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diff --git a/23996.txt b/23996.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d869b65 --- /dev/null +++ b/23996.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10502 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Jewel Weed, by Alice Ames Winter, Illustrated +by Harrison Fisher + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Jewel Weed + + +Author: Alice Ames Winter + + + +Release Date: December 26, 2007 [eBook #23996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWEL WEED*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 23996-h.htm or 23996-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/9/9/23996/23996-h/23996-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/9/9/23996/23996-h.zip) + + + + + +JEWEL WEED + +by + +ALICE AMES WINTER + +Author of "The Prize to the Hardy" + +With Illustrations by Harrison Fisher + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "Surely you must have read it long ago"--Page 360] + + + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York + +Copyright 1906 +The Bobbs-Merrill Company +October + + + + TO + MY FATHER AND MOTHER + CHARLES G. AND FANNY B. AMES + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I A Light from the Far East 1 + II Mother and Son 28 + III An Occidental Luminary 41 + IV At Madeline's 54 + V Salad Days 77 + VI Jewel Weed 99 + VII Lena's Progress 116 + VIII The Falls 132 + IX An Invitation 152 + X Bitter-Sweet 173 + XI Politics and Play 194 + XII An Engagement 210 + XIII An Awakening 222 + XIV The Return of Ram Juna 242 + XV The Honeymoon 269 + XVI Lena's Friends 298 + XVII Grape-Shot 324 + XVIII Easter 344 + XIX Oriental Rubies 365 + XX A Light from the East Goes Out 391 + XXI A Light in the West Goes Down 401 + XXII Another Beginning 424 + + + + + +JEWEL WEED + +CHAPTER I + +A LIGHT FROM THE FAR EAST + + +In the mists of the infinite, events poise invisible, awaiting their +opportunity to incarnate themselves. They fasten, each after his kind, +on these human lives of ours, as germs find the culture soil they love; +so it follows that to the commonplace comes a life of dull routine, +foolish happenings seek out the sentimentalist, sordid events seek the +sordid and on the mystic dawns the mysterious. Calamities wait there, +too, until Fate points out a weak spot in character on which they may +pounce relentless with the temptation that pierces it. As there are +certain things that would scarcely dare to happen to certain people, so +other greater events would hardly condescend to those whom they +recognize as being their own inferiors. + +Once in a while, particularly when a man is young or beginning a new +phase of life, there come times when the things that are to be seem +almost tangible. They press until he feels them crowd, while he waits +with tense expectation for them to become visible to the crude eye of +outer experience. + +Perhaps it was due to a certain occultism in the atmosphere that Ellery +Norris felt this pressure of the future on the afternoon of Mr. Early's +reception to Ram Juna. Norris was a new young man in a new young city, +and he had come West to live. However short and futile life may look to +the old, it appears a big and long thing to twenty-three. Here in St. +Etienne he was to work and work hard; among these people, now all +strangers, he was to find the friends of his lifetime; here were to come +all the experiences of struggle, failure, success, perhaps of love. + +He turned and glanced with a little sense of relief at Richard Percival +seated beside him. Dick was the one stanch thing out of his past; Dick +he had known and loved at college; Dick was even now showing himself a +friend; and all these other folk were but the ghosts of things to come. +Then he laughed lightly at himself for his own fantasy, and returned to +the survey of his surroundings. + +The vast new hall in which they sat, a hall young in years but old +Gothic in pretense, might have suggested a possessor of the stately and +knightly type rather than a little cockatoo like Mr. Early; but man has +this advantage over the snail, that, whereas, the snail is obliged to +construct a home around its slimy little body, man may build his +habitation to match his imagination and ambition. In the West, moreover, +it is the custom to leave the low-vaulted past and build more stately +mansions as fast as the increasing purse will permit. + +The great room was cool, even on a glowing summer day. Its heavy walls +shut out the heat and its narrow windows gave but a creeping light which +lost itself in the vaulted spaces above. It was archaic in a modern +fashion, too archaic to be quite convincing when combined with +present-day ornaments and luxuries, too splendid to belong to any one +except Mr. Early, and yet, withal, a satisfying place, dim and fragrant +on this July afternoon. The pale summery gowns of the women and the +sprinkling of dark coats of the few men present modified its +gorgeousness. + +To-day Mr. Early surely had reason to congratulate himself on his +amplitude of space, for if ever a big background was needed, it was when +the public had come in its hundreds to look upon the huge Hindu who +stood beside the host, dwarfing him as well as the throng in front. +Swami Ram Juna overtopped them all in inches, as in serenity. + +Mr. Early, whose physique was of the Napoleonic order, just as much body +as was necessary to incase a mighty soul, had, in spite of his few +inches, an air of distinction which demanded and received attention. Ram +Juna, on the other hand, betrayed no expectation of adulation. Rather +was he utterly oblivious of it. Over the heads of those to whom he had +been speaking his far-seeing eyes gazed into that nothingness which is +popularly supposed to be full of spiritual significance. He was +oblivious of the earth. + +Here, then, before the group of guests, in fine contrast, like a +tropical bird caught among thrushes, stood this big bronze creature, +magnificently gowned in a long flame-colored garment touched upon its +borders with strange embroideries and girdled about its ample waist +with a wide sash of dull oriental red. The polished face was set off by +a turban of snowy white, in whose center blazed, like a bloodshot eye, a +single enormous ruby. Everything about Ram Juna was superlative--his +size, his raiment, his rapt gaze, his doctrine. + +But after all, though the Hindu occupied the position of honor in the +social stage, Norris found it hard to keep his attention fixed on that +bird of paradise, who, at best, was sure to be but a temporary interest +in these western states of America, where facts, not theories, loom +large. The new young man's eyes wandered to the audience, made up of +people like himself. The unknown catches us for an instant, but our own +kind are perennially absorbing. Since he and Dick were perched on a deep +window-sill, which brought them at right angles to the row of chairs, he +began to study the faces on this side and that. + +A little in front of them a woman of thirty or more, exquisitely dressed +in summer white, pretty and complacent, leaned back in her chair. +Happening to catch Percival's eye he looked inquiry. + +"Mrs. Appleton," whispered that young man, and lifted his eyebrows as +if to express astonished admiration, then made a wry face. Norris smiled +his understanding and glanced back at the self-satisfied prosperity +beneath her filmy hat. Then, suddenly, at the far end of the room, +another face caught him--a profile of a girl's head, outlined against a +high bench-back, her dreamy eyes fixed on the speaker. It was a +cameo-like face, not animated, but delicate and finely lined. Norris +knew her in a flash. This was the girl whose photograph had stood on +Dick's mantel at college and of whom Dick had sometimes spoken in those +rare intimate hours when he talked of his mother or of his purposes in +life. Ellery forgot the rest of the room and watched her until a sudden +forward lunge of Mrs. Appleton's hat shut her off, and brought him back +to consciousness of the place and the supposed interests of the day. He +turned back with a sigh to Ram Juna, telling himself with some amusement +that other minds than his own were wandering far afield, and that the +attitude of polite interest came as much from the conviction that +Esoteric Buddhism was "the thing," as from any real absorption. + +Already the Hindu had been talking to them for an hour. His speech had +that precision and purity both of word and of enunciation by which a +foreigner, trained in our classics, often shames our slovenly every-day +English. He spoke, not as one who wishes to convert others to his own +point of view, but, rather, as though unconscious of their presence, he +poured out the fullness of his meditations in self-communion. The +upward-turned eyes were half closed. Occasionally there was a flicker of +the eyelids or a touch of scorn when he contrasted the eastern ideal of +eternal repose with the western reality of endless struggle. Then for a +moment he seemed to realize the presence of his auditors, ashamed now of +their telephones, their public schools and even of their philanthropies, +in the face of this supreme contempt for the things that fade. + +Suddenly he opened wide his great eyes. + +"And you," he said, "you, with your guns, your armies and your +ignorances, you think to rule us. Well, so be it! We grant to you +dominion as a man gives to a child the sticks and straws for which it +loudly clamors in its petty plays. But our treasures are the higher +thoughts which alone are worthy of the man. These we reserve." + +The great oriental ruby above his forehead seemed to burn more +brilliantly than ever as if to shame the frivolous occidental jewels +that twinkled before it. + +"Yes," he went on, "these gems we do not submit to force. They are not +to be ravished by blood and iron. Yet even these, our sacred treasures, +we gladly share with those who, in humility and in the life of +meditation, seek with us the universal truths. And truth, what is it? It +eludes the scalpel of reason. It is the master and not the servant of +logic. The only truths worthy to be known are those which are to be +experienced by the soul in her hours of solitude. Then does she cease to +think. Then does she cease to reason. Then does she know." + +He was dogmatic and they fell under his sway. A hush deeper than silence +lay upon his audience as the Swami stood for a moment as though lost in +himself. Recalling his surroundings he spoke again. + +"My friends in this land, who are coming to understand with us, and we +are not numerous even in India--the land of inspiration--my friends, +whom you call by some long name which I have forgotten, ask me to tell +you a little of what we know concerning the order of the universe. I +will unfold." As though giving instruction in elementary arithmetic, +Swami Ram Juna began to sketch the adventures of the soul as it flies +from one existence to another. His words were vivid and definite. + +At this point Dick Percival's lips began to move with the cynical +amusement of youth. + +"Pretty positive, isn't he, about the things no mortal knows?" he +whispered to Norris. + +Softly spoken though the words were, Ram Juna instantly fixed his eyes +upon the guilty youth. It was a habit of the Hindu to hear everything +that rose above the sound of a thought. + +"You think I speak of mysteries!" he demanded, suddenly breaking his +discourse and leaning like a pine tree toward Percival. "You think that +in a closet some one weaves a fantastic theory of life and lives. But +no! What have I told you? What I speak, that has my soul known, as has +many another soul. I tell of astral bodies. I have acquaintance with +them as have you with the body of the young friend who sits beside you. +I could show you--even you, whose eyes are covered with a film--I could +show you! But no! It is too petty to demonstrate by a show." + +He moved a step backward and looked in a half-questioning way at the +silent group in front. + +"Perhaps," he murmured hesitatingly, "perhaps it is by childish methods +that one must teach the child." + +He muttered a few unknown words with his eyes still fixed on guilty Dick +Percival, then he turned to Mr. Early. + +"My kind host," he said with a courteous gesture, "will you permit that +I show to the unbelieving young gentleman an astral body?" + +He turned and strode away toward dimness dimmer than that of the great +hall, in the direction of that wing where rooms had been assigned him. A +little rustle of pleased anticipation ran through the petticoats of the +room. Interest ceased to be perfunctory and became genuine. This was +more fun than doctrine, after all. Who wouldn't be gratified at the +chance of meeting an astral body--at least in a crowd? Alone, in a dark +room, at midnight, it might prove less enjoyable. + +Presently the Hindu returned, carrying in his hand a strangely twisted +retort and something that looked like a primitive brazier. + +"Look," he said, "let us take some simple thing. I shall destroy the +body of flesh and show you the body of shadow. I see roses in the +strange jar yonder. You call them American beauties? Yes. Very well, I +shall show you the ghost of an American beauty. Perhaps the unbelieving +young gentleman will pluck one for me." + +Dick rose, pulled one of the flowers from among its fellows and handed +it across heads to the Swami, who took it gravely. + +"Even this simple form of life," he explained, "has its astral +existence. With seeing eyes it would be visible to you now, hidden +inside the flesh of the flower. In order to make it the plainer, I shall +destroy the body of the blossom and leave its spirit. That spirit you +shall see. Look, I lay this beautiful rose upon this metal plate and +cover it that the heat may be more intense. I consume it with the flame +until the fire devours its shape and leaves only its ashes." + +A tense silence fell upon the waiting room, as Ram Juna thrust the +covered rose into the brazier. At last he lifted the cover and displayed +a little gray shapeless heap. + +"The rose is dead," he observed quietly. He turned now toward the glass +phial, in the bottom of which lay a few grains of pinkish dust. Into +this he poured the ashes of the burned flower. He lifted it high in air +and surveyed it. + +"The rose is dead," he repeated, "but under the right conditions you +shall see what we may call its ghost. See. A gentle warmth. I hold it +not too close to the devouring flame. A gentle warmth." + +Those at the back of the room were rising now to peer over the hats of +the more fortunate in front, but the hush remained unbroken. The dark +eyes of the Hindu were bent on the glass before him, and a mystical +smile played about his mouth. + +In the bottom of the retort, in the bluish heap, began a movement, as +though something alive were striving to free itself from bonds and rise. +It heaved and struggled in the dusty mass, grew stronger, and instead of +a shapeless writhing there came an upshooting pyramid, which gradually +took upon itself form. A ghostly apparition of stem, of leaves, of a +dusky red rose, grew more and more distinct until it glowed from its +prison of glass, and Ram Juna smiled. + +"The rose is dead!" he said for the third time. + +A gasp of appreciation and awe passed through the room. The Swami +turned to Dick Percival. + +"That which I know, I speak," he said simply. + +Then with a sudden abrupt movement he shook the phial away from the +warmth and held it up. + +"Now only the poor body of ashes is within," he went on. "The spirit is +truly fled, until it shall find itself another incarnation, and we say +that the flower is for ever dead. What then is this death with which we +play and which plays with us? But I weary you with my too long +discourse. Give me your pardon. I shall no more." + +There rose the sound of moving skirts and loosening tongues. The spell +of oriental mysticism was broken and this became but one of many +entertaining things to be chattered about in moods that varied from +credulity to amusement. The ordinary reception atmosphere took +possession, and the tinkle of animated feminine voices filled the air. + +On the outskirts of the throng, which pressed forward to greet the host +and to press the fingers of the seer, lingered the two young men, one of +whom had stirred the unstirable. Norris looked vaguely around as at +unknown faces, and Dick nodded in this or that direction in that offhand +manner which invites people to keep their distance rather than to seek +further intercourse, but the woman who was handsome and thirty refused +to be held at arm's length. + +"How-do, Mr. Percival? Glad to see you back. You have the genius of +distinction, even in small things. How natural that the Swami should +single you out for notice and so announce your home-coming to the +world!" + +"Is this the world?" + +"Our little world," Mrs. Appleton laughed; and as she spoke she peered +curiously at Norris with the air of a naturalist who needs as many +specimens of young men as possible for her collection. Dick smiled, +whether with amusement or with cordiality it would be impossible to say. + +"Mrs. Appleton, may I introduce Mr. Norris, who has come here as a new +citizen. Apart from other considerations, we are grateful to anybody +that swells the census, aren't we?" + +"So glad!" she murmured. "Mr. Percival must bring you to my lawn-party +next week." + +But even while Norris expressed his thanks, Dick's eyes wandered, until, +with a cheerful start, he caught his companion's arm. + +"There she is, Ellery," he said. "This way." + +Norris knew in his heart that he was waiting for that summons, and he +turned and followed as Percival began a slow progress through the crowd +toward that uncompromising stiff-lined bench of the kind that Mr. Early +affected, where sat the girl like a cameo, beside a woman somewhat older +than herself. + +The younger woman lifted her eyes and caught from afar the greeting of +the advancing men. That there should be no sudden illumination, no swift +blush in her nod of recognition, gave Dick a slight feeling of +irritation. He had regarded a little polite display of delight as in +some way his right. But if she was undemonstrative, she had the virtues +of her failing, for there was a certain serenity even in the broad curve +with which her hair clung to her temples, and in the over-crowded room +her smile was as refreshing as a draft from a cool spring. Both of these +women were marked by a repose of manner which distinguished them from +the eager crowd that was pushing toward the latest new apostle. It was +the elder who put out a welcoming hand. + +"Ah, Dick," she said, "you are at home at last. How good it is to see +you! When did you come?" + +"Last night. Mother sent me over here to-day with the promise that I +should see you--and Madeline." His eyes traveled to the girl beyond. +"And this, Mrs. Lenox, Miss Elton, is my good friend, Norris. You +already know that we were lovely together in college, and in life we +hope not to be divided. You'll be good to him, won't you?" + +In Mrs. Lenox's greeting there was that mixture of kindliness with +shrewd instant analysis that becomes a habit with women of the world, +and Norris stiffened with fresh realization that he was raw and +unaccustomed to her suave atmosphere. He would have liked to be his best +self before Percival's friends, and he felt like an oyster. Even the +gentle eyes of Miss Elton seemed to measure him. Fortunately they +thought chiefly of Dick, and when did Dick's facile tongue fail him? + +"Of course this would be the first spot on which to reappear. No one but +Mr. Early would dare to give a reception in July," Mrs. Lenox +exclaimed. + +"And the absurd thing," Dick retorted, "is that you all come--back into +town, leaving birds and waters--at Mr. Early's bidding." + +"Yes, my respect for my sex rises when I see them so eager to prostrate +themselves before a simple seeker after truth with a turban and a ruby. +A turban and a ruby do so illuminate the search for truth!" + +"You are a scoffer," laughed Dick. "Why are you here?" + +"Foolish one, I came to scoff. I must see all there is to be seen. If +there is an apple to be bitten, I must bite. I have floated in with the +flood and out with the ebb of almost every fad from crystal-gazing to +bridge. I always hope that one of them is going to be worth while." + +"But you can't call the Swami's philosophy 'a fad'," objected Norris. + +"No, perhaps that wasn't fair. Ram Juna is really very celestial in a +ponderous kind of way, isn't he? When he talked the simple old truths I +liked him, but not in the esoteric explanations and profounder +mysteries. I have chased Mystery for more years than I shall own, and, +so far as I can see, whenever you open the door on her secret chamber, +she shuts a door on the other side and is gone into a further holy of +holies. I've come to disbelieve in those who tell me that they have +caged her at last." + +"That's what I say," exclaimed Dick. "A man knows too much when he tells +you that Mystery is five feet three, weighs a hundred and twenty-six +pounds and eats no meat." + +"It's too much like a mixture of legerdemain and theology." + +"I always liked juggling!" exclaimed Miss Elton. "And I like the ruby. +See it now, gleaming over the ranks of war-paint and hats." + +"I believe the ruby interests you both more than the search for truth," +Dick laughed. + +"And well it may!" Mrs. Lenox flashed back. "Once it belonged to a +magnificent rajah ancestor, who hugged it to his soul, and held it too +precious to be worn by his favorite wife. But now Swami Ram Juna has +renounced the pomps and indulgences of courts and become, as I said, an +humble seeker. He, too, loves the ruby--not from any vulgar love of +display--but because to his soul it is a mystic symbol of Adhidaiva--the +life-giving energy, refulgent as the sun behind dark clouds. Isn't that +a pointer for those of us who want diamonds and things? I believe I'll +ask Mr. Lenox for a symbol or two this very evening." + +"You seem well-informed." + +"Oh, Mr. Early posted me. It's humiliating to think that perhaps he +designed that as an easy way of getting the facts spread abroad and so +preparing a way for the truth-seeker. And he also told me that they have +very good copies of the _Bagavad Gita_ at McClelland's for a quarter, so +you may keep up with the advance guard at small expense. I have to know +things in order to keep my husband posted with entertaining gossip. Men +always want to know every little thing and then lay the blame of gossip +at the door of women." + +"I doubt if it is a difficult task for you to keep Mr. Lenox amused," +said Norris, smiling at her. + +"Moreover," added Percival, "I understand that when your frivolities +cease to amuse, Mr. Lenox can divert himself by helping your father in +the building of a new little railroad or something of that kind." + +"True, but building new railroads, beguiling though it be, proves more +wearing to the nerves than does my conversation, so I must still +practise the art of rattling. But I needn't practise it on you," she +went on, glancing at Miss Elton under her eyelids. "Now, Dick, I am +going to give you my very uncomfortable seat on this bench and let you +and Madeline talk over old times, and new times which are to be still +better. Perhaps Mr. Norris will go about with me and meet some of the +people--beard the western prairie-dog in his den, so to speak." + +"Now that is really good of you, Mrs. Lenox. You know this is the first +time Madeline and I have come together since we got through college and +have been recognized as grown up. In fact, I'm not used to her in long +dresses yet." + +He glanced at the smiling girl as Mrs. Lenox nodded and turned. + +"How lovely Miss Elton is!" exclaimed Norris as they moved away +together. "Of course I've seen her picture in Dick's room, but it did +not do her justice." + +"Lovely, indeed!" Mrs. Lenox answered heartily. "You have chosen the one +word to be applied to Madeline Elton, both to her spirit and to her +face--not thrilling, perhaps, but satisfying, which is better. She and +Dick were inseparables through their childhood. It is rather a +taken-for-granted affair, you know." + +"I guessed as much, though Dick never said anything." + +There was something so confidential and kindly in her manner that Norris +forgot his awkwardness and felt moved to confidence in return. + +"Dick was born to all good things," he went on. "I sometimes wonder how +that feels." Then, seeing that she glanced at him inquiringly: "Dick +always seems to me one who needs only to stand still, and Fortuna takes +pains to hunt him up and offer him her choicest wares. Life looks to him +more like a birthday party than like a battle-field. I say it not in +envy, but with the awe of one who has had to scrabble and who sees +endless scrabbling ahead. But I believe part of the charm that I feel +about Dick is his manifest predestination to good luck." + +"One piece of his luck, if I am not mistaken, is in your coming here. +There is no friend like a college friend for every-day wear," she +answered kindly. + +"Well, I owe my position here to him," Norris went on. "When he found +that I had an uncle back in Connecticut who owned a share in the _St. +Etienne Star_, he began to pull wires both at that end and this to get +me a place on the editorial staff. I'm afraid that nothing but wires +would have got it for me. So here I am making my first bow to society +under the shadow of his cloak." + +"Of course you came here." + +"What, really, is Mr. Early?" + +"Apostle, expounder of the universe, business man, prophet." + +Norris laughed. + +"He's our display window. The way in which he manages to keep a little +lion always roaring on the bargain-table astonishes us all every day. +And when he runs short of foreign lions he roars a bit himself. +Privately, I think he's more entertaining than the imported article. St. +Etienne would be merely a western city without him. + +"Now," she went on, "I'm going to introduce you to some other girls. To +me, as to Dick, Miss Elton may be the bright particular star, but she is +not the only light." + +So Miss Elton and Percival were left alone in the crowd. + +"Madeline," said the young man, "does this getting through college make +you feel as though you had suddenly had your cellars taken away and +your attics left foundationless in space? The question is 'what next?' +That's what I used to ask you in the good old days when we played +mumbly-peg together. What shall we play now?" + +"I know what I shall play. There is home, with mother enraptured to have +me at her beck and call again; and, of course, there are musical and +social 'does'. They are going to be such fun that I do not know if I +shall have room to tuck in a little study. But I suppose you must have a +harder game. Yes, you must." + +"And are you so contented with the dead level? I fancied you were going +to be ambitious." + +She turned her head and looked out through the narrow mullioned window +beside her as though to avoid his eyes, but she answered quietly: + +"If I have any ambitions, they are not very imposing. Let's talk about +yours; or rather let's not talk about yours here. There are too many +people and too much Swami. We are out at the lake, at the old summer +home. Run out and dine with us to-morrow. Father is almost as anxious to +see you as I am. You know you are his chief consolation for the fact +that I am not a boy." + +"Thanks. May I bring Norris? Not that I'm afraid of the dark by myself, +but that I really want you to know him." + +"Bring him of course, Dick," she said without enthusiasm. + +"And now do you suppose I can get you a cup of coffee or a sherbet?" + +"Hush, I don't know whether anything so vivid is possible. I believe, +out of deference to Ram Juna, the refreshments are light almost to +Nirvana. You can't insult a man who lives on a few grains of rice by +making him watch the herd gorge on salads and ices, can you?" + +"And do you really believe that great mountain of flesh was built out of +little grains of rice?" + +"Mrs. Appleton--you remember her?" + +"She has pounced on me already. She remembers that I waltz like a +dream." + +"Dick," said Miss Elton scornfully, "don't make the mistake of +considering yourself a plum. Mrs. Appleton told me that the Swami feeds +on dew and flaming nebulae." + +"Humph!" said Dick, "I think he's a big bronze fraud." + +"Oh, come, men may be great without playing foot-ball," she laughed. + +"Well, he's not for me. I can believe in almost any kind of a prophet +except one that works miracles." + +"Who knows? The Swami may be the molder of your destiny," said Madeline +gaily, with youth's lightness in referring to the vague future. + +"He may; but I'd lay long odds against it." + +"I must be going." Miss Elton rose. "The crowd is thinning, and Mrs. +Lenox looks impressively in my direction. We are going out together on +the train. Their new country place is near us, you know. And you, +ungrateful one, I suspect, have not even spoken to Mr. Early yet. Go and +'make your manners,' like a good boy. I'll expect you to-morrow +afternoon. Mr. Norris, Dick has promised to bring you with him to dinner +to-morrow. Till then, good-by." + +"Come, Ellery, we'll face the music, now that the real attractions are +gone," said Dick. + +Mr. Early extended two hands, ponderous in proportion to the rest of his +body, in fatherly greeting. + +"Ah, Percival, my dear fellow, so you are done with Yale and back again +in St. Etienne? I welcome you out of the fetters of mere bookishness +into the freedom of real life, where it is man's business to serve, and +not to absorb." + +Dick blushed guiltily as several surrounding ladies turned their +lorgnettes on him, but Mr. Early went on, undisturbed and very audible: + +"I do not introduce you to Swami Ram Juna, because introductions belong +to the world of conventionalities, and he lives in that world where real +human relations are the only things that count; but I put your hand in +his, in token of the contact in which your spirit may meet his great +soul." + +"Very good of you, I'm sure," murmured Dick, as the Swami bent his head +and gave him a penetrating look. + +"You, too, then, are a seeker?" Ram Juna inquired in a low tone, but +with his delicate and distinct enunciation. + +"Ah--I hope so," Dick answered hastily, and with an evident desire to +push the topic no further. "And this, Mr. Early, is my old chum, Norris, +who has come West to be on the editorial staff of the _Star_." + +"The _Star_? It is the symbol of illumination. Is then your _Star_ +devoted to the enlightenment of mankind?" asked Ram Juna, transferring +his fixed gaze. + +"In a sense--yes," Norris faltered with a swift guilty recollection of +certain head-lines in last night's edition. + +"He who writes must think. He who thinks goes below the surface. He who +goes below the surface is moving toward the center," said the Swami +oracularly. + +Mr. Early's broad face expanded into a benevolent smile, and an oncoming +instalment swept the young men away. + +"Does Mr. Early learn his remarks by heart?" asked Norris. + +"I don't know. But let us be seekers. Let us seek dinner, and fresh air. +Give me fresh air--anything but Nirvana!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MOTHER AND SON + + +To have been captain of the foot-ball team, which some student of +sociology has called the highest office in the free gift of the American +people, might seem glory enough for one life; but Richard Percival was +of such stuff that all past triumphs became dust and ashes. He was +greedy of the future. Now that the doors of college were fairly closed, +that career became to him but as a half-dreaming condition, before one +wakes. + +On this summer evening, however, it was easy to prolong the dream, since +the hour was one for quiet of body and for wandering visions. The room +was large and suffused with that restfulness which comes to homes where +serene and thoughtful lives have been lived. There were long straight +lines; there was a scarcity of knickknacks; there were pictures gathered +because they were loved and not to fill a bare space on the wall; there +were books and books and books, many of them with the worn covers of +old friends. Here, clasped in the arms of another old friend of a chair, +half-sat, half-lay his mother, and near her lounged Ellery Norris, the +friend whose delicate mingling of love and admiration was as fragrant +wine to Dick, who believed in himself because others had always believed +in him. The dying twilight, laden with rose-spiciness and with the first +shrill notes of the warm night, came in through high narrow windows. +Everywhere was the sweet repose that comes after sweet activity, and the +center of it was the fragile woman who lay back in her chair, caressing +with light hand the head of the young man who sat upon the rug and +leaned against her knee. + +Norris was looking at Mrs. Percival with a kind of wondering admiration +which the son saw with a touch of pity. Poor old Norris! It must have +been tough to grow up without a home. As for this fragrant type of +femininity, young Percival took it for granted--at least in the women +that belong to a man; and the other women hardly count. + +Everything made Dick feel very tender toward his past, very well +satisfied with his present, very secure about his future. All would be +good. That was the natural order of the universe. He had always found it +easy to do things and to be a good deal of a personage. + +He stared up silently at the space above the mantel where hung a +portrait that gazed back at him, with features pale in the fading light. +Singularly alike were the boyish face that looked up and the boyish face +that looked down, though the painted Percival, a little idealistic about +the eyes, wholly firm about the mouth, appeared the more determined of +the two. Perhaps this came from the shoulder-straps, the blue uniform, +and the military squareness of the shoulders. + +"Yes, you are like him, Dick." Mrs. Percival spoke to his thoughts. The +boy looked up startled. + +"Am I?" he asked. "I wish I might be. I wish I might be half so much of +a man." + +"And I hope you will be more--no, not that. He was my all. I can hardly +wish you to _be_ more, but I hope you will _do_ more. At least you don't +have a drag on you from the beginning, as he had. Has Dick told you the +story, Ellery?" She turned with a gentle smile toward the other man. +"You see I can't help calling you Ellery. Dick's letters have made you +partly mine already. We are not strangers at all." + +Norris flushed and impulsively laid his firm square hand over the +slender one that was stretched upon the chair arm nearest him. + +"You don't know how glad I am to be yours, and to have you for mine," he +said. "I never knew my mother." + +"You know then how Minnesota was a pioneer state, and how she sent a +fifth of her population to the war, and Dad among the first? You know +how the First Minnesota held the hill and turned the day at Gettysburg, +though few of them lived to tell of their own bravery? It makes the lump +come up in my throat even to remember it, just as it did when I first +heard the news and knew that my boy-lover was there." + +There was silence a moment. + +"Ah, Dick, you have a young body to match your heart," Mrs. Percival +went on, "but Dad, before he was twenty, carried a bullet in his side. +He had to conquer pain before he could spend strength on other things." + +Dick rubbed his cheek with the mother's trembling hand. + +"Yes," he said soberly, "it must have been harder to endure the +sufferings that clung to him and killed him at last than it would have +been to give everything in one swift sacrifice. Endurance,--that's a +word I don't know, do I, mother?" + +"No, dear, that's the word you know least; but you'll have to learn it." + +"Ellery, I guess that's where you have the advantage of me." Dick looked +up with a smile. + +"If I have, it's been a dour lesson," Norris answered with a wry face. + +"Well, if Dad gave his life to his country by dying, I mean to give mine +by living," Dick went on. "There must be things that need doing." + +"More than there are men to do them," said his mother softly. "You have +his spirit and his genius. You have health, too. Don't put a bullet in +your young manhood." + +"What do you mean, mother?" + +"There are a thousand wounds besides those from a gun. I'm counting on +you to live his life as he would have liked to live it--to be his son, +Dick." + +"You mustn't expect the sun and the moon to stand still before me." + +"Oh, well, I dare say I'm as foolish as other mothers." Mrs. Percival +laughed as though she must do that or cry. "But you were certainly born +to something, Dick. You've shown it ever since you organized your first +militia company and whipped the five-year-olds in the next street." + +"And he's kept right on bossing his particular gang ever since. Richard +Dux," smiled Ellery. + +The boy grinned up at them, and his mind traveled to those later days +when that leadership of his was so easily acknowledged as to be +axiomatic. He saw in panorama the stormy joys of college life with the +victories of the field. He beheld again the quieter hours when the young +men saw visions together and felt themselves called to put shoulder to +the car of righteousness, while they discussed with the sublime +self-sufficiency of inexperience the politics and sociology of the +world. The fellows all believed in him as one of those who are destined +to be prime pushers at the wheel. Perhaps he would be among those +conquerors who climb aboard and ride, forgetful of the plodding crowd +which toils at the drudgery of progress but does not taste its glory. So +many oblivions go to make one reputation. + +Dick knew that power was in him. To others it showed in his unconscious +self-confidence of carriage, in his eyes that glowed, in the electric +something that compelled attraction. + +But now college visions were fading into "the light of common day". The +boys had gone home to be men. Success began to look not like an aurora, +but like a solid structure built of bricks that must be carried in hods. +Hods are uninspiring objects. + +Dick stared at the pile of unlit logs in the fireplace and felt the +rhythmic strokes of his mother's hand upon his well-thatched head as she +watched him in sympathetic silence; but he saw the eyes of his fellow +classmen and felt their good-by hand-clasps. Again the train thumped +with monotonous rolling as it brought him ever westward and homeward. +Farm after farm, village and town, city upon city, long level prairies +that cried out of fertility, the rush and roar and chaos of Chicago, and +then more cities and rivers and hills and lakes, and now the blessed +restfulness of home and twilight. He had seen it all many times +before--two thousand miles of space to be covered between New Haven and +St. Etienne. On this last journey it had taken on a new significance to +his eyes,--a significance which matched his dreams. It was instinct +with meaning of which he was a part. + +This was his country, huge, half-formed, needing men. Its bigness was +not an accident of geography, but a pregnant fact in the consciousness +of a people as wide as itself. Thousands of redmen once covered it, and +it was then only a big place, not a great country. It must be a mighty +race who would master those miles of inert earth. + +God breathed His spirit into the earth and it became a living man. +Man--His image--must breathe the spirit into the earth and make it a +living civilization. + +His father, with a Gettysburg bullet bruising his life, had nevertheless +played the part, and done his share toward turning a frontier village +into a noble city. With a thrill Dick saw himself building the structure +higher on its firm foundations, making it great enough to match the wide +fertile acres that lay about it, and the dazzling Minnesota sky that +hung above. So he built his castle of achievement in the air, where his +own glory lay mistily behind his service to his fellow men. Already the +thing seemed done--vague and yet, somehow, concrete. + +"Pooh, what is time? A mere figment of the imagination!" exclaimed Dick +suddenly. "Was it day before yesterday that I came home? Forty-eight +hours have put a gulf between the old and the new me. Condensed +time,--just add hot water and it swells to six times its original bulk." + +His mother smiled indulgently at her son's vagaries of speech, and he +went on: + +"Moreover, I've been away four years,--years of vast importance, it +seems to me. I come back and everything is going on in the same old way. +Every one is interested in the same old things. They don't seem to think +anything exciting has happened, except that the city has doubled in size +and there has been another presidential election. They aren't a bit +stirred up over me. They aren't even deeply moved because Ellery over +there is wielding an inexperienced editorial pen. Everything is +familiar, but I've forgotten it all. It's hard to pick up the threads." + +"More than that, boys. The threads are not all done up in a neat bunch +and handed to you as they are in New Haven. St. Etienne's point of view +is not always that of the gentleman and the scholar. Its great men are +not of the campus, but those who control the destinies of others, +sometimes by wealth, oftener by the genius of power. But, after all, +this is the real world." + +Dick laughed again. + +"And a world after my own heart, mother." + +"Yes, I think you will fit in," she said with maternal complacency. +"Both of you," she added with sudden remembrance. + +"The fitting-in on my part will have to be a process of swelling, I +guess," Norris said whimsically. "Small and narrow as is the berth I +have at the _Star_ office, I shall have to be bigger than I am before I +fill it." + +"Oh, you're all right. You're fundamentally all right, and that means +you'll rise to every opportunity you get." Dick's voice took on some of +the patronage of a leader for his follower. "I'd bank on Ellery Norris +if the rest of the world turned sour." + +"Thanks," said Ellery briefly, and their eyes met in that interchange of +assurance which is the masculine American equivalent for embrace and +eternal protestation. Mrs. Percival smiled to herself, amused yet +pleased by the frank boyish affection. + +"What kind of a time did you have at Mr. Early's reception?" she asked +abruptly. + +"Oh, it was a circus with three rings. In the middle ring there was a +performing hippopotamus of a Hindu. He was really a sunburst. Then in +the farthest ring there were a thousand women with big hats, all talking +at once. But in the nearest there were just Madeline and Mrs. Lenox, and +that was a good show. By Jove! Madeline is prettier than ever, and +hasn't found it out yet. That's the advantage of sending a girl off to a +women's college where there is no man to enlighten her." + +"Pretty! That's not the word to describe Miss Elton. She's too simple +and dignified," remonstrated Norris. + +"Bowled over already, are you?" Dick jeered. + +"Ellery is quite right," Mrs. Percival interrupted. "Madeline has +something Easter-lily-like about her." + +"You grow enthusiastic, mother." + +"I love her very dearly, Dick." + +"Norris and I are going out to see her to-morrow. We'll take the motor, I +guess." + +Mrs. Percival beamed down at him and gave his head an affectionate pat, +and the son glanced up with a blandness that might easily have become a +smirk. Yet his mother's complacent satisfaction with the inevitable +irritated him. Madeline Elton might be the most admirable combination +of the virtues and the graces, but he wanted to find it out for himself. + +Mrs. Percival rose with the air of one who has heard and said what she +desired. + +"Good night, dear boy," she purred as Dick struggled to his long legs. +"How good it is to have you to lean on and trust! These have been lonely +years while you were away. Now I shall leave you two to your quiet +smoke." + +Dick kissed her hand and then her lips, as though to show both reverence +and love. Norris, too, stooped and kissed her hand, and the two watched +her as she moved in her slow way up the stairs. As she disappeared, +Norris turned and laid an arm over Dick's shoulder. + +"That's the kind of thing, Percival, that you do not wholly appreciate +unless you've gone without it. I grew up without any atmosphere to speak +of, and I've been gasping for breath all my life. I wonder if I shall +ever get a full allowance of air to live in." + +As they looked, friendly eye into friendly eye, Ellery seemed to review +his own life in contrast with Dick's. Dick had background; he had to +begin everything for himself. He had earned most of his way through +college; he had earned his standing among the men as he had earned his +standing in scholarship, by dogged persistence instead of by the right +of eminent domain to which Dick was born. He had never envied Percival's +readier brain, wider popularity, more profuse fortune; but something +close to envy crept upon him now for this refinement of home, this +delicate mother-love. This was a loss not to be made good by pluck or +perseverance. Love was the gift of the gods. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN OCCIDENTAL LUMINARY + + +Over next door, beyond the thick laurel hedge, on this same evening, Mr. +Sebastian Early, now that the last of his guests had withdrawn the +silken wonder of her reception skirts, was settling down to a quiet +evening with his turbaned guest. + +Now Mr. Sebastian Early is far too intricate a person to be dismissed, +as Mrs. Lenox disposed of him, with a phrase and a laugh. In early life, +it is true, he had seemed a commonplace and insignificant young man. His +first appearance before the public was as the inventor of a +hook-and-eye, but his hook-and-eye had such unusual merits that it +seemed, according to the engaging pictures and verses in the +street-cars, to simplify most of the sterner problems of every-day life. +As its lineaments began to stare at passers-by from thousands of huge +bill-boards over the length and breadth of the land, dimes turned to +dollars in Mr. Early's ever-widening pockets, and for the time he felt +himself a man of distinction. Yet in these later and regenerate days, +Mr. Early sometimes had a moment's anguish as he remembered those miles +of unesthetic bill-boards, which once marred the meadows and streams of +his native land; for with a widening horizon, there had crept upon him a +rising spirit of discontent. + +Perhaps it was that divine discontent, which William Morris celebrates, +that makes men yearn for higher things. Department stores still rolled +out their multitudinous cards of hooks-and-eyes, but the person of +Sebastian Early passed unnoticed in the crowd. He yearned for fame, not +for his product, but for himself, and the same ability that led him to +serve the wants of the public in hooks now drove him to study its social +demands. Like many another unfortunate, he began to perceive that +dollars alone were not enough of a key to unlock the magic door. In this +over-fed land, people with money are growing too common. Therefore to +gold one must add power and distinction, if one would keep one's head +above the herd. This must one do and not leave the other undone. + +Sebastian determined to make himself interesting. The public has a +fawning respect for fame. One or two abortive attempts convinced Mr. +Early that his literary efforts would bring him not even the distinction +of infamy. At last he hit upon an idea. He would be a patron of the +Arts--not one of your little ordinary buyers, but a man whose purse was, +so to speak, regilded by mind. He spent six months of hard work as a +student of the situation and then he made his debut. He selected a few +gems of half-forgotten eighteenth century literature--gems that deserved +to be given life-preservers on that stream of oblivion into which they +were too surely being sucked. These he brought forth in tiny volumes, +wide-edged and thick-papered, illuminated as to capitals and bound in +ooze or in old brocade on which were scattered a few decorations, +calculated, so unthinkable were they, to upset the reasoning power of +the average reader, and thus prepare him for the literary matter which +he should find within. + +These books naturally "took." They invited no man to read, but they were +interesting to look at and therefore particularly adapted to those +occasions when one must make a small gift to a friend. Scarce a +center-table in the country but held at least one. The beauty of it was +that the literary matter cost him nothing, and the books were their own +advertising bill-boards; for wherever they went they lay in conspicuous +places. + +From books Mr. Early passed on to furniture; and he begot strange +shapes, wherein forgotten Gothic forms were commingled with forms that +never man saw before; and these also took. So the circle widened, until +glass pottery and rugs were gathered into the potpourri of Mr. Early's +genius. + +Finally he established his magazine, _The Aspirant_, for he began to +feel the need of explaining things--chiefly himself--to his expanding +circle. _The Aspirant_ had covers of butcher's paper; and the necessity +for self-defense at last developed in Mr. Early that literary style +which he had found it impossible to cultivate while he still had nothing +to say. He grew a peculiar ability for self-glorification and for +slugging the other man. Particularly caustic did his pen become in +respect to those, whether painters, musicians, poets, novelists or +reformers, who had endeared themselves to the great mass of the public. +_The Aspirant_ always called the public "the rabble," and you can't damn +humanity more easily and cheaply than by calling it "the rabble." +Naturally every one hastened to buy Mr. Early's furniture, his rugs and +his pottery, and diligently to read _The Aspirant_, in order that he or +she might escape the universal condemnation. Be _outre_ and you'll be +right; be right and you'll be _outre_; be _outre_ anyway: was the simple +creed. + +To those penniless celebrities to whom purchase of Mr. Early's +commodities was over-expensive, there was another way out from under. +They might visit Mr. Early's hospitable home, and so contribute their +mite to the halo of distinction that surrounded him. The great ones came +to St. Etienne. They ate and drank and were exhibited to an admiring +throng. They gave lectures, introduced from the platform by Mr. +Sebastian Early; they went away and _The Aspirant_ chronicled their +satellite excellences. No such ex-guest need fear a blow in the face +upon its pages. All these things came before the public--more and more +before the public every year. They kept Mr. Early's growing corps of +assistants busy, inventing new furniture and new forms of invective. + +It is needless to say that the hook-and-eye was never included in the +illustrious list of Mr. Early's productions. That gentleman frequently +blessed himself in private that his first commodity had been put upon +the market as the "Imperial," and not as the "Bright and Early" as he +had once half-resolved. Only a few knew who was responsible for the +bill-boards. + +Still even his new enterprises paid. He was a good business man, and he +shared with "the rabble" an appetite for cold cash. Nor did the crafty +Arts exhaust either his abilities or his desires; for though he had no +wish to pose before the world in the over-done role of a millionaire, +still he needed money and ever more and more money. To get it he kept +his hand in many a business enterprise and his eye on many a speculation +of which the gaping world did not dream. Even his right-hand editorial +writer knew not of his left-handed dip into an electric light company +here or a paving contract there, for his left hand had assistants +too,--quiet, unobtrusive, even shy,--men who could lobby a bill "on the +quiet," or wreck an opposing company, even though they did not know the +difference between Hafiz and chutney. And Mr. Early's mind was of such a +broad catholicity that it would be hard to tell which side of his +career he most enjoyed, the variety-show or the still-hunt. + +Thus it will be seen that this great man, who was a credit to the new +art movement of our time, and of whom St. Etienne, a young western city, +felt justly proud, was in his usual element when he introduced to the +society, in which he was now a fixed star, a light from the Far East. +And Swami Ram Juna seemed so sure that he himself was right and all the +rest of the world was wrong, that Mr. Early felt him to be a kindred +spirit. + +The impression deepened as he found himself alone with the Hindu. He had +rather dreaded the strange demands and customs that might meet him; but +the man of bronze and the snowy turban proved himself to be the best of +table companions, suave, courteous and sympathetic. He seemed even to +take a kindly interest in such matters of a day as Mr. Early's +incursions into the realms of art and literature. Through dinner they +chatted almost gaily, and afterward, while Mr. Early smoked, the Swami +joined him in the slow sipping of a liqueur. + +There is a frankness of those who have nothing to hide; there is a +frankness which makes a mask for him who is, below the surface, all +mystery. As Sebastian studied his companion, he told himself that this +simple creature was after all a man, perhaps adapting himself to public +demands as any clever fellow would; and, as this thought occurred to +him, Mr. Early's benevolence increased. + +"You ought to write a book," he said with the air of one projecting a +novel thought. "With your gift for expression, and your--ah--insight +into realities, you couldn't fail to make a success of it." + +"It is my intention," said the Hindu. + +Mr. Early looked a little taken aback, but brightened again with a new +suggestion. + +"Why not do it here?" he asked. "Come, where could you find a more +fitting place? You have your rooms in a wing of the house all to +yourself. That gives you perfect solitude. I should be delighted to have +you for my guest while you do your work; and when you finish, I know +enough of the tricks of the trade to help you push it a bit." + +"Of a certainty truth is self-vigorous, and needs no tricks to keep it +living." + +"Ah, yes," the man of business answered cheerfully. "But one may boost +it,--one may boost it, my dear fellow." + +The Swami bent his great head and appeared to meditate. When he looked +up, his spiritual eyes were narrowed to a speculative slit, and he +studied the face on the other side of the comfortable log fire. + +"My friend, you are generous. You offer me a home, and I am fain to +accept it, if I may put the offer in another form. For the present I +must return to India. Too long already have I been away from the +atmosphere which is to me life. I must see some of the brothers of my +soul. I must saturate myself with repose and with the underlying--with +Karma. Also, in this too-vigorous country, that is unattainable. But +here, in this place, one who is filled with the message might give it +forth to his brothers--or perhaps to the sisters, who appear the more +anxious for it. Here the very energy of the air says 'give' rather than +'grow'. If I might a year--six months hence--accept your hospitality?" +He looked tentatively at Mr. Early. + +"My home is yours. Do what you like with it," said Mr. Early benignly. +He was thinking how well a picturesque cut of the Hindu's head would +look on the covers of _The Aspirant_, combined with a judicious puff +within. + +The Swami smiled serenely. + +"I observe," he went on in his delicate voice, "that the wing on the +ground floor, in which you have given me room, has two apartments, +divided by a little passage, and that the little passage gives not upon +the public highway, but upon a garden, quiet and lovely, that faces the +sun and is shut in by brick walls and hedges. The farther one of these +rooms is bare and but slightly furnished, though my bedroom is sumptuous +like that of a maha-rajah. Still the bare small room pleases me best. If +I might have this room when I come again! If I might keep the bare room +sacred to my meditations, all unentered save by myself! It means to me +much that no alien mind, no soul of a common servant, should mar the +serenity of the atmosphere in that spot where I sit alone with myself. I +would have it dedicated to the greater Me. It would be the cap-sheaf--do +you not so say in this land of great harvests?