +all withheld, denied by this bright, loose-robed, wanton-eyed goddess +from whose invisible altar he had caught a whiff of sacrificial odours, +standing there through the wintry years in the squalor and reek of +things. + +Now he had arrived among those outlying camps where camp-followers and +masters mingled. Certain card-rooms were open to him, certain +drawing-rooms, certain clubs. Through them he shouldered, thrilled as +he advanced deeper into the throng, fired with the contact of the crush +around him. + +Already the familiarity of his appearance and his name seemed to +sanction his presence; two minor clubs, but good ones--in need of +dues--had strained at this social camel and swallowed him. Card-rooms +welcomed him--not the rooms once flung open contemptuously for his +plucking--but rooms where play was fiercer, and where those who faced +him expected battle to the limit. + +And they got it, for he no longer felt obliged to lose. And that again +was a mistake: he could not yet afford to win. + +Thick in the chance and circumstance of the outer camp, heavily involved +financially and already a crushing financial force, meshed in, or +spinning in his turn the strands and counter-strands of intrigue, with a +dozen men already mortally offended and a woman or two alarmed or +half-contemptuously on guard, flattered, covetous, or afraid, the limit +of Neergard's intelligence was reached; his present horizon ended the +world for him because he could not imagine anything beyond it; and that +smirking vanity which had 'squired him so far, hat in hand, now plucked +off its mask and leered boldly about in the wake of its close-eyed +master. + +George Fane, unpleasantly involved in Block Copper, angry, but not very +much frightened, turned in casual good faith to Neergard to ease matters +until he could cover. And Neergard locked him in the tighter and +shouldered his way through Rosamund's drawing-room to the sill of Sanxon +Orchil's outer office, treading brutally on Harmon's heels. + +Harmon in disgust, wrath, and fear went to Craig; Craig to Maxwell +Hunt; Hunt wired Mottly; Mottly, cold and sleek in his contempt, came +from Palm Beach. + +The cohesive power of caste is an unknown element to the outsider. + +That he had unwittingly and prematurely aroused some unsuspected force +on which he had not counted and of which he had no definite knowledge +was revealed to Neergard when he desired Rosamund to obtain for him an +invitation to the Orchils' ball. + +It appeared that she could not do so--that even the threatened tendency +of Block Copper could not sharpen her wits to devise a way for him. Very +innocently she told him that Jack Ruthven was leading the Chinese +Cotillon with Mrs. Delmour-Carnes from one end, Gerald Erroll with +Gladys from the other--a hint that a card ought to be easy enough to +obtain in spite of the strangely forgetful Orchils. + +Long since he had fixed upon Gladys Orchil as the most suitable silent +partner for the unbuilt house of Neergard, unconcerned that rumour was +already sending her abroad for the double purpose of getting rid of +Gerald and of giving deserving aristocracy a look-in at the fresh youth +of her and her selling price. + +Nothing, so far, had checked his progress; why should rumour? Elbow and +money had shoved him on and on, shoulder-deep where his thin nose +pointed, crowding aside and out of his way whatever was made to be +crowded out; and going around, hat off, whatever remained arrogantly +immovable. + +So he had come, on various occasions, close to the unruffled skirts of +this young girl--not yet, however, in her own house. But Sanxon Orchil +had recently condescended to turn around in his office chair and leave +his amusing railroad combinations long enough to divide with Neergard a +quarter of a million copper profits; and there was another turn to be +expected when Neergard gave the word. + +Therefore, it puzzled and confused Neergard to be overlooked where the +gay world had been summoned with an accompanying blast from the public +press; therefore he had gone to Rosamund with the curtest of hints; but +he had remained, standing before her, checked, not condescending to +irritation, but mentally alert to a new element of resistance which he +had not expected--a new force, palpable, unlooked for, unclassified as +yet in his schedule for his life's itinerary. That force was the +cohesive power of abstract caste in the presence of a foreign irritant +threatening its atomic disintegration. That foreign and irritating +substance was himself. But he had forgotten in his vanity that which in +his rawer shrewdness he should have remembered. Eternal vigilance was +the price; not the cancelled vouchers of the servitude of dead years and +the half-servile challenge of the strange new days when his vanity had +dared him to live. + + * * * * * + +Rosamund, smoothly groomed, golden-headed, and smiling, rose as Neergard +moved slowly forward to take his leave. + +"So stupid of them to have overlooked you," she said; "and I should have +thought Gladys would have remembered--unless--" + +His close-set eyes focussed so near her own that she stopped, +involuntarily occupied with the unusual phenomenon. + +"Unless what?" he asked. + +She was all laughing polished surface again. "Unless Gladys's +intellect, which has only room for one idea at a time, is already fully +occupied." + +"With what?" he demanded. + +"Oh, with that Gerald boy "--she shrugged indulgently--"perhaps with her +pretty American Grace and the outlook for the Insular invasion." + +Neergard's apple face was dull and mottled, and on the thin bridge of +his nose the sweat glistened. He did not know what she meant; and she +knew he did not. + +As he turned to go she paced him a step or two across the rose-and-gold +reception-room, hands linked behind her back, bending forward slightly +as she moved beside him. + +"Gerald, poor lad, is to be disciplined," she observed. "The prettiest +of American duchesses takes her over next spring; and Heaven knows the +household cavalry needs green forage . . . Besides, even Jack Ruthven +may stand the chance they say he stands if it is true he has made up his +mind to sue for his divorce." + +Neergard wheeled on her; the sweat on his nose had become a bright bead. + +"Where did you hear that?" he asked. + +"What? About Jack Ruthven?" Her smooth shoulders fluttered her answer. + +"You mean it's talked about?" he insisted. + +"In some sets," she said with an indifference which coolly excluded the +probability that he could have been in any position to hear what was +discussed in those sets. + +Again he felt the check of something intangible but real; and the vanity +in him, flicked on the raw, peered out at her from his close-set eyes. +For a moment he measured her from the edge of her skirt to her golden +head, insolently. + +"You might remind your husband," he said, "that I'd rather like to have +a card to the Orchil affair." + +"There is no use in speaking to George," she replied regretfully, +shaking her head. + +"Try it," returned Neergard with the hint of a snarl; and he took his +leave, and his hat from the man in waiting, who looked after him with +the slightest twitching of his shaven upper lip. For the lifting of an +eyebrow in the drawing-rooms becomes warrant for a tip that runs very +swiftly below stairs. + +That afternoon, alone in his office, Neergard remembered Gerald. And for +the first time he understood the mistake of making an enemy out of what +he had known only as a friendly fool. + +But it was a detail, after all--merely a slight error in assuming too +early an arrogance he could have afforded to wait for. He had waited a +long, long while for some things. + +As for Fane, he had him locked up with his short account. No doubt he'd +hear from the Orchils through the Fanes. However, to clinch the matter, +he thought he might as well stop in to see Ruthven. A plain word or two +to Ruthven indicating his own wishes--perhaps outlining his policy +concerning the future house of Neergard--might as well be delivered now +as later. + +So that afternoon he took a hansom at Broad and Wall streets and rolled +smoothly uptown, not seriously concerned, but willing to have a brief +understanding with Ruthven on one or two subjects. + +As his cab drove up to the intricately ornamental little house of gray +stone, a big touring limousine wheeled out from the curb, and he caught +sight of Sanxon Orchil and Phoenix Mottly inside, evidently just leaving +Ruthven. + +His smiling and very cordial bow was returned coolly by Orchil, and +apparently not observed at all by Mottly. He sat a second in his cab, +motionless, the obsequious smile still stencilled on his flushed face; +then the flush darkened; he got out of his cab and, bidding the man +wait, rang at the house of Ruthven. + +Admitted, it was a long while before he was asked to mount the carved +stairway of stone. And when he did, on every step, hand on the bronze +rail, he had the same curious sense of occult resistance to his physical +progress; the same instinct of a new element arising into the scheme of +things the properties of which he felt a sudden fierce desire to test +and comprehend. + +Ruthven in a lounging suit of lilac silk, sashed in with flexible +silver, stood with his back to the door as Neergard was announced; and +even after he was announced Ruthven took his time to turn and stare and +nod with a deliberate negligence that accented the affront. + +Neergard sat down; Ruthven gazed out of the window, then, soft thumbs +hooked in his sash, turned leisurely in impudent interrogation. + +"What the hell is the matter with you?" asked Neergard, for the subtle +something he had been encountering all day had suddenly seemed to wall +him out of all he had conquered, forcing him back into the simpler +sordid territory where ways and modes of speech were more familiar to +him--where the spontaneous crudity of expression belonged among the +husks of all he had supposed discarded for ever. + +"Really," observed Ruthven, staring at the seated man, "I scarcely +understand your remark." + +"Well, you'll understand it perhaps when I choose to explain it," said +Neergard. "I see there's some trouble somewhere. What is it? What's the +matter with Orchil, and that hatchet-faced beagle-pup, Mottly? _Is_ +there anything the matter, Jack?" + +"Nothing important," said Ruthven with an intonation which troubled +Neergard. "Did you come here to--ah--ask anything of me? Very glad to do +anything, I'm sure." + +"Are you? Well, then, I want a card to the Orchils'." + +Ruthven raised his brows slightly; and Neergard waited, then repeated +his demand. + +Ruthven began to explain, rather languidly, that it was impossible; +but--"I want it," insisted the other doggedly. + +"I can't be of any service to you in this instance." + +"Oh, yes, I think you can. I tell you I want that card. Do you +understand plain speech?" + +"Ya-as," drawled Ruthven, seating himself a trifle wearily among his +cushions, "but yours is so--ah--very plain--quite elemental, you know. +You ask for a bid to the Orchils'; I tell you quite seriously I can't +secure one for you." + +"You'd better think it over," said Neergard menacingly. + +"Awfully sorry." + +"You mean you won't?" + +"Ah--quite so." + +Neergard's thin nose grew white and tremulous: + +"Why?" + +"You insist?" in mildly bored deprecation. + +"Yes, I insist. Why can't you--or why won't you?" + +"Well, if you really insist, they--ah--don't want you, Neergard." + +"Who--why--how do you happen to know that they don't? Is this some petty +spite of that young cub, Gerald? Or"--and he almost looked at +Ruthven--"is this some childish whim of yours?" + +"Oh, really now--" + +"Yes, really now," sneered Neergard, "you'd better tell me. And you'd +better understand, now, once for all, just exactly what I've outlined +for myself--so you can steer clear of the territory I operate in." He +clasped his blunt fingers and leaned forward, projecting his whole body, +thick legs curled under; but his close-set eyes still looked past +Ruthven. + +"I need a little backing," he said, "but I can get along without it. And +what I'm going to do is to marry Miss Orchil. Now you know; now you +understand. I don't care a damn about the Erroll boy; and I think I'll +discount right now any intentions of any married man to bother Miss +Orchil after some Dakota decree frees him from the woman whom he's +driven into an asylum." + +Ruthven looked at him curiously: + +"So that is discounted, is it?" + +"I think so," nodded Neergard. "I don't think that man will try to +obtain a divorce until I say the word." + +"Oh! Why not?" + +"Because of my knowledge concerning that man's crooked methods in +obtaining for me certain options that meant ruin to his own country +club," said Neergard coolly. + +"I see. How extraordinary! But the club has bought in all that land, +hasn't it?" + +"Yes--but the stench of your treachery remains, my friend." + +"Not treachery, only temptation," observed Ruthven blandly. "I've talked +it all over with Orchil and Mottly--" + +"You--_what_!" gasped Neergard. + +"Talked about it," repeated Ruthven, hard face guileless, and raising +his eyebrows--a dreadful caricature of youth in the misleading +smoothness of the minutely shaven face; "I told Orchil what you +persuaded me to do--" + +"You--you damned--" + +"Not at all, not at all!" protested Ruthven, languidly settling himself +once more among the cushions. "And by the way," he added, "there's a +law--by-law--something or other, that I understand may interest you"--he +looked up at Neergard, who had sunk back in his chair--"about unpaid +assessments--" + +Neergard now for the first time was looking directly at him. + +"Unpaid assessments," repeated Ruthven. "It's a, detail--a law--never +enforced unless we--ah--find it convenient to rid ourselves of a member. +It's rather useful, you see, in such a case--a technical pretext, you +know. . . . I forget the exact phrasing; something about' ceases to +retain his membership, and such shares of stock as he may own in the +said club shall be appraised and delivered to the treasurer upon receipt +of the value'--or something like that." + +Still Neergard looked at him, hunched up in his chair, chin sunk on his +chest. + +"Thought it just as well to mention it," said Ruthven blandly, "as +they've seen fit to take advantage of the--ah--opportunity--under legal +advice. You'll hear from the secretary, I fancy--Mottly, you know. . . . +_Is_ there anything more, Neergard?" + +Neergard scarcely heard him. He had listened, mechanically, when told in +as many words that he had been read out of the Siowitha Club; he +understood that he stood alone, discarded, disgraced, with a certain +small coterie of wealthy men implacably hostile to him. But it was not +that which occupied him: he was face to face with the new element of +which he had known nothing--the subtle, occult resistance to himself and +his personality, all that he represented, embodied, stood for, hoped +for. + +And for the first time he realised that among the ruthless, no +ruthlessness was permitted him; among the reckless, circumspection had +been required of him; no arrogance, no insolence had been permitted +him among the arrogant and insolent; for, when such as he turned +threateningly upon one of those belonging to that elemental matrix +of which he dared suppose himself an integral part, he found that +he was mistaken. Danger to one from such as he endangered their +common caste--such as it was. And, silently, subtly, all through +that portion of the social fabric, he became slowly sensible of +resistance--resistance everywhere, from every quarter. + +Now, hunched up there in his chair, he began to understand. If Ruthven +had been a blackguard--it was not for him to punish him--no, not even +threaten to expose him. His own caste would take care of that; his own +sort would manage such affairs. Meanwhile Neergard had presumed to annoy +them, and the society into which he had forced himself and which he had +digestively affected, was now, squid-like, slowly turning itself inside +out to expel him as a foreign substance from which such unimportant +nutrition as he had afforded had been completely extracted. + +He looked at Ruthven, scarcely seeing him. Finally he gathered his thick +legs under to support him as he rose, stupidly, looking about for his +hat. + +Ruthven rang for a servant; when he came Neergard followed him without a +word, small eyes vacant, the moisture powdering the ridge of his nose, +his red blunt hands dangling as he walked. Behind him a lackey laughed. + + * * * * * + +In due time Neergard, who still spent his penny on a morning paper, read +about the Orchil ball. There were three columns and several pictures. He +read all there was to read about--the sickeningly minute details of +jewels and costumes, the sorts of stuffs served at supper, the cotillon, +the favours--then, turning back, he read about the dozen-odd separate +hostesses who had entertained the various coteries and sets at separate +dinners before the ball--read every item, every name, to the last +imbecile period. + +Then he rose wearily, and started downtown to see what his lawyers could +do toward reinstating him in a club that had expelled him--to find out +if there remained the slightest trace of a chance in the matter. But +even as he went he knew there could be none. The squid had had its will +with him, not he with the squid; and within him rose again all the old +hatred and fear of these people from whom he had desired to extract full +payment for the black days of need he had endured, for the want, the +squalor, the starvation he had passed through. + +But the reckoning left him where he had started--save for the money they +had used when he forced it on them--not thanking him. + +So he went to his lawyers--every day for a while, then every week, +then, toward the end of winter, less often, for he had less time now, +and there was a new pressure which he was beginning to feel vaguely +hostile to him in his business enterprises--hitches in the negotiations +of loans, delays, perhaps accidental, but annoying; changes of policy in +certain firms who no longer cared to consider acreage as investment; and +a curiously veiled antagonism to him in a certain railroad, the +reorganisation of which he had dared once to aspire to. + +And one day, sitting alone in his office, a clerk brought him a morning +paper with one column marked in a big blue-pencilled oval. + +It was only about a boy and a girl who had run away and married because +they happened to be in love, although their parents had prepared other +plans for their separate disposal. The column was a full one, the +heading in big type--a good deal of pother about a boy and a girl, after +all, particularly as it appeared that their respective families had +determined to make the best of it. Besides, the girl's parents had other +daughters growing up; and the prettiest of American duchesses would no +doubt remain amiable. As for the household cavalry, probably some of +them were badly in need of forage, but that thin red line could hold out +until the younger sisters shed pinafores. So, after all, in spite of +double leads and the full column, the runaways could continue their +impromptu honeymoon without fear of parents, duchess, or a rescue charge +from that thin, red, and impecunious line. + + * * * * * + +It took Neergard all day to read that column before he folded it away +and pigeonholed it among a lot of dusty documents--uncollected claims, a +memorandum of a deal with Ruthven, a note from an actress, and the +papers in his case against the Siowitha Club which would never come to +a suit--he knew it now--never amount to anything. So among these +archives of dead desires, dead hopes, and of vengeance deferred _sine +die_, he laid away the soiled newspaper. + +Then he went home, very tired with a mental lassitude that depressed him +and left him drowsy in his great arm-chair before the grate--too drowsy +and apathetic to examine the letters and documents laid out for him by +his secretary, although one of them seemed to be important--something +about alienation of affections, something about a yacht and Mrs. +Ruthven, and a heavy suit to be brought unless other settlement was +suggested as a balm to Mr. Ruthven. + +To dress for dinner was an effort--a purely mechanical operation which +was only partly successful, although his man aided him. But he was too +tired to continue the effort; and at last it was his man alone who +disembarrassed him of his heavy clothing and who laid him among the +bedclothes, where he sank back, relaxed, breathing loudly in the +dreadful depressed stupor of utter physical and neurotic prostration. + +Meaningless to him the hurriedly intrusive attorneys--his own and +Ruthven's--who forced their way in that night--or was it the next, or +months later? A weight like the weight of death lay on him, mind and +body. If he comprehended what threatened, what was coming, he did not +care. The world passed on, leaving him lying there, nerveless, +exhausted, a derelict on a sea too stormy for such as he--a wreck that +might have sailed safely in narrower waters. + +And some day he'd be patched up and set afloat once more to cruise and +operate and have his being in the safer and smaller seas; some day, when +the nerve crash had subsided and the slow, wounded mind came back to +itself, and its petty functions were once more resumed--its envious +scheming, its covetous capability, its vicious achievement. For with him +achievement could embody only the meaner imitations of the sheer +colossal _coups_ by which the great financiers gutted a nation with +kid-gloved fingers, and changed their gloves after the operation so that +no blood might stick to Peter's pence or smear the corner-stones of +those vast and shadowy institutions upreared in restitution--black +silhouettes against the infernal sunset of lives that end in the shadowy +death of souls. + + * * * * * + +Even before Neergard's illness Ruthven's domestic and financial affairs +were in a villainous mess. Rid of Neergard, he had meant to deal him a +crashing blow at the breakaway which would settle him for ever and +incidentally bring to a crisis his own status in regard to his wife. + +Whether or not his wife was mentally competent he did not know; he did +not know anything about her. But he meant to. Selwyn's threat, still +fairly fresh in his memory, had given him no definite idea of Alixe, her +whereabouts, her future plans, and whether or not her mental condition +was supposed to be permanently impaired or otherwise. + +That she had been, and probably now was, under Selwyn's protection he +believed; what she and Selwyn intended to do he did not know. But he +wanted to know; he dared not ask Selwyn--dared not, because he was +horribly afraid of Selwyn; dared not yet make a legal issue of their +relations, of her sequestration, or of her probable continued infirmity, +because of his physical fear of the man. + +But there was--or he thought that there had been--one way to begin the +matter, because the matter must sooner or later be begun: and that was +to pretend to assume Neergard responsible; and, on the strength of his +wife's summer sojourn aboard the _Niobrara_, turn on Neergard and demand +a reckoning which he believed Selwyn would never hear of, because he did +not suppose Neergard dared defend the suit, and would sooner or later +compromise. Which would give him what he wanted to begin with, money, +and the entering wedge against the wife he meant to be rid of in one way +or another, even if he had to swear out a warrant against Selwyn before +he demanded a commission to investigate her mental condition. + +Ruthven was too deadly afraid of Selwyn to begin suit at that stage of +the proceedings. All he could do was to start, through his attorneys, a +search for his wife, and meanwhile try to formulate some sort of +definite plan in regard to Gladys Orchil; for if that featherbrained +youngster went abroad in the spring he meant to follow her and not only +have the Atlantic between him and Selwyn when he began final suit for +freedom, but also be in a position to ride off any of the needy +household cavalry who might come caracolling and cavorting too close to +the young girl he had selected to rehabilitate the name, fortune, and +house of Ruthven. + +This, in brief, was Ruthven's general scheme of campaign; and the entire +affair had taken some sort of shape, and was slowly beginning to move, +when Neergard's illness came as an absolute check, just as the first +papers were about to be served on him. + +There was nothing to do but wait until Neergard got well, because his +attorneys simply scoffed at any suggestion of settlement _ex curia_, and +Ruthven didn't want a suit involving his wife's name while he and +Selwyn were in the same hemisphere. + +But he could still continue an unobtrusive search for the whereabouts of +his wife, which he did. And the chances were that his attorneys would +find her without great difficulty, because Selwyn had not the slightest +suspicion that he was being followed. + + * * * * * + +In these days Selwyn's life was methodical and colourless in its routine +to the verge of dreariness. + +When he was not at the Government proving grounds on Sandy Hook he +remained in his room at Lansing's, doggedly forcing himself into the +only alternate occupation sufficient to dull the sadness of his +mind--the preparation of a history of British military organisation in +India, and its possible application to present conditions in the +Philippines. + +He had given up going out--made no further pretense; and Boots let him +alone. + +Once a week he called at the Gerards', spending most of his time while +there with the children. Sometimes he saw Nina and Eileen, usually just +returned or about to depart for some function; and his visit, as a rule, +ended with a cup of tea alone with Austin, and a quiet cigar in the +library, where Kit-Ki sat, paws folded under, approving of the fireside +warmth in a pleasureable monotone. + +On such evenings, late, if Nina and Eileen had gone to a dance, or to +the opera with Boots, Austin, ruddy with well-being and shamelessly +slippered, stretched luxuriously in the fire warmth, lazily discussing +what was nearest to him--his children and wife, and the material comfort +which continued to attend him with the blessing of that heaven which +seems so largely occupied in fulfilling the desires of the good for +their own commercial prosperity. + +Too, he had begun to show a peculiar pride in the commercial development +of Gerald, speaking often of his gratifying application to business, the +stability of his modest position, the friends he was making among men of +substance, their regard for him. + +"Not that the boy is doing much of a business yet," he would say with a +tolerant shrug of his big fleshy shoulders, "but he's laying the +foundation for success--a good, upright, solid foundation--with the +doubtful scheming of Neergard left out"--at that time Neergard had not +yet gone to pieces, physically--"and I expect to aid him when aid is +required, and to extend to him, judiciously, such assistance, from time +to time, as I think he may require. . . . There's one thing--" + +Austin puffed once or twice at his cigar and frowned; and Selwyn, +absently watching the dying embers on the hearth, waited in silence. + +"One thing," repeated Austin, reaching for the tongs and laying a log of +white birch across the coals; "and that is Gerald's fondness for pretty +girls. . . . Not that it isn't all right, too, but I hope he isn't going +to involve himself--hang a millstone around his neck before he can see +his way clear to some promise of a permanent income based on--" + +"Pooh!" said Selwyn. + +"What's that?" demanded Austin, turning red. + +Selwyn laughed. "What did you have when you married my sister?" + +Austin, still red and dignified, said: + +"Your sister is a very remarkable woman--extremely unusual. I had the +good sense to see that the first time I ever met her." + +"Gerald will see the same thing when his time comes," said Selwyn +quietly. "Don't worry, Austin; he's sound at the core." + +Austin considered his cigar-end, turning it round and round. "There's +good stock in the boy; I always knew it--even when he acted like a +yellow pup. You see, Phil, that my treatment of him was the proper +treatment. I was right in refusing to mollycoddle him or put up with any +of his callow, unbaked impudence. You know yourself that you wanted me +to let up on him--make all kinds of excuses. Why, man, if I had given +him an inch leeway he'd have been up to his ears in debt. But I was +firm. He saw I'd stand no fooling. He didn't dare contract debts which +he couldn't pay. So now, Phil, you can appreciate the results of my +attitude toward him." + +"I can, indeed," said Selwyn thoughtfully. + +"I think I've made a man of him," persisted Austin. + +"He's certainly a manly fellow," nodded Selwyn. + +"You admit it?" + +"Certainly, Austin." + +"Well, I'm glad of it. You thought me harsh--oh, I know you did!--but I +don't blame you. I knew what I was about. Why, Phil, if I hadn't taken +the firm stand I took that boy would have been running to Nina and +Eileen--he did go to his sister once, but he never dared try it +again!--and he'd probably have borrowed money of Neergard and--by Jove! +he might even have come to you to get him out of his scrapes!" + +"Oh, scarcely that," protested Selwyn with grave humour. + +"That's all you know about it," nodded Austin, wise-eyed, smoking +steadily. "And all I have to say is that it's fortunate for everybody +that I stood my ground when he came around looking for trouble. For +you're just the sort of a man, Phil, who'd be likely to strip yourself +if that young cub came howling for somebody to pay his debts of honour. +Admit it, now; you know you are." + +But Selwyn only smiled and looked into the fire. + +After a few moments' silence Austin said curiously: "You're a frugal +bird. You used to be fastidious. Do you know that coat of yours is +nearly the limit?" + +"Nonsense," said Selwyn, colouring. + +"It is. . . . What do you do with your money? Invest it, of course; but +you ought to let me place it. You never spend any; you should have a +decent little sum tucked away by this time. Do your Chaosite experiments +cost anything now?" + +"No; the Government is conducting them." + +"Good business. What does the bally Government think of the powder, +now?" + +"I can't tell yet," said Selwyn listlessly. "There's a plate due to +arrive to-morrow; it represents a section of the side armour of one of +the new 22,000-ton battleships. . . . I hope to crack it." + +"Oh!--with a bursting charge?" + +Selwyn nodded, and rested his head on his hand. + +A little later Austin cast the remains of his cigar from him, +straightened up, yawned, patted his waistcoat, and looked wisely at the +cat. + +"I'm going to bed," he announced. "Boots is to bring back Nina +and Eileen. . . . You don't mind, do you, Phil? I've a busy day +to-morrow. . . . There's Scotch over there--you know where things are. +Ring if you have a sudden desire for anything funny like peacock +feathers on toast. There's cold grouse somewhere underground if you're +going to be an owl. . . . And don't feed that cat on the rugs. . . . +Good-night." + +"Good-night," nodded Selwyn, relighting his cigar. + +He had no intention of remaining very long; he supposed that his sister +and Eileen would be out late, wherever they were, and he merely meant to +dream a bit longer before going back to bed. + +He had been smoking for half an hour perhaps, lying deep in his chair, +worn features dully illuminated by the sinking fire; and he was thinking +about going--had again relighted his partly consumed cigar to help him +with its fragrant companionship on his dark route homeward, when he +heard a footfall on the landing, and turned to catch a glimpse of Gerald +in overcoat and hat, moving silently toward the stairs. + +"Hello, old fellow!" he said, surprised. "I didn't know you were in the +house." + +The boy hesitated, turned, placed something just outside the doorway, +and came quickly into the room. + +"Philip!" he said with a curious, excited laugh, "I want to ask you +something. I never yet came to you without asking something and--you +never have failed me. Would you tell me now what I had better do?" + +"Certainly," said Selwyn, surprised and smiling; "ask me, old fellow. +You're not eloping with some nice girl, are you?" + +"Yes," said Gerald, calm in his excitement, "I am." + +"What?" repeated Selwyn gravely; "what did you say? + +"You guessed it. I came home and dressed and I'm going back to the +Craigs' to marry a girl whose mother and father won't let me have her." + +"Sit down, Gerald," said Selwyn, removing the cigar from his lips; but: + +"I haven't time," said the boy. "I simply want to know what you'd do if +you loved a girl whose mother means to send her to London to get rid +of me and marry her to that yawning Elliscombe fellow who was over +here. . . . What would you do? She's too young to stand much of a siege +in London--some Englishman will get her if he persists--and I mean to +make her love me." + +"Oh! Doesn't she?" + +"Y-es. . . . You know how young girls are. Yes, she does--now. But a +year or two with that crowd--and the duchess being good to her, and +Elliscombe yawning and looking like a sleepy Lohengrin or some damned +prince in his Horse Guards' helmet!--Selwyn, I can see the end of it. +She can't stand it; she's too young not to get over it. . . . So, what +would you do?" + +"Who is she, Gerald?" + +"I won't tell you." + +"Oh! . . . Of course she's the right sort?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Young?" + +"Very. Out last season." + +Selwyn rose and began to pace the floor; Kit-Ki, disturbed, looked up, +then resumed her purring. + +"There's nothing dishonourable in this, of course," said Selwyn, halting +short. + +"No," said the boy. "I went to her mother and asked for her, and was +sent about my business. Then I went to her father. You know him. He was +decent, bland, evasive, but decent. Said his daughter needed a couple of +seasons in London; hinted of some prior attachment. Which is rot; +because she loves me--she admits it. Well, I said to him, 'I'm going to +marry Gladys'; and he laughed and tried to look at his moustache; and +after a while he asked to be excused. I took the count. Then I saw +Gladys at the Craigs', and I said, 'Gladys, if you'll give up the whole +blooming heiress business and come with me, I'll make you the happiest +girl in Manhattan.' And she looked me straight in the eyes and said, +'I'd rather grow up with you than grow old forgetting you.'" + +"Did she say that?" asked Selwyn. + +"She said,'We've the greatest chance in the world, Gerald, to make +something of each other. Is it a good risk?' And I said, 'It is the best +risk in the world if you love me.' And she said, 'I do, dearly; I'll +take my chance.' And that's how it stands, Philip. . . . She's at the +Craigs'--a suit-case and travelling-gown upstairs. Suddy Gray and Betty +Craig are standing for it, and"--with a flush--"there's a little church, +you know--" + +"Around the corner. I know. Did you telephone?" + +"Yes." + +There was a pause; the older man dropped his hands into his pockets and +stepped quietly in front of Gerald; and for a full minute they looked +squarely at one another, unwinking. + +"Well?" asked Gerald, almost tremulously. "Can't you say, 'Go ahead!'?" + +"Don't ask me." + +"No, I won't," said the boy simply. "A man doesn't ask about such +matters; he does them. . . . Tell Austin and Nina. . . . And give this +note to Eileen." He opened a portfolio and laid an envelope in Selwyn's +hands. "And--by George!--I almost forgot! Here"--and he laid a check +across the note in Selwyn's hand--"here's the balance of what you've +advanced me. Thank God, I've made it good, every cent. But the debt is +only the deeper. . . . Good-bye, Philip." + +Selwyn held the boy's hand a moment. Once or twice Gerald thought he +meant to speak, and waited, but when he became aware of the check thrust +back at him he forced it on Selwyn again, laughing: + +"No! no! If I did not stand clear and free in my shoes do you think I'd +dare do what I'm doing? Do you suppose I'd ask a girl to face with me a +world in which I owed a penny? Do you suppose I'm afraid of that +world?--or of a soul in it? Do you suppose I can't take a living out of +it?" + +Suddenly Selwyn crushed the boy's hand. + +"Then take it!--and her, too!" he said between his teeth; and turned on +his heel, resting his arms on the mantel and his head face downward +between them. + +So Gerald went away in the pride and excitement of buoyant youth to take +love as he found it and where he found it--though he had found it only +as the green bud of promise which unfolds, not to the lover, but to +love. And the boy was only one of many on whom the victory might have +fallen; but such a man becomes the only man when he takes what he finds +for himself--green bud, half blown, or open to its own deep fragrant +heart. To him that hath shall be given, and much forgiven. For it is the +law of the strong and the prophets: and a little should be left to that +Destiny which the devout revere under a gentler name. + + * * * * * + +The affair made a splash in the social puddle, and the commotion spread +outside of it. Inside the nine-and-seventy cackled; outside similar +gallinaceous sounds. Neergard pored all day over the blue-pencilled +column, and went home, stunned; the social sheet which is taken below +stairs and read above was full of it, as was the daily press and the +mouths of people interested, uninterested, and disinterested, +legitimately or otherwise, until people began to tire of telling each +other exactly how it happened that Gerald Erroll ran away with Gladys +Orchil. + +Sanxon Orchil was widely quoted as suavely and urbanely deploring the +premature consummation of an alliance long since decided upon by both +families involved; Mrs. Orchil snapped her electric-blue eyes and held +her peace--between her very white teeth; Austin Gerard, secretly +astounded with admiration for Gerald, received the reporters with a +countenance expressive of patient pain, but downtown he made public +pretence of busy indifference, as though not fully alive to the material +benefit connected with the unexpected alliance. Nina wept--happily at +moments--at moments she laughed--because she had heard all about the +famous British invasion planned by the Orchils and abetted by +Anglo-American aristocracy. She did not laugh too maliciously; she +simply couldn't help it. Her set was not the Orchils' set, their ways +were not her ways; their orbits merely intersected occasionally; and, +left to herself and the choice hers, she would not have troubled herself +to engineer any such alliance, even to stir up Mrs. Sanxon Orchil. +Besides, deep in her complacent little New York soul she had the +faintest germ of contempt for the Cordova ancestors of the house of +Orchil. + +But the young and silly pair had now relieved her as well as Mrs. Orchil +of any further trouble concerning themselves, the American duchess, the +campaign, and the Horse Guards: they had married each other rather +shamelessly one evening while supposed to be dancing at the Sandon +Craigs', and had departed expensively for Palm Beach, whither Austin, +grim, reticent, but inwardly immensely contented, despatched the +accumulated exclamatory letters of the family with an intimation of his +own that two weeks was long enough to cut business even with a honeymoon +as excuse. + +Meanwhile the disorganisation in the nursery was tremendous; the +children, vaguely aware of the household demoralisation and excitement, +took the opportunity to break loose on every occasion; and Kit-Ki, to +her infinite boredom and disgust, was hunted from garret to cellar; and +Drina, taking advantage, contrived to over-eat herself and sit up late, +and was put to bed sick; and Eileen, loyal, but sorrowfully amazed at +her brother's exclusion of her in such a crisis, became slowly +overwhelmed with the realisation of her loneliness, and took to the +seclusion of her own room, feeling tearful and abandoned, and very much +like a very little girl whose heart was becoming far too full of all +sorts of sorrows. + +Nina misunderstood her, finding her lying on her bed, her pale face +pillowed in her hair. + +"Only horridly ordinary people will believe that Gerald wanted her +money," said Nina; "as though an Erroll considered such matters at +all--or needed to. Clear, clean English you are, back to the cavaliers +whose flung purses were their thanks when the Cordovans held their +horses' heads. . . . What are you crying for?" + +"I don't know," said Eileen; "not for anything that you speak of. +Neither Gerald nor I ever wasted any emotion over money, or what others +think about it. . . . Is Drina ill?" + +"No; only sick. Calomel will fix her, but she believes she's close to +dissolution and she's sent for Boots to take leave of him--the little +monkey! I'm so indignant. She's taken advantage of the general +demoralisation to eat up everything in the house. . . . Billy fell +downstairs, fox-hunting, and his nose bled all over that pink Kirman +rug. . . . Boots _is_ a dear; do you know what he's done?" + +"What?" asked Eileen listlessly, raising the back of her slender hand +from her eyes to peer at Nina through the glimmer of tears. + +"Well, he and Phil have moved out of Boots's house, and Boots has wired +Gerald and Gladys that the house is ready for them until they can find a +place of their own. Of course they'll both come here--in fact, their +luggage is upstairs now--Boots takes the blue room and Phil his old +quarters, . . . But don't you think it is perfectly sweet of Boots? And +isn't it good to have Philip back again?" + +"Y-es," said Eileen faintly. Lying there, the deep azure of her eyes +starred with tears, a new tremor altered her mouth, and the tight-curled +upper lip quivered. Her heart, too, had begun its heavy, unsteady +response in recognition of her lover's name; she turned partly away from +Nina, burying her face in her brilliant hair; and beside her slim +length, straight and tense, her arms lay, the small hands contracting +till they had closed as tightly as her teeth. + +It was no child, now, who lay there, fighting down the welling +desolation; no visionary adolescent grieving over the colourless ashes +of her first romance; not even the woman, socially achieved, +intelligently and intellectually in love. It was a girl, old enough to +realise that the adoration she had given was not wholly spiritual, that +her delight in her lover and her response to him was not wholly of the +mind, not so purely of the intellect; that there was still more, +something sweeter, more painful, more bewildering that she could give +him, desired to give--nay, that she could not withhold even with sealed +eyes and arms outstretched in the darkness of wakeful hours, with her +young heart straining in her breast and her set lips crushing back the +unuttered cry. + +Love! So that was it!--the need, the pain, the bewilderment, the hot +sleeplessness, the mad audacity of a blessed dream, the flushed +awakening, stunned rapture--and then the gray truth, bleaching the rose +tints from the fading tapestries of slumberland, leaving her flung +across her pillows, staring at daybreak. + + * * * * * + +Nina had laid a cool smooth hand across her forehead, pushing back the +hair--a light caress, sensitive as an unasked question. + +But there was no response, and presently the elder woman rose and went +out along the landing, and Eileen heard her laughingly greeting Boots, +who had arrived post-haste on news of Drina's plight. + +"Don't be frightened; the little wretch carried tons of indigestible +stuff to her room and sat up half the night eating it. Where's Philip?" + +"I don't know. Here's a special delivery for him. I signed for it and +brought it from the house. He'll be here from the Hook directly, I +fancy. Where is Drina?" + +"In bed. I'll take you up. Mind you, there'll be a scene, so nerve +yourself." + +They went upstairs together. Nina knocked, peeped in, then summoned Mr. +Lansing. + +"Oh, Boots, Boots!" groaned Drina, lifting her arms and encircling his +neck, "I don't think I am ever going to get well--I don't believe it, no +matter what they say. I am glad you have come; I wanted you--and I'm +very, very sick. . . . Are you happy to be with me?" + +Boots sat on the bedside, the feverish little head in his arms, and Nina +was a trifle surprised to see how seriously he took it. + +"Boots," she said, "you look as though your last hour had come. Are you +letting that very bad child frighten you? Drina, dear, mother doesn't +mean to be horrid, but you're too old to whine. . . . It's time for the +medicine, too--" + +"Oh, mother! the nasty kind?" + +"Certainly. Boots, if you'll move aside--" + +"Let Boots give it to me!" exclaimed the child tragically. "It will do +no good; I'm not getting better; but if I must take it, let Boots hold +me--and the spoon!" + +She sat straight up in bed with a superb gesture which would have done +credit to that classical gentleman who heroically swallowed the hemlock +cocktail. Some of the dose bespattered Boots, and when the deed was done +the child fell back and buried her head on his breast, incidentally +leaving medicinal traces on his collar. + +Half an hour later she was asleep, holding fast to Boots's sleeve, and +that young gentleman sat in a chair beside her, discussing with her +pretty mother the plans made for Gladys and Gerald on their expected +arrival. + +Eileen, pale and heavy-lidded, looked in on her way to some afternoon +affair, nodding unsmiling at Boots. + +"Have you been rifling the pantry, too?" he whispered. "You lack your +usual chromatic symphony." + +"No, Boots; I'm just tired. If I wasn't physically afraid of Drina, I'd +get you to run off with me--anywhere. . . . What is that letter, Nina? +For me?" + +"It's for Phil. Boots brought it around. Leave it on the library table, +dear, when you go down." + +Eileen took the letter and turned away. A few moments later as she laid +it on the library table, her eyes involuntarily noted the superscription +written in the long, angular, fashionable writing of a woman. + +And slowly the inevitable question took shape within her. + +How long she stood there she did not know, but the points of her gloved +fingers were still resting on the table and her gaze was still +concentrated on the envelope when she felt Selwyn's presence in the +room, near, close; and looked up into his steady eyes. And knew he loved +her. + +And suddenly she broke down--for with his deep gaze in hers the +overwrought spectre had fled!--broke down, no longer doubting, bowing +her head in her slim gloved hands, thrilled to the soul with the +certitude of their unhappiness eternal, and the dreadful pleasure of her +share. + +"What is it?" he made out to say, managing also to keep his hands off +her where she sat, bowed and quivering by the table. + +"N-nothing. A--a little crisis--over now--nearly over. +It was that letter--other women writing you. . . . And +I--outlawed--tongue-tied. . . . Don't look at me, don't wait. +I--I am going out." + +He went to the window, stood a moment, came back to the table, took his +letter, and walked slowly again to the window. + +After a while he heard the rustle of her gown as she left the room, and +a little later he straightened up, passed his hand across his tired +eyes, and, looking down at the letter in his hand, broke the seal. + +It was from one of the nurses, Miss Casson, and shorter than usual: + +"Mrs. Ruthven is physically in perfect health, but yesterday we noted a +rather startling change in her mental condition. There were, during the +day, intervals that seemed perfectly lucid. Once she spoke of Miss Bond +as 'the other nurse,' as though she realised something of the conditions +surrounding her. Once, too, she seemed astonished when I brought her a +doll, and asked me:' Is there a child here? Or is it for a charity +bazaar?' + +"Later I found her writing a letter at my desk. She left it unfinished +when she went to drive--a mere scrap. I thought it best to enclose it, +which I do, herewith." + +The enclosure he opened: + +"Phil, dear, though I have been very ill I know you are my own husband. +All the rest was only a child's dream of terror--" + +And that was all--only this scrap, firmly written in the easy flowing +hand he knew so well. He studied it for a moment or two, then resumed +Miss Casson's letter: + +"A man stopped our sleigh yesterday, asking if he was not speaking to +Mrs. Ruthven. I was a trifle worried, and replied that any communication +for Mrs. Ruthven could be sent to me. + +"That evening two men--gentlemen apparently--came to the house and asked +for me. I went down to receive them. One was a Dr. Mallison, the other +said his name was Thomas B. Hallam, but gave no business address. + +"When I found that they had come without your knowledge and authority, I +refused to discuss Mrs. Ruthven's condition, and the one who said his +name was Hallam spoke rather peremptorily and in a way that made me +think he might be a lawyer. + +"They got nothing out of me, and they left when I made it plain that I +had nothing to tell them. + +"I thought it best to let you know about this, though I, personally, +cannot guess what it might mean." + +Selwyn turned the page: + +"One other matter worries Miss Bond and myself. The revolver you sent us +at my request has disappeared. We are nearly sure Mrs. Ruthven has +it--you know she once dressed it as a doll--calling it her army +doll!--but now we can't find it. She has hidden it somewhere, out of +doors in the shrubbery, we think, and Miss Bond and I expect to secure +it the next time she takes a fancy to have all her dolls out for a +'lawn-party.' + +"Dr. Wesson says there is no danger of her doing any harm with it, but +wants us to secure it at the first opportunity--" + +He turned the last page; on the other side was merely the formula of +leave-taking and Miss Casson's signature. + +For a while he stood in the centre of the room, head bent, narrowing +eyes fixed; then he folded the letter, pocketed it, and walked to the +table where a directory lay. + +He found the name, Hallam, very easily--Thomas B. Hallam, lawyer, junior +in the firm of Spencer, Boyd & Hallam. They were attorneys for Jack +Ruthven; he knew that. + +Mallison he also found--Dr. James Mallison, who, it appeared, conducted +some sort of private asylum on Long Island. + +And when he had found what he wanted, he went to the telephone and rang +up Mr. Ruthven, but the servant who answered the telephone informed him +that Mr. Ruthven was not in town. + +So Selwyn hung up the receiver and sat down, thoughtful, grim, the trace +of a scowl creeping across his narrowing gray eyes. + +Of the abject cowardice of Ruthven he had been so certain that he had +hitherto discounted any interference from him. Yet, now, the man was +apparently preparing for some sort of interference. What did he want? +Selwyn had contemptuously refused to permit him to seek a divorce on the +ground of his wife's infirmity. What was the man after? + + * * * * * + +The man was after his divorce, that was what it all meant. His first +check on the long trail came with the stupefying news of Gerald's +runaway marriage to the young girl he was laying his own plans to marry +some day in the future, and at first the news staggered him, leaving him +apparently no immediate incentive for securing his freedom. + +But Ruthven instantly began to realise that what he had lost he might +not have lost had he been free to shoulder aside the young fellow who +had forestalled him. The chance had passed--that particular chance. But +he'd never again allow himself to be caught in a position where such a +chance could pass him by because he was not legally free to at least +make the effort to seize it. + +Fear in his soul had kept him from blazoning his wife's infirmity to the +world as cause for an action against her; but he remembered Neergard's +impudent cruise with her on the _Niobrara_, and he had temporarily +settled on that as a means to extort revenue, not intending such an +action should ever come to trial. And then he learned that Neergard had +gone to pieces. That was the second check. + +Ruthven needed money. He needed it because he meant to put the ocean +between himself and Selwyn before commencing any suit--whatever ground +he might choose for entering such a suit. He required capital on which +to live abroad during the proceedings, if that could be legally +arranged. And meanwhile, preliminary to any plan of campaign, he desired +to know where his wife was and what might he her actual physical and +mental condition. + +He had supposed her to be, or to have been, ill--at least erratic and +not to be trusted with her own freedom; therefore he had been quite +prepared to hear from those whom he employed to trace and find her that +she was housed in some institution devoted to the incarceration of such +unfortunates. + +But Ruthven was totally unprepared for the report brought him by a +private agency to the effect that Mrs. Ruthven was apparently in perfect +health, living in the country, maintaining a villa and staff of +servants; that she might be seen driving a perfectly appointed Cossack +sleigh any day with a groom on the rumble and a companion beside her; +that she seemed to be perfectly sane, healthy in body and mind, +comfortable, happy, and enjoying life under the protection of a certain +Captain Selwyn, who paid all her bills and, at certain times, was seen +entering or leaving her house at Edgewater. + +Excited, incredulous, but hoping for the worst, Ruthven had posted off +to his attorneys. To them he naïively confessed his desire to be rid of +Alixe; he reported her misconduct with Neergard--which he knew was a +lie--her pretence of mental prostration, her disappearance, and his +last interview with Selwyn in the card-room. He also gave a vivid +description of that gentleman's disgusting behaviour, and his threats of +violence during that interview. + +To all of which his attorneys listened very attentively, bade him have +no fear of his life, requested him to make several affidavits, and leave +the rest to them for the present. + +Which he did, without hearing from them until Mr. Hallam telegraphed him +to come to Edgewater if he had nothing better to do. + +And Ruthven had just arrived at that inconspicuous Long Island village +when his servant, at the telephone, replied to Selwyn's inquiry that his +master was out of town. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Hallam was a very busy, very sanguine, very impetuous young man; and +when he met Ruthven at the Edgewater station he told him promptly that +he had the best case on earth; that he, Hallam, was going to New York on +the next train, now almost due, and that Ruthven had better drive over +and see for himself how gaily his wife maintained her household; for the +Cossack sleigh, with its gay crimson tchug, had but just returned from +the usual afternoon spin, and the young chatelaine of Willow Villa was +now on the snow-covered lawn, romping with the coachman's huge white +wolf-hound. . . . It might he just as well for Ruthven to stroll up that +way and see for himself. The house was known as the Willow Villa. Any +hackman could drive him past it. + +As Hallam was speaking the New York train came thundering in, and the +young lawyer, facing the snowy clouds of steam, swung his suit-case and +himself aboard. On the Pullman platform he paused and looked around and +down at Ruthven. + +"It's just as you like," he said. "If you'd rather come back with me on +this train, come ahead! It isn't absolutely necessary that you make a +personal inspection now; only that fellow Selwyn is not here to-day, and +I thought if you wanted to look about a bit you could do it this +afternoon without chance of running into him and startling the whole +mess boiling." + +"Is Captain Selwyn in town?" asked Ruthven, reddening. + +"Yes; an agency man telephoned me that he's just back from Sandy Hook--" + +The train began to move out of the station. Ruthven hesitated, then +stepped away from the passing car with a significant parting nod to +Hallam. + +As the train, gathering momentum, swept past him, he stared about at the +snow-covered station, the guard, the few people congregated there. + +"There's another train at four, isn't there?" he asked an official. + +"Four-thirty, express. Yes, sir." + +A hackman came up soliciting patronage. Ruthven motioned him to follow, +leading the way to the edge of the platform. + +"I don't want to drive to the village. What have you got there, a +sleigh?" + +It was the usual Long Island depot-wagon, on runners instead of wheels. + +"Do you know the Willow Villa?" demanded Ruthven. + +"Wilier Viller, sir? Yes, sir. Step right this way--" + +"Wait!" snapped Ruthven. "I asked you if you knew it; I didn't say I +wanted to go there." + +The hackman in his woolly greatcoat stared at the little dapper, +smooth-shaven man, who eyed him in return, coolly insolent, lighting a +cigar. + +"I don't want to go to the Willow Villa," said Ruthven; "I want you to +drive me past it." + +"Sir?" + +"_Past_ it. And then turn around and drive back here. Is that plain?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Ruthven got into the closed body of the vehicle, rubbed the frost from +the window, and peeked out. The hackman, unhitching his lank horse, +climbed to the seat, gathered the reins, and the vehicle started to the +jangling accompaniment of a single battered cow-bell. + +The melancholy clamour of the bell annoyed little Mr. Ruthven; he was +horribly cold, too, even in his fur coat. Also the musty smell of the +ancient vehicle annoyed him as he sat, half turned around, peeping out +of the rear window into the white tree-lined road. + +There was nothing to see but the snowy road flanked by trees and stark +hedges; nothing but the flat expanse of white on either side, broken +here and there by patches of thin woodlands or by some old-time +farmhouse with its slab shingles painted white and its green shutters +and squat roof. + +"What a God-forsaken place," muttered little Mr. Ruthven with a hard +grimace. "If she's happy in this sort of a hole there's no doubt she's +some sort of a lunatic." + +He looked out again furtively, thinking of what the agency had reported +to him. How was it possible for any human creature to live in such a +waste and be happy and healthy and gay, as they told him his wife was. +What could a human being do to kill the horror of such silent, deathly +white isolation? Drive about in it in a Cossack sleigh, as they said she +did? Horror! + +The driver pulled up short, then began to turn his horse. Ruthven +squinted out of the window, but saw no sign of a villa. Then he rapped +sharply on the forward window, motioning the driver to descend, come +around, and open the door. + +When the man appeared Ruthven demanded why he had turned his horse, and +the hackman, pointing to a wooded hill to the west, explained that the +Willow Villa stood there. + +Ruthven had supposed that the main road passed the house; he got out of +the covered wagon, looked across at the low hill, and dug his gloved +hands deeper into his fur-lined pockets. + +For a while he stood in the snow, stolid, thoughtful, puffing his cigar. +A half-contemptuous curiosity possessed him to see his wife once more +before he discarded her; see what she looked like, whether she appeared +normal and in possession of the small amount of sense he had +condescended to credit her with. + +Besides, here was a safe chance to see her. Selwyn was in New York, and +the absolute certainty of his personal safety attracted him strongly, +rousing all the latent tyranny in his meagre soul. + +Probably--but he didn't understand the legal requirements of the matter, +and whether or not it was necessary for him personally to see this place +where Selwyn maintained her, and see her in it--probably he would be +obliged to come here again with far less certainty of personal security +from Selwyn. Perhaps that future visit might even be avoided if he took +this opportunity to investigate. Whether it was the half-sneering +curiosity to see his wife, or the hope of doing a thing now which, by +the doing, he need not do later--whether it was either of these that +moved him to the impulse, is not quite clear. + +He said to the hackman: "You wait here. I'm going over to the Willow +Villa for a few moments, and then I'll want you to drive me back to the +station in time for that four-thirty. Do you understand?" + +The man said he understood, and Ruthven, bundled in his fur coat, picked +his way across the crust, through a gateway, and up what appeared to be +a hedged lane. + +The lane presently disclosed itself as an avenue, now doubly lined with +tall trees; this avenue he continued to follow, passing through a grove +of locusts, and came out before a house on the low crest of a hill. + +There were clumps of evergreens about, tall cedars, a bit of bushy +foreland, and a stretch of snow. And across this open space of snow a +young girl was moving, followed by a white wolf-hound. Once she paused, +hesitated, looked cautiously around her. Ruthven, hiding behind a bush, +saw her thrust her arm into a low evergreen shrub and draw out a shining +object that glittered like glass. Then she started toward the house +again. + +At first Ruthven thought she was his wife, then he was not sure, and he +cast his cigar away and followed, slinking forward among the evergreens. +But the youthful fur-clad figure kept straight on to the veranda of the +house, and Ruthven, curious and determined to find out whether it was +Alixe or not, left the semi-shelter of the evergreens and crossed the +open space just as the woman's figure disappeared around an angle of the +veranda. + +Vexed, determined not to return without some definite discovery, Ruthven +stepped upon the veranda. Just around the angle of the porch he heard a +door opening, and he hurried forward impatient and absolutely unafraid, +anxious to get one good look at his wife and be off. + +But when he turned the angle of the porch there was no one there; only +an open door confronted him, with a big, mild-eyed wolf-hound standing +in the doorway, looking steadily up at him. + +Ruthven glanced somewhat dubiously at the dog, then, as the animal made +no offensive movement, he craned his fleshy neck, striving to see inside +the house. + +He did see--nothing very much--only the same young girl, still in her +furs, emerging from an inner room, her arms full of dolls. + +In his eagerness to see more, Ruthven pushed past the great white dog, +who withdrew his head disdainfully from the unceremonious contact, but +quietly followed Ruthven into the house, standing beside him, watching +him out of great limpid, deerlike eyes. + +But Ruthven no longer heeded the dog. His amused and slightly sneering +gaze was fastened on the girl in furs who had entered what appeared to +be a living room to the right, and now, down on her knees beside a +couch, smiling and talking confidentially and quite happily to herself, +was placing her dolls in a row against the wall. + +The dolls were of various sorts, some plainly enough home-made, some +very waxy and gay in sash and lace, some with polished smiling features +of porcelain. One doll, however, was different--a bit of ragged red +flannel and something protruding to represent the head, something that +glittered. And the girl in the fur jacket had this curious doll in +her hands when Ruthven, to make sure of her identity, took a quick +impulsive step forward. + +[Illustration: "With the acrid smell of smoke choking her."] + +Then the great white dog growled, very low, and the girl in the fur +jacket looked around and up quickly. + +Alixe! He realised it as she caught his pale eyes fixed on her; and she +stared, sprang to her feet still staring. Then into her eyes leaped +terror, the living horror of recognition distorting her face. And, as +she saw he meant to speak she recoiled, shrinking away, turning in her +fright like a hunted thing. The strange doll in her hand glittered; it +was a revolver wrapped in a red rag. + +"W-what's the matter?" he stammered, stepping forward, fearful of the +weapon she clutched. + +But at the sound of his voice she screamed, crept back closer against +the wall, screamed again, pushing the shining muzzle of the weapon deep +into her fur jacket above her breast. + +"F-for God's sake!" he gasped, "don't fire!--don't--" + +She closed both eyes and pulled the trigger; something knocked her flat +against the wall, but she heard no sound of a report, and she pulled the +trigger again and felt another blow. + +The second blow must have knocked her down, for she found herself rising +to her knees, reaching for the table to aid her. But her hand was all +red and slippery; she looked at it stupidly, fell forward, rose again, +with the acrid smell of smoke choking her, and her pretty fur jacket all +soaked with the warm wet stuff which now stained both hands. + +Then she got to her knees once more, groped in the rushing darkness, +and swayed forward, falling loosely and flat. And this time she did not +try to rise. + + * * * * * + +It was her way; it had always been her way out of trouble; the quickest, +easiest escape from what she did not choose to endure. And even when in +her mind the light of reason had gone out for ever, she had not lost +that instinct for escape; and, wittingly or not, she had taken the old +way out of trouble--the shortest, quickest way. And where it leads--she +knew at last, lying there on her face, her fur jacket and her little +hands so soiled and red. + +As for the man, they finally contrived to drag the dog from him, and +lift him to the couch, where he lay twitching among the dolls for a +while; then stopped twitching. + +Later in the night men came with lanterns who carried him away. A doctor +said that there was the usual chance for partial recovery. But it was +the last excitement he could ever venture to indulge in. His own doctors +had warned him often enough. Now he had learned something, but not as +much as Alixe had already learned. And perhaps he never would; but no +man knows such things with the authority to speak of them. + + + + +ARS AMORIS + + +Nine days is the period of time allotted the human mind in which to +wonder at anything. In New York the limit is much less; no tragedy can +hold the boards as long as that where the bill must be renewed three +times u day to hold even the passing attention of those who themselves +are eternal understudies in the continuous metropolitan performance. It +is very expensive for the newspapers, but fortunately for them there is +always plenty of trouble in the five boroughs, and an occasional +catastrophe elsewhere to help out. + +So they were grateful enough that the Edgewater tragedy lasted them +forty-eight hours, and on the forty-ninth they forgot it. + +In society it was about the same. Ruthven was evidently done for; that +the spark of mere vitality might linger for years in the exterior shell +of him familiar to his world, concerned that world no more. Interest in +him was laid aside with the perfunctory finality with which the memory +of Alixe was laid away. + +As for Selwyn, a few people noticed his presence at the services; but +even that episode was forgotten before he left the city, six hours +later, under an invitation from Washington which admitted of no delay on +the score of private business or of personal perplexity. For the summons +was peremptory, and his obedience so immediate that a telegram to Austin +comprised and concluded the entire ceremony of his leave-taking. + +Later he wrote a great many letters to Eileen Erroll--not one of which +he ever sent. But the formality of his silence was no mystery to her; +and her response was silence as profound as the stillness in her soul. +But deep into her young heart something new had been born, faint fire, +latent, unstirred; and her delicate lips rested one on the other in the +sensitive curve of suspense; and her white fingers, often now +interlinked, seemed tremulously instinct with the exquisite tension +hushing body and soul in breathless accord as they waited in unison. + + * * * * * + +Toward the end of March the special service battleship squadron of the +North Atlantic fleet commenced testing Chaosite in the vicinity of the +Southern rendezvous. Both main and secondary batteries were employed. +Selwyn had been aboard the flag-ship for nearly a month. + +In April the armoured ships left the Southern drill ground and began to +move northward. A destroyer took Selwyn across to the great fortress +inside the Virginia Capes and left him there. During his stay there was +almost constant firing; later he continued northward as far as +Washington; but it was not until June that he telegraphed Austin: + + "Government satisfied. Appropriation certain next session. Am on my + way to New York." + +Austin, in his house, which was now dismantled for the summer, +telephoned Nina at Silverside that he had been detained and might not be +able to grace the festivities which were to consist of a neighbourhood +dinner to the younger set in honour of Mrs. Gerald. But he said nothing +about Selwyn, and Nina did not suspect that her brother's arrival in +New York had anything to do with Austin's detention. + +There was in Austin a curious substreak of sentiment which seldom came +to the surface except where his immediate family was involved. In his +dealings with others he avoided it; even with Gerald and Eileen there +had been little of this sentiment apparent. But where Selwyn was +concerned, from the very first days of their friendship, he had always +felt in his heart very close to the man whose sister he had married, and +was always almost automatically on his guard to avoid any expression of +that affection. Once he had done so, or attempted to, when Selwyn first +arrived from the Philippines, and it made them both uncomfortable to the +verge of profanity, but remained as a shy source of solace to them both. + +And now as Selwyn came leisurely up the front steps, Austin, awaiting +him feverishly, hastened to smooth the florid jocose mask over his +features, and walked into the room, big hand extended, large bantering +voice undisturbed by the tremor of a welcome which filled his heart and +came near filling his eyes: + +"So you've stuck the poor old Government at last, have you? Took 'em all +in--forts, fleet, and the marine cavalry?" + +"Sure thing," said Selwyn, laughing in the crushing grasp of the big +fist. "How are you, Austin? Everybody's in the country, I suppose," +glancing around at the linen-shrouded furniture. "How is Nina? And the +kids? . . . Good business! . . . And Eileen?" + +"She's all right," said Austin; "gad! she's really a superb specimen +this summer. . . . You know she rather eased off last winter--got white +around the gills and blue under the eyes. . . . Some heart trouble--we +all thought it was you. Young girls have such notions sometimes, and I +told Nina, but she sat on me. . . . Where's your luggage? Oh, is it all +here?--enough, I mean, for us to catch a train for Silverside this +afternoon." + +"Has Nina any room for me?" asked Selwyn. + +"Room! Certainly. I didn't tell her you were coming, because if you +hadn't, the kids would have been horribly disappointed. She and Eileen +are giving a shindy for Gladys--that's Gerald's new acquisition, you +know. So if you don't mind butting into a baby-show we'll run down. It's +only the younger bunch from Hitherwood House and Brookminster. What do +you say, Phil?" + +Selwyn said that he would go--hesitating before consenting. A curious +feeling of age and grayness had suddenly come over him--a hint of +fatigue, of consciousness that much of life lay behind him. + +Yet in his face and in his bearing he could not have shown much of it, +though at his deeply sun-burned temples the thick, close-cut hair was +silvery; for Austin said with amused and at the same time fretful +emphasis: "How the devil you keep the youth" in your face and figure I +don't understand! I'm only forty-five--that's scarcely eight years older +than you are! And look at my waistcoat! And look at my hair--I mean +where the confounded ebb has left the tide-mark! Gad, I'd scarcely blame +Eileen for thinking you qualified for a cradle-snatcher. . . . And, by +the way, that Gladys girl is more of a woman than you'd believe. I +observe that Gerald wears that peculiarly speak-easy-please expression +which is a healthy sign that he's being managed right from the +beginning." + +"I had an idea she was all right," said Selwyn, smiling. + +"Well, she is. People will probably say that she 'made' Gerald. +However," added Austin modestly, "I shall never deny it--though you know +what part I've had in the making and breaking of him, don't you?" + +"Yes," replied Selwyn, without a smile. + +Austin went to the telephone and called up his house at Silverside, +saying that he'd be down that evening with a guest. + +Nina got the message just as she had arranged her tables; but woman is +born to sorrow and heiress to all the unlooked-for idiocies of man. + +"Dear," she said to Eileen, the tears of uxorial vexation drying unshed +in her pretty eyes, "Austin has thought fit to seize upon this moment to +bring a man down to dinner. So if you are dressed would you kindly see +that the tables are rearranged, and then telephone somebody to fill +in--two girls, you know. The oldest Craig girl might do for one. Beg her +mother to let her come." + +Eileen was being laced, but she walked to the door of Nina's room, +followed by her little Alsatian maid, who deftly continued her offices +_en route_. + +"Whom is Austin bringing?" she asked. + +"He didn't say. Can't you think of a second girl to get? Isn't it +vexing! Of course there's nobody left--nobody ever fills in in the +country. . . . Do you know, I'll be driven into letting Drina sit up +with us!--for sheer lack of material. I suppose the little imp will have +a fit if I suggest it, and probably perish of indigestion to-morrow." + +Eileen laughed. "Oh, Nina, _do_ let Drina come this once! It can't hurt +her--she'll look so quaint. The child's nearly fifteen, you know; do let +me put up her hair. Boots will take her in." + +"Well, you and Austin can administer the calomel to-morrow, then. . . . +And do ring up Daisy Craig; tell her mother I'm desperate, and that she +and Drina can occupy the same hospital to-morrow." + +And so it happened that among the jolly youthful throng which clustered +around the little candle-lighted tables in the dining-room at +Silverside, Drina, in ecstasy, curly hair just above the nape of her +slim white neck, and cheeks like pink fire, sat between Boots and a +vacant chair reserved for her tardy father. + +For Nina had waited as long as she dared; then Boots had been summoned +to take in Drina and the youthful Craig girl; and, as there were to have +been six at a table, at that particular table sat Boots decorously +facing Eileen, with the two children on either hand and two empty chairs +flanking Eileen. + +A jolly informality made up for Austin's shortcoming; Gerald and his +pretty bride were the centres of delighted curiosity from the Minster +twins and the Innis girls and Evelyn Cardwell--all her intimates. And +the younger Draymores, the Grays, Lawns, and Craigs were there in +force--gay, noisy, unembarrassed young people who seemed scarcely +younger or gayer than the young matron, their hostess. + +As for Gladys, it was difficult to think of her as married; and to Boots +Drina whispered blissfully: "I look almost as old; I know I do. After +this I shall certainly make no end of a fuss if they don't let me dine +with them. Besides, you want me to, don't you, Boots?" + +"Of course I do." + +"And--am I quite as entertaining to you as older girls, Boots, dear?" + +"Far more entertaining," said that young man promptly. "In fact, I've +about decided to cut out all the dinners where you're not invited. It's +only three more years, anyway, before you're asked about, and if I omit +three years of indigestible dinners I'll be in better shape to endure +the deluge after you appear and make your bow." + +"When I make my bow," murmured the child; "oh, Boots, I am in such a +hurry to make it! It doesn't seem as if I _could_ wait three more long, +awful, disgusting years! . . . How does my hair look?" + +"Adorable," he said, smiling across at Eileen, who had heard the +question. + +"Do you think my arms are very thin? Do you?" insisted Drina. + +"Dreams of Grecian perfection," explained Boots. And, lowering his +voice, "You ought not to eat _everything_ they bring you; there'll be +doings to-morrow if you do. Eileen is shaking her head." + +"I don't care; people don't die of overeating. And I'll take their nasty +old medicine--truly I will, Boots, if you'll come and give it to me." + +The younger Craig maiden also appeared to be bent upon self-destruction; +and Boots's eyes opened wider and wider in sheer amazement at the +capacity of woman in embryo for rations sufficient to maintain a small +garrison. + +"There'll be a couple of reports," he said to himself with a shudder, +"like Selwyn's Chaosite. And then there'll be no more Drina and +Daisy--Hello!"--he broke off, astonished--"Well, upon my word of words! +Phil Selwyn!--or I'm a broker!" + +"Phil!" exclaimed Nina.. "Oh, Austin!--and you never told us--" + +Austin, ruddy and bland, came up to make his excuses; a little whirlwind +of excitement passed like a brisk breeze over the clustered tables as +Selwyn followed; and a dozen impulsive bare arms were outstretched to +greet him as he passed, returning the bright, eager salutations on every +hand. + +"Train was late as usual," observed Austin. "Philip and I don't mean to +butt into this very grand function--Hello, Gerald! Hello, Gladys! . . . +Where's our obscure corner below the salt, Nina? . . . Oh, over there--" + +Selwyn had already caught sight of the table destined for him. A deeper +colour crept across his bronzed face as he stepped forward, and his firm +hand closed over the slim hand offered. + +For a moment neither spoke; she could not; he dared not. + +Then Drina caught his hands, and Eileen's loosened in his clasp and fell +away as the child said distinctly, "I'll kiss you after dinner; it can't +be done here, can it, Eileen?" + +"You little monkey!" exclaimed her father, astonished; "what in the name +of cruelty to kids are _you_ doing here?" + +"Mother let me," observed the child, reaching for a bonbon. "Daisy is +here; you didn't speak to her." + +"I'm past conversation," said Austin grimly, "and Daisy appears to be +also. Are they to send an ambulance for you, Miss Craig?--or will you +occupy the emergency ward upstairs?" + +"Upstairs," said Miss Craig briefly. It was all she could utter. +Besides, she was occupied with a pink cream-puff. Austin and Boots +watched her with a dreadful fascination; but she seemed competent to +manage it. + +Selwyn, beside Eileen, had ventured on the formalities--his voice +unsteady and not yet his own. + +Her loveliness had been a memory; he had supposed he realised it to +himself; but the superb, fresh beauty of the girl dazed him. There was a +strange new radiancy, a living brightness to her that seemed almost +unreal. Exquisitely unreal her voice, too, and the slightly bent head, +crowned with the splendour of her hair; and the slowly raised eyes, two +deep blue miracles tinged with the hues of paradise. + +"There's no use," sighed Drina, "I shall not be able to dance. Boots, +there's to be a dance, you know; so I'll sit on the stairs with Daisy +Craig; and you'll come to me occasionally, won't you?" + +Miss Craig yawned frightfully and made a purely mechanical move toward +an iced strawberry. Before she got it Nina gave the rising signal. + +"Are you remaining to smoke?" asked Eileen as Selwyn took her to the +doorway. "Because, if you are not--I'll wait for you." + +"Where?" he asked. + +"Anywhere. . . . Where shall I?" + +Again the twin blue miracles were lifted to his; and deep in them he saw +her young soul, waiting. + +Around them was the gay confusion, adieux, and laughter of partners +parted for the moment; Nina passed them with a smiling nod; Boots +conducted Drina to a resting-place on the stairs; outside, the hall was +thronged with the younger set, and already their partners were returning +to the tables. + +"Find me when you can get away," said Eileen, looking once more at +Selwyn; "Nina is signalling me now." + +Again, as of old, her outstretched hand--the little formality +symbolising to him the importance of all that concerned them. He touched +it. + +"_A bientôt_," she said. + +"On the lawn out there--farther out, in the starlight," he +whispered--his voice broke--"my darling--" + +She bent her head, passing slowly before him, turned, looked back, her +answer in her eyes, her lips, in every limb, every line and contour of +her, as she stood a moment, looking back. + +Austin and Boots were talking volubly when he returned to the tables now +veiled in a fine haze of aromatic smoke. Gerald stuck close to him, +happy, excited, shy by turns. Others came up on every side--young, +frank, confident fellows, nice in bearing, of good speech and manner. + +And outside waited their pretty partners of the younger set, gossiping +in hall, on stairs and veranda in garrulous bevies, all filmy silks and +laces and bright-eyed expectancy. + +The long windows were open to the veranda; Selwyn, with his arm through +Gerald's, walked to the railing and looked out across the fragrant +starlit waste. And very far away they heard the sea intoning the hymn of +the four winds. + +Then the elder man withdrew his arm and stood apart for a while. A +little later he descended to the lawn, crossed it, and walked straight +out into the waste. + +The song of the sea was rising now. In the strange little forest below, +deep among the trees, elfin lights broke out across the unseen Brier +water, then vanished. + +He halted to listen; he looked long and steadily into the darkness +around him. Suddenly he saw her--a pale blur in the dusk. + +"Eileen?" + +"Is it you, Philip?" + +She stood waiting as he came up through the purple gloom of the +moorland, the stars' brilliancy silvering her--waiting--yielding in +pallid silence to his arms, crushed in them, looking into his eyes, +dumb, wordless. + +Then slowly the pale sacrament changed as the wild-rose tint crept into +her face; her arms clung to his shoulders, higher, tightened around his +neck. And from her lips she gave into his keeping soul and body, +guiltless as God gave it, to have and to hold beyond such incidents as +death and the eternity that no man clings to save in the arms of such as +she. + + +THE END + + + + +THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY. + + * * * * * + +The Fighting Chance. + +By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by A.B. Wenzell. 12mo. Ornamental +Cloth, $1.50. + +In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a young +fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for liquor. The +heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and dangerous caprice. +The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two +weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is refreshing to find +a story about the rich in which all the women are not sawdust at heart, +nor all the men satyrs. The rich have their longings, their ideals, +their regrets, as well as the poor; they have their struggles and +inherited evils to combat. It is a big subject, painted with a big brush +and a big heart. + +"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be very good +not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting Chance' is very +good and it does not suffer."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_. + +"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia +Landis."--_New York Evening Sun_. + +"Drawn with a master hand."--_Toledo Blade_. + +"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the +end."--_Detroit Free Press_. + +"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is his +masterpiece."--_Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + +A GREAT ROMANTIC NOVEL. + +The Reckoning. + +By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by Henry Hutt. $1.50. + +"A thrilling and engrossing tale."--_New York Sun_. + +"When we say that the new work is as good as 'Cardigan' it is hardly +necessary to say more."--_The Dial_. + +"Robert Chambers' books recommend themselves. 'The Reckoning' is one of +his best and will delight lovers of good novels."--_Boston Herald_. + +"It is an exceedingly fine specimen of its class, worthy of its +predecessors and a joy to all who like plenty of swing and +spirit."--_London Bookman_. + +"Robert W. Chambers' stories of the revolutionary period in particular +show a care in historic detail that put them in a different class from +the rank and file of colonial novels."--_Book News_. + +"A stirring tale well told and absorbing. It is not a book to forget +easily and it will for many throw new light on a phase of revolutionary +history replete with interest and appeal."--_Chicago Record-Herald_. + +"Chambers' bullets whistle almost audibly in the pages; when a twig +snaps, as twigs do perforce in these chronicles, you can almost feel the +presence of the savage buck who snaps it. Then there are situations of +force and effect everywhere through the pages, an intensity of action, a +certain naturalness of dialogue and 'human nature' in the incidents. But +over all is the glamor of the Chambers fancy, the gauzy woof of an +artist's imagination which glories in tints, in poesies, in the little +whims of the brush and pencil, so that you have just a pleasant reminder +of unreality and a glimpse of the author himself here and there to vary +the interest."--_St. Louis Republic_. + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + +WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. + + * * * * * + +IOLE. + +Color inlay on the cover and many full-page illustrations, borders, +thumbnail sketches, etc., by J.C. Leyendecker, Arthur Becher, and Karl +Anderson. $1.25. + +The story of eight pretty girls and their fat poetical father, an +apostle of art "dead stuck on Nature and simplicity." + +"'Iole' is unquestionably a classic."--_San Francisco Bulletin_. + +"Mr. Chambers is a benefactor to the human race."--_Seattle +Post-Intelligencer_. + +"Quite the most amusing and delectable bit of nonsense that has come to +light for a long time."--_Life_. + +"One of the most alluring books of the season."--_Louisville +Courier-Journal_. + +"The joyous abounding charm of 'Iole' is indescribable. It is for you to +read. 'Iole' is guaranteed to drive away the blues."--_New York Press_. + +"Mr. Chambers has never shown himself more brilliant and more +imaginative than in this little satirical idyllic comedy."--_Kansas City +Star_. + +"A fresh proof of Mr. Chambers' amazing versatility."--_Everybody's +Magazine_. + +"As delicious a satire as one could want to read."--_Pittsburg +Chronicle_. + +"It is an achievement to write a genuinely funny book and another to +write a truly instructive book; but it is the greatest of achievements +to write a book that is both. This Mr. Chambers has done in +'Iole.'"--_Washington Star_. + +"Amid the outpour of the insipid 'Iole' comes as June sunshine. The +author of 'Cardigan' shows a fine touch and rarer pigments as the number +of his canvases grows. 'Iole' is a literary achievement which must +always stand in the foremost of its class."--_Chicago Evening Post_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + +By DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS. + + * * * * * + +The Second Generation. + +Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. + +"The Second Generation" is a double-decked romance in one volume, +telling the two love-stories of a young American and his sister, reared +in luxury and suddenly left without means by their father, who felt that +money was proving their ruination and disinherited them for their own +sakes. Their struggle for life, love and happiness makes a powerful +love-story of the middle West. + +"The book equals the best of the great story tellers of all +time."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_. + +"'The Second Generation,' by David Graham Phillips, is not only the most +important novel of the new year, but it is one of the most important +ones of a number of years past."--_Philadelphia Inquirer_. + +"_A_ thoroughly American book is 'The Second Generation.'. . . The +characters are drawn with force and discrimination."--_St. Louis Globe +Democrat_. + +"Mr. Phillips' book is thoughtful, well conceived, admirably written and +intensely interesting. The story 'works out' well, and though it is made +to sustain the theory of the writer it does so in a very natural and +stimulating manner. In the writing of the 'problem novel' Mr. Phillips +has won a foremost place among our younger American authors."--_Boston +Herald_. + +"'The Second Generation' promises to become one of the notable novels of +the year. It will be read and discussed while a less vigorous novel will +be forgotten within a week."--_Springfield Union_. + +"David Graham Phillips has a way, a most clever and convincing way, of +cutting through the veneer of snobbishness and bringing real men and +women to the surface. He strikes at shams, yet has a wholesome belief in +the people behind them, and he forces them to justify his good +opinions."--_Kansas City Times_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGER SET *** + +***** This file should be named 14852-8.txt or 14852-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/8/5/14852/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/14852-8.zip b/14852-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b67c23e --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-8.zip diff --git a/14852-h.zip b/14852-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..36caf7f --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h.zip diff --git a/14852-h/14852-h.htm b/14852-h/14852-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81f7e97 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/14852-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15649 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st February 2004), see www.w3.org" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. +Chambers.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. Chambers + +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: The Younger Set + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: February 1, 2005 [EBook #14852] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGER SET *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/cover.jpg"><img src= +"images/cover.jpg" width="50%" alt="" title="" /></a></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2"><b>WORKS OF ROBERT W. +CHAMBERS</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">THE YOUNGER SET</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">THE FIGHTING CHANCE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">THE TREE OF HEAVEN</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">THE RECKONING</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">IOLE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Cardigan</td> +<td>The Conspirators</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>The Maid-at-Arms</td> +<td>The Cambric Mask</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Lorraine</td> +<td>The Haunts of Men</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Maids of Paradise</td> +<td>Outsiders</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Ashes of Empire</td> +<td>A Young Man in a Hurry</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>The Red Republic</td> +<td>The Mystery of Choice</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>The King in Yellow</td> +<td>In Search of the Unknown</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>A Maker of Moons</td> +<td>In the Quarter</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2">A King and a Few Dukes</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='center' colspan="2"><b>FOR CHILDREN</b></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Garden-Land</td> +<td>Mountain-Land</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Forest-Land</td> +<td>Orchard-Land</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>River-Land</td> +<td>Outdoorland</td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +</div> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/frontispiece.jpg"><img src= +"images/frontispiece.jpg" width="40%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"Gave into his keeping soul and body."</b>—<a href= +"#Page513">Page 513</a> +<br /></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><i>The</i></h2> +<h1>YOUNGER SET</h1> +<h4>BY</h4> +<h3>ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</h3> +<h5>AUTHOR OF</h5> +<h5>"THE FIGHTING CHANCE," ETC.</h5> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/005.png" width="10%" alt="" +title="" /></div> +<h4>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h4> +<h3>G.C. WILMSHURST</h3> +<div class='center'>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> +<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +<br /> +<i>Published August, 1907</i></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h4>TO</h4> +<h3>MY MOTHER</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> +<td align='right'>CHAPTER</td> +<td> </td> +<td align='right'>PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">HIS OWN PEOPLE</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">A DREAM ENDS</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">43</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">UNDER THE ASHES</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">84</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">MID-LENT</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">119</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">AFTERGLOW</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">161</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">THE UNEXPECTED</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">194</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">ERRANDS AND LETTERS</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">SILVERSIDE</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">280</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">A NOVICE</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">324</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">LEX NON SCRIPTA</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">384</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">HIS OWN WAY</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">420</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.—</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">HER WAY</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">460</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td><a href="#ARS_AMORIS">ARS AMORIS</a></td> +<td align='right'><a href="#ARS_AMORIS">503</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE YOUNGER SET</h2> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>HIS OWN PEOPLE</h3> +<p>"You never met Selwyn, did you?"</p> +<p>"No, sir."</p> +<p>"Never heard anything definite about his trouble?" insisted +Gerard.</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, sir!" replied young Erroll, "I've heard a good deal +about it. Everybody has, you know."</p> +<p>"Well, I <i>don't</i> know," retorted Austin Gerard irritably, +"what 'everybody' has heard, but I suppose it's the usual garbled +version made up of distorted fact and malicious gossip. That's why +I sent for you. Sit down."</p> +<p>Gerald Erroll seated himself on the edge of the big, polished +table in Austin's private office, one leg swinging, an unlighted +cigarette between his lips.</p> +<p>Austin Gerard, his late guardian, big, florid, with that +peculiar blue eye which seems to characterise hasty temper, stood +by the window, tossing up and catching the glittering gold +piece—souvenir of the directors' meeting which he had just +left.</p> +<p>"What has happened," he said, "is this. Captain Selwyn is back +in town—sent up his card to me, but they told him I was +attending a directors' meeting. When the meeting was over I found +his card and a message scribbled, saying he'd recently landed and +was going uptown to call on Nina. She'll keep him there, of course, +until I get home, so I shall see him this evening. Now, before you +meet him, I want you to plainly understand the truth about this +unfortunate affair; and that's why I telephoned your gimlet-eyed +friend Neergard just now to let you come around here for half an +hour."</p> +<p>The boy nodded and, drawing a gold matchbox from his waistcoat +pocket, lighted his cigarette.</p> +<p>"Why the devil don't you smoke cigars?" growled Austin, more to +himself than to Gerald; then, pocketing the gold piece, seated +himself heavily in his big leather desk-chair.</p> +<p>"In the first place," he said, "Captain Selwyn is my +brother-in-law—which wouldn't make an atom of difference to +me in my judgment of what has happened if he had been at fault. But +the facts of the case are these." He held up an impressive +forefinger and laid it flat across the large, ruddy palm of the +other hand. "First of all, he married a cat! C-a-t, cat. Is that +clear, Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> +<p>"Good! What sort of a dance she led him out there in Manila, +I've heard. Never mind that, now. What I want you to know is how he +behaved—with what quiet dignity, steady patience, and sweet +temper under constant provocation and mortification, he conducted +himself. Then that fellow Ruthven turned up—and—Selwyn +is above that sort of suspicion. Besides, his scouts took the field +within a week."</p> +<p>He dropped a heavy, highly coloured fist on his desk with a +bang.</p> +<p>"After that hike, Selwyn came back, to find that Alixe had +sailed with Jack Ruthven. And what did he do; take legal measures +to free himself, as you or I or anybody with an ounce of temper in +'em would have done? No; he didn't. That infernal Selwyn conscience +began to get busy, making him believe that if a woman kicks over +the traces it must be because of some occult shortcoming on his +part. In some way or other that man persuaded himself of his +responsibility for her misbehaviour. He knew what it meant if he +didn't ask the law to aid him to get rid of her; he knew perfectly +well that his silence meant acknowledgment of culpability; that he +couldn't remain in the service under such suspicion.</p> +<p>"And now, Gerald," continued Austin, striking his broad palm +with extended forefinger and leaning heavily forward, "I'll tell +you what sort of a man Philip Selwyn is. He permitted Alixe to sue +him for absolute divorce—and, to give her every chance to +marry Ruthven, he refused to defend the suit. That sort of chivalry +is very picturesque, no doubt, but it cost him his career—set +him adrift at thirty-five, a man branded as having been divorced +from his wife for cause, with no profession left him, no business, +not much money—a man in the prime of life and hope and +ambition, clean in thought and deed; an upright, just, generous, +sensitive man, whose whole career has been blasted because he was +too merciful, too generous to throw the blame where it belonged. +And it belongs on the shoulders of that Mrs. Jack +Ruthven—Alixe Ruthven—whose name you may see in the +columns of any paper that truckles to the sort of society she +figures in."</p> +<p>Austin stood up, thrust his big hands into his pockets, paced +the room for a few moments, and halted before Gerald.</p> +<p>"If any woman ever played me a dirty trick," he said, "I'd see +that the public made no mistake in placing the blame. I'm that +sort"—he shrugged—"Phil Selwyn isn't; that's the +difference—and it may be in his favour from an ethical and +sentimental point of view. All right; let it go at that. But all I +meant you to understand is that he is every inch a man; and when +you have the honour to meet him, keep that fact in the back of your +head, among the few brains with which Providence has equipped +you."</p> +<p>"Thanks!" said Gerald, colouring up. He cast his cigarette into +the empty fireplace, slid off the edge of the table, and picked up +his hat. Austin eyed him without particular approval.</p> +<p>"You buy too many clothes," he observed. "That's a new suit, +isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Certainly," said Gerald; "I needed it."</p> +<p>"Oh! if you can afford it, all right. . . . How's the nimble Mr. +Neergard?"</p> +<p>"Neergard is flourishing. We put through that Rose Valley deal. +I tell you what, Austin, I wish you could see your way clear to +finance one or two—"</p> +<p>Austin's frown cut him short.</p> +<p>"Oh, all right! You know your own business, of course," said the +boy, a little resentfully. "Only as Fane, Harmon & Co. have +thought it worth while—"</p> +<p>"I don't care what Fane, Harmon think," growled Austin, touching +a button over his desk. His stenographer entered; he nodded a curt +dismissal to Gerald, adding, as the boy reached the door:</p> +<p>"Your sister expects you to be on hand to-night—and so do +we."</p> +<p>Gerald halted.</p> +<p>"I'd clean forgotten," he began; "I made another—a rather +important engagement—"</p> +<p>But Austin was not listening; in fact, he had already begun to +dictate to his demure stenographer, and Gerald stood a moment, +hesitating, then turned on his heel and went away down the +resounding marble corridor.</p> +<p>"They never let me alone," he muttered; "they're always at +me—following me up as though I were a schoolboy. . . . +Austin's the worst—never satisfied. . . . What do I care for +all these functions—sitting around with the younger set and +keeping the cradle of conversation rocking? I won't go to that +infernal baby-show!"</p> +<p>He entered the elevator and shot down to the great rotunda, +still scowling over his grievance. For he had made arrangements to +join a card-party at Julius Neergard's rooms that night, and he had +no intention of foregoing that pleasure just because his sister's +first grown-up dinner-party was fixed for the same date.</p> +<p>As for this man Selwyn, whom he had never met, he saw no reason +why he should drop business and scuttle uptown in order to welcome +him. No doubt he was a good fellow; no doubt he had behaved very +decently in a matter which, until a few moments before, he had +heard little about. He meant to be civil; he'd look up Selwyn when +he had a chance, and ask him to dine at the club. But this +afternoon he couldn't do it; and, as for the evening, he had made +his arrangements, and he had no intention of disturbing them on +Austin's account.</p> +<p>When he reached his office he picked up the telephone and called +up Gerard's house; but neither his sister nor anybody else was +there except the children and servants, and Captain Selwyn had not +yet called. So he left no message, merely saying that he'd call up +again. Which he forgot to do.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Meanwhile Captain Selwyn was sauntering along Fifth Avenue under +the leafless trees, scanning the houses of the rich and great +across the way; and these new houses of the rich and great stared +back at him out of a thousand casements as polished and +expressionless as the monocles of the mighty.</p> +<p>And, strolling at leisure in the pleasant winter weather, he +came presently to a street, stretching eastward in all the cold +impressiveness of very new limestone and plate-glass.</p> +<p>Could this be the street where his sister now lived?</p> +<p>As usual when perplexed he slowly raised his hand to his +moustache; and his pleasant gray eyes, still slightly blood-shot +from the glare of the tropics, narrowed as he inspected this +unfamiliar house.</p> +<p>The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new. +Winter sunshine sparkled on lace-hung casement, on glass marquise, +and the burnished bronze foliations of grille and door.</p> +<p>It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and +victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced +out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, +silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks +tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side.</p> +<p>But the nods of recognition, lifted hats, the mellow warnings of +motor horns, clattering hoofs, the sun flashing on carriage wheels +and polished panels, on liveries, harness, on the satin coats of +horses—a gem like a spark of fire smothered by the sables at +a woman's throat, and the bright indifference of her +beauty—all this had long since lost any meaning for him. For +him the pageant passed as the west wind passes in Samar over the +glimmering valley grasses; and he saw it through sun-dazzled +eyes—all this, and the leafless trees beyond against the sky, +and the trees mirrored in a little wintry lake as brown as the +brown of the eyes which were closed to him now forever.</p> +<p>As he stood there, again he seemed to hear the whistle signal, +clear, distant, rippling across the wind-blown grasses where the +brown constabulary lay firing in the sunshine; but the rifle shots +were the crack of whips, and it was only a fat policeman of the +traffic squad whistling to clear the swarming jungle trails of the +great metropolis.</p> +<p>Again Selwyn turned to the house, hesitating, unreconciled. +Every sun-lit window stared back at him.</p> +<p>He had not been prepared for so much limestone and marquise +magnificence where there was more renaissance than architecture and +more bay-window than both; but the number was the number of his +sister's house; and, as the street and the avenue corroborated the +numbered information, he mounted the doorstep, rang, and leisurely +examined four stiff box-trees flanking the ornate +portal—meagre vegetation compared to what he had been +accustomed to for so many years.</p> +<p>Nobody came; once or twice he fancied he heard sounds proceeding +from inside the house. He rang again and fumbled for his card case. +Somebody was coming.</p> +<p>The moment that the door opened he was aware of a distant and +curious uproar—far away echoes of cheering, and the faint +barking of dogs. These seemed to cease as the man in waiting +admitted him; but before he could make an inquiry or produce a +card, bedlam itself apparently broke loose somewhere in the +immediate upper landing—noise in its crudest elemental +definition—through which the mortified man at the door strove +to make himself heard: "Beg pardon, sir, it's the children broke +loose an' runnin' wild-like—"</p> +<p>"The <i>what</i>?"</p> +<p>"Only the children, sir—fox-huntin' the cat, +sir—"</p> +<p>His voice was lost in the yelling dissonance descending +crescendo from floor to floor. Then an avalanche of children and +dogs poured down the hall-stairs in pursuit of a rumpled and bored +cat, tumbling with yelps and cheers and thuds among the thick rugs +on the floor.</p> +<p>Here the cat turned and soundly cuffed a pair of fat beagle +puppies, who shrieked and fled, burrowing for safety into the +yelling heap of children and dogs on the floor. Above this heap +legs, arms, and the tails of dogs waved wildly for a moment, then a +small boy, blond hair in disorder, staggered to his knees, and, +setting hollowed hand to cheek, shouted: "Hi! for'rard! Harkaway +for'rard! Take him, Rags! Now, Tatters! After him, Owney! Get on, +there, Schnitzel! Worry him, Stinger! Tally-ho-o!"</p> +<p>At which encouraging invitation the two fat beagle pups, a +waddling dachshund, a cocker, and an Irish terrier flew at Selwyn's +nicely creased trousers; and the small boy, rising to his feet, +became aware of that astonished gentleman for the first time.</p> +<p>"Steady, there!" exclaimed Selwyn, bringing his walking stick to +a brisk bayonet defence; "steady, men! Prepare to receive +infantry—and doggery, too!" he added, backing away. "No +quarter! Remember the Alamo!"</p> +<p>The man at the door had been too horrified to speak, but he +found his voice now.</p> +<p>"Oh, you hush up, Dawson!" said the boy; and to Selwyn he added +tentatively, "Hello!"</p> +<p>"Hello yourself," replied Selwyn, keeping off the circling pups +with the point of his stick. "What is this, anyway—a +Walpurgis hunt?—or Eliza and the bloodhounds?"</p> +<p>Several children, disentangling themselves from the heap, rose +to confront the visitor; the shocked man, Dawson, attempted to +speak again, but Selwyn's raised hand quieted him.</p> +<p>The small boy with the blond hair stepped forward and dragged +several dogs from the vicinity of Selwyn's shins.</p> +<p>"This is the Shallowbrook hunt," he explained; "I am Master of +Hounds; my sister Drina, there, is one of the whips. Part of the +game is to all fall down together and pretend we've come croppers. +You see, don't you?"</p> +<p>"I see," nodded Selwyn; "it's a pretty stiff hunting country, +isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes, it is. There's wire, you know," volunteered the girl, +Drina, rubbing the bruises on her plump shins.</p> +<p>"Exactly," agreed Selwyn; "bad thing, wire. Your whips should +warn you."</p> +<p>The big black cat, horribly bored by the proceedings, had +settled down on a hall seat, keeping one disdainful yellow eye on +the dogs.</p> +<p>"All the same, we had a pretty good run," said Drina, taking the +cat into her arms and seating herself on the cushions; "didn't we, +Kit-Ki?" And, turning to Selwyn, "Kit-Ki makes a pretty good +fox—only she isn't enough afraid of us to run away very fast. +Won't you sit down? Our mother is not at home, but we are."</p> +<p>"Would you really like to have me stay?" asked Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Well," admitted Drina frankly, "of course we can't tell yet how +interesting you are because we don't know you. We are trying to be +polite—" and, in a fierce whisper, turning on the smaller of +the boys—"Winthrop! take your finger out of your mouth and +stop staring at guests! Billy, you make him behave himself."</p> +<p>The blond-haired M.F.H. reached for his younger brother; the +infant culprit avoided him and sullenly withdrew the sucked finger +but not his fascinated gaze.</p> +<p>"I want to know who he ith," he lisped in a loud aside.</p> +<p>"So do I," admitted a tiny maid in stickout skirts.</p> +<p>Drina dropped the cat, swept the curly hair from her eyes, and +stood up very straight in her kilts and bare knees.</p> +<p>"They don't really mean to be rude," she explained; "they're +only children." Then, detecting the glimmering smile in Selwyn's +eyes, "But perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us who you are because +we all would like to know, but we are not going to be ill-bred +enough to ask."</p> +<p>Their direct expectant gaze slightly embarrassed him; he laughed +a little, but there was no response from them.</p> +<p>"Well," he said, "as a matter of fact and record, I am a sort of +relative of yours—a species of avuncular relation."</p> +<p>"What is that?" asked Drina coldly.</p> +<p>"That," said Selwyn, "means that I'm more or less of an uncle to +you. Hope you don't mind. You don't have to entertain me, you +know."</p> +<p>"An uncle!" repeated Drina.</p> +<p>"Our uncle?" echoed Billy. "You are not our soldier uncle, are +you? You are not our Uncle Philip, are you?"</p> +<p>"It amounts to that," admitted Selwyn. "Is it all right?"</p> +<p>There was a dead silence, broken abruptly by Billy; "Where is +your sword, then?"</p> +<p>"At the hotel. Would you like to see it, Billy?"</p> +<p>The five children drew a step nearer, inspecting him with +merciless candour.</p> +<p>"Is it all right?" asked Selwyn again, smilingly uneasy under +the concentrated scrutiny. "How about it, Drina? Shall we shake +hands?"</p> +<p>Drina spoke at last: "Ye-es," she said slowly, "I think it is +all right to shake hands." She took a step forward, stretching out +her hand.</p> +<p>Selwyn stooped; she laid her right hand across his, hesitated, +looked up fearlessly, and then, raising herself on tiptoe, placed +both arms upon his shoulders, offering her lips.</p> +<p>One by one the other children came forward to greet this +promising new uncle whom the younger among them had never before +seen, and whom Drina, the oldest, had forgotten except as that +fabled warrior of legendary exploits whose name and fame had become +cherished classics of their nursery.</p> +<p>And now children and dogs clustered amicably around him; under +foot tails wagged, noses sniffed; playful puppy teeth tweaked at +his coat-skirts; and in front and at either hand eager flushed +little faces were upturned to his, shy hands sought his and nestled +confidently into the hollow of his palms or took firm proprietary +hold of sleeve and coat.</p> +<p>"I infer," observed Selwyn blandly, "that your father and mother +are not at home. Perhaps I'd better stop in later."</p> +<p>"But you are going to stay here, aren't you?" exclaimed Drina in +dismay. "Don't you expect to tell us stories? Don't you expect to +stay here and live with us and put on your uniform for us and show +us your swords and pistols? <i>Don't</i> you?"</p> +<p>"We have waited such a very long time for you to do this," added +Billy.</p> +<p>"If you'll come up to the nursery we'll have a drag-hunt for +you," pleaded Drina. "Everybody is out of the house and we can make +as much noise as we please! Will you?"</p> +<p>"Haven't you any governesses or nurses or something?" asked +Selwyn, finding himself already on the stairway, and still being +dragged upward.</p> +<p>"Our governess is away," said Billy triumphantly, "and our +nurses can do nothing with us."</p> +<p>"I don't doubt it," murmured Selwyn; "but where are they?"</p> +<p>"Somebody must have locked them in the schoolroom," observed +Billy carelessly. "Come on, Uncle Philip; we'll have a first-class +drag-hunt before we unlock the schoolroom and let them out."</p> +<p>"Anyway, they can brew tea there if they are lonely," added +Drina, ushering Selwyn into the big sunny nursery, where he stood, +irresolute, looking about him, aware that he was conniving at open +mutiny. From somewhere on the floor above persistent hammering and +muffled appeals satisfied him as to the location and indignation of +the schoolroom prisoners.</p> +<p>"You ought to let them out," he said. "You'll surely be +punished."</p> +<p>"We will let them out after we've made noise enough," said Billy +calmly. "We'll probably be punished anyway, so we may as well make +a noise."</p> +<p>"Yes," added Drina, "we are going to make all the noise we can +while we have the opportunity. Billy, is everything ready?"</p> +<p>And before Selwyn understood precisely what was happening, he +found himself the centre of a circle of madly racing children and +dogs. Round and round him they tore. Billy yelled for the hurdles +and Josephine knocked over some chairs and dragged them across the +course of the route; and over them leaped and scrambled children +and puppies, splitting the air with that same quality of din which +had greeted him upon his entrance to his sister's house.</p> +<p>When there was no more breath left in the children, and when the +dogs lay about, grinning and lolling, Drina approached him, bland +and dishevelled.</p> +<p>"That circus," she explained, "was for your entertainment. Now +will you please do something for ours?"</p> +<p>"Certainly," said Selwyn, looking about him vaguely; "shall +we—er—build blocks, or shall I read to +you—er—out of that big picture-book—"</p> +<p>"<i>Picture</i>-book!" repeated Billy with scorn; "that's good +enough for nurses to read. You're a soldier, you know. Soldiers +have real stories to tell."</p> +<p>"I see," he said meekly. "What am I to tell you about—our +missionaries in Sulu?"</p> +<p>"In the first place," began Drina, "you are to lie down flat on +the floor and creep about and show us how the Moros wriggle through +the grass to bolo our sentinels."</p> +<p>"Why, it's—it's this way," began Selwyn, leaning back in +his rocking-chair and comfortably crossing one knee over the other; +"for instance, suppose—"</p> +<p>"Oh, but you must <i>show</i> us!" interrupted Billy. "Get down +on the floor please, uncle."</p> +<p>"I can tell it better!" protested Selwyn; "I can show you just +the—"</p> +<p>"Please lie down and show us how they wriggle?" begged +Drina.</p> +<p>"I don't want to get down on the floor," he said feebly; "is it +necessary?"</p> +<p>But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and +they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the +nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers +chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking.</p> +<p>And it was while all were passionately intent upon the pleasing +and snake-like progress of their uncle that a young girl in furs, +ascending the stairs two at a time, peeped perfunctorily into the +nursery as she passed the hallway—and halted amazed.</p> +<p>Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after +having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked +around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a +vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve +of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.</p> +<p>Mortified, he got to his feet, glanced out into the hallway, and +began adjusting his attire.</p> +<p>"No, you don't!" he said mildly, "I decline to perform again. If +you want any more wriggling you must accomplish it yourselves. +Drina, has your governess—by any unfortunate +chance—er—red hair?"</p> +<p>"No," said the child; "and won't you <i>please</i> crawl across +the floor and bolo me—just <i>once</i> more?"</p> +<p>"Bolo me!" insisted Billy. "I haven't been mangled yet!"</p> +<p>"Let Billy assassinate somebody himself. And, by the way, Drina, +are there any maids or nurses or servants in this remarkable house +who occasionally wear copper-tinted hair and black fox furs?"</p> +<p>"No. Eileen does. Won't you please wriggle—"</p> +<p>"Who is Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Eileen? Why—don't you know who Eileen is?"</p> +<p>"No, I don't," began Captain Selwyn, when a delighted shout from +the children swung him toward the door again. His sister, Mrs. +Gerard, stood there in carriage gown and sables, radiant with +surprise.</p> +<p>"Phil! <i>You!</i> Exactly like you, Philip, to come strolling +in from the antipodes—dear fellow!" recovering from the +fraternal embrace and holding both lapels of his coat in her gloved +hands. "Six years!" she said again and again, tenderly reproachful; +"Alexandrine was a baby of six—Drina, child, do you remember +my brother—do you remember your Uncle Philip? She doesn't +remember; you can't expect her to recollect; she is only twelve, +Phil—"</p> +<p>"I remember <i>one</i> thing," observed Drina serenely.</p> +<p>Brother and sister turned toward her in pride and delight; and +the child went on: "My Aunt Alixe; I remember her. She was +<i>so</i> pretty," concluded Drina, nodding thoughtfully in the +effort to remember more; "Uncle Philip, where is she now?"</p> +<p>But her uncle seemed to have lost his voice as well as his +colour, and Mrs. Gerard's gloved fingers tightened on the lapels of +his coat.</p> +<p>"Drina—child—" she faltered; but Drina, immersed in +reflection, smiled dreamily; "So pretty," she murmured; "I remember +my Aunt Alixe—"</p> +<p>"Drina!" repeated her mother sharply, "go and find Bridget this +minute!"</p> +<p>Selwyn's hesitating hand sought his moustache; he lifted his +eyes—the steady gray eyes, slightly bloodshot—to his +sister's distressed face.</p> +<p>"I never dreamed—" she began—"the child has never +spoken of—of her from that time to this! I never dreamed she +could remember—"</p> +<p>"I don't understand what you are talking about, mother," said +Drina; but her pretty mother caught her by the shoulders, striving +to speak lightly; "Where in the world is Bridget, child? Where is +Katie? And what is all this I hear from Dawson? It can't be +possible that you have been fox-hunting all over the house again! +Your nurses know perfectly well that you are not to hunt anywhere +except in your own nursery."</p> +<p>"I know it," said Drina, "but Kit-Ki got out and ran downstairs. +We had to follow her, you know, until she went to earth."</p> +<p>Selwyn quietly bent over toward Billy: "'Ware wire, my friend," +he said under his breath; "<i>you'd</i> better cut upstairs and +unlock that schoolroom."</p> +<p>And while Mrs. Gerard turned her attention to the cluster of +clamouring younger children, the boy vanished only to reappear a +moment later, retreating before the vengeful exclamations of the +lately imprisoned nurses who pursued him, caps and aprons flying, +bewailing aloud their ignominious incarceration.</p> +<p>"Billy!" exclaimed his mother, "<i>did</i> you do that? Bridget, +Master William is to take supper by himself in the +schoolroom—and <i>no</i> marmalade!—No, Billy, not one +drop!"</p> +<p>"We all saw him lock the door," said Drina honestly.</p> +<p>"And you let him? Oh, Drina!—And Ellen! Katie! No +marmalade for Miss Drina—none for any of the children. Josie, +mother feels dreadfully because you all have been so naughty. +Winthrop!—your finger! Instantly! Clemence, baby, where on +earth did you acquire all that grime on your face and fists?" And +to her brother: "Such a household, Phil! Everybody +incompetent—including me; everything topsy-turvy; and all +five dogs perfectly possessed to lie on that pink rug in the music +room.—<i>Have</i> they been there to-day, Drina?—while +you were practising?"</p> +<p>"Yes, and there are some new spots, mother. I'm <i>very</i> +sorry."</p> +<p>"Take the children away!" said Mrs. Gerard. But she bent over, +kissing each culprit as the file passed out, convoyed by the amply +revenged nurses. "No marmalade, remember; and mother has a great +mind <i>not</i> to come up at bedtime and lean over you. Mother has +no desire to lean over her babies to-night."</p> +<p>To "lean over" the children was always expected of this mother; +the direst punishment on the rather brief list was to omit this +intimate evening ceremony.</p> +<p>"M-mother," stammered the Master of Fox Hounds, "you <i>will</i> +lean over us, won't you?"</p> +<p>"Mother hasn't decided—"</p> +<p>"Oh, muvver!" wailed Josie; and a howl of grief and dismay rose +from Winthrop, modified to a gurgle by the forbidden finger.</p> +<p>"You <i>will</i>, won't you?" begged Drina. "We've been pretty +bad, but not bad enough for that!"</p> +<p>"I—Oh, yes, I will. Stop that noise, Winthrop! Josie, I'm +going to lean over you—and you, too, Clemence, baby. Katie, +take those dogs away immediately; and remember about the +marmalade."</p> +<p>Reassured, smiling through tears, the children trooped off, it +being the bathing hour; and Mrs. Gerard threw her fur stole over +one shoulder and linked her slender arm in her brother's.</p> +<p>"You see, I'm not much of a mother," she said; "if I was I'd +stay here all day and every day, week in and year out, and try to +make these poor infants happy. I have no business to leave them for +one second!"</p> +<p>"Wouldn't they get too much of you?" suggested Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Thanks. I suppose that even a mother had better practise an +artistic absence occasionally. Are they not sweet? <i>What</i> do +you think of them? You never before saw the three youngest; you saw +Drina when you went east—and Billy was a few months +old—what do you think of them? Honestly, Phil?"</p> +<p>"All to the good, Ninette; very ornamental. Drina—and that +Josephine kid are real beauties. I—er—take to Billy +tremendously. He told me that he'd locked up his nurses. I ought to +have interfered. It was really my fault, you see."</p> +<p>"And you didn't make him let them out? You are not going to be +very good morally for my young. Tell me, Phil, have you seen +Austin?"</p> +<p>"I went to the Trust Company, but he was attending a directors' +confab. How is he? He's prosperous anyhow, I observe," with a +humorous glance around the elaborate hallway which they were +traversing.</p> +<p>"Don't dare laugh at us!" smiled his sister. "I wish we were +back in Tenth Street. But so many children came—Billy, +Josephine, Winthrop, and Tina—and the Tenth Street house +wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful speculative builder built +this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, dear, and here we +are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and copper kings +and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins. <i>Do</i> you like the +house?"</p> +<p>"It's—ah—roomy," he said cheerfully.</p> +<p>"Oh! It isn't so bad from the outside. And we have just had it +redecorated inside. Mizner did it. Look, dear, isn't that a cunning +bedroom?" drawing him toward a partly open door. "Don't be so +horridly critical. Austin is becoming used to it now, so don't stir +him up and make fun of things. Anyway you're going to stay +here."</p> +<p>"No, I'm at the Holland."</p> +<p>"Of <i>course</i> you're to live with us. You've resigned from +the service, haven't you?"</p> +<p>He looked at her sharply, but did not reply.</p> +<p>A curious flash of telepathy passed between them; she hesitated, +then:</p> +<p>"You once promised Austin and me that you would stay with +us."</p> +<p>"But, Nina—"</p> +<p>"No, no, no! Wait," pressing an electric button; "Watson, +Captain Selwyn's luggage is to be brought here immediately from the +Holland! Immediately!" And to Selwyn: "Austin will not be at home +before half-past six. Come up with me now and see your +quarters—a perfectly charming place for you, with your own +smoking-room and dressing-closet and bath. Wait, we'll take the +elevator—as long as we have one."</p> +<p>Smilingly protesting, yet touched by the undisguised sincerity +of his welcome, he suffered himself to be led into the +elevator—a dainty white and rose rococo affair. His sister +adjusted a tiny lever; the car moved smoothly upward and, presently +stopped; and they emerged upon a wide landing.</p> +<p>"Here," said Nina, throwing open a door. "Isn't this +comfortable? Is there anything you don't fancy about it? If there +is, tell me frankly."</p> +<p>"Little sister," he said, imprisoning both her hands, "it is a +paradise—but I don't intend to come here and squat on my +relatives, and I won't!"</p> +<p>"Philip! You are common!"</p> +<p>"Oh, I know you and Austin <i>think</i> you want me."</p> +<p>"Phil!"</p> +<p>"All right, dear. I'll—it's awfully generous of +you—so I'll pay you a visit—for a little while."</p> +<p>"You'll live here, that's what you'll do—though I suppose +you are dreaming and scheming to have all sorts of secret caves and +queer places to yourself—horrid, grimy, smoky bachelor +quarters where you can behave <i>sans-façon</i>."</p> +<p>"I've had enough of <i>sans-façon</i>" he said grimly. +"After shacks and bungalows and gun-boats and troopships, do you +suppose this doesn't look rather heavenly?"</p> +<p>"Dear fellow!" she said, looking tenderly at him; and then under +her breath: "What a ghastly life you have led!"</p> +<p>But he knew she did not refer to the military portion of his +life.</p> +<p>He threw back his coat, dug both hands into his pockets, and +began to wander about the rooms, halting sometimes to examine +nondescript articles of ornament or bits of furniture as though +politely interested. But she knew his thoughts were steadily +elsewhere.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/facing_page20.jpg"><img src= +"images/facing_page20.jpg" width="80%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"'There is no reason,' she said, 'why you should not call this +house home.'"</b> +<br /></div> +<p>Sauntering about, aware at moments that her troubled eyes were +following him, he came back, presently, to where she sat perched +upon his bed.</p> +<p>"It all looks most inviting, Nina," he said cheerfully, seating +himself beside her. "I—well, you can scarcely be expected to +understand how this idea of a home takes hold of a man who has +none."</p> +<p>"Yes, I do," she said.</p> +<p>"All this—" he paused, leisurely, to select his +words—"all this—you—the children—that jolly +nursery—" he stopped again, looking out of the window; and +his sister looked at him through eyes grown misty.</p> +<p>"There is no reason," she said, "why you should not call this +house home."</p> +<p>"N-no reason. Thank you. I will—for a few days."</p> +<p>"<i>No</i> reason, dear," she insisted. "We are your own people; +we are all you have, Phil!—the children adore you already; +Austin—you know what he thinks of you; and—and +I—"</p> +<p>"You are very kind, Ninette." He sat partly turned from her, +staring at the sunny window. Presently he slid his hand back along +the bed-covers until it touched and tightened over hers. And in +silence she raised it to her lips.</p> +<p>They remained so for a while, he still partly turned from her, +his perplexed and narrowing gaze fixed on the window, she pressing +his clenched hand to her lips, thoughtful and silent.</p> +<p>"Before Austin comes," he said at length, "let's get the thing +over—and buried—as long as it will stay buried."</p> +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> +<p>"Well, then—then—" but his throat closed tight with +the effort.</p> +<p>"Alixe is here," she said gently; "did you know it?"</p> +<p>He nodded.</p> +<p>"You know, of course, that she's married Jack Ruthven?"</p> +<p>He nodded again.</p> +<p>"Are you on leave, Phil, or have you really resigned?"</p> +<p>"Resigned."</p> +<p>"I knew it," she sighed.</p> +<p>He said: "As I did not defend the suit I couldn't remain in the +service. There's too much said about us, anyway—about us who +are appointed from civil life. And then—to have <i>that</i> +happen!"</p> +<p>"Phil?"</p> +<p>"What?"</p> +<p>"Will you answer me one thing?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I guess so."</p> +<p>"Do you still care for—her?"</p> +<p>"I am sorry for her."</p> +<p>After a painful silence his sister said: "Could you tell me how +it began, Phil?"</p> +<p>"How it began? I don't know that, either. When Bannard's command +took the field I went with the scouts. Alixe remained in Manila. +Ruthven was there for Fane, Harmon & Co. That's how it began, I +suppose; and it's a rotten climate for morals; and that's how it +began."</p> +<p>"Only that?"</p> +<p>"We had had differences. It's been one misunderstanding after +another. If you mean was I mixed up with another woman—no! +She knew that."</p> +<p>"She was very young, Phil."</p> +<p>He nodded: "I don't blame her."</p> +<p>"Couldn't anything have been done?"</p> +<p>"If it could, neither she nor I did it—or knew how to do +it, I suppose. It went wrong from the beginning; it was founded on +froth—she had been engaged to Harmon, and she threw him over +for 'Boots' Lansing. Then I came along—Boots behaved like a +thoroughbred—that is all there is to it—inexperience, +romance, trouble—a quick beginning, a quick parting, and two +more fools to give the lie to civilization, and justify the West +Pointers in their opinions of civil appointees."</p> +<p>"Try not to be so bitter, Phil; did you know she was going +before she left Manila?"</p> +<p>"I hadn't the remotest idea of the affair. I thought that we +were trying to learn something about life and about each other. . . +. Then that climax came."</p> +<p>He turned and stared out of the window, dropping his sister's +hand. "She couldn't stand me, she couldn't stand the life, the +climate, the inconveniences, the absence of what she was accustomed +to. She was dead tired of it all. I can understand that. And +I—I didn't know what to do about it. . . . So we drifted; and +the catastrophe came very quickly. Let me tell you something; a +West Pointer, an Annapolis man, knows what sort of life he's going +into and what he is to expect when he marries. Usually, too, he +marries into the Army or Navy set; and the girl knows, too, what +kind of a married life that means.</p> +<p>"But I didn't. Neither did Alixe. And we went under; that's +all—fighting each other heart and soul to the end. . . . Is +she happy with Ruthven? I never knew him—and never cared to. +I suppose they go about in town among the yellow set. Do they?"</p> +<p>"Yes. I've met Alixe once or twice. She was perfectly +composed—formal but unembarrassed. She has shifted her milieu +somewhat—it began with the influx of Ruthven's friends from +the 'yellow' section of the younger married set—the Orchils, +Fanes, Minsters, and Delmour-Carnes. Which is all right if she'd +stay there. But in town you're likely to encounter anybody where +the somebodies of one set merge into the somebodies of another. And +we're always looking over our fences, you know. . . . By the way," +she added cheerfully, "I'm dipping into the younger set myself +to-night—on Eileen's account. I brought her out Thursday and +I'm giving a dinner for her to-night."</p> +<p>"Who's Eileen?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Eileen? Why, don't you—why, of <i>course</i>, you don't +know yet that I've taken Eileen for my own. I didn't want to write +you; I wanted first to see how it would turn out; and when I saw +that it was turning out perfectly, I thought it better to wait +until you could return and hear all about it from me, because one +can't write that sort of thing—"</p> +<p>"Nina!"</p> +<p>"What, dear?" she said, startled.</p> +<p>"Who the dickens <i>is</i> Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Philip! You are precisely like Austin; you grow impatient of +preliminary details when I'm doing my very best attempting to +explain just as clearly as I can. Now I will go on and say that +Eileen is Molly Erroll's daughter, and the courts appointed Austin +and me guardians for her and for her brother Gerald."</p> +<p>"Oh!"</p> +<p>"Now is it clear to you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said, thinking of the tragedy which had left the child +so utterly alone in the world, save for her brother and a distant +kinship by marriage with the Gerards.</p> +<p>For a while he sat brooding, arms loosely folded, immersed once +more in his own troubles.</p> +<p>"It seems a shame," he said, "that a family like ours, whose +name has always spelled decency, should find themselves entangled +in the very things their race has always hated and managed to +avoid. And through me, too."</p> +<p>"It was not your fault, Phil."</p> +<p>"No, not the divorce part. Do you suppose I wouldn't have taken +any kind of medicine before resorting to that! But what's the use; +for you can try as you may to keep your name clean, and then you +can fold your arms and wait to see what a hopeless fool fate makes +of you."</p> +<p>"But no disgrace touches you, dear," she said tremulously.</p> +<p>"I've been all over that, too," he said with quiet bitterness. +"You are partly right; nobody cares in this town. Even though I did +not defend the suit, nobody cares. And there's no disgrace, I +suppose, if nobody cares enough even to condone. Divorce is no +longer noticed; it is a matter of ordinary occurrence—a +matter of routine in some sets. Who cares?—except decent +folk? And they only think it's a pity—and wouldn't do it +themselves. The horrified clamour comes from outside the social +registers and blue books; we know they're right, but it doesn't +affect us. What does affect us is that we <i>were</i> the decent +folk who permitted ourselves the luxury of being sorry for others +who resorted to divorce as a remedy but wouldn't do it ourselves! . +. . Now we've done it and—"</p> +<p>"Phil! I will not have you feel that way."</p> +<p>"What way?"</p> +<p>"The way you feel. We are older than we were—everybody is +older—the world is, too. What we were brought up to consider +impossible—"</p> +<p>"What we were brought up to consider impossible was what kept me +up to the mark out there, Nina." He made a gesture toward the East. +"Now, I come back here and learn that we've all outgrown those +ideas—"</p> +<p>"Phil! I never meant that."</p> +<p>He said: "If Alixe found that she cared for Ruthven, I don't +blame her. Laws and statutes can't govern such matters. If she +found she no longer cared for me, I could not blame her. But two +people, mismated, have only one chance in this world—to live +their tragedy through with dignity. That is absolutely all life +holds for them. Beyond that, outside of that dead +line—treachery to self and race and civilisation! That is my +conclusion after a year's experience in hell." He rose and began to +pace the floor, fingers worrying his moustache. "Law? Can a law, +which I do not accept, let me loose to risk it all again with +another woman?"</p> +<p>She said slowly, her hands folded in her lap: "It is well you've +come to me at last. You've been turning round and round in that +wheeled cage until you think you've made enormous progress; and you +haven't. Dear, listen to me; what you honestly believe to be +unselfish and high-minded adherence to principle, is nothing but +the circling reasoning of a hurt mind—an intelligence still +numbed from shock, a mental and physical life forced by sheer +courage into mechanical routine. . . . Wait a moment; there is +nobody else to say this to you; and if I did not love you I would +not interfere with this great mistake you are so honestly making of +your life, and which, perhaps, is the only comfort left you. I say, +'perhaps,' for I do not believe that life holds nothing happier for +you than the sullen content of martyrdom."</p> +<p>"Nina!"</p> +<p>"I am right!" she said, almost fiercely; "I've been married +thirteen years and I've lost that fear of men's portentous +judgments which all girls outgrow one day. And do you think I am +going to acquiesce in this attitude of yours toward life? Do you +think I can't distinguish between a tragical mistake and a mistaken +tragedy? I tell you your life is not finished; it is not yet +begun!"</p> +<p>He looked at her, incensed; but she sprang to the floor, her +face bright with colour, her eyes clear, determined: "I thought, +when you took the oath of military service, you swore to obey the +laws of the land? And the very first law that interferes with your +preconceived notions—crack!—you say it's not for you! +Look at me—you great, big, wise brother of mine—who +knows enough to march a hundred and three men into battle, but not +enough to know where pride begins and conscience ends. You're badly +hurt; you are deeply humiliated over your resignation; you believe +that ambition for a career, for happiness, for marriage, and for +children is ended for you. You need fresh air—and I'm going +to see you have it. You need new duties, new faces, new scenes, new +problems. You shall have them. Dear, believe me, few men as young +as you—as attractive, as human, as lovable, as affectionate +as you, wilfully ruin their lives because of a hurt pride which +they mistake for conscience. You will understand that when you +become convalescent. Now kiss me and tell me you're much +obliged—for I hear Austin's voice on the stairs."</p> +<p>He held her at arms' length, gazing at her, half amused, half +indignant; then, unbidden, a second flash of the old telepathy +passed between them—a pale glimmer lighted his own dark heart +in sympathy; and for a moment he seemed to have a brief glimpse of +the truth; and the truth was not as he had imagined it. But it was +a glimpse only—a fleeting suspicion of his own fallibility; +then it vanished into the old, dull, aching, obstinate humiliation. +For truth would not be truth if it were so easily discovered.</p> +<p>"Well, we've buried it now," breathed Selwyn. "You're all right, +Nina—from your own standpoint—and I'm not going to make +a stalking nuisance of myself; no fear, little sister. +Hello!"—turning swiftly—"here's that preposterous +husband of yours."</p> +<p>They exchanged a firm hand clasp; Austin Gerard, big, smooth +shaven, humorously inclined toward the ruddy heaviness of +successful middle age; Selwyn, lean, bronzed, erect, and direct in +all the powerful symmetry and perfect health of a man within sight +of maturity.</p> +<p>"Hail to the chief—et cetera," said Austin, in his large, +bantering voice. "Glad to see you home, my bolo-punctured soldier +boy. Welcome to our city! I suppose you've both pockets stuffed +with loot, now haven't you?—pearls and sarongs and +dattos—yes? Have you inspected the kids? What's your opinion +of the Gerard batallion? Pretty fit? Nina's commanding, so it's up +to her if we don't pass dress parade. By the way, your enormous +luggage is here—consisting of one dinky trunk and a sword +done up in chamois skin."</p> +<p>"Nina's good enough to want me for a few days—" began +Selwyn, but his big brother-in-law laughed scornfully:</p> +<p>"A few days! We've got you now!" And to his wife: "Nina, I +suppose I'm due to lean over those infernal kids before I can have +a minute with your brother. Are they in bed yet? All right, Phil; +we'll be down in a minute; there's tea and things in the library. +Make Eileen give you some."</p> +<p>He turned, unaffectedly taking his pretty wife's hand in his +large florid paw, and Selwyn, intensely amused, saw them making for +the nursery absorbed in conjugal confab. He lingered to watch them +go their way, until they disappeared; and he stood a moment longer +alone there in the hallway; then the humour faded from his +sun-burnt face; he swung wearily on his heel, and descended the +stairway, his hand heavy on the velvet rail.</p> +<p>The library was large and comfortable, full of agreeably wadded +corners and fat, helpless chairs—a big, inviting place, +solidly satisfying in dull reds and mahogany. The porcelain of tea +paraphernalia caught the glow of the fire; a reading lamp burned on +a centre table, shedding subdued lustre over ceiling, walls, books, +and over the floor where lay a few ancient rugs of Beloochistan, +themselves full of mysterious, sombre fire.</p> +<p>Hands clasped behind his back, he stood in the centre of the +room, considering his environment with the grave, absent air +habitual to him when brooding. And, as he stood there, a sound at +the door aroused him, and he turned to confront a young girl in +hat, veil, and furs, who was leisurely advancing toward him, +stripping the gloves from a pair of very white hands.</p> +<p>"How do you do, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I am Eileen Erroll +and I am commissioned to give you some tea. Nina and Austin are in +the nursery telling bedtime stories and hearing assorted prayers. +The children seem to be quite crazy about you—" She +unfastened her veil, threw back stole and coat, and, rolling up her +gloves on her wrists, seated herself by the table. +"—<i>Quite</i> crazy about you," she continued, "and you're +to be included in bedtime prayers, I believe—No sugar? +Lemon?—Drina's mad about you and threatens to give you her +new maltese puppy. I congratulate you on your popularity."</p> +<p>"Did you see me in the nursery on all fours?" inquired Selwyn, +recognising her bronze-red hair.</p> +<p>Unfeigned laughter was his answer. He laughed, too, not very +heartily.</p> +<p>"My first glimpse of our legendary nursery warrior was certainly +astonishing," she said, looking around at him with frank malice. +Then, quickly: "But you don't mind, do you? It's all in the family, +of course."</p> +<p>"Of course," he agreed with good grace; "no use to pretend +dignity here; you all see through me in a few moments."</p> +<p>She had given him his tea. Now she sat upright in her chair, +smiling, <i>distraite</i>, her hat casting a luminous shadow across +her eyes; the fluffy furs, fallen from throat and shoulder, settled +loosely around her waist.</p> +<p>Glancing up from her short reverie she encountered his curious +gaze.</p> +<p>"To-night is to be my first dinner dance, you know," she said. +Faint tints of excitement stained her white skin; the vivid scarlet +contrast of her mouth was almost startling. "On Thursday I was +introduced—" she explained, "and now I'm to have the gayest +winter I ever dreamed of. . . . And I'm going to leave you in a +moment if Nina doesn't hurry and come. Do you mind?"</p> +<p>"Of course I mind," he protested amiably, "but I suppose you +wish to devote several hours to dressing."</p> +<p>She nodded. "Such a dream of a gown! Nina's present! You'll see +it. I hope Gerald will be here to see it. He promised. You'll say +you like it if you do like it, won't you?"</p> +<p>"I'll say it, anyway."</p> +<p>"Oh, well—if you are contented to be commonplace like +other men—"</p> +<p>"I've no ambition to be different at my age."</p> +<p>"Your age?" she repeated, looking up quickly. "You are as young +as Nina, aren't you? Half the men in the younger set are no younger +than you—and you know it," she concluded—"you are only +trying to make me say so—and you've succeeded. I'm not very +experienced yet. Does tea bring wisdom, Captain Selwyn?" pouring +herself a cup. "I'd better arm myself immediately." She sank back +into the depths of the chair, looking gaily at him over her lifted +cup. "To my rapid education in worldly wisdom!" She nodded, and +sipped the tea almost pensively.</p> +<p>He certainly did seem young there in the firelight, his narrow, +thoroughbred head turned toward the fire. Youth, too, sat lightly +on his shoulders; and it was scarcely a noticeably mature hand that +touched the short sun-burnt moustache at intervals. From head to +waist, from his loosely coupled, well-made limbs to his strong, +slim foot, strength seemed to be the keynote to a physical harmony +most agreeable to look at.</p> +<p>The idea entered her head that he might appear to advantage on +horseback.</p> +<p>"We must ride together," she said, returning her teacup to the +tray; "if you don't mind riding with me? Do you? Gerald never has +time, so I go with a groom. But if you would care to go—" she +laughed. "Oh, you see I am already beginning a selfish family claim +on you. I foresee that you'll be very busy with us all persistently +tugging at your coat-sleeves; and what with being civil to me and a +martyr to Drina, you'll have very little time to yourself. +And—I hope you'll like my brother Gerald when you meet him. +Now I <i>must</i> go."</p> +<p>Then, rising and partly turning to collect her furs:</p> +<p>"It's quite exciting to have you here. We will be good friends, +won't we? . . . and I think I had better stop my chatter and go, +because my cunning little Alsatian maid is not very clever yet. . . +. Good-bye."</p> +<p>She stretched out one of her amazingly white hands across the +table, giving him a friendly leave-taking and welcome all in one +frank handshake; and left him standing there, the fresh contact +still cool in his palm.</p> +<p>Nina came in presently to find him seated before the fire, one +hand shading his eyes; and, as he prepared to rise, she rested both +arms on his shoulders, forcing him into his chair again.</p> +<p>"So you've bewitched Eileen, too, have you?" she said tenderly. +"Isn't she the sweetest little thing?"</p> +<p>"She's—ah—as tall as I am," he said, blinking at the +fire.</p> +<p>"She's only nineteen; pathetically unspoiled—a perfect +dear. Men are going to rave over her and—<i>not</i> spoil +her. Did you ever see such hair?—that thick, ruddy, lustrous, +copper tint?—and sometimes it's like gold afire. And a skin +like snow and peaches!—she's sound to the core. I've had her +exercised and groomed and hardened and trained from the very +beginning—every inch of her minutely cared for exactly like +my own babies. I've done my best," she concluded with a satisfied +sigh, and dropped into a chair beside her brother.</p> +<p>"Thoroughbred," commented Selwyn, "to be turned out to-night. Is +she bridle-wise and intelligent?"</p> +<p>"More than sufficiently. That's one trouble—she's had, at +times, a depressing, sponge-like desire for absorbing all sorts of +irrelevant things that no girl ought to concern herself with. +I—to tell the truth—if I had not rigorously drilled +her—she might have become a trifle tiresome; I don't mean +precisely frumpy—but one of those earnest young things whose +intellectual conversation becomes a visitation—one of the +wants-to-know-for-the-sake-of-knowledge sort—a dreadful human +blotter! Oh, dear; show me a girl with her mind soaking up 'isms' +and I'll show you a social failure with a wisp of hair on her +cheek, who looks the dowdier the more expensively she's +gowned."</p> +<p>"So you believe you've got that wisp of copper-tinted hair +tucked up snugly?" asked Selwyn, amused.</p> +<p>"I—it's still a worry to me; at intervals she's inclined +to let it slop. Thank Heaven, I've made her spine permanently +straight and her head is screwed properly to her neck. There's not +a slump to her from crown to heel—<i>I</i> know, you know. +She's had specialists to forestall every blemish. I made up my mind +to do it; I'm doing it for my own babies. That's what a mother is +for—to turn out her offspring to the world as flawless and +wholesome as when they came into it!—physically and mentally +sound—or a woman betrays her stewardship. They must be as +healthy of body and limb as they are innocent and wholesome minded. +The happiest of all creatures are drilled thoroughbreds. Show me a +young girl, unspoiled mentally and spiritually untroubled, with a +superb physique, and I'll show you a girl equipped for the +happiness of this world. And that is what Eileen is."</p> +<p>"I should say," observed Selwyn, "that she's equipped for the +slaughter of man."</p> +<p>"Yes, but <i>I</i> am selecting the victim," replied his sister +demurely.</p> +<p>"Oh! Have you? Already?"</p> +<p>"Tentatively."</p> +<p>"Who?"</p> +<p>"Sudbury Gray, I think—with Scott Innis for an +understudy—perhaps the Draymore man as alternate—I +don't know; there's time."</p> +<p>"Plenty," he said vaguely, staring into the fire where a log had +collapsed into incandescent ashes.</p> +<p>She continued to talk about Eileen until she noticed that his +mind was on other matters—his preoccupied stare enlightened +her. She said nothing for a while.</p> +<p>But he woke up when Austin came in and settled his big body in a +chair.</p> +<p>"Drina, the little minx, called me back on some flimsy pretext," +he said, relighting his cigar; "I forgot that time was +going—and she was wily enough to keep me talking until Miss +Paisely caught me at it and showed me out. I tell you," turning on +Selwyn—"children are what make life worth wh—" He +ceased abruptly at a gentle tap from his wife's foot, and Selwyn +looked up.</p> +<p>Whether or not he divined the interference he said very quietly: +"I'd rather have had children than anything in the world. They're +about the best there is in life; I agree with you, Austin."</p> +<p>His sister, watching him askance, was relieved to see his +troubled face become serene, though she divined the effort.</p> +<p>"Kids are the best," he repeated, smiling at her. "Failing them, +for second choice, I've taken to the laboratory. Some day I'll +invent something and astonish you, Nina."</p> +<p>"We'll fit you up a corking laboratory," began Austin cordially; +"there is—"</p> +<p>"You're very good; perhaps you'll all be civil enough to move +out of the house if I need more room for bottles and +retorts—"</p> +<p>"Of <i>course</i>, Phil must have his laboratory," insisted +Nina. "There's loads of unused room in this big barn—only you +don't mind being at the top of the house, do you, Phil?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do; I want to be in the drawing-room—or somewhere +so that you all may enjoy the odours and get the benefit of +premature explosions. Oh, come now, Austin, if you think I'm going +to plant myself here on you—"</p> +<p>"Don't notice him, Austin," said Nina, "he only wishes to be +implored. And, by the same token, you'd both better let me implore +you to dress!" She rose and bent forward in the firelight to peer +at the clock. "Goodness! Do you creatures think I'm going to give +Eileen half an hour's start with her maid?—and I carrying my +twelve years' handicap, too. No, indeed! I'm decrepit but I'm going +to die fighting. Austin, get up! You're horribly slow, anyhow. +Phil, Austin's man—such as he is—will be at your +disposal, and your luggage is unpacked."</p> +<p>"Am I really expected to grace this festival of babes?" inquired +Selwyn. "Can't you send me a tray of toast or a bowl of gruel and +let me hide my old bones in a dressing-gown somewhere?"</p> +<p>"Oh, come on," said Austin, smothering the yawn in his voice and +casting his cigar into the ashes. "You're about ripe for the +younger set—one of them, anyhow. If you can't stand the +intellectual strain we'll side-step the show later and play a +little—what do you call it in the army?—pontoons?"</p> +<p>They strolled toward the door, Nina's arms linked in theirs, her +slim fingers interlocked on her breast.</p> +<p>"We are certainly going to be happy—we three—in this +innocent <i>ménage à trois</i>," she said. "I don't +know what more you two men could ask for—or I, +either—or the children or Eileen. Only one thing; I think it +is perfectly horrid of Gerald not to be here."</p> +<p>Traversing the hall she said: "It always frightens me to be +perfectly happy—and remember all the ghastly things that +<i>could</i> happen. . . . I'm going to take a glance at the +children before I dress. . . . Austin, did you remember your +tonic?"</p> +<p>She looked up surprised when her husband laughed.</p> +<p>"I've taken my tonic and nobody's kidnapped the kids," he said. +She hesitated, then picking up her skirts she ran upstairs for one +more look at her slumbering progeny.</p> +<p>The two men glanced at one another; their silence was the +tolerant, amused silence of the wiser sex, posing as such for each +other's benefit; but deep under the surface stirred the tremors of +the same instinctive solicitude that had sent Nina to the +nursery.</p> +<p>"I used to think," said Gerard, "that the more kids you had the +less anxiety per kid. The contrary is true; you're more nervous +over half a dozen than you are over one, and your wife is always +going to the nursery to see that the cat hasn't got in or the place +isn't afire or spots haven't come out all over the children."</p> +<p>They laughed tolerantly, lingering on the sill of Selwyn's +bedroom.</p> +<p>"Come in and smoke a cigarette," suggested the latter. "I have +nothing to do except to write some letters and dress."</p> +<p>But Gerard said: "There seems to be a draught through this +hallway; I'll just step upstairs to be sure that the nursery +windows are not too wide open. See you later, Phil. If there's +anything you need just dingle that bell."</p> +<p>And he went away upstairs, only to return in a few minutes, +laughing under his breath: "I say, Phil, don't you want to see the +kids asleep? Billy's flat on his back with a white 'Teddy bear' in +either arm; and Drina and Josephine are rolled up like two kittens +in pajamas; and you should see Winthrop's legs—"</p> +<p>"Certainly," said Selwyn gravely, "I'll be with you in a +second."</p> +<p>And turning to his dresser he laid away the letters and the +small photograph which he had been examining under the drop-light, +locking them securely in the worn despatch box until he should have +time to decide whether to burn them all or only the picture. Then +he slipped on his smoking jacket.</p> +<p>"—Ah, about Winthrop's legs—" he repeated vaguely, +"certainly; I should be very glad to examine them, Austin."</p> +<p>"I don't want you to examine them," retorted Gerard resentfully, +"I want you to see them. There's nothing the matter with them, you +understand."</p> +<p>"Exactly," nodded Selwyn, following his big brother-in-law into +the hall, where, from beside a lamp-lit sewing table a trim maid +rose smiling:</p> +<p>"Miss Erroll desires to know whether Captain Selwyn would care +to see her gown when she is ready to go down?"</p> +<p>"By all means," said Selwyn, "I should like to see that, too. +Will you let me know when Miss Erroll is ready? Thank you."</p> +<p>Austin said as they reached the nursery door: "Funny thing, +feminine vanity—almost pathetic, isn't it? . . . Don't make +too much noise! . . . What do you think of that pair of legs, +Phil?—and he's not yet five. . . . And I want you to speak +frankly; <i>did</i> you ever see anything to beat that bunch of +infants? Not because they're ours and we happen to be your own +people—" he checked himself and the smile faded as he laid +his big ruddy hand on Selwyn's shoulder;—"<i>your own +people</i>, Phil. Do you understand? . . . And if I have not +ventured to say anything about—what has happened—you +understand that, too, don't you? You know I'm just as loyal to you +as Nina is—as it is natural and fitting that your own people +should be. Only a man finds it difficult to convey +his—his—"</p> +<p>"Don't say 'sympathies'!" cut in Selwyn nervously.</p> +<p>"I wasn't going to, confound you! I was going to say +'sentiments.' I'm sorry I said anything. Go to the deuce!"</p> +<p>Selwyn did not even deign to glance around at him. "You big +red-pepper box," he muttered affectionately, "you'll wake up Drina. +Look at her in her cunning pajamas! Oh, but she is a darling, +Austin. And look at that boy with his two white bears! He's a +corker! He's a wonder—honestly, Austin. As for that Josephine +kid she can have me on demand; I'll answer to voice, whistle, or +hand. . . . I say, ought we to go away and leave Winthrop's thumb +in his mouth?"</p> +<p>"I guess I can get it out without waking him," whispered Gerard. +A moment later he accomplished the office, leaned down and drew the +bed-covers closer to Tina's dimpled chin, then grasped Selwyn above +the elbow in sudden alarm: "If that trained terror, Miss Paisely, +finds us in here when she comes from dinner, we'll both catch it! +Come on; I'll turn off the light. Anyway, we ought to have been +dressed long ago; but you insisted on butting in here."</p> +<p>In the hallway below they encountered a radiant and bewildering +vision awaiting them: Eileen, in all her glory.</p> +<p>"Wonderful!" said Gerard, patting the vision's rounded bare arm +as he hurried past—"fine gown! fine girl!—but I've got +to dress and so has Philip—" He meant well.</p> +<p>"<i>Do</i> you like it, Captain Selwyn?" asked the girl, turning +to confront him, where he had halted. "Gerald isn't coming +and—I thought perhaps you'd be interested—"</p> +<p>The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip +remained there, unsaid. He stood silent, touched by the faint +under-ringing wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his +opinion; and something within him responded in time:</p> +<p>"Your gown is a beauty; such wonderful lace. Of course, anybody +would know it came straight from Paris or from some other celestial +region—"</p> +<p>"But it didn't!" cried the girl, delighted. "It looks it, +doesn't it? But it was made by Letellier! Is there anything you +don't like about it, Captain Selwyn? <i>Anything</i>?"</p> +<p>"Nothing," he said solemnly; "it is as adorable as the girl +inside it, who makes it look like a Parisian importation from +Paradise!"</p> +<p>She colored enchantingly, and with pretty, frank impulse held +out both her hands to him:</p> +<p>"You <i>are</i> a dear, Captain Selwyn! It is my first real +dinner gown and I'm quite mad about it; and—somehow I wanted +the family to share my madness with me. Nina will—she gave it +to me, the darling. Austin admires it, too, of course, but he +doesn't notice such things very closely; and Gerald isn't here. . . +. Thank you for letting me show it to you before I go down."</p> +<p>She gave both his hands a friendly little shake and, glancing +down at her skirt in blissful consciousness of its perfection, +stepped backward into her own room.</p> +<p>Later, while he stood at his dresser constructing an immaculate +knot in his white tie, Nina knocked.</p> +<p>"Hurry, Phil! Oh, may I come in? . . . You ought to be +downstairs with us, you know. . . . And it was very sweet of you to +be so nice to Eileen. The child had tears in her eyes when I went +in. Oh, just a single diamond drop in each eye; your sympathy and +interest did it. . . . I think the child misses her father on an +occasion such as this—the beginning of life—the first +step out into the world. Men do not understand what it means to us; +Gerald doesn't, I'm sure. I've been watching her, and I know the +shadow of that dreadful tragedy falls on her more often than Austin +and I are aware of. . . . Shall I fix that tie for you, dear? . . . +Certainly I can; Austin won't let a man touch him. . . . There, +Phil. . . . Wait! . . . Now if you are decently grateful you'll +tell me I look well. Do I? Really? Nonsense, I <i>don't</i> look +twenty; but—say it, Phil. Ah, that clever maid of mine knows +some secrets—never mind!—but Drina thinks I'm a beauty. +. . . Come, dear; and thank you for being kind to Eileen. One's own +kin counts so much in this world. And when a girl has none, except +a useless brother, little things like that mean a lot to her." She +turned, her hand falling on his sleeve. "<i>You</i> are among your +own people, anyhow!"</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>His own people! The impatient tenderness of his sister's words +had been sounding in his ears all through the evening. They rang +out clear and insistent amid the gay tumult of the dinner; he heard +them in the laughing confusion of youthful voices; they stole into +the delicate undertones of the music to mock him; the rustling of +silk and lace repeated them; the high heels of satin slippers +echoed them in irony.</p> +<p>His own people!</p> +<p>The scent of overheated flowers, the sudden warm breeze eddying +from a capricious fan, the mourning thrill of the violins +emphasised the emphasis of the words.</p> +<p>And they sounded sadder and more meaningless now to him, here in +his own room, until the monotony of their recurrent mockery began +to unnerve him.</p> +<p>He turned on the electricity, shrank from it, extinguished it. +And for a long time he sat there in the darkness of early morning, +his unfilled pipe clutched in his nerveless hand.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>A DREAM ENDS</h3> +<p>To pick up once more and tighten and knot together the loosened +threads which represented the unfinished record that his race had +woven into the social fabric of the metropolis was merely an +automatic matter for Selwyn.</p> +<p>His own people had always been among the makers of that fabric. +Into part of its vast and intricate pattern they had woven an +inconspicuously honourable record—chronicles of births and +deaths and marriages, a plain memorandum of plain living, and +upright dealing with their fellow men.</p> +<p>Some public service of modest nature they had performed, not +seeking it, not shirking; accomplishing it cleanly when it was +intrusted to them.</p> +<p>His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional +men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the +walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a +cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; an +only brother at Montauk Point having sickened in the trenches +before Santiago.</p> +<p>His father's services as division medical officer in Sheridan's +cavalry had been, perhaps, no more devoted, no more loyal than the +services of thousands of officers and troopers; and his reward was +a pension offer, declined. He practised until his wife died, then +retired to his country home, from which house his daughter Nina was +married to Austin Gerard.</p> +<p>Mr. Selwyn, senior, continued to pay his taxes on his father's +house in Tenth Street, voted in that district, spent a month every +year with the Gerards, read a Republican morning newspaper, and +judiciously enlarged the family reservation in +Greenwood—whither he retired, in due time, without other +ostentation than half a column in the <i>Evening Post</i>, which +paper he had, in life, avoided.</p> +<p>The first gun off the Florida Keys sent Selwyn's only brother +from his law office in hot haste to San Antonio—the first +<i>étape</i> on his first and last campaign with Wood's +cavalry.</p> +<p>That same gun interrupted Selwyn's connection with Neergard +& Co., operators in Long Island real estate; and, a year later, +the captaincy offered him in a Western volunteer regiment operating +on the Island of Leyte, completed the rupture.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>And now he was back again, a chance career ended, with option of +picking up the severed threads—his inheritance at the +loom—and of retying them, warp and weft, and continuing the +pattern according to the designs of the tufted, tinted pile-yarn, +knotted in by his ancestors before him.</p> +<p>There was nothing else to do; so he did it. Civil and certain +social obligations were mechanically reassumed; he appeared in his +sister's pew for worship, he reënrolled in his clubs as a +resident member once more; the directors of such charities as he +meddled with he notified of his return; he remitted his dues to the +various museums and municipal or private organisations which had +always expected support from his family; he subscribed to the +<i>Sun</i>.</p> +<p>He was more conservative, however, in mending the purely social +strands so long relaxed or severed. The various registers and +blue-books recorded his residence under "dilatory domiciles"; he +did not subscribe to the opera, preferring to chance it in case +harmony-hunger attacked him; pre-Yuletide functions he dodged, +considering that his sister's days in January and attendance at +other family formalities were sufficient.</p> +<p>Meanwhile he was looking for two things—an apartment and a +job—the first energetically combated by his immediate +family.</p> +<p>It was rather odd—the scarcity of jobs. Of course Austin +offered him one which Selwyn declined at once, comfortably enraging +his brother-in-law for nearly ten minutes.</p> +<p>"But what do I know about the investment of trust funds?" +demanded Selwyn; "you wouldn't take me if I were not your wife's +brother—and that's nepotism."</p> +<p>Austin's harmless fury raged for nearly ten minutes, after which +he cheered up, relighted his cigar, and resumed his discussion with +Selwyn concerning the merits of various boys' schools—the +victim in prospective being Billy.</p> +<p>A little later, reverting to the subject of his own enforced +idleness, Selwyn said: "I've been on the point of going to see +Neergard—but somehow I can't quite bring myself to +it—slinking into his office as a rank failure in one +profession, to ask him if he has any use for me again."</p> +<p>"Stuff and fancy!" growled Gerard; "it's all stuff and fancy +about your being any kind of a failure. If you want to resume with +that Dutchman, go to him and say so. If you want to invest anything +in his Long Island schemes he'll take you in fast enough. He took +in Gerald and some twenty thousand."</p> +<p>"Isn't he very prosperous, Austin?"</p> +<p>"Very—on paper. Long Island farm lands and mortgages on +Hampton hen-coops are not fragrant propositions to me. But there's +always one more way of making a living after you counted 'em all up +on your fingers. If you've any capital to offer Neergard, he won't +shriek for help."</p> +<p>"But isn't suburban property—"</p> +<p>"On the jump? Yes—both ways. Oh, I suppose that Neergard +is all right—if he wasn't I wouldn't have permitted Gerald to +go into it. Neergard sticks to his commissions and doesn't back his +fancy in certified checks. I don't know exactly how he operates; I +only know that we find nothing in that sort of thing for our own +account. But Fane, Harmon & Co. do. That's their affair, too; +it's all a matter of taste, I tell you."</p> +<p>Selwyn reflected: "I believe I'd go and see Neergard if I were +perfectly sure of my personal sentiments toward him. . . . He's +been civil enough to me, of course, but I have always had a curious +feeling about Neergard—that he's for ever on the edge of +doing something—doubtful—"</p> +<p>"His business reputation is all right. He shaves the dead line +like a safety razor, but he's never yet cut through it. On +principle, however, look out for an apple-faced Dutchman with a +thin nose and no lips. Neither Jew, Yankee, nor American stands any +chance in a deal with that type of financier. Personally my feeling +is this: if I've got to play games with Julius Neergard, I'd prefer +to be his partner. And so I told Gerald. By the way—"</p> +<p>Austin checked himself, looked down at his cigar, turned it over +and over several times, then continued quietly:</p> +<p>—"By the way, I suppose Gerald is like other young men of +his age and times—immersed in his own +affairs—thoughtless perhaps, perhaps a trifle selfish in the +cross-country gallop after pleasure. . . . I was rather severe with +him about his neglect of his sister. He ought to have come here to +pay his respects to you, too—"</p> +<p>"Oh, don't put such notions into his head—"</p> +<p>"Yes, I will!" insisted Austin; "however indifferent and +thoughtless and selfish he is to other people, he's got to be +considerate toward his own family. And I told him so. Have you seen +him lately?"</p> +<p>"N-o," admitted Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Not since that first time when he came to do the civil by +you?"</p> +<p>"No; but don't—"</p> +<p>"Yes, I will," repeated his brother-in-law; "and I'm going to +have a thorough explanation with him and learn what he's up to. +He's got to be decent to his sister; he ought to report to me +occasionally; that's all there is to it. He has entirely too much +liberty with his bachelor quarters and his junior whipper-snapper +club, and his house parties and his cruises on Neergard's +boat!"</p> +<p>He got up, casting his cigar from him, and moved about bulkily, +muttering of matters to be regulated, and firmly, too. But Selwyn, +looking out of the window across the Park, knew perfectly well that +young Erroll, now of age, with a small portion of his handsome +income at his mercy, was past the regulating stage and beyond the +authority of Austin. There was no harm in him; he was simply a +joyous, pleasure-loving cub, chock full of energetic instincts, +good and bad, right and wrong, out of which, formed from the acts +which become habits, character matures. This was his estimate of +Gerald.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The next morning, riding in the Park with Eileen, he found a +chance to speak cordially of her brother.</p> +<p>"I've meant to look up Gerald," he said, as though the neglect +were his own fault, "but every time something happens to switch me +on to another track."</p> +<p>"I'm afraid that I do a great deal of the switching," she said; +"don't I? But you've been so nice to me and to the children +that—"</p> +<p>Miss Erroll's horse was behaving badly, and for a few moments +she became too thoroughly occupied with her mount to finish her +sentence.</p> +<p>The belted groom galloped up, prepared for emergencies, and he +and Selwyn sat their saddles watching a pretty battle for mastery +between a beautiful horse determined to be bad and a very +determined young girl who had decided he was going to be good.</p> +<p>Once or twice the excitement of solicitude sent the colour +flying into Selwyn's temples; the bridle-path was narrow and stiff +with freezing sand, and the trees were too near for such lively +manoeuvres; but Miss Erroll had made up her mind—and Selwyn +already had a humorous idea that this was no light matter. The +horse found it serious enough, too, and suddenly concluded to be +good. And the pretty scene ended so abruptly that Selwyn laughed +aloud as he rejoined her:</p> +<p>"There was a man—'Boots' Lansing—in Bannard's +command. One night on Samar the bolo-men rushed us, and Lansing got +into the six-foot major's boots by mistake—seven-leaguers, +you know—and his horse bucked him clean out of them."</p> +<p>"Hence his Christian name, I suppose," said the girl; "but why +such a story, Captain Selwyn? I believe I stuck to my saddle?"</p> +<p>"With both hands," he said cordially, always alert to plague +her. For she was adorable when teased—especially in the +beginning of their acquaintance, before she had found out that it +was a habit of his—and her bright confusion always delighted +him into further mischief.</p> +<p>"But I wasn't a bit worried," he continued; "you had him so +firmly around the neck. Besides, what horse or man could resist +such a pleading pair of arms around the neck?"</p> +<p>"What you saw," she said, flushing up, "is exactly the way I +shall do any pleading with the two animals you mention."</p> +<p>"Spur and curb and thrash us? Oh, my!"</p> +<p>"Not if you're bridle-wise, Captain Selwyn," she returned +sweetly. "And you know you always are. And sometimes"—she +crossed her crop and looked around at him +reflectively—"<i>sometimes</i>, do you know, I am almost +afraid that you are so very, very good, that perhaps you are +becoming almost goody-good."</p> +<p>"<i>What</i>!" he exclaimed indignantly; but his only answer was +her head thrown back and a ripple of enchanting laughter.</p> +<p>Later she remarked: "It's just as Nina says, after all, isn't +it?"</p> +<p>"I suppose so," he replied suspiciously; "what?"</p> +<p>"That Gerald isn't really very wicked, but he likes to have us +think so. It's a sign of extreme self-consciousness, isn't it," she +added innocently, "when a man is afraid that a woman thinks he is +very, very good?"</p> +<p>"That," he said, "is the limit. I'm going to ride by +myself."</p> +<p>Her pleasure in Selwyn's society had gradually become such +genuine pleasure, her confidence in his kindness so unaffectedly +sincere, that, insensibly, she had fallen into something of his +manner of badinage—especially since she realised how much +amusement he found in her own smiling confusion when unexpectedly +assailed. Also, to her surprise, she found that he could be plagued +very easily, though she did not quite dare to at first, in view of +his impressive years and experience.</p> +<p>But once goaded to it, she was astonished to find how suddenly +it seemed to readjust their personal relations—years and +experience falling from his shoulders like a cloak which had +concealed a man very nearly her own age; years and experience +adding themselves to her, and at least an inch to her stature to +redress the balance between them.</p> +<p>It had amused him immensely as he realised the subtle change; +and it pleased him, too, because no man of thirty-five cares to be +treated <i>en grandpère</i> by a girl of nineteen, even if +she has not yet worn the polish from her first pair of high-heeled +shoes.</p> +<p>"It's astonishing," he said, "how little respect infirmity and +age command in these days."</p> +<p>"I do respect you," she insisted, "especially your infirmity of +purpose. You said you were going to ride by yourself. But, do you +know, I don't believe you are of a particularly solitary +disposition; are you?"</p> +<p>He laughed at first, then suddenly his face fell.</p> +<p>"Not from choice," he said, under his breath. Her quick ear +heard, and she turned, semi-serious, questioning him with raised +eyebrows.</p> +<p>"Nothing; I was just muttering. I've a villainous habit of +muttering mushy nothings—"</p> +<p>"You <i>did</i> say something!"</p> +<p>"No; only ghoulish gabble; the mere murky mouthings of a meagre +mind."</p> +<p>"You <i>did</i>. It's rude not to repeat it when I ask you."</p> +<p>"I didn't mean to be rude."</p> +<p>"Then repeat what you said to yourself."</p> +<p>"Do you wish me to?" he asked, raising his eyes so gravely that +the smile faded from lip and voice when she answered: "I beg your +pardon, Captain Selwyn. I did not know you were serious."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm not," he returned lightly, "I'm never serious. No man +who soliloquises can be taken seriously. Don't you know, Miss +Erroll, that the crowning absurdity of all tragedy is the +soliloquy?"</p> +<p>Her smile became delightfully uncertain; she did not quite +understand him—though her instinct warned her that, for a +second, something had menaced their understanding.</p> +<p>Riding forward with him through the crisp sunshine of +mid-December, the word "tragedy" still sounding in her ears, her +thoughts reverted naturally to the only tragedy besides her own +which had ever come very near to her—his own.</p> +<p>Could he have meant <i>that</i>? Did people mention such things +after they had happened? Did they not rather conceal them, hide +them deeper and deeper with the aid of time and the kindly years +for a burial past all recollection?</p> +<p>Troubled, uncomfortably intent on evading every thought or train +of ideas evoked, she put her mount to a gallop. But thought kept +pace with her.</p> +<p>She was, of course, aware of the situation regarding Selwyn's +domestic affairs; she could not very well have been kept long in +ignorance of the facts; so Nina had told her carefully, leaving in +the young girl's mind only a bewildered sympathy for man and wife +whom a dreadful and incomprehensible catastrophe had overtaken; +only an impression of something new and fearsome which she had +hitherto been unaware of in the world, and which was to be added to +her small but, unhappily, growing list of sad and incredible +things.</p> +<p>The finality of the affair, according to Nina, was what had +seemed to her the most distressing—as though those two were +already dead people. She was unable to understand it. Could no +glimmer of hope remain that, in that magic "some day" of all young +minds, the evil mystery might dissolve? Could there be no living +"happily ever after" in the wake of such a storm? She had managed +to hope for that, and believe in it.</p> +<p>Then, in some way, the news of Alixe's marriage to Ruthven +filtered through the family silence. She had gone straight to Nina, +horrified, unbelieving. And, when the long, tender, intimate +interview was over, another unhappy truth, very gently revealed, +was added to the growing list already learned by this young +girl.</p> +<p>Then Selwyn came. She had already learned something of the +world's customs and manners before his advent; she had learned more +since his advent; and she was learning something else, too—to +understand how happily ignorant of many matters she had been, had +better be, and had best remain. And she harboured no malsane desire +to know more than was necessary, and every innocent instinct to +preserve her ignorance intact as long as the world permitted.</p> +<p>As for the man riding there at her side, his problem was simple +enough as he summed it up: to face the world, however it might +chance to spin, that small, ridiculous, haphazard world rattling +like a rickety roulette ball among the numbered nights and days +where he had no longer any vital stake at hazard—no longer +any chance to win or lose.</p> +<p>This was an unstable state of mind, particularly as he had not +yet destroyed the photograph which he kept locked in his despatch +box. He had not returned it, either; it was too late by several +months to do that, but he was still fool enough to consider the +idea at moments—sometimes after a nursery romp with the +children, or after a good-night kiss from Drina on the lamp-lit +landing, or when some commonplace episode of the domesticity around +him hurt him, cutting him to the quick with its very simplicity, as +when Nina's hand fell naturally into Austin's on their way to "lean +over" the children at bedtime, or their frank absorption in +conjugal discussion to his own exclusion as he sat brooding by the +embers in the library.</p> +<p>"I'm like a dead man at times," he said to himself; "nothing to +expect of a man who is done for; and worst of all, I no longer +expect anything of myself."</p> +<p>This was sufficiently morbid, and he usually proved it by going +early to his own quarters, where dawn sometimes surprised him +asleep in his chair, white and worn, all the youth in his hollow +face extinct, his wife's picture fallen face downward on the +floor.</p> +<p>But he always picked it up again when he awoke, and carefully +dusted it, too, even when half stupefied with sleep.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Returning from their gallop, Miss Erroll had very little to say. +Selwyn, too, was silent and absent-minded. The girl glanced +furtively at him from time to time, not at all enlightened. Man, +naturally, was to her an unknown quantity. In fact she had no +reason to suspect him of being anything more intricate than the +platitudinous dance or dinner partner in black and white, or any +frock-coated entity in the afternoon, or any flannelled individual +at the nets or on the links or cantering about the veranda of club, +casino, or cottage, in evident anxiety to be considerate and +agreeable.</p> +<p>This one, however, appeared to have individual peculiarities; he +differed from his brother Caucasians, who should all resemble one +another to any normal girl. For one thing he was subject to +illogical moods—apparently not caring whether she noticed +them or not. For another, he permitted himself the liberty of long +and unreasonable silences whenever he pleased. This she had +accepted unquestioningly in the early days when she was a little in +awe of him, when the discrepancy of their ages and experiences had +not been dissipated by her first presumptuous laughter at his +expense.</p> +<p>Now it puzzled her, appearing as a specific trait +differentiating him from Man in the abstract.</p> +<p>He had another trick, too, of retiring within himself, even when +smiling at her sallies or banteringly evading her challenge to a +duel of wits. At such times he no longer looked very young; she had +noticed that more than once. He looked old, and ill-tempered.</p> +<p>Perhaps some sorrow—the actuality being vague in her mind; +perhaps some hidden suffering—but she learned that he had +never been wounded in battle and had never even had measles.</p> +<p>The sudden sullen pallor, the capricious fits of silent reserve, +the smiling aloofness, she never attributed to the real source. How +could she? The Incomprehensible Thing was a Finality accomplished +according to law. And the woman concerned was now another man's +wife. Which conclusively proved that there could be no regret +arising from the Incomprehensible Finality, and that nobody +involved cared, much less suffered. Hence <i>that</i> was certainly +not the cause of any erratic or specific phenomena exhibited by +this sample of man who differed, as she had noticed, somewhat from +the rank and file of his neutral-tinted brothers.</p> +<p>"It's this particular specimen, <i>per se</i>," she concluded; +"it's himself, <i>sui generis</i>—just as I happen to have +red hair. That is all."</p> +<p>And she rode on quite happily, content, confident of his +interest and kindness. For she had never forgotten his warm +response to her when she stood on the threshold of her first real +dinner party, in her first real dinner gown—a trivial +incident, trivial words! But they had meant more to her than any +man specimen could understand—including the man who had +uttered them; and the violets, which she found later with his card, +must remain for her ever after the delicately fragrant symbol of +all he had done for her in a solitude, the completeness of which +she herself was only vaguely beginning to realise.</p> +<p>Thinking of this now, she thought of her brother—and the +old hurt at his absence on that night throbbed again. Forgive? Yes. +But how could she forget it?</p> +<p>"I wish you knew Gerald well," she said impulsively; "he is such +a dear fellow; and I think you'd be good for him—and +besides," she hastened to add, with instinctive loyalty, lest he +misconstrue, "Gerald would be good for you. We were a great deal +together—at one time."</p> +<p>He nodded, smilingly attentive.</p> +<p>"Of course when he went away to school it was different," she +added. "And then he went to Yale; that was four more years, you +see."</p> +<p>"I was a Yale man," remarked Selwyn; "did he—" but he +broke off abruptly, for he knew quite well that young Erroll could +have made no senior society without his hearing of it. And he had +not heard of it—not in the cane-brakes of Leyte where, on his +sweat-soaked shirt, a small pin of heavy gold had clung through +many a hike and many a scout and by many a camp-fire where the talk +was of home and of the chances of crews and of quarter-backs.</p> +<p>"What were you going to ask me, Captain Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"Did he row—your brother Gerald?"</p> +<p>"No," she said. She did not add that he had broken training; +that was her own sorrow, to be concealed even from Gerald. "No; he +played polo sometimes. He rides beautifully, Captain Selwyn, and he +is so clever when he cares to be—at the traps, for +example—and—oh—anything. He once swam—oh, +dear, I forget; was it five or fifteen or fifty miles? Is that +<i>too</i> far? Do people swim those distances?"</p> +<p>"Some of those distances," replied Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Well, then, Gerald swam some of those distances—and +everybody was amazed. . . . I do wish you knew him well."</p> +<p>"I mean to," he said. "I must look him up at his rooms or his +club or—perhaps—at Neergard & Co."</p> +<p>"<i>Will</i> you do this?" she asked, so earnestly that he +glanced up surprised.</p> +<p>"Yes," he said; and after a moment: "I'll do it to-day, I think; +this afternoon."</p> +<p>"Have you time? You mustn't let me—"</p> +<p>"Time?" he repeated; "I have nothing else, except a watch to +help me get rid of it."</p> +<p>"I'm afraid I help you get rid of it, too. I heard Nina warning +the children to let you alone occasionally—and I suppose she +meant that for me, too. But I only take your mornings, don't I? +Nina is unreasonable; I never bother you in the afternoons or +evenings; do you know I have not dined at home for nearly a +month—except when we've asked people?"</p> +<p>"Are you having a good time?" he asked condescendingly, but +without intention.</p> +<p>"Heavenly. How can you ask that?—with every day filled and +a chance to decline something every day. If you'd only go to +one—just one of the dances and teas and dinners, you'd be +able to see for yourself what a good time I am having. . . . I +don't know why I should be so delightfully lucky, but everybody +asks me to dance, and every man I meet is particularly nice, and +nobody has been very horrid to me; perhaps because I like +everybody—"</p> +<p>She rode on beside him; they were walking their horses now; and +as her silken-coated mount paced forward through the sunshine she +sat at ease, straight as a slender Amazon in her habit, ruddy hair +glistening at the nape of her neck, the scarlet of her lips always +a vivid contrast to that wonderful unblemished skin of snow.</p> +<p>He thought to himself, quite impersonally: "She's a real beauty, +that youngster. No wonder they ask her to dance and nobody is +horrid. Men are likely enough to go quite mad about her as Nina +predicts: probably some of 'em have already—that +chuckle-headed youth who was there Tuesday, gulping up the +tea—" And, "What was his name?" he asked aloud.</p> +<p>"Whose name?" she inquired, roused by his voice from smiling +retrospection.</p> +<p>"That chuckle head—the young man who continued to haunt +you so persistently when you poured tea for Nina on Tuesday. Of +course they <i>all</i> haunted you," he explained politely, as she +shook her head in sign of non-comprehension; "but there was one +who—ah—gulped at his cup."</p> +<p>"Please—you are rather dreadful, aren't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes. So was he; I mean the infatuated chinless gentleman whose +facial ensemble remotely resembled the features of a pleased and +placid lizard of the Reptilian period."</p> +<p>"Oh, George Fane! That is particularly disagreeable of you, +Captain Selwyn, because his wife has been very nice to +me—Rosamund Fane—and she spoke most cordially of +you—"</p> +<p>"Which one was she?"</p> +<p>"The Dresden china one. She looks—she simply cannot look +as though she were married. It's most amusing—for people +always take her for somebody's youngest sister who will be out next +winter. . . . Don't you remember seeing her?"</p> +<p>"No, I don't. But there were dozens coming and going every +minute whom I didn't know. Still, I behaved well, didn't I?"</p> +<p>"Pretty badly—to Kathleen Lawn, whom you cornered so that +she couldn't escape until her mother made her go without any +tea."</p> +<p>"Was <i>that</i> the reason that old lady looked at me so +queerly?"</p> +<p>"Probably. I did, too, but you were taking chances, not hints. . +. . She <i>is</i> attractive, isn't she?"</p> +<p>"Very fetching," he said, leaning down to examine his stirrup +leathers which he had already lengthened twice. "I've got to have +Cummins punch these again," he muttered; "or am I growing +queer-legged in my old age?"</p> +<p>As he straightened up, Miss Erroll said: "Here comes Mr. Fane +now—with a strikingly pretty girl. How beautifully they are +mounted"—smilingly returning Fane's salute—"and +she—oh! so you <i>do</i> know her, Captain Selwyn? Who is +she?"</p> +<p>Crop raised mechanically in dazed salute, Selwyn's light touch +on the bridle had tightened to a nervous clutch which brought his +horse up sharply.</p> +<p>"What is it?" she asked, drawing bridle in her turn and looking +back into his white, stupefied face.</p> +<p>"Pain," he said, unconscious that he spoke. At the same instant +the stunned eyes found their focus—and found her beside his +stirrup, leaning wide from her seat in sweet concern, one gloved +hand resting on the pommel of his saddle.</p> +<p>"Are you ill?" she asked; "shall we dismount? If you feel dizzy, +please lean against me."</p> +<p>"I am all right," he said coolly; and as she recovered her seat +he set his horse in motion. His face had become very red now; he +looked at her, then beyond her, with all the deliberate +concentration of aloof indifference.</p> +<p>Confused, conscious that something had happened which she did +not comprehend, and sensitively aware of the preoccupation which, +if it did not ignore her, accepted her presence as of no +consequence, she permitted her horse to set his own pace.</p> +<p>Neither self-command nor self-control was lacking now in Selwyn; +he simply was too self-absorbed to care what she +thought—whether she thought at all. And into his +consciousness, throbbing heavily under the rushing reaction from +shock, crowded the crude fact that Alixe was no longer an +apparition evoked in sleeplessness, in sun-lit brooding; in the +solitude of crowded avenues and swarming streets; she was an actual +presence again in his life—she was here, bodily, +unchanged—unchanged!—for he had conceived a strange +idea that she must have changed physically, that her appearance had +altered. He knew it was a grotesquely senseless idea, but it clung +to him, and he had nursed it unconsciously.</p> +<p>He had, truly enough, expected to encounter her in life +again—somewhere; though what he had been preparing to see, +Heaven alone knew; but certainly not the supple, laughing girl he +had known—that smooth, slender, dark-eyed, dainty visitor who +had played at marriage with him through a troubled and unreal +dream; and was gone when he awoke—so swift the brief two +years had passed, as swift in sorrow as in happiness.</p> +<p>Two vision-tinted years!—ended as an hour ends with the +muffled chimes of a clock, leaving the air of an empty room +vibrant. Two years!—a swift, restless dream aglow with exotic +colour, echoing with laughter and bugle-call and the noise of the +surf on Samar rocks—a dream through which stirred the rustle +of strange brocades and the whisper of breezes blowing over the +grasses of Leyte; and the light, dry report of rifles, and the +shuffle of bare feet in darkened bungalows, and the whisper of dawn +in Manila town.</p> +<p>Two years!—wherever they came from, wherever they had +gone. And now, out of the ghostly, shadowy memory, behold +<i>her</i> stepping into the world again!—living, breathing, +quickening with the fire of life undimmed in her. And he had seen +the bright colour spreading to her eyes, and the dark eyes widen to +his stare; he had seen the vivid blush, the forced smile, the nod, +the voiceless parting of her stiffened lips. Then she was gone, +leaving the whole world peopled with her living presence and the +very sky ringing with the words her lips had never uttered, never +would utter while sun and moon and stars endured.</p> +<p>Shrinking from the clamouring tumult of his thoughts he looked +around, hard-eyed and drawn of mouth, to find Miss Erroll riding a +length in advance, her gaze fixed resolutely between her horse's +ears.</p> +<p>How much had she noticed? How much had she divined?—this +straight, white-throated young girl, with her self-possession and +her rounded, firm young figure, this child with the pure, curved +cheek, the clear, fearless eyes, untainted, ignorant, incredulous +of shame, of evil.</p> +<p>Severe, confident, untroubled in the freshness of adolescence, +she rode on, straight before her, symbolic innocence leading the +disillusioned. And he followed, hard, dry eyes narrowing, ever +narrowing and flinching under the smiling gaze of the dark-eyed, +red-mouthed ghost that sat there on his saddle bow, facing him, +almost in his very arms.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Luncheon had not been served when they returned. Without +lingering on the landing as usual, they exchanged a formal word or +two, then Eileen mounted to her own quarters and Selwyn walked +nervously through the library, where he saw Nina evidently prepared +for some mid-day festivity, for she wore hat and furs, and the +brougham was outside.</p> +<p>"Oh, Phil," she said, "Eileen probably forgot that I was going +out; it's a directors' luncheon at the exchange. Please tell Eileen +that I can't wait for her; where is she?"</p> +<p>"Dressing, I suppose. Nina, I—"</p> +<p>"One moment, dear. I promised the children that you would lunch +with them in the nursery. Do you mind? I did it to keep them quiet; +I was weak enough to compromise between a fox hunt or fudge; so I +said you'd lunch with them.. Will you?"</p> +<p>"Certainly. . . . And, Nina—what sort of a man is this +George Fane?"</p> +<p>"Fane?"</p> +<p>"Yes—the chinless gentleman with gentle brown and +protruding eyes and the expression of a tame brontosaurus."</p> +<p>"Why—how do you mean, Phil? What sort of man? He's a +banker. He isn't very pretty, but he's popular."</p> +<p>"Oh, popular!" he nodded, as close to a sneer as he could ever +get.</p> +<p>"He has a very popular wife, too; haven't you met Rosamund? +People like him; he's about everywhere—very useful, very +devoted to pretty women; but I'm really in a hurry, Phil. Won't you +please explain to Eileen that I couldn't wait? You and she were +almost an hour late. Now I must pick up my skirts and fly, or +there'll be some indignant dowagers downtown. . . . Good-bye, dear. +. . . And <i>don't</i> let the children eat too fast! Make Drina +take thirty-six chews to every bite; and Winthrop is to have no +bread if he has potatoes—" Her voice dwindled and died, away +through the hall; the front door clanged.</p> +<p>He went to his quarters, drove out Austin's man, arranged his +own fresh linen, took a sulky plunge; and, an unlighted cigarette +between his teeth, completed his dressing in sullen +introspection.</p> +<p>When he had tied his scarf and bitten his cigarette to pieces, +he paced the room once or twice, squared his shoulders, breathed +deeply, and, unbending his eyebrows, walked off to the nursery.</p> +<p>"Hello, you kids!" he said, with an effort. "I've come to +luncheon. Very nice of you to want me, Drina."</p> +<p>"I wanted you, too!" said Billy; "I'm to sit beside +you—"</p> +<p>"So am I," observed Drina, pushing Winthrop out of the chair and +sliding in close to Selwyn. She had the cat, Kit-Ki, in her arms. +Kit-Ki, divining nourishment, was purring loudly.</p> +<p>Josephine and Clemence, in pinafores and stickout skirts, sat +wriggling, with Winthrop between them; the five dogs sat in a row +behind; Katie and Bridget assumed the functions of Hibernian Hebes; +and luncheon began with a clatter of spoons.</p> +<p>It being also the children's dinner—supper and bed +occurring from five to six—meat figured on the card, and +Kit-Ki's purring increased to an ecstatic and wheezy squeal, and +her rigid tail, as she stood up on Drina's lap, was constantly +brushing Selwyn's features.</p> +<p>"The cat is shedding, too," he remarked, as he dodged her caudal +appendage for the twentieth time; "it will go in with the next +spoonful, Drina, if you're not careful about opening your +mouth."</p> +<p>"I love Kit-Ki," said Drina placidly. "I have written a poem to +her—where is it?—hand it to me, Bridget."</p> +<p>And, laying down her fork and crossing her bare legs under the +table, Drina took breath and read rapidly:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"LINES TO MY CAT<br /> +<br /> +"Why<br /> +Do I love Kit-Ki<br /> +And run after<br /> +Her with laughter<br /> +And rub her fur<br /> +So she will purr?<br /> +Why do I know<br /> +That Kit-Ki loves me so?<br /> +I know it if<br /> +Her tail stands up stiff<br /> +And she beguiles<br /> +Me with smiles—"</div> +<p>"Huh!" said Billy, "cats don't smile!"</p> +<p>"They do. When they look pleasant they smile," said Drina, and +continued reading from her own works:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"Be kind in all<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">You say and do</span><br /> +For God made Kit-Ki<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The same as you.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">"Yours truly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"ALEXANDRINA GERARD.</span></div> +<p>She looked doubtfully at Selwyn. "Is it all right to sign a +poem? I believe that poets sign their works, don't they, Uncle +Philip?"</p> +<p>"Certainly. Drina, I'll give you a dollar for that poem."</p> +<p>"You may have it, anyway," said Drina, generously; and, as an +after-thought: "My birthday is next Wednesday."</p> +<p>"What a hint!" jeered Billy, casting a morsel at the dogs.</p> +<p>"It isn't a hint. It had nothing to do with my poem, and I'll +write you several more, Uncle Philip," protested the child, +cuddling against him, spoon in hand, and inadvertently decorating +his sleeve with cranberry sauce.</p> +<p>Cat hairs and cranberry are a great deal for a man to endure, +but he gave Drina a reassuring hug and a whisper, and leaned back +to remove traces of the affectionate encounter just as Miss Erroll +entered.</p> +<p>"Oh, Eileen! Eileen!" cried the children; "are you coming to +luncheon with us?"</p> +<p>As Selwyn rose, she nodded, amused.</p> +<p>"I am rather hurt," she said. "I went down to luncheon, but as +soon as I heard where you all were I marched straight up here to +demand the reason of my ostracism."</p> +<p>"We thought you had gone with mother," explained Drina, looking +about for a chair.</p> +<p>Selwyn brought it. "I was commissioned to say that Nina couldn't +wait—dowagers and cakes and all that, you know. Won't you sit +down? It's rather messy and the cat is the guest of honour."</p> +<p>"We have three guests of honour," said Drina; "you, Eileen, and +Kit-Ki. Uncle Philip, mother has forbidden me to speak of it, so I +shall tell her and be punished—but <i>wouldn't</i> it be +splendid if Aunt Alixe were only here with us?"</p> +<p>Selwyn turned sharply, every atom of colour gone; and the child +smiled up at him. "<i>Wouldn't</i> it?" she pleaded.</p> +<p>"Yes," he said, so quietly that something silenced the child. +And Eileen, giving ostentatious and undivided attention to the +dogs, was now enveloped by snooping, eager muzzles and frantically +wagging tails.</p> +<p>"My lap is full of paws!" she exclaimed; "take them away, Katie! +And oh!—my gown, my gown!—Billy, stop waving your +tumbler around my face! If you spill that milk on me I shall ask +your Uncle Philip to put you in the guard-house!"</p> +<p>"You're going to bolo us, aren't you, Uncle Philip?" inquired +Billy. "It's my turn to be killed, you remember—"</p> +<p>"I have an idea," said Selwyn, "that Miss Erroll is going to +play for you to sing."</p> +<p>They liked that. The infant Gerards were musically inclined, and +nothing pleased them better than to lift their voices in unison. +Besides, it always distressed Kit-Ki, and they never tired laughing +to see the unhappy cat retreat before the first minor chord struck +on the piano. More than that, the dogs always protested, noses +pointed heavenward. It meant noise, which was always welcome in any +form.</p> +<p>"Will you play, Miss Erroll?" inquired Selwyn.</p> +<p>Miss Erroll would play.</p> +<p>"Why do you always call her 'Miss Erroll'?" asked Billy. "Why +don't you say 'Eileen'?"</p> +<p>Selwyn laughed. "I don't know, Billy; ask her; perhaps she +knows."</p> +<p>Eileen laughed, too, delicately embarrassed and aware of his +teasing smile. But Drina, always impressed by formality, said: +"Uncle Philip isn't Eileen's uncle. People who are not relations +say <i>Miss and Mrs</i>."</p> +<p>"Are faver and muvver relations?" asked Josephine timidly.</p> +<p>"Y-es—no!—I don't know," admitted Drina; "<i>are</i> +they, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Why, yes—that is—that is to say—" And turning +to Selwyn: "What dreadful questions. <i>Are</i> they relations, +Captain Selwyn? Of course they are!"</p> +<p>"They were not before they were married," he said, laughing.</p> +<p>"If you married Eileen," began Billy, "you'd call her Eileen, I +suppose."</p> +<p>"Certainly," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Why don't you?"</p> +<p>"That is another thing you must ask her, my son."</p> +<p>"Well, then, Eileen—"</p> +<p>But Miss Erroll was already seated at the nursery piano, and his +demands were drowned in a decisive chord which brought the children +clustering around her, while their nurses ran among them untying +bibs and scrubbing faces and fingers in fresh water.</p> +<p>They sang like seraphs, grouped around the piano, fingers linked +behind their backs. First it was "The Vicar of Bray." +Then—and the cat fled at the first chord—"Lochleven +Castle":</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"Put off, put off,<br /> +And row with speed<br /> +For now is the time and the hour of need."</div> +<p>Miss Erroll sang, too; her voice leading—a charmingly +trained, but childlike voice, of no pretensions, as fresh and +unspoiled as the girl herself.</p> +<p>There was an interval after "Castles in the Air"; Eileen sat, +with her marvellously white hands resting on the keys, awaiting +further suggestion.</p> +<p>"Sing that funny song, Uncle Philip!" pleaded Billy; "you +know—the one about:</p> +<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"She hit him +with a shingle</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which made his breeches +tingle</span><br /> +Because he pinched his little baby brother;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And he ran down the +lane</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With his pants full of +pain.</span><br /> +Oh, a boy's best friend is his mother!"</div> +<p>"<i>Billy!</i>" gasped Miss Erroll.</p> +<p>Selwyn, mortified, said severely: "That is a very dreadful song, +Billy—"</p> +<p>"But <i>you</i> taught it to me—"</p> +<p>Eileen swung around on the piano stool, but Selwyn had seized +Billy and was promising to bolo him as soon as he wished.</p> +<p>And Eileen, surveying the scene from her perch, thought that +Selwyn's years seemed to depend entirely upon his occupation, for +he looked very boyish down there on his knees among the children; +and she had not yet forgotten the sunken pallor of his features in +the Park—no, nor her own question to him, still unanswered. +For she had asked him who that woman was who had been so direct in +her smiling salute. And he had not yet replied; probably never +would; for she did not expect to ask him again.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the bolo-men were rushing the outposts to the +outposts' intense satisfaction.</p> +<p>"Bang-bang!" repeated Winthrop; "I hit you, Uncle Philip. You +are dead, you know!"</p> +<p>"Yes, but here comes another! Fire!" shouted Billy. "Save the +flag! Hurrah! Pound on the piano, Eileen, and pretend it's +cannon."</p> +<p>Chord after chord reverberated through the big sunny room, +punctuated by all the cavalry music she had picked up from West +Point and her friends in the squadron.</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"We can't get 'em up!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">We can't get 'em up!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">We can't get 'em up</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the morning!"</span></div> +<p>she sang, calmly watching the progress of the battle, until +Selwyn disengaged himself from the <i>mêlée</i> and +sank breathlessly into a chair.</p> +<p>"All over," he said, declining further combat. "Play the +'Star-spangled Banner,' Miss Erroll."</p> +<p>"Boom!" crashed the chord for the sunset gun; then she played +the anthem; Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute.</p> +<p>The party was over.</p> +<p>Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery +and down the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange +of badinage again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, +he retorting in kind.</p> +<p>"Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy," +she concluded.</p> +<p>"Not as dreadful as the chorus," he remarked, wincing.</p> +<p>"You're exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look +like one now—so sheepish! I've seen Gerald attempt to avoid +admonition in exactly that fashion."</p> +<p>"How about a jolly brisk walk?" he inquired blandly; "unless +you've something on. I suppose you have."</p> +<p>"Yes, I have; a tea at the Fanes, a function at the Grays. . . . +Do you know Sudbury Gray? It's his mother."</p> +<p>They had strolled into the living room—a big, square, +sunny place, in golden greens and browns, where a bay-window +overlooked the Park.</p> +<p>Kneeling on the cushions of the deep window seat she flattened +her delicate nose against the glass, peering out through the lace +hangings.</p> +<p>"Everybody and his family are driving," she said over her +shoulder. "The rich and great are cornering the fresh-air supply. +It's interesting, isn't it, merely to sit here and count coteries! +There is Mrs. Vendenning and Gladys Orchil of the Black Fells set; +there is that pretty Mrs. Delmour-Carnes; Newport! Here come some +Cedarhurst people—the Fleetwoods. It always surprises one to +see them out of the saddle. There is Evelyn Cardwell; she came out +when I did; and there comes Sandon Craig with a very old +lady—there, in that old-fashioned coach—oh, it is Mrs. +Jan Van Elten, senior. What a very, very quaint old lady! I have +been presented at court," she added, with a little laugh, "and now +all the law has been fulfilled."</p> +<p>For a while she kneeled there, silently intent on the passing +pageant with all the unconscious curiosity of a child. Presently, +without turning: "They speak of the younger set—but what is +its limit? So many, so many people! The hunting crowd—the +silly crowd—the wealthy sets—the dreadful yellow +set—then all those others made out of metals—copper and +coal and iron and—" She shrugged her youthful shoulders, +still intent on the passing show.</p> +<p>"Then there are the intellectuals—the artistic, the +illuminated, the musical sorts. I—I wish I knew more of them. +They were my father's friends—some of them." She looked over +her shoulder to see where Selwyn was, and whether he was listening; +smiled at him, and turned, resting one hand on the window seat. "So +many kinds of people," she said, with a shrug.</p> +<p>"Yes," said Selwyn lazily, "there are all kinds of kinds. You +remember that beautiful nature-poem:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"'The sea-gull<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the eagul</span><br /> +And the dipper-dapper-duck<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the Jew-fish</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the blue-fish</span><br /> +And the turtle in the muck;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the squir'l</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the girl</span><br /> +And the flippy floppy bat<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are differ-ent</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As gent from gent.</span><br /> +So let it go at that!'"</div> +<p>"What hideous nonsense," she laughed, in open encouragement; but +he could recall nothing more—or pretended he couldn't.</p> +<p>"You asked me," he said, "whether I know Sudbury Gray. I do, +slightly. What about him?" And he waited, remembering Nina's +suggestion as to that wealthy young man's eligibility.</p> +<p>"He's one of the nicest men I know," she replied frankly.</p> +<p>"Yes, but you don't know 'Boots' Lansing."</p> +<p>"The gentleman who was bucked out of his footwear? Is he +attractive?"</p> +<p>"Rather. Shrieks rent the air when 'Boots' left Manila."</p> +<p>"Feminine shrieks?"</p> +<p>"Exclusively. The men were glad enough. He has three months' +leave this winter, so you'll see him soon."</p> +<p>She thanked him mockingly for the promise, watching him from +amused eyes. After a moment she said:</p> +<p>"I ought to arise and go forth with timbrels and with dances; +but, do you know, I am not inclined to revels? There has been a +little—just a very little bit too much festivity so far. . . +. Not that I don't adore dinners and gossip and dances; not that I +do not love to pervade bright and glittering places. Oh, no. +Only—I—"</p> +<p>She looked shyly a moment at Selwyn: "I sometimes feel a curious +desire for other things. I have been feeling it all day."</p> +<p>"What things?"</p> +<p>"I—don't know—exactly; substantial things. I'd like +to learn about things. My father was the head of the American +School of Archæology in Crete. My mother was his intellectual +equal, I believe—"</p> +<p>Her voice had fallen as she spoke. "Do you wonder that physical +pleasure palls a little at times? I inherit something besides a +capacity for dancing."</p> +<p>He nodded, watching her with an interest and curiosity totally +new.</p> +<p>"When I was ten years old I was taken abroad for the winter. I +saw the excavations in Crete for the buried city which father +discovered near Præsos. We lived for a while with Professor +Flanders in the Fayum district; I saw the ruins of Kahun, built +nearly three thousand years before the coming of Christ; I myself +picked up a scarab as old as the ruins! . . . Captain +Selwyn—I was only a child of ten; I could understand very +little of what I saw and heard, but I have never, never forgotten +the happiness of that winter! . . . And that is why, at times, +pleasures tire me a little; and a little discontent creeps in. It +is ungrateful and ungracious of me to say so, but I did wish so +much to go to college—to have something to care for—as +mother cared for father's work. Why, do you know that my mother +accidentally discovered the thirty-seventh sign in the Karian +Signary?"</p> +<p>"No," said Selwyn, "I did not know that." He forbore to add that +he did not know what a Signary resembled or where Karia might +be.</p> +<p>Miss Erroll's elbow was on her knee, her chin resting within her +open palm.</p> +<p>"Do you know about my parents?" she asked. "They were lost in +the <i>Argolis</i> off Cyprus. You have heard. I think they meant +that I should go to college—as well as Gerald; I don't know. +Perhaps after all it is better for me to do what other young girls +do. Besides, I enjoy it; and my mother did, too, when she was my +age, they say. She was very much gayer than I am; my mother was a +beauty and a brilliant woman. . . . But there were other qualities. +I—have her letters to father when Gerald and I were very +little; and her letters to us from London. . . . I have missed her +more, this winter, it seems to me, than even in that dreadful +time—"</p> +<p>She sat silent, chin in hand, delicate fingers restlessly +worrying her red lips; then, in quick impulse:</p> +<p>"You will not mistake me, Captain Selwyn! Nina and Austin have +been perfectly sweet to me and to Gerald."</p> +<p>"I am not mistaking a word you utter," he said.</p> +<p>"No, of course not. . . . Only there are times . . . moments . . +."</p> +<p>Her voice died; her clear eyes looked out into space while the +silent seconds lengthened into minutes. One slender finger had +slipped between her lips and teeth; the burnished strand of hair +which Nina dreaded lay neglected against her cheek.</p> +<p>"I should like to know," she began, as though to herself, +"something about everything. That being out of the question, I +should like to know everything about something. That also being out +of the question, for third choice I should like to know something +about something. I am not too ambitious, am I?"</p> +<p>Selwyn did not offer to answer.</p> +<p>"<i>Am</i> I?" she repeated, looking directly at him.</p> +<p>"I thought you were asking yourself."</p> +<p>"But you need not reply; there is no sense in my question."</p> +<p>She stood up, indifferent, absent-eyed, half turning toward the +window; and, raising her hand, she carelessly brought the rebel +strand of hair under discipline.</p> +<p>"You <i>said</i> you were going to look up Gerald," she +observed.</p> +<p>"I am; now. What are you going to do?"</p> +<p>"I? Oh, dress, I suppose. Nina ought to be back now, and she +expects me to go out with her."</p> +<p>She nodded a smiling termination of their duet, and moved toward +the door. Then, on impulse, she turned, a question on her +lips—left unuttered through instinct. It had to do with the +identity of the pretty woman who had so directly saluted him in the +Park—a perfectly friendly, simple, and natural question. Yet +it remained unuttered.</p> +<p>She turned again to the doorway; a maid stood there holding a +note on a salver.</p> +<p>"For Captain Selwyn, please," murmured the maid.</p> +<p>Miss Erroll passed out.</p> +<p>Selwyn took the note and broke the seal:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"MY DEAR SELWYN: I'm in a beastly fix—an I.O.U. due +to-night and <i>pas de quoi</i>! Obviously I don't want Neergard to +know, being associated as I am with him in business. As for Austin, +he's a peppery old boy, bless his heart, and I'm not very secure in +his good graces at present. Fact is I got into a rather stiff game +last night—and it's a matter of honour. So can you help me to +tide it over? I'll square it on the first of the month.</p> +<p>"Yours sincerely,</p> +<p>"GERALD ERROLL.</p> +<p>"P.S.—I've meant to look you up for ever so long, and will +the first moment I have free."</p> +</div> +<p>Below this was pencilled the amount due; and Selwyn's face grew +very serious.</p> +<p>The letter he wrote in return ran:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"DEAR GERALD: Check enclosed to your order. By the way, can't +you lunch with me at the Lenox Club some day this week? Write, +wire, or telephone when.</p> +<p>"Yours,</p> +<p>"SELWYN."</p> +</div> +<p>When he had sent the note away by the messenger he walked back +to the bay-window, hands in his pockets, a worried expression in +his gray eyes. This sort of thing must not be repeated; the boy +must halt in his tracks and face sharply the other way. Besides, +his own income was limited—much too limited to admit of many +more loans of that sort.</p> +<p>He ought to see Gerald at once, but somehow he could not in +decency appear personally on the heels of his loan. A certain +interval must elapse between the loan and the lecture; in fact he +didn't see very well how he could admonish and instruct until the +loan had been cancelled—that is, until the first of the New +Year.</p> +<p>Pacing the floor, disturbed, uncertain as to the course he +should pursue, he looked up presently to see Miss Erroll descending +the stairs, fresh and sweet in her radiant plumage. As she caught +his eye she waved a silvery chinchilla muff at him—a marching +salute—and passed on, calling back to him: "Don't forget +Gerald!"