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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18829-h.zip b/18829-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a1481a --- /dev/null +++ b/18829-h.zip diff --git a/18829-h/18829-h.htm b/18829-h/18829-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d977ba3 --- /dev/null +++ b/18829-h/18829-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7114 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Winner Take All, by Larry Evans</title> +<style type="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: medium; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small } + +p.dedication {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 25%; + text-align: justify } + + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + a:visited {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none; } + a:hover {color:#ff0000; + text-decoration: underline; } + pre {font-size: 75%; } + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Winner Take All, by Larry Evans</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Winner Take All</p> +<p>Author: Larry Evans</p> +<p>Release Date: July 14, 2006 [eBook #18829]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINNER TAKE ALL***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Al Haines</h3></center><br><br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="That, after all, was as much as anyone could ask." BORDER="2" WIDTH="422" HEIGHT="632"> +<H3> +[Frontispiece: That, after all, was as much as anyone could ask.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +WINNER TAKE ALL +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +LARRY EVANS +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF +<BR><BR> +THEN I'LL COME BACK TO YOU, +<BR> +ONCE TO EVERY MAN, ETC. +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP +<BR> +PUBLISHERS ——— NEW YORK +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Copyright, 1920, by +<BR> +THE H. K. FLY COMPANY +<BR><BR> +Copyright, 1920, by +<BR> +THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TO +<BR> +GEORGE C. TYLER<BR> +</H3> + +<P CLASS="dedication"> +Some of these pages you have criticised,<BR> +some of them you have praised; and<BR> +all of them beg leave to recall herewith<BR> +the Author's esteem and affection.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">IS LUCK A LADY?</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">RIDE HIM, COWBOY!</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">LITTLE-TWEED-SUIT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">ALL ELSE IS HERESY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAMPION! CHAMPION!</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">FELICITY CROSSES BROADWAY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">AS WILLOWS BUD IN SPRING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">MY LAD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">DUNHAM TALKS BUSINESS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CECILLE PLAYS THE GAME</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">POTS AND PANS!</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">WINNER TAKE ALL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">BLUE FOR A BOY</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATIONS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +That, after all, was as much as anyone could ask . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-078"> +He tore at them, mad with rage. +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-142"> +Lucky interference. +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-206"> +"Come on, now--'fess up?" +</A> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +WINNER TAKE ALL +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IS LUCK A LADY? +</H3> + +<P> +By easy stages Blue Jeans had arrived at the water tanks. +</P> + +<P> +That had not pleased him much, though the water which fell in a musical +drip from the stack nearest the rails into what impressed one as a +sensible, frugal tub, until it, too, filled and overflowed and betrayed +its trivial nature, was sweet on his tongue and grateful to his mare. +</P> + +<P> +Arriving anywhere by easy stages had never appealed to him. Swift and +sudden, that was the better way. Rather would he have whirled into +Reservoir with zest and some commotion. But Girl o' Mine was in no +shape for that. She drooped. Events which had jostled him roughly in +the last few weeks had dealt with her unkindly as well. There had been +many weary miles and not much grain. +</P> + +<P> +And yet his poverty had not been a thing of easy stages. It had seemed +both swift and sudden, and he liked it none the better for that. But +he would not enter Reservoir with ostentation. He'd ride in without +enthusiasm, and thus call no attention to the pass to which he'd come. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was he in a hurry to get there, either. The town, a quarter of a +mile across the track, squat and squalid in the dust, held nothing for +his mood. +</P> + +<P> +Reservoir was a poor town, anyway. +</P> + +<P> +And Life was a poor thing, too. +</P> + +<P> +He'd tried for hours and hours to think of one fair promise which it +still held for him—just one!—tried hard! And couldn't! +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans was twenty-two. +</P> + +<P> +And Luck had trifled with him over-long. +</P> + +<P> +One brief month earlier he had been a man of ambition, a man of +promise. He'd even found his Dream. An Easterner had helped him to +that foolishness; an -ologist from a university who expected to find +prehistoric bones and relics entombed under the hills. +</P> + +<P> +Cornered by that Easterner, who liked his face, and not having been +handy enough as a liar to get out of it neatly, Blue Jeans had admitted +under cross-examination that he was familiar with the country. +</P> + +<P> +Was he doing anything at present? +</P> + +<P> +No-o-o. But he was looking around. +</P> + +<P> +Could he pack? +</P> + +<P> +Yes. +</P> + +<P> +Was he accustomed to horses? +</P> + +<P> +He hoped so. +</P> + +<P> +Could he cook? +</P> + +<P> +Ye-s-s, some. Not good for delicate folks. +</P> + +<P> +Well, then, he was the very man for the position. +</P> + +<P> +And Blue Jeans hadn't been able to think offhand of an objection; not +one which he wanted to voice. He couldn't admit outright that the +prospect was dismaying to his young pride. That he was afraid of the +ridicule which certainly it would bring down upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a cowpuncher, not a grave-robber," was the way it rose to his +mind. But that wouldn't serve. It sounded neither dignified nor +convincing. +</P> + +<P> +Then if that was settled, what remuneration would he expect per month? +</P> + +<P> +He had been of astonishing though dense persistence, that professor. +Blue Jeans had pounced upon the query with sensations of deliverance. +</P> + +<P> +"Wel-l-l," and he named a figure which struck him as outrageous. +</P> + +<P> +But it hadn't staggered the professor; it hadn't even made him +hesitate. The professor's expenses in the field were already +guaranteed, back home, by men who could afford it. +</P> + +<P> +"Then it's settled," he had said. +</P> + +<P> +And Blue Jeans, who forgot immediately that he had been dragged, +struggling, into this bargain and began to view it as a deal of his own +shrewd consummation, had scorned himself for two whole hours for not +having made it twice as outrageous at least. +</P> + +<P> +Thus had it started. +</P> + +<P> +By night he had figured out how great the sum he had mentioned would +be, multiplied by six. The professor planned to be out that long. By +morning he had spent some money, quite a little money, in anticipation +of it. But that was not cause for worry; prosperity was shining in his +eyes. He was going to be a man of substance. And he would save, for +the Dream was bright. And then the professor spoiled it all by +mistaking a mule for a horse. +</P> + +<P> +The mule had not kicked him hard. If that had been the case, Blue +Jeans might have found it in his heart to be sorry for him. A less +frail man would have suffered less. As it was he spent his sympathy on +himself. And when directly the professor sent for him and intimated +that owing to the unavoidable postponement of the trip he was again out +of employment, he had not lingered to listen. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, if you care to hang about," the professor had suggested, +"until I can travel once more—" +</P> + +<P> +He had not even found it in his heart to be polite. +</P> + +<P> +"Hanging about is just what ails me," finished it. "The devil, he +finds mischief for my idle hands to do. You can wait till you're able, +but I'm going to travel <I>now</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +And he made good his word without further loss of time, first paying +painfully the sums which he had spent in fond anticipation, and +enduring with a grin the ridicule which was double, because he had made +no trip at all. +</P> + +<P> +Last of all, before departing he went around to the stable and fed the +mule some sugar. +</P> + +<P> +He had found a new job hard to locate. And the Dream had lost +definition and grown dim and distant. It was late for looking around. +The outfits all were full. If he could have cooked—but he couldn't. +Not for a bunch of plain-spoken cowmen. Not without risking bodily +harm. He'd told almost the truth about that. And then he landed with +the Dee & Zee. +</P> + +<P> +At any other time the Dee & Zee could not have hired him. He had heard +things. But he had lost at last his desire to pick and choose. And he +began to think, after he had started work there, that folks had been +mistaken. He liked the place, and it seemed permanent. He even went +back to the Dream and refurbished it a bit. And then he learned that +the superintendent didn't like him. The superintendent, it appeared, +could never bring himself to care much for any man whose scruples were +too flourishing. That's what Blue Jeans had heard and almost begun to +disbelieve. Everybody had heard it except the Dee & Zee syndicate +owners themselves. But that did him small good. He doubted no longer, +however. He quit. He resigned by request. +</P> + +<P> +But when he thought to collect the little pay due him, he experienced +difficulty. He made a desperate effort and crowded the issue +perilously. When, however, in the face of superior numbers and their +eagerness for him to insist, he realized that he would be in no +condition to enjoy the money, even if he did succeed in collecting it, +he did the thing of indubitable valor. He gave it up gracefully. A +coward would have been ashamed to back down, and thus got himself +thoroughly killed. He laughed. And moved his right hand further from +his holster. +</P> + +<P> +But this time he had waxed stubborn; he had refused to let his Dream +grow dim. +</P> + +<P> +And the Box-A people—three weeks later they could have used him. And +would have. He knew it. A man had been badly hurt; so badly that he +would never know anything any more. They could have used him, only the +superintendent had just passed that way and outstripped him. They were +too busy, therefore, with sober work, too harmonious among themselves, +to risk a firebrand. +</P> + +<P> +"A firebrand? Him!" +</P> + +<P> +He had tried to laugh again, but he knew that his laughter was hollow. +It is hard to be blithe and all but broke. Nor had he pled this latter +state to urge himself upon them. Anybody could draw that conclusion +now, if he wanted to, just from the look of his clothes. +</P> + +<P> +He'd tried Claiborne—town. Little jobs they had offered him +there—menial! And that had made him rebellious. +</P> + +<P> +Thus by well-defined stages, and hugging now his Dream, to the +stud-poker game. +</P> + +<P> +All that he possessed he'd sold and put it on this venture; all but his +saddle and bridle and gun, and Girl o' Mine. He played stud-poker +well; better than most men he knew; and that was no empty conceit, +either. He just did. Some men's judgment was quicker, surer than +others, that was all. +</P> + +<P> +And he had played well last night. But he could not overcome with +nerve what he had lacked in capital. Five cards and many dollars oft +will beat a better hand. But his dollars had been few. So had he +tested again a time-tried truth, and proved it. A man should not +gamble at all; that is, not when he needs to win. For then he was sure +to lose. That was why they called luck a lady. +</P> + +<P> +Clink your money in your pocket and not care whether you won or lost, +and she'd fair swarm upon you. She wouldn't <I>let</I> you be! Nothing was +too good for you—you were a king! Two deuces and a lazy smile would +bluff a brace of aces. +</P> + +<P> +But just you let her guess that your straits were desperate. Just you +let her guess that your last dollar was on the table! You couldn't +catch a pair back to back in forty-seven years. She'd quit you flat! +</P> + +<P> +That was why they called luck a lady. Just like a woman! +</P> + +<P> +And he had lost less composedly than they had suspected from his face +and comment. He had gone, then, still early, to bed to escape their +torment. It was not often that they had found him so completely at +their mercy, and they made the most of it. +</P> + +<P> +And he'd risen and ridden out at dawn toward Reservoir. Reservoir +would offer nothing; but it was on the road he meant to travel, and +water was to be had there. He rode early because he did not choose +that any of his pitiless opponents of the night before should surmise +that the torn, worn jeans and old cracked boots and shirt with a rent +in the elbow was not merely his working garb, worn informally because +he had not wanted to waste time in changing and slicking up, but the +only garb he owned. +</P> + +<P> +If they had believed his decent outfit to be rolled in the blanket +behind his saddle, let them. He'd not disillusion them. Then they'd +not come around, embarrassing him and themselves as well, with awkward +offers of a loan. +</P> + +<P> +He rode at daybreak, and in the splendor of that desert dawn forgot for +a time to be desolate. Girl o' Mine stepped smartly in the early cool. +He had paid for her breakfast before he tried at poker. He forgot +himself, and presently he raised a light-hearted carol to the shuffle, +shuffle, shuffle of her hoofs. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Daughters of Pleasure, one and all,<BR> + Of form and feature delicate,<BR> +Of bodies slim and bosoms small,<BR> + With feet and fingers white and straight,<BR> +Your eyes are bright, your grace is great,<BR> + To hold your lover's heart in thrall;<BR> +Use your red lips before too late,<BR> + Love ere love flies beyond recall."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He didn't know where he had learned that. Nor did he know that it was +the lay of another vagabond, a dreamer light-hearted in adversity. But +it was good—some folks might question its morality—but it was +good—good philosophy. Swift and sudden, that was the better way. And +sad, too, a little. +</P> + +<P> +He sang it again and again. +</P> + +<P> +But the sun rose higher and the sand grew hot. And the gorgeous sky +was gorgeous no longer, but a glimmer of savage heat. +</P> + +<P> +Little by little Girl o' Mine's head drooped. Dust settled white upon +her, and she became streaked with sweat. And little by little the song +was stilled. +</P> + +<P> +He remembered then, abruptly. He was disconsolate. He had no call to +sing. He had been a dreamer, too—but that was ages and ages ago, and +long, long gone for him. He was only the vagabond. +</P> + +<P> +He'd been nearly broke? Well, he was all broke now. And better that +way! Half way was no good. It was better to be an out-and-out than a +neither-one-nor-the-other. He had had some large plans, until the +professor had started the run against him. He'd had a Vision, a vision +of prosperity and himself a settled man. And maybe some day—some day, +when he'd proved himself—when he'd found Her— +</P> + +<P> +He wouldn't even tell himself how disappointed he was. +</P> + +<P> +Noon came and they tarried a while. There was no hurry; they weren't +going anywhere,—not anywhere in particular. Presently they started on +again. And through the glare of afternoon they passed along the +horizon, a despondent scarecrow upon a dejected horse. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +RIDE HIM, COWBOY! +</H3> + + +<P> +So to the tanks; but here at least was a little luck. The tub was full +and over-flowing; he would not have to cause the agent to swear by +swinging round the nozzle and wasting of his water. And something +besides sagebrush and sand to look at, too. For upon the tracks stood +a train; a train packed very full with men whose faces showed white at +the windows,—indoor men, Eastern men,—and a private car at the end of +the string. +</P> + +<P> +All men! Well, that would be the special train, come through from the +other coast; the prize-fight special,—and the last section, at that. +There was no man up the tracks with a red flag to guard against a +pile-up. And they also looked bored; they must have been standing +there quite a while. And hot. So, you see, his plight was not so bad! +He didn't have to breathe that air and sit in a slippery red-plush +seat. Not much! +</P> + +<P> +He went to the drip, serenely careless of the thousand eyes upon him; +he drank and clicked to Girl o' Mine, his mare. She pricked up her +ears and approached a step or two; she tossed her head and whinnied; +she was afraid of the drip and spatter of the overflow. +</P> + +<P> +He drank again. +</P> + +<P> +"See," he said, "it'll not hurt you. Plain water—that's all—awful +plain! Sure, you're unstrung—but that's nothing. So am I. We both +been under a strain. But I'm not asking you to do anything I'll not do +myself. See, I'm drinking it—just plain water! There—what'd I tell +you? See!" +</P> + +<P> +The mare had edged nearer, eagerly, while he talked. She was very +thirsty, though fearful. And at length his voice reassured her; she +thrust her velvet nostrils into the tub. +</P> + +<P> +Then he seated himself upon a foundation timber of the tank and rolled +a cigarette. His toilet could wait. He wasn't going to ride into +Reservoir and advertise his straits,—not to a lot of half-breeds and +Mexicans and worse. He could wait; years and years of time were before +him. For, vindictively, he wasn't going to provide a spectacle for +those eyes at the windows to watch either; eyes hungry to look upon +anything—anything—if only it wasn't empty desert. Not even the +spectacle of a scarecrow making himself neat and clean,—not him! Let +'em suffer and be bored. He was bored himself! +</P> + +<P> +He smoked and meditated, and presently a shadow fell athwart his lap. +Another horseman was arriving, and he was creating not mild interest +but a veritable stir at the windows. For he was different, +oh-so-different! He drew the eye with his magnificence. His chaps +were new and so was his shirt and his hat had cost thirty dollars. And +Blue Jeans could almost hear them exclaiming as they crowded to the +panes. +</P> + +<P> +This was the real thing! You bet! No fringy-panted scarecrow upon a +horse too good for him—stolen probably at that. Well, I guess not! +This was a bit of the real West—the old West. Look at them spurs. +Silver—solid! A regular cowboy! +</P> + +<P> +And the newcomer had been quick to sense this too. He was on his way +out from Reservoir, traveling north. Of course he would be traveling +north—the Dee & Zee lay in that quarter—and this magnificence was the +Dee & Zee superintendent. More than that, his horse was fresh up from +the stable, and the stable hands were not accustomed to sending a horse +out thirsty into the desert, but he did not now pause to consider this. +He felt the eye of that whole train upon him, its approval, its +admiration, and his importance grew. He couldn't help it; he played up +to his audience. Some men invariably will, with the eye of the world +upon them. They're made that way. +</P> + +<P> +Just for an instant the sight of that familiar figure, quiet there +before him, had given him an unpleasant start. The little matter of +unpaid back wages had crowded to mind and simultaneously a realization +that in numbers he was no longer superior, and therefore not equal in +other essentials. Just for an instant—and then the fact of the train +reassured him. Blue Jeans, hardy though he undoubtedly was and in +desperate need of cash, would scarcely venture force so publicly. It +would look to be nothing but rankest hold-up and robbery. And when +Blue Jeans, having out-thought him and arrived already at the same +depressing conclusion, let his regret show in his face, the +superintendent swelled some more. It appeared quite safe. +</P> + +<P> +"Back that horse away from that bucket," he directed. It was the voice +of authority commanding the urchin on the curb; of seasoned seniority +chiding the heedlessness of the stripling of twenty-two. +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you see that my beast wants water?" Blue Jeans was deeply +offended. Such opulence in anyone at such a moment would have seemed a +needless taunt; that chance had selected the superintendent to flaunt +it was surplusage of insult. Yet he could not even resent the +superintendent's gesture, wide-flung and arrogant to all beholders. +Again the superintendent looked to have the right of it. He clicked to +Girl o' Mine and she came to him, out of the way, like an obedient +puppy. +</P> + +<P> +And then began the performance for the benefit of the car windows, and +which the car windows enjoyed. This picturesque son of the real West, +this colorful figure in new chaps and new shirt and thirty dollar hat, +tried to ride his horse up to the tub. And the horse would not go. In +the first place the horse was not thirsty; in the second place, like +Girl o' Mine, he was exceedingly afraid. Yet in the beginning, when +the Dee & Zee superintendent scratched him with the solid silver spurs +by way of comforting him, he merely rose on his hind legs, but no +nearer the tank. +</P> + +<P> +At any other time the superintendent, who was not an unusual fool, +would have done the wiser thing; he would have dismounted and led his +animal. But now, even though he might have bested his own vanity in +spite of the car windows, Blue Jeans would not permit it. Blue Jeans +had been quick to see where this might lead and spoke with malicious +calculation. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought your horse wanted water?" he drawled, as the superintendent +paused to consider his course. "Pshaw! He ain't so plumb crazy for +it!" +</P> + +<P> +That settled it. It grew instantly furious and cruel. The +superintendent no longer merely scratched with the rowels; he drove +them home. And the roan horse plunged and bucked and staggered. +</P> + +<P> +It was hot and the sawing bit raised quickly a white slaver. The roan +wasn't a bad horse at heart; he was frightened at something he couldn't +understand. He tried to break and run. But at his bad heart the +superintendent wasn't even a man, and no damned bronco was going to +have his way with him. He rounded him back and sent him full at that +tinkling, dreadful drip once more. So the roan fought on, till tumult +rose within the cars. +</P> + +<P> +This was real! This was regular! One wiser than the rest—one who +thought himself schooled in the vernacular, because he had once +witnessed a Frontier Week celebration at Cheyenne—seized upon this +opportunity to air his vocabulary. +</P> + +<P> +The sashes had been left closed to exclude sand and cinders. He tugged +one open now and sent forth his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi yi yi-i-p," he shouted. "Ride him, cowboy!" +</P> + +<P> +And the superintendent rode him! Rode him till the slaver turned red +and the spurs were a torture to the raw torn flanks. Rode him till his +eyes rolled white and crazed. For the superintendent had gone mad too, +mad with vain rage. He laid his rope across the roan's dripping +withers; it did not help; it was inadequate. With staring eyes he cast +about for a more efficient weapon. Then he drew his gun from its +holster. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't, eh, you—?" he panted, foaming a little himself. "You +won't, eh? Try that! Maybe that'll persuade you!" And holding the +long blue sixshooter by its barrel, he struck the roan heavily with the +butt just behind the eyes. Immediately the roan stood stock-still and +slowly closed his eyes. A less strong-hearted horse would have sunk to +the ground. But the superintendent was blind now to the pass to which +he had brought his mount. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe that'll persuade you! Maybe that—" He mouthed the words +thickly and would have struck again. +</P> + +<P> +But just then Blue Jeans struck him. +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans took his gun away from him. How weak is that poor word! +Took? It would not have been so simple a recital had not the weapon +been reversed in the superintendent's hand for the hazing of the roan. +The train would have been treated otherwise to a bit of the real West +indeed, for the superintendent was beyond all sane thought or +discretion. Blue Jeans took his gun away from him. As the +superintendent would have thrust it into his face to fire he struck the +out-stretched wrist with the edge of his stiffened hand, and it fell to +the ground. +</P> + +<P> +Then Blue Jeans took the superintendent from the saddle. +</P> + +<P> +And now the train rocked and roared. This was not novelty, but it was +good. This was what they had come West to see, but better—better! +Better fifty times over than the tame affair which the world's +championship heavy-weight bout at Denver had turned out to be. This +was a fight. You said it—a fight! +</P> + +<P> +The superintendent fought with wasteful fury; Blue Jeans with a cold +hatred of his cruelty—a cold and bitter hatred of his opulence. The +superintendent struck him once with a wild, wide swing. Once—only +once. For he hugged to the superintendent after that and those wild +swings went past. And he jabbed! And jabbed! And jabbed! +</P> + +<P> +After a while the foeman would have clinched, but Blue Jeans prevented +that. That would not do; the superintendent was heavy and he was +slight. So from a position always before his own face his fists +battered the other man's features blank. And he tore that new shirt, +and trampled on the thirty dollar hat; and the chaps grew old and dingy +from constant falling and rising. +</P> + +<P> +Later the superintendent rose less readily; later still he did not rise +at all. Then Blue Jeans watered his horse for him and led it where he +lay. With a heave he tossed the once pretty puncher into the +saddle,—he was pretty no longer. He returned his gun. But he broke +that weapon and extracted the shells before he gave it back. +</P> + +<P> +"There it is," he told the beaten man, and instantly a light leaped to +the half-closed eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans read it. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it ain't loaded. See!" And he flung afar the handful of +cartridges. +</P> + +<P> +"It ain't loaded, and don't you load it, either. Don't you try to load +it, till you're out of sight. Don't you even think to try to load it. +If you do—if you do—" +</P> + +<P> +He went back to his seat on the timber. +</P> + +<P> +And the train rocked no more. It became instead loquacious. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I tell you?" it demanded. "Didn't I say so, the minute I +spotted that moving-picture scenery! You didn't think real cowboys +dolled up like that, did you? You did? My Gawd! But that other +bird—look at him! Sure—smoking his cigarette as if nothing had +happened. Bet he rolls 'em with one hand! Bet he rolls 'em with one +hand, going at a gallop! And dressed for business all the while! +Gentlemen, you're looking at a cowboy!" +</P> + +<P> +And the wise one—the one who had been in Cheyenne during Frontier +Week—capped it all, nonchalantly. He'd never hoped to have such a +happy chance to display his vocabulary. +</P> + +<P> +"One bad hombre," he declared. "One bad hombre!" +</P> + +<P> +Oh, but they were loquacious! They forgot the heat and delay; they +would have risen to a man and gone out to him who sat, back toward +them, on the timber base of the tank, only they were afraid that the +train might pull out without them. So they had to be content with +watching him while they continued to tell each other what good offhand +judges of human nature they were. +</P> + +<P> +Not so, however, in the private car at the end of the row of coaches. +No noise had come from its occupants during even the worst, or the +best, of it. First tense attention and then when it was over and the +superintendent had ridden away, three pairs of eyes which, turned upon +each other, were startled, questioning. +</P> + +<P> +One of the men was tall and fat, and prosperous to the casual eye, as +he most surely must have been offensive to the fastidious. One of them +was short and fat, with pointed ears that made him look quite +fox-faced. And the other was a reporter. From his appearance one +would have said I hope, and truly, that only pursuit of his calling +could have brought him in such company. +</P> + +<P> +These three, then, sat for a time and looked eloquently at each other. +They were not loquacious about it, not verbally; and finally the tall +fat one heaved himself from his seat. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got a hunch," he declared, "and God never forgives a man who +doesn't ride one." Certainly he was a strange person to be mentioning +God so complacently. +</P> + +<P> +"Pull the bell cord if that fool engineer tries to start without me." +And he left the car. +</P> + +<P> +So presently another shadow fell athwart Blue Jeans' lap. He did not +bother to raise his head this time, however; he was nursing a bruised +hand and craved solitude. The fat man stood and looked down at him +until he realized that the other was likely never to look up, unless he +did something besides impose his plainly unwelcome presence upon him. +Therefore he cleared his throat—"hm-m-m." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't hm-m-m me," snarled Blue Jeans promptly. "And get out of my +light." +</P> + +<P> +In his own way the huge man was a genius, for surely nothing else could +have accomplished it. +</P> + +<P> +"Warm, isn't it?" he commented; and at that inanity Blue Jeans raised +his head. +</P> + +<P> +The huge man had his first fair view of the other's fine hard youth; +and while he observed the self-possessed eyes and long nose, +acquisitive and courageous, Blue Jeans devoted the interval to a +counter-scrutiny. He scanned the newcomer from head to foot, silk hose +and hair-line suit and expensive panama. The rings upon those pudgy +fingers held longest his wandering eye, the blue-white fortune in the +burnt-orange cravat. But all this seemed to kindle no approval. +</P> + +<P> +"Prosperous!" he muttered bitterly. "Prosperous! And yet I don't hate +you like I did that superintendent. Just as much maybe, but not just +the same.… Go away!" +</P> + +<P> +But the huge man smiled and stood his ground until finally Blue Jeans +slanted his head at him, wickedly, and fell to talking again. +</P> + +<P> +"I could pluck that stone from out your tie <I>that</I> easy!" And his +voice held no assurance that he would not act upon his words. "Just as +easy! Yes, and I could beat you over the head with my gun—oh, sure +I've got one!—just like he beat that roan horse, and strip your +pockets and be clean away before one of those"—he nodded over his +shoulder at the train—"could think to call for help. And thinking to +call for help would come quicker to them than thinking to help without +calling. And Girl o' Mine would carry me clear in five minutes." +</P> + +<P> +He paused remorselessly, as if to let this sink in, but out of the +silence, "I don't scare easily," the huge man said. +</P> + +<P> +"Pshaw! I'm not telling you to try to scare you," Blue Jeans scoffed. +"I'm telling myself how simple it could be—and wondering why I don't +do it!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell you that," answered the Easterner. "Because you're honest." +</P> + +<P> +But that was not subtle, and he realized the flattery had been +ill-chosen, even before Blue Jeans flared, which was almost +instantaneously. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you tell me I'm honest! Don't you dare even hint I am! It's +honesty brought me here." +</P> + +<P> +The huge man laughed gently. He'd made one mistake; few could accuse +him of repeating in stupidity. He took accurate stock of the symptoms; +set his sights upon what he surmised must be the bull's-eye of Blue +Jeans' discontent; waited a nicely balanced moment, and fired. +</P> + +<P> +"How," he inquired in a tone both mild and unsensational, "how would +you like to earn two hundred dollars?" +</P> + +<P> +But the shot did not take effect as he had expected it to. Instead of +snapping back Blue Jeans' curly head sank a little lower. Though his +inward start at the query had been great his outward display of emotion +was scarcely visible. For perceiving that this was a deliberate +attempt to arouse his interest, he dissembled it and exhibited no +interest at all. +</P> + +<P> +"I balk at murder," he replied with careful indifference and no flicker +of jocularity. "And it would have to be that, to earn that much money. +Two hundred dollars is a fortune; so's one; so's fifty. But I'm kind +of particular that way—though the offer is liberal—it is so! I admit +that, but I—" +</P> + +<P> +He would have gone on rambling had not the other stopped him. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure, it's a nice bunch of coin." And then, daring to be facetious +himself, though adhering still to his admirable and just-formed plan of +not disclosing too much at once: +</P> + +<P> +"You'd not have to kill him, you know. Half of what you did to your +friend on the roan horse would be plenty and to spare." +</P> + +<P> +"He was no friend of mine," Blue Jeans corrected coldly. "We'd just +barely begun to get acquainted." +</P> + +<P> +"Lucky for him!" Indeed, despite his personality, the huge man had a +lively wit. +</P> + +<P> +"A life-long friendship would have proved fatal!" +</P> + +<P> +It made Blue Jeans' eyes twinkle though it warmed them not at all. He +didn't like the fat man and he wasn't going to try. But when the +latter showed no readiness to go back to the important topic which he +had himself introduced, he found anxiety overcoming his resolution to +remain unconcerned. +</P> + +<P> +"You were speaking intimately of two hundred dollars," he drew it back +tentatively. +</P> + +<P> +And then the huge man knew that it was best to be precise. +</P> + +<P> +"For eighteen minutes' work," he explained. "Six rounds with young +Condit, at Estabrook, on the tenth." +</P> + +<P> +"Me!" Blue Jeans blurted his surprise, it was so far from the sort of +proposition he had been prepared to hear. In spite of his habiliments +the Easterner was no new type to him, and he had been ready to dismiss +him and his project, whenever it should develop, with a satisfying +frankness which could not have been admitted here. But this tripped +him,—stripped him momentarily of his self-possession. +</P> + +<P> +"Me!" he deprecated. "Pshaw! I'm no box-fighter! I don't box!" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure you don't," the huge man agreed, eagerly and instantly. "That's +what I saw as I watched you from the window, arguing with your fr—your +acquaintance. The whole world is full of box-fighters who box. You'll +look years and years, however, before you'll find one who will fight." +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans had learned to make his decisions quickly, and to abide +later by their results without complaint. Swift and sudden, that was +the better way. But here was no step to be taken ill-considered. He +wasn't sick of cowpunching; he hadn't had half enough of it; he'd never +have enough. But he was sick of punching other men's cattle. And he'd +been maturing lately, getting full-grown ideas into his head. There +wasn't any future for him, or for any man, hellin' around the country. +But if a man was to settle down,—that was the Dream! +</P> + +<P> +And he knew the place,—back of Big Thumb Butte. Good pasture; not too +big, but enough for any bunch he was ever likely to own. Some fence; +some buildings; both in a sad state but reclaimable by a handy man. +And water! The finest water in all the country, and it never failed. +And cheap! Cheap if one kept one's mind on relative values and off +one's own financial troubles; cheap if one didn't pause to recollect +that six bits, at the moment, would have been a prohibitive price. +</P> + +<P> +He'd got his eye on that place lately; that's why he had tried so hard +with the Dee & Zee; that's why he had been over-anxious at poker. He'd +even figured how, by being saving and eating nothing to speak of and +drinking nothing at all, he could save up half the price in about +twenty years. But he'd be old in twenty years, past forty, and +tottering and toothless without doubt. Unless Opportunity—<I>was</I> this +Opportunity? +</P> + +<P> +He didn't like that game—not much—not at all! But, then, he didn't +know much about it; he could judge only by externals, by the clique who +made it their profession. And he'd liked none of them any better than +he did this huge Easterner standing before him, waiting for an answer. +</P> + +<P> +But if this was Opportunity—he didn't have to mix—he could herd by +himself, as he had at the Dee & Zee. And it was the best water in the +county, and somebody, pretty soon, was going to see the possibilities +in that valley and snap it up. And then where'd he be? He wanted to +become a solid citizen; he wanted to amount to something <I>now</I>. +</P> + +<P> +He raised a chill, gray-green eye. +</P> + +<P> +"You can say on," he gave leave calmly. +</P> + +<P> +But the huge man drew a slip of cardboard from his pocket instead, and +wrote upon it. It seemed to be one of a stock for such emergencies, +for it bore no engraving. +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll carry this to Harry Larrabie, he'll understand. He'll give +you what you need and send you against Condit Saturday night. Short +notice for you, I know, but you look to be in shape." He glanced at +the lean length. +</P> + +<P> +"One hundred and twenty-eight?" +</P> + +<P> +"Thirty-two," said Blue Jeans, and somehow resentfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Fine—fine! Well?" +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans had learned to make decisions with suddenness. He gave this +one, however, a full five seconds' consideration. Then he reached out +and possessed himself of the card. +</P> + +<P> +"Scratch Blake and send bearer against Condit Saturday. If he looks as +good to you as he has to me, keep him busy. Some day I may have +employment for him myself." +</P> + +<P> +It was signed with the single letter D. +</P> + +<P> +"There are no strings to it, after Condit?" Blue Jeans asked finally. +</P> + +<P> +"None—if you want to quit. None." +</P> + +<P> +"Then what is there in it for you?" +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans had been schooled to be skeptical concerning any act masking +as purely philanthropic. But the huge man wisely disclaimed such +motives. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe you won't want to quit,—not right away." He had taken accurate +account of the symptoms. Everybody wanted money, but this man's +desire, he discerned, though great, was curbed and disciplined. It was +not feverish, as if ambitious merely of a few days of debauch in town. +It was controlled, and fixed and steady. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll find other two hundreds waiting," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"That's your gamble?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's my gamble." +</P> + +<P> +Again the card. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no sum mentioned here." +</P> + +<P> +Keenly the huge man's regard played over him. A scarecrow without +question,—poverty had had shabby sport with him,—but honest. You +couldn't mistake it. The large man's flattery had been ill-chosen, yet +well-founded. He drew two one hundred dollar bills from a folder and +handed them to Blue Jeans. +</P> + +<P> +"That'll let you buy some clothes, too," he said, and largely. And +this largeness was his second bad mistake. +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans had risen, and as they stood side by side, one thing was now +strangely emphasized. Travel-soiled as he was, and tattered and marked +with signs of conflict, Blue Jeans was the cleaner of the two, the more +wholesome, and immaculate. For what <I>he</I> was stood out upon the huge +man in every fold of flesh. +</P> + +<P> +And Blue Jeans was at no pains to hide his distaste. He was no +prude—no sissy—but somewhere every man had to draw the line. And +every man should draw it before the state of his soul did such things +to lips and eyes. Therefore, and because of the other's condescending +largeness, his reply was cold. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd better," he said, without thanks. "When a man goes into a +doubtful business he'd ought at least to dress respectable. He owes it +to himself to look his best." +</P> + +<P> +The level dislike in the other's tone disconcerted the huge man not at +all. He was wise enough to drop it there. But it set him thinking as +he retraced his way to the private car. +</P> + +<P> +The fox-faced man and the reporter who was monosyllabic were waiting +for his return. +</P> + +<P> +"How much?" This from Fox-face, avidly. He had seen money change +hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Two hundred. He was stony!" +</P> + +<P> +"He did look hungry." This from the reporter, ruminatingly. +</P> + +<P> +"I sent him on to Larrabie." +</P> + +<P> +"Bet you a hundred that Larrabie never sees him!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take that," said the reporter. +</P> + +<P> +But Fox-face, perceiving better ones, changed the terms of his +proffered wager. +</P> + +<P> +"Bet you a hundred you never hear from him, even if he does meet +Condit." He hurled this at the huge man, disdaining the reporter. +"Bet you you've not heard from him in three years—in five!" +</P> + +<P> +"There's too many sure things in this world," opined the huge man, calm +under Fox-face's challenge with something like contempt, "to bother +with a gamble." He squinted a moment in thought. +</P> + +<P> +"But when we pull into Shell you'd better wire Larrabie to be discreet. +If he wants to know who D. is, better advise Larrabie to call me +'Denver'—'Denver' Smith will do. Just a disinterested party." +</P> + +<P> +And at that Fox-face was instantly, visibly consumed with curiosity. +The reporter looked almost as though he understood. +</P> + +<P> +"He might not approve of me," he chose to be downright, and enlighten +Fox-face at the same time. "He doesn't now, as it is." And then he +laughed softly, as if at himself. +</P> + +<P> +"It's funny, too. I suppose he's like all of them, drunk every pay-day +while his money holds out, and a familiar face at every brothel. And +yet from the way he looked at me—" He shook his head, not in anger +but amiable meditation. "It's funny," he repeated, and let it go at +that. +</P> + +<P> +So it remained a conundrum to Fox-face. The reporter, however, was now +sure that he had understood. He was sorry that he had not gone out to +speak to Blue Jeans himself. And now the fat man was speaking again. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll go to Estabrook, and he'll earn his two hundred. No room for +doubt. But beyond that—" he shook his head. He could talk frankly to +the reporter, for he never talked for publication. +</P> + +<P> +"He looked honest—but it was a bad hunch, I'm afraid. I'm not so +certain but what he would prove to be too honest, for any practical +purpose, if he ever did come through." +</P> + +<P> +"You've seen the last of him," stated Fox-face omnisciently. +</P> + +<P> +But they hadn't. Blue Jeans was invisible for a while, then he +reappeared, and the water from the tank overflow had done much for man +and beast. He looked almost neat, and very shining and clean. And the +huge man, the reporter observed, must have been mistaken about the +brothels. Blue Jeans was no prude—no sissy—but a man had to draw the +line somewhere. Wherefore his lips did not puff and sag, his eyeballs +were not mottled. +</P> + +<P> +His neckerchief had been newly knotted, with a flourish; his +discouraged boots wiped free of dust. And the mare, Girl o' Mine, had +also found refreshment. She drooped no longer; she even arched her +neck and buck-jumped a little, when he put his weight in the stirrup. +</P> + +<P> +"You, too," he chided her, though gravely, for he was not pleased, not +happy in the course to which he had committed himself. "You, too," he +chided. "Oh, you brazen huzzy! There's nothing like it—nothing in +all the world like ready cash to make a female frivolous!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned her across the tracks. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll not linger long in Reservoir," he spoke again aloud, and the +mare threw back one ear to listen. "Just long enough to eat and sleep, +and then we'll start overland to Estabrook. That's sensible! That's +better than squandering money on a railroad ticket." +</P> + +<P> +Certainly the prospect to which he was bound irked his pride; hurt him +definitely in his self-respect. But with this frugal reflection his +spirits rose a little. He'd not have to be like them; he'd not mix +with that clique; he'd herd alone. And save his money! That was it. +There was the Dream again! +</P> + +<P> +His spirits rose. With the whole train watching him he rode from sight +without even putting up a hand in farewell to those at the private car +windows. And at that, without realizing it, Fox-face—for that—began +hating him. +</P> + +<P> +Once across the tracks Blue Jeans clicked to Girl o' Mine. She swung +to a canter. +</P> + +<P> +"Trip along, honey," he bade her, his serenity almost restored. "Trip +along, and watch your step. Remember you're bearing a capitalist!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LITTLE-TWEED-SUIT +</H3> + + +<P> +Little-Tweed-Suit was being bothered by a toad—a toad-person with a +prominent thick watch chain and a loose smirk. She had been bothered +by him ever since dinner—dinner at night at the Cactus House, which +was inclined to be Eastern and effete in its apings—but his +persecutions there had been confined to lurking, contrived meetings, +and long glances which touched her noisomely. +</P> + +<P> +Once she had swept the hotel office with a desperate glance, trying to +select a face to which she might appeal. There wasn't one. Estabrook +was filling with its usual week-end scum; crafty faces, hard faces, +faces shallowly good-natured, and therefore doubly treacherous. Even +the pimply clerk at the desk, discerning her unescorted state, had +changed subtly in voice and manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Lonesome?" +</P> + +<P> +She had not answered him. But here on the railway platform, where she +had fled to catch the East-bound, nine o'clock express, and where the +toad unhurriedly had followed her; here where she had thought to fear +him less she found she feared him more. +</P> + +<P> +To know herself that such a thing had looked upon her as he had looked +was loathsome; to have others see him accost her and leer over their +interpretations of the insult seemed more than she could bear. And the +platform and hot, foul waiting-room, common to both men and women, were +both as conspicuous as the hotel had been; both peopled with the same +side-long glances. +</P> + +<P> +So she had fled again from the lighted portion of the platform this +time to the darker, far more dangerous end, which was out of the puddle +of illumination. And now he was coming toward her less unhurriedly, +his canine teeth showing wolfishly through a grin. This last move of +hers he believed he understood; he even valued it. A little coquetry +lent zest to the game. And she <I>had</I> led him a pretty chase—but +now… he was very sure of himself… +</P> + +<P> +How Little-Tweed-Suit—a girl like Tweed-Suit—came there upon the +station platform of Estabrook is a long story; and it is not entirely +hers or ours. Therefore only the briefest part, for this tale's sake, +shall be set down here. +</P> + +<P> +It concerns a white house on a hill, and a man who failed so bleakly +that few could remember, even directly after his funeral, how shining +his successes had been. For his brilliance could not be saved in ink +or perpetuated with paint or brush. To be sure, his friends after his +death now and then found themselves recalling something particularly +keen, something analytical and searching as a probe, which he had +voiced on this occasion or that. +</P> + +<P> +"I remember how Manners used to say," they would begin; and then quote +as accurately as it were possible. But directly, when they discovered +how happily these epigrams were received by those who had not heard +them, they acquired a singular habit; they began to leave out Manners' +name and appropriate the applause to themselves. Thus they robbed the +dead man safely, nor found the practice ghoulish. One or two thereby +even acquired permanent fame as an after-dinner wit. +</P> + +<P> +Even his enemies, implacable, political enemies, who had done the most +to destroy him, more than the temperament which he himself believed to +be a blight, were a little more honest than that. They had fought him +according to their own rules, which debarred nothing, with every foul +trick they knew. If there was a weak spot in a man's record, go after +it; if he had been a weakling, temporarily a fool, seek it out. There +were human bloodhounds always sniffing to come upon such a scent. Hunt +it down; find the woman. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, there had not been a woman, after all. That had +been a mistake. A bad mistake, for it had killed his wife. But a +lucky mistake for them! For it had delivered into their hands the +secret of an actual and even more vulnerable place to attack. +</P> + +<P> +Before his wife's death he had been proud enough to hide it, and fight +it out when the struggle was on, within the four walls of his home. +But afterward he seemed to cease to care. +</P> + +<P> +Shameless! That was the pass to which they said he had come, in the +very worthy, very tight-traditioned and not very large town in which +the white house stood. And the day he rose drunk in Assembly, white, +haggard drunk, they read his doom aloud. Dead politically the papers +said. Fools! Dead in hopes they should have written; dead in his +debonair heart; dead sick of fighting a losing fight. And dying. +</P> + +<P> +This last, the sudden death of his body, however, took them by +surprise. They had not been observant. Yet on that bright day when +quite as many of his political enemies as friends rode behind him, the +latter were rather quick and proud to notice this. In suitably hushed +voices they remarked that it proved their broad-mindedness as a +community. +</P> + +<P> +But whenever anything particularly crooked was being crammed through +thereafter at the State Capitol, his name was sure to come up. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a good thing Charlie isn't here," they'd chuckle. "We couldn't +fool him this easy; he'd spot it; he'd tear us to pieces with his +tongue." +</P> + +<P> +His enemies were more honest; they remembered and appreciated him as an +antagonist. +</P> + +<P> +The others, save for the epigrammatic quotations already mentioned, +were more immediately concerned with his daughter. She had been proud +of her father—proud! She had never belittled him with hidden pity, +not even on that night when she surprised him, all in evening black and +white, immaculate and wasted, before a mirror which hung over the +buffet in the dining-room. He was holding a goblet in an uplifted +hand, the skin cruelly taut, though he neither swayed nor stammered. +</P> + +<P> +"Your damnation, my friend," she heard him say. "Your deep damnation." +</P> + +<P> +And he drank it to his reflection. +</P> + +<P> +The friends were immediately concerned with the daughter. And her +pride! They didn't say so, not aloud, but they thought to see it break +now. And the day that Ostermoor—Young Ostermoor was his title, though +his given name was Howard Davenport—broke his never announced and +merely tacitly accepted engagement to her they knew great joy. But she +robbed them of half their triumph. In public she never dropped her +chin. And only Ostermoor and she knew the shame of that private +conversation by which they were unplighted. +</P> + +<P> +"You must see my predicament." So spoke Ostermoor. "I'm dependent on +the old man. If he cuts me off, and he says he will if—" +</P> + +<P> +Even callow young Ostermoor, hair slick and scented, a thick-limbed, +small-town Brummel confident in his best-clothes smartness, had not had +quite the courage to tell her to her uplifted, flushed face what his +father had shouted:—That he'd have no blood of his crossed with hers; +that it was dangerous blood—tainted—wild. +</P> + +<P> +"He says," he finished lamely instead, "it's better to wait." +</P> + +<P> +Yet how easily she read his lameness, and estimated his father's words. +Dangerous blood—tainted? Ostermoor had feared her tongue; the women +in his household talked shrilly and long upon far less provocation. +But she only sat and seemed to smile. +</P> + +<P> +"I see," was all she said. +</P> + +<P> +And while she smiled, her cheeks hot, his eyes had crept over her. Her +slenderness was rounded, her slimness soft and full. A girl, it came +upon him, for whom a man's arms might still yearn in spite of himself. +</P> + +<P> +"This—this needn't mean any real break between us," he hoped, with +what he intended as a worldly careless air. He'd never have dared that +a week earlier; he had always been too conscious until that moment of a +certain unapproachability, a transcendent daintiness, audacious and the +reverse from fragile, which nevertheless had kept him at arms' length. +But with his father's words in his ears—dangerous!—tainted!—he +managed it easily. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course we couldn't arrange it here in town, where we're known—" +</P> + +<P> +"Arrange what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I thought maybe—" Her calmness, hers by right of breeding, +lamed him again and angered him to coarse effrontery. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't suppose there's many in town now who'd care to take a chance—" +</P> + +<P> +"A chance on what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, on marrying you. This is a pretty conservative community. But +I thought if we could find a place quietly, not too far away, where +we—" +</P> + +<P> +She rang a bell and summoned a butler who was also cook, and coachman +too. +</P> + +<P> +"Show Mr. Ostermoor out," she directed, calm still. But the terms of +that order were only out of regard for the extreme age of the servitor. +He would attempt to obey her she knew; had he been younger she would +have directed that Mr. Ostermoor be thrown out. +</P> + +<P> +A week later the estate was settled up. Naturally Ostermoor's father, +who was president of the local bank, knew that there wasn't going to be +any estate, yet the total of her father's paper must have staggered +him. I hope so. And when she was proved to be practically penniless, +immediately they all felt that they had evened their score with her. +For what? Oh, for driving so sweet and cool along a dusty, +maple-shaded main street, as pleasant and courteous to ordinary +tradespeople as she was to better folk. +</P> + +<P> +Then, in a surprisingly short while, whenever somebody happened to +mention her and wonder where she had gone, they found that they had +already started to forget her. +</P> + +<P> +"Somewhere West. I did hear the name of the place. But I can't +remember it." +</P> + +<P> +They were above reproach,—in their geography. She had gone somewhere +west, and sometimes I am not sure that there isn't a heartache in the +reason for her going. +</P> + +<P> +Romance was in her hungry heart; such romance as the Sunday-groomed +youths who frequented the house on the hill might never satisfy. She'd +read books, all sorts of books, but one of the plains she loved. In it +a somewhat saturnine horseman, a son of the sage-brush, unlettered but +tutored much by life, had wooed and won a prim little schoolmistress +from the East. Whether she went with the hope of emulation in her +heart or not none can venture to say. Maybe it was in search of +manhood, a different kind of man. +</P> + +<P> +Anyhow, she went. And found a school to teach. And disillusionment. +She could not teach school; she knew more than her scholars, yet not so +much more of what they needed to be taught. It was not always clear in +her mind whether it had been the Delaware or the Rappahannock which +furnished Washington's transportation problem. And two and two didn't +always make four; not if she didn't keep her mind terribly +concentrated, when she wanted to dream. +</P> + +<P> +The children loved her; they cried, unaccountably to their parents, +when she had to leave. But the parents were ruthless about it; they +weren't paying school taxes to support a slip of a girl who couldn't +hammer the three essential R's into their undoubtedly gifted +offsprings' heads, even though her hair was high-piled and tawny-red, +and her skin like cream; even though there were violet lights in her +singularly eager eyes. +</P> + +<P> +When one less practical than the rest tried to point out that she had a +bearing different from theirs; "genteel" he called it, yet without +offense to the most humble, and that she "talked good, too," and in a +less nasal way, they rode him down. Their progeny was yet a long step +from a drawing-room they averred, or the need to know how to enter one. +</P> + +<P> +She lost her position. In Estabrook, loath to acknowledge herself +disappointed, she found another, and lost that. But she considered +this scarcely a mishap, for she couldn't have lived upon what it paid +anyway. Moreover she was becoming rapidly afraid of this country; it +was bigger and she was littler than she had supposed. And no dashing +horsemen had ridden up to her schoolhouse door and handed her nosegays +and assured her that her eyes were the same shade of blue. She'd +pricked that bubble! Most of them chewed tobacco with no delicate +regard for outward appearances. +</P> + +<P> +With her money running perilously low she had taken stock of her +wardrobe and found it already shabby, and decided to go back East while +there was still time. She'd try New York. Her pride would not +handicap her there any more than it had here, for no one would know +her. She'd find something to do in New York; of course she would. +She'd have to! +</P> + +<P> +Then the toad-person had laid unclean eyes upon her in the dining-room +of the Cactus House, and contrived meetings where their bodies must +brush close in passing. And followed her to the station. And she was +biting her lip now to keep from being silly and screaming; trying to +plan in panic the scathing things which she must say. +</P> + +<P> +It was dark there. The toad could not see her face and thus learn that +her eyes were dilated. The East-bound roared in as he came up. She +tried to run—it was her train—and couldn't. The toad put a hand upon +her. And then Blue Jeans—blue serge now—dropped off the steps of the +smoker in the shadow close behind her, and became instantly absorbed in +the tableau. +</P> + +<P> +Blue Jeans had whipped Condit. Indeed, he had considered it an unfair +thing. Why, Condit was only a boy—not more than twenty-one or +twenty-two at the most—a baby!—no bigger than himself. Not half so +big as the superintendent! And he could not fight well, either. He +danced a lot, and feinted, and made a great show of annihilation, but +he couldn't really fight. Blue Jeans had been sorry for him a little; +not much, because he'd ought to be in some other business if he +couldn't take care of himself. But he'd dropped so still, the first +time Blue Jeans hit him. So huddled like! +</P> + +<P> +"Have I killed him?" he asked Larrabie, remorsefully, after it had +happened. +</P> + +<P> +Condit had folded up like a sick accordion. +</P> + +<P> +"Have I killed him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hell, no!" And Larrabie had stared curiously while neither of them +heard the applause. +</P> + +<P> +Before an hour passed Larrabie wired the huge man who had an office in +New York, an office lined with books. The books were never used; the +office saw strange usage. +</P> + +<P> +"A bear-cat," Larrabie wired. "What shall I do with him?" +</P> + +<P> +And an answer had come back: +</P> + +<P> +"Keep him under cover. Work him a little. Will send Devereau when the +time is right." +</P> + +<P> +So Blue Jeans had suddenly found his Dream in the process of coming +true. For he had done, not happy at heart, just what the huge man had +said he would do; he had decided to accumulate other and just as easy +two hundreds. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll herd by myself," was the way he argued himself to this decision. +"I'm no lily, but I'll not soil myself worse with this bunch." +</P> + +<P> +And Larrabie had kept him under cover, and worked him twice, until +another telegram had finally come, advising them that Devereau was on +his way West,—that the "time was right." But Larrabie had been +perplexed again on this occasion by Blue Jeans' lack of enthusiasm. He +reread the telegram aloud and emphasized the other's great luck. +</P> + +<P> +"There's not a man that wouldn't give up a big slice to get him for a +manager," he said. "He's in right, too. He's the ace!" +</P> + +<P> +"Huh!" remarked Blue Jeans. Indeed, Blue Jeans baffled him. +</P> + +<P> +And when Devereau arrived in Estabrook on a train twenty minutes late, +Blue Jeans was not there to keep the appointment which Larrabie, duly +aware of the Easterner's importance, had arranged. +</P> + +<P> +"Devereau'll be taking you East, likely," he had surmised. So waiting +not an instant past the hour when he was scheduled to arrive, Blue +Jeans had gone, stricken with homesickness at the thought of leaving +her, to see Girl o' Mine. It took him twenty miles down the line, but +he'd made the appointment with her before he knew Devereau was coming, +anyhow, and he'd keep it. Therefore Devereau—but you've guessed it. +Devereau is Fox-face of the private car. Devereau is the toad. +</P> + +<P> +It was dark at the end of the platform. He could not see that her eyes +were dilated. He laid his hand upon her. She couldn't run; her legs +felt frozen and useless. +</P> + +<P> +"No hurry, dearie," said Devereau. "Let's talk this over. Maybe +you'll be glad you missed your train." +</P> + +<P> +But Blue Jeans, who had landed lightly on the gravel, saw what Devereau +had missed. He saw that Tweed-Suit was afraid—that she was numbed +with fear. His single back-hand thrust sent Devereau spinning under a +truck. +</P> + +<P> +"Your train?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Give me your bag." +</P> + +<P> +She obeyed him. They had told her that the train did not wait very +long. His hand found her arm, a different touch than Devereau's. +</P> + +<P> +"Now run," he ordered. +</P> + +<P> +They found most of the vestibules already closed; then one far down +still open. So they made it, though he had to toss the bag and fairly +lift her on. And it was done so swiftly that it was a full half minute +before she caught her breath. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed then. +</P> + +<P> +The porter was fussing with her bag, and her fervor overwhelmed him. +But her next words were a shock. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I want to get off," she blurted. +</P> + +<P> +The porter shook his head; he had expected better from her, but all +women were riddles. +</P> + +<P> +"We's rolling now, ma'am," he answered. "No stop for two hundred +miles." +</P> + +<P> +That night Cecille Manners—Tweed-Suit will no longer serve—lay in her +berth and watched the stars reel by. She had misjudged the west and +come away too soon; she knew that now. She put her hand upon her arm. +No, that wasn't the way it had felt; it had been strong, infallible. +And though he had turned quickly away, after putting her aboard; though +she had no way of guessing that he had gone back to find Devereau, she +was filled just the same with what remained, for a long time at least, +a happy certainty. She'd see him again sometime. She had to! +</P> + +<P> +But Devereau had known better than to linger near the baggage truck. +So after he had looked beneath it and upon it and all around it and +found nobody, Blue Jeans turned and watched the red tail-light of the +train disappear. +</P> + +<P> +Who shall say where fancy first was bred? Not you—or I—nor even Blue +Jeans. For he had not even seen her yet, not with seeing eyes. Here +was yet no chapter of his Dream. +</P> + +<P> +"A decent girl!" was what he muttered. "A decent girl—I'd swear it!" +</P> + +<P> +And he looked again, eagerly, beneath the truck. +</P> + +<P> +An hour later when Blue Jeans heard a man asking for Perry Blair in the +Cactus House, he stepped up. He didn't care for his looks, which was +no novelty so far in this venture. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm Perry Blair," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm Devereau." +</P> + +<P> +And later, over a contract: +</P> + +<P> +"This mentions mighty little money," said Perry, "and that little +bashful and meek." +</P> + +<P> +Perry's manner did not even approximate the respect which Devereau felt +was his due. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be well taken care of," he stated curtly. +</P> + +<P> +But Perry's answer, like one he had made the huge man, made Devereau +pause and think. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt at all," said he. "I'll be seeing to that myself." +</P> + +<P> +And they didn't know, not till a long time afterward, that they had met +only a little while before. It had been dark at the platform's end. +Perry had caught nothing save a canine grin. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ALL ELSE IS HERESY +</H3> + + +<P> +There are certain people, good people to whom orthodox precepts and +preachments are more than the constant evidence of their own eyes, who +will find displeasure in this story. For they are accustomed to a +formula in all such tales and are not likely to abide a departure from +it. +</P> + +<P> +By it they have come to know immediately, whenever a woman with +instincts of doubtful propriety is introduced early in the action, just +what to expect. Her doom has struck. The frightful end which will be +hers is only a deferred matter still in the hands of her historian: The +dark river, a rushing car over an embankment to swift oblivion, a +living agony of remorse,—the rewards it will be noted bear a distinct +resemblance each to the other. For the wages of sin have long been +classified, tabulated and fixed, a minimum of mercy, a maximum of +disaster. All else is heresy. +</P> + +<P> +They have been told this so many times that they not only believe it, +just as Cecille Manners once believed, utterly, fervidly, but they +derive therefrom an ardent satisfaction. This might seem strange, but +it is stranger far that they never look about them, just for a moment, +at life itself—just for a moment, just long enough to wonder. But +they do not. They believe in and expect the worst, demand it indeed. +And so this story will not please them—no. Not at all in so far as it +chronicles the life of Felicity Brown. +</P> + +<P> +But the other half, the half which has been wondering for quite a +while, just as Cecille came to wonder, may read it and approve. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-078"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-078.jpg" ALT="He tore at them, mad with rage." BORDER="2" WIDTH="632" HEIGHT="444"> +<H3> +[Illustration: He tore at them, mad with rage.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Once it was considered adequate to combat wickedness with fear, but +methods change. It has come to seem wiser, if less orthodox, to urge +that heaven is fair instead of insisting first that hell is so foul. +And so perhaps it would be well for a change to bear less heavily upon +the wages of sin, and extol, just a little, the wages of virture. For +too constant insistence upon an evil thing is sure to breed doubt in +the mind of one who is in the habit of thinking at all. It did in +Cecille's. If it be so true, so inevitable, so frightful, surely it +should be self-evident now and then, instead of a mere matter of +report. And beautiful generalization, never anything but vague, +becomes noticeable after a time, questionable. The things of glory in +this world are not so tediously many that they will not bear once or +twice the telling. Why not refuse, for once, to blink the facts, even +though they may not be suitably sordid? Why not go into detail, once +in a while, if the prospect is as fair as they would have one fancy? +</P> + +<P> +This story does, I hope. It would be honester that way. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +It is not easy to account for the intimacy which existed between those +two girls. It is doubtful if either of them could have done much to +account for it. Pressed for an explanation, Felicity Brown, it is +true, might have essayed an answer of sorts. "Oh, Cele's kind of a +nut," she might have declared, "but she's a good scout," or something +equally unsatisfactory. But Cecille, unless urged, quite likely +wouldn't have made any answer at all. Then, "I don't know," she would +have murmured. And in the face of such gravity her inquisitor must +surely have sought a different topic. +</P> + +<P> +Yet the intimacy was a fact,—one of those odd facts which life +persists in producing. They had shared an apartment (that is a nice +compliment, that phrase, applied to their sitting-room, bedroom and +bath) for almost a year, continuing in a state of amiability possible +only between two people so widely separated in ideals and hopes that +there could never be a clash. There had never been much companionship, +however. Now and then they ate one meal together, an early dinner for +Cecille and a late breakfast for Felicity, at six o'clock in the +evening. For Cecille's working day was over before Felicity's began. +But there had been no intimacy of the spirit. And yet each knew the +soul of the other as well as though it had been a meal sack which could +be turned inside out, exposing every seam to scrutiny. +</P> + +<P> +Felicity Brown belonged to the Midnight Roof Club's famous Aero Octet. +That is, of course, a needless bit of information, presumptuous even to +the initiate, for everybody knows her, almost everybody. She was the +third from the left, the one in new-grass green, with balloons pendant +from the scalloped corners of her short, stiff-wired skirt—black +balloons like huge dull pearls. The one with the smile. Yes, I know +that the others smiled, too, constantly, provocatively; but sometimes +the set of their lips was likely to seem anything but the curl of +mirth. But not Felicity's. +</P> + +<P> +It never lost its challenge. And her dancing was like that, tireless, +serenely abandoned, the essence of knowing grace. Half-pagan, +half-divine, Denby, the young cover artist, badly smitten, once put it +with striking unoriginality. And with exceeding inaccuracy, too. For +there are all too many who will insist that the pagan portion rather +over-balanced the rest. But her sheer vitality was amazing. +</P> + +<P> +An unobserving person, still seeking the key to their intimacy, could +easily blunder upon the old bromide and repeat that a pretty woman +invariably prefers a plain one for a foil. But he would have to be a +very blind fool indeed. For Felicity Brown's beauty, perfect enough +under the spot of the Midnight Club's miniature stage, became a less +flawless thing in contrast with Cecille. Perhaps that sounds +far-fetched. Perhaps, having seen Felicity for yourself, you are +inclined to smile and shrug. Nevertheless it is so. +</P> + +<P> +Not one of a million Denbys would ever have called Cecille half-pagan +or divine in any degree. He wouldn't have noticed her, even, unless +his attention had been pointedly called that way. And if another, +contemplating her with an eye not greedy of the flesh alone, had +finally hit upon the word poignant to describe the hungry youth of her, +the odd little tilt of her head, the soft and eager promise in swelling +line of hip and breast, Denby himself most certainly would have +murmured absently: +</P> + +<P> +"Poignant. Yes—yes, poignant. Quite so—quite so!" +</P> + +<P> +And yawned. +</P> + +<P> +For she did not challenge instantly, as did Felicity. A man might look +at her a long time before her perfection smote him. It usually +happened that way; it happened exactly like that to Perry Blair. He +looked at her many, many times before he saw with seeing eyes and +realized how shyly precious and flagrantly bold girlhood like hers +could be. +</P> + +<P> +Her smile was not as ready as that of the girl who danced. And it had +become a little strained, a little edged, before the end. But it never +lost its freshness. It was always as shining as fine rain at dawn. +And the inquiry in her eyes was not part calculation. They were more +wistful, less expectant maybe. But they were steady. And gray as a +November sea. +</P> + +<P> +Once, remarking the incongruity of their names, Cecille repeated her +own with a shade of scorn and provoked from her companion one of the +few personalities in which she ever indulged. +</P> + +<P> +"Cecille Manners!" she drawled. "Cecille Manners—gown-fitter's +assistant! With a name like that I should be in a Broadway chorus." +</P> + +<P> +It happened late one evening. Cecille was half undressed for bed. And +Felicity, busy at the mirror, turned an instant to follow with a +dispassionate eye the slight, knickered figure crossing the room. +</P> + +<P> +"With a figure like that, you mean," she amended. "It's plain stingy +to keep it under cover. Think of the thousands who are panting to pass +over three-fifty per, just to sit out front and give it the up and +down!" +</P> + +<P> +Nor did the girl at the mirror see the raw flush which her cool comment +brought to Cecille's face, nor would she have understood it had she +seen. That one's privacy, one's physical fastidiousness, could be +affronted by mere words, would have astounded her. Fastidiousness +carried that far—fastidiousness of any sort—was incomprehensible to +Felicity. But she found the topic momentarily of interest. +</P> + +<P> +"It is kind of stagy," she pursued it. "Your own?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally." +</P> + +<P> +Cecille's crispness was lost upon her. They could never have +quarreled. And Cecille had found a dressing-gown and hugged it tight +around her knees. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, not necessarily," Felicity said, abstractedly judicious. "Take me +for instance. I tried out four or five before I was inspired with the +one I'm wearing now. And a couple of them woulda knocked you dead, +take it from me. But the Vere de Vere stuff is bla now. Too phony. +There's no class to that kind of a monicker any more. And, believe me, +you can't afford to overlook any bets, nowadays; you got to have class +in everything. Something simple—something demure, that's what they +want. You got to be a lady." +</P> + +<P> +And perhaps that is the best explanation, after all, of Felicity's +cultivation of the other girl. One cannot of oneself acquire breeding, +but it is possible to study technique. And I think Cecille's reason +for sticking to Felicity to the very end is clear too. Once, before +things happened, she was one of those people who believed in the +inevitable dark river, or swift oblivion, or an agony of remorse. +Believed pathetically. +</P> + +<P> +I think Felicity Brown served her as a fearsome revelation of life +stripped to its rawest essentials,—a demonstration of shattering +truths which she would never have believed had she not stood by, +looking on. It held her as a snake's eye holds a bird, fascinated, in +deadly peril. +</P> + +<P> +But they got on together. And as an economic arrangement it left +nothing to be desired. Cecille sewed well and was paid twenty-two +fifty a week. For her appearance in the Aero Octet Felicity received, +at the beginning, forty-five. This may astonish some. It shouldn't. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't pay my girls much." So Fiegenspann, the proprietor of the +Roof Club, bluntly advised her, after she had passed his scrutiny and +been pronounced unusual enough even for the Aero Octet. "I don't have +to. Because the opporchoonities here are big—very big. And I like my +girls to be sociable. It makes business." +</P> + +<P> +Felicity knew then that she had finally found the right man—the right +market. She appreciated his frankness and reciprocated. +</P> + +<P> +"I get you," she said, "and forty-five it is. And I'm sociable, or I +can be, if sufficiently persuaded. Only let's be clear about that +point right now, at the start. You can send Opporchoonity's card in +whenever he calls and I'll be pleased to meet him. But he mustn't +crawl up to the curb in any Decrepid Four—understand? He's got to be +hitting on twelve." +</P> + +<P> +Fiegenspann understood. He nodded his heavy head. He began to see, +then and there, that Felicity Brown was going to add another page to +the Roof Club's history. He even essayed a compliment. +</P> + +<P> +"My clientele is of all the world," he said. "And you—you look +expensif." +</P> + +<P> +"I am," said Felicity. "No pikers need apply." +</P> + +<P> +And with that business conference between Felicity and Fiegenspann +began the revelation which during the months that followed Cecille +watched in a kind of stricken suspense that must, it seems, have been +childish anticipation in the beginning of the pitiless blast which +would complete the other's sure destruction. +</P> + +<P> +Since the day when freakish chance had thrown them together she had had +no illusions concerning Felicity's ultimate destiny. It had surprised +her not that Felicity was traveling the road, but that she had not long +since arrived. She had not learned then how coolly Felicity herself +had selected that destiny and taken it in hand. She had not surmised +with what dispassionate judgment she had husbanded her resources, once +the route was chosen. +</P> + +<P> +And she wouldn't believe the evidence of her own eyes and ears, at +first. It never happened this way—it couldn't! Such things were the +black fruit of one reckless moment; of nameless impulses; of bitter +betrayal. Someone had written something like that. One more +unfortunate, rashly importunate—that was it. She couldn't remember +the rest. And then her suspense, which was half fearsome expectancy, +was overwhelmed by a thought which really frightened her. +</P> + +<P> +If all that they had taught her wasn't so; if all that she had accepted +so blindly wasn't the literal truth, inexorable for every individual +(life was a too bitterly personal thing for her to concern herself with +a doctrine which, accurate in the main, could be shrugged aside when it +failed in isolated cases) then all the rest, all that she had clung to +just as blindly, could be a lie. And if it was—if it was— +</P> + +<P> +The thought struck at all she knew, all she had, her creed and code and +hope of to-morrow. +</P> + +<P> +Felicity when she burst in with the news that she had landed +Fiegenspann did a wild can-can up and down the room. She danced as no +one else ever saw her dance, in a surrender to exultation that was +wanton savagery. But her mood passed quickly. The next moment, like +an implacable campaigner, she was summing up the excellences of her +latest step. +</P> + +<P> +"Now you watch me!" she said. "Now you watch my dust!" +</P> + +<P> +It was cold-blooded; it was as passionless as chess. And it was about +then that Cecille began to draw nearer and nearer in spirit, like a +bird hypnotized by a snake. The simile is hectic, I know. But it was +like that. +</P> + +<P> +She tried to hold aloof. She used to wonder why she had not packed her +bag that night and got out. She used to shiver when she remembered +Felicity's dance. One couldn't touch pitch and not be denied. There +were, it seemed, an overwhelming number of such proverbs, and most of +them forbidding. +</P> + +<P> +But she stayed on. More than that, she found herself after a time +stammering a question concerning each new cavalier as he appeared. And +each time Felicity's answer was unbelievably unconcerned and laconic. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing doing," she'd say. "He's hard boiled." +</P> + +<P> +Familiarity breeds complacency oftener than contempt. But it was +neither the one nor the other which forced Cecille to ask, over and +over again. Once Felicity surprised in her eyes the light that +invariably accompanied the question. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a queer kid," she added that time, after the usual answer. "I +sure don't get you." +</P> + +<P> +Later she thought she had solved it. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you worry, Cele," she reassured her. "When the fall comes +you'll hear the crash. I'll slip you the returns a little ahead of +time so that you can get out from under." +</P> + +<P> +"It—it wasn't that," protested Cecille quickly. +</P> + +<P> +She wondered why she didn't pack up and get out. +</P> + +<P> +But she was still there another night when Felicity finally came home +again with every lithe line of her body pulsing triumph. She was even +sitting up, which was unusual. An unusual occurrence accounted for it. +</P> + +<P> +In the beginning Felicity had tried to share with the other girl those +prospects who, for one reason or another, were of no importance. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on along," she often urged. "These guys mean nothing in my young +life except a dinner. And you needn't worry. Believe me, you'll be +shown the same respect as if you were out with your maiden aunt. They +know I'm refined and won't stand for anything else. And it'll do you +good." +</P> + +<P> +Cecille did go, once. So far as her escort was concerned she found +that Felicity had spoken the truth. He was innocuous. He was, indeed, +quite entirely unaware of her presence most of the evening. That did +not displease her. She found him little stupider than a swain of the +same age might have been in her own home town, even though his name did +appear in heavy block type in the Social Register. But she went only +once. She made a mistake. She had that day helped to costume a sister +of one of the men. She happened now to mention that sister's +prettiness. +</P> + +<P> +The man looked her in the eye, coldly, for a prolonged moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's leave my sister out of it," he said at length deliberately. +</P> + +<P> +And Cecille's cheeks were still pale from his tone when they arrived +back at the apartment. +</P> + +<P> +"That was a bad crack you made," Felicity told her then. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I didn't know." +</P> + +<P> +"They don't like to discuss their own womenfolks with girls like us." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +The exclamation was little more than a whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"But no harm done," airily. "He has to depend on the old man for his +bank-roll. I just thought I'd tip you off." +</P> + +<P> +She didn't go again. She stopped wanting to go anywhere, even to the +movies, for quite a while. And then, just at eleven one night, while +Felicity was before the mirror preparing to go to work and wondering +where Cecille could be, the latter came quietly in. Felicity hardly +marked her entrance until she dropped suddenly into a chair and began +to laugh. It was the laugh which made Felicity turn so sharply. She +had had experience with that shrill note in women's voices and knew +what it could mean. Such breakdowns were ugly to handle. +</P> + +<P> +She flung sharply round. +</P> + +<P> +"What's tickling you?" she barked harshly. "Shoot! Let's have it. +Cut that, now!" +</P> + +<P> +It stayed the slighter girl's hysteria. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been—I've been to a dance," she gurgled. +</P> + +<P> +Felicity gave her no foolish respite. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't get it," she rapped on. "Maybe I'm English. Where's +the joke?" +</P> + +<P> +"A—a dance over at the Central Palace, given for Worthy Working +Girls—" +</P> + +<P> +"That's funnier! But go ahead. Snap into it! Don't let it +drag—don't let it drag—" +</P> + +<P> +It seemed a potent cure. +</P> + +<P> +"I went because I saw in the paper that Mrs. Schuyler Driggs was going +to be among the patronesses to receive." +</P> + +<P> +The hysterical giggle was gone from Cecille's voice. She shut tight +her teeth and raised her chin. Felicity felt that it was safe now to +remain silent. And she was right, partly right. She only failed to +realize that Cecille was all too calm. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry, Felicity," the latter apologized meekly. "But I couldn't +help it. I thought I'd laugh and cry and scream, right on the street, +before I could get here. But I held on. Shall I finish?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Schuyler Driggs has just made her entrance—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. She was in the shop this morning." The recital seemed simple +and orderly now. "I helped to fit her. I usually do. She's never +very cordial, but this morning she was—oh, she was a beast! She +nagged and nagged and nagged, until I got nervous. I couldn't help it. +I got worse and worse, until I stuck a pin into her. Not just a +scratch." The gurgle threatened. "But deep—deep!" +</P> + +<P> +"If you go off again," promised Felicity, "I'll dump that pitcher of +water over you." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't. I stuck the pin into her, and she—she grunted. And then—I +never saw anyone grow so furious. She turned purple. I'm not sure +that she didn't strike at me. +</P> + +<P> +"'You did that on purpose,' she grated at me. Grated, that's the only +word that describes it. 'You fool! You damned clumsy little fool!'" +</P> + +<P> +Felicity waited until it was evident that she would have to speak. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" she asked then in a voice grown hard. "What did <I>you</I> say? +What was the snappy come-back?" +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't think of anything to say, not just then—" +</P> + +<P> +"Folks like you usually can't," said Felicity drily. "They think of a +knock-out a half an hour too late. But not me. Language comes easy to +me in a spot like that, language that I can't use regular without +getting pinched, and I'm generous with it." +</P> + +<P> +"I was a little more than a half hour late in having my say," Cecille +admitted. "But I had it. I saw the announcement of the dance in the +afternoon paper and her name, and I decided to go. I don't know why; +that is, I didn't—not until she recognized me. Then I knew! She was +shaking hands with me and telling me to have a good time. She was just +passing me on to the next in line, when she blinked at me, like +that—she's fat—and stopped me. +</P> + +<P> +"'Haven't I seen you somewhere before, my dear?' she asked. 'You seem +somehow very familiar.' +</P> + +<P> +"Then I knew why I'd come. And I let her have it! +</P> + +<P> +"'You have,' I was just as throaty as she was. 'And I should +be,'—meaning familiar. 'At ten-thirty o'clock this morning when I +stuck a pin into you, fitting that gown you have on, you cursed me. If +I remember accurately you called me a damned clumsy little fool.'" +</P> + +<P> +"—seven—eight—nine—ten!" chanted Felicity joyously. "And <I>out</I>! +What did she do?" +</P> + +<P> +And then, quite without any warning at all, came the break. It was +like the shattering of brittle glass. +</P> + +<P> +Cecille rocked to crazy mirth. +</P> + +<P> +"She had them put me out!" she shouted. "She called the matron and had +her put me out! She said the language I'd used before her was +positively vicious. She said I'd—contaminate—those—worthy—working +girls!" +</P> + +<P> +And it took Felicity almost three-quarters of an hour to bring her +round. In one brief interval of calm she managed to slip to the +telephone and call a taxi. The rest of the time she spent on her knees +beside the girl in the chair crooning softly. And she never knew that +most of the words she set to her soothing, extemporaneous tune would +have contaminated anybody, most of all Mrs. Schuyler Driggs herself. +</P> + +<P> +At eleven-thirty, when Cecille was crying comfortably, she rose. And +seeing that her work was well done, she became brisk. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll get a bawling out from Fiegenspann," she said, and ran to a +window. "Thank God, that taxi's here. And now you'd better get to +bed. Maybe hereafter you'll know better than to mix it with somebody +outa your class. You oughta known in the first place that perfect +ladies have got it all over girls like us, before we start. They've +got everything fixed, the judges and the referee, before you step into +the ring." +</P> + +<P> +She ran out—and flashed back. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't get me wrong, Cele." For one reason or another she hurried it. +"I ain't got time to explain just what I meant to say, but there's one +thing I didn't mean. Don't get me wrong. If you ain't a lady, then +I'm the Prince of Wales." +</P> + +<P> +That was the second time Cecille heard it. +</P> + +<P> +"A girl like us." +</P> + +<P> +After a time her sobs subsided until they were no more than long, +unsteady breaths. But she stayed at the window, staring down into the +street. Once she dug the knuckles of one fist into her eyes and +wistfully shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," she whispered. "I wonder." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAMPION! CHAMPION! +</H3> + + +<P> +Perry Blair, champion lightweight of the world, stood on the corner of +Broadway and Forty-fourth Street, deep in contemplation of a quaint +phase of our present-day democracy. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fertile spot for such moralizing, albeit somewhat exposed for +one attempting philosophy in a fall-weight overcoat. For nowhere in +all this world could one hope to come upon a crowd better schooled in +the rules of hero-worship, American-style, than this eleventh-hour mob +which was pouring like tide-rips from side-street theaters into the +city's main thoroughfare. +</P> + +<P> +Much has been written, of a distinctly pathetic flavor, concerning the +case of a king without a throne. From days immemorial such hapless +figures have been somehow invested by historians with a melancholy +glamour; and yet this appears to be true only of those royal +individuals who came by their thrones in the easiest way—that of +inheritance. The kings of high endeavor who have won to the pinnacle +by force of their own stoutness of heart—in other words the popular +idols of a fickle public, who have scarce begun to get acquainted with +the dizzy uncertainty of their pedestals before the pedestal be rudely +removed from beneath them—rarely find the world inclined to melancholy +interest in their plight. Ridicule is the commonest manifestation of +any interest whatsoever, ridicule and an unfathomable contempt. +</P> + +<P> +For some time Perry Blair had been finding this hard to understand. +The adulation had been so overwhelming at first, so whole-hearted and +seeming sincere one brief year before. Why, even six months back he +could not have stood there thus, a tenth as long, before the copper +name-shield of the Claridge, without collecting about him a fawning, +favor-hunting throng so dense, so tenacious, and troublesome to traffic +that it would have brought the officer from his place beside the +surface-car tracks, caustic-tongued, to investigate and disperse it. +Nor would that officer have ordered them to move on, six months before, +once he had discovered what monarch it was who held informal court +there. He would have paused for a bluff joke or two himself, a knowing +word of importance, before returning to loose his indignation upon some +luckless wight of a family man, self-conscious and clumsy in what is +known as a tin lizzie. +</P> + +<P> +They had hailed him so noisily, so elatedly, press and public alike. +That the latter had fawned and flattered should have warned him what to +expect, later on, but it did not. The greater wonder is that it did +not go to his head a little. It seemed it couldn't help but do that. +</P> + +<P> +It had been so sudden. Mediocrity one day, and obscurity. +Mediocrity—and then world's champion, and the fierce white light which +beats upon a throne! Of course there had been some to sneer. Here and +there one had arisen to point out that Fanchette, the man whom he had +whipped in one round, had been but a shell of a man, champion in name +only, for a long, long time. They said the victory proved nothing. +They said that Perry Blair had just been lucky, that was all; lucky in +being selected as the one least calculated to damage Fanchette after a +whole year in which the latter had steadfastly refused to fight. Lucky +in having that fox, Devereau, for a manager, cunning enough to decoy +Fanchette into the ring. +</P> + +<P> +But in the main they swarmed to his standard. The king was dead. And +he had lingered tediously, at that. +</P> + +<P> +The newspapers welcomed Perry avidly. Fanchette as a subject for copy +had long been profitless as a sucked orange. Here again was the +novelty of newness and a personality of exceeding richness and color. +Or at least so ran report. No crack men had been sent out to cover the +affair. That such an astounding thing as the rise of a new champion +threatened had been foreseen by few. In the East Perry Blair had been +little known and reckoned a third-rater. But those who had been West +to see the bout which ended so suddenly brought back fragments which +put a nice edge upon the imaginations of the sporting editors. And +immediately, when in reality there was no need, had begun the +well-known process of gilding the lily. +</P> + +<P> +They featured his out-of-doors life; the romance of the country boy +again. They dwelt upon his modesty, his extreme reticence, his +hardihood and rigid habit of clean living. They twanged all the +strings that had ever sounded before in honor of other champions. And +Broadway—that certain ring which can give you off-hand the exact +poundage of Nelson when he met Gans, or the fastest time in which the +Futurity has ever been run, or the name of the latest female whose +intimate measurements have just been declared by one of a half dozen +greatest living artists to be a reproach to the Venus de Milo, all +without wrinkling its forehead in thought—that portion of Broadway, to +use its own expression, ate it up. +</P> + +<P> +And yet when Perry Blair came East an odd thing happened. When he came +East and they found that every word which they had read with such +approval was the literal truth, and not just the industry of an astute +press-agent, they were nonplused. Even suspicious, I believe. And +outraged in the end. +</P> + +<P> +It must have been a shock to them to find in Perry Blair a sportsman, +when they had expected a dead game sport. They had been waiting to lay +at his feet (at a price) the spoils due a conqueror, spoils neither +savory nor shining, but those which other champions had demanded and +relished, until they waked to find themselves champion no more. And +when Blair ignored these things they distrusted him. +</P> + +<P> +From the outset his reticence, which had been lauded, nettled them. By +some obscure process of reasoning it convicted him of conceit, a mean +and stingy conceit, unpardonable even among those to whom self-esteem +was as natural as the drawing of breath. Eternal poseurs themselves, +they adjudged his modesty a pose, yet somehow could not forgive it. +And his decency bred hatred in a few. +</P> + +<P> +The growth of antagonism was too slow, too intricate, to be retraced +here. It is effect and not cause with which we are concerned. And one +instance alone will serve to show, how finally was wrecked that +popularity which had been so swiftly created. One interview between +Perry and Devereau explains it well. +</P> + +<P> +The reply which Perry Blair made to the invitation sent him several +months after his arrival in Manhattan, by Pig-iron Dunham, is still +verbal currency upon the Tenderloin. Conversational small change, to +be sure, but still in circulation. +</P> + +<P> +Dunham had bidden him to one of his famous little dinners. Infamous? +Well, it's all in the point of view. Some of them have been spoken of +warmly by those who have attended, though guardedly. +</P> + +<P> +Perry Blair was more outspoken. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell Dunham," he directed the messenger who had brought the invitation +quite privately, "tell Dunham that if it had to be one or the other I'd +chose to dine decently with a four-footed hog, in a trough." +</P> + +<P> +The messenger, one of many who believed that Pig-iron Dunham, having +amassed millions in the industry which had given him his name, was a +philanthropist in spending it so liberally, thought to have heard +wrong. So Perry repeated again for him the message with something +added for emphasis. This time he believed his ears and bore it as +nearly intact as possible to Dunham. And when, hours later it came +word for word to Devereau, the latter turned pale. For many days he +had been hearing rumors disturbing to his ideas of managerial +authority, but had laid them to jealousy. He believed them now. He +sought out Blair. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen!" He plunged strongly in. He thought he knew when to tread +softly, when to brow-beat. "Listen, kid! You've pulled a boner. +A'course I shoulda wised you up earlier about Dunham but I thought you +were on. I thought everybody was. But you can't treat Pig-iron this +way. Why—why—why he—he's—" +</P> + +<P> +What he had wanted to say was that Dunham, Benevolent Patron of the +Street, was not accustomed to having his favors rebuffed so crudely, +but he couldn't quite manage it. So he fell back upon earnest +repetition. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't treat him like this!" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't?" asked Perry Blair. "I just have." +</P> + +<P> +Devereau didn't like that tone. He was just discovering a lot of +things about his light-weight champion which he didn't like. But he +kept his temper. He was famed for that. Famed for his oily smoothness +under provocation. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure! Your mistake—and my fault. But it ain't too late to square +it," he said. "You just send over word that you'll be pleased to death +to be at his dinner, and it'll still be all right. I'll square it. +And don't you worry. You won't be bored. Pig-iron's dinners +are—now—well—" He closed an obscene lid. "A good time will be had +by all! And Pig-iron will be pleased to have you there. Pig-iron, he +likes to entertain the latest celebrities." +</P> + +<P> +Blair's voice made him start. +</P> + +<P> +"He can't entertain me," said Perry. "Not a little bit." +</P> + +<P> +And suddenly with that Devereau was suave no longer. He leaped up and +thumped upon a desk. He slitted his pale eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, what d'yuh think you are?" he raved. "Talking to me like that!" +</P> + +<P> +Blair did not attempt to shout him down, and yet he made himself heard. +</P> + +<P> +"Not Pig-iron Dunham's man," he answered. "Nor yet yours. Are you +thinking to tell me how I shall talk?" +</P> + +<P> +Devereau could not have told why his rage was so red. Why he hated the +other so swiftly. But he mastered his voice. He had seen something +like this coming, not so unpleasant, however, or so difficult to +handle. He had imagined when the time came they would talk it over, +amicably, like good business men. But that was out of the question +now. It had always been out of the question, but he'd realized that +tardily. But they'd have it out. There could be no better time. +</P> + +<P> +"No?" he drawled. "No?" Sarcasm lent his words a sing-song quality. +</P> + +<P> +"No? Not Dunham's man? Not mine? Well-well! Ha-ha!" +</P> + +<P> +And then, savagely: +</P> + +<P> +"So that's it! It's true, heh? They been trying to tell me so for +weeks, all up and down the line, and I been telling 'em they'd got you +wrong. The swelled head, is it? But pardon me, Mr. Blair. Who am I +to speak thus to the world's champion? Delusions of grandeur, I should +say. Pardon my coarseness!" Sudden laughter split wide his lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Champion!" he bawled. "World's champion! Oh, my Gawd!" +</P> + +<P> +Perry sat silent and watched him. Little by little he recognized that +this was not acting. This was real. He waited and watched. +</P> + +<P> +"So you been followin' the papers, Mr. Blair," chanted Devereau. +Having struck this vein of satire and found it rich he followed it up. +"Full of lovely reading these days, now aren't they?" +</P> + +<P> +That was not so; not as it was meant. Perry had found the columns +devoted to himself singularly flat and devoid of interest. There was +only one item, in fact, which never failed. Only one which he always +read, the daily quotation on livestock. But he kept quiet. His eyes +alone were attentive. +</P> + +<P> +"So you've been reading the papers!" Mincingly Devereau went back and +picked it up. "Well-well! Ha-ha!" But hard after came again that +half-blind, half-incoherent rage. +</P> + +<P> +"Listen, now, you! You listen! Listen, and I'll give you an interview +that's never been put on any press." +</P> + +<P> +And he gave it to him, briefly, coldly. He repeated substantially what +the carpers had said at the time Perry won the title. +</P> + +<P> +"Champion?" he said. "Sure—because I made you champion. Because +Fanchette wouldn't a'stepped into the ring with Jimmy Montague, or +Jigger Holliday; no, nor even old Kid Fall. I know, believe me I know, +because I tried him with all of 'em. Not for the purse that was +offered. He wasn't looking to commit suicide at bargain prices. +</P> + +<P> +"But you? He'd take a chance on you. Sure he would. Who the hell was +Perry Blair, anyway? He knew that Montague'd cut him to pieces. +Holliday'd have tore off his lid. So I swung him to you. +</P> + +<P> +"And why? Because I thought you'd listen to reason. Oh, you don't +believe it. Ask Dunham. Are you still such a hick that you don't know +he was behind that match? Why, he's behind 'em all—nine tenths of +'em. His bankroll is." +</P> + +<P> +"Whose right hand was it put Fanchette but?" asked Perry mildly. +</P> + +<P> +"Pah!" slurred Devereau. "Pah! I coulda done it myself." +</P> + +<P> +But Blair's quietness fooled him. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not saying that it wasn't convincing." He thought it time to +placate. "It was neat. I've gave you credit. Sure! You looked +great. You looked like a world-beater, in there against Fanchette. +But that's just what I'm trying to get at. Oh, Dunham and I talked it +over before anybody in this burg knew you were alive. That's what I'm +trying to get at. You been crabbin' your own act; you been making it +hard for yourself. You gotta play it up now. You gotta work different. +</P> + +<P> +"Nowadays a champ has just two outs. He's got to be a glad hand +artist, or a bruiser. That covers it. He's either got to be so +popular that they don't care much who he fights, so long as he's a good +showman, or he's got to take them all on as they come. All the hard +ones, and the harder the better, till one of 'em puts him to sleep." +</P> + +<P> +Devereau's voice acquired a whine, the plaintive note of a man whose +sincere best efforts have gone unappreciated. +</P> + +<P> +"And I had it all figured out. I been doing all the headwork for you. +I figured how we'd sidestep Montague and Holliday—all the tough +birds—just as long as we could stall 'em off. And pick up a nice +piece of change. Your share'd be enough so's you'd not need to worry. +And we'd made a great start. They were dead sick of Fanchette. The +papers were wild for somebody new. And they put you over better'n we +could have done it ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +"But you gotta work different. They liked you at first. They ain't so +dead sure they give a damn about you now. You gotta be a good boy. +More of a mixer. The crowd has been waitin' a long time for you to +loosen up and slip 'em a piece of news that can be cashed. And they're +getting sulky. A'course that's my fault too. I admit it. But it +couldn't be helped. There wasn't much you coulda tipped 'em off to, +but you shoulda stalled 'em along. You should have promised 'em +something when the time was right. But it's right now, now that you're +matched with Hughie. You can tell 'em just how to get aboard. It's +time, before some of 'em get good and sore, and begin to holler for you +to meet Montague." +</P> + +<P> +"I can whip Montague," said Perry. "Holliday I'm not so sure of. But +Montague I can whip, the best day he ever stood in shoes." +</P> + +<P> +It maddened Devereau again. Just when he was beginning to congratulate +himself that his work was good. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't lick him," he choked. "You couldn't lick him even if he was +handcuffed and shackled to a ball and chain." He tossed aloft his arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Champion! You, champion! Oh, my Gawd!" +</P> + +<P> +He strode across the room. But he came back swiftly to the boy who had +not moved in his chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Get this now!" he barked. He was done with talk. Done with argument. +</P> + +<P> +"Get this, because when I'm finished this time, I'm through. I've got +my coin in this thing and so has Dunham. And we're going to drag down +what we put in with a little something for interest. We're going to +get ours, and then you can fight Montague and be damned—or Holliday. +You can go throw your nice new title into the gutter as soon as you +please, for all of me, and try being first prize sucker of the world +for a change. But first I get mine. How I hate a fool!" +</P> + +<P> +"You're fighting Hughie Gay a week from Saturday. All right. Hughie's +a set-up. I saw to that. You can pick 'em yourself hereafter. But +right now your orders is to let Hughie stay the distance. A week from +Saturday. Is that clear? Have you got that—sure?" +</P> + +<P> +Blair sat silent. It is strange how silence will fool a man like +Devereau. He made one last try for peace. +</P> + +<P> +"And if you behave; if you're a good boy maybe we're going to forget we +had this little misunderstanding. There's others besides Hughie just +as soft. But if you're dead set on finding out who is boss; if you +want to know whether you're Dunham's man or not, why just cross them +orders. Pig-iron's got ten thousand on that fight—ten thousand that +you don't win by a knock-out, if you win at all. And if you cost him +that ten—Well, just dump it, if you want to see!" +</P> + +<P> +"I fight on the level," said Perry, "or I don't fight at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you don't fight at all," said Devereau. +</P> + +<P> +Blair held him a long time with an eye that was chill. His voice was +quieter than before, if that were possible. +</P> + +<P> +"I have sat here and taken talk from you, you vermin, that I'd take +from no man, because I could figure no other way. They know, +downstairs, that you are up here with me. If I kill you they will hang +me, and I do not choose to hang for one like you. If I laid a finger +on you, that would be assault, and you and your friends would swear me +into jail. That would be high card for you. It would fill your hand. +So I must sit here idle. But some day, maybe, I'm going to come upon +you with no circumstances to hinder. And if I do I'm going to change +you. You do not please me, as you are. Some day I hope to alter you +so that you will be a curio, even to your own best friends.… Get +out!" +</P> + +<P> +The chill eye had frightened Devereau. It heartened him to hear that +he was safe. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll put you out on the street," he snarled. "You'll be standing on +a corner, wondering what it's all about!" +</P> + +<P> +"Get out!" +</P> + +<P> +Devereau got. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FELICITY CROSSES BROADWAY +</H3> + + +<P> +And Perry Blair <I>had</I> wanted to see. He hadn't listened to reason. He +hadn't been a good boy. His bout with Gay was a repetition of that +with Fanchette, the former title-holder. A brief half minute of +boxing, a feint—and Gay on the canvas for the count of ten. +</P> + +<P> +He had wanted to see. He had been consumed with desire to see. And it +had happened quickly. +</P> + +<P> +The victory failed to raise a second wave of adulation, even a ripple, +in fact. Instead it was received oddly with scarcely any comment at +all. Even the papers had but little to say, and that little +noncommittal. For there were rumors. Devereau and Pig-iron Dunham had +done some preliminary work in anticipation of the worst. And after the +worst had come to be they went to work in earnest. +</P> + +<P> +It was Devereau, Blair's own manager—ex-manager, the day after the Gay +bout—who gave out the interview announcing the severance of business +relations with the champion. There were reasons, he said, but he was +not explicit. He left them veiled at first, purposely obscure. +</P> + +<P> +What was the use of discussing it? Blair was a fluke champion anyway. +Everybody knew that. Chance had made him, chance which had been +luckless for Jimmy Montague. Montague, he said, had been selected as +the logical man to meet Fanchette, the man whose record entitled him to +the choice, long before any word of the proposed match had been given +to the public. But Fanchette, after his prolonged inactivity, had +demurred at meeting, immediately, so formidable an opponent. So they +had selected Blair, merely as a work-out for the title-holder. And the +unforeseen had happened. Fanchette had proved to be through. +Anyone—anyone could have whipped him. +</P> + +<P> +But what about Gay? That was the natural question and they asked it. +Blair had disposed of him, also in the first round. +</P> + +<P> +But to that Devereau made no answer, no verbal answer, at least. He +did not point out that Hughie was a set-up, a second-rater. No, +indeed. He shrugged his shoulders—shrugged them almost audibly. +</P> + +<P> +"I had nothing to do with it," he said. "Absolutely. Ask Blair about +it. I've quit him." +</P> + +<P> +Pig-iron Dunham, who paid the bills, and Devereau who was cunning, did +just what the latter had promised they would do. In a few short months +they put Perry Blair, light-weight champion of the world, out on the +sidewalk. +</P> + +<P> +It can't be done? It is done every day, in politics. It needs only a +practiced hand. +</P> + +<P> +For a day or two following Devereau's unsatisfactory laconism nothing +developed. And then a bombshell exploded. Hughie Gay made a +statement. He took oath, solemn oath (and cheap, too, for it cost +Dunham but two hundred dollars), that he had sold out. Blair had +realized that he was no champion; he had feared even him, Gay. So +before the fight Blair had paid him well to throw it. And he had done +so. +</P> + +<P> +Thus, you see, they learned logically why Devereau had quit Perry. +Devereau was square. Sure! This proved it. You said it! They +understood perfectly those eloquent shoulder shrugs now. And they +raised a righteous clamor. Perry Blair denied the charge, and offered +to meet Gay again, anywhere, for any charity. And they replied, with +equal logic, that every reputable club in the country should bar him +thenceforth. +</P> + +<P> +In a short interview, not as unsatisfactory as Devereau's, Pig-iron +Dunham broke a rule and talked for publication. +</P> + +<P> +"It is the sort of thing which has given a bad name to a clean and +manly sport in this state," he said. "I sincerely trust, however, that +all true lovers of the squared circle will put the blame where it +belongs." +</P> + +<P> +And in the meantime his paid mouthpieces parroted everywhere the words +in which they had been drilled. He has no punch at all, they said; he +can't hit. He has no science, they said; he is slow as a freight. He +has not the fighter's heart. He's yellow—yellow! And that word stuck. +</P> + +<P> +The clique which had rated his reticence stingy was eager to believe. +They needed no persuading. So no throngs gathered round him any more. +Those who had fawned passed by on the far side of the street, lest +crudely he recall past accommodations. And, passing, they smiled. And +the public, that public to which a world's champion was something +picturesque at which to crane the neck, if they recognized him at all +now, had to concentrate to remember what it was that they had read +lately about him. Crooked? That was bad. Not clever enough to get +away with it? That was worse. Yellow? Well, that was unpardonable in +any man. And they hardly hid their contempt. +</P> + +<P> +After a few fruitless attempts Perry gave up trying to find a new +manager and sought bouts for himself. He found them, but on such terms +that they were always impossible. He challenged Jimmy Montague, which +was a bad tactical error, but he had been just a little panicky at +first. He challenged Montague who was being hailed as the logical +title-holder, and in so doing seemed tacitly to admit that he realized +the claim was good. +</P> + +<P> +Montague ignored him. +</P> + +<P> +He challenged Holliday, and he was afraid of Holliday, too. And +Holliday made game of him noisily. +</P> + +<P> +"What'll it get me to fight you?" he wanted to know. "If I stub me toe +and fall down, somebody'll raise a yelp that you bought me off. Not +me! Us girls has got to be careful. Besides, I'm looking for a battle +with the real champ." +</P> + +<P> +It can't be done? Oh, they did it. +</P> + +<P> +The night that Cecille Manners had hysterics and Felicity was hurrying +because she knew that Fiegenspann would "bawl her out" if she was very +late, Perry Blair had been standing from eleven o'clock until a quarter +to twelve on the corner of Broadway and Forty-fourth Street, too proud +to turn the collar of his light coat up against the winter cold, too +broke to buy a heavy one. He'd almost decided to hunt a job, anything +that would bring enough to take him back home. The Dream? Girl o' +Mine? It hurt his throat to think of these,—made him blink his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +So they had undermined him. +</P> + +<P> +He was standing on a corner wondering what it was all about. But in +that last three-quarters of an hour he had achieved something at least, +a terse sentence that must, it seems, epitomize the sentiments of every +idol who ever shared his predicament, every king who ever lacked a +throne. +</P> + +<P> +He nodded his head over it, and voiced it pensively. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a great world," he muttered, "if you don't weaken." +</P> + +<P> +Then he saw that she would very likely be killed if someone didn't do +something about it besides shout. He weighed the chances, in an +infinitesimal fraction of a second, and decided they were such that any +good gambler could scarcely ignore. So he bunched his muscles and +sprang. +</P> + +<P> +Felicity's taxi had met a traffic tie-up at Forty-seventh Street which +made further direct advance impossible. In obedience to her plain +request for haste the driver had tried it to the west, found that way +cut off, and so detoured to the east. When, however, he wriggled up to +Broadway on Forty-fourth Street he had met with no better luck. +</P> + +<P> +Here was a din of horns, of racing motors, of harried traffic police. +But not much chance of progress. So Felicity paid him and stepped off +the running-board into the thick of it to have a try on foot at the +very moment when the nearest officer thought to have it cleared. +</P> + +<P> +He raised an arm and roared, bull-voiced: +</P> + +<P> +"Come on there, now!" +</P> + +<P> +And promptly the drivers of the two cars which had been at the heart of +the snarl, like key logs in a jam, both heckled, both in the wrong and +filled with unsaid things, trod harshly upon their accelerators. +Wire-wheeled sedan and lemon-tinted limousine, up-town bound and +cross-town bound, they leaped simultaneously forward, as Felicity +stepped between. +</P> + +<P> +Bystanders screamed so efficiently that their shrill tumult drowned the +wail of overtaxed brakedrums. But that would have helped Felicity +little. Nor could the brakes, for that matter. The lunging start had +been too strong, the space too short to stop in. +</P> + +<P> +Perry Blair, about whom those who screamed had heard something +unpleasant—oh, yes, yellow!—lanced down the narrowing aisle between +radiator and fenders. He struck Felicity like a vicious tackler yet +did not go down, but leaped again. As the cars crunched together they +slithered through the crowd, across the walk, against a wall, into a +heap. And the fall hurt Perry a little, even accustomed as he was to +the taking of blows yieldingly. He was slow to rise. The girl was +quickly up. +</P> + +<P> +"Last down!" she gasped, but her exclamation was somewhat pallid like +her wit. "Hold 'em, Yale!" +</P> + +<P> +Then, while she still faltered, uncertain, shaken, the occupant of the +lemon-tinted limousine came swiftly to her. He was a great hulk of a +man, yet light on his feet with that nimbleness which seems often +astonishing in huge people. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me put you in my car, Miss Brown," he begged, "and set you safely +across. Not badly bruised, I trust?" +</P> + +<P> +She gave him a flash of a glance and gasped again, but this time +inaudibly. His ease with her name did not surprise her. He'd seen her +often enough to know that. But this, she realized, was the first time +that she had really been impressed upon him. Not too steadily, +therefore, that she might need assistance, she let him help her back +across the sidewalk, to the car, and thus away. Pig-iron Dunham? Of +course. Knowing Felicity there is small cause to wonder that she went +without even remembering to thank her rescuer. +</P> + +<P> +He was getting up now, the target of few eyes. Most of those who +lingered at all were staring after Dunham, Felicity and the lemon +limousine. And Perry was congratulating himself, even while with an +odd, detached expression he watched them go, that he had damaged but +little his clothing, when a hand fell on his sleeve. +</P> + +<P> +Perry turned to find a reporter, Hamilton by name, peering at him +quizzically. +</P> + +<P> +"Forgot to thank you, did she?" he laughed. "Oh, well, better come +along over to the Roof with me and watch her caper, and give her +another chance." +</P> + +<P> +Perry didn't know whether he liked Hamilton or not, but he didn't +instinctively distrust him. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is she?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"You really don't know?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know many girls in this town." +</P> + +<P> +"Hm-m-m," said Hamilton. "Thought everybody knew her. Felicity Brown. +Aero Octet." And he repeated his invitation. +</P> + +<P> +"She'll want to thank you for preventing damage to life or limb." He +couldn't have said exactly what made him voice the rest, unless it was +the way the boy's eyes had followed her. +</P> + +<P> +"And believe me, damage to life or limb, it would have been an equal +catastrophe to Felicity. Come on along." +</P> + +<P> +Perry hung back. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you know," he hesitated, "that you can lose your reputation just +from being seen talking to me?" +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton laughed again. He saw, however, that Perry's mind was not +upon what he was saying. And who shall say when fancy first was bred? +Not you—or I—or even Hamilton. But the latter might have hazarded a +shrewd guess. And a man, it would seem, has a little excuse for +falling in love with a girl with Felicity's looks, whose life he just +has saved. +</P> + +<P> +"Come along," urged Hamilton. "I want to hear about that mess. I've +been six months in Mexico." But he eyed the boy with deeper curiosity +as they crossed Broadway. +</P> + +<P> +"Who was the man?" +</P> + +<P> +Perry spoke just once to ask that question, before they left the +white-lit street for the elevator. +</P> + +<P> +"Dunham." +</P> + +<P> +Yet somehow Hamilton was sure that the other had known all along. And +the quizzical eyes became malicious. If the boy was falling in love +with Felicity he anticipated with glee unholy complications. Dunham's +alacrity at the scene of the accident no man could underestimate. +Pig-iron Dunham didn't, indiscriminately, beg young ladies to let the +limousine bear them across Broadway in safety, or anywhere else, for +that matter. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, some hours later, when he had left Perry Blair waiting for +Felicity at the mouth of the alley which ran back to the Roof's stage +door, Hamilton found himself with little relish for the complications +which he had so wisely foreseen. Perry's story of the trouble with +Devereau and Dunham he had had in full, and believed. He had wanted to +do something and realized that there was not much which he could do. +</P> + +<P> +And now this. It was funny—but it wasn't so damned funny either. +Why, the kid was just—well, just a kid. And Felicity had been sweet +to him. Very sweet and simple, in spite of his own none too well +curbed sarcasm. Under Dunham's eye—because she knew that Dunham's eye +was always upon her—she had sat long at their table, a slim thing in +new-grass green, so prettily grateful that she suggested pink sashes +and dimity. And Felicity wasn't a pink-sash-and-dimity girl. Hamilton +knew that. But did Perry Blair? Just a kid! Dammitt! But nobody, +not even a kid, had any right monkeying with Broadway, or Felicity, if +he couldn't take care of himself. +</P> + +<P> +Yet Hamilton, after he had said good-night, lingered a while. And +again—immediately—something which he had anticipated came to pass. +</P> + +<P> +The lemon limousine was waiting at the curb. And Dunham stepped out of +it, again with his preposterous nimbleness, when Felicity appeared. He +stood holding wide the door. But the girl gave him only a nice little +nod. She slipped her hand happily into the crook of Perry's arm. +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton had a glimpse of Pig-iron Dunham's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Hooked!" he exclaimed. "Hooked!" +</P> + +<P> +But he had a good look at Perry Blair's too, as the pair passed. +</P> + +<P> +"Dammitt!" he snapped. "Dammitt!" And yet folks wondered why a chap +who knocked around this city hunting news sometimes drank more than was +good for him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AS WILLOWS BUD IN SPRING +</H3> + + +<P> +Cecille was still up, staring out of the window, when Felicity and +Perry Blair came in that night. Perry stayed but a moment, only long +enough to promise that he would come again. Then he was gone. And +Felicity was standing before the other girl, every line of her pulsing +triumph. +</P> + +<P> +"Not him!" Cecille cried. She could not have understood the triumph +better had Felicity explained with a torrent of words. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, not him!" with quick, unthinking horror. "He—he's only a boy." +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" demanded Felicity blankly. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr—Mr. Blair." +</P> + +<P> +Felicity's laugh was staccato. +</P> + +<P> +"Him? Good Lord, no. Dunham!" She fairly sang it. "Dunham. +Pig-iron Dunham. I knew if I waited I'd cop. Now watch me. Watch my +dust!" +</P> + +<P> +Cecille wondered why she didn't pack her bag and get out. But she +didn't. She stayed. And later, a little timidly, she inquired about +Blair. +</P> + +<P> +"Perry Blair?" Felicity with a racing tongue had been describing how +Dunham led her away from the near-accident. +</P> + +<P> +"Perry? Oh, he's a prize-fighter. Light-weight champion, or he was +for a minute or so. He wouldn't play the game when he had his chance, +I guess, so Dunham and the bunch broke him. Something like that. I +never did hear the inside stuff. But they say he was a bust +anyway—just a morning-glory—and didn't know his luck. But do I? Did +I play the game to-night? Did I pass up Pig-iron and his limousine to +come home in a flat-wheeled trolley with my hero, who's already made +him sore once? Oh, didn't I though! I guess I'm crazy!" +</P> + +<P> +Cecille recoiled a little from that. +</P> + +<P> +A prize-fighter. A bruiser. A plug-ugly. But—but—why, that wasn't +possible. And if your idea of such a one is what Cecille's once was, +neither will he fill your eye. +</P> + +<P> +Just a kid. Hamilton had hit it off aptly at that. Level-eyed and +diffident of tongue, with only a hint of his hidden bodily perfection +lurking in breadth of shoulder and slenderness of waist. +</P> + +<P> +A prize-fighter! Cecille fell asleep wondering how soon he would come +again. As to whether he would come at all she was never for a moment +in doubt. Once she had watched his eyes follow Felicity across the +room she <I>knew</I>. But she hadn't felt sorry for him as Hamilton had. +She felt sorry for herself and bitter against Perry. For the time she +hated him. +</P> + +<P> +Nor did she have to wonder long. Perry came the next night and +escorted Felicity to the Roof. And the next. And next. Then Felicity +realized that it would not be good policy to make Dunham sulk. Indeed +she knew her luck. Indeed she played the game. The third evening she +left Perry at home with Cecille. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-142"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-142.jpg" ALT="Lucky interference." BORDER="2" WIDTH="632" HEIGHT="444"> +<H3> +[Illustration: Lucky interference.] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +And for six whole weeks Broadway nudged and watched it. Broadway +watched Perry Blair's courtship of Felicity and Dunham's, if you can +call the latter's unhurried pursuit that. Dunham was complacent and +patient, Felicity's tactics were not new to him and he did not mind +being made conspicuous. And Perry Blair never knew they nudged; never +knew they laughed. There is some satisfaction in that. But it is far +finer, I think, to be sure that Broadway never guessed at all of the +other courtship which went steadily forward in the same interval, +elementally, naturally as willows bud in spring. Perry himself was +unaware of it. Cecille too—for a while. +</P> + +<P> +For Felicity left him oftener and oftener to the other girl. And +almost immediately a common need for the companionship of the other was +born in both of them. Upon the boy's part it must have been the urge +to carry on his courtship, even vicariously. Lonesomeness was the way +Cecille explained it to herself until with the passage of a little time +she could no longer tell herself that lie and believe it. And that +marked the beginning of a long bad period for her. +</P> + +<P> +She ceased soon to hate him when he spoke of Felicity. Whenever he +observed haltingly, as he did over and over again, that it was no place +for a girl like her (Fiegenspann's) and that she should be gotten out +before it was too late, she learned to agree with him mechanically. +Instead of hating his blindness, as persistently as she dared she swung +the conversation more and more to other things. +</P> + +<P> +From the beginning she found it hard to make him talk about himself. +That instantly set him apart from all other men in her experience. For +they had talked of little else. And yet, when finally she had it from +him, she found his ambition anything but vague. +</P> + +<P> +"I like animals," he told her on one such occasion, "and the—the +country. I guess that's what I am, a country boy. I sure would like +to own a ranch." +</P> + +<P> +He'd not pressed her so eagerly for her hopes. Scarcely. His +singleness of interest at least was wholly masculine. But that didn't +deter her. She found herself giving them to him just the same, just as +eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"A ranch!" she seized hungrily upon that word. "A home! A white house +on a hill with light green shutters. The house, of course, not the +hill." She went further. +</P> + +<P> +"And a white and blue kitchen." Her haste to tell him was bubbling. +"With aluminum pots and pans. Dozens! A whole set!" +</P> + +<P> +And, somehow subdued: +</P> + +<P> +"They're very expensive." +</P> + +<P> +Broadway never knew anything about that courtship. But Felicity used +to wake up, now and then, and hear the other girl crying softly in the +night. +</P> + +<P> +It was a long bad period for Cecille. At first the birth of this +wholly new thing within her baffled her own power to reason. She +watched its mushroom growth with fascination, just a little aghast. +But when, all in a kind of cataclysmic flash, she thought to recognize +it for what it was, she shrank away as if from a malignant fungus. +</P> + +<P> +From the first evening one thing had intrigued her. Her discovery that +the sensation of pervading cleanliness which she always had from him +was not a result of the careful clothes he wore but something more +essential made her remember how the Sunday-groomed louts of other days, +reeking with cheap toilet water and hair oil, had filled her with dull +loathing. She had never attempted an analysis of that distaste. Now +trying to analyze its opposite, in the case of Perry Blair, she arrived +at a disquieting certainty. She found she could no more be near him, +no more glance at him, without being conscious of him physically, than +she could strike her head against a wall and not be hurt. +</P> + +<P> +She realized more. She realized how keenly she liked being near him. +She realized how often, and for how long, she had been making little +opportunities to stand close, so that her shoulder brushed his. How +often she had contrived a fleeting contact of their hands. And yet if +anybody had tried to tell her that this was the blooming of a perfect +thing to be cherished all her days she would have suffered unutterably +that she had been found out. As it was she suffered sufficiently. She +cried too often into her pillow. But she wasn't yet wholly debased in +her own eyes. That came directly, inevitably. +</P> + +<P> +One Saturday afternoon, urged more enthusiastically by him than she had +ever been urged before, she accompanied him to a gymnasium far uptown. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm keeping in shape, you see," he told her without his usual +diffidence. "I don't know quite why. Everybody says I'm through, but +sometimes I think something may turn up. Enough to bring me a little +stake anyhow. And, anyway, it pays me a little. I'm working out with +Jack English. He's a welter; he's getting ready for a go with Levitt. +I've told you a lot about this business, but you can't judge much just +from talk. I—I'd like to have you come up and watch me box." +</P> + +<P> +There it was, of a sudden. There was his shyness again, so lamely come +upon him that it colored his face. And the halting boyishness of the +request had warmed Cecille's face too; warmed her through and through. +She knew an impulse to hug his head to her breast, a very mature and +motherly impulse. +</P> + +<P> +He had told her much of this business; so much that she hardly recoiled +from it at all. A welter—yes, she understood that. Between a +light-weight and a middle. +</P> + +<P> +But she hesitated so long that he thought he had guessed her objection +and hastened to reassure her. +</P> + +<P> +"There won't be anybody there," he said. "Nobody. Just English and +his trainer and me. You needn't be afraid—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not," she stopped him. "It's not—that." +</P> + +<P> +So she went. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MY LAD +</H3> + + +<P> +She found herself an hour later in a huge light room, with a floor like +a dance hall and much strange paraphernalia against the walls. Little +of it she was able to identify, though she took it all in with alert +and eager eyes. This was the chiefest part of his life, so she must +not even seem to slight it. The Indian clubs and dumb-bells—but they +were easy. And the roped-off square at one end. That was the ring. +</P> + +<P> +She found herself alone for a while, and was thrilled and excited and +very happy. And then a quiet man who was, she guessed correctly, +English's trainer came briskly toward her. +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't be afraid." So Perry had assured her. +</P> + +<P> +Surely not if this man's bearing was any criterion. He brought her a +chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you." Her voice sounded small in that high-ceiled room. He +only bowed in reply and went quietly away. +</P> + +<P> +And then the next time she looked up it was to find Perry standing +there beside her—a different Perry—a pagan Perry, stripped of all +save trunks and shoes, yet unconscious of his nakedness. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not afraid," she'd told him. "It's not that." +</P> + +<P> +Now she knew why she had hesitated about coming. And she was sorry, +and breathlessly glad. +</P> + +<P> +A pagan Perry, and one more beautiful than she otherwise could ever +have dreamed. And yet, after the first startled glance, while she +still dropped her head and put palms to her cheeks to hide a furious +color, his lack of self-consciousness dismayed her, until it occurred +to her that these were his working clothes—casual, ordinary. And with +that a queer thought, seemingly unrelated, flashed through her head. +She remembered that women almost never went to prize-fights—it was a +man's sport—and she was jealously glad over that. +</P> + +<P> +It shamed her. But she looked again. And again. And sudden rebellion +at that shame led her to a wholly spontaneous, wholly unconsidered act. +Perry was deep in abstraction. She knew what he was brooding over. +That made her rebellious, too. Suddenly she reached out and laid her +hand upon his bare shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +He looked around and smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Hard?" He believed he understood the expression he had surprised in +her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm in pretty good shape. I'm pretty hard." +</P> + +<P> +She made only a muffled attempt at reply. She found it, without +speaking, hard enough to breathe. +</P> + +<P> +Hard? Yes. Unexpectedly undeniable, like a billiard ball. Nor could +she very well stammer that it was the smoothness of his skin which had +stunned her. She dropped her head again. She could not have kept it +up after that and kept her eyelids open. +</P> + +<P> +When she finally lifted it Perry was already in the ring and English +vaulting the ropes. English was as unclothed as the other, yet she +found immediately that she could look at him without any disturbing +mixture of ecstasy and guilt. And even critically, too. He was thick, +bulky. He did not make one catch one's breath. And brown. And +Perry's whiteness! She took her lower lip between her teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"Time!" the trainer called. +</P> + +<P> +She cried sharply aloud. +</P> + +<P> +The sound came unsummoned, in spite of herself. +</P> + +<P> +Why, they had just been standing there together—just talking—just +laughing—just boys! But with that signal they had exploded into +action. No other word could hope to convey that sudden burst of motion. +</P> + +<P> +They touched gloves! She followed that. English tried to hit him! +She followed that. And then thud! thud! thud! She could not beat as +swiftly with one fist the palm of her other hand as Perry's glove +struck thrice the welter's face. +</P> + +<P> +Thud! thud! thud! And skip and shuffle—thud! And a straining, +desperate embrace. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he's so much bigger," she heard herself wailing. "He's <I>so</I> much +bigger!" +</P> + +<P> +And the trainer, remembering through it all her presence: +</P> + +<P> +"Watch it! Watch it! Watch—that—left—hand!" +</P> + +<P> +She saw then that it was Perry's short, jabbing, stiff left forearm +which perplexed the heavier man. She saw the latter set himself to +swing, and take it in the face, and go off balance. And set and take +it again. And she didn't cry out any more. She leaned forward, so +tensely set herself in every muscle that she found she was tired when +the trainer stopped it. +</P> + +<P> +"Time!" +</P> + +<P> +The trainer she learned then was not pleased. He snarled at Jack +English. But English only grinned. +</P> + +<P> +"Slow!" he said. "Slow! Oh, boy! So'd you look slow trying to pace +the Empire State Express." +</P> + +<P> +And there was more. Faster, faster and faster. And cruder! He could +never tell her again that this was merely sport. And English <I>was</I> +bigger and his size did count. At the last he seemed barely to snap +his right gloved hand forward, and Perry staggered back. +</P> + +<P> +"Time!" +</P> + +<P> +She thanked God, out loud, for that. +</P> + +<P> +Perry stood for a while, his back toward her, sagging against the +ropes. And English, one hand on his shoulder, was talking to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Is he hurt?" she weakly asked the trainer. +</P> + +<P> +He gave her a fleet glance. +</P> + +<P> +"Some. Not bad." And louder to the other two: +</P> + +<P> +"That's plenty." +</P> + +<P> +A second later Perry nodded across the room to her and went to dress. +But Jack English slid through the ropes and approached. There was some +blood on his lip, and he wiped it away. She marveled at so little sign +of conflict. He came straight to her, glistening with sweat. The +trainer threw him a robe, which he wrapped about him to his very chin. +She thought the welter-weight was bashful, too. And Irish—that +without a doubt from his bright eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Your lad?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"My—my what?" +</P> + +<P> +She'd hardly been ready for the abrupt question. It confused her. +</P> + +<P> +"Your steady?" This time he nodded toward the door through which Perry +had disappeared. +</P> + +<P> +Jack English was almost thirty—an old man for the prize-ring—and had +a family. Under his bright regard Cecille stammered, and stammered a +lie. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, not steadily, and very softly indeed. "Yes, my—my +lad." +</P> + +<P> +English nodded sagely. +</P> + +<P> +"Been worried about him lately, I suppose? Bothered by what folks are +saying?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—I haven't heard much," she said, and this was all the truth. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you!" he advised her. "Don't you listen. And don't you +believe, either." +</P> + +<P> +Still that bright regard. And thereupon Cecille realized that she had +been troubled deeply by one thing which she had heard. Felicity had +passed it on to her. +</P> + +<P> +"They say he cheated," she voiced it, wide-eyed. "That he has +a—yellow streak." +</P> + +<P> +"So's a Bengal tiger." Such succinctness was reassuring. "A whole lot +of 'em. And a man like him don't cheat. You'd oughta know that." +Laconic, but good to listen to. And again: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you worry. I never saw a man so fast—so quick! That's why I'm +using him. And some day—some day when he's in earnest—he's going to +find out that he can hit. And they? They've said words that they'll +choke then to swallow." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope so." Her voice was meek and small. +</P> + +<P> +"I know so," said English. "Don't you worry. You've picked a game +guy. He can take punishment. You stick!" +</P> + +<P> +"I—I mean to." Her voice was smaller still. +</P> + +<P> +She wanted to cry. +</P> + +<P> +And that night when they were riding home together upon a bus-top she +tried an experiment. How long they had been riding thus she did not +know, but all in a breath she was conscious of the contact of his knee. +That was what she had been avoiding—trying to make herself avoid—ever +since she'd grown aware of her impulse to stay always close. But now +she tried an experiment. She contemplated the contact contentedly for +a time. Then drew away. +</P> + +<P> +Perry had been thinking of Felicity. +</P> + +<P> +"Crowding you?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. And a minute later she let her knee move back +against him. Proved! Instantly the tiny pulse had picked up its +throbbing in her throat. Yet she let the contact endure. Defiant, she +rode all the way home that way. +</P> + +<P> +But the inevitable reaction came. Revulsion might be the more accurate +word applied to Cecille. That night she had stripped off one stocking +in preparation for bed; she had sat longer than she could have told, +broodingly studying her bare knee. +</P> + +<P> +"No smoother than he," she murmured at last. +</P> + +<P> +The sound of her own voice smote her, the thing that she had said. +</P> + +<P> +As her head flung up she encountered in a mirror her own reflection. +She stared, transfixed, at her image; her moist, curling mouth, her +dusky cheeks and eyelids drooping down. Then she closed her eyelids +tight to shut it out. She groped and found the light and snapped it +off. And she lay hours upon her face, her hair fanwise on her pillow, +sick and debased. +</P> + +<P> +She laid it to the pitch that she had touched. You <I>had</I> to be +defiled. But she didn't blame Felicity. She wasn't that kind of a +coward. It must be the slow poison of her frank creed. She'd fight +it. Game? She'd be game. But this time she refused to wonder why she +didn't pack her bag and get out. She couldn't. She knew she couldn't +go. She wondered why she couldn't cry. +</P> + +<P> +Thus she found a private little hell in what should have been pure +glory. +</P> + +<P> +But she fought. After she had admitted to herself that she loved him, +she crouched from it like something in a corner. Love? That wasn't +love! And yet Felicity in all her passionless calculation had never +once— +</P> + +<P> +It baffled her, bowed her down. It was too snarled now. She'd never +make it out. But she wouldn't go again to the gymnasium. No! But +what of that? She had only to close her eyes to see. She fought it. +</P> + +<P> +It was a very hot though private little hell. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DUNHAM TALKS BUSINESS +</H3> + + +<P> +And presently Perry learned why he had been keeping in shape. +Something did turn up. It happened in this wise: +</P> + +<P> +Felicity had been very canny; she'd made each trump card tell. And +with Perry Blair waved always in his face, Dunham had grown ugly. +</P> + +<P> +"You know I'm crazy about you," he complained. "Give that four-flusher +the gate." +</P> + +<P> +"A million Johns have told me that," Felicity answered. "Talk +business." +</P> + +<P> +But Dunham had refused to talk business. He was ugly about it. And +then he thought to see a way around. He sent for Perry Blair, and +Perry came. That surprised Dunham. He had expected in the end to have +to go to Blair. He did not know how Felicity, unwittingly, had helped +him. +</P> + +<P> +For Felicity, unable not to enjoy a little the boy's inarticulate +devotion, had indulged herself. With artistry that would have called +down from Hamilton even hotter sarcasm, she had let Perry glimpse her +soul; not the cheap and tawdry thing which unsympathetic persons were +likely to think it, but her real one, a little saddened, a little +forlorn! +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could get away from all this," she'd said, with appropriate +wistfulness. "I'm dead sick of it—sick of it all. I wish I could go +away—somewhere—anywhere where things are clean. Where there are +trees and growing grass—" +</P> + +<P> +It was a very good speech. She knew it must be because she had heard a +high-priced leading lady utter it in a three-dollar-and-a-half Broadway +success. +</P> + +<P> +And it proved effective uttered by Felicity. For it fooled Perry. +Fooled him badly just when he had begun to speculate a little +concerning her soul himself. Perry believed her. But then it is easy +for any woman to fool any man. Twice as easy when he wants so badly to +be fooled. +</P> + +<P> +Perry cursed his lack of ready money. And then Dunham sent for him. +And he went, hiding his eagerness. +</P> + +<P> +They held the conversation in Dunham's book-lined office. The books +were never used; the office saw strange usage. And the conference was +short. +</P> + +<P> +"Ready to be a good boy?" Dunham asked. +</P> + +<P> +Perry rose to leave. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down," said Dunham. "That was intended as a joke. My mistake." +</P> + +<P> +But it angered him; angered him almost as much as it did to look upon +the boy's unsquandered youth. +</P> + +<P> +"I've got something for you at last," he offered. "If you care to take +it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll listen," said Perry. +</P> + +<P> +So Dunham drew readily upon invention. +</P> + +<P> +"We've talked it over," he said. "Devereau and I and some of the other +boys. And we've decided that there's nothing in it for any of us as +the situation now stands. The title's too obscured. You claim it. So +does Montague. So we've decided to offer you a match with—" +</P> + +<P> +"I've challenged Montague," Perry interrupted. "He paid no attention +to it." +</P> + +<P> +"Not Montague," Dunham corrected silkily. "Holliday." +</P> + +<P> +And instantly Perry knew what Dunham hoped to do. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not Montague?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not Holliday?" countered Dunham, his voice silkier still. +</P> + +<P> +And Perry couldn't very well say because Montague was a boxer first and +a fighter afterward. He couldn't say because he knew they considered +Holliday, young, wicked, punishing, even more certain to whip him. He +hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"But you're going to whip Holliday," Dunham went on tentatively, as if +sure of what was in the other's mind. +</P> + +<P> +Perry watched him. +</P> + +<P> +"We're going to see to that. It'll be a twenty-round fight to a +decision. Somewhere in the South. But you'll stop Holliday in the +eighth round." +</P> + +<P> +"I fight fair," said Perry, "or I don't fight at all." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't get excited." Dunham was laughing at him a little, not +pleasantly. "You'll be no party to anything—ah—iniquitous. Beat him +before that if you're able. But it'll come in the eighth, don't doubt +that. I'm just telling you beforehand so that you'll lose no sleep in +case you're afraid of Holliday." That was a thrust. "I'm telling you +so you needn't kill yourself training to get ready, though you don't +look over-fed." That was another. Yet Perry felt that he had balanced +them both when he looked the huge man's jelly-bulk up and down. +</P> + +<P> +"Holliday's going to be champion some day," Dunham went unconcernedly +on. "He's bound to be, whether we want him or not. But Montague comes +first. Montague's been a good boy. We merely require your agreement +to meet him should you dispose of Holliday, that is all. And since +that is assured—" He waved a fat hand. "Personally I believe that +Montague is very much better than you are—no offense intended—and +against him you can take care of yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Rapidly Perry cast it up. They were that confident of Holliday's +superiority! And they didn't care whether he suspected their game or +not; they weren't even bothering to work carefully. He could take it +or leave it. He'd have to. That rank! That coarse! It was an easy +sum. Two and two made four. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever agreement is fixed between you and Holliday is no affair of +mine," he decided at last. "When?" +</P> + +<P> +"A month—five weeks." +</P> + +<P> +"How much?" +</P> + +<P> +Dunham pondered. +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty thousand. We'll give you five for your share." +</P> + +<P> +They were that cool! +</P> + +<P> +"Not me." +</P> + +<P> +"A twenty-thousand-dollar purse seems reasonable," ruminated Dunham. +"It may not be a popular match. And Holliday'll come high." +</P> + +<P> +"That's your affair. I'll fight one way." +</P> + +<P> +Dunham lifted an eyebrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Winner take all." +</P> + +<P> +"But you're certain to win! The fight'll be fixed!" +</P> + +<P> +Perry sensed then how greatly the gross man wanted to laugh. Not +bother to train? That old one! Did Dunham really think he was taking +him at his word? Why, his mind in all the days to come would be +riveted on just one thing—that eighth round. He wanted to laugh, too, +bitterly. Did they think he was that innocent! +</P> + +<P> +"That's your affair," he repeated. "I fight winner take all." +</P> + +<P> +There are some who insist that Pig-iron Dunham was not without a +virtue. His next words seem to prove it. +</P> + +<P> +"Better take your five thousand," he suggested good-naturedly. "It's +better than nothing. Holliday could double-cross us." +</P> + +<P> +That cool! +</P> + +<P> +"Winner take all," droned Perry. +</P> + +<P> +"Winner take all!" Dunham snapped. +</P> + +<P> +And that afternoon they signed articles, Hamilton acting for Blair. +</P> + +<P> +The same night Perry told Felicity what he had done. +</P> + +<P> +"So I—I'll either have twenty thousand dollars in a month or so," he +made bad work of it, "or I'll know that I'm never likely to have it. +If you—if you'll wait … I'm glad you like the country. I've +always wanted a ranch." +</P> + +<P> +Felicity was needlessly callous, either because it made her despise +herself a little for the part she had played, or because she was just +Felicity. Surely she was more brutal than she need have been. +</P> + +<P> +For she sat, chin propped upon one hand, and stared derisively into the +boy's self-conscious eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"You poor hick!" she said deliberately. "You poor cross-roads hick! +Twenty thousand dollars? Why, that's chicken-feed compared with my +price." +</P> + +<P> +In one way it was merciful. It was quickly over. Perry's +self-consciousness passed. Calm as she had been impudent he surveyed +her. Once his lip twitched; he half-opened his mouth as if to speak, +and then thought better of it. He'd talk to no woman like that. He +left her without a word. +</P> + +<P> +And she sat biting her lip a little while, till Dunham came to the +table. +</P> + +<P> +"Honey—" he began. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't honey me!" The words lashed back at him. "I'm sick of +honeying. Talk cash!" +</P> + +<P> +And Dunham was sick of temporizing. +</P> + +<P> +He talked. +</P> + +<P> +So when Cecille came in the next day, Saturday, at noon, and found +Felicity with her bag packed, few words were necessary. She knew the +moment had come. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CECILLE PLAYS THE GAME +</H3> + + +<P> +Cecille had tried often to imagine what that moment was going to be like. +</P> + +<P> +More than once she had dreaded that it would find her cheaply dramatic; +that nervous sentiment would surprise her and break her down. Now she +met it, unconcerned, without the slightest sense of shock. She had never +doubted that Felicity would be anything but matter-of-fact and jaunty, +right up to the end. Now it was the other girl who displayed unexpected +feeling. +</P> + +<P> +For Cecille had learned that morning that Perry was leaving at midnight +for the South. With Felicity gone she realized how little chance there +was of his ever returning again to frequent the apartment. And nothing +else in the world much mattered. She was too deep sunk in misery even to +try to dissemble her apathy. But Felicity had not forgotten a single +night when she had waked to hear the other girl crying; she missed +nothing of her present dejection. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm off!" This without even turning from the mirror. +</P> + +<P> +Cecille failed to answer. She crossed the room and dropped heavily into +a chair. +</P> + +<P> +"We're catching the three-thirty this afternoon for the West." +</P> + +<P> +Again silence for a while, and then a dry, strained question. +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you afraid?" +</P> + +<P> +She'd made up her mind to ask at least that question. She had admitted +to herself that she had to ask it. And her tone made Felicity wheel. +</P> + +<P> +"Of what?" Felicity demanded, a little blank. +</P> + +<P> +Cecille laughed. It was a woeful, croaking attempt at flippancy. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the old line of stuff!" She had never before employed Felicity's +brand of slang. It came unpleasantly from her tongue. "The wages of sin +and all that sort of thing." +</P> + +<P> +That brought Felicity across the room until she stood, hands bracketed on +hips, above her. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you worry about me, Cele," she said slowly. "Don't you nor any +one else spend any pennies buying extras, expecting to strike news of my +violent and untimely end. Safety First; that's my maiden name. I let +Dunham drive thirty-five when he's sober. When he isn't, I walk. And +I'm going to be that careful about deep water that I'll bathe always +under a shower. Don't you worry about me." She paused soberly. +</P> + +<P> +"It's you," she stated, "I'm worried about." +</P> + +<P> +It was Felicity who displayed feeling at the end. +</P> + +<P> +She stood quite a while staring down at the other girl's bright hair. +Then with an air of definite purpose she drew up a chair for herself. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't get you," she mused. "You're a queer kid. +</P> + +<P> +". . . From the country?" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose so," Cecille admitted. "I didn't use to think so. I used to +think we were quite—" +</P> + +<P> +"That'll do," cut in Felicity. "I get it from that much description. +</P> + +<P> +". . . Raised strict?" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess so—pretty strict." +</P> + +<P> +"Rigid church people?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +A little time of silence. +</P> + +<P> +"Gee, that's tough!" +</P> + +<P> +And Felicity's gravity at last had caught at the other girl's attention. +Slowly she looked up. +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" she asked dully. +</P> + +<P> +Felicity sat and studied her—pondered her. Felicity's face was harder +than Cecille had ever seen it before, and infinitely more tender. +</P> + +<P> +"I hate to leave you," she said. "I wouldn't mind so much if I could +<I>get</I> you. If I could once get it through my nut what you're waiting +for—what you expect there's going to be in it for you—it wouldn't be so +hard. But I can't." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you mean." She had caught Cecille's interest now. +</P> + +<P> +"Neither do I," she admitted. "Not exactly. That's why I'm talking. +That's what I'm trying to get at." Her voice became half-absent-minded, +ruminative, as though she were thinking aloud. +</P> + +<P> +"They caught me young, too," she murmured. "Oh, that was a long time +ago. Not measured in years, measured in time. There's a difference. +</P> + +<P> +"A mission-school got hold of me. Good women, not brainless velvet pets +from the younger set, looking for a new sensation. Good women, sincere +women that wanted to help. Well, I was sincere, too. I wanted to be +helped. I told 'em so; but I also told 'em I doubted if they could do +much. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd begun to get wise to one thing that early. I was seventeen, but I'd +begun to see that all you got in this world was what you helped yourself +to. But I was willing to try; I'd try anything once. If learning things +out of a book would do it; if studying how to shoot the right language in +the right spot and how to live sweet and pretty, inside and out, was +going to get me what I wanted, well and good. Also, soft! There +couldn't be any easier way, several well-known draymas to the contrary. +So I gave 'em a chance. +</P> + +<P> +"'Show me,' I said. And I stuck it out two years." +</P> + +<P> +She stared at the ceiling, her eyes sardonic with reminiscence. +</P> + +<P> +"Two years. Get that. Not two days, nor two weeks, nor two months. Two +<I>years</I>. And did I see myself at the end of that time any nearer what I +was after? I hadn't slacked, mind you. I'd worked! Everything they'd +ever spilled I'd sopped up like a sponge. And did it finally bring me a +chance? Sure it did, believe you me. A whiskey drummer with false +teeth!" +</P> + +<P> +Here she laughed, a slurring note or two. +</P> + +<P> +"That cured me, I guess. I did stay a little longer, but I knew! I knew +I was through. I stayed another week, and then I went to the mat. +</P> + +<P> +"'Show me,' I said again. That was what I wanted, a show-down. And did +they? Could they? Bah! They talked! They told me I was making +wonderful progress. +</P> + +<P> +"'Sure,' I admitted. 'I'm on my way. I see that.' But what I wanted +'em to slip me was a little info as to where was I going. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they talked. What did I hope for? What did I want? What did I +expect to get out of it? And I told 'em. Well, that was a pretty large +order for a girl of my station. My station didn't figure, I told 'em; +we'd leave that out of it. And I told 'em so plainly that they neglected +to refer to that any more. +</P> + +<P> +"But they took another tack instead. The things that I'd mentioned were +mere material things! Like that—scornful—as if they weren't worth +mentioning at all. 'Merely material!' And there was a better world to +live in—oh, my, yes—the world of the spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"'Do you live in it?' I asked. 'Do you?' They wore sealskin coats, when +it wasn't mink or chinchilla. They were driving downtown every day in +their own closed cars to urge me to be content with the things of the +spirit. And when I realized that—No, I wasn't sore. I was just hep, +that's all. +</P> + +<P> +"'I'll try Broadway,' I said then. 'If there's nothing, after all, in +this climb-though-the-rocks-be-rugged stuff, no great harm done. I'm +still young. But why waste more valuable time? I'll try Broadway,' I +said. 'I'll have a whirl at the primrose path.' +</P> + +<P> +"They didn't believe me at first. They thought I was just bluffing, just +talking because I was discouraged. So they talked themselves some +more—a whole lot more. Beautiful words—but they didn't mean anything. +Not to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Did any of 'em say: 'Sure, I understand. You're young and pretty, and +it's natural you should crave such things. Here's my last year's coat +and a perfectly miserable old last year's model car'? Did they? Don't +make me laugh! Not that they woulda missed them. Nothing like that! +</P> + +<P> +"And if they'd only come out flat in the beginning and admitted: 'Sure, +it's a fight—we know that—a finish fight between women like you and +women like us,' I could have liked 'em for it. If they'd said: 'We want +these things, so do you, and only men can buy 'em—take 'em if you can,' +that woulda been all right with me. But did they? You know the answer. +They were telling <I>me</I> not to rough it, while <I>they</I> all the while, every +chance they got, were hitting in the clinches! They were chirping to me, +'Oh, see how lovely the things of the spirit are,' while they were +hanging with a death grip to everything material that they could get +their hands on. I'd been honest with them—sincere. And with me they +had been as hypocritical as hell! +</P> + +<P> +"But when finally I made 'em see that I was on, and that I was in +earnest, it sobered them. They quit then that line of chatter. They +were battling now, and they pulled another one. Sure, just what you +called it a minute ago. The old line of stuff. They pulled that. They +tried to scare me. Me! But I wouldn't scare, not for a cent. I was +already scared half crazy—scared of matrimony with a drummer with false +teeth. +</P> + +<P> +"'Hell!' That was what they threatened me with. 'Hell,' they tried to +warn me. "'How do you know?' I came back at 'em. 'How do you know? +Maybe there's been slander here. Maybe it's not so hot. Maybe it's only +semitropical!' And they couldn't beat that. They couldn't even tie it. +But they went right on trying. +</P> + +<P> +"'The wages of sin,'—they began. But I beat 'em to that punch. +</P> + +<P> +"'They're damned fine wages,' I said. The cuss-word slipped out. I was +always sorry about that. I always aimed to be awful respectful. +'They're damned fine wages! A car to ride around in,—sure, merely +material just like yours, but better than a strap in the subway with all +the men sitting down. And clothes—not shoddy rags. Clothes! Silk +things, with lace on 'em, and rosebuds. And a place to live in with +trees in the lobby and a tub level with the bath-room floor, and a +chaise-something-or-other.' Oh, I'd been reading! I hadn't been +studying for nothing. I knew! +</P> + +<P> +"'I want to live in a world where things smell better,' I said. 'I'm +dead tired of a world that stinks!' +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they kept a'trying. I'll say that for 'em. Game—you bet. I +don't believe they overlooked much either. 'The gutter,' they said. +'I'm in it now,' I came back. 'Your self-respect,' they said. 'Nobody +else respects me,' I trumped that, 'or even cares that I'm alive.' And +then I went after 'em strong. 'But give me the car,' I said, 'and the +apartment and the clothes, and see. Why, I'll have 'em walking the +length of every hotel dining-room in town, just to be recognized by me!' +'The men,' they said. 'Sure,' I agreed, 'the men. Isn't that what +counts? Don't try to tell me that this isn't a man's world. I know! +And won't they?' +</P> + +<P> +"That stopped 'em for a minute. They didn't want to answer. They +thought an awful lot of the truth at times, for folks that'd lie to +themselves all day long. 'Won't they?' I wouldn't quit it. I made 'em +come through. +</P> + +<P> +"'Perhaps,' they admitted then. Alas, that was the way of the world. +But it was wrong! +</P> + +<P> +"'Sure,' I agreed again. 'Sure. You're telling me no news. But if the +whole world's wrong, who am I to stand out? Who am I?' I wanted to know. +'Let's make it unanimous.' +</P> + +<P> +"'The wages of sin,' they tried it again. They'd expected to put me down +for the count with that one, and they hated to see it go to waste. +</P> + +<P> +"'Can you show me something just as good?' I asked. 'Half as good? A +tenth as good? I want to be straight. I'd rather be straight. Here's a +proposition. You folks have got more than you can ever spend on +yourselves. Pool a little of it—ten of you—and give me a job that you +don't figure sinful. I'm willing to work. I've proved that to you. +Guarantee me something a tenth as good as the wages I've mentioned, at +the end of ten years—I'll not be thirty then; I'll take a chance on +still being able to enjoy 'em—guarantee me that and I'll scrub floors +for you in the meantime.' +</P> + +<P> +"And then they pulled the prize crack of them all. I hadn't heard it +before. It was a new one on me. +</P> + +<P> +"'Virtue,' they said, 'virtue is its own reward.' +</P> + +<P> +"Honest, I laughed. I couldn't help it. I didn't want them to see that +I was wise to them. I didn't even want to hurt their feelings. It was +pretty serious to them, this step that I was taking. But I couldn't help +it. I laughed. And then I got mad. +</P> + +<P> +"'Virtue is its own reward? Is it?' I asked. 'Is it? Go out there and +stand on Fifth Avenue,' I said, 'and watch 'em roll by. Your daughter! +And yours! And yours! Ten thousand of 'em, no younger than I am, no +prettier, and no more moral right now. Go out and watch them roll by and +then try to tell me that. Violets and silver fox! Is virtue their only +reward?' +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they'd not meant it the same way, in my case. I kept getting 'em +wrong, they said. They'd meant it in the abstract, applied to me. 'But +what about the wages of sin, in my case?' Had they been abstract there? +'Death—the gutter.' That was concrete, wasn't it? It sounded like +bedrock to me. Then they wanted to explain. I wouldn't let 'em. +</P> + +<P> +"'If you had been on the level I could have respected you,' I said. 'If +you had told me, sure this is a selfish world and we are of it, I'd have +liked you fine. I'm strong for a rascal, if he's an honest rascal. But +I hate a hypocrite.' +</P> + +<P> +"I'd got 'em between me and the ropes where I wanted 'em, at last. +</P> + +<P> +"'I've wasted two whole years,' I shot it over from the shoulder. 'Two +whole years, trying to compete with them'—I nodded toward the +Avenue—'according to their own rules. And you've been coaching me, when +all the while you knew I was licked, that way, before I started. Now let +<I>them</I> compete with <I>me</I>, according to <I>my</I> rules, for a change. Let +them run to their dressmakers and order their gowns a little lower and +their skirts a little higher and lie to themselves and say they must keep +in style, when they know they've got to keep their men and don't care how +they do it. Let <I>them</I> try it—damn 'em!' +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't have cussed. But I couldn't help it. I was bitter. If +they'd only been frank and man-to-man about it. The toughest birds in +the world stand in the middle of the ring and shake hands before they try +to murder each other. If they'd just said, 'This is no pretty game, this +is a finish fight,' I'd have loved 'em for it. I guess women can't be +frank and man-to-man. +</P> + +<P> +"One set of rewards for me—and one for them! Abstract for me—and +concrete for them! Two sets of rules! It's time some authority drafted +a new set, to cover both ends of this deal. But in the meantime—'I +don't want to play that way,' I said. 'I'd rather fight!'" +</P> + +<P> +Abruptly she stopped. +</P> + +<P> +"And I've been fighting ever since," she spoke in a less urgent fashion. +"And I'm going to keep on fighting—right up to the end. But you—is +that the kind of stuff they slipped you too, Cele?" +</P> + +<P> +Cecille had been listening without a sound, her eyes clinging to +Felicity's face, which was twisted, somewhat awry. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that what they slipped you too?" +</P> + +<P> +Cecille licked her lips. They were dry. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I guess so." +</P> + +<P> +"And that suits you? You think that's fair and square?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," Cecille whispered dully. "I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"Then it's time you found out," Felicity flung at her fiercely. "I had +to. It was put up to me just as cold. I didn't want to, any more than +you do. They aren't my rules; they're theirs! But I had to decide. And +it's time you figured it out." +</P> + +<P> +Again Cecille touched her lip with the tip of her tongue. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been trying to," she faltered. "But I—it don't seem to me as +though I want as much as you do. I'd be content with oh-so-little. With +a home, and a—and a man from whom I didn't shrink when he touched me +and—and—" She could go no further. That was too vivid, too intimate. +</P> + +<P> +It was Felicity who displayed her feelings at the end. And already she +was beginning to scorn herself for having paraded them. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh-so-little!" she mocked. She did not mean to be derisive. "Just +that! Just a home—just a man—a real man—content!" +</P> + +<P> +"Would you be?" Cecille asked the question unaware of the other's irony. +</P> + +<P> +"Say, who do you think I am," she asked, "to try to dictate terms like +that to life? <I>What</I> do you think I am? A champion? Because that's +what you're talking now. The whole purse—or nothing! I <I>know</I> my +limits. I'm going to be glad to get a fair percentage split for my +share. A home! A man! Content! I get you at last, Cecille. It's you +who'd better come to. For whether you know it or not, you're talking +winner—take—all!" +</P> + +<P> +She rose then. She shrugged her arms and stretched them high above her +head, and all visible emotion slipped from her like a discarded garment. +</P> + +<P> +"And that's <I>that</I>!" she stated easily. She went back to the mirror and +adjusted her veil. Then came a brief and awkward moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess I'll be going," she said. "The rent's paid a month in +advance. Don't let that Shylock landlord gyp you." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't," said Cecille. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess I'll be going." She picked up her bag. They did not kiss +each other. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—so-long." +</P> + +<P> +"I—I wish you—" Cecille checked herself. She had been about to say I +wish you happiness. She meant that, yet clumsily she changed it. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you luck." +</P> + +<P> +At that Felicity paused. +</P> + +<P> +"Does this hat look all right?" +</P> + +<P> +Cecille nodded. And then she was gone. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +So Felicity passes. No dark river. No swift oblivion. No agony of +remorse. Those who may feel that her history is incomplete, that they +have been robbed of their full meed of vindictive satisfaction, I must +refer back to an earlier paragraph. And to those who may say, Here is a +dangerous departure from the formula for such tales, there is only one +honest retort. Felicity isn't a figment of fancy. Felicity's from the +life. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +Cecille sat quiet after Felicity had gone, until darkness crept into the +room. She rose then, mechanically, and prepared and ate some supper. +Later Perry Blair came and she found that pressing as her own problem +seemed she could still think first of him. She would not tell him now of +Felicity's dereliction. He needed a single mind to face his coming +struggle. He would learn of it soon enough. +</P> + +<P> +Later still they went out and walked, till he had only time enough left +in which to catch his train. Both of them were silent. Neither felt any +inclination to talk. But Cecille's brain had been as uncannily busy as +that of one who lies awake throughout a white and sleepless night. And +she had believed this bodiless activity to be the process of sound +reasoning; she had found some security in the conclusions she had formed. +</P> + +<P> +But when they turned back toward the apartment the whole brilliant +structure proved treacherous. It toppled. She was back where she had +started, cornered, driven now for time. She couldn't stand it. He would +go—and he'd never come back. Never! What was there in it for her? +What was she waiting for? +</P> + +<P> +Play the game? Fight? She knew she wasn't clever like Felicity, but she +conceived what she thought was a desperate expedient, nor realized that +it was pitifully transparent. There was no elevator in their building. +Perry had a habit of striking matches to light the darker portions of the +stairs, though that was silly. She'd told him; she knew every step of +the way. But to-night when he struck the first one, she raced ahead. +When it flickered and suddenly went out, she crumpled. At her cry, which +brought him swiftly, he found her a little heap upon the stair. Her +ankle was doubled beneath her. +</P> + +<P> +"I've twisted it," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She wasn't clever, like Felicity, and yet how simple it was! +</P> + +<P> +He picked her up. He carried her like no weight at all. And she lay +very close against him, her head on his crooked elbow, her arms about his +neck. They had left a light burning in the box of a sitting-room. And +as he entered there Perry Blair, looking down at her delicately parted +lips and faintly fatigue-penciled eyes, breathed deeply once, and smiled. +</P> + +<P> +He'd been quickly skeptical; he was certain now. No one who had just +twisted an ankle was content and serene as that. +</P> + +<P> +And that was when Perry Blair first saw Cecille Manners—first saw her +with seeing eyes. He looked down at her and in that instant learned how +infinitely precious and flagrantly bold girlhood like hers could be. +</P> + +<P> +He carried her to a couch. She lay quiet, her eyes still closed. But +when, after a glance at his watch, he would have tried to ascertain the +extent of the damage, which he knew was no damage at all, she sprang +erect, and flamed at him, and struck his hands aside. +</P> + +<P> +"No!" she gasped. "No!" +</P> + +<P> +And then she put her hands upon her face. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't twist it." Her very voice was dreary. "I just couldn't face +it, that was all. I thought maybe, if you carried me upstairs—if once +you felt me in your arms—ugh!" She made a sound, a gesture as of +nausea. And yet, after a moment, with surprising steadiness: +</P> + +<P> +"Had you just as soon go now? I wish—I wish you'd go." +</P> + +<P> +He gave her her wish so quietly that when she looked again she was +surprised not to see him still there. In the lower hall he stopped a +moment and stood with his head on one side as a man stands who listens. +He made as if to climb the stairs again, and shook his head. Holliday +came first, and he'd have to hurry. +</P> + +<P> +In the box of a sitting-room above Cecille sat and also listened. But +she made no move as if to follow. She just half stretched her arms +toward the stairway when finally she knew that he was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she cried then. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, God!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +POTS AND PANS! +</H3> + + +<P> +The rest tells more quickly by far. +</P> + +<P> +A raised, roped platform—two lithe bodies—a pavilion of white faces. +Not the first round, nor the second, nor the seventh. The intermission +which followed it rather, and a crowd grown strangely silent. +</P> + +<P> +Perry Blair went back to his seat at the clang of the bell. Jack English +was in his corner, and Hamilton, for he had been unwilling to trust +anyone else. And lying back under their hurried, efficient ministrations +he looked out upon the banks of faces. +</P> + +<P> +They were tense; it was easy to see that, just as it was easy to sense +that theirs was no ordinary tension. And he understood what it meant. +Word had seeped from tier to tier, spread like a drop of ink in a glass +of water, until it had colored the entire mass. Only a very select few +were "in the know" of what that eighth round had been planned to develop, +yet they somehow had leavened the whole audience with anticipation, by an +indefinite word or two. +</P> + +<P> +"The eighth," they were whispering among themselves. "Watch this now; +here's where something happens!" +</P> + +<P> +They had hooted Perry as he entered the ring; saluted him with catcalls +and a few out-and-out hisses. He'd wondered then if any other champion +had ever been saluted in just that fashion before; he'd tried to smile. +He wasn't trying any more. +</P> + +<P> +But Holliday was. Across in his corner Holliday was nodding to his +handlers and grinning widely, just as he had grinned all through the +fight so far. And so far it had been a mild battle, a showy thing of +pretty footwork and flashy boxing. But it hadn't been harmful to either +of them. Holliday, it appeared, had been quite content to let it go +along that way from round to round, though it was the style of fighting +best suited to his opponent. And he had proved himself faster at it, +cleverer, than Perry had expected. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it was not Holliday's cleverness, but his bounding, surging strength +which compelled his thoughts. Strength like that, which tossed him like +a chip in the clinches, was no new thing to him. He'd often been handled +that way, with the same ease, by men heavier than himself,—by Jack +English, for example. And Holliday was heavier; he knew that he had +given away pounds in the weighing in; that there had been crookedness at +the scales, but he hadn't tried to prove it. Yet Holliday was stronger +even than Jack English, unbelievably stronger. And Perry knew now that +he was about to test that strength to the uttermost. Holliday had romped +with the roughness of a great puppy; now it was going to be different. +It was going to be the destruction-rush of a young bull. +</P> + +<P> +English too felt what was coming, just as he did; just as did the whole +quiet house. English wasn't trying hard to hide his anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"He's strong," he was saying. "Boy, he's strong! Keep away from +him—keep away from him all you can. For if he ever backs you into a +corner he's going to knock you dead!" +</P> + +<P> +Perry nodded. He meant to, if he could. He was going to try to keep +away. And on the other side of the ring Holliday was talking easily out +of the corner of his mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"This guy's no set-up," he was saying. "He's faster than a fool. But +kin he hit—that's what I'm wondering. Kin he hit? An' that's what I'm +going to find out." +</P> + +<P> +And then the bell, and the whole house leaning forward. +</P> + +<P> +They came slowly from their corners, Holliday bull-necked, compact, a +grinning menace, Perry lighter, whiter, sober. The first minute of that +round was a repetition of all those that had gone before; lightning +feints, nimble dancing steps, the cautious trickery of antagonists +feeling each other out. +</P> + +<P> +And yet the house, contrary to custom, did not grow impatient of such +tactics and call loudly for more damaging effort. It waited. A minute +and a half passed—two minutes—and they were going faster—faster. And +then Holliday, grinning into Perry's face, winked broadly and swung +wildly with his right. Perry stepped easily inside the blow and put his +left to the other's face. It was a light blow, Perry knew that. There +was no snap, no sting in it. But immediately Holliday winced as though +it had hurt him and for the first time gave ground. +</P> + +<P> +He followed Holliday up. This was the round in which Holliday was to +quit, the round upon which Perry had had his mind riveted for weeks. He +wondered—had Dunham after all been on the level with his promised +crookedness? He followed Holliday up, carefully. And again a wild right +swing, a light step inside, a light left to the face. And then Holliday, +holding him with disturbing ease in a clinch, pressed his mouth close to +Perry's ear. +</P> + +<P> +"Shoot it over, now," he muttered. "Shoot it—don't pull it. It mustn't +look too raw. I'm going to open up—start it from the floor!" +</P> + +<P> +They clung in the clinch. The referee tore at them, raving at them to +break. He pried them apart at last and passed between them to make the +breaking cleaner. And as he did so, Holliday dropped his guard. +</P> + +<P> +"Shoot it!" he hissed. +</P> + +<P> +Perry wondered—but he knew better! He therefore merely made as if to +set himself for the punch. He drove his right hand to the other's chin. +But in that same instant as he took the blow Holliday lashed back at him, +ferociously. Had Perry swung with all he had; had he been going with his +punch; had he even been set firmly upon his feet to deliver it, +Holliday's treacherous hook would have dropped him for the count. +</P> + +<P> +As it was, though he had gone limply back, it spun him round and hurled +him down. But it did not hurt him much. Lying half-raised on one hand, +waiting out the count, he was thinking how like an explosion the roar +from the audience had been. How moblike and blood-hungry. How the crowd +hated him! +</P> + +<P> +And Holliday was laughing down at him, leering. Double-crossed? Did +Holliday think he was that credulous? But he had tested Holliday's +strength and feared it more than ever. When finally he had to rise he +dodged the other with a swift, sideways wriggle. The bell sounded almost +immediately. +</P> + +<P> +English was less worried than before, which was queer. +</P> + +<P> +"That's the stuff," he praised. "Keep away and let him wear himself out. +Let him beat himself." +</P> + +<P> +But Perry questioned whether he was going to be able to keep away, and +there was another angle to it, too. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll be sure now that I can't hurt him," he thought. And that was +exactly what Holliday at that moment was telling his seconds. +</P> + +<P> +"Yu' got that, didn't you?" he demanded, again from the corner of his +mouth. "Flush on the chin I took it. And it never made me blink. Hit? +He couldn't dent cream cheese. If I'd ever a'ripped one into him like +that I'd a'torn away half his lid. Watch this, now—watch this, because +it's going to be good!" +</P> + +<P> +And it was from his viewpoint and from the viewpoint of the partisan +spectators. At the bell's call Holliday rushed across the ring, guard +wide, gloves flailing. It was a spectacular rush, but Perry eluded him +easily and slipped agilely away. Holliday whirled and blundered after +him. Perry ducked under his swinging arms and danced again into the +open. And then Holliday staged it, the scene which was going to be good. +</P> + +<P> +Abruptly he ceased to pursue. He stopped and stood flat-footed in the +middle of the ring, hands hanging idle at his hips, scowling after his +opponent. +</P> + +<P> +"Hey, you!" he bellowed, so loudly that his voice reached the rafters. +"Wat t'ell do yu' think this is—puss-in-the-corner? Cut out the +marathon, and come on and fight." +</P> + +<P> +Indeed it was good; it was one of those dearly desired comedy moments +which Holliday knew would grow epic in the re-telling. Holliday was a +good showman. There were more cat-calls, more jeers, and cries of, +"Yellow—yellow!" +</P> + +<P> +And then Holliday went after him—and the house went mad. He blundered +no longer in his pursuit, no longer played to the crowd. Like a blast of +vengeance he struck Perry, enveloped him, smothered him in a fury of +blows. +</P> + +<P> +Perry tried to get away and couldn't get away. From the center of the +ring to the ropes he was battered, staggering. He went down, and +struggled up. And went down again. +</P> + +<P> +He made no attempt to strike back, nor would that have availed him much. +Holliday had tested his strength and was contemptuous of it. Holliday +was boring in and in with crushing blows that tore past glove and guard. +</P> + +<P> +The house was now a screaming, tossing bedlam, the ring a welter. He +heard English barking at him. Cover up! He was covered up. Blam! He +dropped and rolled away and came again erect. And blam! He <I>was</I> +covered up, as much as any man could cover. And then a glove sank into +the pit of his stomach and doubled him over, sickened him, racked him +with white-hot pain. +</P> + +<P> +He got away again. Fight? They were shouting at him to fight. Did they +think he wasn't fighting? He was fighting with brain and heart and body +to live this wild storm through. Again Holliday got him in a corner. +Holliday's bull-strength was not believable. Again he got him just above +the belt. And he couldn't help it this time—this time he had to do it. +He dropped a little his guard. And then it happened. It struck him +then. The roof came down! +</P> + +<A NAME="img-206"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-206.jpg" ALT=""Come on, now--'fess up?"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="632" HEIGHT="444"> +<H3> +[Illustration: "Come on, now--'fess up?"] +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +As he lay head on the arm curled under him he knew it must have been the +roof. By nothing else could he have been so smitten. The roof must have +fallen, though the faces around him were still tossing and swaying, +though the referee stood counting above him, though there was no +wreckage. And the clarity of his mind astonished and pleased him. A +brick roof—sure! A brick roof! That was unusual, very unusual. But it +had to be that. It was a brick without a doubt which had struck him. +</P> + +<P> +He knew the house was roaring—was sure of it—and yet he couldn't hear +them at all. And that was strange, because he could hear the referee; he +could hear Jack English. Jack was pleading—good old Jack!—begging him +to get up. Apparently Jack didn't know that the roof had come down and +stopped the fight. But the referee? Would he toll on endlessly before +he noticed it? He should know; he'd been close at hand when it happened. +He felt a warm emotion, a sense of comradeship, for the referee. He'd +surely been square; he'd made Holliday break clean. He felt an impulse +to joke with the referee, to banter him, and bid him count a million if +he wanted to. +</P> + +<P> +And then another thought. How easily he was thinking! With what +precision! Yellow! They might think him yellow, even if the roof had +fallen, if he didn't get up. They might think—At that he rolled over +and discovered that there were miles of bodiless space between his head +and his feet. It made the latter hard to handle, but he managed it +doggedly. He climbed to his knees and wavered erect. And on the stroke +of ten Holliday smashed him down again. +</P> + +<P> +Yellow? Well, he'd get right up this time. He started to; he even +staggered after Holliday who now appeared to be the one who wouldn't +stand and fight, when he felt English dragging him back. Even English +was against him. Holding his arms! Bound he'd lose! He lashed out at +English; and then, like a distant echo, he remembered the sound of a bell. +</P> + +<P> +He let them put him upon his stool and stretch him out. Let them work +over him frantically. The brick from the roof apparently had cut above +one eye, almost to the bone. But English was fixing it—good old +English! He shouldn't have lost his temper and swung on English like +that. English was propping the lid open and sticking it so with adhesive. +</P> + +<P> +And then there was the bell. How light his legs felt, and his arms! And +he'd doubted that the adhesive would do much; with the first savage slash +Holliday tore it away and the lid hung closed again. But he could see +from the other eye even though that seemed but a puffy mass. There was a +slit from which he could look out upon an insane, tumultuous world. +</P> + +<P> +So he complimented himself upon his cunning. They thought Holliday had +blinded him; had closed both his eyes so that he could not see at all, +did they? Well, he could! Oh, he was foolin' 'em. Champion! +</P> + +<P> +Once he'd looked that word up in a dictionary, just after he whipped +Fanchette; looked it up a little sheepishly, though he was alone at the +time. Champion:—One who by beating all rivals has obtained an +acknowledged supremacy. Then Devereau and Dunham were right. According +to that he wasn't a champion. Nobody acknowledged him. But he'd teach +'em a better definition. A champion was someone who could go right on +fighting when everybody was cheering for the other guy. A champion was +somebody who could fool 'em that easy!—that complete! You bet! Who +could fight and think at the same time, that clearly!—that +logically!—like he was doing. +</P> + +<P> +But he fell down often. Yet that didn't prevent this reasoning things +out. And he didn't wait now for the count, either. He'd get right up +each time, he'd decided, so that they could not call him yellow. They +hated him so. But he knew the answer to that, too, at last. And that +gave him something to laugh at, the way Holliday had grinned. Honesty +was the best policy! He fair rocked with glee—and got up again! +</P> + +<P> +Now English had him by the arm. He wouldn't hit English—English meant +well if he wasn't a champion. He'd follow English docilely and sit down +as he was ordered. He must have missed the bell again. +</P> + +<P> +But English's crying, his whimpering, bothered him. It was a sniffling, +wild-beast whine. That's the way a wolf or a tiger would sound, outside +the circle of a fire's glow, unable to help its kitten or cub. But it +annoyed him just the same—took his mind off important things. And what +had English to cry over anyway? The roof hadn't fallen on him. +</P> + +<P> +There was something about that that he hadn't yet got quite straight in +his mind. If he could—if he could—A brick roof didn't sound right. If +he could just force his brain a little further. It was urgent—he could +fight better—it had a direct bearing on the fight. But there was that +damned bell again. It interrupted him; broke in upon his train of +reasoning. But he'd get up and fight some more. That was what they'd +paid their money to see. He'd fight and try to think it out at the same +time. +</P> + +<P> +He rose and coughed, sick at his stomach—and sat suddenly down. But +Holliday'd not hit him so hard that time, it seemed. Just pushed him +maybe. That was the game—let him wear himself out! He got up again. +Then he noticed another thing. The crowd had been screaming, "Kill him! +Kill him!" for hours and hours. Now each time that Holliday struck him +they groaned. Well, maybe it was time for him to hit Holliday; maybe +that was what was the matter. He'd try to accommodate 'em. He pushed +the referee aside and swung. But his glove met nothing. The floor came +up and hit him in the face, that was all. Funny floor! Funny roof! No +place to hold a prizefight. And where was Holliday, anyway? Holliday'd +been playing for his good eye, till that was practically closed, too, and +he couldn't see distinctly, couldn't see much of anything. He'd grope +for him—he did it—and got up again! +</P> + +<P> +They were shouting something else now. Could not suit 'em. "Take him +out—take him out!" Who, him? He cursed at them, nor knew that he +merely gibbered from frightful lips. They'd not rob <I>him</I> that way of +his title! Then he saw Hamilton pick up a towel and start to toss it +into the ring. Lucky he was near him! He grabbed that towel and flung +it away—and fell down heavily—and got up again! +</P> + +<P> +He wanted to curse Hamilton, too, but didn't have the time. He seemed to +be hurtling to one side of the ring and then the other, yet effortlessly, +as lightly as thistle-down. Couldn't stop for anything—Holliday +insisted on fighting right along. He couldn't remember it was so long +since he had laid a glove on Holliday. +</P> + +<P> +And then again a lull. What was it? The end of a round, or the +beginning of one? He'd better not sit down, or Devereau and Dunham would +tell 'em he was yellow, and they'd believe. End of a round, apparently. +English was crying over him again, whimpering helplessly. He wished +they'd dispense entirely with the bell. Just fight right along—could +keep your mind on things that way; he was awful sick—just noticed that! +</P> + +<P> +And then he heard Hamilton trying to square himself for what he'd tried +to do with the towel. +</P> + +<P> +"He's out, I tell you!" Hamilton was saying. "He's out standing on his +feet!" +</P> + +<P> +So he was even fooling his own seconds! Out standing on his feet? Why, +he'd been out for rounds and rounds! He didn't quite know how many. But +that didn't make any difference—but then Hamilton didn't know much about +the boxing game—he was just a sports writer! +</P> + +<P> +"What round is it?" he asked. "Sixteenth!" Liars! Or maybe they were +joking. Anyway, he knew better. The tenth or eleventh, perhaps, but +never the sixteenth. +</P> + +<P> +Was that the bell? No, he'd just kicked the water-pail? Shouldn't have +a tin pail in the ring, not even a new one. Ought to be a wooden bucket. +Well, they could just tell him when the bell did ring, and give him a +little shove in Holliday's direction, if they would. That was it—all +right—and the roof came down! +</P> + +<P> +He found a way to remedy that; he'd hold it up. Hang onto Holliday's +arms, that was it. They were awful sticky, yet slippery, but he'd try. +And getting up was a slower business now in spite of himself. But if +they couldn't see that he'd taken quite a bit of punishment and had a +right to be a little dizzy, let 'em sit and sulk. They weren't shouting +any more, that was certain; they weren't even groaning happily when +Holliday hit him. And damn that roof! Or was it the floor? It +certainly had been <I>under</I> the chin that time. Got to get up—and it +didn't seem possible—didn't seem as if he could. Was that English +holding him? Round was over? "Pardon me. Didn't hear the bell. They'd +ought to have a siren!" +</P> + +<P> +And so back to his riddle. It wasn't a brick roof—ah, there was the key +to the whole puzzling problem. Let him once solve that—you just let him +get clear on that point—and see! +</P> + +<P> +The bell! Holliday certainly was polite. He'd come all the way across +the ring in one leap to meet him. Saved him staggering miles and miles +toward the other corner. And thud! The roof—but it wasn't a thud. It +was a crash—a tinny clangor. Shouldn't have a tin pail—might have cut +himself. He got up, and promptly ran into something and sat down again. +It was easier to think, however, in that position. Tin! Tin! A tin +roof? That sounded more like it. Only it wasn't tin; it was—it was— +</P> + +<P> +"Got it!" he shouted—he thought he shouted, while men thought he was +coughing blood. "Got it! Got it! Solved!" +</P> + +<P> +And now that he knew the answer he could put his mind on this fight. +</P> + +<P> +What round? The eighteenth? They'd lost count probably, but anyway it +had gone far enough. He'd finish it now. He had hardly hit Holliday at +all; he'd hit him now. Where was he? He groped, and then he found him; +found him by the simple process of noting from which quarter Holliday's +last blow came. Right there in front of him, standing there and +measuring him and driving it into his unprotected face. +</P> + +<P> +It must look queer to the crowd, him not keeping his guard up or +anything. They'd think he was letting Holliday knock him out. He'd +better get it over with; he was consumed with eagerness, anyhow, to tell +Hamilton and English the joke about the roof, the joke which was on +himself. +</P> + +<P> +So he swayed with the next blow and rocked lightly back. He'd sit down +no more. He swayed with the next one, but this time he snapped forward, +glove and arm and shoulder. This time, on the rebound, he put all he had +into it; and that after all was what a champion really was: A guy who had +something always left to call on, a guy who could shoot it all, when the +crisis came. +</P> + +<P> +And even Holliday must have been unwary and fooled and thought he was out +standing up. For this time he did not miss. Nor did the floor rise. +Nor Holliday. Tough on Holliday. Solved! +</P> + +<P> +He allowed the referee to hold aloft his hand; good referee,—square. He +fell out of the ring—clumsy!—and passed down miles and miles of aisle +between pale faces. What were <I>they</I> goggling at? Of course he was a +little cut up and bruised; what did they expect? He'd taken some +punishment. They'd say now, he supposed, that he had no skill. +</P> + +<P> +But they drew back and looked away, or dropped their eyes; they acted +almost shamed. Well, some of them had been mistaken; they'd called him +yellow. He wanted to stop and tell 'em it was not so, but he couldn't +spare the time just now. He had to hurry to his dressing-room and tell +Hamilton and English the joke,—this joke at his own expense. +</P> + +<P> +English had an idea apparently that he was helping him, holding him up. +Well, he wasn't. He'd bet it was fourteen feet from his neck to his +ankles. But the joke—had they closed the door? Then listen! +</P> + +<P> +"The roof! I thought it was the roof that fell on me! Can you beat +that? First a brick roof—then a tin one—" He thought it was laughter +which doubled him up. +</P> + +<P> +"And do you know what it really was?" He gave them ample time but +received no answer. So he shouted it aloud; he thought he shouted: +</P> + +<P> +"Not the roof at all! Not brick—not even tin! Pots and pans! Pots and +pans! Aluminum! Dozens! A whole set of 'em!" +</P> + +<P> +He thought it was laughter which doubled him up; then found he was +deathly sick. Was this the floor he was lying upon, or a table? Because +if it was the floor he'd have to get up; he didn't know whether he could +make it again or not but he'd be a game guy and try. They were holding +him? All right, let it go at that. Holliday'd not got up either. He +could see Holliday just as plain—just as clear!—unconscious on the +canvas. Then the fight must be over—he was glad of that … +</P> + +<P> +He came to crying weakly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WINNER TAKE ALL +</H3> + + +<P> +His first conscious thought was of his great need to go to her quickly, +yet he waited several days to give his marked face time to heal, Hamilton +and Jack English waiting with him. And at length, on the way north, he +shyly opened his heart to them; he told them of his plan. Because he was +urgent about it, and more than a little panicky, they promised they would +see him through with it; when they parted at Grand Central it was to be +for only an hour or two. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll not fail me?" he asked anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +Hamilton made game of him, a little. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll be there," he answered. "Where's your nerve, man? We'll be there +with our hair in a braid." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll be there," echoed English soberly. "We'll be in your corner." +</P> + +<P> +He very nearly missed her; and yet afterward she always insisted that she +was sure he would come, even in that last minute while she stood looking +about to be certain that she had overlooked nothing in the apartment +which she could no longer have afforded to keep even had she wanted to. +Therefore her start at his appearance upon the threshold did not equal +his surprise at the sight of her dressed for traveling, her belongings +already packed. +</P> + +<P> +For it fairly demoralized him. Like every good tactician he had coped +with as many details as could be handled in advance, but against this +moment his preparation had been none too thorough. Desperately, once or +twice, he had tried to drill himself for it, practicing a line or two +which he hoped he could remember. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not her kind; I'm different from what she is," he had told himself, +"and I will tell her that. But I'll tell her, too, that I'll not <I>stay</I> +different any longer than it can be helped. I am no dunce; I'll learn to +be her kind." +</P> + +<P> +But, slipping away too happily into thoughts of how different she was +from everyone else in the whole world, beyond that he had not found it +easy to go. None too steadily he had decided to rely upon inspiration. +And now at the sight of her in a scant blue suit and tiny hat, bag in +hand before him, every last syllable of his rehearsals basely failed him. +</P> + +<P> +He looked from her inquiring eyes to the stripped room. She believed she +understood that survey. +</P> + +<P> +"Felicity's gone," she said in a voice that he hardly recognized as her +own. "She went with Dunham, the afternoon of the day you left for the +South. I did not tell you then because—" +</P> + +<P> +It seemed too obvious, so she left it unsaid. +</P> + +<P> +At that he reddened and was a little ashamed and humbler than ever at +heart. But he'd not thought of Felicity for weeks; he'd never thought of +her like this. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," was all he could manage. "Oh. And you—?" +</P> + +<P> +She thought she understood his blankness. +</P> + +<P> +"I was just going myself." +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" He was suddenly afraid that it was too late for his plan,—that +it had always been too late. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know," she answered. "Home, maybe—where I used to live. It +doesn't much matter—anywhere." +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes had not once left his face. And now he saw that they were as +changed as her voice. He would have said, had they been other than hers, +that they were bitter; no, not bitter; sardonic and mocking. Temporarily +like Felicity's. And she must be very tired, judging from her voice, +even more tired and wan than she looked. +</P> + +<P> +The phrases which he had rehearsed deserted him treacherously. +</P> + +<P> +"Then—then, why not come with me?" he labored over it. "I've a +drawing-room on the Lake Shore on the five o'clock. I knew about +Felicity; that wasn't why I came back. I came because I thought maybe we +could go out—you and I—and look around together." +</P> + +<P> +He knew it was a poor thing of weak words and not what his inarticulate +heart would have uttered. Yet he was not prepared for her reception of +it. +</P> + +<P> +She laughed up into his face, a hard little, crisp little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" she said. "Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +And when he took her in his arms and kissed her it was not as he had +dreamed it would be. Her body was slack, her lips not merely passive but +cold against his own. His heart heavy for reasons which he could not +name, he set her quickly free. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be back for you, then, at three," he said. "Will you be ready?" +</P> + +<P> +As casually, it came to him, just as calmly he might have discussed his +plan with any man. +</P> + +<P> +"At three," she repeated. "I'll be ready." +</P> + +<P> +He left her, not as happy as when he had sped up the stairs; left her +demoralized now. In the interlude before his return she sat motionless, +her mind a tumult of doubt. +</P> + +<P> +She too had dreamed what that embrace would be; she had wanted always to +be near him, yet she had just shrunk from it. +</P> + +<P> +"Who am I to dictate such terms to life?" Felicity had demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"And who was she," in all that long month Cecille had been asking of +herself, "who was <I>she</I>? And what was she waiting for?" +</P> + +<P> +Even a percentage of happiness, Felicity had preached, would be less +unendurable than no happiness—ever—at all; and she had at last +convinced herself that this was so. Yet now she shook with doubt. Was +this dead thing the actuality which at any price she had hoped to save? +</P> + +<P> +Once she was very close to flight; more than once, more childishly than +she knew, she wished that she would die. +</P> + +<P> +But she kept to her promise and waited; she was ready and went with him +at three, though after he had put her in the taxi and climbed in beside +her, she found it difficult to breathe. She could not have forced words +from her throat had she wanted to, and he was as silent as she. For at +the end of hours he had hit upon an explanation of this mood of hers, her +trouble, and it was troubling him deeply, too. Two or three times, +watching her still face and quiet hands, it had been upon the tip of his +tongue to tell her that after all they could still abandon his plan. +</P> + +<P> +He had not offered to kiss her again, nor even reached for her hand, and +she had been grateful for this, almost hysterically grateful as she +recalled the little opportunities which she had once contrived for just +such contacts. And the taxi was not merely stifling; it was like a trap. +The seat was far too narrow. Even though she huddled into her corner the +six inches of clear space which separated them was all too brief. +</P> + +<P> +So they rode south, both unhappier with every turn of the wheels, till +suddenly he saw her hands tighten into fists, and her lips begin to move. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't," was what he made of that whisper. "Oh, ask him to +stop—please—please!" +</P> + +<P> +He did not question her; her face was enough. The cab pulled up to the +curb. She flung open the door and started to get out. But she could not +go like this—not without a word—not without some explanation—even if +she had to brave his rage. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't," she told him. The voice was tired, but not beaten—no. "I +thought I could, because I loved you oh—so—much. But I can't. I know +it now; I've known it all along." +</P> + +<P> +But he didn't seem angry; he seemed only gentle and sorry. And his voice +sounded sorry, and kind. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I knew it, too," he was saying, slowly; "knew it was wrong, all +the while. But I didn't realize how wrong till I saw it was making you +sad. At first it seemed to me that this would be the finer way, quiet +and soon over, no fuss nor any crowd. I have seen weddings that were +ribald and not sacred, and I wanted ours to be none of that. Just you +and I and the minister, with Hamilton and English standing by; and then +just you and I going away together, leaving no wise winking, no meaning +whispers behind. And that <I>was</I> right,—but only half right; I have been +selfish with you. It is a sober step for a girl like you; she wants her +folks at such a time. We will wait now for your people." +</P> + +<P> +She had paused to wait for his answer—his anger—with one foot upon the +running board, one foot on the curb. But slowly, as his voice went +gravely on and on, she turned and faced him and listened, incredulous. +The words were distinct enough; they drummed at her ears, but they did +not penetrate, not even after he had finished, until she stared about her +and saw how far they'd come. They were far south of Grand Central and +Forty-second Street. Then it went reeling through her. +</P> + +<P> +He would have stepped out, but she pushed him back and followed him +inside. +</P> + +<P> +"Where were we going?" she gasped. But she knew—she knew! She wanted +to laugh, and wanted to cry, and didn't know which to do. +</P> + +<P> +"We have to get a license, you know," he told her soberly. +</P> + +<P> +She decided then to cry, not much, just a little. But she made him smile. +</P> + +<P> +"We've lost a lot of time," she sniffed brokenly. "You'd better tell him +to hurry." +</P> + +<P> +The driver had been disappointed; he had expected more of her. But then +you couldn't never tell about them dames with real class. But he was +deferential; he had recognized his fare. +</P> + +<P> +"Where to, Mr. Blair?" he opened the door at that moment to ask. "We +gotta step on 'er, if you still want to make it." +</P> + +<P> +Perry ordered him to step on 'er. +</P> + +<P> +Then the miracle came to pass. She found the worn seat yards too wide, +the mean interior cathedral. +</P> + +<P> +And Hamilton and Jack English did not fail them. They were waiting. +They were "in his corner" as they had promised to be. They accompanied +the bride and groom to the station. And while Hamilton was shaking hands +with her husband, Jack English found opportunity for a word with his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I tell you?" he asked. "Didn't I say you'd picked a game guy?" +</P> + +<P> +She was dewy of lip, star-eyed. +</P> + +<P> +"You told me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +He studied her with peculiar intentness. +</P> + +<P> +"This game will never hold him," he at last went on. "He'll want to take +you far, so his fight has just begun. You believe in him. You'll be +proud of him, some day." +</P> + +<P> +She dropped her eyes; she was too honest with herself not to admit that +she had wondered about that, often hoped and therefore feared she might +not be. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean to," she answered, her voice not large. "And I'm proud enough, +right now." +</P> + +<P> +But not until hours after did she realize how proud. Hours later as she +sat in their drawing-room on the Lake Shore Limited and watched her +husband, just outside the open door, talking with a senator and a +prominent divine, her tiny disloyalty punished her a little. How hard +and clear cut his profile was—his nose was rather large! And how +man-sure, and boyishly diffident. She'd be secure, her whole life +through—and she hated men who boasted. She suffered some for her +snobbish wonder; but she was conscious of a new, great joy. +</P> + +<P> +"My lad!" she tried it aloud. "My lad!" +</P> + +<P> +She laid her fingers to her throat. A pulse throbbed there. +</P> + +<P> +How eager they seemed for his company; how interested! And there was no +patronage in their manner; rather they sought to establish equality; they +sought to be approved. This game would not hold him—and their chance +was equal to any. They were both young, very young—though she was +extremely mature for twenty years! Maybe—she didn't lean exactly toward +the ministry—but perhaps a senator— +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes grew misty and veiled; she was lost to all but her dreams. +</P> + +<P> +And then the train stopped and she heard the senator talking, his voice +very loud with no din of motion to drown it. +</P> + +<P> +"I snapped my right over"—it punctured her blissful gossamer of +fancy—"I snapped my right over—and <I>he</I> made no more trouble for +anyone, in <I>that</I> town." +</P> + +<P> +She heard her husband answer, but could not make out the words. But +apparently the prominent divine had been champing on the bit; the +senator, she thought, must have interrupted him. +</P> + +<P> +"—a bully, the town bully, and an extremely powerful man. But that did +not deter me. I was outraged, you see—righteously indignant. So I +hooked with my left—I believe, sir, that that is the correct term—" +</P> + +<P> +The absurd, fat things! She heard her husband assuring him that it was. +Her husband! +</P> + +<P> +So later he returned to a very bright-eyed wife. He dropped into a seat +and she was happier still at the happiness in his eyes. For a time he +was quiet; then suddenly he slanted his head at her. He began to tell +her about the pots and pans. +</P> + +<P> +"Some battle!" he drawled at the finish of it. "Champion—winner take +all!" +</P> + +<P> +Nor had he been able to keep down a little note of pride. It was quite +as if, still humbly, in his own plains' talk, he had assured her, "Your +husband is no dub." +</P> + +<P> +And so she started that soon to become better acquainted with him. He +was no braggart with others; to his own wife he would boast a little. +Husbands were likely to, she realized—she loved him more. +</P> + +<P> +And the words had started a thought in her own head. She had lost that +phrase of Felicity's, and searched for it, and was glad to find it again. +</P> + +<P> +"Some battle," she echoed softly. "Some battle—winner take all." +</P> + +<P> +Then she rose and went to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Perry, lad," she murmured, "I'm not sure but what there are <I>two</I> +champions, right here in this very car!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BLUE FOR A BOY +</H3> + + +<P> +"But would she have been happy?" A critic whose sex is indicated by +her usage of the pronoun <I>she</I> instead of <I>they</I> once raised the +question. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" I asked unguardedly. +</P> + +<P> +Obviously such stupidity as my counter-question evinced was worthy of +some pity. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, she was an—ah—superior sort of a girl; breeding, you know, and +all that, or so I have gathered, while he—" +</P> + +<P> +But I stayed no longer to listen. What was the use? There was not +merely a little of snobbishness in her. I did not even insist that +"she" might have been, or add that it was really true. But I went West +promptly to see. +</P> + +<P> +Perry Blair had scarcely guessed at the possibilities of that valley. +There were five dozen, or five hundred white-faced Herefords under +fence; or five thousand. I forget which, for I was not curious +concerning these. +</P> + +<P> +But having cornered her at last I put the question bluntly. +</P> + +<P> +"What about that career?" I wanted to know. "There's a crying need +just now for good senators—plain statesmanship handled neatly." +</P> + +<P> +She colored a little. +</P> + +<P> +"Wel-l-l," she was going to slide out of it if she could, "Perry's +awfully busy right now, it's so hard to get trustworthy men. And—and +then, anyhow, I'm not so sure I'd care to have him enter politics, as +they are at present—even if—" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't blame you," I concluded. "Wise decision. But what about the +ministry—how about that?" +</P> + +<P> +Here, however, she would have rallied and protested hotly that she had +never been keen about the ministry—not at all!—when an occurrence +just outside the open door saved her the need. +</P> + +<P> +Perry Blair—Blue Jeans, with no rent in his shirt and a nonsensically +expensive hat—had been driving a nail into the wall. The nail had +dodged and he had struck his thumb, and was commenting upon it plainly, +though with no great heat, aloud. +</P> + +<P> +And she grew pinker still. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a hypocrite," I complained with scorn. "You should blush!" +And dropped the matter there. +</P> + +<P> +But I was less concerned with the question of their happiness. And +that evening, when a puncher brought a pasteboard box in the mail and +all innocently they opened it before me, I became very sure. +</P> + +<P> +For the box held a pair of those inadequate articles of apparel known, +I believe, as bootees, designed and executed in knitted silk for an +expected new arrival. And they forgot me, forgot that this expectation +was supposed to be a secret, in exclaiming over the mystery of who had +found them out. +</P> + +<P> +Then she came upon the card. There was no name or address; just one +line: +</P> + +<P> +"Winner take all!" it read. +</P> + +<P> +Yes—Felicity. +</P> + +<P> +After a long period of grave silence which had come upon them: +</P> + +<P> +"See!" she exclaimed softly. "Pink! A girl! Haven't I been telling +you so, all along?" +</P> + +<P> +"How does that signify?" Quickly he took up the challenge. Clearly +here was a matter which had seen much discussion. +</P> + +<P> +"Pink for a girl, and blue for a boy," she explained with conscious +superiority. +</P> + +<P> +But she couldn't continue to tease him. His face had become long. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps not, dear," she murmured. And then, with a little air: +</P> + +<P> +"Anyway, they'll be very useful, I'm sure. They are exceedingly fine +and dainty, and it is not easy to get things good enough, away out +here." +</P> + +<P> +But there he put his foot down. <I>She</I> had not been very keen about +politics! Or the ministry! Indeed! +</P> + +<P> +"Pink for a girl?" he asked. "That's straight?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's straight." +</P> + +<P> +"Then he'll not wear them, ever. No son of mine shall be made a sissy +of, while he's still too helpless to prevent." +</P> + +<P> +But there they started and grew red at my presence which they had +forgotten, for I had to laugh. +</P> + +<P> +Happy? I didn't answer the amateur critic, but I don't mind saying so +here. And somehow I feel that I should know. +</P> + +<P> +I'm Hamilton. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINNER TAKE ALL***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18829-h.txt or 18829-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/2/18829">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/2/18829</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: Winner Take All + + +Author: Larry Evans + + + +Release Date: July 14, 2006 [eBook #18829] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINNER TAKE ALL*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 18829-h.htm or 18829-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/2/18829/18829-h/18829-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/2/18829/18829-h.zip) + + + + + +WINNER TAKE ALL + +by + +LARRY EVANS + +Author of +Then I'll Come Back to You, Once to Every Man, Etc. + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: That, after all, was as much as anyone could ask.] + + + + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers ------ New York +Copyright, 1920, by +The H. K. Fly Company +Copyright, 1920, by +The Metropolitan Magazine Company + + + + + TO + + GEORGE C. TYLER + + Some of these pages you have criticised, + some of them you have praised; and + all of them beg leave to recall herewith + the Author's esteem and affection. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. IS LUCK A LADY? + II. RIDE HIM, COWBOY! + III. LITTLE-TWEED-SUIT + IV. ALL ELSE IS HERESY + V. CHAMPION! CHAMPION! + VI. FELICITY CROSSES BROADWAY + VII. AS WILLOWS BUD IN SPRING + VIII. MY LAD + IX. DUNHAM TALKS BUSINESS + X. CECILLE PLAYS THE GAME + XI. POTS AND PANS! + XII. WINNER TAKE ALL + XIII. BLUE FOR A BOY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + That, after all, was as much as anyone could ask . . _Frontispiece_ + + He tore at them, mad with rage. + + Lucky interference. + + "Come on, now--'fess up?" + + + + +WINNER TAKE ALL + + +CHAPTER I + +IS LUCK A LADY? + +By easy stages Blue Jeans had arrived at the water tanks. + +That had not pleased him much, though the water which fell in a musical +drip from the stack nearest the rails into what impressed one as a +sensible, frugal tub, until it, too, filled and overflowed and betrayed +its trivial nature, was sweet on his tongue and grateful to his mare. + +Arriving anywhere by easy stages had never appealed to him. Swift and +sudden, that was the better way. Rather would he have whirled into +Reservoir with zest and some commotion. But Girl o' Mine was in no +shape for that. She drooped. Events which had jostled him roughly in +the last few weeks had dealt with her unkindly as well. There had been +many weary miles and not much grain. + +And yet his poverty had not been a thing of easy stages. It had seemed +both swift and sudden, and he liked it none the better for that. But +he would not enter Reservoir with ostentation. He'd ride in without +enthusiasm, and thus call no attention to the pass to which he'd come. + +Nor was he in a hurry to get there, either. The town, a quarter of a +mile across the track, squat and squalid in the dust, held nothing for +his mood. + +Reservoir was a poor town, anyway. + +And Life was a poor thing, too. + +He'd tried for hours and hours to think of one fair promise which it +still held for him--just one!--tried hard! And couldn't! + +Blue Jeans was twenty-two. + +And Luck had trifled with him over-long. + +One brief month earlier he had been a man of ambition, a man of +promise. He'd even found his Dream. An Easterner had helped him to +that foolishness; an -ologist from a university who expected to find +prehistoric bones and relics entombed under the hills. + +Cornered by that Easterner, who liked his face, and not having been +handy enough as a liar to get out of it neatly, Blue Jeans had admitted +under cross-examination that he was familiar with the country. + +Was he doing anything at present? + +No-o-o. But he was looking around. + +Could he pack? + +Yes. + +Was he accustomed to horses? + +He hoped so. + +Could he cook? + +Ye-s-s, some. Not good for delicate folks. + +Well, then, he was the very man for the position. + +And Blue Jeans hadn't been able to think offhand of an objection; not +one which he wanted to voice. He couldn't admit outright that the +prospect was dismaying to his young pride. That he was afraid of the +ridicule which certainly it would bring down upon him. + +"I'm a cowpuncher, not a grave-robber," was the way it rose to his +mind. But that wouldn't serve. It sounded neither dignified nor +convincing. + +Then if that was settled, what remuneration would he expect per month? + +He had been of astonishing though dense persistence, that professor. +Blue Jeans had pounced upon the query with sensations of deliverance. + +"Wel-l-l," and he named a figure which struck him as outrageous. + +But it hadn't staggered the professor; it hadn't even made him +hesitate. The professor's expenses in the field were already +guaranteed, back home, by men who could afford it. + +"Then it's settled," he had said. + +And Blue Jeans, who forgot immediately that he had been dragged, +struggling, into this bargain and began to view it as a deal of his own +shrewd consummation, had scorned himself for two whole hours for not +having made it twice as outrageous at least. + +Thus had it started. + +By night he had figured out how great the sum he had mentioned would +be, multiplied by six. The professor planned to be out that long. By +morning he had spent some money, quite a little money, in anticipation +of it. But that was not cause for worry; prosperity was shining in his +eyes. He was going to be a man of substance. And he would save, for +the Dream was bright. And then the professor spoiled it all by +mistaking a mule for a horse. + +The mule had not kicked him hard. If that had been the case, Blue +Jeans might have found it in his heart to be sorry for him. A less +frail man would have suffered less. As it was he spent his sympathy on +himself. And when directly the professor sent for him and intimated +that owing to the unavoidable postponement of the trip he was again out +of employment, he had not lingered to listen. + +"Of course, if you care to hang about," the professor had suggested, +"until I can travel once more--" + +He had not even found it in his heart to be polite. + +"Hanging about is just what ails me," finished it. "The devil, he +finds mischief for my idle hands to do. You can wait till you're able, +but I'm going to travel _now_!" + +And he made good his word without further loss of time, first paying +painfully the sums which he had spent in fond anticipation, and +enduring with a grin the ridicule which was double, because he had made +no trip at all. + +Last of all, before departing he went around to the stable and fed the +mule some sugar. + +He had found a new job hard to locate. And the Dream had lost +definition and grown dim and distant. It was late for looking around. +The outfits all were full. If he could have cooked--but he couldn't. +Not for a bunch of plain-spoken cowmen. Not without risking bodily +harm. He'd told almost the truth about that. And then he landed with +the Dee & Zee. + +At any other time the Dee & Zee could not have hired him. He had heard +things. But he had lost at last his desire to pick and choose. And he +began to think, after he had started work there, that folks had been +mistaken. He liked the place, and it seemed permanent. He even went +back to the Dream and refurbished it a bit. And then he learned that +the superintendent didn't like him. The superintendent, it appeared, +could never bring himself to care much for any man whose scruples were +too flourishing. That's what Blue Jeans had heard and almost begun to +disbelieve. Everybody had heard it except the Dee & Zee syndicate +owners themselves. But that did him small good. He doubted no longer, +however. He quit. He resigned by request. + +But when he thought to collect the little pay due him, he experienced +difficulty. He made a desperate effort and crowded the issue +perilously. When, however, in the face of superior numbers and their +eagerness for him to insist, he realized that he would be in no +condition to enjoy the money, even if he did succeed in collecting it, +he did the thing of indubitable valor. He gave it up gracefully. A +coward would have been ashamed to back down, and thus got himself +thoroughly killed. He laughed. And moved his right hand further from +his holster. + +But this time he had waxed stubborn; he had refused to let his Dream +grow dim. + +And the Box-A people--three weeks later they could have used him. And +would have. He knew it. A man had been badly hurt; so badly that he +would never know anything any more. They could have used him, only the +superintendent had just passed that way and outstripped him. They were +too busy, therefore, with sober work, too harmonious among themselves, +to risk a firebrand. + +"A firebrand? Him!" + +He had tried to laugh again, but he knew that his laughter was hollow. +It is hard to be blithe and all but broke. Nor had he pled this latter +state to urge himself upon them. Anybody could draw that conclusion +now, if he wanted to, just from the look of his clothes. + +He'd tried Claiborne--town. Little jobs they had offered him +there--menial! And that had made him rebellious. + +Thus by well-defined stages, and hugging now his Dream, to the +stud-poker game. + +All that he possessed he'd sold and put it on this venture; all but his +saddle and bridle and gun, and Girl o' Mine. He played stud-poker +well; better than most men he knew; and that was no empty conceit, +either. He just did. Some men's judgment was quicker, surer than +others, that was all. + +And he had played well last night. But he could not overcome with +nerve what he had lacked in capital. Five cards and many dollars oft +will beat a better hand. But his dollars had been few. So had he +tested again a time-tried truth, and proved it. A man should not +gamble at all; that is, not when he needs to win. For then he was sure +to lose. That was why they called luck a lady. + +Clink your money in your pocket and not care whether you won or lost, +and she'd fair swarm upon you. She wouldn't _let_ you be! Nothing was +too good for you--you were a king! Two deuces and a lazy smile would +bluff a brace of aces. + +But just you let her guess that your straits were desperate. Just you +let her guess that your last dollar was on the table! You couldn't +catch a pair back to back in forty-seven years. She'd quit you flat! + +That was why they called luck a lady. Just like a woman! + +And he had lost less composedly than they had suspected from his face +and comment. He had gone, then, still early, to bed to escape their +torment. It was not often that they had found him so completely at +their mercy, and they made the most of it. + +And he'd risen and ridden out at dawn toward Reservoir. Reservoir +would offer nothing; but it was on the road he meant to travel, and +water was to be had there. He rode early because he did not choose +that any of his pitiless opponents of the night before should surmise +that the torn, worn jeans and old cracked boots and shirt with a rent +in the elbow was not merely his working garb, worn informally because +he had not wanted to waste time in changing and slicking up, but the +only garb he owned. + +If they had believed his decent outfit to be rolled in the blanket +behind his saddle, let them. He'd not disillusion them. Then they'd +not come around, embarrassing him and themselves as well, with awkward +offers of a loan. + +He rode at daybreak, and in the splendor of that desert dawn forgot for +a time to be desolate. Girl o' Mine stepped smartly in the early cool. +He had paid for her breakfast before he tried at poker. He forgot +himself, and presently he raised a light-hearted carol to the shuffle, +shuffle, shuffle of her hoofs. + + "Daughters of Pleasure, one and all, + Of form and feature delicate, + Of bodies slim and bosoms small, + With feet and fingers white and straight, + Your eyes are bright, your grace is great, + To hold your lover's heart in thrall; + Use your red lips before too late, + Love ere love flies beyond recall." + + +He didn't know where he had learned that. Nor did he know that it was +the lay of another vagabond, a dreamer light-hearted in adversity. But +it was good--some folks might question its morality--but it was +good--good philosophy. Swift and sudden, that was the better way. And +sad, too, a little. + +He sang it again and again. + +But the sun rose higher and the sand grew hot. And the gorgeous sky +was gorgeous no longer, but a glimmer of savage heat. + +Little by little Girl o' Mine's head drooped. Dust settled white upon +her, and she became streaked with sweat. And little by little the song +was stilled. + +He remembered then, abruptly. He was disconsolate. He had no call to +sing. He had been a dreamer, too--but that was ages and ages ago, and +long, long gone for him. He was only the vagabond. + +He'd been nearly broke? Well, he was all broke now. And better that +way! Half way was no good. It was better to be an out-and-out than a +neither-one-nor-the-other. He had had some large plans, until the +professor had started the run against him. He'd had a Vision, a vision +of prosperity and himself a settled man. And maybe some day--some day, +when he'd proved himself--when he'd found Her-- + +He wouldn't even tell himself how disappointed he was. + +Noon came and they tarried a while. There was no hurry; they weren't +going anywhere,--not anywhere in particular. Presently they started on +again. And through the glare of afternoon they passed along the +horizon, a despondent scarecrow upon a dejected horse. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +RIDE HIM, COWBOY! + +So to the tanks; but here at least was a little luck. The tub was full +and over-flowing; he would not have to cause the agent to swear by +swinging round the nozzle and wasting of his water. And something +besides sagebrush and sand to look at, too. For upon the tracks stood +a train; a train packed very full with men whose faces showed white at +the windows,--indoor men, Eastern men,--and a private car at the end of +the string. + +All men! Well, that would be the special train, come through from the +other coast; the prize-fight special,--and the last section, at that. +There was no man up the tracks with a red flag to guard against a +pile-up. And they also looked bored; they must have been standing +there quite a while. And hot. So, you see, his plight was not so bad! +He didn't have to breathe that air and sit in a slippery red-plush +seat. Not much! + +He went to the drip, serenely careless of the thousand eyes upon him; +he drank and clicked to Girl o' Mine, his mare. She pricked up her +ears and approached a step or two; she tossed her head and whinnied; +she was afraid of the drip and spatter of the overflow. + +He drank again. + +"See," he said, "it'll not hurt you. Plain water--that's all--awful +plain! Sure, you're unstrung--but that's nothing. So am I. We both +been under a strain. But I'm not asking you to do anything I'll not do +myself. See, I'm drinking it--just plain water! There--what'd I tell +you? See!" + +The mare had edged nearer, eagerly, while he talked. She was very +thirsty, though fearful. And at length his voice reassured her; she +thrust her velvet nostrils into the tub. + +Then he seated himself upon a foundation timber of the tank and rolled +a cigarette. His toilet could wait. He wasn't going to ride into +Reservoir and advertise his straits,--not to a lot of half-breeds and +Mexicans and worse. He could wait; years and years of time were before +him. For, vindictively, he wasn't going to provide a spectacle for +those eyes at the windows to watch either; eyes hungry to look upon +anything--anything--if only it wasn't empty desert. Not even the +spectacle of a scarecrow making himself neat and clean,--not him! Let +'em suffer and be bored. He was bored himself! + +He smoked and meditated, and presently a shadow fell athwart his lap. +Another horseman was arriving, and he was creating not mild interest +but a veritable stir at the windows. For he was different, +oh-so-different! He drew the eye with his magnificence. His chaps +were new and so was his shirt and his hat had cost thirty dollars. And +Blue Jeans could almost hear them exclaiming as they crowded to the +panes. + +This was the real thing! You bet! No fringy-panted scarecrow upon a +horse too good for him--stolen probably at that. Well, I guess not! +This was a bit of the real West--the old West. Look at them spurs. +Silver--solid! A regular cowboy! + +And the newcomer had been quick to sense this too. He was on his way +out from Reservoir, traveling north. Of course he would be traveling +north--the Dee & Zee lay in that quarter--and this magnificence was the +Dee & Zee superintendent. More than that, his horse was fresh up from +the stable, and the stable hands were not accustomed to sending a horse +out thirsty into the desert, but he did not now pause to consider this. +He felt the eye of that whole train upon him, its approval, its +admiration, and his importance grew. He couldn't help it; he played up +to his audience. Some men invariably will, with the eye of the world +upon them. They're made that way. + +Just for an instant the sight of that familiar figure, quiet there +before him, had given him an unpleasant start. The little matter of +unpaid back wages had crowded to mind and simultaneously a realization +that in numbers he was no longer superior, and therefore not equal in +other essentials. Just for an instant--and then the fact of the train +reassured him. Blue Jeans, hardy though he undoubtedly was and in +desperate need of cash, would scarcely venture force so publicly. It +would look to be nothing but rankest hold-up and robbery. And when +Blue Jeans, having out-thought him and arrived already at the same +depressing conclusion, let his regret show in his face, the +superintendent swelled some more. It appeared quite safe. + +"Back that horse away from that bucket," he directed. It was the voice +of authority commanding the urchin on the curb; of seasoned seniority +chiding the heedlessness of the stripling of twenty-two. + +"Can't you see that my beast wants water?" Blue Jeans was deeply +offended. Such opulence in anyone at such a moment would have seemed a +needless taunt; that chance had selected the superintendent to flaunt +it was surplusage of insult. Yet he could not even resent the +superintendent's gesture, wide-flung and arrogant to all beholders. +Again the superintendent looked to have the right of it. He clicked to +Girl o' Mine and she came to him, out of the way, like an obedient +puppy. + +And then began the performance for the benefit of the car windows, and +which the car windows enjoyed. This picturesque son of the real West, +this colorful figure in new chaps and new shirt and thirty dollar hat, +tried to ride his horse up to the tub. And the horse would not go. In +the first place the horse was not thirsty; in the second place, like +Girl o' Mine, he was exceedingly afraid. Yet in the beginning, when +the Dee & Zee superintendent scratched him with the solid silver spurs +by way of comforting him, he merely rose on his hind legs, but no +nearer the tank. + +At any other time the superintendent, who was not an unusual fool, +would have done the wiser thing; he would have dismounted and led his +animal. But now, even though he might have bested his own vanity in +spite of the car windows, Blue Jeans would not permit it. Blue Jeans +had been quick to see where this might lead and spoke with malicious +calculation. + +"I thought your horse wanted water?" he drawled, as the superintendent +paused to consider his course. "Pshaw! He ain't so plumb crazy for +it!" + +That settled it. It grew instantly furious and cruel. The +superintendent no longer merely scratched with the rowels; he drove +them home. And the roan horse plunged and bucked and staggered. + +It was hot and the sawing bit raised quickly a white slaver. The roan +wasn't a bad horse at heart; he was frightened at something he couldn't +understand. He tried to break and run. But at his bad heart the +superintendent wasn't even a man, and no damned bronco was going to +have his way with him. He rounded him back and sent him full at that +tinkling, dreadful drip once more. So the roan fought on, till tumult +rose within the cars. + +This was real! This was regular! One wiser than the rest--one who +thought himself schooled in the vernacular, because he had once +witnessed a Frontier Week celebration at Cheyenne--seized upon this +opportunity to air his vocabulary. + +The sashes had been left closed to exclude sand and cinders. He tugged +one open now and sent forth his voice. + +"Hi yi yi-i-p," he shouted. "Ride him, cowboy!" + +And the superintendent rode him! Rode him till the slaver turned red +and the spurs were a torture to the raw torn flanks. Rode him till his +eyes rolled white and crazed. For the superintendent had gone mad too, +mad with vain rage. He laid his rope across the roan's dripping +withers; it did not help; it was inadequate. With staring eyes he cast +about for a more efficient weapon. Then he drew his gun from its +holster. + +"You won't, eh, you--?" he panted, foaming a little himself. "You +won't, eh? Try that! Maybe that'll persuade you!" And holding the +long blue sixshooter by its barrel, he struck the roan heavily with the +butt just behind the eyes. Immediately the roan stood stock-still and +slowly closed his eyes. A less strong-hearted horse would have sunk to +the ground. But the superintendent was blind now to the pass to which +he had brought his mount. + +"Maybe that'll persuade you! Maybe that--" He mouthed the words +thickly and would have struck again. + +But just then Blue Jeans struck him. + +Blue Jeans took his gun away from him. How weak is that poor word! +Took? It would not have been so simple a recital had not the weapon +been reversed in the superintendent's hand for the hazing of the roan. +The train would have been treated otherwise to a bit of the real West +indeed, for the superintendent was beyond all sane thought or +discretion. Blue Jeans took his gun away from him. As the +superintendent would have thrust it into his face to fire he struck the +out-stretched wrist with the edge of his stiffened hand, and it fell to +the ground. + +Then Blue Jeans took the superintendent from the saddle. + +And now the train rocked and roared. This was not novelty, but it was +good. This was what they had come West to see, but better--better! +Better fifty times over than the tame affair which the world's +championship heavy-weight bout at Denver had turned out to be. This +was a fight. You said it--a fight! + +The superintendent fought with wasteful fury; Blue Jeans with a cold +hatred of his cruelty--a cold and bitter hatred of his opulence. The +superintendent struck him once with a wild, wide swing. Once--only +once. For he hugged to the superintendent after that and those wild +swings went past. And he jabbed! And jabbed! And jabbed! + +After a while the foeman would have clinched, but Blue Jeans prevented +that. That would not do; the superintendent was heavy and he was +slight. So from a position always before his own face his fists +battered the other man's features blank. And he tore that new shirt, +and trampled on the thirty dollar hat; and the chaps grew old and dingy +from constant falling and rising. + +Later the superintendent rose less readily; later still he did not rise +at all. Then Blue Jeans watered his horse for him and led it where he +lay. With a heave he tossed the once pretty puncher into the +saddle,--he was pretty no longer. He returned his gun. But he broke +that weapon and extracted the shells before he gave it back. + +"There it is," he told the beaten man, and instantly a light leaped to +the half-closed eyes. + +Blue Jeans read it. + +"Oh, it ain't loaded. See!" And he flung afar the handful of +cartridges. + +"It ain't loaded, and don't you load it, either. Don't you try to load +it, till you're out of sight. Don't you even think to try to load it. +If you do--if you do--" + +He went back to his seat on the timber. + +And the train rocked no more. It became instead loquacious. + +"Didn't I tell you?" it demanded. "Didn't I say so, the minute I +spotted that moving-picture scenery! You didn't think real cowboys +dolled up like that, did you? You did? My Gawd! But that other +bird--look at him! Sure--smoking his cigarette as if nothing had +happened. Bet he rolls 'em with one hand! Bet he rolls 'em with one +hand, going at a gallop! And dressed for business all the while! +Gentlemen, you're looking at a cowboy!" + +And the wise one--the one who had been in Cheyenne during Frontier +Week--capped it all, nonchalantly. He'd never hoped to have such a +happy chance to display his vocabulary. + +"One bad hombre," he declared. "One bad hombre!" + +Oh, but they were loquacious! They forgot the heat and delay; they +would have risen to a man and gone out to him who sat, back toward +them, on the timber base of the tank, only they were afraid that the +train might pull out without them. So they had to be content with +watching him while they continued to tell each other what good offhand +judges of human nature they were. + +Not so, however, in the private car at the end of the row of coaches. +No noise had come from its occupants during even the worst, or the +best, of it. First tense attention and then when it was over and the +superintendent had ridden away, three pairs of eyes which, turned upon +each other, were startled, questioning. + +One of the men was tall and fat, and prosperous to the casual eye, as +he most surely must have been offensive to the fastidious. One of them +was short and fat, with pointed ears that made him look quite +fox-faced. And the other was a reporter. From his appearance one +would have said I hope, and truly, that only pursuit of his calling +could have brought him in such company. + +These three, then, sat for a time and looked eloquently at each other. +They were not loquacious about it, not verbally; and finally the tall +fat one heaved himself from his seat. + +"I've got a hunch," he declared, "and God never forgives a man who +doesn't ride one." Certainly he was a strange person to be mentioning +God so complacently. + +"Pull the bell cord if that fool engineer tries to start without me." +And he left the car. + +So presently another shadow fell athwart Blue Jeans' lap. He did not +bother to raise his head this time, however; he was nursing a bruised +hand and craved solitude. The fat man stood and looked down at him +until he realized that the other was likely never to look up, unless he +did something besides impose his plainly unwelcome presence upon him. +Therefore he cleared his throat--"hm-m-m." + +"Don't hm-m-m me," snarled Blue Jeans promptly. "And get out of my +light." + +In his own way the huge man was a genius, for surely nothing else could +have accomplished it. + +"Warm, isn't it?" he commented; and at that inanity Blue Jeans raised +his head. + +The huge man had his first fair view of the other's fine hard youth; +and while he observed the self-possessed eyes and long nose, +acquisitive and courageous, Blue Jeans devoted the interval to a +counter-scrutiny. He scanned the newcomer from head to foot, silk hose +and hair-line suit and expensive panama. The rings upon those pudgy +fingers held longest his wandering eye, the blue-white fortune in the +burnt-orange cravat. But all this seemed to kindle no approval. + +"Prosperous!" he muttered bitterly. "Prosperous! And yet I don't hate +you like I did that superintendent. Just as much maybe, but not just +the same. . . . Go away!" + +But the huge man smiled and stood his ground until finally Blue Jeans +slanted his head at him, wickedly, and fell to talking again. + +"I could pluck that stone from out your tie _that_ easy!" And his +voice held no assurance that he would not act upon his words. "Just as +easy! Yes, and I could beat you over the head with my gun--oh, sure +I've got one!--just like he beat that roan horse, and strip your +pockets and be clean away before one of those"--he nodded over his +shoulder at the train--"could think to call for help. And thinking to +call for help would come quicker to them than thinking to help without +calling. And Girl o' Mine would carry me clear in five minutes." + +He paused remorselessly, as if to let this sink in, but out of the +silence, "I don't scare easily," the huge man said. + +"Pshaw! I'm not telling you to try to scare you," Blue Jeans scoffed. +"I'm telling myself how simple it could be--and wondering why I don't +do it!" + +"I can tell you that," answered the Easterner. "Because you're honest." + +But that was not subtle, and he realized the flattery had been +ill-chosen, even before Blue Jeans flared, which was almost +instantaneously. + +"Don't you tell me I'm honest! Don't you dare even hint I am! It's +honesty brought me here." + +The huge man laughed gently. He'd made one mistake; few could accuse +him of repeating in stupidity. He took accurate stock of the symptoms; +set his sights upon what he surmised must be the bull's-eye of Blue +Jeans' discontent; waited a nicely balanced moment, and fired. + +"How," he inquired in a tone both mild and unsensational, "how would +you like to earn two hundred dollars?" + +But the shot did not take effect as he had expected it to. Instead of +snapping back Blue Jeans' curly head sank a little lower. Though his +inward start at the query had been great his outward display of emotion +was scarcely visible. For perceiving that this was a deliberate +attempt to arouse his interest, he dissembled it and exhibited no +interest at all. + +"I balk at murder," he replied with careful indifference and no flicker +of jocularity. "And it would have to be that, to earn that much money. +Two hundred dollars is a fortune; so's one; so's fifty. But I'm kind +of particular that way--though the offer is liberal--it is so! I admit +that, but I--" + +He would have gone on rambling had not the other stopped him. + +"Sure, it's a nice bunch of coin." And then, daring to be facetious +himself, though adhering still to his admirable and just-formed plan of +not disclosing too much at once: + +"You'd not have to kill him, you know. Half of what you did to your +friend on the roan horse would be plenty and to spare." + +"He was no friend of mine," Blue Jeans corrected coldly. "We'd just +barely begun to get acquainted." + +"Lucky for him!" Indeed, despite his personality, the huge man had a +lively wit. + +"A life-long friendship would have proved fatal!" + +It made Blue Jeans' eyes twinkle though it warmed them not at all. He +didn't like the fat man and he wasn't going to try. But when the +latter showed no readiness to go back to the important topic which he +had himself introduced, he found anxiety overcoming his resolution to +remain unconcerned. + +"You were speaking intimately of two hundred dollars," he drew it back +tentatively. + +And then the huge man knew that it was best to be precise. + +"For eighteen minutes' work," he explained. "Six rounds with young +Condit, at Estabrook, on the tenth." + +"Me!" Blue Jeans blurted his surprise, it was so far from the sort of +proposition he had been prepared to hear. In spite of his habiliments +the Easterner was no new type to him, and he had been ready to dismiss +him and his project, whenever it should develop, with a satisfying +frankness which could not have been admitted here. But this tripped +him,--stripped him momentarily of his self-possession. + +"Me!" he deprecated. "Pshaw! I'm no box-fighter! I don't box!" + +"Sure you don't," the huge man agreed, eagerly and instantly. "That's +what I saw as I watched you from the window, arguing with your fr--your +acquaintance. The whole world is full of box-fighters who box. You'll +look years and years, however, before you'll find one who will fight." + +Blue Jeans had learned to make his decisions quickly, and to abide +later by their results without complaint. Swift and sudden, that was +the better way. But here was no step to be taken ill-considered. He +wasn't sick of cowpunching; he hadn't had half enough of it; he'd never +have enough. But he was sick of punching other men's cattle. And he'd +been maturing lately, getting full-grown ideas into his head. There +wasn't any future for him, or for any man, hellin' around the country. +But if a man was to settle down,--that was the Dream! + +And he knew the place,--back of Big Thumb Butte. Good pasture; not too +big, but enough for any bunch he was ever likely to own. Some fence; +some buildings; both in a sad state but reclaimable by a handy man. +And water! The finest water in all the country, and it never failed. +And cheap! Cheap if one kept one's mind on relative values and off +one's own financial troubles; cheap if one didn't pause to recollect +that six bits, at the moment, would have been a prohibitive price. + +He'd got his eye on that place lately; that's why he had tried so hard +with the Dee & Zee; that's why he had been over-anxious at poker. He'd +even figured how, by being saving and eating nothing to speak of and +drinking nothing at all, he could save up half the price in about +twenty years. But he'd be old in twenty years, past forty, and +tottering and toothless without doubt. Unless Opportunity--_was_ this +Opportunity? + +He didn't like that game--not much--not at all! But, then, he didn't +know much about it; he could judge only by externals, by the clique who +made it their profession. And he'd liked none of them any better than +he did this huge Easterner standing before him, waiting for an answer. + +But if this was Opportunity--he didn't have to mix--he could herd by +himself, as he had at the Dee & Zee. And it was the best water in the +county, and somebody, pretty soon, was going to see the possibilities +in that valley and snap it up. And then where'd he be? He wanted to +become a solid citizen; he wanted to amount to something _now_. + +He raised a chill, gray-green eye. + +"You can say on," he gave leave calmly. + +But the huge man drew a slip of cardboard from his pocket instead, and +wrote upon it. It seemed to be one of a stock for such emergencies, +for it bore no engraving. + +"If you'll carry this to Harry Larrabie, he'll understand. He'll give +you what you need and send you against Condit Saturday night. Short +notice for you, I know, but you look to be in shape." He glanced at +the lean length. + +"One hundred and twenty-eight?" + +"Thirty-two," said Blue Jeans, and somehow resentfully. + +"Fine--fine! Well?" + +Blue Jeans had learned to make decisions with suddenness. He gave this +one, however, a full five seconds' consideration. Then he reached out +and possessed himself of the card. + +"Scratch Blake and send bearer against Condit Saturday. If he looks as +good to you as he has to me, keep him busy. Some day I may have +employment for him myself." + +It was signed with the single letter D. + +"There are no strings to it, after Condit?" Blue Jeans asked finally. + +"None--if you want to quit. None." + +"Then what is there in it for you?" + +Blue Jeans had been schooled to be skeptical concerning any act masking +as purely philanthropic. But the huge man wisely disclaimed such +motives. + +"Maybe you won't want to quit,--not right away." He had taken accurate +account of the symptoms. Everybody wanted money, but this man's +desire, he discerned, though great, was curbed and disciplined. It was +not feverish, as if ambitious merely of a few days of debauch in town. +It was controlled, and fixed and steady. + +"You'll find other two hundreds waiting," said he. + +"That's your gamble?" + +"That's my gamble." + +Again the card. + +"There's no sum mentioned here." + +Keenly the huge man's regard played over him. A scarecrow without +question,--poverty had had shabby sport with him,--but honest. You +couldn't mistake it. The large man's flattery had been ill-chosen, yet +well-founded. He drew two one hundred dollar bills from a folder and +handed them to Blue Jeans. + +"That'll let you buy some clothes, too," he said, and largely. And +this largeness was his second bad mistake. + +Blue Jeans had risen, and as they stood side by side, one thing was now +strangely emphasized. Travel-soiled as he was, and tattered and marked +with signs of conflict, Blue Jeans was the cleaner of the two, the more +wholesome, and immaculate. For what _he_ was stood out upon the huge +man in every fold of flesh. + +And Blue Jeans was at no pains to hide his distaste. He was no +prude--no sissy--but somewhere every man had to draw the line. And +every man should draw it before the state of his soul did such things +to lips and eyes. Therefore, and because of the other's condescending +largeness, his reply was cold. + +"I'd better," he said, without thanks. "When a man goes into a +doubtful business he'd ought at least to dress respectable. He owes it +to himself to look his best." + +The level dislike in the other's tone disconcerted the huge man not at +all. He was wise enough to drop it there. But it set him thinking as +he retraced his way to the private car. + +The fox-faced man and the reporter who was monosyllabic were waiting +for his return. + +"How much?" This from Fox-face, avidly. He had seen money change +hands. + +"Two hundred. He was stony!" + +"He did look hungry." This from the reporter, ruminatingly. + +"I sent him on to Larrabie." + +"Bet you a hundred that Larrabie never sees him!" + +"I'll take that," said the reporter. + +But Fox-face, perceiving better ones, changed the terms of his +proffered wager. + +"Bet you a hundred you never hear from him, even if he does meet +Condit." He hurled this at the huge man, disdaining the reporter. +"Bet you you've not heard from him in three years--in five!" + +"There's too many sure things in this world," opined the huge man, calm +under Fox-face's challenge with something like contempt, "to bother +with a gamble." He squinted a moment in thought. + +"But when we pull into Shell you'd better wire Larrabie to be discreet. +If he wants to know who D. is, better advise Larrabie to call me +'Denver'--'Denver' Smith will do. Just a disinterested party." + +And at that Fox-face was instantly, visibly consumed with curiosity. +The reporter looked almost as though he understood. + +"He might not approve of me," he chose to be downright, and enlighten +Fox-face at the same time. "He doesn't now, as it is." And then he +laughed softly, as if at himself. + +"It's funny, too. I suppose he's like all of them, drunk every pay-day +while his money holds out, and a familiar face at every brothel. And +yet from the way he looked at me--" He shook his head, not in anger +but amiable meditation. "It's funny," he repeated, and let it go at +that. + +So it remained a conundrum to Fox-face. The reporter, however, was now +sure that he had understood. He was sorry that he had not gone out to +speak to Blue Jeans himself. And now the fat man was speaking again. + +"He'll go to Estabrook, and he'll earn his two hundred. No room for +doubt. But beyond that--" he shook his head. He could talk frankly to +the reporter, for he never talked for publication. + +"He looked honest--but it was a bad hunch, I'm afraid. I'm not so +certain but what he would prove to be too honest, for any practical +purpose, if he ever did come through." + +"You've seen the last of him," stated Fox-face omnisciently. + +But they hadn't. Blue Jeans was invisible for a while, then he +reappeared, and the water from the tank overflow had done much for man +and beast. He looked almost neat, and very shining and clean. And the +huge man, the reporter observed, must have been mistaken about the +brothels. Blue Jeans was no prude--no sissy--but a man had to draw the +line somewhere. Wherefore his lips did not puff and sag, his eyeballs +were not mottled. + +His neckerchief had been newly knotted, with a flourish; his +discouraged boots wiped free of dust. And the mare, Girl o' Mine, had +also found refreshment. She drooped no longer; she even arched her +neck and buck-jumped a little, when he put his weight in the stirrup. + +"You, too," he chided her, though gravely, for he was not pleased, not +happy in the course to which he had committed himself. "You, too," he +chided. "Oh, you brazen huzzy! There's nothing like it--nothing in +all the world like ready cash to make a female frivolous!" + +He turned her across the tracks. + +"We'll not linger long in Reservoir," he spoke again aloud, and the +mare threw back one ear to listen. "Just long enough to eat and sleep, +and then we'll start overland to Estabrook. That's sensible! That's +better than squandering money on a railroad ticket." + +Certainly the prospect to which he was bound irked his pride; hurt him +definitely in his self-respect. But with this frugal reflection his +spirits rose a little. He'd not have to be like them; he'd not mix +with that clique; he'd herd alone. And save his money! That was it. +There was the Dream again! + +His spirits rose. With the whole train watching him he rode from sight +without even putting up a hand in farewell to those at the private car +windows. And at that, without realizing it, Fox-face--for that--began +hating him. + +Once across the tracks Blue Jeans clicked to Girl o' Mine. She swung +to a canter. + +"Trip along, honey," he bade her, his serenity almost restored. "Trip +along, and watch your step. Remember you're bearing a capitalist!