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+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Lost Road, etc, by Davis**
+#30 in our series by Richard Harding Davis
+
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+The Lost Road, etc.
+
+by Richard Harding Davis
+
+August, 2000  [Etext #2283]
+
+
+Contains:
+
+THE LOST ROAD
+THE MIRACLE OF LAS PALMAS
+EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS
+THE MEN OF ZANZIBAR
+THE LONG ARM
+THE GOD OF COINCIDENCE
+THE BURIED TREASURE OF COBRE
+THE BOY SCOUT
+SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
+THE DESERTER
+
+
+**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Lost Road, etc, by Davis**
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+This Etext prepared by Marleen Hugo
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+
+
+
+
+THE LOST ROAD
+
+
+THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE
+
+
+
+
+Contains:
+
+THE LOST ROAD
+THE MIRACLE OF LAS PALMAS
+EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS
+THE MEN OF ZANZIBAR
+THE LONG ARM
+THE GOD OF COINCIDENCE
+THE BURIED TREASURE OF COBRE
+THE BOY SCOUT
+SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
+THE DESERTER
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION BY
+JOHN T. McCUTCHEON
+
+WITH DAVIS IN VERA CRUZ, BRUSSELS, AND SALONIKA
+
+In common with many others who have been with Richard Harding
+Davis as correspondents, I find it difficult to realize that he
+has covered his last story and that he will not be seen again
+with the men who follow the war game, rushing to distant places
+upon which the spotlight of news interest suddenly centres.
+
+It seems a sort of bitter irony that he who had covered so many
+big events of world importance in the past twenty years should
+be abruptly torn away in the midst of the greatest event of
+them all, while the story is still unfinished and its outcome
+undetermined.  If there is a compensating thought, it lies in the
+reflection that he had a life of almost unparalleled fulness,
+crowded to the brim, up to the last moment, with those
+experiences and achievements which he particularly aspired to
+have.  He left while the tide was at its flood, and while he still
+held supreme his place as the best reporter in his country.  He
+escaped the bitterness of seeing the ebb set in, when the youth
+to which he clung had slipped away, and when he would have to sit
+impatient in the audience, while younger men were in the thick of
+great, world-stirring dramas on the stage.
+
+This would have been a real tragedy in "Dick" Davis's case, for,
+while his body would have aged, it is doubtful if his spirit ever
+would have lost its youthful freshness or boyish enthusiasm.
+
+It was my privilege to see a good deal of Davis in the last two
+years.
+
+He arrived in Vera Cruz among the first of the sixty or seventy
+correspondents who flocked to that news centre when the situation
+was so full of sensational possibilities.  It was a time when the
+American newspaper-reading public was eager for thrills, and the
+ingenuity and resourcefulness of the correspondents in Vera Cruz
+were tried to the uttermost to supply the demand.
+
+In the face of the fiercest competition it fell to Davis's lot to
+land the biggest story of those days of marking time.
+
+The story "broke" when it became known that Davis, Medill
+McCormick, and Frederick Palmer had gone through the Mexican
+lines in an effort to reach Mexico City.  Davis and McCormick,
+with letters to the Brazilian and British ministers, got through
+and reached the capital on the strength of those letters, but
+Palmer, having only an American passport, was turned back.
+
+After an ominous silence which furnished American newspapers with
+a lively period of suspense, the two men returned safely with
+wonderful stories of their experiences while under arrest in the
+hands of the Mexican authorities.  McCormick, in recently speaking
+of Davis at that time, said that, "as a correspondent in
+difficult and dangerous situations, he was incomparable--cheerful,
+ingenious, and undiscouraged.  When the time came to choose
+between safety and leaving his companion he stuck by his fellow
+captive even though, as they both said, a firing-squad and a blank
+wall were by no means a remote possibility."
+
+This Mexico City adventure was a spectacular achievement
+which gave Davis and McCormick a distinction which no other
+correspondents of all the ambitious and able corps had managed to
+attain.
+
+Davis usually "hunted" alone.  He depended entirely upon his own
+ingenuity and wonderful instinct for news situations.  He had the
+energy and enthusiasm of a beginner, with the experience and
+training of a veteran.  His interest in things remained as keen
+as though he had not been years at a game which often leaves a
+man jaded and blase.  His acquaintanceship in the American army
+and navy was wide, and for this reason, as well as for the
+prestige which his fame and position as a national character gave
+him, he found it easy to establish valuable connections in the
+channels from which news emanates.  And yet, in spite of the fact
+that he was "on his own" instead of having a working partnership
+with other men, he was generous in helping at times when he was
+able to do so.
+
+Davis was a conspicuous figure in Vera Cruz, as he inevitably had
+been in all such situations.  Wherever he went, he was pointed
+out.  His distinction of appearance, together with a distinction
+in dress, which, whether from habit or policy, was a valuable
+asset in his work, made him a marked man.  He dressed and looked
+the "war correspondent," such a one as he would describe in one
+of his stories.  He fulfilled the popular ideal of what a member
+of that fascinating profession should look like.  His code of life
+and habits was as fixed as that of the Briton who takes his
+habits and customs and games and tea wherever he goes, no matter
+how benighted or remote the spot may be.
+
+He was just as loyal to his code as is the Briton.  He carried his
+bath-tub, his immaculate linen, his evening clothes, his war
+equipment--in which he had the pride of a connoisseur--wherever
+he went, and, what is more, he had the courage to use the evening
+clothes at times when their use was conspicuous.  He was the only
+man who wore a dinner coat in Vera Cruz, and each night, at his
+particular table in the crowded "Portales," at the Hotel
+Diligencia, he was to be seen, as fresh and clean as though he
+were in a New York or London restaurant.
+
+Each day he was up early to take the train out to the "gap,"
+across which came arrivals from Mexico City.  Sometimes a good
+"story" would come down, as when the long-heralded and long-
+expected arrival of Consul Silliman gave a first-page "feature"
+to all the American papers.
+
+In the afternoon he would play water polo over at the navy
+aviation camp, and always at a certain time of the day his
+"striker" would bring him his horse and for an hour or more he
+would ride out along the beach roads within the American lines.
+After the first few days it was difficult to extract real thrills
+from the Vera Cruz situation, but we used to ride out to El Tejar
+with the cavalry patrol and imagine that we might be fired on at
+some point in the long ride through unoccupied territory; or else
+go out to the "front," at Legarto, where a little American force
+occupied a sun-baked row of freight-cars, surrounded by malarial
+swamps.  From the top of the railroad water-tank, we could look
+across to the Mexican outposts a mile or so away.  It was not very
+exciting, and what thrills we got lay chiefly in our imagination.
+
+Before my acquaintanceship with Davis at Vera Cruz I had not
+known him well.  Our trails didn't cross while I was in Japan in
+the Japanese-Russian War, and in the Transvaal I missed him by a
+few days, but in Vera Cruz I had many enjoyable opportunities of
+becoming well acquainted with him.
+
+The privilege was a pleasant one, for it served to dispel a
+preconceived and not an entirely favorable impression of his
+character.  For years I had heard stories about Richard Harding
+Davis--stories which emphasized an egotism and self-assertiveness
+which, if they ever existed, had happily ceased to be obtrusive
+by the time I got to know him.
+
+He was a different Davis from the Davis whom I had expected to
+find; and I can imagine no more charming and delightful companion
+than he was in Vera Cruz.  There was no evidence of those
+qualities which I feared to find, and his attitude was one of
+unfailing kindness, considerateness, and generosity.
+
+In the many talks I had with him, I was always struck by his
+evident devotion to a fixed code of personal conduct.  In his writings
+he was the interpreter of chivalrous, well-bred youth, and his heroes
+were young, clean-thinking college men, heroic big-game hunters,
+war correspondents, and idealized men about town, who always did
+the noble thing, disdaining the unworthy in act or motive.  It seemed
+to me that he was modelling his own life, perhaps unconsciously,
+after the favored types which his imagination had created for his
+stories.  In a certain sense he was living a life of make-believe,
+wherein he was the hero of the story, and in which he was bound
+by his ideals always to act as he would have the hero of his
+story act.  It was a quality which only one could have who had
+preserved a fresh youthfulness of outlook in spite of the
+hardening processes of maturity.
+
+His power of observation was extraordinarily keen, and he not
+only had the rare gift of sensing the vital elements of a
+situation, but also had, to an unrivalled degree, the ability to
+describe them vividly.  I don't know how many of those men at Verz
+Cruz tried to describe the kaleidoscopic life of the city during
+the American occupation, but I know that Davis's story was far
+and away the most faithful and satisfying picture.  The story was
+photographic, even to the sounds and smells.
+
+The last I saw of him in Vera Cruz was when, on the Utah, he
+steamed past the flagship Wyoming, upon which I was quartered,
+and started for New York.  The Battenberg cup race had just been
+rowed, and the Utah and Florida crews had tied.  As the Utah was
+sailing immediately after the race, there was no time in which to
+row off the tie.  So it was decided that the names of both ships
+should be engraved on the cup, and that the Florida crew should
+defend the title against a challenging crew from the British
+Admiral Craddock's flagship.
+
+By the end of June, the public interest in Vera Cruz had waned,
+and the corps of correspondents dwindled until there were only a
+few left.
+
+Frederick Palmer and I went up to join Carranza and Villa, and on
+the 26th of July we were in Monterey waiting to start with the
+triumphal march of Carranza's army toward Mexico City.  There was
+no sign of serious trouble abroad.  That night ominous telegrams
+came, and at ten o'clock on the following morning we were on a
+train headed for the States.
+
+Palmer and Davis caught the Lusitania, sailing August 4 from New
+York, and I followed on the Saint Paul, leaving three days later.
+On the 17th of August I reached Brussels, and it seemed the most
+natural thing in the world to find Davis already there.  He was at
+the Palace Hotel, where a number of American and English 
+correspondents were quartered.
+
+Things moved quickly.  On the 19th Irvin Cobb, Will Irwin, Arno
+Dosch, and I were caught between the Belgian and German lines in
+Louvain; our retreat to Brussels was cut, and for three days,
+while the vast German army moved through the city, we were
+detained.  Then, the army having passed, we were allowed to go
+back to the capital.
+
+In the meantime Davis was in Brussels.  The Germans reached the
+outskirts of the city on the morning of the 20th, and the
+correspondents who had remained in Brussels were feverishly
+writing despatches describing the imminent fall of the city.  One
+of them, Harry Hansen, of the Chicago Daily News, tells the
+following story, which I give in his words:
+
+"While we were writing," says Hansen, "Richard Harding Davis
+walked into the writing-room of the Palace Hotel with a bunch of
+manuscript in his hand.  With an amused expression he surveyed
+the three correspondents filling white paper.
+
+"'I say, men,' said Davis, 'do you know when the next train
+leaves?'
+
+"'There is one at three o'clock,' said a correspondent, looking
+up.
+
+"'That looks like our only chance to get a story out,' said
+Davis.  'Well, we'll trust to that.'
+
+"The story was the German invasion of Brussels, and the train
+mentioned was considered the forlorn hope of the correspondents
+to connect with the outside world--that is, every correspondent
+thought it to be the other man's hope.  Secretly each had prepared
+to outwit the other, and secretly Davis had already sent his
+story to Ostend.  He meant to emulate Archibald Forbes, who
+despatched a courier with his real manuscript, and next day
+publicly dropped a bulky package in the mail-bag.
+
+"Davis had sensed the news in the occupation of Brussels long
+before it happened.  With dawn he went out to the Louvain road,
+where the German army stood, prepared to smash the capital if
+negotiations failed.  His observant eye took in all the details.
+Before noon he had written a comprehensive sketch of the
+occupation, and when word was received that it was under way, he
+trusted his copy to an old Flemish woman, who spoke not a word of
+English, and saw her safely on board the train that pulled out
+under Belgian auspices for Ostend."
+
+With passes which the German commandant in Brussels gave us the
+correspondents immediately started out to see how far those
+passes would carry us.  A number of us left on the afternoon of
+August 23 for Waterloo, where it was expected that the great
+clash between the German and the Anglo-French forces would occur.
+We had planned to be back the same evening, and went prepared
+only for an afternoon's drive in a couple of hired street
+carriages.  It was seven weeks before we again saw Brussels.
+
+On the following day (August 24) Davis started for Mons.  He wore
+the khaki uniform which he had worn in many campaigns.  Across his
+breast was a narrow bar of silk ribbon indicating the campaigns
+in which he had served as a correspondent.  He so much resembled a
+British officer that he was arrested as a British derelict and was informed
+that he would be shot at once.
+
+He escaped only by offering to walk to Brand Whitlock, in Brussels,
+reporting to each officer he met on the way.  His plan was approved,
+and as a hostage on parole he appeared before the American minister,
+who quickly established his identity as an American of good standing,
+to the satisfaction of the Germans.
+
+In the following few months our trails were widely separated.  I read
+of his arrest by German officers on the road to Mons; later I
+read the story of his departure from Brussels by train to
+Holland--a trip which carried him through Louvain while the town
+still was burning; and still later I read that he was with the
+few lucky men who were in Rheims during one of the early
+bombardments that damaged the cathedral.  By amazing luck,
+combined with a natural news sense which drew him instinctively
+to critical places at the psychological moment, he had been a
+witness of the two most widely featured stories of the early
+weeks of the war.
+
+Arrested by the Germans in Belgium, and later by the French in
+France, he was convinced that the restrictions on correspondents
+were too great to permit of good work.
+
+So he left the European war zone with the widely quoted remark:
+"The day of the war correspondent is over."
+
+And yet I was not surprised when, one evening, late in November
+of last year, he suddenly walked into the room in Salonika where
+William G. Shepherd, of the United Press, "Jimmy Hare," the
+veteran war photographer, and I had established ourselves several
+weeks before.
+
+The hotel was jammed, and the city, with a normal capacity of
+about one hundred and seventy-five thousand, was struggling to
+accommodate at least a hundred thousand more.  There was not a
+room to be had in any of the better hotels, and for several days
+we lodged Davis in our room, a vast chamber which formerly had
+been the main dining-room of the establishment, and which now was
+converted into a bedroom.  There was room for a dozen men, if
+necessary, and whenever stranded Americans arrived and could find
+no hotel accommodations we simply rigged up emergency cots for
+their temporary use.
+
+The weather in Salonika at this time, late November, was
+penetratingly cold.  In the mornings the steam coils struggled
+feebly to dispel the chill in the room.
+
+Early in the morning after Davis had arrived, we were aroused by
+the sound of violent splashing, accompanied by shuddering gasps,
+and we looked out from the snug warmth of our beds to see Davis
+standing in his portable bath-tub and drenching himself with
+ice-cold water.  As an exhibition of courageous devotion to an
+established custom of life it was admirable, but I'm not sure
+that it was prudent.
+
+For some reason, perhaps a defective circulation or a weakened
+heart, his system failed to react from these cold-water baths.
+All through the days he complained of feeling chilled.  He never
+seemed to get thoroughly warmed, and of us all he was the one who
+suffered most keenly from the cold.  It was all the more
+surprising, for his appearance was always that of a man in the
+pink of athletic fitness--ruddy-faced, clear-eyed, and full of
+tireless energy.
+
+On one occasion we returned from the French front in Serbia to
+Salonika in a box car lighted only by candles, bitterly cold, and
+frightfully exhausting.  We were seven hours in travelling
+fifty-five miles, and we arrived at our destination at three
+o'clock in the morning.  Several of the men contracted desperate
+colds, which clung to them for weeks.  Davis was chilled through,
+and said that of all the cold he had ever experienced that which
+swept across the Macedonian plain from the Balkan highlands was
+the most penetrating.  Even his heavy clothing could not afford him
+adequate protection.
+
+When he was settled in his own room in our hotel he installed an
+oil-stove which burned beside him as he sat at his desk and wrote
+his stories.  The room was like an oven, but even then he still
+complained of the cold.
+
+When he left he gave us the stove, and when we left, some time
+later, it was presented to one of our doctor friends out in a
+British hospital, where I'm sure it is doing its best to thaw the
+Balkan chill out of sick and wounded soldiers.
+
+Davis was always up early, and his energy and interest were as
+keen as a boy's.  We had our meals together, sometimes in the
+crowded and rather smart Bastasini's, but more often in the
+maelstrom of humanity that nightly packed the Olympos Palace
+restaurant.  Davis, Shepherd, Hare, and I, with sometimes Mr. and
+Mrs. John Bass, made up these parties, which, for a period of
+about two weeks or so, were the most enjoyable daily events of
+our lives.
+
+Under the glaring lights of the restaurant, and surrounded by
+British, French, Greek, and Serbian officers, German, Austrian,
+and Bulgarian civilians, with a sprinkling of American, English,
+and Scotch nurses and doctors, packed so solidly in the huge,
+high-ceilinged room that the waiters could barely pick their way
+among the tables, we hung for hours over our dinners, and left
+only when the landlord and his Austrian wife counted the day's
+receipts and paid the waiters at the end of the evening.
+
+One could not imagine a more charming and delightful companion
+than Davis during these days.  While he always asserted that he
+could not make a speech, and was terrified at the thought of
+standing up at a banquet-table, yet, sitting at a dinner-table
+with a few friends who were only too eager to listen rather than
+to talk, his stories, covering personal experiences in all parts
+of the world, were intensely vivid, with that remarkable
+"holding" quality of description which characterizes his
+writings.
+
+He brought his own bread--a coarse, brown sort, which he preferred
+to the better white bread--and with it he ate great quantities of
+butter.  As we sat down at the table his first demand was for
+"Mastika," a peculiar Greek drink distilled from mastic gum, and
+his second demand invariably was "Du beurre!" with the "r's" as
+silent as the stars; and if it failed to come at once the waiter
+was made to feel the enormity of his tardiness.
+
+The reminiscences ranged from his early newspaper days in
+Philadelphia, and skipping from Manchuria to Cuba and Central
+America, to his early Sun days under Arthur Brisbane; they ranged
+through an endless variety of personal experiences which very
+nearly covered the whole course of American history in the past
+twenty years.
+
+Perhaps to him it was pleasant to go over his remarkable adventures,
+but it could not have been half as pleasant as it was to hear them, told
+as they were with a keenness of description and brilliancy of humorous
+comment that made them gems of narrative.
+
+At times, in our work, we all tried our hands at describing the
+Salonika of those early days of the Allied occupation, for it was
+really what one widely travelled British officer called it--"the
+most amazingly interesting situation I've ever seen"---but Davis's
+description was far and away the best, just as his description of
+Vera Cruz was the best, and his wonderful story of the entry of
+the German army into Brussels was matchless as one of the great
+pieces of reporting in the present war.
+
+In thinking of Davis, I shall always remember him for the
+delightful qualities which he showed in Salonika.  He was
+unfailingly considerate and thoughtful.  Through his narratives
+one could see the pride which he took in the width and breadth of
+his personal relation to the great events of the past twenty
+years.  His vast scope of experiences and equally wide
+acquaintanceship with the big figures of our time, were amazing,
+and it was equally amazing that one of such a rich and
+interesting history could tell his stories in such a simple way
+that the personal element was never obtrusive.
+
+When he left Salonika he endeavored to obtain permission from
+the British staff to visit Moudros, but, failing in this, he booked
+his passage on a crowded little Greek steamer, where the only
+obtainable accommodation was a lounge in the dining saloon.
+We gave him a farewell dinner, at which the American consul
+and his family, with all the other Americans then in Salonika, were
+present, and after the dinner we rowed out to his ship and saw
+him very uncomfortably installed for his voyage.
+
+He came down the sea ladder and waved his hand as we rowed away.
+That was the last I saw of Richard Harding Davis.
+
+JOHN T. MCCUTCHEON.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST ROAD
+
+
+
+
+During the war with Spain, Colton Lee came into the service as a
+volunteer.  For a young man, he always had taken life almost too
+seriously, and when, after the campaign in Cuba, he elected to
+make soldiering his profession, the seriousness with which he
+attacked his new work surprised no one.  Finding they had lost him
+forever, his former intimates were bored, but his colonel was
+enthusiastic, and the men of his troop not only loved, but
+respected him.
+
+From the start he determined in his new life women should have no
+part--a determination that puzzled no one so much as the women,
+for to Lee no woman, old or young, had found cause to be
+unfriendly.  But he had read that the army is a jealous mistress
+who brooks no rival, that "red lips tarnish the scabbard steel,"
+that "he travels the fastest who travels alone."
+
+So, when white hands beckoned and pretty eyes signalled, he did
+not look.  For five years, until just before he sailed for his
+three years of duty in the Philippines, he succeeded not only in
+not looking, but in building up for himself such a fine
+reputation as a woman-hater that all women were crazy about him.
+Had he not been ordered to Agawamsett that fact would not have
+affected him.  But at the Officers' School he had indulged in hard
+study rather than in hard riding, had overworked, had brought
+back his Cuban fever, and was in poor shape to face the tropics.
+So, for two months before the transport was to sail, they ordered
+him to Cape Cod to fill his lungs with the bracing air of a New
+England autumn.
+
+He selected Agawamsett, because, when at Harvard, it was there he
+had spent his summer vacations, and he knew he would find
+sailboats and tennis and, through the pine woods back of the
+little whaling village, many miles of untravelled roads.  He
+promised himself that over these he would gallop an imaginary
+troop in route marches, would manoeuvre it against possible
+ambush, and, in combat patrols, ground scouts, and cossack
+outposts, charge with it "as foragers."  But he did none of these
+things.  For at Agawamsett he met Frances Gardner, and his
+experience with her was so disastrous that, in his determination
+to avoid all women, he was convinced he was right.
+
+When later he reached Manila he vowed no other woman would
+ever again find a place in his thoughts.  No other woman did.
+Not because he had the strength to keep his vow, but because he
+so continually thought of Frances Gardner that no other woman
+had a chance.
+
+Miss Gardner was a remarkable girl.  Her charm appealed to all
+kinds of men, and, unfortunately for Lee, several kinds of men
+appealed to her.  Her fortune and her relations were bound up in
+the person of a rich aunt with whom she lived, and who, it was
+understood, some day would leave her all the money in the world.
+But, in spite of her charm, certainly in spite of the rich aunt,
+Lee, true to his determination, might not have noticed the girl
+had not she ridden so extremely well.
+
+It was to the captain of cavalry she first appealed.  But even a
+cavalry captain, whose duty in life is to instruct sixty men in
+the art of taking the life of as many other men as possible, may
+turn his head in the direction of a good-looking girl.  And when
+for weeks a man rides at the side of one through pine forests as
+dim and mysterious as the aisles of a great cathedral, when he
+guides her across the wet marshes when the sun is setting crimson
+in the pools and the wind blows salt from the sea, when he loses
+them both by moonlight in wood-roads where the hoofs of the
+horses sink silently into dusty pine needles, he thinks more
+frequently of the girl at his side than of the faithful troopers
+waiting for him in San Francisco.  The girl at his side thought
+frequently of him.
+
+With the "surface indications" of a young man about to ask her
+to marry him she was painfully familiar; but this time the possibility
+was the reverse of painful.  What she meant to do about it she did
+not know, but she did know that she was strangely happy.  Between
+living on as the dependent of a somewhat exacting relative and
+becoming the full partner of this young stranger, who with men
+had proved himself so masterful, and who with her was so gentle,
+there seemed but little choice.  But she did not as yet wish to make
+the choice.  She preferred to believe she was not certain.  She assured
+him that before his leave of absence was over she would tell him
+whether she would remain on duty with the querulous aunt, who had
+befriended her, or as his wife accompany him to the Philippines.
+
+It was not the answer he wanted; but in her happiness, which was
+evident to every one, he could not help but take hope.  And in the
+questions she put to him of life in the tropics, of the life of
+the "officers' ladies," he saw that what was in her mind was a
+possible life with him, and he was content.
+
+She became to him a wonderful, glorious person, and each day she
+grew in loveliness.  It had been five years of soldiering in Cuba,
+China, and on the Mexican border since he had talked to a woman
+with interest, and now in all she said, in all her thoughts and
+words and delights, he found fresher and stronger reasons for
+discarding his determination to remain wedded only to the United
+States Army.  He did not need reasons.  He was far too much in love
+to see in any word or act of hers anything that was not fine and
+beautiful.
+
+In their rides they had one day stumbled upon a long-lost and
+long-forgotten road through the woods, which she had claimed as
+their own by right of discovery, and, no matter to what point
+they set forth each day, they always returned by it.  Their way
+through the woods stretched for miles.  It was concealed in a
+forest of stunted oaks and black pines, with no sign of human
+habitation, save here and there a clearing now long neglected and
+alive only with goldenrod.  Trunks of trees, moss-grown and
+crumbling beneath the touch of the ponies' hoofs, lay in their
+path, and above it the branches of a younger generation had
+clasped hands.  At their approach squirrels raced for shelter,
+woodcock and partridge shot deeper into the network of vines and
+saplings, and the click of the steel as the ponies tossed their
+bits, and their own whispers, alone disturbed the silence.
+
+"It is an enchanted road," said the girl; "or maybe we are
+enchanted."
+
+"Not I," cried the young man loyally.  "I was never so sane, never
+so sure, never so happy in knowing just what I wanted! If only
+you could be as sure!"
+
+One day she came to him in high excitement with a book of verse.
+"He has written a poem," she cried, "about our own woods, about
+our lost road! Listen" she commanded, and she read to him:
+
+"'They shut the road through the woods
+Seventy years ago.
+Weather and rain have undone it again,
+And now you would never know
+There was once a road through the woods
+Before they planted the trees.
+It is underneath the coppice and heath,
+And the thin anemones.
+Only the keeper sees
+That, where the ringdove broods,
+And the badgers roll at ease,
+There was once a road through the woods.
+
+"'Yet, if you enter the woods
+Of a summer evening late,
+When the night air cools on the trout-ringed pools
+Where the otter whistles his mate
+(They fear not men in the woods
+Because they see so few),
+You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
+And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
+Steadily cantering through
+The misty solitudes,
+As though they perfectly knew
+The old lost road through the woods. . . .
+But there is no road through the woods.'"
+
+
+"I don't like that at all," cried the soldierman.  "It's too--too
+sad--it doesn't give you any encouragement.  The way it ends, I
+mean: 'But there is no road through the woods.'  Of course there's
+a road! For us there always will be.  I'm going to make sure.  I'm
+going to buy those woods, and keep the lost road where we can
+always find it."
+
+"I don't think," said the girl, "that he means a real road."
+
+"I know what he means," cried the lover, "and he's wrong! There
+is a road, and you and I have found it, and we are going to
+follow it for always."
+
+The girl shook her head, but her eyes were smiling happily.
+
+The "season" at Agawamsett closed with the tennis tournament, and
+it was generally conceded fit and proper, from every point of
+view, that in mixed doubles Lee and Miss Gardner should be
+partners.  Young Stedman, the Boston artist, was the only one who
+made objection.  Up in the sail-loft that he had turned into a
+studio he was painting a portrait of the lovely Miss Gardner, and
+he protested that the three days' tournament would sadly
+interrupt his work.  And Frances, who was very much interested in
+the portrait, was inclined to agree.
+
+But Lee beat down her objections.  He was not at all interested in
+the portrait.  He disapproved of it entirely.  For the sittings
+robbed him of Frances during the better part of each morning, and
+he urged that when he must so soon leave her, between the man who
+wanted her portrait and the man who wanted her, it would be kind
+to give her time to the latter.
+
+"But I had no idea," protested Frances, "he would take so long.
+He told me he'd finish it in three sittings.  But he's so critical
+of his own work that he goes over it again and again.  He says
+that I am a most difficult subject, but that I inspire him.  And
+he says, if I will only give him time, he believes this will be
+the best thing he has done."
+
+"That's an awful thought," said the cavalry officer.
+
+"You don't like him," reproved Miss Gardner.  "He is always very
+polite to you."
+
+"He's polite to everybody," said Lee; "that's why I don't like
+him.  He's not a real artist.  He's a courtier.  God gave him a
+talent, and he makes a mean use of it.  Uses it to flatter people.
+He's like these long-haired violinists who play anything you ask
+them to in the lobster palaces."
+
+Miss Gardner looked away from him.  Her color was high and her
+eyes very bright.
+
+"I think," she said steadily, "that Mr. Stedman is a great
+artist, and some day all the world will think so, too!"
+
+Lee made no answer.  Not because he disagreed with her estimate of
+Mr. Stedman's genius-he made no pretense of being an art
+critic--but because her vehement admiration had filled him with
+sudden panic.  He was not jealous.  For that he was far too humble.
+Indeed, he thought himself so utterly unworthy of Frances Gardner
+that the fact that to him she might prefer some one else was in
+no way a surprise.  He only knew that if she should prefer some
+one else not all his troop horses nor all his men could put
+Humpty Dumpty back again.
+
+But if, in regard to Mr. Stedman, Miss Gardner had for a moment
+been at odds with the man who loved her, she made up for it the
+day following on the tennis court.  There she was in accord with
+him in heart, soul, and body, and her sharp "Well played,
+partner!" thrilled him like one of his own bugle calls.  For two
+days against visiting and local teams they fought their way
+through the tournament, and the struggle with her at his side
+filled Lee with a great happiness.  Not that the championship of
+Agawamsett counted greatly to one exiled for three years to live
+among the Moros.  He wanted to win because she wanted to win.
+But his happiness came in doing something in common with her,
+in helping her and in having her help him, in being, if only in
+play, if only for three days, her "partner."
+
+After they won they walked home together, each swinging a fat,
+heavy loving-cup.  On each was engraved:
+
+"Mixed doubles, Agawamsett, 1910."
+
+Lee held his up so that the setting sun flashed on the silver.
+
+"I am going to keep that," he said, "as long as I live.  It means
+you were once my 'partner.'  It's a sign that once we two worked
+together for something and won."  In the words the man showed
+such feeling that the girl said soberly:
+
+"Mine means that to me, too.  I will never part with mine,
+either."
+
+Lee turned to her and smiled, appealing wistfully.
+
+"It seems a pity to separate them," he said.  "They'd look well
+together over an open fireplace."
+
+The girl frowned unhappily.  "I don't know," she protested.  "I
+don't know."
+
+The next day Lee received from the War Department a telegram
+directing him to "proceed without delay" to San Francisco, and
+there to embark for the Philippines.
+
+That night he put the question to her directly, but again she
+shook her head unhappily; again she said: "I don't know!"
+
+So he sailed without her, and each evening at sunset, as the
+great transport heaved her way across the swell of the Pacific,
+he stood at the rail and looked back.  With the aid of the first
+officer he calculated the difference in time between a whaling
+village situated at forty-four degrees north and an army
+transport dropping rapidly toward the equator, and so, each day,
+kept in step with the girl he loved.
+
+"Now," he would tell himself, "she is in her cart in front of the
+post-office, and while they sort the morning mail she gossips
+with the fisher folks, the summer folks, the grooms, and
+chauffeurs.  Now she is sitting for her portrait to Stedman" (he
+did not dwell long on that part of her day), "and now she is at
+tennis, or, as she promised, riding alone at sunset down our lost
+road through the woods."
+
+But that part of her day from which Lee hurried was that part
+over which the girl herself lingered.  As he turned his eyes from
+his canvas to meet hers, Stedman, the charming, the deferential,
+the adroit, who never allowed his painting to interrupt his talk,
+told her of what he was pleased to call his dreams and ambitions,
+of the great and beautiful ladies who had sat before his easel,
+and of the only one of them who had given him inspiration.
+Especially of the only one who had given him inspiration.  With
+her always to uplift him, he could become one of the world's most
+famous artists, and she would go down into history as the
+beautiful woman who had helped him, as the wife of Rembrandt
+had inspired Rembrandt, as "Mona Lisa" had made Leonardo.
+
+Gilbert wrote: "It is not the lover who comes to woo, but the
+lover's way of wooing!" His successful lover was the one who
+threw the girl across his saddle and rode away with her.  But one
+kind of woman does not like to have her lover approach shouting:
+"At the gallop! Charge!"
+
+She prefers a man not because he is masterful, but because he is
+not.  She likes to believe the man needs her more than she needs
+him, that she, and only she, can steady him, cheer him, keep him
+true to the work he is in the world to perform.  It is called the
+"mothering" instinct.
+
+Frances felt this mothering instinct toward the sensitive,
+imaginative, charming Stedman.  She believed he had but two
+thoughts, his art and herself.  She was content to place his art first.
+She could not guess that to one so unworldly, to one so wrapped up
+in his art, the fortune of a rich aunt might prove alluring.
+
+When the transport finally picked up the landfalls of Cavite
+Harbor, Lee, with the instinct of a soldier, did not exclaim:
+"This is where Dewey ran the forts and sank the Spanish fleet!"
+On the contrary, he was saying: "When she comes to join me, it
+will be here I will first see her steamer.  I will be waiting with
+a field-glass on the end of that wharf.  No, I will be out here in
+a shore-boat waving my hat.  And of all those along the rail, my
+heart will tell me which is she!"
+
+Then a barefooted Filipino boy handed him an unsigned cablegram.
+It read: "If I wrote a thousand words I could not make it easier
+for either of us.  I am to marry Arthur Stedman in December."
+
+Lee was grateful for the fact that he was not permitted to linger
+in Manila.  Instead, he was at once ordered up-country, where at a
+one-troop post he administered the affairs of a somewhat hectic
+province, and under the guidance of the local constabulary chased
+will-o'-the-wisp brigands.  On a shelf in his quarters he placed
+the silver loving-cup, and at night, when the village slept, he
+would sit facing it, filling one pipe after another, and through
+the smoke staring at the evidence to the fact that once Frances
+Gardner and he had been partners.
+
+In these post-mortems he saw nothing morbid.  With his present
+activities they in no way interfered, and in thinking of the days
+when they had been together, in thinking of what he had lost, he
+found deep content.  Another man, having lost the woman he loved,
+would have tried to forget her and all she meant to him.  But Lee
+was far too honest with himself to substitute other thoughts for
+those that were glorious, that still thrilled him.  The girl could
+take herself from him, but she could not take his love for her
+from him.  And for that he was grateful.  He never had considered
+himself worthy, and so could not believe he had been ill used.  In
+his thoughts of her there was no bitterness: for that also he was
+grateful.  And, as he knew he would not care for any other woman
+in the way he cared for her, he preferred to care in that way,
+even for one who was lost, than in a lesser way for a possible
+she who some day might greatly care for him.  So she still
+remained in his thoughts, and was so constantly with him that he
+led a dual existence, in which by day he directed the affairs of
+an alien and hostile people and by night again lived through the
+wonderful moments when she had thought she loved him, when he
+first had learned to love her.  At times she seemed actually at
+his side, and he could not tell whether he was pretending that
+this were so or whether the force of his love had projected her
+image half around the world.
+
+Often, when in single file he led the men through the forest, he
+seemed again to be back on Cape Cod picking his way over their
+own lost road through the wood, and he heard "the beat of a
+horse's feet and the swish of a skirt in the dew."  And then a
+carbine would rattle, or a horse would stumble and a trooper
+swear, and he was again in the sweating jungle, where men, intent
+upon his life, crouched in ambush.
+
+She spared him the mockery of wedding-cards; but the announcement
+of the wedding came to him in a three-months-old newspaper.  Hoping
+they would speak of her in their letters, he kept up a somewhat one-sided
+correspondence with friends of Mrs. Stedman's in Boston, where she now
+lived.  But for a year in none of their letters did her name appear.  When
+a mutual friend did write of her Lee understood the silence.
+
+From the first, the mutual friend wrote, the life of Mrs. Stedman
+and her husband was thoroughly miserable.  Stedman blamed her
+because she came to him penniless.  The rich aunt, who had
+heartily disapproved of the artist, had spoken of him so frankly
+that Frances had quarrelled with her, and from her no longer
+would accept money.  In his anger at this Stedman showed himself
+to Frances as he was.  And only two months after their marriage
+she was further enlightened.
+
+An irate husband made him the central figure in a scandal that
+filled the friends of Frances with disgust, and that for her was
+an awakening cruel and humiliating.  Men no longer permitted their
+womenfolk to sit to Stedman for a portrait, and the need of money
+grew imperative.  He the more blamed Frances for having quarrelled
+with her aunt, told her it was for her money he had married her,
+that she had ruined his career, and that she was to blame for his
+ostracism--a condition that his own misconduct had brought upon
+him.  Finally, after twelve months of this, one morning he left a
+note saying he no longer would allow her to be a drag upon him,
+and sailed for Europe.
+
+They learned that, in Paris, he had returned to that life which
+before his marriage, even in that easy-going city, had made him
+notorious.  "And Frances," continued Lee's correspondent, "has
+left Boston, and now lives in New York.  She wouldn't let any of
+us help her, nor even know where she is.  The last we heard of her
+she was in charge of the complaint department of a millinery
+shop, for which work she was receiving about the same wages I
+give my cook."
+
+Lee did not stop to wonder why the same woman, who to one man was
+a "drag," was to another, even though separated from her by half
+the world, a joy and a blessing.  Instead, he promptly wrote his
+lawyers to find Mrs. Stedman, and, in such a way as to keep her
+ignorant of their good offices, see that she obtained a position
+more congenial than her present one, and one that would pay her
+as much as, without arousing her suspicions, they found it
+possible to give.
+
+Three months had passed, and this letter had not been answered,
+when in Manila, where he had been ordered to make a report, he
+heard of her again.  One evening, when the band played on the
+Luneta, he met a newly married couple who had known him in
+Agawamsett.  They now were on a ninety-day cruise around the
+world.  Close friends of Frances Gardner, they remembered him as
+one of her many devotees and at once spoke of her.
+
+"That blackguard she married," the bridegroom told him, "was
+killed three months ago racing with another car from Versailles
+back to Paris after a dinner at which, it seems, all present
+drank 'burgundy out of the fingerbowls.'  Coming down that steep
+hill into Saint Cloud, the cars collided, and Stedman and a
+woman, whose husband thought she was somewhere else, were killed.
+He couldn't even die without making a scandal of it."
+
+"But the worst," added the bride, "is that, in spite of the way
+the little beast treated her, I believe Frances still cares for
+him, and always will.  That's the worst of it, isn't it?" she
+demanded.
+
+In words, Lee did not answer, but in his heart he agreed that was
+much the worst of it.  The fact that Frances was free filled him
+with hope; but that she still cared for the man she had married,
+and would continue to think only of him, made him ill with
+despair.
+
+He cabled his lawyers for her address.  He determined that, at
+once, on learning it, he would tell her that with him nothing was
+changed.  He had forgotten nothing, and had learned much.  He had
+learned that his love for her was a splendid and inspiring
+passion, that even without her it had lifted him up, helped and
+cheered him, made the whole world kind and beautiful.  With her he
+could not picture a world so complete with happiness.
+
+Since entering the army he had never taken a leave of absence, and he
+was sure, if now he asked for one, it would not be refused.  He determined,
+if the answer to his cable gave him the address, he would return at once,
+and again offer her his love, which he now knew was deeper, finer, and
+infinitely more tender than the love he first had felt for her.  But the cable
+balked him.  "Address unknown," it read; "believed to have gone abroad in
+capacity of governess.  Have employed foreign agents.  Will cable their
+report."
+
+Whether to wait for and be guided by the report of the
+detectives, or to proceed to Europe and search for her himself,
+Lee did not know.  He finally determined that to seek for her with
+no clew to her whereabouts would be but a waste of precious
+moments, while, if in their search the agents were successful, he
+would be able to go directly to her.  Meanwhile, by cable, he
+asked for protracted leave of absence and, while waiting for his
+answer, returned to his post.  There, within a week, he received
+his leave of absence, but in a fashion that threatened to remove
+him forever from the army.
+
+The constabulary had located the will-o'-the-wisp brigands behind
+a stockade built about an extinct volcano, and Lee and his troop
+and a mountain battery attempted to dislodge them.  In the fight that
+followed Lee covered his brows with laurel wreaths and received
+two bullet wounds in his body.
+
+For a month death stood at the side of his cot; and then, still weak
+and at times delirious with fever, by slow stages he was removed to the
+hospital in Manila.  In one of his sane moments a cable was shown
+him.  It read: "Whereabouts still unknown."  Lee at once rebelled
+against his doctors.  He must rise, he declared, and proceed to
+Europe.  It was upon a matter of life and death.  The surgeons
+assured him his remaining exactly where he was also was a matter
+of as great consequence.  Lee's knowledge of his own lack of
+strength told him they were right.
+
+Then, from headquarters, he was informed that, as a reward for
+his services and in recognition of his approaching convalescence,
+he was ordered to return to his own climate and that an easy
+billet had been found for him as a recruiting officer in New York
+City.  Believing the woman he loved to be in Europe, this plan for
+his comfort only succeeded in bringing on a relapse.  But the day
+following there came another cablegram.  It put an abrupt end to
+his mutiny, and brought him and the War Department into complete
+accord.
+
+"She is in New York," it read, "acting as agent for a charitable
+institution, which one not known, but hope in a few days to cable
+correct address."
+
+In all the world there was no man so happy. The next morning a
+transport was sailing, and, probably because they had read the
+cablegram, the surgeons agreed with Lee that a sea voyage would
+do him no harm.  He was carried on board, and when the propellers
+first churned the water and he knew he was moving toward her, the
+hero of the fight around the crater shed unmanly tears.  He would
+see her again, hear her voice; the same great city would shelter
+them.  It was worth a dozen bullets.
+
+He reached New York in a snow-storm, a week before Christmas, and
+went straight to the office of his lawyers.  They received him with
+embarrassment.  Six weeks before, on the very day they had
+cabled him that Mrs. Stedman was in New York, she had left the
+charitable institution where she had been employed, and had again
+disappeared.
+
+Lee sent his trunks to the Army and Navy Club, which was
+immediately around the corner from the recruiting office in Sixth
+Avenue, and began discharging telegrams at every one who had ever
+known Frances Gardner.  The net result was discouraging.  In the
+year and a half in which he had been absent every friend of the
+girl he sought had temporarily changed his place of residence or
+was permanently dead.
+
+Meanwhile his arrival by the transport was announced in the
+afternoon papers.  At the wharf an admiring trooper had told a
+fine tale of his conduct at the battle of the crater, and
+reporters called at the club to see him.  He did not discourage
+them, as he hoped through them the fact of his return might be
+made known to Frances.  She might send him a line of welcome, and
+he would discover her whereabouts.  But, though many others sent
+him hearty greetings, from her there was no word.
+
+On the second day after his arrival one of the telegrams was
+answered in person by a friend of Mrs. Stedman.  He knew only that
+she had been in New York, that she was very poor and in ill
+health, that she shunned all of her friends, and was earning her
+living as the matron of some sort of a club for working girls.  He
+did not know the name of it.
+
+On the third day there still was no news.  On the fourth Lee
+decided that the next morning he would advertise.  He would say
+only: "Will Mrs. Arthur Stedman communicate with Messrs. Fuller &
+Fuller?" Fuller & Fuller were his lawyers.  That afternoon he
+remained until six o'clock at the recruiting office, and when he
+left it the electric street lights were burning brightly.  A heavy
+damp snow was falling, and the lights and the falling flakes and
+the shouts of drivers and the toots of taxicabs made for the man
+from the tropics a welcome homecoming.
+
+Instead of returning at once to his club, he slackened his steps.
+The shop windows of Sixth Avenue hung with Christmas garlands,
+and colored lamps glowed like open fireplaces.  Lee passed slowly
+before them, glad that he had been able to get back at such a
+season.  For the moment he had forgotten the woman he sought, and
+was conscious only of his surroundings.  He had paused in front of
+the window of a pawn-shop.  Over the array of cheap jewelry, of
+banjos, shot-guns, and razors, his eyes moved idly.  And then they
+became transfixed and staring.  In the very front of the window,
+directly under his nose, was a tarnished silver loving-cup.  On it
+was engraved, "Mixed Doubles. Agawamsett, 1910."  In all the world
+there were only two such cups, and as though he were dodging the
+slash of a bolo, Lee leaped into the shop.  Many precious seconds
+were wasted in persuading Mrs. Cohen that he did not believe the
+cup had been stolen; that he was not from the Central Office;
+that he believed the lady who had pawned the cup had come by it
+honestly; that he meant no harm to the lady; that he meant no
+harm to Mrs. Cohen; that, much as the young lady may have needed
+the money Mrs. Cohen had loaned her on the cup, he needed the
+address of the young lady still more.
+
+Mrs. Cohen retired behind a screen, and Lee was conscious that
+from the other side of it the whole family of Cohens were taking
+his measurements.  He approved of their efforts to protect the
+owner of the cup, but not from him.
+
+He offered, if one of the younger Cohens would take him to the
+young lady, to let him first ask her if she would receive Captain Lee,
+and for his service he would give the young Cohen untold gold.
+He exhibited the untold gold.  The young Cohen choked at the sight
+and sprang into the seat beside the driver of a taxicab.
+
+"To the Working Girls' Home, on Tenth Street!" he commanded.
+
+
+Through the falling snow and the flashing lights they slid,
+skidded, and leaped.  Inside the cab Lee shivered with excitement,
+with cold, with fear that it might not be true.  He could not
+realize she was near.  It was easier to imagine himself still in
+the jungle, with months of time and sixteen thousand miles of
+land and water separating them; or in the hospital, on a
+white-enamel cot, watching the shadow creep across the
+whitewashed wall; or lying beneath an awning that did not move,
+staring at a burning, brazen sea that did not move, on a transport
+that, timed by the beating of his heart, stood still.
+
+Those days were within the radius of his experience.  Separation,
+absence, the immutable giants of time and space, he knew.  With
+them he had fought and could withstand them.  But to be near her,
+to hear her voice, to bring his love into her actual presence, that was
+an attack upon his feelings which found him without weapons.  That
+for a very few dollars she had traded the cup from which she had sworn
+never to part did not concern him.  Having parted from him, what she
+did with a silver mug was of little consequence.  It was of significance
+only in that it meant she was poor.  And that she was either an inmate
+or a matron of a lodging-house for working girls also showed she was
+poor.
+
+He had been told that was her condition, and that she was in ill health,
+and that from all who loved her she had refused to accept help.  At the
+thought his jaws locked pugnaciously.  There was one who loved her,
+who, should she refuse his aid, was prepared to make her life intolerable.
+He planned in succession at lightning speed all he might do for her.  Among
+other things he would make this Christmas the happiest she or he would
+ever know.  Not for an instant did he question that she who had refused
+help from all who loved her could refuse anything he offered.  For he
+knew it was offered with a love that demanded nothing in return, with
+a love that asked only to be allowed to love, and to serve.  To refuse help
+inspired by such a feeling as his would be morbid, wicked, ridiculous,
+as though a flower refused to turn its face to the sun, and shut its lips
+to the dew.
+
+The cab stopped in front of a brick building adorned with many fire-
+escapes.  Afterward he remembered a bare, brilliantly lit hall hung with
+photographs of the Acropolis, and a stout, capable woman in a cap, who
+looked him over and said:
+
+"You will find Mrs. Stedman in the writing-room."
+
+And he remembered entering a room filled with Mission furniture and
+reading-lamps under green shades.  It was empty, except for a young
+girl in deep black, who was seated facing him, her head bent above a
+writing-desk.  As he came into the circle of the lamps the girl raised
+her eyes and as though lifted to her feet by what she saw, and through
+no effort of her own, stood erect.
+
+And the young man who had persuaded himself his love demanded
+nothing, who asked only to worship at her gate, found his arms reaching
+out, and heard his voice as though it came from a great distance, cry,
+"Frances!"
+
+And the girl who had refused the help of all who loved her, like a
+homing pigeon walked straight into the outstretched arms.
+
+After five minutes, when he was almost able to believe it was true,
+he said in his commanding, masterful way: "And now I'm going to
+take you out of here.  I'm going to buy you a ring, and a sable coat,
+and a house to live in, and a dinner.  Which shall we buy first?"
+
+"First," said Frances, frowning happily, "I am afraid we must go
+to the Ritz, to tell Aunt Emily.  She always loved you, and it will
+make her so happy."
+
+"To the Ritz!" stammered the young man.  "To Aunt Emily! I thought
+they told me your aunt and-you-"
+
+"We quarrelled, yes," said Frances, "and she has forgiven me; but she
+has not forgiven herself, so she spoils me, and already I have a house
+to live in, and several sable coats, and, oh! everything, everything but
+the ring."
+
+"I am so sorry!" cried Lee.  "I thought you were poor.  I hoped you were
+poor.  But you are joking!" he exclaimed delightedly.  "You are here in
+a working girls' home-"
+
+"It is one of Aunt Emily's charities.  She built it," said Frances.  "I
+come here to talk to the girls."
+
+"But," persisted Lee triumphantly, "if you are not poor, why did you
+pawn our silver loving-cup?"
+
+The face of the girl became a lovely crimson, and tears rose to her eyes.
+As though at a confessional, she lifted her hands penitently.
+
+"Try to understand," she begged; "I wanted you to love me, not for
+my money-"
+
+"But you knew!" cried Lee.
+
+"I had to be sure," begged the girl; "and I wanted to believe you loved
+me even if I did not love you.  When it was too late I knew you loved me
+as no woman ever deserved to be loved; and I wanted that love.  I could
+not live without it.  So when I read in the papers you had returned I
+wouldn't let myself write you; I wouldn't let myself beg you to come
+to see me.  I set a test for you.  I knew from the papers you were at the
+Army and Navy Club, and that around the corner was the recruiting
+office.  I'd often seen the sergeant there, in uniform, at the door.  I knew
+you must pass from your club to the office many times each day, so I
+thought of the loving-cup and the pawn-shop.  I planted it there.  It was
+a trick, a test.  I thought if you saw it in a pawn-shop you would believe I
+no longer cared for you, and that I was very poor.  If you passed it by,
+then I would know you yourself had stopped caring, but if you asked
+about it, if you inquired for me, then I would know you came to me of
+your own wish, because you-"
+
+Lee shook his head.
+
+"You don't have to tell me," he said gently, "why I came.  I've a cab
+outside.  You will get in it," he commanded, "and we will rescue our
+cup.  I always told you they would look well together over an open
+fireplace."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MIRACLE OF LAS PALMAS
+
+
+
+
+This is the story of a gallant officer who loved his profession,
+his regiment, his country, but above all, whiskey; of his
+miraculous conversion to total abstinence, and of the humble
+instrument that worked the miracle.  At the time it was worked, 
+a battalion of the Thirty-third Infantry had been left behind to 
+guard the Zone, and was occupying impromptu barracks on the hill
+above Las Palmas.  That was when Las Palmas was one of the four 
+thousand stations along the forty miles of the Panama Railroad. 
+When the railroad was "reconstructed" the name of Las Palmas did
+not appear on the new time-table, and when this story appears 
+Las Palmas will be eighty feet under water.  So if any one wishes
+to dispute the miracle he will have to conduct his investigation
+in a diving-bell.
+
+On this particular evening young Major Aintree, in command of the 
+battalion, had gone up the line to Panama to dine at the Hotel 
+Tivoli, and had dined well.  To prevent his doing this a paternal 
+government had ordered that at the Tivoli no alcoholic liquors 
+may be sold; but only two hundred yards from the hotel, outside 
+the zone of temperance, lies Panama and Angelina's, and during 
+the dinner, between the Tivoli and Angelina's, the Jamaican 
+waiter-boys ran relay races.
+
+After the dinner, the Jamaican waiter-boys proving too slow, the 
+dinner-party in a body adjourned to Angelina's, and when later, 
+Major Aintree moved across the street to the night train to Las 
+Palmas, he moved unsteadily.
+
+Young Standish of the Canal Zone police, who, though but twenty-
+six, was a full corporal, was for that night on duty as "train 
+guard," and was waiting at the rear steps of the last car.  As 
+Aintree approached the steps he saw indistinctly a boyish figure 
+in khaki, and, mistaking it for one of his own men, he clasped 
+the handrail for support, and halted frowning.
+
+Observing the condition of the officer the policeman also frowned, 
+but in deference to the uniform, slowly and with reluctance raised 
+his hand to his sombrero.  The reluctance was more apparent than 
+the salute.  It was less of a salute than an impertinence.
+
+Partly out of regard for his rank, partly from temper, chiefly 
+from whiskey, Aintree saw scarlet.
+
+"When you s'lute your s'perior officer," he shouted, "you s'lute him
+quick.  You unnerstan', you s'lute him quick! S'lute me again," he 
+commanded, "and s'lute me damn quick."
+
+Standish remained motionless.  As is the habit of policemen over 
+all the world, his thumbs were stuck in his belt.  He answered 
+without offense, in tones matter-of-fact and calm.
+
+"You are not my superior officer," he said.
+
+It was the calmness that irritated Aintree.  His eyes sought for 
+the infantryman's cap and found a sombrero.
+
+"You damned leatherneck," he began, "I'll report--" 
+
+"I'm not a marine, either," interrupted Standish.  "I'm a policeman.
+Move on," he ordered, "you're keeping these people waiting." 
+
+Others of the dinner-party formed a flying wedge around Aintree 
+and crowded him up the steps and into a seat and sat upon him. 
+Ten minutes later, when Standish made his rounds of the cars, 
+Aintree saw him approaching.  He had a vague recollection that
+he had been insulted, and by a policeman.
+
+"You!" he called, and so loudly that all in the car turned, "I'm 
+going to report you, going to report you for insolence.  What's
+your name?"
+
+Looking neither at Aintree nor at the faces turned toward him, 
+Standish replied as though Aintree had asked him what time it was.
+
+"Standish," he said, "corporal, shield number 226, on train 
+guard."  He continued down the aisle.
+
+"I'll remember you," Aintree shouted.
+
+But in the hot, glaring dawn of the morning after, Aintree forgot.
+It was Standish who remembered.
+
+The men of the Zone police are hand-picked.  They have been 
+soldiers, marines, cowboys, sheriffs, "Black Hussars" of the 
+Pennsylvania State constabulary, rough riders with Roosevelt, 
+mounted police in Canada, irregular horse in South Africa; they 
+form one of the best-organized, best-disciplined, most efficient,
+most picturesque semi-military bodies in the world.  Standish
+joined them from the Philippine constabulary in which he had
+been a second lieutenant.  There are several like him in the
+Zone police, and in England they would be called gentlemen 
+rankers.  On the Isthmus, because of his youth, his fellow 
+policemen called Standish "Kid."  And smart as each of them was,
+each of them admitted the Kid wore his uniform with a difference.
+With him it always looked as though it had come freshly ironed 
+from the Colon laundry;  his leather leggings shone like 
+meerschaum pipes; the brim of his sombrero rested impudently on
+the bridge of his nose.
+
+"He's been an officer," they used to say in extenuation.  "You can
+tell when he salutes.  He shows the back of his hand."  Secretly,
+they were proud of him.  Standish came of a long chain of soldiers,
+and that the weakest link in the chain had proved to be himself was
+a sorrow no one else but himself could fathom.  Since he was three
+years old he had been trained to be a soldier, as carefully, with the
+same singleness of purpose, as the crown prince is trained to be a
+king.  And when, after three happy, glorious years at West Point,
+he was found not clever enough to pass the examinations and was
+dropped, he did not curse the gods and die, but began again to work
+his way up.  He was determined he still would wear shoulder-straps.
+He owed it to his ancestors.  It was the tradition of his family, the one 
+thing he wanted; it was his religion.  He would get into the army 
+even if by the side door, if only after many years of rough and 
+patient service.  He knew that some day, through his record, 
+through the opportunity of a war, he would come into his 
+inheritance.  Meanwhile he officered his soul, disciplined his 
+body, and daily tried to learn the lesson that he who hopes to 
+control others must first control himself.
+
+He allowed himself but one dissipation, one excess.  That was 
+to hate Major Aintree, commanding the Thirty-third Infantry.  Of 
+all the world could give, Aintree possessed everything that 
+Standish considered the most to be desired.  He was a graduate of 
+West Point, he had seen service in Cuba, in the Boxer business,
+and in the Philippines.  For an act of conspicuous courage at 
+Batangas, he had received the medal of honor.  He had had the 
+luck of the devil.  Wherever he held command turned out to be the 
+place where things broke loose.  And Aintree always attacked and 
+routed them, always was the man on the job.  It was his name that 
+appeared in the newspapers, it was his name that headed the list 
+of the junior officers mentioned for distinguished conduct. 
+Standish had followed his career with an admiration and a joy 
+that was without taint of envy or detraction.  He gloried in 
+Aintree, he delighted to know the army held such a man.  He was
+grateful to Aintree for upholding the traditions of a profession 
+to which he himself gave all the devotion of a fanatic.  He made 
+a god of him.  This was the attitude of mind toward Aintree before
+he came to the Isthmus.  Up to that time he had never seen his 
+idol.  Aintree had been only a name signed to brilliant articles
+in the service magazines, a man of whom those who had served with
+him or under him, when asked concerning him, spoke with loyalty 
+and awe, the man the newspapers called "the hero of Batangas."
+And when at last he saw his hero, he believed his worship was 
+justified.  For Aintree looked the part.  He was built like a 
+greyhound with the shoulders of a stevedore.  His chin was as 
+projecting, and as hard, as the pointed end of a flat-iron.  His every 
+movement showed physical fitness, and his every glance and tone a
+confidence in himself that approached insolence.  He was thirty-
+eight, twelve years older than the youth who had failed to make 
+his commission, and who, as Aintree strode past, looked after him 
+with wistful, hero-worshipping eyes.  The revulsion, when it came, 
+was extreme.  The hero-worship gave way to contempt, to indignant 
+condemnation, in which there was no pity, no excuse.  That one upon 
+whom so much had been lavished, who for himself had accomplished 
+such good things, should bring disgrace upon his profession, 
+should by his example demoralize his men, should risk losing all
+he had attained, all that had been given, was intolerable.  When 
+Standish learned his hero was a drunkard, when day after day 
+Aintree furnished visible evidences of that fact, Standish felt 
+Aintree had betrayed him and the army and the government that had
+educated, trained, clothed, and fed him.  He regarded Aintree as 
+worse than Benedict Arnold, because Arnold had turned traitor for
+power and money; Aintree was a traitor through mere weakness, 
+because he could not say "no" to a bottle.
+
+Only in secret Standish railed against Aintree.  When his brother 
+policemen gossiped and jested about him, out of loyalty to the 
+army he remained silent.  But in his heart he could not forgive. 
+The man he had so generously envied, the man after whose career 
+he had wished to model his own, had voluntarily stepped from his 
+pedestal and made a swine of himself.  And not only could he not 
+forgive, but as day after day Aintree furnished fresh food for 
+his indignation he felt a fierce desire to punish.
+
+Meanwhile, of the conduct of Aintree, men older and wiser, if less
+intolerant than Standish, were beginning to take notice.  It was
+after a dinner on Ancon Hill, and the women had left the men to
+themselves.  They were the men who were placing the Panama Canal
+on the map.  They were officers of the army who for five years had
+not worn a uniform.  But for five years they had been at war with
+an enemy that never slept.  Daily they had engaged in battle with
+mountains, rivers, swamps, two oceans, and disease.  Where Aintree
+commanded five hundred soldiers, they commanded a body of men
+better drilled, better disciplined, and in number half as many as
+those who formed the entire army of the United States.  The mind
+of each was occupied with a world problem.  They thought and
+talked in millions --of millions of cubic yards of dirt, of
+millions of barrels of cement, of millions of tons of steel, of
+hundreds of millions of dollars, of which latter each received
+enough to keep himself and his family just beyond the reach of
+necessity.  To these men with the world waiting upon the outcome
+of their endeavor, with responsibilities that never relaxed,
+Aintree's behavior was an incident, an annoyance of less
+importance than an overturned dirt train that for five minutes
+dared to block the completion of their work.  But they were human
+and loyal to the army, and in such an infrequent moment as this,
+over the coffee and cigars, they could afford to remember the
+junior officer, to feel sorry for him, for the sake of the army,
+to save him from himself.
+
+"He takes his orders direct from the War Department," said the
+chief.  "I've no authority over him.  If he'd been one of my workmen
+I'd have shipped him north three months ago."
+
+"That's it," said the surgeon, "he's not a workman.  He has nothing
+to do, and idleness is the curse of the army.  And in this climate--"
+
+"Nothing to do!" snorted the civil administrator.  "Keeping his
+men in hand is what he has to do! They're running amuck all over
+Panama, getting into fights with the Spiggoty police, bringing
+the uniform into contempt.  As for the climate, it's the same
+climate for all of us.  Look at Butler's marines and Barber's Zone
+police.  The climate hasn't hurt them.  They're as smart men as
+ever wore khaki.  It's not the climate or lack of work that ails
+the Thirty- third, it's their commanding officer.  'So the
+colonel, so the regiment.'  That's as old as the hills.  Until
+Aintree takes a brace, his men won't.  Some one ought to talk to
+him.  It's a shame to see a fine fellow like that going to the
+dogs because no one has the courage to tell him the truth."
+
+The chief smiled mockingly.
+
+"Then why don't you?" he asked.
+
+"I'm a civilian," protested the administrator.  "If I told him he was
+going to the dogs he'd tell me to go to the devil.  No, one of you
+army men must do it.  He'll listen to you."
+
+Young Captain Haldane of the cavalry was at the table; he was
+visiting Panama on leave as a tourist.  The chief turned to him.
+
+"Haldane's the man," he said.  "You're his friend and you're his
+junior in rank, so what you say won't sound official.  Tell him
+people are talking; tell him it won't be long before they'll be
+talking in Washington.  Scare him!"
+
+The captain of cavalry smiled dubiously.
+
+"Aintree's a hard man to scare," he said.  "But if it's as bad as you
+all seem to think, I'll risk it.  But, why is it," he complained,
+"that whenever a man has to be told anything particularly
+unpleasant they always pick on his best friend to tell him? It
+makes them both miserable.  Why not let his bitterest enemy try
+it? The enemy at least would have a fine time."
+
+"Because," said the chief, "Aintree hasn't an enemy in the world-
+except Aintree."
+The next morning, as he had promised, Haldane called upon his
+friend.  When he arrived at Las Palmas, although the morning was
+well advanced toward noon, he found Aintree still under his
+mosquito bars and awake only to command a drink.  The situation
+furnished Haldane with his text.  He expressed his opinion of
+any individual, friend or no friend, officer or civilian, who on
+the Zone, where all men begin work at sunrise, could be found
+at noon still in his pajamas and preparing to face the duties of
+the day on an absinth cocktail.  He said further that since he had
+arrived on the isthmus he had heard only of Aintree's misconduct,
+that soon the War Department would hear of it, that Aintree would
+lose his commission, would break the backbone of a splendid career.
+
+"It's a friend talking," continued Haldane, "and you know it! It's
+because I am your friend that I've risked losing your friendship!
+And, whether you like it or not, it's the truth.  You're going down-hill,
+going fast, going like a motor-bus running away, and unless you put
+on the brakes you'll smash!"
+
+Aintree was not even annoyed.
+
+"That's good advice for the right man," he granted, "but why waste
+it on me? I can do things other men can't.  I can stop drinking this
+minute, and it will mean so little to me that I won't know I've stopped."
+
+"Then stop," said Haldane.
+
+"Why?" demanded Aintree.  "I like it. Why should I stop anything
+I like? Because a lot of old women are gossiping? Because old men
+who can't drink green mint without dancing turkey-trots think I'm
+going to the devil because I can drink whiskey? I'm not afraid of
+whiskey," he laughed tolerantly.  "It amuses me, that's all it does
+to me; it amuses me."  He pulled back the coat of his pajamas and
+showed his giant chest and shoulder.  With his fist he struck his
+bare flesh and it glowed instantly a healthy, splendid pink.
+
+"See that!" commanded Aintree.  "If there's a man on the isthmus in
+any better physical shape than I am, I'll--"  He interrupted himself
+to begin again eagerly.  "I'll make you a sporting proposition,"
+he announced  "I'll fight any man on the isthmus ten rounds--
+no matter who he is, a wop laborer, shovel man, Barbadian
+nigger, marine, anybody--and if he can knock me out I'll stop
+drinking.  You see," he explained patiently, "I'm no mollycoddle
+or jelly-fish.  I can afford a headache.  And besides, it's my own
+head.  If I don't give anybody else a headache, I don't see that it's
+anybody else's damned business."
+
+"But you do," retorted Haldane steadily.  "You're giving your own
+men worse than a headache, you're setting them a rotten example,
+you're giving the Thirty-third a bad name-"
+
+Aintree vaulted off his cot and shook his fist at his friend.
+"You can't say that to me," he cried.
+
+"I do say it," protested Haldane.  "When you were in Manila your 
+men were models; here they're unshaven, sloppy, undisciplined. 
+They look like bell-hops.  And it's your fault.  And everybody 
+thinks so."
+
+Slowly and carefully Aintree snapped his fingers.
+
+"And you can tell everybody, from me," he cried, "that's all I care
+what they think! And now," he continued, smiling hospitably, "let
+me congratulate you on your success as a missionary, and, to show 
+you there's not a trace of hard feeling, we will have a drink."
+
+Informally Haldane reported back to the commission, and the wife 
+of one of them must have talked, for it was soon known that a
+brother officer had appealed to Aintree to reform, and Aintree 
+had refused to listen.
+
+When she heard this, Grace Carter, the wife of Major Carter, one 
+of the surgeons at the Ancon Hospital, was greatly perturbed. 
+Aintree was engaged to be married to Helen Scott, who was her 
+best friend and who was arriving by the next steamer to spend the 
+winter.  When she had Helen safely under her roof, Mrs. Carter had 
+planned to marry off the young couple out of hand on the isthmus. 
+But she had begun to wonder if it would not be better they should 
+delay, or best that they should never marry.
+
+"The awakening is going to be a terrible blow to Helen," she said
+to her husband.  "She is so proud of him."
+
+"On the contrary," he protested, "it will be the awakening of 
+Aintree--if Helen will stand for the way he's acting, she is not 
+the girl I know.  And when he finds she won't, and that he may lose
+her, he'll pull up short.  He's talked Helen to me night after 
+night until he's bored me so I could strangle him.  He cares more 
+for her than he does for anything, for the army, or for himself, 
+and that's saying a great deal.  One word from her will be enough."
+
+Helen spoke the word three weeks after she arrived.  It had not 
+been necessary to tell her of the manner in which her lover was 
+misconducting himself.  At various dinners given in their honor 
+he had made a nuisance of himself; on another occasion, while in 
+uniform, he had created a scene in the dining-room of the Tivoli
+under the prying eyes of three hundred seeing-the-Canal tourists;
+and one night he had so badly beaten up a cabman who had laughed 
+at his condition that the man went to the hospital.  Major Carter,
+largely with money, had healed the injuries of the cabman, but 
+Helen, who had witnessed the assault, had suffered an injury that
+money could not heal.
+
+She sent for Aintree, and at the home of her friend delivered 
+her ultimatum.
+
+"I hit him because he was offensive to you," said Aintree.  "That's
+why I hit him.  If I'd not had a drink in a year, I'd have hit him
+just as quick and just as hard."
+
+"Can't you see," said the girl, "that in being not yourself when
+I was in your care you were much more insulting to me than any
+cabman could possibly be? When you are like that you have no
+respect for me, or for yourself.  Part of my pride in you is that 
+you are so strong, that you control yourself, that common 
+pleasures never get a hold on you.  If you couldn't control your 
+temper I wouldn't blame you, because you've a villainous temper 
+and you were born with it.  But you weren't born with a taste for
+liquor.  None of your people drank.  You never drank until you went
+into the army.  If I were a man," declared the girl, "I'd be ashamed 
+to admit anything was stronger than I was.  You never let pain beat 
+you.  I've seen you play polo with a broken arm, but in this you give 
+pain to others, you shame and humiliate the one you pretend to love, 
+just because you are weak, just because you can't say 'no.'"
+
+Aintree laughed angrily.
+
+"Drink has no hold on me," he protested.  "It affects me as much as the
+lights and the music affect a girl at her first dance, and no more.  But,
+if you ask me to stop--"
+
+"I do not!" said the girl.  "If you stop, you'll stop not because
+I have any influence over you, but because you don't need my 
+influence.  If it's wrong, if it's hurting you, if it's taking away 
+your usefulness and your power for good, that's why you'll stop.
+Not because a girl begs you.  Or you're not the man I think you."
+
+Aintree retorted warmly.  "I'm enough of a man for this," he 
+protested:  "I'm enough of a man not to confess I can't drink 
+without making a beast of myself.  It's easy not to drink at all.
+But to stop altogether is a confession of weakness.  I'd look on 
+my doing that as cowardly.  I give you my word--not that I'll swear
+off, that I'll never do--but I promise you you'll have no further 
+reason to be what you call humiliated, or ashamed.  You have my
+word for it."
+
+A week later Aintree rode his pony into a railway cutting and 
+rolled with it to the tracks below, and, if at the time he had 
+not been extremely drunk, would have been killed.  The pony, 
+being quite sober, broke a leg and was destroyed.
+
+When word of this came to Helen she was too sick at heart to see
+Aintree, and by others it was made known to him that on the first
+steamer Miss Scott would return North.  Aintree knew why she was 
+going, knew she had lost faith and patience, knew the woman he
+loved had broken with him and put him out of her life.  Appalled 
+at this calamity, he proceeded to get drunk in earnest.
+
+
+The night was very hot and the humidity very heavy, and at Las 
+Palmas inside the bungalow that served as a police-station the 
+lamps on either side of the lieutenant's desk burned like tiny 
+furnaces.  Between them, panting in the moist heat and with the 
+sweat from his forehead and hand dripping upon an otherwise
+immaculate report, sat Standish.  Two weeks before, the chief had
+made him one of his six lieutenants.  With the force the promotion
+had been most popular.
+
+Since his promotion Standish had been in charge of the police-
+station at Las Palmas and daily had seen Aintree as, on his way 
+down the hill from the barracks to the railroad, the hero of 
+Batangas passed the door of the station-house.  Also, on the 
+morning Aintree had jumped his horse over the embankment, 
+Standish had seen him carried up the hill on a stretcher.  At the
+sight the lieutenant of police had taken from his pocket a notebook,
+and on a flyleaf made a cross.  On the flyleaf were many other dates 
+and opposite each a cross.  It was Aintree's record and as the number 
+of black crosses grew, the greater had grown the resentment of Standish, 
+the more greatly it had increased his anger against the man who had put 
+this affront upon the army, the greater became his desire to punish.
+
+In police circles the night had been quiet, the cells in the yard
+were empty, the telephone at his elbow had remained silent, and 
+Standish, alone in the station-house, had employed himself in 
+cramming "Moss's Manual for Subalterns."  He found it a fascinating
+exercise.  The hope that soon he might himself be a subaltern 
+always burned brightly, and to be prepared seemed to make the 
+coming of that day more certain.  It was ten o'clock and Las Palmas
+lay sunk in slumber, and after the down train which was now due 
+had passed, there was nothing likely to disturb her slumber until
+at sunrise the great army of dirt-diggers with shrieks of whistles,
+with roars of dynamite, with the rumbling of dirt-trains and 
+steam-shovels, again sprang to the attack.  Down the hill, a
+hundred yards below Standish, the night train halted at the 
+station, with creakings and groanings continued toward Colon, 
+and again Las Palmas returned to sleep.
+
+And, then, quickly and viciously, like the crack of a mule-whip,
+came the reports of a pistol; and once more the hot and dripping
+silence.
+
+On post at the railroad-station, whence the shots came, was Meehan, 
+one of the Zone police, an ex-sergeant of marines.  On top of the hill, 
+outside the infantry barracks, was another policeman, Bullard, once a 
+cowboy.
+
+Standish ran to the veranda and heard the pebbles scattering as 
+Bullard leaped down the hill, and when, in the light from the 
+open door, he passed, the lieutenant shouted at him to find Meehan
+and report back.  Then the desk telephone rang, and Standish 
+returned to his chair.
+
+"This is Meehan," said a voice.  "Those shots just now were fired 
+by Major Aintree.  He came down on the night train and jumped off
+after the train was pulling out and stumbled into a negro, and 
+fell.  He's been drinking and he swore the nigger pushed him; and 
+the man called Aintree a liar.  Aintree pulled his gun and the 
+nigger ran.  Aintree fired twice; then I got to him and knocked 
+the gun out of his hand with my nightstick."
+
+There was a pause.  Until he was sure his voice would be steady 
+and official, the boy lieutenant did not speak.
+
+"Did he hit the negro?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," Meehan answered.  "The man jumped for the darkest 
+spot he could find."  The voice of Meehan lost its professional 
+calm and became personal and aggrieved.
+
+"Aintree's on his way to see you now, lieutenant.  He's going to 
+report me."
+
+"For what?"
+
+The voice over the telephone rose indignantly.
+
+"For knocking the gun out of his hand.  He says it's an assault.
+He's going to break me!"
+
+Standish made no comment.
+
+"Report here," he ordered.
+
+He heard Bullard hurrying up the hill and met him at the foot of 
+the steps.
+
+"There's a nigger," began Bullard, "lying under some bushes--"
+
+"Hush!" commanded Standish.
+
+From the path below came the sound of footsteps approaching 
+unsteadily, and the voice of a man swearing and muttering to 
+himself.  Standish pulled the ex-cowboy into the shadow of the 
+darkness and spoke in eager whispers.
+
+"You understand," he concluded, "you will not report until you 
+see me pick up a cigar from the desk and light it.  You will wait
+out here in the darkness.  When you see me light the cigar, you
+will come in and report."
+
+The cowboy policeman nodded, but without enthusiasm.  "I 
+understand, lieutenant," he said, "but," he shook his head doubtfully,
+"it sizes up to me like what those police up in New York call a
+'frame-up.'"
+
+Standish exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"It's not my frame-up!" he said.  "The man's framed himself up.
+All I'm going to do is to nail him to the wall!"
+
+Standish had only time to return to his desk when Aintree stumbled
+up the path and into the station-house.  He was "fighting drunk,"
+ugly, offensive, all but incoherent with anger.
+
+"You in charge?" he demanded.  He did not wait for an answer. 
+"I've been 'saulted!" he shouted.  "'Saulted by one of your damned 
+policemen.  He struck me--struck me when I was protecting myself. 
+He had a nigger with him.  First the nigger tripped me; then, when
+I tried to protect myself, this thug of yours hits me, clubs me, you 
+unnerstan', clubs me!  I want him--"
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of Meehan, who moved into the 
+light from the lamps and saluted his lieutenant.
+
+"That's the man!" roared Aintree.  The sight of Meehan whipped him
+into greater fury.
+
+"I want that man broke.  I want to see you strip his shield off 
+him--now, you unnerstan', now--for 'saulting me, for 'saulting an 
+officer in the United States army.  And, if you don't," he threw 
+himself into a position of the prize-ring, "I'll beat him up and 
+you, too."  Through want of breath, he stopped, and panted.  Again
+his voice broke forth hysterically.  "I'm not afraid of your damned 
+night-sticks," he taunted.  "I got five hundred men on top this hill, 
+all I've got to do is to say the word, and they'll rough-house this 
+place and throw it into the cut--and you with it."
+
+Standish rose to his feet, and across the desk looked steadily at
+Aintree.  To Aintree the steadiness of his eyes and the quietness
+of his voice were an added aggravation.
+
+"Suppose you did," said Standish, "that would not save you."
+
+"From what?" roared Aintree.  "Think I'm afraid of your night-
+sticks?"
+
+"From arrest!"
+
+"Arrest me!" yelled Aintree.  "Do you know who's talking to you? 
+Do you know who I am? I'm Major Aintree, damn you, commanding 
+the infantry.  An' I'm here to charge that thug--"
+
+"You are here because you are under arrest," said Standish.  "You
+are arrested for threatening the police, drunkenness, and assaulting
+a citizen with intent to kill--"  The voice of the young man turned shrill
+and rasping.  "And if the man should die--"
+
+Aintree burst into a bellow of mocking laughter.
+
+Standish struck the desk with his open palm.
+
+"Silence!" he commanded.
+
+"Silence to me!" roared Aintree, "you impertinent pup!" He flung 
+himself forward, shaking his fist.  "I'm Major Aintree.  I'm your 
+superior officer.  I'm an officer an' a gentleman--"
+
+"You are not!" replied Standish.  "You are a drunken loafer!"
+
+Aintree could not break the silence.  Amazement, rage, stupefaction
+held him in incredulous wonder.  Even Meehan moved uneasily. 
+Between the officer commanding the infantry and an officer of 
+police, he feared the lieutenant would not survive.
+
+But he heard the voice of his lieutenant continuing, evenly, 
+coldly, like the voice of a judge delivering sentence.
+
+"You are a drunken loafer," repeated the boy.  "And you know it. 
+And I mean that to-morrow morning every one on the Zone shall know
+it.  And I mean to-morrow night every one in the States shall know
+it.  You've killed a man, or tried to, and I'm going to break you."
+With his arm he pointed to Meehan.  "Break that man?" he demanded.
+"For doing his duty, for trying to stop a murder? Strip him of his
+shield?" The boy laughed savagely.  "It's you I am going to strip,
+Aintree," he cried, "you 'hero of Batangas'; I'm going to strip you 
+naked.  I'm going to 'cut the buttons off your coat, and tear the stripes
+away.'  I'm going to degrade you and disgrace you, and drive you out
+of the army!" He threw his note-book on the table.  "There's your dossier,
+Aintree," he said.  "For three months you've been drunk, and there's your
+record.  The police got it for me; it's written there with dates and the names
+of witnesses.  I'll swear to it. I've been after you to get you, and I've got
+you.
+With that book, with what you did to-night, you'll leave the army.  You
+may resign, you may be court-martialled, you may be hung.  I don't
+give a damn what they do to you, but you will leave the army!"
+
+He turned to Meehan, and with a jerk of the hand signified Aintree.
+
+"Put him in a cell," he said.  "If he resists--"
+
+Aintree gave no sign of resisting.  He stood motionless, his arms
+hanging limp, his eyes protruding.  The liquor had died in him, and
+his anger had turned chill.  He tried to moisten his lips to speak,
+but his throat was baked, and no sound issued.  He tried to focus
+his eyes upon the menacing little figure behind the desk, but 
+between the two lamps it swayed, and shrank and swelled.  Of one 
+thing only was he sure, that some grave disaster had overtaken
+him, something that when he came fully to his senses still would
+overwhelm him, something he could not conquer with his fists.
+His brain, even befuddled as it was, told him he had been caught
+by the heels, that he was in a trap, that smashing this boy who 
+threatened him could not set him free.  He recognized, and it was
+this knowledge that stirred him with alarm, that this was no 
+ordinary officer of justice, but a personal enemy, an avenging 
+spirit who, for some unknown reason, had spread a trap; who, for
+some private purpose of revenge, would drag him down.
+
+Frowning painfully, he waved Meehan from him.
+
+"Wait," he commanded.  "I don' unnerstan'.  What good's it goin' to
+do you to lock me up an' disgrace me?  What harm have I done you?
+Who asked you to run the army, anyway? Who are you?"
+
+"My name is Standish," said the lieutenant.  "My father was colonel
+of the Thirty-third when you first joined it from the Academy."
+
+Aintree exclaimed with surprise and enlightenment.  He broke into
+hurried speech, but Standish cut him short.
+
+"And General Standish of the Mexican War," he continued, "was my
+grandfather.  Since Washington all my people have been officers of
+the regular army, and I'd been one, too, if I'd been bright enough.
+That's why I respect the army.  That's why I'm going to throw you
+out of it.  You've done harm fifty men as good as you can't undo.
+You've made drunkards of a whole battalion.  You've taught boys
+who looked up to you, as I looked up to you once, to laugh at
+discipline, to make swine of themselves.  You've set them an example.
+I'm going to make an example of you.  That's all there is to this.  I've
+got no grudge against you.  I'm not vindictive; I'm sorry for you.  But,"
+he paused and pointed his hand at Aintree as though it held a gun,
+"you are going to leave the army!"
+
+Like a man coming out of an ugly dream, Aintree opened and shut 
+his eyes, shivered, and stretched his great muscles.  They watched
+him with an effort of the will force himself back to consciousness.
+When again he spoke, his tone was sane.
+
+"See here, Standish," he began, "I'll not beg of you or any man.
+I only ask you to think what you're doing.  This means my finish. 
+If you force this through to-night it means court-martial, it means
+I lose my commission, I lose--lose things you know nothing about.
+And, if I've got a record for drinking, I've got a record for other 
+things, too.  Don't forget that!"
+
+Standish shook his head.  "I didn't forget it," he said.
+
+"Well, suppose I did," demanded Aintree.  "Suppose I did go on
+the loose, just to pass the time, just because I'm sick of this damned
+ditch? Is it fair to wipe out all that went before, for that? I'm the
+youngest major in the army, I served in three campaigns, I'm a
+medal-of-honor man, I've got a career ahead of me, and--and I'm
+going to be married.  If you give me a chance-"
+
+Standish struck the table with his fist.
+
+"I will give you a chance," he cried.  "If you'll give your word to this
+man and to me, that, so help you God, you'll never drink again--I'll
+let you go."
+
+If what Standish proposed had been something base, Aintree could
+not have accepted it with more contempt.
+
+"I'll see you in hell first," he said.
+
+As though the interview was at an end, Standish dropped into his
+chair and leaning forward, from the table picked up a cigar.  As
+he lit it, he motioned Meehan toward his prisoner, but before the
+policeman could advance the sound of footsteps halted him.
+
+Bullard, his eyes filled with concern, leaped up the steps, and 
+ran to the desk.
+
+"Lieutenant!" he stammered, "that man--the nigger that officer 
+shot--he's dead!"
+
+Aintree gave a gasp that was partly a groan, partly a cry of 
+protest, and Bullard, as though for the first time aware of his 
+presence, sprang back to the open door and placed himself between
+it and Aintree.
+
+"It's murder!" he said.
+
+None of the three men spoke; and when Meehan crossed to where 
+Aintree stood, staring fearfully at nothing, he had only to touch
+his sleeve, and Aintree, still staring, fell into step beside him.
+
+From the yard outside Standish heard the iron door of the cell 
+swing shut, heard the key grate in the lock, and the footsteps of
+Meehan returning.
+
+Meehan laid the key upon the desk, and with Bullard stood at 
+attention, waiting.
+
+"Give him time," whispered Standish.  "Let it sink in!"
+
+At the end of half an hour Standish heard Aintree calling, and, 
+with Meehan carrying a lantern, stepped into the yard and stopped
+at the cell door.
+
+Aintree was quite sober.  His face was set and white, his voice 
+was dull with suffering.  He stood erect, clasping the bars in his
+hands.
+
+"Standish," he said, "you gave me a chance a while ago, and I 
+refused it.  I was rough about it.  I'm sorry.  It made me hot 
+because I thought you were forcing my hand, blackmailing me into
+doing something I ought to do as a free agent.  Now, I am a free 
+agent.  You couldn't give me a chance now, you couldn't let me go
+now, not if I swore on a thousand Bibles.  I don't know what 
+they'll give me--Leavenworth for life, or hanging, or just dismissal.
+But, you've got what you wanted--I'm leaving the army!"  Between
+the bars he stretched out his arms and held a hand toward Meehan
+and Standish.  In the same dull, numbed voice he continued.
+
+"So, now," he went on, "that I've nothing to gain by it, I want 
+to swear to you and to this man here, that whether I hang, or go
+to jail, or am turned loose, I will never, so help me God, take 
+another drink."
+
+Standish was holding the hand of the man who once had been his 
+hero.  He clutched it tight.
+
+"Aintree," he cried, "suppose I could work a miracle; suppose I've
+played a trick on you, to show you your danger, to show you what
+might come to you any day--does that oath still stand?"
+
+The hand that held his ground the bones together.
+
+"I've given my word!" cried Aintree.  "For the love of God, don't
+torture me.  Is the man alive?"
+
+As Standish swung open the cell door, the hero of Batangas,
+he who could thrash any man on the isthmus, crumpled up
+like a child upon his shoulder.
+
+And Meehan, as he ran for water, shouted joyfully.
+
+"That nigger," he called to Bullard, "can go home now.  The lieutenant
+don't want him no more.
+"
+
+
+
+
+EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS
+
+
+
+As a rule, the instant the season closed Aline Proctor sailed on
+the first steamer for London, where awaited her many friends,
+both English and American--and to Paris, where she selected those
+gowns that on and off the stage helped to make her famous.  But
+this particular summer she had spent with the Endicotts at Bar
+Harbor, and it was at their house Herbert Nelson met her.  After
+Herbert met her very few other men enjoyed that privilege.  This
+was her wish as well as his.
+
+They behaved disgracefully.  Every morning after breakfast they
+disappeared and spent the day at opposite ends of a canoe.  She,
+knowing nothing of a canoe, was happy in stabbing the waters with
+her paddle while he told her how he loved her and at the same
+time, with anxious eyes on his own paddle, skilfully frustrated
+her efforts to drown them both.  While the affair lasted it was
+ideal and beautiful, but unfortunately it lasted only two months.
+
+Then Lord Albany, temporarily in America as honorary attache to
+the British embassy, his adoring glances, his accent, and the way
+he brushed his hair, proved too much for the susceptible heart of
+Aline, and she chucked Herbert and asked herself how a woman of
+her age could have seriously considered marrying a youth just out
+of Harvard! At that time she was a woman of nineteen; but, as she
+had been before the public ever since she was eleven, the women
+declared she was not a day under twenty-six; and the men knew she
+could not possibly be over sixteen!
+
+Aline's own idea of herself was that without some one in love
+with her she could not exist--that, unless she knew some man cared
+for her and for her alone, she would wither and die.  As a matter
+of fact, whether any one loved her or not did not in the least
+interest her.  There were several dozen men who could testify to
+that.  They knew! What she really wanted was to be head over ears
+in love--to adore some one, to worship him, to imagine herself
+starving for him and making sacrifice hits for him; but when the
+moment came to make the sacrifice hit and marry the man, she
+invariably found that a greater, truer love had arisen--for some
+one else.
+
+This greater and truer love always made her behave abominably to
+the youth she had just jilted.  She wasted no time on post-mortems.
+She was so eager to show her absolute loyalty to the new monarch
+that she grudged every thought she ever had given the one she had
+cast into exile.  She resented him bitterly.  She could not forgive him
+for having allowed her to be desperately in love with him.  He should
+have known he was not worthy of such a love as hers.  He should have
+known that the real prince was waiting only just round the corner.
+
+As a rule the rejected ones behaved well.  Each decided Aline was much
+too wonderful a creature for him, and continued to love her cautiously
+and from a distance.  None of them ever spoke or thought ill of her and
+would gladly have punched any one who did.  It was only the women
+whose young men Aline had temporarily confiscated, and then returned
+saddened and chastened, who were spiteful.  And they dared say no more
+than that Aline would probably have known her mind better if she had
+had a mother to look after her.  This, coming to the ears of Aline,
+caused her to reply that a girl who could not keep straight herself,
+but needed a mother to help her, would not keep straight had she a
+dozen mothers.  As she put it cheerfully, a girl who goes wrong and
+then pleads "no mother to guide her" is like a jockey who pulls a race
+and then blames the horse.
+
+Each of the young men Aline rejected married some one else and,
+except when the name of Aline Proctor in the theatrical
+advertisements or in electric lights on Broadway gave him a
+start, forgot that for a month her name and his own had been
+linked together from Portland to San Francisco.  But the girl he
+married did not forget.  She never understood what the public saw
+in Aline Proctor.  That Aline was the queen of musical comedy she
+attributed to the fact that Aline knew the right people and got
+herself written about in the right way.  But that she could sing,
+dance, act; that she possessed compelling charm; that she "got
+across" not only to the tired business man, the wine agent, the
+college boy, but also to the children and the old ladies, was to
+her never apparent.
+
+Just as Aline could not forgive the rejected suitor for allowing
+her to love him, so the girl he married never forgave Aline for
+having loved her husband.  Least of all could Sally Winthrop, who
+two years after the summer at Bar Harbor married Herbert Nelson,
+forgive her.  And she let Herbert know it.  Herbert was properly
+in love with Sally Winthrop, but he liked to think that his
+engagement to Aline, though brief and abruptly terminated, had
+proved him to be a man fatally attractive to all women.  And
+though he was hypnotizing himself into believing that his feeling
+for Aline had been the grand passion, the truth was that all that
+kept her in his thoughts was his own vanity.  He was not
+discontented with his lot--his lot being Sally Winthrop, her
+millions, and her estate of three hundred acres near Westbury.
+Nor was he still longing for Aline.  It was only that his vanity
+was flattered by the recollection that one of the young women
+most beloved by the public had once loved him.
+
+"I once was a king in Babylon," he used to misquote to himself,
+"and she was a Christian slave."
+
+He was as young as that.
+
+Had he been content in secret to assure himself that he once had
+been a reigning monarch, his vanity would have harmed no one;
+but, unfortunately, he possessed certain documentary evidence to
+that fact.  And he was sufficiently foolish not to wish to destroy
+it.  The evidence consisted of a dozen photographs he had snapped
+of Aline during the happy days at Bar Harbor, and on which she
+had written phrases somewhat exuberant and sentimental.
+
+From these photographs Nelson was loath to part--especially with
+one that showed Aline seated on a rock that ran into the waters of
+the harbor, and on which she had written: "As long as this rock
+lasts!"  Each time she was in love Aline believed it would last.
+That in the past it never had lasted did not discourage her.
+
+What to do with these photographs that so vividly recalled the
+most tumultuous period of his life Nelson could not decide.  If he
+hid them away and Sally found them, he knew she would make his
+life miserable.  If he died and Sally then found them, when he no
+longer was able to explain that they meant nothing to him, she
+would believe he always had loved the other woman, and it would
+make her miserable.  He felt he could not safely keep them in his
+own house; his vanity did not permit him to burn them, and,
+accordingly, he decided to unload them on some one else.
+
+The young man to whom he confided his collection was Charles
+Cochran.  Cochran was a charming person from the West.  He had
+studied in the Beaux Arts and on foot had travelled over England
+and Europe, preparing himself to try his fortune in New York as
+an architect.  He was now in the office of the architects Post &
+Constant, and lived alone in a tiny farmhouse he had made over
+for himself near Herbert Nelson, at Westbury, Long Island.
+
+Post & Constant were a fashionable firm and were responsible for
+many of the French chateaux and English country houses that were
+rising near Westbury, Hempstead, and Roslyn; and it was Cochran's
+duty to drive over that territory in his runabout, keep an eye on
+the contractors, and dissuade clients from grafting mansard roofs
+on Italian villas.  He had built the summer home of the Herbert
+Nelsons, and Herbert and Charles were very warm friends.  Charles
+was of the same lack of years as was Herbert, of an enthusiastic
+and sentimental nature; and, like many other young men, the story
+of his life also was the lovely and much-desired Aline Proctor.
+It was this coincidence that had made them friends and that had
+led Herbert to select Charles as the custodian of his treasure.
+As a custodian and confidant Charles especially appealed to his
+new friend, because, except upon the stage and in restaurants,
+Charles had never seen Aline Proctor, did not know her--and
+considered her so far above him, so unattainable, that he had no
+wish to seek her out.  Unknown, he preferred to worship at a
+distance.  In this determination Herbert strongly encouraged him.
+
+When he turned over the pictures to Charles, Herbert could not
+resist showing them to him.  They were in many ways charming.
+They presented the queen of musical comedy in several new roles.
+In one she was in a sailor suit, giving an imitation of a girl
+paddling a canoe.  In another she was in a riding-habit mounted
+upon a pony of which she seemed very much afraid.
+
+In some she sat like a siren among the rocks with the waves and
+seaweed snatching at her feet, and in another she crouched
+beneath the wheel of Herbert's touring car.  All of the
+photographs were unprofessional and intimate, and the
+legends scrawled across them were even more intimate.
+
+"'As long as this rock lasts!'" read Herbert.  At arm's length he
+held the picture for Cochran to see, and laughed bitterly and
+unmirthfully as he had heard leading men laugh in problem plays.
+
+"That is what she wrote," he mocked--"but how long did it last?
+Until she saw that little red-headed Albany playing polo.  That
+lasted until his mother heard of it.  She thought her precious
+lamb was in the clutches of a designing actress, and made the
+Foreign Office cable him home.  Then Aline took up one of those
+army aviators, and chucked him for that fellow who painted her
+portrait, and threw him over for the lawn-tennis champion.  Now
+she's engaged to Chester Griswold, and Heaven pity her! Of course
+he's the greatest catch in America; but he's a prig and a snob, and
+he's so generous with his money that he'll give you five pennies for
+a nickel any time you ask him.  He's got a heart like the metre of a
+taxicab, and he's jealous as a cat.  Aline will have a fine time with
+Chester! I knew him at St. Paul's and at Harvard, and he's got as
+much red blood in him as an eel!"
+
+Cochran sprang to the defense of the lady of his dreams.
+
+"There must be some good in the man," he protested, "or Miss
+Proctor-"
+
+"Oh, those solemn snobs," declared Herbert, "impress women by
+just keeping still.  Griswold pretends the reason he doesn't speak
+to you is because he's too superior, but the real reason is that
+he knows whenever he opens his mouth he shows he is an ass."
+
+Reluctantly Herbert turned over to Charles the precious pictures.
+"It would be a sin to destroy them, wouldn't it?" he prompted.
+
+Cochran agreed heartily.
+
+"You might even," suggested Herbert, "leave one or two of them
+about.  You have so many of Aline already that one more wouldn't
+be noticed.  Then when I drop in I could see it."  He smiled
+ingratiatingly.
+
+"But those I have I bought," Cochran pointed out.  "Anybody can
+buy them, but yours are personal.  And they're signed."
+
+"No one will notice that but me," protested Herbert.  "Just one or
+two," he coaxed-"stuck round among the others.  They'd give me a
+heap of melancholy pleasure."
+
+Charles shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"Your wife often comes here with you," he said.  "I don't believe
+they'd give her melancholy pleasure.  The question is, are you married
+to Sally or to Aline Proctor?"
+
+"Oh, of course," exclaimed Herbert--" if you refuse!"