</p> +<p>"No," he said, "I won't forget Gerald." He stood a moment at the +window watching the brougham below where Nina awaited Miss Erroll. +Then, abruptly, he turned back into the room and picked up the +telephone receiver, muttering: "This is no time to mince matters +for the sake of appearances." And he called up Gerald at the +offices of Neergard & Co.</p> +<p>"Is it you, Gerald?" he asked pleasantly. "It's all right about +that matter; I've sent you a note by your messenger. But I want to +talk to you about another matter—something concerning +myself—I want to ask your advice, in a way. Can you be at the +Lenox by six? . . . You have an engagement at eight? Oh, that's all +right; I won't keep you. . . . It's understood, then; the Lenox at +six. . . . Good-bye."</p> +<p>There was the usual early evening influx of men at the Lenox who +dropped in for a glance at the ticker, or for a cocktail or a game +of billiards or a bit of gossip before going home to dress.</p> +<p>Selwyn sauntered over to the basket, inspected a yard or two of +tape, then strolled toward the window, nodding to Bradley Harmon +and Sandon Craig.</p> +<p>As he turned his face to the window and his back to the room, +Harmon came up rather effusively, offering an unusually thin flat +hand and further hospitality, pleasantly declined by Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Horrible thing, a cocktail," observed Harmon, after giving his +own order and seating himself opposite Selwyn. "I don't usually do +it. Here comes the man who persuades me!—my own +partner—"</p> +<p>Selwyn looked up to see Fane approaching; and instantly a dark +flush overspread his face.</p> +<p>"You know George Fane, don't you?" continued Harmon easily; +"well, that's odd; I thought, of course—Captain Selwyn, Mr. +Fane. It's not usual—but it's done."</p> +<p>They exchanged formalities—dry and brief on Selwyn's part, +gracefully urbane on Fane's.</p> +<p>"I've heard so pleasantly of you from Gerald Erroll," he said, +"and of course our people have always been on cordial terms. +Neither Mrs. Fane nor I was fortunate enough to meet you last +Tuesday at the Gerards—such a crush, you know. Are you not +joining us, Captain Selwyn?" as the servant appeared to take +orders.</p> +<p>Selwyn declined again, glancing at Harmon—a large-framed, +bony young man with blond, closely trimmed and pointed beard, and +the fair colour of a Swede. He had the high, flat cheek-bones of +one, too; and a thicket of corn-tinted hair, which was usually damp +at the ends, and curled flat against his forehead. He seemed to be +always in a slight perspiration—he had been, anyway, every +time Selwyn met him anywhere.</p> +<p>Sandon Craig and Billy Fleetwood came wandering up and joined +them; one or two other men, drifting by, adhered to the group.</p> +<p>Selwyn, involved in small talk, glanced sideways at the great +clock, and gathered himself together for departure.</p> +<p>Fleetwood was saying to Craig: "Certainly it was a stiff +game—Bradley, myself, Gerald Erroll, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes, and +the Ruthvens."</p> +<p>"Were you hit?" asked Craig, interested.</p> +<p>"No; about even. Gerald got it good and plenty, though. The +Ruthvens were ahead as usual—"</p> +<p>Selwyn, apparently hearing nothing, quietly rose and stepped out +of the circle, paused to set fire to a cigarette, and then strolled +off toward the visitors' room, where Gerald was now due.</p> +<p>Fane stretched his neck, looking curiously after him. Then he +said to Fleetwood: "Why begin to talk about Mrs. Ruthven when our +friend yonder is about? Rotten judgment you show, Billy."</p> +<p>"Well, I clean forgot," said Fleetwood; "what did I say, anyway? +A man can't always remember who's divorced from who in this +town."</p> +<p>Harmon, whose civility to Selwyn had possibly been based on his +desire for pleasant relations with Austin Gerard and the Arickaree +Loan and Trust Company, looked at Fleetwood thoroughly vexed. But +nobody could have suspected vexation in that high-boned smile which +showed such very red lips through the blond beard.</p> +<p>Fane, too, smiled; his prominent soft brown eyes expressed +gentlest good-humour, and he passed his hand reflectively over his +unusually small and retreating chin. Perhaps he was thinking of the +meeting in the Park that morning. It was amusing; but men do not +speak of such things at their clubs, no matter how amusing. +Besides, if the story were aired and were traced to him, Ruthven +might turn ugly. There was no counting on Ruthven.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Selwyn, perplexed and worried, found young Erroll just +entering the visitors' room, and greeted him with nervous +cordiality.</p> +<p>"If you can't stay and dine with me," he said, "I won't put you +down. You know, of course, I can only ask you once in a year, so +we'll stay here and chat a bit."</p> +<p>"Right you are," said young Erroll, flinging off his very new +and very fashionable overcoat—a wonderfully handsome boy, +with all the attraction that a quick, warm, impulsive manner +carries. "And I say, Selwyn, it was awfully decent of you +to—"</p> +<p>"Bosh! Friends are for that sort of thing, Gerald. Sit +here—" He looked at the young man hesitatingly; but Gerald +calmly took the matter out of his jurisdiction by nodding his order +to the club attendant.</p> +<p>"Lord, but I'm tired," he said, sinking back into a big +arm-chair; "I was up till daylight, and then I had to be in the +office by nine, and to-night Billy Fleetwood is giving—oh, +something or other. By the way, the market isn't doing a thing to +the shorts! You're not in, are you, Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"No, not that way. I hope you are not, either; are you, +Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Oh, it's all right," replied the young fellow confidently; and +raising his glass, he nodded at Selwyn with a smile.</p> +<p>"You were mighty nice to me, anyhow," he said, setting his glass +aside and lighting a cigar. "You see, I went to a dance, and after +a while some of us cleared out, and Jack Ruthven offered us +trouble; so half a dozen of us went there. I had the worst cards a +man ever drew to a kicker. That was all about it."</p> +<p>The boy was utterly unconscious that he was treading on delicate +ground as he rattled on in his warmhearted, frank, and generous +way. Totally oblivious that the very name of Ruthven must be +unwelcome if not offensive to his listener, he laughed through a +description of the affair, its thrilling episodes, and Mrs. Jack +Ruthven's blind luck in the draw.</p> +<p>"One moment," interrupted Selwyn, very gently; "do you mind +saying whether you banked my check and drew against it?"</p> +<p>"Why, no; I just endorsed it over."</p> +<p>"To—to whom?—if I may venture—"</p> +<p>"Certainly," he said, with a laugh; "to Mrs. Jack—" Then, +in a flash, for the first time the boy realised what he was saying, +and stopped aghast, scarlet to his hair.</p> +<p>Selwyn's face had little colour remaining in it, but he said +very kindly: "It's all right, Gerald; don't worry—"</p> +<p>"I'm a beast!" broke out the boy; "I beg your pardon a thousand +times."</p> +<p>"Granted, old chap. But, Gerald, may I say one thing—or +perhaps two?"</p> +<p>"Go ahead! Give it to me good and plenty!"</p> +<p>"It's only this: couldn't you and I see one another a little +oftener? Don't be afraid of me; I'm no wet blanket. I'm not so very +aged, either; I know something of the world—I understand +something of men. I'm pretty good company, Gerald. What do you +say?"</p> +<p>"I say, <i>sure</i>!" cried the boy warmly.</p> +<p>"It's a go, then. And one thing more: couldn't you manage to +come up to the house a little oftener? Everybody misses you, of +course; I think your sister is a trifle sensitive—"</p> +<p>"I will!" said Gerald, blushing. "Somehow I've had such a lot on +hand—all day at the office, and something on every evening. I +know perfectly well I've neglected Eily—and everybody. But +the first moment I can find free—"</p> +<p>Selwyn nodded. "And last of all," he said, "there's something +about my own affairs that I thought you might advise me on."</p> +<p>Gerald, proud, enchanted, stood very straight; the older man +continued gravely:</p> +<p>"I've a little capital to invest—not very much. +Suppose—and this, I need not add, is in confidence between +us—suppose I suggested to Mr. Neergard—"</p> +<p>"Oh," cried young Erroll, delighted, "that is fine! Neergard +would be glad enough. Why, we've got that Valleydale tract in shape +now, and there are scores of schemes in the air—scores of +them—important moves which may mean—anything!" he +ended, excitedly.</p> +<p>"Then you think it would be all right—in case Neergard +likes the idea?"</p> +<p>Gerald was enthusiastic. After a while they shook hands, it +being time to separate. And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone +in the visitors' room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of +cannel coal.</p> +<p>How to be friends with this boy without openly playing the +mentor; how to gain his confidence without appearing to seek it; +how to influence him without alarming him! No; there was no great +harm in him yet; only the impulse of inconsiderate youth; only an +enthusiastic capacity for pleasure.</p> +<p>One thing was imperative—the boy must cut out his +card-playing for stakes at once; and there was a way to accomplish +that by impressing Gerald with the idea that to do anything behind +Neergard's back which he would not care to tell him about was a +sort of treachery.</p> +<p>Who were these people, anyway, who would permit a boy of that +age, and in a responsible position, to play for such stakes? Who +were they to encourage such—?</p> +<p>Selwyn's tightening grasp on his chair suddenly relaxed; he sank +back, staring at the brilliant coals. He, too, had forgotten.</p> +<p>Now he remembered, in humiliation unspeakable, in bitterness +past all belief.</p> +<p>Time sped, and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the +bitterness became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on +drifting, back through the exotic sorcery of dead years—back +into the sun again, where honour was bright and life was +young—where all the world awaited happy conquest—where +there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to day, because +the golden light had turned to silver; but where the earliest hint +of dawn was a challenge, and where every yellow star whispered +"Awake!"</p> +<p>And out of the magic <i>she</i> had come into his world +again!</p> +<p>Sooner or later he would meet her now. That was sure. When? +Where? And of what significance was it, after all?</p> +<p>Whom did it concern? Him? Her? And what had he to say to her, +after all? Or she to him?</p> +<p>Not one word.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>About midnight he roused himself and picked up his hat and +coat.</p> +<p>"Do you wish a cab, please?" whispered the club servant who held +his coat; "it is snowing very hard, sir."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>UNDER THE ASHES</h3> +<p>He had neither burned nor returned the photograph to Mrs. +Ruthven. The prospect perplexed and depressed Selwyn.</p> +<p>He was sullenly aware that in a town where the divorced must +ever be reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, +there is always some thoughtless hostess—and sometimes a +mischievous one; and the chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven +would collide, either through the forgetfulness or malice of +somebody or, through sheer hazard, at some large affair where +Destiny and Fate work busily together in criminal +copartnership.</p> +<p>And he encountered her first at a masque and revel given by Mrs. +Delmour-Carnes where Fate contrived that he should dance in the +same set with his <i>ci-devant</i> wife before the unmasking, and +where, unaware, they gaily exchanged salute and hand-clasp before +the jolly <i>mêlée</i> of unmasking revealed how close +together two people could come after parting for ever and a night +at the uttermost ends of the earth.</p> +<p>When masks at last were off there was neither necessity nor +occasion for the two surprised and rather pallid young people to +renew civilities; but later, Destiny, the saturnine partner in the +business, interfered; and some fool in the smoking room tried to +introduce Selwyn to Ruthven. The slightest mistake on their parts +would have rendered the incident ridiculous; and Ruthven made that +mistake.</p> +<p>That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short +time afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to +say something amiable to one of the débutante Craig +girls—and Selwyn found himself again facing Alixe.</p> +<p>If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they +both knew that they were in full view of the house.</p> +<p>A cool bow and its cooler acknowledgment, a formal word and more +formal reply; and Selwyn made his way to the corridor, hot with +vexation, unaware of where he was going, and oblivious of the +distressed and apologetic young man, who so contritely kept step +with him through the brilliantly crowded promenade.</p> +<p>That was the second time—not counting distant glimpses in +crowded avenues, in the Park, at Sherry's, or across the hazy +glitter of thronged theatres. But the third encounter was +different.</p> +<p>It was all a mistake, born of the haste of a heedless and +elderly matron, celebrated for managing to do the wrong thing, but +who had been excessively nice to him that winter, and whose +position in Manhattan was not to be assailed.</p> +<p>"Dear Captain Selwyn," she wheezed over the telephone, "I'm +short one man; and we dine at eight and it's that now. <i>Could</i> +you help me? It's the rich and yellow, this time, but you won't +mind, will you?"</p> +<p>Selwyn, standing at the lower telephone in the hall, asked her +to hold the wire a moment, and glanced up at his sister who was +descending the stairs with Eileen, dinner having at that instant +been announced.</p> +<p>"Mrs. T. West Minster—flying signals of distress," he +said, carefully covering the transmitter as he spoke; "man +overboard, and will I kindly take a turn at the wheel?"</p> +<p>"What a shame!" said Eileen; "you are going to spoil the first +home dinner we have had together in weeks!"</p> +<p>"Tell her to get some yellow pup!" growled Austin, from +above.</p> +<p>"As though anybody could get a yellow pup when they whistle," +said Nina hopelessly.</p> +<p>"That's true," nodded Selwyn; "I'm the original old dog Tray. +Whistle, and I come padding up. Ever faithful, you see."</p> +<p>And he uncovered the transmitter and explained to Mrs. T. West +Minster his absurd delight at being whistled at. Then he sent for a +cab and sauntered into the dining-room, where he was received with +undisguised hostility.</p> +<p>"She's been civil to me," he said; "<i>jeunesse oblige</i>, you +know. And that's why I—"</p> +<p>"There'll be a lot of débutantes there! What do you want +to go for, you cradle robber!" protested Austin—"a lot of +water-bibbing, olive-eating, talcum-powdered +débutantes—"</p> +<p>Eileen straightened up stiffly, and Selwyn's teasing smile and +his offered hand in adieu completed her indignation.</p> +<p>"Oh, good-bye! No, I won't shake hands. There's your cab, now. I +wish you'd take Austin, too; Nina and I are tired of dining with +the prematurely aged."</p> +<p>"Indeed, we are," said Mrs. Gerard; "go to your club, Austin, +and give me a chance to telephone to somebody under the anesthetic +age."</p> +<p>Selwyn departed, laughing, but he yawned in his cab all the way +to Fifty-third Street, where he entered in the wake of the usual +laggards and, surrendering hat and coat in the cloak room, picked +up the small slim envelope bearing his name.</p> +<p>The card within disclosed the information that he was to take in +Mrs. Somebody-or-Other; he made his way through a great many +people, found his hostess, backed off, stood on one leg for a +moment like a reflective water-fowl, then found Mrs. +Somebody-or-Other and was absently good to her through a great deal +of noise and some Spanish music, which seemed to squirt through a +thicket of palms and bespatter everybody.</p> +<p>"Wonderful music," observed his dinner partner, with singular +originality; "<i>so</i> like Carmen."</p> +<p>"Is it?" he replied, and took her away at a nod from his +hostess, whose daughter Dorothy leaned forward from her partner's +arm at the same moment, and whispered: "I <i>must</i> speak to you, +mamma! You <i>can't</i> put Captain Selwyn there +because—"</p> +<p>But her mother was deaf and smilingly sensitive about it, so she +merely guessed what reply her child expected: "It's all settled, +dear; Captain Selwyn arrived a moment ago." And she closed the +file.</p> +<p>It was already too late, anyhow; and presently, turning to see +who was seated on his left, Selwyn found himself gazing into the +calm, flushed face of Alixe Ruthven. It was their third +encounter.</p> +<p>They exchanged a dazed nod of recognition, a meaningless murmur, +and turned again, apparently undisturbed, to their respective +dinner partners.</p> +<p>A great many curious eyes, lingering on them, shifted elsewhere, +in reluctant disappointment.</p> +<p>As for the hostess, she had, for one instant, come as near to +passing heavenward as she could without doing it when she +discovered the situation. Then she accepted it with true humour. +She could afford to. But her daughters, Sheila and Dorothy, +suffered acutely, being of this year's output and martyrs to +responsibility.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Selwyn, grimly aware of an accident somewhere, and +perfectly conscious of the feelings which must by this time +dominate his hostess, was wondering how best to avoid anything that +might resemble a situation.</p> +<p>Instead of two or three dozen small tables, scattered among the +palms of the winter garden, their hostess had preferred to +construct a great oval board around the aquarium. The arrangement +made it a little easier for Selwyn and Mrs. Ruthven. He talked to +his dinner partner until she began to respond in monosyllables, +which closed each subject that he opened and wearied him as much as +he was boring her. But Bradley Harmon, the man on her right, +evidently had better fortune; and presently Selwyn found himself +with nobody to talk to, which came as near to embarrassing him as +anything could, and which so enraged his hostess that she struck +his partner's name from her lists for ever. People were already +glancing at him askance in sly amusement or cold curiosity.</p> +<p>Then he did a thing which endeared him to Mrs. T. West Minster +and to her two disconsolate children.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Ruthven," he said, very naturally and pleasantly, "I think +perhaps we had better talk for a moment or two—if you don't +mind."</p> +<p>She said quietly, "I don't mind," and turned with charming +composure. Every eye shifted to them, then obeyed decency or +training; and the slightest break in the gay tumult was closed up +with chatter and laughter.</p> +<p>"Plucky," said Sandon Craig to his fair neighbour; "but by what +chance did our unfortunate hostess do it?"</p> +<p>"She's usually doing it, isn't she? What occupies me," returned +his partner, "is how on earth Alixe could have thrown away that +adorable man for Jack Ruthven. Why, he is already trying to +scramble into Rosamund Fane's lap—the horrid little +poodle!—always curled up on the edge of your skirt!"</p> +<p>She stared at Mrs. Ruthven across the crystal reservoir brimming +with rose and ivory-tinted water-lilies.</p> +<p>"That girl is marked for destruction," she said slowly; "the +gods have done their work already."</p> +<p>But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to +her little world only a pale brunette symmetry—a strange and +changeless lustre, varying as little as the moon's phases; and like +that burnt-out planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her +clear, young beauty seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden +fire.</p> +<p>Selwyn, outwardly amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice: +"My dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be +here as a filler in—commanded to the presence only a few +minutes ago. It's a pardonable error; I bear no malice. But I'm +sorry for you."</p> +<p>There was a silence; Alixe straightened her slim figure, and +turned; but young Innis, who had taken her in, had become +confidential with Mrs. Fane. As for Selwyn's partner, she probably +divined his conversational designs on her, but she merely turned +her bare shoulder a trifle more unmistakably and continued her +gossip with Bradley Harmon.</p> +<p>Alixe broke a tiny morsel from her bread, sensible of the +tension.</p> +<p>"I suppose," she said, as though reciting to some new +acquaintance an amusing bit of gossip—"that we are destined +to this sort of thing occasionally and had better get used to +it."</p> +<p>"I suppose so."</p> +<p>"Please," she added, after a pause, "aid me a little."</p> +<p>"I will if I can. What am I to say?"</p> +<p>"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, smiling; "it need not be +very civil, you know—as long as nobody hears you."</p> +<p>To school his features for the deception of others, to school +his voice and manner and at the same time look smilingly into the +grave of his youth and hope called for the sort of self-command +foreign to his character. Glancing at him under her smoothly fitted +mask of amiability, she slowly grew afraid of the +situation—but not of her ability to sustain her own part.</p> +<p>They exchanged a few meaningless phrases, then she resolutely +took young Innis away from Rosamund Fane, leaving Selwyn to count +the bubbles in his wine-glass.</p> +<p>But in a few moments, whether by accident or deliberate design, +Rosamund interfered again, and Mrs. Ruthven was confronted with the +choice of a squabble for possession of young Innis, of conspicuous +silence, or of resuming once more with Selwyn. And she chose the +last resort.</p> +<p>"You are living in town?" she asked pleasantly.</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Of course; I forgot. I met a man last night who said you had +entered the firm of Neergard & Co."</p> +<p>"I have. Who was the man?"</p> +<p>"You can never guess, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"I don't want to. Who was he?"</p> +<p>"Please don't terminate so abruptly the few subjects we have in +reserve. We may be obliged to talk to each other for a number of +minutes if Rosamund doesn't let us alone. . . . The man was 'Boots' +Lansing."</p> +<p>"'Boots!' Here!"</p> +<p>"Arrived from Manila Sunday. <i>Sans gêne</i> as usual he +introduced you as the subject, and told me—oh, dozens of +things about you. I suppose he began inquiring for you before he +crossed the troopers' gangplank; and somebody sent him to Neergard +& Co. Haven't you seen him?"</p> +<p>"No," he said, staring at the brilliant fish, which glided along +the crystal tank, goggling their eyes at the lights.</p> +<p>"You—you are living with the Gerards, I believe," she said +carelessly.</p> +<p>"For a while."</p> +<p>"Oh, 'Boots' says that he is expecting to take an apartment with +you somewhere."</p> +<p>"What! Has 'Boots' resigned?"</p> +<p>"So he says. He told me that you had resigned. I did not +understand that; I imagined you were here on leave until I heard +about Neergard & Co."</p> +<p>"Do you suppose I could have remained in the service?" he +demanded. His voice was dry and almost accentless.</p> +<p>"Why not?" she returned, paling.</p> +<p>"You may answer that question more pleasantly than I can."</p> +<p>She usually avoided champagne; but she had to do something for +herself now. As for him, he took what was offered without noticing +what he took, and grew whiter and whiter; but a fixed glow +gradually appeared and remained on her cheeks; courage, impatience, +a sudden anger at the forced conditions steadied her nerves.</p> +<p>"Will you please prove equal to the situation?" she said under +her breath, but with a charming smile. "Do you know you are +scowling? These people here are ready to laugh; and I'd much prefer +that they tear us to rags on suspicion of our +over-friendliness."</p> +<p>"Who is that fool woman who is monopolising your partner?"</p> +<p>"Rosamund Fane; she's doing it on purpose. You must try to smile +now and then."</p> +<p>"My face is stiff with grinning," he said, "but I'll do what I +can for you—"</p> +<p>"Please include yourself, too."</p> +<p>"Oh, I can stand their opinions," he said; "I only meet the +yellow sort occasionally; I don't herd with them."</p> +<p>"I do, thank you."</p> +<p>"How do you like them? What is your opinion of the yellow set? +Here they sit all about you—the Phoenix Mottlys, Mrs. +Delmour-Carnes yonder, the Draymores, the Orchils, the Vendenning +lady, the Lawns of Westlawn—" he paused, then +deliberately—"and the 'Jack' Ruthvens. I forgot, Alixe, that +you are now perfectly equipped to carry aloft the golden hod."</p> +<p>"Go on," she said, drawing a deep breath, but the fixed smile +never altered.</p> +<p>"No," he said; "I can't talk. I thought I could, but I can't. +Take that boy away from Mrs. Fane as soon as you can."</p> +<p>"I can't yet. You must go on. I ask your aid to carry this thing +through. I—I am afraid of their ridicule. Could you try to +help me a little?"</p> +<p>"If you put it that way, of course." And, after a silence, "What +am I to say? What in God's name shall I say to you, Alixe?"</p> +<p>"Anything bitter—as long as you control your voice and +features. Try to smile at me when you speak, Philip."</p> +<p>"All right. I have no reason to be bitter, anyway," he said; +"and every reason to be otherwise."</p> +<p>"That is not true. You tell me that I have ruined your career in +the army. I did not know I was doing it. Can you believe me?"</p> +<p>And, as he made no response: "I did not dream you would have to +resign. Do you believe me?"</p> +<p>"There is no choice," he said coldly. "Drop the subject!"</p> +<p>"That is brutal. I never thought—" She forced a smile and +drew her glass toward her. The straw-tinted wine slopped over and +frothed on the white skin of her arm.</p> +<p>"Well," she breathed, "this ghastly dinner is nearly ended."</p> +<p>He nodded pleasantly.</p> +<p>"And—Phil?"—a bit tremulous.</p> +<p>"What?"</p> +<p>"Was it all my fault? I mean in the beginning? I've wanted to +ask you that—to know your view of it. Was it?"</p> +<p>"No. It was mine, most of it."</p> +<p>"Not all—not half! We did not know how; that is the +wretched explanation of it all."</p> +<p>"And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. +But the fault is not there."</p> +<p>"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'"</p> +<p>"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in +decency's name, Alixe!"</p> +<p>After a silence, she began: "One more thing—I must know +it; and I am going to ask you—if I may. Shall I?"</p> +<p>He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a +delightful bit of news to him:</p> +<p>"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?"</p> +<p>"I do not—dislike you."</p> +<p>"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?"</p> +<p>"Y-es."</p> +<p>"Contempt?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"What is it?"</p> +<p>"It is that—I have not +yet—become—reconciled."</p> +<p>"To my—folly?"</p> +<p>"To mine."</p> +<p>She strove to laugh lightly, and failing, raised her glass to +her lips again.</p> +<p>"Now you know," he said, pitching his tones still lower. "I am +glad after all that we have had this plain understanding. I have +never felt unkindly toward you. I can't. What you did I might have +prevented had I known enough; but I cannot help it now; nor can you +if you would."</p> +<p>"If I would," she repeated gaily—for the people opposite +were staring.</p> +<p>"We are done for," he said, nodding carelessly to a servant to +refill his glass; "and I abide by conditions because I choose to; +not," he added contemptuously, "because a complacent law has +tethered you to—to the thing that has crawled up on your +knees to have its ears rubbed."</p> +<p>The level insult to her husband stunned her; she sat there, +upright, the white smile stamped on her stiffened lips, fingers +tightening about the stem of her wine-glass.</p> +<p>He began to toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to +himself in an ugly way. "<i>I</i> wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, +only look at <i>him</i>!—Look at his gold wristlets; listen +to his simper, his lisp. Little girl—oh, little girl, what +have you done to yourself?—for you have done nothing to me, +child, that can match it in sheer atrocity!"</p> +<p>Her colour was long in returning.</p> +<p>"Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand +this—"</p> +<p>"Yes, you can."</p> +<p>"I am too close to the wall. I—"</p> +<p>"Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that +will tide you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how +they rush and flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it—for +people with the intellects of canaries. . . . Will you please try +to say something? Mrs. T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms +of a hen turkey at sundown and we'll all go to roost in another +minute. . . . Don't shiver that way!"</p> +<p>"I c-can't control it; I will in a moment. . . . Give me a +chance; talk to me, Phil."</p> +<p>"Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most +stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman +was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning. . . . More time, +Alixe? . . . With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate +castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the +<i>Tribune</i> in his pocket—the verdict being in accordance +with fact; the Panama Canal—"</p> +<p>But it was over at last; a flurry of sweeping skirts; ranks of +black and white in escort to the passage of the fluttering silken +procession.</p> +<p>"Good-bye," she said; "I am not staying for the dance."</p> +<p>"Good-bye," he said pleasantly; "I wish you better fortune for +the future. I'm sorry I was rough."</p> +<p>He was not staying, either. A dull excitement possessed him, +resembling suspense—as though he were awaiting a +dénouement; as though there was yet some crisis to come.</p> +<p>Several men leaned forward to talk to him; he heard without +heeding, replied at hazard, lighted his cigar with the others, and +leaned back, his coffee before him—a smiling, attractive +young fellow, apparently in lazy enjoyment of the time and place +and without one care in the world he found so pleasant.</p> +<p>For a while his mind seemed to be absolutely blank; voices were +voices only; he saw lights, and figures moving through a void. Then +reality took shape sharply; and his pulses began again hammering +out the irregular measure of suspense, though what it was that he +was awaiting, what expecting, Heaven alone knew.</p> +<p>And after a while he found himself in the ballroom.</p> +<p>The younger set was arriving; he recognised several youthful +people, friends of Eileen Erroll; and taking his bearings among +these bright, fresh faces—amid this animated throng, +constantly increased by the arrival of others, he started to find +his hostess, now lost to sight in the breezy circle of silk and +lace setting in from the stairs.</p> +<p>He heard names announced which meant nothing to him, which +stirred no memory; names which sounded vaguely familiar; names +which caused him to turn quickly—but seldom were the faces as +familiar as the names.</p> +<p>He said to a girl, behind whose chair he was standing: "All the +younger brothers and sisters are coming here to confound me; I hear +a Miss Innis announced, but it turns out to be her younger +sister—"</p> +<p>"By the way, do you know my name?" she asked.</p> +<p>"No," he said frankly, "do you know mine?"</p> +<p>"Of course, I do; I listened breathlessly when somebody +presented you wholesale at your sister's the other day. I'm +Rosamund Fane. You might as well be instructed because you're to +take me in at the Orchils' next Thursday night, I believe."</p> +<p>"Rosamund Fane," he repeated coolly. "I wonder how we've avoided +each other so consistently this winter? I never before had a good +view of you, though I heard you talking to young Innis at dinner. +And yet," he added, smiling, "if I had been instructed to look +around and select somebody named Rosamund, I certainly should have +decided on you."</p> +<p>"A compliment?" she asked, raising her delicate eyebrows.</p> +<p>"Ask yourself," he said.</p> +<p>"I do; and I get snubbed."</p> +<p>And, smiling still, he said: "Do you know the most mischievous +air that Schubert ever worried us with?"</p> +<p>"'Rosamund,'" she said; "and—thank you, Captain Selwyn." +She had coloured to the hair.</p> +<p>"'Rosamund,'" he nodded carelessly—"the most mischievous +of melodies—" He stopped short, then coolly resumed: "That +mischievous quality is largely a matter of accident, I fancy. +Schubert never meant that 'Rosamund' should interfere with +anybody's business."</p> +<p>"And—when did you first encounter the malice in +'Rosamund,' Captain Selwyn?" she asked with perfect +self-possession.</p> +<p>He did not answer immediately; his smile had died out. Then: +"The first time I really understood 'Rosamund' was when I heard +Rosamund during a very delightful dinner."</p> +<p>She said: "If a woman keeps at a man long enough she'll extract +compliments or yawns." And looking up at a chinless young man who +had halted near her: "George, Captain Selwyn has acquired such a +charmingly Oriental fluency during his residence in the East that I +thought—if you ever desired to travel again—" She +shrugged, and, glancing at Selwyn: "Have you met my husband? Oh, of +course."</p> +<p>They exchanged a commonplace or two, then other people separated +them without resistance on their part. And Selwyn found himself +drifting, mildly interested in the vapid exchange of civilities +which cost nobody a mental effort.</p> +<p>His sister, he had once thought, was certainly the most +delightfully youthful matron in New York. But now he made an +exception of Mrs. Fane; Rosamund Fane was much younger—must +have been younger, for she still had something of that volatile +freshness—that vague atmosphere of immaturity clinging to her +like a perfume almost too delicate to detect. And under that the +most profound capacity for mischief he had ever known of. +Sauntering amiably amid the glittering groups continually forming +and disintegrating under the clustered lights, he finally succeeded +in reaching his hostess.</p> +<p>And Mrs. T. West Minster disengaged herself from the throng with +intention as he approached.</p> +<p>No—and he was so sorry; and it was very amiable of his +hostess to want him, but he was not remaining for the dance.</p> +<p>So much for the hostess, who stood there massive and gem-laden, +her kindly and painted features tinted now with genuine +emotion.</p> +<p>"<i>Je m'accuse, mon fils</i>!—but you acted like a +perfect dear," she said. "<i>Mea culpa, mea culpa</i>; and +<i>can</i> you forgive a very much mortified old lady who is really +and truly fond of you?"</p> +<p>He laughed, holding her fat, ringed hands in both of his with +all the attractive deference that explained his popularity. Rising +excitement had sent the colour into his face and cleared his +pleasant gray eyes; and he looked very young and handsome, his +broad shoulders bent a trifle before the enamelled and bejewelled +matron.</p> +<p>"Forgive you?" he repeated with a laugh of protest; "on the +contrary, I thank you. Mrs. Ruthven is one of the most charming +women I know, if that is what you mean?"</p> +<p>Looking after him as he made his way toward the cloak room: "The +boy is thoroughbred," she reflected cynically; "and the only +amusement anybody can get out of it will be at my expense! Rosamund +is a perfect cat!"</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>He had sent for his cab, which, no doubt, was in line somewhere, +wedged among the ranks of carriages stretching east and west along +the snowy street; and he stood on the thick crimson carpet under +the awning while it was being summoned. A few people like himself +were not staying for the dance; others who had dined by +prearrangement with other hostesses, had now begun to arrive, and +the confusion grew as coach and brougham and motor came swaying up +through the falling snow to deposit their jewelled cargoes of silks +and laces under the vast awning picketed by policemen and lined +with fur-swathed grooms and spindle-legged chauffeurs in coats of +pony-skin.</p> +<p>The Cornelius Suydams, emerging from the house, offered Selwyn +tonneau room, but he smilingly declined, having a mind for solitude +and the Lenox Club. A phalanx of débutantes, opera bound, +also left. Then the tide set heavily the other way, and there +seemed no end to the line of arriving vehicles and guests, until he +heard a name pronounced; a policeman warned back an approaching +Fiat; and Selwyn saw Mrs. Ruthven, enveloped in white furs, step +from the portal.</p> +<p>She saw him as he moved back, nodded, passed directly to her +brougham, and set foot on the step. Pausing here, she looked about +her, right and left, then over her shoulder straight back at +Selwyn; and as she stood in silence evidently awaiting him, it +became impossible for him any longer to misunderstand without a +public affront to her.</p> +<p>When he started toward her she spoke to her maid, and the latter +moved aside with a word to the groom in waiting.</p> +<p>"My maid will dismiss your carriage," she said pleasantly when +he halted beside her. "There is one thing more which I must say to +you."</p> +<p>Was this what he had expected hazard might bring to +him?—was this the prophecy of his hammering pulses?</p> +<p>"Please hurry before people come out," she added, and entered +the brougham.</p> +<p>"I can't do this," he muttered.</p> +<p>"I've sent away my maid," she said. "Nobody has noticed; those +are servants out there. Will you please come before anybody +arriving or departing does notice?"</p> +<p>And, as he did not move: "Are you going to make me conspicuous +by this humiliation before servants?"</p> +<p>He said something between his set teeth and entered the +brougham.</p> +<p>"Do you know what you've done?" he demanded harshly.</p> +<p>"Yes; nothing yet. But you would have done enough to stir this +borough if you had delayed another second."</p> +<p>"Your maid saw—"</p> +<p>"My maid is <i>my</i> maid."</p> +<p>He leaned back in his corner, gray eyes narrowing.</p> +<p>"Naturally," he said, "you are the one to be considered, not the +man in the case."</p> +<p>"Thank you. <i>Are</i> you the man in the case?"</p> +<p>"There is no case," he said coolly.</p> +<p>"Then why worry about me?"</p> +<p>He folded his arms, sullenly at bay; yet had no premonition of +what to expect from her.</p> +<p>"You were very brutal to me," she said at length.</p> +<p>"I know it; and I did not intend to be. The words came."</p> +<p>"You had me at your mercy; and showed me little—a very +little at first. Afterward, none."</p> +<p>"The words came," he repeated; "I'm sick with self-contempt, I +tell you."</p> +<p>She set her white-gloved elbow on the window sill and rested her +chin in her palm.</p> +<p>"That—money," she said with an effort. "You +set—some—aside for me."</p> +<p>"Half," he nodded calmly.</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>He was silent.</p> +<p>"<i>Why</i>? I did not ask for it? There was nothing in +the—the legal proceedings to lead you to believe that I +desired it; was there?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Well, then," her breath came unsteadily, "what was there in +<i>me</i> to make you think I would accept it?"</p> +<p>He did not reply.</p> +<p>"Answer me. This is the time to answer me."</p> +<p>"The answer is simple enough," he said in a low voice. "Together +we had made a failure of partnership. When that partnership was +dissolved, there remained the joint capital to be divided. And I +divided it. Why not?"</p> +<p>"That capital was yours in the beginning; not mine. What I had +of my own you never controlled; and I took it with me when I +went."</p> +<p>"It was very little," he said.</p> +<p>"What of that? Did that concern you? Did you think I would have +accepted anything from you? A thousand times I have been on the +point of notifying you through attorney that the deposit now +standing in my name is at your disposal."</p> +<p>"Why didn't you notify me then?" he asked, reddening to the +temples.</p> +<p>"Because—I did not wish to hurt you—by doing it that +way. . . . And I had not the courage to say it kindly over my own +signature. That is why, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>And, as he remained silent: "That is what I had to say; not +all—because—I wish to—to thank you for offering +it. . . . You did not have very much, either; and you divided what +you had. So I thank you—and I return it.". . . The tension +forced her to attempt a laugh. "So we stand once more on equal +terms; unless you have anything of mine to return—"</p> +<p>"I have your photograph," he said.</p> +<p>The silence lasted until he straightened up and, rubbing the fog +from the window glass, looked out.</p> +<p>"We are in the Park," he remarked, turning toward her.</p> +<p>"Yes; I did not know how long it might take to explain matters. +You are free of me now whenever you wish."</p> +<p>He picked up the telephone, hesitated: "Home?" he inquired with +an effort. And at the forgotten word they looked at one another in +stricken silence.</p> +<p>"Y-yes; to <i>your</i> home first, if you will let me drop you +there—"</p> +<p>"Thank you; that might be imprudent."</p> +<p>"No, I think not. You say you are living at the Gerards?"</p> +<p>"Yes, temporarily. But I've already taken another place."</p> +<p>"Where?"</p> +<p>"Oh, it's only a bachelor's kennel—a couple of +rooms—"</p> +<p>"Where, please?"</p> +<p>"Near Lexington and Sixty-sixth. I could go there; it's only +partly furnished yet—"</p> +<p>"Then tell Hudson to drive there."</p> +<p>"Thank you, but it is not necessary—"</p> +<p>"Please let me; tell Hudson, or I will."</p> +<p>"You are very kind," he said; and gave the order.</p> +<p>Silence grew between them like a wall. She lay back in her +corner, swathed to the eyes in her white furs; he in his corner sat +upright, arms loosely folded, staring ahead at nothing. After a +while he rubbed the moisture from the pane again.</p> +<p>"Still in the Park! He must have driven us nearly to Harlem +Mere. It <i>is</i> the Mere! See the café lights yonder. It +all looks rather gay through the snow."</p> +<p>"Very gay," she said, without moving. And, a moment later: "Will +you tell me something? . . . You see"—with a forced +laugh—"I can't keep my mind—from it."</p> +<p>"From what?" he asked.</p> +<p>"The—tragedy; ours."</p> +<p>"It has ceased to be that; hasn't it?"</p> +<p>"Has it? You said—you said that w-what I did to you was +n-not as terrible as what I d-did to myself."</p> +<p>"That is true," he admitted grimly.</p> +<p>"Well, then, may I ask my question?"</p> +<p>"Ask it, child."</p> +<p>"Then—are you happy?"</p> +<p>He did not answer.</p> +<p>"—Because I desire it, Philip. I want you to be. You will +be, won't you? I did not dream that I was ruining your army career +when I—went mad—"</p> +<p>"How did it happen, Alixe?" he asked, with a cold curiosity that +chilled her. "How did it come about?—wretched as we seemed to +be together—unhappy, incapable of understanding each +other—"</p> +<p>"Phil! There <i>were</i> days—"</p> +<p>He raised his eyes.</p> +<p>"You speak only of the unhappy ones," she said; "but there were +moments—"</p> +<p>"Yes; I know it. And so I ask you, <i>why</i>?"</p> +<p>"Phil, I don't know. There was that last bitter +quarrel—the night you left for Leyte after the dance. . . . +I—it all grew suddenly intolerable. <i>You</i> seemed so +horribly unreal—everything seemed unreal in that ghastly +city—you, I, our marriage of crazy impulse—the people, +the sunlight, the deathly odours, the torturing, endless creak of +the punkha. . . . It was not a question of—of love, of anger, +of hate. I tell you I was stunned—I had no emotions +concerning you or myself—after that last scene—only a +stupefied, blind necessity to get away; a groping instinct to move +toward home—to make my way home and be rid for ever of the +dream that drugged me! . . . And then—and then—"</p> +<p>"<i>He</i> came," said Selwyn very quietly. "Go on."</p> +<p>But she had nothing more to say.</p> +<p>"Alixe!"</p> +<p>She shook her head, closing her eyes.</p> +<p>"Little girl!—oh, little girl!" he said softly, the old +familiar phrase finding its own way to his lips—and she +trembled slightly; "was there no other way but that? Had marriage +made the world such a living hell for you that there was no other +way but <i>that</i>?"</p> +<p>"Phil, I helped to make it a hell."</p> +<p>"Yes—because I was pitiably inadequate to design anything +better for us. I didn't know how. I didn't understand. I, the +architect of our future—failed."</p> +<p>"It was worse than that, Phil; we"—she looked blindly at +him—"we had yet to learn what love might be. We did not know. +. . . If we could have waited—only +waited!—perhaps—because there <i>were</i> +moments—" She flushed crimson.</p> +<p>"I could not make you love me," he repeated; "I did not know +how."</p> +<p>"Because you yourself had not learned how. But—at +times—now looking back to it—I think—I think we +were very near to it—at moments. . . . And then that dreadful +dream closed down on us again. . . . And then—the end."</p> +<p>"If you could have held out," he breathed; "if I could have +helped! It was I who failed you after all!"</p> +<p>For a long while they sat in silence; Mrs. Ruthven's white furs +now covered her face. At last the carriage stopped.</p> +<p>As he sprang to the curb he became aware of another vehicle +standing in front of the house—a cab—from which Mrs. +Ruthven's maid descended.</p> +<p>"What is she doing here?" he asked, turning in astonishment to +Mrs. Ruthven.</p> +<p>"Phil," she said in a low voice, "I knew you had taken this +place. Gerald told me. Forgive me—but when I saw you under +the awning it came to me in a flash what to do. And I've done it. . +. . Are you sorry?"</p> +<p>"No. . . . Did Gerald tell you that I had taken this place?"</p> +<p>"Yes; I asked him."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked at her gravely; and she looked him very steadily +in the eyes.</p> +<p>"Before I go—may I say one more word?" he asked +gently.</p> +<p>"Yes—if you please. Is it about Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Yes. Don't let him gamble. . . . You saw the signature on that +check?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Phil."</p> +<p>"Then you understand. Don't let him do it again."</p> +<p>"No. And—Phil?"</p> +<p>"What?"</p> +<p>"That check is—is deposited to your credit—with the +rest. I have never dreamed of using it." Her cheeks were afire +again, but with shame this time.</p> +<p>"You will have to accept it, Alixe."</p> +<p>"I cannot."</p> +<p>"You must! Don't you see you will affront Gerald? He has repaid +me; that check is not mine, nor is it his."</p> +<p>"I can't take it," she said with a shudder. "What shall I do +with it?"</p> +<p>"There are ways—hospitals, if you care to. . . . +Good-night, child."</p> +<p>She stretched out her gloved arm to him; he took her hand very +gently and retained it while he spoke.</p> +<p>"I wish you happiness," he said; "I ask your forgiveness."</p> +<p>"Give me mine, then."</p> +<p>"Yes—if there is anything to forgive. Good-night."</p> +<p>"Good-night—boy," she gasped.</p> +<p>He turned sharply, quivering under the familiar name. Her maid, +standing in the snow, moved forward, and he motioned her to enter +the brougham.</p> +<p>"Home," he said unsteadily; and stood there very still for a +minute or two, even after the carriage had whirled away into the +storm. Then, looking up at the house, he felt for his keys; but a +sudden horror of being alone arrested him, and he stepped back, +calling out to his cabman, who was already turning his horse's +head, "Wait a moment; I think I'll drive back to Mrs. Gerard's. . . +. And take your time."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>It was still early—lacking a quarter of an hour to +midnight—when he arrived. Nina had retired, but Austin sat in +the library, obstinately plodding through the last chapters of a +brand-new novel.</p> +<p>"This is a wretched excuse for sitting up," he yawned, laying +the book flat on the table, but still open. "I ought never to be +trusted alone with any book." Then he removed his reading glasses, +yawned again, and surveyed Selwyn from head to foot.</p> +<p>"Very pretty," he said. "Well, how are the yellow ones, Phil? Or +was it all débutante and slop-twaddle?"</p> +<p>"Few from the cradle, but bunches were arriving for the dance as +I left."</p> +<p>"Eileen went at half-past eleven."</p> +<p>"I didn't know she was going," said Selwyn, surprised.</p> +<p>"She didn't want you to. The Playful Kitten business, you +know—frisks apropos of nothing to frisk about. But we all +fancied you'd stay for the dance." He yawned mightily, and gazed at +Selwyn with ruddy gravity.</p> +<p>"Whisk?" he inquired.</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Cigar?"—mildly urgent.</p> +<p>"No, thanks."</p> +<p>"Bed?"</p> +<p>"I think so. But don't wait for me, Austin. . . . Is that the +evening paper? Where is St. Paul?"</p> +<p>Austin passed it across the table and sat for a moment, +alternately yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel.</p> +<p>"Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!" he muttered, closing the +book and pushing it from him across the table; "love, as usual, +grossly out of proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the +earth's rotation, you know; all these absurd books are built on it. +Why do men read 'em? They grin when they do it! Love is only the +sixth sense—just one-sixth of a man's existence. The other +five-sixths of his time he's using his other senses working for a +living."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded +it.</p> +<p>"In these novels," continued Gerard, irritably, "five-sixths of +the pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to +it; it controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs +reason, it prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap +situations, and produces agonisingly profitable climaxes for the +authors. . . . Does it act that way in real life?"</p> +<p>"Not usually," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Nobody else thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the +truth? Why doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and +gradually begins to tag after her when business hours are over? A +respectable man is busy from eight or nine until five or six. In +the evening he's usually at the club, or dining out, or asleep; +isn't he? Well, then, how much time does it leave for love? Do the +problem yourself in any way you wish; the result is a fraction +every time; and that fraction represents the proper importance of +the love interest in its proper ratio to a man's entire life."</p> +<p>He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced +sentiment to a fixed proportion in the ingredients of life.</p> +<p>"If I had time," he said, "I could tell them how to write a +book—" He paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. +Selwyn stared at space.</p> +<p>"What does a young man know about love, anyway?" demanded his +brother-in-law.</p> +<p>"Nothing," replied Selwyn listlessly.</p> +<p>"Of course not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a +pink and white ninny; and at the next party he does it with +another. That's wholesome and natural; and that's the way things +really are. Look at Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest +suspicion of what love is?"</p> +<p>"Naturally not," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Correct. Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper +emotions to a child like that. What does she know about anything? +Love isn't a mere emotion, either—that is all fol-de-rol and +fizzle!—it's the false basis of modern romance. Love is +reason—not a nervous phenomenon. Love is a sane passion, +founded on a basic knowledge of good and evil. That's what love is; +the rest!"—he lifted the book, waved it contemptuously, and +pushed it farther away—"the rest is neuritis; the remedy a +pill. I'm going to bed; are you?"</p> +<p>But Selwyn had lighted a cigar, and was again unfolding his +evening paper; so his brother-in-law moved ponderously away, +yawning frightfully at every heavy stride, and the younger man +settled back in his chair, a fragrant cigar balanced between his +strong, slim fingers, one leg dropped loosely over the other. After +a while the newspaper fell to the floor.</p> +<p>He sat there without moving for a long time; his cigar, burning +close, had gone out. The reading-lamp spread a circle of soft light +over the floor; on the edge of it lay Kit-Ki, placid, staring at +him. After a while he noticed her. "You?" he said absently; "you +hid so they couldn't put you out."</p> +<p>At the sound of his voice she began to purr.</p> +<p>"Oh, it's all very well," he nodded; "but it's against the law. +However," he added, "I'm rather tired of rules and regulations +myself. Besides, the world outside is very cold to-night. Purr +away, old lady; I'm going to bed."</p> +<p>But he did not stir.</p> +<p>A little later, the fire having burned low, he rose, laid a pair +of heavy logs across the coals, dragged his chair to the hearth, +and settled down in it deeply. Then he lifted the cat to his knees. +Kit-Ki sang blissfully, spreading and relaxing her claws at +intervals as she gazed at the mounting blaze.</p> +<p>"I'm going to bed, Kit-Ki," he repeated absently, "because +that's a pretty good place for me . . . far better than sitting up +here with you—and conscience."</p> +<p>But he only lay back deeper in the velvet chair and lighted +another cigar.</p> +<p>"Kit-Ki," he said, "the words men utter count in the reckoning; +but not as heavily as the words men leave unuttered; and what a man +does scores deeply; but—alas for the scars of the deeds he +has left undone."</p> +<p>The logs were now wrapped in flame, and their low mellow roaring +mingled to a monotone with the droning of the cat on his knees.</p> +<p>Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the +blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his +lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time +when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown +kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her +pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the +andirons.</p> +<p>"Upon my word!" he murmured, confused; then rising quickly, "Is +that you, Miss Erroll? What time is it?"</p> +<p>"Four o'clock in the morning, Captain Selwyn," she said, +straightening up to her full height. "This room is icy; are you +frozen?"</p> +<p>Chilled through, he stood looking about in a dazed way, +incredulous of the hour and of his own slumber.</p> +<p>"I was conversing with Kit-Ki a moment ago," he protested, in +such a tone of deep reproach that Eileen laughed while her maid +relieved her of furs and scarf.</p> +<p>"Susanne, just unhook those two that I can't manage; light the +fire in my bedroom; <i>et merci bien, ma petite!</i>"</p> +<p>The little maid vanished; Kit-Ki, who had been unceremoniously +spilled from Selwyn's knees, sat yawning, then rose and walked +noiselessly to the hearth.</p> +<p>"I don't know how I happened to do it," he muttered, still +abashed by his plight.</p> +<p>"We rekindled the fire for your benefit," she said; "you had +better use it before you retire." And she seated herself in the +arm-chair, stretching out her ungloved hands to the +blaze—smooth, innocent hands, so soft, so amazingly fresh and +white.</p> +<p>He moved a step forward into the warmth, stood a moment, then +reached forward for a chair and drew it up beside hers.</p> +<p>"Do you mean to say you are not sleepy?" he asked.</p> +<p>"I? No, not in the least. I will be to-morrow, though."</p> +<p>"Did you have a good time?"</p> +<p>"Yes—rather."</p> +<p>"Wasn't it gay?"</p> +<p>"Gay? Oh, very."</p> +<p>Her replies were unusually short—almost preoccupied. She +was generally more communicative.</p> +<p>"You danced a lot, I dare say," he ventured.</p> +<p>"Yes—a lot," studying the floor.</p> +<p>"Decent partners?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> +<p>"Who was there?"</p> +<p>She looked up at him. "<i>You</i> were not there," she said, +smiling.</p> +<p>"No; I cut it. But I did not know you were going; you said +nothing about it."</p> +<p>"Of course, you would have stayed if you had known, Captain +Selwyn?" She was still smiling.</p> +<p>"Of course," he replied.</p> +<p>"Would you really?"</p> +<p>"Why, yes."</p> +<p>There was something not perfectly familiar to him in the girl's +bright brevity, in her direct personal inquiry; for between them, +hitherto, the gaily impersonal had ruled except in moments of +lightest badinage.</p> +<p>"Was it an amusing dinner?" she asked, in her turn.</p> +<p>"Rather." Then he looked up at her, but she had stretched her +slim silk-shod feet to the fender, and her head was bent aside, so +that he could see only the curve of the cheek and the little +close-set ear under its ruddy mass of gold.</p> +<p>"Who was there?" she asked, too, carelessly.</p> +<p>For a moment he did not speak; under his bronzed cheek the flat +muscles stirred. Had some meddling, malicious fool ventured to +whisper an unfit jest to this young girl? Had a word—or a +smile and a phrase cut in two—awakened her to a sorry wisdom +at his expense? Something had happened; and the idea stirred him to +wrath—as when a child is wantonly frightened or a dumb +creature misused.</p> +<p>"What did you ask me?" he inquired gently.</p> +<p>"I asked you who was there, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>He recalled some names, and laughingly mentioned his dinner +partner's preference for Harmon. She listened absently, her chin +nestling in her palm, only the close-set, perfect ear turned toward +him.</p> +<p>"Who led the cotillion?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Jack Ruthven—dancing with Rosamund Fane."</p> +<p>She drew her feet from the fender and crossed them, still turned +away from him; and so they remained in silence until again she +shifted her position, almost impatiently.</p> +<p>"You are very tired," he said.</p> +<p>"No; wide awake."</p> +<p>"Don't you think it best for you to go to bed?"</p> +<p>"No. But you may go."</p> +<p>And, as he did not stir: "I mean that you are not to sit here +because I do." And she looked around at him.</p> +<p>"What has gone wrong, Eileen?" he said quietly.</p> +<p>He had never before used her given name, and she flushed up.</p> +<p>"There is nothing the matter, Captain Selwyn. Why do you +ask?"</p> +<p>"Yes, there is," he said.</p> +<p>"There is not, I tell you—"</p> +<p>"—And, if it is something you cannot understand," he +continued pleasantly, "perhaps it might be well to ask Nina to +explain it to you."</p> +<p>"There is nothing to explain."</p> +<p>"—Because," he went on, very gently, "one is sometimes led +by malicious suggestion to draw false and unpleasant inferences +from harmless facts—"</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn—"</p> +<p>"Yes, Eileen."</p> +<p>But she could not go on; speech and thought itself remained +sealed; only a confused consciousness of being hurt +remained—somehow to be remedied by something he might +say—might deny. Yet how could it help her for him to deny +what she herself refused to believe?—refused through sheer +instinct while ignorant of its meaning.</p> +<p>Even if he had done what she heard Rosamund Fane say he had +done, it had remained meaningless to her save for the manner of the +telling. But now—but now! Why had they laughed—why had +their attitudes and manner and the disconnected phrases in French +left her flushed and rigid among the idle group at supper? Why had +they suddenly seemed to remember her presence—and express +their abrupt consciousness of it in such furtive signals and +silence?</p> +<p>It was false, anyway—whatever it meant. And, anyway, it +was false that he had driven away in Mrs. Ruthven's brougham. But, +oh, if he had only stayed—if he had only remained!—this +friend of hers who had been so nice to her from the moment he came +into her life—so generous, so considerate, so lovely to +her—and to Gerald!</p> +<p>For a moment the glow remained, then a chill doubt crept in; +would he have remained had he known she was to be there? +<i>Where</i> did he go after the dinner? As for what they said, it +was absurd. And yet—and yet—</p> +<p>He sat, savagely intent upon the waning fire; she turned +restlessly again, elbows close together on her knees, face framed +in her hands.</p> +<p>"You ask me if I am tired," she said. "I am—of the froth +of life."</p> +<p>His face changed instantly. "What?" he exclaimed, laughing.</p> +<p>But she, very young and seriously intent, was now wrestling with +the mighty platitudes of youth. First of all she desired to know +what meaning life held for humanity. Then she expressed a doubt as +to the necessity for human happiness; duty being her discovery as +sufficient substitute.</p> +<p>But he heard in her childish babble the minor murmur of an +undercurrent quickening for the first time; and he listened +patiently and answered gravely, touched by her irremediable +loneliness.</p> +<p>For Nina must remain but a substitute at best; what was wanting +must remain wanting; and race and blood must interpret for itself +the subtler and unasked questions of an innocence slowly awaking to +a wisdom which makes us all less wise.</p> +<p>So when she said that she was tired of gaiety, that she would +like to study, he said that he would take up anything she chose +with her. And when she spoke vaguely of a life devoted to good +works—of the wiser charity, of being morally equipped to aid +those who required material aid, he was very serious, but ventured +to suggest that she dance her first season through as a sort of +flesh-mortifying penance preliminary to her spiritual +novitiate.</p> +<p>"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully; "you are right. Nina would +feel dreadfully if I did not go on—or if she imagined I cared +so little for it all. But one season is enough to waste. Don't you +think so?"</p> +<p>"Quite enough," he assured her.</p> +<p>"—And—why should I ever marry?" she demanded, +lifting her clear, sweet eyes to his.</p> +<p>"Why indeed?" he repeated with conviction. "I can see no +reason."</p> +<p>"I am glad you understand me," she said. "I am not a marrying +woman."</p> +<p>"Not at all," he assured her.</p> +<p>"No, I am not; and Nina—the darling—doesn't +understand. Why, what do you suppose!—but <i>would</i> it be +a breach of confidence to anybody if I told you?"</p> +<p>"I doubt it," he said; "what is it you have to tell me?"</p> +<p>"Only—it's very, very silly—only several +men—and one nice enough to know better—Sudbury +Gray—"</p> +<p>"Asked you to marry them?" he finished, nodding his head at the +cat.</p> +<p>"Yes," she admitted, frankly astonished; "but how did you +know?"</p> +<p>"Inferred it. Go on."</p> +<p>"There is nothing more," she said, without embarrassment. "I +told Nina each time; but she confused me by asking for details; and +the details were too foolish and too annoying to repeat. . . . I do +not wish to marry anybody. I think I made that very plain +to—everybody."</p> +<p>"Right as usual," he said cheerfully; "you are too intelligent +to consider that sort of thing just now."</p> +<p>"You <i>do</i> understand me, don't you?" she said gratefully. +"There are so many serious things in life to learn and to think of, +and that is the very last thing I should ever consider. . . . I am +very, very glad I had this talk with you. Now I am rested and I +shall retire for a good long sleep."</p> +<p>With which paradox she stood up, stifling a tiny yawn, and +looked smilingly at him, all the old sweet confidence in her eyes. +Then, suddenly mocking:</p> +<p>"Who suggested that you call me by my first name?" she +asked.</p> +<p>"Some good angel or other. May I?"</p> +<p>"If you please; I rather like it. But I couldn't very well call +you anything except 'Captain Selwyn.'"</p> +<p>"On account of my age?"</p> +<p>"Your <i>age</i>!"—contemptuous in her confident +equality.</p> +<p>"Oh, my wisdom, then? You probably reverence me too deeply."</p> +<p>"Probably not. I don't know; I couldn't do +it—somehow—"</p> +<p>"Try it—unless you're afraid."</p> +<p>"I'm not afraid!"</p> +<p>"Yes, you are, if you don't take a dare."</p> +<p>"You dare me?"</p> +<p>"I do."</p> +<p>"Philip," she said, hesitating, adorable in her embarrassment. +"No! No! No! I can't do it that way in cold blood. It's got to be +'Captain Selwyn'. . . for a while, anyway. . . . Good-night."</p> +<p>He took her outstretched hand, laughing; the usual little +friendly shake followed; then she turned gaily away, leaving him +standing before the whitening ashes.</p> +<p>He thought the fire was dead; but when he turned out the lamp an +hour later, under the ashes embers glowed in the darkness of the +winter morning.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>MID-LENT</h3> +<p>"Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started +for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen +Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now +convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid +had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "<i>Mon dieu! Mon +dieu! Che fais mourir!</i>"</p> +<p>Boots Lansing called to see Eileen, but she wouldn't come down, +saying her nose was too pink. Drina entertained Boots, and then +Selwyn returned and talked army talk with him until tea was served. +Drina poured tea very prettily; Nina had driven Austin to vespers. +The family dined at seven so Drina could sit up; special treat on +account of Boots's presence at table. Gerald was expected, but did +not come.</p> +<p>The next morning, Selwyn went downtown at the usual hour and +found Gerald, pale and shaky, hanging over his desk and trying to +dictate letters to an uncomfortable stenographer.</p> +<p>So he dismissed the abashed girl for the moment, closed the +door, and sat down beside the young man.</p> +<p>"Go home, Gerald" he said with decision; "when Neergard comes in +I'll tell him you are not well. And, old fellow, don't ever come +near the office again when you're in this condition."</p> +<p>"I'm a perfect fool," faltered the boy, his voice trembling; "I +don't really care for that sort of thing, either; but you know how +it is in that set—"</p> +<p>"What set?"</p> +<p>"Oh, the Fanes—the Ruthv—" He stammered himself into +silence.</p> +<p>"I see. What happened last night?"</p> +<p>"The usual; two tables full of it. There was a wheel, too. . . . +I had no intention—but you know yourself how it parches your +throat—the jollying and laughing and excitement. . . . I +forgot all about what you—what we talked over. . . . I'm +ashamed and sorry; but I can stay here and attend to things, of +course—"</p> +<p>"I don't want Neergard to see you," repeated Selwyn.</p> +<p>"W-why," stammered the boy, "do I look as rocky as that?"</p> +<p>"Yes. See here, you are not afraid of me, are you?"</p> +<p>"No—"</p> +<p>"You don't think I'm one of those long-faced, blue-nosed +butters-in, do you? You have confidence in me, haven't you? You +know I'm an average and normally sinful man who has made plenty of +mistakes and who understands how others make them—you know +that, don't you, old chap?"</p> +<p>"Y-es."</p> +<p>"Then you <i>will</i> listen, won't you, Gerald?"</p> +<p>The boy laid his arms on the desk and hid his face in them. Then +he nodded.</p> +<p>For ten minutes Selwyn talked to him with all the terse and +colloquial confidence of a comradeship founded upon respect for +mutual fallibility. No instruction, no admonition, no blame, no +reproach—only an affectionately logical review of matters as +they stood—and as they threatened to stand.</p> +<p>The boy, fortunately, was still pliable and susceptible, still +unalarmed and frank. It seemed that he had lost money +again—this time to Jack Ruthven; and Selwyn's teeth remained +sternly interlocked as, bit by bit, the story came out. But in the +telling the boy was not quite as frank as he might have been; and +Selwyn supposed he was able to stand his loss without seeking +aid.</p> +<p>"Anyway," said Gerald in a muffled voice, "I've learned one +lesson—that a business man can't acquire the habits and keep +the infernal hours that suit people who can take all day to sleep +it off."</p> +<p>"Right," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Besides, my income can't stand it," added Gerald +naïvely.</p> +<p>"Neither could mine, old fellow. And, Gerald, cut out this card +business; it's the final refuge of the feebleminded. . . . You like +it? Oh, well, if you've got to play—if you've no better +resource for leisure, and if non-participation isolates you too +completely from other idiots—play the imbecile gentleman's +game; which means a game where nobody need worry over the +stakes."</p> +<p>"But—they'd laugh at me!"</p> +<p>"I know; but Boots Lansing wouldn't—and you have +considerable respect for him."</p> +<p>Gerald nodded; he had immediately succumbed to Lansing like +everybody else.</p> +<p>"And one thing more," said Selwyn; "don't play for +stakes—no matter how insignificant—where women sit in +the game. Fashionable or not, it is rotten sport—whatever the +ethics may be. And, Gerald, tainted sport and a clean record can't +take the same fence together."</p> +<p>The boy looked up, flushed and perplexed. "Why, every woman in +town—"</p> +<p>"Oh, no. How about your sister and mine?"</p> +<p>"Of course not; they are different. Only—well, you approve +of Rosamund Fane and—Gladys Orchil—don't you?"</p> +<p>"Gerald, men don't ask each other such questions—except as +you ask, without expecting or desiring an answer from me, and +merely to be saying something nice about two pretty women."</p> +<p>The reproof went home, deeply, but without a pang; and the boy +sat silent, studying the blotter between his elbows.</p> +<p>A little later he started for home at Selwyn's advice. But the +memory of his card losses frightened him, and he stopped on the way +to see what money Austin would advance him.</p> +<p>Julius Neergard came up from Long Island, arriving at the office +about noon. The weather was evidently cold on Long Island; he had +the complexion of a raw ham, but the thick, fat hand, with its +bitten nails, which he offered Selwyn as he entered his office, was +unpleasantly hot, and, on the thin nose which split the broad +expanse of face, a bead or two of sweat usually glistened, winter +and summer.</p> +<p>"Where's Gerald?" he asked as an office-boy relieved him of his +heavy box coat and brought his mail to him.</p> +<p>"I advised Gerald to go home," observed Selwyn carelessly; "he +is not perfectly well."</p> +<p>Neergard's tiny mouse-like eyes, set close together, stole +brightly in Selwyn's direction; but they usually looked just a +little past a man, seldom at him.</p> +<p>"Grippe?" he asked.</p> +<p>"I don't think so," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Lots of grippe 'round town," observed Neergard, as though +satisfied that Gerald had it. Then he sat down and rubbed his +large, membranous ears.</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn," he began, "I'm satisfied that it's a devilish +good thing."</p> +<p>"Are you?"</p> +<p>"Emphatically. I've mastered the details—virtually all of +'em. Here's the situation in a grain of wheat!—the Siowitha +Club owns a thousand or so acres of oak scrub, pine scrub, sand and +weeds, and controls four thousand more; that is to say—the +club pays the farmers' rents and fixes their fences and awards them +odd jobs and prizes for the farm sustaining the biggest number of +bevies. Also the club pays them to maintain the millet and +buckwheat patches and to act as wardens. In return the farmers post +their four thousand acres for the exclusive benefit of the club. Is +that plain?"</p> +<p>"Perfectly."</p> +<p>"Very well, then. Now the Siowitha is largely composed of very +rich men—among them Bradley Harmon, Jack Ruthven, George +Fane, Sanxon Orchil, the Hon. Delmour-Carnes—<i>that</i> +crowd—rich and stingy. That's why they are contented with a +yearly agreement with the farmers instead of buying the four +thousand acres. Why put a lot of good money out of commission when +they can draw interest on it and toss an insignificant fraction of +that interest as a sop to the farmers? Do you see? That's your +millionaire method—and it's what makes 'em in the first +place."</p> +<p>He drew a large fancy handkerchief from his pistol-pocket and +wiped the beads from the bridge of his limber nose. But they +reappeared again.</p> +<p>"Now," he said, "I am satisfied that, working very carefully, we +can secure options on every acre of the four thousand. There is +money in it either way and any way we work it; we get it coming and +going. First of all, if the Siowitha people find that they really +cannot get on without controlling these acres—why"—and +he snickered so that his nose curved into a thin, ruddy +beak—"why, Captain, I suppose we <i>could</i> let them have +the land. Eh? Oh, yes—if they <i>must</i> have it!"</p> +<p>Selwyn frowned slightly.</p> +<p>"But the point is," continued Neergard, "that it borders the +railroad on the north; and where the land is not wavy it's flat as +a pancake, and"—he sank his husky voice—"it's fairly +riddled with water. I paid a thousand dollars for six tests."</p> +<p>"Water!" repeated Selwyn wonderingly; "why, it's dry as a +desert!"</p> +<p>"<i>Underground water</i>!—only about forty feet on the +average. Why, man, I can hit a well flowing three thousand gallons +almost anywhere. It's a gold mine. I don't care what you do with +the acreage—split it up into lots and advertise, or club the +Siowitha people into submission—it's all the same; it's a +gold mine—to be swiped and developed. Now there remains the +title searching and the damnable job of financing it—because +we've got to move cautiously, and knock softly at the doors of the +money vaults, or we'll be waking up some Wall Street relatives or +secret business associates of the yellow crowd; and if anybody +bawls for help we'll be up in the air next New Year's, and still +hiking skyward."</p> +<p>He stood up, gathering together the mail matter which his +secretary had already opened for his attention. "There's plenty of +time yet; their leases were renewed the first of this year, and +they'll run the year out. But it's something to think about. Will +you talk to Gerald, or shall I?"</p> +<p>"You," said Selwyn. "I'll think the matter over and give you my +opinion. May I speak to my brother-in-law about it?"</p> +<p>Neergard turned in his tracks and looked almost at him.</p> +<p>"Do you think there's any chance of his financing the +thing?"</p> +<p>"I haven't the slightest idea of what he might do. +Especially"—he hesitated—"as you never have had any +loans from his people—I understand—"</p> +<p>"No," said Neergard; "I haven't."</p> +<p>"It's rather out of their usual, I believe—"</p> +<p>"So they say. But Long Island acreage needn't beg favours now. +That's all over, Captain Selwyn. Fane, Harmon & Co. know that; +Mr. Gerard ought to know it, too."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked troubled. "Shall I consult Mr. Gerard?" he +repeated. "I should like to if you have no objection."</p> +<p>Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just +beyond Selwyn's left shoulder.</p> +<p>"Suppose you sound him," he suggested, "in strictest—"</p> +<p>"Naturally," cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered +desk, opened the first letter his hand encountered. Now that his +head was turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a +long minute, then went out silently.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to +his own rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the +matter before him exactly as Neergard had put it.</p> +<p>"You see," he added, "that I'm a sort of an ass about business +methods. What I like—what I understand, is to use good +judgment, go in and boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it +becomes more valuable, either through improvements or the natural +enhancement of good value, then take a legitimate profit, and +repeat the process. That, in outline, is what I understand. But, +Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and clubbing other +people's money out of them with it—this slyly acquiring land +that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him +up—I don't like. There's always something of this sort that +prevents my cordial co-operation with Neergard—always +something in the schemes which hints of—of squeezing—of +something underground—"</p> +<p>"Like the water which he's going to squeeze out of the +wells?"</p> +<p>Selwyn laughed.</p> +<p>"Phil," said his brother-in-law, "if you think anybody can do a +profitable business except at other people's expense, you are an +ass."</p> +<p>"Am I?" asked Selwyn, still laughing frankly.</p> +<p>"Certainly. The land is there, plain enough for anybody to see. +It's always been there; it's likely to remain for a few æons, +I fancy.</p> +<p>"Now, along comes Meynheer Julius Neergard—the only man +who seems to have brains enough to see the present value of that +parcel to the Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; +nobody except Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't he +profit by it?"</p> +<p>"Yes—but if he'd be satisfied to cut it up into lots and +do what is fair—"</p> +<p>"Cut it up into nothing! Man alive, do you suppose the Siowitha +people would let him? They've only a few thousand acres; they've +<i>got</i> to control that land. What good is their club without +it? Do you imagine they'd let a town grow up on three sides of +their precious game-preserve? And, besides, I'll bet you that half +of their streams and lakes take rise on other people's +property—and that Neergard knows it—the Dutch fox!"</p> +<p>"That sort of—of business—that kind of coercion, +does not appeal to me," said Selwyn gravely.</p> +<p>"Then you'd better go into something besides business in this +town," observed Austin, turning red. "Good Lord, man, where would +my Loan and Trust Company be if we never foreclosed, never +swallowed a good thing when we see it?"</p> +<p>"But you don't threaten people."</p> +<p>Austin turned redder. "If people or corporations stand in our +way and block progress, of course we threaten. Threaten? Isn't the +threat of punishment the very basis of law and order itself? What +are laws for? And we have laws, too—laws, under the +law—"</p> +<p>"Of the State of New Jersey," said Selwyn, laughing. "Don't +flare up, Austin; I'm probably not cut out for a business career, +as you point out—otherwise I would not have consulted you. I +know some laws—including 'The Survival of the Fittest,' and +the 'Chain-of-Destruction'; and I have read the poem beginning</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"'Big bugs have little bugs to bite +'em.'</div> +<p>"That's all right, too; but speaking of laws, I'm always trying +to formulate one for my particular self-government; and you don't +mind, do you?"</p> +<p>"No," said Gerard, much amused, "I don't mind. Only when you +talk ethics—talk sense at the same time."</p> +<p>"I wish I knew how," he said.</p> +<p>They discussed Neergard's scheme for a little while longer; +Austin, shrewd and cautious, declined any personal part in the +financing of the deal, although he admitted the probability of +prospective profits.</p> +<p>"Our investments and our loans are of a different character," he +explained, "but I have no doubt that Fane, Harmon & +Co.—"</p> +<p>"Why, both Fane and Harmon are members of the club!" laughed +Selwyn. "You don't expect Neergard to go to them?"</p> +<p>A peculiar expression flickered in Gerard's heavy features; +perhaps he thought that Fane and Harmon and Jack Ruthven were not +above exploiting their own club under certain circumstances. But +whatever his opinion, he said nothing further; and, suggesting that +Selwyn remain to dine, went off to dress.</p> +<p>A few moments later he returned, crestfallen and +conciliatory:</p> +<p>"I forgot, Nina and I are dining at the Orchils. Come up a +moment; she wants to speak to you."</p> +<p>So they took the rose-tinted rococo elevator; Austin went away +to his own quarters, and Selwyn tapped at Nina's boudoir.</p> +<p>"Is that you, Phil? One minute; Watson is finishing my hair. . . +. Come in, now; and kindly keep your distance, my friend. Do you +suppose I want Rosamund to know what brand of war-paint I use?"</p> +<p>"Rosamund," he repeated, with a good-humoured shrug; "it's +likely—isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Certainly it's likely. You'd never know you were telling her +anything—but she'd extract every detail in ten seconds. . . . +I understand she adores you, Phil. What have you done to her?"</p> +<p>"That's likely, too," he remarked, remembering his savagely +polite rebuke to that young matron after the Minster dinner.</p> +<p>"Well, she does; you've probably piqued her; that's the sort of +man she likes. . . . Look at my hair—how bright and wavy it +is, Phil. Tell me, <i>do</i> I appear fairly pretty to-night?"</p> +<p>"You're all right, Nina; I mean it," he said. "How are the kids? +How is Eileen?"</p> +<p>"That's why I sent for you. Eileen is furious at being left here +all alone; she's practically well and she's to dine with Drina in +the library. Would you be good enough to dine there with them? +Eileen, poor child, is heartily sick of her imprisonment; it would +be a mercy, Phil."</p> +<p>"Why, yes, I'll do it, of course; only I've some matters at +home—"</p> +<p>"Home! You call those stuffy, smoky, impossible, half-furnished +rooms <i>home</i>! Phil, when are you ever going to get some pretty +furniture and art things? Eileen and I have been talking it over, +and we've decided to go there and see what you need and then order +it, whether you like it or not."</p> +<p>"Thanks," he said, laughing; "it's just what I've tried to +avoid. I've got things where I want them now—but I knew it +was too comfortable to last. Boots said that some woman would be +sure to be good to me with an art-nouveau rocking-chair."</p> +<p>"A perfect sample of man's gratitude," said Nina, exasperated; +"for I've ordered two beautiful art-nouveau rocking-chairs, one for +you and one for Mr. Lansing. Now you can go and humiliate poor +little Eileen, who took so much pleasure in planning with me for +your comfort. As for your friend Boots, he's unspeakable—with +my compliments."</p> +<p>Selwyn stayed until he made peace with his sister, then he +mounted to the nursery to "lean over" the younger children and +preside at prayers. This being accomplished, he descended to the +library, where Eileen Erroll in a filmy, lace-clouded gown, full of +turquoise tints, reclined with her arm around Drina amid heaps of +cushions, watching the waitress prepare a table for two.</p> +<p>He took the fresh, cool hand she extended and sat down on the +edge of her couch.</p> +<p>"All O.K. again?" he inquired, retaining Eileen's hand in +his.</p> +<p>"Thank you—quite. Are you really going to dine with us? +Are you sure you want to? Oh, I know you've given up some very gay +dinner somewhere—"</p> +<p>"I was going to dine with Boots when Nina rescued me. Poor +Boots!—I think I'll telephone—"</p> +<p>"Telephone him to come here!" begged Drina. "Would he come? Oh, +please—I'd love to have him."</p> +<p>"I wish you would ask him," said Eileen; "it's been so lonely +and stupid to lie in bed with a red nose and fishy eyes and pains +in one's back and limbs. Please do let us have a party."</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href= +"images/facing_page130.jpg"><img src="images/facing_page130.jpg" +width="80%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"'Two pillows,' said Drina sweetly."</b> +<br /></div> +<p>So Selwyn went to the telephone, and presently returned, saying +that Boots was overwhelmed and would be present at the festivities; +and Drina, enraptured, ordered flowers to be brought from the +dining-room and a large table set for four, with particular pomp +and circumstance.</p> +<p>Mr. Archibald Lansing arrived very promptly—a short, +stocky young man of clean and powerful build, with dark, keen eyes +always alert, and humorous lips ever on the edge of laughter under +his dark moustache.</p> +<p>His manner with Drina was always delightful—a mixture of +self-repressed idolatry and busily naïve belief in a thorough +understanding between them to exclude Selwyn from their +company.</p> +<p>"This Selwyn fellow here!" he exclaimed. "I warned him over the +'phone we'd not tolerate him, Drina. I explained to him very +carefully that you and I were dining together in strictest +privacy—"</p> +<p>"He begged so hard," said Eileen. "Will somebody place an extra +pillow for Drina?"</p> +<p>They seized the same pillow fiercely, confronting each other; +massacre appeared imminent.</p> +<p>"<i>Two</i> pillows," said Drina sweetly; and extermination was +averted. The child laughed happily, covering one of Boots's hands +with both of hers.</p> +<p>"So you've left the service, Mr. Lansing?" began Eileen, lying +back and looking smilingly at Boots.</p> +<p>"Had to, Miss Erroll. Seven millionaires ran into my quarters +and chased me out and down Broadway into the offices of the +Westchester Air Line Company. Then these seven merciless +multi-millionaires in buckram bound and gagged me, stuffed my +pockets full of salary, and forced me to typewrite a fearful and +secret oath to serve them for five long, weary years. That's a +sample of how the wealthy grind the noses of the poor, isn't it, +Drina?"</p> +<p>The child slipped her hand from his, smiling uncertainly.</p> +<p>"You don't mean all that, do you?"</p> +<p>"Indeed I do, sweetheart."</p> +<p>"Are you not a soldier lieutenant any more, then?" she inquired, +horribly disappointed.</p> +<p>"Only a private in the workman's battalion, Drina."</p> +<p>"I don't care," retorted the child obstinately; "I like you just +as much."</p> +<p>"Have you really done it?" asked Selwyn as the first course was +served.</p> +<p>"<i>I?</i> No. <i>They?</i> Yes. We'll probably lose the +Philippines now," he added gloomily; "but it's my thankless +country's fault; you all had a chance to make me dictator, you +know. Miss Erroll, do you want a second-hand sword? Of course there +are great dents in it—"</p> +<p>"I'd rather have those celebrated boots," she replied demurely; +and Mr. Lansing groaned.</p> +<p>"How tall you're growing, Drina," remarked Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Probably the early spring weather," added Boots. "You're +twelve, aren't you?"</p> +<p>"Thirteen," said Drina gravely.</p> +<p>"Almost time to elope with me," nodded Boots.</p> +<p>"I'll do it now," she said—"as soon as my new gowns are +made—if you'll take me to Manila. Will you? I believe my Aunt +Alixe is there—"</p> +<p>She caught Eileen's eye and stopped short. "I forgot," she +murmured; "I beg your pardon, Uncle Philip—"</p> +<p>Boots was talking very fast and laughing a great deal; Eileen's +plate claimed her undivided attention; Selwyn quietly finished his +claret; the child looked at them all.</p> +<p>"By the way," said Boots abruptly, "what's the matter with +Gerald? He came in before noon looking very seedy—" Selwyn +glanced up quietly.</p> +<p>"Wasn't he at the office?" asked Eileen anxiously.</p> +<p>"Oh, yes," replied Selwyn; "he felt a trifle under the weather, +so I sent him home."</p> +<p>"Is it the grippe?"</p> +<p>"N-no, I believe not—"</p> +<p>"Do you think he had better have a doctor? Where is he?"</p> +<p>"He was here," observed Drina composedly, "and father was angry +with him."</p> +<p>"What?" exclaimed Eileen. "When?"</p> +<p>"This morning, before father went downtown."</p> +<p>Both Selwyn and Lansing cut in coolly, dismissing the matter +with a careless word or two; and coffee was served—cambric +tea in Drina's case.</p> +<p>"Come on," said Boots, slipping a bride-rose into Drina's curls; +"I'm ready for confidences."</p> +<p>"Confidences" had become an established custom with Drina and +Boots; it meant that every time they saw one another they were +pledged to tell each other everything that had occurred in their +lives since their last meeting.</p> +<p>So Drina, excitedly requesting to be excused, jumped up and, +taking Lansing's hand in hers, led him to a sofa in a distant +corner, where they immediately installed themselves and began an +earnest and whispered exchange of confidences, punctuated by little +whirlwinds of laughter from the child.</p> +<p>Eileen settled deeper among her pillows as the table was +removed, and Selwyn drew his chair forward.</p> +<p>"Suppose," she said, looking thoughtfully at him, "that you and +I make a vow to exchange confidences? Shall we, Captain +Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"Good heavens," he protested; "I—confess to <i>you</i>! +You'd faint dead away, Eileen."</p> +<p>"Perhaps. . . . But will you?"</p> +<p>He gaily evaded an answer, and after a while he fancied she had +forgotten. They spoke of other things, of her convalescence, of the +engagements she had been obliged to cancel, of the stupid hours in +her room—doubly stupid, as the doctor had not permitted her +to read or sew.</p> +<p>"And every day violets from you," she said; "it was certainly +nice of you. And—do you know that somehow—just because +you have never yet failed me—I thought perhaps—when I +asked your confidence a moment ago—"</p> +<p>He looked up quickly.</p> +<p>"<i>What</i> is the matter with Gerald?" she asked. "Could you +tell me?"</p> +<p>"Nothing serious is the matter, Eileen."</p> +<p>"Is he not ill?"</p> +<p>"Not very."</p> +<p>She lay still a moment, then with the slightest gesture: "Come +here."</p> +<p>He seated himself near her; she laid her hand fearlessly on his +arm.</p> +<p>"Tell me," she demanded. And, as he remained silent: "Once," she +said, "I came suddenly into the library. Austin and Gerald were +there; Austin seemed to be very angry with my brother. I heard him +say something that worried me; and I slipped out before they saw +me."</p> +<p>Selwyn remained silent.</p> +<p>"Was <i>that</i> it?"</p> +<p>"I—don't know what you heard."</p> +<p>"<i>Don't</i> you understand me?"</p> +<p>"Not exactly."</p> +<p>"Well, then"—she crimsoned—"has Gerald m-misbehaved +again?"</p> +<p>"What did you hear Austin say?" he demanded.</p> +<p>"I heard—something about dissipation. He was very angry +with Gerald. It is not the best way, I think, to become angry with +either of us—either me or Gerald—because then we are +usually inclined to do it again—whatever it is. . . . I do +not mean for one moment to be disloyal to Austin; you know that. . +. . But I am so thankful that Gerald is fond of you. . . . You like +him, too, don't you?"</p> +<p>"I am very fond of him."</p> +<p>"Well, then," she said, "you will talk to him +pleasantly—won't you? He is <i>such</i> a boy; and he adores +you. It is easy to influence a boy like that, you know—easy +to shame him out of the silly things he does. . . . That is all the +confidence I wanted, Captain Selwyn. And you haven't told me a +word, you see—and I have not fainted—have I?"</p> +<p>They laughed a little; her fingers, which had tightened on his +arm, relaxed; her hand fell away, and she straightened up, sitting +Turk fashion, and smoothing her hair which contact with the pillows +had disarranged so that it threatened to come tumbling over eyes +and cheeks.</p> +<p>"Oh, hair, hair!" she murmured, "you're Nina's despair and my +endless punishment. I'd twist and pin you tight if I +dared—some day I will, too. . . . What are you looking at so +curiously, Captain Selwyn? My mop?"</p> +<p>"It's about the most stunningly beautiful thing I ever saw," he +said, still curious.</p> +<p>She nodded gaily, both hands still busy with the lustrous +strands. "It <i>is</i> nice; but I never supposed you noticed it. +It falls to my waist; I'll show it to you some time. . . . But I +had no idea <i>you</i> noticed such things," she repeated, as +though to herself.</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm apt to notice all sorts of things," he said, looking so +provokingly wise that she dropped her hair and clapped both hands +over her eyes.</p> +<p>"Now," she said, "if you are so observing, you'll know the +colour of my eyes. What are they?"</p> +<p>"Blue—with a sort of violet tint," he said promptly.</p> +<p>She laughed and lowered her hands.</p> +<p>"All that personal attention paid to me!" she exclaimed. "You +are turning my head, Captain Selwyn. Besides, you are astonishing +me, because you never seem to know what women wear or what they +resemble when I ask you to describe the girls with whom you have +been dining or dancing."</p> +<p>It was a new note in their cordial intimacy—this nascent +intrusion of the personal. To her it merely meant his very charming +recognition of her maturity—she was fast becoming a woman +like other women, to be looked at and remembered as an individual, +and no longer classed vaguely as one among hundreds of the newly +emerged whose soft, unexpanded personalities all resembled one +another.</p> +<p>For some time, now, she had cherished this tiny grudge in her +heart—that he had never seemed to notice anything in +particular about her except when he tried to be agreeable +concerning some new gown. The contrast had become the sharper, too, +since she had awakened to the admiration of other men. And the +awakening was only a half-convinced happiness mingled with shy +surprise that the wise world should really deem her so lovely.</p> +<p>"A red-headed girl," she said teasingly; "I thought you had +better taste than—than—"</p> +<p>"Than to think you a raving beauty?"</p> +<p>"Oh," she said, "you don't think that!"</p> +<p>As a matter of fact he himself had become aware of it so +suddenly that he had no time to think very much about it. It was +rather strange, too, that he had not always been aware of it; or +was it partly the mellow light from the lamp tinting her till she +glowed and shimmered like a young sorceress, sitting so straight +there in her turquoise silk and misty lace?</p> +<p>Delicate luminous shadow banded her eyes; her hair, partly in +shadow, too, became a sombre mystery in rose-gold.</p> +<p>"Whatever <i>are</i> you staring at?" she laughed. "Me? I don't +believe it! Never have you so honoured me with your fixed +attention, Captain Selwyn. You really glare at me as though I were +interesting. And I know you don't consider me that; do you?"</p> +<p>"How old are you, anyway?" he asked curiously.</p> +<p>"Thank you, I'll be delighted to inform you when I'm +twenty."</p> +<p>"You look like a mixture of fifteen and twenty-five to-night," +he said deliberately; "and the answer is more and less than +nineteen."</p> +<p>"And you," she said, "talk like a frivolous sage, and your +wisdom is as weighty as the years you carry. And what is the answer +to that? Do you know, Captain Selwyn, that when you talk to me this +way you look about as inexperienced as Gerald?"</p> +<p>"And do <i>you</i> know," he said, "that I feel as +inexperienced—when I talk to you this way?"</p> +<p>She nodded. "It's probably good for us both; I age, you renew +the frivolous days of youth when you were young enough to notice +the colour of a girl's hair and eyes. Besides, I'm very grateful to +you. Hereafter you won't dare sit about and cross your knees and +look like the picture of an inattentive young man by Gibson. You've +admitted that you like two of my features, and I shall expect you +to notice and <i>admit</i> that you notice the rest."</p> +<p>"I admit it now," he said, laughing.</p> +<p>"You mustn't; I won't let you. Two kinds of dessert are +sufficient at a time. But to-morrow—or perhaps the day after, +you may confess to me your approbation of one more +feature—only one, remember!—just one more agreeable +feature. In that way I shall be able to hold out for quite a while, +you see—counting my fingers as separate features! Oh, you've +given me a taste of it; it's your own fault, Captain Selwyn, and +now I desire more if you please—in semi-weekly lingering +doses—"</p> +<p>A perfect gale of laughter from the sofa cut her short.</p> +<p>"Drina!" she exclaimed; "it's after eight!—and I +completely forgot."</p> +<p>"Oh, dear!" protested the child, "he's being so funny about the +war in Samar. Couldn't I stay up—just five more minutes, +Eileen? Besides, I haven't told him about Jessie Orchil's +party—"</p> +<p>"Drina, dear, you <i>know</i> I can't let you. Say good-night, +now—if you want Mr. Lansing and your Uncle Philip to come to +another party."</p> +<p>"I'll just whisper one more confidence very fast," she said to +Boots. He inclined his head; she placed both hands on his +shoulders, and, kneeling on the sofa, laid her lips close to his +ear. Eileen and Selwyn waited.</p> +<p>When the child had ended and had taken leave of all, Boots also +took his leave; and Selwyn rose, too, a troubled, careworn +expression replacing the careless gaiety which had made him seem so +young in Miss Erroll's youthful eyes.</p> +<p>"Wait, Boots," he said; "I'm going home with you." And, to +Eileen, almost absently: "Good-night; I'm so very glad you are well +again."</p> +<p>"Good-night," she said, looking up at him. The faintest sense of +disappointment came over her—at what, she did not know. Was +it because, in his completely altered face she realised the instant +and easy detachment from herself, and what concerned her?—was +it because other people, like Mr. Lansing—other +interests—like those which so plainly, in his face, betrayed +his preoccupation—had so easily replaced an intimacy which +had seemed to grow newer and more delightful with every +meeting?</p> +<p>What was it, then, that he found more interesting, more +important, than their friendship, their companionship? Was she +never to grow old enough, or wise enough, or experienced enough to +exact—without exacting—his paramount consideration and +interest? Was there no common level of mental equality where they +could meet?—where termination of interviews might be +mutual—might be fairer to her?</p> +<p>Now he went away, utterly detached from her and what concerned +her—to seek other interests of which she knew nothing; +absorbed in them to her utter exclusion, leaving her here with the +long evening before her and nothing to do—because her eyes +were not yet strong enough to use for reading.</p> +<p>Lansing was saying: "I'll drive as far as the club with you, and +then you can drop me and come back later."</p> +<p>"Right, my son; I'll finish a letter and then come +back—"</p> +<p>"Can't you write it at the club?"</p> +<p>"Not that letter," he replied in a low voice; and, turning to +Eileen, smiled his absent, detached smile, offering his hand.</p> +<p>But she lay back, looking straight up at him.</p> +<p>"Are you going?"</p> +<p>"Yes; I have several—"</p> +<p>"Stay with me," she said in a low voice.</p> +<p>For a moment the words meant nothing; then blank surprise +silenced him, followed by curiosity.</p> +<p>"Is there something you wished to tell me?" he asked.</p> +<p>"N-no."</p> +<p>His perplexity and surprise grew. "Wait a second, Boots," he +said; and Mr. Lansing, being a fairly intelligent young man, went +out and down the stairway.</p> +<p>"Now," he said, too kindly, too soothingly, "what is it, +Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Nothing. I thought—but I don't care. Please go, Captain +Selwyn."</p> +<p>"No, I shall not until you tell me what troubles you."</p> +<p>"I can't."</p> +<p>"Try, Eileen."</p> +<p>"Why, it is nothing; truly it is nothing. . . . Only I +was—it is so early—only a quarter past +eight—"</p> +<p>He stood there looking down at her, striving to understand.</p> +<p>"That is all," she said, flushing a trifle; "I can't read and I +can't sew and there's nobody here. . . . I don't mean to bother +you—"</p> +<p>"Child," he exclaimed, "do you <i>want</i> me to stay?"</p> +<p>"Yes," she said; "will you?"</p> +<p>He walked swiftly to the landing outside and looked down.</p> +<p>"Boots!" he called in a low voice, "I'm not going home yet. +Don't wait for me at the Lenox."</p> +<p>"All right," returned Mr. Lansing cheerfully. A moment later the +front door closed below. Then Selwyn came back into the +library.</p> +<p>For an hour he sat there telling her the gayest stories and +talking the most delightful nonsense, alternating with interesting +incisions into serious subjects: which it enchanted her to dissect +under his confident guidance.</p> +<p>Alert, intelligent, all aquiver between laughter and absorption, +she had sat up among her silken pillows, resting her weight on one +rounded arm, her splendid young eyes fixed on him to detect and +follow and interpret every change in his expression personal to the +subject and to her share in it.</p> +<p>His old self again! What could be more welcome? Not one shadow +in his pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray +aloofness. How jolly, how young he was after all!</p> +<p>They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a +gesture a thousand matters of common interest in that swift +hour—incredibly swift, unless the hall clock's deadened +chimes were mocking Time itself with mischievous effrontery.</p> +<p>She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, +listening, meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed. When the +last chime had sounded she lay back among her cushions.</p> +<p>"Thank you for staying," she said quite happily.</p> +<p>"Am I to go?"</p> +<p>Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows:</p> +<p>"Where were you going when I—spoiled it all? For you were +going somewhere—out there"—with a gesture toward the +darkness outside—"somewhere where men go to have the good +times they always seem to have. . . . Was it to your club? What do +men do there? Is it very gay at men's clubs? . . . It must be +interesting to go where men have such jolly times—where men +gather to talk that mysterious man-talk which we so often wonder +at—and pretend we are indifferent. But we are very curious, +nevertheless—even about the boys of Gerald's age—whom +we laugh at and torment; and we can't help wondering how they talk +to each other—what they say that is so interesting; for they +somehow manage to convey that impression to us—even against +our will. . . . If you stay, I shall never have done with +chattering. When you sit there with one lazy knee so leisurely +draped over the other, and your eyes laughing at me through your +cigar-smoke, about a million ideas flash up in me which I desire to +discuss with you. . . . So you had better go."</p> +<p>"I am happier here," he said, watching her.</p> +<p>"Really?"</p> +<p>"Really."</p> +<p>"Then—then—am <i>I</i>, also, one of the 'good +times' a man can have?—when he is at liberty to reflect and +choose as he idles over his coffee?"</p> +<p>"A man is fortunate if you permit that choice."</p> +<p>"Are you serious? I mean a man, not a boy—not a dance or +dinner partner, or one of the men one meets about—everywhere +from pillar to post. Do you think me interesting to real +men?—like you and Boots?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said deliberately, "I do. I don't know how +interesting, because—I never quite realised how—how you +had matured. . . . That was my stupidity."</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn!" in confused triumph; "you never gave me a +chance; I mean, you always were nice in—in the same way you +are to Drina. . . . I liked it—don't please +misunderstand—only I knew there was something else to +me—something more nearly your own age. It was jolly to know +you were really fond of me—but youthful sisters grow faster +than you imagine. . . . And now, when you come, I shall venture to +believe it is not wholly to do me a kindness—but—a +little—to do yourself one, too. Is that not the basis of +friendship?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Community and equality of interests?—isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"—And—in which the—the charity of superior +experience and the inattention of intellectual preoccupation and +the amused concession to ignorance must steadily, if gradually, +disappear? Is that it, too?"</p> +<p>Astonishment and chagrin at his misconception of her gave place +to outright laughter at his own expense.</p> +<p>"Where on earth did you—I mean that I am quite overwhelmed +under your cutting indictment of me. Old duffers of my +age—"</p> +<p>"Don't say that," she said; "that is pleading guilty to the +indictment, and reverting to the old footing. I shall not permit +you to go back."</p> +<p>"I don't want to, Eileen—"</p> +<p>"I am wondering," she said airily, "about that 'Eileen.' I'm not +sure but that easy and fluent 'Eileen' is part of the indictment. +What do you call Gladys Orchil, for example?"</p> +<p>"What do I care what I call anybody?" he retorted, laughing, "as +long as they</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"'Answer to "Hi!"<br /> +Or to any loud cry'?"</div> +<p>"But <i>I</i> won't answer to 'Hi!'" she retorted very promptly; +"and now that you admit that I am a 'good time,' a mature +individual with distinguishing characteristics, and your +intellectual equal if not your peer in experience, I'm not sure +that I shall answer at all whenever you begin 'Eileen.' Or I shall +take my time about it—or I may even reflect and look straight +through you before I reply—or," she added, "I may be so +profoundly preoccupied with important matters which do not concern +you, that I might not even hear you speak at all."</p> +<p>Their light-hearted laughter mingled delightfully—fresh, +free, uncontrolled, peal after peal. She sat huddled up like a +schoolgirl, lovely head thrown back, her white hands clasping her +knees; he, both feet squarely on the floor, leaned forward, his +laughter echoing hers.</p> +<p>"What nonsense! What blessed nonsense you and I are talking!" +she said, "but it has made me quite happy. Now you may go to your +club and your mysterious man-talk—"</p> +<p>"I don't want to—"</p> +<p>"Oh, but you must!"—<i>she</i> was now dismissing +<i>him</i>—"because, although I am convalescent, I am a +little tired, and Nina's maid is waiting to tuck me in."</p> +<p>"So you send me away?"</p> +<p>"<i>Send</i> you—" She hesitated, delightfully confused in +the reversal of roles—not quite convinced of this new power +which, of itself, had seemed to invest her with authority over man. +"Yes," she said, "I must send you away." And her heart beat a +little faster in her uncertainty as to his obedience—then +leaped in triumph as he rose with a reluctance perfectly +visible.</p> +<p>"To-morrow," she said, "I am to drive for the first time. In the +evening I may be permitted to go to the Grays' mid-Lent +dance—but not to dance much. Will you be there? Didn't they +ask you? I shall tell Suddy Gray what I think of him—I don't +care whether it's for the younger set or not! Goodness me, aren't +you as young as anybody! . . . Well, then! . . . So we won't see +each other to-morrow. And the day after that—oh, I wish I had +my engagement list. Never mind, I will telephone you when I'm to be +at home—or wherever I'm going to be. But it won't be anywhere +in particular because it's Lent, of course. . . . Good-night, +Captain Selwyn; you've been very sweet to me, and I've enjoyed +every single instant."</p> +<p>When he had gone she rose, a trifle excited in the glow of +abstract happiness, and walked erratically about, smiling to +herself, touching and rearranging objects that caught her +attention. Then an innocent instinct led her to the mirror, where +she stood a moment looking back into the lovely reflected face with +its disordered hair.</p> +<p>"After all," she said, "I'm not as aged as I pretended. . . . I +wonder if he is laughing at me now. . . . But he was very, very +nice to me—wherever he has gone in quest of that 'good time' +and to talk his man-talk to other men—"</p> +<p>In a reverie she stood at the mirror considering her own flushed +cheeks and brilliant eyes.</p> +<p>"What a curiously interesting man he is," she murmured +naïvely. "I shall telephone him that I am not going to that +<i>mi-carême</i> dance. . . . Besides, Suddy Gray is a bore +with the martyred smile he's been cultivating. . . . As though a +happy girl would dream of marrying anybody with all life before her +to learn important things in! . . . And that dreadful, downy Scott +Innis—trying to make me listen to <i>him</i>! . . . until I +was ashamed to be alive! And Bradley Harmon—ugh!—and +oh, that mushy widower, Percy Draymore, who got hold of my arm +before I dreamed—"</p> +<p>She shuddered and turned back into the room, frowning and +counting her slow steps across the floor.</p> +<p>"After all," she said, "their silliness may be their greatest +mystery—but I don't include Captain Selwyn," she added +loyally; "he is far too intelligent to be like other men."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Yet, like other men, at that very moment Captain Selwyn was +playing the fizzing contents of a siphon upon the iced ingredients +of a tall, thin glass which stood on a table in the Lenox Club.</p> +<p>The governor's room being deserted except by himself and Mr. +Lansing, he continued the animated explanation of his delay in +arriving.</p> +<p>"So I stayed," he said to Boots with an enthusiasm quite boyish, +"and I had a perfectly bully time. She's just as clever as she can +be—startling at moments. I never half appreciated +her—she formerly appealed to me in a different way—a +young girl knocking at the door of the world, and no mother or +father to open for her and show her the gimcracks and the freaks +and the side-shows. Do you know, Boots, that some day that girl is +going to marry somebody, and it worries me, knowing men as I +do—unless you should think of—"</p> +<p>"Great James!" faltered Mr. Lansing, "are you turning into a +schatschen? Are you planning to waddle through the world making +matches for your friends? If you are I'm quitting you right +here."</p> +<p>"It's only because you are the decentest man I happen to know," +said Selwyn resentfully. "Probably she'd turn you down, anyway. +But—" and he brightened up, "I dare say she'll choose the +best to be had; it's a pity though—"</p> +<p>"What's a pity?"</p> +<p>"That a charming, intellectual, sensitive, innocent girl like +that should be turned over to a plain lump of a man."</p> +<p>"When you've finished your eulogy on our sex," said Lansing, +"I'll walk home with you."</p> +<p>"Come on, then; I can talk while I walk; did you think I +couldn't?"</p> +<p>And as they struck through the first cross street toward +Lexington Avenue: "It's a privilege for a fellow to know that sort +of a girl—so many surprises in her—the charmingly +unexpected and unsuspected!—the pretty flashes of wit, the +naïve egotism which is as amusing as it is harmless. . . . I +had no idea how complex she is. . . . If you think you have the +simple feminine on your hands—forget it, Boots!—for +she's as evanescent as a helio-flash and as stunningly luminous as +a searchlight. . . . And here I've been doing the benevolent prig, +bestowing society upon her as a man doles out indigestible stuff to +a kid, using a sort of guilty discrimination in the +distribution—"</p> +<p>"What on earth is all this?" demanded Lansing; "are you perhaps +<i>non compos</i>, dear friend?"</p> +<p>"I'm trying to tell you and explain to myself that little Miss +Erroll is a rare and profoundly interesting specimen of a genus not +usually too amusing," he replied with growing enthusiasm. "Of +course, Holly Erroll was her father, and that accounts for +something; and her mother seems to have been a wit as well as a +beauty—which helps you to understand; but the brilliancy of +the result—aged nineteen, mind you—is out of all +proportion; cause and effect do not balance. . . . Why, Boots, an +ordinary man—I mean an everyday fellow who dines and dances +and does the harmlessly usual about town, dwindles to anæmic +insignificance when compared to that young girl—even now when +she's practically undeveloped—when her intelligence is like +an uncut gem still in the matrix of inexperience—"</p> +<p>"Help!" said Boots feebly, attempting to bolt; but Selwyn hooked +arms with him, laughing excitedly. In fact Lansing had not seen his +friend in such excellent spirits for many, many months; and it made +him exceedingly light-hearted, so that he presently began to chant +the old service canticle:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"I have another, he's just as bad,<br /> +He almost drives me crazy—"</div> +<p>And arm in arm they swung into the dark avenue, singing "Barney +Riley" in resonant undertones, while overhead the chilly little +Western stars looked down through pallid convolutions of moving +clouds, and the wind in the gas-lit avenue grew keener on the +street-corners.</p> +<p>"Cooler followed by clearing," observed Boots in disgust. "Ugh; +it's the limit, this nipping, howling hemisphere." And he turned up +his overcoat collar.</p> +<p>"I prefer it to a hemisphere that smells like a cheap +joss-stick," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"After all, they're about alike," retorted Boots—"even to +the ladrones of Broad Street and the dattos of Wall. . . . And +here's our bally bungalow now," he added, fumbling for his keys and +whistling "taps" under his breath.</p> +<p>As the two men entered and started to ascend the stairs, a door +on the parlour floor opened and their landlady appeared, enveloped +in a soiled crimson kimona and a false front which had slipped +sideways.</p> +<p>"There's the Sultana," whispered Lansing, "and she's making +sign-language at you. Wig-wag her, Phil. Oh . . . good-evening, +Mrs. Greeve; did you wish to speak to me? Oh!—to Captain +Selwyn. Of course."</p> +<p>"If <i>you</i> please," said Mrs. Greeve ominously, so Lansing +continued upward; Selwyn descended; Mrs. Greeve waved him into the +icy parlour, where he presently found her straightening her "front" +with work-worn fingers.</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn, I deemed it my duty to set up in order to +inform you of certain special doin's," she said haughtily.</p> +<p>"What 'doings'?" he inquired.</p> +<p>"Mr. Erroll's, sir. Last night he evidentially found difficulty +with the stairs and I seen him asleep on the parlour sofa when I +come down to answer the milkman, a-smokin' a cigar that wasn't lit, +with his feet on the angelus."</p> +<p>"I'm very, very sorry, Mrs. Greeve," he said—"and so is +Mr. Erroll. He and I had a little talk to-day, and I am sure that +he will be more careful hereafter."</p> +<p>"There is cigar-holes burned into the carpet," insisted Mrs. +Greeve, "and a mercy we wasn't all insinuated in our beds, one +window-pane broken and the gas a blue an' whistlin' streak with the +curtains blowin' into it an' a strange cat on to that satin +dozy-do; the proof being the repugnant perfume."</p> +<p>"All of which," said Selwyn, "Mr. Erroll will make every +possible amends for. He is very young, Mrs. Greeve, and very much +ashamed, I am sure. So please don't make it too hard for him."</p> +<p>She stood, little slippered feet planted sturdily in the first +position in dancing, fat, bare arms protruding from the kimona, her +work-stained fingers linked together in front of her. With a soiled +thumb she turned a ring on her third finger.</p> +<p>"I ain't a-goin' to be mean to nobody," she said; "my gentlemen +is always refined, even if they do sometimes forget theirselves +when young and sporty. Mr. Erroll is now a-bed, sir, and asleep +like a cherub, ice havin' been served three times with towels, +extra. Would you be good enough to mention the bill to him in the +morning?—the grocer bein' sniffy." And she handed the wadded +and inky memorandum of damages to Selwyn, who pocketed it with a +nod of assurance.</p> +<p>"There was," she added, following him to the door, "a lady here +to see you twice, leavin' no name or intentions otherwise than +business affairs of a pressin' nature."</p> +<p>"A—lady?" he repeated, halting short on the stairs.</p> +<p>"Young an' refined, allowin' for a automobile veil."</p> +<p>"She—she asked for me?" he repeated, astonished.</p> +<p>"Yes, sir. She wanted to see your rooms. But havin' no orders, +Captain Selwyn—although I must say she was that polite and +ladylike and," added Mrs. Greeve irrelevantly, "a art rocker come +for you, too, and another for Mr. Lansing, which I placed in your +respective settin'-rooms."</p> +<p>"Oh," said Selwyn, laughing in relief, "it's all right, Mrs. +Greeve. The lady who came is my sister, Mrs. Gerard; and whenever +she comes you are to admit her whether or not I am here."</p> +<p>"She said she might come again," nodded Mrs. Greeve as he +mounted the stairs; "am I to show her up any time she comes?"</p> +<p>"Certainly—thank you," he called back—"and Mr. +Gerard, too, if he calls."</p> +<p>He looked into Boots's room as he passed; that gentleman, in +bedroom costume of peculiar exotic gorgeousness, sat stuffing a +pipe with shag, and poring over a mass of papers pertaining to the +Westchester Air Line's property and prospective developments.</p> +<p>"Come in, Phil," he called out; "and look at the dinky chair +somebody sent me!" But Selwyn shook his head.</p> +<p>"Come into my rooms when you're ready," he said, and closed the +door again, smiling and turning away toward his own quarters.</p> +<p>Before he entered, however, he walked the length of the hall and +cautiously tried the handle of Gerald's door. It yielded; he +lighted a match and gazed at the sleeping boy where he lay very +peacefully among his pillows. Then, without a sound, he reclosed +the door and withdrew to his apartment.</p> +<p>As he emerged from the bedroom in his dressing-gown he heard the +front door-bell below peal twice, but paid no heed, his attention +being concentrated on the chair which Nina had sent him. First he +walked gingerly all around it, then he ventured nearer to examine +it in detail, and presently he tried it.</p> +<p>"Of course," he sighed—"bless her heart!—it's a +perfectly impossible chair. It squeaks, too." But he was mistaken; +the creak came from the old stairway outside his door, weighted +with the tread of Mrs. Greeve. The tread and the creaking ceased; +there came a knock, then heavy descending footsteps on the aged +stairway, every separate step protesting until the incubus had sunk +once more into the depths from which it had emerged.</p> +<p>As this happened to be the night for his laundry, he merely +called out, "All right!" and remained incurious, seated in the new +chair and striving to adjust its stiff and narrow architecture to +his own broad shoulders. Finally he got up and filled his pipe, +intending to try the chair once more under the most favourable +circumstances.</p> +<p>As he lighted his pipe there came a hesitating knock at the +door; he jerked his head sharply; the knock was repeated.</p> +<p>Something—a faintest premonition—the vaguest +stirring of foreboding committed him to silence—and left him +there motionless. The match burned close to his fingers; he dropped +it and set his heel upon the sparks.</p> +<p>Then he walked swiftly to the door, flung it open full +width—and stood stock still.</p> +<p>And Mrs. Ruthven entered the room, partly closing the door +behind, her gloved hand still resting on the knob.</p> +<p>For a moment they confronted one another, he tall, rigid, +astounded; she pale, supple, relaxing a trifle against the +half-closed door behind her, which yielded and closed with a low +click.</p> +<p>At the sound of the closing door he found his voice; it did not +resemble his own voice either to himself or to her; but she +answered his bewildered question:</p> +<p>"I don't know why I came. Is it so very dreadful? Have I +offended you? . . . I did not suppose that men cared about +conventions."</p> +<p>"But—why on earth—did you come?" he repeated. "Are +you in trouble?"</p> +<p>"I seem to be now," she said with a tremulous laugh; "you are +frightening me to death, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>Still dazed, he found the first chair at hand and dragged it +toward her.</p> +<p>She hesitated at the offer; then: "Thank you," she said, passing +before him. She laid her hand on the chair, looked a moment at him, +and sank into it.</p> +<p>Resting there, her pale cheek against her muff, she smiled at +him, and every nerve in him quivered with pity.</p> +<p>"World without end; amen," she said. "Let the judgment of man +pass."</p> +<p>"The judgment of this man passes very gently," he said, looking +down at her. "What brings you here, Mrs. Ruthven?"</p> +<p>"Will you believe me?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Then—it is simply the desire of the friendless for a +friend. Nothing else—nothing more subtle, nothing of +effrontery; n-nothing worse. Do you believe me?"</p> +<p>"I don't understand—"</p> +<p>"Try to."</p> +<p>"Do you mean that you have differed with—"</p> +<p>"Him?" She laughed. "Oh, no; I was talking of real people, not +of myths. And real people are not very friendly to me, +always—not that they are disagreeable, you understand, only a +trifle overcordial; and my most intimate friend kisses me a little +too frequently. By the way, she has quite succumbed to you, I +hear."</p> +<p>"Who do you mean?"</p> +<p>"Why, Rosamund."</p> +<p>He said something under his breath and looked at her +impatiently.</p> +<p>"Didn't you know it?" she asked, smiling.</p> +<p>"Know what?"</p> +<p>"That Rosamund is quite crazy about you?"</p> +<p>"Good Lord! Do you suppose that any of the monkey set are +interested in me or I in them?" he said, disgusted. "Do I ever go +near them or meet them at all except by accident in the routine of +the machinery which sometimes sews us in tangent patches on this +crazy-quilt called society?"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href= +"images/facing_page154.jpg"><img src="images/facing_page154.jpg" +width="45%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"'I don't know why I came.'"</b> +<br /></div> +<p>"But Rosamund," she said, laughing, "is now cultivating Mrs. +Gerard."</p> +<p>"What of it?" he demanded.</p> +<p>"Because," she replied, still laughing, "I tell you, she is +perfectly mad about you. There's no use scowling and squaring your +chin. Oh, I ought to know what that indicates! I've watched you do +it often enough; but the fact is that the handsomest and smartest +woman in town is for ever dinning your perfections into my +ears—"</p> +<p>"I know," he said, "that this sort of stuff passes in your set +for wit; but let me tell you that any man who cares for that brand +of humour can have it any time he chooses. However, he goes outside +the residence district to find it."</p> +<p>She flushed scarlet at his brutality; he drew up a chair, seated +himself very deliberately, and spoke, his unlighted pipe in his +left hand:</p> +<p>"The girl I left—the girl who left me—was a modest, +clean-thinking, clean-minded girl, who also had a brain to use, and +employed it. Whatever conclusion that girl arrived at concerning +the importance of marriage-vows is no longer my business; but the +moment she confronts me again, offering friendship, then I may use +a friend's privilege, as I do. And so I tell you that loosely +fashionable badinage bores me. And another matter—privileged +by the friendship you acknowledge—forces me to ask you a +question, and I ask it, point-blank: Why have you again permitted +Gerald to play cards for stakes at your house, after promising you +would not do so?"</p> +<p>The colour receded from her face and her gloved fingers +tightened on the arms of her chair.</p> +<p>"That is one reason I came," she said; "to explain—"</p> +<p>"You could have written."</p> +<p>"I say it was <i>one</i> reason; the other I have already given +you—because I—I felt that you were friendly."</p> +<p>"I am. Go on."</p> +<p>"I don't know whether you are friendly to me; I thought you +were—that night. . . . I did not sleep a wink after it . . . +because I was quite happy. . . . But now—I don't +know—"</p> +<p>"Whether I am still friendly? Well, I am. So please explain +about Gerald."</p> +<p>"Are you sure?" raising her dark eyes, "that you mean to be +kind?"</p> +<p>"Yes, sure," he said harshly. "Go on."</p> +<p>"You are a little rough with me; a-almost insolent—"</p> +<p>"I—I have to be. Good God! Alixe, do you think this is +nothing to me?—this wretched mess we have made of life! Do +you think my roughness and abruptness comes from anything but +pity?—pity for us both, I tell you. Do you think I can remain +unmoved looking on the atrocious punishment you have inflicted on +yourself?—tethered to—to <i>that</i>!—for +life!—the poison of the contact showing in your altered voice +and manner!—in the things you laugh at, in the things you +live for—in the twisted, misshapen ideals that your friends +set up on a heap of nuggets for you to worship? Even if we've +passed through the sea of mire, can't we at least clear the filth +from our eyes and see straight and steer straight to the +anchorage?"</p> +<p>She had covered her pallid face with her muff; he bent forward, +his hand on the arm of her chair.</p> +<p>"Alixe, was there nothing to you, after all? Was it only a +tinted ghost that was blown into my bungalow that night—only +a twist of shredded marsh mist without substance, without being, +without soul?—to be blown away into the shadows with the next +and stronger wind—and again to drift out across the waste +places of the world? I thought I knew a sweet, impulsive comrade of +flesh and blood; warm, quick, generous, intelligent—and very, +very young—too young and spirited, perhaps, to endure the +harness which coupled her with a man who failed her—and +failed himself.</p> +<p>"That she has made another—and perhaps more heart-breaking +mistake, is bitter for me, too—because—because—I +have not yet forgotten. And even if I ceased to remember, the +sadness of it must touch me. But I have not forgotten, and because +I have not, I say to you, anchor! and hold fast. Whatever <i>he</i> +does, whatever you suffer, whatever happens, steer straight on to +the anchorage. Do you understand me?"</p> +<p>Her gloved hand, moving at random, encountered his and closed on +it convulsively.</p> +<p>"Do you understand?" he repeated.</p> +<p>"Y-es, Phil."</p> +<p>Head still sinking, face covered with the silvery fur, the +tremors from her body set her hand quivering on his.</p> +<p>Heart-sick, he forbore to ask for the explanation; he knew the +real answer, anyway—whatever she might say—and he +understood that any game in that house was Ruthven's game, and the +guests his guests; and that Gerald was only one of the younger men +who had been wrung dry in that house.</p> +<p>No doubt at all that Ruthven needed the money; he was only a +male geisha for the set that harboured him, anyway—picked up +by a big, hard-eyed woman, who had almost forgotten how to laugh, +until she found him furtively muzzling her diamond-laden fingers. +So, when she discovered that he could sit up and beg and roll over +at a nod, she let him follow her; and since then he had become +indispensable and had curled up on many a soft and silken knee, and +had sought and fetched and carried for many a pretty woman what she +herself did not care to touch, even with white-gloved fingers.</p> +<p>What had she expected when she married him? Only innocent +ignorance of the set he ornamented could account for the horror of +her disillusion. What splendours had she dreamed of from the +outside? What flashing and infernal signal had beckoned her to +enter? What mute eyes had promised? What silent smile invited? All +skulls seem to grin; but the world has yet to hear them laugh.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"Philip?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Alixe."</p> +<p>"I did my best, w-without offending Gerald. Can you believe +me?"</p> +<p>"I know you did. . . . Don't mind what I said—"</p> +<p>"N-no, not now. . . . You do believe me, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do."</p> +<p>"Thank you. . . . And, Phil, I will try to s-steer +straight—because you ask me."</p> +<p>"You must."</p> +<p>"I will. . . . It is good to be here. . . . I must not come +again, must I?"</p> +<p>"Not again, Alixe."</p> +<p>"On your account?"</p> +<p>"On your own. . . . What do <i>I</i> care?"</p> +<p>"I didn't know. They say—"</p> +<p>"What?" he asked sharply.</p> +<p>"A rumour—I heard it—others speak of +it—perhaps to be disagreeable to me—"</p> +<p>"What have you heard?"</p> +<p>"That—that you might marry again—"</p> +<p>"Well, you can nail that lie," he said hotly.</p> +<p>"Then it is not true?"</p> +<p>"True! Do you think I'd take that chance again even if I felt +free to do it?"</p> +<p>"Free?" she faltered; "but you <i>are</i> free, Phil!"</p> +<p>"I am not," he said fiercely; "no man is free to marry twice +under such conditions. It's a jest at decency and a slap in the +face of civilisation! I'm done for—finished; I had my chance +and I failed. Do you think I consider myself free to try again with +the chance of further bespattering my family?"</p> +<p>"Wait until you really love," she said tremulously.</p> +<p>He laughed incredulously.</p> +<p>"I am glad that it is not true. . . . I am glad," she said. "Oh, +Phil! Phil!—for a single one of the chances we had again and +again and again!—and we did not know—we did not know! +And yet—there were moments—"</p> +<p>Dry-lipped he looked at her, and dry of eye and lip she raised +her head and stared at him—through him—far beyond at +the twin ghosts floating under the tropic stars locked fast in +their first embrace.</p> +<p>Then she rose, blindly, covering her face with her hands, and he +stumbled to his feet, shrinking back from her—because dead +fires were flickering again, and the ashes of dead roses stirred +above the scented embers—and the magic of all the East was +descending like a veil upon them, and the Phantom of the Past drew +nearer, smiling, wide-armed, crowned with living blossoms.</p> +<p>The tide rose, swaying her where she stood; her hands fell from +her face. Between them the grave they had dug seemed almost filled +with flowers now—was filling fast. And across it they looked +at one another as though stunned. Then his face paled and he +stepped back, staring at her from stern eyes.</p> +<p>"Phil," she faltered, bewildered by the mirage, "is it only a +bad dream, after all?" And as the false magic glowed into blinding +splendour to engulf them: "Oh, boy! boy!—is it hell or heaven +where we've fallen—?"</p> +<p>There came a loud rapping at the door.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>AFTERGLOW</h3> +<p>"Phil," she wrote, "I am a little frightened. Do you suppose +Boots suspected who it was? I must have been perfectly mad to go to +your rooms that night; and we both were—to leave the door +unlocked with the chance of somebody walking in. But, Phil, how +could I know it was the fashion for your friends to bang like that +and then come in without the excuse of a response from you?</p> +<p>"I have been so worried, so anxious, hoping from day to day that +you would write to reassure me that Boots did not recognise me with +my back turned to him and my muff across my eyes.</p> +<p>"But scared and humiliated as I am I realise that it was well +that he knocked. Even as I write to you here in my own room, behind +locked doors, I am burning with the shame of it.</p> +<p>"But I am <i>not</i> that kind of woman, Phil; truly, truly, I +am not. When the foolish impulse seized me I had no clear idea of +what I wanted except to see you and learn for myself what you +thought about Gerald's playing at my house after I had promised not +to let him.</p> +<p>"Of course, I understood what I risked in going; I realised what +common interpretation might be put upon what I was doing. But ugly +as it might appear to anybody except you, my motive, you see, must +have been quite innocent—else I should have gone about it in +a very different manner.</p> +<p>"I wanted to see you, that is absolutely all; I was lonely for a +word—even a harsh one—from the sort of man you are. I +wanted you to believe it was in spite of me that Gerald came and +played that night.</p> +<p>"He came without my knowledge. I did not know he was invited. +And when he appeared I did everything to prevent him from playing; +<i>you</i> will never know what took place—what I submitted +to—</p> +<p>"I am trying to be truthful, Phil; I want to lay my heart bare +for you—but there are things a woman cannot wholly confess. +Believe me, I did what I could. . . . And <i>that</i> is all I can +say. Oh, I know what it costs you to be mixed up in such +contemptible complications. I, for my part, can scarcely bear to +have you know so much about me—and what I am come to. That is +my real punishment, Phil—not what you said it was.</p> +<p>"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about +me. It is not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold +front—or to deceive any man in it. But our own little world +is being rapidly undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in +it has seen my gay mask stripped off—which is not well for a +woman, Phil.</p> +<p>"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to +clear these haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of +phantoms—for the honour of what we once were to each other +before the world. But steering a ghost-ship through endless +tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind—a little +more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.</p> +<p>"And now—with all these madly inked pages scattered across +my desk, I draw toward me another sheet—the last I have still +unstained; to ask at last the question which I have shrunk from +through all these pages—and for which these pages alone were +written:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"<i>What</i> do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I +care; dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last +page. <i>What</i> do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable +about Boots, but that is partly fright—though I know I am +safe enough with such a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so +that I cannot bear to face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear +of what <i>you</i> must think of me in the still, secret places of +that heart of yours, which I never, never understood. ALIXE."</p> +</div> +<p>It was a week before he sent his reply—although he wrote +many answers, each in turn revised, corrected, copied, and +recopied, only to be destroyed in the end. But at last he forced +himself to meet truth with truth, cutting what crudity he could +from his letter:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"You ask me what I think of you; but that question should +properly come from me. What do <i>you</i> think of a man who +exhorts and warns a woman to stand fast, and then stands dumb at +the first impact of temptation?</p> +<p>"A sight for gods and men—that man! Is there any use for +me to stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains +that I am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for +anything; and it's high time I realised it.</p> +<p>"If words of commendation, of courage, of kindly counsel, are +needed by anybody in this world, I am not the man to utter them. +What a hypocrite must I seem to you! I who sat there beside you +preaching platitudes in strong self-complacency, instructing you +how morally edifying it is to be good and unhappy.</p> +<p>"Then, what happened? I don't know exactly; but I'm trying to be +honest, and I'll tell you what I think happened:</p> +<p>"You are—you; I am—I; and we are still those same +two people who understood neither the impulse that once swept us +together, nor the forces that tore us apart—ah, more than +that! we never understood each other! And we do not now.</p> +<p>"That is what happened. We were too near together again; the +same spark leaped, the same blindness struck us, the same impulse +swayed us—call it what we will!—and it quickened out of +chaos, grew from nothing into unreasoning existence. It was the +terrific menace of emotion, stunning us both—simply because +you are you and I am I. And that is what happened.</p> +<p>"We cannot deny it; we may not have believed it +possible—or in fact considered it at all. I did not; I am +sure you did not. Yet it occurred, and we cannot deny it, and we +can no more explain or understand it than we can understand each +other.</p> +<p>"But one thing we do know—not through reason but through +sheer instinct: We cannot venture to meet again—that way. For +I, it seems, am a man like other men except that I lack character; +and you are—<i>you</i>! still unchanged—with all the +mystery of attraction, all the magic force of vitality, all the +esoteric subtlety with which you enveloped me the first moment my +eyes met yours.</p> +<p>"There was no more reason for it then than there is now; and, as +you admit, it was not love—though, as you also admit, there +were moments approaching it. But nothing can have real being +without a basis of reason; and so, whatever it was, it vanished. +This, perhaps, is only the infernal afterglow.</p> +<p>"As for me, I am, as you are, all at sea, self-confidence gone, +self-faith lost—a very humble person, without conceit, dazed, +perplexed, but still attempting to steer through toward that safe +anchorage which I dared lately to recommend to you.</p> +<p>"And it is really there, Alixe, despite the fool who recites his +creed so tritely.</p> +<p>"All this in attempt to bring order into my own mental +confusion; and the result is that I have formulated nothing.</p> +<p>"So now I end where I began with that question which answers +yours without the faintest suspicion of reproach: What can you +think of such a man as I am? And in the presence of my +<i>second</i> failure your answer must be that you now think what +you once thought of him when you first realised that he had failed +you, PHILIP SELWYN."</p> +</div> +<p>That very night brought him her reply:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Phil, dear, I do not blame you for one instant. Why do you say +you ever failed in anything? It was entirely my fault. But I am so +happy that you wrote as you did, taking all the blame, which is +like you. I can look into my mirror now—for a moment or +two.</p> +<p>"It is brave of you to be so frank about what you think came +over us. I can discuss nothing, admit nothing; but you always did +reason more clearly than I. Still, whatever spell it was that +menaced us I know very well could not have threatened you +seriously; I know it because you reason about it so logically. So +it could have been nothing serious. Love alone is serious; and it +sometimes comes slowly, sometimes goes slowly; but if you desire it +to come quickly, close your eves! And if you wish it to vanish, +<i>reason about it</i>!</p> +<p>"We are on very safe ground again, Phil; you see we are making +little epigrams about love.</p> +<p>"Rosamund is impatient—it's a symphony concert, and I must +go—the horrid little cynic!—I half believe she suspects +that I'm writing to you and tearing off yards of sentiment. It is +likely I'd do that, isn't it!—but I don't care what she +thinks. Besides, it behooves her to be agreeable, and she knows +that I know it does! <i>Voilà</i>!</p> +<p>"By the way, I saw Mrs. Gerard's pretty ward at the theatre last +night—Miss Erroll. She certainly is stunning—"</p> +</div> +<p>Selwyn flattened out the letter and deliberately tore out the +last paragraph. Then he set it afire with a match.</p> +<p>"At least," he said with an ugly look, "I can keep <i>her</i> +out of this"; and he dropped the brittle blackened paper and set +his heel on it. Then he resumed his perusal of the mutilated +letter, reread it, and finally destroyed it.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Alixe," he wrote in reply, "we had better stop this +letter-writing before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make +mischief might very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of +course, could not close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so +without any fear that you will fail to understand why I ask it. +Will you?"</p> +</div> +<p>To which she replied:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Yes, Phil. Good-bye.</p> +<p>"ALIXE."</p> +</div> +<p>A box of roses left her his debtor; she was too intelligent to +acknowledge them. Besides, matters were going better with her.</p> +<p>And that was all for a while.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Lent had gone, and with it the last soiled snow of +winter. It was an unusually early spring; tulips in Union Square +appeared coincident with crocus and snow-drop; high above the +city's haze wavering wedges of wild-fowl drifted toward the +Canadas; a golden perfumed bloom clotted the naked branches of the +park shrubs; Japanese quince burst into crimson splendour; tender +chestnut leaves unfolded; the willows along the Fifty-ninth Street +wall waved banners of gilded green; and through the sunshine +battered butterflies floated, and the wild bees reappeared, +scrambling frantically, powdered to the thighs in the pollen of a +million dandelions.</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"Spring, with that nameless fragrance in the +air<br /> +Which breathes of all things fair,"</div> +<p>sang a young girl riding in the Park. And she smiled to herself +as she guided her mare through the flowering labyrinths. Other +notes of the Southern poet's haunting song stole soundless from her +lips; for it was only her heart that was singing there in the sun, +while her silent, smiling mouth mocked the rushing melody of the +birds.</p> +<p>Behind her, powerfully mounted, ambled the belted groom; she was +riding alone in the golden weather because her good friend Selwyn +was very busy in his office downtown, and Gerald, who now rode with +her occasionally, was downtown also, and there remained nobody else +to ride with. Also the horses were to be sent to Silverside soon, +and she wanted to use them as much as possible while the Park was +at its loveliest.</p> +<p>She, therefore, galloped conscientiously every morning, +sometimes with Nina, but usually alone. And every afternoon she and +Nina drove there, drinking the freshness of the young +year—the most beautiful year of her life, she told herself, +in all the exquisite maturity of her adolescence.</p> +<p>So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking +face and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring +eternal, whose voiceless melody parted her lips.</p> +<p>Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with +their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the +streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with +golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the +foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart +the pines.</p> +<p>From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of +living green fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets +the under-wood world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or +prowled and cunning fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and +blackbirds; and the big cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers +scuffled among last year's leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, +carolled ecstatically of this earthly paradise.</p> +<p>It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, +saluted her, and wheeling, joined her—a blond, cool-skinned, +rosy-tinted, smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, +almost too flawless and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and +figure.</p> +<p>"Upon my word," she said gaily, "you are certainly spring +incarnate, Miss Erroll—the living embodiment of all this!" +She swung her riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her +perfect teeth. "But where is that faithful attendant cavalier of +yours this morning? Is he so grossly material that he prefers Wall +Street, as does my good lord and master?"</p> +<p>"Do you mean Gerald?" asked Eileen innocently, "or Captain +Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"Oh, either," returned Rosamund airily; "a girl should have +something masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that +she should have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and +others to come, D.V.; at least one little souvenir to +repent—smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me! All these wretched birds +a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin, lacking even my own +Gilpin! Shall we gallop?"</p> +<p>Eileen nodded.</p> +<p>When at length they pulled up along the reservoir, Eileen's hair +had rebelled as usual and one bright strand eurled like a circle of +ruddy light across her cheek; but Rosamund drew bridle as +immaculate as ever and coolly inspected her companion.</p> +<p>"What gorgeous hair," she said, staring. "It's worth a coronet, +you know—if you ever desire one."</p> +<p>"I don't," said the girl, laughing and attempting to bring the +insurgent curl under discipline.</p> +<p>"I dare say you're right; coronets are out of vogue among us +now. It's the fashion to marry our own good people. By the way, you +are continuing to astonish the town, I hear."</p> +<p>"What do you mean, Mrs. Fane?"</p> +<p>"Why, first it was Sudbury, then Draymore, and how everybody +says that Boots—"</p> +<p>"Boots!" repeated Miss Erroll blankly, then laughed +deliciously.</p> +<p>"Poor, poor Boots! Did they say <i>that</i> about him? Oh, it +really is too bad, Mrs. Fane; it is certainly horridly impertinent +of people to say such things. My only consolation is that Boots +won't care; and if he doesn't, why should I?"</p> +<p>Rosamund nodded, crossing her crop.</p> +<p>"At first, though, I did care," continued the girl. "I was so +ashamed that people should gossip whenever a man was trying to be +nice to me—"</p> +<p>"Pooh! It's always the men's own faults. Don't you suppose the +martyr's silence is noisier than a shriek of pain from the +house-tops? I know—a little about men," added Rosamund +modestly, "and they invariably say to themselves after a final +rebuff: 'Now, I'll be patient and brave and I'll bear with noble +dignity this cataclysm which has knocked the world galley-west for +me and loosened the moon in its socket and spoiled the symmetry of +the sun.' And they go about being so conspicuously brave that any +débutante can tell what hurts them."</p> +<p>Eileen was still laughing, but not quite at her ease—the +theme being too personal to suit her. In fact, there usually seemed +to be too much personality in Rosamund's conversation—a +certain artificial indifference to convention, which she, Eileen, +did not feel any desire to disregard. For the elements of reticence +and of delicacy were inherent in her; the training of a young girl +had formalised them into rules. But since her début she had +witnessed and heard so many violations of convention that now she +philosophically accepted such, when they came from her elders, +merely reserving her own convictions in matters of personal taste +and conduct.</p> +<p>For a while, as they rode, Rosamund was characteristically +amusing, sailing blandly over the shoals of scandal, though Eileen +never suspected it—wittily gay at her own expense, as well as +at others, flitting airily from topic to topic on the wings of a +self-assurance that becomes some women if they know when to stop. +But presently the mischievous perversity in her bubbled up again; +she was tired of being good; she had often meant to try the effect +of a gentle shock on Miss Erroll; and, besides, she wondered just +how much truth there might be in the unpleasantly persistent rumour +of the girl's unannounced engagement to Selwyn.</p> +<p>"It <i>would</i> be amusing, wouldn't it?" she asked with +guileless frankness; "but, of course, it is not true—this +report of their reconciliation."</p> +<p>"Whose reconciliation?" asked Miss Erroll innocently.</p> +<p>"Why, Alixe Ruthven and Captain Selwyn. Everybody is discussing +it, you know."</p> +<p>"Reconciled? I don't understand," said Eileen, astonished. "They +can't be; how can—"</p> +<p>"But it <i>would</i> be amusing, wouldn't it? and she could very +easily get rid of Jack Ruthven—any woman could. So if they +really mean to remarry—"</p> +<p>The girl stared, breathless, astounded, bolt upright in her +saddle.</p> +<p>"Oh!" she protested, while the hot blood mantled throat and +cheek, "it is wickedly untrue. How could such a thing be true, Mrs. +Fane! It is—is so senseless—"</p> +<p>"That is what I say," nodded Rosamund; "it's so perfectly +senseless that it's amusing—even if they have become such +amazingly good friends again. <i>I</i> never believed there was +anything seriously sentimental in the situation; and their renewed +interest in each other is quite the most frankly sensible way out +of any awkwardness," she added cordially.</p> +<p>Miserably uncomfortable, utterly unable to comprehend, the girl +rode on in silence, her ears ringing with Rosamund's words. And +Rosamund, riding beside her, cool, blond, and cynically amused, +continued the theme with admirable pretence of indifference:</p> +<p>"It's a pity that ill-natured people are for ever discussing +them; and it makes me indignant, because I've always been very fond +of Alixe Ruthven, and I am positive that she does <i>not</i> +correspond with Captain Selwyn. A girl in her position would be +crazy to invite suspicion by doing the things they say she is +doing—"</p> +<p>"Don't, Mrs. Fane, please, don't!" stammered Eileen; "I—I +really can't listen. I simply will not!" Then bewildered, hurt, and +blindly confused as she was, the instinct to defend flashed +up—though from what she was defending him she did not +realise: "It is utterly untrue!" she exclaimed hotly—"all +that yo—all that <i>they</i> say!—whoever they +are—whatever they mean. I cannot understand it—I don't +understand, and I will not! Nor will <i>he</i>!" she added with a +scornful conviction that disconcerted Rosamund; "for if you knew +him as I do, Mrs. Fane, you would never, never have spoken as you +have."</p> +<p>Mrs. Fane relished neither the naïve rebuke nor the +intimation that her own acquaintance with Selwyn was so limited; +and least of all did she relish the implied intimacy between this +red-haired young girl and Captain Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Dear Miss Erroll," she said blandly, "I spoke as I did only to +assure you that I, also, disregard such malicious +gossip—"</p> +<p>"But if you disregard it, Mrs. Fane, why do you repeat it?"</p> +<p>"Merely to emphasise to you my disbelief in it, child," returned +Rosamund. "Do you understand?"</p> +<p>"Y-es; thank you. Yet, I should never have heard of it at all if +you had not told me."</p> +<p>Rosamund's colour rose one degree:</p> +<p>"It is better to hear such things from a friend, is it not?"</p> +<p>"I didn't know that one's friends said such things; but perhaps +it is better that way, as you say, only, I cannot understand the +necessity of my knowing—of my hearing—because it is +Captain Selwyn's affair, after all."</p> +<p>"And that," said Rosamund deliberately, "is why I told +<i>you</i>."</p> +<p>"Told <i>me</i>? Oh—because he and I are such close +friends?"</p> +<p>"Yes—such very close friends that I"—she +laughed—"I am informed that your interests are soon to be +identical."</p> +<p>The girl swung round, self-possessed, but dreadfully pale.</p> +<p>"If you believed that," she said, "it was vile of you to say +what you said, Mrs. Fane."</p> +<p>"But I did <i>not</i> believe it, child!" stammered Rosamund, +several degrees redder than became her, and now convinced that it +was true. "I n-never dreamed of offending you, Miss +Erroll—"</p> +<p>"Do you suppose I am too ignorant to take offence?" said the +girl unsteadily. "I told you very plainly that I did not understand +the matters you chose for discussion; but I do understand +impertinence when I am driven to it."</p> +<p>"I am very, very sorry that you believe I meant it that way," +said Rosamund, biting her lips.</p> +<p>"What did you mean? You are older than I, you are certainly +experienced; besides, you are married. If you can give it a gentler +name than insolence I would be glad—for your sake, Mrs. Fane. +I only know that you have spoiled my ride, spoiled the day for me, +hurt me, humiliated me, and awakened, not curiosity, not suspicion, +but the horror of it, in me. You did it once before—at the +Minsters' dance; not, perhaps, that you deliberately meant to; but +you did it. And your subject was then, as it is now, Captain +Selwyn—my friend—"</p> +<p>Her voice became unsteady again and her mouth curved; but she +held her head high and her eyes were as fearlessly direct as a +child's.</p> +<p>"And now," she said calmly, "you know where I stand and what I +will not stand. Natural deference to an older woman, the natural +self-distrust of a girl in the presence of social +experience—and under its protection as she had a right to +suppose—prevented me from checking you when your conversation +became distasteful. You, perhaps, mistook my reticence for +acquiescence; and you were mistaken. I am still quite willing to +remain on agreeable terms with you, if you wish, and to forget what +you have done to me this morning."</p> +<p>If Rosamund had anything left to say, or any breath to say it, +there were no indications of it. Never in her flippant existence +had she been so absolutely flattened by any woman. As for this +recent graduate from fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise +how utterly and finally she had been silenced by her. Incredulity, +exasperation, amazement had succeeded each other while Miss Erroll +was speaking; chagrin, shame, helplessness followed as bitter +residue. But, in the end, the very incongruity of the situation +came to her aid; for Rosamund very easily fell a prey to the +absurd—even when the amusement was furnished at her own +expense; and a keen sense of the ridiculous had more than once +saved her dainty skirts from a rumpling that her modesty perhaps +might have forgiven.</p> +<p>"I'm certainly a little beast," she said impulsively, "but I +really do like you. Will you forgive?"</p> +<p>No genuine appeal to the young girl's generosity had ever been +in vain; she forgave almost as easily as she breathed. Even now in +the flush of just resentment it was not hard for her to forgive; +she hesitated only in order to adjust matters in her own mind.</p> +<p>Mrs. Fane swung her horse and held out her right hand:</p> +<p>"Is it <i>pax</i>, Miss Erroll? I'm really ashamed of myself. +Won't you forgive me?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said the young girl, laying her gloved hand on Rosamund's +very lightly; "I've often thought," she added naïvely, "that I +could like you, Mrs. Fane, if you would only give me a chance."</p> +<p>"I'll try—you blessed innocent! You've torn me into rags +and tatters, and you did it adorably. What I said was idle, +half-witted, gossiping nonsense. So forget every atom of it as soon +as you can, my dear, and let me prove that I'm not an utter idiot, +if <i>I</i> can."</p> +<p>"That will be delightful," said Eileen with a demure smile; and +Rosamund laughed, too, with full-hearted laughter; for trouble sat +very lightly on her perfect shoulders in the noontide of her +strength and youth. Sin and repentance were rapid matters with +Rosamund; cause, effect, and remorse a quick sequence to be quickly +reckoned up, checked off, and cancelled; and the next blank page +turned over to be ruled and filled with the next impeachment.</p> +<p>There was, in her, more of mischief than of real malice; and if +she did pinch people to see them wiggle it was partly because she +supposed that the pain would be as momentary as the pinch; for +nothing lasted with her, not even the wiggle. So why should the +pain produced by a furtive tweak interfere with the amusement she +experienced in the victim's jump?</p> +<p>But what had often saved her from a social lynching was her +ability to laugh at her own discomfiture, and her unfeigned liking +and respect for the turning worm.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"And, my dear," she said, concluding the account of the +adventure to Mrs. Ruthven that afternoon at Sherry's, "I've never +been so roundly abused and so soundly trounced in my life as I was +this blessed morning by that red-headed novice! Oh, my! Oh, la! I +could have screamed with laughter at my own undoing."</p> +<p>"It's what you deserved," said Alixe, intensely annoyed, +although Rosamund had not told her all that she had so kindly and +gratuitously denied concerning her relations with Selwyn. "It was +sheer effrontery of you, Rosamund, to put such notions into the +head of a child and stir her up into taking a fictitious interest +in Philip Selwyn which I know—which is perfectly plain to +m—to anybody never existed!"</p> +<p>"Of course it existed!" retorted Rosamund, delighted now to +worry Alixe. "She didn't know it; that is all. It really was simple +charity to wake her up. It's a good match, too, and so obviously +and naturally inevitable that there's no harm in playing +prophetess. . . . Anyway, what do <i>we</i> care, dear? Unless +you—"</p> +<p>"Rosamund!" said Mrs. Ruthven exasperated, "will you ever +acquire the elements of reticence? I don't know why people endure +you; I don't, indeed! And they won't much longer—"</p> +<p>"Yes, they will, dear; that's what society is for—a +protective association for the purpose of enduring impossible +people. . . . I wish," she added, "that it included husbands, +because in some sets it's getting to be one dreadful case of who's +whose. Don't you think so?"</p> +<p>Alixe, externally calm but raging inwardly, sat pulling on her +gloves, heartily sorry she had lunched with Rosamund.</p> +<p>The latter, already gloved, had risen and was coolly surveying +the room.</p> +<p>"<i>Tiens!</i>" she said, "there is the youthful brother of our +red-haired novice, now. He sees us and he's coming to inflict +himself—with another moon-faced creature. Shall we bolt?"</p> +<p>Alixe turned and stared at Gerald, who came up boyishly red and +impetuous:</p> +<p>"How d'ye do, Mrs. Ruthven; did you get my note? How d'ye do, +Mrs. Fane; awf'fly jolly to collide this way. Would you mind +if—"</p> +<p>"You," interrupted Rosamund, "ought to be +<i>down</i>town—unless you've concluded to retire and let +Wall Street go to smash. What are you pretending to do in Sherry's +at this hour, you very dreadful infant?"</p> +<p>"I've been lunching with Mr. Neergard—and <i>would</i> you +mind—"</p> +<p>"Yes, I would," began Rosamund, promptly, but Alixe interrupted: +"Bring him over, Gerald." And as the boy thanked her and turned +back:</p> +<p>"I've a word to administer to that boy, Rosamund, so attack the +Neergard creature with moderation, please. You owe me <i>that</i> +at least."</p> +<p>"No, I don't!" said Rosamund, disgusted; "I <i>won't</i> be +afflicted with a—"</p> +<p>"Nobody wants you to be too civil to him, silly! But Gerald is +in his office, and I want Gerald to do something for me. Please, +Rosamund."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, if you—"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do. Here he is now; and <i>don't</i> be impossible and +frighten him, Rosamund."</p> +<p>The presentation of Neergard was accomplished without disaster +to anybody. On his thin nose the dew glistened, and his thick fat +hands were hot; but Rosamund was too bored to be rude to him, and +Alixe turned immediately to Gerald:</p> +<p>"Yes, I did get your note, but I'm not at home on Tuesday. Can't +you come—wait a moment!—what are you doing this +afternoon?"</p> +<p>"Why, I'm going back to the office with Mr. Neergard—"</p> +<p>"Nonsense! Oh, Mr. Neergard, <i>would</i> you mind"—very +sweetly—"if Mr. Erroll did not go to the office this +afternoon?"</p> +<p>Neergard looked at her—almost—a fixed and +uncomfortable smirk on his round, red face: "Not at all, Mrs. +Ruthven, if you have anything better for him—"</p> +<p>"I have—an allopathic dose of it. Thank you, Mr. Neergard. +Rosamund, we ought to start, you know: Gerald!"—with quiet +significance—"<i>good</i>-bye, Mr. Neergard. Please do not +buy up the rest of Long Island, because we need a new +kitchen-garden very badly."</p> +<p>Rosamund scarcely nodded his dismissal. And the next moment +Neergard found himself quite alone, standing with the smirk still +stamped on his stiffened features, his hat-brim and gloves crushed +in his rigid fingers, his little black mousy eyes fixed on nothing, +as usual.</p> +<p>A wandering head-waiter thought they were fixed on him and +sidled up hopeful of favours, but Neergard suddenly snarled in his +face and moved toward the door, wiping the perspiration from his +nose with the most splendid handkerchief ever displayed east of +Sixth Avenue and west of Third.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ruthven's motor moved up from its waiting station; Rosamund +was quite ready to enter when Alixe said cordially: "Where can we +drop you, dear? <i>Do</i> let us take you to the exchange if you +are going there—"</p> +<p>Now Rosamund had meant to go wherever they were going, merely +because they evidently wished to be alone. The abruptness of the +check both irritated and amused her.</p> +<p>"If I knew anybody in the Bronx I'd make you take me there," she +said vindictively; "but as I don't you may drop me at the +Orchils'—you uncivil creatures. Gerald, I know <i>you</i> +want me, anyway, because you've promised to adore, honour, and obey +me. . . . If you'll come with me now I'll play double dummy with +you. No? Well, of all ingratitude! . . . Thank you, dear, I +perceive that this is Fifth Avenue, and furthermore that this +ramshackle chassis of yours has apparently broken down at the +Orchils' curb. . . . Good-bye, Gerald; it never did run smooth, you +know. I mean the course of T.L. as well as this motor. Try to be a +good boy and keep moving; a rolling stone acquires a polish, and +you are not in the moss-growing business, I'm sure—"</p> +<p>"Rosamund! For goodness' sake!" protested Alixe, her gloved +hands at her ears.</p> +<p>"Dear!" said Rosamund cheerfully, "take your horrid little +boy!"</p> +<p>And she smiled dazzlingly upon Gerald, then turned up her pretty +nose at him, but permitted him to attend her to the door.</p> +<p>When he returned to Alixe, and the car was speeding Parkward, he +began again, eagerly:</p> +<p>"Jack asked me to come up and, of course, I let you know, as I +promised I would. But it's all right, Mrs. Ruthven, because Jack +said the stakes will not be high this time—"</p> +<p>"You accepted!" demanded Alixe, in quick displeasure.</p> +<p>"Why, yes—as the stakes are not to amount to +anything—"</p> +<p>"Gerald!"</p> +<p>"What?" he said uneasily.</p> +<p>"You promised me that you would not play again in my house!"</p> +<p>"I—I said, for more than I could afford—"</p> +<p>"No, you said you would not play; that is what you promised, +Gerald."</p> +<p>"Well, I meant for high stakes; I—well, you don't want to +drive me out altogether—even from the perfectly harmless +pleasure of playing for nominal stakes—"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do!"</p> +<p>"W-why?" asked the boy in hurt surprise.</p> +<p>"Because it is dangerous sport, Gerald—"</p> +<p>"What! To play for a few cents a point—"</p> +<p>"Yes, to play for anything. And as far as that goes there will +be no such play as you imagine."</p> +<p>"Yes, there will—I beg your pardon—but Jack Ruthven +said so—"</p> +<p>"Gerald, listen to me. A bo—a man like yourself has no +business playing with people whose losses never interfere with +their appetites next day. A business man has no right to play such +a game, anyway. I wonder what Mr. Neergard would say if he knew +you—"</p> +<p>"Neergard! Why, he does know."</p> +<p>"You confessed to him?"</p> +<p>"Y-es; I had to. I was obliged to—to ask somebody for an +advance—"</p> +<p>"You went to him? Why didn't you go to Captain Selwyn?—or +to Mr. Gerard?"</p> +<p>"I did!—not to Captain Selwyn—I was ashamed to. But +I went to Austin and he fired up and lit into me—and we had a +muss-up—and I've stayed away since."</p> +<p>"Oh, Gerald! And it simply proves me right."</p> +<p>"No, it doesn't; I did go to Neergard and made a clean breast of +it. And he let me have what I wanted like a good fellow—"</p> +<p>"And made you promise not to do it again!"</p> +<p>"No, he didn't; he only laughed. Besides, he said that he wished +he had been in the game—"</p> +<p>"What!" exclaimed Alixe.</p> +<p>"He's a first-rate fellow," insisted Gerald, reddening; "and it +was very nice of you to let me bring him over to-day. . . . And he +knows everybody downtown, too. He comes from a very old Dutch +family, but he had to work pretty hard and do without college. . . +. I'd like it awfully if you'd let me—if you wouldn't mind +being civil to him—once or twice, you know—"</p> +<p>Mrs. Ruthven lay back in her seat, thoroughly annoyed.</p> +<p>"My theory," insisted the boy with generous conviction, "is that +a man is what he makes himself. People talk about climbers and +butters-in, but where would anybody be in this town if nobody had +ever butted in? It's all rot, this aping the caste rules of +established aristocracies; a decent fellow ought to be encouraged. +Anyway, I'm going to propose, him for the Stuyvesant and the +Proscenium. Why not?"</p> +<p>"I see. And now you propose to bring him to my house?"</p> +<p>"If you'll let me. I asked Jack and he seemed to think it might +be all right if you cared to ask him to play—"</p> +<p>"I won't!" cried Alixe, revolted. "I will not turn my +drawing-rooms into a clearing-house for every money-laden social +derelict in town! I've had enough of that; I've endured the +accumulated wreckage too long!—weird treasure-craft full of +steel and oil and coal and wheat and Heaven knows what!—I +won't do it, Gerald; I'm sick of it all—sick! sick!"</p> +<p>The sudden, flushed outburst stunned the boy. Bewildered, he +stared round-eyed at the excited young matron who was growing more +incensed and more careless of what she exposed every second:</p> +<p>"I will not make a public gambling-hell out of my own house!" +she repeated, dark eyes very bright and cheeks afire; "I will not +continue to stand sponsor for a lot of queer people simply because +they don't care what they lose in Mrs. Ruthven's house! You babble +to me of limits, Gerald; this is the limit! Do you—or does +anybody else suppose that I don't know what is being said about +us?—that play is too high in our house?—that we are not +too difficile in our choice of intimates as long as they can stand +the pace!"</p> +<p>"I—I never believed that," insisted the boy, miserable to +see the tears flash in her eyes and her mouth quiver.</p> +<p>"You may as well believe it for it's true!" she said, +exasperated.</p> +<p>"T-true!—Mrs. Ruthven!"</p> +<p>"Yes, true, Gerald! I—I don't care whether you know it; I +don't care, as long as you stay away. I'm sick of it all, I tell +you. Do you think I was educated for this?—for the wife of a +chevalier of industry—"</p> +<p>"M-Mrs. Ruthven!" he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless +now—and beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy's +honour. She knew he was to be trusted—was the safest +receptacle for wrath so long repressed. She let prudence go with a +parting and vindictive slap, and opened her heart to the astounded +boy. The tempest lasted a few seconds; then she ended as abruptly +as she began.</p> +<p>To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is +to a well-bred but hare-brained youth just untethered. Their +acquaintance had been for him a combination of charming experiences +diluted with gratitude for her interest and a harmless +<i>soupçon</i> of sentimentality. In her particular case, +however, there was a little something more—a hint of the +forbidden—a troubled enjoyment, because he knew, of course, +that Mrs. Ruthven was on no footing at all with the Gerards. So in +her friendship he savoured a piquancy not at all distasteful to a +very young man's palate.</p> +<p>But now!—he had never, never seen her like this—nor +any woman, for that matter—and he did not know where to look +or what to do.</p> +<p>She was sitting back in the limousine, very limp and flushed; +and the quiver of her under lip and the slightest dimness of her +averted brown eyes distressed him dreadfully.</p> +<p>"Dear Mrs. Ruthven," he blurted out with clumsy sympathy, "you +mustn't think such things, b-because they're all rot, you see; and +if any fellow ever said those things to me I'd jolly +soon—"</p> +<p>"Do you mean to say you've never heard us criticised?"</p> +<p>"I—well—everybody is—criticised, of +course—"</p> +<p>"But not as we are! Do you read the papers? Well, then, do you +understand how a woman must feel to have her husband continually +made the butt of foolish, absurd, untrue stories—as though he +were a performing poodle! I—I'm sick of that, too, for +another thing. Week after week, month by month, unpleasant things +have been accumulating; and they're getting too heavy, +Gerald—too crushing for my shoulders. . . . Men call me +restless. What wonder! Women link my name with any man who is +k-kind to me! Is there no excuse then for what they call my +restlessness? . . . What woman would not be restless whose private +affairs are the gossip of everybody? Was it not enough that I +endured terrific publicity when—when trouble overtook me two +years ago? . . . I suppose I'm a fool to talk like this; but a girl +must do it some time or burst!—and to whom am I to go? . . . +There was only one person; and I can't talk to—that one; +he—that person knows too much about me, anyway; which is not +good for a woman, Gerald, not good for a good woman. . . . I mean a +pretty good woman; the kind people's sisters can still talk to, you +know. . . . For I'm nothing more interesting than a +<i>divorcée</i>, Gerald; nothing more dangerous than an +unhappy little fool. . . . I wish I were. . . . But I'm still at +the wheel! . . . A man I know calls it hard steering but assures me +that there's anchorage ahead. . . . He's a splendid fellow, Gerald; +you ought to know him—well—some day; he's just a +clean-cut, human, blundering, erring, unreasonable, lovable man +whom any woman, who is not a fool herself, could manage. . . . Some +day I should like to have you know him—intimately. He's good +for people of your sort—even good for a restless, purposeless +woman of my sort. Peace to him!—if there's any in the world. +. . . Turn your back; I'm sniveling."</p> +<p>A moment afterward she had calmed completely; and now she stole +a curious side glance at the boy and blushed a little when he +looked back at her earnestly. Then she smiled and quietly withdrew +the hand he had been holding so tightly in both of his.</p> +<p>"So there we are, my poor friend," she concluded with a shrug; +"the old penny shocker, you know, 'Alone in a great +city!'—I've dropped my handkerchief."</p> +<p>"I want you to believe me your friend," said Gerald, in the low, +resolute voice of unintentional melodrama.</p> +<p>"Why, thank you; are you so sure you want that, Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Yes, as long as I live!" he declared, generous emotion in the +ascendant. A pretty woman upset him very easily even under normal +circumstances. But beauty in distress knocked him flat—as it +does every wholesome boy who is worth his salt.</p> +<p>And he said so in his own naïve fashion; and the more +eloquent he grew the more excited he grew and the deeper and +blacker appeared her wrongs to him.</p> +<p>At first she humoured him, and rather enjoyed his fresh, eager +sympathy; after a little his increasing ardour inclined her to +laugh; but it was very splendid and chivalrous and genuine ardour, +and the inclination to laugh died out, for emotion is contagious, +and his earnestness not only flattered her legitimately but stirred +the slackened tension of her heart-strings until, tightening again, +they responded very faintly.</p> +<p>"I had no idea that <i>you</i> were lonely," he declared.</p> +<p>"Sometimes I am, a little, Gerald." She ought to have known +better. Perhaps she did.</p> +<p>"Well," he began, "couldn't I come and—"</p> +<p>"No, Gerald."</p> +<p>"I mean just to see you sometimes and have another of these +jolly talks—"</p> +<p>"Do you call this a jolly talk?"—with deep reproach.</p> +<p>"Why—not exactly; but I'm awfully interested, Mrs. +Ruthven, and we understand each other so well—"</p> +<p>"I don't understand <i>you</i>", she was imprudent enough to +say.</p> +<p>This was delightful! Certainly he must be a particularly sad and +subtle dog if this clever but misunderstood young matron found him +what in romance is known as an "enigma."</p> +<p>So he protested with smiling humility that he was quite +transparent; she insisted on doubting him and contrived to look +disturbed in her mind concerning the probable darkness of that past +so dear to any young man who has had none.</p> +<p>As for Alixe, she also was mildly flattered—a trifle +disdainfully perhaps, but still genuinely pleased at the honesty of +this crude devotion. She was touched, too; and, besides, she +trusted him; for he was clearly as transparent as the spring air. +Also most women lugged a boy about with them; she had had several, +but none as nice as Gerald. To tie him up and tack his license on +was therefore natural to her; and if she hesitated to conclude his +subjection in short order it was that, far in a corner of her +restless soul, there hid an ever-latent fear of Selwyn; of his +opinions concerning her fitness to act mentor to the boy of whom he +was fond, and whose devotion to him was unquestioned.</p> +<p>Yet now, in spite of that—perhaps even partly because of +it, she decided on the summary taming of Gerald; so she let her +hand fall, by accident, close to his on the cushioned seat, to see +what he'd do about it.</p> +<p>It took him some time to make up his mind; but when he did he +held it so gingerly, so respectfully, that she was obliged to look +out of the window. Clearly he was quite the safest and nicest of +all the unfledged she had ever possessed.</p> +<p>"Please, don't," she said sadly.</p> +<p>And by that token she took him for her own.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>She was very light-hearted that evening when she dropped him at +the Stuyvesant Club and whizzed away to her own house, for he had +promised not to play again on her premises, and she had promised to +be nice to him and take him about when she was shy of an escort. +She also repeated that he was truly an "enigma" and that she was +beginning to be a little afraid of him, which was an economical way +of making him very proud and happy. Being his first case of beauty +in distress, and his first harmless love-affair with a married +woman, he looked about him as he entered the club and felt truly +that he had already outgrown the young and callow innocents who +haunted it.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>On her way home Alixe smilingly reviewed the episode until doubt +of Selwyn's approval crept in again; and her amused smile had faded +when she reached her home.</p> +<p>The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone +affair, between Madison and Fifth; a pocket-edition of the larger +mansions of their friends, but with less excuse for the +overelaboration since the dimensions were only twenty by a hundred. +As a matter of fact its narrow ornate facade presented not a single +quiet space the eyes might rest on after a tiring attempt to follow +and codify the arabesques, foliations, and intricate vermiculations +of what some disrespectfully dubbed as "near-aissance."</p> +<p>However, into this limestone bonbon-box tripped Mrs. Ruthven, +mounted the miniature stairs with a whirl of her scented skirts, +peeped into the drawing-room, but continued mounting until she +whipped into her own apartments, separated from those of her lord +and master by a locked door.</p> +<p>That is, the door had been locked for a long, long time; but +presently, to her intense surprise and annoyance, it slowly opened, +and a little man appeared in slippered feet.</p> +<p>He was a little man, and plump, and at first glance his face +appeared boyish and round and quite guiltless of hair or of any +hope of it.</p> +<p>But, as he came into the electric light, the hardness of his +features was apparent; he was no boy; a strange idea that he had +never been assailed some people. His face was puffy and pallid and +faint blue shadows hinted of closest shaving; and the line from the +wing of the nostrils to the nerveless corners of his thin, hard +mouth had been deeply bitten by the acid of unrest.</p> +<p>For the remainder he wore pale-rose pajamas under a +silk-and-silver kimona, an obi pierced with a jewelled scarf-pin; +and he was smoking a cigarette as thin as a straw.</p> +<p>"Well!" said his young wife in astonished displeasure, +instinctively tucking her feet—from which her maid had just +removed the shoes—under her own chamber-robe.</p> +<p>"Send her out a moment," he said, with a nod of his head toward +the maid. His voice was agreeable and full—a trifle precise +and overcultivated, perhaps.</p> +<p>When the maid retired, Alixe sat up on the lounge, drawing her +skirts down over her small stockinged feet.</p> +<p>"What on earth is the matter?" she demanded.</p> +<p>"The matter is," he said, "that Gerald has just telephoned me +from the Stuyvesant that he isn't coming."</p> +<p>"Well?"</p> +<p>"No, it isn't well. This is some of your meddling."</p> +<p>"What if it is?" she retorted; but her breath was coming +quicker.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you +expect him to-night."</p> +<p>She shook her head, eyeing him all the while.</p> +<p>"I won't do it, Jack. What do you want him for? He can't play +with the people who play here; he doesn't know the rudiments of +play. He's only a boy; his money is so tied up that he has to +borrow if he loses very much. There's no sport in playing with a +boy like that—"</p> +<p>"So you've said before, I believe, but I'm better qualified to +judge than you are. Are you going to call him up?"</p> +<p>"No, I am not."</p> +<p>He turned paler. "Get up and go to that telephone!"</p> +<p>"You little whippet," she said slowly, "I was once a soldier's +wife—the only decent thing I ever have been. This bullying +ends now—here, at this instant! If you've any dirty work to +do, do it yourself. I've done my share and I've finished."</p> +<p>He was astonished; that was plain enough. But it was the sudden +overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, +hand outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair. Rage, even real +anger, were emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a +very tired and bored and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion +was not good for his arteries, the doctors told him.</p> +<p>He found his chair, stood a moment with his back toward his +wife, then very slowly let himself down into the chair and sat +facing her. There was moisture on his soft, pallid skin, a nervous +twitching of the under lip; he passed one heavily ringed hand +across his closely shaven jaw, still staring at her.</p> +<p>"I want to tell you something," he said. "You've got to stop +your interference with my affairs, and stop it now."</p> +<p>"I am not interested in your affairs," she said unsteadily, +still shaken by her own revolt, still under the shock of her own +arousing to a resistance that had been long, long overdue. "If you +mean," she went on, "that the ruin of this boy is your affair, then +I'll make it mine from this moment. I've told you that he shall not +play; and he shall not. And while I'm about it I'll admit what you +are preparing to accuse me of; I <i>did</i> make Sandon Craig +promise to keep away; I <i>did</i> try to make that little fool +Scott Innis promise, too; and when he wouldn't I informed his +father. . . . And every time you try your dirty bucket-shop methods +on boys like that, I'll do the same."</p> +<p>He swore at her quite calmly; she smiled, shrugged, and, +imprisoning her knees in her clasped hands, leaned back and looked +at him.</p> +<p>"What a ninny I have been," she said, "to be afraid of you so +long!"</p> +<p>A gleam crossed his faded eyes, but he let her remark pass for +the moment. Then, when he was quite sure that violent emotion had +been exhausted within him:</p> +<p>"Do you want your bills paid?" he asked. "Because, if you do, +Fane, Harmon & Co. are not going to pay them."</p> +<p>"We are living beyond our means?" she inquired disdainfully.</p> +<p>"Not if you will be good enough to mind your business, my +friend. I've managed this establishment on our winnings for two +years. It's a detail; but you might as well know it. My association +with Fane, Harmon & Co. runs the Newport end of it, and nothing +more."</p> +<p>"What did you marry me for?" she asked curiously.</p> +<p>A slight colour came into his face: "Because that damned +Rosamund Fane lied about you."</p> +<p>"Oh! . . . You knew that in Manila? You'd heard about it, hadn't +you—the Western timber-lands? Rosamund didn't mean to +lie—only the titles were all wrong, you know. . . . And so +you made a bad break, Jack; is that it?"</p> +<p>"Yes, that is it."</p> +<p>"And it cost you a fortune, and me a—husband. Is that it, +my friend?"</p> +<p>"I can afford you if you will stop your meddling," he said +coolly.</p> +<p>"I see; I am to stop my meddling and you are to continue your +downtown gambling in your own house in the evenings."</p> +<p>"Precisely. It happens that I am sufficiently familiar with the +stock-market to make a decent living out of the Exchange; and it +also happens that I am sufficiently fortunate with cards to make +the pleasure of playing fairly remunerative. Any man who can put up +proper margin has a right to my services; any man whom I invite and +who can take up his notes, has a right to play under my roof. If +his note goes to protest, he forfeits that right. Now will you +kindly explain to yourself exactly how this matter can be of any +interest to you?"</p> +<p>"I have explained it," she said wearily. "Will you please go, +now?"</p> +<p>He sat a moment, then rose:</p> +<p>"You make a point of excluding Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Very well; I'll telephone Draymore. And"—he looked back +from the door of his own apartments—"I got Julius Neergard on +the wire this afternoon and he'll dine with us."</p> +<p>He gathered up his shimmering kimona, hesitated, halted, and +again looked back.</p> +<p>"When you're dressed," he drawled, "I've a word to say to you +about the game to-night, and another about Gerald."</p> +<p>"I shall not play," she retorted scornfully, "nor will +Gerald."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, you will—and play your best, too. And I'll +expect him next time."</p> +<p>"I shall not play!"</p> +<p>He said deliberately: "You will not only play, but play +cleverly; and in the interim, while dressing, you will reflect how +much more agreeable it is to play cards here than the fool at ten +o'clock at night in the bachelor apartments of your late +lamented."</p> +<p>And he entered his room; and his wife, getting blindly to her +feet, every atom of colour gone from lip and cheek, stood rigid, +both small hands clutching the foot-board of the gilded bed.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>THE UNEXPECTED</h3> +<p>Differences of opinion between himself and Neergard concerning +the ethics of good taste involved in forcing the Siowitha Club +matter, Gerald's decreasing attention to business and increasing +intimacy with the Fane-Ruthven coterie, began to make Selwyn very +uncomfortable. The boy's close relations with Neergard worried him +most of all; and though Neergard finally agreed to drop the +Siowitha matter as a fixed policy in which Selwyn had been expected +to participate at some indefinite date, the arrangement seemed only +to cement the man's confidential companionship with Gerald.</p> +<p>This added to Selwyn's restlessness; and one day in early spring +he had a long conference with Gerald—a most unsatisfactory +one. Gerald, for the first time, remained reticent; and when +Selwyn, presuming on the cordial understanding between them, +pressed him a little, the boy turned sullen; and Selwyn let the +matter drop very quickly.</p> +<p>But neither tact nor caution seemed to serve now; Gerald, more +and more engrossed in occult social affairs of which he made no +mention to Selwyn, was still amiable and friendly, even at times +cordial and lovable; but he was no longer frank or even +communicative; and Selwyn, fearing to arouse him again to +sullenness or perhaps even to suspicious defiance, forbore to press +him beyond the most tentative advances toward the regaining of his +confidence.</p> +<p>This, very naturally, grieved and mortified the elder man; but +what troubled him still more was that Gerald and Neergard were +becoming so amazingly companionable; for it was easy to see that +they had in common a number of personal interests which he did not +share, and that their silence concerning these interests amounted +to a secrecy almost offensive.</p> +<p>Again and again, coming unexpectedly upon them, he noticed that +their confab ceased with his appearance. Often, too, glances of +warning intelligence passed between them in his presence, which, no +doubt, they supposed were unnoticed by him.</p> +<p>They left the office together frequently, now; they often +lunched uptown. Whether they were in each other's company evenings, +Selwyn did not know, for Gerald no longer volunteered information +as to his whereabouts or doings. And all this hurt Selwyn, and +alarmed him, too, for he was slowly coming to the conclusion that +he did not like Neergard, that he would never sign articles of +partnership with him, and that even his formal associateship with +the company was too close a relation for his own peace of mind. But +on Gerald's account he stayed on; he did not like to leave the boy +alone for his sister's sake as well as for his own.</p> +<p>Matters drifted that way through early spring. He actually grew +to dislike both Neergard and the business of Neergard & +Co.—for no one particular reason, perhaps, but in general; +though he did not yet care to ask himself to be more precise in his +unuttered criticisms.</p> +<p>However, detail and routine, the simpler alphabet of the +business, continued to occupy him. He consulted both Neergard and +Gerald as usual; they often consulted him or pretended to do so. +Land was bought and sold and resold, new projects discussed, new +properties appraised, new mortgage loans negotiated; and solely +because of his desire to remain near Gerald, this sort of thing +might have continued indefinitely. But Neergard broke his word to +him.</p> +<p>And one morning, before he left his rooms at Mrs. Greeve's +lodgings to go downtown, Percy Draymore called him up on the +telephone; and as that overfed young man's usual rising hour was +notoriously nearer noon than eight o'clock, it surprised Selwyn to +be asked to remain in his rooms for a little while until Draymore +and one or two friends could call on him personally concerning a +matter of importance.</p> +<p>He therefore breakfasted leisurely; and he was still scanning +the real estate columns of a morning paper when Mrs. Greeve came +panting to his door and ushered in a file of rather sleepy but +important looking gentlemen, evidently unaccustomed to being abroad +so early, and bored to death with their experience.</p> +<p>They were men he knew only formally, or, at best, merely as +fellow club members; men whom he met when a dance or dinner took +him out of the less pretentious sets he personally affected; men +whom the newspapers and the public knew too well to speak of as +"well known."</p> +<p>First there was Percy Draymore, overgroomed for a gentleman, +fat, good-humoured, and fashionable—one of the famous +Draymore family noted solely for their money and their tight grip +on it; then came Sanxon Orchil, the famous banker and promoter, +small, urbane, dark, with that rich almost oriental coloring which +he may have inherited from his Cordova ancestors who found it +necessary to dehumanise their names when Rome offered them the +choice with immediate eternity as alternative.</p> +<p>Then came a fox-faced young man, Phoenix Mottly, elegant arbiter +of all pertaining to polo and the hunt—slim-legged, +hatchet-faced—and more presentable in the saddle than out of +it. He was followed by Bradley Harmon, with his washed-out +colouring of a consumptive Swede and his corn-coloured beard; and, +looming in the rear like an amiable brontasaurus, George Fane, +whose swaying neck carried his head as a camel carries his, nodding +as he walks.</p> +<p>"Well!" said Selwyn, perplexed but cordial as he exchanged +amenities with each gentleman who entered, "this is a killing +combination of pleasure and mortification—because I haven't +any more breakfast to offer you unless you'll wait until I ring for +the Sultana—"</p> +<p>"Breakfast! Oh, damn! I've breakfasted on a pill and a glass of +vichy for ten years," protested Draymore, "and the others either +have swallowed their cocktails, or won't do it until luncheon. I +say, Selwyn, you must think this a devilishly unusual +proceeding."</p> +<p>"Pleasantly unusual, Draymore. Is this a delegation to tend me +the nomination for the down-and-out club, perhaps?"</p> +<p>Fane spoke up languidly: "It rather looks as though we were the +down-and-out delegation at present; doesn't it, Orchil?"</p> +<p>"I don't know," said Orchil; "it seems a trifle more promising +to me since I've had the pleasure of seeing Captain Selwyn face to +face. Go on, Percy; let the horrid facts be known."</p> +<p>"Well—er—oh, hang it all!" blurted out Draymore, "we +heard last night how that fellow—how Neergard has been +tampering with our farmers—what underhand tricks he has been +playing us; and I frankly admit to you that we're a worried lot of +near-sports. That's what this dismal matinee signifies; and we've +come to ask you what it all really means."</p> +<p>"We lost no time, you see," added Orchil, caressing the long +pomaded ends of his kinky moustache and trying to catch a glimpse +of them out of his languid oriental eyes. He had been trying to +catch this glimpse for thirty years; he was a persistent man with +plenty of leisure.</p> +<p>"We lost no time," repeated Draymore, "because it's a devilish +unsavoury situation for us. The Siowitha Club fully realises it, +Captain Selwyn, and its members—some of 'em—thought +that perhaps—er—you—ah—being the sort of +man who can—ah—understand the sort of language we +understand, it might not be amiss to—to—"</p> +<p>"Why did you not call on Mr. Neergard?" asked Selwyn coolly. Yet +he was taken completely by surprise, for he did not know that +Neergard had gone ahead and secured options on his own +responsibility—which practically amounted to a violation of +the truce between them.</p> +<p>Draymore hesitated, then with the brutality characteristic of +the overfed: "I don't give a damn, Captain Selwyn, what Neergard +thinks; but I do want to know what a gentleman like yourself, +accidentally associated with that man, thinks of this questionable +proceeding."</p> +<p>"Do you mean by 'questionable proceeding' your coming +here?—or do you refer to the firm's position in this matter?" +asked Selwyn sharply. "Because, Draymore, I am not very widely +experienced in the customs and usages of commercial life, and I do +not know whether it is usual for an associate member of a firm to +express, unauthorised, his views on matters concerning the firm to +any Tom, Dick, and Harry who questions him."</p> +<p>"But you know what is the policy of your own firm," suggested +Harmon, wincing, and displaying his teeth under his bright red +lips; "and all we wish to know is, what Neergard expects us to pay +for this rascally lesson in the a-b-c of Long Island realty."</p> +<p>"I don't know," replied Selwyn, bitterly annoyed, "what Mr. +Neergard proposes to do. And if I did I should refer you to +him."</p> +<p>"May I ask," began Orchil, "whether the land will be ultimately +for sale?"</p> +<p>"Oh, everything's always for sale," broke in Mottly impatiently; +"what's the use of asking that? What you meant to inquire was the +price we're expected to pay for this masterly squeeze in +realty."</p> +<p>"And to that," replied Selwyn more sharply still, "I must answer +again that I don't know. I know nothing about it; I did not know +that Mr. Neergard had acquired control of the property; I don't +know what he means to do with it. And, gentlemen, may I ask why you +feel at liberty to come to me instead of to Mr. Neergard?"</p> +<p>"A desire to deal with one of our own kind, I suppose," returned +Draymore bluntly. "And, for that matter," he said, turning to the +others, "we might have known that Captain Selwyn could have had no +hand in and no knowledge of such an underbred and dirty—"</p> +<p>Harmon plucked him by the sleeve, but Draymore shook him off, +his little piggish eyes sparkling.</p> +<p>"What do I care!" he sneered, losing his temper; "we're in the +clutches of a vulgar, skinflint Dutchman, and he'll wring <i>us</i> +dry whether or not we curse <i>him</i> out. Didn't I tell you that +Philip Selwyn had nothing to do with it? If he had, and I was +wrong, our journey here might as well have been made to Neergard's +office. For any man who will do such a filthy thing—"</p> +<p>"One moment, Draymore," cut in Selwyn; and his voice rang +unpleasantly; "if you are simply complaining because you have been +outwitted, go ahead; but if you think there has been any really +dirty business in this matter, go to Mr. Neergard. Otherwise, being +his associate, I shall not only decline to listen but also ask you +to leave my apartments."</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn is perfectly right," observed Orchil coolly. "Do +you think, Draymore, that it is very good taste in you to come into +a man's place and begin slanging and cursing a member of his firm +for crooked work?"</p> +<p>"Besides," added Mottly, "it's not crooked; it's only +contemptible. Anyway, we know with whom we have to deal, now; but +some of you fellows must do the dealing—I'd rather pay and +keep away than ask Neergard to go easy—and have him do +it."</p> +<p>"I don't know," said Fane, grinning his saurian grin, "why you +all assume that Neergard is such a social outcast. I played cards +with him last week and he lost like a gentleman."</p> +<p>"I didn't say he was a social outcast," retorted +Mottly—"because he's never been inside of anything to be cast +out, you know."</p> +<p>"He seems to be inside this deal," ventured Orchil with his +suave smile. And to Selwyn, who had been restlessly facing first +one, then another: "We came—it was the idea of several among +us—to put the matter up to you. Which was rather foolish, +because you couldn't have engineered the thing and remained what we +know you to be. So—"</p> +<p>"Wait!" said Selwyn brusquely; "I do not admit for one moment +that there is anything dishonourable in this deal!—nor do I +accept your right to question it from that standpoint. As far as I +can see, it is one of those operations which is considered clever +among business folk, and which is admired and laughed over in +reputable business circles. And I have no doubt that hundreds of +well-meaning business men do that sort of thing daily—yes, +thousands!" He shrugged his broad shoulders. "Because I personally +have not chosen to engage in matters of +this—ah—description, is no reason for condemning the +deal or its method—"</p> +<p>"Every reason!" said Orchil, laughing +cordially—"<i>every</i> reason, Captain Selwyn. Thank you; we +know now exactly where we stand. It was very good of you to let us +come, and I'm sorry some of us had the bad taste to show any +temper—"</p> +<p>"He means me," added Draymore, offering his hand; "good-bye, +Captain Selwyn; I dare say we are up against it hard."</p> +<p>"Because we've got to buy in that property or close up the +Siowitha," added Mottly, coming over to make his adieux. "By the +way, Selwyn, you ought to be one of us in the Siowitha—"</p> +<p>"Thank you, but isn't this rather an awkward time to suggest +it?" said Selwyn good-humouredly.</p> +<p>Fane burst into a sonorous laugh and wagged his neck, saying: +"Not at all! Not at all! Your reward for having the decency to stay +out of the deal is an invitation from us to come in and be squeezed +into a jelly by Mr. Neergard. Haw! Haw!"</p> +<p>And so, one by one, with formal or informal but evidently +friendly leave-taking, they went away. And Selwyn followed them +presently, walking until he took the Subway at Forty-second Street +for his office.</p> +<p>As he entered the elaborate suite of rooms he noticed some +bright new placards dangling from the walls of the general office, +and halted to read them:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"WHY PAY RENT!</div> +<p>What would you say if we built a house for you in Beautiful +Siowitha Park and gave you ten years to pay for it!</p> +<div class='blockquot'>If anybody says<br /> +<br /> +YOU ARE A FOOL!</div> +<p>to expect this, refer him to us and we will answer him according +to his folly.</p> +<div class='blockquot'>TO PAY RENT</div> +<p>when you might own a home in Beautiful Siowitha Park, is not +wise. We expect to furnish plans, or build after your own +plans.</p> +<div class='blockquot'>All City Improvements<br /> +Are Contemplated!<br /> +Map and Plans of<br /> +Beautiful Siowitha Park<br /> +Will probably be ready<br /> +In the Near Future.<br /> +<br /> +Julius Neergard & Co.<br /> +Long Island Real Estate."</div> +<p>Selwyn reddened with anger and beckoned to a clerk:</p> +<p>"Is Mr. Neergard in his office?"</p> +<p>"Yes, sir, with Mr. Erroll."</p> +<p>"Please say that I wish to see him."</p> +<p>He went into his own office, pocketed his mail, and still +wearing hat and gloves came out again just as Gerald was leaving +Neergard's office.</p> +<p>"Hello, Gerald!" he said pleasantly; "have you anything on for +to-night?"</p> +<p>"Y-es," said the hoy, embarrassed—"but if there is +anything I can do for you—"</p> +<p>"Not unless you are free for the evening," returned the other; +"are you?"</p> +<p>"I'm awfully sorry—"</p> +<p>"Oh, all right. Let me know when you expect to be +free—telephone me at my rooms—"</p> +<p>"I'll let you know when I see you here to-morrow," said the boy; +but Selwyn shook his head: "I'm not coming here to-morrow, Gerald"; +and he walked leisurely into Neergard's office and seated +himself.</p> +<p>"So you have committed the firm to the Siowitha deal?" he +inquired coolly.</p> +<p>Neergard looked up—and then past him: "No, not the firm. +You did not seem to be interested in the scheme, so I went on +without you. I'm swinging it for my personal account."</p> +<p>"Is Mr. Erroll in it?"</p> +<p>"I said that it was a private matter," replied Neergard, but his +manner was affable.</p> +<p>"I thought so; it appears to me like a matter quite personal to +you and characteristic of you, Mr. Neergard. And that being +established, I am now ready to dissolve whatever very loose ties +have ever bound me in any association with this company and +yourself."</p> +<p>Neergard's close-set black eyes shifted a point nearer to +Selwyn's; the sweat on his nose glistened.</p> +<p>"Why do you do this?" he asked slowly. "Has anybody offended +you?"</p> +<p>"Do you <i>really</i> wish to know?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I certainly do, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"Very well; it's because I don't like your business methods, I +don't like—several other things that are happening in this +office. It's purely a difference of views; and that is enough +explanation, Mr. Neergard."</p> +<p>"I think our views may very easily coincide—"</p> +<p>"You are wrong; they could not. I ought to have known that when +I came back here. And now I have only to thank you for receiving +me, at my own request, for a six months' trial, and to admit that I +am not qualified to co-operate with this kind of a firm."</p> +<p>"That," said Neergard angrily, "amounts to an indictment of the +firm. If you express yourself in that manner outside, the firm will +certainly resent it!"</p> +<p>"My personal taste will continue to govern my expressions, Mr. +Neergard; and I believe will prevent any further business relations +between us. And, as we never had any other kind of relations, I +have merely to arrange the details through an attorney."</p> +<p>Neergard looked after him in silence; the tiny beads of sweat on +his nose united and rolled down in a big shining drop, and the +sneer etched on his broad and brightly mottled features deepened to +a snarl when Selwyn had disappeared.</p> +<p>For the social prestige which Selwyn's name had brought the +firm, he had patiently endured his personal dislike and contempt +for the man after he found he could do nothing with him in any +way.</p> +<p>He had accepted Selwyn purely in the hope of social advantage, +and with the knowledge that Selwyn could have done much for him +after business hours; if not from friendship, at least from +interest, or a lively sense of benefits to come. For that reason he +had invited him to participate in the valuable Siowitha deal, +supposing a man as comparatively poor as Selwyn would not only jump +at the opportunity, but also prove sufficiently grateful later. And +he had been amazed and disgusted at Selwyn's attitude. But he had +not supposed the man would sever his connection with the firm if +he, Neergard, went ahead on his own responsibility. It astonished +and irritated him; it meant, instead of selfish or snobbish +indifference to his own social ambitions, an enemy to block his +entrance into what he desired—the society of those made +notorious in the columns of the daily press.</p> +<p>For Neergard cared only for the notorious in the social scheme; +nothing else appealed to him. He had, all his life, read with +avidity of the extravagances, the ostentation, the luxurious +effrontery, the thinly veiled viciousness of what he believed to be +society, and he craved it from the first, working his thick hands +to the bone in dogged determination to one day participate in and +satiate himself with the easy morality of what he read about in his +penny morning paper—in the days when even a penny was to be +carefully considered.</p> +<p>That was what he wanted from society—the best to be had in +vice. That was why he had denied himself in better days. It was for +that he hoarded every cent while actual want sharpened his wits and +his thin nose; it was in that hope that he received Selwyn so +cordially as a possible means of entrance into regions he could not +attain unaided; it was for that reason he was now binding Gerald to +him through remission of penalties for slackness, through loans and +advances, through a companionship which had already landed him in +the Ruthven's card-room, and promised even more from Mr. Fane, who +had won his money very easily.</p> +<p>For Neergard did not care how he got in, front door or back +door, through kitchen or card-room, as long as he got in somehow. +All he desired was the chance to use opportunity in his own +fashion, and wring from the forbidden circle all and more than they +had unconsciously wrung from him in the squalid days of a poverty +for which no equality he might now enjoy, no liberty of license, no +fraternity in dissipation, could wholly compensate.</p> +<p>He was fairly on the outer boundary now, though still very far +outside. But a needy gentleman inside was already compromised and +practically pledged to support him; for his meeting with Jack +Ruthven through Gerald had proven of greatest importance. He had +lost gracefully to Ruthven; and in doing it had taken that +gentleman's measure. And though Ruthven himself was a member of the +Siowitha, Neergard had made no error in taking him secretly into +the deal where together they were now in a position to exploit the +club, from which Ruthven, of course, would resign in time to escape +any assessment himself.</p> +<p>Neergard's progress had now reached this stage; his programme +was simple—to wallow among the wealthy until satiated, then +to marry into that agreeable community and found the house of +Neergard. And to that end he had already bought a building site on +Fifth Avenue, but held it in the name of the firm as though it had +been acquired for purposes purely speculative.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>About that time Boots Lansing very quietly bought a house on +Manhattan Island. It was a small, narrow, three-storied house of +brick, rather shabby on the outside, and situated on a modest block +between Lexington and Park avenues, where the newly married of the +younger set were arriving in increasing numbers, prepared to pay +the penalty for all love matches.</p> +<p>It was an unexpected move to Selwyn; he had not been aware of +Lansing's contemplated desertion; and that morning, returning from +his final interview with Neergard, he was astonished to find his +comrade's room bare of furniture, and a hasty and exclamatory note +on his own table:</p> +<p>"Phil! I've bought a house! Come and see it! You'll find me in +it! Carpetless floors and unpapered walls! It's the happiest day of +my life!</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"Boots!!!! House-owner!!!"</div> +<p>And Selwyn, horribly depressed, went down after a solitary +luncheon and found Lansing sitting on a pile of dusty rugs, +ecstatically inspecting the cracked ceiling.</p> +<p>"So this is the House that Boots built!" he said.</p> +<p>"Phil! It's a dream!"</p> +<p>"Yes—a bad one. What the devil do you mean by clearing +out? What do you want with a house, anyhow?—you infernal +idiot!"</p> +<p>"A house? Man, I've always wanted one! I've dreamed of a dinky +little house like this—dreamed and ached for it there in +Manila—on blistering hikes, on wibbly-wabbly +gunboats—knee-deep in sprouting rice—I've dreamed of a +house in New York like this! slopping through the steaming +paddy-fields, sweating up the heights, floundering through smelly +hemp, squatting by green fires at night! always, always I've longed +for a home of my own. Now I've got it, and I'm the happiest man on +Manhattan Island!"</p> +<p>"O Lord!" said Selwyn, staring, "if you feel that way! You never +said anything about it—"</p> +<p>"Neither did you, Phil; but I bet you want one, too. Come now; +don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do," nodded Selwyn; "but I can't afford one +yet"—his face darkened—"not for a while; but," and his +features cleared, "I'm delighted, old fellow, that <i>you</i> have +one. This certainly is a jolly little kennel—you can fix it +up in splendid shape—rugs and mahogany and what-nots and +ding-dongs—and a couple of tabby cats and a good +dog—"</p> +<p>"Isn't it fascinating!" cried Boots. "Phil, all this real estate +is mine! And the idea makes me silly-headed. I've been sitting on +this pile of rugs pretending that I'm in the midst of vast and +expensive improvements and alterations; and estimating the cost of +them has frightened me half to death. I tell you I never had such +fun, Phil. Come on; we'll start at the cellar—there is some +coal and wood and some wonderful cobwebs down there—and then +we'll take in the back yard; I mean to have no end of a garden out +there, and real clothes-dryers and some wistaria and +sparrows—just like real back yards. I want to hear cats make +harrowing music on my own back fence; I want to see a tidy +laundress pinning up intimate and indescribable garments on my own +clothes-lines; I want to have maddening trouble with plumbers and +roofers; I want to—"</p> +<p>"Come on, then, for Heaven's sake!" said Selwyn, laughing; and +the two men, arm in arm, began a minute tour of the house.</p> +<p>"Isn't it a corker! Isn't it fine!" repeated Lansing every few +minutes. "I wouldn't exchange it for any mansion on Fifth +Avenue!"</p> +<p>"You'd be a fool to," agreed Selwyn gravely.</p> +<p>"Certainly I would. Anyway, prices are going up like rockets in +this section—not that I'd think of selling out at any +price—but it's comfortable to know it. Why, a real-estate man +told me—Hello! What was that? Something fell somewhere!"</p> +<p>"A section of the bath-room ceiling, I think," said Selwyn; "we +mustn't step too heavily on the floors at first, you know."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm going to have the entire thing done over—room by +room—when I can afford it. Meanwhile <i>j'y suis, j'y +reste</i>. . . . Look there, Phil! That's to be your room."</p> +<p>"Thanks, old fellow—not now."</p> +<p>"Why, yes! I expected you'd have your room here, +Phil—"</p> +<p>"It's very good of you, Boots, but I can't do it."</p> +<p>Lansing faced him: "<i>Won't</i> you?"</p> +<p>Selwyn, smiling, shook his head; and the other knew it was +final.</p> +<p>"Well, the room will be there—furnished the way you and I +like it. When you want it, make smoke signals or wig-wag."</p> +<p>"I will; thank you, Boots."</p> +<p>Lansing said unaffectedly, "How soon do you think you can afford +a house like this?"</p> +<p>"I don't know; you see, I've only my income now—"</p> +<p>"Plus what you make at the office—"</p> +<p>"I've left Neergard."</p> +<p>"What!"</p> +<p>"This morning; for good."</p> +<p>"The deuce!" he murmured, looking at Selwyn; but the latter +volunteered no further information, and Lansing, having given him +the chance, cheerfully switched to the other track:</p> +<p>"Shall I see whether the Air Line has anything in <i>your</i> +line, Phil? No? Well, what are you going to do?"</p> +<p>"I don't exactly know what I shall do. . . . If I had +capital—enough—I think I'd start in making bulk and +dense powders—all sorts; gun-cotton, +nitro-powders—"</p> +<p>"You mean you'd like to go on with your own +invention—Chaosite?"</p> +<p>"I'd like to keep on experimenting with it if I could afford to. +Perhaps I will. But it's not yet a commercial possibility—if +it ever is to be. I wish I could control it; the ignition is +simultaneous and absolutely complete, and there is not a trace of +ash, not an unburned or partly burned particle. But it's not to be +trusted, and I don't know what happens to it after a year's +storage."</p> +<p>For a while they discussed the commercial possibilities of +Chaosite, and how capital might be raised for a stock company; but +Selwyn was not sanguine, and something of his mental depression +returned as he sat there by the curtainless window, his head on his +closed hand, looking out into the sunny street.</p> +<p>"Anyway," said Lansing, "you've nothing to worry over."</p> +<p>"No, nothing," assented Selwyn listlessly.</p> +<p>After a silence Lansing added: "But you do a lot of worrying all +the same, Phil."</p> +<p>Selwyn flushed up and denied it.</p> +<p>"Yes, you do! I don't believe you realise how much of the time +you are out of spirits."</p> +<p>"Does it impress you that way?" asked Selwyn, mortified; +"because I'm really all right."</p> +<p>"Of course you are, Phil; I know it, but you don't seem to +realise it. You're morbid, I'm afraid."</p> +<p>"You've been talking to my sister!"</p> +<p>"What of it? Besides, I knew there was something the +matter—"</p> +<p>"You know what it is, too. And isn't it enough to subdue a man's +spirits occasionally?"</p> +<p>"No," said Lansing—"if you mean +your—mistake—two years ago. That isn't enough to spoil +life for a man. I've wanted to tell you so for a long time."</p> +<p>And, as Selwyn said nothing: "For Heaven's sake make up your +mind to enjoy your life! You are fitted to enjoy it. Get that +absurd notion out of your head that you're done for—that +you've no home life in prospect, no family life, no +children—"</p> +<p>Selwyn turned sharply, but the other went on: "You can swear at +me if you like, but you've no business to go through the world +cuddling your own troubles closer and closer and squinting at +everybody out of disenchanted eyes. It's selfish, for one thing; +you're thinking altogether too much about yourself."</p> +<p>Selwyn, too annoyed to answer, glared at his friend.</p> +<p>"Oh, I know you don't like it, Phil, but what I'm saying may do +you good. It's fine physic, to learn what others think about you; +as for me, you can't mistake my friendship—or your +sister's—or Miss Erroll's, or Mr. Gerard's. And one and all +are of one opinion, that you have everything before you, including +domestic happiness, which you care for more than anything. And +there is no reason why you should not have it—no reason why +you should not feel perfectly free to marry, and have a bunch of +corking kids. It's not only your right, it's your business; and +you're selfish if you don't!"</p> +<p>"Boots! I—I—"</p> +<p>"Go on!"</p> +<p>"I'm not going to swear; I'm only hurt, Boots—"</p> +<p>"Sure you are! Medicine's working, that's all. We strive to +please, we kill to cure. Of course it hurts, man! But you know it +will do you good; you know what I say is true. You've no right to +club the natural and healthy inclinations out of yourself. The day +for fanatics and dippy, dotty flagellants is past. Fox's martyrs +are out of date. The man who grabs life in both fists and twists +the essence out of it, counts. He is living as he ought to, he is +doing the square thing by his country and his community—by +every man, woman, and child in it! He's giving everybody, including +himself, a square deal. But the man who has been upper-cut and +floored, and who takes the count, and then goes and squats in a +corner to brood over the fancy licks that Fate handed +him—<i>he</i> isn't dealing fairly and squarely by his +principles or by a decent and generous world that stands to back +him for the next round. Is he, Phil?"</p> +<p>"Do you mean to say, Boots, that you think a man who has made +the ghastly mess of his life that I have, ought to feel free to +marry?"</p> +<p>"Think it! Man, I know it. Certainly you ought to marry if you +wish—but, above all, you ought to feel free to marry. That is +the essential equipment of a man; he isn't a man if he feels that +he isn't free to marry. He may not want to do it, he may not be in +love. That's neither here nor there; the main thing is that he is +as free as a man should be to take any good opportunity—and +marriage is included in the list of good opportunities. If you +become a slave to morbid notions, no wonder you are depressed. +Slaves usually are. Do you want to slink through life? Then shake +yourself, I tell you; learn to understand that you're free to do +what any decent man may do. That will take the morbidness out of +you. That will colour life for you. I don't say go hunting for some +one to love; I do say, don't avoid her when you meet her."</p> +<p>"You preach a very gay sermon, Boots," he said, folding his +arms. "I've heard something similar from my sister. As a matter of +fact I think you are partly right, too; but if the inclination for +the freedom you insist I take is wanting, then what? I don't wish +to marry, Boots; I am not in love, therefore the prospect of home +and kids is premature and vague, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"As long as it's a prospect or a possibility I don't care how +vague it is," said the other cordially. "Will you admit it's a +possibility? That's all I ask."</p> +<p>"If it will please you, yes, I will admit it. I have altered +certain ideas, Boots; I cannot, just now, conceive of any +circumstances under which I should feel justified in marrying, but +such circumstances might arise; I'll say that much."