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LITTLE-TWEED-SUIT + +Little-Tweed-Suit was being bothered by a toad--a toad-person with a +prominent thick watch chain and a loose smirk. She had been bothered +by him ever since dinner--dinner at night at the Cactus House, which +was inclined to be Eastern and effete in its apings--but his +persecutions there had been confined to lurking, contrived meetings, +and long glances which touched her noisomely. + +Once she had swept the hotel office with a desperate glance, trying to +select a face to which she might appeal. There wasn't one. Estabrook +was filling with its usual week-end scum; crafty faces, hard faces, +faces shallowly good-natured, and therefore doubly treacherous. Even +the pimply clerk at the desk, discerning her unescorted state, had +changed subtly in voice and manner. + +"Alone?" + +"Yes, alone." + +"Lonesome?" + +She had not answered him. But here on the railway platform, where she +had fled to catch the East-bound, nine o'clock express, and where the +toad unhurriedly had followed her; here where she had thought to fear +him less she found she feared him more. + +To know herself that such a thing had looked upon her as he had looked +was loathsome; to have others see him accost her and leer over their +interpretations of the insult seemed more than she could bear. And the +platform and hot, foul waiting-room, common to both men and women, were +both as conspicuous as the hotel had been; both peopled with the same +side-long glances. + +So she had fled again from the lighted portion of the platform this +time to the darker, far more dangerous end, which was out of the puddle +of illumination. And now he was coming toward her less unhurriedly, +his canine teeth showing wolfishly through a grin. This last move of +hers he believed he understood; he even valued it. A little coquetry +lent zest to the game. And she _had_ led him a pretty chase--but +now . . . he was very sure of himself . . . + +How Little-Tweed-Suit--a girl like Tweed-Suit--came there upon the +station platform of Estabrook is a long story; and it is not entirely +hers or ours. Therefore only the briefest part, for this tale's sake, +shall be set down here. + +It concerns a white house on a hill, and a man who failed so bleakly +that few could remember, even directly after his funeral, how shining +his successes had been. For his brilliance could not be saved in ink +or perpetuated with paint or brush. To be sure, his friends after his +death now and then found themselves recalling something particularly +keen, something analytical and searching as a probe, which he had +voiced on this occasion or that. + +"I remember how Manners used to say," they would begin; and then quote +as accurately as it were possible. But directly, when they discovered +how happily these epigrams were received by those who had not heard +them, they acquired a singular habit; they began to leave out Manners' +name and appropriate the applause to themselves. Thus they robbed the +dead man safely, nor found the practice ghoulish. One or two thereby +even acquired permanent fame as an after-dinner wit. + +Even his enemies, implacable, political enemies, who had done the most +to destroy him, more than the temperament which he himself believed to +be a blight, were a little more honest than that. They had fought him +according to their own rules, which debarred nothing, with every foul +trick they knew. If there was a weak spot in a man's record, go after +it; if he had been a weakling, temporarily a fool, seek it out. There +were human bloodhounds always sniffing to come upon such a scent. Hunt +it down; find the woman. + +As a matter of fact, there had not been a woman, after all. That had +been a mistake. A bad mistake, for it had killed his wife. But a +lucky mistake for them! For it had delivered into their hands the +secret of an actual and even more vulnerable place to attack. + +Before his wife's death he had been proud enough to hide it, and fight +it out when the struggle was on, within the four walls of his home. +But afterward he seemed to cease to care. + +Shameless! That was the pass to which they said he had come, in the +very worthy, very tight-traditioned and not very large town in which +the white house stood. And the day he rose drunk in Assembly, white, +haggard drunk, they read his doom aloud. Dead politically the papers +said. Fools! Dead in hopes they should have written; dead in his +debonair heart; dead sick of fighting a losing fight. And dying. + +This last, the sudden death of his body, however, took them by +surprise. They had not been observant. Yet on that bright day when +quite as many of his political enemies as friends rode behind him, the +latter were rather quick and proud to notice this. In suitably hushed +voices they remarked that it proved their broad-mindedness as a +community. + +But whenever anything particularly crooked was being crammed through +thereafter at the State Capitol, his name was sure to come up. + +"It's a good thing Charlie isn't here," they'd chuckle. "We couldn't +fool him this easy; he'd spot it; he'd tear us to pieces with his +tongue." + +His enemies were more honest; they remembered and appreciated him as an +antagonist. + +The others, save for the epigrammatic quotations already mentioned, +were more immediately concerned with his daughter. She had been proud +of her father--proud! She had never belittled him with hidden pity, +not even on that night when she surprised him, all in evening black and +white, immaculate and wasted, before a mirror which hung over the +buffet in the dining-room. He was holding a goblet in an uplifted +hand, the skin cruelly taut, though he neither swayed nor stammered. + +"Your damnation, my friend," she heard him say. "Your deep damnation." + +And he drank it to his reflection. + +The friends were immediately concerned with the daughter. And her +pride! They didn't say so, not aloud, but they thought to see it break +now. And the day that Ostermoor--Young Ostermoor was his title, though +his given name was Howard Davenport--broke his never announced and +merely tacitly accepted engagement to her they knew great joy. But she +robbed them of half their triumph. In public she never dropped her +chin. And only Ostermoor and she knew the shame of that private +conversation by which they were unplighted. + +"You must see my predicament." So spoke Ostermoor. "I'm dependent on +the old man. If he cuts me off, and he says he will if--" + +Even callow young Ostermoor, hair slick and scented, a thick-limbed, +small-town Brummel confident in his best-clothes smartness, had not had +quite the courage to tell her to her uplifted, flushed face what his +father had shouted:--That he'd have no blood of his crossed with hers; +that it was dangerous blood--tainted--wild. + +"He says," he finished lamely instead, "it's better to wait." + +Yet how easily she read his lameness, and estimated his father's words. +Dangerous blood--tainted? Ostermoor had feared her tongue; the women +in his household talked shrilly and long upon far less provocation. +But she only sat and seemed to smile. + +"I see," was all she said. + +And while she smiled, her cheeks hot, his eyes had crept over her. Her +slenderness was rounded, her slimness soft and full. A girl, it came +upon him, for whom a man's arms might still yearn in spite of himself. + +"This--this needn't mean any real break between us," he hoped, with +what he intended as a worldly careless air. He'd never have dared that +a week earlier; he had always been too conscious until that moment of a +certain unapproachability, a transcendent daintiness, audacious and the +reverse from fragile, which nevertheless had kept him at arms' length. +But with his father's words in his ears--dangerous!--tainted!--he +managed it easily. + +"Of course we couldn't arrange it here in town, where we're known--" + +"Arrange what?" + +"Well, I thought maybe--" Her calmness, hers by right of breeding, +lamed him again and angered him to coarse effrontery. + +"I don't suppose there's many in town now who'd care to take a chance--" + +"A chance on what?" + +"Well, on marrying you. This is a pretty conservative community. But +I thought if we could find a place quietly, not too far away, where +we--" + +She rang a bell and summoned a butler who was also cook, and coachman +too. + +"Show Mr. Ostermoor out," she directed, calm still. But the terms of +that order were only out of regard for the extreme age of the servitor. +He would attempt to obey her she knew; had he been younger she would +have directed that Mr. Ostermoor be thrown out. + +A week later the estate was settled up. Naturally Ostermoor's father, +who was president of the local bank, knew that there wasn't going to be +any estate, yet the total of her father's paper must have staggered +him. I hope so. And when she was proved to be practically penniless, +immediately they all felt that they had evened their score with her. +For what? Oh, for driving so sweet and cool along a dusty, +maple-shaded main street, as pleasant and courteous to ordinary +tradespeople as she was to better folk. + +Then, in a surprisingly short while, whenever somebody happened to +mention her and wonder where she had gone, they found that they had +already started to forget her. + +"Somewhere West. I did hear the name of the place. But I can't +remember it." + +They were above reproach,--in their geography. She had gone somewhere +west, and sometimes I am not sure that there isn't a heartache in the +reason for her going. + +Romance was in her hungry heart; such romance as the Sunday-groomed +youths who frequented the house on the hill might never satisfy. She'd +read books, all sorts of books, but one of the plains she loved. In it +a somewhat saturnine horseman, a son of the sage-brush, unlettered but +tutored much by life, had wooed and won a prim little schoolmistress +from the East. Whether she went with the hope of emulation in her +heart or not none can venture to say. Maybe it was in search of +manhood, a different kind of man. + +Anyhow, she went. And found a school to teach. And disillusionment. +She could not teach school; she knew more than her scholars, yet not so +much more of what they needed to be taught. It was not always clear in +her mind whether it had been the Delaware or the Rappahannock which +furnished Washington's transportation problem. And two and two didn't +always make four; not if she didn't keep her mind terribly +concentrated, when she wanted to dream. + +The children loved her; they cried, unaccountably to their parents, +when she had to leave. But the parents were ruthless about it; they +weren't paying school taxes to support a slip of a girl who couldn't +hammer the three essential R's into their undoubtedly gifted +offsprings' heads, even though her hair was high-piled and tawny-red, +and her skin like cream; even though there were violet lights in her +singularly eager eyes. + +When one less practical than the rest tried to point out that she had a +bearing different from theirs; "genteel" he called it, yet without +offense to the most humble, and that she "talked good, too," and in a +less nasal way, they rode him down. Their progeny was yet a long step +from a drawing-room they averred, or the need to know how to enter one. + +She lost her position. In Estabrook, loath to acknowledge herself +disappointed, she found another, and lost that. But she considered +this scarcely a mishap, for she couldn't have lived upon what it paid +anyway. Moreover she was becoming rapidly afraid of this country; it +was bigger and she was littler than she had supposed. And no dashing +horsemen had ridden up to her schoolhouse door and handed her nosegays +and assured her that her eyes were the same shade of blue. She'd +pricked that bubble! Most of them chewed tobacco with no delicate +regard for outward appearances. + +With her money running perilously low she had taken stock of her +wardrobe and found it already shabby, and decided to go back East while +there was still time. She'd try New York. Her pride would not +handicap her there any more than it had here, for no one would know +her. She'd find something to do in New York; of course she would. +She'd have to! + +Then the toad-person had laid unclean eyes upon her in the dining-room +of the Cactus House, and contrived meetings where their bodies must +brush close in passing. And followed her to the station. And she was +biting her lip now to keep from being silly and screaming; trying to +plan in panic the scathing things which she must say. + +It was dark there. The toad could not see her face and thus learn that +her eyes were dilated. The East-bound roared in as he came up. She +tried to run--it was her train--and couldn't. The toad put a hand upon +her. And then Blue Jeans--blue serge now--dropped off the steps of the +smoker in the shadow close behind her, and became instantly absorbed in +the tableau. + +Blue Jeans had whipped Condit. Indeed, he had considered it an unfair +thing. Why, Condit was only a boy--not more than twenty-one or +twenty-two at the most--a baby!--no bigger than himself. Not half so +big as the superintendent! And he could not fight well, either. He +danced a lot, and feinted, and made a great show of annihilation, but +he couldn't really fight. Blue Jeans had been sorry for him a little; +not much, because he'd ought to be in some other business if he +couldn't take care of himself. But he'd dropped so still, the first +time Blue Jeans hit him. So huddled like! + +"Have I killed him?" he asked Larrabie, remorsefully, after it had +happened. + +Condit had folded up like a sick accordion. + +"Have I killed him?" + +"Hell, no!" And Larrabie had stared curiously while neither of them +heard the applause. + +Before an hour passed Larrabie wired the huge man who had an office in +New York, an office lined with books. The books were never used; the +office saw strange usage. + +"A bear-cat," Larrabie wired. "What shall I do with him?" + +And an answer had come back: + +"Keep him under cover. Work him a little. Will send Devereau when the +time is right." + +So Blue Jeans had suddenly found his Dream in the process of coming +true. For he had done, not happy at heart, just what the huge man had +said he would do; he had decided to accumulate other and just as easy +two hundreds. + +"I'll herd by myself," was the way he argued himself to this decision. +"I'm no lily, but I'll not soil myself worse with this bunch." + +And Larrabie had kept him under cover, and worked him twice, until +another telegram had finally come, advising them that Devereau was on +his way West,--that the "time was right." But Larrabie had been +perplexed again on this occasion by Blue Jeans' lack of enthusiasm. He +reread the telegram aloud and emphasized the other's great luck. + +"There's not a man that wouldn't give up a big slice to get him for a +manager," he said. "He's in right, too. He's the ace!" + +"Huh!" remarked Blue Jeans. Indeed, Blue Jeans baffled him. + +And when Devereau arrived in Estabrook on a train twenty minutes late, +Blue Jeans was not there to keep the appointment which Larrabie, duly +aware of the Easterner's importance, had arranged. + +"Devereau'll be taking you East, likely," he had surmised. So waiting +not an instant past the hour when he was scheduled to arrive, Blue +Jeans had gone, stricken with homesickness at the thought of leaving +her, to see Girl o' Mine. It took him twenty miles down the line, but +he'd made the appointment with her before he knew Devereau was coming, +anyhow, and he'd keep it. Therefore Devereau--but you've guessed it. +Devereau is Fox-face of the private car. Devereau is the toad. + +It was dark at the end of the platform. He could not see that her eyes +were dilated. He laid his hand upon her. She couldn't run; her legs +felt frozen and useless. + +"No hurry, dearie," said Devereau. "Let's talk this over. Maybe +you'll be glad you missed your train." + +But Blue Jeans, who had landed lightly on the gravel, saw what Devereau +had missed. He saw that Tweed-Suit was afraid--that she was numbed +with fear. His single back-hand thrust sent Devereau spinning under a +truck. + +"Your train?" + +"Yes." + +"Give me your bag." + +She obeyed him. They had told her that the train did not wait very +long. His hand found her arm, a different touch than Devereau's. + +"Now run," he ordered. + +They found most of the vestibules already closed; then one far down +still open. So they made it, though he had to toss the bag and fairly +lift her on. And it was done so swiftly that it was a full half minute +before she caught her breath. + +"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed then. + +The porter was fussing with her bag, and her fervor overwhelmed him. +But her next words were a shock. + +"I--I want to get off," she blurted. + +The porter shook his head; he had expected better from her, but all +women were riddles. + +"We's rolling now, ma'am," he answered. "No stop for two hundred +miles." + +That night Cecille Manners--Tweed-Suit will no longer serve--lay in her +berth and watched the stars reel by. She had misjudged the west and +come away too soon; she knew that now. She put her hand upon her arm. +No, that wasn't the way it had felt; it had been strong, infallible. +And though he had turned quickly away, after putting her aboard; though +she had no way of guessing that he had gone back to find Devereau, she +was filled just the same with what remained, for a long time at least, +a happy certainty. She'd see him again sometime. She had to! + +But Devereau had known better than to linger near the baggage truck. +So after he had looked beneath it and upon it and all around it and +found nobody, Blue Jeans turned and watched the red tail-light of the +train disappear. + +Who shall say where fancy first was bred? Not you--or I--nor even Blue +Jeans. For he had not even seen her yet, not with seeing eyes. Here +was yet no chapter of his Dream. + +"A decent girl!" was what he muttered. "A decent girl--I'd swear it!" + +And he looked again, eagerly, beneath the truck. + +An hour later when Blue Jeans heard a man asking for Perry Blair in the +Cactus House, he stepped up. He didn't care for his looks, which was +no novelty so far in this venture. + +"I'm Perry Blair," he said. + +"I'm Devereau." + +And later, over a contract: + +"This mentions mighty little money," said Perry, "and that little +bashful and meek." + +Perry's manner did not even approximate the respect which Devereau felt +was his due. + +"You'll be well taken care of," he stated curtly. + +But Perry's answer, like one he had made the huge man, made Devereau +pause and think. + +"No doubt at all," said he. "I'll be seeing to that myself." + +And they didn't know, not till a long time afterward, that they had met +only a little while before. It had been dark at the platform's end. +Perry had caught nothing save a canine grin. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ALL ELSE IS HERESY + +There are certain people, good people to whom orthodox precepts and +preachments are more than the constant evidence of their own eyes, who +will find displeasure in this story. For they are accustomed to a +formula in all such tales and are not likely to abide a departure from +it. + +By it they have come to know immediately, whenever a woman with +instincts of doubtful propriety is introduced early in the action, just +what to expect. Her doom has struck. The frightful end which will be +hers is only a deferred matter still in the hands of her historian: The +dark river, a rushing car over an embankment to swift oblivion, a +living agony of remorse,--the rewards it will be noted bear a distinct +resemblance each to the other. For the wages of sin have long been +classified, tabulated and fixed, a minimum of mercy, a maximum of +disaster. All else is heresy. + +They have been told this so many times that they not only believe it, +just as Cecille Manners once believed, utterly, fervidly, but they +derive therefrom an ardent satisfaction. This might seem strange, but +it is stranger far that they never look about them, just for a moment, +at life itself--just for a moment, just long enough to wonder. But +they do not. They believe in and expect the worst, demand it indeed. +And so this story will not please them--no. Not at all in so far as it +chronicles the life of Felicity Brown. + +But the other half, the half which has been wondering for quite a +while, just as Cecille came to wonder, may read it and approve. + +[Illustration: He tore at them, mad with rage.] + +Once it was considered adequate to combat wickedness with fear, but +methods change. It has come to seem wiser, if less orthodox, to urge +that heaven is fair instead of insisting first that hell is so foul. +And so perhaps it would be well for a change to bear less heavily upon +the wages of sin, and extol, just a little, the wages of virture. For +too constant insistence upon an evil thing is sure to breed doubt in +the mind of one who is in the habit of thinking at all. It did in +Cecille's. If it be so true, so inevitable, so frightful, surely it +should be self-evident now and then, instead of a mere matter of +report. And beautiful generalization, never anything but vague, +becomes noticeable after a time, questionable. The things of glory in +this world are not so tediously many that they will not bear once or +twice the telling. Why not refuse, for once, to blink the facts, even +though they may not be suitably sordid? Why not go into detail, once +in a while, if the prospect is as fair as they would have one fancy? + +This story does, I hope. It would be honester that way. + + * * * * * * + +It is not easy to account for the intimacy which existed between those +two girls. It is doubtful if either of them could have done much to +account for it. Pressed for an explanation, Felicity Brown, it is +true, might have essayed an answer of sorts. "Oh, Cele's kind of a +nut," she might have declared, "but she's a good scout," or something +equally unsatisfactory. But Cecille, unless urged, quite likely +wouldn't have made any answer at all. Then, "I don't know," she would +have murmured. And in the face of such gravity her inquisitor must +surely have sought a different topic. + +Yet the intimacy was a fact,--one of those odd facts which life +persists in producing. They had shared an apartment (that is a nice +compliment, that phrase, applied to their sitting-room, bedroom and +bath) for almost a year, continuing in a state of amiability possible +only between two people so widely separated in ideals and hopes that +there could never be a clash. There had never been much companionship, +however. Now and then they ate one meal together, an early dinner for +Cecille and a late breakfast for Felicity, at six o'clock in the +evening. For Cecille's working day was over before Felicity's began. +But there had been no intimacy of the spirit. And yet each knew the +soul of the other as well as though it had been a meal sack which could +be turned inside out, exposing every seam to scrutiny. + +Felicity Brown belonged to the Midnight Roof Club's famous Aero Octet. +That is, of course, a needless bit of information, presumptuous even to +the initiate, for everybody knows her, almost everybody. She was the +third from the left, the one in new-grass green, with balloons pendant +from the scalloped corners of her short, stiff-wired skirt--black +balloons like huge dull pearls. The one with the smile. Yes, I know +that the others smiled, too, constantly, provocatively; but sometimes +the set of their lips was likely to seem anything but the curl of +mirth. But not Felicity's. + +It never lost its challenge. And her dancing was like that, tireless, +serenely abandoned, the essence of knowing grace. Half-pagan, +half-divine, Denby, the young cover artist, badly smitten, once put it +with striking unoriginality. And with exceeding inaccuracy, too. For +there are all too many who will insist that the pagan portion rather +over-balanced the rest. But her sheer vitality was amazing. + +An unobserving person, still seeking the key to their intimacy, could +easily blunder upon the old bromide and repeat that a pretty woman +invariably prefers a plain one for a foil. But he would have to be a +very blind fool indeed. For Felicity Brown's beauty, perfect enough +under the spot of the Midnight Club's miniature stage, became a less +flawless thing in contrast with Cecille. Perhaps that sounds +far-fetched. Perhaps, having seen Felicity for yourself, you are +inclined to smile and shrug. Nevertheless it is so. + +Not one of a million Denbys would ever have called Cecille half-pagan +or divine in any degree. He wouldn't have noticed her, even, unless +his attention had been pointedly called that way. And if another, +contemplating her with an eye not greedy of the flesh alone, had +finally hit upon the word poignant to describe the hungry youth of her, +the odd little tilt of her head, the soft and eager promise in swelling +line of hip and breast, Denby himself most certainly would have +murmured absently: + +"Poignant. Yes--yes, poignant. Quite so--quite so!" + +And yawned. + +For she did not challenge instantly, as did Felicity. A man might look +at her a long time before her perfection smote him. It usually +happened that way; it happened exactly like that to Perry Blair. He +looked at her many, many times before he saw with seeing eyes and +realized how shyly precious and flagrantly bold girlhood like hers +could be. + +Her smile was not as ready as that of the girl who danced. And it had +become a little strained, a little edged, before the end. But it never +lost its freshness. It was always as shining as fine rain at dawn. +And the inquiry in her eyes was not part calculation. They were more +wistful, less expectant maybe. But they were steady. And gray as a +November sea. + +Once, remarking the incongruity of their names, Cecille repeated her +own with a shade of scorn and provoked from her companion one of the +few personalities in which she ever indulged. + +"Cecille Manners!" she drawled. "Cecille Manners--gown-fitter's +assistant! With a name like that I should be in a Broadway chorus." + +It happened late one evening. Cecille was half undressed for bed. And +Felicity, busy at the mirror, turned an instant to follow with a +dispassionate eye the slight, knickered figure crossing the room. + +"With a figure like that, you mean," she amended. "It's plain stingy +to keep it under cover. Think of the thousands who are panting to pass +over three-fifty per, just to sit out front and give it the up and +down!" + +Nor did the girl at the mirror see the raw flush which her cool comment +brought to Cecille's face, nor would she have understood it had she +seen. That one's privacy, one's physical fastidiousness, could be +affronted by mere words, would have astounded her. Fastidiousness +carried that far--fastidiousness of any sort--was incomprehensible to +Felicity. But she found the topic momentarily of interest. + +"It is kind of stagy," she pursued it. "Your own?" + +"Naturally." + +Cecille's crispness was lost upon her. They could never have +quarreled. And Cecille had found a dressing-gown and hugged it tight +around her knees. + +"Oh, not necessarily," Felicity said, abstractedly judicious. "Take me +for instance. I tried out four or five before I was inspired with the +one I'm wearing now. And a couple of them woulda knocked you dead, +take it from me. But the Vere de Vere stuff is bla now. Too phony. +There's no class to that kind of a monicker any more. And, believe me, +you can't afford to overlook any bets, nowadays; you got to have class +in everything. Something simple--something demure, that's what they +want. You got to be a lady." + +And perhaps that is the best explanation, after all, of Felicity's +cultivation of the other girl. One cannot of oneself acquire breeding, +but it is possible to study technique. And I think Cecille's reason +for sticking to Felicity to the very end is clear too. Once, before +things happened, she was one of those people who believed in the +inevitable dark river, or swift oblivion, or an agony of remorse. +Believed pathetically. + +I think Felicity Brown served her as a fearsome revelation of life +stripped to its rawest essentials,--a demonstration of shattering +truths which she would never have believed had she not stood by, +looking on. It held her as a snake's eye holds a bird, fascinated, in +deadly peril. + +But they got on together. And as an economic arrangement it left +nothing to be desired. Cecille sewed well and was paid twenty-two +fifty a week. For her appearance in the Aero Octet Felicity received, +at the beginning, forty-five. This may astonish some. It shouldn't. + +"I don't pay my girls much." So Fiegenspann, the proprietor of the +Roof Club, bluntly advised her, after she had passed his scrutiny and +been pronounced unusual enough even for the Aero Octet. "I don't have +to. Because the opporchoonities here are big--very big. And I like my +girls to be sociable. It makes business." + +Felicity knew then that she had finally found the right man--the right +market. She appreciated his frankness and reciprocated. + +"I get you," she said, "and forty-five it is. And I'm sociable, or I +can be, if sufficiently persuaded. Only let's be clear about that +point right now, at the start. You can send Opporchoonity's card in +whenever he calls and I'll be pleased to meet him. But he mustn't +crawl up to the curb in any Decrepid Four--understand? He's got to be +hitting on twelve." + +Fiegenspann understood. He nodded his heavy head. He began to see, +then and there, that Felicity Brown was going to add another page to +the Roof Club's history. He even essayed a compliment. + +"My clientele is of all the world," he said. "And you--you look +expensif." + +"I am," said Felicity. "No pikers need apply." + +And with that business conference between Felicity and Fiegenspann +began the revelation which during the months that followed Cecille +watched in a kind of stricken suspense that must, it seems, have been +childish anticipation in the beginning of the pitiless blast which +would complete the other's sure destruction. + +Since the day when freakish chance had thrown them together she had had +no illusions concerning Felicity's ultimate destiny. It had surprised +her not that Felicity was traveling the road, but that she had not long +since arrived. She had not learned then how coolly Felicity herself +had selected that destiny and taken it in hand. She had not surmised +with what dispassionate judgment she had husbanded her resources, once +the route was chosen. + +And she wouldn't believe the evidence of her own eyes and ears, at +first. It never happened this way--it couldn't! Such things were the +black fruit of one reckless moment; of nameless impulses; of bitter +betrayal. Someone had written something like that. One more +unfortunate, rashly importunate--that was it. She couldn't remember +the rest. And then her suspense, which was half fearsome expectancy, +was overwhelmed by a thought which really frightened her. + +If all that they had taught her wasn't so; if all that she had accepted +so blindly wasn't the literal truth, inexorable for every individual +(life was a too bitterly personal thing for her to concern herself with +a doctrine which, accurate in the main, could be shrugged aside when it +failed in isolated cases) then all the rest, all that she had clung to +just as blindly, could be a lie. And if it was--if it was-- + +The thought struck at all she knew, all she had, her creed and code and +hope of to-morrow. + +Felicity when she burst in with the news that she had landed +Fiegenspann did a wild can-can up and down the room. She danced as no +one else ever saw her dance, in a surrender to exultation that was +wanton savagery. But her mood passed quickly. The next moment, like +an implacable campaigner, she was summing up the excellences of her +latest step. + +"Now you watch me!" she said. "Now you watch my dust!" + +It was cold-blooded; it was as passionless as chess. And it was about +then that Cecille began to draw nearer and nearer in spirit, like a +bird hypnotized by a snake. The simile is hectic, I know. But it was +like that. + +She tried to hold aloof. She used to wonder why she had not packed her +bag that night and got out. She used to shiver when she remembered +Felicity's dance. One couldn't touch pitch and not be denied. There +were, it seemed, an overwhelming number of such proverbs, and most of +them forbidding. + +But she stayed on. More than that, she found herself after a time +stammering a question concerning each new cavalier as he appeared. And +each time Felicity's answer was unbelievably unconcerned and laconic. + +"Nothing doing," she'd say. "He's hard boiled." + +Familiarity breeds complacency oftener than contempt. But it was +neither the one nor the other which forced Cecille to ask, over and +over again. Once Felicity surprised in her eyes the light that +invariably accompanied the question. + +"You're a queer kid," she added that time, after the usual answer. "I +sure don't get you." + +Later she thought she had solved it. + +"Don't you worry, Cele," she reassured her. "When the fall comes +you'll hear the crash. I'll slip you the returns a little ahead of +time so that you can get out from under." + +"It--it wasn't that," protested Cecille quickly. + +She wondered why she didn't pack up and get out. + +But she was still there another night when Felicity finally came home +again with every lithe line of her body pulsing triumph. She was even +sitting up, which was unusual. An unusual occurrence accounted for it. + +In the beginning Felicity had tried to share with the other girl those +prospects who, for one reason or another, were of no importance. + +"Come on along," she often urged. "These guys mean nothing in my young +life except a dinner. And you needn't worry. Believe me, you'll be +shown the same respect as if you were out with your maiden aunt. They +know I'm refined and won't stand for anything else. And it'll do you +good." + +Cecille did go, once. So far as her escort was concerned she found +that Felicity had spoken the truth. He was innocuous. He was, indeed, +quite entirely unaware of her presence most of the evening. That did +not displease her. She found him little stupider than a swain of the +same age might have been in her own home town, even though his name did +appear in heavy block type in the Social Register. But she went only +once. She made a mistake. She had that day helped to costume a sister +of one of the men. She happened now to mention that sister's +prettiness. + +The man looked her in the eye, coldly, for a prolonged moment. + +"Let's leave my sister out of it," he said at length deliberately. + +And Cecille's cheeks were still pale from his tone when they arrived +back at the apartment. + +"That was a bad crack you made," Felicity told her then. + +"I--I didn't know." + +"They don't like to discuss their own womenfolks with girls like us." + +"Oh!" + +The exclamation was little more than a whisper. + +"But no harm done," airily. "He has to depend on the old man for his +bank-roll. I just thought I'd tip you off." + +She didn't go again. She stopped wanting to go anywhere, even to the +movies, for quite a while. And then, just at eleven one night, while +Felicity was before the mirror preparing to go to work and wondering +where Cecille could be, the latter came quietly in. Felicity hardly +marked her entrance until she dropped suddenly into a chair and began +to laugh. It was the laugh which made Felicity turn so sharply. She +had had experience with that shrill note in women's voices and knew +what it could mean. Such breakdowns were ugly to handle. + +She flung sharply round. + +"What's tickling you?" she barked harshly. "Shoot! Let's have it. +Cut that, now!" + +It stayed the slighter girl's hysteria. + +"I've been--I've been to a dance," she gurgled. + +Felicity gave her no foolish respite. + +"Well, I don't get it," she rapped on. "Maybe I'm English. Where's +the joke?" + +"A--a dance over at the Central Palace, given for Worthy Working +Girls--" + +"That's funnier! But go ahead. Snap into it! Don't let it +drag--don't let it drag--" + +It seemed a potent cure. + +"I went because I saw in the paper that Mrs. Schuyler Driggs was going +to be among the patronesses to receive." + +The hysterical giggle was gone from Cecille's voice. She shut tight +her teeth and raised her chin. Felicity felt that it was safe now to +remain silent. And she was right, partly right. She only failed to +realize that Cecille was all too calm. + +"I'm sorry, Felicity," the latter apologized meekly. "But I couldn't +help it. I thought I'd laugh and cry and scream, right on the street, +before I could get here. But I held on. Shall I finish?" + +"Mrs. Schuyler Driggs has just made her entrance--" + +"Yes. She was in the shop this morning." The recital seemed simple +and orderly now. "I helped to fit her. I usually do. She's never +very cordial, but this morning she was--oh, she was a beast! She +nagged and nagged and nagged, until I got nervous. I couldn't help it. +I got worse and worse, until I stuck a pin into her. Not just a +scratch." The gurgle threatened. "But deep--deep!" + +"If you go off again," promised Felicity, "I'll dump that pitcher of +water over you." + +"I won't. I stuck the pin into her, and she--she grunted. And then--I +never saw anyone grow so furious. She turned purple. I'm not sure +that she didn't strike at me. + +"'You did that on purpose,' she grated at me. Grated, that's the only +word that describes it. 'You fool! You damned clumsy little fool!'" + +Felicity waited until it was evident that she would have to speak. + +"Well?" she asked then in a voice grown hard. "What did _you_ say? +What was the snappy come-back?" + +"I couldn't think of anything to say, not just then--" + +"Folks like you usually can't," said Felicity drily. "They think of a +knock-out a half an hour too late. But not me. Language comes easy to +me in a spot like that, language that I can't use regular without +getting pinched, and I'm generous with it." + +"I was a little more than a half hour late in having my say," Cecille +admitted. "But I had it. I saw the announcement of the dance in the +afternoon paper and her name, and I decided to go. I don't know why; +that is, I didn't--not until she recognized me. Then I knew! She was +shaking hands with me and telling me to have a good time. She was just +passing me on to the next in line, when she blinked at me, like +that--she's fat--and stopped me. + +"'Haven't I seen you somewhere before, my dear?' she asked. 'You seem +somehow very familiar.' + +"Then I knew why I'd come. And I let her have it! + +"'You have,' I was just as throaty as she was. 'And I should +be,'--meaning familiar. 'At ten-thirty o'clock this morning when I +stuck a pin into you, fitting that gown you have on, you cursed me. If +I remember accurately you called me a damned clumsy little fool.'" + +"--seven--eight--nine--ten!" chanted Felicity joyously. "And _out_! +What did she do?" + +And then, quite without any warning at all, came the break. It was +like the shattering of brittle glass. + +Cecille rocked to crazy mirth. + +"She had them put me out!" she shouted. "She called the matron and had +her put me out! She said the language I'd used before her was +positively vicious. She said I'd--contaminate--those--worthy--working +girls!" + +And it took Felicity almost three-quarters of an hour to bring her +round. In one brief interval of calm she managed to slip to the +telephone and call a taxi. The rest of the time she spent on her knees +beside the girl in the chair crooning softly. And she never knew that +most of the words she set to her soothing, extemporaneous tune would +have contaminated anybody, most of all Mrs. Schuyler Driggs herself. + +At eleven-thirty, when Cecille was crying comfortably, she rose. And +seeing that her work was well done, she became brisk. + +"I'll get a bawling out from Fiegenspann," she said, and ran to a +window. "Thank God, that taxi's here. And now you'd better get to +bed. Maybe hereafter you'll know better than to mix it with somebody +outa your class. You oughta known in the first place that perfect +ladies have got it all over girls like us, before we start. They've +got everything fixed, the judges and the referee, before you step into +the ring." + +She ran out--and flashed back. + +"Don't get me wrong, Cele." For one reason or another she hurried it. +"I ain't got time to explain just what I meant to say, but there's one +thing I didn't mean. Don't get me wrong. If you ain't a lady, then +I'm the Prince of Wales." + +That was the second time Cecille heard it. + +"A girl like us." + +After a time her sobs subsided until they were no more than long, +unsteady breaths. But she stayed at the window, staring down into the +street. Once she dug the knuckles of one fist into her eyes and +wistfully shook her head. + +"I wonder," she whispered. "I wonder." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHAMPION! CHAMPION! + +Perry Blair, champion lightweight of the world, stood on the corner of +Broadway and Forty-fourth Street, deep in contemplation of a quaint +phase of our present-day democracy. + +It was a fertile spot for such moralizing, albeit somewhat exposed for +one attempting philosophy in a fall-weight overcoat. For nowhere in +all this world could one hope to come upon a crowd better schooled in +the rules of hero-worship, American-style, than this eleventh-hour mob +which was pouring like tide-rips from side-street theaters into the +city's main thoroughfare. + +Much has been written, of a distinctly pathetic flavor, concerning the +case of a king without a throne. From days immemorial such hapless +figures have been somehow invested by historians with a melancholy +glamour; and yet this appears to be true only of those royal +individuals who came by their thrones in the easiest way--that of +inheritance. The kings of high endeavor who have won to the pinnacle +by force of their own stoutness of heart--in other words the popular +idols of a fickle public, who have scarce begun to get acquainted with +the dizzy uncertainty of their pedestals before the pedestal be rudely +removed from beneath them--rarely find the world inclined to melancholy +interest in their plight. Ridicule is the commonest manifestation of +any interest whatsoever, ridicule and an unfathomable contempt. + +For some time Perry Blair had been finding this hard to understand. +The adulation had been so overwhelming at first, so whole-hearted and +seeming sincere one brief year before. Why, even six months back he +could not have stood there thus, a tenth as long, before the copper +name-shield of the Claridge, without collecting about him a fawning, +favor-hunting throng so dense, so tenacious, and troublesome to traffic +that it would have brought the officer from his place beside the +surface-car tracks, caustic-tongued, to investigate and disperse it. +Nor would that officer have ordered them to move on, six months before, +once he had discovered what monarch it was who held informal court +there. He would have paused for a bluff joke or two himself, a knowing +word of importance, before returning to loose his indignation upon some +luckless wight of a family man, self-conscious and clumsy in what is +known as a tin lizzie. + +They had hailed him so noisily, so elatedly, press and public alike. +That the latter had fawned and flattered should have warned him what to +expect, later on, but it did not. The greater wonder is that it did +not go to his head a little. It seemed it couldn't help but do that. + +It had been so sudden. Mediocrity one day, and obscurity. +Mediocrity--and then world's champion, and the fierce white light which +beats upon a throne! Of course there had been some to sneer. Here and +there one had arisen to point out that Fanchette, the man whom he had +whipped in one round, had been but a shell of a man, champion in name +only, for a long, long time. They said the victory proved nothing. +They said that Perry Blair had just been lucky, that was all; lucky in +being selected as the one least calculated to damage Fanchette after a +whole year in which the latter had steadfastly refused to fight. Lucky +in having that fox, Devereau, for a manager, cunning enough to decoy +Fanchette into the ring. + +But in the main they swarmed to his standard. The king was dead. And +he had lingered tediously, at that. + +The newspapers welcomed Perry avidly. Fanchette as a subject for copy +had long been profitless as a sucked orange. Here again was the +novelty of newness and a personality of exceeding richness and color. +Or at least so ran report. No crack men had been sent out to cover the +affair. That such an astounding thing as the rise of a new champion +threatened had been foreseen by few. In the East Perry Blair had been +little known and reckoned a third-rater. But those who had been West +to see the bout which ended so suddenly brought back fragments which +put a nice edge upon the imaginations of the sporting editors. And +immediately, when in reality there was no need, had begun the +well-known process of gilding the lily. + +They featured his out-of-doors life; the romance of the country boy +again. They dwelt upon his modesty, his extreme reticence, his +hardihood and rigid habit of clean living. They twanged all the +strings that had ever sounded before in honor of other champions. And +Broadway--that certain ring which can give you off-hand the exact +poundage of Nelson when he met Gans, or the fastest time in which the +Futurity has ever been run, or the name of the latest female whose +intimate measurements have just been declared by one of a half dozen +greatest living artists to be a reproach to the Venus de Milo, all +without wrinkling its forehead in thought--that portion of Broadway, to +use its own expression, ate it up. + +And yet when Perry Blair came East an odd thing happened. When he came +East and they found that every word which they had read with such +approval was the literal truth, and not just the industry of an astute +press-agent, they were nonplused. Even suspicious, I believe. And +outraged in the end. + +It must have been a shock to them to find in Perry Blair a sportsman, +when they had expected a dead game sport. They had been waiting to lay +at his feet (at a price) the spoils due a conqueror, spoils neither +savory nor shining, but those which other champions had demanded and +relished, until they waked to find themselves champion no more. And +when Blair ignored these things they distrusted him. + +From the outset his reticence, which had been lauded, nettled them. By +some obscure process of reasoning it convicted him of conceit, a mean +and stingy conceit, unpardonable even among those to whom self-esteem +was as natural as the drawing of breath. Eternal poseurs themselves, +they adjudged his modesty a pose, yet somehow could not forgive it. +And his decency bred hatred in a few. + +The growth of antagonism was too slow, too intricate, to be retraced +here. It is effect and not cause with which we are concerned. And one +instance alone will serve to show, how finally was wrecked that +popularity which had been so swiftly created. One interview between +Perry and Devereau explains it well. + +The reply which Perry Blair made to the invitation sent him several +months after his arrival in Manhattan, by Pig-iron Dunham, is still +verbal currency upon the Tenderloin. Conversational small change, to +be sure, but still in circulation. + +Dunham had bidden him to one of his famous little dinners. Infamous? +Well, it's all in the point of view. Some of them have been spoken of +warmly by those who have attended, though guardedly. + +Perry Blair was more outspoken. + +"Tell Dunham," he directed the messenger who had brought the invitation +quite privately, "tell Dunham that if it had to be one or the other I'd +chose to dine decently with a four-footed hog, in a trough." + +The messenger, one of many who believed that Pig-iron Dunham, having +amassed millions in the industry which had given him his name, was a +philanthropist in spending it so liberally, thought to have heard +wrong. So Perry repeated again for him the message with something +added for emphasis. This time he believed his ears and bore it as +nearly intact as possible to Dunham. And when, hours later it came +word for word to Devereau, the latter turned pale. For many days he +had been hearing rumors disturbing to his ideas of managerial +authority, but had laid them to jealousy. He believed them now. He +sought out Blair. + +"Listen!" He plunged strongly in. He thought he knew when to tread +softly, when to brow-beat. "Listen, kid! You've pulled a boner. +A'course I shoulda wised you up earlier about Dunham but I thought you +were on. I thought everybody was. But you can't treat Pig-iron this +way. Why--why--why he--he's--" + +What he had wanted to say was that Dunham, Benevolent Patron of the +Street, was not accustomed to having his favors rebuffed so crudely, +but he couldn't quite manage it. So he fell back upon earnest +repetition. + +"You can't treat him like this!" + +"Can't?" asked Perry Blair. "I just have." + +Devereau didn't like that tone. He was just discovering a lot of +things about his light-weight champion which he didn't like. But he +kept his temper. He was famed for that. Famed for his oily smoothness +under provocation. + +"Sure! Your mistake--and my fault. But it ain't too late to square +it," he said. "You just send over word that you'll be pleased to death +to be at his dinner, and it'll still be all right. I'll square it. +And don't you worry. You won't be bored. Pig-iron's dinners +are--now--well--" He closed an obscene lid. "A good time will be had +by all! And Pig-iron will be pleased to have you there. Pig-iron, he +likes to entertain the latest celebrities." + +Blair's voice made him start. + +"He can't entertain me," said Perry. "Not a little bit." + +And suddenly with that Devereau was suave no longer. He leaped up and +thumped upon a desk. He slitted his pale eyes. + +"Say, what d'yuh think you are?" he raved. "Talking to me like that!" + +Blair did not attempt to shout him down, and yet he made himself heard. + +"Not Pig-iron Dunham's man," he answered. "Nor yet yours. Are you +thinking to tell me how I shall talk?" + +Devereau could not have told why his rage was so red. Why he hated the +other so swiftly. But he mastered his voice. He had seen something +like this coming, not so unpleasant, however, or so difficult to +handle. He had imagined when the time came they would talk it over, +amicably, like good business men. But that was out of the question +now. It had always been out of the question, but he'd realized that +tardily. But they'd have it out. There could be no better time. + +"No?" he drawled. "No?" Sarcasm lent his words a sing-song quality. + +"No? Not Dunham's man? Not mine? Well-well! Ha-ha!" + +And then, savagely: + +"So that's it! It's true, heh? They been trying to tell me so for +weeks, all up and down the line, and I been telling 'em they'd got you +wrong. The swelled head, is it? But pardon me, Mr. Blair. Who am I +to speak thus to the world's champion? Delusions of grandeur, I should +say. Pardon my coarseness!" Sudden laughter split wide his lips. + +"Champion!" he bawled. "World's champion! Oh, my Gawd!" + +Perry sat silent and watched him. Little by little he recognized that +this was not acting. This was real. He waited and watched. + +"So you been followin' the papers, Mr. Blair," chanted Devereau. +Having struck this vein of satire and found it rich he followed it up. +"Full of lovely reading these days, now aren't they?" + +That was not so; not as it was meant. Perry had found the columns +devoted to himself singularly flat and devoid of interest. There was +only one item, in fact, which never failed. Only one which he always +read, the daily quotation on livestock. But he kept quiet. His eyes +alone were attentive. + +"So you've been reading the papers!" Mincingly Devereau went back and +picked it up. "Well-well! Ha-ha!" But hard after came again that +half-blind, half-incoherent rage. + +"Listen, now, you! You listen! Listen, and I'll give you an interview +that's never been put on any press." + +And he gave it to him, briefly, coldly. He repeated substantially what +the carpers had said at the time Perry won the title. + +"Champion?" he said. "Sure--because I made you champion. Because +Fanchette wouldn't a'stepped into the ring with Jimmy Montague, or +Jigger Holliday; no, nor even old Kid Fall. I know, believe me I know, +because I tried him with all of 'em. Not for the purse that was +offered. He wasn't looking to commit suicide at bargain prices. + +"But you? He'd take a chance on you. Sure he would. Who the hell was +Perry Blair, anyway? He knew that Montague'd cut him to pieces. +Holliday'd have tore off his lid. So I swung him to you. + +"And why? Because I thought you'd listen to reason. Oh, you don't +believe it. Ask Dunham. Are you still such a hick that you don't know +he was behind that match? Why, he's behind 'em all--nine tenths of +'em. His bankroll is." + +"Whose right hand was it put Fanchette but?" asked Perry mildly. + +"Pah!" slurred Devereau. "Pah! I coulda done it myself." + +But Blair's quietness fooled him. + +"I'm not saying that it wasn't convincing." He thought it time to +placate. "It was neat. I've gave you credit. Sure! You looked +great. You looked like a world-beater, in there against Fanchette. +But that's just what I'm trying to get at. Oh, Dunham and I talked it +over before anybody in this burg knew you were alive. That's what I'm +trying to get at. You been crabbin' your own act; you been making it +hard for yourself. You gotta play it up now. You gotta work different. + +"Nowadays a champ has just two outs. He's got to be a glad hand +artist, or a bruiser. That covers it. He's either got to be so +popular that they don't care much who he fights, so long as he's a good +showman, or he's got to take them all on as they come. All the hard +ones, and the harder the better, till one of 'em puts him to sleep." + +Devereau's voice acquired a whine, the plaintive note of a man whose +sincere best efforts have gone unappreciated. + +"And I had it all figured out. I been doing all the headwork for you. +I figured how we'd sidestep Montague and Holliday--all the tough +birds--just as long as we could stall 'em off. And pick up a nice +piece of change. Your share'd be enough so's you'd not need to worry. +And we'd made a great start. They were dead sick of Fanchette. The +papers were wild for somebody new. And they put you over better'n we +could have done it ourselves. + +"But you gotta work different. They liked you at first. They ain't so +dead sure they give a damn about you now. You gotta be a good boy. +More of a mixer. The crowd has been waitin' a long time for you to +loosen up and slip 'em a piece of news that can be cashed. And they're +getting sulky. A'course that's my fault too. I admit it. But it +couldn't be helped. There wasn't much you coulda tipped 'em off to, +but you shoulda stalled 'em along. You should have promised 'em +something when the time was right. But it's right now, now that you're +matched with Hughie. You can tell 'em just how to get aboard. It's +time, before some of 'em get good and sore, and begin to holler for you +to meet Montague." + +"I can whip Montague," said Perry. "Holliday I'm not so sure of. But +Montague I can whip, the best day he ever stood in shoes." + +It maddened Devereau again. Just when he was beginning to congratulate +himself that his work was good. + +"You can't lick him," he choked. "You couldn't lick him even if he was +handcuffed and shackled to a ball and chain." He tossed aloft his arms. + +"Champion! You, champion! Oh, my Gawd!" + +He strode across the room. But he came back swiftly to the boy who had +not moved in his chair. + +"Get this now!" he barked. He was done with talk. Done with argument. + +"Get this, because when I'm finished this time, I'm through. I've got +my coin in this thing and so has Dunham. And we're going to drag down +what we put in with a little something for interest. We're going to +get ours, and then you can fight Montague and be damned--or Holliday. +You can go throw your nice new title into the gutter as soon as you +please, for all of me, and try being first prize sucker of the world +for a change. But first I get mine. How I hate a fool!" + +"You're fighting Hughie Gay a week from Saturday. All right. Hughie's +a set-up. I saw to that. You can pick 'em yourself hereafter. But +right now your orders is to let Hughie stay the distance. A week from +Saturday. Is that clear? Have you got that--sure?" + +Blair sat silent. It is strange how silence will fool a man like +Devereau. He made one last try for peace. + +"And if you behave; if you're a good boy maybe we're going to forget we +had this little misunderstanding. There's others besides Hughie just +as soft. But if you're dead set on finding out who is boss; if you +want to know whether you're Dunham's man or not, why just cross them +orders. Pig-iron's got ten thousand on that fight--ten thousand that +you don't win by a knock-out, if you win at all. And if you cost him +that ten--Well, just dump it, if you want to see!" + +"I fight on the level," said Perry, "or I don't fight at all." + +"Then you don't fight at all," said Devereau. + +Blair held him a long time with an eye that was chill. His voice was +quieter than before, if that were possible. + +"I have sat here and taken talk from you, you vermin, that I'd take +from no man, because I could figure no other way. They know, +downstairs, that you are up here with me. If I kill you they will hang +me, and I do not choose to hang for one like you. If I laid a finger +on you, that would be assault, and you and your friends would swear me +into jail. That would be high card for you. It would fill your hand. +So I must sit here idle. But some day, maybe, I'm going to come upon +you with no circumstances to hinder. And if I do I'm going to change +you. You do not please me, as you are. Some day I hope to alter you +so that you will be a curio, even to your own best friends. . . . Get +out!" + +The chill eye had frightened Devereau. It heartened him to hear that +he was safe. + +"We'll put you out on the street," he snarled. "You'll be standing on +a corner, wondering what it's all about!" + +"Get out!" + +Devereau got. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +FELICITY CROSSES BROADWAY + +And Perry Blair _had_ wanted to see. He hadn't listened to reason. He +hadn't been a good boy. His bout with Gay was a repetition of that +with Fanchette, the former title-holder. A brief half minute of +boxing, a feint--and Gay on the canvas for the count of ten. + +He had wanted to see. He had been consumed with desire to see. And it +had happened quickly. + +The victory failed to raise a second wave of adulation, even a ripple, +in fact. Instead it was received oddly with scarcely any comment at +all. Even the papers had but little to say, and that little +noncommittal. For there were rumors. Devereau and Pig-iron Dunham had +done some preliminary work in anticipation of the worst. And after the +worst had come to be they went to work in earnest. + +It was Devereau, Blair's own manager--ex-manager, the day after the Gay +bout--who gave out the interview announcing the severance of business +relations with the champion. There were reasons, he said, but he was +not explicit. He left them veiled at first, purposely obscure. + +What was the use of discussing it? Blair was a fluke champion anyway. +Everybody knew that. Chance had made him, chance which had been +luckless for Jimmy Montague. Montague, he said, had been selected as +the logical man to meet Fanchette, the man whose record entitled him to +the choice, long before any word of the proposed match had been given +to the public. But Fanchette, after his prolonged inactivity, had +demurred at meeting, immediately, so formidable an opponent. So they +had selected Blair, merely as a work-out for the title-holder. And the +unforeseen had happened. Fanchette had proved to be through. +Anyone--anyone could have whipped him. + +But what about Gay? That was the natural question and they asked it. +Blair had disposed of him, also in the first round. + +But to that Devereau made no answer, no verbal answer, at least. He +did not point out that Hughie was a set-up, a second-rater. No, +indeed. He shrugged his shoulders--shrugged them almost audibly. + +"I had nothing to do with it," he said. "Absolutely. Ask Blair about +it. I've quit him." + +Pig-iron Dunham, who paid the bills, and Devereau who was cunning, did +just what the latter had promised they would do. In a few short months +they put Perry Blair, light-weight champion of the world, out on the +sidewalk. + +It can't be done? It is done every day, in politics. It needs only a +practiced hand. + +For a day or two following Devereau's unsatisfactory laconism nothing +developed. And then a bombshell exploded. Hughie Gay made a +statement. He took oath, solemn oath (and cheap, too, for it cost +Dunham but two hundred dollars), that he had sold out. Blair had +realized that he was no champion; he had feared even him, Gay. So +before the fight Blair had paid him well to throw it. And he had done +so. + +Thus, you see, they learned logically why Devereau had quit Perry. +Devereau was square. Sure! This proved it. You said it! They +understood perfectly those eloquent shoulder shrugs now. And they +raised a righteous clamor. Perry Blair denied the charge, and offered +to meet Gay again, anywhere, for any charity. And they replied, with +equal logic, that every reputable club in the country should bar him +thenceforth. + +In a short interview, not as unsatisfactory as Devereau's, Pig-iron +Dunham broke a rule and talked for publication. + +"It is the sort of thing which has given a bad name to a clean and +manly sport in this state," he said. "I sincerely trust, however, that +all true lovers of the squared circle will put the blame where it +belongs." + +And in the meantime his paid mouthpieces parroted everywhere the words +in which they had been drilled. He has no punch at all, they said; he +can't hit. He has no science, they said; he is slow as a freight. He +has not the fighter's heart. He's yellow--yellow! And that word stuck. + +The clique which had rated his reticence stingy was eager to believe. +They needed no persuading. So no throngs gathered round him any more. +Those who had fawned passed by on the far side of the street, lest +crudely he recall past accommodations. And, passing, they smiled. And +the public, that public to which a world's champion was something +picturesque at which to crane the neck, if they recognized him at all +now, had to concentrate to remember what it was that they had read +lately about him. Crooked? That was bad. Not clever enough to get +away with it? That was worse. Yellow? Well, that was unpardonable in +any man. And they hardly hid their contempt. + +After a few fruitless attempts Perry gave up trying to find a new +manager and sought bouts for himself. He found them, but on such terms +that they were always impossible. He challenged Jimmy Montague, which +was a bad tactical error, but he had been just a little panicky at +first. He challenged Montague who was being hailed as the logical +title-holder, and in so doing seemed tacitly to admit that he realized +the claim was good. + +Montague ignored him. + +He challenged Holliday, and he was afraid of Holliday, too. And +Holliday made game of him noisily. + +"What'll it get me to fight you?" he wanted to know. "If I stub me toe +and fall down, somebody'll raise a yelp that you bought me off. Not +me! Us girls has got to be careful. Besides, I'm looking for a battle +with the real champ." + +It can't be done? Oh, they did it. + +The night that Cecille Manners had hysterics and Felicity was hurrying +because she knew that Fiegenspann would "bawl her out" if she was very +late, Perry Blair had been standing from eleven o'clock until a quarter +to twelve on the corner of Broadway and Forty-fourth Street, too proud +to turn the collar of his light coat up against the winter cold, too +broke to buy a heavy one. He'd almost decided to hunt a job, anything +that would bring enough to take him back home. The Dream? Girl o' +Mine? It hurt his throat to think of these,--made him blink his eyes. + +So they had undermined him. + +He was standing on a corner wondering what it was all about. But in +that last three-quarters of an hour he had achieved something at least, +a terse sentence that must, it seems, epitomize the sentiments of every +idol who ever shared his predicament, every king who ever lacked a +throne. + +He nodded his head over it, and voiced it pensively. + +"It's a great world," he muttered, "if you don't weaken." + +Then he saw that she would very likely be killed if someone didn't do +something about it besides shout. He weighed the chances, in an +infinitesimal fraction of a second, and decided they were such that any +good gambler could scarcely ignore. So he bunched his muscles and +sprang. + +Felicity's taxi had met a traffic tie-up at Forty-seventh Street which +made further direct advance impossible. In obedience to her plain +request for haste the driver had tried it to the west, found that way +cut off, and so detoured to the east. When, however, he wriggled up to +Broadway on Forty-fourth Street he had met with no better luck. + +Here was a din of horns, of racing motors, of harried traffic police. +But not much chance of progress. So Felicity paid him and stepped off +the running-board into the thick of it to have a try on foot at the +very moment when the nearest officer thought to have it cleared. + +He raised an arm and roared, bull-voiced: + +"Come on there, now!" + +And promptly the drivers of the two cars which had been at the heart of +the snarl, like key logs in a jam, both heckled, both in the wrong and +filled with unsaid things, trod harshly upon their accelerators. +Wire-wheeled sedan and lemon-tinted limousine, up-town bound and +cross-town bound, they leaped simultaneously forward, as Felicity +stepped between. + +Bystanders screamed so efficiently that their shrill tumult drowned the +wail of overtaxed brakedrums. But that would have helped Felicity +little. Nor could the brakes, for that matter. The lunging start had +been too strong, the space too short to stop in. + +Perry Blair, about whom those who screamed had heard something +unpleasant--oh, yes, yellow!--lanced down the narrowing aisle between +radiator and fenders. He struck Felicity like a vicious tackler yet +did not go down, but leaped again. As the cars crunched together they +slithered through the crowd, across the walk, against a wall, into a +heap. And the fall hurt Perry a little, even accustomed as he was to +the taking of blows yieldingly. He was slow to rise. The girl was +quickly up. + +"Last down!" she gasped, but her exclamation was somewhat pallid like +her wit. "Hold 'em, Yale!" + +Then, while she still faltered, uncertain, shaken, the occupant of the +lemon-tinted limousine came swiftly to her. He was a great hulk of a +man, yet light on his feet with that nimbleness which seems often +astonishing in huge people. + +"Let me put you in my car, Miss Brown," he begged, "and set you safely +across. Not badly bruised, I trust?" + +She gave him a flash of a glance and gasped again, but this time +inaudibly. His ease with her name did not surprise her. He'd seen her +often enough to know that. But this, she realized, was the first time +that she had really been impressed upon him. Not too steadily, +therefore, that she might need assistance, she let him help her back +across the sidewalk, to the car, and thus away. Pig-iron Dunham? Of +course. Knowing Felicity there is small cause to wonder that she went +without even remembering to thank her rescuer. + +He was getting up now, the target of few eyes. Most of those who +lingered at all were staring after Dunham, Felicity and the lemon +limousine. And Perry was congratulating himself, even while with an +odd, detached expression he watched them go, that he had damaged but +little his clothing, when a hand fell on his sleeve. + +Perry turned to find a reporter, Hamilton by name, peering at him +quizzically. + +"Forgot to thank you, did she?" he laughed. "Oh, well, better come +along over to the Roof with me and watch her caper, and give her +another chance." + +Perry didn't know whether he liked Hamilton or not, but he didn't +instinctively distrust him. + +"Who is she?" he asked. + +"You really don't know?" + +"I don't know many girls in this town." + +"Hm-m-m," said Hamilton. "Thought everybody knew her. Felicity Brown. +Aero Octet." And he repeated his invitation. + +"She'll want to thank you for preventing damage to life or limb." He +couldn't have said exactly what made him voice the rest, unless it was +the way the boy's eyes had followed her. + +"And believe me, damage to life or limb, it would have been an equal +catastrophe to Felicity. Come on along." + +Perry hung back. + +"Don't you know," he hesitated, "that you can lose your reputation just +from being seen talking to me?" + +Hamilton laughed again. He saw, however, that Perry's mind was not +upon what he was saying. And who shall say when fancy first was bred? +Not you--or I--or even Hamilton. But the latter might have hazarded a +shrewd guess. And a man, it would seem, has a little excuse for +falling in love with a girl with Felicity's looks, whose life he just +has saved. + +"Come along," urged Hamilton. "I want to hear about that mess. I've +been six months in Mexico." But he eyed the boy with deeper curiosity +as they crossed Broadway. + +"Who was the man?" + +Perry spoke just once to ask that question, before they left the +white-lit street for the elevator. + +"Dunham." + +Yet somehow Hamilton was sure that the other had known all along. And +the quizzical eyes became malicious. If the boy was falling in love +with Felicity he anticipated with glee unholy complications. Dunham's +alacrity at the scene of the accident no man could underestimate. +Pig-iron Dunham didn't, indiscriminately, beg young ladies to let the +limousine bear them across Broadway in safety, or anywhere else, for +that matter. + +And yet, some hours later, when he had left Perry Blair waiting for +Felicity at the mouth of the alley which ran back to the Roof's stage +door, Hamilton found himself with little relish for the complications +which he had so wisely foreseen. Perry's story of the trouble with +Devereau and Dunham he had had in full, and believed. He had wanted to +do something and realized that there was not much which he could do. + +And now this. It was funny--but it wasn't so damned funny either. +Why, the kid was just--well, just a kid. And Felicity had been sweet +to him. Very sweet and simple, in spite of his own none too well +curbed sarcasm. Under Dunham's eye--because she knew that Dunham's eye +was always upon her--she had sat long at their table, a slim thing in +new-grass green, so prettily grateful that she suggested pink sashes +and dimity. And Felicity wasn't a pink-sash-and-dimity girl. Hamilton +knew that. But did Perry Blair? Just a kid! Dammitt! But nobody, +not even a kid, had any right monkeying with Broadway, or Felicity, if +he couldn't take care of himself. + +Yet Hamilton, after he had said good-night, lingered a while. And +again--immediately--something which he had anticipated came to pass. + +The lemon limousine was waiting at the curb. And Dunham stepped out of +it, again with his preposterous nimbleness, when Felicity appeared. He +stood holding wide the door. But the girl gave him only a nice little +nod. She slipped her hand happily into the crook of Perry's arm. + +Hamilton had a glimpse of Pig-iron Dunham's face. + +"Hooked!" he exclaimed. "Hooked!" + +But he had a good look at Perry Blair's too, as the pair passed. + +"Dammitt!" he snapped. "Dammitt!" And yet folks wondered why a chap +who knocked around this city hunting news sometimes drank more than was +good for him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +AS WILLOWS BUD IN SPRING + +Cecille was still up, staring out of the window, when Felicity and +Perry Blair came in that night. Perry stayed but a moment, only long +enough to promise that he would come again. Then he was gone. And +Felicity was standing before the other girl, every line of her pulsing +triumph. + +"Not him!" Cecille cried. She could not have understood the triumph +better had Felicity explained with a torrent of words. + +"Oh, not him!" with quick, unthinking horror. "He--he's only a boy." + +"Who?" demanded Felicity blankly. + +"Mr--Mr. Blair." + +Felicity's laugh was staccato. + +"Him? Good Lord, no. Dunham!" She fairly sang it. "Dunham. +Pig-iron Dunham. I knew if I waited I'd cop. Now watch me. Watch my +dust!" + +Cecille wondered why she didn't pack her bag and get out. But she +didn't. She stayed. And later, a little timidly, she inquired about +Blair. + +"Perry Blair?" Felicity with a racing tongue had been describing how +Dunham led her away from the near-accident. + +"Perry? Oh, he's a prize-fighter. Light-weight champion, or he was +for a minute or so. He wouldn't play the game when he had his chance, +I guess, so Dunham and the bunch broke him. Something like that. I +never did hear the inside stuff. But they say he was a bust +anyway--just a morning-glory--and didn't know his luck. But do I? Did +I play the game to-night? Did I pass up Pig-iron and his limousine to +come home in a flat-wheeled trolley with my hero, who's already made +him sore once? Oh, didn't I though! I guess I'm crazy!" + +Cecille recoiled a little from that. + +A prize-fighter. A bruiser. A plug-ugly. But--but--why, that wasn't +possible. And if your idea of such a one is what Cecille's once was, +neither will he fill your eye. + +Just a kid. Hamilton had hit it off aptly at that. Level-eyed and +diffident of tongue, with only a hint of his hidden bodily perfection +lurking in breadth of shoulder and slenderness of waist. + +A prize-fighter! Cecille fell asleep wondering how soon he would come +again. As to whether he would come at all she was never for a moment +in doubt. Once she had watched his eyes follow Felicity across the +room she _knew_. But she hadn't felt sorry for him as Hamilton had. +She felt sorry for herself and bitter against Perry. For the time she +hated him. + +Nor did she have to wonder long. Perry came the next night and +escorted Felicity to the Roof. And the next. And next. Then Felicity +realized that it would not be good policy to make Dunham sulk. Indeed +she knew her luck. Indeed she played the game. The third evening she +left Perry at home with Cecille. + +[Illustration: Lucky interference.] + +And for six whole weeks Broadway nudged and watched it. Broadway +watched Perry Blair's courtship of Felicity and Dunham's, if you can +call the latter's unhurried pursuit that. Dunham was complacent and +patient, Felicity's tactics were not new to him and he did not mind +being made conspicuous. And Perry Blair never knew they nudged; never +knew they laughed. There is some satisfaction in that. But it is far +finer, I think, to be sure that Broadway never guessed at all of the +other courtship which went steadily forward in the same interval, +elementally, naturally as willows bud in spring. Perry himself was +unaware of it. Cecille too--for a while. + +For Felicity left him oftener and oftener to the other girl. And +almost immediately a common need for the companionship of the other was +born in both of them. Upon the boy's part it must have been the urge +to carry on his courtship, even vicariously. Lonesomeness was the way +Cecille explained it to herself until with the passage of a little time +she could no longer tell herself that lie and believe it. And that +marked the beginning of a long bad period for her. + +She ceased soon to hate him when he spoke of Felicity. Whenever he +observed haltingly, as he did over and over again, that it was no place +for a girl like her (Fiegenspann's) and that she should be gotten out +before it was too late, she learned to agree with him mechanically. +Instead of hating his blindness, as persistently as she dared she swung +the conversation more and more to other things. + +From the beginning she found it hard to make him talk about himself. +That instantly set him apart from all other men in her experience. For +they had talked of little else. And yet, when finally she had it from +him, she found his ambition anything but vague. + +"I like animals," he told her on one such occasion, "and the--the +country. I guess that's what I am, a country boy. I sure would like +to own a ranch." + +He'd not pressed her so eagerly for her hopes. Scarcely. His +singleness of interest at least was wholly masculine. But that didn't +deter her. She found herself giving them to him just the same, just as +eagerly. + +"A ranch!" she seized hungrily upon that word. "A home! A white house +on a hill with light green shutters. The house, of course, not the +hill." She went further. + +"And a white and blue kitchen." Her haste to tell him was bubbling. +"With aluminum pots and pans. Dozens! A whole set!" + +And, somehow subdued: + +"They're very expensive." + +Broadway never knew anything about that courtship. But Felicity used +to wake up, now and then, and hear the other girl crying softly in the +night. + +It was a long bad period for Cecille. At first the birth of this +wholly new thing within her baffled her own power to reason. She +watched its mushroom growth with fascination, just a little aghast. +But when, all in a kind of cataclysmic flash, she thought to recognize +it for what it was, she shrank away as if from a malignant fungus. + +From the first evening one thing had intrigued her. Her discovery that +the sensation of pervading cleanliness which she always had from him +was not a result of the careful clothes he wore but something more +essential made her remember how the Sunday-groomed louts of other days, +reeking with cheap toilet water and hair oil, had filled her with dull +loathing. She had never attempted an analysis of that distaste. Now +trying to analyze its opposite, in the case of Perry Blair, she arrived +at a disquieting certainty. She found she could no more be near him, +no more glance at him, without being conscious of him physically, than +she could strike her head against a wall and not be hurt. + +She realized more. She realized how keenly she liked being near him. +She realized how often, and for how long, she had been making little +opportunities to stand close, so that her shoulder brushed his. How +often she had contrived a fleeting contact of their hands. And yet if +anybody had tried to tell her that this was the blooming of a perfect +thing to be cherished all her days she would have suffered unutterably +that she had been found out. As it was she suffered sufficiently. She +cried too often into her pillow. But she wasn't yet wholly debased in +her own eyes. That came directly, inevitably. + +One Saturday afternoon, urged more enthusiastically by him than she had +ever been urged before, she accompanied him to a gymnasium far uptown. + +"I'm keeping in shape, you see," he told her without his usual +diffidence. "I don't know quite why. Everybody says I'm through, but +sometimes I think something may turn up. Enough to bring me a little +stake anyhow. And, anyway, it pays me a little. I'm working out with +Jack English. He's a welter; he's getting ready for a go with Levitt. +I've told you a lot about this business, but you can't judge much just +from talk. I--I'd like to have you come up and watch me box." + +There it was, of a sudden. There was his shyness again, so lamely come +upon him that it colored his face. And the halting boyishness of the +request had warmed Cecille's face too; warmed her through and through. +She knew an impulse to hug his head to her breast, a very mature and +motherly impulse. + +He had told her much of this business; so much that she hardly recoiled +from it at all. A welter--yes, she understood that. Between a +light-weight and a middle. + +But she hesitated so long that he thought he had guessed her objection +and hastened to reassure her. + +"There won't be anybody there," he said. "Nobody. Just English and +his trainer and me. You needn't be afraid--" + +"I'm not," she stopped him. "It's not--that." + +So she went. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MY LAD + +She found herself an hour later in a huge light room, with a floor like +a dance hall and much strange paraphernalia against the walls. Little +of it she was able to identify, though she took it all in with alert +and eager eyes. This was the chiefest part of his life, so she must +not even seem to slight it. The Indian clubs and dumb-bells--but they +were easy. And the roped-off square at one end. That was the ring. + +She found herself alone for a while, and was thrilled and excited and +very happy. And then a quiet man who was, she guessed correctly, +English's trainer came briskly toward her. + +"You needn't be afraid." So Perry had assured her. + +Surely not if this man's bearing was any criterion. He brought her a +chair. + +"Thank you." Her voice sounded small in that high-ceiled room. He +only bowed in reply and went quietly away. + +And then the next time she looked up it was to find Perry standing +there beside her--a different Perry--a pagan Perry, stripped of all +save trunks and shoes, yet unconscious of his nakedness. + +"I'm not afraid," she'd told him. "It's not that." + +Now she knew why she had hesitated about coming. And she was sorry, +and breathlessly glad. + +A pagan Perry, and one more beautiful than she otherwise could ever +have dreamed. And yet, after the first startled glance, while she +still dropped her head and put palms to her cheeks to hide a furious +color, his lack of self-consciousness dismayed her, until it occurred +to her that these were his working clothes--casual, ordinary. And with +that a queer thought, seemingly unrelated, flashed through her head. +She remembered that women almost never went to prize-fights--it was a +man's sport--and she was jealously glad over that. + +It shamed her. But she looked again. And again. And sudden rebellion +at that shame led her to a wholly spontaneous, wholly unconsidered act. +Perry was deep in abstraction. She knew what he was brooding over. +That made her rebellious, too. Suddenly she reached out and laid her +hand upon his bare shoulder. + +He looked around and smiled. + +"Hard?" He believed he understood the expression he had surprised in +her eyes. + +"I'm in pretty good shape. I'm pretty hard." + +She made only a muffled attempt at reply. She found it, without +speaking, hard enough to breathe. + +Hard? Yes. Unexpectedly undeniable, like a billiard ball. Nor could +she very well stammer that it was the smoothness of his skin which had +stunned her. She dropped her head again. She could not have kept it +up after that and kept her eyelids open. + +When she finally lifted it Perry was already in the ring and English +vaulting the ropes. English was as unclothed as the other, yet she +found immediately that she could look at him without any disturbing +mixture of ecstasy and guilt. And even critically, too. He was thick, +bulky. He did not make one catch one's breath. And brown. And +Perry's whiteness! She took her lower lip between her teeth. + +"Time!" the trainer called. + +She cried sharply aloud. + +The sound came unsummoned, in spite of herself. + +Why, they had just been standing there together--just talking--just +laughing--just boys! But with that signal they had exploded into +action. No other word could hope to convey that sudden burst of motion. + +They touched gloves! She followed that. English tried to hit him! +She followed that. And then thud! thud! thud! She could not beat as +swiftly with one fist the palm of her other hand as Perry's glove +struck thrice the welter's face. + +Thud! thud! thud! And skip and shuffle--thud! And a straining, +desperate embrace. + +"Oh, he's so much bigger," she heard herself wailing. "He's _so_ much +bigger!" + +And the trainer, remembering through it all her presence: + +"Watch it! Watch it! Watch--that--left--hand!" + +She saw then that it was Perry's short, jabbing, stiff left forearm +which perplexed the heavier man. She saw the latter set himself to +swing, and take it in the face, and go off balance. And set and take +it again. And she didn't cry out any more. She leaned forward, so +tensely set herself in every muscle that she found she was tired when +the trainer stopped it. + +"Time!" + +The trainer she learned then was not pleased. He snarled at Jack +English. But English only grinned. + +"Slow!" he said. "Slow! Oh, boy! So'd you look slow trying to pace +the Empire State Express." + +And there was more. Faster, faster and faster. And cruder! He could +never tell her again that this was merely sport. And English _was_ +bigger and his size did count. At the last he seemed barely to snap +his right gloved hand forward, and Perry staggered back. + +"Time!" + +She thanked God, out loud, for that. + +Perry stood for a while, his back toward her, sagging against the +ropes. And English, one hand on his shoulder, was talking to him. + +"Is he hurt?" she weakly asked the trainer. + +He gave her a fleet glance. + +"Some. Not bad." And louder to the other two: + +"That's plenty." + +A second later Perry nodded across the room to her and went to dress. +But Jack English slid through the ropes and approached. There was some +blood on his lip, and he wiped it away. She marveled at so little sign +of conflict. He came straight to her, glistening with sweat. The +trainer threw him a robe, which he wrapped about him to his very chin. +She thought the welter-weight was bashful, too. And Irish--that +without a doubt from his bright eyes. + +"Your lad?" he asked. + +"My--my what?" + +She'd hardly been ready for the abrupt question. It confused her. + +"Your steady?" This time he nodded toward the door through which Perry +had disappeared. + +Jack English was almost thirty--an old man for the prize-ring--and had +a family. Under his bright regard Cecille stammered, and stammered a +lie. + +"Yes," she said, not steadily, and very softly indeed. "Yes, my--my +lad." + +English nodded sagely. + +"Been worried about him lately, I suppose? Bothered by what folks are +saying?" + +"I--I haven't heard much," she said, and this was all the truth. + +"Don't you!" he advised her. "Don't you listen. And don't you +believe, either." + +Still that bright regard. And thereupon Cecille realized that she had +been troubled deeply by one thing which she had heard. Felicity had +passed it on to her. + +"They say he cheated," she voiced it, wide-eyed. "That he has +a--yellow streak." + +"So's a Bengal tiger." Such succinctness was reassuring. "A whole lot +of 'em. And a man like him don't cheat. You'd oughta know that." +Laconic, but good to listen to. And again: + +"Don't you worry. I never saw a man so fast--so quick! That's why I'm +using him. And some day--some day when he's in earnest--he's going to +find out that he can hit. And they? They've said words that they'll +choke then to swallow." + +"I hope so." Her voice was meek and small. + +"I know so," said English. "Don't you worry. You've picked a game +guy. He can take punishment. You stick!" + +"I--I mean to." Her voice was smaller still. + +She wanted to cry. + +And that night when they were riding home together upon a bus-top she +tried an experiment. How long they had been riding thus she did not +know, but all in a breath she was conscious of the contact of his knee. +That was what she had been avoiding--trying to make herself avoid--ever +since she'd grown aware of her impulse to stay always close. But now +she tried an experiment. She contemplated the contact contentedly for +a time. Then drew away. + +Perry had been thinking of Felicity. + +"Crowding you?" he asked. + +She shook her head. And a minute later she let her knee move back +against him. Proved! Instantly the tiny pulse had picked up its +throbbing in her throat. Yet she let the contact endure. Defiant, she +rode all the way home that way. + +But the inevitable reaction came. Revulsion might be the more accurate +word applied to Cecille. That night she had stripped off one stocking +in preparation for bed; she had sat longer than she could have told, +broodingly studying her bare knee. + +"No smoother than he," she murmured at last. + +The sound of her own voice smote her, the thing that she had said. + +As her head flung up she encountered in a mirror her own reflection. +She stared, transfixed, at her image; her moist, curling mouth, her +dusky cheeks and eyelids drooping down. Then she closed her eyelids +tight to shut it out. She groped and found the light and snapped it +off. And she lay hours upon her face, her hair fanwise on her pillow, +sick and debased. + +She laid it to the pitch that she had touched. You _had_ to be +defiled. But she didn't blame Felicity. She wasn't that kind of a +coward. It must be the slow poison of her frank creed. She'd fight +it. Game? She'd be game. But this time she refused to wonder why she +didn't pack her bag and get out. She couldn't. She knew she couldn't +go. She wondered why she couldn't cry. + +Thus she found a private little hell in what should have been pure +glory. + +But she fought. After she had admitted to herself that she loved him, +she crouched from it like something in a corner. Love? That wasn't +love! And yet Felicity in all her passionless calculation had never +once-- + +It baffled her, bowed her down. It was too snarled now. She'd never +make it out. But she wouldn't go again to the gymnasium. No! But +what of that? She had only to close her eyes to see. She fought it. + +It was a very hot though private little hell. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +DUNHAM TALKS BUSINESS + +And presently Perry learned why he had been keeping in shape. +Something did turn up. It happened in this wise: + +Felicity had been very canny; she'd made each trump card tell. And +with Perry Blair waved always in his face, Dunham had grown ugly. + +"You know I'm crazy about you," he complained. "Give that four-flusher +the gate." + +"A million Johns have told me that," Felicity answered. "Talk +business." + +But Dunham had refused to talk business. He was ugly about it. And +then he thought to see a way around. He sent for Perry Blair, and +Perry came. That surprised Dunham. He had expected in the end to have +to go to Blair. He did not know how Felicity, unwittingly, had helped +him. + +For Felicity, unable not to enjoy a little the boy's inarticulate +devotion, had indulged herself. With artistry that would have called +down from Hamilton even hotter sarcasm, she had let Perry glimpse her +soul; not the cheap and tawdry thing which unsympathetic persons were +likely to think it, but her real one, a little saddened, a little +forlorn! + +"I wish I could get away from all this," she'd said, with appropriate +wistfulness. "I'm dead sick of it--sick of it all. I wish I could go +away--somewhere--anywhere where things are clean. Where there are +trees and growing grass--" + +It was a very good speech. She knew it must be because she had heard a +high-priced leading lady utter it in a three-dollar-and-a-half Broadway +success. + +And it proved effective uttered by Felicity. For it fooled Perry. +Fooled him badly just when he had begun to speculate a little +concerning her soul himself. Perry believed her. But then it is easy +for any woman to fool any man. Twice as easy when he wants so badly to +be fooled. + +Perry cursed his lack of ready money. And then Dunham sent for him. +And he went, hiding his eagerness. + +They held the conversation in Dunham's book-lined office. The books +were never used; the office saw strange usage. And the conference was +short. + +"Ready to be a good boy?" Dunham asked. + +Perry rose to leave. + +"Sit down," said Dunham. "That was intended as a joke. My mistake." + +But it angered him; angered him almost as much as it did to look upon +the boy's unsquandered youth. + +"I've got something for you at last," he offered. "If you care to take +it." + +"I'll listen," said Perry. + +So Dunham drew readily upon invention. + +"We've talked it over," he said. "Devereau and I and some of the other +boys. And we've decided that there's nothing in it for any of us as +the situation now stands. The title's too obscured. You claim it. So +does Montague. So we've decided to offer you a match with--" + +"I've challenged Montague," Perry interrupted. "He paid no attention +to it." + +"Not Montague," Dunham corrected silkily. "Holliday." + +And instantly Perry knew what Dunham hoped to do. + +"Why not Montague?" he asked. + +"Why not Holliday?" countered Dunham, his voice silkier still. + +And Perry couldn't very well say because Montague was a boxer first and +a fighter afterward. He couldn't say because he knew they considered +Holliday, young, wicked, punishing, even more certain to whip him. He +hesitated. + +"But you're going to whip Holliday," Dunham went on tentatively, as if +sure of what was in the other's mind. + +Perry watched him. + +"We're going to see to that. It'll be a twenty-round fight to a +decision. Somewhere in the South. But you'll stop Holliday in the +eighth round." + +"I fight fair," said Perry, "or I don't fight at all." + +"Don't get excited." Dunham was laughing at him a little, not +pleasantly. "You'll be no party to anything--ah--iniquitous. Beat him +before that if you're able. But it'll come in the eighth, don't doubt +that. I'm just telling you beforehand so that you'll lose no sleep in +case you're afraid of Holliday." That was a thrust. "I'm telling you +so you needn't kill yourself training to get ready, though you don't +look over-fed." That was another. Yet Perry felt that he had balanced +them both when he looked the huge man's jelly-bulk up and down. + +"Holliday's going to be champion some day," Dunham went unconcernedly +on. "He's bound to be, whether we want him or not. But Montague comes +first. Montague's been a good boy. We merely require your agreement +to meet him should you dispose of Holliday, that is all. And since +that is assured--" He waved a fat hand. "Personally I believe that +Montague is very much better than you are--no offense intended--and +against him you can take care of yourself." + +Rapidly Perry cast it up. They were that confident of Holliday's +superiority! And they didn't care whether he suspected their game or +not; they weren't even bothering to work carefully. He could take it +or leave it. He'd have to. That rank! That coarse! It was an easy +sum. Two and two made four. + +"Whatever agreement is fixed between you and Holliday is no affair of +mine," he decided at last. "When?" + +"A month--five weeks." + +"How much?" + +Dunham pondered. + +"Twenty thousand. We'll give you five for your share." + +They were that cool! + +"Not me." + +"A twenty-thousand-dollar purse seems reasonable," ruminated Dunham. +"It may not be a popular match. And Holliday'll come high." + +"That's your affair. I'll fight one way." + +Dunham lifted an eyebrow. + +"Well?" + +"Winner take all." + +"But you're certain to win! The fight'll be fixed!" + +Perry sensed then how greatly the gross man wanted to laugh. Not +bother to train? That old one! Did Dunham really think he was taking +him at his word? Why, his mind in all the days to come would be +riveted on just one thing--that eighth round. He wanted to laugh, too, +bitterly. Did they think he was that innocent! + +"That's your affair," he repeated. "I fight winner take all." + +There are some who insist that Pig-iron Dunham was not without a +virtue. His next words seem to prove it. + +"Better take your five thousand," he suggested good-naturedly. "It's +better than nothing. Holliday could double-cross us." + +That cool! + +"Winner take all," droned Perry. + +"Winner take all!" Dunham snapped. + +And that afternoon they signed articles, Hamilton acting for Blair. + +The same night Perry told Felicity what he had done. + +"So I--I'll either have twenty thousand dollars in a month or so," he +made bad work of it, "or I'll know that I'm never likely to have it. +If you--if you'll wait . . . I'm glad you like the country. I've +always wanted a ranch." + +Felicity was needlessly callous, either because it made her despise +herself a little for the part she had played, or because she was just +Felicity. Surely she was more brutal than she need have been. + +For she sat, chin propped upon one hand, and stared derisively into the +boy's self-conscious eyes. + +"You poor hick!" she said deliberately. "You poor cross-roads hick! +Twenty thousand dollars? Why, that's chicken-feed compared with my +price." + +In one way it was merciful. It was quickly over. Perry's +self-consciousness passed. Calm as she had been impudent he surveyed +her. Once his lip twitched; he half-opened his mouth as if to speak, +and then thought better of it. He'd talk to no woman like that. He +left her without a word. + +And she sat biting her lip a little while, till Dunham came to the +table. + +"Honey--" he began. + +"Don't honey me!" The words lashed back at him. "I'm sick of +honeying. Talk cash!" + +And Dunham was sick of temporizing. + +He talked. + +So when Cecille came in the next day, Saturday, at noon, and found +Felicity with her bag packed, few words were necessary. She knew the +moment had come. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +CECILLE PLAYS THE GAME + +Cecille had tried often to imagine what that moment was going to be like. + +More than once she had dreaded that it would find her cheaply dramatic; +that nervous sentiment would surprise her and break her down. Now she +met it, unconcerned, without the slightest sense of shock. She had never +doubted that Felicity would be anything but matter-of-fact and jaunty, +right up to the end. Now it was the other girl who displayed unexpected +feeling. + +For Cecille had learned that morning that Perry was leaving at midnight +for the South. With Felicity gone she realized how little chance there +was of his ever returning again to frequent the apartment. And nothing +else in the world much mattered. She was too deep sunk in misery even to +try to dissemble her apathy. But Felicity had not forgotten a single +night when she had waked to hear the other girl crying; she missed +nothing of her present dejection. + +"Well, I'm off!" This without even turning from the mirror. + +Cecille failed to answer. She crossed the room and dropped heavily into +a chair. + +"We're catching the three-thirty this afternoon for the West." + +Again silence for a while, and then a dry, strained question. + +"Aren't you afraid?" + +She'd made up her mind to ask at least that question. She had admitted +to herself that she had to ask it. And her tone made Felicity wheel. + +"Of what?" Felicity demanded, a little blank. + +Cecille laughed. It was a woeful, croaking attempt at flippancy. + +"Oh, the old line of stuff!" She had never before employed Felicity's +brand of slang. It came unpleasantly from her tongue. "The wages of sin +and all that sort of thing." + +That brought Felicity across the room until she stood, hands bracketed on +hips, above her. + +"Don't you worry about me, Cele," she said slowly. "Don't you nor any +one else spend any pennies buying extras, expecting to strike news of my +violent and untimely end. Safety First; that's my maiden name. I let +Dunham drive thirty-five when he's sober. When he isn't, I walk. And +I'm going to be that careful about deep water that I'll bathe always +under a shower. Don't you worry about me." She paused soberly. + +"It's you," she stated, "I'm worried about." + +It was Felicity who displayed feeling at the end. + +She stood quite a while staring down at the other girl's bright hair. +Then with an air of definite purpose she drew up a chair for herself. + +"I don't get you," she mused. "You're a queer kid. + +". . . From the country?" + +"I suppose so," Cecille admitted. "I didn't use to think so. I used to +think we were quite--" + +"That'll do," cut in Felicity. "I get it from that much description. + +". . . Raised strict?" + +"I guess so--pretty strict." + +"Rigid church people?" + +"Yes." + +A little time of silence. + +"Gee, that's tough!" + +And Felicity's gravity at last had caught at the other girl's attention. +Slowly she looked up. + +"Why?" she asked dully. + +Felicity sat and studied her--pondered her. Felicity's face was harder +than Cecille had ever seen it before, and infinitely more tender. + +"I hate to leave you," she said. "I wouldn't mind so much if I could +_get_ you. If I could once get it through my nut what you're waiting +for--what you expect there's going to be in it for you--it wouldn't be so +hard. But I can't." + +"I don't know what you mean." She had caught Cecille's interest now. + +"Neither do I," she admitted. "Not exactly. That's why I'm talking. +That's what I'm trying to get at." Her voice became half-absent-minded, +ruminative, as though she were thinking aloud. + +"They caught me young, too," she murmured. "Oh, that was a long time +ago. Not measured in years, measured in time. There's a difference. + +"A mission-school got hold of me. Good women, not brainless velvet pets +from the younger set, looking for a new sensation. Good women, sincere +women that wanted to help. Well, I was sincere, too. I wanted to be +helped. I told 'em so; but I also told 'em I doubted if they could do +much. + +"I'd begun to get wise to one thing that early. I was seventeen, but I'd +begun to see that all you got in this world was what you helped yourself +to. But I was willing to try; I'd try anything once. If learning things +out of a book would do it; if studying how to shoot the right language in +the right spot and how to live sweet and pretty, inside and out, was +going to get me what I wanted, well and good. Also, soft! There +couldn't be any easier way, several well-known draymas to the contrary. +So I gave 'em a chance. + +"'Show me,' I said. And I stuck it out two years." + +She stared at the ceiling, her eyes sardonic with reminiscence. + +"Two years. Get that. Not two days, nor two weeks, nor two months. Two +_years_. And did I see myself at the end of that time any nearer what I +was after? I hadn't slacked, mind you. I'd worked! Everything they'd +ever spilled I'd sopped up like a sponge. And did it finally bring me a +chance? Sure it did, believe you me. A whiskey drummer with false +teeth!" + +Here she laughed, a slurring note or two. + +"That cured me, I guess. I did stay a little longer, but I knew! I knew +I was through. I stayed another week, and then I went to the mat. + +"'Show me,' I said again. That was what I wanted, a show-down. And did +they? Could they? Bah! They talked! They told me I was making +wonderful progress. + +"'Sure,' I admitted. 'I'm on my way. I see that.' But what I wanted +'em to slip me was a little info as to where was I going. + +"Well, they talked. What did I hope for? What did I want? What did I +expect to get out of it? And I told 'em. Well, that was a pretty large +order for a girl of my station. My station didn't figure, I told 'em; +we'd leave that out of it. And I told 'em so plainly that they neglected +to refer to that any more. + +"But they took another tack instead. The things that I'd mentioned were +mere material things! Like that--scornful--as if they weren't worth +mentioning at all. 'Merely material!' And there was a better world to +live in--oh, my, yes--the world of the spirit. + +"'Do you live in it?' I asked. 'Do you?' They wore sealskin coats, when +it wasn't mink or chinchilla. They were driving downtown every day in +their own closed cars to urge me to be content with the things of the +spirit. And when I realized that--No, I wasn't sore. I was just hep, +that's all. + +"'I'll try Broadway,' I said then. 'If there's nothing, after all, in +this climb-though-the-rocks-be-rugged stuff, no great harm done. I'm +still young. But why waste more valuable time? I'll try Broadway,' I +said. 'I'll have a whirl at the primrose path.' + +"They didn't believe me at first. They thought I was just bluffing, just +talking because I was discouraged. So they talked themselves some +more--a whole lot more. Beautiful words--but they didn't mean anything. +Not to me. + +"Did any of 'em say: 'Sure, I understand. You're young and pretty, and +it's natural you should crave such things. Here's my last year's coat +and a perfectly miserable old last year's model car'? Did they? Don't +make me laugh! Not that they woulda missed them. Nothing like that! + +"And if they'd only come out flat in the beginning and admitted: 'Sure, +it's a fight--we know that--a finish fight between women like you and +women like us,' I could have liked 'em for it. If they'd said: 'We want +these things, so do you, and only men can buy 'em--take 'em if you can,' +that woulda been all right with me. But did they? You know the answer. +They were telling _me_ not to rough it, while _they_ all the while, every +chance they got, were hitting in the clinches! They were chirping to me, +'Oh, see how lovely the things of the spirit are,' while they were +hanging with a death grip to everything material that they could get +their hands on. I'd been honest with them--sincere. And with me they +had been as hypocritical as hell! + +"But when finally I made 'em see that I was on, and that I was in +earnest, it sobered them. They quit then that line of chatter. They +were battling now, and they pulled another one. Sure, just what you +called it a minute ago. The old line of stuff. They pulled that. They +tried to scare me. Me! But I wouldn't scare, not for a cent. I was +already scared half crazy--scared of matrimony with a drummer with false +teeth. + +"'Hell!' That was what they threatened me with. 