--thus to give shelter not +only to my body, but to my soul, in this bare and quiet little room." + +"Why, certainly, certainly!" Mr. Early could not help thinking that a +guest who spent most of his time alone in an empty room would prove no +great tax upon his entertainer. + +"I thank you," said Ram Juna, rising and making a salaam of curious +dignity and courtesy. "You bid me lecture. You bid me write and instruct +in the sacred truths. That will I do when I come again; and my +consolation shall be the unblemished hours when I sit alone in the +little room which faces the sun. You comprehend me? You understand?" + +And Mr. Early, who never, if he could help it, spent a half-hour in +either solitude or idleness, answered again: + +"Why, certainly, certainly." + +"In some months, then, I may return, noble friend. And now I will bid +you farewell until the dawn." + +The Swami, with marvelous lightness of foot in spite of his huge body, +made off for his own domain. If Mr. Early, who now sat and yawned alone +by the dying fire, could have peeped in on the excellent Ram Juna, he +would have been much gratified by the evident satisfaction with which +the Oriental surveyed the quarters which were one day to be his. The +Swami strode at once across the bedroom, across the little passage that +opened into the garden, into the unused room beyond. Here with a swift +thrust he turned on the electric light, then moved from window to +window, opened them, examined the heavy wooden shutters which he closed +and unclosed, craning his bull-neck through the opened sashes. Around +and under each piece of furniture he peered, nodding and smiling his +approbation of everything. As he came out, he paused for some moments to +examine the lock on the door. + +"Quite inadequate, quite inadequate," he muttered with a frown. "We must +do better than that." + +He stood and thought a moment, then put out the light, stepped to the +garden door and disappeared into the night. + +With so light a tread did he come back that Mr. Early, should he have +been listening, could have heard no warning footstep to tell him that +his guest was returning. + +Back in his own bedroom, Ram Juna peeped into the luxurious bath-room +with placid delight. + +"So much water, so easily hot," he said. "It is admirable. All is +admirable." He sank in a heap, cross-legged, in the middle of the floor, +with large hands folded over his stomach, and large eyes narrowed, while +a kindly smile spread over his face, and his head nodded at rhythmic +intervals, for all the world like a benevolent Buddha. The ruby glowed +and sparkled like a living thing in the light and movement; and thus he +sat for some hours. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AT MADELINE'S + + +"Now," said Richard Percival, as he and Norris stowed themselves away in +his automobile, "we shall leave the city, in which are contained how +many loves and struggles and silk umbrellas at reasonable prices, and go +to the lake where there is no civilization to bother and distract. The +lake is 'The Lake' _par excellence_ to St. Etienne. It was created by +Providence for summer homes. Therefore it was placed only ten miles from +the Falls. Providence was a good business woman. Generations of savages +lived and died--chiefly died--here. They came where the Father of Waters +roared and tumbled and they made their prayers to the Great Spirit, but +the sight never suggested to them a great city. Then came the +Anglo-Saxon, whatever he is, and harnessed the power of the river, and +built ugly gray mills, dusty with flour, and turned his log huts into +houses of brick and stone, and erected saloons and department stores. +And when he had worked like Daedalus--and you've probably forgotten who +Daedalus was, now that you have been a few weeks out of college--when he +had worked like Daedalus, I say, and got the hardest of it done, he began +to look at something besides the Falls and to pine for means of +dalliance. Behold then at his hand, Lake Imnijaska! And now Madeline +Elton is the best thing on its shore. Gee up, old motor!" + +They sped along and Dick took up the tale. He was used to talking while +Norris listened and appreciated. + +"Evidently you don't know who Daedalus was or you would have answered +back. What kind of an omniscient editor are you going to make, think +you? Never mind, Daedalus is dead; and, anyway, Edison has beaten him by +six holes. + +"The lake, as I was saying, twists and turns so that it gets in more +shore to the square inch than any other known sheet of water. Therefore +the real-estate dealer loves it. And if you elevate your longshore nose +and sniff at our lake because no salt codfish dry upon smelly wharves +and no sea anemones or crabs appear and disappear with the tides, then +will the entire population of St. Etienne rise and howl anathemas at +you. They will run you out of town on the Chicago Express, and as you +fly for your life they will shriek after you, 'Well, anyway, we feed the +world with flour!' Yes, sir, that is the way we Westerners argue." + +Dick halted at the top of the hill up which the faithful motor had +coughed, and the two looked down on the shimmering blue that stretched +below them with arms of broken opals sprawling for miles, now here, now +there. Long tortuous passages opened out anew into ever more bays, as +though the water were greedy to explore. Around it rolled the woodland +in billows of intense green with sandy beaches in the troughs and +straight cliffs at the crests. The green islands were vivid in color. So +was the sky above, like the flash in a sapphire. A half-dozen sails +fluttered gull-like, and as many launches darted along, suggesting +living water creatures. + +"By Jove!" Ellery exclaimed, moving uneasily. "When you sniff this air +it makes you want to stand on tiptoe on a hilltop and shout. And when +you look at these colors, they are too brilliant to be true." + +"Even you, you old conservative slow-poking duffer!" cried Dick. "This +is the land to wake you up. It calls 'harder--harder!' every-day." + +"It's a different kind of beauty from what I'm used to." Ellery sobered +down again. "I've been trying to analyze it ever since I came West. It +wouldn't appeal to the tired or the world-weary. Its charm is for the +vigorous and the confident and the hopeful--for the young." + +"For us, my boy," Dick said. + +"At Madeline's," as Dick called it, with that obliviousness of the older +generation shown by the younger, Norris felt as they entered, as he had +felt at Mrs. Percival's, that he was in a candid, human, refined home, +with a full appreciation of the finer sides of life. They passed through +the drawing-room and by long glass doors to the broad piazza, with every +invitation to laziness, easy chairs, cushions, magazines, all made +fragrant by a huge jar of roses and another of sweet peas. And there was +not too much. The veranda in turn gave upon a wide expanse of green that +stretched steeply down to that cool wet line where the lapping waters +met the lawn. The trees whispered softly around. Every prospect was +pleasing, and only man was vile; for there was another man, sitting in +the most comfortable of chairs and engaging Madeline all to himself, as +he contentedly sipped the cup of tea that he had taken from her hand. +This other man, whose name was Davison, was making himself agreeable +after the fashion of his kind, a fashion quite familiar to every girl +who has been so unfortunate as to get a reputation, however little +deserved, for superior brains. + +"Afternoon," he said, "I didn't suppose any other fellows except myself +were brave enough, to call on Miss Elton. I hear she's so awfully +clever, you know. Taken degrees and all that sort of thing. Give you my +word it comes out in everything around her. Why, this very napkin she +gave me has a Greek border. Everything has to be classic now." + +"Not everything, Mr. Davison," said Madeline indulgently. "You know I am +delighted to have you here." She turned abruptly to the new-comers as +though she had already had a surfeit of this subject. It is a pleasant +thing to have had a good education, but one does not care to spend one's +time thinking about it, any more than about how much money there is in +one's pocket. + +"You had a fine ride out?" Madeline asked. + +"Great!" answered Dick. "To be young, on a summer day, seated in a good +motor with a thoroughly tamed and domesticated gasoline engine, and to +be coming to see you--what more could we ask of the gods?" + +"You see Percival feels that he must lard the gods into his intercourse +with you, Miss Elton," Mr. Davison interjected. + +"That's because the gods have become nice homey things," retorted Dick. +"Even in the West we couldn't keep house without Dionysius assisted by +Hebe to superintend our afternoon teas, and Hercules as a patron of +baseball." + +Madeline laughed and cast a grateful look in his direction. + +"You see how pleasant it is to feel familiar with the gods so that you +can use them freely," she said. + +"So you don't think it's necessary, in order to be clever, to despise +everything that's done nowadays, because the Greeks used up all the +ideas first?" asked Davison. + +"Not at all. Nature conducts a vast renovating and cleaning +establishment, and whenever any old ideas look the least bit frayed or +soiled around the edges, pop, in they go, and come out French +dry-cleaned and as fresh as ever. They're sent home in a spick-span box +and you couldn't tell 'em from new." + +"If we don't get anything new I hope that we, at least, get rid of some +of the old things--fears and superstitions," said Madeline. "Things that +are holy rites in one age are so apt to be holy frights in the next." + +"Say, did you ever go down the streets of Boston and notice the number +of signs of palmists and astrologers and vacuum cures?" exclaimed +Davison. "But perhaps it ain't fair to take Boston for a standard." + +Ellery, a true New Englander, stared at him in astonishment, as one who +heard sacred things lightly spoken of. + +"Most of us can see how funny we are," Davison pursued. + +"Can we?" murmured Dick. + +"But Boston," he went on calmly, "has lost her sense of humor. She peers +down at everything she does and says, 'This is very serious.' That's why +she takes astrologers in earnest. They're in Boston. Anyway, I think you +were mighty sensible to come back to us, Miss Elton, rather than to stay +in the unmarried state, alias Massachusetts. A girl really has a much +better chance in the West." + +"Yes, that's where Miss Elton showed a long head," said Dick with +evident glee. + +"But really now, joking apart," Davison went on, having made his +opening, "don't you think it's unsettling to a girl to do too much +studying?" + +"I hope you are not deeply agitated over the eradication of +womanliness," Madeline remonstrated. "Really, Mr. Davison, it isn't an +easy thing to stop being a woman--when you happen to be born one." + +"But there are plenty of unwomanly women," he objected. + +"That's true," she answered, "but I believe womanliness is killed--when +it is killed--not through the brain, but through the heart. It's not +knowledge, but hard-heartedness that makes the unwomanly woman." + +She glanced up and met Norris' eyes. It was not easy for him to join in +the chatter of the others, but he was thinking how she illuminated her +own words. Manifestly she was not lacking in mind, and quite as +evidently her brain was only the antechamber of her nature. She gave him +the impression of "the heart at leisure from itself". There was the +unconsciousness of sheltered girlhood, but already, in bud, the +suggestion of that big type of woman who, as years mellow her, touches +with sympathy every life with which she comes in contact. What she now +was, promised more in the future, as though Fate said, "I'm not through +with her yet. I've plenty in reserve to go to her making." + +"Intelligence," said Dick pompously, "is the tree of life in man, and +the flower in woman--and one does not presume to criticize flowers." + +Mr. Davison changed his method of attack. + +"Oh, of course I'm up against it," he said, "with you three fresh from +the academic halls. But I can tell you you'll feel pretty lonely out +here. The street-car conductors don't talk Sanskrit in the West. They +talk Swede." + +"Oh, this,--this is home!" cried Madeline, springing up as if to shake +off the conversation. "You don't know how I love it! It's fresh and +vigorous and its face is forward." She flung out her arms and smiled +radiantly down on the three young men, as though she were an embodiment +of the ozone of the Northwest. + +"Sing to us, please, Madeline," said Dick. + +"Very well, I will," she said. "I'll sing you a song I made myself +yesterday, when I was happy because I was at home again. Perhaps it will +tell you how I feel, for it's a song of Minnesota." She turned and +nodded to Mr. Davison, and then slipped through the doors to the room +where the piano stood. + +The long shadows of afternoon lay across the lawn, and the grass, more +green than ever in the level light, clasped the dazzling blue of the +quiet waters. The three men stretched themselves in their easy chairs, +as a stroked kitten stretches itself, with a lounging abandon which is +forbidden to their sisters, as Madeline's voice rose fresh and true and +touched with the joy of youth. + + "Ho, west wind off the prairie; + Ho, north wind off the pine; + Ho, myriad azure lakes, hill-clasped, + Like cups of living wine; + Ho, mighty river rolling; + Ho, fallow, field and fen; + By a thousand voices nature calls, + To fire the hearts of men. + + "Ho, fragrance of the wheat-fields; + Ho, garnered hoards of flax; + Ho, whirling millwheel, 'neath the falls; + Ho, woodman's ringing ax. + Man blends his voice with nature's, + And the great chorus swells. + He adds the notes of home and love + To the tale the forest tells. + + "Oh, young blood of the nation; + Oh, hope in a world of need; + The traditions of the fathers + Still be our vital seed. + Thy newer daughters of the West, + Columbia, mother mine, + Still hold to the simple virtues + Of field and stream and pine." + +The song stopped abruptly, and Dick sprang to his feet. + +"Good, Madeline!" he exclaimed. "You make me feel how great it is to be +part of it." + +"Do I?" she said. "I thought of you when I wrote it. Oh, here come +father and mother back from their drive." + +Mr. Davison rose hastily. + +"I'd no idea it was so late," he said. "I must be going. Miss Elton, I +didn't mean a word of all that about your being so clever. You're all +right." + +"Thanks for the tribute," Madeline smiled as he disappeared down the +drive. "Dick, I wish you'd always be on hand when he comes. He makes my +brain feel like a woolly dog." + +"Rummy chap," said Norris. + +The older people came in to greet the boy they had known all his life, +to ask the innumerable usual questions, to say the inevitable things +through dinner. + +Afterwards, when the last fragments of sunset burned through and across +the water, they gathered on the piazza. It was that dreamy hour when +women find it easy to be silent and men to talk. Madeline and her mother +sat close, with hands restfully clasped in their joy at being together. +Mr. Elton eyed the two young men from his vantage of years of shrewd +wisdom. Both the boys were clean-shaven, after the manner of the day, a +fashion that seems to become clean manliness, vigorous and +self-controlled. Both were good to look at; but here the resemblance +ended, for Dick's long slender face and body lithe with its athletic +training, was alive and restless, as though he found it difficult to +keep back his passion for activity; Ellery, big but loosely joined, had +the dogged look of one that held some of his energy in reserve. A good +pair, Mr. Elton concluded, and felt a sudden spasm of longing for a +son--not that he would have exchanged Madeline for any trousered biped +that walked, but it would be a great thing to own one such well of young +masculine vigor as these. + +"It's going to be great fun for us old fellows to sit back and watch you +young ones," the elder man ejaculated. "There are several good-sized +jobs waiting for you." + +"That's a good thing," said Dick. "When there's nothing to do, nobody'll +do it." + +"And it will be a tame sort of a world, eh? Well, thank the Lord, it's +none of our responsibility any longer. You've got to tackle it. The new +phases of things are too much for me, with a brain solidified by years." + +"You might at least help us by stating the problem," said Norris. + +"You see, it's like this. Until a few years ago every census map of the +United States was seamed by a long line marked 'frontier.' That line is +gone. That's the situation in a nutshell. Our work, the subjugation of +the land, is about done, and the question is now up to you; what are you +going to do with it? You know the old story of the man who said he had a +horse who could run a mile in two-forty. And the other fellow asked, +'What are you going to do when you get there?' We've done the running +and our children are there. Now what? You must develop a whole set of +new talents--not trotting talents, but staying talents." + +"I suppose," said Norris slowly, for Dick was silent, "circumstances +bring out abilities. That's the law that operated in the case of the +older generation, and we'll have to trust to it in ours." + +"That's true. But I sometimes wonder if, after all, we are helping you +to the best preparation. We send you back to get the old education. The +tendency of old communities is to rehash the traditions until they +become authority. New communities have to face problems for themselves +and solve them by new ways. The first kind of training makes scholars. +The second brings out genius. The old makes men think over the thoughts +of others. Heaven knows we need men who will think for themselves!" + +"Well, 'old and young are fellows'," said Dick. "To-day grows out of +yesterday." + +"Yes, if it grows. The growing is the point. It mustn't molder on +yesterday. You must have enough books to get your thinkers going, but +not more. You must not feast on libraries until you get intellectual +gout and have to tickle your palate with dainties. A good deal of stuff +that's written nowadays seems to me like literary cocktails,--something +to stir a jaded appetite. That's my friend Early's specialty--to serve +literary cocktails. But the appetite you bolster up isn't the equivalent +of a good healthy hunger after a day out-of-doors." + +"When nature wants a genius, I suppose she has to use fresh seed," said +Dick. + +"And genius is creative," Mr. Elton went on. "So far, the genius this +country has developed is that which takes the raw material of forest and +river and creates civilization. And let me tell you that's a very +different job from heaping up population." + +Silence fell on the little group and they became suddenly aware of +lapping waters and the sleepy twitter of birds, and even of a long +slender thread of pale light that struck across the lake from a +low-lying star. Madeline gave a little sigh and pressed her mother's +hand. + +Dick flushed and hesitated in the darkness, with youth's confidence in +its own great purposes and youth's craving for sympathy in its +ambitions. Mr. Elton's combination of kindness and shrewdness seemed to +draw him out. + +"It sounds impertinent and conceited for a young fellow like me to talk +about what he means to do." + +"Fire away. I knew your father, Dick." + +"Then you'll know what I mean when I say that it has always been my +ambition to live up to his traditions--his ideal of a man's public +duties." + +Mr. Elton nodded and Dick went on, while Ellery eyed him with some of +the old college respect, and Madeline leaned eagerly forward. + +"I don't mean any splurge, you understand, but the same quiet service he +gave. Father left his affairs in such good order that there isn't any +real necessity for me to try to add to my income. Of course, it isn't a +great fortune, but it's more than enough; and my ambitions don't lie +that way. There's a certain amount of business in taking care of it as +it stands. Mother is glad to turn the burden of it over to me. She's +done nobly--dear little woman--but--" + +"I understand. It's a man's business." + +"Yes," said Dick, with the simple masculine superiority of four and +twenty. "That's enough of a background for life, you see; but I long +since made up my mind that public affairs--affairs that concern the +whole community--are to be my real interest." + +"So you're going into politics, Dick?" said the older man slowly. + +"Well, not to scramble for office," Percival answered with a flush. "We +fellows have been well-enough taught, haven't we, Ellery? to know that +it is rather an ugly mess--I mean municipal affairs in this country. The +local situation, here in St. Etienne, I have yet to study; and I don't +mean to lose any time in beginning." + +Mr. Elton made no reply for a moment, and when he spoke there was an +unpleasant cynicism in his voice that galled Dick's pride. + +"The young reformer! Well, I suppose a decent man with a little ability +could do something here, if he knew what he was going to do. It's a good +thing to get on your sea-legs before you try to command a ship." + +"Father!" Madeline cried out, unable to contain herself. "Don't you be a +horrid wet blanket!" + +The three looked at her to see her face aglow with the lovely feminine +belief in masculinity that also belongs to the early twenties. + +"That's all right," said the elder Elton unemotionally. "I wasn't +wet-blanketing--I know things are needed. There's plenty of corruption +wanting to be buried, and most of us are content to hold our noses and +let it lie. Or perhaps we give an exclamation of disgust when it is +served up in the newspapers. Reform if you must, but don't reform all +day and Sundays too; and build your cellars before you begin your +attics." + +Then he went on a shade more heartily: "It's a mighty good thing for +some of you young fellows to be going into politics; perhaps that's the +chief work for the next generation. And Norris--what of you?" + +Ellery started. It had been a silent evening for him, but his silence +had glowed with interest, not so much in the conversation as in his own +thoughts. Two things had forced themselves home,--the first when he +looked down on that expanse of vivid water, vivid sky, vivid green. Here +a man, even a young man, might waken to all his faculties and make +something of life. He need not plod dully through years, to reach +success only when he is old and tired. The landscape poured like wine +into Ellery Norris' veins. + +And now here was the other side. He had watched with fascination the +restfulness of Miss Elton's hands, the one that held her mother's, the +one that lay quietly in her lap. He watched her steady eyes that kept +upon her father and Dick as they talked. He saw her face glow with +sympathy and interest and yet remain calm, as if secure in the goodness +of the world; and he told himself that he was glad this wonderful thing +belonged to Dick. Dick's restlessness would be held in leash, as it +were, by this steadfastness. + +Once she half turned as though she felt his scrutiny, and queer pains +darted through his body when her eyes met his. + +Now when Mr. Elton attacked him, he came back from his far-away +excursion with a sense of surprise that there was a present, but he +smiled cheerfully. + +"Oh, I'm not a very important person. I'm just beginning to learn the +trade of a newspaper man, and I'm afraid I shan't be able to think about +much but city news and bread and butter for the next few years." + +"No telling what may happen, with his Honor, the mayor here, backed up +by the power of the press. We'll make St. Etienne a model city in the +sight of gods and men, eh, boys?" said Mr. Elton good-humoredly, but +rising as if to cut short the conversation. + +"Can't we take a walk before Ellery and I go back to town?" asked Dick. + +"Go, you kid things. I haven't seen the evening paper yet, and that's +more to my old brain than moonlight strolls." Mr. Elton dismissed them. + +The three young people set out upon a path that twisted by the lake +shore, bordered on its inner side by trees that had become in the +darkness mere shapeless masses out of which an occasional mysterious +thread of light brought into sight some uncanny shape. The purple of the +evening zenith had sunk into deeper and deeper blue, pricked here and +there with stars. Bats were wheeling in mysterious circles among the +tree-tops, and the air was full of sounds that seem to come only at +twilight. + +"Isn't it strange that though every one of those trees is an old friend, +I should be frightened at the very idea of being alone among them at +night? And yet there's nothing in the dark that isn't in the day," said +Madeline. + +"Oh, yes, there is," Dick rejoined. "There's more being afraid in the +dark." + +She laughed and they went on in silence. + +"Who's been building a new house, just on the very spot I always meant +to own some day--right here next to your father?" Dick demanded, +stopping abruptly. + +"Oh, you haven't seen that, have you?" said Madeline. "Let's sit down on +this log and look at the stars. That's Mr. Lenox's new house; and I'm so +sorry for them!" + +"Why grieve for the prosperous? Reserve your tears for the suffering." + +"Why, you know, in town, they live with Mr. Windsor, who is Mrs. Lenox's +father, and he's a multimillionaire; and it's a great establishment; and +the world is necessarily very much with them. So when Mr. Lenox proposed +that they should build a country house of their own and spend their +summers here, I think he wanted to get out to some primitive simplicity, +where the children could go barefoot if they wanted to. But as soon as +it was suggested, Mr. Windsor presented his daughter with a big tract, +and insisted on building this great palace, and they have to keep so +many servants that Mr. Lenox says it is a regular Swedish +boarding-house. And there are so many guest-rooms that it would be a +shame not to have them occupied; and extra people run out in their +motors every day; and the children have to be kept immaculate all the +time. So they've brought the world out with them. Mr. Lenox has to dress +for dinner, instead of putting on old slippers and going out to weed the +strawberry-bed, which is what he would like to do when he gets out on +the evening train." + +"Poor things, in bondage to their house!" said Norris, and they all +looked solemnly at the multitude of lights shining through the trees. + +"There are ever so many disadvantages about being among the few very +rich people in a western town, where most of your friends aren't +opulent," Madeline went on. "When Mrs. Lenox makes a call, she has to +wait while the woman changes her dress. And nobody says to her, 'Oh, do +stay to lunch,' when they've nothing but oysters or beefsteak, but they +wait till they get in an extra chef and then send her a formal +invitation. I believe ours is one of the half-dozen houses where people +don't pretend to be something quite different from what they are when +Mrs. Lenox appears. And yet she's the most simple-minded and genuine +person, and would rather have beefsteak and friendship than _pate de +fois gras_ and good gowns any day." + +"Poor things!" said Dick again. + +"I think they are out on the terrace now. Would you like to go over and +see them?" Madeline asked. + +"No, thank you," said Dick politely. "We won't make their life any more +complicated. Besides, I prefer the society of you and the stars to that +of the miserable too-rich. And they are not alone." + +"Of course not. They never are. But Mrs. Lenox said yesterday that late +this fall, when every one else has gone into winter quarters, she is +going to ask you and me and perhaps one or two others to visit her; and +we'll have a serene and lovely time." + +"Do you think that there is any hope that they will have lost part of +their money by that time?" asked Dick. + +"Father says Mr. Windsor has forgotten how to lose money, and of course +Mr. Windsor and Mr. Lenox are all one." + +"I must see to it that I don't marry a millionaire's daughter," said +Dick. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SALAD DAYS + + +The most desirable thing in life is to have the sense of doing your duty +without the trouble of doing it. Therefore days of preparation are +always delicious days. There is the mingling of repose with all the joys +of activity. To be planning to do things has in it more of triumph than +the actual doing. It carries the irradiating light of hope and purpose, +without the petty pin-prick of detail which comes when reality parodies +ideals. + +Dick's first summer at home was a period of delight. He absorbed ideas +and so felt that he was doing something in this city of his birth which +now, in his manhood, came back to him as something new and strange. The +weeks drifted by and he seemed to drift with them, though both mind and +body were alert. All the things he learned and all the things he meant +to do were tripled and quadrupled in interest when he passed them on to +his two counselors-in-chief, Norris, solid and appreciative, Madeline, +even more believing and more sympathizing, but glorified by that charm +of sex which gilds even trifling contact of man and maid, making her +friendship not only gilt but gold. + +So he spent his days in prowling about and meeting all sorts and +conditions of men, while Ellery slaved in a dirty and noisy office; but +when Saturday came and the _Star_ went to press at three, Norris, with +the blissful knowledge that there was no Sunday edition, would meet +Percival, stocked with a week's accumulation of experiences. In the +hearts of both would be deep rejoicing as, at week-end after week-end, +they stowed themselves in Dick's motor and betook themselves lakeward, +nominally to go to the Country Club and play golf, but with the +subconsciousness for both that the lake meant Madeline. + +There were, to be sure, other people, girls agreeable, pretty and +edifying, men of their own type and age, older men who did less sport +and more business, but all of these were neither more nor less than a +many-colored background to the little three-cornered intimacy which, as +Dick said, "was the real thing." + +It came to be understood that the three should spend their Sunday +afternoons together, not on the cool piazza, where intrusion in its +myriad forms might come upon them, but off somewhere, either on the +bosom of the waters or on the bosom of the good green earth, who +whispers her secret of eternal vitality to every one that lays an ear +close to her heart. + +The season was like the placid hour before the world wakes to its daily +comedy and tragedy; and yet, with all its superficial serenity, this +summer carried certain undercurrents of emotion that hardly rose to the +dignity of discontent, but which, nevertheless, troubled the still +waters of the soul. At first Madeline half resented the continual +presence of Norris at these sacred conclaves. He seemed so much an +outsider. Dick she had known all her life and she could talk to him with +perfect freedom, but his friend often sat silent during their chatter, +as though he were an onlooker before whom spontaneity was impossible. +Yet as Sunday after Sunday the two young men strode up together, she +grew to accept Ellery. First he became inoffensive; then she became +aware that his eyes spoke when his lips were dumb; and finally, when +words did come, they were the words of a friend who understood moods and +tenses. In some ways it was a comfort to have this buffer between her +and Dick. It helped to prolong the period of uncertain certainty. + +Dick never spoke of love, but the way was pointed not only by the easy +restfulness of their comradeship, but in the very atmosphere that +surrounded them. She read it half-consciously in the looks of father and +mother as they met and accepted Dick's intimacy in the house, in the +warmth of Mrs. Percival's motherly affection when Madeline ran in for +one of her frequent calls. Life was full of it, like the gentle +half-warmth that comes before the sun has quite peeped over the horizon +on a summer morning; and it was well that this dawn to their day should +be a long one. Madeline had been away the greater part of four years, +and she was now in no hurry to cut short her reunion with the old home +life. Dick, too, had his beginnings to make, man-fashion, and they ought +to be made before he took on himself the full life of a man. So she was +happily content to drift, conscious in a vague dreamy way that the drift +was in the right direction, feeling the situation without analyzing it. +It was a condition of affairs like Madeline herself, gently +affectionate, but not passionate or deeply emotional. She was not of the +type of women who rise up and control destiny. + +Norris, for all his passive exterior, had undercurrents that were fervid +and powerful, and this first summer in the West, unruffled on its +surface, stirred them and sent his life whirling along their +irresistible streams. He never lost the sense that he was an outsider, +admitted on sufferance to see the happiness of others and allowed to +pick up their crumbs. If hard work, oblivion and lovelessness were to be +his lot, the hardest of these was lovelessness. Much as he loved Dick he +continually resented that young man's careless acceptance of the good +things of life, and most of all did his irritation grow at Percival's +way of taking Madeline for granted, enjoying her beauty, her sympathy, +the grace that she threw over everything, and yet, thought Ellery, never +half appreciating them. He himself bowed before them with an adoration +that was framed in anguish because these things were, and were not for +him. More and more cruel grew the knowledge that the currents of his +life were gall and wormwood, flowing through wastes of bitterness. + +Yet, along with the new grief came a new awakening, at first dimly felt +by Madeline alone, then read with greater and greater clearness. + +But of all undercurrents, Dick, prime mover and chief talker, remained +unconscious, absorbed in his own dawning career, delighting in his two +friends chiefly as hearers and sympathizers with his multitudinous +ideas. + +So it happened that one August afternoon, when it was late enough for +the sun to have lost its fury, a not too strenuous breeze drove their +tiny yacht through a channel which stretched enticingly between a wooded +island and the jutting mainland. + +"Let's land there," Madeline exclaimed suddenly. "It looks like a jolly +place." + +She pointed toward a stretch of beach caught between the arms of trees +that came to the very water's edge, and enshrined in a great wild +grape-vine that had climbed from branch to branch until it made a +tangled canopy. + +Dick turned sharply inward and ran their prow into the twittering sand. + +"Thou speakest and it is thy servant's place to obey," he said. + +"How does it feel to keep slaves? I've often wondered," Ellery said as +he jumped ashore and Dick began tossing him rugs and cushions. + +"Very comfy, thank you, and not at all un-Christian," she answered +saucily. "Dick, don't throw the supper basket, under penalty of +liquidating the sandwiches. I think there's a freezer of ice-cream under +the deck, if you'll pull it out. Now, are you ready for me?" + +She stepped lightly forward under Dick's guidance, took Ellery's +outstretched hands and sprang to the shore, where a kind of throne was +built for her against a prostrate log,--all this help not because it was +necessary, but as the appropriate pomp of royalty. + +"I suspect," said Dick, looking about him with great satisfaction, "that +this was a favorite picnic place for Gitche Manito and Hiawatha, in the +morning of days." + +"That shows how nature can forget," Madeline retorted. "Surely you know +the real story, Dick." + +"I don't," said Ellery. "Tell it to me." + +She snuggled comfortably down into her rugs. + +"In early days, which is the western equivalent for 'once upon a time,' +a furious storm raged down the lake and tore the water into long +ribbons of purple and green. A beautiful girl stood, perhaps on this +very spot, with a savage who had rescued her from a sinking canoe and +brought her here, dripping but safe. Over there on the mainland her +father came running out of the woods in an agony of fear. He saw her +here, saw her signals, but the shriek of the storm and the roar of the +waters drowned out the words that she frantically screamed toward him. +He saw her point to the Indian, who was always feared, always counted +treacherous, and his dread of the hurricane changed to terror of the +savage. He raised his rifle and the girl's deliverer dropped dead at her +feet." + +"Then fifty years went by, and this became a bower for the eating of +sandwiches," added Dick. + +Norris was lying on his back and staring through the tangle of grape and +maple leaves at the flecks of blue beyond. + +"That's a noble story," he said. "I didn't suppose this new land had any +legends. It all gives me the impression of being just old enough to be +big." + +"Isn't that the conceit of the Anglo-Saxon? He calls this a new land +because he's lived here only about a half-century. Things did happen +before you were born, my dear boy," said Dick. + +"Indeed! What things?" Norris asked placidly. + +"Suppose you enlarge your mind by looking up the stories of the old +_coureurs du bois_ who used to stumble through these woods when they +were the border-land between Chippewa and Sioux." Dick threw a pebble at +Norris' face. "Suppose you go up to that inky stream in the north, which +twists mysteriously through the forests, black with the bodies of dead +men rotting in its mire. I don't wonder they thought the rough life more +fascinating than kings and courts. I'd like to have seen sun-dances and +maiden-tests; I'd like to have eaten food strange enough to be +picturesque, and to have found new streams and traced them to their +sources, and to have come unexpectedly on new lakes, like amethysts. +It's as much fun to discover as to invent. And then the Jesuit fathers, +half-tramp, half-martyr,--they were great old fellows." + +"And the Frenchman--where is he?" said Madeline. "Gone, and left a few +names for the Swede and the American to mispronounce; but you may come +down later, Mr. Norris, and find how law and order, in our own people, +fought with savagery out here on the frontier. It's a thrilling story." + +"You love it all and its legends, don't you?" Ellery looked from one to +the other. + +"Don't you?" Madeline asked. + +"By Jove, I do!" he cried, sitting suddenly upright as though stirred +with genuine feeling. "I love it without its legends. It does not seem +to me to have any past. It is all future. It makes me feel all future, +too." + +"Do you know what's happened to you?" Dick laughed exultantly. "Gitche +Manito the Mighty has got you--the spirit of the West--which, being +interpreted, is Ozone." + +"Something has got me, I admit," Norris cried. "What is it? What is it +that makes the sky so dazzling? What is it that makes the leaves fairly +radiate light? What is it that, every time you take a breath, makes the +air freshen you down to your toes? I feel younger than I ever did before +in all my life." + +The other two were looking at him. + +"Well, our height above the sea-level--" Dick began. + +"Oh, rot!" Ellery exclaimed. "It's something more than air--it's +atmosphere. You feel here that it's glorious to work." + +"You make me proud of you, old boy." + +"It's funny how universally you fellows call me 'old boy'. I suppose I +was older than the rest of you. I had to take the responsibility for my +own life too soon and it took out of me that assurance that most of you +had--that complacent confidence that things would somehow manage +themselves. But I'm getting even now. I'm appreciating being young, +which most men don't." + +"Bully for you!" Dick cried. "If you couldn't be born a Westerner, you +are born again one. I am moved to tell you something that gave me a +small glow yesterday. I met Lewis--the editor of the _Star_, you know, +Madeline--and he insisted on stopping me and congratulating me on having +brought Mr. Norris to St. Etienne; said he was irritated at first by +having a man forced on him by influence, when there was really no +particular place for him, but, he went on, 'Mr. Norris is rapidly making +his own place. We think him a real acquisition.'" + +"Oh, pooh!" Norris lapsed sulkily into his usual quiet manner. "Of +course I can write better than I can talk. My thoughts are just slow +enough, I guess, to keep up with a pen." + +Dick laughed softly as though he were pleased at things he did not tell. +Madeline, for the first time, gave her real attention to Mr. Norris, +whom she had not hitherto thought worth dwelling on--at least when Dick +was about. Never before had this young man talked about himself. + +A silence fell. + +"Was that a wood-thrush?" Norris asked, manifestly grasping at a change +of subject. + +"I don't know, and I don't intend to know," Madeline cried, with such +unusual viciousness that the two men stared. "Poor birds!" she said. +"I've nothing against them, but I'm in rebellion against the bird fad. +I'm so tired of meeting people and having them start in with a gushing, +'Oh, how-de-do! Only fancy, I have just seen a scarlet tanager!' and you +know they haven't, and they wouldn't care anyway, and their mother may +be dying." + +Ellery laughed, and Dick said: + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" + +"I'm going to invent a fad of my own." + +"Let us in on the ground floor." + +"If you like. I'm learning the notes of the wind in the tree-tops. It +has such variety! No two trees sound alike. Hear that sharp twitter of +the maples? The oak has a deep sonorous song, and the elm's is as +delicate as itself. I believe I could tell them all with my eyes shut." + +"One breeze with infinite manifestations. I suppose our souls twist the +breath of the spirit to our own likenesses in the same way," Ellery +said. + +Madeline looked at him and he smiled. + +"You're getting poetical, old codger," said Dick. "You must be in love." +Ellery blushed, but Dick went on, oblivious of byplay. "I move that we +celebrate the occasion by a cold collation. Last week, your mother +kindly made inquiries about my tastes that led me to infer that +everything I most affect is stowed away in that comfortable-looking +basket." + +So they had supper, and Norris fished a volume of Shelley from his +pocket and read _The Cloud_, which Dick followed by a really funny story +from a magazine. They fell to talking about their own affairs, which to +the young are the chief interests. It takes years "that bring the +philosophic mind" to make abstractions stimulating. Finally they wafted +homeward under a sky dark at the zenith and becoming paler and paler, +violet, rose, wan white, with a line of intense violet along the +horizon, and, as they sailed, Madeline sang softly as one does in the +immediate presence of nature. + +This was one day. On another Dick was full of his adventures of the +week. He was learning to know his St. Etienne in all its phases. He told +them of the lumber mills down by the river, where brawny men, primitive +in aspect, fought with a never-ending stream of logs which came down +with the current and raised themselves like uncanny water-monsters, up a +long incline, finally to meet their death at the hands of machinery that +ripped and snarled and clutched. Who would dream, to look at the great +commonplace piles of boards that lined the riverbank for miles, that +their birth-pangs had been so picturesque? + +Or again, Dick told them of those other mills, which were the chief +foundation of St. Etienne's wealth, piles of gray stone, for ever +dust-laden and dingy, into which poured a never-ending stream of grain, +and out of which poured an equally unceasing stream of bags and barrels +laden with flour. Around the wide interiors wandered a few men, gray +too, who peeped now and then into caverns where hidden machinery did all +the work. Outside, locomotives whistled and puffed and snorted, as they +switched the miles of cars to and from the mills. Great vans rolled up +with their burdens of fresh empty barrels to be filled and rolled away +again. + +It was the commonplace of daily toil, but Dick made it vivid, because it +was in him to see all things as the work of men, and whenever you catch +them doing real work, men are interesting. + +Sometimes Dick had other stories to tell. In his collegiate days, he had +grown familiar with the typical slum and its problems. The class in +sociology had visited such. So he went to the slums of St. Etienne, and +behold, they were not slums at all, for the slum can not be grown, like +a mushroom, in a night. It must have a thousand nauseous influences +stagnating for a long time undisturbed. But here were meager little +wooden huts, flanked by rusting piles of scrap-iron, or flats along the +river-bottom where the high waters of spring were sure to send the +dwellers in these shabby apologies for homes scrambling to the roofs, +or drive them to the shelter of the neighboring brewery. Here as the +waters swept under the stony arches of the bridges, old women tucked up +their petticoats and fished for the richness with which a city befouls +its river. Here they made themselves neat woodpiles of the drift of the +sawmills, and turned an honest penny by exhibiting on their roofs gaudy +advertisements of plug-tobacco, that those who passed on the bridge +above might look down and read and resolve to avoid the brand thus +obnoxiously glorified. + +Sometimes Dick had to relate a picturesque interview with a policeman +who unfolded to him unknown phases of life, for though he believed in +himself, Percival also believed in the other man, and therefore made him +a friend. Every one likes a jolly friendly prince, and that was Dick's +type. + +Or he would dip into a police court where all the stages of wretchedness +were pitchforked into one another's evil-smelling company, so that it +ranged from the highest circle of purgatory to the lowest depths of +hell. + +"Why do you go to such places, Dick? It's nauseating," Madeline +exclaimed. + +"Why?" he demanded. "I suppose that sometime, when I've made over my +information into the neat systematic package that you prefer, I shall +start a soul-uplifting row. I look forward to that as my career. You +ought to get a career, Madeline." + +"A career? I know the verb, but not the noun," she retorted saucily. +"I'm afraid mine is nothing but the trivial task, flavored with all the +flavors I like best." + +Sometimes, when they went home together at night, Percival had stories +to unfold to Norris alone--stories he could not tell Madeline, of things +found in the mire, upon which the healthy happy world turns its back +when every night it goes "up town" to pleasant hearthstones and to +normal life. These were tales of foul sounds and foul air, where men and +women gathered and drank and gambled and laughed with laughter that was +like the grinning of skulls, hollow and despairing. They were stories of +girls with sodden eyes and men with wooden faces--of innumerable schemes +to suck money by any means but those of honor. And these were the phases +of his study that Dick looked upon with a kind of anguished fascination, +as more and more he saw how the hands stretched out of that mire +smirched the city which he hoped to serve. + +Sometimes, and this was when they were with Madeline again, Ellery would +have his experience to tell, redolent of printer's ink, and full of the +interest of that profession which is never two days the same--stories of +how business toils and spins and is not arrayed like Solomon. Norris, +too, was beginning to run up against human nature both in gross and in +detail, and to know the world, from the fight last night in Fish Alley +up to the doings of statesmen and kings. Madeline had little to tell, +for she was living quietly at home, taking the housekeeping off her +mother's hands and driving her father to the morning train. She had few +episodes more exciting than an afternoon call or a moonlight sail. But +the young men brought her their lives, and when she had made her gay +little bombardment of comment, they felt as though some new light had +fallen upon familiar facts. The very simplicity of her thought put +things in the right relation and gave the effect of a view from a higher +plane. + +There were many times when they did not discuss, but gave themselves to +the joy of young things. They sailed, and Madeline held the tiller; +and, when evening came on, they curled down with cushions in the bottom +of the boat and sang and chattered the twilight out. They played golf +and tennis, and the blood leaped in their veins, for whatever they did, +they did it with heart and soul. As for their relations with one +another, these were taken for granted, and what they meant, not one of +the three stopped to question. It was enough that they were sweet and +satisfying in silence. + +Late in the season there came a Sunday, memorable to Ellery, when Dick +had gone away for some purpose, and, after a little self-questioning, +Norris ventured alone for his afternoon with Madeline. She welcomed him +with such serene unconsciousness that he wondered why he had hesitated. + +"I'm not so good a sailor as Dick, Miss Elton," he said. "Will you trust +yourself with me?" + +"Being an independent young woman, I'm willing to depend on you." + +"A truly feminine position." + +"It means that I am quite capable of seizing the helm myself if you +should fail me," she laughed. + +"And I am masculine enough to determine that you shall get it only by +favor, not by necessity," he retorted. + +"That suits me quite well," Madeline answered gravely. + +"And you are not apprehensive of storms in the vague far-away?" + +"Don't. I'm so contented with things as they are that I do not want to +think of far-aways or of anything that means change." + +"You are satisfied with to-day?" he persisted. + +"Perfectly." + +Ellery flushed with traitorous rejoicing that Dick was absent. It was a +day of sunshine--not the ardent blaze of summer, but the crisp glow of +October that seems all light with little heat. The lake was so pale as +to be hardly blue, and girdled with soft yellow, touched only here and +there with the intenser red of the rock maples. Back farther from shore +rose the tawny bronze of oaks. The light breeze flung the _Swallow_ +along with those caressing wave-slaps that are the sleepiest of sounds. + +To sail under that sky, with Madeline leaning on her elbow near at hand, +they two separated from the rest of the world by wide waters, was like a +brief experience of Paradise. Ellery watched the light tendril of hair +that touched her cheek, lifted itself and touched again, near that +lovely curve above her ear. The cheek was warm and creamy but untouched +by deeper color. He fell into that mood of blessed silence that, as a +rule, comes only when one is solitary. + +As they rounded at the dock he came back to himself with a sudden wonder +if she had missed the titillation of Dick's chatter, for she had been as +silent as he. + +"I'm afraid I have been very dull. I enjoyed myself so much that I +forgot to try to amuse you." + +"It's been a heavenly sail, exactly to match the day," Madeline answered +with a deep contented sigh that filled him with delight. "I was this +moment thinking what a comfort it was to know you well enough so that I +didn't have to talk. It's a test of comradeship, isn't it?" + +As they smiled at each other, his heart leaped with the consciousness of +a bond below the surface. + +He treasured this crumb of her kindness, not because she was niggardly, +but because there was little that belonged to him and to him alone. +Sometimes, in the rush and roar of the office, came the memory of her +eyes and her voice of assurance. + +"What will our comradeship be like, when--when she is Dick's wife?" he +questioned himself, and then fell to work with fury. + +Thus the delightful summer died into the past; there came a winter only +less good, with its dinners and dances, with quiet fireside evenings, +and yet another summer of the same close friendship that began to take +on the semblance of a permanent thing in life, all the richer as +experience grew deeper and knowledge wider and the best things dearer. + +Whether they read or sang or discussed, though the world saw little +done, these three young people had the inestimable happiness of knowing +one another. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JEWEL WEED + + +Along the wide straight street of the city surged the usual shopping +crowd. Largely petticoated was it, for o'daytimes man must be busy at +his office that woman may have this privilege of going shopping. Surely +there is no other stream in the wide world that is so monotonous as this +human never-ending current. The same types, the same clothes, the same +subjects of conversation in the fragments that catch the ear. And seldom +does one see a face that looks even cheerful, much less happy,--all +intent on matching ribbons. + + "The world is too much with us; late and soon; + Getting and spending we lay waste our powers." + +Thus might they cry aloud, if they were condemned to proclaim their +sins, like the long banner of bat-like souls that Dante saw passing in +similar fashion beneath his eye. + +And yet, in spite of its monotony, humanity is perennially interesting +to itself. Therefore among the strenuous, the hurrying, and the +anxious-eyed, one girl loitered on dilatory foot from wide window to +wide window. + +"Girl" seems an inadequate word to describe Lena Quincy. It may be +applied to any youthful feminine person, and Lena, in spite of her +carefully-groomed shabbiness, was by no means one of the herd. She +affected one like a bit of Tiffany glass, shimmering, iridescent, +ethereal; and no ugliness in her surroundings could take away that +impression. + +Every one who looked at her at all looked twice. She had grown so used +to this tribute that it hardly affected her unless it came from one who +merited her interest in return. + +Now she was wandering from one to another of the ladies with the waxen +faces, the waxen hands and the wooden hearts, who gazed back unmoved +from behind their plate-glass; though it was not the fixed and amiable +smiles of the lay-figures that caught her attention, but rather the +curious way in which this one's braid was laid on the gown, or the new +device in buttons, there beyond. + +Now she turned and studied the human flux in front. She was not +shopping, save in sweet imagination. This was her theater, and she was +fain to make the show last as long as possible. Her absorbent gaze saw +everything. Yet it was selective too, for it passed swiftly over the +chaff of the shabby and fixed itself on the wheat of the properly +gowned. Sometimes she wove romances about her swiftly-disappearing +actors, romances not of heart and soul but of garments, of splendors and +of money; but even such entrancing tissues of her brain vanished like +pricked soap-bubbles when there passed in the body one of those select +few whose skirts proclaimed perfection. Could dreams stand against +reality? Yet the dreams were blissful, though, when they were gone, the +girl was left steeped in the bitterness of envy. + +It is said that there is a consolation in being well-dressed that +religion itself can not afford. It is to be remembered that there is +also the pharisaism which always forms a hard shell about every kernel +of religion; and the pharisaism of the correct costume is the most +complacent of all forms of self-righteousness. Lena's lips grew +positively pale as she saw it pass, drawing its rustling petticoats +close to its side. She hungered and thirsted for this form of +righteousness. + +It was early April, and there was a savage nip in the air, for Winter +shook his fist at the world long after he dared to come out of his lair. +Spring refused to sit in his lap for more than an instant, but leaped +from that affectionate position, ashamed of her intimacy with the hoary +sinner, and the buds swelled slowly and swelled exceeding small. + +Other women hurried, but Lena did not feel the cold except when she saw +a set of magnificent Russian sables with a cordial invitation to "Buy +now". Her eyes suddenly filled with tears at her own impotence. Why had +God created her such as she was and then denied her the perquisites of +her desires? It was as though nature should make the heart of a rose and +should leave off all the out-shaken wealth of petals, whose reflected +lights and shadows make the flower's heart lovely. + +With the mist clearing from her eyes Lena walked onward to the next big +sheet of glass, and looked through a wealth of Easter hats and bonnets +at the mirror that was meant to manifold their charms. She did not see +the millinery, but there was comfort in the really good glass, not like +her parody at home which cast a pale green tinge over a distorted image. + +On Lena nature had really spent herself. The very texture of her skin +made the fingers itch to caress its transparent delicacy that let +through a tender flush. Every curve of her body suggested hidden beauty, +and the way she turned her head on her shoulders left one feeling how +music and painting fall short of expressing the loveliest loveliness. +But, having accomplished a miracle, fate had left it without a meaning +and thrown it on an ash heap. No wonder that it resented its position. + +Every man who passed Lena on the street looked at her; some of them +spoke to her; but she was possessed of a self-respect that kept her from +responding to such overtures. She prided herself on her virtue. Certain +it was that the admiration of the other sex never set her vibrating with +delicate emotions, never increased by a single beat the pulses of her +heart, except when it suggested some definite benefit to herself. With +reason, Lena congratulated herself on her firm resistence to the +many-formed temptations that come to beauty housed with poverty. + +Now, as she looked in the milliner's glass, she saw her own face, +rose-like and delicate. She saw the great violet eyes, so innocent that +they almost persuaded herself, as they did others, that some creature +more celestial than ordinary humanity wondered from behind them at the +world. She saw the fair soft curls that clung about her forehead, and +the sight of these things gave a momentary peace to her soul. Then she +surveyed the dingy felt hat that rested brutally on the silken wonder of +her hair, and rebellion rose again. + +"It's a comfort that my collar fits so well," she reassured herself. +"After all, there is nothing more important than a collar. I don't look +in the least 'common'." + +Among the hats stood a photograph of a popular actress, pert and pretty. +The sight of it sent Lena's thoughts afield into new wastes of +bitterness. + +The idea of the stage had once come to her like an inspiration. Nothing +could be more easy and natural to her than to act; nothing more +delectable than the tribute paid to the star. Money, flowing gowns, +footlights, tumults of applause had seemed inevitable. Lena shivered +now, with something else than cold inside her flimsy jacket, as she +remembered the crumbling of her dream. She saw again the fat man with +the sensual mouth who had given her a job; and felt again her tingling +resentment when she found how small the part was, and how poorly paid. +She remembered how she had held herself aloof from the other girls, who, +like herself, had trivial parts, and how they had snubbed her in return; +how even the little that she did was made ridiculous through the trick +of a hook-nosed, gum-chewing rival, and how the first audience that she +faced had tittered at her stumble. A wave of heat succeeded the shiver +at this point in her remembrance. Then she recalled her impertinent +answer to the vituperation of the manager, and how he had sworn at her +for a damned minx, who thought herself a professional beauty. + +"Vulgar! Vulgar! Vulgar!" she said to herself in impotent anger. She +wished they could all know how she despised them. For she could act! She +was still sure that she could play any part--except that of patient +endurance. Yet, so far, hardship was all that life had offered her. A +chance! That was it. So far, she had never had a ghost of a chance. +Would fate--or luck--or Providence--or whatever it is that rules, never +give her a turn of the wheel? + +Next to the art of the milliner was displayed the art, less interesting +to Lena, of the brush. Before the picture store a span of horses shook +their jingling harness, and a brightly-buttoned coachman waited, with +impassive face turned steadily to the front. There came from the doorway +a girl who was lifted above the pharisaism of clothes into the purer +ether. She was calm-eyed and well-poised, and Lena hated her for the +rest of her life for her obliviousness of the sordid. Behind her walked +a young man who now opened the carriage door and lingered a moment and +laughed as he talked with the girl who had taken her seat. Lena +involuntarily drew her feet closer beneath her skirts that no careless +glance of that girl should fall upon their shabbiness. She looked at the +man as she looked at the Russian sables. He was a type of that +delectable world from which she was shut out. + +"I should be ashamed to be silly about fellows, the way some girls are," +was her inward comment. "But I'd just like to have people see me with a +thing like that dangling around me. And I shall, some time. I'm a whole +heap prettier than she is." + +The carriage door shut abruptly. Lena's too thin boots, out of plumb, +suddenly slipped on a half-formed piece of ice. She made a desperate +grab at the smooth surface of the window and then came ignominiously +down--not wholly ignominiously, however, since her accident brought to +her aid the man who was a type. + +She didn't have to stop to consider that the man would notice neither +her hat nor her boots. She knew it instinctively and instantly. But the +rose-petal face and the big eyes were overwhelmingly present to her +consciousness. She saw them reflected in the look on his face as he bent +over her. + +"I hope you're not hurt." + +"Not in the least. Only humiliated." Lena smiled, because people are +always attracted by cheerfulness. + +"You are sure you have not twisted your ankle?" he insisted. + +"Nothing but my hat and my hair," she pouted. "Thank you for coming to +my rescue." + +"It wasn't much of a rescue," he said. + +"Are you sorry I didn't have a tragedy and give you a chance to play +hero?" she inquired naively. + +"When you are in need, may I be the one to help?" he said with growing +boldness. + +Lena flushed and nodded as he lifted his hat and was gone. She walked +slowly homeward, actually forgetting to stop at her favorite window in +the lace store, so occupied was she with the latest story she was +telling herself. It was a story in which a large house with soft rugs +and becoming pink lights occupied the foreground, and somewhere in the +background hovered a man who was a type and who loved to spend money on +diamonds. The vision was so lovable that she lived with it all the way, +even through the narrow entrance of the lodging-house and up the narrow +stairs, saturated with obsolete smells--smells of dead dinners--to the +very instant when she opened the upper door and faced bald reality and +her mother. Mrs. Quincy sat by the window in a room on the walls of +which the word "shabby" was written in a handwriting as plain, and in +language far simpler than ever Belshazzar saw on the walls of Babylon. +It fairly cried itself from the big-figured paper, peeling along its +edges; from the worn painted floor; from the frayed rug of now +patternless carpet; from the sideboard that looked like a parlor organ. +Even from the closet door it whispered that there was more shabbiness +hidden in the depths. + +Mrs. Quincy herself was a part of it, for she was to Lena what the faded +rose is to the opening one, a once beautiful woman, whose skin now +looked like wrinkled cream. + +Lena shut the door and came in without speaking. She flung her hat and +coat on the bed in the corner, where a forlorn counterpane showed by the +hollows and hills beneath that it had given up all attempt to play even. +The girl sat down listlessly with her hands in her lap. + +"You've been gone a long time, Lena," said the mother in a delicately +querulous voice. "You're fortunate to be able to get out instead of +being cooped up in this little room the way I am." Mrs. Quincy coughed +with conscious pathos. "I sometimes wonder if you ever think of your +poor mother and how lonely she is most of the time. But I'd ought to be +used to people's always forgetting me." + +"Much I have to come home to!" Lena answered. "You're about as cheerful +as barbed wire. But you can comfort yourself! I shan't be able to go +out at all much longer, any way." + +"Why, what's the matter now?" + +"Do you expect me to wear a felt hat all summer?" Lena asked sharply. +"I'm ashamed to be seen in that old thing and I should think you'd be +ashamed to be so stingy with me." + +Her mother sighed and lapsed into the creaking comfort of her +rocking-chair. + +"I ain't stingy," she said at last. "But if you had your way you'd spend +every last cent of the pension the very day it comes. I've got to look +out we don't starve. If you'd only make up your mind to work and earn a +little instead of livin' so pinched! I'm sure I'd work if I could. But +there! there ain't nothing for me to do but to set and suffer, and +nobody knows what I endure." + +"I wasn't born to be a working girl," said Lena sullenly. "I've got the +blood of a lady if I haven't got the clothes of one." + +"Well, when it comes to eating and drinking, blood don't count much. +Everybody's got the same appetite." + +"No, everybody hasn't," retorted the girl. "I haven't any appetite for +canned baked-beans and liver." + +"You eat them, anyway." + +"I know it, worse luck!" + +There was a tingling silence for a moment and then Lena spoke with +sudden energy. + +"Mother, what can I do? I'm not one of those girls who can go ahead and +don't care. I haven't been brought up as they have. The only thing +you've taught me is that my father was a gentleman and that I am a +beauty. And what good does that do me?" + +"Teachin' is respectable." + +"I can't teach. I couldn't pass a teacher's examination to save my life. +I don't know how to do anything. And I won't sink below the level of +decent society. I'd starve first. Do you suppose I haven't thought it +all over a hundred times?" + +"You can sew very nicely. I'm sure everything you make has real style." + +"Go into a shop at starvation wages to make pretty things for other +girls to wear? I stopped along near Madame Cerise's to-day and looked at +some of the girls near the window, with their hair all lanky and their +faces sunk in, working for dear life on finery. Mother, is that what you +want for me?" + +There was hungry appeal in Lena's voice, that some mothers would have +felt; but Mrs. Quincy was not on the lookout for other people's shades +of emotion. + +"Well, if you'd any sense you'd take Joe Nolan, as I've told you fifty +times if I've told you once. He's got real good wages, and you could +twist him around your little finger." + +Lena's teeth came together with a click. + +"Joe! Well, perhaps, when there's nothing else left but the poorhouse. +It's pretty tough if I have to marry a mechanic." + +"Joe's a good deal of a man. He won't always be a mechanic, Lena. He's +got too much ambition." + +"He may, or he may not. Anyway, he'll bear the marks of a mechanic all +his days. I'm not his kind." + +Lena rose and went across the room to lean on the little dressing-table +and survey herself in the old green glass. This was her panacea for +every woe. The little pucker in her forehead straightened itself out. + +"Look at me, mother," she demanded, turning around. "Do you think all +this is meant to scrub and sew and cook for the foreman in locomotive +works? Because I don't." + +She was smiling, but her mother did not smile in return. + +"I believe I was most as pretty as you are when I was a girl," Mrs. +Quincy said. "And that was all the good it did. I thought I was making a +grand marriage when I got your father; but he seemed to sort of flatten +out and lose all his ambition after we was married. He didn't seem to +care about anything, though I used to give him my opinion pretty plain. +And it's mighty little he left me when he was took," she added +vindictively. + +Her daughter eyed her speculatively. + +"Well, I'm not going to be taken in the way you were," she said sharply. +"You thought a good old name and a promising career were enough; and +father didn't keep his promises. I want money and not the promise of +money." + +"And where will you find him?" sniffed Mrs. Quincy, to whom "it" and +"he" were synonymous. "I don't notice any millionaires crowding up to +you, for all your big eyes and your great opinion of yourself." + +"That's just it. If I could only meet them!" Lena got up and walked +restlessly about the room. Her eyes fell on the last night's copy of the +_Star_, opened to that chatty column headed "Woman's Fancies". She had +read it with absorbed interest. Her body halted now, for the muscles +often stop work when the mind becomes possessed of a great idea. She +stood for a long time and looked from the unwashed window-pane while a +new resolve slowly hardened itself within. + +"I'll try, I'll try, I'll try," she said to herself, and her heart +thumped uncomfortably. "And if I take it to the office myself, when they +see me perhaps they--" + +Aloud she said nothing, for she had early learned the great lesson that +the best way of getting her own will with her mother was to do what she +wished first and argue about it afterward. + +"What have we got for supper, mother?" she asked. + +"Nothing," said Mrs. Quincy sharply. + +"Nothing? Well, give me some money and let me go and get something." + +Mrs. Quincy reluctantly lifted her skirt and began to explore her +petticoat below. She shook open the mouth of a pocket into which she +dived to return with a knotted handkerchief. Lena looked on impatiently +as the knot was slowly untied and a small hoard of silver disclosed. + +"There," said Mrs. Quincy. "You can take this quarter, Lena, and do get +something nourishing. Don't buy cream-cakes. I feel the need of what +will stay my stomach." + +"I'll get baked-beans," answered the girl with a short laugh. + +"Yes, do. I shan't have another cent till next pay-day comes. We've got +to make this last. Get some tea, Lena--green, remember. The beans won't +cost more than twelve cents. I don't see how you can have a new hat." + +"Well, give me ten cents, anyway," Lena answered with unexpected +submission. + +"What do you want it for?" + +"Please, mammy," Lena said coaxingly. "I won't buy cream-cakes or +anything to eat. I want to invest in a gold mine." + +Mrs. Quincy gave her a sharp look and grudgingly handed out a dime; for +Lena's voice was instinct with hope, and hope was such a rare visitor in +the dingy little lodgings that Mrs. Quincy grew generous under its +magnetic warmth. + +"Now what'd you want that ten cents for?" she asked curiously when the +girl came back. "My land! Only paper and pencil? I thought you was going +to do something grand." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +LENA'S PROGRESS + + +About a month after Lena had made her investment in the raw materials of +the writer's art, Dick Percival happened to drop into the sooty and +untidy office where for more than a year Norris had been engaged in +manufacturing public opinion. + +"Hello!" he cried as he opened the door. Then he stood transfixed at the +vision that met his sight, for a very blond and fuzzy head was bent over +Ellery's desk and a very startled pair of blue eyes was raised to meet +his own. There stood a rosebud dressed in gray. Is there anything more +demure and innocent than a pinky girl in a mousy gown? Dick's hat came +off and a deferential look replaced the careless one. + +"Hello, yourself!" said Norris. "You announce yourself like a telephone +girl. Come in. What do you mean by troubling the quiet waters of my +daily toil?" + +"I beg your pardon," said Dick politely. "If you are busy I--" + +"That's all right. Miss Quincy and I can postpone our confab without +inconveniencing the order of the universe." Miss Quincy was already +gathering her notes, and she smiled at Dick in a half-shy way that said, +"I remember you very plainly." As she disappeared slowly down the hall, +Dick started after her. + +"Great Scott, Ellery!" he ejaculated. "How you have lied to me about the +grubbiness of your work! If this is your daily grind, I don't mind +having a whirl at the editorial profession myself." + +Norris laughed. + +"It isn't the sum total of my duties," he said. + +"Who is Hebe?" asked Dick. + +"Well, she's rather a problem," Ellery replied. "I believe she appeared +a few weeks ago at Miss Huntress' office--the woman editor, you +know--with a catchy little article on fashions. It happened that the +boss was in the office, and we consider it rather a grind on him, for he +was much taken by either the article or the eyes, and she got a little +job as a sort of reportorial maid-of-all-work. Funny, isn't it? If a +man is buying a rug, he wouldn't think of deciding on it because it was +green, without testing its wearing qualities; but in nine cases out of +ten a girl gets chosen because of her eyes. That's all I know about her. +Pretty, isn't she?" + +"Pretty! Is that all the command you have of your native language? You +ought to lose your job for that. Why she's--never mind--I haven't time +now." + +"Neither have I," answered Norris sharply. He remembered that long ago +Dick had called Madeline pretty. It is a cheap and easy word. "I haven't +time for you, either. Will you go away; or will you keep still while I +finish this work?" + +"Waltz away." Dick sat down on the window-sill and fell into a +meditative state of mind. Once or twice he walked to the door and looked +down the hall, while Norris plugged steadily away and ignored the +presence of his friend. + +After a prolonged silence, Dick spoke again, solemnly: + +"I should like to meet her." + +"Whom?" + +"Miss--Quincy, did you call her?" + +"Oh! Isn't she rather out of your class?" + +"Pshaw! Don't talk of classes, now that you're out of college. Do you +know anything about her?" + +"Nothing," said Ellery shortly. "I don't consider it my business to go +beyond my official relations." + +"Well, I haven't any business relations not to go beyond," said Dick. +"So I mean to pursue the inquiry." + +"Do as you like," Ellery answered. "Is that what you came down here to +talk about?" + +"No," said Dick, changing his manner. "I came to talk up an editorial +campaign. You don't know my chum, Olaf Ericson, do you? He's the biggest +man on the force, and he's a corker. I've learned more from him about +bad smells than I did in two years of chemistry at New Haven. He knows +this town from the seventh sub-cellar up, and 'him and me is great +friends'. Seriously, Norris, I've begun to get hold of just the facts I +wanted about 'the combine', and it's information that is so very +definite and to the point that I believe I can make it hot for them. I +want the public to be kept informed on everything that is to their +discredit. Now the _Star_ is a fairly clean paper, as papers go. I want +help." + +"You'll have to go up higher for that, my boy. It's not for a freshman +like myself to direct the policy of the paper. It would be a pretty +serious matter to run up against those fellows. Mr. Lewis, the old man, +is out, but when he comes back we'll go and have a talk with him." + +"Talk to him! I should think so!" Dick exclaimed, and he began to pace +the room and pour out the floods of his information, in wrath of soul +and glow of spirits at his resolve to clean things up. + +Meanwhile in Miss Huntress' office, farther down the hall, Lena was +discussing with that determined person the possibility of supplying the +public with more of the kind of literature for which women, in +particular, are supposed to have a mad desire. Miss Huntress was an +adept at filling her page with personalities by which those who know +nobody may have almost as great a knowledge of the great as those who +have achieved the proud distinction of being "in it". Lena had written a +highly successful series of articles on "St. Etienne as seen from the +shop windows," and she longed for new and similar fields to conquer. + +"I've been wondering," said Miss Huntress, "if you couldn't get up some +catchy little things on private libraries and picture galleries. If you +can raise some photographs to go with them, you might make quite a hit. +That's the kind of thing that takes. You see it makes people able to +talk about the inside of rich folk's houses." + +"I suppose you would want me to begin with Mr. Early," said Lena, hardly +knowing what reply to make. + +"Never mind Mr. Early. Everybody knows just what he's got and how his +place looks. You might include him later, but I should start with people +who are more exclusive and yet whose names everybody knows. Now there's +Mr. Windsor and Mrs. Percival. By the way, Mr. Norris is awfully +intimate at the Percivals'. Perhaps he'd help you to an introduction. If +Mrs. Percival would let you write up her library, you may be sure +there'd be a lot of others who would follow her example. You might try +it, anyway. Go and see her. Tell her what a hard time you are having to +earn your own living. Your looks will carry you a long way." + +"I think young Mr. Percival is in Mr. Norris' office now. Some one came +in while I was there and I think he called him Percival," said Lena +faintly. + +"Say! is that so?" exclaimed Miss Huntress. "Now's your chance! Go in +and ask while he's there. He'll find it hard to refuse to your face." + +"You go," interposed Lena. "If I go, it will look as though I knew. But +you can walk in all innocent." + +Therefore the conversation on matters which were to change the destiny +of a city was interrupted by a smart knock on the assistant editor's +door, and Miss Huntress, eminently self-possessed, walked in on the two +young men. + +"Beg pardon, Mr. Norris, I didn't know you had any one here," she began. +"But I won't keep you a moment. The truth is, I want a series of +articles on the private libraries of the city, and, knowing that you are +acquainted with Mrs. Percival, I thought you'd help the paper to an +opening there." + +"Let me introduce Mr. Percival," said Norris. "He can give you more +information than I can." + +"Well, this is lucky!" ejaculated Miss Huntress. + +"Our library isn't a show affair," Dick said stiffly. "My mother, I am +sure, would be very unwilling to submit to that kind of a write-up. My +father was a book-lover, not a book-fancier. It's essentially a private +collection." + +"I'm sorry you feel that way about it," Miss Huntress rejoined equably. +"Of course, nowadays, I can't admit that there's any such thing as +privacy. And it isn't only that I want the articles, Mr. Percival. I +want to help along a girl that needs the work, and an awfully nice girl +she is. We haven't any regular job for her, and all I can do is to throw +odd bits of work in her way. She has an old mother to support, and it +would be a real charity to her if you'd look at it in that light. Miss +Quincy is a perfect lady, and you may be sure she'd take no advantage of +you to write up anything sensational or impertinent." + +Dick started and glanced consciously at Norris, who grinned back. + +"Of course that puts another light on it," Mr. Percival said after a +decent pause, and trying to compose his face to a judicial expression. +"I'd hate to put a stumbling-block in the way of a girl like that. +Ah-um--I'll speak to my mother about it, Miss Huntress, and I dare say +I can persuade her to allow it." + +"That's very good of you," Miss Huntress answered,--with sad +comprehension that a complexion like Lena's was a great aid to a +literary career. "You couldn't manage to let Miss Quincy go up this +afternoon, could you?" she went on with characteristic energy in pushing +an advantage. "It would be a good thing if she could get her first stuff +ready for the Saturday-night issue." + +"My mother, I suppose, is driving this afternoon," Dick said +hesitatingly. He went through a hasty calculation and saw reasons for +cutting out certain of his own engagements. "See here, Miss Huntress, if +you're in such a hurry, I don't mind taking Miss Quincy up and telling +her what I know about old editions and rare folios. I'll make it right +with mother afterward." + +Miss Huntress' face cleared perceptibly. + +"You're awfully good, Mr. Percival. Won't you come down to my office +now, and I'll introduce you to Miss Quincy? This is a real favor." Dick +shot a glance of triumph at Ellery, believing himself a skilled sly dog +of a manipulator, and not knowing that he was the manipulated. Norris +spoke in scorn. + +"I suppose righteousness and reform can wait now." + +"You can bet they will. I'll call on you to-morrow afternoon, Norris." + +"That's the usual fate of reform. Don't be a fool, Dick." But Dick was +already disappearing down the corridor in pursuit of the able woman +editor. + +The girl waiting in the disordered office looked more than ever like a +bridesmaid rose, pink and ruffled and out of its proper setting, as she +saw Mr. Percival coming. + +"Miss Quincy," said Dick, "I have a motor down stairs, and I'll take you +up to the house right away, if you don't mind." + +If she didn't mind! + +When youth starts out to revolutionize the world, it meets with many +distractions. Even in the hour that Dick spent in the quiet old library +with Miss Quincy, he met with distractions. He tried to keep her mind on +missals and Aldine editions, but she persisted in poring over old copies +of _Godey's Lady's Book_, which she found tucked away in a forgotten +corner. Nobody but Lena could have scented them out. + +"The fashions are so funny, Mr. Percival!" she insisted. "Do look at +these preposterous hoop-skirts and the little short waists. Did you say +that no one knows how that gold leaf was put on that ugly old book? How +absurd! I must put that down. I suppose that is the kind of thing I have +to write up." + +"Be sure you don't get mixed up and describe monkish fichus and gold +leaf on the bias, or you'll be everlastingly disgraced in the office." + +"Never mind. I'll learn your horrid old pieces of information in a few +minutes. Do let me look at this a little longer," Lena answered so +prettily, and pointed with so dainty a finger, and glanced up so +pathetically, that Dick too became absorbed in _Godey's Lady's Book_. + +"Weren't they frightful guys?" Lena went on. "But I dare say the men of +that time--what is the date?--1862--thought they were lovely." + +"Very likely, poor men! You see they hadn't the privilege of knowing the +girls of to-day and they thought their own women were the top-notch." + +"Now you are horrid and sarcastic," said Lena. + +"Never a bit. I find it impossible to believe that there was ever +before so much beauty in the world. There was here and there a pretty +girl, like Helen of Troy, and they made an awful fuss over her." + +"But she must have been really wonderful." + +"Yes, if a girl is as much run after as that, she must either be a +raving beauty or else she lives in the far West." + +"But, you know, there aren't so very many real beauties nowadays, are +there?" She glanced sidewise at him in an adorable manner. + +"I can't remember more than one--or two," said Dick judicially. + +Lena laughed softly. + +"I think it must have been very nice to be one of the few and be made a +fuss over, instead of--" + +"Instead of what?" + +"Instead of having to grub and struggle for your bread," Lena +answered,--and there was a misty look in the big eyes she turned up to +him. + +"Poor little girl!" said Dick. "You certainly are not of the kind who +ought to battle with the world. Haven't you any man who could shelter +you a little?" + +Lena shook her head, with an air of patient suffering. + +"My father is dead," she said. "He was of a good family, as you might +know by my name, but he was wounded in the war, and he never got over +it. Of course he was very young then. He wasn't married till long +afterward. He died when I was a little thing." + +"That was the history of my father, too!" Dick felt a glow of kindred +experience. "See, that is his portrait over the mantel." + +Lena looked very lovely and spiritual as she gazed up at the quiet face +that looked back at her, and Dick watched her. Then she drew a full +breath and turned her eyes on him. + +"You are like him," she said softly, and something in her voice made the +words a thrilling tribute. + +Then she added: "Yes, but he left you in comfort, and we--my mother and +I--" + +"Will you let me come to see your mother some time?" + +Lena's heart beat fast with mingled fear and hope, but all Dick saw was +a startled and sweet surprise. + +"I should be almost ashamed to have you come," she said with a soft +blush and a look of shy invitation. "We are so poor and we live in such +a shabby place." + +"If your shabbiness comes because of your father's sacrifice for his +country it is something to be proud of," Dick answered. + +Through Lena's mind there passed a swift memory of quarrels and +bickerings, of daily smallnesses, which were her chief recollection of +her father. She looked frankly up into Dick's face. + +"Yes," she said. "That ought to make it easy to bear. Now I must not +talk about myself any more. What did you tell me about that funny old +book?" + +"And I may come to see you and your mother?" Dick persisted. + +"If you do not forget us to-morrow,"--Lena glanced at him out of the +corner of her eyes in a way calculated to make him remember. + +"I shan't forget," said Dick. + +He took out a small note-book and wrote down the address she gave him. +And she gave herself a little shake and pulled out a much larger +note-book. "I ought not to waste my time and yours this way, but, you +see, I'm not much of a business woman. I sometimes forget altogether." + +Dick thought her very preposterous and charming as she set to work with +an air of severity; and so she was--the last thing on earth made to do +serious work. They leaned together over one treasure after another, in +that electric nearness that moves youth so easily, and sends a tingling +sensation up the backbone. + +When she suddenly rose, her cheeks were pinker and more transparent than +ever, and her eyes softer and dreamier. + +"Let me take you home in the motor," said Dick. + +"Dear me, no," Lena exclaimed. "I'm afraid you think me entirely too +informal already. I--I'm so stupid and impulsive. I'm always doing wrong +things and not thinking till afterward. Good-by, and thank you, Mr. +Percival." + +After he had bowed her out, Dick plunged into a big chair and spent a +few moments in analyzing his own character. He perceived that in some +ways he differed from most of his friends. Now Ellery and Madeline and +most of the others lived along certain conventional lines, with certain +fixed interests and habits. That kind of existence would be intolerable +to him. He liked to star his days with all kinds of colored incidents +that had no particular relation to his main work. He liked to run down +every by-path, explore it a bit, and then come back to the highway. +Those small excursions were apt to take a man into leafy dells where +there were ferns and flowers too shy to fringe the dusty plodding +thoroughfare. Dick liked that figure. It revealed to him a certain +lightness of heart and poetry in himself that distinguished him from the +prosy grubbers. This sprinkling of life with episodes was like a little +tonic. It kept him vivid and alive. + +Take this very afternoon just passed. It meant little, of course, either +to him or to the pretty little pathetic reporter girl, but it had +injected a bit of pleasure into her routine, and given him an insight +into another kind of maiden from the well-kept, sheltered women he knew +best. Such things help a man's larger sympathies. He was glad that he +could enjoy many types of men and women. + +A rumble of wheels outside brought him out of this particular by-path +into the highway. + +"What a dispensation that the mater didn't come home in the middle of +it!" he said with a sigh of satisfaction. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE FALLS + + +According to his promise, Dick presented himself at Ellery's office on +the next afternoon. He wore a brisk and moving air. + +"Miss Quincy is not here to-day," Norris said without looking up. + +"I know it," Dick answered promptly. "Are you through yet?" + +"I've finished with the ephemerae of this particular Tuesday, and before +I begin on those of Wednesday, I have a few precious moments to waste on +you." Ellery wheeled his chair around. + +"Do you know that this is Decoration Day and a holiday?" + +"Is there anything a sub-editor does not know?" + +"Have you ever been to the Falls of Wabeno?" + +"No." + +"And you call yourself a true citizen of St. Etienne? Come with me and +see the populace chew gum amid scenes of natural beauty." + +"I thought we were going to agitate civic reform." + +"We'll agitate as we go along. Come, Ellery, it's a superb day. I feel +like the bursting buds. Let's get out." + +"My dear Dick," said Norris, "the trouble with you is that you never +want to do anything; you always want to do something else. I begin to +think that there are compensations to a man in having fate hold his nose +to the grindstone. He learns persistence, willy-nilly." + +"Stop your growling. Up, William, up, and quit your galley-proof. I am +willing to bet that my flashes in the pan will do things before I am +through." + +"I dare swear they will get way ahead of my grubbing," Ellery rejoined, +slamming his desk. "Come, I'll go with you." + +On the southern outskirts of the city lay a park where art had done no +more than retouch nature. Here a placid stream suddenly transformed +itself into an imposing waterfall, plunging with roars over a rocky +cliff, and sending its spray whirling high in air to paint a hundred +illusive rainbows amid outstretching tree-branches or against a somber +background of stone. + +Dick left his motor near the brink of the cliff above the Falls and the +two climbed down the steep bank, stopping now and again to yield to the +fascination of rushing water and to snuff the fresh-flying mist as it +swept into their faces. + +Caught in the gully below, the stream, which had suddenly contracted a +habit of unruliness, tumbled onward under trees and through overhanging +rocks until it joined the Mississippi a half-mile away. + +There were other people, hordes of them, tempted by May sunshine. + +"What is it, Ellery," Dick demanded, "what deep-seated idealism is it +that draws these crowds to the most beautiful spot near town as soon as +spring offers more than half an invitation?" + +"It certainly isn't a poetry that crops out in their clothes or in their +conversation," Norris grumbled. "The staple remark seems to be, 'Gee, +ain't it pretty?'" + +"You mustn't expect to see aristocracy here; this is too cheap, and too +easy to reach. Your aristocrat prefers less beauty at greater effort +and more cost. This is the place to touch elbows with the populace." + +They had climbed down the long winding steps by this time, and were +leaning against the parapet of a small rustic bridge that crossed below +the Falls. + +"Let's sit down on that bench," said Dick, "and let the sunshine trickle +through the trees and through us, and feel the spray in our nostrils, +and delight in hanging maidenhair ferns, and watch the girls go by--the +girls in pink and blue dresses, each leaning on the arm of a swain who +grins. It's vastly more fun than a fashionable parade." + +The branches met overhead, darkening the narrow chasm; the steep banks +were spattered with dutchman's breeches that fluttered like butterflies +poised for a moment; down stream a few yards, where the valley widened, +lay a tiny meadow where the sun fell full on a carpet of crow-foot +violets that gave back the May sky. Two squirrels chased each other +around a big maple, and a blue jay looked on and commented. + +"Why is this stream of girls and men out for their holiday like baked +ice-cream?" asked Dick. "That isn't a conundrum; it's a philosophic +question." + +"I know, they give you the same sense of incongruity," Ellery answered +lazily. + +"But I like them," Dick pursued. "I like a great many more kinds of +people than you do, Norris. You are narrow-minded. You want to associate +only with the good and true and bathed." + +"Oh, I wish well to the majority of the race, but there are some that I +do not care to eat with." + +Something in Ellery's voice made his friend turn and survey him. + +"You look tired. You're working too hard. Don't make the western mistake +of thinking frazzled nerves mean energy." + +"That isn't my kind," Ellery smiled. "I'm all right. Let me spurt for a +while. I got my position through favor, Dick, yours and Uncle Joe's. I +didn't particularly deserve it, and I didn't know anything about the +work; so, for your sake as well as my own, I have determined to make +good. Friendship may give a fellow his chance, but it doesn't hold down +a job, you know." + +"Pooh! You've made good already. A man can be tremendously +experienced--for the West--when he's been at a thing a year. Look at me +and my work." + +"What do you consider your work? Road inspector?" For, to tell the +truth, Norris was not wholly satisfied with Dick's year of dawdling +around the streets. + +"My profession," Dick answered with oracular gravity, "is a combination +of hard work and fine art. It requires both toil and genius. I think I +may say, with all natural modesty, that I have shown great natural +aptitude for it. My profession is making friends. I have made friends +useful and ornamental, friends great and small, friends beautiful and +friends the opposite--which reminds me of your previous question, city +politics. Whom do you suppose I supped with last night?" + +"Whom?" + +"With the Honorable, or by courtesy dubbed Honorable, William Barry," +Dick replied triumphantly. + +"'Piggy' Barry?" ejaculated Ellery, turning on Dick in surprise. +"Alderman Barry? The boss?" + +"'Piggy' does somehow sound more appropriate than 'Honorable'," Dick +said meditatively. + +"And is he one of the people you like?" questioned Ellery with unfeigned +surprise. + +"For business purposes, yes. If I'm going to get into politics some day, +it becomes me to cultivate local statesmen, doesn't it? I took the great +man to the theater, or at least to something that called itself the +theater, and I gave him an excellent supper afterward. He seemed to +appreciate it and my society." + +"I dare say you made yourself agreeable. Do you expect he will help you +in your public career?" + +"Not voluntarily, perhaps; but I wanted to know him, better and better. +Under benign influences, he is indiscreet. He reminded me last night of +Louis XIV. He might have said, 'St. Etienne, it is I,' but in his +simpler and less sophisticated language, he was content to remark, 'I'm +the whole damn show, see?'" + +"I'm glad he knew enough to put the appropriate adjective before show," +said Ellery grimly. + +"And yet I suspect that, even in that statement, he lied," Dick went on. +"I studied him last night. You'll never persuade me that that man, whose +head is all face and neck, does the intricate planning and wire-pulling +that runs this city. I've an idea Barry is only the two placards on each +side of the sandwich-man. He may be the adjective show, but I doubt if +he's the man." + +"Have you discovered who is the real sandwich-man?" + +"No, I haven't. My reasoning is inductive. I see numerous little holes +with small tips of threads sticking through them, but when I try to get +hold of the threads to pull them out and examine them, the ends are too +short or my fingers are too big. But get hold of them I shall, sooner or +later, by hook or crook. If I don't give some of those fellows the +slugging of their lives, my name isn't Richard Percival." + +"I suspect that it is Richard Percival," said Ellery with a whimsical +glance of affection. + +"This, as I read it, is the history," Dick went on. "Six years ago, when +you and I were sub-freshmen, and unable to take an active part, there +was a brief spasm of reform. It was a short episode of fisticuffs and +fighting, which is for a day--a very different thing from governing, +which goes steadily on from year to year. But this reform movement did +result in giving the city a good charter." + +"The Garden of Eden was once fitted out with an excellent system of +government." + +"Exactly. Charters, left to themselves, do not regulate human nature. +The good citizens of St. Etienne went their own busy business way and +left the less occupied bad citizens to adapt the charter to the needs of +life; and that was an easy job, so easy that it has apparently been +possible for one man to manage it. The charter put great power into the +hands of the mayor. There have been three mayors elected under it, and +they have all been 'friends' of Billy Barry." + +"I wonder if the next will be," queried Ellery thoughtfully. + +"And the majority of every working committee appointed by the city +council is made of 'friends' of Piggy, who shows a fine disregard of +party lines in his affiliations. William is one more product of this +horseless wireless age--a crownless king." + +"What makes you think that he isn't the power he seems?" + +"A lot of things. The business interests behind him do not seem to be +wholly his. That is another field for investigation." + +"You started yesterday to tell me about a big policeman." + +"Yes, Olaf Ericson, with the eyes and mustache of a viking above a blue +uniform. When I met him last he had just had the melancholy duty of +cutting down a poor wretch that had hung himself, and of sending for the +coroner. He told me that the pathetic part of it was that the dead man +was a total stranger in the city; and then he winked and asked if I knew +that though the city paid the coroner his salary, the state guaranteed +an extra fee of 'saxty dollar' to that official for every stranger who +met with sudden death within our limits? I didn't know, but I do now. I +took pains to look up last year's records and, curiously enough, out of +one hundred and seventy-six cases that required the services of a +coroner, one hundred and fifty-one were those of strangers. That would +add about nine thousand dollars to a quite moderate salary. Another +queer thing is that Doctor Niger--the coroner, you know--is Billy +Barry's brother-in-law." + +"Great Scott!" said Ellery. + +"Great Barry, say I. Now it may be my historic sense, or it may be mere +curiosity, but I mean to hunt up the personal history of those +hundred-odd strangers who died forlorn and lonely within our gates." + +"Work quietly, Dick, and get your facts well in hand." + +"I intend to. But when I have it all, don't you suppose your chief, +Lewis, will be willing to publish the record?" + +"I hope so." + +"I dare say the day will come when Barry and I shall cease to be +friends," said Dick cheerfully. "One must submit to the inevitable. But +let's keep the papers dribbling out information to the public. By the +time the coroner story is finished, I expect to have another ready." + +"Tell me." + +"Not yet. What used old Eddy to preach to us in rhetoric? 