+
+With suspicious haste Charles surrendered.
+
+"I don't refuse," he explained; "I only ask if it's wise.  Sally
+knows you were once very fond of Miss Proctor--knows you were
+engaged to her."
+
+"But," protested Herbert, "Sally sees your photographs of Aline.
+What difference can a few more make? After she's seen a dozen
+she gets used to them."
+
+No sooner had Herbert left him than the custodian of the treasure
+himself selected the photographs he would display.  In them the
+young woman he had--from the front row of the orchestra--so
+ardently admired appeared in a new light.  To Cochran they seemed
+at once to render her more kindly, more approachable; to show her
+as she really was, the sort of girl any youth would find it extremely
+difficult not to love.  Cochran found it extremely easy.  The photographs
+gave his imagination all the room it wanted.  He believed they also gave
+him an insight into her real character that was denied to anybody else.
+He had always credited her with all the virtues; he now endowed her
+with every charm of mind and body.  In a week to the two photographs
+he had selected from the loan collection for purposes of display and to
+give Herbert melancholy pleasure he had added three more.  In two
+weeks there were half a dozen.  In a month, nobly framed in silver,
+in leather of red, green, and blue, the entire collection smiled upon him
+from every part of his bedroom.  For he now kept them where no one
+but himself could see them.  No longer was he of a mind to share
+his borrowed treasure with others--not even with the rightful
+owner.
+
+Chester Griswold, spurred on by Aline Proctor, who wanted to
+build a summer home on Long Island, was motoring with Post, of
+Post & Constant, in the neighborhood of Westbury.  Post had
+pointed out several houses designed by his firm, which he hoped
+might assist Griswold in making up his mind as to the kind of
+house he wanted; but none they had seen had satisfied his client.
+
+"What I want is a cheap house," explained the young millionaire.
+"I don't really want a house at all," he complained.  "It's Miss
+Proctor's idea.  When we are married I intend to move into my
+mother's town house, but Miss Proctor wants one for herself in
+the country.  I've agreed to that; but it must be small and it
+must be cheap."
+
+"Cheap" was a word that the clients of Post & Constant never
+used; but Post knew the weaknesses of some of the truly rich, and
+he knew also that no house ever built cost only what the
+architect said it would cost.
+
+"I know the very house you want!" he exclaimed.  "One of our
+young men owns it.  He made it over from an old farmhouse.  It's
+very well arranged; we've used his ground-plan several times and
+it works out splendidly.  If he's not at home, I'11 show you over the
+place myself.  And if you like the house he's the man to build you one."
+
+When they reached Cochran's home he was at Garden City playing
+golf, but the servant knew Mr. Post, and to him and his client
+threw open every room in the house.
+
+"Now, this," exclaimed the architect enthusiastically, "is the
+master's bedroom.  In your case it would probably be your wife's
+room and you would occupy the one adjoining, which Cochran now
+uses as a guest-room.  As you see, they are entirely cut off from-"
+
+Mr. Griswold did not see.  Up to that moment he had given every
+appearance of being both bored and sulky.  Now his attention was
+entirely engaged--but not upon the admirable simplicity of Mr.
+Cochran's ground-plan, as Mr. Post had hoped.  Instead, the eyes
+of the greatest catch in America were intently regarding a display
+of photographs that smiled back at him from every corner of the
+room.  Not only did he regard these photographs with a savage glare,
+but he approached them and carefully studied the inscriptions scrawled
+across the face of each.
+
+Post himself cast a glance at the nearest photographs, and then
+hastily manoeuvred his client into the hall and closed the door.
+
+"We will now," he exclaimed, "visit the butler's pantry, which
+opens upon the dining-room and kitchen, thus saving--"
+
+But Griswold did not hear him.  Without giving another glance at
+the house he stamped out of it and, plumping himself down in the
+motor-car, banged the door.  Not until Post had driven him well
+into New York did he make any comment.
+
+"What did you say," he then demanded, "is the name of the man who
+owns that last house we saw?"
+
+Post told him.
+
+"I never heard of him!" said Griswold as though he were
+delivering young Cochran's death sentence.  "Who is he?"
+
+"He's an architect in our office," said Post.  "We think a lot of
+him.  He'll leave us soon, of course.  The best ones always do.  His
+work is very popular.  So is he."
+
+"I never heard of him," repeated Griswold.  Then, with sudden
+heat, he added savagely: "But I mean to to-night."
+
+When Griswold had first persuaded Aline Proctor to engage herself
+to him he had suggested that, to avoid embarrassment, she should
+tell him the names of the other men to whom she had been engaged.
+
+"What kind of embarrassment would that avoid?"
+
+"If I am talking to a man," said Griswold, "and he knows the
+woman I'm going to marry was engaged to him and I don't know
+that, he has me at a disadvantage."
+
+"I don't see that he has," said Aline.  "If we suppose, for the sake
+of argument, that to marry me is desirable, I would say that the
+man who was going to marry me had the advantage over the one
+I had declined to marry."
+
+"I want to know who those men are," explained Griswold, "because
+I want to avoid them.  I don't want to talk to them.  I don't want
+even to know them."
+
+"I don't see how I can help you," said Aline.  "I haven't the
+slightest objection to telling you the names of the men I have
+cared for, if I can remember them, but I certainly do not intend
+to tell you the name of any man who cared for me enough to ask me
+to marry him.  That's his secret, not mine--certainly not yours."
+
+Griswold thought he was very proud.  He really was very vain; and
+as jealousy is only vanity in its nastiest development he was
+extremely jealous.  So he persisted.
+
+"Will you do this?" he demanded.  "If I ever ask you, 'Is that one
+of the men you cared for?' will you tell me?"
+
+"If you wish it," said Aline; "but I can't see any health in it.
+It will only make you uncomfortable.  So long as you know I have
+given you the greatest and truest love I am capable of, why
+should you concern yourself with my mistakes?"
+
+"So that I can avoid meeting what you call your mistakes," said
+Griswold--" and being friendly with them."
+
+"I assure you," laughed Aline, "it wouldn't hurt you a bit to be
+as friendly with them as they'd let you.  Maybe they weren't as
+proud of their families as you are, but they made up for that by
+being a darned sight prouder of me!"
+
+Later, undismayed by this and unashamed, on two occasions
+Griswold actually did demand of Aline if a genial youth she had
+just greeted joyfully was one of those for whom she once had
+cared.
+
+And Aline had replied promptly and truthfully that he was.  But in
+the case of Charles Cochran, Griswold did not ask Aline if he was
+one of those for whom she once had cared.  He considered the
+affair with Cochran so serious that, in regard to that man, he
+adopted a different course.
+
+In digging rivals out of the past his jealousy had made him
+indefatigable, but in all his researches he never had heard the
+name of Charles Cochran.  That fact and the added circumstance
+that Aline herself never had mentioned the man was in his eyes so
+suspicious as to be almost a damning evidence of deception.  And
+he argued that if in the past Aline had deceived him as to Charles
+Cochran she would continue to do so.  Accordingly, instead
+of asking her frankly for the truth he proceeded to lay traps for
+it.  And if there is one thing Truth cannot abide, it is being
+hunted by traps.
+
+That evening Aline and he were invited to a supper in her honor,
+and as he drove her from the theatre to the home of their hostess
+he told her of his search earlier in the day.
+
+The electric light in the limousine showed Aline's face as
+clearly as though it were held in a spotlight, and as he prepared
+his trap Griswold regarded her jealously.
+
+"Post tells me," he said, "he has the very man you want for your
+architect.  He's sure you'll find him most understanding and--and-
+-
+sympathetic.  He's a young man who is just coming to the front,
+and he's very popular, especially with women."
+
+"What's his being popular with women," asked Aline, "got to do
+with his carrying out my ideas of a house?"
+
+"That's just it," said Griswold--"it's the woman who generally has
+the most to say as to how her house shall be built, and this man
+understands woman.  I have reasons for believing he will certainly
+understand you!"
+
+"If he understands me well enough to give me all the
+linen-closets I want," said Aline, "he will be perfectly
+satisfactory."
+
+Before delivering his blow Griswold sank back into his corner of
+the car, drew his hat brim over his forehead, and fixed spying
+eyes upon the very lovely face of the girl he had asked to marry
+him.
+
+"His name," he said in fateful tones, "is Charles Cochran!"
+
+It was supposed to be a body blow; but, to his distress, Aline
+neither started nor turned pale.  Neither, for trying to trick
+her, did she turn upon him in reproof and anger.  Instead, with
+alert eyes, she continued to peer out of the window at the
+electric-light advertisements and her beloved Broadway.
+
+"Well?" demanded Griswold; his tone was hoarse and heavy with
+meaning.
+
+"Well what?" asked Aline pleasantly.
+
+"How," demanded Griswold, "do you like Charles Cochran for an
+architect?"
+
+"How should I know?" asked Aline.  "I've not met him yet!"
+
+She had said it! And she had said it without the waver of one of
+her lovely eyelashes.  No wonder the public already hailed her as
+a finished actress! Griswold felt that his worst fears were
+justified.  She had lied to him.  And, as he knew she had never
+before lied to him, that now she did so proved beyond hope of
+doubt that the reason for it was vital, imperative, and compelling.
+But of his suspicions Griswold gave no sign.  He would not at
+once expose her.  He had trapped her, but as yet she must not
+know that.  He would wait until he had still further entangled
+her--until she could not escape; and then, with complete proof
+of her deceit, he would confront and overwhelm her.
+
+With this amiable purpose in mind he called early the next morning
+upon Post & Constant and asked to see Mr. Cochran.  He wished,
+he said, to consult him about the new house.  Post had not yet
+reached the office, and of Griswold's visit with Post to his house
+Cochran was still ignorant.  He received Griswold most courteously.
+He felt that the man who was loved by the girl he also had long and
+hopelessly worshipped was deserving of the highest consideration.
+Griswold was less magnanimous.  When he found his rival--for as
+such he beheld him--was of charming manners and gallant appearance
+he considered that fact an additional injury; but he concealed his
+resentment, for he was going to trap Cochran, too.
+
+He found the architect at work leaning over a drawing-board, and
+as they talked Cochran continued to stand.  He was in his shirt-sleeves,
+which were rolled to his shoulders; and the breadth of those shoulders
+and the muscles of his sunburned arms were much in evidence.
+Griswold considered it a vulgar exhibition.
+
+For over ten minutes they talked solely of the proposed house,
+but not once did Griswold expose the fact that he had seen any
+more of it than any one might see from the public road.  When he
+rose to take his leave he said:
+
+"How would it do if I motored out Sunday and showed your house
+to Miss Proctor? Sunday is the only day she has off, and if it would not
+inconvenience you--"
+
+The tender heart of Cochran leaped in wild tumult; he could not
+conceal his delight, nor did he attempt to do so; and his expression
+made it entirely unnecessary for him to assure Griswold that such a
+visit would be entirely welcome and that they might count on finding
+him at home.  As though it were an afterthought, Griswold halted at
+the door and said:
+
+"I believe you are already acquainted with Miss Proctor."
+
+Cochran, conscious of five years of devotion, found that he was
+blushing, and longed to strangle himself.  Nor was the blush lost
+upon Griswold.
+
+"I'm sorry," said Cochran, "but I've not had that honor.  On the
+stage, of course--"
+
+He shrugged the broad shoulders deprecatingly, as though to suggest
+that not to know Miss Proctor as an artist argues oneself unknown.
+
+Griswold pretended to be puzzled.  As though endeavoring to recall
+a past conversation he frowned.
+
+"But Aline," he said, "told me she had met you-met you at Bar
+Harbor."  In the fatal photographs the familiar landfalls of Bar
+Harbor had been easily recognized.
+
+The young architect shook his head.
+
+"It must be another Cochran," he suggested.  "I have never been in
+Bar Harbor."
+
+With the evidence of the photographs before him this last
+statement was a verdict of guilty, and Griswold, not with the
+idea of giving Cochran a last chance to be honest, but to cause
+him to dig the pit still deeper, continued to lead him on.  "Maybe
+she meant York Harbor?"
+
+Again Cochran shook his head and laughed.
+
+"Believe me," he said, "if I'd ever met Miss Proctor anywhere I
+wouldn't forget it!"
+
+Ten minutes later Griswold was talking to Aline over the telephone.
+He intended to force matters.  He would show Aline she could neither
+trifle with nor deceive Chester Griswold; but the thought that he had
+been deceived was not what most hurt him.  What hurt him was to
+think that Aline had preferred a man who looked like an advertisement
+for ready-made clothes and who worked in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+Griswold took it for granted that any woman would be glad to marry him.
+So many had been willing to do so that he was convinced, when one of
+them was not, it was not because there was anything wrong with him,
+but because the girl herself lacked taste and perception.
+
+That the others had been in any degree moved by his many millions
+had never suggested itself.  He was convinced each had loved him for
+himself alone; and if Aline, after meeting him, would still consider any
+one else, it was evident something was very wrong with Aline.  He was
+determined that she must be chastened--must be brought to a proper
+appreciation of her good fortune and of his condescension.
+
+On being called to the telephone at ten in the morning, Aline
+demanded to know what could excuse Griswold for rousing her
+in the middle of the night!
+
+Griswold replied that, though the day was young, it also was
+charming; that on Sunday there might be rain; and that if she
+desired to see the house he and Post thought would most suit her,
+he and his car would be delighted to convey her to it.  They could
+make the run in an hour, lunch with friends at Westbury, and
+return in plenty of time for the theatre.  Aline was delighted at
+the sudden interest Griswold was showing in the new house.
+Without a moment's hesitation she walked into the trap.  She
+would go, she declared, with pleasure.  In an hour he should
+call for her.
+
+Exactly an hour later Post arrived at his office.  He went directly
+to Cochran.
+
+"Charles," he said, "I'm afraid I got you into trouble yesterday.
+I took a client to see your house.  You have often let us do it before;
+but since I was there last you've made some changes.  In your bedroom--"
+Post stopped.
+
+Cochran's naive habit of blushing told him it was not necessary
+to proceed.  In tones of rage and mortification Cochran swore
+explosively; Post was relieved to find he was swearing at himself.
+
+"I ought to be horsewhipped!" roared Cochran.  "I'll never forgive
+myself! Who," he demanded, "saw the pictures? Was it a man or a
+woman?"
+
+Post laughed unhappily.
+
+"It was Chester Griswold."
+
+A remarkable change came over Cochran.  Instead of sobering him,
+as Post supposed it would, the information made him even more
+angry--only now his anger was transferred from himself to Griswold.
+
+"The blankety-blank bounder!" yelled Cochran.  "That was what he
+wanted! That's why he came here!"
+
+"Here!" demanded Post.
+
+"Not an hour ago," cried Cochran.  "He asked me about Bar Harbor.
+He saw those pictures were taken at Bar Harbor!"
+
+"I think," said Post soothingly, "he'd a right to ask questions.
+There were so many pictures, and they were very--well--very!"
+
+"I'd have answered his questions," roared Cochran, "if he'd asked
+them like a man, but he came snooping down here to spy on me.
+He tried to trick me.  He insulted me! He insulted her!" He emitted
+a howl of dismay.  "And I told him I'd never been to Bar Harbor--
+that I'd never met Aline Proctor!"
+
+Cochran seized his coat and hat.  He shouted to one of the office
+boys to telephone the garage for his car.
+
+"What are you--where are you going?" demanded Post.
+
+"I'm going home first," cried Cochran, "to put those pictures in
+a safe, as I should have done three months ago.  And then I'm
+going to find Chester Griswold and tell him he's an ass and a
+puppy!"
+
+"If you do that," protested Post, "you're likely to lose us a very
+valuable client."
+
+"And your client," roared Charles, "is likely to lose some very
+valuable teeth!"
+
+As Charles whirled into the country road in which stood his house
+he saw drawn up in front of it the long gray car in which, that morning,
+Chester Griswold had called at the office.  Cochran emitted a howl of
+anger.  Was his home again to be invaded? And again while he was
+absent? To what extreme would Griswold's jealousy next lead him?
+He fell out of his own car while it still moved, and leaped up the garden
+walk.  The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom
+he heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold.  The audacity
+of the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him
+red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry.  The Lord
+had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his
+bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge,
+distinctly jubilant.  In the passageway a frightened maid servant, who,
+at his unexpected arrival, was now even more frightened, endeavored
+to give him an explanation; but he waved her into silence, and, striding
+before her, entered his bedroom.
+
+He found confronting him a tall and beautiful young woman.  It was
+not the Aline Proctor he knew.  It was not the well-poised, gracious,
+and distinguished beauty he had seen gliding among the tables at
+Sherry's or throwing smiles over the footlights.  This Aline Proctor
+was a very indignant young person, with flashing eyes, tossing head,
+and a stamping foot.  Extended from her at arm's length, she held a
+photograph of herself in a heavy silver frame; and, as though it were
+a weapon, she was brandishing it in the face of Chester Griswold.
+As Cochran, in amazement, halted in the doorway she was exclaiming:
+
+"I told you I didn't know Charles Cochran! I tell you so now! If you
+can't believe me-"
+
+Out of the corner of her flashing eyes the angry lady caught sight of
+Cochran in the doorway.  She turned upon the intruder as though she
+meant forcibly to eject him.
+
+"Who are you?" she demanded.  Her manner and tone seemed to add:
+"And what the deuce are you doing here?"
+
+Charles answered her tone.
+
+"I am Charles Cochran," he said.  "I live here.  This is my house!"
+
+These words had no other effect upon Miss Proctor than to switch
+her indignation down another track.  She now turned upon Charles.
+
+"Then, if this is your house," cried that angry young person,
+"why have you filled it with photographs of me that belong to
+some one else?"
+
+Charles saw that his hour had come.  His sin had found him out.  He
+felt that to prevaricate would be only stupid.
+
+Griswold had tried devious methods--and look where his devious
+methods had dumped him! Griswold certainly was in wrong.  Charles
+quickly determined to adopt a course directly opposite.  Griswold
+had shown an utter lack of confidence in Aline.  Charles decided
+that he would give her his entire confidence, would throw himself
+upon the mercy of the court.
+
+"I have those photographs in my house, Miss Proctor," he said,
+"because I have admired you a long time.  They were more like you
+than those I could buy.  Having them here has helped me a lot, and it
+hasn't done you any harm.  You know very well you have anonymous
+admirers all over this country.  I'm only one of them.  If I have offended,
+I have offended with many, many thousands."
+
+Already it has been related that Cochran was very good to look
+upon.  At the present moment, as he spoke in respectful, even
+soulful accents, meekly and penitently proclaiming his
+long-concealed admiration, Miss Proctor found her indignation
+melting like an icicle in the sun.
+
+Still, she did not hold herself cheaply.  She was accustomed to
+such open flattery.  She would not at once capitulate.
+
+"But these pictures," she protested, "I gave to a man I knew.  You
+have no right to them.  They are not at all the sort of picture I
+would give to an utter stranger!"  With anxiety the lovely lady
+paused for a reply.  She hoped that the reply the tall young man
+with appealing eyes would make would be such as to make it
+possible for her to forgive him.
+
+He was not given time to reply.  With a mocking snort Griswold
+interrupted.  Aline and Charles had entirely forgotten him.
+
+"An utter stranger!" mimicked Griswold.  "Oh, yes; he's an utter
+stranger! You're pretty good actors, both of you; but you can't
+keep that up long, and you'd better stop it now."
+
+"Stop what?" asked Miss Proctor.  Her tone was cold and calm, but
+in her eyes was a strange light.  It should have warned Griswold
+that he would have been safer under the bed.
+
+"Stop pretending!" cried Griswold.  "I won't have it!"
+
+"I don't understand," said Miss Proctor.  She spoke in the same
+cold voice, only now it had dropped several degrees nearer freezing.
+"I don't think you understand yourself.  You won't have what?"
+
+Griswold now was frightened, and that made him reckless.  Instead
+of withdrawing he plunged deeper.
+
+"I won't have you two pretending you don't know each other," he
+blustered.  "I won't stand being fooled! If you're going to deceive
+me before we're married, what will you do after we're married?"
+
+Charles emitted a howl.  It was made up of disgust, amazement, and
+rage.  Fiercely he turned upon Miss Proctor.
+
+"Let me have him!" he begged.
+
+"No!" almost shouted Miss Proctor.  Her tone was no longer cold--it
+was volcanic.  Her eyes, flashing beautifully, were fixed upon Griswold.
+She made a gesture as though to sweep Charles out of the room.
+"Please go!" she demanded.  "This does not concern you."
+
+Her tone was one not lightly to be disregarded.  Charles disregarded it.
+
+"It does concern me," he said briskly.  "Nobody can insult a woman
+in my house--you, least of all!"  He turned upon the greatest catch
+in America.  "Griswold," he said, "I never met this lady until I
+came into this room; but I know her, understand her, value her
+better than you'd understand her if you knew her a thousand
+years!"
+
+Griswold allowed him to go no farther.
+
+"I know this much," he roared: "she was in love with the man who
+took those photographs, and that man was in love with her! And
+you're that man!"
+
+"What if I am!" roared back Charles.  "Men always have loved her;
+men always will--because she's a fine, big, wonderful woman! You
+can't see that, and you never will.  You insulted her! Now I'll give
+you time to apologize for that, and then I'll order you out of this
+house! And if Miss Proctor is the sort of girl I think she is, she'll
+order you out of it, too!"
+
+Both men swung toward Miss Proctor.  Her eyes were now smiling
+excitedly.  She first turned them upon Charles, blushing most
+becomingly.
+
+"Miss Proctor," she said, "hopes she is the sort of girl
+Mr. Cochran thinks she is."  She then turned upon the greatest
+catch in America.  "You needn't wait, Chester," she said, "not
+even to apologize."
+
+Chester Griswold, alone in his car, was driven back to New York.
+On the way he invented a story to explain why, at the eleventh
+hour, he had jilted Aline Proctor; but when his thoughts reverted
+to the young man he had seen working with his sleeves rolled up
+he decided it would be safer to let Miss Proctor tell of the broken
+engagement in her own way.
+
+Charles would not consent to drive his fair guest back to New
+York until she had first honored him with her presence at
+luncheon.  It was served for two, on his veranda, under the
+climbing honeysuckles.  During the luncheon he told her all.
+
+Miss Proctor, in the light of his five years of devotion,
+magnanimously forgave him.
+
+"Such a pretty house!" she exclaimed as they drove away from it.
+"When Griswold selected it for our honeymoon he showed his first
+appreciation of what I really like."
+
+"It is still at your service!" said Charles.
+
+Miss Proctor's eyes smiled with a strange light, but she did not
+speak.  It was a happy ride; but when Charles left her at the door
+of her apartment-house he regarded sadly and with regret the
+bundle of retrieved photographs that she carried away.
+
+"What is it?" she asked kindly.
+
+"I'm thinking of going back to those empty frames," said Charles,
+and blushed deeply.  Miss Proctor blushed also.  With delighted
+and guilty eyes she hastily scanned the photographs.  Snatching one
+from the collection, she gave it to him and then ran up the steps.
+
+In the light of the spring sunset the eyes of Charles devoured
+the photograph of which, at last, he was the rightful owner.  On
+it was written: "As long as this rock lasts!"
+
+As Charles walked to his car his expression was distinctly
+thoughtful.
+
+
+
+
+THE MEN OF ZANZIBAR
+
+
+
+When his hunting trip in Uganda was over, Hemingway shipped his
+specimens and weapons direct from Mombasa to New York, but he
+himself journeyed south over the few miles that stretched to
+Zanzibar.
+
+On the outward trip the steamer had touched there, and the
+little he saw of the place had so charmed him that all the time
+he was on safari he promised himself he would not return home
+without revisiting it.  On the morning he arrived he had called
+upon Harris, his consul, to inquire about the hotel; and that
+evening Harris had returned his call and introduced him at
+the club.
+
+One of the men there asked Hemingway what brought him to
+Africa, and when he answered simply and truthfully that he had
+come to shoot big game, it was as though he had said something
+clever, and every one smiled.  On the way back to the hotel, as
+they felt their way through the narrow slits in the wall that
+served as streets, he asked the consul why every one had smiled.
+
+The consul laughed evasively.
+
+"It's a local joke," he explained.  "A lot of men come here for
+reasons best kept to themselves, and they all say what you said,
+that they've come to shoot big game.  It's grown to be a polite
+way of telling a man it is none of his business."
+
+"But I didn't mean it that way," protested Hemingway.  "I really
+have been after big game for the last eight months."
+
+In the tone one uses to quiet a drunken man or a child, the
+consul answered soothingly.
+
+"Of course," he assented-- "of course you have."  But to show he
+was not hopelessly credulous, and to keep Hemingway from
+involving himself deeper, he hinted tactfully:  "Maybe they
+noticed you came ashore with only one steamer trunk and no
+gun-cases." 
+
+"Oh, that's easily explained," laughed Hemingway.  "My heavy
+luggage--"
+
+The consul had reached his house and his "boy" was pounding upon
+it with his heavy staff.
+
+"Please don't explain to me," he begged.  "It's quite unnecessary.
+Down here we're so darned glad to see any white man that we don't
+ask anything of him except that he won't hurry away.  We judge
+them as they behave themselves here; we don't care what they are
+at home or why they left it."
+
+Hemingway was highly amused.  To find that he, a respectable,
+sport-loving Hemingway of Massachusetts, should be mistaken for a
+gun-runner, slave-dealer, or escaping cashier greatly delighted
+him.
+
+"All right!" he exclaimed.  "I'll promise not to bore you with my past,
+and I agree to be judged by Zanzibar standards.  I only hope I can
+live up to them, for I see I am going to like the place very much."
+
+Hemingway kept his promise.  He bored no one with confidences as
+to his ancestors.  Of his past he made a point never to speak.  He
+preferred that the little community into which he had dropped
+should remain unenlightened, should take him as they found him.
+Of the fact that a college was named after his grandfather and
+that on his father's railroad he could travel through many
+States, he was discreetly silent.
+
+The men of Zanzibar asked no questions.  That Hemingway could play
+a stiff game of tennis, a stiffer game of poker, and, on the piano, songs
+from home was to them sufficient recommendation.  In a week he had
+become one of the most popular members of Zanzibar society.  It was
+as though he had lived there always.  Hemingway found himself reaching
+out to grasp the warmth of the place as a flower turns to the sun.  He
+discovered that for thirty years something in him had been cheated.
+For thirty years he had believed that completely to satisfy his soul all
+he needed was the gray stone walls and the gray-shingled cabins under
+the gray skies of New England, that what in nature he most loved was
+the pine forests and the fields of goldenrod on the rock-bound coast
+of the North Shore.  But now, like a man escaped from prison, he
+leaped and danced in the glaring sunlight of the equator, he revelled
+in the reckless generosity of nature, in the glorious confusion of
+colors, in the "blooming blue" of the Indian Ocean, in the Arabian
+nights spent upon the housetops under the purple sky, and beneath
+silver stars so near that he could touch them with his hand.
+
+He found it like being perpetually in a comic opera and playing a
+part in one.  For only the scenic artist would dare to paint houses
+in such yellow, pink, and cobalt-blue; only a "producer" who had
+never ventured farther from Broadway than the Atlantic City
+boardwalk would have conceived costumes so mad and so
+magnificent.  Instinctively he cast the people of Zanzibar in the
+conventional roles of musical comedy.
+
+His choruses were already in waiting.  There was the Sultan's
+body-guard in gold-laced turbans, the merchants of the bazaars in
+red fezzes and gowns of flowing silk, the Malay sailors in blue,
+the black native police in scarlet, the ladies of the harems closely
+veiled and cloaked, the market women in a single garment of
+orange, or scarlet, or purple, or of all three, and the happy,
+hilarious Zanzibari boys in the color God gave them.
+
+For hours he would sit under the yellow-and-green awning of the
+Greek hotel and watch the procession pass, or he would lie under
+an umbrella on the beach and laugh as the boatmen lifted their
+passengers to their shoulders and with them splash through the
+breakers, or in the bazaars for hours he would bargain with the
+Indian merchants, or in the great mahogany hall of the Ivory
+House, to the whisper of a punka and the tinkle of ice in a tall
+glass, listen to tales of Arab raids, of elephant poachers, of
+the trade in white and black ivory, of the great explorers who
+had sat in that same room--of Emin Pasha, of Livingstone, of
+Stanley.  His comic opera lacked only a heroine and the love
+interest.
+
+When he met Mrs. Adair he found both.  Polly Adair, as every
+one who dared to do so preferred to call her, was, like himself, an
+American and, though absurdly young, a widow.  In the States she
+would have been called an extremely pretty girl.  In a community
+where the few dozen white women had wilted and faded in the
+fierce sun of the equator, and where the rest of the women were
+jet black except their teeth, which were dyed an alluring purple,
+Polly Adair was as beautiful as a June morning.  At least, so
+Hemingway thought the first time he saw her, and each succeeding
+time he thought her more beautiful, more lovely, more to be loved.
+
+He met her, three days after his arrival, at the residence of the
+British agent and consul-general, where Lady Firth was giving tea
+to the six nurses from the English hospital and to all the other
+respectable members of Zanzibar society.
+
+"My husband's typist," said her ladyship as she helped Hemingway
+to tea, "is a copatriot of yours.  She's such a nice gell; not a bit like
+an American.  I don't know what I'd do in this awful place without her.
+Promise me," she begged tragically, "you will not ask her to marry you."
+
+Unconscious of his fate, Hemingway promised.
+
+"Because all the men do," sighed Lady Firth, "and I never know
+what morning one of the wretches won't carry her off to a home of
+her own.  And then what would become of me? Men are so selfish!
+If you must fall in love," suggested her ladyship, "promise me you
+will fall in love with"--she paused innocently and raised baby-blue
+eyes, in a baby-like stare--"with some one else."
+
+Again Hemingway promised.  He bowed gallantly.  "That will be quite
+easy," he said.
+
+Her ladyship smiled, but Hemingway did not see the smile.  He was
+looking past her at a girl from home, who came across the terrace
+carrying in her hand a stenographer's note-book.
+
+Lady Firth followed the direction of his eyes and saw the look in
+them.  She exclaimed with dismay:
+
+"Already! Already he deserts me, even before the ink is dry on
+the paper."
+
+She drew the note-book from Mrs. Adair's fingers and dropped it
+under the tea-table.
+
+"Letters must wait, my child," she declared.
+
+"But Sir George--" protested the girl.
+
+"Sir George must wait, too," continued his wife; "the Foreign Office
+must wait, the British Empire must wait until you have had your tea."
+
+The girl laughed helplessly.  As though assured her fellow
+countryman would comprehend, she turned to him.
+
+"They're so exactly like what you want them to be," she said--"I
+mean about their tea!"
+
+Hemingway smiled back with such intimate understanding that
+Lady Firth glanced up inquiringly.
+
+"Have you met Mrs. Adair already?" she asked.
+
+"No," said Hemingway, "but I have been trying to meet her for
+thirty years."
+
+Perplexed, the Englishwoman frowned, and then, with delight at
+her own perspicuity, laughed aloud. 
+
+"I know," she cried, "in your country you are what they call a
+'hustler'! Is that right?" She waved them away.  "Take Mrs. Adair
+over there," she commanded, "and tell her all the news from home.
+Tell her about the railroad accidents and 'washouts' and the
+latest thing in lynching."
+
+The young people stretched out in long wicker chairs in the shade
+of a tree covered with purple flowers.  On a perch at one side of
+them an orang-outang in a steel belt was combing the whiskers of
+her infant daughter; at their feet what looked like two chow puppies,
+but which happened to be Lady Firth's pet lions, were chewing each
+other's toothless gums; and in the immediate foreground the hospital
+nurses were defying the sun at tennis while the Sultan's band played
+selections from a Gaiety success of many years in the past.  With these
+surroundings it was difficult to talk of home.  Nor on any later occasions,
+except through inadvertence, did they talk of home. 
+
+For the reasons already stated, it amused Hemingway to volunteer
+no confidences.  On account of what that same evening Harris told
+him of Mrs. Adair, he asked none.
+
+Harris himself was a young man in no way inclined to withhold
+confidences.  He enjoyed giving out information.  He enjoyed
+talking about himself, his duties, the other consuls, the Zanzibaris,
+and his native State of Iowa.  So long as he was permitted to talk,
+the listener could select the subject.  But, combined with his loquacity,
+Hemingway had found him kind-hearted, intelligent, observing, and
+the call of a common country had got them quickly together. 
+
+Hemingway was quite conscious that the girl he had seen but once
+had impressed him out of all proportion to what he knew of her.
+She seemed too good to be true.  And he tried to persuade himself
+that after eight months in the hinterland among hippos and zebras
+any reasonably attractive girl would have proved equally disturbing. 
+
+But he was not convinced.  He did not wish to be convinced.  He
+assured himself that had he met Mrs. Adair at home among hundreds
+of others he would have recognized her as a woman of exceptional
+character, as one especially charming.  He wanted to justify this
+idea of her; he wanted to talk of Mrs. Adair to Harris, not to learn
+more concerning her, but just for the pleasure of speaking her name.
+
+He was much upset at that, and the discovery that on meeting a
+woman for the first time he still could be so boyishly and ingenuously
+moved greatly pleased him.  It was a most delightful secret.  So he acted
+on the principle that when a man immensely admires a woman and
+wishes to conceal that fact from every one else he can best do so by
+declaring his admiration in the frankest and most open manner.  After
+the tea-party, as Harris and himself sat in the consulate, he so expressed
+himself.
+
+"What an extraordinary nice girl," he exclaimed, "is that Mrs. Adair!
+I had a long talk with her.  She is most charming.  However did a
+woman like that come to be in a place like this?"
+
+Judging from his manner, it seemed to Hemingway that at the
+mention of Mrs. Adair's name he had found Harris mentally on
+guard, as though the consul had guessed the question would come
+and had prepared for it. 
+
+"She just dropped in here one day," said Harris, "from no place
+in particular.  Personally, I always have thought from heaven."
+
+"It's a good address," said Hemingway. 
+
+"It seems to suit her," the consul agreed.  "Anyway, if she doesn't come
+from there, that's where she's going--just on account of the good she's
+done us while she's been here.  She arrived four months ago with a
+typewriting-machine and letters to me from our consuls in Cape Town
+and Durban.  She had done some typewriting for them.  It seems that
+after her husband died, which was a few months after they were married,
+she learned to make her living by typewriting.  She worked too hard
+and broke down, and the doctor said she must go to hot countries, the
+'hotter the better.'  So she's worked her way half around the world
+typewriting.  She worked chiefly for her own consuls or for the American
+commission houses.  Sometimes she stayed a month, sometimes only over
+one steamer day.  But when she got here Lady Firth took such a fancy to
+her that she made Sir George engage her as his private secretary, and she's
+been here ever since."
+
+In a community so small as was that of Zanzibar the white residents
+saw one another every day, and within a week Hemingway had met
+Mrs. Adair many times.  He met her at dinner, at the British agency;
+he met her in the country club, where the white exiles gathered for
+tea and tennis.  He hired a launch and in her honor gave a picnic
+on the north coast of the island, and on three glorious and memorable
+nights, after different dinner-parties had ascended to the roof, he sat
+at her side and across the white level of the housetops looked down
+into the moonlit harbor.
+
+What interest the two young people felt in each other was in no
+way discouraged by their surroundings.  In the tropics the tender
+emotions are not winter killed.  Had they met at home, the
+conventions, his own work, her social duties would have kept the
+progress of their interest within a certain speed limit.  But they
+were in a place free of conventions, and the preceding eight
+months which Hemingway had spent in the jungle and on the plain
+had made the society of his fellow man, and of Mrs. Adair in
+particular, especially attractive.
+
+Hemingway had no work to occupy his time, and he placed it
+unreservedly at the disposition of his countrywoman.  In doing so
+it could not be said that Mrs. Adair encouraged him.  Hemingway
+himself would have been the first to acknowledge this.  From the
+day he met her he was conscious that always there was an intangible
+barrier between them.  Even before she possibly could have guessed
+that his interest in her was more than even she, attractive as she was,
+had the right to expect, she had wrapped around herself an invisible
+mantle of defense.
+
+There were certain speeches of his which she never heard, certain tones
+to which she never responded.  At moments when he was complimenting
+himself that at last she was content to be in his company, she would
+suddenly rise and join the others, and he would be left wondering in
+what way he could possibly have offended. 
+
+He assured himself that a woman, young and attractive, in a
+strange land in her dependent position must of necessity be
+discreet, but in his conduct there certainly had been nothing
+that was not considerate, courteous, and straightforward.
+
+When he appreciated that he cared for her seriously, that he was
+gloriously happy in caring, and proud of the way in which he
+cared, the fact that she persistently held him at arm's length
+puzzled and hurt.  At first when he had deliberately set to work
+to make her like him he was glad to think that, owing to his
+reticence about himself, if she did like him it would be for himself
+alone and not for his worldly goods.  But when he knew her better
+he understood that if once Mrs. Adair made up her mind to take
+a second husband, the fact that he was a social and financial
+somebody, and not, as many in Zanzibar supposed Hemingway
+to be, a social outcast, would make but little difference. 
+
+Nor was her manner to be explained by the fact that the majority
+of women found him unattractive.  As to that, the pleasant burden
+of his experience was to the contrary.  He at last wondered if
+there was some one else, if he had come into her life too late.
+He set about looking for the man and so, he believed, he soon
+found him. 
+
+Of the little colony, Arthur Fearing was the man of whom Hemingway
+had seen the least.  That was so because Fearing wished it.  Like
+himself, Fearing was an American, young, and a bachelor, but, 
+very much unlike Hemingway, a hermit and a recluse.
+
+Two years before he had come to Zanzibar looking for an
+investment for his money.  In Zanzibar there were gentlemen
+adventurers of every country, who were welcome to live in any
+country save their own.
+
+To them Mr. Fearing seemed a heaven-sent victim.  But to him their
+alluring tales of the fortunes that were to rise from buried treasures,
+lost mines, and pearl beds did not appeal.  Instead he conferred
+with the consuls, the responsible merchants, the partners in the
+prosperous trading houses.  After a month of "looking around" he
+had purchased outright the goodwill and stock of one of the oldest
+of the commission houses, and soon showed himself to be a most
+capable man of business.  But, except as a man of business, no one
+knew him.  From the dim recesses of his warehouse he passed each
+day to the seclusion of his bungalow in the country.  And, although
+every one was friendly to him, he made no friends.
+
+It was only after the arrival of Mrs. Adair that he consented to show
+himself, and it was soon noted that it was only when she was invited
+that he would appear, and that on these occasions he devoted himself
+entirely to her.  In the presence of others, he still was shy, gravely
+polite, and speaking but little, and never of himself; but with
+Mrs. Adair his shyness seemed to leave him, and when with her
+he was seen to talk easily and eagerly.  And, on her part, to what
+he said, Polly Adair listened with serious interest. 
+
+Lady Firth, who, at home, was a trained and successful match-maker,
+and who, in Zanzibar, had found but a limited field for her activities,
+decided that if her companion and protegee must marry, she should
+marry Fearing. 
+
+Fearing was no gentleman adventurer, remittance-man, or humble
+clerk serving his apprenticeship to a steamship line or an ivory
+house.  He was one of the pillars of Zanzibar society.  The trading
+house he had purchased had had its beginnings in the slave-trade,
+and now under his alert direction was making a turnover equal to
+that of any of its ancient rivals.  Personally, Fearing was a most
+desirable catch.  He was well-mannered, well-read, of good
+appearance, steady, and, in a latitude only six degrees removed
+from the equator, of impeccable morals.
+
+It is said that it is the person who is in love who always is the
+first to discover his successful rival.  It is either an instinct
+or because his concern is deeper than that of others. 
+
+And so, when Hemingway sought for the influence that separated
+him from Polly Adair, the trail led to Fearing.  To find that the
+obstacle in the path of his true love was a man greatly relieved
+him.  He had feared that what was in the thoughts of Mrs. Adair
+was the memory of her dead husband.  He had no desire to cross
+swords with a ghost.  But to a living rival he could afford to be
+generous.
+
+For he was sure no one could care for Polly Adair as he cared,
+and, like every other man in love, he believed that he alone had
+discovered in her beauties of soul and character that to the rest
+of mankind were hidden.  This knowledge, he assured himself, had
+aroused in him a depth of devotion no one else could hope to
+imitate, and this depth of devotion would in time so impress her,
+would become so necessary to her existence, that it would force
+her at last into the arms of the only man who could offer it.
+
+Having satisfied himself in this fashion, he continued cheerfully
+on his way, and the presence of a rival in no way discouraged
+him.  It only was Polly Adair who discouraged him.  And this,
+in spite of the fact that every hour of the day he tried to bring
+himself pleasantly to her notice.  All that an idle young man in
+love, aided and abetted by imagination and an unlimited letter of
+credit, could do, Hemingway did.  But to no end. 
+
+The treasures he dug out of the bazaars and presented to her,
+under false pretenses as trinkets he happened at that moment
+to find in his pockets, were admired by her at their own great
+value, and returned also under false pretenses, as having been
+offered her only to examine.
+
+"It is for your sister at home, I suppose," she prompted.  "It's
+quite lovely.  Thank you for letting me see it."
+
+After having been several times severely snubbed in this fashion,
+Hemingway remarked grimly as he put a black pearl back into his
+pocket:
+
+"At this rate sister will be mighty glad to see me when I get
+home.  It seems almost a pity I haven't got a sister." 
+
+The girl answered this only with a grave smile.
+
+On another occasion she admired a polo pony that had been
+imported for the stable of the boy Sultan.  But next morning
+Hemingway, after much diplomacy, became the owner of it and
+proudly rode it to the agency.  Lady Firth and Polly Adair walked
+out to meet him arm in arm, but at sight of the pony there came
+into the eyes of the secretary a look that caused Hemingway to
+wish himself and his mount many miles in the jungle.  He saw
+that before it had been proffered, his gift-horse had been rejected.
+He acted promptly. 
+
+"Lady Firth," he said, "you've been so awfully kind to me, made this
+place so like a home to me, that I want you to put this mare in your
+stable.  The Sultan wanted her, but when he learned I meant to turn
+her over to you, he let her go.  We both hope you'll accept."
+
+Lady Firth had no scruples.  In five minutes she had accepted, had
+clapped a side-saddle on her rich gift, and was cantering joyously
+down the Pearl Road.
+
+Polly Adair looked after her with an expression that was
+distinctly wistful.  Thus encouraged, Hemingway said:
+
+"I'm glad you are sorry.  I hope every time you see that pony
+you'll be sorry."
+
+"Why should I be sorry?" asked the girl.
+
+"Because you have been unkind," said Hemingway, "and it is not your
+character to be unkind.  And that you have shown lack of character
+ought to make you sorry."
+
+"But you know perfectly well," said Mrs. Adair, "that if I were
+to take any one of these wonderful things you bring me, I wouldn't
+have any character left."
+
+She smiled at him reassuringly.  "And you know," she added, "that
+that is not why I do not take them.  It isn't because I can't afford to,
+or because I don't want them, because I do; but it's because I don't
+deserve them, because I can give you nothing in return."
+
+"As the copy-book says," returned Hemingway, "'the pleasure is in
+the giving.'  If the copy-book don't say that, I do.  And to pretend
+that you give me nothing, that is ridiculous!" 
+
+It was so ridiculous that he rushed on vehemently.  "Why, every
+minute you give me something," he exclaimed.  "Just to see you,
+just to know you are alive, just to be certain when I turn in at
+night that when the world wakes up again you will still be a part
+of it; that is what you give me.  And its name is--Happiness!"
+
+He had begun quite innocently; he had had no idea that it would
+come.  But he had said it.  As clearly as though he had dropped
+upon one knee, laid his hand over his heart and exclaimed: "Most
+beautiful of your sex, I love you! Will you marry me?"  His eyes
+and the tone of his voice had said it.  And he knew that he had
+said it, and that she knew. 
+
+Her eyes were filled with sudden tears, and so wonderful was the
+light in them that for one mad moment Hemingway thought they were
+tears of happiness.  But the light died, and what had been tears
+became only wet drops of water, and he saw to his dismay that she
+was most miserable. 
+
+The girl moved ahead of him to the cliff on which the agency
+stood, and which overhung the harbor and the Indian Ocean.  Her
+eyes were filled with trouble.  As she raised them to his they begged
+of him to be kind. 
+
+"I am glad you told me," she said.  "I have been afraid it was
+coming.  But until you told me I could not say anything.  I tried
+to stop you.  I was rude and unkind--"
+
+"You certainly were," Hemingway agreed cheerfully.  "And the more
+you would have nothing to do with me, the more I admired you.  And
+then I learned to admire you more, and then to love you.  It seems now
+as though I had always known and always loved you.  And now this
+is what we are going to do."
+
+He wouldn't let her speak; he rushed on precipitately. 
+
+"We are first going up to the house to get your typewriting-machine,
+and we will bring it back here and hurl it as far as we can off this cliff.
+I want to see the splash! I want to hear it smash when it hits that rock.
+It has been my worst enemy, because it helped you to be independent
+of me, because it kept you from me.  Time after time, on the veranda,
+when I was pretending to listen to Lady Firth, I was listening to that
+damned machine banging and complaining and tiring your pretty
+fingers and your dear eyes.  So first it has got to go.  You have been
+its slave, now I am going to be your slave.  You have only to rub
+the lamp and things will happen.  And because I've told you nothing
+about myself, you mustn't think that the money that helps to make
+them happen is 'tainted.'  It isn't.  Nor am I, nor my father, nor my
+father's father.  I am asking you to marry a perfectly respectable
+young man.  And, when you do--"
+
+Again he gave her no opportunity to interrupt, but rushed on
+impetuously:  "We will sail away across that ocean to wherever
+you will take me.  To Ceylon and Tokio and San Francisco, to Naples
+and New York, to Greece and Athens.  They are all near.  They are
+all yours.  Will you accept them and me?"  He smiled appealingly,
+but most miserably.  For though he had spoken lightly and with
+confidence, it was to conceal the fact that he was not at all confident.
+As he had read in her eyes her refusal of his pony, he had read, even
+as he spoke, her refusal of himself.  When he ceased speaking the girl
+answered:
+
+"If I say that what you tell me makes me proud, I am saying too little."
+She shook her head firmly, with an air of finality that frightened
+Hemingway.  "But what you ask--what you suggest is impossible."
+
+"You don't like me?" said Hemingway.
+
+"I like you very much," returned the girl, "and, if I don't seem
+unhappy that it can't be, it is because I always have known it can't
+be--"
+
+"Why can't it be?" rebelled Hemingway.  "I don't mean that I can't
+understand your not wanting to marry me, but if I knew your
+objection, maybe, I could beat it down."
+
+Again, with the same air of finality, the girl moved her head
+slowly, as though considering each word; she began cautiously.
+
+"I cannot tell you the reason," she said, "because it does not
+concern only myself."
+
+"If you mean you care for some one else," pleaded Hemingway,
+"that does not frighten me at all."  It did frighten him extremely,
+but, believing that a faint heart never won anything, he pretended
+to be brave.
+
+"For you," he boasted, "I would go down into the grave as deep as
+any man.  He that hath more let him give.  I know what I offer.  I
+know I love you as no other man--"
+
+The girl backed away from him as though he had struck her.  "You
+must not say that," she commanded.
+
+For the first time he saw that she was moved, that the fingers
+she laced and unlaced were trembling.  "It is final!" exclaimed
+the girl.  "I cannot marry--you, or any one.  I--I have promised.
+I am not free."
+
+"Nothing in the world is final," returned Hemingway sharply,
+"except death."  He raised his hat and, as though to leave her,
+moved away.  Not because he admitted defeat, but because he
+felt that for the present to continue might lose him the chance to
+fight again.  But, to deliver an ultimatum, he turned back.
+
+"As long as you are alive, and I am alive," he told her, "all
+things are possible.  I don't give up hope.  I don't give up you."
+
+The girl exclaimed with a gesture of despair.  "He won't understand!"
+she cried.
+
+Hemingway advanced eagerly.
+
+"Help me to understand," he begged.
+
+"You won't understand," explained the girl, "that I am speaking
+the truth.  You are right that things can change in the future,
+but nothing can change the past.  Can't you understand that?"
+
+"What do I care for the past?" cried the young man scornfully.  "I
+know you as well as though I had known you for a thousand years
+and I love you."
+
+The girl flushed crimson.
+
+"Not my past," she gasped.  "I meant--"
+
+"I don't care what you meant," said Hemingway.  "I'm not prying
+into your little secrets.  I know only one thing--two things, that
+I love you and that, until you love me, I am going to make your
+life hell!" 
+
+He caught at her hands, and for an instant she let him clasp them
+in both of his, while she looked at him. 
+
+Something in her face, other than distress and pity, caused his
+heart to leap.  But he was too wise to speak, and, that she might
+not read the hope in his eyes, turned quickly and left her.  He
+had not crossed the grounds of the agency before he had made up
+his mind as to the reason for her repelling him.
+
+"She is engaged to Fearing!" he told himself.  "She has promised
+to marry Fearing! She thinks that it is too late to consider another
+man!"  The prospect of a fight for the woman he loved thrilled him
+greatly.  His lower jaw set pugnaciously.
+
+"I'll show her it's not too late," he promised himself.  "I'll show her
+which of us is the man to make her happy.  And, if I am not the
+man, I'll take the first outbound steamer and trouble them no more.
+But before that happens," he also promised himself, "Fearing must
+show he is the better man."
+
+In spite of his brave words, in spite of his determination, within the
+day Hemingway had withdrawn in favor of his rival, and, on the
+Crown Prince Eitel, bound for Genoa and New York, had booked his
+passage home.
+
+On the afternoon of the same day he had spoken to Polly Adair,
+Hemingway at the sunset hour betook himself to the consulate.  At
+that hour it had become his custom to visit his fellow countryman
+and with him share the gossip of the day and such a cocktail as
+only a fellow countryman could compose.  Later he was to dine at
+the house of the Ivory Company and, as his heart never ceased
+telling him, Mrs. Adair also was to be present.
+
+"It will be a very pleasant party," said Harris.  "They gave me a
+bid, too, but it's steamer day to-morrow, and I've got to get my
+mail ready for the Crown Prince Eitel.  Mrs. Adair is to be
+there."
+
+Hemingway nodded, and with pleasant anticipation waited.  Of Mrs.
+Adair, Harris always spoke with reverent enthusiasm, and the man
+who loved her delighted to listen.  But this time Harris disappointed
+him.
+
+"And Fearing, too," he added.
+
+Again Hemingway nodded.  The conjunction of the two names surprised
+him, but he made no sign.  Loquacious as he knew Harris to be, he never
+before had heard his friend even suggest the subject that to Zanzibar
+had become of acute interest.
+
+Harris filled the two glasses, and began to pace the room.  When
+he spoke it was in the aggrieved tone of one who feels himself
+placed in a false position.
+
+"There's no one," he complained suddenly, "so popularly unpopular
+as the man who butts in.  I know that, but still I've always taken his
+side.  I've always been for him."  He halted, straddling with legs
+apart and hands deep in his trousers pockets, and frowned down
+upon his guest.
+
+"Suppose," he began aggressively, "I see a man driving his car
+over a cliff.  If I tell him that road will take him over a cliff,
+the worst that can happen to me is to be told to mind my own
+business, and I can always answer back: 'I was only trying to
+help you.'  If I don't speak, the man breaks his neck.  Between
+the two, it seems to me, sooner than have any one's life on my
+hands, I'd rather be told to mind my own business."
+
+Hemingway stared into his glass.  His expression was distinctly
+disapproving, but, undismayed, the consul continued.
+
+"Now, we all know that this morning you gave that polo pony
+to Lady Firth, and one of us guesses that you first offered it to
+some one else, who refused it.  One of us thinks that very soon,
+to-morrow, or even to-night, at this party you may offer that
+same person something else, something worth more than a polo
+pony, and that if she refuses that, it is going to break you all
+up, is going to hurt you for the rest of your life."
+
+Lifting his eyes from his glass, Hemingway shot at his friend a
+glance of warning.  In haste, Harris continued:
+
+"I know," he protested, answering the look, "I know that this is
+where Mr. Buttinsky is told to mind his business.  But I'm going
+right on.  I'm going to state a hypothetical case with no names
+mentioned and no questions asked, or answered.  I'm going to
+state a theory, and let you draw your own deductions."
+
+He slid into a chair, and across the table fastened his eyes on those
+of his friend.  Confidently and undisturbed, but with a wry smile
+of dislike, Hemingway stared fixedly back at him. 
+
+"What," demanded Harris, "is the first rule in detective work?"
+
+Hemingway started.  He was prepared for something unpleasant, but
+not for that particular form of unpleasantness.  But his faith was
+unshaken, and he smiled confidently.  He let the consul answer his
+own question.
+
+"It is to follow the woman," declared Harris.  "And, accordingly,
+what should be the first precaution of a man making his get-away?
+To see that the woman does not follow.  But suppose we are dealing
+with a fugitive of especial intelligence, with a criminal who has
+imagination and brains? He might fix it so that the woman could
+follow him without giving him away, he might plan it so that no one
+would suspect.  She might arrive at his hiding-place only after many
+months, only after each had made separately a long circuit of the
+globe, only after a journey with a plausible and legitimate object.
+She would arrive disguised in every way, and they would meet as
+total strangers.  And, as strangers under the eyes of others, they
+would become acquainted, would gradually grow more friendly,
+would be seen more frequently together, until at last people would
+say: 'Those two mean to make a match of it.'  And then, one day,
+openly, in the sight of all men, with the aid of the law and the
+church, they would resume those relations that existed before the
+man ran away and the woman followed."
+
+There was a short silence.
+
+Hemingway broke it in a tone that would accept no denial.
+
+"You can't talk like that to me," he cried.  "What do you mean?"
+
+Without resentment, the consul regarded him with grave solicitude.
+His look was one of real affection, and, although his tone held the
+absolute finality of the family physician who delivers a sentence
+of death, he spoke with gentleness and regret.
+
+"I mean," he said, "that Mrs. Adair is not a widow, that the man
+she speaks of as her late husband is not dead; that that man is
+Fearing!"
+
+Hemingway felt afraid.  A month before a rhinoceros had charged
+him and had dropped at his feet.  At another time a wounded lioness
+had leaped into his path and crouched to spring.  Then he had not
+been afraid.  Then he had aimed as confidently as though he were
+firing at a straw target.  But now he felt real fear: fear of something
+he did not comprehend, of a situation he could not master, of an
+adversary as strong as Fate.  By a word something had been snatched
+from him that he now knew was as dear to him as life, that was life,
+that was what made it worth continuing.  And he could do nothing
+to prevent it; he could not help himself.  He was as impotent as the
+prisoner who hears the judge banish him into exile.  He tried to adjust
+his mind to the calamity.  But his mind refused.  As easily as with his
+finger a man can block the swing of a pendulum and halt the progress
+of the clock, Harris with a word had brought the entire world to a full
+stop.
+
+And then, above his head, Hemingway heard the lazy whisper of the
+punka, and from the harbor the raucous whistle of the Crown Prince
+Eitel, signalling her entrance.  The world had not stopped; for the
+punka-boy, for the captain of the German steamer, for Harris seated
+with face averted, the world was still going gayly and busily forward.
+Only for him had it stopped.
+
+In spite of the confident tone in which Harris had spoken, in spite of
+the fact that unless he knew it was the truth, he would not have spoken,
+Hemingway tried to urge himself to believe there had been some
+hideous, absurd error.  But in answer came back to him snatches
+of talk or phrases the girl had last addressed to him: "You can
+command the future, but you cannot change the past.  I cannot
+marry you, or any one! I am not free!"
+
+And then to comfort himself, he called up the look he had surprised
+in her eyes when he stood holding her hands in his.  He clung to it,
+as a drowning man will clutch even at a piece of floating seaweed.
+
+When he tried to speak he found his voice choked and stifled, and
+that his distress was evident, he knew from the pity he read in the
+eyes of Harris.
+
+In a voice strange to him, he heard himself saying: "Why do you
+think that? You've got to tell me.  I have a right to know.  This
+morning I asked Mrs. Adair to marry me."
+
+The consul exclaimed with dismay and squirmed unhappily.  "I
+didn't know," he protested.  "I thought I was in time.  I ought to
+have told you days ago, but--"
+
+"Tell me now," commanded Hemingway. 
+
+"I know it in a thousand ways," began Harris.
+
+Hemingway raised his eyes hopefully.
+
+But the consul shook his head.  "But to convince you," he went on,
+"I need tell you only one.  The thousand other proofs are looks they
+have exchanged, sentences I have chanced to overhear, and that each
+of them unknown to the other has told me of little happenings and
+incidents which I found were common to both.  Each has described
+the house in which he or she lived, and it was the same house.  They
+claim to come from different cities in New England, they came from
+the same city.  They claim--"
+
+"That is no proof," cried Hemingway, "either that they are married,
+or that the man is a criminal."
+
+For a moment Harris regarded the other in silence.  Then he said:
+"You're making it very hard for me.  I see I've got to show you.
+It's kindest, after all, to cut quick."  He leaned farther forward,
+and his voice dropped.  Speaking quickly, he said:
+
+"Last summer I lived outside the town in a bungalow on the Pearl
+Road.  Fearing's house was next to mine.  This was before Mrs.
+Adair went to live at the agency, and while she was alone in
+another bungalow farther down the road.  I was ill that summer;
+my nerves went back on me.  I couldn't sleep.  I used to sit all night
+on my veranda and pray for the sun to rise.  From where I sat it was
+dark and no one could see me, but I could see the veranda of Fearing's
+house and into his garden.  And night after night I saw Mrs. Adair
+creep out of Fearing's house, saw him walk with her to the gate, saw
+him in the shadow of the bushes take her in his arms, and saw them
+kiss."  The voice of the consul rose sharply.  "No one knows that but
+you and I, and," he cried defiantly, "it is impossible for us to believe
+ill of Polly Adair.  The easy explanation we refuse.  It is intolerable.
+And so you must believe as I believe; that when she visited Fearing
+by night she went to him because she had the right to go to him,
+because already she was his wife.  And now when every one here
+believes they met for the first time in Zanzibar, when no one will be
+surprised if they should marry, they will go through the ceremony
+again, and live as man and wife, as they are, as they were before he
+fled from America!"
+
+Hemingway was seated with his elbows on the table and his face in
+his hands.  He was so long silent that Harris struck the table roughly
+with his palm.
+
+"Well," he demanded, "why don't you speak? Do you doubt her?
+Don't you believe she is his wife?"
+
+"I refuse to believe anything else!" said Hemingway.  He rose, and
+slowly and heavily moved toward the door.  "And I will not trouble
+them any more," he added.  "I'll leave at sunrise on the Eitel."
+
+Harris exclaimed in dismay, but Hemingway did not hear him.  In
+the doorway he halted and turned back.  From his voice all trace
+of emotion had departed.  "Why," he asked dully, "do you think
+Fearing is a fugitive? Not that it matters to her, since she loves
+him, or that it matters to me.  Only I would like to think you were
+wrong.  I want her to have only the best."
+
+Again the consul moved unhappily.
+
+"I oughtn't to tell you," he protested, "and if I do I ought to tell the
+State Department, and a detective agency first.  They have the call.
+They want him, or a man damned like him."  His voice dropped to a
+whisper.  "The man wanted is Henry Brownell, a cashier of a bank in
+Waltham, Mass., thirty-five years of age, smooth-shaven, college-bred,
+speaking with a marked New England accent, and--and with other
+marks that fit Fearing like the cover on a book.  The department and
+the Pinkertons have been devilling the life out of me about it for nine
+months.  They are positive he is on the coast of Africa.  I put them off.
+I wasn't sure." 
+
+"You've been protecting them," said Hemingway.
+
+"I wasn't sure," reiterated Harris.  "And if I were, the Pinkertons can do
+their own sleuthing.  The man's living honestly now, anyway, isn't he?"
+he demanded; "and she loves him.  At least she's stuck by him.  Why
+should I punish her?"
+
+His tone seemed to challenge and upbraid.
+
+"Good God!" cried the other, "I'm not blaming you! I'd be proud of the
+chance to do as much.  I asked because I'd like to go away thinking she's
+content, thinking she's happy with him."
+
+"Doesn't it look as though she were?" Harris protested.  "She's followed
+him--followed him half around the globe.  If she'd been happier away
+from him, she'd have stayed away from him."
+
+So intent had been the men upon their talk that neither had noted
+the passing of the minutes or, what at other times was an event
+of moment, that the mail steamer had distributed her mail and
+passengers; and when a servant entered bearing lamps, and from
+the office the consul's clerk appeared with a bundle of letters
+from the Eitel, both were taken by surprise.
+
+"So late?" exclaimed Hemingway.  "I must go.  If I'm to sail with
+the Eitel at daybreak, I've little time!"
+
+But he did not go.
+
+As he advanced toward Harris with his hand outstretched in adieu,
+the face of the consul halted him.  With the letters, the clerk
+had placed upon the table a visiting-card, and as it lay in the
+circle of light from the lamp the consul, as though it were alive
+and menacing, stared at it in fascination.  Moving stiffly, he
+turned it so that Hemingway could see.  On it Hemingway read,
+"George S. Sheyer," and, on a lower line, "Representing William
+L. Pinkerton."
+
+To the woman he loved the calamity they dreaded had come, and
+Hemingway, with a groan of dismay, exclaimed aloud:
+
+"It is the end!"
+
+From the darkness of the outer office a man stepped softly into
+the circle of the lamp.  They could see his figure only from the
+waist down; the rest of him was blurred in shadows.
+
+"'It is the end'?" he repeated inquiringly.  He spoke the phrase
+with peculiar emphasis, as though to impress it upon the memory
+of the two others.  His voice was cool, alert, authoritative.  "The
+end of what?" he demanded sharply.
+
+The question was most difficult.  In the silence the detective
+moved into the light.  He was tall and strongly built, his face
+was shrewd and intelligent.  He might have been a prosperous man
+of business.
+
+"Which of you is the consul?" he asked.  But he did not take his
+eyes from Hemingway.
+
+"I am the consul," said Harris.  But still the detective did not
+turn from Hemingway.
+
+"Why," he asked, "did this gentleman, when he read my card, say,
+'It is the end'? The end of what? Has anything been going on here
+that came to an end when he saw my card?"
+
+Disconcerted, in deep embarrassment, Harris struggled for a word.
+But his distress was not observed by the detective.  His eyes,
+suspicious and accusing, still were fixed upon Hemingway, and
+under their scrutiny Harris saw his friend slowly retreat, slowly
+crumple up into a chair, slowly raise his hands to cover his
+face.  As though in a nightmare, he heard him saying savagely:
+
+"It is the end of two years of hell, it is the end of two years
+of fear and agony! Now I shall have peace.  Now I shall sleep!
+I thank God you've come! I thank God I can go back!"
+
+Harris broke the spell by leaping to his feet.  He sprang between
+the two men.
+
+"What does this mean?" he commanded.
+
+Hemingway raised his eyes and surveyed him steadily.
+
+"It means," he said, "that I have deceived you, Harris--that I am
+the man you told me of, I am the man they want."  He turned to the
+officer.
+
+"I fooled him for four months," he said.  "I couldn't fool you for
+five minutes."
+
+The eyes of the detective danced with sudden excitement, joy, and
+triumph.  He shot an eager glance from Hemingway to the consul.
+
+"This man," he demanded; "who is he?"
+
+With an impatient gesture Hemingway signified Harris.
+
+"He doesn't know who I am," he said.  "He knows me as Hemingway.
+I am Henry Brownell, of Waltham, Mass."  Again his face sank into
+the palms of his hands.  "And I'm tired--tired," he moaned.  "I am
+sick of not knowing, sick of running away.  I give myself up."
+
+The detective breathed a sigh of relief that seemed to issue from
+his soul.
+
+"My God," he sighed, "you've given me a long chase! I've had
+eleven months of you, and I'm as sick of this as you are."  He
+recovered himself sharply.  As though reciting an incantation, he
+addressed Hemingway in crisp, emotionless notes.
+
+"Henry Brownell," he chanted, "I arrest you in the name of the
+commonwealth of Massachusetts for the robbery, on October the
+eleventh, nineteen hundred and nine, of the Waltham Title and
+Trust Company.  I understand," he added, "you waive extradition
+and return with me of your own free will?"
+
+With his face still in his hands, Hemingway murmured assent.  The
+detective stepped briskly and uninvited to the table and seated himself.
+He was beaming with triumph, with pleasurable excitement.
+
+"I want to send a message home, Mr. Consul," he said.  "May I use
+your cable blanks?"
+
+Harris was still standing in the centre of the room looking down
+upon the bowed head and shoulders of Hemingway.  Since, in
+amazement, he had sprung toward him, he had not spoken.  And
+he was still silent.
+
+Inside the skull of Wilbur Harris, of Iowa, U. S. A., American
+consul to Zanzibar, East Africa, there was going forward a mighty
+struggle that was not fit to put into words.  For Harris and his
+conscience had met and were at odds.  One way or the other the
+fight must be settled at once, and whatever he decided must be
+for all time.  This he understood, and as his sympathies and
+conscience struggled for the mastery the pen of the detective,
+scratching at racing speed across the paper, warned him that only
+a few seconds were left him in which to protest or else to forever
+after hold his peace.
+
+So realistic had been the acting of Hemingway that for an instant
+Harris himself had been deceived.  But only for an instant.  With
+his knowledge of the circumstances he saw that Hemingway was not
+confessing to a crime of his own, but drawing across the trail of the
+real criminal the convenient and useful red herring.  He knew that
+already Hemingway had determined to sail the next morning.  In
+leaving Zanzibar he was making no sacrifice.  He merely was
+carrying out his original plan, and by taking away with him the
+detective was giving Brownell and his wife at least a month in
+which to again lose themselves.
+
+What was his own duty he could not determine.  That of Hemingway
+he knew nothing, he could truthfully testify.  And if now Hemingway
+claimed to be Henry Brownell, he had no certain knowledge to the
+contrary.  That through his adventure Hemingway would come to
+harm did not greatly disturb him.  He foresaw that his friend need
+only send a wireless from Nantucket and at the wharf witnesses
+would swarm to establish his identity and make it evident the
+detective had blundered.  And in the meanwhile Brownell and
+his wife, in some settlement still further removed from observation,
+would for the second time have fortified themselves against pursuit
+and capture.  He saw the eyes of Hemingway fixed upon him in appeal
+and warning.
+
+The brisk voice of the detective broke the silence.
+
+"You will testify, if need be, Mr. Consul," he said, "that you
+heard the prisoner admit he was Henry Brownell and that he
+surrendered himself of his own free will?"
+
+For an instant the consul hesitated, then he nodded stiffly.
+
+"I heard him," he said.
+
+Three hours later, at ten o' clock of the same evening, the detective
+and Hemingway leaned together on the rail of the Crown Prince
+Eitel.  Forward, in the glare of her cargo lights, to the puffing and
+creaking of derricks and donkey engines, bundles of beeswax, of
+rawhides, and precious tusks of ivory were being hurled into the
+hold; from the shore-boats clinging to the ship's sides came the
+shrieks of the Zanzibar boys, from the smoking-room the blare of
+the steward's band and the clink of glasses.  Those of the youth of
+Zanzibar who were on board, the German and English clerks and
+agents, saw in the presence of Hemingway only a purpose similar
+to their own; the desire of a homesick exile to gaze upon the mirrored
+glories of the Eitel's saloon, at the faces of white men and women, to
+listen to home-made music, to drink home-brewed beer.  As he passed
+the smoking-room they called to him, and to the stranger at his elbow,
+but he only nodded smiling and, avoiding them, ascended to the shadow
+of the deserted boat-deck.
+
+"You are sure," he said, "you told no one?"
+
+"No one," the detective answered.  "Of course your hotel proprietor
+knows you're sailing, but he doesn't know why.  And, by sunrise,
+we'll be well out at sea."
+
+The words caught Hemingway by the throat.  He turned his eyes to
+the town lying like a field of snow in the moonlight.  Somewhere
+on one of its flat roofs a merry dinner-party was laughing, drinking,
+perhaps regretting his absence, wondering at his excuse of sudden
+illness.  She was there, and he with the detective like a shadow at
+his elbow, was sailing out of her life forever.  He had seen her for
+the last time: that morning for the last time had looked into her
+eyes, had held her hands in his.  He saw the white beach, the white
+fortress-like walls, the hanging gardens, the courtesying palms,
+dimly.  It was among those that he who had thought himself content,
+had found happiness, and had then seen it desert him and take out of
+his life pleasure in all other things.  With a pain that seemed impossible
+to support, he turned his back upon Zanzibar and all it meant to him.
+And, as he turned, he faced, coming toward him, across the moonlit deck,
+Fearing.
+
+His instinct was to cry out to the man in warning, but his second
+thought showed him that through his very effort to protect the other,
+he might bring about his undoing.  So, helpless to prevent, in agitation
+and alarm, he waited in silence.  Of the two men, Fearing appeared the
+least disturbed.  With a polite but authoritative gesture he turned to the
+detective.  "I have something to say to this gentleman before he sails,"
+he said; "would you kindly stand over there?"
+
+He pointed across the empty deck at the other rail.
+
+In the alert, confident young man in the English mess-jacket,
+clean-shaven and bronzed by the suns of the equator, the detective
+saw no likeness to the pale, bearded bank clerk of the New England
+city.  This, he guessed, must be some English official, some friend
+of Brownell's who generously had come to bid the unfortunate fugitive
+Godspeed.
+
+Assured of this, the detective also bowed politely, and, out of
+hearing, but with his prisoner in full view, took up a position
+against the rail opposite.
+
+Turning his back upon the detective, and facing Hemingway with
+his eyes close to his, Fearing began abruptly.  His voice was sunk
+to a whisper, but he spoke without the slightest sign of trepidation,
+without the hesitation of an instant.
+
+"Two years ago, when I was indicted," he whispered, "and ran
+away, Polly paid back half of the sum I stole.  That left her
+without a penny; that's why she took to this typewriting.  Since
+then, I have paid back nearly all the rest.  But Polly was not
+satisfied.  She wanted me to take my punishment and start fresh.
+She knew they were watching her so she couldn't write this to me,
+but she came to me by a roundabout way, taking a year to get
+here.  And all the time she's been here, she's been begging me to
+go back and give myself up.  I couldn't see it.  I knew in a few
+months I'd have paid back all I took, and I thought that was enough.
+I wanted to keep out of jail.  But she said I must take my medicine
+in our own country, and start square with a clean slate.  She's done
+a lot for me, and whether I'd have done that for her or not, I don't
+know.  But now, I must! What you did to-night to save me, leaves
+me no choice.  So, I'll sail--"
+
+With an exclamation of anger, Hemingway caught the other by the
+shoulder and dragged him closer.
+
+"To save you!" he whispered.  "No one's thinking of you.  I didn't
+do it for you.  I did it, that you both could escape together, to
+give you time--"
+
+"But I tell you," protested Fearing, "she doesn't want me to escape.
+And maybe she's right.  Anyway, we're sailing with you at--"
+
+"We?" echoed Hemingway.
+
+That again he was to see the woman he loved, that for six weeks
+through summer seas he would travel in her company, filled him
+with alarm, with distress, with a wonderful happiness.
+
+"We?" he whispered, steadying his voice.  "Then--then your wife is
+going with you?"
+
+Fearing gazed at him as though the other had suddenly gone mad.
+
+"My wife!" he exclaimed.  "I haven't got a wife!"  If you mean
+Polly--Mrs. Adair, she is my sister! And she wants to thank you.
+She's below--"
+
+He was not allowed to finish.  Hemingway had flung him to one
+side, and was racing down the deck.
+
+The detective sprang in pursuit.
+
+"One moment, there!" he shouted.
+
+But the man in the white mess-jacket barred his way.
+
+In the moonlight the detective saw that the alert, bronzed young man
+was smiling.
+
+"That's all right," said Fearing.  "He'll be back in a minute.  Besides,
+you don't want him.  I'm the man you want."
+
+
+
+
+THE LONG ARM
+
+
+
+The safe was an old one that opened with a key.  As adjutant,
+Captain Swanson had charge of certain funds of the regiment and
+kept in the safe about five thousand dollars.  No one but himself
+and Rueff, his first sergeant, had access to it.  And as Rueff proved
+an alibi, the money might have been removed by an outsider.  The
+court-martial gave Swanson the benefit of the doubt, and a reprimand
+for not taking greater care of the keys, and Swanson made good the
+five thousand.
+
+Swanson did not think it was a burglar who had robbed the safe.
+He thought Rueff had robbed it, but he could not possibly prove
+that.  At the time of the robbery Rueff was outside the Presidio,
+in uniform, at a moving-picture show in San Francisco.  A dozen
+people saw him there.  Besides, Rueff held an excellent record.
+He was a silent, clerk-like young man, better at "paper work" than
+campaigning, but even as a soldier he had never come upon the books.
+And he had seen service in two campaigns, and was supposed to
+cherish ambitions toward a commission.  But, as he kept much to
+himself, his fellow non-coms could only guess that.
+
+On his captain's account he was loyally distressed over the
+court-martial, and in his testimony tried to shield Swanson, by
+agreeing heartily that through his own carelessness the keys
+might have fallen into the hands of some one outside the post.
+But his loyalty could not save his superior officer from what was
+a verdict virtually of "not proven."
+
+It was a most distressing affair, and, on account of the social
+prominence of Swanson's people, his own popularity, and the name
+he had made at Batangas and in the Boxer business, was much
+commented upon, not only in the services, but by the newspapers
+all over the United States.
+
+
+Every one who knew Swanson knew the court-martial was only a
+matter of form.  Even his enemies ventured only to suggest that
+overnight he might have borrowed the money, meaning to replace it
+the next morning.  And the only reason for considering this explanation
+was that Swanson was known to be in debt.  For he was a persistent
+gambler.  Just as at Pekin he had gambled with death for his number,
+in times of peace he gambled for money.  It was always his own money.
+
+From the start Swanson's own attitude toward the affair was one
+of blind, unreasoning rage.  In it he saw no necessary routine of
+discipline, only crass, ignorant stupidity.  That any one should
+suspect him was so preposterous, so unintelligent, as to be nearly
+comic.  And when, instantly, he demanded a court of inquiry, he
+could not believe it when he was summoned before a court-martial.
+It sickened, wounded, deeply affronted him; turned him quite savage.
+
+On his stand his attitude and answers were so insolent that his
+old friend and classmate, Captain Copley, who was acting as his
+counsel, would gladly have kicked him.  The findings of the
+court-martial, that neither cleared nor condemned, and the
+reprimand, were an intolerable insult to his feelings, and, in a
+fit of bitter disgust with the service and every one in it, Swanson
+resigned.  Of course, the moment he had done so he was sorry.
+Swanson's thought was that he could no longer associate with
+any one who could believe him capable of theft.  It was his
+idea of showing his own opinion of himself and the army.
+
+But no one saw it in that light.  On the contrary, people said:
+"Swanson has been allowed to resign." I n the army, voluntarily
+resigning and being "allowed to resign" lest greater evils befall,
+are two vastly different things.  And when it was too late no one
+than Swanson saw that more clearly.  His anger gave way to extreme
+morbidness.  He believed that in resigning he had assured every one
+of his guilt.  In every friend and stranger he saw a man who doubted
+him.  He imagined snubs, rebuffs, and coldnesses.  His morbidness
+fastened upon his mind like a parasite upon a tree, and the brain
+sickened.  When men and women glanced at his alert, well-set-up
+figure and shoulders, that even when he wore "cits" seemed to support
+epaulets, and smiled approvingly, Swanson thought they sneered.  In
+a week he longed to be back in the army with a homesickness that made
+every one who belonged to it his enemy.
+
+He left San Francisco, where he was known to all, and travelled
+south through Texas, and then to New Orleans and Florida.  He
+never could recall this period with clearness.  He remembered
+changing from one train to another, from one hotel to the next.
+Nothing impressed itself upon him.  For what he had lost nothing
+could give consolation.  Without honor life held no charm.  And
+he believed that in the eyes of all men he was a thief, a pariah,
+and an outcast.
+
+He had been in Cuba with the Army of Occupation, and of that
+beautiful island had grown foolishly fond.  He was familiar with
+every part of it, and he believed in one or another of its pretty
+ports he could so completely hide himself that no one could
+intrude upon his misery.  In the States, in the newspapers he
+seemed to read only of those places where he had seen service, of
+those places and friends and associates he most loved.  In the
+little Cuban village in which he would bury himself he would cut
+himself off from all newspapers, from all who knew him; from
+those who had been his friends, and those who knew his name only
+to connect it with a scandal.
+
+On his way from Port Tampa to Cuba the boat stopped at Key West,
+and for the hour in which she discharged cargo Swanson went
+ashore and wandered aimlessly.  The little town, reared on a flat
+island of coral and limestone, did not long detain him.  The main
+street of shops, eating-houses, and saloons, the pretty residences
+with overhanging balconies, set among gardens and magnolia-trees,
+were soon explored, and he was returning to the boat when the martial
+music of a band caused him to halt.  A side street led to a great gateway
+surmounted by an anchor.  Beyond it Swanson saw lawns of well-kept
+grass, regular paths, pretty cottages, the two-starred flag of an admiral,
+and, rising high above these, like four Eiffel towers, the gigantic masts
+of a wireless.  He recognized that he was at the entrance to the Key
+West naval station, and turned quickly away.
+
+He walked a few feet, the music of the band still in his ears.  In
+an hour he would be steaming toward Cuba, and, should he hold to
+his present purpose, in many years this would be the last time he
+would stand on American soil, would see the uniform of his country,
+would hear a military band lull the sun to sleep.  It would hurt, but
+he wondered if it were not worth the hurt.  A smart sergeant of marines,
+in passing, cast one glance at the man who seemed always to wear
+epaulets, and brought his hand sharply to salute.  The act determined
+Swanson.  He had obtained the salute under false pretenses, but it had
+pleased, not hurt him.  He turned back and passed into the gate of the
+naval station.
+
+From the gate a grass-lined carriage drive led to the waters of
+the harbor and the wharfs.  At its extreme end was the band-stand,
+flanked on one side by the cottage of the admiral, on the other
+by a sail-loft with iron-barred windows and whitewashed walls.
+Upon the turf were pyramids of cannon-balls and, laid out in rows
+as though awaiting burial, old-time muzzle-loading guns.  Across
+the harbor the sun was sinking into the coral reefs, and the spring
+air, still warm from its caresses, was stirred by the music of the
+band into gentle, rhythmic waves.  The scene was one of peace,
+order, and content.
+
+But as Swanson advanced, the measure of the music was instantly
+shattered by a fierce volley of explosions.  They came so suddenly
+and sharply as to make him start.  It was as though from his flank
+a quick-firing gun in ambush had opened upon him.  Swanson smiled
+at having been taken unawares.  For in San Francisco he often had
+heard the roar and rattle of the wireless.  But never before had he
+listened to an attack like this.
+
+From a tiny white-and-green cottage, squatting among the four
+giant masts, came the roar of a forest fire.  One could hear the
+crackle of the flames, the crash of the falling tree-trunks.  The
+air about the cottage was torn into threads; beneath the shocks
+of the electricity the lawn seemed to heave and tremble.  It was
+like some giant monster, bound and fettered, struggling to be
+free.  Now it growled sullenly, now in impotent rage it spat and
+spluttered, now it lashed about with crashing, stunning blows.  It
+seemed as though the wooden walls of the station could not
+contain it.
+
+From the road Swanson watched, through the open windows of the
+cottage, the electric bolts flash and flare and disappear.  The thing
+appealed to his imagination.  Its power, its capabilities fascinated
+him.  In it he saw a hungry monster reaching out to every corner
+of the continent and devouring the news of the world; feeding
+upon tales of shipwreck and disaster, lingering over some dainty
+morsel of scandal, snatching from ships and cities two thousand
+miles away the thrice-told tale of a conflagration, the score of a
+baseball match, the fall of a cabinet, the assassination of a king.
+
+In a sudden access of fierceness, as though in an ecstasy over
+some fresh horror just received, it shrieked and chortled.  And
+then, as suddenly as it had broken forth, it sank to silence, and
+from the end of the carriage drive again rose, undisturbed, the
+music of the band.
+
+The musicians were playing to a select audience.  On benches
+around the band-stand sat a half dozen nurse-maids with knitting
+in their hands, the baby-carriages within arm's length.  On the
+turf older children of the officers were at play, and up and down
+the paths bareheaded girls, and matrons, and officers in uniform
+strolled leisurely.  From the vine-covered cottage of Admiral
+Preble, set in a garden of flowering plants and bending palmettos,
+came the tinkle of tea-cups and the ripple of laughter, and at a
+respectful distance, seated on the dismantled cannon, were
+marines in khaki and bluejackets in glistening white.
+
+It was a family group, and had not Swanson recognized among the
+little audience others of the passengers from the steamer and
+natives of the town who, like himself, had been attracted by the
+music, he would have felt that he intruded.  He now wished to
+remain.  He wanted to carry with him into his exile a memory of
+the men in uniform, of the music, and pretty women, of the gorgeous
+crimson sunset.  But, though he wished to remain, he did not wish
+to be recognized.
+
+From the glances already turned toward him, he saw that in this
+little family gathering the presence of a stranger was an event,
+and he was aware that during the trial the newspapers had made
+his face conspicuous.  Also it might be that stationed at the post
+was some officer or enlisted man who had served with him in Cuba,
+China, or the Philippines, and who might point him out to others.
+Fearing this, Swanson made a detour and approached the band-stand
+from the wharf, and with his back to a hawser-post seated himself
+upon the string-piece.
+
+He was overcome with an intolerable melancholy.  From where he
+sat he could see, softened into shadows by the wire screens of the
+veranda, Admiral Preble and his wife and their guests at tea.  A
+month before, he would have reported to the admiral as the
+commandant of the station, and paid his respects.  Now he could
+not do that; at least not without inviting a rebuff.  A month
+before, he need only have shown his card to the admiral's orderly,
+and the orderly and the guard and the officers' mess and the
+admiral himself would have turned the post upside down to do
+him honor.  But of what avail now was his record in three
+campaigns? Of what avail now was his medal of honor? They
+now knew him as Swanson, who had been court-martialled, who
+had been allowed to resign, who had left the army for the army's
+good; they knew him as a civilian without rank or authority, as an
+ex-officer who had robbed his brother officers, as an outcast.
+
+His position, as his morbid mind thus distorted it, tempted
+Swanson no longer.  For being in this plight he did not feel that
+in any way he was to blame.  But with a flaming anger he still
+blamed his brother officers of the court-martial who had not
+cleared his name and with a clean bill of health restored him to
+duty.  Those were the men he blamed; not Rueff, the sergeant, who
+he believed had robbed him, nor himself, who, in a passion of
+wounded pride, had resigned and so had given reason for gossip;
+but the men who had not in tones like a bugle-call proclaimed his
+innocence, who, when they had handed him back his sword, had
+given it grudgingly, not with congratulation.
+
+
+As he saw it, he stood in a perpetual pillory.  When they had
+robbed him of his honor they had left him naked, and life without
+honor had lost its flavor.  He could eat, he could drink, he could
+exist.  He knew that in many corners of the world white arms would
+reach out to him and men would beckon him to a place at table.
+
+But he could not cross that little strip of turf between him and
+the chattering group on the veranda and hand his card to the
+admiral's orderly.  Swanson loved life.  He loved it so that
+without help, money, or affection he could each morning have
+greeted it with a smile.  But life without honor! He felt a sudden
+hot nausea of disgust.  Why was he still clinging to what had
+lost its purpose, to what lacked the one thing needful?
+
+
+"If life be an ill thing," he thought, "I can lay it down!"
+
+The thought was not new to him, and during the two past weeks of
+aimless wandering he had carried with him his service automatic.
+To reassure himself he laid his fingers on its cold smooth surface.
+He would wait, he determined, until the musicians had finished
+their concert and the women and children had departed, and then--
+
+Then the orderly would find him where he was now seated, sunken
+against the hawser-post with a hole through his heart.  To his disordered
+brain his decision appeared quite sane.  He was sure he never had been
+more calm.  And as he prepared himself for death he assured himself
+that for one of his standard no other choice was possible.  Thoughts
+of the active past, or of what distress in the future his act would bring
+to others, did not disturb him.  The thing had to be, no one lost more
+heavily than himself, and regrets were cowardly.
+
+He counted the money he had on his person and was pleased to find
+there was enough to pay for what services others soon must render
+him.  In his pockets were letters, cards, a cigarette-case, each of
+which would tell his identity.  He had no wish to conceal it, for of
+what he was about to do he was not ashamed.  It was not his act.
+He would not have died "by his own hand."  To his unbalanced
+brain the officers of the court-martial were responsible.  It was
+they who had killed him.  As he saw it, they had made his death
+as inevitable as though they had sentenced him to be shot at
+sunrise.
+
+A line from "The Drums of the Fore and Aft" came back to him.
+Often he had quoted it, when some one in the service had suffered
+through the fault of others.  It was the death-cry of the boy officer,
+Devlin.  The knives of the Ghazi had cut him down, but it was his
+own people's abandoning him in terror that had killed him.  And so,
+with a sob, he flung the line at the retreating backs of his comrades:
+"You've killed me, you cowards!"
+
+Swanson, nursing his anger, repeated this savagely.  He wished he
+could bring it home to those men of the court-martial.  He wished
+he could make them know that his death lay at their door.  He
+determined that they should know.  On one of his visiting-cards he
+pencilled:
+"To the Officers of my Court-Martial: 'You've killed me, you
+cowards!'"
+
+He placed the card in the pocket of his waistcoat.  They would
+find it just above the place where the bullet would burn the cloth.
+
+The band was playing "Auf Wiedersehen," and the waltz carried
+with it the sadness that had made people call the man who wrote
+it the waltz king.  Swanson listened gratefully.  He was glad that
+before he went out, his last mood had been of regret and gentleness.
+The sting of his anger had departed, the music soothed and sobered
+him.  It had been a very good world.  Until he had broken the spine
+of things it had treated him well, far better, he admitted, than he
+deserved.  There were many in it who had been kind, to whom he
+was grateful.  He wished there was some way by which he could let
+them know that.  As though in answer to his wish, from across the
+parade-ground the wireless again began to crash and crackle; but now
+Swanson was at a greater distance from it, and the sighing rhythm of
+the waltz was not interrupted.
+
+Swanson considered to whom he might send a farewell message, but
+as in his mind he passed from one friend to another, he saw that to
+each such a greeting could bring only distress.  He decided it was
+the music that had led him astray.  This was no moment for false
+sentiment.  He let his hand close upon the pistol.
+
+The audience now was dispersing.  The nurse-maids had collected
+their charges, the musicians were taking apart their music-racks,
+and from the steps of the vine-covered veranda Admiral Preble was
+bidding the friends of his wife adieu.  At his side his aide, young,
+alert, confident, with ill-concealed impatience awaited their departure.
+Swanson found that he resented the aide.  He resented the manner in
+which he speeded the parting guests.  Even if there were matters of
+importance he was anxious to communicate to his chief, he need not
+make it plain to the women folk that they were in the way.
+
+When, a month before, he had been adjutant, in a like situation he
+would have shown more self-command.  He disapproved of the aide
+entirely.  He resented the fact that he was as young as himself,
+that he was in uniform, that he was an aide.  Swanson certainly
+hoped that when he was in uniform he had not looked so much the
+conquering hero, so self-satisfied, so supercilious.  With a smile
+he wondered why, at such a moment, a man he had never seen
+before, and never would see again, should so disturb him.
+
+In his heart he knew.  The aide was going forward just where he
+was leaving off.  The ribbons on the tunic of the aide, the straps
+on his shoulders, told Swanson that they had served in the same
+campaigns, that they were of the same relative rank, and that
+when he himself, had he remained in the service, would have been
+a brigadier-general the aide would command a battle-ship.  The
+possible future of the young sailor filled Swanson with honorable
+envy and bitter regret.  With all his soul he envied him the right
+to look his fellow man in the eye, his right to die for his country,
+to give his life, should it be required of him, for ninety million
+people, for a flag.  Swanson saw the two officers dimly, with eyes
+of bitter self-pity.  He was dying, but he was not dying gloriously
+for a flag.  He had lost the right to die for it, and he was dying
+because he had lost that right.
+
+The sun had sunk and the evening had grown chill.  At the wharf
+where the steamer lay on which he had arrived, but on which he
+was not to depart, the electric cargo lights were already burning.
+But for what Swanson had to do there still was light enough.
+From his breast-pocket he took the card on which he had
+written his message to his brother officers, read and reread it,
+and replaced it.
+
+Save for the admiral and his aide at the steps of the cottage,
+and a bareheaded bluejacket who was reporting to them, and the
+admiral's orderly, who was walking toward Swanson, no one was
+in sight.  Still seated upon the stringpiece of the wharf, Swanson
+so moved that his back was toward the four men.  The moment
+seemed propitious, almost as though it had been prearranged.  For
+with such an audience, for his taking off no other person could be
+blamed.  There would be no question but that death had been
+self-inflicted.
+
+Approaching from behind him Swanson heard the brisk steps of the
+orderly drawing rapidly nearer.  He wondered if the wharf were
+government property, if he were trespassing, and if for that reason
+the man had been sent to order him away.  He considered bitterly
+that the government grudged him a place even in which to die.
+Well, he would not for long be a trespasser.  His hand slipped
+into his pocket, with his thumb he lowered the safety-catch of
+the pistol.
+
+But the hand with the pistol in it did not leave his pocket.  The
+steps of the orderly had come to a sudden silence.  Raising his
+head heavily, Swanson saw the man, with his eyes fixed upon him,
+standing at salute.  They had first made his life unsupportable,
+Swanson thought, now they would not let him leave it.
+
+"Captain Swanson, sir?" asked the orderly.
+
+Swanson did not speak or move.
+
+"The admiral's compliments, sir," snapped the orderly, "and will
+the captain please speak with him?"
+
+Still Swanson did not move.
+
+
+He felt that the breaking-point of his self-control had come.
+This impertinent interruption, this thrusting into the last few
+seconds of his life of a reminder of all that he had lost, this
+futile postponement of his end, was cruel, unhuman, unthinkable.
+The pistol was still in his hand.  He had but to draw it and
+press it close, and before the marine could leap upon him he
+would have escaped.
+
+From behind, approaching hurriedly, came the sound of
+impatient footsteps.
+
+The orderly stiffened to attention.  "The admiral!" he warned.
+
+Twelve years of discipline, twelve years of recognition of authority,
+twelve years of deference to superior officers, dragged Swanson's
+hand from his pistol and lifted him to his feet.  As he turned,
+Admiral Preble, the aide, and the bareheaded bluejacket were
+close upon him.  The admiral's face beamed, his eyes were young
+with pleasurable excitement; with the eagerness of a boy he waved
+aside formal greetings.
+
+"My dear Swanson," he cried, "I assure you it's a most astonishing,
+most curious coincidence! See this man?" He flung out his arm at
+the bluejacket.  "He's my wireless chief.  He was wireless operator
+on the transport that took you to Manila.  When you came in here
+this afternoon he recognized you.  Half an hour later he picks up
+a message--picks it up two thousand miles from here--from San
+Francisco--Associated Press news--it concerns you; that is, not
+really concerns you, but I thought, we thought"-as though
+signalling for help, the admiral glanced unhappily at his aide-
+"we thought you'd like to know.  Of course, to us," he added
+hastily, "it's quite superfluous--quite superfluous, but--"
+
+The aide coughed apologetically.  "You might read, sir," he
+suggested.
+
+"What? Exactly! Quite so!" cried the admiral.
+
+In the fading light he held close to his eyes a piece of paper.
+
+"San Francisco, April 20," he read.  "Rueff, first sergeant, shot
+himself here to-day, leaving written confession theft of regimental
+funds for which Swanson, captain, lately court-martialled.  Money
+found intact in Rueff's mattress.  Innocence of Swanson never
+questioned, but dissatisfied with findings of court-martial has
+left army.  Brother officers making every effort to find him and
+persuade return."
+
+The admiral sighed happily.  "And my wife," he added, with an
+impressiveness that was intended to show he had at last arrived
+at the important part of his message, "says you are to stay to
+dinner."
+
+Abruptly, rudely, Swanson swung upon his heel and turned his face
+from the admiral.  His head was thrown back, his arms held rigid
+at his sides.  In slow, deep breaths, like one who had been dragged
+from drowning, he drank in the salt, chill air.  After one glance the
+four men also turned, and in the falling darkness stood staring at
+nothing, and no one spoke.
+
+The aide was the first to break the silence.  In a polite tone, as
+though he were continuing a conversation which had not been
+interrupted, he addressed the admiral.  "Of course, Rueff's written
+confession was not needed," he said.
+
+"His shooting himself proved that he was guilty."
+
+Swanson started as though across his naked shoulders the aide had
+drawn a whip.
+
+In penitence and gratitude he raised his eyes to the stars.  High
+above his head the strands of the wireless, swinging from the
+towering masts like the strings of a giant Aeolian harp, were
+swept by the wind from the ocean.  To Swanson the sighing and
+whispering wires sang in praise and thanksgiving.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOD OF COINCIDENCE
+
+
+
+The God of Coincidence is fortunate in possessing innumerable
+press agents.  They have made the length of his arm a proverb.  How
+at exactly the right moment he extends it across continents and
+drags two and two together, thus causing four to result where but
+for him sixes and sevens would have obtained, they have made
+known to the readers of all of our best magazines.  For instance,
+Holworthy is leaving for the Congo to find a cure for the sleeping
+sickness, and for himself any sickness from which one is warranted
+never to wake up.  This is his condition because the beautiful
+million-heiress who is wintering at the Alexander Young Hotel
+in Honolulu has refused to answer his letters, cables, and appeals.