</p> +<p>Yet until that moment he had not dreamed of admitting as much to +anybody, even to himself; but Lansing's logic, his own loneliness, +his disappointment in Gerald, had combined to make him doubt his +own methods of procedure. Too, the interview with Alixe Ruthven had +not only knocked all complacency and conceit out of him, but had +made him so self-distrustful that he was in a mood to listen +respectfully to his peers on any question.</p> +<p>He was wondering now whether Boots had recognised Alixe when he +had blundered into the room that night. He had never asked the +question; he was very much inclined to, now. However, Boots's reply +could be only the negative answer that any decent man must +give.</p> +<p>Sitting there in the carpetless room piled high with dusty, +linen-shrouded furniture, he looked around, an involuntary smile +twitching his mouth. Somehow he had not felt so light-hearted for a +long, long while—and whether it came from his comrade's +sermon, or his own unexpected acknowledgment of its truth, or +whether it was pure amusement at Boots in the rôle of +householder and taxpayer, he could not decide. But he was curiously +happy of a sudden; and he smiled broadly upon Mr. Lansing:</p> +<p>"What about <i>your</i> marrying," he said—"after all this +talk about mine! What about it, Boots? Is this new house the first +modest step toward the matrimony you laud so loudly?"</p> +<p>"Sure," said that gentleman airily; "that's what I'm here +for."</p> +<p>"Really?"</p> +<p>"Well, of course, idiot. I've always been in love."</p> +<p>"You mean you actually have somebody in view—?"</p> +<p>"No, son. I've always been in love with—love. I'm a +sentimental sentry on the ramparts of reason. I'm properly armed +for trouble, now, so if I'm challenged I won't let my chance slip +by me. Do you see? There are two kinds of sentimental warriors in +this amorous world: the man and the nincompoop. The one brings in +his prisoner, the other merely howls for her. So I'm all ready for +the only girl in the world; and if she ever gets away from me I'll +give you my house, cellar, and back yard, including the wistaria +and both cats—"</p> +<p>"You have neither wistaria nor cats—yet."</p> +<p>"Neither am I specifically in love—yet. So that's all +right—Philip. Come on; let's take another look at that +fascinating cellar of mine!"</p> +<p>But Selwyn laughingly declined, and after a little while he went +away, first to look up a book which he was having bound for Eileen, +then to call on his sister who, with Eileen, had just returned from +a week at Silverside with the children, preliminary to moving the +entire establishment there for the coming summer; for the horses +and dogs had already gone; also Kit-Ki, a pessimistic parrot, and +the children's two Norwegian ponies.</p> +<p>"Silverside is too lovely for words!" exclaimed Nina as Selwyn +entered the library. "The children almost went mad. You should have +seen the dogs, too—tearing round and round the lawn in +circles—poor things! They were crazy for the fresh, new turf. +And Kit-Ki! she lay in the sun and rolled and rolled until her fur +was perfectly filthy. Nobody wanted to come away; Eileen made +straight for the surf; but it was an arctic sea, and as soon as I +found out what she was doing I made her come out."</p> +<p>"I should think you would," he said; "nobody can do that and +thrive."</p> +<p>"She seems to," said Nina; "she was simply glorious after the +swim, and I hated to put a stop to it. And you should see her +drying her hair and helping Plunket to roll the +tennis-courts—that hair of hers blowing like gold flames, and +her sleeves rolled to her arm-pits!—and you should see her +down in the dirt playing marbles with Billy and +Drina—shooting away excitedly and exclaiming 'fen-dubs!' and +'knuckle-down, Billy!'—like any gamin you ever heard of. +Totally unspoiled, Phil!—in spite of all the success of her +first winter!—and do you know that she had no end of men +seriously entangled? I don't mind your knowing—but Sudbury +Gray came to me, and I told him he'd better wait, but in he +blundered and—he's done for, now; and so are my plans. He's +an imbecile! And then, who on earth do you think came waddling into +the arena? Percy Draymore! Phil, it was an anxious problem for +me—and although I didn't really want Eileen to marry into +that set—still—with the Draymores' position and +tremendous influence—But she merely stared at him in cold +astonishment. And there were others, too, callow for the most part. +. . . Phil?"</p> +<p>"What?" he said, laughing.</p> +<p>His sister regarded him smilingly, then partly turned around and +perched herself on the padded arm of a great chair.</p> +<p>"Phil, <i>am</i> I garrulous?"</p> +<p>"No, dear; you are far too reticent."</p> +<p>"Pooh! Suppose I do talk a great deal. I like to. Besides, I +always have something interesting to say, don't I?"</p> +<p>"Always!"</p> +<p>"Well, then, why do you look at me so humorously out of those +nice gray eyes? . . . Phil, you are growing handsome! Do you know +it?"</p> +<p>"For Heaven's sake!" he protested, red and uncomfortable, "what +utter nonsense you—"</p> +<p>"Of course it bores you to be told so; and you look so +delightfully ashamed—like a reproved setter-puppy! Well, +then, don't laugh at my loquacity again!—because I'm going to +say something else. . . . Come over here, Phil; no—close to +me. I wish to put my hands on your shoulders; like that. Now look +at me! Do you really love me?"</p> +<p>"Sure thing, Ninette."</p> +<p>"And you know I adore you; don't you?"</p> +<p>"Madly, dear, but I forgive you."</p> +<p>"No; I want you to be serious. Because I'm pretty serious. See, +I'm not smiling now; I don't feel like it. Because it is a very, +very important matter, Phil—this thing that +has—has—almost happened. . . . It's about Eileen. . . . +And it really has happened."</p> +<p>"What has she done?" he asked curiously.</p> +<p>His sister's eyes were searching his very diligently, as though +in quest of something elusive; and he gazed serenely back, the most +unsuspicious of smiles touching his mouth.</p> +<p>"Phil, dear, a young girl—a very young girl—is a +vapid and uninteresting proposition to a man of thirty-five; isn't +she?"</p> +<p>"Rather—in some ways."</p> +<p>"In what way is she not?"</p> +<p>"Well—to me, for example—she is acceptable as +children are acceptable—a blessed, sweet, clean relief from +the women of the Fanes' set, for example?"</p> +<p>"Like Rosamund?"</p> +<p>"Yes. And, Ninette, you and Austin seem to be drifting out of +the old circles—the sort that you and I were accustomed to. +You don't mind my saying it, do you?—but there were so many +people in this town who had something besides +millions—amusing, well-bred, jolly people who had no end of +good times, but who didn't gamble and guzzle and stuff themselves +and their friends—who were not eternally hanging around other +people's wives. Where are they, dear?"</p> +<p>"If you are indicting all of my friends, Phil—"</p> +<p>"I don't mean all of your friends—only a small +proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that +deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the +opera, the gorged dowagers, the worn-out, passionless men, the +enervated matrons of the summer capital, the chlorotic squatters on +huge yachts, the speed-mad fugitives from the furies of ennui, the +neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled animals whose +moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"</p> +<p>"Philip!"</p> +<p>"Oh, I don't mean that they are any more vicious than the idle +and mentally incompetent in any walk of life. East Side, West Side, +Harlem, Hell's Kitchen, Fifth Avenue, Avenue A, and Abingdon +Square—the denizens are only locally different, not +specifically—the species remains unchanged. But everywhere, +in every quarter and class and set and circle there is always the +depraved; and the logical links that connect them are unbroken from +Fifth Avenue to Chinatown, from the half-crazed extravagances of +the Orchils' Louis XIV ball to a New Year's reception at the +Haymarket where Troy Lil's diamonds outshine the phony pearls of +Hoboken Fanny, and Hatpin Molly leads the spiel with Clarence the +Pig."</p> +<p>"Phil, you are too disgusting!"</p> +<p>"I'm sorry—it isn't very nice of me, I suppose. But, dear, +I'm dead tired of moral squalor. I do like the brightness of +things, too, but I don't care for the phosphorescence of social +decay."</p> +<p>"What in the world is the matter?" she exclaimed in dismay. "You +are talking like the wildest socialist."</p> +<p>He laughed. "We have become a nation of what you call +'socialists'—though there are other names for us which mean +more. I am not discontented, if that is what you mean; I am only +impatient; and there is a difference. . . . And you have just asked +me whether a young girl is interesting to me. I answer, yes, thank +God!—for the cleaner, saner, happier hours I have spent this +winter among my own kind have been spent where the younger set +dominated.</p> +<p>"They are good for us, Nina; they are the hope of our own +kind—well-taught, well-drilled, wholesome even when negative +in mind; and they come into our world so diffident yet so +charmingly eager, so finished yet so unspoiled, that—how can +they fail to touch a man and key him to his best? How can they fail +to arouse in us the best of sympathy, of chivalry, of anxious +solicitude lest they become some day as we are and stare at life +out of the faded eyes of knowledge!"</p> +<p>He laid his hands in hers, smiling a little at his own +earnestness.</p> +<p>"Alarmist? No! The younger set are better than those who bred +them; and if, in time, they, too, fall short, they will not fall as +far as their parents. And, in their turn, when they look around +them at the younger set whom they have taught in the light and +wisdom of their own shortcomings, they will see fresher, sweeter, +lovelier young people than we see now. And it will continue so, +dear, through the jolly generations. Life is all right, only, like +art, it is very, very long sometimes."</p> +<p>"Good out of evil, Phil?" asked his sister, smiling; "innocence +from the hotbeds of profligacy? purity out of vulgarity? sanity +from hideous ostentation? Is that what you come preaching?"</p> +<p>"Yes; and isn't it curious! Look at that old harridan, Mrs. +Sanxon Orchil! There are no more innocent and charming girls in +Manhattan than her daughters. She <i>knew</i> enough to make them +different; so does the majority of that sort. Look at the Cardwell +girl and the Innis girl and the Craig girl! Look at Mrs. +Delmour-Carnes's children! And, Nina—even Molly Hatpin's +wastrel waif shall never learn what her mother knows if Destiny +will help Madame Molly ever so little. And I think that Destiny is +often very kind—even to the Hatpin offspring."</p> +<p>Nina sat silent on the padded arm of her chair, looking up at +her brother.</p> +<p>"Mad preacher! Mad Mullah!—dear, dear fellow!" she said +tenderly; "all ills of the world canst thou discount, but not thine +own."</p> +<p>"Those, too," he insisted, laughing; "I had a talk with +Boots—but, anyway, I'd already arrived at my own conclusion +that—that—I'm rather overdoing this blighted +business—"</p> +<p>"Phil!"—in quick delight.</p> +<p>"Yes," he said, reddening nicely; "between you and Boots and +myself I've decided that I'm going in for—for whatever any +man is going in for—life! Ninette, life to the full and up to +the hilt for mine!—not side-stepping anything. . . . Because +I—because, Nina, it's shameful for a man to admit to himself +that he cannot make good, no matter how thoroughly he's been +hammered to the ropes. And so I'm starting out again—not +hunting trouble like him of La Mancha—but, like him in this, +that I shall not avoid it. . . . Is <i>that</i> plain to you, +little sister?"</p> +<p>"Yes, oh, yes, it is!" she murmured; "I am so happy, so +proud—but I knew it was in your blood, Phil; I knew that you +were merely hurt and stunned—badly hurt, but not +fatally!—you could not be; no weaklings come from our +race."</p> +<p>"But still our race has always been law-abiding—observant +of civil and religious law. If I make myself free again, I take +some laws into my own hands.".</p> +<p>"How do you mean?" she asked.</p> +<p>"Well," he said grimly, "for example, I am forbidden, in some +States, to marry again—"</p> +<p>"But you <i>know</i> there was no reason for <i>that</i>!"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do happen to know; but still I am taking the liberty of +disregarding the law if I do. Then, what clergyman, of our faith, +would marry me to anybody?"</p> +<p>"That, too, you know is not just, Phil. You were innocent of +wrong-doing; you were chivalrous enough to make no +defence—"</p> +<p>"Wrong-doing? Nina, I was such a fool that I was innocent of +sense enough to do either good or evil. Yet I did do harm; there +never was such a thing as a harmless fool. But all I can do is to +go and sin no more; yet there is little merit in good conduct if +one hides in a hole too small to admit temptation. No; there are +laws civil and laws ecclesiastical; and sometimes I think a man is +justified in repealing the form and retaining the substance of +them, and remoulding it for purposes of self-government; as I do, +now. . . . Once, oppressed by form and theory, I told you that to +remarry after divorce was a slap at civilisation. . . . Which is +true sometimes and sometimes not. Common sense, not laws, must +govern a man in that matter. But if any motive except desire to be +a decent citizen sways a self-punished man toward self-leniency, +then is he unpardonable if he breaks those laws which truly were +fashioned for such as he!"</p> +<p>"Saint Simon! Saint Simon! Will you please arise, stretch your +limbs, and descend from your pillar?" said Nina; "because I am +going to say something that is very, very serious; and very near my +heart."</p> +<p>"I remember," he said; "it's about Eileen, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes, it is about Eileen."</p> +<p>He waited; and again his sister's eyes began restlessly +searching his for something that she seemed unable to find.</p> +<p>"You make it a little difficult, Phil; I don't believe I had +better speak of it."</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"Why, just because you ask me 'why not?' for example."</p> +<p>"Is it anything that worries you about Eileen?"</p> +<p>"N-no; not exactly. It is—it may be a phase; and yet I +know that if it is anything at all it is not a passing phase. She +is different from the majority, you see—very intelligent, +very direct. She never forgets—for example. Her loyalty is +quite remarkable, Phil. She is very intense in her—her +beliefs—the more so because she is unusually free from +impulse—even quite ignorant of the deeper emotions; or so I +believed until—until—"</p> +<p>"Is she in <i>love</i>?" he asked.</p> +<p>"A little, Phil."</p> +<p>"Does she admit it?" he demanded, unpleasantly astonished.</p> +<p>"She admits it in a dozen innocent ways to me who can understand +her; but to herself she has not admitted it, I think—could +not admit it yet; because—because—"</p> +<p>"Who is it?" asked Selwyn; and there was in his voice the +slightest undertone of a growl.</p> +<p>"Dear, shall I tell you?"</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"Because—because—Phil, I think that our pretty +Eileen is a little in love with—you."</p> +<p>He straightened out to his full height, scarlet to the temples; +she dropped her linked fingers in her lap, gazing at him almost +sadly.</p> +<p>"Dear, all the things you are preparing to shout at me are quite +useless; I <i>know</i>; I don't imagine, I don't forestall, I don't +predict. I am not discounting any hopes of mine, because, Phil, I +had not thought—had not planned such a thing—between +you and Eileen—I don't know why. But I had not; there was +Suddy Gray—a nice boy, perfectly qualified; and there were +alternates more worldly, perhaps. But I did not think of you; and +that is what now amazes and humiliates me; because it was the +obvious that I overlooked—the most perfectly +natural—"</p> +<p>"Nina! you are madder than a March heiress!"</p> +<p>"Air your theories, Phil, then come back to realities. The +conditions remain; Eileen is certainly a little in love with you; +and a little with her means something. And you, evidently, have +never harboured any serious intentions toward the child; I can see +that, because you are the most transparent man I ever knew. Now, +the question is, what is to be done?"</p> +<p>"Done? Good heavens! Nothing, of course! There's nothing to do +anything about! Nina, you are the most credulous little matchmaker +that ever—"</p> +<p>"Oh, Phil, <i>must</i> I listen to all those fulminations before +you come down to the plain fact? And it's plain to me as the nose +on your countenance; and I don't know what to do about it! I +certainly was a perfect fool to confide in you, for you are +exhibiting the coolness and sagacity of a stampeded chicken."</p> +<p>He laughed in spite of himself; then, realising a little what +her confidence had meant, he turned a richer red and slowly lifted +his fingers to his moustache, while his perplexed gray eyes began +to narrow as though sun-dazzled.</p> +<p>"I am, of course, obliged to believe that you are mistaken," he +said; "a man cannot choose but believe in that manner. . . . There +is no very young girl—nobody, old or young, whom I like as +thoroughly as I do Eileen Erroll. She knows it; so do you, Nina. It +is open and above-board. . . . I should be very unhappy if anything +marred or distorted our friendship. . . . I am quite confident that +nothing will."</p> +<p>"In that frame of mind," said his sister, smiling, "you are the +healthiest companion in the world for her, for you will either cure +her, or she you; and it is all right either way."</p> +<p>"Certainly it will be all right," he said confidently.</p> +<p>For a few moments he paced the room, reflective, quickening his +pace all the while; and his sister watched him, silent in her +indecision.</p> +<p>"I'm going up to see the kids," he said abruptly.</p> +<p>The children, one and all, were in the Park; but Eileen was +sewing in the nursery, and his sister did not call him back as he +swung out of the room and up the stairs. But when he had +disappeared, Nina dropped into her chair, aware that she had played +her best card prematurely; forced by Rosamund, who had just told +her that rumour continued to be very busy coupling her brother's +name with the name of the woman who once had been his wife.</p> +<p>Nina was now thoroughly convinced of Alixe's unusual capacity +for making mischief.</p> +<p>She had known Alixe always—and she had seen her develop +from a talented, restless, erratic, emotional girl, easily moved to +generosity, into an impulsive woman, reckless to the point of +ruthlessness when ennui and unhappiness stampeded her; a woman not +deliberately selfish, not wittingly immoral, for she lacked the +passion which her emotion was sometimes mistaken for; and she was +kind by instinct.</p> +<p>Sufficiently intelligent to suffer from the lack of it in +others, cultured to the point of recognising culture, her dangerous +unsoundness lay in her utter lack of mental stamina when conditions +became unpleasant beyond her will, not her ability to endure +them.</p> +<p>The consequences of her own errors she refused to be burdened +with; to escape somehow, was her paramount impulse, and she always +tried to—had always attempted it even in +school-days—and farther back when Nina first remembered her +as a thin, eager, restless little girl scampering from one scrape +into another at full speed. Even in those days there were moments +when Nina believed her to be actually irrational, but there was +every reason not to say so to the heedless scatterbrain whose +father, in the prime of life, sat all day in his room, his faded +eyes fixed wistfully on the childish toys which his attendant +brought to him from his daughter's nursery.</p> +<p>All this Nina was remembering; and again she wondered bitterly +at Alixe's treatment of her brother, and what explanation there +could ever be for it—except one.</p> +<p>Lately, too, Alixe had scarcely been at pains to conceal her +contempt for her husband, if what Rosamund related was true. It was +only one more headlong scrape, this second marriage, and Nina knew +Alixe well enough to expect the usual stampede toward that gay +phantom which was always beckoning onward to promised +happiness—that goal of heart's desire already lying so far +behind her—and farther still for every step her little flying +feet were taking in the oldest, the vainest, the most hopeless +chase in the world—the headlong hunt for happiness.</p> +<p>And if that blind hunt should lead once more toward Selwyn? +Suppose, freed from Ruthven, she turned in her tracks and threw +herself and her youthful unhappiness straight at the man who had +not yet destroyed the picture that Nina found when she visited her +brother's rooms with the desire to be good to him with +rocking-chairs!</p> +<p>Not that she really believed or feared that Philip would +consider such an impossible reconciliation; pride, and a sense of +the absurd, must always check any such weird caprice of her +brother's conscience; and yet—and yet other amazing and +mismated couples had done it—had been reunited.</p> +<p>And Nina was mightily troubled, for Alixe's capacity for +mischief was boundless; and that she, in some manner, had already +succeeded in stirring up Philip, was a rumour that persisted and +would not be annihilated.</p> +<p>To inform a man frankly that a young girl is a little in love +with him is one of the oldest, simplest, and easiest methods of +interesting that man—unless he happen to be in love with +somebody else. And Nina had taken her chances that the picture of +Alixe was already too unimportant for the ceremony of incineration. +Besides, what she had ventured to say to him was her belief; the +child appeared to be utterly absorbed in her increasing intimacy +with Selwyn. She talked of little else; her theme was +Selwyn—his influence on Gerald, and her delight in his +companionship. They had, at his suggestion, taken up together the +study of Cretan antiquities—a sort of tender pilgrimage for +her, because, with the aid of her father's and mother's letters, +note-books, and papers, she and Selwyn were following on the map +the journeys and discoveries of her father.</p> +<p>But this was not all; Nina's watchful eyes opened wider and +wider as she witnessed in Eileen the naissance of an unconscious +and delicate coquetry, quite unabashed, yet the more significant +for that; and Nina, intent on the new phenomena, began to divine +more about Eileen in a single second, than the girl could have +suspected of herself in a month of introspection and of prayer.</p> +<p>Love was not there; Nina understood that; but its germ +was—still dormant, but bedded deliciously in congenial +soil—the living germ in all its latent promise, ready to +swell with the first sudden heart-beat, quicken with the first +quickening of the pulse, unfold into perfect symmetry if ever the +warm, even current in the veins grew swift and hot under the first +scorching whisper of Truth.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Eileen, sewing by the nursery window, looked up; her little +Alsatian maid, cross-legged on the floor at her feet, sewing away +diligently, also looked up, then scrambled to her feet as Selwyn +halted on the threshold of the room.</p> +<p>"Why, how odd you look!" said Eileen, laughing: "come in, +please; Susanne and I are only mending some of my summer things. +Were you in search of the children?—don't say so if you were, +because I'm quite happy in believing that you knew I was here. Did +you?"</p> +<p>"Where are the children?" he asked.</p> +<p>"In the Park, my very rude friend. You will find them on the +Mall if you start at once."</p> +<p>He hesitated, but finally seated himself, omitting the little +formal hand-shake with which they always met, even after an hour's +separation. Of course she noticed this, and, bending low above her +sewing, wondered why.</p> +<p>It seemed to him, for a moment, as though he were looking at a +woman he had heard about and had just met for the first time. His +observation of her now was leisurely, calm, and thorough—not +so calm, however, when, impatient of his reticence, bending there +over her work, she raised her dark-blue eyes to his, her head +remaining lowered. The sweet, silent inspection lasted but a +moment, then she resumed her stitches, aware that something in him +had changed since she last had seen him; but she merely smiled +quietly to herself, confident of his unaltered devotion in spite of +the strangely hard and unresponsive gaze that had uneasily evaded +hers.</p> +<p>As her white fingers flew with the glimmering needle she +reflected on conditions as she had left them a week ago. A week +ago, between him and her the most perfect of understandings +existed; and the consciousness of it she had carried with her every +moment in the country—amid the icy tumble of the surf, on +long vigorous walks over the greening hills where wild moorland +winds whipped like a million fairy switches till the young blood +fairly sang, pouring through her veins.</p> +<p>Since that—some time within the week, <i>something</i> +evidently had happened to him, here in the city while she had been +away. What?</p> +<p>As she bent above the fine linen garment on her knee, needle +flying, a sudden memory stirred coldly—the recollection of +her ride with Rosamund; and instinctively her clear eyes flew open +and she raised her head, turning directly toward him a disturbed +gaze he did not this time evade.</p> +<p>In silence their regard lingered; then, satisfied, she smiled +again, saying: "Have I been away so long that we must begin all +over, Captain Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"Begin what, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"To remember that the silence of selfish preoccupation is a +privilege I have not accorded you?"</p> +<p>"I didn't mean to be preoccupied—"</p> +<p>"Oh, worse and worse!" She shook her head and began to thread +the needle. "I see that my week's absence has not been very good +for you. I knew it the moment you came in with all that guilty +absent-minded effrontery which I have forbidden. Now, I suppose I +shall have to recommence your subjection. Ring for tea, please. +And, Susanne"—speaking in French and gathering up a fluffy +heap of mended summer waists—"these might as well be sent to +the laundress—thank you, little one; your sewing is always +beautiful."</p> +<p>The small maid, blushing with pleasure, left the room, both arms +full of feminine apparel; Selwyn rang for tea, then strolled back +to the window, where he stood with both hands thrust into his +coat-pockets, staring out at the sunset.</p> +<p>A primrose light bathed the city. Below, through the new foliage +of the Park, the little lake reflected it in tints of deeper gold +and amber where children clustered together, sailing toy ships. But +there was no wind; the tiny sails and flags hung motionless, and +out and in, among the craft becalmed, steered a family of wild +ducks, the downy yellow fledglings darting hither and thither in +chase of gnats, the mother bird following in leisurely +solicitude.</p> +<p>And, as he stood there, absently intent on sky and roof and +foliage, her soft bantering voice aroused him; and turning he found +her beside him, her humorous eyes fixed on his face.</p> +<p>"Suppose," she said, "that we go back to first principles and +resume life properly by shaking hands. Shall we?"</p> +<p>He coloured up as he took her hand in his; then they both +laughed at the very vigorous shake.</p> +<p>"What a horribly unfriendly creature you <i>can</i> be," she +said. "Never a greeting, never even a formal expression of pleasure +at my return—"</p> +<p>"You have not <i>returned</i>!" he said, smiling; "you have been +with me every moment, Eileen."</p> +<p>"What a pretty tribute!" she exclaimed; "I am beginning to +recognise traces of my training after all. And it is high time, +Captain Selwyn, because I was half convinced that you had escaped +to the woods again. What, if you please, have you been doing in +town since I paroled you? Nothing? Oh, it's very likely. You're +probably too ashamed to tell me. Now note the difference between +us; <i>I</i> have been madly tearing over turf and dune, up hills, +down hillocks, along headlands, shores, and shingle; and I had the +happiness of being half-frozen in the surf before Nina learned of +it and stopped me. . . . Come; sit over here; because I'm quite +crazy to tell you everything as usual—about how I played +marbles with the children—yes, indeed!—down on my knees +and shooting hard! Oh, it is divine, that sea-girdled, +wind-drenched waste of moor and thicket!—the strange little +stunted forests in the hollows of the miniature hills—do you +remember? The trees, you know, grow only to the wind-level, then +spread out like those grotesque trees in fairy-haunted +forests—so old, so fantastic are these curious patches of +woods that I am for ever watching to see something magic moving far +in the twilight of the trees! . . . And one night I went out on the +moors; oh, heavenly! celestial!—under the stretch of stars! +Elf-land in silence, save for the bewitched wind. And the fairy +forests drew me toward their edges, down, down into the hollow, +with delicious shivers.</p> +<p>"Once I trembled indeed, for the starlight on the swamp was +suddenly splintered into millions of flashes; and my heart leaped +in pure fright! . . . It was only a wild duck whirring headlong +into the woodland waters—but oh, if you had been there to see +the weird beauty of its coming—and the star-splashed +blackness! You <i>must</i> see that with me, some time. . . . When +are you coming to Silverside? We go back very soon, now. . . . And +I don't feel at all like permitting you to run wild in town when +I'm away and playing hopscotch on the lawn with Drina!"</p> +<p>She lay back in her chair, laughing, her hands linked together +behind her head.</p> +<p>"Really, Captain Selwyn, I confess I missed you. It's much +better fun when two can see all those things that I saw—the +wild roses just a tangle of slender green-mossed stems, the new +grass so intensely green, with a touch of metallic iridescence; the +cat's-paws chasing each other across the purple inland +ponds—and that cheeky red fox that came trotting out of the +briers near Wonder Head, and, when he saw me, coolly attempted to +stare me out of countenance! Oh, it's all very well to tell you +about it, but there is a little something lacking in unshared +pleasures. . . . Yes, a great deal lacking. . . . And here is our +tea-tray at last."</p> +<p>Nina came up to join them. Her brother winced as she smiled +triumphantly at him, and the colour continued vivid in his face +while she remained in the room. Then the children charged upstairs, +fresh from the Park, clamouring for food; and they fell upon +Selwyn's neck, and disarranged his scarf-pin, and begged for +buttered toast and crumpets, and got what they demanded before +Nina's authority could prevent.</p> +<p>"I saw a rabbit at Silverside!" said Billy, "but do you know, +Uncle Philip, that hunting pack of ours is no good! Not one dog +paid any attention to the rabbit though Drina and I did our +best—didn't we, Drina?"</p> +<p>"You should have seen them," murmured Eileen, leaning close to +whisper to Selwyn; "the children had fits when the rabbit came +hopping across the road out of the Hither Woods. But the dogs all +ran madly the other way, and I thought Billy would die of +mortification."</p> +<p>Nina stood up, waving a crumpet which she had just rescued from +Winthrop. "Hark!" she said, "there's the nursery curfew!—and +not one wretched infant bathed! Billy! March bathward, my son! +Drina, sweetheart, take command. Prune soufflé for the +obedient, dry bread for rebels! Come, children!—don't let +mother speak to you twice."</p> +<p>"Let's go down to the library," said Eileen to Selwyn—"you +are dining with us, of course. . . . What? Yes, indeed, you are. +The idea of your attempting to escape to some dreadful club and +talk man-talk all the evening when I have not begun to tell you +what I did at Silverside!"</p> +<p>They left the nursery together and descended the stairs to the +library. Austin had just come in, and he looked up from his +solitary cup of tea as they entered:</p> +<p>"Hello, youngsters! What conspiracy are you up to now? I suppose +you sniffed the tea and have come to deprive me. By the way, Phil, +I hear that you've sprung the trap on those Siowitha people."</p> +<p>"Neergard has, I believe."</p> +<p>"Well, isn't it all one?"</p> +<p>"No, it is not!" retorted Selwyn so bluntly that Eileen turned +from the window at a sound in his voice which she had never before +heard.</p> +<p>"Oh!" Austin stared over his suspended teacup, then drained it. +"Trouble with our friend Julius?" he inquired.</p> +<p>"No trouble. I merely severed my connection with him."</p> +<p>"Ah! When?"</p> +<p>"This morning."</p> +<p>"In that case," said Austin, laughing, "I've a job for +you—"</p> +<p>"No, old fellow; and thank you with all my heart. I've half made +up my mind to live on my income for a while and take up that +Chaosite matter again—"</p> +<p>"And blow yourself to smithereens! Why spatter Nature thus?"</p> +<p>"No fear," said Selwyn, laughing. "And, if it promises anything, +I may come to you for advice on how to start it commercially."</p> +<p>"If it doesn't start you heavenward you shall have my advice +from a safe distance. I'll telegraph it," said Austin. "But, if +it's not personal, why on earth have you shaken Neergard?"</p> +<p>And Selwyn answered simply: "I don't like him. That is the +reason, Austin."</p> +<p>The children from the head of the stairs were now shouting +demands for their father; and Austin rose, pretending to +grumble:</p> +<p>"Those confounded kids! A man is never permitted a moment to +himself. Is Nina up there, Eileen! Oh, all right. Excuses et +cetera; I'll be back pretty soon. You'll stay to dine, Phil?"</p> +<p>"I don't think so—"</p> +<p>"Yes, he will stay," said Eileen calmly.</p> +<p>And, when Austin had gone, she walked swiftly over to where +Selwyn was standing, and looked him directly in the eyes.</p> +<p>"Is all well with Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Y-yes, I suppose so."</p> +<p>"Is he still with Neergard & Co.?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Eileen."</p> +<p>"And <i>you</i> don't like Mr. Neergard?"</p> +<p>"N-no."</p> +<p>"Then Gerald must not remain."</p> +<p>He said very quietly: "Eileen, Gerald no longer takes me into +his confidence. I am afraid—I know, in fact—that I have +little influence with him now. I am sorry; it hurts; but your +brother is his own master, and he is at liberty to choose his own +friends and his own business policy. I cannot influence him; I have +learned that thoroughly. Better that I retain what real friendship +he has left for me than destroy it by any attempt, however gentle, +to interfere in his affairs."</p> +<p>She stood before him, straight, slender, her face grave and +troubled.</p> +<p>"I cannot understand," she said, "how he could refuse to listen +to a man like you."</p> +<p>"A man like me, Eileen? Well, if I were worth listening to, no +doubt he'd listen. But the fact remains that I have not been able +to hold his interest—"</p> +<p>"Don't give him up," she said, still looking straight into his +eyes. "If you care for me, don't give him up."</p> +<p>"Care for you, Eileen! You know I do."</p> +<p>"Yes, I know it. So you will not give up Gerald, will you? He +is—is only a boy—you know that; you know he has +been—perhaps—indiscreet. But Gerald is only a boy. +Stand by him, Captain Selwyn; because Austin does not know how to +manage him—really he doesn't. . . . There has been another +unpleasant scene between them; Gerald told me."</p> +<p>"Did he tell you why, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Yes. He told me that he had played cards for money, and he was +in debt. I know that sounds—almost disgraceful; but is not +his need of help all the greater?"</p> +<p>Selwyn's eyes suddenly narrowed: "Did <i>you</i> help him out, +this time?"</p> +<p>"I—I—how do you mean, Captain Selwyn?" But the +splendid colour in her face confirmed his certainty that she had +used her own resources to help her brother pay the gambling debt; +and he turned away his eyes, angry and silent.</p> +<p>"Yes," she said under her breath, "I did aid him. What of it? +Could I refuse?"</p> +<p>"I know. Don't aid him again—<i>that</i> way."</p> +<p>She stared: "You mean—"</p> +<p>"Send him to me, child. I understand such matters; I—that +is—" and in sudden exasperation inexplicable, for the moment, +to them both: "Don't touch such matters again! They soil, I tell +you. I will not have Gerald go to you about such things!"</p> +<p>"My own brother! What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"I mean that, brother or not, he shall not bring such matters +near you!"</p> +<p>"Am I to count for nothing, then, when Gerald is in trouble?" +she demanded, flushing up.</p> +<p>"Count! Count!" he repeated impatiently; "of course you count! +Good heavens! it's women like you who count—and no +others—not one single other sort is of the slightest +consequence in the world or to it. Count? Child, you control us +all; everything of human goodness, of human hope hinges and hangs +on you—is made possible, inevitable, because of you! And you +ask me whether you count! You, who control us all, and always +will—as long as you are you!"</p> +<p>She had turned a little pale under his vehemence, watching him +out of wide and beautiful eyes.</p> +<p>What she understood—how much of his incoherence she was +able to translate, is a question; but in his eyes and voice there +was something simpler to divine; and she stood very still while his +roused emotions swept her till her heart leaped up and every vein +in her ran fiery pride.</p> +<p>"I am—overwhelmed . . . I did not consider that I +counted—so vitally—in the scheme of things. But I must +try to—if you believe all this of me—only you must +teach me how to count for something in the world. Will you?"</p> +<p>"Teach you, Eileen. What winning mockery! <i>I</i> teach +<i>you</i>? Well, then—I teach you this—that a man's +blunder is best healed by a man's sympathy; . . . I will stand by +Gerald as long as he will let me do so—not alone for your +sake, nor only for his, but for my own. I promise you that. Are you +contented?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>She slowly raised one hand, laying it fearlessly in both of +his.</p> +<p>"He is all I have left," she said. "You know that."</p> +<p>"I know, child."</p> +<p>"Then—thank you, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"No; I thank you for giving me this charge. It means that a man +must raise his own standard of living before he can accept such +responsibility. . . . You endow me with all that a man ought to be; +and my task is doubled; for it is not only Gerald but I myself who +require surveillance."</p> +<p>He looked up, smilingly serious: "Such women as you alone can +fit your brother and me for an endless guard duty over the white +standard you have planted on the outer walls of the world."</p> +<p>"You say things to me—sometimes—" she faltered, +"that almost hurt with the pleasure they give."</p> +<p>"Did that give you pleasure?"</p> +<p>"Y-yes; the surprise of it was almost too—too keen. I wish +you would not—but I am glad you did. . . . You +see"—dropping into a great velvet chair—"having been of +no serious consequence to anybody for so many years—to be +told, suddenly, that I—that I count so vitally with +men—a man like you—"</p> +<p>She sank back, drew one small hand across her eyes, and rested a +moment; then leaning forward, she set her elbow on one knee and +bracketed her chin between forefinger and thumb.</p> +<p>"<i>You</i> don't know," she said, smiling faintly, "but, oh, +the exalted dreams young girls indulge in! And one and all centre +around some power-inspired attitude of our own when a great crisis +comes. And most of all we dream of counting heavily; and more than +all we clothe ourselves in the celestial authority which dares to +forgive. . . . Is it not pathetically amusing—the mental +process of a young girl?—and the paramount theme of her dream +is power!—such power as will permit the renunciation of +vengeance; such power as will justify the happiness of forgiving? . +. . And every dream of hers is a dream of power; and, often, the +happiness of forbearing to wield it. All dreams lead to it, all +mean it; for instance, half-awake, then faintly conscious in +slumber, I lie dreaming of power—always power; the triumph of +attainment, of desire for wisdom and knowledge satisfied. I dream +of friendships—wonderful intimacies exquisitely satisfying; I +dream of troubles, and my moral power to sweep them out of +existence; I dream of self-sacrifice, and of the spiritual power to +endure it; I dream—I dream—sometimes—of more +material power—of splendours and imposing estates, of a +paradise all my own. And when I have been selfishly happy long +enough, I dream of a vast material power fitting me to wipe poverty +from the world; I plan it out in splendid generalities, sometimes +in minute detail. . . . Of men, we naturally dream; but vaguely, in +a curious and confused way. . . . Once, when I was fourteen, I saw +a volunteer regiment passing; and it halted for a while in front of +our house; and a brilliant being on a black horse turned lazily in +his saddle and glanced up at our window. . . . Captain Selwyn, it +is quite useless for you to imagine what fairy scenes, what +wondrous perils, what happy adventures that gilt-corded adjutant +and I went through in my dreams. Marry him? Indeed I did, scores of +times. Rescue him? Regularly. He was wounded, he was attacked by +fevers unnumbered, he fled in peril of his life, he vegetated in +countless prisons, he was misunderstood, he was a martyr to +suspicion, he was falsely accused, falsely condemned. And then, +just before the worst occurred, <i>I</i> appear!—the +inevitable I."</p> +<p>She dropped back into the chair, laughing. Her colour was high, +her eyes brilliant; she laid her arms along the velvet arms of the +chair and looked at him.</p> +<p>"I've not had you to talk to for a whole week," she said; "and +you'll let me; won't you? I can't help it, anyway, because as soon +as I see you—crack! a million thoughts wake up in me and +clipper-clapper goes my tongue. . . . You are very good for me. You +are so thoroughly satisfactory—except when your eyes narrow +in that dreadful far-away gaze—which I've forbidden, you +understand. . . . <i>What</i> have you done to your moustache?"</p> +<p>"Clipped it."</p> +<p>"Oh, I don't like it too short. Can you get hold of it to pull +it? It's the only thing that helps you in perplexity to solve +problems. You'd be utterly helpless, mentally, without your +moustache. . . . When are we to take up our Etruscan symbols +again?—or was it Evans's monograph we were laboriously +dissecting? Certainly it was; don't you remember the Hittite +hieroglyph of Jerabis?—and how you and I fought over those +wretched floral symbols? You don't? And it was only a week ago? . . +. And listen! Down at Silverside I've been reading the most +delicious thing—the Mimes of Herodas!—oh, so charmingly +quaint, so perfectly human, that it seems impossible that they were +written two thousand years ago. There's a maid, in one scene, +Threissa, who is precisely like anybody's maid—and an old +lady, Gyllis—perfectly human, and not Greek, but Yankee of +to-day! Shall we reread it together?—when you come down to +stay with us at Silverside?"</p> +<p>"Indeed we shall," he said, smiling; "which also reminds +me—"</p> +<p>He drew from his breast-pocket a thin, flat box, turned it round +and round, glanced at her, balancing it teasingly in the palm of +his hand.</p> +<p>"Is it for me? Really? Oh, please don't be provoking! Is it +<i>really</i> for me? Then give it to me this instant!"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href= +"images/facing_page240.jpg"><img src="images/facing_page240.jpg" +width="80%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"Turning, looked straight at Selwyn."</b> +<br /></div> +<p>He dropped the box into the pink hollow of her supplicating +palms. For a moment she was very busy with the tissue-paper; +then:</p> +<p>"Oh! it is perfectly sweet of you!" turning the small book bound +in heavy Etruscan gold; "whatever can it be?" and, rising, she +opened it, stepping to the window so that she could see.</p> +<p>Within, the pages were closely covered with the minute, careful +handwriting of her father; it was the first note-book he ever kept; +and Selwyn had had it bound for her in gold.</p> +<p>For an instant she gazed, breathless, lips parted; then slowly +she placed the yellowed pages against her lips and, turning, looked +straight at Selwyn, the splendour of her young eyes starred with +tears.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>ERRANDS AND LETTERS</h3> +<p>Alixe Ruthven had not yet dared tell Selwyn that her visit to +his rooms was known to her husband. Sooner or later she meant to +tell him; it was only fair to him that he should be prepared for +anything that might happen; but as yet, though her first instinct, +born of sheer fright, urged her to seek instant council with +Selwyn, fear of him was greater than the alarm caused her by her +husband's knowledge.</p> +<p>She was now afraid of her husband's malice, afraid of Selwyn's +opinion, afraid of herself most of all, for she understood herself +well enough to realise that, if conditions became intolerable, the +first and easiest course out of it would be the course she'd +take—wherever it led, whatever it cost, or whoever was +involved.</p> +<p>In addition to her dread and excitement, she was deeply +chagrined and unhappy; and, although Jack Ruthven did not again +refer to the matter—indeed appeared to have forgotten +it—her alarm and humiliation remained complete, for Gerald +now came and played and went as he chose; and in her disconcerted +cowardice she dared not do more than plead with Gerald in secret, +until she began to find the emotion consequent upon such intimacy +unwise for them both.</p> +<p>Neergard, too, was becoming a familiar figure in her +drawing-room; and, though at first she detested him, his patience +and unfailing good spirits, and his unconcealed admiration for her +softened her manner toward him to the point of toleration.</p> +<p>And Neergard, from his equivocal footing in the house of +Ruthven, obtained another no less precarious in the house of +Fane—all in the beginning on a purely gaming basis. However, +Gerald had already proposed him for the Stuyvesant and Proscenium +clubs; and, furthermore, a stormy discussion was now in progress +among the members of the famous Siowitha over an amazing +proposition from their treasurer, Jack Ruthven.</p> +<p>This proposal was nothing less than to admit Neergard to +membership in that wealthy and exclusive country club, as a choice +of the lesser evil; for it appeared, according to Ruthven, that +Neergard, if admitted, was willing to restore to the club, free of +rent, the thousands of acres vitally necessary to the club's +existence as a game preserve, merely retaining the title to these +lands for himself.</p> +<p>Draymore was incensed at the proposal, Harmon, Orchil, and Fane +were disgustedly non-committal, but Phoenix Mottly was perhaps the +angriest man on Long Island.</p> +<p>"In the name of decency, Jack," he said, "what are you dreaming +of? Is it not enough that this man, Neergard, holds us up once? Do +I understand that he has the impudence to do it again with your +connivance? Are you going to let him sandbag us into electing him? +Is that the sort of hold-up you stand for? Well, then, I tell you +I'll never vote for him. I'd rather see these lakes and streams of +ours dry up; I'd rather see the last pheasant snared and the last +covey leave for the other end of the island, than buy off that +Dutchman with a certificate of membership in the Siowitha!"</p> +<p>"In that case," retorted Ruthven, "we'd better wind up our +affairs and make arrangements for an auctioneer."</p> +<p>"All right; wind up and be damned!" said Mottly; "there'll be at +least sufficient self-respect left in the treasury to go +round."</p> +<p>Which was all very fine, and Mottly meant it at the time; but, +outside of the asset of self-respect, there was too much money +invested in the lands, plant, and buildings, in the streams, lakes, +hatcheries, and forests of the Siowitha. The enormously wealthy +seldom stand long upon dignity if that dignity is going to be very +expensive. Only the poor can afford disastrous self-respect.</p> +<p>So the chances were that Neergard would become a +member—which was why he had acquired the tract—and the +price he would have to pay was not only in taxes upon the acreage, +but, secretly, a solid sum in addition to little Mr. Ruthven whom +he was binding to him by every tie he could pay for.</p> +<p>Neergard did not regret the expense. He had long since +discounted the cost; and he also continued to lose money at the +card-table to those who could do him the most good.</p> +<p>Away somewhere in the back of his round, squat, busy head he had +an inkling that some day he would even matters with some people. +Meanwhile he was patient, good-humoured, amusing when given a +chance, and, as the few people he knew found out, inventive and +resourceful in suggesting new methods of time-killing to any +wealthy and fashionable victim of a vacant mind.</p> +<p>And as this faculty has always been the real key to the inner +Temple of the Ten Thousand Disenchantments, the entrance of Mr. +Neergard appeared to be only a matter of time and opportunity, and +his ultimate welcome at the naked altar a conclusion foregone.</p> +<p>In the interim, however, he suffered Gerald and little Ruthven +to pilot him; he remained cheerfully oblivious to the snubs and +indifference accorded him by Mrs. Ruthven, Mrs. Fane, and others of +their entourage whom he encountered over the card-tables or at +card-suppers. And all the while he was attending to his business +with an energy and activity that ought to have shamed Gerald, and +did, at times, particularly when he arrived at the office utterly +unfit for the work before him.</p> +<p>But Neergard continued astonishingly tolerant and kind, lending +him money, advancing him what he required, taking up or renewing +notes for him, until the boy, heavily in his debt, plunged more +heavily still in sheer desperation, only to flounder the deeper at +every struggle to extricate himself.</p> +<p>Alixe Ruthven suspected something of this, but it was useless as +well as perilous in other ways for her to argue with Gerald, for +the boy had come to a point where even his devotion to her could +not stop him. He <i>must</i> go on. He did not say so to Alixe; he +merely laughed, assuring her that he was all right; that he knew +how much he could afford to lose, and that he would stop when his +limit was in sight. Alas, he had passed his limit long since; and +already it was so far behind him that he dared not look +back—dared no longer even look forward.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the Ruthvens were living almost lavishly, and keeping +four more horses; but Eileen Erroll's bank balance had now dwindled +to three figures; and Gerald had not only acted offensively toward +Selwyn, but had quarrelled so violently with Austin that the +latter, thoroughly incensed and disgusted, threatened to forbid him +the house.</p> +<p>"The little fool!" he said to Selwyn, "came here last night, +stinking of wine, and attempted to lay down the law to +me!—tried to dragoon me into a compromise with him over the +investments I have made for him. By God, Phil, he shall not control +one cent until the trust conditions are fulfilled, though it was +left to my discretion, too. And I told him so flatly; I told him he +wasn't fit to be trusted with the coupons of a repudiated South +American bond—"</p> +<p>"Hold on, Austin. That isn't the way to tackle a boy like +that!"</p> +<p>"Isn't it? Well, why not? Do you expect me to dicker with +him?"</p> +<p>"No; but, Austin, you've always been a little brusque with him. +Don't you think—"</p> +<p>"No, I don't. It's discipline he needs, and he'll get it good +and plenty every time he comes here."</p> +<p>"I—I'm afraid he may cease coming here. That's the worst +of it. For his sister's sake I think we ought to try to put up +with—"</p> +<p>"Put up! Put up! I've been doing nothing else since he came of +age. He's turned out a fool of a puppy, I tell you; he's idle, +lazy, dissipated, impudent, conceited, insufferable—"</p> +<p>"But not vicious, Austin, and not untruthful. Where his +affections are centred he is always generous; where they should be +centred he is merely thoughtless, not deliberately +selfish—"</p> +<p>"See here, Phil, how much good has your molly-coddling done him? +You warned him to be cautious in his intimacy with Neergard, and he +was actually insulting to you—"</p> +<p>"I know; but I understood. He probably had some vague idea of +loyalty to a man whom he had known longer than he knew me. That was +all; that was what I feared, too. But it had to be done—I was +determined to venture it; and it seems I accomplished nothing. But +don't think that Gerald's attitude toward me makes any difference, +Austin. It doesn't; I'm just as devoted to the boy, just as sorry +for him, just as ready to step in when the chance comes, as it +surely will, Austin. He's only running a bit wilder than the usual +colt; it takes longer to catch and bridle him—"</p> +<p>"Somebody'll rope him pretty roughly before you run him down," +said Gerard.</p> +<p>"I hope not. Of course it's a chance he takes, and we can't help +it; but I'm trying to believe he'll tire out in time and come back +to us for his salt. And, Austin, we've simply got to believe in +him, you know—on Eileen's account."</p> +<p>Austin grew angrier and redder:</p> +<p>"Eileen's account? Do you mean her bank account? It's easy +enough to believe in him if you inspect his sister's bank account. +Believe in him? Oh, certainly I do; I believe he's pup enough to +come sneaking to his sister to pay for all the damfooleries he's +engaged in. . . . And I've positively forbidden her to draw another +check to his order—"</p> +<p>"It's that little bangled whelp, Ruthven," said Selwyn between +his teeth. "I warned Gerald most solemnly of that man, but—" +He shrugged his shoulders and glanced about him at the +linen-covered furniture and bare floors. After a moment he looked +up: "The game there is of course notorious. I—if matters did +not stand as they do"—he flushed painfully—"I'd go +straight to Ruthven and find out whether or not this business could +be stopped."</p> +<p>"Stopped? No, it can't be. How are you going to stop a man from +playing cards in his own house? They all do it—that sort. +Fane's rather notorious himself; they call his house the house of +ill-Fane, you know. If you or I or any of our family were on any +kind of terms with the Ruthvens, they might exclude Gerald to +oblige us. We are not, however; and, anyway, if Gerald means to +make a gambler and a souse of himself at twenty-one, he'll do it. +But it's pretty rough on us."</p> +<p>"It's rougher on him, Austin; and it's roughest on his sister. +Well"—he held out his hand—"good-bye. No, thanks, I +won't stop to see Nina and Eileen; I'm going to try to think up +some way out of this. And—if Gerald comes to you +again—try another tack—just try it. You know, old +fellow, that, between ourselves, you and I are sometimes short of +temper and long of admonition. Let's try reversing the combination +with Gerald."</p> +<p>But Austin only growled from the depths of his linen-shrouded +arm-chair, and Selwyn turned away, wondering what in the world he +could do in a matter already far beyond the jurisdiction of either +Austin or himself.</p> +<p>If Alixe had done her best to keep Gerald away, she appeared to +be quite powerless in the matter; and it was therefore useless to +go to her. Besides, he had every inclination to avoid her. He had +learned his lesson.</p> +<p>To whom then could he go? Through whom could he reach Gerald? +Through Nina? Useless. And Gerald had already defied Austin. +Through Neergard, then? But he was on no terms with Neergard; how +could he go to him? Through Rosamund Fane? At the thought he made a +wry face. Any advances from him she would wilfully misinterpret. +And Ruthven? How on earth could he bring himself to approach +him?</p> +<p>And the problem therefore remained as it was; the only chance of +any solution apparently depending upon these friends of Gerald's, +not one of whom was a friend of Selwyn; indeed some among them were +indifferent to the verge of open enmity.</p> +<p>And yet he had promised Eileen to do what he could. What merit +lay in performing an easy obligation? What courage was required to +keep a promise easily kept? If he cared anything for her—if +he really cared for Gerald, he owed them more than effortless +fulfilment. And here there could be no fulfilment without effort, +without the discarding from self of the last rags of pride. And +even then, what hope was there—after the sacrifice of self +and the disregard of almost certain humiliation?</p> +<p>It was horribly hard for him; there seemed to be no chance in +sight. But forlorn hope was slowly rousing the soldier in +him—the grim, dogged, desperate necessity of doing his duty +to the full and of leaving consequences to that Destiny, which some +call by a name more reverent.</p> +<p>So first of all, when at length he had decided, he nerved +himself to strike straight at the centre; and within the hour he +found Gerald at the Stuyvesant Club.</p> +<p>The boy descended to the visitors' rooms, Selwyn's card in his +hand and distrust written on every feature. And at Selwyn's first +frank and friendly words he reddened to the temples and checked +him.</p> +<p>"I won't listen," he said. "They—Austin and—and +everybody have been putting you up to this until I'm tired of it. +Do they think I'm a baby? Do they suppose I don't know enough to +take care of myself? Are they trying to make me ridiculous? I tell +you they'd better let me alone. My friends are my friends, and I +won't listen to any criticism of them, and that settles it."</p> +<p>"Gerald—"</p> +<p>"Oh, I know perfectly well that you dislike Neergard. I don't, +and that's the difference."</p> +<p>"I'm not speaking of Mr. Neergard, Gerald; I'm only trying to +tell you what this man Ruthven really is doing—"</p> +<p>"What do I care what he is doing!" cried Gerald angrily. "And, +anyway, it isn't likely I'd come to you to find out anything about +Mrs. Ruthven's second husband!"</p> +<p>Selwyn rose, very white and still. After a moment he drew a +quiet breath, his clinched hands relaxed, and he picked up his hat +and gloves.</p> +<p>"They are my friends," muttered Gerald, as pale as he. "You +drove me into speaking that way."</p> +<p>"Perhaps I did, my boy. . . . I don't judge you. . . . If you +ever find you need help, come to me; and if you can't come, and +still need me, send for me. I'll do what I can—always. I know +you better than you know yourself. Good-bye."</p> +<p>He turned to the door; and Gerald burst out: "Why can't you let +my friends alone? I liked you before you began this sort of +thing!"</p> +<p>"I will let them alone if you will," said Selwyn, halting. "I +can't stand by and see you exploited and used and perverted. Will +you give me one chance to talk it over, Gerald?"</p> +<p>"No, I wont!" returned Gerald hotly; "I'll stand for my friends +every time! There's no treachery in me!"</p> +<p>"You are not standing by me very fast," said the elder man +gently.</p> +<p>"I said I was standing by my <i>friends</i>!" repeated the +boy.</p> +<p>"Very well, Gerald; but it's at the expense of your own people, +I'm afraid."</p> +<p>"That's my business, and you're not one of 'em!" retorted the +boy, infuriated; "and you won't be, either, if I can prevent it, no +matter whether people say that you're engaged to her—"</p> +<p>"What!" whispered Selwyn, wheeling like a flash. The last +vestige of colour had fled from his face; and Gerald caught his +breath, almost blinded by the blaze of fury in the elder man's +eyes.</p> +<p>Neither spoke again; and after a moment Selwyn's eyes fell, he +turned heavily on his heel and walked away, head bent, gray eyes +narrowing to slits.</p> +<p>Yet, through the brain's chaos and the heart's loud tumult and +the clamour of pulses run wild at the insult flung into his very +face, the grim instinct to go on persisted. And he went on, and on, +for <i>her</i> sake—on—he knew not how—until he +came to Neergard's apartment in one of the vast West-Side +constructions, bearing the name of a sovereign state; and here, +after an interval, he followed his card to Neergard's splendid +suite, where a man-servant received him and left him seated by a +sunny window overlooking the blossoming foliage of the Park.</p> +<p>When Neergard came in, and stood on the farther side of a big +oak table, Selwyn rose, returning the cool, curt nod.</p> +<p>"Mr. Neergard," he said, "it is not easy for me to come here +after what I said to you when I severed my connection with your +firm. You have every reason to be unfriendly toward me; but I came +on the chance that whatever resentment you may feel will not +prevent you from hearing me out."</p> +<p>"Personal resentment," said Neergard slowly, "never interferes +with my business. I take it, of course, that you have called upon a +business matter. Will you sit down?"</p> +<p>"Thank you; I have only a moment. And what I am here for is to +ask you, as Mr. Erroll's friend, to use your influence on Mr. +Erroll—every atom of your influence—to prevent him from +ruining himself financially through his excesses. I ask you, for +his family's sake, to discountenance any more gambling; to hold him +strictly to his duties in your office, to overlook no more +shortcomings of his, but to demand from him what any trained +business man demands of his associates as well as of his employees. +I ask this for the boy's sake."</p> +<p>Neergard's close-set eyes focussed a trifle closer to Selwyn's, +yet did not meet them.</p> +<p>"Mr. Selwyn," he said, "have you come here to criticise the +conduct of my business?"</p> +<p>"Criticise! No, I have not. I merely ask you—"</p> +<p>"You are merely asking me," cut in Neergard, "to run my office, +my clerks, and my associate in business after some theory of your +own."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked at the man and knew he had lost; yet he forced +himself to go on:</p> +<p>"The boy regards you as his friend. Could you not, as his +friend, discourage his increasing tendency toward +dissipation—"</p> +<p>"I am not aware that he is dissipated."</p> +<p>"What!"</p> +<p>"I say that I am not aware that Gerald requires any interference +from me—or from you, either," said Neergard coolly. "And as +far as that goes, I and my business require no interference either. +And I believe that settles it."</p> +<p>He touched a button; the man-servant appeared to usher Selwyn +out.</p> +<p>The latter set his teeth in his under lip and looked straight +and hard at Neergard, but Neergard thrust both hands in his +pockets, turned squarely on his heel, and sauntered out of the +room, yawning as he went.</p> +<p>It bid fair to become a hard day for Selwyn; he foresaw it, for +there was more for him to do, and the day was far from ended, and +his self-restraint was nearly exhausted!</p> +<p>An hour later he sent his card in to Rosamund Fane; and Rosamund +came down, presently, mystified, flattered, yet shrewdly alert and +prepared for anything since the miracle of his coming justified +such preparation.</p> +<p>"Why in the world," she said with a flushed gaiety perfectly +genuine, "did you ever come to see <i>me</i>? Will you please sit +here, rather near me?—or I shall not dare believe that you +are that same Captain Selwyn who once was so deliciously rude to me +at the Minster's dance."</p> +<p>"Was there not a little malice—just a very little—on +your part to begin it?" he asked, smiling.</p> +<p>"Malice? Why? Just because I wanted to see how you and Alixe +Ruthven would behave when thrust into each other's arms? Oh, +Captain Selwyn—what a harmless little jest of mine to evoke +all that bitterness you so smilingly poured out on me! . . . But I +forgave you; I'll forgive you more than that—if you ask me. +Do you know"—and she laid her small head on one side and +smiled at him out of her pretty doll's eyes—"do you know that +there are very few things I might not be persuaded to pardon you? +Perhaps"—with laughing audacity—"there are not any at +all. Try, if you please."</p> +<p>"Then you surely will forgive me for what I have come to ask +you," he said lightly. "Won't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," she said, her pink-and-white prettiness challenging him +from every delicate feature—"yes—I will pardon +you—on one condition."</p> +<p>"And what is that, Mrs. Fane?"</p> +<p>"That you are going to ask me something quite unpardonable!" she +said with a daring little laugh. "For if it's anything less +improper than an impropriety I won't forgive you. Besides, there'd +be nothing to forgive. So please begin, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"It's only this," he said: "I am wondering whether you would do +anything for me?"</p> +<p>"<i>Any</i>thing! <i>Merci</i>! Isn't that extremely general, +Captain Selwyn? But you never can tell; ask me."</p> +<p>So he bent forward, his clasped hands between his knees, and +told her very earnestly of his fears about Gerald, asking her to +use her undoubted influence with the boy to shame him from the +card-tables, explaining how utterly disastrous to him and his +family his present course was.</p> +<p>"He is very fond of you, Mrs. Fane—and you know how easy +it is for a boy to be laughed out of excesses by a pretty woman of +experience. You see I am desperately put to it or I would never +have ventured to trouble you—"</p> +<p>"I see," she said, looking at him out of eyes bright with +disappointment.</p> +<p>"Could you help us, then?" he asked pleasantly.</p> +<p>"Help <i>us</i>, Captain Selwyn? Who is the 'us,' please?"</p> +<p>"Why, Gerald and me—and his family," he added, meeting her +eyes. The eyes began to dance with malice.</p> +<p>"His family," repeated Rosamund; "that is to say, his sister, +Miss Erroll. His family, I believe, ends there; does it not?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Fane."</p> +<p>"I see. . . . Miss Erroll is naturally worried over him. But I +wonder why she did not come to me herself instead of sending you as +her errant ambassador?"</p> +<p>"Miss Erroll did not send me," he said, flushing up. And, +looking steadily into the smiling doll's face confronting him, he +knew again that he had failed.</p> +<p>"I am not inclined to be very much flattered after all," said +Rosamund. "You should have come on your own errand, Captain Selwyn, +if you expected a woman to listen to you. Did you not know +that?"</p> +<p>"It is not a question of errands or of flattery," he said +wearily; "I thought you might care to influence a boy who is headed +for serious trouble—that is all, Mrs. Fane."</p> +<p>She smiled: "Come to me on your <i>own</i> errand—for +Gerald's sake, for anybody's sake—for your own, preferably, +and I'll listen. But don't come to me on another woman's errands, +for I won't listen—even to you."</p> +<p>"I <i>have</i> come on my own errand!" he repeated coldly. "Miss +Erroll knew nothing about it, and shall not hear of it from me. Can +you not help me, Mrs. Fane?"</p> +<p>But Rosamund's rose-china features had hardened into a polished +smile; and Selwyn stood up, wearily, to make his adieux.</p> +<p>But, as he entered his hansom before the door, he knew the end +was not yet; and once more he set his face toward the impossible; +and once more the hansom rolled away over the asphalt, and once +more it stopped—this time before the house of Ruthven.</p> +<p>Every step he took now was taken through sheer force of +will—and in <i>her</i> service; because, had it been, now, +only for Gerald's sake, he knew he must have weakened—and +properly, perhaps, for a man owes something to himself. But what he +was now doing was for a young girl who trusted him with all the +fervour and faith of her heart and soul; and he could spare himself +in nowise if, in his turn, he responded heart and soul to the +solemn appeal.</p> +<p>Mr. Ruthven, it appeared, was at home and would receive Captain +Selwyn in his own apartment.</p> +<p>Which he did—after Selwyn had been seated for twenty +minutes—strolling in clad only in silken lounging clothes, +and belting about his waist, as he entered, the sash of a kimona, +stiff with gold.</p> +<p>His greeting was a pallid stare; but, as Selwyn made no motion +to rise, he lounged over to a couch and, half reclining among the +cushions, shot an insolent glance at Selwyn, then yawned and +examined the bangles on his wrist.</p> +<p>After a moment Selwyn said: "Mr. Ruthven, you are no doubt +surprised that I am here—"</p> +<p>"I'm not surprised if it's my wife you've come to see," drawled +Ruthven. "If I'm the object of your visit, I confess to some +surprise—as much as the visit is worth, and no more."</p> +<p>The vulgarity of the insult under the man's own roof scarcely +moved Selwyn to any deeper contempt, and certainly not to +anger.</p> +<p>"I did not come here to ask a favour of you," he said +coolly—"for that is out of the question, Mr. Ruthven. But I +came to tell you that Mr. Erroll's family has forbidden him to +continue his gambling in this house and in your company anywhere or +at any time."</p> +<p>"Most extraordinary," murmured Ruthven, passing his ringed +fingers over his minutely shaven face—that strange face of a +boy hardened by the depravity of ages.</p> +<p>"So I must request you," continued Selwyn, "to refuse him the +opportunity of gambling here. Will you do +it—voluntarily?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Then I shall use my judgment in the matter."</p> +<p>"And what may your judgment in the matter be?"</p> +<p>"I have not yet decided; for one thing I might enter a complaint +with the police that a boy is being morally and materially ruined +in your private gambling establishment."</p> +<p>"Is that a threat?"</p> +<p>"No. I will act, not threaten."</p> +<p>"Ah," drawled Ruthven, "I may do the same the next time my wife +spends the evening in your apartment."</p> +<p>"You lie," said Selwyn in a voice made low by surprise.</p> +<p>"Oh, no, I don't. Very chivalrous of you—quite proper for +you to deny it like a gentleman—but useless, quite useless. +So the less said about invoking the law, the better for—some +people. You'll agree with me, I dare say. . . . And now, concerning +your friend, Gerald Erroll—I have not the slightest desire to +see him play cards. Whether or not he plays is a matter perfectly +indifferent to me, and you had better understand it. But if you +come here demanding that I arrange my guest-lists to suit you, you +are losing time."</p> +<p>Selwyn, almost stunned at Ruthven's knowledge of the episode in +his rooms, had risen as he gave the man the lie direct.</p> +<p>For an instant, now, as he stared at him, there was murder in +his eye. Then the utter hopeless helplessness of his position +overwhelmed him, as Ruthven, with danger written all over him, +stood up, his soft smooth thumbs hooked in the glittering sash of +his kimona.</p> +<p>"Scowl if you like," he said, backing away instinctively, but +still nervously impertinent; "and keep your distance! If you've +anything further to say to me, write it." Then, growing bolder as +Selwyn made no offensive move, "Write to me," he repeated with a +venomous smirk; "it's safer for you to figure as <i>my</i> +correspondent than as my wife's co-respondent—L-let go of me! +W-what the devil are you d-d-doing—"</p> +<p>For Selwyn had him fast—one sinewy hand twisted in his +silken collar, holding him squirming at arm's length.</p> +<p>"M-murder!" stammered Mr. Ruthven.</p> +<p>"No," said Selwyn, "not this time. But be very, very careful +after this."</p> +<p>And he let him go with an involuntary shudder, and wiped his +hands on his handkerchief.</p> +<p>Ruthven stood quite still; and after a moment the livid terror +died out in his face and a rushing flush spread over it—a +strange, dreadful shade, curiously opaque; and he half turned, +dizzily, hands outstretched for self-support.</p> +<p>Selwyn coolly watched him as he sank on to the couch and sat +huddled together and leaning forward, his soft, ringed fingers +covering his impurpled face.</p> +<p>Then Selwyn went away with a shrug of utter loathing; but after +he had gone, and Ruthven's servants had discovered him and summoned +a physician, their master lay heavily amid his painted draperies +and cushions, his congested features set, his eyes partly open and +possessing sight, but the whites of them had disappeared and the +eyes themselves, save for the pupils, were like two dark slits +filled with blood.</p> +<p>There was no doubt about it; the doctors, one and all, knew +their business when they had so often cautioned Mr. Ruthven to +avoid sudden and excessive emotions.</p> +<p>That night Selwyn wrote briefly to Mrs. Ruthven:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"I saw your husband this afternoon. He is at liberty to inform +you of what passed. But in case he does not, there is one detail +which you ought to know: your husband believes that you once paid a +visit to my apartments. It is unlikely that he will repeat the +accusation and I think there is no occasion for you to worry. +However, it is only proper that you should know this—which is +my only excuse for writing you a letter that requires no +acknowledgment. Very truly yours,</p> +<p>"PHILIP SELWYN."</p> +</div> +<p>To this letter she wrote an excited and somewhat incoherent +reply; and rereading it in troubled surprise, he began to recognise +in it something of the strange, illogical, impulsive attitude which +had confronted him in the first weeks of his wedded life.</p> +<p>Here was the same minor undertone of unrest sounding ominously +through every line; the same illogical, unhappy attitude which +implied so much and said so little, leaving him uneasy and +disconcerted, conscious of the vague recklessness and veiled +reproach—dragging him back from the present through the dead +years to confront once more the old pain, the old bewilderment at +the hopeless misunderstanding between them.</p> +<p>He wrote in answer:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"For the first time in my life I am going to write you some +unpleasant truths. I cannot comprehend what you have written; I +cannot interpret what you evidently imagine I must divine in these +pages—yet, as I read, striving to understand, all the old +familiar pain returns—the hopeless attempt to realise wherein +I failed in what you expected of me.</p> +<p>"But how can I, now, be held responsible for your unhappiness +and unrest—for the malicious attitude, as you call it, of the +world toward you? Years ago you felt that there existed some occult +coalition against you, and that I was either privy to it or +indifferent. I was not indifferent, but I did not believe there +existed any reason for your suspicions. This was the beginning of +my failure to understand you; I was sensible enough that we were +unhappy, yet could not see any reason for it—could see no +reason for the increasing restlessness and discontent which came +over you like successive waves following some brief happy interval +when your gaiety and beauty and wit fairly dazzled me and everybody +who came near you. And then, always hateful and irresistible, +followed the days of depression, of incomprehensible impulses, of +that strange unreasoning resentment toward me.</p> +<p>"What could I do? I don't for a moment say that there was +nothing I might have done. Certainly there must have been +something; but I did not know what. And often in my confusion and +bewilderment I was quick-tempered, impatient to the point of +exasperation—so utterly unable was I to understand wherein I +was failing to make you contented.</p> +<p>"Of course I could not shirk or avoid field duty or any of the +details which so constantly took me away from you. Also I began to +understand your impatience of garrison life, of the monotony of the +place, of the climate, of the people. But all this, which I could +not help, did not account for those dreadful days together when I +could see that every minute was widening the breach between us.</p> +<p>"Alixe—your letter has brought it all back, vivid, +distressing, exasperating; and this time I <i>know</i> that I could +have done nothing to render you unhappy, because the time when I +was responsible for such matters is past.</p> +<p>"And this—forgive me if I say it—arouses a doubt in +me—the first honest doubt I have had of my own unshared +culpability. Perhaps after all a little more was due from you than +what you brought to our partnership—a little more patience, a +little more appreciation of my own inexperience and of my efforts +to make you happy. You were, perhaps, unwittingly +exacting—even a little bit selfish. And those sudden, +impulsive caprices for a change of environment—an escape from +the familiar—were they not rather hard on me who could do +nothing—who had no choice in the matter of obedience to my +superiors?</p> +<p>"Again and again I asked you to go to some decent climate and +wait for me until I could get leave. I stood ready and willing to +make any arrangement for you, and you made no decision.</p> +<p>"Then when Barnard's command moved out we had our last +distressing interview. And, if that night I spoke of your present +husband and asked you to be a little wiser and use a little more +discretion to avoid malicious comment—it was not because I +dreamed of distrusting you—it was merely for your own +guidance and because you had so often complained of other people's +gossip about you.</p> +<p>"To say I was stunned, crushed, when I learned of what had +happened in my absence, is to repeat a trite phrase. What it cost +me is of no consequence now; what it is now costing you I cannot +help.</p> +<p>"Yet, your letter, in every line, seems to imply some strange +responsibility on my part for what you speak of as the degrading +position you now occupy.</p> +<p>"Degradation or not—let us leave that aside; you cannot +now avoid being his wife. But as for any hostile attitude of +society in your regard—any league or coalition to discredit +you—that is not apparent to me. Nor can it occur if your +personal attitude toward the world is correct. Discretion and +circumspection, a happy, confident confronting of life—these, +and a wise recognition of conditions, constitute sufficient +safeguard for a woman in your delicately balanced position.</p> +<p>"And now, one thing more. You ask me to meet you at Sherry's for +a conference. I don't care to, Alixe. There is nothing to be said +except what can be written on letter-paper. And I can see neither +the necessity nor the wisdom of our writing any more letters."</p> +</div> +<p>For a few days no reply came; then he received such a strange, +unhappy, and desperate letter, that, astonished, alarmed, and +apprehensive, he went straight to his sister, who had run up to +town for the day from Silverside, and who had telephoned him to +take her somewhere for luncheon.</p> +<p>Nina appeared very gay and happy and youthful in her spring +plumage, but she exclaimed impatiently at his tired and careworn +pallor; and when a little later they were seated +tête-à-tête in the rococo dining-room of a +popular French restaurant, she began to urge him to return with +her, insisting that a week-end at Silverside was what he needed to +avert physical disintegration.</p> +<p>"What is there to keep you in town?" she demanded, breaking bits +from the stick of crisp bread. "The children have been clamouring +for you day and night, and Eileen has been expecting a +letter—You promised to write her, Phil—!"</p> +<p>"I'm going to write to her," he said impatiently; "wait a +moment, Nina—don't speak of anything pleasant or—or +intimate just now—because—because I've got to bring up +another matter—something not very pleasant to me or to you. +May I begin?"</p> +<p>"What is it, Phil?" she asked, her quick, curious eyes intent on +his troubled face.</p> +<p>"It is about—Alixe."</p> +<p>"What about her?" returned his sister calmly.</p> +<p>"You knew her in school—years ago. You have always known +her—"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"You—did you ever visit her?—stay at the Varians' +house?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"In—in her own home in Westchester?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>There was a silence; his eyes shifted to his plate; remained +fixed as he said:</p> +<p>"Then you knew her—father?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Phil," she said quietly, "I knew Mr. Varian."</p> +<p>"Was there anything—anything unusual—about +him—in those days?"</p> +<p>"Have you heard that for the first time?" asked his sister.</p> +<p>He looked up: "Yes. What was it, Nina?"</p> +<p>She became busy with her plate for a while; he sat rigid, +patient, one hand resting on his claret-glass. And presently she +said without meeting his eyes:</p> +<p>"It was even farther back—her grandparents—one of +them—" She lifted her head slowly—"That is why it so +deeply concerned us, Phil, when we heard of your marriage."</p> +<p>"What concerned you?"</p> +<p>"The chance of inheritance—the risk of the taint—of +transmitting it. Her father's erratic brilliancy became more than +eccentricity before I knew him. I would have told you that had I +dreamed that you ever could have thought of marrying Alixe Varian. +But how could I know you would meet her out there in the Orient! It +was—your cable to us was like a thunderbolt. . . . And when +she—she left you so suddenly—Phil, dear—I +<i>feared</i> the true reason—the only possible reason that +could be responsible for such an insane act."</p> +<p>"What was the truth about her father?" he said doggedly. "He was +eccentric; was he ever worse than that?"</p> +<p>"The truth was that he became mentally irresponsible before his +death."</p> +<p>"You <i>know</i> this?"</p> +<p>"Alixe told me when we were schoolgirls. And for days she was +haunted with the fear of what might one day be her inheritance. +That is all I know, Phil."</p> +<p>He nodded and for a while made some pretence of eating, but +presently leaned back and looked at his sister out of dazed +eyes.</p> +<p>"Do you suppose," he said heavily, "that <i>she</i> was not +entirely responsible when—when she went away?"</p> +<p>"I have wondered," said Nina simply. "Austin believes it."</p> +<p>"But—but—how in God's name could that be possible? +She was so brilliant—so witty, so charmingly and capriciously +normal—"</p> +<p>"Her father was brilliant and popular—when he was young. +Austin knew him, Phil. I have often, often wondered whether Alixe +realises what she is about. Her restless impulses, her intervals of +curious resentment—so many things which I remember and which, +now, I cannot believe were entirely normal. . . . It is a dreadful +surmise to make about anybody so youthful, so pretty, so +lovable—and yet, it is the kindest way to account for her +strange treatment of you—"</p> +<p>"I can't believe it," he said, staring at vacancy. "I refuse +to." And, thinking of her last frightened and excited letter +imploring an interview with him and giving the startling reason: +"What a scoundrel that fellow Ruthven is," he said with a +shudder.</p> +<p>"Why, what has he—"</p> +<p>"Nothing. I can't discuss it, Nina—"</p> +<p>"Please tell me, Phil!"</p> +<p>"There is nothing to tell."</p> +<p>She said deliberately: "I hope there is not, Phil. Nor do I +credit any mischievous gossip which ventures to link my brother's +name with the name of Mrs. Ruthven."</p> +<p>He paid no heed to what she hinted, and he was still thinking of +Ruthven when he said: "The most contemptible and cowardly thing a +man can do is to fail a person dependent on him—when that +person is in prospective danger. The dependence, the threatened +helplessness <i>must</i> appeal to any man! How can he, then, fail +to stand by a person in trouble—a person linked to him by +every tie, every obligation. Why—why to fail at such a time +is dastardly—and to—to make a possible threatened +infirmity a reason for abandoning a woman is monstrous—!"</p> +<p>"Phil! I never for a moment supposed that even if you suspected +Alixe to be not perfectly responsible you would have abandoned +her—"</p> +<p>"<i>I?</i> Abandon <i>her!</i>" He laughed bitterly. "I was not +speaking of myself," he said. . . . And to himself he wondered: +"Was it <i>that</i>—after all? Is that the key to my dreadful +inability to understand? I cannot—I cannot accept it. I know +her; it was not that; it—it must not be!"</p> +<p>And that night he wrote to her:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"If he threatens you with divorce on such a ground he himself is +likely to be adjudged mentally unsound. It was a brutal, stupid +threat, nothing more; and his insult to your father's memory was +more brutal still. Don't be stampeded by such threats. Disprove +them by your calm self-control under provocation; disprove them by +your discretion and self-confidence. Give nobody a single possible +reason for gossip. And above all, Alixe, don't become worried and +morbid over anything you might dread as inheritance, for you are as +sound to-day as you were when I first met you; and you shall not +doubt that you could ever be anything else. Be the woman you can +be! Show the pluck and courage to make the very best out of life. I +have slowly learned to attempt it; and it is not difficult if you +convince yourself that it can be done."</p> +</div> +<p>To this she answered the next day:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"I will do my best. There is danger and treachery everywhere; +and if it becomes unendurable I shall put an end to it in one way +or another. As for his threat—incident on my admitting that I +did go to your room, and defying him to dare believe evil of me for +doing it—I can laugh at it now—though, when I wrote +you, I was terrified—remembering how mentally broken my +father was when he died.</p> +<p>"But, as you say, I <i>am</i> sound, body and mind. I +<i>know</i> it; I don't doubt it for one +moment—except—at long intervals when, apropos of +nothing, a faint sensation of dread comes creeping.</p> +<p>"But I am <i>sound</i>! I know it so absolutely that I sometimes +wonder at my own perfect sanity and understanding; and so clearly, +so faultlessly, so precisely does my mind work that—and this +I never told you—I am often and often able to detect mental +inadequacy in many people around me—the slightest deviation +from the normal, the least degree of mental instability. Phil, so +sensitive to extraneous impression is my mind that you would be +astonished to know how instantly perceptible to me is mental +degeneration in other people. And it would amaze you, too, if I +should tell you how many, many people you know are, in some degree, +more or less insane.</p> +<p>"But there is no use in going into such matters; all I meant to +convey to you was that I am not frightened now at any threat of +that sort from him.</p> +<p>"I don't know what passed between you and him; he won't tell me; +but I do know from the servants that he has been quite ill—I +was in Westchester that night—and that something happened to +his eyes—they were dreadful for a while. I imagine it has +something to do with veins and arteries; and it's understood that +he's to avoid sudden excitement.</p> +<p>"However, he's only serenely disagreeable to me now, and we see +almost nothing of one another except over the card-tables. Gerald +has been winning rather heavily, I am glad to say—glad, as +long as I cannot prevent him from playing. And yet I may be able to +accomplish that yet—in a roundabout way—because the +apple-visaged and hawk-beaked Mr. Neergard has apparently become my +slavish creature; quite infatuated. And as soon as I've fastened on +his collar, and made sure that Rosamund can't unhook it, I'll try +to make him shut down on Gerald's playing. This for your sake, +Phil—because you ask me. And because you must always stand +for all that is upright and good and manly in my eyes. Ah, Phil! +what a fool I was! And all, all my own fault, too.</p> +<p>"Alixe."</p> +</div> +<p>This ended the sudden eruption of correspondence; for he did not +reply to this letter, though in it he read enough to make him +gravely uneasy; and he fell, once more, into the habit of brooding, +from which both Boots Lansing and Eileen had almost weaned him.</p> +<p>Also he began to take long solitary walks in the Park when not +occupied in conferences with the representatives of the Lawn +Nitro-Powder Works—a company which had recently approached +him in behalf of his unperfected explosive, Chaosite.</p> +<p>This hermit life might have continued in town indefinitely had +he not, one morning, been surprised by a note from Eileen—the +first he had ever had from her.</p> +<p>It was only a very brief missive—piquant, amusing, +innocently audacious in closing—a mere reminder that he had +promised to write to her; and she ended it by asking him very +plainly whether he had not missed her, in terms so frank, so sweet, +so confident of his inevitable answer, that all the enchantment of +their delightful intimacy surged back in one quick tremor of +happiness, washing from his heart and soul the clinging, sordid, +evil things which were creeping closer, closer to torment and +overwhelm him.</p> +<p>And all that day he went about his business quite happily, her +letter in his pocket; and that night, taking a new pen and pen +holder, he laid out his very best letter-paper, and began the first +letter he had ever written to Eileen Erroll.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"DEAR EILEEN: I have your charming little note from Silverside +reminding me that I had promised to write you. But I needed no +reminder; you know that. Then why have I not written? I couldn't, +off-hand. And every day and evening except to-day and this evening +I have been in conference with Edgerton Lawn and other +representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company; and have come to +a sort of semi-agreement with them concerning a high explosive +called Chaosite, which they desire to control the sale of as soon +as I can control its tendency to misbehave. This I expect to do +this summer; and Austin has very kindly offered me a tiny cottage +out on the moors too far from anybody or anything to worry +people.</p> +<p>"I know you will be glad to hear that I have such attractive +business prospects in view. I dare say I shall scarcely know what +to do with my enormous profits a year or two hence. Have you any +suggestions?</p> +<p>"Meanwhile, however, your letter and its questions await +answers; and here they are:</p> +<p>"Yes, I saw Gerald once at his club and had a short talk with +him. He was apparently well. You should not feel so anxious about +him. He is very young, yet, but he comes from good stock. Sooner or +later he is bound to find himself; you must not doubt that. Also he +knows that he can always come to me when he wishes.</p> +<p>"No, I have not ridden in the Park since you and Nina and the +children went to Silverside. I walked there Sunday, and it was most +beautiful, especially through the Ramble. In his later years my +father was fond of walking there with me. That is one reason I go +there; he seems to be very near me when I stand under the familiar +trees or move along the flowering walks he loved so well. I wish +you had known him. It is curious how often this wish recurs to me; +and so persistent was it in the Park that lovely Sunday that, at +moments, it seemed as though we three were walking there +together—he and you and I—quite happy in the silence of +companionship which seemed not of yesterday but of years.</p> +<p>"It is rather a comforting faculty I have—this unconscious +companionship with the absent. Once I told you that you had been +with me while you supposed yourself to be at Silverside. Do you +remember? Now, here in the city, I walk with you constantly; and we +often keep pace together through crowded streets and avenues; and +in the quiet hours you are very often, seated not far from where I +sit. . . . If I turned around now—so real has been your +presence in my room to-night—that it seems as though I could +not help but surprise you here—just yonder on the edges of +the lamp glow—</p> +<p>"But I know you had rather remain at Silverside, so I won't turn +around and surprise you here in Manhattan town.</p> +<p>"And now your next question: Yes, Boots is well, and I will give +him Drina's love, and I will try my best to bring him to Silverside +when I come. Boots is still crazed with admiration for his house. +He has two cats, a housekeeper, and a jungle of shrubs and vines in +the back yard, which he plays the hose on; and he has also acquired +some really beautiful old rugs—a Herez which has all the +tints of a living sapphire, and a charming antique Shiraz, rose, +gold, and that rare old Persian blue. To mention symbols for a +moment, apropos of our archaeological readings together, Boots has +an antique Asia Minor rug in which I discovered not only the +Swastika, but also a fire-altar, a Rhodian lily border, and a +Mongolian motif which appears to resemble the cloud-band. It was +quite an Anatshair jumble in fact, very characteristic. We must +capture Nina some day and she and you and I will pay a visit to +Boots's rugs and study these old dyes and mystic symbols of the +East. Shall we?</p> +<p>"And now your last question. And I answer: Yes, I do miss +you—so badly that I often take refuge in summoning you in +spirit. The other day I had occasion to see Austin; and we sat in +the library where all the curtains are in linen bags and all the +furniture in overalls, and where the rugs are rolled in tarred +paper and the pictures are muffled in cheese-cloth.</p> +<p>"And after our conference had ended and I was on my way to the +hall below, suddenly on my ear, faint but clear, I heard your +voice, sweet as the odour of blossoms in an empty room. No—it +neither deceived nor startled me; I have often heard it before, +when you were nowhere near. And, that I may answer your question +more completely, I answer it again: Yes, I miss you; so that I hear +your voice through every silence; all voids are gay with it; there +are no lonely places where my steps pass, because you are always +near; no stillness through which your voice does not sound; no +unhappiness, no sordid cares which the memory of you does not make +easier to endure.</p> +<p>"Have I answered? And now, good-night. Gerald has just come in; +I hear him passing through the hall to his own apartments. So I'll +drop in for a smoke with him before I start to search for you in +dreamland. Good-night, Eileen. PHILIP SELWYN."</p> +</div> +<p>When he had finished, sealed, and stamped his letter he leaned +back in his chair, smiling to himself, still under the spell which +the thought of her so often now cast over him. Life and the world +were younger, cleaner, fresher; the charming energy of her physical +vigour and youth and beauty tinted all things with the splendid hue +of inspiration. But most of all it was the exquisite fastidiousness +of her thoughts that had begun to inthral him—that crystal +clear intelligence, so direct, so generous—the splendid +wholesome attitude toward life—and her dauntless faith in the +goodness of it.</p> +<p>Breathing deeply, he drew in the fragrance of her memory, and +the bitterness of things was dulled with every quiet +respiration.</p> +<p>He smiled again, too; how utterly had his sister mistaken their +frank companionship! How stupidly superfluous was it to pretend to +detect, in their comradeship, the commonplaces of +sentiment—as though such a girl as Eileen Erroll were of the +common self-conscious mould—as though in their cordial +understanding there was anything less simple than community of +taste and the mutual attraction of intelligence!</p> +<p>Then, the memory of what his sister had said drove the smile +from his face and he straightened up impatiently. Love! What +unfortunate hallucination had obsessed Nina to divine what did not +exist?—what need not exist? How could a woman like his sister +fall into such obvious error; how could she mistake such +transparent innocence, such visible freedom from motive in this +young girl's pure friendship for himself?</p> +<p>And, as for him, he had never thought of Eileen—he could +not bring himself to think of her so materially or sentimentally. +For, although he now understood that he had never known what love, +might be—its coarser mask, infatuation, he had learned to see +through; and, as that is all he had ever known concerning love, the +very hint of it had astonished and repelled him, as though the mere +suggestion had been a rudeness offered to this delicate and +delicious friendship blossoming into his life—a life he had +lately thought so barren and laid waste.</p> +<p>No, his sister was mistaken; but her mistake must not disturb +the blossoming of this unstained flower. Sufficient that Eileen and +he disdainfully ignore the trite interpretation those outside might +offer them unasked; sufficient that their confidence in one another +remain without motive other than the happiness of unembarrassed +people who find a pleasure in sharing an intelligent curiosity +concerning men and things and the world about them.</p> +<p>Thinking of these matters, lying back there in his desk chair, +he suddenly remembered that Gerald had come in. They had scarcely +seen one another since that unhappy meeting in the Stuyvesant Club; +and now, remembering what he had written to Eileen, he emerged with +a start from his contented dreaming, sobered by the prospect of +seeking Gerald.</p> +<p>For a moment or two he hesitated; but he had said in his letter +that he was going to do it; and now he rose, looked around for his +pipe, found it, filled and lighted it, and, throwing on his +dressing-gown, went out into the corridor, tying the tasselled +cords around his waist as he walked.</p> +<p>His first knock remaining unanswered, he knocked more sharply. +Then he heard from within the muffled creak of a bed, heavy steps +across the floor. The door opened with a jerk; Gerald stood there, +eyes swollen, hair in disorder, his collar crushed, and the white +evening tie unknotted and dangling over his soiled shirt-front.</p> +<p>"Hello," said Selwyn simply; "may I come in?"</p> +<p>The boy passed his hand across his eyes as though confused by +the light; then he turned and walked back toward the bed, still +rubbing his eyes, and sat down on the edge.</p> +<p>Selwyn closed the door and seated himself, apparently not +noticing Gerald's dishevelment.</p> +<p>"Thought I'd drop in for a good-night pipe," he said quietly. +"By the way, Gerald, I'm going down to Silverside next week. Nina +has asked Boots, too. Couldn't you fix it to come along with +us?"</p> +<p>"I don't know," said the boy in a low voice; "I'd like to."</p> +<p>"Good business! That will be fine! What you and I need is a good +stiff tramp across the moors, or a gallop, if you like. It's great +for mental cobwebs, and my brain is disgracefully unswept. By the +way, somebody said that you'd joined the Siowitha Club."</p> +<p>"Yes," said the boy listlessly.</p> +<p>"Well, you'll get some lively trout fishing there now. It's only +thirty miles from Silverside, you know—you can run over in +the motor very easily."</p> +<p>Gerald nodded, sitting silent, his handsome head supported in +both hands, his eyes on the floor.</p> +<p>That something was very wrong with him appeared plainly enough; +but Selwyn, touched to the heart and miserably apprehensive, dared +not question him, unasked.</p> +<p>And so they sat there for a while, Selwyn making what +conversation he could; and at length Gerald turned and dragged +himself across the bed, dropping his head back on the disordered +pillows.</p> +<p>"Go on," he said; "I'm listening."</p> +<p>So Selwyn continued his pleasant, inconsequential observations, +and Gerald lay with closed eyes, quite motionless, until, watching +him, Selwyn saw his hand was trembling where it lay clinched beside +him. And presently the boy turned his face to the wall.</p> +<p>Toward midnight Selwyn rose quietly, removed his unlighted pipe +from between his teeth, knocked the ashes from it, and pocketed it. +Then he walked to the bed and seated himself on the edge.</p> +<p>"What's the trouble, old man?" he asked coolly.</p> +<p>There was no answer. He placed his hand over Gerald's; the boy's +hand lay inert, then quivered and closed on Selwyn's +convulsively.</p> +<p>"That's right," said the elder man; "that's what I'm here +for—to stand by when you hoist signals. Go on."</p> +<p>The boy shook his head and buried it deeper in the pillow.</p> +<p>"Bad as that?" commented Selwyn quietly. "Well, what of it? I'm +standing by, I tell you. . . . That's right"—as Gerald broke +down, his body quivering under the spasm of soundless +grief—"that's the safety-valve working. Good business. Take +your time."</p> +<p>It took a long time; and Selwyn sat silent and motionless, his +whole arm numb from its position and Gerald's crushing grasp. And +at last, seeing that was the moment to speak:</p> +<p>"Now let's fix up this matter, Gerald. Come on!"</p> +<p>"Good heavens! h-how can it be f-fixed—"</p> +<p>"I'll tell you when you tell me. It's a money difficulty, I +suppose; isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Cards?"</p> +<p>"P-partly."</p> +<p>"Oh, a note? Case of honour? Where is this I.O.U. that you +gave?"</p> +<p>"It's worse than that. The—the note is paid. Good +God—I can't tell you—"</p> +<p>"You must. That's why I'm here, Gerald."</p> +<p>"Well, then, I—I drew a check—knowing that I had no +funds. If it—if they return it, marked—"</p> +<p>"I see. . . . What are the figures?"</p> +<p>The boy stammered them out; Selwyn's grave face grew graver +still.</p> +<p>"That is bad," he said slowly—"very bad. Have +you—but of course you couldn't have seen Austin—"</p> +<p>"I'd kill myself first!" said Gerald fiercely.</p> +<p>"No, you wouldn't do that. You're not <i>that</i> kind. . . . +Keep perfectly cool, Gerald; because it is going to be fixed. The +method only remains to be decided upon—"</p> +<p>"I can't take your money!" stammered the boy; "I can't take a +cent from you—after what I've said—the beastly things +I've said—"</p> +<p>"It isn't the things you say to me, Gerald, that matter. . . . +Let me think a bit—and don't worry. Just lie quietly, and +understand that I'll do the worrying. And while I'm amusing myself +with a little quiet reflection as to ways and means, just take your +own bearings from this reef; and set a true course once more, +Gerald. That is all the reproach, all the criticism you are going +to get from me. Deal with yourself and your God in silence."</p> +<p>And in silence and heavy dismay Selwyn confronted the sacrifice +he must make to save the honour of the house of Erroll.</p> +<p>It meant more than temporary inconvenience to himself; it meant +that he must go into the market and sell securities which were +partly his capital, and from which came the modest income that +enabled him to live as he did.</p> +<p>There was no other way, unless he went to Austin. But he dared +not do that—dared not think what Austin's action in the +matter might be. And he knew that if Gerald were ever driven into +hopeless exile with Austin's knowledge of his disgrace rankling, +the boy's utter ruin must result inevitably.</p> +<p>Yet—yet—how could he afford to do +this—unoccupied, earning nothing, bereft of his profession, +with only the chance in view that his Chaosite might turn out +stable enough to be marketable? How could he dare so strip himself? +Yet, there was no other way; it had to be done; and done at +once—the very first thing in the morning before it became too +late.</p> +<p>And at first, in the bitter resentment of the necessity, his +impulse was to turn on Gerald and bind him to good conduct by every +pledge the boy could give. At least there would be compensation. +Yet, with the thought came the clear conviction of its futility. +The boy had brushed too close to dishonour not to recognise it. And +if this were not a lifelong lesson to him, no promises forced from +him in his dire need and distress, no oaths, no pledges could bind +him; no blame, no admonition, no scorn, no contempt, no reproach +could help him to see more clearly the pit of destruction than he +could see now.</p> +<p>"You need sleep, Gerald," he said quietly. "Don't worry; I'll +see that your check is not dishonoured; all you have to see to is +yourself. Good-night, my boy."</p> +<p>But Gerald could not speak; and so Selwyn left him and walked +slowly back to his own room, where he seated himself at his desk, +grave, absent-eyed, his unfilled pipe between his teeth.</p> +<p>And he sat there until he had bitten clean through the amber +mouthpiece, so that the brier bowl fell clattering to the floor. By +that time it was full daylight; but Gerald was still asleep. He +slept late into the afternoon; but that evening, when Selwyn and +Lansing came in to persuade him to go with them to Silverside, +Gerald was gone.</p> +<p>They waited another day for him; he did not appear. And that +night they left for Silverside without him.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<h3>SILVERSIDE</h3> +<p>During that week-end at Silverside Boots behaved like a +school-lad run wild. With Drina's hand in his, half a dozen dogs as +advanced guard, and heavily flanked by the Gerard battalion, he +scoured the moorlands from Surf Point to the Hither Woods; from +Wonder Head to Sky Pond.</p> +<p>Ever hopeful of rabbit and fox, Billy urged on his cheerful +waddling pack and the sea wind rang with the crack of his whip and +the treble note of his whistle. Drina, lately inoculated with the +virus of nature-study, carried a green gauze butterfly net, while +Boots's pockets bulged with various lethal bottles and perforated +tin boxes for the reception of caterpillars. The other children, +like the puppies of Billy's pack, ran haphazard, tireless and eager +little opportunists, eternal prisoners of hope, tripped flat by +creepers, scratched and soiled in thicket and bog, but always up +and forward again, ranging out, nose in the wind, dauntless, +expectant, wonder-eyed.</p> +<p>Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn formed a lagging and leisurely +rear-guard, though always within signalling distance of Boots and +the main body; and, when necessary, the two ex-army men wig-wagged +to each other across the uplands to the endless excitement and +gratification of the children.</p> +<p>It was a perfect week-end; the sky, pale as a robin's egg at +morn and even, deepened to royal blue under the noon-day sun; and +all the world—Long Island—seemed but a gigantic +gold-green boat stemming the running purple of the sea and +Sound.</p> +<p>The air, when still, quivered in that deep, rich silence +instinct with the perpetual monotone of the sea; stiller for the +accentless call of some lone moorland bird, or the gauzy clatter of +a dragon-fly in reedy reaches. But when the moon rose and the +breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat's-paws raced +across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned +the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, +became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour +silvered to a monochrome by the moon.</p> +<p>Then, through the tinted mystery the wild ducks, low flying, +drove like a flight of witches through the dusk; and unseen herons +called from their heronry, fainter, fainter till their goblin yelps +died out in the swelling murmur of a million wind-whipped +leaves.</p> +<p>Then was the moorland waste bewitching in its alternation of +softly checkered gray and shade, where acres of feathery grasses +flowed in wind-blown furrows; where in the purple obscurity of +hollows the strange and aged little forests grew restless and full +of echoes; where shadowy reeds like elfin swords clattered and +thrust and parried across the darkling pools of haunted waters +unstirred save for the swirl of a startled fish or the smoothly +spreading wake of some furry creature swimming without a sound.</p> +<p>Into this magic borderland, dimmer for moonlit glimpses in +ghostly contrast to the shadow shape of wood and glade, Eileen +conducted Selwyn; and they heard the whirr of painted wood-ducks +passing in obscurity, and the hymn of the four winds off Wonder +Head; and they heard the herons, noisy in their heronry, and a +young fox yapping on a moon-struck dune.</p> +<p>But Selwyn cared more for the sun and the infinite blue above, +and the vast cloud-forms piled up in argent splendour behind a sea +of amethyst.</p> +<p>"The darker, vaguer phases of beauty," he said to Eileen, +smiling, "attract and fascinate those young in experience. Tragedy +is always better appreciated and better rendered by those who have +never lived it. The anatomy of sadness, the subtler fascination of +life brooding in shadow, appeals most keenly to those who can study +and reflect, then dismiss it all and return again to the brightness +of existence which has not yet for them been tarnished."</p> +<p>He had never before, even by slightest implication, referred to +his own experience with life. She was not perfectly certain that he +did so now.</p> +<p>They were standing on one of the treeless hills—a riotous +tangle of grasses and wild flowers—looking out to sea across +Sky Pond. He had a rod; and as he stood he idly switched the gaily +coloured flies backward and forward.</p> +<p>"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly +sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to +combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a +painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his +monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull +intellects; and anything called 'an arrangement' on canvas, or +anything called 'a human document' or 'an appreciation' in +literature, or anything 'precious' in art, or any author who +'weaves' instead of writes his stories—all these irritate me +when they do not first bore me to the verge of +anæsthesia."</p> +<p>He switched his trout-flies defiantly, hopeful of an indignant +retort from her; but she only laughed and glanced at him, and shook +her pretty head.</p> +<p>"There's just enough truth in what you say to make a dispute +quite profitless. Besides, I don't feel like single combat; I'm too +glad to have you here."</p> +<p>Standing there—fairly swimming—in the delicious +upper-air currents, she looked blissfully across the rolling moors, +while the sunlight drenched her and the salt wind winnowed the +ruddy glory of her hair, and from the tangle of tender blossoming +green things a perfume mounted, saturating her senses as she +breathed it deeper in the happiness of desire fulfilled and content +quite absolute.</p> +<p>"After all," she said, "what more is there than this? Earth and +sea and sky and sun, and a friend to show them to. . . . Because, +as I wrote you, the friend is quite necessary in the scheme of +things—to round out the symmetry of it all. . . . I suppose +you're dying to dangle those flies in Brier Water to see whether +there are any trout there. Well, there are; Austin stocked it years +ago, and he never fishes, so no doubt it's full of fish. . . . What +is that black thing moving along the edge of the Golden Marsh?"</p> +<p>"A mink," he said, looking.</p> +<p>She seated herself cross-legged on the hill-top to watch the +mink at her leisure. But the lithe furry creature took to the +water, dived, and vanished, and she turned her attention to the +landscape.</p> +<p>"Do you see that lighthouse far to the south?" she asked; "that +is Frigate Light. West of it lies Surf Point, and the bay between +is Surf Bay. That's where I nearly froze solid in my first ocean +bath of the year. A little later we can bathe in that cove to the +north—the Bay of Shoals. You see it, don't you?—there, +lying tucked in between Wonder Head and the Hither Woods; but I +forgot! Of course you've been here before; and you know all this; +don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said quietly, "my brother and I came here as +boys."</p> +<p>"Have you not been here since?"</p> +<p>"Once." He turned and looked down at the sea-battered wharf +jutting into the Bay of Shoals. "Once, since I was a boy," he +repeated; "but I came alone. The transports landed at that wharf +after the Spanish war. The hospital camp was yonder. . . . My +brother died there."</p> +<p>She lifted her clear eyes to his; he was staring at the outline +of the Hither Woods fringing the ochre-tinted heights.</p> +<p>"There was no companion like him," he said; "there is no one to +take his place. Still, time helps—in a measure."</p> +<p>But he looked out across the sea with a grief for ever new.</p> +<p>She, too, had been helped by time; she was very young when the +distant and fabled seas took father and mother; and it was not +entirely their memory, but more the wistful lack of ability to +remember that left her so hopelessly alone.</p> +<p>Sharper his sorrow; but there was the comfort of recollection in +it; and she looked at him and, for an instant, envied him his +keener grief. Then leaning a little toward him where he reclined, +the weight of his body propped up on one arm, she laid her hand +across his hand half buried in the grass.</p> +<p>"It's only another tie between us," she said—"the memory +of your dead and mine. . . . Will you tell me about him?"</p> +<p>And leaning there, eyes on the sea, and her smooth, young hand +covering his, he told her of the youth who had died there in the +first flush of manhood and achievement.</p> +<p>His voice, steady and grave, came to her through hushed +intervals when the noise of the surf died out as the wind veered +seaward. And she listened, heart intent, until he spoke no more; +and the sea-wind rose again filling her ears with the ceaseless +menace of the surf.</p> +<p>After a while he picked up his rod, and sat erect and +cross-legged as she sat, and flicked the flies, absently, across +the grass, aiming at wind-blown butterflies.</p> +<p>"All these changes!" he exclaimed with a sweep of the rod-butt +toward Widgeon Bay. "When I was here as a boy there were no fine +estates, no great houses, no country clubs, no game +preserves—only a few fishermen's hovels along the Bay of +Shoals, and Frigate Light yonder. . . . Then Austin built +Silverside out of a much simpler, grand-paternal bungalow; then +came Sanxon Orchil and erected Hitherwood House on the foundations +of his maternal great-grandfather's cabin; and then the others +came; the Minsters built gorgeous Brookminster—you can just +make out their big summer palace—that white spot beyond Surf +Point!—and then the Lawns came and built Southlawn; and, +beyond, the Siowitha people arrived on scout, land-hungry and rich; +and the tiny hamlet of Wyossett grew rapidly into the town it now +is. Truly this island with its hundred miles of length has become +but a formal garden of the wealthy. Alas! I knew it as a stretch of +woods, dunes, and old-time villages where life had slumbered for +two hundred years!"</p> +<p>He fell silent, but she nodded him to go on.</p> +<p>"Brooklyn was a quiet tree-shaded town," he continued +thoughtfully, "unvexed by dreams of traffic; Flatbush an old Dutch +village buried in the scented bloom of lilac, locust, and syringa, +asleep under its ancient gables, hip-roofs, and spreading trees. +Bath, Utrecht, Canarsie, Gravesend were little more than cross-road +taverns dreaming in the sun; and that vile and noise-cursed island +beyond the Narrows was a stretch of unpolluted beauty in an +untainted sea—nothing but whitest sand and dunes and fragrant +bayberry and a blaze of wild flowers. Why"—and he turned +impatiently to the girl beside him—"why, I have seen the wild +geese settle in Sheepshead Bay, and the wild duck circling over it; +and I am not very aged. Think of it! Think of what this was but a +few years ago, and think of what 'progress' has done to lay it +waste! What will it be to-morrow?"</p> +<p>"Oh—oh!" she protested, laughing; "I did not suppose you +were that kind of a Jeremiah!"</p> +<p>"Well, I am. I see no progress in prostrate forests, in +soft-coal smoke, in noise! I see nothing gained in trimming and +cutting and ploughing and macadamising a heavenly wilderness into +mincing little gardens for the rich." He was smiling at his own +vehemence, but she knew that he was more than half serious.</p> +<p>She liked him so; she always denied and disputed when he became +declamatory, though usually, in her heart, she agreed with him.</p> +<p>"Oh—oh!" she protested, shaking her head; "your philosophy +is that of all reactionaries—emotional arguments which never +can be justified. Why, if the labouring man delights in the +harmless hurdy-gurdy and finds his pleasure mounted on a wooden +horse, should you say that the island of his delight is 'vile'? All +fulfilment of harmless happiness is progress, my poor +friend—"</p> +<p>"But my harmless happiness lay in seeing the wild-fowl splashing +where nothing splashes now except beer and the bathing rabble. If +progress is happiness—where is mine? Gone with the curlew and +the wild duck! Therefore, there is no progress. <i>Quod erat</i>, +my illogical friend."</p> +<p>"But <i>your</i> happiness in such things was an +exception—"</p> +<p>"Exceptions prove anything!"</p> +<p>"Yes—but—no, they don't, either! What nonsense you +can talk when you try to. . . . As for me I'm going down to the +Brier Water to look into it. If there are any trout there foolish +enough to bite at those gaudy-feathered hooks I'll call +you—"</p> +<p>"I'm going with you," he said, rising to his feet. She smilingly +ignored his offered hands and sprang erect unaided.</p> +<p>The Brier Water, a cold, deep, leisurely stream, deserved its +name. Rising from a small spring-pond almost at the foot of +Silverside lawn, it wound away through tangles of bull-brier and +wild-rose, under arches of weed and grass and clustered thickets of +mint, north through one of the strange little forests where it +became a thread edged with a duck-haunted bog, then emerging as a +clear deep stream once more it curved sharply south, recurved north +again, and flowed into Shell Pond which, in turn, had an outlet +into the Sound a mile east of Wonder Head.</p> +<p>If anybody ever haunted it with hostile designs upon its fishy +denizens, Austin at least never did. Belted kingfisher, heron, +mink, and perhaps a furtive small boy with pole and sinker and +barnyard worm—these were the only foes the trout might dread. +As for a man and a fly-rod, they knew him not, nor was there much +chance for casting a line, because the water everywhere flowed +under weeds, arched thickets of brier and grass, and leafy branches +criss-crossed above.</p> +<p>"This place is impossible," said Selwyn scornfully. "What is +Austin about to let it all grow up and run wild—"</p> +<p>"You <i>said</i>," observed Eileen, "that you preferred an +untrimmed wilderness; didn't you?"</p> +<p>He laughed and reeled in his line until only six inches of the +gossamer leader remained free. From this dangled a single +silver-bodied fly, glittering in the wind.</p> +<p>"There's a likely pool hidden under those briers," he said; "I'm +going to poke the tip of my rod under—this way—Hah!" as +a heavy splash sounded from depths unseen and the reel screamed as +he struck.</p> +<p>Up and down, under banks and over shallows rushed the invisible +fish; and Selwyn could do nothing for a while but let him go when +he insisted, and check and recover when the fish permitted.</p> +<p>Eileen, a spray of green mint between her vivid lips, watched +the performance with growing interest; but when at length a big, +fat, struggling speckled trout was cautiously but successfully +lifted out into the grass, she turned her back until the gallant +fighter had departed this life under a merciful whack from a +stick.</p> +<p>"That," she said faintly, "is the part I don't care for. . . . +Is he out of all pain? . . . What? Didn't feel any? Oh, are you +quite sure?"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href= +"images/facing_page288.jpg"><img src="images/facing_page288.jpg" +width="45%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"Eileen watched the performance with growing +interest."</b> +<br /></div> +<p>She walked over to him and looked down at the beautiful victim +of craft.</p> +<p>"Oh, well," she sighed, "you are very clever, of course, and I +suppose I'll eat him; but I wish he were alive again, down there in +those cool, sweet depths."</p> +<p>"Killing frogs and insects and his smaller brother fish?"</p> +<p>"Did he do <i>that</i>?"</p> +<p>"No doubt of it. And if I hadn't landed him, a heron or a mink +would have done it sooner or later. That's what a trout is for: to +kill and be killed."</p> +<p>She smiled, then sighed. The taking of life and the giving of it +were mysteries to her. She had never wittingly killed anything.</p> +<p>"Do you say that it doesn't hurt the trout?" she asked.</p> +<p>"There are no nerves in the jaw muscles of a trout—Hah!" +as his rod twitched and swerved under water and his reel sang +again.</p> +<p>And again she watched the performance, and once more turned her +back.</p> +<p>"Let me try," she said, when the <i>coup-de-grâce</i> had +been administered to a lusty, brilliant-tinted bulltrout. And, rod +in hand, she bent breathless and intent over the bushes, cautiously +thrusting the tip through a thicket of mint.</p> +<p>She lost two fish, then hooked a third—a small one; but +when she lifted it gasping into the sunlight, she shivered and +called to Selwyn:</p> +<p>"Unhook it and throw it back! I—I simply can't stand +that!"</p> +<p>Splash! went the astonished trout; and she sighed her +relief.</p> +<p>"There's no doubt about it," she said, "you and I certainly do +belong to different species of the same genus; men and women +<i>are</i> separate species. Do you deny it?"</p> +<p>"I should hate to lose you that way," he returned teasingly.</p> +<p>"Well, you can't avoid it. I gladly admit that woman is not too +closely related to man. We don't like to kill things; it's an +ingrained distaste, not merely a matter of ethical philosophy. You +like to kill; and it's a trait common also to children and other +predatory animals. Which fact," she added airily, "convinces me of +woman's higher civilisation."</p> +<p>"It would convince me, too," he said, "if woman didn't eat the +things that man kills for her."</p> +<p>"I know; isn't it horrid! Oh, dear, we're neither of us very +high in the scale yet—particularly you."</p> +<p>"Well, I've advanced some since the good old days when a man +went wooing with a club," he suggested.</p> +<p>"<i>You</i> may have. But, anyway, you don't go wooing. As for +man collectively, he has not progressed so very far," she added +demurely. "As an example, that dreadful Draymore man actually hurt +my wrist."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked up quickly, a shade of frank annoyance on his face +and a vision of the fat sybarite before his eyes. He turned again +to his fishing, but his shrug was more of a shudder than appeared +to be complimentary to Percy Draymore.</p> +<p>She had divined, somehow, that it annoyed Selwyn to know that +men had importuned her. She had told him of her experience as +innocently as she had told Nina, and with even less embarrassment. +But that had been long ago; and now, without any specific reason, +she was not certain that she had acted wisely, although it always +amused her to see Selwyn's undisguised impatience whenever mention +was made of such incidents.</p> +<p>So, to torment him, she said: "Of course it is somewhat exciting +to be asked to marry people—rather agreeable than +otherwise—"</p> +<p>"What!"</p> +<p>Waist deep in bay-bushes he turned toward her where she sat on +the trunk of an oak which had fallen across the stream. Her arms +balanced her body; her ankles were interlocked. She swung her slim +russet-shod feet above the brook and looked at him with a touch of +<i>gaminerie</i> new to her and to him.</p> +<p>"Of course it's amusing to be told you are the only woman in the +world," she said, "particularly when a girl has a secret fear that +men don't consider her quite grown up."</p> +<p>"You once said," he began impatiently, "that the idiotic +importunities of those men annoyed you."</p> +<p>"Why do you call them idiotic?"—with pretence of hurt +surprise. "A girl is honoured—"</p> +<p>"Oh, bosh!"</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn!"</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily; and fumbled with his +reel.</p> +<p>She surveyed him, head a trifle on one side—the very +incarnation of youthful malice in process of satisfying a desire +for tormenting. Never before had she experienced that desire so +keenly, so unreasoningly; never before had she found such a curious +pleasure in punishing without cause. A perfectly inexplicable +exhilaration possessed her—a gaiety quite reasonless, until +every pulse in her seemed singing with laughter and quickening with +the desire for his torment.</p> +<p>"When I pretended I was annoyed by what men said to me, I was +only a yearling," she observed. "Now I'm a two-year, Captain +Selwyn. . . . Who can tell what may happen in my second +season?"</p> +<p>"You said that you were <i>not</i> the—the marrying sort," +he insisted.</p> +<p>"Nonsense. All girls are. Once I sat in a high chair and wore a +bib and banqueted on cambric-tea and prunes. I don't do it now; +I've advanced. It's probably part of that progress which you are so +opposed to."</p> +<p>He did not answer, but stood, head bent, looping on a new +leader.</p> +<p>"All progress is admirable," she suggested.</p> +<p>No answer.</p> +<p>So, to goad him:</p> +<p>"There <i>are</i> men," she said dreamily, "who might hope for a +kinder reception next winter—"</p> +<p>"Oh, no," he said coolly, "there are no such gentlemen. If there +were you wouldn't say so."</p> +<p>"Yes, I would. And there are!"</p> +<p>"How many?" jeeringly, and now quite reassured.</p> +<p>"One!"</p> +<p>"You can't frighten me"—with a shade less confidence. "You +wouldn't tell if there was."</p> +<p>"I'd tell <i>you</i>."</p> +<p>"Me?"—with a sudden slump in his remaining stock of +reassurance.</p> +<p>"Certainly. I tell you and Nina things of that sort. And when I +have fully decided to marry I shall, of course, tell you both +before I inform other people."</p> +<p>How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with +laughter! How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she +could give neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all +was—whatever it was that amused her in this man's +uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an irritation as +unreasoning as the source of it!</p> +<p>"Really, Captain Selwyn," she said, "you are not one of those +old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several +chapters to a girl's marrying—are you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said, "I am."</p> +<p>"You are quite serious?"</p> +<p>"Quite."</p> +<p>"You won't <i>let</i> me?"</p> +<p>"No, I won't."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>"I want you myself," he said, smiling at last.</p> +<p>"That is flattering but horridly selfish. In other words you +won't marry me and you won't let anybody else do it."</p> +<p>"That is the situation," he admitted, freeing his line and +trying to catch the crinkled silvery snell of the new leader. It +persistently avoided him; he lowered the rod toward Miss Erroll; +she gingerly imprisoned the feathered fly between pink-tipped thumb +and forefinger and looked questioningly at him.</p> +<p>"Am I to sit here holding this?" she inquired.</p> +<p>"Only a moment; I'll have to soak that leader. Is the water +visible under that log you're sitting on?"</p> +<p>She nodded.</p> +<p>So he made his way through the brush toward her, mounted the +log, and, seating himself beside her, legs dangling, thrust the rod +tip and leader straight down into the stream below.</p> +<p>Glancing around at her he caught her eyes, bright with +mischief.</p> +<p>"You're capable of anything to-day," he said. "Were you +considering the advisability of starting me overboard?" And he +nodded toward the water beneath their feet.</p> +<p>"But you say that you won't let me throw you overboard, Captain +Selwyn!"</p> +<p>"I mean it, too," he returned.</p> +<p>"And I'm not to marry that nice young man?"—mockingly +sweet. "No? What!—not anybody at all—ever and +ever?"</p> +<p>"Me," he suggested, "if you're as thoroughly demoralised as +that."</p> +<p>"Oh! Must a girl be pretty thoroughly demoralised to marry +you?"</p> +<p>"I don't suppose she'd do it if she wasn't," he admitted, +laughing.</p> +<p>She considered him, head on one side:</p> +<p>"You are ornamental, anyway," she concluded.</p> +<p>"Well, then," he said, lifting the leader from the water to +inspect it, "will you have me?"</p> +<p>"Oh, but is there nothing to recommend you except your fatal +beauty?"</p> +<p>"My moustache," he ventured; "it's considered very useful when +I'm mentally perplexed."</p> +<p>"It's clipped too close; I have told you again and again that I +don't care for it clipped like that. Your mind would be a perfect +blank if you couldn't get hold of it."</p> +<p>"And to become imbecile," he said, "I've only to shave it."</p> +<p>She threw back her head and her clear laughter thrilled the +silence. He laughed, too, and sat with elbows on his thighs, +dabbling the crinkled leader to and fro in the pool below.</p> +<p>"So you won't have me?" he said.</p> +<p>"You haven't asked me—have you?"</p> +<p>"Well, I do now."</p> +<p>She mused, the smile resting lightly on lips and eyes.</p> +<p>"<i>Wouldn't</i> such a thing astonish Nina!" she said.</p> +<p>He did not answer; a slight colour tinged the new sunburn on his +cheeks.</p> +<p>She laughed to herself, clasped her hands, crossed her slender +feet, and bent her eyes on the pool below.</p> +<p>"Marriage," she said, pursuing her thoughts aloud, "is curiously +unnecessary to happiness. Take our pleasure in each other, for +example. It has, from the beginning, been perfectly free from +silliness and sentiment."</p> +<p>"Naturally," he said. "I'm old enough to be safe."</p> +<p>"You are not!" she retorted. "What a ridiculous thing to +say!"</p> +<p>"Well, then," he said, "I'm dreadfully unsafe, but yet you've +managed to escape. Is that it?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps. You <i>are</i> attractive to women! I've heard that +often enough to be convinced. Why, even I can see what attracts +them"—she turned to look at him—"the way your head and +shoulders set—and—well, the—rest. . . . It's +rather superior of me to have escaped sentiment, don't you think +so?"</p> +<p>"Indeed I do. Few—few escape where many meet to worship at +my frisky feet, and this I say without conceit is due to my +mustachios. Tangled in those like web-tied flies, imprisoned hearts +complain in sighs—in fact, the situation vies with moments in +Boccaccio."</p> +<p>Her running comment was her laughter, ringing deliciously amid +the trees until a wild bird, restlessly attentive, ventured a long, +sweet response from the tangled green above them.</p> +<p>After their laughter the soberness of reaction left them silent +for a while. The wild bird sang and sang, dropping fearlessly +nearer from branch to branch, until in his melody she found the key +to her dreamy thoughts.</p> +<p>"Because," she said, "you are so unconscious of your own value, +I like you best, I think. I never before quite realised just what +it was in you."</p> +<p>"My value," he said, "is what you care to make it."</p> +<p>"Then nobody can afford to take you away from me, Captain +Selwyn."</p> +<p>He flushed with pleasure: "That is the prettiest thing a woman +ever admitted to a man," he said.</p> +<p>"You have said nicer things to me. That is your reward. I wonder +if you remember any of the nice things you say to me? Oh, don't +look so hurt and astonished—because I don't believe you do. . +. . Isn't it jolly to sit here and let life drift past us? Out +there in the world"—she nodded backward toward the +open—"out yonder all that 'progress' is whirling around the +world, and here we sit—just you and I—quite happily, +swinging our feet in perfect content and talking nonsense. . . . +What more is there after all than a companionship that admits both +sense and nonsense?"</p> +<p>She laughed, turning her chin on her shoulder to glance at him; +and when the laugh had died out she still sat lightly poised, chin +nestling in the hollow of her shoulder, considering him out of +friendly beautiful eyes in which no mockery remained.</p> +<p>"What more is there than our confidence in each other and our +content?" she said.</p> +<p>And, as he did not respond: "I wonder if you realise how +perfectly lovely you have been to me since you have come into my +life? Do you? Do you remember the first day—the very +first—how I sent word to you that I wished you to see my +first real dinner gown? Smile if you wish—Ah, but you don't, +you <i>don't</i> understand, my poor friend, how much you became to +me in that little interview. . . . Men's kindness is a strange +thing; they may try and try, and a girl may know they are trying +and, in her turn, try to be grateful. But it is all effort on both +sides. Then—with a word—an impulse born of chance or +instinct—a man may say and do that which a woman can never +forget—and would not if she could."</p> +<p>"Have I done—that?"</p> +<p>"Yes. Didn't you understand? Do you suppose any other man in the +world could have what you have had of me—of my real self? Do +you suppose for one instant that any other man than you could ever +obtain from me the confidence I offer you unasked? Do I not tell +you everything that enters my head and heart? Do you not know that +I care for you more than for anybody alive?"</p> +<p>"Gerald—"</p> +<p>She looked him straight in the eyes; her breath caught, but she +steadied her voice:</p> +<p>"I've got to be truthful," she said; "I care for you more than +for Gerald."</p> +<p>"And I for you more than anybody living," he said.</p> +<p>"Is it true?"</p> +<p>"It is the truth, Eileen."</p> +<p>"You—you make me very happy, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"But—did you not know it before I told you?"</p> +<p>"I—y-yes; I hoped so." In the exultant reaction from the +delicious tension of avowal she laughed lightly, not knowing +why.</p> +<p>"The pleasure in it," she said, "is the certainty that I am +capable of making you happy. You have no idea how I desire to do +it. I've wanted to ever since I knew you—I've wanted to be +capable of doing it. And you tell me that I do; and I am utterly +and foolishly happy." The quick mischievous sparkle of +<i>gaminerie</i> flashed up, transforming her for an +instant—"Ah, yes; and I can make you unhappy, too, it seems, +by talking of marriage! That, too, is something—a delightful +power—but"—the malice dying to a spark in her brilliant +eyes—"I shall not torment you, Captain Selwyn. Will it make +you happier if I say, 'No; I shall never marry as long as I have +you'? Will it really? Then I say it; never, never will I marry as +long as I have your confidence and friendship. . . . But I want it +<i>all</i>!—every bit, please. And if ever there is another +woman—if ever you fall in love!—crack!—away I +go"—she snapped her white fingers—"like that!" she +added, "only quicker! Well, then! Be very, very careful, my friend! +. . . I wish there were some place here where I could curl up +indefinitely and listen to your views on life. You brought a book +to read, didn't you?"</p> +<p>He gave her a funny embarrassed glance: "Yes; I brought a sort +of a book."</p> +<p>"Then I'm all ready to be read to, thank you. . . . Please +steady me while I try to stand up on this log—one hand will +do—"</p> +<p>Scarcely in contact with him she crossed the log, sprang +blithely to the ground, and, lifting the hem of her summer gown an +inch or two, picked her way toward the bank above.</p> +<p>"We can see Nina when she signals us from the lawn to come to +luncheon," she said, gazing out across the upland toward the +silvery tinted hillside where Silverside stood, every pane +glittering with the white eastern sunlight.</p> +<p>In the dry, sweet grass she found a place for a nest, and +settled into it, head prone on a heap of scented bay leaves, elbows +skyward, and fingers linked across her chin. One foot was hidden, +the knee, doubled, making a tent of her white skirt, from an edge +of which a russet shoe projected, revealing the contour of a slim +ankle.</p> +<p>"What book did you bring?" she asked dreamily.</p> +<p>He turned red: "It's—it's just a chapter from a little +book I'm trying to write—a—a sort of suggestion for the +establishment of native regiments in the Philippines. I thought, +perhaps, you might not mind listening—"</p> +<p>Her delighted surprise and quick cordiality quite overwhelmed +him, so, sitting flat on the grass, hat off and the hill wind +furrowing his bright crisp hair, he began, naïvely, like a +schoolboy; and Eileen lay watching him, touched and amused at his +eager interest in reading aloud to her this mass of co-ordinated +fact and detail.</p> +<p>There was, in her, one quality to which he had never appealed in +vain—her loyalty. Confident of that, and of her intelligence, +he wasted no words in preliminary explanation, but began at once +his argument in favour of a native military establishment erected +on the general lines of the British organisation in India.</p> +<p>He wrote simply and without self-consciousness; loyalty aroused +her interest, intelligence sustained it; and when the end came, it +came too quickly for her, and she said so frankly, which delighted +him.</p> +<p>At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters +with terse military accuracy; and what she liked best and best +understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, +turning technicality into pabulum.</p> +<p>Lying there in the fragrant verdure, blue eyes skyward or +slanting sideways to watch his face, she listened, answered, +questioned, or responded by turns; until their voices grew lazy and +the light reaction from things serious awakened the gaiety always +latent when they were together.</p> +<p>"Proceed," she smiled; "<i>Arma virumque</i>—a noble +theme, Captain Selwyn. Sing on!"</p> +<p>He shook his head, quoting from "The Dedication":</p> +<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Arms and +the Man!</span><br /> +A noble theme I ween!<br /> +Alas! I cannot sing of these, Eileen;<br /> +Only of maids and men and meadow-grass,<br /> +Of sea and tree and woodlands where I pass—<br /> +Nothing but these I know, Eileen—alas!<br /> +<br /> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br /> +<br /> +Clear eyes, that lifted up to me<br /> +Free heart and soul of vanity;<br /> +Blue eyes, that speak so wistfully—<br /> +Nothing but these I know, alas!"</div> +<p>She laughed her acknowledgment, and lying there, face to the +sky, began to sing to herself, under her breath, fragments of that +ancient war-song:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"Le bon Roi Dagobert<br /> +Avait un grand sabre de fer;<br /> +Le grand Saint Éloi<br /> +Lui dit: 'O mon Roi<br /> +Vôtre Majesté<br /> +Pourrait se blesser!'<br /> +'C'est vrai,' lui dit le Roi,<br /> +'Qu'on me donne un sabre de bois!'"</div> +<p>"In that verse," observed Selwyn, smiling, "lies the true key to +the millennium—international disarmament and moral +suasion."</p> +<p>"Nonsense," she said lazily; "the millennium will arrive when +the false balance between man and woman is properly +adjusted—not before. And that means universal education. . . +. Did you ever hear that old, old song, written two centuries +ago—the 'Education of Phyllis'? No? Listen then and be +ashamed."</p> +<p>And lying there, the back of one hand above her eyes, she sang +in a sweet, childish, mocking voice, tremulous with hidden +laughter, the song of Phyllis the shepherdess and Sylvandre the +shepherd—how Phyllis, more avaricious than sentimental, made +Sylvandre pay her thirty sheep for one kiss; how, next day, the +price shifted to one sheep for thirty kisses; and then the dreadful +demoralisation of Phyllis:</p> +<div class='blockquot'>"Le lendemain, Philis, plus tendre<br /> +Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre<br /> +Trente moutons pour un baiser!<br /> +<br /> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<br /> +<br /> +Le lendemain, Philis, peu sage,<br /> +Aurait donné moutons et chien<br /> +Pour un baiser que le volage<br /> +À Lisette donnait pour rien!"</div> +<p>"And there we are," said Eileen, sitting up abruptly and +levelling the pink-tipped finger of accusation at +him—"<i>there</i>, if you please, lies the woe of the +world—not in the armaments of nations! That old French poet +understood in half a second more than your Hague tribunal could +comprehend in its first Cathayan cycle! There lies the hope of your +millennium—in the higher education of the modern +Phyllis."</p> +<p>"And the up-to-date Sylvandre," added Selwyn.</p> +<p>"He knows too much already," she retorted, delicate nose in the +air. . . . "Hark! Ear to the ground! My atavistic and wilder +instincts warn me that somebody is coming!"</p> +<p>"Boots and Drina," said Selwyn; and he hailed them as they came +into view above. Then he sprang to his feet, calling out: "And +Gerald, too! Hello, old fellow! This is perfectly fine! When did +you arrive?"</p> +<p>"Oh, Gerald!" cried Eileen, both hands outstretched—"it's +splendid of you to come! Dear fellow! have you seen Nina and +Austin? And were they not delighted? And you've come to stay, +haven't you? There, I won't begin to urge you. . . . Look, +Gerald—look, Boots—and Drina, too—only look at +those beautiful big plump trout in Captain Selwyn's creel!"</p> +<p>"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Gerald, "you didn't take those in that +little brook—did you, Philip? Well, wouldn't that snare you! +I'm coming down here after luncheon; I sure am."</p> +<p>"You will, too, won't you?" asked Drina, jealous lest Boots, her +idol, miss his due share of piscatorial glory. "If you'll wait +until I finish my French I'll come with you."</p> +<p>"Of course I will," said Lansing reproachfully; "you don't +suppose there's any fun anywhere for me without you, do you?"</p> +<p>"No," said Drina simply, "I don't."</p> +<p>"Another Phyllis in embryo," murmured Eileen to Selwyn. "Alas! +for education!"</p> +<p>Selwyn laughed and turned to Gerald. "I hunted high and low for +you before I came to Silverside. You found my note?"</p> +<p>"Yes; I—I'll explain later," said the boy, colouring. +"Come ahead, Eily; Boots and I will take you on at tennis—and +Philip, too. We've an hour or so before luncheon. Is it a go?"</p> +<p>"Certainly," replied his sister, unaware of Selwyn's +proficiency, but loyal even in doubt. And the five, walking +abreast, moved off across the uplands toward the green lawns of +Silverside, where, under a gay lawn parasol, Nina sat, a "Nature +book" in hand, the centre of an attentive gathering composed of +dogs, children, and the cat, Kit-Ki, blinking her topaz-tinted eyes +in the sunshine.</p> +<p>The young mother looked up happily as the quintet came strolling +across the lawn: "Please don't wander away again before luncheon," +she said; "Gerald, I suppose you are starved, but you've only an +hour to wait—Oh, Phil! what wonderful trout! Children, kindly +arise and admire the surpassing skill of your frivolous uncle!" +And, as the children and dogs came crowding around the opened +fish-basket she said to her brother in a low, contented voice: +"Gerald has quite made it up with Austin, dear; I think we have to +thank you, haven't we?"</p> +<p>"Has he really squared matters with Austin? That's +good—that's fine! Oh, no, I had nothing to do with +it—practically nothing. The boy is sound at the +core—that's what did it." And to Gerald, who was hailing him +from the veranda, "Yes, I've plenty of tennis-shoes. Help yourself, +old chap."</p> +<p>Eileen had gone to her room to don a shorter skirt and +rubber-soled shoes; Lansing followed her example; and Selwyn, +entering his own room, found Gerald trying on a pair of white +foot-gear.</p> +<p>The boy looked up, smiled, and, crossing one knee, began to tie +the laces:</p> +<p>"I told Austin that I meant to slow down," he said. "We're on +terms again. He was fairly decent."</p> +<p>"Good business!" commented Selwyn vigorously.</p> +<p>"And I'm cutting out cards and cocktails," continued the boy, +eager as a little lad who tells how good he has been all +day—"I made it plain to the fellows that there was nothing in +it for me. And, Philip, I'm boning down like thunder at the +office—I'm horribly in debt and I'm hustling to pay up and +make a clean start. You," he added, colouring, "will come +first—"</p> +<p>"At your convenience," said Selwyn, smiling.</p> +<p>"Not at all! Yours is the first account to be squared; then +Neergard—"</p> +<p>"Do you owe <i>him</i>, Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Do I? Oh, Lord! But he's a patient soul—really, Philip, I +wish you didn't dislike him so thoroughly, because he's good +company and besides that he's a very able man. . . . Well, we won't +talk about him, then. Come on; I'll lick the very life out of you +over the net!"</p> +<p>A few moments later the white balls were flying over the white +net, and active white-flannelled figures were moving swiftly over +the velvet turf.</p> +<p>Drina, aloft on the umpire's perch, calmly scored and decided +each point impartially, though her little heart was beating fast in +desire for her idol's supremacy; and it was all her official +composure could endure to see how Eileen at the net beat down his +defence, driving him with her volleys to the service line.</p> +<p>Selwyn's game proved to be steady, old-fashioned, but logical; +Eileen, sleeves at her elbows, red-gold hair in splendid disorder, +carried the game through Boots straight at her brother—and +the contest was really a brilliant duel between them, Lansing and +Selwyn assisting when a rare chance came their way. The pace was +too fast for them, however; they were in a different class and they +knew it; and after two terrific sets had gone against Gerald and +Boots, the latter, signalling Selwyn, dropped out and climbed up +beside Drina to watch a furious single between Eileen and +Gerald.</p> +<p>"Oh, Boots, Boots!" said Drina, "why <i>didn't</i> you stay +forward and kill her drives and make her lob? I just know you could +do it if you had only thought to play forward! What on earth was +the matter?"</p> +<p>"Age," said Mr. Lansing serenely—"decrepitude, Drina. I am +a Was, sweetheart, but Eileen still remains an Is."</p> +<p>"I won't let you say it! You are <i>not</i> a Was!" said the +child fiercely. "After luncheon you can take me on for practice. +Then you can just give it to her!"</p> +<p>"It would gratify me to hand a few swift ones to somebody," he +said. "Look at that demon girl, yonder! She's hammering Gerald to +the service line! Oh, my, oh, me! I'm only fit for hat-ball with +Billy or cat's-cradle with Kit-Ki. Drina, do you realise that I am +nearly thirty?"</p> +<p>"Pooh! I'm past thirteen. In five years I'll be eighteen. I +expect to marry you at eighteen. You promised."</p> +<p>"Sure thing," admitted Boots; "I've bought the house, you +know."</p> +<p>"I know it," said the child gravely.</p> +<p>Boots looked down at her; she smiled and laid her head, with its +clustering curls, against his shoulder, watching the game below +with the quiet composure of possession.</p> +<p>Their relations, hers and Lansing's, afforded infinite amusement +to the Gerards. It had been a desperate case from the very first; +and the child took it so seriously, and considered her claim on +Boots so absolute, that neither that young man nor anybody else +dared make a jest of the affair within her hearing.</p> +<p>From a dimple-kneed, despotic, strenuous youngster, ruling the +nursery with a small hand of iron, in half a year Drina had grown +into a rather slim, long-legged, coolly active child; and though +her hair had not been put up, her skirts had been lowered, and +shoes and stockings substituted for half-hose and sandals.</p> +<p>Weighted with this new dignity she had put away dolls, +officially. Unofficially she still dressed, caressed, forgave, or +spanked Rosalinda and Beatrice—but she excluded the younger +children from the nursery when she did it.</p> +<p>However, the inborn necessity for mimicry and romance remained; +and she satisfied it by writing stories—marvellous +ones—which she read to Boots. Otherwise she was the same +active, sociable, wholesome, intelligent child, charmingly casual +and inconsistent; and the list of her youthful admirers at +dancing-school and parties required the alphabetical classification +of Mr. Lansing.</p> +<p>But Boots was her own particular possession; he was her chattel, +her thing; and he and other people knew that it was no light affair +to meddle with the personal property of Drina Gerard.</p> +<p>Her curly head resting against his arm, she was now planning his +future movements for the day:</p> +<p>"You may do what you please while I'm having French," she said +graciously; "after that we will go fishing in Brier Water; then +I'll come home to practice, while you sit on the veranda and +listen; then I'll take you on at tennis, and by that time the +horses will be brought around and we'll ride to the Falcon. You +won't forget any of this, will you? Come on; Eileen and Gerald have +finished and there's Dawson to announce luncheon!" And to Gerald, +as she climbed down to the ground: "Oh, what a muff! to let Eileen +beat you six—five, six—three! . . . Where's my hat? . . +. Oh, the dogs have got it and are tearing it to rags!"</p> +<p>And she dashed in among the dogs, slapping right and left, while +a facetious dachshund seized the tattered bit of lace and muslin +and fled at top speed.</p> +<p>"That is pleasant," observed Nina; "it's her best hat, +too—worn to-day in your honour, Boots. . . . Children! Hands +and faces! There is Bridget waiting! Come, Phil; there's no law +against talking at table, and there's no use trying to run an +establishment if you make a mockery of the kitchen."</p> +<p>Eileen, one bare arm around her brother's shoulders, strolled +houseward across the lawn, switching the shaven sod with her +tennis-bat.</p> +<p>"What are you doing this afternoon?" she said to Selwyn. +"Gerald"—she touched her brother's smooth cheek—"means +to fish; Boots and Drina are keen on it, too; and Nina is driving +to Wyossett with the children."</p> +<p>"And you?" he asked, smiling.</p> +<p>"Whatever you wish"—confident that he wanted her, whatever +he had on hand.</p> +<p>"I ought to walk over to Storm Head," he said, "and get things +straightened out."</p> +<p>"Your laboratory?" asked Gerald. "Austin told me when I saw him +in town that you were going to have the cottage on Storm Head to +make powder in."</p> +<p>"Only in minute quantities, Gerald," explained Selwyn; "I just +want to try a few things. . . . And if they turn out all right, +what do you say to taking a look in—if Austin approves?"</p> +<p>"Oh, please, Gerald," whispered his sister.</p> +<p>"Do you really believe there is anything in it?" asked the boy. +"Because, if you are sure—"</p> +<p>"There certainly is if I can prove that my powder is able to +resist heat, cold, and moisture. The Lawn people stand ready to +talk matters over as soon as I am satisfied. . . . There's plenty +of time—but keep the suggestion in the back of your head, +Gerald."</p> +<p>The boy smiled, nodded importantly, and went off to remove the +stains of tennis from his person; and Eileen went, too, turning +around to look back at Selwyn:</p> +<p>"Thank you for asking Gerald! I'm sure he will love to go into +anything you think safe."</p> +<p>"Will you join us, too?" he called back, smilingly—"we may +need capital!"</p> +<p>"I'll remember that!" she said; and, turning once more as she +reached the landing: "Good-bye—until luncheon!" And touched +her lips with the tips of her fingers, flinging him a gay +salute.</p> +<p>In parting and meeting—even after the briefest of +intervals—it was always the same with her; always she had for +him some informal hint of the formality of parting; always some +recognition of their meeting—in the light touching of hands +as though the symbol of ceremony, at least, was due to him, to +herself, and to the occasion.</p> +<p>Luncheon at Silverside was anything but a function—with +the children at table and the dogs in a semicircle, and the nurses +tying bibs and admonishing the restless or belligerent, and the +wide French windows open, and the sea wind lifting the curtains and +stirring the cluster of wild flowers in the centre of the +table.</p> +<p>Kit-Ki's voice was gently raised at intervals; at intervals some +grinning puppy, unable to longer endure the nourishing odours, lost +self-control and yapped, then lowered his head, momentarily +overcome with mortification.</p> +<p>All the children talked continuously, unlimited conversation +being permitted until it led to hostilities or puppy-play. The +elders conducted such social intercourse as was possible under the +conditions, but luncheon was the children's hour at Silverside.</p> +<p>Nina and Eileen talked garden talk—they both were quite +mad about their fruit-trees and flower-beds; Selwyn, Gerald, and +Boots discussed stables, golf links, and finally the new business +which Selwyn hoped to develop.</p> +<p>Afterward, when the children had been excused, and Drina had +pulled her chair close to Lansing's to listen—and after that, +on the veranda, when the men sat smoking and Drina was talking +French, and Nina and Eileen had gone off with baskets, trowels, and +pruning-shears—Selwyn still continued in conference with +Boots and Gerald; and it was plain that his concise, modest +explanation of what he had accomplished in his experiments with +Chaosite seriously impressed the other men.</p> +<p>Boots frankly admitted it: "Besides," he said, "if the Lawn +people are so anxious for you to give them first say in the matter +I don't see why we shouldn't have faith in it—enough, I mean, +to be good to ourselves by offering to be good to you, Phil."</p> +<p>"Wait until Austin comes down—and until I've tried one or +two new ideas," said Selwyn. "Nothing on earth would finish me +quicker than to get anybody who trusted me into a worthless +thing."</p> +<p>"It's plain," observed Boots, "that although you may have been +an army captain you're no captain of industry—you're not even +a non-com.!"</p> +<p>Selwyn laughed: "Do you really believe that ordinary decency is +uncommon?"</p> +<p>"Look at Long Island," returned Boots. "Where does the boom of +worthless acreage and paper cities land investors when it +explodes?"</p> +<p>Gerald had flushed up at the turn in the conversation; and +Selwyn steered Lansing into other and safer channels until Gerald +went away to find a rod.</p> +<p>And, as Drina had finished her French lesson, she and Lansing +presently departed, brandishing fishing-rods adorned with the +gaudiest of flies.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The house and garden at Silverside seemed to be logical parts of +a landscape, which included uplands, headlands, sky, and +water—a silvery harmonious ensemble, where the artificial +portion was neither officiously intrusive nor, on the other hand, +meagre and insignificant.</p> +<p>The house, a long two-storied affair with white shutters and +pillared veranda, was built of gray stone; the garden was walled +with it—a precaution against no rougher intruder than the +wind, which would have whipped unsheltered flowers and fruit-trees +into ribbons.</p> +<p>Walks of hardened earth, to which green mould clung in patches, +wound through the grounds and threaded the three little groves of +oak, chestnut, and locust, in the centres of which, set in circular +lawns, were the three axes of interest—the stone-edged +fish-pond, the spouting fountain, and the ancient ship's +figurehead—a wind-worn, sea-battered mermaid cuddling a tiny, +finny sea-child between breast and lips.</p> +<p>Whoever the unknown wood-carver had been he had been an artist, +too, and a good one; and when the big China trader, the <i>First +Born</i>, went to pieces off Frigate Light, fifty years ago, this +figurehead had been cast up from the sea.</p> +<p>Wandering into the garden, following the first path at random, +Selwyn chanced upon it, and stood, pipe in his mouth, hands in his +pockets, surprised and charmed.</p> +<p>Plunkitt, the head gardener, came along, trundling a +mowing-machine.</p> +<p>"Ain't it kind 'er nice," he said, lingering. "When I pass here +moonlight nights, it seems like that baby was a-smilin' right up +into his mamma's face, an' that there fish-tailed girl was laughin' +back at him. Come here some night when there's a moon, Cap'in +Selwyn."</p> +<p>Selwyn stood for a while listening to the musical click of the +machine, watching the green shower flying into the sunshine, and +enjoying the raw perfume of juicy, new-cut grass; then he wandered +on in quest of Miss Erroll.</p> +<p>Tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and other bulbs were entirely out +of bloom, but the earlier herbaceous borders had come into flower, +and he passed through masses of pink and ivory-tinted +peonies—huge, heavy, double blossoms, fragrant and delicate +as roses. Patches of late iris still lifted crested heads above +pale sword-bladed leaves; sheets of golden pansies gilded spaces +steeped in warm transparent shade, but larkspur and early rocket +were as yet only scarcely budded promises; the phlox-beds but green +carpets; and zinnia, calendula, poppy, and coreopsis were +symphonies in shades of green against the dropping pink of +bleeding-hearts or the nascent azure of flax and spiderwort.</p> +<p>In the rose garden, and along that section of the wall included +in it, the rich, dry, porous soil glimmered like gold under the +sun; and here Selwyn discovered Nina and Eileen busily solicitous +over the tender shoots of favourite bushes. A few long-stemmed +early rosebuds lay in their baskets; Selwyn drew one through his +buttonhole and sat down on a wheelbarrow, amiably disposed to look +on and let the others work.</p> +<p>"Not much!" said Nina. "You can start in and 'pinch back' this +prairie climber—do you hear, Phil? I won't let you dawdle +around and yawn while I'm pricking my fingers every instant! Make +him move, Eileen."</p> +<p>Eileen came over to him, fingers doubled into her palm and small +thumb extended.</p> +<p>"Thorns and prickles, please," she said; and he took her hand in +his and proceeded to extract them while she looked down at her +almost invisible wounds, tenderly amused at his fear of hurting +her.</p> +<p>"Do you know," she said, "that people are beginning to open +their houses yonder?" She nodded toward the west: "The Minsters are +on the way to Brookminster, the Orchils have already arrived at +Hitherwood House, and the coachmen and horses were housed at +Southlawn last night. I rather dread the dinners and country +formality that always interfere with the jolly times we have; but +it will be rather good fun at the bathing-beach. . . . Do you swim +well? But of course you do."</p> +<p>"Pretty well; do you?"</p> +<p>"I'm a fish. Gladys Orchil and I would never leave the surf if +they didn't literally drag us home. . . . You know Gladys Orchil? . +. . She's very nice; so is Sheila Minster; you'll like her better +in the country than you do in town. Kathleen Lawn is nice, too. +Alas! I see many a morning where Drina and I twirl our respective +thumbs while you and Boots are off with a gayer set. . . . Oh, +don't interrupt! No mortal man is proof against Sheila and Gladys +and Kathleen—and you're not a demi-god—are you? . . . +Thank you for your surgery upon my thumb—" She naïvely +placed the tip of it between her lips and looked at him, standing +there like a schoolgirl in her fresh gown, burnished hair loosened +and curling in riotous beauty across cheeks and ears.</p> +<p>He had seated himself on the wheelbarrow again; she stood +looking down at him, hands now bracketed on her narrow +hips—so close that the fresh fragrance of her grew faintly +perceptible—a delicate atmosphere of youth mingling with the +perfume of the young garden.</p> +<p>Nina, basket on her arm, snipping away with her garden shears, +glanced over her shoulder—and went on, snipping. They did not +notice how far away her agricultural ardour led her—did not +notice when she stood a moment at the gate looking back at them, or +when she passed out, pretty head bent thoughtfully, the shears +swinging loose at her girdle.</p> +<p>The prairie rosebuds in Eileen's basket exhaled their wild, +sweet odour; and Selwyn, breathing it, removed his hat like one who +faces a cooling breeze, and looked up at the young girl standing +before him as though she were the source of all things sweet and +freshening in this opening of the youngest year of his life.</p> +<p>She said, smiling absently at his question: "Certainly one can +grow younger; and you have done it in a day, here with me."</p> +<p>She looked down at his hair; it was bright and inclined to wave +a little, but whether the lighter colour at the temples was really +silvered or only a paler tint she was not sure.</p> +<p>"You are very like a boy, sometimes," she said—"as young +as Gerald, I often think—especially when your hat is off. You +always look so perfectly groomed: I wonder—I wonder what you +would look like if your hair were rumpled?"</p> +<p>"Try it," he suggested lazily.</p> +<p>"I? I don't think I dare—" She raised her hand, hesitated, +the gay daring in her eyes deepening to audacity. "Shall I?"</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"T-touch your hair?—rumple it?—as I would Gerald's! +. . . I'm tempted to—only—only—"</p> +<p>"What?"</p> +<p>"I don't know; I couldn't. I—it was only the temptation of +a second—" She laughed uncertainly. The suggestion of the +intimacy tinted her cheeks with its reaction; she took a short step +backward; instinct, blindly stirring, sobered her; and as the smile +faded from eye and lip, his face changed, too. And far, very far +away in the silent cells of his heart a distant pulse awoke.</p> +<p>She turned to her roses again, moving at random among the +bushes, disciplining with middle-finger and thumb a translucent, +amber-tinted shoot here and there. And when the silence had lasted +too long, she broke it without turning toward him:</p> +<p>"After all, if it were left to me, I had rather be merciful to +these soft little buds and sprays, and let the sun and the showers +take charge. A whole cluster of blossoms left free to grow as Fate +fashions them!—Why not? It is certainly very officious of me +to strip a stem of its hopes just for the sake of one pampered +blossom. . . . Non-interference is a safe creed, isn't it?"</p> +<p>But she continued moving along among the bushes, pinching back +here, snipping, trimming, clipping there; and after a while she had +wandered quite beyond speaking distance; and, at leisurely +intervals she straightened up and turned to look back across the +roses at him—quiet, unsmiling gaze in exchange for his +unchanging eyes, which never left her.</p> +<p>She was at the farther edge of the rose garden now where a boy +knelt, weeding; and Selwyn saw her speak to him and give him her +basket and shears; and saw the boy start away toward the house, +leaving her leaning idly above the sun-dial, elbows on the +weather-beaten stone, studying the carved figures of the dial. And +every line and contour and curve of her figure—even the +lowered head, now resting between both hands—summoned +him.</p> +<p>She heard his step, but did not move; and when he leaned above +the dial, resting on his elbows, beside her, she laid her finger on +the shadow of the dial.</p> +<p>"Time," she said, "is trying to frighten me. It pretends to be +nearly five o'clock; do you believe it?"</p> +<p>"Time is running very fast with me," he said.</p> +<p>"With me, too; I don't wish it to; I don't care for third speed +forward all the time."</p> +<p>He was bending closer above the stone dial, striving to decipher +the inscription on it:</p> +<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Under blue +skies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">My shadow lies.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Under gray skies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">My shadow dies.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"If over me</span><br /> +Two Lovers leaning<br /> +Would solve my Mystery<br /> +And read my Meaning,<br /> +—Or clear, or overcast the Skies—<br /> +The Answer always lies within their Eyes.<br /> +Look long! Look long! For there, and there alone<br /> +Time solves the Riddle graven on this Stone!"</div> +<p>Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the +almost obliterated lines engraved there.</p> +<p>"I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What +occult meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? <i>I'm</i> sure I +don't want to read riddles in a strange gentleman's optics."</p> +<p>"The verses," he explained, "are evidently addressed to the +spooney, so why should you resent them?"</p> +<p>"I don't. . . . I can be spoons, too, for that matter; I mean I +could once."</p> +<p>"But you're past spooning now," he concluded.</p> +<p>"Am I? I rather resent your saying it—your calmly +excluding me from anything I might choose to do," she said. "If I +cared—if I chose—if I really wanted to—"</p> +<p>"You could still spoon? Impossible! At your age? Nonsense!"</p> +<p>"It isn't at all impossible. Wait until there's a moon, and a +canoe, and a nice boy who is young enough to be frightened +easily!"</p> +<p>"And I," he retorted, "am too old to be frightened; so there's +no moon, no canoe, no pretty girl, no spooning for me. Is that it, +Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Oh, Gladys and Sheila will attend to you, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"Why Gladys Orchil? Why Sheila Minster? And why <i>not</i> +Eileen Erroll?"</p> +<p>"Spoon? With <i>you</i>!"</p> +<p>"You are quite right," he said, smiling; "it would be poor +sport."</p> +<p>There had been no change in his amused eyes, in his voice; yet, +sensitive to the imperceptible, the girl looked up quickly. He +laughed and straightened up; and presently his eyes grew absent and +his sun-burned hand sought his moustache.</p> +<p>"Have you misunderstood me?" she asked in a low voice.</p> +<p>"How, child?"</p> +<p>"I don't know. . . . Shall we walk a little?"</p> +<p>When they came to the stone fish-pond she seated herself for a +moment on a marble bench, then, curiously restless, rose again; and +again they moved forward at hazard, past the spouting fountain, +which was a driven well, out of which a crystal column of water +rose, geyser-like, dazzling in the westering sun rays.</p> +<p>"Nina tells me that this water rises in the Connecticut hills," +he said, "and flows as a subterranean sheet under the Sound, +spouting up here on Long Island when you drive a well."</p> +<p>She looked at the column of flashing water, nodding silent +assent.</p> +<p>They moved on, the girl curiously reserved, non-communicative, +head slightly lowered; the man vague-eyed, thoughtful, pacing +slowly at her side. Behind them their long shadows trailed across +the brilliant grass.</p> +<p>Traversing the grove which encircled the newly clipped lawn, now +fragrant with sun-crisped grass-tips left in the wake of the mower, +he glanced up at the pretty mermaid mother cuddling her tiny +offspring against her throat. Across her face a bar of pink +sunlight fell, making its contour exquisite.</p> +<p>"Plunkitt tells me that they really laugh at each other in the +moonlight," he said.</p> +<p>She glanced up; then away from him:</p> +<p>"You seem to be enamoured of the moonlight," she said.</p> +<p>"I like to prowl in it."</p> +<p>"Alone?"</p> +<p>"Sometimes."</p> +<p>"And—at other times?"</p> +<p>He laughed: "Oh, I'm past that, as you reminded me a moment +ago."</p> +<p>"Then you <i>did</i> misunderstand me!"</p> +<p>"Why, no—"</p> +<p>"Yes, you did! But I supposed you knew."</p> +<p>"Knew what, Eileen?" "What I meant."</p> +<p>"You meant that I am <i>hors de concours</i>."</p> +<p>"I didn't!"</p> +<p>"But I am, child. I was, long ago."</p> +<p>She looked up: "Do you really think that, Captain Selwyn? If you +do—I am glad."</p> +<p>He laughed outright. "You are glad that I'm safely past the +spooning age?" he inquired, moving forward.</p> +<p>She halted: "Yes. Because I'm quite sure of you if you are; I +mean that I can always keep you for myself. Can't I?"</p> +<p>She was smiling and her eyes were clear and fearless, but there +was a wild-rose tint on her cheeks which deepened a little as he +turned short in his tracks, gazing straight at her.</p> +<p>"You wish to keep me—for yourself?" he repeated, +laughing.</p> +<p>"Yes, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"Until you marry. Is that it, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Yes, until I marry."</p> +<p>"And then we'll let each other go; is that it?"</p> +<p>"Yes. But I think I told you that I would never marry. Didn't +I?"</p> +<p>"Oh! Then ours is to be a lifelong and anti-sentimental +contract!"</p> +<p>"Yes, unless <i>you</i> marry."</p> +<p>"I promise not to," he said, "unless you do."</p> +<p>"I promise not to," she said gaily, "unless you do."</p> +<p>"There remains," he observed, "but one way for you and I ever to +marry anybody. And as I'm <i>hors de concours</i>, even that hope +is ended."</p> +<p>She flushed; her lips parted, but she checked what she had meant +to say, and they walked forward together in silence for a while +until she had made up her mind what to say and how to express +it:</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn, there are two things that you do which seem to +me unfair. You still have, at times, that far-away, absent +expression which excludes me; and when I venture to break the +silence, you have a way of answering, 'Yes, child,' and 'No, +child'—as though you were inattentive, and I had not yet +become an adult. <i>That</i> is my first complaint! . . . +<i>What</i> are you laughing at? It is true; and it confuses and +hurts me; because I <i>know</i> I am intelligent enough and old +enough to—to be treated as a woman!—a woman attractive +enough to be reckoned with! But I never seem to be wholly so to +you."</p> +<p>The laugh died out as she ended; for a moment they stood there, +confronting one another.</p> +<p>"Do you imagine," he said in a low voice, "that I do not know +all that?"</p> +<p>"I don't know whether you do. For all your friendship—for +all your liking and your kindness to +me—somehow—I—I don't seem to stand with you as +other women do; I don't seem to stand their chances."</p> +<p>"What chances?"</p> +<p>"The—the consideration; you don't call any other woman +'child,' do you? You don't constantly remind other women of the +difference in your ages, do you? You don't <i>feel</i> with other +women that you are—as you please to call it—<i>hors de +concours</i>—out of the running. And somehow, with me, it +humiliates. Because even if I—if I am the sort of a girl who +never means to marry, you—your attitude seems to take away +the possibility of my changing my mind; it dictates to me, giving +me no choice, no liberty, no personal freedom in the matter. . . . +It's as though you considered me somehow utterly out of the +question—radically unthinkable as a woman. And you assume to +take for granted that I also regard you as—as <i>hors de +concours</i>. . . . Those are my grievances, Captain Selwyn. . . . +And I <i>don't</i> regard you so. And I—and it troubles me to +be excluded—to be found wanting, inadequate in anything that +a woman should be. I know that you and I have no desire to marry +each other—but—but please don't make the reason for it +either your age or my physical immaturity or intellectual +inexperience."</p> +<p>Another of those weather-stained seats of Georgia marble stood +embedded under the trees near where she had halted; and she seated +herself, outwardly composed, and inwardly a little frightened at +what she had said.</p> +<p>As for Selwyn, he remained where he had been standing on the +lawn's velvet edge; and, raising her eyes again, her heart misgave +her that she had wantonly strained a friendship which had been all +but perfect; and now he was moving across the path toward +her—a curious look in his face which she could not interpret. +She looked up as he approached and stretched out her hand:</p> +<p>"Forgive me, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I <i>am</i> a +child—a spoiled one; and I have proved it to you. Will you +sit here beside me and tell me very gently what a fool I am to risk +straining the friendship dearest to me in the whole world? And will +you fix my penance?"</p> +<p>"You have fixed it yourself," he said.</p> +<p>"How?"</p> +<p>"By the challenge of your womanhood."</p> +<p>"I did not challenge—"</p> +<p>"No; you defended. You are right. The girl I cared for—the +girl who was there with me on Brier Water—so many, many +centuries ago—the girl who, years ago, leaned there beside me +on the sun-dial—has become a memory."</p> +<p>"What do you mean?" she asked faintly.</p> +<p>"Shall I tell you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"You will not be unhappy if I tell you?"</p> +<p>"N-no."</p> +<p>"Have you any idea what I am going to say, Eileen?"</p> +<p>She looked up quickly, frightened at the tremor in his +voice:</p> +<p>"Don't—don't say it, Captain Selwyn!"</p> +<p>"Will you listen—as a penance?"</p> +<p>"I—no, I cannot—"</p> +<p>He said quietly: "I was afraid you could not listen. You see, +Eileen, that, after all, a man does know when he is done +for—"</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn!" She turned and caught his hands in both of +hers, her eyes bright with tears: "Is that the penalty for what I +said? Did you think I invited this—"</p> +<p>"Invited! No, child," he said gently. "I was fool enough to +believe in myself; that is all. I have always been on the edge of +loving you. Only in dreams did I ever dare set foot across that +frontier. Now I have dared. I love you. That is all; and it must +not distress you."</p> +<p>"But it does not," she said; "I have always loved +you—dearly, dearly. . . . Not in that way. . . . I don't know +how. . . . Must it be in <i>that</i> way, Captain Selwyn? Can we +not go on in the other way—that dear way which I—I +have—almost spoiled? Must we be like other people—must +sentiment turn it all to commonplace? . . . Listen to me; I do love +you; it is perfectly easy and simple to say it. But it is not +emotional, it is not sentimental. Can't you see that in little +things—in my ways with you? I—if I were sentimental +about you I would call you Ph—by your first name, I suppose. +But I can't; I've tried to—and it's very, very hard—and +makes me self-conscious. It is an effort, you see—and so +would it be for me to think of you sentimentally. Oh, I couldn't! I +couldn't!—you, so much of a man, so strong and generous and +experienced and clever—so perfectly the embodiment of +everything I care for in a man! I love you dearly; but—you +saw! I could—could not bring myself to touch even your +hair—even in pure mischief. . . . And—sentiment chills +me; I—there are times when it would be unendurable—I +could not use an endearing term—nor suffer a—a caress. +. . . So you see—don't you? And won't you take me for what I +am?—and as I am?—a girl—still young, devoted to +you with all her soul—happy with you, believing implicitly in +you, deeply, deeply sensible of your goodness and sweetness and +loyalty to her. I am not a woman; I was a fool to say so. But +you—you are so overwhelmingly a man that if it were in me to +love—in that way—it would be you! . . . Do you +understand me? Or have I lost a friend? Will you forgive my foolish +boast? Can you still keep me first in your heart—as you are +in mine? And pardon in me all that I am not? Can you do these +things because I ask you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3>A NOVICE</h3> +<p>Gerald came to Silverside two or three times during the early +summer, arriving usually on Friday and remaining until the +following Monday morning.</p> +<p>All his youthful admiration and friendship for Selwyn had +returned; that was plainly evident—and with it something less +of callow self-sufficiency. He did not appear to be as cock-sure of +himself and the world as he had been; there was less bumptiousness +about him, less aggressive complacency. Somewhere and somehow +somebody or something had come into collision with him; but who or +what this had been he did not offer to confide in Selwyn; and the +older man, dreading to disturb the existing accord between them, +forbore to question him or invite, even indirectly, any confidence +not offered.</p> +<p>Selwyn had slowly become conscious of this change in Gerald. In +the boy's manner toward others there seemed to be hints of that +seriousness which maturity or the first pressure of responsibility +brings, even to the more thoughtless. Plainly enough some +experience, not wholly agreeable, was teaching him the elements of +consideration for others; he was less impulsive, more tolerant; +yet, at times, Selwyn and Eileen also noticed that he became very +restless toward the end of his visits at Silverside; as though +something in the city awaited him—some duty, or +responsibility not entirely pleasant.</p> +<p>There was, too, something of soberness, amounting, at moments, +to discontented listlessness—not solitary brooding; for at +such moments he stuck to Selwyn, following him about and remaining +rather close to him, as though the elder man's mere presence was a +comfort—even a protection.</p> +<p>At such intervals Selwyn longed to invite the boy's confidence, +knowing that he had some phase of life to face for which his +experience was evidently inadequate. But Gerald gave no sign of +invitation; and Selwyn dared not speak lest he undo what time and +his forbearance were slowly repairing.</p> +<p>So their relations remained during the early summer; and +everybody supposed that Gerald's two weeks' vacation would be spent +there at Silverside. Apparently the boy himself thought so, too, +for he made some plans ahead, and Austin sent down a very handsome +new motor-boat for him.</p> +<p>Then, at the last minute, a telegram arrived, saying that he had +sailed for Newport on Neergard's big yacht! And for two weeks no +word was received from him at Silverside.</p> +<p>Late in August, however, he wrote a rather colourless letter to +Selwyn, saying that he was tired and would be down for the +week-end.</p> +<p>He came, thinner than usual, with the city pallor showing +through traces of the sea tan. And it appeared that he was really +tired; for he seemed inclined to lounge on the veranda, satisfied +as long as Selwyn remained in sight. But, when Selwyn moved, he got +up and followed.</p> +<p>So subdued, so listless, so gentle in manner and speech had he +become that somebody, in his temporary absence, wondered whether +the boy were perfectly well—which voiced the general doubt +hitherto unexpressed.</p> +<p>But Austin laughed and said that the boy was merely finding +himself; and everybody acquiesced, much relieved at the +explanation, though to Selwyn the explanation was not at all +satisfactory.</p> +<p>There was trouble somewhere, stress of doubt, pressure of +apprehension, the gravity of immaturity half realising its own +inexperience. And one day in September he wrote Gerald, asking him +to bring Edgerton Lawn and come down to Silverside for the purpose +of witnessing some experiments with the new smokeless explosive, +Chaosite.</p> +<p>Young Lawn came by the first train; Gerald wired that he would +arrive the following morning.</p> +<p>He did arrive, unusually pallid, almost haggard; and Selwyn, who +met him at the station and drove him over from Wyossett, ventured +at last to give the boy a chance.</p> +<p>But Gerald remained utterly unresponsive—stolidly +so—and the other instantly relinquished the hope of any +confidence at that time—shifting the conversation at once to +the object and reason of Gerald's coming, and gaily expressing his +belief that the time was very near at hand when Chaosite would +figure heavily in the world's list of commercially valuable +explosives.</p> +<p>It was early in August that Selwyn had come to the conclusion +that his Chaosite was likely to prove a commercial success. And +now, in September, his experiments had advanced so far that he had +ventured to invite Austin, Gerald, Lansing, and Edgerton Lawn, of +the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company, to witness a few tests at his +cottage laboratory on Storm Head; but at the same time he informed +them with characteristic modesty that he was not yet prepared to +guarantee the explosive.</p> +<p>About noon his guests arrived before the cottage in a solemn +file, halted, and did not appear overanxious to enter the +laboratory on Storm Head. Also they carefully cast away their +cigars when they did enter, and seated themselves in a nervous +circle in the largest room of the cottage. Here their eyes +instantly became glued to a great bowl which was piled high with +small rose-tinted cubes of some substance which resembled +symmetrical and translucent crystals of pink quartz. That was +Chaosite enough to blow the entire cliff into smithereens; and they +were aware of it, and they eyed it with respect.</p> +<p>First of all Selwyn laid a cubic crystal on an anvil, and struck +it sharply and repeatedly with a hammer. Austin's thin hair rose, +and Edgerton Lawn swallowed nothing several times; but nobody went +to heaven, and the little cube merely crumbled into a flaky pink +powder.</p> +<p>Then Selwyn took three cubes, dropped them into boiling milk, +fished them out again, twisted them into a waxy taper, placed it in +a candle-stick, and set fire to it. The taper burned with a flaring +brilliancy but without odour.</p> +<p>Then Selwyn placed several cubes in a mortar, pounded them to +powder with an iron pestle, and, measuring out the tiniest +pinch—scarcely enough to cover the point of a penknife, +placed a few grains in several paper cartridges. Two wads followed +the powder, then an ounce and a half of shot, then a wad, and then +the crimping.</p> +<p>The guests stepped gratefully outside; Selwyn, using a light +fowling-piece, made pattern after pattern for them; and then they +all trooped solemnly indoors again; and Selwyn froze Chaosite and +boiled it and baked it and melted it and took all sorts of +hair-raising liberties with it; and after that he ground it to +powder, placed a few generous pinches in a small hand-grenade, and +affixed a primer, the secret composition of which he alone knew. +That was the key to the secret—the composition of the primer +charge.</p> +<p>"I used to play base-ball in college," he observed +smiling—"and I used to be a pretty good shot with a +snowball."</p> +<p>They followed him to the cliff's edge, always with great respect +for the awful stuff he handled with such apparent carelessness. +There was a black sea-soaked rock jutting out above the waves; +Selwyn pointed at it, poised himself, and, with the long, overhand, +straight throw of a trained ball player, sent the grenade like a +bullet at the rock.</p> +<p>There came a blinding flash, a stunning, clean-cut +report—but what the others took to be a vast column of black +smoke was really a pillar of dust—all that was left of the +rock. And this slowly floated, settling like mist over the waves, +leaving nothing where the rock had been.</p> +<p>"I think," said Edgerton Lawn, wiping the starting perspiration +from his forehead, "that you have made good, Captain Selwyn. Dense +or bulk, your Chaosite and impact primer seem to do the business; +and I think I may say that the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company is ready +to do business, too. Can you come to town to-morrow? It's merely a +matter of figures and signatures now, if you say so. It is entirely +up to you."</p> +<p>But Selwyn only laughed. He looked at Austin.</p> +<p>"I suppose," said Edgerton Lawn good-naturedly, "that you intend +to make us sit up and beg; or do you mean to absorb us?"</p> +<p>But Selwyn said: "I want more time on this thing. I want to know +what it does to the interior of loaded shells and in fixed +ammunition when it is stored for a year. I want to know whether it +is necessary to use a solvent after firing it in big guns. As a +bursting charge I'm practically satisfied with it; but time is +required to know how it acts on steel in storage or on the bores of +guns when exploded as a propelling charge. Meanwhile," turning to +Lawn, "I'm tremendously obliged to you for coming—and for +your offer. You see how it is, don't you? I couldn't risk taking +money for a thing which might, at the end, prove dear at any +price."</p> +<p>"I cheerfully accept that risk," insisted young Lawn; "I am +quite ready to do all the worrying, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>But Selwyn merely shook his head, repeating: "You see how it is, +don't you?"</p> +<p>"I see that you possess a highly developed conscience," said +Edgerton Lawn, laughing; "and when I tell you that we are more than +willing to take every chance of failure—"</p> +<p>But Selwyn shook his head: "Not yet," he said; "don't worry; I +need the money, and I'll waste no time when a square deal is +possible. But I ought to tell you this: that first of all I must +offer it to the Government. That is only decent, you +see—"</p> +<p>"Who ever heard of the Government's gratitude?" broke in Austin. +"Nonsense, Phil; you are wasting time!"</p> +<p>"I've got to do it," said Selwyn; "you must see that, of +course."</p> +<p>"But I don't see it," began Lawn—"because you are not in +the Government service now—"</p> +<p>"Besides," added Austin, "you were not a West Pointer; you never +were under obligations to the Government!"</p> +<p>"Are we not all under obligation?" asked Selwyn so simply that +Austin flushed.</p> +<p>"Oh, of course—patriotism and all +that—naturally—Confound it, I don't suppose you'd go +and offer it to Germany or Japan before our own Government had the +usual chance to turn it down and break your heart. But why can't +the Government make arrangements with Lawn's Company—if it +desires to?"</p> +<p>"A man can't exploit his own Government; you all know that as +well as I do," returned Selwyn, smiling. "<i>Pro aris et focis</i>, +you know—<i>ex necessitate rei</i>."</p> +<p>"When the inventor goes to the Government," said Austin, with a +shrug—"<i>vestigia nulla retrorsum</i>."</p> +<p>"<i>Spero meliora</i>," retorted Selwyn, laughing; but there +remained the obstinate squareness of jaw, and his amused eyes were +clear and steady. Young Lawn looked into them and the hope in him +flickered; Austin looked, and shrugged; but as they all turned away +to retrace their steps across the moors in the direction of +Silverside, Lansing lightly hooked his arm into Selwyn's; and +Gerald, walking thoughtfully on the other side, turned over and +over in his mind the proposition offered him—the spectacle of +a modern and needy man to whom money appeared to be the last +consideration in a plain matter of business. Also he turned over +other matters in his mind; and moved closer to Selwyn, walking +beside him with grave eyes bent on the ground.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The matter of business arrangements apparently ended then and +there; Lawn's company sent several men to Selwyn and wrote him a +great many letters—unlike the Government, which had not +replied to his briefly tentative suggestion that Chaosite be +conditionally examined, tested, and considered.</p> +<p>So the matter remained in abeyance, and Selwyn employed two +extra men and continued storage tests and experimented with rifled +and smooth-bore tubes, watchfully uncertain yet as to the necessity +of inventing a solvent to neutralise possible corrosion after a +propelling charge had been exploded.</p> +<p>Everybody in the vicinity had heard about his experiments; +everybody pretended interest, but few were sincere; and of the +sincere, few were unselfishly interested—his sister, Eileen, +Drina, and Lansing—and maybe one or two others.</p> +<p>However, the younger set, now predominant from Wyossett to +Wonder Head, made up parties to visit Selwyn's cottage, which had +become known as The Chrysalis; and Selwyn good-naturedly exploded a +pinch or two of the stuff for their amusement, and never betrayed +the slightest annoyance or boredom. In fact, he behaved so amiably +during gratuitous interruptions that he won the hearts of the +younger set, who presently came to the unanimous conclusion that +there was Romance in the air. And they sniffed it with delicate +noses uptilted and liked the aroma.</p> +<p>Kathleen Lawn, a big, leisurely, blond-skinned girl, who showed +her teeth when she laughed and shook hands like a man, declared him +"adorable" but "unsatisfactory," which started one of the +Dresden-china twins, Dorothy Minster, and she, in turn, ventured +the innocent opinion that Selwyn was misunderstood by most +people—an inference that she herself understood him. And she +smiled to herself when she made this observation, up to her neck in +the surf; and Eileen, hearing the remark, smiled to herself, too. +But she felt the slightest bit uncomfortable when that animated +brunette Gladys Orchil, climbing up dripping on to the anchored +float beyond the breakers, frankly confessed that the tinge of +mystery enveloping Selwyn's career made him not only adorable, but +agreeably "unfathomable"; and that she meant to experiment with him +at every opportunity.</p> +<p>Sheila Minster, seated on the raft's edge, swinging her +stockinged legs in the green swells that swept steadily shoreward, +modestly admitted that Selwyn was "sweet," particularly in a canoe +on a moonlight night—in spite of her weighty mother heavily +afloat in the vicinity.</p> +<p>"He's nice every minute," she said—"every fibre of him is +nice in the nicest sense. He never talks 'down' at you—like +an insufferable undergraduate; and he is so much of a +man—such a real man!—that I like him," she added +naïvely; "and I'm quite sure he likes me, because he said +so."</p> +<p>"I like him," said Gladys Orchil, "because he has a sense of +humour and stands straight. I like a sense of humour and—good +shoulders. He's an enigma; and I like that, too. . . . I'm going to +investigate him every chance I get."</p> +<p>Dorothy Minster liked him, too: "He's such a regular boy at +times," she explained; "I do love to see him without his hat +sauntering along beside me—and not talking every minute when +you don't wish to talk. Friends," she added—"true friends are +most eloquent in their mutual silence. Ahem!"</p> +<p>Eileen Erroll, standing near on the pitching raft, listened +intently, but curiously enough said nothing either in praise or +blame.</p> +<p>"He is exactly the right age," insisted Gladys—as though +somebody had said he was not—"the age when a man is most +interesting."</p> +<p>The Minster twins twiddled their legs and looked sentimentally +at the ocean. They were a pair of pink and white little things with +china-blue eyes and the fairest of hair, and they were very +impressionable; and when they thought of Selwyn they looked +unutterable things at the Atlantic Ocean.</p> +<p>One man, often the least suitable, is usually the unanimous +choice of the younger sort where, in the disconcerting summer time, +the youthful congregate in garrulous segregation.</p> +<p>Their choice they expressed frankly and innocently; they +admitted cheerfully that Selwyn was their idol. But that gentleman +remained totally unconscious that he had been set up by them upon +the shores of the summer sea.</p> +<p>In leisure moments he often came down to the bathing-beach at +the hour made fashionable; he conducted himself amiably with +dowager and chaperon, with portly father and nimble brother, with +the late débutantes of the younger set and the younger +matrons, individually, collectively, impartially.</p> +<p>He and Gerald usually challenged the rollers in a sponson canoe +when Gerald was there for the week-end; or, when Lansing came down, +the two took long swims seaward or cruised about in Gerald's dory, +clad in their swimming-suits; and Selwyn's youth became renewed in +a manner almost ridiculous, so that the fine lines which had +threatened the corners of his mouth and eyes disappeared, and the +clear sun tan of the tropics, which had never wholly faded, came +back over a smooth skin as clear as a boy's, though not as smoothly +rounded. His hair, too, crisped and grew lighter under the burning +sun, which revealed, at the temples, the slightest hint of silver. +And this deepened the fascination of the younger sort for the idol +they had set up upon the sands of Silverside.</p> +<p>Gladys was still eloquent on the subject, lying flat on the raft +where all were now gathered in a wet row, indulging in sunshine and +the two minutes of gossip which always preceded their return swim +to the beach.</p> +<p>"It is partly his hair," she said gravely, "that makes him so +distinguished in his appearance—just that touch of silver; +and you keep looking and looking until you scarcely know whether +it's really beginning to turn a little gray or whether it's only a +lighter colour at the temples. How insipid is a mere boy after such +a man as Captain Selwyn! . . . I have dreamed of such a +man—several times."</p> +<p>The Minster twins gazed soulfully at the Atlantic; Eileen Erroll +bit her under lip and stood up suddenly. "Come on," she said; +joined her hands skyward, poised, and plunged. One after another +the others followed and, rising to the surface, struck out +shoreward.</p> +<p>On the sunlit sands dozens of young people were hurling +tennis-balls at each other. Above the beach, under the long +pavilions, sat mothers and chaperons. Motors, beach-carts, and +victorias were still arriving to discharge gaily dressed +fashionables—for the hour was early—and up and down the +inclined wooden walk leading from the bathing-pavilion to the +sands, a constant procession of bathers passed with nod and gesture +of laughing salutation, some already retiring to the showers after +a brief ocean plunge, the majority running down to the shore, eager +for the first frosty and aromatic embrace of the surf rolling in +under a cloudless sky of blue.</p> +<p>As Eileen Erroll emerged from the surf and came wading shoreward +through the seething shallows, she caught sight of Selwyn +sauntering across the sands toward the water, and halted, +knee-deep, smilingly expectant, certain that he had seen her.</p> +<p>Gladys Orchil, passing her, saw Selwyn at the same moment, and +her clear, ringing salute and slender arm aloft, arrested his +attention; and the next moment they were off together, swimming +toward the sponson canoe which Gerald had just launched with the +assistance of Sandon Craig and Scott Innis.</p> +<p>For a moment Eileen stood there, motionless. Knee-high the flat +ebb boiled and hissed, dragging at her stockinged feet as though to +draw her seaward with the others. Yesterday she would have gone, +without a thought, to join the others; but yesterday is yesterday. +It seemed to her, as she stood there, that something disquieting +had suddenly come into the world; something unpleasant—but +indefinite—yet sufficient to leave her vaguely +apprehensive.</p> +<p>The saner emotions which have their birth in reason she was not +ignorant of; emotion arising from nothing at all disconcerted +her—nor could she comprehend the slight quickening of her +heart-beats as she waded to the beach, while every receding film of +water tugged at her limbs as though to draw her backward in the +wake of her unquiet thoughts.</p> +<p>Somebody threw a tennis-ball at her; she caught it and hurled it +in return; and for a few minutes the white, felt-covered balls flew +back and forth from scores of graceful, eager hands. A moment or +two passed when no balls came her way; she turned and walked to the +foot of a dune and seated herself cross-legged on the hot sand.</p> +<p>Sometimes she watched the ball players, sometimes she exchanged +a word of amiable commonplace with people who passed or halted to +greet her. But she invited nobody to remain, and nobody ventured +to, not even several very young and ardent gentlemen who had +acquired only the rudiments of social sense. For there was a sweet +but distant look in her dark-blue eyes and a certain reserved +preoccupation in her acknowledgment of salutations. And these kept +the would-be adorer moving—wistful, lagging, but still moving +along the edge of that invisible barrier set between her and the +world with her absent-minded greeting, and her serious, beautiful +eyes fixed so steadily on a distant white spot—the sponson +canoe where Gladys and Selwyn sat, their paddle blades flashing in +the sun.</p> +<p>How far away they were. . . . Gerald was with them. . . . +Curious that Selwyn had not seen her waiting for him, knee-deep in +the surf—curious that he had seen Gladys instead. . . . True, +Gladys had called to him and signalled him, white arm upflung. . . +. Gladys was very pretty—with her heavy, dark hair and +melting, Spanish eyes, and her softly rounded, olive-skinned +figure. . . . Gladys had called to him, and <i>she</i> had not. . . +. That was true; and lately—for the last few days—or +perhaps more—she herself had been a trifle less impulsive in +her greeting of Selwyn—a little less <i>sans-façon</i> +with him. . . . After all, a man comes when it pleases him. Why +should a girl call him?—unless +she—unless—unless—</p> +<p>Perplexed, her grave eyes fixed on the sea where now the white +canoe pitched nearer, she dropped both hands to the +sand—those once wonderfully white hands, now creamed with sun +tan; and her arms, too, were tinted from shoulder to finger-tip. +Then she straightened her legs, crossed her feet, and leaned a +trifle forward, balancing her body on both palms flat on the sand. +The sun beat down on her; she loosened her hair to dry it, and as +she shook her delicate head the superb red-gold mass came tumbling +about her face and shoulders. Under its glimmering splendour, and +through it, she stared seaward out of wide, preoccupied eyes; and +in her breast, stirring uneasily, a pulse, intermittent yet dully +importunate, persisted.</p> +<p>The canoe, drifting toward the surf, was close in, now. Gerald +rose and dived; Gladys, steadying herself by a slim hand on +Selwyn's shoulder, stood up on the bow, ready to plunge clear when +the canoe capsized.</p> +<p>How wonderfully pretty she was, balanced there, her hand on his +shoulder, ready for a leap, lest the heavy canoe, rolling over in +the froth, strike her under the smother of foam and water. . . . +How marvellously pretty she was. . . . Her hand on his shoulder. . +. .</p> +<p>Miss Erroll sat very still; but the pulse within her was not +still.</p> +<p>When the canoe suddenly capsized, Gladys jumped, but Selwyn went +with it, boat and man tumbling into the tumult over and over; and +the usual laughter from the onlookers rang out, and a dozen young +people rushed into the surf to right the canoe and push it out into +the surf again and clamber into it.</p> +<p>Gerald was among the number; Gladys swam toward it, beckoning +imperiously to Selwyn; but he had his back to the sea and was +moving slowly out through the flat swirling ebb. And as Eileen +looked, she saw a dark streak leap across his face—saw him +stoop and wash it off and stand, looking blindly about, while again +the sudden dark line criss-crossed his face from temple to chin, +and spread wider like a stain.</p> +<p>"Philip!" she called, springing to her feet and scarcely knowing +that she had spoken.</p> +<p>He heard her, and came toward her in a halting, dazed way, +stopping twice to cleanse his face of the bright blood that +streaked it.</p> +<p>"It's nothing," he said—"the infernal thing hit me. . . . +Oh, don't use <i>that</i>!" as she drenched her kerchief in cold +sea-water and held it toward him with both hands.</p> +<p>"Take it!—I—I beg of you," she stammered. "Is it +s-serious?"</p> +<p>"Why, no," he said, his senses clearing; "it was only a rap on +the head—and this blood is merely a nuisance. . . . Thank +you, I will use your kerchief if you insist. . . . It'll stop in a +moment, anyway."</p> +<p>"Please sit here," she said—"here where I've been +sitting."</p> +<p>He did so, muttering: "What a nuisance. It will stop in a +second. . . . You needn't remain here with me, you know. Go in; it +is simply glorious."</p> +<p>"I've been in; I was drying my hair."</p> +<p>He glanced up, smiling; then, as the wet kerchief against his +forehead reddened, he started to rise, but she took it from his +fingers, hastened to the water's edge, rinsed it, and brought it +back cold and wet.</p> +<p>"Please sit perfectly still," she said; "a girl likes to do this +sort of thing for a man."</p> +<p>"If I'd known that," he laughed, "I'd have had it happen +frequently."</p> +<p>She only shook her head, watching him unsmiling. But the pulse +in her had become very quiet again.</p> +<p>"It's no end of fun in that canoe," he observed. "Gladys Orchil +and I work it beautifully."</p> +<p>"I saw you did," she nodded.</p> +<p>"Oh! Where were you? Why didn't you come?"</p> +<p>"I don't know. Gladys called you. I was waiting for +you—expecting you. Then Gladys called you."</p> +<p>"I didn't see you," he said.</p> +<p>"I didn't call you," she observed serenely. And, after a moment: +"Do you see only those who hail you, Captain Selwyn?"</p> +<p>He laughed: "In this life's cruise a good sailor always answers +a friendly hail."</p> +<p>"So do I," she said. "Please hail me after this—because I +don't care to take the initiative. If you neglect to do it, don't +count on my hailing you . . . any more."</p> +<p>The stain spread on the kerchief; once more she went to the +water's edge, rinsed it, and returned with it.</p> +<p>"I think it has almost stopped bleeding," she remarked as he +laid the cloth against his forehead. "You frightened me, Captain +Selwyn. I am not easily frightened."</p> +<p>"I know it."</p> +<p>"Did you know I was frightened?"</p> +<p>"Of course I did."</p> +<p>"Oh," she said, vexed, "how could you know it? I didn't do +anything silly, did I?"</p> +<p>"No; you very sensibly called me Philip. That's how I knew you +were frightened."</p> +<p>A slow bright colour stained face and neck.</p> +<p>"So I was silly, after all," she said, biting at her under lip +and trying to meet his humorous gray eyes with unconcern. But her +face was burning now, and, aware of it, she turned her gaze +resolutely on the sea. Also, to her further annoyance, her heart +awoke, beating unwarrantably, absurdly, until the dreadful idea +seized her that he could hear it. Disconcerted, she stood +up—a straight youthful figure against the sea. The wind +blowing her dishevelled hair across her cheeks and shoulders, +fluttered her clinging skirts as she rested both hands on her hips +and slowly walked toward the water's edge.</p> +<p>"Shall we swim?" he asked her.</p> +<p>She half turned and looked around and down at him.</p> +<p>"I'm all right; it's stopped bleeding. Shall we?" he inquired, +looking up at her. "You've got to wash your hair again, +anyhow."</p> +<p>She said, feeling suddenly stupid and childish, and knowing she +was speaking stupidly: "Would you not rather join Gladys again? I +thought that—that—"</p> +<p>"Thought <i>what</i>?"</p> +<p>"Nothing," she said, furious at herself; "I am going to the +showers. Good-bye."</p> +<p>"Good-bye," he said, troubled—"unless we walk to the +pavilion together—"</p> +<p>"But you are going in again; are you not?"</p> +<p>"Not unless you do."</p> +<p>"W-what have I to do with it, Captain Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"It's a big ocean—and rather lonely without you," he said +so seriously that she looked around again and laughed.</p> +<p>"It's full of pretty girls just now. Plunge in, my melancholy +friend. The whole ocean is a dream of fair women to-day."</p> +<p>"'If they be not fair to me, what care I how fair they be,'" he +paraphrased, springing to his feet and keeping step beside her.</p> +<p>"Really, that won't do," she said; "much moonlight and Gladys +and the Minster twins convict you. Do you remember that I told you +one day in early summer—that Sheila and Dorothy and Gladys +would mark you for their own? Oh, my inconstant courtier, they are +yonder!—And I absolve you. Adieu!"</p> +<p>"Do you remember what <i>I</i> told <i>you</i>—one day in +early summer?" he returned coolly.</p> +<p>Her heart began its absurd beating again—but now there was +no trace of pain in it—nothing of apprehension in the echo of +the pulse either.</p> +<p>"You protested so many things, Captain Selwyn—"</p> +<p>"Yes; and one thing in particular. You've forgotten it, I see." +And he looked her in the eye.</p> +<p>"No," she said, "you are wrong. I have not forgotten."</p> +<p>"Nor I."</p> +<p>He halted, looking out over the shining breakers. "I'm glad you +have not forgotten what I said; because, you see, I'm forbidden to +repeat it. So I shall be quite helpless to aid you in case your +memory fails."</p> +<p>"I don't think it will fail," she said, looking at the flashing +sea. A curious tingling sensation of fright had seized +her—something entirely unknown to her heretofore. She spoke +again because frightened; the heavy, hard pulse in breast and +throat played tricks with her voice and she swallowed and attempted +to steady it: "I—if—if I ever forget, you will know it +as soon as I do—"</p> +<p>Her throat seemed to close in a quick, unsteady breath; she +halted, both small hands clinched:</p> +<p>"<i>Don't</i> talk this way!" she said, exasperated under a rush +of sensations utterly incomprehensible—stinging, confused +emotions that beat chaotic time to the clamour of her pulses. "Why +d-do you speak of such things?" she repeated with a fierce little +indrawn breath—"why do you?—when you know—when I +said—explained everything?" She looked at him fearfully: "You +are somehow spoiling our friendship," she said; "and I don't +exactly know how you are doing it, but something of the comfort of +it is being taken away from me—and don't! don't! don't do +it!"</p> +<p>She covered her eyes with her clinched hands, stood a moment, +motionless; then her arms dropped, and she turned sharply with a +gesture which left him standing there and walked rapidly across the +beach to the pavilion.</p> +<p>After a little while he followed, pursuing his way very +leisurely to his own quarters. Half an hour later when she emerged +with her maid, Selwyn was not waiting for her as usual; and, +scarcely understanding that she was finding an excuse for +lingering, she stood for ten minutes on the step of the Orchils' +touring-car, talking to Gladys about the lantern fête and +dance to be given that night at Hitherwood House.</p> +<p>Evidently Selwyn had already gone home. Gerald came lagging up +with Sheila Minster; but his sister did not ask him whether Selwyn +had gone. Yesterday she would have done so; but to-day had brought +to her the strangest sensation of her young life—a sudden and +overpowering fear of a friend; and yet, strangest of all, the very +friend she feared she was waiting for—contriving to find +excuses to wait for. Surely he could not have finished dressing and +have gone. He had never before done that. Why did he not come? It +was late; people were leaving the pavilion; victorias and +beach-phaetons were trundling off loaded to the water-line with fat +dowagers; gay groups passed, hailing her or waving adieux; Drina +drove up in her village-cart, calling out: "Are you coming, Eileen, +or are you going to walk over? Hurry up! I'm hungry."</p> +<p>"I'll go with you," she said, nodding adieu to Gladys; and she +swung off the step and crossed the shell road.</p> +<p>"Jump in," urged the child; "I'm in a dreadful hurry, and Odin +can't trot very fast."</p> +<p>"I'd prefer to drive slowly," said Miss Erroll in a colourless +voice; and seated herself in the village-cart.</p> +<p>"Why must I drive slowly?" demanded the child. "I'm hungry; +besides, I haven't seen Boots this morning. I don't want to drive +slowly; must I?"</p> +<p>"Which are you most in a hurry for?" asked Eileen curiously; +"luncheon or Boots?"</p> +<p>"Both—I don't know. What a silly question. Boots of +course! But I'm starving, too."</p> +<p>"Boots? Of course?"</p> +<p>"Certainly. He always comes first—just like Captain Selwyn +with you."</p> +<p>"Like Captain Selwyn with me," she repeated absently; +"certainly; Captain Selwyn should be first, everything else second. +But how did you find out that, Drina?"</p> +<p>"Why, anybody can see that," said the child contemptuously; "you +are as fast friends with Uncle Philip as I am with Boots. And why +you don't marry him I can't see—unless you're not old enough. +Are you?"</p> +<p>"Yes. . . . I am old enough, dear."</p> +<p>"Then why don't you? If I was old enough to marry Boots I'd do +it. Why don't you?"</p> +<p>"I don't know," said Miss Erroll, as though speaking to +herself.</p> +<p>Drina glanced at her, then flourished her be-ribboned whip, +which whistling threat had no perceptible effect on the fat, red, +Norwegian pony.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you what," said the child, "if you don't ask Uncle +Philip pretty soon somebody will ask him first, and you'll be too +late. As soon as I saw Boots I knew that I wanted him for myself, +and I told him so. He said he was very glad I had spoken, because +he was expecting a proposal by wireless from the young +Sultana-elect of Leyte. Now," added the child with satisfaction, +"she can't have him. It's better to be in time, you see."</p> +<p>Eileen nodded: "Yes, it is better to be in plenty of time. You +can't tell what Sultana may forestall you."</p> +<p>"So you'll tell him, won't you?" inquired Drina with +business-like briskness.</p> +<p>Miss Erroll looked absently at her: "Tell who what?"</p> +<p>"Uncle Philip—that you're going to marry him when you're +old enough."</p> +<p>"Yes—when I'm old enough—I'll tell him, Drina."</p> +<p>"Oh, no; I mean you'll marry him when you're old enough, but +you'd better tell him right away."</p> +<p>"I see; I'd better speak immediately. Thank you, dear, for +suggesting it."</p> +<p>"You're quite welcome," said the child seriously; "and I hope +you'll be as happy as I am."</p> +<p>"I hope so," said Eileen as the pony-cart drew up by the veranda +and a groom took the pony's head.</p> +<p>Luncheon being the children's hour, Miss Erroll's silence +remained unnoticed in the jolly uproar; besides, Gerald and Boots +were discussing the huge house-party, lantern fête, and dance +which the Orchils were giving that night for the younger sets; and +Selwyn, too, seemed to take unusual interest in the discussion, +though Eileen's part in the conference was limited to an occasional +nod or monosyllable.</p> +<p>Drina was wild to go and furious at not having been asked, but +when Boots offered to stay home, she resolutely refused to accept +the sacrifice.</p> +<p>"No," she said; "they are pigs not to ask girls of my age, but +you may go, Boots, and I'll promise not to be unhappy." And she +leaned over and added in a whisper to Eileen: "You see how sensible +it is to make arrangements beforehand! Because somebody, grown-up, +might take him away at this very party. That's the reason why it is +best to speak promptly. Please pass me another peach, Eileen."</p> +<p>"What are you two children whispering about?" inquired Selwyn, +glancing at Eileen.</p> +<p>"Oho!" exclaimed Drina; "you may know before long! May he not, +Eileen? It's about you," she said; "something splendid that +somebody is going to do to you! Isn't it, Eileen?"</p> +<p>Miss Erroll looked smilingly at Selwyn, a gay jest on her lips; +but the sudden clamour of pulses in her throat closed her lips, +cutting the phrase in two, and the same strange fright seized +her—an utterly unreasoning fear of him.</p> +<p>At the same moment Mrs. Gerard gave the rising signal, and +Selwyn was swept away in the rushing herd of children, out on to +the veranda, where for a while he smoked and drew pictures for the +younger Gerards. Later, some of the children were packed off for a +nap; Billy with his assorted puppies went away with Drina and +Boots, ever hopeful of a fox or rabbit; Nina Gerard curled herself +up in a hammock, and Selwyn seated himself beside her, an uncut +magazine on his knees. Eileen had disappeared.</p> +<p>For a while Nina swung there in silence, her pretty eyes fixed +on her brother. He had nearly finished cutting the leaves of the +magazine before she spoke, mentioning the fact of Rosamund Fane's +arrival at the Minsters' house, Brookminster.</p> +<p>The slightest frown gathered and passed from her brother's +sun-bronzed forehead, but he made no comment.</p> +<p>"Mr. Neergard is a guest, too," she observed.</p> +<p>"What?" exclaimed Selwyn, in disgust.</p> +<p>"Yes; he came ashore with the Fanes."</p> +<p>Selwyn flushed a little but went on cutting the pages of the +magazine. When he had finished he flattened the pages between both +covers, and said, without raising his eyes:</p> +<p>"I'm sorry that crowd is to be in evidence."</p> +<p>"They always are and always will be," smiled his sister.</p> +<p>He looked up at her: "Do you mean that anybody <i>else</i> is a +guest at Brookminster?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Phil."</p> +<p>"Alixe?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>He looked down at the book on his knees and began to furrow the +pages absently.</p> +<p>"Phil," she said, "have you heard anything this +summer—lately—about the Ruthvens?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Nothing at all?"</p> +<p>"Not a word."</p> +<p>"You knew they were at Newport as usual."</p> +<p>"I took it for granted."</p> +<p>"And you have heard no rumours?—no gossip concerning them? +Nothing about a yacht?"</p> +<p>"Where was I to hear it? What gossip? What yacht?"</p> +<p>His sister said very seriously: "Alixe has been very +careless."</p> +<p>"Everybody is. What of it?"</p> +<p>"It is understood that she and Jack Ruthven have separated."</p> +<p>He looked up quickly: "Who told you that?"</p> +<p>"A woman wrote me from Newport. . . . And Alixe is here and Jack +Ruthven is in New York. Several people have—I have heard +about it from several sources. I'm afraid it's true, Phil."</p> +<p>They looked into each other's troubled eyes; and he said: "If +she has done this it is the worse of two evils she has chosen. To +live with him was bad enough, but this is the limit."</p> +<p>"I know it. She cannot afford to do such a thing again. . . . +Phil, what is the matter with her? She simply cannot be sane and do +such a thing—can she?"</p> +<p>"I don't know," he said.</p> +<p>"Well, I do. She is not sane. She has made herself horridly +conspicuous among conspicuous people; she has been indiscreet to +the outer edge of effrontery. Even that set won't stand it +always—especially as their men folk are quite crazy about +her, and she leads a train of them about wherever she +goes—the little fool!</p> +<p>"And now, if it's true, that there's to be a +separation—what on earth will become of her? I ask you, Phil, +for I don't know. But men know what becomes eventually of women who +slap the world across the face with over-ringed fingers.</p> +<p>"If—if there's any talk about it—if there's +newspaper talk—if there's a divorce—who will ask her to +their houses? Who will condone this thing? Who will tolerate it, or +her? Men—and men only—the odious sort that fawn on her +now and follow her about half-sneeringly. They'll tolerate it; but +their wives won't; and the kind of women who will receive and +tolerate her are not included in my personal experience. What a +fool she has been!