'Before you +attempt composition, be sure that you have a rounded thought.' This +isn't round, it's elliptical. Big Olaf is a friend useful. He's a shrewd +fellow, who's been looking stupid for some time. The 'bunch' hasn't been +treating him square. You can guess what that means. Anyway, he is sore +as well as shrewd, and now I fancy he belongs to me." + +Norris turned with a start and stared Dick in the face. + +"How did you get possession of him?" he asked sharply. + +"Well, what if I bought him?" + +"Do you mean that you are making up to him what Barry's dirty hands +have failed to give? You are bribing him to act as your spy?" + +"I do not suppose there is any harm in my hiring a private detective." + +"That depends on whether he is already a public official, and on how you +pay him, and what you pay him for." + +"Ellery, those fellows have sentries and pickets and fortifications and +guns always in battle-array against us and our kind. The only thing to +do is to gather hosts and ammunition on the other side." + +"True. But there isn't any use in fighting dishonesty with dishonor. +Dick, don't lower your standard to the mere flinging of mud." + +But Dick did not appear to listen. His eyes were caught by one of the +passing couples and he sprang to his feet. + +"Let's follow the stream a little farther," he said, moving as he spoke. +"The gorge grows wilder and more enticing the farther you go." + +He walked hurriedly down the path, and Ellery, whose mind seldom leaped, +but progressed by orderly steps, followed in some bewilderment. An +instant before Dick's face had worn the profound air of a man on whose +shoulders rested mighty problems. Now every movement was boyish and +exultant. He laughed to himself. The stream thundered and one does not +ask a friend to shout out his minor moods, so Ellery forbore to +question. + +Suddenly the brook burst through overhanging cliffs of party-colored +sandstone out of its thread-like gorge into the wide chasm of the +Mississippi. A small steamer lay at anchor and tooted a discordant horn +to signify to the world that she intended to be up and doing. A crowd of +phlegmatic-faced revelers stood upon the bank and watched her with +absorbed indifference, while a smaller number pushed aboard and prepared +for true joy by laying in a store of cracker-jack and peanuts at a +diminutive counter. + +"Just in time!" Dick ejaculated and he shoved Ellery on to the swaying +deck as the hawsers were swung loose. + +They whirled out into mid-stream and exchanged the fine feminine +delights of the brook for the bold masculine ones of the great river, +whose craggy banks rose high, like fortifications, forest-crowned. +Tangles of woodbine, clematis and bitter-sweet sprawled down over +striated rocks. The boat twisted its way through a current that boiled +up from below in whirlpools. Here and there huge logs plunged downward +like water-monsters, as they threaded between wooded islands, where +meek-looking cottontails squatted and twiddled their noses at the +passing craft; on, on, until, far off, loomed the boldest highest cliff +of all, its top crested by a quaint old slit-windowed round tower of a +fort, once a border defense against Chippewa and Sioux, now backed by +the sleek lawns of well-groomed officers. + +Ellery looked around at his fellow passengers, contentedly munching +their peanuts and conversing in broad English flavored with Norse. They +were a good-natured assemblage, who choked and snorted and chuckled and +whinnied in their laughter. Norris' eyes were caught by one girl, +conspicuously because plainly dressed. As she turned her profile, he +glanced at Dick. Dick too was staring at her, and even while Ellery eyed +him, he raised his hat and bowed gravely, with a deferential air that +became him. + +"So," exclaimed Norris under his breath, "that was why we tore like +madmen to catch this boat!" + +"It would have been a pity to lose it," Dick responded innocently. "It +is a delicious bit of scenery from here to the fort. I wanted you to see +it." + +"Pink and white scenery with yellow curls," jeered Ellery. + +Dick made no reply and Ellery went on. + +"She has a young man already. You can't go and take her away from him. +That wouldn't be playing fair." + +"The man with her is an oaf. He has a loose mouth that wabbles when he +opens it to pick his teeth." + +"So you think that though you may not snatch her bodily, you may make +her wish to be with you instead of with him, and that the wish will lie +fallow in her heart. Dick, you are a student of human nature," Ellery +said, half amused, half irritated. + +"I dare say he is a gentleman at heart. Oafs always are." + +"What you really do," Ellery continued, "is to make her uncomfortable +and conscious of his clothes and his sprawl. She flushed when she saw +you, and she has been sitting stiffly ever since." + +"Oh, drop it, Norris." + +Ellery shrugged his shoulders. + +"I don't know what you want to do it for," he said. "You're a queer +combination, Dick, of the whole-souled reformer and the abject goose." + +"Nothing inconsistent about being a philanthropist and a philogynist. By +Jove! She's pretty in her _malaise_, pink, and pecking like a little +wren at her oaf. Ellery, it's a brute of a shame that such as she should +be cast before him--she, a fine lacy creature who shows her breeding +through it all." + +"How much are you in earnest?" + +"There you go again!" Dick turned on his friend with a kind of +exasperation. "You belong to that period of social development when they +ask a man's intentions if he looks twice at the girl he dances with. I +don't have to be in earnest, thank Heaven! But when I get a chance to +look at anything so lovely as that girl, I mean to do it, just as I look +at a flower or a picture. I don't mean to lose all the delicious froth +of life. Do you happen to know her first name?" + +"Lena," answered Ellery shortly. + +"Lena! It's a delicate fragile little name--not meant for a girl who has +to plug her way through life. Her real name is Andromeda, poor +child--chained to the rock and momently expecting the jaws of poverty." + +"You know, Dick, the attention that seems like a trifle to you, with a +life full of interests, may look like a serious affair to her." + +"See here, old man, you needn't be so snippy. Must I confine my +philanthropy to the old and ugly to keep it above suspicion? I'm just so +far interested in this, and no more, that I'm sorry for that little +girl, and if I saw a chance, I'd do her a good turn, as I pass along; +and if I didn't think more of you than of any other man, I wouldn't give +you the satisfaction of rendering so much of an account of myself." + +Ellery was silent and looked at the river with its whirlpools, at the +cliffs, gray with stone and pale green with May, and sometimes at Dick, +who leaned forward with his chin in his hand, apparently absorbed in +thought, but occasionally shooting a glance at Lena who laughed and +chattered with Mr. Nolan in a sort of intermittent fever. + +The steamer tooted and splashed at the landing below the fort, and +turned herself about for the return trip. Sand-martins dropped from +their holes in the cliffs and skimmed across the bows, and the breeze +blew fresher as they headed up stream. Still the two friends sat in +silence, though once Percival looked across and laughed, as though he +enjoyed the other's seriousness. + +"Norris, you are funny," he said. + +"Why?" + +"You always see consequences to things." + +"Most things have both causes and effects," Ellery retorted, ruffled. + +"I deny it," said Dick. + +When they creaked at the dock, Dick suddenly pushed forward so that he +almost touched Lena in the crowd that was hurrying to shore. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Quincy," he said. "I hope you have enjoyed this +little sail as much as I have." + +Knowing that he had watched her ever since they started, she looked up +at him with flushed inquiry. + +"Yes, it was lovely," she said. + +"Come on, Lena," exclaimed her escort, seizing her arm. "I guess we +ought to hurry. There'll be an awful crowd on the street-cars." + +"If you'll allow me," said Dick, "I have an automobile up near the +Falls, and I'd be delighted to--" + +"We come by the cars and I guess they're good enough for us to go home +by," Mr. Nolan interrupted roughly. "We're blocking the way here. Come, +Lena." He glowered at Dick's lifted hat and added quite audibly: +"Confound the dude! Thought he could cut in, did he?" + +"Now then," said Dick as he dropped back, "the oaf made a mistake. If +he'd gracefully accepted my offer, he'd have gone up several pegs in her +estimation. As it is, when her pretty little feet get trodden on by the +crowd on the back platform, she will view us with regret as we whizz by. +Poor little Andromeda!" + +They loitered as the other "trippers", now filled with zeal to catch the +trolley, pushed past them up the glen, and soon they were practically +alone. Nature reasserted her sway as though there had never been +laughter and babble along the musical stream and under the over-arching +trees. The friends walked more and more slowly. A white thing lay on the +path before them, and Dick stooped to pick it up, while Ellery looked on +with mild curiosity. + +"It's a letter, stamped and sealed." Percival peered at it closely, for +though the level sunlight flooded the tops of the trees, down here by +the stream it was fast growing dark. + +"Not much sealed, either," he added, noticing what a tiny spot of the +flap stuck tight to the paper beneath. "Some one has dropped it here. By +Jove, Ellery, it's addressed to William Barry! I'd give a farm in North +Dakota to know what's in it." + +He turned it again and stared at the back. + +"I noticed," said Ellery, "that there was a mail-box near where we left +the automobile. You can post it as we go along." + +"Yes," assented Dick. He glared at the name of William Barry as though +it fascinated him. Then he tucked the letter into his breast pocket. + +As the motor began to champ its bit, Norris remarked: + +"You forgot to mail that letter, Dick." + +"So I did," said Dick. "No matter. I'll post it in town. It will go all +the quicker." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AN INVITATION + + +A full month slipped away after the little excursion down the river +before Dick saw Lena Quincy again. In fact he had almost forgotten her. +That day, if it was recalled at all, was chiefly memorable because it +marked a change in his attitude toward his chosen occupation. It seemed +that revelation after revelation poured upon him. The intricate threads +of city politics fascinated him more and more as he began to understand +whence they led and whither. + +But one day on the street Dick met and passed Lena. She gave him a +little bow--wistful, it seemed to him, and she looked tired and thin. +His conscience smote him. He had really meant to do a common kindly +thing to cheer this girl, but it had slipped his mind. That night he +hunted up her address in his note-book and found his way to the dismal +lodging-house. + +Four cheap-looking young persons were loitering in the parlor, two were +drumming on a piano that was out of tune, and the room smelled fusty. +The assembled group giggled and disappeared upon his entrance, and Lena, +when she came down the stairs, flushing with embarrassment and pleasure, +looked as much out of place as he felt. He stood before her, hat in +hand. It would be impossible to talk to her in such a room. + +"Miss Quincy," he said, "it is such a perfect night that it is neither +more nor less than self-torture to stay indoors. Can't you be a bit +unconventional and go out with me to the band concert in the park?" He +remembered that she went about with the oaf. + +Lena hesitated. She realized that this call was a crucial affair to her, +though his long delay in coming proved it to be a casual matter to Mr. +Percival. She must make no mistake. In her instant's hesitation, while +her soft eyes were looking inquiringly into his face, she had an +inspiration. + +"I should love it, Mr. Percival," she said with that little air of +reserve that set her apart. "But don't you see, I--I--can't go with +you--until--until you know my mother and unless she approves." + +"Of course," said Dick, quite unconscious of Lena's play-acting. + +Lena turned and twisted a bit of worn blue plush trimming on the shelf +over the gas-log before she showed him a blushing face. + +"The only thing I can do is to ask you to come up stairs and meet +mother. She can hardly move about enough to come down." + +She led the way with anxiety in her heart as to how her mother would +behave. Would she show irritable astonishment if Lena treated her with +gentle deference, and asked her permission to be out in the evening with +a strange young man? But Mrs. Quincy knew a thing or two as well as her +daughter, and Dick saw only that the room was very ugly, that Lena moved +about with lips compressed and voice gentle and full of tender +consideration, to make her mother as comfortable as possible before she +went away. + +"And I shan't keep you up late, mother, dear," Lena said with a final +kiss that made Mrs. Quincy wink to keep back the statement that she saw +herself waiting for the return of her daughter. + +The fresh evening air was delicious after this. Dick felt all his +chivalry again stirred. It made no difference that Lena said little to +keep up her share in the conversation. Dick was content to do the +entertaining himself, and satisfied when Lena laughed. He bubbled over +with fancies old and new, and even the old ones took fresh life. The +college stories and jokes that everybody knew, the commonplaces of his +world, set Lena exclaiming with delight. The excitement of the night, +and they two alone in the crowd, made the little girl cling to his arm +for fear they might be separated! There were quieter moments when they +wandered to the outskirts and found a bench for a moment's rest. + +Once he spoke of some of the rough sides of her work, and she answered +quietly that she was used to such things and managed to forget their +hardship. Dick glanced at her face, self-contained in the gas-light. He +remembered her mother and the ugly room. He had a vision of a sweet +spirit bearing an adverse fate with dignity, and now giving him, in +return for his small act of courtesy, the perfume of her presence, her +beauty, her wondering admiration. For the time it seemed to Lena herself +that she was what he fancied her. She was only showing him, she thought, +the best side of herself. It was natural that she should hide the +other. + +The clock in the steeple far above tinkled out ten, and Lena drew +herself to attention. + +"Oh, not yet," Dick exclaimed. "Let's go somewhere and get an ice." + +Again Lena hesitated. Even so small a luxury tempted her for its own +sake, and she liked to be with Mr. Percival. With Jim Nolan she would +have gone in a moment, but she was determined that this man should not +think her too easy of access. + +"I think not," she said reluctantly. "I must go home to mother. She +isn't used to being up late, and she needs my help." + +She knew that she had answered well when he urged: + +"Very well, then. If you will give such very little nibbles of your +time, you must give me more of them. Will you come out again--to the +theater--off in the motor--anywhere?" + +Lena could hardly speak, but she smiled up her thanks. + +"Oh, Mr. Percival!" she said. + +As he walked away after seeing her home, he felt himself irritated with +the other women, the women to whom ease and pleasure are a matter of +course. + +So they fell into the way of making little expeditions together, and +Dick no longer joked with Ellery about this delectable morsel of +pinkness, but kept his growing intimacy to himself. This dell by the +way, into which he had strayed by accident, was becoming more +fascinating than the crammed highway with its buzzing life. + +July and August and September passed and, in spite of her reserve, Dick +felt that he was coming to know little Lena well. He had told her all +about himself, his mother, his three-cornered intimacy with Norris and +Madeline, his plans for his own future, and to all she listened, +sometimes with a dreamy far-off look in the big eyes, sometimes with a +swift smile of sympathy, in spite of the fact that he and his point of +view were often puzzling to her. And he brought dainties and flowers to +the dingy room. + +Lena, on her side, thoroughly enjoyed some phases of her acquaintance +with Mr. Percival. Apart from all other considerations, it was a real +pleasure to prove herself the actress she knew she was. She pretended, +when she was with him, that she was a wholly different kind of person. +It was fun to do it well and convincingly and deliberately. It was +exhilarating. + +But deeper, far deeper than her histrionic satisfaction lay the hope +that Dick Percival might be the key to some other kind of life than that +she led; and as the months went by, this hidden intimacy, delicious to +him because of its very remoteness, began to irritate her. Was he +ashamed of her? Was he playing with her? Privately she found Prince +Charming, unless he meant something more than a half-hour now and again, +something of a bore. Of what pleasure could it be to her that he was +rich and happy and full of plans and in touch with all that was +delightful, if he gave none of this to her? + +One evening she seemed listless as she sat enduring an account of a +garden party he had been to the day before. He had thought it might +amuse her, but it evidently didn't. + +"I'm always telling you of my affairs," he said half querulously. "Why +don't you give me your experiences?" + +"There's nothing to tell," she said dully. "You've had so many +interesting things happen, and you expect ever so many more lovely +things to come, but I've always been pinched, and I shall have to keep +on pinching for ever, I guess." + +"Nonsense!" Dick answered impulsively. "The future is sure to bring you +better things." + +She looked down a moment, and Dick had an impression that she was +holding back tears. At any rate, when she lifted her head again, her +face wore a cold little stare that he had never seen before, and that +seemed to hold him at arm's length. + +"I'm quite alone with the people I have to live among," she said. "I'm +not like them, and I don't care for them." + +"Am I one of your kind?" Dick asked. He reviled himself the next moment +for having said so much, but Lena seemed to draw no inferences, though +her color heightened a little as she answered: + +"Oh, you! There's only one of you, unfortunately. You are a little oasis +in my desert. I'm very grateful for you, but--" + +Lena had said such things before. Dick began to revolve plans for a +larger kindness, and, in his slow masculine intellect, fancied that it +was all his own idea to try and bring this small person into contact +with those who would appreciate her and with whom she could be +happy,--for of course Lena herself was quite submissive to her lot. + +To Dick's friends this long summer dawdled itself away much as the +previous one had done. There were the same week-ends at the lake, with +Dick more full of vivacity than ever, Ellery growing more certain of +himself, Madeline rounding slowly out of girlhood into womanhood. Yet +there was a difference. Half a dozen Sundays, when Percival was too +busy, Ellery, half-irritated with his friend, half-exultant in his +desertion, spent the quiet afternoons _a deux_ with Madeline. + +It seemed to Norris that some indefinable change was coming over Dick. +At times he was vivid, even fantastic, and again he lapsed into erratic +silences out of which he came at new and unexpected points. He developed +ideas that appeared to his friend not quite in keeping with the sterling +Dick of old. He was less sensitive, so thought Ellery, in his code of +honor as he saw more and more of the crooked ways of men. Once Norris +met him walking with one of the cheaper aldermen, and he wore a +duplicate--in gilt--of the alderman's walk and swagger. He talked +politics and reform, but with less emphasis on his ideals and more on +the game, which seemed to mean the fun of catching the rascals +red-handed and turning them out. + +Madeline, as Ellery studied her, was unaware of any change either in +Dick himself or in his attitude toward her. It was like her to be above +suspicions or small jealousies. + +So summer slipped into October, and there came a month of lovely days. +Winter, after a feint, slunk into hiding again, and the only result of +his excursion was a more splendid red on the maples, a more glowing +russet on the oaks. Indian summer reigned in his stead, flinging +broadcast her gorgeous colors and her melting mellowness. That men might +not surfeit of her sweets, she tempered her daytime prodigality of heat +by nights of frost. People were coming back to town, a few, very few, in +velvet gowns, but mostly in rags and anxious about their autumn +wardrobes; and yet these were days to make one long, as one does in +spring, for the smell of the good brown earth and the sniff of untainted +country air. The atmosphere was full of glowing warmth that penetrated +to the heart and made every face on the street reflect some of its +delight; for autumn with her thousand charms and witcheries was proving +that she died, not from gray old age, but in the fullness of her prime. + +Madeline Elton, therefore, wished herself back again with the fallen +maple leaves and the pines that held their own; and Mrs. Lenox was +fitting temptation to desire as the two hobnobbed over cups of tea in +easy friendliness. When Dick Percival appeared, Mrs. Lenox saw the way +to make her bait irresistible. + +"Dick," she cried, "just the man! Don't you pine for sunshine in your +nostrils instead of city smoke? Doesn't the thought of winter coming, +cold and long, make you appreciate these last heavenly gleams? Do you +remember what a delicious week you and Mr. Norris and Madeline spent +with me a year ago?" + +"Yes, to everything," said Dick. "All of which means--what? No cream, +please, Madeline." + +"All of which means," answered the lady, "that Mr. Lenox and I are wise +in our generation and do not fly to the city when the first birds go +south; that I want Madeline to come and pay me a visit; that, as a kind +of sugar-plum, a chromo, if you please, to induce her to buy my wares, I +propose that you and Mr. Norris should join us on the Sunday of next +week. What do you say?" + +"May the Lord prosper you, and I'll do my part as an attraction," Dick +replied heartily. "But I choose to be a sugar-plum rather than a chromo, +especially if Madeline is going to eat me." + +"I didn't need any additional inducement, Mrs. Lenox," said Madeline. +"Yourselves and all out-doors are surely sufficient. It will be good to +get away from the grime. Now what bee have you in your bonnet, Dick?" +For a new look had come into his face as she spoke. + +Percival had been glancing around the cheerful comfortable room whose +very books and pictures suggested peace of mind. It seemed to him that +he looked with Lena's longing eyes rather than with his own, familiar +with these surroundings. He was thinking how little his small courtesies +counted, and how much these women could do if they chose. Why shouldn't +he be bold? Madeline and Mrs. Lenox were simple-hearted enough to take +his plea at its true value, and not misunderstand his motives. They +would be interested in Lena in exactly the same way he was. He smiled at +Madeline's serenely inquiring face. + +"Well, Dick?" she asked again. + +"I was wondering whether I dared to suggest a little act of human +kindliness to you two. You women are so much more ready to do such +things than men are, but we are more apt to run up against the cases +where it is needed. There's a pathetic little girl doing some hack work +for the _Star_. Norris knows her. She's just one of those delicate +creatures that ought to live in the sheltered corner of a garden, and +she's out on a bleak prairie. She's about as much like the people she +has to associate with as an old-fashioned single rose is like a cabbage. +Even her mother, who is the only relative she has, is nothing but a +fretful porcupine of a woman. I've been to see them a few times and the +situation seems to me almost intolerable. If ever a girl needed a friend +or two, it's she--not for charity, you understand, but just for real +contact with people of her own kind. Now a man's not much use in such +circumstances, is he? But naturally I think you are about the best kind +of a friend in the world, so I came up this afternoon partly to see if +you wouldn't give her a hand." + +"It sounds as though it might be more of a pleasure than a painful +duty." + +"So it would. You'd take to her, I know," the young man went on eagerly. +Mrs. Lenox watched him in somewhat irritated amusement. "She hasn't +your brains, of course, Madeline, but she has such charm, such +simplicity and freshness, that you can't help liking her. And she grubs +away at perfectly uncongenial work, and lives with this fusty old mother +in a fusty little lodging-house. It makes me sick to think of such daily +crucifixion. I've no business to say it, I know; but when you spoke +about a week at the lake, I couldn't help thinking what such a thing +would mean to her. She'd think herself in Paradise." + +"I suppose, Dick, that this is your adroit and tactful way of suggesting +that I should ask her," Mrs. Lenox said, laughing. + +And Madeline, who, if Dick had proposed that Mrs. Lenox should turn her +very charming summer home into an orphan asylum, would have considered +that the proposition, as coming from him, was entitled to consideration, +put in: + +"I think it would be a lovely thing to do, Vera." + +"And we should probably let ourselves in for a frightful bore." + +"And you might entertain an angel unawares," said Dick. + +Mrs. Lenox knit her brows and meditated. She didn't quite like Dick's +championship of this unknown girl, nor did she trust to his judgment; +but, like a wise woman, she wanted to know what was the thing that had +attracted him, and was big enough in heart to be willing to do a good +turn wherever she could. + +"This is the oracle of the Pythia," she said at last. "We will not +commit ourselves to anything at the behest of Richard Percival. On my +way to the station, now, in fact, Madeline and I will go to see this +rose among cabbages. We will introduce ourselves as your friends, Dick. +If we think you are a mere deluded male thing, there the matter ends. If +we, too, are carried away by enthusiasm, we will invite her on the spur +of the moment, and Mr. Lenox, who, like most married men, is a +connoisseur in pretty girls, can talk to her. Will this suit you, Dick?" + +"Excellently," said Dick, "I know the result." + +"Then you'll come next Saturday? Madeline is coming day after to-morrow +and I'll write to Mr. Norris. Heaven send these days of sun continue. +Now if we are to pay this call, and I am to catch my train, we must be +off." + +Miss Quincy, having quarreled with her mother over her extravagance in +buying a feather boa with the proceeds of her last small check, was +seated by the window, industriously concocting a new hat. The Swedish +"girl", whose unfortunate fate it was to minister to the wants of Mrs. +Olberg's lodgers, gave a kind of defiant pound on the door, opened it +and thrust in a disheveled blond head, followed by a hand puckered from +the dish-water. + +"Haar's cards, Miss Quincy," she said, "Dar's twa ladies down staars." + +She dropped the cards on the floor and disappeared. Lena, in great +curiosity, picked them up and read aloud: + +"'Mrs. Francis Lenox; Miss Elton.'" + +"For the land's sake! Who air they?" asked her mother. + +"Two of the biggest swells in town." + +"Well, what on earth do they want here? We ain't very swell." + +"Perhaps they want me to report some party or something," said Lena. + +She was losing no time in giving her hair one or two becoming jerks and +going through a series of wriggles meant to impart grace and style to +her costume. + +"Perhaps they want to give you a million dollars," said Mrs. Quincy +sarcastically. + +Lena, with heart burning with mingled shame at her own shabby +surroundings, curiosity at their errand, and awe for the mighty names, +entered the little parlor which gave the impression of never having been +cleaned since it was born with its cheap worn plush furniture, its +crayon portraits and its two vases of gaudy blue and gold. She faced the +two ladies seated on the impossible chairs. Lena was almost as startling +an apparition in that room as was Ram Juna's rose in the dusty +phial--whether a miracle or a clever trick. She looked so untouched by +any vulgarity in her surroundings, so fresh and true, so instinct with +virgin dignity, that the eyes that met her own were filled with the +tribute of surprise; and she exulted in some hidden corner of her soul. + +In the half-hour that they spent together she measured her new +acquaintances carefully. + +"And these are women of the world!" she said to herself. "Why, they're +boobies. I could do them up any time." + +For Lena did not know that women of this type are the most protected +creatures on the face of the earth. The knowledge of good is given +them, but not the knowledge of evil. + +So she told them all about herself, which was what they seemed to want +to hear, and when they went away Madeline said: + +"I wonder if there are many such born to blush unseen. What an exquisite +little tragedy she is!" + +And Mrs. Lenox answered: "U--u--m! Well, I've asked her, haven't I? I +think the microbe of Dick's impulsiveness must have got into me." + +Lena stood back in the shadow of the room to watch her departing guests. +Then she ran up stairs with light steps, ruffling her plumes like a +cocky little lady-wren as she went back to the dreariness where Mrs. +Quincy sat rocking her inevitable creaking chair. + +"Well!" asked her mother after a pause, a pause just long enough, the +daughter knew, to fill her with irritable curiosity. + +"Well," Lena answered smartly, "and what do you think? They came to +call, if you please, because Mr. Percival asked them to; and they were +sweet as honey. And Mrs. Lenox asked me to spend a whole week at her +country place." + +"For the land sake!" + +"I guess," Lena went on with complacence, "Mr. Percival must have said +something pretty nice." + +Her mother stared at her speechless, and it was such an unusual thing +for Mrs. Quincy to be struck dumb that Lena was correspondingly elated +as she rattled on. + +"Such dresses! I'd give anything to have such clothes and wear them with +that kind of an every-day, don't-care air. My, but Mrs. Lenox is a +stunner! But the Lenoxes are just rolling in money; and they say Mr. +Lenox hadn't a red cent when she married him and gave him his start. +It's lucky I have another check coming from the _Star_. I'll need more +things than ever it will buy to go out there. I must begin to get ready +right away." + +The mention of expenditure brought Mrs. Quincy back to her normal state +of mind, and she resumed her rocking. Lena's means and extremes in +shopping were her standard grievance. + +"I might know that 'ud be the next thing. Of course you'll be spending +every penny you can rake and scrape on clothes, so's to look fine for +your new fine friends. It's no matter about me. I can go without a +decent rag to my back, so long as you've got feathers and flummery." + +"Well, I earned the money. I don't see why I shouldn't spend it. I'm not +robbing you," said Lena sulkily. + +"You might contribute a mite to your own board." + +"I'll save you my board for a week," snapped the girl. + +Mrs. Quincy changed her tack. "And leave me shut up in town," she +resumed. "I should think you'd think twice, Lena, before you went off +gallivantin' and left your poor old mother here alone. Nobody seems to +think I need any pleasure." + +"I'll write and ask Mrs. Lenox if she won't take you instead of me." + +"Take me! I should think not! I wouldn't be hired to leave my own place +and go off like a charity case among a lot of rich people who looked +down on me because I was poor. I've got too much self-respect to jump at +an invitation, like a pickerel at a frog. But there! You never think +twice about things." + +"Suppose I did refuse. You'd fly out at me for not making the most of my +chances," said poor Lena, on the verge of tears. + +Mrs. Quincy was temporarily silenced by the truth of this reply, and +Lena pursued her advantage. + +"Come now, mother, do you want me to get out of it?" + +"Oh, I suppose you'll have to go, or I won't have no peace to my life," +Mrs. Quincy grudgingly responded. + +"Yes, you shall. If you say so, I'll give it up now and never say +another word about it." + +"And _act_ injured to death," said her mother. "No, you go!" + +"After you've done everything you can to spoil it for me," answered +Lena, not half realizing how well she spoke the truth, and how both by +inheritance and by precept her mother had trailed the serpent over her +life. To Lena, fortune and misfortune were still things of outward +import, and almost synonymous with possession and non-possession. Yet, +in spite of Mrs. Quincy's dour looks, Lena found herself singing as she +moved swiftly about the room. Spontaneous joy was a rare thing with her. +The first peep into the delectable world was entrancing. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BITTER-SWEET + + +It was all charming, if a little strange--the friendliness of Miss Elton +when Lena met her at the station, the smart trap and groom that met them +at the end of their short journey, the very way in which Miss Elton took +possession of those awe-inspiring objects, and the respectful curiosity +of the loungers at the country station. As she stepped into the +carriage, Lena caught a glimpse of a cart-horse with so many ribs as to +suggest that the female of his species had yet to be created. He looked +so like her mother, that he gave her a spasm of anguish which she tried +to forget, as they were whirled down the road with its fringe of +straight-limbed trees. Never had the world looked more lovely. Her +spirits were lifted up. + +Mrs. Lenox met them at the door with hospitable effusiveness, but Lena's +crucifixion began from that moment. + +"The man will carry your bag up for you," said Mrs. Lenox. + +As Olaf obediently stepped forward, Lena flushed and thought: "They both +noticed that it was only imitation leather." + +Mrs. Lenox walked up stairs with them, chattering gaily with Madeline, +and Lena followed in embarrassed silence at the charming freshness and +daintiness of everything about her. + +"I've put you and Miss Elton in adjoining rooms," said Mrs. Lenox, +smiling kindly at her, "so that you needn't feel remote and lonely on +your first visit here." + +The man put down the bag and disappeared, and a trim maid came forward +to help Lena off with her coat which, with a sudden pang, she wished +were lined with satin instead of sateen. + +"Sall Ay unpack you bag?" said the little maid politely. + +"No, thank you. I prefer to do it myself," said Lena desperately. It was +more than she could endure to have a strange girl spying out the +nakedness of the land. Yet when the little maid said, "Vary well, +ma'am," and walked into the next room, Lena wondered if she had made a +mistake. She heard Miss Elton's cheerful address of the appalling +personage with the puffed up bit of hair and the saucy cap. + +"How do you do, Sophie?" + +"Good day, mees. As thar anything Ay can do for you?" + +"I fancy my dress would be better for a good brushing after the dusty +train, and the gown I want is in the top tray of the little trunk, +Sophie." + +The door closed and Lena wondered in terror what of her small store of +finery she ought to put on, and when she ought to go down stairs. She +solved the first question to the best of her ability and sat down on the +edge of a very clean beflowered chair in despair about the other, when +there came voices in the hall, and Madeline tapped on her door, and +called: + +"Don't you want to come out and see the baby?" + +Now Lena detested babies as sticky and order-destroying vermin, but in +relief she said: "A baby? Oh, how lovely!" + +"Come," said Mrs. Lenox. "The proper study of womanhood is baby." Lena +went out to find a very small person in a very tottering condition, +steered up and down the hall by another be-capped maid who was holding +tight to his rear petticoats, while Mrs. Lenox trotted by his side, +pulling a woolly lamb that baa'd with enchanting precision, and allowing +her skirts to be worried by a small puppy, whose business in life was to +bite anything hard that lay on the floor or that wiggled. Mrs. Lenox and +Miss Elton sat down on the floor to towsle and to be towsled amid +laughter and hair-pulling and frantic yelps from the puppy, while Lena +looked on and said: "Isn't he cunning?" and wondered whether she ought +to sit on the floor or not. She wondered if this were indeed the +millionaire Mrs. Lenox of whom she read with awe from the "In the swing" +column as being present at such and such "society functions", thus and +thus attired. + +Somehow Mrs. Lenox, seated on the floor, with her hair over one eye, +disconcerted Lena more than any amount of grandeur would have done. She +felt as one might who should catch the Venus of Melos cutting capers. +Then the redoubtable lady jumped up, tucked in a few hair-pins, gave a +final shake to her small son and said: + +"I dressed little Frank myself this afternoon. Don't you think I did a +good job? Dressing a baby combines all the pleasures of the chase with +the requirements of the exact sciences, Miss Quincy. Now let's go down +and have some tea before big Frank gets home. I think we've time for a +little friendly chat." + +This time Lena followed with greater sense of security. She knew her +dress was pretty and becoming, though inexpensive; and as for +conversation, that to Lena's mind meant clothes and society, with which +she felt a journalistic familiarity. + +"Perhaps you prefer cream in your tea?" said Mrs. Lenox, with hand +poised over the little table. + +"No, thank you, I like lemon," answered Lena, who had never tasted it +before and now thought it very nasty indeed. Then she wondered why she +had told such a small useless lie. + +But it was comfortable to be in a big lovely room with a pile of logs +blazing in a great fireplace, and soft lamps shedding a glow rather than +making spots of light. She wished she had, like Madeline, picked out a +very easy chair instead of the stiff one she had selected, but she felt +too shy to move until Mrs. Lenox suggested it, and then she was +embarrassed because she was embarrassed. She wondered if she should ever +be able to do things like these women, without thinking of what she was +doing. + +Madeline was idly turning the pages of a magazine and now she held it +up. + +"Look at these illustrations. Aren't they stunning?" + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Lenox. "I'm growing tired of that kind of +thing. It isn't art; it's a fad. The trouble with most of this modern +work is that it is too smart and fashionable. The clothes are more +important than the people." + +"Quite a contrast to ancient art, where the people were everything and +the clothes nothing," Madeline retorted. "After all, I rather like the +modern way. The old Greeks were not a bit more real people. They were +nothing but types." + +"And very decapitated and de-legged types," said Mrs. Lenox with a +laugh. "And dirty, too--like the Sleeping Beauty. Do you know, it gives +me the shivers to think of the Sleeping Beauty, lying there for ages, +with dust and cobwebs accumulating on her. I'm sure I hope the prince +gave her a thorough dusting before he kissed her." + +"You are horribly realistic, Vera--a person with no imagination." + +"I think I have just shown a truly vivid imagination." + +"It is the business of imagination to build up a world of loveliness and +order." + +"I don't agree with you. I think it is the business of imagination to +project things as they really are. I don't want to slip out from under +reality and see only beauty. Beware, Madeline, or you will degenerate +into a mere optimist." + +"Isn't it funny that if your opponent can call you an optimist, he feels +that he has delivered a knock-down blow to all your arguments?" Mrs. +Lenox suddenly pulled herself together and turned toward Lena, who sat +silently drinking her tea and taking no part in the conversation. + +"Did you tell me that your mother is an invalid, Miss Quincy?" + +"Not exactly; but she can't go about much. It seems to play her out to +walk." + +"It must be very hard on her to stay in the house all the time. I wonder +if I might take her to drive with me once in a while?" A scarlet flush +passed over Lena's face at the very idea of her mother's querulous +vulgarity being displayed to this woman, and Mrs. Lenox could not help +seeing her embarrassment. + +A little wave of pity swept over the older woman. It must be a cruel +fate to be ashamed of one's surroundings. Mrs. Lenox herself was one of +those serious-minded persons who regard their opportunities as +responsibilities. She waged constant warfare with the dominion of +externals, and believed with all her heart that the life was more than +raiment; but a momentary doubt assailed her as to whether, after all, it +might not be easier to conquer things when one owned them, rather than +when one had to do without them. It has generally been Dives who is +represented as enslaved by the goods of this world. Perhaps Lazarus, if +his heart is absorbed in sordid longing for what others have and he has +not, stands just as poor a chance of the kingdom of Heaven. + +What could she do to make Miss Quincy feel at ease? The girl certainly +had brains and character. Dick had told them of her brave bearing of +burdens. This stiff back and this silence were but the tribute of +shyness to new surroundings. So ran Mrs. Lenox's swift thoughts and she +set herself to make Lena talk about the things with which she was +familiar, to link her past to this present. + +Evidently the same thought was flitting through Madeline's brain, for +before Mrs. Lenox spoke she began: + +"Do you know, Miss Quincy, I have felt a little envy of you ever since +Dick first told us about you." + +"Envy! Of me?" Lena exclaimed, moved to genuine surprise. + +"Yes," Madeline went on, leaning forward, eager to explain herself. "You +see, I seem to have had a good deal of training, which looks as though +it should prepare me to do something, and then--then I don't do +anything. It makes me feel flat and unprofitable. I'd like to feel like +you every night--as though I'd really accomplished a thing or two." + +"Isn't it like Madeline to try to make the girl feel the dignity of +drudgery!" Mrs. Lenox said to herself. + +"The stuck-up thing!" thought Lena; "rubbing it into me that she does +not have to work for her living." + +She was tempted to make a sharp answer, but remembered her diplomacy and +held it in. + +"Work isn't always so pleasant when you're in it," she said. + +"Everything is apt to look rough around the edges until you hold it off +and get a view of it as a whole," Mrs. Lenox put in. "Even +love--sometimes. But I think that, next to love, work is about the best +thing in life." + +"Oh, that depends," Madeline cried. "When I read papers at clubs, people +talk about my 'work', but nobody thinks that it is worth while. I'd like +to earn a dollar, just as a guaranty that some one thought the thing I +did was worth it." + +"Gracious!" Lena exclaimed in genuine surprise. "Do you really feel that +way about earning money?" + +"Don't you?" Madeline asked in return; and each looked at the other +uncomprehendingly. + +"No, I don't," Lena burst out sullenly, but forgetting to be shy. "I +feel degraded by every dirty five-dollar bill I get by being a slavey. +People make you feel that way. You get it rubbed into you every day." + +"No, no," Mrs Lenox cried, remorseful now that their talk had drifted +into such intimate personalities. "I am sure, Miss Quincy, nobody feels +that way about a woman that works, except, perhaps, people whose +opinion you can well afford to despise." This was a shaft that struck so +near home that Lena could hardly hold back the tears. "I am sure I think +a thousand times more of a woman who does her honest share than I do of +the helpless ones who lie down on somebody else and whine," Mrs. Lenox +went on. + +Madeline was inwardly bemoaning her own lack of tact. She really wanted +to make a friend of this girl, because Dick had asked her to, and here, +at the very beginning, she had stumbled, and all that was meant to show +her regard and sympathy but served to make a gulf between them. + +Mrs. Lenox darted a look at her and sprang suddenly to her feet. + +"Oh, here's Frank," she exclaimed with an air of relief. "Come in, boy, +and have some tea and fire. It was good of you to come so bright and +early." + +"Earlier than bright, I'm afraid," he said. + +Lena looked with interest toward the door. Frank Lenox was great in St. +Etienne, first because he was the son-in-law of old Nicholas Windsor, a +potentate of the first local magnitude, and second, because he was +pushing to still greater success the enterprises that the elder man had +begun. So people talked about him in the street-cars by his first name. +Lena felt that it was a privilege to look at him, big, clean, with that +mingling of alertness with power which is the characteristic of the +American business man. It was an experience of absorbing interest to see +the half underhand caress he gave his wife in passing, and to find +herself actually shaking hands with him. He seemed imposing and friendly +and yet quite like other people, as he looked around for a capacious +chair and his wife handed him a cup of tea. She was conscious that he +looked at her with great interest. She recognized the expression in +masculine eyes and it soothed her ruffled spirit. It was the constant +affirmation of her beauty, a beauty which had in it something dream-like +that made men's eyes dream. After all, she could always get along with +men. + +"If you'd know what brought me home before my time, it was not your +charms, my dear, but a mad desire to get away from Harris, who cornered +me and opened up the negro question. I saw nothing for it but to take to +the woods." + +"It makes my traditional abolition blood boil to see how public opinion +seems to be settling down and dallying with heresy and injustice +again," Madeline exclaimed. She looked flushed and vigorous, and Lena +stared at her and wondered how she could care for such things. Was it +pure affectation? + +"Oh, you're young, my dear," said Mrs. Lenox laughingly. "You must hold +all your opinions violently. And you haven't been South. Things can't +help looking different down there." + +"Vera!" cried Miss Elton so explosively that Lena sat up straighter than +ever, "you're not really a renegade yourself, are you?" and she spoke as +though her life depended on the answer. + +"Certainly not," Mrs. Lenox answered. "But I'm growing tolerant toward +the poor old world as it is. I'm willing to let it grow slowly instead +of insisting that it shall all be immediately as good and wise as I am. +I'm learning to respect other people's point of view and to suspect that +my mind is not such an ingenious mechanism as I once supposed it to be." + +"Moreover, since she has married, she has contracted a habit of taking +the opposite point of view," said her husband. + +"Oh, that's one of the jokes that has successfully withstood the +ravages of time," said Mrs. Lenox scornfully. + +"Very well, then, I'll say that you are getting on toward middle life +and have had your enthusiasms corrupted by a worldly-wise father and +husband. But I dare say that Miss Quincy, being young, is quite as +explosive as you are, Madeline. So we shall be two against two." + +He looked with a challenge toward the girl, and perhaps Lena might have +managed the expected saucy answer if she had not suddenly remembered +that her shoes were shabby and she had meant to keep them hidden under +her skirts. This memory destroyed her new-found equilibrium, so she +blurted out a weak, "I really don't know anything about it," and then +blushed hotly at her own awkwardness. + +"It's a stupid subject, anyway," said Mr. Lenox. "I fled from town to +avoid it. Let's not talk about negroes." + +"Tell us what has happened in the great world," said Mrs. Lenox, leaning +forward with her elbows on her knees and chin in hands. + +"Another Jap victory," he said. "And I'll take a second one of those +little cakes please, if Miss Quincy will leave one for me. It cuts me +to the heart to see how the young girls of our generation stuff on +little cakes. If they'd only take example by these same Japanese, who +develop strategy and patriotism on rice, cherry blossoms and gymnastics, +there'd be some hopes for us as a people." + +He glanced again at Lena in a very amiable manner, as though he expected +her to be saucy in return, but she blushed with mystification and +mortification. She had felt doubtful as to whether she ought to take +another of the little cakes, but they were very good, and she was young +enough to love goodies, without many chances at anything so delectable +as these particular bits. And now to be detected and made fun of! She +began to question if she should be able to get along with these men, +after all. + +"Thank you," he went on after a pause. "And now that I'm comforted with +cake, another cup of tea, Vera; and then, if you would complete my +happiness, just give me a posy out of that bouquet for my buttonhole." + +His wife rose, pulled a flower from a vase and pinned it to his coat. + +"Here's mignonette! That's for dividends," she said, and she put her +fingers in his hair and gave his head a little shake. + +"Don't infringe on my head,--it's patented," he said. "Now go and sit +down, and I will tell you something really exciting as well as +instructive. I know about it because I have the privilege of helping the +good work with a few dollars. Professor Gregory has dug up two or three +hundred old manuscripts somewhere near Thebes, and he cables that they +belong to the first century after Christ, that he expects them to +illuminate most of the dark recesses of the time, and that I am +privileged to share the glory by making an ample contribution. Doesn't +that stir your young blood? I never hear of these things without a +passionate desire to go to some respectably aged land and dig and dig +and dig. It's a choice between doing so and making things in this very +new land for some other fellow to dig up six thousand years from now. +Which would you choose, Miss Quincy?" + +Lena was extraordinarily pretty, and he had a theory that pretty girls +were made to be talked to. Lena thought so too, yet all she said was, "I +should think the digging would be very dirty work, though." + +He glanced at her swiftly, and, though there was nothing unfriendly in +the look, she felt an uncomfortable shiver. She fell into a miserable +silence which she hardly broke when the others addressed her with a +deliberate question or made some manifest effort to include her in +topics introduced for her benefit. These attempts were only too apparent +to her and rasped her soul the more. These people had such a perplexing +way of saying whatever came into their heads. They were serious and +frivolous at unexpected places. They were not at all "elegant"; they +were natural, but their naturalness was not of Lena's kind. Mr. Lenox +rose and smiled at his wife. + +"I think I must go and have a look at my latest son," he said. "He is a +very interesting person. At present he seems to be composed of two +simple but diverse elements, a stomach and a sense of humor." At the +door he paused again and said, "Have you seen our new coat of arms, +Madeline?