+
+He is leaning upon the rail taking his last neck-breaking look at
+the Woolworth Building.  The going-ashore bugle has sounded,
+pocket-handkerchiefs are waving; and Joe Hutton, the last visitor
+to leave the ship, is at the gangway.
+
+"Good-by, Holworthy!" he calls.  "Where do you keep yourself?
+Haven't seen you at the club in a year!"
+
+"Haven't been there in a year--nor mean to!" is the ungracious
+reply of our hero.
+
+"Then, for Heaven's sake," exclaims Hutton, "send some one to
+take your mail out of the H box! Every time I look for letters
+I wade through yours."
+
+"Tear them up!" calls Holworthy.  "They're bills."
+
+Hutton now is half-way down the gangplank.
+
+"Then your creditors," he shouts back, "must all live at the
+Alexander Young Hotel in Honolulu!"
+
+That night an express train shrieking through the darkness
+carried with it toward San Francisco--
+
+In this how evident is the fine Italian hand of the God of
+Coincidence!
+
+Had Hutton's name begun with an M; had the H in Hutton been
+silent; had he not carried to the Mauretania a steamer basket for
+his rich aunt; had he not resented the fact that since Holworthy's
+election to the Van Sturtevant Club he had ceased to visit the
+Grill Club--a cure for sleeping sickness might have been discovered;
+but two loving hearts never would have been reunited and that story
+would not have been written.
+
+Or, Mrs. Montclair, with a suit-case, is leaving her home forever
+to join handsome Harry Bellairs, who is at the corner with a
+racing-car and all the money of the bank of which he has been
+cashier.  As the guilty woman places the farewell letter against
+the pin-cushion where her husband will be sure to find it, her
+infant son turns in his sleep and jabs himself with a pin.  His
+howl of anguish resembles that of a puppy on a moonlight night.
+The mother recognizes her master's voice.  She believes her child
+dying, flies to the bedside, tears up the letter, unpacks the suit-case.
+The next morning at breakfast her husband, reading the newspaper,
+exclaims aloud:
+
+"Harry Bellairs," he cries, "has skipped with the bank's money! I
+always told you he was not a man you ought to know."
+
+"His manner to me," she says severely, "always was that of a
+perfect gentleman."
+
+Again coincidence gets the credit.  Had not the child tossed--had
+not at the critical moment the safety pin proved untrue to the man
+who invented it--that happy family reunion would have been
+impossible.
+
+Or, it might be told this way:
+
+Old Man McCurdy, the Pig-Iron King, forbids his daughter Gwendolyn
+even to think of marrying poor but honest Beef Walters, the baseball
+pitcher, and denies him his house.  The lovers plan an elopement.
+At midnight Beef is to stand at the tradesman's entrance and whistle
+"Waiting at the Church"; and down the silent stairs Gwendolyn is to
+steal into his arms.  At the very same hour the butler has planned with
+the policeman on fixed post to steal Mother McCurdy's diamonds
+and pass them to a brother of the policeman, who is to wait at the
+tradesman's entrance and whistle "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee."
+
+This sounds improbable--especially that the policeman would
+allow even his brother to get the diamonds before he did; but,
+with the God of Coincidence on the job, you shall see that it
+will all come out right.  Beef is first at the door.  He whistles.
+The butler--an English butler--with no ear for music, shoves into
+his hands tiaras and sunbursts.  Honest Beef hands over the butler
+to the policeman and the tiaras to Mother McCurdy.
+
+"How can I reward you?" exclaims the grateful woman.
+
+"Your daughter's hand!"
+
+Again the God of Coincidence scores and Beef Walters is credited
+with an assist.  And for preventing the robbery McCurdy has the
+peg-post cop made a captain; thus enabling him to wear diamonds
+of his own and raising him above the need of taking them from
+others.
+
+These examples of what the god can do are mere fiction; the story
+that comes now really happened.  It also is a story of coincidence.
+It shows how this time the long arm was stretched out to make two
+young people happy; it again illustrates that, in the instruments he
+chooses, the God of Coincidence works in a mysterious way his
+wonders to perform.  This time the tool he used was a hat of green felt.
+
+The story really should be called "The Man in the Green Hat."
+
+At St. James's Palace the plenipotentiaries of the Allies and of Turkey
+were trying to bring peace to Europe; in Russell Square, Bloomsbury,
+Sam Lowell was trying to arrange a peace with Mrs. Wroxton, his
+landlady.  The ultimatum of the Allies was: "Adrianople or fight!"
+The last words of Mrs. Wroxton were: "Five pounds or move out!"
+
+Sam did not have five pounds.  He was a stranger in London; he had
+lost his position in New York and that very morning had refused to
+marry the girl he loved--Polly Seward, the young woman the Sunday
+papers called "The Richest Girl in America."
+
+For any man--for one day--that would seem to be trouble enough; but
+to the Sultan of Turkey that day brought troubles far more serious.
+And, as his losses were Sam's gain, we must follow the troubles of
+the Sultan.  Until, with the aid of a green felt hat, the God of
+Coincidence turns the misfortunes of the Sultan into a fortune
+for Sam, Sam must wait.
+
+From the first days of the peace conference it was evident there
+was a leak.  The negotiations had been opened under a most solemn
+oath of secrecy.  As to the progress of the conference, only such
+information or misinformation--if the diplomats considered it better-
+as was mutually agreed upon by the plenipotentiaries was given to
+a waiting world.  But each morning, in addition to the official report
+of the proceedings of the day previous, one newspaper, the Times,
+published an account which differed from that in every other paper,
+and which undoubtedly came from the inside.  In details it was far
+more generous than the official report; it gave names, speeches,
+arguments; it described the wordy battles of the diplomats, the
+concessions, bluffs, bargains.
+
+After three days the matter became public scandal.  At first, the
+plenipotentiaries declared the events described in the Times were
+invented each evening in the office of the Times; but the proceedings
+of the day following showed the public this was not so.
+
+Some one actually present at the conference was telling tales out
+of school.  These tales were cabled to Belgrade, Sofia, Athens,
+Constantinople; and hourly from those capitals the plenipotentiaries
+were assailed by advice, abuse, and threats.  The whole world began
+to take part in their negotiations; from every side they were attacked;
+from home by the Young Turks, or the On to Constantinople Party;
+and from abroad by peace societies, religious bodies, and chambers
+of commerce.  Even the armies in the field, instead of waiting for the
+result of their deliberations, told them what to do, and that unless
+they did it they would better remain in exile.  To make matters worse,
+in every stock exchange gambling on the news furnished by the Times
+threatened the financial peace of Europe.  To work under such
+conditions of publicity was impossible.  The delegates appealed to
+their hosts of the British Foreign Office.
+
+Unless the chiel amang them takin' notes was discovered and the
+leak stopped, they declared the conference must end.  Spurred on
+by questions in Parliament, by appeals from the great banking world,
+by criticisms not altogether unselfish from the other newspapers,
+the Foreign Office surrounded St. James's Palace and the office
+of the Times with an army of spies.  Every secretary, stenographer,
+and attendant at the conference was under surveillance, his past
+record looked into, his present comings and goings noted.  Even
+the plenipotentiaries themselves were watched; and employees of
+the Times were secretly urged to sell the government the man who
+was selling secrets to them.  But those who were willing to be "urged"
+did not know the man; those who did know him refused to be bought.
+
+By a process of elimination suspicion finally rested upon one
+Adolf Hertz, a young Hungarian scholar who spoke and wrote all
+the mongrel languages of the Balkans; who for years, as a copying
+clerk and translator, had been employed by the Foreign Office,
+and who now by it had been lent to the conference.  For the reason
+that when he lived in Budapest he was a correspondent of the
+Times, the police, in seeking for the leak, centred their attention
+upon Hertz.  But, though every moment he was watched, and though
+Hertz knew he was watched, no present link between him and the
+Times had been established- and this in spite of the fact that the
+hours during which it was necessary to keep him under closest
+observation were few.  Those were the hours between the closing
+of the conference, and midnight, when the provincial edition of the
+Times went to press.  For the remainder of the day, so far as the
+police cared, Hertz could go to the devil! But for those hours,
+except when on his return from the conference he locked himself
+in his lodgings in Jermyn Street, detectives were always at his elbow.
+
+It was supposed that it was during this brief period when he was
+locked in his room that he wrote his report; but how, later, he
+conveyed it to the Times no one could discover.  In his rooms there
+was no telephone; his doors and windows were openly watched;
+and after leaving his rooms his movements were--as they always
+had been--methodical, following a routine open to observation.
+His programme was invariably the same.  Each night at seven from
+his front door he walked west.  At Regent Street he stopped to buy
+an evening paper from the aged news-vender at the corner; he then
+crossed Piccadilly Circus into Coventry Street, skirted Leicester
+Square, and at the end of Green Street entered Pavoni's Italian
+restaurant.  There he took his seat always at the same table, hung
+his hat always on the same brass peg, ordered the same Hungarian
+wine, and read the same evening paper.  He spoke to no one; no one
+spoke to him.
+
+When he had finished his coffee and his cigarette he returned to
+his lodgings, and there he remained until he rang for breakfast.
+From the time at which he left his home until his return to it he
+spoke to only two persons--the news-vender to whom he handed
+a halfpenny; the waiter who served him the regular table d'hote
+dinner--between whom and Hertz nothing passed but three and six
+for the dinner and sixpence for the waiter himself.
+
+Each evening, the moment he moved into the street a plain-clothes
+man fell into step beside him; another followed at his heels; and
+from across the street more plain-clothes men kept their eyes on
+every one approaching him in front or from the rear.  When he
+bought his evening paper six pairs of eyes watched him place a
+halfpenny in the hand of the news-vender, and during the entire
+time of his stay in Pavoni's every mouthful he ate was noted-
+-
+every direction he gave the waiter was overheard.
+
+Of this surveillance Hertz was well aware.  To have been ignorant
+of it would have argued him blind and imbecile.  But he showed no
+resentment.  With eyes grave and untroubled, he steadily regarded
+his escort; but not by the hastening of a footstep or the acceleration
+of a gesture did he admit that by his audience he was either distressed
+or embarrassed.  That was the situation on the morning when the
+Treaty of London was to be signed and sealed.
+
+In spite of the publicity given to the conference by the Times,
+however, what the terms of the treaty might be no one knew.  If
+Adrianople were surrendered; if Salonika were given to Greece; if
+Servia obtained a right-of-way to the Adriatic--peace was assured;
+but, should the Young Turks refuse--should Austria prove obstinate-
+not only would the war continue, but the Powers would be involved,
+and that greater, more awful war--the war dreaded by all the Christian
+world--might turn Europe into a slaughter-house.
+
+Would Turkey and Austria consent and peace ensue? Would they
+refuse and war follow? That morning those were the questions on
+the lips of every man in London save one.  He was Sam Lowell; and
+he was asking himself another and more personal question: "How
+can I find five pounds and pacify Mrs. Wroxton?"
+
+He had friends in New York who would cable him money to pay his
+passage home; but he did not want to go home.  He preferred to
+starve in London than be vulgarly rich anywhere else.  That was
+not because he loved London, but because above everything in life
+he loved Polly Seward--and Polly Seward was in London.  He had
+begun to love her on class day of his senior year; and, after his
+father died and left him with no one else to care for, every day
+he had loved her more.
+
+Until a month before he had been in the office of Wetmore &
+Hastings, a smart brokers' firm in Wall Street.  He had obtained
+the position not because he was of any use to Wetmore & Hastings,
+but because the firm was the one through which his father had
+gambled the money that would otherwise have gone to Sam.  In
+giving Sam a job the firm thought it was making restitution.  Sam
+thought it was making the punishment fit the crime; for he knew
+nothing of the ways of Wall Street, and having to learn them bored
+him extremely.  He wanted to write stories for the magazines.  He
+wanted to bind them in a book and dedicate them to Polly.  And
+in this wish editors humored him--but not so many editors or with
+such enthusiasm as to warrant his turning his back on Wall Street.
+
+That he did later when, after a tour of the world that had begun
+from the San Francisco side, Polly Seward and her mother and
+Senator Seward reached Naples.  There Senator Seward bought
+old Italian furniture for his office on the twenty-fifth floor of the
+perfectly new Seward building.  Mrs. Seward tried to buy for Polly
+a prince nearly as old as the furniture, and Polly bought picture
+post-cards which she sent to Sam.
+
+Polly had been absent six months, and Sam's endurance had been so
+timed as just to last out the half-year.  It was not guaranteed to
+withstand any change of schedule, and the two months' delay in
+Italy broke his heart.  It could not run overtime on a starvation
+diet of post-cards; so when he received a cable reading, "Address
+London, Claridge's," his heart told him it could no longer wait-
+and he resigned his position and sailed.
+
+On her trip round the world Polly had learned many things.  She
+was observant, alert, intent on asking questions, hungering for
+facts.  And a charming young woman who seeks facts rather than
+attention will never lack either.  But of all the facts Polly collected,
+the one of surpassing interest, and which gave her the greatest
+happiness, was that she could not live without Sam Lowell.  She
+had suspected this, and it was partly to make sure that she had
+consented to the trip round the world.  Now that she had made
+sure, she could not too soon make up for the days lost.  Sam had
+spent his money, and he either must return to New York and earn
+more or remain near Polly and starve.  It was an embarrassing
+choice.  Polly herself made the choice even more difficult.
+
+One morning when they walked in St. James's Park to feed the
+ducks she said to him:
+
+"Sam, when are we to be married?"
+
+When for three years a man has been begging a girl to marry him,
+and she consents at the exact moment when, without capitulation
+to all that he holds honorable, he cannot marry anybody, his
+position deserves sympathy.
+
+"My dear one," exclaimed the unhappy youth, "you make me the
+most miserable of men! I can't marry! I'm in an awful place! If I
+married you now I'd be a crook! It isn't a question of love in a
+cottage, with bread and cheese.  If cottages were renting for a
+dollar a year I couldn't rent one for ten minutes.  I haven't cheese
+enough to bait a mouse-trap.  It's terrible! But we have got to wait."
+
+"Wait!" cried Polly.  "I thought you had been waiting! Have I been
+away too long? Do you love some one else?"
+
+"Don't be ridiculous!" said Sam crossly.  "Look at me," he
+commanded, "and tell me whom I love!"
+
+Polly did not take time to look.
+
+"But I," she protested, "have so much money!"
+
+"It's not your money," explained Sam.  "It's your mother's money
+or your father's, and both of them dislike me.  They even have told
+me so.  Your mother wants you to marry that Italian; and your
+father, having half the money in America, naturally wants to
+marry you to the other half.  If I were selfish and married you
+I'd be all the things they think I am."
+
+"You are selfish!" cried Polly.  "You're thinking of yourself and
+of what people will say, instead of how to make me happy.  What's
+the use of money if you can't buy what you want?"
+
+"Are you suggesting you can buy me?" demanded Sam.
+
+"Surely," said Polly--"if I can't get you any other way.  And you
+may name your own price, too."
+
+"When I am making enough to support myself without sponging on
+you," explained Sam, "you can have as many millions as you like;
+but I must first make enough to keep me alive.  A man who can't do
+that isn't fit to marry."
+
+"How much," demanded Polly, "do you need to keep you alive? Maybe
+I could lend it to you."
+
+Sam was entirely serious.
+
+"Three thousand a year," he said.
+
+Polly exclaimed indignantly.
+
+"I call that extremely extravagant!" she cried.  "If we wait until you
+earn three thousand a year we may be dead.  Do you expect to earn
+that writing stories?"
+
+"I can try," said Sam--"or I will rob a bank."
+
+Polly smiled upon him appealingly.
+
+"You know how I love your stories," she said, "and I wouldn't
+hurt your feelings for the world; but, Sam dear, I think you had
+better rob a bank!"
+
+Addressing an imaginary audience, supposedly of men, Sam
+exclaimed:
+
+"Isn't that just like a woman? She wouldn't care," he protested,
+"how I got the money!"
+
+Polly smiled cheerfully.
+
+"Not if I got you!" she said.  In extenuation, also, she addressed
+an imaginary audience, presumably of women. "That's how I love
+him!" she exclaimed.  "And he asks me to wait! Isn't that just like
+a man? Seriously," she went on, "if we just go ahead and get married
+father would have to help us.  He'd make you a vice-president or
+something."
+
+At this suggestion Sam expressed his extreme displeasure.
+
+"The last time I talked to your father," he said, "I was in a position
+to marry, and I told him I wanted to marry you.  What he said to
+that was: 'Don't be an ass!' Then I told him he was unintelligent--
+and I told him why.  First, because he could not see that a man
+might want to marry his daughter in spite of her money; and
+second, because he couldn't see that her money wouldn't make
+up to a man for having him for a father-in-law."
+
+"Did you have to tell him that?" asked Polly.
+
+"Some one had to tell him," said Sam gloomily.  "Anyway, as a
+source of revenue father is eliminated.  I have still one chance
+in London.  If that fails I must go home.  I've been promised a job
+in New York reporting for a Wall Street paper--and I'll write stories
+on the side.  I've cabled for money, and if the London job falls
+through I shall sail Wednesday."
+
+"Wednesday!" cried Polly.  "When you say things like 'Wednesday'
+you make the world so dark! You must stay here! It has been such
+a long six months; and before you earn three thousand dollars I
+shall be an old, old maid.  But if you get work here we could see
+each other every day."
+
+They were in the Sewards' sitting-room at Claridge's.  Sam took up
+the desk telephone.
+
+"In London," he said, "my one best and only bet is a man named
+Forsythe, who helps edit the Pall Mall.  I'll telephone him now.
+If he can promise me even a shilling a day I'll stay on and starve--
+but I'll be near you.  If Forsythe fails me I shall sail Wednesday."
+
+The telephone call found Forsythe at the Pall Mall office.  He would
+be charmed to advise Mr. Lowell on a matter of business.  Would he
+that night dine with Mr. Lowell? He would.  And might he suggest
+that they dine at Pavoni's? He had a special reason for going there,
+and the dinner would cost only three and six.
+
+"That's reason enough!" Sam told him.
+
+"And don't forget," said Polly when, for the fifth time, Sam rose
+to go, "that after your dinner you are to look for me at the Duchess
+of Deptford's dance.  I asked her for a card and you will find it at
+your lodgings.  Everybody will be there; but it is a big place-full
+of dark corners where we can hide."
+
+"Don't hide until I arrive," said Sam.  "I shall be very late, as
+I shall have to walk.  After I pay for Forsythe's dinner and for
+white gloves for your dance I shall not be in a position to hire
+a taxi.  But maybe I shall bring good news.  Maybe Forsythe will
+give me the job.  If he does we will celebrate in champagne.
+"
+
+"You will let me at least pay for the champagne?" begged Polly.
+
+"No," said Sam firmly--"the duchess will furnish that."
+
+When Sam reached his lodgings in Russell Square, which he
+approached with considerable trepidation, he found Mrs. Wroxton
+awaiting him.  But her attitude no longer was hostile.  On the
+contrary, as she handed him a large, square envelope, decorated
+with the strawberry leaves of a duke, her manner was humble.
+
+Sam opened the envelope and, with apparent carelessness, stuck it
+over the fireplace.
+
+"About that back rent," he said; "I have cabled for money, and as
+soon--"
+
+"I know," said Mrs. Wroxton.  "I read the cable."  She was reading
+the card of invitation also.  "There's no hurry, sir," protested Mrs.
+Wroxton.  "Any of my young gentlemen who is made welcome at
+Deptford House is made welcome here!"
+
+"Credit, Mrs. Wroxton," observed Sam, "is better than cash.  If
+you have only cash you spend it and nothing remains.  But with
+credit you can continue indefinitely to-to-"
+
+"So you can!" exclaimed Mrs. Wroxton enthusiastically.  "Stay as
+long as you like, Mr. Lowell."
+
+At Pavoni's Sam found Forsythe already seated and, with evident
+interest, observing the scene of gayety before him.  The place was
+new to Sam, and after the darkness and snow of the streets it
+appeared both cheerful and resplendent.  It was brilliantly lighted;
+a ceiling of gay panels picked out with gold, and red plush sofas,
+backed against walls hung with mirrors and faced by rows of
+marble-topped tables, gave it an air of the Continent.
+
+Sam surrendered his hat and coat to the waiter.  The hat was a
+soft Alpine one of green felt.  The waiter hung it where Sam
+could see it, on one of many hooks that encircled a gilded pillar.
+
+After two courses had been served Forsythe said:
+
+"I hope you don't object to this place.  I had a special reason
+for wishing to be here on this particular night.  I wanted to be
+in at the death!"
+
+"Whose death?" asked Sam.  "Is the dinner as bad as that?"
+
+Forsythe leaned back against the mirror behind them and, bringing
+his shoulder close to Sam's, spoke in a whisper.
+
+"As you know," he said, "to-day the delegates sign the Treaty of
+London.  It still must receive the signatures of the Sultan and
+the three kings; and they will sign it.  But until they do, what
+the terms of the treaty are no one can find out."
+
+"I'll bet the Times finds out!" said Sam.
+
+"That's it!" returned Forsythe.  "Hertz, the man who is supposed to
+be selling the secrets of the conference to the Times, dines here.
+To-night is his last chance.  If to-night he can slip the Times a
+copy of the Treaty of London without being caught, and the
+Times has the courage to publish it, it will be the biggest
+newspaper sensation of modern times; and it will either cause
+a financial panic all over Europe--or prevent one.  The man they
+suspect is facing us.  Don't look now, but in a minute you will
+see him sitting alone at a table on the right of the middle pillar.
+The people at the tables nearest him--even the women--are
+detectives.  His waiter is in the employ of Scotland Yard.  The
+maitre d'hotel, whom you will see always hovering round his
+table, is a police agent lent by Bulgaria.  For the Allies are even
+more anxious to stop the leak than we are.  We are interested
+only as their hosts; with them it is a matter of national life or
+death.  A week ago one of our own inspectors tipped me off to
+what is going on, and every night since then I've dined here,
+hoping to see something suspicious."
+
+"Have you?" asked Sam.
+
+"Only this," whispered Forsythe--"on four different nights I've
+recognized men I know are on the staff of the Times, and on the
+other nights men I don't know may have been here.  But after all
+that proves nothing, for this place is a resort of newspaper writers
+and editors--and the Times men's being here may have been only
+a coincidence."
+
+"And Hertz?" asked Sam--"what does he do?"
+
+The Englishman exclaimed with irritation.
+
+"Just what you see him doing now!" he protested.  "He eats his
+dinner! Look at him!" he commanded.  "Of all in the room he's the
+least concerned."
+
+Sam looked and saw the suspected Adolf Hertz dangling a mass
+of macaroni on the end of his fork.  Sam watched him until it
+disappeared.
+
+"Maybe that's a signal!" suggested Sam.  "Maybe everything he does
+is part of a cipher code! He gives the signals and the Times men
+read them and write them down."
+
+"A man would have a fine chance to write anything down in this
+room!" said Forsythe.
+
+"But maybe," persisted Sam, "when he makes those strange
+movements with his lips he is talking to a confederate who can
+read the lip language.  The confederate writes it down at the
+office and--"
+
+"Fantastic and extremely improbable!" commented Forsythe.  "But,
+nevertheless, the fact remains, the fellow does communicate with
+some one from the Times; and the police are positive he does it
+here and that he is doing it now!"
+
+The problem that so greatly disturbed his friend would have more
+deeply interested Sam had the solving of his own trouble been
+less imperative.  That alone filled his mind.  And when the coffee
+was served and the cigars lit, without beating about the bush Sam
+asked Forsythe bluntly if on his paper a rising and impecunious
+genius could find a place.  With even less beating about the bush
+Forsythe assured him he could not.  The answer was final, and the
+disappointment was so keen that Sam soon begged his friend to
+excuse him, paid his bill, and rose to depart.
+
+"Better wait!" urged Forsythe.  "You'll find nothing so good out
+at a music-hall.  This is Houdini getting out of his handcuffs
+before an audience entirely composed of policemen."
+
+Sam shook his head gloomily.
+
+"I have a few handcuffs of my own to get rid of," he said, "and
+it makes me poor company."
+
+He bade his friend good night and, picking his way among the
+tables, moved toward the pillar on which the waiter had hung his
+hat.  The pillar was the one beside which Hertz was sitting, and
+as Sam approached the man he satisfied his curiosity by a long
+look.  Under the glance Hertz lowered his eyes and fixed them
+upon his newspaper.  Sam retrieved his hat and left the restaurant.
+
+His mind immediately was overcast.  He remembered his disappointment
+and that the parting between himself and Polly was now inevitable.
+Without considering his direction he turned toward Charing Cross
+Road.  But he was not long allowed to meditate undisturbed.
+
+He had only crossed the little street that runs beside the restaurant
+and passed into the shadow of the National Gallery when, at the
+base of the Irving Memorial, from each side he was fiercely attacked.
+A young man of eminently respectable appearance kicked his legs
+from under him, and another of equally impeccable exterior made
+an honest effort to knock off his head.
+
+Sam plunged heavily to the sidewalk.  As he sprawled forward his
+hat fell under him and in his struggle to rise was hidden by the
+skirts of his greatcoat.  That, also, he had fallen heavily upon his
+hat with both knees Sam did not know.  The strange actions of
+his assailants enlightened him.  To his surprise, instead of
+continuing their assault or attempting a raid upon his pockets,
+he found them engaged solely in tugging at the hat.  And so
+preoccupied were they in this that, though still on his knees,
+Sam was able to land some lusty blows before a rush of feet
+caused the young men to leap to their own and, pursued by
+several burly forms, disappear in the heart of the traffic.
+
+Sam rose and stood unsteadily.  He found himself surrounded by
+all of those who but a moment before he had left contentedly
+dining at Pavoni's.  In an excited circle waiters and patrons of
+the restaurant, both men and women, stood in the falling snow,
+bareheaded, coatless, and cloakless, staring at him.  Forsythe
+pushed them aside and took Sam by the arm.
+
+"What happened?" demanded Sam.
+
+"You ought to know," protested Forsythe.  "You started it! The
+moment you left the restaurant two men grabbed their hats and
+jumped after you; a dozen other men, without waiting for hats,
+jumped after them.  The rest of us got out just as the two men
+and the detectives dived into the traffic."
+
+A big man, with an air of authority, drew Sam to one side.
+
+"Did they take anything from you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"I've nothing they could take," said Sam.  "And they didn't try to
+find out.  They just knocked me down."
+
+Forsythe turned to the big man.
+
+"This gentleman is a friend of mine, inspector," he said.  "He is
+a stranger in town and was at Pavoni's only by accident."
+
+"We might need his testimony," suggested the official.
+
+Sam gave his card to the inspector and then sought refuge in a
+taxicab.  For the second time he bade his friend good night.
+
+"And when next we dine," he called to him in parting, "choose a
+restaurant where the detective service is quicker!"
+
+Three hours later, brushed and repaired by Mrs. Wroxton, and
+again resplendent, Sam sat in a secluded corner of Deptford House
+and bade Polly a long farewell.  It was especially long, owing to
+the unusual number of interruptions; for it was evident that Polly
+had many friends in London, and that not to know the Richest One
+in America and her absurd mother, and the pompous, self-satisfied
+father, argued oneself nobody.  But finally the duchess carried Polly
+off to sup with her; and as the duchess did not include Sam in her
+invitation--at least not in such a way that any one could notice it--
+Sam said good-night--but not before he had arranged a meeting
+with Polly for eleven that same morning.  If it was clear, the
+meeting was to be at the duck pond in St. James's Park; if it
+snowed, at the National Gallery in front of the "Age of
+Innocence."
+
+After robbing the duchess of three suppers, Sam descended to
+the hall and from an attendant received his coat and hat, which
+latter the attendant offered him with the inside of the hat
+showing.  Sam saw in it the trademark of a foreign maker.
+
+"That's not my hat," said Sam.
+
+The man expressed polite disbelief.
+
+"I found it rolled up in the pocket of your greatcoat, sir," he
+protested.
+
+The words reminded Sam that on arriving at Deptford House he had
+twisted the hat into a roll and stuffed it into his overcoat
+pocket.
+
+"Quite right," said Sam.  But it was not his hat; and with some hope
+of still recovering his property he made way for other departing
+guests and at one side waited.
+
+For some clew to the person he believed was now wearing his hat,
+Sam examined the one in his hand.  Just showing above the inside
+band was something white.  Thinking it might be the card of the
+owner, Sam removed it.  It was not a card, but a long sheet of thin
+paper, covered with typewriting, and many times folded.  Sam
+read the opening paragraph.  Then he backed suddenly toward a
+great chair of gold and velvet, and fell into it.
+
+He was conscious the attendants in pink stockings were regarding
+him askance; that, as they waited in the drafty hall for cars and taxis,
+the noble lords in stars and ribbons, the noble ladies in tiaras and
+showing much-fur-lined galoshes, were discussing his strange
+appearance.  They might well believe the youth was ill; they might
+easily have considered him intoxicated.  Outside rose the voices of
+servants and police calling the carriages.  Inside other servants echoed
+them.
+
+"The Duchess of Sutherland's car!" they chanted. "Mrs. Trevor
+Hill's carriage! The French ambassador's carriage! Baron
+Haussmann's car!"
+
+Like one emerging from a trance, Sam sprang upright.  A little fat
+man, with mild blue eyes and curly red hair, was shyly and with
+murmured apologies pushing toward the exit.  Before he gained it
+Sam had wriggled a way to his elbow.
+
+"Baron Haussmann!" he stammered.  "I must speak to you.  It's a
+matter of gravest importance.  Send away your car," he begged,
+"and give me five minutes."
+
+The eyes of the little fat man opened wide in surprise, almost in
+alarm.  He stared at Sam reprovingly.
+
+"Impossible!" he murmured.  "I--I do not know you."
+
+"This is a letter of introduction," said Sam.  Into the unwilling
+fingers of the banker he thrust the folded paper.  Bending over
+him, he whispered in his ear.  "That," said Sam, "is the Treaty of
+London!"
+
+The alarm of Baron Haussmann increased to a panic.
+
+"Impossible!" he gasped.  And, with reproach, he repeated: "I do
+not know you, sir! I do not know you!"
+
+At that moment, towering above the crush, appeared the tall figure
+of Senator Seward.  The rich man of the New World and the rich
+man of Europe knew each other only by sight.  But, upon seeing
+Sam in earnest converse with the great banker, the senator
+believed that without appearing to seek it he might through Sam
+effect a meeting.  With a hearty slap on the shoulder he greeted
+his fellow countryman.
+
+"Halloo, Sam!" he cried genially.  "You walking home with me?"
+
+Sam did not even turn his head.
+
+"No!" he snapped.  "I'm busy.  Go 'way!"
+
+Crimson, the senator disappeared.  Baron Haussmann regarded the
+young stranger with amazed interest.
+
+"You know him!" he protested.  "He called you Sam!"
+
+"Know him?" cried Sam impatiently.  "I've got to know him! He's
+going to be my father-in-law."
+
+The fingers of the rich man clutched the folded paper as the
+claws of a parrot cling to the bars of his cage.  He let his sable
+coat slip into the hands of a servant; he turned back toward the
+marble staircase.
+
+"Come!" he commanded.
+
+Sam led him to the secluded corner Polly and he had left vacant
+and told his story.
+
+"So, it is evident," concluded Sam, "that each night some one in
+the service of the Times dined at Pavoni's, and that his hat was
+the same sort of hat as the one worn by Hertz; and each night,
+inside the lining of his hat, Hertz hid the report of that day's
+proceedings.  And when the Times man left the restaurant he
+exchanged hats with Hertz.  But to-night--I got Hertz's hat and
+with it the treaty!"
+
+In perplexity the blue eyes of the little great man frowned.
+
+"It is a remarkable story," he said.
+
+"You mean you don't believe me!" retorted Sam.  "If I had
+financial standing--if I had credit--if I were not a stranger-
+you would not hesitate."
+
+Baron Haussmann neither agreed nor contradicted.  He made a polite
+and deprecatory gesture.  Still in doubt, he stared at the piece of white
+paper.  Still deep in thought, he twisted and creased between his fingers
+the Treaty of London!
+
+Returning with the duchess from supper, Polly caught sight of Sam
+and, with a happy laugh, ran toward him.  Seeing he was not alone,
+she halted and waved her hand.
+
+"Don't forget!" she called. "At eleven!"
+
+She made a sweet and lovely picture.  Sam rose and bowed.
+
+"I'll be there at ten," he answered.
+
+With his mild blue eyes the baron followed Polly until she had
+disappeared.  Then he turned and smiled at Sam.
+
+"Permit me," he said, "to offer you my felicitations.  Your young
+lady is very beautiful and very good."  Sam bowed his head.  "If
+she trusts you," murmured the baron, "I think I can trust you
+too."
+
+"How wonderful is credit!" exclaimed Sam.  "I was just saying so
+to my landlady.  If you have only cash you spend it and nothing
+remains.  But with credit you can--"
+
+"How much," interrupted the banker, "do you want for this?"
+
+Sam returned briskly to the business of the moment.
+
+"To be your partner," he said--"to get half of what you make out
+of it."
+
+The astonished eyes of the baron were large with wonder.  Again he
+reproved Sam.
+
+"What I shall make out of it?" he demanded incredulously.  "Do you
+know how much I shall make out of it?"
+
+"I cannot even guess," said Sam; "but I want half."
+
+The baron smiled tolerantly.
+
+"And how," he asked, "could you possibly know what I give you is
+really half?"
+
+In his turn, Sam made a deprecatory gesture.
+
+"Your credit," said Sam, "is good!"
+
+That morning, after the walk in St. James's Park, when Sam returned
+with Polly to Claridge's, they encountered her father in the hall.
+Mindful of the affront of the night before, he greeted Sam only
+with a scowl.
+
+"Senator," cried Sam happily, "you must be the first to hear the news!
+Polly and I are going into partnership.  We are to be married."
+
+This time Senator Seward did not trouble himself even to tell Sam
+he was an ass.  He merely grinned cynically.
+
+"Is that all your news?" he demanded with sarcasm.
+
+"No," said Sam--"I am going into partnership with Baron Haussmann
+too!"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BURIED TREASURE OF COBRE
+
+
+
+Young Everett at last was a minister plenipotentiary.  In London
+as third secretary he had splashed around in the rain to find the
+ambassador's carriage.  In Rome as a second secretary he had
+served as a clearing-house for the Embassy's visiting-cards; and
+in Madrid as first secretary he had acted as interpreter for a
+minister who, though valuable as a national chairman, had much
+to learn of even his own language.  But although surrounded by
+all the wonders and delights of Europe, although he walked, talked,
+wined, and dined with statesmen and court beauties, Everett was
+not happy.  He was never his own master.  Always he answered the
+button pressed by the man higher up.  Always over him loomed his
+chief; always, for his diligence and zeal, his chief received credit.
+
+As His Majesty's naval attache put it sympathetically, "Better be
+a top-side man on a sampan than First Luff on the Dreadnought.
+Don't be another man's right hand.  Be your own right hand."
+Accordingly when the State Department offered to make him
+minister to the Republic of Amapala, Everett gladly deserted the
+flesh-pots of Europe, and, on mule-back over trails in the living
+rock, through mountain torrents that had never known the shadow
+of a bridge, through swamp and jungle, rode sunburnt and
+saddle-sore into his inheritance.
+
+When giving him his farewell instructions, the Secretary of State
+had not attempted to deceive him.
+
+"Of all the smaller republics of Central America," he frankly told
+him, "Amapala is the least desirable, least civilized, least acceptable.
+It offers an ambitious young diplomat no chance.  But once a minister,
+always a minister.  Having lifted you out of the secretary class we can't
+demote you.  Your days of deciphering cablegrams are over, and if you
+don't die of fever, of boredom, or brandy, call us up in a year or two
+and we will see what we can do."
+
+Everett regarded the Secretary blankly.
+
+"Has the department no interest in Amapala?" he begged.  "Is there
+nothing you want there?"
+
+"There is one thing we very much want," returned the Secretary,
+"but we can't get it.  We want a treaty to extradite criminals."
+
+The young minister laughed confidently.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, "that should be easy."
+
+The Secretary smiled.
+
+"You have our full permission to get it," he said.  "This department,"
+he explained, "under three administrations has instructed four
+ministers to arrange such a treaty.  The Bankers' Association wants
+it; the Merchants' Protective Alliance wants it.  Amapala is the only
+place within striking distance of our country where a fugitive is safe.
+It is the only place where a dishonest cashier, swindler, or felon can
+find refuge.  Sometimes it seems almost as though when a man planned
+a crime he timed it exactly so as to catch the boat for Amapala.  And,
+once there, we can't lay our hands on him; and, what's more, we can't
+lay our hands on the money he takes with him.  I have no right to make
+a promise," said the great man, "but the day that treaty is signed you
+can sail for a legation in Europe.  Do I make myself clear?"
+
+"So clear, sir," cried Everett, laughing, "that if I don't
+arrange that treaty I will remain in Amapala until I do."
+
+"Four of your predecessors," remarked the Secretary, "made
+exactly the same promise, but none of them got us the treaty."
+
+"Probably none of them remained in Amapala, either," retorted
+Everett.
+
+"Two did," corrected the Secretary; "as you ride into Camaguay
+you see their tombstones."
+
+Everett found the nine-day mule-ride from the coast to the capital
+arduous, but full of interest.  After a week at his post he appreciated
+that until he left it and made the return journey nothing of equal
+interest was again likely to occur.  For life in Camaguay, the capital
+of Amapala, proved to be one long, dreamless slumber.  In the morning
+each of the inhabitants engaged in a struggle to get awake; after the
+second breakfast he ceased struggling, and for a siesta sank into his
+hammock.  After dinner, at nine o'clock, he was prepared to sleep in
+earnest, and went to bed.  The official life as explained to Everett by
+Garland, the American consul, was equally monotonous.  When
+President Mendoza was not in the mountains deer-hunting, or
+suppressing a revolution, each Sunday he invited the American
+minister to dine at the palace.  In return His Excellency expected
+once a week to be invited to breakfast with the minister.  He preferred
+that the activities of that gentleman should go no further.  Life in the
+diplomatic circle was even less strenuous.  Everett was the doyen
+of the diplomatic corps because he was the only diplomat.  All
+other countries were represented by consuls who were commission
+merchants and shopkeepers.  They were delighted at having among
+them a minister plenipotentiary.  When he took pity on them and
+invited them to tea, which invitations he delivered in person to
+each consul at the door of each shop, the entire diplomatic corps,
+as the consuls were pleased to describe themselves, put up the
+shutters, put on their official full-dress uniforms and arrived in
+a body.
+The first week at his post Everett spent in reading the archives of
+the legation.  They were most discouraging.  He found that for the
+sixteen years prior to his arrival the only events reported to the
+department by his predecessors were revolutions and the refusals
+of successive presidents to consent to a treaty of extradition.  On
+that point all Amapalans were in accord.  Though overnight the
+government changed hands, though presidents gave way to dictators,
+and dictators to military governors, the national policy of Amapala
+continued to be "No extradition!"  The ill success of those who had
+preceded him appalled Everett.  He had promised himself by a
+brilliant assault to secure the treaty and claim the legation in
+Europe.  But the record of sixteen years of failure caused him
+to alter his strategy.  Instead of an attack he prepared for a siege.
+He unpacked his books, placed the portrait of his own President
+over the office desk, and proceeded to make friends with his fellow
+exiles.
+
+Of the foreign colony in Camaguay some fifty were Americans, and
+from the rest of the world they were as hopelessly separated as the
+crew of a light-ship.  From the Pacific they were cut off by the
+Cordilleras, from the Caribbean by a nine-day mule-ride.  To the
+north and south, jungle, forests, swamp-lands, and mountains
+hemmed them in.
+
+Of the fifty Americans, one-half were constantly on the trail;
+riding to the coast to visit their plantations, or into the mountains
+to inspect their mines.  When Everett arrived, of those absent
+the two most important were Chester Ward and Colonel Goddard.
+Indeed, so important were these gentlemen that Everett was made
+to understand that, until they approved, his recognition as the
+American minister was in a manner temporary.
+
+Chester Ward, or "Chet," as the exiles referred to him, was one of
+the richest men in Amapala, and was engaged in exploring the ruins
+of the lost city of Cobre, which was a one-hour ride from the capital.
+Ward possessed the exclusive right to excavate that buried city and
+had held it against all comers.  The offers of American universities,
+of archaeological and geographical societies that also wished to dig
+up the ancient city and decipher the hieroglyphs on her walls, were
+met with a curt rebuff.  That work, the government of Amapala would
+reply, was in the trained hands of Senor Chester Ward.  In his chosen
+effort the government would not disturb him, nor would it permit others
+coming in at the eleventh hour to rob him of his glory.  This Everett
+learned from the consul, Garland.
+
+"Ward and Colonel Goddard," the consul explained, "are two of
+five countrymen of ours who run the American colony, and, some
+say, run the government.  The others are Mellen, who has the
+asphalt monopoly; Jackson, who is building the railroads, and
+Major Feiberger, of the San Jose silver-mines.  They hold
+monopolies and pay President Mendoza ten per cent of the
+earnings, and, on the side, help him run the country.  Of the
+five, the Amapalans love Goddard best, because he's not trying
+to rob them.  Instead, he wants to boost Amapala.  His ideas are
+perfectly impracticable, but he doesn't know that, and neither do
+they.  He's a kind of Colonel Mulberry Sellers and a Southerner.
+Not the professional sort, that fight elevator-boys because they're
+colored, and let off rebel yells in rathskellers when a Hungarian
+band plays 'Dixie,' but the sort you read about and so seldom see.
+He was once State Treasurer of Alabama."
+
+"What's he doing down here?" asked the minister.
+
+"Never the same thing two months together," the consul told him;
+"railroads, mines, rubber.  He says all Amapala needs is developing."
+
+As men who can see a joke even when it is against themselves, the
+two exiles smiled ruefully.
+
+"That's all it needs," said Everett.
+
+For a moment the consul regarded him thoughtfully.
+
+"I might as well tell you," he said, "you'll learn it soon enough
+anyway, that the men who will keep you from getting your treaty
+are these five, especially old man Goddard and Ward."
+
+Everett exclaimed indignantly:
+
+"Why should they interfere?"
+
+"Because," explained the consul, "they are fugitives from justice,
+and they don't want to go home.  Ward is wanted for forgery or
+some polite crime, I don't know which.  And Colonel Goddard
+for appropriating the State funds of Alabama.  Ward knew what
+he was doing and made a lot out of it.  He's still rich.  No one's
+weeping over him.  Goddard's case is different.  He was imposed
+on and made a catspaw.  When he was State treasurer the men
+who appointed him came to him one night and said they must
+have some of the State's funds to show a bank examiner in the
+morning.  They appealed to him on the ground of friendship, as
+the men who'd given him his job.  They would return the money
+the next evening.  Goddard believed they would.  They didn't,
+and when some one called for a show-down the colonel was shy
+about fifty thousand dollars of the State's money.  He lost his head,
+took the boat out of Mobile to Porto Cortez, and hid here.  He's
+been here twenty years and all the Amapalans love him.  He's the
+adopted father of their country.  They're so afraid he'll be taken
+back and punished that they'll never consent to an extradition
+treaty even if the other Americans, Mellen, Jackson, and Feiberger,
+weren't paying them big money not to consent.  President Mendoza
+himself told me that as long as Colonel Goddard honored his
+country by remaining in it, he was his guest, and he would never
+agree to extradition.  'I could as soon,' he said, 'sign his
+death-warrant.'"
+
+Everett grinned dismally.
+
+"That's rather nice of them," he said, "but it's hard on me.  But," he
+demanded, "why Ward? What has he done for Amapala? Is it because
+of Cobre, because of his services as an archaeologist?"
+
+The consul glanced around the patio and dragged his chair nearer
+to Everett.
+
+"This is my own dope," he whispered; "it may be wrong.  Anyway,
+it's only for your private information."
+
+He waited until, with a smile, Everett agreed to secrecy.
+
+"Chet Ward," protested the consul, "is no more an archaeologist
+than I am! He talks well about Cobre, and he ought to, because
+every word he speaks is cribbed straight from Hauptmann's
+monograph, published in 1855.  And he has dug up something at
+Cobre; something worth a darned sight more than stone monkeys
+and carved altars.  But his explorations are a bluff.  They're a blind
+to cover up what he's really after; what I think he's found!"
+
+As though wishing to be urged, the young man paused, and Everett
+nodded for him to continue.  He was wondering whether life in
+Amapala might not turn out to be more interesting than at first
+it had appeared, or whether Garland was not a most charming liar.
+
+"Ward visits the ruins every month," continued Garland.  "But he
+takes with him only two mule-drivers to cook and look after the
+pack-train, and he doesn't let even the drivers inside the ruins.
+He remains at Cobre three or four days and, to make a show, fills
+his saddle-bags with broken tiles and copper ornaments.  He turns
+them over to the government, and it dumps them in the back yard
+of the palace.  You can't persuade me that he holds his concession
+with that junk.  He's found something else at Cobre and he shares
+it with Mendoza, and I believe it's gold."
+
+The minister smiled delightedly.
+
+"What kind of gold?
+
+"Maybe in the rough," said the consul.  "But I prefer to think
+it's treasure.  The place is full of secret chambers, tombs, and
+passage-ways cut through the rock, deep under the surface.  I
+believe Ward has stumbled on some vault where the priests used
+to hide their loot.  I believe he's getting it out bit by bit and
+going shares with Mendoza."
+
+"If that were so," ventured Everett, "why wouldn't Mendoza take
+it all?"
+
+"Because Ward," explained the consul, "is the only one who knows
+where it is.  The ruins cover two square miles.  You might search
+for years.  They tried to follow and spy on him, but Ward was too
+clever for them.  He turned back at once.  If they don't take what
+he gives, they get nothing.  So they protect him from real explorers
+and from extradition.  The whole thing is unfair.  A real archaeologist
+turned up here a month ago.  He had letters from the Smithsonian
+Institute and several big officials at Washington, but do you suppose
+they would let him so much as smell of Cobre? Not they! Not even
+when I spoke for him as consul.  Then he appealed to Ward, and Ward
+turned him down hard.  You were arriving, so he's hung on here hoping
+you may have more influence.  His name is Peabody; he's a professor,
+but he's young and full of 'get there,' and he knows more about the ruins
+of Cobre now than Ward does after having them all to himself for two
+years.  He's good people and I hope you'll help him."
+
+Everett shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"If the government has given the concession to him," he pointed
+out, "no matter who Ward may be, or what its motives were for
+giving it to him, I can't ask it to break its promise.  As an
+American citizen Ward is as much entitled to my help--
+officially--as Professor Peabody, whatever his standing."
+
+"Ward's a forger," protested Garland, "a fugitive from justice; and
+Peabody is a scholar and a gentleman.  I'm not keen about dead
+cities myself--this one we're in now is dead enough for me--but if
+civilization is demanding to know what Cobre was like eight
+hundred years ago, civilization is entitled to find out, and
+Peabody seems the man for the job.  It's a shame to turn him
+down for a gang of grafters."
+
+"Tell him to come and talk to me," said the minister.
+
+"He rode over to the ruins of Copan last week," explained Garland,
+"where the Harvard expedition is.  But he's coming back to-morrow
+on purpose to see you."
+
+The consul had started toward the door when he suddenly returned.
+
+"And there's some one else coming to see you," he said.  "Some
+one," he added anxiously, "you want to treat right.  That's Monica
+Ward.  She's Chester Ward's sister, and you mustn't get her mixed
+up with anything I told you about her brother.  She's coming to
+ask you to help start a Red Cross Society.  She was a volunteer
+nurse in the hospital in the last two revolutions, and what she
+saw makes her want to be sure she won't see it again.  She's
+taught the native ladies the 'first aid' drill, and they expect
+you to be honorary president of the society.  You'd better
+accept."
+
+Shaking his head, Garland smiled pityingly upon the new minister.
+
+"You've got a swell chance to get your treaty," he declared.
+"Monica is another one who will prevent it."
+
+Everett sighed patiently.
+
+"What," he demanded, "might her particular crime be; murder,
+shoplifting, treason--"
+
+"If her brother had to leave this country," interrupted Garland,
+"she'd leave with him.  And the people don't want that.  Her pull
+is the same as old man Goddard's.  Everybody loves him and
+everybody loves her.  I love her," exclaimed the consul
+cheerfully; "the President loves her, the sisters in the hospital,
+the chain-gang in the street, the washerwomen in the river,
+the palace guard, everybody in this flea-bitten, God-forsaken
+country loves Monica Ward--and when you meet her you
+will, too."
+
+Garland had again reached the door to the outer hall before
+Everett called him back.
+
+"If it is not a leading question," asked the minister, "what
+little indiscretion in your life brought you to Amapala?"
+
+Garland grinned appreciatively.
+
+"I know they sound a queer lot," he assented, "but when you get
+to know 'em, you like 'em.  My own trouble," he added, "was a
+horse.  I never could see why they made such a fuss about him.  He
+was lame when I took him."
+
+Disregarding Garland's pleasantry, for some time His Excellency
+sat with his hands clasped behind his head, frowning up from the
+open patio into the hot, cloudless sky.  On the ridge of his tiled
+roof a foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across
+the yellow wall a lizard ran for shelter, at his elbow a macaw
+compassing the circle of its tin prison muttered dreadful oaths.
+Outside, as the washerwomen beat their linen clubs upon the flat
+rocks of the river, the hot, stale air was spanked with sharp reports.
+In Camaguay theirs was the only industry, the only sign of
+cleanliness; and recognizing that another shirt had been thrashed
+into subjection and rags, Everett winced.  No less visibly did his
+own thoughts cause him to wince.  Garland he had forgotten,
+and he was sunk deep in self-pity.  His thoughts were of London,
+with its world politics, its splendid traditions, its great and gracious
+ladies; of Paris in the spring sunshine, when he cantered through the
+Bois; of Madrid, with its pomp and royalty, and the gray walls of its
+galleries proclaiming Murillo and Velasquez.  These things he had
+forsaken because he believed he was ambitious; and behold into
+what a cul-de-sac his ambition had led him! A comic-opera country
+that was not comic, but dead and buried from the world; a savage
+people, unread, unenlightened, unclean; and for society of his
+countrymen, pitiful derelicts in hiding from the law. In his soul
+he rebelled. In words he exploded bitterly.
+
+"This is one hell of a hole, Garland," cried the diplomat.  His
+jaws and his eyes hardened.  "I'm going back to Europe.  And
+the only way I can go is to get that treaty.  I was sent here to get
+it.  Those were my orders.  And I'll get it if I have to bribe them
+out of my own pocket; if I have to outbid Mr. Ward, and send
+him and your good Colonel Goddard and all the rest of the crew
+to the jails where they belong!"
+
+Garland heard him without emotion.  From long residence near the
+equator he diagnosed the outbreak as a case of tropic choler,
+aggravated by nostalgia and fleas.
+
+"I'll bet you don't," he said.
+
+"I'll bet you your passage-money home," shouted Everett, "against
+my passage-money to Europe."
+
+"Done!" said Garland. "How much time do you want--two years?"
+
+The diplomat exclaimed mockingly:
+
+"Two months!"
+
+"I win now, "said the consul. "I'll go home and pack."
+
+The next morning his clerk told Everett that in the outer office
+Monica Ward awaited him.
+
+Overnight Everett had developed a prejudice against Miss Ward.
+What Garland had said in her favor had only driven him the wrong
+way.  Her universal popularity he disliked.  He argued that to gain
+popularity one must concede and capitulate.  He felt that the sister
+of an acknowledged crook, no matter how innocent she might be,
+were she a sensitive woman, would wish to efface herself.  And
+he had found that, as a rule, women who worked in hospitals and
+organized societies bored him.  He did not admire the militant,
+executive sister.  He pictured Miss Ward as probably pretty, but
+with the coquettish effrontery of the village belle and with the
+pushing, "good-fellow" manners of the new school.  He was prepared
+either to have her slap him on the back or, from behind tilted
+eye-glasses, make eyes at him.  He was sure she wore eye-glasses,
+and was large, plump, and Junoesque.  With reluctance he entered
+the outer office.  He saw, all in white, a girl so young that she
+was hardly more than a child, but with the tall, slim figure of a
+boy.  Her face was lovely as the face of a violet, and her eyes
+were as shy.  But shy not through lack of confidence in Everett,
+nor in any human being, but in herself.  They seemed to say, "I am
+a very unworthy, somewhat frightened young person; but you, who
+are so big and generous, will overlook that, and you are going to
+be my friend.  Indeed, I see you are my friend."
+
+Everett stood quite still.  He nodded gloomily.
+
+"Garland was right," he exclaimed; "I do!"
+
+The young lady was plainly distressed.
+
+"Do what?" she stammered.
+
+"Some day I will tell you," said the young man.  "Yes," he added,
+without shame, "I am afraid I will."  He bowed her into the inner
+office.
+
+"I am sorry," apologized Monica, "but I am come to ask a favor--
+two favors; one of you and one of the American minister."
+
+Everett drew his armchair from his desk and waved Monica into it.
+
+"I was sent here," he said, "to do exactly what you want.  The
+last words the President addressed to me were, 'On arriving at
+your post report to Miss Monica Ward."'
+
+Fearfully, Monica perched herself on the edge of the armchair; as
+though for protection she clasped the broad table before her.
+
+"The favor I want," she hastily assured him, "is not for myself."
+
+"I am sorry," said Everett, "for it is already granted."
+
+"You are very good," protested Monica.
+
+"No," replied Everett, "I am only powerful.  I represent ninety-five
+million Americans, and they are all entirely at your service.  So is
+the army and navy."
+
+Monica smiled and shook her head.  The awe she felt was due an
+American minister was rapidly disappearing, and in Mr. Everett
+himself her confidence was increasing.  The other ministers
+plenipotentiary she had seen at Camaguay had been old, with
+beards like mountain-goats, and had worn linen dusters.  They
+always were very red in the face and very damp.  Monica decided
+Mr. Everett also was old; she was sure he must be at least
+thirty-five; but in his silk pongee and pipe-clayed tennis-shoes
+he was a refreshing spectacle.  Just to look at him turned one
+quite cool.
+
+"We have a very fine line of battle-ships this morning at
+Guantanamo," urged Everett; "if you want one I'll cable for it."
+
+Monica laughed softly.  It was good to hear nonsense spoken.  The
+Amapalans had never learned it, and her brother said just what he
+meant and no more.
+
+"Our sailors were here once," Monica volunteered.  She wanted
+Mr. Everett to know he was not entirely cut off from the world.
+"During the revolution," she explained.  "We were so glad to see
+them; they made us all feel nearer home.  They set up our flag in
+the plaza, and the color-guard let me photograph it, with them
+guarding it.  And when they marched away the archbishop stood
+on the cathedral steps and blessed them, and we rode out along the
+trail to where it comes to the jungle.  And then we waved good-by,
+and they cheered us.  We all cried."
+
+For a moment, quite unconsciously, Monica gave an imitation of
+how they all cried.  It made the appeal of the violet eyes even more
+disturbing.
+"Don't you love our sailors?" begged Monica.
+
+Fearful of hurting the feelings of others, she added hastily,
+"And, of course, our marines, too."
+
+Everett assured her if there was one thing that meant more to him
+than all else, it was an American bluejacket, and next to him an
+American leatherneck.
+
+It took a long time to arrange the details of the Red Cross
+Society.  In spite of his reputation for brilliancy, it seemed to
+Monica Mr. Everett had a mind that plodded.  For his benefit it
+was necessary several times to repeat the most simple proposition.
+She was sure his inability to fasten his attention on her League
+of Mercy was because his brain was occupied with problems of
+state.  It made her feel selfish and guilty.  When his visitor
+decided that to explain further was but to waste his valuable
+time and had made her third effort to go, Everett went with her.
+He suggested that she take him to the hospital and introduce him
+to the sisters.  He wanted to talk to them about the Red Cross
+League.  It was a charming walk.  Every one lifted his hat to
+Monica; the beggars, the cab-drivers, the barefooted policemen,
+and the social lights of Camaguay on the sidewalks in front of
+the cafes rose and bowed.
+
+"It is like walking with royalty!" exclaimed Everett.
+
+While at the hospital he talked to the Mother Superior--his eyes
+followed Monica.  As she moved from cot to cot he noted how
+the younger sisters fluttered happily around her, like bridesmaids
+around a bride, and how as she passed, the eyes of those in the
+cots followed her jealously, and after she had spoken with them
+smiled in content.
+
+"She is good," the Mother Superior was saying, "and her brother,
+too, is very good."
+
+Everett had forgotten the brother.  With a start he lifted his eyes
+and found the Mother Superior regarding him.
+
+"He is very good," she repeated.  "For us, he built this wing of
+the hospital.  It was his money.  We should be very sorry if any
+harm came to Mr. Ward.  Without his help we would starve."  She
+smiled, and with a gesture signified the sick.  "I mean they would
+starve; they would die of disease and fever."  The woman fixed
+upon him grave, inscrutable eyes.  "Will Your Excellency
+remember?" she said.  It was less of a question than a command.
+"Where the church can forgive--" she paused.
+
+Like a real diplomat Everett sought refuge in mere words.
+
+"The church is all-powerful, Mother," he said.  "Her power to
+forgive is her strongest weapon.  I have no such power.  It lies
+beyond my authority.  I am just a messenger-boy carrying the
+wishes of the government of one country to the government of
+another."
+
+The face of the Mother Superior remained grave, but undisturbed.
+
+"Then, as regards our Mr. Ward," she said, "the wishes of your
+government are--"
+
+Again she paused; again it was less of a question than a command.
+With interest Everett gazed at the whitewashed ceiling.
+
+"I have not yet," he said, "communicated them to any one."
+
+That night, after dinner in the patio, he reported to Garland the
+words of the Mother Superior.
+
+"That was my dream, 0 Prophet," concluded Everett; "you who can
+read this land of lotus-eaters, interpret! What does it mean?"
+
+"It only means what I've been telling you," said the consul.  "It means
+that if you're going after that treaty, you've only got to fight the
+Catholic Church.  That's all it means!"
+
+Later in the evening Garland said: "I saw you this morning crossing
+the plaza with Monica.  When I told you everybody in this town
+loved her, was I right?"
+
+"Absolutely!" assented Everett.  "But why didn't you tell me she
+was a flapper?"
+
+"I don't know what a flapper is," promptly retorted Garland.  "And
+if I did, I wouldn't call Monica one."
+
+"A flapper is a very charming person," protested Everett.  "I used
+the term in its most complimentary sense.  It means a girl between
+fourteen and eighteen.  It's English slang, and in England at the
+present the flapper is very popular.  She is driving her sophisticated
+elder sister, who has been out two or three seasons, and the predatory
+married woman to the wall.  To men of my years the flapper is really
+at the dangerous age."
+
+In his bamboo chair Garland tossed violently and snorted.
+
+"I sized you up," he cried, "as a man of the finest perceptions.  I was
+wrong.  You don't appreciate Monica! Dangerous! You might as
+well say God's sunshine is dangerous, or a beautiful flower is
+dangerous."
+
+Everett shook his head at the other man reproachfully:
+
+"Did you ever hear of a sunstroke?" he demanded.  "Don't you know
+if you smell certain beautiful flowers you die? Can't you grasp any
+other kind of danger than being run down by a trolley-car? Is the
+danger of losing one's peace of mind nothing, of being unfaithful
+to duty, nothing! Is--"
+
+Garland raised his arms.
+
+"Don't shoot!" he begged.  "I apologize.  You do appreciate Monica.
+You have your consul's permission to walk with her again."
+
+The next day young Professor Peabody called and presented his
+letters.  He was a forceful young man to whom the delays of
+diplomacy did not appeal, and one apparently accustomed to riding
+off whatever came in his way.  He seemed to consider any one who
+opposed him, or who even disagreed with his conclusions, as
+offering a personal affront.  With indignation he launched into
+his grievance.
+
+"These people," he declared, "are dogs in the manger, and Ward is
+the worst of the lot.  He knows no more of archaeology than a
+congressman.  The man's a faker! He showed me a spear-head of
+obsidian and called it flint; and he said the Aztecs borrowed from
+the Mayas, and that the Toltecs were a myth.  And he got the Aztec
+solar calendar mixed with the Ahau.  He's as ignorant as that."
+
+"I can't believe it!" exclaimed Everett.
+
+"You may laugh," protested the professor, "but the ruins of Cobre
+hold secrets the students of two continents are trying to solve.
+They hide the history of a lost race, and I submit it's not proper
+one man should keep that knowledge from the world, certainly
+not for a few gold armlets!"
+
+Everett raised his eyes.
+
+"What makes you say that?"' he demanded.
+
+"I've been kicking my heels in this town for a month," Peabody
+told him, "and I've talked to the people here, and to the Harvard
+expedition at Copan, and everybody tells me this fellow has found
+treasure."  The archaeologist exclaimed with indignation: "What's
+gold," he snorted, "compared to the discovery of a lost race?"
+
+"I applaud your point of view," Everett assured him.  "I am to see the
+President tomorrow, and I will lay the matter before him.  I'll ask him
+to give you a look in."
+
+To urge his treaty of extradition was the reason for the audience with
+the President, and with all the courtesy that a bad case demanded
+Mendoza protested against it.  He pointed out that governments
+entered into treaties only when the ensuing benefits were mutual.
+For Amapala in a treaty of extradition he saw no benefit.  Amapala
+was not so far "advanced" as to produce defaulting bank presidents,
+get-rich-quick promoters, counterfeiters, and thieving cashiers.  Her
+fugitives were revolutionists who had fought and lost, and every one
+was glad to have them go, and no one wanted them back.
+
+"Or," suggested the President, "suppose I am turned out by a
+revolution, and I seek asylum in your country? My enemies desire
+my life.  They would ask for my extradition--"
+
+"If the offense were political," Everett corrected, "my government
+would surrender no one."
+
+"But my enemies would charge me with murder," explained the
+President.  "Remember Castro.  And by the terms of the treaty your
+government would be forced to surrender me.  And I am shot against
+the wall."  The President shrugged his shoulders.  "That treaty would
+not be nice for me!"
+
+"Consider the matter as a patriot," said the diplomat.  "Is it good that
+the criminals of my country should make their home in yours? When
+you are so fortunate as to have no dishonest men of your own, why
+import ours? We don't seek the individual.  We want to punish him
+only as a warning to others.  And we want the money he takes with
+him.  Often it is the savings of the very poor."
+
+The President frowned.  It was apparent that both the subject and
+Everett bored him.
+
+"I name no names," exclaimed Mendoza, "but to those who come
+here we owe the little railroads we possess.  They develop our mines
+and our coffee plantations.  In time they will make this country very
+modern, very rich.  And some you call criminals we have learned to
+love.  Their past does not concern us.  We shut our ears.  We do not
+spy.  They have come to us as to a sanctuary, and so long as they claim
+the right of sanctuary, I will not violate it."
+
+As Everett emerged from the cool, dark halls of the palace into
+the glare of the plaza he was scowling; and he acknowledged the
+salute of the palace guard as though those gentlemen had offered
+him an insult.
+
+Garland was waiting in front of a cafe and greeted him with a
+mocking grin.
+
+"Congratulations," he shouted.
+
+"I have still twenty-two days," said Everett
+.
+
+The aristocracy of Camaguay invited the new minister to formal
+dinners of eighteen courses, and to picnics less formal.  These
+latter Everett greatly enjoyed, because while Monica Ward was too
+young to attend the state dinners, she was exactly the proper age
+for the all-day excursions to the waterfalls, the coffee plantations,
+and the asphalt lakes.  The native belles of Camaguay took no
+pleasure in riding farther afield than the military parade-ground.
+Climbing a trail so steep that you viewed the sky between the ears
+of your pony, or where with both hands you forced a way through
+hanging vines and creepers, did not appeal.  But to Monica, with
+the seat and balance of a cowboy, riding astride, with her leg straight
+and the ball of her foot just feeling the stirrup, these expeditions were
+the happiest moments in her exile.  So were they to Everett; and that
+on the trail one could ride only in single file was a most poignant
+regret.  In the column the place of honor was next to whoever rode
+at the head, but Everett relinquished this position in favor of Monica.
+By this manoeuvre she always was in his sight, and he could call
+upon her to act as his guide and to explain what lay on either hand.
+His delight and wonder in her grew daily.  He found that her mind
+leaped instantly and with gratitude to whatever was most fair.  Just
+out of reach of her pony's hoofs he pressed his own pony forward,
+and she pointed out to him what in the tropic abundance about them
+she found most beautiful.  Sometimes it was the tumbling waters of
+a cataract; sometimes, high in the topmost branches of a ceiba-tree,
+a gorgeous orchid; sometimes a shaft of sunshine as rigid as a
+search-light, piercing the shadow of the jungle.  At first she would
+turn in the saddle and call to him, but as each day they grew to know
+each other better she need only point with her whip-hand and he would
+answer, "Yes," and each knew the other understood.
+
+As a body, the exiles resented Everett.  They knew his purpose in
+regard to the treaty, and for them he always must be the enemy.
+Even though as a man they might like him, they could not forget
+that his presence threatened their peace and safety.  Chester Ward
+treated him with impeccable politeness; but, although his house
+was the show-place of Camaguay, he never invited the American
+minister to cross the threshold.  On account of Monica, Everett
+regretted this and tried to keep the relations of her brother and
+himself outwardly pleasant.  But Ward made it difficult.  To no
+one was his manner effusive, and for Monica only he seemed to
+hold any real feeling.  The two were alone in the world; he was
+her only relative, and to the orphan he had been father and mother.
+When she was a child he had bought her toys and dolls; now, had
+the sisters permitted, he would have dressed her in imported frocks,
+and with jewels killed her loveliness.  He seemed to understand
+how to spend his money as little as did the gossips of Camaguay
+understand from whence it came.
+
+That Monica knew why her brother lived in Camaguay Everett was
+uncertain.  She did not complain of living there, but she was not
+at rest, and constantly she was asking Everett of foreign lands.
+As Everett was homesick for them, he was most eloquent.
+
+"I should like to see them for myself," said Monica, "but until my
+brother's work here is finished we must wait.  And I am young,
+and after a few years Europe will be just as old.  When my brother
+leaves Amapala, he promises to take me wherever I ask to go: to
+London, to Paris, to Rome.  So I read and read of them; books of
+history, books about painting, books about the cathedrals.  But
+the more I read the more I want to go at once, and that is disloyal."
+
+"Disloyal?" asked Everett.
+
+"To my brother," explained Monica.  "He does so much for me.
+I should think only of his work.  That is all that really counts.
+For the world is waiting to learn what he has discovered.  It is
+like having a brother go in search of the North Pole.  You are
+proud of what he is doing, but you want him back to keep him
+to yourself.  Is that selfish?"
+
+Everett was a trained diplomat, but with his opinion of Chester Ward
+he could not think of the answer.  Instead, he was thinking of Monica
+in Europe; of taking her through the churches and galleries which she
+had seen only in black and white.  He imagined himself at her side
+facing the altar of some great cathedral, or some painting in the Louvre,
+and watching her face lighten and the tears come to her eyes, as they
+did now, when things that were beautiful hurt her.  Or he imagined her
+rid of her half-mourning and accompanying him through a cyclonic
+diplomatic career that carried them to Japan, China, Persia; to Berlin,
+Paris, and London.  In these imaginings Monica appeared in pongee
+and a sun-hat riding an elephant, in pearls and satin receiving
+royalty, in tweed knickerbockers and a woollen jersey coasting
+around the hairpin curve at Saint Moritz.
+
+Of course he recognized that except as his wife Monica could not
+accompany him to all these strange lands and high diplomatic posts.
+And of course that was ridiculous.  He had made up his mind for
+the success of what he called his career, that he was too young to
+marry; but he was sure, should he propose to marry Monica, every
+one would say he was too old.  And there was another consideration.
+What of the brother? Would his government send him to a foreign
+post when his wife was the sister of a man they had just sent to the
+penitentiary?
+
+He could hear them say in London, "We know your first secretary,
+but who is Mrs. Everett?" And the American visitor would explain:
+"She is the sister of 'Inky Dink,' the forger.  He is bookkeeping
+in Sing Sing."
+
+Certainly it would be a handicap.  He tried to persuade himself
+that Monica so entirely filled his thoughts because in Camaguay
+there was no one else; it was a case of propinquity; her loneliness
+and the fact that she lay under a shadow for which she was not to
+blame appealed to his chivalry.  So, he told himself, in thinking of
+Monica except as a charming companion, he was an ass.  And then,
+arguing that in calling himself an ass he had shown his saneness
+and impartiality, he felt justified in seeing her daily.
+
+One morning Garland came to the legation to tell Everett that
+Peabody was in danger of bringing about international
+complications by having himself thrust into the cartel.
+
+"If he qualifies for this local jail," said Garland, "you will have
+a lot of trouble setting him free.  You'd better warn him it's
+easier to keep out than to get out."
+
+"What has he been doing?" asked the minister.
+
+"Poaching on Ward's ruins," said the consul.  "He certainly is a
+hustler.  He pretends to go to Copan, but really goes to Cobre.
+Ward had him followed and threatened to have him arrested.
+Peabody claims any tourist has a right to visit the ruins so long
+as he does no excavating.  Ward accused him of exploring the place
+by night and taking photographs by flash-light of the hieroglyphs.
+He's put an armed guard at the ruins, and he told Peabody they are
+to shoot on sight.  So Peabody went to Mendoza and said if anybody
+took a shot at him he'd bring warships down here and blow Amapala
+off the map."
+
+"A militant archaeologist," said Everett, "is something new.  Peabody
+is too enthusiastic.  He and his hieroglyphs are becoming a bore."
+
+He sent for Peabody and told him unless he curbed his spirit his
+minister could not promise to keep him out of a very damp and
+dirty dungeon.
+
+"I am too enthusiastic," Peabody admitted, "but to me this fellow
+Ward is like a red flag to the bull.  His private graft is holding
+up the whole scientific world.  He won't let us learn the truth,
+and he's too ignorant to learn it himself.  Why, he told me Cobre
+dated from 1578, when Palacio wrote of it to Philip the Second,
+not knowing that in that very letter Palacio states that he found
+Cobre in ruins. Is it right a man as ignorant--"
+
+Everett interrupted by levelling his finger.
+
+"You," he commanded, "keep out of those ruins! My dear professor,"
+he continued reproachfully, "you are a student, a man of peace.
+Don't try to wage war on these Amapalans.  They're lawless, they're
+unscrupulous.  So is Ward.  Besides, you are in the wrong, and if
+they turn ugly, your minister cannot help you."  He shook his head
+and smiled doubtfully.  "I can't understand," he exclaimed, "why
+you're so keen.  It's only a heap of broken pottery.  Sometimes I
+wonder if your interest in Cobre is that only of the archaeologist."
+
+"What other interest--" demanded Peabody.
+
+"Doesn't Ward's buried treasure appeal at all?" asked the
+minister.  "I mean, of course, to your imagination.  It does to
+mine."
+
+The young professor laughed tolerantly.
+
+"Buried treasure!" he exclaimed.  "If Ward has found treasure, and
+I think he has, he's welcome to it.  What we want is what you call
+the broken pottery.  It means nothing to you, but to men like
+myself, who live eight hundred years behind the times, it is much
+more precious than gold."
+
+A few moments later Professor Peabody took his leave, and it was
+not until he had turned the corner of the Calle Morazan that he
+halted and, like a man emerging from water, drew a deep breath.
+
+"Gee!" muttered the distinguished archeologist, "that was a close
+call!"
+
+One or two women had loved Everett, and after five weeks, in
+which almost daily he had seen Monica, he knew she cared for him.
+This discovery made him entirely happy and filled him with dismay.
+It was a complication he had not foreseen.  It left him at the parting
+of two ways, one of which he must choose.  For his career he was
+willing to renounce marriage, but now that Monica loved him, even
+though he had consciously not tried to make her love him, had he
+the right to renounce it for her also? He knew that the difference
+between Monica and his career lay in the fact that he loved Monica
+and was in love with his career.  Which should he surrender? Of this
+he thought long and deeply, until one night, without thinking at all,
+he chose.
+
+Colonel Goddard had given a dance, and, as all invited were
+Americans, the etiquette was less formal than at the gatherings
+of the Amapalans.  For one thing, the minister and Monica were
+able to sit on the veranda overlooking the garden without his
+having to fight a duel in the morning.
+
+It was not the moonlight, or the music, or the palms that made
+Everett speak.  It was simply the knowledge that it was written,
+that it had to be.  And he heard himself, without prelude or
+introduction, talking easily and assuredly of the life they would
+lead as man and wife.  From this dream Monica woke him.  The
+violet eyes were smiling at him through tears.
+
+"When you came," said the girl, "and I loved you, I thought that
+was the greatest happiness.  Now that I know you love me I ask
+nothing more.  And I can bear it."
+
+Everett felt as though an icy finger had moved swiftly down his
+spine.  He pretended not to understand.
+
+"Bear what?" he demanded roughly.
+
+"That I cannot marry you," said the girl.  "Even had you not asked
+me, in loving you I would have been happy.  Now that I know you
+thought of me as your wife, I am proud. I am grateful.  And the
+obstacle--"
+
+Everett laughed scornfully.
+
+"There is no obstacle."
+
+Monica shook her head.  Unafraid, she looked into his eyes, her
+own filled with her love for him.
+
+"Don't make it harder," she said.  "My brother is hiding from the
+law.  What he did I don't know.  When it happened I was at the
+convent, and he did not send for me until he had reached Amapala.
+I never asked why we came, but were I to marry you, with your name
+and your position, every one else would ask.  And the scandal would
+follow you; wherever you went it would follow; it would put an end
+to your career."
+
+His career, now that Monica urged it as her rival, seemed to
+Everett particularly trivial.
+
+"I don't know what your brother did either," he said.  "His sins
+are on his own head.  They're not on yours, nor on mine.  I don't
+judge him; neither do I intend to let him spoil my happiness.  Now
+that I have found you I will never let you go."
+
+Sadly Monica shook her head and smiled.
+
+"When you leave here," she said, "for some new post, you won't
+forget me, but you'll be grateful that I let you go alone; that I was
+not a drag on you.  When you go back to your great people and
+your proud and beautiful princesses, all this will seem a strange
+dream, and you will be glad you are awake--and free."
+
+"The idea of marrying you, Monica," said Everett, "is not new.  It did
+not occur to me only since we moved out here into the moonlight.
+Since I first saw you I've thought of you, and only of you.  I've
+thought of you with me in every corner of the globe, as my wife,
+my sweetheart, my partner, riding through jungles as we ride here,
+sitting opposite me at our own table, putting the proud and beautiful
+princesses at their ease.  And in all places, at all moments, you make
+all other women tawdry and absurd.  And I don't think you are the
+most wonderful person I ever met because I love you, but I love you
+because you are the most wonderful person I ever met."
+
+"I am young," said Monica, "but since I began to love you I am
+very old.  And I see clearly that it cannot be."
+
+"Dear heart," cried Everett, "that is quite morbid.  What the
+devil do I care what your brother has done! I am not marrying
+your brother."
+
+For a long time, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and
+her face buried in her hands, the girl sat silent.  It was as though she
+were praying.  Everett knew it was not of him, but of her brother,
+she was thinking, and his heart ached for her.  For him to cut the
+brother out of his life was not difficult; what it meant to her he
+could guess.
+
+When the girl raised her eyes they were eloquent with distress.
+
+"He has been so good to me," she said; "always so gentle.  He has
+been mother and father to me.  He is the first person I can remember.
+When I was a child he put me to bed, he dressed me, and comforted
+me.  When we became rich there was nothing he did not wish to give
+me.  I cannot leave him.  He needs me more than ever I needed him.  I
+am all he has.  And there is this besides.  Were I to marry, of all the
+men in the world it would be harder for him if I married you.  For if
+you succeed in what you came here to do, the law will punish him,
+and he will know it was through you he was punished.  And even
+between you and me there always would be that knowledge, that
+feeling."
+
+"That is not fair," cried Everett.  "I am not an individual fighting
+less fortunate individuals.  I am an insignificant wheel in a great
+machine.  You must not blame me because I-"
+
+With an exclamation the girl reproached him.
+
+"Because you do your duty!" she protested.  "Is that fair to me?
+If for my sake or my brother you failed in your duty, if you were
+less vigilant, less eager, even though we suffer, I could not
+love you."
+
+Everett sighed happily.
+
+"As long as you love me," he said, "neither your brother nor any
+one else can keep us apart."
+
+"My brother," said the girl, as though she were pronouncing a
+sentence, "always will keep us apart, and I will always love
+you."
+
+It was a week before he again saw her, and then the feeling he
+had read in her eyes was gone--or rigorously concealed.  Now her
+manner was that of a friend, of a young girl addressing a man
+older than herself, one to whom she looked up with respect and
+liking, but with no sign of any feeling deeper or more intimate.
+
+It upset Everett completely.  When he pleaded with her, she asked:
+
+"Do you think it is easy for me? But--" she protested, "I know I
+am doing right.  I am doing it to make you happy."
+
+"You are succeeding," Everett assured her, "in making us both
+damned miserable."
+
+For Everett, in the second month of his stay in Amapala, events
+began to move quickly.  Following the example of two of his
+predecessors, the Secretary of State of the United States was
+about to make a grand tour of Central America.  He came on a
+mission of peace and brotherly love, to foster confidence and
+good-will, and it was secretly hoped that, in the wake of his
+escort of battle-ships, trade would follow fast.  There would
+be salutes and visits of ceremony, speeches, banquets, reviews.
+But in these rejoicings Amapala would have no part.
+
+For, so Everett was informed by cable, unless, previous to the
+visit of the Secretary, Amapala fell into line with her sister
+republics and signed a treaty of extradition, from the itinerary
+of the great man Amapala would find herself pointedly excluded.
+It would be a humiliation.  In the eyes of her sister republics it
+would place her outside the pale.  Everett saw that in his hands
+his friend the Secretary had placed a powerful weapon; and lost
+no time in using it.  He caught the President alone, sitting late at
+his dinner, surrounded by bottles, and read to him the Secretary's
+ultimatum.  General Mendoza did not at once surrender.  Before he
+threw over the men who fed him the golden eggs that made him rich,
+and for whom he had sworn never to violate the right of sanctuary,
+he first, for fully half an hour, raged and swore.  During that time,
+while Everett sat anxiously expectant, the President paced and
+repaced the length of the dining-hall.  When to relight his cigar,
+or to gulp brandy from a tumbler, he halted at the table, his great
+bulk loomed large in the flickering candle-flames, and when he
+continued his march, he would disappear into the shadows, and
+only his scabbard clanking on the stone floor told of his presence.
+At last he halted and shrugged his shoulders so that the tassels of
+his epaulets tossed like wheat.
+
+"You drive a hard bargain, sir," he said.  "And I have no choice.
+To-morrow bring the treaty and I will sign."
+
+Everett at once produced it and a fountain pen.
+
+"I should like to cable to-night," he urged, "that you have signed.
+They are holding back the public announcement of the Secretary's
+route until hearing from Your Excellency.  This is only tentative,"
+he pointed out; "the Senate must ratify.  But our Senate will ratify
+it, and when you sign now, it is a thing accomplished."
+
+Over the place at which Everett pointed, the pen scratched harshly;
+and then, throwing it from him, the President sat in silence.  With
+eyes inflamed by anger and brandy he regarded the treaty venomously.
+As though loath to let it go, his hands played with it, as a cat plays
+with the mouse between her paws.  Watching him breathlessly,
+Everett feared the end was not yet.  He felt a depressing premonition
+that if ever the treaty were to reach Washington he best had snatch it
+and run.  Even as he waited, the end came.  An orderly, appearing
+suddenly in the light of the candles, announced the arrival, in the
+room adjoining, of "the Colonel Goddard and Senor Mellen."  They
+desired an immediate audience.  Their business with the President
+was most urgent.  Whether from Washington their agents had warned
+them, whether in Camaguay they had deciphered the cablegram from
+the State Department, Everett could only guess, but he was certain the
+cause of their visit was the treaty.  That Mendoza also believed this
+was most evident.
+
+Into the darkness, from which the two exiles might emerge, he
+peered guiltily.  With an oath he tore the treaty in half.  Crushing
+the pieces of paper into a ball, he threw it at Everett's feet.  His
+voice rose to a shriek.  It was apparent he intended his words to
+carry to the men outside.  Like an actor on a stage he waved his
+arms.
+
+"That is my answer!" he shouted.  "Tell your Secretary the choice
+he offers is an insult! It is blackmail.  We will not sign his treaty.
+We do not desire his visit to our country."  Thrilled by his own
+bravado, his voice rose higher.  "Nor," he shouted, "do we desire
+the presence of his representative.  Your usefulness is at an end.
+You will receive your passports in the morning."
+
+As he might discharge a cook, he waved Everett away.  His hand,
+trembling with excitement, closed around the neck of the brandy-
+bottle.  Everett stooped and secured the treaty.  On his return to
+Washington, torn and rumpled as it was, it would be his
+justification.  It was his "Exhibit A."
+
+As he approached the legation he saw drawn up in front of it three
+ponies ready saddled.  For an instant he wondered if Mendoza
+intended further to insult him, if he planned that night to send
+him under guard to the coast.  He determined hotly sooner than
+submit to such an indignity he would fortify the legation, and
+defend himself.  But no such heroics were required of him.  As he
+reached the door, Garland, with an exclamation of relief, hailed
+him, and Monica, stepping from the shadow, laid an appealing
+hand upon his sleeve.
+
+"My brother!" she exclaimed.  "The guard at Cobre has just sent
+word that they found Peabody prowling in the ruins and fired on
+him.  He fired back, and he is still there hiding.  My brother and
+others have gone to take him.  I don't know what may happen if he
+resists.  Chester is armed, and he is furious; he is beside himself;
+he would not listen to me.  But he must listen to you.  Will you
+go," the girl begged, "and speak to him; speak to him, I mean,"
+she added, "as the American minister?"
+
+Everett already had his foot in the stirrup.  "I'm the American minister
+only until to-morrow," he said.  "I've got my walking-papers.  But I'll
+do all I can to stop this to-night.  Garland," he asked, "will you take
+Miss Ward home, and then follow me?"
+
+"If I do not go with you," said Monica, "I will go alone."
+
+Her tone was final.  With a clatter of hoofs that woke alarmed
+echoes in the sleeping streets the three horses galloped abreast
+toward Cobre.  In an hour they left the main trail and at a walk
+picked their way to where the blocks of stone, broken columns,
+and crumbling temples of the half-buried city checked the jungle.
+
+The moon made it possible to move in safety, and at different
+distances the lights of torches told them the man-hunt still was
+in progress.
+
+"Thank God," breathed Monica, "we are in time."
+
+Everett gave the ponies in care of one of the guards.  He turned
+to Garland.
+
+"Catch up with those lights ahead of us," he said, "and we will
+join this party to the right.  If you find Ward, tell him I forbid
+him taking the law into his own hands; tell him I will protect
+his interests.  If you meet Peabody, make him give up his gun,
+and see that the others don't harm him!"
+
+Everett and the girl did not overtake the lights they had seen
+flashing below them.  Before they were within hailing distance,
+that searching party had disappeared, and still farther away
+other torches beckoned.
+
+Stumbling and falling, now in pursuit of one will-o'-the-wisp,
+now of another, they scrambled forward.  But always the lights
+eluded them.  From their exertions and the moist heat they were
+breathless, and their bodies dripped with water.  Panting, they
+halted at the entrance of what once had been a tomb.  From its
+black interior came a damp mist; above them, alarmed by their
+intrusion, the vampire bats whirled blindly in circles.  Monica,
+who by day possessed some slight knowledge of the ruins, had,
+in the moonlight, lost all sense of direction.
+
+"We're lost," said Monica, in a low tone.  Unconsciously both were
+speaking in whispers.  "I thought we were following what used to
+be the main thoroughfare of the city; but I have never seen this place
+before.  From what I have read I think we must be among the tombs
+of the kings."
+
+She was silenced by Everett placing one hand quickly on her arm,
+and with the other pointing.  In the uncertain moonlight she saw
+moving cautiously away from them, and unconscious of their
+presence, a white, ghostlike figure.
+
+"Peabody," whispered Everett.
+
+"Call him," commanded Monica.
+
+"The others might hear," objected Everett.  "We must overtake him.
+If we're with him when they meet, they wouldn't dare--"
+
+With a gasp of astonishment, his words ceased.
+
+Like a ghost, the ghostlike figure had vanished.
+
+"He walked through that rock!" cried Monica.
+
+Everett caught her by the wrist.  "Come!" he commanded.
+
+Over the face of the rock, into which Peabody had dived as into
+water, hung a curtain of vines.  Everett tore it apart.  Concealed
+by the vines was the narrow mouth to a tunnel; and from it they
+heard, rapidly lessening in the distance, the patter of footsteps.
+
+"Will you wait," demanded Everett, "or come with me?"
+
+With a shudder of distaste, Monica answered by seizing his hand.
+
+With his free arm Everett swept aside the vines, and, Monica
+following, they entered the tunnel.  It was a passageway cleanly
+cut through the solid rock and sufficiently wide to permit of their
+moving freely.  At the farther end, at a distance of a hundred
+yards, it opened into a great vault, also hollowed from the rock
+and, as they saw to their surprise, brilliantly lighted.
+
+For an instant, in black silhouette, the figure of Peabody
+blocked the entrance to this vault, and then, turning to the
+right, again vanished.  Monica felt an untimely desire to laugh.
+Now that they were on the track of Peabody she no longer feared
+the outcome of the adventure.  In the presence of the American
+minister and of herself there would be no violence; and as they
+trailed the archaeologist through the tunnel she was reminded of
+Alice and her pursuit of the white rabbit.  This thought, and her
+sense of relief that the danger was over, caused her to laugh aloud.
+
+They had gained the farther end of the tunnel and the entrance to
+the vault, when at once her amusement turned to wonder.  For the
+vault showed every evidence of use and of recent occupation.  In
+brackets, and burning brightly, were lamps of modern make; on
+the stone floor stood a canvas cot, saddle-bags, camp-chairs,
+and in the centre of the vault a collapsible table.  On this were
+bottles filled with chemicals, trays, and presses such as are used
+in developing photographs, and apparently hung there to dry,
+
+swinging from strings, the proofs of many negatives.
+
+Loyal to her brother, Monica exclaimed indignantly.  At the proofs
+she pointed an accusing finger.
+
+"Look!" she whispered.  "This is Peabody's darkroom, where he
+develops the flash-lights he takes of the hieroglyphs! Chester has
+a right to be furious!"
+
+Impulsively she would have pushed past Everett; but with an
+exclamation he sprang in front of her.
+
+"No!" he commanded, "come away!"
+
+He had fallen into a sudden panic.  His tone spoke of some
+catastrophe, imminent and overwhelming.  Monica followed
+the direction of his eyes.  They were staring in fear at the proofs.
+
+The girl leaned forward; and now saw them clearly.
+
+Each was a United States Treasury note for five hundred dollars.
+
+Around the turn of the tunnel, approaching the vault apparently
+from another passage, they heard hurrying footsteps; and then,
+close to them from the vault itself, the voice of Professor Peabody.
+
+It was harsh, sharp, peremptory.
+
+"Hands up!" it commanded.  "Drop that gun!"
+
+As though halted by a precipice, the footsteps fell into instant
+silence.  There was a pause, and then the ring of steel upon the
+stone floor.  There was another pause, and Monica heard the
+voice of her brother.  Broken, as though with running, it still
+retained its level accent, its note of insolence.
+
+"So," it said, "I have caught you?"
+
+Monica struggled toward the lighted vault, but around her Everett
+threw his arm.
+
+"Come away!" he begged.
+
+Monica fought against the terror of something unknown.  She could
+not understand.  They had come only to prevent a meeting between
+her brother and Peabody; and now that they had met, Everett was
+endeavoring to escape.
+
+It was incomprehensible.
+
+And the money in the vault, the yellow bills hanging from a
+cobweb of strings; why should they terrify her; what did they
+threaten? Dully, and from a distance, Monica heard the voice
+of Peabody.
+
+"No," he answered; "I have caught you! And I've had a hell of a
+time doing it!"
+
+Monica tried to call out, to assure her brother of her presence.
+But, as though in a nightmare, she could make no sound.  Fingers
+of fear gripped at her throat.  To struggle was no longer possible.
+
+The voice of Peabody continued:
+
+"Six months ago we traced these bills to New Orleans.  So we guessed
+the plant was in Central America.  We knew only one man who could
+make them.  When I found you were in Amapala and they said you had
+struck 'buried treasure'--the rest was easy."
+
+Monica heard the voice of her brother answer with a laugh.
+
+"Easy?" he mocked.  "There's no extradition.  You can't touch me.
+You're lucky if you get out of here alive.  I've only to raise my voice--"
+
+"And, I'll kill you!"
+
+This was danger Monica could understand.
+
+Freed from the nightmare of doubt, with a cry she ran forward.
+She saw Peabody, his back against a wall, a levelled automatic in
+his hand; her brother at the entrance to a tunnel like the one from
+which she had just appeared.  His arms were raised above his head.
+At his feet lay a revolver.  For an instant, with disbelief, he stared
+at Monica, and then, as though assured that it was she, his eyes
+dilated.  In them were fear and horror.  So genuine was the agony
+in the face of the counterfeiter that Everett, who had followed,
+turned his own away.  But the eyes of the brother and sister
+remained fixed upon each other, hers, appealingly; his, with
+despair.  He tried to speak, but the words did not come.  When
+he did break the silence his tone was singularly wistful, most
+tenderly kind.
+
+"Did you hear?" he asked.
+
+Monica slowly bowed her head.  With the same note of gentleness
+her brother persisted:
+
+"Did you understand?"
+
+Between them stretched the cobweb of strings hung with yellow
+certificates; each calling for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
+Stirred by the night air from the open tunnels, they fluttered and
+flaunted.
+
+Against the sight of them, Monica closed her eyes.  Heavily, as
+though with a great physical effort, again she bowed her head.
+
+The eyes of her brother searched about him wildly.  They rested on
+the mouth of the tunnel.
+
+With his lowered arm he pointed.
+
+"Who is that?" he cried.
+
+Instinctively the others turned.
+
+It was for an instant.  The instant sufficed.
+
+Monica saw her brother throw himself upon the floor, felt herself
+flung aside as Everett and the detective leaped upon him; saw her
+brother press his hands against his heart, the two men dragging
+at his arms.
+
+The cavelike room was shaken with a report, an acrid smoke
+assailed her nostrils.  The men ceased struggling.  Her brother lay
+still.
+
+Monica sprang toward the body, but a black wave rose and
+submerged her.  As she fainted, to save herself she threw out her
+arms, and as she fell she dragged down with her the buried
+treasure of Cobre.
+
+Stretched upon the stone floor beside her brother, she lay motionless.
+Beneath her, and wrapped about and covering her, as the leaves
+covered the babes in the wood, was a vast cobweb of yellow bills,
+each for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
+
+
+A month later the harbor of Porto Cortez in Honduras was shaken
+with the roar of cannon.  In comparison, the roaring of all the cannon
+of all the revolutions that that distressful country ever had known,
+were like fire-crackers under a barrel.
+
+Faithful to his itinerary, the Secretary of State of the United States
+was paying his formal visit to Honduras, and the President of that
+republic, waiting upon the Fruit Company's wharf to greet him, was
+receiving the salute of the American battle-ships.  Back of him, on
+the wharf, his own barefooted artillerymen in their turn were saluting,
+excitedly and spasmodically, the distinguished visitor.  As an honor
+he had at last learned to accept without putting a finger in each ear,
+the Secretary of State smiled with gracious calm.  Less calm was the
+President of Honduras.  He knew something the Secretary did not
+know.  He knew that at any moment a gun of his saluting battery
+might turn turtle, or blow into the harbor himself, his cabinet, and
+the larger part of his standing army.
+
+Made fast to the wharf on the side opposite to the one at which
+the Secretary had landed was one of the Fruit Company's steamers.
+She was on her way north, and Porto Cortez was a port of call.
+That her passengers might not intrude upon the ceremonies, her
+side of the wharf was roped off and guarded by the standing army.
+But from her decks and from behind the ropes the passengers, with
+a battery of cameras, were perpetuating the historic scene.
+
+Among them, close to the ropes, viewing the ceremony with the
+cynical eye of one who in Europe had seen kings and emperors
+meet upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was Everett.  He made
+no effort to bring himself to the attention of his former chief.  But
+when the introductions were over, the Secretary of State turned
+his eyes to his fellow countrymen crowding the rails of the
+American steamer.  They greeted him with cheers.  The great
+man raised his hat, and his eyes fell upon Everett.  The Secretary
+advanced quickly, his hand extended, brushing to one side the
+standing army.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
+
+"On my way home, sir," said Everett.  "I couldn't leave sooner; there
+were--personal reasons.  But I cabled the department my resignation
+the day Mendoza gave me my walking-papers.  You may remember,"
+Everett added dryly, "the department accepted by cable."
+
+The great man showed embarrassment.
+
+"It was most unfortunate," he sympathized.  "We wanted that treaty,
+and while, no doubt, you made every effort--"
+
+He became aware of the fact that Everett's attention was not
+exclusively his own.  Following the direction of the young man's
+eyes the Secretary saw on the deck just above them, leaning upon
+the rail, a girl in deep mourning.
+
+She was very beautiful.  Her face was as lovely as a violet and as shy.
+To the Secretary a beautiful woman was always a beautiful woman.
+But he had read the papers.  Who had not? He was sure there must
+be some mistake.  This could not be the sister of a criminal; the
+woman for whom Everett had smashed his career.
+
+The Secretary masked his astonishment, but not his admiration.
+
+"Mrs. Everett?" he asked.  His very tone conveyed congratulations.
+
+"Yes," said the ex-diplomat.  "Some day I shall be glad to present
+you."