—good heavens, what a fool!"</p> +<p>A trifle paler than usual, he said: "There is no real harm in +her. I know there is not."</p> +<p>"You are very generous, Phil—"</p> +<p>"No, I am trying to be truthful. And I say there is no harm in +her. I have made up my mind on that score." He leaned nearer his +sister and laid one hand on hers where it lay across the hammock's +edge:</p> +<p>"Nina; no woman could have done what she has done, and continue +to do what she does, and be mentally sound. This, at last, is my +conclusion."</p> +<p>"It has long been my conclusion," she said under her breath.</p> +<p>He stared at the floor out of gray eyes grown dull and +hopeless.</p> +<p>"Phil," whispered his sister, "suppose—suppose—what +happened to her father—"</p> +<p>"I know."</p> +<p>She said again: "It was slow at first, a brilliant +eccentricity—that gradually became—something else less +pleasant. Oh, Phil! Phil!"</p> +<p>"It was softening of the brain," he said, "was it not?"</p> +<p>"Yes—he entertained a delusion of conspiracy against +him—also a complacent conviction of the mental instability of +others. Yet, at intervals he remained clever and witty and +charming."</p> +<p>"And then?"</p> +<p>"Phil—he became violent at times."</p> +<p>"Yes. And the end?" he asked quietly.</p> +<p>"A little child again—quite happy and +content—playing with toys—very gentle, very +pitiable—" The hot tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Phil!" she +sobbed and hid her face on his shoulder.</p> +<p>Over the soft, faintly fragrant hair he stared stupidly, lips +apart, chin loose.</p> +<p>A little later, Nina sat up in the hammock, daintily effacing +the traces of tears. Selwyn was saying: "If this is so, that +Ruthven man has got to stand by her. Where could she go—if +such trouble is to come upon her? To whom can she turn if not to +him? He is responsible for her—doubly so, if her condition is +to be—<i>that</i>! By every law of manhood he is bound to +stand by her now; by every law of decency and humanity he cannot +desert her now. If she does these—these indiscreet +things—and if he knows she is not altogether mentally +responsible—he cannot fail to stand by her! How can he, in +God's name!"</p> +<p>"Phil," she said, "you speak like a man, but she has no man to +stand loyally by her in the direst need a human soul may know. He +is only a thing—no man at all—only a loathsome accident +of animated decadence."</p> +<p>He looked up quickly, amazed at her sudden bitterness; and she +looked back at him almost fiercely.</p> +<p>"I may as well tell you what I've heard," she said; "I was not +going to, at first; but it will be all around town sooner or later. +Rosamund told me. She learned—as she manages to learn +everything a little before anybody else hears of it—that Jack +Ruthven found out that Alixe was behaving very carelessly with some +man—some silly, callow, and probably harmless youth. But +there was a disgraceful scene on Mr. Neergard's yacht, the +<i>Niobrara</i>. I don't know who the people were, but Ruthven +acted abominably. . . . The <i>Niobrara</i> anchored in Widgeon Bay +yesterday; and Alixe is aboard, and her husband is in New York, and +Rosamund says he means to divorce her in one way or another! Ugh! +the horrible little man with his rings and bangles!"</p> +<p>She shuddered: "Why, the mere bringing of such a suit means her +social ruin no matter what verdict is brought in! Her only +salvation has been in remaining inconspicuous; and a sane girl +would have realised it. But"—and she made a gesture of +despair—"you see what she has done. . . . And Phil—you +know what she has done to you—what a mad risk she took in +going to your rooms that night—"</p> +<p>"Who said she had ever been in my rooms?" he demanded, flushing +darkly in his surprise.</p> +<p>"Did you suppose I didn't know it?" she asked quietly. "Oh, but +I did; and it kept me awake nights, worrying. Yet I knew it must +have been all right—knowing you as I do. But do you suppose +other people would hold you as innocent as I do? Even +Eileen—the sweetest, whitest, most loyal little soul in the +world—was troubled when Rosamund hinted at some scandal +touching you and Alixe. She told me—but she did not tell me +what Rosamund had said—the mischief maker!"</p> +<p>His face had become quite colourless; he raised an unsteady hand +to his mouth, touching his moustache; and his gray eyes narrowed +menacingly.</p> +<p>"Rosamund—spoke of scandal to—Eileen?" he repeated. +"Is that possible?"</p> +<p>"How long do you suppose a girl can live and not hear scandal of +some sort?" said Nina. "It's bound to rain some time or other, but +I prepared my little duck's back to shed some things."</p> +<p>"You say," insisted Selwyn, "that Rosamund spoke of me—in +that way—to Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Yes. It only made the child angry, Phil; so don't worry."</p> +<p>"No; I won't worry. No, I—I won't. You are quite right, +Nina. But the pity of it; that tight, hard-shelled woman of the +world—to do such a thing—to a young girl."</p> +<p>"Rosamund is Rosamund," said Nina with a shrug; "the antidote to +her species is obvious."</p> +<p>"Right, thank God!" said Selwyn between his teeth; "<i>Mens sana +in corpore sano</i>! bless her little heart! I'm glad you told me +this, Nina."</p> +<p>He rose and laughed a little—a curious sort of laugh; and +Nina watched him, perplexed.</p> +<p>"Where are you going, Phil?" she asked.</p> +<p>"I don't know. I—where is Eileen?"</p> +<p>"She's lying down—a headache; probably too much sun and +salt water. Shall I send for her?"</p> +<p>"No; I'll go up and inquire how she is. Susanne is there, isn't +she?"</p> +<p>And he entered the house and ascended the stairs.</p> +<p>The little Alsatian maid was seated in a corner of the upper +hall, sewing; and she informed Selwyn that mademoiselle "had bad in +ze h'ead."</p> +<p>But at the sound of conversation in the corridor Eileen's gay +voice came to them from her room, asking who it was; and she +evidently knew, for there was a hint of laughter in her tone.</p> +<p>"It is I. Are you better?" said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Yes. D-did you wish to see me?"</p> +<p>"I always do."</p> +<p>"Thank you. . . . I mean, do you wish to see me now? Because I'm +very much occupied in trying to go to sleep."</p> +<p>"Yes, I wish to see you at once."</p> +<p>"Particularly?"</p> +<p>"Very particularly."</p> +<p>"Oh, if it's as serious as that, you alarm me. I'm afraid to +come."</p> +<p>"I'm afraid to have you. But please come."</p> +<p>He heard her laugh to herself; then her clear, amused voice: +"What are you going to say to me if I come out?"</p> +<p>"Something dreadful! Hurry!"</p> +<p>"Oh, if that's the case I'll hurry," she returned, and a moment +later the door opened and she emerged in a breezy flutter of +silvery ribbons and loosened ruddy hair.</p> +<p>She was dressed in some sort of delicate misty stuff that +alternately clung and floated, outlining or clouding her glorious +young figure as she moved with leisurely free-limbed grace across +the hall to meet him.</p> +<p>The pretty greeting she always reserved for him, even if their +separation had been for a few minutes only, she now offered, hand +extended; a cool, fragrant hand which lay for a second in his, +closed, and withdrew, leaving her eyes very friendly.</p> +<p>"Come out on the west veranda," she said; "I know what you wish +to say to me. Besides, I have something to confide to you, too. And +I'm very impatient to do it."</p> +<p>He followed her to the veranda; she seated herself in the broad +swing, and moved so that her invitation to him was unmistakable. +Then when he had taken the place beside her she turned toward him +very frankly, and he looked up to encounter her beautiful direct +gaze.</p> +<p>"What is disturbing our friendship?" she asked. "Do you know? I +don't. I went to my room after luncheon and lay down on my bed and +quietly deliberated. And do you know what conclusion I have +reached?"</p> +<p>"What?" he asked.</p> +<p>"That there is nothing at all to disturb our friendship. And +that what I said to you on the beach was foolish. I don't know why +I said it; I'm not the sort of girl who says such stupid +things—though I was apparently, for that one moment. And what +I said about Gladys was childish; I am not jealous of her, Captain +Selwyn. Don't think me silly or perverse or sentimental, will +you?"</p> +<p>"No, I won't."</p> +<p>She smiled at him with a trifle less courage—a trifle more +self-consciousness: "And—and as for what I called +you—"</p> +<p>"You mean when you called me by my first name, and I teased +you?"</p> +<p>"Y-es. I was silly to do it; sillier to be ashamed of doing it. +There's a great deal of the callow schoolgirl in me yet, you see. +The wise, amused smile of a man can sometimes stampede my +self-possession and leave me blushing like any ninny in dire +confusion. . . . It was very, very mean of you—for the blood +across your face did shock me. . . . And, by myself, and in my very +private thoughts, I do sometimes call you—by your first name. +. . . And that explains it. . . . Now, what have you to say to +me?"</p> +<p>"I wish to ask you something."</p> +<p>"With pleasure," she said; "go ahead." And she settled back, +fearlessly expectant.</p> +<p>"Very well, then," he said, striving to speak coolly. "It is +this: Will you marry me, Eileen?"</p> +<p>She turned perfectly white and stared at him, stunned. And he +repeated his question, speaking slowly, but unsteadily.</p> +<p>"N-no," she said; "I cannot. Why—why, you know that, don't +you?"</p> +<p>"Will you tell me why, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"I—I don't know why. I think—I suppose that it is +because I do not love you—that way."</p> +<p>"Yes," he said, "that, of course, is the reason. I +wonder—do you suppose that—in +time—perhaps—you might care for me—that way?"</p> +<p>"I don't know." She glanced up at him fearfully, fascinated, yet +repelled. "I don't know," she repeated pitifully. "Is +it—can't you help thinking of me in that way? Can't you be as +you were?"</p> +<p>"No, I can no longer help it. I don't want to help it, +Eileen."</p> +<p>"But—I wish you to," she said in a low voice. "It is that +which is coming between us. Oh, don't you see it is? Don't you feel +it—feel what it is doing to us? Don't you understand how it +is driving me back into myself? Whom am I to go to if not to you? +What am I to do if your affection turns into this—this +different attitude toward me? You were so perfectly sweet and +reasonable—so good, so patient; and now—and now I am +losing confidence in you—in myself—in our friendship. +I'm no longer frank with you; I'm afraid at times—afraid and +self-conscious—conscious of you, too—afraid of what +seemed once the most natural of intimacies. I—I loved you so +dearly—so fearlessly—"</p> +<p>Tears blinded her; she bent her head, and they fell on the soft +delicate stuff of her gown, flashing downward in the sunlight.</p> +<p>"Dear," he said gently, "nothing is altered between us. I love +you in that way, too."</p> +<p>"D-do you—really?" she stammered, shrinking away from +him.</p> +<p>"Truly. Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is +weakened. On the contrary, it is strengthened. You cannot +understand that now. But what you are to believe and always +understand is that our friendship must endure. Will you believe +it?"</p> +<p>"Y-yes—" She buried her face in her handkerchief and sat +very still for a long time. He had risen and walked to the farther +end of the veranda; and for a minute he stood there, his narrowed +eyes following the sky flight of the white gulls off Wonder +Head.</p> +<p>When at length he returned to her she was sitting low in the +swing, both arms extended along the back of the seat. Evidently she +had been waiting for him; and her face was very grave and +sorrowful.</p> +<p>"I want to ask you something," she said—"merely to prove +that you are a little bit illogical. May I?"</p> +<p>He nodded, smiling.</p> +<p>"Could you and I care for each other more than we now do, if we +were married?"</p> +<p>"I think so," he said.</p> +<p>"Why?" she demanded, astonished. Evidently she had expected +another answer.</p> +<p>He made no reply; and she lay back among the cushions +considering what he had said, the flush of surprise still lingering +in her cheeks.</p> +<p>"How can I marry you," she asked, "when I would—would not +care to endure a—a caress from any man—even from you? +It—such things—would spoil it all. I <i>don't</i> love +you—that way. . . . Oh! <i>Don't</i> look at me that way! +Have I hurt you?—dear Captain Selwyn? . . . I did not mean +to. . . . Oh, what has become of our happiness! What has become of +it!" And she turned, full length in the swing, and hid her face in +the silken pillows.</p> +<p>For a long while she lay there, the western sun turning her +crown of hair to fire above the white nape of her slender neck; and +he saw her hands clasping, unclasping, or crushing the tiny +handkerchief deep into one palm.</p> +<p>There was a chair near; he drew it toward her, and sat down, +steadying the swing with one hand on the chain.</p> +<p>"Dearest," he said under his breath, "I am very selfish to have +done this; but I—I thought—perhaps—you might have +cared enough to—to venture—"</p> +<p>"I do care; you are very cruel to me." The voice was childishly +broken and muffled. He looked down at her, slowly realising that it +was a child he still was dealing with—a child with a child's +innocence, repelled by the graver phase of love, unresponsive to +the deeper emotions, bewildered by the glimpse of the mature +rôle his attitude had compelled her to accept. That she +already had reached that mile-stone and, for a moment, had turned +involuntarily to look back and find her childhood already behind +her, frightened her.</p> +<p>Thinking, perhaps, of his own years, and of what lay behind him, +he sighed and looked out over the waste of moorland where the +Atlantic was battering the sands of Surf Point. Then his patient +gaze shifted to the east, and he saw the surface of Sky Pond, blue +as the eyes of the girl who lay crouching in the cushioned corner +of the swinging seat, small hands clinched over the +handkerchief—a limp bit of stuff damp with her tears.</p> +<p>"There is one thing," he said, "that we mustn't do—cry +about it—must we, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"No-o."</p> +<p>"Certainly not. Because there is nothing to make either of us +unhappy; is there?"</p> +<p>"Oh-h, no."</p> +<p>"Exactly. So we're not going to be unhappy; not one bit. First +because we love each other, anyway; don't we?"</p> +<p>"Y-yes."</p> +<p>"Of course we do. And now, just because I happen to love you in +that way and also in a different sort of way, in addition to that +way, why, it's nothing for anybody to cry about it; is it, +Eileen?"</p> +<p>"No. . . . No, it is not. . . . But I c-can't help it."</p> +<p>"Oh, but you're going to help it, aren't you?"</p> +<p>"I—I hope so."</p> +<p>He was silent; and presently she said: "I—the reason of +it—my crying—is b-b-because I don't wish you to be +unhappy."</p> +<p>"But, dear, dear little girl, I am not!"</p> +<p>"Really?"</p> +<p>"No, indeed! Why should I be? You do love me; don't you?"</p> +<p>"You know I do."</p> +<p>"But not in <i>that</i> way."</p> +<p>"N-no; not in <i>that</i> way. . . . I w-wish I did."</p> +<p>A thrill passed through him; after a moment he relaxed and +leaned forward, his chin resting on his clinched hands: "Then let +us go back to the old footing, Eileen."</p> +<p>"Can we?"</p> +<p>"Yes, we can; and we will—back to the old +footing—when nothing of deeper sentiment disturbed us. . . . +It was my fault, little girl. Some day you will understand that it +was not a wholly selfish fault—because I +believed—perhaps only dreamed—that I could make you +happier by loving you in—both ways. That is all; it is your +happiness—our happiness that we must consider; and if it is +to last and endure, we must be very, very careful that nothing +really disturbs it again. And that means that the love, which is +sometimes called friendship, must be recognised as sufficient. . . +. You know how it is; a man who is locked up in Paradise is never +satisfied until he can climb the wall and look over! Now I have +climbed and looked; and now I climb back into the garden of your +dear friendship, very glad to be there again with you—very, +very thankful, dear. . . . Will you welcome me back?"</p> +<p>She lay quite still a minute, then sat up straight, stretching +out both hands to him, her beautiful, fearless eyes brilliant as +rain-washed stars.</p> +<p>"Don't go away," she said—"don't ever go away from our +garden again."</p> +<p>"No, Eileen."</p> +<p>"Is it a promise . . . Philip?"</p> +<p>Her voice fell exquisitely low.</p> +<p>"Yes, a promise. Do you take me back, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Yes; I take you. . . . Take me back, too, Philip." Her hands +tightened in his; she looked up at him, faltered, waited; then in a +fainter voice: "And—and be of g-good courage. . . . I—I +am not very old yet."</p> +<p>She withdrew her hands and bent her head, sitting there, still +as a white-browed novice, listlessly considering the lengthening +shadows at her feet. But, as he rose and looked out across the +waste with enchanted eyes that saw nothing, his heart suddenly +leaped up quivering, as though his very soul had been drenched in +immortal sunshine.</p> +<p>An hour later, when Nina discovered them there together, Eileen, +curled up among the cushions in the swinging seat, was reading +aloud "Evidences of Asiatic Influence on the Symbolism of Ancient +Yucatan"; and Selwyn, astride a chair, chin on his folded arms, was +listening with evident rapture.</p> +<p>"Heavens!" exclaimed Nina, "the blue-stocking and the +fogy!—and yours <i>are</i> pale blue, Eileen!—you're +about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your +hair tumbling <i>à la</i> Mérode! Oh, it's very +picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is +better. Get up, little blue-stockings and we'll have our hair +done—if you expect to appear at Hitherwood House with +me!"</p> +<p>Eileen laughed, calmly smoothing out her skirt over her slim +ankles; then she closed the book, sat up, and looked happily at +Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Fogy and <i>Bas-bleu</i>," she repeated. "But it <i>is</i> +fascinating, isn't it?—even if my hair is across my ears and +you sit that chair like a polo player! Nina, dearest, what is your +mature opinion concerning the tomoya and the Buddhist cross?"</p> +<p>"I know more about a tomboy-a than a tomoya, my saucy friend," +observed Nina, surveying her with disapproval—"and I can be +as cross about it as any Buddhist, too. You are, to express it as +pleasantly as possible, a sight! Child, what on earth have you been +doing? There are two smears on your cheeks!"</p> +<p>"I've been crying," said the girl, with an amused sidelong +flutter of her lids toward Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Crying!" repeated Nina incredulously. Then, disarmed by the +serene frankness of the girl, she added: "A blue-stocking is bad +enough, but a grimy one is impossible. <i>Allons! Vite</i>!" she +insisted, driving Eileen before her; "the country is demoralising +you. Philip, we're dining early, so please make your arrangements +to conform. Come, Eileen; have you never before seen Philip +Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"I am not sure that I ever have," she replied, with a curious +little smile at Selwyn. Nina had her by the hand, but she dragged +back like a mischievously reluctant child hustled bedward:</p> +<p>"Good-bye," she said, stretching out her hand to +Selwyn—"good-bye, my unfortunate fellow fogy! I go, slumpy, +besmudged, but happy; I return, superficially immaculate—but +my stockings will still be blue! . . . Nina, dear, if you don't +stop dragging me I'll pick you up in my arms!—indeed I +will—"</p> +<p>There was a laugh, a smothered cry of protest; and Selwyn was +the amused spectator of his sister suddenly seized and lifted into +a pair of vigorous young arms, and carried into the house by this +tall, laughing girl who, an hour before, had lain there among the +cushions, frightened, unconvinced, clinging instinctively to the +last gay rags and tatters of the childhood which she feared were to +be stripped from her for ever.</p> +<p>It was clear starlight when they were ready to depart. Austin +had arrived unexpectedly, and he, Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn were to +drive to Hitherwood House, Lansing and Gerald going in the +motor-boat.</p> +<p>There was a brief scene between Drina and Boots—the former +fiercely pointing out the impropriety of a boy like Gerald being +invited where she, Drina, was ignored. But there was no use in +Boots offering to remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, +anyway; so she kissed him good-bye very tearfully, and generously +forgave Gerald; and comforted herself before she retired by putting +on one of her mother's gowns and pinning up her hair and parading +before a pier-glass until her nurse announced that her bath was +waiting.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The drive to Hitherwood House was a dream of loveliness; under +the stars the Bay of Shoals sparkled in the blue darkness set with +the gemmed ruby and sapphire and emerald of ships' lanterns glowing +from unseen yachts at anchor.</p> +<p>The great flash-light on Wonder Head broke out in brilliancy, +faded, died to a cinder, grew perceptible again, and again blazed +blindingly in its endless monotonous routine; far lights twinkled +on the Sound, and farther away still, at sea. Then the majestic +velvety shadow of the Hither Woods fell over them; and they passed +in among the trees, the lamps of the depot wagon shining golden in +the forest gloom.</p> +<p>Selwyn turned instinctively to the young girl beside him. Her +face was in shadow, but she responded with the slightest movement +toward him:</p> +<p>"This dusk is satisfying—like sleep—this wide, quiet +shadow over the world. Once—and not so very long ago—I +thought it a pity that the sun should ever set. . . . I wonder if I +am growing old—because I feel the least bit tired to-night. +For the first time that I can remember a day has been a little too +long for me."</p> +<p>She evidently did not ascribe her slight sense of fatigue to the +scene on the veranda; perhaps she was too innocent to surmise that +any physical effect could follow that temporary stress of emotion. +A quiet sense of relief in relaxation from effort came over her as +she leaned back, conscious that there was happiness in rest and +silence and the soft envelopment of darkness.</p> +<p>"If it would only last," she murmured lazily.</p> +<p>"What, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"This heavenly darkness—and our drive, together. . . . You +are quite right not to talk to me; I won't, either. . . . Only I'll +drone on and on from time to time—so that you won't forget +that I am here beside you."</p> +<p>She lay so still for a while that at last Nina leaned forward to +look at her; then laughed.</p> +<p>"She's asleep," she said to Austin.</p> +<p>"No, I'm not," murmured the girl, unclosing her eyes; "Captain +Selwyn knows; don't you? . . . What is that sparkling—a +fire-fly?"</p> +<p>But it was the first paper lantern glimmering through the +Hitherwood trees from the distant lawn.</p> +<p>"Oh, dear," sighed Eileen, sitting up with an effort, and +looking sleepily at Selwyn. "<i>J'ai +sommeil—besoin—dormir</i>—"</p> +<p>But a few minutes later they were in the great hall of +Hitherwood House, opened from end to end to the soft sea wind, and +crowded with the gayest, noisiest throng that had gathered there in +a twelvemonth.</p> +<p>Everywhere the younger set were in evidence; slim, fresh, +girlish figures passed and gathered and crowded the stairs and +galleries with a flirt and flutter of winnowing skirts, delicate +and light as powder-puffs.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sanxon Orchil, a hard, highly coloured, tight-lipped little +woman with electric-blue eyes, was receiving with her slim brunette +daughter, Gladys.</p> +<p>"A tight little craft," was Austin's invariable comment on the +matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of +surface like a converted yacht cleared for action.</p> +<p>Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably +affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the +ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his +stiff, retroussé moustache.</p> +<p>The Lawns were there, the Minsters, the Craigs from Wyossett, +the Grays of Shadow Lake, the Draymores, Fanes, Mottlys, +Cardwells—in fact, it seemed as though all Long Island had +been drained from Cedarhurst to Islip and from Oyster Bay to +Wyossett, to pour a stream of garrulous and animated youth and +beauty into the halls and over the verandas and terraces and lawns +of Hitherwood House.</p> +<p>It was to be a lantern frolic and a lantern dance and supper, +all most formally and impressively <i>sans façon</i>. And it +began with a candle-race for a big silver gilt cup—won by +Sandon Craig and his partner, Evelyn Cardwell, who triumphantly +bore their lighted taper safely among the throngs of hostile +contestants, through the wilderness of flitting lights, and across +the lawn to the goal where they planted it, unextinguished, in the +big red paper lantern.</p> +<p>Selwyn and Eileen came up breathless and laughing with the +others, she holding aloft their candle, which somebody had +succeeded in blowing out; and everybody cheered the winners, +significantly, for it was expected that Miss Cardwell's engagement +to young Craig would be announced before very long.</p> +<p>Then rockets began to rush aloft, starring the black void with +iridescent fire; and everybody went to the lawn's edge where, below +on the bay, a dozen motor-boats, dressed fore and aft with +necklaces of electric lights, crossed the line at the crack of a +cannon in a race for another trophy.</p> +<p>Bets flew as the excitement grew, Eileen confining hers to +gloves and bonbons, and Selwyn loyally taking any offers of any +kind as he uncompromisingly backed Gerald and Boots in the new +motor-boat—the <i>Blue Streak</i>—Austin's contribution +to the Silverside navy.</p> +<p>And sure enough, at last a blue rocket soared aloft, bursting +into azure magnificence in the zenith; and Gerald and Boots came +climbing up to the lawn to receive prize and compliments, and +hasten away to change their oilskins for attire more suitable.</p> +<p>Eileen, turning to Selwyn, held up her booking list in laughing +dismay: "I've won about a ton of bonbons," she said, "and too many +pairs of gloves to feel quite comfortable."</p> +<p>"You needn't wear them all at once, you know," he assured +her.</p> +<p>"Nonsense! I mean that I don't care to win things. +Oh!"—and she laid her hand impulsively on his arm as a huge +sheaf of rockets roared skyward, apparently from the water.</p> +<p>Then, suddenly, Neergard's yacht sprang into view, outlined in +electricity from stem to stern, every spar and funnel and contour +of hull and superstructure twinkling in jewelled brilliancy.</p> +<p>On a great improvised open pavilion set up in the Hither Woods, +garlanded and hung thick with multi-coloured paper lanterns, +dancing had already begun; but Selwyn and Eileen lingered on the +lawn for a while, fascinated by the beauty of the fireworks pouring +skyward from the <i>Niobrara</i>.</p> +<p>"They seem to be very gay aboard her," murmured the girl. "Once +you said that you did not like Mr. Neergard. Do you remember saying +it?"</p> +<p>He replied simply, "I don't like him; and I remember saying +so."</p> +<p>"It is strange," she said, "that Gerald does."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked at the illuminated yacht. . . . "I wonder whether +any of Neergard's crowd is expected ashore here. Do you happen to +know?"</p> +<p>She did not know. A moment later, to his annoyance, Edgerton +Lawn came up and asked her to dance; and she went with a smile and +a whispered: "Wait for me—if you don't mind. I'll come back +to you."</p> +<p>It was all very well to wait for her—and even to dance +with her after that; but there appeared to be no peace for him in +prospect, for Scott Innis came and took her away, and Gladys Orchil +offered herself to him very prettily, and took him away; and after +that, to his perplexity and consternation, a perfect furor for him +seemed to set in and grow among the younger set, and the Minster +twins had him, and Hilda Innis appropriated him, and Evelyn +Cardwell, and even Mrs. Delmour-Carnes took a hand in the +badgering.</p> +<p>At intervals he caught glimpses of Eileen through the gay crush +around him; he danced with Nina, and suggested to her it was time +to leave, but that young matron had tasted just enough to want +more; and Eileen, too, was evidently having a most delightful time. +So he settled into the harness of pleasure and was good to the +pink-and-white ones; and they told each other what a "dear" he was, +and adored him more inconveniently than ever.</p> +<p>Truly enough, as he had often said, these younger ones were the +charmingly wholesome and refreshing antidote to the occasional +misbehaviour of the mature. They were, as he also asserted, the +hope and promise of the social fabric of a nation—this +younger set—always a little better, a little higher-minded +than their predecessors as the wheel of the years slowly turned +them out in gay, eager, fearless throngs to teach a cynical +generation the rudiments of that wisdom which blossoms most +perfectly in the hearts of the unawakened.</p> +<p>Yes, he had frequently told himself all this; told it to others, +too. But, now, the younger set, <i>en masse</i> and in detail, had +become a little bit <i>cramponné</i>—a trifle too +all-pervading. And it was because his regard for them, in the +abstract, had become centred in a single concrete example that he +began to find the younger set a nuisance. But others, it seemed, +were quite as mad about Eileen Erroll as he was; and there seemed +to be small chance for him to possess himself of her, unless he +were prepared to make the matter of possession a pointed episode. +This he knew he had no right to do; she had conferred no such +privilege upon him; and he was obliged to be careful of what he did +and said lest half a thousand bright unwinking eyes wink too +knowingly—lest frivolous tongues go clip-clap, and idle +brains infer that which, alas! did not exist except in his vision +of desire.</p> +<p>The Hither Woods had been hung with myriads of lanterns. From +every branch they swung in clusters or stretched away into +perspective, turning the wooded aisles to brilliant vistas. Under +them the more romantic and the dance-worn strolled in animated +groups or quieter twos; an army of servants flitted hither and +thither, serving the acre or so of small tables over each of which +an electric cluster shed yellow light.</p> +<p>Supper, and then the Woodland cotillon was the programme; and +almost all the tables were filled before Selwyn had an opportunity +to collect Nina and Austin and capture Eileen from a very +rosy-cheeked and indignant boy who had quite lost his head and +heart and appeared to be on the verge of a headlong +declaration.</p> +<p>"It's only Percy Draymore's kid brother," she explained, passing +her arm through his with a little sigh of satisfaction. "Where have +you been all the while?—and with whom have you danced, +please?—and who is the pretty girl you paid court to during +that last dance? What? <i>Didn't</i> pay court to her? Do you +expect me to believe that? . . . Oh, here comes Nina and Austin. . +. . How pretty the tables look, all lighted up among the trees! And +such an uproar!"—as they came into the jolly tumult and +passed in among a labyrinth of tables, greeted laughingly from +every side.</p> +<p>Under a vigorous young oak-tree thickly festooned with lanterns +Austin found an unoccupied table. There was a great deal of racket +and laughter from the groups surrounding them, but this seemed to +be the only available spot; besides, Austin was hungry, and he said +so.</p> +<p>Nina, with Selwyn on her left, looked around for Gerald and +Lansing. When the latter came sauntering up, Austin questioned him, +but he replied carelessly that Gerald had gone to join some people +whom he, Lansing, did not know very well.</p> +<p>"Why, there he is now!" exclaimed Eileen, catching sight of her +brother seated among a very noisy group on the outer edge of the +illuminated zone. "Who are those people, Nina? Oh! Rosamund Fane is +there, too; and—and—"</p> +<p>She ceased speaking so abruptly that Selwyn turned around; and +Nina bit her lip in vexation and glanced at her husband. For, among +the overanimated and almost boisterous group which was attracting +the attention of everybody in the vicinity sat Mrs. Jack Ruthven. +And Selwyn saw her.</p> +<p>For a moment he looked at her—looked at Gerald beside her, +and Neergard on the other side, and Rosamund opposite; and at the +others, whom he had never before seen. Then quietly, but with +heightened colour, he turned his attention to the glass which the +servant had just filled for him, and, resting his hand on the stem, +stared at the bubbles crowding upward through it to the foamy +brim.</p> +<p>Nina and Boots had begun, ostentatiously, an exceedingly +animated conversation; and they became almost aggressive, appealing +to Austin, who sat back with a frown on his heavy face—and to +Eileen, who was sipping her mineral water and staring thoughtfully +at a big, round, orange-tinted lantern which hung like the harvest +moon behind Gerald, throwing his curly head into silhouette.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href= +"images/facing_page368.jpg"><img src="images/facing_page368.jpg" +width="80%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side."</b> +<br /></div> +<p>What conversation there was to carry, Boots and Nina carried. +Austin silently satisfied his hunger, eating and drinking with a +sullen determination to make no pretence of ignoring a situation +that plainly angered him deeply. And from minute to minute he +raised his head to glare across at Gerald, who evidently was +unconscious of the presence of his own party.</p> +<p>When Nina spoke to Eileen, the girl answered briefly but with +perfect composure. Selwyn, too, added a quiet word at intervals, +speaking in a voice that sounded a little tired and strained.</p> +<p>It was that note of fatigue in his voice which aroused Eileen to +effort—the instinctive move to protect—to sustain him. +Conscious of Austin's suppressed but increasing anger at her +brother, amazed and distressed at what Gerald had done—for +the boy's very presence there was an affront to them all—she +was still more sensitive to Selwyn's voice; and in her heart she +responded passionately.</p> +<p>Nina looked up, surprised at the sudden transformation in the +girl, who had turned on Boots with a sudden flow of spirits and the +gayest of challenges; and their laughter and badinage became so +genuine and so persistent that, combining with Nina, they fairly +swept Austin from his surly abstraction into their toils; and +Selwyn's subdued laugh, if forced, sounded pleasantly, now, and his +drawn face seemed to relax a little for the time being.</p> +<p>Once she turned, under cover of the general conversation which +she had set going, and looked straight into Selwyn's eyes, flashing +to him a message of purest loyalty; and his silent gaze in response +sent the colour flying to her cheeks.</p> +<p>It was all very well for a while—a brave, sweet effort; +but ears could not remain deaf to the increasing noise and +laughter—to familiar voices, half-caught phrases, indiscreet +even in the fragments understood. Besides, Gerald had seen them, +and the boy's face had become almost ghastly.</p> +<p>Alixe, unusually flushed, was conducting herself without +restraint; Neergard's snickering laugh grew more significant and +persistent; even Rosamund spoke too loudly at moments; and once she +looked around at Nina and Selwyn while her pretty, accentless +laughter, rippling with its undertone of malice, became more +frequent in the increasing tumult.</p> +<p>There was no use in making a pretence of further gaiety. Austin +had begun to scowl again; Nina, with one shocked glance at Alixe, +leaned over toward her brother:</p> +<p>"It is incredible!" she murmured; "she must be perfectly mad to +make such an exhibition of herself. Can't anybody stop her? Can't +anybody send her home?"</p> +<p>Austin said sullenly but distinctly: "The thing for us to do is +to get out. . . . Nina—if you are ready—"</p> +<p>"But—but what about Gerald?" faltered Eileen, turning +piteously to Selwyn. "We can't leave him—there!"</p> +<p>The man straightened up and turned his drawn face toward +her:</p> +<p>"Do you wish me to get him?"</p> +<p>"Y-you can't do that—can you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I can; if you wish it. Do you think there is anything in +the world I can't do, if you wish it?"</p> +<p>As he rose she laid her hand on his arm:</p> +<p>"I—I don't ask it—" she began.</p> +<p>"You do not have to ask it," he said with a smile almost +genuine. "Austin, I'm going to get Gerald—and Nina will +explain to you that he's to be left to me if any sermon is +required. I'll go back with him in the motor-boat. Boots, you'll +drive home in my place."</p> +<p>As he turned, still smiling and self-possessed, Eileen whispered +rapidly: "Don't go. I care for you too much to ask it."</p> +<p>He said under his breath: "Dearest, you cannot understand."</p> +<p>"Yes—I do! Don't go. Philip—don't go +near—her—"</p> +<p>"I must."</p> +<p>"If you do—if you go—h-how can you c-care for me as +you say you do?—when I ask you not to—when I cannot +endure—to—"</p> +<p>She turned swiftly and stared across at Alixe; and Alixe, +unsteady in the flushed brilliancy of her youthful beauty, half +rose in her seat and stared back.</p> +<p>Instinctively the young girl's hand tightened on Selwyn's arm: +"She—she is beautiful!" she faltered; but he turned and led +her from the table, following Austin, his sister, and Lansing; and +she clung to him almost convulsively when he halted on the edge of +the lawn.</p> +<p>"I must go back," he +whispered—"dearest—dearest—I must."</p> +<p>"T-to Gerald? Or—<i>her</i>?"</p> +<p>But he only muttered: "They don't know what they're doing. Let +me go, Eileen"—gently detaching her fingers, which left her +hands lying in both of his.</p> +<p>She said, looking up at him: "If you go—if you +go—whatever time you return—no matter what +hour—knock at my door. Do you promise? I shall be awake. Do +you promise?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said with a trace of impatience—the only hint of +his anger at the prospect of the duty before him.</p> +<p>So she went away with Nina and Austin and Boots; and Selwyn +turned back, sauntering quietly toward the table where already the +occupants had apparently forgotten him and the episode in the +riotous gaiety increasing with the accession of half a dozen more +men.</p> +<p>When Selwyn approached, Neergard saw him first, stared at him, +and snickered; but he greeted everybody with smiling composure, +nodding to those he knew—a trifle more formally to Mrs. +Ruthven—and, coolly pulling up a chair, seated himself beside +Gerald.</p> +<p>"Boots has driven home with the others," he said in a low voice; +"I'm going back in the motor-boat with you. Don't worry about +Austin. Are you ready?"</p> +<p>The boy had evidently let the wine alone, or else fright had +sobered him, for he looked terribly white and tired: "Yes," he +said, "I'll go when you wish. I suppose they'll never forgive me +for this. Come on."</p> +<p>"One moment, then," nodded Selwyn; "I want to speak to Mrs. +Ruthven." And, quietly turning to Alixe, and dropping his voice to +a tone too low for Neergard to hear—for he was plainly +attempting to listen:</p> +<p>"You are making a mistake; do you understand? Whoever is your +hostess—wherever you are staying—find her and go there +before it is too late."</p> +<p>She inclined her pretty head thoughtfully, eyes on the +wine-glass which she was turning round and round between her +slender fingers. "What do you mean by 'too late'?" she asked. +"Don't you know that everything is too late for me now?"</p> +<p>"What do <i>you</i> mean, Alixe?" he returned, watching her +intently.</p> +<p>"What I say. I have not seen Jack Ruthven for two months. Do you +know what that means? I have not heard from him for two months. Do +you know what <i>that</i> means? No? Well, I'll tell you, Philip; +it means that when I do hear from him it will be through his +attorneys."</p> +<p>He turned slightly paler: "Why"?"</p> +<p>"Divorce," she said with a reckless little laugh—"and the +end of things for me."</p> +<p>"On what grounds?" he demanded doggedly. "Does he threaten +you?"</p> +<p>She made no movement or reply, reclining there, one hand on her +wine-glass, the smile still curving her lips. And he repeated his +question in a low, distinct voice—too low for Neergard to +hear; and he was still listening.</p> +<p>"Grounds? Oh, he thinks I've misbehaved with—never mind +who. It is not true—but he cares nothing about that, either. +You see"—and she bent nearer, confidentially, with a +mysterious little nod of her pretty head—"you see, Jack +Ruthven is a little insane. . . . You are surprised? Pooh! I've +suspected it for months."</p> +<p>He stared at her; then: "Where are you stopping?"</p> +<p>"Aboard the <i>Niobrara</i>."</p> +<p>"Is Mrs. Fane a guest there, too?"</p> +<p>He spoke loud enough for Rosamund to hear; and she answered for +herself with a smile at him, brimful of malice:</p> +<p>"Delighted to have you come aboard, Captain Selwyn. Is that what +you are asking permission to do?"</p> +<p>"Thanks," he returned dryly; and to Alixe: "If you are ready, +Gerald and I will take you over to the <i>Niobrara</i> in the +motor-boat—"</p> +<p>"Oh, no, you won't!" broke in Neergard with a +sneer—"you'll mind your own business, my intrusive friend, +and I'll take care of my guests without your assistance."</p> +<p>Selwyn appeared not to hear him: "Come on, Gerald," he said +pleasantly; "Mrs. Ruthven is going over to the +<i>Niobrara</i>—"</p> +<p>"For God's sake," whispered Gerald, white as a sheet, "don't +force me into trouble with Neergard."</p> +<p>Selwyn turned on him an astonished gaze: "Are you <i>afraid</i> +of that whelp?"</p> +<p>"Yes," muttered the boy—"I—I'll explain later. But +don't force things now, I beg you."</p> +<p>Mrs. Ruthven coolly leaned over and spoke to Gerald in a low +voice; then, to Selwyn, she said with a smile: "Rosamund and I are +going to Brookminster, anyway, so you and Gerald need not wait. . . +. And thank you for coming over. It was rather nice of +you"—she glanced insolently at Neergard—"considering +the crowd we're with. <i>Good</i>-night, Captain Selwyn! +<i>Good</i>-night, Gerald. So very jolly to have seen you again!" +And, under her breath to Selwyn: "You need not worry; I am going in +a moment. Good-bye and—thank you, Phil. It <i>is</i> good to +see somebody of one's own caste again."</p> +<p>A few moments later, Selwyn and Gerald in their oilskins were +dashing eastward along the coast in the swiftest motor-boat south +of the Narrows.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The boy seemed deathly tired as they crossed the dim lawn at +Silverside. Once, on the veranda steps he stumbled, and Selwyn's +arm sustained him; but the older man forbore to question him, and +Gerald, tight-lipped and haggard, offered no confidence until, at +the door of his bedroom, he turned and laid an unsteady hand on +Selwyn's shoulder: "I want to talk with you—to-morrow. May +I?"</p> +<p>"You know you may, Gerald. I am always ready to stand your +friend."</p> +<p>"I know. . . . I must have been crazy to doubt it. You are very +good to me. I—I am in a very bad fix. I've got to tell +you."</p> +<p>"Then we'll get you out of it, old fellow," said Selwyn +cheerfully. "That's what friends are for, too."</p> +<p>The boy shivered—looked at the floor, then, without +raising his eyes, said good-night, and, entering his bedroom, +closed the door.</p> +<p>As Selwyn passed back along the corridor, the door of his +sister's room opened, and Austin and Nina confronted him.</p> +<p>"Has that damfool boy come in?" demanded his brother-in-law, +anxiety making his voice tremulous under its tone of contempt.</p> +<p>"Yes. Leave him to me, please. Good-night"—submitting to a +tender embrace from his sister—"I suppose Eileen has retired, +hasn't she? It's an ungodly hour—almost sunrise."</p> +<p>"I don't know whether Eileen is asleep," said Nina; "she +expected a word with you, I understand. But don't sit +up—don't let her sit up late. We'll be a company of dreadful +wrecks at breakfast, anyway."</p> +<p>And his sister gently closed the door while he continued on to +the end of the corridor and halted before Eileen's room. A light +came through the transom; he waited a moment, then knocked very +softly.</p> +<p>"Is it you?" she asked in a low voice.</p> +<p>"Yes. I didn't wake you, did I?"</p> +<p>"No. Is Gerald here?"</p> +<p>"Yes, in his own room. . . . Did you wish to speak to me about +anything?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>He heard her coming to the door; it opened a very little. +"Good-night," she whispered, stretching toward him her +hand—"that was all I wanted—to—to touch you +before I closed my eyes to-night."</p> +<p>He bent and looked at the hand lying within his own—the +little hand with its fresh fragrant palm upturned and the white +fingers relaxed, drooping inward above it—at the delicate +bluish vein in the smooth wrist.</p> +<p>Then he released the hand, untouched by his lips; and she +withdrew it and closed the door; and he heard her laugh softly, and +lean against it, whispering:</p> +<p>"Now that I am safely locked in—I merely wish to say +that—in the old days—a lady's hand was +sometimes—kissed. . . . Oh, but you are too late, my poor +friend! I can't come out; and I wouldn't if I could—not after +what I dared to say to you. . . . In fact, I shall probably remain +locked up here for days and days. . . . Besides, what I said is out +of fashion—has no significance nowadays—or, perhaps, +too much. . . . No, I won't dress and come out—even for you. +<i>Je me déshabille—je fais ma toilette de nuit, +monsieur—et je vais maintenant m'agenouiller et faire ma +prière. Donc—bon soir—et bonne +nuit</i>—"</p> +<p>And, too low for him to hear even the faintest breathing whisper +of her voice—"Good-night. I love you with all my +heart—with all my heart—in my own fashion."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>He had been asleep an hour, perhaps more, when something +awakened him, and he found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, +dawn already whitening his windows.</p> +<p>Somebody was knocking. He swung out of bed, stepped into his +bath-slippers, and, passing swiftly to the door, opened it. Gerald +stood there, fully dressed.</p> +<p>"I'm going to town on the early train," began the boy—"I +thought I'd tell you—"</p> +<p>"Nonsense! Gerald, go back to bed!"</p> +<p>"I can't sleep, Philip—"</p> +<p>"Can't sleep? Oh, that's the trouble, is it? Well, then, sit +here and talk to me." He gave a mighty yawn—"I'm not sleepy, +either; I can go days without it. Here!—here's a comfortable +chair to sprawl in. . . . It's daylight already; doesn't the +morning air smell sweet? I've a jug of milk and some grapes and +peaches in my ice-cupboard if you feel inclined. No? All right; +stretch out, sight for a thousand yards, and fire at will."</p> +<p>Gerald strove to smile; for a while he lay loosely in the +arm-chair, his listless eyes intent on the strange, dim light which +fell across the waste of sea fog. Only the water along the shore's +edge remained visible; all else was a blank wall behind which, +stretching to the horizon, lay the unseen ocean. Already a few +restless gulls were on the wing, sheering inland; and their +raucous, treble cries accented the pallid stillness.</p> +<p>But the dawn was no paler than the boy's face—no more +desolate. Trouble was his, the same old trouble that has dogged the +trail of folly since time began; and Selwyn knew it and waited.</p> +<p>At last the boy broke out: "This is a cowardly trick—this +slinking in to you with all my troubles after what you've done for +me—after the rotten way I've treated you—"</p> +<p>"Look here, my boy!" said Selwyn coolly, crossing one knee over +the other and dropping both hands into the pockets of his +pajamas—"I asked you to come to me, didn't I? Well, then; +don't criticise my judgment in doing it. It isn't likely I'd ask +you to do a cowardly thing."</p> +<p>"You don't understand what a wretched scrape I'm in—"</p> +<p>"I don't yet; but you're going to tell me—"</p> +<p>"Philip, I can't—I simply cannot. It's so +contemptible—and you warned me—and I owe you already so +much—"</p> +<p>"You owe me a little money," observed Selwyn with a careless +smile, "and you've a lifetime to pay it in. What is the trouble +now; do you need more? I haven't an awful lot, old +fellow—worse luck!—but what I have is at your +call—as you know perfectly well. Is that all that is worrying +you?"</p> +<p>"No—not all. I—Neergard has lent me money—done +things—placed me under obligations. . . . I liked him, you +know; I trusted him. . . . People he desired to know I made him +known to. He was a—a trifle peremptory at times—as +though my obligations to him left me no choice but to take him to +such people as he desired to meet. . . . We—we had +trouble—recently."</p> +<p>"What sort?"</p> +<p>"Personal. I felt—began to feel—the pressure on me. +There was, at moments, something almost of menace in his requests +and suggestions—an importunity I did not exactly understand. +. . . And then he said something to me—"</p> +<p>"Go on; what?"</p> +<p>"He'd been hinting at it before; and even when I found him +jolliest and most amusing and companionable I never thought of him +as a—a social possibility—I mean among those who really +count—like my own people—"</p> +<p>"Oh! he asked you to introduce him into your own family +circle?"</p> +<p>"Yes—I didn't understand it at first—until somehow I +began to feel the pressure of it—the vague but constant +importunity. . . . He was a good fellow—at least I thought +so; I hated to hurt him—to assume any attitude that might +wound him. But, good heavens!—he couldn't seem to understand +that nobody in our family would receive him—although he had a +certain footing with the Fanes and Harmons and a few +others—like the Siowitha people—or at least the men of +those families. Don't you see, Philip?"</p> +<p>"Yes, my boy, I see. Go on! When did he ask to be presented +to—your sister?"</p> +<p>"W-who told you that?" asked the boy with an angry flush.</p> +<p>"You did—almost. You were going to, anyway. So that was +it, was it? That was when you realised a few +things—understood one or two things; was it not? . . . And +how did you reply? Arrogantly, I suppose."</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"With—a—some little show +of—a—contempt?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p> +<p>"Exactly. And Neergard—was put out—slightly?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said the boy, losing some of his colour. "I—a +moment afterward I was sorry I had spoken so plainly; but I need +not have been. . . . He was very ugly about it."</p> +<p>"Threats of calling loans?" asked Selwyn, smiling.</p> +<p>"Hints; not exactly threats. I was in a bad way, too—" The +boy winced and swallowed hard; then, with sudden white desperation +stamped on his drawn face: "Oh, Philip—it—it is +disgraceful enough—but how am I going to tell you the +rest?—how can I speak of this matter to you—"</p> +<p>"What matter?"</p> +<p>"A—about—about Mrs. Ruthven—"</p> +<p>"<i>What</i> matter?" repeated Selwyn. His voice rang a little, +but the colour had fled from his face.</p> +<p>"She was—Jack Ruthven charged her with—and +me—charged me with—"</p> +<p>"<i>You</i>!"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Well—it was a lie, wasn't it?" Selwyn's ashy lips +scarcely moved, but his eyes were narrowing to a glimmer. "It was a +lie, wasn't it?" he repeated.</p> +<p>"Yes—a lie. I'd say it, anyway, you understand—but +it really was a lie."</p> +<p>Selwyn quietly leaned back in his chair; a little colour +returned to his cheeks.</p> +<p>"All right—old fellow"—his voice scarcely +quivered—"all right; go on. I knew, of course, that Ruthven +lied, but it was part of the story to hear you say so. Go on. What +did Ruthven do?"</p> +<p>"There has been a separation," said the boy in a low voice. "He +behaved like a dirty cad—she had no resources—no means +of support—" He hesitated, moistening his dry lips with his +tongue. "Mrs. Ruthven has been very, very kind to me. I was—I +am fond of her; oh, I know well enough I never had any business to +meet her; I behaved abominably toward you—and the family. But +it was done; I knew her, and liked her tremendously. She was the +only one who was decent to me—who tried to keep me from +acting like a fool about cards—"</p> +<p><i>Did</i> she try?"</p> +<p>"Yes—indeed, yes! . . . and, Phil—she—I don't +know how to say it—but she—when she spoke of—of +you—begged me to try to be like you. . . . And it is a lie +what people say about her!—what gossip says. I know; I have +known her so well—and—I was like other +men—charmed and fascinated by her; but the women of that set +are a pack of cats, and the men—well, none of them ever +ventured to say anything to me! . . . And that is all, Philip. I +was horribly in debt to Neergard; then Ruthven turned on +me—and on her; and I borrowed more from Neergard and went to +her bank and deposited it to the credit of her account—but +she doesn't know it was from me—she supposes Jack Ruthven did +it out of ordinary decency, for she said so to me. And that is how +matters stand; Neergard is ugly, and grows more threatening about +those loans—and I haven't any money, and Mrs. Ruthven will +require more very soon—"</p> +<p>"Is that <i>all</i>?" demanded Selwyn sharply.</p> +<p>"Yes—all. . . . I know I have behaved +shamefully—"</p> +<p>"I've seen," observed Selwyn in a dry, hard voice, "worse +behaviour than yours. . . . Have you a pencil, Gerald? Get a sheet +of paper from that desk. Now, write out a list of the loans made +you by Neergard. . . . Every cent, if you please. . . . And the +exact amount you placed to Mrs. Ruthven's credit. . . . Have you +written that? Let me see it."</p> +<p>The boy handed him the paper. He studied it without the +slightest change of expression—knowing all the while what it +meant to him; knowing that this burden must be assumed by himself +because Austin would never assume it.</p> +<p>And he sat there staring at space over the top of the pencilled +sheet of paper, striving to find some help in the matter. But he +knew Austin; he knew what would happen to Gerald if, after the late +reconciliation with his ex-guardian, he came once more to him with +such a confession of debt and disgrace.</p> +<p>No; Austin must be left out; there were three things to do: One +of them was to pay Neergard; another to sever Gerald's connection +with him for ever; and the third thing to be done was something +which did not concern Gerald or Austin—perhaps, not even +Ruthven. It was to be done, no matter what the cost. But the +thought of the cost sent a shiver over him, and left his careworn +face gray.</p> +<p>His head sank; he fixed his narrowing eyes on the floor and held +them there, silent, unmoved, while within the tempests of terror, +temptation, and doubt assailed him, dragging at the soul of him, +where it clung blindly to its anchorage. And it held +fast—raging, despairing in the bitterness of renunciation, +but still held on through the most dreadful tempest that ever swept +him. Courage, duty, reparation—the words drummed in his +brain, stupefying him with their dull clamour; but he understood +and listened, knowing the end—knowing that the end must +always be the same for him. It was the revolt of instinct against +drilled and ingrained training, inherited and re-schooled—the +insurgent clamour of desire opposed to that stern self-repression +characteristic of generations of Selwyns, who had held duty +important enough to follow, even when their bodies died in its +wake.</p> +<p>And it were easier for him, perhaps, if his body died.</p> +<p>He rose and walked to the window. Over the Bay of Shoals the fog +was lifting; and he saw the long gray pier jutting +northward—the pier where the troopships landed their dead and +dying when the Spanish war was ended.</p> +<p>And he looked at the hill where the field hospital had once +been. His brother died there—in the wake of that same duty +which no Selwyn could ignore.</p> +<p>After a moment he turned to Gerald, a smile on his colourless +face:</p> +<p>"It will be all right, my boy. You are not to worry—do you +understand me? Go to bed, now; you need the sleep. Go to bed, I +tell you—I'll stand by you. You must begin all over again, +Gerald—and so must I; and so must I."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3>LEX NON SCRIPTA</h3> +<p>Selwyn had gone to New York with Gerald, "for a few days," as he +expressed it; but it was now the first week in October, and he had +not yet returned to Silverside.</p> +<p>A brief note to Nina thanking her for having had him at +Silverside, and speaking vaguely of some business matters which +might detain him indefinitely—a briefer note to Eileen +regretting his inability to return for the present—were all +the communication they had from him except news brought by Austin, +who came down from town every Friday.</p> +<p>A long letter to him from Nina still remained unanswered; Austin +had seen him only once in town; Lansing, now back in New York, +wrote a postscript in a letter to Drina, asking for Selwyn's new +address—the first intimation anybody had that he had given up +his lodgings on Lexington Avenue.</p> +<p>"I was perfectly astonished to find he had gone, leaving no +address," wrote Boots; "and nobody knows anything about him at his +clubs. I have an idea that he may have gone to Washington to see +about the Chaosite affair; but if you have any address except his +clubs, please send it to me."</p> +<p>Eileen had not written him; his sudden leave-taking nearly a +month ago had so astounded her that she could not believe he meant +to be gone more than a day or two. Then came his note, written at +the Patroons' Club—very brief, curiously stilted and formal, +with a strange tone of finality through it, as though he were +taking perfunctory leave of people who had come temporarily into +his life, and as though the chances were agreeably even of his ever +seeing them again.</p> +<p>The girl was not hurt, as yet; she remained merely confused, +incredulous, unreconciled. That there was to be some further +explanation of his silence she never dreamed of doubting; and there +seemed to be nothing to do in the interval but await it. As for +writing him, some instinct forbade it, even when Nina suggested +that she write, adding laughingly that nothing else seemed likely +to stir her brother.</p> +<p>For the first few days the children clamoured intermittently for +him; but children forget, and Billy continued to cast out his pack +in undying hope of a fox or bunny, and the younger children brought +their butterfly-nets and sand-shovels to Austin and Nina for +repairs; and Drina, when Boots deserted her for his Air Line +Company, struck up a wholesome and lively friendship with a dozen +subfreshmen and the younger Orchil girls, and began to play golf +like a little fiend.</p> +<p>It was possible, now, to ride cross-country; and Nina, who was +always in terror of an added ounce to her perfect figure, rode +every day with Eileen; and Austin, on a big hunter, joined them two +days in the week.</p> +<p>There were dances, too, and Nina went to some of them. So did +Eileen, who had created a furor among the younger brothers and +undergraduates; and the girl was busy enough with sailing and +motoring and dashing through the Sound in all sorts of power +boats.</p> +<p>Once, under Austin's and young Craig's supervision, she tried +shore-bird shooting; but the first broken wing from the gun on her +left settled the thing for ever for her, and the horror of the +blood-sprinkled, kicking mass of feathers haunted her dreams for a +week.</p> +<p>Youths, however, continued to hover numerously about her. They +sat in soulful rows upon the veranda at Silverside; they played +guitars at her in canoes, accompanying the stringy thrumming with +the peculiarly exasperating vocal noises made only by very young +undergraduates; they rode with her and Nina; they pervaded her +vicinity with a tireless constancy amounting to obsession.</p> +<p>She liked it well enough; she was as interested in everything as +usual; as active at the nets, playing superbly, and with all her +heart in the game—while it lasted; she swung her slim brassy +with all the old-time fire and satisfaction in the clean, sharp +whack, as the ball flew through the sunshine, rising beautifully in +a long, low trajectory against the velvet fair-green.</p> +<p>It was unalloyed happiness for her to sit her saddle, feeling +under her the grand stride of her powerful hunter on a headlong +cross-country gallop; it was purest pleasure for her to lean +forward in her oilskins, her eyes almost blinded with salt spray, +while the low motor-boat rushed on and on through cataracts of +foam, and the heaving, green sea-miles fled away, away, in the +hissing furrow of the wake.</p> +<p>Truly, for her, the world was still green, the sun bright, the +high sky blue; but she had not forgotten that the earth had been +greener, the sun brighter, the azure above her more +splendid—once upon a time—like the first phrase of a +tale that is told. And if she were at times listless, absent-eyed, +subdued—a trifle graver, or unusually silent, seeking the +still paths of the garden as though in need of youthful meditation +and the quiet of the sunset hour, she never doubted that that tale +would be retold for her again. Only—alas!—the fair days +were passing, and the russet rustle of October sounded already +among the curling leaves in the garden; and he had been away a long +time—a very long time. And she could not understand.</p> +<p>On one of Austin's week-end visits, the hour for conjugal confab +having arrived and husband and wife locked in the seclusion of +their bedroom—being old-fashioned enough to occupy the +same—he said, with a trace of irritation in his voice:</p> +<p>"I don't know where Phil is, or what he's about. I'm +wondering—he's got the Selwyn conscience, you know—what +he's up to—and if it's any kind of dam-foolishness. Haven't +you heard a word from him, Nina?"</p> +<p>Nina, in her pretty night attire, had emerged from her +dressing-room, locked out Kit-Ki and her maid, and had curled up in +a big, soft armchair, cradling her bare ankles in her hand.</p> +<p>"I haven't heard from him," she said. "Rosamund saw him in +Washington—passed him on the street. He was looking horridly +thin and worn, she wrote. He did not see her."</p> +<p>"Now what in the name of common sense is he doing in +Washington!" exclaimed Austin wrathfully. "Probably breaking his +heart because nobody cares to examine his Chaosite. I told him, as +long as he insisted on bothering the Government with it instead of +making a deal with the Lawn people, that I'd furnish him with a key +to the lobby. I told him I knew the right people, could get him the +right lawyers, and start the thing properly. Why didn't he come to +me about it? There's only one way to push such things, and he's as +ignorant of it as a boatswain in the marine cavalry."</p> +<p>Nina said thoughtfully: "You always were impatient of people, +dear. Perhaps Phil may get them to try his Chaosite without any +wire-pulling. . . . I do wish he'd write. I can't understand his +continued silence. Hasn't Boots heard from him? Hasn't Gerald?"</p> +<p>"Not a word. And by the way, Nina, Gerald has done rather an +unexpected thing. I saw him last night; he came to the house and +told me that he had just severed his connection with Julius +Neergard's company."</p> +<p>"I'm glad of it!" exclaimed Nina; "I'm glad he showed the good +sense to do it!"</p> +<p>"Well—yes. As a matter of fact, Neergard is going to be a +very rich man some day; and Gerald might have—But I am not +displeased. What appeals to me is the spectacle of the boy acting +with conviction on his own initiative. Whether or not he is making +a mistake has nothing to do with the main thing, and that is that +Gerald, for the first time in his rather colourless career, seems +to have developed the rudiments of a backbone out of the tail which +I saw so frequently either flourishing defiance at me or tucked +sullenly between his hind legs. I had quite a talk with him last +night; he behaved very decently, and with a certain modesty which +may, one day, develop into something approaching dignity. We spoke +of his own affairs—in which, for the first time, he appeared +to take an intelligent interest. Besides that, he seemed willing +enough to ask my judgment in several matters—a radical +departure from his cub days."</p> +<p>"What are you going to do for him, dear?" asked his wife, rather +bewildered at the unexpected news. "Of course he must go into some +sort of business again—"</p> +<p>"Certainly. And, to my astonishment, he actually came and +solicited my advice. I—I was so amazed, Nina, that I could +scarcely credit my own senses. I managed to say that I'd think it +over. Of course he can, if he chooses, begin everything again and +come in with me. Or—if I am satisfied that he has any +ability—he can set up some sort of a real-estate office on +his own hook. I could throw a certain amount of business in his +way—but it's all in the air, yet. I'll see him Monday, and +we'll have another talk. By gad! Nina," he added, with a flush of +half-shy satisfaction on his ruddy face, "it's—it's almost +like having a grown-up son coming bothering me with his affairs; +ah—rather agreeable than otherwise. There's certainly +something in that boy. I—perhaps I have been, at moments, a +trifle impatient. But I did not mean to be. You know that, dear, +don't you?"</p> +<p>His wife looked up at her big husband in quiet amusement. "Oh, +yes! I know a little about you," she said, "and a little about +Gerald, too. He is only a masculine edition of Eileen—the +irresponsible freedom of life brought out all his faults at once, +like a horrid rash; it's due to the masculine notion of masculine +education. His sister's education was essentially the contrary: +humours were eradicated before first symptoms became manifest. The +moral, mental, and physical drilling and schooling was undertaken +and accepted without the slightest hope—and later without the +slightest desire—for any relaxation of the rigour when she +became of age and mistress of herself. That's the difference: a boy +looks forward to the moment when he can flourish his heels and wag +his ears and bray; a girl has no such prospect. Gerald has brayed; +Eileen never will flourish her heels unless she becomes fashionable +after marriage—which isn't very likely—"</p> +<p>Nina hesitated, another idea intruding.</p> +<p>"By the way, Austin; the Orchil boy—the one in +Harvard—proposed to Eileen—the little idiot! She told +me—thank goodness! she still does tell me things. Also the +younger and chubbier Draymore youth has offered himself—after +a killingly proper interview with me. I thought it might amuse you +to hear of it."</p> +<p>"It might amuse me more if Eileen would get busy and bring +Philip into camp," observed her husband. "And why the devil they +don't make up their minds to it is beyond me. That brother of yours +is the limit sometimes. I'm fond of him—you know it—but +he certainly can be the limit sometimes."</p> +<p>"Do you know," said Nina, "that I believe he is in love with +her?"</p> +<p>"Then, why doesn't—"</p> +<p>"I don't know. I was sure—I am sure now—that the +girl cares more for him than for anybody. And yet—and yet I +don't believe she is actually in love with him. Several times I +supposed she was—or near it, anyway. . . . But they are a +curious pair, Austin—so quaint about it; so slow and +old-fashioned. . . . And the child is the most innocent +being—in some ways. . . . Which is all right unless she +becomes one of those pokey, earnest, knowledge-absorbing young +things with the very germ of vitality dried up and withered in her +before she awakens. . . . I don't know—I really don't. For a +girl <i>must</i> have something of the human about her to attract a +man, and be attracted. . . . Not that she need know anything about +love—or even suspect it. But there must be some response in +her, some—some—"</p> +<p>"Deviltry?" suggested Austin.</p> +<p>His pretty wife laughed and dropped one knee over the other, +leaning back to watch him finish his good-night cigarette. After a +moment her face grew grave, and she bent forward.</p> +<p>"Speaking of Rosamund a moment ago reminds me of something else +she wrote—it's about Alixe. Have you heard anything?"</p> +<p>"Not a word," said Austin, with a frank scowl, "and don't want +to."</p> +<p>"It's only this—that Alixe is ill. Nobody seems to know +what the matter is; nobody has seen her. But she's at Clifton, with +a couple of nurses, and Rosamund heard rumours that she is very ill +indeed. . . . People go to Clifton for shattered nerves, you +know."</p> +<p>"Yes; for bridge-fidgets, neurosis, pip, and the various jumps +that originate in the simpler social circles. What's the particular +matter with her? Too many cocktails? Or a dearth of grand +slams?"</p> +<p>"You are brutal, Austin. Besides, I don't know. She's had a +perfectly dreary life with her husband. . . . I—I can't +forget how fond I was of her in spite of what she did to Phil. . . +. Besides, I'm beginning to be certain that it was not entirely her +fault."</p> +<p>"What? Do you think Phil—"</p> +<p>"No, no, no! Don't be an utter idiot. All I mean to say is that +Alixe was always nervous and high-strung; odd at times; +eccentric—<i>more</i> than merely eccentric—"</p> +<p>"You mean dippy?"</p> +<p>"Oh, Austin, you're horrid. I mean that there is mental trouble +in that family. You have heard of it as well as I; you know her +father died of it—"</p> +<p>"The usual defence in criminal cases," observed Austin, flicking +his cigarette-end into the grate. "I'm sorry, dear, that Alixe has +the jumps; hope she'll get over 'em. But as for pretending I've any +use for her, I can't and don't and won't. She spoiled life for the +best man I know; she kicked his reputation into a cocked hat, and +he, with his chivalrous Selwyn conscience, let her do it. I did +like her once; I don't like her now, and that's natural and it +winds up the matter. Dear friend, shall we, perhaps, to bed +presently our way wend—yess?"</p> +<p>"Yes, dear; but you are not very charitable about Alixe. And I +tell you I've my own ideas about her illness—especially as +she is at Clifton. . . . I wonder where her little beast of a +husband is?"</p> +<p>But Austin only yawned and looked at the toes of his slippers, +and then longingly at the pillows.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Had Nina known it, the husband of Mrs. Ruthven, whom she had +characterised so vividly, was at that very moment seated in a +private card-room at the Stuyvesant Club with Sanxon Orchil, George +Fane, and Bradley Harmon; and the game had been bridge, as usual, +and had gone very heavily against him.</p> +<p>Several things had gone against Mr. Ruthven recently; for one +thing, he was beginning to realise that he had made a vast mistake +in mixing himself up in any transactions with Neergard.</p> +<p>When he, at Neergard's cynical suggestion, had consented to +exploit his own club—the Siowitha—and had consented to +resign from it to do so, he had every reason to believe that +Neergard meant to either mulct them heavily or buy them out. In +either case, having been useful to Neergard, his profits from the +transaction would have been considerable.</p> +<p>But, even while he was absorbed in figuring them up—and he +needed the money, as usual—Neergard coolly informed him of +his election to the club, and Ruthven, thunder-struck, began to +perceive the depth of the underground mole tunnels which Neergard +had dug to undermine and capture the stronghold which had now +surrendered to him.</p> +<p>Rage made him ill for a week; but there was nothing to do about +it. He had been treacherous to his club and to his own caste, and +Neergard knew it—and knew perfectly well that Ruthven dared +not protest—dared not even whimper.</p> +<p>Then Neergard began to use Ruthven when he needed him; and he +began to permit himself to win at cards in Ruthven's house—a +thing he had not dared to do before. He also permitted himself more +ease and freedom in that house—a sort of intimacy <i>sans +façon</i>—even a certain jocularity. He also gave +himself the privilege of inviting the Ruthvens on board the +<i>Niobrara</i>; and Ruthven went, furious at being forced to stamp +with his open approval an episode which made Neergard a social +probability.</p> +<p>How it happened that Rosamund divined something of the situation +is not quite clear; but she always had a delicate nose for anything +not intended for her, and the thing amused her immensely, +particularly because what viciousness had been so long suppressed +in Neergard was now tentatively making itself apparent in his +leering ease among women he so recently feared.</p> +<p>This, also, was gall and wormwood to Ruthven, so long the +official lap-dog of the very small set he kennelled with; and the +women of that set were perverse enough to find Neergard amusing, +and his fertility in contriving new extravagances for them +interested these people, whose only interest had always been +centred in themselves.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Neergard had almost finished with Gerald—he had +only one further use for him; and as his social success became more +pronounced with the people he had crowded in among, he became +bolder and more insolent, no longer at pains to mole-tunnel toward +the object desired, no longer overcareful about his mask. And one +day he asked the boy very plainly why he had never invited him to +meet his sister. And he got an answer that he never forgot.</p> +<p>And all the while Ruthven squirmed under the light but steadily +inflexible pressure of the curb which Neergard had slipped on him +so deftly; he had viewed with indifference Gerald's boyish devotion +to his wife, which was even too open and naïve to be of +interest to those who witnessed it. But he had not counted on +Neergard's sudden hatred of Gerald; and the first token of that +hatred fell upon the boy like a thunderbolt when Neergard whispered +to Ruthven, one night at the Stuyvesant Club, and Ruthven, +exasperated, had gone straight home, to find his wife in tears, and +the boy clumsily attempting to comfort her, both her hands in +his.</p> +<p>"Perhaps," said Ruthven coldly, "you have some plausible +explanation for this sort of thing. If you haven't, you'd better +trump up one together, and I'll send you my attorney to hear it. In +that event," he added, "you'd better leave your joint address when +you find a more convenient house than mine."</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, he had really meant nothing more than the +threat and the insult, the situation permitting him a heavier hold +upon his wife and a new grip on Gerald in case he ever needed him; +but threat and insult were very real to the boy, and he knocked Mr. +Ruthven flat on his back—the one thing required to change +that gentleman's pretence to deadly earnest.</p> +<p>Ruthven scrambled to his feet; Gerald did it again; and, after +that, Mr. Ruthven prudently remained prone during the delivery of a +terse but concise opinion of him expressed by Gerald.</p> +<p>After Gerald had gone, Ruthven opened first one eye, then the +other, then his mouth, and finally sat up; and his wife, who had +been curiously observing him, smiled.</p> +<p>"It is strange," she said serenely, "that I never thought of +that method. I wonder why I never thought of it," lazily stretching +her firm young arms and glancing casually at their symmetry and +smooth-skinned strength. "Go into your own quarters," she added, as +he rose, shaking with fury: "I've endured the last brutality I +shall ever suffer from you."</p> +<p>She dropped her folded hands into her lap, gazing coolly at him; +but there was a glitter in her eyes which arrested his first step +toward her.</p> +<p>"I think," she said, "that you mean my ruin. Well, we began it +long ago, and I doubt if I have anything of infamy to learn, thanks +to my thorough schooling as your wife. . . . But knowledge is not +necessarily practice, and it happens that I have not cared to +commit the particular indiscretion so fashionable among the friends +you have surrounded me with. I merely mention this for your +information, not because I am particularly proud of it. It is not +anything to be proud of, in my case—it merely happened so; a +matter, perhaps of personal taste, perhaps because of lack of +opportunity; and there is a remote possibility that belated loyalty +to a friend I once betrayed may have kept me personally chaste in +this rotting circus circle you have driven me around in, harnessed +to your vicious caprice, dragging the weight of your +corruption—"</p> +<p>She laughed. "I had no idea that I could be so eloquent, Jack. +But my mind has become curiously clear during the last +year—strangely and unusually limpid and precise. Why, my poor +friend, every plot of yours and of your friends—every +underhand attempt to discredit and injure me has been perfectly +apparent to me. You supposed that my headaches, my outbursts of +anger, my wretched nights, passed in tears—and the long, long +days spent kneeling in the ashes of dead memories—all these +you supposed had weakened—perhaps unsettled—my mind. . +. . You lie if you deny it, for you have had doctors watching me +for months. . . . You didn't know I was aware of it, did you? But I +was, and I am. . . . And you told them that my father died +of—of brain trouble, you coward!"</p> +<p>Still he stood there, jaw loose, gazing at her as though +fascinated; and she smiled and settled deeper in her chair, framing +the gilded foliations of the back with her beautiful arms.</p> +<p>"We might as well understand one another now," she said +languidly. "If you mean to get rid of me, there is no use in +attempting to couple my name with that of any man; first, because +it is untrue, and you not only know it, but you know you can't +prove it. There remains the cowardly method you have been nerving +yourself to attempt, never dreaming that I was aware of your +purpose."</p> +<p>A soft, triumphant little laugh escaped her. There was something +almost childish in her delight at outwitting him, and, very slowly, +into his worn and faded eyes a new expression began to +dawn—the flickering stare of suspicion. And in it the purely +personal impression of rage and necessity of vengeance subsided; he +eyed her intently, curiously, and with a cool persistence which +finally began to irritate her.</p> +<p>"What a credulous fool you are," she said, "to build your hopes +of a separation on any possible mental disability of mine."</p> +<p>He stood a moment without answering, then quietly seated +himself. The suspicious glimmer in his faded eyes had become the +concentration of a curiosity almost apprehensive.</p> +<p>"Go on," he said; "what else?"</p> +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"You have been saying several things—about doctors whom I +have set to watch you—for a year or more."</p> +<p>"Do you deny it?" she retorted angrily.</p> +<p>"No—no, I do not deny anything. But—who are these +doctors—whom you have noticed?"</p> +<p>"I don't know who they are," she replied impatiently. "I've seen +them often enough—following me on the street, or in public +places—watching me. They are everywhere—you have them +well paid, evidently; I suppose you can afford it. But you are +wasting your time."</p> +<p>"You think so?"</p> +<p>"Yes!" she cried in a sudden violence that startled him, "you +are wasting your time! And so am I—talking to +you—enduring your personal affronts and brutal sneers. +Sufficient for you that I know my enemies, and that I am saner, +thank God, than any of them!" She flashed a look of sudden fury at +him, and rose from her chair. He also rose with a promptness that +bordered on precipitation.</p> +<p>"For the remainder of the spring and summer," she said, "I shall +make my plans regardless of you. I shall not go to Newport; you are +at liberty to use the house there as you choose. And as for this +incident with Gerald, you had better not pursue it any further. Do +you understand?"</p> +<p>He nodded, dropping his hands into his coat-pockets.</p> +<p>"Now you may go," she said coolly.</p> +<p>He went—not, however, to his room, but straight to the +house of the fashionable physician who ministered to wealth with an +unction and success that had permitted him, in summer time, to +occupy his own villa at Newport and dispense further ministrations +when requested.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>On the night of the conjugal conference between Nina Gerard and +her husband—and almost at the same hour—Jack Ruthven, +hard hit in the card-room of the Stuyvesant Club, sat huddled over +the table, figuring up what sort of checks he was to draw to the +credit of George Fane and Sanxon Orchil.</p> +<p>Matters had been going steadily against him for some +time—almost everything, in fact, except the opinions of +several physicians in a matter concerning his wife. For, in that +scene between them in early spring, his wife had put that into his +head which had never before been there—suspicion of her +mental soundness.</p> +<p>And now, as he sat there, pencil in hand, adding up the +score-cards, he remembered that he was to interview his attorney +that evening at his own house—a late appointment, but +necessary to insure the presence of one or two physicians at a +consultation to definitely decide what course of action might be +taken.</p> +<p>He had not laid eyes on his wife that summer, but for the first +time he had really had her watched during her absence. What she +lived on—how she managed—he had not the least idea, and +less concern. All he knew was that he had contributed nothing, and +he was quite certain that her balance at her own bank had been +nonexistent for months.</p> +<p>But any possible additional grounds for putting her away from +him that might arise in a question as to her sources of support no +longer interested him. That line of attack was unnecessary; +besides, he had no suspicion concerning her personal chastity. But +Alixe, that evening in early spring, had unwittingly suggested to +him the use of a weapon the existence of which he had never dreamed +of. And he no longer entertained any doubts of its efficiency as a +means of finally ridding him of a wife whom he had never been able +to fully subdue or wholly corrupt, and who, as a mate for him in +his schemes for the pecuniary maintenance of his household, had +proven useless and almost ruinous.</p> +<p>He had not seen her during the summer. In the autumn he had +heard of her conduct at Hitherwood House. And, a week later, to his +astonishment, he learned of her serious illness, and that she had +been taken to Clifton. It was the only satisfactory news he had had +of her in months.</p> +<p>So now he sat there at the bridge-table in the private card-room +of the Stuyvesant Club, deftly adding up the score that had gone +against him, but consoled somewhat at the remembrance of his +appointment, and of the probability of an early release from the +woman who had been to him only a source of social mistakes, +domestic unhappiness, and financial disappointment.</p> +<p>When he had finished his figuring he fished out a check-book, +detached a tiny gold fountain-pen from the bunch of seals and +knick-knacks on his watch-chain, and, filling in the checks, passed +them over without comment.</p> +<p>Fane rose, stretching his long neck, gazed about through his +spectacles, like a benevolent saurian, and finally fixed his mild, +protruding eyes upon Orchil.</p> +<p>"There'll be a small game at the Fountain Club," he said, with a +grin which creased his cheeks until his retreating chin almost +disappeared under the thick lower lip.</p> +<p>Orchil twiddled his long, crinkly, pointed moustache and glanced +interrogatively at Harmon; then he yawned, stretched his arms, and +rose, pocketing the check, which Ruthven passed to him, with a +careless nod of thanks.</p> +<p>As they filed out of the card-room into the dim passageway, +Orchil leading, a tall, shadowy figure in evening dress stepped +back from the door of the card-room against the wall to give them +right of way, and Orchil, peering at him without recognition in the +dull light, bowed suavely as he passed, as did Fane, craning his +curved neck, and Harmon also, who followed in his wake.</p> +<p>But when Ruthven came abreast of the figure in the passage and +bowed his way past, a low voice from the courteous unknown, +pronouncing his name, halted him short.</p> +<p>"I want a word with you, Mr. Ruthven," added Selwyn; "that +card-room will suit me, if you please."</p> +<p>But Ruthven, recovering from the shock of Selwyn's voice, +started to pass him without a word.</p> +<p>"I said that I wanted to speak to you!" repeated Selwyn.</p> +<p>Ruthven, deigning no reply, attempted to shove by him; and +Selwyn, placing one hand flat against the other's shoulder, pushed +him violently back into the card-room he had just left, and, +stepping in behind him, closed and locked the door.</p> +<p>"W-what the devil do you mean!" gasped Ruthven, his hard, +minutely shaven face turning a deep red.</p> +<p>"What I say," replied Selwyn; "that I want a word or two with +you."</p> +<p>He stood still for a moment, in the centre of the little room, +tall, gaunt of feature, and very pale. The close, smoky atmosphere +of the place evidently annoyed him; he glanced about at the +scattered cards, the empty oval bottles in their silver stands, the +half-burned remains of cigars on the green-topped table. Then he +stepped over and opened the only window.</p> +<p>"Sit down," he said, turning on Ruthven; and he seated himself +and crossed one leg over the other. Ruthven remained standing.</p> +<p>"This—this thing," began Ruthven in a voice made husky and +indistinct through fury, "this ruffianly behaviour amounts to +assault."</p> +<p>"As you choose," nodded Selwyn, almost listlessly, "but be +quiet; I've something to think of besides your convenience."</p> +<p>For a few moments he sat silent, thoughtful, narrowing eyes +considering the patterns on the rug at his feet; and Ruthven, weak +with rage and apprehension, was forced to stand there awaiting the +pleasure of a man of whom he had suddenly become horribly +afraid.</p> +<p>And at last Selwyn, emerging from his pallid reverie, +straightened out, shaking his broad shoulders as though to free him +of that black spectre perching there.</p> +<p>"Ruthven," he said, "a few years ago you persuaded my wife to +leave me; and I have never punished you. There were two reasons why +I did not: the first was because I did not wish to punish her, and +any blow at you would have reached her heavily. The second reason, +subordinate to the first, is obvious: decent men, in these days, +have tacitly agreed to suspend a violent appeal to the unwritten +law as a concession to civilisation. This second reason, however, +depends entirely upon the first, as you see."</p> +<p>He leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, and recrossed his +legs.</p> +<p>"I did not ask you into this room," he said, with a slight +smile, "to complain of the wrong you have committed against me, or +to retail to you the consequences of your act as they may or may +not have affected me and my career; I have—ah—invited +you here to explain to you the present condition of your own +domestic affairs"—he looked at Ruthven full in the +face—"to explain them to you, and to lay down for you the +course of conduct which you are to follow."</p> +<p>"By God!—" began Ruthven, stepping back, one hand reaching +for the door-knob; but Selwyn's voice rang out clean and sharp:</p> +<p>"Sit down!"</p> +<p>And, as Ruthven glared at him out of his little eyes:</p> +<p>"You'd better sit down, I think," said Selwyn softly.</p> +<p>Ruthven turned, took two unsteady steps forward, and laid his +heavily ringed hand on the back of a chair. Selwyn smiled, and +Ruthven sat down.</p> +<p>"Now," continued Selwyn, "for certain rules of conduct to govern +you during the remainder of your wife's lifetime. . . . And your +wife is ill, Mr. Ruthven—sick of a sickness which may last +for a great many years, or may be terminated in as many days. Did +you know it?"</p> +<p>Ruthven snarled.</p> +<p>"Yes, of course you knew it, or you suspected it. Your wife is +in a sanitarium, as you have discovered. She is mentally +ill—rational at times—violent at moments, and for long +periods quite docile, gentle, harmless—content to be talked +to, read to, advised, persuaded. But during the last week a change +of a certain nature has occurred which—which, I am told by +competent physicians, not only renders her case beyond all hope of +ultimate recovery, but threatens an earlier termination than was at +first looked for. It is this: your wife has become like a child +again—occupied contentedly and quite happily with childish +things. She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone. How much +she does remember it is impossible to say."</p> +<p>His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at +his feet. After a while he looked up.</p> +<p>"It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven—she is so young—with all +her physical charm and attraction quite unimpaired. But the mind is +gone—quite gone, sir. Some sudden strain—and the +tension has been great for years—some abrupt overdraft upon +her mental resource, perhaps; God knows how it came—from +sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured—"</p> +<p>Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, +Ruthven lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then +moistened his dry lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a +glance at the locked door.</p> +<p>"I understand," said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, "that you are +contemplating proceedings against your wife. Are you?"</p> +<p>Ruthven made no reply.</p> +<p>"<i>Are</i> you?" repeated Selwyn. His face had altered; a dim +glimmer played in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at +dusk.</p> +<p>"Yes, I am," said Ruthven.</p> +<p>"On the grounds of her mental incapacity?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break +every law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to +abandon. Is that it?"</p> +<p>Ruthven made no reply.</p> +<p>"You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by +beginning proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your +wife's infirmity by divorcing her."</p> +<p>"Sane or insane," burst out Ruthven, "she was riding for a +fall—and she's going to get it! What the devil are you +talking about? I'm not accountable to you. I'll do what I please; +I'll manage my own affairs—"</p> +<p>"No," said Selwyn, "I'll manage this particular affair. And now +I'll tell you how I'm going to do it. I have in my +lodgings—or rather in the small hall bedroom which I now +occupy—an army service revolver, in fairly good condition. +The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when I looked at it, +but I've oiled it with No. 27—an excellent rust solvent and +lubricant, Mr. Ruthven—and now the cylinder spins around in a +manner perfectly trustworthy. So, as I was saying, I have this very +excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the +pleasure of using it on you if you ever commence any such action +for divorce or separation against your wife. This is final."</p> +<p>Ruthven stared at him as though hypnotised.</p> +<p>"Don't mistake me," added Selwyn, a trifle wearily. "I am not +compelling you to decency for the purpose of punishing <i>you</i>; +men never trouble themselves to punish vermin—they simply +exterminate them, or they retreat and avoid them. I merely mean +that you shall never again bring publicity and shame upon your +wife—even though now, mercifully enough, she has not the +faintest idea that you are what a complacent law calls her +husband."</p> +<p>A slow blaze lighted up his eyes, and he got up from his +chair.</p> +<p>"You decadent little beast!" he said slowly, "do you suppose +that the dirty accident of your intrusion into an honest man's life +could dissolve the divine compact of wedlock? Soil it—yes; +besmirch it, render it superficially unclean, unfit, +nauseous—yes. But neither you nor your vile code nor the +imbecile law you invoked to legalise the situation really ever +deprived me of my irrevocable status and responsibility. . . . +I—even I—was once—for a while—persuaded +that it did; that the laws of the land could do this—could +free me from a faithless wife, and regularise her position in your +household. The laws of the land say so, and I—I said so at +last—persuaded because I desired to be persuaded. . . . It +was a lie. My wife, shamed or unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true +to her marriage vows or false to them, now legally the wife of +another, has never ceased to be my wife. And it is a higher law +that corroborates me—higher than you can understand—a +law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very +foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is +absolutely dependent for its existence intact. But"—with a +contemptuous shrug—"you won't understand; all you can +understand is the gratification of your senses and the fear of +something interfering with that gratification—like death, for +instance. Therefore I am satisfied that you understand enough of +what I said to discontinue any legal proceedings which would tend +to discredit, expose, or cast odium on a young wife very sorely +stricken—very, very ill—whom God, in his mercy, has +blinded to the infamy where you have dragged her—under the +law of the land."</p> +<p>He turned on his heel, paced the little room once or twice, then +swung round again:</p> +<p>"Keep your filthy money—wrung from women and boys over +card-tables. Even if some blind, wormlike process of instinct +stirred the shame in you, and you ventured to offer belated aid to +the woman who bears your name, I forbid it—I do not permit +you the privilege. Except that she retains your name—and the +moment you attempt to rob her of that I shall destroy +you!—except for that, you have no further relations with +her—nothing to do or undo; no voice as to the disposal of +what remains of her; no power, no will, no influence in her fate. +<i>I</i> supplant you; I take my own again; I reassume a +responsibility temporarily taken from me. And <i>now</i>, I think, +you understand!"</p> +<p>He gave him one level and deadly stare; then his pallid features +relaxed, he slowly walked past Ruthven, grave, preoccupied; +unlocked the door, and passed out.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>His lodgings were not imposing in their furnishings or +dimensions—a very small bedroom in the neighbourhood of Sixth +Avenue and Washington Square—but the heavy and increasing +drain on his resources permitted nothing better now; and what with +settling Gerald's complications and providing two nurses and a +private suite at Clifton for Alixe Ruthven, he had been obliged to +sell a number of securities, which reduced his income to a figure +too absurd to worry over.</p> +<p>However, the Government had at last signified its intention of +testing his invention—Chaosite—and there was that +chance for better things in prospect. Also, in time, Gerald would +probably be able to return something of the loans made. But these +things did not alleviate present stringent conditions, nor were +they likely to for a long while; and Selwyn, tired and perplexed, +mounted the stairs of his lodging-house and laid his overcoat on +the iron bed, and, divesting himself of the garments of ceremony as +a matter of economy, pulled on an old tweed shooting-jacket and +trousers.</p> +<p>Then, lighting his pipe—cigars being now on the expensive +and forbidden list—he drew a chair to his table and sat down, +resting his worn face between both hands. Truly the world was not +going very well with him in these days.</p> +<p>For some time, now, it had been his custom to face his +difficulties here in the silence of his little bedroom, seated +alone at his table, pipe gripped between his firm teeth, his strong +hands framing his face. Here he would sit for hours, the long day +ended, staring steadily at the blank wall, the gas-jet flickering +overhead; and here, slowly, painfully, with doubt and hesitation, +out of the moral confusion in his weary mind he evolved the theory +of personal responsibility.</p> +<p>With narrowing eyes, from which slowly doubt faded, he gazed at +duty with all the calm courage of his race, not at first +recognising it as duty in its new and dreadful guise.</p> +<p>But night after night, patiently perplexed, he retraced his +errant pathway through life, back to the source of doubt and pain; +and, once arrived there, he remained, gazing with impartial eyes +upon the ruin two young souls had wrought of their twin lives; and +always, always somehow, confronting him among the débris, +rose the spectre of their deathless responsibility to one another; +and the inexorable life-sentence sounded ceaselessly in his ears: +"For better or for worse—for better or for worse—till +death do us part—till death—till death!"</p> +<p>Dreadful his duty—for man already had dared to sunder +them, and he had acquiesced to save her in the eyes of the world! +Dreadful, indeed—because he knew that he had never loved her, +never could love her! Dreadful—doubly dreadful—for he +now knew what love might be; and it was not what he had believed it +when he executed the contract which must bind him while life +endured.</p> +<p>Once, and not long since, he thought that, freed from the sad +disgrace of the shadowy past, he had begun life anew. They told +him—and he told himself—that a man had that right; that +a man was no man who stood stunned and hopeless, confronting the +future in fetters of conscience. And by that token he had accepted +the argument as truth—because he desired to believe +it—and he had risen erect and shaken himself free of the +past—as he supposed; as though the past, which becomes part +of us, can be shaken from tired shoulders with the first shudder of +revolt!</p> +<p>No; he understood now that the past was part of him—as his +limbs and head and body and mind were part of him. It had to be +reckoned with—what he had done to himself, to the young girl +united to him in bonds indissoluble except in death.</p> +<p>That she had strayed—under man-made laws held +guiltless—could not shatter the tie. That he, blinded by +hope, had hoped to remake a life already made, and had dared to +masquerade before his own soul as a man free to come, to go, and +free to love, could not alter what had been done. Back, far back of +it all lay the deathless pact—for better or for worse. And +nothing man might wish or say or do could change it. Always, always +he must remain bound by that, no matter what others did or thought; +always, always he was under obligations to the end.</p> +<p>And now, alone, abandoned, helplessly sick, utterly dependent +upon the decency, the charity, the mercy of her legal paramour, the +young girl who had once been his wife had not turned to him in +vain.</p> +<p>Before the light of her shaken mind had gone out she had written +him, incoherently, practically <i>in extremis</i>; and if he had +hitherto doubted where his duty lay, from that moment he had no +longer any doubt. And very quietly, hopelessly, and irrevocably he +had crushed out of his soul the hope and promise of the new life +dawning for him above the dead ashes of the past.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>It was not easy to do; he had not ended it yet. He did not know +how. There were ties to be severed, friendships to be gently +broken, old scenes to be forgotten, memories to kill. There was +also love—to be disposed of. And he did not know how.</p> +<p>First of all, paramount in his hopeless trouble, the desire to +save others from pain persisted.</p> +<p>For that reason he had been careful that Gerald should not know +where and how he was now obliged to live—lest the boy suspect +and understand how much of Selwyn's little fortune it had taken to +settle his debts of "honour" and free him from the sinister +pressure of Neergard's importunities.</p> +<p>For that reason, too, he dreaded to have Austin know, because, +if the truth were exposed, nothing in the world could prevent a +violent and final separation between him and the foolish boy who +now, at last, was beginning to show the first glimmering traces of +character and common sense.</p> +<p>So he let it be understood that his address was his club for the +present; for he also desired no scene with Boots, whom he knew +would attempt to force him to live with him in his cherished and +brand-new house. And even if he cared to accept and permit Boots to +place him under such obligations, it would only hamper him in his +duties.</p> +<p>Because now, what remained of his income must be devoted to +Alixe.</p> +<p>Even before her case had taken the more hopeless turn, he had +understood that she could not remain at Clifton. Such cases were +neither desired nor treated there; he understood that. And so he +had taken, for her, a pretty little villa at Edgewater, with two +trained nurses to care for her, and a phaeton for her to drive.</p> +<p>And now she was installed there, properly cared for, surrounded +by every comfort, contented—except in the black and violent +crises which still swept her in recurrent storms—indeed, +tranquil and happy; for through the troubled glimmer of departing +reason, her eyes were already opening in the calm, unearthly dawn +of second childhood.</p> +<p>Pain, sadness, the desolate awakening to dishonour had been +forgotten; to her, the dead now lived; to her, the living who had +been children with her were children again, and she a child among +them. Outside of that dead garden of the past, peopled by laughing +phantoms of her youth, but one single extraneous memory +persisted—the memory of Selwyn—curiously twisted and +readjusted to the comprehension of a child's mind—vague at +times, at times wistfully elusive and incoherent—but it +remained always a memory, and always a happy one.</p> +<p>He was obliged to go to her every three or four days. In the +interim she seemed quite satisfied and happy, busy with the simple +and pretty things she now cared for; but toward the third day of +his absence she usually became restless, asking for him, and why he +did not come. And then they telegraphed him, and he left everything +and went, white-faced, stern of lip, to endure the most dreadful +ordeal a man may face—to force the smile to his lips and +gaiety into the shrinking soul of him, and sit with her in the +pretty, sunny room, listening to her prattle, answering the +childish questions, watching her, seated in her rocking-chair, +singing contentedly to herself, and playing with her dolls and +ribbons—dressing them, undressing, mending, +arranging—until the heart within him quivered under the +misery of it, and he turned to the curtained window, hands +clinching convulsively, and teeth set to force back the strangling +agony in his throat.</p> +<p>And the dreadful part of it all was that her appearance had +remained unchanged—unless, perhaps, she was prettier, +lovelier of face and figure than ever before; but in her beautiful +dark eyes only the direct intelligence of a child answered his gaze +of inquiry; and her voice, too, had become soft and hesitating, and +the infantile falsetto sounded in it at times, sweet, futile, +immature.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Thinking of these things now, he leaned heavily forward, elbows +on the little table. And, suddenly unbidden, before his haunted +eyes rose the white portico of Silverside, and the greensward +glimmered, drenched in sunshine, and a slim figure in white stood +there, arms bare, tennis-bat swinging in one tanned little +hand.</p> +<p>Voices were sounding in his ears—Drina's laughter, +Lansing's protest; Billy shouting to his eager pack; his sister's +calm tones, admonishing the young—and through it all, +<i>her</i> voice, clear, hauntingly sweet, pronouncing his +name.</p> +<p>And he set his lean jaws tight and took a new grip on his +pipe-stem, and stared, with pain-dulled eyes, at the white wall +opposite.</p> +<p>But on the blank expanse the faintest tinge of colour appeared, +growing clearer, taking shape as he stared; and slowly, slowly, +under the soft splendour of her hair, two clear eyes of darkest +blue opened under the languid lids and looked at him, and looked +and looked until he closed his own, unable to endure the agony.</p> +<p>But even through his sealed lids he saw her; and her clear gaze +pierced him, blinded as he was, leaning there, both hands pressed +across his eyes.</p> +<p>Sooner or later—sooner or later he must write to her and +tell what must be told. How to do it, when to do it, he did not +know. What to say he did not know; but that there was something due +her from him—something to say, something to confess—to +ask her pardon for—he understood.</p> +<p>Happily for her—happily for him, alas!—love, in its +full miracle, had remained beyond her comprehension. That she cared +for him with all her young heart he knew; that she had not come to +love him he knew, too. So that crowning misery of happiness was +spared him.</p> +<p>Yet he knew, too, that there had been a chance for him; that her +awakening had not been wholly impossible. Loyal in his soul to the +dread duty before him, he must abandon hope; loyal in his heart to +her, he must abandon her, lest, by chance, in the calm, still +happiness of their intimacy the divine moment, unheralded, flash +out through the veil, dazzling, blinding them with the splendour of +its truth and beauty.</p> +<p>And now, leaning there, his face buried in his hands, hours that +he spent with her came crowding back upon him, and in his ears her +voice echoed and echoed, and his hands trembled with the scented +memory of her touch, and his soul quivered and cried out for +her.</p> +<p>Storm after storm swept him; and in the tempest he abandoned +reason, blinded, stunned, crouching there with head lowered and his +clenched hands across his face.</p> +<p>But storms, given right of way, pass on and over, and tempests +sweep hearts cleaner; and after a long while he lifted his bowed +head and sat up, squaring his shoulders.</p> +<p>Presently he picked up his pipe again, held it a moment, then +laid it aside. Then he leaned forward, breathing deeply but +quietly, and picked up a pen and a sheet of paper. For the time had +come for his letter to her, and he was ready.</p> +<p>The letter he wrote was one of those gay, cheerful, +inconsequential letters which, from the very beginning of their +occasional correspondence, had always been to her most welcome and +delightful.</p> +<p>Ignoring that maturity in her with which he had lately dared to +reckon, he reverted to the tone which he had taken and maintained +with her before the sweetness and seriousness of their relations +had deepened to an intimacy which had committed him to an +avowal.</p> +<p>News of all sorts humorously retailed—an amusing sketch of +his recent journey to Washington and its doubtful +results—matters that they both were interested in, details +known only to them, a little harmless gossip—these things +formed the body of his letter. There was never a hint of sorrow or +discouragement—nothing to intimate that life had so utterly +and absolutely changed for him—only a jolly, friendly +badinage—an easy, light-hearted narrative, ending in messages +to all and a frank regret that the pursuit of business and +happiness appeared incompatible at the present moment.</p> +<p>His address, he wrote, was his club; he sent her, he said, under +separate cover, a rather interesting pamphlet—a monograph on +the symbolism displayed by the designs in Samarcand rugs and +textiles of the Ming dynasty. And he ended, closing with a gentle +jest concerning blue-stockings and rebellious locks of ruddy +hair.</p> +<p>And signed his name.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Nina and Eileen, in travelling gowns and veils, stood on the +porch at Silverside, waiting for the depot wagon, when Selwyn's +letter was handed to Eileen.</p> +<p>The girl flushed up, then, avoiding Nina's eyes, turned and +entered the house. Once out of sight, she swiftly mounted to her +own room and dropped, breathless, on the bed, tearing the envelope +from end to end. And from end to end, and back again and over +again, she read the letter—at first in expectancy, lips +parted, colour brilliant, then with the smile still curving her +cheeks—but less genuine now—almost +mechanical—until the smile stamped on her stiffening lips +faded, and the soft contours relaxed, and she lifted her eyes, +staring into space with a wistful, questioning lift of the pure +brows.</p> +<p>What more had she expected? What more had she desired? Nothing, +surely, of that emotion which she declined to recognise; surely not +that sentiment of which she had admitted her ignorance to him. +Again her eyes sought the pages, following the inked writing from +end to end. What was she seeking there that he had left unwritten? +What was she searching for, of which there was not one hint in all +these pages?</p> +<p>And now Nina was calling her from the hall below; and she +answered gaily and, hiding the letter in her long glove, came down +the stairs.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you all about the letter in the train," she said; "he +is perfectly well, and evidently quite happy; and Nina—"</p> +<p>"What, dear?"</p> +<p>"I want to send him a telegram. May I?"</p> +<p>"A dozen, if you wish," said Mrs. Gerard, "only, if you don't +climb into that vehicle, we'll miss the train."</p> +<p>So on the way to Wyossette station Eileen sat very still, gloved +hands folded in her lap, composing her telegram to Selwyn. And, +once in the station, having it by heart already, she wrote it +rapidly:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Nina and I are on our way to the Berkshires for a week. +House-party at the Craigs'. We stay overnight in town. E.E."</p> +</div> +<p>But the telegram went to his club, and waited for him there; and +meanwhile another telegram arrived at his lodgings, signed by a +trained nurse; and while Miss Erroll, in the big, dismantled house, +lay in a holland-covered armchair, waiting for him, while Nina and +Austin, reading their evening papers, exchanged significant glances +from time to time, the man she awaited sat in the living-room in a +little villa at Edgewater. And a slim young nurse stood beside him, +cool and composed in her immaculate uniform, watching the play of +light and shadow on a woman who lay asleep on the couch, fresh, +young face flushed and upturned, a child's doll cradled between arm +and breast.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"How long has she been asleep?" asked Selwyn under his +breath.</p> +<p>"An hour. She fretted a good deal because you had not come. This +afternoon she said she wished to drive, and I had the phaeton +brought around; but when she saw it she changed her mind. I was +rather afraid of an outburst—they come sometimes from less +cause than that—so I did not urge her to go out. She played +on the piano for a long while, and sang some songs—those +curious native songs she learned in Manila. It seemed to soothe +her; she played with her little trifles quite contentedly for a +time, but soon began fretting again, and asking why you had not +come. She had a bad hour later—she is quite exhausted now. +Could you stay to-night, Captain Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"Y-es, if you think it better. . . . Wait a moment; I think she +has awakened."</p> +<p>Alixe had turned her head, her lovely eyes wide open.</p> +<p>"Phil!" she cried, "is it you?"</p> +<p>He went forward and took the uplifted hands, smiling down at +her.</p> +<p>"Such a horrid dream!" she said pettishly, "about a soft, plump +man with ever so many rings on his hands. . . . Oh, I am glad you +came. . . . Look at this child of mine!" cuddling the staring wax +doll closer; "she's not undressed yet, and it's long, long after +bedtime. Hand me her night-clothes, Phil."</p> +<p>The slim young nurse bent and disentangled a bit of lace and +cambric from a heap on the floor, offering it to Selwyn. He laid it +in the hand Alixe held out, and she began to undress the doll in +her arms, prattling softly all the while:</p> +<p>"Late—oh, so very, very late! I must be more careful of +her, Phil; because, if you and I grow up, some day we may marry, +and we ought to know all about children. It would be great fun, +wouldn't it?"</p> +<p>He nodded, forcing a smile.</p> +<p>"Don't you think so?" she persisted.</p> +<p>"Yes—yes, indeed," he said gently.</p> +<p>She laughed, contented with his answer, and laid her lips +against the painted face of the doll.</p> +<p>"When we grow up, years from now—then we'll understand, +won't we, Phil? . . . I am tired with playing. . . . And +Phil—let me whisper something. Is that person gone?"</p> +<p>He turned and signed to the nurse, who quietly withdrew.</p> +<p>"Is she gone?" repeated Alixe.</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Then listen, Phil. Do you know what she and the other one are +about all day? <i>I</i> know; I pretend not to, but I know. They +are watching me every moment—always watching me, because they +want to make you believe that I am forgetting you. But I am not. +That is why I made them send for you so I could tell you myself +that I could never, never forget you. . . . I think of you always +while I am playing—always—always I am thinking of you. +You will believe it, won't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," he said.</p> +<p>Contented, she turned to her doll again, undressing it deftly, +tenderly.</p> +<p>"At moments," she said, "I have an odd idea that it is real. I +am not quite sure even now. Do you believe it is alive, Phil? +Perhaps, at night, when I am asleep, it becomes alive. . . . This +morning I awoke, laughing, laughing in delight—thinking I +heard you laughing, too—as once—in the dusk where there +were many roses and many stars—big stars, and very, very +bright—I saw you—saw you—and the +roses—"</p> +<p>She paused with a pained, puzzled look of appeal.</p> +<p>"Where was it, Phil?"</p> +<p>"In Manila town."</p> +<p>"Yes; and there were roses. But I was never there."</p> +<p>"You came out on the veranda and pelted me with roses. There +were others there—officers and their wives. Everybody was +laughing."</p> +<p>"Yes—but I was not there, Phil. . . . Who—who was +the tall, thin bugler who sounded taps?"</p> +<p>"Corrigan."</p> +<p>"And—the little, girl-shaped, brown men?"</p> +<p>"My constabulary."</p> +<p>"I can't recollect," she said listlessly, laying the doll +against her breast. "I think, Phil, that you had better be a little +quiet now—she may wish to sleep. And I am sleepy, too," +lifting her slender hand as a sign for him to take his leave.</p> +<p>As he went out the nurse said: "If you wish to return to town, +you may, I think. She will forget about you for two or three days, +as usual. Shall I telegraph if she becomes restless?"</p> +<p>"Yes. What does the doctor say to-day?"</p> +<p>The slim nurse looked at him under level brows.</p> +<p>"There is no change," she said.</p> +<p>"No hope." It was not even a question.</p> +<p>"No hope, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>He stood silent, tapping his leg with the stiff brim of his hat; +then, wearily: "Is there anything more I can do for her?"</p> +<p>"Nothing, sir."</p> +<p>"Thank you."</p> +<p>He turned away, bidding her good-night in a low voice.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>He arrived in town about midnight, but did not go to any of his +clubs. At one of them a telegram was awaiting him; and in a +dismantled and summer-shrouded house a young girl was still +expecting him, lying with closed eyes in a big holland-covered +arm-chair, listening to the rare footfalls in the street +outside.</p> +<p>But of these things he knew nothing; and he went wearily to his +lodgings and climbed the musty stairs, and sat down in his old +attitude before the table and the blank wall behind it, waiting for +the magic frescoes to appear in all the vague loveliness of their +hues and dyes, painting for him upon his chamber-walls the tinted +paradise now lost to him for ever.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<h3>HIS OWN WAY</h3> +<p>The winter promised to be a busy one for Selwyn. If at first he +had had any dread of enforced idleness, that worry, at least, +vanished before the first snow flew. For there came to him a secret +communication from the Government suggesting, among other things, +that he report, three times a week, at the proving grounds on Sandy +Hook; that experiments with Chaosite as a bursting charge might +begin as soon as he was ready with his argon primer; that officers +connected with the bureau of ordnance and the marine laboratory had +recommended the advisability of certain preliminary tests, and that +the general staff seemed inclined to consider the matter +seriously.</p> +<p>This meant work—hard, constant, patient work. But it did +not mean money to help him support the heavy burdens he had +assumed. If there were to be any returns, all that part of it lay +in the future, and the future could not help him now.</p> +<p>Yet, unless still heavier burdens were laid upon him, he could +hold on for the present; his bedroom cost him next to nothing; +breakfast he cooked for himself, luncheon he dispensed with, and he +dined at random—anywhere that appeared to promise seclusion, +cheapness, and immunity from anybody he had ever known.</p> +<p>A minute and rather finicky care of his wardrobe had been second +nature to him—the habits of a soldier systematised the +routine—and he was satisfied that his clothes would outlast +winter demands, although laundry expenses appalled him.</p> +<p>As for his clubs, he hung on to them, knowing the importance of +appearances in a town which is made up of them. But this expense +was all he could carry, for the demands of the establishment at +Edgewater were steadily increasing with the early coming of winter; +he was sent for oftener, and a physician was now in practically +continual attendance.</p> +<p>Also, three times a week he boarded the Sandy Hook boat, +returning always at night because he dared not remain at the +reservation lest an imperative telegram from Edgewater find him +unable to respond.</p> +<p>So, when in November the first few hurrying snow-flakes whirled +in among the city's canons of masonry and iron, Selwyn had already +systematised his winter schedule; and when Nina opened her house, +returning from Lenox with Eileen to do so, she found that Selwyn +had made his own arrangements for the winter, and that, according +to the programme, neither she nor anybody else was likely to see +him oftener than one evening in a week.</p> +<p>To Boots she complained bitterly, having had visions of Selwyn +and Gerald as permanent fixtures of family support during the +season now imminent.</p> +<p>"I cannot understand," she said, "why Philip is acting this way. +He need not work like that; there is no necessity, because he has a +comfortable income. If he is determined to maintain a stuffy +apartment somewhere, of course I won't insist on his coming to us +as he ought to, but to abandon us in this manner makes me almost +indignant. Besides, it's having anything but a salutary effect on +Eileen."</p> +<p>"What effect is it having on Eileen?" inquired Boots +curiously.</p> +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said Nina, coming perilously close to a +pout; "but I see symptoms—indeed I do, Boots!—symptoms +of shirking the winter's routine. It's to be a gay season, too, and +it's only her second. The idea of a child of that age informing me +that she's had enough of the purely social phases of this planet! +Did you ever hear anything like it? One season, if you +please—and she finds it futile, stale, and unprofitable to +fulfil the duties expected of her!"</p> +<p>Boots began to laugh, but it was no laughing matter to Nina, and +she said so vigorously.</p> +<p>"It's Philip's fault. If he'd stand by us this winter she'd go +anywhere—and enjoy it, too. Besides, he's the only man able +to satisfy the blue-stocking in her between dances. But he's got +this obstinate mania for seclusion, and he seldom comes near us, +and it's driving Eileen into herself, Boots—and every day I +catch her hair slumping over her ears—and once I discovered a +lead-pencil behind 'em!—and a monograph on the Ming dynasty +in her lap, all marked up with notes! Oh, Boots! Boots! I've given +up all hopes of that brother of mine for her—but she could +marry anybody, if she chose—<i>anybody</i>!—and she +could twist the entire social circus into a court of her own and +dominate everything. Everybody knows it; everybody says it! . . . +And look at her!—indifferent, listless, scarcely civil any +longer to her own sort, but galvanised into animation the moment +some impossible professor or artist or hairy scientist flutters +batlike into a drawing-room where he doesn't belong unless he's +hired to be amusing! And that sounds horridly snobbish, I know; I +<i>am</i> a snob about Eileen, but not about myself because it +doesn't harm me to make round wonder-eyes at a Herr Professor or +gaze intensely into the eyes of an artist when he's ornamental; it +doesn't make my hair come down over my ears to do that sort of +thing, and it doesn't corrupt me into slinking off to museum +lectures or spending mornings prowling about the Society Library or +the Chinese jades in the Metropolitan—"</p> +<p>Boots's continuous and unfeigned laughter checked the pretty, +excited little matron, and after a moment she laughed, too.</p> +<p>"Dear Boots," she said, "can't you help me a little? I really am +serious. I don't know what to do with the girl. Philip never comes +near us—once a week for an hour or two, which is +nothing—and the child misses him. There—the murder is +out! Eileen misses him. Oh, she doesn't say so—she doesn't +hint it, or look it; but I know her; I know. She misses him; she's +lonely. And what to do about it I don't know, Boots, I don't +know."</p> +<p>Lansing had ceased laughing. He had been indulging in +tea—a shy vice of his which led him to haunt houses where +that out-of-fashion beverage might still be had. And now he sat, +cup suspended, saucer held meekly against his chest, gazing out at +the pelting snow-flakes.</p> +<p>"Boots, dear," said Nina, who adored him, "tell me what to do. +Tell me what has gone amiss between my brother and Eileen. +Something has. And whatever it is, it began last autumn—that +day when—you remember the incident?"</p> +<p>Boots nodded.</p> +<p>"Well, it seemed to upset everybody, somehow. Philip left the +next day; do you remember? And Eileen has never been quite the +same. Of course, I don't ascribe it to that unpleasant +episode—even a young girl gets over a shock in a day. But +the—the change—or whatever it is—dated from that +night. . . . They—Philip and Eileen—had been +inseparable. It was good for them—for her, too. And as for +Phil—why, he looked about twenty-one! . . . Boots, I—I +had hoped—expected—and I was right! They <i>were</i> on +the verge of it!"</p> +<p>"I think so, too," he said.</p> +<p>She looked up curiously.</p> +<p>"Did Philip ever say—"</p> +<p>"No; he never <i>says</i>, you know."</p> +<p>"I thought that men—close friends—sometimes +did."</p> +<p>"Sometimes—in romantic fiction. Phil wouldn't; nor," he +added smilingly, "would I."</p> +<p>"How do you know, Boots?" she asked, leaning back to watch him +out of mischievous eyes. "How do you know what you'd do if you were +in love—with Gladys, for example?"</p> +<p>"I know perfectly well," he said, "because I am."</p> +<p>"In love!" incredulously.</p> +<p>"Of course."</p> +<p>"Oh—you mean Drina."</p> +<p>"Who else?" he asked lightly.</p> +<p>"I thought you were speaking seriously. I"—all her latent +instinct for such meddling aroused—"I thought perhaps you +meant Gladys."</p> +<p>"Gladys who?" he asked blandly.</p> +<p>"Gladys Orchil, silly! People said—"</p> +<p>"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed; "if people 'said,' then it's all over. +Nina! do I look like a man on a still hunt for a million?"</p> +<p>"Gladys is a beauty!" retorted Nina indignantly.</p> +<p>"With the intellect of a Persian kitten," he nodded. +"I—that was not a nice thing to say. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed. +But, do you know, I have come to regard my agreement with Drina so +seriously that I take absolutely no interest in anybody else."</p> +<p>"Try to be serious, Boots," said Nina. "There are dozens of nice +girls you ought to be agreeable to. Austin and I were saying only +last night what a pity it is that you don't find either of the +Minster twins interesting—"</p> +<p>"I might find them compoundly interesting," he admitted, "but +unfortunately there's no chance in this country for multiple +domesticity and the simpler pleasures of a compound life. It's no +use, Nina; I'm not going to marry any girl for ever so +long—anyway, not until Drina releases me on her eighteenth +birthday. Hello!—somebody's coming—and I'm off!"</p> +<p>"I'm not at home; don't go!" said Nina, laying one hand on his +arm to detain him as a card was brought up. "Oh, it's only Rosamund +Fane! I <i>did</i> promise to go to the Craigs' with her. . . . Do +you mind if she comes up?"</p> +<p>"Not if you don't," said Boots blandly. He could not endure +Rosamund and she detested him; and Nina, who was perfectly aware of +this, had just enough of perversity in her to enjoy their +meeting.</p> +<p>Rosamund came in breezily, sables powdered with tiny flecks of +snow, cheeks like damask roses, eyes of turquoise.</p> +<p>"How d'ye do!" she nodded, greeting Boots askance as she closed +with Nina. "I came, you see, but <i>do</i> you want to be jammed +and mauled and trodden on at the Craigs'? No? That's +perfect!—neither do I. Where is the adorable Eileen? Nobody +sees her any more."</p> +<p>"She was at the Delmour-Carnes's yesterday."</p> +<p>"Was she? Curious I didn't see her. Tea? With gratitude, dear, +if it's Scotch."</p> +<p>She sat erect, the furs sliding to the back of the chair, +revealing the rather accented details of her perfectly turned +figure; and rolling up her gloves she laid her pretty head on one +side and considered Boots with very bright and malicious eyes.</p> +<p>"They say," she said, smiling, "that some very heavy play goes +on in that cunning little new house of yours, Mr. Lansing."</p> +<p>"Really?" he asked blandly.</p> +<p>"Yes; and I'm wondering if it is true."</p> +<p>"I shouldn't think you'd care, Mrs. Fane, as long as it makes a +good story."</p> +<p>Rosamund flushed. Then, always alive to humour, laughed +frankly.</p> +<p>"What a nasty thing to say to a woman!" she observed; "it fairly +reeks impertinence. Mr. Lansing, you don't like me very well, do +you?"</p> +<p>"I dare not," he said, "because you are married. If you were +only free <i>a vinculo matrimonii</i>—"</p> +<p>Rosamund laughed again, and sat stroking her muff and smiling. +"Curious, isn't it?" she said to Nina—"the inborn antipathy +of two agreeable human bipeds for one another. <i>Similis simili +gaudet</i>—as my learned friend will admit. But with us it's +the old, old case of that eminent practitioner, the late Dr. Fell. +<i>Esto perpetua!</i> Oh, well! We can't help it, can we, Mr. +Lansing?" And again to Nina: "Dear, <i>have</i> you heard anything +about Alixe Ruthven? I think it is the strangest thing that nobody +seems to know where she is. And all anybody can get out of Jack is +that she's in a nerve factory—or some such retreat—and +a perfect wreck. She might as well be dead, you know."</p> +<p>"In that case," observed Lansing, "it might be best to shift the +centre of gossip. <i>De mortuis nil nisi bonum</i>—which is +simple enough for anybody to comprehend."</p> +<p>"That is rude, Mr. Lansing," flashed out Rosamund; and to his +astonishment he saw the tears start to her eyes.</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily.</p> +<p>"You do well to. I care more for Alixe Ruthven than—than +you give me credit for caring about anybody. People are never +wholly worthless, Mr. Lansing—only the very young think that. +Give me credit for one wholly genuine affection, and you will not +be too credulous; and perhaps in future you and I may better be +able to endure one another when Fate lands us at the same +tea-table."</p> +<p>Boots said respectfully: "I am sorry for what I said, Mrs. Pane. +I hope that your friend Mrs. Ruthven will soon recover."</p> +<p>Rosamund looked at Nina, the tears still rimming her lids. "I +miss her frightfully," she said. "If somebody would only tell me +where she is—I—I know it could do no harm for me to see +her. I <i>can</i> be as gentle and loyal as anybody—when I +really care for a person. . . . Do <i>you</i> know where she might +be, Nina?"</p> +<p>"I? No, I do not. I'd tell you if I did, Rosamund."</p> +<p>"<i>Don't</i> you know?"</p> +<p>"Why, no," said Nina, surprised at her persistence.</p> +<p>"Because," continued Rosamund, "your brother does."</p> +<p>Nina straightened up, flushed and astonished.</p> +<p>"Why do you say that?" she asked.</p> +<p>"Because he does know. He sent her to Clifton. The maid who +accompanied her is in my service now. It's a low way of finding out +things, but we all do it."</p> +<p>"He—sent Alixe to—to Clifton!" repeated Nina +incredulously. "Your maid told you that?"</p> +<p>Rosamund finished the contents of her slim glass and rose. "Yes; +and it was a brave and generous and loyal thing for him to do. I +supposed you knew it. Jack has been too beastly to her; she was on +the verge of breaking down when I saw her on the <i>Niobrara</i>, +and she told me then that her husband had practically repudiated +her. . . . Then she suddenly disappeared; and her maid, later, came +to me seeking a place. That's how I knew, and that's all I know. +And I care for Alixe; and I honour your brother for what he +did."</p> +<p>She stood with pretty golden head bent, absently arranging the +sables around her neck and shoulders.</p> +<p>"I have been very horrid to Captain Selwyn," she said quietly. +"Tell him I am sorry; that he has my respect. . . . And—if he +cares to tell me where Alixe is I shall be grateful and do no +harm."</p> +<p>She turned toward the door, stopped short, came back, and made +her adieux, then started again toward the door, not noticing +Lansing.</p> +<p>"With your permission," said Boots at her shoulder in a very low +voice.</p> +<p>She looked up, surprised, her eyes still wet. Then comprehending +the compliment of his attendance, acknowledged it with a faint +smile.</p> +<p>"Good-night," he said to Nina. Then he took Rosamund down to her +brougham with a silent formality that touched her present +sentimental mood.</p> +<p>She leaned from her carriage-window, looking at him where he +stood, hat in hand, in the thickly falling snow.</p> +<p>"Please—without ceremony, Mr. Lansing." And, as he covered +himself, "May I not drop you at your destination?"</p> +<p>"Thank you"—in refusal.</p> +<p>"I thank you for being nice to me. . . . Please believe there is +often less malice than perversity in me. I—I have a heart, +Mr. Lansing—such as it is. And often those I torment most I +care for most. It was so with Alixe. Good-bye."</p> +<p>Boots's salute was admirably formal; then he went on through the +thickening snow, swung vigorously across the Avenue to the +Park-wall, and, turning south, continued on parallel to it under +the naked trees.</p> +<p>It must have been thick weather on the river and along the +docks, for the deep fog-horns sounded persistently over the city, +and the haunted warning of the sirens filled the leaden sky +lowering through the white veil descending in flakes that melted +where they fell.</p> +<p>And, as Lansing strode on, hands deep in his overcoat, more than +one mystery was unravelling before his keen eyes that blinked and +winked as the clinging snow blotted his vision.</p> +<p>Now he began to understand something of the strange effacement +of his friend Selwyn; he began to comprehend the curious economies +practised, the continued absence from club and coterie, the choice +of the sordid lodging whither Boots, one night, seeing him on the +street by chance, had shamelessly tracked him—with no excuse +for the intrusion save his affection for this man and his secret +doubts of the man's ability to take care of himself and his occult +affairs.</p> +<p>Now he was going there, exactly what to do he did not yet know, +but with the vague determination to do something.</p> +<p>On the wet pavements and reeking iron overhead structure along +Sixth Avenue the street lights glimmered, lending to the filthy +avenue under its rusty tunnel a mystery almost picturesque.</p> +<p>Into it he turned, swung aboard a car as it shot groaning and +clanking around the curve from Fifty-ninth Street, and settled down +to brood and ponder and consider until it was time for him to swing +off the car into the slimy street once more.</p> +<p>Silvery pools of light inlaid the dim expanse of Washington +Square. He turned east, then south, then east again, and doubled +into a dim street, where old-time houses with toppling dormers +crowded huddling together as though in the cowering contact there +was safety from the destroyer who must one day come, bringing steel +girders and cement to mark their graves with sky-scraping monuments +of stone.</p> +<p>Into the doorway of one of these houses Lansing turned. When the +town was young a Lansing had lived there in pomp and +circumstance—his own great-grandfather—and he smiled +grimly, amused at the irony of things terrestrial.</p> +<p>A slattern at the door halted him:</p> +<p>"Nobody ain't let up them stairs without my knowin' why," she +mumbled.</p> +<p>"I want to see Captain Selwyn," he explained.</p> +<p>"Hey?"</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn!"</p> +<p>"Hey? I'm a little deef!" screeched the old crone. "Is it Cap'n +Selwyn you want?"</p> +<p>Above, Selwyn, hearing his name screamed through the shadows of +the ancient house, came to the stairwell and looked down into the +blackness.</p> +<p>"What is it, Mrs. Glodden?" he said sharply; then, catching +sight of a dim figure springing up the stairs:</p> +<p>"Here! this way. Is it for me?" and as Boots came into the light +from his open door: "Oh!" he whispered, deadly pale under the +reaction; "I thought it was a telegram. Come in."</p> +<p>Boots shook the snow from his hat and coat into the passageway +and took the single chair; Selwyn, tall and gaunt in his shabby +dressing-gown, stood looking at him and plucking nervously at the +frayed and tasselled cord around his waist.</p> +<p>"I don't know how you came to stumble in here," he said at +length, "but I'm glad to see you."</p> +<p>"Thanks," replied Boots, gazing shamelessly and inquisitively +about. There was nothing to see except a few books, a pipe or two, +toilet articles, and a shaky gas-jet. The flat military trunk was +under the iron bed.</p> +<p>"I—it's not much of a place," observed Selwyn, forcing a +smile. "However, you see I'm so seldom in town; I'm busy at the +Hook, you know. So I don't require anything elaborate."</p> +<p>"Yes, I know," said Boots solemnly. A silence.</p> +<p>"H—have a pipe?" inquired Selwyn uneasily. He had nothing +else to offer.</p> +<p>Boots leaned back in his stiff chair, crossed his legs, and +filled a pipe. When he had lighted it he said:</p> +<p>"How are things, Phil?"</p> +<p>"All right. First rate, thank you."</p> +<p>Boots removed the pipe from his lips and swore at him; and +Selwyn listened with head obstinately lowered and lean hands +plucking at his frayed girdle. And when Boots had ended his +observations with an emphatic question, Selwyn shook his head:</p> +<p>"No, Boots. You're very good to ask me to stop with you, but I +can't. I'd be hampered; there are matters—affairs that +concern me—that need instant attention at times—at +certain times. I must be free to go, free to come. I couldn't be in +your house. Don't ask me. But I'm—I thank you for +offering—"</p> +<p>"Phil!"</p> +<p>"What?"</p> +<p>"Are you broke?"</p> +<p>"Ah—a little"—with a smile.</p> +<p>"Will you take what you require from me?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Oh—very well. I was horribly afraid you would."</p> +<p>Selwyn laughed and leaned back, indenting his meagre pillow.</p> +<p>"Come, Boots," he said, "you and I have often had worse quarters +than this. To tell you the truth I rather like it than +otherwise."</p> +<p>"Oh, damn!" said Boots, disgusted; "the same old conscience in +the same old mule! Who likes squalidity? I don't. You don't! What +if Fate has hit you a nasty swipe! Suppose Fortune has landed you a +few in the slats! It's only temporary and you know it. All business +in the world is conducted on borrowed capital. It's your business +to live in decent quarters, and I'm here to lend you the means of +conducting that business. Oh, come on, Phil, for Heaven's sake! If +there were really any reason—any logical reason for this +genius-in-the-garret business, I'd not say a word. But there isn't; +you're going to make money—"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I've got to," said Selwyn simply.</p> +<p>"Well, then! In the meanwhile—"</p> +<p>"No. Listen, Boots; I couldn't be free in your house. +I—they—there are telegrams—unexpected +ones—at all hours."</p> +<p>"What of it?"</p> +<p>"You don't understand."</p> +<p>"Wait a bit! How do you know I don't? Do the telegrams come from +Sandy Hook?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>Boots looked him calmly in the eye. "Then I <i>do</i> +understand, old man. Come on out of this, in Heaven's name! Come, +now! Get your dressing-gown off and your coat on! Don't you think I +understand? I tell you I <i>do</i>! Yes, the whole blessed, +illogical, chivalrous business. . . . Never mind how I +know—for I won't tell you! Oh, I'm not trying to interfere +with you; I know enough to shun buzz-saws. All I want is for you to +come and take that big back room and help a fellow live in a lonely +house—help a man to make it cheerful. I can't stand it alone +any longer; and it will be four years before Drina is +eighteen."</p> +<p>"Drina!" repeated Selwyn blankly—then he laughed. It was +genuine laughter, too; and Boots grinned and puffed at his pipe, +and recrossed his legs, watching Selwyn out of eyes brightening +with expectancy.</p> +<p>"Then it's settled," he said.</p> +<p>"What? Your ultimate career with Drina?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes; that also. But I referred to your coming to live with +me."</p> +<p>"Boots—"</p> +<p>"Oh, fizz! Come on. I don't like the way you act, Phil."</p> +<p>Selwyn said slowly: "Do you make it a personal +matter—"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do; dam'f I don't! You'll be perfectly free there. I +don't care what you do or where you go or what hours you keep. You +can run up and down Broadway all night, if you want to, or you can +stop at home and play with the cats. I've three fine ones"—he +made a cup of his hands and breathed into them, for the room was +horribly cold—"three fine tabbies, and a good fire for 'em to +blink at when they start purring."</p> +<p>He looked kindly but anxiously at Selwyn, waiting for a word; +and as none came he said:</p> +<p>"Old fellow, you can't fool me with your talk about needing +nothing better because you're out of town all the time. You know +what you and I used to talk about in the old days—our longing +for a home and an open fire and a brace of cats and bedroom +slippers. Now I've got 'em, and I make Ardois signals at you. If +your shelter-tent got afire or blew away, wouldn't you crawl into +mine? And are you going to turn down an old tent-mate because his +shack happens to be built of bricks?"</p> +<p>"Do you put it that way?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I do. Why, in Heaven's name, do you want to stay in a vile +hole like this—unless you're smitten with Mrs. Glodden? Phil, +I <i>want</i> you to come. Will you?"</p> +<p>"Then—I'll accept a corner of your blanket—for a day +or two," said Selwyn wearily. . . . "You'll let me go when I want +to?"</p> +<p>"I'll do more; I'll make you go when <i>I</i> want you to. Come +on; pay Mrs. Glodden and have your trunk sent."</p> +<p>Selwyn forced a laugh, then sat up on the bed's edge and looked +around at the unpapered walls.</p> +<p>"Boots—you won't say to—to anybody what sort of a +place I've been living in—"</p> +<p>"No; but I will if you try to come back here."</p> +<p>So Selwyn stood up and began to remove his dressing-gown, and +Lansing dragged out the little flat trunk and began to pack it.</p> +<p>An hour later they went away together through the falling +snow.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>For a week Boots let him alone. He had a big, comfortable room, +dressing-closet, and bath adjoining the suite occupied by his host; +he was absolutely free to go and come, and for a week or ten days +Boots scarcely laid eyes on him, except at breakfast, for Selwyn's +visits to Sandy Hook became a daily routine except when a telegram +arrived from Edgewater calling him there.</p> +<p>But matters at Edgewater were beginning to be easier in one way +for him. Alixe appeared to forget him for days at a time; she was +less irritable, less restless and exacting. A sweet-tempered and +childish docility made the care of her a simpler matter for the +nurses and for him; her discontent had disappeared; she made fewer +demands. She did ask for a sleigh to replace the phaeton, and +Selwyn managed to get one for her; and Miss Casson, one of the +nurses, wrote him how delighted Alixe had been, and how much good +the sleighing was doing her.</p> +<p>"Yesterday," continued the nurse in her letter, "there was a +consultation here between Drs. Vail, Wesson, and Morrison—as +you requested. They have not changed their opinions—indeed, +they are convinced that there is no possible chance of the recovery +you hoped for when you talked with Dr. Morrison. They all agree +that Mrs. Ruthven is in excellent physical condition—young, +strong, vigorous—and may live for years; may outlive us all. +But there is nothing else to expect."</p> +<p>The letter ran on:</p> +<p>"I am enclosing the bills you desired to have sent you. Fuel is +very expensive, as you will see. The items for fruits, too, seems +unreasonably large, but grapes are two dollars a pound and fresh +vegetables dreadfully expensive.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Ruthven is comfortable and happy in the luxury provided. +She is very sweet and docile with us all—and we are careful +not to irritate her or to have anything intrude which might excite +or cause the slightest shock to her.</p> +<p>"Yesterday, standing at the window, she caught sight of a +passing negro, and she turned to me like a flash and said:</p> +<p>"'The Tenth Cavalry were there!'</p> +<p>"She seemed rather excited for a moment—not +unpleasantly—but when I ventured to ask her a question, she +had quite forgotten it all.</p> +<p>"I meant to thank you for sending me the revolver and +cartridges. It seemed a silly request, but we are in a rather +lonely place, and I think Miss Bond and I feel a little safer +knowing that, in case of necessity, we have <i>something</i> to +frighten away any roaming intruder who might take it into his head +to visit us.</p> +<p>"One thing we must be careful about: yesterday Mrs. Ruthven had +a doll on my bed, and I sat sewing by the window, not noticing what +she was doing until I heard her pretty, pathetic little laugh.</p> +<p>"And <i>what</i> do you think she had done? She had discovered +your revolver under my pillow, and she had tied her handkerchief +around it, and was using it as a doll!</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"I got it away with a little persuasion, but at times she still +asks for her 'army' doll—saying that a boy she knew, named +Philip, had sent it to her from Manila, where he was living.</p> +<p>"This, Captain Selwyn, is all the news. I do not think she will +begin to fret for you again for some time. At first, you remember, +it was every other day, then every three or four days. It has now +been a week since she asked for you. When she does I will, as +usual, telegraph you.</p> +<p>"With many thanks for your kindness to us all, "Very +respectfully yours,</p> +<p>"Mary Casson."</p> +</div> +<p>Selwyn read this letter sitting before the fire in the +living-room, feet on the fender, pipe between his teeth. It was the +first day of absolute rest he had had in a long while.</p> +<p>The day before he had been at the Hook until almost dark, +watching the firing of a big gun, and the results had been so +satisfactory that he was venturing to give himself a +holiday—unless wanted at Edgewater.</p> +<p>But the morning had brought this letter; Alixe was contented and +comfortable. So when Boots, after breakfast, went off to his Air +Line office, Selwyn permitted himself the luxury of smoking-jacket +and slippers, and settled down before the fire to reread the letter +and examine the enclosed bills, and ponder and worry over them at +his ease. To have leisure to worry over perplexities was something; +to worry in such luxury as this seemed something so very near to +happiness that as he refolded the last bill for household expenses +he smiled faintly to himself.</p> +<p>Boots's three tabby-cats were disposed comfortably before the +blaze, fore paws folded under, purring and blinking lazily at the +grate. All around were evidences of Boots's personal taste in +pretty wall-paper and hangings, a few handsome Shiraz rugs +underfoot, deep, comfortable chairs, low, open bookcases full of +promising literature—the more promising because not +contemporary.</p> +<p>Selwyn loved such a room as this—where all was comfort, +and nothing in the quiet, but cheerful, ensemble disturbed the +peaceful homeliness.</p> +<p>Once—and not very long since—he had persuaded +himself that there had been a chance for him to have such a home, +and live in it—<i>not</i> alone. That chance had +gone—had never really existed, he knew now. For sooner or +later he must have awakened from the pleasant dreams of +self-persuasion to the reality of his relentless responsibility. +No, there had never been such a chance; and he thanked God that he +had learned before it was too late that for him there could be no +earthly paradise, no fireside <i>à deux</i>, no home, no +hope of it.</p> +<p>As long as Alixe lived his spiritual responsibility must endure. +And they had just told him that she might easily outlive them +all.</p> +<p>He turned heavily in his chair and stared at the fire. Perhaps +he saw infernal visions in the flames; perhaps the blaze meant +nothing more to him than an example of chemical reaction, for his +face was set and colourless and vacant, and his hands lay loosely +along the padded arms of his easy-chair.</p> +<p>The hardest lesson he had to learn in these days was to avoid +thinking. Or, if he must surrender to the throbbing, unbidden +memories which came crowding in hordes to carry him by the +suddenness of their assault, that he learn to curb and subdue and +direct them in pity toward that hopeless, helpless, stricken +creature who was so utterly dependent upon him in her dreadful +isolation.</p> +<p>And he could not so direct them.</p> +<p>Loyal in act and deed, his thoughts betrayed him. Memories, +insurgent, turned on him to stab him; and he shrank from them, +cowering among his pillows at midnight. But memory is merciless, +and what has been is without pity; and so remembrance rose at +midnight from its cerements, like a spectre, floating before his +covered eyes, wearing the shape of youth and love, crowned with the +splendour of <i>her</i> hair, looking at him out of those clear, +sweet eyes whose gaze was purity and truth eternal.</p> +<p>And truth is truth, though he might lie with hands clinched +across his brow to shut out the wraith of it that haunted him; +though he might set his course by the faith that was in him, and +put away the hope of the world—whose hope is love—the +truth was there, staring, staring at him out of Eileen Erroll's +dark-blue eyes.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>He had seen her seldom that winter. When he had seen her their +relations appeared to be as happy, as friendly as before; there was +no apparent constraint, nothing from her to indicate that she +noticed an absence for which his continual business with the +Government seemed sufficient excuse.</p> +<p>Besides, her days were full days, consequent upon Nina's goading +and indefatigable activity; and Eileen danced and received, and she +bridged and lunched, and she heard opera Wednesdays and was good to +the poor on Fridays; and there were balls, and theatres, and +classes for intellectual improvement, and routine duties incident +to obligations born with those inhabitants of Manhattan who are +numbered among the thousand caryatides that support upon their +jewelled necks and naked shoulders the social structure of the +metropolis.</p> +<p>But Selwyn, unable longer to fulfil his social obligations, was +being quietly eliminated from the social scheme of things. Passed +over here, dropped there, counted out as one more man not to be +depended upon, it was not a question of loss of caste; he simply +stayed away, and his absence was accepted by people who, in the +breathless pleasure chase, have no leisure to inquire why a man has +lagged behind.</p> +<p>There were rumours, however, that he had merely temporarily +donned overalls for the purpose of making a gigantic fortune; and +many an envious young fellow asked his pretty partner in the dance +if it was true, and many a young girl frankly hoped it was, and +that the fortune would be quick in the making. For Selwyn was well +liked in the younger set, and that he was in process of becoming +eligible interested everybody except Gladys and the Minster twins, +who considered him sufficiently eligible without the material +additions required by their cynical seniors, and would rather have +had him penniless and present than absent and opulent.</p> +<p>But they were young and foolish, and after a while they forgot +to miss him, particularly Gladys, whose mother had asked her not to +dance quite so often with Gerald, and to favour him a trifle less +frequently in cotillon. Which prevoyance had been coped with +successfully by Nina, who, noticing it, at first took merely a +perverse pleasure in foiling Mrs. Orchil; but afterward, as the +affair became noticeable, animated by the instinct of the truly +clever opportunist, she gave Gerald every fighting chance. Whatever +came of it—and, no doubt, the Orchils had more ambitious +views for Gladys—it was well to have Gerald mentioned in such +a fashionable episode, whether anything came of it or not.</p> +<p>Gerald, in the early days of his affair with Gladys, and before +even it had assumed the proportions of an affair, had shyly come to +Selwyn, not for confession but with the crafty purpose of +introducing her name into the conversation so that he might have +the luxury of talking about her to somebody who would neither quiz +him nor suspect him.</p> +<p>Selwyn, of course, ultimately suspected him; but as he never +quizzed him, Gerald continued his elaborate system of subterfuges +to make her personality and doings a topic for him to expand upon +and Selwyn to listen to.</p> +<p>It had amused Selwyn; he thought of it now—a gay memory +like a ray of light flung for a moment across the sombre background +of his own sadness. Fortunate or unfortunate, Gerald was still +lucky in his freedom to hazard it with chance and fate.</p> +<p>Freedom to love! That alone was blessed, though that love be +unreturned. Without that right—the right to love—a man +was no man. Lansing had been correct: such a man was a spectre in a +living world—the ghost of what he had been. But there was no +help for it, and there Lansing had been in the wrong. No hope, no +help, nothing for it but to set a true course and hang to it.</p> +<p>And Selwyn's dull eyes rested upon the ashes of the fire, and he +saw his dead youth among them; and, in the flames, his maturity +burning to embers.</p> +<p>If he outlived Alixe, his life would lie as the ashes lay at his +feet. If she outlived him—and they had told him there was +every chance of it—at least he would have something to busy +himself with in life if he was to leave her provided for when he +was no longer there to stand between her and charity.</p> +<p>That meant work—the hard, incessant, blinding, stupefying +work which stuns thought and makes such a life endurable.</p> +<p>Not that he had ever desired death as a refuge or as a solution +of despair; there was too much of the soldier in him. Besides, it +is so impossible for youth to believe in death, to learn to apply +the word to themselves. He had not learned to, and he had seen +death, and watched it; but for himself he had not learned to +believe in it. When one turns forty it is easier to credit it.</p> +<p>Thinking of death, impersonally, he sat watching the flames +playing above the heavy log; and as he lay there in his chair, the +unlighted pipe drooping in his hands, the telephone on the desk +rang, and he rose and unhooked the receiver.</p> +<p>Drina's voice sounded afar, and: "Hello, sweetheart!" he said +gaily; "is there anything I can do for your youthful highness?"</p> +<p>"I've been talking over the 'phone to Boots," she said. "You +know, whenever I have nothing to do I call up Boots at his office +and talk to him."</p> +<p>"That must please him," suggested Selwyn gravely.</p> +<p>"It does. Boots says you are not going to business to-day. So I +thought I'd call you up."</p> +<p>"Thank you," said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"You are welcome. What are you doing over there in Boots's +house?"</p> +<p>"Looking at the fire, Drina, and listening to the purring of +three fat tabby-cats."</p> +<p>"Oh! Mother and Eileen have gone somewhere. I haven't anything +to do for an hour. Can't you come around?"</p> +<p>"Why, yes, if you want me."</p> +<p>"Yes, I do. Of course I can't have Boots, and I prefer you next. +The children are fox-hunting, and it bores me. Will you come?"</p> +<p>"Yes. When?"</p> +<p>"Now. And would you mind bringing me a box of mint-paste? Mother +won't object. Besides, I'll tell her, anyway, after I've eaten +them."</p> +<p>"All right!" said Selwyn, laughing and hanging up the +receiver.</p> +<p>On his way to the Gerards' he bought a box of the confection +dear to Drina. But as he dropped the packet into his +overcoat-pocket, the memory of the past rose up suddenly, halting +him. He could not bear to go to the house without some little gift +for Eileen, and it was violets now as it was in the days that could +never dawn again—a great, fragrant bunch of them, which he +would leave for her after his brief play-hour with Drina was +ended.</p> +<p>The child was glad to see him, and expressed herself so, coming +across to the chair where he sat and leaning against him, one arm +on his shoulder.</p> +<p>"Do you know," she said, "that I miss you ever so much? Do you +know, also, that I am nearly fourteen, and that there is nobody in +this house near enough my age to be very companionable? I have +asked them to send me to school, and mother is considering it."</p> +<p>She leaned against his shoulder, curly head bent, thoughtfully +studying the turquoise ring on her slim finger. It was her first +ring. Nina had let Boots give it to her.</p> +<p>"What a tall girl you are growing into!" he said, encircling her +waist with one arm. "Your mother was like you at fourteen. . . . +Did she ever tell you how she first met your father? Well, I'll +tell you then. Your father was a schoolboy of fifteen, and one day +he saw the most wonderful little girl riding a polo pony out of the +Park. Her mother was riding with her. And he lost his head, and ran +after her until she rode into the Academy stables. And in he went, +headlong, after her, and found her dismounted and standing with her +mother; and he took off his hat, and he said to her mother: 'I've +run quite a long way to tell you who I am: I am Colonel Gerard's +son, Austin. Would you care to know me?'</p> +<p>"And he looked at the little girl, who had curls precisely like +yours, and the same little nose and mouth. And that little girl, +who is now your mother, said very simply: 'Won't you come home to +luncheon with us? May he, mother? He has run a very long way to be +polite to us.'</p> +<p>"And your mother's mother looked at the boy for a moment, +smiling, for he was the image of his father, who had been at school +with her. Then she said: 'Come to luncheon and tell me about your +father. Your father once came a thousand miles to see me, but I had +started the day before on my wedding-trip.'</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"And that is how your father first met your mother, when she was +a little girl."</p> +<p>Drina laughed: "What a funny boy father was to run after a +strange girl on a polo pony! . . . Suppose—suppose he had not +seen her, and had not run after her. . . . Where would I be now, +Uncle Philip? . . . Could you please tell me?"</p> +<p>"Still aloft among the cherubim, sweetheart."</p> +<p>"But—whose uncle would you be? And who would Boots have +found for a comrade like me? . . . It's a good thing that father +ran after that polo pony. . . . Probably God arranged it. Do you +think so?"</p> +<p>"There is no harm in thinking it," he said, smiling.</p> +<p>"No; no harm. I've known for a long while that He was taking +care of Boots for me until I grow up. Meanwhile, I know some very +nice Harvard freshmen and two boys from St. Paul and five from +Groton. That helps, you know."</p> +<p>"Helps what?" asked Selwyn, vastly amused.</p> +<p>"To pass the time until I am eighteen," said the child serenely, +helping herself to another soft, pale-green chunk of the aromatic +paste. "Uncle Philip, mother has forbidden me—and I'll tell +her and take my punishment—but would you mind telling me how +you first met my Aunt Alixe?"</p> +<p>Selwyn's arm around her relaxed, then tightened.</p> +<p>"Why do you ask, dear?" he said very quietly.</p> +<p>"Because I was just wondering whether God arranged that, +too."</p> +<p>Selwyn looked at her a moment. "Yes," he said grimly; "nothing +happens by chance."</p> +<p>"Then, when God arranges such things, He does not always +consider our happiness."</p> +<p>"He gives us our chance, Drina."</p> +<p>"Oh! Did you have a chance? I heard mother say to Eileen that +you had never had a chance for happiness. I thought it was very +sad. I had gone into the clothes-press to play with my +dolls—you know I still do play with them—that is, I go +into some secret place and look at them at times when the children +are not around. So I was in there, sitting on the cedar-chest, and +I couldn't help hearing what they said."</p> +<p>She extracted another bonbon, bit into it, and shook her +head:</p> +<p>"And mother said to Eileen: 'Dearest, can't you learn to care +for him?' And Eileen—"</p> +<p>"Drina!" he interrupted sharply, "you must not repeat things you +overhear."</p> +<p>"Oh, I didn't hear anything more," said the child, "because I +remembered that I shouldn't listen, and I came out of the closet. +Mother was standing by the bed, and Eileen was lying on the bed +with her hands over her eyes; and I didn't know she had been crying +until I said: 'Please excuse me for listening,' and she sat up very +quickly, and I saw her face was flushed and her eyes wet. . . . +Isn't it possible for you to marry anybody, Uncle Philip?"</p> +<p>"No, Drina."</p> +<p>"Not even if Eileen would marry you?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>"You could not understand, dear. Even your mother cannot quite +understand. So we won't ever speak of it again, Drina."</p> +<p>The child balanced a bonbon between thumb and forefinger, +considering it very gravely.</p> +<p>"I know something that mother does not," she said. And as he +betrayed no curiosity:</p> +<p>"Eileen <i>is</i> in love. I heard her say so."</p> +<p>He straightened up sharply, turning to look at her.</p> +<p>"I was sleeping with her. I was still awake, and I heard her +say: 'I <i>do</i> love you—I <i>do</i> love you.' She said it +very softly, and I cuddled up, supposing she meant me. But she was +asleep."</p> +<p>"She certainly meant you," said Selwyn, forcing his stiffened +lips into a smile.</p> +<p>The child shook her head, looking down at the ring which she was +turning on her finger:</p> +<p>"No; she did not mean me."</p> +<p>"H-how do you know?"</p> +<p>"Because she said a man's name."</p> +<p>The silence lengthened; he sat, tilted a little forward, blank +gaze focussed on the snowy window; Drina, standing, leaned back +into the hollow of his arm, absently studying her ring.</p> +<p>A few moments later her music-teacher arrived, and Drina was +obliged to leave him.</p> +<p>"If you don't wait until I have finished my music," she said, +"you won't see mother and Eileen. They are coming to take me to the +riding-school at four o'clock."</p> +<p>He said that he couldn't stay that day; and when she had gone +away to the schoolroom he walked slowly to the window and looked +out across the snowy Park, where hundreds of children were +floundering about with gaily painted sleds. It was a pretty scene +in the sunshine; crimson sweaters and toboggan caps made vivid +spots of colour on the white expanse. Beyond, through the naked +trees, he could see the drive, and the sleighs with their brilliant +scarlet plumes and running-gear flashing in the sun. Overhead was +the splendid winter blue of the New York sky, in which, at a vast +height, sea-birds circled.</p> +<p>Meaning to go—for the house and its associations made him +restless—he picked up the box of violets and turned to ring +for a maid to take charge of them—and found himself +confronting Eileen, who, in her furs and gloves, was just entering +the room.</p> +<p>"I came up," she said; "they told me you were here, calling very +formally upon Drina, if you please. What with her monopoly of you +and Boots, there seems to be no chance for Nina and me."</p> +<p>They shook hands pleasantly; he offered her the box of violets, +and she thanked him and opened it, and, lifting the heavy, perfumed +bunch, bent her fresh young face to it. For a moment she stood +inhaling the scent, then stretched out her arm, offering their +fragrance to him.</p> +<p>"The first night I ever knew you, you sent me about a wagon-load +of violets," she said carelessly.</p> +<p>He nodded pleasantly; she tossed her muff on to the library +table, stripped off her gloves, and began to unhook her fur coat, +declining his aid with a quick shake of her head.</p> +<p>"It is easy—you see!"—as the sleeves slid from her +arms and the soft mass of fur fell into a chair. "And, by the way, +Drina said that you couldn't wait to see Nina," she continued, +turning to face a mirror and beginning to withdraw the jewelled +pins from her hat, "so you won't for a moment consider it necessary +to remain just because I wandered in—will you?"</p> +<p>He made no reply; she was still busy with her veil and hat and +her bright, glossy hair, the ends of which curled up at the +temples—a burnished frame for her cheeks which the cold had +delicately flushed to a wild-rost tint. Then, brushing back the +upcurled tendrils of her hair, she turned to confront him, faintly +smiling, brows lifted in silent repetition of her question.</p> +<p>"I will stay until Nina comes, if I may," he said slowly.</p> +<p>She seated herself. "You may," she said mockingly; "we don't +allow you in the house very often, so when you do come you may +remain until the entire family can congregate to inspect you." She +leaned back, looking at him; then look and manner changed, and she +bent impulsively forward:</p> +<p>"You don't look very well, Captain Selwyn; are you?"</p> +<p>"Perfectly. I"—he laughed—"I am growing old; that is +all."</p> +<p>"Do you say that to annoy me?" she asked, with a disdainful +shrug, "or to further impress me?"</p> +<p>He shook his head and touched the hair at his temples +significantly.</p> +<p>"Pooh!" she retorted. "It is becoming—is that what you +mean?"</p> +<p>"I hope it is. There's no reason why a man should not grow old +gracefully—"</p> +<p>"Captain Selwyn! But of course you only say it to bring out that +latent temper of mine. It's about the only thing that does it, too. +. . . And please don't plague me—if you've only a few moments +to stay. . . . It may amuse you to know that I, too, am exhibiting +signs of increasing infirmity; my temper, if you please, is not +what it once was."</p> +<p>"Worse than ever?" he asked in pretended astonishment.</p> +<p>"Far worse. It is vicious. Kit-Ki took a nap on a new +dinner-gown of mine, and I slapped her. And the other day Drina hid +in a clothes-press while Nina was discussing my private affairs, +and when the little imp emerged I could have shaken her. Oh, I am +certainly becoming infirm; so if you are, too, comfort yourself +with the knowledge that I am keeping pace with you through the +winter of our discontent."</p> +<p>At the mention of the incident of which Drina had already spoken +to him, Selwyn raised his head and looked at the girl curiously. +Then he laughed.</p> +<p>"I am wondering," he said in a bantering voice, "what secrets +Drina heard. I think I'd better ask her—"</p> +<p>"You had better not! Besides, <i>I</i> said nothing at all."</p> +<p>"But Nina did."</p> +<p>She nodded, lying there, arms raised, hands clasping the +upholstered wings of the big chair, and gazing at him out of +indolent, amused eyes.</p> +<p>"Would you like to know what Nina was saying to me?" she +asked.</p> +<p>"I'd rather hear what you said to her."</p> +<p>"I told you that I said nothing."</p> +<p>"Not a word?" he insisted.</p> +<p>"Not a word."</p> +<p>"Not even a sound?"</p> +<p>"N—well—I won't answer that."</p> +<p>"Oho!" he laughed. "So you did make some sort of inarticulate +reply! Were you laughing or weeping?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps I was yawning. How do you know?" she smiled.</p> +<p>After a moment he said, still curious: "<i>Why</i> were you +crying, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Crying! I didn't say I was crying."</p> +<p>"I assume it."</p> +<p>"To prove or disprove that assumption," she said coolly, amused, +"let us hunt up a motive for a possible display of tears. What, +Captain Selwyn, have I to cry about? Is there anything in the world +that I lack? Anything that I desire and cannot have?"</p> +<p>"<i>Is</i> there?" he repeated.</p> +<p>"I asked you, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>"And, unable to reply," he said, "I ask you."</p> +<p>"And I," she retorted, "refuse to answer."</p> +<p>"Oho! So there <i>is</i>, then, something you lack? There +<i>is</i> a motive for possible tears?"</p> +<p>"You have not proven it," she said.</p> +<p>"You have not denied it."</p> +<p>She tipped back her head, linked her fingers under her chin, and +looked at him across the smooth curve of her cheeks.</p> +<p>"Well—yes," she admitted, "I was crying—if you +insist on knowing. Now that you have so cleverly driven me to admit +that, can you also force me to tell you <i>why</i> I was so +tearful?"</p> +<p>"Certainly," he said promptly; "it was something Nina said that +made you cry."</p> +<p>They both laughed.</p> +<p>"Oh, what a come-down!" she said teasingly. "You knew that +before. But can you force me to confess to you <i>what</i> Nina was +saying? If you can you are the cleverest cross-examiner in the +world, for I'd rather perish than tell you—"</p> +<p>"Oh," he said instantly, "then it was something about love!"</p> +<p>He had not meant to say it; he had spoken too quickly, and the +flush of surprise on the girl's face was matched by the colour +rising to his own temples. And, to retrieve the situation, he spoke +too quickly again—and too lightly.</p> +<p>"A girl would rather perish than admit that she is in love?" he +said, forcing a laugh. "That is rather a clever deduction, I think. +Unfortunately, however, I happen to know to the contrary, so all my +cleverness comes to nothing."</p> +<p>The surprise had faded from her face, but the colour remained; +and with it something else—something in the blue eyes which +he had never before encountered there—the faintest trace of +recoil, of shrinking away from him.</p> +<p>And she herself did not know it was there—did not quite +realise that she had been hurt. Surprise that he had chanced so +abruptly, so unerringly upon the truth had startled and confused +her; but that he had made free of the truth so lightly, so +carelessly, laughingly amused, left her without an answering +smile.</p> +<p>That it had been an accident—a chance surmise which +perhaps he himself did not credit—which he could not +believe—made it no easier for her. For the first time in his +life he had said something which left her unresponsive, with a +sense of bruised delicacy and of privacy invaded. A tinge of fear +of him crept in, too. She did not misconstrue what he had said +under privilege of a jest, but after what had once passed between +them she had not considered that love, even in the abstract, might +serve as a mocking text for any humour or jesting sermon from a man +who had asked her what he once asked—the man she had loved +enough to weep for when she had refused him only because she lacked +what he asked for. Knowing that she loved him in her own innocent +fashion, scarcely credulous that he ever could be dearer to her, +yet shyly wistful for whatever more the years might add to her +knowledge of a love so far immune from stress or doubt or the +mounting thrill of a deeper emotion, she had remained confidently +passive, warmly loyal, reverencing the mystery of the love he +offered, though she could not understand it or respond.</p> +<p>And now—now a chance turn; of a word—a trend to an +idle train of thought, jestingly followed!—and, without +warning, they had stumbled on a treasured memory, too frail, too +delicately fragile, to endure the shock.</p> +<p>And now fear crept in—fear that he had forgotten, had +changed. Else how could he have spoken so? . . . And the tempered +restraint of her quivered at the thought—all the serenity, +the confidence in life and in him began to waver. And her first +doubt crept in upon her.</p> +<p>She turned her expressionless face from him and, resting her +cheek against the velvet back of the chair, looked out into the +late afternoon sunshine.</p> +<p>All the long autumn without him, all her long, lonely, leisure +hours in the golden weather, his silence, his withdrawal into +himself, and his work, hitherto she had not misconstrued, though +often she confused herself in explaining it. Impatience of his +absence, too, had stimulated her to understand the temporary state +of things—to know that time away from him meant for her only +existence in suspense.</p> +<p>Very, very slowly, by degrees imperceptible, alone with memories +of him and of their summer's happiness already behind her, she had +learned that time added things to what she had once considered her +full capacity for affection.</p> +<p>Alone with her memories of him, at odd moments during the +day—often in the gay clamour and crush of the social +routine—or driving with Nina, or lying, wide-eyed, on her +pillow at night, she became conscious that time, little by little, +very gradually but very surely, was adding to her regard for him +frail, new, elusive elements that stole in to awake an unquiet +pulse or stir her heart into a sudden thrill, leaving it +fluttering, and a faint glow gradually spreading through her every +vein.</p> +<p>She was beginning to love him no longer in her own sweet +fashion, but in his; and she was vaguely aware of it, yet curiously +passive and content to put no question to herself whether it was +true or false. And how it might be with him she evaded asking +herself, too; only the quickening of breath and pulse questioned +the pure thoughts unvoiced; only the increasing impatience of her +suspense confirmed the answer which now, perhaps, she might give +him one day while the blessed world was young.</p> +<p>At the thought she moved uneasily, shifting her position in the +chair. Sunset, and the swift winter twilight, had tinted, then +dimmed, the light in the room. On the oak-beamed ceiling, across +the ivory rosettes, a single bar of red sunlight lay, broken by +rafter and plaster foliation. She watched it turn to rose, to +ashes. And, closing her eyes, she lay very still and motionless in +the gray shadows closing over all.</p> +<p>He had not yet spoken when again she lifted her eyes and saw him +sitting in the dusk, one arm resting across his knee, his body bent +slightly forward, his gaze vacant.</p> +<p>Into himself again!—silently companioned by the shadows of +old thoughts; far from her—farther than he had ever been. For +a while she lay there, watching him, scarcely breathing; then a +faint shiver of utter loneliness came over her—of desire for +his attention, his voice, his friendship, and the expression of it. +But he never moved; his eyes seemed dull and unseeing; his face +strangely gaunt to her, unfamiliar, hard. In the dim light he +seemed but the ghost of what she had known, of what she had thought +him—a phantom, growing vaguer, more unreal, slipping away +from her through the fading light. And the impulse to arouse +herself and him from the dim danger—to arrest the spell, to +break it, and seize what was their own in life overwhelmed her; and +she sat up, grasping the great arms of her chair, slender, +straight, white-faced in the gloom.</p> +<p>But he did not stir. Then unreasoning, instinctive fear confused +her, and she heard her own voice, sounding strangely in the +twilight:</p> +<p>"What has come between us, Captain Selwyn? What has happened to +us? Something is all wrong, and I—I ask you what it is, +because I don't know. Tell me."</p> +<p>He had lifted his head at her first word, hesitatingly, as +though dazed.</p> +<p>"Could you tell me?" she asked faintly.</p> +<p>"Tell you what, child?"</p> +<p>"Why you are so silent with me; what has crept in between us? +I"—the innocent courage sustaining her—"I have not +changed—except a little in—in the way you wished. Have +you?"</p> +<p>"No," he said in an altered voice.</p> +<p>"Then—what is it? I have been—you have left me so +much alone this winter—and I supposed I +understood—"</p> +<p>"My work," he said; but she scarcely knew the voice for his.</p> +<p>"I know; you have had no time. I know that; I ought to know it +by this time, for I have told myself often enough. And +yet—when we <i>are</i> together, it is—it has +been—different. Can you tell me why? Do you think me +changed?"</p> +<p>"You must not change," he said.</p> +<p>"No," she breathed, wondering, "I could not—except—a +little, as I told you."</p> +<p>"You must not change—not even that way!" he repeated in a +voice so low she could scarcely hear him—and believed she had +misunderstood him.</p> +<p>"I did not hear you," she said faintly. "What did you say to +me?"</p> +<p>"I cannot say it again."</p> +<p>She slowly shook her head, not comprehending, and for a while +sat silent, struggling with her own thoughts. Then, suddenly +instinct with the subtle fear which had driven her into speech:</p> +<p>"When I said—said that to you—last summer; when I +cried in the swinging seat there—because I could not answer +you—as I wished to—did <i>that</i> change you, Captain +Selwyn?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Then y-you are unchanged?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Eileen."</p> +<p>The first thrill of deep emotion struck through and through +her.</p> +<p>"Then—then <i>that</i> is not it," she faltered. "I was +afraid—I have sometimes wondered if it was. . . . I am very +glad, Captain Selwyn. . . . Will you wait a—a little +longer—for me to—to change?"</p> +<p>He stood up suddenly in the darkness, and she sprang to her +feet, breathless; for she had caught the low exclamation, and the +strange sound that stifled it in his throat.</p> +<p>"Tell me," she stammered, "w-what has happened. D-don't turn +away to the window; don't leave me all alone to endure +this—this <i>something</i> I have known was drawing you +away—I don't know where! What is it? Could you not tell +<i>me</i>, Captain Selwyn? I—I have been very frank with you; +I have been truthful—and loyal. I gave you, from the moment I +knew you, all of me there was to give. And—and if there is +more to give—now—it was yours when it came to me.</p> +<p>"Do you think I am too young to know what I am saying? Solitude +is a teacher. I—I am still a scholar, perhaps, but I think +that you could teach me what my drill-master, Solitude, could not . +. . if it—it is true you love me."</p> +<p>The mounting sea of passion swept him; he turned on her, +unsteadily, his hands clenched, not daring to touch her. Shame, +contrition, horror that the damage was already done, all were +forgotten; only the deadly grim duty of the moment held him +back.</p> +<p>"Dear," he said, "because I am unchanged—because I—I +love you so—help me!—and God help us both."</p> +<p>"Tell me," she said steadily, but it was fear that stilled her +voice. She laid one slim hand on the table, bearing down on the +points of her fingers until the nails whitened, but her head was +high and her eyes met his, straight, unwavering.</p> +<p>"I—I knew it," she said; "I understood there was +something. If it is trouble—and I see it is—bring it to +me. If I am the woman you took me for, give me my part in this. It +is the quickest way to my heart, Captain Selwyn."</p> +<p>But he had grown afraid, horribly afraid. All the cowardice in +him was in the ascendant. But that passed; watching his worn face, +she saw it passing. Fear clutched at her; for the first time in her +life she desired to go to him, hold fast to him, seeking in contact +the reassurance of his strength; but she only stood straighter, a +little paler, already half divining in the clairvoyance of her +young soul what lay still hidden.</p> +<p>"Do you ask a part in this?" he said at last.</p> +<p>"I ask it."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>Her eyes wavered, then returned his gaze:</p> +<p>"For love of you," she said, as white as death.</p> +<p>He caught his breath sharply and straightened out, passing one +hand across his eyes. When she saw his face again in the dim light +it was ghastly.</p> +<p>"There was a woman," he said, "for whom I was once responsible." +He spoke wearily, head bent, resting the weight of one arm on the +table against which she leaned. "Do you understand?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Yes. You mean—Mrs. Ruthven."</p> +<p>"I mean—her. Afterward—when matters had +altered—I came—home."</p> +<p>He raised his head and looked about him in the darkness.</p> +<p>"Came home," he repeated, "no longer a man; the shadow of a man, +with no hope, no outlook, no right to hope."</p> +<p>He leaned heavily on the table, his arm rigid, looking down at +the floor as he spoke.</p> +<p>"No right to hope. Others told me that I still possessed that +right. I knew they were wrong; I do not mean that they persuaded +me—I persuaded myself that, after all, perhaps my right to +hope remained to me. I persuaded myself that I might be, after all, +the substance, not the shadow."</p> +<p>He looked up at her:</p> +<p>"And so I dared to love you."</p> +<p>She gazed at him, scarcely breathing.</p> +<p>"Then," he said, "came the awakening. My dream had ended."</p> +<p>She waited, the lace on her breast scarce stirring, so still she +stood, so pitifully still.</p> +<p>"Such responsibility cannot die while those live who undertook +it. I believed it until I desired to believe it no longer. But a +man's self-persuasion cannot alter such laws—nor can human +laws confirm or nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than +admit their truth, basing its creed upon such laws. . . . No man +can put asunder, no laws of man undo the burden. . . . And, to my +shame and disgrace, I have had to relearn this after offering you a +love I had no right to offer—a life which is not my own to +give."</p> +<p>He took one step toward her, and his voice fell so low that she +could just hear him:</p> +<p>"She has lost her mind, and the case is hopeless. Those to whom +the laws of the land have given care of her turned on her, +threatened her with disgrace. And when one friend of hers halted +this miserable conspiracy, her malady came swiftly upon her, and +suddenly she found herself helpless, penniless, abandoned, her mind +already clouded, and clouding faster! . . . Eileen, was there then +the shadow of a doubt as to the responsibility? Because a man's son +was named in the parable, does the lesson end there—and are +there no others as prodigal—no other bonds that hold as +inexorably as the bond of love?</p> +<p>"Men—a lawyer or two—a referee—decided to +remove a burden; but a higher court has replaced it."</p> +<p>He came and stood directly before her:</p> +<p>"I dare not utter one word of love to you; I dare not touch you. +What chance is there for such a man as I?"</p> +<p>"No chance—for us," she whispered. "Go!"</p> +<p>For a second he stood motionless, then, swaying slightly, turned +on his heel.</p> +<p>And long after he had left the house she still stood there, eyes +closed, colourless lips set, her slender body quivering, racked +with the first fierce grief of a woman's love for a man.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<h3>HER WAY</h3> +<p>Neergard had already begun to make mistakes. The first was in +thinking that, among those whose only distinction was their wealth, +his own wealth permitted him the same insolence and ruthlessness +that so frequently characterised them.</p> +<p>Clever, vindictively patient, circumspect, and commercially +competent as he had been, his intelligence was not of a high order. +The intelligent never wilfully make enemies; Neergard made them +gratuitously, cynically kicking from under him the props he used in +mounting the breach, and which he fancied he no longer needed as a +scaffolding now that he had obtained a foothold on the outer wall. +Thus he had sneeringly dispensed with Gerald; thus he had +shouldered Fane and Harmon out of his way when they objected to the +purchase of Neergard's acreage adjoining the Siowitha preserve, and +its incorporation as an integral portion of the club tract; thus he +was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another reason. But he +was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he wanted a +little more out of him—just enough to place himself on a +secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as +hack cotillon leader, was regarded by the young with wide-eyed +awe.</p> +<p>Why Neergard, who had forced himself into the Siowitha, ever +came to commit so gross a blunder as to dragoon, or even permit, +the club to acquire the acreage, the exploiting of which had +threatened their existence, is not very clear.</p> +<p>Once within the club he may have supposed himself perpetually +safe, not only because of his hold on Ruthven, but also because, +back of his unflagging persistence, back of his determination to +shoulder and push deep into the gilded, perfumed crush where +purse-strings and morals were loosened with every heave and twist +in the panting struggle around the raw gold altar—back of the +sordid past, back of all the resentment, and the sinister memory of +wrongs and grievances, still unbalanced, lay an enormous +vanity.</p> +<p>It was the vanity in him—even in the bitter +days—that throbbed with the agony of the bright world's +insolence; it was vanity which sustained him in better days where +he sat nursing in his crooked mind the crooked thoughts that +swarmed there. His desire for position and power was that; even his +yearning for corruption was but the desire for the satiation of a +vanity as monstrous as it was passionless. His to have what was +shared by those he envied—the power to pick and choose, to +ignore, to punish. His to receive, not to seek; to dispense, not to +stand waiting for his portion; his the freedom of the forbidden, of +everything beyond him, of all withheld, denied by this bright, +loose-robed, wanton-eyed goddess from whose invisible altar he had +caught a whiff of sacrificial odours, standing there through the +wintry years in the squalor and reek of things.</p> +<p>Now he had arrived among those outlying camps where +camp-followers and masters mingled. Certain card-rooms were open to +him, certain drawing-rooms, certain clubs. Through them he +shouldered, thrilled as he advanced deeper into the throng, fired +with the contact of the crush around him.</p> +<p>Already the familiarity of his appearance and his name seemed to +sanction his presence; two minor clubs, but good ones—in need +of dues—had strained at this social camel and swallowed him. +Card-rooms welcomed him—not the rooms once flung open +contemptuously for his plucking—but rooms where play was +fiercer, and where those who faced him expected battle to the +limit.</p> +<p>And they got it, for he no longer felt obliged to lose. And that +again was a mistake: he could not yet afford to win.</p> +<p>Thick in the chance and circumstance of the outer camp, heavily +involved financially and already a crushing financial force, meshed +in, or spinning in his turn the strands and counter-strands of +intrigue, with a dozen men already mortally offended and a woman or +two alarmed or half-contemptuously on guard, flattered, covetous, +or afraid, the limit of Neergard's intelligence was reached; his +present horizon ended the world for him because he could not +imagine anything beyond it; and that smirking vanity which had +'squired him so far, hat in hand, now plucked off its mask and +leered boldly about in the wake of its close-eyed master.</p> +<p>George Fane, unpleasantly involved in Block Copper, angry, but +not very much frightened, turned in casual good faith to Neergard +to ease matters until he could cover. And Neergard locked him in +the tighter and shouldered his way through Rosamund's drawing-room +to the sill of Sanxon Orchil's outer office, treading brutally on +Harmon's heels.</p> +<p>Harmon in disgust, wrath, and fear went to Craig; Craig to +Maxwell Hunt; Hunt wired Mottly; Mottly, cold and sleek in his +contempt, came from Palm Beach.</p> +<p>The cohesive power of caste is an unknown element to the +outsider.</p> +<p>That he had unwittingly and prematurely aroused some unsuspected +force on which he had not counted and of which he had no definite +knowledge was revealed to Neergard when he desired Rosamund to +obtain for him an invitation to the Orchils' ball.</p> +<p>It appeared that she could not do so—that even the +threatened tendency of Block Copper could not sharpen her wits to +devise a way for him. Very innocently she told him that Jack +Ruthven was leading the Chinese Cotillon with Mrs. Delmour-Carnes +from one end, Gerald Erroll with Gladys from the other—a hint +that a card ought to be easy enough to obtain in spite of the +strangely forgetful Orchils.</p> +<p>Long since he had fixed upon Gladys Orchil as the most suitable +silent partner for the unbuilt house of Neergard, unconcerned that +rumour was already sending her abroad for the double purpose of +getting rid of Gerald and of giving deserving aristocracy a look-in +at the fresh youth of her and her selling price.</p> +<p>Nothing, so far, had checked his progress; why should rumour? +Elbow and money had shoved him on and on, shoulder-deep where his +thin nose pointed, crowding aside and out of his way whatever was +made to be crowded out; and going around, hat off, whatever +remained arrogantly immovable.</p> +<p>So he had come, on various occasions, close to the unruffled +skirts of this young girl—not yet, however, in her own house. +But Sanxon Orchil had recently condescended to turn around in his +office chair and leave his amusing railroad combinations long +enough to divide with Neergard a quarter of a million copper +profits; and there was another turn to be expected when Neergard +gave the word.</p> +<p>Therefore, it puzzled and confused Neergard to be overlooked +where the gay world had been summoned with an accompanying blast +from the public press; therefore he had gone to Rosamund with the +curtest of hints; but he had remained, standing before her, +checked, not condescending to irritation, but mentally alert to a +new element of resistance which he had not expected—a new +force, palpable, unlooked for, unclassified as yet in his schedule +for his life's itinerary. That force was the cohesive power of +abstract caste in the presence of a foreign irritant threatening +its atomic disintegration. That foreign and irritating substance +was himself. But he had forgotten in his vanity that which in his +rawer shrewdness he should have remembered. Eternal vigilance was +the price; not the cancelled vouchers of the servitude of dead +years and the half-servile challenge of the strange new days when +his vanity had dared him to live.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Rosamund, smoothly groomed, golden-headed, and smiling, rose as +Neergard moved slowly forward to take his leave.</p> +<p>"So stupid of them to have overlooked you," she said; "and I +should have thought Gladys would have +remembered—unless—"</p> +<p>His close-set eyes focussed so near her own that she stopped, +involuntarily occupied with the unusual phenomenon.</p> +<p>"Unless what?" he asked.</p> +<p>She was all laughing polished surface again. "Unless Gladys's +intellect, which has only room for one idea at a time, is already +fully occupied."</p> +<p>"With what?" he demanded.</p> +<p>"Oh, with that Gerald boy "—she shrugged +indulgently—"perhaps with her pretty American Grace and the +outlook for the Insular invasion."</p> +<p>Neergard's apple face was dull and mottled, and on the thin +bridge of his nose the sweat glistened. He did not know what she +meant; and she knew he did not.</p> +<p>As he turned to go she paced him a step or two across the +rose-and-gold reception-room, hands linked behind her back, bending +forward slightly as she moved beside him.</p> +<p>"Gerald, poor lad, is to be disciplined," she observed. "The +prettiest of American duchesses takes her over next spring; and +Heaven knows the household cavalry needs green forage . . . +Besides, even Jack Ruthven may stand the chance they say he stands +if it is true he has made up his mind to sue for his divorce."</p> +<p>Neergard wheeled on her; the sweat on his nose had become a +bright bead.</p> +<p>"Where did you hear that?" he asked.</p> +<p>"What? About Jack Ruthven?" Her smooth shoulders fluttered her +answer.</p> +<p>"You mean it's talked about?" he insisted.</p> +<p>"In some sets," she said with an indifference which coolly +excluded the probability that he could have been in any position to +hear what was discussed in those sets.</p> +<p>Again he felt the check of something intangible but real; and +the vanity in him, flicked on the raw, peered out at her from his +close-set eyes. For a moment he measured her from the edge of her +skirt to her golden head, insolently.</p> +<p>"You might remind your husband," he said, "that I'd rather like +to have a card to the Orchil affair."</p> +<p>"There is no use in speaking to George," she replied +regretfully, shaking her head.</p> +<p>"Try it," returned Neergard with the hint of a snarl; and he +took his leave, and his hat from the man in waiting, who looked +after him with the slightest twitching of his shaven upper lip. For +the lifting of an eyebrow in the drawing-rooms becomes warrant for +a tip that runs very swiftly below stairs.</p> +<p>That afternoon, alone in his office, Neergard remembered Gerald. +And for the first time he understood the mistake of making an enemy +out of what he had known only as a friendly fool.</p> +<p>But it was a detail, after all—merely a slight error in +assuming too early an arrogance he could have afforded to wait for. +He had waited a long, long while for some things.</p> +<p>As for Fane, he had him locked up with his short account. No +doubt he'd hear from the Orchils through the Fanes. However, to +clinch the matter, he thought he might as well stop in to see +Ruthven. A plain word or two to Ruthven indicating his own +wishes—perhaps outlining his policy concerning the future +house of Neergard—might as well be delivered now as +later.</p> +<p>So that afternoon he took a hansom at Broad and Wall streets and +rolled smoothly uptown, not seriously concerned, but willing to +have a brief understanding with Ruthven on one or two subjects.</p> +<p>As his cab drove up to the intricately ornamental little house +of gray stone, a big touring limousine wheeled out from the curb, +and he caught sight of Sanxon Orchil and Phoenix Mottly inside, +evidently just leaving Ruthven.</p> +<p>His smiling and very cordial bow was returned coolly by Orchil, +and apparently not observed at all by Mottly. He sat a second in +his cab, motionless, the obsequious smile still stencilled on his +flushed face; then the flush darkened; he got out of his cab and, +bidding the man wait, rang at the house of Ruthven.</p> +<p>Admitted, it was a long while before he was asked to mount the +carved stairway of stone. And when he did, on every step, hand on +the bronze rail, he had the same curious sense of occult resistance +to his physical progress; the same instinct of a new element +arising into the scheme of things the properties of which he felt a +sudden fierce desire to test and comprehend.</p> +<p>Ruthven in a lounging suit of lilac silk, sashed in with +flexible silver, stood with his back to the door as Neergard was +announced; and even after he was announced Ruthven took his time to +turn and stare and nod with a deliberate negligence that accented +the affront.</p> +<p>Neergard sat down; Ruthven gazed out of the window, then, soft +thumbs hooked in his sash, turned leisurely in impudent +interrogation.</p> +<p>"What the hell is the matter with you?" asked Neergard, for the +subtle something he had been encountering all day had suddenly +seemed to wall him out of all he had conquered, forcing him back +into the simpler sordid territory where ways and modes of speech +were more familiar to him—where the spontaneous crudity of +expression belonged among the husks of all he had supposed +discarded for ever.</p> +<p>"Really," observed Ruthven, staring at the seated man, "I +scarcely understand your remark."</p> +<p>"Well, you'll understand it perhaps when I choose to explain +it," said Neergard. "I see there's some trouble somewhere. What is +it? What's the matter with Orchil, and that hatchet-faced +beagle-pup, Mottly? <i>Is</i> there anything the matter, Jack?"</p> +<p>"Nothing important," said Ruthven with an intonation which +troubled Neergard. "Did you come here to—ah—ask +anything of me? Very glad to do anything, I'm sure."</p> +<p>"Are you? Well, then, I want a card to the Orchils'."</p> +<p>Ruthven raised his brows slightly; and Neergard waited, then +repeated his demand.</p> +<p>Ruthven began to explain, rather languidly, that it was +impossible; but—"I want it," insisted the other doggedly.</p> +<p>"I can't be of any service to you in this instance."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I think you can. I tell you I want that card. Do you +understand plain speech?"</p> +<p>"Ya-as," drawled Ruthven, seating himself a trifle wearily among +his cushions, "but yours is so—ah—very +plain—quite elemental, you know. You ask for a bid to the +Orchils'; I tell you quite seriously I can't secure one for +you."</p> +<p>"You'd better think it over," said Neergard menacingly.</p> +<p>"Awfully sorry."</p> +<p>"You mean you won't?"</p> +<p>"Ah—quite so."</p> +<p>Neergard's thin nose grew white and tremulous:</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>"You insist?" in mildly bored deprecation.</p> +<p>"Yes, I insist. Why can't you—or why won't you?"</p> +<p>"Well, if you really insist, they—ah—don't want you, +Neergard."</p> +<p>"Who—why—how do you happen to know that they don't? +Is this some petty spite of that young cub, Gerald? Or"—and +he almost looked at Ruthven—"is this some childish whim of +yours?"</p> +<p>"Oh, really now—"</p> +<p>"Yes, really now," sneered Neergard, "you'd better tell me. And +you'd better understand, now, once for all, just exactly what I've +outlined for myself—so you can steer clear of the territory I +operate in." He clasped his blunt fingers and leaned forward, +projecting his whole body, thick legs curled under; but his +close-set eyes still looked past Ruthven.</p> +<p>"I need a little backing," he said, "but I can get along without +it. And what I'm going to do is to marry Miss Orchil. Now you know; +now you understand. I don't care a damn about the Erroll boy; and I +think I'll discount right now any intentions of any married man to +bother Miss Orchil after some Dakota decree frees him from the +woman whom he's driven into an asylum."</p> +<p>Ruthven looked at him curiously:</p> +<p>"So that is discounted, is it?"</p> +<p>"I think so," nodded Neergard. "I don't think that man will try +to obtain a divorce until I say the word."</p> +<p>"Oh! Why not?"</p> +<p>"Because of my knowledge concerning that man's crooked methods +in obtaining for me certain options that meant ruin to his own +country club," said Neergard coolly.</p> +<p>"I see. How extraordinary! But the club has bought in all that +land, hasn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes—but the stench of your treachery remains, my +friend."</p> +<p>"Not treachery, only temptation," observed Ruthven blandly. +"I've talked it all over with Orchil and Mottly—"</p> +<p>"You—<i>what</i>!" gasped Neergard.</p> +<p>"Talked about it," repeated Ruthven, hard face guileless, and +raising his eyebrows—a dreadful caricature of youth in the +misleading smoothness of the minutely shaven face; "I told Orchil +what you persuaded me to do—"</p> +<p>"You—you damned—"</p> +<p>"Not at all, not at all!" protested Ruthven, languidly settling +himself once more among the cushions. "And by the way," he added, +"there's a law—by-law—something or other, that I +understand may interest you"—he looked up at Neergard, who +had sunk back in his chair—"about unpaid +assessments—"</p> +<p>Neergard now for the first time was looking directly at him.</p> +<p>"Unpaid assessments," repeated Ruthven. "It's a, detail—a +law—never enforced unless we—ah—find it +convenient to rid ourselves of a member. It's rather useful, you +see, in such a case—a technical pretext, you know. . . . I +forget the exact phrasing; something about' ceases to retain his +membership, and such shares of stock as he may own in the said club +shall be appraised and delivered to the treasurer upon receipt of +the value'—or something like that."</p> +<p>Still Neergard looked at him, hunched up in his chair, chin sunk +on his chest.</p> +<p>"Thought it just as well to mention it," said Ruthven blandly, +"as they've seen fit to take advantage of +the—ah—opportunity—under legal advice. You'll +hear from the secretary, I fancy—Mottly, you know. . . . +<i>Is</i> there anything more, Neergard?"</p> +<p>Neergard scarcely heard him. He had listened, mechanically, when +told in as many words that he had been read out of the Siowitha +Club; he understood that he stood alone, discarded, disgraced, with +a certain small coterie of wealthy men implacably hostile to him. +But it was not that which occupied him: he was face to face with +the new element of which he had known nothing—the subtle, +occult resistance to himself and his personality, all that he +represented, embodied, stood for, hoped for.</p> +<p>And for the first time he realised that among the ruthless, no +ruthlessness was permitted him; among the reckless, circumspection +had been required of him; no arrogance, no insolence had been +permitted him among the arrogant and insolent; for, when such as he +turned threateningly upon one of those belonging to that elemental +matrix of which he dared suppose himself an integral part, he found +that he was mistaken. Danger to one from such as he endangered +their common caste—such as it was. And, silently, subtly, all +through that portion of the social fabric, he became slowly +sensible of resistance—resistance everywhere, from every +quarter.</p> +<p>Now, hunched up there in his chair, he began to understand. If +Ruthven had been a blackguard—it was not for him to punish +him—no, not even threaten to expose him. His own caste would +take care of that; his own sort would manage such affairs. +Meanwhile Neergard had presumed to annoy them, and the society into +which he had forced himself and which he had digestively affected, +was now, squid-like, slowly turning itself inside out to expel him +as a foreign substance from which such unimportant nutrition as he +had afforded had been completely extracted.</p> +<p>He looked at Ruthven, scarcely seeing him. Finally he gathered +his thick legs under to support him as he rose, stupidly, looking +about for his hat.</p> +<p>Ruthven rang for a servant; when he came Neergard followed him +without a word, small eyes vacant, the moisture powdering the ridge +of his nose, his red blunt hands dangling as he walked. Behind him +a lackey laughed.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>In due time Neergard, who still spent his penny on a morning +paper, read about the Orchil ball. There were three columns and +several pictures. He read all there was to read about—the +sickeningly minute details of jewels and costumes, the sorts of +stuffs served at supper, the cotillon, the favours—then, +turning back, he read about the dozen-odd separate hostesses who +had entertained the various coteries and sets at separate dinners +before the ball—read every item, every name, to the last +imbecile period.</p> +<p>Then he rose wearily, and started downtown to see what his +lawyers could do toward reinstating him in a club that had expelled +him—to find out if there remained the slightest trace of a +chance in the matter. But even as he went he knew there could be +none. The squid had had its will with him, not he with the squid; +and within him rose again all the old hatred and fear of these +people from whom he had desired to extract full payment for the +black days of need he had endured, for the want, the squalor, the +starvation he had passed through.</p> +<p>But the reckoning left him where he had started—save for +the money they had used when he forced it on them—not +thanking him.</p> +<p>So he went to his lawyers—every day for a while, then +every week, then, toward the end of winter, less often, for he had +less time now, and there was a new pressure which he was beginning +to feel vaguely hostile to him in his business +enterprises—hitches in the negotiations of loans, delays, +perhaps accidental, but annoying; changes of policy in certain +firms who no longer cared to consider acreage as investment; and a +curiously veiled antagonism to him in a certain railroad, the +reorganisation of which he had dared once to aspire to.</p> +<p>And one day, sitting alone in his office, a clerk brought him a +morning paper with one column marked in a big blue-pencilled +oval.</p> +<p>It was only about a boy and a girl who had run away and married +because they happened to be in love, although their parents had +prepared other plans for their separate disposal. The column was a +full one, the heading in big type—a good deal of pother about +a boy and a girl, after all, particularly as it appeared that their +respective families had determined to make the best of it. Besides, +the girl's parents had other daughters growing up; and the +prettiest of American duchesses would no doubt remain amiable. As +for the household cavalry, probably some of them were badly in need +of forage, but that thin red line could hold out until the younger +sisters shed pinafores. So, after all, in spite of double leads and +the full column, the runaways could continue their impromptu +honeymoon without fear of parents, duchess, or a rescue charge from +that thin, red, and impecunious line.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>It took Neergard all day to read that column before he folded it +away and pigeonholed it among a lot of dusty +documents—uncollected claims, a memorandum of a deal with +Ruthven, a note from an actress, and the papers in his case against +the Siowitha Club which would never come to a suit—he knew it +now—never amount to anything. So among these archives of dead +desires, dead hopes, and of vengeance deferred <i>sine die</i>, he +laid away the soiled newspaper.</p> +<p>Then he went home, very tired with a mental lassitude that +depressed him and left him drowsy in his great arm-chair before the +grate—too drowsy and apathetic to examine the letters and +documents laid out for him by his secretary, although one of them +seemed to be important—something about alienation of +affections, something about a yacht and Mrs. Ruthven, and a heavy +suit to be brought unless other settlement was suggested as a balm +to Mr. Ruthven.</p> +<p>To dress for dinner was an effort—a purely mechanical +operation which was only partly successful, although his man aided +him. But he was too tired to continue the effort; and at last it +was his man alone who disembarrassed him of his heavy clothing and +who laid him among the bedclothes, where he sank back, relaxed, +breathing loudly in the dreadful depressed stupor of utter physical +and neurotic prostration.</p> +<p>Meaningless to him the hurriedly intrusive attorneys—his +own and Ruthven's—who forced their way in that night—or +was it the next, or months later? A weight like the weight of death +lay on him, mind and body. If he comprehended what threatened, what +was coming, he did not care. The world passed on, leaving him lying +there, nerveless, exhausted, a derelict on a sea too stormy for +such as he—a wreck that might have sailed safely in narrower +waters.</p> +<p>And some day he'd be patched up and set afloat once more to +cruise and operate and have his being in the safer and smaller +seas; some day, when the nerve crash had subsided and the slow, +wounded mind came back to itself, and its petty functions were once +more resumed—its envious scheming, its covetous capability, +its vicious achievement. For with him achievement could embody only +the meaner imitations of the sheer colossal <i>coups</i> by which +the great financiers gutted a nation with kid-gloved fingers, and +changed their gloves after the operation so that no blood might +stick to Peter's pence or smear the corner-stones of those vast and +shadowy institutions upreared in restitution—black +silhouettes against the infernal sunset of lives that end in the +shadowy death of souls.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Even before Neergard's illness Ruthven's domestic and financial +affairs were in a villainous mess. Rid of Neergard, he had meant to +deal him a crashing blow at the breakaway which would settle him +for ever and incidentally bring to a crisis his own status in +regard to his wife.</p> +<p>Whether or not his wife was mentally competent he did not know; +he did not know anything about her. But he meant to. Selwyn's +threat, still fairly fresh in his memory, had given him no definite +idea of Alixe, her whereabouts, her future plans, and whether or +not her mental condition was supposed to be permanently impaired or +otherwise.</p> +<p>That she had been, and probably now was, under Selwyn's +protection he believed; what she and Selwyn intended to do he did +not know. But he wanted to know; he dared not ask +Selwyn—dared not, because he was horribly afraid of Selwyn; +dared not yet make a legal issue of their relations, of her +sequestration, or of her probable continued infirmity, because of +his physical fear of the man.</p> +<p>But there was—or he thought that there had been—one +way to begin the matter, because the matter must sooner or later be +begun: and that was to pretend to assume Neergard responsible; and, +on the strength of his wife's summer sojourn aboard the +<i>Niobrara</i>, turn on Neergard and demand a reckoning which he +believed Selwyn would never hear of, because he did not suppose +Neergard dared defend the suit, and would sooner or later +compromise. Which would give him what he wanted to begin with, +money, and the entering wedge against the wife he meant to be rid +of in one way or another, even if he had to swear out a warrant +against Selwyn before he demanded a commission to investigate her +mental condition.</p> +<p>Ruthven was too deadly afraid of Selwyn to begin suit at that +stage of the proceedings. All he could do was to start, through his +attorneys, a search for his wife, and meanwhile try to formulate +some sort of definite plan in regard to Gladys Orchil; for if that +featherbrained youngster went abroad in the spring he meant to +follow her and not only have the Atlantic between him and Selwyn +when he began final suit for freedom, but also be in a position to +ride off any of the needy household cavalry who might come +caracolling and cavorting too close to the young girl he had +selected to rehabilitate the name, fortune, and house of +Ruthven.</p> +<p>This, in brief, was Ruthven's general scheme of campaign; and +the entire affair had taken some sort of shape, and was slowly +beginning to move, when Neergard's illness came as an absolute +check, just as the first papers were about to be served on him.</p> +<p>There was nothing to do but wait until Neergard got well, +because his attorneys simply scoffed at any suggestion of +settlement <i>ex curia</i>, and Ruthven didn't want a suit +involving his wife's name while he and Selwyn were in the same +hemisphere.</p> +<p>But he could still continue an unobtrusive search for the +whereabouts of his wife, which he did. And the chances were that +his attorneys would find her without great difficulty, because +Selwyn had not the slightest suspicion that he was being +followed.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>In these days Selwyn's life was methodical and colourless in its +routine to the verge of dreariness.</p> +<p>When he was not at the Government proving grounds on Sandy Hook +he remained in his room at Lansing's, doggedly forcing himself into +the only alternate occupation sufficient to dull the sadness of his +mind—the preparation of a history of British military +organisation in India, and its possible application to present +conditions in the Philippines.</p> +<p>He had given up going out—made no further pretense; and +Boots let him alone.</p> +<p>Once a week he called at the Gerards', spending most of his time +while there with the children. Sometimes he saw Nina and Eileen, +usually just returned or about to depart for some function; and his +visit, as a rule, ended with a cup of tea alone with Austin, and a +quiet cigar in the library, where Kit-Ki sat, paws folded under, +approving of the fireside warmth in a pleasureable monotone.</p> +<p>On such evenings, late, if Nina and Eileen had gone to a dance, +or to the opera with Boots, Austin, ruddy with well-being and +shamelessly slippered, stretched luxuriously in the fire warmth, +lazily discussing what was nearest to him—his children and +wife, and the material comfort which continued to attend him with +the blessing of that heaven which seems so largely occupied in +fulfilling the desires of the good for their own commercial +prosperity.</p> +<p>Too, he had begun to show a peculiar pride in the commercial +development of Gerald, speaking often of his gratifying application +to business, the stability of his modest position, the friends he +was making among men of substance, their regard for him.</p> +<p>"Not that the boy is doing much of a business yet," he would say +with a tolerant shrug of his big fleshy shoulders, "but he's laying +the foundation for success—a good, upright, solid +foundation—with the doubtful scheming of Neergard left +out"—at that time Neergard had not yet gone to pieces, +physically—"and I expect to aid him when aid is required, and +to extend to him, judiciously, such assistance, from time to time, +as I think he may require. . . . There's one thing—"</p> +<p>Austin puffed once or twice at his cigar and frowned; and +Selwyn, absently watching the dying embers on the hearth, waited in +silence.</p> +<p>"One thing," repeated Austin, reaching for the tongs and laying +a log of white birch across the coals; "and that is Gerald's +fondness for pretty girls. . . . Not that it isn't all right, too, +but I hope he isn't going to involve himself—hang a millstone +around his neck before he can see his way clear to some promise of +a permanent income based on—"</p> +<p>"Pooh!" said Selwyn.</p> +<p>"What's that?" demanded Austin, turning red.</p> +<p>Selwyn laughed. "What did you have when you married my +sister?"</p> +<p>Austin, still red and dignified, said:</p> +<p>"Your sister is a very remarkable woman—extremely unusual. +I had the good sense to see that the first time I ever met +her."</p> +<p>"Gerald will see the same thing when his time comes," said +Selwyn quietly. "Don't worry, Austin; he's sound at the core."</p> +<p>Austin considered his cigar-end, turning it round and round. +"There's good stock in the boy; I always knew it—even when he +acted like a yellow pup. You see, Phil, that my treatment of him +was the proper treatment. I was right in refusing to mollycoddle +him or put up with any of his callow, unbaked impudence. You know +yourself that you wanted me to let up on him—make all kinds +of excuses. Why, man, if I had given him an inch leeway he'd have +been up to his ears in debt. But I was firm. He saw I'd stand no +fooling. He didn't dare contract debts which he couldn't pay. So +now, Phil, you can appreciate the results of my attitude toward +him."</p> +<p>"I can, indeed," said Selwyn thoughtfully.</p> +<p>"I think I've made a man of him," persisted Austin.</p> +<p>"He's certainly a manly fellow," nodded Selwyn.</p> +<p>"You admit it?"</p> +<p>"Certainly, Austin."</p> +<p>"Well, I'm glad of it. You thought me harsh—oh, I know you +did!—but I don't blame you. I knew what I was about. Why, +Phil, if I hadn't taken the firm stand I took that boy would have +been running to Nina and Eileen—he did go to his sister once, +but he never dared try it again!—and he'd probably have +borrowed money of Neergard and—by Jove! he might even have +come to you to get him out of his scrapes!"</p> +<p>"Oh, scarcely that," protested Selwyn with grave humour.</p> +<p>"That's all you know about it," nodded Austin, wise-eyed, +smoking steadily. "And all I have to say is that it's fortunate for +everybody that I stood my ground when he came around looking for +trouble. For you're just the sort of a man, Phil, who'd be likely +to strip yourself if that young cub came howling for somebody to +pay his debts of honour. Admit it, now; you know you are."</p> +<p>But Selwyn only smiled and looked into the fire.</p> +<p>After a few moments' silence Austin said curiously: "You're a +frugal bird. You used to be fastidious. Do you know that coat of +yours is nearly the limit?"</p> +<p>"Nonsense," said Selwyn, colouring.</p> +<p>"It is. . . . What do you do with your money? Invest it, of +course; but you ought to let me place it. You never spend any; you +should have a decent little sum tucked away by this time. Do your +Chaosite experiments cost anything now?"