--two kids rambunctious?" + +He went away and sounds of manifest hilarity floated down the stairs. +And then dinner was announced, and he looked so good-tempered when he +returned and gave Lena his arm that her spirits were again lifted up. +She had never before been escorted to a meal as though it were an affair +of ceremony. + +"I met an old fellow to-day," her host began with persistent attempt to +draw her out, "that told me that for two years he had dined on bread and +milk. And then I felt that I was a favorite of fortune to be able +fearlessly to storm the dining-room. Happy the appendix that has no +history." + +Lena giggled helplessly. Was it amusement that she saw in Mr. Lenox's +eyes as he unfolded his napkin and surveyed her? + +"It's an awesome thing, isn't it, to be living in a world darkened on +one side by the servant question and on the other by the appendix, like +Scylla and Charybdis?" + +She found herself sitting down to face the mysteries of a meal whose +type was different from any hitherto met in her brief experience of +life. Her internal summing up was, "Of course I can't make any +impression on Mr. Lenox. He likes the other kind of woman." + +She looked at Mrs. Lenox, a woman of restraint and dark hair and +straight lines, and contrasted her with herself, a thing of curves and +sunshine colors. She did not know that a man never cares for a type of +woman, but only for woman in the concrete. Poor little Lena! When the +evening was over and she found herself at last in her too-splendid +bedroom, she put arms and head down on the dressing-table and sobbed. +These people were simple where she was complicated and complicated where +she was simple. It was all uncomfortable and different. She thought of +Jim Nolan's unfrilled conversation, of his clumsy, rather inane +compliments, of his primitive amoeba-like type of humor. She saw the +whole course of her life of mean shifts and wranglings with her mother; +and though its moral niggardliness was unappreciated, its physical +meagerness sickened her in contrast to the ease and beauty of these +newer scenes. She must climb out of that life, somehow, by hook or +crook; if this were the alternative, she must grow to its likeness, no +matter how the birth-pangs hurt. She would face it. She would even +rejoice in the opportunity to study these women and mold herself to +their outward form of _bien aise_. She would--she would. Faint and +far-away voices came to her, and she wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Lenox were +discussing her and laughing, as she would do in their place, at her +gaucheries. The meaner you are yourself, the easier it is to believe in +the meanness of others. It was the most godlike of men who taught the +godliness of all men. Lena could not imagine that these people could +either like or respect her unless she were molded after their pattern +and had as much as they had. + +And Miss Elton! She hated Miss Elton for that irritating calmness, for +that easy appropriation of the good things of life. She hated with a +hate that tingled her spine and shook her small body. The tragedy of +littleness made her grit her teeth as she thought of the unconscious +girl now going to bed in the next room. + +"I'll get even with her somehow," was Miss Lena's resolve. "Just let me +get the hang of things a little, and I'll show her!" Miss Quincy was +conscious that though she as yet lacked knowledge of their world, she +had the advantage of the inheritance of guile. + +But things! things! things! Lena thought a little of the irony of +it--that all her life she had pined to be set in luxury, and yet now and +here the very rugs and chairs and soft lights, the pictures of +unrecognized subjects, the unfamiliar delicacies before her at the +table, all seemed to loom up and crush her into insignificance by their +importance and expensiveness. They were her masters still. + +But it was not Lena's way to waste her time on abstractions. While she +sat and watched her fire crumble away into ashes, she was chiefly +occupied with the concrete, and there entered into her soul and took +possession of its empty chambers and began to mold her to her own +purposes the demon of social ambition, which is not the desire to do or +to be, but rather the longing to appear to be and to seem to do--to take +the chaff and leave the wheat. + +Mastered by this powerful spirit, Lena actually did make great strides +in the next few days. She learned to lounge quite comfortably, to +pretend with verisimilitude, even to chatter a little, helped chiefly by +a certain persistent light-weight on the part of Mr. Lenox; but the life +was hard and the rewards meager. All the time she suspected Miss Elton +and Mrs. Lenox of despising her, because she had so much less than they. +Their kindliness was but an added insult. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +POLITICS AND PLAY + + +It was with joy that Lena stood, on Saturday night, with Mrs. Lenox and +Miss Elton on the veranda, and hailed the advent of a large red +automobile, which disgorged, besides Mr. Lenox, two dress-suit cases and +two young men. Mr. Percival had liked her in her natural state and with +him she would not need to "put on style". He was to her the shadow of a +great rock in a desperately thirsty land. The only kind of pretense that +he demanded was that she should be a dear innocent little girl, and that +role came easily. She smiled and blushed and saw that there was a +difference in his eyes when he greeted her from the look he bent on the +other two ladies. It was balm to her spirit to think that this man, who +admired her, was himself admired by the people whom she suspected of +despising her; and that they did admire him was evident. They were +hardly seated at dinner before Mrs. Lenox began: + +"Dick, I have just been reading your last night's speech at the +Municipal Club and I'm quite effervescing with it. I want to put you up +on a pedestal and call the attention of Mr. Frank Lenox to you. He is +one of the innumerable excellent gentlemen, over the length and breadth +of the land, who are so busy running everything else that they let city +politics go to the place that I'm not allowed to mention. It does my +heart good to see you taking it up in earnest." + +"It was a good speech, all right. I've read it, too," said Mr. Lenox. +"And I'm all the wretch my wife calls me. I wish I'd heard you in your +frenzy, Percival, though I have less faith in speeches and principles +than she has. Reform is only a seed, you know, and most seeds never come +to maturity or bear fruit. So most people justly doubt the reformer." + +"Do you think we're thin sound-waves who do nothing but vibrate?" said +Dick. + +"Not at all; but I mean there are no such things in the world as +abstractions. There are only men and women. Thoughts don't seethe; men +and women seethe. Principles don't reform or corrupt; men and women do +the reforming and corrupting. If you want to do things, don't begin by +making the air resound with denunciations of wickedness; but make people +believe in you and despise the other fellow. When they like you they'll +begin to think about your ideas." + +"I don't know any better way to make people believe in me than to stand +up for what I think to be right," said Dick sharply. + +"Stand up all you like," Lenox answered. "But the trouble with most good +people is that they are contented to stand up. To arrive anywhere you've +got to get right down and scrap." + +"Oh, I'm only trying my muscle a bit," Dick answered laughingly. "I do +not intend to do much generalizing except in the way of advertisement. +I'm planning to put a spoke in the wheels of a few particular wrongs." + +"That's what I hope. It's easier to fulminate than to fight." + +"Then you'll be glad to know that Dick has already been answerable for +galvanizing the Municipal Club into new life," Ellery put in. "It has +been, as you know, a delightfully scholarly affair, any of whose members +were quite capable of writing a text-book on civics; but Dick has roped +in a lot of new men and stirred up the old ones." + +"To what end?" + +"Well, for two things; we have appointed committees to keep close tab on +all of the proceedings of the council--to attend every meeting--and +others to work up the ward organizations so that we shall be prepared to +work intelligently and together by the next election. We want to get +some clean business man, who is well known, to stand for mayor. There's +a chance for you, Lenox." + +Lenox laughed. "You've caught me there, haven't you? I am condemned for +being still in the stage where I am content to mention things with +indignation. However, if you have really gone so far, I'm more than +willing to trail after you. I'll at least back you with a few facts, +such as every business man knows, and I'm good for a substantial +contribution toward any campaign you may undertake. And what I do there +are others who will do, too." + +"I'll not forget your promise," said Dick. + +As usual, when men talk public affairs, the women had been content to +listen, but Madeline's temperament was too strong for her restraint. + +"It's all very well for you to put your hand in your pocket, Mr. Lenox," +she cried, "but I don't want to hear you trying to undermine Dick's +idealism. If he does not have the comfort of some purpose higher than +the daily fight, how can he endure it? Don't persuade him to run through +life on all fours and never look at the stars." + +Mr. Lenox looked at her warmly. + +"Thank the Lord for you women," he said. "You do not forget that there +are stars and sky above the city smoke. If it were not for you and your +kind, I'm afraid most of the world would be tied to the ground like +serfs." + +"Oh, I fancy nature has liberated a few of you, and I am glad to believe +that Dick is among the free," she said. + +She sat beside Dick, but she turned from him and spoke to Mr. Lenox. +When Percival, softened by her words and the tone of belief in which +they were spoken, looked up, he saw, not her eyes, but, across the +table, those of Lena, big and sympathetic. As he gazed into them he saw +all of Madeline's confidence in him, all of Madeline's ideals, but the +more spiritual, the more feminine, because they were unspoken. Lena's +eyes were eloquent even if she was silent; internally she was really +resenting Madeline's tone, which seemed to her to assume that Dick was +somehow Miss Elton's particular property. "Perhaps you needn't be so +sure, missy," she thought. + +[Illustration: "You look like incarnate song"--Page 199] + +After dinner, when the three men found their way to the drawing-room, +Mrs. Lenox had started Madeline on a career of song. She was already in +the midst of a curious weird Roumanian thing, and Norris made straight +for the piano. Lena, ethereal in pale blue, was sympathetically +listening to perfection. She had lost her look of incongruity with her +surroundings. The dreamy eyes and the transparent skin found their +setting in her filmy gown and the rich soft light. Dick drew in his +breath. He seemed never to get used to her. Naturally he found a seat +near her. She was his protegee. + +"Don't you sing, Miss Quincy?" was his inevitable query. + +And she replied with inward anguish, "Not at all." + +"But I'm sure you do. You look like incarnate song," he persisted. +"You're playing modest." + +Lena cast down her eyes and said, "I am a very truthful little girl." + +"Have you had a good time here?" + +Then she looked up with kindling face. "Oh, so good! You can't know how +I thank you, Mr. Percival. I know I owe it to you. I feel as though I +were breathing the air I belong in, at last. It's so different from--but +you know all about my life," said Lena brokenly. "And Mrs. Lenox is so +sweet and kind, I just love her!" + +"And Miss Elton?" + +Lena stiffened and made no reply for an instant. + +"Miss Elton is quite as clever as you men, isn't she?" Lena asked, in +quite another tone of voice. + +"Infinitely more so," said Dick cordially. + +"Do you like it?" she asked in a breathless way. + +"Why, yes, in Madeline," he answered. "She isn't a bit priggish, you +know, but just naturally interested in everything good. Why? Don't you +and she get on?" + +Lena gave an uneasy little twist as though she did not enjoy the +question, and she sighed. + +"Why, frankly, I don't wholly. It's my own stupid little fault, of +course. I'm not clever. She's very charming; but she gets a little +tiresome to me." + +"Does she?" said Dick ponderingly. + +"It's very hateful of me to say such things about your particular +friend," said Lena contritely. "Besides, I don't mean--what do I mean? I +never thought it out. But it's so easy to tell you everything, Mr. +Percival. And I think it's rather nice for a girl to be more silly and +inconsequential part of the time." She laughed in a gurgling little +fashion. + +"I believe it is," said Dick speculatively, as he looked at her. "But +Madeline's awfully jolly, you know. I've had more good times with her +than with any other girl I know. No nonsense about her." + +"That's it,--no nonsense," said Lena, and this time her laugh was not so +pleasant; and Dick glanced across at Madeline with a kind of resentment. +"It isn't like Madeline to go back on a fellow that way," he said to +himself. "Of course she's had all kinds of advantages over this poor +little thing; but it's small of her not to forget them. I trusted her to +make things sweet; and for the first time she has disappointed me." He +looked at Madeline with a distinct feeling of irritation as she rose +from the piano. Mr. Lenox came and absorbed Lena, whom he was teaching +to answer him saucily. Lena enjoyed this process, and it had inspired +her to a really clever device, namely, to say vulgar little things in a +whimsical way, as though she knew better all the time but wanted to be +humorous. A good many other people have had the same brilliant idea, but +it was none the less original to Lena, and it saved a lot of trouble and +pretense. Norris and Miss Elton were hobnobbing and laughing at the +other end of the room, and Dick followed them. + +"Have you been out of town, Dick?" Madeline asked as he came up. "I +tried to get you over the telephone a day or two ago, and they told me +you were away." + +"Yes." He laughed exultantly as he sat down. "I ran down to the +penitentiary at Easton, just to make sure that I wasn't mistaken in a +fact or two." + +"What now?" asked Norris. + +"I've been told that Barry--the lord of St. Etienne, Madeline--is at +last tired of his humble but powerful place, and intends to show himself +the master that he really is by running himself for our next mayor. Now +even this docile city would hardly exalt a man whom it knew to be a +criminal with a record of two years in the pen,--under another name, of +course." + +"Is it possible that Barry--" + +"I've verified my facts. There is only one man in the city besides +myself that knows this, and he's Barry's closest friend. There'll be a +jolly old sensation in the bunch, when I spring my mine." + +"If nobody knows it, how did you happen to find out?" asked Madeline +impulsively. + +There was just a moment's silence, and in that instant Norris had a +flash of memory. He seemed to see Dick eying a letter addressed to +William Barry, Esquire. Even while he remembered, he hated himself for +daring to suspect that Dick would be capable of anything really shabby +or dishonorable. Yet he did suspect--nay, more--he was sure; and the +pause, the look of innocent inquiry on Madeline's face grew intolerable. +If Dick would say nothing, he, Norris, must. + +"We newspaper men," he rushed in gaily, "get hold of a vast amount of +information that people flatter themselves is secret." + +Percival looked at him and grinned. The girl turned slowly from her +amused survey of Dick to study Ellery's face, which showed his +discomfort in its flush. If a girl so gentle could feel scorn, Ellery +would have thought he detected a touch of it. Certainly there was a hint +of grieved surprise as she spoke, with her eyes still fixed on Norris. + +"I'm very sorry, Dick," she said humbly. "I didn't mean to be prying. +I've grown so used to asking you about everything. Mr. Norris ought to +get a better mask." + +She laughed lightly, but Ellery's face grew hotter. He wondered if she +suspected him of some underhand trickery, and Dick realized it, yet kept +amused silence. For an instant he hated Dick, and felt a wild impulse to +defend himself; but second thoughts came quickly. She loved Dick and was +therefore slow to impute evil to him. Dick loved her, and if he had for +once played the petty knave, it was the place of a friend to protect her +against that knowledge. That had been the instinctive reason for Norris' +words, and he was not going back on them now. Yet Ellery's brain whirled +to think how swiftly and by what simple means he might have toppled her +slowly-ripening friendship into the mire. Ellery's imagination piled +superlatives on every act and expression of his lady. If she looked +light disapproval, it was worse than another's scorn. And Dick--for +whom he had thrown away the thing he most valued in the world--Dick +exclaimed gaily: + +"Don't be suspicious, Madeline. Are all secrets disgraceful? Can't you +trust your old friends?" + +"Of course I'm not suspicious," she answered indignantly. "I only mean +to beg your pardon, Dick, and I assure you again that I'm not curious, +even. I asked this question as I have asked a thousand others, and that +would have been the end of it----except for Mr. Norris' face." + +She smiled as she turned away, and Dick lifted his eyebrows and shrugged +his shoulders as much as to say, "What difference does it make, anyway? +What difference!" Dick didn't care whether she despised Ellery or +not--he didn't care enough to speak an honorable word of explanation. + +Mrs. Lenox came up crying, "Come, my triple alliance, Frank has carried +Miss Quincy off to the billiard-room to give her a lesson. Let us go, +too, to see that they do not get into mischief." + +Dick hurried away to usurp Mr. Lenox's place, Madeline tucked her arm +through that of Mrs. Lenox, and Norris was left to follow in outer +darkness. + +When bedtime came, Norris detained Percival. + +"Come out for a smoke and a turn," he said. "The night is frosty, and +you'll sleep all the better for a sniff of fresh air." + +"What are you so glum about?" he asked, as Dick tramped in silence. + +He was moody and enraged himself, but too proud to let his anger be +seen. + +"Not mad, most noble Norris, only thinking." + +"Unfold your thoughts." + +"I was thinking about Madeline," answered Dick, and Norris' heart +thumped, for he too was thinking about Madeline. "I wonder if the kind +of training that she and all girls of her class get is the thing, after +all. I'm not talking about knowledge, you understand. I'm not such a cad +as to grudge a girl the best there is in the world. But there's +something else. It's the electric feminine, I suppose, that makes them +the powers behind every throne. Fate is always represented in +petticoats, you know. It sometimes seems as though the better-trained +girls had all that side of them kept out of sight and polished into +nothingness. Why are they taught to ignore the biggest power that's in +them? Why, even that untrained little Miss Quincy is vivid with some +sex-fascination that the more fortunate girls do not often have." + +"Oh, she is only a colored light. The sunlight has all other colors +latent in itself. How do you dare to make any comparison between Miss +Quincy and your lovely Miss Elton?" + +"Great Scott! Don't say 'my Miss Elton'!" Dick exclaimed. "Madeline +doesn't belong to me." And he added politely, "Worse luck! She and I +have always been like brother and sister. That's all there is to it." + +"Are you sure?" demanded Ellery, with hot thrusts of mingled anguish and +exultation stabbing through his bosom. + +"Sure!" said Dick equably. "Why, even if I loved her, my dear fellow, I +should know, from her unruffled serenity, that there was no hope for me. +But Madeline isn't a very emotional creature, Ellery. She has too much +brains for that,--a girl to cheer but not inebriate." + +"I don't want a girl to make me drunk," ejaculated Norris. + +"Well, I do," rejoined Dick. + +"And though Miss Elton's emotions do not lie on the surface, I'll +warrant they are there," Ellery went on as though letting off pent-up +steam. "They are like her voice--like all her motions--neither loud nor +faint, but exquisitely modulated. She seems to me like the embodiment of +innocence,--not the innocence of ignorance, but the untaintedness of a +mind that goes through the world selecting the best, as the bee takes +honey and leaves the rest. There's no subject, so far as I can see, on +which she is afraid to think; but I can not imagine that any subject +would leave a deposit of mire in her mind." + +"Gee whizz!" scoffed Dick. "How fluent your year of journalism has made +you! What a great thing it is to be a serious-minded young man with +eye-glasses, engaged, while yet in youth, in molding public opinion +through the mighty agent of the press! And Madeline is another of the +same kind." + +"I wish I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at +me as much as you like, Dick, but it's beneath you to jeer at her." + +"You old duffer, aren't you two the best friends I have in the world? I +like the clear and frosty mountain peaks." + +"How did you find out about Barry?" Ellery asked abruptly. + +"I do not have to tell you any more than Madeline." Seeing the grim look +on Norris' face, Dick went on, "Let's go in and to bed. We seem to rub +each other the wrong way to-night. If we don't separate soon we shall be +having a French duel." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AN ENGAGEMENT + + +The gates of the delectable world, it seemed to Lena, opened very +slowly, and the mild fragrance and warmth that dribbled out to her +through their narrow crack intensified her outer dreariness. Once in a +while Mrs. Lenox or Miss Elton did her some little kindness. +Occasionally Mr. Percival came to see her, but her shame of her mother +and her home made these visits a doubtful pleasure. The sordid monotony +of her work oppressed her every morning and depressed her every night. +The little money that she earned fell like a snow-flake into the yawning +furnace of her desires. Bitter is the fate of her to whom the goods of +this world are the final good, and to whom those goods are denied. + +There came a night when a certain great lady gave a dance, and Lena was +deputed by the feminine head of the staff of the _Star_ to report these +doings of society. At first the chance looked to her delightful. She was +to have a peep into the world of charm which was her dream and her +ambition. She walked through the wide empty rooms with their soft lights +and masses of flowers. She surveyed the dining-room, a wilderness of +candles, orchids and maiden-hairs. She felt her feet sink luxuriously +into the rugs, oh, so different from the threadbare ingrain carpet at +home! She peeped into the ball-room, smilax-draped and glowing as if +eager to welcome the guests to come. Through it all she carried a prim +air, making businesslike notes on her little pad; but beneath her very +demure exterior raged a storm of rebellion that these things should be +and not be for her. The world was one huge sour grape; and yet she must +smile as though it tasted sweet. There were blurs in her eyes as she +stumbled up the back stairs, whither her way was pointed, that she might +stand in a corner of the dressing-room where the now fast-arriving +ladies were laying off their wraps. She swallowed a lump in her throat +and winked hard in the attempt to forget or ignore the careless looks +thrown at her by these ladies, as the maids removed the long cloaks made +more for splendor than for warmth, or drew up the gloves on bare arms +less lovely than her own. Many of the women looked twice at her, and +she thought, and resented the fact, that they were surprised to see so +much beauty. She could not be impersonal like the other +reporters,--sensible girls, taking all this as a part of the day's work, +and whispering names to one another, which Lena, too, must catch and +treasure for her reportorial harvest. She must glance with swift +inclusiveness at the more striking gowns, that later she may serve them +up in the technical slapdash of the social column. + +An hour of it left her faint and sick, not with cynical scorn of the +spectacle, but with longing and self-pity. The crowd in the +dressing-room was thinning now, but, whether she had finished her duty +or not, she must escape. She could endure it no longer. Again she made +her way down the narrow non-angelic stairs and out at a little side +door. The night air was sweet and cold. She paused for a moment under +the light of the porte-cochere to watch the string of carriages and the +swirl of silk and laces that passed through the opening door, to listen +to gusts of music that came to an abrupt end as the outside door shut on +her. + +Suddenly a figure loomed beside her, and she look up to see Dick +Percival, straight and big, with the electric light gleaming on his +white shirt-front, where his overcoat fell back. There was an unpleasant +sternness in his deeply-shadowed eyes. + +"Miss Quincy!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here!" + +"I was sent to report it," said Lena weakly. "I'm going home now." + +"Going home alone? Nearly midnight?" + +"What else can I do? It's what the other girls--reporters, I mean--have +to do." + +"I shall walk home with you," said Dick sharply, and he drew her aside +into the shadow, as though ashamed of being seen, and piloted her in +silence to the sidewalk. Lena gave a little sob as he drew her arm +through his, and still they walked on until the lights of the great +house grew dim in the distance and only the quiet of the city streets by +night enveloped them. + +"Ought you not to go back now? You'll lose all the pleasure," said Lena +timidly. + +"Are you doing much of this kind of thing?" Dick demanded. + +"This is the first time." + +"I hope it will be the last," he answered glumly. + +"So do I--I don't like it," whispered Lena. + +"I--I can't endure it--Lena!" Lena started as she heard her name. "Lena, +come over here into the park for just a moment. I want to talk to you." + +"I can't. It's awfully cold, and--" said Lena, but she followed his lead +as she remonstrated. + +"And you have on a wretched little thin coat. Why aren't you decently +dressed?" + +"I haven't anything." Lena spoke under her breath. Dick stamped his foot +as a substitute for a curse, whipped off his heavy great-coat, wrapped +her in it, and pushed her down on to a bench. + +"Lena," he said, standing squarely in front of her, "I know I've no +right to hope for anything--no right to speak, even, when you know me so +little; but, by Heaven, I can't endure to see you grinding out your life +in this way, when there's even a chance that you will let me prevent it. +You flower of a girl, you! Oh, Lena, I love you--I love you!" + +He caught a small white hand that held together the heavy coat, and +kissed it in a kind of frenzy, while Lena, rigid with desire to be quite +sure what this signified, peered stolidly at him from over the big +collar. She was too wise in her generation to leap to conclusions about +the ultimate meaning of Dick's passion. She would not unbottle any +emotion until she knew. + +"Lena, if you could see how I love you, you'd trust me, I think, even +with yourself. If you will be my wife--" + +Something in Lena seemed to break, and she gave a gasp of relief and +gratitude that was almost prayer and approached love. Then she buried +her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, as Dick put both arms around her +and drew her head to his shoulder. + +"Lena, can you--do you love me a little?" he whispered, as if in awe. + +"Oh, Mr. Percival," said Lena, "I do! How could I help it? But I could +not dream of your loving poor little insignificant me." + +"And how could I help it?" he said, mocking her. "Little, you may be, +but this part is bigger than the whole world. You belong to me now, and +I won't have you depreciate yourself." + +"Oh, Mr. Percival, is it true?" + +"Suppose you say 'Dick', and thank God that it is." + +"Dick, Dick, Dick--it is," said Lena very softly, and she frankly put +her arms around his neck, and her soft lips to his cold cheek, so that +he lost himself in an ecstasy of delight and wonder. + +So they sat in the doubtful shadow of a leafless maple, on a hard park +bench, on a chilly November night, and though Dick was half frozen they +were both more than happy. And they talked, in lovers' fashion, over the +great fact, and how it all happened. + +The mellow chimes of the city hall began to strike twelve--a most +persistent hour, and Lena started into consciousness. + +"Dick, I must go home," she said. "None of those girls, the nice girls, +Miss Elton or any one like that, would do such an improper thing, would +they?" + +"I should think not," said Dick. "I wouldn't ask them to." + +"And I wouldn't allow them," laughed Lena. "Now come, like a dear boy, +and walk home with me." + +"There are so many more things that I want to say," remonstrated Dick. +"Stop a moment under this light and let me see your eyes, Lena. You'll +have to look up. I want to talk plain business to you. First, you'll +give up this reporting folly, won't you?" + +"To-morrow," said Lena joyously. + +[Illustration: They talked in lovers' fashion--Page 216] + +"What an admirably obedient wife you are going to make! But I'm glad you +hate it. If ever you feel a mad desire to take it up again, we'll go +into the library together and write up _Godey's Lady's Book_. I want +your life to be sweet and sheltered and filled with good things now." + +"Oh, Dick, to think of that kind of a life coming to me!" + +"It ought to have come to you long ago. It was bound to come, because it +belongs to you. But things being as they are, you must give yourself +into my keeping as soon as possible, sweetheart. There's no reason why +we shouldn't be married at once, or nearly so, is there, dear?" + +Here Lena hesitated, a little in doubt whether she ought to show maiden +reluctance, and her lover went on with his argument. + +"You are so alone, dear. Don't let any foolish hesitation prolong this +bad time of yours." + +"What about my mother?" demanded Lena, with a sudden descent to the +region of hard facts. + +"Do you want her to live with us?" Dick asked with a gulp. + +"No, I don't!" Lena answered so sharply that Dick started in surprise, +and she gathered herself together. + +"It would take a long time for me to explain things to you," she went on +in gentler accents. "But, Dick, mother and I are not very happy +together. I'll tell you all about it some time. Perhaps she would be +just as contented to live somewhere else." + +"Very well," said Dick with a sense of relief. "We must make her +comfortable, of course." In reality nobody else's comfort made a rap's +difference just then. "I dare say we can find some jolly little +apartment and somebody to take care of her." + +"Hire somebody for her to find fault with," said Lena, with a return of +acid. "What about your mother?" + +"Oh, I couldn't let mother live anywhere but in the dear old home. It's +too big and lonely for her by herself, so we must share it with her. And +no other place would ever have the flavor of home, either to her or to +me." + +Lena stopped short in her progress. + +"Does the house belong to you or to her?" + +"Technically to me, I believe--not that it makes the slightest +difference, dear." + +"Then I should be mistress of it, not she?" + +"I'm sure she'd be only too glad to turn the housekeeping cares over to +your pretty little hands," said Dick, smiling, but a little uneasily. +"She's a good deal of an invalid, you know. But there's plenty of time +to think of all these details. I suppose you've had to worry about the +little things until it's become a habit," he added in a kind of apology +to himself. + +"I've been a bond-slave so long," said Lena, "that I'd like to feel +perfectly free and mistress of everything around me." She straightened +her back and squared her soft shoulders. + +"So you shall be!" answered Dick happily. "Even of your husband." + +"Oh, that, of course," said Lena with an enchanting pout. "Now here we +are, and it's very late. You must go. Good night." + +"Good night," said Dick. "I suppose I must not keep you. To think I have +the unbelievable good fortune to kiss you good night, sweetheart." + +Mrs. Quincy turned over in the lumpy bed which she and her daughter +shared and said, with a querulousness undiminished by her sleepiness, +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Lena Quincy, gallivanting around +at this hour of night. It ain't decent. But there!" + +"I guess I know my business," Lena snapped. + +She turned out the gas to undress in the dark rather than encourage her +mother's conversation. She needed to think. An awful problem had just +presented itself. How was she to get a trousseau? + +It was in another mood that Dick Percival walked home. Whenever anything +very great and wonderful happens to us, we are apt to bow our heads and +cry, "What am I, that this should be given to me?" Doubtless he is the +noblest man who most often feels this exultant humility. This was Dick's +hour on the mountain. The depth of his own tenderness, the deliciousness +of his passion swept over him like a revelation, as he asked himself in +wonder how it could be that this love had sprung up at once, like +Aphrodite from the waves, where no one could have suspected such a +marvel. He himself had been without realization of how his passing +interest had deepened its roots until now they fed on every part of him. +Love had startled him like a stroke of lightning out of a clear sky, but +it was evident that it was no light that flashed out and then +disappeared. It had come to stay. + +Then came self-reproach. He remembered with hot cheeks that he had +actually joked with Ellery about her in early days, and let himself be +bantered in return--cad that he was, incapable of appreciating at first +sight the woman he was to love. He had thought her an exquisite trifle, +almost too illusive to be taken seriously. Now that very illusiveness +was the thing that gripped him closest, like poetry and music and all +the finer elements of life, the most impossible to explain, the most +supreme in their dominion. Beauty meant all this. He found himself +repeating, "Beauty is truth. Truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth, +and all ye need to know." And Lena was beautiful. How beautiful! He +trembled in flesh and spirit at the vision of her face turned up to him +out of the black November darkness, at the memory of the fine texture of +her cheeks and lips. + +He did not stop to ask himself whether he and Keats were agreed in their +definition of beauty. Moreover, poor Keats never had the delight of +anything so pink and golden and blue-eyed as Lena Quincy. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN AWAKENING + + +A little scrawl of a note, delivered just after breakfast at Mr. Elton's +door, brought Madeline to visit Mrs. Percival, who, like her mother, +seemed to be in continual need of her. + +She found that lady lying in her favorite chair in the library--the +chair that had been her refuge in the days of her early widowhood, that +had comfortably housed her when books carried her away from her own +world of sorrows and problems into the world of illusions, the chair in +which she had dreamed of the great things that were to come into a +younger life, not her own, and yet deeply her own,--her son's. + +Now she lay back in it with clasped hands, thinner than usual and with +eyes sadder. Madeline came in like a young Hebe, glowing with health and +vigor, and infinitely tender toward fragility. + +"You are ill, dear mother Percival," cried the girl, dropping to her +knees and slipping an arm behind her friend's back in an unconscious +attitude of protection. + +Mrs. Percival's fingers followed the soft curve that the girl's hair +made around her forehead. + +"No, dear," she said slowly, "but I had something to tell you. I wanted +to speak to you myself, before any one else had the chance." + +"Please tell me quickly." + +"So many of my dearest hopes have come to nothing!" Mrs. Percival went +on, with a little bitterness that Madeline thought unlike her. "Each +blow, as it falls, seems the hardest to bear. I've tried to accept +whatever happens, graciously. It isn't always easy, Madeline, dear." + +"Yes?" said Madeline. + +"Dick--" + +"Is anything the matter with Dick?" Madeline rose with a little cry. + +"Dick does not think so," his mother answered. "My child, you have seen +something of this little Miss Quincy?" + +Madeline's eyes dropped for the tenth of a second and a heaviness took +possession of her body; then she lifted her head bravely. + +"Yes," she answered, "I know Miss Quincy--quite the most beautiful girl +I have ever seen." + +"Very beautiful," echoed Mrs. Percival. "So I too thought, the only time +I ever saw her. Well, Madeline, what I have to tell you is that Dick is +to marry her." + +The girl saw that the older woman's hands were trembling, and she laid +her own warm young palms over the cold old ones. + +"I hope Dick will be very happy," she said softly. "I--I'm not a bit +surprised. We ought to have seen that it was coming. And Dick loves +her!" + +And she laid her cheek against Mrs. Percival's, but the other pushed her +away and stared into the eyes so near her own. + +"And you can take it so quietly?" she asked. "Forgive me, dear, if for +once I break down the barriers of reserve. I love you so much, let me be +frank. Surely you know what I hoped, what I thought." + +"You thought Dick and I loved each other," Madeline said bravely. + +"I hoped so. Heaven knows I hoped so." + +"We are too good friends for that, dear Mrs. Percival. One needs a +little something unexplored and unexpected in a lover; don't you think +so? Dick and I knew each other in kilts and pig-tails." + +"Well, it seems I am as much of an old fool as Dick is a young one," +Mrs. Percival said bitterly. "I'm good for nothing but to lie here and +comfort myself with dreams." + +"You're an old dear, and Dick is a young one," Madeline tried to laugh. +"And Miss Quincy is exquisite--charming." + +"An old fool," repeated Mrs. Percival. "Now listen, sweetheart! If Dick +marries this girl, I have no intention of forgetting that he is my son, +and that she is his wife. I shall do all I can to help her to be worthy +of him; but before that happens, I am going to have the satisfaction of +speaking to just one person in the world--you--exactly what I think +about it. From what Mrs. Lenox told me, after her visit in the country, +and from what I saw myself, I think she is a vulgar little image +overlaid with tinsel." + +"Oh, don't!" Madeline cried. "You and I do not really know her, but we +can trust Dick. He's too fine himself to be attracted by anything but +fineness. She must have character to have made the fight she has with +fate." + +"Attracted by character! Pins and figs! My son is just like all the +others, I am finding. He's attracted by pink flesh. And as for heart +and soul--all the women that Dick has known well have been women of +refinement. He takes their purity and nobility for granted, as a part of +womanhood. He thinks he's marrying you and me. His reason has nothing to +do with it." + +For the moment Madeline had no answer, and Mrs. Percival went on: + +"It's foolish to care what people say about your tragedies. Oh, you +needn't shake your head. This is a tragedy, Madeline. And I do care +about the world. I hate to think of the whispering and gossiping because +my son--my son--has fallen a victim to a cheap adventuress." + +"Nonsense," Madeline broke out. "Miss Quincy isn't an outcast, just +because she has had the world's cold shoulder. And people aren't so +silly as to let such external things prejudice them." + +"Don't mistake me, dearie. I'm not taking exception to the girl because +she works. We're all--those of us that are good for much--the mothers +and wives and daughters of men who work, and we share in their labor. I +could admire and love a real worker, but this butterfly creature affects +me like a parasite--a woman who wants to get and not to give. It's just +because I feel that she isn't a real worker that I am afraid of her." + +"And that, even if it is true, may be only the result of sordid +surroundings." Madeline's heart misgave her, for she had learned to +respect Mrs. Percival's judgments. "She'll blossom out and add +womanliness to beauty in such an atmosphere as you and Dick will give +her." + +"Spontaneous generation will not do everything. You must have the germ +of a heart before you can develop the whole thing. Do you think you can +really change a girl who has lived for twenty years in the wrong +attitude?" + +"You are judging cruelly," Madeline cried. "Of course every one has the +germs of good." + +"And did it ever occur to you that the kind of love that Dick will give +his wife may be too good--so far above a coarse-grained woman that it +will not touch her comprehension? A lower grade of man might bring her +out better." + +"It's impossible to think of so exquisite a creature being +coarse-grained," Madeline exclaimed. "I, for one, am going to believe in +her, and in a year, with you and Dick and mother and Mrs. Lenox and +myself all backing her, you'll be proud of her loveliness and tact. I +shall be only Cinderella's ugly sister. But you must not ever quite +forget me, Mrs. Percival." And Madeline laughed most cheerfully. + +Mrs. Percival smiled in return. "Well, I have had my explosion. It's +extraordinary what a relief it is, once in a while. I'm not often so +guilty, am I, Madeline? After all, I've told you my fears rather than my +convictions. The situation does not seem so bad, now that I have said +even more than I think. Hereafter I shall find it easy to hold my +tongue." + +"And you will try to like her?" Madeline asked anxiously. + +"Of course, my dear. I shall try harder than any one else. I am going in +state to pay her a motherly call this very afternoon, feeling all the +time like a plated volcano." Mrs. Percival leaned back with a small +_moue_, then sat up again. "There's my boy's latch-key in the +lock now," she said. + +Dick halted at the door when he saw the two and knew that they must have +been talking of him. He had something of an air of defiance thickly +overlaid with innocence; but Madeline went to meet him with hands +outstretched. + +"Dick," she exclaimed, "I congratulate you with all my heart. She's the +prettiest creature in the world." + +Dick, manlike, regarded this as the highest possible tribute to his +beloved and glowed in return. His defiance dropped like a shell and he +shook Madeline's hands with enthusiasm. + +"You're a trump," he said. "I shall not forget how good you have been to +her; and I hope you two will always be friends." + +"I should think so! I should like to see your trying to prevent us, +Dick," said Madeline saucily. "And your mother is going to love her, +too, when--" + +"When we are married," Dick answered with silly masculine +self-consciousness. + +"And that is to be soon!" + +"As soon as I can manage it. I can't bear to have Lena living as she +does now; and there's no reason why we shouldn't cut it short." + +"No reason at all. I don't wonder you feel so. Good-by, both of you." + +Dick saw her to the door and Madeline walked out with her usual +deliberate serenity. + +She found her way home with bottled-up emotions, as a hurt child holds +in the cry until he gets to the spot where mother's breast waits for the +inarticulate sobs. Everything she had done and said seemed to have been +the act of some far-away self, that had hardly any connection with the +real Madeline. The earth danced around her and she was incapable of real +thought. And yet the well-trained, automatic body that was her outer +shell conducted itself with reason. It even stopped in the living-room +to kiss her mother; it apparently skimmed a new copy of _Life_; it +convoyed her slowly up stairs to her own room, where it shut and locked +her door. But here her real self resumed control, as she threw herself +into an easy chair by the window and stared out at the desolation of +December where dead leaves went whirling in elfin eddying clouds. + +For a few moments she let the solar system rock and reel around her, and +watched everything she had thought stable go up in smoke. Then upon the +world, swirling and pounding meaninglessly, there came an intense quiet. +She knew that the outer world was as serene as ever; but a great +throbbing pain within showed her that it was only her own little atom of +self that was revolutionized. Nature was not upset. There was still +order for her to hold fast to. For the first time she began to analyze +herself and her emotions. + +She could not say that she had planned her future, but it had seemed so +natural and inevitable that she had accepted it without planning, almost +without thought. Dick and she had belonged to each other ever since they +could remember. At ten they had been outspoken lovers, and ever since +there had been that intimate comradeship that seemed to her to imply the +unspoken relation, behind, above, below. All this she had taken for +granted, like mother-love and her own dawning womanhood. And now Dick, +the chief corner-stone of her edifice, was torn away, and the whole airy +structure toppled and dissolved. + +"I've been assuming all this," she said to herself, "and marriage isn't +a thing to take for granted. Shouldn't I have resented it if Dick had +appropriated me as though I belonged to him and had lost my freedom of +choice? I've been unfair to him. And now--if I should never marry--there +are surely plenty of good things left in the world. But are there?" + +Madeline had always been characterized by those who knew her as lovely +and placid. And why not? What else should life draw out of a girl of +normal nature, surrounded by protecting love, given the good things of +life as by right, shielded from the knowledge of evil, never facing a +problem more exciting than those of Euclid. But now something began to +stir in the unknown depths of her nature. For the first time in her life +she had had a blow. There rose before her a vision of endless +maidenhood. She saw herself as she had seen other women--uninteresting +women, she had thought them. Now they seemed to her like +tragedies--women whose lives did not count, either to themselves or to +the world, middle-aged, somber, unrelated. To be childless, to eat and +dress and wear the semblance of womanhood, even to play a little part in +society, and yet to be but half a woman! To be no link in the +generations! This was unendurable. The first demand of every soul is for +life, and yet life is life only when it is part of the future. To live +oneself one must live in others. All the mother hidden in the depths of +her rose and cried out against any destiny that shut her out from the +great stream of humanity. + +"I shall be a side-eddy in the current. I shall grow stagnant and slimy +and lead nowhere. And the rushing waters will go leaping and laughing +past." + +She got up and moved restlessly up and down the room. She looked again +out of the window at the sober end of the winter day. In the tree +branches that clattered outside, her eyes fell on an empty nest. + +"And am I to be such a thing?" she said. "Surely all the world must bow +down in pity for the solitary woman." Some half-forgotten lines came +back to her: + + "Mine ear is full of the rocking of cradles. + For a single cradle, saith Nature, I would give every one of my graves." + +By her little practice piano her eyes fell on the pages of Schubert's +unfinished symphony. + +"Unfinished!" she said. "And yet even there is the phrase that comes and +comes again, sweeter and more full of meaning in every renewed variety. +So I must have love to play through my life, or else it will be nothing +but a medley. It must be my music's theme; even if the symphony is +unfinished. Are there women who can do without it, who can take a life +alone and make it sweet and satisfying? Not I, oh God, not I! I'm no +exceptional creature. I'm just a plain woman. And if life doesn't give +me wifehood and motherhood, it gives me nothing. I wonder if all women +feel this way. This pretty little Lena,--is she bursting with primal +need of giving and taking? At any rate she has put something in Dick's +face that was never there before--that I'd give my soul to see in a +man's face when he looks at me." + +Hitherto the world had ambled along in an amiable way; and now it +suddenly turned and delivered a blow in the face. Every one is destined +to receive such blows, some get little else. But the test comes in the +way they are received. You may use belladonna as a poison, or you may +use it to help the blind to see. So when pain comes, you may take it to +your bosom and suckle it till it becomes a fine healthy child, too heavy +for you to carry; or cast out the changeling and leave it on the +doorstep to die. It matters little how much anguish skulks about the +outside of life, so long as it finds no lodgment in the sacred shrines +of the heart. Madeline met her first grief and fought it off; and, even +while she thought it had given her a mortal wound, came the revelation +of the powerlessness of the poor thing. She put her arms down on the +window-sill to cry deliberately, but something dried her tears. + +"I couldn't put that look in Dick's face, but could he put it in mine? +Was this taking of things for granted the best love of which I am +capable? I've found out to-day that there are all kinds of things in me +that I have never dreamed of before, and passion is one of them, and +rebellion. Great heavens! I might have married him and been serene and +never found things out." + +She seemed to be looking at a new Madeline; and while she stared, +startled, this self grew greater and stronger. + +"This is not the end of life; it is the beginning," she whispered. "I've +been looking down the wrong road. Dick has no such power over me as to +consign me to misery everlasting. I am mistress of my own fate. I have +not handed it over to him. Happiness is not a thing to get. It is a +state of mind to live in. It is my own affair, not that of others." She +rested her chin in her hands and fell into a girl's day-dream, in which +the nightmare was forgotten. + +Twilight fell at last, and faint sounds came up to her to remind her +that down stairs there were well-beloved people who did not know and +should never know of her little vigil. Her father must be coming home. +It was time for her to put on her armor and go down. Armor is one of the +necessities of life. If we can't wear it in steel plates on the outside, +we must mask the face with impenetrability and the manner with pretense. +Never let the heart be vulnerable. Yet, try as we may, something of our +weakness is laid bare. Hereafter Miss Elton might be serene, but would +never again be placid. + +But now she was quite herself. + +Down stairs her father read the paper and her mother sat near the big +table, hem-stitching. For them everything was settled, and settled +satisfactorily. They knew whom they were going to marry, and whether +love was to be a success, and where they were going to live, and what +they were going to do. Henceforth, for them the game meant only +pleasantly plodding onward along paths already marked out. Just a +wholesome common marriage, planted with the seed of love and watered +with small self-sacrifices. How could they possibly remember the +restlessness of youth, to whom all these things are hidden in the mists +of the future, and who is longing for everything and sure of nothing? + +Madeline sat down at the piano and her hands fell inevitably into +phrasing the "unfinished symphony." She became aware that her mother +laid down the stitching and Mr. Elton's evening paper ceased to crackle. +As she stopped her father stood behind her. He bent and kissed the +little parting in her hair. + +"Your music grows sweeter and richer day by day, little girl," he said. +"I suppose as more comes into your life you have more to give. I'm glad +that you give it out to us old folks at home." + +Madeline wheeled about and sprang to her feet. + +"Ah," she exclaimed, "if you have finished with your stupid old paper, +I'll give you a real piece of news. It's a 'scoop' too, for no reporter +has got hold of it yet. Dick Percival is engaged to little Miss Quincy." + +Both father and mother stared at her in silence. She stood a little +behind the chandelier, where the light shone full on her face, and in +neither mouth nor eyes could they see the trace of shadow. On the +contrary, there was a radiant loveliness about her that astonished those +that loved her best. + +Then Mr. Norris was announced. + +Now when Miss Elton had her first peep into her soul, and so stirred up +the possibilities in her nature, she also awoke to new insight into what +was going on behind other people's eyes. The day when she could look a +young man squarely in the face and say to him whatever she thought had +passed. The period of unconscious girlhood, much prolonged in her case, +came to an end. Since, in this world, shadow goes with sunshine, so +demons tag after angels; and with the dawn of her sweeter womanhood, +Madeline developed a new spirit of contrariety and coquetry that +astonished no one so much as herself. + +When Mr. Norris came in, his apologetic glance told her at once that she +had hardly spoken to him since she had turned up her straight little +high-bred nose and informed him and Dick that she despised their +underhand ways; told her, also, what had not dawned on her before, that +here was an abject creature, and that it was the province of womanhood +to batter and buffet him who is down, perhaps in secret fear of that day +when outraged manhood will rise and claim a tyranny of its own. + +So she put out her hand with that stiffness that holds at arm's length +and said: + +"Oh, how dy' do, Mr. Norris," just as though they had never sailed +together in dual solitude, and she allowed her lip to curl in evidence +of her disapproval of the much warmer greeting of her elders. + +She sat down and eyed and tapped a small bronze slipper, while she +ignored the reproachful glances of her mother at her rank desertion of +conversational duties. Her father hardly noticed it. He himself so liked +young men that he frequently forgot that his daughter and not himself +might be the object of their quest. So he plunged cheerfully into an +animated discussion of the new tide in civic politics, while Norris +dully and conscientiously tried to bear up his end. + +Ellery's eyes, however, as well as the thoughts behind those superficial +thoughts that guided his words, were absorbed in the other side of the +room, where Miss Elton canvassed with her mother the merits of various +embroidery silks. She was lovelier than ever. He had thought her perfect +before, but to-night she had added a sheen to perfection and made herself +entrancing, both reposeful and vivid. He wondered if she had heard of +Dick's engagement and if her color covered a pale heart. + +Suddenly she flung up her head impatiently, and came behind her father's +chair to clap a small hand over his mouth in the middle of a sentence of +which Norris had entirely lost track. + +"Father, father," she cried, "do you think Mr. Norris wants to come here +and maunder over stupid politics all the evening, after he has been +writing stupid editorials about them all day? They _are_ stupid--I've +read some of them." She smiled at the young man. "Wouldn't you both +infinitely rather hear me sing?" + +Mr. Elton kissed the offending hand before he put it gently down. + +"I know I should." + +Norris sprang up. + +"May I turn your music?" he asked eagerly, but she shook her head as she +moved away. + +"There isn't going to be any music to turn." + +She began to sing the same little Roumanian song that he remembered on +their last evening in the Lenox house, and his spirits, lifted for a +moment by her smile, went down again. + + "Into the mist I gazed and fear came on me, + Then said the mist, 'I weep for the lost sun.'" + +She sang passionately and he could have cried aloud. It was true then +that she was grieving for Dick. + +"The music is uncanny, isn't it?" she said, as she ended and found him +near her. "How does it make you feel?" + +"If I should find an image for my feelings just at present, you would +scorn me for my base material thoughts." + +"Find it," she commanded. + +"I think I feel like a mince-pie--a maddening jumble of things delicious +and indigestible." + +She laughed and grew friendly. This, he thought, is, after all, her +permanent mood; but before he could take advantage of it another caller, +Mr. Early, appeared; and again she basely deserted Norris to the mercies +of her father and mother, and devoted herself to the evident +beatification of the apostle of the new in art. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE RETURN OF RAM JUNA + + +One gloomy evening in January Mr. Early sat alone. He had so many +tentacles spread out through the world of men and women that solitude +was unusual to him. Indeed it had often occurred to him, as an example +of the fallacy of ancient sayings, that there was nothing in that old +epigram about the loneliness of the great. The higher he had risen in +the scale of greatness the more insistently and persistently had the +world invaded his life, until even his appreciation of solitude had +atrophied. + +This particular day had been a hard one. The problems of glass and rugs +were unusually complicated, and the interruptions to continuous thought +more numerous than usual. Moreover, without warning, like a meteor of +magnificent proportions, Swami Ram Juna, with many paraphernalia of +travel, had suddenly reappeared to ask for that once-proffered +hospitality. Not without state and courtesy could such a being be +welcomed; and courtesy takes time. + +Finally, to discuss the matter of the outer cover for the next issue of +_The Aspirant_, a henchman invaded his privacy. Sebastian looked over a +pile of designs, and chose a flat but lurid young woman, in a +sphinx-like attitude against a background of purple trees. Then came the +more difficult question of an aphorism to be printed on the table +against which the lurid young woman leaned. It was the habit of _The +Aspirant_ to convey, even on its outside, wisdom to the world, and the +thinking up of smart young aphorisms is not always an easy task. Mr. +Early at length evolved: "It has been said of old: 'Know thyself.' I say +unto thee, 'Forget thyself. Know thy brother.'" + +"That sounds fairly well," said Mr. Early wearily, and he dismissed the +henchman and settled himself in a particularly benevolent arm-chair, in +front of a cheerfully-roaring fire. The place was a remote room, +decorated not for public inspection but for comfort. Mr. Early was +tired. A certain new question had been waiting in the antechambers of +his mind, and to-night he determined to give it leisurely attention; +for of late it had several times been borne in him that he was getting +along in years and that if he did not intend to die a bachelor, it +behooved him to move swiftly. The thought had been quickened into +livelier vitality when, at a dinner a few nights before, he had watched +the face and studied the figure of Miss Madeline Elton. + +She was certainly a rare creature. There was a verve, a magnetic quality +to her, that he hardly remembered before. Her beauty, her nobility, her +purity he felt to be the artistic attributes of womanhood. No, he not +only admired them, they charmed him. + +"Yes," said Mr. Early. "By Jove, if she'd lift her little finger at me I +believe I'd make a fool of myself over her! And why shouldn't I? Why +shouldn't I let myself go? I've got everything else now. A woman of her +bigness likes a man who can do things and who controls other men. By +Heaven, I believe we were made for each other!" + +Mr. Early grew so excited by the strength of his new passion that he +sprang to his feet and walked up and down to luxuriate in the idea. + +Proportionately great was his annoyance when a knock invaded his +self-communion, and his man's face appeared at the door to tell him that +Mr. Murdock would like to speak with him. While he was yet opening his +mouth to anathematize Mr. Murdock, that gentleman entered, familiar and +cheerful. + +The man who came in was, in his way, a force almost as great and as +worthy of regard as Mr. Sebastian Early himself--in fact no less a +personage than the power behind the throne of that uncrowned king, +William Barry. Though he did not sit on Olympian heights and play with +the thunderbolts of jobs and contracts, as Barry did, yet he had an +occasional way of interfering in the game, just as in Greek legend Fate +loomed large behind the back of Zeus. + +Mr. James Murdock was a business genius who dipped into politics, not +for office nor yet for glory, but only for gain. Originally a partner of +Mr. Early's, when, just as some one else invented a better hook-and-eye, +their business was sold out, Murdock let his many-sidedness run riot in +a dozen directions. While Mr. Early's abilities led him to "get all +there was in it" out of the public on its imaginative side, Murdock +worked out his fortune in more practical necessities. St. Etienne was a +western city, full of growth and therefore full of needs. There were +miles and miles of asphalt to be laid; there were wooden sidewalks +crying out to be replaced by stone; there were lighting and watering and +park-making; and it was astonishing in how many companies, doing these +things, Mr. Murdock had a share, and how frequently his companies +secured the contracts for doing them. When rival contractors attempted +these public works, there were apt to be strikes and complications which +seldom occurred when Murdock had the job. Then all went smoothly and +merrily. And this shows how friendship rules the world. For Murdock was +the friend of Barry; and Barry was the friend of the strike-ordering +walking-delegates. If these three elements, representing the city +fathers, the contractors and the laborers, were all satisfied with the +way the city's work was being done, who remained to cavil? Certainly not +the citizens. St. Etienne's wheels moved almost without friction. + +But Murdock went further than this. His was a fine instinct for +organization. He used Barry like a fat pawn, moved down to the king row, +until the boss alderman was able to look abroad on his noble army of +small officeholders and contractors, who could be trusted, not only to +vote as directed (for to vote is a simple and ineffectual thing), but +also to bring up their hundreds and thousands of well-trained dogs to +vote, and, if need be, to vote again, and then to see that the votes +were properly counted. + +It was to Murdock's far-reaching mind that Barry was indebted for the +regulation of interests by which almost every man who served the city, +and particularly those who served it badly and expensively, was tied to +Barry by ties closer than those of brotherly love. Whether official, +contractor or working-man, they owed job or contract to the influence +that Barry seemed to exercise in the councils of the city. It was by +Murdock's advice that the better residence district was well-policed, +well-lighted, well-paved and generally contented with things as they +were. By Murdock's suggestion the city's interests were zealously +guarded in the discussions of the council. + +When a committee of the Municipal Club visited that august body to +listen to a debate on a certain paving contract, they could not help +being impressed by the large knowledge of materials and methods +displayed by their representatives, and the unanimity with which they +agreed that a particular bid was, if not the cheapest, the most deeply +satisfying of those offered. What they could not know was the ingenuity +with which Murdock saved both the brain and the time of the council by +arranging its debate beforehand. But the committee did mention, among +themselves, the incongruity between the actual condition of St. +Etienne's streets and the wisdom of the Solons. + +But, though Murdock's was the brain to originate and systematize schemes +of plunder for which Barry alone had been incapable, once in a while the +"boss" grew restive under dominion, in spite of the knowledge that, if +he should once break with the master mind, he would soon make some fatal +mistake and another would become the whole show. So, if the reign of +King Barry was for long temperate and orderly, it was because Murdock +impressed upon him that royal arrogance breeds discontent and finally +revolt, and that by big rake-offs, on the quiet, enough could be gained +to satisfy the ambition of a well-regulated man; and that while +plundering was done with decency, the reform-talk of the Municipal +Clubites would prove no more useful nor ornamental than a Christmas +card. + +"Don't hog everything!" as Murdock sagely put it. "Let the other fellow +have the small end of the trough, and as long as he ain't hungry, he +won't squeal." + +With equal sternness he repressed Billy's fancy for fast horses and Mrs. +Billy's taste for green velvet and diamonds. + +"It don't look well on a salary of eighteen hundred," he said. "Just you +be contented with having things your own way without talking about it. +Throw all the dust you like, but don't let it be gold dust." + +"You cut a pretty wide swath yourself," Billy growled. + +"I ain't a alderman, serving the city for pure love and a small salary," +grinned the other. "A contractor's got a right to make money." + +"You make money out o' me," said Billy sourly. "You keep me under your +big fat ugly thumb. I guess I can run this business alone. I got all the +strings pretty well in my own hand." + +"All right, Barry. I'll be sorry to be on the other side, but if you say +so, all right." + +Barry swore a moment under his breath and changed the subject. So +matters went on, with Barry still subservient, but growing daily more +inclined to believe himself the autocrat he seemed, daily a little less +cautious, a little more fixed in his assurance that the officeholders, +the delegates and the saloon men constituted, in themselves, a +sufficient prop for his dominion, and that Murdock was a nuisance. + +"Of course, it's to his interest to keep me under," he said to himself, +"and I dunno' whether I'm a fool to let him do it, or whether I'm a fool +to try to break away." + +He began to try flyers on his own hook; he gathered many rake-offs of +which he said nothing to his mentor; he drank a little more and splurged +a little more and looked a little more like a bulldog and less like a +man. That the spirit of rebellion was growing up and that the pawn began +to take credit to itself for the position of power in which it was +placed, came gradually home to Mr. Murdock. It made him at first +annoyed, then anxious. So it was that the confidence bred from years of +business cooperation drove him this night to look up his old partner. + +"Evening, Early," he said as the door closed behind him. "Beastly cold +night out. Wish you'd order me a little something hot to induce me to +stay by this comfortable fire of yours." + +Mr. Early waved his hand toward a chair and settled himself without +ceremony. There was this comfort in Murdock: they had known each other +too long for pose, and, though the old hook-and-eye partnership was +dissolved, and Mr. Early had soared into the realms of Art, they were +still closely bound by common interests. So Sebastian met him with +cheerful resignation. + +"Sit down, Jim," he said. "I don't mind a nip myself. What's up?" + +"What's down, you'd better ask. Lord save us! What's that?" exclaimed +Mr. Murdock, as he caught sight of the lurid lady lying amid the litter +on the table. + +"That's the cover of my next magazine. Never mind it. It's not in your +line." + +"Well, I should say not," said the other with a slow grin. "I've been +pretty much vituperated for some of my business deals, but I never +sprung a thing like that on the public. 'Forget thyself!' That's good, +Early." He winked a wink that came more from the soul than from the eye. + +"Oh, drop it, Jim," said Mr. Early, relapsing into the old vernacular. +"I'm sick of everything to-night. Here's your cocktail. Help yourself to +a cigar." + +"You ought to get married, instead of sitting here with the blues all by +yourself. Tell you, a warm little wife is a nice thing to come home to." + +"Thank you, Jim," said Mr. Early dryly. + +They sank into silence, a comfortable silence, permeated with the +fragrance of tobacco, with warmth in the cardiac region, and with that +crackle of burning logs that satisfieth the soul. But occasionally Mr. +Early shot a sharp glance at his companion, and his study did not +reassure him. At last he spoke. + +"Well, out with it, Jim. It's evident that you've something on your +mind." + +"You're right, I have," said Murdock with sudden emphasis. "I don't know +whether you can help me, but it's second nature for me to try you. I'm +getting anxious about Barry and affairs connected with him." + +"What about Barry? I thought you had him in your pocket." + +"Oh, I've still got him in the pocket over my heart, and buttoned down +tight," said Mr. Murdock grimly. "It's because he belongs to me that I'm +looking out for him." + +"Well," said Mr. Early, and he leaned forward nervously to poke the fire +that needed no poking. + +"Well! In spite of me, Billy's getting restless. He's getting worse than +restless, and I'm afraid to think how he may break out. You know how he +loses his sense once in a while. Have you noticed how the _Star_ has +been running him of late?" Mr. Murdock slowly gathered force in stating +his grievances. + +"Yes, I've noticed it," said Mr. Early. + +"The _Star_ is the only paper I haven't got a strangle hold of--at least +so I thought. But some of the other dailies are butting in. Say they're +afraid not to. Of course, an occasional black eye is all in the day's +work. It rather helps things along. Billy expects it, and he isn't +thin-skinned. It doesn't make much difference as long as our own organs +print what they're told. But, say, this thing is going beyond a joke. +Billy has been really cut up over the way this coroner business is +getting home to the public. He says if there is going to be squirming, +he'll look out that there are other people squirming besides himself. I +suppose that's meant as a threat for me. You know there are things--even +affairs that you are interested in, Sebastian--that are all on the +square, you know, and perfectly right, but they take too much explaining +for the public ever to understand them." + +"I know," said Mr. Early, still poking the fire. + +"And do you know who is back of the whole rumpus?" + +"Who?" demanded Mr. Early sharply, looking up. + +"Primarily this infernal next-door neighbor of yours." + +"Percival?" + +"Percival. He's too much of a kid to put himself forward, but he's +really the whole thing. He's been sneaking around town for months, +picking up information. He has a confounded cheerful way of making +friends that has cut him out for the job of politics, if he would just +put himself on the right side. Of course he has no more idea of +practical politics than--" Mr. Murdock looked around for an object of +comparison and concluded lamely, "than that girl on your magazine cover. +And what do you think is the latest?" + +"What?" + +"He's stirred up that mare's nest of a dude club till they've taken to +sending a committee to attend every meeting of the council--which is +irritating." + +"But not necessarily serious." + +"Not in itself, though it's getting on Barry's nerves, as you people of +fashion say. To tell you the truth, I've had to make a concession to +Barry, just to keep him in order. I preferred him right on the council +where he is, but he's got a bee in his top-hat. He wants to run for +mayor. I suppose he wants to show people what a great man he really is. +I gave in to him on that point. Now here comes in the thing that made me +look you up. Barry has some sort of an acquaintance with this Percival +fellow, and when he proclaimed his intentions, Percival jumped on him +with a flat defiance--told him that he had proof of a disreputable +affair in Barry's career that would queer him with the whole community. +How your neighbor got hold of this thing, I'm jiggered if I can guess. I +thought I was the only man in the city that knew it, and it has been my +chief club to keep Barry in order. But however he got them, Percival's +facts were all square, and Barry collapsed. Now, these two patched up an +agreement. Barry promised to give up his candidacy for mayor, and stay +in his seat in the council, and Percival, on his part, agreed to keep +quiet." + +"Well, that suits you all right." + +"It would if it ended there, but what I started out to tell you is this: +the Municipal Club is beginning to take up city politics in earnest. +They are organizing systematically in every ward to be ready for a fight +for the council in next fall's election, and, to cap the climax, I was +told to-day that they had succeeded in getting Preston to run for mayor. +Now you know they could hardly have picked out a worse man, so far as we +are concerned. Preston is popular and strong, and he's perfectly +unapproachable. I'd as soon tackle the law of gravitation. It isn't even +pleasant for respectable citizens, like you and me, to come out publicly +against the whole movement. We can't afford to do it. Everything we do +has got to be done on the quiet." + +"You needn't get so hot, Jim. It'll blow over. This kind of thing always +does. It's only spasmodic. You ought to know that." + +"Well, it's taking a very inconvenient time for its spasms. It may +result in spasmodically losing Billy his seat in the council in +November. Nice thing if we didn't have a clear majority of aldermen next +winter, wouldn't it?" Mr. Murdock was becoming finely sarcastic in his +rage. + +"I suppose it would be inconvenient," assented Mr. Early. + +"Inconvenient!" growled Murdock. "Is that the strongest swear word you +can raise? Do you happen to remember that the lighting franchise expires +next fall? Now do we want it renewed, or do we not? Can we afford to +lose the biggest thing we've got? Do we want Billy to see it through, or +do we not?" + +"We certainly do." + +"Well, what do you propose to do about it?" + +"I don't see that there is much to do except to sit pat, and let it blow +over." + +"Suppose when it blew over it should be a cyclone and you and me in the +cellar? No siree, I'm no sitter-down. I'm a fighter, even when I fight +in secret. Damn this feller, Percival, and his gift for making friends +and stirring up enthusiasm for himself! I suspect he has ambitions. So +much the worse for him, if James Murdock is in the ring against him. Do +you know my inferences? I am sure he is not one of the invulnerables. +The fact that he made a concession to Barry gives him away. He didn't +need to. If Barry can work him by a little flattery and an appeal to +their shoddy friendship, he's not one of your out-and-out, +no-compromise, reform-or-die fellows. Say, Early, you know him well. +Can't you get at him?" + +Mr. Early gave one of those roundabout motions that suggest a desire to +wriggle out of the whole matter, and answered slowly: + +"I shouldn't wonder if the entire business petered out, anyway. It's +almost a year to the next election, and Percival is going to be married +in a few weeks to a pretty little girl, who would never stir a man's +ambitions to anything more than a smart carriage and pair. He's turned +idiotic about her, and let's hope he'll stay so. Just at present I don't +believe all the boodle and graft in the world would turn a hair on him. +Love and politics, my boy, are no more congenial than water and +oil--especially if the politics is rancid." + +"We'll have to go into partnership with the lady to keep him down," said +Murdock with a grin. "I've formed more unlikely alliances than that in +my time. Why, good Lord! what's that?" he exclaimed for the second time +that night. + +His eyes had fallen upon a tall white column at the back of the room, +and at his words the column moved forward and displayed the flowing +robes, the snowy white turban, the gleaming ruby of Ram Juna. + +"Pardon my interruption," said the Hindu courteously. "I have been out. +I am but just returned. And I come to assure myself that all is well +with my admirable host." + +"Ah, Murdock, this is my friend, the Swami. He's going to stay with me +while he writes a book. I've given him the west ell, off in the quiet of +the garden, you know," said Mr. Early. + +"With kindness you give it. Obligation is mine," said the Swami, with a +deferential movement of his hands. "And I go at once to devote myself to +my greatest work. But now I have visited a lady, Mrs. Appleton, who has +great interest in me, and who desires to form what she calls a class. I +call it, rather, a circle of my friends." + +"And what do you do with them?" asked Mr. Murdock, with the same bald +curiosity that one displays at the zoo before the performing seals. + +"We increase the sum of nobility in the world," said the Swami softly. +"We sit together in long white robes, such as you see on me, and we pour +out love upon the universe." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Murdock. He was too astonished to pursue his +investigations. + +"It is a serene and blessed occupation," said the Swami. + +"And do they--does the class pay for that?" Murdock recovered so far as +to ask. + +"Pay? Not so!" said the Swami indignantly. "I ask of life no more than a +bare existence and that, a thousand times that, is mine, by the +benevolence of Mr. Early." + +"They're devilish pretty women, some of 'em, though. You have that +reward," said Mr. Early jocularly. + +The Swami cast on him a glance of cow-like anger, but Mr. Murdock went +on persistently: "And they don't give you any money at all?" + +"For myself, no. Some, if it harmonize with their desires, make +contribution through me to the great temple in India, where the brothers +may assemble, a sacred spot among the lonely hills. Some give to that, +but not to me. But I must no longer interrupt. I have made my salute. I +go to my remote room." + +With a reverential movement of the head, the white column moved away. + +"Gee!" said Mr. Murdock. "Can you stand that kind of thing around all +the time?" + +"Oh, I'm interested in all kinds of people," said Mr. Early. "And he's +the most inoffensive creature. I shall hardly see him. He intends to +lock himself up out there in his room most of the time. He meditates in +silence ten hours a day and comes forth to give a lecture that nobody +understands. He's going to be all the rage." + +"And, of course, if he's the rage, you have him. I wish you'd make Billy +Barry the rage," said Murdock. + +"It's all I can do to popularize myself," said Early whimsically. "I'll +think over the situation a bit, Jim, and see if I can see any way out +from under. Of course, Percival hasn't any record by which you can +discredit him and keep his mouth shut--at least not yet." + +As Mr. Murdock took a last sip at the cocktail and made an unceremonious +exit, again Mr. Early settled himself for a period of repose, and again +he was interrupted. + +"Pardon," said the deep voice of the Swami. "You sit alone. Is it +permitted that I repose here and join your meditations? For a few +moments? In silence, if you will?" + +"I wish you'd pour out a little rest," said Early. "I'm tired." + +"In spirit and in body," answered the Swami. "The rush of the wheel of +life, it exhausts. But I comprehend. I also am a man. The great world of +business has its necessities and its value. My outer nature shares in +it. Ah, you know not. You think of me only on one side of being. But, +like you, I have my sympathies with many things." + +Mr. Early made no reply, but sank deeper into his chair. The two sat +long in silence. Sebastian looked at the fire and began to build up a +picture of Madeline's face. The Hindu was apparently lost to the +surrounding world, and yet he occasionally darted a glance of swift, +animal-like inquiry at his host. + +"Neither do I like the young man Percival," he said placidly, and Mr. +Early started. + +"It is your next neighbor, Percival, is it not, who annoys?" the Swami +inquired equably. "The youth who sneers when first I speak at your +house? In India, now, one may do many things that are here impossible. +Ah, but yes, you say, here you may do many things that are in India +impossible. So goes it. Still more. The same forces exist everywhere; +but we in India, we understand the forces that you, brilliant workers +with the superficial, you do not understand. I shall be glad to help +the benevolent Early, if at any time my services are of value. I know to +do many things besides to meditate." + +Mr. Early stared in amazement at the unmoved face before him, a face +almost as round and mystifying as the syllable "Om", on which its +thoughts were supposed to be centered. + +"And, remember, I, too, dislike the young man Percival," pursued the +Swami blandly. + +Mr. Early's mind suddenly stiffened with horror. + +"See here," he exclaimed, sitting up, "you understand Mr. Percival is no +enemy of mine. He is, in fact, a friend. You mustn't think you'd be +doing me a kindness by--ah--injuring him in any way." + +"My understanding," said the Swami, still unmoved. "Fear no midnight +assassination, noble friend. That is petty--and dangerous. I am not +oblivious of the conventionalities. But the mind may be reached, as well +as the body. Percival may do as I--you--we--wish. The higher animal at +all times controls the lower. Perhaps, at some time, I may serve you. +But you weary. The body makes demands. I bid you good night." + +He put out a great paw, and Mr. Early grasped it weakly, feeling that he +was in the position of one who has started an oil "gusher" and can not +control its flow. He might have to light it to get rid of it. + +To his own room went Ram Juna, occasionally nodding his head in his +serene manner. He carefully locked behind him the door which connected +his wing with the rest of the house. A few moments he paused listening, +then he crossed his bedroom and the narrow passage that opened on the +garden and entered the little unused room beyond. Here all was dark, +inky dark, for the heavy shutters on the street side of the room were +closed and barred and the shades on the garden front were drawn, +shutting out what dim rays the departed sun had left the night. The +Swami apparently had no need of greater light, for, neglecting the +electric button near the door, he groped quietly about, struck a match +and lighted a single candle, with which he returned to the hallway and +opened the garden door, standing for a moment with the taper flickering +in the rush of cold air that poured in from outside. When he stepped +back and closed the door, there stood beside him another man, +clean-shaven, lean, sharp-nosed and ferret-eyed, whose footstep was +almost as light as that of the Swami himself. Neither of them spoke +until they reached the smaller room and the door was locked. + +"You shiver, my friend," said Ram Juna. "The night is cold." + +"Freezin', an' so'm I," said the other shortly. "You keep me waiting a +devil of a time." + +"Business, oh my friend, business. Can I utter a word to the ears of +your nationality more convincing? I was necessitated to converse with my +host, the rich and amiable Early. Ah, the nature of humanity is +eternally interesting." + +His companion grinned. + +"Which means, being interpreted, you've got some lay, I suppose. What is +it!" + +"Abruptness is to me foreign," said the Swami, waving his great hand +with its combination of fat palm and taper fingers. "It disturbs me. +Perhaps, some day, I shall need tell you. The amiable Early is as are +all mankind. On the one side he gropes among infinities. Do we not all +so? On the other side he is tied by this body of clay to the groveling +earth. Are we not all so? Am not even I myself?" The Swami turned +benevolently toward the other. + +"You bet! And you can sling language about it!" said the man, and he +opened his rat's mouth and laughed without noise. Even Ram Juna's face +relaxed into its Buddha smile, calm, inscrutable, as the two gazed on +each other. Suddenly the younger drew himself together. + +"Well, I ain't got no time to spare," he said. "Are they ready?" + +"I, as well as you Americans, can be the votary of business," answered +Ram Juna. "The first principle of business is promptitude. My friend, +they are ready." + +"Well, hand 'em over," said the little man. "Now my job begins; and I +guess it's as ticklish as yours. You may need the skill, but I need the +gall." + +"The daring of the leopard when it leaps from the bush where it +crouches, the daring which is half cunning, eh, my friend?" said the +Swami comfortably. "Here, take the package and go thy way. There will be +more in the future. These I brought with me from India, and even the +eagle customs found them not. Many night-hours have I spent in preparing +them, and mine eyes have been robbed of sleep. It is no slight task to +produce a masterpiece." + +"Well, you certainly are a dandy," said the man, examining the contents +of his package. "I never seen anything like it. And those big hands, +too." + +"My hands obey the skill of my mind. And here, under the shadow of the +Early, I can work with purer courage. This is the perfection of a place. +It was the idea of genius to come here. Hold, let me examine the way +before thou goest." + +"Aw, there won't be any body in the garden at this time o' night, and at +this time o' year." + +"Nay, but it is the wise man who leaves no loophole for mistake," said +the Hindu, with practical caution. + +He blew out the light and stepped in darkness to the entrance with the +air of one who would refresh his soul by gazing at the stars and wiping +out the trivialities of the day. After he had looked at the heavens, his +eyes fell with piercing swiftness upon the shadows of the garden, its +bushes, manlike or animal-like in the night. + +It was as complete a piece of acting as though a large audience had been +there to see, but all thrown away on silence and solitude. + +"Coast clear?" said a voice behind him. + +"All is well," said the Swami. "Go forth to fortune." + +The door closed softly, and Ram Juna sought the repose he had earned. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE HONEYMOON + + +The first months of winter were full of excitement to Lena. She +frequently assured herself that she was rapturously happy, but, while +intellectually she accepted the fact, no genial warmth pervaded her +consciousness. The entrance to her new life was too brier-sprinkled for +bliss. Daily to face her mother's mingling of complaisance, self-pity +and fault-finding; to meet Dick's friends, whom Lena, in her suspicions, +regarded as thinly-disguised enemies; to scrimp together some little +show of bridal finery for her quiet wedding; all this filled her with +mingled irritation and gratification. + +Most aggravating of all were the persistent attentions of Miss Madeline +Elton. No one likes to be loved as a matter of duty, certainly not Lena +Quincy, whose shrewd little soul easily divined that this equable warmth +of manner, which she dubbed snippy condescension, sprang from affection +for Dick and Mrs. Percival and not for herself. Madeline set Lena's +teeth on edge, and it must be confessed that Lena often did as much for +Madeline, but each politely kept her sensations to herself. Miss Elton +always assured her optimistic soul that things would come out all right, +that love was a great developer, that small vulgarities of mind were the +result of association. + +Lena, on the other hand, might have broken friendly relations once and +for all except that she found Miss Elton both useful and interesting. A +friendly and very sly conspiracy between Madeline and Mrs. Percival had +for its object the helping out of Lena's meager trousseau by certain +little gifts, and even of money delicately proffered so that it might +not wound a sensitive pride; and since Mrs. Percival was a victim to +invalidish habits, it fell to Madeline to act as executive committee. +But they need not have troubled themselves about delicacy, for Miss Lena +greedily gobbled everything that was offered to her, with pretty +expressions of gratitude, to be sure, but internal irritation because +the donors were not more lavish. + +Madeline, who would have shrunk from accepting a gift except from one +she really loved, of course expected Lena to feel the same way, and +every one of these presents given and taken was to her an assurance +strong of a new bond between them. So they shopped together, and Lena +modestly picked out some appallingly cheap affair and said: + +"You know I feel that is the best I can afford." And Madeline would +whisper, "Take the other, dear, and let the difference be a small +wedding present from me. Won't you be so generous?" and Lena was so +generous; but she told herself that they were not doing it for her, but +only because they were ashamed that Dick should have a shabby bride. And +perhaps she was right. It is pretty hard to analyze human motives, so +you may always take your choice, and fix your mind either on the good +ones or on the bad ones, whichever suit you best. Doubtless they are +both there. + +Sometimes Lena wished that she had been given a lump sum and allowed to +browse alone, for she felt her taste pruned and pinioned by the very +presence of Miss Elton, who, though she never ventured to criticize, had +yet a depressing influence on Lena's exuberant fancies. + +Once, after such a silent sacrifice on her part, Madeline and she drove +up to the Percivals' for five-o'clock tea. Her future mother-in-law was +in the accustomed seat, and Lena found a footstool near at hand, with a +pretty air of affectionate proprietorship that brought a glow to Dick's +face. + +"Yes," said Lena with a charming pout, "I'm utterly played out, getting +myself ready for your approval, sir." + +"Poor little girl," he whispered. "If you only knew what an easy task +that ought to be!" + +"I'm so glad Madeline can go with you," Mrs. Percival said, patting the +girl's hand approvingly. "I always think she has such perfect taste. +Some people get fine clothes and then make an heroic effort to live up +to them, but Madeline has the supreme gift of managing clothes that seem +a part of herself." + +It is impossible to tell how a speech like this rankled in Lena. +Sometimes she had a wild impulse to stand up and stamp and scream out, +"I hate the whole lot of you!" but she never did. She kept on smiling +and purring and longing for the freedom which would come when she was +safely married, had passed her initiation ceremonies, and could command +her own money. + +But it was wonderful what a fascination she felt for everything that +concerned Miss Elton. Every act, every garment, every inflection of the +girl she hated most was interesting to her. She watched Madeline like a +cat, and disliked her more and more. + +At length came the new year, and the day when Lena sat in a carriage by +Dick's side and was whirled away on that journey that was to take her +out of the old and into the new. Her hour-old husband looked at her with +an expression half-quizzical, half-adoring as she sat back and glanced +up with a heartfelt sigh, secure at last of her position as the wife of +Richard Percival. Until this moment she had never wholly believed it. + +"I'm glad the wedding's over," she said. + +"And I. More glad that our married life has begun. Lena, Lena, how +beautiful you are! When you came down the aisle, I hardly dared to look +at you; and yet it seems to me now that you are more lovely here alone +with me. I should think God would have been afraid to make such eyes and +lips and hair, sweetheart, knowing that He could never surpass them." + +He softly touched the little curl that crept out from below her hat and +kissed the upturned mouth in that ecstasy that borders on awe. + +"Now," he said, "you are never so much as to think of anything +unpleasant for the rest of your life. I wonder what you will most like +to do?" + +"Buy all the clothes I want," cried Lena with such a deliciously +whimsical twist of her little lips that Dick laughed at her irresistible +wit. That was coming to be one of Lena's most fetching little ways, to +say what she meant as though it were the last thing in the world that +could be expected of her. It was piquant. + +It was no time of year to dally in true lovers' fashion under pine trees +in some remote solitude, so Dick took her to cities and theaters and big +shops and got his fun out of watching her revel with open purse. Their +honeymoon was more full of occupation and less of rapture and sweet +isolated intimacy than Dick could have wished, but it was much to watch +the color come and go on her cheek in her moments of excitement, to +fulfil every capricious whim of her who had been starved in her feminine +hunger of caprice, to punctuate the rush of life by celestial moments +when she rested a tired but bewildering head against his shoulder and +listened silently with drooping lids to all he had to say, to feel that +he could answer the admiring glances of other men with the triumphant +knowledge, "All this loveliness is mine--only mine." Lena was so happy, +so outrageously happy,--and so shyly affectionate, what could the young +husband do but take with content the gifts the gods provided; and Dick +was lavish and easily cajoled. The simple trousseau helped out by Miss +Elton suddenly swelled to new and magnificent proportions. Lena +blossomed and glowed; she tricked herself out in the finery that he +provided and paraded before him and the glass until they both laughed +with delight. Dick felt that he was playing with a new and sublimated +doll, it was all so amusing, so inconsequential, and such fun. Although +he wondered a little where it would be appropriate to wear the enormous +pink hat with drooping plumes which perched on the showily fluffy head +now facing him, he quite appreciated the effect. + +"Oh, of course you think I'm stunning," Lena pouted. "But the question +is, what will other people think?" + +"Other people aren't the question at all," retorted Dick. "Who cares +what they think so long as you and I know that you are the very +loveliest woman on this whole wide earth--this good old earth." + +When they came home, Lena exulted again in the luxurious rooms that Dick +had fitted up for her in fashion more modern than the somber dignity of +the rest of the house. Here was another new sensation--a household +without bickerings. The elder Mrs. Percival, having accepted the +situation, was no niggard in her spirit of courtesy, but very gracious +as was her wont, and Lena was astonished to find that she and her new +mother-in-law ran their respective lines without collisions. The +half-invalid older woman breakfasted in her own room and occupied +herself with quiet readings and sewings and drivings, but when she did +appear on the family horizon, it was always as a beneficent presence. + +Lena purred in the presence of comfort; but when you see a kitten +serenely snoozing before the fire, it does not do to leap to the +conclusion that this kitten would not know what was expected of her on +the back fence at midnight. + +If storm and stress should ever come, Dick had himself helped her to +feel that beauty would fill the measure, wherever it fell short; that +however she might sin, beauty was her sufficient apology. + +Mrs. Quincy, established in a little flat with a middle-aged submissive +slavey, was as nearly reconciled to fate as her nature would allow. Her +rooms were pleasantly furnished, but Lena's mother was full of the +genius of discord, and almost automatically she so rearranged her +surroundings that each particular article made strife with its neighbor. +Harmony and Mrs. Quincy could not live in the same house. When Lena paid +her duty visits (and she was irritated at the frequency with which +Dick's and Madame Percival's expectations seemed to exact them) she had +not only to listen in nauseated impatience to Mrs. Quincy's minute +questions and comments on people and things, but she had also to feel +her rapidly-developing tastes offended by her mother's domestic order. + +"Miss Elton's real kind. She's been here twice since you was here. And +she brought flowers." + +"Mother! And did you have a newspaper on top of that pretty little +table?" + +"Land sakes! And if I didn't I should have to watch Sarah every minute +to see she didn't put something hot on it or scratch the mahogany top. I +can't afford to have everything I've got spoiled. No knowin' when I'll +git anything more--dependent as I am on other people." + +"I'll bring you a pretty table-cover then." + +"I'd like a red one. But I didn't suppose you'd think of gittin' one." + +"Oh, mother, red wouldn't look well in this room." + +"Now, I just think a bit of real bright red would hearten it up. If you +don't git red, you needn't git any, Lena Quincy, for I won't use it. Are +you goin' now? Seems to me you got precious little time for your old +mother since you put on all your fine lady airs." + +And Lena? Have you ever watched a cecropia moth when it crawls out of +its dull gray prison of chrysalis? It is a moist, frail, tottering +creature with tiny wings folded against its quivering body, but as the +spring sunshine brings to play its magic and infuses its "subtle heats," +there come shivers of growth. Great waves seem to pulsate from the body +into the wings, and with each wave goes color and strength. In quick +throbs they come at last until they look like a continuous current, and +before your eyes is a glorious bird-like creature, with damask wings +outspread, and flecked with peacock spots, hiding the slender body +within. It feels its strength, spreads and preens itself, and is away to +the forest to meet its fate. + +Such was Lena in the first months of her marriage. The world's warmth +welcomed her, partly in curiosity, and partly because she was in truth +Richard Percival's wife, and the protegee of Mrs. Lenox, who took every +pains to shield her and help her. The ways of that little sphere that +calls itself society she found it not difficult to acquire, when to +beauty she added the paraphernalia of luxury. A little trick of holding +oneself, a turn of speech, a familiarity with a certain set of people +and their doings, and the thing is accomplished. Was there ever yet an +American girl, whose supreme characteristic is adaptability, who could +not learn it in a few months, if she set her mind to it? + +As she experienced the true pleasure of being inside, which is the +knowledge that there are outsiders raging to make entrance, she spread +her wings, did Madame Cecropia, and the only wonder was that she was +ever packed away in the dull gray chrysalis. And now every one forgot +that ugly thing, when Lena changed her sky but not her heart. + +Dick and she lived in a whirl; and if he would have liked, after +strenuous days spent in spreading political feelers, to have found at +home quiet evenings and old slippers, he was rapidly learning that the +position of husband to a young beauty is no sinecure. And he admired and +loved her too much to fling even a rose leaf of opposition in her path. +The very hardship of her past made him tender to every whim of the +present. Dick's chivalry was deep-grained, as it is in men who have +lived among pure and simple women. In everything that wore petticoats he +saw something of his mother, fragile, noble, ambitious for those she +loved and forgetful of self. When Lena began to show him things that he +could not admire, he laid the blame of them, not to her, but to the +world that had played the brute to her. And if he tried to change her it +was with apology in his heart for daring to criticize. But as Lena came +to take for granted the ease and comfort of her new life, she more and +more laid aside the pose with which she had at first edified her lord, +and spoke her real mind. She had fully acquired the manner and the +garments of a lady. She could not see that more was needed. + +One gray wintry day, as they walked homeward together from a midday +musicale, they passed a grimy little girl who whimpered as she clutched +her small person. + +"What's the matter, girlie?" asked Dick, and as he stopped his wife, +too, halted perforce. + +"My pettitoat's comin' down," sobbed the child. + +"Is that all?" said Dick. "I wouldn't cry about such a little thing. +I'll soon fix it for you." And he stooped. + +"Dick," said Lena imperatively, "there's a carriage coming!" + +"Let it come!" said Dick. "Sorry I haven't a safety-pin, girlie, but I +guess this one will do till you get home." That impulsive interest in +all varieties of human nature was so natural to him that he took for +granted that it was a part of our common nature. + +He looked up with a smile to see Lena's face crimson with wrath and +shame. Her expression sobered him. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +"It was Mrs. Lenox who drove by," she urged. "And she looked so +amused." + +"I don't wonder. I'm amused myself," he replied gaily. + +"A nice thing for a gentleman to be seen doing," Lena went on, with a +voice growing shrill like her mother's. "To play nursemaid to a dirty +little street brat!" She had said things like this to him before, but +always with that little smile and naughty-child air. Now, for the first +time she forgot the smile, and this small omission made an astonishing +difference in the impression. + +"I don't know what else a gentleman should do," answered Dick; "or a +lady, either. Mrs. Lenox would have done as much for any baby, her own +or another." + +"Much she would!" said Lena sharply. "I've been at her house. She has +rafts of nurses to do all the waiting on her children. I guess she +doesn't let them trouble her any more than she can help. If she's +unlucky enough to have the squally little things, she keeps away from +them." + +Even as she spoke, Lena realized that her acid voice was a mistake, but +she said to herself that she was tired of acting, and it did not make +any difference what Dick thought now. She was his wife. + +"Perhaps you don't know the whole, Lena," Dick answered. "I happen to +have seen Mrs. Lenox when she was devoting herself to a sick baby, and +Madeline has told me of the kind of personal care she gives." + +"The more fool she, when she can get some one else to do it for her," +said Lena, with feminine change of front. + +"Is that the way you feel about children?" asked Dick soberly. + +"I suppose they are necessary evils," said Lena with a smart laugh. "But +I'd rather they'd be necessary to other women than to me." + +"Well, perhaps that's a natural feeling, when we're young and like to be +irresponsible; but I fancy, dear, that things look pretty different as +we get along and are willing to pay the price for our happinesses--to +pay for love with service and self-sacrifice. As for me, I pray that you +and I may not some day be childless old folks." + +Lena glanced at him sidewise as they walked, and his somber face showed +her that her mistake went deeper than she had suspected. + +"I'm sorry I was cross," she said with pretty contrition, but her +prettiness and contrition did not have their usual exhilarating effect +on Dick. Lena even turned and laid her hand softly on his arm. Still he +did not look at her. + +"I wasn't hurt by your crossness, dear," he said gently. + + * * * * * + +Among those to open hospitable doors to the bride and groom was Mr. +Early. His house adjoined theirs, and only a hedge separated the two +gardens, old-fashioned, with comfortable seats under wide trees on the +Percival place, elaborately Italian on Mr. Early's domain, but spacious +both, for St. Etienne had the advantage of doing most of its growth +after rapid transit was invented, and had therefore never cribbed and +cabined its population into solid blocks of brick and mortar, but had +given everybody elbow-room, so that its residence district looked much +like the suburbs of older cities. + +So Dick and Lena went to dine with Mr. Early, and the bride had the +thrilling delight of sitting between her world-famous host and an +equally illustrious scholar, who had his head with him, extra size, and +was plainly bored to death by his own erudition. It was a large dinner, +and Lena was alert to study every one, both what he did and how he did +it; but chiefly, from her vantage point at the right hand of her host; +did she watch Miss Madeline Elton, who sat near the middle of the table +on the other side, where Lena could study her face over a sea of +violets. Lena was puzzled. Madeline seemed less reposeful and more +charming than she remembered. For an instant she wondered if her own +beauty, now tricked out by jewels, was not cheap beside Miss Elton's +undecorated loveliness. She noted that the men around the table looked +often in Madeline's direction. Even Mr. Early occasionally let his +attention wander from his suave courtesy toward herself, and Lena +resented this. She deeply admired Mr. Early. His was the big and blatant +success which she could easily comprehend, and she exulted at the idea +of sitting at the post of honor beside a man distinguished over the +length and breadth of the land. Once, even her own husband, Richard +Percival, leaned forward and gazed at Madeline as she spoke across the +table, and there was a look in his face that Lena treasured in her +cabinet of unforgiven things. She flushed with anger. Her hatred of Miss +Elton was as old as her acquaintance with her husband, and its growth +had been parallel. + +Then her eyes met the glowing glance of a dark face under a turban of +soft white silk, and she turned hastily away. + +"I see you are looking at my ceiling, Mrs. Percival," said Mr. Early. +"It is a reproduction of the beautiful fan-tracery in the Henry VII +chapel at Westminster. Doubtless you recognize it. But, alas, it is +impossible to attain the spiritual beauty of the original until age has +laid its sanctifying hand on the carving. This has had but a year of +life for each century that the chapel tracery can boast. And, of course, +I admit that the effect must be modified by the surroundings. A +dining-room can never have the atmosphere of a church, can it, my dear +Mrs. Percival? Though I assure you, I have tried to be consistent in all +the decorations and the furniture of this room." + +"It's very beautiful," said Lena. "And who is the large gentleman with +the long white mustaches?" + +"Surely you have met Mr. Preston. He is one of our best type of business +men, and the candidate that the new reform element, in which your +husband is playing an honorable part, is hoping to set up for mayor. It +would be a notable thing for this community if we might have a man of +his stamp represent our municipality." + +"I have heard Dick speak of him," said Lena, "And is that the wonderful +Hindu of whom I've heard? All the ladies are crazy about him, but I +never happened to see him before." + +"That is Ram Juna. He has been with me now for two months, and is to +stay indefinitely. He is engaged on a work that will, I am convinced, +add one more to the sacred books of the world. We need such men in this +age of materialism, do we not? And I feel gratefully the beneficent +effect of such a presence in my house." + +So Mr. Early went on with ponderous sentences and a sharp look in his +eye. + +But Lena hardly heard him. She was absorbed in the soft lights and the +flowers and the wonderful china, most of which, her host told her, had +been made in his own works and was unique in the world. But strange as +were all these things, her eyes kept coming back, as if fascinated, to +the man-mountain in the silky white robe. The big ruby on his forehead +seemed to wink and flash at her, and as often as she looked she met the +sleepy eyes fixed on her face. Then she was irresistibly drawn to look +again to see if he was still watching. For once, she forgot her big blue +eyes and her bright little fluffs of hair and all the execution that +they were meant to do on the masculine heart, because there was +something different in the way this Oriental surveyed her. It was an +unblinking and unemotional study. + +Fortunately Mr. Early was content to talk and let her answer in brief. +Talking was not Lena's strong point. Mr. Early went on with his +monologue, in platitudes about art, and Lena looked interested, or tried +to, while she caught scraps of conversation from farther down the table. + +Miss Elton was telling a story of her cooking-class in a certain poor +district. She had shown a flabby wife, noted even in that region for her +lack of culinary skill, how to make a dish at once cheap, palatable and +nutritious. + +"And I said, 'Now Mrs. Koshek, if you'd give that to your husband some +night when he comes home tired, don't you think it would be a pleasant +surprise?' But all I could get out of her was, 'I'd ruther eat what I'd +ruther; I'd ruther eat what I'd ruther.' And I'm afraid Mr. Koshek is +still living on greasy sausages." + +"That might teach you, Miss Elton," said Mr. Preston, "the futility of +trying to improve women by reason. Now a man--" + +"Oh, pooh, reason! reason!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox, turning upon him, "I'm +sorry for you poor men, you mistaken servants of boasted reason! Reason +is the biggest fallacy on earth. It leads men by the straight path of +logic to pure foolishness." + +"And how is your woman's reason to account for that?" he asked +tolerantly. + +"Oh, I suppose your premises are never true. Or, if they are, another +man's opposite premises are equally true. So there you are. Two +contradictions are equally valid, but being a reasonable man you can't +see more than one of them." + +"And women can see both sides, of course." + +"Truly. And flop from one to the other with lightning rapidity. We are +too completely superior to reason to have any respect for or reliance on +it. Do you think I try reason on my husband when he is in the wrong in +his arguments with me! Not at all. I just say, 'I'm afraid you are not +feeling well, dear.' And I put a mustard plaster on him. It's +extraordinary how seldom he disagrees nowadays. Or when he's very +obstinately set on an objectionable course, it's a good plan to say +sweetly, 'I'll do just as you like, dear.' He invariably comes back with +an emphatic, 'No--we'll do as _you_ like.'" + +"I relinquish all claims to be called a reasonable being," said Mr. +Lenox with a wry face. + +"When we, the unmarried, hear confessions of this kind," said Madeline, +"it gives us an incongruous feeling to remember how happy you, the +married, seem, after all." + +"Getting along becomes a habit," retorted Dick. "Matrimony is like +taking opium. It fixes itself on you. I suppose when the hero of +Kipling's poem found out that she was only 'a rag and a bone and a hank +of hair,' he kept on loving the rag, even while he felt like gnawing the +bone and pulling the hair." + +He knew he had said an ugly thing. It wasn't like him. He flushed as he +saw Mrs. Lenox glance sharply at him. + +"Dick, Dick, that is heresy," she exclaimed gaily. "We must pretend +there aren't any vampires, and that we do not know what they are made +of. If we tell the naked truth, how can we cry out with conviction that +the old world is an harmonious and beautiful place?" + +"That isn't your real philosophy," he said. + +"No, it isn't," she said. "I sometimes wish it were. If one could have +the temperament to shut one's eyes and say, 'I don't see it; therefore +it isn't true,' what a very easy thing life would be." + +"I don't know," answered Dick. "Going it blind with a dog and a string +doesn't generally make it easier to walk." + +"That's true," Madeline put in. "A little dog isn't a very good guide up +the hilly road of righteousness. As for me, I prefer open-eyed obedience +to blind obedience." + +"I'll be bound you prefer obedience anyway," Dick said in an undertone, +and he looked at her as though something in her hurt him. He turned +abruptly to Mr. Preston. + +"Preston," he said, "I wish we could hold a special election and put you +into the executive chair before your time. Every kind of evil thing is +taking advantage of our present lax administration. I believe the crooks +of other cities are flying to us on the wings of the wind. One of the +plain-clothes men told me to-day that the government detectives have +traced a gang of counterfeiters to our beloved city, though they have +not succeeded in spotting the rascals' whereabouts. It's rather +humiliating to find St. Etienne picked out as a good hiding-place for +any villany there is going." + +"You needn't be so sure that a special election or any other kind would +carry us in," laughed Mr. Preston. "I'm not so confident as you seem, +Percival, that this community is overwhelmed with the consciousness of +its rare opportunity." + +And so the talk drifted on, as usual, to politics. + +After dinner, in the drawing-room, Lena saw her husband in conversation +with Ram Juna. The two crossed the room, and Dick introduced the new +prophet. + +"I fear my too constant inspection disturbed you. Myriad pardons for +me," began the Swami in his mellifluous voice. "It is the tribute. When +I feel deep interest I am prone to forget all but my study. See, I am +the last of a family once powerful and wealthy; yet I hardly regret that +heritage that I have lost. I look at you. You are the type of another +fate. You are a bride, young, lovely, with the vigor and glory of this +new race of America. I envy not, but I wonder. So I look too long." + +Lena glanced discomfited at the retreating back of her husband and +said, "I'm sure I didn't notice anything peculiar." + +A curious gleam came into Ram Juna's sleepy eyes. + +"Ah, then you, like me, love to examine the soul, your own or another's. +You have fellow feeling. So you forgive. May I sit here beside you?" + +Lena drew aside her petticoats and the Swami shared her little sofa. + +"You see that while you make study of others, I make study of you. I +should wish to be your friend. I should in fact fear to have you count +me an enemy." + +Lena blinked at him in an uncomprehending way with her big eyes, and he +smiled innocently in return. + +"A woman who is an enemy is a danger. But men are tough-skinned and hard +to kill. Is it not so? And even a woman enemy is often powerless to +hurt. But when a woman hates a woman, then the case is different. A +woman is easy to hurt. A little blow, even a breath on her reputation or +to her pride, and the woman is wounded beyond repair. Is it not so?" + +Still Lena stared blankly at him, but as he did not return her gaze, her +eyes followed his to the other side of the room where Miss Elton bent +over a table, with Mr. Early on one side of her and Dick Percival on the +other. + +"Oh!" she said with a little gasp. "Oh!" And Ram Juna looked back at her +and smiled again. + +"Therefore I was right to desire your friendship and not your enmity, +was I not?" said he. "I, too, am a good friend and a bad enemy. See, Mr. +Early shows some wonderful Japanese paintings. Shall we join them in the +inspection?" + +And Lena went with wonder, and in her mind there began to form vague +clumsy purposes which the Hindu would have despised if he had read them. + +Nor did her conversation with her husband in the home-returning carriage +tend to soften Lena's heart. + +Dick was in an uncomfortable and irritable state of mind which was +strange and disconcerting even to himself. Instead of giving her the big +hug that was his habit when they found themselves safely alone, he said +sharply, + +"Lena, you use too much perfume about you. I wish you wouldn't." + +"Do I?" asked Lena ominously. "Is there anything else?" + +"Well, since you give me the chance to say it, dear," Dick's tone was +now apologetic, "I'd a little rather you wore your dinner gowns higher. +I know many women do wear things like yours to-night, and your +dressmaker has dictated to you; but I think the extremes are not +well-bred. Just look at the best women. Look at Mrs. Lenox and +Madeline--" + +But here Lena gave so sharp a little cry of anger that Dick stopped +dismayed. + +"How dare you?" she screamed. "How dare you hold up a girl you know I +hate as an example to me! If she's so perfect, why didn't you marry her? +I'm sure she wanted you badly enough." + +Dick shrank back a little. To him love--the desire for marriage--was +hardly a thing to be touched by outside hands. He wished Lena would not +tear down the veils of reticence so ruthlessly. + +"Lena, she did not want me at all. Be reasonable." + +"Well, then, you took me just because you couldn't get her, did you? +Everything she does and wears is perfection. And there's nothing about +me that's right!" Lena had now come to the point of angry tears. + +"There's one thing about you that's right; and that's my arms, +sweetheart." Dick spoke sturdily in spite of trepidation, for this was a +new experience to him. "You know I love you, Lena, I did not mean to +hurt you. I thought only that you were a sweet little inexperienced +woman, and that you would welcome any hints from your husband's worldly +wisdom. Come, don't turn into an Undine, dear, and get the carriage all +wet,"--for his wife was now sobbing on his shoulder. + +"You've told me lots of times that I was perfect," she cried. "I don't +see why you want to change me now. You're so inconsistent, Dick." + +"I wish that I could make up for my brutality," said Dick. "How can I, +Lena? I feel like the fellow that threw a catsup bottle at his wife's +head at the breakfast-table and then felt so badly when he saw the nasty +stuff trickling down her pretty curls that he brought her home a pair of +diamond earrings for dinner." + +"What a horrid vulgar story!" exclaimed Lena. + +"Isn't it?" Dick rejoined. "But vulgar things are frequently true, as +we learn with sorrow. Lena, can't we believe that our marriage +certificate had an affection insurance policy given with it? Don't let +us indulge in little quarrels. As you say, they are vulgar. I want love +to be not only a rich solid pudding full of plums, but I want it to have +a meringue on top." + +As he hoped, this made Lena laugh, and she pulled out her over-scented +handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Dick shut his lips tightly, grown too +wise to speak. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +LENA'S FRIENDS + + +Lena sat one morning behind the coffee-urn so self-absorbed and smiling +that Dick wondered. + +"Mrs. Percival," he remonstrated, "you have a husband at this end of the +table. Have you forgotten it? What are you thinking about?" + +"Dick, I believe I have found a friend--a real friend," Lena jerked out. + +"A good many of them, I should say. Who is this fortunate person?" + +"Mrs. Appleton." + +"Mrs. Appleton!" Dick gulped at his coffee and stared at his wife in +some perplexity. "Isn't she a--well, for one thing, a good deal older +than you?" + +"She'll be all the better guide," Lena retorted with one of her demure +pouts. "You know she invited me to join the class she has gotten up for +Swami Ram Juna. You needn't grin in that horrid way, Dick. I shall be +so wise very soon that you'll be afraid of me." + +"Heaven forbid, you dear little inspirer of awe." + +"At any rate, she's taken the greatest fancy to me, and I to her. She +came here yesterday in the pouring rain, and we spent a long afternoon +talking together. We feel the same way about everything. She says that +with my beauty, I ought to make a great hit, and she's going to give a +big reception in my honor. Of course, with her experience, she can be a +great help to me." + +"I see." Dick forgot his breakfast entirely, and meditated. + +"What is Mr. Appleton like?" Lena persisted. + +"He has enough money to make me pale my ineffectual fires, and he adds +to that the personality of the great American desert. But I suspect his +wife is so wholly satisfied with the golden glow that the latter fact +has never penetrated to her consciousness. I think Mrs. Appleton has not +yet recovered from her astonishment at finding herself wedded to +profusion. It appears to delight her afresh from day to day." + +"You can be very nasty about people when you choose." Lena's tone was +unmistakably vexed. + +"Frankly, Lena, I do not like Mrs. Appleton or her attitude toward life. +She is the kind of woman who refuses to take the simplest thing simply, +the kind that thinks subscription dances and clubs and private cars and +family tombs were invented chiefly to show our exclusiveness." + +"Well, what are they for?" + +Dick laughed. "Most of them to get all the fun there is in things, I +should say; and the tombs, to show that love holds even after death." + +"I like her, anyway," said Lena. "I like her better than the stuck-up +kind of women." The words sound bald. Lena's lips made them seem +humorous. It was so easy to avoid disapprobation just by that little +smile and whimsical twist of the mouth. + +"And whom do you mean by that!" + +"You know whom I mean," Lena answered defiantly. "And I consider Mrs. +Appleton a great deal more of a society woman than Mrs. Lenox. At any +rate she goes a great deal more. And she does not neglect her church +duties or her charities, either. She has told me things that she is +doing." + +"I should say she does not neglect them," ejaculated Dick. "She has the +art so to regild them that even philanthropy and religion become mere +appendages to society. Does Mrs. Lenox belong to Ram Juna's class, +Lena?" + +"No. Mrs. Appleton asked her, but she wrote that though she was +interested in oriental thought, she, personally, found it more +satisfactory to get it by reading. Now wasn't that snobby, Dick?" + +"Is it snobbish to choose what really suits you, instead of following a +craze like a sheep woman?" + +But Lena shut her lips tightly. If she had not will, she had obstinacy. +She could be resolute in behalf of her realities, luxury, beauty and +self. From the moment when Mrs. Appleton first dawned on her horizon, +she had recognized her ideal. Here was a woman who was at once showy, +fashionable and virtuous. The things that Mrs. Lenox took for granted or +ignored were to her matters of absorbing importance. She magnified the +office of every detail of social conduct and every minutia of society's +"functions". It was worth while to spend a week of soul-fatiguing labor +in order that a tea should be just right; and her preparations were not +made in silence, but with an amount of discussion and red-tape that +filled every crevice of life. She had learned the art of so cramming the +days with trifles that there was no room for the big things and she +could conveniently forget them. + +Mrs. Appleton seemed to recognize in Lena the same curious mingling of +deep-down barbaric egotism and love of display, with the longing to be +civilizedly correct. The two were drawn together. + +"I like her," said Lena positively. + +"I'm sorry," Dick said gently. "I can't say that I do, and I should be +glad if you could find your friends among those I love and respect." + +"You needn't try to dictate my friendships," said Lena sharply. + +"I did not think of dictating, sweetheart. But when we love each other, +we naturally long for sympathy in all things." Dick was making a brave +effort. + +But there was little use in making this appeal to Lena, to whom love was +but a beneficent masculine idiosyncrasy. Dick glanced at her and at his +watch. + +"I must be off," he said. "I have an engagement to meet Preston and +plan out our campaign." + +"Ours!" + +"I'm going to run for alderman of this ward," Dick laughed as Lena +flushed. "Don't you approve?" + +"How can you be interested in running for alderman?" she asked. "It is +such a mean little ambition. I wish you would try for something big. It +would be grand to have you a senator, so that we could go to Washington. +I should love to be in all the gaieties and meet all the distinguished +people." + +"Why, sweetheart, you don't suppose I care for the great name of city +father, do you?" Dick answered laughing. "That's only the end of a +lever. I do care immensely to be one of those who will clean up this +city and keep it clean. Perhaps, if we do these near-by things, the big +ones will come, by and by." + +"A sort of public housemaid," said Lena scornfully. + +"Exactly!" Dick laughed and nodded. + +But Lena shrugged her shoulders and pouted as the door shut and she idly +watched her husband's final hand-wave. + +He walked down town and the fresh northern air set his pulses +quickening. He noted how few gray heads there were, how full everything +seemed of the vitality of youth. On the piazzas were groups of happy +well-kept children, bundled up for winter play and bubbling over with +exuberance. To any passer-by they told that these were the homes of +young married people. Everywhere life looked sweet and normal and +vigorous. And he knew that for miles in every direction there were more +such homes of more such people. + +But when he reached the part of town whither his steps were bent, all +this was reversed. Here was dirt, if not of body, then of spirit. Here +were a thousand evil influences at work. Here was public plundering for +private greed; here were wire-pullings and bargainings and selfishness +reigning supreme. And these forces were the nominal rulers of a city, +the greater part of whose life was good. + +However, he was getting the ropes in his hands. These things were no +longer vague generalities floating in his mind, as rosy clouds might be +backed by thunder-heads on the horizon. They were growing definite. He +began to know who were the evil-workers and how they did it. He had the +art of making friends, and he made friends among publicans and sinners +as well as--well, there weren't any saints in St. Etienne to make +friends with. At any rate some of the powers that were began to say that +Dick Percival knew entirely too much. And some of the powers that ought +to be, but still slept, namely the good citizens of St. Etienne, found +their slumbers disturbed by his straight and convincing words. + +But to-day all his labors seemed not worth while. There was a sour taste +in his mouth. To do the little thing with a big heart was after all +nothing but a sham. His ideals, he thought, had simmered down to petty +things. He was spending his time in nosing out small evil-smelling +scandals and in running for a mean inferior office. He felt nauseated +with himself. Worse, he felt a horrible new doubt of his wife. Mrs. +Appleton had been to him the type of woman he disliked, worldly, +shallow, busy with the sticks and straws; yet now there would creep in a +suspicion that some of the things he had forgiven to Lena's beauty and +lack of sophistication were close of kin to the older woman's more +blatant materialism. Materialism was the thing Dick had not learned to +associate with his own women. + +This radiant morning, then, he felt himself under the dominion of the +grand inquisitors who invented the torture of little things. Life +consisted in having slow drops of water fall on his head, one at a time. +Family life was slimed with small bickerings, children were a nuisance, +society a bore, and the most beautiful woman in the world defiant and +uninspiring at the breakfast-table. + +It does not take Cleopatra long to wither the ideals. + +Dick began to analyze his wife, which is a dangerous thing for a man to +do. If a husband wishes to preserve the lover's state of mind, he must +continue to think of his wife as a single indivisible creature, not a +compound of faults, virtues and charms, lest in some unlucky moment he +find that the faults are the biggest ingredient. + +Dick, however, was thinking, and the substance of his thoughts was that +this little girl, who bore his name, had her seamy side. Up to now, if +he noticed a defect, he instantly and chivalrously put it out of his +mind, but now certain doubts had knocked so long that by sheer +persistence they forced an entrance. Lena, who began by being a sweet, +innocent, much-enduring little thing, now that he knew her more and +more intimately, was less and less the creature he imagined. To the +world in general she was still the big-eyed ingenue, learning to take +her place in society. To him alone, it seemed, to him whose love and +reverence she ought to have desired, she was becoming indifferent as to +the impression she made. Was the other side of her a pose? Dick found +himself walking very fast, and he slackened his pace to a respectable +gait. If Lena the lovable was a pose, then the inspiration and ideals +and joy of his life were frauds. That thought was too appalling. He +deliberately stopped thinking about it and turned his thoughts to frauds +in city politics, which were easier to endure. + +Lena, on the other hand, sitting idly by the window, indulged in a +little reflection on her own part. She was revolving with some +bitterness her disappointment and disillusionment. She remembered what a +glorious gilded creature Dick had appeared to her at one time. Now he +was sunk to be a very ordinary young man, with curious and stupid +idiosyncrasies, and not nearly so rich and important as many of the +people she came in contact with. Might she have done better if she had +waited? She too stopped regretting and turned her attention to a novel. +She was just beginning to discover the charms of "Gyp." She looked up to +see Mr. Early come up the pathway, and a moment later he stood beside +her. + +"Mrs. Percival," he said, "I have brought you this little vase, the +first of its kind that my artists have produced. I thought it so really +beautiful that I could not resist laying one before you as a kind of +tribute." + +"Oh, it is lovely. And am I really the only person in the world who has +one?" + +"You and Miss Elton." A pang of small jealousy shot through Lena's +heart. It was always and everywhere Miss Elton. "I sent her another, but +of slightly different shape. I am, as you know, a worshiper of beauty, +but all these creations of man's hands are but parodies, are they not, +Mrs. Percival, on absolute beauty? They are like ourselves, the +creatures of a day. Nature herself, in sea and air and woodland, +produces exquisite loveliness, and yet even her achievements are dwarfed +when one stands face to face with one of creation's masterpieces--a +woman." + +And Mr. Early made a ponderous bow as he presented his work of art. Lena +was so impressed by this compliment that she wrote it out while it was +fresh in her memory, and when Dick came home, she read it to him. He +gave a great bellowing laugh that grated harshly on Lena's nerves; and +then at sight of her reproachful eyes, he drew himself together and gave +her a friendly pat on the shoulder, affectionate, to be sure, but quite +different from Mr. Early's chivalrous manner, and said: + +"Thinks you better than his old straight-legged tables, does he? Well, I +should say so! Serves him right for being an old bachelor, and having +nothing but furniture and Ram Juna to illuminate existence. I should +expect that combination to drive a man either to drink or to blank +verse." + +"I don't think it is nice of you to swear, Dick," Lena answered +severely, but on the verge of tears. + +"Swear, sweetheart? Why, what do you mean?" + +"Well, it's almost the same thing to talk about 'blank' verse." Dick +laughed again and went directly to the library without even noticing the +extremely lovely new dress which his wife had put on for his +edification. + +Dick's limitations were becoming manifest to young Mrs. Percival. He +might be a gentleman, but she feared that he would never be more. There +was nothing imposing about him. He had lifted her out of sordid want, +but he would not raise her to the pinnacle of greatness. The bland flat +face of Mr. Early and his commanding slowness of movement impressed her +imagination much as a great stone image might its votary. Here was +indeed the truly illustrious. She devoured every floating newspaper +paragraph that concerned Sebastian; for she was still under the dominion +of the idea that greatness in the dailies constituted greatness indeed. +She would have been proud to touch the hem of his frock-coat. How much +greater her elation when, on public occasions, he singled her out and +stalked across the room to utter in loud tones, intended for the ears of +half a hundred, some well-rounded compliment. A conquest of Mr. Early +would have been, for Lena, the consummation of achievement; but she +could not help seeing that his eyes turned more frequently upon Miss +Elton than upon Mrs. Percival--upon Miss Elton, of whom she felt +constant jealousy and abnormal curiosity. + +Jealousy rose to its height when, on a certain afternoon, from her +favorite post beside a window, Lena watched a carriage drive up to Mr. +Early's door, and Miss Elton dismount and run up the steps. Mrs. +Percival leaned forward to make sure of her eyes, and then she sat and +eyed the hole where the mouse had disappeared. + +Of course she could not know what was going on inside. When Madeline +received a note from Mr. Early, asking her to come and see some very +wonderful tapestries that he had just hung, it seemed the most natural +thing in the world. Sebastian's house was always more like a museum than +bachelor's quarters. He was continually turning it inside out for public +inspection, so Madeline went in all innocence, expecting to find a dozen +or so of her friends sharing the private view. She was embarrassed, but +hardly seriously, as Mr. Early came forward to welcome her. + +"Am I all alone?" she said with a little laugh. + +"Apparently you are. But I dare say some others will drop in on us in a +moment," Mr. Early made answer. "Meanwhile I am favored, for your +opinion is what I particularly want. These queer old tapestries have +been sent to me from France, but whether I keep them or not depends on +whether they seem the right thing in the right place. Will you come this +way?" + +The big hall had a singularly impersonal aspect. Madeline had never +before seen it except when thronged with people, and now that they two +stood alone in its wide empty space, she was struck with a certain +desolation in it. + +"Well?" inquired Mr. Early. + +"I can't tell at once," said Madeline slowly. "Beauty is a thing that +takes time to unfold itself upon one, isn't it? But I think they are +beautiful. They are certainly strange and solemn, and they intensify the +dignity of this big room; but they make it seem less homelike than ever. +They seem to me things to look at rather than to live with. I suppose +their appropriateness depends a little on what you want to make of this +place. And you do want it only for a public room, do you not, Mr. +Early?" + +"I am afraid that is all I am capable of," said Sebastian, looking +pensively at her. "You see the home feeling is beyond my achievement. It +needs the feminine touch to create that ideal atmosphere. That, Miss +Madeline, is above art." + +"It is so common, are you sure it is not below art?" Madeline smiled. + +"I am sure," responded Mr. Early with conviction. "It is a subject on +which I have thought much since you came home last year. Never until +then did I wholly realize the lack in my home and in my life. If now, in +all humbleness, I am consulting your taste, it is because I have +sometimes dared to hope that you, my dear lady, would one day give that +final grace to this which would make it indeed a home, instead of the +mere abiding place that it is now." + +Madeline turned upon him sharply. + +"Mr. Early," she said, "it isn't wholly courteous in you to take +advantage of my being alone with you in your own domain to speak to me +in this way." + +"I beg your pardon," Sebastian answered. "It was a wholly unpremeditated +expression of what has long been an ardent desire. I did not mean to +speak, but your own words seemed to break down the barriers of my +passion. I could wish that you would permit me to put it in the form +which my heart prompts; but perhaps you are right. Your fine sense of +the proprieties must be my rule of conduct. I shall only trust that I +may soon find a time to speak when I shall not offend your delicacy, +and when, I pray, I may not offend your heart." + +"Neither now nor at any other time should I advise you to go any +further," said Madeline laughingly, for it was hard to take the bombast +of Mr. Early very seriously. He made her think now of a sort of pouter +pigeon. And Sebastian remained only partly satisfied as to the effect +which he wished to produce. He wanted to give her something to think +about, and so make way for the more impassioned wooing that he was +resolved should follow. He was convinced that to stand alone with him in +the midst of his splendors would make a strong impression on the mind of +any sensible girl. The great hall was certainly a place to capture the +imagination--not only from its stately proportions and the mellow +coloring that melted into shadow in the far-off roof, but from the +multitude of smaller details, the intricate carvings, gathered abroad or +made under Mr. Early's own eye, the few priceless paintings, the great +jars whose exquisite decorations blended their richer tones with the +deeper shades around. In a wide alcove was gathered a collection of +portraits of distinguished men and women, statesmen, artists and +literati of this country and of Europe, and each picture was accompanied +by an autograph letter to the well-beloved Sebastian Early. It could be +no small thing to contemplate the possession of this house of +notabilities and of the man who had built it up around himself. This, +Mr. Early meant, should be the artistic opening of his campaign. And +Miss Elton had laughed. + +There was silence for a long minute, and Madeline, glancing nervously at +her host, saw that his face was grave and that his eyes were fixed upon +her in a melancholy way. She began to feel uncomfortable. + +"I think I must be going now," she said. + +"You have not told me whether I am to keep the tapestries," Mr. Early +humbly objected. + +"Oh, I couldn't possibly decide for you. But they seem to harmonize +beautifully with this room." + +"I am grateful for your decision. Permit me to see you to your carriage, +Miss Madeline." + +Lena, watching hungrily from her vantage post, noted Mr. Early's +obsequious courtesies, Madeline's flushed face, and drew angry +conclusions. Nevertheless, she leaned forward and bowed graciously as +Madeline drove past. + +"If she should marry Mr. Early, I shouldn't feel as if I had triumphed a +bit in getting Dick away from her," she said to herself, with a bald +comprehension of her true state of mind. For Lena made up for her pose +toward others by a certain unimaginative frankness in her +self-communings. + +Then, catching a glimpse of another figure, she exclaimed, "Oh, there +comes Miss Huntress!" and immediately settled herself with an air of +elegant leisure to receive her former superior. Miss Huntress was a +source of continual satisfaction to Lena, the opposite of a skeleton at +the feast, a continual reminder of present prosperity as compared with +past nonentity. To meet her gave Madame Cecropia the same thrill of +satisfaction that it still did to draw her dainty skirts around her and +step into her carriage, half hoping that some envious girl was viewing +her perfections as she had once eyed those of others. On the other hand, +Miss Huntress derived almost equal pleasure out of her acquaintance with +Lena, whose littleness she measured, and whose small successes she +looked upon with amusement, unflecked by envy. Emily Huntress was a +plodding person, with much business on hand and an earnest necessity for +earning money, and though her canons were not over fine, still she had +her standards and lived up to them. She found Lena useful as a source of +social information. + +"You want to know what is going on?" inquired Mrs. Percival. "Well, of +course you know it's Lent, and there isn't anything much. But if you +will come up to my boudoir, I will look over my engagement book, and +perhaps I can help you to a paragraph or two." + +The word boudoir was a sweetmeat to Lena's palate, combined, as it was, +with the knowledge that her visitor, with a sister, kept house in three +rooms. + +So they went up stairs, and Lena babbled and preened herself, while Miss +Huntress frowned and pondered on the difficulties of making anything +readable out of her small kernel of information. The arrival of a cup of +tea, Miss Huntress, being a woman as well as a reporter, found +mollifying to the hardness of life. + +"I see," she said with an acid little laugh, "you have the _Chatterer_ +up here in your unholy of unholies." Her eyes fell on a small magazine +which made a speciality of besmirching the good names of the entire +country. "Everybody reads it, and everybody pretends to despise it." + +"It's awfully interesting," said Lena, and she went on with a little +giggle, "I think I'll just tuck it away before my husband comes in. He +doesn't approve of it, you know. Men don't care for gossip. I think it +is perfectly wonderful what an amount of scandal it gets hold of. I +don't see how they do it. And they've such a naughty way of writing it +up, too." + +"Nothing very remarkable. In every town of importance they have some one +always on the lookout for a promising piece of mud." Miss Huntress eyed +Lena speculatively for a moment. "I'll tell you in confidence," she went +on, "and I trust you to keep mum about it, for the sake of the times +when I helped you--I write for it here. I don't exactly like it, but you +know I can't afford to despise dollars and cents. It's just plain +business, after all. There's a demand for that kind of thing and it +falls to my lot to supply it." + +"And did you write that awful thing about Mrs. Clarke?" cried Lena, +sitting up with big blue eyes, and gazing earnestly at Miss Huntress +with, awe as an arbiter of reputations. + +"Yep," replied that lady with a gulp of tea. + +"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Percival. "I hope you'll never send them +anything about me." + +"Then you'd better never do anything indiscreet," Miss Huntress laughed +maliciously. "But I don't think you would," she went on speculatively. +"You're too clever and too ambitious for that. Do you know, I've rather +come to the conclusion that it's only rather simple-hearted people who +do those things. Take that Mrs. Clarke, now. Of course her husband was a +brute, and when the other man came along she fell so much in love with +him that she didn't even think of any one else in the world except their +two selves. A woman who was incapable of whole-souled passion would have +kept an eye on the world and walked the narrow path of virtue." + +"Why, you're defending her!" exclaimed Lena. + +"Not in the least," said Miss Huntress grimly. "I helped to make her pay +the price." + +"Oh, well," Lena said with an air of greatness, "there are some of us +who can combine the deepest love with decent behavior you know." + +"Of course," answered Miss Huntress. + +"Now Miss Elton is just that other kind. I believe she never thinks what +people say about her," Lena observed. "Not that she'd do anything out of +the way, you understand." + +"Certainly not." Miss Huntress began to prick up her professional ears. +"She's a particular friend of yours, isn't she?" + +"Intimate," said Lena. "You know they used to say that Mr. Percival--but +of course that was before he met me, and anyway there was nothing in +it." + +"I know," said Miss Huntress. "I sent a line to the _Chatterer_ once +about it." + +"Did you really? Well, of course, for form's sake, she has to be as nice +as ever to me and Mr. Percival. But she has reconciled herself. It's all +Mr. Early now." + +"You don't say!" ejaculated Miss Huntress with interest. + +"She's regularly throwing herself at his head. Why only this afternoon I +saw her do the most unconventional thing." + +"What was it?" + +"Oh, I dare say she was just getting him to subscribe to some charity or +something equally innocent. Still, it was queer. But I know her too +well to suspect her of any impropriety. She's really the dearest, +sweetest girl, Miss Huntress, and I'm the last person in the world to +criticize her." + +"But aren't you going to tell me?" + +"Well, she came, quite alone, you understand, to Mr. Early's this +afternoon, and was closeted there the longest time. I couldn't help +wondering what it was all about. What do you suppose?" + +"That was funny," meditated Miss Huntress. + +"I'm certain there's some perfectly natural explanation, if we only knew +it," Lena went on. "But she looked awfully flushed when she came out." + +"Thank you," said Miss Huntress. "I must be going now." + +"Oh, won't you have another cup of tea? Of course, I'm on very good +terms with Miss Elton," said Lena, fingering the tray cloth a little +nervously. "I shouldn't like her to think I'd criticized her behavior, +even to you." + +"You needn't be afraid," rejoined Miss Huntress. "I never let on how I +get my information. I'd lose my job if I did. Much obliged to you, Mrs. +Percival. Things are so dull during Lent that we're thankful for even a +few crumbs. I guess that's your husband's step. It must be getting +late." + +"Oh, good-by! Dick, you dear boy, how glad I am to see you," cried Lena, +fluttering to the door to meet her returning lord. "Miss Huntress, this +is my husband. Good-by, again. Don't you remember?" she went on, as Dick +followed her back into her room. "She used to be my 'boss' when I was a +poor little slavey in the _Star_ office, before my best beloved prince +came and rescued me from dragons and printers' devils." + +"And are you so fond of her that you keep up the acquaintance?" + +"Oh, I remember how hard it used to be to get 'matter'; and I don't mind +helping her out a bit when she's hard pressed." + +"You are a kind-hearted little soul, Lena,"--and her husband stooped and +kissed her fondly, doing penance in his heart for his doubts of a day or +two ago, thoughts cruel, unjust, unwarranted. Lena had never looked more +delectable than now, with her head on one side, pouring his tea. She +kissed each lump of sugar as she put it in and laughed at her own +conceit; and she brought the cup over to his chair and rubbed her apple +blossom of a cheek against his with a little purr. + +"I'm afraid you think me very silly, Dick," she laughed. "I do not seem +to get a bit wiser or better behaved, do I, for all Mrs. Appleton and +Ram Juna, and even your lovely high-bred mother? Dick, do you despise +me!" + +"Despise! Why I love and love you and love you all over," said Dick. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +GRAPE-SHOT + + +Mrs. Quincy, in her solitary confinement, unloved and complaining, might +be considered a figure either repulsive or pathetic, according to the +onlooker's point of view. Fortunately there are always a few big enough +at heart to turn towards the world a face of affection rather than of +criticism, to whom woe appeals more than vulgarity. + +So, once in a while in her busy life, Mrs. Lenox found time to drop in +as the bearer of a cheerful word and a friendly look to the ugly little +apartment where Mrs. Quincy lived in the third story height of domestic +felicity. + +On an April afternoon she came, like a dark-eyed Flora, her hands loaded +with daffodils that might bring a glow of the beauty of spring even to +an inartistic spirit. The front door stood open, and a flat has an +unrelenting way of laying bare all the skeletons that find no closet +room. Mrs. Lenox surprised a scene of domestic economy in the tiny +parlor. The curtains had been taken down for fear they would fade, and a +large piece of newspaper lay where the sunlight struck the carpet. In +the middle of the room sat Mrs. Quincy, and before her on a kitchen +chair stood a little tub of foamy soap-suds. A maid was stationed at +hand with a bar of soap and a bottle of ammonia, and the steam of homely +cleanliness filled the air. + +"Good gracious, I declare!" ejaculated Mrs. Quincy, "if it ain't Mrs. +Lenox! Come right in. I'm just washin' out my under-flannels and my +stockin's. I can't bear the slovenly ways of servants, and it's only +myself as can do 'em to suit myself. There, Sarah, you take the things +away, and I'll let you rinse 'em out this once. And mind you do it good. +Be sure to use four rinsin's. And soft water, mind. And hand me a towel +to wipe off my hands. It's real good of you to come and see a forlorn +old woman, that I know can't be much pleasure to you, Mrs. Lenox. There +ain't many that takes the trouble. And yet time was when I was +considered as good-lookin' as that ungrateful daughter of mine, that I +slaved for for years. Put them flowers in water, Sarah. I guess a +butter jar's the only thing I got that's big enough to hold them." + +Mrs. Lenox sat down, wondering if time and life could ever transform the +smooth beauty of Lena's features to this semblance of failure which they +so closely resembled. Mrs. Quincy's face was like a grain field over +which the storms had swept, changing what was its glory to a horror. + +The scarlet-faced Sarah hustled tub and chair and dripping garments +kitchen-ward. The visitor took up her task of cheerfulness, and Mrs. +Quincy cackled and grumbled to her heart's content. + +"Lena'd be 'shamed to death if she knew you'd caught me doin' my wash," +she whined. "I hope you won't tell her. She can come down on me pretty +hard sometimes, I tell you." + +"Oh, I won't tell," Mrs. Lenox laughed. "I only wish you had let me +help. I was thinking what fun it must be--with a maid to hold the soap. +It took me back to nursery days. I used to love to wash dolls' clothes." + +"I don't do it for fun," Mrs. Quincy snapped. "But I ain't provided with +a servant that's worth her salt. If anybody's dependent, like I am, on a +whipper-snapper son-inlaw, that ain't got affection enough for me to +spend an hour a week with me--why, I guess I have to pinch and scrape +wherever I can. No knowin' when I'll git more. I've worked hard all my +life for other folks, Mrs. Lenox. You can see by my hands how I've +worked. And what do I get for it? A stranger like you is kinder to me +than my own flesh and blood. And I know well enough that if Richard +Percival throws me a crust, it's only because he would be ashamed to +have folks say his mother-in-law was starving. Oh, I let him know that I +see through him whenever he comes near me--which ain't very often. And +Lena goes days and days and never comes to see me." Her voice and her +garrulity were rising, but here a sob gave pause, and Mrs. Lenox rushed +in, repressing an impulse to say a word on the elementary laws of give +and take in love. + +"Well, I think you are very sensible to do the washing. One must have +some occupation to fill the days, mustn't one? And there aren't many +things, when one is tied to the house. If to-morrow is warm, I wonder if +you would feel up to a little drive in the afternoon?" + +"I shouldn't be surprised if I would." + +"And do you care for reading? I've brought you a rather clever little +story. I see you have all the magazines." + +"Yes, Lena sends 'em. She thinks they'll occupy me and save her the +trouble of comin' herself. But, good land, I don't care for 'em beyond +lookin' at the pictures and the advertisements--except the _Ladies' Home +Companion_. That has good recipes in it; only Sarah can't make nothin' +that's fit to eat. But I did read that thing in the _Chatterer_ about +Miss Elton. You've seen it, of course!"