+
+The Secretary did not wait for an introduction.  Raising his eyes
+to the ship's rail, he made a deep and courtly bow.  With a gesture
+worthy of d'Artagnan, his high hat swept the wharf.  The members
+of his staff, the officers from the war-ships, the President of
+Honduras and the members of his staff endeavored to imitate his
+act of homage, and in confusion Mrs. Everett blushed becomingly.
+
+"When I return to Washington," said the Secretary hastily, "come
+and see me.  You are too valuable to lose.  Your career--"
+
+Again Everett was looking at his wife.  Her distress at having been
+so suddenly drawn into the lime-light amused him, and he was
+smiling.  Then, as though aware of the Secretary's meaning, he
+laughed.
+
+"My dear sir!" he protested.  His tone suggested he was about to
+add "mind your own business," or "go to the devil."
+
+Instead he said: "I'm not worrying about my career.  My career has
+just begun."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY SCOUT
+
+
+
+
+A rule of the Boy Scouts is every day to do some one a good turn.
+Not because the copybooks tell you it deserves another, but in
+spite of that pleasing possibility.  If you are a true scout, until
+you have performed your act of kindness your day is dark.  You
+are as unhappy as is the grown-up who has begun his day without
+shaving or reading the New York Sun.  But as soon as you have
+proved yourself you may, with a clear conscience, look the world
+in the face and untie the knot in your kerchief.
+
+Jimmie Reeder untied the accusing knot in his scarf at just ten
+minutes past eight on a hot August morning after he had given one
+dime to his sister Sadie.  With that she could either witness the
+first-run films at the Palace, or by dividing her fortune patronize
+two of the nickel shows on Lenox Avenue.  The choice Jimmie
+left to her.  He was setting out for the annual encampment of
+the Boy Scouts at Hunter's Island, and in the excitement of that
+adventure even the movies ceased to thrill.  But Sadie also could
+be unselfish.  With a heroism of a camp-fire maiden she made
+a gesture which might have been interpreted to mean she was
+returning the money.
+
+"I can't, Jimmie!" she gasped.  "I can't take it off you.  You
+saved it, and you ought to get the fun of it."
+
+"I haven't saved it yet," said Jimmie.  "I'm going to cut it out
+of the railroad fare.  I'm going to get off at City Island instead
+of at Pelham Manor and walk the difference.  That's ten cents
+cheaper."
+
+Sadie exclaimed with admiration:
+
+"An' you carryin' that heavy grip!"
+
+"Aw, that's nothin'," said the man of the family.
+
+"Good-by, mother.  So long, Sadie."
+
+To ward off further expressions of gratitude he hurriedly advised
+Sadie to take in "The Curse of Cain" rather than "The Mohawk's
+Last Stand," and fled down the front steps.
+
+He wore his khaki uniform.  On his shoulders was his knapsack,
+from his hands swung his suit-case, and between his heavy stockings
+and his "shorts" his kneecaps, unkissed by the sun, as yet unscathed
+by blackberry vines, showed as white and fragile as the wrists of a girl.
+As he moved toward the "L" station at the corner, Sadie and his mother
+waved to him; in the street, boys too small to be scouts hailed him
+enviously; even the policeman glancing over the newspapers on the
+news-stand nodded approval.
+
+"You a scout, Jimmie?" he asked.
+
+"No," retorted Jimmie, for was not he also in uniform? "I'm Santa
+Claus out filling Christmas stockings."
+
+The patrolman also possessed a ready wit.
+
+"Then get yourself a pair," he advised.  "If a dog was to see your
+legs--"
+
+Jimmie escaped the insult by fleeing up the steps of the
+Elevated.
+
+
+An hour later, with his valise in one hand and staff in the other,
+he was tramping up the Boston Post Road and breathing heavily.
+The day was cruelly hot.  Before his eyes, over an interminable
+stretch of asphalt, the heat waves danced and flickered.  Already
+the knapsack on his shoulders pressed upon him like an Old Man
+of the Sea; the linen in the valise had turned to pig iron, his pipe-
+stem legs were wabbling, his eyes smarted with salt sweat, and the
+fingers supporting the valise belonged to some other boy, and were
+giving that boy much pain.  But as the motor-cars flashed past with
+raucous warnings, or, that those who rode might better see the boy
+with bare knees, passed at "half speed," Jimmie stiffened his shoulders
+and stepped jauntily forward.  Even when the joy-riders mocked with
+"Oh, you scout!" he smiled at them.  He was willing to admit to those
+who rode that the laugh was on the one who walked.  And he regretted--
+oh, so bitterly--having left the train.  He was indignant that for his
+"one good turn a day" he had not selected one less strenuous--that,
+for instance, he had not assisted a frightened old lady through the
+traffic.  To refuse the dime she might have offered, as all true scouts
+refuse all tips, would have been easier than to earn it by walking five
+miles, with the sun at ninety-nine degrees, and carrying excess baggage.
+Twenty times James shifted the valise to the other hand, twenty times
+he let it drop and sat upon it.
+
+And then, as again he took up his burden, the good Samaritan drew
+near.  He drew near in a low gray racing-car at the rate of forty miles
+an hour, and within a hundred feet of Jimmie suddenly stopped and
+backed toward him.  The good Samaritan was a young man with white
+hair.  He wore a suit of blue, a golf cap; the hands that held the wheel
+were disguised in large yellow gloves.  He brought the car to a halt and
+surveyed the dripping figure in the road with tired and uncurious eyes.
+
+"You a Boy Scout?" he asked.
+
+With alacrity for the twenty-first time Jimmie dropped the valise,
+forced his cramped fingers into straight lines, and saluted.
+
+The young man in the car nodded toward the seat beside him.
+
+"Get in," he commanded.
+
+When James sat panting happily at his elbow the old young man, to
+Jimmie's disappointment, did not continue to shatter the speed limit.
+Instead, he seemed inclined for conversation, and the car, growling
+indignantly, crawled.
+
+"I never saw a Boy Scout before," announced the old young man.
+"Tell me about it.  First, tell me what you do when you're not
+scouting."
+
+Jimmie explained volubly.  When not in uniform he was an office
+boy, and from peddlers and beggars guarded the gates of Carroll
+and Hastings, stock-brokers.  He spoke the names of his employers
+with awe.  It was a firm distinguished, conservative, and long
+established.  The white-haired young man seemed to nod in assent.
+
+"Do you know them?" demanded Jimmie suspiciously.  "Are you a
+customer of ours?"
+
+"I know them," said the young man.  "They are customers of mine."
+
+Jimmie wondered in what way Carroll and Hastings were customers
+of the white-haired young man.  Judging him by his outer garments,
+Jimmie guessed he was a Fifth Avenue tailor; he might be even a
+haberdasher.  Jimmie continued.  He lived, he explained, with his
+mother at One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street; Sadie, his sister,
+attended the public school; he helped support them both, and he
+now was about to enjoy a well-earned vacation camping out on
+Hunter's Island, where he would cook his own meals, and, if the
+mosquitoes permitted, sleep in a tent.
+
+"And you like that?" demanded the young man.  "You call that fun?"
+
+"Sure!" protested Jimmie.  "Don't you go camping out?"
+
+"I go camping out," said the good Samaritan, "whenever I leave
+New York."
+
+Jimmie had not for three years lived in Wall Street not to
+understand that the young man spoke in metaphor.
+
+"You don't look," objected the young man critically, "as though
+you were built for the strenuous life."
+
+Jimmie glanced guiltily at his white knees.
+
+"You ought ter see me two weeks from now," he protested.  "I get all
+sunburnt and hard-
+-hard as anything!"
+
+The young man was incredulous.
+
+"You were near getting sunstruck when I picked you up," he
+laughed.  "If you're going to Hunter's Island, why didn't you go
+to Pelham Manor?"
+
+"That's right!" assented Jimmie eagerly.  "But I wanted to save
+the ten cents so's to send Sadie to the movies.  So I walked."
+
+The young man looked his embarrassment.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he murmured.
+
+But Jimmie did not hear him.  From the back of the car he was
+dragging excitedly at the hated suit-case.
+
+"Stop!" he commanded.  "I got ter get out.  I got ter walk."
+
+The young man showed his surprise.
+
+"Walk!" he exclaimed.  "What is it--a bet?"
+
+Jimmie dropped the valise and followed it into the roadway.  It
+took some time to explain to the young man.  First, he had to be
+told about the scout law and the one good turn a day, and that it
+must involve some personal sacrifice.  And, as Jimmie pointed out,
+changing from a slow suburban train to a racing-car could not be
+listed as a sacrifice.  He had not earned the money, Jimmie argued;
+he had only avoided paying it to the railroad.  If he did not walk
+he would be obtaining the gratitude of Sadie by a falsehood.
+Therefore, he must walk.
+
+"Not at all," protested the young man.  "You've got it wrong.  What
+good will it do your sister to have you sunstruck? I think you are
+sunstruck.  You're crazy with the heat.  You get in here, and we'll
+talk it over as we go along."
+
+Hastily Jimmie backed away.  "I'd rather walk," he said.
+
+The young man shifted his legs irritably.
+
+"Then how'll this suit you?" he called.  "We'll declare that first 'one
+good turn' a failure and start afresh.  Do me a good turn."
+
+Jimmie halted in his tracks and looked back suspiciously.
+
+"I'm going to Hunter's Island Inn," called the young man, "and I've
+lost my way.  You get in here and guide me.  That'll be doing me
+a good turn."
+
+On either side of the road, blotting out the landscape, giant
+hands picked out in electric-light bulbs pointed the way to
+Hunter's Island Inn.  Jimmie grinned and nodded toward them.
+
+"Much obliged," he called.  "I got ter walk."  Turning his back
+upon temptation, he waddled forward into the flickering heat
+waves.
+
+
+The young man did not attempt to pursue.  At the side of the road,
+under the shade of a giant elm, he had brought the car to a halt and
+with his arms crossed upon the wheel sat motionless, following with
+frowning eyes the retreating figure of Jimmie.  But the narrow-chested
+and knock-kneed boy staggering over the sun-baked asphalt no longer
+concerned him.  It was not Jimmie, but the code preached by Jimmie,
+and not only preached but before his eyes put into practice, that
+interested him.  The young man with white hair had been running
+away from temptation.  At forty miles an hour he had been running
+away from the temptation to do a fellow mortal "a good turn."  That
+morning, to the appeal of a drowning Caesar to "Help me, Cassius,
+or I sink," he had answered: "Sink!" That answer he had no wish to
+reconsider.  That he might not reconsider he had sought to escape.
+It was his experience that a sixty-horse-power racing-machine is a
+jealous mistress.  For retrospective, sentimental, or philanthropic
+thoughts she grants no leave of absence.  But he had not escaped.
+Jimmie had halted him, tripped him by the heels, and set him again
+to thinking.  Within the half-hour that followed those who rolled
+past saw at the side of the road a car with her engine running, and
+leaning upon the wheel, as unconscious of his surroundings as
+though he sat at his own fireplace, a young man who frowned and
+stared at nothing.  The half-hour passed and the young man swung
+his car back toward the city.  But at the first road-house that showed
+a blue-and-white telephone sign he left it, and into the iron box at
+the end of the bar dropped a nickel.  He wished to communicate with
+Mr. Carroll, of Carroll and Hastings; and when he learned Mr. Carroll
+had just issued orders that he must not be disturbed, the young man
+gave his name.
+
+The effect upon the barkeeper was instantaneous.  With the aggrieved
+air of one who feels he is the victim of a jest he laughed scornfully.
+
+"What are you putting over?" he demanded.
+
+The young man smiled reassuringly.  He had begun to speak and,
+though apparently engaged with the beer-glass he was polishing,
+the barkeeper listened.
+
+Down in Wall Street the senior member of Carroll and Hastings
+also listened.  He was alone in the most private of all his private
+offices, and when interrupted had been engaged in what, of all
+undertakings, is the most momentous.  On the desk before him
+lay letters to his lawyer, to the coroner, to his wife; and hidden
+by a mass of papers, but within reach of his hand, was an
+automatic pistol.  The promise it offered of swift release had
+made the writing of the letters simple, had given him a feeling
+of complete detachment, had released him, at least in thought,
+from all responsibilities.  And when at his elbow the telephone
+coughed discreetly, it was as though some one had called him
+from a world from which already he had made his exit.
+
+Mechanically, through mere habit, he lifted the receiver.
+
+The voice over the telephone came in brisk, staccato sentences.
+
+"That letter I sent this morning? Forget it.  Tear it up.  I've been
+thinking and I'm going to take a chance.  I've decided to back you
+boys, and I know you'll make good.  I'm speaking from a road-house
+in the Bronx; going straight from here to the bank.  So you can begin
+to draw against us within an hour.  And--hello!--will three millions
+see you through?"
+
+From Wall Street there came no answer, but from the hands of the
+barkeeper a glass crashed to the floor.
+
+The young man regarded the barkeeper with puzzled eyes.
+
+"He doesn't answer," he exclaimed.  "He must have hung up."
+
+"He must have fainted!" said the barkeeper.
+
+The white-haired one pushed a bill across the counter.  "To pay
+for breakage," he said, and disappeared down Pelham Parkway.
+
+Throughout the day, with the bill, for evidence, pasted against
+the mirror, the barkeeper told and retold the wondrous tale.
+
+"He stood just where you're standing now," he related, "blowing
+in million-dollar bills like you'd blow suds off a beer.  If I'd
+knowed it was him, I'd have hit him once and hid him in the
+cellar for the reward.  Who'd I think he was? I thought he was
+a wire-tapper, working a con game!"
+
+Mr. Carroll had not "hung up," but when in the Bronx the
+beer-glass crashed, in Wall Street the receiver had slipped from
+the hand of the man who held it, and the man himself had fallen
+forward.  His desk hit him in the face and woke him--woke him
+to the wonderful fact that he still lived; that at forty he had been
+born again; that before him stretched many more years in which,
+as the young man with the white hair had pointed out, he still
+could make good.
+
+The afternoon was far advanced when the staff of Carroll and
+Hastings were allowed to depart, and, even late as was the hour,
+two of them were asked to remain.  Into the most private of the
+private offices Carroll invited Gaskell, the head clerk; in the
+main office Hastings had asked young Thorne, the bond clerk,
+to be seated.
+
+
+Until the senior partner has finished with Gaskell young Thorne
+must remain seated.
+
+"Gaskell," said Mr. Carroll, "if we had listened to you, if we'd run
+this place as it was when father was alive, this never would have
+happened.  It hasn't happened, but we've had our lesson.  And
+after this we're going slow and going straight.  And we don't need
+you to tell us how to do that.  We want you to go away--on a month's
+vacation.  When I thought we were going under I planned to send the
+children on a sea voyage with the governess--so they wouldn't see the
+newspapers.  But now that I can look them in the eye again, I need
+them, I can't let them go.  So, if you'd like to take your wife on an
+ocean trip to Nova Scotia and Quebec, here are the cabins I reserved
+for the kids.  They call it the royal suite--whatever that is--and the trip
+lasts a month.  The boat sails to-morrow morning.  Don't sleep too late
+or you may miss her."
+
+The head clerk was secreting the tickets in the inside pocket of
+his waistcoat.  His fingers trembled, and when he laughed his
+voice trembled.
+
+"Miss the boat!" the head clerk exclaimed.  "If she gets away from
+Millie and me she's got to start now.  We'll go on board to-night!"
+
+A half-hour later Millie was on her knees packing a trunk, and
+her husband was telephoning to the drug-store for a sponge-bag
+and a cure for seasickness.
+
+Owing to the joy in her heart and to the fact that she was on her
+knees, Millie was alternately weeping into the trunk-tray and
+offering up incoherent prayers of thanksgiving.  Suddenly she
+sank back upon the floor.
+
+"John!" she cried, "doesn't it seem sinful to sail away in a
+'royal suite' and leave this beautiful flat empty?"
+
+Over the telephone John was having trouble with the drug clerk.
+
+"No!" he explained, "I'm not seasick now.  The medicine I want is
+to be taken later.  I know I'm speaking from the Pavonia; but the
+Pavonia isn't a ship; it's an apartment-house."
+
+He turned to Millie.  "We can't be in two places at the same
+time," he suggested.
+
+"But, think," insisted Millie, "of all the poor people stifling
+to-night in this heat, trying to sleep on the roofs and fire-escapes;
+and our flat so cool and big and pretty--and no one in it."
+
+John nodded his head proudly.
+
+"I know it's big," he said, "but it isn't big enough to hold all
+the people who are sleeping to-night on the roofs and in the
+parks."
+
+"I was thinking of your brother--and Grace," said Millie.  "They've
+been married only two weeks now, and they're in a stuffy hall
+bedroom and eating with all the other boarders.  Think what our
+flat would mean to them; to be by themselves, with eight rooms
+and their own kitchen and bath, and our new refrigerator and the
+gramophone! It would be heaven! It would be a real honeymoon!"
+
+Abandoning the drug clerk, John lifted Millie in his arms and
+kissed her, for, next to his wife, nearest his heart was the
+younger brother.
+
+
+The younger brother and Grace were sitting on the stoop of the
+boarding-house.  On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were
+the other boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers.
+The air of the cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose
+exhalations of rotting fruit, the gases of an open subway, the
+smoke of passing taxicabs.  But between the street and the hall
+bedroom, with its odors of a gas-stove and a kitchen, the choice
+was difficult.
+
+"We've got to cool off somehow," the young husband was saying,
+"or you won't sleep.  Shall we treat ourselves to ice-cream sodas
+or a trip on the Weehawken ferry-boat?"
+
+"The ferry-boat!" begged the girl, "where we can get away from
+all these people."
+
+A taxicab with a trunk in front whirled into the street, kicked
+itself to a stop, and the head clerk and Millie spilled out upon
+the pavement.  They talked so fast, and the younger brother and
+Grace talked so fast, that the boarders, although they listened
+intently, could make nothing of it.
+
+They distinguished only the concluding sentences:
+
+"Why don't you drive down to the wharf with us," they heard the
+elder brother ask, "and see our royal suite?"
+
+But the younger brother laughed him to scorn.
+
+"What's your royal suite," he mocked, "to our royal palace?"
+
+An hour later, had the boarders listened outside the flat of the
+head clerk, they would have heard issuing from his bathroom the
+cooling murmur of running water and from his gramophone the
+jubilant notes of "Alexander's Rag-time Band."
+
+When in his private office Carroll was making a present of the
+royal suite to the head clerk, in the main office Hastings, the
+junior partner, was addressing "Champ" Thorne, the bond clerk.
+He addressed him familiarly and affectionately as "Champ."  This
+was due partly to the fact that twenty-six years before Thorne had
+been christened Champneys and to the coincidence that he had
+captained the football eleven of one of the Big Three to the
+championship.
+
+"Champ," said Mr. Hastings, "last month, when you asked me to
+raise your salary, the reason I didn't do it was not because you
+didn't deserve it, but because I believed if we gave you a raise
+you'd immediately get married."
+
+The shoulders of the ex-football captain rose aggressively; he
+snorted with indignation.
+
+"And why should I not get married?" he demanded.  "You're a fine
+one to talk! You're the most offensively happy married man I ever
+met."
+
+"Perhaps I know I am happy better than you do," reproved the
+junior partner; "but I know also that it takes money to support a
+wife."
+
+"You raise me to a hundred a week," urged Champ, "and I'll make
+it support a wife whether it supports me or not."
+
+"A month ago," continued Hastings, "we could have promised you a
+hundred, but we didn't know how long we could pay it.  We didn't
+want you to rush off and marry some fine girl--"
+
+"Some fine girl!" muttered Mr. Thorne.  "The finest girl!"
+
+"The finer the girl," Hastings pointed out, "the harder it would
+have been for you if we had failed and you had lost your job."
+
+The eyes of the young man opened with sympathy and concern.
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" he murmured.
+
+Hastings sighed happily.
+
+"It was," he said, "but this morning the Young Man of Wall Street
+did us a good turn--saved us--saved our creditors, saved our homes,
+saved our honor.  We're going to start fresh and pay our debts, and
+we agreed the first debt we paid would be the small one we owe you.
+You've brought us more than we've given, and if you'll stay with us
+we're going to 'see' your fifty and raise it a hundred.  What do you
+say?"
+
+Young Mr. Thorne leaped to his feet.  What he said was: "Where'n
+hell's my hat?"
+
+But by the time he had found the hat and the door he mended his
+manners.
+
+"I say, 'Thank you a thousand times,"' he shouted over his
+shoulder.  "Excuse me, but I've got to go.  I've got to break the
+news to--"
+
+He did not explain to whom he was going to break the news; but
+Hastings must have guessed, for again he sighed happily and then,
+a little hysterically laughed aloud.  Several months had passed
+since he had laughed aloud.
+
+In his anxiety to break the news Champ Thorne almost broke his
+neck.  In his excitement he could not remember whether the red
+flash meant the elevator was going down or coming up, and sooner
+than wait to find out he started to race down eighteen flights of
+stairs when fortunately the elevator-door swung open.
+
+"You get five dollars," he announced to the elevator man, "if you
+drop to the street without a stop.  Beat the speed limit! Act like
+the building is on fire and you're trying to save me before the
+roof falls."
+
+Senator Barnes and his entire family, which was his daughter
+Barbara, were at the Ritz-Carlton.  They were in town in August
+because there was a meeting of the directors of the Brazil and
+Cuyaba Rubber Company, of which company Senator Barnes was
+president.  It was a secret meeting.  Those directors who were
+keeping cool at the edge of the ocean had been summoned by
+telegraph; those who were steaming across the ocean, by wireless.
+
+Up from the equator had drifted the threat of a scandal, sickening,
+grim, terrible.  As yet it burned beneath the surface, giving out only
+an odor, but an odor as rank as burning rubber itself.  At any moment
+it might break into flame.  For the directors, was it the better wisdom
+to let the scandal smoulder, and take a chance, or to be the first to give
+the alarm, the first to lead the way to the horror and stamp it out?
+
+It was to decide this that, in the heat of August, the directors and the
+president had foregathered.
+
+Champ Thorne knew nothing of this; he knew only that by a miracle
+Barbara Barnes was in town; that at last he was in a position to ask
+her to marry him; that she would certainly say she would.  That was
+all he cared to know.
+
+A year before he had issued his declaration of independence.
+Before he could marry, he told her, he must be able to support a
+wife on what he earned, without her having to accept money from
+her father, and until he received "a minimum wage" of five thousand
+dollars they must wait.
+
+"What is the matter with my father's money?" Barbara had demanded.
+
+Thorne had evaded the direct question.
+
+"There is too much of it," he said.
+
+"Do you object to the way he makes it?" insisted Barbara. "Because
+rubber is most useful.  You put it in golf balls and auto tires and
+galoshes.  There is nothing so perfectly respectable as galoshes.
+And what is there 'tainted' about a raincoat?"
+
+Thorne shook his head unhappily.
+
+"It's not the finished product to which I refer," he stammered; "it's
+the way they get the raw material."
+
+"They get it out of trees," said Barbara.  Then she exclaimed with
+enlightenment--"Oh!" she cried, "you are thinking of the Congo.
+There it is terrible! That is slavery.  But there are no slaves on the
+Amazon.  The natives are free and the work is easy.  They just tap
+the trees the way the farmers gather sugar in Vermont.  Father has
+told me about it often."
+
+Thorne had made no comment.  He could abuse a friend, if the
+friend were among those present, but denouncing any one he
+disliked as heartily as he disliked Senator Barnes was a public
+service he preferred to leave to others.  And he knew besides that
+if the father she loved and the man she loved distrusted each
+other, Barbara would not rest until she learned the reason why.
+
+One day, in a newspaper, Barbara read of the Puju Mayo atrocities,
+of the Indian slaves in the jungles and backwaters of the Amazon,
+who are offered up as sacrifices to "red rubber."  She carried the
+paper to her father.  What it said, her father told her, was untrue,
+and if it were true it was the first he had heard of it.
+
+Senator Barnes loved the good things of life, but the thing he
+loved most was his daughter; the thing he valued the highest was
+her good opinion.  So when for the first time she looked at him in
+doubt, he assured her he at once would order an investigation.
+
+"But, of course," he added, "it will be many months before our
+agents can report.  On the Amazon news travels very slowly."
+
+In the eyes of his daughter the doubt still lingered.
+
+"I am afraid," she said, "that that is true."
+
+That was six months before the directors of the Brazil and Cuyaba
+Rubber Company were summoned to meet their president at his
+rooms in the Ritz-Carlton.  They were due to arrive in half an hour,
+and while Senator Barnes awaited their coming Barbara came to
+him.  In her eyes was a light that helped to tell the great news.  It
+gave him a sharp, jealous pang.  He wanted at once to play a part
+in her happiness, to make her grateful to him, not alone to this
+stranger who was taking her away.  So fearful was he that she
+would shut him out of her life that had she asked for half his
+kingdom he would have parted with it.
+
+"And besides giving my consent," said the rubber king, "for which
+no one seems to have asked, what can I give my little girl to make
+her remember her old father? Some diamonds to put on her head,
+or pearls to hang around her neck, or does she want a vacant lot
+on Fifth Avenue?"
+
+The lovely hands of Barbara rested upon his shoulders; her lovely
+face was raised to his; her lovely eyes were appealing, and a little
+frightened.
+
+"What would one of those things cost?" asked Barbara.
+
+The question was eminently practical.  It came within the scope of
+the senator's understanding.  After all, he was not to be cast into
+outer darkness.  His smile was complacent.  He answered airily:
+
+"Anything you like," he said; "a million dollars?"
+
+The fingers closed upon his shoulders.  The eyes, still frightened,
+still searched his in appeal.
+
+"Then, for my wedding-present," said the girl, "I want you to take
+that million dollars and send an expedition to the Amazon.  And I
+will choose the men.  Men unafraid; men not afraid of fever or
+sudden death; not afraid to tell the truth--even to you.  And all the
+world will know.  And they--I mean you--will set those people free!"
+
+Senator Barnes received the directors with an embarrassment which
+he concealed under a manner of just indignation.
+
+"My mind is made up," he told them. "Existing conditions cannot
+continue.  And to that end, at my own expense, I am sending an
+expedition across South America.  It will investigate, punish, and
+establish reforms.  I suggest, on account of this damned heat, we
+do now adjourn."
+
+That night, over on Long Island, Carroll told his wife all, or
+nearly all.  He did not tell her about the automatic pistol.  And
+together on tiptoe they crept to the nursery and looked down at
+their sleeping children.  When she rose from her knees the mother
+said: "But how can I thank him?"
+
+By "him" she meant the Young Man of Wall Street.
+
+"You never can thank him," said Carroll; "that's the worst of it."
+
+But after a long silence the mother said: "I will send him a
+photograph of the children.  Do you think he will understand?"
+
+Down at Seabright, Hastings and his wife walked in the sunken
+garden.  The moon was so bright that the roses still held their
+color.
+
+"I would like to thank him," said the young wife.  She meant the
+Young Man of Wall Street.  "But for him we would have lost this."
+
+Her eyes caressed the garden, the fruit-trees, the house with wide,
+hospitable verandas.  "To-morrow I will send him some of these
+roses," said the young wife.  "Will he understand that they mean
+our home?"
+
+At a scandalously late hour, in a scandalous spirit of independence,
+Champ Thorne and Barbara were driving around Central Park in a
+taxicab.
+
+"How strangely the Lord moves, his wonders to perform," misquoted
+Barbara.  "Had not the Young Man of Wall Street saved Mr. Hastings,
+Mr. Hastings could not have raised your salary; you would not have
+asked me to marry you, and had you not asked me to marry you,
+father would not have given me a wedding-present, and--"
+
+"And," said Champ, taking up the tale, "thousands of slaves would
+still be buried in the jungles, hidden away from their wives and
+children and the light of the sun and their fellow men.  They
+still would be dying of fever, starvation, tortures."
+
+He took her hand in both of his and held her finger-tips against
+his lips.
+
+"And they will never know," he whispered, "when their freedom
+comes, that they owe it all to you."
+
+
+On Hunter's Island, Jimmie Reeder and his bunkie, Sam Sturges,
+each on his canvas cot, tossed and twisted.  The heat, the moonlight,
+and the mosquitoes would not let them even think of sleep.
+
+"That was bully," said Jimmie, "what you did to-day about saving
+that dog.  If it hadn't been for you he'd ha' drownded."
+
+"He would not!" said Sammy with punctilious regard for the truth;
+"it wasn't deep enough."
+
+"Well, the scout-master ought to know," argued Jimmie; "he said
+it was the best 'one good turn' of the day!"
+
+Modestly Sam shifted the lime-light so that it fell upon his
+bunkie.
+
+"I'll bet," he declared loyally, "your 'one good turn' was a
+better one!"
+
+Jimmie yawned, and then laughed scornfully.
+
+"Me!" he scoffed.  "I didn't do nothing.  I sent my sister to the
+movies."
+
+
+
+
+
+"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"
+
+
+
+
+Marie Gessler, known as Marie Chaumontel, Jeanne d'Avrechy,
+the Countess d'Aurillac, was German.  Her father, who served
+through the Franco-Prussian War, was a German spy.  It was
+from her mother she learned to speak French sufficiently well
+to satisfy even an Academician and, among Parisians, to pass
+as one.  Both her parents were dead.  Before they departed,
+knowing they could leave their daughter nothing save their
+debts, they had had her trained as a nurse.  But when they
+were gone, Marie in the Berlin hospitals played politics,
+intrigued, indiscriminately misused the appealing, violet
+eyes.  There was a scandal; several scandals.  At the age of
+twenty-five she was dismissed from the Municipal Hospital,
+and as now-save for the violet eyes--she was without resources,
+as a compagnon de voyage with a German doctor she travelled
+to Monte Carlo.  There she abandoned the doctor for Henri
+Ravignac, a captain in the French Aviation Corps, who,
+when his leave ended, escorted her to Paris.
+
+The duties of Captain Ravignac kept him in barracks near the
+aviation field, but Marie he established in his apartments on the
+Boulevard Haussmann.  One day he brought from the barracks a
+roll of blue-prints, and as he was locking them in a drawer, said:
+"The Germans would pay through the nose for those!"  The remark
+was indiscreet, but then Marie had told him she was French, and
+any one would have believed her.
+
+The next morning the same spirit of adventure that had exiled her
+from the Berlin hospitals carried her with the blue-prints to the
+German embassy.  There, greatly shocked, they first wrote down her
+name and address, and then, indignant at her proposition, ordered
+her out.  But the day following a strange young German who was
+not at all indignant, but, on the contrary, quite charming, called
+upon Marie.  For the blue-prints he offered her a very large sum,
+and that same hour with them and Marie departed for Berlin.  Marie
+did not need the money.  Nor did the argument that she was serving
+her country greatly impress her.  It was rather that she loved intrigue.
+And so she became a spy.
+
+Henri Ravignac, the man she had robbed of the blue-prints, was tried
+by court-martial.  The charge was treason, but Charles Ravignac, his
+younger brother, promised to prove that the guilty one was the girl,
+and to that end obtained leave of absence and spent much time and
+money.  At the trial he was able to show the record of Marie in
+Berlin and Monte Carlo; that she was the daughter of a German
+secret agent; that on the afternoon the prints disappeared Marie,
+with an agent of the German embassy, had left Paris for Berlin.
+In consequence of this the charge of selling military secrets was
+altered to one of "gross neglect," and Henri Ravignac was sentenced
+to two years in the military prison at Tours.  But he was of an ancient
+and noble family, and when they came to take him from his cell in the
+Cherche-Midi, he was dead.  Charles, his brother, disappeared.  It was
+said he also had killed himself; that he had been appointed a military
+attache in South America; that to revenge his brother he had entered
+the secret service; but whatever became of him no one knew.  All that
+was certain was that, thanks to the act of Marie Gessler, on the rolls
+of the French army the ancient and noble name of Ravignac no longer
+appeared.
+
+In her chosen profession Marie Gessler found nothing discreditable.
+Of herself her opinion was not high, and her opinion of men was
+lower.  For her smiles she had watched several sacrifice honor, duty,
+loyalty; and she held them and their kind in contempt.  To lie, to
+cajole, to rob men of secrets they thought important, and of secrets
+the importance of which they did not even guess, was to her merely
+an intricate and exciting game.
+
+She played it very well.  So well that in the service her advance
+was rapid.  On important missions she was sent to Russia, through
+the Balkans; even to the United States.  There, with credentials
+as an army nurse, she inspected our military hospitals and
+unobtrusively asked many innocent questions.
+
+When she begged to be allowed to work in her beloved Paris,
+"they" told her when war came "they" intended to plant her
+inside that city, and that, until then, the less Paris knew of
+her the better.
+
+But just before the great war broke, to report on which way Italy
+might jump, she was sent to Rome, and it was not until September
+she was recalled.  The telegram informed her that her Aunt
+Elizabeth was ill, and that at once she must return to Berlin.
+This, she learned from the code book wrapped under the cover
+of her thermos bottle, meant that she was to report to the general
+commanding the German forces at Soissons.
+
+From Italy she passed through Switzerland, and, after leaving Basle,
+on military trains was rushed north to Luxemburg, and then west to
+Laon.  She was accompanied by her companion, Bertha, an elderly
+and respectable, even distinguished-looking female.  In the secret
+service her number was 528.  Their passes from the war office
+described them as nurses of the German Red Cross.  Only the
+Intelligence Department knew their real mission.  With her, also,
+as her chauffeur, was a young Italian soldier of fortune, Paul
+Anfossi.  He had served in the Belgian Congo, in the French
+Foreign Legion in Algiers, and spoke all the European languages.
+In Rome, where as a wireless operator he was serving a commercial
+company, in selling Marie copies of messages he had memorized,
+Marie had found him useful, and when war came she obtained
+for him, from the Wilhelmstrasse, the number 292.  From Laon,
+in one of the automobiles of the General Staff, the three spies
+were driven first to Soissons, and then along the road to Meaux
+and Paris, to the village of Neufchelles.  They arrived at midnight,
+and in a chateau of one of the Champagne princes, found the
+colonel commanding the Intelligence Bureau.  He accepted their
+credentials, destroyed them, and replaced them with a laissez-
+passer signed by the mayor of Laon.  That dignitary, the colonel
+explained, to citizens of Laon fleeing to Paris and the coast had
+issued many passes.  But as now between Laon and Paris there were
+three German armies, the refugees had been turned back and their
+passes confiscated.
+
+"From among them," said the officer, "we have selected one for
+you.  It is issued to the wife of Count d'Aurillac, a captain of
+reserves, and her aunt, Madame Benet.  It asks for those ladies
+and their chauffeur, Briand, a safe-conduct through the French
+military lines.  If it gets you into Paris you will destroy it and
+assume another name.  The Count d'Aurillac is now with his
+regiment in that city.  If he learned of the presence there of his
+wife, he would seek her, and that would not be good for you.  So,
+if you reach Paris, you will become a Belgian refugee.  You are
+high-born and rich.  Your chateau has been destroyed.  But you
+have money.  You will give liberally to the Red Cross.  You will
+volunteer to nurse in the hospitals.  With your sad story of ill
+treatment by us, with your high birth, and your knowledge of
+nursing, which you acquired, of course, only as an amateur, you
+should not find it difficult to join the Ladies of France, or the
+American Ambulance.  What you learn from the wounded English
+and French officers and the French doctors you will send us through
+the usual channels."
+
+"When do I start?" asked the woman.
+
+"For a few days," explained the officer, "you remain in this chateau.
+You will keep us informed of what is going forward after we
+withdraw."
+
+"Withdraw?" It was more of an exclamation than a question.  Marie
+was too well trained to ask questions.
+
+"We are taking up a new position," said the officer, "on the
+Aisne."
+
+The woman, incredulous, stared.
+
+"And we do not enter Paris?"
+
+"You do," returned the officer.  "That is all that concerns you.
+We will join you later--in the spring.  Meanwhile, for the winter
+we intrench ourselves along the Aisne.  In a chimney of this
+chateau we have set up a wireless outfit.  We are leaving it intact.
+The chauffeur Briand--who, you must explain to the French, you
+brought with you from Laon, and who has been long in your
+service--will transmit whatever you discover.  We wish especially
+to know of any movement toward our left.  If they attack in front
+from Soissons, we are prepared; but of any attempt to cross the
+Oise and take us in flank you must warn us."
+
+The officer rose and hung upon himself his field-glasses,
+map-cases, and side-arms.
+
+"We leave you now," he said.  "When the French arrive you will
+tell them your reason for halting at this chateau was that the owner,
+Monsieur Iverney, and his family are friends of your husband.  You
+found us here, and we detained you.  And so long as you can use the
+wireless, make excuses to remain.  If they offer to send you on to Paris,
+tell them your aunt is too ill to travel."
+
+"But they will find the wireless," said the woman.  "They are sure to
+use the towers for observation, and they will find it."
+
+"In that case," said the officer, "you will suggest to them that
+we fled in such haste we had no time to dismantle it.  Of course,
+you had no knowledge that it existed, or, as a loyal French woman,
+you would have at once told them."  To emphasize his next words
+the officer pointed at her: "Under no circumstances," he continued,
+"must you be suspected.  If they should take Briand in the act,
+should they have even the least doubt concerning him, you must
+repudiate him entirely.  If necessary, to keep your own skirts clear,
+it would be your duty yourself to denounce him as a spy."
+
+"Your first orders," said the woman, "were to tell them Briand had
+been long in my service; that I brought him from my home in Laon."
+
+"He might be in your service for years," returned the colonel,
+"and you not know he was a German agent."
+
+"If to save myself I inform upon him," said Marie, "of course you
+know you will lose him."
+
+The officer shrugged his shoulders.  "A wireless operator," he
+retorted, "we can replace.  But for you, and for the service you
+are to render in Paris, we have no substitute.  You must not be
+found out.  You are invaluable."
+
+The spy inclined her head.  "I thank you," she said.
+
+The officer sputtered indignantly.
+
+"It is not a compliment," he exclaimed; "it is an order.  You must
+not be found out!"
+
+Withdrawn some two hundred yards from the Paris road, the
+chateau stood upon a wooded hill.  Except directly in front,
+trees of great height surrounded it.  The tips of their branches
+brushed the windows; interlacing, they continued until they
+overhung the wall of the estate.  Where it ran with the road the
+wall gave way to a lofty gate and iron fence, through which those
+passing could see a stretch of noble turf, as wide as a polo-field,
+borders of flowers disappearing under the shadows of the trees;
+and the chateau itself, with its terrace, its many windows, its
+high-pitched, sloping roof, broken by towers and turrets.
+
+Through the remainder of the night there came from the road to
+those in the chateau the roar and rumbling of the army in retreat.
+It moved without panic, disorder, or haste, but unceasingly.  Not
+for an instant was there a breathing-spell.  And when the sun rose,
+the three spies--the two women and the chauffeur--who in the great
+chateau were now alone, could see as well as hear the gray column
+of steel rolling past below them.
+
+The spies knew that the gray column had reached Claye, had stood
+within fifteen miles of Paris, and then upon Paris had turned its
+back.  They knew also that the reverberations from the direction
+of Meaux, that each moment grew more loud and savage, were the
+French "seventy-fives" whipping the gray column forward.  Of what
+they felt the Germans did not speak.  In silence they looked at each
+other, and in the eyes of Marie was bitterness and resolve.
+
+Toward noon Marie met Anfossi in the great drawing-room that
+stretched the length of the terrace and from the windows of which,
+through the park gates, they could see the Paris road.
+
+"This, that is passing now," said Marie, "is the last of our rear-guard.
+Go to your tower," she ordered, "and send word that except for
+stragglers and the wounded our column has just passed through
+NeufchelIes, and that any moment we expect the French."  She
+raised her hand impressively.  "From now," she warned, "we
+speak French, we think French, we are French!"
+
+Anfossi, or Briand, as now he called himself, addressed her in
+that language.  His tone was bitter.  "Pardon my lese-majesty," he
+said, "but this chief of your Intelligence Department is a dummer
+Mensch.  He is throwing away a valuable life."
+
+Marie exclaimed in dismay.  She placed her hand upon his arm, and
+the violet eyes filled with concern.
+
+"Not yours!" she protested.
+
+"Absolutely!" returned the Italian.  "I can send nothing by this
+knapsack wireless that they will not learn from others; from airmen,
+Uhlans, the peasants in the fields.  And certainly I will be caught.
+Dead I am dead, but alive and in Paris the opportunities are unending.
+From the French Legion Etranger I have my honorable discharge.  I
+am an expert wireless operator and in their Signal Corps I can easily
+find a place.  Imagine me, then, on the Eiffel Tower.  From the air I
+snatch news from all of France, from the Channel, the North Sea.
+You and I could work together, as in Rome.  But here, between the
+lines, with a pass from a village sous-prefet, it is ridiculous.  I am
+not afraid to die.  But to die because some one else is stupid, that is
+hard."
+
+Marie clasped his hand in both of hers.
+
+"You must not speak of death," she cried; "you know I must carry out
+my orders, that I must force you to take this risk.  And you know that
+thought of harm to you tortures me!"
+
+Quickly the young man disengaged his hand.  The woman exclaimed
+with anger.
+
+"Why do you doubt me?" she cried.
+
+Briand protested vehemently.
+
+"I do not doubt you."
+
+"My affection, then?"  In a whisper that carried with it the
+feeling of a caress Marie added softly: "My love?"
+
+The young man protested miserably.  "You make it very hard,
+mademoiselle," he cried.  "You are my superior officer, I am your
+servant.  Who am I that I should share with others--"
+
+The woman interrupted eagerly.
+
+"Ah, you are jealous!" she cried.  "Is that why you are so cruel?
+But when I tell you I love you, and only you, can you not feel it
+is the truth?"
+
+The young man frowned unhappily.
+
+"My duty, mademoiselle!" he stammered.
+
+With an exclamation of anger Marie left him.  As the door slammed
+behind her, the young man drew a deep breath.  On his face was the
+expression of ineffable relief.
+
+In the hall Marie met her elderly companion, Bertha, now her
+aunt, Madame Benet.
+
+"I heard you quarrelling," Bertha protested.  "It is most indiscreet.
+It is not in the part of the Countess d'Aurillac that she makes love
+to her chauffeur."
+
+Marie laughed noiselessly and drew her farther down the hall.  "He
+is imbecile!" she exclaimed.  "He will kill me with his solemn face
+and his conceit.  I make love to him--yes--that he may work the
+more willingly.  But he will have none of it.  He is jealous of the
+others."
+
+Madame Benet frowned.
+
+"He resents the others," she corrected.  "I do not blame him.  He is
+a gentleman!"
+
+"And the others," demanded Marie; "were they not of the most
+noble families of Rome?"
+
+"I am old and I am ugly," said Bertha, "but to me Anfossi is
+always as considerate as he is to you who are so beautiful."
+
+"An Italian gentleman," returned Marie, "does not serve in
+Belgian Congo unless it is--the choice of that or the marble
+quarries."
+
+"I do not know what his past may be," sighed Madame Benet,
+"nor do I ask.  He is only a number, as you and I are only numbers.
+And I beg you to let us work in harmony.  At such a time your
+love-affairs threaten our safety.  You must wait."
+
+Marie laughed insolently.  "With the Du Barry," she protested, "I
+can boast that I wait for no man."
+
+"No," replied the older woman; "you pursue him!"
+
+Marie would have answered sharply, but on the instant her
+interest was diverted.  For one week, by day and night, she had
+lived in a world peopled only by German soldiers.  Beside her
+in the railroad carriage, on the station platforms, at the windows
+of the trains that passed the one in which she rode, at the grade
+crossings, on the bridges, in the roads that paralleled the tracks,
+choking the streets of the villages and spread over the fields of
+grain, she had seen only the gray-green uniforms.  Even her
+professional eye no longer distinguished regiment from regiment,
+dragoon from grenadier, Uhlan from Hussar or Landsturm.
+Stripes, insignia, numerals, badges of rank, had lost their meaning.
+Those who wore them no longer were individuals.  They were not
+even human.  During the three last days the automobile, like a
+motor-boat fighting the tide, had crept through a gray-green
+river of men, stained, as though from the banks, by mud and
+yellow clay.  And for hours, while the car was blocked, and in
+fury the engine raced and purred, the gray-green river had rolled
+past her, slowly but as inevitably as lava down the slope of a
+volcano, bearing on its surface faces with staring eyes, thousands
+and thousands of eyes, some fierce and bloodshot, others filled
+with weariness, homesickness, pain.  At night she still saw them:
+the white faces under the sweat and dust, the eyes dumb, inarticulate,
+asking the answer.  She had been suffocated by German soldiers, by
+the mass of them, engulfed and smothered; she had stifled in a land
+inhabited only by gray-green ghosts.
+
+And suddenly, as though a miracle had been wrought, she saw upon
+the lawn, riding toward her, a man in scarlet, blue, and silver.  One
+man riding alone.
+
+Approaching with confidence, but alert; his reins fallen, his hands
+nursing his carbine, his eyes searched the shadows of the trees, the
+empty windows, even the sun-swept sky.  His was the new face at
+the door, the new step on the floor.  And the spy knew had she
+beheld an army corps it would have been no more significant,
+no more menacing, than the solitary chasseur a cheval scouting
+in advance of the enemy.
+
+"We are saved!" exclaimed Marie, with irony.  "Go quickly," she
+commanded, "to the bedroom on the second floor that opens upon
+the staircase, so that you can see all who pass.  You are too ill
+to travel.  They must find you in bed."
+
+"And you?" said Bertha.
+
+"I," cried Marie rapturously, "hasten to welcome our preserver!"
+
+The preserver was a peasant lad.  Under the white dust his cheeks
+were burned a brown-red, his eyes, honest and blue, through much
+staring at the skies and at horizon lines, were puckered and
+encircled with tiny wrinkles.  Responsibility had made him older
+than his years, and in speech brief.  With the beautiful lady who
+with tears of joy ran to greet him, and who in an ecstasy of
+happiness pressed her cheek against the nose of his horse, he was
+unimpressed.  He returned to her her papers and gravely echoed her
+answers to his questions.  "This chateau," he repeated, "was
+occupied by their General Staff; they have left no wounded here;
+you saw the last of them pass a half-hour since."  He gathered up
+his reins.
+
+Marie shrieked in alarm.  "You will not leave us?" she cried.
+
+For the first time the young man permitted himself to smile.
+"Others arrive soon," he said.
+
+He touched his shako, wheeled his horse in the direction from
+which he had come, and a minute later Marie heard the hoofs
+echoing through the empty village.
+
+When they came, the others were more sympathetic.  Even in
+times of war a beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman.  And
+the staff officers who moved into the quarters so lately occupied
+by
+the enemy found in the presence of the Countess d'Aurillac
+nothing to distress them.  In the absence of her dear friend,
+Madame Iverney, the chatelaine of the chateau, she acted as their
+hostess.  Her chauffeur showed the company cooks the way to the
+kitchen, the larder, and the charcoal-box.  She, herself, in the
+hands of General Andre placed the keys of the famous wine-cellar,
+and to the surgeon, that the wounded might be freshly bandaged,
+intrusted those of the linen-closet.  After the indignities she had
+suffered while "detained" by les Boches, her delight and relief at
+again finding herself under the protection of her own people would
+have touched a heart of stone.  And the hearts of the staff were not
+of stone.  It was with regret they gave the countess permission to
+continue on her way.  At this she exclaimed with gratitude.  She
+assured them, were her aunt able to travel, she would immediately
+depart.
+
+"In Paris she will be more comfortable than here," said the kind
+surgeon.  He was a reservist, and in times of peace a fashionable
+physician and as much at his ease in a boudoir as in a field
+hospital.  "Perhaps if I saw Madam Benet?"
+
+At the suggestion the countess was overjoyed.  But they found
+Madame Benet in a state of complete collapse.  The conduct of
+the Germans had brought about a nervous breakdown.
+
+"Though the bridges are destroyed at Meaux," urged the surgeon,
+"even with a detour, you can be in Paris in four hours.  I think it is
+worth the effort."
+
+But the mere thought of the journey threw Madame Benet into
+hysterics.  She asked only to rest, she begged for an opiate to
+make her sleep.  She begged also that they would leave the door
+open, so that when she dreamed she was still in the hands of the
+Germans, and woke in terror, the sound of the dear French voices
+and the sight of the beloved French uniforms might reassure her.
+She played her part well.  Concerning her Marie felt not the least
+anxiety.  But toward Briand, the chauffeur, the new arrivals were
+less easily satisfied.
+
+The general sent his adjutant for the countess.  When the adjutant
+had closed the door General Andre began abruptly:
+
+"The chauffeur Briand," he asked, "you know him; you can vouch
+for him?"
+
+"But, certainly!" protested Marie.  "He is an Italian."
+
+As though with sudden enlightenment, Marie laughed.  It was
+as if now in the suspicion of the officer she saw a certain
+reasonableness.  "Briand was so long in the Foreign Legion
+in Algiers," she explained, "where my husband found him,
+that we have come to think of him as French. As much French
+as ourselves, I assure you."
+
+The general and his adjutant were regarding each other
+questioningly.
+
+"Perhaps I should tell the countess," began the general, "that we
+have learned--"
+
+The signal from the adjutant was so slight, so swift, that Marie
+barely intercepted it.
+
+The lips of the general shut together like the leaves of a book.
+To show the interview was at an end, he reached for a pen.
+
+"I thank you," he said.
+
+"Of course," prompted the adjutant, "Madame d'Aurillac understands
+the man must not know we inquired concerning him."
+
+General Andre frowned at Marie.
+
+"Certainly not!" he commanded.  "The honest fellow must not know
+that even for a moment he was doubted."
+
+Marie raised the violet eyes reprovingly.
+
+"I trust," she said with reproach, "I too well understand the
+feelings of a French soldier to let him know his loyalty is
+questioned."
+
+With a murmur of appreciation the officers bowed and with a
+gesture of gracious pardon Marie left them.
+
+Outside in the hall, with none but orderlies to observe, like a cloak
+the graciousness fell from her.  She was drawn two ways.  In her
+work Anfossi was valuable.  But Anfossi suspected was less than
+of no value; he became a menace, a death-warrant.
+
+General Andre had said, "We have learned--" and the adjutant
+had halted him.  What had he learned? To know that, Marie
+would have given much.  Still, one important fact comforted her.
+Anfossi alone was suspected.  Had there been concerning herself
+the slightest doubt, they certainly would not have allowed her to
+guess her companion was under surveillance; they would not have
+asked one who was herself suspected to vouch for the innocence of
+a fellow conspirator.  Marie found the course to follow difficult.
+With Anfossi under suspicion his usefulness was for the moment
+at an end; and to accept the chance offered her to continue on to
+Paris seemed most wise.  On the other hand, if, concerning
+Anfossi, she had succeeded in allaying their doubts, the results
+most to be desired could be attained only by remaining where they
+were.
+
+Their position inside the lines was of the greatest strategic
+value.  The rooms of the servants were under the roof, and that
+Briand should sleep in one of them was natural.  That to reach or
+leave his room he should constantly be ascending or descending
+the stairs also was natural.  The field-wireless outfit, or, as he
+had disdainfully described it, the "knapsack" wireless, was
+situated not in the bedroom he had selected for himself, but in
+one adjoining.  At other times this was occupied by the maid of
+Madame Iverney.  To summon her maid Madame Iverney, from her
+apartment on the second floor, had but to press a button.  And it
+was in the apartment of Madame Iverney, and on the bed of that
+lady, that Madame Benet now reclined.  When through the open
+door she saw an officer or soldier mount the stairs, she pressed
+the button that rang a bell in the room of the maid.  In this way,
+long before whoever was ascending the stairs could reach the top
+floor, warning of  his approach came to Anfossi.  It gave him time
+to replace the dustboard over the fireplace in which the wireless
+was concealed and to escape into his own bedroom.  The arrangement
+was ideal.  And already information picked up in the halls below
+by Marie had been conveyed to Anfossi to relay in a French cipher
+to the German General Staff at Rheims.
+
+Marie made an alert and charming hostess.  To all who saw her
+it was evident that her mind was intent only upon the comfort of
+her guests.  Throughout the day many came and went, but each
+she made welcome; to each as he departed she called "bonne
+chance."  
+Efficient, tireless, tactful, she was everywhere: in the
+dining-room, in the kitchen, in the bedrooms, for the wounded
+finding mattresses to spread in the gorgeous salons of the
+Champagne prince; for the soldier-chauffeurs carrying wine into
+the courtyard, where the automobiles panted and growled, and the
+arriving and departing shrieked for right of way. At all times an
+alluring person, now the one woman in a tumult of men, her smart
+frock covered by an apron, her head and arms bare, undismayed
+by the sight of the wounded or by the distant rumble of the guns,
+the Countess d'Aurillac was an inspiring and beautiful picture.
+The eyes of the officers, young and old, informed her of that
+fact, one of which already she was well aware. By the morning
+of the next day she was accepted as the owner of the chateau.
+
+And though continually she reminded the staff she was present
+only as the friend of her schoolmate, Madame Iverney, they
+deferred to her as to a hostess.  Many of them she already
+saluted by name, and to those who with messages were
+constantly motoring to and from the front at Soissons she
+was particularly kind.  Overnight the legend of her charm,
+of her devotion to the soldiers of all ranks, had spread from
+Soissons to Meaux, and from Meaux to Paris.  It was noon of
+that day when from the window of the second story Marie saw
+an armored automobile sweep into the courtyard.  It was driven
+by an officer, young and appallingly good-looking, and, as was
+obvious by the way he spun his car, one who held in contempt
+both the law of gravity and death.  That he was some one of
+importance seemed evident.  Before he could alight the adjutant
+had raced to meet him.  With her eye for detail Marie observed
+that the young officer, instead of imparting information, received
+it.  He must, she guessed, have just arrived from Paris, and his
+brother officer either was telling him the news or giving him his
+orders.  Whichever it might be, in what was told him the new
+arrival was greatly interested.  One instant in indignation his
+gauntleted fist beat upon the steering-wheel, the next he smiled
+with pleasure.  To interpret this pantomime was difficult; and,
+the better to inform herself, Marie descended the stairs.
+
+As she reached the lower hall the two officers entered.  To the
+spy the man last to arrive was always the one of greatest
+importance; and Marie assured herself that through her friend,
+the adjutant, to meet with this one would prove easy.
+
+But the chauffeur-commander of the armored car made it most
+difficult.  At sight of Marie, much to her alarm, as though
+greeting a dear friend, he snatched his kepi from his head and
+sprang toward her.
+
+"The major," he cried, "told me you were here, that you are Madame
+d'Aurillac."  His eyes spoke his admiration.  In delight he beamed
+upon her.  "I might have known it!" he murmured.  With the
+confidence of one who is sure he brings good news, he laughed
+happily.  "And I," he cried, "am 'Pierrot'!"
+
+Who the devil "Pierrot" might be the spy could not guess.  She
+knew only that she wished by a German shell "Pierrot" and his
+car had been blown to tiny fragments.  Was it a trap, she asked
+herself, or was the handsome youth really some one the Countess
+d'Aurillac should know.  But, as from his introducing himself it
+was evident he could not know that lady very well, Marie took
+courage and smiled.
+
+"Which 'Pierrot'?" she parried.
+
+"Pierre Thierry!" cried the youth.
+
+To the relief of Marie he turned upon the adjutant and to him
+explained who Pierre Thierry might be.
+
+"Paul d'Aurillac," he said, "is my dearest friend.  When he married
+this charming lady I was stationed in Algiers, and but for the war
+I might never have met her."
+
+To Marie, with his hand on his heart in a most charming manner,
+he bowed.  His admiration he made no effort to conceal.
+
+"And so," he said, "I know why there is war!"
+
+The adjutant smiled indulgently, and departed on his duties, leaving
+them alone.  The handsome eyes of Captain Thierry were raised to
+the violet eyes of Marie.  They appraised her boldly and as boldly
+expressed their approval.
+
+In burlesque the young man exclaimed indignantly: "Paul deceived
+me!" he cried.  "He told me he had married the most beautiful woman
+in Laon.  He has married the most beautiful woman in France!"
+
+To Marie this was not impertinence, but gallantry.
+
+This was a language she understood, and this was the type of man,
+because he was the least difficult to manage, she held most in
+contempt.
+
+"But about you Paul did not deceive me," she retorted.  In
+apparent confusion her eyes refused to meet his.  "He told me
+'Pierrot' was a most dangerous man!"
+
+She continued hurriedly.  With wifely solicitude she asked
+concerning Paul.  She explained that for a week she had been
+a prisoner in the chateau, and, since the mobilization, of her
+husband save that he was with his regiment in Paris she had heard
+nothing.  Captain Thierry was able to give her later news.  Only
+the day previous, on the boulevards, he had met Count d'Aurillac.
+He was at the Grand Hotel, and as Thierry was at once motoring
+back to Paris he would give Paul news of their meeting.  He hoped
+he might tell him that soon his wife also would be in Paris.  Marie
+explained that only the illness of her aunt prevented her from that
+same day joining her husband.  Her manner became serious.
+
+"And what other news have you?" she asked.  "Here on the
+firing-line we know less of what is going forward than you in
+Paris."
+
+So Pierre Thierry told her all he knew.  They were preparing
+despatches he was at once to carry back to the General Staff,
+and, for the moment, his time was his own.  How could he
+better employ it than in talking of the war with a patriotic
+and charming French woman?
+
+In consequence Marie acquired a mass of facts, gossip, and
+guesses.  From these she mentally selected such information as,
+to her employers across the Aisne, would be of vital interest.
+
+And to rid herself of Thierry and on the fourth floor seek
+Anfossi was now her only wish.  But, in attempting this, by
+the return of the adjutant she was delayed.  To Thierry the
+adjutant gave a sealed envelope.
+
+"Thirty-one, Boulevard des Invalides," he said.  With a smile he
+turned to Marie.  "And you will accompany him!"
+
+"I!" exclaimed Marie.  She was sick with sudden terror.
+
+But the tolerant smile of the adjutant reassured her.
+
+"The count, your husband," he explained, "has learned of your
+detention here by the enemy, and he has besieged the General
+Staff to have you convoyed safely to Paris."  The adjutant glanced
+at a field telegram he held open in his hand.  "He asks," he continued,
+"that you be permitted to return in the car of his friend, Captain
+Thierry, and that on arriving you join him at the Grand Hotel."
+
+Thierry exclaimed with delight.
+
+"But how charming!" he cried.  "To-night you must both dine with
+me at La Rue's."  He saluted his superior officer.  "Some petrol,
+sir," he said.  "And I am ready."  To Marie he added: "The car will
+be at the steps in five minutes."  He turned and left them.
+
+The thoughts of Marie, snatching at an excuse for delay, raced
+madly.  The danger of meeting the Count d'Aurillac, her supposed
+husband, did not alarm her.  The Grand Hotel has many exits, and,
+even before they reached it, for leaving the car she could invent
+an excuse that the gallant Thierry would not suspect.  But what
+now concerned her was how, before she was whisked away to Paris,
+she could convey to Anfossi the information she had gathered from
+Thierry.  First, of a woman overcome with delight at being reunited
+with her husband she gave an excellent imitation; then she exclaimed
+in distress: "But my aunt, Madame Benet!" she cried.  "I cannot leave
+her!"
+
+"The Sisters of St. Francis," said the adjutant, "arrive within an hour
+to nurse the wounded.  They will care also for your aunt."
+
+Marie concealed her chagrin.  "Then I will at once prepare to go,"
+she said.
+
+The adjutant handed her a slip of paper.  "Your laissez-passer to
+Paris," he said.  "You leave in five minutes, madame!"
+
+As temporary hostess of the chateau Marie was free to visit
+any part of it, and as she passed her door a signal from Madame
+Benet told her that Anfossi was on the fourth floor, that he was
+at work, and that the coast was clear.  Softly, in the felt slippers
+she always wore, as she explained, in order not to disturb the
+wounded, she mounted the staircase.  In her hand she carried
+the housekeeper's keys, and as an excuse it was her plan to return
+with an armful of linen for the arriving Sisters.  But Marie never
+reached the top of the stairs.  When her eyes rose to the level
+of the fourth floor she came to a sudden halt.  At what she saw
+terror gripped her, bound her hand and foot, and turned her blood
+to ice.
+
+At her post for an instant Madame Benet had slept, and an officer
+of the staff, led by curiosity, chance, or suspicion, had, unobserved
+and unannounced, mounted to the fourth floor.  When Marie saw
+him he was in front of the room that held the wireless.  His back
+was toward her, but she saw that he was holding the door to the
+room ajar, that his eye was pressed to the opening, and that
+through it he had pushed the muzzle of his automatic.  What
+would be the fate of Anfossi Marie knew.  Nor did she for an
+instant consider it.  Her thoughts were of her own safety; that
+she might live.
+
+Not that she might still serve the Wilhelmstrasse, the Kaiser, or
+the Fatherland; but that she might live.  In a moment Anfossi
+would be denounced, the chateau would ring with the alarm, and,
+though she knew Anfossi would not betray her, by others she might
+be accused.  To avert suspicion from herself she saw only one way
+open.  She must be the first to denounce Anfossi.
+
+Like a deer, she leaped down the marble stairs and, in a panic
+she had no need to assume, burst into the presence of the staff.
+
+"Gentlemen!" she gasped, "my servant--the chauffeur--Briand is a
+spy! There is a German wireless in the chateau.  He is using it!
+I have seen him."  With exclamations, the officers rose to their
+feet.  General Andre alone remained seated.  General Andre was
+a veteran of many Colonial wars: Cochin-China, Algiers, Morocco.
+The great war, when it came, found him on duty in the Intelligence
+Department.  His aquiline nose, bristling white eyebrows, and
+flashing, restless eyes gave him his nickname of l'Aigle.
+
+In amazement, the flashing eyes were now turned upon Marie.  He
+glared at her as though he thought she suddenly had flown mad.
+
+"A German wireless!" he protested. "It is impossible!"
+
+"I was on the fourth floor," panted Marie, "collecting linen for
+the Sisters.  In the room next to the linen-closet I heard a strange
+buzzing sound.  I opened the door softly.  I saw Briand with his
+back to me seated by an instrument.  There were receivers clamped
+to his ears! My God! The disgrace! The disgrace to my husband and
+to me, who vouched for him to you!"  Apparently in an agony of
+remorse, the fingers of the woman laced and interlaced.  "I cannot
+forgive myself!"
+
+The officers moved toward the door, but General Andre halted
+them.  Still in a tone of incredulity, he demanded: "When did you
+see this?"
+
+Marie knew the question was coming, knew she must explain how
+she saw Briand, and yet did not see the staff officer who, with his
+prisoner, might now at any instant appear.  She must make it plain
+she had discovered the spy and left the upper part of the house
+before the officer had visited it.  When that was she could not
+know, but the chance was that he had preceded her by only a
+few minutes.
+
+"When did you see this?" repeated the general.
+
+"But just now," cried Marie; "not ten minutes since."
+
+"Why did you not come to me at once?"
+
+"I was afraid," replied Marie.  "If I moved I was afraid he might hear
+me, and he, knowing I would expose him, would kill me-and so
+escape you!" There was an eager whisper of approval.  For silence,
+General Andre slapped his hand upon the table.
+
+"Then," continued Marie, "I understood with the receivers on his
+ears he could not have heard me open the door, nor could he hear
+me leave, and I ran to my aunt.  The thought that we had harbored
+such an animal sickened me, and I was weak enough to feel faint.
+But only for an instant.  Then I came here."  She moved swiftly to
+the door.  "Let me show you the room," she begged; "you can take
+him in the act."  Her eyes, wild with the excitement of the chase,
+swept the circle.  "Will you come?" she begged.
+
+Unconscious of the crisis he interrupted, the orderly on duty
+opened the door.
+
+"Captain Thierry's compliments," he recited mechanically, "and is
+he to delay longer for Madame d'Aurillac?"
+
+With a sharp gesture General Andre waved Marie toward the door.
+Without rising, he inclined his head.  "Adieu, madame," he said.
+"We act at once upon your information.  I thank you!"
+
+As she crossed from the hall to the terrace, the ears of the spy were
+assaulted by a sudden tumult of voices.  They were raised in threats
+and curses.  Looking back, she saw Anfossi descending the stairs.
+His hands were held above his head; behind him, with his automatic,
+the staff officer she had surprised on the fourth floor was driving him
+forward.  Above the clinched fists of the soldiers that ran to meet him,
+the eyes of Anfossi were turned toward her.  His face was expressionless.
+His eyes neither accused nor reproached.  And with the joy of one who
+has looked upon and then escaped the guillotine, Marie ran down the
+steps to the waiting automobile.  With a pretty cry of pleasure she leaped
+into the seat beside Thierry.  Gayly she threw out her arms.  "To Paris!"
+she commanded.  The handsome eyes of Thierry, eloquent with
+admiration, looked back into hers.  He stooped, threw in the clutch,
+and the great gray car, with the machine gun and its crew of privates
+guarding the rear, plunged through the park.
+
+"To Paris!" echoed Thierry.
+
+In the order in which Marie had last seen them, Anfossi and the
+staff officer entered the room of General Andre, and upon the
+soldiers in the hall the door was shut.  The face of the staff
+officer was grave, but his voice could not conceal his elation.
+
+"My general," he reported, "I found this man in the act of giving
+information to the enemy.  There is a wireless-"
+
+General Andre rose slowly.  He looked neither at the officer nor
+at his prisoner.  With frowning eyes he stared down at the maps
+upon his table.
+
+"I know," he interrupted.  "Some one has already told me."  He
+paused, and then, as though recalling his manners, but still
+without raising his eyes, he added: "You have done well, sir."
+
+In silence the officers of the staff stood motionless.  With surprise
+they noted that, as yet, neither in anger nor curiosity had General
+Andre glanced at the prisoner.  But of the presence of the general
+the spy was most acutely conscious.  He stood erect, his arms still
+raised, but his body strained forward, and on the averted eyes of the
+general his own were fixed.
+
+In an agony of supplication they asked a question.
+
+At last, as though against his wish, toward the spy the general
+turned his head, and their eyes met.  And still General Andre was
+silent.  Then the arms of the spy, like those of a runner who has
+finished his race and breasts the tape exhausted, fell to his sides.
+In a voice low and vibrant he spoke his question.
+
+"It has been so long, sir," he pleaded.  "May I not come home?"
+
+General Andre turned to the astonished group surrounding him.  His
+voice was hushed like that of one who speaks across an open grave.
+
+"Gentlemen," he began, "my children," he added.  "A German spy, a
+woman, involved in a scandal your brother in arms, Henri Ravignac.
+His honor, he thought, was concerned, and without honor he refused
+to live.  To prove him guiltless his younger brother Charles asked
+leave to seek out the woman who had betrayed Henri, and by us was
+detailed on secret service.  He gave up home, family, friends.  He lived
+in exile, in poverty, at all times in danger of a swift and ignoble death.
+In the War Office we know him as one who has given to his country
+services she cannot hope to reward.  For she cannot return to him the
+years he has lost.  She cannot return to him his brother.  But she can
+and will clear the name of Henri Ravignac, and upon his brother
+Charles bestow promotion and honors."
+
+The general turned and embraced the spy.  "My children," he said,
+"welcome your brother.  He has come home."
+
+Before the car had reached the fortifications, Marie Gessler had
+arranged her plan of escape.  She had departed from the chateau
+without even a hand-bag, and she would say that before the shops
+closed she must make purchases.
+
+Le Printemps lay in their way, and she asked that, when they
+reached it, for a moment she might alight.  Captain Thierry
+readily gave permission.
+
+From the department store it would be most easy to disappear,
+and in anticipation Marie smiled covertly.  Nor was the picture
+of Captain Thierry impatiently waiting outside unamusing.
+
+But before Le Printemps was approached, the car turned sharply
+down a narrow street.  On one side, along its entire length, ran a
+high gray wall, grim and forbidding.  In it was a green gate studded
+with iron bolts.  Before this the automobile drew suddenly to a halt.
+The crew of the armored car tumbled off the rear seat, and one of
+them beat upon the green gate.  Marie felt a hand of ice clutch at her
+throat.  But she controlled herself.
+
+"And what is this?" she cried gayly.
+
+At her side Captain Thierry was smiling down at her, but his
+smile was hateful.
+
+"It is the prison of St. Lazare," he said.  "It is not becoming,"
+he added sternly, "that the name of the Countess d'Aurillac
+should be made common as the Paris road!"
+
+Fighting for her life, Marie thrust herself against him; her
+arm that throughout the journey had rested on the back of the
+driving-seat caressed his shoulders; her lips and the violet eyes
+were close to his.
+
+"Why should you care?" she whispered fiercely.  "You have me! Let
+the Count d'Aurillac look after the honor of his wife himself."
+
+The charming Thierry laughed at her mockingly.
+
+"He means to," he said.  "I am the Count d'Aurillac!"
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER
+
+In Salonika, the American consul, the Standard Oil man, and
+the war correspondents formed the American colony.  The
+correspondents were waiting to go to the front.  Incidentally,
+as we waited, the front was coming rapidly toward us.  There
+was "Uncle" Jim, the veteran of many wars, and of all the
+correspondents, in experience the oldest and in spirit the
+youngest, and there was the Kid, and the Artist.  The Kid
+jeered at us, and proudly described himself as the only Boy
+Reporter who jumped from a City Hall assignment to cover a
+European War.  "I don't know strategy," he would boast; "neither
+does the Man at Home.  He wants 'human interest' stuff, and I give
+him what he wants.  I write exclusively for the subway guard and
+the farmers in the wheat belt.  When you fellows write about the
+'Situation,' they don't understand it.  Neither do you.  Neither does
+Venizelos or the King.  I don't understand it myself.  So, I write my
+people heart-to-heart talks about refugees and wounded, and what
+kind of ploughs the Servian peasants use, and that St. Paul wrote
+his letters to the Thessalonians from the same hotel where I write
+mine; and I tell 'em to pronounce Salonika 'eeka,' and not put
+the accent on the 'on.'  This morning at the refugee camp I found
+all the little Servians of the Frothingham unit in American Boy
+Scout uniforms.  That's my meat.  That's 'home week' stuff.  You
+fellows write for the editorial page; and nobody reads it.  I write
+for the man that turns first to Mutt and Jeff, and then looks to see
+where they are running the new Charlie Chaplin release.  When
+that man has to choose between 'our military correspondent' and
+the City Hall Reporter, he chooses me!"
+
+The third man was John, "Our Special Artist."  John could write
+a news story, too, but it was the cartoons that had made him
+famous.  They were not comic page, but front page cartoons, and
+before making up their minds what they thought, people waited to
+see what their Artist thought.  So, it was fortunate his thoughts
+were as brave and clean as they were clever.  He was the original
+Little Brother to the Poor.  He was always giving away money.
+When we caught him, he would prevaricate. He would say the man
+was a college chum, that he had borrowed the money from him,
+and that this was the first chance he had had to pay it back.  The Kid
+suggested it was strange that so many of his college chums should
+at the same moment turn up, dead broke, in Salonika, and that
+half of them should be women.
+
+John smiled disarmingly.  "It was a large college," he explained,
+"and coeducational."  There were other Americans; Red Cross
+doctors and nurses just escaped through the snow from the
+Bulgars, and hyphenated Americans who said they had taken
+out their first papers.  They thought hyphenated citizens were
+so popular with us, that we would pay their passage to New York.
+In Salonika they were transients.  They had no local standing.  They
+had no local lying-down place, either, or place to eat, or to wash,
+although they did not look as though that worried them, or place
+to change their clothes.  Or clothes to change.  It was because we
+had clothes to change, and a hotel bedroom, instead of a bench in
+a cafe, that we were ranked as residents and from the Greek police
+held a "permission to sojourn."  Our American colony was a very
+close corporation.  We were only six Americans against 300,000
+British, French, Greek, and Servian soldiers, and 120,000 civilian
+Turks, Spanish Jews, Armenians, Persians, Egyptians, Albanians,
+and Arabs, and some twenty more other races that are not listed.
+We had arrived in Salonika before the rush, and at the Hotel Hermes
+on the water-front had secured a vast room.  The edge of the stone
+quay was not forty feet from us, the only landing steps directly
+opposite our balcony.  Everybody who arrived on the Greek
+passenger boats from Naples or the Piraeus, or who had shore
+leave from a man-of-war, transport, or hospital ship, was raked
+by our cameras.  There were four windows--one for each of us
+and his work table.  It was not easy to work.  What was the use?
+The pictures and stories outside the windows fascinated us, but
+when we sketched them or wrote about them, they only proved
+us inadequate.  All day long the pinnaces, cutters, gigs, steam
+launches shoved and bumped against the stone steps, marines
+came ashore for the mail, stewards for fruit and fish, Red Cross
+nurses to shop, tiny midshipmen to visit the movies, and the
+sailors and officers of the Russian, French, British, Italian,
+and Greek war-ships to stretch their legs in the park of the Tour
+Blanche, or to cramp them under a cafe table.  Sometimes the
+ambulances blocked the quay and the wounded and frost-bitten
+were lifted into the motor-boats, and sometimes a squad of marines
+lined the landing stage, and as a coffin under a French or English
+flag was borne up the stone steps stood at salute.  So crowded
+was the harbor that the oars of the boatmen interlocked.
+
+Close to the stone quay, stretched along the three-mile circle,
+were the fishing smacks, beyond them, so near that the anchor
+chains fouled, were the passenger ships with gigantic Greek flags
+painted on their sides, and beyond them transports from Marseilles,
+Malta, and Suvla Bay, black colliers, white hospital ships, burning
+green electric lights, red-bellied tramps and freighters, and, hemming
+them in, the grim, mouse-colored destroyers, submarines, cruisers,
+dreadnaughts.  At times, like a wall, the cold fog rose between us
+and the harbor, and again the curtain would suddenly be ripped
+asunder, and the sun would flash on the brass work of the fleet,
+on the white wings of the aeroplanes, on the snow-draped
+shoulders of Mount Olympus.  We often speculated as to how
+in the early days the gods and goddesses, dressed as they were,
+or as they were not, survived the snows of Mount Olympus.  Or
+was it only their resort for the summer?
+
+It got about that we had a vast room to ourselves, where one
+might obtain a drink, or a sofa for the night, or even money to
+cable for money.  So, we had many strange visitors, some half
+starved, half frozen, with terrible tales of the Albanian trail,
+of the Austrian prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the mountain
+passes heaped with dead, of the doctors and nurses wading
+waist-high in snow-drifts and for food killing the ponies.  Some
+of our visitors wanted to get their names in the American papers
+so that the folks at home would know they were still alive,
+others wanted us to keep their names out of the papers, hoping
+the police would think them dead; another, convinced it was of
+pressing news value, desired us to advertise the fact that he had
+invented a poisonous gas for use in the trenches.  With difficulty
+we prevented him from casting it adrift in our room.  Or, he had
+for sale a second-hand motor-cycle, or he would accept a position
+as barkeeper, or for five francs would sell a state secret that, once
+made public, in a month would end the war.  It seemed cheap at
+the price.
+
+Each of us had his "scouts" to bring him the bazaar rumor, the
+Turkish bath rumor, the cafe rumor.  Some of our scouts journeyed
+as far afield as Monastir and Doiran, returning to drip snow on
+the floor, and to tell us tales, one-half of which we refused to
+believe, and the other half the censor refused to pass.  With each
+other's visitors it was etiquette not to interfere.  It would have
+been like tapping a private wire.  When we found John sketching
+a giant stranger in a cap and coat of wolf skin we did not seek
+to know if he were an Albanian brigand, or a Servian prince
+incognito, and when a dark Levantine sat close to the Kid,
+whispering, and the Kid banged on his typewriter, we did not
+listen.
+
+So, when I came in one afternoon and found a strange American
+youth writing at John's table, and no one introduced us, I took
+it for granted he had sold the Artist an "exclusive" story, and
+asked no questions.  But I could not help hearing what they said.
+Even though I tried to drown their voices by beating on the Kid's
+typewriter.  I was taking my third lesson, and I had printed, "I
+Amm 5w writjng This, 5wjth my own lilly w?ite handS," when I
+heard the Kid saying:
+
+"You can beat the game this way.  Let John buy you a ticket to the
+Piraeus.  If you go from one Greek port to another you don't need
+a vise.  But, if you book from here to Italy, you must get a permit
+from the Italian consul, and our consul, and the police.  The plot
+is to get out of the war zone, isn't it? Well, then, my dope is to get
+out quick, and map the rest of your trip when you're safe in Athens."
+
+It was no business of mine, but I had to look up.  The stranger
+was now pacing the floor.  I noticed that while his face was
+almost black with tan, his upper lip was quite white.  I noticed
+also that he had his hands in the pockets of one of John's blue
+serge suits, and that the pink silk shirt he wore was one that
+once had belonged to the Kid.  Except for the pink shirt, in the
+appearance of the young man there was nothing unusual.  He was
+of a familiar type.  He looked like a young business man from our
+Middle West, matter-of-fact and unimaginative, but capable and
+self-reliant.  If he had had a fountain pen in his upper waistcoat
+pocket, I would have guessed he was an insurance agent, or the
+publicity man for a new automobile.  John picked up his hat,
+and said, "That's good advice.  Give me your steamer ticket, Fred,
+and I'll have them change it."  He went out; but he did not ask
+Fred to go with him.
+
+Uncle Jim rose, and murmured something about the Cafe Roma,
+and tea.  But neither did he invite Fred to go with him.  Instead,
+he told him to make himself at home, and if he wanted anything
+the waiter would bring it from the cafe downstairs.  Then the Kid,
+as though he also was uncomfortable at being left alone with us,
+hurried to the door.  "Going to get you a suit-case," he explained.
+"Back in five minutes."
+
+The stranger made no answer.  Probably he did not hear him.  Not a
+hundred feet from our windows three Greek steamers were huddled
+together, and the eyes of the American were fixed on them.  The
+one for which John had gone to buy him a new ticket lay nearest.
+She was to sail in two hours.  Impatiently, in short quick steps,
+the stranger paced the length of the room, but when he turned and
+so could see the harbor, he walked slowly, devouring it with his
+eyes.  For some time, in silence, he repeated this manoeuvre; and
+then the complaints of the typewriter disturbed him.  He halted
+and observed my struggles.  Under his scornful eye, in my
+embarrassment I frequently hit the right letter.  "You a
+newspaper man, too?" he asked.  I boasted I was, but
+begged not to be judged by my typewriting.
+
+"I got some great stories to write when I get back to God's country,"
+he announced.  "I was a reporter for two years in Kansas City before
+the war, and now I'm going back to lecture and write.  I got enough
+material to keep me at work for five years.  All kinds of stuff--
+specials, fiction, stories, personal experiences, maybe a novel."
+
+I regarded him with envy.  For the correspondents in the
+greatest of all wars the pickings had been meagre.  "You
+are to be congratulated," I said.  He brushed aside my
+congratulations.  "For what?" he demanded.  "I didn't go
+after the stories; they came to me.  The things I saw I had
+to see.  Couldn't get away from them.  I've been with the
+British, serving in the R. A. M. C.  Been hospital steward,
+stretcher bearer, ambulance driver.  I've been sixteen months
+at the front, and all the time on the firing-line.  I was in the
+retreat from Mons, with French on the Marne, at Ypres, all
+through the winter fighting along the Canal, on the Gallipoli
+Peninsula, and, just lately, in Servia.  I've seen more of this
+war than any soldier.  Because, sometimes, they give the soldier
+a rest; they never give the medical corps a rest.  The only rest I
+got was when I was wounded."
+
+He seemed no worse for his wounds, so again I tendered
+congratulations.  This time he accepted them.  The recollection
+of the things he had seen, things incredible, terrible, unique in
+human experience, had stirred him.  He talked on, not boastfully,
+but in a tone, rather, of awe and disbelief, as though assuring
+himself that it was really he to whom such things had happened.
+
+"I don't believe there's any kind of fighting I haven't seen," he
+declared; "hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, grenades, gun
+butts.  I've seen 'em on their knees in the mud choking each
+other, beating each other with their bare fists.  I've seen every
+kind of airship, bomb, shell, poison gas, every kind of wound.
+Seen whole villages turned into a brickyard in twenty minutes;
+in Servia seen bodies of women frozen to death, bodies of babies
+starved to death, seen men in Belgium swinging from trees; along
+the Yzer for three months I saw the bodies of men I'd known
+sticking out of the mud, or hung up on the barb wire, with the
+crows picking them.
+
+"I've seen some of the nerviest stunts that ever were pulled off
+in history.  I've seen real heroes.  Time and time again I've seen
+a man throw away his life for his officer, or for a chap he didn't
+know, just as though it was a cigarette butt.  I've seen the women
+nurses of our corps steer a car into a village and yank out a wounded
+man while shells were breaking under the wheels and the houses
+were pitching into the streets."  He stopped and laughed consciously.
+
+"Understand," he warned me, "I'm not talking about myself, only of
+things I've seen.  The things I'm going to put in my book.  It ought
+to be a pretty good book-what?"
+
+My envy had been washed clean in admiration.
+
+"It will make a wonderful book," I agreed.  "Are you going to
+syndicate it first?"
+
+Young Mr. Hamlin frowned importantly.
+
+"I was thinking," he said, "of asking John for letters to the magazine
+editors.  So, they'll know I'm not faking, that I've really been through
+it all.  Letters from John would help a lot."  Then he asked anxiously:
+"They would, wouldn't they?"
+
+I reassured him.  Remembering the Kid's gibes at John and his
+numerous dependents, I said: "You another college chum of John's?"
+The young man answered my question quite seriously.  "No," he said;
+"John graduated before I entered; but we belong to the same fraternity.
+It was the luckiest chance in the world my finding him here.  There was
+a month-old copy of the Balkan News blowing around camp, and his
+name was in the list of arrivals.  The moment I found he was in Salonika,
+I asked for twelve hours leave, and came down in an ambulance.  I made
+straight for John; gave him the grip, and put it up to him to help me."
+
+"I don't understand," I said.  "I thought you were sailing on the
+Adriaticus?"
+
+The young man was again pacing the floor.  He halted and faced the
+harbor.
+
+"You bet I'm sailing on the Adriaticus," he said.  He looked out at
+that vessel, at the Blue Peter flying from her foremast, and grinned.
+"In just two hours!"
+
+It was stupid of me, but I still was unenlightened.  "But your twelve
+hours' leave?" I asked.
+
+The young man laughed.  "They can take my twelve hours' leave,"
+he said deliberately, "and feed it to the chickens.  I'm beating it."
+
+"What d'you mean, you're beating it?"
+
+"What do you suppose I mean?" he demanded.  "What do you
+suppose I'm doing out of uniform, what do you suppose I'm lying
+low in the room for? So's I won't catch cold?"
+
+"If you're leaving the army without a discharge, and without
+permission," I said, "I suppose you know it's desertion."
+
+Mr. Hamlin laughed easily.  "It's not my army," he said. "I'm an
+American."
+
+"It's your desertion," I suggested.
+
+The door opened and closed noiselessly, and Billy, entering,
+placed a new travelling bag on the floor.  He must have heard my
+last words, for he looked inquiringly at each of us.  But he did
+not speak and, walking to the window, stood with his hands in his
+pockets, staring out at the harbor.  His presence seemed to encourage
+the young man.  "Who knows I'm deserting?" he demanded.  "No
+one's ever seen me in Salonika before, and in these 'cits' I can get on
+board all right.  And then they can't touch me.  What do the folks at
+home care how I left the British army? They'll be so darned glad to
+get me back alive that they won't ask if I walked out or was kicked
+out.  I should worry!"
+
+"It's none of my business," I began, but I was interrupted.  In
+his restless pacings the young man turned quickly.
+
+"As you say," he remarked icily, "it is none of your business.
+It's none of your business whether I get shot as a deserter, or
+go home, or--"
+
+"You can go to the devil for all I care," I assured him.  "I
+wasn't considering you at all.  I was only sorry that I'll never
+be able to read your book."
+
+For a moment Mr. Hamlin remained silent, then he burst forth
+with a jeer.
+
+"No British firing squad," he boasted, "will ever stand me up."
+
+"Maybe not," I agreed, "but you will never write that book."
+
+Again there was silence, and this time it was broken by the Kid.
+He turned from the window and looked toward Hamlin.  "That's
+right!" he said.
+
+He sat down on the edge of the table, and at the deserter pointed
+his forefinger.
+
+"Son," he said, "this war is some war.  It's the biggest war in
+history, and folks will be talking about nothing else for the next
+ninety years; folks that never were nearer it than Bay City, Mich.
+But you won't talk about it.  And you've been all through it.
+You've been to hell and back again.  Compared with what you
+know about hell, Dante is in the same class with Dr. Cook.  But
+you won't be able to talk about this war, or lecture, or write a
+book about it."
+
+"I won't?" demanded Hamlin.  "And why won't I?"
+
+"Because of what you're doing now," said Billy.  "Because
+you're queering yourself.  Now, you've got everything."  The
+Kid was very much in earnest.  His tone was intimate, kind, and
+friendly.  "You've seen everything, done everything.  We'd give
+our eye-teeth to see what you've seen, and to write the things you
+can write.  You've got a record now that'll last you until you're
+dead, and your grandchildren are dead-and then some.  When
+you talk the table will have to sit up and listen.  You can say 'I
+was there.'  'I was in it.'  'I saw.'  'I know.'  When this war is
+over you'll have everything out of it that's worth getting-all
+the experiences, all the inside knowledge, all the 'nosebag'
+news; you'll have wounds, honors, medals, money, reputation.
+And you're throwing all that away!"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted savagely.
+
+"To hell with their medals," he said.  "They can take their medals
+and hang 'em on Christmas trees.  I don't owe the British army
+anything.  It owes me.  I've done my bit.  I've earned what I've
+got, and there's no one can take it away from me."
+
+"You can," said the Kid.  Before Hamlin could reply the door
+opened and John came in, followed by Uncle Jim.  The older
+man was looking very grave, and John very unhappy.  Hamlin
+turned quickly to John.
+
+"I thought these men were friends of yours," he began, "and
+Americans.  They're fine Americans.  They're as full of human
+kindness and red blood as a kippered herring!"
+
+John looked inquiringly at the Kid.
+
+"He wants to hang himself," explained Billy, "and because we
+tried to cut him down, he's sore."
+
+"They talked to me," protested Hamlin, "as though I was a
+yellow dog.  As though I was a quitter.  I'm no quitter! But,
+if I'm ready to quit, who's got a better right? I'm not an
+Englishman, but there are several million Englishmen haven't
+done as much for England in this was as I have.  What do you
+fellows know about it? You write about it, about the 'brave
+lads in the trenches'; but what do you know about the trenches?
+What you've seen from automobiles.  That's all.  That's where
+you get off! I've lived in the trenches for fifteen months, froze
+in 'em, starved in 'em, risked my life in 'em, and I've saved other
+lives, too, by hauling men out of the trenches.  And that's no airy
+persiflage, either!"
+
+He ran to the wardrobe where John's clothes hung, and from the
+bottom of it dragged a khaki uniform.  It was still so caked with
+mud and snow that when he flung it on the floor it splashed like
+a wet bathing suit.  "How would you like to wear one of those?" he
+Demanded.  "Stinking with lice and sweat and blood; the blood of
+other men, the men you've helped off the field, and your own
+blood."
+
+As though committing hara-kiri, he slashed his hand across his
+stomach, and then drew it up from his waist to his chin.  "I'm
+scraped with shrapnel from there to there," said Mr. Hamlin.
+"And another time I got a ball in the shoulder.  That would have
+been a 'blighty' for a fighting man--they're always giving them
+leave--but all I got was six weeks at Havre in hospital.  Then it
+was the Dardanelles, and sunstroke and sand; sleeping in sand,
+eating sand, sand in your boots, sand in your teeth; hiding in
+holes in the sand like a dirty prairie dog.  And then, 'Off to
+Servia!' And the next act opens in the snow and the mud!
+Cold? God, how cold it was! And most of us in sun helmets."
+
+As though the cold still gnawed at his bones, he shivered.
+
+"It isn't the danger," he protested.  "It isn't that I'm getting
+away from.  To hell with the danger! It's just the plain
+discomfort of it! It's the never being your own master, never
+being clean, never being warm."  Again he shivered and
+rubbed one hand against the other.  "There were no bridges
+over the streams," he went on, "and we had to break the ice
+and wade in, and then sleep in the open with the khaki frozen
+to us.  There was no firewood; not enough to warm a pot of tea.
+There were no wounded; all our casualties were frost bite and
+Pneumonia.  When we take them out of the blankets their toes
+fall off.  We've been in camp for a month now near Doiran, and
+it's worse there than on the march.  It's a frozen swamp.  You can't
+sleep for the cold; can't eat; the only ration we get is bully beef,
+and our insides are frozen so damn tight we can't digest it.  The
+cold gets into your blood, gets into your brains.  It won't let you
+think; or else, you think crazy things.  It makes you afraid."  He
+shook himself like a man coming out of a bad dream.
+
+So, I'm through," he said.  In turn he scowled at each of us, as
+though defying us to contradict him.  "That's why I'm quitting,"
+he added.  "Because I've done my bit.  Because I'm damn well fed
+up on it."  He kicked viciously at the water-logged uniform on the
+floor.  "Any one who wants my job can have it!"  He walked to the
+window, turned his back on us, and fixed his eyes hungrily on the
+Adriaticus.  There was a long pause.  For guidance we looked at
+John, but he was staring down at the desk blotter, scratching on it
+marks that he did not see.
+
+Finally, where angels feared to tread, the Kid rushed in.  "That's
+certainly a hard luck story," he said; "but," he added cheerfully,
+"it's nothing to the hard luck you'll strike when you can't tell
+why you left the army."  Hamlin turned with an exclamation,
+but Billy held up his hand.  "Now wait," he begged, "we haven't
+time to get mussy.  At six o'clock your leave is up, and the troop
+train starts back to camp, and--"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted sharply.  "And the Adriaticus starts at
+five."
+
+Billy did not heed him.  "You've got two hours to change your
+mind," he said.  "That's better than being sorry you didn't the
+rest of your life."
+
+Mr. Hamlin threw back his head and laughed.  It was a most
+unpleasant laugh.  "You're a fine body of men," he jeered.
+"America must be proud of you!"
+
+"If we weren't Americans," explained Billy patiently, "we
+wouldn't give a damn whether you deserted or not.  You're
+drowning and you don't know it, and we're throwing you a
+rope.  Try to see it that way.  We'll cut out the fact that you
+took an oath, and that you're breaking it.  That's up to you.
+We'll get down to results.  When you reach home, if you can't
+tell why you left the army, the folks will darned soon guess.
+And that will queer everything you've done.  When you come
+to sell your stuff, it will queer you with the editors, queer you
+with the publishers.  If they know you broke your word to the
+British army, how can they know you're keeping faith with them?
+How can they believe anything you tell them? Every 'story' you
+write, every statement of yours will make a noise like a fake.
+You won't come into court with clean hands.  You'll be licked
+before you start.
+
+"Of course, you're for the Allies.  Well, all the Germans at home
+will fear that; and when you want to lecture on your 'Fifteen
+Months at the British Front,' they'll look up your record; and
+what will they do to you? This is what they'll do to you.  When
+you've shown 'em your moving pictures and say, 'Does any
+gentleman in the audience want to ask a question?' a German
+agent will get up and say, 'Yes, I want to ask a question.  Is it
+true that you deserted from the British army, and that if you
+return to it, they will shoot you?'"
+
+I was scared.  I expected the lean and muscular Mr. Hamlin to
+fall on Billy, and fling him where he had flung the soggy uniform.
+But instead he remained motionless, his arms pressed across his
+chest.  His eyes, filled with anger and distress, returned to the
+Adriaticus.
+
+"I'm sorry," muttered the Kid.
+
+John rose and motioned to the door, and guiltily and only too
+gladly we escaped.  John followed us into the hall.  "Let me talk
+to him," he whispered.  "The boat sails in an hour.  Please don't
+come back until she's gone."
+
+We went to the moving picture palace next door, but I doubt if
+the thoughts of any of us were on the pictures.  For after an
+hour, when from across the quay there came the long-drawn
+warning of a steamer's whistle, we nudged each other and rose
+and went out.
+
+Not a hundred yards from us the propeller blades of the
+Adriaticus were slowly churning, and the rowboats were falling
+away from her sides.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Hamlin," called Billy.  "You had everything and
+you chucked it away.  I can spell your finish.  It's 'check' for yours."
+
+But when we entered our room, in the centre of it, under the
+bunch of electric lights, stood the deserter.  He wore the
+water-logged uniform.  The sun helmet was on his head.
+
+"Good man!" shouted Billy.
+
+He advanced, eagerly holding out his hand.
+
+Mr. Hamlin brushed past him.  At the door he turned and glared
+at us, even at John.  He was not a good loser.  "I hope you're
+satisfied," he snarled.  He pointed at the four beds in a row.  I
+felt guiltily conscious of them.  At the moment they appeared so
+unnecessarily clean and warm and soft.  The silk coverlets at the
+foot of each struck me as being disgracefully effeminate.  They
+made me ashamed.
+
+"I hope," said Mr. Hamlin, speaking slowly and picking his words,
+"when you turn into those beds to-night you'll think of me in the
+mud.  I hope when you're having your five-course dinner and your
+champagne you'll remember my bully beef.  I hope when a shell or
+Mr. Pneumonia gets me, you'll write a nice little sob story about
+the 'brave lads in the trenches.' "
+
+He looked at us, standing like schoolboys, sheepish, embarrassed,
+and silent, and then threw open the door.  "I hope," he added,
+"you all choke!"
+
+With an unconvincing imitation of the college chum manner,
+John cleared his throat and said: "Don't forget, Fred, if there's
+anything I can do--"
+
+Hamlin stood in the doorway smiling at us.
+
+"There's something you can all do," he said.
+
+"Yes?" asked John heartily.
+
+"You can all go to hell!" said Mr. Hamlin.