</p> +<p>"No; the Government is conducting them."</p> +<p>"Good business. What does the bally Government think of the +powder, now?"</p> +<p>"I can't tell yet," said Selwyn listlessly. "There's a plate due +to arrive to-morrow; it represents a section of the side armour of +one of the new 22,000-ton battleships. . . . I hope to crack +it."</p> +<p>"Oh!—with a bursting charge?"</p> +<p>Selwyn nodded, and rested his head on his hand.</p> +<p>A little later Austin cast the remains of his cigar from him, +straightened up, yawned, patted his waistcoat, and looked wisely at +the cat.</p> +<p>"I'm going to bed," he announced. "Boots is to bring back Nina +and Eileen. . . . You don't mind, do you, Phil? I've a busy day +to-morrow. . . . There's Scotch over there—you know where +things are. Ring if you have a sudden desire for anything funny +like peacock feathers on toast. There's cold grouse somewhere +underground if you're going to be an owl. . . . And don't feed that +cat on the rugs. . . . Good-night."</p> +<p>"Good-night," nodded Selwyn, relighting his cigar.</p> +<p>He had no intention of remaining very long; he supposed that his +sister and Eileen would be out late, wherever they were, and he +merely meant to dream a bit longer before going back to bed.</p> +<p>He had been smoking for half an hour perhaps, lying deep in his +chair, worn features dully illuminated by the sinking fire; and he +was thinking about going—had again relighted his partly +consumed cigar to help him with its fragrant companionship on his +dark route homeward, when he heard a footfall on the landing, and +turned to catch a glimpse of Gerald in overcoat and hat, moving +silently toward the stairs.</p> +<p>"Hello, old fellow!" he said, surprised. "I didn't know you were +in the house."</p> +<p>The boy hesitated, turned, placed something just outside the +doorway, and came quickly into the room.</p> +<p>"Philip!" he said with a curious, excited laugh, "I want to ask +you something. I never yet came to you without asking something +and—you never have failed me. Would you tell me now what I +had better do?"</p> +<p>"Certainly," said Selwyn, surprised and smiling; "ask me, old +fellow. You're not eloping with some nice girl, are you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said Gerald, calm in his excitement, "I am."</p> +<p>"What?" repeated Selwyn gravely; "what did you say?</p> +<p>"You guessed it. I came home and dressed and I'm going back to +the Craigs' to marry a girl whose mother and father won't let me +have her."</p> +<p>"Sit down, Gerald," said Selwyn, removing the cigar from his +lips; but:</p> +<p>"I haven't time," said the boy. "I simply want to know what +you'd do if you loved a girl whose mother means to send her to +London to get rid of me and marry her to that yawning Elliscombe +fellow who was over here. . . . What would you do? She's too young +to stand much of a siege in London—some Englishman will get +her if he persists—and I mean to make her love me."</p> +<p>"Oh! Doesn't she?"</p> +<p>"Y-es. . . . You know how young girls are. Yes, she +does—now. But a year or two with that crowd—and the +duchess being good to her, and Elliscombe yawning and looking like +a sleepy Lohengrin or some damned prince in his Horse Guards' +helmet!—Selwyn, I can see the end of it. She can't stand it; +she's too young not to get over it. . . . So, what would you +do?"</p> +<p>"Who is she, Gerald?"</p> +<p>"I won't tell you."</p> +<p>"Oh! . . . Of course she's the right sort?"</p> +<p>"Perfectly."</p> +<p>"Young?"</p> +<p>"Very. Out last season."</p> +<p>Selwyn rose and began to pace the floor; Kit-Ki, disturbed, +looked up, then resumed her purring.</p> +<p>"There's nothing dishonourable in this, of course," said Selwyn, +halting short.</p> +<p>"No," said the boy. "I went to her mother and asked for her, and +was sent about my business. Then I went to her father. You know +him. He was decent, bland, evasive, but decent. Said his daughter +needed a couple of seasons in London; hinted of some prior +attachment. Which is rot; because she loves me—she admits it. +Well, I said to him, 'I'm going to marry Gladys'; and he laughed +and tried to look at his moustache; and after a while he asked to +be excused. I took the count. Then I saw Gladys at the Craigs', and +I said, 'Gladys, if you'll give up the whole blooming heiress +business and come with me, I'll make you the happiest girl in +Manhattan.' And she looked me straight in the eyes and said, 'I'd +rather grow up with you than grow old forgetting you.'"</p> +<p>"Did she say that?" asked Selwyn.</p> +<p>"She said,'We've the greatest chance in the world, Gerald, to +make something of each other. Is it a good risk?' And I said, 'It +is the best risk in the world if you love me.' And she said, 'I do, +dearly; I'll take my chance.' And that's how it stands, Philip. . . +. She's at the Craigs'—a suit-case and travelling-gown +upstairs. Suddy Gray and Betty Craig are standing for it, +and"—with a flush—"there's a little church, you +know—"</p> +<p>"Around the corner. I know. Did you telephone?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>There was a pause; the older man dropped his hands into his +pockets and stepped quietly in front of Gerald; and for a full +minute they looked squarely at one another, unwinking.</p> +<p>"Well?" asked Gerald, almost tremulously. "Can't you say, 'Go +ahead!'?"</p> +<p>"Don't ask me."</p> +<p>"No, I won't," said the boy simply. "A man doesn't ask about +such matters; he does them. . . . Tell Austin and Nina. . . . And +give this note to Eileen." He opened a portfolio and laid an +envelope in Selwyn's hands. "And—by George!—I almost +forgot! Here"—and he laid a check across the note in Selwyn's +hand—"here's the balance of what you've advanced me. Thank +God, I've made it good, every cent. But the debt is only the +deeper. . . . Good-bye, Philip."</p> +<p>Selwyn held the boy's hand a moment. Once or twice Gerald +thought he meant to speak, and waited, but when he became aware of +the check thrust back at him he forced it on Selwyn again, +laughing:</p> +<p>"No! no! If I did not stand clear and free in my shoes do you +think I'd dare do what I'm doing? Do you suppose I'd ask a girl to +face with me a world in which I owed a penny? Do you suppose I'm +afraid of that world?—or of a soul in it? Do you suppose I +can't take a living out of it?"</p> +<p>Suddenly Selwyn crushed the boy's hand.</p> +<p>"Then take it!—and her, too!" he said between his teeth; +and turned on his heel, resting his arms on the mantel and his head +face downward between them.</p> +<p>So Gerald went away in the pride and excitement of buoyant youth +to take love as he found it and where he found it—though he +had found it only as the green bud of promise which unfolds, not to +the lover, but to love. And the boy was only one of many on whom +the victory might have fallen; but such a man becomes the only man +when he takes what he finds for himself—green bud, half +blown, or open to its own deep fragrant heart. To him that hath +shall be given, and much forgiven. For it is the law of the strong +and the prophets: and a little should be left to that Destiny which +the devout revere under a gentler name.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The affair made a splash in the social puddle, and the commotion +spread outside of it. Inside the nine-and-seventy cackled; outside +similar gallinaceous sounds. Neergard pored all day over the +blue-pencilled column, and went home, stunned; the social sheet +which is taken below stairs and read above was full of it, as was +the daily press and the mouths of people interested, uninterested, +and disinterested, legitimately or otherwise, until people began to +tire of telling each other exactly how it happened that Gerald +Erroll ran away with Gladys Orchil.</p> +<p>Sanxon Orchil was widely quoted as suavely and urbanely +deploring the premature consummation of an alliance long since +decided upon by both families involved; Mrs. Orchil snapped her +electric-blue eyes and held her peace—between her very white +teeth; Austin Gerard, secretly astounded with admiration for +Gerald, received the reporters with a countenance expressive of +patient pain, but downtown he made public pretence of busy +indifference, as though not fully alive to the material benefit +connected with the unexpected alliance. Nina wept—happily at +moments—at moments she laughed—because she had heard +all about the famous British invasion planned by the Orchils and +abetted by Anglo-American aristocracy. She did not laugh too +maliciously; she simply couldn't help it. Her set was not the +Orchils' set, their ways were not her ways; their orbits merely +intersected occasionally; and, left to herself and the choice hers, +she would not have troubled herself to engineer any such alliance, +even to stir up Mrs. Sanxon Orchil. Besides, deep in her complacent +little New York soul she had the faintest germ of contempt for the +Cordova ancestors of the house of Orchil.</p> +<p>But the young and silly pair had now relieved her as well as +Mrs. Orchil of any further trouble concerning themselves, the +American duchess, the campaign, and the Horse Guards: they had +married each other rather shamelessly one evening while supposed to +be dancing at the Sandon Craigs', and had departed expensively for +Palm Beach, whither Austin, grim, reticent, but inwardly immensely +contented, despatched the accumulated exclamatory letters of the +family with an intimation of his own that two weeks was long enough +to cut business even with a honeymoon as excuse.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the disorganisation in the nursery was tremendous; the +children, vaguely aware of the household demoralisation and +excitement, took the opportunity to break loose on every occasion; +and Kit-Ki, to her infinite boredom and disgust, was hunted from +garret to cellar; and Drina, taking advantage, contrived to +over-eat herself and sit up late, and was put to bed sick; and +Eileen, loyal, but sorrowfully amazed at her brother's exclusion of +her in such a crisis, became slowly overwhelmed with the +realisation of her loneliness, and took to the seclusion of her own +room, feeling tearful and abandoned, and very much like a very +little girl whose heart was becoming far too full of all sorts of +sorrows.</p> +<p>Nina misunderstood her, finding her lying on her bed, her pale +face pillowed in her hair.</p> +<p>"Only horridly ordinary people will believe that Gerald wanted +her money," said Nina; "as though an Erroll considered such matters +at all—or needed to. Clear, clean English you are, back to +the cavaliers whose flung purses were their thanks when the +Cordovans held their horses' heads. . . . What are you crying +for?"</p> +<p>"I don't know," said Eileen; "not for anything that you speak +of. Neither Gerald nor I ever wasted any emotion over money, or +what others think about it. . . . Is Drina ill?"</p> +<p>"No; only sick. Calomel will fix her, but she believes she's +close to dissolution and she's sent for Boots to take leave of +him—the little monkey! I'm so indignant. She's taken +advantage of the general demoralisation to eat up everything in the +house. . . . Billy fell downstairs, fox-hunting, and his nose bled +all over that pink Kirman rug. . . . Boots <i>is</i> a dear; do you +know what he's done?"</p> +<p>"What?" asked Eileen listlessly, raising the back of her slender +hand from her eyes to peer at Nina through the glimmer of +tears.</p> +<p>"Well, he and Phil have moved out of Boots's house, and Boots +has wired Gerald and Gladys that the house is ready for them until +they can find a place of their own. Of course they'll both come +here—in fact, their luggage is upstairs now—Boots takes +the blue room and Phil his old quarters, . . . But don't you think +it is perfectly sweet of Boots? And isn't it good to have Philip +back again?"</p> +<p>"Y-es," said Eileen faintly. Lying there, the deep azure of her +eyes starred with tears, a new tremor altered her mouth, and the +tight-curled upper lip quivered. Her heart, too, had begun its +heavy, unsteady response in recognition of her lover's name; she +turned partly away from Nina, burying her face in her brilliant +hair; and beside her slim length, straight and tense, her arms lay, +the small hands contracting till they had closed as tightly as her +teeth.</p> +<p>It was no child, now, who lay there, fighting down the welling +desolation; no visionary adolescent grieving over the colourless +ashes of her first romance; not even the woman, socially achieved, +intelligently and intellectually in love. It was a girl, old enough +to realise that the adoration she had given was not wholly +spiritual, that her delight in her lover and her response to him +was not wholly of the mind, not so purely of the intellect; that +there was still more, something sweeter, more painful, more +bewildering that she could give him, desired to give—nay, +that she could not withhold even with sealed eyes and arms +outstretched in the darkness of wakeful hours, with her young heart +straining in her breast and her set lips crushing back the +unuttered cry.</p> +<p>Love! So that was it!—the need, the pain, the +bewilderment, the hot sleeplessness, the mad audacity of a blessed +dream, the flushed awakening, stunned rapture—and then the +gray truth, bleaching the rose tints from the fading tapestries of +slumberland, leaving her flung across her pillows, staring at +daybreak.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Nina had laid a cool smooth hand across her forehead, pushing +back the hair—a light caress, sensitive as an unasked +question.</p> +<p>But there was no response, and presently the elder woman rose +and went out along the landing, and Eileen heard her laughingly +greeting Boots, who had arrived post-haste on news of Drina's +plight.</p> +<p>"Don't be frightened; the little wretch carried tons of +indigestible stuff to her room and sat up half the night eating it. +Where's Philip?"</p> +<p>"I don't know. Here's a special delivery for him. I signed for +it and brought it from the house. He'll be here from the Hook +directly, I fancy. Where is Drina?"</p> +<p>"In bed. I'll take you up. Mind you, there'll be a scene, so +nerve yourself."</p> +<p>They went upstairs together. Nina knocked, peeped in, then +summoned Mr. Lansing.</p> +<p>"Oh, Boots, Boots!" groaned Drina, lifting her arms and +encircling his neck, "I don't think I am ever going to get +well—I don't believe it, no matter what they say. I am glad +you have come; I wanted you—and I'm very, very sick. . . . +Are you happy to be with me?"</p> +<p>Boots sat on the bedside, the feverish little head in his arms, +and Nina was a trifle surprised to see how seriously he took +it.</p> +<p>"Boots," she said, "you look as though your last hour had come. +Are you letting that very bad child frighten you? Drina, dear, +mother doesn't mean to be horrid, but you're too old to whine. . . +. It's time for the medicine, too—"</p> +<p>"Oh, mother! the nasty kind?"</p> +<p>"Certainly. Boots, if you'll move aside—"</p> +<p>"Let Boots give it to me!" exclaimed the child tragically. "It +will do no good; I'm not getting better; but if I must take it, let +Boots hold me—and the spoon!"</p> +<p>She sat straight up in bed with a superb gesture which would +have done credit to that classical gentleman who heroically +swallowed the hemlock cocktail. Some of the dose bespattered Boots, +and when the deed was done the child fell back and buried her head +on his breast, incidentally leaving medicinal traces on his +collar.</p> +<p>Half an hour later she was asleep, holding fast to Boots's +sleeve, and that young gentleman sat in a chair beside her, +discussing with her pretty mother the plans made for Gladys and +Gerald on their expected arrival.</p> +<p>Eileen, pale and heavy-lidded, looked in on her way to some +afternoon affair, nodding unsmiling at Boots.</p> +<p>"Have you been rifling the pantry, too?" he whispered. "You lack +your usual chromatic symphony."</p> +<p>"No, Boots; I'm just tired. If I wasn't physically afraid of +Drina, I'd get you to run off with me—anywhere. . . . What is +that letter, Nina? For me?"</p> +<p>"It's for Phil. Boots brought it around. Leave it on the library +table, dear, when you go down."</p> +<p>Eileen took the letter and turned away. A few moments later as +she laid it on the library table, her eyes involuntarily noted the +superscription written in the long, angular, fashionable writing of +a woman.</p> +<p>And slowly the inevitable question took shape within her.</p> +<p>How long she stood there she did not know, but the points of her +gloved fingers were still resting on the table and her gaze was +still concentrated on the envelope when she felt Selwyn's presence +in the room, near, close; and looked up into his steady eyes. And +knew he loved her.</p> +<p>And suddenly she broke down—for with his deep gaze in hers +the overwrought spectre had fled!—broke down, no longer +doubting, bowing her head in her slim gloved hands, thrilled to the +soul with the certitude of their unhappiness eternal, and the +dreadful pleasure of her share.</p> +<p>"What is it?" he made out to say, managing also to keep his +hands off her where she sat, bowed and quivering by the table.</p> +<p>"N-nothing. A—a little crisis—over now—nearly +over. It was that letter^other women writing you. . . . And +I—outlawed—tongue-tied. . . . Don't look at me, don't +wait. I—I am going out."</p> +<p>He went to the window, stood a moment, came back to the table, +took his letter, and walked slowly again to the window.</p> +<p>After a while he heard the rustle of her gown as she left the +room, and a little later he straightened up, passed his hand across +his tired eyes, and, looking down at the letter in his hand, broke +the seal.</p> +<p>It was from one of the nurses, Miss Casson, and shorter than +usual:</p> +<p>"Mrs. Ruthven is physically in perfect health, but yesterday we +noted a rather startling change in her mental condition. There +were, during the day, intervals that seemed perfectly lucid. Once +she spoke of Miss Bond as 'the other nurse,' as though she realised +something of the conditions surrounding her. Once, too, she seemed +astonished when I brought her a doll, and asked me:' Is there a +child here? Or is it for a charity bazaar?'</p> +<p>"Later I found her writing a letter at my desk. She left it +unfinished when she went to drive—a mere scrap. I thought it +best to enclose it, which I do, herewith."</p> +<p>The enclosure he opened:</p> +<p>"Phil, dear, though I have been very ill I know you are my own +husband. All the rest was only a child's dream of +terror—"</p> +<p>And that was all—only this scrap, firmly written in the +easy flowing hand he knew so well. He studied it for a moment or +two, then resumed Miss Casson's letter:</p> +<p>"A man stopped our sleigh yesterday, asking if he was not +speaking to Mrs. Ruthven. I was a trifle worried, and replied that +any communication for Mrs. Ruthven could be sent to me.</p> +<p>"That evening two men—gentlemen apparently—came to +the house and asked for me. I went down to receive them. One was a +Dr. Mallison, the other said his name was Thomas B. Hallam, but +gave no business address.</p> +<p>"When I found that they had come without your knowledge and +authority, I refused to discuss Mrs. Ruthven's condition, and the +one who said his name was Hallam spoke rather peremptorily and in a +way that made me think he might be a lawyer.</p> +<p>"They got nothing out of me, and they left when I made it plain +that I had nothing to tell them.</p> +<p>"I thought it best to let you know about this, though I, +personally, cannot guess what it might mean."</p> +<p>Selwyn turned the page:</p> +<p>"One other matter worries Miss Bond and myself. The revolver you +sent us at my request has disappeared. We are nearly sure Mrs. +Ruthven has it—you know she once dressed it as a +doll—calling it her army doll!—but now we can't find +it. She has hidden it somewhere, out of doors in the shrubbery, we +think, and Miss Bond and I expect to secure it the next time she +takes a fancy to have all her dolls out for a 'lawn-party.'</p> +<p>"Dr. Wesson says there is no danger of her doing any harm with +it, but wants us to secure it at the first opportunity—"</p> +<p>He turned the last page; on the other side was merely the +formula of leave-taking and Miss Casson's signature.</p> +<p>For a while he stood in the centre of the room, head bent, +narrowing eyes fixed; then he folded the letter, pocketed it, and +walked to the table where a directory lay.</p> +<p>He found the name, Hallam, very easily—Thomas B. Hallam, +lawyer, junior in the firm of Spencer, Boyd & Hallam. They were +attorneys for Jack Ruthven; he knew that.</p> +<p>Mallison he also found—Dr. James Mallison, who, it +appeared, conducted some sort of private asylum on Long Island.</p> +<p>And when he had found what he wanted, he went to the telephone +and rang up Mr. Ruthven, but the servant who answered the telephone +informed him that Mr. Ruthven was not in town.</p> +<p>So Selwyn hung up the receiver and sat down, thoughtful, grim, +the trace of a scowl creeping across his narrowing gray eyes.</p> +<p>Of the abject cowardice of Ruthven he had been so certain that +he had hitherto discounted any interference from him. Yet, now, the +man was apparently preparing for some sort of interference. What +did he want? Selwyn had contemptuously refused to permit him to +seek a divorce on the ground of his wife's infirmity. What was the +man after?</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The man was after his divorce, that was what it all meant. His +first check on the long trail came with the stupefying news of +Gerald's runaway marriage to the young girl he was laying his own +plans to marry some day in the future, and at first the news +staggered him, leaving him apparently no immediate incentive for +securing his freedom.</p> +<p>But Ruthven instantly began to realise that what he had lost he +might not have lost had he been free to shoulder aside the young +fellow who had forestalled him. The chance had passed—that +particular chance. But he'd never again allow himself to be caught +in a position where such a chance could pass him by because he was +not legally free to at least make the effort to seize it.</p> +<p>Fear in his soul had kept him from blazoning his wife's +infirmity to the world as cause for an action against her; but he +remembered Neergard's impudent cruise with her on the +<i>Niobrara</i>, and he had temporarily settled on that as a means +to extort revenue, not intending such an action should ever come to +trial. And then he learned that Neergard had gone to pieces. That +was the second check.</p> +<p>Ruthven needed money. He needed it because he meant to put the +ocean between himself and Selwyn before commencing any +suit—whatever ground he might choose for entering such a +suit. He required capital on which to live abroad during the +proceedings, if that could be legally arranged. And meanwhile, +preliminary to any plan of campaign, he desired to know where his +wife was and what might he her actual physical and mental +condition.</p> +<p>He had supposed her to be, or to have been, ill—at least +erratic and not to be trusted with her own freedom; therefore he +had been quite prepared to hear from those whom he employed to +trace and find her that she was housed in some institution devoted +to the incarceration of such unfortunates.</p> +<p>But Ruthven was totally unprepared for the report brought him by +a private agency to the effect that Mrs. Ruthven was apparently in +perfect health, living in the country, maintaining a villa and +staff of servants; that she might be seen driving a perfectly +appointed Cossack sleigh any day with a groom on the rumble and a +companion beside her; that she seemed to be perfectly sane, healthy +in body and mind, comfortable, happy, and enjoying life under the +protection of a certain Captain Selwyn, who paid all her bills and, +at certain times, was seen entering or leaving her house at +Edgewater.</p> +<p>Excited, incredulous, but hoping for the worst, Ruthven had +posted off to his attorneys. To them he naïively confessed his +desire to be rid of Alixe; he reported her misconduct with +Neergard—which he knew was a lie—her pretence of mental +prostration, her disappearance, and his last interview with Selwyn +in the card-room. He also gave a vivid description of that +gentleman's disgusting behaviour, and his threats of violence +during that interview.</p> +<p>To all of which his attorneys listened very attentively, bade +him have no fear of his life, requested him to make several +affidavits, and leave the rest to them for the present.</p> +<p>Which he did, without hearing from them until Mr. Hallam +telegraphed him to come to Edgewater if he had nothing better to +do.</p> +<p>And Ruthven had just arrived at that inconspicuous Long Island +village when his servant, at the telephone, replied to Selwyn's +inquiry that his master was out of town.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Mr. Hallam was a very busy, very sanguine, very impetuous young +man; and when he met Ruthven at the Edgewater station he told him +promptly that he had the best case on earth; that he, Hallam, was +going to New York on the next train, now almost due, and that +Ruthven had better drive over and see for himself how gaily his +wife maintained her household; for the Cossack sleigh, with its gay +crimson tchug, had but just returned from the usual afternoon spin, +and the young chatelaine of Willow Villa was now on the +snow-covered lawn, romping with the coachman's huge white +wolf-hound. . . . It might he just as well for Ruthven to stroll up +that way and see for himself. The house was known as the Willow +Villa. Any hackman could drive him past it.</p> +<p>As Hallam was speaking the New York train came thundering in, +and the young lawyer, facing the snowy clouds of steam, swung his +suit-case and himself aboard. On the Pullman platform he paused and +looked around and down at Ruthven.</p> +<p>"It's just as you like," he said. "If you'd rather come back +with me on this train, come ahead! It isn't absolutely necessary +that you make a personal inspection now; only that fellow Selwyn is +not here to-day, and I thought if you wanted to look about a bit +you could do it this afternoon without chance of running into him +and startling the whole mess boiling."</p> +<p>"Is Captain Selwyn in town?" asked Ruthven, reddening.</p> +<p>"Yes; an agency man telephoned me that he's just back from Sandy +Hook—"</p> +<p>The train began to move out of the station. Ruthven hesitated, +then stepped away from the passing car with a significant parting +nod to Hallam.</p> +<p>As the train, gathering momentum, swept past him, he stared +about at the snow-covered station, the guard, the few people +congregated there.</p> +<p>"There's another train at four, isn't there?" he asked an +official.</p> +<p>"Four-thirty, express. Yes, sir."</p> +<p>A hackman came up soliciting patronage. Ruthven motioned him to +follow, leading the way to the edge of the platform.</p> +<p>"I don't want to drive to the village. What have you got there, +a sleigh?"</p> +<p>It was the usual Long Island depot-wagon, on runners instead of +wheels.</p> +<p>"Do you know the Willow Villa?" demanded Ruthven.</p> +<p>"Wilier Viller, sir? Yes, sir. Step right this way—"</p> +<p>"Wait!" snapped Ruthven. "I asked you if you knew it; I didn't +say I wanted to go there."</p> +<p>The hackman in his woolly greatcoat stared at the little dapper, +smooth-shaven man, who eyed him in return, coolly insolent, +lighting a cigar.</p> +<p>"I don't want to go to the Willow Villa," said Ruthven; "I want +you to drive me past it."</p> +<p>"Sir?"</p> +<p>"<i>Past</i> it. And then turn around and drive back here. Is +that plain?"</p> +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> +<p>Ruthven got into the closed body of the vehicle, rubbed the +frost from the window, and peeked out. The hackman, unhitching his +lank horse, climbed to the seat, gathered the reins, and the +vehicle started to the jangling accompaniment of a single battered +cow-bell.</p> +<p>The melancholy clamour of the bell annoyed little Mr. Ruthven; +he was horribly cold, too, even in his fur coat. Also the musty +smell of the ancient vehicle annoyed him as he sat, half turned +around, peeping out of the rear window into the white tree-lined +road.</p> +<p>There was nothing to see but the snowy road flanked by trees and +stark hedges; nothing but the flat expanse of white on either side, +broken here and there by patches of thin woodlands or by some +old-time farmhouse with its slab shingles painted white and its +green shutters and squat roof.</p> +<p>"What a God-forsaken place," muttered little Mr. Ruthven with a +hard grimace. "If she's happy in this sort of a hole there's no +doubt she's some sort of a lunatic."</p> +<p>He looked out again furtively, thinking of what the agency had +reported to him. How was it possible for any human creature to live +in such a waste and be happy and healthy and gay, as they told him +his wife was. What could a human being do to kill the horror of +such silent, deathly white isolation? Drive about in it in a +Cossack sleigh, as they said she did? Horror!</p> +<p>The driver pulled up short, then began to turn his horse. +Ruthven squinted out of the window, but saw no sign of a villa. +Then he rapped sharply on the forward window, motioning the driver +to descend, come around, and open the door.</p> +<p>When the man appeared Ruthven demanded why he had turned his +horse, and the hackman, pointing to a wooded hill to the west, +explained that the Willow Villa stood there.</p> +<p>Ruthven had supposed that the main road passed the house; he got +out of the covered wagon, looked across at the low hill, and dug +his gloved hands deeper into his fur-lined pockets.</p> +<p>For a while he stood in the snow, stolid, thoughtful, puffing +his cigar. A half-contemptuous curiosity possessed him to see his +wife once more before he discarded her; see what she looked like, +whether she appeared normal and in possession of the small amount +of sense he had condescended to credit her with.</p> +<p>Besides, here was a safe chance to see her. Selwyn was in New +York, and the absolute certainty of his personal safety attracted +him strongly, rousing all the latent tyranny in his meagre +soul.</p> +<p>Probably—but he didn't understand the legal requirements +of the matter, and whether or not it was necessary for him +personally to see this place where Selwyn maintained her, and see +her in it—probably he would be obliged to come here again +with far less certainty of personal security from Selwyn. Perhaps +that future visit might even be avoided if he took this opportunity +to investigate. Whether it was the half-sneering curiosity to see +his wife, or the hope of doing a thing now which, by the doing, he +need not do later—whether it was either of these that moved +him to the impulse, is not quite clear.</p> +<p>He said to the hackman: "You wait here. I'm going over to the +Willow Villa for a few moments, and then I'll want you to drive me +back to the station in time for that four-thirty. Do you +understand?"</p> +<p>The man said he understood, and Ruthven, bundled in his fur +coat, picked his way across the crust, through a gateway, and up +what appeared to be a hedged lane.</p> +<p>The lane presently disclosed itself as an avenue, now doubly +lined with tall trees; this avenue he continued to follow, passing +through a grove of locusts, and came out before a house on the low +crest of a hill.</p> +<p>There were clumps of evergreens about, tall cedars, a bit of +bushy foreland, and a stretch of snow. And across this open space +of snow a young girl was moving, followed by a white wolf-hound. +Once she paused, hesitated, looked cautiously around her. Ruthven, +hiding behind a bush, saw her thrust her arm into a low evergreen +shrub and draw out a shining object that glittered like glass. Then +she started toward the house again.</p> +<p>At first Ruthven thought she was his wife, then he was not sure, +and he cast his cigar away and followed, slinking forward among the +evergreens. But the youthful fur-clad figure kept straight on to +the veranda of the house, and Ruthven, curious and determined to +find out whether it was Alixe or not, left the semi-shelter of the +evergreens and crossed the open space just as the woman's figure +disappeared around an angle of the veranda.</p> +<p>Vexed, determined not to return without some definite discovery, +Ruthven stepped upon the veranda. Just around the angle of the +porch he heard a door opening, and he hurried forward impatient and +absolutely unafraid, anxious to get one good look at his wife and +be off.</p> +<p>But when he turned the angle of the porch there was no one +there; only an open door confronted him, with a big, mild-eyed +wolf-hound standing in the doorway, looking steadily up at him.</p> +<p>Ruthven glanced somewhat dubiously at the dog, then, as the +animal made no offensive movement, he craned his fleshy neck, +striving to see inside the house.</p> +<p>He did see—nothing very much—only the same young +girl, still in her furs, emerging from an inner room, her arms full +of dolls.</p> +<p>In his eagerness to see more, Ruthven pushed past the great +white dog, who withdrew his head disdainfully from the +unceremonious contact, but quietly followed Ruthven into the house, +standing beside him, watching him out of great limpid, deerlike +eyes.</p> +<p>But Ruthven no longer heeded the dog. His amused and slightly +sneering gaze was fastened on the girl in furs who had entered what +appeared to be a living room to the right, and now, down on her +knees beside a couch, smiling and talking confidentially and quite +happily to herself, was placing her dolls in a row against the +wall.</p> +<p>The dolls were of various sorts, some plainly enough home-made, +some very waxy and gay in sash and lace, some with polished smiling +features of porcelain. One doll, however, was different—a bit +of ragged red flannel and something protruding to represent the +head, something that glittered. And the girl in the fur jacket had +this curious doll in her hands when Ruthven, to make sure of her +identity, took a quick impulsive step forward.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href= +"images/facing_page500.jpg"><img src="images/facing_page500.jpg" +width="45%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"With the acrid smell of smoke choking her."</b> +<br /></div> +<p>Then the great white dog growled, very low, and the girl in the +fur jacket looked around and up quickly.</p> +<p>Alixe! He realised it as she caught his pale eyes fixed on her; +and she stared, sprang to her feet still staring. Then into her +eyes leaped terror, the living horror of recognition distorting her +face. And, as she saw he meant to speak she recoiled, shrinking +away, turning in her fright like a hunted thing. The strange doll +in her hand glittered; it was a revolver wrapped in a red rag.</p> +<p>"W-what's the matter?" he stammered, stepping forward, fearful +of the weapon she clutched.</p> +<p>But at the sound of his voice she screamed, crept back closer +against the wall, screamed again, pushing the shining muzzle of the +weapon deep into her fur jacket above her breast.</p> +<p>"F-for God's sake!" he gasped, "don't +fire!—don't—"</p> +<p>She closed both eyes and pulled the trigger; something knocked +her flat against the wall, but she heard no sound of a report, and +she pulled the trigger again and felt another blow.</p> +<p>The second blow must have knocked her down, for she found +herself rising to her knees, reaching for the table to aid her. But +her hand was all red and slippery; she looked at it stupidly, fell +forward, rose again, with the acrid smell of smoke choking her, and +her pretty fur jacket all soaked with the warm wet stuff which now +stained both hands.</p> +<p>Then she got to her knees once more, groped in the rushing +darkness, and swayed forward, falling loosely and flat. And this +time she did not try to rise.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>It was her way; it had always been her way out of trouble; the +quickest, easiest escape from what she did not choose to endure. +And even when in her mind the light of reason had gone out for +ever, she had not lost that instinct for escape; and, wittingly or +not, she had taken the old way out of trouble—the shortest, +quickest way. And where it leads—she knew at last, lying +there on her face, her fur jacket and her little hands so soiled +and red.</p> +<p>As for the man, they finally contrived to drag the dog from him, +and lift him to the couch, where he lay twitching among the dolls +for a while; then stopped twitching.</p> +<p>Later in the night men came with lanterns who carried him away. +A doctor said that there was the usual chance for partial recovery. +But it was the last excitement he could ever venture to indulge in. +His own doctors had warned him often enough. Now he had learned +something, but not as much as Alixe had already learned. And +perhaps he never would; but no man knows such things with the +authority to speak of them.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ARS_AMORIS" id="ARS_AMORIS"></a>ARS AMORIS</h2> +<p>Nine days is the period of time allotted the human mind in which +to wonder at anything. In New York the limit is much less; no +tragedy can hold the boards as long as that where the bill must be +renewed three times u day to hold even the passing attention of +those who themselves are eternal understudies in the continuous +metropolitan performance. It is very expensive for the newspapers, +but fortunately for them there is always plenty of trouble in the +five boroughs, and an occasional catastrophe elsewhere to help +out.</p> +<p>So they were grateful enough that the Edgewater tragedy lasted +them forty-eight hours, and on the forty-ninth they forgot it.</p> +<p>In society it was about the same. Ruthven was evidently done +for; that the spark of mere vitality might linger for years in the +exterior shell of him familiar to his world, concerned that world +no more. Interest in him was laid aside with the perfunctory +finality with which the memory of Alixe was laid away.</p> +<p>As for Selwyn, a few people noticed his presence at the +services; but even that episode was forgotten before he left the +city, six hours later, under an invitation from Washington which +admitted of no delay on the score of private business or of +personal perplexity. For the summons was peremptory, and his +obedience so immediate that a telegram to Austin comprised and +concluded the entire ceremony of his leave-taking.</p> +<p>Later he wrote a great many letters to Eileen Erroll—not +one of which he ever sent. But the formality of his silence was no +mystery to her; and her response was silence as profound as the +stillness in her soul. But deep into her young heart something new +had been born, faint fire, latent, unstirred; and her delicate lips +rested one on the other in the sensitive curve of suspense; and her +white fingers, often now interlinked, seemed tremulously instinct +with the exquisite tension hushing body and soul in breathless +accord as they waited in unison.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Toward the end of March the special service battleship squadron +of the North Atlantic fleet commenced testing Chaosite in the +vicinity of the Southern rendezvous. Both main and secondary +batteries were employed. Selwyn had been aboard the flag-ship for +nearly a month.</p> +<p>In April the armoured ships left the Southern drill ground and +began to move northward. A destroyer took Selwyn across to the +great fortress inside the Virginia Capes and left him there. During +his stay there was almost constant firing; later he continued +northward as far as Washington; but it was not until June that he +telegraphed Austin:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Government satisfied. Appropriation certain next session. Am on +my way to New York."</p> +</div> +<p>Austin, in his house, which was now dismantled for the summer, +telephoned Nina at Silverside that he had been detained and might +not be able to grace the festivities which were to consist of a +neighbourhood dinner to the younger set in honour of Mrs. Gerald. +But he said nothing about Selwyn, and Nina did not suspect that her +brother's arrival in New York had anything to do with Austin's +detention.</p> +<p>There was in Austin a curious substreak of sentiment which +seldom came to the surface except where his immediate family was +involved. In his dealings with others he avoided it; even with +Gerald and Eileen there had been little of this sentiment apparent. +But where Selwyn was concerned, from the very first days of their +friendship, he had always felt in his heart very close to the man +whose sister he had married, and was always almost automatically on +his guard to avoid any expression of that affection. Once he had +done so, or attempted to, when Selwyn first arrived from the +Philippines, and it made them both uncomfortable to the verge of +profanity, but remained as a shy source of solace to them both.</p> +<p>And now as Selwyn came leisurely up the front steps, Austin, +awaiting him feverishly, hastened to smooth the florid jocose mask +over his features, and walked into the room, big hand extended, +large bantering voice undisturbed by the tremor of a welcome which +filled his heart and came near filling his eyes:</p> +<p>"So you've stuck the poor old Government at last, have you? Took +'em all in—forts, fleet, and the marine cavalry?"</p> +<p>"Sure thing," said Selwyn, laughing in the crushing grasp of the +big fist. "How are you, Austin? Everybody's in the country, I +suppose," glancing around at the linen-shrouded furniture. "How is +Nina? And the kids? . . . Good business! . . . And Eileen?"</p> +<p>"She's all right," said Austin; "gad! she's really a superb +specimen this summer. . . . You know she rather eased off last +winter—got white around the gills and blue under the eyes. . +. . Some heart trouble—we all thought it was you. Young girls +have such notions sometimes, and I told Nina, but she sat on me. . +. . Where's your luggage? Oh, is it all here?—enough, I mean, +for us to catch a train for Silverside this afternoon."</p> +<p>"Has Nina any room for me?" asked Selwyn.</p> +<p>"Room! Certainly. I didn't tell her you were coming, because if +you hadn't, the kids would have been horribly disappointed. She and +Eileen are giving a shindy for Gladys—that's Gerald's new +acquisition, you know. So if you don't mind butting into a +baby-show we'll run down. It's only the younger bunch from +Hitherwood House and Brookminster. What do you say, Phil?"</p> +<p>Selwyn said that he would go—hesitating before consenting. +A curious feeling of age and grayness had suddenly come over +him—a hint of fatigue, of consciousness that much of life lay +behind him.</p> +<p>Yet in his face and in his bearing he could not have shown much +of it, though at his deeply sun-burned temples the thick, close-cut +hair was silvery; for Austin said with amused and at the same time +fretful emphasis: "How the devil you keep the youth" in your face +and figure I don't understand! I'm only forty-five—that's +scarcely eight years older than you are! And look at my waistcoat! +And look at my hair—I mean where the confounded ebb has left +the tide-mark! Gad, I'd scarcely blame Eileen for thinking you +qualified for a cradle-snatcher. . . . And, by the way, that Gladys +girl is more of a woman than you'd believe. I observe that Gerald +wears that peculiarly speak-easy-please expression which is a +healthy sign that he's being managed right from the beginning."</p> +<p>"I had an idea she was all right," said Selwyn, smiling.</p> +<p>"Well, she is. People will probably say that she 'made' Gerald. +However," added Austin modestly, "I shall never deny +it—though you know what part I've had in the making and +breaking of him, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes," replied Selwyn, without a smile.</p> +<p>Austin went to the telephone and called up his house at +Silverside, saying that he'd be down that evening with a guest.</p> +<p>Nina got the message just as she had arranged her tables; but +woman is born to sorrow and heiress to all the unlooked-for +idiocies of man.</p> +<p>"Dear," she said to Eileen, the tears of uxorial vexation drying +unshed in her pretty eyes, "Austin has thought fit to seize upon +this moment to bring a man down to dinner. So if you are dressed +would you kindly see that the tables are rearranged, and then +telephone somebody to fill in—two girls, you know. The oldest +Craig girl might do for one. Beg her mother to let her come."</p> +<p>Eileen was being laced, but she walked to the door of Nina's +room, followed by her little Alsatian maid, who deftly continued +her offices <i>en route</i>.</p> +<p>"Whom is Austin bringing?" she asked.</p> +<p>"He didn't say. Can't you think of a second girl to get? Isn't +it vexing! Of course there's nobody left—nobody ever fills in +in the country. . . . Do you know, I'll be driven into letting +Drina sit up with us!—for sheer lack of material. I suppose +the little imp will have a fit if I suggest it, and probably perish +of indigestion to-morrow."</p> +<p>Eileen laughed. "Oh, Nina, <i>do</i> let Drina come this once! +It can't hurt her—she'll look so quaint. The child's nearly +fifteen, you know; do let me put up her hair. Boots will take her +in."</p> +<p>"Well, you and Austin can administer the calomel to-morrow, +then. . . . And do ring up Daisy Craig; tell her mother I'm +desperate, and that she and Drina can occupy the same hospital +to-morrow."</p> +<p>And so it happened that among the jolly youthful throng which +clustered around the little candle-lighted tables in the +dining-room at Silverside, Drina, in ecstasy, curly hair just above +the nape of her slim white neck, and cheeks like pink fire, sat +between Boots and a vacant chair reserved for her tardy father.</p> +<p>For Nina had waited as long as she dared; then Boots had been +summoned to take in Drina and the youthful Craig girl; and, as +there were to have been six at a table, at that particular table +sat Boots decorously facing Eileen, with the two children on either +hand and two empty chairs flanking Eileen.</p> +<p>A jolly informality made up for Austin's shortcoming; Gerald and +his pretty bride were the centres of delighted curiosity from the +Minster twins and the Innis girls and Evelyn Cardwell—all her +intimates. And the younger Draymores, the Grays, Lawns, and Craigs +were there in force—gay, noisy, unembarrassed young people +who seemed scarcely younger or gayer than the young matron, their +hostess.</p> +<p>As for Gladys, it was difficult to think of her as married; and +to Boots Drina whispered blissfully: "I look almost as old; I know +I do. After this I shall certainly make no end of a fuss if they +don't let me dine with them. Besides, you want me to, don't you, +Boots?"</p> +<p>"Of course I do."</p> +<p>"And—am I quite as entertaining to you as older girls, +Boots, dear?"</p> +<p>"Far more entertaining," said that young man promptly. "In fact, +I've about decided to cut out all the dinners where you're not +invited. It's only three more years, anyway, before you're asked +about, and if I omit three years of indigestible dinners I'll be in +better shape to endure the deluge after you appear and make your +bow."</p> +<p>"When I make my bow," murmured the child; "oh, Boots, I am in +such a hurry to make it! It doesn't seem as if I <i>could</i> wait +three more long, awful, disgusting years! . . . How does my hair +look?"</p> +<p>"Adorable," he said, smiling across at Eileen, who had heard the +question.</p> +<p>"Do you think my arms are very thin? Do you?" insisted +Drina.</p> +<p>"Dreams of Grecian perfection," explained Boots. And, lowering +his voice, "You ought not to eat <i>everything</i> they bring you; +there'll be doings to-morrow if you do. Eileen is shaking her +head."</p> +<p>"I don't care; people don't die of overeating. And I'll take +their nasty old medicine—truly I will, Boots, if you'll come +and give it to me."</p> +<p>The younger Craig maiden also appeared to be bent upon +self-destruction; and Boots's eyes opened wider and wider in sheer +amazement at the capacity of woman in embryo for rations sufficient +to maintain a small garrison.</p> +<p>"There'll be a couple of reports," he said to himself with a +shudder, "like Selwyn's Chaosite. And then there'll be no more +Drina and Daisy—Hello!"—he broke off, +astonished—"Well, upon my word of words! Phil +Selwyn!—or I'm a broker!"</p> +<p>"Phil!" exclaimed Nina.. "Oh, Austin!—and you never told +us—"</p> +<p>Austin, ruddy and bland, came up to make his excuses; a little +whirlwind of excitement passed like a brisk breeze over the +clustered tables as Selwyn followed; and a dozen impulsive bare +arms were outstretched to greet him as he passed, returning the +bright, eager salutations on every hand.</p> +<p>"Train was late as usual," observed Austin. "Philip and I don't +mean to butt into this very grand function—Hello, Gerald! +Hello, Gladys! . . . Where's our obscure corner below the salt, +Nina? . . . Oh, over there—"</p> +<p>Selwyn had already caught sight of the table destined for him. A +deeper colour crept across his bronzed face as he stepped forward, +and his firm hand closed over the slim hand offered.</p> +<p>For a moment neither spoke; she could not; he dared not.</p> +<p>Then Drina caught his hands, and Eileen's loosened in his clasp +and fell away as the child said distinctly, "I'll kiss you after +dinner; it can't be done here, can it, Eileen?"</p> +<p>"You little monkey!" exclaimed her father, astonished; "what in +the name of cruelty to kids are <i>you</i> doing here?"</p> +<p>"Mother let me," observed the child, reaching for a bonbon. +"Daisy is here; you didn't speak to her."</p> +<p>"I'm past conversation," said Austin grimly, "and Daisy appears +to be also. Are they to send an ambulance for you, Miss +Craig?—or will you occupy the emergency ward upstairs?"</p> +<p>"Upstairs," said Miss Craig briefly. It was all she could utter. +Besides, she was occupied with a pink cream-puff. Austin and Boots +watched her with a dreadful fascination; but she seemed competent +to manage it.</p> +<p>Selwyn, beside Eileen, had ventured on the formalities—his +voice unsteady and not yet his own.</p> +<p>Her loveliness had been a memory; he had supposed he realised it +to himself; but the superb, fresh beauty of the girl dazed him. +There was a strange new radiancy, a living brightness to her that +seemed almost unreal. Exquisitely unreal her voice, too, and the +slightly bent head, crowned with the splendour of her hair; and the +slowly raised eyes, two deep blue miracles tinged with the hues of +paradise.</p> +<p>"There's no use," sighed Drina, "I shall not be able to dance. +Boots, there's to be a dance, you know; so I'll sit on the stairs +with Daisy Craig; and you'll come to me occasionally, won't +you?"</p> +<p>Miss Craig yawned frightfully and made a purely mechanical move +toward an iced strawberry. Before she got it Nina gave the rising +signal.</p> +<p>"Are you remaining to smoke?" asked Eileen as Selwyn took her to +the doorway. "Because, if you are not—I'll wait for you."</p> +<p>"Where?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Anywhere. . . . Where shall I?"</p> +<p>Again the twin blue miracles were lifted to his; and deep in +them he saw her young soul, waiting.</p> +<p>Around them was the gay confusion, adieux, and laughter of +partners parted for the moment; Nina passed them with a smiling +nod; Boots conducted Drina to a resting-place on the stairs; +outside, the hall was thronged with the younger set, and already +their partners were returning to the tables.</p> +<p>"Find me when you can get away," said Eileen, looking once more +at Selwyn; "Nina is signalling me now."</p> +<p>Again, as of old, her outstretched hand—the little +formality symbolising to him the importance of all that concerned +them. He touched it.</p> +<p>"<i>A bientôt</i>," she said.</p> +<p>"On the lawn out there—farther out, in the starlight," he +whispered—his voice broke—"my darling—"</p> +<p>She bent her head, passing slowly before him, turned, looked +back, her answer in her eyes, her lips, in every limb, every line +and contour of her, as she stood a moment, looking back.</p> +<p>Austin and Boots were talking volubly when he returned to the +tables now veiled in a fine haze of aromatic smoke. Gerald stuck +close to him, happy, excited, shy by turns. Others came up on every +side—young, frank, confident fellows, nice in bearing, of +good speech and manner.</p> +<p>And outside waited their pretty partners of the younger set, +gossiping in hall, on stairs and veranda in garrulous bevies, all +filmy silks and laces and bright-eyed expectancy.</p> +<p>The long windows were open to the veranda; Selwyn, with his arm +through Gerald's, walked to the railing and looked out across the +fragrant starlit waste. And very far away they heard the sea +intoning the hymn of the four winds.</p> +<p>Then the elder man withdrew his arm and stood apart for a while. +A little later he descended to the lawn, crossed it, and walked +straight out into the waste.</p> +<p>The song of the sea was rising now. In the strange little forest +below, deep among the trees, elfin lights broke out across the +unseen Brier water, then vanished.</p> +<div><a name="Page513" id="Page513"></a></div> +<p>He halted to listen; he looked long and steadily into the +darkness around him. Suddenly he saw her—a pale blur in the +dusk.</p> +<p>"Eileen?"</p> +<p>"Is it you, Philip?"</p> +<p>She stood waiting as he came up through the purple gloom of the +moorland, the stars' brilliancy silvering +her—waiting—yielding in pallid silence to his arms, +crushed in them, looking into his eyes, dumb, wordless.</p> +<p>Then slowly the pale sacrament changed as the wild-rose tint +crept into her face; her arms clung to his shoulders, higher, +tightened around his neck. And from her lips she gave into his +keeping soul and body, guiltless as God gave it, to have and to +hold beyond such incidents as death and the eternity that no man +clings to save in the arms of such as she.</p> +<h3>THE END</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY.</b></p> +<p>The Fighting Chance.</p> +<p>By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by A.B. Wenzell. 12mo. +Ornamental Cloth, $1.50.</p> +<p>In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a +young fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for +liquor. The heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and +dangerous caprice. The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out +their battles, two weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. +It is refreshing to find a story about the rich in which all the +women are not sawdust at heart, nor all the men satyrs. The rich +have their longings, their ideals, their regrets, as well as the +poor; they have their struggles and inherited evils to combat. It +is a big subject, painted with a big brush and a big heart.</p> +<p>"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be +very good not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting +Chance' is very good and it does not suffer."—<i>Cleveland +Plain Dealer</i>.</p> +<p>"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia +Landis."—<i>New York Evening Sun</i>.</p> +<p>"Drawn with a master hand."—<i>Toledo Blade</i>.</p> +<p>"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the +end."—<i>Detroit Free Press</i>.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is +his masterpiece."—<i>Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph</i>.</p> +<p>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>A GREAT ROMANTIC NOVEL.</b></p> +<p>The Reckoning.</p> +<p>By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by Henry Hutt. $1.50.</p> +<p>"A thrilling and engrossing tale."—<i>New York +Sun</i>.</p> +<p>"When we say that the new work is as good as 'Cardigan' it is +hardly necessary to say more."—<i>The Dial</i>.</p> +<p>"Robert Chambers' books recommend themselves. 'The Reckoning' is +one of his best and will delight lovers of good +novels."—<i>Boston Herald</i>.</p> +<p>"It is an exceedingly fine specimen of its class, worthy of its +predecessors and a joy to all who like plenty of swing and +spirit."—<i>London Bookman</i>.</p> +<p>"Robert W. Chambers' stories of the revolutionary period in +particular show a care in historic detail that put them in a +different class from the rank and file of colonial +novels."—<i>Book News</i>.</p> +<p>"A stirring tale well told and absorbing. It is not a book to +forget easily and it will for many throw new light on a phase of +revolutionary history replete with interest and +appeal."—<i>Chicago Record-Herald</i>.</p> +<p>"Chambers' bullets whistle almost audibly in the pages; when a +twig snaps, as twigs do perforce in these chronicles, you can +almost feel the presence of the savage buck who snaps it. Then +there are situations of force and effect everywhere through the +pages, an intensity of action, a certain naturalness of dialogue +and 'human nature' in the incidents. But over all is the glamor of +the Chambers fancy, the gauzy woof of an artist's imagination which +glories in tints, in poesies, in the little whims of the brush and +pencil, so that you have just a pleasant reminder of unreality and +a glimpse of the author himself here and there to vary the +interest."—<i>St. Louis Republic</i>.</p> +<p>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.</b></p> +<p>IOLE.</p> +<p>Color inlay on the cover and many full-page illustrations, +borders, thumbnail sketches, etc., by J.C. Leyendecker, Arthur +Becher, and Karl Anderson. $1.25.</p> +<p>The story of eight pretty girls and their fat poetical father, +an apostle of art "dead stuck on Nature and simplicity."</p> +<p>"'Iole' is unquestionably a classic."—<i>San Francisco +Bulletin</i>.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chambers is a benefactor to the human +race."—<i>Seattle Post-Intelligencer</i>.</p> +<p>"Quite the most amusing and delectable bit of nonsense that has +come to light for a long time."—<i>Life</i>.</p> +<p>"One of the most alluring books of the +season."—<i>Louisville Courier-Journal</i>.</p> +<p>"The joyous abounding charm of 'Iole' is indescribable. It is +for you to read. 'Iole' is guaranteed to drive away the +blues."—<i>New York Press</i>.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chambers has never shown himself more brilliant and more +imaginative than in this little satirical idyllic +comedy."—<i>Kansas City Star</i>.</p> +<p>"A fresh proof of Mr. Chambers' amazing +versatility."—<i>Everybody's Magazine</i>.</p> +<p>"As delicious a satire as one could want to +read."—<i>Pittsburg Chronicle</i>.</p> +<p>"It is an achievement to write a genuinely funny book and +another to write a truly instructive book; but it is the greatest +of achievements to write a book that is both. This Mr. Chambers has +done in 'Iole.'"—<i>Washington Star</i>.</p> +<p>"Amid the outpour of the insipid 'Iole' comes as June sunshine. +The author of 'Cardigan' shows a fine touch and rarer pigments as +the number of his canvases grows. 'Iole' is a literary achievement +which must always stand in the foremost of its +class."—<i>Chicago Evening Post</i>.</p> +<p>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><b>By DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS.</b></p> +<p>The Second Generation.</p> +<p>Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50.</p> +<p>"The Second Generation" is a double-decked romance in one +volume, telling the two love-stories of a young American and his +sister, reared in luxury and suddenly left without means by their +father, who felt that money was proving their ruination and +disinherited them for their own sakes. Their struggle for life, +love and happiness makes a powerful love-story of the middle +West.</p> +<p>"The book equals the best of the great story tellers of all +time."—<i>Cleveland Plain Dealer</i>.</p> +<p>"'The Second Generation,' by David Graham Phillips, is not only +the most important novel of the new year, but it is one of the most +important ones of a number of years past."—<i>Philadelphia +Inquirer</i>.</p> +<p>"<i>A</i> thoroughly American book is 'The Second Generation.'. +. . The characters are drawn with force and +discrimination."—<i>St. Louis Globe Democrat</i>.</p> +<p>"Mr. Phillips' book is thoughtful, well conceived, admirably +written and intensely interesting. The story 'works out' well, and +though it is made to sustain the theory of the writer it does so in +a very natural and stimulating manner. In the writing of the +'problem novel' Mr. Phillips has won a foremost place among our +younger American authors."—<i>Boston Herald</i>.</p> +<p>"'The Second Generation' promises to become one of the notable +novels of the year. It will be read and discussed while a less +vigorous novel will be forgotten within a +week."—<i>Springfield Union</i>.</p> +<p>"David Graham Phillips has a way, a most clever and convincing +way, of cutting through the veneer of snobbishness and bringing +real men and women to the surface. He strikes at shams, yet has a +wholesome belief in the people behind them, and he forces them to +justify his good opinions."—<i>Kansas City Times</i>.</p> +<p>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGER SET *** + +***** This file should be named 14852-h.htm or 14852-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/8/5/14852/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14852-h/images/005.png b/14852-h/images/005.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c95d25 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/005.png diff --git a/14852-h/images/cover.jpg b/14852-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eae364f --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page130.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page130.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..994eb0b --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page130.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page154.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page154.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e1bb26 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page154.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page20.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page20.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e38978 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page20.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page240.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page240.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cff491 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page240.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page288.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page288.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1475c05 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page288.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page368.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page368.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..36e7376 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page368.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/facing_page500.jpg b/14852-h/images/facing_page500.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fa5a82 --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/facing_page500.jpg diff --git a/14852-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/14852-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a674f5f --- /dev/null +++ b/14852-h/images/frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/14852.txt b/14852.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6a36ea --- /dev/null +++ b/14852.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18341 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. Chambers + +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: The Younger Set + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Release Date: February 1, 2005 [EBook #14852] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGER SET *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + +_The_ YOUNGER SET + + +WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + THE YOUNGER SET + THE FIGHTING CHANCE + THE TREE OF HEAVEN + THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS + THE RECKONING + IOLE + Cardigan + The Maid-at-Arms + Lorraine + Maids of Paradise + Ashes of Empire + The Red Republic + The King in Yellow + A Maker of Moons + A King and a Few Dukes + The Conspirators + The Cambric Mask + The Haunts of Men + Outsiders + A Young Man in a Hurry + The Mystery of Choice + In Search of the Unknown + In the Quarter + + * * * * * + + FOR CHILDREN + + Garden-Land + Forest-Land + River-Land + Mountain-Land + Orchard-Land + Outdoorland + +[Illustration: "Gave into his keeping soul and body."--Page 513] + + + + +_The_ + +YOUNGER SET + +BY + +ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +AUTHOR OF + +"THE FIGHTING CHANCE," ETC. + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +G.C. WILMSHURST + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + +NEW YORK + +_Published August, 1907_ + + + + +TO + +MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I.--HIS OWN PEOPLE 1 + II.--A DREAM ENDS 43 + III.--UNDER THE ASHES 84 + IV.--MID-LENT 119 + V.--AFTERGLOW 161 + VI.--THE UNEXPECTED 194 + VII.--ERRANDS AND LETTERS 242 +VIII.--SILVERSIDE 280 + IX.--A NOVICE 324 + X.--LEX NON SCRIPTA 384 + XI.--HIS OWN WAY 420 + XII.--HER WAY 460 + ARS AMORIS 503 + + + + +THE YOUNGER SET + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER I + +HIS OWN PEOPLE + + +"You never met Selwyn, did you?" + +"No, sir." + +"Never heard anything definite about his trouble?" insisted Gerard. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" replied young Erroll, "I've heard a good deal about it. +Everybody has, you know." + +"Well, I _don't_ know," retorted Austin Gerard irritably, "what +'everybody' has heard, but I suppose it's the usual garbled version made +up of distorted fact and malicious gossip. That's why I sent for you. +Sit down." + +Gerald Erroll seated himself on the edge of the big, polished table in +Austin's private office, one leg swinging, an unlighted cigarette +between his lips. + +Austin Gerard, his late guardian, big, florid, with that peculiar blue +eye which seems to characterise hasty temper, stood by the window, +tossing up and catching the glittering gold piece--souvenir of the +directors' meeting which he had just left. + +"What has happened," he said, "is this. Captain Selwyn is back in +town--sent up his card to me, but they told him I was attending a +directors' meeting. When the meeting was over I found his card and a +message scribbled, saying he'd recently landed and was going uptown to +call on Nina. She'll keep him there, of course, until I get home, so I +shall see him this evening. Now, before you meet him, I want you to +plainly understand the truth about this unfortunate affair; and that's +why I telephoned your gimlet-eyed friend Neergard just now to let you +come around here for half an hour." + +The boy nodded and, drawing a gold matchbox from his waistcoat pocket, +lighted his cigarette. + +"Why the devil don't you smoke cigars?" growled Austin, more to himself +than to Gerald; then, pocketing the gold piece, seated himself heavily +in his big leather desk-chair. + +"In the first place," he said, "Captain Selwyn is my +brother-in-law--which wouldn't make an atom of difference to me in my +judgment of what has happened if he had been at fault. But the facts of +the case are these." He held up an impressive forefinger and laid it +flat across the large, ruddy palm of the other hand. "First of all, he +married a cat! C-a-t, cat. Is that clear, Gerald?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Good! What sort of a dance she led him out there in Manila, I've heard. +Never mind that, now. What I want you to know is how he behaved--with +what quiet dignity, steady patience, and sweet temper under constant +provocation and mortification, he conducted himself. Then that fellow +Ruthven turned up--and--Selwyn is above that sort of suspicion. Besides, +his scouts took the field within a week." + +He dropped a heavy, highly coloured fist on his desk with a bang. + +"After that hike, Selwyn came back, to find that Alixe had sailed with +Jack Ruthven. And what did he do; take legal measures to free himself, +as you or I or anybody with an ounce of temper in 'em would have done? +No; he didn't. That infernal Selwyn conscience began to get busy, making +him believe that if a woman kicks over the traces it must be because of +some occult shortcoming on his part. In some way or other that man +persuaded himself of his responsibility for her misbehaviour. He knew +what it meant if he didn't ask the law to aid him to get rid of her; he +knew perfectly well that his silence meant acknowledgment of +culpability; that he couldn't remain in the service under such +suspicion. + +"And now, Gerald," continued Austin, striking his broad palm with +extended forefinger and leaning heavily forward, "I'll tell you what +sort of a man Philip Selwyn is. He permitted Alixe to sue him for +absolute divorce--and, to give her every chance to marry Ruthven, he +refused to defend the suit. That sort of chivalry is very picturesque, +no doubt, but it cost him his career--set him adrift at thirty-five, a +man branded as having been divorced from his wife for cause, with no +profession left him, no business, not much money--a man in the prime of +life and hope and ambition, clean in thought and deed; an upright, just, +generous, sensitive man, whose whole career has been blasted because he +was too merciful, too generous to throw the blame where it belonged. And +it belongs on the shoulders of that Mrs. Jack Ruthven--Alixe +Ruthven--whose name you may see in the columns of any paper that +truckles to the sort of society she figures in." + +Austin stood up, thrust his big hands into his pockets, paced the room +for a few moments, and halted before Gerald. + +"If any woman ever played me a dirty trick," he said, "I'd see that the +public made no mistake in placing the blame. I'm that sort"--he +shrugged--"Phil Selwyn isn't; that's the difference--and it may be in +his favour from an ethical and sentimental point of view. All right; let +it go at that. But all I meant you to understand is that he is every +inch a man; and when you have the honour to meet him, keep that fact in +the back of your head, among the few brains with which Providence has +equipped you." + +"Thanks!" said Gerald, colouring up. He cast his cigarette into the +empty fireplace, slid off the edge of the table, and picked up his hat. +Austin eyed him without particular approval. + +"You buy too many clothes," he observed. "That's a new suit, isn't it?" + +"Certainly," said Gerald; "I needed it." + +"Oh! if you can afford it, all right. . . . How's the nimble Mr. +Neergard?" + +"Neergard is flourishing. We put through that Rose Valley deal. I tell +you what, Austin, I wish you could see your way clear to finance one or +two--" + +Austin's frown cut him short. + +"Oh, all right! You know your own business, of course," said the boy, a +little resentfully. "Only as Fane, Harmon & Co. have thought it worth +while--" + +"I don't care what Fane, Harmon think," growled Austin, touching a +button over his desk. His stenographer entered; he nodded a curt +dismissal to Gerald, adding, as the boy reached the door: + +"Your sister expects you to be on hand to-night--and so do we." + +Gerald halted. + +"I'd clean forgotten," he began; "I made another--a rather important +engagement--" + +But Austin was not listening; in fact, he had already begun to dictate +to his demure stenographer, and Gerald stood a moment, hesitating, then +turned on his heel and went away down the resounding marble corridor. + +"They never let me alone," he muttered; "they're always at me--following +me up as though I were a schoolboy. . . . Austin's the worst--never +satisfied. . . . What do I care for all these functions--sitting around +with the younger set and keeping the cradle of conversation rocking? I +won't go to that infernal baby-show!" + +He entered the elevator and shot down to the great rotunda, still +scowling over his grievance. For he had made arrangements to join a +card-party at Julius Neergard's rooms that night, and he had no +intention of foregoing that pleasure just because his sister's first +grown-up dinner-party was fixed for the same date. + +As for this man Selwyn, whom he had never met, he saw no reason why he +should drop business and scuttle uptown in order to welcome him. No +doubt he was a good fellow; no doubt he had behaved very decently in a +matter which, until a few moments before, he had heard little about. He +meant to be civil; he'd look up Selwyn when he had a chance, and ask him +to dine at the club. But this afternoon he couldn't do it; and, as for +the evening, he had made his arrangements, and he had no intention of +disturbing them on Austin's account. + +When he reached his office he picked up the telephone and called up +Gerard's house; but neither his sister nor anybody else was there except +the children and servants, and Captain Selwyn had not yet called. So he +left no message, merely saying that he'd call up again. Which he forgot +to do. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Captain Selwyn was sauntering along Fifth Avenue under the +leafless trees, scanning the houses of the rich and great across the +way; and these new houses of the rich and great stared back at him out +of a thousand casements as polished and expressionless as the monocles +of the mighty. + +And, strolling at leisure in the pleasant winter weather, he came +presently to a street, stretching eastward in all the cold +impressiveness of very new limestone and plate-glass. + +Could this be the street where his sister now lived? + +As usual when perplexed he slowly raised his hand to his moustache; and +his pleasant gray eyes, still slightly blood-shot from the glare of the +tropics, narrowed as he inspected this unfamiliar house. + +The house was a big elaborate limestone affair, evidently new. Winter +sunshine sparkled on lace-hung casement, on glass marquise, and the +burnished bronze foliations of grille and door. + +It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria +swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from +limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, +frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their +left arms, passed on the Park side. + +But the nods of recognition, lifted hats, the mellow warnings of motor +horns, clattering hoofs, the sun flashing on carriage wheels and +polished panels, on liveries, harness, on the satin coats of horses--a +gem like a spark of fire smothered by the sables at a woman's throat, +and the bright indifference of her beauty--all this had long since lost +any meaning for him. For him the pageant passed as the west wind passes +in Samar over the glimmering valley grasses; and he saw it through +sun-dazzled eyes--all this, and the leafless trees beyond against the +sky, and the trees mirrored in a little wintry lake as brown as the +brown of the eyes which were closed to him now forever. + +As he stood there, again he seemed to hear the whistle signal, clear, +distant, rippling across the wind-blown grasses where the brown +constabulary lay firing in the sunshine; but the rifle shots were the +crack of whips, and it was only a fat policeman of the traffic squad +whistling to clear the swarming jungle trails of the great metropolis. + +Again Selwyn turned to the house, hesitating, unreconciled. Every +sun-lit window stared back at him. + +He had not been prepared for so much limestone and marquise magnificence +where there was more renaissance than architecture and more bay-window +than both; but the number was the number of his sister's house; and, as +the street and the avenue corroborated the numbered information, he +mounted the doorstep, rang, and leisurely examined four stiff box-trees +flanking the ornate portal--meagre vegetation compared to what he had +been accustomed to for so many years. + +Nobody came; once or twice he fancied he heard sounds proceeding from +inside the house. He rang again and fumbled for his card case. Somebody +was coming. + +The moment that the door opened he was aware of a distant and curious +uproar--far away echoes of cheering, and the faint barking of dogs. +These seemed to cease as the man in waiting admitted him; but before he +could make an inquiry or produce a card, bedlam itself apparently broke +loose somewhere in the immediate upper landing--noise in its crudest +elemental definition--through which the mortified man at the door +strove to make himself heard: "Beg pardon, sir, it's the children broke +loose an' runnin' wild-like--" + +"The _what_?" + +"Only the children, sir--fox-huntin' the cat, sir--" + +His voice was lost in the yelling dissonance descending crescendo from +floor to floor. Then an avalanche of children and dogs poured down the +hall-stairs in pursuit of a rumpled and bored cat, tumbling with yelps +and cheers and thuds among the thick rugs on the floor. + +Here the cat turned and soundly cuffed a pair of fat beagle puppies, who +shrieked and fled, burrowing for safety into the yelling heap of +children and dogs on the floor. Above this heap legs, arms, and the +tails of dogs waved wildly for a moment, then a small boy, blond hair in +disorder, staggered to his knees, and, setting hollowed hand to cheek, +shouted: "Hi! for'rard! Harkaway for'rard! Take him, Rags! Now, Tatters! +After him, Owney! Get on, there, Schnitzel! Worry him, Stinger! +Tally-ho-o!" + +At which encouraging invitation the two fat beagle pups, a waddling +dachshund, a cocker, and an Irish terrier flew at Selwyn's nicely +creased trousers; and the small boy, rising to his feet, became aware of +that astonished gentleman for the first time. + +"Steady, there!" exclaimed Selwyn, bringing his walking stick to a brisk +bayonet defence; "steady, men! Prepare to receive infantry--and doggery, +too!" he added, backing away. "No quarter! Remember the Alamo!" + +The man at the door had been too horrified to speak, but he found his +voice now. + +"Oh, you hush up, Dawson!" said the boy; and to Selwyn he added +tentatively, "Hello!" + +"Hello yourself," replied Selwyn, keeping off the circling pups with the +point of his stick. "What is this, anyway--a Walpurgis hunt?--or Eliza +and the bloodhounds?" + +Several children, disentangling themselves from the heap, rose to +confront the visitor; the shocked man, Dawson, attempted to speak again, +but Selwyn's raised hand quieted him. + +The small boy with the blond hair stepped forward and dragged several +dogs from the vicinity of Selwyn's shins. + +"This is the Shallowbrook hunt," he explained; "I am Master of Hounds; +my sister Drina, there, is one of the whips. Part of the game is to all +fall down together and pretend we've come croppers. You see, don't you?" + +"I see," nodded Selwyn; "it's a pretty stiff hunting country, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is. There's wire, you know," volunteered the girl, Drina, +rubbing the bruises on her plump shins. + +"Exactly," agreed Selwyn; "bad thing, wire. Your whips should warn you." + +The big black cat, horribly bored by the proceedings, had settled down +on a hall seat, keeping one disdainful yellow eye on the dogs. + +"All the same, we had a pretty good run," said Drina, taking the cat +into her arms and seating herself on the cushions; "didn't we, Kit-Ki?" +And, turning to Selwyn, "Kit-Ki makes a pretty good fox--only she isn't +enough afraid of us to run away very fast. Won't you sit down? Our +mother is not at home, but we are." + +"Would you really like to have me stay?" asked Selwyn. + +"Well," admitted Drina frankly, "of course we can't tell yet how +interesting you are because we don't know you. We are trying to be +polite--" and, in a fierce whisper, turning on the smaller of the +boys--"Winthrop! take your finger out of your mouth and stop staring at +guests! Billy, you make him behave himself." + +The blond-haired M.F.H. reached for his younger brother; the infant +culprit avoided him and sullenly withdrew the sucked finger but not his +fascinated gaze. + +"I want to know who he ith," he lisped in a loud aside. + +"So do I," admitted a tiny maid in stickout skirts. + +Drina dropped the cat, swept the curly hair from her eyes, and stood up +very straight in her kilts and bare knees. + +"They don't really mean to be rude," she explained; "they're only +children." Then, detecting the glimmering smile in Selwyn's eyes, "But +perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us who you are because we all would +like to know, but we are not going to be ill-bred enough to ask." + +Their direct expectant gaze slightly embarrassed him; he laughed a +little, but there was no response from them. + +"Well," he said, "as a matter of fact and record, I am a sort of +relative of yours--a species of avuncular relation." + +"What is that?" asked Drina coldly. + +"That," said Selwyn, "means that I'm more or less of an uncle to you. +Hope you don't mind. You don't have to entertain me, you know." + +"An uncle!" repeated Drina. + +"Our uncle?" echoed Billy. "You are not our soldier uncle, are you? You +are not our Uncle Philip, are you?" + +"It amounts to that," admitted Selwyn. "Is it all right?" + +There was a dead silence, broken abruptly by Billy; "Where is your +sword, then?" + +"At the hotel. Would you like to see it, Billy?" + +The five children drew a step nearer, inspecting him with merciless +candour. + +"Is it all right?" asked Selwyn again, smilingly uneasy under the +concentrated scrutiny. "How about it, Drina? Shall we shake hands?" + +Drina spoke at last: "Ye-es," she said slowly, "I think it is all right +to shake hands." She took a step forward, stretching out her hand. + +Selwyn stooped; she laid her right hand across his, hesitated, looked up +fearlessly, and then, raising herself on tiptoe, placed both arms upon +his shoulders, offering her lips. + +One by one the other children came forward to greet this promising new +uncle whom the younger among them had never before seen, and whom Drina, +the oldest, had forgotten except as that fabled warrior of legendary +exploits whose name and fame had become cherished classics of their +nursery. + +And now children and dogs clustered amicably around him; under foot +tails wagged, noses sniffed; playful puppy teeth tweaked at his +coat-skirts; and in front and at either hand eager flushed little faces +were upturned to his, shy hands sought his and nestled confidently into +the hollow of his palms or took firm proprietary hold of sleeve and +coat. + +"I infer," observed Selwyn blandly, "that your father and mother are not +at home. Perhaps I'd better stop in later." + +"But you are going to stay here, aren't you?" exclaimed Drina in dismay. +"Don't you expect to tell us stories? Don't you expect to stay here and +live with us and put on your uniform for us and show us your swords and +pistols? _Don't_ you?" + +"We have waited such a very long time for you to do this," added Billy. + +"If you'll come up to the nursery we'll have a drag-hunt for you," +pleaded Drina. "Everybody is out of the house and we can make as much +noise as we please! Will you?" + +"Haven't you any governesses or nurses or something?" asked Selwyn, +finding himself already on the stairway, and still being dragged upward. + +"Our governess is away," said Billy triumphantly, "and our nurses can do +nothing with us." + +"I don't doubt it," murmured Selwyn; "but where are they?" + +"Somebody must have locked them in the schoolroom," observed Billy +carelessly. "Come on, Uncle Philip; we'll have a first-class drag-hunt +before we unlock the schoolroom and let them out." + +"Anyway, they can brew tea there if they are lonely," added Drina, +ushering Selwyn into the big sunny nursery, where he stood, irresolute, +looking about him, aware that he was conniving at open mutiny. From +somewhere on the floor above persistent hammering and muffled appeals +satisfied him as to the location and indignation of the schoolroom +prisoners. + +"You ought to let them out," he said. "You'll surely be punished." + +"We will let them out after we've made noise enough," said Billy calmly. +"We'll probably be punished anyway, so we may as well make a noise." + +"Yes," added Drina, "we are going to make all the noise we can while we +have the opportunity. Billy, is everything ready?" + +And before Selwyn understood precisely what was happening, he found +himself the centre of a circle of madly racing children and dogs. Round +and round him they tore. Billy yelled for the hurdles and Josephine +knocked over some chairs and dragged them across the course of the +route; and over them leaped and scrambled children and puppies, +splitting the air with that same quality of din which had greeted him +upon his entrance to his sister's house. + +When there was no more breath left in the children, and when the dogs +lay about, grinning and lolling, Drina approached him, bland and +dishevelled. + +"That circus," she explained, "was for your entertainment. Now will you +please do something for ours?" + +"Certainly," said Selwyn, looking about him vaguely; "shall +we--er--build blocks, or shall I read to you--er--out of that big +picture-book--" + +"_Picture_-book!" repeated Billy with scorn; "that's good enough for +nurses to read. You're a soldier, you know. Soldiers have real stories +to tell." + +"I see," he said meekly. "What am I to tell you about--our missionaries +in Sulu?" + +"In the first place," began Drina, "you are to lie down flat on the +floor and creep about and show us how the Moros wriggle through the +grass to bolo our sentinels." + +"Why, it's--it's this way," began Selwyn, leaning back in his +rocking-chair and comfortably crossing one knee over the other; "for +instance, suppose--" + +"Oh, but you must _show_ us!" interrupted Billy. "Get down on the floor +please, uncle." + +"I can tell it better!" protested Selwyn; "I can show you just the--" + +"Please lie down and show us how they wriggle?" begged Drina. + +"I don't want to get down on the floor," he said feebly; "is it +necessary?" + +But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had +it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, +impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over +Drina, whom he was stalking. + +And it was while all were passionately intent upon the pleasing and +snake-like progress of their uncle that a young girl in furs, ascending +the stairs two at a time, peeped perfunctorily into the nursery as she +passed the hallway--and halted amazed. + +Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having +boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the +sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure--a +glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, +half-buried in a muff. + +Mortified, he got to his feet, glanced out into the hallway, and began +adjusting his attire. + +"No, you don't!" he said mildly, "I decline to perform again. If you +want any more wriggling you must accomplish it yourselves. Drina, has +your governess--by any unfortunate chance--er--red hair?" + +"No," said the child; "and won't you _please_ crawl across the floor and +bolo me--just _once_ more?" + +"Bolo me!" insisted Billy. "I haven't been mangled yet!" + +"Let Billy assassinate somebody himself. And, by the way, Drina, are +there any maids or nurses or servants in this remarkable house who +occasionally wear copper-tinted hair and black fox furs?" + +"No. Eileen does. Won't you please wriggle--" + +"Who is Eileen?" + +"Eileen? Why--don't you know who Eileen is?" + +"No, I don't," began Captain Selwyn, when a delighted shout from the +children swung him toward the door again. His sister, Mrs. Gerard, stood +there in carriage gown and sables, radiant with surprise. + +"Phil! _You!_ Exactly like you, Philip, to come strolling in from the +antipodes--dear fellow!" recovering from the fraternal embrace and +holding both lapels of his coat in her gloved hands. "Six years!" she +said again and again, tenderly reproachful; "Alexandrine was a baby of +six--Drina, child, do you remember my brother--do you remember your +Uncle Philip? She doesn't remember; you can't expect her to recollect; +she is only twelve, Phil--" + +"I remember _one_ thing," observed Drina serenely. + +Brother and sister turned toward her in pride and delight; and the child +went on: "My Aunt Alixe; I remember her. She was _so_ pretty," concluded +Drina, nodding thoughtfully in the effort to remember more; "Uncle +Philip, where is she now?" + +But her uncle seemed to have lost his voice as well as his colour, and +Mrs. Gerard's gloved fingers tightened on the lapels of his coat. + +"Drina--child--" she faltered; but Drina, immersed in reflection, smiled +dreamily; "So pretty," she murmured; "I remember my Aunt Alixe--" + +"Drina!" repeated her mother sharply, "go and find Bridget this minute!" + +Selwyn's hesitating hand sought his moustache; he lifted his eyes--the +steady gray eyes, slightly bloodshot--to his sister's distressed face. + +"I never dreamed--" she began--"the child has never spoken of--of her +from that time to this! I never dreamed she could remember--" + +"I don't understand what you are talking about, mother," said Drina; but +her pretty mother caught her by the shoulders, striving to speak +lightly; "Where in the world is Bridget, child? Where is Katie? And what +is all this I hear from Dawson? It can't be possible that you have been +fox-hunting all over the house again! Your nurses know perfectly well +that you are not to hunt anywhere except in your own nursery." + +"I know it," said Drina, "but Kit-Ki got out and ran downstairs. We had +to follow her, you know, until she went to earth." + +Selwyn quietly bent over toward Billy: "'Ware wire, my friend," he said +under his breath; "_you'd_ better cut upstairs and unlock that +schoolroom." + +And while Mrs. Gerard turned her attention to the cluster of clamouring +younger children, the boy vanished only to reappear a moment later, +retreating before the vengeful exclamations of the lately imprisoned +nurses who pursued him, caps and aprons flying, bewailing aloud their +ignominious incarceration. + +"Billy!" exclaimed his mother, "_did_ you do that? Bridget, Master +William is to take supper by himself in the schoolroom--and _no_ +marmalade!--No, Billy, not one drop!" + +"We all saw him lock the door," said Drina honestly. + +"And you let him? Oh, Drina!--And Ellen! Katie! No marmalade for Miss +Drina--none for any of the children. Josie, mother feels dreadfully +because you all have been so naughty. Winthrop!--your finger! Instantly! +Clemence, baby, where on earth did you acquire all that grime on your +face and fists?" And to her brother: "Such a household, Phil! Everybody +incompetent--including me; everything topsy-turvy; and all five dogs +perfectly possessed to lie on that pink rug in the music room.--_Have_ +they been there to-day, Drina?--while you were practising?" + +"Yes, and there are some new spots, mother. I'm _very_ sorry." + +"Take the children away!" said Mrs. Gerard. But she bent over, kissing +each culprit as the file passed out, convoyed by the amply revenged +nurses. "No marmalade, remember; and mother has a great mind _not_ to +come up at bedtime and lean over you. Mother has no desire to lean over +her babies to-night." + +To "lean over" the children was always expected of this mother; the +direst punishment on the rather brief list was to omit this intimate +evening ceremony. + +"M-mother," stammered the Master of Fox Hounds, "you _will_ lean over +us, won't you?" + +"Mother hasn't decided--" + +"Oh, muvver!" wailed Josie; and a howl of grief and dismay rose from +Winthrop, modified to a gurgle by the forbidden finger. + +"You _will_, won't you?" begged Drina. "We've been pretty bad, but not +bad enough for that!" + +"I--Oh, yes, I will. Stop that noise, Winthrop! Josie, I'm going to lean +over you--and you, too, Clemence, baby. Katie, take those dogs away +immediately; and remember about the marmalade." + +Reassured, smiling through tears, the children trooped off, it being the +bathing hour; and Mrs. Gerard threw her fur stole over one shoulder and +linked her slender arm in her brother's. + +"You see, I'm not much of a mother," she said; "if I was I'd stay here +all day and every day, week in and year out, and try to make these poor +infants happy. I have no business to leave them for one second!" + +"Wouldn't they get too much of you?" suggested Selwyn. + +"Thanks. I suppose that even a mother had better practise an artistic +absence occasionally. Are they not sweet? _What_ do you think of them? +You never before saw the three youngest; you saw Drina when you went +east--and Billy was a few months old--what do you think of them? +Honestly, Phil?" + +"All to the good, Ninette; very ornamental. Drina--and that Josephine +kid are real beauties. I--er--take to Billy tremendously. He told me +that he'd locked up his nurses. I ought to have interfered. It was +really my fault, you see." + +"And you didn't make him let them out? You are not going to be very good +morally for my young. Tell me, Phil, have you seen Austin?" + +"I went to the Trust Company, but he was attending a directors' confab. +How is he? He's prosperous anyhow, I observe," with a humorous glance +around the elaborate hallway which they were traversing. + +"Don't dare laugh at us!" smiled his sister. "I wish we were back in +Tenth Street. But so many children came--Billy, Josephine, Winthrop, and +Tina--and the Tenth Street house wasn't half big enough; and a dreadful +speculative builder built this house and persuaded Austin to buy it. Oh, +dear, and here we are among the rich and great; and the steel kings and +copper kings and oil kings and their heirs and dauphins. _Do_ you like +the house?" + +"It's--ah--roomy," he said cheerfully. + +"Oh! It isn't so bad from the outside. And we have just had it +redecorated inside. Mizner did it. Look, dear, isn't that a cunning +bedroom?" drawing him toward a partly open door. "Don't be so horridly +critical. Austin is becoming used to it now, so don't stir him up and +make fun of things. Anyway you're going to stay here." + +"No, I'm at the Holland." + +"Of _course_ you're to live with us. You've resigned from the service, +haven't you?" + +He looked at her sharply, but did not reply. + +A curious flash of telepathy passed between them; she hesitated, then: + +"You once promised Austin and me that you would stay with us." + +"But, Nina--" + +"No, no, no! Wait," pressing an electric button; "Watson, Captain +Selwyn's luggage is to be brought here immediately from the Holland! +Immediately!" And to Selwyn: "Austin will not be at home before +half-past six. Come up with me now and see your quarters--a perfectly +charming place for you, with your own smoking-room and dressing-closet +and bath. Wait, we'll take the elevator--as long as we have one." + +Smilingly protesting, yet touched by the undisguised sincerity of his +welcome, he suffered himself to be led into the elevator--a dainty white +and rose rococo affair. His sister adjusted a tiny lever; the car moved +smoothly upward and, presently stopped; and they emerged upon a wide +landing. + +"Here," said Nina, throwing open a door. "Isn't this comfortable? Is +there anything you don't fancy about it? If there is, tell me frankly." + +"Little sister," he said, imprisoning both her hands, "it is a +paradise--but I don't intend to come here and squat on my relatives, and +I won't!" + +"Philip! You are common!" + +"Oh, I know you and Austin _think_ you want me." + +"Phil!" + +"All right, dear. I'll--it's awfully generous of you--so I'll pay you a +visit--for a little while." + +"You'll live here, that's what you'll do--though I suppose you are +dreaming and scheming to have all sorts of secret caves and queer places +to yourself--horrid, grimy, smoky bachelor quarters where you can behave +_sans-facon_." + +"I've had enough of _sans-facon_" he said grimly. "After shacks and +bungalows and gun-boats and troopships, do you suppose this doesn't look +rather heavenly?" + +"Dear fellow!" she said, looking tenderly at him; and then under her +breath: "What a ghastly life you have led!" + +But he knew she did not refer to the military portion of his life. + +He threw back his coat, dug both hands into his pockets, and began to +wander about the rooms, halting sometimes to examine nondescript +articles of ornament or bits of furniture as though politely +interested. But she knew his thoughts were steadily elsewhere. + +[Illustration: "'There is no reason,' she said, 'why you should not call +this house home.'"] + +Sauntering about, aware at moments that her troubled eyes were following +him, he came back, presently, to where she sat perched upon his bed. + +"It all looks most inviting, Nina," he said cheerfully, seating himself +beside her. "I--well, you can scarcely be expected to understand how +this idea of a home takes hold of a man who has none." + +"Yes, I do," she said. + +"All this--" he paused, leisurely, to select his words--"all +this--you--the children--that jolly nursery--" he stopped again, looking +out of the window; and his sister looked at him through eyes grown +misty. + +"There is no reason," she said, "why you should not call this house +home." + +"N-no reason. Thank you. I will--for a few days." + +"_No_ reason, dear," she insisted. "We are your own people; we are all +you have, Phil!--the children adore you already; Austin--you know what +he thinks of you; and--and I--" + +"You are very kind, Ninette." He sat partly turned from her, staring at +the sunny window. Presently he slid his hand back along the bed-covers +until it touched and tightened over hers. And in silence she raised it +to her lips. + +They remained so for a while, he still partly turned from her, his +perplexed and narrowing gaze fixed on the window, she pressing his +clenched hand to her lips, thoughtful and silent. + +"Before Austin comes," he said at length, "let's get the thing over--and +buried--as long as it will stay buried." + +"Yes, dear." + +"Well, then--then--" but his throat closed tight with the effort. + +"Alixe is here," she said gently; "did you know it?" + +He nodded. + +"You know, of course, that she's married Jack Ruthven?" + +He nodded again. + +"Are you on leave, Phil, or have you really resigned?" + +"Resigned." + +"I knew it," she sighed. + +He said: "As I did not defend the suit I couldn't remain in the service. +There's too much said about us, anyway--about us who are appointed from +civil life. And then--to have _that_ happen!" + +"Phil?" + +"What?" + +"Will you answer me one thing?" + +"Yes, I guess so." + +"Do you still care for--her?" + +"I am sorry for her." + +After a painful silence his sister said: "Could you tell me how it +began, Phil?" + +"How it began? I don't know that, either. When Bannard's command took +the field I went with the scouts. Alixe remained in Manila. Ruthven was +there for Fane, Harmon & Co. That's how it began, I suppose; and it's a +rotten climate for morals; and that's how it began." + +"Only that?" + +"We had had differences. It's been one misunderstanding after another. +If you mean was I mixed up with another woman--no! She knew that." + +"She was very young, Phil." + +He nodded: "I don't blame her." + +"Couldn't anything have been done?" + +"If it could, neither she nor I did it--or knew how to do it, I suppose. +It went wrong from the beginning; it was founded on froth--she had been +engaged to Harmon, and she threw him over for 'Boots' Lansing. Then I +came along--Boots behaved like a thoroughbred--that is all there is to +it--inexperience, romance, trouble--a quick beginning, a quick parting, +and two more fools to give the lie to civilization, and justify the West +Pointers in their opinions of civil appointees." + +"Try not to be so bitter, Phil; did you know she was going before she +left Manila?" + +"I hadn't the remotest idea of the affair. I thought that we were trying +to learn something about life and about each other. . . . Then that +climax came." + +He turned and stared out of the window, dropping his sister's hand. "She +couldn't stand me, she couldn't stand the life, the climate, the +inconveniences, the absence of what she was accustomed to. She was dead +tired of it all. I can understand that. And I--I didn't know what to do +about it. . . . So we drifted; and the catastrophe came very quickly. +Let me tell you something; a West Pointer, an Annapolis man, knows what +sort of life he's going into and what he is to expect when he marries. +Usually, too, he marries into the Army or Navy set; and the girl knows, +too, what kind of a married life that means. + +"But I didn't. Neither did Alixe. And we went under; that's +all--fighting each other heart and soul to the end. . . . Is she happy +with Ruthven? I never knew him--and never cared to. I suppose they go +about in town among the yellow set. Do they?" + +"Yes. I've met Alixe once or twice. She was perfectly composed--formal +but unembarrassed. She has shifted her milieu somewhat--it began with +the influx of Ruthven's friends from the 'yellow' section of the younger +married set--the Orchils, Fanes, Minsters, and Delmour-Carnes. Which is +all right if she'd stay there. But in town you're likely to encounter +anybody where the somebodies of one set merge into the somebodies of +another. And we're always looking over our fences, you know. . . . By +the way," she added cheerfully, "I'm dipping into the younger set myself +to-night--on Eileen's account. I brought her out Thursday and I'm giving +a dinner for her to-night." + +"Who's Eileen?" he asked. + +"Eileen? Why, don't you--why, of _course_, you don't know yet that I've +taken Eileen for my own. I didn't want to write you; I wanted first to +see how it would turn out; and when I saw that it was turning out +perfectly, I thought it better to wait until you could return and hear +all about it from me, because one can't write that sort of thing--" + +"Nina!" + +"What, dear?" she said, startled. + +"Who the dickens _is_ Eileen?" + +"Philip! You are precisely like Austin; you grow impatient of +preliminary details when I'm doing my very best attempting to explain +just as clearly as I can. Now I will go on and say that Eileen is Molly +Erroll's daughter, and the courts appointed Austin and me guardians for +her and for her brother Gerald." + +"Oh!" + +"Now is it clear to you?" + +"Yes," he said, thinking of the tragedy which had left the child so +utterly alone in the world, save for her brother and a distant kinship +by marriage with the Gerards. + +For a while he sat brooding, arms loosely folded, immersed once more in +his own troubles. + +"It seems a shame," he said, "that a family like ours, whose name has +always spelled decency, should find themselves entangled in the very +things their race has always hated and managed to avoid. And through me, +too." + +"It was not your fault, Phil." + +"No, not the divorce part. Do you suppose I wouldn't have taken any kind +of medicine before resorting to that! But what's the use; for you can +try as you may to keep your name clean, and then you can fold your arms +and wait to see what a hopeless fool fate makes of you." + +"But no disgrace touches you, dear," she said tremulously. + +"I've been all over that, too," he said with quiet bitterness. "You are +partly right; nobody cares in this town. Even though I did not defend +the suit, nobody cares. And there's no disgrace, I suppose, if nobody +cares enough even to condone. Divorce is no longer noticed; it is a +matter of ordinary occurrence--a matter of routine in some sets. Who +cares?--except decent folk? And they only think it's a pity--and +wouldn't do it themselves. The horrified clamour comes from outside the +social registers and blue books; we know they're right, but it doesn't +affect us. What does affect us is that we _were_ the decent folk who +permitted ourselves the luxury of being sorry for others who resorted to +divorce as a remedy but wouldn't do it ourselves! . . . Now we've done +it and--" + +"Phil! I will not have you feel that way." + +"What way?" + +"The way you feel. We are older than we were--everybody is older--the +world is, too. What we were brought up to consider impossible--" + +"What we were brought up to consider impossible was what kept me up to +the mark out there, Nina." He made a gesture toward the East. "Now, I +come back here and learn that we've all outgrown those ideas--" + +"Phil! I never meant that." + +He said: "If Alixe found that she cared for Ruthven, I don't blame her. +Laws and statutes can't govern such matters. If she found she no longer +cared for me, I could not blame her. But two people, mismated, have only +one chance in this world--to live their tragedy through with dignity. +That is absolutely all life holds for them. Beyond that, outside of that +dead line--treachery to self and race and civilisation! That is my +conclusion after a year's experience in hell." He rose and began to pace +the floor, fingers worrying his moustache. "Law? Can a law, which I do +not accept, let me loose to risk it all again with another woman?" + +She said slowly, her hands folded in her lap: "It is well you've come to +me at last. You've been turning round and round in that wheeled cage +until you think you've made enormous progress; and you haven't. Dear, +listen to me; what you honestly believe to be unselfish and high-minded +adherence to principle, is nothing but the circling reasoning of a hurt +mind--an intelligence still numbed from shock, a mental and physical +life forced by sheer courage into mechanical routine. . . . Wait a +moment; there is nobody else to say this to you; and if I did not love +you I would not interfere with this great mistake you are so honestly +making of your life, and which, perhaps, is the only comfort left you. I +say, 'perhaps,' for I do not believe that life holds nothing happier for +you than the sullen content of martyrdom." + +"Nina!" + +"I am right!" she said, almost fiercely; "I've been married thirteen +years and I've lost that fear of men's portentous judgments which all +girls outgrow one day. And do you think I am going to acquiesce in this +attitude of yours toward life? Do you think I can't distinguish between +a tragical mistake and a mistaken tragedy? I tell you your life is not +finished; it is not yet begun!" + +He looked at her, incensed; but she sprang to the floor, her face bright +with colour, her eyes clear, determined: "I thought, when you took the +oath of military service, you swore to obey the laws of the land? And +the very first law that interferes with your preconceived +notions--crack!--you say it's not for you! Look at me--you great, big, +wise brother of mine--who knows enough to march a hundred and three men +into battle, but not enough to know where pride begins and conscience +ends. You're badly hurt; you are deeply humiliated over your +resignation; you believe that ambition for a career, for happiness, for +marriage, and for children is ended for you. You need fresh air--and I'm +going to see you have it. You need new duties, new faces, new scenes, +new problems. You shall have them. Dear, believe me, few men as young as +you--as attractive, as human, as lovable, as affectionate as you, +wilfully ruin their lives because of a hurt pride which they mistake for +conscience. You will understand that when you become convalescent. Now +kiss me and tell me you're much obliged--for I hear Austin's voice on +the stairs." + +He held her at arms' length, gazing at her, half amused, half indignant; +then, unbidden, a second flash of the old telepathy passed between +them--a pale glimmer lighted his own dark heart in sympathy; and for a +moment he seemed to have a brief glimpse of the truth; and the truth was +not as he had imagined it. But it was a glimpse only--a fleeting +suspicion of his own fallibility; then it vanished into the old, dull, +aching, obstinate humiliation. For truth would not be truth if it were +so easily discovered. + +"Well, we've buried it now," breathed Selwyn. "You're all right, +Nina--from your own standpoint--and I'm not going to make a stalking +nuisance of myself; no fear, little sister. Hello!"--turning +swiftly--"here's that preposterous husband of yours." + +They exchanged a firm hand clasp; Austin Gerard, big, smooth shaven, +humorously inclined toward the ruddy heaviness of successful middle age; +Selwyn, lean, bronzed, erect, and direct in all the powerful symmetry +and perfect health of a man within sight of maturity. + +"Hail to the chief--et cetera," said Austin, in his large, bantering +voice. "Glad to see you home, my bolo-punctured soldier boy. Welcome to +our city! I suppose you've both pockets stuffed with loot, now haven't +you?--pearls and sarongs and dattos--yes? Have you inspected the kids? +What's your opinion of the Gerard batallion? Pretty fit? Nina's +commanding, so it's up to her if we don't pass dress parade. By the +way, your enormous luggage is here--consisting of one dinky trunk and a +sword done up in chamois skin." + +"Nina's good enough to want me for a few days--" began Selwyn, but his +big brother-in-law laughed scornfully: + +"A few days! We've got you now!" And to his wife: "Nina, I suppose I'm +due to lean over those infernal kids before I can have a minute with +your brother. Are they in bed yet? All right, Phil; we'll be down in a +minute; there's tea and things in the library. Make Eileen give you +some." + +He turned, unaffectedly taking his pretty wife's hand in his large +florid paw, and Selwyn, intensely amused, saw them making for the +nursery absorbed in conjugal confab. He lingered to watch them go their +way, until they disappeared; and he stood a moment longer alone there in +the hallway; then the humour faded from his sun-burnt face; he swung +wearily on his heel, and descended the stairway, his hand heavy on the +velvet rail. + +The library was large and comfortable, full of agreeably wadded corners +and fat, helpless chairs--a big, inviting place, solidly satisfying in +dull reds and mahogany. The porcelain of tea paraphernalia caught the +glow of the fire; a reading lamp burned on a centre table, shedding +subdued lustre over ceiling, walls, books, and over the floor where lay +a few ancient rugs of Beloochistan, themselves full of mysterious, +sombre fire. + +Hands clasped behind his back, he stood in the centre of the room, +considering his environment with the grave, absent air habitual to him +when brooding. And, as he stood there, a sound at the door aroused him, +and he turned to confront a young girl in hat, veil, and furs, who was +leisurely advancing toward him, stripping the gloves from a pair of very +white hands. + +"How do you do, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I am Eileen Erroll and I am +commissioned to give you some tea. Nina and Austin are in the nursery +telling bedtime stories and hearing assorted prayers. The children seem +to be quite crazy about you--" She unfastened her veil, threw back stole +and coat, and, rolling up her gloves on her wrists, seated herself by +the table. "--_Quite_ crazy about you," she continued, "and you're to be +included in bedtime prayers, I believe--No sugar? Lemon?--Drina's mad +about you and threatens to give you her new maltese puppy. I +congratulate you on your popularity." + +"Did you see me in the nursery on all fours?" inquired Selwyn, +recognising her bronze-red hair. + +Unfeigned laughter was his answer. He laughed, too, not very heartily. + +"My first glimpse of our legendary nursery warrior was certainly +astonishing," she said, looking around at him with frank malice. Then, +quickly: "But you don't mind, do you? It's all in the family, of +course." + +"Of course," he agreed with good grace; "no use to pretend dignity here; +you all see through me in a few moments." + +She had given him his tea. Now she sat upright in her chair, smiling, +_distraite_, her hat casting a luminous shadow across her eyes; the +fluffy furs, fallen from throat and shoulder, settled loosely around her +waist. + +Glancing up from her short reverie she encountered his curious gaze. + +"To-night is to be my first dinner dance, you know," she said. Faint +tints of excitement stained her white skin; the vivid scarlet contrast +of her mouth was almost startling. "On Thursday I was introduced--" she +explained, "and now I'm to have the gayest winter I ever dreamed +of. . . . And I'm going to leave you in a moment if Nina doesn't hurry +and come. Do you mind?" + +"Of course I mind," he protested amiably, "but I suppose you wish to +devote several hours to dressing." + +She nodded. "Such a dream of a gown! Nina's present! You'll see it. I +hope Gerald will be here to see it. He promised. You'll say you like it +if you do like it, won't you?" + +"I'll say it, anyway." + +"Oh, well--if you are contented to be commonplace like other men--" + +"I've no ambition to be different at my age." + +"Your age?" she repeated, looking up quickly. "You are as young as Nina, +aren't you? Half the men in the younger set are no younger than you--and +you know it," she concluded--"you are only trying to make me say so--and +you've succeeded. I'm not very experienced yet. Does tea bring wisdom, +Captain Selwyn?" pouring herself a cup. "I'd better arm myself +immediately." She sank back into the depths of the chair, looking gaily +at him over her lifted cup. "To my rapid education in worldly wisdom!" +She nodded, and sipped the tea almost pensively. + +He certainly did seem young there in the firelight, his narrow, +thoroughbred head turned toward the fire. Youth, too, sat lightly on his +shoulders; and it was scarcely a noticeably mature hand that touched the +short sun-burnt moustache at intervals. From head to waist, from his +loosely coupled, well-made limbs to his strong, slim foot, strength +seemed to be the keynote to a physical harmony most agreeable to look +at. + +The idea entered her head that he might appear to advantage on +horseback. + +"We must ride together," she said, returning her teacup to the tray; "if +you don't mind riding with me? Do you? Gerald never has time, so I go +with a groom. But if you would care to go--" she laughed. "Oh, you see I +am already beginning a selfish family claim on you. I foresee that +you'll be very busy with us all persistently tugging at your +coat-sleeves; and what with being civil to me and a martyr to Drina, +you'll have very little time to yourself. And--I hope you'll like my +brother Gerald when you meet him. Now I _must_ go." + +Then, rising and partly turning to collect her furs: + +"It's quite exciting to have you here. We will be good friends, won't +we? . . . and I think I had better stop my chatter and go, because my +cunning little Alsatian maid is not very clever yet. . . . Good-bye." + +She stretched out one of her amazingly white hands across the table, +giving him a friendly leave-taking and welcome all in one frank +handshake; and left him standing there, the fresh contact still cool in +his palm. + +Nina came in presently to find him seated before the fire, one hand +shading his eyes; and, as he prepared to rise, she rested both arms on +his shoulders, forcing him into his chair again. + +"So you've bewitched Eileen, too, have you?" she said tenderly. "Isn't +she the sweetest little thing?" + +"She's--ah--as tall as I am," he said, blinking at the fire. + +"She's only nineteen; pathetically unspoiled--a perfect dear. Men are +going to rave over her and--_not_ spoil her. Did you ever see such +hair?--that thick, ruddy, lustrous, copper tint?--and sometimes it's +like gold afire. And a skin like snow and peaches!--she's sound to the +core. I've had her exercised and groomed and hardened and trained from +the very beginning--every inch of her minutely cared for exactly like my +own babies. I've done my best," she concluded with a satisfied sigh, and +dropped into a chair beside her brother. + +"Thoroughbred," commented Selwyn, "to be turned out to-night. Is she +bridle-wise and intelligent?" + +"More than sufficiently. That's one trouble--she's had, at times, a +depressing, sponge-like desire for absorbing all sorts of irrelevant +things that no girl ought to concern herself with. I--to tell the +truth--if I had not rigorously drilled her--she might have become a +trifle tiresome; I don't mean precisely frumpy--but one of those earnest +young things whose intellectual conversation becomes a visitation--one +of the wants-to-know-for-the-sake-of-knowledge sort--a dreadful human +blotter! Oh, dear; show me a girl with her mind soaking up 'isms' and +I'll show you a social failure with a wisp of hair on her cheek, who +looks the dowdier the more expensively she's gowned." + +"So you believe you've got that wisp of copper-tinted hair tucked up +snugly?" asked Selwyn, amused. + +"I--it's still a worry to me; at intervals she's inclined to let it +slop. Thank Heaven, I've made her spine permanently straight and her +head is screwed properly to her neck. There's not a slump to her from +crown to heel--_I_ know, you know. She's had specialists to forestall +every blemish. I made up my mind to do it; I'm doing it for my own +babies. That's what a mother is for--to turn out her offspring to the +world as flawless and wholesome as when they came into it!--physically +and mentally sound--or a woman betrays her stewardship. They must be as +healthy of body and limb as they are innocent and wholesome minded. The +happiest of all creatures are drilled thoroughbreds. Show me a young +girl, unspoiled mentally and spiritually untroubled, with a superb +physique, and I'll show you a girl equipped for the happiness of this +world. And that is what Eileen is." + +"I should say," observed Selwyn, "that she's equipped for the slaughter +of man." + +"Yes, but _I_ am selecting the victim," replied his sister demurely. + +"Oh! Have you? Already?" + +"Tentatively." + +"Who?" + +"Sudbury Gray, I think--with Scott Innis for an understudy--perhaps the +Draymore man as alternate--I don't know; there's time." + +"Plenty," he said vaguely, staring into the fire where a log had +collapsed into incandescent ashes. + +She continued to talk about Eileen until she noticed that his mind was +on other matters--his preoccupied stare enlightened her. She said +nothing for a while. + +But he woke up when Austin came in and settled his big body in a chair. + +"Drina, the little minx, called me back on some flimsy pretext," he +said, relighting his cigar; "I forgot that time was going--and she was +wily enough to keep me talking until Miss Paisely caught me at it and +showed me out. I tell you," turning on Selwyn--"children are what make +life worth wh--" He ceased abruptly at a gentle tap from his wife's +foot, and Selwyn looked up. + +Whether or not he divined the interference he said very quietly: "I'd +rather have had children than anything in the world. They're about the +best there is in life; I agree with you, Austin." + +His sister, watching him askance, was relieved to see his troubled face +become serene, though she divined the effort. + +"Kids are the best," he repeated, smiling at her. "Failing them, for +second choice, I've taken to the laboratory. Some day I'll invent +something and astonish you, Nina." + +"We'll fit you up a corking laboratory," began Austin cordially; "there +is--" + +"You're very good; perhaps you'll all be civil enough to move out of the +house if I need more room for bottles and retorts--" + +"Of _course_, Phil must have his laboratory," insisted Nina. "There's +loads of unused room in this big barn--only you don't mind being at the +top of the house, do you, Phil?" + +"Yes, I do; I want to be in the drawing-room--or somewhere so that you +all may enjoy the odours and get the benefit of premature explosions. +Oh, come now, Austin, if you think I'm going to plant myself here on +you--" + +"Don't notice him, Austin," said Nina, "he only wishes to be implored. +And, by the same token, you'd both better let me implore you to dress!" +She rose and bent forward in the firelight to peer at the clock. +"Goodness! Do you creatures think I'm going to give Eileen half an +hour's start with her maid?--and I carrying my twelve years' handicap, +too. No, indeed! I'm decrepit but I'm going to die fighting. Austin, get +up! You're horribly slow, anyhow. Phil, Austin's man--such as he +is--will be at your disposal, and your luggage is unpacked." + +"Am I really expected to grace this festival of babes?" inquired Selwyn. +"Can't you send me a tray of toast or a bowl of gruel and let me hide my +old bones in a dressing-gown somewhere?" + +"Oh, come on," said Austin, smothering the yawn in his voice and casting +his cigar into the ashes. "You're about ripe for the younger set--one of +them, anyhow. If you can't stand the intellectual strain we'll side-step +the show later and play a little--what do you call it in the +army?--pontoons?" + +They strolled toward the door, Nina's arms linked in theirs, her slim +fingers interlocked on her breast. + +"We are certainly going to be happy--we three--in this innocent _menage +a trois_," she said. "I don't know what more you two men could ask +for--or I, either--or the children or Eileen. Only one thing; I think it +is perfectly horrid of Gerald not to be here." + +Traversing the hall she said: "It always frightens me to be perfectly +happy--and remember all the ghastly things that _could_ happen. . . . +I'm going to take a glance at the children before I dress. . . . Austin, +did you remember your tonic?" + +She looked up surprised when her husband laughed. + +"I've taken my tonic and nobody's kidnapped the kids," he said. She +hesitated, then picking up her skirts she ran upstairs for one more look +at her slumbering progeny. + +The two men glanced at one another; their silence was the tolerant, +amused silence of the wiser sex, posing as such for each other's +benefit; but deep under the surface stirred the tremors of the same +instinctive solicitude that had sent Nina to the nursery. + +"I used to think," said Gerard, "that the more kids you had the less +anxiety per kid. The contrary is true; you're more nervous over half a +dozen than you are over one, and your wife is always going to the +nursery to see that the cat hasn't got in or the place isn't afire or +spots haven't come out all over the children." + +They laughed tolerantly, lingering on the sill of Selwyn's bedroom. + +"Come in and smoke a cigarette," suggested the latter. "I have nothing +to do except to write some letters and dress." + +But Gerard said: "There seems to be a draught through this hallway; I'll +just step upstairs to be sure that the nursery windows are not too wide +open. See you later, Phil. If there's anything you need just dingle that +bell." + +And he went away upstairs, only to return in a few minutes, laughing +under his breath: "I say, Phil, don't you want to see the kids asleep? +Billy's flat on his back with a white 'Teddy bear' in either arm; and +Drina and Josephine are rolled up like two kittens in pajamas; and you +should see Winthrop's legs--" + +"Certainly," said Selwyn gravely, "I'll be with you in a second." + +And turning to his dresser he laid away the letters and the small +photograph which he had been examining under the drop-light, locking +them securely in the worn despatch box until he should have time to +decide whether to burn them all or only the picture. Then he slipped on +his smoking jacket. + +"--Ah, about Winthrop's legs--" he repeated vaguely, "certainly; I +should be very glad to examine them, Austin." + +"I don't want you to examine them," retorted Gerard resentfully, "I want +you to see them. There's nothing the matter with them, you understand." + +"Exactly," nodded Selwyn, following his big brother-in-law into the +hall, where, from beside a lamp-lit sewing table a trim maid rose +smiling: + +"Miss Erroll desires to know whether Captain Selwyn would care to see +her gown when she is ready to go down?" + +"By all means," said Selwyn, "I should like to see that, too. Will you +let me know when Miss Erroll is ready? Thank you." + +Austin said as they reached the nursery door: "Funny thing, feminine +vanity--almost pathetic, isn't it? . . . Don't make too much +noise! . . . What do you think of that pair of legs, Phil?--and he's not +yet five. . . . And I want you to speak frankly; _did_ you ever see +anything to beat that bunch of infants? Not because they're ours and we +happen to be your own people--" he checked himself and the smile faded +as he laid his big ruddy hand on Selwyn's shoulder;--"_your own people_, +Phil. Do you understand? . . . And if I have not ventured to say +anything about--what has happened--you understand that, too, don't you? +You know I'm just as loyal to you as Nina is--as it is natural and +fitting that your own people should be. Only a man finds it difficult to +convey his--his--" + +"Don't say 'sympathies'!" cut in Selwyn nervously. + +"I wasn't going to, confound you! I was going to say 'sentiments.' I'm +sorry I said anything. Go to the deuce!" + +Selwyn did not even deign to glance around at him. "You big red-pepper +box," he muttered affectionately, "you'll wake up Drina. Look at her in +her cunning pajamas! Oh, but she is a darling, Austin. And look at that +boy with his two white bears! He's a corker! He's a wonder--honestly, +Austin. As for that Josephine kid she can have me on demand; I'll answer +to voice, whistle, or hand. . . . I say, ought we to go away and leave +Winthrop's thumb in his mouth?" + +"I guess I can get it out without waking him," whispered Gerard. A +moment later he accomplished the office, leaned down and drew the +bed-covers closer to Tina's dimpled chin, then grasped Selwyn above the +elbow in sudden alarm: "If that trained terror, Miss Paisely, finds us +in here when she comes from dinner, we'll both catch it! Come on; I'll +turn off the light. Anyway, we ought to have been dressed long ago; but +you insisted on butting in here." + +In the hallway below they encountered a radiant and bewildering vision +awaiting them: Eileen, in all her glory. + +"Wonderful!" said Gerard, patting the vision's rounded bare arm as he +hurried past--"fine gown! fine girl!--but I've got to dress and so has +Philip--" He meant well. + +"_Do_ you like it, Captain Selwyn?" asked the girl, turning to confront +him, where he had halted. "Gerald isn't coming and--I thought perhaps +you'd be interested--" + +The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip remained +there, unsaid. He stood silent, touched by the faint under-ringing +wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his opinion; and +something within him responded in time: + +"Your gown is a beauty; such wonderful lace. Of course, anybody would +know it came straight from Paris or from some other celestial region--" + +"But it didn't!" cried the girl, delighted. "It looks it, doesn't it? +But it was made by Letellier! Is there anything you don't like about it, +Captain Selwyn? _Anything_?" + +"Nothing," he said solemnly; "it is as adorable as the girl inside it, +who makes it look like a Parisian importation from Paradise!" + +She colored enchantingly, and with pretty, frank impulse held out both +her hands to him: + +"You _are_ a dear, Captain Selwyn! It is my first real dinner gown and +I'm quite mad about it; and--somehow I wanted the family to share my +madness with me. Nina will--she gave it to me, the darling. Austin +admires it, too, of course, but he doesn't notice such things very +closely; and Gerald isn't here. . . . Thank you for letting me show it +to you before I go down." + +She gave both his hands a friendly little shake and, glancing down at +her skirt in blissful consciousness of its perfection, stepped backward +into her own room. + +Later, while he stood at his dresser constructing an immaculate knot in +his white tie, Nina knocked. + +"Hurry, Phil! Oh, may I come in? . . . You ought to be downstairs with +us, you know. . . . And it was very sweet of you to be so nice to +Eileen. The child had tears in her eyes when I went in. Oh, just a +single diamond drop in each eye; your sympathy and interest did +it. . . . I think the child misses her father on an occasion such as +this--the beginning of life--the first step out into the world. Men do +not understand what it means to us; Gerald doesn't, I'm sure. I've been +watching her, and I know the shadow of that dreadful tragedy falls on +her more often than Austin and I are aware of. . . . Shall I fix that +tie for you, dear? . . . Certainly I can; Austin won't let a man touch +him. . . . There, Phil. . . . Wait! . . . Now if you are decently +grateful you'll tell me I look well. Do I? Really? Nonsense, I _don't_ +look twenty; but--say it, Phil. Ah, that clever maid of mine knows some +secrets--never mind!--but Drina thinks I'm a beauty. . . . Come, dear; +and thank you for being kind to Eileen. One's own kin counts so much in +this world. And when a girl has none, except a useless brother, little +things like that mean a lot to her." She turned, her hand falling on his +sleeve. "_You_ are among your own people, anyhow!" + + * * * * * + +His own people! The impatient tenderness of his sister's words had been +sounding in his ears all through the evening. They rang out clear and +insistent amid the gay tumult of the dinner; he heard them in the +laughing confusion of youthful voices; they stole into the delicate +undertones of the music to mock him; the rustling of silk and lace +repeated them; the high heels of satin slippers echoed them in irony. + +His own people! + +The scent of overheated flowers, the sudden warm breeze eddying from a +capricious fan, the mourning thrill of the violins emphasised the +emphasis of the words. + +And they sounded sadder and more meaningless now to him, here in his +own room, until the monotony of their recurrent mockery began to unnerve +him. + +He turned on the electricity, shrank from it, extinguished it. And for a +long time he sat there in the darkness of early morning, his unfilled +pipe clutched in his nerveless hand. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A DREAM ENDS + + +To pick up once more and tighten and knot together the loosened threads +which represented the unfinished record that his race had woven into the +social fabric of the metropolis was merely an automatic matter for +Selwyn. + +His own people had always been among the makers of that fabric. Into +part of its vast and intricate pattern they had woven an inconspicuously +honourable record--chronicles of births and deaths and marriages, a +plain memorandum of plain living, and upright dealing with their fellow +men. + +Some public service of modest nature they had performed, not seeking it, +not shirking; accomplishing it cleanly when it was intrusted to them. + +His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men--physicians and +lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle +while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained +indefinitely at Malvern Hill; an only brother at Montauk Point having +sickened in the trenches before Santiago. + +His father's services as division medical officer in Sheridan's cavalry +had been, perhaps, no more devoted, no more loyal than the services of +thousands of officers and troopers; and his reward was a pension offer, +declined. He practised until his wife died, then retired to his country +home, from which house his daughter Nina was married to Austin Gerard. + +Mr. Selwyn, senior, continued to pay his taxes on his father's house in +Tenth Street, voted in that district, spent a month every year with the +Gerards, read a Republican morning newspaper, and judiciously enlarged +the family reservation in Greenwood--whither he retired, in due time, +without other ostentation than half a column in the _Evening Post_, +which paper he had, in life, avoided. + +The first gun off the Florida Keys sent Selwyn's only brother from his +law office in hot haste to San Antonio--the first _etape_ on his first +and last campaign with Wood's cavalry. + +That same gun interrupted Selwyn's connection with Neergard & Co., +operators in Long Island real estate; and, a year later, the captaincy +offered him in a Western volunteer regiment operating on the Island of +Leyte, completed the rupture. + + * * * * * + +And now he was back again, a chance career ended, with option of picking +up the severed threads--his inheritance at the loom--and of retying +them, warp and weft, and continuing the pattern according to the designs +of the tufted, tinted pile-yarn, knotted in by his ancestors before him. + +There was nothing else to do; so he did it. Civil and certain social +obligations were mechanically reassumed; he appeared in his sister's pew +for worship, he reenrolled in his clubs as a resident member once more; +the directors of such charities as he meddled with he notified of his +return; he remitted his dues to the various museums and municipal or +private organisations which had always expected support from his +family; he subscribed to the _Sun_. + +He was more conservative, however, in mending the purely social strands +so long relaxed or severed. The various registers and blue-books +recorded his residence under "dilatory domiciles"; he did not subscribe +to the opera, preferring to chance it in case harmony-hunger attacked +him; pre-Yuletide functions he dodged, considering that his sister's +days in January and attendance at other family formalities were +sufficient. + +Meanwhile he was looking for two things--an apartment and a job--the +first energetically combated by his immediate family. + +It was rather odd--the scarcity of jobs. Of course Austin offered him +one which Selwyn declined at once, comfortably enraging his +brother-in-law for nearly ten minutes. + +"But what do I know about the investment of trust funds?" demanded +Selwyn; "you wouldn't take me if I were not your wife's brother--and +that's nepotism." + +Austin's harmless fury raged for nearly ten minutes, after which he +cheered up, relighted his cigar, and resumed his discussion with Selwyn +concerning the merits of various boys' schools--the victim in +prospective being Billy. + +A little later, reverting to the subject of his own enforced idleness, +Selwyn said: "I've been on the point of going to see Neergard--but +somehow I can't quite bring myself to it--slinking into his office as a +rank failure in one profession, to ask him if he has any use for me +again." + +"Stuff and fancy!" growled Gerard; "it's all stuff and fancy about your +being any kind of a failure. If you want to resume with that Dutchman, +go to him and say so. If you want to invest anything in his Long Island +schemes he'll take you in fast enough. He took in Gerald and some twenty +thousand." + +"Isn't he very prosperous, Austin?" + +"Very--on paper. Long Island farm lands and mortgages on Hampton +hen-coops are not fragrant propositions to me. But there's always one +more way of making a living after you counted 'em all up on your +fingers. If you've any capital to offer Neergard, he won't shriek for +help." + +"But isn't suburban property--" + +"On the jump? Yes--both ways. Oh, I suppose that Neergard is all +right--if he wasn't I wouldn't have permitted Gerald to go into it. +Neergard sticks to his commissions and doesn't back his fancy in +certified checks. I don't know exactly how he operates; I only know that +we find nothing in that sort of thing for our own account. But Fane, +Harmon & Co. do. That's their affair, too; it's all a matter of taste, I +tell you." + +Selwyn reflected: "I believe I'd go and see Neergard if I were perfectly +sure of my personal sentiments toward him. . . . He's been civil enough +to me, of course, but I have always had a curious feeling about +Neergard--that he's for ever on the edge of doing something--doubtful--" + +"His business reputation is all right. He shaves the dead line like a +safety razor, but he's never yet cut through it. On principle, however, +look out for an apple-faced Dutchman with a thin nose and no lips. +Neither Jew, Yankee, nor American stands any chance in a deal with that +type of financier. Personally my feeling is this: if I've got to play +games with Julius Neergard, I'd prefer to be his partner. And so I told +Gerald. By the way--" + +Austin checked himself, looked down at his cigar, turned it over and +over several times, then continued quietly: + +--"By the way, I suppose Gerald is like other young men of his age and +times--immersed in his own affairs--thoughtless perhaps, perhaps a +trifle selfish in the cross-country gallop after pleasure. . . . I was +rather severe with him about his neglect of his sister. He ought to have +come here to pay his respects to you, too--" + +"Oh, don't put such notions into his head--" + +"Yes, I will!" insisted Austin; "however indifferent and thoughtless and +selfish he is to other people, he's got to be considerate toward his own +family. And I told him so. Have you seen him lately?" + +"N-o," admitted Selwyn. + +"Not since that first time when he came to do the civil by you?" + +"No; but don't--" + +"Yes, I will," repeated his brother-in-law; "and I'm going to have a +thorough explanation with him and learn what he's up to. He's got to be +decent to his sister; he ought to report to me occasionally; that's all +there is to it. He has entirely too much liberty with his bachelor +quarters and his junior whipper-snapper club, and his house parties and +his cruises on Neergard's boat!" + +He got up, casting his cigar from him, and moved about bulkily, +muttering of matters to be regulated, and firmly, too. But Selwyn, +looking out of the window across the Park, knew perfectly well that +young Erroll, now of age, with a small portion of his handsome income +at his mercy, was past the regulating stage and beyond the authority of +Austin. There was no harm in him; he was simply a joyous, +pleasure-loving cub, chock full of energetic instincts, good and bad, +right and wrong, out of which, formed from the acts which become habits, +character matures. This was his estimate of Gerald. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, riding in the Park with Eileen, he found a chance to +speak cordially of her brother. + +"I've meant to look up Gerald," he said, as though the neglect were his +own fault, "but every time something happens to switch me on to another +track." + +"I'm afraid that I do a great deal of the switching," she said; "don't +I? But you've been so nice to me and to the children that--" + +Miss Erroll's horse was behaving badly, and for a few moments she became +too thoroughly occupied with her mount to finish her sentence. + +The belted groom galloped up, prepared for emergencies, and he and +Selwyn sat their saddles watching a pretty battle for mastery between a +beautiful horse determined to be bad and a very determined young girl +who had decided he was going to be good. + +Once or twice the excitement of solicitude sent the colour flying into +Selwyn's temples; the bridle-path was narrow and stiff with freezing +sand, and the trees were too near for such lively manoeuvres; but Miss +Erroll had made up her mind--and Selwyn already had a humorous idea that +this was no light matter. The horse found it serious enough, too, and +suddenly concluded to be good. And the pretty scene ended so abruptly +that Selwyn laughed aloud as he rejoined her: + +"There was a man--'Boots' Lansing--in Bannard's command. One night on +Samar the bolo-men rushed us, and Lansing got into the six-foot major's +boots by mistake--seven-leaguers, you know--and his horse bucked him +clean out of them." + +"Hence his Christian name, I suppose," said the girl; "but why such a +story, Captain Selwyn? I believe I stuck to my saddle?" + +"With both hands," he said cordially, always alert to plague her. For +she was adorable when teased--especially in the beginning of their +acquaintance, before she had found out that it was a habit of his--and +her bright confusion always delighted him into further mischief. + +"But I wasn't a bit worried," he continued; "you had him so firmly +around the neck. Besides, what horse or man could resist such a pleading +pair of arms around the neck?" + +"What you saw," she said, flushing up, "is exactly the way I shall do +any pleading with the two animals you mention." + +"Spur and curb and thrash us? Oh, my!" + +"Not if you're bridle-wise, Captain Selwyn," she returned sweetly. "And +you know you always are. And sometimes"--she crossed her crop and looked +around at him reflectively--"_sometimes_, do you know, I am almost +afraid that you are so very, very good, that perhaps you are becoming +almost goody-good." + +"_What_!" he exclaimed indignantly; but his only answer was her head +thrown back and a ripple of enchanting laughter. + +Later she remarked: "It's just as Nina says, after all, isn't it?" + +"I suppose so," he replied suspiciously; "what?" + +"That Gerald isn't really very wicked, but he likes to have us think +so. It's a sign of extreme self-consciousness, isn't it," she added +innocently, "when a man is afraid that a woman thinks he is very, very +good?" + +"That," he said, "is the limit. I'm going to ride by myself." + +Her pleasure in Selwyn's society had gradually become such genuine +pleasure, her confidence in his kindness so unaffectedly sincere, that, +insensibly, she had fallen into something of his manner of +badinage--especially since she realised how much amusement he found in +her own smiling confusion when unexpectedly assailed. Also, to her +surprise, she found that he could be plagued very easily, though she did +not quite dare to at first, in view of his impressive years and +experience. + +But once goaded to it, she was astonished to find how suddenly it seemed +to readjust their personal relations--years and experience falling from +his shoulders like a cloak which had concealed a man very nearly her own +age; years and experience adding themselves to her, and at least an inch +to her stature to redress the balance between them. + +It had amused him immensely as he realised the subtle change; and it +pleased him, too, because no man of thirty-five cares to be treated _en +grandpere_ by a girl of nineteen, even if she has not yet worn the +polish from her first pair of high-heeled shoes. + +"It's astonishing," he said, "how little respect infirmity and age +command in these days." + +"I do respect you," she insisted, "especially your infirmity of purpose. +You said you were going to ride by yourself. But, do you know, I don't +believe you are of a particularly solitary disposition; are you?" + +He laughed at first, then suddenly his face fell. + +"Not from choice," he said, under his breath. Her quick ear heard, and +she turned, semi-serious, questioning him with raised eyebrows. + +"Nothing; I was just muttering. I've a villainous habit of muttering +mushy nothings--" + +"You _did_ say something!" + +"No; only ghoulish gabble; the mere murky mouthings of a meagre mind." + +"You _did_. It's rude not to repeat it when I ask you." + +"I didn't mean to be rude." + +"Then repeat what you said to yourself." + +"Do you wish me to?" he asked, raising his eyes so gravely that the +smile faded from lip and voice when she answered: "I beg your pardon, +Captain Selwyn. I did not know you were serious." + +"Oh, I'm not," he returned lightly, "I'm never serious. No man who +soliloquises can be taken seriously. Don't you know, Miss Erroll, that +the crowning absurdity of all tragedy is the soliloquy?" + +Her smile became delightfully uncertain; she did not quite understand +him--though her instinct warned her that, for a second, something had +menaced their understanding. + +Riding forward with him through the crisp sunshine of mid-December, the +word "tragedy" still sounding in her ears, her thoughts reverted +naturally to the only tragedy besides her own which had ever come very +near to her--his own. + +Could he have meant _that_? Did people mention such things after they +had happened? Did they not rather conceal them, hide them deeper and +deeper with the aid of time and the kindly years for a burial past all +recollection? + +Troubled, uncomfortably intent on evading every thought or train of +ideas evoked, she put her mount to a gallop. But thought kept pace with +her. + +She was, of course, aware of the situation regarding Selwyn's domestic +affairs; she could not very well have been kept long in ignorance of the +facts; so Nina had told her carefully, leaving in the young girl's mind +only a bewildered sympathy for man and wife whom a dreadful and +incomprehensible catastrophe had overtaken; only an impression of +something new and fearsome which she had hitherto been unaware of in the +world, and which was to be added to her small but, unhappily, growing +list of sad and incredible things. + +The finality of the affair, according to Nina, was what had seemed to +her the most distressing--as though those two were already dead people. +She was unable to understand it. Could no glimmer of hope remain that, +in that magic "some day" of all young minds, the evil mystery might +dissolve? Could there be no living "happily ever after" in the wake of +such a storm? She had managed to hope for that, and believe in it. + +Then, in some way, the news of Alixe's marriage to Ruthven filtered +through the family silence. She had gone straight to Nina, horrified, +unbelieving. And, when the long, tender, intimate interview was over, +another unhappy truth, very gently revealed, was added to the growing +list already learned by this young girl. + +Then Selwyn came. She had already learned something of the world's +customs and manners before his advent; she had learned more since his +advent; and she was learning something else, too--to understand how +happily ignorant of many matters she had been, had better be, and had +best remain. And she harboured no malsane desire to know more than was +necessary, and every innocent instinct to preserve her ignorance intact +as long as the world permitted. + +As for the man riding there at her side, his problem was simple enough +as he summed it up: to face the world, however it might chance to spin, +that small, ridiculous, haphazard world rattling like a rickety roulette +ball among the numbered nights and days where he had no longer any vital +stake at hazard--no longer any chance to win or lose. + +This was an unstable state of mind, particularly as he had not yet +destroyed the photograph which he kept locked in his despatch box. He +had not returned it, either; it was too late by several months to do +that, but he was still fool enough to consider the idea at +moments--sometimes after a nursery romp with the children, or after a +good-night kiss from Drina on the lamp-lit landing, or when some +commonplace episode of the domesticity around him hurt him, cutting him +to the quick with its very simplicity, as when Nina's hand fell +naturally into Austin's on their way to "lean over" the children at +bedtime, or their frank absorption in conjugal discussion to his own +exclusion as he sat brooding by the embers in the library. + +"I'm like a dead man at times," he said to himself; "nothing to expect +of a man who is done for; and worst of all, I no longer expect anything +of myself." + +This was sufficiently morbid, and he usually proved it by going early to +his own quarters, where dawn sometimes surprised him asleep in his +chair, white and worn, all the youth in his hollow face extinct, his +wife's picture fallen face downward on the floor. + +But he always picked it up again when he awoke, and carefully dusted +it, too, even when half stupefied with sleep. + + * * * * * + +Returning from their gallop, Miss Erroll had very little to say. Selwyn, +too, was silent and absent-minded. The girl glanced furtively at him +from time to time, not at all enlightened. Man, naturally, was to her an +unknown quantity. In fact she had no reason to suspect him of being +anything more intricate than the platitudinous dance or dinner partner +in black and white, or any frock-coated entity in the afternoon, or any +flannelled individual at the nets or on the links or cantering about the +veranda of club, casino, or cottage, in evident anxiety to be +considerate and agreeable. + +This one, however, appeared to have individual peculiarities; he +differed from his brother Caucasians, who should all resemble one +another to any normal girl. For one thing he was subject to illogical +moods--apparently not caring whether she noticed them or not. For +another, he permitted himself the liberty of long and unreasonable +silences whenever he pleased. This she had accepted unquestioningly in +the early days when she was a little in awe of him, when the discrepancy +of their ages and experiences had not been dissipated by her first +presumptuous laughter at his expense. + +Now it puzzled her, appearing as a specific trait differentiating him +from Man in the abstract. + +He had another trick, too, of retiring within himself, even when smiling +at her sallies or banteringly evading her challenge to a duel of wits. +At such times he no longer looked very young; she had noticed that more +than once. He looked old, and ill-tempered. + +Perhaps some sorrow--the actuality being vague in her mind; perhaps +some hidden suffering--but she learned that he had never been wounded in +battle and had never even had measles. + +The sudden sullen pallor, the capricious fits of silent reserve, the +smiling aloofness, she never attributed to the real source. How could +she? The Incomprehensible Thing was a Finality accomplished according to +law. And the woman concerned was now another man's wife. Which +conclusively proved that there could be no regret arising from the +Incomprehensible Finality, and that nobody involved cared, much less +suffered. Hence _that_ was certainly not the cause of any erratic or +specific phenomena exhibited by this sample of man who differed, as she +had noticed, somewhat from the rank and file of his neutral-tinted +brothers. + +"It's this particular specimen, _per se_," she concluded; "it's himself, +_sui generis_--just as I happen to have red hair. That is all." + +And she rode on quite happily, content, confident of his interest and +kindness. For she had never forgotten his warm response to her when she +stood on the threshold of her first real dinner party, in her first real +dinner gown--a trivial incident, trivial words! But they had meant more +to her than any man specimen could understand--including the man who had +uttered them; and the violets, which she found later with his card, must +remain for her ever after the delicately fragrant symbol of all he had +done for her in a solitude, the completeness of which she herself was +only vaguely beginning to realise. + +Thinking of this now, she thought of her brother--and the old hurt at +his absence on that night throbbed again. Forgive? Yes. But how could +she forget it? + +"I wish you knew Gerald well," she said impulsively; "he is such a dear +fellow; and I think you'd be good for him--and besides," she hastened to +add, with instinctive loyalty, lest he misconstrue, "Gerald would be +good for you. We were a great deal together--at one time." + +He nodded, smilingly attentive. + +"Of course when he went away to school it was different," she added. +"And then he went to Yale; that was four more years, you see." + +"I was a Yale man," remarked Selwyn; "did he--" but he broke off +abruptly, for he knew quite well that young Erroll could have made no +senior society without his hearing of it. And he had not heard of +it--not in the cane-brakes of Leyte where, on his sweat-soaked shirt, a +small pin of heavy gold had clung through many a hike and many a scout +and by many a camp-fire where the talk was of home and of the chances of +crews and of quarter-backs. + +"What were you going to ask me, Captain Selwyn?" + +"Did he row--your brother Gerald?" + +"No," she said. She did not add that he had broken training; that was +her own sorrow, to be concealed even from Gerald. "No; he played polo +sometimes. He rides beautifully, Captain Selwyn, and he is so clever +when he cares to be--at the traps, for example--and--oh--anything. He +once swam--oh, dear, I forget; was it five or fifteen or fifty miles? Is +that _too_ far? Do people swim those distances?" + +"Some of those distances," replied Selwyn. + +"Well, then, Gerald swam some of those distances--and everybody was +amazed. . . . I do wish you knew him well." + +"I mean to," he said. "I must look him up at his rooms or his club +or--perhaps--at Neergard & Co." + +"_Will_ you do this?" she asked, so earnestly that he glanced up +surprised. + +"Yes," he said; and after a moment: "I'll do it to-day, I think; this +afternoon." + +"Have you time? You mustn't let me--" + +"Time?" he repeated; "I have nothing else, except a watch to help me get +rid of it." + +"I'm afraid I help you get rid of it, too. I heard Nina warning the +children to let you alone occasionally--and I suppose she meant that for +me, too. But I only take your mornings, don't I? Nina is unreasonable; I +never bother you in the afternoons or evenings; do you know I have not +dined at home for nearly a month--except when we've asked people?" + +"Are you having a good time?" he asked condescendingly, but without +intention. + +"Heavenly. How can you ask that?--with every day filled and a chance to +decline something every day. If you'd only go to one--just one of the +dances and teas and dinners, you'd be able to see for yourself what a +good time I am having. . . . I don't know why I should be so +delightfully lucky, but everybody asks me to dance, and every man I meet +is particularly nice, and nobody has been very horrid to me; perhaps +because I like everybody--" + +She rode on beside him; they were walking their horses now; and as her +silken-coated mount paced forward through the sunshine she sat at ease, +straight as a slender Amazon in her habit, ruddy hair glistening at the +nape of her neck, the scarlet of her lips always a vivid contrast to +that wonderful unblemished skin of snow. + +He thought to himself, quite impersonally: "She's a real beauty, that +youngster. No wonder they ask her to dance and nobody is horrid. Men are +likely enough to go quite mad about her as Nina predicts: probably some +of 'em have already--that chuckle-headed youth who was there Tuesday, +gulping up the tea--" And, "What was his name?" he asked aloud. + +"Whose name?" she inquired, roused by his voice from smiling +retrospection. + +"That chuckle head--the young man who continued to haunt you so +persistently when you poured tea for Nina on Tuesday. Of course they +_all_ haunted you," he explained politely, as she shook her head in sign +of non-comprehension; "but there was one who--ah--gulped at his cup." + +"Please--you are rather dreadful, aren't you?" + +"Yes. So was he; I mean the infatuated chinless gentleman whose facial +ensemble remotely resembled the features of a pleased and placid lizard +of the Reptilian period." + +"Oh, George Fane! That is particularly disagreeable of you, Captain +Selwyn, because his wife has been very nice to me--Rosamund Fane--and +she spoke most cordially of you--" + +"Which one was she?" + +"The Dresden china one. She looks--she simply cannot look as though she +were married. It's most amusing--for people always take her for +somebody's youngest sister who will be out next winter. . . . Don't you +remember seeing her?" + +"No, I don't. But there were dozens coming and going every minute whom I +didn't know. Still, I behaved well, didn't I?" + +"Pretty badly--to Kathleen Lawn, whom you cornered so that she couldn't +escape until her mother made her go without any tea." + +"Was _that_ the reason that old lady looked at me so queerly?" + +"Probably. I did, too, but you were taking chances, not hints. . . . She +_is_ attractive, isn't she?" + +"Very fetching," he said, leaning down to examine his stirrup leathers +which he had already lengthened twice. "I've got to have Cummins punch +these again," he muttered; "or am I growing queer-legged in my old age?" + +As he straightened up, Miss Erroll said: "Here comes Mr. Fane now--with +a strikingly pretty girl. How beautifully they are mounted"--smilingly +returning Fane's salute--"and she--oh! so you _do_ know her, Captain +Selwyn? Who is she?" + +Crop raised mechanically in dazed salute, Selwyn's light touch on the +bridle had tightened to a nervous clutch which brought his horse up +sharply. + +"What is it?" she asked, drawing bridle in her turn and looking back +into his white, stupefied face. + +"Pain," he said, unconscious that he spoke. At the same instant the +stunned eyes found their focus--and found her beside his stirrup, +leaning wide from her seat in sweet concern, one gloved hand resting on +the pommel of his saddle. + +"Are you ill?" she asked; "shall we dismount? If you feel dizzy, please +lean against me." + +"I am all right," he said coolly; and as she recovered her seat he set +his horse in motion. His face had become very red now; he looked at her, +then beyond her, with all the deliberate concentration of aloof +indifference. + +Confused, conscious that something had happened which she did not +comprehend, and sensitively aware of the preoccupation which, if it did +not ignore her, accepted her presence as of no consequence, she +permitted her horse to set his own pace. + +Neither self-command nor self-control was lacking now in Selwyn; he +simply was too self-absorbed to care what she thought--whether she +thought at all. And into his consciousness, throbbing heavily under the +rushing reaction from shock, crowded the crude fact that Alixe was no +longer an apparition evoked in sleeplessness, in sun-lit brooding; +in the solitude of crowded avenues and swarming streets; she +was an actual presence again in his life--she was here, bodily, +unchanged--unchanged!--for he had conceived a strange idea that she must +have changed physically, that her appearance had altered. He knew it was +a grotesquely senseless idea, but it clung to him, and he had nursed it +unconsciously. + +He had, truly enough, expected to encounter her in life +again--somewhere; though what he had been preparing to see, Heaven alone +knew; but certainly not the supple, laughing girl he had known--that +smooth, slender, dark-eyed, dainty visitor who had played at marriage +with him through a troubled and unreal dream; and was gone when he +awoke--so swift the brief two years had passed, as swift in sorrow as in +happiness. + +Two vision-tinted years!--ended as an hour ends with the muffled chimes +of a clock, leaving the air of an empty room vibrant. Two years!--a +swift, restless dream aglow with exotic colour, echoing with laughter +and bugle-call and the noise of the surf on Samar rocks--a dream through +which stirred the rustle of strange brocades and the whisper of breezes +blowing over the grasses of Leyte; and the light, dry report of rifles, +and the shuffle of bare feet in darkened bungalows, and the whisper of +dawn in Manila town. + +Two years!--wherever they came from, wherever they had gone. And now, +out of the ghostly, shadowy memory, behold _her_ stepping into the world +again!--living, breathing, quickening with the fire of life undimmed in +her. And he had seen the bright colour spreading to her eyes, and the +dark eyes widen to his stare; he had seen the vivid blush, the forced +smile, the nod, the voiceless parting of her stiffened lips. Then she +was gone, leaving the whole world peopled with her living presence and +the very sky ringing with the words her lips had never uttered, never +would utter while sun and moon and stars endured. + +Shrinking from the clamouring tumult of his thoughts he looked around, +hard-eyed and drawn of mouth, to find Miss Erroll riding a length in +advance, her gaze fixed resolutely between her horse's ears. + +How much had she noticed? How much had she divined?--this straight, +white-throated young girl, with her self-possession and her rounded, +firm young figure, this child with the pure, curved cheek, the clear, +fearless eyes, untainted, ignorant, incredulous of shame, of evil. + +Severe, confident, untroubled in the freshness of adolescence, she rode +on, straight before her, symbolic innocence leading the disillusioned. +And he followed, hard, dry eyes narrowing, ever narrowing and flinching +under the smiling gaze of the dark-eyed, red-mouthed ghost that sat +there on his saddle bow, facing him, almost in his very arms. + + * * * * * + +Luncheon had not been served when they returned. Without lingering on +the landing as usual, they exchanged a formal word or two, then Eileen +mounted to her own quarters and Selwyn walked nervously through the +library, where he saw Nina evidently prepared for some mid-day +festivity, for she wore hat and furs, and the brougham was outside. + +"Oh, Phil," she said, "Eileen probably forgot that I was going out; it's +a directors' luncheon at the exchange. Please tell Eileen that I can't +wait for her; where is she?" + +"Dressing, I suppose. Nina, I--" + +"One moment, dear. I promised the children that you would lunch with +them in the nursery. Do you mind? I did it to keep them quiet; I was +weak enough to compromise between a fox hunt or fudge; so I said you'd +lunch with them.. Will you?" + +"Certainly. . . . And, Nina--what sort of a man is this George Fane?" + +"Fane?" + +"Yes--the chinless gentleman with gentle brown and protruding eyes and +the expression of a tame brontosaurus." + +"Why--how do you mean, Phil? What sort of man? He's a banker. He isn't +very pretty, but he's popular." + +"Oh, popular!" he nodded, as close to a sneer as he could ever get. + +"He has a very popular wife, too; haven't you met Rosamund? People like +him; he's about everywhere--very useful, very devoted to pretty women; +but I'm really in a hurry, Phil. Won't you please explain to Eileen that +I couldn't wait? You and she were almost an hour late. Now I must pick +up my skirts and fly, or there'll be some indignant dowagers +downtown. . . . Good-bye, dear. . . . And _don't_ let the children eat +too fast! Make Drina take thirty-six chews to every bite; and Winthrop +is to have no bread if he has potatoes--" Her voice dwindled and died, +away through the hall; the front door clanged. + +He went to his quarters, drove out Austin's man, arranged his own fresh +linen, took a sulky plunge; and, an unlighted cigarette between his +teeth, completed his dressing in sullen introspection. + +When he had tied his scarf and bitten his cigarette to pieces, he paced +the room once or twice, squared his shoulders, breathed deeply, and, +unbending his eyebrows, walked off to the nursery. + +"Hello, you kids!" he said, with an effort. "I've come to luncheon. Very +nice of you to want me, Drina." + +"I wanted you, too!" said Billy; "I'm to sit beside you--" + +"So am I," observed Drina, pushing Winthrop out of the chair and sliding +in close to Selwyn. She had the cat, Kit-Ki, in her arms. Kit-Ki, +divining nourishment, was purring loudly. + +Josephine and Clemence, in pinafores and stickout skirts, sat wriggling, +with Winthrop between them; the five dogs sat in a row behind; Katie and +Bridget assumed the functions of Hibernian Hebes; and luncheon began +with a clatter of spoons. + +It being also the children's dinner--supper and bed occurring from five +to six--meat figured on the card, and Kit-Ki's purring increased to an +ecstatic and wheezy squeal, and her rigid tail, as she stood up on +Drina's lap, was constantly brushing Selwyn's features. + +"The cat is shedding, too," he remarked, as he dodged her caudal +appendage for the twentieth time; "it will go in with the next +spoonful, Drina, if you're not careful about opening your mouth." + +"I love Kit-Ki," said Drina placidly. "I have written a poem to +her--where is it?--hand it to me, Bridget." + +And, laying down her fork and crossing her bare legs under the table, +Drina took breath and read rapidly: + + "LINES TO MY CAT + + "Why + Do I love Kit-Ki + And run after + Her with laughter + And rub her fur + So she will purr? + Why do I know + That Kit-Ki loves me so? + I know it if + Her tail stands up stiff + And she beguiles + Me with smiles--" + +"Huh!" said Billy, "cats don't smile!" + +"They do. When they look pleasant they smile," said Drina, and continued +reading from her own works: + + "Be kind in all + You say and do + For God made Kit-Ki + The same as you. + "Yours truly, + "ALEXANDRINA GERARD. + +She looked doubtfully at Selwyn. "Is it all right to sign a poem? I +believe that poets sign their works, don't they, Uncle Philip?" + +"Certainly. Drina, I'll give you a dollar for that poem." + +"You may have it, anyway," said Drina, generously; and, as an +after-thought: "My birthday is next Wednesday." + +"What a hint!" jeered Billy, casting a morsel at the dogs. + +"It isn't a hint. It had nothing to do with my poem, and I'll write you +several more, Uncle Philip," protested the child, cuddling against him, +spoon in hand, and inadvertently decorating his sleeve with cranberry +sauce. + +Cat hairs and cranberry are a great deal for a man to endure, but he +gave Drina a reassuring hug and a whisper, and leaned back to remove +traces of the affectionate encounter just as Miss Erroll entered. + +"Oh, Eileen! Eileen!" cried the children; "are you coming to luncheon +with us?" + +As Selwyn rose, she nodded, amused. + +"I am rather hurt," she said. "I went down to luncheon, but as soon as I +heard where you all were I marched straight up here to demand the reason +of my ostracism." + +"We thought you had gone with mother," explained Drina, looking about +for a chair. + +Selwyn brought it. "I was commissioned to say that Nina couldn't +wait--dowagers and cakes and all that, you know. Won't you sit down? +It's rather messy and the cat is the guest of honour." + +"We have three guests of honour," said Drina; "you, Eileen, and Kit-Ki. +Uncle Philip, mother has forbidden me to speak of it, so I shall tell +her and be punished--but _wouldn't_ it be splendid if Aunt Alixe were +only here with us?" + +Selwyn turned sharply, every atom of colour gone; and the child smiled +up at him. "_Wouldn't_ it?" she pleaded. + +"Yes," he said, so quietly that something silenced the child. And +Eileen, giving ostentatious and undivided attention to the dogs, was now +enveloped by snooping, eager muzzles and frantically wagging tails. + +"My lap is full of paws!" she exclaimed; "take them away, Katie! And +oh!--my gown, my gown!--Billy, stop waving your tumbler around my face! +If you spill that milk on me I shall ask your Uncle Philip to put you in +the guard-house!" + +"You're going to bolo us, aren't you, Uncle Philip?" inquired Billy. +"It's my turn to be killed, you remember--" + +"I have an idea," said Selwyn, "that Miss Erroll is going to play for +you to sing." + +They liked that. The infant Gerards were musically inclined, and nothing +pleased them better than to lift their voices in unison. Besides, it +always distressed Kit-Ki, and they never tired laughing to see the +unhappy cat retreat before the first minor chord struck on the piano. +More than that, the dogs always protested, noses pointed heavenward. It +meant noise, which was always welcome in any form. + +"Will you play, Miss Erroll?" inquired Selwyn. + +Miss Erroll would play. + +"Why do you always call her 'Miss Erroll'?" asked Billy. "Why don't you +say 'Eileen'?" + +Selwyn laughed. "I don't know, Billy; ask her; perhaps she knows." + +Eileen laughed, too, delicately embarrassed and aware of his teasing +smile. But Drina, always impressed by formality, said: "Uncle Philip +isn't Eileen's uncle. People who are not relations say _Miss and Mrs_." + +"Are faver and muvver relations?" asked Josephine timidly. + +"Y-es--no!--I don't know," admitted Drina; "_are_ they, Eileen?" + +"Why, yes--that is--that is to say--" And turning to Selwyn: "What +dreadful questions. _Are_ they relations, Captain Selwyn? Of course they +are!" + +"They were not before they were married," he said, laughing. + +"If you married Eileen," began Billy, "you'd call her Eileen, I +suppose." + +"Certainly," said Selwyn. + +"Why don't you?" + +"That is another thing you must ask her, my son." + +"Well, then, Eileen--" + +But Miss Erroll was already seated at the nursery piano, and his demands +were drowned in a decisive chord which brought the children clustering +around her, while their nurses ran among them untying bibs and scrubbing +faces and fingers in fresh water. + +They sang like seraphs, grouped around the piano, fingers linked behind +their backs. First it was "The Vicar of Bray." Then--and the cat fled at +the first chord--"Lochleven Castle": + + "Put off, put off, + And row with speed + For now is the time and the hour of need." + +Miss Erroll sang, too; her voice leading--a charmingly trained, but +childlike voice, of no pretensions, as fresh and unspoiled as the girl +herself. + +There was an interval after "Castles in the Air"; Eileen sat, with her +marvellously white hands resting on the keys, awaiting further +suggestion. + +"Sing that funny song, Uncle Philip!" pleaded Billy; "you know--the one +about: + + "She hit him with a shingle + Which made his breeches tingle + Because he pinched his little baby brother; + And he ran down the lane + With his pants full of pain. + Oh, a boy's best friend is his mother!" + +"_Billy!_" gasped Miss Erroll. + +Selwyn, mortified, said severely: "That is a very dreadful song, +Billy--" + +"But _you_ taught it to me--" + +Eileen swung around on the piano stool, but Selwyn had seized Billy and +was promising to bolo him as soon as he wished. + +And Eileen, surveying the scene from her perch, thought that Selwyn's +years seemed to depend entirely upon his occupation, for he looked very +boyish down there on his knees among the children; and she had not yet +forgotten the sunken pallor of his features in the Park--no, nor her own +question to him, still unanswered. For she had asked him who that woman +was who had been so direct in her smiling salute. And he had not yet +replied; probably never would; for she did not expect to ask him again. + +Meanwhile the bolo-men were rushing the outposts to the outposts' +intense satisfaction. + +"Bang-bang!" repeated Winthrop; "I hit you, Uncle Philip. You are dead, +you know!" + +"Yes, but here comes another! Fire!" shouted Billy. "Save the flag! +Hurrah! Pound on the piano, Eileen, and pretend it's cannon." + +Chord after chord reverberated through the big sunny room, punctuated by +all the cavalry music she had picked up from West Point and her friends +in the squadron. + + "We can't get 'em up! + We can't get 'em up! + We can't get 'em up + In the morning!" + +she sang, calmly watching the progress of the battle, until Selwyn +disengaged himself from the _melee_ and sank breathlessly into a chair. + +"All over," he said, declining further combat. "Play the 'Star-spangled +Banner,' Miss Erroll." + +"Boom!" crashed the chord for the sunset gun; then she played the +anthem; Selwyn rose, and the children stood up at salute. + +The party was over. + +Selwyn and Miss Erroll, strolling together out of the nursery and down +the stairs, fell unconsciously into the amiable exchange of badinage +again; she taunting him with his undignified behaviour, he retorting in +kind. + +"Anyway that was a perfectly dreadful verse you taught Billy," she +concluded. + +"Not as dreadful as the chorus," he remarked, wincing. + +"You're exactly like a bad small boy, Captain Selwyn; you look like one +now--so sheepish! I've seen Gerald attempt to avoid admonition in +exactly that fashion." + +"How about a jolly brisk walk?" he inquired blandly; "unless you've +something on. I suppose you have." + +"Yes, I have; a tea at the Fanes, a function at the Grays. . . . Do you +know Sudbury Gray? It's his mother." + +They had strolled into the living room--a big, square, sunny place, in +golden greens and browns, where a bay-window overlooked the Park. + +Kneeling on the cushions of the deep window seat she flattened her +delicate nose against the glass, peering out through the lace hangings. + +"Everybody and his family are driving," she said over her shoulder. "The +rich and great are cornering the fresh-air supply. It's interesting, +isn't it, merely to sit here and count coteries! There is Mrs. +Vendenning and Gladys Orchil of the Black Fells set; there is that +pretty Mrs. Delmour-Carnes; Newport! Here come some Cedarhurst +people--the Fleetwoods. It always surprises one to see them out of the +saddle. There is Evelyn Cardwell; she came out when I did; and there +comes Sandon Craig with a very old lady--there, in that old-fashioned +coach--oh, it is Mrs. Jan Van Elten, senior. What a very, very quaint +old lady! I have been presented at court," she added, with a little +laugh, "and now all the law has been fulfilled." + +For a while she kneeled there, silently intent on the passing pageant +with all the unconscious curiosity of a child. Presently, without +turning: "They speak of the younger set--but what is its limit? So many, +so many people! The hunting crowd--the silly crowd--the wealthy +sets--the dreadful yellow set--then all those others made out of +metals--copper and coal and iron and--" She shrugged her youthful +shoulders, still intent on the passing show. + +"Then there are the intellectuals--the artistic, the illuminated, the +musical sorts. I--I wish I knew more of them. They were my father's +friends--some of them." She looked over her shoulder to see where Selwyn +was, and whether he was listening; smiled at him, and turned, resting +one hand on the window seat. "So many kinds of people," she said, with a +shrug. + +"Yes," said Selwyn lazily, "there are all kinds of kinds. You remember +that beautiful nature-poem: + + "'The sea-gull + And the eagul + And the dipper-dapper-duck + And the Jew-fish + And the blue-fish + And the turtle in the muck; + And the squir'l + And the girl + And the flippy floppy bat + Are differ-ent + As gent from gent. + So let it go at that!'" + +"What hideous nonsense," she laughed, in open encouragement; but he +could recall nothing more--or pretended he couldn't. + +"You asked me," he said, "whether I know Sudbury Gray. I do, slightly. +What about him?" And he waited, remembering Nina's suggestion as to that +wealthy young man's eligibility. + +"He's one of the nicest men I know," she replied frankly. + +"Yes, but you don't know 'Boots' Lansing." + +"The gentleman who was bucked out of his footwear? Is he attractive?" + +"Rather. Shrieks rent the air when 'Boots' left Manila." + +"Feminine shrieks?" + +"Exclusively. The men were glad enough. He has three months' leave this +winter, so you'll see him soon." + +She thanked him mockingly for the promise, watching him from amused +eyes. After a moment she said: + +"I ought to arise and go forth with timbrels and with dances; but, do +you know, I am not inclined to revels? There has been a little--just a +very little bit too much festivity so far. . . . Not that I don't adore +dinners and gossip and dances; not that I do not love to pervade bright +and glittering places. Oh, no. Only--I--" + +She looked shyly a moment at Selwyn: "I sometimes feel a curious desire +for other things. I have been feeling it all day." + +"What things?" + +"I--don't know--exactly; substantial things. I'd like to learn about +things. My father was the head of the American School of Archaeology in +Crete. My mother was his intellectual equal, I believe--" + +Her voice had fallen as she spoke. "Do you wonder that physical pleasure +palls a little at times? I inherit something besides a capacity for +dancing." + +He nodded, watching her with an interest and curiosity totally new. + +"When I was ten years old I was taken abroad for the winter. I saw the +excavations in Crete for the buried city which father discovered near +Praesos. We lived for a while with Professor Flanders in the Fayum +district; I saw the ruins of Kahun, built nearly three thousand years +before the coming of Christ; I myself picked up a scarab as old as the +ruins! . . . Captain Selwyn--I was only a child of ten; I could +understand very little of what I saw and heard, but I have never, never +forgotten the happiness of that winter! . . . And that is why, at times, +pleasures tire me a little; and a little discontent creeps in. It is +ungrateful and ungracious of me to say so, but I did wish so much to go +to college--to have something to care for--as mother cared for father's +work. Why, do you know that my mother accidentally discovered the +thirty-seventh sign in the Karian Signary?" + +"No," said Selwyn, "I did not know that." He forbore to add that he did +not know what a Signary resembled or where Karia might be. + +Miss Erroll's elbow was on her knee, her chin resting within her open +palm. + +"Do you know about my parents?" she asked. "They were lost in the +_Argolis_ off Cyprus. You have heard. I think they meant that I should +go to college--as well as Gerald; I don't know. Perhaps after all it is +better for me to do what other young girls do. Besides, I enjoy it; and +my mother did, too, when she was my age, they say. She was very much +gayer than I am; my mother was a beauty and a brilliant woman. . . . But +there were other qualities. I--have her letters to father when Gerald +and I were very little; and her letters to us from London. . . . I have +missed her more, this winter, it seems to me, than even in that dreadful +time--" + +She sat silent, chin in hand, delicate fingers restlessly worrying her +red lips; then, in quick impulse: + +"You will not mistake me, Captain Selwyn! Nina and Austin have been +perfectly sweet to me and to Gerald." + +"I am not mistaking a word you utter," he said. + +"No, of course not. . . . Only there are times . . . moments . . ." + +Her voice died; her clear eyes looked out into space while the silent +seconds lengthened into minutes. One slender finger had slipped between +her lips and teeth; the burnished strand of hair which Nina dreaded lay +neglected against her cheek. + +"I should like to know," she began, as though to herself, "something +about everything. That being out of the question, I should like to know +everything about something. That also being out of the question, for +third choice I should like to know something about something. I am not +too ambitious, am I?" + +Selwyn did not offer to answer. + +"_Am_ I?" she repeated, looking directly at him. + +"I thought you were asking yourself." + +"But you need not reply; there is no sense in my question." + +She stood up, indifferent, absent-eyed, half turning toward the window; +and, raising her hand, she carelessly brought the rebel strand of hair +under discipline. + +"You _said_ you were going to look up Gerald," she observed. + +"I am; now. What are you going to do?" + +"I? Oh, dress, I suppose. Nina ought to be back now, and she expects me +to go out with her." + +She nodded a smiling termination of their duet, and moved toward the +door. Then, on impulse, she turned, a question on her lips--left +unuttered through instinct. It had to do with the identity of the pretty +woman who had so directly saluted him in the Park--a perfectly +friendly, simple, and natural question. Yet it remained unuttered. + +She turned again to the doorway; a maid stood there holding a note on a +salver. + +"For Captain Selwyn, please," murmured the maid. + +Miss Erroll passed out. + +Selwyn took the note and broke the seal: + + "MY DEAR SELWYN: I'm in a beastly fix--an I.O.U. due to-night and + _pas de quoi_! Obviously I don't want Neergard to know, being + associated as I am with him in business. As for Austin, he's a + peppery old boy, bless his heart, and I'm not very secure in his + good graces at present. Fact is I got into a rather stiff game last + night--and it's a matter of honour. So can you help me to tide it + over? I'll square it on the first of the month. + + "Yours sincerely, + + "GERALD ERROLL. + + "P.S.--I've meant to look you up for ever so long, and will the + first moment I have free." + +Below this was pencilled the amount due; and Selwyn's face grew very +serious. + +The letter he wrote in return ran: + + "DEAR GERALD: Check enclosed to your order. By the way, can't you + lunch with me at the Lenox Club some day this week? Write, wire, or + telephone when. + + "Yours, + + "SELWYN." + +When he had sent the note away by the messenger he walked back to the +bay-window, hands in his pockets, a worried expression in his gray +eyes. This sort of thing must not be repeated; the boy must halt in his +tracks and face sharply the other way. Besides, his own income was +limited--much too limited to admit of many more loans of that sort. + +He ought to see Gerald at once, but somehow he could not in decency +appear personally on the heels of his loan. A certain interval must +elapse between the loan and the lecture; in fact he didn't see very well +how he could admonish and instruct until the loan had been +cancelled--that is, until the first of the New Year. + +Pacing the floor, disturbed, uncertain as to the course he should +pursue, he looked up presently to see Miss Erroll descending the stairs, +fresh and sweet in her radiant plumage. As she caught his eye she waved +a silvery chinchilla muff at him--a marching salute--and passed on, +calling back to him: "Don't forget Gerald!" + +"No," he said, "I won't forget Gerald." He stood a moment at the window +watching the brougham below where Nina awaited Miss Erroll. Then, +abruptly, he turned back into the room and picked up the telephone +receiver, muttering: "This is no time to mince matters for the sake of +appearances." And he called up Gerald at the offices of Neergard & Co. + +"Is it you, Gerald?" he asked pleasantly. "It's all right about that +matter; I've sent you a note by your messenger. But I want to talk to +you about another matter--something concerning myself--I want to ask +your advice, in a way. Can you be at the Lenox by six? . . . You have an +engagement at eight? Oh, that's all right; I won't keep you. . . . It's +understood, then; the Lenox at six. . . . Good-bye." + +There was the usual early evening influx of men at the Lenox who dropped +in for a glance at the ticker, or for a cocktail or a game of billiards +or a bit of gossip before going home to dress. + +Selwyn sauntered over to the basket, inspected a yard or two of tape, +then strolled toward the window, nodding to Bradley Harmon and Sandon +Craig. + +As he turned his face to the window and his back to the room, Harmon +came up rather effusively, offering an unusually thin flat hand and +further hospitality, pleasantly declined by Selwyn. + +"Horrible thing, a cocktail," observed Harmon, after giving his own +order and seating himself opposite Selwyn. "I don't usually do it. Here +comes the man who persuades me!--my own partner--" + +Selwyn looked up to see Fane approaching; and instantly a dark flush +overspread his face. + +"You know George Fane, don't you?" continued Harmon easily; "well, +that's odd; I thought, of course--Captain Selwyn, Mr. Fane. It's not +usual--but it's done." + +They exchanged formalities--dry and brief on Selwyn's part, gracefully +urbane on Fane's. + +"I've heard so pleasantly of you from Gerald Erroll," he said, "and of +course our people have always been on cordial terms. Neither Mrs. Fane +nor I was fortunate enough to meet you last Tuesday at the Gerards--such +a crush, you know. Are you not joining us, Captain Selwyn?" as the +servant appeared to take orders. + +Selwyn declined again, glancing at Harmon--a large-framed, bony young +man with blond, closely trimmed and pointed beard, and the fair colour +of a Swede. He had the high, flat cheek-bones of one, too; and a +thicket of corn-tinted hair, which was usually damp at the ends, and +curled flat against his forehead. He seemed to be always in a slight +perspiration--he had been, anyway, every time Selwyn met him anywhere. + +Sandon Craig and Billy Fleetwood came wandering up and joined them; one +or two other men, drifting by, adhered to the group. + +Selwyn, involved in small talk, glanced sideways at the great clock, and +gathered himself together for departure. + +Fleetwood was saying to Craig: "Certainly it was a stiff game--Bradley, +myself, Gerald Erroll, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes, and the Ruthvens." + +"Were you hit?" asked Craig, interested. + +"No; about even. Gerald got it good and plenty, though. The Ruthvens +were ahead as usual--" + +Selwyn, apparently hearing nothing, quietly rose and stepped out of the +circle, paused to set fire to a cigarette, and then strolled off toward +the visitors' room, where Gerald was now due. + +Fane stretched his neck, looking curiously after him. Then he said to +Fleetwood: "Why begin to talk about Mrs. Ruthven when our friend yonder +is about? Rotten judgment you show, Billy." + +"Well, I clean forgot," said Fleetwood; "what did I say, anyway? A man +can't always remember who's divorced from who in this town." + +Harmon, whose civility to Selwyn had possibly been based on his desire +for pleasant relations with Austin Gerard and the Arickaree Loan and +Trust Company, looked at Fleetwood thoroughly vexed. But nobody could +have suspected vexation in that high-boned smile which showed such very +red lips through the blond beard. + +Fane, too, smiled; his prominent soft brown eyes expressed gentlest +good-humour, and he passed his hand reflectively over his unusually +small and retreating chin. Perhaps he was thinking of the meeting in the +Park that morning. It was amusing; but men do not speak of such things +at their clubs, no matter how amusing. Besides, if the story were aired +and were traced to him, Ruthven might turn ugly. There was no counting +on Ruthven. + +Meanwhile Selwyn, perplexed and worried, found young Erroll just +entering the visitors' room, and greeted him with nervous cordiality. + +"If you can't stay and dine with me," he said, "I won't put you down. +You know, of course, I can only ask you once in a year, so we'll stay +here and chat a bit." + +"Right you are," said young Erroll, flinging off his very new and very +fashionable overcoat--a wonderfully handsome boy, with all the +attraction that a quick, warm, impulsive manner carries. "And I say, +Selwyn, it was awfully decent of you to--" + +"Bosh! Friends are for that sort of thing, Gerald. Sit here--" He looked +at the young man hesitatingly; but Gerald calmly took the matter out of +his jurisdiction by nodding his order to the club attendant. + +"Lord, but I'm tired," he said, sinking back into a big arm-chair; "I +was up till daylight, and then I had to be in the office by nine, and +to-night Billy Fleetwood is giving--oh, something or other. By the way, +the market isn't doing a thing to the shorts! You're not in, are you, +Selwyn?" + +"No, not that way. I hope you are not, either; are you, Gerald?" + +"Oh, it's all right," replied the young fellow confidently; and raising +his glass, he nodded at Selwyn with a smile. + +"You were mighty nice to me, anyhow," he said, setting his glass aside +and lighting a cigar. "You see, I went to a dance, and after a while +some of us cleared out, and Jack Ruthven offered us trouble; so half a +dozen of us went there. I had the worst cards a man ever drew to a +kicker. That was all about it." + +The boy was utterly unconscious that he was treading on delicate ground +as he rattled on in his warmhearted, frank, and generous way. Totally +oblivious that the very name of Ruthven must be unwelcome if not +offensive to his listener, he laughed through a description of the +affair, its thrilling episodes, and Mrs. Jack Ruthven's blind luck in +the draw. + +"One moment," interrupted Selwyn, very gently; "do you mind saying +whether you banked my check and drew against it?" + +"Why, no; I just endorsed it over." + +"To--to whom?--if I may venture--" + +"Certainly," he said, with a laugh; "to Mrs. Jack--" Then, in a flash, +for the first time the boy realised what he was saying, and stopped +aghast, scarlet to his hair. + +Selwyn's face had little colour remaining in it, but he said very +kindly: "It's all right, Gerald; don't worry--" + +"I'm a beast!" broke out the boy; "I beg your pardon a thousand times." + +"Granted, old chap. But, Gerald, may I say one thing--or perhaps two?" + +"Go ahead! Give it to me good and plenty!" + +"It's only this: couldn't you and I see one another a little oftener? +Don't be afraid of me; I'm no wet blanket. I'm not so very aged, +either; I know something of the world--I understand something of men. +I'm pretty good company, Gerald. What do you say?" + +"I say, _sure_!" cried the boy warmly. + +"It's a go, then. And one thing more: couldn't you manage to come up to +the house a little oftener? Everybody misses you, of course; I think +your sister is a trifle sensitive--" + +"I will!" said Gerald, blushing. "Somehow I've had such a lot on +hand--all day at the office, and something on every evening. I know +perfectly well I've neglected Eily--and everybody. But the first moment +I can find free--" + +Selwyn nodded. "And last of all," he said, "there's something about my +own affairs that I thought you might advise me on." + +Gerald, proud, enchanted, stood very straight; the older man continued +gravely: + +"I've a little capital to invest--not very much. Suppose--and this, I +need not add, is in confidence between us--suppose I suggested to Mr. +Neergard--" + +"Oh," cried young Erroll, delighted, "that is fine! Neergard would be +glad enough. Why, we've got that Valleydale tract in shape now, and +there are scores of schemes in the air--scores of them--important moves +which may mean--anything!" he ended, excitedly. + +"Then you think it would be all right--in case Neergard likes the idea?" + +Gerald was enthusiastic. After a while they shook hands, it being time +to separate. And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone in the visitors' +room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of cannel coal. + +How to be friends with this boy without openly playing the mentor; how +to gain his confidence without appearing to seek it; how to influence +him without alarming him! No; there was no great harm in him yet; only +the impulse of inconsiderate youth; only an enthusiastic capacity for +pleasure. + +One thing was imperative--the boy must cut out his card-playing for +stakes at once; and there was a way to accomplish that by impressing +Gerald with the idea that to do anything behind Neergard's back which he +would not care to tell him about was a sort of treachery. + +Who were these people, anyway, who would permit a boy of that age, and +in a responsible position, to play for such stakes? Who were they to +encourage such--? + +Selwyn's tightening grasp on his chair suddenly relaxed; he sank back, +staring at the brilliant coals. He, too, had forgotten. + +Now he remembered, in humiliation unspeakable, in bitterness past all +belief. + +Time sped, and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the bitterness +became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on drifting, back through +the exotic sorcery of dead years--back into the sun again, where honour +was bright and life was young--where all the world awaited happy +conquest--where there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to +day, because the golden light had turned to silver; but where the +earliest hint of dawn was a challenge, and where every yellow star +whispered "Awake!" + +And out of the magic _she_ had come into his world again! + +Sooner or later he would meet her now. That was sure. When? Where? And +of what significance was it, after all? + +Whom did it concern? Him? Her? And what had he to say to her, after all? +Or she to him? + +Not one word. + + * * * * * + +About midnight he roused himself and picked up his hat and coat. + +"Do you wish a cab, please?" whispered the club servant who held his +coat; "it is snowing very hard, sir." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +UNDER THE ASHES + + +He had neither burned nor returned the photograph to Mrs. Ruthven. The +prospect perplexed and depressed Selwyn. + +He was sullenly aware that in a town where the divorced must ever be +reckoned with when dance and dinner lists are made out, there is always +some thoughtless hostess--and sometimes a mischievous one; and the +chances were that he and Mrs. Jack Ruthven would collide, either through +the forgetfulness or malice of somebody or, through sheer hazard, at +some large affair where Destiny and Fate work busily together in +criminal copartnership. + +And he encountered her first at a masque and revel given by Mrs. +Delmour-Carnes where Fate contrived that he should dance in the same set +with his _ci-devant_ wife before the unmasking, and where, unaware, they +gaily exchanged salute and hand-clasp before the jolly _melee_ of +unmasking revealed how close together two people could come after +parting for ever and a night at the uttermost ends of the earth. + +When masks at last were off there was neither necessity nor occasion for +the two surprised and rather pallid young people to renew civilities; +but later, Destiny, the saturnine partner in the business, interfered; +and some fool in the smoking room tried to introduce Selwyn to Ruthven. +The slightest mistake on their parts would have rendered the incident +ridiculous; and Ruthven made that mistake. + +That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time +afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say +something amiable to one of the debutante Craig girls--and Selwyn found +himself again facing Alixe. + +If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they both +knew that they were in full view of the house. + +A cool bow and its cooler acknowledgment, a formal word and more formal +reply; and Selwyn made his way to the corridor, hot with vexation, +unaware of where he was going, and oblivious of the distressed and +apologetic young man, who so contritely kept step with him through the +brilliantly crowded promenade. + +That was the second time--not counting distant glimpses in crowded +avenues, in the Park, at Sherry's, or across the hazy glitter of +thronged theatres. But the third encounter was different. + +It was all a mistake, born of the haste of a heedless and elderly +matron, celebrated for managing to do the wrong thing, but who had been +excessively nice to him that winter, and whose position in Manhattan was +not to be assailed. + +"Dear Captain Selwyn," she wheezed over the telephone, "I'm short one +man; and we dine at eight and it's that now. _Could_ you help me? It's +the rich and yellow, this time, but you won't mind, will you?" + +Selwyn, standing at the lower telephone in the hall, asked her to hold +the wire a moment, and glanced up at his sister who was descending the +stairs with Eileen, dinner having at that instant been announced. + +"Mrs. T. West Minster--flying signals of distress," he said, carefully +covering the transmitter as he spoke; "man overboard, and will I kindly +take a turn at the wheel?" + +"What a shame!" said Eileen; "you are going to spoil the first home +dinner we have had together in weeks!" + +"Tell her to get some yellow pup!" growled Austin, from above. + +"As though anybody could get a yellow pup when they whistle," said Nina +hopelessly. + +"That's true," nodded Selwyn; "I'm the original old dog Tray. Whistle, +and I come padding up. Ever faithful, you see." + +And he uncovered the transmitter and explained to Mrs. T. West Minster +his absurd delight at being whistled at. Then he sent for a cab and +sauntered into the dining-room, where he was received with undisguised +hostility. + +"She's been civil to me," he said; "_jeunesse oblige_, you know. And +that's why I--" + +"There'll be a lot of debutantes there! What do you want to go for, you +cradle robber!" protested Austin--"a lot of water-bibbing, olive-eating, +talcum-powdered debutantes--" + +Eileen straightened up stiffly, and Selwyn's teasing smile and his +offered hand in adieu completed her indignation. + +"Oh, good-bye! No, I won't shake hands. There's your cab, now. I wish +you'd take Austin, too; Nina and I are tired of dining with the +prematurely aged." + +"Indeed, we are," said Mrs. Gerard; "go to your club, Austin, and give +me a chance to telephone to somebody under the anesthetic age." + +Selwyn departed, laughing, but he yawned in his cab all the way to +Fifty-third Street, where he entered in the wake of the usual laggards +and, surrendering hat and coat in the cloak room, picked up the small +slim envelope bearing his name. + +The card within disclosed the information that he was to take in Mrs. +Somebody-or-Other; he made his way through a great many people, found +his hostess, backed off, stood on one leg for a moment like a reflective +water-fowl, then found Mrs. Somebody-or-Other and was absently good to +her through a great deal of noise and some Spanish music, which seemed +to squirt through a thicket of palms and bespatter everybody. + +"Wonderful music," observed his dinner partner, with singular +originality; "_so_ like Carmen." + +"Is it?" he replied, and took her away at a nod from his hostess, whose +daughter Dorothy leaned forward from her partner's arm at the same +moment, and whispered: "I _must_ speak to you, mamma! You _can't_ put +Captain Selwyn there because--" + +But her mother was deaf and smilingly sensitive about it, so she merely +guessed what reply her child expected: "It's all settled, dear; Captain +Selwyn arrived a moment ago." And she closed the file. + +It was already too late, anyhow; and presently, turning to see who was +seated on his left, Selwyn found himself gazing into the calm, flushed +face of Alixe Ruthven. It was their third encounter. + +They exchanged a dazed nod of recognition, a meaningless murmur, and +turned again, apparently undisturbed, to their respective dinner +partners. + +A great many curious eyes, lingering on them, shifted elsewhere, in +reluctant disappointment. + +As for the hostess, she had, for one instant, come as near to passing +heavenward as she could without doing it when she discovered the +situation. Then she accepted it with true humour. She could afford to. +But her daughters, Sheila and Dorothy, suffered acutely, being of this +year's output and martyrs to responsibility. + +Meanwhile, Selwyn, grimly aware of an accident somewhere, and perfectly +conscious of the feelings which must by this time dominate his hostess, +was wondering how best to avoid anything that might resemble a +situation. + +Instead of two or three dozen small tables, scattered among the palms of +the winter garden, their hostess had preferred to construct a great oval +board around the aquarium. The arrangement made it a little easier for +Selwyn and Mrs. Ruthven. He talked to his dinner partner until she began +to respond in monosyllables, which closed each subject that he opened +and wearied him as much as he was boring her. But Bradley Harmon, the +man on her right, evidently had better fortune; and presently Selwyn +found himself with nobody to talk to, which came as near to embarrassing +him as anything could, and which so enraged his hostess that she struck +his partner's name from her lists for ever. People were already glancing +at him askance in sly amusement or cold curiosity. + +Then he did a thing which endeared him to Mrs. T. West Minster and to +her two disconsolate children. + +"Mrs. Ruthven," he said, very naturally and pleasantly, "I think perhaps +we had better talk for a moment or two--if you don't mind." + +She said quietly, "I don't mind," and turned with charming composure. +Every eye shifted to them, then obeyed decency or training; and the +slightest break in the gay tumult was closed up with chatter and +laughter. + +"Plucky," said Sandon Craig to his fair neighbour; "but by what chance +did our unfortunate hostess do it?" + +"She's usually doing it, isn't she? What occupies me," returned his +partner, "is how on earth Alixe could have thrown away that adorable man +for Jack Ruthven. Why, he is already trying to scramble into Rosamund +Fane's lap--the horrid little poodle!--always curled up on the edge of +your skirt!" + +She stared at Mrs. Ruthven across the crystal reservoir brimming with +rose and ivory-tinted water-lilies. + +"That girl is marked for destruction," she said slowly; "the gods have +done their work already." + +But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to her +little world only a pale brunette symmetry--a strange and changeless +lustre, varying as little as the moon's phases; and like that burnt-out +planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her clear, young beauty +seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden fire. + +Selwyn, outwardly amiable and formal, was saying in a low voice: "My +dinner partner is quite impossible, you see; and I happen to be here as +a filler in--commanded to the presence only a few minutes ago. It's a +pardonable error; I bear no malice. But I'm sorry for you." + +There was a silence; Alixe straightened her slim figure, and turned; but +young Innis, who had taken her in, had become confidential with Mrs. +Fane. As for Selwyn's partner, she probably divined his conversational +designs on her, but she merely turned her bare shoulder a trifle more +unmistakably and continued her gossip with Bradley Harmon. + +Alixe broke a tiny morsel from her bread, sensible of the tension. + +"I suppose," she said, as though reciting to some new acquaintance an +amusing bit of gossip--"that we are destined to this sort of thing +occasionally and had better get used to it." + +"I suppose so." + +"Please," she added, after a pause, "aid me a little." + +"I will if I can. What am I to say?" + +"Have you nothing to say?" she asked, smiling; "it need not be very +civil, you know--as long as nobody hears you." + +To school his features for the deception of others, to school his voice +and manner and at the same time look smilingly into the grave of his +youth and hope called for the sort of self-command foreign to his +character. Glancing at him under her smoothly fitted mask of amiability, +she slowly grew afraid of the situation--but not of her ability to +sustain her own part. + +They exchanged a few meaningless phrases, then she resolutely took young +Innis away from Rosamund Fane, leaving Selwyn to count the bubbles in +his wine-glass. + +But in a few moments, whether by accident or deliberate design, Rosamund +interfered again, and Mrs. Ruthven was confronted with the choice of a +squabble for possession of young Innis, of conspicuous silence, or of +resuming once more with Selwyn. And she chose the last resort. + +"You are living in town?" she asked pleasantly. + +"Yes." + +"Of course; I forgot. I met a man last night who said you had entered +the firm of Neergard & Co." + +"I have. Who was the man?" + +"You can never guess, Captain Selwyn." + +"I don't want to. Who was he?" + +"Please don't terminate so abruptly the few subjects we have in reserve. +We may be obliged to talk to each other for a number of minutes if +Rosamund doesn't let us alone. . . . The man was 'Boots' Lansing." + +"'Boots!' Here!" + +"Arrived from Manila Sunday. _Sans gene_ as usual he introduced you as +the subject, and told me--oh, dozens of things about you. I suppose he +began inquiring for you before he crossed the troopers' gangplank; and +somebody sent him to Neergard & Co. Haven't you seen him?" + +"No," he said, staring at the brilliant fish, which glided along the +crystal tank, goggling their eyes at the lights. + +"You--you are living with the Gerards, I believe," she said carelessly. + +"For a while." + +"Oh, 'Boots' says that he is expecting to take an apartment with you +somewhere." + +"What! Has 'Boots' resigned?" + +"So he says. He told me that you had resigned. I did not understand +that; I imagined you were here on leave until I heard about Neergard & +Co." + +"Do you suppose I could have remained in the service?" he demanded. His +voice was dry and almost accentless. + +"Why not?" she returned, paling. + +"You may answer that question more pleasantly than I can." + +She usually avoided champagne; but she had to do something for herself +now. As for him, he took what was offered without noticing what he took, +and grew whiter and whiter; but a fixed glow gradually appeared and +remained on her cheeks; courage, impatience, a sudden anger at the +forced conditions steadied her nerves. + +"Will you please prove equal to the situation?" she said under her +breath, but with a charming smile. "Do you know you are scowling? These +people here are ready to laugh; and I'd much prefer that they tear us to +rags on suspicion of our over-friendliness." + +"Who is that fool woman who is monopolising your partner?" + +"Rosamund Fane; she's doing it on purpose. You must try to smile now and +then." + +"My face is stiff with grinning," he said, "but I'll do what I can for +you--" + +"Please include yourself, too." + +"Oh, I can stand their opinions," he said; "I only meet the yellow sort +occasionally; I don't herd with them." + +"I do, thank you." + +"How do you like them? What is your opinion of the yellow set? Here they +sit all about you--the Phoenix Mottlys, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes yonder, the +Draymores, the Orchils, the Vendenning lady, the Lawns of Westlawn--" he +paused, then deliberately--"and the 'Jack' Ruthvens. I forgot, Alixe, +that you are now perfectly equipped to carry aloft the golden hod." + +"Go on," she said, drawing a deep breath, but the fixed smile never +altered. + +"No," he said; "I can't talk. I thought I could, but I can't. Take that +boy away from Mrs. Fane as soon as you can." + +"I can't yet. You must go on. I ask your aid to carry this thing +through. I--I am afraid of their ridicule. Could you try to help me a +little?" + +"If you put it that way, of course." And, after a silence, "What am I to +say? What in God's name shall I say to you, Alixe?" + +"Anything bitter--as long as you control your voice and features. Try to +smile at me when you speak, Philip." + +"All right. I have no reason to be bitter, anyway," he said; "and every +reason to be otherwise." + +"That is not true. You tell me that I have ruined your career in the +army. I did not know I was doing it. Can you believe me?" + +And, as he made no response: "I did not dream you would have to resign. +Do you believe me?" + +"There is no choice," he said coldly. "Drop the subject!" + +"That is brutal. I never thought--" She forced a smile and drew her +glass toward her. The straw-tinted wine slopped over and frothed on the +white skin of her arm. + +"Well," she breathed, "this ghastly dinner is nearly ended." + +He nodded pleasantly. + +"And--Phil?"--a bit tremulous. + +"What?" + +"Was it all my fault? I mean in the beginning? I've wanted to ask you +that--to know your view of it. Was it?" + +"No. It was mine, most of it." + +"Not all--not half! We did not know how; that is the wretched +explanation of it all." + +"And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. But the +fault is not there." + +"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'" + +"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name, +Alixe!" + +After a silence, she began: "One more thing--I must know it; and I am +going to ask you--if I may. Shall I?" + +He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful +bit of news to him: + +"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?" + +"I do not--dislike you." + +"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?" + +"Y-es." + +"Contempt?" + +"No." + +"What is it?" + +"It is that--I have not yet--become--reconciled." + +"To my--folly?" + +"To mine." + +She strove to laugh lightly, and failing, raised her glass to her lips +again. + +"Now you know," he said, pitching his tones still lower. "I am glad +after all that we have had this plain understanding. I have never felt +unkindly toward you. I can't. What you did I might have prevented had I +known enough; but I cannot help it now; nor can you if you would." + +"If I would," she repeated gaily--for the people opposite were staring. + +"We are done for," he said, nodding carelessly to a servant to refill +his glass; "and I abide by conditions because I choose to; not," he +added contemptuously, "because a complacent law has tethered you to--to +the thing that has crawled up on your knees to have its ears rubbed." + +The level insult to her husband stunned her; she sat there, upright, the +white smile stamped on her stiffened lips, fingers tightening about the +stem of her wine-glass. + +He began to toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to himself +in an ugly way. "_I_ wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, only look at +_him_!--Look at his gold wristlets; listen to his simper, his lisp. +Little girl--oh, little girl, what have you done to yourself?--for you +have done nothing to me, child, that can match it in sheer atrocity!" + +Her colour was long in returning. + +"Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand this--" + +"Yes, you can." + +"I am too close to the wall. I--" + +"Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that will tide +you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how they rush and +flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it--for people with the +intellects of canaries. . . . Will you please try to say something? Mrs. +T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms of a hen turkey at sundown +and we'll all go to roost in another minute. . . . Don't shiver that +way!" + +"I c-can't control it; I will in a moment. . . . Give me a chance; talk +to me, Phil." + +"Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most +stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman +was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning. . . . More time, +Alixe? . . . With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate +castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the _Tribune_ in +his pocket--the verdict being in accordance with fact; the Panama +Canal--" + +But it was over at last; a flurry of sweeping skirts; ranks of black and +white in escort to the passage of the fluttering silken procession. + +"Good-bye," she said; "I am not staying for the dance." + +"Good-bye," he said pleasantly; "I wish you better fortune for the +future. I'm sorry I was rough." + +He was not staying, either. A dull excitement possessed him, resembling +suspense--as though he were awaiting a denouement; as though there was +yet some crisis to come. + +Several men leaned forward to talk to him; he heard without heeding, +replied at hazard, lighted his cigar with the others, and leaned back, +his coffee before him--a smiling, attractive young fellow, apparently in +lazy enjoyment of the time and place and without one care in the world +he found so pleasant. + +For a while his mind seemed to be absolutely blank; voices were voices +only; he saw lights, and figures moving through a void. Then reality +took shape sharply; and his pulses began again hammering out the +irregular measure of suspense, though what it was that he was awaiting, +what expecting, Heaven alone knew. + +And after a while he found himself in the ballroom. + +The younger set was arriving; he recognised several youthful people, +friends of Eileen Erroll; and taking his bearings among these bright, +fresh faces--amid this animated throng, constantly increased by the +arrival of others, he started to find his hostess, now lost to sight in +the breezy circle of silk and lace setting in from the stairs. + +He heard names announced which meant nothing to him, which stirred no +memory; names which sounded vaguely familiar; names which caused him to +turn quickly--but seldom were the faces as familiar as the names. + +He said to a girl, behind whose chair he was standing: "All the younger +brothers and sisters are coming here to confound me; I hear a Miss Innis +announced, but it turns out to be her younger sister--" + +"By the way, do you know my name?" she asked. + +"No," he said frankly, "do you know mine?" + +"Of course, I do; I listened breathlessly when somebody presented you +wholesale at your sister's the other day. I'm Rosamund Fane. You might +as well be instructed because you're to take me in at the Orchils' next +Thursday night, I believe." + +"Rosamund Fane," he repeated coolly. "I wonder how we've avoided each +other so consistently this winter? I never before had a good view of +you, though I heard you talking to young Innis at dinner. And yet," he +added, smiling, "if I had been instructed to look around and select +somebody named Rosamund, I certainly should have decided on you." + +"A compliment?" she asked, raising her delicate eyebrows. + +"Ask yourself," he said. + +"I do; and I get snubbed." + +And, smiling still, he said: "Do you know the most mischievous air that +Schubert ever worried us with?" + +"'Rosamund,'" she said; "and--thank you, Captain Selwyn." She had +coloured to the hair. + +"'Rosamund,'" he nodded carelessly--"the most mischievous of melodies--" +He stopped short, then coolly resumed: "That mischievous quality is +largely a matter of accident, I fancy. Schubert never meant that +'Rosamund' should interfere with anybody's business." + +"And--when did you first encounter the malice in 'Rosamund,' Captain +Selwyn?" she asked with perfect self-possession. + +He did not answer immediately; his smile had died out. Then: "The first +time I really understood 'Rosamund' was when I heard Rosamund during a +very delightful dinner." + +She said: "If a woman keeps at a man long enough she'll extract +compliments or yawns." And looking up at a chinless young man who had +halted near her: "George, Captain Selwyn has acquired such a charmingly +Oriental fluency during his residence in the East that I thought--if you +ever desired to travel again--" She shrugged, and, glancing at Selwyn: +"Have you met my husband? Oh, of course." + +They exchanged a commonplace or two, then other people separated them +without resistance on their part. And Selwyn found himself drifting, +mildly interested in the vapid exchange of civilities which cost nobody +a mental effort. + +His sister, he had once thought, was certainly the most delightfully +youthful matron in New York. But now he made an exception of Mrs. Fane; +Rosamund Fane was much younger--must have been younger, for she still +had something of that volatile freshness--that vague atmosphere of +immaturity clinging to her like a perfume almost too delicate to detect. +And under that the most profound capacity for mischief he had ever known +of. Sauntering amiably amid the glittering groups continually forming +and disintegrating under the clustered lights, he finally succeeded in +reaching his hostess. + +And Mrs. T. West Minster disengaged herself from the throng with +intention as he approached. + +No--and he was so sorry; and it was very amiable of his hostess to want +him, but he was not remaining for the dance. + +So much for the hostess, who stood there massive and gem-laden, her +kindly and painted features tinted now with genuine emotion. + +"_Je m'accuse, mon fils_!--but you acted like a perfect dear," she said. +"_Mea culpa, mea culpa_; and _can_ you forgive a very much mortified old +lady who is really and truly fond of you?" + +He laughed, holding her fat, ringed hands in both of his with all the +attractive deference that explained his popularity. Rising excitement +had sent the colour into his face and cleared his pleasant gray eyes; +and he looked very young and handsome, his broad shoulders bent a trifle +before the enamelled and bejewelled matron. + +"Forgive you?" he repeated with a laugh of protest; "on the contrary, I +thank you. Mrs. Ruthven is one of the most charming women I know, if +that is what you mean?" + +Looking after him as he made his way toward the cloak room: "The boy is +thoroughbred," she reflected cynically; "and the only amusement anybody +can get out of it will be at my expense! Rosamund is a perfect cat!" + + * * * * * + +He had sent for his cab, which, no doubt, was in line somewhere, wedged +among the ranks of carriages stretching east and west along the snowy +street; and he stood on the thick crimson carpet under the awning while +it was being summoned. A few people like himself were not staying for +the dance; others who had dined by prearrangement with other hostesses, +had now begun to arrive, and the confusion grew as coach and brougham +and motor came swaying up through the falling snow to deposit their +jewelled cargoes of silks and laces under the vast awning picketed by +policemen and lined with fur-swathed grooms and spindle-legged +chauffeurs in coats of pony-skin. + +The Cornelius Suydams, emerging from the house, offered Selwyn tonneau +room, but he smilingly declined, having a mind for solitude and the +Lenox Club. A phalanx of debutantes, opera bound, also left. Then the +tide set heavily the other way, and there seemed no end to the line of +arriving vehicles and guests, until he heard a name pronounced; a +policeman warned back an approaching Fiat; and Selwyn saw Mrs. Ruthven, +enveloped in white furs, step from the portal. + +She saw him as he moved back, nodded, passed directly to her brougham, +and set foot on the step. Pausing here, she looked about her, right and +left, then over her shoulder straight back at Selwyn; and as she stood +in silence evidently awaiting him, it became impossible for him any +longer to misunderstand without a public affront to her. + +When he started toward her she spoke to her maid, and the latter moved +aside with a word to the groom in waiting. + +"My maid will dismiss your carriage," she said pleasantly when he halted +beside her. "There is one thing more which I must say to you." + +Was this what he had expected hazard might bring to him?