'Hell,' they tried to +warn me. "'How do you know?' I came back at 'em. 'How do you know? +Maybe there's been slander here. Maybe it's not so hot. Maybe it's only +semitropical!' And they couldn't beat that. They couldn't even tie it. +But they went right on trying. + +"'The wages of sin,'--they began. But I beat 'em to that punch. + +"'They're damned fine wages,' I said. The cuss-word slipped out. I was +always sorry about that. I always aimed to be awful respectful. +'They're damned fine wages! A car to ride around in,--sure, merely +material just like yours, but better than a strap in the subway with all +the men sitting down. And clothes--not shoddy rags. Clothes! Silk +things, with lace on 'em, and rosebuds. And a place to live in with +trees in the lobby and a tub level with the bath-room floor, and a +chaise-something-or-other.' Oh, I'd been reading! I hadn't been +studying for nothing. I knew! + +"'I want to live in a world where things smell better,' I said. 'I'm +dead tired of a world that stinks!' + +"Well, they kept a'trying. I'll say that for 'em. Game--you bet. I +don't believe they overlooked much either. 'The gutter,' they said. +'I'm in it now,' I came back. 'Your self-respect,' they said. 'Nobody +else respects me,' I trumped that, 'or even cares that I'm alive.' And +then I went after 'em strong. 'But give me the car,' I said, 'and the +apartment and the clothes, and see. Why, I'll have 'em walking the +length of every hotel dining-room in town, just to be recognized by me!' +'The men,' they said. 'Sure,' I agreed, 'the men. Isn't that what +counts? Don't try to tell me that this isn't a man's world. I know! +And won't they?' + +"That stopped 'em for a minute. They didn't want to answer. They +thought an awful lot of the truth at times, for folks that'd lie to +themselves all day long. 'Won't they?' I wouldn't quit it. I made 'em +come through. + +"'Perhaps,' they admitted then. Alas, that was the way of the world. +But it was wrong! + +"'Sure,' I agreed again. 'Sure. You're telling me no news. But if the +whole world's wrong, who am I to stand out? Who am I?' I wanted to know. +'Let's make it unanimous.' + +"'The wages of sin,' they tried it again. They'd expected to put me down +for the count with that one, and they hated to see it go to waste. + +"'Can you show me something just as good?' I asked. 'Half as good? A +tenth as good? I want to be straight. I'd rather be straight. Here's a +proposition. You folks have got more than you can ever spend on +yourselves. Pool a little of it--ten of you--and give me a job that you +don't figure sinful. I'm willing to work. I've proved that to you. +Guarantee me something a tenth as good as the wages I've mentioned, at +the end of ten years--I'll not be thirty then; I'll take a chance on +still being able to enjoy 'em--guarantee me that and I'll scrub floors +for you in the meantime.' + +"And then they pulled the prize crack of them all. I hadn't heard it +before. It was a new one on me. + +"'Virtue,' they said, 'virtue is its own reward.' + +"Honest, I laughed. I couldn't help it. I didn't want them to see that +I was wise to them. I didn't even want to hurt their feelings. It was +pretty serious to them, this step that I was taking. But I couldn't help +it. I laughed. And then I got mad. + +"'Virtue is its own reward? Is it?' I asked. 'Is it? Go out there and +stand on Fifth Avenue,' I said, 'and watch 'em roll by. Your daughter! +And yours! And yours! Ten thousand of 'em, no younger than I am, no +prettier, and no more moral right now. Go out and watch them roll by and +then try to tell me that. Violets and silver fox! Is virtue their only +reward?' + +"Well, they'd not meant it the same way, in my case. I kept getting 'em +wrong, they said. They'd meant it in the abstract, applied to me. 'But +what about the wages of sin, in my case?' Had they been abstract there? +'Death--the gutter.' That was concrete, wasn't it? It sounded like +bedrock to me. Then they wanted to explain. I wouldn't let 'em. + +"'If you had been on the level I could have respected you,' I said. 'If +you had told me, sure this is a selfish world and we are of it, I'd have +liked you fine. I'm strong for a rascal, if he's an honest rascal. But +I hate a hypocrite.' + +"I'd got 'em between me and the ropes where I wanted 'em, at last. + +"'I've wasted two whole years,' I shot it over from the shoulder. 'Two +whole years, trying to compete with them'--I nodded toward the +Avenue--'according to their own rules. And you've been coaching me, when +all the while you knew I was licked, that way, before I started. Now let +_them_ compete with _me_, according to _my_ rules, for a change. Let +them run to their dressmakers and order their gowns a little lower and +their skirts a little higher and lie to themselves and say they must keep +in style, when they know they've got to keep their men and don't care how +they do it. Let _them_ try it--damn 'em!' + +"I shouldn't have cussed. But I couldn't help it. I was bitter. If +they'd only been frank and man-to-man about it. The toughest birds in +the world stand in the middle of the ring and shake hands before they try +to murder each other. If they'd just said, 'This is no pretty game, this +is a finish fight,' I'd have loved 'em for it. I guess women can't be +frank and man-to-man. + +"One set of rewards for me--and one for them! Abstract for me--and +concrete for them! Two sets of rules! It's time some authority drafted +a new set, to cover both ends of this deal. But in the meantime--'I +don't want to play that way,' I said. 'I'd rather fight!'" + +Abruptly she stopped. + +"And I've been fighting ever since," she spoke in a less urgent fashion. +"And I'm going to keep on fighting--right up to the end. But you--is +that the kind of stuff they slipped you too, Cele?" + +Cecille had been listening without a sound, her eyes clinging to +Felicity's face, which was twisted, somewhat awry. + +"Is that what they slipped you too?" + +Cecille licked her lips. They were dry. + +"I--I guess so." + +"And that suits you? You think that's fair and square?" + +"I don't know," Cecille whispered dully. "I don't know." + +"Then it's time you found out," Felicity flung at her fiercely. "I had +to. It was put up to me just as cold. I didn't want to, any more than +you do. They aren't my rules; they're theirs! But I had to decide. And +it's time you figured it out." + +Again Cecille touched her lip with the tip of her tongue. + +"I've been trying to," she faltered. "But I--it don't seem to me as +though I want as much as you do. I'd be content with oh-so-little. With +a home, and a--and a man from whom I didn't shrink when he touched me +and--and--" She could go no further. That was too vivid, too intimate. + +It was Felicity who displayed her feelings at the end. And already she +was beginning to scorn herself for having paraded them. + +"Oh-so-little!" she mocked. She did not mean to be derisive. "Just +that! Just a home--just a man--a real man--content!" + +"Would you be?" Cecille asked the question unaware of the other's irony. + +"Say, who do you think I am," she asked, "to try to dictate terms like +that to life? _What_ do you think I am? A champion? Because that's +what you're talking now. The whole purse--or nothing! I _know_ my +limits. I'm going to be glad to get a fair percentage split for my +share. A home! A man! Content! I get you at last, Cecille. It's you +who'd better come to. For whether you know it or not, you're talking +winner--take--all!" + +She rose then. She shrugged her arms and stretched them high above her +head, and all visible emotion slipped from her like a discarded garment. + +"And that's _that_!" she stated easily. She went back to the mirror and +adjusted her veil. Then came a brief and awkward moment. + +"Well, I guess I'll be going," she said. "The rent's paid a month in +advance. Don't let that Shylock landlord gyp you." + +"I won't," said Cecille. + +"Well, I guess I'll be going." She picked up her bag. They did not kiss +each other. + +"Well--so-long." + +"I--I wish you--" Cecille checked herself. She had been about to say I +wish you happiness. She meant that, yet clumsily she changed it. + +"I wish you luck." + +At that Felicity paused. + +"Does this hat look all right?" + +Cecille nodded. And then she was gone. + + * * * * * * + +So Felicity passes. No dark river. No swift oblivion. No agony of +remorse. Those who may feel that her history is incomplete, that they +have been robbed of their full meed of vindictive satisfaction, I must +refer back to an earlier paragraph. And to those who may say, Here is a +dangerous departure from the formula for such tales, there is only one +honest retort. Felicity isn't a figment of fancy. Felicity's from the +life. + + * * * * * * + +Cecille sat quiet after Felicity had gone, until darkness crept into the +room. She rose then, mechanically, and prepared and ate some supper. +Later Perry Blair came and she found that pressing as her own problem +seemed she could still think first of him. She would not tell him now of +Felicity's dereliction. He needed a single mind to face his coming +struggle. He would learn of it soon enough. + +Later still they went out and walked, till he had only time enough left +in which to catch his train. Both of them were silent. Neither felt any +inclination to talk. But Cecille's brain had been as uncannily busy as +that of one who lies awake throughout a white and sleepless night. And +she had believed this bodiless activity to be the process of sound +reasoning; she had found some security in the conclusions she had formed. + +But when they turned back toward the apartment the whole brilliant +structure proved treacherous. It toppled. She was back where she had +started, cornered, driven now for time. She couldn't stand it. He would +go--and he'd never come back. Never! What was there in it for her? +What was she waiting for? + +Play the game? Fight? She knew she wasn't clever like Felicity, but she +conceived what she thought was a desperate expedient, nor realized that +it was pitifully transparent. There was no elevator in their building. +Perry had a habit of striking matches to light the darker portions of the +stairs, though that was silly. She'd told him; she knew every step of +the way. But to-night when he struck the first one, she raced ahead. +When it flickered and suddenly went out, she crumpled. At her cry, which +brought him swiftly, he found her a little heap upon the stair. Her +ankle was doubled beneath her. + +"I've twisted it," she said. + +She wasn't clever, like Felicity, and yet how simple it was! + +He picked her up. He carried her like no weight at all. And she lay +very close against him, her head on his crooked elbow, her arms about his +neck. They had left a light burning in the box of a sitting-room. And +as he entered there Perry Blair, looking down at her delicately parted +lips and faintly fatigue-penciled eyes, breathed deeply once, and smiled. + +He'd been quickly skeptical; he was certain now. No one who had just +twisted an ankle was content and serene as that. + +And that was when Perry Blair first saw Cecille Manners--first saw her +with seeing eyes. He looked down at her and in that instant learned how +infinitely precious and flagrantly bold girlhood like hers could be. + +He carried her to a couch. She lay quiet, her eyes still closed. But +when, after a glance at his watch, he would have tried to ascertain the +extent of the damage, which he knew was no damage at all, she sprang +erect, and flamed at him, and struck his hands aside. + +"No!" she gasped. "No!" + +And then she put her hands upon her face. + +"I didn't twist it." Her very voice was dreary. "I just couldn't face +it, that was all. I thought maybe, if you carried me upstairs--if once +you felt me in your arms--ugh!" She made a sound, a gesture as of +nausea. And yet, after a moment, with surprising steadiness: + +"Had you just as soon go now? I wish--I wish you'd go." + +He gave her her wish so quietly that when she looked again she was +surprised not to see him still there. In the lower hall he stopped a +moment and stood with his head on one side as a man stands who listens. +He made as if to climb the stairs again, and shook his head. Holliday +came first, and he'd have to hurry. + +In the box of a sitting-room above Cecille sat and also listened. But +she made no move as if to follow. She just half stretched her arms +toward the stairway when finally she knew that he was gone. + +"Oh!" she cried then. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, God!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +POTS AND PANS! + +The rest tells more quickly by far. + +A raised, roped platform--two lithe bodies--a pavilion of white faces. +Not the first round, nor the second, nor the seventh. The intermission +which followed it rather, and a crowd grown strangely silent. + +Perry Blair went back to his seat at the clang of the bell. Jack English +was in his corner, and Hamilton, for he had been unwilling to trust +anyone else. And lying back under their hurried, efficient ministrations +he looked out upon the banks of faces. + +They were tense; it was easy to see that, just as it was easy to sense +that theirs was no ordinary tension. And he understood what it meant. +Word had seeped from tier to tier, spread like a drop of ink in a glass +of water, until it had colored the entire mass. Only a very select few +were "in the know" of what that eighth round had been planned to develop, +yet they somehow had leavened the whole audience with anticipation, by an +indefinite word or two. + +"The eighth," they were whispering among themselves. "Watch this now; +here's where something happens!" + +They had hooted Perry as he entered the ring; saluted him with catcalls +and a few out-and-out hisses. He'd wondered then if any other champion +had ever been saluted in just that fashion before; he'd tried to smile. +He wasn't trying any more. + +But Holliday was. Across in his corner Holliday was nodding to his +handlers and grinning widely, just as he had grinned all through the +fight so far. And so far it had been a mild battle, a showy thing of +pretty footwork and flashy boxing. But it hadn't been harmful to either +of them. Holliday, it appeared, had been quite content to let it go +along that way from round to round, though it was the style of fighting +best suited to his opponent. And he had proved himself faster at it, +cleverer, than Perry had expected. + +Yet it was not Holliday's cleverness, but his bounding, surging strength +which compelled his thoughts. Strength like that, which tossed him like +a chip in the clinches, was no new thing to him. He'd often been handled +that way, with the same ease, by men heavier than himself,--by Jack +English, for example. And Holliday was heavier; he knew that he had +given away pounds in the weighing in; that there had been crookedness at +the scales, but he hadn't tried to prove it. Yet Holliday was stronger +even than Jack English, unbelievably stronger. And Perry knew now that +he was about to test that strength to the uttermost. Holliday had romped +with the roughness of a great puppy; now it was going to be different. +It was going to be the destruction-rush of a young bull. + +English too felt what was coming, just as he did; just as did the whole +quiet house. English wasn't trying hard to hide his anxiety. + +"He's strong," he was saying. "Boy, he's strong! Keep away from +him--keep away from him all you can. For if he ever backs you into a +corner he's going to knock you dead!" + +Perry nodded. He meant to, if he could. He was going to try to keep +away. And on the other side of the ring Holliday was talking easily out +of the corner of his mouth. + +"This guy's no set-up," he was saying. "He's faster than a fool. But +kin he hit--that's what I'm wondering. Kin he hit? An' that's what I'm +going to find out." + +And then the bell, and the whole house leaning forward. + +They came slowly from their corners, Holliday bull-necked, compact, a +grinning menace, Perry lighter, whiter, sober. The first minute of that +round was a repetition of all those that had gone before; lightning +feints, nimble dancing steps, the cautious trickery of antagonists +feeling each other out. + +And yet the house, contrary to custom, did not grow impatient of such +tactics and call loudly for more damaging effort. It waited. A minute +and a half passed--two minutes--and they were going faster--faster. And +then Holliday, grinning into Perry's face, winked broadly and swung +wildly with his right. Perry stepped easily inside the blow and put his +left to the other's face. It was a light blow, Perry knew that. There +was no snap, no sting in it. But immediately Holliday winced as though +it had hurt him and for the first time gave ground. + +He followed Holliday up. This was the round in which Holliday was to +quit, the round upon which Perry had had his mind riveted for weeks. He +wondered--had Dunham after all been on the level with his promised +crookedness? He followed Holliday up, carefully. And again a wild right +swing, a light step inside, a light left to the face. And then Holliday, +holding him with disturbing ease in a clinch, pressed his mouth close to +Perry's ear. + +"Shoot it over, now," he muttered. "Shoot it--don't pull it. It mustn't +look too raw. I'm going to open up--start it from the floor!" + +They clung in the clinch. The referee tore at them, raving at them to +break. He pried them apart at last and passed between them to make the +breaking cleaner. And as he did so, Holliday dropped his guard. + +"Shoot it!" he hissed. + +Perry wondered--but he knew better! He therefore merely made as if to +set himself for the punch. He drove his right hand to the other's chin. +But in that same instant as he took the blow Holliday lashed back at him, +ferociously. Had Perry swung with all he had; had he been going with his +punch; had he even been set firmly upon his feet to deliver it, +Holliday's treacherous hook would have dropped him for the count. + +As it was, though he had gone limply back, it spun him round and hurled +him down. But it did not hurt him much. Lying half-raised on one hand, +waiting out the count, he was thinking how like an explosion the roar +from the audience had been. How moblike and blood-hungry. How the crowd +hated him! + +And Holliday was laughing down at him, leering. Double-crossed? Did +Holliday think he was that credulous? But he had tested Holliday's +strength and feared it more than ever. When finally he had to rise he +dodged the other with a swift, sideways wriggle. The bell sounded almost +immediately. + +English was less worried than before, which was queer. + +"That's the stuff," he praised. "Keep away and let him wear himself out. +Let him beat himself." + +But Perry questioned whether he was going to be able to keep away, and +there was another angle to it, too. + +"He'll be sure now that I can't hurt him," he thought. And that was +exactly what Holliday at that moment was telling his seconds. + +"Yu' got that, didn't you?" he demanded, again from the corner of his +mouth. "Flush on the chin I took it. And it never made me blink. Hit? +He couldn't dent cream cheese. If I'd ever a'ripped one into him like +that I'd a'torn away half his lid. Watch this, now--watch this, because +it's going to be good!" + +And it was from his viewpoint and from the viewpoint of the partisan +spectators. At the bell's call Holliday rushed across the ring, guard +wide, gloves flailing. It was a spectacular rush, but Perry eluded him +easily and slipped agilely away. Holliday whirled and blundered after +him. Perry ducked under his swinging arms and danced again into the +open. And then Holliday staged it, the scene which was going to be good. + +Abruptly he ceased to pursue. He stopped and stood flat-footed in the +middle of the ring, hands hanging idle at his hips, scowling after his +opponent. + +"Hey, you!" he bellowed, so loudly that his voice reached the rafters. +"Wat t'ell do yu' think this is--puss-in-the-corner? Cut out the +marathon, and come on and fight." + +Indeed it was good; it was one of those dearly desired comedy moments +which Holliday knew would grow epic in the re-telling. Holliday was a +good showman. There were more cat-calls, more jeers, and cries of, +"Yellow--yellow!" + +And then Holliday went after him--and the house went mad. He blundered +no longer in his pursuit, no longer played to the crowd. Like a blast of +vengeance he struck Perry, enveloped him, smothered him in a fury of +blows. + +Perry tried to get away and couldn't get away. From the center of the +ring to the ropes he was battered, staggering. He went down, and +struggled up. And went down again. + +He made no attempt to strike back, nor would that have availed him much. +Holliday had tested his strength and was contemptuous of it. Holliday +was boring in and in with crushing blows that tore past glove and guard. + +The house was now a screaming, tossing bedlam, the ring a welter. He +heard English barking at him. Cover up! He was covered up. Blam! He +dropped and rolled away and came again erect. And blam! He _was_ +covered up, as much as any man could cover. And then a glove sank into +the pit of his stomach and doubled him over, sickened him, racked him +with white-hot pain. + +He got away again. Fight? They were shouting at him to fight. Did they +think he wasn't fighting? He was fighting with brain and heart and body +to live this wild storm through. Again Holliday got him in a corner. +Holliday's bull-strength was not believable. Again he got him just above +the belt. And he couldn't help it this time--this time he had to do it. +He dropped a little his guard. And then it happened. It struck him +then. The roof came down! + +[Illustration: "Come on, now--'fess up?"] + +As he lay head on the arm curled under him he knew it must have been the +roof. By nothing else could he have been so smitten. The roof must have +fallen, though the faces around him were still tossing and swaying, +though the referee stood counting above him, though there was no +wreckage. And the clarity of his mind astonished and pleased him. A +brick roof--sure! A brick roof! That was unusual, very unusual. But it +had to be that. It was a brick without a doubt which had struck him. + +He knew the house was roaring--was sure of it--and yet he couldn't hear +them at all. And that was strange, because he could hear the referee; he +could hear Jack English. Jack was pleading--good old Jack!--begging him +to get up. Apparently Jack didn't know that the roof had come down and +stopped the fight. But the referee? Would he toll on endlessly before +he noticed it? He should know; he'd been close at hand when it happened. +He felt a warm emotion, a sense of comradeship, for the referee. He'd +surely been square; he'd made Holliday break clean. He felt an impulse +to joke with the referee, to banter him, and bid him count a million if +he wanted to. + +And then another thought. How easily he was thinking! With what +precision! Yellow! They might think him yellow, even if the roof had +fallen, if he didn't get up. They might think--At that he rolled over +and discovered that there were miles of bodiless space between his head +and his feet. It made the latter hard to handle, but he managed it +doggedly. He climbed to his knees and wavered erect. And on the stroke +of ten Holliday smashed him down again. + +Yellow? Well, he'd get right up this time. He started to; he even +staggered after Holliday who now appeared to be the one who wouldn't +stand and fight, when he felt English dragging him back. Even English +was against him. Holding his arms! Bound he'd lose! He lashed out at +English; and then, like a distant echo, he remembered the sound of a bell. + +He let them put him upon his stool and stretch him out. Let them work +over him frantically. The brick from the roof apparently had cut above +one eye, almost to the bone. But English was fixing it--good old +English! He shouldn't have lost his temper and swung on English like +that. English was propping the lid open and sticking it so with adhesive. + +And then there was the bell. How light his legs felt, and his arms! And +he'd doubted that the adhesive would do much; with the first savage slash +Holliday tore it away and the lid hung closed again. But he could see +from the other eye even though that seemed but a puffy mass. There was a +slit from which he could look out upon an insane, tumultuous world. + +So he complimented himself upon his cunning. They thought Holliday had +blinded him; had closed both his eyes so that he could not see at all, +did they? Well, he could! Oh, he was foolin' 'em. Champion! + +Once he'd looked that word up in a dictionary, just after he whipped +Fanchette; looked it up a little sheepishly, though he was alone at the +time. Champion:--One who by beating all rivals has obtained an +acknowledged supremacy. Then Devereau and Dunham were right. According +to that he wasn't a champion. Nobody acknowledged him. But he'd teach +'em a better definition. A champion was someone who could go right on +fighting when everybody was cheering for the other guy. A champion was +somebody who could fool 'em that easy!--that complete! You bet! Who +could fight and think at the same time, that clearly!--that +logically!--like he was doing. + +But he fell down often. Yet that didn't prevent this reasoning things +out. And he didn't wait now for the count, either. He'd get right up +each time, he'd decided, so that they could not call him yellow. They +hated him so. But he knew the answer to that, too, at last. And that +gave him something to laugh at, the way Holliday had grinned. Honesty +was the best policy! He fair rocked with glee--and got up again! + +Now English had him by the arm. He wouldn't hit English--English meant +well if he wasn't a champion. He'd follow English docilely and sit down +as he was ordered. He must have missed the bell again. + +But English's crying, his whimpering, bothered him. It was a sniffling, +wild-beast whine. That's the way a wolf or a tiger would sound, outside +the circle of a fire's glow, unable to help its kitten or cub. But it +annoyed him just the same--took his mind off important things. And what +had English to cry over anyway? The roof hadn't fallen on him. + +There was something about that that he hadn't yet got quite straight in +his mind. If he could--if he could--A brick roof didn't sound right. If +he could just force his brain a little further. It was urgent--he could +fight better--it had a direct bearing on the fight. But there was that +damned bell again. It interrupted him; broke in upon his train of +reasoning. But he'd get up and fight some more. That was what they'd +paid their money to see. He'd fight and try to think it out at the same +time. + +He rose and coughed, sick at his stomach--and sat suddenly down. But +Holliday'd not hit him so hard that time, it seemed. Just pushed him +maybe. That was the game--let him wear himself out! He got up again. +Then he noticed another thing. The crowd had been screaming, "Kill him! +Kill him!" for hours and hours. Now each time that Holliday struck him +they groaned. Well, maybe it was time for him to hit Holliday; maybe +that was what was the matter. He'd try to accommodate 'em. He pushed +the referee aside and swung. But his glove met nothing. The floor came +up and hit him in the face, that was all. Funny floor! Funny roof! No +place to hold a prizefight. And where was Holliday, anyway? Holliday'd +been playing for his good eye, till that was practically closed, too, and +he couldn't see distinctly, couldn't see much of anything. He'd grope +for him--he did it--and got up again! + +They were shouting something else now. Could not suit 'em. "Take him +out--take him out!" Who, him? He cursed at them, nor knew that he +merely gibbered from frightful lips. They'd not rob _him_ that way of +his title! Then he saw Hamilton pick up a towel and start to toss it +into the ring. Lucky he was near him! He grabbed that towel and flung +it away--and fell down heavily--and got up again! + +He wanted to curse Hamilton, too, but didn't have the time. He seemed to +be hurtling to one side of the ring and then the other, yet effortlessly, +as lightly as thistle-down. Couldn't stop for anything--Holliday +insisted on fighting right along. He couldn't remember it was so long +since he had laid a glove on Holliday. + +And then again a lull. What was it? The end of a round, or the +beginning of one? He'd better not sit down, or Devereau and Dunham would +tell 'em he was yellow, and they'd believe. End of a round, apparently. +English was crying over him again, whimpering helplessly. He wished +they'd dispense entirely with the bell. Just fight right along--could +keep your mind on things that way; he was awful sick--just noticed that! + +And then he heard Hamilton trying to square himself for what he'd tried +to do with the towel. + +"He's out, I tell you!" Hamilton was saying. "He's out standing on his +feet!" + +So he was even fooling his own seconds! Out standing on his feet? Why, +he'd been out for rounds and rounds! He didn't quite know how many. But +that didn't make any difference--but then Hamilton didn't know much about +the boxing game--he was just a sports writer! + +"What round is it?" he asked. "Sixteenth!" Liars! Or maybe they were +joking. Anyway, he knew better. The tenth or eleventh, perhaps, but +never the sixteenth. + +Was that the bell? No, he'd just kicked the water-pail? Shouldn't have +a tin pail in the ring, not even a new one. Ought to be a wooden bucket. +Well, they could just tell him when the bell did ring, and give him a +little shove in Holliday's direction, if they would. That was it--all +right--and the roof came down! + +He found a way to remedy that; he'd hold it up. Hang onto Holliday's +arms, that was it. They were awful sticky, yet slippery, but he'd try. +And getting up was a slower business now in spite of himself. But if +they couldn't see that he'd taken quite a bit of punishment and had a +right to be a little dizzy, let 'em sit and sulk. They weren't shouting +any more, that was certain; they weren't even groaning happily when +Holliday hit him. And damn that roof! Or was it the floor? It +certainly had been _under_ the chin that time. Got to get up--and it +didn't seem possible--didn't seem as if he could. Was that English +holding him? Round was over? "Pardon me. Didn't hear the bell. They'd +ought to have a siren!" + +And so back to his riddle. It wasn't a brick roof--ah, there was the key +to the whole puzzling problem. Let him once solve that--you just let him +get clear on that point--and see! + +The bell! Holliday certainly was polite. He'd come all the way across +the ring in one leap to meet him. Saved him staggering miles and miles +toward the other corner. And thud! The roof--but it wasn't a thud. It +was a crash--a tinny clangor. Shouldn't have a tin pail--might have cut +himself. He got up, and promptly ran into something and sat down again. +It was easier to think, however, in that position. Tin! Tin! A tin +roof? That sounded more like it. Only it wasn't tin; it was--it was-- + +"Got it!" he shouted--he thought he shouted, while men thought he was +coughing blood. "Got it! Got it! Solved!" + +And now that he knew the answer he could put his mind on this fight. + +What round? The eighteenth? They'd lost count probably, but anyway it +had gone far enough. He'd finish it now. He had hardly hit Holliday at +all; he'd hit him now. Where was he? He groped, and then he found him; +found him by the simple process of noting from which quarter Holliday's +last blow came. Right there in front of him, standing there and +measuring him and driving it into his unprotected face. + +It must look queer to the crowd, him not keeping his guard up or +anything. They'd think he was letting Holliday knock him out. He'd +better get it over with; he was consumed with eagerness, anyhow, to tell +Hamilton and English the joke about the roof, the joke which was on +himself. + +So he swayed with the next blow and rocked lightly back. He'd sit down +no more. He swayed with the next one, but this time he snapped forward, +glove and arm and shoulder. This time, on the rebound, he put all he had +into it; and that after all was what a champion really was: A guy who had +something always left to call on, a guy who could shoot it all, when the +crisis came. + +And even Holliday must have been unwary and fooled and thought he was out +standing up. For this time he did not miss. Nor did the floor rise. +Nor Holliday. Tough on Holliday. Solved! + +He allowed the referee to hold aloft his hand; good referee,--square. He +fell out of the ring--clumsy!--and passed down miles and miles of aisle +between pale faces. What were _they_ goggling at? Of course he was a +little cut up and bruised; what did they expect? He'd taken some +punishment. They'd say now, he supposed, that he had no skill. + +But they drew back and looked away, or dropped their eyes; they acted +almost shamed. Well, some of them had been mistaken; they'd called him +yellow. He wanted to stop and tell 'em it was not so, but he couldn't +spare the time just now. He had to hurry to his dressing-room and tell +Hamilton and English the joke,--this joke at his own expense. + +English had an idea apparently that he was helping him, holding him up. +Well, he wasn't. He'd bet it was fourteen feet from his neck to his +ankles. But the joke--had they closed the door? Then listen! + +"The roof! I thought it was the roof that fell on me! Can you beat +that? First a brick roof--then a tin one--" He thought it was laughter +which doubled him up. + +"And do you know what it really was?" He gave them ample time but +received no answer. So he shouted it aloud; he thought he shouted: + +"Not the roof at all! Not brick--not even tin! Pots and pans! Pots and +pans! Aluminum! Dozens! A whole set of 'em!" + +He thought it was laughter which doubled him up; then found he was +deathly sick. Was this the floor he was lying upon, or a table? Because +if it was the floor he'd have to get up; he didn't know whether he could +make it again or not but he'd be a game guy and try. They were holding +him? All right, let it go at that. Holliday'd not got up either. He +could see Holliday just as plain--just as clear!--unconscious on the +canvas. Then the fight must be over--he was glad of that . . . + +He came to crying weakly. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +WINNER TAKE ALL + +His first conscious thought was of his great need to go to her quickly, +yet he waited several days to give his marked face time to heal, Hamilton +and Jack English waiting with him. And at length, on the way north, he +shyly opened his heart to them; he told them of his plan. Because he was +urgent about it, and more than a little panicky, they promised they would +see him through with it; when they parted at Grand Central it was to be +for only an hour or two. + +"You'll not fail me?" he asked anxiously. + +Hamilton made game of him, a little. + +"We'll be there," he answered. "Where's your nerve, man? We'll be there +with our hair in a braid." + +"We'll be there," echoed English soberly. "We'll be in your corner." + +He very nearly missed her; and yet afterward she always insisted that she +was sure he would come, even in that last minute while she stood looking +about to be certain that she had overlooked nothing in the apartment +which she could no longer have afforded to keep even had she wanted to. +Therefore her start at his appearance upon the threshold did not equal +his surprise at the sight of her dressed for traveling, her belongings +already packed. + +For it fairly demoralized him. Like every good tactician he had coped +with as many details as could be handled in advance, but against this +moment his preparation had been none too thorough. Desperately, once or +twice, he had tried to drill himself for it, practicing a line or two +which he hoped he could remember. + +"I'm not her kind; I'm different from what she is," he had told himself, +"and I will tell her that. But I'll tell her, too, that I'll not _stay_ +different any longer than it can be helped. I am no dunce; I'll learn to +be her kind." + +But, slipping away too happily into thoughts of how different she was +from everyone else in the whole world, beyond that he had not found it +easy to go. None too steadily he had decided to rely upon inspiration. +And now at the sight of her in a scant blue suit and tiny hat, bag in +hand before him, every last syllable of his rehearsals basely failed him. + +He looked from her inquiring eyes to the stripped room. She believed she +understood that survey. + +"Felicity's gone," she said in a voice that he hardly recognized as her +own. "She went with Dunham, the afternoon of the day you left for the +South. I did not tell you then because--" + +It seemed too obvious, so she left it unsaid. + +At that he reddened and was a little ashamed and humbler than ever at +heart. But he'd not thought of Felicity for weeks; he'd never thought of +her like this. + +"Oh," was all he could manage. "Oh. And you--?" + +She thought she understood his blankness. + +"I was just going myself." + +"Where?" He was suddenly afraid that it was too late for his plan,--that +it had always been too late. + +"I don't know," she answered. "Home, maybe--where I used to live. It +doesn't much matter--anywhere." + +Her eyes had not once left his face. And now he saw that they were as +changed as her voice. He would have said, had they been other than hers, +that they were bitter; no, not bitter; sardonic and mocking. Temporarily +like Felicity's. And she must be very tired, judging from her voice, +even more tired and wan than she looked. + +The phrases which he had rehearsed deserted him treacherously. + +"Then--then, why not come with me?" he labored over it. "I've a +drawing-room on the Lake Shore on the five o'clock. I knew about +Felicity; that wasn't why I came back. I came because I thought maybe we +could go out--you and I--and look around together." + +He knew it was a poor thing of weak words and not what his inarticulate +heart would have uttered. Yet he was not prepared for her reception of +it. + +She laughed up into his face, a hard little, crisp little laugh. + +"Why not?" she said. "Why not?" + +And when he took her in his arms and kissed her it was not as he had +dreamed it would be. Her body was slack, her lips not merely passive but +cold against his own. His heart heavy for reasons which he could not +name, he set her quickly free. + +"I'll be back for you, then, at three," he said. "Will you be ready?" + +As casually, it came to him, just as calmly he might have discussed his +plan with any man. + +"At three," she repeated. "I'll be ready." + +He left her, not as happy as when he had sped up the stairs; left her +demoralized now. In the interlude before his return she sat motionless, +her mind a tumult of doubt. + +She too had dreamed what that embrace would be; she had wanted always to +be near him, yet she had just shrunk from it. + +"Who am I to dictate such terms to life?" Felicity had demanded. + +"And who was she," in all that long month Cecille had been asking of +herself, "who was _she_? And what was she waiting for?" + +Even a percentage of happiness, Felicity had preached, would be less +unendurable than no happiness--ever--at all; and she had at last +convinced herself that this was so. Yet now she shook with doubt. Was +this dead thing the actuality which at any price she had hoped to save? + +Once she was very close to flight; more than once, more childishly than +she knew, she wished that she would die. + +But she kept to her promise and waited; she was ready and went with him +at three, though after he had put her in the taxi and climbed in beside +her, she found it difficult to breathe. She could not have forced words +from her throat had she wanted to, and he was as silent as she. For at +the end of hours he had hit upon an explanation of this mood of hers, her +trouble, and it was troubling him deeply, too. Two or three times, +watching her still face and quiet hands, it had been upon the tip of his +tongue to tell her that after all they could still abandon his plan. + +He had not offered to kiss her again, nor even reached for her hand, and +she had been grateful for this, almost hysterically grateful as she +recalled the little opportunities which she had once contrived for just +such contacts. And the taxi was not merely stifling; it was like a trap. +The seat was far too narrow. Even though she huddled into her corner the +six inches of clear space which separated them was all too brief. + +So they rode south, both unhappier with every turn of the wheels, till +suddenly he saw her hands tighten into fists, and her lips begin to move. + +"I can't," was what he made of that whisper. "Oh, ask him to +stop--please--please!" + +He did not question her; her face was enough. The cab pulled up to the +curb. She flung open the door and started to get out. But she could not +go like this--not without a word--not without some explanation--even if +she had to brave his rage. + +"I can't," she told him. The voice was tired, but not beaten--no. "I +thought I could, because I loved you oh--so--much. But I can't. I know +it now; I've known it all along." + +But he didn't seem angry; he seemed only gentle and sorry. And his voice +sounded sorry, and kind. + +"I think I knew it, too," he was saying, slowly; "knew it was wrong, all +the while. But I didn't realize how wrong till I saw it was making you +sad. At first it seemed to me that this would be the finer way, quiet +and soon over, no fuss nor any crowd. I have seen weddings that were +ribald and not sacred, and I wanted ours to be none of that. Just you +and I and the minister, with Hamilton and English standing by; and then +just you and I going away together, leaving no wise winking, no meaning +whispers behind. And that _was_ right,--but only half right; I have been +selfish with you. It is a sober step for a girl like you; she wants her +folks at such a time. We will wait now for your people." + +She had paused to wait for his answer--his anger--with one foot upon the +running board, one foot on the curb. But slowly, as his voice went +gravely on and on, she turned and faced him and listened, incredulous. +The words were distinct enough; they drummed at her ears, but they did +not penetrate, not even after he had finished, until she stared about her +and saw how far they'd come. They were far south of Grand Central and +Forty-second Street. Then it went reeling through her. + +He would have stepped out, but she pushed him back and followed him +inside. + +"Where were we going?" she gasped. But she knew--she knew! She wanted +to laugh, and wanted to cry, and didn't know which to do. + +"We have to get a license, you know," he told her soberly. + +She decided then to cry, not much, just a little. But she made him smile. + +"We've lost a lot of time," she sniffed brokenly. "You'd better tell him +to hurry." + +The driver had been disappointed; he had expected more of her. But then +you couldn't never tell about them dames with real class. But he was +deferential; he had recognized his fare. + +"Where to, Mr. Blair?" he opened the door at that moment to ask. "We +gotta step on 'er, if you still want to make it." + +Perry ordered him to step on 'er. + +Then the miracle came to pass. She found the worn seat yards too wide, +the mean interior cathedral. + +And Hamilton and Jack English did not fail them. They were waiting. +They were "in his corner" as they had promised to be. They accompanied +the bride and groom to the station. And while Hamilton was shaking hands +with her husband, Jack English found opportunity for a word with his wife. + +"Didn't I tell you?" he asked. "Didn't I say you'd picked a game guy?" + +She was dewy of lip, star-eyed. + +"You told me," she said. + +He studied her with peculiar intentness. + +"This game will never hold him," he at last went on. "He'll want to take +you far, so his fight has just begun. You believe in him. You'll be +proud of him, some day." + +She dropped her eyes; she was too honest with herself not to admit that +she had wondered about that, often hoped and therefore feared she might +not be. + +"I mean to," she answered, her voice not large. "And I'm proud enough, +right now." + +But not until hours after did she realize how proud. Hours later as she +sat in their drawing-room on the Lake Shore Limited and watched her +husband, just outside the open door, talking with a senator and a +prominent divine, her tiny disloyalty punished her a little. How hard +and clear cut his profile was--his nose was rather large! And how +man-sure, and boyishly diffident. She'd be secure, her whole life +through--and she hated men who boasted. She suffered some for her +snobbish wonder; but she was conscious of a new, great joy. + +"My lad!" she tried it aloud. "My lad!" + +She laid her fingers to her throat. A pulse throbbed there. + +How eager they seemed for his company; how interested! And there was no +patronage in their manner; rather they sought to establish equality; they +sought to be approved. This game would not hold him--and their chance +was equal to any. They were both young, very young--though she was +extremely mature for twenty years! Maybe--she didn't lean exactly toward +the ministry--but perhaps a senator-- + +Her eyes grew misty and veiled; she was lost to all but her dreams. + +And then the train stopped and she heard the senator talking, his voice +very loud with no din of motion to drown it. + +"I snapped my right over"--it punctured her blissful gossamer of +fancy--"I snapped my right over--and _he_ made no more trouble for +anyone, in _that_ town." + +She heard her husband answer, but could not make out the words. But +apparently the prominent divine had been champing on the bit; the +senator, she thought, must have interrupted him. + +"--a bully, the town bully, and an extremely powerful man. But that did +not deter me. I was outraged, you see--righteously indignant. So I +hooked with my left--I believe, sir, that that is the correct term--" + +The absurd, fat things! She heard her husband assuring him that it was. +Her husband! + +So later he returned to a very bright-eyed wife. He dropped into a seat +and she was happier still at the happiness in his eyes. For a time he +was quiet; then suddenly he slanted his head at her. He began to tell +her about the pots and pans. + +"Some battle!" he drawled at the finish of it. "Champion--winner take +all!" + +Nor had he been able to keep down a little note of pride. It was quite +as if, still humbly, in his own plains' talk, he had assured her, "Your +husband is no dub." + +And so she started that soon to become better acquainted with him. He +was no braggart with others; to his own wife he would boast a little. +Husbands were likely to, she realized--she loved him more. + +And the words had started a thought in her own head. She had lost that +phrase of Felicity's, and searched for it, and was glad to find it again. + +"Some battle," she echoed softly. "Some battle--winner take all." + +Then she rose and went to him. + +"Perry, lad," she murmured, "I'm not sure but what there are _two_ +champions, right here in this very car!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BLUE FOR A BOY + +"But would she have been happy?" A critic whose sex is indicated by +her usage of the pronoun _she_ instead of _they_ once raised the +question. + +"Why not?" I asked unguardedly. + +Obviously such stupidity as my counter-question evinced was worthy of +some pity. + +"Why, she was an--ah--superior sort of a girl; breeding, you know, and +all that, or so I have gathered, while he--" + +But I stayed no longer to listen. What was the use? There was not +merely a little of snobbishness in her. I did not even insist that +"she" might have been, or add that it was really true. But I went West +promptly to see. + +Perry Blair had scarcely guessed at the possibilities of that valley. +There were five dozen, or five hundred white-faced Herefords under +fence; or five thousand. I forget which, for I was not curious +concerning these. + +But having cornered her at last I put the question bluntly. + +"What about that career?" I wanted to know. "There's a crying need +just now for good senators--plain statesmanship handled neatly." + +She colored a little. + +"Wel-l-l," she was going to slide out of it if she could, "Perry's +awfully busy right now, it's so hard to get trustworthy men. And--and +then, anyhow, I'm not so sure I'd care to have him enter politics, as +they are at present--even if--" + +"Don't blame you," I concluded. "Wise decision. But what about the +ministry--how about that?" + +Here, however, she would have rallied and protested hotly that she had +never been keen about the ministry--not at all!--when an occurrence +just outside the open door saved her the need. + +Perry Blair--Blue Jeans, with no rent in his shirt and a nonsensically +expensive hat--had been driving a nail into the wall. The nail had +dodged and he had struck his thumb, and was commenting upon it plainly, +though with no great heat, aloud. + +And she grew pinker still. + +"You are a hypocrite," I complained with scorn. "You should blush!" +And dropped the matter there. + +But I was less concerned with the question of their happiness. And +that evening, when a puncher brought a pasteboard box in the mail and +all innocently they opened it before me, I became very sure. + +For the box held a pair of those inadequate articles of apparel known, +I believe, as bootees, designed and executed in knitted silk for an +expected new arrival. And they forgot me, forgot that this expectation +was supposed to be a secret, in exclaiming over the mystery of who had +found them out. + +Then she came upon the card. There was no name or address; just one +line: + +"Winner take all!" it read. + +Yes--Felicity. + +After a long period of grave silence which had come upon them: + +"See!" she exclaimed softly. "Pink! A girl! Haven't I been telling +you so, all along?" + +"How does that signify?" Quickly he took up the challenge. Clearly +here was a matter which had seen much discussion. + +"Pink for a girl, and blue for a boy," she explained with conscious +superiority. + +But she couldn't continue to tease him. His face had become long. + +"Perhaps not, dear," she murmured. And then, with a little air: + +"Anyway, they'll be very useful, I'm sure. They are exceedingly fine +and dainty, and it is not easy to get things good enough, away out +here." + +But there he put his foot down. _She_ had not been very keen about +politics! Or the ministry! Indeed! + +"Pink for a girl?" he asked. "That's straight?" + +"That's straight." + +"Then he'll not wear them, ever. No son of mine shall be made a sissy +of, while he's still too helpless to prevent." + +But there they started and grew red at my presence which they had +forgotten, for I had to laugh. + +Happy? I didn't answer the amateur critic, but I don't mind saying so +here. And somehow I feel that I should know. + +I'm Hamilton. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINNER TAKE ALL*** + + +******* This file should be named 18829.txt or 18829.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/8/2/18829 + + + +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. 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