+
+We heard the door slam, and his hobnailed boots pounding down
+the stairs.  No one spoke.  Instead, in unhappy silence, we stood
+staring at the floor.  Where the uniform had lain was a pool of
+mud and melted snow and the darker stains of stale blood.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg etext of The Lost Road
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+THE LOST ROAD
+
+
+THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF
+
+RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
+
+
+Contains:
+
+THE LOST ROAD
+THE MIRACLE OF LAS PALMAS
+EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS
+THE MEN OF ZANZIBAR
+THE LONG ARM
+THE GOD OF COINCIDENCE
+THE BURIED TREASURE OF COBRE
+THE BOY SCOUT
+SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
+THE DESERTER
+
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTION BY
+JOHN T. McCUTCHEON
+
+WITH DAVIS IN VERA CRUZ, BRUSSELS, AND SALONIKA
+
+
+In common with many others who have been with Richard Harding
+Davis as correspondents, I find it difficult to realize that he
+has covered his last story and that he will not be seen again
+with the men who follow the war game, rushing to distant places
+upon which the spotlight of news interest suddenly centres.
+
+It seems a sort of bitter irony that he who had covered so many
+big events of world importance in the past twenty years should
+be abruptly torn away in the midst of the greatest event of
+them all, while the story is still unfinished and its outcome
+undetermined.  If there is a compensating thought, it lies in the
+reflection that he had a life of almost unparalleled fulness,
+crowded to the brim, up to the last moment, with those
+experiences and achievements which he particularly aspired to
+have.  He left while the tide was at its flood, and while he still
+held supreme his place as the best reporter in his country.  He
+escaped the bitterness of seeing the ebb set in, when the youth
+to which he clung had slipped away, and when he would have to sit
+impatient in the audience, while younger men were in the thick of
+great, world-stirring dramas on the stage.
+
+This would have been a real tragedy in "Dick" Davis's case, for,
+while his body would have aged, it is doubtful if his spirit ever
+would have lost its youthful freshness or boyish enthusiasm.
+
+It was my privilege to see a good deal of Davis in the last two
+years.
+
+He arrived in Vera Cruz among the first of the sixty or seventy
+correspondents who flocked to that news centre when the situation
+was so full of sensational possibilities.  It was a time when the
+American newspaper-reading public was eager for thrills, and the
+ingenuity and resourcefulness of the correspondents in Vera Cruz
+were tried to the uttermost to supply the demand.
+
+In the face of the fiercest competition it fell to Davis's lot to
+land the biggest story of those days of marking time.
+
+The story "broke" when it became known that Davis, Medill
+McCormick, and Frederick Palmer had gone through the Mexican
+lines in an effort to reach Mexico City.  Davis and McCormick,
+with letters to the Brazilian and British ministers, got through
+and reached the capital on the strength of those letters, but
+Palmer, having only an American passport, was turned back.
+
+After an ominous silence which furnished American newspapers with
+a lively period of suspense, the two men returned safely with
+wonderful stories of their experiences while under arrest in the
+hands of the Mexican authorities.  McCormick, in recently speaking
+of Davis at that time, said that, "as a correspondent in
+difficult and dangerous situations, he was incomparable--cheerful,
+ingenious, and undiscouraged.  When the time came to choose
+between safety and leaving his companion he stuck by his fellow
+captive even though, as they both said, a firing-squad and a blank
+wall were by no means a remote possibility."
+
+This Mexico City adventure was a spectacular achievement
+which gave Davis and McCormick a distinction which no other
+correspondents of all the ambitious and able corps had managed to
+attain.
+
+Davis usually "hunted" alone.  He depended entirely upon his own
+ingenuity and wonderful instinct for news situations.  He had the
+energy and enthusiasm of a beginner, with the experience and
+training of a veteran.  His interest in things remained as keen
+as though he had not been years at a game which often leaves a
+man jaded and blase.  His acquaintanceship in the American army
+and navy was wide, and for this reason, as well as for the
+prestige which his fame and position as a national character gave
+him, he found it easy to establish valuable connections in the
+channels from which news emanates.  And yet, in spite of the fact
+that he was "on his own" instead of having a working partnership
+with other men, he was generous in helping at times when he was
+able to do so.
+
+Davis was a conspicuous figure in Vera Cruz, as he inevitably had
+been in all such situations.  Wherever he went, he was pointed
+out.  His distinction of appearance, together with a distinction
+in dress, which, whether from habit or policy, was a valuable
+asset in his work, made him a marked man.  He dressed and looked
+the "war correspondent," such a one as he would describe in one
+of his stories.  He fulfilled the popular ideal of what a member
+of that fascinating profession should look like.  His code of life
+and habits was as fixed as that of the Briton who takes his
+habits and customs and games and tea wherever he goes, no matter
+how benighted or remote the spot may be.
+
+He was just as loyal to his code as is the Briton.  He carried his
+bath-tub, his immaculate linen, his evening clothes, his war
+equipment--in which he had the pride of a connoisseur--wherever
+he went, and, what is more, he had the courage to use the evening
+clothes at times when their use was conspicuous.  He was the only
+man who wore a dinner coat in Vera Cruz, and each night, at his
+particular table in the crowded "Portales," at the Hotel
+Diligencia, he was to be seen, as fresh and clean as though he
+were in a New York or London restaurant.
+
+Each day he was up early to take the train out to the "gap,"
+across which came arrivals from Mexico City.  Sometimes a good
+"story" would come down, as when the long-heralded and long-
+expected arrival of Consul Silliman gave a first-page "feature"
+to all the American papers.
+
+In the afternoon he would play water polo over at the navy
+aviation camp, and always at a certain time of the day his
+"striker" would bring him his horse and for an hour or more he
+would ride out along the beach roads within the American lines.
+After the first few days it was difficult to extract real thrills
+from the Vera Cruz situation, but we used to ride out to El Tejar
+with the cavalry patrol and imagine that we might be fired on at
+some point in the long ride through unoccupied territory; or else
+go out to the "front," at Legarto, where a little American force
+occupied a sun-baked row of freight-cars, surrounded by malarial
+swamps.  From the top of the railroad water-tank, we could look
+across to the Mexican outposts a mile or so away.  It was not very
+exciting, and what thrills we got lay chiefly in our imagination.
+
+Before my acquaintanceship with Davis at Vera Cruz I had not
+known him well.  Our trails didn't cross while I was in Japan in
+the Japanese-Russian War, and in the Transvaal I missed him by a
+few days, but in Vera Cruz I had many enjoyable opportunities of
+becoming well acquainted with him.
+
+The privilege was a pleasant one, for it served to dispel a
+preconceived and not an entirely favorable impression of his
+character.  For years I had heard stories about Richard Harding
+Davis--stories which emphasized an egotism and self-assertiveness
+which, if they ever existed, had happily ceased to be obtrusive
+by the time I got to know him.
+
+He was a different Davis from the Davis whom I had expected to
+find; and I can imagine no more charming and delightful companion
+than he was in Vera Cruz.  There was no evidence of those
+qualities which I feared to find, and his attitude was one of
+unfailing kindness, considerateness, and generosity.
+
+In the many talks I had with him, I was always struck by his
+evident devotion to a fixed code of personal conduct.  In his writings
+he was the interpreter of chivalrous, well-bred youth, and his heroes
+were young, clean-thinking college men, heroic big-game hunters,
+war correspondents, and idealized men about town, who always did
+the noble thing, disdaining the unworthy in act or motive.  It seemed
+to me that he was modelling his own life, perhaps unconsciously,
+after the favored types which his imagination had created for his
+stories.  In a certain sense he was living a life of make-believe,
+wherein he was the hero of the story, and in which he was bound
+by his ideals always to act as he would have the hero of his
+story act.  It was a quality which only one could have who had
+preserved a fresh youthfulness of outlook in spite of the
+hardening processes of maturity.
+
+His power of observation was extraordinarily keen, and he not
+only had the rare gift of sensing the vital elements of a
+situation, but also had, to an unrivalled degree, the ability to
+describe them vividly.  I don't know how many of those men at Verz
+Cruz tried to describe the kaleidoscopic life of the city during
+the American occupation, but I know that Davis's story was far
+and away the most faithful and satisfying picture.  The story was
+photographic, even to the sounds and smells.
+
+The last I saw of him in Vera Cruz was when, on the Utah, he
+steamed past the flagship Wyoming, upon which I was quartered,
+and started for New York.  The Battenberg cup race had just been
+rowed, and the Utah and Florida crews had tied.  As the Utah was
+sailing immediately after the race, there was no time in which to
+row off the tie.  So it was decided that the names of both ships
+should be engraved on the cup, and that the Florida crew should
+defend the title against a challenging crew from the British
+Admiral Craddock's flagship.
+
+By the end of June, the public interest in Vera Cruz had waned,
+and the corps of correspondents dwindled until there were only a
+few left.
+
+Frederick Palmer and I went up to join Carranza and Villa, and on
+the 26th of July we were in Monterey waiting to start with the
+triumphal march of Carranza's army toward Mexico City.  There was
+no sign of serious trouble abroad.  That night ominous telegrams
+came, and at ten o'clock on the following morning we were on a
+train headed for the States.
+
+Palmer and Davis caught the Lusitania, sailing August 4 from New
+York, and I followed on the Saint Paul, leaving three days later.
+On the 17th of August I reached Brussels, and it seemed the most
+natural thing in the world to find Davis already there.  He was at
+the Palace Hotel, where a number of American and English 
+correspondents were quartered.
+
+Things moved quickly.  On the 19th Irvin Cobb, Will Irwin, Arno
+Dosch, and I were caught between the Belgian and German lines in
+Louvain; our retreat to Brussels was cut, and for three days,
+while the vast German army moved through the city, we were
+detained.  Then, the army having passed, we were allowed to go
+back to the capital.
+
+In the meantime Davis was in Brussels.  The Germans reached the
+outskirts of the city on the morning of the 20th, and the
+correspondents who had remained in Brussels were feverishly
+writing despatches describing the imminent fall of the city.  One
+of them, Harry Hansen, of the Chicago Daily News, tells the
+following story, which I give in his words:
+
+"While we were writing," says Hansen, "Richard Harding Davis
+walked into the writing-room of the Palace Hotel with a bunch of
+manuscript in his hand.  With an amused expression he surveyed
+the three correspondents filling white paper.
+
+"'I say, men,' said Davis, 'do you know when the next train
+leaves?'
+
+"'There is one at three o'clock,' said a correspondent, looking
+up.
+
+"'That looks like our only chance to get a story out,' said
+Davis.  'Well, we'll trust to that.'
+
+"The story was the German invasion of Brussels, and the train
+mentioned was considered the forlorn hope of the correspondents
+to connect with the outside world--that is, every correspondent
+thought it to be the other man's hope.  Secretly each had prepared
+to outwit the other, and secretly Davis had already sent his
+story to Ostend.  He meant to emulate Archibald Forbes, who
+despatched a courier with his real manuscript, and next day
+publicly dropped a bulky package in the mail-bag.
+
+"Davis had sensed the news in the occupation of Brussels long
+before it happened.  With dawn he went out to the Louvain road,
+where the German army stood, prepared to smash the capital if
+negotiations failed.  His observant eye took in all the details.
+Before noon he had written a comprehensive sketch of the
+occupation, and when word was received that it was under way, he
+trusted his copy to an old Flemish woman, who spoke not a word of
+English, and saw her safely on board the train that pulled out
+under Belgian auspices for Ostend."
+
+With passes which the German commandant in Brussels gave us the
+correspondents immediately started out to see how far those
+passes would carry us.  A number of us left on the afternoon of
+August 23 for Waterloo, where it was expected that the great
+clash between the German and the Anglo-French forces would occur.
+We had planned to be back the same evening, and went prepared
+only for an afternoon's drive in a couple of hired street
+carriages.  It was seven weeks before we again saw Brussels.
+
+On the following day (August 24) Davis started for Mons.  He wore
+the khaki uniform which he had worn in many campaigns.  Across his
+breast was a narrow bar of silk ribbon indicating the campaigns
+in which he had served as a correspondent.  He so much resembled a
+British officer that he was arrested as a British derelict and was informed
+that he would be shot at once.
+
+He escaped only by offering to walk to Brand Whitlock, in Brussels,
+reporting to each officer he met on the way.  His plan was approved,
+and as a hostage on parole he appeared before the American minister,
+who quickly established his identity as an American of good standing,
+to the satisfaction of the Germans.
+
+In the following few months our trails were widely separated.  I read
+of his arrest by German officers on the road to Mons; later I
+read the story of his departure from Brussels by train to
+Holland--a trip which carried him through Louvain while the town
+still was burning; and still later I read that he was with the
+few lucky men who were in Rheims during one of the early
+bombardments that damaged the cathedral.  By amazing luck,
+combined with a natural news sense which drew him instinctively
+to critical places at the psychological moment, he had been a
+witness of the two most widely featured stories of the early
+weeks of the war.
+
+Arrested by the Germans in Belgium, and later by the French in
+France, he was convinced that the restrictions on correspondents
+were too great to permit of good work.
+
+So he left the European war zone with the widely quoted remark:
+"The day of the war correspondent is over."
+
+And yet I was not surprised when, one evening, late in November
+of last year, he suddenly walked into the room in Salonika where
+William G. Shepherd, of the United Press, "Jimmy Hare," the
+veteran war photographer, and I had established ourselves several
+weeks before.
+
+The hotel was jammed, and the city, with a normal capacity of
+about one hundred and seventy-five thousand, was struggling to
+accommodate at least a hundred thousand more.  There was not a
+room to be had in any of the better hotels, and for several days
+we lodged Davis in our room, a vast chamber which formerly had
+been the main dining-room of the establishment, and which now was
+converted into a bedroom.  There was room for a dozen men, if
+necessary, and whenever stranded Americans arrived and could find
+no hotel accommodations we simply rigged up emergency cots for
+their temporary use.
+
+The weather in Salonika at this time, late November, was
+penetratingly cold.  In the mornings the steam coils struggled
+feebly to dispel the chill in the room.
+
+Early in the morning after Davis had arrived, we were aroused by
+the sound of violent splashing, accompanied by shuddering gasps,
+and we looked out from the snug warmth of our beds to see Davis
+standing in his portable bath-tub and drenching himself with
+ice-cold water.  As an exhibition of courageous devotion to an
+established custom of life it was admirable, but I'm not sure
+that it was prudent.
+
+For some reason, perhaps a defective circulation or a weakened
+heart, his system failed to react from these cold-water baths.
+All through the days he complained of feeling chilled.  He never
+seemed to get thoroughly warmed, and of us all he was the one who
+suffered most keenly from the cold.  It was all the more
+surprising, for his appearance was always that of a man in the
+pink of athletic fitness--ruddy-faced, clear-eyed, and full of
+tireless energy.
+
+On one occasion we returned from the French front in Serbia to
+Salonika in a box car lighted only by candles, bitterly cold, and
+frightfully exhausting.  We were seven hours in travelling
+fifty-five miles, and we arrived at our destination at three
+o'clock in the morning.  Several of the men contracted desperate
+colds, which clung to them for weeks.  Davis was chilled through,
+and said that of all the cold he had ever experienced that which
+swept across the Macedonian plain from the Balkan highlands was
+the most penetrating.  Even his heavy clothing could not afford him
+adequate protection.
+
+When he was settled in his own room in our hotel he installed an
+oil-stove which burned beside him as he sat at his desk and wrote
+his stories.  The room was like an oven, but even then he still
+complained of the cold.
+
+When he left he gave us the stove, and when we left, some time
+later, it was presented to one of our doctor friends out in a
+British hospital, where I'm sure it is doing its best to thaw the
+Balkan chill out of sick and wounded soldiers.
+
+Davis was always up early, and his energy and interest were as
+keen as a boy's.  We had our meals together, sometimes in the
+crowded and rather smart Bastasini's, but more often in the
+maelstrom of humanity that nightly packed the Olympos Palace
+restaurant.  Davis, Shepherd, Hare, and I, with sometimes Mr. and
+Mrs. John Bass, made up these parties, which, for a period of
+about two weeks or so, were the most enjoyable daily events of
+our lives.
+
+Under the glaring lights of the restaurant, and surrounded by
+British, French, Greek, and Serbian officers, German, Austrian,
+and Bulgarian civilians, with a sprinkling of American, English,
+and Scotch nurses and doctors, packed so solidly in the huge,
+high-ceilinged room that the waiters could barely pick their way
+among the tables, we hung for hours over our dinners, and left
+only when the landlord and his Austrian wife counted the day's
+receipts and paid the waiters at the end of the evening.
+
+One could not imagine a more charming and delightful companion
+than Davis during these days.  While he always asserted that he
+could not make a speech, and was terrified at the thought of
+standing up at a banquet-table, yet, sitting at a dinner-table
+with a few friends who were only too eager to listen rather than
+to talk, his stories, covering personal experiences in all parts
+of the world, were intensely vivid, with that remarkable
+"holding" quality of description which characterizes his
+writings.
+
+He brought his own bread--a coarse, brown sort, which he preferred
+to the better white bread--and with it he ate great quantities of
+butter.  As we sat down at the table his first demand was for
+"Mastika," a peculiar Greek drink distilled from mastic gum, and
+his second demand invariably was "Du beurre!" with the "r's" as
+silent as the stars; and if it failed to come at once the waiter
+was made to feel the enormity of his tardiness.
+
+The reminiscences ranged from his early newspaper days in
+Philadelphia, and skipping from Manchuria to Cuba and Central
+America, to his early Sun days under Arthur Brisbane; they ranged
+through an endless variety of personal experiences which very
+nearly covered the whole course of American history in the past
+twenty years.
+
+Perhaps to him it was pleasant to go over his remarkable adventures,
+but it could not have been half as pleasant as it was to hear them, told
+as they were with a keenness of description and brilliancy of humorous
+comment that made them gems of narrative.
+
+At times, in our work, we all tried our hands at describing the
+Salonika of those early days of the Allied occupation, for it was
+really what one widely travelled British officer called it--"the
+most amazingly interesting situation I've ever seen"---but Davis's
+description was far and away the best, just as his description of
+Vera Cruz was the best, and his wonderful story of the entry of
+the German army into Brussels was matchless as one of the great
+pieces of reporting in the present war.
+
+In thinking of Davis, I shall always remember him for the
+delightful qualities which he showed in Salonika.  He was
+unfailingly considerate and thoughtful.  Through his narratives
+one could see the pride which he took in the width and breadth of
+his personal relation to the great events of the past twenty
+years.  His vast scope of experiences and equally wide
+acquaintanceship with the big figures of our time, were amazing,
+and it was equally amazing that one of such a rich and
+interesting history could tell his stories in such a simple way
+that the personal element was never obtrusive.
+
+When he left Salonika he endeavored to obtain permission from
+the British staff to visit Moudros, but, failing in this, he booked
+his passage on a crowded little Greek steamer, where the only
+obtainable accommodation was a lounge in the dining saloon.
+We gave him a farewell dinner, at which the American consul
+and his family, with all the other Americans then in Salonika, were
+present, and after the dinner we rowed out to his ship and saw
+him very uncomfortably installed for his voyage.
+
+He came down the sea ladder and waved his hand as we rowed away.
+That was the last I saw of Richard Harding Davis.
+
+JOHN T. MCCUTCHEON.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST ROAD
+
+
+
+
+During the war with Spain, Colton Lee came into the service as a
+volunteer.  For a young man, he always had taken life almost too
+seriously, and when, after the campaign in Cuba, he elected to
+make soldiering his profession, the seriousness with which he
+attacked his new work surprised no one.  Finding they had lost him
+forever, his former intimates were bored, but his colonel was
+enthusiastic, and the men of his troop not only loved, but
+respected him.
+
+From the start he determined in his new life women should have no
+part--a determination that puzzled no one so much as the women,
+for to Lee no woman, old or young, had found cause to be
+unfriendly.  But he had read that the army is a jealous mistress
+who brooks no rival, that "red lips tarnish the scabbard steel,"
+that "he travels the fastest who travels alone."
+
+So, when white hands beckoned and pretty eyes signalled, he did
+not look.  For five years, until just before he sailed for his
+three years of duty in the Philippines, he succeeded not only in
+not looking, but in building up for himself such a fine
+reputation as a woman-hater that all women were crazy about him.
+Had he not been ordered to Agawamsett that fact would not have
+affected him.  But at the Officers' School he had indulged in hard
+study rather than in hard riding, had overworked, had brought
+back his Cuban fever, and was in poor shape to face the tropics.
+So, for two months before the transport was to sail, they ordered
+him to Cape Cod to fill his lungs with the bracing air of a New
+England autumn.
+
+He selected Agawamsett, because, when at Harvard, it was there he
+had spent his summer vacations, and he knew he would find
+sailboats and tennis and, through the pine woods back of the
+little whaling village, many miles of untravelled roads.  He
+promised himself that over these he would gallop an imaginary
+troop in route marches, would manoeuvre it against possible
+ambush, and, in combat patrols, ground scouts, and cossack
+outposts, charge with it "as foragers."  But he did none of these
+things.  For at Agawamsett he met Frances Gardner, and his
+experience with her was so disastrous that, in his determination
+to avoid all women, he was convinced he was right.
+
+When later he reached Manila he vowed no other woman would
+ever again find a place in his thoughts.  No other woman did.
+Not because he had the strength to keep his vow, but because he
+so continually thought of Frances Gardner that no other woman
+had a chance.
+
+Miss Gardner was a remarkable girl.  Her charm appealed to all
+kinds of men, and, unfortunately for Lee, several kinds of men
+appealed to her.  Her fortune and her relations were bound up in
+the person of a rich aunt with whom she lived, and who, it was
+understood, some day would leave her all the money in the world.
+But, in spite of her charm, certainly in spite of the rich aunt,
+Lee, true to his determination, might not have noticed the girl
+had not she ridden so extremely well.
+
+It was to the captain of cavalry she first appealed.  But even a
+cavalry captain, whose duty in life is to instruct sixty men in
+the art of taking the life of as many other men as possible, may
+turn his head in the direction of a good-looking girl.  And when
+for weeks a man rides at the side of one through pine forests as
+dim and mysterious as the aisles of a great cathedral, when he
+guides her across the wet marshes when the sun is setting crimson
+in the pools and the wind blows salt from the sea, when he loses
+them both by moonlight in wood-roads where the hoofs of the
+horses sink silently into dusty pine needles, he thinks more
+frequently of the girl at his side than of the faithful troopers
+waiting for him in San Francisco.  The girl at his side thought
+frequently of him.
+
+With the "surface indications" of a young man about to ask her
+to marry him she was painfully familiar; but this time the possibility
+was the reverse of painful.  What she meant to do about it she did
+not know, but she did know that she was strangely happy.  Between
+living on as the dependent of a somewhat exacting relative and
+becoming the full partner of this young stranger, who with men
+had proved himself so masterful, and who with her was so gentle,
+there seemed but little choice.  But she did not as yet wish to make
+the choice.  She preferred to believe she was not certain.  She assured
+him that before his leave of absence was over she would tell him
+whether she would remain on duty with the querulous aunt, who had
+befriended her, or as his wife accompany him to the Philippines.
+
+It was not the answer he wanted; but in her happiness, which was
+evident to every one, he could not help but take hope.  And in the
+questions she put to him of life in the tropics, of the life of
+the "officers' ladies," he saw that what was in her mind was a
+possible life with him, and he was content.
+
+She became to him a wonderful, glorious person, and each day she
+grew in loveliness.  It had been five years of soldiering in Cuba,
+China, and on the Mexican border since he had talked to a woman
+with interest, and now in all she said, in all her thoughts and
+words and delights, he found fresher and stronger reasons for
+discarding his determination to remain wedded only to the United
+States Army.  He did not need reasons.  He was far too much in love
+to see in any word or act of hers anything that was not fine and
+beautiful.
+
+In their rides they had one day stumbled upon a long-lost and
+long-forgotten road through the woods, which she had claimed as
+their own by right of discovery, and, no matter to what point
+they set forth each day, they always returned by it.  Their way
+through the woods stretched for miles.  It was concealed in a
+forest of stunted oaks and black pines, with no sign of human
+habitation, save here and there a clearing now long neglected and
+alive only with goldenrod.  Trunks of trees, moss-grown and
+crumbling beneath the touch of the ponies' hoofs, lay in their
+path, and above it the branches of a younger generation had
+clasped hands.  At their approach squirrels raced for shelter,
+woodcock and partridge shot deeper into the network of vines and
+saplings, and the click of the steel as the ponies tossed their
+bits, and their own whispers, alone disturbed the silence.
+
+"It is an enchanted road," said the girl; "or maybe we are
+enchanted."
+
+"Not I," cried the young man loyally.  "I was never so sane, never
+so sure, never so happy in knowing just what I wanted! If only
+you could be as sure!"
+
+One day she came to him in high excitement with a book of verse.
+"He has written a poem," she cried, "about our own woods, about
+our lost road! Listen" she commanded, and she read to him:
+
+"'They shut the road through the woods
+Seventy years ago.
+Weather and rain have undone it again,
+And now you would never know
+There was once a road through the woods
+Before they planted the trees.
+It is underneath the coppice and heath,
+And the thin anemones.
+Only the keeper sees
+That, where the ringdove broods,
+And the badgers roll at ease,
+There was once a road through the woods.
+
+"'Yet, if you enter the woods
+Of a summer evening late,
+When the night air cools on the trout-ringed pools
+Where the otter whistles his mate
+(They fear not men in the woods
+Because they see so few),
+You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
+And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
+Steadily cantering through
+The misty solitudes,
+As though they perfectly knew
+The old lost road through the woods. . . .
+But there is no road through the woods.'"
+
+
+"I don't like that at all," cried the soldierman.  "It's too--too
+sad--it doesn't give you any encouragement.  The way it ends, I
+mean: 'But there is no road through the woods.'  Of course there's
+a road! For us there always will be.  I'm going to make sure.  I'm
+going to buy those woods, and keep the lost road where we can
+always find it."
+
+"I don't think," said the girl, "that he means a real road."
+
+"I know what he means," cried the lover, "and he's wrong! There
+is a road, and you and I have found it, and we are going to
+follow it for always."
+
+The girl shook her head, but her eyes were smiling happily.
+
+The "season" at Agawamsett closed with the tennis tournament, and
+it was generally conceded fit and proper, from every point of
+view, that in mixed doubles Lee and Miss Gardner should be
+partners.  Young Stedman, the Boston artist, was the only one who
+made objection.  Up in the sail-loft that he had turned into a
+studio he was painting a portrait of the lovely Miss Gardner, and
+he protested that the three days' tournament would sadly
+interrupt his work.  And Frances, who was very much interested in
+the portrait, was inclined to agree.
+
+But Lee beat down her objections.  He was not at all interested in
+the portrait.  He disapproved of it entirely.  For the sittings
+robbed him of Frances during the better part of each morning, and
+he urged that when he must so soon leave her, between the man who
+wanted her portrait and the man who wanted her, it would be kind
+to give her time to the latter.
+
+"But I had no idea," protested Frances, "he would take so long.
+He told me he'd finish it in three sittings.  But he's so critical
+of his own work that he goes over it again and again.  He says
+that I am a most difficult subject, but that I inspire him.  And
+he says, if I will only give him time, he believes this will be
+the best thing he has done."
+
+"That's an awful thought," said the cavalry officer.
+
+"You don't like him," reproved Miss Gardner.  "He is always very
+polite to you."
+
+"He's polite to everybody," said Lee; "that's why I don't like
+him.  He's not a real artist.  He's a courtier.  God gave him a
+talent, and he makes a mean use of it.  Uses it to flatter people.
+He's like these long-haired violinists who play anything you ask
+them to in the lobster palaces."
+
+Miss Gardner looked away from him.  Her color was high and her
+eyes very bright.
+
+"I think," she said steadily, "that Mr. Stedman is a great
+artist, and some day all the world will think so, too!"
+
+Lee made no answer.  Not because he disagreed with her estimate of
+Mr. Stedman's genius-he made no pretense of being an art
+critic--but because her vehement admiration had filled him with
+sudden panic.  He was not jealous.  For that he was far too humble.
+Indeed, he thought himself so utterly unworthy of Frances Gardner
+that the fact that to him she might prefer some one else was in
+no way a surprise.  He only knew that if she should prefer some
+one else not all his troop horses nor all his men could put
+Humpty Dumpty back again.
+
+But if, in regard to Mr. Stedman, Miss Gardner had for a moment
+been at odds with the man who loved her, she made up for it the
+day following on the tennis court.  There she was in accord with
+him in heart, soul, and body, and her sharp "Well played,
+partner!" thrilled him like one of his own bugle calls.  For two
+days against visiting and local teams they fought their way
+through the tournament, and the struggle with her at his side
+filled Lee with a great happiness.  Not that the championship of
+Agawamsett counted greatly to one exiled for three years to live
+among the Moros.  He wanted to win because she wanted to win.
+But his happiness came in doing something in common with her,
+in helping her and in having her help him, in being, if only in
+play, if only for three days, her "partner."
+
+After they won they walked home together, each swinging a fat,
+heavy loving-cup.  On each was engraved:
+
+"Mixed doubles, Agawamsett, 1910."
+
+Lee held his up so that the setting sun flashed on the silver.
+
+"I am going to keep that," he said, "as long as I live.  It means
+you were once my 'partner.'  It's a sign that once we two worked
+together for something and won."  In the words the man showed
+such feeling that the girl said soberly:
+
+"Mine means that to me, too.  I will never part with mine,
+either."
+
+Lee turned to her and smiled, appealing wistfully.
+
+"It seems a pity to separate them," he said.  "They'd look well
+together over an open fireplace."
+
+The girl frowned unhappily.  "I don't know," she protested.  "I
+don't know."
+
+The next day Lee received from the War Department a telegram
+directing him to "proceed without delay" to San Francisco, and
+there to embark for the Philippines.
+
+That night he put the question to her directly, but again she
+shook her head unhappily; again she said: "I don't know!"
+
+So he sailed without her, and each evening at sunset, as the
+great transport heaved her way across the swell of the Pacific,
+he stood at the rail and looked back.  With the aid of the first
+officer he calculated the difference in time between a whaling
+village situated at forty-four degrees north and an army
+transport dropping rapidly toward the equator, and so, each day,
+kept in step with the girl he loved.
+
+"Now," he would tell himself, "she is in her cart in front of the
+post-office, and while they sort the morning mail she gossips
+with the fisher folks, the summer folks, the grooms, and
+chauffeurs.  Now she is sitting for her portrait to Stedman" (he
+did not dwell long on that part of her day), "and now she is at
+tennis, or, as she promised, riding alone at sunset down our lost
+road through the woods."
+
+But that part of her day from which Lee hurried was that part
+over which the girl herself lingered.  As he turned his eyes from
+his canvas to meet hers, Stedman, the charming, the deferential,
+the adroit, who never allowed his painting to interrupt his talk,
+told her of what he was pleased to call his dreams and ambitions,
+of the great and beautiful ladies who had sat before his easel,
+and of the only one of them who had given him inspiration.
+Especially of the only one who had given him inspiration.  With
+her always to uplift him, he could become one of the world's most
+famous artists, and she would go down into history as the
+beautiful woman who had helped him, as the wife of Rembrandt
+had inspired Rembrandt, as "Mona Lisa" had made Leonardo.
+
+Gilbert wrote: "It is not the lover who comes to woo, but the
+lover's way of wooing!" His successful lover was the one who
+threw the girl across his saddle and rode away with her.  But one
+kind of woman does not like to have her lover approach shouting:
+"At the gallop! Charge!"
+
+She prefers a man not because he is masterful, but because he is
+not.  She likes to believe the man needs her more than she needs
+him, that she, and only she, can steady him, cheer him, keep him
+true to the work he is in the world to perform.  It is called the
+"mothering" instinct.
+
+Frances felt this mothering instinct toward the sensitive,
+imaginative, charming Stedman.  She believed he had but two
+thoughts, his art and herself.  She was content to place his art first.
+She could not guess that to one so unworldly, to one so wrapped up
+in his art, the fortune of a rich aunt might prove alluring.
+
+When the transport finally picked up the landfalls of Cavite
+Harbor, Lee, with the instinct of a soldier, did not exclaim:
+"This is where Dewey ran the forts and sank the Spanish fleet!"
+On the contrary, he was saying: "When she comes to join me, it
+will be here I will first see her steamer.  I will be waiting with
+a field-glass on the end of that wharf.  No, I will be out here in
+a shore-boat waving my hat.  And of all those along the rail, my
+heart will tell me which is she!"
+
+Then a barefooted Filipino boy handed him an unsigned cablegram.
+It read: "If I wrote a thousand words I could not make it easier
+for either of us.  I am to marry Arthur Stedman in December."
+
+Lee was grateful for the fact that he was not permitted to linger
+in Manila.  Instead, he was at once ordered up-country, where at a
+one-troop post he administered the affairs of a somewhat hectic
+province, and under the guidance of the local constabulary chased
+will-o'-the-wisp brigands.  On a shelf in his quarters he placed
+the silver loving-cup, and at night, when the village slept, he
+would sit facing it, filling one pipe after another, and through
+the smoke staring at the evidence to the fact that once Frances
+Gardner and he had been partners.
+
+In these post-mortems he saw nothing morbid.  With his present
+activities they in no way interfered, and in thinking of the days
+when they had been together, in thinking of what he had lost, he
+found deep content.  Another man, having lost the woman he loved,
+would have tried to forget her and all she meant to him.  But Lee
+was far too honest with himself to substitute other thoughts for
+those that were glorious, that still thrilled him.  The girl could
+take herself from him, but she could not take his love for her
+from him.  And for that he was grateful.  He never had considered
+himself worthy, and so could not believe he had been ill used.  In
+his thoughts of her there was no bitterness: for that also he was
+grateful.  And, as he knew he would not care for any other woman
+in the way he cared for her, he preferred to care in that way,
+even for one who was lost, than in a lesser way for a possible
+she who some day might greatly care for him.  So she still
+remained in his thoughts, and was so constantly with him that he
+led a dual existence, in which by day he directed the affairs of
+an alien and hostile people and by night again lived through the
+wonderful moments when she had thought she loved him, when he
+first had learned to love her.  At times she seemed actually at
+his side, and he could not tell whether he was pretending that
+this were so or whether the force of his love had projected her
+image half around the world.
+
+Often, when in single file he led the men through the forest, he
+seemed again to be back on Cape Cod picking his way over their
+own lost road through the wood, and he heard "the beat of a
+horse's feet and the swish of a skirt in the dew."  And then a
+carbine would rattle, or a horse would stumble and a trooper
+swear, and he was again in the sweating jungle, where men, intent
+upon his life, crouched in ambush.
+
+She spared him the mockery of wedding-cards; but the announcement
+of the wedding came to him in a three-months-old newspaper.  Hoping
+they would speak of her in their letters, he kept up a somewhat one-sided
+correspondence with friends of Mrs. Stedman's in Boston, where she now
+lived.  But for a year in none of their letters did her name appear.  When
+a mutual friend did write of her Lee understood the silence.
+
+From the first, the mutual friend wrote, the life of Mrs. Stedman
+and her husband was thoroughly miserable.  Stedman blamed her
+because she came to him penniless.  The rich aunt, who had
+heartily disapproved of the artist, had spoken of him so frankly
+that Frances had quarrelled with her, and from her no longer
+would accept money.  In his anger at this Stedman showed himself
+to Frances as he was.  And only two months after their marriage
+she was further enlightened.
+
+An irate husband made him the central figure in a scandal that
+filled the friends of Frances with disgust, and that for her was
+an awakening cruel and humiliating.  Men no longer permitted their
+womenfolk to sit to Stedman for a portrait, and the need of money
+grew imperative.  He the more blamed Frances for having quarrelled
+with her aunt, told her it was for her money he had married her,
+that she had ruined his career, and that she was to blame for his
+ostracism--a condition that his own misconduct had brought upon
+him.  Finally, after twelve months of this, one morning he left a
+note saying he no longer would allow her to be a drag upon him,
+and sailed for Europe.
+
+They learned that, in Paris, he had returned to that life which
+before his marriage, even in that easy-going city, had made him
+notorious.  "And Frances," continued Lee's correspondent, "has
+left Boston, and now lives in New York.  She wouldn't let any of
+us help her, nor even know where she is.  The last we heard of her
+she was in charge of the complaint department of a millinery
+shop, for which work she was receiving about the same wages I
+give my cook."
+
+Lee did not stop to wonder why the same woman, who to one man was
+a "drag," was to another, even though separated from her by half
+the world, a joy and a blessing.  Instead, he promptly wrote his
+lawyers to find Mrs. Stedman, and, in such a way as to keep her
+ignorant of their good offices, see that she obtained a position
+more congenial than her present one, and one that would pay her
+as much as, without arousing her suspicions, they found it
+possible to give.
+
+Three months had passed, and this letter had not been answered,
+when in Manila, where he had been ordered to make a report, he
+heard of her again.  One evening, when the band played on the
+Luneta, he met a newly married couple who had known him in
+Agawamsett.  They now were on a ninety-day cruise around the
+world.  Close friends of Frances Gardner, they remembered him as
+one of her many devotees and at once spoke of her.
+
+"That blackguard she married," the bridegroom told him, "was
+killed three months ago racing with another car from Versailles
+back to Paris after a dinner at which, it seems, all present
+drank 'burgundy out of the fingerbowls.'  Coming down that steep
+hill into Saint Cloud, the cars collided, and Stedman and a
+woman, whose husband thought she was somewhere else, were killed.
+He couldn't even die without making a scandal of it."
+
+"But the worst," added the bride, "is that, in spite of the way
+the little beast treated her, I believe Frances still cares for
+him, and always will.  That's the worst of it, isn't it?" she
+demanded.
+
+In words, Lee did not answer, but in his heart he agreed that was
+much the worst of it.  The fact that Frances was free filled him
+with hope; but that she still cared for the man she had married,
+and would continue to think only of him, made him ill with
+despair.
+
+He cabled his lawyers for her address.  He determined that, at
+once, on learning it, he would tell her that with him nothing was
+changed.  He had forgotten nothing, and had learned much.  He had
+learned that his love for her was a splendid and inspiring
+passion, that even without her it had lifted him up, helped and
+cheered him, made the whole world kind and beautiful.  With her he
+could not picture a world so complete with happiness.
+
+Since entering the army he had never taken a leave of absence, and he
+was sure, if now he asked for one, it would not be refused.  He determined,
+if the answer to his cable gave him the address, he would return at once,
+and again offer her his love, which he now knew was deeper, finer, and
+infinitely more tender than the love he first had felt for her.  But the cable
+balked him.  "Address unknown," it read; "believed to have gone abroad in
+capacity of governess.  Have employed foreign agents.  Will cable their
+report."
+
+Whether to wait for and be guided by the report of the
+detectives, or to proceed to Europe and search for her himself,
+Lee did not know.  He finally determined that to seek for her with
+no clew to her whereabouts would be but a waste of precious
+moments, while, if in their search the agents were successful, he
+would be able to go directly to her.  Meanwhile, by cable, he
+asked for protracted leave of absence and, while waiting for his
+answer, returned to his post.  There, within a week, he received
+his leave of absence, but in a fashion that threatened to remove
+him forever from the army.
+
+The constabulary had located the will-o'-the-wisp brigands behind
+a stockade built about an extinct volcano, and Lee and his troop
+and a mountain battery attempted to dislodge them.  In the fight that
+followed Lee covered his brows with laurel wreaths and received
+two bullet wounds in his body.
+
+For a month death stood at the side of his cot; and then, still weak
+and at times delirious with fever, by slow stages he was removed to the
+hospital in Manila.  In one of his sane moments a cable was shown
+him.  It read: "Whereabouts still unknown."  Lee at once rebelled
+against his doctors.  He must rise, he declared, and proceed to
+Europe.  It was upon a matter of life and death.  The surgeons
+assured him his remaining exactly where he was also was a matter
+of as great consequence.  Lee's knowledge of his own lack of
+strength told him they were right.
+
+Then, from headquarters, he was informed that, as a reward for
+his services and in recognition of his approaching convalescence,
+he was ordered to return to his own climate and that an easy
+billet had been found for him as a recruiting officer in New York
+City.  Believing the woman he loved to be in Europe, this plan for
+his comfort only succeeded in bringing on a relapse.  But the day
+following there came another cablegram.  It put an abrupt end to
+his mutiny, and brought him and the War Department into complete
+accord.
+
+"She is in New York," it read, "acting as agent for a charitable
+institution, which one not known, but hope in a few days to cable
+correct address."
+
+In all the world there was no man so happy. The next morning a
+transport was sailing, and, probably because they had read the
+cablegram, the surgeons agreed with Lee that a sea voyage would
+do him no harm.  He was carried on board, and when the propellers
+first churned the water and he knew he was moving toward her, the
+hero of the fight around the crater shed unmanly tears.  He would
+see her again, hear her voice; the same great city would shelter
+them.  It was worth a dozen bullets.
+
+He reached New York in a snow-storm, a week before Christmas, and
+went straight to the office of his lawyers.  They received him with
+embarrassment.  Six weeks before, on the very day they had
+cabled him that Mrs. Stedman was in New York, she had left the
+charitable institution where she had been employed, and had again
+disappeared.
+
+Lee sent his trunks to the Army and Navy Club, which was
+immediately around the corner from the recruiting office in Sixth
+Avenue, and began discharging telegrams at every one who had ever
+known Frances Gardner.  The net result was discouraging.  In the
+year and a half in which he had been absent every friend of the
+girl he sought had temporarily changed his place of residence or
+was permanently dead.
+
+Meanwhile his arrival by the transport was announced in the
+afternoon papers.  At the wharf an admiring trooper had told a
+fine tale of his conduct at the battle of the crater, and
+reporters called at the club to see him.  He did not discourage
+them, as he hoped through them the fact of his return might be
+made known to Frances.  She might send him a line of welcome, and
+he would discover her whereabouts.  But, though many others sent
+him hearty greetings, from her there was no word.
+
+On the second day after his arrival one of the telegrams was
+answered in person by a friend of Mrs. Stedman.  He knew only that
+she had been in New York, that she was very poor and in ill
+health, that she shunned all of her friends, and was earning her
+living as the matron of some sort of a club for working girls.  He
+did not know the name of it.
+
+On the third day there still was no news.  On the fourth Lee
+decided that the next morning he would advertise.  He would say
+only: "Will Mrs. Arthur Stedman communicate with Messrs. Fuller &
+Fuller?" Fuller & Fuller were his lawyers.  That afternoon he
+remained until six o'clock at the recruiting office, and when he
+left it the electric street lights were burning brightly.  A heavy
+damp snow was falling, and the lights and the falling flakes and
+the shouts of drivers and the toots of taxicabs made for the man
+from the tropics a welcome homecoming.
+
+Instead of returning at once to his club, he slackened his steps.
+The shop windows of Sixth Avenue hung with Christmas garlands,
+and colored lamps glowed like open fireplaces.  Lee passed slowly
+before them, glad that he had been able to get back at such a
+season.  For the moment he had forgotten the woman he sought, and
+was conscious only of his surroundings.  He had paused in front of
+the window of a pawn-shop.  Over the array of cheap jewelry, of
+banjos, shot-guns, and razors, his eyes moved idly.  And then they
+became transfixed and staring.  In the very front of the window,
+directly under his nose, was a tarnished silver loving-cup.  On it
+was engraved, "Mixed Doubles. Agawamsett, 1910."  In all the world
+there were only two such cups, and as though he were dodging the
+slash of a bolo, Lee leaped into the shop.  Many precious seconds
+were wasted in persuading Mrs. Cohen that he did not believe the
+cup had been stolen; that he was not from the Central Office;
+that he believed the lady who had pawned the cup had come by it
+honestly; that he meant no harm to the lady; that he meant no
+harm to Mrs. Cohen; that, much as the young lady may have needed
+the money Mrs. Cohen had loaned her on the cup, he needed the
+address of the young lady still more.
+
+Mrs. Cohen retired behind a screen, and Lee was conscious that
+from the other side of it the whole family of Cohens were taking
+his measurements.  He approved of their efforts to protect the
+owner of the cup, but not from him.
+
+He offered, if one of the younger Cohens would take him to the
+young lady, to let him first ask her if she would receive Captain Lee,
+and for his service he would give the young Cohen untold gold.
+He exhibited the untold gold.  The young Cohen choked at the sight
+and sprang into the seat beside the driver of a taxicab.
+
+"To the Working Girls' Home, on Tenth Street!" he commanded.
+
+
+Through the falling snow and the flashing lights they slid,
+skidded, and leaped.  Inside the cab Lee shivered with excitement,
+with cold, with fear that it might not be true.  He could not
+realize she was near.  It was easier to imagine himself still in
+the jungle, with months of time and sixteen thousand miles of
+land and water separating them; or in the hospital, on a
+white-enamel cot, watching the shadow creep across the
+whitewashed wall; or lying beneath an awning that did not move,
+staring at a burning, brazen sea that did not move, on a transport
+that, timed by the beating of his heart, stood still.
+
+Those days were within the radius of his experience.  Separation,
+absence, the immutable giants of time and space, he knew.  With
+them he had fought and could withstand them.  But to be near her,
+to hear her voice, to bring his love into her actual presence, that was
+an attack upon his feelings which found him without weapons.  That
+for a very few dollars she had traded the cup from which she had sworn
+never to part did not concern him.  Having parted from him, what she
+did with a silver mug was of little consequence.  It was of significance
+only in that it meant she was poor.  And that she was either an inmate
+or a matron of a lodging-house for working girls also showed she was
+poor.
+
+He had been told that was her condition, and that she was in ill health,
+and that from all who loved her she had refused to accept help.  At the
+thought his jaws locked pugnaciously.  There was one who loved her,
+who, should she refuse his aid, was prepared to make her life intolerable.
+He planned in succession at lightning speed all he might do for her.  Among
+other things he would make this Christmas the happiest she or he would
+ever know.  Not for an instant did he question that she who had refused
+help from all who loved her could refuse anything he offered.  For he
+knew it was offered with a love that demanded nothing in return, with
+a love that asked only to be allowed to love, and to serve.  To refuse help
+inspired by such a feeling as his would be morbid, wicked, ridiculous,
+as though a flower refused to turn its face to the sun, and shut its lips
+to the dew.
+
+The cab stopped in front of a brick building adorned with many fire-
+escapes.  Afterward he remembered a bare, brilliantly lit hall hung with
+photographs of the Acropolis, and a stout, capable woman in a cap, who
+looked him over and said:
+
+"You will find Mrs. Stedman in the writing-room."
+
+And he remembered entering a room filled with Mission furniture and
+reading-lamps under green shades.  It was empty, except for a young
+girl in deep black, who was seated facing him, her head bent above a
+writing-desk.  As he came into the circle of the lamps the girl raised
+her eyes and as though lifted to her feet by what she saw, and through
+no effort of her own, stood erect.
+
+And the young man who had persuaded himself his love demanded
+nothing, who asked only to worship at her gate, found his arms reaching
+out, and heard his voice as though it came from a great distance, cry,
+"Frances!"
+
+And the girl who had refused the help of all who loved her, like a
+homing pigeon walked straight into the outstretched arms.
+
+After five minutes, when he was almost able to believe it was true,
+he said in his commanding, masterful way: "And now I'm going to
+take you out of here.  I'm going to buy you a ring, and a sable coat,
+and a house to live in, and a dinner.  Which shall we buy first?"
+
+"First," said Frances, frowning happily, "I am afraid we must go
+to the Ritz, to tell Aunt Emily.  She always loved you, and it will
+make her so happy."
+
+"To the Ritz!" stammered the young man.  "To Aunt Emily! I thought
+they told me your aunt and-you-"
+
+"We quarrelled, yes," said Frances, "and she has forgiven me; but she
+has not forgiven herself, so she spoils me, and already I have a house
+to live in, and several sable coats, and, oh! everything, everything but
+the ring."
+
+"I am so sorry!" cried Lee.  "I thought you were poor.  I hoped you were
+poor.  But you are joking!" he exclaimed delightedly.  "You are here in
+a working girls' home-"
+
+"It is one of Aunt Emily's charities.  She built it," said Frances.  "I
+come here to talk to the girls."
+
+"But," persisted Lee triumphantly, "if you are not poor, why did you
+pawn our silver loving-cup?"
+
+The face of the girl became a lovely crimson, and tears rose to her eyes.
+As though at a confessional, she lifted her hands penitently.
+
+"Try to understand," she begged; "I wanted you to love me, not for
+my money-"
+
+"But you knew!" cried Lee.
+
+"I had to be sure," begged the girl; "and I wanted to believe you loved
+me even if I did not love you.  When it was too late I knew you loved me
+as no woman ever deserved to be loved; and I wanted that love.  I could
+not live without it.  So when I read in the papers you had returned I
+wouldn't let myself write you; I wouldn't let myself beg you to come
+to see me.  I set a test for you.  I knew from the papers you were at the
+Army and Navy Club, and that around the corner was the recruiting
+office.  I'd often seen the sergeant there, in uniform, at the door.  I knew
+you must pass from your club to the office many times each day, so I
+thought of the loving-cup and the pawn-shop.  I planted it there.  It was
+a trick, a test.  I thought if you saw it in a pawn-shop you would believe I
+no longer cared for you, and that I was very poor.  If you passed it by,
+then I would know you yourself had stopped caring, but if you asked
+about it, if you inquired for me, then I would know you came to me of
+your own wish, because you-"
+
+Lee shook his head.
+
+"You don't have to tell me," he said gently, "why I came.  I've a cab
+outside.  You will get in it," he commanded, "and we will rescue our
+cup.  I always told you they would look well together over an open
+fireplace."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MIRACLE OF LAS PALMAS
+
+
+
+
+This is the story of a gallant officer who loved his profession,
+his regiment, his country, but above all, whiskey; of his
+miraculous conversion to total abstinence, and of the humble
+instrument that worked the miracle.  At the time it was worked, 
+a battalion of the Thirty-third Infantry had been left behind to 
+guard the Zone, and was occupying impromptu barracks on the hill
+above Las Palmas.  That was when Las Palmas was one of the four 
+thousand stations along the forty miles of the Panama Railroad. 
+When the railroad was "reconstructed" the name of Las Palmas did
+not appear on the new time-table, and when this story appears 
+Las Palmas will be eighty feet under water.  So if any one wishes
+to dispute the miracle he will have to conduct his investigation
+in a diving-bell.
+
+On this particular evening young Major Aintree, in command of the 
+battalion, had gone up the line to Panama to dine at the Hotel 
+Tivoli, and had dined well.  To prevent his doing this a paternal 
+government had ordered that at the Tivoli no alcoholic liquors 
+may be sold; but only two hundred yards from the hotel, outside 
+the zone of temperance, lies Panama and Angelina's, and during 
+the dinner, between the Tivoli and Angelina's, the Jamaican 
+waiter-boys ran relay races.
+
+After the dinner, the Jamaican waiter-boys proving too slow, the 
+dinner-party in a body adjourned to Angelina's, and when later, 
+Major Aintree moved across the street to the night train to Las 
+Palmas, he moved unsteadily.
+
+Young Standish of the Canal Zone police, who, though but twenty-
+six, was a full corporal, was for that night on duty as "train 
+guard," and was waiting at the rear steps of the last car.  As 
+Aintree approached the steps he saw indistinctly a boyish figure 
+in khaki, and, mistaking it for one of his own men, he clasped 
+the handrail for support, and halted frowning.
+
+Observing the condition of the officer the policeman also frowned, 
+but in deference to the uniform, slowly and with reluctance raised 
+his hand to his sombrero.  The reluctance was more apparent than 
+the salute.  It was less of a salute than an impertinence.
+
+Partly out of regard for his rank, partly from temper, chiefly 
+from whiskey, Aintree saw scarlet.
+
+"When you s'lute your s'perior officer," he shouted, "you s'lute him
+quick.  You unnerstan', you s'lute him quick! S'lute me again," he 
+commanded, "and s'lute me damn quick."
+
+Standish remained motionless.  As is the habit of policemen over 
+all the world, his thumbs were stuck in his belt.  He answered 
+without offense, in tones matter-of-fact and calm.
+
+"You are not my superior officer," he said.
+
+It was the calmness that irritated Aintree.  His eyes sought for 
+the infantryman's cap and found a sombrero.
+
+"You damned leatherneck," he began, "I'll report--" 
+
+"I'm not a marine, either," interrupted Standish.  "I'm a policeman.
+Move on," he ordered, "you're keeping these people waiting." 
+
+Others of the dinner-party formed a flying wedge around Aintree 
+and crowded him up the steps and into a seat and sat upon him. 
+Ten minutes later, when Standish made his rounds of the cars, 
+Aintree saw him approaching.  He had a vague recollection that
+he had been insulted, and by a policeman.
+
+"You!" he called, and so loudly that all in the car turned, "I'm 
+going to report you, going to report you for insolence.  What's
+your name?"
+
+Looking neither at Aintree nor at the faces turned toward him, 
+Standish replied as though Aintree had asked him what time it was.
+
+"Standish," he said, "corporal, shield number 226, on train 
+guard."  He continued down the aisle.
+
+"I'll remember you," Aintree shouted.
+
+But in the hot, glaring dawn of the morning after, Aintree forgot.
+It was Standish who remembered.
+
+The men of the Zone police are hand-picked.  They have been 
+soldiers, marines, cowboys, sheriffs, "Black Hussars" of the 
+Pennsylvania State constabulary, rough riders with Roosevelt, 
+mounted police in Canada, irregular horse in South Africa; they 
+form one of the best-organized, best-disciplined, most efficient,
+most picturesque semi-military bodies in the world.  Standish
+joined them from the Philippine constabulary in which he had
+been a second lieutenant.  There are several like him in the
+Zone police, and in England they would be called gentlemen 
+rankers.  On the Isthmus, because of his youth, his fellow 
+policemen called Standish "Kid."  And smart as each of them was,
+each of them admitted the Kid wore his uniform with a difference.
+With him it always looked as though it had come freshly ironed 
+from the Colon laundry;  his leather leggings shone like 
+meerschaum pipes; the brim of his sombrero rested impudently on
+the bridge of his nose.
+
+"He's been an officer," they used to say in extenuation.  "You can
+tell when he salutes.  He shows the back of his hand."  Secretly,
+they were proud of him.  Standish came of a long chain of soldiers,
+and that the weakest link in the chain had proved to be himself was
+a sorrow no one else but himself could fathom.  Since he was three
+years old he had been trained to be a soldier, as carefully, with the
+same singleness of purpose, as the crown prince is trained to be a
+king.  And when, after three happy, glorious years at West Point,
+he was found not clever enough to pass the examinations and was
+dropped, he did not curse the gods and die, but began again to work
+his way up.  He was determined he still would wear shoulder-straps.
+He owed it to his ancestors.  It was the tradition of his family, the one 
+thing he wanted; it was his religion.  He would get into the army 
+even if by the side door, if only after many years of rough and 
+patient service.  He knew that some day, through his record, 
+through the opportunity of a war, he would come into his 
+inheritance.  Meanwhile he officered his soul, disciplined his 
+body, and daily tried to learn the lesson that he who hopes to 
+control others must first control himself.
+
+He allowed himself but one dissipation, one excess.  That was 
+to hate Major Aintree, commanding the Thirty-third Infantry.  Of 
+all the world could give, Aintree possessed everything that 
+Standish considered the most to be desired.  He was a graduate of 
+West Point, he had seen service in Cuba, in the Boxer business,
+and in the Philippines.  For an act of conspicuous courage at 
+Batangas, he had received the medal of honor.  He had had the 
+luck of the devil.  Wherever he held command turned out to be the 
+place where things broke loose.  And Aintree always attacked and 
+routed them, always was the man on the job.  It was his name that 
+appeared in the newspapers, it was his name that headed the list 
+of the junior officers mentioned for distinguished conduct. 
+Standish had followed his career with an admiration and a joy 
+that was without taint of envy or detraction.  He gloried in 
+Aintree, he delighted to know the army held such a man.  He was
+grateful to Aintree for upholding the traditions of a profession 
+to which he himself gave all the devotion of a fanatic.  He made 
+a god of him.  This was the attitude of mind toward Aintree before
+he came to the Isthmus.  Up to that time he had never seen his 
+idol.  Aintree had been only a name signed to brilliant articles
+in the service magazines, a man of whom those who had served with
+him or under him, when asked concerning him, spoke with loyalty 
+and awe, the man the newspapers called "the hero of Batangas."
+And when at last he saw his hero, he believed his worship was 
+justified.  For Aintree looked the part.  He was built like a 
+greyhound with the shoulders of a stevedore.  His chin was as 
+projecting, and as hard, as the pointed end of a flat-iron.  His every 
+movement showed physical fitness, and his every glance and tone a
+confidence in himself that approached insolence.  He was thirty-
+eight, twelve years older than the youth who had failed to make 
+his commission, and who, as Aintree strode past, looked after him 
+with wistful, hero-worshipping eyes.  The revulsion, when it came, 
+was extreme.  The hero-worship gave way to contempt, to indignant 
+condemnation, in which there was no pity, no excuse.  That one upon 
+whom so much had been lavished, who for himself had accomplished 
+such good things, should bring disgrace upon his profession, 
+should by his example demoralize his men, should risk losing all
+he had attained, all that had been given, was intolerable.  When 
+Standish learned his hero was a drunkard, when day after day 
+Aintree furnished visible evidences of that fact, Standish felt 
+Aintree had betrayed him and the army and the government that had
+educated, trained, clothed, and fed him.  He regarded Aintree as 
+worse than Benedict Arnold, because Arnold had turned traitor for
+power and money; Aintree was a traitor through mere weakness, 
+because he could not say "no" to a bottle.
+
+Only in secret Standish railed against Aintree.  When his brother 
+policemen gossiped and jested about him, out of loyalty to the 
+army he remained silent.  But in his heart he could not forgive. 
+The man he had so generously envied, the man after whose career 
+he had wished to model his own, had voluntarily stepped from his 
+pedestal and made a swine of himself.  And not only could he not 
+forgive, but as day after day Aintree furnished fresh food for 
+his indignation he felt a fierce desire to punish.
+
+Meanwhile, of the conduct of Aintree, men older and wiser, if less
+intolerant than Standish, were beginning to take notice.  It was
+after a dinner on Ancon Hill, and the women had left the men to
+themselves.  They were the men who were placing the Panama Canal
+on the map.  They were officers of the army who for five years had
+not worn a uniform.  But for five years they had been at war with
+an enemy that never slept.  Daily they had engaged in battle with
+mountains, rivers, swamps, two oceans, and disease.  Where Aintree
+commanded five hundred soldiers, they commanded a body of men
+better drilled, better disciplined, and in number half as many as
+those who formed the entire army of the United States.  The mind
+of each was occupied with a world problem.  They thought and
+talked in millions --of millions of cubic yards of dirt, of
+millions of barrels of cement, of millions of tons of steel, of
+hundreds of millions of dollars, of which latter each received
+enough to keep himself and his family just beyond the reach of
+necessity.  To these men with the world waiting upon the outcome
+of their endeavor, with responsibilities that never relaxed,
+Aintree's behavior was an incident, an annoyance of less
+importance than an overturned dirt train that for five minutes
+dared to block the completion of their work.  But they were human
+and loyal to the army, and in such an infrequent moment as this,
+over the coffee and cigars, they could afford to remember the
+junior officer, to feel sorry for him, for the sake of the army,
+to save him from himself.
+
+"He takes his orders direct from the War Department," said the
+chief.  "I've no authority over him.  If he'd been one of my workmen
+I'd have shipped him north three months ago."
+
+"That's it," said the surgeon, "he's not a workman.  He has nothing
+to do, and idleness is the curse of the army.  And in this climate--"
+
+"Nothing to do!" snorted the civil administrator.  "Keeping his
+men in hand is what he has to do! They're running amuck all over
+Panama, getting into fights with the Spiggoty police, bringing
+the uniform into contempt.  As for the climate, it's the same
+climate for all of us.  Look at Butler's marines and Barber's Zone
+police.  The climate hasn't hurt them.  They're as smart men as
+ever wore khaki.  It's not the climate or lack of work that ails
+the Thirty- third, it's their commanding officer.  'So the
+colonel, so the regiment.'  That's as old as the hills.  Until
+Aintree takes a brace, his men won't.  Some one ought to talk to
+him.  It's a shame to see a fine fellow like that going to the
+dogs because no one has the courage to tell him the truth."
+
+The chief smiled mockingly.
+
+"Then why don't you?" he asked.
+
+"I'm a civilian," protested the administrator.  "If I told him he was
+going to the dogs he'd tell me to go to the devil.  No, one of you
+army men must do it.  He'll listen to you."
+
+Young Captain Haldane of the cavalry was at the table; he was
+visiting Panama on leave as a tourist.  The chief turned to him.
+
+"Haldane's the man," he said.  "You're his friend and you're his
+junior in rank, so what you say won't sound official.  Tell him
+people are talking; tell him it won't be long before they'll be
+talking in Washington.  Scare him!"
+
+The captain of cavalry smiled dubiously.
+
+"Aintree's a hard man to scare," he said.  "But if it's as bad as you
+all seem to think, I'll risk it.  But, why is it," he complained,
+"that whenever a man has to be told anything particularly
+unpleasant they always pick on his best friend to tell him? It
+makes them both miserable.  Why not let his bitterest enemy try
+it? The enemy at least would have a fine time."
+
+"Because," said the chief, "Aintree hasn't an enemy in the world-
+except Aintree."
+The next morning, as he had promised, Haldane called upon his
+friend.  When he arrived at Las Palmas, although the morning was
+well advanced toward noon, he found Aintree still under his
+mosquito bars and awake only to command a drink.  The situation
+furnished Haldane with his text.  He expressed his opinion of
+any individual, friend or no friend, officer or civilian, who on
+the Zone, where all men begin work at sunrise, could be found
+at noon still in his pajamas and preparing to face the duties of
+the day on an absinth cocktail.  He said further that since he had
+arrived on the isthmus he had heard only of Aintree's misconduct,
+that soon the War Department would hear of it, that Aintree would
+lose his commission, would break the backbone of a splendid career.
+
+"It's a friend talking," continued Haldane, "and you know it! It's
+because I am your friend that I've risked losing your friendship!
+And, whether you like it or not, it's the truth.  You're going down-hill,
+going fast, going like a motor-bus running away, and unless you put
+on the brakes you'll smash!"
+
+Aintree was not even annoyed.
+
+"That's good advice for the right man," he granted, "but why waste
+it on me? I can do things other men can't.  I can stop drinking this
+minute, and it will mean so little to me that I won't know I've stopped."
+
+"Then stop," said Haldane.
+
+"Why?" demanded Aintree.  "I like it. Why should I stop anything
+I like? Because a lot of old women are gossiping? Because old men
+who can't drink green mint without dancing turkey-trots think I'm
+going to the devil because I can drink whiskey? I'm not afraid of
+whiskey," he laughed tolerantly.  "It amuses me, that's all it does
+to me; it amuses me."  He pulled back the coat of his pajamas and
+showed his giant chest and shoulder.  With his fist he struck his
+bare flesh and it glowed instantly a healthy, splendid pink.
+
+"See that!" commanded Aintree.  "If there's a man on the isthmus in
+any better physical shape than I am, I'll--"  He interrupted himself
+to begin again eagerly.  "I'll make you a sporting proposition,"
+he announced  "I'll fight any man on the isthmus ten rounds--
+no matter who he is, a wop laborer, shovel man, Barbadian
+nigger, marine, anybody--and if he can knock me out I'll stop
+drinking.  You see," he explained patiently, "I'm no mollycoddle
+or jelly-fish.  I can afford a headache.  And besides, it's my own
+head.  If I don't give anybody else a headache, I don't see that it's
+anybody else's damned business."
+
+"But you do," retorted Haldane steadily.  "You're giving your own
+men worse than a headache, you're setting them a rotten example,
+you're giving the Thirty-third a bad name-"
+
+Aintree vaulted off his cot and shook his fist at his friend.
+"You can't say that to me," he cried.
+
+"I do say it," protested Haldane.  "When you were in Manila your 
+men were models; here they're unshaven, sloppy, undisciplined. 
+They look like bell-hops.  And it's your fault.  And everybody 
+thinks so."
+
+Slowly and carefully Aintree snapped his fingers.
+
+"And you can tell everybody, from me," he cried, "that's all I care
+what they think! And now," he continued, smiling hospitably, "let
+me congratulate you on your success as a missionary, and, to show 
+you there's not a trace of hard feeling, we will have a drink."
+
+Informally Haldane reported back to the commission, and the wife 
+of one of them must have talked, for it was soon known that a
+brother officer had appealed to Aintree to reform, and Aintree 
+had refused to listen.
+
+When she heard this, Grace Carter, the wife of Major Carter, one 
+of the surgeons at the Ancon Hospital, was greatly perturbed. 
+Aintree was engaged to be married to Helen Scott, who was her 
+best friend and who was arriving by the next steamer to spend the 
+winter.  When she had Helen safely under her roof, Mrs. Carter had 
+planned to marry off the young couple out of hand on the isthmus. 
+But she had begun to wonder if it would not be better they should 
+delay, or best that they should never marry.
+
+"The awakening is going to be a terrible blow to Helen," she said
+to her husband.  "She is so proud of him."
+
+"On the contrary," he protested, "it will be the awakening of 
+Aintree--if Helen will stand for the way he's acting, she is not 
+the girl I know.  And when he finds she won't, and that he may lose
+her, he'll pull up short.  He's talked Helen to me night after 
+night until he's bored me so I could strangle him.  He cares more 
+for her than he does for anything, for the army, or for himself, 
+and that's saying a great deal.  One word from her will be enough."
+
+Helen spoke the word three weeks after she arrived.  It had not 
+been necessary to tell her of the manner in which her lover was 
+misconducting himself.  At various dinners given in their honor 
+he had made a nuisance of himself; on another occasion, while in 
+uniform, he had created a scene in the dining-room of the Tivoli
+under the prying eyes of three hundred seeing-the-Canal tourists;
+and one night he had so badly beaten up a cabman who had laughed 
+at his condition that the man went to the hospital.  Major Carter,
+largely with money, had healed the injuries of the cabman, but 
+Helen, who had witnessed the assault, had suffered an injury that
+money could not heal.
+
+She sent for Aintree, and at the home of her friend delivered 
+her ultimatum.
+
+"I hit him because he was offensive to you," said Aintree.  "That's
+why I hit him.  If I'd not had a drink in a year, I'd have hit him
+just as quick and just as hard."
+
+"Can't you see," said the girl, "that in being not yourself when
+I was in your care you were much more insulting to me than any
+cabman could possibly be? When you are like that you have no
+respect for me, or for yourself.  Part of my pride in you is that 
+you are so strong, that you control yourself, that common 
+pleasures never get a hold on you.  If you couldn't control your 
+temper I wouldn't blame you, because you've a villainous temper 
+and you were born with it.  But you weren't born with a taste for
+liquor.  None of your people drank.  You never drank until you went
+into the army.  If I were a man," declared the girl, "I'd be ashamed 
+to admit anything was stronger than I was.  You never let pain beat 
+you.  I've seen you play polo with a broken arm, but in this you give 
+pain to others, you shame and humiliate the one you pretend to love, 
+just because you are weak, just because you can't say 'no.'"
+
+Aintree laughed angrily.
+
+"Drink has no hold on me," he protested.  "It affects me as much as the
+lights and the music affect a girl at her first dance, and no more.  But,
+if you ask me to stop--"
+
+"I do not!" said the girl.  "If you stop, you'll stop not because
+I have any influence over you, but because you don't need my 
+influence.  If it's wrong, if it's hurting you, if it's taking away 
+your usefulness and your power for good, that's why you'll stop.
+Not because a girl begs you.  Or you're not the man I think you."
+
+Aintree retorted warmly.  "I'm enough of a man for this," he 
+protested:  "I'm enough of a man not to confess I can't drink 
+without making a beast of myself.  It's easy not to drink at all.
+But to stop altogether is a confession of weakness.  I'd look on 
+my doing that as cowardly.  I give you my word--not that I'll swear
+off, that I'll never do--but I promise you you'll have no further 
+reason to be what you call humiliated, or ashamed.  You have my
+word for it."
+
+A week later Aintree rode his pony into a railway cutting and 
+rolled with it to the tracks below, and, if at the time he had 
+not been extremely drunk, would have been killed.  The pony, 
+being quite sober, broke a leg and was destroyed.
+
+When word of this came to Helen she was too sick at heart to see
+Aintree, and by others it was made known to him that on the first
+steamer Miss Scott would return North.  Aintree knew why she was 
+going, knew she had lost faith and patience, knew the woman he
+loved had broken with him and put him out of her life.  Appalled 
+at this calamity, he proceeded to get drunk in earnest.
+
+
+The night was very hot and the humidity very heavy, and at Las 
+Palmas inside the bungalow that served as a police-station the 
+lamps on either side of the lieutenant's desk burned like tiny 
+furnaces.  Between them, panting in the moist heat and with the 
+sweat from his forehead and hand dripping upon an otherwise
+immaculate report, sat Standish.  Two weeks before, the chief had
+made him one of his six lieutenants.  With the force the promotion
+had been most popular.
+
+Since his promotion Standish had been in charge of the police-
+station at Las Palmas and daily had seen Aintree as, on his way 
+down the hill from the barracks to the railroad, the hero of 
+Batangas passed the door of the station-house.  Also, on the 
+morning Aintree had jumped his horse over the embankment, 
+Standish had seen him carried up the hill on a stretcher.  At the
+sight the lieutenant of police had taken from his pocket a notebook,
+and on a flyleaf made a cross.  On the flyleaf were many other dates 
+and opposite each a cross.  It was Aintree's record and as the number 
+of black crosses grew, the greater had grown the resentment of Standish, 
+the more greatly it had increased his anger against the man who had put 
+this affront upon the army, the greater became his desire to punish.
+
+In police circles the night had been quiet, the cells in the yard
+were empty, the telephone at his elbow had remained silent, and 
+Standish, alone in the station-house, had employed himself in 
+cramming "Moss's Manual for Subalterns."  He found it a fascinating
+exercise.  The hope that soon he might himself be a subaltern 
+always burned brightly, and to be prepared seemed to make the 
+coming of that day more certain.  It was ten o'clock and Las Palmas
+lay sunk in slumber, and after the down train which was now due 
+had passed, there was nothing likely to disturb her slumber until
+at sunrise the great army of dirt-diggers with shrieks of whistles,
+with roars of dynamite, with the rumbling of dirt-trains and 
+steam-shovels, again sprang to the attack.  Down the hill, a
+hundred yards below Standish, the night train halted at the 
+station, with creakings and groanings continued toward Colon, 
+and again Las Palmas returned to sleep.
+
+And, then, quickly and viciously, like the crack of a mule-whip,
+came the reports of a pistol; and once more the hot and dripping
+silence.
+
+On post at the railroad-station, whence the shots came, was Meehan, 
+one of the Zone police, an ex-sergeant of marines.  On top of the hill, 
+outside the infantry barracks, was another policeman, Bullard, once a 
+cowboy.
+
+Standish ran to the veranda and heard the pebbles scattering as 
+Bullard leaped down the hill, and when, in the light from the 
+open door, he passed, the lieutenant shouted at him to find Meehan
+and report back.  Then the desk telephone rang, and Standish 
+returned to his chair.
+
+"This is Meehan," said a voice.  "Those shots just now were fired 
+by Major Aintree.  He came down on the night train and jumped off
+after the train was pulling out and stumbled into a negro, and 
+fell.  He's been drinking and he swore the nigger pushed him; and 
+the man called Aintree a liar.  Aintree pulled his gun and the 
+nigger ran.  Aintree fired twice; then I got to him and knocked 
+the gun out of his hand with my nightstick."
+
+There was a pause.  Until he was sure his voice would be steady 
+and official, the boy lieutenant did not speak.
+
+"Did he hit the negro?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," Meehan answered.  "The man jumped for the darkest 
+spot he could find."  The voice of Meehan lost its professional 
+calm and became personal and aggrieved.
+
+"Aintree's on his way to see you now, lieutenant.  He's going to 
+report me."
+
+"For what?"
+
+The voice over the telephone rose indignantly.
+
+"For knocking the gun out of his hand.  He says it's an assault.
+He's going to break me!"
+
+Standish made no comment.
+
+"Report here," he ordered.
+
+He heard Bullard hurrying up the hill and met him at the foot of 
+the steps.
+
+"There's a nigger," began Bullard, "lying under some bushes--"
+
+"Hush!" commanded Standish.
+
+From the path below came the sound of footsteps approaching 
+unsteadily, and the voice of a man swearing and muttering to 
+himself.  Standish pulled the ex-cowboy into the shadow of the 
+darkness and spoke in eager whispers.
+
+"You understand," he concluded, "you will not report until you 
+see me pick up a cigar from the desk and light it.  You will wait
+out here in the darkness.  When you see me light the cigar, you
+will come in and report."
+
+The cowboy policeman nodded, but without enthusiasm.  "I 
+understand, lieutenant," he said, "but," he shook his head doubtfully,
+"it sizes up to me like what those police up in New York call a
+'frame-up.'"
+
+Standish exclaimed impatiently.
+
+"It's not my frame-up!" he said.  "The man's framed himself up.
+All I'm going to do is to nail him to the wall!"
+
+Standish had only time to return to his desk when Aintree stumbled
+up the path and into the station-house.  He was "fighting drunk,"
+ugly, offensive, all but incoherent with anger.
+
+"You in charge?" he demanded.  He did not wait for an answer. 
+"I've been 'saulted!" he shouted.  "'Saulted by one of your damned 
+policemen.  He struck me--struck me when I was protecting myself. 
+He had a nigger with him.  First the nigger tripped me; then, when
+I tried to protect myself, this thug of yours hits me, clubs me, you 
+unnerstan', clubs me!  I want him--"
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of Meehan, who moved into the 
+light from the lamps and saluted his lieutenant.
+
+"That's the man!" roared Aintree.  The sight of Meehan whipped him
+into greater fury.
+
+"I want that man broke.  I want to see you strip his shield off 
+him--now, you unnerstan', now--for 'saulting me, for 'saulting an 
+officer in the United States army.  And, if you don't," he threw 
+himself into a position of the prize-ring, "I'll beat him up and 
+you, too."  Through want of breath, he stopped, and panted.  Again
+his voice broke forth hysterically.  "I'm not afraid of your damned 
+night-sticks," he taunted.  "I got five hundred men on top this hill, 
+all I've got to do is to say the word, and they'll rough-house this 
+place and throw it into the cut--and you with it."
+
+Standish rose to his feet, and across the desk looked steadily at
+Aintree.  To Aintree the steadiness of his eyes and the quietness
+of his voice were an added aggravation.
+
+"Suppose you did," said Standish, "that would not save you."
+
+"From what?" roared Aintree.  "Think I'm afraid of your night-
+sticks?"
+
+"From arrest!"
+
+"Arrest me!" yelled Aintree.  "Do you know who's talking to you? 
+Do you know who I am? I'm Major Aintree, damn you, commanding 
+the infantry.  An' I'm here to charge that thug--"
+
+"You are here because you are under arrest," said Standish.  "You
+are arrested for threatening the police, drunkenness, and assaulting
+a citizen with intent to kill--"  The voice of the young man turned shrill
+and rasping.  "And if the man should die--"
+
+Aintree burst into a bellow of mocking laughter.
+
+Standish struck the desk with his open palm.
+
+"Silence!" he commanded.
+
+"Silence to me!" roared Aintree, "you impertinent pup!" He flung 
+himself forward, shaking his fist.  "I'm Major Aintree.  I'm your 
+superior officer.  I'm an officer an' a gentleman--"
+
+"You are not!" replied Standish.  "You are a drunken loafer!"
+
+Aintree could not break the silence.  Amazement, rage, stupefaction
+held him in incredulous wonder.  Even Meehan moved uneasily. 
+Between the officer commanding the infantry and an officer of 
+police, he feared the lieutenant would not survive.
+
+But he heard the voice of his lieutenant continuing, evenly, 
+coldly, like the voice of a judge delivering sentence.
+
+"You are a drunken loafer," repeated the boy.  "And you know it. 
+And I mean that to-morrow morning every one on the Zone shall know
+it.  And I mean to-morrow night every one in the States shall know
+it.  You've killed a man, or tried to, and I'm going to break you."
+With his arm he pointed to Meehan.  "Break that man?" he demanded.
+"For doing his duty, for trying to stop a murder? Strip him of his
+shield?" The boy laughed savagely.  "It's you I am going to strip,
+Aintree," he cried, "you 'hero of Batangas'; I'm going to strip you 
+naked.  I'm going to 'cut the buttons off your coat, and tear the stripes
+away.'  I'm going to degrade you and disgrace you, and drive you out
+of the army!" He threw his note-book on the table.  "There's your dossier,
+Aintree," he said.  "For three months you've been drunk, and there's your
+record.  The police got it for me; it's written there with dates and the names
+of witnesses.  I'll swear to it. I've been after you to get you, and I've got
+you.
+With that book, with what you did to-night, you'll leave the army.  You
+may resign, you may be court-martialled, you may be hung.  I don't
+give a damn what they do to you, but you will leave the army!"
+
+He turned to Meehan, and with a jerk of the hand signified Aintree.
+
+"Put him in a cell," he said.  "If he resists--"
+
+Aintree gave no sign of resisting.  He stood motionless, his arms
+hanging limp, his eyes protruding.  The liquor had died in him, and
+his anger had turned chill.  He tried to moisten his lips to speak,
+but his throat was baked, and no sound issued.  He tried to focus
+his eyes upon the menacing little figure behind the desk, but 
+between the two lamps it swayed, and shrank and swelled.  Of one 
+thing only was he sure, that some grave disaster had overtaken
+him, something that when he came fully to his senses still would
+overwhelm him, something he could not conquer with his fists.
+His brain, even befuddled as it was, told him he had been caught
+by the heels, that he was in a trap, that smashing this boy who 
+threatened him could not set him free.  He recognized, and it was
+this knowledge that stirred him with alarm, that this was no 
+ordinary officer of justice, but a personal enemy, an avenging 
+spirit who, for some unknown reason, had spread a trap; who, for
+some private purpose of revenge, would drag him down.
+
+Frowning painfully, he waved Meehan from him.
+
+"Wait," he commanded.  "I don' unnerstan'.  What good's it goin' to
+do you to lock me up an' disgrace me?  What harm have I done you?
+Who asked you to run the army, anyway? Who are you?"
+
+"My name is Standish," said the lieutenant.  "My father was colonel
+of the Thirty-third when you first joined it from the Academy."
+
+Aintree exclaimed with surprise and enlightenment.  He broke into
+hurried speech, but Standish cut him short.
+
+"And General Standish of the Mexican War," he continued, "was my
+grandfather.  Since Washington all my people have been officers of
+the regular army, and I'd been one, too, if I'd been bright enough.
+That's why I respect the army.  That's why I'm going to throw you
+out of it.  You've done harm fifty men as good as you can't undo.
+You've made drunkards of a whole battalion.  You've taught boys
+who looked up to you, as I looked up to you once, to laugh at
+discipline, to make swine of themselves.  You've set them an example.
+I'm going to make an example of you.  That's all there is to this.  I've
+got no grudge against you.  I'm not vindictive; I'm sorry for you.  But,"
+he paused and pointed his hand at Aintree as though it held a gun,
+"you are going to leave the army!"
+
+Like a man coming out of an ugly dream, Aintree opened and shut 
+his eyes, shivered, and stretched his great muscles.  They watched
+him with an effort of the will force himself back to consciousness.
+When again he spoke, his tone was sane.
+
+"See here, Standish," he began, "I'll not beg of you or any man.
+I only ask you to think what you're doing.  This means my finish. 
+If you force this through to-night it means court-martial, it means
+I lose my commission, I lose--lose things you know nothing about.
+And, if I've got a record for drinking, I've got a record for other 
+things, too.  Don't forget that!"
+
+Standish shook his head.  "I didn't forget it," he said.
+
+"Well, suppose I did," demanded Aintree.  "Suppose I did go on
+the loose, just to pass the time, just because I'm sick of this damned
+ditch? Is it fair to wipe out all that went before, for that? I'm the
+youngest major in the army, I served in three campaigns, I'm a
+medal-of-honor man, I've got a career ahead of me, and--and I'm
+going to be married.  If you give me a chance-"
+
+Standish struck the table with his fist.
+
+"I will give you a chance," he cried.  "If you'll give your word to this
+man and to me, that, so help you God, you'll never drink again--I'll
+let you go."
+
+If what Standish proposed had been something base, Aintree could
+not have accepted it with more contempt.
+
+"I'll see you in hell first," he said.
+
+As though the interview was at an end, Standish dropped into his
+chair and leaning forward, from the table picked up a cigar.  As
+he lit it, he motioned Meehan toward his prisoner, but before the
+policeman could advance the sound of footsteps halted him.
+
+Bullard, his eyes filled with concern, leaped up the steps, and 
+ran to the desk.
+
+"Lieutenant!" he stammered, "that man--the nigger that officer 
+shot--he's dead!"
+
+Aintree gave a gasp that was partly a groan, partly a cry of 
+protest, and Bullard, as though for the first time aware of his 
+presence, sprang back to the open door and placed himself between
+it and Aintree.
+
+"It's murder!" he said.
+
+None of the three men spoke; and when Meehan crossed to where 
+Aintree stood, staring fearfully at nothing, he had only to touch
+his sleeve, and Aintree, still staring, fell into step beside him.
+
+From the yard outside Standish heard the iron door of the cell 
+swing shut, heard the key grate in the lock, and the footsteps of
+Meehan returning.
+
+Meehan laid the key upon the desk, and with Bullard stood at 
+attention, waiting.
+
+"Give him time," whispered Standish.  "Let it sink in!"
+
+At the end of half an hour Standish heard Aintree calling, and, 
+with Meehan carrying a lantern, stepped into the yard and stopped
+at the cell door.
+
+Aintree was quite sober.  His face was set and white, his voice 
+was dull with suffering.  He stood erect, clasping the bars in his
+hands.
+
+"Standish," he said, "you gave me a chance a while ago, and I 
+refused it.  I was rough about it.  I'm sorry.  It made me hot 
+because I thought you were forcing my hand, blackmailing me into
+doing something I ought to do as a free agent.  Now, I am a free 
+agent.  You couldn't give me a chance now, you couldn't let me go
+now, not if I swore on a thousand Bibles.  I don't know what 
+they'll give me--Leavenworth for life, or hanging, or just dismissal.
+But, you've got what you wanted--I'm leaving the army!"  Between
+the bars he stretched out his arms and held a hand toward Meehan
+and Standish.  In the same dull, numbed voice he continued.
+
+"So, now," he went on, "that I've nothing to gain by it, I want 
+to swear to you and to this man here, that whether I hang, or go
+to jail, or am turned loose, I will never, so help me God, take 
+another drink."
+
+Standish was holding the hand of the man who once had been his 
+hero.  He clutched it tight.
+
+"Aintree," he cried, "suppose I could work a miracle; suppose I've
+played a trick on you, to show you your danger, to show you what
+might come to you any day--does that oath still stand?"
+
+The hand that held his ground the bones together.
+
+"I've given my word!" cried Aintree.  "For the love of God, don't
+torture me.  Is the man alive?"
+
+As Standish swung open the cell door, the hero of Batangas,
+he who could thrash any man on the isthmus, crumpled up
+like a child upon his shoulder.
+
+And Meehan, as he ran for water, shouted joyfully.
+
+"That nigger," he called to Bullard, "can go home now.  The lieutenant
+don't want him no more.
+"
+
+
+
+
+EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS
+
+
+
+As a rule, the instant the season closed Aline Proctor sailed on
+the first steamer for London, where awaited her many friends,
+both English and American--and to Paris, where she selected those
+gowns that on and off the stage helped to make her famous.  But
+this particular summer she had spent with the Endicotts at Bar
+Harbor, and it was at their house Herbert Nelson met her.  After
+Herbert met her very few other men enjoyed that privilege.  This
+was her wish as well as his.
+
+They behaved disgracefully.  Every morning after breakfast they
+disappeared and spent the day at opposite ends of a canoe.  She,
+knowing nothing of a canoe, was happy in stabbing the waters with
+her paddle while he told her how he loved her and at the same
+time, with anxious eyes on his own paddle, skilfully frustrated
+her efforts to drown them both.  While the affair lasted it was
+ideal and beautiful, but unfortunately it lasted only two months.
+
+Then Lord Albany, temporarily in America as honorary attache to
+the British embassy, his adoring glances, his accent, and the way
+he brushed his hair, proved too much for the susceptible heart of
+Aline, and she chucked Herbert and asked herself how a woman of
+her age could have seriously considered marrying a youth just out
+of Harvard! At that time she was a woman of nineteen; but, as she
+had been before the public ever since she was eleven, the women
+declared she was not a day under twenty-six; and the men knew she
+could not possibly be over sixteen!
+
+Aline's own idea of herself was that without some one in love
+with her she could not exist--that, unless she knew some man cared
+for her and for her alone, she would wither and die.  As a matter
+of fact, whether any one loved her or not did not in the least
+interest her.  There were several dozen men who could testify to
+that.  They knew! What she really wanted was to be head over ears
+in love--to adore some one, to worship him, to imagine herself
+starving for him and making sacrifice hits for him; but when the
+moment came to make the sacrifice hit and marry the man, she
+invariably found that a greater, truer love had arisen--for some
+one else.
+
+This greater and truer love always made her behave abominably to
+the youth she had just jilted.  She wasted no time on post-mortems.
+She was so eager to show her absolute loyalty to the new monarch
+that she grudged every thought she ever had given the one she had
+cast into exile.  She resented him bitterly.  She could not forgive him
+for having allowed her to be desperately in love with him.  He should
+have known he was not worthy of such a love as hers.  He should have
+known that the real prince was waiting only just round the corner.
+
+As a rule the rejected ones behaved well.  Each decided Aline was much
+too wonderful a creature for him, and continued to love her cautiously
+and from a distance.  None of them ever spoke or thought ill of her and
+would gladly have punched any one who did.  It was only the women
+whose young men Aline had temporarily confiscated, and then returned
+saddened and chastened, who were spiteful.  And they dared say no more
+than that Aline would probably have known her mind better if she had
+had a mother to look after her.  This, coming to the ears of Aline,
+caused her to reply that a girl who could not keep straight herself,
+but needed a mother to help her, would not keep straight had she a
+dozen mothers.  As she put it cheerfully, a girl who goes wrong and
+then pleads "no mother to guide her" is like a jockey who pulls a race
+and then blames the horse.
+
+Each of the young men Aline rejected married some one else and,
+except when the name of Aline Proctor in the theatrical
+advertisements or in electric lights on Broadway gave him a
+start, forgot that for a month her name and his own had been
+linked together from Portland to San Francisco.  But the girl he
+married did not forget.  She never understood what the public saw
+in Aline Proctor.  That Aline was the queen of musical comedy she
+attributed to the fact that Aline knew the right people and got
+herself written about in the right way.  But that she could sing,
+dance, act; that she possessed compelling charm; that she "got
+across" not only to the tired business man, the wine agent, the
+college boy, but also to the children and the old ladies, was to
+her never apparent.
+
+Just as Aline could not forgive the rejected suitor for allowing
+her to love him, so the girl he married never forgave Aline for
+having loved her husband.  Least of all could Sally Winthrop, who
+two years after the summer at Bar Harbor married Herbert Nelson,
+forgive her.  And she let Herbert know it.  Herbert was properly
+in love with Sally Winthrop, but he liked to think that his
+engagement to Aline, though brief and abruptly terminated, had
+proved him to be a man fatally attractive to all women.  And
+though he was hypnotizing himself into believing that his feeling
+for Aline had been the grand passion, the truth was that all that
+kept her in his thoughts was his own vanity.  He was not
+discontented with his lot--his lot being Sally Winthrop, her
+millions, and her estate of three hundred acres near Westbury.
+Nor was he still longing for Aline.  It was only that his vanity
+was flattered by the recollection that one of the young women
+most beloved by the public had once loved him.
+
+"I once was a king in Babylon," he used to misquote to himself,
+"and she was a Christian slave."
+
+He was as young as that.
+
+Had he been content in secret to assure himself that he once had
+been a reigning monarch, his vanity would have harmed no one;
+but, unfortunately, he possessed certain documentary evidence to
+that fact.  And he was sufficiently foolish not to wish to destroy
+it.  The evidence consisted of a dozen photographs he had snapped
+of Aline during the happy days at Bar Harbor, and on which she
+had written phrases somewhat exuberant and sentimental.
+
+From these photographs Nelson was loath to part--especially with
+one that showed Aline seated on a rock that ran into the waters of
+the harbor, and on which she had written: "As long as this rock
+lasts!"  Each time she was in love Aline believed it would last.
+That in the past it never had lasted did not discourage her.
+
+What to do with these photographs that so vividly recalled the
+most tumultuous period of his life Nelson could not decide.  If he
+hid them away and Sally found them, he knew she would make his
+life miserable.  If he died and Sally then found them, when he no
+longer was able to explain that they meant nothing to him, she
+would believe he always had loved the other woman, and it would
+make her miserable.  He felt he could not safely keep them in his
+own house; his vanity did not permit him to burn them, and,
+accordingly, he decided to unload them on some one else.
+
+The young man to whom he confided his collection was Charles
+Cochran.  Cochran was a charming person from the West.  He had
+studied in the Beaux Arts and on foot had travelled over England
+and Europe, preparing himself to try his fortune in New York as
+an architect.  He was now in the office of the architects Post &
+Constant, and lived alone in a tiny farmhouse he had made over
+for himself near Herbert Nelson, at Westbury, Long Island.
+
+Post & Constant were a fashionable firm and were responsible for
+many of the French chateaux and English country houses that were
+rising near Westbury, Hempstead, and Roslyn; and it was Cochran's
+duty to drive over that territory in his runabout, keep an eye on
+the contractors, and dissuade clients from grafting mansard roofs
+on Italian villas.  He had built the summer home of the Herbert
+Nelsons, and Herbert and Charles were very warm friends.  Charles
+was of the same lack of years as was Herbert, of an enthusiastic
+and sentimental nature; and, like many other young men, the story
+of his life also was the lovely and much-desired Aline Proctor.
+It was this coincidence that had made them friends and that had
+led Herbert to select Charles as the custodian of his treasure.
+As a custodian and confidant Charles especially appealed to his
+new friend, because, except upon the stage and in restaurants,
+Charles had never seen Aline Proctor, did not know her--and
+considered her so far above him, so unattainable, that he had no
+wish to seek her out.  Unknown, he preferred to worship at a
+distance.  In this determination Herbert strongly encouraged him.
+
+When he turned over the pictures to Charles, Herbert could not
+resist showing them to him.  They were in many ways charming.
+They presented the queen of musical comedy in several new roles.
+In one she was in a sailor suit, giving an imitation of a girl
+paddling a canoe.  In another she was in a riding-habit mounted
+upon a pony of which she seemed very much afraid.
+
+In some she sat like a siren among the rocks with the waves and
+seaweed snatching at her feet, and in another she crouched
+beneath the wheel of Herbert's touring car.  All of the
+photographs were unprofessional and intimate, and the
+legends scrawled across them were even more intimate.
+
+"'As long as this rock lasts!'" read Herbert.  At arm's length he
+held the picture for Cochran to see, and laughed bitterly and
+unmirthfully as he had heard leading men laugh in problem plays.
+
+"That is what she wrote," he mocked--"but how long did it last?
+Until she saw that little red-headed Albany playing polo.  That
+lasted until his mother heard of it.  She thought her precious
+lamb was in the clutches of a designing actress, and made the
+Foreign Office cable him home.  Then Aline took up one of those
+army aviators, and chucked him for that fellow who painted her
+portrait, and threw him over for the lawn-tennis champion.  Now
+she's engaged to Chester Griswold, and Heaven pity her! Of course
+he's the greatest catch in America; but he's a prig and a snob, and
+he's so generous with his money that he'll give you five pennies for
+a nickel any time you ask him.  He's got a heart like the metre of a
+taxicab, and he's jealous as a cat.  Aline will have a fine time with
+Chester! I knew him at St. Paul's and at Harvard, and he's got as
+much red blood in him as an eel!"
+
+Cochran sprang to the defense of the lady of his dreams.
+
+"There must be some good in the man," he protested, "or Miss
+Proctor-"
+
+"Oh, those solemn snobs," declared Herbert, "impress women by
+just keeping still.  Griswold pretends the reason he doesn't speak
+to you is because he's too superior, but the real reason is that
+he knows whenever he opens his mouth he shows he is an ass."
+
+Reluctantly Herbert turned over to Charles the precious pictures.
+"It would be a sin to destroy them, wouldn't it?" he prompted.
+
+Cochran agreed heartily.
+
+"You might even," suggested Herbert, "leave one or two of them
+about.  You have so many of Aline already that one more wouldn't
+be noticed.  Then when I drop in I could see it."  He smiled
+ingratiatingly.
+
+"But those I have I bought," Cochran pointed out.  "Anybody can
+buy them, but yours are personal.  And they're signed."
+
+"No one will notice that but me," protested Herbert.  "Just one or
+two," he coaxed-"stuck round among the others.  They'd give me a
+heap of melancholy pleasure."
+
+Charles shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"Your wife often comes here with you," he said.  "I don't believe
+they'd give her melancholy pleasure.  The question is, are you married
+to Sally or to Aline Proctor?"
+
+"Oh, of course," exclaimed Herbert--" if you refuse!"
+
+With suspicious haste Charles surrendered.
+
+"I don't refuse," he explained; "I only ask if it's wise.  Sally
+knows you were once very fond of Miss Proctor--knows you were
+engaged to her."
+
+"But," protested Herbert, "Sally sees your photographs of Aline.
+What difference can a few more make? After she's seen a dozen
+she gets used to them."