--was this the +prophecy of his hammering pulses? + +"Please hurry before people come out," she added, and entered the +brougham. + +"I can't do this," he muttered. + +"I've sent away my maid," she said. "Nobody has noticed; those are +servants out there. Will you please come before anybody arriving or +departing does notice?" + +And, as he did not move: "Are you going to make me conspicuous by this +humiliation before servants?" + +He said something between his set teeth and entered the brougham. + +"Do you know what you've done?" he demanded harshly. + +"Yes; nothing yet. But you would have done enough to stir this borough +if you had delayed another second." + +"Your maid saw--" + +"My maid is _my_ maid." + +He leaned back in his corner, gray eyes narrowing. + +"Naturally," he said, "you are the one to be considered, not the man in +the case." + +"Thank you. _Are_ you the man in the case?" + +"There is no case," he said coolly. + +"Then why worry about me?" + +He folded his arms, sullenly at bay; yet had no premonition of what to +expect from her. + +"You were very brutal to me," she said at length. + +"I know it; and I did not intend to be. The words came." + +"You had me at your mercy; and showed me little--a very little at first. +Afterward, none." + +"The words came," he repeated; "I'm sick with self-contempt, I tell +you." + +She set her white-gloved elbow on the window sill and rested her chin in +her palm. + +"That--money," she said with an effort. "You set--some--aside for me." + +"Half," he nodded calmly. + +"Why?" + +He was silent. + +"_Why_? I did not ask for it? There was nothing in the--the legal +proceedings to lead you to believe that I desired it; was there?" + +"No." + +"Well, then," her breath came unsteadily, "what was there in _me_ to +make you think I would accept it?" + +He did not reply. + +"Answer me. This is the time to answer me." + +"The answer is simple enough," he said in a low voice. "Together we had +made a failure of partnership. When that partnership was dissolved, +there remained the joint capital to be divided. And I divided it. Why +not?" + +"That capital was yours in the beginning; not mine. What I had of my own +you never controlled; and I took it with me when I went." + +"It was very little," he said. + +"What of that? Did that concern you? Did you think I would have accepted +anything from you? A thousand times I have been on the point of +notifying you through attorney that the deposit now standing in my name +is at your disposal." + +"Why didn't you notify me then?" he asked, reddening to the temples. + +"Because--I did not wish to hurt you--by doing it that way. . . . And I +had not the courage to say it kindly over my own signature. That is why, +Captain Selwyn." + +And, as he remained silent: "That is what I had to say; not +all--because--I wish to--to thank you for offering it. . . . You did not +have very much, either; and you divided what you had. So I thank +you--and I return it.". . . The tension forced her to attempt a laugh. +"So we stand once more on equal terms; unless you have anything of mine +to return--" + +"I have your photograph," he said. + +The silence lasted until he straightened up and, rubbing the fog from +the window glass, looked out. + +"We are in the Park," he remarked, turning toward her. + +"Yes; I did not know how long it might take to explain matters. You are +free of me now whenever you wish." + +He picked up the telephone, hesitated: "Home?" he inquired with an +effort. And at the forgotten word they looked at one another in stricken +silence. + +"Y-yes; to _your_ home first, if you will let me drop you there--" + +"Thank you; that might be imprudent." + +"No, I think not. You say you are living at the Gerards?" + +"Yes, temporarily. But I've already taken another place." + +"Where?" + +"Oh, it's only a bachelor's kennel--a couple of rooms--" + +"Where, please?" + +"Near Lexington and Sixty-sixth. I could go there; it's only partly +furnished yet--" + +"Then tell Hudson to drive there." + +"Thank you, but it is not necessary--" + +"Please let me; tell Hudson, or I will." + +"You are very kind," he said; and gave the order. + +Silence grew between them like a wall. She lay back in her corner, +swathed to the eyes in her white furs; he in his corner sat upright, +arms loosely folded, staring ahead at nothing. After a while he rubbed +the moisture from the pane again. + +"Still in the Park! He must have driven us nearly to Harlem Mere. It +_is_ the Mere! See the cafe lights yonder. It all looks rather gay +through the snow." + +"Very gay," she said, without moving. And, a moment later: "Will you +tell me something? . . . You see"--with a forced laugh--"I can't keep my +mind--from it." + +"From what?" he asked. + +"The--tragedy; ours." + +"It has ceased to be that; hasn't it?" + +"Has it? You said--you said that w-what I did to you was n-not as +terrible as what I d-did to myself." + +"That is true," he admitted grimly. + +"Well, then, may I ask my question?" + +"Ask it, child." + +"Then--are you happy?" + +He did not answer. + +"--Because I desire it, Philip. I want you to be. You will be, won't +you? I did not dream that I was ruining your army career when I--went +mad--" + +"How did it happen, Alixe?" he asked, with a cold curiosity that chilled +her. "How did it come about?--wretched as we seemed to be +together--unhappy, incapable of understanding each other--" + +"Phil! There _were_ days--" + +He raised his eyes. + +"You speak only of the unhappy ones," she said; "but there were +moments--" + +"Yes; I know it. And so I ask you, _why_?" + +"Phil, I don't know. There was that last bitter quarrel--the night you +left for Leyte after the dance. . . . I--it all grew suddenly +intolerable. _You_ seemed so horribly unreal--everything seemed unreal +in that ghastly city--you, I, our marriage of crazy impulse--the people, +the sunlight, the deathly odours, the torturing, endless creak of the +punkha. . . . It was not a question of--of love, of anger, of hate. I +tell you I was stunned--I had no emotions concerning you or +myself--after that last scene--only a stupefied, blind necessity to get +away; a groping instinct to move toward home--to make my way home and be +rid for ever of the dream that drugged me! . . . And then--and then--" + +"_He_ came," said Selwyn very quietly. "Go on." + +But she had nothing more to say. + +"Alixe!" + +She shook her head, closing her eyes. + +"Little girl!--oh, little girl!" he said softly, the old familiar phrase +finding its own way to his lips--and she trembled slightly; "was there +no other way but that? Had marriage made the world such a living hell +for you that there was no other way but _that_?" + +"Phil, I helped to make it a hell." + +"Yes--because I was pitiably inadequate to design anything better for +us. I didn't know how. I didn't understand. I, the architect of our +future--failed." + +"It was worse than that, Phil; we"--she looked blindly at him--"we had +yet to learn what love might be. We did not know. . . . If we could have +waited--only waited!--perhaps--because there _were_ moments--" She +flushed crimson. + +"I could not make you love me," he repeated; "I did not know how." + +"Because you yourself had not learned how. But--at times--now looking +back to it--I think--I think we were very near to it--at moments. . . . +And then that dreadful dream closed down on us again. . . . And +then--the end." + +"If you could have held out," he breathed; "if I could have helped! It +was I who failed you after all!" + +For a long while they sat in silence; Mrs. Ruthven's white furs now +covered her face. At last the carriage stopped. + +As he sprang to the curb he became aware of another vehicle standing in +front of the house--a cab--from which Mrs. Ruthven's maid descended. + +"What is she doing here?" he asked, turning in astonishment to Mrs. +Ruthven. + +"Phil," she said in a low voice, "I knew you had taken this place. +Gerald told me. Forgive me--but when I saw you under the awning it came +to me in a flash what to do. And I've done it. . . . Are you sorry?" + +"No. . . . Did Gerald tell you that I had taken this place?" + +"Yes; I asked him." + +Selwyn looked at her gravely; and she looked him very steadily in the +eyes. + +"Before I go--may I say one more word?" he asked gently. + +"Yes--if you please. Is it about Gerald?" + +"Yes. Don't let him gamble. . . . You saw the signature on that check?" + +"Yes, Phil." + +"Then you understand. Don't let him do it again." + +"No. And--Phil?" + +"What?" + +"That check is--is deposited to your credit--with the rest. I have never +dreamed of using it." Her cheeks were afire again, but with shame this +time. + +"You will have to accept it, Alixe." + +"I cannot." + +"You must! Don't you see you will affront Gerald? He has repaid me; that +check is not mine, nor is it his." + +"I can't take it," she said with a shudder. "What shall I do with it?" + +"There are ways--hospitals, if you care to. . . . Good-night, child." + +She stretched out her gloved arm to him; he took her hand very gently +and retained it while he spoke. + +"I wish you happiness," he said; "I ask your forgiveness." + +"Give me mine, then." + +"Yes--if there is anything to forgive. Good-night." + +"Good-night--boy," she gasped. + +He turned sharply, quivering under the familiar name. Her maid, standing +in the snow, moved forward, and he motioned her to enter the brougham. + +"Home," he said unsteadily; and stood there very still for a minute or +two, even after the carriage had whirled away into the storm. Then, +looking up at the house, he felt for his keys; but a sudden horror of +being alone arrested him, and he stepped back, calling out to his +cabman, who was already turning his horse's head, "Wait a moment; I +think I'll drive back to Mrs. Gerard's. . . . And take your time." + + * * * * * + +It was still early--lacking a quarter of an hour to midnight--when he +arrived. Nina had retired, but Austin sat in the library, obstinately +plodding through the last chapters of a brand-new novel. + +"This is a wretched excuse for sitting up," he yawned, laying the book +flat on the table, but still open. "I ought never to be trusted alone +with any book." Then he removed his reading glasses, yawned again, and +surveyed Selwyn from head to foot. + +"Very pretty," he said. "Well, how are the yellow ones, Phil? Or was it +all debutante and slop-twaddle?" + +"Few from the cradle, but bunches were arriving for the dance as I +left." + +"Eileen went at half-past eleven." + +"I didn't know she was going," said Selwyn, surprised. + +"She didn't want you to. The Playful Kitten business, you know--frisks +apropos of nothing to frisk about. But we all fancied you'd stay for the +dance." He yawned mightily, and gazed at Selwyn with ruddy gravity. + +"Whisk?" he inquired. + +"No." + +"Cigar?"--mildly urgent. + +"No, thanks." + +"Bed?" + +"I think so. But don't wait for me, Austin. . . . Is that the evening +paper? Where is St. Paul?" + +Austin passed it across the table and sat for a moment, alternately +yawning and skimming the last chapter of his novel. + +"Stuff and rubbish, mush and piffle!" he muttered, closing the book and +pushing it from him across the table; "love, as usual, grossly out of +proportion to the ensemble. That theory of the earth's rotation, you +know; all these absurd books are built on it. Why do men read 'em? They +grin when they do it! Love is only the sixth sense--just one-sixth of a +man's existence. The other five-sixths of his time he's using his other +senses working for a living." + +Selwyn looked up over his newspaper, then lowered and folded it. + +"In these novels," continued Gerard, irritably, "five-sixths of the +pages are devoted to love; everything else is subordinated to it; it +controls all motives, it initiates all action, it drugs reason, it +prolongs the tuppenny suspense, sustains cheap situations, and produces +agonisingly profitable climaxes for the authors. . . . Does it act that +way in real life?" + +"Not usually," said Selwyn. + +"Nobody else thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the truth? Why +doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins +to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy +from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he's usually at the +club, or dining out, or asleep; isn't he? Well, then, how much time +does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the +result is a fraction every time; and that fraction represents the proper +importance of the love interest in its proper ratio to a man's entire +life." + +He sat up, greatly pleased with himself at having reduced sentiment to a +fixed proportion in the ingredients of life. + +"If I had time," he said, "I could tell them how to write a book--" He +paused, musing, while the confident smile spread. Selwyn stared at +space. + +"What does a young man know about love, anyway?" demanded his +brother-in-law. + +"Nothing," replied Selwyn listlessly. + +"Of course not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a pink and +white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another. That's +wholesome and natural; and that's the way things really are. Look at +Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of what love is?" + +"Naturally not," said Selwyn. + +"Correct. Only a fool novelist would attribute the deeper emotions to a +child like that. What does she know about anything? Love isn't a mere +emotion, either--that is all fol-de-rol and fizzle!--it's the false +basis of modern romance. Love is reason--not a nervous phenomenon. Love +is a sane passion, founded on a basic knowledge of good and evil. That's +what love is; the rest!"--he lifted the book, waved it contemptuously, +and pushed it farther away--"the rest is neuritis; the remedy a pill. +I'm going to bed; are you?" + +But Selwyn had lighted a cigar, and was again unfolding his evening +paper; so his brother-in-law moved ponderously away, yawning frightfully +at every heavy stride, and the younger man settled back in his chair, a +fragrant cigar balanced between his strong, slim fingers, one leg +dropped loosely over the other. After a while the newspaper fell to the +floor. + +He sat there without moving for a long time; his cigar, burning close, +had gone out. The reading-lamp spread a circle of soft light over the +floor; on the edge of it lay Kit-Ki, placid, staring at him. After a +while he noticed her. "You?" he said absently; "you hid so they couldn't +put you out." + +At the sound of his voice she began to purr. + +"Oh, it's all very well," he nodded; "but it's against the law. +However," he added, "I'm rather tired of rules and regulations myself. +Besides, the world outside is very cold to-night. Purr away, old lady; +I'm going to bed." + +But he did not stir. + +A little later, the fire having burned low, he rose, laid a pair of +heavy logs across the coals, dragged his chair to the hearth, and +settled down in it deeply. Then he lifted the cat to his knees. Kit-Ki +sang blissfully, spreading and relaxing her claws at intervals as she +gazed at the mounting blaze. + +"I'm going to bed, Kit-Ki," he repeated absently, "because that's a +pretty good place for me . . . far better than sitting up here with +you--and conscience." + +But he only lay back deeper in the velvet chair and lighted another +cigar. + +"Kit-Ki," he said, "the words men utter count in the reckoning; but not +as heavily as the words men leave unuttered; and what a man does scores +deeply; but--alas for the scars of the deeds he has left undone." + +The logs were now wrapped in flame, and their low mellow roaring +mingled to a monotone with the droning of the cat on his knees. + +Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. +When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids +fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he +opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on +the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little +Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons. + +"Upon my word!" he murmured, confused; then rising quickly, "Is that +you, Miss Erroll? What time is it?" + +"Four o'clock in the morning, Captain Selwyn," she said, straightening +up to her full height. "This room is icy; are you frozen?" + +Chilled through, he stood looking about in a dazed way, incredulous of +the hour and of his own slumber. + +"I was conversing with Kit-Ki a moment ago," he protested, in such a +tone of deep reproach that Eileen laughed while her maid relieved her of +furs and scarf. + +"Susanne, just unhook those two that I can't manage; light the fire in +my bedroom; _et merci bien, ma petite!_" + +The little maid vanished; Kit-Ki, who had been unceremoniously spilled +from Selwyn's knees, sat yawning, then rose and walked noiselessly to +the hearth. + +"I don't know how I happened to do it," he muttered, still abashed by +his plight. + +"We rekindled the fire for your benefit," she said; "you had better use +it before you retire." And she seated herself in the arm-chair, +stretching out her ungloved hands to the blaze--smooth, innocent hands, +so soft, so amazingly fresh and white. + +He moved a step forward into the warmth, stood a moment, then reached +forward for a chair and drew it up beside hers. + +"Do you mean to say you are not sleepy?" he asked. + +"I? No, not in the least. I will be to-morrow, though." + +"Did you have a good time?" + +"Yes--rather." + +"Wasn't it gay?" + +"Gay? Oh, very." + +Her replies were unusually short--almost preoccupied. She was generally +more communicative. + +"You danced a lot, I dare say," he ventured. + +"Yes--a lot," studying the floor. + +"Decent partners?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Who was there?" + +She looked up at him. "_You_ were not there," she said, smiling. + +"No; I cut it. But I did not know you were going; you said nothing about +it." + +"Of course, you would have stayed if you had known, Captain Selwyn?" She +was still smiling. + +"Of course," he replied. + +"Would you really?" + +"Why, yes." + +There was something not perfectly familiar to him in the girl's bright +brevity, in her direct personal inquiry; for between them, hitherto, the +gaily impersonal had ruled except in moments of lightest badinage. + +"Was it an amusing dinner?" she asked, in her turn. + +"Rather." Then he looked up at her, but she had stretched her slim +silk-shod feet to the fender, and her head was bent aside, so that he +could see only the curve of the cheek and the little close-set ear +under its ruddy mass of gold. + +"Who was there?" she asked, too, carelessly. + +For a moment he did not speak; under his bronzed cheek the flat muscles +stirred. Had some meddling, malicious fool ventured to whisper an unfit +jest to this young girl? Had a word--or a smile and a phrase cut in +two--awakened her to a sorry wisdom at his expense? Something had +happened; and the idea stirred him to wrath--as when a child is wantonly +frightened or a dumb creature misused. + +"What did you ask me?" he inquired gently. + +"I asked you who was there, Captain Selwyn." + +He recalled some names, and laughingly mentioned his dinner partner's +preference for Harmon. She listened absently, her chin nestling in her +palm, only the close-set, perfect ear turned toward him. + +"Who led the cotillion?" he asked. + +"Jack Ruthven--dancing with Rosamund Fane." + +She drew her feet from the fender and crossed them, still turned away +from him; and so they remained in silence until again she shifted her +position, almost impatiently. + +"You are very tired," he said. + +"No; wide awake." + +"Don't you think it best for you to go to bed?" + +"No. But you may go." + +And, as he did not stir: "I mean that you are not to sit here because I +do." And she looked around at him. + +"What has gone wrong, Eileen?" he said quietly. + +He had never before used her given name, and she flushed up. + +"There is nothing the matter, Captain Selwyn. Why do you ask?" + +"Yes, there is," he said. + +"There is not, I tell you--" + +"--And, if it is something you cannot understand," he continued +pleasantly, "perhaps it might be well to ask Nina to explain it to you." + +"There is nothing to explain." + +"--Because," he went on, very gently, "one is sometimes led by malicious +suggestion to draw false and unpleasant inferences from harmless +facts--" + +"Captain Selwyn--" + +"Yes, Eileen." + +But she could not go on; speech and thought itself remained sealed; only +a confused consciousness of being hurt remained--somehow to be remedied +by something he might say--might deny. Yet how could it help her for him +to deny what she herself refused to believe?--refused through sheer +instinct while ignorant of its meaning. + +Even if he had done what she heard Rosamund Fane say he had done, it had +remained meaningless to her save for the manner of the telling. But +now--but now! Why had they laughed--why had their attitudes and manner +and the disconnected phrases in French left her flushed and rigid among +the idle group at supper? Why had they suddenly seemed to remember her +presence--and express their abrupt consciousness of it in such furtive +signals and silence? + +It was false, anyway--whatever it meant. And, anyway, it was false that +he had driven away in Mrs. Ruthven's brougham. But, oh, if he had only +stayed--if he had only remained!--this friend of hers who had been so +nice to her from the moment he came into her life--so generous, so +considerate, so lovely to her--and to Gerald! + +For a moment the glow remained, then a chill doubt crept in; would he +have remained had he known she was to be there? _Where_ did he go after +the dinner? As for what they said, it was absurd. And yet--and yet-- + +He sat, savagely intent upon the waning fire; she turned restlessly +again, elbows close together on her knees, face framed in her hands. + +"You ask me if I am tired," she said. "I am--of the froth of life." + +His face changed instantly. "What?" he exclaimed, laughing. + +But she, very young and seriously intent, was now wrestling with the +mighty platitudes of youth. First of all she desired to know what +meaning life held for humanity. Then she expressed a doubt as to the +necessity for human happiness; duty being her discovery as sufficient +substitute. + +But he heard in her childish babble the minor murmur of an undercurrent +quickening for the first time; and he listened patiently and answered +gravely, touched by her irremediable loneliness. + +For Nina must remain but a substitute at best; what was wanting must +remain wanting; and race and blood must interpret for itself the subtler +and unasked questions of an innocence slowly awaking to a wisdom which +makes us all less wise. + +So when she said that she was tired of gaiety, that she would like to +study, he said that he would take up anything she chose with her. And +when she spoke vaguely of a life devoted to good works--of the wiser +charity, of being morally equipped to aid those who required material +aid, he was very serious, but ventured to suggest that she dance her +first season through as a sort of flesh-mortifying penance preliminary +to her spiritual novitiate. + +"Yes," she admitted thoughtfully; "you are right. Nina would feel +dreadfully if I did not go on--or if she imagined I cared so little for +it all. But one season is enough to waste. Don't you think so?" + +"Quite enough," he assured her. + +"--And--why should I ever marry?" she demanded, lifting her clear, sweet +eyes to his. + +"Why indeed?" he repeated with conviction. "I can see no reason." + +"I am glad you understand me," she said. "I am not a marrying woman." + +"Not at all," he assured her. + +"No, I am not; and Nina--the darling--doesn't understand. Why, what do +you suppose!--but _would_ it be a breach of confidence to anybody if I +told you?" + +"I doubt it," he said; "what is it you have to tell me?" + +"Only--it's very, very silly--only several men--and one nice enough to +know better--Sudbury Gray--" + +"Asked you to marry them?" he finished, nodding his head at the cat. + +"Yes," she admitted, frankly astonished; "but how did you know?" + +"Inferred it. Go on." + +"There is nothing more," she said, without embarrassment. "I told Nina +each time; but she confused me by asking for details; and the details +were too foolish and too annoying to repeat. . . . I do not wish to +marry anybody. I think I made that very plain to--everybody." + +"Right as usual," he said cheerfully; "you are too intelligent to +consider that sort of thing just now." + +"You _do_ understand me, don't you?" she said gratefully. "There are so +many serious things in life to learn and to think of, and that is the +very last thing I should ever consider. . . . I am very, very glad I had +this talk with you. Now I am rested and I shall retire for a good long +sleep." + +With which paradox she stood up, stifling a tiny yawn, and looked +smilingly at him, all the old sweet confidence in her eyes. Then, +suddenly mocking: + +"Who suggested that you call me by my first name?" she asked. + +"Some good angel or other. May I?" + +"If you please; I rather like it. But I couldn't very well call you +anything except 'Captain Selwyn.'" + +"On account of my age?" + +"Your _age_!"--contemptuous in her confident equality. + +"Oh, my wisdom, then? You probably reverence me too deeply." + +"Probably not. I don't know; I couldn't do it--somehow--" + +"Try it--unless you're afraid." + +"I'm not afraid!" + +"Yes, you are, if you don't take a dare." + +"You dare me?" + +"I do." + +"Philip," she said, hesitating, adorable in her embarrassment. "No! No! +No! I can't do it that way in cold blood. It's got to be 'Captain +Selwyn'. . . for a while, anyway. . . . Good-night." + +He took her outstretched hand, laughing; the usual little friendly shake +followed; then she turned gaily away, leaving him standing before the +whitening ashes. + +He thought the fire was dead; but when he turned out the lamp an hour +later, under the ashes embers glowed in the darkness of the winter +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MID-LENT + + +"Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for +church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday +supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent +from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the +grippe, and now moaned all day: "_Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir!_" + +Boots Lansing called to see Eileen, but she wouldn't come down, saying +her nose was too pink. Drina entertained Boots, and then Selwyn returned +and talked army talk with him until tea was served. Drina poured tea +very prettily; Nina had driven Austin to vespers. The family dined at +seven so Drina could sit up; special treat on account of Boots's +presence at table. Gerald was expected, but did not come. + +The next morning, Selwyn went downtown at the usual hour and found +Gerald, pale and shaky, hanging over his desk and trying to dictate +letters to an uncomfortable stenographer. + +So he dismissed the abashed girl for the moment, closed the door, and +sat down beside the young man. + +"Go home, Gerald" he said with decision; "when Neergard comes in I'll +tell him you are not well. And, old fellow, don't ever come near the +office again when you're in this condition." + +"I'm a perfect fool," faltered the boy, his voice trembling; "I don't +really care for that sort of thing, either; but you know how it is in +that set--" + +"What set?" + +"Oh, the Fanes--the Ruthv--" He stammered himself into silence. + +"I see. What happened last night?" + +"The usual; two tables full of it. There was a wheel, too. . . . I had +no intention--but you know yourself how it parches your throat--the +jollying and laughing and excitement. . . . I forgot all about what +you--what we talked over. . . . I'm ashamed and sorry; but I can stay +here and attend to things, of course--" + +"I don't want Neergard to see you," repeated Selwyn. + +"W-why," stammered the boy, "do I look as rocky as that?" + +"Yes. See here, you are not afraid of me, are you?" + +"No--" + +"You don't think I'm one of those long-faced, blue-nosed butters-in, do +you? You have confidence in me, haven't you? You know I'm an average and +normally sinful man who has made plenty of mistakes and who understands +how others make them--you know that, don't you, old chap?" + +"Y-es." + +"Then you _will_ listen, won't you, Gerald?" + +The boy laid his arms on the desk and hid his face in them. Then he +nodded. + +For ten minutes Selwyn talked to him with all the terse and colloquial +confidence of a comradeship founded upon respect for mutual fallibility. +No instruction, no admonition, no blame, no reproach--only an +affectionately logical review of matters as they stood--and as they +threatened to stand. + +The boy, fortunately, was still pliable and susceptible, still unalarmed +and frank. It seemed that he had lost money again--this time to Jack +Ruthven; and Selwyn's teeth remained sternly interlocked as, bit by bit, +the story came out. But in the telling the boy was not quite as frank as +he might have been; and Selwyn supposed he was able to stand his loss +without seeking aid. + +"Anyway," said Gerald in a muffled voice, "I've learned one lesson--that +a business man can't acquire the habits and keep the infernal hours that +suit people who can take all day to sleep it off." + +"Right," said Selwyn. + +"Besides, my income can't stand it," added Gerald naively. + +"Neither could mine, old fellow. And, Gerald, cut out this card +business; it's the final refuge of the feebleminded. . . . You like it? +Oh, well, if you've got to play--if you've no better resource for +leisure, and if non-participation isolates you too completely from other +idiots--play the imbecile gentleman's game; which means a game where +nobody need worry over the stakes." + +"But--they'd laugh at me!" + +"I know; but Boots Lansing wouldn't--and you have considerable respect +for him." + +Gerald nodded; he had immediately succumbed to Lansing like everybody +else. + +"And one thing more," said Selwyn; "don't play for stakes--no matter how +insignificant--where women sit in the game. Fashionable or not, it is +rotten sport--whatever the ethics may be. And, Gerald, tainted sport and +a clean record can't take the same fence together." + +The boy looked up, flushed and perplexed. "Why, every woman in town--" + +"Oh, no. How about your sister and mine?" + +"Of course not; they are different. Only--well, you approve of Rosamund +Fane and--Gladys Orchil--don't you?" + +"Gerald, men don't ask each other such questions--except as you ask, +without expecting or desiring an answer from me, and merely to be saying +something nice about two pretty women." + +The reproof went home, deeply, but without a pang; and the boy sat +silent, studying the blotter between his elbows. + +A little later he started for home at Selwyn's advice. But the memory of +his card losses frightened him, and he stopped on the way to see what +money Austin would advance him. + +Julius Neergard came up from Long Island, arriving at the office about +noon. The weather was evidently cold on Long Island; he had the +complexion of a raw ham, but the thick, fat hand, with its bitten nails, +which he offered Selwyn as he entered his office, was unpleasantly hot, +and, on the thin nose which split the broad expanse of face, a bead or +two of sweat usually glistened, winter and summer. + +"Where's Gerald?" he asked as an office-boy relieved him of his heavy +box coat and brought his mail to him. + +"I advised Gerald to go home," observed Selwyn carelessly; "he is not +perfectly well." + +Neergard's tiny mouse-like eyes, set close together, stole brightly in +Selwyn's direction; but they usually looked just a little past a man, +seldom at him. + +"Grippe?" he asked. + +"I don't think so," said Selwyn. + +"Lots of grippe 'round town," observed Neergard, as though satisfied +that Gerald had it. Then he sat down and rubbed his large, membranous +ears. + +"Captain Selwyn," he began, "I'm satisfied that it's a devilish good +thing." + +"Are you?" + +"Emphatically. I've mastered the details--virtually all of 'em. Here's +the situation in a grain of wheat!--the Siowitha Club owns a thousand or +so acres of oak scrub, pine scrub, sand and weeds, and controls four +thousand more; that is to say--the club pays the farmers' rents and +fixes their fences and awards them odd jobs and prizes for the farm +sustaining the biggest number of bevies. Also the club pays them to +maintain the millet and buckwheat patches and to act as wardens. In +return the farmers post their four thousand acres for the exclusive +benefit of the club. Is that plain?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Very well, then. Now the Siowitha is largely composed of very rich +men--among them Bradley Harmon, Jack Ruthven, George Fane, Sanxon +Orchil, the Hon. Delmour-Carnes--_that_ crowd--rich and stingy. That's +why they are contented with a yearly agreement with the farmers instead +of buying the four thousand acres. Why put a lot of good money out of +commission when they can draw interest on it and toss an insignificant +fraction of that interest as a sop to the farmers? Do you see? That's +your millionaire method--and it's what makes 'em in the first place." + +He drew a large fancy handkerchief from his pistol-pocket and wiped the +beads from the bridge of his limber nose. But they reappeared again. + +"Now," he said, "I am satisfied that, working very carefully, we can +secure options on every acre of the four thousand. There is money in it +either way and any way we work it; we get it coming and going. First of +all, if the Siowitha people find that they really cannot get on without +controlling these acres--why"--and he snickered so that his nose curved +into a thin, ruddy beak--"why, Captain, I suppose we _could_ let them +have the land. Eh? Oh, yes--if they _must_ have it!" + +Selwyn frowned slightly. + +"But the point is," continued Neergard, "that it borders the railroad on +the north; and where the land is not wavy it's flat as a pancake, +and"--he sank his husky voice--"it's fairly riddled with water. I paid a +thousand dollars for six tests." + +"Water!" repeated Selwyn wonderingly; "why, it's dry as a desert!" + +"_Underground water_!--only about forty feet on the average. Why, man, I +can hit a well flowing three thousand gallons almost anywhere. It's a +gold mine. I don't care what you do with the acreage--split it up into +lots and advertise, or club the Siowitha people into submission--it's +all the same; it's a gold mine--to be swiped and developed. Now there +remains the title searching and the damnable job of financing +it--because we've got to move cautiously, and knock softly at the doors +of the money vaults, or we'll be waking up some Wall Street relatives or +secret business associates of the yellow crowd; and if anybody bawls +for help we'll be up in the air next New Year's, and still hiking +skyward." + +He stood up, gathering together the mail matter which his secretary had +already opened for his attention. "There's plenty of time yet; their +leases were renewed the first of this year, and they'll run the year +out. But it's something to think about. Will you talk to Gerald, or +shall I?" + +"You," said Selwyn. "I'll think the matter over and give you my opinion. +May I speak to my brother-in-law about it?" + +Neergard turned in his tracks and looked almost at him. + +"Do you think there's any chance of his financing the thing?" + +"I haven't the slightest idea of what he might do. Especially"--he +hesitated--"as you never have had any loans from his people--I +understand--" + +"No," said Neergard; "I haven't." + +"It's rather out of their usual, I believe--" + +"So they say. But Long Island acreage needn't beg favours now. That's +all over, Captain Selwyn. Fane, Harmon & Co. know that; Mr. Gerard ought +to know it, too." + +Selwyn looked troubled. "Shall I consult Mr. Gerard?" he repeated. "I +should like to if you have no objection." + +Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just beyond +Selwyn's left shoulder. + +"Suppose you sound him," he suggested, "in strictest--" + +"Naturally," cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered desk, +opened the first letter his hand encountered. Now that his head was +turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a long minute, +then went out silently. + + * * * * * + +That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to his own +rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the matter before +him exactly as Neergard had put it. + +"You see," he added, "that I'm a sort of an ass about business methods. +What I like--what I understand, is to use good judgment, go in and +boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it becomes more valuable, +either through improvements or the natural enhancement of good value, +then take a legitimate profit, and repeat the process. That, in outline, +is what I understand. But, Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and +clubbing other people's money out of them with it--this slyly acquiring +land that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him +up--I don't like. There's always something of this sort that prevents my +cordial co-operation with Neergard--always something in the schemes +which hints of--of squeezing--of something underground--" + +"Like the water which he's going to squeeze out of the wells?" + +Selwyn laughed. + +"Phil," said his brother-in-law, "if you think anybody can do a +profitable business except at other people's expense, you are an ass." + +"Am I?" asked Selwyn, still laughing frankly. + +"Certainly. The land is there, plain enough for anybody to see. It's +always been there; it's likely to remain for a few aeons, I fancy. + +"Now, along comes Meynheer Julius Neergard--the only man who seems to +have brains enough to see the present value of that parcel to the +Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; nobody except +Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't he profit by it?" + +"Yes--but if he'd be satisfied to cut it up into lots and do what is +fair--" + +"Cut it up into nothing! Man alive, do you suppose the Siowitha people +would let him? They've only a few thousand acres; they've _got_ to +control that land. What good is their club without it? Do you imagine +they'd let a town grow up on three sides of their precious +game-preserve? And, besides, I'll bet you that half of their streams and +lakes take rise on other people's property--and that Neergard knows +it--the Dutch fox!" + +"That sort of--of business--that kind of coercion, does not appeal to +me," said Selwyn gravely. + +"Then you'd better go into something besides business in this town," +observed Austin, turning red. "Good Lord, man, where would my Loan and +Trust Company be if we never foreclosed, never swallowed a good thing +when we see it?" + +"But you don't threaten people." + +Austin turned redder. "If people or corporations stand in our way and +block progress, of course we threaten. Threaten? Isn't the threat of +punishment the very basis of law and order itself? What are laws for? +And we have laws, too--laws, under the law--" + +"Of the State of New Jersey," said Selwyn, laughing. "Don't flare up, +Austin; I'm probably not cut out for a business career, as you +point out--otherwise I would not have consulted you. I know +some laws--including 'The Survival of the Fittest,' and the +'Chain-of-Destruction'; and I have read the poem beginning + + "'Big bugs have little bugs to bite 'em.' + +"That's all right, too; but speaking of laws, I'm always trying to +formulate one for my particular self-government; and you don't mind, do +you?" + +"No," said Gerard, much amused, "I don't mind. Only when you talk +ethics--talk sense at the same time." + +"I wish I knew how," he said. + +They discussed Neergard's scheme for a little while longer; Austin, +shrewd and cautious, declined any personal part in the financing of the +deal, although he admitted the probability of prospective profits. + +"Our investments and our loans are of a different character," he +explained, "but I have no doubt that Fane, Harmon & Co.--" + +"Why, both Fane and Harmon are members of the club!" laughed Selwyn. +"You don't expect Neergard to go to them?" + +A peculiar expression flickered in Gerard's heavy features; perhaps he +thought that Fane and Harmon and Jack Ruthven were not above exploiting +their own club under certain circumstances. But whatever his opinion, he +said nothing further; and, suggesting that Selwyn remain to dine, went +off to dress. + +A few moments later he returned, crestfallen and conciliatory: + +"I forgot, Nina and I are dining at the Orchils. Come up a moment; she +wants to speak to you." + +So they took the rose-tinted rococo elevator; Austin went away to his +own quarters, and Selwyn tapped at Nina's boudoir. + +"Is that you, Phil? One minute; Watson is finishing my hair. . . . Come +in, now; and kindly keep your distance, my friend. Do you suppose I want +Rosamund to know what brand of war-paint I use?" + +"Rosamund," he repeated, with a good-humoured shrug; "it's likely--isn't +it?" + +"Certainly it's likely. You'd never know you were telling her +anything--but she'd extract every detail in ten seconds. . . . I +understand she adores you, Phil. What have you done to her?" + +"That's likely, too," he remarked, remembering his savagely polite +rebuke to that young matron after the Minster dinner. + +"Well, she does; you've probably piqued her; that's the sort of man she +likes. . . . Look at my hair--how bright and wavy it is, Phil. Tell me, +_do_ I appear fairly pretty to-night?" + +"You're all right, Nina; I mean it," he said. "How are the kids? How is +Eileen?" + +"That's why I sent for you. Eileen is furious at being left here all +alone; she's practically well and she's to dine with Drina in the +library. Would you be good enough to dine there with them? Eileen, poor +child, is heartily sick of her imprisonment; it would be a mercy, Phil." + +"Why, yes, I'll do it, of course; only I've some matters at home--" + +"Home! You call those stuffy, smoky, impossible, half-furnished rooms +_home_! Phil, when are you ever going to get some pretty furniture and +art things? Eileen and I have been talking it over, and we've decided to +go there and see what you need and then order it, whether you like it or +not." + +"Thanks," he said, laughing; "it's just what I've tried to avoid. I've +got things where I want them now--but I knew it was too comfortable to +last. Boots said that some woman would be sure to be good to me with an +art-nouveau rocking-chair." + +"A perfect sample of man's gratitude," said Nina, exasperated; "for I've +ordered two beautiful art-nouveau rocking-chairs, one for you and one +for Mr. Lansing. Now you can go and humiliate poor little Eileen, who +took so much pleasure in planning with me for your comfort. As for your +friend Boots, he's unspeakable--with my compliments." + +Selwyn stayed until he made peace with his sister, then he mounted to +the nursery to "lean over" the younger children and preside at prayers. +This being accomplished, he descended to the library, where Eileen +Erroll in a filmy, lace-clouded gown, full of turquoise tints, reclined +with her arm around Drina amid heaps of cushions, watching the waitress +prepare a table for two. + +He took the fresh, cool hand she extended and sat down on the edge of +her couch. + +"All O.K. again?" he inquired, retaining Eileen's hand in his. + +"Thank you--quite. Are you really going to dine with us? Are you sure +you want to? Oh, I know you've given up some very gay dinner +somewhere--" + +"I was going to dine with Boots when Nina rescued me. Poor Boots!--I +think I'll telephone--" + +"Telephone him to come here!" begged Drina. "Would he come? Oh, +please--I'd love to have him." + +"I wish you would ask him," said Eileen; "it's been so lonely and stupid +to lie in bed with a red nose and fishy eyes and pains in one's back and +limbs. Please do let us have a party." + +[Illustration: "'Two pillows,' said Drina sweetly."] + +So Selwyn went to the telephone, and presently returned, saying that +Boots was overwhelmed and would be present at the festivities; and +Drina, enraptured, ordered flowers to be brought from the dining-room +and a large table set for four, with particular pomp and circumstance. + +Mr. Archibald Lansing arrived very promptly--a short, stocky young man +of clean and powerful build, with dark, keen eyes always alert, and +humorous lips ever on the edge of laughter under his dark moustache. + +His manner with Drina was always delightful--a mixture of self-repressed +idolatry and busily naive belief in a thorough understanding between +them to exclude Selwyn from their company. + +"This Selwyn fellow here!" he exclaimed. "I warned him over the 'phone +we'd not tolerate him, Drina. I explained to him very carefully that you +and I were dining together in strictest privacy--" + +"He begged so hard," said Eileen. "Will somebody place an extra pillow +for Drina?" + +They seized the same pillow fiercely, confronting each other; massacre +appeared imminent. + +"_Two_ pillows," said Drina sweetly; and extermination was averted. The +child laughed happily, covering one of Boots's hands with both of hers. + +"So you've left the service, Mr. Lansing?" began Eileen, lying back and +looking smilingly at Boots. + +"Had to, Miss Erroll. Seven millionaires ran into my quarters and chased +me out and down Broadway into the offices of the Westchester Air Line +Company. Then these seven merciless multi-millionaires in buckram bound +and gagged me, stuffed my pockets full of salary, and forced me to +typewrite a fearful and secret oath to serve them for five long, weary +years. That's a sample of how the wealthy grind the noses of the poor, +isn't it, Drina?" + +The child slipped her hand from his, smiling uncertainly. + +"You don't mean all that, do you?" + +"Indeed I do, sweetheart." + +"Are you not a soldier lieutenant any more, then?" she inquired, +horribly disappointed. + +"Only a private in the workman's battalion, Drina." + +"I don't care," retorted the child obstinately; "I like you just as +much." + +"Have you really done it?" asked Selwyn as the first course was served. + +"_I?_ No. _They?_ Yes. We'll probably lose the Philippines now," he +added gloomily; "but it's my thankless country's fault; you all had a +chance to make me dictator, you know. Miss Erroll, do you want a +second-hand sword? Of course there are great dents in it--" + +"I'd rather have those celebrated boots," she replied demurely; and Mr. +Lansing groaned. + +"How tall you're growing, Drina," remarked Selwyn. + +"Probably the early spring weather," added Boots. "You're twelve, aren't +you?" + +"Thirteen," said Drina gravely. + +"Almost time to elope with me," nodded Boots. + +"I'll do it now," she said--"as soon as my new gowns are made--if you'll +take me to Manila. Will you? I believe my Aunt Alixe is there--" + +She caught Eileen's eye and stopped short. "I forgot," she murmured; "I +beg your pardon, Uncle Philip--" + +Boots was talking very fast and laughing a great deal; Eileen's plate +claimed her undivided attention; Selwyn quietly finished his claret; the +child looked at them all. + +"By the way," said Boots abruptly, "what's the matter with Gerald? He +came in before noon looking very seedy--" Selwyn glanced up quietly. + +"Wasn't he at the office?" asked Eileen anxiously. + +"Oh, yes," replied Selwyn; "he felt a trifle under the weather, so I +sent him home." + +"Is it the grippe?" + +"N-no, I believe not--" + +"Do you think he had better have a doctor? Where is he?" + +"He was here," observed Drina composedly, "and father was angry with +him." + +"What?" exclaimed Eileen. "When?" + +"This morning, before father went downtown." + +Both Selwyn and Lansing cut in coolly, dismissing the matter with a +careless word or two; and coffee was served--cambric tea in Drina's +case. + +"Come on," said Boots, slipping a bride-rose into Drina's curls; "I'm +ready for confidences." + +"Confidences" had become an established custom with Drina and Boots; it +meant that every time they saw one another they were pledged to tell +each other everything that had occurred in their lives since their last +meeting. + +So Drina, excitedly requesting to be excused, jumped up and, taking +Lansing's hand in hers, led him to a sofa in a distant corner, where +they immediately installed themselves and began an earnest and whispered +exchange of confidences, punctuated by little whirlwinds of laughter +from the child. + +Eileen settled deeper among her pillows as the table was removed, and +Selwyn drew his chair forward. + +"Suppose," she said, looking thoughtfully at him, "that you and I make a +vow to exchange confidences? Shall we, Captain Selwyn?" + +"Good heavens," he protested; "I--confess to _you_! You'd faint dead +away, Eileen." + +"Perhaps. . . . But will you?" + +He gaily evaded an answer, and after a while he fancied she had +forgotten. They spoke of other things, of her convalescence, of the +engagements she had been obliged to cancel, of the stupid hours in her +room--doubly stupid, as the doctor had not permitted her to read or sew. + +"And every day violets from you," she said; "it was certainly nice of +you. And--do you know that somehow--just because you have never yet +failed me--I thought perhaps--when I asked your confidence a moment +ago--" + +He looked up quickly. + +"_What_ is the matter with Gerald?" she asked. "Could you tell me?" + +"Nothing serious is the matter, Eileen." + +"Is he not ill?" + +"Not very." + +She lay still a moment, then with the slightest gesture: "Come here." + +He seated himself near her; she laid her hand fearlessly on his arm. + +"Tell me," she demanded. And, as he remained silent: "Once," she said, +"I came suddenly into the library. Austin and Gerald were there; Austin +seemed to be very angry with my brother. I heard him say something that +worried me; and I slipped out before they saw me." + +Selwyn remained silent. + +"Was _that_ it?" + +"I--don't know what you heard." + +"_Don't_ you understand me?" + +"Not exactly." + +"Well, then"--she crimsoned--"has Gerald m-misbehaved again?" + +"What did you hear Austin say?" he demanded. + +"I heard--something about dissipation. He was very angry with Gerald. It +is not the best way, I think, to become angry with either of us--either +me or Gerald--because then we are usually inclined to do it +again--whatever it is. . . . I do not mean for one moment to be disloyal +to Austin; you know that. . . . But I am so thankful that Gerald is fond +of you. . . . You like him, too, don't you?" + +"I am very fond of him." + +"Well, then," she said, "you will talk to him pleasantly--won't you? He +is _such_ a boy; and he adores you. It is easy to influence a boy like +that, you know--easy to shame him out of the silly things he does. . . . +That is all the confidence I wanted, Captain Selwyn. And you haven't +told me a word, you see--and I have not fainted--have I?" + +They laughed a little; her fingers, which had tightened on his arm, +relaxed; her hand fell away, and she straightened up, sitting Turk +fashion, and smoothing her hair which contact with the pillows had +disarranged so that it threatened to come tumbling over eyes and cheeks. + +"Oh, hair, hair!" she murmured, "you're Nina's despair and my endless +punishment. I'd twist and pin you tight if I dared--some day I will, +too. . . . What are you looking at so curiously, Captain Selwyn? My +mop?" + +"It's about the most stunningly beautiful thing I ever saw," he said, +still curious. + +She nodded gaily, both hands still busy with the lustrous strands. "It +_is_ nice; but I never supposed you noticed it. It falls to my waist; +I'll show it to you some time. . . . But I had no idea _you_ noticed +such things," she repeated, as though to herself. + +"Oh, I'm apt to notice all sorts of things," he said, looking so +provokingly wise that she dropped her hair and clapped both hands over +her eyes. + +"Now," she said, "if you are so observing, you'll know the colour of my +eyes. What are they?" + +"Blue--with a sort of violet tint," he said promptly. + +She laughed and lowered her hands. + +"All that personal attention paid to me!" she exclaimed. "You are +turning my head, Captain Selwyn. Besides, you are astonishing me, +because you never seem to know what women wear or what they resemble +when I ask you to describe the girls with whom you have been dining or +dancing." + +It was a new note in their cordial intimacy--this nascent intrusion of +the personal. To her it merely meant his very charming recognition of +her maturity--she was fast becoming a woman like other women, to be +looked at and remembered as an individual, and no longer classed vaguely +as one among hundreds of the newly emerged whose soft, unexpanded +personalities all resembled one another. + +For some time, now, she had cherished this tiny grudge in her +heart--that he had never seemed to notice anything in particular about +her except when he tried to be agreeable concerning some new gown. The +contrast had become the sharper, too, since she had awakened to the +admiration of other men. And the awakening was only a half-convinced +happiness mingled with shy surprise that the wise world should really +deem her so lovely. + +"A red-headed girl," she said teasingly; "I thought you had better taste +than--than--" + +"Than to think you a raving beauty?" + +"Oh," she said, "you don't think that!" + +As a matter of fact he himself had become aware of it so suddenly that +he had no time to think very much about it. It was rather strange, too, +that he had not always been aware of it; or was it partly the mellow +light from the lamp tinting her till she glowed and shimmered like a +young sorceress, sitting so straight there in her turquoise silk and +misty lace? + +Delicate luminous shadow banded her eyes; her hair, partly in shadow, +too, became a sombre mystery in rose-gold. + +"Whatever _are_ you staring at?" she laughed. "Me? I don't believe it! +Never have you so honoured me with your fixed attention, Captain Selwyn. +You really glare at me as though I were interesting. And I know you +don't consider me that; do you?" + +"How old are you, anyway?" he asked curiously. + +"Thank you, I'll be delighted to inform you when I'm twenty." + +"You look like a mixture of fifteen and twenty-five to-night," he said +deliberately; "and the answer is more and less than nineteen." + +"And you," she said, "talk like a frivolous sage, and your wisdom is as +weighty as the years you carry. And what is the answer to that? Do you +know, Captain Selwyn, that when you talk to me this way you look about +as inexperienced as Gerald?" + +"And do _you_ know," he said, "that I feel as inexperienced--when I talk +to you this way?" + +She nodded. "It's probably good for us both; I age, you renew the +frivolous days of youth when you were young enough to notice the colour +of a girl's hair and eyes. Besides, I'm very grateful to you. Hereafter +you won't dare sit about and cross your knees and look like the picture +of an inattentive young man by Gibson. You've admitted that you like two +of my features, and I shall expect you to notice and _admit_ that you +notice the rest." + +"I admit it now," he said, laughing. + +"You mustn't; I won't let you. Two kinds of dessert are sufficient at a +time. But to-morrow--or perhaps the day after, you may confess to me +your approbation of one more feature--only one, remember!--just one more +agreeable feature. In that way I shall be able to hold out for quite a +while, you see--counting my fingers as separate features! Oh, you've +given me a taste of it; it's your own fault, Captain Selwyn, and now I +desire more if you please--in semi-weekly lingering doses--" + +A perfect gale of laughter from the sofa cut her short. + +"Drina!" she exclaimed; "it's after eight!--and I completely forgot." + +"Oh, dear!" protested the child, "he's being so funny about the war in +Samar. Couldn't I stay up--just five more minutes, Eileen? Besides, I +haven't told him about Jessie Orchil's party--" + +"Drina, dear, you _know_ I can't let you. Say good-night, now--if you +want Mr. Lansing and your Uncle Philip to come to another party." + +"I'll just whisper one more confidence very fast," she said to Boots. He +inclined his head; she placed both hands on his shoulders, and, kneeling +on the sofa, laid her lips close to his ear. Eileen and Selwyn waited. + +When the child had ended and had taken leave of all, Boots also took his +leave; and Selwyn rose, too, a troubled, careworn expression replacing +the careless gaiety which had made him seem so young in Miss Erroll's +youthful eyes. + +"Wait, Boots," he said; "I'm going home with you." And, to Eileen, +almost absently: "Good-night; I'm so very glad you are well again." + +"Good-night," she said, looking up at him. The faintest sense of +disappointment came over her--at what, she did not know. Was it because, +in his completely altered face she realised the instant and easy +detachment from herself, and what concerned her?--was it because other +people, like Mr. Lansing--other interests--like those which so plainly, +in his face, betrayed his preoccupation--had so easily replaced an +intimacy which had seemed to grow newer and more delightful with every +meeting? + +What was it, then, that he found more interesting, more important, than +their friendship, their companionship? Was she never to grow old enough, +or wise enough, or experienced enough to exact--without exacting--his +paramount consideration and interest? Was there no common level of +mental equality where they could meet?--where termination of interviews +might be mutual--might be fairer to her? + +Now he went away, utterly detached from her and what concerned her--to +seek other interests of which she knew nothing; absorbed in them to her +utter exclusion, leaving her here with the long evening before her and +nothing to do--because her eyes were not yet strong enough to use for +reading. + +Lansing was saying: "I'll drive as far as the club with you, and then +you can drop me and come back later." + +"Right, my son; I'll finish a letter and then come back--" + +"Can't you write it at the club?" + +"Not that letter," he replied in a low voice; and, turning to Eileen, +smiled his absent, detached smile, offering his hand. + +But she lay back, looking straight up at him. + +"Are you going?" + +"Yes; I have several--" + +"Stay with me," she said in a low voice. + +For a moment the words meant nothing; then blank surprise silenced him, +followed by curiosity. + +"Is there something you wished to tell me?" he asked. + +"N-no." + +His perplexity and surprise grew. "Wait a second, Boots," he said; and +Mr. Lansing, being a fairly intelligent young man, went out and down the +stairway. + +"Now," he said, too kindly, too soothingly, "what is it, Eileen?" + +"Nothing. I thought--but I don't care. Please go, Captain Selwyn." + +"No, I shall not until you tell me what troubles you." + +"I can't." + +"Try, Eileen." + +"Why, it is nothing; truly it is nothing. . . . Only I was--it is so +early--only a quarter past eight--" + +He stood there looking down at her, striving to understand. + +"That is all," she said, flushing a trifle; "I can't read and I can't +sew and there's nobody here. . . . I don't mean to bother you--" + +"Child," he exclaimed, "do you _want_ me to stay?" + +"Yes," she said; "will you?" + +He walked swiftly to the landing outside and looked down. + +"Boots!" he called in a low voice, "I'm not going home yet. Don't wait +for me at the Lenox." + +"All right," returned Mr. Lansing cheerfully. A moment later the front +door closed below. Then Selwyn came back into the library. + +For an hour he sat there telling her the gayest stories and talking the +most delightful nonsense, alternating with interesting incisions into +serious subjects: which it enchanted her to dissect under his confident +guidance. + +Alert, intelligent, all aquiver between laughter and absorption, she had +sat up among her silken pillows, resting her weight on one rounded arm, +her splendid young eyes fixed on him to detect and follow and interpret +every change in his expression personal to the subject and to her share +in it. + +His old self again! What could be more welcome? Not one shadow in his +pleasant eyes, not a trace of pallor, of care, of that gray aloofness. +How jolly, how young he was after all! + +They discussed, or laughed at, or mentioned and dismissed with a gesture +a thousand matters of common interest in that swift hour--incredibly +swift, unless the hall clock's deadened chimes were mocking Time itself +with mischievous effrontery. + +She heard them, the enchantment still in her eyes; he nodded, listening, +meeting her gaze with his smile undisturbed. When the last chime had +sounded she lay back among her cushions. + +"Thank you for staying," she said quite happily. + +"Am I to go?" + +Smilingly thoughtful she considered him from her pillows: + +"Where were you going when I--spoiled it all? For you were going +somewhere--out there"--with a gesture toward the darkness +outside--"somewhere where men go to have the good times they always seem +to have. . . . Was it to your club? What do men do there? Is it very gay +at men's clubs? . . . It must be interesting to go where men have such +jolly times--where men gather to talk that mysterious man-talk which we +so often wonder at--and pretend we are indifferent. But we are very +curious, nevertheless--even about the boys of Gerald's age--whom we +laugh at and torment; and we can't help wondering how they talk to each +other--what they say that is so interesting; for they somehow manage to +convey that impression to us--even against our will. . . . If you stay, +I shall never have done with chattering. When you sit there with one +lazy knee so leisurely draped over the other, and your eyes laughing at +me through your cigar-smoke, about a million ideas flash up in me which +I desire to discuss with you. . . . So you had better go." + +"I am happier here," he said, watching her. + +"Really?" + +"Really." + +"Then--then--am _I_, also, one of the 'good times' a man can have?--when +he is at liberty to reflect and choose as he idles over his coffee?" + +"A man is fortunate if you permit that choice." + +"Are you serious? I mean a man, not a boy--not a dance or dinner +partner, or one of the men one meets about--everywhere from pillar to +post. Do you think me interesting to real men?--like you and Boots?" + +"Yes," he said deliberately, "I do. I don't know how interesting, +because--I never quite realised how--how you had matured. . . . That was +my stupidity." + +"Captain Selwyn!" in confused triumph; "you never gave me a chance; I +mean, you always were nice in--in the same way you are to Drina. . . . I +liked it--don't please misunderstand--only I knew there was something +else to me--something more nearly your own age. It was jolly to know you +were really fond of me--but youthful sisters grow faster than you +imagine. . . . And now, when you come, I shall venture to believe it is +not wholly to do me a kindness--but--a little--to do yourself one, too. +Is that not the basis of friendship?" + +"Yes." + +"Community and equality of interests?--isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"--And--in which the--the charity of superior experience and the +inattention of intellectual preoccupation and the amused concession to +ignorance must steadily, if gradually, disappear? Is that it, too?" + +Astonishment and chagrin at his misconception of her gave place to +outright laughter at his own expense. + +"Where on earth did you--I mean that I am quite overwhelmed under your +cutting indictment of me. Old duffers of my age--" + +"Don't say that," she said; "that is pleading guilty to the indictment, +and reverting to the old footing. I shall not permit you to go back." + +"I don't want to, Eileen--" + +"I am wondering," she said airily, "about that 'Eileen.' I'm not sure +but that easy and fluent 'Eileen' is part of the indictment. What do you +call Gladys Orchil, for example?" + +"What do I care what I call anybody?" he retorted, laughing, "as long as +they + + "'Answer to "Hi!" + Or to any loud cry'?" + +"But _I_ won't answer to 'Hi!'" she retorted very promptly; "and now +that you admit that I am a 'good time,' a mature individual with +distinguishing characteristics, and your intellectual equal if not your +peer in experience, I'm not sure that I shall answer at all whenever you +begin 'Eileen.' Or I shall take my time about it--or I may even reflect +and look straight through you before I reply--or," she added, "I may be +so profoundly preoccupied with important matters which do not concern +you, that I might not even hear you speak at all." + +Their light-hearted laughter mingled delightfully--fresh, free, +uncontrolled, peal after peal. She sat huddled up like a schoolgirl, +lovely head thrown back, her white hands clasping her knees; he, both +feet squarely on the floor, leaned forward, his laughter echoing hers. + +"What nonsense! What blessed nonsense you and I are talking!" she said, +"but it has made me quite happy. Now you may go to your club and your +mysterious man-talk--" + +"I don't want to--" + +"Oh, but you must!"--_she_ was now dismissing _him_--"because, although +I am convalescent, I am a little tired, and Nina's maid is waiting to +tuck me in." + +"So you send me away?" + +"_Send_ you--" She hesitated, delightfully confused in the reversal of +roles--not quite convinced of this new power which, of itself, had +seemed to invest her with authority over man. "Yes," she said, "I must +send you away." And her heart beat a little faster in her uncertainty as +to his obedience--then leaped in triumph as he rose with a reluctance +perfectly visible. + +"To-morrow," she said, "I am to drive for the first time. In the evening +I may be permitted to go to the Grays' mid-Lent dance--but not to dance +much. Will you be there? Didn't they ask you? I shall tell Suddy Gray +what I think of him--I don't care whether it's for the younger set +or not! Goodness me, aren't you as young as anybody! . . . Well, +then! . . . So we won't see each other to-morrow. And the day after +that--oh, I wish I had my engagement list. Never mind, I will telephone +you when I'm to be at home--or wherever I'm going to be. But it won't be +anywhere in particular because it's Lent, of course. . . . Good-night, +Captain Selwyn; you've been very sweet to me, and I've enjoyed every +single instant." + +When he had gone she rose, a trifle excited in the glow of abstract +happiness, and walked erratically about, smiling to herself, touching +and rearranging objects that caught her attention. Then an innocent +instinct led her to the mirror, where she stood a moment looking back +into the lovely reflected face with its disordered hair. + +"After all," she said, "I'm not as aged as I pretended. . . . I wonder +if he is laughing at me now. . . . But he was very, very nice to +me--wherever he has gone in quest of that 'good time' and to talk his +man-talk to other men--" + +In a reverie she stood at the mirror considering her own flushed cheeks +and brilliant eyes. + +"What a curiously interesting man he is," she murmured naively. "I shall +telephone him that I am not going to that _mi-careme_ dance. . . . +Besides, Suddy Gray is a bore with the martyred smile he's been +cultivating. . . . As though a happy girl would dream of marrying +anybody with all life before her to learn important things in! . . . +And that dreadful, downy Scott Innis--trying to make me listen +to _him_! . . . until I was ashamed to be alive! And Bradley +Harmon--ugh!--and oh, that mushy widower, Percy Draymore, who got hold +of my arm before I dreamed--" + +She shuddered and turned back into the room, frowning and counting her +slow steps across the floor. + +"After all," she said, "their silliness may be their greatest +mystery--but I don't include Captain Selwyn," she added loyally; "he is +far too intelligent to be like other men." + + * * * * * + +Yet, like other men, at that very moment Captain Selwyn was playing the +fizzing contents of a siphon upon the iced ingredients of a tall, thin +glass which stood on a table in the Lenox Club. + +The governor's room being deserted except by himself and Mr. Lansing, he +continued the animated explanation of his delay in arriving. + +"So I stayed," he said to Boots with an enthusiasm quite boyish, "and I +had a perfectly bully time. She's just as clever as she can +be--startling at moments. I never half appreciated her--she formerly +appealed to me in a different way--a young girl knocking at the door of +the world, and no mother or father to open for her and show her the +gimcracks and the freaks and the side-shows. Do you know, Boots, that +some day that girl is going to marry somebody, and it worries me, +knowing men as I do--unless you should think of--" + +"Great James!" faltered Mr. Lansing, "are you turning into a schatschen? +Are you planning to waddle through the world making matches for your +friends? If you are I'm quitting you right here." + +"It's only because you are the decentest man I happen to know," said +Selwyn resentfully. "Probably she'd turn you down, anyway. But--" and he +brightened up, "I dare say she'll choose the best to be had; it's a pity +though--" + +"What's a pity?" + +"That a charming, intellectual, sensitive, innocent girl like that +should be turned over to a plain lump of a man." + +"When you've finished your eulogy on our sex," said Lansing, "I'll walk +home with you." + +"Come on, then; I can talk while I walk; did you think I couldn't?" + +And as they struck through the first cross street toward Lexington +Avenue: "It's a privilege for a fellow to know that sort of a girl--so +many surprises in her--the charmingly unexpected and unsuspected!--the +pretty flashes of wit, the naive egotism which is as amusing as it is +harmless. . . . I had no idea how complex she is. . . . If you think you +have the simple feminine on your hands--forget it, Boots!--for she's as +evanescent as a helio-flash and as stunningly luminous as a searchlight. +. . . And here I've been doing the benevolent prig, bestowing society +upon her as a man doles out indigestible stuff to a kid, using a sort of +guilty discrimination in the distribution--" + +"What on earth is all this?" demanded Lansing; "are you perhaps _non +compos_, dear friend?" + +"I'm trying to tell you and explain to myself that little Miss Erroll is +a rare and profoundly interesting specimen of a genus not usually too +amusing," he replied with growing enthusiasm. "Of course, Holly Erroll +was her father, and that accounts for something; and her mother seems to +have been a wit as well as a beauty--which helps you to understand; but +the brilliancy of the result--aged nineteen, mind you--is out of all +proportion; cause and effect do not balance. . . . Why, Boots, an +ordinary man--I mean an everyday fellow who dines and dances and does +the harmlessly usual about town, dwindles to anaemic insignificance when +compared to that young girl--even now when she's practically +undeveloped--when her intelligence is like an uncut gem still in the +matrix of inexperience--" + +"Help!" said Boots feebly, attempting to bolt; but Selwyn hooked arms +with him, laughing excitedly. In fact Lansing had not seen his friend in +such excellent spirits for many, many months; and it made him +exceedingly light-hearted, so that he presently began to chant the old +service canticle: + + "I have another, he's just as bad, + He almost drives me crazy--" + +And arm in arm they swung into the dark avenue, singing "Barney Riley" +in resonant undertones, while overhead the chilly little Western stars +looked down through pallid convolutions of moving clouds, and the wind +in the gas-lit avenue grew keener on the street-corners. + +"Cooler followed by clearing," observed Boots in disgust. "Ugh; it's the +limit, this nipping, howling hemisphere." And he turned up his overcoat +collar. + +"I prefer it to a hemisphere that smells like a cheap joss-stick," said +Selwyn. + +"After all, they're about alike," retorted Boots--"even to the ladrones +of Broad Street and the dattos of Wall. . . . And here's our bally +bungalow now," he added, fumbling for his keys and whistling "taps" +under his breath. + +As the two men entered and started to ascend the stairs, a door on the +parlour floor opened and their landlady appeared, enveloped in a soiled +crimson kimona and a false front which had slipped sideways. + +"There's the Sultana," whispered Lansing, "and she's making +sign-language at you. Wig-wag her, Phil. Oh . . . good-evening, Mrs. +Greeve; did you wish to speak to me? Oh!--to Captain Selwyn. Of course." + +"If _you_ please," said Mrs. Greeve ominously, so Lansing continued +upward; Selwyn descended; Mrs. Greeve waved him into the icy parlour, +where he presently found her straightening her "front" with work-worn +fingers. + +"Captain Selwyn, I deemed it my duty to set up in order to inform you of +certain special doin's," she said haughtily. + +"What 'doings'?" he inquired. + +"Mr. Erroll's, sir. Last night he evidentially found difficulty with the +stairs and I seen him asleep on the parlour sofa when I come down to +answer the milkman, a-smokin' a cigar that wasn't lit, with his feet on +the angelus." + +"I'm very, very sorry, Mrs. Greeve," he said--"and so is Mr. Erroll. He +and I had a little talk to-day, and I am sure that he will be more +careful hereafter." + +"There is cigar-holes burned into the carpet," insisted Mrs. Greeve, +"and a mercy we wasn't all insinuated in our beds, one window-pane +broken and the gas a blue an' whistlin' streak with the curtains blowin' +into it an' a strange cat on to that satin dozy-do; the proof being the +repugnant perfume." + +"All of which," said Selwyn, "Mr. Erroll will make every possible amends +for. He is very young, Mrs. Greeve, and very much ashamed, I am sure. So +please don't make it too hard for him." + +She stood, little slippered feet planted sturdily in the first position +in dancing, fat, bare arms protruding from the kimona, her work-stained +fingers linked together in front of her. With a soiled thumb she turned +a ring on her third finger. + +"I ain't a-goin' to be mean to nobody," she said; "my gentlemen is +always refined, even if they do sometimes forget theirselves when young +and sporty. Mr. Erroll is now a-bed, sir, and asleep like a cherub, ice +havin' been served three times with towels, extra. Would you be good +enough to mention the bill to him in the morning?--the grocer bein' +sniffy." And she handed the wadded and inky memorandum of damages to +Selwyn, who pocketed it with a nod of assurance. + +"There was," she added, following him to the door, "a lady here to see +you twice, leavin' no name or intentions otherwise than business affairs +of a pressin' nature." + +"A--lady?" he repeated, halting short on the stairs. + +"Young an' refined, allowin' for a automobile veil." + +"She--she asked for me?" he repeated, astonished. + +"Yes, sir. She wanted to see your rooms. But havin' no orders, Captain +Selwyn--although I must say she was that polite and ladylike and," added +Mrs. Greeve irrelevantly, "a art rocker come for you, too, and another +for Mr. Lansing, which I placed in your respective settin'-rooms." + +"Oh," said Selwyn, laughing in relief, "it's all right, Mrs. Greeve. The +lady who came is my sister, Mrs. Gerard; and whenever she comes you are +to admit her whether or not I am here." + +"She said she might come again," nodded Mrs. Greeve as he mounted the +stairs; "am I to show her up any time she comes?" + +"Certainly--thank you," he called back--"and Mr. Gerard, too, if he +calls." + +He looked into Boots's room as he passed; that gentleman, in bedroom +costume of peculiar exotic gorgeousness, sat stuffing a pipe with shag, +and poring over a mass of papers pertaining to the Westchester Air +Line's property and prospective developments. + +"Come in, Phil," he called out; "and look at the dinky chair somebody +sent me!" But Selwyn shook his head. + +"Come into my rooms when you're ready," he said, and closed the door +again, smiling and turning away toward his own quarters. + +Before he entered, however, he walked the length of the hall and +cautiously tried the handle of Gerald's door. It yielded; he lighted a +match and gazed at the sleeping boy where he lay very peacefully among +his pillows. Then, without a sound, he reclosed the door and withdrew to +his apartment. + +As he emerged from the bedroom in his dressing-gown he heard the front +door-bell below peal twice, but paid no heed, his attention being +concentrated on the chair which Nina had sent him. First he walked +gingerly all around it, then he ventured nearer to examine it in detail, +and presently he tried it. + +"Of course," he sighed--"bless her heart!--it's a perfectly impossible +chair. It squeaks, too." But he was mistaken; the creak came from the +old stairway outside his door, weighted with the tread of Mrs. Greeve. +The tread and the creaking ceased; there came a knock, then heavy +descending footsteps on the aged stairway, every separate step +protesting until the incubus had sunk once more into the depths from +which it had emerged. + +As this happened to be the night for his laundry, he merely called out, +"All right!" and remained incurious, seated in the new chair and +striving to adjust its stiff and narrow architecture to his own broad +shoulders. Finally he got up and filled his pipe, intending to try the +chair once more under the most favourable circumstances. + +As he lighted his pipe there came a hesitating knock at the door; he +jerked his head sharply; the knock was repeated. + +Something--a faintest premonition--the vaguest stirring of foreboding +committed him to silence--and left him there motionless. The match +burned close to his fingers; he dropped it and set his heel upon the +sparks. + +Then he walked swiftly to the door, flung it open full width--and stood +stock still. + +And Mrs. Ruthven entered the room, partly closing the door behind, her +gloved hand still resting on the knob. + +For a moment they confronted one another, he tall, rigid, astounded; she +pale, supple, relaxing a trifle against the half-closed door behind her, +which yielded and closed with a low click. + +At the sound of the closing door he found his voice; it did not resemble +his own voice either to himself or to her; but she answered his +bewildered question: + +"I don't know why I came. Is it so very dreadful? Have I offended +you? . . . I did not suppose that men cared about conventions." + +"But--why on earth--did you come?" he repeated. "Are you in trouble?" + +"I seem to be now," she said with a tremulous laugh; "you are +frightening me to death, Captain Selwyn." + +Still dazed, he found the first chair at hand and dragged it toward her. + +She hesitated at the offer; then: "Thank you," she said, passing before +him. She laid her hand on the chair, looked a moment at him, and sank +into it. + +Resting there, her pale cheek against her muff, she smiled at him, and +every nerve in him quivered with pity. + +"World without end; amen," she said. "Let the judgment of man pass." + +"The judgment of this man passes very gently," he said, looking down at +her. "What brings you here, Mrs. Ruthven?" + +"Will you believe me?" + +"Yes." + +"Then--it is simply the desire of the friendless for a friend. Nothing +else--nothing more subtle, nothing of effrontery; n-nothing worse. Do +you believe me?" + +"I don't understand--" + +"Try to." + +"Do you mean that you have differed with--" + +"Him?" She laughed. "Oh, no; I was talking of real people, not of myths. +And real people are not very friendly to me, always--not that they are +disagreeable, you understand, only a trifle overcordial; and my most +intimate friend kisses me a little too frequently. By the way, she has +quite succumbed to you, I hear." + +"Who do you mean?" + +"Why, Rosamund." + +He said something under his breath and looked at her impatiently. + +"Didn't you know it?" she asked, smiling. + +"Know what?" + +"That Rosamund is quite crazy about you?" + +"Good Lord! Do you suppose that any of the monkey set are interested in +me or I in them?" he said, disgusted. "Do I ever go near them or meet +them at all except by accident in the routine of the machinery which +sometimes sews us in tangent patches on this crazy-quilt called +society?" + +[Illustration: "'I don't know why I came.'"] + +"But Rosamund," she said, laughing, "is now cultivating Mrs. Gerard." + +"What of it?" he demanded. + +"Because," she replied, still laughing, "I tell you, she is perfectly +mad about you. There's no use scowling and squaring your chin. Oh, I +ought to know what that indicates! I've watched you do it often enough; +but the fact is that the handsomest and smartest woman in town is for +ever dinning your perfections into my ears--" + +"I know," he said, "that this sort of stuff passes in your set for wit; +but let me tell you that any man who cares for that brand of humour can +have it any time he chooses. However, he goes outside the residence +district to find it." + +She flushed scarlet at his brutality; he drew up a chair, seated himself +very deliberately, and spoke, his unlighted pipe in his left hand: + +"The girl I left--the girl who left me--was a modest, clean-thinking, +clean-minded girl, who also had a brain to use, and employed it. +Whatever conclusion that girl arrived at concerning the importance of +marriage-vows is no longer my business; but the moment she confronts me +again, offering friendship, then I may use a friend's privilege, as I +do. And so I tell you that loosely fashionable badinage bores me. And +another matter--privileged by the friendship you acknowledge--forces me +to ask you a question, and I ask it, point-blank: Why have you again +permitted Gerald to play cards for stakes at your house, after promising +you would not do so?" + +The colour receded from her face and her gloved fingers tightened on the +arms of her chair. + +"That is one reason I came," she said; "to explain--" + +"You could have written." + +"I say it was _one_ reason; the other I have already given you--because +I--I felt that you were friendly." + +"I am. Go on." + +"I don't know whether you are friendly to me; I thought you were--that +night. . . . I did not sleep a wink after it . . . because I was quite +happy. . . . But now--I don't know--" + +"Whether I am still friendly? Well, I am. So please explain about +Gerald." + +"Are you sure?" raising her dark eyes, "that you mean to be kind?" + +"Yes, sure," he said harshly. "Go on." + +"You are a little rough with me; a-almost insolent--" + +"I--I have to be. Good God! Alixe, do you think this is nothing to +me?--this wretched mess we have made of life! Do you think my roughness +and abruptness comes from anything but pity?--pity for us both, I tell +you. Do you think I can remain unmoved looking on the atrocious +punishment you have inflicted on yourself?--tethered to--to _that_!--for +life!--the poison of the contact showing in your altered voice and +manner!--in the things you laugh at, in the things you live for--in the +twisted, misshapen ideals that your friends set up on a heap of nuggets +for you to worship? Even if we've passed through the sea of mire, can't +we at least clear the filth from our eyes and see straight and steer +straight to the anchorage?" + +She had covered her pallid face with her muff; he bent forward, his hand +on the arm of her chair. + +"Alixe, was there nothing to you, after all? Was it only a tinted ghost +that was blown into my bungalow that night--only a twist of shredded +marsh mist without substance, without being, without soul?--to be blown +away into the shadows with the next and stronger wind--and again to +drift out across the waste places of the world? I thought I knew a +sweet, impulsive comrade of flesh and blood; warm, quick, generous, +intelligent--and very, very young--too young and spirited, perhaps, to +endure the harness which coupled her with a man who failed her--and +failed himself. + +"That she has made another--and perhaps more heart-breaking mistake, is +bitter for me, too--because--because--I have not yet forgotten. And even +if I ceased to remember, the sadness of it must touch me. But I have not +forgotten, and because I have not, I say to you, anchor! and hold fast. +Whatever _he_ does, whatever you suffer, whatever happens, steer +straight on to the anchorage. Do you understand me?" + +Her gloved hand, moving at random, encountered his and closed on it +convulsively. + +"Do you understand?" he repeated. + +"Y-es, Phil." + +Head still sinking, face covered with the silvery fur, the tremors from +her body set her hand quivering on his. + +Heart-sick, he forbore to ask for the explanation; he knew the real +answer, anyway--whatever she might say--and he understood that any game +in that house was Ruthven's game, and the guests his guests; and that +Gerald was only one of the younger men who had been wrung dry in that +house. + +No doubt at all that Ruthven needed the money; he was only a male geisha +for the set that harboured him, anyway--picked up by a big, hard-eyed +woman, who had almost forgotten how to laugh, until she found him +furtively muzzling her diamond-laden fingers. So, when she discovered +that he could sit up and beg and roll over at a nod, she let him follow +her; and since then he had become indispensable and had curled up on +many a soft and silken knee, and had sought and fetched and carried for +many a pretty woman what she herself did not care to touch, even with +white-gloved fingers. + +What had she expected when she married him? Only innocent ignorance of +the set he ornamented could account for the horror of her disillusion. +What splendours had she dreamed of from the outside? What flashing and +infernal signal had beckoned her to enter? What mute eyes had promised? +What silent smile invited? All skulls seem to grin; but the world has +yet to hear them laugh. + + * * * * * + +"Philip?" + +"Yes, Alixe." + +"I did my best, w-without offending Gerald. Can you believe me?" + +"I know you did. . . . Don't mind what I said--" + +"N-no, not now. . . . You do believe me, don't you?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"Thank you. . . . And, Phil, I will try to s-steer straight--because you +ask me." + +"You must." + +"I will. . . . It is good to be here. . . . I must not come again, must +I?" + +"Not again, Alixe." + +"On your account?" + +"On your own. . . . What do _I_ care?" + +"I didn't know. They say--" + +"What?" he asked sharply. + +"A rumour--I heard it--others speak of it--perhaps to be disagreeable to +me--" + +"What have you heard?" + +"That--that you might marry again--" + +"Well, you can nail that lie," he said hotly. + +"Then it is not true?" + +"True! Do you think I'd take that chance again even if I felt free to do +it?" + +"Free?" she faltered; "but you _are_ free, Phil!" + +"I am not," he said fiercely; "no man is free to marry twice under such +conditions. It's a jest at decency and a slap in the face of +civilisation! I'm done for--finished; I had my chance and I failed. Do +you think I consider myself free to try again with the chance of further +bespattering my family?" + +"Wait until you really love," she said tremulously. + +He laughed incredulously. + +"I am glad that it is not true. . . . I am glad," she said. "Oh, Phil! +Phil!--for a single one of the chances we had again and again and +again!--and we did not know--we did not know! And yet--there were +moments--" + +Dry-lipped he looked at her, and dry of eye and lip she raised her head +and stared at him--through him--far beyond at the twin ghosts floating +under the tropic stars locked fast in their first embrace. + +Then she rose, blindly, covering her face with her hands, and he +stumbled to his feet, shrinking back from her--because dead fires were +flickering again, and the ashes of dead roses stirred above the scented +embers--and the magic of all the East was descending like a veil upon +them, and the Phantom of the Past drew nearer, smiling, wide-armed, +crowned with living blossoms. + +The tide rose, swaying her where she stood; her hands fell from her +face. Between them the grave they had dug seemed almost filled with +flowers now--was filling fast. And across it they looked at one another +as though stunned. Then his face paled and he stepped back, staring at +her from stern eyes. + +"Phil," she faltered, bewildered by the mirage, "is it only a bad dream, +after all?" And as the false magic glowed into blinding splendour to +engulf them: "Oh, boy! boy!--is it hell or heaven where we've fallen--?" + +There came a loud rapping at the door. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AFTERGLOW + + +"Phil," she wrote, "I am a little frightened. Do you suppose Boots +suspected who it was? I must have been perfectly mad to go to your rooms +that night; and we both were--to leave the door unlocked with the chance +of somebody walking in. But, Phil, how could I know it was the fashion +for your friends to bang like that and then come in without the excuse +of a response from you? + +"I have been so worried, so anxious, hoping from day to day that you +would write to reassure me that Boots did not recognise me with my back +turned to him and my muff across my eyes. + +"But scared and humiliated as I am I realise that it was well that he +knocked. Even as I write to you here in my own room, behind locked +doors, I am burning with the shame of it. + +"But I am _not_ that kind of woman, Phil; truly, truly, I am not. When +the foolish impulse seized me I had no clear idea of what I wanted +except to see you and learn for myself what you thought about Gerald's +playing at my house after I had promised not to let him. + +"Of course, I understood what I risked in going; I realised what common +interpretation might be put upon what I was doing. But ugly as it might +appear to anybody except you, my motive, you see, must have been quite +innocent--else I should have gone about it in a very different manner. + +"I wanted to see you, that is absolutely all; I was lonely for a +word--even a harsh one--from the sort of man you are. I wanted you to +believe it was in spite of me that Gerald came and played that night. + +"He came without my knowledge. I did not know he was invited. And when +he appeared I did everything to prevent him from playing; _you_ will +never know what took place--what I submitted to-- + +"I am trying to be truthful, Phil; I want to lay my heart bare for +you--but there are things a woman cannot wholly confess. Believe me, I +did what I could. . . . And _that_ is all I can say. Oh, I know what it +costs you to be mixed up in such contemptible complications. I, for my +part, can scarcely bear to have you know so much about me--and what I am +come to. That is my real punishment, Phil--not what you said it was. + +"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about me. It is +not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold front--or to +deceive any man in it. But our own little world is being rapidly +undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in it has seen my gay +mask stripped off--which is not well for a woman, Phil. + +"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these +haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms--for the honour of what +we once were to each other before the world. But steering a ghost-ship +through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind--a +little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel. + +"And now--with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I +draw toward me another sheet--the last I have still unstained; to ask at +last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages--and +for which these pages alone were written: + + "_What_ do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I care; + dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page. + _What_ do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable about Boots, + but that is partly fright--though I know I am safe enough with such + a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so that I cannot bear to + face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear of what _you_ must + think of me in the still, secret places of that heart of yours, + which I never, never understood. ALIXE." + +It was a week before he sent his reply--although he wrote many answers, +each in turn revised, corrected, copied, and recopied, only to be +destroyed in the end. But at last he forced himself to meet truth with +truth, cutting what crudity he could from his letter: + + "You ask me what I think of you; but that question should properly + come from me. What do _you_ think of a man who exhorts and warns a + woman to stand fast, and then stands dumb at the first impact of + temptation? + + "A sight for gods and men--that man! Is there any use for me to + stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I + am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and + it's high time I realised it. + + "If words of commendation, of courage, of kindly counsel, are + needed by anybody in this world, I am not the man to utter them. + What a hypocrite must I seem to you! I who sat there beside you + preaching platitudes in strong self-complacency, instructing you + how morally edifying it is to be good and unhappy. + + "Then, what happened? I don't know exactly; but I'm trying to be + honest, and I'll tell you what I think happened: + + "You are--you; I am--I; and we are still those same two people who + understood neither the impulse that once swept us together, nor the + forces that tore us apart--ah, more than that! we never understood + each other! And we do not now. + + "That is what happened. We were too near together again; the same + spark leaped, the same blindness struck us, the same impulse swayed + us--call it what we will!--and it quickened out of chaos, grew from + nothing into unreasoning existence. It was the terrific menace of + emotion, stunning us both--simply because you are you and I am I. + And that is what happened. + + "We cannot deny it; we may not have believed it possible--or in + fact considered it at all. I did not; I am sure you did not. Yet it + occurred, and we cannot deny it, and we can no more explain or + understand it than we can understand each other. + + "But one thing we do know--not through reason but through sheer + instinct: We cannot venture to meet again--that way. For I, it + seems, am a man like other men except that I lack character; and + you are--_you_! still unchanged--with all the mystery of + attraction, all the magic force of vitality, all the esoteric + subtlety with which you enveloped me the first moment my eyes met + yours. + + "There was no more reason for it then than there is now; and, as + you admit, it was not love--though, as you also admit, there were + moments approaching it. But nothing can have real being without a + basis of reason; and so, whatever it was, it vanished. This, + perhaps, is only the infernal afterglow. + + "As for me, I am, as you are, all at sea, self-confidence gone, + self-faith lost--a very humble person, without conceit, dazed, + perplexed, but still attempting to steer through toward that safe + anchorage which I dared lately to recommend to you. + + "And it is really there, Alixe, despite the fool who recites his + creed so tritely. + + "All this in attempt to bring order into my own mental confusion; + and the result is that I have formulated nothing. + + "So now I end where I began with that question which answers yours + without the faintest suspicion of reproach: What can you think of + such a man as I am? And in the presence of my _second_ failure your + answer must be that you now think what you once thought of him when + you first realised that he had failed you, PHILIP SELWYN." + +That very night brought him her reply: + + "Phil, dear, I do not blame you for one instant. Why do you say you + ever failed in anything? It was entirely my fault. But I am so + happy that you wrote as you did, taking all the blame, which is + like you. I can look into my mirror now--for a moment or two. + + "It is brave of you to be so frank about what you think came over + us. I can discuss nothing, admit nothing; but you always did reason + more clearly than I. Still, whatever spell it was that menaced us I + know very well could not have threatened you seriously; I know it + because you reason about it so logically. So it could have been + nothing serious. Love alone is serious; and it sometimes comes + slowly, sometimes goes slowly; but if you desire it to come + quickly, close your eves! And if you wish it to vanish, _reason + about it_! + + "We are on very safe ground again, Phil; you see we are making + little epigrams about love. + + "Rosamund is impatient--it's a symphony concert, and I must go--the + horrid little cynic!--I half believe she suspects that I'm writing + to you and tearing off yards of sentiment. It is likely I'd do + that, isn't it!--but I don't care what she thinks. Besides, it + behooves her to be agreeable, and she knows that I know it does! + _Voila_! + + "By the way, I saw Mrs. Gerard's pretty ward at the theatre last + night--Miss Erroll. She certainly is stunning--" + +Selwyn flattened out the letter and deliberately tore out the last +paragraph. Then he set it afire with a match. + +"At least," he said with an ugly look, "I can keep _her_ out of this"; +and he dropped the brittle blackened paper and set his heel on it. Then +he resumed his perusal of the mutilated letter, reread it, and finally +destroyed it. + + "Alixe," he wrote in reply, "we had better stop this letter-writing + before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make mischief might + very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of course, could not + close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so without any fear + that you will fail to understand why I ask it. Will you?" + +To which she replied: + + "Yes, Phil. Good-bye. + + "ALIXE." + +A box of roses left her his debtor; she was too intelligent to +acknowledge them. Besides, matters were going better with her. + +And that was all for a while. + +Meanwhile Lent had gone, and with it the last soiled snow of winter. It +was an unusually early spring; tulips in Union Square appeared +coincident with crocus and snow-drop; high above the city's haze +wavering wedges of wild-fowl drifted toward the Canadas; a golden +perfumed bloom clotted the naked branches of the park shrubs; Japanese +quince burst into crimson splendour; tender chestnut leaves unfolded; +the willows along the Fifty-ninth Street wall waved banners of gilded +green; and through the sunshine battered butterflies floated, and the +wild bees reappeared, scrambling frantically, powdered to the thighs in +the pollen of a million dandelions. + + "Spring, with that nameless fragrance in the air + Which breathes of all things fair," + +sang a young girl riding in the Park. And she smiled to herself as she +guided her mare through the flowering labyrinths. Other notes of the +Southern poet's haunting song stole soundless from her lips; for it was +only her heart that was singing there in the sun, while her silent, +smiling mouth mocked the rushing melody of the birds. + +Behind her, powerfully mounted, ambled the belted groom; she was riding +alone in the golden weather because her good friend Selwyn was very busy +in his office downtown, and Gerald, who now rode with her occasionally, +was downtown also, and there remained nobody else to ride with. Also the +horses were to be sent to Silverside soon, and she wanted to use them as +much as possible while the Park was at its loveliest. + +She, therefore, galloped conscientiously every morning, sometimes with +Nina, but usually alone. And every afternoon she and Nina drove there, +drinking the freshness of the young year--the most beautiful year of her +life, she told herself, in all the exquisite maturity of her +adolescence. + +So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking face +and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring eternal, whose +voiceless melody parted her lips. + +Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their +perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers +of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she +saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers +flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines. + +From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green +fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets the under-wood +world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning +fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big +cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year's +leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this +earthly paradise. + +It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted +her, and wheeling, joined her--a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted, +smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless +and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure. + +"Upon my word," she said gaily, "you are certainly spring incarnate, +Miss Erroll--the living embodiment of all this!" She swung her +riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her perfect teeth. "But +where is that faithful attendant cavalier of yours this morning? Is he +so grossly material that he prefers Wall Street, as does my good lord +and master?" + +"Do you mean Gerald?" asked Eileen innocently, "or Captain Selwyn?" + +"Oh, either," returned Rosamund airily; "a girl should have something +masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that she should +have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come, +D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent--smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me! +All these wretched birds a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin, +lacking even my own Gilpin! Shall we gallop?" + +Eileen nodded. + +When at length they pulled up along the reservoir, Eileen's hair had +rebelled as usual and one bright strand eurled like a circle of ruddy +light across her cheek; but Rosamund drew bridle as immaculate as ever +and coolly inspected her companion. + +"What gorgeous hair," she said, staring. "It's worth a coronet, you +know--if you ever desire one." + +"I don't," said the girl, laughing and attempting to bring the insurgent +curl under discipline. + +"I dare say you're right; coronets are out of vogue among us now. It's +the fashion to marry our own good people. By the way, you are +continuing to astonish the town, I hear." + +"What do you mean, Mrs. Fane?" + +"Why, first it was Sudbury, then Draymore, and how everybody says that +Boots--" + +"Boots!" repeated Miss Erroll blankly, then laughed deliciously. + +"Poor, poor Boots! Did they say _that_ about him? Oh, it really is too +bad, Mrs. Fane; it is certainly horridly impertinent of people to say +such things. My only consolation is that Boots won't care; and if he +doesn't, why should I?" + +Rosamund nodded, crossing her crop. + +"At first, though, I did care," continued the girl. "I was so ashamed +that people should gossip whenever a man was trying to be nice to me--" + +"Pooh! It's always the men's own faults. Don't you suppose the martyr's +silence is noisier than a shriek of pain from the house-tops? I know--a +little about men," added Rosamund modestly, "and they invariably say to +themselves after a final rebuff: 'Now, I'll be patient and brave and +I'll bear with noble dignity this cataclysm which has knocked the world +galley-west for me and loosened the moon in its socket and spoiled the +symmetry of the sun.' And they go about being so conspicuously brave +that any debutante can tell what hurts them." + +Eileen was still laughing, but not quite at her ease--the theme being +too personal to suit her. In fact, there usually seemed to be too much +personality in Rosamund's conversation--a certain artificial +indifference to convention, which she, Eileen, did not feel any desire +to disregard. For the elements of reticence and of delicacy were +inherent in her; the training of a young girl had formalised them into +rules. But since her debut she had witnessed and heard so many +violations of convention that now she philosophically accepted such, +when they came from her elders, merely reserving her own convictions in +matters of personal taste and conduct. + +For a while, as they rode, Rosamund was characteristically amusing, +sailing blandly over the shoals of scandal, though Eileen never +suspected it--wittily gay at her own expense, as well as at others, +flitting airily from topic to topic on the wings of a self-assurance +that becomes some women if they know when to stop. But presently the +mischievous perversity in her bubbled up again; she was tired of being +good; she had often meant to try the effect of a gentle shock on Miss +Erroll; and, besides, she wondered just how much truth there might be in +the unpleasantly persistent rumour of the girl's unannounced engagement +to Selwyn. + +"It _would_ be amusing, wouldn't it?" she asked with guileless +frankness; "but, of course, it is not true--this report of their +reconciliation." + +"Whose reconciliation?" asked Miss Erroll innocently. + +"Why, Alixe Ruthven and Captain Selwyn. Everybody is discussing it, you +know." + +"Reconciled? I don't understand," said Eileen, astonished. "They can't +be; how can--" + +"But it _would_ be amusing, wouldn't it? and she could very easily get +rid of Jack Ruthven--any woman could. So if they really mean to +remarry--" + +The girl stared, breathless, astounded, bolt upright in her saddle. + +"Oh!" she protested, while the hot blood mantled throat and cheek, "it +is wickedly untrue. How could such a thing be true, Mrs. Fane! It is--is +so senseless--" + +"That is what I say," nodded Rosamund; "it's so perfectly senseless that +it's amusing--even if they have become such amazingly good friends +again. _I_ never believed there was anything seriously sentimental in +the situation; and their renewed interest in each other is quite the +most frankly sensible way out of any awkwardness," she added cordially. + +Miserably uncomfortable, utterly unable to comprehend, the girl rode on +in silence, her ears ringing with Rosamund's words. And Rosamund, riding +beside her, cool, blond, and cynically amused, continued the theme with +admirable pretence of indifference: + +"It's a pity that ill-natured people are for ever discussing them; and +it makes me indignant, because I've always been very fond of Alixe +Ruthven, and I am positive that she does _not_ correspond with Captain +Selwyn. A girl in her position would be crazy to invite suspicion by +doing the things they say she is doing--" + +"Don't, Mrs. Fane, please, don't!" stammered Eileen; "I--I really can't +listen. I simply will not!" Then bewildered, hurt, and blindly confused +as she was, the instinct to defend flashed up--though from what she was +defending him she did not realise: "It is utterly untrue!" she exclaimed +hotly--"all that yo--all that _they_ say!--whoever they are--whatever +they mean. I cannot understand it--I don't understand, and I will not! +Nor will _he_!" she added with a scornful conviction that disconcerted +Rosamund; "for if you knew him as I do, Mrs. Fane, you would never, +never have spoken as you have." + +Mrs. Fane relished neither the naive rebuke nor the intimation that her +own acquaintance with Selwyn was so limited; and least of all did she +relish the implied intimacy between this red-haired young girl and +Captain Selwyn. + +"Dear Miss Erroll," she said blandly, "I spoke as I did only to assure +you that I, also, disregard such malicious gossip--" + +"But if you disregard it, Mrs. Fane, why do you repeat it?" + +"Merely to emphasise to you my disbelief in it, child," returned +Rosamund. "Do you understand?" + +"Y-es; thank you. Yet, I should never have heard of it at all if you had +not told me." + +Rosamund's colour rose one degree: + +"It is better to hear such things from a friend, is it not?" + +"I didn't know that one's friends said such things; but perhaps it is +better that way, as you say, only, I cannot understand the necessity of +my knowing--of my hearing--because it is Captain Selwyn's affair, after +all." + +"And that," said Rosamund deliberately, "is why I told _you_." + +"Told _me_? Oh--because he and I are such close friends?" + +"Yes--such very close friends that I"--she laughed--"I am informed that +your interests are soon to be identical." + +The girl swung round, self-possessed, but dreadfully pale. + +"If you believed that," she said, "it was vile of you to say what you +said, Mrs. Fane." + +"But I did _not_ believe it, child!" stammered Rosamund, several +degrees redder than became her, and now convinced that it was true. "I +n-never dreamed of offending you, Miss Erroll--" + +"Do you suppose I am too ignorant to take offence?" said the girl +unsteadily. "I told you very plainly that I did not understand the +matters you chose for discussion; but I do understand impertinence when +I am driven to it." + +"I am very, very sorry that you believe I meant it that way," said +Rosamund, biting her lips. + +"What did you mean? You are older than I, you are certainly experienced; +besides, you are married. If you can give it a gentler name than +insolence I would be glad--for your sake, Mrs. Fane. I only know that +you have spoiled my ride, spoiled the day for me, hurt me, humiliated +me, and awakened, not curiosity, not suspicion, but the horror of it, in +me. You did it once before--at the Minsters' dance; not, perhaps, that +you deliberately meant to; but you did it. And your subject was then, as +it is now, Captain Selwyn--my friend--" + +Her voice became unsteady again and her mouth curved; but she held her +head high and her eyes were as fearlessly direct as a child's. + +"And now," she said calmly, "you know where I stand and what I will not +stand. Natural deference to an older woman, the natural self-distrust of +a girl in the presence of social experience--and under its protection as +she had a right to suppose--prevented me from checking you when your +conversation became distasteful. You, perhaps, mistook my reticence for +acquiescence; and you were mistaken. I am still quite willing to remain +on agreeable terms with you, if you wish, and to forget what you have +done to me this morning." + +If Rosamund had anything left to say, or any breath to say it, there +were no indications of it. Never in her flippant existence had she been +so absolutely flattened by any woman. As for this recent graduate from +fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise how utterly and finally she +had been silenced by her. Incredulity, exasperation, amazement had +succeeded each other while Miss Erroll was speaking; chagrin, shame, +helplessness followed as bitter residue. But, in the end, the very +incongruity of the situation came to her aid; for Rosamund very easily +fell a prey to the absurd--even when the amusement was furnished at her +own expense; and a keen sense of the ridiculous had more than once saved +her dainty skirts from a rumpling that her modesty perhaps might have +forgiven. + +"I'm certainly a little beast," she said impulsively, "but I really do +like you. Will you forgive?" + +No genuine appeal to the young girl's generosity had ever been in vain; +she forgave almost as easily as she breathed. Even now in the flush of +just resentment it was not hard for her to forgive; she hesitated only +in order to adjust matters in her own mind. + +Mrs. Fane swung her horse and held out her right hand: + +"Is it _pax_, Miss Erroll? I'm really ashamed of myself. Won't you +forgive me?" + +"Yes," said the young girl, laying her gloved hand on Rosamund's very +lightly; "I've often thought," she added naively, "that I could like +you, Mrs. Fane, if you would only give me a chance." + +"I'll try--you blessed innocent! You've torn me into rags and tatters, +and you did it adorably. What I said was idle, half-witted, gossiping +nonsense. So forget every atom of it as soon as you can, my dear, and +let me prove that I'm not an utter idiot, if _I_ can." + +"That will be delightful," said Eileen with a demure smile; and Rosamund +laughed, too, with full-hearted laughter; for trouble sat very lightly +on her perfect shoulders in the noontide of her strength and youth. Sin +and repentance were rapid matters with Rosamund; cause, effect, and +remorse a quick sequence to be quickly reckoned up, checked off, and +cancelled; and the next blank page turned over to be ruled and filled +with the next impeachment. + +There was, in her, more of mischief than of real malice; and if she did +pinch people to see them wiggle it was partly because she supposed that +the pain would be as momentary as the pinch; for nothing lasted with +her, not even the wiggle. So why should the pain produced by a furtive +tweak interfere with the amusement she experienced in the victim's jump? + +But what had often saved her from a social lynching was her ability to +laugh at her own discomfiture, and her unfeigned liking and respect for +the turning worm. + + * * * * * + +"And, my dear," she said, concluding the account of the adventure to +Mrs. Ruthven that afternoon at Sherry's, "I've never been so roundly +abused and so soundly trounced in my life as I was this blessed morning +by that red-headed novice! Oh, my! Oh, la! I could have screamed with +laughter at my own undoing." + +"It's what you deserved," said Alixe, intensely annoyed, although +Rosamund had not told her all that she had so kindly and gratuitously +denied concerning her relations with Selwyn. "It was sheer effrontery of +you, Rosamund, to put such notions into the head of a child and stir +her up into taking a fictitious interest in Philip Selwyn which I +know--which is perfectly plain to m--to anybody never existed!" + +"Of course it existed!" retorted Rosamund, delighted now to worry Alixe. +"She didn't know it; that is all. It really was simple charity to wake +her up. It's a good match, too, and so obviously and naturally +inevitable that there's no harm in playing prophetess. . . . Anyway, +what do _we_ care, dear? Unless you--" + +"Rosamund!" said Mrs. Ruthven exasperated, "will you ever acquire the +elements of reticence? I don't know why people endure you; I don't, +indeed! And they won't much longer--" + +"Yes, they will, dear; that's what society is for--a protective +association for the purpose of enduring impossible people. . . . I +wish," she added, "that it included husbands, because in some sets it's +getting to be one dreadful case of who's whose. Don't you think so?" + +Alixe, externally calm but raging inwardly, sat pulling on her gloves, +heartily sorry she had lunched with Rosamund. + +The latter, already gloved, had risen and was coolly surveying the room. + +"_Tiens!_" she said, "there is the youthful brother of our red-haired +novice, now. He sees us and he's coming to inflict himself--with another +moon-faced creature. Shall we bolt?" + +Alixe turned and stared at Gerald, who came up boyishly red and +impetuous: + +"How d'ye do, Mrs. Ruthven; did you get my note? How d'ye do, Mrs. Fane; +awf'fly jolly to collide this way. Would you mind if--" + +"You," interrupted Rosamund, "ought to be _down_town--unless you've +concluded to retire and let Wall Street go to smash. What are you +pretending to do in Sherry's at this hour, you very dreadful infant?" + +"I've been lunching with Mr. Neergard--and _would_ you mind--" + +"Yes, I would," began Rosamund, promptly, but Alixe interrupted: "Bring +him over, Gerald." And as the boy thanked her and turned back: + +"I've a word to administer to that boy, Rosamund, so attack the Neergard +creature with moderation, please. You owe me _that_ at least." + +"No, I don't!" said Rosamund, disgusted; "I _won't_ be afflicted with +a--" + +"Nobody wants you to be too civil to him, silly! But Gerald is in his +office, and I want Gerald to do something for me. Please, Rosamund." + +"Oh, well, if you--" + +"Yes, I do. Here he is now; and _don't_ be impossible and frighten him, +Rosamund." + +The presentation of Neergard was accomplished without disaster to +anybody. On his thin nose the dew glistened, and his thick fat hands +were hot; but Rosamund was too bored to be rude to him, and Alixe turned +immediately to Gerald: + +"Yes, I did get your note, but I'm not at home on Tuesday. Can't you +come--wait a moment!--what are you doing this afternoon?" + +"Why, I'm going back to the office with Mr. Neergard--" + +"Nonsense! Oh, Mr. Neergard, _would_ you mind"--very sweetly--"if Mr. +Erroll did not go to the office this afternoon?" + +Neergard looked at her--almost--a fixed and uncomfortable smirk on his +round, red face: "Not at all, Mrs. Ruthven, if you have anything better +for him--" + +"I have--an allopathic dose of it. Thank you, Mr. Neergard. +Rosamund, we ought to start, you know: Gerald!"--with quiet +significance--"_good_-bye, Mr. Neergard. Please do not buy up the rest +of Long Island, because we need a new kitchen-garden very badly." + +Rosamund scarcely nodded his dismissal. And the next moment Neergard +found himself quite alone, standing with the smirk still stamped on his +stiffened features, his hat-brim and gloves crushed in his rigid +fingers, his little black mousy eyes fixed on nothing, as usual. + +A wandering head-waiter thought they were fixed on him and sidled up +hopeful of favours, but Neergard suddenly snarled in his face and moved +toward the door, wiping the perspiration from his nose with the most +splendid handkerchief ever displayed east of Sixth Avenue and west of +Third. + +Mrs. Ruthven's motor moved up from its waiting station; Rosamund was +quite ready to enter when Alixe said cordially: "Where can we drop you, +dear? _Do_ let us take you to the exchange if you are going there--" + +Now Rosamund had meant to go wherever they were going, merely because +they evidently wished to be alone. The abruptness of the check both +irritated and amused her. + +"If I knew anybody in the Bronx I'd make you take me there," she said +vindictively; "but as I don't you may drop me at the Orchils'--you +uncivil creatures. Gerald, I know _you_ want me, anyway, because you've +promised to adore, honour, and obey me. . . . If you'll come with me now +I'll play double dummy with you. No? Well, of all ingratitude! . . . +Thank you, dear, I perceive that this is Fifth Avenue, and furthermore +that this ramshackle chassis of yours has apparently broken down at the +Orchils' curb. . . . Good-bye, Gerald; it never did run smooth, you +know. I mean the course of T.L. as well as this motor. Try to be a good +boy and keep moving; a rolling stone acquires a polish, and you are not +in the moss-growing business, I'm sure--" + +"Rosamund! For goodness' sake!" protested Alixe, her gloved hands at her +ears. + +"Dear!" said Rosamund cheerfully, "take your horrid little boy!" + +And she smiled dazzlingly upon Gerald, then turned up her pretty nose at +him, but permitted him to attend her to the door. + +When he returned to Alixe, and the car was speeding Parkward, he began +again, eagerly: + +"Jack asked me to come up and, of course, I let you know, as I promised +I would. But it's all right, Mrs. Ruthven, because Jack said the stakes +will not be high this time--" + +"You accepted!" demanded Alixe, in quick displeasure. + +"Why, yes--as the stakes are not to amount to anything--" + +"Gerald!" + +"What?" he said uneasily. + +"You promised me that you would not play again in my house!" + +"I--I said, for more than I could afford--" + +"No, you said you would not play; that is what you promised, Gerald." + +"Well, I meant for high stakes; I--well, you don't want to drive me out +altogether--even from the perfectly harmless pleasure of playing for +nominal stakes--" + +"Yes, I do!" + +"W-why?" asked the boy in hurt surprise. + +"Because it is dangerous sport, Gerald--" + +"What! To play for a few cents a point--" + +"Yes, to play for anything. And as far as that goes there will be no +such play as you imagine." + +"Yes, there will--I beg your pardon--but Jack Ruthven said so--" + +"Gerald, listen to me. A bo--a man like yourself has no business playing +with people whose losses never interfere with their appetites next day. +A business man has no right to play such a game, anyway. I wonder what +Mr. Neergard would say if he knew you--" + +"Neergard! Why, he does know." + +"You confessed to him?" + +"Y-es; I had to. I was obliged to--to ask somebody for an advance--" + +"You went to him? Why didn't you go to Captain Selwyn?--or to Mr. +Gerard?" + +"I did!--not to Captain Selwyn--I was ashamed to. But I went to Austin +and he fired up and lit into me--and we had a muss-up--and I've stayed +away since." + +"Oh, Gerald! And it simply proves me right." + +"No, it doesn't; I did go to Neergard and made a clean breast of it. And +he let me have what I wanted like a good fellow--" + +"And made you promise not to do it again!" + +"No, he didn't; he only laughed. Besides, he said that he wished he had +been in the game--" + +"What!" exclaimed Alixe. + +"He's a first-rate fellow," insisted Gerald, reddening; "and it was very +nice of you to let me bring him over to-day. . . . And he knows +everybody downtown, too. He comes from a very old Dutch family, but he +had to work pretty hard and do without college. . . . I'd like it +awfully if you'd let me--if you wouldn't mind being civil to him--once +or twice, you know--" + +Mrs. Ruthven lay back in her seat, thoroughly annoyed. + +"My theory," insisted the boy with generous conviction, "is that a man +is what he makes himself. People talk about climbers and butters-in, but +where would anybody be in this town if nobody had ever butted in? It's +all rot, this aping the caste rules of established aristocracies; a +decent fellow ought to be encouraged. Anyway, I'm going to propose, him +for the Stuyvesant and the Proscenium. Why not?" + +"I see. And now you propose to bring him to my house?" + +"If you'll let me. I asked Jack and he seemed to think it might be all +right if you cared to ask him to play--" + +"I won't!" cried Alixe, revolted. "I will not turn my drawing-rooms into +a clearing-house for every money-laden social derelict in town! I've had +enough of that; I've endured the accumulated wreckage too long!--weird +treasure-craft full of steel and oil and coal and wheat and Heaven knows +what!--I won't do it, Gerald; I'm sick of it all--sick! sick!" + +The sudden, flushed outburst stunned the boy. Bewildered, he stared +round-eyed at the excited young matron who was growing more incensed and +more careless of what she exposed every second: + +"I will not make a public gambling-hell out of my own house!" she +repeated, dark eyes very bright and cheeks afire; "I will not continue +to stand sponsor for a lot of queer people simply because they don't +care what they lose in Mrs. Ruthven's house! You babble to me of limits, +Gerald; this is the limit! Do you--or does anybody else suppose that I +don't know what is being said about us?--that play is too high in our +house?--that we are not too difficile in our choice of intimates as long +as they can stand the pace!" + +"I--I never believed that," insisted the boy, miserable to see the tears +flash in her eyes and her mouth quiver. + +"You may as well believe it for it's true!" she said, exasperated. + +"T-true!--Mrs. Ruthven!" + +"Yes, true, Gerald! I--I don't care whether you know it; I don't care, +as long as you stay away. I'm sick of it all, I tell you. Do you think I +was educated for this?--for the wife of a chevalier of industry--" + +"M-Mrs. Ruthven!" he gasped; but she was absolutely reckless now--and +beneath it all, perhaps, lay a certainty of the boy's honour. She knew +he was to be trusted--was the safest receptacle for wrath so long +repressed. She let prudence go with a parting and vindictive slap, and +opened her heart to the astounded boy. The tempest lasted a few seconds; +then she ended as abruptly as she began. + +To him she had always been what a pretty young matron usually is to a +well-bred but hare-brained youth just untethered. Their acquaintance +had been for him a combination of charming experiences diluted with +gratitude for her interest and a harmless _soupcon_ of sentimentality. +In her particular case, however, there was a little something more--a +hint of the forbidden--a troubled enjoyment, because he knew, of course, +that Mrs. Ruthven was on no footing at all with the Gerards. So in her +friendship he savoured a piquancy not at all distasteful to a very young +man's palate. + +But now!--he had never, never seen her like this--nor any woman, for +that matter--and he did not know where to look or what to do. + +She was sitting back in the limousine, very limp and flushed; and the +quiver of her under lip and the slightest dimness of her averted brown +eyes distressed him dreadfully. + +"Dear Mrs. Ruthven," he blurted out with clumsy sympathy, "you mustn't +think such things, b-because they're all rot, you see; and if any fellow +ever said those things to me I'd jolly soon--" + +"Do you mean to say you've never heard us criticised?" + +"I--well--everybody is--criticised, of course--" + +"But not as we are! Do you read the papers? Well, then, do you +understand how a woman must feel to have her husband continually made +the butt of foolish, absurd, untrue stories--as though he were a +performing poodle! I--I'm sick of that, too, for another thing. Week +after week, month by month, unpleasant things have been accumulating; +and they're getting too heavy, Gerald--too crushing for my +shoulders. . . . Men call me restless. What wonder! Women link my name +with any man who is k-kind to me! Is there no excuse then for what they +call my restlessness? . . . What woman would not be restless whose +private affairs are the gossip of everybody? Was it not enough that I +endured terrific publicity when--when trouble overtook me two years +ago? . . . I suppose I'm a fool to talk like this; but a girl must do it +some time or burst!--and to whom am I to go? . . . There was only one +person; and I can't talk to--that one; he--that person knows too much +about me, anyway; which is not good for a woman, Gerald, not good for a +good woman. . . . I mean a pretty good woman; the kind people's sisters +can still talk to, you know. . . . For I'm nothing more interesting than +a _divorcee_, Gerald; nothing more dangerous than an unhappy little +fool. . . . I wish I were. . . . But I'm still at the wheel! . . . A +man I know calls it hard steering but assures me that there's anchorage +ahead. . . . He's a splendid fellow, Gerald; you ought to know +him--well--some day; he's just a clean-cut, human, blundering, erring, +unreasonable,lovable man whom any woman, who is not a fool herself, +could manage. . . . Some day I should like to have you know +him--intimately. He's good for people of your sort--even good for a +restless, purposeless woman of my sort. Peace to him!--if there's any +in the world. . . . Turn your back; I'm sniveling." + +A moment afterward she had calmed completely; and now she stole a +curious side glance at the boy and blushed a little when he looked back +at her earnestly. Then she smiled and quietly withdrew the hand he had +been holding so tightly in both of his. + +"So there we are, my poor friend," she concluded with a shrug; "the old +penny shocker, you know, 'Alone in a great city!'--I've dropped my +handkerchief." + +"I want you to believe me your friend," said Gerald, in the low, +resolute voice of unintentional melodrama. + +"Why, thank you; are you so sure you want that, Gerald?" + +"Yes, as long as I live!" he declared, generous emotion in the +ascendant. A pretty woman upset him very easily even under normal +circumstances. But beauty in distress knocked him flat--as it does every +wholesome boy who is worth his salt. + +And he said so in his own naive fashion; and the more eloquent he grew +the more excited he grew and the deeper and blacker appeared her wrongs +to him. + +At first she humoured him, and rather enjoyed his fresh, eager sympathy; +after a little his increasing ardour inclined her to laugh; but it was +very splendid and chivalrous and genuine ardour, and the inclination to +laugh died out, for emotion is contagious, and his earnestness not only +flattered her legitimately but stirred the slackened tension of her +heart-strings until, tightening again, they responded very faintly. + +"I had no idea that _you_ were lonely," he declared. + +"Sometimes I am, a little, Gerald." She ought to have known better. +Perhaps she did. + +"Well," he began, "couldn't I come and--" + +"No, Gerald." + +"I mean just to see you sometimes and have another of these jolly +talks--" + +"Do you call this a jolly talk?"--with deep reproach. + +"Why--not exactly; but I'm awfully interested, Mrs. Ruthven, and we +understand each other so well--" + +"I don't understand _you_", she was imprudent enough to say. + +This was delightful! Certainly he must be a particularly sad and subtle +dog if this clever but misunderstood young matron found him what in +romance is known as an "enigma." + +So he protested with smiling humility that he was quite transparent; she +insisted on doubting him and contrived to look disturbed in her mind +concerning the probable darkness of that past so dear to any young man +who has had none. + +As for Alixe, she also was mildly flattered--a trifle disdainfully +perhaps, but still genuinely pleased at the honesty of this crude +devotion. She was touched, too; and, besides, she trusted him; for he +was clearly as transparent as the spring air. Also most women lugged a +boy about with them; she had had several, but none as nice as Gerald. To +tie him up and tack his license on was therefore natural to her; and if +she hesitated to conclude his subjection in short order it was that, far +in a corner of her restless soul, there hid an ever-latent fear of +Selwyn; of his opinions concerning her fitness to act mentor to the boy +of whom he was fond, and whose devotion to him was unquestioned. + +Yet now, in spite of that--perhaps even partly because of it, she +decided on the summary taming of Gerald; so she let her hand fall, by +accident, close to his on the cushioned seat, to see what he'd do about +it. + +It took him some time to make up his mind; but when he did he held it so +gingerly, so respectfully, that she was obliged to look out of the +window. Clearly he was quite the safest and nicest of all the unfledged +she had ever possessed. + +"Please, don't," she said sadly. + +And by that token she took him for her own. + + * * * * * + +She was very light-hearted that evening when she dropped him at the +Stuyvesant Club and whizzed away to her own house, for he had promised +not to play again on her premises, and she had promised to be nice to +him and take him about when she was shy of an escort. She also repeated +that he was truly an "enigma" and that she was beginning to be a little +afraid of him, which was an economical way of making him very proud and +happy. Being his first case of beauty in distress, and his first +harmless love-affair with a married woman, he looked about him as he +entered the club and felt truly that he had already outgrown the young +and callow innocents who haunted it. + + * * * * * + +On her way home Alixe smilingly reviewed the episode until doubt of +Selwyn's approval crept in again; and her amused smile had faded when +she reached her home. + +The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone affair, +between Madison and Fifth; a pocket-edition of the larger mansions of +their friends, but with less excuse for the overelaboration since the +dimensions were only twenty by a hundred. As a matter of fact its narrow +ornate facade presented not a single quiet space the eyes might rest on +after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, +and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as +"near-aissance." + +However, into this limestone bonbon-box tripped Mrs. Ruthven, mounted +the miniature stairs with a whirl of her scented skirts, peeped into the +drawing-room, but continued mounting until she whipped into her own +apartments, separated from those of her lord and master by a locked +door. + +That is, the door had been locked for a long, long time; but presently, +to her intense surprise and annoyance, it slowly opened, and a little +man appeared in slippered feet. + +He was a little man, and plump, and at first glance his face appeared +boyish and round and quite guiltless of hair or of any hope of it. + +But, as he came into the electric light, the hardness of his features +was apparent; he was no boy; a strange idea that he had never been +assailed some people. His face was puffy and pallid and faint blue +shadows hinted of closest shaving; and the line from the wing of the +nostrils to the nerveless corners of his thin, hard mouth had been +deeply bitten by the acid of unrest. + +For the remainder he wore pale-rose pajamas under a silk-and-silver +kimona, an obi pierced with a jewelled scarf-pin; and he was smoking a +cigarette as thin as a straw. + +"Well!" said his young wife in astonished displeasure, instinctively +tucking her feet--from which her maid had just removed the shoes--under +her own chamber-robe. + +"Send her out a moment," he said, with a nod of his head toward the +maid. His voice was agreeable and full--a trifle precise and +overcultivated, perhaps. + +When the maid retired, Alixe sat up on the lounge, drawing her skirts +down over her small stockinged feet. + +"What on earth is the matter?" she demanded. + +"The matter is," he said, "that Gerald has just telephoned me from the +Stuyvesant that he isn't coming." + +"Well?" + +"No, it isn't well. This is some of your meddling." + +"What if it is?" she retorted; but her breath was coming quicker. + +"I'll tell you; you can get up and ring him up and tell him you expect +him to-night." + +She shook her head, eyeing him all the while. + +"I won't do it, Jack. What do you want him for? He can't play with the +people who play here; he doesn't know the rudiments of play. He's only a +boy; his money is so tied up that he has to borrow if he loses very +much. There's no sport in playing with a boy like that--" + +"So you've said before, I believe, but I'm better qualified to judge +than you are. Are you going to call him up?" + +"No, I am not." + +He turned paler. "Get up and go to that telephone!" + +"You little whippet," she said slowly, "I was once a soldier's wife--the +only decent thing I ever have been. This bullying ends now--here, at +this instant! If you've any dirty work to do, do it yourself. I've done +my share and I've finished." + +He was astonished; that was plain enough. But it was the sudden +overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, hand +outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair. Rage, even real anger, were +emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a very tired and bored +and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion was not good for his +arteries, the doctors told him. + +He found his chair, stood a moment with his back toward his wife, then +very slowly let himself down into the chair and sat facing her. There +was moisture on his soft, pallid skin, a nervous twitching of the under +lip; he passed one heavily ringed hand across his closely shaven jaw, +still staring at her. + +"I want to tell you something," he said. "You've got to stop your +interference with my affairs, and stop it now." + +"I am not interested in your affairs," she said unsteadily, still shaken +by her own revolt, still under the shock of her own arousing to a +resistance that had been long, long overdue. "If you mean," she went on, +"that the ruin of this boy is your affair, then I'll make it mine from +this moment. I've told you that he shall not play; and he shall not. And +while I'm about it I'll admit what you are preparing to accuse me of; I +_did_ make Sandon Craig promise to keep away; I _did_ try to make that +little fool Scott Innis promise, too; and when he wouldn't I informed +his father. . . . And every time you try your dirty bucket-shop methods +on boys like that, I'll do the same." + +He swore at her quite calmly; she smiled, shrugged, and, imprisoning her +knees in her clasped hands, leaned back and looked at him. + +"What a ninny I have been," she said, "to be afraid of you so long!" + +A gleam crossed his faded eyes, but he let her remark pass for the +moment. Then, when he was quite sure that violent emotion had been +exhausted within him: + +"Do you want your bills paid?" he asked. "Because, if you do, Fane, +Harmon & Co. are not going to pay them." + +"We are living beyond our means?" she inquired disdainfully. + +"Not if you will be good enough to mind your business, my friend. I've +managed this establishment on our winnings for two years. It's a detail; +but you might as well know it. My association with Fane, Harmon & Co. +runs the Newport end of it, and nothing more." + +"What did you marry me for?" she asked curiously. + +A slight colour came into his face: "Because that damned Rosamund Fane +lied about you." + +"Oh! . . . You knew that in Manila? You'd heard about it, hadn't +you--the Western timber-lands? Rosamund didn't mean to lie--only the +titles were all wrong, you know. . . . And so you made a bad break, +Jack; is that it?" + +"Yes, that is it." + +"And it cost you a fortune, and me a--husband. Is that it, my friend?" + +"I can afford you if you will stop your meddling," he said coolly. + +"I see; I am to stop my meddling and you are to continue your downtown +gambling in your own house in the evenings." + +"Precisely. It happens that I am sufficiently familiar with the +stock-market to make a decent living out of the Exchange; and it also +happens that I am sufficiently fortunate with cards to make the pleasure +of playing fairly remunerative. Any man who can put up proper margin has +a right to my services; any man whom I invite and who can take up his +notes, has a right to play under my roof. If his note goes to protest, +he forfeits that right. Now will you kindly explain to yourself exactly +how this matter can be of any interest to you?" + +"I have explained it," she said wearily. "Will you please go, now?" + +He sat a moment, then rose: + +"You make a point of excluding Gerald?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well; I'll telephone Draymore. And"--he looked back from the door +of his own apartments--"I got Julius Neergard on the wire this afternoon +and he'll dine with us." + +He gathered up his shimmering kimona, hesitated, halted, and again +looked back. + +"When you're dressed," he drawled, "I've a word to say to you about the +game to-night, and another about Gerald." + +"I shall not play," she retorted scornfully, "nor will Gerald." + +"Oh, yes, you will--and play your best, too. And I'll expect him next +time." + +"I shall not play!" + +He said deliberately: "You will not only play, but play cleverly; and in +the interim, while dressing, you will reflect how much more agreeable it +is to play cards here than the fool at ten o'clock at night in the +bachelor apartments of your late lamented." + +And he entered his room; and his wife, getting blindly to her feet, +every atom of colour gone from lip and cheek, stood rigid, both small +hands clutching the foot-board of the gilded bed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE UNEXPECTED + + +Differences of opinion between himself and Neergard concerning the +ethics of good taste involved in forcing the Siowitha Club matter, +Gerald's decreasing attention to business and increasing intimacy with +the Fane-Ruthven coterie, began to make Selwyn very uncomfortable. The +boy's close relations with Neergard worried him most of all; and though +Neergard finally agreed to drop the Siowitha matter as a fixed policy in +which Selwyn had been expected to participate at some indefinite date, +the arrangement seemed only to cement the man's confidential +companionship with Gerald. + +This added to Selwyn's restlessness; and one day in early spring he had +a long conference with Gerald--a most unsatisfactory one. Gerald, for +the first time, remained reticent; and when Selwyn, presuming on the +cordial understanding between them, pressed him a little, the boy turned +sullen; and Selwyn let the matter drop very quickly. + +But neither tact nor caution seemed to serve now; Gerald, more and more +engrossed in occult social affairs of which he made no mention to +Selwyn, was still amiable and friendly, even at times cordial and +lovable; but he was no longer frank or even communicative; and Selwyn, +fearing to arouse him again to sullenness or perhaps even to suspicious +defiance, forbore to press him beyond the most tentative advances +toward the regaining of his confidence. + +This, very naturally, grieved and mortified the elder man; but what +troubled him still more was that Gerald and Neergard were becoming so +amazingly companionable; for it was easy to see that they had in common +a number of personal interests which he did not share, and that their +silence concerning these interests amounted to a secrecy almost +offensive. + +Again and again, coming unexpectedly upon them, he noticed that their +confab ceased with his appearance. Often, too, glances of warning +intelligence passed between them in his presence, which, no doubt, they +supposed were unnoticed by him. + +They left the office together frequently, now; they often lunched +uptown. Whether they were in each other's company evenings, Selwyn did +not know, for Gerald no longer volunteered information as to his +whereabouts or doings. And all this hurt Selwyn, and alarmed him, too, +for he was slowly coming to the conclusion that he did not like +Neergard, that he would never sign articles of partnership with him, and +that even his formal associateship with the company was too close a +relation for his own peace of mind. But on Gerald's account he stayed +on; he did not like to leave the boy alone for his sister's sake as well +as for his own. + +Matters drifted that way through early spring. He actually grew to +dislike both Neergard and the business of Neergard & Co.--for no one +particular reason, perhaps, but in general; though he did not yet care +to ask himself to be more precise in his unuttered criticisms. + +However, detail and routine, the simpler alphabet of the business, +continued to occupy him. He consulted both Neergard and Gerald as usual; +they often consulted him or pretended to do so. Land was bought and +sold and resold, new projects discussed, new properties appraised, new +mortgage loans negotiated; and solely because of his desire to remain +near Gerald, this sort of thing might have continued indefinitely. But +Neergard broke his word to him. + +And one morning, before he left his rooms at Mrs. Greeve's lodgings to +go downtown, Percy Draymore called him up on the telephone; and as that +overfed young man's usual rising hour was notoriously nearer noon than +eight o'clock, it surprised Selwyn to be asked to remain in his rooms +for a little while until Draymore and one or two friends could call on +him personally concerning a matter of importance. + +He therefore breakfasted leisurely; and he was still scanning the real +estate columns of a morning paper when Mrs. Greeve came panting to his +door and ushered in a file of rather sleepy but important looking +gentlemen, evidently unaccustomed to being abroad so early, and bored to +death with their experience. + +They were men he knew only formally, or, at best, merely as fellow club +members; men whom he met when a dance or dinner took him out of the less +pretentious sets he personally affected; men whom the newspapers and the +public knew too well to speak of as "well known." + +First there was Percy Draymore, overgroomed for a gentleman, fat, +good-humoured, and fashionable--one of the famous Draymore family noted +solely for their money and their tight grip on it; then came Sanxon +Orchil, the famous banker and promoter, small, urbane, dark, with that +rich almost oriental coloring which he may have inherited from his +Cordova ancestors who found it necessary to dehumanise their names when +Rome offered them the choice with immediate eternity as alternative. + +Then came a fox-faced young man, Phoenix Mottly, elegant arbiter of all +pertaining to polo and the hunt--slim-legged, hatchet-faced--and more +presentable in the saddle than out of it. He was followed by Bradley +Harmon, with his washed-out colouring of a consumptive Swede and his +corn-coloured beard; and, looming in the rear like an amiable +brontasaurus, George Fane, whose swaying neck carried his head as a +camel carries his, nodding as he walks. + +"Well!" said Selwyn, perplexed but cordial as he exchanged amenities +with each gentleman who entered, "this is a killing combination of +pleasure and mortification--because I haven't any more breakfast to +offer you unless you'll wait until I ring for the Sultana--" + +"Breakfast! Oh, damn! I've breakfasted on a pill and a glass of vichy +for ten years," protested Draymore, "and the others either have +swallowed their cocktails, or won't do it until luncheon. I say, Selwyn, +you must think this a devilishly unusual proceeding." + +"Pleasantly unusual, Draymore. Is this a delegation to tend me the +nomination for the down-and-out club, perhaps?" + +Fane spoke up languidly: "It rather looks as though we were the +down-and-out delegation at present; doesn't it, Orchil?" + +"I don't know," said Orchil; "it seems a trifle more promising to me +since I've had the pleasure of seeing Captain Selwyn face to face. Go +on, Percy; let the horrid facts be known." + +"Well--er--oh, hang it all!" blurted out Draymore, "we heard last night +how that fellow--how Neergard has been tampering with our farmers--what +underhand tricks he has been playing us; and I frankly admit to you +that we're a worried lot of near-sports. That's what this dismal matinee +signifies; and we've come to ask you what it all really means." + +"We lost no time, you see," added Orchil, caressing the long pomaded +ends of his kinky moustache and trying to catch a glimpse of them out of +his languid oriental eyes. He had been trying to catch this glimpse for +thirty years; he was a persistent man with plenty of leisure. + +"We lost no time," repeated Draymore, "because it's a devilish unsavoury +situation for us. The Siowitha Club fully realises it, Captain Selwyn, +and its members--some of 'em--thought that perhaps--er--you--ah--being +the sort of man who can--ah--understand the sort of language we +understand, it might not be amiss to--to--" + +"Why did you not call on Mr. Neergard?" asked Selwyn coolly. Yet he was +taken completely by surprise, for he did not know that Neergard had gone +ahead and secured options on his own responsibility--which practically +amounted to a violation of the truce between them. + +Draymore hesitated, then with the brutality characteristic of the +overfed: "I don't give a damn, Captain Selwyn, what Neergard thinks; but +I do want to know what a gentleman like yourself, accidentally +associated with that man, thinks of this questionable proceeding." + +"Do you mean by 'questionable proceeding' your coming here?--or do you +refer to the firm's position in this matter?" asked Selwyn sharply. +"Because, Draymore, I am not very widely experienced in the customs and +usages of commercial life, and I do not know whether it is usual for an +associate member of a firm to express, unauthorised, his views on +matters concerning the firm to any Tom, Dick, and Harry who questions +him." + +"But you know what is the policy of your own firm," suggested Harmon, +wincing, and displaying his teeth under his bright red lips; "and all we +wish to know is, what Neergard expects us to pay for this rascally +lesson in the a-b-c of Long Island realty." + +"I don't know," replied Selwyn, bitterly annoyed, "what Mr. Neergard +proposes to do. And if I did I should refer you to him." + +"May I ask," began Orchil, "whether the land will be ultimately for +sale?" + +"Oh, everything's always for sale," broke in Mottly impatiently; "what's +the use of asking that? What you meant to inquire was the price we're +expected to pay for this masterly squeeze in realty." + +"And to that," replied Selwyn more sharply still, "I must answer again +that I don't know. I know nothing about it; I did not know that Mr. +Neergard had acquired control of the property; I don't know what he +means to do with it. And, gentlemen, may I ask why you feel at liberty +to come to me instead of to Mr. Neergard?" + +"A desire to deal with one of our own kind, I suppose," returned +Draymore bluntly. "And, for that matter," he said, turning to the +others, "we might have known that Captain Selwyn could have had no hand +in and no knowledge of such an underbred and dirty--" + +Harmon plucked him by the sleeve, but Draymore shook him off, his little +piggish eyes sparkling. + +"What do I care!" he sneered, losing his temper; "we're in the clutches +of a vulgar, skinflint Dutchman, and he'll wring _us_ dry whether or +not we curse _him_ out. Didn't I tell you that Philip Selwyn had nothing +to do with it? If he had, and I was wrong, our journey here might as +well have been made to Neergard's office. For any man who will do such a +filthy thing--" + +"One moment, Draymore," cut in Selwyn; and his voice rang unpleasantly; +"if you are simply complaining because you have been outwitted, go +ahead; but if you think there has been any really dirty business in this +matter, go to Mr. Neergard. Otherwise, being his associate, I shall not +only decline to listen but also ask you to leave my apartments." + +"Captain Selwyn is perfectly right," observed Orchil coolly. "Do you +think, Draymore, that it is very good taste in you to come into a man's +place and begin slanging and cursing a member of his firm for crooked +work?" + +"Besides," added Mottly, "it's not crooked; it's only contemptible. +Anyway, we know with whom we have to deal, now; but some of you fellows +must do the dealing--I'd rather pay and keep away than ask Neergard to +go easy--and have him do it." + +"I don't know," said Fane, grinning his saurian grin, "why you all +assume that Neergard is such a social outcast. I played cards with him +last week and he lost like a gentleman." + +"I didn't say he was a social outcast," retorted Mottly--"because he's +never been inside of anything to be cast out, you know." + +"He seems to be inside this deal," ventured Orchil with his suave smile. +And to Selwyn, who had been restlessly facing first one, then another: +"We came--it was the idea of several among us--to put the matter up to +you. Which was rather foolish, because you couldn't have engineered the +thing and remained what we know you to be. So--" + +"Wait!" said Selwyn brusquely; "I do not admit for one moment that there +is anything dishonourable in this deal!--nor do I accept your right to +question it from that standpoint. As far as I can see, it is one of +those operations which is considered clever among business folk, and +which is admired and laughed over in reputable business circles. And I +have no doubt that hundreds of well-meaning business men do that sort of +thing daily--yes, thousands!" He shrugged his broad shoulders. +"Because I personally have not chosen to engage in matters of +this--ah--description, is no reason for condemning the deal or its +method--" + +"Every reason!" said Orchil, laughing cordially--"_every_ reason, +Captain Selwyn. Thank you; we know now exactly where we stand. It was +very good of you to let us come, and I'm sorry some of us had the bad +taste to show any temper--" + +"He means me," added Draymore, offering his hand; "good-bye, Captain +Selwyn; I dare say we are up against it hard." + +"Because we've got to buy in that property or close up the Siowitha," +added Mottly, coming over to make his adieux. "By the way, Selwyn, you +ought to be one of us in the Siowitha--" + +"Thank you, but isn't this rather an awkward time to suggest it?" said +Selwyn good-humouredly. + +Fane burst into a sonorous laugh and wagged his neck, saying: "Not at +all! Not at all! Your reward for having the decency to stay out of the +deal is an invitation from us to come in and be squeezed into a jelly by +Mr. Neergard. Haw! Haw!" + +And so, one by one, with formal or informal but evidently friendly +leave-taking, they went away. And Selwyn followed them presently, +walking until he took the Subway at Forty-second Street for his office. + +As he entered the elaborate suite of rooms he noticed some bright new +placards dangling from the walls of the general office, and halted to +read them: + + "WHY PAY RENT! + +What would you say if we built a house for you in Beautiful Siowitha +Park and gave you ten years to pay for it! + + If anybody says + + YOU ARE A FOOL! + +to expect this, refer him to us and we will answer him according to his +folly. + + TO PAY RENT + +when you might own a home in Beautiful Siowitha Park, is not wise. We +expect to furnish plans, or build after your own plans. + + All City Improvements + Are Contemplated! + Map and Plans of + Beautiful Siowitha Park + Will probably be ready + In the Near Future. + + Julius Neergard & Co. + Long Island Real Estate." + +Selwyn reddened with anger and beckoned to a clerk: + +"Is Mr. Neergard in his office?" + +"Yes, sir, with Mr. Erroll." + +"Please say that I wish to see him." + +He went into his own office, pocketed his mail, and still wearing hat +and gloves came out again just as Gerald was leaving Neergard's office. + +"Hello, Gerald!" he said pleasantly; "have you anything on for +to-night?" + +"Y-es," said the hoy, embarrassed--"but if there is anything I can do +for you--" + +"Not unless you are free for the evening," returned the other; "are +you?" + +"I'm awfully sorry--" + +"Oh, all right. Let me know when you expect to be free--telephone me at +my rooms--" + +"I'll let you know when I see you here to-morrow," said the boy; but +Selwyn shook his head: "I'm not coming here to-morrow, Gerald"; and he +walked leisurely into Neergard's office and seated himself. + +"So you have committed the firm to the Siowitha deal?" he inquired +coolly. + +Neergard looked up--and then past him: "No, not the firm. You did not +seem to be interested in the scheme, so I went on without you. I'm +swinging it for my personal account." + +"Is Mr. Erroll in it?" + +"I said that it was a private matter," replied Neergard, but his manner +was affable. + +"I thought so; it appears to me like a matter quite personal to you and +characteristic of you, Mr. Neergard. And that being established, I am +now ready to dissolve whatever very loose ties have ever bound me in any +association with this company and yourself." + +Neergard's close-set black eyes shifted a point nearer to Selwyn's; the +sweat on his nose glistened. + +"Why do you do this?" he asked slowly. "Has anybody offended you?" + +"Do you _really_ wish to know?" + +"Yes, I certainly do, Captain Selwyn." + +"Very well; it's because I don't like your business methods, I don't +like--several other things that are happening in this office. It's +purely a difference of views; and that is enough explanation, Mr. +Neergard." + +"I think our views may very easily coincide--" + +"You are wrong; they could not. I ought to have known that when I came +back here. And now I have only to thank you for receiving me, at my own +request, for a six months' trial, and to admit that I am not qualified +to co-operate with this kind of a firm." + +"That," said Neergard angrily, "amounts to an indictment of the firm. If +you express yourself in that manner outside, the firm will certainly +resent it!" + +"My personal taste will continue to govern my expressions, Mr. Neergard; +and I believe will prevent any further business relations between us. +And, as we never had any other kind of relations, I have merely to +arrange the details through an attorney." + +Neergard looked after him in silence; the tiny beads of sweat on his +nose united and rolled down in a big shining drop, and the sneer etched +on his broad and brightly mottled features deepened to a snarl when +Selwyn had disappeared. + +For the social prestige which Selwyn's name had brought the firm, he had +patiently endured his personal dislike and contempt for the man after he +found he could do nothing with him in any way. + +He had accepted Selwyn purely in the hope of social advantage, and with +the knowledge that Selwyn could have done much for him after business +hours; if not from friendship, at least from interest, or a lively sense +of benefits to come. For that reason he had invited him to participate +in the valuable Siowitha deal, supposing a man as comparatively poor as +Selwyn would not only jump at the opportunity, but also prove +sufficiently grateful later. And he had been amazed and disgusted at +Selwyn's attitude. But he had not supposed the man would sever his +connection with the firm if he, Neergard, went ahead on his own +responsibility. It astonished and irritated him; it meant, instead of +selfish or snobbish indifference to his own social ambitions, an enemy +to block his entrance into what he desired--the society of those made +notorious in the columns of the daily press. + +For Neergard cared only for the notorious in the social scheme; nothing +else appealed to him. He had, all his life, read with avidity of the +extravagances, the ostentation, the luxurious effrontery, the thinly +veiled viciousness of what he believed to be society, and he craved it +from the first, working his thick hands to the bone in dogged +determination to one day participate in and satiate himself with the +easy morality of what he read about in his penny morning paper--in the +days when even a penny was to be carefully considered. + +That was what he wanted from society--the best to be had in vice. That +was why he had denied himself in better days. It was for that he hoarded +every cent while actual want sharpened his wits and his thin nose; it +was in that hope that he received Selwyn so cordially as a possible +means of entrance into regions he could not attain unaided; it was for +that reason he was now binding Gerald to him through remission of +penalties for slackness, through loans and advances, through a +companionship which had already landed him in the Ruthven's card-room, +and promised even more from Mr. Fane, who had won his money very easily. + +For Neergard did not care how he got in, front door or back door, +through kitchen or card-room, as long as he got in somehow. All he +desired was the chance to use opportunity in his own fashion, and wring +from the forbidden circle all and more than they had unconsciously wrung +from him in the squalid days of a poverty for which no equality he might +now enjoy, no liberty of license, no fraternity in dissipation, could +wholly compensate. + +He was fairly on the outer boundary now, though still very far outside. +But a needy gentleman inside was already compromised and practically +pledged to support him; for his meeting with Jack Ruthven through Gerald +had proven of greatest importance. He had lost gracefully to Ruthven; +and in doing it had taken that gentleman's measure. And though Ruthven +himself was a member of the Siowitha, Neergard had made no error in +taking him secretly into the deal where together they were now in a +position to exploit the club, from which Ruthven, of course, would +resign in time to escape any assessment himself. + +Neergard's progress had now reached this stage; his programme was +simple--to wallow among the wealthy until satiated, then to marry into +that agreeable community and found the house of Neergard. And to that +end he had already bought a building site on Fifth Avenue, but held it +in the name of the firm as though it had been acquired for purposes +purely speculative. + + * * * * * + +About that time Boots Lansing very quietly bought a house on Manhattan +Island. It was a small, narrow, three-storied house of brick, rather +shabby on the outside, and situated on a modest block between Lexington +and Park avenues, where the newly married of the younger set were +arriving in increasing numbers, prepared to pay the penalty for all love +matches. + +It was an unexpected move to Selwyn; he had not been aware of Lansing's +contemplated desertion; and that morning, returning from his final +interview with Neergard, he was astonished to find his comrade's room +bare of furniture, and a hasty and exclamatory note on his own table: + +"Phil! I've bought a house! Come and see it! You'll find me in it! +Carpetless floors and unpapered walls! It's the happiest day of my life! + + "Boots!!!! House-owner!!!" + +And Selwyn, horribly depressed, went down after a solitary luncheon and +found Lansing sitting on a pile of dusty rugs, ecstatically inspecting +the cracked ceiling. + +"So this is the House that Boots built!" he said. + +"Phil! It's a dream!" + +"Yes--a bad one. What the devil do you mean by clearing out? What do you +want with a house, anyhow?--you infernal idiot!" + +"A house? Man, I've always wanted one! I've dreamed of a dinky little +house like this--dreamed and ached for it there in Manila--on blistering +hikes, on wibbly-wabbly gunboats--knee-deep in sprouting rice--I've +dreamed of a house in New York like this! slopping through the steaming +paddy-fields, sweating up the heights, floundering through smelly hemp, +squatting by green fires at night! always, always I've longed for a +home of my own. Now I've got it, and I'm the happiest man on Manhattan +Island!" + +"O Lord!" said Selwyn, staring, "if you feel that way! You never said +anything about it--" + +"Neither did you, Phil; but I bet you want one, too. Come now; don't +you?" + +"Yes, I do," nodded Selwyn; "but I can't afford one yet"--his face +darkened--"not for a while; but," and his features cleared, "I'm +delighted, old fellow, that _you_ have one. This certainly is a jolly +little kennel--you can fix it up in splendid shape--rugs and mahogany +and what-nots and ding-dongs--and a couple of tabby cats and a good +dog--" + +"Isn't it fascinating!" cried Boots. "Phil, all this real estate is +mine! And the idea makes me silly-headed. I've been sitting on this pile +of rugs pretending that I'm in the midst of vast and expensive +improvements and alterations; and estimating the cost of them has +frightened me half to death. I tell you I never had such fun, Phil. Come +on; we'll start at the cellar--there is some coal and wood and some +wonderful cobwebs down there--and then we'll take in the back yard; I +mean to have no end of a garden out there, and real clothes-dryers and +some wistaria and sparrows--just like real back yards. I want to hear +cats make harrowing music on my own back fence; I want to see a tidy +laundress pinning up intimate and indescribable garments on my own +clothes-lines; I want to have maddening trouble with plumbers and +roofers; I want to--" + +"Come on, then, for Heaven's sake!" said Selwyn, laughing; and the two +men, arm in arm, began a minute tour of the house. + +"Isn't it a corker! Isn't it fine!" repeated Lansing every few minutes. +"I wouldn't exchange it for any mansion on Fifth Avenue!" + +"You'd be a fool to," agreed Selwyn gravely. + +"Certainly I would. Anyway, prices are going up like rockets in this +section--not that I'd think of selling out at any price--but it's +comfortable to know it. Why, a real-estate man told me--Hello! What was +that? Something fell somewhere!" + +"A section of the bath-room ceiling, I think," said Selwyn; "we mustn't +step too heavily on the floors at first, you know." + +"Oh, I'm going to have the entire thing done over--room by room--when I +can afford it. Meanwhile _j'y suis, j'y reste_. . . . Look there, Phil! +That's to be your room." + +"Thanks, old fellow--not now." + +"Why, yes! I expected you'd have your room here, Phil--" + +"It's very good of you, Boots, but I can't do it." + +Lansing faced him: "_Won't_ you?" + +Selwyn, smiling, shook his head; and the other knew it was final. + +"Well, the room will be there--furnished the way you and I like it. When +you want it, make smoke signals or wig-wag." + +"I will; thank you, Boots." + +Lansing said unaffectedly, "How soon do you think you can afford a house +like this?" + +"I don't know; you see, I've only my income now--" + +"Plus what you make at the office--" + +"I've left Neergard." + +"What!" + +"This morning; for good." + +"The deuce!" he murmured, looking at Selwyn; but the latter volunteered +no further information, and Lansing, having given him the chance, +cheerfully switched to the other track: + +"Shall I see whether the Air Line has anything in _your_ line, Phil? No? +Well, what are you going to do?" + +"I don't exactly know what I shall do. . . . If I had capital--enough--I +think I'd start in making bulk and dense powders--all sorts; gun-cotton, +nitro-powders--" + +"You mean you'd like to go on with your own invention--Chaosite?" + +"I'd like to keep on experimenting with it if I could afford to. Perhaps +I will. But it's not yet a commercial possibility--if it ever is to be. +I wish I could control it; the ignition is simultaneous and absolutely +complete, and there is not a trace of ash, not an unburned or partly +burned particle. But it's not to be trusted, and I don't know what +happens to it after a year's storage." + +For a while they discussed the commercial possibilities of Chaosite, and +how capital might be raised for a stock company; but Selwyn was not +sanguine, and something of his mental depression returned as he sat +there by the curtainless window, his head on his closed hand, looking +out into the sunny street. + +"Anyway," said Lansing, "you've nothing to worry over." + +"No, nothing," assented Selwyn listlessly. + +After a silence Lansing added: "But you do a lot of worrying all the +same, Phil." + +Selwyn flushed up and denied it. + +"Yes, you do! I don't believe you realise how much of the time you are +out of spirits." + +"Does it impress you that way?" asked Selwyn, mortified; "because I'm +really all right." + +"Of course you are, Phil; I know it, but you don't seem to realise it. +You're morbid, I'm afraid." + +"You've been talking to my sister!" + +"What of it? Besides, I knew there was something the matter--" + +"You know what it is, too. And isn't it enough to subdue a man's spirits +occasionally?" + +"No," said Lansing--"if you mean your--mistake--two years ago. That +isn't enough to spoil life for a man. I've wanted to tell you so for a +long time." + +And, as Selwyn said nothing: "For Heaven's sake make up your mind to +enjoy your life! You are fitted to enjoy it. Get that absurd notion out +of your head that you're done for--that you've no home life in prospect, +no family life, no children--" + +Selwyn turned sharply, but the other went on: "You can swear at me if +you like, but you've no business to go through the world cuddling your +own troubles closer and closer and squinting at everybody out of +disenchanted eyes. It's selfish, for one thing; you're thinking +altogether too much about yourself." + +Selwyn, too annoyed to answer, glared at his friend. + +"Oh, I know you don't like it, Phil, but what I'm saying may do you +good. It's fine physic, to learn what others think about you; as for me, +you can't mistake my friendship--or your sister's--or Miss Erroll's, or +Mr. Gerard's. And one and all are of one opinion, that you have +everything before you, including domestic happiness, which you care for +more than anything. And there is no reason why you should not have +it--no reason why you should not feel perfectly free to marry, and have +a bunch of corking kids. It's not only your right, it's your business; +and you're selfish if you don't!" + +"Boots! I--I--" + +"Go on!" + +"I'm not going to swear; I'm only hurt, Boots--" + +"Sure you are! Medicine's working, that's all. We strive to please, we +kill to cure. Of course it hurts, man! But you know it will do you good; +you know what I say is true. You've no right to club the natural and +healthy inclinations out of yourself. The day for fanatics and dippy, +dotty flagellants is past. Fox's martyrs are out of date. The man who +grabs life in both fists and twists the essence out of it, counts. He is +living as he ought to, he is doing the square thing by his country and +his community--by every man, woman, and child in it! He's giving +everybody, including himself, a square deal. But the man who has been +upper-cut and floored, and who takes the count, and then goes and squats +in a corner to brood over the fancy licks that Fate handed him--_he_ +isn't dealing fairly and squarely by his principles or by a decent and +generous world that stands to back him for the next round. Is he, Phil?" + +"Do you mean to say, Boots, that you think a man who has made the +ghastly mess of his life that I have, ought to feel free to marry?" + +"Think it! Man, I know it. Certainly you ought to marry if you +wish--but, above all, you ought to feel free to marry. That is the +essential equipment of a man; he isn't a man if he feels that he isn't +free to marry. He may not want to do it, he may not be in love. That's +neither here nor there; the main thing is that he is as free as a man +should be to take any good opportunity--and marriage is included in the +list of good opportunities. If you become a slave to morbid notions, no +wonder you are depressed. Slaves usually are. Do you want to slink +through life? Then shake yourself, I tell you; learn to understand that +you're free to do what any decent man may do. That will take the +morbidness out of you. That will colour life for you. I don't say go +hunting for some one to love; I do say, don't avoid her when you meet +her." + +"You preach a very gay sermon, Boots," he said, folding his arms. "I've +heard something similar from my sister. As a matter of fact I think you +are partly right, too; but if the inclination for the freedom you insist +I take is wanting, then what? I don't wish to marry, Boots; I am not in +love, therefore the prospect of home and kids is premature and vague, +isn't it?" + +"As long as it's a prospect or a possibility I don't care how vague it +is," said the other cordially. "Will you admit it's a possibility? +That's all I ask." + +"If it will please you, yes, I will admit it. I have altered certain +ideas, Boots; I cannot, just now, conceive of any circumstances under +which I should feel justified in marrying, but such circumstances might +arise; I'll say that much." + +Yet until that moment he had not dreamed of admitting as much to +anybody, even to himself; but Lansing's logic, his own loneliness, his +disappointment in Gerald, had combined to make him doubt his own +methods of procedure. Too, the interview with Alixe Ruthven had not only +knocked all complacency and conceit out of him, but had made him so +self-distrustful that he was in a mood to listen respectfully to his +peers on any question. + +He was wondering now whether Boots had recognised Alixe when he had +blundered into the room that night. He had never asked the question; he +was very much inclined to, now. However, Boots's reply could be only the +negative answer that any decent man must give. + +Sitting there in the carpetless room piled high with dusty, +linen-shrouded furniture, he looked around, an involuntary smile +twitching his mouth. Somehow he had not felt so light-hearted for a +long, long while--and whether it came from his comrade's sermon, or his +own unexpected acknowledgment of its truth, or whether it was pure +amusement at Boots in the role of householder and taxpayer, he could not +decide. But he was curiously happy of a sudden; and he smiled broadly +upon Mr. Lansing: + +"What about _your_ marrying," he said--"after all this talk about mine! +What about it, Boots? Is this new house the first modest step toward the +matrimony you laud so loudly?" + +"Sure," said that gentleman airily; "that's what I'm here for." + +"Really?" + +"Well, of course, idiot. I've always been in love." + +"You mean you actually have somebody in view--?" + +"No, son. I've always been in love with--love. I'm a sentimental sentry +on the ramparts of reason. I'm properly armed for trouble, now, so if +I'm challenged I won't let my chance slip by me. Do you see? There are +two kinds of sentimental warriors in this amorous world: the man and the +nincompoop. The one brings in his prisoner, the other merely howls for +her. So I'm all ready for the only girl in the world; and if she ever +gets away from me I'll give you my house, cellar, and back yard, +including the wistaria and both cats--" + +"You have neither wistaria nor cats--yet." + +"Neither am I specifically in love--yet. So that's all right--Philip. +Come on; let's take another look at that fascinating cellar of mine!" + +But Selwyn laughingly declined, and after a little while he went away, +first to look up a book which he was having bound for Eileen, then to +call on his sister who, with Eileen, had just returned from a week at +Silverside with the children, preliminary to moving the entire +establishment there for the coming summer; for the horses and dogs had +already gone; also Kit-Ki, a pessimistic parrot, and the children's two +Norwegian ponies. + +"Silverside is too lovely for words!" exclaimed Nina as Selwyn entered +the library. "The children almost went mad. You should have seen the +dogs, too--tearing round and round the lawn in circles--poor things! +They were crazy for the fresh, new turf. And Kit-Ki! she lay in the sun +and rolled and rolled until her fur was perfectly filthy. Nobody wanted +to come away; Eileen made straight for the surf; but it was an arctic +sea, and as soon as I found out what she was doing I made her come out." + +"I should think you would," he said; "nobody can do that and thrive." + +"She seems to," said Nina; "she was simply glorious after the swim, and +I hated to put a stop to it. And you should see her drying her hair and +helping Plunket to roll the tennis-courts--that hair of hers blowing +like gold flames, and her sleeves rolled to her arm-pits!--and you +should see her down in the dirt playing marbles with Billy and +Drina--shooting away excitedly and exclaiming 'fen-dubs!' and +'knuckle-down, Billy!'--like any gamin you ever heard of. Totally +unspoiled, Phil!--in spite of all the success of her first winter!--and +do you know that she had no end of men seriously entangled? I don't mind +your knowing--but Sudbury Gray came to me, and I told him he'd better +wait, but in he blundered and--he's done for, now; and so are my plans. +He's an imbecile! And then, who on earth do you think came waddling into +the arena? Percy Draymore! Phil, it was an anxious problem for me--and +although I didn't really want Eileen to marry into that set--still--with +the Draymores' position and tremendous influence--But she merely stared +at him in cold astonishment. And there were others, too, callow for the +most part. . . . Phil?" + +"What?" he said, laughing. + +His sister regarded him smilingly, then partly turned around and perched +herself on the padded arm of a great chair. + +"Phil, _am_ I garrulous?" + +"No, dear; you are far too reticent." + +"Pooh! Suppose I do talk a great deal. I like to. Besides, I always have +something interesting to say, don't I?" + +"Always!" + +"Well, then, why do you look at me so humorously out of those nice gray +eyes? . . . Phil, you are growing handsome! Do you know it?" + +"For Heaven's sake!" he protested, red and uncomfortable, "what utter +nonsense you--" + +"Of course it bores you to be told so; and you look so delightfully +ashamed--like a reproved setter-puppy! Well, then, don't laugh at my +loquacity again!--because I'm going to say something else. . . . Come +over here, Phil; no--close to me. I wish to put my hands on your +shoulders; like that. Now look at me! Do you really love me?" + +"Sure thing, Ninette." + +"And you know I adore you; don't you?" + +"Madly, dear, but I forgive you." + +"No; I want you to be serious. Because I'm pretty serious. See, I'm not +smiling now; I don't feel like it. Because it is a very, very important +matter, Phil--this thing that has--has--almost happened. . . . It's +about Eileen. . . . And it really has happened." + +"What has she done?" he asked curiously. + +His sister's eyes were searching his very diligently, as though in quest +of something elusive; and he gazed serenely back, the most unsuspicious +of smiles touching his mouth. + +"Phil, dear, a young girl--a very young girl--is a vapid and +uninteresting proposition to a man of thirty-five; isn't she?" + +"Rather--in some ways." + +"In what way is she not?" + +"Well--to me, for example--she is acceptable as children are +acceptable--a blessed, sweet, clean relief from the women of the Fanes' +set, for example?" + +"Like Rosamund?" + +"Yes. And, Ninette, you and Austin seem to be drifting out of the old +circles--the sort that you and I were accustomed to. You don't mind my +saying it, do you?--but there were so many people in this town who had +something besides millions--amusing, well-bred, jolly people who had no +end of good times, but who didn't gamble and guzzle and stuff themselves +and their friends--who were not eternally hanging around other people's +wives. Where are they, dear?" + +"If you are indicting all of my friends, Phil--" + +"I don't mean all of your friends--only a small proportion--which, +however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless +bunch--the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the +worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital, +the chlorotic squatters on huge yachts, the speed-mad fugitives from the +furies of ennui, the neurotic victims of mental cirrhosis, the jewelled +animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard--!" + +"Philip!" + +"Oh, I don't mean that they are any more vicious than the idle and +mentally incompetent in any walk of life. East Side, West Side, Harlem, +Hell's Kitchen, Fifth Avenue, Avenue A, and Abingdon Square--the +denizens are only locally different, not specifically--the species +remains unchanged. But everywhere, in every quarter and class and set +and circle there is always the depraved; and the logical links that +connect them are unbroken from Fifth Avenue to Chinatown, from the +half-crazed extravagances of the Orchils' Louis XIV ball to a New Year's +reception at the Haymarket where Troy Lil's diamonds outshine the phony +pearls of Hoboken Fanny, and Hatpin Molly leads the spiel with Clarence +the Pig." + +"Phil, you are too disgusting!" + +"I'm sorry--it isn't very nice of me, I suppose. But, dear, I'm dead +tired of moral squalor. I do like the brightness of things, too, but I +don't care for the phosphorescence of social decay." + +"What in the world is the matter?" she exclaimed in dismay. "You are +talking like the wildest socialist." + +He laughed. "We have become a nation of what you call +'socialists'--though there are other names for us which mean more. I am +not discontented, if that is what you mean; I am only impatient; and +there is a difference. . . . And you have just asked me whether a young +girl is interesting to me. I answer, yes, thank God!--for the cleaner, +saner, happier hours I have spent this winter among my own kind have +been spent where the younger set dominated. + +"They are good for us, Nina; they are the hope of our own +kind--well-taught, well-drilled, wholesome even when negative in mind; +and they come into our world so diffident yet so charmingly eager, so +finished yet so unspoiled, that--how can they fail to touch a man and +key him to his best? How can they fail to arouse in us the best of +sympathy, of chivalry, of anxious solicitude lest they become some day +as we are and stare at life out of the faded eyes of knowledge!" + +He laid his hands in hers, smiling a little at his own earnestness. + +"Alarmist? No! The younger set are better than those who bred them; and +if, in time, they, too, fall short, they will not fall as far as their +parents. And, in their turn, when they look around them at the younger +set whom they have taught in the light and wisdom of their own +shortcomings, they will see fresher, sweeter, lovelier young people than +we see now. And it will continue so, dear, through the jolly +generations. Life is all right, only, like art, it is very, very long +sometimes." + +"Good out of evil, Phil?" asked his sister, smiling; "innocence from the +hotbeds of profligacy? purity out of vulgarity? sanity from hideous +ostentation? Is that what you come preaching?" + +"Yes; and isn't it curious! Look at that old harridan, Mrs. Sanxon +Orchil! There are no more innocent and charming girls in Manhattan than +her daughters. She _knew_ enough to make them different; so does the +majority of that sort. Look at the Cardwell girl and the Innis girl and +the Craig girl! Look at Mrs. Delmour-Carnes's children! And, Nina--even +Molly Hatpin's wastrel waif shall never learn what her mother knows if +Destiny will help Madame Molly ever so little. And I think that Destiny +is often very kind--even to the Hatpin offspring." + +Nina sat silent on the padded arm of her chair, looking up at her +brother. + +"Mad preacher! Mad Mullah!--dear, dear fellow!" she said tenderly; "all +ills of the world canst thou discount, but not thine own." + +"Those, too," he insisted, laughing; "I had a talk with Boots--but, +anyway, I'd already arrived at my own conclusion that--that--I'm rather +overdoing this blighted business--" + +"Phil!"--in quick delight. + +"Yes," he said, reddening nicely; "between you and Boots and myself I've +decided that I'm going in for--for whatever any man is going in +for--life! Ninette, life to the full and up to the hilt for mine!--not +side-stepping anything. . . . Because I--because, Nina, it's shameful +for a man to admit to himself that he cannot make good, no matter how +thoroughly he's been hammered to the ropes. And so I'm starting out +again--not hunting trouble like him of La Mancha--but, like him in this, +that I shall not avoid it. . . . Is _that_ plain to you, little sister?" + +"Yes, oh, yes, it is!" she murmured; "I am so happy, so proud--but I +knew it was in your blood, Phil; I knew that you were merely hurt and +stunned--badly hurt, but not fatally!--you could not be; no weaklings +come from our race." + +"But still our race has always been law-abiding--observant of civil and +religious law. If I make myself free again, I take some laws into my own +hands.". + +"How do you mean?" she asked. + +"Well," he said grimly, "for example, I am forbidden, in some States, to +marry again--" + +"But you _know_ there was no reason for _that_!" + +"Yes, I do happen to know; but still I am taking the liberty of +disregarding the law if I do. Then, what clergyman, of our faith, would +marry me to anybody?" + +"That, too, you know is not just, Phil. You were innocent of +wrong-doing; you were chivalrous enough to make no defence--" + +"Wrong-doing? Nina, I was such a fool that I was innocent of sense +enough to do either good or evil. Yet I did do harm; there never was +such a thing as a harmless fool. But all I can do is to go and sin no +more; yet there is little merit in good conduct if one hides in a hole +too small to admit temptation. No; there are laws civil and laws +ecclesiastical; and sometimes I think a man is justified in repealing +the form and retaining the substance of them, and remoulding it for +purposes of self-government; as I do, now. . . . Once, oppressed by form +and theory, I told you that to remarry after divorce was a slap at +civilisation. . . . Which is true sometimes and sometimes not. Common +sense, not laws, must govern a man in that matter. But if any motive +except desire to be a decent citizen sways a self-punished man toward +self-leniency, then is he unpardonable if he breaks those laws which +truly were fashioned for such as he!" + +"Saint Simon! Saint Simon! Will you please arise, stretch your limbs, +and descend from your pillar?" said Nina; "because I am going to say +something that is very, very serious; and very near my heart." + +"I remember," he said; "it's about Eileen, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is about Eileen." + +He waited; and again his sister's eyes began restlessly searching his +for something that she seemed unable to find. + +"You make it a little difficult, Phil; I don't believe I had better +speak of it." + +"Why not?" + +"Why, just because you ask me 'why not?' for example." + +"Is it anything that worries you about Eileen?" + +"N-no; not exactly. It is--it may be a phase; and yet I know that if it +is anything at all it is not a passing phase. She is different from the +majority, you see--very intelligent, very direct. She never +forgets--for example. Her loyalty is quite remarkable, Phil. She is very +intense in her--her beliefs--the more so because she is unusually free +from impulse--even quite ignorant of the deeper emotions; or so I +believed until--until--" + +"Is she in _love_?" he asked. + +"A little, Phil." + +"Does she admit it?" he demanded, unpleasantly astonished. + +"She admits it in a dozen innocent ways to me who can understand her; +but to herself she has not admitted it, I think--could not admit it yet; +because--because--" + +"Who is it?" asked Selwyn; and there was in his voice the slightest +undertone of a growl. + +"Dear, shall I tell you?" + +"Why not?" + +"Because--because--Phil, I think that our pretty Eileen is a little in +love with--you." + +He straightened out to his full height, scarlet to the temples; she +dropped her linked fingers in her lap, gazing at him almost sadly. + +"Dear, all the things you are preparing to shout at me are quite +useless; I _know_; I don't imagine, I don't forestall, I don't predict. +I am not discounting any hopes of mine, because, Phil, I had not +thought--had not planned such a thing--between you and Eileen--I don't +know why. But I had not; there was Suddy Gray--a nice boy, perfectly +qualified; and there were alternates more worldly, perhaps. But I did +not think of you; and that is what now amazes and humiliates me; because +it was the obvious that I overlooked--the most perfectly natural--" + +"Nina! you are madder than a March heiress!" + +"Air your theories, Phil, then come back to realities. The conditions +remain; Eileen is certainly a little in love with you; and a little with +her means something. And you, evidently, have never harboured any +serious intentions toward the child; I can see that, because you are the +most transparent man I ever knew. Now, the question is, what is to be +done?" + +"Done? Good heavens! Nothing, of course! There's nothing to do anything +about! Nina, you are the most credulous little matchmaker that ever--" + +"Oh, Phil, _must_ I listen to all those fulminations before you come +down to the plain fact? And it's plain to me as the nose on your +countenance; and I don't know what to do about it! I certainly was a +perfect fool to confide in you, for you are exhibiting the coolness and +sagacity of a stampeded chicken." + +He laughed in spite of himself; then, realising a little what her +confidence had meant, he turned a richer red and slowly lifted his +fingers to his moustache, while his perplexed gray eyes began to narrow +as though sun-dazzled. + +"I am, of course, obliged to believe that you are mistaken," he said; "a +man cannot choose but believe in that manner. . . . There is no very +young girl--nobody, old or young, whom I like as thoroughly as I do +Eileen Erroll. She knows it; so do you, Nina. It is open and +above-board. . . . I should be very unhappy if anything marred or +distorted our friendship. . . . I am quite confident that nothing will." + +"In that frame of mind," said his sister, smiling, "you are the +healthiest companion in the world for her, for you will either cure her, +or she you; and it is all right either way." + +"Certainly it will be all right," he said confidently. + +For a few moments he paced the room, reflective, quickening his pace all +the while; and his sister watched him, silent in her indecision. + +"I'm going up to see the kids," he said abruptly. + +The children, one and all, were in the Park; but Eileen was sewing in +the nursery, and his sister did not call him back as he swung out of the +room and up the stairs. But when he had disappeared, Nina dropped into +her chair, aware that she had played her best card prematurely; forced +by Rosamund, who had just told her that rumour continued to be very busy +coupling her brother's name with the name of the woman who once had been +his wife. + +Nina was now thoroughly convinced of Alixe's unusual capacity for making +mischief. + +She had known Alixe always--and she had seen her develop from a +talented, restless, erratic, emotional girl, easily moved to generosity, +into an impulsive woman, reckless to the point of ruthlessness when +ennui and unhappiness stampeded her; a woman not deliberately selfish, +not wittingly immoral, for she lacked the passion which her emotion was +sometimes mistaken for; and she was kind by instinct. + +Sufficiently intelligent to suffer from the lack of it in others, +cultured to the point of recognising culture, her dangerous unsoundness +lay in her utter lack of mental stamina when conditions became +unpleasant beyond her will, not her ability to endure them. + +The consequences of her own errors she refused to be burdened with; to +escape somehow, was her paramount impulse, and she always tried to--had +always attempted it even in school-days--and farther back when Nina +first remembered her as a thin, eager, restless little girl scampering +from one scrape into another at full speed. Even in those days there +were moments when Nina believed her to be actually irrational, but there +was every reason not to say so to the heedless scatterbrain whose +father, in the prime of life, sat all day in his room, his faded eyes +fixed wistfully on the childish toys which his attendant brought to him +from his daughter's nursery. + +All this Nina was remembering; and again she wondered bitterly at +Alixe's treatment of her brother, and what explanation there could ever +be for it--except one. + +Lately, too, Alixe had scarcely been at pains to conceal her contempt +for her husband, if what Rosamund related was true. It was only one more +headlong scrape, this second marriage, and Nina knew Alixe well enough +to expect the usual stampede toward that gay phantom which was always +beckoning onward to promised happiness--that goal of heart's desire +already lying so far behind her--and farther still for every step her +little flying feet were taking in the oldest, the vainest, the most +hopeless chase in the world--the headlong hunt for happiness. + +And if that blind hunt should lead once more toward Selwyn? Suppose, +freed from Ruthven, she turned in her tracks and threw herself and her +youthful unhappiness straight at the man who had not yet destroyed the +picture that Nina found when she visited her brother's rooms with the +desire to be good to him with rocking-chairs! + +Not that she really believed or feared that Philip would consider such +an impossible reconciliation; pride, and a sense of the absurd, must +always check any such weird caprice of her brother's conscience; and +yet--and yet other amazing and mismated couples had done it--had been +reunited. + +And Nina was mightily troubled, for Alixe's capacity for mischief was +boundless; and that she, in some manner, had already succeeded in +stirring up Philip, was a rumour that persisted and would not be +annihilated. + +To inform a man frankly that a young girl is a little in love with him +is one of the oldest, simplest, and easiest methods of interesting that +man--unless he happen to be in love with somebody else. And Nina had +taken her chances that the picture of Alixe was already too unimportant +for the ceremony of incineration. Besides, what she had ventured to say +to him was her belief; the child appeared to be utterly absorbed in her +increasing intimacy with Selwyn. She talked of little else; her theme +was Selwyn--his influence on Gerald, and her delight in his +companionship. They had, at his suggestion, taken up together the study +of Cretan antiquities--a sort of tender pilgrimage for her, because, +with the aid of her father's and mother's letters, note-books, and +papers, she and Selwyn were following on the map the journeys and +discoveries of her father. + +But this was not all; Nina's watchful eyes opened wider and wider as she +witnessed in Eileen the naissance of an unconscious and delicate +coquetry, quite unabashed, yet the more significant for that; and Nina, +intent on the new phenomena, began to divine more about Eileen in a +single second, than the girl could have suspected of herself in a month +of introspection and of prayer. + +Love was not there; Nina understood that; but its germ was--still +dormant, but bedded deliciously in congenial soil--the living germ in +all its latent promise, ready to swell with the first sudden heart-beat, +quicken with the first quickening of the pulse, unfold into perfect +symmetry if ever the warm, even current in the veins grew swift and hot +under the first scorching whisper of Truth. + + * * * * * + +Eileen, sewing by the nursery window, looked up; her little Alsatian +maid, cross-legged on the floor at her feet, sewing away diligently, +also looked up, then scrambled to her feet as Selwyn halted on the +threshold of the room. + +"Why, how odd you look!" said Eileen, laughing: "come in, please; +Susanne and I are only mending some of my summer things. Were you in +search of the children?--don't say so if you were, because I'm quite +happy in believing that you knew I was here. Did you?" + +"Where are the children?" he asked. + +"In the Park, my very rude friend. You will find them on the Mall if you +start at once." + +He hesitated, but finally seated himself, omitting the little formal +hand-shake with which they always met, even after an hour's separation. +Of course she noticed this, and, bending low above her sewing, wondered +why. + +It seemed to him, for a moment, as though he were looking at a woman he +had heard about and had just met for the first time. His observation of +her now was leisurely, calm, and thorough--not so calm, however, when, +impatient of his reticence, bending there over her work, she raised her +dark-blue eyes to his, her head remaining lowered. The sweet, silent +inspection lasted but a moment, then she resumed her stitches, aware +that something in him had changed since she last had seen him; but she +merely smiled quietly to herself, confident of his unaltered devotion in +spite of the strangely hard and unresponsive gaze that had uneasily +evaded hers. + +As her white fingers flew with the glimmering needle she reflected on +conditions as she had left them a week ago. A week ago, between him and +her the most perfect of understandings existed; and the consciousness of +it she had carried with her every moment in the country--amid the icy +tumble of the surf, on long vigorous walks over the greening hills where +wild moorland winds whipped like a million fairy switches till the young +blood fairly sang, pouring through her veins. + +Since that--some time within the week, _something_ evidently had +happened to him, here in the city while she had been away. What? + +As she bent above the fine linen garment on her knee, needle flying, a +sudden memory stirred coldly--the recollection of her ride with +Rosamund; and instinctively her clear eyes flew open and she raised her +head, turning directly toward him a disturbed gaze he did not this time +evade. + +In silence their regard lingered; then, satisfied, she smiled again, +saying: "Have I been away so long that we must begin all over, Captain +Selwyn?" + +"Begin what, Eileen?" + +"To remember that the silence of selfish preoccupation is a privilege I +have not accorded you?" + +"I didn't mean to be preoccupied--" + +"Oh, worse and worse!" She shook her head and began to thread the +needle. "I see that my week's absence has not been very good +for you. I knew it the moment you came in with all that guilty +absent-minded effrontery which I have forbidden. Now, I suppose I +shall have to recommence your subjection. Ring for tea, please. And, +Susanne"--speaking in French and gathering up a fluffy heap of mended +summer waists--"these might as well be sent to the laundress--thank you, +little one; your sewing is always beautiful." + +The small maid, blushing with pleasure, left the room, both arms full of +feminine apparel; Selwyn rang for tea, then strolled back to the window, +where he stood with both hands thrust into his coat-pockets, staring out +at the sunset. + +A primrose light bathed the city. Below, through the new foliage of the +Park, the little lake reflected it in tints of deeper gold and amber +where children clustered together, sailing toy ships. But there was no +wind; the tiny sails and flags hung motionless, and out and in, among +the craft becalmed, steered a family of wild ducks, the downy yellow +fledglings darting hither and thither in chase of gnats, the mother bird +following in leisurely solicitude. + +And, as he stood there, absently intent on sky and roof and foliage, her +soft bantering voice aroused him; and turning he found her beside him, +her humorous eyes fixed on his face. + +"Suppose," she said, "that we go back to first principles and resume +life properly by shaking hands. Shall we?" + +He coloured up as he took her hand in his; then they both laughed at the +very vigorous shake. + +"What a horribly unfriendly creature you _can_ be," she said. "Never a +greeting, never even a formal expression of pleasure at my return--" + +"You have not _returned_!" he said, smiling; "you have been with me +every moment, Eileen." + +"What a pretty tribute!" she exclaimed; "I am beginning to recognise +traces of my training after all. And it is high time, Captain Selwyn, +because I was half convinced that you had escaped to the woods again. +What, if you please, have you been doing in town since I paroled you? +Nothing? Oh, it's very likely. You're probably too ashamed to tell me. +Now note the difference between us; _I_ have been madly tearing over +turf and dune, up hills, down hillocks, along headlands, shores, and +shingle; and I had the happiness of being half-frozen in the surf before +Nina learned of it and stopped me. . . . Come; sit over here; because +I'm quite crazy to tell you everything as usual--about how I played +marbles with the children--yes, indeed!--down on my knees and shooting +hard! Oh, it is divine, that sea-girdled, wind-drenched waste of moor +and thicket!--the strange little stunted forests in the hollows of the +miniature hills--do you remember? The trees, you know, grow only to the +wind-level, then spread out like those grotesque trees in fairy-haunted +forests--so old, so fantastic are these curious patches of woods that I +am for ever watching to see something magic moving far in the twilight +of the trees! . . . And one night I went out on the moors; oh, heavenly! +celestial!--under the stretch of stars! Elf-land in silence, save for +the bewitched wind. And the fairy forests drew me toward their edges, +down, down into the hollow, with delicious shivers. + +"Once I trembled indeed, for the starlight on the swamp was suddenly +splintered into millions of flashes; and my heart leaped in pure fright! +. . . It was only a wild duck whirring headlong into the woodland +waters--but oh, if you had been there to see the weird beauty of its +coming--and the star-splashed blackness! You _must_ see that with me, +some time. . . . When are you coming to Silverside? We go back very +soon, now. . . . And I don't feel at all like permitting you to run wild +in town when I'm away and playing hopscotch on the lawn with Drina!" + +She lay back in her chair, laughing, her hands linked together behind +her head. + +"Really, Captain Selwyn, I confess I missed you. It's much better fun +when two can see all those things that I saw--the wild roses just a +tangle of slender green-mossed stems, the new grass so intensely green, +with a touch of metallic iridescence; the cat's-paws chasing each other +across the purple inland ponds--and that cheeky red fox that came +trotting out of the briers near Wonder Head, and, when he saw me, coolly +attempted to stare me out of countenance! Oh, it's all very well to tell +you about it, but there is a little something lacking in unshared +pleasures. . . . Yes, a great deal lacking. . . . And here is our +tea-tray at last." + +Nina came up to join them. Her brother winced as she smiled triumphantly +at him, and the colour continued vivid in his face while she remained in +the room. Then the children charged upstairs, fresh from the Park, +clamouring for food; and they fell upon Selwyn's neck, and disarranged +his scarf-pin, and begged for buttered toast and crumpets, and got what +they demanded before Nina's authority could prevent. + +"I saw a rabbit at Silverside!" said Billy, "but do you know, Uncle +Philip, that hunting pack of ours is no good! Not one dog paid any +attention to the rabbit though Drina and I did our best--didn't we, +Drina?" + +"You should have seen them," murmured Eileen, leaning close to whisper +to Selwyn; "the children had fits when the rabbit came hopping across +the road out of the Hither Woods. But the dogs all ran madly the other +way, and I thought Billy would die of mortification." + +Nina stood up, waving a crumpet which she had just rescued from +Winthrop. "Hark!" she said, "there's the nursery curfew!--and not one +wretched infant bathed! Billy! March bathward, my son! Drina, +sweetheart, take command. Prune souffle for the obedient, dry bread for +rebels! Come, children!--don't let mother speak to you twice." + +"Let's go down to the library," said Eileen to Selwyn--"you are dining +with us, of course. . . . What? Yes, indeed, you are. The idea of your +attempting to escape to some dreadful club and talk man-talk all the +evening when I have not begun to tell you what I did at Silverside!" + +They left the nursery together and descended the stairs to the library. +Austin had just come in, and he looked up from his solitary cup of tea +as they entered: + +"Hello, youngsters! What conspiracy are you up to now? I suppose you +sniffed the tea and have come to deprive me. By the way, Phil, I hear +that you've sprung the trap on those Siowitha people." + +"Neergard has, I believe." + +"Well, isn't it all one?" + +"No, it is not!" retorted Selwyn so bluntly that Eileen turned from the +window at a sound in his voice which she had never before heard. + +"Oh!" Austin stared over his suspended teacup, then drained it. "Trouble +with our friend Julius?" he inquired. + +"No trouble. I merely severed my connection with him." + +"Ah! When?" + +"This morning." + +"In that case," said Austin, laughing, "I've a job for you--" + +"No, old fellow; and thank you with all my heart. I've half made up my +mind to live on my income for a while and take up that Chaosite matter +again--" + +"And blow yourself to smithereens! Why spatter Nature thus?" + +"No fear," said Selwyn, laughing. "And, if it promises anything, I may +come to you for advice on how to start it commercially." + +"If it doesn't start you heavenward you shall have my advice from a safe +distance. I'll telegraph it," said Austin. "But, if it's not personal, +why on earth have you shaken Neergard?" + +And Selwyn answered simply: "I don't like him. That is the reason, +Austin." + +The children from the head of the stairs were now shouting demands for +their father; and Austin rose, pretending to grumble: + +"Those confounded kids! A man is never permitted a moment to himself. Is +Nina up there, Eileen! Oh, all right. Excuses et cetera; I'll be back +pretty soon. You'll stay to dine, Phil?" + +"I don't think so--" + +"Yes, he will stay," said Eileen calmly. + +And, when Austin had gone, she walked swiftly over to where Selwyn was +standing, and looked him directly in the eyes. + +"Is all well with Gerald?" + +"Y-yes, I suppose so." + +"Is he still with Neergard & Co.?" + +"Yes, Eileen." + +"And _you_ don't like Mr. Neergard?" + +"N-no." + +"Then Gerald must not remain." + +He said very quietly: "Eileen, Gerald no longer takes me into his +confidence. I am afraid--I know, in fact--that I have little influence +with him now. I am sorry; it hurts; but your brother is his own master, +and he is at liberty to choose his own friends and his own business +policy. I cannot influence him; I have learned that thoroughly. Better +that I retain what real friendship he has left for me than destroy it by +any attempt, however gentle, to interfere in his affairs." + +She stood before him, straight, slender, her face grave and troubled. + +"I cannot understand," she said, "how he could refuse to listen to a man +like you." + +"A man like me, Eileen? Well, if I were worth listening to, no doubt +he'd listen. But the fact remains that I have not been able to hold his +interest--" + +"Don't give him up," she said, still looking straight into his eyes. "If +you care for me, don't give him up." + +"Care for you, Eileen! You know I do." + +"Yes, I know it. So you will not give up Gerald, will you? He is--is +only a boy--you know that; you know he has been--perhaps--indiscreet. +But Gerald is only a boy. Stand by him, Captain Selwyn; because Austin +does not know how to manage him--really he doesn't. . . . There has been +another unpleasant scene between them; Gerald told me." + +"Did he tell you why, Eileen?" + +"Yes. He told me that he had played cards for money, and he was in debt. +I know that sounds--almost disgraceful; but is not his need of help all +the greater?" + +Selwyn's eyes suddenly narrowed: "Did _you_ help him out, this time?" + +"I--I--how do you mean, Captain Selwyn?" But the splendid colour in her +face confirmed his certainty that she had used her own resources to help +her brother pay the gambling debt; and he turned away his eyes, angry +and silent. + +"Yes," she said under her breath, "I did aid him. What of it? Could I +refuse?" + +"I know. Don't aid him again--_that_ way." + +She stared: "You mean--" + +"Send him to me, child. I understand such matters; I--that is--" and in +sudden exasperation inexplicable, for the moment, to them both: "Don't +touch such matters again! They soil, I tell you. I will not have Gerald +go to you about such things!" + +"My own brother! What do you mean?" + +"I mean that, brother or not, he shall not bring such matters near you!" + +"Am I to count for nothing, then, when Gerald is in trouble?" she +demanded, flushing up. + +"Count! Count!" he repeated impatiently; "of course you count! Good +heavens! it's women like you who count--and no others--not one single +other sort is of the slightest consequence in the world or to it. +Count? Child, you control us all; everything of human goodness, of human +hope hinges and hangs on you--is made possible, inevitable, because of +you! And you ask me whether you count! You, who control us all, and +always will--as long as you are you!" + +She had turned a little pale under his vehemence, watching him out of +wide and beautiful eyes. + +What she understood--how much of his incoherence she was able to +translate, is a question; but in his eyes and voice there was something +simpler to divine; and she stood very still while his roused emotions +swept her till her heart leaped up and every vein in her ran fiery +pride. + +"I am--overwhelmed . . . I did not consider that I counted--so +vitally--in the scheme of things. But I must try to--if you believe all +this of me--only you must teach me how to count for something in the +world. Will you?" + +"Teach you, Eileen. What winning mockery! _I_ teach _you_? Well, then--I +teach you this--that a man's blunder is best healed by a man's sympathy; +. . . I will stand by Gerald as long as he will let me do so--not alone +for your sake, nor only for his, but for my own. I promise you that. Are +you contented?" + +"Yes." + +She slowly raised one hand, laying it fearlessly in both of his. + +"He is all I have left," she said. "You know that." + +"I know, child." + +"Then--thank you, Captain Selwyn." + +"No; I thank you for giving me this charge. It means that a man must +raise his own standard of living before he can accept such +responsibility. . . . You endow me with all that a man ought to be; and +my task is doubled; for it is not only Gerald but I myself who require +surveillance." + +He looked up, smilingly serious: "Such women as you alone can fit your +brother and me for an endless guard duty over the white standard you +have planted on the outer walls of the world." + +"You say things to me--sometimes--" she faltered, "that almost hurt with +the pleasure they give." + +"Did that give you pleasure?" + +"Y-yes; the surprise of it was almost too--too keen. I wish you would +not--but I am glad you did. . . . You see"--dropping into a great velvet +chair--"having been of no serious consequence to anybody for so many +years--to be told, suddenly, that I--that I count so vitally with men--a +man like you--" + +She sank back, drew one small hand across her eyes, and rested a moment; +then leaning forward, she set her elbow on one knee and bracketed her +chin between forefinger and thumb. + +"_You_ don't know," she said, smiling faintly, "but, oh, the exalted +dreams young girls indulge in! And one and all centre around some +power-inspired attitude of our own when a great crisis comes. And most +of all we dream of counting heavily; and more than all we clothe +ourselves in the celestial authority which dares to forgive. . . . Is it +not pathetically amusing--the mental process of a young girl?--and the +paramount theme of her dream is power!--such power as will permit the +renunciation of vengeance; such power as will justify the happiness of +forgiving? . . . And every dream of hers is a dream of power; and, +often, the happiness of forbearing to wield it. All dreams lead to it, +all mean it; for instance, half-awake, then faintly conscious in +slumber, I lie dreaming of power--always power; the triumph of +attainment, of desire for wisdom and knowledge satisfied. I dream of +friendships--wonderful intimacies exquisitely satisfying; I dream of +troubles, and my moral power to sweep them out of existence; I dream of +self-sacrifice, and of the spiritual power to endure it; I dream--I +dream--sometimes--of more material power--of splendours and imposing +estates, of a paradise all my own. And when I have been selfishly happy +long enough, I dream of a vast material power fitting me to wipe poverty +from the world; I plan it out in splendid generalities, sometimes in +minute detail. . . . Of men, we naturally dream; but vaguely, in a +curious and confused way. . . . Once, when I was fourteen, I saw a +volunteer regiment passing; and it halted for a while in front of our +house; and a brilliant being on a black horse turned lazily in his +saddle and glanced up at our window. . . . Captain Selwyn, it is quite +useless for you to imagine what fairy scenes, what wondrous perils, what +happy adventures that gilt-corded adjutant and I went through in my +dreams. Marry him? Indeed I did, scores of times. Rescue him? Regularly. +He was wounded, he was attacked by fevers unnumbered, he fled in peril +of his life, he vegetated in countless prisons, he was misunderstood, he +was a martyr to suspicion, he was falsely accused, falsely condemned. +And then, just before the worst occurred, _I_ appear!--the inevitable +I." + +She dropped back into the chair, laughing. Her colour was high, her eyes +brilliant; she laid her arms along the velvet arms of the chair and +looked at him. + +"I've not had you to talk to for a whole week," she said; "and you'll +let me; won't you? I can't help it, anyway, because as soon as I see +you--crack! a million thoughts wake up in me and clipper-clapper goes my +tongue. . . . You are very good for me. You are so thoroughly +satisfactory--except when your eyes narrow in that dreadful far-away +gaze--which I've forbidden, you understand. . . . _What_ have you done +to your moustache?" + +"Clipped it." + +"Oh, I don't like it too short. Can you get hold of it to pull it? It's +the only thing that helps you in perplexity to solve problems. You'd be +utterly helpless, mentally, without your moustache. . . . When are we to +take up our Etruscan symbols again?--or was it Evans's monograph we were +laboriously dissecting? Certainly it was; don't you remember the Hittite +hieroglyph of Jerabis?--and how you and I fought over those wretched +floral symbols? You don't? And it was only a week ago? . . . And listen! +Down at Silverside I've been reading the most delicious thing--the Mimes +of Herodas!--oh, so charmingly quaint, so perfectly human, that it seems +impossible that they were written two thousand years ago. There's a +maid, in one scene, Threissa, who is precisely like anybody's maid--and +an old lady, Gyllis--perfectly human, and not Greek, but Yankee of +to-day! Shall we reread it together?--when you come down to stay with us +at Silverside?" + +"Indeed we shall," he said, smiling; "which also reminds me--" + +He drew from his breast-pocket a thin, flat box, turned it round and +round, glanced at her, balancing it teasingly in the palm of his hand. + +"Is it for me? Really? Oh, please don't be provoking! Is it _really_ for +me? Then give it to me this instant!" + +[Illustration: "Turning, looked straight at Selwyn."] + +He dropped the box into the pink hollow of her supplicating palms. For a +moment she was very busy with the tissue-paper; then: + +"Oh! it is perfectly sweet of you!" turning the small book bound in +heavy Etruscan gold; "whatever can it be?" and, rising, she opened it, +stepping to the window so that she could see. + +Within, the pages were closely covered with the minute, careful +handwriting of her father; it was the first note-book he ever kept; and +Selwyn had had it bound for her in gold. + +For an instant she gazed, breathless, lips parted; then slowly she +placed the yellowed pages against her lips and, turning, looked straight +at Selwyn, the splendour of her young eyes starred with tears. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ERRANDS AND LETTERS + + +Alixe Ruthven had not yet dared tell Selwyn that her visit to his rooms +was known to her husband. Sooner or later she meant to tell him; it was +only fair to him that he should be prepared for anything that might +happen; but as yet, though her first instinct, born of sheer fright, +urged her to seek instant council with Selwyn, fear of him was greater +than the alarm caused her by her husband's knowledge. + +She was now afraid of her husband's malice, afraid of Selwyn's opinion, +afraid of herself most of all, for she understood herself well enough to +realise that, if conditions became intolerable, the first and easiest +course out of it would be the course she'd take--wherever it led, +whatever it cost, or whoever was involved. + +In addition to her dread and excitement, she was deeply chagrined and +unhappy; and, although Jack Ruthven did not again refer to the +matter--indeed appeared to have forgotten it--her alarm and humiliation +remained complete, for Gerald now came and played and went as he chose; +and in her disconcerted cowardice she dared not do more than plead with +Gerald in secret, until she began to find the emotion consequent upon +such intimacy unwise for them both. + +Neergard, too, was becoming a familiar figure in her drawing-room; and, +though at first she detested him, his patience and unfailing good +spirits, and his unconcealed admiration for her softened her manner +toward him to the point of toleration. + +And Neergard, from his equivocal footing in the house of Ruthven, +obtained another no less precarious in the house of Fane--all in the +beginning on a purely gaming basis. However, Gerald had already proposed +him for the Stuyvesant and Proscenium clubs; and, furthermore, a stormy +discussion was now in progress among the members of the famous Siowitha +over an amazing proposition from their treasurer, Jack Ruthven. + +This proposal was nothing less than to admit Neergard to membership in +that wealthy and exclusive country club, as a choice of the lesser evil; +for it appeared, according to Ruthven, that Neergard, if admitted, was +willing to restore to the club, free of rent, the thousands of acres +vitally necessary to the club's existence as a game preserve, merely +retaining the title to these lands for himself. + +Draymore was incensed at the proposal, Harmon, Orchil, and Fane were +disgustedly non-committal, but Phoenix Mottly was perhaps the angriest +man on Long Island. + +"In the name of decency, Jack," he said, "what are you dreaming of? Is +it not enough that this man, Neergard, holds us up once? Do I understand +that he has the impudence to do it again with your connivance? Are you +going to let him sandbag us into electing him? Is that the sort of +hold-up you stand for? Well, then, I tell you I'll never vote for him. +I'd rather see these lakes and streams of ours dry up; I'd rather see +the last pheasant snared and the last covey leave for the other end of +the island, than buy off that Dutchman with a certificate of membership +in the Siowitha!" + +"In that case," retorted Ruthven, "we'd better wind up our affairs and +make arrangements for an auctioneer." + +"All right; wind up and be damned!" said Mottly; "there'll be at least +sufficient self-respect left in the treasury to go round." + +Which was all very fine, and Mottly meant it at the time; but, outside +of the asset of self-respect, there was too much money invested in the +lands, plant, and buildings, in the streams, lakes, hatcheries, and +forests of the Siowitha. The enormously wealthy seldom stand long upon +dignity if that dignity is going to be very expensive. Only the poor can +afford disastrous self-respect. + +So the chances were that Neergard would become a member--which was why +he had acquired the tract--and the price he would have to pay was not +only in taxes upon the acreage, but, secretly, a solid sum in addition +to little Mr. Ruthven whom he was binding to him by every tie he could +pay for. + +Neergard did not regret the expense. He had long since discounted the +cost; and he also continued to lose money at the card-table to those who +could do him the most good. + +Away somewhere in the back of his round, squat, busy head he had an +inkling that some day he would even matters with some people. Meanwhile +he was patient, good-humoured, amusing when given a chance, and, as the +few people he knew found out, inventive and resourceful in suggesting +new methods of time-killing to any wealthy and fashionable victim of a +vacant mind. + +And as this faculty has always been the real key to the inner Temple of +the Ten Thousand Disenchantments, the entrance of Mr. Neergard appeared +to be only a matter of time and opportunity, and his ultimate welcome at +the naked altar a conclusion foregone. + +In the interim, however, he suffered Gerald and little Ruthven to pilot +him; he remained cheerfully oblivious to the snubs and indifference +accorded him by Mrs. Ruthven, Mrs. Fane, and others of their entourage +whom he encountered over the card-tables or at card-suppers. And all the +while he was attending to his business with an energy and activity that +ought to have shamed Gerald, and did, at times, particularly when he +arrived at the office utterly unfit for the work before him. + +But Neergard continued astonishingly tolerant and kind, lending him +money, advancing him what he required, taking up or renewing notes for +him, until the boy, heavily in his debt, plunged more heavily still in +sheer desperation, only to flounder the deeper at every struggle to +extricate himself. + +Alixe Ruthven suspected something of this, but it was useless as well as +perilous in other ways for her to argue with Gerald, for the boy had +come to a point where even his devotion to her could not stop him. He +_must_ go on. He did not say so to Alixe; he merely laughed, assuring +her that he was all right; that he knew how much he could afford to +lose, and that he would stop when his limit was in sight. Alas, he had +passed his limit long since; and already it was so far behind him that +he dared not look back--dared no longer even look forward. + +Meanwhile the Ruthvens were living almost lavishly, and keeping four +more horses; but Eileen Erroll's bank balance had now dwindled to three +figures; and Gerald had not only acted offensively toward Selwyn, but +had quarrelled so violently with Austin that the latter, thoroughly +incensed and disgusted, threatened to forbid him the house. + +"The little fool!" he said to Selwyn, "came here last night, stinking of +wine, and attempted to lay down the law to me!--tried to dragoon me into +a compromise with him over the investments I have made for him. By God, +Phil, he shall not control one cent until the trust conditions are +fulfilled, though it was left to my discretion, too. And I told him so +flatly; I told him he wasn't fit to be trusted with the coupons of a +repudiated South American bond--" + +"Hold on, Austin. That isn't the way to tackle a boy like that!" + +"Isn't it? Well, why not? Do you expect me to dicker with him?" + +"No; but, Austin, you've always been a little brusque with him. Don't +you think--" + +"No, I don't. It's discipline he needs, and he'll get it good and plenty +every time he comes here." + +"I--I'm afraid he may cease coming here. That's the worst of it. For his +sister's sake I think we ought to try to put up with--" + +"Put up! Put up! I've been doing nothing else since he came of age. He's +turned out a fool of a puppy, I tell you; he's idle, lazy, dissipated, +impudent, conceited, insufferable--" + +"But not vicious, Austin, and not untruthful. Where his affections are +centred he is always generous; where they should be centred he is merely +thoughtless, not deliberately selfish--" + +"See here, Phil, how much good has your molly-coddling done him? You +warned him to be cautious in his intimacy with Neergard, and he was +actually insulting to you--" + +"I know; but I understood. He probably had some vague idea of loyalty to +a man whom he had known longer than he knew me. That was all; that was +what I feared, too. But it had to be done--I was determined to venture +it; and it seems I accomplished nothing. But don't think that Gerald's +attitude toward me makes any difference, Austin. It doesn't; I'm just as +devoted to the boy, just as sorry for him, just as ready to step in when +the chance comes, as it surely will, Austin. He's only running a bit +wilder than the usual colt; it takes longer to catch and bridle him--" + +"Somebody'll rope him pretty roughly before you run him down," said +Gerard. + +"I hope not. Of course it's a chance he takes, and we can't help it; but +I'm trying to believe he'll tire out in time and come back to us for his +salt. And, Austin, we've simply got to believe in him, you know--on +Eileen's account." + +Austin grew angrier and redder: + +"Eileen's account? Do you mean her bank account? It's easy enough to +believe in him if you inspect his sister's bank account. Believe in him? +Oh, certainly I do; I believe he's pup enough to come sneaking to his +sister to pay for all the damfooleries he's engaged in. . . . And I've +positively forbidden her to draw another check to his order--" + +"It's that little bangled whelp, Ruthven," said Selwyn between his +teeth. "I warned Gerald most solemnly of that man, but--" He shrugged +his shoulders and glanced about him at the linen-covered furniture and +bare floors. After a moment he looked up: "The game there is of course +notorious. I--if matters did not stand as they do"--he flushed +painfully--"I'd go straight to Ruthven and find out whether or not this +business could be stopped." + +"Stopped? No, it can't be. How are you going to stop a man from playing +cards in his own house? They all do it--that sort. Fane's rather +notorious himself; they call his house the house of ill-Fane, you know. +If you or I or any of our family were on any kind of terms with the +Ruthvens, they might exclude Gerald to oblige us. We are not, however; +and, anyway, if Gerald means to make a gambler and a souse of himself at +twenty-one, he'll do it. But it's pretty rough on us." + +"It's rougher on him, Austin; and it's roughest on his sister. Well"--he +held out his hand--"good-bye. No, thanks, I won't stop to see Nina and +Eileen; I'm going to try to think up some way out of this. And--if +Gerald comes to you again--try another tack--just try it. You know, old +fellow, that, between ourselves, you and I are sometimes short of temper +and long of admonition. Let's try reversing the combination with +Gerald." + +But Austin only growled from the depths of his linen-shrouded arm-chair, +and Selwyn turned away, wondering what in the world he could do in a +matter already far beyond the jurisdiction of either Austin or himself. + +If Alixe had done her best to keep Gerald away, she appeared to be quite +powerless in the matter; and it was therefore useless to go to her. +Besides, he had every inclination to avoid her. He had learned his +lesson. + +To whom then could he go? Through whom could he reach Gerald? Through +Nina? Useless. And Gerald had already defied Austin. Through Neergard, +then? But he was on no terms with Neergard; how could he go to him? +Through Rosamund Fane? At the thought he made a wry face. Any advances +from him she would wilfully misinterpret. And Ruthven? How on earth +could he bring himself to approach him? + +And the problem therefore remained as it was; the only chance of any +solution apparently depending upon these friends of Gerald's, not one of +whom was a friend of Selwyn; indeed some among them were indifferent to +the verge of open enmity. + +And yet he had promised Eileen to do what he could. What merit lay in +performing an easy obligation? What courage was required to keep a +promise easily kept? If he cared anything for her--if he really cared +for Gerald, he owed them more than effortless fulfilment. And here there +could be no fulfilment without effort, without the discarding from self +of the last rags of pride. And even then, what hope was there--after the +sacrifice of self and the disregard of almost certain humiliation? + +It was horribly hard for him; there seemed to be no chance in sight. But +forlorn hope was slowly rousing the soldier in him--the grim, dogged, +desperate necessity of doing his duty to the full and of leaving +consequences to that Destiny, which some call by a name more reverent. + +So first of all, when at length he had decided, he nerved himself to +strike straight at the centre; and within the hour he found Gerald at +the Stuyvesant Club. + +The boy descended to the visitors' rooms, Selwyn's card in his hand and +distrust written on every feature. And at Selwyn's first frank and +friendly words he reddened to the temples and checked him. + +"I won't listen," he said. "They--Austin and--and everybody have been +putting you up to this until I'm tired of it. Do they think I'm a baby? +Do they suppose I don't know enough to take care of myself? Are they +trying to make me ridiculous? I tell you they'd better let me alone. My +friends are my friends, and I won't listen to any criticism of them, and +that settles it." + +"Gerald--" + +"Oh, I know perfectly well that you dislike Neergard. I don't, and +that's the difference." + +"I'm not speaking of Mr. Neergard, Gerald; I'm only trying to tell you +what this man Ruthven really is doing--" + +"What do I care what he is doing!" cried Gerald angrily. "And, anyway, +it isn't likely I'd come to you to find out anything about Mrs. +Ruthven's second husband!" + +Selwyn rose, very white and still. After a moment he drew a quiet +breath, his clinched hands relaxed, and he picked up his hat and gloves. + +"They are my friends," muttered Gerald, as pale as he. "You drove me +into speaking that way." + +"Perhaps I did, my boy. . . . I don't judge you. . . . If you ever find +you need help, come to me; and if you can't come, and still need me, +send for me. I'll do what I can--always. I know you better than you know +yourself. Good-bye." + +He turned to the door; and Gerald burst out: "Why can't you let my +friends alone? I liked you before you began this sort of thing!" + +"I will let them alone if you will," said Selwyn, halting. "I can't +stand by and see you exploited and used and perverted. Will you give me +one chance to talk it over, Gerald?" + +"No, I wont!" returned Gerald hotly; "I'll stand for my friends every +time! There's no treachery in me!" + +"You are not standing by me very fast," said the elder man gently. + +"I said I was standing by my _friends_!" repeated the boy. + +"Very well, Gerald; but it's at the expense of your own people, I'm +afraid." + +"That's my business, and you're not one of 'em!" retorted the boy, +infuriated; "and you won't be, either, if I can prevent it, no matter +whether people say that you're engaged to her--" + +"What!" whispered Selwyn, wheeling like a flash. The last vestige of +colour had fled from his face; and Gerald caught his breath, almost +blinded by the blaze of fury in the elder man's eyes. + +Neither spoke again; and after a moment Selwyn's eyes fell, he turned +heavily on his heel and walked away, head bent, gray eyes narrowing to +slits. + +Yet, through the brain's chaos and the heart's loud tumult and the +clamour of pulses run wild at the insult flung into his very face, the +grim instinct to go on persisted. And he went on, and on, for _her_ +sake--on--he knew not how--until he came to Neergard's apartment in one +of the vast West-Side constructions, bearing the name of a sovereign +state; and here, after an interval, he followed his card to Neergard's +splendid suite, where a man-servant received him and left him seated by +a sunny window overlooking the blossoming foliage of the Park. + +When Neergard came in, and stood on the farther side of a big oak table, +Selwyn rose, returning the cool, curt nod. + +"Mr. Neergard," he said, "it is not easy for me to come here after what +I said to you when I severed my connection with your firm. You have +every reason to be unfriendly toward me; but I came on the chance that +whatever resentment you may feel will not prevent you from hearing me +out." + +"Personal resentment," said Neergard slowly, "never interferes with my +business. I take it, of course, that you have called upon a business +matter. Will you sit down?" + +"Thank you; I have only a moment. And what I am here for is to ask you, +as Mr. Erroll's friend, to use your influence on Mr. Erroll--every atom +of your influence--to prevent him from ruining himself financially +through his excesses. I ask you, for his family's sake, to +discountenance any more gambling; to hold him strictly to his duties in +your office, to overlook no more shortcomings of his, but to demand from +him what any trained business man demands of his associates as well as +of his employees. I ask this for the boy's sake." + +Neergard's close-set eyes focussed a trifle closer to Selwyn's, yet did +not meet them. + +"Mr. Selwyn," he said, "have you come here to criticise the conduct of +my business?" + +"Criticise! No, I have not. I merely ask you--" + +"You are merely asking me," cut in Neergard, "to run my office, my +clerks, and my associate in business after some theory of your own." + +Selwyn looked at the man and knew he had lost; yet he forced himself to +go on: + +"The boy regards you as his friend. Could you not, as his friend, +discourage his increasing tendency toward dissipation--" + +"I am not aware that he is dissipated." + +"What!" + +"I say that I am not aware that Gerald requires any interference from +me--or from you, either," said Neergard coolly. "And as far as that +goes, I and my business require no interference either. And I believe +that settles it." + +He touched a button; the man-servant appeared to usher Selwyn out. + +The latter set his teeth in his under lip and looked straight and hard +at Neergard, but Neergard thrust both hands in his pockets, turned +squarely on his heel, and sauntered out of the room, yawning as he went. + +It bid fair to become a hard day for Selwyn; he foresaw it, for there +was more for him to do, and the day was far from ended, and his +self-restraint was nearly exhausted! + +An hour later he sent his card in to Rosamund Fane; and Rosamund came +down, presently, mystified, flattered, yet shrewdly alert and prepared +for anything since the miracle of his coming justified such preparation. + +"Why in the world," she said with a flushed gaiety perfectly genuine, +"did you ever come to see _me_? Will you please sit here, rather near +me?--or I shall not dare believe that you are that same Captain Selwyn +who once was so deliciously rude to me at the Minster's dance." + +"Was there not a little malice--just a very little--on your part to +begin it?" he asked, smiling. + +"Malice? Why? Just because I wanted to see how you and Alixe Ruthven +would behave when thrust into each other's arms? Oh, Captain +Selwyn--what a harmless little jest of mine to evoke all that bitterness +you so smilingly poured out on me! . . . But I forgave you; I'll forgive +you more than that--if you ask me. Do you know"--and she laid her small +head on one side and smiled at him out of her pretty doll's eyes--"do +you know that there are very few things I might not be persuaded to +pardon you? Perhaps"--with laughing audacity--"there are not any at all. +Try, if you please." + +"Then you surely will forgive me for what I have come to ask you," he +said lightly. "Won't you?" + +"Yes," she said, her pink-and-white prettiness challenging him from +every delicate feature--"yes--I will pardon you--on one condition." + +"And what is that, Mrs. Fane?" + +"That you are going to ask me something quite unpardonable!" she said +with a daring little laugh. "For if it's anything less improper than an +impropriety I won't forgive you. Besides, there'd be nothing to forgive. +So please begin, Captain Selwyn." + +"It's only this," he said: "I am wondering whether you would do anything +for me?" + +"_Any_thing! _Merci_! Isn't that extremely general, Captain Selwyn? But +you never can tell; ask me." + +So he bent forward, his clasped hands between his knees, and told her +very earnestly of his fears about Gerald, asking her to use her +undoubted influence with the boy to shame him from the card-tables, +explaining how utterly disastrous to him and his family his present +course was. + +"He is very fond of you, Mrs. Fane--and you know how easy it is for a +boy to be laughed out of excesses by a pretty woman of experience. You +see I am desperately put to it or I would never have ventured to trouble +you--" + +"I see," she said, looking at him out of eyes bright with +disappointment. + +"Could you help us, then?" he asked pleasantly. + +"Help _us_, Captain Selwyn? Who is the 'us,' please?" + +"Why, Gerald and me--and his family," he added, meeting her eyes. The +eyes began to dance with malice. + +"His family," repeated Rosamund; "that is to say, his sister, Miss +Erroll. His family, I believe, ends there; does it not?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Fane." + +"I see. . . . Miss Erroll is naturally worried over him. But I wonder +why she did not come to me herself instead of sending you as her errant +ambassador?" + +"Miss Erroll did not send me," he said, flushing up. And, looking +steadily into the smiling doll's face confronting him, he knew again +that he had failed. + +"I am not inclined to be very much flattered after all," said Rosamund. +"You should have come on your own errand, Captain Selwyn, if you +expected a woman to listen to you. Did you not know that?" + +"It is not a question of errands or of flattery," he said wearily; "I +thought you might care to influence a boy who is headed for serious +trouble--that is all, Mrs. Fane." + +She smiled: "Come to me on your _own_ errand--for Gerald's sake, for +anybody's sake--for your own, preferably, and I'll listen. But don't +come to me on another woman's errands, for I won't listen--even to you." + +"I _have_ come on my own errand!" he repeated coldly. "Miss Erroll knew +nothing about it, and shall not hear of it from me. Can you not help me, +Mrs. Fane?" + +But Rosamund's rose-china features had hardened into a polished smile; +and Selwyn stood up, wearily, to make his adieux. + +But, as he entered his hansom before the door, he knew the end was not +yet; and once more he set his face toward the impossible; and once more +the hansom rolled away over the asphalt, and once more it stopped--this +time before the house of Ruthven. + +Every step he took now was taken through sheer force of will--and in +_her_ service; because, had it been, now, only for Gerald's sake, he +knew he must have weakened--and properly, perhaps, for a man owes +something to himself. But what he was now doing was for a young girl who +trusted him with all the fervour and faith of her heart and soul; and he +could spare himself in nowise if, in his turn, he responded heart and +soul to the solemn appeal. + +Mr. Ruthven, it appeared, was at home and would receive Captain Selwyn +in his own apartment. + +Which he did--after Selwyn had been seated for twenty minutes--strolling +in clad only in silken lounging clothes, and belting about his waist, as +he entered, the sash of a kimona, stiff with gold. + +His greeting was a pallid stare; but, as Selwyn made no motion to rise, +he lounged over to a couch and, half reclining among the cushions, shot +an insolent glance at Selwyn, then yawned and examined the bangles on +his wrist. + +After a moment Selwyn said: "Mr. Ruthven, you are no doubt surprised +that I am here--" + +"I'm not surprised if it's my wife you've come to see," drawled Ruthven. +"If I'm the object of your visit, I confess to some surprise--as much as +the visit is worth, and no more." + +The vulgarity of the insult under the man's own roof scarcely moved +Selwyn to any deeper contempt, and certainly not to anger. + +"I did not come here to ask a favour of you," he said coolly--"for that +is out of the question, Mr. Ruthven. But I came to tell you that Mr. +Erroll's family has forbidden him to continue his gambling in this house +and in your company anywhere or at any time." + +"Most extraordinary," murmured Ruthven, passing his ringed fingers over +his minutely shaven face--that strange face of a boy hardened by the +depravity of ages. + +"So I must request you," continued Selwyn, "to refuse him the +opportunity of gambling here. Will you do it--voluntarily?" + +"No." + +"Then I shall use my judgment in the matter." + +"And what may your judgment in the matter be?" + +"I have not yet decided; for one thing I might enter a complaint with +the police that a boy is being morally and materially ruined in your +private gambling establishment." + +"Is that a threat?" + +"No. I will act, not threaten." + +"Ah," drawled Ruthven, "I may do the same the next time my wife spends +the evening in your apartment." + +"You lie," said Selwyn in a voice made low by surprise. + +"Oh, no, I don't. Very chivalrous of you--quite proper for you to deny +it like a gentleman--but useless, quite useless. So the less said about +invoking the law, the better for--some people. You'll agree with me, I +dare say. . . . And now, concerning your friend, Gerald Erroll--I have +not the slightest desire to see him play cards. Whether or not he plays +is a matter perfectly indifferent to me, and you had better understand +it. But if you come here demanding that I arrange my guest-lists to suit +you, you are losing time." + +Selwyn, almost stunned at Ruthven's knowledge of the episode in his +rooms, had risen as he gave the man the lie direct. + +For an instant, now, as he stared at him, there was murder in his eye. +Then the utter hopeless helplessness of his position overwhelmed him, as +Ruthven, with danger written all over him, stood up, his soft smooth +thumbs hooked in the glittering sash of his kimona. + +"Scowl if you like," he said, backing away instinctively, but still +nervously impertinent; "and keep your distance! If you've anything +further to say to me, write it." Then, growing bolder as Selwyn made no +offensive move, "Write to me," he repeated with a venomous smirk; "it's +safer for you to figure as _my_ correspondent than as my wife's +co-respondent--L-let go of me! W-what the devil are you d-d-doing--" + +For Selwyn had him fast--one sinewy hand twisted in his silken collar, +holding him squirming at arm's length. + +"M-murder!" stammered Mr. Ruthven. + +"No," said Selwyn, "not this time. But be very, very careful after +this." + +And he let him go with an involuntary shudder, and wiped his hands on +his handkerchief. + +Ruthven stood quite still; and after a moment the livid terror died out +in his face and a rushing flush spread over it--a strange, dreadful +shade, curiously opaque; and he half turned, dizzily, hands outstretched +for self-support. + +Selwyn coolly watched him as he sank on to the couch and sat huddled +together and leaning forward, his soft, ringed fingers covering his +impurpled face. + +Then Selwyn went away with a shrug of utter loathing; but after he had +gone, and Ruthven's servants had discovered him and summoned a +physician, their master lay heavily amid his painted draperies and +cushions, his congested features set, his eyes partly open and +possessing sight, but the whites of them had disappeared and the eyes +themselves, save for the pupils, were like two dark slits filled with +blood. + +There was no doubt about it; the doctors, one and all, knew their +business when they had so often cautioned Mr. Ruthven to avoid sudden +and excessive emotions. + +That night Selwyn wrote briefly to Mrs. Ruthven: + + "I saw your husband this afternoon. He is at liberty to inform you + of what passed. But in case he does not, there is one detail which + you ought to know: your husband believes that you once paid a visit + to my apartments. It is unlikely that he will repeat the accusation + and I think there is no occasion for you to worry. However, it is + only proper that you should know this--which is my only excuse for + writing you a letter that requires no acknowledgment. Very truly + yours, + + "PHILIP SELWYN." + +To this letter she wrote an excited and somewhat incoherent reply; and +rereading it in troubled surprise, he began to recognise in it +something of the strange, illogical, impulsive attitude which had +confronted him in the first weeks of his wedded life. + +Here was the same minor undertone of unrest sounding ominously through +every line; the same illogical, unhappy attitude which implied so much +and said so little, leaving him uneasy and disconcerted, conscious of +the vague recklessness and veiled reproach--dragging him back from the +present through the dead years to confront once more the old pain, the +old bewilderment at the hopeless misunderstanding between them. + +He wrote in answer: + + "For the first time in my life I am going to write you some + unpleasant truths. I cannot comprehend what you have written; I + cannot interpret what you evidently imagine I must divine in these + pages--yet, as I read, striving to understand, all the old familiar + pain returns--the hopeless attempt to realise wherein I failed in + what you expected of me. + + "But how can I, now, be held responsible for your unhappiness and + unrest--for the malicious attitude, as you call it, of the world + toward you? Years ago you felt that there existed some occult + coalition against you, and that I was either privy to it or + indifferent. I was not indifferent, but I did not believe there + existed any reason for your suspicions. This was the beginning of + my failure to understand you; I was sensible enough that we were + unhappy, yet could not see any reason for it--could see no reason + for the increasing restlessness and discontent which came over you + like successive waves following some brief happy interval when your + gaiety and beauty and wit fairly dazzled me and everybody who came + near you. And then, always hateful and irresistible, followed the + days of depression, of incomprehensible impulses, of that strange + unreasoning resentment toward me. + + "What could I do? I don't for a moment say that there was nothing I + might have done. Certainly there must have been something; but I + did not know what. And often in my confusion and bewilderment I was + quick-tempered, impatient to the point of exasperation--so utterly + unable was I to understand wherein I was failing to make you + contented. + + "Of course I could not shirk or avoid field duty or any of the + details which so constantly took me away from you. Also I began to + understand your impatience of garrison life, of the monotony of the + place, of the climate, of the people. But all this, which I could + not help, did not account for those dreadful days together when I + could see that every minute was widening the breach between us. + + "Alixe--your letter has brought it all back, vivid, distressing, + exasperating; and this time I _know_ that I could have done nothing + to render you unhappy, because the time when I was responsible for + such matters is past. + + "And this--forgive me if I say it--arouses a doubt in me--the first + honest doubt I have had of my own unshared culpability. Perhaps + after all a little more was due from you than what you brought to + our partnership--a little more patience, a little more appreciation + of my own inexperience and of my efforts to make you happy. You + were, perhaps, unwittingly exacting--even a little bit selfish. And + those sudden, impulsive caprices for a change of environment--an + escape from the familiar--were they not rather hard on me who + could do nothing--who had no choice in the matter of obedience to + my superiors? + + "Again and again I asked you to go to some decent climate and wait + for me until I could get leave. I stood ready and willing to make + any arrangement for you, and you made no decision. + + "Then when Barnard's command moved out we had our last distressing + interview. And, if that night I spoke of your present husband and + asked you to be a little wiser and use a little more discretion to + avoid malicious comment--it was not because I dreamed of + distrusting you--it was merely for your own guidance and because + you had so often complained of other people's gossip about you. + + "To say I was stunned, crushed, when I learned of what had happened + in my absence, is to repeat a trite phrase. What it cost me is of + no consequence now; what it is now costing you I cannot help. + + "Yet, your letter, in every line, seems to imply some strange + responsibility on my part for what you speak of as the degrading + position you now occupy. + + "Degradation or not--let us leave that aside; you cannot now avoid + being his wife. But as for any hostile attitude of society in your + regard--any league or coalition to discredit you--that is not + apparent to me. Nor can it occur if your personal attitude toward + the world is correct. Discretion and circumspection, a happy, + confident confronting of life--these, and a wise recognition of + conditions, constitute sufficient safeguard for a woman in your + delicately balanced position. + + "And now, one thing more. You ask me to meet you at Sherry's for a + conference. I don't care to, Alixe. There is nothing to be said + except what can be written on letter-paper. And I can see neither + the necessity nor the wisdom of our writing any more letters." + +For a few days no reply came; then he received such a strange, unhappy, +and desperate letter, that, astonished, alarmed, and apprehensive, he +went straight to his sister, who had run up to town for the day from +Silverside, and who had telephoned him to take her somewhere for +luncheon. + +Nina appeared very gay and happy and youthful in her spring plumage, but +she exclaimed impatiently at his tired and careworn pallor; and when a +little later they were seated tete-a-tete in the rococo dining-room of a +popular French restaurant, she began to urge him to return with her, +insisting that a week-end at Silverside was what he needed to avert +physical disintegration. + +"What is there to keep you in town?" she demanded, breaking bits from +the stick of crisp bread. "The children have been clamouring for you day +and night, and Eileen has been expecting a letter--You promised to write +her, Phil--!" + +"I'm going to write to her," he said impatiently; "wait a moment, +Nina--don't speak of anything pleasant or--or intimate just +now--because--because I've got to bring up another matter--something not +very pleasant to me or to you. May I begin?" + +"What is it, Phil?" she asked, her quick, curious eyes intent on his +troubled face. + +"It is about--Alixe." + +"What about her?" returned his sister calmly. + +"You knew her in school--years ago. You have always known her--" + +"Yes." + +"You--did you ever visit her?--stay at the Varians' house?" + +"Yes." + +"In--in her own home in Westchester?" + +"Yes." + +There was a silence; his eyes shifted to his plate; remained fixed as he +said: + +"Then you knew her--father?" + +"Yes, Phil," she said quietly, "I knew Mr. Varian." + +"Was there anything--anything unusual--about him--in those days?" + +"Have you heard that for the first time?" asked his sister. + +He looked up: "Yes. What was it, Nina?" + +She became busy with her plate for a while; he sat rigid, patient, one +hand resting on his claret-glass. And presently she said without meeting +his eyes: + +"It was even farther back--her grandparents--one of them--" She lifted +her head slowly--"That is why it so deeply concerned us, Phil, when we +heard of your marriage." + +"What concerned you?" + +"The chance of inheritance--the risk of the taint--of transmitting it. +Her father's erratic brilliancy became more than eccentricity before I +knew him. I would have told you that had I dreamed that you ever could +have thought of marrying Alixe Varian. But how could I know you would +meet her out there in the Orient! It was--your cable to us was like a +thunderbolt. . . . And when she--she left you so suddenly--Phil, dear--I +_feared_ the true reason--the only possible reason that could be +responsible for such an insane act." + +"What was the truth about her father?" he said doggedly. "He was +eccentric; was he ever worse than that?" + +"The truth was that he became mentally irresponsible before his death." + +"You _know_ this?" + +"Alixe told me when we were schoolgirls. And for days she was haunted +with the fear of what might one day be her inheritance. That is all I +know, Phil." + +He nodded and for a while made some pretence of eating, but presently +leaned back and looked at his sister out of dazed eyes. + +"Do you suppose," he said heavily, "that _she_ was not entirely +responsible when--when she went away?" + +"I have wondered," said Nina simply. "Austin believes it." + +"But--but--how in God's name could that be possible? She was so +brilliant--so witty, so charmingly and capriciously normal--" + +"Her father was brilliant and popular--when he was young. Austin knew +him, Phil. I have often, often wondered whether Alixe realises what she +is about. Her restless impulses, her intervals of curious resentment--so +many things which I remember and which, now, I cannot believe were +entirely normal. . . . It is a dreadful surmise to make about anybody so +youthful, so pretty, so lovable--and yet, it is the kindest way to +account for her strange treatment of you--" + +"I can't believe it," he said, staring at vacancy. "I refuse to." And, +thinking of her last frightened and excited letter imploring an +interview with him and giving the startling reason: "What a scoundrel +that fellow Ruthven is," he said with a shudder. + +"Why, what has he--" + +"Nothing. I can't discuss it, Nina--" + +"Please tell me, Phil!" + +"There is nothing to tell." + +She said deliberately: "I hope there is not, Phil. Nor do I credit any +mischievous gossip which ventures to link my brother's name with the +name of Mrs. Ruthven." + +He paid no heed to what she hinted, and he was still thinking of Ruthven +when he said: "The most contemptible and cowardly thing a man can do is +to fail a person dependent on him--when that person is in prospective +danger. The dependence, the threatened helplessness _must_ appeal to any +man! How can he, then, fail to stand by a person in trouble--a person +linked to him by every tie, every obligation. Why--why to fail at such a +time is dastardly--and to--to make a possible threatened infirmity a +reason for abandoning a woman is monstrous--!" + +"Phil! I never for a moment supposed that even if you suspected Alixe to +be not perfectly responsible you would have abandoned her--" + +"_I?_ Abandon _her!_" He laughed bitterly. "I was not speaking of +myself," he said. . . . And to himself he wondered: "Was it +_that_--after all? Is that the key to my dreadful inability to +understand? I cannot--I cannot accept it. I know her; it was not that; +it--it must not be!" + +And that night he wrote to her: + + "If he threatens you with divorce on such a ground he himself is + likely to be adjudged mentally unsound. It was a brutal, stupid + threat, nothing more; and his insult to your father's memory was + more brutal still. Don't be stampeded by such threats. Disprove + them by your calm self-control under provocation; disprove them by + your discretion and self-confidence. Give nobody a single possible + reason for gossip. And above all, Alixe, don't become worried and + morbid over anything you might dread as inheritance, for you are as + sound to-day as you were when I first met you; and you shall not + doubt that you could ever be anything else. Be the woman you can + be! Show the pluck and courage to make the very best out of life. I + have slowly learned to attempt it; and it is not difficult if you + convince yourself that it can be done." + +To this she answered the next day: + + "I will do my best. There is danger and treachery everywhere; and + if it becomes unendurable I shall put an end to it in one way or + another. As for his threat--incident on my admitting that I did go + to your room, and defying him to dare believe evil of me for doing + it--I can laugh at it now--though, when I wrote you, I was + terrified--remembering how mentally broken my father was when he + died. + + "But, as you say, I _am_ sound, body and mind. I _know_ it; I don't + doubt it for one moment--except--at long intervals when, apropos of + nothing, a faint sensation of dread comes creeping. + + "But I am _sound_! I know it so absolutely that I sometimes wonder + at my own perfect sanity and understanding; and so clearly, so + faultlessly, so precisely does my mind work that--and this I never + told you--I am often and often able to detect mental inadequacy in + many people around me--the slightest deviation from the normal, the + least degree of mental instability. Phil, so sensitive to + extraneous impression is my mind that you would be astonished to + know how instantly perceptible to me is mental degeneration in + other people. And it would amaze you, too, if I should tell you how + many, many people you know are, in some degree, more or less + insane. + + "But there is no use in going into such matters; all I meant to + convey to you was that I am not frightened now at any threat of + that sort from him. + + "I don't know what passed between you and him; he won't tell me; + but I do know from the servants that he has been quite ill--I was + in Westchester that night--and that something happened to his + eyes--they were dreadful for a while. I imagine it has something to + do with veins and arteries; and it's understood that he's to avoid + sudden excitement. + + "However, he's only serenely disagreeable to me now, and we see + almost nothing of one another except over the card-tables. Gerald + has been winning rather heavily, I am glad to say--glad, as long as + I cannot prevent him from playing. And yet I may be able to + accomplish that yet--in a roundabout way--because the apple-visaged + and hawk-beaked Mr. Neergard has apparently become my slavish + creature; quite infatuated. And as soon as I've fastened on his + collar, and made sure that Rosamund can't unhook it, I'll try to + make him shut down on Gerald's playing. This for your sake, + Phil--because you ask me. And because you must always stand for all + that is upright and good and manly in my eyes. Ah, Phil! what a + fool I was! And all, all my own fault, too. + + "Alixe." + +This ended the sudden eruption of correspondence; for he did not reply +to this letter, though in it he read enough to make him gravely uneasy; +and he fell, once more, into the habit of brooding, from which both +Boots Lansing and Eileen had almost weaned him. + +Also he began to take long solitary walks in the Park when not occupied +in conferences with the representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder +Works--a company which had recently approached him in behalf of his +unperfected explosive, Chaosite. + +This hermit life might have continued in town indefinitely had he not, +one morning, been surprised by a note from Eileen--the first he had ever +had from her. + +It was only a very brief missive--piquant, amusing, innocently audacious +in closing--a mere reminder that he had promised to write to her; and +she ended it by asking him very plainly whether he had not missed her, +in terms so frank, so sweet, so confident of his inevitable answer, that +all the enchantment of their delightful intimacy surged back in one +quick tremor of happiness, washing from his heart and soul the clinging, +sordid, evil things which were creeping closer, closer to torment and +overwhelm him. + +And all that day he went about his business quite happily, her letter in +his pocket; and that night, taking a new pen and pen holder, he laid out +his very best letter-paper, and began the first letter he had ever +written to Eileen Erroll. + + "DEAR EILEEN: I have your charming little note from Silverside + reminding me that I had promised to write you. But I needed no + reminder; you know that. Then why have I not written? I couldn't, + off-hand. And every day and evening except to-day and this evening + I have been in conference with Edgerton Lawn and other + representatives of the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company; and have come to + a sort of semi-agreement with them concerning a high explosive + called Chaosite, which they desire to control the sale of as soon + as I can control its tendency to misbehave. This I expect to do + this summer; and Austin has very kindly offered me a tiny cottage + out on the moors too far from anybody or anything to worry people. + + "I know you will be glad to hear that I have such attractive + business prospects in view. I dare say I shall scarcely know what + to do with my enormous profits a year or two hence. Have you any + suggestions? + + "Meanwhile, however, your letter and its questions await answers; + and here they are: + + "Yes, I saw Gerald once at his club and had a short talk with him. + He was apparently well. You should not feel so anxious about him. + He is very young, yet, but he comes from good stock. Sooner or + later he is bound to find himself; you must not doubt that. Also he + knows that he can always come to me when he wishes. + + "No, I have not ridden in the Park since you and Nina and the + children went to Silverside. I walked there Sunday, and it was most + beautiful, especially through the Ramble. In his later years my + father was fond of walking there with me. That is one reason I go + there; he seems to be very near me when I stand under the familiar + trees or move along the flowering walks he loved so well. I wish + you had known him. It is curious how often this wish recurs to me; + and so persistent was it in the Park that lovely Sunday that, at + moments, it seemed as though we three were walking there + together--he and you and I--quite happy in the silence of + companionship which seemed not of yesterday but of years. + + "It is rather a comforting faculty I have--this unconscious + companionship with the absent. Once I told you that you had been + with me while you supposed yourself to be at Silverside. Do you + remember? Now, here in the city, I walk with you constantly; and we + often keep pace together through crowded streets and avenues; and + in the quiet hours you are very often, seated not far from where I + sit. . . . If I turned around now--so real has been your presence + in my room to-night--that it seems as though I could not help but + surprise you here--just yonder on the edges of the lamp glow-- + + "But I know you had rather remain at Silverside, so I won't turn + around and surprise you here in Manhattan town. + + "And now your next question: Yes, Boots is well, and I will give + him Drina's love, and I will try my best to bring him to Silverside + when I come. Boots is still crazed with admiration for his house. + He has two cats, a housekeeper, and a jungle of shrubs and vines in + the back yard, which he plays the hose on; and he has also acquired + some really beautiful old rugs--a Herez which has all the tints of + a living sapphire, and a charming antique Shiraz, rose, gold, and + that rare old Persian blue. To mention symbols for a moment, + apropos of our archaeological readings together, Boots has an + antique Asia Minor rug in which I discovered not only the Swastika, + but also a fire-altar, a Rhodian lily border, and a Mongolian motif + which appears to resemble the cloud-band. It was quite an Anatshair + jumble in fact, very characteristic. We must capture Nina some day + and she and you and I will pay a visit to Boots's rugs and study + these old dyes and mystic symbols of the East. Shall we? + + "And now your last question. And I answer: Yes, I do miss you--so + badly that I often take refuge in summoning you in spirit. The + other day I had occasion to see Austin; and we sat in the library + where all the curtains are in linen bags and all the furniture in + overalls, and where the rugs are rolled in tarred paper and the + pictures are muffled in cheese-cloth. + + "And after our conference had ended and I was on my way to the hall + below, suddenly on my ear, faint but clear, I heard your voice, + sweet as the odour of blossoms in an empty room. No--it neither + deceived nor startled me; I have often heard it before, when you + were nowhere near. And, that I may answer your question more + completely, I answer it again: Yes, I miss you; so that I hear your + voice through every silence; all voids are gay with it; there are + no lonely places where my steps pass, because you are always near; + no stillness through which your voice does not sound; no + unhappiness, no sordid cares which the memory of you does not make + easier to endure. + + "Have I answered? And now, good-night. Gerald has just come in; I + hear him passing through the hall to his own apartments. So I'll + drop in for a smoke with him before I start to search for you in + dreamland. Good-night, Eileen. PHILIP SELWYN." + +When he had finished, sealed, and stamped his letter he leaned back in +his chair, smiling to himself, still under the spell which the thought +of her so often now cast over him. Life and the world were younger, +cleaner, fresher; the charming energy of her physical vigour and youth +and beauty tinted all things with the splendid hue of inspiration. But +most of all it was the exquisite fastidiousness of her thoughts that had +begun to inthral him--that crystal clear intelligence, so direct, so +generous--the splendid wholesome attitude toward life--and her dauntless +faith in the goodness of it. + +Breathing deeply, he drew in the fragrance of her memory, and the +bitterness of things was dulled with every quiet respiration. + +He smiled again, too; how utterly had his sister mistaken their frank +companionship! How stupidly superfluous was it to pretend to detect, in +their comradeship, the commonplaces of sentiment--as though such a girl +as Eileen Erroll were of the common self-conscious mould--as though in +their cordial understanding there was anything less simple than +community of taste and the mutual attraction of intelligence! + +Then, the memory of what his sister had said drove the smile from his +face and he straightened up impatiently. Love! What unfortunate +hallucination had obsessed Nina to divine what did not exist?--what need +not exist? How could a woman like his sister fall into such obvious +error; how could she mistake such transparent innocence, such visible +freedom from motive in this young girl's pure friendship for himself? + +And, as for him, he had never thought of Eileen--he could not bring +himself to think of her so materially or sentimentally. For, although he +now understood that he had never known what love, might be--its coarser +mask, infatuation, he had learned to see through; and, as that is all he +had ever known concerning love, the very hint of it had astonished and +repelled him, as though the mere suggestion had been a rudeness offered +to this delicate and delicious friendship blossoming into his life--a +life he had lately thought so barren and laid waste. + +No, his sister was mistaken; but her mistake must not disturb the +blossoming of this unstained flower. Sufficient that Eileen and he +disdainfully ignore the trite interpretation those outside might offer +them unasked; sufficient that their confidence in one another remain +without motive other than the happiness of unembarrassed people who find +a pleasure in sharing an intelligent curiosity concerning men and things +and the world about them. + +Thinking of these matters, lying back there in his desk chair, he +suddenly remembered that Gerald had come in. They had scarcely seen one +another since that unhappy meeting in the Stuyvesant Club; and now, +remembering what he had written to Eileen, he emerged with a start from +his contented dreaming, sobered by the prospect of seeking Gerald. + +For a moment or two he hesitated; but he had said in his letter that he +was going to do it; and now he rose, looked around for his pipe, found +it, filled and lighted it, and, throwing on his dressing-gown, went out +into the corridor, tying the tasselled cords around his waist as he +walked. + +His first knock remaining unanswered, he knocked more sharply. Then he +heard from within the muffled creak of a bed, heavy steps across the +floor. The door opened with a jerk; Gerald stood there, eyes swollen, +hair in disorder, his collar crushed, and the white evening tie +unknotted and dangling over his soiled shirt-front. + +"Hello," said Selwyn simply; "may I come in?" + +The boy passed his hand across his eyes as though confused by the light; +then he turned and walked back toward the bed, still rubbing his eyes, +and sat down on the edge. + +Selwyn closed the door and seated himself, apparently not noticing +Gerald's dishevelment. + +"Thought I'd drop in for a good-night pipe," he said quietly. "By the +way, Gerald, I'm going down to Silverside next week. Nina has asked +Boots, too. Couldn't you fix it to come along with us?" + +"I don't know," said the boy in a low voice; "I'd like to." + +"Good business! That will be fine! What you and I need is a good stiff +tramp across the moors, or a gallop, if you like. It's great for mental +cobwebs, and my brain is disgracefully unswept. By the way, somebody +said that you'd joined the Siowitha Club." + +"Yes," said the boy listlessly. + +"Well, you'll get some lively trout fishing there now. It's only thirty +miles from Silverside, you know--you can run over in the motor very +easily." + +Gerald nodded, sitting silent, his handsome head supported in both +hands, his eyes on the floor. + +That something was very wrong with him appeared plainly enough; but +Selwyn, touched to the heart and miserably apprehensive, dared not +question him, unasked. + +And so they sat there for a while, Selwyn making what conversation he +could; and at length Gerald turned and dragged himself across the bed, +dropping his head back on the disordered pillows. + +"Go on," he said; "I'm listening." + +So Selwyn continued his pleasant, inconsequential observations, and +Gerald lay with closed eyes, quite motionless, until, watching him, +Selwyn saw his hand was trembling where it lay clinched beside him. And +presently the boy turned his face to the wall. + +Toward midnight Selwyn rose quietly, removed his unlighted pipe from +between his teeth, knocked the ashes from it, and pocketed it. Then he +walked to the bed and seated himself on the edge. + +"What's the trouble, old man?" he asked coolly. + +There was no answer. He placed his hand over Gerald's; the boy's hand +lay inert, then quivered and closed on Selwyn's convulsively. + +"That's right," said the elder man; "that's what I'm here for--to stand +by when you hoist signals. Go on." + +The boy shook his head and buried it deeper in the pillow. + +"Bad as that?" commented Selwyn quietly. "Well, what of it? I'm standing +by, I tell you. . . . That's right"--as Gerald broke down, his body +quivering under the spasm of soundless grief--"that's the safety-valve +working. Good business. Take your time." + +It took a long time; and Selwyn sat silent and motionless, his whole arm +numb from its position and Gerald's crushing grasp. And at last, seeing +that was the moment to speak: + +"Now let's fix up this matter, Gerald. Come on!" + +"Good heavens! h-how can it be f-fixed--" + +"I'll tell you when you tell me. It's a money difficulty, I suppose; +isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Cards?" + +"P-partly." + +"Oh, a note? Case of honour? Where is this I.O.U. that you gave?" + +"It's worse than that. The--the note is paid. Good God--I can't tell +you--" + +"You must. That's why I'm here, Gerald." + +"Well, then, I--I drew a check--knowing that I had no funds. If it--if +they return it, marked--" + +"I see. . . . What are the figures?" + +The boy stammered them out; Selwyn's grave face grew graver still. + +"That is bad," he said slowly--"very bad. Have you--but of course you +couldn't have seen Austin--" + +"I'd kill myself first!" said Gerald fiercely. + +"No, you wouldn't do that. You're not _that_ kind. . . . Keep perfectly +cool, Gerald; because it is going to be fixed. The method only remains +to be decided upon--" + +"I can't take your money!" stammered the boy; "I can't take a cent from +you--after what I've said--the beastly things I've said--" + +"It isn't the things you say to me, Gerald, that matter. . . . Let me +think a bit--and don't worry. Just lie quietly, and understand that I'll +do the worrying. And while I'm amusing myself with a little quiet +reflection as to ways and means, just take your own bearings from this +reef; and set a true course once more, Gerald. That is all the reproach, +all the criticism you are going to get from me. Deal with yourself and +your God in silence." + +And in silence and heavy dismay Selwyn confronted the sacrifice he must +make to save the honour of the house of Erroll. + +It meant more than temporary inconvenience to himself; it meant that he +must go into the market and sell securities which were partly his +capital, and from which came the modest income that enabled him to live +as he did. + +There was no other way, unless he went to Austin. But he dared not do +that--dared not think what Austin's action in the matter might be. And +he knew that if Gerald were ever driven into hopeless exile with +Austin's knowledge of his disgrace rankling, the boy's utter ruin must +result inevitably. + +Yet--yet--how could he afford to do this--unoccupied, earning nothing, +bereft of his profession, with only the chance in view that his Chaosite +might turn out stable enough to be marketable? How could he dare so +strip himself? Yet, there was no other way; it had to be done; and done +at once--the very first thing in the morning before it became too late. + +And at first, in the bitter resentment of the necessity, his impulse was +to turn on Gerald and bind him to good conduct by every pledge the boy +could give. At least there would be compensation. Yet, with the thought +came the clear conviction of its futility. The boy had brushed too close +to dishonour not to recognise it. And if this were not a lifelong lesson +to him, no promises forced from him in his dire need and distress, no +oaths, no pledges could bind him; no blame, no admonition, no scorn, no +contempt, no reproach could help him to see more clearly the pit of +destruction than he could see now. + +"You need sleep, Gerald," he said quietly. "Don't worry; I'll see that +your check is not dishonoured; all you have to see to is yourself. +Good-night, my boy." + +But Gerald could not speak; and so Selwyn left him and walked slowly +back to his own room, where he seated himself at his desk, grave, +absent-eyed, his unfilled pipe between his teeth. + +And he sat there until he had bitten clean through the amber mouthpiece, +so that the brier bowl fell clattering to the floor. By that time it was +full daylight; but Gerald was still asleep. He slept late into the +afternoon; but that evening, when Selwyn and Lansing came in to +persuade him to go with them to Silverside, Gerald was gone. + +They waited another day for him; he did not appear. And that night they +left for Silverside without him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SILVERSIDE + + +During that week-end at Silverside Boots behaved like a school-lad run +wild. With Drina's hand in his, half a dozen dogs as advanced guard, and +heavily flanked by the Gerard battalion, he scoured the moorlands from +Surf Point to the Hither Woods; from Wonder Head to Sky Pond. + +Ever hopeful of rabbit and fox, Billy urged on his cheerful waddling +pack and the sea wind rang with the crack of his whip and the treble +note of his whistle. Drina, lately inoculated with the virus of +nature-study, carried a green gauze butterfly net, while Boots's pockets +bulged with various lethal bottles and perforated tin boxes for the +reception of caterpillars. The other children, like the puppies of +Billy's pack, ran haphazard, tireless and eager little opportunists, +eternal prisoners of hope, tripped flat by creepers, scratched and +soiled in thicket and bog, but always up and forward again, ranging out, +nose in the wind, dauntless, expectant, wonder-eyed. + +Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn formed a lagging and leisurely rear-guard, +though always within signalling distance of Boots and the main body; +and, when necessary, the two ex-army men wig-wagged to each other across +the uplands to the endless excitement and gratification of the +children. + +It was a perfect week-end; the sky, pale as a robin's egg at morn and +even, deepened to royal blue under the noon-day sun; and all the +world--Long Island--seemed but a gigantic gold-green boat stemming the +running purple of the sea and Sound. + +The air, when still, quivered in that deep, rich silence instinct with +the perpetual monotone of the sea; stiller for the accentless call of +some lone moorland bird, or the gauzy clatter of a dragon-fly in reedy +reaches. But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges +stirred, and the cat's-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far +surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, +earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony--a harmony of +sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon. + +Then, through the tinted mystery the wild ducks, low flying, drove like +a flight of witches through the dusk; and unseen herons called from +their heronry, fainter, fainter till their goblin yelps died out in the +swelling murmur of a million wind-whipped leaves. + +Then was the moorland waste bewitching in its alternation of softly +checkered gray and shade, where acres of feathery grasses flowed in +wind-blown furrows; where in the purple obscurity of hollows the strange +and aged little forests grew restless and full of echoes; where shadowy +reeds like elfin swords clattered and thrust and parried across the +darkling pools of haunted waters unstirred save for the swirl of a +startled fish or the smoothly spreading wake of some furry creature +swimming without a sound. + +Into this magic borderland, dimmer for moonlit glimpses in ghostly +contrast to the shadow shape of wood and glade, Eileen conducted Selwyn; +and they heard the whirr of painted wood-ducks passing in obscurity, +and the hymn of the four winds off Wonder Head; and they heard the +herons, noisy in their heronry, and a young fox yapping on a moon-struck +dune. + +But Selwyn cared more for the sun and the infinite blue above, and the +vast cloud-forms piled up in argent splendour behind a sea of amethyst. + +"The darker, vaguer phases of beauty," he said to Eileen, smiling, +"attract and fascinate those young in experience. Tragedy is always +better appreciated and better rendered by those who have never lived it. +The anatomy of sadness, the subtler fascination of life brooding in +shadow, appeals most keenly to those who can study and reflect, then +dismiss it all and return again to the brightness of existence which has +not yet for them been tarnished." + +He had never before, even by slightest implication, referred to his own +experience with life. She was not perfectly certain that he did so now. + +They were standing on one of the treeless hills--a riotous tangle of +grasses and wild flowers--looking out to sea across Sky Pond. He had a +rod; and as he stood he idly switched the gaily coloured flies backward +and forward. + +"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit +side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I +prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an +etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like +dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects; and anything called 'an +arrangement' on canvas, or anything called 'a human document' or 'an +appreciation' in literature, or anything 'precious' in art, or any +author who 'weaves' instead of writes his stories--all these irritate +me when they do not first bore me to the verge of anaesthesia." + +He switched his trout-flies defiantly, hopeful of an indignant retort +from her; but she only laughed and glanced at him, and shook her pretty +head. + +"There's just enough truth in what you say to make a dispute quite +profitless. Besides, I don't feel like single combat; I'm too glad to +have you here." + +Standing there--fairly swimming--in the delicious upper-air currents, +she looked blissfully across the rolling moors, while the sunlight +drenched her and the salt wind winnowed the ruddy glory of her hair, and +from the tangle of tender blossoming green things a perfume mounted, +saturating her senses as she breathed it deeper in the happiness of +desire fulfilled and content quite absolute. + +"After all," she said, "what more is there than this? Earth and sea and +sky and sun, and a friend to show them to. . . . Because, as I wrote +you, the friend is quite necessary in the scheme of things--to round out +the symmetry of it all. . . . I suppose you're dying to dangle those +flies in Brier Water to see whether there are any trout there. Well, +there are; Austin stocked it years ago, and he never fishes, so no doubt +it's full of fish. . . . What is that black thing moving along the edge +of the Golden Marsh?" + +"A mink," he said, looking. + +She seated herself cross-legged on the hill-top to watch the mink at her +leisure. But the lithe furry creature took to the water, dived, and +vanished, and she turned her attention to the landscape. + +"Do you see that lighthouse far to the south?" she asked; "that is +Frigate Light. West of it lies Surf Point, and the bay between is Surf +Bay. That's where I nearly froze solid in my first ocean bath of the +year. A little later we can bathe in that cove to the north--the Bay of +Shoals. You see it, don't you?--there, lying tucked in between Wonder +Head and the Hither Woods; but I forgot! Of course you've been here +before; and you know all this; don't you?" + +"Yes," he said quietly, "my brother and I came here as boys." + +"Have you not been here since?" + +"Once." He turned and looked down at the sea-battered wharf jutting into +the Bay of Shoals. "Once, since I was a boy," he repeated; "but I came +alone. The transports landed at that wharf after the Spanish war. The +hospital camp was yonder. . . . My brother died there." + +She lifted her clear eyes to his; he was staring at the outline of the +Hither Woods fringing the ochre-tinted heights. + +"There was no companion like him," he said; "there is no one to take his +place. Still, time helps--in a measure." + +But he looked out across the sea with a grief for ever new. + +She, too, had been helped by time; she was very young when the distant +and fabled seas took father and mother; and it was not entirely their +memory, but more the wistful lack of ability to remember that left her +so hopelessly alone. + +Sharper his sorrow; but there was the comfort of recollection in it; and +she looked at him and, for an instant, envied him his keener grief. Then +leaning a little toward him where he reclined, the weight of his body +propped up on one arm, she laid her hand across his hand half buried in +the grass. + +"It's only another tie between us," she said--"the memory of your dead +and mine. . . . Will you tell me about him?" + +And leaning there, eyes on the sea, and her smooth, young hand covering +his, he told her of the youth who had died there in the first flush of +manhood and achievement. + +His voice, steady and grave, came to her through hushed intervals when +the noise of the surf died out as the wind veered seaward. And she +listened, heart intent, until he spoke no more; and the sea-wind rose +again filling her ears with the ceaseless menace of the surf. + +After a while he picked up his rod, and sat erect and cross-legged as +she sat, and flicked the flies, absently, across the grass, aiming at +wind-blown butterflies. + +"All these changes!" he exclaimed with a sweep of the rod-butt toward +Widgeon Bay. "When I was here as a boy there were no fine estates, no +great houses, no country clubs, no game preserves--only a few +fishermen's hovels along the Bay of Shoals, and Frigate Light +yonder. . . . Then Austin built Silverside out of a much simpler, +grand-paternal bungalow; then came Sanxon Orchil and erected Hitherwood +House on the foundations of his maternal great-grandfather's cabin; and +then the others came; the Minsters built gorgeous Brookminster--you can +just make out their big summer palace--that white spot beyond Surf +Point!--and then the Lawns came and built Southlawn; and, beyond, the +Siowitha people arrived on scout, land-hungry and rich; and the tiny +hamlet of Wyossett grew rapidly into the town it now is. Truly this +island with its hundred miles of length has become but a formal garden +of the wealthy. Alas! I knew it as a stretch of woods, dunes, and +old-time villages where life had slumbered for two hundred years!" + +He fell silent, but she nodded him to go on. + +"Brooklyn was a quiet tree-shaded town," he continued thoughtfully, +"unvexed by dreams of traffic; Flatbush an old Dutch village buried in +the scented bloom of lilac, locust, and syringa, asleep under its +ancient gables, hip-roofs, and spreading trees. Bath, Utrecht, Canarsie, +Gravesend were little more than cross-road taverns dreaming in the sun; +and that vile and noise-cursed island beyond the Narrows was a stretch +of unpolluted beauty in an untainted sea--nothing but whitest sand and +dunes and fragrant bayberry and a blaze of wild flowers. Why"--and he +turned impatiently to the girl beside him--"why, I have seen the wild +geese settle in Sheepshead Bay, and the wild duck circling over it; and +I am not very aged. Think of it! Think of what this was but a few years +ago, and think of what 'progress' has done to lay it waste! What will it +be to-morrow?" + +"Oh--oh!" she protested, laughing; "I did not suppose you were that kind +of a Jeremiah!" + +"Well, I am. I see no progress in prostrate forests, in soft-coal smoke, +in noise! I see nothing gained in trimming and cutting and ploughing and +macadamising a heavenly wilderness into mincing little gardens for the +rich." He was smiling at his own vehemence, but she knew that he was +more than half serious. + +She liked him so; she always denied and disputed when he became +declamatory, though usually, in her heart, she agreed with him. + +"Oh--oh!" she protested, shaking her head; "your philosophy is that of +all reactionaries--emotional arguments which never can be justified. +Why, if the labouring man delights in the harmless hurdy-gurdy and +finds his pleasure mounted on a wooden horse, should you say that the +island of his delight is 'vile'? All fulfilment of harmless happiness is +progress, my poor friend--" + +"But my harmless happiness lay in seeing the wild-fowl splashing where +nothing splashes now except beer and the bathing rabble. If progress is +happiness--where is mine? Gone with the curlew and the wild duck! +Therefore, there is no progress. _Quod erat_, my illogical friend." + +"But _your_ happiness in such things was an exception--" + +"Exceptions prove anything!" + +"Yes--but--no, they don't, either! What nonsense you can talk when you +try to. . . . As for me I'm going down to the Brier Water to look into +it. If there are any trout there foolish enough to bite at those +gaudy-feathered hooks I'll call you--" + +"I'm going with you," he said, rising to his feet. She smilingly ignored +his offered hands and sprang erect unaided. + +The Brier Water, a cold, deep, leisurely stream, deserved its name. +Rising from a small spring-pond almost at the foot of Silverside lawn, +it wound away through tangles of bull-brier and wild-rose, under arches +of weed and grass and clustered thickets of mint, north through one of +the strange little forests where it became a thread edged with a +duck-haunted bog, then emerging as a clear deep stream once more it +curved sharply south, recurved north again, and flowed into Shell Pond +which, in turn, had an outlet into the Sound a mile east of Wonder Head. + +If anybody ever haunted it with hostile designs upon its fishy +denizens, Austin at least never did. Belted kingfisher, heron, mink, and +perhaps a furtive small boy with pole and sinker and barnyard +worm--these were the only foes the trout might dread. As for a man and a +fly-rod, they knew him not, nor was there much chance for casting a +line, because the water everywhere flowed under weeds, arched thickets +of brier and grass, and leafy branches criss-crossed above. + +"This place is impossible," said Selwyn scornfully. "What is Austin +about to let it all grow up and run wild--" + +"You _said_," observed Eileen, "that you preferred an untrimmed +wilderness; didn't you?" + +He laughed and reeled in his line until only six inches of the gossamer +leader remained free. From this dangled a single silver-bodied fly, +glittering in the wind. + +"There's a likely pool hidden under those briers," he said; "I'm going +to poke the tip of my rod under--this way--Hah!" as a heavy splash +sounded from depths unseen and the reel screamed as he struck. + +Up and down, under banks and over shallows rushed the invisible fish; +and Selwyn could do nothing for a while but let him go when he insisted, +and check and recover when the fish permitted. + +Eileen, a spray of green mint between her vivid lips, watched the +performance with growing interest; but when at length a big, fat, +struggling speckled trout was cautiously but successfully lifted out +into the grass, she turned her back until the gallant fighter had +departed this life under a merciful whack from a stick. + +"That," she said faintly, "is the part I don't care for. . . . Is he out +of all pain? . . . What? Didn't feel any? Oh, are you quite sure?" + +[Illustration: "Eileen watched the performance with growing +interest."] + +She walked over to him and looked down at the beautiful victim of craft. + +"Oh, well," she sighed, "you are very clever, of course, and I suppose +I'll eat him; but I wish he were alive again, down there in those cool, +sweet depths." + +"Killing frogs and insects and his smaller brother fish?" + +"Did he do _that_?" + +"No doubt of it. And if I hadn't landed him, a heron or a mink would +have done it sooner or later. That's what a trout is for: to kill and be +killed." + +She smiled, then sighed. The taking of life and the giving of it were +mysteries to her. She had never wittingly killed anything. + +"Do you say that it doesn't hurt the trout?" she asked. + +"There are no nerves in the jaw muscles of a trout--Hah!" as his rod +twitched and swerved under water and his reel sang again. + +And again she watched the performance, and once more turned her back. + +"Let me try," she said, when the _coup-de-grace_ had been administered +to a lusty, brilliant-tinted bulltrout. And, rod in hand, she bent +breathless and intent over the bushes, cautiously thrusting the tip +through a thicket of mint. + +She lost two fish, then hooked a third--a small one; but when she lifted +it gasping into the sunlight, she shivered and called to Selwyn: + +"Unhook it and throw it back! I--I simply can't stand that!" + +Splash! went the astonished trout; and she sighed her relief. + +"There's no doubt about it," she said, "you and I certainly do belong +to different species of the same genus; men and women _are_ separate +species. Do you deny it?" + +"I should hate to lose you that way," he returned teasingly. + +"Well, you can't avoid it. I gladly admit that woman is not too closely +related to man. We don't like to kill things; it's an ingrained +distaste, not merely a matter of ethical philosophy. You like to kill; +and it's a trait common also to children and other predatory animals. +Which fact," she added airily, "convinces me of woman's higher +civilisation." + +"It would convince me, too," he said, "if woman didn't eat the things +that man kills for her." + +"I know; isn't it horrid! Oh, dear, we're neither of us very high in the +scale yet--particularly you." + +"Well, I've advanced some since the good old days when a man went wooing +with a club," he suggested. + +"_You_ may have. But, anyway, you don't go wooing. As for man +collectively, he has not progressed so very far," she added demurely. +"As an example, that dreadful Draymore man actually hurt my wrist." + +Selwyn looked up quickly, a shade of frank annoyance on his face and a +vision of the fat sybarite before his eyes. He turned again to his +fishing, but his shrug was more of a shudder than appeared to be +complimentary to Percy Draymore. + +She had divined, somehow, that it annoyed Selwyn to know that men had +importuned her. She had told him of her experience as innocently as she +had told Nina, and with even less embarrassment. But that had been long +ago; and now, without any specific reason, she was not certain that she +had acted wisely, although it always amused her to see Selwyn's +undisguised impatience whenever mention was made of such incidents. + +So, to torment him, she said: "Of course it is somewhat exciting to be +asked to marry people--rather agreeable than otherwise--" + +"What!" + +Waist deep in bay-bushes he turned toward her where she sat on the trunk +of an oak which had fallen across the stream. Her arms balanced her +body; her ankles were interlocked. She swung her slim russet-shod feet +above the brook and looked at him with a touch of _gaminerie_ new to her +and to him. + +"Of course it's amusing to be told you are the only woman in the world," +she said, "particularly when a girl has a secret fear that men don't +consider her quite grown up." + +"You once said," he began impatiently, "that the idiotic importunities +of those men annoyed you." + +"Why do you call them idiotic?"--with pretence of hurt surprise. "A girl +is honoured--" + +"Oh, bosh!" + +"Captain Selwyn!" + +"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily; and fumbled with his reel. + +She surveyed him, head a trifle on one side--the very incarnation of +youthful malice in process of satisfying a desire for tormenting. Never +before had she experienced that desire so keenly, so unreasoningly; +never before had she found such a curious pleasure in punishing without +cause. A perfectly inexplicable exhilaration possessed her--a gaiety +quite reasonless, until every pulse in her seemed singing with laughter +and quickening with the desire for his torment. + +"When I pretended I was annoyed by what men said to me, I was only a +yearling," she observed. "Now I'm a two-year, Captain Selwyn. . . . Who +can tell what may happen in my second season?" + +"You said that you were _not_ the--the marrying sort," he insisted. + +"Nonsense. All girls are. Once I sat in a high chair and wore a bib and +banqueted on cambric-tea and prunes. I don't do it now; I've advanced. +It's probably part of that progress which you are so opposed to." + +He did not answer, but stood, head bent, looping on a new leader. + +"All progress is admirable," she suggested. + +No answer. + +So, to goad him: + +"There _are_ men," she said dreamily, "who might hope for a kinder +reception next winter--" + +"Oh, no," he said coolly, "there are no such gentlemen. If there were +you wouldn't say so." + +"Yes, I would. And there are!" + +"How many?" jeeringly, and now quite reassured. + +"One!" + +"You can't frighten me"--with a shade less confidence. "You wouldn't +tell if there was." + +"I'd tell _you_." + +"Me?"--with a sudden slump in his remaining stock of reassurance. + +"Certainly. I tell you and Nina things of that sort. And when I have +fully decided to marry I shall, of course, tell you both before I inform +other people." + +How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with laughter! +How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she could give +neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all was--whatever it was +that amused her in this man's uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an +irritation as unreasoning as the source of it! + +"Really, Captain Selwyn," she said, "you are not one of those +old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to +a girl's marrying--are you?" + +"Yes," he said, "I am." + +"You are quite serious?" + +"Quite." + +"You won't _let_ me?" + +"No, I won't." + +"Why?" + +"I want you myself," he said, smiling at last. + +"That is flattering but horridly selfish. In other words you won't marry +me and you won't let anybody else do it." + +"That is the situation," he admitted, freeing his line and trying to +catch the crinkled silvery snell of the new leader. It persistently +avoided him; he lowered the rod toward Miss Erroll; she gingerly +imprisoned the feathered fly between pink-tipped thumb and forefinger +and looked questioningly at him. + +"Am I to sit here holding this?" she inquired. + +"Only a moment; I'll have to soak that leader. Is the water visible +under that log you're sitting on?" + +She nodded. + +So he made his way through the brush toward her, mounted the log, and, +seating himself beside her, legs dangling, thrust the rod tip and leader +straight down into the stream below. + +Glancing around at her he caught her eyes, bright with mischief. + +"You're capable of anything to-day," he said. "Were you considering the +advisability of starting me overboard?" And he nodded toward the water +beneath their feet. + +"But you say that you won't let me throw you overboard, Captain Selwyn!" + +"I mean it, too," he returned. + +"And I'm not to marry that nice young man?"--mockingly sweet. "No? +What!--not anybody at all--ever and ever?" + +"Me," he suggested, "if you're as thoroughly demoralised as that." + +"Oh! Must a girl be pretty thoroughly demoralised to marry you?" + +"I don't suppose she'd do it if she wasn't," he admitted, laughing. + +She considered him, head on one side: + +"You are ornamental, anyway," she concluded. + +"Well, then," he said, lifting the leader from the water to inspect it, +"will you have me?" + +"Oh, but is there nothing to recommend you except your fatal beauty?" + +"My moustache," he ventured; "it's considered very useful when I'm +mentally perplexed." + +"It's clipped too close; I have told you again and again that I don't +care for it clipped like that. Your mind would be a perfect blank if you +couldn't get hold of it." + +"And to become imbecile," he said, "I've only to shave it." + +She threw back her head and her clear laughter thrilled the silence. He +laughed, too, and sat with elbows on his thighs, dabbling the crinkled +leader to and fro in the pool below. + +"So you won't have me?" he said. + +"You haven't asked me--have you?" + +"Well, I do now." + +She mused, the smile resting lightly on lips and eyes. + +"_Wouldn't_ such a thing astonish Nina!" she said. + +He did not answer; a slight colour tinged the new sunburn on his cheeks. + +She laughed to herself, clasped her hands, crossed her slender feet, and +bent her eyes on the pool below. + +"Marriage," she said, pursuing her thoughts aloud, "is curiously +unnecessary to happiness. Take our pleasure in each other, for example. +It has, from the beginning, been perfectly free from silliness and +sentiment." + +"Naturally," he said. "I'm old enough to be safe." + +"You are not!" she retorted. "What a ridiculous thing to say!" + +"Well, then," he said, "I'm dreadfully unsafe, but yet you've managed to +escape. Is that it?" + +"Perhaps. You _are_ attractive to women! I've heard that often enough to +be convinced. Why, even I can see what attracts them"--she turned to +look at him--"the way your head and shoulders set--and--well, the--rest. +. . . It's rather superior of me to have escaped sentiment, don't you +think so?" + +"Indeed I do. Few--few escape where many meet to worship at my frisky +feet, and this I say without conceit is due to my mustachios. Tangled in +those like web-tied flies, imprisoned hearts complain in sighs--in fact, +the situation vies with moments in Boccaccio." + +Her running comment was her laughter, ringing deliciously amid the trees +until a wild bird, restlessly attentive, ventured a long, sweet response +from the tangled green above them. + +After their laughter the soberness of reaction left them silent for a +while. The wild bird sang and sang, dropping fearlessly nearer from +branch to branch, until in his melody she found the key to her dreamy +thoughts. + +"Because," she said, "you are so unconscious of your own value, I like +you best, I think. I never before quite realised just what it was in +you." + +"My value," he said, "is what you care to make it." + +"Then nobody can afford to take you away from me, Captain Selwyn." + +He flushed with pleasure: "That is the prettiest thing a woman ever +admitted to a man," he said. + +"You have said nicer things to me. That is your reward. I wonder if you +remember any of the nice things you say to me? Oh, don't look so hurt +and astonished--because I don't believe you do. . . . Isn't it jolly to +sit here and let life drift past us? Out there in the world"--she nodded +backward toward the open--"out yonder all that 'progress' is whirling +around the world, and here we sit--just you and I--quite happily, +swinging our feet in perfect content and talking nonsense. . . . What +more is there after all than a companionship that admits both sense and +nonsense?" + +She laughed, turning her chin on her shoulder to glance at him; and when +the laugh had died out she still sat lightly poised, chin nestling in +the hollow of her shoulder, considering him out of friendly beautiful +eyes in which no mockery remained. + +"What more is there than our confidence in each other and our content?" +she said. + +And, as he did not respond: "I wonder if you realise how perfectly +lovely you have been to me since you have come into my life? Do you? Do +you remember the first day--the very first--how I sent word to you that +I wished you to see my first real dinner gown? Smile if you wish--Ah, +but you don't, you _don't_ understand, my poor friend, how much you +became to me in that little interview. . . . Men's kindness is a strange +thing; they may try and try, and a girl may know they are trying and, in +her turn, try to be grateful. But it is all effort on both sides. +Then--with a word--an impulse born of chance or instinct--a man may say +and do that which a woman can never forget--and would not if she could." + +"Have I done--that?" + +"Yes. Didn't you understand? Do you suppose any other man in the world +could have what you have had of me--of my real self? Do you suppose for +one instant that any other man than you could ever obtain from me the +confidence I offer you unasked? Do I not tell you everything that enters +my head and heart? Do you not know that I care for you more than for +anybody alive?" + +"Gerald--" + +She looked him straight in the eyes; her breath caught, but she steadied +her voice: + +"I've got to be truthful," she said; "I care for you more than for +Gerald." + +"And I for you more than anybody living," he said. + +"Is it true?" + +"It is the truth, Eileen." + +"You--you make me very happy, Captain Selwyn." + +"But--did you not know it before I told you?" + +"I--y-yes; I hoped so." In the exultant reaction from the delicious +tension of avowal she laughed lightly, not knowing why. + +"The pleasure in it," she said, "is the certainty that I am capable of +making you happy. You have no idea how I desire to do it. I've wanted to +ever since I knew you--I've wanted to be capable of doing it. And you +tell me that I do; and I am utterly and foolishly happy." The quick +mischievous sparkle of _gaminerie_ flashed up, transforming her for an +instant--"Ah, yes; and I can make you unhappy, too, it seems, by talking +of marriage! That, too, is something--a delightful power--but"--the +malice dying to a spark in her brilliant eyes--"I shall not torment +you, Captain Selwyn. Will it make you happier if I say, 'No; I shall +never marry as long as I have you'? Will it really? Then I say it; +never, never will I marry as long as I have your confidence and +friendship. . . . But I want it _all_!--every bit, please. And if ever +there is another woman--if ever you fall in love!--crack!--away I +go"--she snapped her white fingers--"like that!" she added, "only +quicker! Well, then! Be very, very careful, my friend! . . . I wish +there were some place here where I could curl up indefinitely and listen +to your views on life. You brought a book to read, didn't you?" + +He gave her a funny embarrassed glance: "Yes; I brought a sort of a +book." + +"Then I'm all ready to be read to, thank you. . . . Please steady me +while I try to stand up on this log--one hand will do--" + +Scarcely in contact with him she crossed the log, sprang blithely to the +ground, and, lifting the hem of her summer gown an inch or two, picked +her way toward the bank above. + +"We can see Nina when she signals us from the lawn to come to luncheon," +she said, gazing out across the upland toward the silvery tinted +hillside where Silverside stood, every pane glittering with the white +eastern sunlight. + +In the dry, sweet grass she found a place for a nest, and settled into +it, head prone on a heap of scented bay leaves, elbows skyward, and +fingers linked across her chin. One foot was hidden, the knee, doubled, +making a tent of her white skirt, from an edge of which a russet shoe +projected, revealing the contour of a slim ankle. + +"What book did you bring?" she asked dreamily. + +He turned red: "It's--it's just a chapter from a little book I'm trying +to write--a--a sort of suggestion for the establishment of native +regiments in the Philippines. I thought, perhaps, you might not mind +listening--" + +Her delighted surprise and quick cordiality quite overwhelmed him, so, +sitting flat on the grass, hat off and the hill wind furrowing his +bright crisp hair, he began, naively, like a schoolboy; and Eileen lay +watching him, touched and amused at his eager interest in reading aloud +to her this mass of co-ordinated fact and detail. + +There was, in her, one quality to which he had never appealed in +vain--her loyalty. Confident of that, and of her intelligence, he wasted +no words in preliminary explanation, but began at once his argument in +favour of a native military establishment erected on the general lines +of the British organisation in India. + +He wrote simply and without self-consciousness; loyalty aroused her +interest, intelligence sustained it; and when the end came, it came too +quickly for her, and she said so frankly, which delighted him. + +At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse +military accuracy; and what she liked best and best understood was +avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality +into pabulum. + +Lying there in the fragrant verdure, blue eyes skyward or slanting +sideways to watch his face, she listened, answered, questioned, or +responded by turns; until their voices grew lazy and the light reaction +from things serious awakened the gaiety always latent when they were +together. + +"Proceed," she smiled; "_Arma virumque_--a noble theme, Captain Selwyn. +Sing on!" + +He shook his head, quoting from "The Dedication": + + "Arms and the Man! + A noble theme I ween! + Alas! I cannot sing of these, Eileen; + Only of maids and men and meadow-grass, + Of sea and tree and woodlands where I pass-- + Nothing but these I know, Eileen--alas! + + * * * * * + + Clear eyes, that lifted up to me + Free heart and soul of vanity; + Blue eyes, that speak so wistfully-- + Nothing but these I know, alas!" + +She laughed her acknowledgment, and lying there, face to the sky, began +to sing to herself, under her breath, fragments of that ancient +war-song: + + "Le bon Roi Dagobert + Avait un grand sabre de fer; + Le grand Saint Eloi + Lui dit: 'O mon Roi + Votre Majeste + Pourrait se blesser!' + 'C'est vrai,' lui dit le Roi, + 'Qu'on me donne un sabre de bois!'" + +"In that verse," observed Selwyn, smiling, "lies the true key to the +millennium--international disarmament and moral suasion." + +"Nonsense," she said lazily; "the millennium will arrive when the false +balance between man and woman is properly adjusted--not before. And that +means universal education. . . . Did you ever hear that old, old song, +written two centuries ago--the 'Education of Phyllis'? No? Listen then +and be ashamed." + +And lying there, the back of one hand above her eyes, she sang in a +sweet, childish, mocking voice, tremulous with hidden laughter, the song +of Phyllis the shepherdess and Sylvandre the shepherd--how Phyllis, more +avaricious than sentimental, made Sylvandre pay her thirty sheep for one +kiss; how, next day, the price shifted to one sheep for thirty kisses; +and then the dreadful demoralisation of Phyllis: + + "Le lendemain, Philis, plus tendre + Fut trop heureuse de lui rendre + Trente moutons pour un baiser! + + * * * * * + + Le lendemain, Philis, peu sage, + Aurait donne moutons et chien + Pour un baiser que le volage + A Lisette donnait pour rien!" + +"And there we are," said Eileen, sitting up abruptly and levelling the +pink-tipped finger of accusation at him--"_there_, if you please, lies +the woe of the world--not in the armaments of nations! That old French +poet understood in half a second more than your Hague tribunal could +comprehend in its first Cathayan cycle! There lies the hope of your +millennium--in the higher education of the modern Phyllis." + +"And the up-to-date Sylvandre," added Selwyn. + +"He knows too much already," she retorted, delicate nose in the +air. . . . "Hark! Ear to the ground! My atavistic and wilder instincts +warn me that somebody is coming!" + +"Boots and Drina," said Selwyn; and he hailed them as they came into +view above. Then he sprang to his feet, calling out: "And Gerald, too! +Hello, old fellow! This is perfectly fine! When did you arrive?" + +"Oh, Gerald!" cried Eileen, both hands outstretched--"it's splendid of +you to come! Dear fellow! have you seen Nina and Austin? And were they +not delighted? And you've come to stay, haven't you? There, I won't +begin to urge you. . . . Look, Gerald--look, Boots--and Drina, too--only +look at those beautiful big plump trout in Captain Selwyn's creel!" + +"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Gerald, "you didn't take those in that little +brook--did you, Philip? Well, wouldn't that snare you! I'm coming down +here after luncheon; I sure am." + +"You will, too, won't you?" asked Drina, jealous lest Boots, her idol, +miss his due share of piscatorial glory. "If you'll wait until I finish +my French I'll come with you." + +"Of course I will," said Lansing reproachfully; "you don't suppose +there's any fun anywhere for me without you, do you?" + +"No," said Drina simply, "I don't." + +"Another Phyllis in embryo," murmured Eileen to Selwyn. "Alas! for +education!" + +Selwyn laughed and turned to Gerald. "I hunted high and low for you +before I came to Silverside. You found my note?" + +"Yes; I--I'll explain later," said the boy, colouring. "Come ahead, +Eily; Boots and I will take you on at tennis--and Philip, too. We've an +hour or so before luncheon. Is it a go?" + +"Certainly," replied his sister, unaware of Selwyn's proficiency, but +loyal even in doubt. And the five, walking abreast, moved off across the +uplands toward the green lawns of Silverside, where, under a gay lawn +parasol, Nina sat, a "Nature book" in hand, the centre of an attentive +gathering composed of dogs, children, and the cat, Kit-Ki, blinking her +topaz-tinted eyes in the sunshine. + +The young mother looked up happily as the quintet came strolling across +the lawn: "Please don't wander away again before luncheon," she said; +"Gerald, I suppose you are starved, but you've only an hour to wait--Oh, +Phil! what wonderful trout! Children, kindly arise and admire the +surpassing skill of your frivolous uncle!" And, as the children and dogs +came crowding around the opened fish-basket she said to her brother in a +low, contented voice: "Gerald has quite made it up with Austin, dear; I +think we have to thank you, haven't we?" + +"Has he really squared matters with Austin? That's good--that's fine! +Oh, no, I had nothing to do with it--practically nothing. The boy is +sound at the core--that's what did it." And to Gerald, who was hailing +him from the veranda, "Yes, I've plenty of tennis-shoes. Help yourself, +old chap." + +Eileen had gone to her room to don a shorter skirt and rubber-soled +shoes; Lansing followed her example; and Selwyn, entering his own room, +found Gerald trying on a pair of white foot-gear. + +The boy looked up, smiled, and, crossing one knee, began to tie the +laces: + +"I told Austin that I meant to slow down," he said. "We're on terms +again. He was fairly decent." + +"Good business!" commented Selwyn vigorously. + +"And I'm cutting out cards and cocktails," continued the boy, eager as a +little lad who tells how good he has been all day--"I made it plain to +the fellows that there was nothing in it for me. And, Philip, I'm boning +down like thunder at the office--I'm horribly in debt and I'm hustling +to pay up and make a clean start. You," he added, colouring, "will come +first--" + +"At your convenience," said Selwyn, smiling. + +"Not at all! Yours is the first account to be squared; then Neergard--" + +"Do you owe _him_, Gerald?" + +"Do I? Oh, Lord! But he's a patient soul--really, Philip, I wish you +didn't dislike him so thoroughly, because he's good company and besides +that he's a very able man. . . . Well, we won't talk about him, then. +Come on; I'll lick the very life out of you over the net!" + +A few moments later the white balls were flying over the white net, and +active white-flannelled figures were moving swiftly over the velvet +turf. + +Drina, aloft on the umpire's perch, calmly scored and decided each point +impartially, though her little heart was beating fast in desire for her +idol's supremacy; and it was all her official composure could endure to +see how Eileen at the net beat down his defence, driving him with her +volleys to the service line. + +Selwyn's game proved to be steady, old-fashioned, but logical; Eileen, +sleeves at her elbows, red-gold hair in splendid disorder, carried the +game through Boots straight at her brother--and the contest was really a +brilliant duel between them, Lansing and Selwyn assisting when a rare +chance came their way. The pace was too fast for them, however; they +were in a different class and they knew it; and after two terrific sets +had gone against Gerald and Boots, the latter, signalling Selwyn, +dropped out and climbed up beside Drina to watch a furious single +between Eileen and Gerald. + +"Oh, Boots, Boots!" said Drina, "why _didn't_ you stay forward and kill +her drives and make her lob? I just know you could do it if you had only +thought to play forward! What on earth was the matter?" + +"Age," said Mr. Lansing serenely--"decrepitude, Drina. I am a Was, +sweetheart, but Eileen still remains an Is." + +"I won't let you say it! You are _not_ a Was!" said the child fiercely. +"After luncheon you can take me on for practice. Then you can just give +it to her!" + +"It would gratify me to hand a few swift ones to somebody," he said. +"Look at that demon girl, yonder! She's hammering Gerald to the service +line! Oh, my, oh, me! I'm only fit for hat-ball with Billy or +cat's-cradle with Kit-Ki. Drina, do you realise that I am nearly +thirty?" + +"Pooh! I'm past thirteen. In five years I'll be eighteen. I expect to +marry you at eighteen. You promised." + +"Sure thing," admitted Boots; "I've bought the house, you know." + +"I know it," said the child gravely. + +Boots looked down at her; she smiled and laid her head, with its +clustering curls, against his shoulder, watching the game below with the +quiet composure of possession. + +Their relations, hers and Lansing's, afforded infinite amusement to the +Gerards. It had been a desperate case from the very first; and the child +took it so seriously, and considered her claim on Boots so absolute, +that neither that young man nor anybody else dared make a jest of the +affair within her hearing. + +From a dimple-kneed, despotic, strenuous youngster, ruling the nursery +with a small hand of iron, in half a year Drina had grown into a rather +slim, long-legged, coolly active child; and though her hair had not been +put up, her skirts had been lowered, and shoes and stockings substituted +for half-hose and sandals. + +Weighted with this new dignity she had put away dolls, officially. +Unofficially she still dressed, caressed, forgave, or spanked Rosalinda +and Beatrice--but she excluded the younger children from the nursery +when she did it. + +However, the inborn necessity for mimicry and romance remained; and she +satisfied it by writing stories--marvellous ones--which she read to +Boots. Otherwise she was the same active, sociable, wholesome, +intelligent child, charmingly casual and inconsistent; and the list of +her youthful admirers at dancing-school and parties required the +alphabetical classification of Mr. Lansing. + +But Boots was her own particular possession; he was her chattel, her +thing; and he and other people knew that it was no light affair to +meddle with the personal property of Drina Gerard. + +Her curly head resting against his arm, she was now planning his future +movements for the day: + +"You may do what you please while I'm having French," she said +graciously; "after that we will go fishing in Brier Water; then I'll +come home to practice, while you sit on the veranda and listen; then +I'll take you on at tennis, and by that time the horses will be brought +around and we'll ride to the Falcon. You won't forget any of this, will +you? Come on; Eileen and Gerald have finished and there's Dawson to +announce luncheon!" And to Gerald, as she climbed down to the ground: +"Oh, what a muff! to let Eileen beat you six--five, six--three! . . . +Where's my hat? . . . Oh, the dogs have got it and are tearing it to +rags!" + +And she dashed in among the dogs, slapping right and left, while a +facetious dachshund seized the tattered bit of lace and muslin and fled +at top speed. + +"That is pleasant," observed Nina; "it's her best hat, too--worn to-day +in your honour, Boots. . . . Children! Hands and faces! There is Bridget +waiting! Come, Phil; there's no law against talking at table, and +there's no use trying to run an establishment if you make a mockery of +the kitchen." + +Eileen, one bare arm around her brother's shoulders, strolled houseward +across the lawn, switching the shaven sod with her tennis-bat. + +"What are you doing this afternoon?" she said to Selwyn. "Gerald"--she +touched her brother's smooth cheek--"means to fish; Boots and Drina are +keen on it, too; and Nina is driving to Wyossett with the children." + +"And you?" he asked, smiling. + +"Whatever you wish"--confident that he wanted her, whatever he had on +hand. + +"I ought to walk over to Storm Head," he said, "and get things +straightened out." + +"Your laboratory?" asked Gerald. "Austin told me when I saw him in town +that you were going to have the cottage on Storm Head to make powder +in." + +"Only in minute quantities, Gerald," explained Selwyn; "I just want to +try a few things. . . . And if they turn out all right, what do you say +to taking a look in--if Austin approves?" + +"Oh, please, Gerald," whispered his sister. + +"Do you really believe there is anything in it?" asked the boy. +"Because, if you are sure--" + +"There certainly is if I can prove that my powder is able to resist +heat, cold, and moisture. The Lawn people stand ready to talk matters +over as soon as I am satisfied. . . . There's plenty of time--but keep +the suggestion in the back of your head, Gerald." + +The boy smiled, nodded importantly, and went off to remove the stains of +tennis from his person; and Eileen went, too, turning around to look +back at Selwyn: + +"Thank you for asking Gerald! I'm sure he will love to go into anything +you think safe." + +"Will you join us, too?" he called back, smilingly--"we may need +capital!" + +"I'll remember that!" she said; and, turning once more as she reached +the landing: "Good-bye--until luncheon!" And touched her lips with the +tips of her fingers, flinging him a gay salute. + +In parting and meeting--even after the briefest of intervals--it was +always the same with her; always she had for him some informal hint of +the formality of parting; always some recognition of their meeting--in +the light touching of hands as though the symbol of ceremony, at least, +was due to him, to herself, and to the occasion. + +Luncheon at Silverside was anything but a function--with the children at +table and the dogs in a semicircle, and the nurses tying bibs and +admonishing the restless or belligerent, and the wide French windows +open, and the sea wind lifting the curtains and stirring the cluster of +wild flowers in the centre of the table. + +Kit-Ki's voice was gently raised at intervals; at intervals some +grinning puppy, unable to longer endure the nourishing odours, lost +self-control and yapped, then lowered his head, momentarily overcome +with mortification. + +All the children talked continuously, unlimited conversation being +permitted until it led to hostilities or puppy-play. The elders +conducted such social intercourse as was possible under the conditions, +but luncheon was the children's hour at Silverside. + +Nina and Eileen talked garden talk--they both were quite mad about their +fruit-trees and flower-beds; Selwyn, Gerald, and Boots discussed +stables, golf links, and finally the new business which Selwyn hoped to +develop. + +Afterward, when the children had been excused, and Drina had pulled her +chair close to Lansing's to listen--and after that, on the veranda, +when the men sat smoking and Drina was talking French, and Nina and +Eileen had gone off with baskets, trowels, and pruning-shears--Selwyn +still continued in conference with Boots and Gerald; and it was plain +that his concise, modest explanation of what he had accomplished in his +experiments with Chaosite seriously impressed the other men. + +Boots frankly admitted it: "Besides," he said, "if the Lawn people are +so anxious for you to give them first say in the matter I don't see why +we shouldn't have faith in it--enough, I mean, to be good to ourselves +by offering to be good to you, Phil." + +"Wait until Austin comes down--and until I've tried one or two new +ideas," said Selwyn. "Nothing on earth would finish me quicker than to +get anybody who trusted me into a worthless thing." + +"It's plain," observed Boots, "that although you may have been an army +captain you're no captain of industry--you're not even a non-com.!" + +Selwyn laughed: "Do you really believe that ordinary decency is +uncommon?" + +"Look at Long Island," returned Boots. "Where does the boom of worthless +acreage and paper cities land investors when it explodes?" + +Gerald had flushed up at the turn in the conversation; and Selwyn +steered Lansing into other and safer channels until Gerald went away to +find a rod. + +And, as Drina had finished her French lesson, she and Lansing presently +departed, brandishing fishing-rods adorned with the gaudiest of flies. + + * * * * * + +The house and garden at Silverside seemed to be logical parts of a +landscape, which included uplands, headlands, sky, and water--a silvery +harmonious ensemble, where the artificial portion was neither +officiously intrusive nor, on the other hand, meagre and insignificant. + +The house, a long two-storied affair with white shutters and pillared +veranda, was built of gray stone; the garden was walled with it--a +precaution against no rougher intruder than the wind, which would have +whipped unsheltered flowers and fruit-trees into ribbons. + +Walks of hardened earth, to which green mould clung in patches, wound +through the grounds and threaded the three little groves of oak, +chestnut, and locust, in the centres of which, set in circular lawns, +were the three axes of interest--the stone-edged fish-pond, the spouting +fountain, and the ancient ship's figurehead--a wind-worn, sea-battered +mermaid cuddling a tiny, finny sea-child between breast and lips. + +Whoever the unknown wood-carver had been he had been an artist, too, and +a good one; and when the big China trader, the _First Born_, went to +pieces off Frigate Light, fifty years ago, this figurehead had been cast +up from the sea. + +Wandering into the garden, following the first path at random, Selwyn +chanced upon it, and stood, pipe in his mouth, hands in his pockets, +surprised and charmed. + +Plunkitt, the head gardener, came along, trundling a mowing-machine. + +"Ain't it kind 'er nice," he said, lingering. "When I pass here +moonlight nights, it seems like that baby was a-smilin' right up into +his mamma's face, an' that there fish-tailed girl was laughin' back at +him. Come here some night when there's a moon, Cap'in Selwyn." + +Selwyn stood for a while listening to the musical click of the machine, +watching the green shower flying into the sunshine, and enjoying the raw +perfume of juicy, new-cut grass; then he wandered on in quest of Miss +Erroll. + +Tulips, narcissus, hyacinths, and other bulbs were entirely out of +bloom, but the earlier herbaceous borders had come into flower, and he +passed through masses of pink and ivory-tinted peonies--huge, heavy, +double blossoms, fragrant and delicate as roses. Patches of late iris +still lifted crested heads above pale sword-bladed leaves; sheets of +golden pansies gilded spaces steeped in warm transparent shade, but +larkspur and early rocket were as yet only scarcely budded promises; the +phlox-beds but green carpets; and zinnia, calendula, poppy, and +coreopsis were symphonies in shades of green against the dropping pink +of bleeding-hearts or the nascent azure of flax and spiderwort. + +In the rose garden, and along that section of the wall included in it, +the rich, dry, porous soil glimmered like gold under the sun; and here +Selwyn discovered Nina and Eileen busily solicitous over the tender +shoots of favourite bushes. A few long-stemmed early rosebuds lay in +their baskets; Selwyn drew one through his buttonhole and sat down on a +wheelbarrow, amiably disposed to look on and let the others work. + +"Not much!" said Nina. "You can start in and 'pinch back' this prairie +climber--do you hear, Phil? I won't let you dawdle around and yawn while +I'm pricking my fingers every instant! Make him move, Eileen." + +Eileen came over to him, fingers doubled into her palm and small thumb +extended. + +"Thorns and prickles, please," she said; and he took her hand in his and +proceeded to extract them while she looked down at her almost invisible +wounds, tenderly amused at his fear of hurting her. + +"Do you know," she said, "that people are beginning to open their houses +yonder?" She nodded toward the west: "The Minsters are on the way to +Brookminster, the Orchils have already arrived at Hitherwood House, and +the coachmen and horses were housed at Southlawn last night. I rather +dread the dinners and country formality that always interfere with the +jolly times we have; but it will be rather good fun at the +bathing-beach. . . . Do you swim well? But of course you do." + +"Pretty well; do you?" + +"I'm a fish. Gladys Orchil and I would never leave the surf if they +didn't literally drag us home. . . . You know Gladys Orchil? . . . She's +very nice; so is Sheila Minster; you'll like her better in the country +than you do in town. Kathleen Lawn is nice, too. Alas! I see many a +morning where Drina and I twirl our respective thumbs while you and +Boots are off with a gayer set. . . . Oh, don't interrupt! No mortal man +is proof against Sheila and Gladys and Kathleen--and you're not a +demi-god--are you? . . . Thank you for your surgery upon my thumb--" She +naively placed the tip of it between her lips and looked at him, +standing there like a schoolgirl in her fresh gown, burnished hair +loosened and curling in riotous beauty across cheeks and ears. + +He had seated himself on the wheelbarrow again; she stood looking down +at him, hands now bracketed on her narrow hips--so close that the fresh +fragrance of her grew faintly perceptible--a delicate atmosphere of +youth mingling with the perfume of the young garden. + +Nina, basket on her arm, snipping away with her garden shears, glanced +over her shoulder--and went on, snipping. They did not notice how far +away her agricultural ardour led her--did not notice when she stood a +moment at the gate looking back at them, or when she passed out, pretty +head bent thoughtfully, the shears swinging loose at her girdle. + +The prairie rosebuds in Eileen's basket exhaled their wild, sweet odour; +and Selwyn, breathing it, removed his hat like one who faces a cooling +breeze, and looked up at the young girl standing before him as though +she were the source of all things sweet and freshening in this opening +of the youngest year of his life. + +She said, smiling absently at his question: "Certainly one can grow +younger; and you have done it in a day, here with me." + +She looked down at his hair; it was bright and inclined to wave a +little, but whether the lighter colour at the temples was really +silvered or only a paler tint she was not sure. + +"You are very like a boy, sometimes," she said--"as young as Gerald, I +often think--especially when your hat is off. You always look so +perfectly groomed: I wonder--I wonder what you would look like if your +hair were rumpled?" + +"Try it," he suggested lazily. + +"I? I don't think I dare--" She raised her hand, hesitated, the gay +daring in her eyes deepening to audacity. "Shall I?" + +"Why not?" + +"T-touch your hair?--rumple it?--as I would Gerald's! . . . I'm tempted +to--only--only--" + +"What?" + +"I don't know; I couldn't. I--it was only the temptation of a second--" +She laughed uncertainly. The suggestion of the intimacy tinted her +cheeks with its reaction; she took a short step backward; instinct, +blindly stirring, sobered her; and as the smile faded from eye and lip, +his face changed, too. And far, very far away in the silent cells of his +heart a distant pulse awoke. + +She turned to her roses again, moving at random among the bushes, +disciplining with middle-finger and thumb a translucent, amber-tinted +shoot here and there. And when the silence had lasted too long, she +broke it without turning toward him: + +"After all, if it were left to me, I had rather be merciful to these +soft little buds and sprays, and let the sun and the showers take +charge. A whole cluster of blossoms left free to grow as Fate fashions +them!--Why not? It is certainly very officious of me to strip a stem of +its hopes just for the sake of one pampered blossom. . . . +Non-interference is a safe creed, isn't it?" + +But she continued moving along among the bushes, pinching back here, +snipping, trimming, clipping there; and after a while she had wandered +quite beyond speaking distance; and, at leisurely intervals she +straightened up and turned to look back across the roses at him--quiet, +unsmiling gaze in exchange for his unchanging eyes, which never left +her. + +She was at the farther edge of the rose garden now where a boy knelt, +weeding; and Selwyn saw her speak to him and give him her basket and +shears; and saw the boy start away toward the house, leaving her leaning +idly above the sun-dial, elbows on the weather-beaten stone, studying +the carved figures of the dial. And every line and contour and curve of +her figure--even the lowered head, now resting between both +hands--summoned him. + +She heard his step, but did not move; and when he leaned above the dial, +resting on his elbows, beside her, she laid her finger on the shadow of +the dial. + +"Time," she said, "is trying to frighten me. It pretends to be nearly +five o'clock; do you believe it?" + +"Time is running very fast with me," he said. + +"With me, too; I don't wish it to; I don't care for third speed forward +all the time." + +He was bending closer above the stone dial, striving to decipher the +inscription on it: + + "Under blue skies + My shadow lies. + Under gray skies + My shadow dies. + + "If over me + Two Lovers leaning + Would solve my Mystery + And read my Meaning, + --Or clear, or overcast the Skies-- + The Answer always lies within their Eyes. + Look long! Look long! For there, and there alone + Time solves the Riddle graven on this Stone!" + +Elbows almost touching they leaned at ease, idly reading the almost +obliterated lines engraved there. + +"I never understood it," she observed, lightly scornful. "What occult +meaning has a sun-dial for the spooney? _I'm_ sure I don't want to read +riddles in a strange gentleman's optics." + +"The verses," he explained, "are evidently addressed to the spooney, so +why should you resent them?" + +"I don't. . . . I can be spoons, too, for that matter; I mean I could +once." + +"But you're past spooning now," he concluded. + +"Am I? I rather resent your saying it--your calmly excluding me from +anything I might choose to do," she said. "If I cared--if I chose--if I +really wanted to--" + +"You could still spoon? Impossible! At your age? Nonsense!" + +"It isn't at all impossible. Wait until there's a moon, and a canoe, and +a nice boy who is young enough to be frightened easily!" + +"And I," he retorted, "am too old to be frightened; so there's no moon, +no canoe, no pretty girl, no spooning for me. Is that it, Eileen?" + +"Oh, Gladys and Sheila will attend to you, Captain Selwyn." + +"Why Gladys Orchil? Why Sheila Minster? And why _not_ Eileen Erroll?" + +"Spoon? With _you_!" + +"You are quite right," he said, smiling; "it would be poor sport." + +There had been no change in his amused eyes, in his voice; yet, +sensitive to the imperceptible, the girl looked up quickly. He laughed +and straightened up; and presently his eyes grew absent and his +sun-burned hand sought his moustache. + +"Have you misunderstood me?" she asked in a low voice. + +"How, child?" + +"I don't know. . . . Shall we walk a little?" + +When they came to the stone fish-pond she seated herself for a moment on +a marble bench, then, curiously restless, rose again; and again they +moved forward at hazard, past the spouting fountain, which was a driven +well, out of which a crystal column of water rose, geyser-like, dazzling +in the westering sun rays. + +"Nina tells me that this water rises in the Connecticut hills," he said, +"and flows as a subterranean sheet under the Sound, spouting up here on +Long Island when you drive a well." + +She looked at the column of flashing water, nodding silent assent. + +They moved on, the girl curiously reserved, non-communicative, head +slightly lowered; the man vague-eyed, thoughtful, pacing slowly at her +side. Behind them their long shadows trailed across the brilliant grass. + +Traversing the grove which encircled the newly clipped lawn, now +fragrant with sun-crisped grass-tips left in the wake of the mower, he +glanced up at the pretty mermaid mother cuddling her tiny offspring +against her throat. Across her face a bar of pink sunlight fell, making +its contour exquisite. + +"Plunkitt tells me that they really laugh at each other in the +moonlight," he said. + +She glanced up; then away from him: + +"You seem to be enamoured of the moonlight," she said. + +"I like to prowl in it." + +"Alone?" + +"Sometimes." + +"And--at other times?" + +He laughed: "Oh, I'm past that, as you reminded me a moment ago." + +"Then you _did_ misunderstand me!" + +"Why, no--" + +"Yes, you did! But I supposed you knew." + +"Knew what, Eileen?" "What I meant." + +"You meant that I am _hors de concours_." + +"I didn't!" + +"But I am, child. I was, long ago." + +She looked up: "Do you really think that, Captain Selwyn? If you do--I +am glad." + +He laughed outright. "You are glad that I'm safely past the spooning +age?" he inquired, moving forward. + +She halted: "Yes. Because I'm quite sure of you if you are; I mean that +I can always keep you for myself. Can't I?" + +She was smiling and her eyes were clear and fearless, but there was a +wild-rose tint on her cheeks which deepened a little as he turned short +in his tracks, gazing straight at her. + +"You wish to keep me--for yourself?" he repeated, laughing. + +"Yes, Captain Selwyn." + +"Until you marry. Is that it, Eileen?" + +"Yes, until I marry." + +"And then we'll let each other go; is that it?" + +"Yes. But I think I told you that I would never marry. Didn't I?" + +"Oh! Then ours is to be a lifelong and anti-sentimental contract!" + +"Yes, unless _you_ marry." + +"I promise not to," he said, "unless you do." + +"I promise not to," she said gaily, "unless you do." + +"There remains," he observed, "but one way for you and I ever to marry +anybody. And as I'm _hors de concours_, even that hope is ended." + +She flushed; her lips parted, but she checked what she had meant to say, +and they walked forward together in silence for a while until she had +made up her mind what to say and how to express it: + +"Captain Selwyn, there are two things that you do which seem to me +unfair. You still have, at times, that far-away, absent expression which +excludes me; and when I venture to break the silence, you have a way of +answering, 'Yes, child,' and 'No, child'--as though you were +inattentive, and I had not yet become an adult. _That_ is my first +complaint! . . . _What_ are you laughing at? It is true; and it confuses +and hurts me; because I _know_ I am intelligent enough and old enough +to--to be treated as a woman!--a woman attractive enough to be reckoned +with! But I never seem to be wholly so to you." + +The laugh died out as she ended; for a moment they stood there, +confronting one another. + +"Do you imagine," he said in a low voice, "that I do not know all that?" + +"I don't know whether you do. For all your friendship--for all your +liking and your kindness to me--somehow--I--I don't seem to stand with +you as other women do; I don't seem to stand their chances." + +"What chances?" + +"The--the consideration; you don't call any other woman 'child,' do you? +You don't constantly remind other women of the difference in your ages, +do you? You don't _feel_ with other women that you are--as you please to +call it--_hors de concours_--out of the running. And somehow, with me, +it humiliates. Because even if I--if I am the sort of a girl who never +means to marry, you--your attitude seems to take away the possibility of +my changing my mind; it dictates to me, giving me no choice, no liberty, +no personal freedom in the matter. . . . It's as though you considered +me somehow utterly out of the question--radically unthinkable as a +woman. And you assume to take for granted that I also regard you as--as +_hors de concours_. . . . Those are my grievances, Captain Selwyn. . . . +And I _don't_ regard you so. And I--and it troubles me to be +excluded--to be found wanting, inadequate in anything that a woman +should be. I know that you and I have no desire to marry each +other--but--but please don't make the reason for it either your age or +my physical immaturity or intellectual inexperience." + +Another of those weather-stained seats of Georgia marble stood embedded +under the trees near where she had halted; and she seated herself, +outwardly composed, and inwardly a little frightened at what she had +said. + +As for Selwyn, he remained where he had been standing on the lawn's +velvet edge; and, raising her eyes again, her heart misgave her that she +had wantonly strained a friendship which had been all but perfect; and +now he was moving across the path toward her--a curious look in his face +which she could not interpret. She looked up as he approached and +stretched out her hand: + +"Forgive me, Captain Selwyn," she said. "I _am_ a child--a spoiled one; +and I have proved it to you. Will you sit here beside me and tell me +very gently what a fool I am to risk straining the friendship dearest to +me in the whole world? And will you fix my penance?" + +"You have fixed it yourself," he said. + +"How?" + +"By the challenge of your womanhood." + +"I did not challenge--" + +"No; you defended. You are right. The girl I cared for--the girl who was +there with me on Brier Water--so many, many centuries ago--the girl who, +years ago, leaned there beside me on the sun-dial--has become a +memory." + +"What do you mean?" she asked faintly. + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Yes." + +"You will not be unhappy if I tell you?" + +"N-no." + +"Have you any idea what I am going to say, Eileen?" + +She looked up quickly, frightened at the tremor in his voice: + +"Don't--don't say it, Captain Selwyn!" + +"Will you listen--as a penance?" + +"I--no, I cannot--" + +He said quietly: "I was afraid you could not listen. You see, Eileen, +that, after all, a man does know when he is done for--" + +"Captain Selwyn!" She turned and caught his hands in both of hers, her +eyes bright with tears: "Is that the penalty for what I said? Did you +think I invited this--" + +"Invited! No, child," he said gently. "I was fool enough to believe in +myself; that is all. I have always been on the edge of loving you. Only +in dreams did I ever dare set foot across that frontier. Now I have +dared. I love you. That is all; and it must not distress you." + +"But it does not," she said; "I have always loved you--dearly, +dearly. . . . Not in that way. . . . I don't know how. . . . Must it be +in _that_ way, Captain Selwyn? Can we not go on in the other way--that +dear way which I--I have--almost spoiled? Must we be like other +people--must sentiment turn it all to commonplace? . . . Listen to me; I +do love you; it is perfectly easy and simple to say it. But it is not +emotional, it is not sentimental. Can't you see that in little +things--in my ways with you? I--if I were sentimental about you I would +call you Ph--by your first name, I suppose. But I can't; I've tried +to--and it's very, very hard--and makes me self-conscious. It is an +effort, you see--and so would it be for me to think of you sentimentally. +Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!--you, so much of a man, so strong and +generous and experienced and clever--so perfectly the embodiment of +everything I care for in a man! I love you dearly; but--you saw! I +could--could not bring myself to touch even your hair--even in pure +mischief. . . . And--sentiment chills me; I--there are times when it +would be unendurable--I could not use an endearing term--nor suffer a--a +caress. . . . So you see--don't you? And won't you take me for what I +am?--and as I am?--a girl--still young, devoted to you with all her +soul--happy with you, believing implicitly in you, deeply, deeply +sensible of your goodness and sweetness and loyalty to her. I am not a +woman; I was a fool to say so. But you--you are so overwhelmingly a man +that if it were in me to love--in that way--it would be you! . . . Do +you understand me? Or have I lost a friend? Will you forgive my foolish +boast? Can you still keep me first in your heart--as you are in mine? +And pardon in me all that I am not? Can you do these things because I +ask you?" + +"Yes," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A NOVICE + + +Gerald came to Silverside two or three times during the early summer, +arriving usually on Friday and remaining until the following Monday +morning. + +All his youthful admiration and friendship for Selwyn had returned; that +was plainly evident--and with it something less of callow +self-sufficiency. He did not appear to be as cock-sure of himself and +the world as he had been; there was less bumptiousness about him, less +aggressive complacency. Somewhere and somehow somebody or something had +come into collision with him; but who or what this had been he did not +offer to confide in Selwyn; and the older man, dreading to disturb the +existing accord between them, forbore to question him or invite, even +indirectly, any confidence not offered. + +Selwyn had slowly become conscious of this change in Gerald. In the +boy's manner toward others there seemed to be hints of that seriousness +which maturity or the first pressure of responsibility brings, even to +the more thoughtless. Plainly enough some experience, not wholly +agreeable, was teaching him the elements of consideration for others; he +was less impulsive, more tolerant; yet, at times, Selwyn and Eileen also +noticed that he became very restless toward the end of his visits at +Silverside; as though something in the city awaited him--some duty, or +responsibility not entirely pleasant. + +There was, too, something of soberness, amounting, at moments, to +discontented listlessness--not solitary brooding; for at such moments he +stuck to Selwyn, following him about and remaining rather close to him, +as though the elder man's mere presence was a comfort--even a +protection. + +At such intervals Selwyn longed to invite the boy's confidence, knowing +that he had some phase of life to face for which his experience was +evidently inadequate. But Gerald gave no sign of invitation; and Selwyn +dared not speak lest he undo what time and his forbearance were slowly +repairing. + +So their relations remained during the early summer; and everybody +supposed that Gerald's two weeks' vacation would be spent there at +Silverside. Apparently the boy himself thought so, too, for he made some +plans ahead, and Austin sent down a very handsome new motor-boat for +him. + +Then, at the last minute, a telegram arrived, saying that he had sailed +for Newport on Neergard's big yacht! And for two weeks no word was +received from him at Silverside. + +Late in August, however, he wrote a rather colourless letter to Selwyn, +saying that he was tired and would be down for the week-end. + +He came, thinner than usual, with the city pallor showing through traces +of the sea tan. And it appeared that he was really tired; for he seemed +inclined to lounge on the veranda, satisfied as long as Selwyn remained +in sight. But, when Selwyn moved, he got up and followed. + +So subdued, so listless, so gentle in manner and speech had he become +that somebody, in his temporary absence, wondered whether the boy were +perfectly well--which voiced the general doubt hitherto unexpressed. + +But Austin laughed and said that the boy was merely finding himself; and +everybody acquiesced, much relieved at the explanation, though to Selwyn +the explanation was not at all satisfactory. + +There was trouble somewhere, stress of doubt, pressure of apprehension, +the gravity of immaturity half realising its own inexperience. And one +day in September he wrote Gerald, asking him to bring Edgerton Lawn and +come down to Silverside for the purpose of witnessing some experiments +with the new smokeless explosive, Chaosite. + +Young Lawn came by the first train; Gerald wired that he would arrive +the following morning. + +He did arrive, unusually pallid, almost haggard; and Selwyn, who met him +at the station and drove him over from Wyossett, ventured at last to +give the boy a chance. + +But Gerald remained utterly unresponsive--stolidly so--and the other +instantly relinquished the hope of any confidence at that time--shifting +the conversation at once to the object and reason of Gerald's coming, +and gaily expressing his belief that the time was very near at hand when +Chaosite would figure heavily in the world's list of commercially +valuable explosives. + +It was early in August that Selwyn had come to the conclusion that his +Chaosite was likely to prove a commercial success. And now, in +September, his experiments had advanced so far that he had ventured to +invite Austin, Gerald, Lansing, and Edgerton Lawn, of the Lawn +Nitro-Powder Company, to witness a few tests at his cottage laboratory +on Storm Head; but at the same time he informed them with characteristic +modesty that he was not yet prepared to guarantee the explosive. + +About noon his guests arrived before the cottage in a solemn file, +halted, and did not appear overanxious to enter the laboratory on Storm +Head. Also they carefully cast away their cigars when they did enter, +and seated themselves in a nervous circle in the largest room of the +cottage. Here their eyes instantly became glued to a great bowl which +was piled high with small rose-tinted cubes of some substance which +resembled symmetrical and translucent crystals of pink quartz. That was +Chaosite enough to blow the entire cliff into smithereens; and they were +aware of it, and they eyed it with respect. + +First of all Selwyn laid a cubic crystal on an anvil, and struck it +sharply and repeatedly with a hammer. Austin's thin hair rose, and +Edgerton Lawn swallowed nothing several times; but nobody went to +heaven, and the little cube merely crumbled into a flaky pink powder. + +Then Selwyn took three cubes, dropped them into boiling milk, fished +them out again, twisted them into a waxy taper, placed it in a +candle-stick, and set fire to it. The taper burned with a flaring +brilliancy but without odour. + +Then Selwyn placed several cubes in a mortar, pounded them to powder +with an iron pestle, and, measuring out the tiniest pinch--scarcely +enough to cover the point of a penknife, placed a few grains in several +paper cartridges. Two wads followed the powder, then an ounce and a half +of shot, then a wad, and then the crimping. + +The guests stepped gratefully outside; Selwyn, using a light +fowling-piece, made pattern after pattern for them; and then they all +trooped solemnly indoors again; and Selwyn froze Chaosite and boiled it +and baked it and melted it and took all sorts of hair-raising liberties +with it; and after that he ground it to powder, placed a few generous +pinches in a small hand-grenade, and affixed a primer, the secret +composition of which he alone knew. That was the key to the secret--the +composition of the primer charge. + +"I used to play base-ball in college," he observed smiling--"and I used +to be a pretty good shot with a snowball." + +They followed him to the cliff's edge, always with great respect for the +awful stuff he handled with such apparent carelessness. There was a +black sea-soaked rock jutting out above the waves; Selwyn pointed at it, +poised himself, and, with the long, overhand, straight throw of a +trained ball player, sent the grenade like a bullet at the rock. + +There came a blinding flash, a stunning, clean-cut report--but what the +others took to be a vast column of black smoke was really a pillar of +dust--all that was left of the rock. And this slowly floated, settling +like mist over the waves, leaving nothing where the rock had been. + +"I think," said Edgerton Lawn, wiping the starting perspiration from his +forehead, "that you have made good, Captain Selwyn. Dense or bulk, your +Chaosite and impact primer seem to do the business; and I think I may +say that the Lawn Nitro-Powder Company is ready to do business, too. Can +you come to town to-morrow? It's merely a matter of figures and +signatures now, if you say so. It is entirely up to you." + +But Selwyn only laughed. He looked at Austin. + +"I suppose," said Edgerton Lawn good-naturedly, "that you intend to make +us sit up and beg; or do you mean to absorb us?" + +But Selwyn said: "I want more time on this thing. I want to know what it +does to the interior of loaded shells and in fixed ammunition when it is +stored for a year. I want to know whether it is necessary to use a +solvent after firing it in big guns. As a bursting charge I'm +practically satisfied with it; but time is required to know how it acts +on steel in storage or on the bores of guns when exploded as a +propelling charge. Meanwhile," turning to Lawn, "I'm tremendously +obliged to you for coming--and for your offer. You see how it is, don't +you? I couldn't risk taking money for a thing which might, at the end, +prove dear at any price." + +"I cheerfully accept that risk," insisted young Lawn; "I am quite ready +to do all the worrying, Captain Selwyn." + +But Selwyn merely shook his head, repeating: "You see how it is, don't +you?" + +"I see that you possess a highly developed conscience," said Edgerton +Lawn, laughing; "and when I tell you that we are more than willing to +take every chance of failure--" + +But Selwyn shook his head: "Not yet," he said; "don't worry; I need the +money, and I'll waste no time when a square deal is possible. But I +ought to tell you this: that first of all I must offer it to the +Government. That is only decent, you see--" + +"Who ever heard of the Government's gratitude?" broke in Austin. +"Nonsense, Phil; you are wasting time!" + +"I've got to do it," said Selwyn; "you must see that, of course." + +"But I don't see it," began Lawn--"because you are not in the Government +service now--" + +"Besides," added Austin, "you were not a West Pointer; you never were +under obligations to the Government!" + +"Are we not all under obligation?" asked Selwyn so simply that Austin +flushed. + +"Oh, of course--patriotism and all that--naturally--Confound it, I don't +suppose you'd go and offer it to Germany or Japan before our own +Government had the usual chance to turn it down and break your heart. +But why can't the Government make arrangements with Lawn's Company--if +it desires to?" + +"A man can't exploit his own Government; you all know that as well as I +do," returned Selwyn, smiling. "_Pro aris et focis_, you know--_ex +necessitate rei_." + +"When the inventor goes to the Government," said Austin, with a +shrug--"_vestigia nulla retrorsum_." + +"_Spero meliora_," retorted Selwyn, laughing; but there remained the +obstinate squareness of jaw, and his amused eyes were clear and steady. +Young Lawn looked into them and the hope in him flickered; Austin +looked, and shrugged; but as they all turned away to retrace their steps +across the moors in the direction of Silverside, Lansing lightly hooked +his arm into Selwyn's; and Gerald, walking thoughtfully on the other +side, turned over and over in his mind the proposition offered him--the +spectacle of a modern and needy man to whom money appeared to be the +last consideration in a plain matter of business. Also he turned over +other matters in his mind; and moved closer to Selwyn, walking beside +him with grave eyes bent on the ground. + + * * * * * + +The matter of business arrangements apparently ended then and there; +Lawn's company sent several men to Selwyn and wrote him a great many +letters--unlike the Government, which had not replied to his briefly +tentative suggestion that Chaosite be conditionally examined, tested, +and considered. + +So the matter remained in abeyance, and Selwyn employed two extra men +and continued storage tests and experimented with rifled and smooth-bore +tubes, watchfully uncertain yet as to the necessity of inventing a +solvent to neutralise possible corrosion after a propelling charge had +been exploded. + +Everybody in the vicinity had heard about his experiments; everybody +pretended interest, but few were sincere; and of the sincere, few were +unselfishly interested--his sister, Eileen, Drina, and Lansing--and +maybe one or two others. + +However, the younger set, now predominant from Wyossett to Wonder Head, +made up parties to visit Selwyn's cottage, which had become known as The +Chrysalis; and Selwyn good-naturedly exploded a pinch or two of the +stuff for their amusement, and never betrayed the slightest annoyance or +boredom. In fact, he behaved so amiably during gratuitous interruptions +that he won the hearts of the younger set, who presently came to the +unanimous conclusion that there was Romance in the air. And they sniffed +it with delicate noses uptilted and liked the aroma. + +Kathleen Lawn, a big, leisurely, blond-skinned girl, who showed her +teeth when she laughed and shook hands like a man, declared him +"adorable" but "unsatisfactory," which started one of the Dresden-china +twins, Dorothy Minster, and she, in turn, ventured the innocent opinion +that Selwyn was misunderstood by most people--an inference that she +herself understood him. And she smiled to herself when she made this +observation, up to her neck in the surf; and Eileen, hearing the remark, +smiled to herself, too. But she felt the slightest bit uncomfortable +when that animated brunette Gladys Orchil, climbing up dripping on to +the anchored float beyond the breakers, frankly confessed that the +tinge of mystery enveloping Selwyn's career made him not only adorable, +but agreeably "unfathomable"; and that she meant to experiment with him +at every opportunity. + +Sheila Minster, seated on the raft's edge, swinging her stockinged legs +in the green swells that swept steadily shoreward, modestly admitted +that Selwyn was "sweet," particularly in a canoe on a moonlight +night--in spite of her weighty mother heavily afloat in the vicinity. + +"He's nice every minute," she said--"every fibre of him is nice in the +nicest sense. He never talks 'down' at you--like an insufferable +undergraduate; and he is so much of a man--such a real man!--that I like +him," she added naively; "and I'm quite sure he likes me, because he +said so." + +"I like him," said Gladys Orchil, "because he has a sense of humour and +stands straight. I like a sense of humour and--good shoulders. He's an +enigma; and I like that, too. . . . I'm going to investigate him every +chance I get." + +Dorothy Minster liked him, too: "He's such a regular boy at times," she +explained; "I do love to see him without his hat sauntering along beside +me--and not talking every minute when you don't wish to talk. Friends," +she added--"true friends are most eloquent in their mutual silence. +Ahem!" + +Eileen Erroll, standing near on the pitching raft, listened intently, +but curiously enough said nothing either in praise or blame. + +"He is exactly the right age," insisted Gladys--as though somebody had +said he was not--"the age when a man is most interesting." + +The Minster twins twiddled their legs and looked sentimentally at the +ocean. They were a pair of pink and white little things with china-blue +eyes and the fairest of hair, and they were very impressionable; and +when they thought of Selwyn they looked unutterable things at the +Atlantic Ocean. + +One man, often the least suitable, is usually the unanimous choice of +the younger sort where, in the disconcerting summer time, the youthful +congregate in garrulous segregation. + +Their choice they expressed frankly and innocently; they admitted +cheerfully that Selwyn was their idol. But that gentleman remained +totally unconscious that he had been set up by them upon the shores of +the summer sea. + +In leisure moments he often came down to the bathing-beach at the hour +made fashionable; he conducted himself amiably with dowager and +chaperon, with portly father and nimble brother, with the late +debutantes of the younger set and the younger matrons, individually, +collectively, impartially. + +He and Gerald usually challenged the rollers in a sponson canoe when +Gerald was there for the week-end; or, when Lansing came down, the two +took long swims seaward or cruised about in Gerald's dory, clad in their +swimming-suits; and Selwyn's youth became renewed in a manner almost +ridiculous, so that the fine lines which had threatened the corners of +his mouth and eyes disappeared, and the clear sun tan of the tropics, +which had never wholly faded, came back over a smooth skin as clear as a +boy's, though not as smoothly rounded. His hair, too, crisped and grew +lighter under the burning sun, which revealed, at the temples, the +slightest hint of silver. And this deepened the fascination of the +younger sort for the idol they had set up upon the sands of Silverside. + +Gladys was still eloquent on the subject, lying flat on the raft where +all were now gathered in a wet row, indulging in sunshine and the two +minutes of gossip which always preceded their return swim to the beach. + +"It is partly his hair," she said gravely, "that makes him so +distinguished in his appearance--just that touch of silver; and you keep +looking and looking until you scarcely know whether it's really +beginning to turn a little gray or whether it's only a lighter colour at +the temples. How insipid is a mere boy after such a man as Captain +Selwyn! . . . I have dreamed of such a man--several times." + +The Minster twins gazed soulfully at the Atlantic; Eileen Erroll bit her +under lip and stood up suddenly. "Come on," she said; joined her hands +skyward, poised, and plunged. One after another the others followed and, +rising to the surface, struck out shoreward. + +On the sunlit sands dozens of young people were hurling tennis-balls at +each other. Above the beach, under the long pavilions, sat mothers and +chaperons. Motors, beach-carts, and victorias were still arriving to +discharge gaily dressed fashionables--for the hour was early--and up and +down the inclined wooden walk leading from the bathing-pavilion to the +sands, a constant procession of bathers passed with nod and gesture of +laughing salutation, some already retiring to the showers after a brief +ocean plunge, the majority running down to the shore, eager for the +first frosty and aromatic embrace of the surf rolling in under a +cloudless sky of blue. + +As Eileen Erroll emerged from the surf and came wading shoreward through +the seething shallows, she caught sight of Selwyn sauntering across the +sands toward the water, and halted, knee-deep, smilingly expectant, +certain that he had seen her. + +Gladys Orchil, passing her, saw Selwyn at the same moment, and her +clear, ringing salute and slender arm aloft, arrested his attention; and +the next moment they were off together, swimming toward the sponson +canoe which Gerald had just launched with the assistance of Sandon Craig +and Scott Innis. + +For a moment Eileen stood there, motionless. Knee-high the flat ebb +boiled and hissed, dragging at her stockinged feet as though to draw her +seaward with the others. Yesterday she would have gone, without a +thought, to join the others; but yesterday is yesterday. It seemed to +her, as she stood there, that something disquieting had suddenly come +into the world; something unpleasant--but indefinite--yet sufficient to +leave her vaguely apprehensive. + +The saner emotions which have their birth in reason she was not ignorant +of; emotion arising from nothing at all disconcerted her--nor could she +comprehend the slight quickening of her heart-beats as she waded to the +beach, while every receding film of water tugged at her limbs as though +to draw her backward in the wake of her unquiet thoughts. + +Somebody threw a tennis-ball at her; she caught it and hurled it in +return; and for a few minutes the white, felt-covered balls flew back +and forth from scores of graceful, eager hands. A moment or two passed +when no balls came her way; she turned and walked to the foot of a dune +and seated herself cross-legged on the hot sand. + +Sometimes she watched the ball players, sometimes she exchanged a word +of amiable commonplace with people who passed or halted to greet her. +But she invited nobody to remain, and nobody ventured to, not even +several very young and ardent gentlemen who had acquired only the +rudiments of social sense. For there was a sweet but distant look in her +dark-blue eyes and a certain reserved preoccupation in her +acknowledgment of salutations. And these kept the would-be adorer +moving--wistful, lagging, but still moving along the edge of that +invisible barrier set between her and the world with her absent-minded +greeting, and her serious, beautiful eyes fixed so steadily on a distant +white spot--the sponson canoe where Gladys and Selwyn sat, their paddle +blades flashing in the sun. + +How far away they were. . . . Gerald was with them. . . . Curious that +Selwyn had not seen her waiting for him, knee-deep in the surf--curious +that he had seen Gladys instead. . . . True, Gladys had called to him +and signalled him, white arm upflung. . . . Gladys was very pretty--with +her heavy, dark hair and melting, Spanish eyes, and her softly rounded, +olive-skinned figure. . . . Gladys had called to him, and _she_ had not. +. . . That was true; and lately--for the last few days--or perhaps +more--she herself had been a trifle less impulsive in her greeting of +Selwyn--a little less _sans-facon_ with him. . . . After all, a man +comes when it pleases him. Why should a girl call him?--unless +she--unless--unless-- + +Perplexed, her grave eyes fixed on the sea where now the white canoe +pitched nearer, she dropped both hands to the sand--those once +wonderfully white hands, now creamed with sun tan; and her arms, too, +were tinted from shoulder to finger-tip. Then she straightened her +legs, crossed her feet, and leaned a trifle forward, balancing her body +on both palms flat on the sand. The sun beat down on her; she loosened +her hair to dry it, and as she shook her delicate head the superb +red-gold mass came tumbling about her face and shoulders. Under its +glimmering splendour, and through it, she stared seaward out of wide, +preoccupied eyes; and in her breast, stirring uneasily, a pulse, +intermittent yet dully importunate, persisted. + +The canoe, drifting toward the surf, was close in, now. Gerald rose and +dived; Gladys, steadying herself by a slim hand on Selwyn's shoulder, +stood up on the bow, ready to plunge clear when the canoe capsized. + +How wonderfully pretty she was, balanced there, her hand on his +shoulder, ready for a leap, lest the heavy canoe, rolling over in the +froth, strike her under the smother of foam and water. . . . How +marvellously pretty she was. . . . Her hand on his shoulder. . . . + +Miss Erroll sat very still; but the pulse within her was not still. + +When the canoe suddenly capsized, Gladys jumped, but Selwyn went with +it, boat and man tumbling into the tumult over and over; and the usual +laughter from the onlookers rang out, and a dozen young people rushed +into the surf to right the canoe and push it out into the surf again and +clamber into it. + +Gerald was among the number; Gladys swam toward it, beckoning +imperiously to Selwyn; but he had his back to the sea and was moving +slowly out through the flat swirling ebb. And as Eileen looked, she saw +a dark streak leap across his face--saw him stoop and wash it off and +stand, looking blindly about, while again the sudden dark line +criss-crossed his face from temple to chin, and spread wider like a +stain. + +"Philip!" she called, springing to her feet and scarcely knowing that +she had spoken. + +He heard her, and came toward her in a halting, dazed way, stopping +twice to cleanse his face of the bright blood that streaked it. + +"It's nothing," he said--"the infernal thing hit me. . . . Oh, don't use +_that_!" as she drenched her kerchief in cold sea-water and held it +toward him with both hands. + +"Take it!--I--I beg of you," she stammered. "Is it s-serious?" + +"Why, no," he said, his senses clearing; "it was only a rap on the +head--and this blood is merely a nuisance. . . . Thank you, I will use +your kerchief if you insist. . . . It'll stop in a moment, anyway." + +"Please sit here," she said--"here where I've been sitting." + +He did so, muttering: "What a nuisance. It will stop in a second. . . . +You needn't remain here with me, you know. Go in; it is simply +glorious." + +"I've been in; I was drying my hair." + +He glanced up, smiling; then, as the wet kerchief against his forehead +reddened, he started to rise, but she took it from his fingers, hastened +to the water's edge, rinsed it, and brought it back cold and wet. + +"Please sit perfectly still," she said; "a girl likes to do this sort of +thing for a man." + +"If I'd known that," he laughed, "I'd have had it happen frequently." + +She only shook her head, watching him unsmiling. But the pulse in her +had become very quiet again. + +"It's no end of fun in that canoe," he observed. "Gladys Orchil and I +work it beautifully." + +"I saw you did," she nodded. + +"Oh! Where were you? Why didn't you come?" + +"I don't know. Gladys called you. I was waiting for you--expecting you. +Then Gladys called you." + +"I didn't see you," he said. + +"I didn't call you," she observed serenely. And, after a moment: "Do you +see only those who hail you, Captain Selwyn?" + +He laughed: "In this life's cruise a good sailor always answers a +friendly hail." + +"So do I," she said. "Please hail me after this--because I don't care to +take the initiative. If you neglect to do it, don't count on my hailing +you . . . any more." + +The stain spread on the kerchief; once more she went to the water's +edge, rinsed it, and returned with it. + +"I think it has almost stopped bleeding," she remarked as he laid the +cloth against his forehead. "You frightened me, Captain Selwyn. I am not +easily frightened." + +"I know it." + +"Did you know I was frightened?" + +"Of course I did." + +"Oh," she said, vexed, "how could you know it? I didn't do anything +silly, did I?" + +"No; you very sensibly called me Philip. That's how I knew you were +frightened." + +A slow bright colour stained face and neck. + +"So I was silly, after all," she said, biting at her under lip and +trying to meet his humorous gray eyes with unconcern. But her face was +burning now, and, aware of it, she turned her gaze resolutely on the +sea. Also, to her further annoyance, her heart awoke, beating +unwarrantably, absurdly, until the dreadful idea seized her that he +could hear it. Disconcerted, she stood up--a straight youthful figure +against the sea. The wind blowing her dishevelled hair across her cheeks +and shoulders, fluttered her clinging skirts as she rested both hands on +her hips and slowly walked toward the water's edge. + +"Shall we swim?" he asked her. + +She half turned and looked around and down at him. + +"I'm all right; it's stopped bleeding. Shall we?" he inquired, looking +up at her. "You've got to wash your hair again, anyhow." + +She said, feeling suddenly stupid and childish, and knowing she was +speaking stupidly: "Would you not rather join Gladys again? I thought +that--that--" + +"Thought _what_?" + +"Nothing," she said, furious at herself; "I am going to the showers. +Good-bye." + +"Good-bye," he said, troubled--"unless we walk to the pavilion +together--" + +"But you are going in again; are you not?" + +"Not unless you do." + +"W-what have I to do with it, Captain Selwyn?" + +"It's a big ocean--and rather lonely without you," he said so seriously +that she looked around again and laughed. + +"It's full of pretty girls just now. Plunge in, my melancholy friend. +The whole ocean is a dream of fair women to-day." + +"'If they be not fair to me, what care I how fair they be,'" he +paraphrased, springing to his feet and keeping step beside her. + +"Really, that won't do," she said; "much moonlight and Gladys and the +Minster twins convict you. Do you remember that I told you one day in +early summer--that Sheila and Dorothy and Gladys would mark you for +their own? Oh, my inconstant courtier, they are yonder!--And I absolve +you. Adieu!" + +"Do you remember what _I_ told _you_--one day in early summer?" he +returned coolly. + +Her heart began its absurd beating again--but now there was no trace of +pain in it--nothing of apprehension in the echo of the pulse either. + +"You protested so many things, Captain Selwyn--" + +"Yes; and one thing in particular. You've forgotten it, I see." And he +looked her in the eye. + +"No," she said, "you are wrong. I have not forgotten." + +"Nor I." + +He halted, looking out over the shining breakers. "I'm glad you have not +forgotten what I said; because, you see, I'm forbidden to repeat it. So +I shall be quite helpless to aid you in case your memory fails." + +"I don't think it will fail," she said, looking at the flashing sea. A +curious tingling sensation of fright had seized her--something entirely +unknown to her heretofore. She spoke again because frightened; the +heavy, hard pulse in breast and throat played tricks with her voice and +she swallowed and attempted to steady it: "I--if--if I ever forget, you +will know it as soon as I do--" + +Her throat seemed to close in a quick, unsteady breath; she halted, both +small hands clinched: + +"_Don't_ talk this way!" she said, exasperated under a rush of +sensations utterly incomprehensible--stinging, confused emotions that +beat chaotic time to the clamour of her pulses. "Why d-do you speak of +such things?" she repeated with a fierce little indrawn breath--"why do +you?--when you know--when I said--explained everything?" She looked at +him fearfully: "You are somehow spoiling our friendship," she said; "and +I don't exactly know how you are doing it, but something of the comfort +of it is being taken away from me--and don't! don't! don't do it!" + +She covered her eyes with her clinched hands, stood a moment, +motionless; then her arms dropped, and she turned sharply with a gesture +which left him standing there and walked rapidly across the beach to the +pavilion. + +After a little while he followed, pursuing his way very leisurely to his +own quarters. Half an hour later when she emerged with her maid, Selwyn +was not waiting for her as usual; and, scarcely understanding that she +was finding an excuse for lingering, she stood for ten minutes on the +step of the Orchils' touring-car, talking to Gladys about the lantern +fete and dance to be given that night at Hitherwood House. + +Evidently Selwyn had already gone home. Gerald came lagging up with +Sheila Minster; but his sister did not ask him whether Selwyn had gone. +Yesterday she would have done so; but to-day had brought to her the +strangest sensation of her young life--a sudden and overpowering fear of +a friend; and yet, strangest of all, the very friend she feared she was +waiting for--contriving to find excuses to wait for. Surely he could not +have finished dressing and have gone. He had never before done that. Why +did he not come? It was late; people were leaving the pavilion; +victorias and beach-phaetons were trundling off loaded to the water-line +with fat dowagers; gay groups passed, hailing her or waving adieux; +Drina drove up in her village-cart, calling out: "Are you coming, +Eileen, or are you going to walk over? Hurry up! I'm hungry." + +"I'll go with you," she said, nodding adieu to Gladys; and she swung off +the step and crossed the shell road. + +"Jump in," urged the child; "I'm in a dreadful hurry, and Odin can't +trot very fast." + +"I'd prefer to drive slowly," said Miss Erroll in a colourless voice; +and seated herself in the village-cart. + +"Why must I drive slowly?" demanded the child. "I'm hungry; besides, I +haven't seen Boots this morning. I don't want to drive slowly; must I?" + +"Which are you most in a hurry for?" asked Eileen curiously; "luncheon +or Boots?" + +"Both--I don't know. What a silly question. Boots of course! But I'm +starving, too." + +"Boots? Of course?" + +"Certainly. He always comes first--just like Captain Selwyn with you." + +"Like Captain Selwyn with me," she repeated absently; "certainly; +Captain Selwyn should be first, everything else second. But how did you +find out that, Drina?" + +"Why, anybody can see that," said the child contemptuously; "you are as +fast friends with Uncle Philip as I am with Boots. And why you don't +marry him I can't see--unless you're not old enough. Are you?" + +"Yes. . . . I am old enough, dear." + +"Then why don't you? If I was old enough to marry Boots I'd do it. Why +don't you?" + +"I don't know," said Miss Erroll, as though speaking to herself. + +Drina glanced at her, then flourished her be-ribboned whip, which +whistling threat had no perceptible effect on the fat, red, Norwegian +pony. + +"I'll tell you what," said the child, "if you don't ask Uncle Philip +pretty soon somebody will ask him first, and you'll be too late. As soon +as I saw Boots I knew that I wanted him for myself, and I told him so. +He said he was very glad I had spoken, because he was expecting a +proposal by wireless from the young Sultana-elect of Leyte. Now," added +the child with satisfaction, "she can't have him. It's better to be in +time, you see." + +Eileen nodded: "Yes, it is better to be in plenty of time. You can't +tell what Sultana may forestall you." + +"So you'll tell him, won't you?" inquired Drina with business-like +briskness. + +Miss Erroll looked absently at her: "Tell who what?" + +"Uncle Philip--that you're going to marry him when you're old enough." + +"Yes--when I'm old enough--I'll tell him, Drina." + +"Oh, no; I mean you'll marry him when you're old enough, but you'd +better tell him right away." + +"I see; I'd better speak immediately. Thank you, dear, for suggesting +it." + +"You're quite welcome," said the child seriously; "and I hope you'll be +as happy as I am." + +"I hope so," said Eileen as the pony-cart drew up by the veranda and a +groom took the pony's head. + +Luncheon being the children's hour, Miss Erroll's silence remained +unnoticed in the jolly uproar; besides, Gerald and Boots were discussing +the huge house-party, lantern fete, and dance which the Orchils were +giving that night for the younger sets; and Selwyn, too, seemed to take +unusual interest in the discussion, though Eileen's part in the +conference was limited to an occasional nod or monosyllable. + +Drina was wild to go and furious at not having been asked, but when +Boots offered to stay home, she resolutely refused to accept the +sacrifice. + +"No," she said; "they are pigs not to ask girls of my age, but you may +go, Boots, and I'll promise not to be unhappy." And she leaned over and +added in a whisper to Eileen: "You see how sensible it is to make +arrangements beforehand! Because somebody, grown-up, might take him away +at this very party. That's the reason why it is best to speak promptly. +Please pass me another peach, Eileen." + +"What are you two children whispering about?" inquired Selwyn, glancing +at Eileen. + +"Oho!" exclaimed Drina; "you may know before long! May he not, Eileen? +It's about you," she said; "something splendid that somebody is going to +do to you! Isn't it, Eileen?" + +Miss Erroll looked smilingly at Selwyn, a gay jest on her lips; but the +sudden clamour of pulses in her throat closed her lips, cutting the +phrase in two, and the same strange fright seized her--an utterly +unreasoning fear of him. + +At the same moment Mrs. Gerard gave the rising signal, and Selwyn was +swept away in the rushing herd of children, out on to the veranda, where +for a while he smoked and drew pictures for the younger Gerards. Later, +some of the children were packed off for a nap; Billy with his assorted +puppies went away with Drina and Boots, ever hopeful of a fox or rabbit; +Nina Gerard curled herself up in a hammock, and Selwyn seated himself +beside her, an uncut magazine on his knees. Eileen had disappeared. + +For a while Nina swung there in silence, her pretty eyes fixed on her +brother. He had nearly finished cutting the leaves of the magazine +before she spoke, mentioning the fact of Rosamund Fane's arrival at the +Minsters' house, Brookminster. + +The slightest frown gathered and passed from her brother's sun-bronzed +forehead, but he made no comment. + +"Mr. Neergard is a guest, too," she observed. + +"What?" exclaimed Selwyn, in disgust. + +"Yes; he came ashore with the Fanes." + +Selwyn flushed a little but went on cutting the pages of the magazine. +When he had finished he flattened the pages between both covers, and +said, without raising his eyes: + +"I'm sorry that crowd is to be in evidence." + +"They always are and always will be," smiled his sister. + +He looked up at her: "Do you mean that anybody _else_ is a guest at +Brookminster?" + +"Yes, Phil." + +"Alixe?" + +"Yes." + +He looked down at the book on his knees and began to furrow the pages +absently. + +"Phil," she said, "have you heard anything this summer--lately--about +the Ruthvens?" + +"No." + +"Nothing at all?" + +"Not a word." + +"You knew they were at Newport as usual." + +"I took it for granted." + +"And you have heard no rumours?--no gossip concerning them? Nothing +about a yacht?" + +"Where was I to hear it? What gossip? What yacht?" + +His sister said very seriously: "Alixe has been very careless." + +"Everybody is. What of it?" + +"It is understood that she and Jack Ruthven have separated." + +He looked up quickly: "Who told you that?" + +"A woman wrote me from Newport. . . . And Alixe is here and Jack Ruthven +is in New York. Several people have--I have heard about it from several +sources. I'm afraid it's true, Phil." + +They looked into each other's troubled eyes; and he said: "If she has +done this it is the worse of two evils she has chosen. To live with him +was bad enough, but this is the limit." + +"I know it. She cannot afford to do such a thing again. . . . Phil, what +is the matter with her? She simply cannot be sane and do such a +thing--can she?" + +"I don't know," he said. + +"Well, I do. She is not sane. She has made herself horridly conspicuous +among conspicuous people; she has been indiscreet to the outer edge of +effrontery. Even that set won't stand it always--especially as their men +folk are quite crazy about her, and she leads a train of them about +wherever she goes--the little fool! + +"And now, if it's true, that there's to be a separation--what on earth +will become of her? I ask you, Phil, for I don't know. But men know what +becomes eventually of women who slap the world across the face with +over-ringed fingers. + +"If--if there's any talk about it--if there's newspaper talk--if +there's a divorce--who will ask her to their houses? Who will condone +this thing? Who will tolerate it, or her? Men--and men only--the odious +sort that fawn on her now and follow her about half-sneeringly. They'll +tolerate it; but their wives won't; and the kind of women who will +receive and tolerate her are not included in my personal experience. +What a fool she has been!--good heavens, what a fool!" + +A trifle paler than usual, he said: "There is no real harm in her. I +know there is not." + +"You are very generous, Phil--" + +"No, I am trying to be truthful. And I say there is no harm in her. I +have made up my mind on that score." He leaned nearer his sister and +laid one hand on hers where it lay across the hammock's edge: + +"Nina; no woman could have done what she has done, and continue to do +what she does, and be mentally sound. This, at last, is my conclusion." + +"It has long been my conclusion," she said under her breath. + +He stared at the floor out of gray eyes grown dull and hopeless. + +"Phil," whispered his sister, "suppose--suppose--what happened to her +father--" + +"I know." + +She said again: "It was slow at first, a brilliant eccentricity--that +gradually became--something else less pleasant. Oh, Phil! Phil!" + +"It was softening of the brain," he said, "was it not?" + +"Yes--he entertained a delusion of conspiracy against him--also a +complacent conviction of the mental instability of others. Yet, at +intervals he remained clever and witty and charming." + +"And then?" + +"Phil--he became violent at times." + +"Yes. And the end?" he asked quietly. + +"A little child again--quite happy and content--playing with toys--very +gentle, very pitiable--" The hot tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Phil!" she +sobbed and hid her face on his shoulder. + +Over the soft, faintly fragrant hair he stared stupidly, lips apart, +chin loose. + +A little later, Nina sat up in the hammock, daintily effacing the traces +of tears. Selwyn was saying: "If this is so, that Ruthven man has got to +stand by her. Where could she go--if such trouble is to come upon her? +To whom can she turn if not to him? He is responsible for her--doubly +so, if her condition is to be--_that_! By every law of manhood he is +bound to stand by her now; by every law of decency and humanity he +cannot desert her now. If she does these--these indiscreet things--and +if he knows she is not altogether mentally responsible--he cannot fail +to stand by her! How can he, in God's name!" + +"Phil," she said, "you speak like a man, but she has no man to stand +loyally by her in the direst need a human soul may know. He is only a +thing--no man at all--only a loathsome accident of animated decadence." + +He looked up quickly, amazed at her sudden bitterness; and she looked +back at him almost fiercely. + +"I may as well tell you what I've heard," she said; "I was not going to, +at first; but it will be all around town sooner or later. Rosamund told +me. She learned--as she manages to learn everything a little before +anybody else hears of it--that Jack Ruthven found out that Alixe was +behaving very carelessly with some man--some silly, callow, and +probably harmless youth. But there was a disgraceful scene on Mr. +Neergard's yacht, the _Niobrara_. I don't know who the people were, but +Ruthven acted abominably. . . . The _Niobrara_ anchored in Widgeon Bay +yesterday; and Alixe is aboard, and her husband is in New York, and +Rosamund says he means to divorce her in one way or another! Ugh! the +horrible little man with his rings and bangles!" + +She shuddered: "Why, the mere bringing of such a suit means her social +ruin no matter what verdict is brought in! Her only salvation has +been in remaining inconspicuous; and a sane girl would have realised +it. But"--and she made a gesture of despair--"you see what she has +done. . . . And Phil--you know what she has done to you--what a mad risk +she took in going to your rooms that night--" + +"Who said she had ever been in my rooms?" he demanded, flushing darkly +in his surprise. + +"Did you suppose I didn't know it?" she asked quietly. "Oh, but I did; +and it kept me awake nights, worrying. Yet I knew it must have been all +right--knowing you as I do. But do you suppose other people would hold +you as innocent as I do? Even Eileen--the sweetest, whitest, most loyal +little soul in the world--was troubled when Rosamund hinted at some +scandal touching you and Alixe. She told me--but she did not tell me +what Rosamund had said--the mischief maker!" + +His face had become quite colourless; he raised an unsteady hand to his +mouth, touching his moustache; and his gray eyes narrowed menacingly. + +"Rosamund--spoke of scandal to--Eileen?" he repeated. "Is that +possible?" + +"How long do you suppose a girl can live and not hear scandal of some +sort?" said Nina. "It's bound to rain some time or other, but I prepared +my little duck's back to shed some things." + +"You say," insisted Selwyn, "that Rosamund spoke of me--in that way--to +Eileen?" + +"Yes. It only made the child angry, Phil; so don't worry." + +"No; I won't worry. No, I--I won't. You are quite right, Nina. But the +pity of it; that tight, hard-shelled woman of the world--to do such a +thing--to a young girl." + +"Rosamund is Rosamund," said Nina with a shrug; "the antidote to her +species is obvious." + +"Right, thank God!" said Selwyn between his teeth; "_Mens sana in +corpore sano_! bless her little heart! I'm glad you told me this, Nina." + +He rose and laughed a little--a curious sort of laugh; and Nina watched +him, perplexed. + +"Where are you going, Phil?" she asked. + +"I don't know. I--where is Eileen?" + +"She's lying down--a headache; probably too much sun and salt water. +Shall I send for her?" + +"No; I'll go up and inquire how she is. Susanne is there, isn't she?" + +And he entered the house and ascended the stairs. + +The little Alsatian maid was seated in a corner of the upper hall, +sewing; and she informed Selwyn that mademoiselle "had bad in ze h'ead." + +But at the sound of conversation in the corridor Eileen's gay voice came +to them from her room, asking who it was; and she evidently knew, for +there was a hint of laughter in her tone. + +"It is I. Are you better?" said Selwyn. + +"Yes. D-did you wish to see me?" + +"I always do." + +"Thank you. . . . I mean, do you wish to see me now? Because I'm very +much occupied in trying to go to sleep." + +"Yes, I wish to see you at once." + +"Particularly?" + +"Very particularly." + +"Oh, if it's as serious as that, you alarm me. I'm afraid to come." + +"I'm afraid to have you. But please come." + +He heard her laugh to herself; then her clear, amused voice: "What are +you going to say to me if I come out?" + +"Something dreadful! Hurry!" + +"Oh, if that's the case I'll hurry," she returned, and a moment later +the door opened and she emerged in a breezy flutter of silvery ribbons +and loosened ruddy hair. + +She was dressed in some sort of delicate misty stuff that alternately +clung and floated, outlining or clouding her glorious young figure as +she moved with leisurely free-limbed grace across the hall to meet him. + +The pretty greeting she always reserved for him, even if their +separation had been for a few minutes only, she now offered, hand +extended; a cool, fragrant hand which lay for a second in his, closed, +and withdrew, leaving her eyes very friendly. + +"Come out on the west veranda," she said; "I know what you wish to say +to me. Besides, I have something to confide to you, too. And I'm very +impatient to do it." + +He followed her to the veranda; she seated herself in the broad swing, +and moved so that her invitation to him was unmistakable. Then when he +had taken the place beside her she turned toward him very frankly, and +he looked up to encounter her beautiful direct gaze. + +"What is disturbing our friendship?" she asked. "Do you know? I don't. I +went to my room after luncheon and lay down on my bed and quietly +deliberated. And do you know what conclusion I have reached?" + +"What?" he asked. + +"That there is nothing at all to disturb our friendship. And that what I +said to you on the beach was foolish. I don't know why I said it; I'm +not the sort of girl who says such stupid things--though I was +apparently, for that one moment. And what I said about Gladys was +childish; I am not jealous of her, Captain Selwyn. Don't think me silly +or perverse or sentimental, will you?" + +"No, I won't." + +She smiled at him with a trifle less courage--a trifle more +self-consciousness: "And--and as for what I called you--" + +"You mean when you called me by my first name, and I teased you?" + +"Y-es. I was silly to do it; sillier to be ashamed of doing it. There's +a great deal of the callow schoolgirl in me yet, you see. The wise, +amused smile of a man can sometimes stampede my self-possession and +leave me blushing like any ninny in dire confusion. . . . It was very, +very mean of you--for the blood across your face did shock me. . . . +And, by myself, and in my very private thoughts, I do sometimes call +you--by your first name. . . . And that explains it. . . . Now, what +have you to say to me?" + +"I wish to ask you something." + +"With pleasure," she said; "go ahead." And she settled back, fearlessly +expectant. + +"Very well, then," he said, striving to speak coolly. "It is this: Will +you marry me, Eileen?" + +She turned perfectly white and stared at him, stunned. And he repeated +his question, speaking slowly, but unsteadily. + +"N-no," she said; "I cannot. Why--why, you know that, don't you?" + +"Will you tell me why, Eileen?" + +"I--I don't know why. I think--I suppose that it is because I do not +love you--that way." + +"Yes," he said, "that, of course, is the reason. I wonder--do you +suppose that--in time--perhaps--you might care for me--that way?" + +"I don't know." She glanced up at him fearfully, fascinated, yet +repelled. "I don't know," she repeated pitifully. "Is it--can't you help +thinking of me in that way? Can't you be as you were?" + +"No, I can no longer help it. I don't want to help it, Eileen." + +"But--I wish you to," she said in a low voice. "It is that which is +coming between us. Oh, don't you see it is? Don't you feel it--feel what +it is doing to us? Don't you understand how it is driving me back into +myself? Whom am I to go to if not to you? What am I to do if your +affection turns into this--this different attitude toward me? You were +so perfectly sweet and reasonable--so good, so patient; and now--and now +I am losing confidence in you--in myself--in our friendship. +I'm no longer frank with you; I'm afraid at times--afraid and +self-conscious--conscious of you, too--afraid of what seemed once the +most natural of intimacies. I--I loved you so dearly--so fearlessly--" + +Tears blinded her; she bent her head, and they fell on the soft delicate +stuff of her gown, flashing downward in the sunlight. + +"Dear," he said gently, "nothing is altered between us. I love you in +that way, too." + +"D-do you--really?" she stammered, shrinking away from him. + +"Truly. Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is weakened. +On the contrary, it is strengthened. You cannot understand that now. But +what you are to believe and always understand is that our friendship +must endure. Will you believe it?" + +"Y-yes--" She buried her face in her handkerchief and sat very still for +a long time. He had risen and walked to the farther end of the veranda; +and for a minute he stood there, his narrowed eyes following the sky +flight of the white gulls off Wonder Head. + +When at length he returned to her she was sitting low in the swing, both +arms extended along the back of the seat. Evidently she had been waiting +for him; and her face was very grave and sorrowful. + +"I want to ask you something," she said--"merely to prove that you are a +little bit illogical. May I?" + +He nodded, smiling. + +"Could you and I care for each other more than we now do, if we were +married?" + +"I think so," he said. + +"Why?" she demanded, astonished. Evidently she had expected another +answer. + +He made no reply; and she lay back among the cushions considering what +he had said, the flush of surprise still lingering in her cheeks. + +"How can I marry you," she asked, "when I would--would not care to +endure a--a caress from any man--even from you? It--such things--would +spoil it all. I _don't_ love you--that way. . . . Oh! _Don't_ look at me +that way! Have I hurt you?--dear Captain Selwyn? . . . I did not mean +to. . . . Oh, what has become of our happiness! What has become of it!" +And she turned, full length in the swing, and hid her face in the silken +pillows. + +For a long while she lay there, the western sun turning her crown of +hair to fire above the white nape of her slender neck; and he saw her +hands clasping, unclasping, or crushing the tiny handkerchief deep into +one palm. + +There was a chair near; he drew it toward her, and sat down, steadying +the swing with one hand on the chain. + +"Dearest," he said under his breath, "I am very selfish to have done +this; but I--I thought--perhaps--you might have cared enough to--to +venture--" + +"I do care; you are very cruel to me." The voice was childishly broken +and muffled. He looked down at her, slowly realising that it was a child +he still was dealing with--a child with a child's innocence, repelled by +the graver phase of love, unresponsive to the deeper emotions, +bewildered by the glimpse of the mature role his attitude had compelled +her to accept. That she already had reached that mile-stone and, for a +moment, had turned involuntarily to look back and find her childhood +already behind her, frightened her. + +Thinking, perhaps, of his own years, and of what lay behind him, he +sighed and looked out over the waste of moorland where the Atlantic was +battering the sands of Surf Point. Then his patient gaze shifted to the +east, and he saw the surface of Sky Pond, blue as the eyes of the girl +who lay crouching in the cushioned corner of the swinging seat, small +hands clinched over the handkerchief--a limp bit of stuff damp with her +tears. + +"There is one thing," he said, "that we mustn't do--cry about it--must +we, Eileen?" + +"No-o." + +"Certainly not. Because there is nothing to make either of us unhappy; +is there?" + +"Oh-h, no." + +"Exactly. So we're not going to be unhappy; not one bit. First because +we love each other, anyway; don't we?" + +"Y-yes." + +"Of course we do. And now, just because I happen to love you in that way +and also in a different sort of way, in addition to that way, why, it's +nothing for anybody to cry about it; is it, Eileen?" + +"No. . . . No, it is not. . . . But I c-can't help it." + +"Oh, but you're going to help it, aren't you?" + +"I--I hope so." + +He was silent; and presently she said: "I--the reason of it--my +crying--is b-b-because I don't wish you to be unhappy." + +"But, dear, dear little girl, I am not!" + +"Really?" + +"No, indeed! Why should I be? You do love me; don't you?" + +"You know I do." + +"But not in _that_ way." + +"N-no; not in _that_ way. . . . I w-wish I did." + +A thrill passed through him; after a moment he relaxed and leaned +forward, his chin resting on his clinched hands: "Then let us go back to +the old footing, Eileen." + +"Can we?" + +"Yes, we can; and we will--back to the old footing--when nothing of +deeper sentiment disturbed us. . . . It was my fault, little girl. Some +day you will understand that it was not a wholly selfish fault--because +I believed--perhaps only dreamed--that I could make you happier by +loving you in--both ways. That is all; it is your happiness--our +happiness that we must consider; and if it is to last and endure, we +must be very, very careful that nothing really disturbs it again. And +that means that the love, which is sometimes called friendship, must be +recognised as sufficient. . . . You know how it is; a man who is locked +up in Paradise is never satisfied until he can climb the wall and look +over! Now I have climbed and looked; and now I climb back into the +garden of your dear friendship, very glad to be there again with +you--very, very thankful, dear. . . . Will you welcome me back?" + +She lay quite still a minute, then sat up straight, stretching out both +hands to him, her beautiful, fearless eyes brilliant as rain-washed +stars. + +"Don't go away," she said--"don't ever go away from our garden again." + +"No, Eileen." + +"Is it a promise . . . Philip?" + +Her voice fell exquisitely low. + +"Yes, a promise. Do you take me back, Eileen?" + +"Yes; I take you. . . . Take me back, too, Philip." Her hands tightened +in his; she looked up at him, faltered, waited; then in a fainter voice: +"And--and be of g-good courage. . . . I--I am not very old yet." + +She withdrew her hands and bent her head, sitting there, still as a +white-browed novice, listlessly considering the lengthening shadows at +her feet. But, as he rose and looked out across the waste with enchanted +eyes that saw nothing, his heart suddenly leaped up quivering, as though +his very soul had been drenched in immortal sunshine. + +An hour later, when Nina discovered them there together, Eileen, curled +up among the cushions in the swinging seat, was reading aloud "Evidences +of Asiatic Influence on the Symbolism of Ancient Yucatan"; and Selwyn, +astride a chair, chin on his folded arms, was listening with evident +rapture. + +"Heavens!" exclaimed Nina, "the blue-stocking and the fogy!--and yours +_are_ pale blue, Eileen!--you're about as self-conscious as +Drina--slumping there with your hair tumbling _a la_ Merode! Oh, it's +very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is +better. Get up, little blue-stockings and we'll have our hair done--if +you expect to appear at Hitherwood House with me!" + +Eileen laughed, calmly smoothing out her skirt over her slim ankles; +then she closed the book, sat up, and looked happily at Selwyn. + +"Fogy and _Bas-bleu_," she repeated. "But it _is_ fascinating, isn't +it?--even if my hair is across my ears and you sit that chair like a +polo player! Nina, dearest, what is your mature opinion concerning the +tomoya and the Buddhist cross?" + +"I know more about a tomboy-a than a tomoya, my saucy friend," observed +Nina, surveying her with disapproval--"and I can be as cross about it as +any Buddhist, too. You are, to express it as pleasantly as possible, a +sight! Child, what on earth have you been doing? There are two smears +on your cheeks!" + +"I've been crying," said the girl, with an amused sidelong flutter of +her lids toward Selwyn. + +"Crying!" repeated Nina incredulously. Then, disarmed by the serene +frankness of the girl, she added: "A blue-stocking is bad enough, but a +grimy one is impossible. _Allons! Vite_!" she insisted, driving Eileen +before her; "the country is demoralising you. Philip, we're dining +early, so please make your arrangements to conform. Come, Eileen; have +you never before seen Philip Selwyn?" + +"I am not sure that I ever have," she replied, with a curious little +smile at Selwyn. Nina had her by the hand, but she dragged back like a +mischievously reluctant child hustled bedward: + +"Good-bye," she said, stretching out her hand to Selwyn--"good-bye, my +unfortunate fellow fogy! I go, slumpy, besmudged, but happy; I return, +superficially immaculate--but my stockings will still be blue! . . . +Nina, dear, if you don't stop dragging me I'll pick you up in my +arms!--indeed I will--" + +There was a laugh, a smothered cry of protest; and Selwyn was the amused +spectator of his sister suddenly seized and lifted into a pair of +vigorous young arms, and carried into the house by this tall, laughing +girl who, an hour before, had lain there among the cushions, frightened, +unconvinced, clinging instinctively to the last gay rags and tatters of +the childhood which she feared were to be stripped from her for ever. + +It was clear starlight when they were ready to depart. Austin had +arrived unexpectedly, and he, Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn were to drive to +Hitherwood House, Lansing and Gerald going in the motor-boat. + +There was a brief scene between Drina and Boots--the former fiercely +pointing out the impropriety of a boy like Gerald being invited where +she, Drina, was ignored. But there was no use in Boots offering to +remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, anyway; so she kissed +him good-bye very tearfully, and generously forgave Gerald; and +comforted herself before she retired by putting on one of her mother's +gowns and pinning up her hair and parading before a pier-glass until her +nurse announced that her bath was waiting. + + * * * * * + +The drive to Hitherwood House was a dream of loveliness; under the stars +the Bay of Shoals sparkled in the blue darkness set with the gemmed ruby +and sapphire and emerald of ships' lanterns glowing from unseen yachts +at anchor. + +The great flash-light on Wonder Head broke out in brilliancy, faded, +died to a cinder, grew perceptible again, and again blazed blindingly in +its endless monotonous routine; far lights twinkled on the Sound, and +farther away still, at sea. Then the majestic velvety shadow of the +Hither Woods fell over them; and they passed in among the trees, the +lamps of the depot wagon shining golden in the forest gloom. + +Selwyn turned instinctively to the young girl beside him. Her face was +in shadow, but she responded with the slightest movement toward him: + +"This dusk is satisfying--like sleep--this wide, quiet shadow over the +world. Once--and not so very long ago--I thought it a pity that the sun +should ever set. . . . I wonder if I am growing old--because I feel the +least bit tired to-night. For the first time that I can remember a day +has been a little too long for me." + +She evidently did not ascribe her slight sense of fatigue to the scene +on the veranda; perhaps she was too innocent to surmise that any +physical effect could follow that temporary stress of emotion. A quiet +sense of relief in relaxation from effort came over her as she leaned +back, conscious that there was happiness in rest and silence and the +soft envelopment of darkness. + +"If it would only last," she murmured lazily. + +"What, Eileen?" + +"This heavenly darkness--and our drive, together. . . . You are quite +right not to talk to me; I won't, either. . . . Only I'll drone on and +on from time to time--so that you won't forget that I am here beside +you." + +She lay so still for a while that at last Nina leaned forward to look at +her; then laughed. + +"She's asleep," she said to Austin. + +"No, I'm not," murmured the girl, unclosing her eyes; "Captain Selwyn +knows; don't you? . . . What is that sparkling--a fire-fly?" + +But it was the first paper lantern glimmering through the Hitherwood +trees from the distant lawn. + +"Oh, dear," sighed Eileen, sitting up with an effort, and looking +sleepily at Selwyn. "_J'ai sommeil--besoin--dormir_--" + +But a few minutes later they were in the great hall of Hitherwood House, +opened from end to end to the soft sea wind, and crowded with the +gayest, noisiest throng that had gathered there in a twelvemonth. + +Everywhere the younger set were in evidence; slim, fresh, girlish +figures passed and gathered and crowded the stairs and galleries with a +flirt and flutter of winnowing skirts, delicate and light as +powder-puffs. + +Mrs. Sanxon Orchil, a hard, highly coloured, tight-lipped little woman +with electric-blue eyes, was receiving with her slim brunette daughter, +Gladys. + +"A tight little craft," was Austin's invariable comment on the matron; +and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a +converted yacht cleared for action. + +Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and +from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed +expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retrousse +moustache. + +The Lawns were there, the Minsters, the Craigs from Wyossett, the Grays +of Shadow Lake, the Draymores, Fanes, Mottlys, Cardwells--in fact, it +seemed as though all Long Island had been drained from Cedarhurst to +Islip and from Oyster Bay to Wyossett, to pour a stream of garrulous and +animated youth and beauty into the halls and over the verandas and +terraces and lawns of Hitherwood House. + +It was to be a lantern frolic and a lantern dance and supper, all most +formally and impressively _sans facon_. And it began with a candle-race +for a big silver gilt cup--won by Sandon Craig and his partner, Evelyn +Cardwell, who triumphantly bore their lighted taper safely among the +throngs of hostile contestants, through the wilderness of flitting +lights, and across the lawn to the goal where they planted it, +unextinguished, in the big red paper lantern. + +Selwyn and Eileen came up breathless and laughing with the others, she +holding aloft their candle, which somebody had succeeded in blowing out; +and everybody cheered the winners, significantly, for it was expected +that Miss Cardwell's engagement to young Craig would be announced before +very long. + +Then rockets began to rush aloft, starring the black void with +iridescent fire; and everybody went to the lawn's edge where, below on +the bay, a dozen motor-boats, dressed fore and aft with necklaces of +electric lights, crossed the line at the crack of a cannon in a race for +another trophy. + +Bets flew as the excitement grew, Eileen confining hers to gloves and +bonbons, and Selwyn loyally taking any offers of any kind as he +uncompromisingly backed Gerald and Boots in the new motor-boat--the +_Blue Streak_--Austin's contribution to the Silverside navy. + +And sure enough, at last a blue rocket soared aloft, bursting into azure +magnificence in the zenith; and Gerald and Boots came climbing up to the +lawn to receive prize and compliments, and hasten away to change their +oilskins for attire more suitable. + +Eileen, turning to Selwyn, held up her booking list in laughing dismay: +"I've won about a ton of bonbons," she said, "and too many pairs of +gloves to feel quite comfortable." + +"You needn't wear them all at once, you know," he assured her. + +"Nonsense! I mean that I don't care to win things. Oh!"--and she laid +her hand impulsively on his arm as a huge sheaf of rockets roared +skyward, apparently from the water. + +Then, suddenly, Neergard's yacht sprang into view, outlined in +electricity from stem to stern, every spar and funnel and contour of +hull and superstructure twinkling in jewelled brilliancy. + +On a great improvised open pavilion set up in the Hither Woods, +garlanded and hung thick with multi-coloured paper lanterns, dancing had +already begun; but Selwyn and Eileen lingered on the lawn for a while, +fascinated by the beauty of the fireworks pouring skyward from the +_Niobrara_. + +"They seem to be very gay aboard her," murmured the girl. "Once you said +that you did not like Mr. Neergard. Do you remember saying it?" + +He replied simply, "I don't like him; and I remember saying so." + +"It is strange," she said, "that Gerald does." + +Selwyn looked at the illuminated yacht. . . . "I wonder whether any of +Neergard's crowd is expected ashore here. Do you happen to know?" + +She did not know. A moment later, to his annoyance, Edgerton Lawn came +up and asked her to dance; and she went with a smile and a whispered: +"Wait for me--if you don't mind. I'll come back to you." + +It was all very well to wait for her--and even to dance with her after +that; but there appeared to be no peace for him in prospect, for Scott +Innis came and took her away, and Gladys Orchil offered herself to him +very prettily, and took him away; and after that, to his perplexity and +consternation, a perfect furor for him seemed to set in and grow among +the younger set, and the Minster twins had him, and Hilda Innis +appropriated him, and Evelyn Cardwell, and even Mrs. Delmour-Carnes took +a hand in the badgering. + +At intervals he caught glimpses of Eileen through the gay crush around +him; he danced with Nina, and suggested to her it was time to leave, but +that young matron had tasted just enough to want more; and Eileen, too, +was evidently having a most delightful time. So he settled into the +harness of pleasure and was good to the pink-and-white ones; and they +told each other what a "dear" he was, and adored him more inconveniently +than ever. + +Truly enough, as he had often said, these younger ones were the +charmingly wholesome and refreshing antidote to the occasional +misbehaviour of the mature. They were, as he also asserted, the hope and +promise of the social fabric of a nation--this younger set--always a +little better, a little higher-minded than their predecessors as the +wheel of the years slowly turned them out in gay, eager, fearless +throngs to teach a cynical generation the rudiments of that wisdom which +blossoms most perfectly in the hearts of the unawakened. + +Yes, he had frequently told himself all this; told it to others, too. +But, now, the younger set, _en masse_ and in detail, had become a little +bit _cramponne_--a trifle too all-pervading. And it was because his +regard for them, in the abstract, had become centred in a single +concrete example that he began to find the younger set a nuisance. But +others, it seemed, were quite as mad about Eileen Erroll as he was; and +there seemed to be small chance for him to possess himself of her, +unless he were prepared to make the matter of possession a pointed +episode. This he knew he had no right to do; she had conferred no such +privilege upon him; and he was obliged to be careful of what he did and +said lest half a thousand bright unwinking eyes wink too knowingly--lest +frivolous tongues go clip-clap, and idle brains infer that which, alas! +did not exist except in his vision of desire. + +The Hither Woods had been hung with myriads of lanterns. From every +branch they swung in clusters or stretched away into perspective, +turning the wooded aisles to brilliant vistas. Under them the more +romantic and the dance-worn strolled in animated groups or quieter twos; +an army of servants flitted hither and thither, serving the acre or so +of small tables over each of which an electric cluster shed yellow +light. + +Supper, and then the Woodland cotillon was the programme; and almost all +the tables were filled before Selwyn had an opportunity to collect Nina +and Austin and capture Eileen from a very rosy-cheeked and indignant boy +who had quite lost his head and heart and appeared to be on the verge of +a headlong declaration. + +"It's only Percy Draymore's kid brother," she explained, passing her arm +through his with a little sigh of satisfaction. "Where have you been all +the while?--and with whom have you danced, please?--and who is the +pretty girl you paid court to during that last dance? What? _Didn't_ pay +court to her? Do you expect me to believe that? . . . Oh, here comes +Nina and Austin. . . . How pretty the tables look, all lighted up among +the trees! And such an uproar!"--as they came into the jolly tumult and +passed in among a labyrinth of tables, greeted laughingly from every +side. + +Under a vigorous young oak-tree thickly festooned with lanterns Austin +found an unoccupied table. There was a great deal of racket and laughter +from the groups surrounding them, but this seemed to be the only +available spot; besides, Austin was hungry, and he said so. + +Nina, with Selwyn on her left, looked around for Gerald and Lansing. +When the latter came sauntering up, Austin questioned him, but he +replied carelessly that Gerald had gone to join some people whom he, +Lansing, did not know very well. + +"Why, there he is now!" exclaimed Eileen, catching sight of her brother +seated among a very noisy group on the outer edge of the illuminated +zone. "Who are those people, Nina? Oh! Rosamund Fane is there, too; +and--and--" + +She ceased speaking so abruptly that Selwyn turned around; and Nina bit +her lip in vexation and glanced at her husband. For, among the +overanimated and almost boisterous group which was attracting the +attention of everybody in the vicinity sat Mrs. Jack Ruthven. And Selwyn +saw her. + +For a moment he looked at her--looked at Gerald beside her, and Neergard +on the other side, and Rosamund opposite; and at the others, whom he had +never before seen. Then quietly, but with heightened colour, he turned +his attention to the glass which the servant had just filled for him, +and, resting his hand on the stem, stared at the bubbles crowding upward +through it to the foamy brim. + +Nina and Boots had begun, ostentatiously, an exceedingly animated +conversation; and they became almost aggressive, appealing to Austin, +who sat back with a frown on his heavy face--and to Eileen, who was +sipping her mineral water and staring thoughtfully at a big, round, +orange-tinted lantern which hung like the harvest moon behind Gerald, +throwing his curly head into silhouette. + +[Illustration: "Gerald beside her, and Neergard on the other side."] + +What conversation there was to carry, Boots and Nina carried. Austin +silently satisfied his hunger, eating and drinking with a sullen +determination to make no pretence of ignoring a situation that plainly +angered him deeply. And from minute to minute he raised his head to +glare across at Gerald, who evidently was unconscious of the presence of +his own party. + +When Nina spoke to Eileen, the girl answered briefly but with perfect +composure. Selwyn, too, added a quiet word at intervals, speaking in a +voice that sounded a little tired and strained. + +It was that note of fatigue in his voice which aroused Eileen to +effort--the instinctive move to protect--to sustain him. Conscious of +Austin's suppressed but increasing anger at her brother, amazed and +distressed at what Gerald had done--for the boy's very presence there +was an affront to them all--she was still more sensitive to Selwyn's +voice; and in her heart she responded passionately. + +Nina looked up, surprised at the sudden transformation in the girl, who +had turned on Boots with a sudden flow of spirits and the gayest of +challenges; and their laughter and badinage became so genuine and so +persistent that, combining with Nina, they fairly swept Austin from his +surly abstraction into their toils; and Selwyn's subdued laugh, if +forced, sounded pleasantly, now, and his drawn face seemed to relax a +little for the time being. + +Once she turned, under cover of the general conversation which she had +set going, and looked straight into Selwyn's eyes, flashing to him a +message of purest loyalty; and his silent gaze in response sent the +colour flying to her cheeks. + +It was all very well for a while--a brave, sweet effort; but ears could +not remain deaf to the increasing noise and laughter--to familiar +voices, half-caught phrases, indiscreet even in the fragments +understood. Besides, Gerald had seen them, and the boy's face had become +almost ghastly. + +Alixe, unusually flushed, was conducting herself without restraint; +Neergard's snickering laugh grew more significant and persistent; even +Rosamund spoke too loudly at moments; and once she looked around at Nina +and Selwyn while her pretty, accentless laughter, rippling with its +undertone of malice, became more frequent in the increasing tumult. + +There was no use in making a pretence of further gaiety. Austin had +begun to scowl again; Nina, with one shocked glance at Alixe, leaned +over toward her brother: + +"It is incredible!" she murmured; "she must be perfectly mad to make +such an exhibition of herself. Can't anybody stop her? Can't anybody +send her home?" + +Austin said sullenly but distinctly: "The thing for us to do is to get +out. . . . Nina--if you are ready--" + +"But--but what about Gerald?" faltered Eileen, turning piteously to +Selwyn. "We can't leave him--there!" + +The man straightened up and turned his drawn face toward her: + +"Do you wish me to get him?" + +"Y-you can't do that--can you?" + +"Yes, I can; if you wish it. Do you think there is anything in the world +I can't do, if you wish it?" + +As he rose she laid her hand on his arm: + +"I--I don't ask it--" she began. + +"You do not have to ask it," he said with a smile almost genuine. +"Austin, I'm going to get Gerald--and Nina will explain to you that +he's to be left to me if any sermon is required. I'll go back with him +in the motor-boat. Boots, you'll drive home in my place." + +As he turned, still smiling and self-possessed, Eileen whispered +rapidly: "Don't go. I care for you too much to ask it." + +He said under his breath: "Dearest, you cannot understand." + +"Yes--I do! Don't go. Philip--don't go near--her--" + +"I must." + +"If you do--if you go--h-how can you c-care for me as you say you +do?--when I ask you not to--when I cannot endure--to--" + +She turned swiftly and stared across at Alixe; and Alixe, unsteady in +the flushed brilliancy of her youthful beauty, half rose in her seat and +stared back. + +Instinctively the young girl's hand tightened on Selwyn's arm: "She--she +is beautiful!" she faltered; but he turned and led her from the table, +following Austin, his sister, and Lansing; and she clung to him almost +convulsively when he halted on the edge of the lawn. + +"I must go back," he whispered--"dearest--dearest--I must." + +"T-to Gerald? Or--_her_?" + +But he only muttered: "They don't know what they're doing. Let me go, +Eileen"--gently detaching her fingers, which left her hands lying in +both of his. + +She said, looking up at him: "If you go--if you go--whatever time you +return--no matter what hour--knock at my door. Do you promise? I shall +be awake. Do you promise?" + +"Yes," he said with a trace of impatience--the only hint of his anger at +the prospect of the duty before him. + +So she went away with Nina and Austin and Boots; and Selwyn turned back, +sauntering quietly toward the table where already the occupants had +apparently forgotten him and the episode in the riotous gaiety +increasing with the accession of half a dozen more men. + +When Selwyn approached, Neergard saw him first, stared at him, and +snickered; but he greeted everybody with smiling composure, nodding to +those he knew--a trifle more formally to Mrs. Ruthven--and, coolly +pulling up a chair, seated himself beside Gerald. + +"Boots has driven home with the others," he said in a low voice; "I'm +going back in the motor-boat with you. Don't worry about Austin. Are you +ready?" + +The boy had evidently let the wine alone, or else fright had sobered +him, for he looked terribly white and tired: "Yes," he said, "I'll go +when you wish. I suppose they'll never forgive me for this. Come on." + +"One moment, then," nodded Selwyn; "I want to speak to Mrs. Ruthven." +And, quietly turning to Alixe, and dropping his voice to a tone too low +for Neergard to hear--for he was plainly attempting to listen: + +"You are making a mistake; do you understand? Whoever is your +hostess--wherever you are staying--find her and go there before it is +too late." + +She inclined her pretty head thoughtfully, eyes on the wine-glass which +she was turning round and round between her slender fingers. "What do +you mean by 'too late'?" she asked. "Don't you know that everything is +too late for me now?" + +"What do _you_ mean, Alixe?" he returned, watching her intently. + +"What I say. I have not seen Jack Ruthven for two months. Do you know +what that means? I have not heard from him for two months. Do you know +what _that_ means? No? Well, I'll tell you, Philip; it means that when I +do hear from him it will be through his attorneys." + +He turned slightly paler: "Why"?" + +"Divorce," she said with a reckless little laugh--"and the end of things +for me." + +"On what grounds?" he demanded doggedly. "Does he threaten you?" + +She made no movement or reply, reclining there, one hand on her +wine-glass, the smile still curving her lips. And he repeated his +question in a low, distinct voice--too low for Neergard to hear; and he +was still listening. + +"Grounds? Oh, he thinks I've misbehaved with--never mind who. It is not +true--but he cares nothing about that, either. You see"--and she bent +nearer, confidentially, with a mysterious little nod of her pretty +head--"you see, Jack Ruthven is a little insane. . . . You are +surprised? Pooh! I've suspected it for months." + +He stared at her; then: "Where are you stopping?" + +"Aboard the _Niobrara_." + +"Is Mrs. Fane a guest there, too?" + +He spoke loud enough for Rosamund to hear; and she answered for herself +with a smile at him, brimful of malice: + +"Delighted to have you come aboard, Captain Selwyn. Is that what you are +asking permission to do?" + +"Thanks," he returned dryly; and to Alixe: "If you are ready, Gerald and +I will take you over to the _Niobrara_ in the motor-boat--" + +"Oh, no, you won't!" broke in Neergard with a sneer--"you'll mind your +own business, my intrusive friend, and I'll take care of my guests +without your assistance." + +Selwyn appeared not to hear him: "Come on, Gerald," he said pleasantly; +"Mrs. Ruthven is going over to the _Niobrara_--" + +"For God's sake," whispered Gerald, white as a sheet, "don't force me +into trouble with Neergard." + +Selwyn turned on him an astonished gaze: "Are you _afraid_ of that +whelp?" + +"Yes," muttered the boy--"I--I'll explain later. But don't force things +now, I beg you." + +Mrs. Ruthven coolly leaned over and spoke to Gerald in a low voice; +then, to Selwyn, she said with a smile: "Rosamund and I are going to +Brookminster, anyway, so you and Gerald need not wait. . . . And thank +you for coming over. It was rather nice of you"--she glanced insolently +at Neergard--"considering the crowd we're with. _Good_-night, Captain +Selwyn! _Good_-night, Gerald. So very jolly to have seen you again!" +And, under her breath to Selwyn: "You need not worry; I am going in a +moment. Good-bye and--thank you, Phil. It _is_ good to see somebody of +one's own caste again." + +A few moments later, Selwyn and Gerald in their oilskins were dashing +eastward along the coast in the swiftest motor-boat south of the +Narrows. + + * * * * * + +The boy seemed deathly tired as they crossed the dim lawn at Silverside. +Once, on the veranda steps he stumbled, and Selwyn's arm sustained him; +but the older man forbore to question him, and Gerald, tight-lipped and +haggard, offered no confidence until, at the door of his bedroom, he +turned and laid an unsteady hand on Selwyn's shoulder: "I want to talk +with you--to-morrow. May I?" + +"You know you may, Gerald. I am always ready to stand your friend." + +"I know. . . . I must have been crazy to doubt it. You are very good to +me. I--I am in a very bad fix. I've got to tell you." + +"Then we'll get you out of it, old fellow," said Selwyn cheerfully. +"That's what friends are for, too." + +The boy shivered--looked at the floor, then, without raising his eyes, +said good-night, and, entering his bedroom, closed the door. + +As Selwyn passed back along the corridor, the door of his sister's room +opened, and Austin and Nina confronted him. + +"Has that damfool boy come in?" demanded his brother-in-law, anxiety +making his voice tremulous under its tone of contempt. + +"Yes. Leave him to me, please. Good-night"--submitting to a tender +embrace from his sister--"I suppose Eileen has retired, hasn't she? It's +an ungodly hour--almost sunrise." + +"I don't know whether Eileen is asleep," said Nina; "she expected a word +with you, I understand. But don't sit up--don't let her sit up late. +We'll be a company of dreadful wrecks at breakfast, anyway." + +And his sister gently closed the door while he continued on to the end +of the corridor and halted before Eileen's room. A light came through +the transom; he waited a moment, then knocked very softly. + +"Is it you?" she asked in a low voice. + +"Yes. I didn't wake you, did I?" + +"No. Is Gerald here?" + +"Yes, in his own room. . . . Did you wish to speak to me about +anything?" + +"Yes." + +He heard her coming to the door; it opened a very little. "Good-night," +she whispered, stretching toward him her hand--"that was all I +wanted--to--to touch you before I closed my eyes to-night." + +He bent and looked at the hand lying within his own--the little hand +with its fresh fragrant palm upturned and the white fingers relaxed, +drooping inward above it--at the delicate bluish vein in the smooth +wrist. + +Then he released the hand, untouched by his lips; and she withdrew it +and closed the door; and he heard her laugh softly, and lean against it, +whispering: + +"Now that I am safely locked in--I merely wish to say that--in the old +days--a lady's hand was sometimes--kissed. . . . Oh, but you are too +late, my poor friend! I can't come out; and I wouldn't if I could--not +after what I dared to say to you. . . . In fact, I shall probably remain +locked up here for days and days. . . . Besides, what I said is out of +fashion--has no significance nowadays--or, perhaps, too much. . . . No, +I won't dress and come out--even for you. _Je me deshabille--je fais ma +toilette de nuit, monsieur--et je vais maintenant m'agenouiller et faire +ma priere. Donc--bon soir--et bonne nuit_--" + +And, too low for him to hear even the faintest breathing whisper of her +voice--"Good-night. I love you with all my heart--with all my heart--in +my own fashion." + + * * * * * + +He had been asleep an hour, perhaps more, when something awakened him, +and he found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, dawn already +whitening his windows. + +Somebody was knocking. He swung out of bed, stepped into his +bath-slippers, and, passing swiftly to the door, opened it. Gerald stood +there, fully dressed. + +"I'm going to town on the early train," began the boy--"I thought I'd +tell you--" + +"Nonsense! Gerald, go back to bed!" + +"I can't sleep, Philip--" + +"Can't sleep? Oh, that's the trouble, is it? Well, then, sit here and +talk to me." He gave a mighty yawn--"I'm not sleepy, either; I can go +days without it. Here!--here's a comfortable chair to sprawl in. . . . +It's daylight already; doesn't the morning air smell sweet? I've a jug +of milk and some grapes and peaches in my ice-cupboard if you feel +inclined. No? All right; stretch out, sight for a thousand yards, and +fire at will." + +Gerald strove to smile; for a while he lay loosely in the arm-chair, his +listless eyes intent on the strange, dim light which fell across the +waste of sea fog. Only the water along the shore's edge remained +visible; all else was a blank wall behind which, stretching to the +horizon, lay the unseen ocean. Already a few restless gulls were on the +wing, sheering inland; and their raucous, treble cries accented the +pallid stillness. + +But the dawn was no paler than the boy's face--no more desolate. Trouble +was his, the same old trouble that has dogged the trail of folly since +time began; and Selwyn knew it and waited. + +At last the boy broke out: "This is a cowardly trick--this slinking in +to you with all my troubles after what you've done for me--after the +rotten way I've treated you--" + +"Look here, my boy!" said Selwyn coolly, crossing one knee over the +other and dropping both hands into the pockets of his pajamas--"I asked +you to come to me, didn't I? Well, then; don't criticise my judgment in +doing it. It isn't likely I'd ask you to do a cowardly thing." + +"You don't understand what a wretched scrape I'm in--" + +"I don't yet; but you're going to tell me--" + +"Philip, I can't--I simply cannot. It's so contemptible--and you warned +me--and I owe you already so much--" + +"You owe me a little money," observed Selwyn with a careless smile, "and +you've a lifetime to pay it in. What is the trouble now; do you need +more? I haven't an awful lot, old fellow--worse luck!--but what I have +is at your call--as you know perfectly well. Is that all that is +worrying you?" + +"No--not all. I--Neergard has lent me money--done things--placed me +under obligations. . . . I liked him, you know; I trusted him. . . . +People he desired to know I made him known to. He was a--a trifle +peremptory at times--as though my obligations to him left me no choice +but to take him to such people as he desired to meet. . . . We--we had +trouble--recently." + +"What sort?" + +"Personal. I felt--began to feel--the pressure on me. There was, at +moments, something almost of menace in his requests and suggestions--an +importunity I did not exactly understand. . . . And then he said +something to me--" + +"Go on; what?" + +"He'd been hinting at it before; and even when I found him jolliest and +most amusing and companionable I never thought of him as a--a social +possibility--I mean among those who really count--like my own people--" + +"Oh! he asked you to introduce him into your own family circle?" + +"Yes--I didn't understand it at first--until somehow I began to feel the +pressure of it--the vague but constant importunity. . . . He was a good +fellow--at least I thought so; I hated to hurt him--to assume any +attitude that might wound him. But, good heavens!--he couldn't seem to +understand that nobody in our family would receive him--although he had +a certain footing with the Fanes and Harmons and a few others--like the +Siowitha people--or at least the men of those families. Don't you see, +Philip?" + +"Yes, my boy, I see. Go on! When did he ask to be presented to--your +sister?" + +"W-who told you that?" asked the boy with an angry flush. + +"You did--almost. You were going to, anyway. So that was it, was it? +That was when you realised a few things--understood one or two things; +was it not? . . . And how did you reply? Arrogantly, I suppose." + +"Yes." + +"With--a--some little show of--a--contempt?" + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +"Exactly. And Neergard--was put out--slightly?" + +"Yes," said the boy, losing some of his colour. "I--a moment afterward I +was sorry I had spoken so plainly; but I need not have been. . . . He +was very ugly about it." + +"Threats of calling loans?" asked Selwyn, smiling. + +"Hints; not exactly threats. I was in a bad way, too--" The boy winced +and swallowed hard; then, with sudden white desperation stamped on his +drawn face: "Oh, Philip--it--it is disgraceful enough--but how am I +going to tell you the rest?--how can I speak of this matter to you--" + +"What matter?" + +"A--about--about Mrs. Ruthven--" + +"_What_ matter?" repeated Selwyn. His voice rang a little, but the +colour had fled from his face. + +"She was--Jack Ruthven charged her with--and me--charged me with--" + +"_You_!" + +"Yes." + +"Well--it was a lie, wasn't it?" Selwyn's ashy lips scarcely moved, but +his eyes were narrowing to a glimmer. "It was a lie, wasn't it?" he +repeated. + +"Yes--a lie. I'd say it, anyway, you understand--but it really was a +lie." + +Selwyn quietly leaned back in his chair; a little colour returned to his +cheeks. + +"All right--old fellow"--his voice scarcely quivered--"all right; go on. +I knew, of course, that Ruthven lied, but it was part of the story to +hear you say so. Go on. What did Ruthven do?" + +"There has been a separation," said the boy in a low voice. "He behaved +like a dirty cad--she had no resources--no means of support--" He +hesitated, moistening his dry lips with his tongue. "Mrs. Ruthven has +been very, very kind to me. I was--I am fond of her; oh, I know well +enough I never had any business to meet her; I behaved abominably toward +you--and the family. But it was done; I knew her, and liked her +tremendously. She was the only one who was decent to me--who tried to +keep me from acting like a fool about cards--" + +_Did_ she try?" + +"Yes--indeed, yes! . . . and, Phil--she--I don't know how to say it--but +she--when she spoke of--of you--begged me to try to be like you. . . . +And it is a lie what people say about her!