+
+No sooner had Herbert left him than the custodian of the treasure
+himself selected the photographs he would display.  In them the
+young woman he had--from the front row of the orchestra--so
+ardently admired appeared in a new light.  To Cochran they seemed
+at once to render her more kindly, more approachable; to show her
+as she really was, the sort of girl any youth would find it extremely
+difficult not to love.  Cochran found it extremely easy.  The photographs
+gave his imagination all the room it wanted.  He believed they also gave
+him an insight into her real character that was denied to anybody else.
+He had always credited her with all the virtues; he now endowed her
+with every charm of mind and body.  In a week to the two photographs
+he had selected from the loan collection for purposes of display and to
+give Herbert melancholy pleasure he had added three more.  In two
+weeks there were half a dozen.  In a month, nobly framed in silver,
+in leather of red, green, and blue, the entire collection smiled upon him
+from every part of his bedroom.  For he now kept them where no one
+but himself could see them.  No longer was he of a mind to share
+his borrowed treasure with others--not even with the rightful
+owner.
+
+Chester Griswold, spurred on by Aline Proctor, who wanted to
+build a summer home on Long Island, was motoring with Post, of
+Post & Constant, in the neighborhood of Westbury.  Post had
+pointed out several houses designed by his firm, which he hoped
+might assist Griswold in making up his mind as to the kind of
+house he wanted; but none they had seen had satisfied his client.
+
+"What I want is a cheap house," explained the young millionaire.
+"I don't really want a house at all," he complained.  "It's Miss
+Proctor's idea.  When we are married I intend to move into my
+mother's town house, but Miss Proctor wants one for herself in
+the country.  I've agreed to that; but it must be small and it
+must be cheap."
+
+"Cheap" was a word that the clients of Post & Constant never
+used; but Post knew the weaknesses of some of the truly rich, and
+he knew also that no house ever built cost only what the
+architect said it would cost.
+
+"I know the very house you want!" he exclaimed.  "One of our
+young men owns it.  He made it over from an old farmhouse.  It's
+very well arranged; we've used his ground-plan several times and
+it works out splendidly.  If he's not at home, I'11 show you over the
+place myself.  And if you like the house he's the man to build you one."
+
+When they reached Cochran's home he was at Garden City playing
+golf, but the servant knew Mr. Post, and to him and his client
+threw open every room in the house.
+
+"Now, this," exclaimed the architect enthusiastically, "is the
+master's bedroom.  In your case it would probably be your wife's
+room and you would occupy the one adjoining, which Cochran now
+uses as a guest-room.  As you see, they are entirely cut off from-"
+
+Mr. Griswold did not see.  Up to that moment he had given every
+appearance of being both bored and sulky.  Now his attention was
+entirely engaged--but not upon the admirable simplicity of Mr.
+Cochran's ground-plan, as Mr. Post had hoped.  Instead, the eyes
+of the greatest catch in America were intently regarding a display
+of photographs that smiled back at him from every corner of the
+room.  Not only did he regard these photographs with a savage glare,
+but he approached them and carefully studied the inscriptions scrawled
+across the face of each.
+
+Post himself cast a glance at the nearest photographs, and then
+hastily manoeuvred his client into the hall and closed the door.
+
+"We will now," he exclaimed, "visit the butler's pantry, which
+opens upon the dining-room and kitchen, thus saving--"
+
+But Griswold did not hear him.  Without giving another glance at
+the house he stamped out of it and, plumping himself down in the
+motor-car, banged the door.  Not until Post had driven him well
+into New York did he make any comment.
+
+"What did you say," he then demanded, "is the name of the man who
+owns that last house we saw?"
+
+Post told him.
+
+"I never heard of him!" said Griswold as though he were
+delivering young Cochran's death sentence.  "Who is he?"
+
+"He's an architect in our office," said Post.  "We think a lot of
+him.  He'll leave us soon, of course.  The best ones always do.  His
+work is very popular.  So is he."
+
+"I never heard of him," repeated Griswold.  Then, with sudden
+heat, he added savagely: "But I mean to to-night."
+
+When Griswold had first persuaded Aline Proctor to engage herself
+to him he had suggested that, to avoid embarrassment, she should
+tell him the names of the other men to whom she had been engaged.
+
+"What kind of embarrassment would that avoid?"
+
+"If I am talking to a man," said Griswold, "and he knows the
+woman I'm going to marry was engaged to him and I don't know
+that, he has me at a disadvantage."
+
+"I don't see that he has," said Aline.  "If we suppose, for the sake
+of argument, that to marry me is desirable, I would say that the
+man who was going to marry me had the advantage over the one
+I had declined to marry."
+
+"I want to know who those men are," explained Griswold, "because
+I want to avoid them.  I don't want to talk to them.  I don't want
+even to know them."
+
+"I don't see how I can help you," said Aline.  "I haven't the
+slightest objection to telling you the names of the men I have
+cared for, if I can remember them, but I certainly do not intend
+to tell you the name of any man who cared for me enough to ask me
+to marry him.  That's his secret, not mine--certainly not yours."
+
+Griswold thought he was very proud.  He really was very vain; and
+as jealousy is only vanity in its nastiest development he was
+extremely jealous.  So he persisted.
+
+"Will you do this?" he demanded.  "If I ever ask you, 'Is that one
+of the men you cared for?' will you tell me?"
+
+"If you wish it," said Aline; "but I can't see any health in it.
+It will only make you uncomfortable.  So long as you know I have
+given you the greatest and truest love I am capable of, why
+should you concern yourself with my mistakes?"
+
+"So that I can avoid meeting what you call your mistakes," said
+Griswold--" and being friendly with them."
+
+"I assure you," laughed Aline, "it wouldn't hurt you a bit to be
+as friendly with them as they'd let you.  Maybe they weren't as
+proud of their families as you are, but they made up for that by
+being a darned sight prouder of me!"
+
+Later, undismayed by this and unashamed, on two occasions
+Griswold actually did demand of Aline if a genial youth she had
+just greeted joyfully was one of those for whom she once had
+cared.
+
+And Aline had replied promptly and truthfully that he was.  But in
+the case of Charles Cochran, Griswold did not ask Aline if he was
+one of those for whom she once had cared.  He considered the
+affair with Cochran so serious that, in regard to that man, he
+adopted a different course.
+
+In digging rivals out of the past his jealousy had made him
+indefatigable, but in all his researches he never had heard the
+name of Charles Cochran.  That fact and the added circumstance
+that Aline herself never had mentioned the man was in his eyes so
+suspicious as to be almost a damning evidence of deception.  And
+he argued that if in the past Aline had deceived him as to Charles
+Cochran she would continue to do so.  Accordingly, instead
+of asking her frankly for the truth he proceeded to lay traps for
+it.  And if there is one thing Truth cannot abide, it is being
+hunted by traps.
+
+That evening Aline and he were invited to a supper in her honor,
+and as he drove her from the theatre to the home of their hostess
+he told her of his search earlier in the day.
+
+The electric light in the limousine showed Aline's face as
+clearly as though it were held in a spotlight, and as he prepared
+his trap Griswold regarded her jealously.
+
+"Post tells me," he said, "he has the very man you want for your
+architect.  He's sure you'll find him most understanding and--and-
+-
+sympathetic.  He's a young man who is just coming to the front,
+and he's very popular, especially with women."
+
+"What's his being popular with women," asked Aline, "got to do
+with his carrying out my ideas of a house?"
+
+"That's just it," said Griswold--"it's the woman who generally has
+the most to say as to how her house shall be built, and this man
+understands woman.  I have reasons for believing he will certainly
+understand you!"
+
+"If he understands me well enough to give me all the
+linen-closets I want," said Aline, "he will be perfectly
+satisfactory."
+
+Before delivering his blow Griswold sank back into his corner of
+the car, drew his hat brim over his forehead, and fixed spying
+eyes upon the very lovely face of the girl he had asked to marry
+him.
+
+"His name," he said in fateful tones, "is Charles Cochran!"
+
+It was supposed to be a body blow; but, to his distress, Aline
+neither started nor turned pale.  Neither, for trying to trick
+her, did she turn upon him in reproof and anger.  Instead, with
+alert eyes, she continued to peer out of the window at the
+electric-light advertisements and her beloved Broadway.
+
+"Well?" demanded Griswold; his tone was hoarse and heavy with
+meaning.
+
+"Well what?" asked Aline pleasantly.
+
+"How," demanded Griswold, "do you like Charles Cochran for an
+architect?"
+
+"How should I know?" asked Aline.  "I've not met him yet!"
+
+She had said it! And she had said it without the waver of one of
+her lovely eyelashes.  No wonder the public already hailed her as
+a finished actress! Griswold felt that his worst fears were
+justified.  She had lied to him.  And, as he knew she had never
+before lied to him, that now she did so proved beyond hope of
+doubt that the reason for it was vital, imperative, and compelling.
+But of his suspicions Griswold gave no sign.  He would not at
+once expose her.  He had trapped her, but as yet she must not
+know that.  He would wait until he had still further entangled
+her--until she could not escape; and then, with complete proof
+of her deceit, he would confront and overwhelm her.
+
+With this amiable purpose in mind he called early the next morning
+upon Post & Constant and asked to see Mr. Cochran.  He wished,
+he said, to consult him about the new house.  Post had not yet
+reached the office, and of Griswold's visit with Post to his house
+Cochran was still ignorant.  He received Griswold most courteously.
+He felt that the man who was loved by the girl he also had long and
+hopelessly worshipped was deserving of the highest consideration.
+Griswold was less magnanimous.  When he found his rival--for as
+such he beheld him--was of charming manners and gallant appearance
+he considered that fact an additional injury; but he concealed his
+resentment, for he was going to trap Cochran, too.
+
+He found the architect at work leaning over a drawing-board, and
+as they talked Cochran continued to stand.  He was in his shirt-sleeves,
+which were rolled to his shoulders; and the breadth of those shoulders
+and the muscles of his sunburned arms were much in evidence.
+Griswold considered it a vulgar exhibition.
+
+For over ten minutes they talked solely of the proposed house,
+but not once did Griswold expose the fact that he had seen any
+more of it than any one might see from the public road.  When he
+rose to take his leave he said:
+
+"How would it do if I motored out Sunday and showed your house
+to Miss Proctor? Sunday is the only day she has off, and if it would not
+inconvenience you--"
+
+The tender heart of Cochran leaped in wild tumult; he could not
+conceal his delight, nor did he attempt to do so; and his expression
+made it entirely unnecessary for him to assure Griswold that such a
+visit would be entirely welcome and that they might count on finding
+him at home.  As though it were an afterthought, Griswold halted at
+the door and said:
+
+"I believe you are already acquainted with Miss Proctor."
+
+Cochran, conscious of five years of devotion, found that he was
+blushing, and longed to strangle himself.  Nor was the blush lost
+upon Griswold.
+
+"I'm sorry," said Cochran, "but I've not had that honor.  On the
+stage, of course--"
+
+He shrugged the broad shoulders deprecatingly, as though to suggest
+that not to know Miss Proctor as an artist argues oneself unknown.
+
+Griswold pretended to be puzzled.  As though endeavoring to recall
+a past conversation he frowned.
+
+"But Aline," he said, "told me she had met you-met you at Bar
+Harbor."  In the fatal photographs the familiar landfalls of Bar
+Harbor had been easily recognized.
+
+The young architect shook his head.
+
+"It must be another Cochran," he suggested.  "I have never been in
+Bar Harbor."
+
+With the evidence of the photographs before him this last
+statement was a verdict of guilty, and Griswold, not with the
+idea of giving Cochran a last chance to be honest, but to cause
+him to dig the pit still deeper, continued to lead him on.  "Maybe
+she meant York Harbor?"
+
+Again Cochran shook his head and laughed.
+
+"Believe me," he said, "if I'd ever met Miss Proctor anywhere I
+wouldn't forget it!"
+
+Ten minutes later Griswold was talking to Aline over the telephone.
+He intended to force matters.  He would show Aline she could neither
+trifle with nor deceive Chester Griswold; but the thought that he had
+been deceived was not what most hurt him.  What hurt him was to
+think that Aline had preferred a man who looked like an advertisement
+for ready-made clothes and who worked in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+Griswold took it for granted that any woman would be glad to marry him.
+So many had been willing to do so that he was convinced, when one of
+them was not, it was not because there was anything wrong with him,
+but because the girl herself lacked taste and perception.
+
+That the others had been in any degree moved by his many millions
+had never suggested itself.  He was convinced each had loved him for
+himself alone; and if Aline, after meeting him, would still consider any
+one else, it was evident something was very wrong with Aline.  He was
+determined that she must be chastened--must be brought to a proper
+appreciation of her good fortune and of his condescension.
+
+On being called to the telephone at ten in the morning, Aline
+demanded to know what could excuse Griswold for rousing her
+in the middle of the night!
+
+Griswold replied that, though the day was young, it also was
+charming; that on Sunday there might be rain; and that if she
+desired to see the house he and Post thought would most suit her,
+he and his car would be delighted to convey her to it.  They could
+make the run in an hour, lunch with friends at Westbury, and
+return in plenty of time for the theatre.  Aline was delighted at
+the sudden interest Griswold was showing in the new house.
+Without a moment's hesitation she walked into the trap.  She
+would go, she declared, with pleasure.  In an hour he should
+call for her.
+
+Exactly an hour later Post arrived at his office.  He went directly
+to Cochran.
+
+"Charles," he said, "I'm afraid I got you into trouble yesterday.
+I took a client to see your house.  You have often let us do it before;
+but since I was there last you've made some changes.  In your bedroom--"
+Post stopped.
+
+Cochran's naive habit of blushing told him it was not necessary
+to proceed.  In tones of rage and mortification Cochran swore
+explosively; Post was relieved to find he was swearing at himself.
+
+"I ought to be horsewhipped!" roared Cochran.  "I'll never forgive
+myself! Who," he demanded, "saw the pictures? Was it a man or a
+woman?"
+
+Post laughed unhappily.
+
+"It was Chester Griswold."
+
+A remarkable change came over Cochran.  Instead of sobering him,
+as Post supposed it would, the information made him even more
+angry--only now his anger was transferred from himself to Griswold.
+
+"The blankety-blank bounder!" yelled Cochran.  "That was what he
+wanted! That's why he came here!"
+
+"Here!" demanded Post.
+
+"Not an hour ago," cried Cochran.  "He asked me about Bar Harbor.
+He saw those pictures were taken at Bar Harbor!"
+
+"I think," said Post soothingly, "he'd a right to ask questions.
+There were so many pictures, and they were very--well--very!"
+
+"I'd have answered his questions," roared Cochran, "if he'd asked
+them like a man, but he came snooping down here to spy on me.
+He tried to trick me.  He insulted me! He insulted her!" He emitted
+a howl of dismay.  "And I told him I'd never been to Bar Harbor--
+that I'd never met Aline Proctor!"
+
+Cochran seized his coat and hat.  He shouted to one of the office
+boys to telephone the garage for his car.
+
+"What are you--where are you going?" demanded Post.
+
+"I'm going home first," cried Cochran, "to put those pictures in
+a safe, as I should have done three months ago.  And then I'm
+going to find Chester Griswold and tell him he's an ass and a
+puppy!"
+
+"If you do that," protested Post, "you're likely to lose us a very
+valuable client."
+
+"And your client," roared Charles, "is likely to lose some very
+valuable teeth!"
+
+As Charles whirled into the country road in which stood his house
+he saw drawn up in front of it the long gray car in which, that morning,
+Chester Griswold had called at the office.  Cochran emitted a howl of
+anger.  Was his home again to be invaded? And again while he was
+absent? To what extreme would Griswold's jealousy next lead him?
+He fell out of his own car while it still moved, and leaped up the garden
+walk.  The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom
+he heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold.  The audacity
+of the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him
+red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry.  The Lord
+had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his
+bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge,
+distinctly jubilant.  In the passageway a frightened maid servant, who,
+at his unexpected arrival, was now even more frightened, endeavored
+to give him an explanation; but he waved her into silence, and, striding
+before her, entered his bedroom.
+
+He found confronting him a tall and beautiful young woman.  It was
+not the Aline Proctor he knew.  It was not the well-poised, gracious,
+and distinguished beauty he had seen gliding among the tables at
+Sherry's or throwing smiles over the footlights.  This Aline Proctor
+was a very indignant young person, with flashing eyes, tossing head,
+and a stamping foot.  Extended from her at arm's length, she held a
+photograph of herself in a heavy silver frame; and, as though it were
+a weapon, she was brandishing it in the face of Chester Griswold.
+As Cochran, in amazement, halted in the doorway she was exclaiming:
+
+"I told you I didn't know Charles Cochran! I tell you so now! If you
+can't believe me-"
+
+Out of the corner of her flashing eyes the angry lady caught sight of
+Cochran in the doorway.  She turned upon the intruder as though she
+meant forcibly to eject him.
+
+"Who are you?" she demanded.  Her manner and tone seemed to add:
+"And what the deuce are you doing here?"
+
+Charles answered her tone.
+
+"I am Charles Cochran," he said.  "I live here.  This is my house!"
+
+These words had no other effect upon Miss Proctor than to switch
+her indignation down another track.  She now turned upon Charles.
+
+"Then, if this is your house," cried that angry young person,
+"why have you filled it with photographs of me that belong to
+some one else?"
+
+Charles saw that his hour had come.  His sin had found him out.  He
+felt that to prevaricate would be only stupid.
+
+Griswold had tried devious methods--and look where his devious
+methods had dumped him! Griswold certainly was in wrong.  Charles
+quickly determined to adopt a course directly opposite.  Griswold
+had shown an utter lack of confidence in Aline.  Charles decided
+that he would give her his entire confidence, would throw himself
+upon the mercy of the court.
+
+"I have those photographs in my house, Miss Proctor," he said,
+"because I have admired you a long time.  They were more like you
+than those I could buy.  Having them here has helped me a lot, and it
+hasn't done you any harm.  You know very well you have anonymous
+admirers all over this country.  I'm only one of them.  If I have offended,
+I have offended with many, many thousands."
+
+Already it has been related that Cochran was very good to look
+upon.  At the present moment, as he spoke in respectful, even
+soulful accents, meekly and penitently proclaiming his
+long-concealed admiration, Miss Proctor found her indignation
+melting like an icicle in the sun.
+
+Still, she did not hold herself cheaply.  She was accustomed to
+such open flattery.  She would not at once capitulate.
+
+"But these pictures," she protested, "I gave to a man I knew.  You
+have no right to them.  They are not at all the sort of picture I
+would give to an utter stranger!"  With anxiety the lovely lady
+paused for a reply.  She hoped that the reply the tall young man
+with appealing eyes would make would be such as to make it
+possible for her to forgive him.
+
+He was not given time to reply.  With a mocking snort Griswold
+interrupted.  Aline and Charles had entirely forgotten him.
+
+"An utter stranger!" mimicked Griswold.  "Oh, yes; he's an utter
+stranger! You're pretty good actors, both of you; but you can't
+keep that up long, and you'd better stop it now."
+
+"Stop what?" asked Miss Proctor.  Her tone was cold and calm, but
+in her eyes was a strange light.  It should have warned Griswold
+that he would have been safer under the bed.
+
+"Stop pretending!" cried Griswold.  "I won't have it!"
+
+"I don't understand," said Miss Proctor.  She spoke in the same
+cold voice, only now it had dropped several degrees nearer freezing.
+"I don't think you understand yourself.  You won't have what?"
+
+Griswold now was frightened, and that made him reckless.  Instead
+of withdrawing he plunged deeper.
+
+"I won't have you two pretending you don't know each other," he
+blustered.  "I won't stand being fooled! If you're going to deceive
+me before we're married, what will you do after we're married?"
+
+Charles emitted a howl.  It was made up of disgust, amazement, and
+rage.  Fiercely he turned upon Miss Proctor.
+
+"Let me have him!" he begged.
+
+"No!" almost shouted Miss Proctor.  Her tone was no longer cold--it
+was volcanic.  Her eyes, flashing beautifully, were fixed upon Griswold.
+She made a gesture as though to sweep Charles out of the room.
+"Please go!" she demanded.  "This does not concern you."
+
+Her tone was one not lightly to be disregarded.  Charles disregarded it.
+
+"It does concern me," he said briskly.  "Nobody can insult a woman
+in my house--you, least of all!"  He turned upon the greatest catch
+in America.  "Griswold," he said, "I never met this lady until I
+came into this room; but I know her, understand her, value her
+better than you'd understand her if you knew her a thousand
+years!"
+
+Griswold allowed him to go no farther.
+
+"I know this much," he roared: "she was in love with the man who
+took those photographs, and that man was in love with her! And
+you're that man!"
+
+"What if I am!" roared back Charles.  "Men always have loved her;
+men always will--because she's a fine, big, wonderful woman! You
+can't see that, and you never will.  You insulted her! Now I'll give
+you time to apologize for that, and then I'll order you out of this
+house! And if Miss Proctor is the sort of girl I think she is, she'll
+order you out of it, too!"
+
+Both men swung toward Miss Proctor.  Her eyes were now smiling
+excitedly.  She first turned them upon Charles, blushing most
+becomingly.
+
+"Miss Proctor," she said, "hopes she is the sort of girl
+Mr. Cochran thinks she is."  She then turned upon the greatest
+catch in America.  "You needn't wait, Chester," she said, "not
+even to apologize."
+
+Chester Griswold, alone in his car, was driven back to New York.
+On the way he invented a story to explain why, at the eleventh
+hour, he had jilted Aline Proctor; but when his thoughts reverted
+to the young man he had seen working with his sleeves rolled up
+he decided it would be safer to let Miss Proctor tell of the broken
+engagement in her own way.
+
+Charles would not consent to drive his fair guest back to New
+York until she had first honored him with her presence at
+luncheon.  It was served for two, on his veranda, under the
+climbing honeysuckles.  During the luncheon he told her all.
+
+Miss Proctor, in the light of his five years of devotion,
+magnanimously forgave him.
+
+"Such a pretty house!" she exclaimed as they drove away from it.
+"When Griswold selected it for our honeymoon he showed his first
+appreciation of what I really like."
+
+"It is still at your service!" said Charles.
+
+Miss Proctor's eyes smiled with a strange light, but she did not
+speak.  It was a happy ride; but when Charles left her at the door
+of her apartment-house he regarded sadly and with regret the
+bundle of retrieved photographs that she carried away.
+
+"What is it?" she asked kindly.
+
+"I'm thinking of going back to those empty frames," said Charles,
+and blushed deeply.  Miss Proctor blushed also.  With delighted
+and guilty eyes she hastily scanned the photographs.  Snatching one
+from the collection, she gave it to him and then ran up the steps.
+
+In the light of the spring sunset the eyes of Charles devoured
+the photograph of which, at last, he was the rightful owner.  On
+it was written: "As long as this rock lasts!"
+
+As Charles walked to his car his expression was distinctly
+thoughtful.
+
+
+
+
+THE MEN OF ZANZIBAR
+
+
+
+When his hunting trip in Uganda was over, Hemingway shipped his
+specimens and weapons direct from Mombasa to New York, but he
+himself journeyed south over the few miles that stretched to
+Zanzibar.
+
+On the outward trip the steamer had touched there, and the
+little he saw of the place had so charmed him that all the time
+he was on safari he promised himself he would not return home
+without revisiting it.  On the morning he arrived he had called
+upon Harris, his consul, to inquire about the hotel; and that
+evening Harris had returned his call and introduced him at
+the club.
+
+One of the men there asked Hemingway what brought him to
+Africa, and when he answered simply and truthfully that he had
+come to shoot big game, it was as though he had said something
+clever, and every one smiled.  On the way back to the hotel, as
+they felt their way through the narrow slits in the wall that
+served as streets, he asked the consul why every one had smiled.
+
+The consul laughed evasively.
+
+"It's a local joke," he explained.  "A lot of men come here for
+reasons best kept to themselves, and they all say what you said,
+that they've come to shoot big game.  It's grown to be a polite
+way of telling a man it is none of his business."
+
+"But I didn't mean it that way," protested Hemingway.  "I really
+have been after big game for the last eight months."
+
+In the tone one uses to quiet a drunken man or a child, the
+consul answered soothingly.
+
+"Of course," he assented-- "of course you have."  But to show he
+was not hopelessly credulous, and to keep Hemingway from
+involving himself deeper, he hinted tactfully:  "Maybe they
+noticed you came ashore with only one steamer trunk and no
+gun-cases." 
+
+"Oh, that's easily explained," laughed Hemingway.  "My heavy
+luggage--"
+
+The consul had reached his house and his "boy" was pounding upon
+it with his heavy staff.
+
+"Please don't explain to me," he begged.  "It's quite unnecessary.
+Down here we're so darned glad to see any white man that we don't
+ask anything of him except that he won't hurry away.  We judge
+them as they behave themselves here; we don't care what they are
+at home or why they left it."
+
+Hemingway was highly amused.  To find that he, a respectable,
+sport-loving Hemingway of Massachusetts, should be mistaken for a
+gun-runner, slave-dealer, or escaping cashier greatly delighted
+him.
+
+"All right!" he exclaimed.  "I'll promise not to bore you with my past,
+and I agree to be judged by Zanzibar standards.  I only hope I can
+live up to them, for I see I am going to like the place very much."
+
+Hemingway kept his promise.  He bored no one with confidences as
+to his ancestors.  Of his past he made a point never to speak.  He
+preferred that the little community into which he had dropped
+should remain unenlightened, should take him as they found him.
+Of the fact that a college was named after his grandfather and
+that on his father's railroad he could travel through many
+States, he was discreetly silent.
+
+The men of Zanzibar asked no questions.  That Hemingway could play
+a stiff game of tennis, a stiffer game of poker, and, on the piano, songs
+from home was to them sufficient recommendation.  In a week he had
+become one of the most popular members of Zanzibar society.  It was
+as though he had lived there always.  Hemingway found himself reaching
+out to grasp the warmth of the place as a flower turns to the sun.  He
+discovered that for thirty years something in him had been cheated.
+For thirty years he had believed that completely to satisfy his soul all
+he needed was the gray stone walls and the gray-shingled cabins under
+the gray skies of New England, that what in nature he most loved was
+the pine forests and the fields of goldenrod on the rock-bound coast
+of the North Shore.  But now, like a man escaped from prison, he
+leaped and danced in the glaring sunlight of the equator, he revelled
+in the reckless generosity of nature, in the glorious confusion of
+colors, in the "blooming blue" of the Indian Ocean, in the Arabian
+nights spent upon the housetops under the purple sky, and beneath
+silver stars so near that he could touch them with his hand.
+
+He found it like being perpetually in a comic opera and playing a
+part in one.  For only the scenic artist would dare to paint houses
+in such yellow, pink, and cobalt-blue; only a "producer" who had
+never ventured farther from Broadway than the Atlantic City
+boardwalk would have conceived costumes so mad and so
+magnificent.  Instinctively he cast the people of Zanzibar in the
+conventional roles of musical comedy.
+
+His choruses were already in waiting.  There was the Sultan's
+body-guard in gold-laced turbans, the merchants of the bazaars in
+red fezzes and gowns of flowing silk, the Malay sailors in blue,
+the black native police in scarlet, the ladies of the harems closely
+veiled and cloaked, the market women in a single garment of
+orange, or scarlet, or purple, or of all three, and the happy,
+hilarious Zanzibari boys in the color God gave them.
+
+For hours he would sit under the yellow-and-green awning of the
+Greek hotel and watch the procession pass, or he would lie under
+an umbrella on the beach and laugh as the boatmen lifted their
+passengers to their shoulders and with them splash through the
+breakers, or in the bazaars for hours he would bargain with the
+Indian merchants, or in the great mahogany hall of the Ivory
+House, to the whisper of a punka and the tinkle of ice in a tall
+glass, listen to tales of Arab raids, of elephant poachers, of
+the trade in white and black ivory, of the great explorers who
+had sat in that same room--of Emin Pasha, of Livingstone, of
+Stanley.  His comic opera lacked only a heroine and the love
+interest.
+
+When he met Mrs. Adair he found both.  Polly Adair, as every
+one who dared to do so preferred to call her, was, like himself, an
+American and, though absurdly young, a widow.  In the States she
+would have been called an extremely pretty girl.  In a community
+where the few dozen white women had wilted and faded in the
+fierce sun of the equator, and where the rest of the women were
+jet black except their teeth, which were dyed an alluring purple,
+Polly Adair was as beautiful as a June morning.  At least, so
+Hemingway thought the first time he saw her, and each succeeding
+time he thought her more beautiful, more lovely, more to be loved.
+
+He met her, three days after his arrival, at the residence of the
+British agent and consul-general, where Lady Firth was giving tea
+to the six nurses from the English hospital and to all the other
+respectable members of Zanzibar society.
+
+"My husband's typist," said her ladyship as she helped Hemingway
+to tea, "is a copatriot of yours.  She's such a nice gell; not a bit like
+an American.  I don't know what I'd do in this awful place without her.
+Promise me," she begged tragically, "you will not ask her to marry you."
+
+Unconscious of his fate, Hemingway promised.
+
+"Because all the men do," sighed Lady Firth, "and I never know
+what morning one of the wretches won't carry her off to a home of
+her own.  And then what would become of me? Men are so selfish!
+If you must fall in love," suggested her ladyship, "promise me you
+will fall in love with"--she paused innocently and raised baby-blue
+eyes, in a baby-like stare--"with some one else."
+
+Again Hemingway promised.  He bowed gallantly.  "That will be quite
+easy," he said.
+
+Her ladyship smiled, but Hemingway did not see the smile.  He was
+looking past her at a girl from home, who came across the terrace
+carrying in her hand a stenographer's note-book.
+
+Lady Firth followed the direction of his eyes and saw the look in
+them.  She exclaimed with dismay:
+
+"Already! Already he deserts me, even before the ink is dry on
+the paper."
+
+She drew the note-book from Mrs. Adair's fingers and dropped it
+under the tea-table.
+
+"Letters must wait, my child," she declared.
+
+"But Sir George--" protested the girl.
+
+"Sir George must wait, too," continued his wife; "the Foreign Office
+must wait, the British Empire must wait until you have had your tea."
+
+The girl laughed helplessly.  As though assured her fellow
+countryman would comprehend, she turned to him.
+
+"They're so exactly like what you want them to be," she said--"I
+mean about their tea!"
+
+Hemingway smiled back with such intimate understanding that
+Lady Firth glanced up inquiringly.
+
+"Have you met Mrs. Adair already?" she asked.
+
+"No," said Hemingway, "but I have been trying to meet her for
+thirty years."
+
+Perplexed, the Englishwoman frowned, and then, with delight at
+her own perspicuity, laughed aloud. 
+
+"I know," she cried, "in your country you are what they call a
+'hustler'! Is that right?" She waved them away.  "Take Mrs. Adair
+over there," she commanded, "and tell her all the news from home.
+Tell her about the railroad accidents and 'washouts' and the
+latest thing in lynching."
+
+The young people stretched out in long wicker chairs in the shade
+of a tree covered with purple flowers.  On a perch at one side of
+them an orang-outang in a steel belt was combing the whiskers of
+her infant daughter; at their feet what looked like two chow puppies,
+but which happened to be Lady Firth's pet lions, were chewing each
+other's toothless gums; and in the immediate foreground the hospital
+nurses were defying the sun at tennis while the Sultan's band played
+selections from a Gaiety success of many years in the past.  With these
+surroundings it was difficult to talk of home.  Nor on any later occasions,
+except through inadvertence, did they talk of home. 
+
+For the reasons already stated, it amused Hemingway to volunteer
+no confidences.  On account of what that same evening Harris told
+him of Mrs. Adair, he asked none.
+
+Harris himself was a young man in no way inclined to withhold
+confidences.  He enjoyed giving out information.  He enjoyed
+talking about himself, his duties, the other consuls, the Zanzibaris,
+and his native State of Iowa.  So long as he was permitted to talk,
+the listener could select the subject.  But, combined with his loquacity,
+Hemingway had found him kind-hearted, intelligent, observing, and
+the call of a common country had got them quickly together. 
+
+Hemingway was quite conscious that the girl he had seen but once
+had impressed him out of all proportion to what he knew of her.
+She seemed too good to be true.  And he tried to persuade himself
+that after eight months in the hinterland among hippos and zebras
+any reasonably attractive girl would have proved equally disturbing. 
+
+But he was not convinced.  He did not wish to be convinced.  He
+assured himself that had he met Mrs. Adair at home among hundreds
+of others he would have recognized her as a woman of exceptional
+character, as one especially charming.  He wanted to justify this
+idea of her; he wanted to talk of Mrs. Adair to Harris, not to learn
+more concerning her, but just for the pleasure of speaking her name.
+
+He was much upset at that, and the discovery that on meeting a
+woman for the first time he still could be so boyishly and ingenuously
+moved greatly pleased him.  It was a most delightful secret.  So he acted
+on the principle that when a man immensely admires a woman and
+wishes to conceal that fact from every one else he can best do so by
+declaring his admiration in the frankest and most open manner.  After
+the tea-party, as Harris and himself sat in the consulate, he so expressed
+himself.
+
+"What an extraordinary nice girl," he exclaimed, "is that Mrs. Adair!
+I had a long talk with her.  She is most charming.  However did a
+woman like that come to be in a place like this?"
+
+Judging from his manner, it seemed to Hemingway that at the
+mention of Mrs. Adair's name he had found Harris mentally on
+guard, as though the consul had guessed the question would come
+and had prepared for it. 
+
+"She just dropped in here one day," said Harris, "from no place
+in particular.  Personally, I always have thought from heaven."
+
+"It's a good address," said Hemingway. 
+
+"It seems to suit her," the consul agreed.  "Anyway, if she doesn't come
+from there, that's where she's going--just on account of the good she's
+done us while she's been here.  She arrived four months ago with a
+typewriting-machine and letters to me from our consuls in Cape Town
+and Durban.  She had done some typewriting for them.  It seems that
+after her husband died, which was a few months after they were married,
+she learned to make her living by typewriting.  She worked too hard
+and broke down, and the doctor said she must go to hot countries, the
+'hotter the better.'  So she's worked her way half around the world
+typewriting.  She worked chiefly for her own consuls or for the American
+commission houses.  Sometimes she stayed a month, sometimes only over
+one steamer day.  But when she got here Lady Firth took such a fancy to
+her that she made Sir George engage her as his private secretary, and she's
+been here ever since."
+
+In a community so small as was that of Zanzibar the white residents
+saw one another every day, and within a week Hemingway had met
+Mrs. Adair many times.  He met her at dinner, at the British agency;
+he met her in the country club, where the white exiles gathered for
+tea and tennis.  He hired a launch and in her honor gave a picnic
+on the north coast of the island, and on three glorious and memorable
+nights, after different dinner-parties had ascended to the roof, he sat
+at her side and across the white level of the housetops looked down
+into the moonlit harbor.
+
+What interest the two young people felt in each other was in no
+way discouraged by their surroundings.  In the tropics the tender
+emotions are not winter killed.  Had they met at home, the
+conventions, his own work, her social duties would have kept the
+progress of their interest within a certain speed limit.  But they
+were in a place free of conventions, and the preceding eight
+months which Hemingway had spent in the jungle and on the plain
+had made the society of his fellow man, and of Mrs. Adair in
+particular, especially attractive.
+
+Hemingway had no work to occupy his time, and he placed it
+unreservedly at the disposition of his countrywoman.  In doing so
+it could not be said that Mrs. Adair encouraged him.  Hemingway
+himself would have been the first to acknowledge this.  From the
+day he met her he was conscious that always there was an intangible
+barrier between them.  Even before she possibly could have guessed
+that his interest in her was more than even she, attractive as she was,
+had the right to expect, she had wrapped around herself an invisible
+mantle of defense.
+
+There were certain speeches of his which she never heard, certain tones
+to which she never responded.  At moments when he was complimenting
+himself that at last she was content to be in his company, she would
+suddenly rise and join the others, and he would be left wondering in
+what way he could possibly have offended. 
+
+He assured himself that a woman, young and attractive, in a
+strange land in her dependent position must of necessity be
+discreet, but in his conduct there certainly had been nothing
+that was not considerate, courteous, and straightforward.
+
+When he appreciated that he cared for her seriously, that he was
+gloriously happy in caring, and proud of the way in which he
+cared, the fact that she persistently held him at arm's length
+puzzled and hurt.  At first when he had deliberately set to work
+to make her like him he was glad to think that, owing to his
+reticence about himself, if she did like him it would be for himself
+alone and not for his worldly goods.  But when he knew her better
+he understood that if once Mrs. Adair made up her mind to take
+a second husband, the fact that he was a social and financial
+somebody, and not, as many in Zanzibar supposed Hemingway
+to be, a social outcast, would make but little difference. 
+
+Nor was her manner to be explained by the fact that the majority
+of women found him unattractive.  As to that, the pleasant burden
+of his experience was to the contrary.  He at last wondered if
+there was some one else, if he had come into her life too late.
+He set about looking for the man and so, he believed, he soon
+found him. 
+
+Of the little colony, Arthur Fearing was the man of whom Hemingway
+had seen the least.  That was so because Fearing wished it.  Like
+himself, Fearing was an American, young, and a bachelor, but, 
+very much unlike Hemingway, a hermit and a recluse.
+
+Two years before he had come to Zanzibar looking for an
+investment for his money.  In Zanzibar there were gentlemen
+adventurers of every country, who were welcome to live in any
+country save their own.
+
+To them Mr. Fearing seemed a heaven-sent victim.  But to him their
+alluring tales of the fortunes that were to rise from buried treasures,
+lost mines, and pearl beds did not appeal.  Instead he conferred
+with the consuls, the responsible merchants, the partners in the
+prosperous trading houses.  After a month of "looking around" he
+had purchased outright the goodwill and stock of one of the oldest
+of the commission houses, and soon showed himself to be a most
+capable man of business.  But, except as a man of business, no one
+knew him.  From the dim recesses of his warehouse he passed each
+day to the seclusion of his bungalow in the country.  And, although
+every one was friendly to him, he made no friends.
+
+It was only after the arrival of Mrs. Adair that he consented to show
+himself, and it was soon noted that it was only when she was invited
+that he would appear, and that on these occasions he devoted himself
+entirely to her.  In the presence of others, he still was shy, gravely
+polite, and speaking but little, and never of himself; but with
+Mrs. Adair his shyness seemed to leave him, and when with her
+he was seen to talk easily and eagerly.  And, on her part, to what
+he said, Polly Adair listened with serious interest. 
+
+Lady Firth, who, at home, was a trained and successful match-maker,
+and who, in Zanzibar, had found but a limited field for her activities,
+decided that if her companion and protegee must marry, she should
+marry Fearing. 
+
+Fearing was no gentleman adventurer, remittance-man, or humble
+clerk serving his apprenticeship to a steamship line or an ivory
+house.  He was one of the pillars of Zanzibar society.  The trading
+house he had purchased had had its beginnings in the slave-trade,
+and now under his alert direction was making a turnover equal to
+that of any of its ancient rivals.  Personally, Fearing was a most
+desirable catch.  He was well-mannered, well-read, of good
+appearance, steady, and, in a latitude only six degrees removed
+from the equator, of impeccable morals.
+
+It is said that it is the person who is in love who always is the
+first to discover his successful rival.  It is either an instinct
+or because his concern is deeper than that of others. 
+
+And so, when Hemingway sought for the influence that separated
+him from Polly Adair, the trail led to Fearing.  To find that the
+obstacle in the path of his true love was a man greatly relieved
+him.  He had feared that what was in the thoughts of Mrs. Adair
+was the memory of her dead husband.  He had no desire to cross
+swords with a ghost.  But to a living rival he could afford to be
+generous.
+
+For he was sure no one could care for Polly Adair as he cared,
+and, like every other man in love, he believed that he alone had
+discovered in her beauties of soul and character that to the rest
+of mankind were hidden.  This knowledge, he assured himself, had
+aroused in him a depth of devotion no one else could hope to
+imitate, and this depth of devotion would in time so impress her,
+would become so necessary to her existence, that it would force
+her at last into the arms of the only man who could offer it.
+
+Having satisfied himself in this fashion, he continued cheerfully
+on his way, and the presence of a rival in no way discouraged
+him.  It only was Polly Adair who discouraged him.  And this,
+in spite of the fact that every hour of the day he tried to bring
+himself pleasantly to her notice.  All that an idle young man in
+love, aided and abetted by imagination and an unlimited letter of
+credit, could do, Hemingway did.  But to no end. 
+
+The treasures he dug out of the bazaars and presented to her,
+under false pretenses as trinkets he happened at that moment
+to find in his pockets, were admired by her at their own great
+value, and returned also under false pretenses, as having been
+offered her only to examine.
+
+"It is for your sister at home, I suppose," she prompted.  "It's
+quite lovely.  Thank you for letting me see it."
+
+After having been several times severely snubbed in this fashion,
+Hemingway remarked grimly as he put a black pearl back into his
+pocket:
+
+"At this rate sister will be mighty glad to see me when I get
+home.  It seems almost a pity I haven't got a sister." 
+
+The girl answered this only with a grave smile.
+
+On another occasion she admired a polo pony that had been
+imported for the stable of the boy Sultan.  But next morning
+Hemingway, after much diplomacy, became the owner of it and
+proudly rode it to the agency.  Lady Firth and Polly Adair walked
+out to meet him arm in arm, but at sight of the pony there came
+into the eyes of the secretary a look that caused Hemingway to
+wish himself and his mount many miles in the jungle.  He saw
+that before it had been proffered, his gift-horse had been rejected.
+He acted promptly. 
+
+"Lady Firth," he said, "you've been so awfully kind to me, made this
+place so like a home to me, that I want you to put this mare in your
+stable.  The Sultan wanted her, but when he learned I meant to turn
+her over to you, he let her go.  We both hope you'll accept."
+
+Lady Firth had no scruples.  In five minutes she had accepted, had
+clapped a side-saddle on her rich gift, and was cantering joyously
+down the Pearl Road.
+
+Polly Adair looked after her with an expression that was
+distinctly wistful.  Thus encouraged, Hemingway said:
+
+"I'm glad you are sorry.  I hope every time you see that pony
+you'll be sorry."
+
+"Why should I be sorry?" asked the girl.
+
+"Because you have been unkind," said Hemingway, "and it is not your
+character to be unkind.  And that you have shown lack of character
+ought to make you sorry."
+
+"But you know perfectly well," said Mrs. Adair, "that if I were
+to take any one of these wonderful things you bring me, I wouldn't
+have any character left."
+
+She smiled at him reassuringly.  "And you know," she added, "that
+that is not why I do not take them.  It isn't because I can't afford to,
+or because I don't want them, because I do; but it's because I don't
+deserve them, because I can give you nothing in return."
+
+"As the copy-book says," returned Hemingway, "'the pleasure is in
+the giving.'  If the copy-book don't say that, I do.  And to pretend
+that you give me nothing, that is ridiculous!" 
+
+It was so ridiculous that he rushed on vehemently.  "Why, every
+minute you give me something," he exclaimed.  "Just to see you,
+just to know you are alive, just to be certain when I turn in at
+night that when the world wakes up again you will still be a part
+of it; that is what you give me.  And its name is--Happiness!"
+
+He had begun quite innocently; he had had no idea that it would
+come.  But he had said it.  As clearly as though he had dropped
+upon one knee, laid his hand over his heart and exclaimed: "Most
+beautiful of your sex, I love you! Will you marry me?"  His eyes
+and the tone of his voice had said it.  And he knew that he had
+said it, and that she knew. 
+
+Her eyes were filled with sudden tears, and so wonderful was the
+light in them that for one mad moment Hemingway thought they were
+tears of happiness.  But the light died, and what had been tears
+became only wet drops of water, and he saw to his dismay that she
+was most miserable. 
+
+The girl moved ahead of him to the cliff on which the agency
+stood, and which overhung the harbor and the Indian Ocean.  Her
+eyes were filled with trouble.  As she raised them to his they begged
+of him to be kind. 
+
+"I am glad you told me," she said.  "I have been afraid it was
+coming.  But until you told me I could not say anything.  I tried
+to stop you.  I was rude and unkind--"
+
+"You certainly were," Hemingway agreed cheerfully.  "And the more
+you would have nothing to do with me, the more I admired you.  And
+then I learned to admire you more, and then to love you.  It seems now
+as though I had always known and always loved you.  And now this
+is what we are going to do."
+
+He wouldn't let her speak; he rushed on precipitately. 
+
+"We are first going up to the house to get your typewriting-machine,
+and we will bring it back here and hurl it as far as we can off this cliff.
+I want to see the splash! I want to hear it smash when it hits that rock.
+It has been my worst enemy, because it helped you to be independent
+of me, because it kept you from me.  Time after time, on the veranda,
+when I was pretending to listen to Lady Firth, I was listening to that
+damned machine banging and complaining and tiring your pretty
+fingers and your dear eyes.  So first it has got to go.  You have been
+its slave, now I am going to be your slave.  You have only to rub
+the lamp and things will happen.  And because I've told you nothing
+about myself, you mustn't think that the money that helps to make
+them happen is 'tainted.'  It isn't.  Nor am I, nor my father, nor my
+father's father.  I am asking you to marry a perfectly respectable
+young man.  And, when you do--"
+
+Again he gave her no opportunity to interrupt, but rushed on
+impetuously:  "We will sail away across that ocean to wherever
+you will take me.  To Ceylon and Tokio and San Francisco, to Naples
+and New York, to Greece and Athens.  They are all near.  They are
+all yours.  Will you accept them and me?"  He smiled appealingly,
+but most miserably.  For though he had spoken lightly and with
+confidence, it was to conceal the fact that he was not at all confident.
+As he had read in her eyes her refusal of his pony, he had read, even
+as he spoke, her refusal of himself.  When he ceased speaking the girl
+answered:
+
+"If I say that what you tell me makes me proud, I am saying too little."
+She shook her head firmly, with an air of finality that frightened
+Hemingway.  "But what you ask--what you suggest is impossible."
+
+"You don't like me?" said Hemingway.
+
+"I like you very much," returned the girl, "and, if I don't seem
+unhappy that it can't be, it is because I always have known it can't
+be--"
+
+"Why can't it be?" rebelled Hemingway.  "I don't mean that I can't
+understand your not wanting to marry me, but if I knew your
+objection, maybe, I could beat it down."
+
+Again, with the same air of finality, the girl moved her head
+slowly, as though considering each word; she began cautiously.
+
+"I cannot tell you the reason," she said, "because it does not
+concern only myself."
+
+"If you mean you care for some one else," pleaded Hemingway,
+"that does not frighten me at all."  It did frighten him extremely,
+but, believing that a faint heart never won anything, he pretended
+to be brave.
+
+"For you," he boasted, "I would go down into the grave as deep as
+any man.  He that hath more let him give.  I know what I offer.  I
+know I love you as no other man--"
+
+The girl backed away from him as though he had struck her.  "You
+must not say that," she commanded.
+
+For the first time he saw that she was moved, that the fingers
+she laced and unlaced were trembling.  "It is final!" exclaimed
+the girl.  "I cannot marry--you, or any one.  I--I have promised.
+I am not free."
+
+"Nothing in the world is final," returned Hemingway sharply,
+"except death."  He raised his hat and, as though to leave her,
+moved away.  Not because he admitted defeat, but because he
+felt that for the present to continue might lose him the chance to
+fight again.  But, to deliver an ultimatum, he turned back.
+
+"As long as you are alive, and I am alive," he told her, "all
+things are possible.  I don't give up hope.  I don't give up you."
+
+The girl exclaimed with a gesture of despair.  "He won't understand!"
+she cried.
+
+Hemingway advanced eagerly.
+
+"Help me to understand," he begged.
+
+"You won't understand," explained the girl, "that I am speaking
+the truth.  You are right that things can change in the future,
+but nothing can change the past.  Can't you understand that?"
+
+"What do I care for the past?" cried the young man scornfully.  "I
+know you as well as though I had known you for a thousand years
+and I love you."
+
+The girl flushed crimson.
+
+"Not my past," she gasped.  "I meant--"
+
+"I don't care what you meant," said Hemingway.  "I'm not prying
+into your little secrets.  I know only one thing--two things, that
+I love you and that, until you love me, I am going to make your
+life hell!" 
+
+He caught at her hands, and for an instant she let him clasp them
+in both of his, while she looked at him. 
+
+Something in her face, other than distress and pity, caused his
+heart to leap.  But he was too wise to speak, and, that she might
+not read the hope in his eyes, turned quickly and left her.  He
+had not crossed the grounds of the agency before he had made up
+his mind as to the reason for her repelling him.
+
+"She is engaged to Fearing!" he told himself.  "She has promised
+to marry Fearing! She thinks that it is too late to consider another
+man!"  The prospect of a fight for the woman he loved thrilled him
+greatly.  His lower jaw set pugnaciously.
+
+"I'll show her it's not too late," he promised himself.  "I'll show her
+which of us is the man to make her happy.  And, if I am not the
+man, I'll take the first outbound steamer and trouble them no more.
+But before that happens," he also promised himself, "Fearing must
+show he is the better man."
+
+In spite of his brave words, in spite of his determination, within the
+day Hemingway had withdrawn in favor of his rival, and, on the
+Crown Prince Eitel, bound for Genoa and New York, had booked his
+passage home.
+
+On the afternoon of the same day he had spoken to Polly Adair,
+Hemingway at the sunset hour betook himself to the consulate.  At
+that hour it had become his custom to visit his fellow countryman
+and with him share the gossip of the day and such a cocktail as
+only a fellow countryman could compose.  Later he was to dine at
+the house of the Ivory Company and, as his heart never ceased
+telling him, Mrs. Adair also was to be present.
+
+"It will be a very pleasant party," said Harris.  "They gave me a
+bid, too, but it's steamer day to-morrow, and I've got to get my
+mail ready for the Crown Prince Eitel.  Mrs. Adair is to be
+there."
+
+Hemingway nodded, and with pleasant anticipation waited.  Of Mrs.
+Adair, Harris always spoke with reverent enthusiasm, and the man
+who loved her delighted to listen.  But this time Harris disappointed
+him.
+
+"And Fearing, too," he added.
+
+Again Hemingway nodded.  The conjunction of the two names surprised
+him, but he made no sign.  Loquacious as he knew Harris to be, he never
+before had heard his friend even suggest the subject that to Zanzibar
+had become of acute interest.
+
+Harris filled the two glasses, and began to pace the room.  When
+he spoke it was in the aggrieved tone of one who feels himself
+placed in a false position.
+
+"There's no one," he complained suddenly, "so popularly unpopular
+as the man who butts in.  I know that, but still I've always taken his
+side.  I've always been for him."  He halted, straddling with legs
+apart and hands deep in his trousers pockets, and frowned down
+upon his guest.
+
+"Suppose," he began aggressively, "I see a man driving his car
+over a cliff.  If I tell him that road will take him over a cliff,
+the worst that can happen to me is to be told to mind my own
+business, and I can always answer back: 'I was only trying to
+help you.'  If I don't speak, the man breaks his neck.  Between
+the two, it seems to me, sooner than have any one's life on my
+hands, I'd rather be told to mind my own business."
+
+Hemingway stared into his glass.  His expression was distinctly
+disapproving, but, undismayed, the consul continued.
+
+"Now, we all know that this morning you gave that polo pony
+to Lady Firth, and one of us guesses that you first offered it to
+some one else, who refused it.  One of us thinks that very soon,
+to-morrow, or even to-night, at this party you may offer that
+same person something else, something worth more than a polo
+pony, and that if she refuses that, it is going to break you all
+up, is going to hurt you for the rest of your life."
+
+Lifting his eyes from his glass, Hemingway shot at his friend a
+glance of warning.  In haste, Harris continued:
+
+"I know," he protested, answering the look, "I know that this is
+where Mr. Buttinsky is told to mind his business.  But I'm going
+right on.  I'm going to state a hypothetical case with no names
+mentioned and no questions asked, or answered.  I'm going to
+state a theory, and let you draw your own deductions."
+
+He slid into a chair, and across the table fastened his eyes on those
+of his friend.  Confidently and undisturbed, but with a wry smile
+of dislike, Hemingway stared fixedly back at him. 
+
+"What," demanded Harris, "is the first rule in detective work?"
+
+Hemingway started.  He was prepared for something unpleasant, but
+not for that particular form of unpleasantness.  But his faith was
+unshaken, and he smiled confidently.  He let the consul answer his
+own question.
+
+"It is to follow the woman," declared Harris.  "And, accordingly,
+what should be the first precaution of a man making his get-away?
+To see that the woman does not follow.  But suppose we are dealing
+with a fugitive of especial intelligence, with a criminal who has
+imagination and brains? He might fix it so that the woman could
+follow him without giving him away, he might plan it so that no one
+would suspect.  She might arrive at his hiding-place only after many
+months, only after each had made separately a long circuit of the
+globe, only after a journey with a plausible and legitimate object.
+She would arrive disguised in every way, and they would meet as
+total strangers.  And, as strangers under the eyes of others, they
+would become acquainted, would gradually grow more friendly,
+would be seen more frequently together, until at last people would
+say: 'Those two mean to make a match of it.'  And then, one day,
+openly, in the sight of all men, with the aid of the law and the
+church, they would resume those relations that existed before the
+man ran away and the woman followed."
+
+There was a short silence.
+
+Hemingway broke it in a tone that would accept no denial.
+
+"You can't talk like that to me," he cried.  "What do you mean?"
+
+Without resentment, the consul regarded him with grave solicitude.
+His look was one of real affection, and, although his tone held the
+absolute finality of the family physician who delivers a sentence
+of death, he spoke with gentleness and regret.
+
+"I mean," he said, "that Mrs. Adair is not a widow, that the man
+she speaks of as her late husband is not dead; that that man is
+Fearing!"
+
+Hemingway felt afraid.  A month before a rhinoceros had charged
+him and had dropped at his feet.  At another time a wounded lioness
+had leaped into his path and crouched to spring.  Then he had not
+been afraid.  Then he had aimed as confidently as though he were
+firing at a straw target.  But now he felt real fear: fear of something
+he did not comprehend, of a situation he could not master, of an
+adversary as strong as Fate.  By a word something had been snatched
+from him that he now knew was as dear to him as life, that was life,
+that was what made it worth continuing.  And he could do nothing
+to prevent it; he could not help himself.  He was as impotent as the
+prisoner who hears the judge banish him into exile.  He tried to adjust
+his mind to the calamity.  But his mind refused.  As easily as with his
+finger a man can block the swing of a pendulum and halt the progress
+of the clock, Harris with a word had brought the entire world to a full
+stop.
+
+And then, above his head, Hemingway heard the lazy whisper of the
+punka, and from the harbor the raucous whistle of the Crown Prince
+Eitel, signalling her entrance.  The world had not stopped; for the
+punka-boy, for the captain of the German steamer, for Harris seated
+with face averted, the world was still going gayly and busily forward.
+Only for him had it stopped.
+
+In spite of the confident tone in which Harris had spoken, in spite of
+the fact that unless he knew it was the truth, he would not have spoken,
+Hemingway tried to urge himself to believe there had been some
+hideous, absurd error.  But in answer came back to him snatches
+of talk or phrases the girl had last addressed to him: "You can
+command the future, but you cannot change the past.  I cannot
+marry you, or any one! I am not free!"
+
+And then to comfort himself, he called up the look he had surprised
+in her eyes when he stood holding her hands in his.  He clung to it,
+as a drowning man will clutch even at a piece of floating seaweed.
+
+When he tried to speak he found his voice choked and stifled, and
+that his distress was evident, he knew from the pity he read in the
+eyes of Harris.
+
+In a voice strange to him, he heard himself saying: "Why do you
+think that? You've got to tell me.  I have a right to know.  This
+morning I asked Mrs. Adair to marry me."
+
+The consul exclaimed with dismay and squirmed unhappily.  "I
+didn't know," he protested.  "I thought I was in time.  I ought to
+have told you days ago, but--"
+
+"Tell me now," commanded Hemingway. 
+
+"I know it in a thousand ways," began Harris.
+
+Hemingway raised his eyes hopefully.
+
+But the consul shook his head.  "But to convince you," he went on,
+"I need tell you only one.  The thousand other proofs are looks they
+have exchanged, sentences I have chanced to overhear, and that each
+of them unknown to the other has told me of little happenings and
+incidents which I found were common to both.  Each has described
+the house in which he or she lived, and it was the same house.  They
+claim to come from different cities in New England, they came from
+the same city.  They claim--"
+
+"That is no proof," cried Hemingway, "either that they are married,
+or that the man is a criminal."
+
+For a moment Harris regarded the other in silence.  Then he said:
+"You're making it very hard for me.  I see I've got to show you.
+It's kindest, after all, to cut quick."  He leaned farther forward,
+and his voice dropped.  Speaking quickly, he said:
+
+"Last summer I lived outside the town in a bungalow on the Pearl
+Road.  Fearing's house was next to mine.  This was before Mrs.
+Adair went to live at the agency, and while she was alone in
+another bungalow farther down the road.  I was ill that summer;
+my nerves went back on me.  I couldn't sleep.  I used to sit all night
+on my veranda and pray for the sun to rise.  From where I sat it was
+dark and no one could see me, but I could see the veranda of Fearing's
+house and into his garden.  And night after night I saw Mrs. Adair
+creep out of Fearing's house, saw him walk with her to the gate, saw
+him in the shadow of the bushes take her in his arms, and saw them
+kiss."  The voice of the consul rose sharply.  "No one knows that but
+you and I, and," he cried defiantly, "it is impossible for us to believe
+ill of Polly Adair.  The easy explanation we refuse.  It is intolerable.
+And so you must believe as I believe; that when she visited Fearing
+by night she went to him because she had the right to go to him,
+because already she was his wife.  And now when every one here
+believes they met for the first time in Zanzibar, when no one will be
+surprised if they should marry, they will go through the ceremony
+again, and live as man and wife, as they are, as they were before he
+fled from America!"
+
+Hemingway was seated with his elbows on the table and his face in
+his hands.  He was so long silent that Harris struck the table roughly
+with his palm.
+
+"Well," he demanded, "why don't you speak? Do you doubt her?
+Don't you believe she is his wife?"
+
+"I refuse to believe anything else!" said Hemingway.  He rose, and
+slowly and heavily moved toward the door.  "And I will not trouble
+them any more," he added.  "I'll leave at sunrise on the Eitel."
+
+Harris exclaimed in dismay, but Hemingway did not hear him.  In
+the doorway he halted and turned back.  From his voice all trace
+of emotion had departed.  "Why," he asked dully, "do you think
+Fearing is a fugitive? Not that it matters to her, since she loves
+him, or that it matters to me.  Only I would like to think you were
+wrong.  I want her to have only the best."
+
+Again the consul moved unhappily.
+
+"I oughtn't to tell you," he protested, "and if I do I ought to tell the
+State Department, and a detective agency first.  They have the call.
+They want him, or a man damned like him."  His voice dropped to a
+whisper.  "The man wanted is Henry Brownell, a cashier of a bank in
+Waltham, Mass., thirty-five years of age, smooth-shaven, college-bred,
+speaking with a marked New England accent, and--and with other
+marks that fit Fearing like the cover on a book.  The department and
+the Pinkertons have been devilling the life out of me about it for nine
+months.  They are positive he is on the coast of Africa.  I put them off.
+I wasn't sure." 
+
+"You've been protecting them," said Hemingway.
+
+"I wasn't sure," reiterated Harris.  "And if I were, the Pinkertons can do
+their own sleuthing.  The man's living honestly now, anyway, isn't he?"
+he demanded; "and she loves him.  At least she's stuck by him.  Why
+should I punish her?"
+
+His tone seemed to challenge and upbraid.
+
+"Good God!" cried the other, "I'm not blaming you! I'd be proud of the
+chance to do as much.  I asked because I'd like to go away thinking she's
+content, thinking she's happy with him."
+
+"Doesn't it look as though she were?" Harris protested.  "She's followed
+him--followed him half around the globe.  If she'd been happier away
+from him, she'd have stayed away from him."
+
+So intent had been the men upon their talk that neither had noted
+the passing of the minutes or, what at other times was an event
+of moment, that the mail steamer had distributed her mail and
+passengers; and when a servant entered bearing lamps, and from
+the office the consul's clerk appeared with a bundle of letters
+from the Eitel, both were taken by surprise.
+
+"So late?" exclaimed Hemingway.  "I must go.  If I'm to sail with
+the Eitel at daybreak, I've little time!"
+
+But he did not go.
+
+As he advanced toward Harris with his hand outstretched in adieu,
+the face of the consul halted him.  With the letters, the clerk
+had placed upon the table a visiting-card, and as it lay in the
+circle of light from the lamp the consul, as though it were alive
+and menacing, stared at it in fascination.  Moving stiffly, he
+turned it so that Hemingway could see.  On it Hemingway read,
+"George S. Sheyer," and, on a lower line, "Representing William
+L. Pinkerton."
+
+To the woman he loved the calamity they dreaded had come, and
+Hemingway, with a groan of dismay, exclaimed aloud:
+
+"It is the end!"
+
+From the darkness of the outer office a man stepped softly into
+the circle of the lamp.  They could see his figure only from the
+waist down; the rest of him was blurred in shadows.
+
+"'It is the end'?" he repeated inquiringly.  He spoke the phrase
+with peculiar emphasis, as though to impress it upon the memory
+of the two others.  His voice was cool, alert, authoritative.  "The
+end of what?" he demanded sharply.
+
+The question was most difficult.  In the silence the detective
+moved into the light.  He was tall and strongly built, his face
+was shrewd and intelligent.  He might have been a prosperous man
+of business.
+
+"Which of you is the consul?" he asked.  But he did not take his
+eyes from Hemingway.
+
+"I am the consul," said Harris.  But still the detective did not
+turn from Hemingway.
+
+"Why," he asked, "did this gentleman, when he read my card, say,
+'It is the end'? The end of what? Has anything been going on here
+that came to an end when he saw my card?"
+
+Disconcerted, in deep embarrassment, Harris struggled for a word.
+But his distress was not observed by the detective.  His eyes,
+suspicious and accusing, still were fixed upon Hemingway, and
+under their scrutiny Harris saw his friend slowly retreat, slowly
+crumple up into a chair, slowly raise his hands to cover his
+face.  As though in a nightmare, he heard him saying savagely:
+
+"It is the end of two years of hell, it is the end of two years
+of fear and agony! Now I shall have peace.  Now I shall sleep!
+I thank God you've come! I thank God I can go back!"
+
+Harris broke the spell by leaping to his feet.  He sprang between
+the two men.
+
+"What does this mean?" he commanded.
+
+Hemingway raised his eyes and surveyed him steadily.
+
+"It means," he said, "that I have deceived you, Harris--that I am
+the man you told me of, I am the man they want."  He turned to the
+officer.
+
+"I fooled him for four months," he said.  "I couldn't fool you for
+five minutes."
+
+The eyes of the detective danced with sudden excitement, joy, and
+triumph.  He shot an eager glance from Hemingway to the consul.
+
+"This man," he demanded; "who is he?"
+
+With an impatient gesture Hemingway signified Harris.
+
+"He doesn't know who I am," he said.  "He knows me as Hemingway.
+I am Henry Brownell, of Waltham, Mass."  Again his face sank into
+the palms of his hands.  "And I'm tired--tired," he moaned.  "I am
+sick of not knowing, sick of running away.  I give myself up."
+
+The detective breathed a sigh of relief that seemed to issue from
+his soul.
+
+"My God," he sighed, "you've given me a long chase! I've had
+eleven months of you, and I'm as sick of this as you are."  He
+recovered himself sharply.  As though reciting an incantation, he
+addressed Hemingway in crisp, emotionless notes.
+
+"Henry Brownell," he chanted, "I arrest you in the name of the
+commonwealth of Massachusetts for the robbery, on October the
+eleventh, nineteen hundred and nine, of the Waltham Title and
+Trust Company.  I understand," he added, "you waive extradition
+and return with me of your own free will?"
+
+With his face still in his hands, Hemingway murmured assent.  The
+detective stepped briskly and uninvited to the table and seated himself.
+He was beaming with triumph, with pleasurable excitement.
+
+"I want to send a message home, Mr. Consul," he said.  "May I use
+your cable blanks?"
+
+Harris was still standing in the centre of the room looking down
+upon the bowed head and shoulders of Hemingway.  Since, in
+amazement, he had sprung toward him, he had not spoken.  And
+he was still silent.
+
+Inside the skull of Wilbur Harris, of Iowa, U. S. A., American
+consul to Zanzibar, East Africa, there was going forward a mighty
+struggle that was not fit to put into words.  For Harris and his
+conscience had met and were at odds.  One way or the other the
+fight must be settled at once, and whatever he decided must be
+for all time.  This he understood, and as his sympathies and
+conscience struggled for the mastery the pen of the detective,
+scratching at racing speed across the paper, warned him that only
+a few seconds were left him in which to protest or else to forever
+after hold his peace.
+
+So realistic had been the acting of Hemingway that for an instant
+Harris himself had been deceived.  But only for an instant.  With
+his knowledge of the circumstances he saw that Hemingway was not
+confessing to a crime of his own, but drawing across the trail of the
+real criminal the convenient and useful red herring.  He knew that
+already Hemingway had determined to sail the next morning.  In
+leaving Zanzibar he was making no sacrifice.  He merely was
+carrying out his original plan, and by taking away with him the
+detective was giving Brownell and his wife at least a month in
+which to again lose themselves.
+
+What was his own duty he could not determine.  That of Hemingway
+he knew nothing, he could truthfully testify.  And if now Hemingway
+claimed to be Henry Brownell, he had no certain knowledge to the
+contrary.  That through his adventure Hemingway would come to
+harm did not greatly disturb him.  He foresaw that his friend need
+only send a wireless from Nantucket and at the wharf witnesses
+would swarm to establish his identity and make it evident the
+detective had blundered.  And in the meanwhile Brownell and
+his wife, in some settlement still further removed from observation,
+would for the second time have fortified themselves against pursuit
+and capture.  He saw the eyes of Hemingway fixed upon him in appeal
+and warning.
+
+The brisk voice of the detective broke the silence.
+
+"You will testify, if need be, Mr. Consul," he said, "that you
+heard the prisoner admit he was Henry Brownell and that he
+surrendered himself of his own free will?"
+
+For an instant the consul hesitated, then he nodded stiffly.
+
+"I heard him," he said.
+
+Three hours later, at ten o' clock of the same evening, the detective
+and Hemingway leaned together on the rail of the Crown Prince
+Eitel.  Forward, in the glare of her cargo lights, to the puffing and
+creaking of derricks and donkey engines, bundles of beeswax, of
+rawhides, and precious tusks of ivory were being hurled into the
+hold; from the shore-boats clinging to the ship's sides came the
+shrieks of the Zanzibar boys, from the smoking-room the blare of
+the steward's band and the clink of glasses.  Those of the youth of
+Zanzibar who were on board, the German and English clerks and
+agents, saw in the presence of Hemingway only a purpose similar
+to their own; the desire of a homesick exile to gaze upon the mirrored
+glories of the Eitel's saloon, at the faces of white men and women, to
+listen to home-made music, to drink home-brewed beer.  As he passed
+the smoking-room they called to him, and to the stranger at his elbow,
+but he only nodded smiling and, avoiding them, ascended to the shadow
+of the deserted boat-deck.
+
+"You are sure," he said, "you told no one?"
+
+"No one," the detective answered.  "Of course your hotel proprietor
+knows you're sailing, but he doesn't know why.  And, by sunrise,
+we'll be well out at sea."
+
+The words caught Hemingway by the throat.  He turned his eyes to
+the town lying like a field of snow in the moonlight.  Somewhere
+on one of its flat roofs a merry dinner-party was laughing, drinking,
+perhaps regretting his absence, wondering at his excuse of sudden
+illness.  She was there, and he with the detective like a shadow at
+his elbow, was sailing out of her life forever.  He had seen her for
+the last time: that morning for the last time had looked into her
+eyes, had held her hands in his.  He saw the white beach, the white
+fortress-like walls, the hanging gardens, the courtesying palms,
+dimly.  It was among those that he who had thought himself content,
+had found happiness, and had then seen it desert him and take out of
+his life pleasure in all other things.  With a pain that seemed impossible
+to support, he turned his back upon Zanzibar and all it meant to him.
+And, as he turned, he faced, coming toward him, across the moonlit deck,
+Fearing.
+
+His instinct was to cry out to the man in warning, but his second
+thought showed him that through his very effort to protect the other,
+he might bring about his undoing.  So, helpless to prevent, in agitation
+and alarm, he waited in silence.  Of the two men, Fearing appeared the
+least disturbed.  With a polite but authoritative gesture he turned to the
+detective.  "I have something to say to this gentleman before he sails,"
+he said; "would you kindly stand over there?"
+
+He pointed across the empty deck at the other rail.
+
+In the alert, confident young man in the English mess-jacket,
+clean-shaven and bronzed by the suns of the equator, the detective
+saw no likeness to the pale, bearded bank clerk of the New England
+city.  This, he guessed, must be some English official, some friend
+of Brownell's who generously had come to bid the unfortunate fugitive
+Godspeed.
+
+Assured of this, the detective also bowed politely, and, out of
+hearing, but with his prisoner in full view, took up a position
+against the rail opposite.
+
+Turning his back upon the detective, and facing Hemingway with
+his eyes close to his, Fearing began abruptly.  His voice was sunk
+to a whisper, but he spoke without the slightest sign of trepidation,
+without the hesitation of an instant.
+
+"Two years ago, when I was indicted," he whispered, "and ran
+away, Polly paid back half of the sum I stole.  That left her
+without a penny; that's why she took to this typewriting.  Since
+then, I have paid back nearly all the rest.  But Polly was not
+satisfied.  She wanted me to take my punishment and start fresh.
+She knew they were watching her so she couldn't write this to me,
+but she came to me by a roundabout way, taking a year to get
+here.  And all the time she's been here, she's been begging me to
+go back and give myself up.  I couldn't see it.  I knew in a few
+months I'd have paid back all I took, and I thought that was enough.
+I wanted to keep out of jail.  But she said I must take my medicine
+in our own country, and start square with a clean slate.  She's done
+a lot for me, and whether I'd have done that for her or not, I don't
+know.  But now, I must! What you did to-night to save me, leaves
+me no choice.  So, I'll sail--"
+
+With an exclamation of anger, Hemingway caught the other by the
+shoulder and dragged him closer.
+
+"To save you!" he whispered.  "No one's thinking of you.  I didn't
+do it for you.  I did it, that you both could escape together, to
+give you time--"
+
+"But I tell you," protested Fearing, "she doesn't want me to escape.
+And maybe she's right.  Anyway, we're sailing with you at--"
+
+"We?" echoed Hemingway.
+
+That again he was to see the woman he loved, that for six weeks
+through summer seas he would travel in her company, filled him
+with alarm, with distress, with a wonderful happiness.
+
+"We?" he whispered, steadying his voice.  "Then--then your wife is
+going with you?"
+
+Fearing gazed at him as though the other had suddenly gone mad.
+
+"My wife!" he exclaimed.  "I haven't got a wife!"  If you mean
+Polly--Mrs. Adair, she is my sister! And she wants to thank you.
+She's below--"
+
+He was not allowed to finish.  Hemingway had flung him to one
+side, and was racing down the deck.
+
+The detective sprang in pursuit.
+
+"One moment, there!" he shouted.
+
+But the man in the white mess-jacket barred his way.
+
+In the moonlight the detective saw that the alert, bronzed young man
+was smiling.
+
+"That's all right," said Fearing.  "He'll be back in a minute.  Besides,
+you don't want him.  I'm the man you want."
+
+
+
+
+THE LONG ARM
+
+
+
+The safe was an old one that opened with a key.  As adjutant,
+Captain Swanson had charge of certain funds of the regiment and
+kept in the safe about five thousand dollars.  No one but himself
+and Rueff, his first sergeant, had access to it.  And as Rueff proved
+an alibi, the money might have been removed by an outsider.  The
+court-martial gave Swanson the benefit of the doubt, and a reprimand
+for not taking greater care of the keys, and Swanson made good the
+five thousand.
+
+Swanson did not think it was a burglar who had robbed the safe.
+He thought Rueff had robbed it, but he could not possibly prove
+that.  At the time of the robbery Rueff was outside the Presidio,
+in uniform, at a moving-picture show in San Francisco.  A dozen
+people saw him there.  Besides, Rueff held an excellent record.
+He was a silent, clerk-like young man, better at "paper work" than
+campaigning, but even as a soldier he had never come upon the books.
+And he had seen service in two campaigns, and was supposed to
+cherish ambitions toward a commission.  But, as he kept much to
+himself, his fellow non-coms could only guess that.
+
+On his captain's account he was loyally distressed over the
+court-martial, and in his testimony tried to shield Swanson, by
+agreeing heartily that through his own carelessness the keys
+might have fallen into the hands of some one outside the post.
+But his loyalty could not save his superior officer from what was
+a verdict virtually of "not proven."
+
+It was a most distressing affair, and, on account of the social
+prominence of Swanson's people, his own popularity, and the name
+he had made at Batangas and in the Boxer business, was much
+commented upon, not only in the services, but by the newspapers
+all over the United States.
+
+
+Every one who knew Swanson knew the court-martial was only a
+matter of form.  Even his enemies ventured only to suggest that
+overnight he might have borrowed the money, meaning to replace it
+the next morning.  And the only reason for considering this explanation
+was that Swanson was known to be in debt.  For he was a persistent
+gambler.  Just as at Pekin he had gambled with death for his number,
+in times of peace he gambled for money.  It was always his own money.
+
+From the start Swanson's own attitude toward the affair was one
+of blind, unreasoning rage.  In it he saw no necessary routine of
+discipline, only crass, ignorant stupidity.  That any one should
+suspect him was so preposterous, so unintelligent, as to be nearly
+comic.  And when, instantly, he demanded a court of inquiry, he
+could not believe it when he was summoned before a court-martial.
+It sickened, wounded, deeply affronted him; turned him quite savage.
+
+On his stand his attitude and answers were so insolent that his
+old friend and classmate, Captain Copley, who was acting as his
+counsel, would gladly have kicked him.  The findings of the
+court-martial, that neither cleared nor condemned, and the
+reprimand, were an intolerable insult to his feelings, and, in a
+fit of bitter disgust with the service and every one in it, Swanson
+resigned.  Of course, the moment he had done so he was sorry.
+Swanson's thought was that he could no longer associate with
+any one who could believe him capable of theft.  It was his
+idea of showing his own opinion of himself and the army.
+
+But no one saw it in that light.  On the contrary, people said:
+"Swanson has been allowed to resign." I n the army, voluntarily
+resigning and being "allowed to resign" lest greater evils befall,
+are two vastly different things.  And when it was too late no one
+than Swanson saw that more clearly.  His anger gave way to extreme
+morbidness.  He believed that in resigning he had assured every one
+of his guilt.  In every friend and stranger he saw a man who doubted
+him.  He imagined snubs, rebuffs, and coldnesses.  His morbidness
+fastened upon his mind like a parasite upon a tree, and the brain
+sickened.  When men and women glanced at his alert, well-set-up
+figure and shoulders, that even when he wore "cits" seemed to support
+epaulets, and smiled approvingly, Swanson thought they sneered.  In
+a week he longed to be back in the army with a homesickness that made
+every one who belonged to it his enemy.
+
+He left San Francisco, where he was known to all, and travelled
+south through Texas, and then to New Orleans and Florida.  He
+never could recall this period with clearness.  He remembered
+changing from one train to another, from one hotel to the next.
+Nothing impressed itself upon him.  For what he had lost nothing
+could give consolation.  Without honor life held no charm.  And
+he believed that in the eyes of all men he was a thief, a pariah,
+and an outcast.
+
+He had been in Cuba with the Army of Occupation, and of that
+beautiful island had grown foolishly fond.  He was familiar with
+every part of it, and he believed in one or another of its pretty
+ports he could so completely hide himself that no one could
+intrude upon his misery.  In the States, in the newspapers he
+seemed to read only of those places where he had seen service, of
+those places and friends and associates he most loved.  In the
+little Cuban village in which he would bury himself he would cut
+himself off from all newspapers, from all who knew him; from
+those who had been his friends, and those who knew his name only
+to connect it with a scandal.
+
+On his way from Port Tampa to Cuba the boat stopped at Key West,
+and for the hour in which she discharged cargo Swanson went
+ashore and wandered aimlessly.  The little town, reared on a flat
+island of coral and limestone, did not long detain him.  The main
+street of shops, eating-houses, and saloons, the pretty residences
+with overhanging balconies, set among gardens and magnolia-trees,
+were soon explored, and he was returning to the boat when the martial
+music of a band caused him to halt.  A side street led to a great gateway
+surmounted by an anchor.  Beyond it Swanson saw lawns of well-kept
+grass, regular paths, pretty cottages, the two-starred flag of an admiral,
+and, rising high above these, like four Eiffel towers, the gigantic masts
+of a wireless.  He recognized that he was at the entrance to the Key
+West naval station, and turned quickly away.
+
+He walked a few feet, the music of the band still in his ears.  In
+an hour he would be steaming toward Cuba, and, should he hold to
+his present purpose, in many years this would be the last time he
+would stand on American soil, would see the uniform of his country,
+would hear a military band lull the sun to sleep.  It would hurt, but
+he wondered if it were not worth the hurt.  A smart sergeant of marines,
+in passing, cast one glance at the man who seemed always to wear
+epaulets, and brought his hand sharply to salute.  The act determined
+Swanson.  He had obtained the salute under false pretenses, but it had
+pleased, not hurt him.  He turned back and passed into the gate of the
+naval station.
+
+From the gate a grass-lined carriage drive led to the waters of
+the harbor and the wharfs.  At its extreme end was the band-stand,
+flanked on one side by the cottage of the admiral, on the other
+by a sail-loft with iron-barred windows and whitewashed walls.
+Upon the turf were pyramids of cannon-balls and, laid out in rows
+as though awaiting burial, old-time muzzle-loading guns.  Across
+the harbor the sun was sinking into the coral reefs, and the spring
+air, still warm from its caresses, was stirred by the music of the
+band into gentle, rhythmic waves.  The scene was one of peace,
+order, and content.
+
+But as Swanson advanced, the measure of the music was instantly
+shattered by a fierce volley of explosions.  They came so suddenly
+and sharply as to make him start.  It was as though from his flank
+a quick-firing gun in ambush had opened upon him.  Swanson smiled
+at having been taken unawares.  For in San Francisco he often had
+heard the roar and rattle of the wireless.  But never before had he
+listened to an attack like this.
+
+From a tiny white-and-green cottage, squatting among the four
+giant masts, came the roar of a forest fire.  One could hear the
+crackle of the flames, the crash of the falling tree-trunks.  The
+air about the cottage was torn into threads; beneath the shocks
+of the electricity the lawn seemed to heave and tremble.  It was
+like some giant monster, bound and fettered, struggling to be
+free.  Now it growled sullenly, now in impotent rage it spat and
+spluttered, now it lashed about with crashing, stunning blows.  It
+seemed as though the wooden walls of the station could not
+contain it.
+
+From the road Swanson watched, through the open windows of the
+cottage, the electric bolts flash and flare and disappear.  The thing
+appealed to his imagination.  Its power, its capabilities fascinated
+him.  In it he saw a hungry monster reaching out to every corner
+of the continent and devouring the news of the world; feeding
+upon tales of shipwreck and disaster, lingering over some dainty
+morsel of scandal, snatching from ships and cities two thousand
+miles away the thrice-told tale of a conflagration, the score of a
+baseball match, the fall of a cabinet, the assassination of a king.
+
+In a sudden access of fierceness, as though in an ecstasy over
+some fresh horror just received, it shrieked and chortled.  And
+then, as suddenly as it had broken forth, it sank to silence, and
+from the end of the carriage drive again rose, undisturbed, the
+music of the band.
+
+The musicians were playing to a select audience.  On benches
+around the band-stand sat a half dozen nurse-maids with knitting
+in their hands, the baby-carriages within arm's length.  On the
+turf older children of the officers were at play, and up and down
+the paths bareheaded girls, and matrons, and officers in uniform
+strolled leisurely.  From the vine-covered cottage of Admiral
+Preble, set in a garden of flowering plants and bending palmettos,
+came the tinkle of tea-cups and the ripple of laughter, and at a
+respectful distance, seated on the dismantled cannon, were
+marines in khaki and bluejackets in glistening white.
+
+It was a family group, and had not Swanson recognized among the
+little audience others of the passengers from the steamer and
+natives of the town who, like himself, had been attracted by the
+music, he would have felt that he intruded.  He now wished to
+remain.  He wanted to carry with him into his exile a memory of
+the men in uniform, of the music, and pretty women, of the gorgeous
+crimson sunset.  But, though he wished to remain, he did not wish
+to be recognized.
+
+From the glances already turned toward him, he saw that in this
+little family gathering the presence of a stranger was an event,
+and he was aware that during the trial the newspapers had made
+his face conspicuous.  Also it might be that stationed at the post
+was some officer or enlisted man who had served with him in Cuba,
+China, or the Philippines, and who might point him out to others.
+Fearing this, Swanson made a detour and approached the band-stand
+from the wharf, and with his back to a hawser-post seated himself
+upon the string-piece.
+
+He was overcome with an intolerable melancholy.  From where he
+sat he could see, softened into shadows by the wire screens of the
+veranda, Admiral Preble and his wife and their guests at tea.  A
+month before, he would have reported to the admiral as the
+commandant of the station, and paid his respects.  Now he could
+not do that; at least not without inviting a rebuff.  A month
+before, he need only have shown his card to the admiral's orderly,
+and the orderly and the guard and the officers' mess and the
+admiral himself would have turned the post upside down to do
+him honor.  But of what avail now was his record in three
+campaigns? Of what avail now was his medal of honor? They
+now knew him as Swanson, who had been court-martialled, who
+had been allowed to resign, who had left the army for the army's
+good; they knew him as a civilian without rank or authority, as an
+ex-officer who had robbed his brother officers, as an outcast.
+
+His position, as his morbid mind thus distorted it, tempted
+Swanson no longer.  For being in this plight he did not feel that
+in any way he was to blame.  But with a flaming anger he still
+blamed his brother officers of the court-martial who had not
+cleared his name and with a clean bill of health restored him to
+duty.  Those were the men he blamed; not Rueff, the sergeant, who
+he believed had robbed him, nor himself, who, in a passion of
+wounded pride, had resigned and so had given reason for gossip;
+but the men who had not in tones like a bugle-call proclaimed his
+innocence, who, when they had handed him back his sword, had
+given it grudgingly, not with congratulation.
+
+
+As he saw it, he stood in a perpetual pillory.  When they had
+robbed him of his honor they had left him naked, and life without
+honor had lost its flavor.  He could eat, he could drink, he could
+exist.  He knew that in many corners of the world white arms would
+reach out to him and men would beckon him to a place at table.
+
+But he could not cross that little strip of turf between him and
+the chattering group on the veranda and hand his card to the
+admiral's orderly.  Swanson loved life.  He loved it so that
+without help, money, or affection he could each morning have
+greeted it with a smile.  But life without honor! He felt a sudden
+hot nausea of disgust.  Why was he still clinging to what had
+lost its purpose, to what lacked the one thing needful?
+
+
+"If life be an ill thing," he thought, "I can lay it down!"
+
+The thought was not new to him, and during the two past weeks of
+aimless wandering he had carried with him his service automatic.
+To reassure himself he laid his fingers on its cold smooth surface.
+He would wait, he determined, until the musicians had finished
+their concert and the women and children had departed, and then--
+
+Then the orderly would find him where he was now seated, sunken
+against the hawser-post with a hole through his heart.  To his disordered
+brain his decision appeared quite sane.  He was sure he never had been
+more calm.  And as he prepared himself for death he assured himself
+that for one of his standard no other choice was possible.  Thoughts
+of the active past, or of what distress in the future his act would bring
+to others, did not disturb him.  The thing had to be, no one lost more
+heavily than himself, and regrets were cowardly.
+
+He counted the money he had on his person and was pleased to find
+there was enough to pay for what services others soon must render
+him.  In his pockets were letters, cards, a cigarette-case, each of
+which would tell his identity.  He had no wish to conceal it, for of
+what he was about to do he was not ashamed.  It was not his act.
+He would not have died "by his own hand."  To his unbalanced
+brain the officers of the court-martial were responsible.  It was
+they who had killed him.  As he saw it, they had made his death
+as inevitable as though they had sentenced him to be shot at
+sunrise.
+
+A line from "The Drums of the Fore and Aft" came back to him.
+Often he had quoted it, when some one in the service had suffered
+through the fault of others.  It was the death-cry of the boy officer,
+Devlin.  The knives of the Ghazi had cut him down, but it was his
+own people's abandoning him in terror that had killed him.  And so,
+with a sob, he flung the line at the retreating backs of his comrades:
+"You've killed me, you cowards!"
+
+Swanson, nursing his anger, repeated this savagely.  He wished he
+could bring it home to those men of the court-martial.  He wished
+he could make them know that his death lay at their door.  He
+determined that they should know.  On one of his visiting-cards he
+pencilled:
+"To the Officers of my Court-Martial: 'You've killed me, you
+cowards!'"
+
+He placed the card in the pocket of his waistcoat.  They would
+find it just above the place where the bullet would burn the cloth.
+
+The band was playing "Auf Wiedersehen," and the waltz carried
+with it the sadness that had made people call the man who wrote
+it the waltz king.  Swanson listened gratefully.  He was glad that
+before he went out, his last mood had been of regret and gentleness.
+The sting of his anger had departed, the music soothed and sobered
+him.  It had been a very good world.  Until he had broken the spine
+of things it had treated him well, far better, he admitted, than he
+deserved.  There were many in it who had been kind, to whom he
+was grateful.  He wished there was some way by which he could let
+them know that.  As though in answer to his wish, from across the
+parade-ground the wireless again began to crash and crackle; but now
+Swanson was at a greater distance from it, and the sighing rhythm of
+the waltz was not interrupted.
+
+Swanson considered to whom he might send a farewell message, but
+as in his mind he passed from one friend to another, he saw that to
+each such a greeting could bring only distress.  He decided it was
+the music that had led him astray.  This was no moment for false
+sentiment.  He let his hand close upon the pistol.
+
+The audience now was dispersing.  The nurse-maids had collected
+their charges, the musicians were taking apart their music-racks,
+and from the steps of the vine-covered veranda Admiral Preble was
+bidding the friends of his wife adieu.  At his side his aide, young,
+alert, confident, with ill-concealed impatience awaited their departure.
+Swanson found that he resented the aide.  He resented the manner in
+which he speeded the parting guests.  Even if there were matters of
+importance he was anxious to communicate to his chief, he need not
+make it plain to the women folk that they were in the way.
+
+When, a month before, he had been adjutant, in a like situation he
+would have shown more self-command.  He disapproved of the aide
+entirely.  He resented the fact that he was as young as himself,
+that he was in uniform, that he was an aide.  Swanson certainly
+hoped that when he was in uniform he had not looked so much the
+conquering hero, so self-satisfied, so supercilious.  With a smile
+he wondered why, at such a moment, a man he had never seen
+before, and never would see again, should so disturb him.
+
+In his heart he knew.  The aide was going forward just where he
+was leaving off.  The ribbons on the tunic of the aide, the straps
+on his shoulders, told Swanson that they had served in the same
+campaigns, that they were of the same relative rank, and that
+when he himself, had he remained in the service, would have been
+a brigadier-general the aide would command a battle-ship.  The
+possible future of the young sailor filled Swanson with honorable
+envy and bitter regret.  With all his soul he envied him the right
+to look his fellow man in the eye, his right to die for his country,
+to give his life, should it be required of him, for ninety million
+people, for a flag.  Swanson saw the two officers dimly, with eyes
+of bitter self-pity.  He was dying, but he was not dying gloriously
+for a flag.  He had lost the right to die for it, and he was dying
+because he had lost that right.
+
+The sun had sunk and the evening had grown chill.  At the wharf
+where the steamer lay on which he had arrived, but on which he
+was not to depart, the electric cargo lights were already burning.
+But for what Swanson had to do there still was light enough.
+From his breast-pocket he took the card on which he had
+written his message to his brother officers, read and reread it,
+and replaced it.
+
+Save for the admiral and his aide at the steps of the cottage,
+and a bareheaded bluejacket who was reporting to them, and the
+admiral's orderly, who was walking toward Swanson, no one was
+in sight.  Still seated upon the stringpiece of the wharf, Swanson
+so moved that his back was toward the four men.  The moment
+seemed propitious, almost as though it had been prearranged.  For
+with such an audience, for his taking off no other person could be
+blamed.  There would be no question but that death had been
+self-inflicted.
+
+Approaching from behind him Swanson heard the brisk steps of the
+orderly drawing rapidly nearer.  He wondered if the wharf were
+government property, if he were trespassing, and if for that reason
+the man had been sent to order him away.  He considered bitterly
+that the government grudged him a place even in which to die.
+Well, he would not for long be a trespasser.  His hand slipped
+into his pocket, with his thumb he lowered the safety-catch of
+the pistol.
+
+But the hand with the pistol in it did not leave his pocket.  The
+steps of the orderly had come to a sudden silence.  Raising his
+head heavily, Swanson saw the man, with his eyes fixed upon him,
+standing at salute.  They had first made his life unsupportable,
+Swanson thought, now they would not let him leave it.
+
+"Captain Swanson, sir?" asked the orderly.
+
+Swanson did not speak or move.
+
+"The admiral's compliments, sir," snapped the orderly, "and will
+the captain please speak with him?"
+
+Still Swanson did not move.
+
+
+He felt that the breaking-point of his self-control had come.
+This impertinent interruption, this thrusting into the last few
+seconds of his life of a reminder of all that he had lost, this
+futile postponement of his end, was cruel, unhuman, unthinkable.
+The pistol was still in his hand.  He had but to draw it and
+press it close, and before the marine could leap upon him he
+would have escaped.
+
+From behind, approaching hurriedly, came the sound of
+impatient footsteps.
+
+The orderly stiffened to attention.  "The admiral!" he warned.
+
+Twelve years of discipline, twelve years of recognition of authority,
+twelve years of deference to superior officers, dragged Swanson's
+hand from his pistol and lifted him to his feet.  As he turned,
+Admiral Preble, the aide, and the bareheaded bluejacket were
+close upon him.  The admiral's face beamed, his eyes were young
+with pleasurable excitement; with the eagerness of a boy he waved
+aside formal greetings.
+
+"My dear Swanson," he cried, "I assure you it's a most astonishing,
+most curious coincidence! See this man?" He flung out his arm at
+the bluejacket.  "He's my wireless chief.  He was wireless operator
+on the transport that took you to Manila.  When you came in here
+this afternoon he recognized you.  Half an hour later he picks up
+a message--picks it up two thousand miles from here--from San
+Francisco--Associated Press news--it concerns you; that is, not
+really concerns you, but I thought, we thought"-as though
+signalling for help, the admiral glanced unhappily at his aide-
+"we thought you'd like to know.  Of course, to us," he added
+hastily, "it's quite superfluous--quite superfluous, but--"
+
+The aide coughed apologetically.  "You might read, sir," he
+suggested.
+
+"What? Exactly! Quite so!" cried the admiral.
+
+In the fading light he held close to his eyes a piece of paper.
+
+"San Francisco, April 20," he read.  "Rueff, first sergeant, shot
+himself here to-day, leaving written confession theft of regimental
+funds for which Swanson, captain, lately court-martialled.  Money
+found intact in Rueff's mattress.  Innocence of Swanson never
+questioned, but dissatisfied with findings of court-martial has
+left army.  Brother officers making every effort to find him and
+persuade return."
+
+The admiral sighed happily.  "And my wife," he added, with an
+impressiveness that was intended to show he had at last arrived
+at the important part of his message, "says you are to stay to
+dinner."
+
+Abruptly, rudely, Swanson swung upon his heel and turned his face
+from the admiral.  His head was thrown back, his arms held rigid
+at his sides.  In slow, deep breaths, like one who had been dragged
+from drowning, he drank in the salt, chill air.  After one glance the
+four men also turned, and in the falling darkness stood staring at
+nothing, and no one spoke.
+
+The aide was the first to break the silence.  In a polite tone, as
+though he were continuing a conversation which had not been
+interrupted, he addressed the admiral.  "Of course, Rueff's written
+confession was not needed," he said.
+
+"His shooting himself proved that he was guilty."
+
+Swanson started as though across his naked shoulders the aide had
+drawn a whip.
+
+In penitence and gratitude he raised his eyes to the stars.  High
+above his head the strands of the wireless, swinging from the
+towering masts like the strings of a giant Aeolian harp, were
+swept by the wind from the ocean.  To Swanson the sighing and
+whispering wires sang in praise and thanksgiving.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOD OF COINCIDENCE
+
+
+
+The God of Coincidence is fortunate in possessing innumerable
+press agents.  They have made the length of his arm a proverb.  How
+at exactly the right moment he extends it across continents and
+drags two and two together, thus causing four to result where but
+for him sixes and sevens would have obtained, they have made
+known to the readers of all of our best magazines.  For instance,
+Holworthy is leaving for the Congo to find a cure for the sleeping
+sickness, and for himself any sickness from which one is warranted
+never to wake up.  This is his condition because the beautiful
+million-heiress who is wintering at the Alexander Young Hotel
+in Honolulu has refused to answer his letters, cables, and appeals.
+
+He is leaning upon the rail taking his last neck-breaking look at
+the Woolworth Building.  The going-ashore bugle has sounded,
+pocket-handkerchiefs are waving; and Joe Hutton, the last visitor
+to leave the ship, is at the gangway.
+
+"Good-by, Holworthy!" he calls.  "Where do you keep yourself?
+Haven't seen you at the club in a year!"
+
+"Haven't been there in a year--nor mean to!" is the ungracious
+reply of our hero.
+
+"Then, for Heaven's sake," exclaims Hutton, "send some one to
+take your mail out of the H box! Every time I look for letters
+I wade through yours."
+
+"Tear them up!" calls Holworthy.  "They're bills."
+
+Hutton now is half-way down the gangplank.
+
+"Then your creditors," he shouts back, "must all live at the
+Alexander Young Hotel in Honolulu!"
+
+That night an express train shrieking through the darkness
+carried with it toward San Francisco--
+
+In this how evident is the fine Italian hand of the God of
+Coincidence!
+
+Had Hutton's name begun with an M; had the H in Hutton been
+silent; had he not carried to the Mauretania a steamer basket for
+his rich aunt; had he not resented the fact that since Holworthy's
+election to the Van Sturtevant Club he had ceased to visit the
+Grill Club--a cure for sleeping sickness might have been discovered;
+but two loving hearts never would have been reunited and that story
+would not have been written.
+
+Or, Mrs. Montclair, with a suit-case, is leaving her home forever
+to join handsome Harry Bellairs, who is at the corner with a
+racing-car and all the money of the bank of which he has been
+cashier.  As the guilty woman places the farewell letter against
+the pin-cushion where her husband will be sure to find it, her
+infant son turns in his sleep and jabs himself with a pin.  His
+howl of anguish resembles that of a puppy on a moonlight night.
+The mother recognizes her master's voice.  She believes her child
+dying, flies to the bedside, tears up the letter, unpacks the suit-case.
+The next morning at breakfast her husband, reading the newspaper,
+exclaims aloud:
+
+"Harry Bellairs," he cries, "has skipped with the bank's money! I
+always told you he was not a man you ought to know."
+
+"His manner to me," she says severely, "always was that of a
+perfect gentleman."
+
+Again coincidence gets the credit.  Had not the child tossed--had
+not at the critical moment the safety pin proved untrue to the man
+who invented it--that happy family reunion would have been
+impossible.
+
+Or, it might be told this way:
+
+Old Man McCurdy, the Pig-Iron King, forbids his daughter Gwendolyn
+even to think of marrying poor but honest Beef Walters, the baseball
+pitcher, and denies him his house.  The lovers plan an elopement.
+At midnight Beef is to stand at the tradesman's entrance and whistle
+"Waiting at the Church"; and down the silent stairs Gwendolyn is to
+steal into his arms.  At the very same hour the butler has planned with
+the policeman on fixed post to steal Mother McCurdy's diamonds
+and pass them to a brother of the policeman, who is to wait at the
+tradesman's entrance and whistle "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee."
+
+This sounds improbable--especially that the policeman would
+allow even his brother to get the diamonds before he did; but,
+with the God of Coincidence on the job, you shall see that it
+will all come out right.  Beef is first at the door.  He whistles.
+The butler--an English butler--with no ear for music, shoves into
+his hands tiaras and sunbursts.  Honest Beef hands over the butler
+to the policeman and the tiaras to Mother McCurdy.
+
+"How can I reward you?" exclaims the grateful woman.
+
+"Your daughter's hand!"
+
+Again the God of Coincidence scores and Beef Walters is credited
+with an assist.  And for preventing the robbery McCurdy has the
+peg-post cop made a captain; thus enabling him to wear diamonds
+of his own and raising him above the need of taking them from
+others.
+
+These examples of what the god can do are mere fiction; the story
+that comes now really happened.  It also is a story of coincidence.
+It shows how this time the long arm was stretched out to make two
+young people happy; it again illustrates that, in the instruments he
+chooses, the God of Coincidence works in a mysterious way his
+wonders to perform.  This time the tool he used was a hat of green felt.
+
+The story really should be called "The Man in the Green Hat."
+
+At St. James's Palace the plenipotentiaries of the Allies and of Turkey
+were trying to bring peace to Europe; in Russell Square, Bloomsbury,
+Sam Lowell was trying to arrange a peace with Mrs. Wroxton, his
+landlady.  The ultimatum of the Allies was: "Adrianople or fight!"
+The last words of Mrs. Wroxton were: "Five pounds or move out!"
+
+Sam did not have five pounds.  He was a stranger in London; he had
+lost his position in New York and that very morning had refused to
+marry the girl he loved--Polly Seward, the young woman the Sunday
+papers called "The Richest Girl in America."
+
+For any man--for one day--that would seem to be trouble enough; but
+to the Sultan of Turkey that day brought troubles far more serious.
+And, as his losses were Sam's gain, we must follow the troubles of
+the Sultan.  Until, with the aid of a green felt hat, the God of
+Coincidence turns the misfortunes of the Sultan into a fortune
+for Sam, Sam must wait.
+
+From the first days of the peace conference it was evident there
+was a leak.  The negotiations had been opened under a most solemn
+oath of secrecy.  As to the progress of the conference, only such
+information or misinformation--if the diplomats considered it better-
+as was mutually agreed upon by the plenipotentiaries was given to
+a waiting world.  But each morning, in addition to the official report
+of the proceedings of the day previous, one newspaper, the Times,
+published an account which differed from that in every other paper,
+and which undoubtedly came from the inside.  In details it was far
+more generous than the official report; it gave names, speeches,
+arguments; it described the wordy battles of the diplomats, the
+concessions, bluffs, bargains.
+
+After three days the matter became public scandal.  At first, the
+plenipotentiaries declared the events described in the Times were
+invented each evening in the office of the Times; but the proceedings
+of the day following showed the public this was not so.
+
+Some one actually present at the conference was telling tales out
+of school.  These tales were cabled to Belgrade, Sofia, Athens,
+Constantinople; and hourly from those capitals the plenipotentiaries
+were assailed by advice, abuse, and threats.  The whole world began
+to take part in their negotiations; from every side they were attacked;
+from home by the Young Turks, or the On to Constantinople Party;
+and from abroad by peace societies, religious bodies, and chambers
+of commerce.  Even the armies in the field, instead of waiting for the
+result of their deliberations, told them what to do, and that unless
+they did it they would better remain in exile.  To make matters worse,
+in every stock exchange gambling on the news furnished by the Times
+threatened the financial peace of Europe.  To work under such
+conditions of publicity was impossible.  The delegates appealed to
+their hosts of the British Foreign Office.
+
+Unless the chiel amang them takin' notes was discovered and the
+leak stopped, they declared the conference must end.  Spurred on
+by questions in Parliament, by appeals from the great banking world,
+by criticisms not altogether unselfish from the other newspapers,
+the Foreign Office surrounded St. James's Palace and the office
+of the Times with an army of spies.  Every secretary, stenographer,
+and attendant at the conference was under surveillance, his past
+record looked into, his present comings and goings noted.  Even
+the plenipotentiaries themselves were watched; and employees of
+the Times were secretly urged to sell the government the man who
+was selling secrets to them.  But those who were willing to be "urged"
+did not know the man; those who did know him refused to be bought.
+
+By a process of elimination suspicion finally rested upon one
+Adolf Hertz, a young Hungarian scholar who spoke and wrote all
+the mongrel languages of the Balkans; who for years, as a copying
+clerk and translator, had been employed by the Foreign Office,
+and who now by it had been lent to the conference.  For the reason
+that when he lived in Budapest he was a correspondent of the
+Times, the police, in seeking for the leak, centred their attention
+upon Hertz.  But, though every moment he was watched, and though
+Hertz knew he was watched, no present link between him and the
+Times had been established- and this in spite of the fact that the
+hours during which it was necessary to keep him under closest
+observation were few.  Those were the hours between the closing
+of the conference, and midnight, when the provincial edition of the
+Times went to press.  For the remainder of the day, so far as the
+police cared, Hertz could go to the devil! But for those hours,
+except when on his return from the conference he locked himself
+in his lodgings in Jermyn Street, detectives were always at his elbow.
+
+It was supposed that it was during this brief period when he was
+locked in his room that he wrote his report; but how, later, he
+conveyed it to the Times no one could discover.  In his rooms there
+was no telephone; his doors and windows were openly watched;
+and after leaving his rooms his movements were--as they always
+had been--methodical, following a routine open to observation.
+His programme was invariably the same.  Each night at seven from
+his front door he walked west.  At Regent Street he stopped to buy
+an evening paper from the aged news-vender at the corner; he then
+crossed Piccadilly Circus into Coventry Street, skirted Leicester
+Square, and at the end of Green Street entered Pavoni's Italian
+restaurant.  There he took his seat always at the same table, hung
+his hat always on the same brass peg, ordered the same Hungarian
+wine, and read the same evening paper.  He spoke to no one; no one
+spoke to him.
+
+When he had finished his coffee and his cigarette he returned to
+his lodgings, and there he remained until he rang for breakfast.
+From the time at which he left his home until his return to it he
+spoke to only two persons--the news-vender to whom he handed
+a halfpenny; the waiter who served him the regular table d'hote
+dinner--between whom and Hertz nothing passed but three and six
+for the dinner and sixpence for the waiter himself.
+
+Each evening, the moment he moved into the street a plain-clothes
+man fell into step beside him; another followed at his heels; and
+from across the street more plain-clothes men kept their eyes on
+every one approaching him in front or from the rear.  When he
+bought his evening paper six pairs of eyes watched him place a
+halfpenny in the hand of the news-vender, and during the entire
+time of his stay in Pavoni's every mouthful he ate was noted-
+-
+every direction he gave the waiter was overheard.
+
+Of this surveillance Hertz was well aware.  To have been ignorant
+of it would have argued him blind and imbecile.  But he showed no
+resentment.  With eyes grave and untroubled, he steadily regarded
+his escort; but not by the hastening of a footstep or the acceleration
+of a gesture did he admit that by his audience he was either distressed
+or embarrassed.  That was the situation on the morning when the
+Treaty of London was to be signed and sealed.
+
+In spite of the publicity given to the conference by the Times,
+however, what the terms of the treaty might be no one knew.  If
+Adrianople were surrendered; if Salonika were given to Greece; if
+Servia obtained a right-of-way to the Adriatic--peace was assured;
+but, should the Young Turks refuse--should Austria prove obstinate-
+not only would the war continue, but the Powers would be involved,
+and that greater, more awful war--the war dreaded by all the Christian
+world--might turn Europe into a slaughter-house.
+
+Would Turkey and Austria consent and peace ensue? Would they
+refuse and war follow? That morning those were the questions on
+the lips of every man in London save one.  He was Sam Lowell; and
+he was asking himself another and more personal question: "How
+can I find five pounds and pacify Mrs. Wroxton?"
+
+He had friends in New York who would cable him money to pay his
+passage home; but he did not want to go home.  He preferred to
+starve in London than be vulgarly rich anywhere else.  That was
+not because he loved London, but because above everything in life
+he loved Polly Seward--and Polly Seward was in London.  He had
+begun to love her on class day of his senior year; and, after his
+father died and left him with no one else to care for, every day
+he had loved her more.
+
+Until a month before he had been in the office of Wetmore &
+Hastings, a smart brokers' firm in Wall Street.  He had obtained
+the position not because he was of any use to Wetmore & Hastings,
+but because the firm was the one through which his father had
+gambled the money that would otherwise have gone to Sam.  In
+giving Sam a job the firm thought it was making restitution.  Sam
+thought it was making the punishment fit the crime; for he knew
+nothing of the ways of Wall Street, and having to learn them bored
+him extremely.  He wanted to write stories for the magazines.  He
+wanted to bind them in a book and dedicate them to Polly.  And
+in this wish editors humored him--but not so many editors or with
+such enthusiasm as to warrant his turning his back on Wall Street.
+
+That he did later when, after a tour of the world that had begun
+from the San Francisco side, Polly Seward and her mother and
+Senator Seward reached Naples.  There Senator Seward bought
+old Italian furniture for his office on the twenty-fifth floor of the
+perfectly new Seward building.  Mrs. Seward tried to buy for Polly
+a prince nearly as old as the furniture, and Polly bought picture
+post-cards which she sent to Sam.
+
+Polly had been absent six months, and Sam's endurance had been so
+timed as just to last out the half-year.  It was not guaranteed to
+withstand any change of schedule, and the two months' delay in
+Italy broke his heart.  It could not run overtime on a starvation
+diet of post-cards; so when he received a cable reading, "Address
+London, Claridge's," his heart told him it could no longer wait-
+and he resigned his position and sailed.
+
+On her trip round the world Polly had learned many things.  She
+was observant, alert, intent on asking questions, hungering for
+facts.  And a charming young woman who seeks facts rather than
+attention will never lack either.  But of all the facts Polly collected,
+the one of surpassing interest, and which gave her the greatest
+happiness, was that she could not live without Sam Lowell.  She
+had suspected this, and it was partly to make sure that she had
+consented to the trip round the world.  Now that she had made
+sure, she could not too soon make up for the days lost.  Sam had
+spent his money, and he either must return to New York and earn
+more or remain near Polly and starve.  It was an embarrassing
+choice.  Polly herself made the choice even more difficult.
+
+One morning when they walked in St. James's Park to feed the
+ducks she said to him:
+
+"Sam, when are we to be married?"
+
+When for three years a man has been begging a girl to marry him,
+and she consents at the exact moment when, without capitulation
+to all that he holds honorable, he cannot marry anybody, his
+position deserves sympathy.
+
+"My dear one," exclaimed the unhappy youth, "you make me the
+most miserable of men! I can't marry! I'm in an awful place! If I
+married you now I'd be a crook! It isn't a question of love in a
+cottage, with bread and cheese.  If cottages were renting for a
+dollar a year I couldn't rent one for ten minutes.  I haven't cheese
+enough to bait a mouse-trap.  It's terrible! But we have got to wait."
+
+"Wait!" cried Polly.  "I thought you had been waiting! Have I been
+away too long? Do you love some one else?"
+
+"Don't be ridiculous!" said Sam crossly.  "Look at me," he
+commanded, "and tell me whom I love!"
+
+Polly did not take time to look.
+
+"But I," she protested, "have so much money!"
+
+"It's not your money," explained Sam.  "It's your mother's money
+or your father's, and both of them dislike me.  They even have told
+me so.  Your mother wants you to marry that Italian; and your
+father, having half the money in America, naturally wants to
+marry you to the other half.  If I were selfish and married you
+I'd be all the things they think I am."
+
+"You are selfish!" cried Polly.  "You're thinking of yourself and
+of what people will say, instead of how to make me happy.  What's
+the use of money if you can't buy what you want?"
+
+"Are you suggesting you can buy me?" demanded Sam.
+
+"Surely," said Polly--"if I can't get you any other way.  And you
+may name your own price, too."
+
+"When I am making enough to support myself without sponging on
+you," explained Sam, "you can have as many millions as you like;
+but I must first make enough to keep me alive.  A man who can't do
+that isn't fit to marry."
+
+"How much," demanded Polly, "do you need to keep you alive? Maybe
+I could lend it to you."
+
+Sam was entirely serious.
+
+"Three thousand a year," he said.
+
+Polly exclaimed indignantly.
+
+"I call that extremely extravagant!" she cried.  "If we wait until you
+earn three thousand a year we may be dead.  Do you expect to earn
+that writing stories?"
+
+"I can try," said Sam--"or I will rob a bank."
+
+Polly smiled upon him appealingly.
+
+"You know how I love your stories," she said, "and I wouldn't
+hurt your feelings for the world; but, Sam dear, I think you had
+better rob a bank!"
+
+Addressing an imaginary audience, supposedly of men, Sam
+exclaimed:
+
+"Isn't that just like a woman? She wouldn't care," he protested,
+"how I got the money!"
+
+Polly smiled cheerfully.
+
+"Not if I got you!" she said.  In extenuation, also, she addressed
+an imaginary audience, presumably of women. "That's how I love
+him!" she exclaimed.  "And he asks me to wait! Isn't that just like
+a man? Seriously," she went on, "if we just go ahead and get married
+father would have to help us.  He'd make you a vice-president or
+something."
+
+At this suggestion Sam expressed his extreme displeasure.
+
+"The last time I talked to your father," he said, "I was in a position
+to marry, and I told him I wanted to marry you.  What he said to
+that was: 'Don't be an ass!' Then I told him he was unintelligent--
+and I told him why.  First, because he could not see that a man
+might want to marry his daughter in spite of her money; and
+second, because he couldn't see that her money wouldn't make
+up to a man for having him for a father-in-law."
+
+"Did you have to tell him that?" asked Polly.
+
+"Some one had to tell him," said Sam gloomily.  "Anyway, as a
+source of revenue father is eliminated.  I have still one chance
+in London.  If that fails I must go home.  I've been promised a job
+in New York reporting for a Wall Street paper--and I'll write stories
+on the side.  I've cabled for money, and if the London job falls
+through I shall sail Wednesday."
+
+"Wednesday!" cried Polly.  "When you say things like 'Wednesday'
+you make the world so dark! You must stay here! It has been such
+a long six months; and before you earn three thousand dollars I
+shall be an old, old maid.  But if you get work here we could see
+each other every day."
+
+They were in the Sewards' sitting-room at Claridge's.  Sam took up
+the desk telephone.
+
+"In London," he said, "my one best and only bet is a man named
+Forsythe, who helps edit the Pall Mall.  I'll telephone him now.
+If he can promise me even a shilling a day I'll stay on and starve--
+but I'll be near you.  If Forsythe fails me I shall sail Wednesday."
+
+The telephone call found Forsythe at the Pall Mall office.  He would
+be charmed to advise Mr. Lowell on a matter of business.  Would he
+that night dine with Mr. Lowell? He would.  And might he suggest
+that they dine at Pavoni's? He had a special reason for going there,
+and the dinner would cost only three and six.
+
+"That's reason enough!" Sam told him.
+
+"And don't forget," said Polly when, for the fifth time, Sam rose
+to go, "that after your dinner you are to look for me at the Duchess
+of Deptford's dance.  I asked her for a card and you will find it at
+your lodgings.  Everybody will be there; but it is a big place-full
+of dark corners where we can hide."
+
+"Don't hide until I arrive," said Sam.  "I shall be very late, as
+I shall have to walk.  After I pay for Forsythe's dinner and for
+white gloves for your dance I shall not be in a position to hire
+a taxi.  But maybe I shall bring good news.  Maybe Forsythe will
+give me the job.  If he does we will celebrate in champagne.
+"
+
+"You will let me at least pay for the champagne?" begged Polly.
+
+"No," said Sam firmly--"the duchess will furnish that."
+
+When Sam reached his lodgings in Russell Square, which he
+approached with considerable trepidation, he found Mrs. Wroxton
+awaiting him.  But her attitude no longer was hostile.  On the
+contrary, as she handed him a large, square envelope, decorated
+with the strawberry leaves of a duke, her manner was humble.
+
+Sam opened the envelope and, with apparent carelessness, stuck it
+over the fireplace.
+
+"About that back rent," he said; "I have cabled for money, and as
+soon--"
+
+"I know," said Mrs. Wroxton.  "I read the cable."  She was reading
+the card of invitation also.  "There's no hurry, sir," protested Mrs.
+Wroxton.  "Any of my young gentlemen who is made welcome at
+Deptford House is made welcome here!"
+
+"Credit, Mrs. Wroxton," observed Sam, "is better than cash.  If
+you have only cash you spend it and nothing remains.  But with
+credit you can continue indefinitely to-to-"
+
+"So you can!" exclaimed Mrs. Wroxton enthusiastically.  "Stay as
+long as you like, Mr. Lowell."
+
+At Pavoni's Sam found Forsythe already seated and, with evident
+interest, observing the scene of gayety before him.  The place was
+new to Sam, and after the darkness and snow of the streets it
+appeared both cheerful and resplendent.  It was brilliantly lighted;
+a ceiling of gay panels picked out with gold, and red plush sofas,
+backed against walls hung with mirrors and faced by rows of
+marble-topped tables, gave it an air of the Continent.
+
+Sam surrendered his hat and coat to the waiter.  The hat was a
+soft Alpine one of green felt.  The waiter hung it where Sam
+could see it, on one of many hooks that encircled a gilded pillar.
+
+After two courses had been served Forsythe said:
+
+"I hope you don't object to this place.  I had a special reason
+for wishing to be here on this particular night.  I wanted to be
+in at the death!"
+
+"Whose death?" asked Sam.  "Is the dinner as bad as that?"
+
+Forsythe leaned back against the mirror behind them and, bringing
+his shoulder close to Sam's, spoke in a whisper.
+
+"As you know," he said, "to-day the delegates sign the Treaty of
+London.  It still must receive the signatures of the Sultan and
+the three kings; and they will sign it.  But until they do, what
+the terms of the treaty are no one can find out."
+
+"I'll bet the Times finds out!" said Sam.
+
+"That's it!" returned Forsythe.  "Hertz, the man who is supposed to
+be selling the secrets of the conference to the Times, dines here.
+To-night is his last chance.  If to-night he can slip the Times a
+copy of the Treaty of London without being caught, and the
+Times has the courage to publish it, it will be the biggest
+newspaper sensation of modern times; and it will either cause
+a financial panic all over Europe--or prevent one.  The man they
+suspect is facing us.  Don't look now, but in a minute you will
+see him sitting alone at a table on the right of the middle pillar.
+The people at the tables nearest him--even the women--are
+detectives.  His waiter is in the employ of Scotland Yard.  The
+maitre d'hotel, whom you will see always hovering round his
+table, is a police agent lent by Bulgaria.  For the Allies are even
+more anxious to stop the leak than we are.  We are interested
+only as their hosts; with them it is a matter of national life or
+death.  A week ago one of our own inspectors tipped me off to
+what is going on, and every night since then I've dined here,
+hoping to see something suspicious."
+
+"Have you?" asked Sam.
+
+"Only this," whispered Forsythe--"on four different nights I've
+recognized men I know are on the staff of the Times, and on the
+other nights men I don't know may have been here.  But after all
+that proves nothing, for this place is a resort of newspaper writers
+and editors--and the Times men's being here may have been only
+a coincidence."
+
+"And Hertz?" asked Sam--"what does he do?"
+
+The Englishman exclaimed with irritation.
+
+"Just what you see him doing now!" he protested.  "He eats his
+dinner! Look at him!" he commanded.  "Of all in the room he's the
+least concerned."
+
+Sam looked and saw the suspected Adolf Hertz dangling a mass
+of macaroni on the end of his fork.  Sam watched him until it
+disappeared.
+
+"Maybe that's a signal!" suggested Sam.  "Maybe everything he does
+is part of a cipher code! He gives the signals and the Times men
+read them and write them down."
+
+"A man would have a fine chance to write anything down in this
+room!" said Forsythe.
+
+"But maybe," persisted Sam, "when he makes those strange
+movements with his lips he is talking to a confederate who can
+read the lip language.  The confederate writes it down at the
+office and--"
+
+"Fantastic and extremely improbable!" commented Forsythe.  "But,
+nevertheless, the fact remains, the fellow does communicate with
+some one from the Times; and the police are positive he does it
+here and that he is doing it now!"
+
+The problem that so greatly disturbed his friend would have more
+deeply interested Sam had the solving of his own trouble been
+less imperative.  That alone filled his mind.  And when the coffee
+was served and the cigars lit, without beating about the bush Sam
+asked Forsythe bluntly if on his paper a rising and impecunious
+genius could find a place.  With even less beating about the bush
+Forsythe assured him he could not.  The answer was final, and the
+disappointment was so keen that Sam soon begged his friend to
+excuse him, paid his bill, and rose to depart.
+
+"Better wait!" urged Forsythe.  "You'll find nothing so good out
+at a music-hall.  This is Houdini getting out of his handcuffs
+before an audience entirely composed of policemen."
+
+Sam shook his head gloomily.
+
+"I have a few handcuffs of my own to get rid of," he said, "and
+it makes me poor company."
+
+He bade his friend good night and, picking his way among the
+tables, moved toward the pillar on which the waiter had hung his
+hat.  The pillar was the one beside which Hertz was sitting, and
+as Sam approached the man he satisfied his curiosity by a long
+look.  Under the glance Hertz lowered his eyes and fixed them
+upon his newspaper.  Sam retrieved his hat and left the restaurant.
+
+His mind immediately was overcast.  He remembered his disappointment
+and that the parting between himself and Polly was now inevitable.
+Without considering his direction he turned toward Charing Cross
+Road.  But he was not long allowed to meditate undisturbed.
+
+He had only crossed the little street that runs beside the restaurant
+and passed into the shadow of the National Gallery when, at the
+base of the Irving Memorial, from each side he was fiercely attacked.
+A young man of eminently respectable appearance kicked his legs
+from under him, and another of equally impeccable exterior made
+an honest effort to knock off his head.
+
+Sam plunged heavily to the sidewalk.  As he sprawled forward his
+hat fell under him and in his struggle to rise was hidden by the
+skirts of his greatcoat.  That, also, he had fallen heavily upon his
+hat with both knees Sam did not know.  The strange actions of
+his assailants enlightened him.  To his surprise, instead of
+continuing their assault or attempting a raid upon his pockets,
+he found them engaged solely in tugging at the hat.  And so
+preoccupied were they in this that, though still on his knees,
+Sam was able to land some lusty blows before a rush of feet
+caused the young men to leap to their own and, pursued by
+several burly forms, disappear in the heart of the traffic.
+
+Sam rose and stood unsteadily.  He found himself surrounded by
+all of those who but a moment before he had left contentedly
+dining at Pavoni's.  In an excited circle waiters and patrons of
+the restaurant, both men and women, stood in the falling snow,
+bareheaded, coatless, and cloakless, staring at him.  Forsythe
+pushed them aside and took Sam by the arm.
+
+"What happened?" demanded Sam.
+
+"You ought to know," protested Forsythe.  "You started it! The
+moment you left the restaurant two men grabbed their hats and
+jumped after you; a dozen other men, without waiting for hats,
+jumped after them.  The rest of us got out just as the two men
+and the detectives dived into the traffic."
+
+A big man, with an air of authority, drew Sam to one side.
+
+"Did they take anything from you, sir?" he asked.
+
+"I've nothing they could take," said Sam.  "And they didn't try to
+find out.  They just knocked me down."
+
+Forsythe turned to the big man.
+
+"This gentleman is a friend of mine, inspector," he said.  "He is
+a stranger in town and was at Pavoni's only by accident."
+
+"We might need his testimony," suggested the official.
+
+Sam gave his card to the inspector and then sought refuge in a
+taxicab.  For the second time he bade his friend good night.
+
+"And when next we dine," he called to him in parting, "choose a
+restaurant where the detective service is quicker!"
+
+Three hours later, brushed and repaired by Mrs. Wroxton, and
+again resplendent, Sam sat in a secluded corner of Deptford House
+and bade Polly a long farewell.  It was especially long, owing to
+the unusual number of interruptions; for it was evident that Polly
+had many friends in London, and that not to know the Richest One
+in America and her absurd mother, and the pompous, self-satisfied
+father, argued oneself nobody.  But finally the duchess carried Polly
+off to sup with her; and as the duchess did not include Sam in her
+invitation--at least not in such a way that any one could notice it--
+Sam said good-night--but not before he had arranged a meeting
+with Polly for eleven that same morning.  If it was clear, the
+meeting was to be at the duck pond in St. James's Park; if it
+snowed, at the National Gallery in front of the "Age of
+Innocence."
+
+After robbing the duchess of three suppers, Sam descended to
+the hall and from an attendant received his coat and hat, which
+latter the attendant offered him with the inside of the hat
+showing.  Sam saw in it the trademark of a foreign maker.
+
+"That's not my hat," said Sam.
+
+The man expressed polite disbelief.
+
+"I found it rolled up in the pocket of your greatcoat, sir," he
+protested.
+
+The words reminded Sam that on arriving at Deptford House he had
+twisted the hat into a roll and stuffed it into his overcoat
+pocket.
+
+"Quite right," said Sam.  But it was not his hat; and with some hope
+of still recovering his property he made way for other departing
+guests and at one side waited.
+
+For some clew to the person he believed was now wearing his hat,
+Sam examined the one in his hand.  Just showing above the inside
+band was something white.  Thinking it might be the card of the
+owner, Sam removed it.  It was not a card, but a long sheet of thin
+paper, covered with typewriting, and many times folded.  Sam
+read the opening paragraph.  Then he backed suddenly toward a
+great chair of gold and velvet, and fell into it.
+
+He was conscious the attendants in pink stockings were regarding
+him askance; that, as they waited in the drafty hall for cars and taxis,
+the noble lords in stars and ribbons, the noble ladies in tiaras and
+showing much-fur-lined galoshes, were discussing his strange
+appearance.  They might well believe the youth was ill; they might
+easily have considered him intoxicated.  Outside rose the voices of
+servants and police calling the carriages.  Inside other servants echoed
+them.
+
+"The Duchess of Sutherland's car!" they chanted. "Mrs. Trevor
+Hill's carriage! The French ambassador's carriage! Baron
+Haussmann's car!"
+
+Like one emerging from a trance, Sam sprang upright.  A little fat
+man, with mild blue eyes and curly red hair, was shyly and with
+murmured apologies pushing toward the exit.  Before he gained it
+Sam had wriggled a way to his elbow.
+
+"Baron Haussmann!" he stammered.  "I must speak to you.  It's a
+matter of gravest importance.  Send away your car," he begged,
+"and give me five minutes."
+
+The eyes of the little fat man opened wide in surprise, almost in
+alarm.  He stared at Sam reprovingly.
+
+"Impossible!" he murmured.  "I--I do not know you."
+
+"This is a letter of introduction," said Sam.  Into the unwilling
+fingers of the banker he thrust the folded paper.  Bending over
+him, he whispered in his ear.  "That," said Sam, "is the Treaty of
+London!"
+
+The alarm of Baron Haussmann increased to a panic.
+
+"Impossible!" he gasped.  And, with reproach, he repeated: "I do
+not know you, sir! I do not know you!"
+
+At that moment, towering above the crush, appeared the tall figure
+of Senator Seward.  The rich man of the New World and the rich
+man of Europe knew each other only by sight.  But, upon seeing
+Sam in earnest converse with the great banker, the senator
+believed that without appearing to seek it he might through Sam
+effect a meeting.  With a hearty slap on the shoulder he greeted
+his fellow countryman.
+
+"Halloo, Sam!" he cried genially.  "You walking home with me?"
+
+Sam did not even turn his head.
+
+"No!" he snapped.  "I'm busy.  Go 'way!"
+
+Crimson, the senator disappeared.  Baron Haussmann regarded the
+young stranger with amazed interest.
+
+"You know him!" he protested.  "He called you Sam!"
+
+"Know him?" cried Sam impatiently.  "I've got to know him! He's
+going to be my father-in-law."
+
+The fingers of the rich man clutched the folded paper as the
+claws of a parrot cling to the bars of his cage.  He let his sable
+coat slip into the hands of a servant; he turned back toward the
+marble staircase.
+
+"Come!" he commanded.
+
+Sam led him to the secluded corner Polly and he had left vacant
+and told his story.
+
+"So, it is evident," concluded Sam, "that each night some one in
+the service of the Times dined at Pavoni's, and that his hat was
+the same sort of hat as the one worn by Hertz; and each night,
+inside the lining of his hat, Hertz hid the report of that day's
+proceedings.  And when the Times man left the restaurant he
+exchanged hats with Hertz.  But to-night--I got Hertz's hat and
+with it the treaty!"
+
+In perplexity the blue eyes of the little great man frowned.
+
+"It is a remarkable story," he said.
+
+"You mean you don't believe me!" retorted Sam.  "If I had
+financial standing--if I had credit--if I were not a stranger-
+you would not hesitate."
+
+Baron Haussmann neither agreed nor contradicted.  He made a polite
+and deprecatory gesture.  Still in doubt, he stared at the piece of white
+paper.  Still deep in thought, he twisted and creased between his fingers
+the Treaty of London!
+
+Returning with the duchess from supper, Polly caught sight of Sam
+and, with a happy laugh, ran toward him.  Seeing he was not alone,
+she halted and waved her hand.
+
+"Don't forget!" she called. "At eleven!"
+
+She made a sweet and lovely picture.  Sam rose and bowed.
+
+"I'll be there at ten," he answered.
+
+With his mild blue eyes the baron followed Polly until she had
+disappeared.  Then he turned and smiled at Sam.
+
+"Permit me," he said, "to offer you my felicitations.  Your young
+lady is very beautiful and very good."  Sam bowed his head.  "If
+she trusts you," murmured the baron, "I think I can trust you
+too."
+
+"How wonderful is credit!" exclaimed Sam.  "I was just saying so
+to my landlady.  If you have only cash you spend it and nothing
+remains.  But with credit you can--"
+
+"How much," interrupted the banker, "do you want for this?"
+
+Sam returned briskly to the business of the moment.
+
+"To be your partner," he said--"to get half of what you make out
+of it."
+
+The astonished eyes of the baron were large with wonder.  Again he
+reproved Sam.
+
+"What I shall make out of it?" he demanded incredulously.  "Do you
+know how much I shall make out of it?"
+
+"I cannot even guess," said Sam; "but I want half."
+
+The baron smiled tolerantly.
+
+"And how," he asked, "could you possibly know what I give you is
+really half?"
+
+In his turn, Sam made a deprecatory gesture.
+
+"Your credit," said Sam, "is good!"
+
+That morning, after the walk in St. James's Park, when Sam returned
+with Polly to Claridge's, they encountered her father in the hall.
+Mindful of the affront of the night before, he greeted Sam only
+with a scowl.
+
+"Senator," cried Sam happily, "you must be the first to hear the news!
+Polly and I are going into partnership.  We are to be married."
+
+This time Senator Seward did not trouble himself even to tell Sam
+he was an ass.  He merely grinned cynically.
+
+"Is that all your news?" he demanded with sarcasm.
+
+"No," said Sam--"I am going into partnership with Baron Haussmann
+too!"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BURIED TREASURE OF COBRE
+
+
+
+Young Everett at last was a minister plenipotentiary.  In London
+as third secretary he had splashed around in the rain to find the
+ambassador's carriage.  In Rome as a second secretary he had
+served as a clearing-house for the Embassy's visiting-cards; and
+in Madrid as first secretary he had acted as interpreter for a
+minister who, though valuable as a national chairman, had much
+to learn of even his own language.  But although surrounded by
+all the wonders and delights of Europe, although he walked, talked,
+wined, and dined with statesmen and court beauties, Everett was
+not happy.  He was never his own master.  Always he answered the
+button pressed by the man higher up.  Always over him loomed his
+chief; always, for his diligence and zeal, his chief received credit.
+
+As His Majesty's naval attache put it sympathetically, "Better be
+a top-side man on a sampan than First Luff on the Dreadnought.
+Don't be another man's right hand.  Be your own right hand."
+Accordingly when the State Department offered to make him
+minister to the Republic of Amapala, Everett gladly deserted the
+flesh-pots of Europe, and, on mule-back over trails in the living
+rock, through mountain torrents that had never known the shadow
+of a bridge, through swamp and jungle, rode sunburnt and
+saddle-sore into his inheritance.
+
+When giving him his farewell instructions, the Secretary of State
+had not attempted to deceive him.
+
+"Of all the smaller republics of Central America," he frankly told
+him, "Amapala is the least desirable, least civilized, least acceptable.
+It offers an ambitious young diplomat no chance.  But once a minister,
+always a minister.  Having lifted you out of the secretary class we can't
+demote you.  Your days of deciphering cablegrams are over, and if you
+don't die of fever, of boredom, or brandy, call us up in a year or two
+and we will see what we can do."
+
+Everett regarded the Secretary blankly.
+
+"Has the department no interest in Amapala?" he begged.  "Is there
+nothing you want there?"
+
+"There is one thing we very much want," returned the Secretary,
+"but we can't get it.  We want a treaty to extradite criminals."
+
+The young minister laughed confidently.
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, "that should be easy."
+
+The Secretary smiled.
+
+"You have our full permission to get it," he said.  "This department,"
+he explained, "under three administrations has instructed four
+ministers to arrange such a treaty.  The Bankers' Association wants
+it; the Merchants' Protective Alliance wants it.  Amapala is the only
+place within striking distance of our country where a fugitive is safe.
+It is the only place where a dishonest cashier, swindler, or felon can
+find refuge.  Sometimes it seems almost as though when a man planned
+a crime he timed it exactly so as to catch the boat for Amapala.  And,
+once there, we can't lay our hands on him; and, what's more, we can't
+lay our hands on the money he takes with him.  I have no right to make
+a promise," said the great man, "but the day that treaty is signed you
+can sail for a legation in Europe.  Do I make myself clear?"
+
+"So clear, sir," cried Everett, laughing, "that if I don't
+arrange that treaty I will remain in Amapala until I do."
+
+"Four of your predecessors," remarked the Secretary, "made
+exactly the same promise, but none of them got us the treaty."
+
+"Probably none of them remained in Amapala, either," retorted
+Everett.
+
+"Two did," corrected the Secretary; "as you ride into Camaguay
+you see their tombstones."
+
+Everett found the nine-day mule-ride from the coast to the capital
+arduous, but full of interest.  After a week at his post he appreciated
+that until he left it and made the return journey nothing of equal
+interest was again likely to occur.  For life in Camaguay, the capital
+of Amapala, proved to be one long, dreamless slumber.  In the morning
+each of the inhabitants engaged in a struggle to get awake; after the
+second breakfast he ceased struggling, and for a siesta sank into his
+hammock.  After dinner, at nine o'clock, he was prepared to sleep in
+earnest, and went to bed.  The official life as explained to Everett by
+Garland, the American consul, was equally monotonous.  When
+President Mendoza was not in the mountains deer-hunting, or
+suppressing a revolution, each Sunday he invited the American
+minister to dine at the palace.  In return His Excellency expected
+once a week to be invited to breakfast with the minister.  He preferred
+that the activities of that gentleman should go no further.  Life in the
+diplomatic circle was even less strenuous.  Everett was the doyen
+of the diplomatic corps because he was the only diplomat.  All
+other countries were represented by consuls who were commission
+merchants and shopkeepers.  They were delighted at having among
+them a minister plenipotentiary.  When he took pity on them and
+invited them to tea, which invitations he delivered in person to
+each consul at the door of each shop, the entire diplomatic corps,
+as the consuls were pleased to describe themselves, put up the
+shutters, put on their official full-dress uniforms and arrived in
+a body.
+The first week at his post Everett spent in reading the archives of
+the legation.  They were most discouraging.  He found that for the
+sixteen years prior to his arrival the only events reported to the
+department by his predecessors were revolutions and the refusals
+of successive presidents to consent to a treaty of extradition.  On
+that point all Amapalans were in accord.  Though overnight the
+government changed hands, though presidents gave way to dictators,
+and dictators to military governors, the national policy of Amapala
+continued to be "No extradition!"  The ill success of those who had
+preceded him appalled Everett.  He had promised himself by a
+brilliant assault to secure the treaty and claim the legation in
+Europe.  But the record of sixteen years of failure caused him
+to alter his strategy.  Instead of an attack he prepared for a siege.
+He unpacked his books, placed the portrait of his own President
+over the office desk, and proceeded to make friends with his fellow
+exiles.
+
+Of the foreign colony in Camaguay some fifty were Americans, and
+from the rest of the world they were as hopelessly separated as the
+crew of a light-ship.  From the Pacific they were cut off by the
+Cordilleras, from the Caribbean by a nine-day mule-ride.  To the
+north and south, jungle, forests, swamp-lands, and mountains
+hemmed them in.
+
+Of the fifty Americans, one-half were constantly on the trail;
+riding to the coast to visit their plantations, or into the mountains
+to inspect their mines.  When Everett arrived, of those absent
+the two most important were Chester Ward and Colonel Goddard.
+Indeed, so important were these gentlemen that Everett was made
+to understand that, until they approved, his recognition as the
+American minister was in a manner temporary.
+
+Chester Ward, or "Chet," as the exiles referred to him, was one of
+the richest men in Amapala, and was engaged in exploring the ruins
+of the lost city of Cobre, which was a one-hour ride from the capital.
+Ward possessed the exclusive right to excavate that buried city and
+had held it against all comers.  The offers of American universities,
+of archaeological and geographical societies that also wished to dig
+up the ancient city and decipher the hieroglyphs on her walls, were
+met with a curt rebuff.  That work, the government of Amapala would
+reply, was in the trained hands of Senor Chester Ward.  In his chosen
+effort the government would not disturb him, nor would it permit others
+coming in at the eleventh hour to rob him of his glory.  This Everett
+learned from the consul, Garland.
+
+"Ward and Colonel Goddard," the consul explained, "are two of
+five countrymen of ours who run the American colony, and, some
+say, run the government.  The others are Mellen, who has the
+asphalt monopoly; Jackson, who is building the railroads, and
+Major Feiberger, of the San Jose silver-mines.  They hold
+monopolies and pay President Mendoza ten per cent of the
+earnings, and, on the side, help him run the country.  Of the
+five, the Amapalans love Goddard best, because he's not trying
+to rob them.  Instead, he wants to boost Amapala.  His ideas are
+perfectly impracticable, but he doesn't know that, and neither do
+they.  He's a kind of Colonel Mulberry Sellers and a Southerner.
+Not the professional sort, that fight elevator-boys because they're
+colored, and let off rebel yells in rathskellers when a Hungarian
+band plays 'Dixie,' but the sort you read about and so seldom see.
+He was once State Treasurer of Alabama."
+
+"What's he doing down here?" asked the minister.
+
+"Never the same thing two months together," the consul told him;
+"railroads, mines, rubber.  He says all Amapala needs is developing."
+
+As men who can see a joke even when it is against themselves, the
+two exiles smiled ruefully.
+
+"That's all it needs," said Everett.
+
+For a moment the consul regarded him thoughtfully.
+
+"I might as well tell you," he said, "you'll learn it soon enough
+anyway, that the men who will keep you from getting your treaty
+are these five, especially old man Goddard and Ward."
+
+Everett exclaimed indignantly:
+
+"Why should they interfere?"
+
+"Because," explained the consul, "they are fugitives from justice,
+and they don't want to go home.  Ward is wanted for forgery or
+some polite crime, I don't know which.  And Colonel Goddard
+for appropriating the State funds of Alabama.  Ward knew what
+he was doing and made a lot out of it.  He's still rich.  No one's
+weeping over him.  Goddard's case is different.  He was imposed
+on and made a catspaw.  When he was State treasurer the men
+who appointed him came to him one night and said they must
+have some of the State's funds to show a bank examiner in the
+morning.  They appealed to him on the ground of friendship, as
+the men who'd given him his job.  They would return the money
+the next evening.  Goddard believed they would.  They didn't,
+and when some one called for a show-down the colonel was shy
+about fifty thousand dollars of the State's money.  He lost his head,
+took the boat out of Mobile to Porto Cortez, and hid here.  He's
+been here twenty years and all the Amapalans love him.  He's the
+adopted father of their country.  They're so afraid he'll be taken
+back and punished that they'll never consent to an extradition
+treaty even if the other Americans, Mellen, Jackson, and Feiberger,
+weren't paying them big money not to consent.  President Mendoza
+himself told me that as long as Colonel Goddard honored his
+country by remaining in it, he was his guest, and he would never
+agree to extradition.  'I could as soon,' he said, 'sign his
+death-warrant.'"
+
+Everett grinned dismally.
+
+"That's rather nice of them," he said, "but it's hard on me.  But," he
+demanded, "why Ward? What has he done for Amapala? Is it because
+of Cobre, because of his services as an archaeologist?"
+
+The consul glanced around the patio and dragged his chair nearer
+to Everett.
+
+"This is my own dope," he whispered; "it may be wrong.  Anyway,
+it's only for your private information."
+
+He waited until, with a smile, Everett agreed to secrecy.
+
+"Chet Ward," protested the consul, "is no more an archaeologist
+than I am! He talks well about Cobre, and he ought to, because
+every word he speaks is cribbed straight from Hauptmann's
+monograph, published in 1855.  And he has dug up something at
+Cobre; something worth a darned sight more than stone monkeys
+and carved altars.  But his explorations are a bluff.  They're a blind
+to cover up what he's really after; what I think he's found!"
+
+As though wishing to be urged, the young man paused, and Everett
+nodded for him to continue.  He was wondering whether life in
+Amapala might not turn out to be more interesting than at first
+it had appeared, or whether Garland was not a most charming liar.
+
+"Ward visits the ruins every month," continued Garland.  "But he
+takes with him only two mule-drivers to cook and look after the
+pack-train, and he doesn't let even the drivers inside the ruins.
+He remains at Cobre three or four days and, to make a show, fills
+his saddle-bags with broken tiles and copper ornaments.  He turns
+them over to the government, and it dumps them in the back yard
+of the palace.  You can't persuade me that he holds his concession
+with that junk.  He's found something else at Cobre and he shares
+it with Mendoza, and I believe it's gold."
+
+The minister smiled delightedly.
+
+"What kind of gold?
+
+"Maybe in the rough," said the consul.  "But I prefer to think
+it's treasure.  The place is full of secret chambers, tombs, and
+passage-ways cut through the rock, deep under the surface.  I
+believe Ward has stumbled on some vault where the priests used
+to hide their loot.  I believe he's getting it out bit by bit and
+going shares with Mendoza."
+
+"If that were so," ventured Everett, "why wouldn't Mendoza take
+it all?"
+
+"Because Ward," explained the consul, "is the only one who knows
+where it is.  The ruins cover two square miles.  You might search
+for years.  They tried to follow and spy on him, but Ward was too
+clever for them.  He turned back at once.  If they don't take what
+he gives, they get nothing.  So they protect him from real explorers
+and from extradition.  The whole thing is unfair.  A real archaeologist
+turned up here a month ago.  He had letters from the Smithsonian
+Institute and several big officials at Washington, but do you suppose
+they would let him so much as smell of Cobre? Not they! Not even
+when I spoke for him as consul.  Then he appealed to Ward, and Ward
+turned him down hard.  You were arriving, so he's hung on here hoping
+you may have more influence.  His name is Peabody; he's a professor,
+but he's young and full of 'get there,' and he knows more about the ruins
+of Cobre now than Ward does after having them all to himself for two
+years.  He's good people and I hope you'll help him."
+
+Everett shook his head doubtfully.
+
+"If the government has given the concession to him," he pointed
+out, "no matter who Ward may be, or what its motives were for
+giving it to him, I can't ask it to break its promise.  As an
+American citizen Ward is as much entitled to my help--
+officially--as Professor Peabody, whatever his standing."
+
+"Ward's a forger," protested Garland, "a fugitive from justice; and
+Peabody is a scholar and a gentleman.  I'm not keen about dead
+cities myself--this one we're in now is dead enough for me--but if
+civilization is demanding to know what Cobre was like eight
+hundred years ago, civilization is entitled to find out, and
+Peabody seems the man for the job.  It's a shame to turn him
+down for a gang of grafters."
+
+"Tell him to come and talk to me," said the minister.
+
+"He rode over to the ruins of Copan last week," explained Garland,
+"where the Harvard expedition is.  But he's coming back to-morrow
+on purpose to see you."
+
+The consul had started toward the door when he suddenly returned.
+
+"And there's some one else coming to see you," he said.  "Some
+one," he added anxiously, "you want to treat right.  That's Monica
+Ward.  She's Chester Ward's sister, and you mustn't get her mixed
+up with anything I told you about her brother.  She's coming to
+ask you to help start a Red Cross Society.  She was a volunteer
+nurse in the hospital in the last two revolutions, and what she
+saw makes her want to be sure she won't see it again.  She's
+taught the native ladies the 'first aid' drill, and they expect
+you to be honorary president of the society.  You'd better
+accept."
+
+Shaking his head, Garland smiled pityingly upon the new minister.
+
+"You've got a swell chance to get your treaty," he declared.
+"Monica is another one who will prevent it."
+
+Everett sighed patiently.
+
+"What," he demanded, "might her particular crime be; murder,
+shoplifting, treason--"
+
+"If her brother had to leave this country," interrupted Garland,
+"she'd leave with him.  And the people don't want that.  Her pull
+is the same as old man Goddard's.  Everybody loves him and
+everybody loves her.  I love her," exclaimed the consul
+cheerfully; "the President loves her, the sisters in the hospital,
+the chain-gang in the street, the washerwomen in the river,
+the palace guard, everybody in this flea-bitten, God-forsaken
+country loves Monica Ward--and when you meet her you
+will, too."
+
+Garland had again reached the door to the outer hall before
+Everett called him back.
+
+"If it is not a leading question," asked the minister, "what
+little indiscretion in your life brought you to Amapala?"
+
+Garland grinned appreciatively.
+
+"I know they sound a queer lot," he assented, "but when you get
+to know 'em, you like 'em.  My own trouble," he added, "was a
+horse.  I never could see why they made such a fuss about him.  He
+was lame when I took him."
+
+Disregarding Garland's pleasantry, for some time His Excellency
+sat with his hands clasped behind his head, frowning up from the
+open patio into the hot, cloudless sky.  On the ridge of his tiled
+roof a foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across
+the yellow wall a lizard ran for shelter, at his elbow a macaw
+compassing the circle of its tin prison muttered dreadful oaths.
+Outside, as the washerwomen beat their linen clubs upon the flat
+rocks of the river, the hot, stale air was spanked with sharp reports.
+In Camaguay theirs was the only industry, the only sign of
+cleanliness; and recognizing that another shirt had been thrashed
+into subjection and rags, Everett winced.  No less visibly did his
+own thoughts cause him to wince.  Garland he had forgotten,
+and he was sunk deep in self-pity.  His thoughts were of London,
+with its world politics, its splendid traditions, its great and gracious
+ladies; of Paris in the spring sunshine, when he cantered through the
+Bois; of Madrid, with its pomp and royalty, and the gray walls of its
+galleries proclaiming Murillo and Velasquez.  These things he had
+forsaken because he believed he was ambitious; and behold into
+what a cul-de-sac his ambition had led him! A comic-opera country
+that was not comic, but dead and buried from the world; a savage
+people, unread, unenlightened, unclean; and for society of his
+countrymen, pitiful derelicts in hiding from the law. In his soul
+he rebelled. In words he exploded bitterly.
+
+"This is one hell of a hole, Garland," cried the diplomat.  His
+jaws and his eyes hardened.  "I'm going back to Europe.  And
+the only way I can go is to get that treaty.  I was sent here to get
+it.  Those were my orders.  And I'll get it if I have to bribe them
+out of my own pocket; if I have to outbid Mr. Ward, and send
+him and your good Colonel Goddard and all the rest of the crew
+to the jails where they belong!"
+
+Garland heard him without emotion.  From long residence near the
+equator he diagnosed the outbreak as a case of tropic choler,
+aggravated by nostalgia and fleas.
+
+"I'll bet you don't," he said.
+
+"I'll bet you your passage-money home," shouted Everett, "against
+my passage-money to Europe."
+
+"Done!" said Garland. "How much time do you want--two years?"
+
+The diplomat exclaimed mockingly:
+
+"Two months!"
+
+"I win now, "said the consul. "I'll go home and pack."
+
+The next morning his clerk told Everett that in the outer office
+Monica Ward awaited him.
+
+Overnight Everett had developed a prejudice against Miss Ward.
+What Garland had said in her favor had only driven him the wrong
+way.  Her universal popularity he disliked.  He argued that to gain
+popularity one must concede and capitulate.  He felt that the sister
+of an acknowledged crook, no matter how innocent she might be,
+were she a sensitive woman, would wish to efface herself.  And
+he had found that, as a rule, women who worked in hospitals and
+organized societies bored him.  He did not admire the militant,
+executive sister.  He pictured Miss Ward as probably pretty, but
+with the coquettish effrontery of the village belle and with the
+pushing, "good-fellow" manners of the new school.  He was prepared
+either to have her slap him on the back or, from behind tilted
+eye-glasses, make eyes at him.  He was sure she wore eye-glasses,
+and was large, plump, and Junoesque.  With reluctance he entered
+the outer office.  He saw, all in white, a girl so young that she
+was hardly more than a child, but with the tall, slim figure of a
+boy.  Her face was lovely as the face of a violet, and her eyes
+were as shy.  But shy not through lack of confidence in Everett,
+nor in any human being, but in herself.  They seemed to say, "I am
+a very unworthy, somewhat frightened young person; but you, who
+are so big and generous, will overlook that, and you are going to
+be my friend.  Indeed, I see you are my friend."
+
+Everett stood quite still.  He nodded gloomily.
+
+"Garland was right," he exclaimed; "I do!"
+
+The young lady was plainly distressed.
+
+"Do what?" she stammered.
+
+"Some day I will tell you," said the young man.  "Yes," he added,
+without shame, "I am afraid I will."  He bowed her into the inner
+office.
+
+"I am sorry," apologized Monica, "but I am come to ask a favor--
+two favors; one of you and one of the American minister."
+
+Everett drew his armchair from his desk and waved Monica into it.
+
+"I was sent here," he said, "to do exactly what you want.  The
+last words the President addressed to me were, 'On arriving at
+your post report to Miss Monica Ward."'
+
+Fearfully, Monica perched herself on the edge of the armchair; as
+though for protection she clasped the broad table before her.
+
+"The favor I want," she hastily assured him, "is not for myself."
+
+"I am sorry," said Everett, "for it is already granted."
+
+"You are very good," protested Monica.
+
+"No," replied Everett, "I am only powerful.  I represent ninety-five
+million Americans, and they are all entirely at your service.  So is
+the army and navy."
+
+Monica smiled and shook her head.  The awe she felt was due an
+American minister was rapidly disappearing, and in Mr. Everett
+himself her confidence was increasing.  The other ministers
+plenipotentiary she had seen at Camaguay had been old, with
+beards like mountain-goats, and had worn linen dusters.  They
+always were very red in the face and very damp.  Monica decided
+Mr. Everett also was old; she was sure he must be at least
+thirty-five; but in his silk pongee and pipe-clayed tennis-shoes
+he was a refreshing spectacle.  Just to look at him turned one
+quite cool.
+
+"We have a very fine line of battle-ships this morning at
+Guantanamo," urged Everett; "if you want one I'll cable for it."
+
+Monica laughed softly.  It was good to hear nonsense spoken.  The
+Amapalans had never learned it, and her brother said just what he
+meant and no more.
+
+"Our sailors were here once," Monica volunteered.  She wanted
+Mr. Everett to know he was not entirely cut off from the world.
+"During the revolution," she explained.  "We were so glad to see
+them; they made us all feel nearer home.  They set up our flag in
+the plaza, and the color-guard let me photograph it, with them
+guarding it.  And when they marched away the archbishop stood
+on the cathedral steps and blessed them, and we rode out along the
+trail to where it comes to the jungle.  And then we waved good-by,
+and they cheered us.  We all cried."
+
+For a moment, quite unconsciously, Monica gave an imitation of
+how they all cried.  It made the appeal of the violet eyes even more
+disturbing.
+"Don't you love our sailors?" begged Monica.
+
+Fearful of hurting the feelings of others, she added hastily,
+"And, of course, our marines, too."
+
+Everett assured her if there was one thing that meant more to him
+than all else, it was an American bluejacket, and next to him an
+American leatherneck.
+
+It took a long time to arrange the details of the Red Cross
+Society.  In spite of his reputation for brilliancy, it seemed to
+Monica Mr. Everett had a mind that plodded.  For his benefit it
+was necessary several times to repeat the most simple proposition.
+She was sure his inability to fasten his attention on her League
+of Mercy was because his brain was occupied with problems of
+state.  It made her feel selfish and guilty.  When his visitor
+decided that to explain further was but to waste his valuable
+time and had made her third effort to go, Everett went with her.
+He suggested that she take him to the hospital and introduce him
+to the sisters.  He wanted to talk to them about the Red Cross
+League.  It was a charming walk.  Every one lifted his hat to
+Monica; the beggars, the cab-drivers, the barefooted policemen,
+and the social lights of Camaguay on the sidewalks in front of
+the cafes rose and bowed.
+
+"It is like walking with royalty!" exclaimed Everett.
+
+While at the hospital he talked to the Mother Superior--his eyes
+followed Monica.  As she moved from cot to cot he noted how
+the younger sisters fluttered happily around her, like bridesmaids
+around a bride, and how as she passed, the eyes of those in the
+cots followed her jealously, and after she had spoken with them
+smiled in content.
+
+"She is good," the Mother Superior was saying, "and her brother,
+too, is very good."
+
+Everett had forgotten the brother.  With a start he lifted his eyes
+and found the Mother Superior regarding him.
+
+"He is very good," she repeated.  "For us, he built this wing of
+the hospital.  It was his money.  We should be very sorry if any
+harm came to Mr. Ward.  Without his help we would starve."  She
+smiled, and with a gesture signified the sick.  "I mean they would
+starve; they would die of disease and fever."  The woman fixed
+upon him grave, inscrutable eyes.  "Will Your Excellency
+remember?" she said.  It was less of a question than a command.
+"Where the church can forgive--" she paused.
+
+Like a real diplomat Everett sought refuge in mere words.
+
+"The church is all-powerful, Mother," he said.  "Her power to
+forgive is her strongest weapon.  I have no such power.  It lies
+beyond my authority.  I am just a messenger-boy carrying the
+wishes of the government of one country to the government of
+another."
+
+The face of the Mother Superior remained grave, but undisturbed.
+
+"Then, as regards our Mr. Ward," she said, "the wishes of your
+government are--"
+
+Again she paused; again it was less of a question than a command.
+With interest Everett gazed at the whitewashed ceiling.
+
+"I have not yet," he said, "communicated them to any one."
+
+That night, after dinner in the patio, he reported to Garland the
+words of the Mother Superior.
+
+"That was my dream, 0 Prophet," concluded Everett; "you who can
+read this land of lotus-eaters, interpret! What does it mean?"
+
+"It only means what I've been telling you," said the consul.  "It means
+that if you're going after that treaty, you've only got to fight the
+Catholic Church.  That's all it means!"
+
+Later in the evening Garland said: "I saw you this morning crossing
+the plaza with Monica.  When I told you everybody in this town
+loved her, was I right?"
+
+"Absolutely!" assented Everett.  "But why didn't you tell me she
+was a flapper?"
+
+"I don't know what a flapper is," promptly retorted Garland.  "And
+if I did, I wouldn't call Monica one."
+
+"A flapper is a very charming person," protested Everett.  "I used
+the term in its most complimentary sense.  It means a girl between
+fourteen and eighteen.  It's English slang, and in England at the
+present the flapper is very popular.  She is driving her sophisticated
+elder sister, who has been out two or three seasons, and the predatory
+married woman to the wall.  To men of my years the flapper is really
+at the dangerous age."
+
+In his bamboo chair Garland tossed violently and snorted.
+
+"I sized you up," he cried, "as a man of the finest perceptions.  I was
+wrong.  You don't appreciate Monica! Dangerous! You might as
+well say God's sunshine is dangerous, or a beautiful flower is
+dangerous."
+
+Everett shook his head at the other man reproachfully:
+
+"Did you ever hear of a sunstroke?" he demanded.  "Don't you know
+if you smell certain beautiful flowers you die? Can't you grasp any
+other kind of danger than being run down by a trolley-car? Is the
+danger of losing one's peace of mind nothing, of being unfaithful
+to duty, nothing! Is--"
+
+Garland raised his arms.
+
+"Don't shoot!" he begged.  "I apologize.  You do appreciate Monica.
+You have your consul's permission to walk with her again."
+
+The next day young Professor Peabody called and presented his
+letters.  He was a forceful young man to whom the delays of
+diplomacy did not appeal, and one apparently accustomed to riding
+off whatever came in his way.  He seemed to consider any one who
+opposed him, or who even disagreed with his conclusions, as
+offering a personal affront.  With indignation he launched into
+his grievance.
+
+"These people," he declared, "are dogs in the manger, and Ward is
+the worst of the lot.  He knows no more of archaeology than a
+congressman.  The man's a faker! He showed me a spear-head of
+obsidian and called it flint; and he said the Aztecs borrowed from
+the Mayas, and that the Toltecs were a myth.  And he got the Aztec
+solar calendar mixed with the Ahau.  He's as ignorant as that."
+
+"I can't believe it!" exclaimed Everett.
+
+"You may laugh," protested the professor, "but the ruins of Cobre
+hold secrets the students of two continents are trying to solve.
+They hide the history of a lost race, and I submit it's not proper
+one man should keep that knowledge from the world, certainly
+not for a few gold armlets!"
+
+Everett raised his eyes.
+
+"What makes you say that?"' he demanded.
+
+"I've been kicking my heels in this town for a month," Peabody
+told him, "and I've talked to the people here, and to the Harvard
+expedition at Copan, and everybody tells me this fellow has found
+treasure."  The archaeologist exclaimed with indignation: "What's
+gold," he snorted, "compared to the discovery of a lost race?"
+
+"I applaud your point of view," Everett assured him.  "I am to see the
+President tomorrow, and I will lay the matter before him.  I'll ask him
+to give you a look in."
+
+To urge his treaty of extradition was the reason for the audience with
+the President, and with all the courtesy that a bad case demanded
+Mendoza protested against it.  He pointed out that governments
+entered into treaties only when the ensuing benefits were mutual.
+For Amapala in a treaty of extradition he saw no benefit.  Amapala
+was not so far "advanced" as to produce defaulting bank presidents,
+get-rich-quick promoters, counterfeiters, and thieving cashiers.  Her
+fugitives were revolutionists who had fought and lost, and every one
+was glad to have them go, and no one wanted them back.
+
+"Or," suggested the President, "suppose I am turned out by a
+revolution, and I seek asylum in your country? My enemies desire
+my life.  They would ask for my extradition--"
+
+"If the offense were political," Everett corrected, "my government
+would surrender no one."
+
+"But my enemies would charge me with murder," explained the
+President.  "Remember Castro.  And by the terms of the treaty your
+government would be forced to surrender me.  And I am shot against
+the wall."  The President shrugged his shoulders.  "That treaty would
+not be nice for me!"
+
+"Consider the matter as a patriot," said the diplomat.  "Is it good that
+the criminals of my country should make their home in yours? When
+you are so fortunate as to have no dishonest men of your own, why
+import ours? We don't seek the individual.  We want to punish him
+only as a warning to others.  And we want the money he takes with
+him.  Often it is the savings of the very poor."
+
+The President frowned.  It was apparent that both the subject and
+Everett bored him.
+
+"I name no names," exclaimed Mendoza, "but to those who come
+here we owe the little railroads we possess.  They develop our mines
+and our coffee plantations.  In time they will make this country very
+modern, very rich.  And some you call criminals we have learned to
+love.  Their past does not concern us.  We shut our ears.  We do not
+spy.  They have come to us as to a sanctuary, and so long as they claim
+the right of sanctuary, I will not violate it."
+
+As Everett emerged from the cool, dark halls of the palace into
+the glare of the plaza he was scowling; and he acknowledged the
+salute of the palace guard as though those gentlemen had offered
+him an insult.
+
+Garland was waiting in front of a cafe and greeted him with a
+mocking grin.
+
+"Congratulations," he shouted.
+
+"I have still twenty-two days," said Everett
+.
+
+The aristocracy of Camaguay invited the new minister to formal
+dinners of eighteen courses, and to picnics less formal.  These
+latter Everett greatly enjoyed, because while Monica Ward was too
+young to attend the state dinners, she was exactly the proper age
+for the all-day excursions to the waterfalls, the coffee plantations,
+and the asphalt lakes.  The native belles of Camaguay took no
+pleasure in riding farther afield than the military parade-ground.
+Climbing a trail so steep that you viewed the sky between the ears
+of your pony, or where with both hands you forced a way through
+hanging vines and creepers, did not appeal.  But to Monica, with
+the seat and balance of a cowboy, riding astride, with her leg straight
+and the ball of her foot just feeling the stirrup, these expeditions were
+the happiest moments in her exile.  So were they to Everett; and that
+on the trail one could ride only in single file was a most poignant
+regret.  In the column the place of honor was next to whoever rode
+at the head, but Everett relinquished this position in favor of Monica.
+By this manoeuvre she always was in his sight, and he could call
+upon her to act as his guide and to explain what lay on either hand.
+His delight and wonder in her grew daily.  He found that her mind
+leaped instantly and with gratitude to whatever was most fair.  Just
+out of reach of her pony's hoofs he pressed his own pony forward,
+and she pointed out to him what in the tropic abundance about them
+she found most beautiful.  Sometimes it was the tumbling waters of
+a cataract; sometimes, high in the topmost branches of a ceiba-tree,
+a gorgeous orchid; sometimes a shaft of sunshine as rigid as a
+search-light, piercing the shadow of the jungle.  At first she would
+turn in the saddle and call to him, but as each day they grew to know
+each other better she need only point with her whip-hand and he would
+answer, "Yes," and each knew the other understood.
+
+As a body, the exiles resented Everett.  They knew his purpose in
+regard to the treaty, and for them he always must be the enemy.
+Even though as a man they might like him, they could not forget
+that his presence threatened their peace and safety.  Chester Ward
+treated him with impeccable politeness; but, although his house
+was the show-place of Camaguay, he never invited the American
+minister to cross the threshold.  On account of Monica, Everett
+regretted this and tried to keep the relations of her brother and
+himself outwardly pleasant.  But Ward made it difficult.  To no
+one was his manner effusive, and for Monica only he seemed to
+hold any real feeling.  The two were alone in the world; he was
+her only relative, and to the orphan he had been father and mother.
+When she was a child he had bought her toys and dolls; now, had
+the sisters permitted, he would have dressed her in imported frocks,
+and with jewels killed her loveliness.  He seemed to understand
+how to spend his money as little as did the gossips of Camaguay
+understand from whence it came.
+
+That Monica knew why her brother lived in Camaguay Everett was
+uncertain.  She did not complain of living there, but she was not
+at rest, and constantly she was asking Everett of foreign lands.
+As Everett was homesick for them, he was most eloquent.
+
+"I should like to see them for myself," said Monica, "but until my
+brother's work here is finished we must wait.  And I am young,
+and after a few years Europe will be just as old.  When my brother
+leaves Amapala, he promises to take me wherever I ask to go: to
+London, to Paris, to Rome.  So I read and read of them; books of
+history, books about painting, books about the cathedrals.  But
+the more I read the more I want to go at once, and that is disloyal."
+
+"Disloyal?" asked Everett.
+
+"To my brother," explained Monica.  "He does so much for me.
+I should think only of his work.  That is all that really counts.
+For the world is waiting to learn what he has discovered.  It is
+like having a brother go in search of the North Pole.  You are
+proud of what he is doing, but you want him back to keep him
+to yourself.  Is that selfish?"
+
+Everett was a trained diplomat, but with his opinion of Chester Ward
+he could not think of the answer.  Instead, he was thinking of Monica
+in Europe; of taking her through the churches and galleries which she
+had seen only in black and white.  He imagined himself at her side
+facing the altar of some great cathedral, or some painting in the Louvre,
+and watching her face lighten and the tears come to her eyes, as they
+did now, when things that were beautiful hurt her.  Or he imagined her
+rid of her half-mourning and accompanying him through a cyclonic
+diplomatic career that carried them to Japan, China, Persia; to Berlin,
+Paris, and London.  In these imaginings Monica appeared in pongee
+and a sun-hat riding an elephant, in pearls and satin receiving
+royalty, in tweed knickerbockers and a woollen jersey coasting
+around the hairpin curve at Saint Moritz.
+
+Of course he recognized that except as his wife Monica could not
+accompany him to all these strange lands and high diplomatic posts.
+And of course that was ridiculous.  He had made up his mind for
+the success of what he called his career, that he was too young to
+marry; but he was sure, should he propose to marry Monica, every
+one would say he was too old.  And there was another consideration.
+What of the brother? Would his government send him to a foreign
+post when his wife was the sister of a man they had just sent to the
+penitentiary?
+
+He could hear them say in London, "We know your first secretary,
+but who is Mrs. Everett?" And the American visitor would explain:
+"She is the sister of 'Inky Dink,' the forger.  He is bookkeeping
+in Sing Sing."
+
+Certainly it would be a handicap.  He tried to persuade himself
+that Monica so entirely filled his thoughts because in Camaguay
+there was no one else; it was a case of propinquity; her loneliness
+and the fact that she lay under a shadow for which she was not to
+blame appealed to his chivalry.  So, he told himself, in thinking of
+Monica except as a charming companion, he was an ass.  And then,
+arguing that in calling himself an ass he had shown his saneness
+and impartiality, he felt justified in seeing her daily.
+
+One morning Garland came to the legation to tell Everett that
+Peabody was in danger of bringing about international
+complications by having himself thrust into the cartel.
+
+"If he qualifies for this local jail," said Garland, "you will have
+a lot of trouble setting him free.  You'd better warn him it's
+easier to keep out than to get out."
+
+"What has he been doing?" asked the minister.
+
+"Poaching on Ward's ruins," said the consul.  "He certainly is a
+hustler.  He pretends to go to Copan, but really goes to Cobre.
+Ward had him followed and threatened to have him arrested.
+Peabody claims any tourist has a right to visit the ruins so long
+as he does no excavating.  Ward accused him of exploring the place
+by night and taking photographs by flash-light of the hieroglyphs.
+He's put an armed guard at the ruins, and he told Peabody they are
+to shoot on sight.  So Peabody went to Mendoza and said if anybody
+took a shot at him he'd bring warships down here and blow Amapala
+off the map."
+
+"A militant archaeologist," said Everett, "is something new.  Peabody
+is too enthusiastic.  He and his hieroglyphs are becoming a bore."
+
+He sent for Peabody and told him unless he curbed his spirit his
+minister could not promise to keep him out of a very damp and
+dirty dungeon.
+
+"I am too enthusiastic," Peabody admitted, "but to me this fellow
+Ward is like a red flag to the bull.  His private graft is holding
+up the whole scientific world.  He won't let us learn the truth,
+and he's too ignorant to learn it himself.  Why, he told me Cobre
+dated from 1578, when Palacio wrote of it to Philip the Second,
+not knowing that in that very letter Palacio states that he found
+Cobre in ruins. Is it right a man as ignorant--"
+
+Everett interrupted by levelling his finger.
+
+"You," he commanded, "keep out of those ruins! My dear professor,"
+he continued reproachfully, "you are a student, a man of peace.
+Don't try to wage war on these Amapalans.  They're lawless, they're
+unscrupulous.  So is Ward.  Besides, you are in the wrong, and if
+they turn ugly, your minister cannot help you."  He shook his head
+and smiled doubtfully.  "I can't understand," he exclaimed, "why
+you're so keen.  It's only a heap of broken pottery.  Sometimes I
+wonder if your interest in Cobre is that only of the archaeologist."
+
+"What other interest--" demanded Peabody.
+
+"Doesn't Ward's buried treasure appeal at all?" asked the
+minister.  "I mean, of course, to your imagination.  It does to
+mine."
+
+The young professor laughed tolerantly.
+
+"Buried treasure!" he exclaimed.  "If Ward has found treasure, and
+I think he has, he's welcome to it.  What we want is what you call
+the broken pottery.  It means nothing to you, but to men like
+myself, who live eight hundred years behind the times, it is much
+more precious than gold."
+
+A few moments later Professor Peabody took his leave, and it was
+not until he had turned the corner of the Calle Morazan that he
+halted and, like a man emerging from water, drew a deep breath.
+
+"Gee!" muttered the distinguished archeologist, "that was a close
+call!"
+
+One or two women had loved Everett, and after five weeks, in
+which almost daily he had seen Monica, he knew she cared for him.
+This discovery made him entirely happy and filled him with dismay.
+It was a complication he had not foreseen.  It left him at the parting
+of two ways, one of which he must choose.  For his career he was
+willing to renounce marriage, but now that Monica loved him, even
+though he had consciously not tried to make her love him, had he
+the right to renounce it for her also? He knew that the difference
+between Monica and his career lay in the fact that he loved Monica
+and was in love with his career.  Which should he surrender? Of this
+he thought long and deeply, until one night, without thinking at all,
+he chose.
+
+Colonel Goddard had given a dance, and, as all invited were
+Americans, the etiquette was less formal than at the gatherings
+of the Amapalans.  For one thing, the minister and Monica were
+able to sit on the veranda overlooking the garden without his
+having to fight a duel in the morning.
+
+It was not the moonlight, or the music, or the palms that made
+Everett speak.  It was simply the knowledge that it was written,
+that it had to be.  And he heard himself, without prelude or
+introduction, talking easily and assuredly of the life they would
+lead as man and wife.  From this dream Monica woke him.  The
+violet eyes were smiling at him through tears.
+
+"When you came," said the girl, "and I loved you, I thought that
+was the greatest happiness.  Now that I know you love me I ask
+nothing more.  And I can bear it."
+
+Everett felt as though an icy finger had moved swiftly down his
+spine.  He pretended not to understand.
+
+"Bear what?" he demanded roughly.
+
+"That I cannot marry you," said the girl.  "Even had you not asked
+me, in loving you I would have been happy.  Now that I know you
+thought of me as your wife, I am proud. I am grateful.  And the
+obstacle--"
+
+Everett laughed scornfully.
+
+"There is no obstacle."
+
+Monica shook her head.  Unafraid, she looked into his eyes, her
+own filled with her love for him.
+
+"Don't make it harder," she said.  "My brother is hiding from the
+law.  What he did I don't know.  When it happened I was at the
+convent, and he did not send for me until he had reached Amapala.
+I never asked why we came, but were I to marry you, with your name
+and your position, every one else would ask.  And the scandal would
+follow you; wherever you went it would follow; it would put an end
+to your career."
+
+His career, now that Monica urged it as her rival, seemed to
+Everett particularly trivial.
+
+"I don't know what your brother did either," he said.  "His sins
+are on his own head.  They're not on yours, nor on mine.  I don't
+judge him; neither do I intend to let him spoil my happiness.  Now
+that I have found you I will never let you go."
+
+Sadly Monica shook her head and smiled.
+
+"When you leave here," she said, "for some new post, you won't
+forget me, but you'll be grateful that I let you go alone; that I was
+not a drag on you.  When you go back to your great people and
+your proud and beautiful princesses, all this will seem a strange
+dream, and you will be glad you are awake--and free."
+
+"The idea of marrying you, Monica," said Everett, "is not new.  It did
+not occur to me only since we moved out here into the moonlight.
+Since I first saw you I've thought of you, and only of you.  I've
+thought of you with me in every corner of the globe, as my wife,
+my sweetheart, my partner, riding through jungles as we ride here,
+sitting opposite me at our own table, putting the proud and beautiful
+princesses at their ease.  And in all places, at all moments, you make
+all other women tawdry and absurd.  And I don't think you are the
+most wonderful person I ever met because I love you, but I love you
+because you are the most wonderful person I ever met."
+
+"I am young," said Monica, "but since I began to love you I am
+very old.  And I see clearly that it cannot be."
+
+"Dear heart," cried Everett, "that is quite morbid.  What the
+devil do I care what your brother has done! I am not marrying
+your brother."
+
+For a long time, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and
+her face buried in her hands, the girl sat silent.  It was as though she
+were praying.  Everett knew it was not of him, but of her brother,
+she was thinking, and his heart ached for her.  For him to cut the
+brother out of his life was not difficult; what it meant to her he
+could guess.
+
+When the girl raised her eyes they were eloquent with distress.
+
+"He has been so good to me," she said; "always so gentle.  He has
+been mother and father to me.  He is the first person I can remember.
+When I was a child he put me to bed, he dressed me, and comforted
+me.  When we became rich there was nothing he did not wish to give
+me.  I cannot leave him.  He needs me more than ever I needed him.  I
+am all he has.  And there is this besides.  Were I to marry, of all the
+men in the world it would be harder for him if I married you.  For if
+you succeed in what you came here to do, the law will punish him,
+and he will know it was through you he was punished.  And even
+between you and me there always would be that knowledge, that
+feeling."
+
+"That is not fair," cried Everett.  "I am not an individual fighting
+less fortunate individuals.  I am an insignificant wheel in a great
+machine.  You must not blame me because I-"
+
+With an exclamation the girl reproached him.
+
+"Because you do your duty!" she protested.  "Is that fair to me?
+If for my sake or my brother you failed in your duty, if you were
+less vigilant, less eager, even though we suffer, I could not
+love you."
+
+Everett sighed happily.
+
+"As long as you love me," he said, "neither your brother nor any
+one else can keep us apart."
+
+"My brother," said the girl, as though she were pronouncing a
+sentence, "always will keep us apart, and I will always love
+you."
+
+It was a week before he again saw her, and then the feeling he
+had read in her eyes was gone--or rigorously concealed.  Now her
+manner was that of a friend, of a young girl addressing a man
+older than herself, one to whom she looked up with respect and
+liking, but with no sign of any feeling deeper or more intimate.
+
+It upset Everett completely.  When he pleaded with her, she asked:
+
+"Do you think it is easy for me? But--" she protested, "I know I
+am doing right.  I am doing it to make you happy."
+
+"You are succeeding," Everett assured her, "in making us both
+damned miserable."
+
+For Everett, in the second month of his stay in Amapala, events
+began to move quickly.  Following the example of two of his
+predecessors, the Secretary of State of the United States was
+about to make a grand tour of Central America.  He came on a
+mission of peace and brotherly love, to foster confidence and
+good-will, and it was secretly hoped that, in the wake of his
+escort of battle-ships, trade would follow fast.  There would
+be salutes and visits of ceremony, speeches, banquets, reviews.
+But in these rejoicings Amapala would have no part.
+
+For, so Everett was informed by cable, unless, previous to the
+visit of the Secretary, Amapala fell into line with her sister
+republics and signed a treaty of extradition, from the itinerary
+of the great man Amapala would find herself pointedly excluded.
+It would be a humiliation.  In the eyes of her sister republics it
+would place her outside the pale.  Everett saw that in his hands
+his friend the Secretary had placed a powerful weapon; and lost
+no time in using it.  He caught the President alone, sitting late at
+his dinner, surrounded by bottles, and read to him the Secretary's
+ultimatum.  General Mendoza did not at once surrender.  Before he
+threw over the men who fed him the golden eggs that made him rich,
+and for whom he had sworn never to violate the right of sanctuary,
+he first, for fully half an hour, raged and swore.  During that time,
+while Everett sat anxiously expectant, the President paced and
+repaced the length of the dining-hall.  When to relight his cigar,
+or to gulp brandy from a tumbler, he halted at the table, his great
+bulk loomed large in the flickering candle-flames, and when he
+continued his march, he would disappear into the shadows, and
+only his scabbard clanking on the stone floor told of his presence.
+At last he halted and shrugged his shoulders so that the tassels of
+his epaulets tossed like wheat.
+
+"You drive a hard bargain, sir," he said.  "And I have no choice.
+To-morrow bring the treaty and I will sign."
+
+Everett at once produced it and a fountain pen.
+
+"I should like to cable to-night," he urged, "that you have signed.
+They are holding back the public announcement of the Secretary's
+route until hearing from Your Excellency.  This is only tentative,"
+he pointed out; "the Senate must ratify.  But our Senate will ratify
+it, and when you sign now, it is a thing accomplished."
+
+Over the place at which Everett pointed, the pen scratched harshly;
+and then, throwing it from him, the President sat in silence.  With
+eyes inflamed by anger and brandy he regarded the treaty venomously.
+As though loath to let it go, his hands played with it, as a cat plays
+with the mouse between her paws.  Watching him breathlessly,
+Everett feared the end was not yet.  He felt a depressing premonition
+that if ever the treaty were to reach Washington he best had snatch it
+and run.  Even as he waited, the end came.  An orderly, appearing
+suddenly in the light of the candles, announced the arrival, in the
+room adjoining, of "the Colonel Goddard and Senor Mellen."  They
+desired an immediate audience.  Their business with the President
+was most urgent.  Whether from Washington their agents had warned
+them, whether in Camaguay they had deciphered the cablegram from
+the State Department, Everett could only guess, but he was certain the
+cause of their visit was the treaty.  That Mendoza also believed this
+was most evident.
+
+Into the darkness, from which the two exiles might emerge, he
+peered guiltily.  With an oath he tore the treaty in half.  Crushing
+the pieces of paper into a ball, he threw it at Everett's feet.  His
+voice rose to a shriek.  It was apparent he intended his words to
+carry to the men outside.  Like an actor on a stage he waved his
+arms.
+
+"That is my answer!" he shouted.  "Tell your Secretary the choice
+he offers is an insult! It is blackmail.  We will not sign his treaty.
+We do not desire his visit to our country."  Thrilled by his own
+bravado, his voice rose higher.  "Nor," he shouted, "do we desire
+the presence of his representative.  Your usefulness is at an end.
+You will receive your passports in the morning."
+
+As he might discharge a cook, he waved Everett away.  His hand,
+trembling with excitement, closed around the neck of the brandy-
+bottle.  Everett stooped and secured the treaty.  On his return to
+Washington, torn and rumpled as it was, it would be his
+justification.  It was his "Exhibit A."
+
+As he approached the legation he saw drawn up in front of it three
+ponies ready saddled.  For an instant he wondered if Mendoza
+intended further to insult him, if he planned that night to send
+him under guard to the coast.  He determined hotly sooner than
+submit to such an indignity he would fortify the legation, and
+defend himself.  But no such heroics were required of him.  As he
+reached the door, Garland, with an exclamation of relief, hailed
+him, and Monica, stepping from the shadow, laid an appealing
+hand upon his sleeve.
+
+"My brother!" she exclaimed.  "The guard at Cobre has just sent
+word that they found Peabody prowling in the ruins and fired on
+him.  He fired back, and he is still there hiding.  My brother and
+others have gone to take him.  I don't know what may happen if he
+resists.  Chester is armed, and he is furious; he is beside himself;
+he would not listen to me.  But he must listen to you.  Will you
+go," the girl begged, "and speak to him; speak to him, I mean,"
+she added, "as the American minister?"
+
+Everett already had his foot in the stirrup.  "I'm the American minister
+only until to-morrow," he said.  "I've got my walking-papers.  But I'll
+do all I can to stop this to-night.  Garland," he asked, "will you take
+Miss Ward home, and then follow me?"
+
+"If I do not go with you," said Monica, "I will go alone."
+
+Her tone was final.  With a clatter of hoofs that woke alarmed
+echoes in the sleeping streets the three horses galloped abreast
+toward Cobre.  In an hour they left the main trail and at a walk
+picked their way to where the blocks of stone, broken columns,
+and crumbling temples of the half-buried city checked the jungle.
+
+The moon made it possible to move in safety, and at different
+distances the lights of torches told them the man-hunt still was
+in progress.
+
+"Thank God," breathed Monica, "we are in time."
+
+Everett gave the ponies in care of one of the guards.  He turned
+to Garland.
+
+"Catch up with those lights ahead of us," he said, "and we will
+join this party to the right.  If you find Ward, tell him I forbid
+him taking the law into his own hands; tell him I will protect
+his interests.  If you meet Peabody, make him give up his gun,
+and see that the others don't harm him!"
+
+Everett and the girl did not overtake the lights they had seen
+flashing below them.  Before they were within hailing distance,
+that searching party had disappeared, and still farther away
+other torches beckoned.
+
+Stumbling and falling, now in pursuit of one will-o'-the-wisp,
+now of another, they scrambled forward.  But always the lights
+eluded them.  From their exertions and the moist heat they were
+breathless, and their bodies dripped with water.  Panting, they
+halted at the entrance of what once had been a tomb.  From its
+black interior came a damp mist; above them, alarmed by their
+intrusion, the vampire bats whirled blindly in circles.  Monica,
+who by day possessed some slight knowledge of the ruins, had,
+in the moonlight, lost all sense of direction.
+
+"We're lost," said Monica, in a low tone.  Unconsciously both were
+speaking in whispers.  "I thought we were following what used to
+be the main thoroughfare of the city; but I have never seen this place
+before.  From what I have read I think we must be among the tombs
+of the kings."
+
+She was silenced by Everett placing one hand quickly on her arm,
+and with the other pointing.  In the uncertain moonlight she saw
+moving cautiously away from them, and unconscious of their
+presence, a white, ghostlike figure.
+
+"Peabody," whispered Everett.
+
+"Call him," commanded Monica.
+
+"The others might hear," objected Everett.  "We must overtake him.
+If we're with him when they meet, they wouldn't dare--"
+
+With a gasp of astonishment, his words ceased.
+
+Like a ghost, the ghostlike figure had vanished.
+
+"He walked through that rock!" cried Monica.
+
+Everett caught her by the wrist.  "Come!" he commanded.
+
+Over the face of the rock, into which Peabody had dived as into
+water, hung a curtain of vines.  Everett tore it apart.  Concealed
+by the vines was the narrow mouth to a tunnel; and from it they
+heard, rapidly lessening in the distance, the patter of footsteps.
+
+"Will you wait," demanded Everett, "or come with me?"
+
+With a shudder of distaste, Monica answered by seizing his hand.
+
+With his free arm Everett swept aside the vines, and, Monica
+following, they entered the tunnel.  It was a passageway cleanly
+cut through the solid rock and sufficiently wide to permit of their
+moving freely.  At the farther end, at a distance of a hundred
+yards, it opened into a great vault, also hollowed from the rock
+and, as they saw to their surprise, brilliantly lighted.
+
+For an instant, in black silhouette, the figure of Peabody
+blocked the entrance to this vault, and then, turning to the
+right, again vanished.  Monica felt an untimely desire to laugh.
+Now that they were on the track of Peabody she no longer feared
+the outcome of the adventure.  In the presence of the American
+minister and of herself there would be no violence; and as they
+trailed the archaeologist through the tunnel she was reminded of
+Alice and her pursuit of the white rabbit.  This thought, and her
+sense of relief that the danger was over, caused her to laugh aloud.
+
+They had gained the farther end of the tunnel and the entrance to
+the vault, when at once her amusement turned to wonder.  For the
+vault showed every evidence of use and of recent occupation.  In
+brackets, and burning brightly, were lamps of modern make; on
+the stone floor stood a canvas cot, saddle-bags, camp-chairs,
+and in the centre of the vault a collapsible table.  On this were
+bottles filled with chemicals, trays, and presses such as are used
+in developing photographs, and apparently hung there to dry,
+
+swinging from strings, the proofs of many negatives.
+
+Loyal to her brother, Monica exclaimed indignantly.  At the proofs
+she pointed an accusing finger.
+
+"Look!" she whispered.  "This is Peabody's darkroom, where he
+develops the flash-lights he takes of the hieroglyphs! Chester has
+a right to be furious!"
+
+Impulsively she would have pushed past Everett; but with an
+exclamation he sprang in front of her.
+
+"No!" he commanded, "come away!"
+
+He had fallen into a sudden panic.  His tone spoke of some
+catastrophe, imminent and overwhelming.  Monica followed
+the direction of his eyes.  They were staring in fear at the proofs.
+
+The girl leaned forward; and now saw them clearly.
+
+Each was a United States Treasury note for five hundred dollars.
+
+Around the turn of the tunnel, approaching the vault apparently
+from another passage, they heard hurrying footsteps; and then,
+close to them from the vault itself, the voice of Professor Peabody.
+
+It was harsh, sharp, peremptory.
+
+"Hands up!" it commanded.  "Drop that gun!"
+
+As though halted by a precipice, the footsteps fell into instant
+silence.  There was a pause, and then the ring of steel upon the
+stone floor.  There was another pause, and Monica heard the
+voice of her brother.  Broken, as though with running, it still
+retained its level accent, its note of insolence.
+
+"So," it said, "I have caught you?"
+
+Monica struggled toward the lighted vault, but around her Everett
+threw his arm.
+
+"Come away!" he begged.
+
+Monica fought against the terror of something unknown.  She could
+not understand.  They had come only to prevent a meeting between
+her brother and Peabody; and now that they had met, Everett was
+endeavoring to escape.
+
+It was incomprehensible.
+
+And the money in the vault, the yellow bills hanging from a
+cobweb of strings; why should they terrify her; what did they
+threaten? Dully, and from a distance, Monica heard the voice
+of Peabody.
+
+"No," he answered; "I have caught you! And I've had a hell of a
+time doing it!"
+
+Monica tried to call out, to assure her brother of her presence.
+But, as though in a nightmare, she could make no sound.  Fingers
+of fear gripped at her throat.  To struggle was no longer possible.
+
+The voice of Peabody continued:
+
+"Six months ago we traced these bills to New Orleans.  So we guessed
+the plant was in Central America.  We knew only one man who could
+make them.  When I found you were in Amapala and they said you had
+struck 'buried treasure'--the rest was easy."
+
+Monica heard the voice of her brother answer with a laugh.
+
+"Easy?" he mocked.  "There's no extradition.  You can't touch me.
+You're lucky if you get out of here alive.  I've only to raise my voice--"
+
+"And, I'll kill you!"
+
+This was danger Monica could understand.
+
+Freed from the nightmare of doubt, with a cry she ran forward.
+She saw Peabody, his back against a wall, a levelled automatic in
+his hand; her brother at the entrance to a tunnel like the one from
+which she had just appeared.  His arms were raised above his head.
+At his feet lay a revolver.  For an instant, with disbelief, he stared
+at Monica, and then, as though assured that it was she, his eyes
+dilated.  In them were fear and horror.  So genuine was the agony
+in the face of the counterfeiter that Everett, who had followed,
+turned his own away.  But the eyes of the brother and sister
+remained fixed upon each other, hers, appealingly; his, with
+despair.  He tried to speak, but the words did not come.  When
+he did break the silence his tone was singularly wistful, most
+tenderly kind.
+
+"Did you hear?" he asked.
+
+Monica slowly bowed her head.  With the same note of gentleness
+her brother persisted:
+
+"Did you understand?"
+
+Between them stretched the cobweb of strings hung with yellow
+certificates; each calling for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
+Stirred by the night air from the open tunnels, they fluttered and
+flaunted.
+
+Against the sight of them, Monica closed her eyes.  Heavily, as
+though with a great physical effort, again she bowed her head.
+
+The eyes of her brother searched about him wildly.  They rested on
+the mouth of the tunnel.
+
+With his lowered arm he pointed.
+
+"Who is that?" he cried.
+
+Instinctively the others turned.
+
+It was for an instant.  The instant sufficed.
+
+Monica saw her brother throw himself upon the floor, felt herself
+flung aside as Everett and the detective leaped upon him; saw her
+brother press his hands against his heart, the two men dragging
+at his arms.
+
+The cavelike room was shaken with a report, an acrid smoke
+assailed her nostrils.  The men ceased struggling.  Her brother lay
+still.
+
+Monica sprang toward the body, but a black wave rose and
+submerged her.  As she fainted, to save herself she threw out her
+arms, and as she fell she dragged down with her the buried
+treasure of Cobre.
+
+Stretched upon the stone floor beside her brother, she lay motionless.
+Beneath her, and wrapped about and covering her, as the leaves
+covered the babes in the wood, was a vast cobweb of yellow bills,
+each for five hundred dollars, payable in gold.
+
+
+A month later the harbor of Porto Cortez in Honduras was shaken
+with the roar of cannon.  In comparison, the roaring of all the cannon
+of all the revolutions that that distressful country ever had known,
+were like fire-crackers under a barrel.
+
+Faithful to his itinerary, the Secretary of State of the United States
+was paying his formal visit to Honduras, and the President of that
+republic, waiting upon the Fruit Company's wharf to greet him, was
+receiving the salute of the American battle-ships.  Back of him, on
+the wharf, his own barefooted artillerymen in their turn were saluting,
+excitedly and spasmodically, the distinguished visitor.  As an honor
+he had at last learned to accept without putting a finger in each ear,
+the Secretary of State smiled with gracious calm.  Less calm was the
+President of Honduras.  He knew something the Secretary did not
+know.  He knew that at any moment a gun of his saluting battery
+might turn turtle, or blow into the harbor himself, his cabinet, and
+the larger part of his standing army.
+
+Made fast to the wharf on the side opposite to the one at which
+the Secretary had landed was one of the Fruit Company's steamers.
+She was on her way north, and Porto Cortez was a port of call.
+That her passengers might not intrude upon the ceremonies, her
+side of the wharf was roped off and guarded by the standing army.
+But from her decks and from behind the ropes the passengers, with
+a battery of cameras, were perpetuating the historic scene.
+
+Among them, close to the ropes, viewing the ceremony with the
+cynical eye of one who in Europe had seen kings and emperors
+meet upon the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was Everett.  He made
+no effort to bring himself to the attention of his former chief.  But
+when the introductions were over, the Secretary of State turned
+his eyes to his fellow countrymen crowding the rails of the
+American steamer.  They greeted him with cheers.  The great
+man raised his hat, and his eyes fell upon Everett.  The Secretary
+advanced quickly, his hand extended, brushing to one side the
+standing army.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
+
+"On my way home, sir," said Everett.  "I couldn't leave sooner; there
+were--personal reasons.  But I cabled the department my resignation
+the day Mendoza gave me my walking-papers.  You may remember,"
+Everett added dryly, "the department accepted by cable."
+
+The great man showed embarrassment.
+
+"It was most unfortunate," he sympathized.  "We wanted that treaty,
+and while, no doubt, you made every effort--"
+
+He became aware of the fact that Everett's attention was not
+exclusively his own.  Following the direction of the young man's
+eyes the Secretary saw on the deck just above them, leaning upon
+the rail, a girl in deep mourning.
+
+She was very beautiful.  Her face was as lovely as a violet and as shy.
+To the Secretary a beautiful woman was always a beautiful woman.
+But he had read the papers.  Who had not? He was sure there must
+be some mistake.  This could not be the sister of a criminal; the
+woman for whom Everett had smashed his career.
+
+The Secretary masked his astonishment, but not his admiration.
+
+"Mrs. Everett?" he asked.  His very tone conveyed congratulations.
+
+"Yes," said the ex-diplomat.  "Some day I shall be glad to present
+you."
+
+The Secretary did not wait for an introduction.  Raising his eyes
+to the ship's rail, he made a deep and courtly bow.  With a gesture
+worthy of d'Artagnan, his high hat swept the wharf.  The members
+of his staff, the officers from the war-ships, the President of
+Honduras and the members of his staff endeavored to imitate his
+act of homage, and in confusion Mrs. Everett blushed becomingly.