--what gossip says. I know; I +have known her so well--and--I was like other men--charmed and +fascinated by her; but the women of that set are a pack of cats, and the +men--well, none of them ever ventured to say anything to me! . . . And +that is all, Philip. I was horribly in debt to Neergard; then Ruthven +turned on me--and on her; and I borrowed more from Neergard and went to +her bank and deposited it to the credit of her account--but she doesn't +know it was from me--she supposes Jack Ruthven did it out of ordinary +decency, for she said so to me. And that is how matters stand; Neergard +is ugly, and grows more threatening about those loans--and I haven't any +money, and Mrs. Ruthven will require more very soon--" + +"Is that _all_?" demanded Selwyn sharply. + +"Yes--all. . . . I know I have behaved shamefully--" + +"I've seen," observed Selwyn in a dry, hard voice, "worse behaviour than +yours. . . . Have you a pencil, Gerald? Get a sheet of paper from that +desk. Now, write out a list of the loans made you by Neergard. . . . +Every cent, if you please. . . . And the exact amount you placed to Mrs. +Ruthven's credit. . . . Have you written that? Let me see it." + +The boy handed him the paper. He studied it without the slightest change +of expression--knowing all the while what it meant to him; knowing that +this burden must be assumed by himself because Austin would never +assume it. + +And he sat there staring at space over the top of the pencilled sheet of +paper, striving to find some help in the matter. But he knew Austin; he +knew what would happen to Gerald if, after the late reconciliation with +his ex-guardian, he came once more to him with such a confession of debt +and disgrace. + +No; Austin must be left out; there were three things to do: One of them +was to pay Neergard; another to sever Gerald's connection with him for +ever; and the third thing to be done was something which did not concern +Gerald or Austin--perhaps, not even Ruthven. It was to be done, no +matter what the cost. But the thought of the cost sent a shiver over +him, and left his careworn face gray. + +His head sank; he fixed his narrowing eyes on the floor and held them +there, silent, unmoved, while within the tempests of terror, temptation, +and doubt assailed him, dragging at the soul of him, where it clung +blindly to its anchorage. And it held fast--raging, despairing in the +bitterness of renunciation, but still held on through the most dreadful +tempest that ever swept him. Courage, duty, reparation--the words +drummed in his brain, stupefying him with their dull clamour; but he +understood and listened, knowing the end--knowing that the end must +always be the same for him. It was the revolt of instinct against +drilled and ingrained training, inherited and re-schooled--the insurgent +clamour of desire opposed to that stern self-repression characteristic +of generations of Selwyns, who had held duty important enough to follow, +even when their bodies died in its wake. + +And it were easier for him, perhaps, if his body died. + +He rose and walked to the window. Over the Bay of Shoals the fog was +lifting; and he saw the long gray pier jutting northward--the pier where +the troopships landed their dead and dying when the Spanish war was +ended. + +And he looked at the hill where the field hospital had once been. His +brother died there--in the wake of that same duty which no Selwyn could +ignore. + +After a moment he turned to Gerald, a smile on his colourless face: + +"It will be all right, my boy. You are not to worry--do you understand +me? Go to bed, now; you need the sleep. Go to bed, I tell you--I'll +stand by you. You must begin all over again, Gerald--and so must I; and +so must I." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LEX NON SCRIPTA + + +Selwyn had gone to New York with Gerald, "for a few days," as he +expressed it; but it was now the first week in October, and he had not +yet returned to Silverside. + +A brief note to Nina thanking her for having had him at Silverside, and +speaking vaguely of some business matters which might detain him +indefinitely--a briefer note to Eileen regretting his inability to +return for the present--were all the communication they had from him +except news brought by Austin, who came down from town every Friday. + +A long letter to him from Nina still remained unanswered; Austin had +seen him only once in town; Lansing, now back in New York, wrote a +postscript in a letter to Drina, asking for Selwyn's new address--the +first intimation anybody had that he had given up his lodgings on +Lexington Avenue. + +"I was perfectly astonished to find he had gone, leaving no address," +wrote Boots; "and nobody knows anything about him at his clubs. I have +an idea that he may have gone to Washington to see about the Chaosite +affair; but if you have any address except his clubs, please send it to +me." + +Eileen had not written him; his sudden leave-taking nearly a month ago +had so astounded her that she could not believe he meant to be gone +more than a day or two. Then came his note, written at the Patroons' +Club--very brief, curiously stilted and formal, with a strange tone of +finality through it, as though he were taking perfunctory leave of +people who had come temporarily into his life, and as though the chances +were agreeably even of his ever seeing them again. + +The girl was not hurt, as yet; she remained merely confused, +incredulous, unreconciled. That there was to be some further explanation +of his silence she never dreamed of doubting; and there seemed to be +nothing to do in the interval but await it. As for writing him, some +instinct forbade it, even when Nina suggested that she write, adding +laughingly that nothing else seemed likely to stir her brother. + +For the first few days the children clamoured intermittently for him; +but children forget, and Billy continued to cast out his pack in undying +hope of a fox or bunny, and the younger children brought their +butterfly-nets and sand-shovels to Austin and Nina for repairs; and +Drina, when Boots deserted her for his Air Line Company, struck up a +wholesome and lively friendship with a dozen subfreshmen and the younger +Orchil girls, and began to play golf like a little fiend. + +It was possible, now, to ride cross-country; and Nina, who was always in +terror of an added ounce to her perfect figure, rode every day with +Eileen; and Austin, on a big hunter, joined them two days in the week. + +There were dances, too, and Nina went to some of them. So did Eileen, +who had created a furor among the younger brothers and undergraduates; +and the girl was busy enough with sailing and motoring and dashing +through the Sound in all sorts of power boats. + +Once, under Austin's and young Craig's supervision, she tried +shore-bird shooting; but the first broken wing from the gun on her left +settled the thing for ever for her, and the horror of the +blood-sprinkled, kicking mass of feathers haunted her dreams for a week. + +Youths, however, continued to hover numerously about her. They sat in +soulful rows upon the veranda at Silverside; they played guitars at her +in canoes, accompanying the stringy thrumming with the peculiarly +exasperating vocal noises made only by very young undergraduates; they +rode with her and Nina; they pervaded her vicinity with a tireless +constancy amounting to obsession. + +She liked it well enough; she was as interested in everything as usual; +as active at the nets, playing superbly, and with all her heart in the +game--while it lasted; she swung her slim brassy with all the old-time +fire and satisfaction in the clean, sharp whack, as the ball flew +through the sunshine, rising beautifully in a long, low trajectory +against the velvet fair-green. + +It was unalloyed happiness for her to sit her saddle, feeling under her +the grand stride of her powerful hunter on a headlong cross-country +gallop; it was purest pleasure for her to lean forward in her oilskins, +her eyes almost blinded with salt spray, while the low motor-boat rushed +on and on through cataracts of foam, and the heaving, green sea-miles +fled away, away, in the hissing furrow of the wake. + +Truly, for her, the world was still green, the sun bright, the high sky +blue; but she had not forgotten that the earth had been greener, the sun +brighter, the azure above her more splendid--once upon a time--like the +first phrase of a tale that is told. And if she were at times listless, +absent-eyed, subdued--a trifle graver, or unusually silent, seeking the +still paths of the garden as though in need of youthful meditation and +the quiet of the sunset hour, she never doubted that that tale would be +retold for her again. Only--alas!--the fair days were passing, and the +russet rustle of October sounded already among the curling leaves in the +garden; and he had been away a long time--a very long time. And she +could not understand. + +On one of Austin's week-end visits, the hour for conjugal confab having +arrived and husband and wife locked in the seclusion of their +bedroom--being old-fashioned enough to occupy the same--he said, with a +trace of irritation in his voice: + +"I don't know where Phil is, or what he's about. I'm wondering--he's got +the Selwyn conscience, you know--what he's up to--and if it's any kind +of dam-foolishness. Haven't you heard a word from him, Nina?" + +Nina, in her pretty night attire, had emerged from her dressing-room, +locked out Kit-Ki and her maid, and had curled up in a big, soft +armchair, cradling her bare ankles in her hand. + +"I haven't heard from him," she said. "Rosamund saw him in +Washington--passed him on the street. He was looking horridly thin and +worn, she wrote. He did not see her." + +"Now what in the name of common sense is he doing in Washington!" +exclaimed Austin wrathfully. "Probably breaking his heart because nobody +cares to examine his Chaosite. I told him, as long as he insisted on +bothering the Government with it instead of making a deal with the Lawn +people, that I'd furnish him with a key to the lobby. I told him I knew +the right people, could get him the right lawyers, and start the thing +properly. Why didn't he come to me about it? There's only one way to +push such things, and he's as ignorant of it as a boatswain in the +marine cavalry." + +Nina said thoughtfully: "You always were impatient of people, dear. +Perhaps Phil may get them to try his Chaosite without any wire-pulling. +. . . I do wish he'd write. I can't understand his continued silence. +Hasn't Boots heard from him? Hasn't Gerald?" + +"Not a word. And by the way, Nina, Gerald has done rather an unexpected +thing. I saw him last night; he came to the house and told me that he +had just severed his connection with Julius Neergard's company." + +"I'm glad of it!" exclaimed Nina; "I'm glad he showed the good sense to +do it!" + +"Well--yes. As a matter of fact, Neergard is going to be a very rich man +some day; and Gerald might have--But I am not displeased. What appeals +to me is the spectacle of the boy acting with conviction on his own +initiative. Whether or not he is making a mistake has nothing to do with +the main thing, and that is that Gerald, for the first time in his +rather colourless career, seems to have developed the rudiments of a +backbone out of the tail which I saw so frequently either flourishing +defiance at me or tucked sullenly between his hind legs. I had quite a +talk with him last night; he behaved very decently, and with a certain +modesty which may, one day, develop into something approaching dignity. +We spoke of his own affairs--in which, for the first time, he appeared +to take an intelligent interest. Besides that, he seemed willing enough +to ask my judgment in several matters--a radical departure from his cub +days." + +"What are you going to do for him, dear?" asked his wife, rather +bewildered at the unexpected news. "Of course he must go into some sort +of business again--" + +"Certainly. And, to my astonishment, he actually came and solicited my +advice. I--I was so amazed, Nina, that I could scarcely credit my own +senses. I managed to say that I'd think it over. Of course he can, if he +chooses, begin everything again and come in with me. Or--if I am +satisfied that he has any ability--he can set up some sort of a +real-estate office on his own hook. I could throw a certain amount of +business in his way--but it's all in the air, yet. I'll see him Monday, +and we'll have another talk. By gad! Nina," he added, with a flush of +half-shy satisfaction on his ruddy face, "it's--it's almost like having +a grown-up son coming bothering me with his affairs; ah--rather +agreeable than otherwise. There's certainly something in that boy. +I--perhaps I have been, at moments, a trifle impatient. But I did not +mean to be. You know that, dear, don't you?" + +His wife looked up at her big husband in quiet amusement. "Oh, yes! I +know a little about you," she said, "and a little about Gerald, too. He +is only a masculine edition of Eileen--the irresponsible freedom of life +brought out all his faults at once, like a horrid rash; it's due to the +masculine notion of masculine education. His sister's education was +essentially the contrary: humours were eradicated before first symptoms +became manifest. The moral, mental, and physical drilling and schooling +was undertaken and accepted without the slightest hope--and later +without the slightest desire--for any relaxation of the rigour when she +became of age and mistress of herself. That's the difference: a boy +looks forward to the moment when he can flourish his heels and wag his +ears and bray; a girl has no such prospect. Gerald has brayed; Eileen +never will flourish her heels unless she becomes fashionable after +marriage--which isn't very likely--" + +Nina hesitated, another idea intruding. + +"By the way, Austin; the Orchil boy--the one in Harvard--proposed to +Eileen--the little idiot! She told me--thank goodness! she still does +tell me things. Also the younger and chubbier Draymore youth has offered +himself--after a killingly proper interview with me. I thought it might +amuse you to hear of it." + +"It might amuse me more if Eileen would get busy and bring Philip into +camp," observed her husband. "And why the devil they don't make up their +minds to it is beyond me. That brother of yours is the limit sometimes. +I'm fond of him--you know it--but he certainly can be the limit +sometimes." + +"Do you know," said Nina, "that I believe he is in love with her?" + +"Then, why doesn't--" + +"I don't know. I was sure--I am sure now--that the girl cares more for +him than for anybody. And yet--and yet I don't believe she is actually +in love with him. Several times I supposed she was--or near it, anyway. +. . . But they are a curious pair, Austin--so quaint about it; so slow +and old-fashioned. . . . And the child is the most innocent being--in +some ways. . . . Which is all right unless she becomes one of those +pokey, earnest, knowledge-absorbing young things with the very germ of +vitality dried up and withered in her before she awakens. . . . I don't +know--I really don't. For a girl _must_ have something of the human +about her to attract a man, and be attracted. . . . Not that she need +know anything about love--or even suspect it. But there must be some +response in her, some--some--" + +"Deviltry?" suggested Austin. + +His pretty wife laughed and dropped one knee over the other, leaning +back to watch him finish his good-night cigarette. After a moment her +face grew grave, and she bent forward. + +"Speaking of Rosamund a moment ago reminds me of something else she +wrote--it's about Alixe. Have you heard anything?" + +"Not a word," said Austin, with a frank scowl, "and don't want to." + +"It's only this--that Alixe is ill. Nobody seems to know what the matter +is; nobody has seen her. But she's at Clifton, with a couple of nurses, +and Rosamund heard rumours that she is very ill indeed. . . . People go +to Clifton for shattered nerves, you know." + +"Yes; for bridge-fidgets, neurosis, pip, and the various jumps that +originate in the simpler social circles. What's the particular matter +with her? Too many cocktails? Or a dearth of grand slams?" + +"You are brutal, Austin. Besides, I don't know. She's had a perfectly +dreary life with her husband. . . . I--I can't forget how fond I was of +her in spite of what she did to Phil. . . . Besides, I'm beginning to be +certain that it was not entirely her fault." + +"What? Do you think Phil--" + +"No, no, no! Don't be an utter idiot. All I mean to say is that Alixe +was always nervous and high-strung; odd at times; eccentric--_more_ than +merely eccentric--" + +"You mean dippy?" + +"Oh, Austin, you're horrid. I mean that there is mental trouble in that +family. You have heard of it as well as I; you know her father died of +it--" + +"The usual defence in criminal cases," observed Austin, flicking his +cigarette-end into the grate. "I'm sorry, dear, that Alixe has the +jumps; hope she'll get over 'em. But as for pretending I've any use for +her, I can't and don't and won't. She spoiled life for the best man I +know; she kicked his reputation into a cocked hat, and he, with his +chivalrous Selwyn conscience, let her do it. I did like her once; I +don't like her now, and that's natural and it winds up the matter. Dear +friend, shall we, perhaps, to bed presently our way wend--yess?" + +"Yes, dear; but you are not very charitable about Alixe. And I tell +you I've my own ideas about her illness--especially as she is at +Clifton. . . . I wonder where her little beast of a husband is?" + +But Austin only yawned and looked at the toes of his slippers, and then +longingly at the pillows. + + * * * * * + +Had Nina known it, the husband of Mrs. Ruthven, whom she had +characterised so vividly, was at that very moment seated in a private +card-room at the Stuyvesant Club with Sanxon Orchil, George Fane, and +Bradley Harmon; and the game had been bridge, as usual, and had gone +very heavily against him. + +Several things had gone against Mr. Ruthven recently; for one thing, he +was beginning to realise that he had made a vast mistake in mixing +himself up in any transactions with Neergard. + +When he, at Neergard's cynical suggestion, had consented to exploit his +own club--the Siowitha--and had consented to resign from it to do so, he +had every reason to believe that Neergard meant to either mulct them +heavily or buy them out. In either case, having been useful to Neergard, +his profits from the transaction would have been considerable. + +But, even while he was absorbed in figuring them up--and he needed the +money, as usual--Neergard coolly informed him of his election to the +club, and Ruthven, thunder-struck, began to perceive the depth of the +underground mole tunnels which Neergard had dug to undermine and capture +the stronghold which had now surrendered to him. + +Rage made him ill for a week; but there was nothing to do about it. He +had been treacherous to his club and to his own caste, and Neergard knew +it--and knew perfectly well that Ruthven dared not protest--dared not +even whimper. + +Then Neergard began to use Ruthven when he needed him; and he began to +permit himself to win at cards in Ruthven's house--a thing he had not +dared to do before. He also permitted himself more ease and freedom in +that house--a sort of intimacy _sans facon_--even a certain jocularity. +He also gave himself the privilege of inviting the Ruthvens on board the +_Niobrara_; and Ruthven went, furious at being forced to stamp with his +open approval an episode which made Neergard a social probability. + +How it happened that Rosamund divined something of the situation is not +quite clear; but she always had a delicate nose for anything not +intended for her, and the thing amused her immensely, particularly +because what viciousness had been so long suppressed in Neergard was now +tentatively making itself apparent in his leering ease among women he so +recently feared. + +This, also, was gall and wormwood to Ruthven, so long the official +lap-dog of the very small set he kennelled with; and the women of that +set were perverse enough to find Neergard amusing, and his fertility in +contriving new extravagances for them interested these people, whose +only interest had always been centred in themselves. + +Meanwhile, Neergard had almost finished with Gerald--he had only one +further use for him; and as his social success became more pronounced +with the people he had crowded in among, he became bolder and more +insolent, no longer at pains to mole-tunnel toward the object desired, +no longer overcareful about his mask. And one day he asked the boy very +plainly why he had never invited him to meet his sister. And he got an +answer that he never forgot. + +And all the while Ruthven squirmed under the light but steadily +inflexible pressure of the curb which Neergard had slipped on him so +deftly; he had viewed with indifference Gerald's boyish devotion to his +wife, which was even too open and naive to be of interest to those who +witnessed it. But he had not counted on Neergard's sudden hatred of +Gerald; and the first token of that hatred fell upon the boy like a +thunderbolt when Neergard whispered to Ruthven, one night at the +Stuyvesant Club, and Ruthven, exasperated, had gone straight home, to +find his wife in tears, and the boy clumsily attempting to comfort her, +both her hands in his. + +"Perhaps," said Ruthven coldly, "you have some plausible explanation for +this sort of thing. If you haven't, you'd better trump up one together, +and I'll send you my attorney to hear it. In that event," he added, +"you'd better leave your joint address when you find a more convenient +house than mine." + +As a matter of fact, he had really meant nothing more than the threat +and the insult, the situation permitting him a heavier hold upon his +wife and a new grip on Gerald in case he ever needed him; but threat and +insult were very real to the boy, and he knocked Mr. Ruthven flat on his +back--the one thing required to change that gentleman's pretence to +deadly earnest. + +Ruthven scrambled to his feet; Gerald did it again; and, after that, Mr. +Ruthven prudently remained prone during the delivery of a terse but +concise opinion of him expressed by Gerald. + +After Gerald had gone, Ruthven opened first one eye, then the other, +then his mouth, and finally sat up; and his wife, who had been curiously +observing him, smiled. + +"It is strange," she said serenely, "that I never thought of that +method. I wonder why I never thought of it," lazily stretching her firm +young arms and glancing casually at their symmetry and smooth-skinned +strength. "Go into your own quarters," she added, as he rose, shaking +with fury: "I've endured the last brutality I shall ever suffer from +you." + +She dropped her folded hands into her lap, gazing coolly at him; but +there was a glitter in her eyes which arrested his first step toward +her. + +"I think," she said, "that you mean my ruin. Well, we began it long ago, +and I doubt if I have anything of infamy to learn, thanks to my thorough +schooling as your wife. . . . But knowledge is not necessarily practice, +and it happens that I have not cared to commit the particular +indiscretion so fashionable among the friends you have surrounded me +with. I merely mention this for your information, not because I am +particularly proud of it. It is not anything to be proud of, in my +case--it merely happened so; a matter, perhaps of personal taste, +perhaps because of lack of opportunity; and there is a remote +possibility that belated loyalty to a friend I once betrayed may have +kept me personally chaste in this rotting circus circle you have driven +me around in, harnessed to your vicious caprice, dragging the weight of +your corruption--" + +She laughed. "I had no idea that I could be so eloquent, Jack. But my +mind has become curiously clear during the last year--strangely and +unusually limpid and precise. Why, my poor friend, every plot of yours +and of your friends--every underhand attempt to discredit and injure me +has been perfectly apparent to me. You supposed that my headaches, my +outbursts of anger, my wretched nights, passed in tears--and the long, +long days spent kneeling in the ashes of dead memories--all these you +supposed had weakened--perhaps unsettled--my mind. . . . You lie if you +deny it, for you have had doctors watching me for months. . . . You +didn't know I was aware of it, did you? But I was, and I am. . . . And +you told them that my father died of--of brain trouble, you coward!" + +Still he stood there, jaw loose, gazing at her as though fascinated; and +she smiled and settled deeper in her chair, framing the gilded +foliations of the back with her beautiful arms. + +"We might as well understand one another now," she said languidly. "If +you mean to get rid of me, there is no use in attempting to couple my +name with that of any man; first, because it is untrue, and you not only +know it, but you know you can't prove it. There remains the cowardly +method you have been nerving yourself to attempt, never dreaming that I +was aware of your purpose." + +A soft, triumphant little laugh escaped her. There was something almost +childish in her delight at outwitting him, and, very slowly, into his +worn and faded eyes a new expression began to dawn--the flickering stare +of suspicion. And in it the purely personal impression of rage and +necessity of vengeance subsided; he eyed her intently, curiously, and +with a cool persistence which finally began to irritate her. + +"What a credulous fool you are," she said, "to build your hopes of a +separation on any possible mental disability of mine." + +He stood a moment without answering, then quietly seated himself. The +suspicious glimmer in his faded eyes had become the concentration of a +curiosity almost apprehensive. + +"Go on," he said; "what else?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"You have been saying several things--about doctors whom I have set to +watch you--for a year or more." + +"Do you deny it?" she retorted angrily. + +"No--no, I do not deny anything. But--who are these doctors--whom you +have noticed?" + +"I don't know who they are," she replied impatiently. "I've seen them +often enough--following me on the street, or in public places--watching +me. They are everywhere--you have them well paid, evidently; I suppose +you can afford it. But you are wasting your time." + +"You think so?" + +"Yes!" she cried in a sudden violence that startled him, "you are +wasting your time! And so am I--talking to you--enduring your personal +affronts and brutal sneers. Sufficient for you that I know my enemies, +and that I am saner, thank God, than any of them!" She flashed a look of +sudden fury at him, and rose from her chair. He also rose with a +promptness that bordered on precipitation. + +"For the remainder of the spring and summer," she said, "I shall make my +plans regardless of you. I shall not go to Newport; you are at liberty +to use the house there as you choose. And as for this incident with +Gerald, you had better not pursue it any further. Do you understand?" + +He nodded, dropping his hands into his coat-pockets. + +"Now you may go," she said coolly. + +He went--not, however, to his room, but straight to the house of the +fashionable physician who ministered to wealth with an unction and +success that had permitted him, in summer time, to occupy his own villa +at Newport and dispense further ministrations when requested. + + * * * * * + +On the night of the conjugal conference between Nina Gerard and her +husband--and almost at the same hour--Jack Ruthven, hard hit in the +card-room of the Stuyvesant Club, sat huddled over the table, figuring +up what sort of checks he was to draw to the credit of George Fane and +Sanxon Orchil. + +Matters had been going steadily against him for some time--almost +everything, in fact, except the opinions of several physicians in a +matter concerning his wife. For, in that scene between them in early +spring, his wife had put that into his head which had never before been +there--suspicion of her mental soundness. + +And now, as he sat there, pencil in hand, adding up the score-cards, he +remembered that he was to interview his attorney that evening at his own +house--a late appointment, but necessary to insure the presence of one +or two physicians at a consultation to definitely decide what course of +action might be taken. + +He had not laid eyes on his wife that summer, but for the first time he +had really had her watched during her absence. What she lived on--how +she managed--he had not the least idea, and less concern. All he knew +was that he had contributed nothing, and he was quite certain that her +balance at her own bank had been nonexistent for months. + +But any possible additional grounds for putting her away from him that +might arise in a question as to her sources of support no longer +interested him. That line of attack was unnecessary; besides, he had no +suspicion concerning her personal chastity. But Alixe, that evening in +early spring, had unwittingly suggested to him the use of a weapon the +existence of which he had never dreamed of. And he no longer entertained +any doubts of its efficiency as a means of finally ridding him of a wife +whom he had never been able to fully subdue or wholly corrupt, and who, +as a mate for him in his schemes for the pecuniary maintenance of his +household, had proven useless and almost ruinous. + +He had not seen her during the summer. In the autumn he had heard of her +conduct at Hitherwood House. And, a week later, to his astonishment, he +learned of her serious illness, and that she had been taken to Clifton. +It was the only satisfactory news he had had of her in months. + +So now he sat there at the bridge-table in the private card-room of the +Stuyvesant Club, deftly adding up the score that had gone against him, +but consoled somewhat at the remembrance of his appointment, and of the +probability of an early release from the woman who had been to him only +a source of social mistakes, domestic unhappiness, and financial +disappointment. + +When he had finished his figuring he fished out a check-book, detached a +tiny gold fountain-pen from the bunch of seals and knick-knacks on his +watch-chain, and, filling in the checks, passed them over without +comment. + +Fane rose, stretching his long neck, gazed about through his spectacles, +like a benevolent saurian, and finally fixed his mild, protruding eyes +upon Orchil. + +"There'll be a small game at the Fountain Club," he said, with a grin +which creased his cheeks until his retreating chin almost disappeared +under the thick lower lip. + +Orchil twiddled his long, crinkly, pointed moustache and glanced +interrogatively at Harmon; then he yawned, stretched his arms, and rose, +pocketing the check, which Ruthven passed to him, with a careless nod of +thanks. + +As they filed out of the card-room into the dim passageway, Orchil +leading, a tall, shadowy figure in evening dress stepped back from the +door of the card-room against the wall to give them right of way, and +Orchil, peering at him without recognition in the dull light, bowed +suavely as he passed, as did Fane, craning his curved neck, and Harmon +also, who followed in his wake. + +But when Ruthven came abreast of the figure in the passage and bowed his +way past, a low voice from the courteous unknown, pronouncing his name, +halted him short. + +"I want a word with you, Mr. Ruthven," added Selwyn; "that card-room +will suit me, if you please." + +But Ruthven, recovering from the shock of Selwyn's voice, started to +pass him without a word. + +"I said that I wanted to speak to you!" repeated Selwyn. + +Ruthven, deigning no reply, attempted to shove by him; and Selwyn, +placing one hand flat against the other's shoulder, pushed him violently +back into the card-room he had just left, and, stepping in behind him, +closed and locked the door. + +"W-what the devil do you mean!" gasped Ruthven, his hard, minutely +shaven face turning a deep red. + +"What I say," replied Selwyn; "that I want a word or two with you." + +He stood still for a moment, in the centre of the little room, tall, +gaunt of feature, and very pale. The close, smoky atmosphere of the +place evidently annoyed him; he glanced about at the scattered cards, +the empty oval bottles in their silver stands, the half-burned remains +of cigars on the green-topped table. Then he stepped over and opened the +only window. + +"Sit down," he said, turning on Ruthven; and he seated himself and +crossed one leg over the other. Ruthven remained standing. + +"This--this thing," began Ruthven in a voice made husky and indistinct +through fury, "this ruffianly behaviour amounts to assault." + +"As you choose," nodded Selwyn, almost listlessly, "but be quiet; I've +something to think of besides your convenience." + +For a few moments he sat silent, thoughtful, narrowing eyes considering +the patterns on the rug at his feet; and Ruthven, weak with rage and +apprehension, was forced to stand there awaiting the pleasure of a man +of whom he had suddenly become horribly afraid. + +And at last Selwyn, emerging from his pallid reverie, straightened out, +shaking his broad shoulders as though to free him of that black spectre +perching there. + +"Ruthven," he said, "a few years ago you persuaded my wife to leave me; +and I have never punished you. There were two reasons why I did not: the +first was because I did not wish to punish her, and any blow at you +would have reached her heavily. The second reason, subordinate to the +first, is obvious: decent men, in these days, have tacitly agreed to +suspend a violent appeal to the unwritten law as a concession to +civilisation. This second reason, however, depends entirely upon the +first, as you see." + +He leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, and recrossed his legs. + +"I did not ask you into this room," he said, with a slight smile, "to +complain of the wrong you have committed against me, or to retail to you +the consequences of your act as they may or may not have affected me and +my career; I have--ah--invited you here to explain to you the present +condition of your own domestic affairs"--he looked at Ruthven full in +the face--"to explain them to you, and to lay down for you the course of +conduct which you are to follow." + +"By God!--" began Ruthven, stepping back, one hand reaching for the +door-knob; but Selwyn's voice rang out clean and sharp: + +"Sit down!" + +And, as Ruthven glared at him out of his little eyes: + +"You'd better sit down, I think," said Selwyn softly. + +Ruthven turned, took two unsteady steps forward, and laid his heavily +ringed hand on the back of a chair. Selwyn smiled, and Ruthven sat down. + +"Now," continued Selwyn, "for certain rules of conduct to govern you +during the remainder of your wife's lifetime. . . . And your wife is +ill, Mr. Ruthven--sick of a sickness which may last for a great many +years, or may be terminated in as many days. Did you know it?" + +Ruthven snarled. + +"Yes, of course you knew it, or you suspected it. Your wife is in a +sanitarium, as you have discovered. She is mentally ill--rational at +times--violent at moments, and for long periods quite docile, gentle, +harmless--content to be talked to, read to, advised, persuaded. But +during the last week a change of a certain nature has occurred +which--which, I am told by competent physicians, not only renders her +case beyond all hope of ultimate recovery, but threatens an earlier +termination than was at first looked for. It is this: your wife has +become like a child again--occupied contentedly and quite happily with +childish things. She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone. How +much she does remember it is impossible to say." + +His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at his +feet. After a while he looked up. + +"It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven--she is so young--with all her physical +charm and attraction quite unimpaired. But the mind is gone--quite gone, +sir. Some sudden strain--and the tension has been great for years--some +abrupt overdraft upon her mental resource, perhaps; God knows how it +came--from sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured--" + +Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, Ruthven +lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then moistened his dry +lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a glance at the locked door. + +"I understand," said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, "that you are +contemplating proceedings against your wife. Are you?" + +Ruthven made no reply. + +"_Are_ you?" repeated Selwyn. His face had altered; a dim glimmer played +in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at dusk. + +"Yes, I am," said Ruthven. + +"On the grounds of her mental incapacity?" + +"Yes." + +"Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break every +law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to abandon. Is +that it?" + +Ruthven made no reply. + +"You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by beginning +proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your wife's infirmity by +divorcing her." + +"Sane or insane," burst out Ruthven, "she was riding for a fall--and +she's going to get it! What the devil are you talking about? I'm not +accountable to you. I'll do what I please; I'll manage my own affairs--" + +"No," said Selwyn, "I'll manage this particular affair. And now I'll +tell you how I'm going to do it. I have in my lodgings--or rather in the +small hall bedroom which I now occupy--an army service revolver, in +fairly good condition. The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when +I looked at it, but I've oiled it with No. 27--an excellent rust solvent +and lubricant, Mr. Ruthven--and now the cylinder spins around in a +manner perfectly trustworthy. So, as I was saying, I have this very +excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the pleasure of +using it on you if you ever commence any such action for divorce or +separation against your wife. This is final." + +Ruthven stared at him as though hypnotised. + +"Don't mistake me," added Selwyn, a trifle wearily. "I am not compelling +you to decency for the purpose of punishing _you_; men never trouble +themselves to punish vermin--they simply exterminate them, or they +retreat and avoid them. I merely mean that you shall never again bring +publicity and shame upon your wife--even though now, mercifully enough, +she has not the faintest idea that you are what a complacent law calls +her husband." + +A slow blaze lighted up his eyes, and he got up from his chair. + +"You decadent little beast!" he said slowly, "do you suppose that the +dirty accident of your intrusion into an honest man's life could +dissolve the divine compact of wedlock? Soil it--yes; besmirch it, +render it superficially unclean, unfit, nauseous--yes. But neither you +nor your vile code nor the imbecile law you invoked to legalise the +situation really ever deprived me of my irrevocable status and +responsibility. . . . I--even I--was once--for a while--persuaded that +it did; that the laws of the land could do this--could free me from a +faithless wife, and regularise her position in your household. The laws +of the land say so, and I--I said so at last--persuaded because I +desired to be persuaded. . . . It was a lie. My wife, shamed or +unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to +them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife. +And it is a higher law that corroborates me--higher than you can +understand--a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very +foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely +dependent for its existence intact. But"--with a contemptuous +shrug--"you won't understand; all you can understand is the +gratification of your senses and the fear of something interfering with +that gratification--like death, for instance. Therefore I am satisfied +that you understand enough of what I said to discontinue any legal +proceedings which would tend to discredit, expose, or cast odium on a +young wife very sorely stricken--very, very ill--whom God, in his mercy, +has blinded to the infamy where you have dragged her--under the law of +the land." + +He turned on his heel, paced the little room once or twice, then swung +round again: + +"Keep your filthy money--wrung from women and boys over card-tables. +Even if some blind, wormlike process of instinct stirred the shame in +you, and you ventured to offer belated aid to the woman who bears your +name, I forbid it--I do not permit you the privilege. Except that she +retains your name--and the moment you attempt to rob her of that I shall +destroy you!--except for that, you have no further relations with +her--nothing to do or undo; no voice as to the disposal of what remains +of her; no power, no will, no influence in her fate. _I_ supplant you; I +take my own again; I reassume a responsibility temporarily taken from +me. And _now_, I think, you understand!" + +He gave him one level and deadly stare; then his pallid features +relaxed, he slowly walked past Ruthven, grave, preoccupied; unlocked the +door, and passed out. + + * * * * * + +His lodgings were not imposing in their furnishings or dimensions--a +very small bedroom in the neighbourhood of Sixth Avenue and Washington +Square--but the heavy and increasing drain on his resources permitted +nothing better now; and what with settling Gerald's complications and +providing two nurses and a private suite at Clifton for Alixe Ruthven, +he had been obliged to sell a number of securities, which reduced his +income to a figure too absurd to worry over. + +However, the Government had at last signified its intention of testing +his invention--Chaosite--and there was that chance for better things in +prospect. Also, in time, Gerald would probably be able to return +something of the loans made. But these things did not alleviate present +stringent conditions, nor were they likely to for a long while; and +Selwyn, tired and perplexed, mounted the stairs of his lodging-house and +laid his overcoat on the iron bed, and, divesting himself of the +garments of ceremony as a matter of economy, pulled on an old tweed +shooting-jacket and trousers. + +Then, lighting his pipe--cigars being now on the expensive and forbidden +list--he drew a chair to his table and sat down, resting his worn face +between both hands. Truly the world was not going very well with him in +these days. + +For some time, now, it had been his custom to face his difficulties here +in the silence of his little bedroom, seated alone at his table, pipe +gripped between his firm teeth, his strong hands framing his face. Here +he would sit for hours, the long day ended, staring steadily at the +blank wall, the gas-jet flickering overhead; and here, slowly, +painfully, with doubt and hesitation, out of the moral confusion in his +weary mind he evolved the theory of personal responsibility. + +With narrowing eyes, from which slowly doubt faded, he gazed at duty +with all the calm courage of his race, not at first recognising it as +duty in its new and dreadful guise. + +But night after night, patiently perplexed, he retraced his errant +pathway through life, back to the source of doubt and pain; and, once +arrived there, he remained, gazing with impartial eyes upon the ruin two +young souls had wrought of their twin lives; and always, always somehow, +confronting him among the debris, rose the spectre of their deathless +responsibility to one another; and the inexorable life-sentence sounded +ceaselessly in his ears: "For better or for worse--for better or for +worse--till death do us part--till death--till death!" + +Dreadful his duty--for man already had dared to sunder them, and he had +acquiesced to save her in the eyes of the world! Dreadful, +indeed--because he knew that he had never loved her, never could love +her! Dreadful--doubly dreadful--for he now knew what love might be; and +it was not what he had believed it when he executed the contract which +must bind him while life endured. + +Once, and not long since, he thought that, freed from the sad disgrace +of the shadowy past, he had begun life anew. They told him--and he told +himself--that a man had that right; that a man was no man who stood +stunned and hopeless, confronting the future in fetters of conscience. +And by that token he had accepted the argument as truth--because he +desired to believe it--and he had risen erect and shaken himself free of +the past--as he supposed; as though the past, which becomes part of us, +can be shaken from tired shoulders with the first shudder of revolt! + +No; he understood now that the past was part of him--as his limbs and +head and body and mind were part of him. It had to be reckoned +with--what he had done to himself, to the young girl united to him in +bonds indissoluble except in death. + +That she had strayed--under man-made laws held guiltless--could not +shatter the tie. That he, blinded by hope, had hoped to remake a life +already made, and had dared to masquerade before his own soul as a man +free to come, to go, and free to love, could not alter what had been +done. Back, far back of it all lay the deathless pact--for better or for +worse. And nothing man might wish or say or do could change it. Always, +always he must remain bound by that, no matter what others did or +thought; always, always he was under obligations to the end. + +And now, alone, abandoned, helplessly sick, utterly dependent upon the +decency, the charity, the mercy of her legal paramour, the young girl +who had once been his wife had not turned to him in vain. + +Before the light of her shaken mind had gone out she had written him, +incoherently, practically _in extremis_; and if he had hitherto doubted +where his duty lay, from that moment he had no longer any doubt. And +very quietly, hopelessly, and irrevocably he had crushed out of his soul +the hope and promise of the new life dawning for him above the dead +ashes of the past. + + * * * * * + +It was not easy to do; he had not ended it yet. He did not know how. +There were ties to be severed, friendships to be gently broken, old +scenes to be forgotten, memories to kill. There was also love--to be +disposed of. And he did not know how. + +First of all, paramount in his hopeless trouble, the desire to save +others from pain persisted. + +For that reason he had been careful that Gerald should not know where +and how he was now obliged to live--lest the boy suspect and understand +how much of Selwyn's little fortune it had taken to settle his debts of +"honour" and free him from the sinister pressure of Neergard's +importunities. + +For that reason, too, he dreaded to have Austin know, because, if the +truth were exposed, nothing in the world could prevent a violent and +final separation between him and the foolish boy who now, at last, was +beginning to show the first glimmering traces of character and common +sense. + +So he let it be understood that his address was his club for the +present; for he also desired no scene with Boots, whom he knew would +attempt to force him to live with him in his cherished and brand-new +house. And even if he cared to accept and permit Boots to place him +under such obligations, it would only hamper him in his duties. + +Because now, what remained of his income must be devoted to Alixe. + +Even before her case had taken the more hopeless turn, he had understood +that she could not remain at Clifton. Such cases were neither desired +nor treated there; he understood that. And so he had taken, for her, a +pretty little villa at Edgewater, with two trained nurses to care for +her, and a phaeton for her to drive. + +And now she was installed there, properly cared for, surrounded by every +comfort, contented--except in the black and violent crises which still +swept her in recurrent storms--indeed, tranquil and happy; for through +the troubled glimmer of departing reason, her eyes were already opening +in the calm, unearthly dawn of second childhood. + +Pain, sadness, the desolate awakening to dishonour had been forgotten; +to her, the dead now lived; to her, the living who had been children +with her were children again, and she a child among them. Outside of +that dead garden of the past, peopled by laughing phantoms of her youth, +but one single extraneous memory persisted--the memory of +Selwyn--curiously twisted and readjusted to the comprehension of a +child's mind--vague at times, at times wistfully elusive and +incoherent--but it remained always a memory, and always a happy one. + +He was obliged to go to her every three or four days. In the interim she +seemed quite satisfied and happy, busy with the simple and pretty things +she now cared for; but toward the third day of his absence she usually +became restless, asking for him, and why he did not come. And then they +telegraphed him, and he left everything and went, white-faced, stern of +lip, to endure the most dreadful ordeal a man may face--to force the +smile to his lips and gaiety into the shrinking soul of him, and sit +with her in the pretty, sunny room, listening to her prattle, answering +the childish questions, watching her, seated in her rocking-chair, +singing contentedly to herself, and playing with her dolls and +ribbons--dressing them, undressing, mending, arranging--until the heart +within him quivered under the misery of it, and he turned to the +curtained window, hands clinching convulsively, and teeth set to force +back the strangling agony in his throat. + +And the dreadful part of it all was that her appearance had remained +unchanged--unless, perhaps, she was prettier, lovelier of face and +figure than ever before; but in her beautiful dark eyes only the direct +intelligence of a child answered his gaze of inquiry; and her voice, +too, had become soft and hesitating, and the infantile falsetto sounded +in it at times, sweet, futile, immature. + + * * * * * + +Thinking of these things now, he leaned heavily forward, elbows on the +little table. And, suddenly unbidden, before his haunted eyes rose the +white portico of Silverside, and the greensward glimmered, drenched in +sunshine, and a slim figure in white stood there, arms bare, tennis-bat +swinging in one tanned little hand. + +Voices were sounding in his ears--Drina's laughter, Lansing's protest; +Billy shouting to his eager pack; his sister's calm tones, admonishing +the young--and through it all, _her_ voice, clear, hauntingly sweet, +pronouncing his name. + +And he set his lean jaws tight and took a new grip on his pipe-stem, and +stared, with pain-dulled eyes, at the white wall opposite. + +But on the blank expanse the faintest tinge of colour appeared, growing +clearer, taking shape as he stared; and slowly, slowly, under the soft +splendour of her hair, two clear eyes of darkest blue opened under the +languid lids and looked at him, and looked and looked until he closed +his own, unable to endure the agony. + +But even through his sealed lids he saw her; and her clear gaze pierced +him, blinded as he was, leaning there, both hands pressed across his +eyes. + +Sooner or later--sooner or later he must write to her and tell what must +be told. How to do it, when to do it, he did not know. What to say he +did not know; but that there was something due her from him--something +to say, something to confess--to ask her pardon for--he understood. + +Happily for her--happily for him, alas!--love, in its full miracle, had +remained beyond her comprehension. That she cared for him with all her +young heart he knew; that she had not come to love him he knew, too. So +that crowning misery of happiness was spared him. + +Yet he knew, too, that there had been a chance for him; that her +awakening had not been wholly impossible. Loyal in his soul to the dread +duty before him, he must abandon hope; loyal in his heart to her, he +must abandon her, lest, by chance, in the calm, still happiness of their +intimacy the divine moment, unheralded, flash out through the veil, +dazzling, blinding them with the splendour of its truth and beauty. + +And now, leaning there, his face buried in his hands, hours that he +spent with her came crowding back upon him, and in his ears her voice +echoed and echoed, and his hands trembled with the scented memory of her +touch, and his soul quivered and cried out for her. + +Storm after storm swept him; and in the tempest he abandoned reason, +blinded, stunned, crouching there with head lowered and his clenched +hands across his face. + +But storms, given right of way, pass on and over, and tempests sweep +hearts cleaner; and after a long while he lifted his bowed head and sat +up, squaring his shoulders. + +Presently he picked up his pipe again, held it a moment, then laid it +aside. Then he leaned forward, breathing deeply but quietly, and picked +up a pen and a sheet of paper. For the time had come for his letter to +her, and he was ready. + +The letter he wrote was one of those gay, cheerful, inconsequential +letters which, from the very beginning of their occasional +correspondence, had always been to her most welcome and delightful. + +Ignoring that maturity in her with which he had lately dared to reckon, +he reverted to the tone which he had taken and maintained with her +before the sweetness and seriousness of their relations had deepened to +an intimacy which had committed him to an avowal. + +News of all sorts humorously retailed--an amusing sketch of his recent +journey to Washington and its doubtful results--matters that they both +were interested in, details known only to them, a little harmless +gossip--these things formed the body of his letter. There was never a +hint of sorrow or discouragement--nothing to intimate that life had so +utterly and absolutely changed for him--only a jolly, friendly +badinage--an easy, light-hearted narrative, ending in messages to all +and a frank regret that the pursuit of business and happiness appeared +incompatible at the present moment. + +His address, he wrote, was his club; he sent her, he said, under +separate cover, a rather interesting pamphlet--a monograph on the +symbolism displayed by the designs in Samarcand rugs and textiles of +the Ming dynasty. And he ended, closing with a gentle jest concerning +blue-stockings and rebellious locks of ruddy hair. + +And signed his name. + + * * * * * + +Nina and Eileen, in travelling gowns and veils, stood on the porch at +Silverside, waiting for the depot wagon, when Selwyn's letter was handed +to Eileen. + +The girl flushed up, then, avoiding Nina's eyes, turned and entered the +house. Once out of sight, she swiftly mounted to her own room and +dropped, breathless, on the bed, tearing the envelope from end to end. +And from end to end, and back again and over again, she read the +letter--at first in expectancy, lips parted, colour brilliant, then with +the smile still curving her cheeks--but less genuine now--almost +mechanical--until the smile stamped on her stiffening lips faded, and +the soft contours relaxed, and she lifted her eyes, staring into space +with a wistful, questioning lift of the pure brows. + +What more had she expected? What more had she desired? Nothing, surely, +of that emotion which she declined to recognise; surely not that +sentiment of which she had admitted her ignorance to him. Again her eyes +sought the pages, following the inked writing from end to end. What was +she seeking there that he had left unwritten? What was she searching +for, of which there was not one hint in all these pages? + +And now Nina was calling her from the hall below; and she answered gaily +and, hiding the letter in her long glove, came down the stairs. + +"I'll tell you all about the letter in the train," she said; "he is +perfectly well, and evidently quite happy; and Nina--" + +"What, dear?" + +"I want to send him a telegram. May I?" + +"A dozen, if you wish," said Mrs. Gerard, "only, if you don't climb into +that vehicle, we'll miss the train." + +So on the way to Wyossette station Eileen sat very still, gloved hands +folded in her lap, composing her telegram to Selwyn. And, once in the +station, having it by heart already, she wrote it rapidly: + + "Nina and I are on our way to the Berkshires for a week. + House-party at the Craigs'. We stay overnight in town. E.E." + +But the telegram went to his club, and waited for him there; and +meanwhile another telegram arrived at his lodgings, signed by a trained +nurse; and while Miss Erroll, in the big, dismantled house, lay in a +holland-covered armchair, waiting for him, while Nina and Austin, +reading their evening papers, exchanged significant glances from time to +time, the man she awaited sat in the living-room in a little villa at +Edgewater. And a slim young nurse stood beside him, cool and composed in +her immaculate uniform, watching the play of light and shadow on a woman +who lay asleep on the couch, fresh, young face flushed and upturned, a +child's doll cradled between arm and breast. + + * * * * * + +"How long has she been asleep?" asked Selwyn under his breath. + +"An hour. She fretted a good deal because you had not come. This +afternoon she said she wished to drive, and I had the phaeton brought +around; but when she saw it she changed her mind. I was rather afraid of +an outburst--they come sometimes from less cause than that--so I did not +urge her to go out. She played on the piano for a long while, and sang +some songs--those curious native songs she learned in Manila. It seemed +to soothe her; she played with her little trifles quite contentedly for +a time, but soon began fretting again, and asking why you had not come. +She had a bad hour later--she is quite exhausted now. Could you stay +to-night, Captain Selwyn?" + +"Y-es, if you think it better. . . . Wait a moment; I think she has +awakened." + +Alixe had turned her head, her lovely eyes wide open. + +"Phil!" she cried, "is it you?" + +He went forward and took the uplifted hands, smiling down at her. + +"Such a horrid dream!" she said pettishly, "about a soft, plump man with +ever so many rings on his hands. . . . Oh, I am glad you came. . . . +Look at this child of mine!" cuddling the staring wax doll closer; +"she's not undressed yet, and it's long, long after bedtime. Hand me her +night-clothes, Phil." + +The slim young nurse bent and disentangled a bit of lace and cambric +from a heap on the floor, offering it to Selwyn. He laid it in the hand +Alixe held out, and she began to undress the doll in her arms, prattling +softly all the while: + +"Late--oh, so very, very late! I must be more careful of her, Phil; +because, if you and I grow up, some day we may marry, and we ought to +know all about children. It would be great fun, wouldn't it?" + +He nodded, forcing a smile. + +"Don't you think so?" she persisted. + +"Yes--yes, indeed," he said gently. + +She laughed, contented with his answer, and laid her lips against the +painted face of the doll. + +"When we grow up, years from now--then we'll understand, won't we, Phil? +. . . I am tired with playing. . . . And Phil--let me whisper something. +Is that person gone?" + +He turned and signed to the nurse, who quietly withdrew. + +"Is she gone?" repeated Alixe. + +"Yes." + +"Then listen, Phil. Do you know what she and the other one are about all +day? _I_ know; I pretend not to, but I know. They are watching me every +moment--always watching me, because they want to make you believe that I +am forgetting you. But I am not. That is why I made them send for you so +I could tell you myself that I could never, never forget you. . . . I +think of you always while I am playing--always--always I am thinking of +you. You will believe it, won't you?" + +"Yes," he said. + +Contented, she turned to her doll again, undressing it deftly, tenderly. + +"At moments," she said, "I have an odd idea that it is real. I am not +quite sure even now. Do you believe it is alive, Phil? Perhaps, at +night, when I am asleep, it becomes alive. . . . This morning I awoke, +laughing, laughing in delight--thinking I heard you laughing, too--as +once--in the dusk where there were many roses and many stars--big stars, +and very, very bright--I saw you--saw you--and the roses--" + +She paused with a pained, puzzled look of appeal. + +"Where was it, Phil?" + +"In Manila town." + +"Yes; and there were roses. But I was never there." + +"You came out on the veranda and pelted me with roses. There were others +there--officers and their wives. Everybody was laughing." + +"Yes--but I was not there, Phil. . . . Who--who was the tall, thin +bugler who sounded taps?" + +"Corrigan." + +"And--the little, girl-shaped, brown men?" + +"My constabulary." + +"I can't recollect," she said listlessly, laying the doll against her +breast. "I think, Phil, that you had better be a little quiet now--she +may wish to sleep. And I am sleepy, too," lifting her slender hand as a +sign for him to take his leave. + +As he went out the nurse said: "If you wish to return to town, you may, +I think. She will forget about you for two or three days, as usual. +Shall I telegraph if she becomes restless?" + +"Yes. What does the doctor say to-day?" + +The slim nurse looked at him under level brows. + +"There is no change," she said. + +"No hope." It was not even a question. + +"No hope, Captain Selwyn." + +He stood silent, tapping his leg with the stiff brim of his hat; then, +wearily: "Is there anything more I can do for her?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Thank you." + +He turned away, bidding her good-night in a low voice. + + * * * * * + +He arrived in town about midnight, but did not go to any of his clubs. +At one of them a telegram was awaiting him; and in a dismantled and +summer-shrouded house a young girl was still expecting him, lying with +closed eyes in a big holland-covered arm-chair, listening to the rare +footfalls in the street outside. + +But of these things he knew nothing; and he went wearily to his lodgings +and climbed the musty stairs, and sat down in his old attitude before +the table and the blank wall behind it, waiting for the magic frescoes +to appear in all the vague loveliness of their hues and dyes, painting +for him upon his chamber-walls the tinted paradise now lost to him for +ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HIS OWN WAY + + +The winter promised to be a busy one for Selwyn. If at first he had had +any dread of enforced idleness, that worry, at least, vanished before +the first snow flew. For there came to him a secret communication from +the Government suggesting, among other things, that he report, three +times a week, at the proving grounds on Sandy Hook; that experiments +with Chaosite as a bursting charge might begin as soon as he was ready +with his argon primer; that officers connected with the bureau of +ordnance and the marine laboratory had recommended the advisability of +certain preliminary tests, and that the general staff seemed inclined to +consider the matter seriously. + +This meant work--hard, constant, patient work. But it did not mean money +to help him support the heavy burdens he had assumed. If there were to +be any returns, all that part of it lay in the future, and the future +could not help him now. + +Yet, unless still heavier burdens were laid upon him, he could hold on +for the present; his bedroom cost him next to nothing; breakfast he +cooked for himself, luncheon he dispensed with, and he dined at +random--anywhere that appeared to promise seclusion, cheapness, and +immunity from anybody he had ever known. + +A minute and rather finicky care of his wardrobe had been second nature +to him--the habits of a soldier systematised the routine--and he was +satisfied that his clothes would outlast winter demands, although +laundry expenses appalled him. + +As for his clubs, he hung on to them, knowing the importance of +appearances in a town which is made up of them. But this expense was all +he could carry, for the demands of the establishment at Edgewater were +steadily increasing with the early coming of winter; he was sent for +oftener, and a physician was now in practically continual attendance. + +Also, three times a week he boarded the Sandy Hook boat, returning +always at night because he dared not remain at the reservation lest an +imperative telegram from Edgewater find him unable to respond. + +So, when in November the first few hurrying snow-flakes whirled in among +the city's canons of masonry and iron, Selwyn had already systematised +his winter schedule; and when Nina opened her house, returning from +Lenox with Eileen to do so, she found that Selwyn had made his own +arrangements for the winter, and that, according to the programme, +neither she nor anybody else was likely to see him oftener than one +evening in a week. + +To Boots she complained bitterly, having had visions of Selwyn and +Gerald as permanent fixtures of family support during the season now +imminent. + +"I cannot understand," she said, "why Philip is acting this way. He need +not work like that; there is no necessity, because he has a comfortable +income. If he is determined to maintain a stuffy apartment somewhere, of +course I won't insist on his coming to us as he ought to, but to abandon +us in this manner makes me almost indignant. Besides, it's having +anything but a salutary effect on Eileen." + +"What effect is it having on Eileen?" inquired Boots curiously. + +"Oh, I don't know," said Nina, coming perilously close to a pout; "but I +see symptoms--indeed I do, Boots!--symptoms of shirking the winter's +routine. It's to be a gay season, too, and it's only her second. The +idea of a child of that age informing me that she's had enough of the +purely social phases of this planet! Did you ever hear anything like it? +One season, if you please--and she finds it futile, stale, and +unprofitable to fulfil the duties expected of her!" + +Boots began to laugh, but it was no laughing matter to Nina, and she +said so vigorously. + +"It's Philip's fault. If he'd stand by us this winter she'd go +anywhere--and enjoy it, too. Besides, he's the only man able to satisfy +the blue-stocking in her between dances. But he's got this obstinate +mania for seclusion, and he seldom comes near us, and it's driving +Eileen into herself, Boots--and every day I catch her hair slumping over +her ears--and once I discovered a lead-pencil behind 'em!--and a +monograph on the Ming dynasty in her lap, all marked up with notes! Oh, +Boots! Boots! I've given up all hopes of that brother of mine for +her--but she could marry anybody, if she chose--_anybody_!--and she +could twist the entire social circus into a court of her own and +dominate everything. Everybody knows it; everybody says it! . . . And +look at her!--indifferent, listless, scarcely civil any longer to her +own sort, but galvanised into animation the moment some impossible +professor or artist or hairy scientist flutters batlike into a +drawing-room where he doesn't belong unless he's hired to be amusing! +And that sounds horridly snobbish, I know; I _am_ a snob about Eileen, +but not about myself because it doesn't harm me to make round +wonder-eyes at a Herr Professor or gaze intensely into the eyes of an +artist when he's ornamental; it doesn't make my hair come down over my +ears to do that sort of thing, and it doesn't corrupt me into slinking +off to museum lectures or spending mornings prowling about the Society +Library or the Chinese jades in the Metropolitan--" + +Boots's continuous and unfeigned laughter checked the pretty, excited +little matron, and after a moment she laughed, too. + +"Dear Boots," she said, "can't you help me a little? I really am +serious. I don't know what to do with the girl. Philip never comes near +us--once a week for an hour or two, which is nothing--and the child +misses him. There--the murder is out! Eileen misses him. Oh, she doesn't +say so--she doesn't hint it, or look it; but I know her; I know. She +misses him; she's lonely. And what to do about it I don't know, Boots, I +don't know." + +Lansing had ceased laughing. He had been indulging in tea--a shy vice of +his which led him to haunt houses where that out-of-fashion beverage +might still be had. And now he sat, cup suspended, saucer held meekly +against his chest, gazing out at the pelting snow-flakes. + +"Boots, dear," said Nina, who adored him, "tell me what to do. Tell me +what has gone amiss between my brother and Eileen. Something has. And +whatever it is, it began last autumn--that day when--you remember the +incident?" + +Boots nodded. + +"Well, it seemed to upset everybody, somehow. Philip left the next day; +do you remember? And Eileen has never been quite the same. Of course, I +don't ascribe it to that unpleasant episode--even a young girl gets over +a shock in a day. But the--the change--or whatever it is--dated from +that night. . . . They--Philip and Eileen--had been inseparable. It was +good for them--for her, too. And as for Phil--why, he looked about +twenty-one! . . . Boots, I--I had hoped--expected--and I was right! They +_were_ on the verge of it!" + +"I think so, too," he said. + +She looked up curiously. + +"Did Philip ever say--" + +"No; he never _says_, you know." + +"I thought that men--close friends--sometimes did." + +"Sometimes--in romantic fiction. Phil wouldn't; nor," he added +smilingly, "would I." + +"How do you know, Boots?" she asked, leaning back to watch him out of +mischievous eyes. "How do you know what you'd do if you were in +love--with Gladys, for example?" + +"I know perfectly well," he said, "because I am." + +"In love!" incredulously. + +"Of course." + +"Oh--you mean Drina." + +"Who else?" he asked lightly. + +"I thought you were speaking seriously. I"--all her latent instinct for +such meddling aroused--"I thought perhaps you meant Gladys." + +"Gladys who?" he asked blandly. + +"Gladys Orchil, silly! People said--" + +"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed; "if people 'said,' then it's all over. Nina! +do I look like a man on a still hunt for a million?" + +"Gladys is a beauty!" retorted Nina indignantly. + +"With the intellect of a Persian kitten," he nodded. "I--that was not a +nice thing to say. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed. But, do you know, I have come +to regard my agreement with Drina so seriously that I take absolutely no +interest in anybody else." + +"Try to be serious, Boots," said Nina. "There are dozens of nice girls +you ought to be agreeable to. Austin and I were saying only last night +what a pity it is that you don't find either of the Minster twins +interesting--" + +"I might find them compoundly interesting," he admitted, "but +unfortunately there's no chance in this country for multiple domesticity +and the simpler pleasures of a compound life. It's no use, Nina; I'm not +going to marry any girl for ever so long--anyway, not until Drina +releases me on her eighteenth birthday. Hello!--somebody's coming--and +I'm off!" + +"I'm not at home; don't go!" said Nina, laying one hand on his arm to +detain him as a card was brought up. "Oh, it's only Rosamund Fane! I +_did_ promise to go to the Craigs' with her. . . . Do you mind if she +comes up?" + +"Not if you don't," said Boots blandly. He could not endure Rosamund and +she detested him; and Nina, who was perfectly aware of this, had just +enough of perversity in her to enjoy their meeting. + +Rosamund came in breezily, sables powdered with tiny flecks of snow, +cheeks like damask roses, eyes of turquoise. + +"How d'ye do!" she nodded, greeting Boots askance as she closed with +Nina. "I came, you see, but _do_ you want to be jammed and mauled and +trodden on at the Craigs'? No? That's perfect!--neither do I. Where is +the adorable Eileen? Nobody sees her any more." + +"She was at the Delmour-Carnes's yesterday." + +"Was she? Curious I didn't see her. Tea? With gratitude, dear, if it's +Scotch." + +She sat erect, the furs sliding to the back of the chair, revealing the +rather accented details of her perfectly turned figure; and rolling up +her gloves she laid her pretty head on one side and considered Boots +with very bright and malicious eyes. + +"They say," she said, smiling, "that some very heavy play goes on in +that cunning little new house of yours, Mr. Lansing." + +"Really?" he asked blandly. + +"Yes; and I'm wondering if it is true." + +"I shouldn't think you'd care, Mrs. Fane, as long as it makes a good +story." + +Rosamund flushed. Then, always alive to humour, laughed frankly. + +"What a nasty thing to say to a woman!" she observed; "it fairly reeks +impertinence. Mr. Lansing, you don't like me very well, do you?" + +"I dare not," he said, "because you are married. If you were only free +_a vinculo matrimonii_--" + +Rosamund laughed again, and sat stroking her muff and smiling. "Curious, +isn't it?" she said to Nina--"the inborn antipathy of two agreeable +human bipeds for one another. _Similis simili gaudet_--as my learned +friend will admit. But with us it's the old, old case of that eminent +practitioner, the late Dr. Fell. _Esto perpetua!_ Oh, well! We can't +help it, can we, Mr. Lansing?" And again to Nina: "Dear, _have_ you +heard anything about Alixe Ruthven? I think it is the strangest thing +that nobody seems to know where she is. And all anybody can get out of +Jack is that she's in a nerve factory--or some such retreat--and a +perfect wreck. She might as well be dead, you know." + +"In that case," observed Lansing, "it might be best to shift the centre +of gossip. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_--which is simple enough for +anybody to comprehend." + +"That is rude, Mr. Lansing," flashed out Rosamund; and to his +astonishment he saw the tears start to her eyes. + +"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily. + +"You do well to. I care more for Alixe Ruthven than--than you give me +credit for caring about anybody. People are never wholly worthless, Mr. +Lansing--only the very young think that. Give me credit for one wholly +genuine affection, and you will not be too credulous; and perhaps in +future you and I may better be able to endure one another when Fate +lands us at the same tea-table." + +Boots said respectfully: "I am sorry for what I said, Mrs. Pane. I hope +that your friend Mrs. Ruthven will soon recover." + +Rosamund looked at Nina, the tears still rimming her lids. "I miss her +frightfully," she said. "If somebody would only tell me where she +is--I--I know it could do no harm for me to see her. I _can_ be as +gentle and loyal as anybody--when I really care for a person. . . . Do +_you_ know where she might be, Nina?" + +"I? No, I do not. I'd tell you if I did, Rosamund." + +"_Don't_ you know?" + +"Why, no," said Nina, surprised at her persistence. + +"Because," continued Rosamund, "your brother does." + +Nina straightened up, flushed and astonished. + +"Why do you say that?" she asked. + +"Because he does know. He sent her to Clifton. The maid who accompanied +her is in my service now. It's a low way of finding out things, but we +all do it." + +"He--sent Alixe to--to Clifton!" repeated Nina incredulously. "Your maid +told you that?" + +Rosamund finished the contents of her slim glass and rose. "Yes; and it +was a brave and generous and loyal thing for him to do. I supposed you +knew it. Jack has been too beastly to her; she was on the verge of +breaking down when I saw her on the _Niobrara_, and she told me then +that her husband had practically repudiated her. . . . Then she suddenly +disappeared; and her maid, later, came to me seeking a place. That's how +I knew, and that's all I know. And I care for Alixe; and I honour your +brother for what he did." + +She stood with pretty golden head bent, absently arranging the sables +around her neck and shoulders. + +"I have been very horrid to Captain Selwyn," she said quietly. "Tell him +I am sorry; that he has my respect. . . . And--if he cares to tell me +where Alixe is I shall be grateful and do no harm." + +She turned toward the door, stopped short, came back, and made her +adieux, then started again toward the door, not noticing Lansing. + +"With your permission," said Boots at her shoulder in a very low voice. + +She looked up, surprised, her eyes still wet. Then comprehending the +compliment of his attendance, acknowledged it with a faint smile. + +"Good-night," he said to Nina. Then he took Rosamund down to her +brougham with a silent formality that touched her present sentimental +mood. + +She leaned from her carriage-window, looking at him where he stood, hat +in hand, in the thickly falling snow. + +"Please--without ceremony, Mr. Lansing." And, as he covered himself, +"May I not drop you at your destination?" + +"Thank you"--in refusal. + +"I thank you for being nice to me. . . . Please believe there is often +less malice than perversity in me. I--I have a heart, Mr. Lansing--such +as it is. And often those I torment most I care for most. It was so with +Alixe. Good-bye." + +Boots's salute was admirably formal; then he went on through the +thickening snow, swung vigorously across the Avenue to the Park-wall, +and, turning south, continued on parallel to it under the naked trees. + +It must have been thick weather on the river and along the docks, for +the deep fog-horns sounded persistently over the city, and the haunted +warning of the sirens filled the leaden sky lowering through the white +veil descending in flakes that melted where they fell. + +And, as Lansing strode on, hands deep in his overcoat, more than one +mystery was unravelling before his keen eyes that blinked and winked as +the clinging snow blotted his vision. + +Now he began to understand something of the strange effacement of his +friend Selwyn; he began to comprehend the curious economies practised, +the continued absence from club and coterie, the choice of the sordid +lodging whither Boots, one night, seeing him on the street by chance, +had shamelessly tracked him--with no excuse for the intrusion save his +affection for this man and his secret doubts of the man's ability to +take care of himself and his occult affairs. + +Now he was going there, exactly what to do he did not yet know, but with +the vague determination to do something. + +On the wet pavements and reeking iron overhead structure along Sixth +Avenue the street lights glimmered, lending to the filthy avenue under +its rusty tunnel a mystery almost picturesque. + +Into it he turned, swung aboard a car as it shot groaning and clanking +around the curve from Fifty-ninth Street, and settled down to brood and +ponder and consider until it was time for him to swing off the car into +the slimy street once more. + +Silvery pools of light inlaid the dim expanse of Washington Square. He +turned east, then south, then east again, and doubled into a dim street, +where old-time houses with toppling dormers crowded huddling together as +though in the cowering contact there was safety from the destroyer who +must one day come, bringing steel girders and cement to mark their +graves with sky-scraping monuments of stone. + +Into the doorway of one of these houses Lansing turned. When the town +was young a Lansing had lived there in pomp and circumstance--his own +great-grandfather--and he smiled grimly, amused at the irony of things +terrestrial. + +A slattern at the door halted him: + +"Nobody ain't let up them stairs without my knowin' why," she mumbled. + +"I want to see Captain Selwyn," he explained. + +"Hey?" + +"Captain Selwyn!" + +"Hey? I'm a little deef!" screeched the old crone. "Is it Cap'n Selwyn +you want?" + +Above, Selwyn, hearing his name screamed through the shadows of the +ancient house, came to the stairwell and looked down into the blackness. + +"What is it, Mrs. Glodden?" he said sharply; then, catching sight of a +dim figure springing up the stairs: + +"Here! this way. Is it for me?" and as Boots came into the light from +his open door: "Oh!" he whispered, deadly pale under the reaction; "I +thought it was a telegram. Come in." + +Boots shook the snow from his hat and coat into the passageway and took +the single chair; Selwyn, tall and gaunt in his shabby dressing-gown, +stood looking at him and plucking nervously at the frayed and tasselled +cord around his waist. + +"I don't know how you came to stumble in here," he said at length, "but +I'm glad to see you." + +"Thanks," replied Boots, gazing shamelessly and inquisitively about. +There was nothing to see except a few books, a pipe or two, toilet +articles, and a shaky gas-jet. The flat military trunk was under the +iron bed. + +"I--it's not much of a place," observed Selwyn, forcing a smile. +"However, you see I'm so seldom in town; I'm busy at the Hook, you know. +So I don't require anything elaborate." + +"Yes, I know," said Boots solemnly. A silence. + +"H--have a pipe?" inquired Selwyn uneasily. He had nothing else to +offer. + +Boots leaned back in his stiff chair, crossed his legs, and filled a +pipe. When he had lighted it he said: + +"How are things, Phil?" + +"All right. First rate, thank you." + +Boots removed the pipe from his lips and swore at him; and Selwyn +listened with head obstinately lowered and lean hands plucking at his +frayed girdle. And when Boots had ended his observations with an +emphatic question, Selwyn shook his head: + +"No, Boots. You're very good to ask me to stop with you, but I can't. +I'd be hampered; there are matters--affairs that concern me--that need +instant attention at times--at certain times. I must be free to go, free +to come. I couldn't be in your house. Don't ask me. But I'm--I thank you +for offering--" + +"Phil!" + +"What?" + +"Are you broke?" + +"Ah--a little"--with a smile. + +"Will you take what you require from me?" + +"No." + +"Oh--very well. I was horribly afraid you would." + +Selwyn laughed and leaned back, indenting his meagre pillow. + +"Come, Boots," he said, "you and I have often had worse quarters than +this. To tell you the truth I rather like it than otherwise." + +"Oh, damn!" said Boots, disgusted; "the same old conscience in the same +old mule! Who likes squalidity? I don't. You don't! What if Fate has hit +you a nasty swipe! Suppose Fortune has landed you a few in the slats! +It's only temporary and you know it. All business in the world is +conducted on borrowed capital. It's your business to live in decent +quarters, and I'm here to lend you the means of conducting that +business. Oh, come on, Phil, for Heaven's sake! If there were really any +reason--any logical reason for this genius-in-the-garret business, I'd +not say a word. But there isn't; you're going to make money--" + +"Oh, yes, I've got to," said Selwyn simply. + +"Well, then! In the meanwhile--" + +"No. Listen, Boots; I couldn't be free in your house. I--they--there are +telegrams--unexpected ones--at all hours." + +"What of it?" + +"You don't understand." + +"Wait a bit! How do you know I don't? Do the telegrams come from Sandy +Hook?" + +"No." + +Boots looked him calmly in the eye. "Then I _do_ understand, old man. +Come on out of this, in Heaven's name! Come, now! Get your dressing-gown +off and your coat on! Don't you think I understand? I tell you I _do_! +Yes, the whole blessed, illogical, chivalrous business. . . . Never mind +how I know--for I won't tell you! Oh, I'm not trying to interfere with +you; I know enough to shun buzz-saws. All I want is for you to come and +take that big back room and help a fellow live in a lonely house--help a +man to make it cheerful. I can't stand it alone any longer; and it will +be four years before Drina is eighteen." + +"Drina!" repeated Selwyn blankly--then he laughed. It was genuine +laughter, too; and Boots grinned and puffed at his pipe, and recrossed +his legs, watching Selwyn out of eyes brightening with expectancy. + +"Then it's settled," he said. + +"What? Your ultimate career with Drina?" + +"Oh, yes; that also. But I referred to your coming to live with me." + +"Boots--" + +"Oh, fizz! Come on. I don't like the way you act, Phil." + +Selwyn said slowly: "Do you make it a personal matter--" + +"Yes, I do; dam'f I don't! You'll be perfectly free there. I don't care +what you do or where you go or what hours you keep. You can run up and +down Broadway all night, if you want to, or you can stop at home and +play with the cats. I've three fine ones"--he made a cup of his hands +and breathed into them, for the room was horribly cold--"three fine +tabbies, and a good fire for 'em to blink at when they start purring." + +He looked kindly but anxiously at Selwyn, waiting for a word; and as +none came he said: + +"Old fellow, you can't fool me with your talk about needing nothing +better because you're out of town all the time. You know what you and I +used to talk about in the old days--our longing for a home and an open +fire and a brace of cats and bedroom slippers. Now I've got 'em, and I +make Ardois signals at you. If your shelter-tent got afire or blew away, +wouldn't you crawl into mine? And are you going to turn down an old +tent-mate because his shack happens to be built of bricks?" + +"Do you put it that way?" + +"Yes, I do. Why, in Heaven's name, do you want to stay in a vile hole +like this--unless you're smitten with Mrs. Glodden? Phil, I _want_ you +to come. Will you?" + +"Then--I'll accept a corner of your blanket--for a day or two," said +Selwyn wearily. . . . "You'll let me go when I want to?" + +"I'll do more; I'll make you go when _I_ want you to. Come on; pay Mrs. +Glodden and have your trunk sent." + +Selwyn forced a laugh, then sat up on the bed's edge and looked around +at the unpapered walls. + +"Boots--you won't say to--to anybody what sort of a place I've been +living in--" + +"No; but I will if you try to come back here." + +So Selwyn stood up and began to remove his dressing-gown, and Lansing +dragged out the little flat trunk and began to pack it. + +An hour later they went away together through the falling snow. + + * * * * * + +For a week Boots let him alone. He had a big, comfortable room, +dressing-closet, and bath adjoining the suite occupied by his host; he +was absolutely free to go and come, and for a week or ten days Boots +scarcely laid eyes on him, except at breakfast, for Selwyn's visits to +Sandy Hook became a daily routine except when a telegram arrived from +Edgewater calling him there. + +But matters at Edgewater were beginning to be easier in one way for him. +Alixe appeared to forget him for days at a time; she was less irritable, +less restless and exacting. A sweet-tempered and childish docility made +the care of her a simpler matter for the nurses and for him; her +discontent had disappeared; she made fewer demands. She did ask for a +sleigh to replace the phaeton, and Selwyn managed to get one for her; +and Miss Casson, one of the nurses, wrote him how delighted Alixe had +been, and how much good the sleighing was doing her. + +"Yesterday," continued the nurse in her letter, "there was a +consultation here between Drs. Vail, Wesson, and Morrison--as you +requested. They have not changed their opinions--indeed, they are +convinced that there is no possible chance of the recovery you hoped for +when you talked with Dr. Morrison. They all agree that Mrs. Ruthven is +in excellent physical condition--young, strong, vigorous--and may live +for years; may outlive us all. But there is nothing else to expect." + +The letter ran on: + +"I am enclosing the bills you desired to have sent you. Fuel is very +expensive, as you will see. The items for fruits, too, seems +unreasonably large, but grapes are two dollars a pound and fresh +vegetables dreadfully expensive. + +"Mrs. Ruthven is comfortable and happy in the luxury provided. She is +very sweet and docile with us all--and we are careful not to irritate +her or to have anything intrude which might excite or cause the +slightest shock to her. + +"Yesterday, standing at the window, she caught sight of a passing negro, +and she turned to me like a flash and said: + +"'The Tenth Cavalry were there!' + +"She seemed rather excited for a moment--not unpleasantly--but when I +ventured to ask her a question, she had quite forgotten it all. + +"I meant to thank you for sending me the revolver and cartridges. It +seemed a silly request, but we are in a rather lonely place, and I think +Miss Bond and I feel a little safer knowing that, in case of necessity, +we have _something_ to frighten away any roaming intruder who might take +it into his head to visit us. + +"One thing we must be careful about: yesterday Mrs. Ruthven had a doll +on my bed, and I sat sewing by the window, not noticing what she was +doing until I heard her pretty, pathetic little laugh. + +"And _what_ do you think she had done? She had discovered your revolver +under my pillow, and she had tied her handkerchief around it, and was +using it as a doll! + + "I got it away with a little persuasion, but at times she still + asks for her 'army' doll--saying that a boy she knew, named Philip, + had sent it to her from Manila, where he was living. + + "This, Captain Selwyn, is all the news. I do not think she will + begin to fret for you again for some time. At first, you remember, + it was every other day, then every three or four days. It has now + been a week since she asked for you. When she does I will, as + usual, telegraph you. + + "With many thanks for your kindness to us all, "Very respectfully + yours, + + "Mary Casson." + +Selwyn read this letter sitting before the fire in the living-room, feet +on the fender, pipe between his teeth. It was the first day of absolute +rest he had had in a long while. + +The day before he had been at the Hook until almost dark, watching the +firing of a big gun, and the results had been so satisfactory that he +was venturing to give himself a holiday--unless wanted at Edgewater. + +But the morning had brought this letter; Alixe was contented and +comfortable. So when Boots, after breakfast, went off to his Air Line +office, Selwyn permitted himself the luxury of smoking-jacket and +slippers, and settled down before the fire to reread the letter and +examine the enclosed bills, and ponder and worry over them at his ease. +To have leisure to worry over perplexities was something; to worry in +such luxury as this seemed something so very near to happiness that as +he refolded the last bill for household expenses he smiled faintly to +himself. + +Boots's three tabby-cats were disposed comfortably before the blaze, +fore paws folded under, purring and blinking lazily at the grate. All +around were evidences of Boots's personal taste in pretty wall-paper and +hangings, a few handsome Shiraz rugs underfoot, deep, comfortable +chairs, low, open bookcases full of promising literature--the more +promising because not contemporary. + +Selwyn loved such a room as this--where all was comfort, and nothing in +the quiet, but cheerful, ensemble disturbed the peaceful homeliness. + +Once--and not very long since--he had persuaded himself that there had +been a chance for him to have such a home, and live in it--_not_ alone. +That chance had gone--had never really existed, he knew now. For sooner +or later he must have awakened from the pleasant dreams of +self-persuasion to the reality of his relentless responsibility. No, +there had never been such a chance; and he thanked God that he had +learned before it was too late that for him there could be no earthly +paradise, no fireside _a deux_, no home, no hope of it. + +As long as Alixe lived his spiritual responsibility must endure. And +they had just told him that she might easily outlive them all. + +He turned heavily in his chair and stared at the fire. Perhaps he saw +infernal visions in the flames; perhaps the blaze meant nothing more to +him than an example of chemical reaction, for his face was set and +colourless and vacant, and his hands lay loosely along the padded arms +of his easy-chair. + +The hardest lesson he had to learn in these days was to avoid thinking. +Or, if he must surrender to the throbbing, unbidden memories which came +crowding in hordes to carry him by the suddenness of their assault, that +he learn to curb and subdue and direct them in pity toward that +hopeless, helpless, stricken creature who was so utterly dependent upon +him in her dreadful isolation. + +And he could not so direct them. + +Loyal in act and deed, his thoughts betrayed him. Memories, insurgent, +turned on him to stab him; and he shrank from them, cowering among his +pillows at midnight. But memory is merciless, and what has been is +without pity; and so remembrance rose at midnight from its cerements, +like a spectre, floating before his covered eyes, wearing the shape of +youth and love, crowned with the splendour of _her_ hair, looking at him +out of those clear, sweet eyes whose gaze was purity and truth eternal. + +And truth is truth, though he might lie with hands clinched across his +brow to shut out the wraith of it that haunted him; though he might set +his course by the faith that was in him, and put away the hope of the +world--whose hope is love--the truth was there, staring, staring at him +out of Eileen Erroll's dark-blue eyes. + + * * * * * + +He had seen her seldom that winter. When he had seen her their relations +appeared to be as happy, as friendly as before; there was no apparent +constraint, nothing from her to indicate that she noticed an absence for +which his continual business with the Government seemed sufficient +excuse. + +Besides, her days were full days, consequent upon Nina's goading and +indefatigable activity; and Eileen danced and received, and she bridged +and lunched, and she heard opera Wednesdays and was good to the poor on +Fridays; and there were balls, and theatres, and classes for +intellectual improvement, and routine duties incident to obligations +born with those inhabitants of Manhattan who are numbered among the +thousand caryatides that support upon their jewelled necks and naked +shoulders the social structure of the metropolis. + +But Selwyn, unable longer to fulfil his social obligations, was being +quietly eliminated from the social scheme of things. Passed over here, +dropped there, counted out as one more man not to be depended upon, it +was not a question of loss of caste; he simply stayed away, and his +absence was accepted by people who, in the breathless pleasure chase, +have no leisure to inquire why a man has lagged behind. + +There were rumours, however, that he had merely temporarily donned +overalls for the purpose of making a gigantic fortune; and many an +envious young fellow asked his pretty partner in the dance if it was +true, and many a young girl frankly hoped it was, and that the fortune +would be quick in the making. For Selwyn was well liked in the younger +set, and that he was in process of becoming eligible interested +everybody except Gladys and the Minster twins, who considered him +sufficiently eligible without the material additions required by their +cynical seniors, and would rather have had him penniless and present +than absent and opulent. + +But they were young and foolish, and after a while they forgot to miss +him, particularly Gladys, whose mother had asked her not to dance quite +so often with Gerald, and to favour him a trifle less frequently in +cotillon. Which prevoyance had been coped with successfully by Nina, +who, noticing it, at first took merely a perverse pleasure in foiling +Mrs. Orchil; but afterward, as the affair became noticeable, animated by +the instinct of the truly clever opportunist, she gave Gerald every +fighting chance. Whatever came of it--and, no doubt, the Orchils had +more ambitious views for Gladys--it was well to have Gerald mentioned in +such a fashionable episode, whether anything came of it or not. + +Gerald, in the early days of his affair with Gladys, and before even it +had assumed the proportions of an affair, had shyly come to Selwyn, not +for confession but with the crafty purpose of introducing her name into +the conversation so that he might have the luxury of talking about her +to somebody who would neither quiz him nor suspect him. + +Selwyn, of course, ultimately suspected him; but as he never quizzed +him, Gerald continued his elaborate system of subterfuges to make her +personality and doings a topic for him to expand upon and Selwyn to +listen to. + +It had amused Selwyn; he thought of it now--a gay memory like a ray of +light flung for a moment across the sombre background of his own +sadness. Fortunate or unfortunate, Gerald was still lucky in his freedom +to hazard it with chance and fate. + +Freedom to love! That alone was blessed, though that love be unreturned. +Without that right--the right to love--a man was no man. Lansing had +been correct: such a man was a spectre in a living world--the ghost of +what he had been. But there was no help for it, and there Lansing had +been in the wrong. No hope, no help, nothing for it but to set a true +course and hang to it. + +And Selwyn's dull eyes rested upon the ashes of the fire, and he saw his +dead youth among them; and, in the flames, his maturity burning to +embers. + +If he outlived Alixe, his life would lie as the ashes lay at his feet. +If she outlived him--and they had told him there was every chance of +it--at least he would have something to busy himself with in life if he +was to leave her provided for when he was no longer there to stand +between her and charity. + +That meant work--the hard, incessant, blinding, stupefying work which +stuns thought and makes such a life endurable. + +Not that he had ever desired death as a refuge or as a solution of +despair; there was too much of the soldier in him. Besides, it is so +impossible for youth to believe in death, to learn to apply the word to +themselves. He had not learned to, and he had seen death, and watched +it; but for himself he had not learned to believe in it. When one turns +forty it is easier to credit it. + +Thinking of death, impersonally, he sat watching the flames playing +above the heavy log; and as he lay there in his chair, the unlighted +pipe drooping in his hands, the telephone on the desk rang, and he rose +and unhooked the receiver. + +Drina's voice sounded afar, and: "Hello, sweetheart!" he said gaily; "is +there anything I can do for your youthful highness?" + +"I've been talking over the 'phone to Boots," she said. "You know, +whenever I have nothing to do I call up Boots at his office and talk to +him." + +"That must please him," suggested Selwyn gravely. + +"It does. Boots says you are not going to business to-day. So I thought +I'd call you up." + +"Thank you," said Selwyn. + +"You are welcome. What are you doing over there in Boots's house?" + +"Looking at the fire, Drina, and listening to the purring of three fat +tabby-cats." + +"Oh! Mother and Eileen have gone somewhere. I haven't anything to do +for an hour. Can't you come around?" + +"Why, yes, if you want me." + +"Yes, I do. Of course I can't have Boots, and I prefer you next. The +children are fox-hunting, and it bores me. Will you come?" + +"Yes. When?" + +"Now. And would you mind bringing me a box of mint-paste? Mother won't +object. Besides, I'll tell her, anyway, after I've eaten them." + +"All right!" said Selwyn, laughing and hanging up the receiver. + +On his way to the Gerards' he bought a box of the confection dear to +Drina. But as he dropped the packet into his overcoat-pocket, the memory +of the past rose up suddenly, halting him. He could not bear to go to +the house without some little gift for Eileen, and it was violets now as +it was in the days that could never dawn again--a great, fragrant bunch +of them, which he would leave for her after his brief play-hour with +Drina was ended. + +The child was glad to see him, and expressed herself so, coming across +to the chair where he sat and leaning against him, one arm on his +shoulder. + +"Do you know," she said, "that I miss you ever so much? Do you know, +also, that I am nearly fourteen, and that there is nobody in this house +near enough my age to be very companionable? I have asked them to send +me to school, and mother is considering it." + +She leaned against his shoulder, curly head bent, thoughtfully studying +the turquoise ring on her slim finger. It was her first ring. Nina had +let Boots give it to her. + +"What a tall girl you are growing into!" he said, encircling her waist +with one arm. "Your mother was like you at fourteen. . . . Did she ever +tell you how she first met your father? Well, I'll tell you then. Your +father was a schoolboy of fifteen, and one day he saw the most wonderful +little girl riding a polo pony out of the Park. Her mother was riding +with her. And he lost his head, and ran after her until she rode into +the Academy stables. And in he went, headlong, after her, and found her +dismounted and standing with her mother; and he took off his hat, and he +said to her mother: 'I've run quite a long way to tell you who I am: I +am Colonel Gerard's son, Austin. Would you care to know me?' + +"And he looked at the little girl, who had curls precisely like yours, +and the same little nose and mouth. And that little girl, who is now +your mother, said very simply: 'Won't you come home to luncheon with us? +May he, mother? He has run a very long way to be polite to us.' + +"And your mother's mother looked at the boy for a moment, smiling, for +he was the image of his father, who had been at school with her. Then +she said: 'Come to luncheon and tell me about your father. Your father +once came a thousand miles to see me, but I had started the day before +on my wedding-trip.' + + * * * * * + +"And that is how your father first met your mother, when she was a +little girl." + +Drina laughed: "What a funny boy father was to run after a strange girl +on a polo pony! . . . Suppose--suppose he had not seen her, and had not +run after her. . . . Where would I be now, Uncle Philip? . . . Could you +please tell me?" + +"Still aloft among the cherubim, sweetheart." + +"But--whose uncle would you be? And who would Boots have found for a +comrade like me? . . . It's a good thing that father ran after that polo +pony. . . . Probably God arranged it. Do you think so?" + +"There is no harm in thinking it," he said, smiling. + +"No; no harm. I've known for a long while that He was taking care of +Boots for me until I grow up. Meanwhile, I know some very nice Harvard +freshmen and two boys from St. Paul and five from Groton. That helps, +you know." + +"Helps what?" asked Selwyn, vastly amused. + +"To pass the time until I am eighteen," said the child serenely, helping +herself to another soft, pale-green chunk of the aromatic paste. "Uncle +Philip, mother has forbidden me--and I'll tell her and take my +punishment--but would you mind telling me how you first met my Aunt +Alixe?" + +Selwyn's arm around her relaxed, then tightened. + +"Why do you ask, dear?" he said very quietly. + +"Because I was just wondering whether God arranged that, too." + +Selwyn looked at her a moment. "Yes," he said grimly; "nothing happens +by chance." + +"Then, when God arranges such things, He does not always consider our +happiness." + +"He gives us our chance, Drina." + +"Oh! Did you have a chance? I heard mother say to Eileen that you had +never had a chance for happiness. I thought it was very sad. I had gone +into the clothes-press to play with my dolls--you know I still do play +with them--that is, I go into some secret place and look at them at +times when the children are not around. So I was in there, sitting on +the cedar-chest, and I couldn't help hearing what they said." + +She extracted another bonbon, bit into it, and shook her head: + +"And mother said to Eileen: 'Dearest, can't you learn to care for him?' +And Eileen--" + +"Drina!" he interrupted sharply, "you must not repeat things you +overhear." + +"Oh, I didn't hear anything more," said the child, "because I remembered +that I shouldn't listen, and I came out of the closet. Mother was +standing by the bed, and Eileen was lying on the bed with her hands over +her eyes; and I didn't know she had been crying until I said: 'Please +excuse me for listening,' and she sat up very quickly, and I saw her +face was flushed and her eyes wet. . . . Isn't it possible for you to +marry anybody, Uncle Philip?" + +"No, Drina." + +"Not even if Eileen would marry you?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"You could not understand, dear. Even your mother cannot quite +understand. So we won't ever speak of it again, Drina." + +The child balanced a bonbon between thumb and forefinger, considering it +very gravely. + +"I know something that mother does not," she said. And as he betrayed no +curiosity: + +"Eileen _is_ in love. I heard her say so." + +He straightened up sharply, turning to look at her. + +"I was sleeping with her. I was still awake, and I heard her say: 'I +_do_ love you--I _do_ love you.' She said it very softly, and I cuddled +up, supposing she meant me. But she was asleep." + +"She certainly meant you," said Selwyn, forcing his stiffened lips into +a smile. + +The child shook her head, looking down at the ring which she was turning +on her finger: + +"No; she did not mean me." + +"H-how do you know?" + +"Because she said a man's name." + +The silence lengthened; he sat, tilted a little forward, blank gaze +focussed on the snowy window; Drina, standing, leaned back into the +hollow of his arm, absently studying her ring. + +A few moments later her music-teacher arrived, and Drina was obliged to +leave him. + +"If you don't wait until I have finished my music," she said, "you won't +see mother and Eileen. They are coming to take me to the riding-school +at four o'clock." + +He said that he couldn't stay that day; and when she had gone away to +the schoolroom he walked slowly to the window and looked out across the +snowy Park, where hundreds of children were floundering about with gaily +painted sleds. It was a pretty scene in the sunshine; crimson sweaters +and toboggan caps made vivid spots of colour on the white expanse. +Beyond, through the naked trees, he could see the drive, and the sleighs +with their brilliant scarlet plumes and running-gear flashing in the +sun. Overhead was the splendid winter blue of the New York sky, in +which, at a vast height, sea-birds circled. + +Meaning to go--for the house and its associations made him restless--he +picked up the box of violets and turned to ring for a maid to take +charge of them--and found himself confronting Eileen, who, in her furs +and gloves, was just entering the room. + +"I came up," she said; "they told me you were here, calling very +formally upon Drina, if you please. What with her monopoly of you and +Boots, there seems to be no chance for Nina and me." + +They shook hands pleasantly; he offered her the box of violets, and she +thanked him and opened it, and, lifting the heavy, perfumed bunch, bent +her fresh young face to it. For a moment she stood inhaling the scent, +then stretched out her arm, offering their fragrance to him. + +"The first night I ever knew you, you sent me about a wagon-load of +violets," she said carelessly. + +He nodded pleasantly; she tossed her muff on to the library table, +stripped off her gloves, and began to unhook her fur coat, declining his +aid with a quick shake of her head. + +"It is easy--you see!"--as the sleeves slid from her arms and the soft +mass of fur fell into a chair. "And, by the way, Drina said that you +couldn't wait to see Nina," she continued, turning to face a mirror and +beginning to withdraw the jewelled pins from her hat, "so you won't for +a moment consider it necessary to remain just because I wandered +in--will you?" + +He made no reply; she was still busy with her veil and hat and her +bright, glossy hair, the ends of which curled up at the temples--a +burnished frame for her cheeks which the cold had delicately flushed to +a wild-rost tint. Then, brushing back the upcurled tendrils of her hair, +she turned to confront him, faintly smiling, brows lifted in silent +repetition of her question. + +"I will stay until Nina comes, if I may," he said slowly. + +She seated herself. "You may," she said mockingly; "we don't allow you +in the house very often, so when you do come you may remain until the +entire family can congregate to inspect you." She leaned back, looking +at him; then look and manner changed, and she bent impulsively forward: + +"You don't look very well, Captain Selwyn; are you?" + +"Perfectly. I"--he laughed--"I am growing old; that is all." + +"Do you say that to annoy me?" she asked, with a disdainful shrug, "or +to further impress me?" + +He shook his head and touched the hair at his temples significantly. + +"Pooh!" she retorted. "It is becoming--is that what you mean?" + +"I hope it is. There's no reason why a man should not grow old +gracefully--" + +"Captain Selwyn! But of course you only say it to bring out that latent +temper of mine. It's about the only thing that does it, too. . . . And +please don't plague me--if you've only a few moments to stay. . . . It +may amuse you to know that I, too, am exhibiting signs of increasing +infirmity; my temper, if you please, is not what it once was." + +"Worse than ever?" he asked in pretended astonishment. + +"Far worse. It is vicious. Kit-Ki took a nap on a new dinner-gown of +mine, and I slapped her. And the other day Drina hid in a clothes-press +while Nina was discussing my private affairs, and when the little imp +emerged I could have shaken her. Oh, I am certainly becoming infirm; so +if you are, too, comfort yourself with the knowledge that I am keeping +pace with you through the winter of our discontent." + +At the mention of the incident of which Drina had already spoken to him, +Selwyn raised his head and looked at the girl curiously. Then he +laughed. + +"I am wondering," he said in a bantering voice, "what secrets Drina +heard. I think I'd better ask her--" + +"You had better not! Besides, _I_ said nothing at all." + +"But Nina did." + +She nodded, lying there, arms raised, hands clasping the upholstered +wings of the big chair, and gazing at him out of indolent, amused eyes. + +"Would you like to know what Nina was saying to me?" she asked. + +"I'd rather hear what you said to her." + +"I told you that I said nothing." + +"Not a word?" he insisted. + +"Not a word." + +"Not even a sound?" + +"N--well--I won't answer that." + +"Oho!" he laughed. "So you did make some sort of inarticulate reply! +Were you laughing or weeping?" + +"Perhaps I was yawning. How do you know?" she smiled. + +After a moment he said, still curious: "_Why_ were you crying, Eileen?" + +"Crying! I didn't say I was crying." + +"I assume it." + +"To prove or disprove that assumption," she said coolly, amused, "let us +hunt up a motive for a possible display of tears. What, Captain Selwyn, +have I to cry about? Is there anything in the world that I lack? +Anything that I desire and cannot have?" + +"_Is_ there?" he repeated. + +"I asked you, Captain Selwyn." + +"And, unable to reply," he said, "I ask you." + +"And I," she retorted, "refuse to answer." + +"Oho! So there _is_, then, something you lack? There _is_ a motive for +possible tears?" + +"You have not proven it," she said. + +"You have not denied it." + +She tipped back her head, linked her fingers under her chin, and looked +at him across the smooth curve of her cheeks. + +"Well--yes," she admitted, "I was crying--if you insist on knowing. Now +that you have so cleverly driven me to admit that, can you also force me +to tell you _why_ I was so tearful?" + +"Certainly," he said promptly; "it was something Nina said that made you +cry." + +They both laughed. + +"Oh, what a come-down!" she said teasingly. "You knew that before. But +can you force me to confess to you _what_ Nina was saying? If you can +you are the cleverest cross-examiner in the world, for I'd rather perish +than tell you--" + +"Oh," he said instantly, "then it was something about love!" + +He had not meant to say it; he had spoken too quickly, and the flush of +surprise on the girl's face was matched by the colour rising to his own +temples. And, to retrieve the situation, he spoke too quickly again--and +too lightly. + +"A girl would rather perish than admit that she is in love?" he said, +forcing a laugh. "That is rather a clever deduction, I think. +Unfortunately, however, I happen to know to the contrary, so all my +cleverness comes to nothing." + +The surprise had faded from her face, but the colour remained; and with +it something else--something in the blue eyes which he had never before +encountered there--the faintest trace of recoil, of shrinking away from +him. + +And she herself did not know it was there--did not quite realise that +she had been hurt. Surprise that he had chanced so abruptly, so +unerringly upon the truth had startled and confused her; but that he had +made free of the truth so lightly, so carelessly, laughingly amused, +left her without an answering smile. + +That it had been an accident--a chance surmise which perhaps he himself +did not credit--which he could not believe--made it no easier for her. +For the first time in his life he had said something which left her +unresponsive, with a sense of bruised delicacy and of privacy invaded. A +tinge of fear of him crept in, too. She did not misconstrue what he had +said under privilege of a jest, but after what had once passed between +them she had not considered that love, even in the abstract, might serve +as a mocking text for any humour or jesting sermon from a man who had +asked her what he once asked--the man she had loved enough to weep for +when she had refused him only because she lacked what he asked for. +Knowing that she loved him in her own innocent fashion, scarcely +credulous that he ever could be dearer to her, yet shyly wistful for +whatever more the years might add to her knowledge of a love so far +immune from stress or doubt or the mounting thrill of a deeper emotion, +she had remained confidently passive, warmly loyal, reverencing the +mystery of the love he offered, though she could not understand it or +respond. + +And now--now a chance turn; of a word--a trend to an idle train of +thought, jestingly followed!--and, without warning, they had stumbled on +a treasured memory, too frail, too delicately fragile, to endure the +shock. + +And now fear crept in--fear that he had forgotten, had changed. Else how +could he have spoken so? . . . And the tempered restraint of her +quivered at the thought--all the serenity, the confidence in life and in +him began to waver. And her first doubt crept in upon her. + +She turned her expressionless face from him and, resting her cheek +against the velvet back of the chair, looked out into the late afternoon +sunshine. + +All the long autumn without him, all her long, lonely, leisure hours in +the golden weather, his silence, his withdrawal into himself, and his +work, hitherto she had not misconstrued, though often she confused +herself in explaining it. Impatience of his absence, too, had stimulated +her to understand the temporary state of things--to know that time away +from him meant for her only existence in suspense. + +Very, very slowly, by degrees imperceptible, alone with memories of him +and of their summer's happiness already behind her, she had learned that +time added things to what she had once considered her full capacity for +affection. + +Alone with her memories of him, at odd moments during the day--often in +the gay clamour and crush of the social routine--or driving with Nina, +or lying, wide-eyed, on her pillow at night, she became conscious that +time, little by little, very gradually but very surely, was adding to +her regard for him frail, new, elusive elements that stole in to awake +an unquiet pulse or stir her heart into a sudden thrill, leaving it +fluttering, and a faint glow gradually spreading through her every vein. + +She was beginning to love him no longer in her own sweet fashion, but in +his; and she was vaguely aware of it, yet curiously passive and content +to put no question to herself whether it was true or false. And how it +might be with him she evaded asking herself, too; only the quickening of +breath and pulse questioned the pure thoughts unvoiced; only the +increasing impatience of her suspense confirmed the answer which now, +perhaps, she might give him one day while the blessed world was young. + +At the thought she moved uneasily, shifting her position in the chair. +Sunset, and the swift winter twilight, had tinted, then dimmed, the +light in the room. On the oak-beamed ceiling, across the ivory rosettes, +a single bar of red sunlight lay, broken by rafter and plaster +foliation. She watched it turn to rose, to ashes. And, closing her eyes, +she lay very still and motionless in the gray shadows closing over all. + +He had not yet spoken when again she lifted her eyes and saw him sitting +in the dusk, one arm resting across his knee, his body bent slightly +forward, his gaze vacant. + +Into himself again!--silently companioned by the shadows of old +thoughts; far from her--farther than he had ever been. For a while she +lay there, watching him, scarcely breathing; then a faint shiver of +utter loneliness came over her--of desire for his attention, his voice, +his friendship, and the expression of it. But he never moved; his eyes +seemed dull and unseeing; his face strangely gaunt to her, unfamiliar, +hard. In the dim light he seemed but the ghost of what she had known, of +what she had thought him--a phantom, growing vaguer, more unreal, +slipping away from her through the fading light. And the impulse to +arouse herself and him from the dim danger--to arrest the spell, to +break it, and seize what was their own in life overwhelmed her; and she +sat up, grasping the great arms of her chair, slender, straight, +white-faced in the gloom. + +But he did not stir. Then unreasoning, instinctive fear confused her, +and she heard her own voice, sounding strangely in the twilight: + +"What has come between us, Captain Selwyn? What has happened to us? +Something is all wrong, and I--I ask you what it is, because I don't +know. Tell me." + +He had lifted his head at her first word, hesitatingly, as though dazed. + +"Could you tell me?" she asked faintly. + +"Tell you what, child?" + +"Why you are so silent with me; what has crept in between us? I"--the +innocent courage sustaining her--"I have not changed--except a little +in--in the way you wished. Have you?" + +"No," he said in an altered voice. + +"Then--what is it? I have been--you have left me so much alone this +winter--and I supposed I understood--" + +"My work," he said; but she scarcely knew the voice for his. + +"I know; you have had no time. I know that; I ought to know it by this +time, for I have told myself often enough. And yet--when we _are_ +together, it is--it has been--different. Can you tell me why? Do you +think me changed?" + +"You must not change," he said. + +"No," she breathed, wondering, "I could not--except--a little, as I told +you." + +"You must not change--not even that way!" he repeated in a voice so low +she could scarcely hear him--and believed she had misunderstood him. + +"I did not hear you," she said faintly. "What did you say to me?" + +"I cannot say it again." + +She slowly shook her head, not comprehending, and for a while sat +silent, struggling with her own thoughts. Then, suddenly instinct with +the subtle fear which had driven her into speech: + +"When I said--said that to you--last summer; when I cried in the +swinging seat there--because I could not answer you--as I wished to--did +_that_ change you, Captain Selwyn?" + +"No." + +"Then y-you are unchanged?" + +"Yes, Eileen." + +The first thrill of deep emotion struck through and through her. + +"Then--then _that_ is not it," she faltered. "I was afraid--I have +sometimes wondered if it was. . . . I am very glad, Captain +Selwyn. . . . Will you wait a--a little longer--for me to--to change?" + +He stood up suddenly in the darkness, and she sprang to her feet, +breathless; for she had caught the low exclamation, and the strange +sound that stifled it in his throat. + +"Tell me," she stammered, "w-what has happened. D-don't turn away to the +window; don't leave me all alone to endure this--this _something_ I have +known was drawing you away--I don't know where! What is it? Could you +not tell _me_, Captain Selwyn? I--I have been very frank with you; I +have been truthful--and loyal. I gave you, from the moment I knew you, +all of me there was to give. And--and if there is more to give--now--it +was yours when it came to me. + +"Do you think I am too young to know what I am saying? Solitude is a +teacher. I--I am still a scholar, perhaps, but I think that you could +teach me what my drill-master, Solitude, could not . . . if it--it is +true you love me." + +The mounting sea of passion swept him; he turned on her, unsteadily, his +hands clenched, not daring to touch her. Shame, contrition, horror that +the damage was already done, all were forgotten; only the deadly grim +duty of the moment held him back. + +"Dear," he said, "because I am unchanged--because I--I love you so--help +me!--and God help us both." + +"Tell me," she said steadily, but it was fear that stilled her voice. +She laid one slim hand on the table, bearing down on the points of her +fingers until the nails whitened, but her head was high and her eyes met +his, straight, unwavering. + +"I--I knew it," she said; "I understood there was something. If it is +trouble--and I see it is--bring it to me. If I am the woman you took me +for, give me my part in this. It is the quickest way to my heart, +Captain Selwyn." + +But he had grown afraid, horribly afraid. All the cowardice in him was +in the ascendant. But that passed; watching his worn face, she saw it +passing. Fear clutched at her; for the first time in her life she +desired to go to him, hold fast to him, seeking in contact the +reassurance of his strength; but she only stood straighter, a little +paler, already half divining in the clairvoyance of her young soul what +lay still hidden. + +"Do you ask a part in this?" he said at last. + +"I ask it." + +"Why?" + +Her eyes wavered, then returned his gaze: + +"For love of you," she said, as white as death. + +He caught his breath sharply and straightened out, passing one hand +across his eyes. When she saw his face again in the dim light it was +ghastly. + +"There was a woman," he said, "for whom I was once responsible." He +spoke wearily, head bent, resting the weight of one arm on the table +against which she leaned. "Do you understand?" he asked. + +"Yes. You mean--Mrs. Ruthven." + +"I mean--her. Afterward--when matters had altered--I came--home." + +He raised his head and looked about him in the darkness. + +"Came home," he repeated, "no longer a man; the shadow of a man, with no +hope, no outlook, no right to hope." + +He leaned heavily on the table, his arm rigid, looking down at the floor +as he spoke. + +"No right to hope. Others told me that I still possessed that right. I +knew they were wrong; I do not mean that they persuaded me--I persuaded +myself that, after all, perhaps my right to hope remained to me. I +persuaded myself that I might be, after all, the substance, not the +shadow." + +He looked up at her: + +"And so I dared to love you." + +She gazed at him, scarcely breathing. + +"Then," he said, "came the awakening. My dream had ended." + +She waited, the lace on her breast scarce stirring, so still she stood, +so pitifully still. + +"Such responsibility cannot die while those live who undertook it. I +believed it until I desired to believe it no longer. But a man's +self-persuasion cannot alter such laws--nor can human laws confirm or +nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than admit their truth, +basing its creed upon such laws. . . . No man can put asunder, no laws +of man undo the burden. . . . And, to my shame and disgrace, I have had +to relearn this after offering you a love I had no right to offer--a +life which is not my own to give." + +He took one step toward her, and his voice fell so low that she could +just hear him: + +"She has lost her mind, and the case is hopeless. Those to whom the laws +of the land have given care of her turned on her, threatened her with +disgrace. And when one friend of hers halted this miserable conspiracy, +her malady came swiftly upon her, and suddenly she found herself +helpless, penniless, abandoned, her mind already clouded, and clouding +faster! . . . Eileen, was there then the shadow of a doubt as to the +responsibility? Because a man's son was named in the parable, does the +lesson end there--and are there no others as prodigal--no other bonds +that hold as inexorably as the bond of love? + +"Men--a lawyer or two--a referee--decided to remove a burden; but a +higher court has replaced it." + +He came and stood directly before her: + +"I dare not utter one word of love to you; I dare not touch you. What +chance is there for such a man as I?" + +"No chance--for us," she whispered. "Go!" + +For a second he stood motionless, then, swaying slightly, turned on his +heel. + +And long after he had left the house she still stood there, eyes closed, +colourless lips set, her slender body quivering, racked with the first +fierce grief of a woman's love for a man. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HER WAY + + +Neergard had already begun to make mistakes. The first was in thinking +that, among those whose only distinction was their wealth, his own +wealth permitted him the same insolence and ruthlessness that so +frequently characterised them. + +Clever, vindictively patient, circumspect, and commercially competent as +he had been, his intelligence was not of a high order. The intelligent +never wilfully make enemies; Neergard made them gratuitously, cynically +kicking from under him the props he used in mounting the breach, and +which he fancied he no longer needed as a scaffolding now that he had +obtained a foothold on the outer wall. Thus he had sneeringly dispensed +with Gerald; thus he had shouldered Fane and Harmon out of his way when +they objected to the purchase of Neergard's acreage adjoining the +Siowitha preserve, and its incorporation as an integral portion of the +club tract; thus he was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another +reason. But he was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he +wanted a little more out of him--just enough to place himself on a +secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as hack +cotillon leader, was regarded by the young with wide-eyed awe. + +Why Neergard, who had forced himself into the Siowitha, ever came to +commit so gross a blunder as to dragoon, or even permit, the club to +acquire the acreage, the exploiting of which had threatened their +existence, is not very clear. + +Once within the club he may have supposed himself perpetually safe, not +only because of his hold on Ruthven, but also because, back of his +unflagging persistence, back of his determination to shoulder and push +deep into the gilded, perfumed crush where purse-strings and morals were +loosened with every heave and twist in the panting struggle around the +raw gold altar--back of the sordid past, back of all the resentment, and +the sinister memory of wrongs and grievances, still unbalanced, lay an +enormous vanity. + +It was the vanity in him--even in the bitter days--that throbbed with +the agony of the bright world's insolence; it was vanity which sustained +him in better days where he sat nursing in his crooked mind the crooked +thoughts that swarmed there. His desire for position and power was that; +even his yearning for corruption was but the desire for the satiation of +a vanity as monstrous as it was passionless. His to have what was shared +by those he envied--the power to pick and choose, to ignore, to punish. +His to receive, not to seek; to dispense, not to stand waiting for his +portion; his the freedom of the forbidden, of everything beyond him, of +all withheld, denied by this bright, loose-robed, wanton-eyed goddess +from whose invisible altar he had caught a whiff of sacrificial odours, +standing there through the wintry years in the squalor and reek of +things. + +Now he had arrived among those outlying camps where camp-followers and +masters mingled. Certain card-rooms were open to him, certain +drawing-rooms, certain clubs. Through them he shouldered, thrilled as +he advanced deeper into the throng, fired with the contact of the crush +around him. + +Already the familiarity of his appearance and his name seemed to +sanction his presence; two minor clubs, but good ones--in need of +dues--had strained at this social camel and swallowed him. Card-rooms +welcomed him--not the rooms once flung open contemptuously for his +plucking--but rooms where play was fiercer, and where those who faced +him expected battle to the limit. + +And they got it, for he no longer felt obliged to lose. And that again +was a mistake: he could not yet afford to win. + +Thick in the chance and circumstance of the outer camp, heavily involved +financially and already a crushing financial force, meshed in, or +spinning in his turn the strands and counter-strands of intrigue, with a +dozen men already mortally offended and a woman or two alarmed or +half-contemptuously on guard, flattered, covetous, or afraid, the limit +of Neergard's intelligence was reached; his present horizon ended the +world for him because he could not imagine anything beyond it; and that +smirking vanity which had 'squired him so far, hat in hand, now plucked +off its mask and leered boldly about in the wake of its close-eyed +master. + +George Fane, unpleasantly involved in Block Copper, angry, but not very +much frightened, turned in casual good faith to Neergard to ease matters +until he could cover. And Neergard locked him in the tighter and +shouldered his way through Rosamund's drawing-room to the sill of Sanxon +Orchil's outer office, treading brutally on Harmon's heels. + +Harmon in disgust, wrath, and fear went to Craig; Craig to Maxwell +Hunt; Hunt wired Mottly; Mottly, cold and sleek in his contempt, came +from Palm Beach. + +The cohesive power of caste is an unknown element to the outsider. + +That he had unwittingly and prematurely aroused some unsuspected force +on which he had not counted and of which he had no definite knowledge +was revealed to Neergard when he desired Rosamund to obtain for him an +invitation to the Orchils' ball. + +It appeared that she could not do so--that even the threatened tendency +of Block Copper could not sharpen her wits to devise a way for him. Very +innocently she told him that Jack Ruthven was leading the Chinese +Cotillon with Mrs. Delmour-Carnes from one end, Gerald Erroll with +Gladys from the other--a hint that a card ought to be easy enough to +obtain in spite of the strangely forgetful Orchils. + +Long since he had fixed upon Gladys Orchil as the most suitable silent +partner for the unbuilt house of Neergard, unconcerned that rumour was +already sending her abroad for the double purpose of getting rid of +Gerald and of giving deserving aristocracy a look-in at the fresh youth +of her and her selling price. + +Nothing, so far, had checked his progress; why should rumour? Elbow and +money had shoved him on and on, shoulder-deep where his thin nose +pointed, crowding aside and out of his way whatever was made to be +crowded out; and going around, hat off, whatever remained arrogantly +immovable. + +So he had come, on various occasions, close to the unruffled skirts of +this young girl--not yet, however, in her own house. But Sanxon Orchil +had recently condescended to turn around in his office chair and leave +his amusing railroad combinations long enough to divide with Neergard a +quarter of a million copper profits; and there was another turn to be +expected when Neergard gave the word. + +Therefore, it puzzled and confused Neergard to be overlooked where the +gay world had been summoned with an accompanying blast from the public +press; therefore he had gone to Rosamund with the curtest of hints; but +he had remained, standing before her, checked, not condescending to +irritation, but mentally alert to a new element of resistance which he +had not expected--a new force, palpable, unlooked for, unclassified as +yet in his schedule for his life's itinerary. That force was the +cohesive power of abstract caste in the presence of a foreign irritant +threatening its atomic disintegration. That foreign and irritating +substance was himself. But he had forgotten in his vanity that which in +his rawer shrewdness he should have remembered. Eternal vigilance was +the price; not the cancelled vouchers of the servitude of dead years and +the half-servile challenge of the strange new days when his vanity had +dared him to live. + + * * * * * + +Rosamund, smoothly groomed, golden-headed, and smiling, rose as Neergard +moved slowly forward to take his leave. + +"So stupid of them to have overlooked you," she said; "and I should have +thought Gladys would have remembered--unless--" + +His close-set eyes focussed so near her own that she stopped, +involuntarily occupied with the unusual phenomenon. + +"Unless what?" he asked. + +She was all laughing polished surface again. "Unless Gladys's +intellect, which has only room for one idea at a time, is already fully +occupied." + +"With what?" he demanded. + +"Oh, with that Gerald boy "--she shrugged indulgently--"perhaps with her +pretty American Grace and the outlook for the Insular invasion." + +Neergard's apple face was dull and mottled, and on the thin bridge of +his nose the sweat glistened. He did not know what she meant; and she +knew he did not. + +As he turned to go she paced him a step or two across the rose-and-gold +reception-room, hands linked behind her back, bending forward slightly +as she moved beside him. + +"Gerald, poor lad, is to be disciplined," she observed. "The prettiest +of American duchesses takes her over next spring; and Heaven knows the +household cavalry needs green forage . . . Besides, even Jack Ruthven +may stand the chance they say he stands if it is true he has made up his +mind to sue for his divorce." + +Neergard wheeled on her; the sweat on his nose had become a bright bead. + +"Where did you hear that?" he asked. + +"What? About Jack Ruthven?" Her smooth shoulders fluttered her answer. + +"You mean it's talked about?" he insisted. + +"In some sets," she said with an indifference which coolly excluded the +probability that he could have been in any position to hear what was +discussed in those sets. + +Again he felt the check of something intangible but real; and the vanity +in him, flicked on the raw, peered out at her from his close-set eyes. +For a moment he measured her from the edge of her skirt to her golden +head, insolently. + +"You might remind your husband," he said, "that I'd rather like to have +a card to the Orchil affair." + +"There is no use in speaking to George," she replied regretfully, +shaking her head. + +"Try it," returned Neergard with the hint of a snarl; and he took his +leave, and his hat from the man in waiting, who looked after him with +the slightest twitching of his shaven upper lip. For the lifting of an +eyebrow in the drawing-rooms becomes warrant for a tip that runs very +swiftly below stairs. + +That afternoon, alone in his office, Neergard remembered Gerald. And for +the first time he understood the mistake of making an enemy out of what +he had known only as a friendly fool. + +But it was a detail, after all--merely a slight error in assuming too +early an arrogance he could have afforded to wait for. He had waited a +long, long while for some things. + +As for Fane, he had him locked up with his short account. No doubt he'd +hear from the Orchils through the Fanes. However, to clinch the matter, +he thought he might as well stop in to see Ruthven. A plain word or two +to Ruthven indicating his own wishes--perhaps outlining his policy +concerning the future house of Neergard--might as well be delivered now +as later. + +So that afternoon he took a hansom at Broad and Wall streets and rolled +smoothly uptown, not seriously concerned, but willing to have a brief +understanding with Ruthven on one or two subjects. + +As his cab drove up to the intricately ornamental little house of gray +stone, a big touring limousine wheeled out from the curb, and he caught +sight of Sanxon Orchil and Phoenix Mottly inside, evidently just leaving +Ruthven. + +His smiling and very cordial bow was returned coolly by Orchil, and +apparently not observed at all by Mottly. He sat a second in his cab, +motionless, the obsequious smile still stencilled on his flushed face; +then the flush darkened; he got out of his cab and, bidding the man +wait, rang at the house of Ruthven. + +Admitted, it was a long while before he was asked to mount the carved +stairway of stone. And when he did, on every step, hand on the bronze +rail, he had the same curious sense of occult resistance to his physical +progress; the same instinct of a new element arising into the scheme of +things the properties of which he felt a sudden fierce desire to test +and comprehend. + +Ruthven in a lounging suit of lilac silk, sashed in with flexible +silver, stood with his back to the door as Neergard was announced; and +even after he was announced Ruthven took his time to turn and stare and +nod with a deliberate negligence that accented the affront. + +Neergard sat down; Ruthven gazed out of the window, then, soft thumbs +hooked in his sash, turned leisurely in impudent interrogation. + +"What the hell is the matter with you?" asked Neergard, for the subtle +something he had been encountering all day had suddenly seemed to wall +him out of all he had conquered, forcing him back into the simpler +sordid territory where ways and modes of speech were more familiar to +him--where the spontaneous crudity of expression belonged among the +husks of all he had supposed discarded for ever. + +"Really," observed Ruthven, staring at the seated man, "I scarcely +understand your remark." + +"Well, you'll understand it perhaps when I choose to explain it," said +Neergard. "I see there's some trouble somewhere. What is it? What's the +matter with Orchil, and that hatchet-faced beagle-pup, Mottly? _Is_ +there anything the matter, Jack?" + +"Nothing important," said Ruthven with an intonation which troubled +Neergard. "Did you come here to--ah--ask anything of me? Very glad to do +anything, I'm sure." + +"Are you? Well, then, I want a card to the Orchils'." + +Ruthven raised his brows slightly; and Neergard waited, then repeated +his demand. + +Ruthven began to explain, rather languidly, that it was impossible; +but--"I want it," insisted the other doggedly. + +"I can't be of any service to you in this instance." + +"Oh, yes, I think you can. I tell you I want that card. Do you +understand plain speech?" + +"Ya-as," drawled Ruthven, seating himself a trifle wearily among his +cushions, "but yours is so--ah--very plain--quite elemental, you know. +You ask for a bid to the Orchils'; I tell you quite seriously I can't +secure one for you." + +"You'd better think it over," said Neergard menacingly. + +"Awfully sorry." + +"You mean you won't?" + +"Ah--quite so." + +Neergard's thin nose grew white and tremulous: + +"Why?" + +"You insist?" in mildly bored deprecation. + +"Yes, I insist. Why can't you--or why won't you?" + +"Well, if you really insist, they--ah--don't want you, Neergard." + +"Who--why--how do you happen to know that they don't? Is this some petty +spite of that young cub, Gerald? Or"--and he almost looked at +Ruthven--"is this some childish whim of yours?" + +"Oh, really now--" + +"Yes, really now," sneered Neergard, "you'd better tell me. And you'd +better understand, now, once for all, just exactly what I've outlined +for myself--so you can steer clear of the territory I operate in." He +clasped his blunt fingers and leaned forward, projecting his whole body, +thick legs curled under; but his close-set eyes still looked past +Ruthven. + +"I need a little backing," he said, "but I can get along without it. And +what I'm going to do is to marry Miss Orchil. Now you know; now you +understand. I don't care a damn about the Erroll boy; and I think I'll +discount right now any intentions of any married man to bother Miss +Orchil after some Dakota decree frees him from the woman whom he's +driven into an asylum." + +Ruthven looked at him curiously: + +"So that is discounted, is it?" + +"I think so," nodded Neergard. "I don't think that man will try to +obtain a divorce until I say the word." + +"Oh! Why not?" + +"Because of my knowledge concerning that man's crooked methods in +obtaining for me certain options that meant ruin to his own country +club," said Neergard coolly. + +"I see. How extraordinary! But the club has bought in all that land, +hasn't it?" + +"Yes--but the stench of your treachery remains, my friend." + +"Not treachery, only temptation," observed Ruthven blandly. "I've talked +it all over with Orchil and Mottly--" + +"You--_what_!" gasped Neergard. + +"Talked about it," repeated Ruthven, hard face guileless, and raising +his eyebrows--a dreadful caricature of youth in the misleading +smoothness of the minutely shaven face; "I told Orchil what you +persuaded me to do--" + +"You--you damned--" + +"Not at all, not at all!" protested Ruthven, languidly settling himself +once more among the cushions. "And by the way," he added, "there's a +law--by-law--something or other, that I understand may interest you"--he +looked up at Neergard, who had sunk back in his chair--"about unpaid +assessments--" + +Neergard now for the first time was looking directly at him. + +"Unpaid assessments," repeated Ruthven. "It's a, detail--a law--never +enforced unless we--ah--find it convenient to rid ourselves of a member. +It's rather useful, you see, in such a case--a technical pretext, you +know. . . . I forget the exact phrasing; something about' ceases to +retain his membership, and such shares of stock as he may own in the +said club shall be appraised and delivered to the treasurer upon receipt +of the value'--or something like that." + +Still Neergard looked at him, hunched up in his chair, chin sunk on his +chest. + +"Thought it just as well to mention it," said Ruthven blandly, "as +they've seen fit to take advantage of the--ah--opportunity--under legal +advice. You'll hear from the secretary, I fancy--Mottly, you know. . . . +_Is_ there anything more, Neergard?" + +Neergard scarcely heard him. He had listened, mechanically, when told in +as many words that he had been read out of the Siowitha Club; he +understood that he stood alone, discarded, disgraced, with a certain +small coterie of wealthy men implacably hostile to him. But it was not +that which occupied him: he was face to face with the new element of +which he had known nothing--the subtle, occult resistance to himself and +his personality, all that he represented, embodied, stood for, hoped +for. + +And for the first time he realised that among the ruthless, no +ruthlessness was permitted him; among the reckless, circumspection had +been required of him; no arrogance, no insolence had been permitted +him among the arrogant and insolent; for, when such as he turned +threateningly upon one of those belonging to that elemental matrix +of which he dared suppose himself an integral part, he found that +he was mistaken. Danger to one from such as he endangered their +common caste--such as it was. And, silently, subtly, all through +that portion of the social fabric, he became slowly sensible of +resistance--resistance everywhere, from every quarter. + +Now, hunched up there in his chair, he began to understand. If Ruthven +had been a blackguard--it was not for him to punish him--no, not even +threaten to expose him. His own caste would take care of that; his own +sort would manage such affairs. Meanwhile Neergard had presumed to annoy +them, and the society into which he had forced himself and which he had +digestively affected, was now, squid-like, slowly turning itself inside +out to expel him as a foreign substance from which such unimportant +nutrition as he had afforded had been completely extracted. + +He looked at Ruthven, scarcely seeing him. Finally he gathered his thick +legs under to support him as he rose, stupidly, looking about for his +hat. + +Ruthven rang for a servant; when he came Neergard followed him without a +word, small eyes vacant, the moisture powdering the ridge of his nose, +his red blunt hands dangling as he walked. Behind him a lackey laughed. + + * * * * * + +In due time Neergard, who still spent his penny on a morning paper, read +about the Orchil ball. There were three columns and several pictures. He +read all there was to read about--the sickeningly minute details of +jewels and costumes, the sorts of stuffs served at supper, the cotillon, +the favours--then, turning back, he read about the dozen-odd separate +hostesses who had entertained the various coteries and sets at separate +dinners before the ball--read every item, every name, to the last +imbecile period. + +Then he rose wearily, and started downtown to see what his lawyers could +do toward reinstating him in a club that had expelled him--to find out +if there remained the slightest trace of a chance in the matter. But +even as he went he knew there could be none. The squid had had its will +with him, not he with the squid; and within him rose again all the old +hatred and fear of these people from whom he had desired to extract full +payment for the black days of need he had endured, for the want, the +squalor, the starvation he had passed through. + +But the reckoning left him where he had started--save for the money they +had used when he forced it on them--not thanking him. + +So he went to his lawyers--every day for a while, then every week, +then, toward the end of winter, less often, for he had less time now, +and there was a new pressure which he was beginning to feel vaguely +hostile to him in his business enterprises--hitches in the negotiations +of loans, delays, perhaps accidental, but annoying; changes of policy in +certain firms who no longer cared to consider acreage as investment; and +a curiously veiled antagonism to him in a certain railroad, the +reorganisation of which he had dared once to aspire to. + +And one day, sitting alone in his office, a clerk brought him a morning +paper with one column marked in a big blue-pencilled oval. + +It was only about a boy and a girl who had run away and married because +they happened to be in love, although their parents had prepared other +plans for their separate disposal. The column was a full one, the +heading in big type--a good deal of pother about a boy and a girl, after +all, particularly as it appeared that their respective families had +determined to make the best of it. Besides, the girl's parents had other +daughters growing up; and the prettiest of American duchesses would no +doubt remain amiable. As for the household cavalry, probably some of +them were badly in need of forage, but that thin red line could hold out +until the younger sisters shed pinafores. So, after all, in spite of +double leads and the full column, the runaways could continue their +impromptu honeymoon without fear of parents, duchess, or a rescue charge +from that thin, red, and impecunious line. + + * * * * * + +It took Neergard all day to read that column before he folded it away +and pigeonholed it among a lot of dusty documents--uncollected claims, a +memorandum of a deal with Ruthven, a note from an actress, and the +papers in his case against the Siowitha Club which would never come to +a suit--he knew it now--never amount to anything. So among these +archives of dead desires, dead hopes, and of vengeance deferred _sine +die_, he laid away the soiled newspaper. + +Then he went home, very tired with a mental lassitude that depressed him +and left him drowsy in his great arm-chair before the grate--too drowsy +and apathetic to examine the letters and documents laid out for him by +his secretary, although one of them seemed to be important--something +about alienation of affections, something about a yacht and Mrs. +Ruthven, and a heavy suit to be brought unless other settlement was +suggested as a balm to Mr. Ruthven. + +To dress for dinner was an effort--a purely mechanical operation which +was only partly successful, although his man aided him. But he was too +tired to continue the effort; and at last it was his man alone who +disembarrassed him of his heavy clothing and who laid him among the +bedclothes, where he sank back, relaxed, breathing loudly in the +dreadful depressed stupor of utter physical and neurotic prostration. + +Meaningless to him the hurriedly intrusive attorneys--his own and +Ruthven's--who forced their way in that night--or was it the next, or +months later? A weight like the weight of death lay on him, mind and +body. If he comprehended what threatened, what was coming, he did not +care. The world passed on, leaving him lying there, nerveless, +exhausted, a derelict on a sea too stormy for such as he--a wreck that +might have sailed safely in narrower waters. + +And some day he'd be patched up and set afloat once more to cruise and +operate and have his being in the safer and smaller seas; some day, when +the nerve crash had subsided and the slow, wounded mind came back to +itself, and its petty functions were once more resumed--its envious +scheming, its covetous capability, its vicious achievement. For with him +achievement could embody only the meaner imitations of the sheer +colossal _coups_ by which the great financiers gutted a nation with +kid-gloved fingers, and changed their gloves after the operation so that +no blood might stick to Peter's pence or smear the corner-stones of +those vast and shadowy institutions upreared in restitution--black +silhouettes against the infernal sunset of lives that end in the shadowy +death of souls. + + * * * * * + +Even before Neergard's illness Ruthven's domestic and financial affairs +were in a villainous mess. Rid of Neergard, he had meant to deal him a +crashing blow at the breakaway which would settle him for ever and +incidentally bring to a crisis his own status in regard to his wife. + +Whether or not his wife was mentally competent he did not know; he did +not know anything about her. But he meant to. Selwyn's threat, still +fairly fresh in his memory, had given him no definite idea of Alixe, her +whereabouts, her future plans, and whether or not her mental condition +was supposed to be permanently impaired or otherwise. + +That she had been, and probably now was, under Selwyn's protection he +believed; what she and Selwyn intended to do he did not know. But he +wanted to know; he dared not ask Selwyn--dared not, because he was +horribly afraid of Selwyn; dared not yet make a legal issue of their +relations, of her sequestration, or of her probable continued infirmity, +because of his physical fear of the man. + +But there was--or he thought that there had been--one way to begin the +matter, because the matter must sooner or later be begun: and that was +to pretend to assume Neergard responsible; and, on the strength of his +wife's summer sojourn aboard the _Niobrara_, turn on Neergard and demand +a reckoning which he believed Selwyn would never hear of, because he did +not suppose Neergard dared defend the suit, and would sooner or later +compromise. Which would give him what he wanted to begin with, money, +and the entering wedge against the wife he meant to be rid of in one way +or another, even if he had to swear out a warrant against Selwyn before +he demanded a commission to investigate her mental condition. + +Ruthven was too deadly afraid of Selwyn to begin suit at that stage of +the proceedings. All he could do was to start, through his attorneys, a +search for his wife, and meanwhile try to formulate some sort of +definite plan in regard to Gladys Orchil; for if that featherbrained +youngster went abroad in the spring he meant to follow her and not only +have the Atlantic between him and Selwyn when he began final suit for +freedom, but also be in a position to ride off any of the needy +household cavalry who might come caracolling and cavorting too close to +the young girl he had selected to rehabilitate the name, fortune, and +house of Ruthven. + +This, in brief, was Ruthven's general scheme of campaign; and the entire +affair had taken some sort of shape, and was slowly beginning to move, +when Neergard's illness came as an absolute check, just as the first +papers were about to be served on him. + +There was nothing to do but wait until Neergard got well, because his +attorneys simply scoffed at any suggestion of settlement _ex curia_, and +Ruthven didn't want a suit involving his wife's name while he and +Selwyn were in the same hemisphere. + +But he could still continue an unobtrusive search for the whereabouts of +his wife, which he did. And the chances were that his attorneys would +find her without great difficulty, because Selwyn had not the slightest +suspicion that he was being followed. + + * * * * * + +In these days Selwyn's life was methodical and colourless in its routine +to the verge of dreariness. + +When he was not at the Government proving grounds on Sandy Hook he +remained in his room at Lansing's, doggedly forcing himself into the +only alternate occupation sufficient to dull the sadness of his +mind--the preparation of a history of British military organisation in +India, and its possible application to present conditions in the +Philippines. + +He had given up going out--made no further pretense; and Boots let him +alone. + +Once a week he called at the Gerards', spending most of his time while +there with the children. Sometimes he saw Nina and Eileen, usually just +returned or about to depart for some function; and his visit, as a rule, +ended with a cup of tea alone with Austin, and a quiet cigar in the +library, where Kit-Ki sat, paws folded under, approving of the fireside +warmth in a pleasureable monotone. + +On such evenings, late, if Nina and Eileen had gone to a dance, or to +the opera with Boots, Austin, ruddy with well-being and shamelessly +slippered, stretched luxuriously in the fire warmth, lazily discussing +what was nearest to him--his children and wife, and the material comfort +which continued to attend him with the blessing of that heaven which +seems so largely occupied in fulfilling the desires of the good for +their own commercial prosperity. + +Too, he had begun to show a peculiar pride in the commercial development +of Gerald, speaking often of his gratifying application to business, the +stability of his modest position, the friends he was making among men of +substance, their regard for him. + +"Not that the boy is doing much of a business yet," he would say with a +tolerant shrug of his big fleshy shoulders, "but he's laying the +foundation for success--a good, upright, solid foundation--with the +doubtful scheming of Neergard left out"--at that time Neergard had not +yet gone to pieces, physically--"and I expect to aid him when aid is +required, and to extend to him, judiciously, such assistance, from time +to time, as I think he may require. . . . There's one thing--" + +Austin puffed once or twice at his cigar and frowned; and Selwyn, +absently watching the dying embers on the hearth, waited in silence. + +"One thing," repeated Austin, reaching for the tongs and laying a log of +white birch across the coals; "and that is Gerald's fondness for pretty +girls. . . . Not that it isn't all right, too, but I hope he isn't going +to involve himself--hang a millstone around his neck before he can see +his way clear to some promise of a permanent income based on--" + +"Pooh!" said Selwyn. + +"What's that?" demanded Austin, turning red. + +Selwyn laughed. "What did you have when you married my sister?" + +Austin, still red and dignified, said: + +"Your sister is a very remarkable woman--extremely unusual. I had the +good sense to see that the first time I ever met her." + +"Gerald will see the same thing when his time comes," said Selwyn +quietly. "Don't worry, Austin; he's sound at the core." + +Austin considered his cigar-end, turning it round and round. "There's +good stock in the boy; I always knew it--even when he acted like a +yellow pup. You see, Phil, that my treatment of him was the proper +treatment. I was right in refusing to mollycoddle him or put up with any +of his callow, unbaked impudence. You know yourself that you wanted me +to let up on him--make all kinds of excuses. Why, man, if I had given +him an inch leeway he'd have been up to his ears in debt. But I was +firm. He saw I'd stand no fooling. He didn't dare contract debts which +he couldn't pay. So now, Phil, you can appreciate the results of my +attitude toward him." + +"I can, indeed," said Selwyn thoughtfully. + +"I think I've made a man of him," persisted Austin. + +"He's certainly a manly fellow," nodded Selwyn. + +"You admit it?" + +"Certainly, Austin." + +"Well, I'm glad of it. You thought me harsh--oh, I know you did!--but I +don't blame you. I knew what I was about. Why, Phil, if I hadn't taken +the firm stand I took that boy would have been running to Nina and +Eileen--he did go to his sister once, but he never dared try it +again!--and he'd probably have borrowed money of Neergard and--by Jove! +he might even have come to you to get him out of his scrapes!" + +"Oh, scarcely that," protested Selwyn with grave humour. + +"That's all you know about it," nodded Austin, wise-eyed, smoking +steadily. "And all I have to say is that it's fortunate for everybody +that I stood my ground when he came around looking for trouble. For +you're just the sort of a man, Phil, who'd be likely to strip yourself +if that young cub came howling for somebody to pay his debts of honour. +Admit it, now; you know you are." + +But Selwyn only smiled and looked into the fire. + +After a few moments' silence Austin said curiously: "You're a frugal +bird. You used to be fastidious. Do you know that coat of yours is +nearly the limit?" + +"Nonsense," said Selwyn, colouring. + +"It is. . . . What do you do with your money? Invest it, of course; but +you ought to let me place it. You never spend any; you should have a +decent little sum tucked away by this time. Do your Chaosite experiments +cost anything now?" + +"No; the Government is conducting them." + +"Good business. What does the bally Government think of the powder, +now?" + +"I can't tell yet," said Selwyn listlessly. "There's a plate due to +arrive to-morrow; it represents a section of the side armour of one of +the new 22,000-ton battleships. . . . I hope to crack it." + +"Oh!--with a bursting charge?" + +Selwyn nodded, and rested his head on his hand. + +A little later Austin cast the remains of his cigar from him, +straightened up, yawned, patted his waistcoat, and looked wisely at the +cat. + +"I'm going to bed," he announced. "Boots is to bring back Nina +and Eileen. . . . You don't mind, do you, Phil? I've a busy day +to-morrow. . . . There's Scotch over there--you know where things are. +Ring if you have a sudden desire for anything funny like peacock +feathers on toast. There's cold grouse somewhere underground if you're +going to be an owl. . . . And don't feed that cat on the rugs. . . . +Good-night." + +"Good-night," nodded Selwyn, relighting his cigar. + +He had no intention of remaining very long; he supposed that his sister +and Eileen would be out late, wherever they were, and he merely meant to +dream a bit longer before going back to bed. + +He had been smoking for half an hour perhaps, lying deep in his chair, +worn features dully illuminated by the sinking fire; and he was thinking +about going--had again relighted his partly consumed cigar to help him +with its fragrant companionship on his dark route homeward, when he +heard a footfall on the landing, and turned to catch a glimpse of Gerald +in overcoat and hat, moving silently toward the stairs. + +"Hello, old fellow!" he said, surprised. "I didn't know you were in the +house." + +The boy hesitated, turned, placed something just outside the doorway, +and came quickly into the room. + +"Philip!" he said with a curious, excited laugh, "I want to ask you +something. I never yet came to you without asking something and--you +never have failed me. Would you tell me now what I had better do?" + +"Certainly," said Selwyn, surprised and smiling; "ask me, old fellow. +You're not eloping with some nice girl, are you?" + +"Yes," said Gerald, calm in his excitement, "I am." + +"What?" repeated Selwyn gravely; "what did you say? + +"You guessed it. I came home and dressed and I'm going back to the +Craigs' to marry a girl whose mother and father won't let me have her." + +"Sit down, Gerald," said Selwyn, removing the cigar from his lips; but: + +"I haven't time," said the boy. "I simply want to know what you'd do if +you loved a girl whose mother means to send her to London to get rid +of me and marry her to that yawning Elliscombe fellow who was over +here. . . . What would you do? She's too young to stand much of a siege +in London--some Englishman will get her if he persists--and I mean to +make her love me." + +"Oh! Doesn't she?" + +"Y-es. . . . You know how young girls are. Yes, she does--now. But a +year or two with that crowd--and the duchess being good to her, and +Elliscombe yawning and looking like a sleepy Lohengrin or some damned +prince in his Horse Guards' helmet!--Selwyn, I can see the end of it. +She can't stand it; she's too young not to get over it. . . . So, what +would you do?" + +"Who is she, Gerald?" + +"I won't tell you." + +"Oh! . . . Of course she's the right sort?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Young?" + +"Very. Out last season." + +Selwyn rose and began to pace the floor; Kit-Ki, disturbed, looked up, +then resumed her purring. + +"There's nothing dishonourable in this, of course," said Selwyn, halting +short. + +"No," said the boy. "I went to her mother and asked for her, and was +sent about my business. Then I went to her father. You know him. He was +decent, bland, evasive, but decent. Said his daughter needed a couple of +seasons in London; hinted of some prior attachment. Which is rot; +because she loves me--she admits it. Well, I said to him, 'I'm going to +marry Gladys'; and he laughed and tried to look at his moustache; and +after a while he asked to be excused. I took the count. Then I saw +Gladys at the Craigs', and I said, 'Gladys, if you'll give up the whole +blooming heiress business and come with me, I'll make you the happiest +girl in Manhattan.' And she looked me straight in the eyes and said, +'I'd rather grow up with you than grow old forgetting you.'" + +"Did she say that?" asked Selwyn. + +"She said,'We've the greatest chance in the world, Gerald, to make +something of each other. Is it a good risk?' And I said, 'It is the best +risk in the world if you love me.' And she said, 'I do, dearly; I'll +take my chance.' And that's how it stands, Philip. . . . She's at the +Craigs'--a suit-case and travelling-gown upstairs. Suddy Gray and Betty +Craig are standing for it, and"--with a flush--"there's a little church, +you know--" + +"Around the corner. I know. Did you telephone?" + +"Yes." + +There was a pause; the older man dropped his hands into his pockets and +stepped quietly in front of Gerald; and for a full minute they looked +squarely at one another, unwinking. + +"Well?" asked Gerald, almost tremulously. "Can't you say, 'Go ahead!'?" + +"Don't ask me." + +"No, I won't," said the boy simply. "A man doesn't ask about such +matters; he does them. . . . Tell Austin and Nina. . . . And give this +note to Eileen." He opened a portfolio and laid an envelope in Selwyn's +hands. "And--by George!--I almost forgot! Here"--and he laid a check +across the note in Selwyn's hand--"here's the balance of what you've +advanced me. Thank God, I've made it good, every cent. But the debt is +only the deeper. . . . Good-bye, Philip." + +Selwyn held the boy's hand a moment. Once or twice Gerald thought he +meant to speak, and waited, but when he became aware of the check thrust +back at him he forced it on Selwyn again, laughing: + +"No! no! If I did not stand clear and free in my shoes do you think I'd +dare do what I'm doing? Do you suppose I'd ask a girl to face with me a +world in which I owed a penny? Do you suppose I'm afraid of that +world?--or of a soul in it? Do you suppose I can't take a living out of +it?" + +Suddenly Selwyn crushed the boy's hand. + +"Then take it!--and her, too!" he said between his teeth; and turned on +his heel, resting his arms on the mantel and his head face downward +between them. + +So Gerald went away in the pride and excitement of buoyant youth to take +love as he found it and where he found it--though he had found it only +as the green bud of promise which unfolds, not to the lover, but to +love. And the boy was only one of many on whom the victory might have +fallen; but such a man becomes the only man when he takes what he finds +for himself--green bud, half blown, or open to its own deep fragrant +heart. To him that hath shall be given, and much forgiven. For it is the +law of the strong and the prophets: and a little should be left to that +Destiny which the devout revere under a gentler name. + + * * * * * + +The affair made a splash in the social puddle, and the commotion spread +outside of it. Inside the nine-and-seventy cackled; outside similar +gallinaceous sounds. Neergard pored all day over the blue-pencilled +column, and went home, stunned; the social sheet which is taken below +stairs and read above was full of it, as was the daily press and the +mouths of people interested, uninterested, and disinterested, +legitimately or otherwise, until people began to tire of telling each +other exactly how it happened that Gerald Erroll ran away with Gladys +Orchil. + +Sanxon Orchil was widely quoted as suavely and urbanely deploring the +premature consummation of an alliance long since decided upon by both +families involved; Mrs. Orchil snapped her electric-blue eyes and held +her peace--between her very white teeth; Austin Gerard, secretly +astounded with admiration for Gerald, received the reporters with a +countenance expressive of patient pain, but downtown he made public +pretence of busy indifference, as though not fully alive to the material +benefit connected with the unexpected alliance. Nina wept--happily at +moments--at moments she laughed--because she had heard all about the +famous British invasion planned by the Orchils and abetted by +Anglo-American aristocracy. She did not laugh too maliciously; she +simply couldn't help it. Her set was not the Orchils' set, their ways +were not her ways; their orbits merely intersected occasionally; and, +left to herself and the choice hers, she would not have troubled herself +to engineer any such alliance, even to stir up Mrs. Sanxon Orchil. +Besides, deep in her complacent little New York soul she had the +faintest germ of contempt for the Cordova ancestors of the house of +Orchil. + +But the young and silly pair had now relieved her as well as Mrs. Orchil +of any further trouble concerning themselves, the American duchess, the +campaign, and the Horse Guards: they had married each other rather +shamelessly one evening while supposed to be dancing at the Sandon +Craigs', and had departed expensively for Palm Beach, whither Austin, +grim, reticent, but inwardly immensely contented, despatched the +accumulated exclamatory letters of the family with an intimation of his +own that two weeks was long enough to cut business even with a honeymoon +as excuse. + +Meanwhile the disorganisation in the nursery was tremendous; the +children, vaguely aware of the household demoralisation and excitement, +took the opportunity to break loose on every occasion; and Kit-Ki, to +her infinite boredom and disgust, was hunted from garret to cellar; and +Drina, taking advantage, contrived to over-eat herself and sit up late, +and was put to bed sick; and Eileen, loyal, but sorrowfully amazed at +her brother's exclusion of her in such a crisis, became slowly +overwhelmed with the realisation of her loneliness, and took to the +seclusion of her own room, feeling tearful and abandoned, and very much +like a very little girl whose heart was becoming far too full of all +sorts of sorrows. + +Nina misunderstood her, finding her lying on her bed, her pale face +pillowed in her hair. + +"Only horridly ordinary people will believe that Gerald wanted her +money," said Nina; "as though an Erroll considered such matters at +all--or needed to. Clear, clean English you are, back to the cavaliers +whose flung purses were their thanks when the Cordovans held their +horses' heads. . . . What are you crying for?" + +"I don't know," said Eileen; "not for anything that you speak of. +Neither Gerald nor I ever wasted any emotion over money, or what others +think about it. . . . Is Drina ill?" + +"No; only sick. Calomel will fix her, but she believes she's close to +dissolution and she's sent for Boots to take leave of him--the little +monkey! I'm so indignant. She's taken advantage of the general +demoralisation to eat up everything in the house. . . . Billy fell +downstairs, fox-hunting, and his nose bled all over that pink Kirman +rug. . . . Boots _is_ a dear; do you know what he's done?" + +"What?" asked Eileen listlessly, raising the back of her slender hand +from her eyes to peer at Nina through the glimmer of tears. + +"Well, he and Phil have moved out of Boots's house, and Boots has wired +Gerald and Gladys that the house is ready for them until they can find a +place of their own. Of course they'll both come here--in fact, their +luggage is upstairs now--Boots takes the blue room and Phil his old +quarters, . . . But don't you think it is perfectly sweet of Boots? And +isn't it good to have Philip back again?" + +"Y-es," said Eileen faintly. Lying there, the deep azure of her eyes +starred with tears, a new tremor altered her mouth, and the tight-curled +upper lip quivered. Her heart, too, had begun its heavy, unsteady +response in recognition of her lover's name; she turned partly away from +Nina, burying her face in her brilliant hair; and beside her slim +length, straight and tense, her arms lay, the small hands contracting +till they had closed as tightly as her teeth. + +It was no child, now, who lay there, fighting down the welling +desolation; no visionary adolescent grieving over the colourless ashes +of her first romance; not even the woman, socially achieved, +intelligently and intellectually in love. It was a girl, old enough to +realise that the adoration she had given was not wholly spiritual, that +her delight in her lover and her response to him was not wholly of the +mind, not so purely of the intellect; that there was still more, +something sweeter, more painful, more bewildering that she could give +him, desired to give--nay, that she could not withhold even with sealed +eyes and arms outstretched in the darkness of wakeful hours, with her +young heart straining in her breast and her set lips crushing back the +unuttered cry. + +Love! So that was it!--the need, the pain, the bewilderment, the hot +sleeplessness, the mad audacity of a blessed dream, the flushed +awakening, stunned rapture--and then the gray truth, bleaching the rose +tints from the fading tapestries of slumberland, leaving her flung +across her pillows, staring at daybreak. + + * * * * * + +Nina had laid a cool smooth hand across her forehead, pushing back the +hair--a light caress, sensitive as an unasked question. + +But there was no response, and presently the elder woman rose and went +out along the landing, and Eileen heard her laughingly greeting Boots, +who had arrived post-haste on news of Drina's plight. + +"Don't be frightened; the little wretch carried tons of indigestible +stuff to her room and sat up half the night eating it. Where's Philip?" + +"I don't know. Here's a special delivery for him. I signed for it and +brought it from the house. He'll be here from the Hook directly, I +fancy. Where is Drina?" + +"In bed. I'll take you up. Mind you, there'll be a scene, so nerve +yourself." + +They went upstairs together. Nina knocked, peeped in, then summoned Mr. +Lansing. + +"Oh, Boots, Boots!" groaned Drina, lifting her arms and encircling his +neck, "I don't think I am ever going to get well--I don't believe it, no +matter what they say. I am glad you have come; I wanted you--and I'm +very, very sick. . . . Are you happy to be with me?" + +Boots sat on the bedside, the feverish little head in his arms, and Nina +was a trifle surprised to see how seriously he took it. + +"Boots," she said, "you look as though your last hour had come. Are you +letting that very bad child frighten you? Drina, dear, mother doesn't +mean to be horrid, but you're too old to whine. . . . It's time for the +medicine, too--" + +"Oh, mother! the nasty kind?" + +"Certainly. Boots, if you'll move aside--" + +"Let Boots give it to me!" exclaimed the child tragically. "It will do +no good; I'm not getting better; but if I must take it, let Boots hold +me--and the spoon!" + +She sat straight up in bed with a superb gesture which would have done +credit to that classical gentleman who heroically swallowed the hemlock +cocktail. Some of the dose bespattered Boots, and when the deed was done +the child fell back and buried her head on his breast, incidentally +leaving medicinal traces on his collar. + +Half an hour later she was asleep, holding fast to Boots's sleeve, and +that young gentleman sat in a chair beside her, discussing with her +pretty mother the plans made for Gladys and Gerald on their expected +arrival. + +Eileen, pale and heavy-lidded, looked in on her way to some afternoon +affair, nodding unsmiling at Boots. + +"Have you been rifling the pantry, too?" he whispered. "You lack your +usual chromatic symphony." + +"No, Boots; I'm just tired. If I wasn't physically afraid of Drina, I'd +get you to run off with me--anywhere. . . . What is that letter, Nina? +For me?" + +"It's for Phil. Boots brought it around. Leave it on the library table, +dear, when you go down." + +Eileen took the letter and turned away. A few moments later as she laid +it on the library table, her eyes involuntarily noted the superscription +written in the long, angular, fashionable writing of a woman. + +And slowly the inevitable question took shape within her. + +How long she stood there she did not know, but the points of her gloved +fingers were still resting on the table and her gaze was still +concentrated on the envelope when she felt Selwyn's presence in the +room, near, close; and looked up into his steady eyes. And knew he loved +her. + +And suddenly she broke down--for with his deep gaze in hers the +overwrought spectre had fled!--broke down, no longer doubting, bowing +her head in her slim gloved hands, thrilled to the soul with the +certitude of their unhappiness eternal, and the dreadful pleasure of her +share. + +"What is it?" he made out to say, managing also to keep his hands off +her where she sat, bowed and quivering by the table. + +"N-nothing. A--a little crisis--over now--nearly over. +It was that letter--other women writing you. . . . And +I--outlawed--tongue-tied. . . . Don't look at me, don't wait. +I--I am going out." + +He went to the window, stood a moment, came back to the table, took his +letter, and walked slowly again to the window. + +After a while he heard the rustle of her gown as she left the room, and +a little later he straightened up, passed his hand across his tired +eyes, and, looking down at the letter in his hand, broke the seal. + +It was from one of the nurses, Miss Casson, and shorter than usual: + +"Mrs. Ruthven is physically in perfect health, but yesterday we noted a +rather startling change in her mental condition. There were, during the +day, intervals that seemed perfectly lucid. Once she spoke of Miss Bond +as 'the other nurse,' as though she realised something of the conditions +surrounding her. Once, too, she seemed astonished when I brought her a +doll, and asked me:' Is there a child here? Or is it for a charity +bazaar?' + +"Later I found her writing a letter at my desk. She left it unfinished +when she went to drive--a mere scrap. I thought it best to enclose it, +which I do, herewith." + +The enclosure he opened: + +"Phil, dear, though I have been very ill I know you are my own husband. +All the rest was only a child's dream of terror--" + +And that was all--only this scrap, firmly written in the easy flowing +hand he knew so well. He studied it for a moment or two, then resumed +Miss Casson's letter: + +"A man stopped our sleigh yesterday, asking if he was not speaking to +Mrs. Ruthven. I was a trifle worried, and replied that any communication +for Mrs. Ruthven could be sent to me. + +"That evening two men--gentlemen apparently--came to the house and asked +for me. I went down to receive them. One was a Dr. Mallison, the other +said his name was Thomas B. Hallam, but gave no business address. + +"When I found that they had come without your knowledge and authority, I +refused to discuss Mrs. Ruthven's condition, and the one who said his +name was Hallam spoke rather peremptorily and in a way that made me +think he might be a lawyer. + +"They got nothing out of me, and they left when I made it plain that I +had nothing to tell them. + +"I thought it best to let you know about this, though I, personally, +cannot guess what it might mean." + +Selwyn turned the page: + +"One other matter worries Miss Bond and myself. The revolver you sent us +at my request has disappeared. We are nearly sure Mrs. Ruthven has +it--you know she once dressed it as a doll--calling it her army +doll!--but now we can't find it. She has hidden it somewhere, out of +doors in the shrubbery, we think, and Miss Bond and I expect to secure +it the next time she takes a fancy to have all her dolls out for a +'lawn-party.' + +"Dr. Wesson says there is no danger of her doing any harm with it, but +wants us to secure it at the first opportunity--" + +He turned the last page; on the other side was merely the formula of +leave-taking and Miss Casson's signature. + +For a while he stood in the centre of the room, head bent, narrowing +eyes fixed; then he folded the letter, pocketed it, and walked to the +table where a directory lay. + +He found the name, Hallam, very easily--Thomas B. Hallam, lawyer, junior +in the firm of Spencer, Boyd & Hallam. They were attorneys for Jack +Ruthven; he knew that. + +Mallison he also found--Dr. James Mallison, who, it appeared, conducted +some sort of private asylum on Long Island. + +And when he had found what he wanted, he went to the telephone and rang +up Mr. Ruthven, but the servant who answered the telephone informed him +that Mr. Ruthven was not in town. + +So Selwyn hung up the receiver and sat down, thoughtful, grim, the trace +of a scowl creeping across his narrowing gray eyes. + +Of the abject cowardice of Ruthven he had been so certain that he had +hitherto discounted any interference from him. Yet, now, the man was +apparently preparing for some sort of interference. What did he want? +Selwyn had contemptuously refused to permit him to seek a divorce on the +ground of his wife's infirmity. What was the man after? + + * * * * * + +The man was after his divorce, that was what it all meant. His first +check on the long trail came with the stupefying news of Gerald's +runaway marriage to the young girl he was laying his own plans to marry +some day in the future, and at first the news staggered him, leaving him +apparently no immediate incentive for securing his freedom. + +But Ruthven instantly began to realise that what he had lost he might +not have lost had he been free to shoulder aside the young fellow who +had forestalled him. The chance had passed--that particular chance. But +he'd never again allow himself to be caught in a position where such a +chance could pass him by because he was not legally free to at least +make the effort to seize it. + +Fear in his soul had kept him from blazoning his wife's infirmity to the +world as cause for an action against her; but he remembered Neergard's +impudent cruise with her on the _Niobrara_, and he had temporarily +settled on that as a means to extort revenue, not intending such an +action should ever come to trial. And then he learned that Neergard had +gone to pieces. That was the second check. + +Ruthven needed money. He needed it because he meant to put the ocean +between himself and Selwyn before commencing any suit--whatever ground +he might choose for entering such a suit. He required capital on which +to live abroad during the proceedings, if that could be legally +arranged. And meanwhile, preliminary to any plan of campaign, he desired +to know where his wife was and what might he her actual physical and +mental condition. + +He had supposed her to be, or to have been, ill--at least erratic and +not to be trusted with her own freedom; therefore he had been quite +prepared to hear from those whom he employed to trace and find her that +she was housed in some institution devoted to the incarceration of such +unfortunates. + +But Ruthven was totally unprepared for the report brought him by a +private agency to the effect that Mrs. Ruthven was apparently in perfect +health, living in the country, maintaining a villa and staff of +servants; that she might be seen driving a perfectly appointed Cossack +sleigh any day with a groom on the rumble and a companion beside her; +that she seemed to be perfectly sane, healthy in body and mind, +comfortable, happy, and enjoying life under the protection of a certain +Captain Selwyn, who paid all her bills and, at certain times, was seen +entering or leaving her house at Edgewater. + +Excited, incredulous, but hoping for the worst, Ruthven had posted off +to his attorneys. To them he naiively confessed his desire to be rid of +Alixe; he reported her misconduct with Neergard--which he knew was a +lie--her pretence of mental prostration, her disappearance, and his +last interview with Selwyn in the card-room. He also gave a vivid +description of that gentleman's disgusting behaviour, and his threats of +violence during that interview. + +To all of which his attorneys listened very attentively, bade him have +no fear of his life, requested him to make several affidavits, and leave +the rest to them for the present. + +Which he did, without hearing from them until Mr. Hallam telegraphed him +to come to Edgewater if he had nothing better to do. + +And Ruthven had just arrived at that inconspicuous Long Island village +when his servant, at the telephone, replied to Selwyn's inquiry that his +master was out of town. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Hallam was a very busy, very sanguine, very impetuous young man; and +when he met Ruthven at the Edgewater station he told him promptly that +he had the best case on earth; that he, Hallam, was going to New York on +the next train, now almost due, and that Ruthven had better drive over +and see for himself how gaily his wife maintained her household; for the +Cossack sleigh, with its gay crimson tchug, had but just returned from +the usual afternoon spin, and the young chatelaine of Willow Villa was +now on the snow-covered lawn, romping with the coachman's huge white +wolf-hound. . . . It might he just as well for Ruthven to stroll up that +way and see for himself. The house was known as the Willow Villa. Any +hackman could drive him past it. + +As Hallam was speaking the New York train came thundering in, and the +young lawyer, facing the snowy clouds of steam, swung his suit-case and +himself aboard. On the Pullman platform he paused and looked around and +down at Ruthven. + +"It's just as you like," he said. "If you'd rather come back with me on +this train, come ahead! It isn't absolutely necessary that you make a +personal inspection now; only that fellow Selwyn is not here to-day, and +I thought if you wanted to look about a bit you could do it this +afternoon without chance of running into him and startling the whole +mess boiling." + +"Is Captain Selwyn in town?" asked Ruthven, reddening. + +"Yes; an agency man telephoned me that he's just back from Sandy Hook--" + +The train began to move out of the station. Ruthven hesitated, then +stepped away from the passing car with a significant parting nod to +Hallam. + +As the train, gathering momentum, swept past him, he stared about at the +snow-covered station, the guard, the few people congregated there. + +"There's another train at four, isn't there?" he asked an official. + +"Four-thirty, express. Yes, sir." + +A hackman came up soliciting patronage. Ruthven motioned him to follow, +leading the way to the edge of the platform. + +"I don't want to drive to the village. What have you got there, a +sleigh?" + +It was the usual Long Island depot-wagon, on runners instead of wheels. + +"Do you know the Willow Villa?" demanded Ruthven. + +"Wilier Viller, sir? Yes, sir. Step right this way--" + +"Wait!" snapped Ruthven. "I asked you if you knew it; I didn't say I +wanted to go there." + +The hackman in his woolly greatcoat stared at the little dapper, +smooth-shaven man, who eyed him in return, coolly insolent, lighting a +cigar. + +"I don't want to go to the Willow Villa," said Ruthven; "I want you to +drive me past it." + +"Sir?" + +"_Past_ it. And then turn around and drive back here. Is that plain?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Ruthven got into the closed body of the vehicle, rubbed the frost from +the window, and peeked out. The hackman, unhitching his lank horse, +climbed to the seat, gathered the reins, and the vehicle started to the +jangling accompaniment of a single battered cow-bell. + +The melancholy clamour of the bell annoyed little Mr. Ruthven; he was +horribly cold, too, even in his fur coat. Also the musty smell of the +ancient vehicle annoyed him as he sat, half turned around, peeping out +of the rear window into the white tree-lined road. + +There was nothing to see but the snowy road flanked by trees and stark +hedges; nothing but the flat expanse of white on either side, broken +here and there by patches of thin woodlands or by some old-time +farmhouse with its slab shingles painted white and its green shutters +and squat roof. + +"What a God-forsaken place," muttered little Mr. Ruthven with a hard +grimace. "If she's happy in this sort of a hole there's no doubt she's +some sort of a lunatic." + +He looked out again furtively, thinking of what the agency had reported +to him. How was it possible for any human creature to live in such a +waste and be happy and healthy and gay, as they told him his wife was. +What could a human being do to kill the horror of such silent, deathly +white isolation? Drive about in it in a Cossack sleigh, as they said she +did? Horror! + +The driver pulled up short, then began to turn his horse. Ruthven +squinted out of the window, but saw no sign of a villa. Then he rapped +sharply on the forward window, motioning the driver to descend, come +around, and open the door. + +When the man appeared Ruthven demanded why he had turned his horse, and +the hackman, pointing to a wooded hill to the west, explained that the +Willow Villa stood there. + +Ruthven had supposed that the main road passed the house; he got out of +the covered wagon, looked across at the low hill, and dug his gloved +hands deeper into his fur-lined pockets. + +For a while he stood in the snow, stolid, thoughtful, puffing his cigar. +A half-contemptuous curiosity possessed him to see his wife once more +before he discarded her; see what she looked like, whether she appeared +normal and in possession of the small amount of sense he had +condescended to credit her with. + +Besides, here was a safe chance to see her. Selwyn was in New York, and +the absolute certainty of his personal safety attracted him strongly, +rousing all the latent tyranny in his meagre soul. + +Probably--but he didn't understand the legal requirements of the matter, +and whether or not it was necessary for him personally to see this place +where Selwyn maintained her, and see her in it--probably he would be +obliged to come here again with far less certainty of personal security +from Selwyn. Perhaps that future visit might even be avoided if he took +this opportunity to investigate. Whether it was the half-sneering +curiosity to see his wife, or the hope of doing a thing now which, by +the doing, he need not do later--whether it was either of these that +moved him to the impulse, is not quite clear. + +He said to the hackman: "You wait here. I'm going over to the Willow +Villa for a few moments, and then I'll want you to drive me back to the +station in time for that four-thirty. Do you understand?" + +The man said he understood, and Ruthven, bundled in his fur coat, picked +his way across the crust, through a gateway, and up what appeared to be +a hedged lane. + +The lane presently disclosed itself as an avenue, now doubly lined with +tall trees; this avenue he continued to follow, passing through a grove +of locusts, and came out before a house on the low crest of a hill. + +There were clumps of evergreens about, tall cedars, a bit of bushy +foreland, and a stretch of snow. And across this open space of snow a +young girl was moving, followed by a white wolf-hound. Once she paused, +hesitated, looked cautiously around her. Ruthven, hiding behind a bush, +saw her thrust her arm into a low evergreen shrub and draw out a shining +object that glittered like glass. Then she started toward the house +again. + +At first Ruthven thought she was his wife, then he was not sure, and he +cast his cigar away and followed, slinking forward among the evergreens. +But the youthful fur-clad figure kept straight on to the veranda of the +house, and Ruthven, curious and determined to find out whether it was +Alixe or not, left the semi-shelter of the evergreens and crossed the +open space just as the woman's figure disappeared around an angle of the +veranda. + +Vexed, determined not to return without some definite discovery, Ruthven +stepped upon the veranda. Just around the angle of the porch he heard a +door opening, and he hurried forward impatient and absolutely unafraid, +anxious to get one good look at his wife and be off. + +But when he turned the angle of the porch there was no one there; only +an open door confronted him, with a big, mild-eyed wolf-hound standing +in the doorway, looking steadily up at him. + +Ruthven glanced somewhat dubiously at the dog, then, as the animal made +no offensive movement, he craned his fleshy neck, striving to see inside +the house. + +He did see--nothing very much--only the same young girl, still in her +furs, emerging from an inner room, her arms full of dolls. + +In his eagerness to see more, Ruthven pushed past the great white dog, +who withdrew his head disdainfully from the unceremonious contact, but +quietly followed Ruthven into the house, standing beside him, watching +him out of great limpid, deerlike eyes. + +But Ruthven no longer heeded the dog. His amused and slightly sneering +gaze was fastened on the girl in furs who had entered what appeared to +be a living room to the right, and now, down on her knees beside a +couch, smiling and talking confidentially and quite happily to herself, +was placing her dolls in a row against the wall. + +The dolls were of various sorts, some plainly enough home-made, some +very waxy and gay in sash and lace, some with polished smiling features +of porcelain. One doll, however, was different--a bit of ragged red +flannel and something protruding to represent the head, something that +glittered. And the girl in the fur jacket had this curious doll in +her hands when Ruthven, to make sure of her identity, took a quick +impulsive step forward. + +[Illustration: "With the acrid smell of smoke choking her."] + +Then the great white dog growled, very low, and the girl in the fur +jacket looked around and up quickly. + +Alixe! He realised it as she caught his pale eyes fixed on her; and she +stared, sprang to her feet still staring. Then into her eyes leaped +terror, the living horror of recognition distorting her face. And, as +she saw he meant to speak she recoiled, shrinking away, turning in her +fright like a hunted thing. The strange doll in her hand glittered; it +was a revolver wrapped in a red rag. + +"W-what's the matter?" he stammered, stepping forward, fearful of the +weapon she clutched. + +But at the sound of his voice she screamed, crept back closer against +the wall, screamed again, pushing the shining muzzle of the weapon deep +into her fur jacket above her breast. + +"F-for God's sake!" he gasped, "don't fire!--don't--" + +She closed both eyes and pulled the trigger; something knocked her flat +against the wall, but she heard no sound of a report, and she pulled the +trigger again and felt another blow. + +The second blow must have knocked her down, for she found herself rising +to her knees, reaching for the table to aid her. But her hand was all +red and slippery; she looked at it stupidly, fell forward, rose again, +with the acrid smell of smoke choking her, and her pretty fur jacket all +soaked with the warm wet stuff which now stained both hands. + +Then she got to her knees once more, groped in the rushing darkness, +and swayed forward, falling loosely and flat. And this time she did not +try to rise. + + * * * * * + +It was her way; it had always been her way out of trouble; the quickest, +easiest escape from what she did not choose to endure. And even when in +her mind the light of reason had gone out for ever, she had not lost +that instinct for escape; and, wittingly or not, she had taken the old +way out of trouble--the shortest, quickest way. And where it leads--she +knew at last, lying there on her face, her fur jacket and her little +hands so soiled and red. + +As for the man, they finally contrived to drag the dog from him, and +lift him to the couch, where he lay twitching among the dolls for a +while; then stopped twitching. + +Later in the night men came with lanterns who carried him away. A doctor +said that there was the usual chance for partial recovery. But it was +the last excitement he could ever venture to indulge in. His own doctors +had warned him often enough. Now he had learned something, but not as +much as Alixe had already learned. And perhaps he never would; but no +man knows such things with the authority to speak of them. + + + + +ARS AMORIS + + +Nine days is the period of time allotted the human mind in which to +wonder at anything. In New York the limit is much less; no tragedy can +hold the boards as long as that where the bill must be renewed three +times u day to hold even the passing attention of those who themselves +are eternal understudies in the continuous metropolitan performance. It +is very expensive for the newspapers, but fortunately for them there is +always plenty of trouble in the five boroughs, and an occasional +catastrophe elsewhere to help out. + +So they were grateful enough that the Edgewater tragedy lasted them +forty-eight hours, and on the forty-ninth they forgot it. + +In society it was about the same. Ruthven was evidently done for; that +the spark of mere vitality might linger for years in the exterior shell +of him familiar to his world, concerned that world no more. Interest in +him was laid aside with the perfunctory finality with which the memory +of Alixe was laid away. + +As for Selwyn, a few people noticed his presence at the services; but +even that episode was forgotten before he left the city, six hours +later, under an invitation from Washington which admitted of no delay on +the score of private business or of personal perplexity. For the summons +was peremptory, and his obedience so immediate that a telegram to Austin +comprised and concluded the entire ceremony of his leave-taking. + +Later he wrote a great many letters to Eileen Erroll--not one of which +he ever sent. But the formality of his silence was no mystery to her; +and her response was silence as profound as the stillness in her soul. +But deep into her young heart something new had been born, faint fire, +latent, unstirred; and her delicate lips rested one on the other in the +sensitive curve of suspense; and her white fingers, often now +interlinked, seemed tremulously instinct with the exquisite tension +hushing body and soul in breathless accord as they waited in unison. + + * * * * * + +Toward the end of March the special service battleship squadron of the +North Atlantic fleet commenced testing Chaosite in the vicinity of the +Southern rendezvous. Both main and secondary batteries were employed. +Selwyn had been aboard the flag-ship for nearly a month. + +In April the armoured ships left the Southern drill ground and began to +move northward. A destroyer took Selwyn across to the great fortress +inside the Virginia Capes and left him there. During his stay there was +almost constant firing; later he continued northward as far as +Washington; but it was not until June that he telegraphed Austin: + + "Government satisfied. Appropriation certain next session. Am on my + way to New York." + +Austin, in his house, which was now dismantled for the summer, +telephoned Nina at Silverside that he had been detained and might not be +able to grace the festivities which were to consist of a neighbourhood +dinner to the younger set in honour of Mrs. Gerald. But he said nothing +about Selwyn, and Nina did not suspect that her brother's arrival in +New York had anything to do with Austin's detention. + +There was in Austin a curious substreak of sentiment which seldom came +to the surface except where his immediate family was involved. In his +dealings with others he avoided it; even with Gerald and Eileen there +had been little of this sentiment apparent. But where Selwyn was +concerned, from the very first days of their friendship, he had always +felt in his heart very close to the man whose sister he had married, and +was always almost automatically on his guard to avoid any expression of +that affection. Once he had done so, or attempted to, when Selwyn first +arrived from the Philippines, and it made them both uncomfortable to the +verge of profanity, but remained as a shy source of solace to them both. + +And now as Selwyn came leisurely up the front steps, Austin, awaiting +him feverishly, hastened to smooth the florid jocose mask over his +features, and walked into the room, big hand extended, large bantering +voice undisturbed by the tremor of a welcome which filled his heart and +came near filling his eyes: + +"So you've stuck the poor old Government at last, have you? Took 'em all +in--forts, fleet, and the marine cavalry?" + +"Sure thing," said Selwyn, laughing in the crushing grasp of the big +fist. "How are you, Austin? Everybody's in the country, I suppose," +glancing around at the linen-shrouded furniture. "How is Nina? And the +kids? . . . Good business! . . . And Eileen?" + +"She's all right," said Austin; "gad! she's really a superb specimen +this summer. . . . You know she rather eased off last winter--got white +around the gills and blue under the eyes. . . . Some heart trouble--we +all thought it was you. Young girls have such notions sometimes, and I +told Nina, but she sat on me. . . . Where's your luggage? Oh, is it all +here?--enough, I mean, for us to catch a train for Silverside this +afternoon." + +"Has Nina any room for me?" asked Selwyn. + +"Room! Certainly. I didn't tell her you were coming, because if you +hadn't, the kids would have been horribly disappointed. She and Eileen +are giving a shindy for Gladys--that's Gerald's new acquisition, you +know. So if you don't mind butting into a baby-show we'll run down. It's +only the younger bunch from Hitherwood House and Brookminster. What do +you say, Phil?" + +Selwyn said that he would go--hesitating before consenting. A curious +feeling of age and grayness had suddenly come over him--a hint of +fatigue, of consciousness that much of life lay behind him. + +Yet in his face and in his bearing he could not have shown much of it, +though at his deeply sun-burned temples the thick, close-cut hair was +silvery; for Austin said with amused and at the same time fretful +emphasis: "How the devil you keep the youth" in your face and figure I +don't understand! I'm only forty-five--that's scarcely eight years older +than you are! And look at my waistcoat! And look at my hair--I mean +where the confounded ebb has left the tide-mark! Gad, I'd scarcely blame +Eileen for thinking you qualified for a cradle-snatcher. . . . And, by +the way, that Gladys girl is more of a woman than you'd believe. I +observe that Gerald wears that peculiarly speak-easy-please expression +which is a healthy sign that he's being managed right from the +beginning." + +"I had an idea she was all right," said Selwyn, smiling. + +"Well, she is. People will probably say that she 'made' Gerald. +However," added Austin modestly, "I shall never deny it--though you know +what part I've had in the making and breaking of him, don't you?" + +"Yes," replied Selwyn, without a smile. + +Austin went to the telephone and called up his house at Silverside, +saying that he'd be down that evening with a guest. + +Nina got the message just as she had arranged her tables; but woman is +born to sorrow and heiress to all the unlooked-for idiocies of man. + +"Dear," she said to Eileen, the tears of uxorial vexation drying unshed +in her pretty eyes, "Austin has thought fit to seize upon this moment to +bring a man down to dinner. So if you are dressed would you kindly see +that the tables are rearranged, and then telephone somebody to fill +in--two girls, you know. The oldest Craig girl might do for one. Beg her +mother to let her come." + +Eileen was being laced, but she walked to the door of Nina's room, +followed by her little Alsatian maid, who deftly continued her offices +_en route_. + +"Whom is Austin bringing?" she asked. + +"He didn't say. Can't you think of a second girl to get? Isn't it +vexing! Of course there's nobody left--nobody ever fills in in the +country. . . . Do you know, I'll be driven into letting Drina sit up +with us!--for sheer lack of material. I suppose the little imp will have +a fit if I suggest it, and probably perish of indigestion to-morrow." + +Eileen laughed. "Oh, Nina, _do_ let Drina come this once! It can't hurt +her--she'll look so quaint. The child's nearly fifteen, you know; do let +me put up her hair. Boots will take her in." + +"Well, you and Austin can administer the calomel to-morrow, then. . . . +And do ring up Daisy Craig; tell her mother I'm desperate, and that she +and Drina can occupy the same hospital to-morrow." + +And so it happened that among the jolly youthful throng which clustered +around the little candle-lighted tables in the dining-room at +Silverside, Drina, in ecstasy, curly hair just above the nape of her +slim white neck, and cheeks like pink fire, sat between Boots and a +vacant chair reserved for her tardy father. + +For Nina had waited as long as she dared; then Boots had been summoned +to take in Drina and the youthful Craig girl; and, as there were to have +been six at a table, at that particular table sat Boots decorously +facing Eileen, with the two children on either hand and two empty chairs +flanking Eileen. + +A jolly informality made up for Austin's shortcoming; Gerald and his +pretty bride were the centres of delighted curiosity from the Minster +twins and the Innis girls and Evelyn Cardwell--all her intimates. And +the younger Draymores, the Grays, Lawns, and Craigs were there in +force--gay, noisy, unembarrassed young people who seemed scarcely +younger or gayer than the young matron, their hostess. + +As for Gladys, it was difficult to think of her as married; and to Boots +Drina whispered blissfully: "I look almost as old; I know I do. After +this I shall certainly make no end of a fuss if they don't let me dine +with them. Besides, you want me to, don't you, Boots?" + +"Of course I do." + +"And--am I quite as entertaining to you as older girls, Boots, dear?" + +"Far more entertaining," said that young man promptly. "In fact, I've +about decided to cut out all the dinners where you're not invited. It's +only three more years, anyway, before you're asked about, and if I omit +three years of indigestible dinners I'll be in better shape to endure +the deluge after you appear and make your bow." + +"When I make my bow," murmured the child; "oh, Boots, I am in such a +hurry to make it! It doesn't seem as if I _could_ wait three more long, +awful, disgusting years! . . . How does my hair look?" + +"Adorable," he said, smiling across at Eileen, who had heard the +question. + +"Do you think my arms are very thin? Do you?" insisted Drina. + +"Dreams of Grecian perfection," explained Boots. And, lowering his +voice, "You ought not to eat _everything_ they bring you; there'll be +doings to-morrow if you do. Eileen is shaking her head." + +"I don't care; people don't die of overeating. And I'll take their nasty +old medicine--truly I will, Boots, if you'll come and give it to me." + +The younger Craig maiden also appeared to be bent upon self-destruction; +and Boots's eyes opened wider and wider in sheer amazement at the +capacity of woman in embryo for rations sufficient to maintain a small +garrison. + +"There'll be a couple of reports," he said to himself with a shudder, +"like Selwyn's Chaosite. And then there'll be no more Drina and +Daisy--Hello!"--he broke off, astonished--"Well, upon my word of words! +Phil Selwyn!--or I'm a broker!" + +"Phil!" exclaimed Nina.. "Oh, Austin!--and you never told us--" + +Austin, ruddy and bland, came up to make his excuses; a little whirlwind +of excitement passed like a brisk breeze over the clustered tables as +Selwyn followed; and a dozen impulsive bare arms were outstretched to +greet him as he passed, returning the bright, eager salutations on every +hand. + +"Train was late as usual," observed Austin. "Philip and I don't mean to +butt into this very grand function--Hello, Gerald! Hello, Gladys! . . . +Where's our obscure corner below the salt, Nina? . . . Oh, over there--" + +Selwyn had already caught sight of the table destined for him. A deeper +colour crept across his bronzed face as he stepped forward, and his firm +hand closed over the slim hand offered. + +For a moment neither spoke; she could not; he dared not. + +Then Drina caught his hands, and Eileen's loosened in his clasp and fell +away as the child said distinctly, "I'll kiss you after dinner; it can't +be done here, can it, Eileen?" + +"You little monkey!" exclaimed her father, astonished; "what in the name +of cruelty to kids are _you_ doing here?" + +"Mother let me," observed the child, reaching for a bonbon. "Daisy is +here; you didn't speak to her." + +"I'm past conversation," said Austin grimly, "and Daisy appears to be +also. Are they to send an ambulance for you, Miss Craig?--or will you +occupy the emergency ward upstairs?" + +"Upstairs," said Miss Craig briefly. It was all she could utter. +Besides, she was occupied with a pink cream-puff. Austin and Boots +watched her with a dreadful fascination; but she seemed competent to +manage it. + +Selwyn, beside Eileen, had ventured on the formalities--his voice +unsteady and not yet his own. + +Her loveliness had been a memory; he had supposed he realised it to +himself; but the superb, fresh beauty of the girl dazed him. There was a +strange new radiancy, a living brightness to her that seemed almost +unreal. Exquisitely unreal her voice, too, and the slightly bent head, +crowned with the splendour of her hair; and the slowly raised eyes, two +deep blue miracles tinged with the hues of paradise. + +"There's no use," sighed Drina, "I shall not be able to dance. Boots, +there's to be a dance, you know; so I'll sit on the stairs with Daisy +Craig; and you'll come to me occasionally, won't you?" + +Miss Craig yawned frightfully and made a purely mechanical move toward +an iced strawberry. Before she got it Nina gave the rising signal. + +"Are you remaining to smoke?" asked Eileen as Selwyn took her to the +doorway. "Because, if you are not--I'll wait for you." + +"Where?" he asked. + +"Anywhere. . . . Where shall I?" + +Again the twin blue miracles were lifted to his; and deep in them he saw +her young soul, waiting. + +Around them was the gay confusion, adieux, and laughter of partners +parted for the moment; Nina passed them with a smiling nod; Boots +conducted Drina to a resting-place on the stairs; outside, the hall was +thronged with the younger set, and already their partners were returning +to the tables. + +"Find me when you can get away," said Eileen, looking once more at +Selwyn; "Nina is signalling me now." + +Again, as of old, her outstretched hand--the little formality +symbolising to him the importance of all that concerned them. He touched +it. + +"_A bientot_," she said. + +"On the lawn out there--farther out, in the starlight," he +whispered--his voice broke--"my darling--" + +She bent her head, passing slowly before him, turned, looked back, her +answer in her eyes, her lips, in every limb, every line and contour of +her, as she stood a moment, looking back. + +Austin and Boots were talking volubly when he returned to the tables now +veiled in a fine haze of aromatic smoke. Gerald stuck close to him, +happy, excited, shy by turns. Others came up on every side--young, +frank, confident fellows, nice in bearing, of good speech and manner. + +And outside waited their pretty partners of the younger set, gossiping +in hall, on stairs and veranda in garrulous bevies, all filmy silks and +laces and bright-eyed expectancy. + +The long windows were open to the veranda; Selwyn, with his arm through +Gerald's, walked to the railing and looked out across the fragrant +starlit waste. And very far away they heard the sea intoning the hymn of +the four winds. + +Then the elder man withdrew his arm and stood apart for a while. A +little later he descended to the lawn, crossed it, and walked straight +out into the waste. + +The song of the sea was rising now. In the strange little forest below, +deep among the trees, elfin lights broke out across the unseen Brier +water, then vanished. + +He halted to listen; he looked long and steadily into the darkness +around him. Suddenly he saw her--a pale blur in the dusk. + +"Eileen?" + +"Is it you, Philip?" + +She stood waiting as he came up through the purple gloom of the +moorland, the stars' brilliancy silvering her--waiting--yielding in +pallid silence to his arms, crushed in them, looking into his eyes, +dumb, wordless. + +Then slowly the pale sacrament changed as the wild-rose tint crept into +her face; her arms clung to his shoulders, higher, tightened around his +neck. And from her lips she gave into his keeping soul and body, +guiltless as God gave it, to have and to hold beyond such incidents as +death and the eternity that no man clings to save in the arms of such as +she. + + +THE END + + + + +THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY. + + * * * * * + +The Fighting Chance. + +By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by A.B. Wenzell. 12mo. Ornamental +Cloth, $1.50. + +In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a young +fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for liquor. The +heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and dangerous caprice. +The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two +weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is refreshing to find +a story about the rich in which all the women are not sawdust at heart, +nor all the men satyrs. The rich have their longings, their ideals, +their regrets, as well as the poor; they have their struggles and +inherited evils to combat. It is a big subject, painted with a big brush +and a big heart. + +"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be very good +not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting Chance' is very +good and it does not suffer."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_. + +"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia +Landis."--_New York Evening Sun_. + +"Drawn with a master hand."--_Toledo Blade_. + +"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the +end."--_Detroit Free Press_. + +"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is his +masterpiece."--_Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + +A GREAT ROMANTIC NOVEL. + +The Reckoning. + +By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by Henry Hutt. $1.50. + +"A thrilling and engrossing tale."--_New York Sun_. + +"When we say that the new work is as good as 'Cardigan' it is hardly +necessary to say more."--_The Dial_. + +"Robert Chambers' books recommend themselves. 'The Reckoning' is one of +his best and will delight lovers of good novels."--_Boston Herald_. + +"It is an exceedingly fine specimen of its class, worthy of its +predecessors and a joy to all who like plenty of swing and +spirit."--_London Bookman_. + +"Robert W. Chambers' stories of the revolutionary period in particular +show a care in historic detail that put them in a different class from +the rank and file of colonial novels."--_Book News_. + +"A stirring tale well told and absorbing. It is not a book to forget +easily and it will for many throw new light on a phase of revolutionary +history replete with interest and appeal."--_Chicago Record-Herald_. + +"Chambers' bullets whistle almost audibly in the pages; when a twig +snaps, as twigs do perforce in these chronicles, you can almost feel the +presence of the savage buck who snaps it. Then there are situations of +force and effect everywhere through the pages, an intensity of action, a +certain naturalness of dialogue and 'human nature' in the incidents. But +over all is the glamor of the Chambers fancy, the gauzy woof of an +artist's imagination which glories in tints, in poesies, in the little +whims of the brush and pencil, so that you have just a pleasant reminder +of unreality and a glimpse of the author himself here and there to vary +the interest."--_St. Louis Republic_. + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + + + +WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. + + * * * * * + +IOLE. + +Color inlay on the cover and many full-page illustrations, borders, +thumbnail sketches, etc., by J.C. Leyendecker, Arthur Becher, and Karl +Anderson. $1.25. + +The story of eight pretty girls and their fat poetical father, an +apostle of art "dead stuck on Nature and simplicity." + +"'Iole' is unquestionably a classic."--_San Francisco Bulletin_. + +"Mr. Chambers is a benefactor to the human race."--_Seattle +Post-Intelligencer_. + +"Quite the most amusing and delectable bit of nonsense that has come to +light for a long time."--_Life_. + +"One of the most alluring books of the season."--_Louisville +Courier-Journal_. + +"The joyous abounding charm of 'Iole' is indescribable. It is for you to +read. 'Iole' is guaranteed to drive away the blues."--_New York Press_. + +"Mr. Chambers has never shown himself more brilliant and more +imaginative than in this little satirical idyllic comedy."--_Kansas City +Star_. + +"A fresh proof of Mr. Chambers' amazing versatility."--_Everybody's +Magazine_. + +"As delicious a satire as one could want to read."--_Pittsburg +Chronicle_. + +"It is an achievement to write a genuinely funny book and another to +write a truly instructive book; but it is the greatest of achievements +to write a book that is both. This Mr. Chambers has done in +'Iole.'"--_Washington Star_. + +"Amid the outpour of the insipid 'Iole' comes as June sunshine. The +author of 'Cardigan' shows a fine touch and rarer pigments as the number +of his canvases grows. 'Iole' is a literary achievement which must +always stand in the foremost of its class."--_Chicago Evening Post_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + +By DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS. + + * * * * * + +The Second Generation. + +Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. + +"The Second Generation" is a double-decked romance in one volume, +telling the two love-stories of a young American and his sister, reared +in luxury and suddenly left without means by their father, who felt that +money was proving their ruination and disinherited them for their own +sakes. Their struggle for life, love and happiness makes a powerful +love-story of the middle West. + +"The book equals the best of the great story tellers of all +time."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_. + +"'The Second Generation,' by David Graham Phillips, is not only the most +important novel of the new year, but it is one of the most important +ones of a number of years past."--_Philadelphia Inquirer_. + +"_A_ thoroughly American book is 'The Second Generation.'. . . The +characters are drawn with force and discrimination."--_St. Louis Globe +Democrat_. + +"Mr. Phillips' book is thoughtful, well conceived, admirably written and +intensely interesting. The story 'works out' well, and though it is made +to sustain the theory of the writer it does so in a very natural and +stimulating manner. In the writing of the 'problem novel' Mr. Phillips +has won a foremost place among our younger American authors."--_Boston +Herald_. + +"'The Second Generation' promises to become one of the notable novels of +the year. It will be read and discussed while a less vigorous novel will +be forgotten within a week."--_Springfield Union_. + +"David Graham Phillips has a way, a most clever and convincing way, of +cutting through the veneer of snobbishness and bringing real men and +women to the surface. He strikes at shams, yet has a wholesome belief in +the people behind them, and he forces them to justify his good +opinions."--_Kansas City Times_. + + * * * * * + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Younger Set, by Robert W. Chambers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGER SET *** + +***** This file should be named 14852.txt or 14852.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/8/5/14852/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/14852.zip b/14852.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a2276d --- /dev/null +++ b/14852.zip 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..d2952e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14852 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14852) |