+
+"When I return to Washington," said the Secretary hastily, "come
+and see me.  You are too valuable to lose.  Your career--"
+
+Again Everett was looking at his wife.  Her distress at having been
+so suddenly drawn into the lime-light amused him, and he was
+smiling.  Then, as though aware of the Secretary's meaning, he
+laughed.
+
+"My dear sir!" he protested.  His tone suggested he was about to
+add "mind your own business," or "go to the devil."
+
+Instead he said: "I'm not worrying about my career.  My career has
+just begun."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY SCOUT
+
+
+
+
+A rule of the Boy Scouts is every day to do some one a good turn.
+Not because the copybooks tell you it deserves another, but in
+spite of that pleasing possibility.  If you are a true scout, until
+you have performed your act of kindness your day is dark.  You
+are as unhappy as is the grown-up who has begun his day without
+shaving or reading the New York Sun.  But as soon as you have
+proved yourself you may, with a clear conscience, look the world
+in the face and untie the knot in your kerchief.
+
+Jimmie Reeder untied the accusing knot in his scarf at just ten
+minutes past eight on a hot August morning after he had given one
+dime to his sister Sadie.  With that she could either witness the
+first-run films at the Palace, or by dividing her fortune patronize
+two of the nickel shows on Lenox Avenue.  The choice Jimmie
+left to her.  He was setting out for the annual encampment of
+the Boy Scouts at Hunter's Island, and in the excitement of that
+adventure even the movies ceased to thrill.  But Sadie also could
+be unselfish.  With a heroism of a camp-fire maiden she made
+a gesture which might have been interpreted to mean she was
+returning the money.
+
+"I can't, Jimmie!" she gasped.  "I can't take it off you.  You
+saved it, and you ought to get the fun of it."
+
+"I haven't saved it yet," said Jimmie.  "I'm going to cut it out
+of the railroad fare.  I'm going to get off at City Island instead
+of at Pelham Manor and walk the difference.  That's ten cents
+cheaper."
+
+Sadie exclaimed with admiration:
+
+"An' you carryin' that heavy grip!"
+
+"Aw, that's nothin'," said the man of the family.
+
+"Good-by, mother.  So long, Sadie."
+
+To ward off further expressions of gratitude he hurriedly advised
+Sadie to take in "The Curse of Cain" rather than "The Mohawk's
+Last Stand," and fled down the front steps.
+
+He wore his khaki uniform.  On his shoulders was his knapsack,
+from his hands swung his suit-case, and between his heavy stockings
+and his "shorts" his kneecaps, unkissed by the sun, as yet unscathed
+by blackberry vines, showed as white and fragile as the wrists of a girl.
+As he moved toward the "L" station at the corner, Sadie and his mother
+waved to him; in the street, boys too small to be scouts hailed him
+enviously; even the policeman glancing over the newspapers on the
+news-stand nodded approval.
+
+"You a scout, Jimmie?" he asked.
+
+"No," retorted Jimmie, for was not he also in uniform? "I'm Santa
+Claus out filling Christmas stockings."
+
+The patrolman also possessed a ready wit.
+
+"Then get yourself a pair," he advised.  "If a dog was to see your
+legs--"
+
+Jimmie escaped the insult by fleeing up the steps of the
+Elevated.
+
+
+An hour later, with his valise in one hand and staff in the other,
+he was tramping up the Boston Post Road and breathing heavily.
+The day was cruelly hot.  Before his eyes, over an interminable
+stretch of asphalt, the heat waves danced and flickered.  Already
+the knapsack on his shoulders pressed upon him like an Old Man
+of the Sea; the linen in the valise had turned to pig iron, his pipe-
+stem legs were wabbling, his eyes smarted with salt sweat, and the
+fingers supporting the valise belonged to some other boy, and were
+giving that boy much pain.  But as the motor-cars flashed past with
+raucous warnings, or, that those who rode might better see the boy
+with bare knees, passed at "half speed," Jimmie stiffened his shoulders
+and stepped jauntily forward.  Even when the joy-riders mocked with
+"Oh, you scout!" he smiled at them.  He was willing to admit to those
+who rode that the laugh was on the one who walked.  And he regretted--
+oh, so bitterly--having left the train.  He was indignant that for his
+"one good turn a day" he had not selected one less strenuous--that,
+for instance, he had not assisted a frightened old lady through the
+traffic.  To refuse the dime she might have offered, as all true scouts
+refuse all tips, would have been easier than to earn it by walking five
+miles, with the sun at ninety-nine degrees, and carrying excess baggage.
+Twenty times James shifted the valise to the other hand, twenty times
+he let it drop and sat upon it.
+
+And then, as again he took up his burden, the good Samaritan drew
+near.  He drew near in a low gray racing-car at the rate of forty miles
+an hour, and within a hundred feet of Jimmie suddenly stopped and
+backed toward him.  The good Samaritan was a young man with white
+hair.  He wore a suit of blue, a golf cap; the hands that held the wheel
+were disguised in large yellow gloves.  He brought the car to a halt and
+surveyed the dripping figure in the road with tired and uncurious eyes.
+
+"You a Boy Scout?" he asked.
+
+With alacrity for the twenty-first time Jimmie dropped the valise,
+forced his cramped fingers into straight lines, and saluted.
+
+The young man in the car nodded toward the seat beside him.
+
+"Get in," he commanded.
+
+When James sat panting happily at his elbow the old young man, to
+Jimmie's disappointment, did not continue to shatter the speed limit.
+Instead, he seemed inclined for conversation, and the car, growling
+indignantly, crawled.
+
+"I never saw a Boy Scout before," announced the old young man.
+"Tell me about it.  First, tell me what you do when you're not
+scouting."
+
+Jimmie explained volubly.  When not in uniform he was an office
+boy, and from peddlers and beggars guarded the gates of Carroll
+and Hastings, stock-brokers.  He spoke the names of his employers
+with awe.  It was a firm distinguished, conservative, and long
+established.  The white-haired young man seemed to nod in assent.
+
+"Do you know them?" demanded Jimmie suspiciously.  "Are you a
+customer of ours?"
+
+"I know them," said the young man.  "They are customers of mine."
+
+Jimmie wondered in what way Carroll and Hastings were customers
+of the white-haired young man.  Judging him by his outer garments,
+Jimmie guessed he was a Fifth Avenue tailor; he might be even a
+haberdasher.  Jimmie continued.  He lived, he explained, with his
+mother at One Hundred and Forty-sixth Street; Sadie, his sister,
+attended the public school; he helped support them both, and he
+now was about to enjoy a well-earned vacation camping out on
+Hunter's Island, where he would cook his own meals, and, if the
+mosquitoes permitted, sleep in a tent.
+
+"And you like that?" demanded the young man.  "You call that fun?"
+
+"Sure!" protested Jimmie.  "Don't you go camping out?"
+
+"I go camping out," said the good Samaritan, "whenever I leave
+New York."
+
+Jimmie had not for three years lived in Wall Street not to
+understand that the young man spoke in metaphor.
+
+"You don't look," objected the young man critically, "as though
+you were built for the strenuous life."
+
+Jimmie glanced guiltily at his white knees.
+
+"You ought ter see me two weeks from now," he protested.  "I get all
+sunburnt and hard-
+-hard as anything!"
+
+The young man was incredulous.
+
+"You were near getting sunstruck when I picked you up," he
+laughed.  "If you're going to Hunter's Island, why didn't you go
+to Pelham Manor?"
+
+"That's right!" assented Jimmie eagerly.  "But I wanted to save
+the ten cents so's to send Sadie to the movies.  So I walked."
+
+The young man looked his embarrassment.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he murmured.
+
+But Jimmie did not hear him.  From the back of the car he was
+dragging excitedly at the hated suit-case.
+
+"Stop!" he commanded.  "I got ter get out.  I got ter walk."
+
+The young man showed his surprise.
+
+"Walk!" he exclaimed.  "What is it--a bet?"
+
+Jimmie dropped the valise and followed it into the roadway.  It
+took some time to explain to the young man.  First, he had to be
+told about the scout law and the one good turn a day, and that it
+must involve some personal sacrifice.  And, as Jimmie pointed out,
+changing from a slow suburban train to a racing-car could not be
+listed as a sacrifice.  He had not earned the money, Jimmie argued;
+he had only avoided paying it to the railroad.  If he did not walk
+he would be obtaining the gratitude of Sadie by a falsehood.
+Therefore, he must walk.
+
+"Not at all," protested the young man.  "You've got it wrong.  What
+good will it do your sister to have you sunstruck? I think you are
+sunstruck.  You're crazy with the heat.  You get in here, and we'll
+talk it over as we go along."
+
+Hastily Jimmie backed away.  "I'd rather walk," he said.
+
+The young man shifted his legs irritably.
+
+"Then how'll this suit you?" he called.  "We'll declare that first 'one
+good turn' a failure and start afresh.  Do me a good turn."
+
+Jimmie halted in his tracks and looked back suspiciously.
+
+"I'm going to Hunter's Island Inn," called the young man, "and I've
+lost my way.  You get in here and guide me.  That'll be doing me
+a good turn."
+
+On either side of the road, blotting out the landscape, giant
+hands picked out in electric-light bulbs pointed the way to
+Hunter's Island Inn.  Jimmie grinned and nodded toward them.
+
+"Much obliged," he called.  "I got ter walk."  Turning his back
+upon temptation, he waddled forward into the flickering heat
+waves.
+
+
+The young man did not attempt to pursue.  At the side of the road,
+under the shade of a giant elm, he had brought the car to a halt and
+with his arms crossed upon the wheel sat motionless, following with
+frowning eyes the retreating figure of Jimmie.  But the narrow-chested
+and knock-kneed boy staggering over the sun-baked asphalt no longer
+concerned him.  It was not Jimmie, but the code preached by Jimmie,
+and not only preached but before his eyes put into practice, that
+interested him.  The young man with white hair had been running
+away from temptation.  At forty miles an hour he had been running
+away from the temptation to do a fellow mortal "a good turn."  That
+morning, to the appeal of a drowning Caesar to "Help me, Cassius,
+or I sink," he had answered: "Sink!" That answer he had no wish to
+reconsider.  That he might not reconsider he had sought to escape.
+It was his experience that a sixty-horse-power racing-machine is a
+jealous mistress.  For retrospective, sentimental, or philanthropic
+thoughts she grants no leave of absence.  But he had not escaped.
+Jimmie had halted him, tripped him by the heels, and set him again
+to thinking.  Within the half-hour that followed those who rolled
+past saw at the side of the road a car with her engine running, and
+leaning upon the wheel, as unconscious of his surroundings as
+though he sat at his own fireplace, a young man who frowned and
+stared at nothing.  The half-hour passed and the young man swung
+his car back toward the city.  But at the first road-house that showed
+a blue-and-white telephone sign he left it, and into the iron box at
+the end of the bar dropped a nickel.  He wished to communicate with
+Mr. Carroll, of Carroll and Hastings; and when he learned Mr. Carroll
+had just issued orders that he must not be disturbed, the young man
+gave his name.
+
+The effect upon the barkeeper was instantaneous.  With the aggrieved
+air of one who feels he is the victim of a jest he laughed scornfully.
+
+"What are you putting over?" he demanded.
+
+The young man smiled reassuringly.  He had begun to speak and,
+though apparently engaged with the beer-glass he was polishing,
+the barkeeper listened.
+
+Down in Wall Street the senior member of Carroll and Hastings
+also listened.  He was alone in the most private of all his private
+offices, and when interrupted had been engaged in what, of all
+undertakings, is the most momentous.  On the desk before him
+lay letters to his lawyer, to the coroner, to his wife; and hidden
+by a mass of papers, but within reach of his hand, was an
+automatic pistol.  The promise it offered of swift release had
+made the writing of the letters simple, had given him a feeling
+of complete detachment, had released him, at least in thought,
+from all responsibilities.  And when at his elbow the telephone
+coughed discreetly, it was as though some one had called him
+from a world from which already he had made his exit.
+
+Mechanically, through mere habit, he lifted the receiver.
+
+The voice over the telephone came in brisk, staccato sentences.
+
+"That letter I sent this morning? Forget it.  Tear it up.  I've been
+thinking and I'm going to take a chance.  I've decided to back you
+boys, and I know you'll make good.  I'm speaking from a road-house
+in the Bronx; going straight from here to the bank.  So you can begin
+to draw against us within an hour.  And--hello!--will three millions
+see you through?"
+
+From Wall Street there came no answer, but from the hands of the
+barkeeper a glass crashed to the floor.
+
+The young man regarded the barkeeper with puzzled eyes.
+
+"He doesn't answer," he exclaimed.  "He must have hung up."
+
+"He must have fainted!" said the barkeeper.
+
+The white-haired one pushed a bill across the counter.  "To pay
+for breakage," he said, and disappeared down Pelham Parkway.
+
+Throughout the day, with the bill, for evidence, pasted against
+the mirror, the barkeeper told and retold the wondrous tale.
+
+"He stood just where you're standing now," he related, "blowing
+in million-dollar bills like you'd blow suds off a beer.  If I'd
+knowed it was him, I'd have hit him once and hid him in the
+cellar for the reward.  Who'd I think he was? I thought he was
+a wire-tapper, working a con game!"
+
+Mr. Carroll had not "hung up," but when in the Bronx the
+beer-glass crashed, in Wall Street the receiver had slipped from
+the hand of the man who held it, and the man himself had fallen
+forward.  His desk hit him in the face and woke him--woke him
+to the wonderful fact that he still lived; that at forty he had been
+born again; that before him stretched many more years in which,
+as the young man with the white hair had pointed out, he still
+could make good.
+
+The afternoon was far advanced when the staff of Carroll and
+Hastings were allowed to depart, and, even late as was the hour,
+two of them were asked to remain.  Into the most private of the
+private offices Carroll invited Gaskell, the head clerk; in the
+main office Hastings had asked young Thorne, the bond clerk,
+to be seated.
+
+
+Until the senior partner has finished with Gaskell young Thorne
+must remain seated.
+
+"Gaskell," said Mr. Carroll, "if we had listened to you, if we'd run
+this place as it was when father was alive, this never would have
+happened.  It hasn't happened, but we've had our lesson.  And
+after this we're going slow and going straight.  And we don't need
+you to tell us how to do that.  We want you to go away--on a month's
+vacation.  When I thought we were going under I planned to send the
+children on a sea voyage with the governess--so they wouldn't see the
+newspapers.  But now that I can look them in the eye again, I need
+them, I can't let them go.  So, if you'd like to take your wife on an
+ocean trip to Nova Scotia and Quebec, here are the cabins I reserved
+for the kids.  They call it the royal suite--whatever that is--and the trip
+lasts a month.  The boat sails to-morrow morning.  Don't sleep too late
+or you may miss her."
+
+The head clerk was secreting the tickets in the inside pocket of
+his waistcoat.  His fingers trembled, and when he laughed his
+voice trembled.
+
+"Miss the boat!" the head clerk exclaimed.  "If she gets away from
+Millie and me she's got to start now.  We'll go on board to-night!"
+
+A half-hour later Millie was on her knees packing a trunk, and
+her husband was telephoning to the drug-store for a sponge-bag
+and a cure for seasickness.
+
+Owing to the joy in her heart and to the fact that she was on her
+knees, Millie was alternately weeping into the trunk-tray and
+offering up incoherent prayers of thanksgiving.  Suddenly she
+sank back upon the floor.
+
+"John!" she cried, "doesn't it seem sinful to sail away in a
+'royal suite' and leave this beautiful flat empty?"
+
+Over the telephone John was having trouble with the drug clerk.
+
+"No!" he explained, "I'm not seasick now.  The medicine I want is
+to be taken later.  I know I'm speaking from the Pavonia; but the
+Pavonia isn't a ship; it's an apartment-house."
+
+He turned to Millie.  "We can't be in two places at the same
+time," he suggested.
+
+"But, think," insisted Millie, "of all the poor people stifling
+to-night in this heat, trying to sleep on the roofs and fire-escapes;
+and our flat so cool and big and pretty--and no one in it."
+
+John nodded his head proudly.
+
+"I know it's big," he said, "but it isn't big enough to hold all
+the people who are sleeping to-night on the roofs and in the
+parks."
+
+"I was thinking of your brother--and Grace," said Millie.  "They've
+been married only two weeks now, and they're in a stuffy hall
+bedroom and eating with all the other boarders.  Think what our
+flat would mean to them; to be by themselves, with eight rooms
+and their own kitchen and bath, and our new refrigerator and the
+gramophone! It would be heaven! It would be a real honeymoon!"
+
+Abandoning the drug clerk, John lifted Millie in his arms and
+kissed her, for, next to his wife, nearest his heart was the
+younger brother.
+
+
+The younger brother and Grace were sitting on the stoop of the
+boarding-house.  On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were
+the other boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers.
+The air of the cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose
+exhalations of rotting fruit, the gases of an open subway, the
+smoke of passing taxicabs.  But between the street and the hall
+bedroom, with its odors of a gas-stove and a kitchen, the choice
+was difficult.
+
+"We've got to cool off somehow," the young husband was saying,
+"or you won't sleep.  Shall we treat ourselves to ice-cream sodas
+or a trip on the Weehawken ferry-boat?"
+
+"The ferry-boat!" begged the girl, "where we can get away from
+all these people."
+
+A taxicab with a trunk in front whirled into the street, kicked
+itself to a stop, and the head clerk and Millie spilled out upon
+the pavement.  They talked so fast, and the younger brother and
+Grace talked so fast, that the boarders, although they listened
+intently, could make nothing of it.
+
+They distinguished only the concluding sentences:
+
+"Why don't you drive down to the wharf with us," they heard the
+elder brother ask, "and see our royal suite?"
+
+But the younger brother laughed him to scorn.
+
+"What's your royal suite," he mocked, "to our royal palace?"
+
+An hour later, had the boarders listened outside the flat of the
+head clerk, they would have heard issuing from his bathroom the
+cooling murmur of running water and from his gramophone the
+jubilant notes of "Alexander's Rag-time Band."
+
+When in his private office Carroll was making a present of the
+royal suite to the head clerk, in the main office Hastings, the
+junior partner, was addressing "Champ" Thorne, the bond clerk.
+He addressed him familiarly and affectionately as "Champ."  This
+was due partly to the fact that twenty-six years before Thorne had
+been christened Champneys and to the coincidence that he had
+captained the football eleven of one of the Big Three to the
+championship.
+
+"Champ," said Mr. Hastings, "last month, when you asked me to
+raise your salary, the reason I didn't do it was not because you
+didn't deserve it, but because I believed if we gave you a raise
+you'd immediately get married."
+
+The shoulders of the ex-football captain rose aggressively; he
+snorted with indignation.
+
+"And why should I not get married?" he demanded.  "You're a fine
+one to talk! You're the most offensively happy married man I ever
+met."
+
+"Perhaps I know I am happy better than you do," reproved the
+junior partner; "but I know also that it takes money to support a
+wife."
+
+"You raise me to a hundred a week," urged Champ, "and I'll make
+it support a wife whether it supports me or not."
+
+"A month ago," continued Hastings, "we could have promised you a
+hundred, but we didn't know how long we could pay it.  We didn't
+want you to rush off and marry some fine girl--"
+
+"Some fine girl!" muttered Mr. Thorne.  "The finest girl!"
+
+"The finer the girl," Hastings pointed out, "the harder it would
+have been for you if we had failed and you had lost your job."
+
+The eyes of the young man opened with sympathy and concern.
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" he murmured.
+
+Hastings sighed happily.
+
+"It was," he said, "but this morning the Young Man of Wall Street
+did us a good turn--saved us--saved our creditors, saved our homes,
+saved our honor.  We're going to start fresh and pay our debts, and
+we agreed the first debt we paid would be the small one we owe you.
+You've brought us more than we've given, and if you'll stay with us
+we're going to 'see' your fifty and raise it a hundred.  What do you
+say?"
+
+Young Mr. Thorne leaped to his feet.  What he said was: "Where'n
+hell's my hat?"
+
+But by the time he had found the hat and the door he mended his
+manners.
+
+"I say, 'Thank you a thousand times,"' he shouted over his
+shoulder.  "Excuse me, but I've got to go.  I've got to break the
+news to--"
+
+He did not explain to whom he was going to break the news; but
+Hastings must have guessed, for again he sighed happily and then,
+a little hysterically laughed aloud.  Several months had passed
+since he had laughed aloud.
+
+In his anxiety to break the news Champ Thorne almost broke his
+neck.  In his excitement he could not remember whether the red
+flash meant the elevator was going down or coming up, and sooner
+than wait to find out he started to race down eighteen flights of
+stairs when fortunately the elevator-door swung open.
+
+"You get five dollars," he announced to the elevator man, "if you
+drop to the street without a stop.  Beat the speed limit! Act like
+the building is on fire and you're trying to save me before the
+roof falls."
+
+Senator Barnes and his entire family, which was his daughter
+Barbara, were at the Ritz-Carlton.  They were in town in August
+because there was a meeting of the directors of the Brazil and
+Cuyaba Rubber Company, of which company Senator Barnes was
+president.  It was a secret meeting.  Those directors who were
+keeping cool at the edge of the ocean had been summoned by
+telegraph; those who were steaming across the ocean, by wireless.
+
+Up from the equator had drifted the threat of a scandal, sickening,
+grim, terrible.  As yet it burned beneath the surface, giving out only
+an odor, but an odor as rank as burning rubber itself.  At any moment
+it might break into flame.  For the directors, was it the better wisdom
+to let the scandal smoulder, and take a chance, or to be the first to give
+the alarm, the first to lead the way to the horror and stamp it out?
+
+It was to decide this that, in the heat of August, the directors and the
+president had foregathered.
+
+Champ Thorne knew nothing of this; he knew only that by a miracle
+Barbara Barnes was in town; that at last he was in a position to ask
+her to marry him; that she would certainly say she would.  That was
+all he cared to know.
+
+A year before he had issued his declaration of independence.
+Before he could marry, he told her, he must be able to support a
+wife on what he earned, without her having to accept money from
+her father, and until he received "a minimum wage" of five thousand
+dollars they must wait.
+
+"What is the matter with my father's money?" Barbara had demanded.
+
+Thorne had evaded the direct question.
+
+"There is too much of it," he said.
+
+"Do you object to the way he makes it?" insisted Barbara. "Because
+rubber is most useful.  You put it in golf balls and auto tires and
+galoshes.  There is nothing so perfectly respectable as galoshes.
+And what is there 'tainted' about a raincoat?"
+
+Thorne shook his head unhappily.
+
+"It's not the finished product to which I refer," he stammered; "it's
+the way they get the raw material."
+
+"They get it out of trees," said Barbara.  Then she exclaimed with
+enlightenment--"Oh!" she cried, "you are thinking of the Congo.
+There it is terrible! That is slavery.  But there are no slaves on the
+Amazon.  The natives are free and the work is easy.  They just tap
+the trees the way the farmers gather sugar in Vermont.  Father has
+told me about it often."
+
+Thorne had made no comment.  He could abuse a friend, if the
+friend were among those present, but denouncing any one he
+disliked as heartily as he disliked Senator Barnes was a public
+service he preferred to leave to others.  And he knew besides that
+if the father she loved and the man she loved distrusted each
+other, Barbara would not rest until she learned the reason why.
+
+One day, in a newspaper, Barbara read of the Puju Mayo atrocities,
+of the Indian slaves in the jungles and backwaters of the Amazon,
+who are offered up as sacrifices to "red rubber."  She carried the
+paper to her father.  What it said, her father told her, was untrue,
+and if it were true it was the first he had heard of it.
+
+Senator Barnes loved the good things of life, but the thing he
+loved most was his daughter; the thing he valued the highest was
+her good opinion.  So when for the first time she looked at him in
+doubt, he assured her he at once would order an investigation.
+
+"But, of course," he added, "it will be many months before our
+agents can report.  On the Amazon news travels very slowly."
+
+In the eyes of his daughter the doubt still lingered.
+
+"I am afraid," she said, "that that is true."
+
+That was six months before the directors of the Brazil and Cuyaba
+Rubber Company were summoned to meet their president at his
+rooms in the Ritz-Carlton.  They were due to arrive in half an hour,
+and while Senator Barnes awaited their coming Barbara came to
+him.  In her eyes was a light that helped to tell the great news.  It
+gave him a sharp, jealous pang.  He wanted at once to play a part
+in her happiness, to make her grateful to him, not alone to this
+stranger who was taking her away.  So fearful was he that she
+would shut him out of her life that had she asked for half his
+kingdom he would have parted with it.
+
+"And besides giving my consent," said the rubber king, "for which
+no one seems to have asked, what can I give my little girl to make
+her remember her old father? Some diamonds to put on her head,
+or pearls to hang around her neck, or does she want a vacant lot
+on Fifth Avenue?"
+
+The lovely hands of Barbara rested upon his shoulders; her lovely
+face was raised to his; her lovely eyes were appealing, and a little
+frightened.
+
+"What would one of those things cost?" asked Barbara.
+
+The question was eminently practical.  It came within the scope of
+the senator's understanding.  After all, he was not to be cast into
+outer darkness.  His smile was complacent.  He answered airily:
+
+"Anything you like," he said; "a million dollars?"
+
+The fingers closed upon his shoulders.  The eyes, still frightened,
+still searched his in appeal.
+
+"Then, for my wedding-present," said the girl, "I want you to take
+that million dollars and send an expedition to the Amazon.  And I
+will choose the men.  Men unafraid; men not afraid of fever or
+sudden death; not afraid to tell the truth--even to you.  And all the
+world will know.  And they--I mean you--will set those people free!"
+
+Senator Barnes received the directors with an embarrassment which
+he concealed under a manner of just indignation.
+
+"My mind is made up," he told them. "Existing conditions cannot
+continue.  And to that end, at my own expense, I am sending an
+expedition across South America.  It will investigate, punish, and
+establish reforms.  I suggest, on account of this damned heat, we
+do now adjourn."
+
+That night, over on Long Island, Carroll told his wife all, or
+nearly all.  He did not tell her about the automatic pistol.  And
+together on tiptoe they crept to the nursery and looked down at
+their sleeping children.  When she rose from her knees the mother
+said: "But how can I thank him?"
+
+By "him" she meant the Young Man of Wall Street.
+
+"You never can thank him," said Carroll; "that's the worst of it."
+
+But after a long silence the mother said: "I will send him a
+photograph of the children.  Do you think he will understand?"
+
+Down at Seabright, Hastings and his wife walked in the sunken
+garden.  The moon was so bright that the roses still held their
+color.
+
+"I would like to thank him," said the young wife.  She meant the
+Young Man of Wall Street.  "But for him we would have lost this."
+
+Her eyes caressed the garden, the fruit-trees, the house with wide,
+hospitable verandas.  "To-morrow I will send him some of these
+roses," said the young wife.  "Will he understand that they mean
+our home?"
+
+At a scandalously late hour, in a scandalous spirit of independence,
+Champ Thorne and Barbara were driving around Central Park in a
+taxicab.
+
+"How strangely the Lord moves, his wonders to perform," misquoted
+Barbara.  "Had not the Young Man of Wall Street saved Mr. Hastings,
+Mr. Hastings could not have raised your salary; you would not have
+asked me to marry you, and had you not asked me to marry you,
+father would not have given me a wedding-present, and--"
+
+"And," said Champ, taking up the tale, "thousands of slaves would
+still be buried in the jungles, hidden away from their wives and
+children and the light of the sun and their fellow men.  They
+still would be dying of fever, starvation, tortures."
+
+He took her hand in both of his and held her finger-tips against
+his lips.
+
+"And they will never know," he whispered, "when their freedom
+comes, that they owe it all to you."
+
+
+On Hunter's Island, Jimmie Reeder and his bunkie, Sam Sturges,
+each on his canvas cot, tossed and twisted.  The heat, the moonlight,
+and the mosquitoes would not let them even think of sleep.
+
+"That was bully," said Jimmie, "what you did to-day about saving
+that dog.  If it hadn't been for you he'd ha' drownded."
+
+"He would not!" said Sammy with punctilious regard for the truth;
+"it wasn't deep enough."
+
+"Well, the scout-master ought to know," argued Jimmie; "he said
+it was the best 'one good turn' of the day!"
+
+Modestly Sam shifted the lime-light so that it fell upon his
+bunkie.
+
+"I'll bet," he declared loyally, "your 'one good turn' was a
+better one!"
+
+Jimmie yawned, and then laughed scornfully.
+
+"Me!" he scoffed.  "I didn't do nothing.  I sent my sister to the
+movies."
+
+
+
+
+
+"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"
+
+
+
+
+Marie Gessler, known as Marie Chaumontel, Jeanne d'Avrechy,
+the Countess d'Aurillac, was German.  Her father, who served
+through the Franco-Prussian War, was a German spy.  It was
+from her mother she learned to speak French sufficiently well
+to satisfy even an Academician and, among Parisians, to pass
+as one.  Both her parents were dead.  Before they departed,
+knowing they could leave their daughter nothing save their
+debts, they had had her trained as a nurse.  But when they
+were gone, Marie in the Berlin hospitals played politics,
+intrigued, indiscriminately misused the appealing, violet
+eyes.  There was a scandal; several scandals.  At the age of
+twenty-five she was dismissed from the Municipal Hospital,
+and as now-save for the violet eyes--she was without resources,
+as a compagnon de voyage with a German doctor she travelled
+to Monte Carlo.  There she abandoned the doctor for Henri
+Ravignac, a captain in the French Aviation Corps, who,
+when his leave ended, escorted her to Paris.
+
+The duties of Captain Ravignac kept him in barracks near the
+aviation field, but Marie he established in his apartments on the
+Boulevard Haussmann.  One day he brought from the barracks a
+roll of blue-prints, and as he was locking them in a drawer, said:
+"The Germans would pay through the nose for those!"  The remark
+was indiscreet, but then Marie had told him she was French, and
+any one would have believed her.
+
+The next morning the same spirit of adventure that had exiled her
+from the Berlin hospitals carried her with the blue-prints to the
+German embassy.  There, greatly shocked, they first wrote down her
+name and address, and then, indignant at her proposition, ordered
+her out.  But the day following a strange young German who was
+not at all indignant, but, on the contrary, quite charming, called
+upon Marie.  For the blue-prints he offered her a very large sum,
+and that same hour with them and Marie departed for Berlin.  Marie
+did not need the money.  Nor did the argument that she was serving
+her country greatly impress her.  It was rather that she loved intrigue.
+And so she became a spy.
+
+Henri Ravignac, the man she had robbed of the blue-prints, was tried
+by court-martial.  The charge was treason, but Charles Ravignac, his
+younger brother, promised to prove that the guilty one was the girl,
+and to that end obtained leave of absence and spent much time and
+money.  At the trial he was able to show the record of Marie in
+Berlin and Monte Carlo; that she was the daughter of a German
+secret agent; that on the afternoon the prints disappeared Marie,
+with an agent of the German embassy, had left Paris for Berlin.
+In consequence of this the charge of selling military secrets was
+altered to one of "gross neglect," and Henri Ravignac was sentenced
+to two years in the military prison at Tours.  But he was of an ancient
+and noble family, and when they came to take him from his cell in the
+Cherche-Midi, he was dead.  Charles, his brother, disappeared.  It was
+said he also had killed himself; that he had been appointed a military
+attache in South America; that to revenge his brother he had entered
+the secret service; but whatever became of him no one knew.  All that
+was certain was that, thanks to the act of Marie Gessler, on the rolls
+of the French army the ancient and noble name of Ravignac no longer
+appeared.
+
+In her chosen profession Marie Gessler found nothing discreditable.
+Of herself her opinion was not high, and her opinion of men was
+lower.  For her smiles she had watched several sacrifice honor, duty,
+loyalty; and she held them and their kind in contempt.  To lie, to
+cajole, to rob men of secrets they thought important, and of secrets
+the importance of which they did not even guess, was to her merely
+an intricate and exciting game.
+
+She played it very well.  So well that in the service her advance
+was rapid.  On important missions she was sent to Russia, through
+the Balkans; even to the United States.  There, with credentials
+as an army nurse, she inspected our military hospitals and
+unobtrusively asked many innocent questions.
+
+When she begged to be allowed to work in her beloved Paris,
+"they" told her when war came "they" intended to plant her
+inside that city, and that, until then, the less Paris knew of
+her the better.
+
+But just before the great war broke, to report on which way Italy
+might jump, she was sent to Rome, and it was not until September
+she was recalled.  The telegram informed her that her Aunt
+Elizabeth was ill, and that at once she must return to Berlin.
+This, she learned from the code book wrapped under the cover
+of her thermos bottle, meant that she was to report to the general
+commanding the German forces at Soissons.
+
+From Italy she passed through Switzerland, and, after leaving Basle,
+on military trains was rushed north to Luxemburg, and then west to
+Laon.  She was accompanied by her companion, Bertha, an elderly
+and respectable, even distinguished-looking female.  In the secret
+service her number was 528.  Their passes from the war office
+described them as nurses of the German Red Cross.  Only the
+Intelligence Department knew their real mission.  With her, also,
+as her chauffeur, was a young Italian soldier of fortune, Paul
+Anfossi.  He had served in the Belgian Congo, in the French
+Foreign Legion in Algiers, and spoke all the European languages.
+In Rome, where as a wireless operator he was serving a commercial
+company, in selling Marie copies of messages he had memorized,
+Marie had found him useful, and when war came she obtained
+for him, from the Wilhelmstrasse, the number 292.  From Laon,
+in one of the automobiles of the General Staff, the three spies
+were driven first to Soissons, and then along the road to Meaux
+and Paris, to the village of Neufchelles.  They arrived at midnight,
+and in a chateau of one of the Champagne princes, found the
+colonel commanding the Intelligence Bureau.  He accepted their
+credentials, destroyed them, and replaced them with a laissez-
+passer signed by the mayor of Laon.  That dignitary, the colonel
+explained, to citizens of Laon fleeing to Paris and the coast had
+issued many passes.  But as now between Laon and Paris there were
+three German armies, the refugees had been turned back and their
+passes confiscated.
+
+"From among them," said the officer, "we have selected one for
+you.  It is issued to the wife of Count d'Aurillac, a captain of
+reserves, and her aunt, Madame Benet.  It asks for those ladies
+and their chauffeur, Briand, a safe-conduct through the French
+military lines.  If it gets you into Paris you will destroy it and
+assume another name.  The Count d'Aurillac is now with his
+regiment in that city.  If he learned of the presence there of his
+wife, he would seek her, and that would not be good for you.  So,
+if you reach Paris, you will become a Belgian refugee.  You are
+high-born and rich.  Your chateau has been destroyed.  But you
+have money.  You will give liberally to the Red Cross.  You will
+volunteer to nurse in the hospitals.  With your sad story of ill
+treatment by us, with your high birth, and your knowledge of
+nursing, which you acquired, of course, only as an amateur, you
+should not find it difficult to join the Ladies of France, or the
+American Ambulance.  What you learn from the wounded English
+and French officers and the French doctors you will send us through
+the usual channels."
+
+"When do I start?" asked the woman.
+
+"For a few days," explained the officer, "you remain in this chateau.
+You will keep us informed of what is going forward after we
+withdraw."
+
+"Withdraw?" It was more of an exclamation than a question.  Marie
+was too well trained to ask questions.
+
+"We are taking up a new position," said the officer, "on the
+Aisne."
+
+The woman, incredulous, stared.
+
+"And we do not enter Paris?"
+
+"You do," returned the officer.  "That is all that concerns you.
+We will join you later--in the spring.  Meanwhile, for the winter
+we intrench ourselves along the Aisne.  In a chimney of this
+chateau we have set up a wireless outfit.  We are leaving it intact.
+The chauffeur Briand--who, you must explain to the French, you
+brought with you from Laon, and who has been long in your
+service--will transmit whatever you discover.  We wish especially
+to know of any movement toward our left.  If they attack in front
+from Soissons, we are prepared; but of any attempt to cross the
+Oise and take us in flank you must warn us."
+
+The officer rose and hung upon himself his field-glasses,
+map-cases, and side-arms.
+
+"We leave you now," he said.  "When the French arrive you will
+tell them your reason for halting at this chateau was that the owner,
+Monsieur Iverney, and his family are friends of your husband.  You
+found us here, and we detained you.  And so long as you can use the
+wireless, make excuses to remain.  If they offer to send you on to Paris,
+tell them your aunt is too ill to travel."
+
+"But they will find the wireless," said the woman.  "They are sure to
+use the towers for observation, and they will find it."
+
+"In that case," said the officer, "you will suggest to them that
+we fled in such haste we had no time to dismantle it.  Of course,
+you had no knowledge that it existed, or, as a loyal French woman,
+you would have at once told them."  To emphasize his next words
+the officer pointed at her: "Under no circumstances," he continued,
+"must you be suspected.  If they should take Briand in the act,
+should they have even the least doubt concerning him, you must
+repudiate him entirely.  If necessary, to keep your own skirts clear,
+it would be your duty yourself to denounce him as a spy."
+
+"Your first orders," said the woman, "were to tell them Briand had
+been long in my service; that I brought him from my home in Laon."
+
+"He might be in your service for years," returned the colonel,
+"and you not know he was a German agent."
+
+"If to save myself I inform upon him," said Marie, "of course you
+know you will lose him."
+
+The officer shrugged his shoulders.  "A wireless operator," he
+retorted, "we can replace.  But for you, and for the service you
+are to render in Paris, we have no substitute.  You must not be
+found out.  You are invaluable."
+
+The spy inclined her head.  "I thank you," she said.
+
+The officer sputtered indignantly.
+
+"It is not a compliment," he exclaimed; "it is an order.  You must
+not be found out!"
+
+Withdrawn some two hundred yards from the Paris road, the
+chateau stood upon a wooded hill.  Except directly in front,
+trees of great height surrounded it.  The tips of their branches
+brushed the windows; interlacing, they continued until they
+overhung the wall of the estate.  Where it ran with the road the
+wall gave way to a lofty gate and iron fence, through which those
+passing could see a stretch of noble turf, as wide as a polo-field,
+borders of flowers disappearing under the shadows of the trees;
+and the chateau itself, with its terrace, its many windows, its
+high-pitched, sloping roof, broken by towers and turrets.
+
+Through the remainder of the night there came from the road to
+those in the chateau the roar and rumbling of the army in retreat.
+It moved without panic, disorder, or haste, but unceasingly.  Not
+for an instant was there a breathing-spell.  And when the sun rose,
+the three spies--the two women and the chauffeur--who in the great
+chateau were now alone, could see as well as hear the gray column
+of steel rolling past below them.
+
+The spies knew that the gray column had reached Claye, had stood
+within fifteen miles of Paris, and then upon Paris had turned its
+back.  They knew also that the reverberations from the direction
+of Meaux, that each moment grew more loud and savage, were the
+French "seventy-fives" whipping the gray column forward.  Of what
+they felt the Germans did not speak.  In silence they looked at each
+other, and in the eyes of Marie was bitterness and resolve.
+
+Toward noon Marie met Anfossi in the great drawing-room that
+stretched the length of the terrace and from the windows of which,
+through the park gates, they could see the Paris road.
+
+"This, that is passing now," said Marie, "is the last of our rear-guard.
+Go to your tower," she ordered, "and send word that except for
+stragglers and the wounded our column has just passed through
+NeufchelIes, and that any moment we expect the French."  She
+raised her hand impressively.  "From now," she warned, "we
+speak French, we think French, we are French!"
+
+Anfossi, or Briand, as now he called himself, addressed her in
+that language.  His tone was bitter.  "Pardon my lese-majesty," he
+said, "but this chief of your Intelligence Department is a dummer
+Mensch.  He is throwing away a valuable life."
+
+Marie exclaimed in dismay.  She placed her hand upon his arm, and
+the violet eyes filled with concern.
+
+"Not yours!" she protested.
+
+"Absolutely!" returned the Italian.  "I can send nothing by this
+knapsack wireless that they will not learn from others; from airmen,
+Uhlans, the peasants in the fields.  And certainly I will be caught.
+Dead I am dead, but alive and in Paris the opportunities are unending.
+From the French Legion Etranger I have my honorable discharge.  I
+am an expert wireless operator and in their Signal Corps I can easily
+find a place.  Imagine me, then, on the Eiffel Tower.  From the air I
+snatch news from all of France, from the Channel, the North Sea.
+You and I could work together, as in Rome.  But here, between the
+lines, with a pass from a village sous-prefet, it is ridiculous.  I am
+not afraid to die.  But to die because some one else is stupid, that is
+hard."
+
+Marie clasped his hand in both of hers.
+
+"You must not speak of death," she cried; "you know I must carry out
+my orders, that I must force you to take this risk.  And you know that
+thought of harm to you tortures me!"
+
+Quickly the young man disengaged his hand.  The woman exclaimed
+with anger.
+
+"Why do you doubt me?" she cried.
+
+Briand protested vehemently.
+
+"I do not doubt you."
+
+"My affection, then?"  In a whisper that carried with it the
+feeling of a caress Marie added softly: "My love?"
+
+The young man protested miserably.  "You make it very hard,
+mademoiselle," he cried.  "You are my superior officer, I am your
+servant.  Who am I that I should share with others--"
+
+The woman interrupted eagerly.
+
+"Ah, you are jealous!" she cried.  "Is that why you are so cruel?
+But when I tell you I love you, and only you, can you not feel it
+is the truth?"
+
+The young man frowned unhappily.
+
+"My duty, mademoiselle!" he stammered.
+
+With an exclamation of anger Marie left him.  As the door slammed
+behind her, the young man drew a deep breath.  On his face was the
+expression of ineffable relief.
+
+In the hall Marie met her elderly companion, Bertha, now her
+aunt, Madame Benet.
+
+"I heard you quarrelling," Bertha protested.  "It is most indiscreet.
+It is not in the part of the Countess d'Aurillac that she makes love
+to her chauffeur."
+
+Marie laughed noiselessly and drew her farther down the hall.  "He
+is imbecile!" she exclaimed.  "He will kill me with his solemn face
+and his conceit.  I make love to him--yes--that he may work the
+more willingly.  But he will have none of it.  He is jealous of the
+others."
+
+Madame Benet frowned.
+
+"He resents the others," she corrected.  "I do not blame him.  He is
+a gentleman!"
+
+"And the others," demanded Marie; "were they not of the most
+noble families of Rome?"
+
+"I am old and I am ugly," said Bertha, "but to me Anfossi is
+always as considerate as he is to you who are so beautiful."
+
+"An Italian gentleman," returned Marie, "does not serve in
+Belgian Congo unless it is--the choice of that or the marble
+quarries."
+
+"I do not know what his past may be," sighed Madame Benet,
+"nor do I ask.  He is only a number, as you and I are only numbers.
+And I beg you to let us work in harmony.  At such a time your
+love-affairs threaten our safety.  You must wait."
+
+Marie laughed insolently.  "With the Du Barry," she protested, "I
+can boast that I wait for no man."
+
+"No," replied the older woman; "you pursue him!"
+
+Marie would have answered sharply, but on the instant her
+interest was diverted.  For one week, by day and night, she had
+lived in a world peopled only by German soldiers.  Beside her
+in the railroad carriage, on the station platforms, at the windows
+of the trains that passed the one in which she rode, at the grade
+crossings, on the bridges, in the roads that paralleled the tracks,
+choking the streets of the villages and spread over the fields of
+grain, she had seen only the gray-green uniforms.  Even her
+professional eye no longer distinguished regiment from regiment,
+dragoon from grenadier, Uhlan from Hussar or Landsturm.
+Stripes, insignia, numerals, badges of rank, had lost their meaning.
+Those who wore them no longer were individuals.  They were not
+even human.  During the three last days the automobile, like a
+motor-boat fighting the tide, had crept through a gray-green
+river of men, stained, as though from the banks, by mud and
+yellow clay.  And for hours, while the car was blocked, and in
+fury the engine raced and purred, the gray-green river had rolled
+past her, slowly but as inevitably as lava down the slope of a
+volcano, bearing on its surface faces with staring eyes, thousands
+and thousands of eyes, some fierce and bloodshot, others filled
+with weariness, homesickness, pain.  At night she still saw them:
+the white faces under the sweat and dust, the eyes dumb, inarticulate,
+asking the answer.  She had been suffocated by German soldiers, by
+the mass of them, engulfed and smothered; she had stifled in a land
+inhabited only by gray-green ghosts.
+
+And suddenly, as though a miracle had been wrought, she saw upon
+the lawn, riding toward her, a man in scarlet, blue, and silver.  One
+man riding alone.
+
+Approaching with confidence, but alert; his reins fallen, his hands
+nursing his carbine, his eyes searched the shadows of the trees, the
+empty windows, even the sun-swept sky.  His was the new face at
+the door, the new step on the floor.  And the spy knew had she
+beheld an army corps it would have been no more significant,
+no more menacing, than the solitary chasseur a cheval scouting
+in advance of the enemy.
+
+"We are saved!" exclaimed Marie, with irony.  "Go quickly," she
+commanded, "to the bedroom on the second floor that opens upon
+the staircase, so that you can see all who pass.  You are too ill
+to travel.  They must find you in bed."
+
+"And you?" said Bertha.
+
+"I," cried Marie rapturously, "hasten to welcome our preserver!"
+
+The preserver was a peasant lad.  Under the white dust his cheeks
+were burned a brown-red, his eyes, honest and blue, through much
+staring at the skies and at horizon lines, were puckered and
+encircled with tiny wrinkles.  Responsibility had made him older
+than his years, and in speech brief.  With the beautiful lady who
+with tears of joy ran to greet him, and who in an ecstasy of
+happiness pressed her cheek against the nose of his horse, he was
+unimpressed.  He returned to her her papers and gravely echoed her
+answers to his questions.  "This chateau," he repeated, "was
+occupied by their General Staff; they have left no wounded here;
+you saw the last of them pass a half-hour since."  He gathered up
+his reins.
+
+Marie shrieked in alarm.  "You will not leave us?" she cried.
+
+For the first time the young man permitted himself to smile.
+"Others arrive soon," he said.
+
+He touched his shako, wheeled his horse in the direction from
+which he had come, and a minute later Marie heard the hoofs
+echoing through the empty village.
+
+When they came, the others were more sympathetic.  Even in
+times of war a beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman.  And
+the staff officers who moved into the quarters so lately occupied
+by
+the enemy found in the presence of the Countess d'Aurillac
+nothing to distress them.  In the absence of her dear friend,
+Madame Iverney, the chatelaine of the chateau, she acted as their
+hostess.  Her chauffeur showed the company cooks the way to the
+kitchen, the larder, and the charcoal-box.  She, herself, in the
+hands of General Andre placed the keys of the famous wine-cellar,
+and to the surgeon, that the wounded might be freshly bandaged,
+intrusted those of the linen-closet.  After the indignities she had
+suffered while "detained" by les Boches, her delight and relief at
+again finding herself under the protection of her own people would
+have touched a heart of stone.  And the hearts of the staff were not
+of stone.  It was with regret they gave the countess permission to
+continue on her way.  At this she exclaimed with gratitude.  She
+assured them, were her aunt able to travel, she would immediately
+depart.
+
+"In Paris she will be more comfortable than here," said the kind
+surgeon.  He was a reservist, and in times of peace a fashionable
+physician and as much at his ease in a boudoir as in a field
+hospital.  "Perhaps if I saw Madam Benet?"
+
+At the suggestion the countess was overjoyed.  But they found
+Madame Benet in a state of complete collapse.  The conduct of
+the Germans had brought about a nervous breakdown.
+
+"Though the bridges are destroyed at Meaux," urged the surgeon,
+"even with a detour, you can be in Paris in four hours.  I think it is
+worth the effort."
+
+But the mere thought of the journey threw Madame Benet into
+hysterics.  She asked only to rest, she begged for an opiate to
+make her sleep.  She begged also that they would leave the door
+open, so that when she dreamed she was still in the hands of the
+Germans, and woke in terror, the sound of the dear French voices
+and the sight of the beloved French uniforms might reassure her.
+She played her part well.  Concerning her Marie felt not the least
+anxiety.  But toward Briand, the chauffeur, the new arrivals were
+less easily satisfied.
+
+The general sent his adjutant for the countess.  When the adjutant
+had closed the door General Andre began abruptly:
+
+"The chauffeur Briand," he asked, "you know him; you can vouch
+for him?"
+
+"But, certainly!" protested Marie.  "He is an Italian."
+
+As though with sudden enlightenment, Marie laughed.  It was
+as if now in the suspicion of the officer she saw a certain
+reasonableness.  "Briand was so long in the Foreign Legion
+in Algiers," she explained, "where my husband found him,
+that we have come to think of him as French. As much French
+as ourselves, I assure you."
+
+The general and his adjutant were regarding each other
+questioningly.
+
+"Perhaps I should tell the countess," began the general, "that we
+have learned--"
+
+The signal from the adjutant was so slight, so swift, that Marie
+barely intercepted it.
+
+The lips of the general shut together like the leaves of a book.
+To show the interview was at an end, he reached for a pen.
+
+"I thank you," he said.
+
+"Of course," prompted the adjutant, "Madame d'Aurillac understands
+the man must not know we inquired concerning him."
+
+General Andre frowned at Marie.
+
+"Certainly not!" he commanded.  "The honest fellow must not know
+that even for a moment he was doubted."
+
+Marie raised the violet eyes reprovingly.
+
+"I trust," she said with reproach, "I too well understand the
+feelings of a French soldier to let him know his loyalty is
+questioned."
+
+With a murmur of appreciation the officers bowed and with a
+gesture of gracious pardon Marie left them.
+
+Outside in the hall, with none but orderlies to observe, like a cloak
+the graciousness fell from her.  She was drawn two ways.  In her
+work Anfossi was valuable.  But Anfossi suspected was less than
+of no value; he became a menace, a death-warrant.
+
+General Andre had said, "We have learned--" and the adjutant
+had halted him.  What had he learned? To know that, Marie
+would have given much.  Still, one important fact comforted her.
+Anfossi alone was suspected.  Had there been concerning herself
+the slightest doubt, they certainly would not have allowed her to
+guess her companion was under surveillance; they would not have
+asked one who was herself suspected to vouch for the innocence of
+a fellow conspirator.  Marie found the course to follow difficult.
+With Anfossi under suspicion his usefulness was for the moment
+at an end; and to accept the chance offered her to continue on to
+Paris seemed most wise.  On the other hand, if, concerning
+Anfossi, she had succeeded in allaying their doubts, the results
+most to be desired could be attained only by remaining where they
+were.
+
+Their position inside the lines was of the greatest strategic
+value.  The rooms of the servants were under the roof, and that
+Briand should sleep in one of them was natural.  That to reach or
+leave his room he should constantly be ascending or descending
+the stairs also was natural.  The field-wireless outfit, or, as he
+had disdainfully described it, the "knapsack" wireless, was
+situated not in the bedroom he had selected for himself, but in
+one adjoining.  At other times this was occupied by the maid of
+Madame Iverney.  To summon her maid Madame Iverney, from her
+apartment on the second floor, had but to press a button.  And it
+was in the apartment of Madame Iverney, and on the bed of that
+lady, that Madame Benet now reclined.  When through the open
+door she saw an officer or soldier mount the stairs, she pressed
+the button that rang a bell in the room of the maid.  In this way,
+long before whoever was ascending the stairs could reach the top
+floor, warning of  his approach came to Anfossi.  It gave him time
+to replace the dustboard over the fireplace in which the wireless
+was concealed and to escape into his own bedroom.  The arrangement
+was ideal.  And already information picked up in the halls below
+by Marie had been conveyed to Anfossi to relay in a French cipher
+to the German General Staff at Rheims.
+
+Marie made an alert and charming hostess.  To all who saw her
+it was evident that her mind was intent only upon the comfort of
+her guests.  Throughout the day many came and went, but each
+she made welcome; to each as he departed she called "bonne
+chance."  
+Efficient, tireless, tactful, she was everywhere: in the
+dining-room, in the kitchen, in the bedrooms, for the wounded
+finding mattresses to spread in the gorgeous salons of the
+Champagne prince; for the soldier-chauffeurs carrying wine into
+the courtyard, where the automobiles panted and growled, and the
+arriving and departing shrieked for right of way. At all times an
+alluring person, now the one woman in a tumult of men, her smart
+frock covered by an apron, her head and arms bare, undismayed
+by the sight of the wounded or by the distant rumble of the guns,
+the Countess d'Aurillac was an inspiring and beautiful picture.
+The eyes of the officers, young and old, informed her of that
+fact, one of which already she was well aware. By the morning
+of the next day she was accepted as the owner of the chateau.
+
+And though continually she reminded the staff she was present
+only as the friend of her schoolmate, Madame Iverney, they
+deferred to her as to a hostess.  Many of them she already
+saluted by name, and to those who with messages were
+constantly motoring to and from the front at Soissons she
+was particularly kind.  Overnight the legend of her charm,
+of her devotion to the soldiers of all ranks, had spread from
+Soissons to Meaux, and from Meaux to Paris.  It was noon of
+that day when from the window of the second story Marie saw
+an armored automobile sweep into the courtyard.  It was driven
+by an officer, young and appallingly good-looking, and, as was
+obvious by the way he spun his car, one who held in contempt
+both the law of gravity and death.  That he was some one of
+importance seemed evident.  Before he could alight the adjutant
+had raced to meet him.  With her eye for detail Marie observed
+that the young officer, instead of imparting information, received
+it.  He must, she guessed, have just arrived from Paris, and his
+brother officer either was telling him the news or giving him his
+orders.  Whichever it might be, in what was told him the new
+arrival was greatly interested.  One instant in indignation his
+gauntleted fist beat upon the steering-wheel, the next he smiled
+with pleasure.  To interpret this pantomime was difficult; and,
+the better to inform herself, Marie descended the stairs.
+
+As she reached the lower hall the two officers entered.  To the
+spy the man last to arrive was always the one of greatest
+importance; and Marie assured herself that through her friend,
+the adjutant, to meet with this one would prove easy.
+
+But the chauffeur-commander of the armored car made it most
+difficult.  At sight of Marie, much to her alarm, as though
+greeting a dear friend, he snatched his kepi from his head and
+sprang toward her.
+
+"The major," he cried, "told me you were here, that you are Madame
+d'Aurillac."  His eyes spoke his admiration.  In delight he beamed
+upon her.  "I might have known it!" he murmured.  With the
+confidence of one who is sure he brings good news, he laughed
+happily.  "And I," he cried, "am 'Pierrot'!"
+
+Who the devil "Pierrot" might be the spy could not guess.  She
+knew only that she wished by a German shell "Pierrot" and his
+car had been blown to tiny fragments.  Was it a trap, she asked
+herself, or was the handsome youth really some one the Countess
+d'Aurillac should know.  But, as from his introducing himself it
+was evident he could not know that lady very well, Marie took
+courage and smiled.
+
+"Which 'Pierrot'?" she parried.
+
+"Pierre Thierry!" cried the youth.
+
+To the relief of Marie he turned upon the adjutant and to him
+explained who Pierre Thierry might be.
+
+"Paul d'Aurillac," he said, "is my dearest friend.  When he married
+this charming lady I was stationed in Algiers, and but for the war
+I might never have met her."
+
+To Marie, with his hand on his heart in a most charming manner,
+he bowed.  His admiration he made no effort to conceal.
+
+"And so," he said, "I know why there is war!"
+
+The adjutant smiled indulgently, and departed on his duties, leaving
+them alone.  The handsome eyes of Captain Thierry were raised to
+the violet eyes of Marie.  They appraised her boldly and as boldly
+expressed their approval.
+
+In burlesque the young man exclaimed indignantly: "Paul deceived
+me!" he cried.  "He told me he had married the most beautiful woman
+in Laon.  He has married the most beautiful woman in France!"
+
+To Marie this was not impertinence, but gallantry.
+
+This was a language she understood, and this was the type of man,
+because he was the least difficult to manage, she held most in
+contempt.
+
+"But about you Paul did not deceive me," she retorted.  In
+apparent confusion her eyes refused to meet his.  "He told me
+'Pierrot' was a most dangerous man!"
+
+She continued hurriedly.  With wifely solicitude she asked
+concerning Paul.  She explained that for a week she had been
+a prisoner in the chateau, and, since the mobilization, of her
+husband save that he was with his regiment in Paris she had heard
+nothing.  Captain Thierry was able to give her later news.  Only
+the day previous, on the boulevards, he had met Count d'Aurillac.
+He was at the Grand Hotel, and as Thierry was at once motoring
+back to Paris he would give Paul news of their meeting.  He hoped
+he might tell him that soon his wife also would be in Paris.  Marie
+explained that only the illness of her aunt prevented her from that
+same day joining her husband.  Her manner became serious.
+
+"And what other news have you?" she asked.  "Here on the
+firing-line we know less of what is going forward than you in
+Paris."
+
+So Pierre Thierry told her all he knew.  They were preparing
+despatches he was at once to carry back to the General Staff,
+and, for the moment, his time was his own.  How could he
+better employ it than in talking of the war with a patriotic
+and charming French woman?
+
+In consequence Marie acquired a mass of facts, gossip, and
+guesses.  From these she mentally selected such information as,
+to her employers across the Aisne, would be of vital interest.
+
+And to rid herself of Thierry and on the fourth floor seek
+Anfossi was now her only wish.  But, in attempting this, by
+the return of the adjutant she was delayed.  To Thierry the
+adjutant gave a sealed envelope.
+
+"Thirty-one, Boulevard des Invalides," he said.  With a smile he
+turned to Marie.  "And you will accompany him!"
+
+"I!" exclaimed Marie.  She was sick with sudden terror.
+
+But the tolerant smile of the adjutant reassured her.
+
+"The count, your husband," he explained, "has learned of your
+detention here by the enemy, and he has besieged the General
+Staff to have you convoyed safely to Paris."  The adjutant glanced
+at a field telegram he held open in his hand.  "He asks," he continued,
+"that you be permitted to return in the car of his friend, Captain
+Thierry, and that on arriving you join him at the Grand Hotel."
+
+Thierry exclaimed with delight.
+
+"But how charming!" he cried.  "To-night you must both dine with
+me at La Rue's."  He saluted his superior officer.  "Some petrol,
+sir," he said.  "And I am ready."  To Marie he added: "The car will
+be at the steps in five minutes."  He turned and left them.
+
+The thoughts of Marie, snatching at an excuse for delay, raced
+madly.  The danger of meeting the Count d'Aurillac, her supposed
+husband, did not alarm her.  The Grand Hotel has many exits, and,
+even before they reached it, for leaving the car she could invent
+an excuse that the gallant Thierry would not suspect.  But what
+now concerned her was how, before she was whisked away to Paris,
+she could convey to Anfossi the information she had gathered from
+Thierry.  First, of a woman overcome with delight at being reunited
+with her husband she gave an excellent imitation; then she exclaimed
+in distress: "But my aunt, Madame Benet!" she cried.  "I cannot leave
+her!"
+
+"The Sisters of St. Francis," said the adjutant, "arrive within an hour
+to nurse the wounded.  They will care also for your aunt."
+
+Marie concealed her chagrin.  "Then I will at once prepare to go,"
+she said.
+
+The adjutant handed her a slip of paper.  "Your laissez-passer to
+Paris," he said.  "You leave in five minutes, madame!"
+
+As temporary hostess of the chateau Marie was free to visit
+any part of it, and as she passed her door a signal from Madame
+Benet told her that Anfossi was on the fourth floor, that he was
+at work, and that the coast was clear.  Softly, in the felt slippers
+she always wore, as she explained, in order not to disturb the
+wounded, she mounted the staircase.  In her hand she carried
+the housekeeper's keys, and as an excuse it was her plan to return
+with an armful of linen for the arriving Sisters.  But Marie never
+reached the top of the stairs.  When her eyes rose to the level
+of the fourth floor she came to a sudden halt.  At what she saw
+terror gripped her, bound her hand and foot, and turned her blood
+to ice.
+
+At her post for an instant Madame Benet had slept, and an officer
+of the staff, led by curiosity, chance, or suspicion, had, unobserved
+and unannounced, mounted to the fourth floor.  When Marie saw
+him he was in front of the room that held the wireless.  His back
+was toward her, but she saw that he was holding the door to the
+room ajar, that his eye was pressed to the opening, and that
+through it he had pushed the muzzle of his automatic.  What
+would be the fate of Anfossi Marie knew.  Nor did she for an
+instant consider it.  Her thoughts were of her own safety; that
+she might live.
+
+Not that she might still serve the Wilhelmstrasse, the Kaiser, or
+the Fatherland; but that she might live.  In a moment Anfossi
+would be denounced, the chateau would ring with the alarm, and,
+though she knew Anfossi would not betray her, by others she might
+be accused.  To avert suspicion from herself she saw only one way
+open.  She must be the first to denounce Anfossi.
+
+Like a deer, she leaped down the marble stairs and, in a panic
+she had no need to assume, burst into the presence of the staff.
+
+"Gentlemen!" she gasped, "my servant--the chauffeur--Briand is a
+spy! There is a German wireless in the chateau.  He is using it!
+I have seen him."  With exclamations, the officers rose to their
+feet.  General Andre alone remained seated.  General Andre was
+a veteran of many Colonial wars: Cochin-China, Algiers, Morocco.
+The great war, when it came, found him on duty in the Intelligence
+Department.  His aquiline nose, bristling white eyebrows, and
+flashing, restless eyes gave him his nickname of l'Aigle.
+
+In amazement, the flashing eyes were now turned upon Marie.  He
+glared at her as though he thought she suddenly had flown mad.
+
+"A German wireless!" he protested. "It is impossible!"
+
+"I was on the fourth floor," panted Marie, "collecting linen for
+the Sisters.  In the room next to the linen-closet I heard a strange
+buzzing sound.  I opened the door softly.  I saw Briand with his
+back to me seated by an instrument.  There were receivers clamped
+to his ears! My God! The disgrace! The disgrace to my husband and
+to me, who vouched for him to you!"  Apparently in an agony of
+remorse, the fingers of the woman laced and interlaced.  "I cannot
+forgive myself!"
+
+The officers moved toward the door, but General Andre halted
+them.  Still in a tone of incredulity, he demanded: "When did you
+see this?"
+
+Marie knew the question was coming, knew she must explain how
+she saw Briand, and yet did not see the staff officer who, with his
+prisoner, might now at any instant appear.  She must make it plain
+she had discovered the spy and left the upper part of the house
+before the officer had visited it.  When that was she could not
+know, but the chance was that he had preceded her by only a
+few minutes.
+
+"When did you see this?" repeated the general.
+
+"But just now," cried Marie; "not ten minutes since."
+
+"Why did you not come to me at once?"
+
+"I was afraid," replied Marie.  "If I moved I was afraid he might hear
+me, and he, knowing I would expose him, would kill me-and so
+escape you!" There was an eager whisper of approval.  For silence,
+General Andre slapped his hand upon the table.
+
+"Then," continued Marie, "I understood with the receivers on his
+ears he could not have heard me open the door, nor could he hear
+me leave, and I ran to my aunt.  The thought that we had harbored
+such an animal sickened me, and I was weak enough to feel faint.
+But only for an instant.  Then I came here."  She moved swiftly to
+the door.  "Let me show you the room," she begged; "you can take
+him in the act."  Her eyes, wild with the excitement of the chase,
+swept the circle.  "Will you come?" she begged.
+
+Unconscious of the crisis he interrupted, the orderly on duty
+opened the door.
+
+"Captain Thierry's compliments," he recited mechanically, "and is
+he to delay longer for Madame d'Aurillac?"
+
+With a sharp gesture General Andre waved Marie toward the door.
+Without rising, he inclined his head.  "Adieu, madame," he said.
+"We act at once upon your information.  I thank you!"
+
+As she crossed from the hall to the terrace, the ears of the spy were
+assaulted by a sudden tumult of voices.  They were raised in threats
+and curses.  Looking back, she saw Anfossi descending the stairs.
+His hands were held above his head; behind him, with his automatic,
+the staff officer she had surprised on the fourth floor was driving him
+forward.  Above the clinched fists of the soldiers that ran to meet him,
+the eyes of Anfossi were turned toward her.  His face was expressionless.
+His eyes neither accused nor reproached.  And with the joy of one who
+has looked upon and then escaped the guillotine, Marie ran down the
+steps to the waiting automobile.  With a pretty cry of pleasure she leaped
+into the seat beside Thierry.  Gayly she threw out her arms.  "To Paris!"
+she commanded.  The handsome eyes of Thierry, eloquent with
+admiration, looked back into hers.  He stooped, threw in the clutch,
+and the great gray car, with the machine gun and its crew of privates
+guarding the rear, plunged through the park.
+
+"To Paris!" echoed Thierry.
+
+In the order in which Marie had last seen them, Anfossi and the
+staff officer entered the room of General Andre, and upon the
+soldiers in the hall the door was shut.  The face of the staff
+officer was grave, but his voice could not conceal his elation.
+
+"My general," he reported, "I found this man in the act of giving
+information to the enemy.  There is a wireless-"
+
+General Andre rose slowly.  He looked neither at the officer nor
+at his prisoner.  With frowning eyes he stared down at the maps
+upon his table.
+
+"I know," he interrupted.  "Some one has already told me."  He
+paused, and then, as though recalling his manners, but still
+without raising his eyes, he added: "You have done well, sir."
+
+In silence the officers of the staff stood motionless.  With surprise
+they noted that, as yet, neither in anger nor curiosity had General
+Andre glanced at the prisoner.  But of the presence of the general
+the spy was most acutely conscious.  He stood erect, his arms still
+raised, but his body strained forward, and on the averted eyes of the
+general his own were fixed.
+
+In an agony of supplication they asked a question.
+
+At last, as though against his wish, toward the spy the general
+turned his head, and their eyes met.  And still General Andre was
+silent.  Then the arms of the spy, like those of a runner who has
+finished his race and breasts the tape exhausted, fell to his sides.
+In a voice low and vibrant he spoke his question.
+
+"It has been so long, sir," he pleaded.  "May I not come home?"
+
+General Andre turned to the astonished group surrounding him.  His
+voice was hushed like that of one who speaks across an open grave.
+
+"Gentlemen," he began, "my children," he added.  "A German spy, a
+woman, involved in a scandal your brother in arms, Henri Ravignac.
+His honor, he thought, was concerned, and without honor he refused
+to live.  To prove him guiltless his younger brother Charles asked
+leave to seek out the woman who had betrayed Henri, and by us was
+detailed on secret service.  He gave up home, family, friends.  He lived
+in exile, in poverty, at all times in danger of a swift and ignoble death.
+In the War Office we know him as one who has given to his country
+services she cannot hope to reward.  For she cannot return to him the
+years he has lost.  She cannot return to him his brother.  But she can
+and will clear the name of Henri Ravignac, and upon his brother
+Charles bestow promotion and honors."
+
+The general turned and embraced the spy.  "My children," he said,
+"welcome your brother.  He has come home."
+
+Before the car had reached the fortifications, Marie Gessler had
+arranged her plan of escape.  She had departed from the chateau
+without even a hand-bag, and she would say that before the shops
+closed she must make purchases.
+
+Le Printemps lay in their way, and she asked that, when they
+reached it, for a moment she might alight.  Captain Thierry
+readily gave permission.
+
+From the department store it would be most easy to disappear,
+and in anticipation Marie smiled covertly.  Nor was the picture
+of Captain Thierry impatiently waiting outside unamusing.
+
+But before Le Printemps was approached, the car turned sharply
+down a narrow street.  On one side, along its entire length, ran a
+high gray wall, grim and forbidding.  In it was a green gate studded
+with iron bolts.  Before this the automobile drew suddenly to a halt.
+The crew of the armored car tumbled off the rear seat, and one of
+them beat upon the green gate.  Marie felt a hand of ice clutch at her
+throat.  But she controlled herself.
+
+"And what is this?" she cried gayly.
+
+At her side Captain Thierry was smiling down at her, but his
+smile was hateful.
+
+"It is the prison of St. Lazare," he said.  "It is not becoming,"
+he added sternly, "that the name of the Countess d'Aurillac
+should be made common as the Paris road!"
+
+Fighting for her life, Marie thrust herself against him; her
+arm that throughout the journey had rested on the back of the
+driving-seat caressed his shoulders; her lips and the violet eyes
+were close to his.
+
+"Why should you care?" she whispered fiercely.  "You have me! Let
+the Count d'Aurillac look after the honor of his wife himself."
+
+The charming Thierry laughed at her mockingly.
+
+"He means to," he said.  "I am the Count d'Aurillac!"
+
+
+
+THE DESERTER
+
+In Salonika, the American consul, the Standard Oil man, and
+the war correspondents formed the American colony.  The
+correspondents were waiting to go to the front.  Incidentally,
+as we waited, the front was coming rapidly toward us.  There
+was "Uncle" Jim, the veteran of many wars, and of all the
+correspondents, in experience the oldest and in spirit the
+youngest, and there was the Kid, and the Artist.  The Kid
+jeered at us, and proudly described himself as the only Boy
+Reporter who jumped from a City Hall assignment to cover a
+European War.  "I don't know strategy," he would boast; "neither
+does the Man at Home.  He wants 'human interest' stuff, and I give
+him what he wants.  I write exclusively for the subway guard and
+the farmers in the wheat belt.  When you fellows write about the
+'Situation,' they don't understand it.  Neither do you.  Neither does
+Venizelos or the King.  I don't understand it myself.  So, I write my
+people heart-to-heart talks about refugees and wounded, and what
+kind of ploughs the Servian peasants use, and that St. Paul wrote
+his letters to the Thessalonians from the same hotel where I write
+mine; and I tell 'em to pronounce Salonika 'eeka,' and not put
+the accent on the 'on.'  This morning at the refugee camp I found
+all the little Servians of the Frothingham unit in American Boy
+Scout uniforms.  That's my meat.  That's 'home week' stuff.  You
+fellows write for the editorial page; and nobody reads it.  I write
+for the man that turns first to Mutt and Jeff, and then looks to see
+where they are running the new Charlie Chaplin release.  When
+that man has to choose between 'our military correspondent' and
+the City Hall Reporter, he chooses me!"
+
+The third man was John, "Our Special Artist."  John could write
+a news story, too, but it was the cartoons that had made him
+famous.  They were not comic page, but front page cartoons, and
+before making up their minds what they thought, people waited to
+see what their Artist thought.  So, it was fortunate his thoughts
+were as brave and clean as they were clever.  He was the original
+Little Brother to the Poor.  He was always giving away money.
+When we caught him, he would prevaricate. He would say the man
+was a college chum, that he had borrowed the money from him,
+and that this was the first chance he had had to pay it back.  The Kid
+suggested it was strange that so many of his college chums should
+at the same moment turn up, dead broke, in Salonika, and that
+half of them should be women.
+
+John smiled disarmingly.  "It was a large college," he explained,
+"and coeducational."  There were other Americans; Red Cross
+doctors and nurses just escaped through the snow from the
+Bulgars, and hyphenated Americans who said they had taken
+out their first papers.  They thought hyphenated citizens were
+so popular with us, that we would pay their passage to New York.
+In Salonika they were transients.  They had no local standing.  They
+had no local lying-down place, either, or place to eat, or to wash,
+although they did not look as though that worried them, or place
+to change their clothes.  Or clothes to change.  It was because we
+had clothes to change, and a hotel bedroom, instead of a bench in
+a cafe, that we were ranked as residents and from the Greek police
+held a "permission to sojourn."  Our American colony was a very
+close corporation.  We were only six Americans against 300,000
+British, French, Greek, and Servian soldiers, and 120,000 civilian
+Turks, Spanish Jews, Armenians, Persians, Egyptians, Albanians,
+and Arabs, and some twenty more other races that are not listed.
+We had arrived in Salonika before the rush, and at the Hotel Hermes
+on the water-front had secured a vast room.  The edge of the stone
+quay was not forty feet from us, the only landing steps directly
+opposite our balcony.  Everybody who arrived on the Greek
+passenger boats from Naples or the Piraeus, or who had shore
+leave from a man-of-war, transport, or hospital ship, was raked
+by our cameras.  There were four windows--one for each of us
+and his work table.  It was not easy to work.  What was the use?
+The pictures and stories outside the windows fascinated us, but
+when we sketched them or wrote about them, they only proved
+us inadequate.  All day long the pinnaces, cutters, gigs, steam
+launches shoved and bumped against the stone steps, marines
+came ashore for the mail, stewards for fruit and fish, Red Cross
+nurses to shop, tiny midshipmen to visit the movies, and the
+sailors and officers of the Russian, French, British, Italian,
+and Greek war-ships to stretch their legs in the park of the Tour
+Blanche, or to cramp them under a cafe table.  Sometimes the
+ambulances blocked the quay and the wounded and frost-bitten
+were lifted into the motor-boats, and sometimes a squad of marines
+lined the landing stage, and as a coffin under a French or English
+flag was borne up the stone steps stood at salute.  So crowded
+was the harbor that the oars of the boatmen interlocked.
+
+Close to the stone quay, stretched along the three-mile circle,
+were the fishing smacks, beyond them, so near that the anchor
+chains fouled, were the passenger ships with gigantic Greek flags
+painted on their sides, and beyond them transports from Marseilles,
+Malta, and Suvla Bay, black colliers, white hospital ships, burning
+green electric lights, red-bellied tramps and freighters, and, hemming
+them in, the grim, mouse-colored destroyers, submarines, cruisers,
+dreadnaughts.  At times, like a wall, the cold fog rose between us
+and the harbor, and again the curtain would suddenly be ripped
+asunder, and the sun would flash on the brass work of the fleet,
+on the white wings of the aeroplanes, on the snow-draped
+shoulders of Mount Olympus.  We often speculated as to how
+in the early days the gods and goddesses, dressed as they were,
+or as they were not, survived the snows of Mount Olympus.  Or
+was it only their resort for the summer?
+
+It got about that we had a vast room to ourselves, where one
+might obtain a drink, or a sofa for the night, or even money to
+cable for money.  So, we had many strange visitors, some half
+starved, half frozen, with terrible tales of the Albanian trail,
+of the Austrian prisoners fallen by the wayside, of the mountain
+passes heaped with dead, of the doctors and nurses wading
+waist-high in snow-drifts and for food killing the ponies.  Some
+of our visitors wanted to get their names in the American papers
+so that the folks at home would know they were still alive,
+others wanted us to keep their names out of the papers, hoping
+the police would think them dead; another, convinced it was of
+pressing news value, desired us to advertise the fact that he had
+invented a poisonous gas for use in the trenches.  With difficulty
+we prevented him from casting it adrift in our room.  Or, he had
+for sale a second-hand motor-cycle, or he would accept a position
+as barkeeper, or for five francs would sell a state secret that, once
+made public, in a month would end the war.  It seemed cheap at
+the price.
+
+Each of us had his "scouts" to bring him the bazaar rumor, the
+Turkish bath rumor, the cafe rumor.  Some of our scouts journeyed
+as far afield as Monastir and Doiran, returning to drip snow on
+the floor, and to tell us tales, one-half of which we refused to
+believe, and the other half the censor refused to pass.  With each
+other's visitors it was etiquette not to interfere.  It would have
+been like tapping a private wire.  When we found John sketching
+a giant stranger in a cap and coat of wolf skin we did not seek
+to know if he were an Albanian brigand, or a Servian prince
+incognito, and when a dark Levantine sat close to the Kid,
+whispering, and the Kid banged on his typewriter, we did not
+listen.
+
+So, when I came in one afternoon and found a strange American
+youth writing at John's table, and no one introduced us, I took
+it for granted he had sold the Artist an "exclusive" story, and
+asked no questions.  But I could not help hearing what they said.
+Even though I tried to drown their voices by beating on the Kid's
+typewriter.  I was taking my third lesson, and I had printed, "I
+Amm 5w writjng This, 5wjth my own lilly w?ite handS," when I
+heard the Kid saying:
+
+"You can beat the game this way.  Let John buy you a ticket to the
+Piraeus.  If you go from one Greek port to another you don't need
+a vise.  But, if you book from here to Italy, you must get a permit
+from the Italian consul, and our consul, and the police.  The plot
+is to get out of the war zone, isn't it? Well, then, my dope is to get
+out quick, and map the rest of your trip when you're safe in Athens."
+
+It was no business of mine, but I had to look up.  The stranger
+was now pacing the floor.  I noticed that while his face was
+almost black with tan, his upper lip was quite white.  I noticed
+also that he had his hands in the pockets of one of John's blue
+serge suits, and that the pink silk shirt he wore was one that
+once had belonged to the Kid.  Except for the pink shirt, in the
+appearance of the young man there was nothing unusual.  He was
+of a familiar type.  He looked like a young business man from our
+Middle West, matter-of-fact and unimaginative, but capable and
+self-reliant.  If he had had a fountain pen in his upper waistcoat
+pocket, I would have guessed he was an insurance agent, or the
+publicity man for a new automobile.  John picked up his hat,
+and said, "That's good advice.  Give me your steamer ticket, Fred,
+and I'll have them change it."  He went out; but he did not ask
+Fred to go with him.
+
+Uncle Jim rose, and murmured something about the Cafe Roma,
+and tea.  But neither did he invite Fred to go with him.  Instead,
+he told him to make himself at home, and if he wanted anything
+the waiter would bring it from the cafe downstairs.  Then the Kid,
+as though he also was uncomfortable at being left alone with us,
+hurried to the door.  "Going to get you a suit-case," he explained.
+"Back in five minutes."
+
+The stranger made no answer.  Probably he did not hear him.  Not a
+hundred feet from our windows three Greek steamers were huddled
+together, and the eyes of the American were fixed on them.  The
+one for which John had gone to buy him a new ticket lay nearest.
+She was to sail in two hours.  Impatiently, in short quick steps,
+the stranger paced the length of the room, but when he turned and
+so could see the harbor, he walked slowly, devouring it with his
+eyes.  For some time, in silence, he repeated this manoeuvre; and
+then the complaints of the typewriter disturbed him.  He halted
+and observed my struggles.  Under his scornful eye, in my
+embarrassment I frequently hit the right letter.  "You a
+newspaper man, too?" he asked.  I boasted I was, but
+begged not to be judged by my typewriting.
+
+"I got some great stories to write when I get back to God's country,"
+he announced.  "I was a reporter for two years in Kansas City before
+the war, and now I'm going back to lecture and write.  I got enough
+material to keep me at work for five years.  All kinds of stuff--
+specials, fiction, stories, personal experiences, maybe a novel."
+
+I regarded him with envy.  For the correspondents in the
+greatest of all wars the pickings had been meagre.  "You
+are to be congratulated," I said.  He brushed aside my
+congratulations.  "For what?" he demanded.  "I didn't go
+after the stories; they came to me.  The things I saw I had
+to see.  Couldn't get away from them.  I've been with the
+British, serving in the R. A. M. C.  Been hospital steward,
+stretcher bearer, ambulance driver.  I've been sixteen months
+at the front, and all the time on the firing-line.  I was in the
+retreat from Mons, with French on the Marne, at Ypres, all
+through the winter fighting along the Canal, on the Gallipoli
+Peninsula, and, just lately, in Servia.  I've seen more of this
+war than any soldier.  Because, sometimes, they give the soldier
+a rest; they never give the medical corps a rest.  The only rest I
+got was when I was wounded."
+
+He seemed no worse for his wounds, so again I tendered
+congratulations.  This time he accepted them.  The recollection
+of the things he had seen, things incredible, terrible, unique in
+human experience, had stirred him.  He talked on, not boastfully,
+but in a tone, rather, of awe and disbelief, as though assuring
+himself that it was really he to whom such things had happened.
+
+"I don't believe there's any kind of fighting I haven't seen," he
+declared; "hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, grenades, gun
+butts.  I've seen 'em on their knees in the mud choking each
+other, beating each other with their bare fists.  I've seen every
+kind of airship, bomb, shell, poison gas, every kind of wound.
+Seen whole villages turned into a brickyard in twenty minutes;
+in Servia seen bodies of women frozen to death, bodies of babies
+starved to death, seen men in Belgium swinging from trees; along
+the Yzer for three months I saw the bodies of men I'd known
+sticking out of the mud, or hung up on the barb wire, with the
+crows picking them.
+
+"I've seen some of the nerviest stunts that ever were pulled off
+in history.  I've seen real heroes.  Time and time again I've seen
+a man throw away his life for his officer, or for a chap he didn't
+know, just as though it was a cigarette butt.  I've seen the women
+nurses of our corps steer a car into a village and yank out a wounded
+man while shells were breaking under the wheels and the houses
+were pitching into the streets."  He stopped and laughed consciously.
+
+"Understand," he warned me, "I'm not talking about myself, only of
+things I've seen.  The things I'm going to put in my book.  It ought
+to be a pretty good book-what?"
+
+My envy had been washed clean in admiration.
+
+"It will make a wonderful book," I agreed.  "Are you going to
+syndicate it first?"
+
+Young Mr. Hamlin frowned importantly.
+
+"I was thinking," he said, "of asking John for letters to the magazine
+editors.  So, they'll know I'm not faking, that I've really been through
+it all.  Letters from John would help a lot."  Then he asked anxiously:
+"They would, wouldn't they?"
+
+I reassured him.  Remembering the Kid's gibes at John and his
+numerous dependents, I said: "You another college chum of John's?"
+The young man answered my question quite seriously.  "No," he said;
+"John graduated before I entered; but we belong to the same fraternity.
+It was the luckiest chance in the world my finding him here.  There was
+a month-old copy of the Balkan News blowing around camp, and his
+name was in the list of arrivals.  The moment I found he was in Salonika,
+I asked for twelve hours leave, and came down in an ambulance.  I made
+straight for John; gave him the grip, and put it up to him to help me."
+
+"I don't understand," I said.  "I thought you were sailing on the
+Adriaticus?"
+
+The young man was again pacing the floor.  He halted and faced the
+harbor.
+
+"You bet I'm sailing on the Adriaticus," he said.  He looked out at
+that vessel, at the Blue Peter flying from her foremast, and grinned.
+"In just two hours!"
+
+It was stupid of me, but I still was unenlightened.  "But your twelve
+hours' leave?" I asked.
+
+The young man laughed.  "They can take my twelve hours' leave,"
+he said deliberately, "and feed it to the chickens.  I'm beating it."
+
+"What d'you mean, you're beating it?"
+
+"What do you suppose I mean?" he demanded.  "What do you
+suppose I'm doing out of uniform, what do you suppose I'm lying
+low in the room for? So's I won't catch cold?"
+
+"If you're leaving the army without a discharge, and without
+permission," I said, "I suppose you know it's desertion."
+
+Mr. Hamlin laughed easily.  "It's not my army," he said. "I'm an
+American."
+
+"It's your desertion," I suggested.
+
+The door opened and closed noiselessly, and Billy, entering,
+placed a new travelling bag on the floor.  He must have heard my
+last words, for he looked inquiringly at each of us.  But he did
+not speak and, walking to the window, stood with his hands in his
+pockets, staring out at the harbor.  His presence seemed to encourage
+the young man.  "Who knows I'm deserting?" he demanded.  "No
+one's ever seen me in Salonika before, and in these 'cits' I can get on
+board all right.  And then they can't touch me.  What do the folks at
+home care how I left the British army? They'll be so darned glad to
+get me back alive that they won't ask if I walked out or was kicked
+out.  I should worry!"
+
+"It's none of my business," I began, but I was interrupted.  In
+his restless pacings the young man turned quickly.
+
+"As you say," he remarked icily, "it is none of your business.
+It's none of your business whether I get shot as a deserter, or
+go home, or--"
+
+"You can go to the devil for all I care," I assured him.  "I
+wasn't considering you at all.  I was only sorry that I'll never
+be able to read your book."
+
+For a moment Mr. Hamlin remained silent, then he burst forth
+with a jeer.
+
+"No British firing squad," he boasted, "will ever stand me up."
+
+"Maybe not," I agreed, "but you will never write that book."
+
+Again there was silence, and this time it was broken by the Kid.
+He turned from the window and looked toward Hamlin.  "That's
+right!" he said.
+
+He sat down on the edge of the table, and at the deserter pointed
+his forefinger.
+
+"Son," he said, "this war is some war.  It's the biggest war in
+history, and folks will be talking about nothing else for the next
+ninety years; folks that never were nearer it than Bay City, Mich.
+But you won't talk about it.  And you've been all through it.
+You've been to hell and back again.  Compared with what you
+know about hell, Dante is in the same class with Dr. Cook.  But
+you won't be able to talk about this war, or lecture, or write a
+book about it."
+
+"I won't?" demanded Hamlin.  "And why won't I?"
+
+"Because of what you're doing now," said Billy.  "Because
+you're queering yourself.  Now, you've got everything."  The
+Kid was very much in earnest.  His tone was intimate, kind, and
+friendly.  "You've seen everything, done everything.  We'd give
+our eye-teeth to see what you've seen, and to write the things you
+can write.  You've got a record now that'll last you until you're
+dead, and your grandchildren are dead-and then some.  When
+you talk the table will have to sit up and listen.  You can say 'I
+was there.'  'I was in it.'  'I saw.'  'I know.'  When this war is
+over you'll have everything out of it that's worth getting-all
+the experiences, all the inside knowledge, all the 'nosebag'
+news; you'll have wounds, honors, medals, money, reputation.
+And you're throwing all that away!"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted savagely.
+
+"To hell with their medals," he said.  "They can take their medals
+and hang 'em on Christmas trees.  I don't owe the British army
+anything.  It owes me.  I've done my bit.  I've earned what I've
+got, and there's no one can take it away from me."
+
+"You can," said the Kid.  Before Hamlin could reply the door
+opened and John came in, followed by Uncle Jim.  The older
+man was looking very grave, and John very unhappy.  Hamlin
+turned quickly to John.
+
+"I thought these men were friends of yours," he began, "and
+Americans.  They're fine Americans.  They're as full of human
+kindness and red blood as a kippered herring!"
+
+John looked inquiringly at the Kid.
+
+"He wants to hang himself," explained Billy, "and because we
+tried to cut him down, he's sore."
+
+"They talked to me," protested Hamlin, "as though I was a
+yellow dog.  As though I was a quitter.  I'm no quitter! But,
+if I'm ready to quit, who's got a better right? I'm not an
+Englishman, but there are several million Englishmen haven't
+done as much for England in this was as I have.  What do you
+fellows know about it? You write about it, about the 'brave
+lads in the trenches'; but what do you know about the trenches?
+What you've seen from automobiles.  That's all.  That's where
+you get off! I've lived in the trenches for fifteen months, froze
+in 'em, starved in 'em, risked my life in 'em, and I've saved other
+lives, too, by hauling men out of the trenches.  And that's no airy
+persiflage, either!"
+
+He ran to the wardrobe where John's clothes hung, and from the
+bottom of it dragged a khaki uniform.  It was still so caked with
+mud and snow that when he flung it on the floor it splashed like
+a wet bathing suit.  "How would you like to wear one of those?" he
+Demanded.  "Stinking with lice and sweat and blood; the blood of
+other men, the men you've helped off the field, and your own
+blood."
+
+As though committing hara-kiri, he slashed his hand across his
+stomach, and then drew it up from his waist to his chin.  "I'm
+scraped with shrapnel from there to there," said Mr. Hamlin.
+"And another time I got a ball in the shoulder.  That would have
+been a 'blighty' for a fighting man--they're always giving them
+leave--but all I got was six weeks at Havre in hospital.  Then it
+was the Dardanelles, and sunstroke and sand; sleeping in sand,
+eating sand, sand in your boots, sand in your teeth; hiding in
+holes in the sand like a dirty prairie dog.  And then, 'Off to
+Servia!' And the next act opens in the snow and the mud!
+Cold? God, how cold it was! And most of us in sun helmets."
+
+As though the cold still gnawed at his bones, he shivered.
+
+"It isn't the danger," he protested.  "It isn't that I'm getting
+away from.  To hell with the danger! It's just the plain
+discomfort of it! It's the never being your own master, never
+being clean, never being warm."  Again he shivered and
+rubbed one hand against the other.  "There were no bridges
+over the streams," he went on, "and we had to break the ice
+and wade in, and then sleep in the open with the khaki frozen
+to us.  There was no firewood; not enough to warm a pot of tea.
+There were no wounded; all our casualties were frost bite and
+Pneumonia.  When we take them out of the blankets their toes
+fall off.  We've been in camp for a month now near Doiran, and
+it's worse there than on the march.  It's a frozen swamp.  You can't
+sleep for the cold; can't eat; the only ration we get is bully beef,
+and our insides are frozen so damn tight we can't digest it.  The
+cold gets into your blood, gets into your brains.  It won't let you
+think; or else, you think crazy things.  It makes you afraid."  He
+shook himself like a man coming out of a bad dream.
+
+So, I'm through," he said.  In turn he scowled at each of us, as
+though defying us to contradict him.  "That's why I'm quitting,"
+he added.  "Because I've done my bit.  Because I'm damn well fed
+up on it."  He kicked viciously at the water-logged uniform on the
+floor.  "Any one who wants my job can have it!"  He walked to the
+window, turned his back on us, and fixed his eyes hungrily on the
+Adriaticus.  There was a long pause.  For guidance we looked at
+John, but he was staring down at the desk blotter, scratching on it
+marks that he did not see.
+
+Finally, where angels feared to tread, the Kid rushed in.  "That's
+certainly a hard luck story," he said; "but," he added cheerfully,
+"it's nothing to the hard luck you'll strike when you can't tell
+why you left the army."  Hamlin turned with an exclamation,
+but Billy held up his hand.  "Now wait," he begged, "we haven't
+time to get mussy.  At six o'clock your leave is up, and the troop
+train starts back to camp, and--"
+
+Mr. Hamlin interrupted sharply.  "And the Adriaticus starts at
+five."
+
+Billy did not heed him.  "You've got two hours to change your
+mind," he said.  "That's better than being sorry you didn't the
+rest of your life."
+
+Mr. Hamlin threw back his head and laughed.  It was a most
+unpleasant laugh.  "You're a fine body of men," he jeered.
+"America must be proud of you!"
+
+"If we weren't Americans," explained Billy patiently, "we
+wouldn't give a damn whether you deserted or not.  You're
+drowning and you don't know it, and we're throwing you a
+rope.  Try to see it that way.  We'll cut out the fact that you
+took an oath, and that you're breaking it.  That's up to you.
+We'll get down to results.  When you reach home, if you can't
+tell why you left the army, the folks will darned soon guess.
+And that will queer everything you've done.  When you come
+to sell your stuff, it will queer you with the editors, queer you
+with the publishers.  If they know you broke your word to the
+British army, how can they know you're keeping faith with them?
+How can they believe anything you tell them? Every 'story' you
+write, every statement of yours will make a noise like a fake.
+You won't come into court with clean hands.  You'll be licked
+before you start.
+
+"Of course, you're for the Allies.  Well, all the Germans at home
+will fear that; and when you want to lecture on your 'Fifteen
+Months at the British Front,' they'll look up your record; and
+what will they do to you? This is what they'll do to you.  When
+you've shown 'em your moving pictures and say, 'Does any
+gentleman in the audience want to ask a question?' a German
+agent will get up and say, 'Yes, I want to ask a question.  Is it
+true that you deserted from the British army, and that if you
+return to it, they will shoot you?'"
+
+I was scared.  I expected the lean and muscular Mr. Hamlin to
+fall on Billy, and fling him where he had flung the soggy uniform.
+But instead he remained motionless, his arms pressed across his
+chest.  His eyes, filled with anger and distress, returned to the
+Adriaticus.
+
+"I'm sorry," muttered the Kid.
+
+John rose and motioned to the door, and guiltily and only too
+gladly we escaped.  John followed us into the hall.  "Let me talk
+to him," he whispered.  "The boat sails in an hour.  Please don't
+come back until she's gone."
+
+We went to the moving picture palace next door, but I doubt if
+the thoughts of any of us were on the pictures.  For after an
+hour, when from across the quay there came the long-drawn
+warning of a steamer's whistle, we nudged each other and rose
+and went out.
+
+Not a hundred yards from us the propeller blades of the
+Adriaticus were slowly churning, and the rowboats were falling
+away from her sides.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Hamlin," called Billy.  "You had everything and
+you chucked it away.  I can spell your finish.  It's 'check' for yours."
+
+But when we entered our room, in the centre of it, under the
+bunch of electric lights, stood the deserter.  He wore the
+water-logged uniform.  The sun helmet was on his head.
+
+"Good man!" shouted Billy.
+
+He advanced, eagerly holding out his hand.
+
+Mr. Hamlin brushed past him.  At the door he turned and glared
+at us, even at John.  He was not a good loser.  "I hope you're
+satisfied," he snarled.  He pointed at the four beds in a row.  I
+felt guiltily conscious of them.  At the moment they appeared so
+unnecessarily clean and warm and soft.  The silk coverlets at the
+foot of each struck me as being disgracefully effeminate.  They
+made me ashamed.
+
+"I hope," said Mr. Hamlin, speaking slowly and picking his words,
+"when you turn into those beds to-night you'll think of me in the
+mud.  I hope when you're having your five-course dinner and your
+champagne you'll remember my bully beef.  I hope when a shell or
+Mr. Pneumonia gets me, you'll write a nice little sob story about
+the 'brave lads in the trenches.' "
+
+He looked at us, standing like schoolboys, sheepish, embarrassed,
+and silent, and then threw open the door.  "I hope," he added,
+"you all choke!"
+
+With an unconvincing imitation of the college chum manner,
+John cleared his throat and said: "Don't forget, Fred, if there's
+anything I can do--"
+
+Hamlin stood in the doorway smiling at us.
+
+"There's something you can all do," he said.
+
+"Yes?" asked John heartily.
+
+"You can all go to hell!" said Mr. Hamlin.
+
+We heard the door slam, and his hobnailed boots pounding down
+the stairs.  No one spoke.  Instead, in unhappy silence, we stood
+staring at the floor.  Where the uniform had lain was a pool of
+mud and melted snow and the darker stains of stale blood.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Lost Road, etc, by Davis
+
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