--and she laughed with cheerful +malice and licked her lips like a cat. + +"About Miss Elton? In the _Chatterer_? I haven't the least idea of what +you are talking," said Mrs. Lenox in a dazed way. + +"It's over there," returned the lady, with a comprehensive wave of the +thumb. "You can read it. Lena said it couldn't be anybody else." Mrs. +Lenox rose and took the magazine from the table. She walked over to the +window and deliberately turned her back on her hostess. Her hands shook +a little as she turned page after page till her eyes fell on this little +paragraph. + +"In a certain western city which is famous for its flour and lumber +interests, there lives a bachelor who has made it still more +illustrious in the realms of art and literature. It is a standing insult +to feminine humanity that a man both famous and wealthy should remain +single, but, so far, all attacks upon the citadel of his heart have +proved futile. Rumor now has it that a capitulation is imminent, but the +besieging force has been driven to unusual measures to secure it. A +college training gives a girl the advantage over her fellows, both in +expedients and in determination. Not content with the extraordinary +attractions conferred on her by her own beauty, the young lady who is +ahead in the race for the gay bachelor's heart has been carrying the war +into Egypt. Gossip saith that there are quiet hours spent by these two +in the seclusion of the bachelor's stately home, when, doubtless, his +masculine heart melteth within him, and the bonds of his servitude are +tightened. Still, it is a dangerous game for a supposedly reputable girl +to play, isn't it? and a little--well, let us call it unconventional." + +Mrs. Lenox shut the magazine and her own teeth. + +"It is inconceivable that such stuff should be printed, and that people +should buy it," she said. "But you see it is so vague that it might +refer to any one at any place, and even if we knew who was meant, it is +too insignificant a piece of small malice to receive anything but +contempt. And now good-by, Mrs. Quincy. I hope these coming spring days +are going to help you to better health." + +"Good-by. I always appreciate your visits," whined Mrs. Quincy. "I'm +sure, with all you have to do, I don't wonder you don't come oftener. I +know there's nothin' to draw you." + +Mrs. Lenox went away with a deep breath and a longing for fresh air. She +shook her head at the waiting coachman and said, "I am going to walk, +Emil." + +She moved along in a cloud of conjectures, not that the small paragraph +seemed to her very important, but she was a little sickened by the +sudden glimpse of petty minds, who, being rich, stay by preference in +the slums. + +"Mrs. Quincy, like Mrs. Percival, makes me feel that life is not a big +thing to be lived for some big reason, but an affair to be scrambled +through day by day, grabbing everything you can, and hating those who +have grabbed more. What a way to worry through seventy or eighty years!" +she groaned to herself. + +Almost at her own door she met Ram Juna, who turned with her to make one +of his ponderous calls, while she sat and talked with him of emptiness +and philosophy, with that vivacious patience that becomes a habit with +women of the world; but when the door opened and her husband appeared, +accompanied by Dick Percival and Ellery Norris she heaved a distinct +sigh of relief. + +"We know that the dinner hour is looming on the horizon, and we're not +going to stay," said Dick. "But your husband has some civic reform +monographs that I thought I would borrow while he was in the lending +mood." + +"You needn't apologize, Dick," she laughed. "You are more than tolerated +in this house." + +There came a sharp noise, and Madeline Elton, with pale face and eyes +big, stood in the doorway. Every one knew that something had happened, +and Mrs. Lenox, who saw the rolled magazine in the nervous hand, guessed +its purport in a flash. + +"My dear girl!" she cried, running forward, "you are not going to let +such a pin-prick hurt you!" + +"Oh, Vera," exclaimed the girl, putting her face down on her friend's +shoulder, "you know! It does hurt. I can't help it," and she sobbed. + +The three men looked on in puzzled helpless masculinity, and the Swami +surveyed the scene as the two women clung to each other. + +"Vera," said Mr. Lenox, "are we permitted to know what this means?" Mrs. +Lenox kept her arm around Madeline's shoulder as she turned. + +"It's only an ugly little fling in the _Chatterer_, Frank," she said, +"and it sounds as though it might refer to Madeline. It is nothing, but +I dare say my dear girl does not enjoy a bit of dirt even on her outer +garment. And, Madeline, very likely it is not meant for you." + +"Oh, yes, it is," cried the girl. "Some one sent me this marked copy. +And I went there once when I thought he had invited a crowd to see some +tapestries. There was no one else there. There is just so much truth in +it." + +"Would you rather that we should not see it?" asked Mr. Lenox. + +"I'm afraid every one will see it," said Madeline shamefacedly, as she +held out the guilty pages. The three men leaned their heads over the +table with a curiosity that would have done credit to women, while Ram +Juna still looked on. + +"I have already beheld the writing," he said suavely. "Mr. Early gave +way to unwonted anger when he saw. The lady must have an enemy." + +"That is it," cried Madeline, turning upon him swiftly. "I think I am +not so much hurt by the scandal--every one who knows me will believe +better of me--but what cuts is that there should be some one who wants +to hurt me. I--I've always thought of the world as a friendly place. Who +is it that hates me?" + +"Bah, it is a very small enemy who seeks small revenge," said the Swami, +whose own heart was filled with contempt and irritation. This was not +according to his plan. "In India, we do not so revenge." + +Mr. Lenox stepped back to the fireplace, from which point a man always +surveys the world at an advantage. + +"It isn't worth an extra heart-beat, Miss Elton," he said. "Ignore it +and your world will promptly forget it." + +"But, Mr. Lenox, you do not understand. It is not the question of the +truth or falsehood of the story that shakes me. As you say, that is too +absurd. But I shall always wonder who is my enemy, and why." + +Norris was looking at her with awakened terror. With the intuition of +love, he had read the processes of her self-conquest at the time of +Dick's marriage. But here was a new possibility. Could it be that this +fair and delicate creature was now to be enwoofed by Sebastian Early, +whom at this juncture Ellery characterized to himself as a "fat toad"? +He made up his mind that it would not do to trust, as he had been doing, +to time to stand his friend. He must also bestir himself. + +"I wonder," he said aloud, "I wonder if Miss Huntress knows anything +about it. I have a dim idea that some one told me that she wrote things +for the _Chatterer_. Our society editor, you know." + +"But even if she did dislike me--and I don't know her from Adam--how +could she know?" said Madeline, turning on him. "You see I was alone +with Mr. Early, and I am sure, for certain reasons," here Ellery was +horrified to see a little flush creeping over her face, "that he would +not be guilty of any attempt to besmirch me. And no one else knew that I +was there--except--" A sudden startled look came over her face and she +looked involuntarily at Dick. "Except--" she said, and her voice trailed +off. + +"Besides, these small acts are those of women," said the Swami placidly. +Dick had caught Madeline's look of astonished comprehension and he +turned pale as he saw. Now, with Ram Juna's words, conviction flashed +upon him. He remembered Lena's dislike for Madeline, of which he had +made light; he remembered the little insignificant woman whom he had met +in his wife's boudoir; the fact that he was Mr. Early's nearest neighbor +clapped assurance on suspicion, and his muddled mind was capable of only +one idea. No one else, least of all, Madeline, must suspect her little +meanness. + +"Dick, you have an inkling," said Mr. Lenox abruptly, but in all +innocence. + +"Not in the least," said Dick hurriedly. "I assure you that if I had the +slightest reason to suspect any one, I would be the first to speak. +I--you know I think everything of you, Madeline." He went toward her in +a futile way, with outstretched hand, but Madeline's eyes were down, and +apparently she did not see the friendly overture. His face looked pale, +strained and old as he stood for a moment before her, and the others +surveyed them in silence. + +"As you say," said Dick, in sprightly fashion, "the best thing is to +forget the whole incident. Lenox, if you will give me those papers, I +must be off." + +"Our lines lie parallel," said the Swami. "Will you permit that I walk +with you?" + +The four who remained stood awkwardly during the departure, and with the +closing of the door, Mr. Lenox gave an inarticulate ejaculation. + +"Miss Elton," he said, "I think your problem is solved." + +"You mean it was Mrs. Percival?" + +"You are as sure as I." + +"And Dick knew," said Ellery. He blushed as he spoke. + +"Oh no, Mr. Norris!" cried Madeline in sharp distress. "That would he +unendurable. And besides, he said he didn't." + +"Dick lied," Ellery stated calmly. + +"I will never believe that Dick would lie." + +"He certainly lied," Ellery persisted. "Any man would lie to protect the +woman he loves." + +"Never!" exploded Mrs. Lenox. "Frank, you would not lie for me!" + +"Assuredly I would," her husband answered quietly, "if you needed lying +for." + +She looked at him with speechless dismay. + +"Therefore," Ellery went on, "it behooves a man to love a woman who +demands truth and not untruth as her reasonable service. The +responsibility rests with you women. You can not only make men lie, but +you can make them believe that there is no such thing as truth in the +universe. Isn't it so, Lenox?" + +Mr. Lenox smiled and nodded, Jove-like. + +"Oh, yes, they pull some strings," he said; "but don't cocker them up +too much. Don't make them think we are nothing but clay in their hands." + +"You couldn't, because, to our sorrow, we know better," retorted his +wife. + +"Nevertheless, you've unsettled everything," said Madeline dejectedly. + +"But, Miss Elton," Norris put in, "you must not think that I believe +that a man is without responsibility for the kind of woman he loves. +That is where the first turning up or down comes in. He's no right to +give his soul to the thing that is mean or base. He has the right to +choose his road, but after he's chosen, he has to travel wherever the +road leads. Dick's disintegration began from the moment that he met +Miss Quincy. I've known it for a long time." + +"Poor little thing!" said Madeline. "She is so small. I hope she will +grow to be something like a mate for Dick." + +"Do not flatter yourself with wishes," cried Mrs. Lenox. "There's only +one soil in which the soul can grow, and that is love. Unless I misread +her, there is no room in her for anything but Lena Quincy Percival." + +"And yet," objected Ellery, "she is certainly not a person weighted with +intellect. I should say she is all impulse and emotion." + +"Anomalous but by no means uncommon, Mr. Norris," she rejoined. "All +emotion, yet without emotion of the heart. In her little world, self +lies at the equator, and every one else is pushed off to the frozen +poles." + +The others looked at her doubtfully. + +"Don't you think I have studied her? She has been a bald revelation to +me of things I have only half understood in better-bred women. She's +like a weed transplanted from her lean ground to a garden and grown more +luxuriant in her weediness. Do you know what I think? I believe that +when the last judgment shall strip her of her sweet pink flesh, there +will be nothing found inside but a little dry kernel, too hard to bite, +and labeled 'self'." + +"You are positively vicious, Vera," said her husband gravely. + +The tears came to her eyes as she turned to him. + +"I really loved Dick, and she has stung him." + +"But all this does not explain her hatred for Madeline." + +"Do you not understand that even petty people can see how dreary and +stupid their lives are when a person like Madeline comes along? So they +hate her." + +"It's good of you to consider my feelings how they grow, and to try to +bolster them up," Madeline smiled. "But I am fearfully tired. I must go +home. I hope that my father and mother will never hear of this." + +"Why should they?" said Mr. Lenox. "It's only a trifle after all, +though, to be true to her nature, Vera must needs philosophize about it. +It's only a trifle." + +"Except for Dick," Ellery exploded. + +"Except for Dick," Mr. Lenox echoed. + +"It's a great pity," Mrs. Lenox meditated, "that Dick can't knock her +down and then they could start again on a proper basis." + +"It is a disadvantage to be a gentleman," laughed her husband. + +"Vera," said Madeline impulsively, "you won't let this make any +difference between us and Mrs. Percival? If she is a little twisted, +poor child, she has had a cruel training; and she needs decent women all +the more. I--I really have quite got over my anger with her--and don't +let us lose Dick. Dick is like my brother. I mustn't break with him. We +must all be good to him." + +"I do not know that I feel any large philanthropy," answered Mrs. Lenox, +with something between a laugh and a wry face. "But as I have invited +them as well as you to spend Easter with us in the country, I suppose +the ordinary laws of society will require me to behave myself." The +older woman kissed Madeline warmly, and Ellery moved out with her. He +had so entirely made up his mind to walk home with her that he quite +forgot to ask her permission. + +He began to talk to her about himself, for almost the first time in his +reticent intimacy, and she forgot her own affairs, as he meant she +should, in listening. + +Afterward she could not remember his words because parallel with them +she was reading her own interpretation. Already in a vague way she +understood him, but his little story gave her the crystallized +impression. + +She had a picture of a lonely childhood, fatherless and motherless and +pervaded with a longing for love that early learned to keep silence. +That had been the first step in his self-possession. Education had been +hard to get, and yet he had got what to the sons of rich men comes +easily, and because to him it meant struggle, it had been the more +treasured. Knowledge came hard because his mind worked slowly and +painfully; therefore his grip was the tighter, and the habits of thought +wrought out by exercise were now giving him a facility that cleverer men +might envy. He could not know how the simple history gave her an +impression of slow irresistible manhood, always, without drifting, +moving toward its chosen end. + +When they halted at her door, she had a feeling that she could not let +him go, just yet. + +"You'll come in and dine with us, will you not?" she asked impulsively. + +"I wish I might," he answered with that longing tone one falls into when +surveying an impossible and alluring temptation. "I simply have to work +to-night. I'm already late for my engagement. May I come sometime +soon?" + +"I wish you would. Father is really very fond of you," she went on, +defending her warmth. "He likes young men. He has a sneaking longing for +them that no mere girl satisfies. Dick used to be a great deal to him, +but--Dick has drifted away. You have not been to see us for a long +time." + +"Not since the day that Dick's engagement was announced," he answered, +looking her boldly in the face. "I couldn't. You made me feel then that +you despised me." + +"I despised you?" she spoke with bland innocence but rising color. + +"Yes." + +Madeline hesitated and looked down. She was scarlet. + +"I'm not going to pretend to misunderstand you," she said, and turned +laughing eyes toward him. "I knew all the time that it was Dick who had +done some shabby thing, and you were trying to shield him." + +"You knew?" + +"Of course I knew." + +"But you told me I ought to get a mask," Ellery fumbled. + +"I meant when you try to tell lies. You don't do it with the grace and +conviction of an accomplished hand. Pooh, I can read you like an open +book." + +"I am very glad you can," he said deliberately. "I thank God you can, +because on every page you will read the truth--that I love you--I love +you. I'm wanting you to read it in your own way, but some time I am +going to let the passion of it loosen this slow tongue of mine and tell +you in my own fashion how much it is." + +He turned and strode abruptly away. Madeline went in to the firelight of +home. + +"Why, you look as bright as though you'd heard good news," exclaimed Mr. +Elton, peering over his newspaper in welcome. + +"Do I, father?" Madeline stooped to rub her cheek softly against his and +laughed to herself. "Why, I believe I have. That shows what a whirligig +I am. I went out thinking life was a tragedy, and I come back thinking +it--" + +"What, little girl?" + +"A divine comedy," said Madeline and laughed again. "Just see what a +walk in the open air will do for a body." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +EASTER + + +Easter came late in April, when, to match man's mood, it should come; +for the world was alive with new vitality. The south winds were infusing +their wonder-working heats, and the bluebirds flashing their streaks of +color through branches that felt the stir of sap, amid buds that +strained to burst. There was the smell of growth where bits of "secret +greenness" hid behind the dead leaves of last fall. + +On Saturday evening Mrs. Lenox welcomed the same circle that had met at +her home the November before, and Lena's little heart glowed with the +soul-satisfying sense of the difference to her. Then she had been a +social waif, received on sufferance. Now she was one of them. She could +even afford to have her own opinions. The very memory of past +discomforts doubled the present blessedness, and Mr. Lenox looked only +half the size that he had six months before. It was a long stride to +have taken in half a year, and with reason she congratulated herself on +her cleverness. In Mr. Lenox's gravity of manner as he took her in to +dinner, she perceived only respect for Mrs. Percival, not knowing that +he had in mind the small episode of the _Chatterer_, which his wife and +Miss Elton had agreed to ignore. + +"What very sensible people we are!" exclaimed Mrs. Lenox as she surveyed +her small table party. "We shall spend to-morrow in hunting for anemones +instead of looking at our neighbors' spring fineries; we shall catch the +first robin at his love song, instead of listening to the cut and dried, +much-practised church music; and we shall find rest to our souls. Dick, +I am sure you need it. You look worn out. I'm afraid politics is proving +a hard mistress." + +"I wonder if it is possible to do too much," said Dick, rousing himself, +with manifest languor. "It's only the way he does it that plays a man +out. Here's Ellery, now, who works like a galley slave and looks as +fresh as the proverbial daisy." + +"Well, come, you are criticizing yourself even more severely," Mr. Lenox +said. "You'll have to learn the secret, Dick, of letting your arms and +legs and brain work for you, while your inner man remains at peace. +That's the only way an American man can live in these hustling days; and +if you don't master it, the young men will come in and carry you out by +the time that you are fifty." + +"And there are worse things than that," rejoined Dick. "I suppose it is +the universal experience that when one gets out of the freedom of +extreme youth and settles down to the jog-trot, harnessed life, the way +looks rather long and monotonous. A fellow can't help feeling tired to +think how tired he'll be before he gets to the end. To-night I feel as +old and dry as a mummy. If you touch me, I'll crumble." + +"Mrs. Lenox and I have been longer in the game than you, Dick," answered +his host whimsically. "We are getting dangerously near the equator; and +we do not find ourselves exhausted. On the contrary, I rather think the +scenery improves, in some respects, as we go along." + +"You are hardly capable of measuring the common fate. You have had the +touchstone of success, and the world has opened up before you. But what +depress me and impress me are the sodden people whom I meet by the +hundred; and I can't help reading my fate in the light of theirs. There +are such millions of us, obscure and uncounted except on the census." + +"If you will persist in talking serious things," said Ellery, "isn't +obscurity, after all, an internal and not an external quality? You've +got to believe that you are a creature that is worth while. There is no +bitterness in belonging to the myriads if the myriads are themselves +dignified by nature." + +"But are they?" cried Dick, now rousing himself. "I look at every face I +pass on the street. I'm always on the search for some ideal quality; and +what do I see? Egotism and greed answer me from all their eyes. The +ninety and nine have gone astray." + +"Then it belongs to you to be the hundredth who does not go astray; and +who gives a satisfactory answer to the same eternal questioning that +meets you in the eyes of other men. It's not given to any man to play a +neutral part in the world conflict. In all the magnificent interplay of +forces, I doubt if there is any force strong enough to keep one standing +still." + +"Yes, my dear Ellery. And it is just that eternal motion that I am +complaining about. It is burdensome to the flesh and wearisome to the +imagination to look forward to a future of eternal rushing and striving. +I have a multitude of experiences every year, and I straightway forget +them; and that deepens the impression that all these little affairs of +ours, about which we make such an infernal racket at the time, are +matters of very small importance in the march of the centuries. The +march of the centuries may be majestic, but the waddle of this little +ant of a man is not. It's insignificant." + +"That's a dangerous state of mind to be in, Dick," said Lenox. + +"And after all, you can't help being a very important thing to +yourself," said Madeline. "And it must be of eternal significance to you +whether your soul is walking with the centuries or against them." + +"My dear Madeline," answered Dick, "when I am with you and such as you +who live on a little remote mountain, eternity seems a very important +matter; but when I am with most people, next Wednesday, when taxes are +due, looms up and shuts out eternity. And you will permit me to think +that you women who are sheltered and who sit with the good things of +life heaped about you, don't know very much about practical conditions." + +"But why isn't my conscience as practical as my clothes?" persisted +Madeline. "And why is the fortune made to-day in Montana mines and lost +to-morrow in Wall Street any more practical than this same majestic +march of the centuries and the great thoughts that circle about it? +'Practical' is such a foolish word, Dick." + +"Undoubtedly, to you," said Dick with a little sneer. "But to most of +the race to which we have the honor to belong it is the word that makes +the dictionary heavy. It is because you do not know its meaning that you +women, or perhaps I ought to use the despised term, 'ladies,' become the +very beautiful and useless articles that you are--works of art, which +may thrill and charm a man for a moment, when he has time to look at +them, but which bear little relation to the stress of life which you can +not comprehend." + +"Dick!" Madeline spoke almost with tears in her eyes. "It is not like +you to have a fling at women." + +"You see I'm gathering wisdom as I go along." + +"Gathering idiocy, you mean," interposed Mr. Lenox. "Dick, you young +fool, the ideal woman is the goal toward which the rest of humanity must +run; and the sooner you bend all your practical faculties in that +direction, and there abase the knee, the better for you." + +He nodded down the table toward his wife, and she pursed up her lips and +said, "You nice goose! That's the way to keep us sweet-tempered." + +"I hope you're not going to turn cynic, Dick," said Ellery. "The role +does not fit you." + +"A cynic," interposed Mrs. Lenox, "always thinks that he has discovered +the sourness of the world. In reality all he has found is his own bad +digestion. I should hate to think there was anything on my table to +cause acute indigestion, Dick." + +"Perhaps there is a cog loose in his brain so that his wheels do not +work together," added Ellery. + +"At any rate, cynicism is self-confessed failure; so don't give way to +it," Mr. Lenox concluded. + +"Oh, I give up. Spare me," cried Dick. + +Mrs. Lenox rose with a little nod, and as Madeline swept past him +towards the door, Dick turned for an instant and stopped her +laughingly. + +"Forgive me," he said. "I did not mean it. I felt like saying something +obnoxious." + +"But you always used to want to be nice, Dick," she answered. + +"Miss Elton," Mrs. Percival spoke severely, as a matron to a heedless +girl, "perhaps the gentlemen would prefer to have their smoke alone. Are +you coming to the drawing-room with us?" + +Later, much later, Lena, in the privacy of her own room, awaited the +coming of her husband who seemed to her to prolong outrageously the game +of billiards which made his excuse for sitting up a little longer than +herself. She shook out her fluff of hair, and arrayed herself in a +bewildering pink dressing-gown from beneath which she toasted some very +pink toes before the fire. She knew what arguments told on the masculine +intellect. And at last Dick came. + +"Sit down over there," she commanded. "No, you shan't come near me, +Dick, until I've said my say. I'm really much displeased, and you need +not act as though you thought it was a trifling matter." + +Dick sat humbly in the spot appointed. + +"Dick, I don't want you to say any more horrid little things about +women. You've done it several times lately. The other day you said +something to Mr. Early about his 'glorious freedom'; and you made a +sneering remark to Mr. Preston about women's small dishonesties." + +"Only jokes, I assure you." + +"Everybody knows that women are a great deal better than men." + +"They must be," said Dick. "Literature is full of statements to that +effect." + +"And marriage is far more desirable than 'glorious freedom'." + +"It is," answered Dick. "So long as there are things to disagree about, +marriage will not lose its savor." + +"You say that in a perfectly mean way, as though you did not really +believe anything nice. But whether you believe it or not, I am going to +ask you not to talk so any more," Mrs. Percival went on with dignity, +"because it sounds exactly like a criticism of me, and I think you owe +it to me to treat me with respect. What must people think of me when you +fling in--what do you call them--innuendoes like that around?" + +Mr. Percival looked at his wife in silence; then he picked her up, +chair and all, and whirled her around in front of a long pier glass. + +"Do you see that?" he demanded. + +Lena saw and dimpled. + +"Now I propose," Dick went on, "to carry you down stairs, just as you +are! I shall then arouse the whole household by my shouts and gather +them around you; and when every man jack of them is there, I shall say +'Ladies and gentlemen, is it possible for a man whose wife looks like +this to utter any serious accusation against femininity?'" + +"Dick, don't be silly," said Lena, pouting with pleasure, and she +glanced again at herself in the glass. "I am nice, am I not?" + +"Nice!" ejaculated Dick, "Huyler and Maillard and Whitman and Lowney, +all rolled into one big candy man, never dreamed of anything so sweet. +Did you really think I was disrespectful? Why, little Lena!" + +Easter morning dawned, a God-given splendor of blue and spring softness, +and the six stood, after breakfast, on the veranda and looked at the +day. + +"Time and the world are before you. Choose how you will spend the +forenoon," said Mrs. Lenox. + +"I should like to drive," Lena promptly replied. "Mr. Lenox was telling +me last night about his new pair of horses. I know he is pining to show +them off." + +She cast one of her most fascinating glances at her unmoved host. + +"Just the thing. How shall we divide up?" And Mrs. Lenox looked vaguely +around. + +"Miss Elton and I," said Norris boldly, "are going to row, just as we +used last summer." + +Madeline glanced sidewise at him with some astonishment, as he made this +radical statement, but although she pondered a moment, she offered no +objection. Dick also glanced at him longingly as he said "last summer". +Our lives seem made of little bits that have small relation with each +other. Things just happen. And yet, when we look back over a long +stretch we realize that life is a coherent whole, that it leads +somewhere, and Dick's life had led a long way in the past year. So he +too became grave but said nothing, as he resigned himself to a back seat +beside Mrs. Lenox and watched Lena perched airily beside her host. + +"Now I hope that matter will be amicably settled," Mrs. Lenox began, +looking with a satisfied air at the two unmarried people who were +starting toward the boat-house. + +"What!" Dick exclaimed with a sudden start. + +"Are you a bat that you can not see daylight facts?" she cried, turning +upon him. + +"I dare say I am." And he looked very sober. "Yes, I suppose it is all +right. Norris is one of those fellows who always knows what he wants, +and just plods along until he gets it." + + * * * * * + +"I said 'row'," Ellery remarked as he pushed the boat out from shore, +"but I meant 'loaf and invite the soul'. The sunlight is too delectable +for anything strenuous." + +"But inviting the soul is always a solitary experience," objected +Madeline. + +"Perhaps. But it is delightful to know that there is a sister soul also +inviting herself close at hand. I hope yours will accept the invitation. +'At home--the soul of Mr. Ellery Norris, to meet the soul of Miss +Madeline Elton'." + +A soft flush rose over Madeline's face and she devoted herself to the +tiller ropes. + +"P.S. Please come," Ellery went on with a laugh. "R.S.V.P." + +"Aren't you 'flouting old ends'?" she smiled. + +"I hoped I was flouting new beginnings," he answered soberly, and he +rowed languidly in a silence which Madeline rushed to fill. + +"I've been thinking ever since last night about Dick," she said. "He is +so different from the buoyant creature of last summer. And it is only a +year." + +"Well, perhaps this is a phase." He rested on his oars and looked at +her. "Dick is healthy, and joy is his normal state. He ought to be able +to recover from his malady." + +"Sometimes I think it is permanent." + +"I am almost afraid, too. But you see you can not get any bargains in +the department store of this world. You have to pay full price for +everything. If you want self-indulgence, you have to pay your health; if +you want health, you have to pay self-control. You never pay less than +the value of what you get, and you are often horribly over-charged for a +very inferior article. Now Dick wanted Lena Quincy. He bought a little +gratification, and paid--" + +"What?" + +"Everything he had," answered Norris abruptly. "Do you think I have not +watched his courage and ideals wither as if they had been frosted? He is +numb. 'Heavy as frost,' Wordsworth said, and that's the weightiest +figure he could find. It did not take her a month to begin to change +him. In three months she has him well started. Isn't it a pity that the +worse one of the two should have the controlling force? But Dick's very +volatility that we love has laid him open to this thing." + +"I'm glad," said Madeline slowly, "that he has his political interest." + +"Yes, he's going into it with a kind of fury." + +"Won't that give him a big outlet?" + +"He may get a lot of satisfaction and do a really creditable thing." + +"Your tone does not sound very hopeful." + +"A single interest in life may accomplish more for the world, but I +don't believe it is very satisfactory for one's self." + +Madeline looked at him inquiringly. + +"God gives us of His own creative power," he said reverently, and there +came into his very practical face that dreamy look which she had seen +there once or twice before. "He supplies us with the raw materials of +the universe, gold and beauty and food and desire--and love--and He bids +us out of these things to build a man. We can't build a successful man +if we use only one ingredient. We get a complete man only when we use +them all." + +Madeline stared off across the waters, and Ellery watched her over +shipped oars. At last he said, "But are you going to think only of Dick, +and Dick, and Dick for ever?" + +She turned on him a face flushed but utterly frank. + +"I know what you are thinking," she said. "But you are mistaken, quite +mistaken." And she met his eyes squarely in spite of her heightened +color. "At this very moment I was thinking more of you than of him," she +added. + +"And what of me?" + +"I was thinking how I misread you at first. I thought you a kind of +grub." + +"And now?" + +"That you are dogged and persistent; and that therefore you stick to +your ideals better than he." + +"Do you know how comparatively easy that is, even for a plodder, when +his ideals are set up before him in visible form, so that he can not +forget them by day or by night? I wonder if you can realize what it +means to have a face like yours looking up from every dirty strip of +galley-proof, and a voice like yours sounding under the rumble of the +big presses. It's something of a possession for an every-day man." A +soft glow that might have been a trick of the spring sun spread over +Madeline's face. There is no thought more intoxicating to a girl than to +feel that she stands to a man for his ideals. A long sweet silence fell +between them, while she mused on this thing, and he watched her in tense +anxiety. + +"Madeline!" he cried, suddenly leaning forward and catching her hands. +"I must tell you! You must know, and I must know!" + +With the grasp of his fingers, the first physical touch of love, an +electric pang seemed to leap through the girl's body; and in the flash +were shown to her new heights and depths in herself, and a thousand dim +things in the future. She felt, in the man, the revelation of that +mystery by which the body's passion slips into passion of the soul--that +soul-love, which by its very nature can never know lassitude nor +revulsion. And what was actual in him, grew radiant with possibility in +herself. + +She looked up to meet his eager face and his eyes like lamps. "No, no!" +she cried. "Don't tell me." + +"But do you know without telling?" + +"I must think." + +"But surely you must have read it long ago." + +"I only glanced at it. I never looked it in the face." + +"Don't examine it too closely now, or I'm afraid you will find it a poor +thing," he said whimsically. "Take it on impulse, Madeline." + +But she waved him away with her hand, turning her face to one side, and +leaned back in her cushions, while Ellery waited, hardly breathing. +There was a deep hush on the opal waters under the April morning sky, +and no sound but the far-off note of a wood-thrush. + +"Madeline!" he cried at last. "Be merciful, and speak to me." + +She gathered her self-possession and turned to face him with smiles and +dimples, and one swift look full in the face. + +"Mr. Norris," she said airily, and then laughed as his face fell at the +title, "we are in the middle of a big sheet of water, and I do not want +you to upset the boat; we are visible from many miles of shore, and the +world and his wife are driving and motoring on this most beautiful of +days; but over on our right there is a lovely little beach, and a clump +of willows that have forced the season a bit. Perhaps, if we went there, +I might listen to what you have to say." + +"Oh, Madeline, my Madeline," he said, "I can never tell you because the +words are not made that will hold it, and it will take a lifetime to +tell it all. But, if you are willing, we will make a beginning over +there by the dipping willows." He shot a stormy glance at her as he +caught the oars, and she met it bravely. "Please don't trail your +fingers in the water," he said. "You are delaying the progress of the +boat." + +"Heaven forbid delay!" she cried in mock horror, and showered him with +the drops from her lifted hand. + +The keel grated, and Ellery sprang ashore and held out his arms to help +her. + +"Madeline," he said, sternly holding her at arm's length, "this spot is +so evidently created for a lovers' bower, that I suspect you of having +had your eye on it for a long time. How did you come to direct me +here?" + +"Instinct," she laughed. "That wonderful instinct of woman." + +"Shall we stay here for ever and let the world wag?" + +"And live on locusts and wild honey?" she asked. + +"Yes, if you will be my wild honey. I'm going to begin to devour you +right away." And he caught her at last. + +"Who gave you permission?" she whispered with cheek close to his. + +"Who? Haven't you heard the universe shouting aloud? The sky, and the +sun and the lake and the woods. They've been crying 'Mine! Mine! Mine!' +for the last ten minutes. You'll never contradict them, sweetheart?" + +"Never," said she. + +For a long moment they looked into each other's eyes, and she read in +his that mastery without tyranny which for some inexplicable reason sets +a woman's heart beating with unimagined bliss. + +Ten minutes later, or so it seemed, Madeline pulled his watch from his +pocket and started in dismay. + +"Ellery," she cried, "do you know that we have been sitting here for +four hours? What will Mrs. Lenox and all the others think?" + +"Who cares what they think? Let them think the truth, if their +imaginations can soar to that height." + +"We must hurry back." + +"Don't you think it is a little brutal to invite a man to leave Heaven +and go back to earth?" + +"Perhaps we need a dose of the world. Medicine is good for one." + +"Not unless he is ill; and I was never well till now." + +"Come, Ellery, we really must go," she said with severity. + +"Well, there's lunch," he meditated. "I confess that I can view the +prospect of luncheon with something like equanimity. There are certain +advantages about the world, Madeline." + +It was long after the driving party had returned when Miss Elton and Mr. +Norris strolled up the path from the boat-house, quite indifferent to +the fact of their lateness. Dick on the piazza watched their coming and +needed no handwriting on the wall. The girl glowed and Ellery reflected +her light. + +"It would be a perfect woman who should unite her spirit with Lena's +soul-delighting body," Percival said to himself. "And Ellery chooses +the spirit, and I, God help me, love and choose the body. But I can not +bear to meet them." + +He was turning to slip away when he met his wife face to face, and +stopped half in curiosity to see what she would notice and hear what she +would say. Lena, too, gazed at the oblivious advancing pair. + +"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Mrs. Percival. "I should think she'd +feel pretty cheap." + +"Why?" asked Dick, startled. + +"Coming down to a nobody like that!" Lena retorted in scorn. "But I +think she has been going off in her looks lately, and I dare say she +knows it, and is glad to get even him." + +The billiard room was empty, and Dick went in and shut the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ORIENTAL RUBIES + + +As the months drifted into summer, young Mrs. Percival often felt very +dull. She had not even the excitement of envy left her for, with the +engagement of Miss Elton and Mr. Norris, much of her old enmity for +Madeline faded. Ellery looked to her like a fate so inferior to her own +that she could afford to drop her jealousy; and since Mr. Early and Dick +were now wholly released from thrall, she considered Madeline a creature +too inoffensive to be reckoned an enemy. She could even share the +tolerant and amused pleasure with which the world surveys a love match. +This pair was so evidently and rapturously content that they diffused +their own atmosphere. Lena could not understand that variety of love, +but its presence was patent to her. + +Most of the "real people" as Mrs. Appleton called them, in improvement +on their Maker's classification, were leaving town either for the lake +or for some more distant breathing place, but she was tied at home, +first because Mrs. Percival the elder, whom Dick refused to desert, +preferred the wide quiet of her rooms, and second because Dick himself +grew daily more absorbed in his political labors. + +Lena went to say good-by for the summer to Mrs. Appleton and was bidden +to come up stairs to a disordered little room where that matron +superintended a flushed maid busy with packing. + +"I am really quite played out with all this turmoil," Mrs. Appleton +sighed. "Truly, dear Mrs. Percival, I think you are to be congratulated +on staying at home. The game is not worth the candle." + +"I think, if Madame is tired, I could finish alone." Marie lifted a face +that manifested hope from the bottom of a trunk, but Madame shook her +head. It was one of her principles to see to everything herself and so +gain the proud consciousness of utter exhaustion in doing her duty. + +Lena glanced enviously about the heaped up gowns and lacy lingerie. It +made her own stock seem mean. + +"Perhaps it will amuse you to look these over while I am busy," Mrs. +Appleton went on good-humoredly, pushing a leather-bound case across the +table toward Lena's arm. Mrs. Percival lifted out one little tray after +another with growing sullenness. The profusion of jewels gave her no +pleasure. She slammed the trays back in place. + +"Did Mr. Appleton give you all of these?" she demanded. + +"Yes. Isn't he generous? But he says that my type of beauty is one that +can stand lavish decoration." + +"He's certainly more free than Dick," Lena said with bald envy, +reviewing her own small store that a few short months ago had seemed to +her like the wealth of Ormus and of Ind. + +"My dear," Mrs. Appleton exclaimed with a self-conscious laugh, "you can +hardly expect Dick Percival to rival Humphrey." + +Mrs. Percival felt bitterly her friend's loftiness of position. It was +of course impossible for a woman to feel superior to what she owns and +Mrs. Appleton owned more and always would own more than Lena Percival. +"Do you know, my love," Mrs. Appleton pursued, "I think your husband is +making a great mistake in going in for petty politics. With his pull, +and his fair amount of capital to start with, he ought to be able to +make a fortune. He's just throwing his life away." + +"Don't you suppose I know it?" Lena cried tearfully. "I've told him so a +hundred times. He's just crazy over these nasty little things. He's +willing to sacrifice anything to get the place of ward alderman away +from some miserable Swede. Think of me tied in town all summer!" + +"I wouldn't stand it," Mrs. Appleton answered absently, her eyes on +Marie, stuffing tissue paper in a sleeve. "A woman has such influence on +her husband. Take matters in your own hands, my dear." + +Lena, rebellious at heart, found her only diversion in occasional +week-ends at other people's country houses, or in long flights by +evening in Dick's motor. Her husband was self-absorbed and often silent, +another person, as she frequently and querulously rubbed into him, from +the ardent creature of a few months before. + +Sometimes he made attempts to open to her his subjects of thought, but +Lena never attempted to understand things that did not interest her, and +now that she was safely married, it was too much trouble to make much +pretense at it; so she was often alone, and frequently bored. + +Even Mr. Early was away most of the time, and the great blank eyes of +closed windows blinked down at her from his closed house beyond the +dividing hedge that flanked the garden. His place stood on a corner, and +on the two sides that fronted the streets, Sebastian had hidden the +wonders of his terraces and trimmed trees by high walls, but toward the +Percivals he had been less exclusive. Most of the houses in St. Etienne, +like their own, had no property dividing line, but lawn melted into lawn +with a park-like openness that hinted at communistic kindliness. This +had its disadvantages in lack of privacy, and hence it was that in spite +of quite an extensive demesne, Lena found in her own garden no spot +absolutely hidden from curious eyes of passers, except in one thicket of +trees and shrubbery over near the Early boundary. Here there was +seclusion, and here, therefore, young Mrs. Percival had her hammock and +her group of chairs and tables; and here she spent long indolent +afternoons in sleepy reading and sleepier dreaming, which was only less +agreeable than the social triumphs of which she dreamed. And yet she +often found herself weary of nothing, and wished she had some one +exactly to her taste to keep her company and talk to her about little +things in that "fool's paradise of laziness" where, it is said, Satan is +entertainer in chief. Once in a while, on his brief home-stays, Mr. +Early illuminated her retreat with his presence. + +Toward the middle of the summer, certain business interests called Dick +to North Dakota, and then life was duller than ever. + +Therefore it was a not wholly unwelcome diversion when, late on an +August afternoon, she saw the thick laurels of the hedge near her part a +little and the form of Ram Juna stand in the cleft, snowy white from +turban to slippers save for the gleaming ruby and the polished bronze +face. He looked like the day itself, glowing, sultry, indolent. + +"Pardon me, dear lady," he said, "that through the bush I spied you. I +was solitary. You are solitary. The heat suits not with the severer +thought. The weak body refuses to yield to the commands of mind. I fail +to write; and perhaps you fail to read." + +"I guess your thinking is harder work than my reading. Won't you come +over and sit down?" said Lena cordially. + +"Then you, like me, would welcome companionship?" + +"Yes. Isn't this a nice shady place?" Lena answered. "The maid is just +bringing me some iced drinks, and I dare say they'll taste good to you +if you have been trying to write that wonderful book of yours in all +this blaze." + +The Hindu pushed the hedge still farther asunder and swept with a sigh +of content over to a cushioned reclining chair. + +"If one's heart were set on the things that fade, what greater +satisfaction? Shadow, deep shadow from the heat, cool drafts, the voice +of a fair woman." + +"You must not count me among the things that fade, though," laughed +Lena, as she handed him a tall glass of clinking fragrance. "I shan't +like you a bit if you do." + +"Everything fades, the rose, the lady, even thought, which is after all +but a grub on the tree of truth. All, all fade." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk that way," objected Lena. "You make me feel +quite creepy." + +"Ah," said Ram Juna, "you love the things of to-day. To me the thought +that all is transitory is bliss. Is it not so?" + +"Yes," said Lena, "I'm sure I like roses and jewels and iced minty stuff +to drink. And Ram Juna, I wish you would tell me the really-truly +history of your ruby. I've heard so many stories about it." He put up +his hand, detached the great jewel from its place and laid it in her +small outstretched palm. + +"That is a mark of my confiding," he said. "There are few to whom I +would give to handle my treasure. It may truly be called a stone of +blood. Such angry storms of greed and passion, such murders of father by +son and husband by wife link their story to it. And now it rests at last +on the head of a man of peace. For how long? For how long?" Lena looked +at it with the eyes of fascination as it lay in her open hand. + +"It charms you like a serpent?" asked her companion, leaning forward +with indolent amusement. "You are true woman. You love the glitter. +Would you like to see others?" + +"Have you others?" cried Lena. "Oh--oh, I should like to see them!" He +rose, made her a salaam of grace, parted the hedge once more and +disappeared only to return bringing in his hands a curious box of +carven ivory, which he set on the table between them and proceeded to +unlock with a key of quaint device. + +Lena gave a cry of rapture and astonishment as the lid fell back. Ram +Juna laid his hand on her arm. + +"Silence!" he commanded, "would it be well that the flippant public who +pass near at hand on the pavement should know that there are such +treasures in this thicket?" + +"I did not know that there was so much splendor in the world," whispered +Lena in admiration. + +"Rubies--all rubies! They were the stones beloved of my ancestors. This +dangled once on the neck of a maha-ranee, more beautiful than itself, +only, unfortunately, she lost her neck, murdered by a rival queen." + +He twisted the string of gems about her arm, bare to the elbow, and Lena +gasped with pleasure. + +"Let me add this bracelet--a serpent. See of curious carved gold the +scales, and the eyes again two wicked rubies to beguile men's souls. Yet +it becomes the arm, does it not? Look, at your pleasure, at the rest of +the box." + +He pushed the case toward her and Lena began to finger its profuse +contents with occasional sighs of envious delight and glances at her +white flesh enhanced by its ornaments. Ram Juna sat in silence. + +"How do you dare to carry such things around with you?" she asked. + +"Not much longer," he answered with a shrug. "To me they are delusions +inappropriate. I see that is your thought. Is it not so? What have I to +do with necklaces and rings of princesses? I had forgotten that I had +them, until a chance thought recalled it. I had long since meant to sell +them and give the money to the great cause for which I labor. That is my +treasure, is it not? I shall never take them back to India. I must +hasten to get rid of them, for I purpose to return there at once." + +"Why, are you going away?" + +"To-morrow I leave this city. My work here is done. It is the last of +work. Hereafter I shall find some solitary spot and end my life in +meditations. And the rubies--I might give them away; but perhaps the +trifle I should receive for them would help the Brothers in their +service. I shall not expect or wish their value." + +"Oh, I wish I might buy some of them!" + +"Why not? No lady could wear them with greater dignity. Young, +beautiful, beloved, and clothed with jewels. It is the frame for the +picture, Madame." + +"Oh!" said Lena. + +"To you, whom I reverence, they should cost but a trifle." + +"How much?" gasped Lena. + +"The necklace, now," said Ram Juna, and he leaned over and twisted it +about her arm as he seemed to hesitate, "I would give you that for five +thousand dollars--and you can see that it is worth--ah, I know not how +many times that sum. I do not understand these things." + +"But my husband is away, and I have not any thing like that sum. +Besides, I could not buy it without asking him, you know. Oh, I should +like it!" + +"Bah, it is a trifle to a lady in your position. You could in many ways +raise so paltry an amount. I can not, unfortunately, give you time to +deliberate." He was speaking very rapidly with many gestures, quite +unlike his usual calm. "I tell you I return to India without delay. If +you would wish those beautiful things you must hasten--to-day. Any +person, I think, would lend you such money. Mr. Early--ah, yes--Mr. +Early." + +"Mr. Early is away, isn't he?" + +Lena was growing confused. She turned the glittering string around and +around on her arm, and her heart was big with foolish longing. The +necklace seemed the only thing in life worth while. Ram Juna's quick +movements and urgent words quite took away her powers of reasoning. + +"Mr. Early? Yes. He returned this morning. Shall I tell you a great +secret, Madame? A man loves the one for whom he does a favor. Would it +not be wise to let Mr. Early do this thing for you? I know he will lend +you without question. It will hereafter bind him to you. See. I make the +arrangements with him myself. Ladies know nothing of business, and I not +much. But I talk with him, he understands, and I make all smooth. Will +you? Shall I? Yes or no? Do not lose such a treasure by hesitancy. Your +husband shall thank you when he comes again. Yes? See the sunlight comes +through the trees and makes the rubies like itself." + +"Oh, if Mr. Early would," said Lena. "I don't see why I shouldn't. And +if Mr. Percival thinks I can't afford it, the rubies are worth more +than I paid for them anyway." + +"You are reasonable. Hold it. I trust you while I go to see Mr. Early, +and return. The necklace is yours, beautiful lady." + +Ram Juna was awakened from his usual serenity and full of tiger-like +restlessness. Again he plunged through the hedge, and Lena saw the white +turban flying toward the house. Even Mr. Early looked around startled as +his usually torpid guest burst into the little den. + +"Hello!" he said. "What's up?" + +"Early, I bring you opportunity, the greatest of gifts. The favor I +shall confer, is it less than the favor I have received from you?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Sebastian. + +"Once you say that you will give much to get the young Percival in your +power." + +"Yes. What of it?" + +"It is done." + +A look of real interest began to illuminate Mr. Early's face. "Well?" he +said sharply. + +"I have rubies--rubies to lure the heart of a woman from her bosom. +Madame, the young wife would give her soul--if she but had one. That is +too hard. Let her give her note." The Swami laughed gently. "You would +lend her five thousand dollars, my friend, to buy rubies from me. That +is an empty show. She gives you the note. I give her the necklace that +she must have. That is all. There is no need to give me money. I return +your hospitality thus." + +"Well, suppose I did all this. Dick Percival could easily discharge his +wife's debt." + +"Not so fast. Not so fast. The young wife is a fool as well as a knave. +To the note she shall sign her husband's name. That I will bring to +pass. But you know nothing of this. Of course not. You suppose that the +signature is genuine. You are unaware that Percival is out of town. And +I--if I am guilty--I am with my guilty knowledge in the hut in the +mountains of India. Do you not think that while you hold that note young +Percival will gladly serve you in any fashion that you may choose, +rather than that so foolish a piece of wife's knavery should come +abroad?" + +"Gee whizz!" exclaimed Mr. Early, gazing at the simple seeker after +truth, whose face shone with a radiant smile. "Gee whizz! Ram Juna, but +you are a business man! But she won't sign her husband's name." + +Ram Juna's smile expanded cheerfully. + +"Let that remain to me. You have but to play your part," he said. + +Mr. Early thought hard for a moment. + +"There is need to haste," said the Swami gently. "She is now in the +garden where access is easy. Make the note. I will take it to her to +sign. Hasten, my friend." + +Mr. Early drew toward him pen and ink. + +"It's a little flyer, and there may be something in it," he said. "I +don't see that I get into trouble any way. But see here, Swami, you +deserve something for your work. I'm not going to see you lose that five +thousand. When you bring me this I O U with Dick Percival's signature, +I'll give you my check for the amount. Understand?" + +"Be that as you will," said the Hindu, and he caught the piece of paper +and fled toward the thicket where Lena still played with her toy. + +"Have I not told you?" he began suavely. "The necklace, less fair than +its owner, is yours. But one moment. Will you first do me a favor?" + +He lifted the great white turban from his hot forehead and set it on the +table before her. + +"A simple bit of the skill of my country," he said. "Will you look +fixedly into the great ruby that remains mine? And, as you look, will +you yield your mind to me, and let me show you a vision? So--even deeper +let your eyes penetrate to the heart of the jewel. Deeper and yet +deeper." + +He made a swift motion or two before her, and her eyes grew fixed. + +"What do you see?" + +"Myself," she answered. + +"Naturally. What else could you ever see? But you are different. You are +a thousand times more beautiful. The world lies at your feet. It is a +world of adulation. Do you see this?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well. Now look away. We must not longer see the beautiful picture. +You remember we have business. Mr. Early, your friend, and my friend, +will lend you money. But how are you to repay him? You have nothing of +your own. It must be your husband who secures you. In the front of the +book which you are reading it is written 'Richard Percival'. You will +copy this with your utmost care, here on this paper. Ah, for you it is +not hard to do this thing. For some it would be hard to persuade them. +You make but a poor copy. That is of indifference. I will return this to +Mr. Early. You will await me here." + +The August afternoon was closing, and the shadows grew strong here where +vines knit the trees into close brotherhood. Lena lay back in her chair +and clutched her treasure in a kind of stupor, until, in an incredibly +short time Ram Juna again appeared, tucking a scrap of yellow paper into +some inner pouch as he came. The Buddha smile still played about his +lips. He seated himself on the ground and stared unblinkingly at the +girl, and she gazed almost as fixedly back, except that once in a while +her eyes wandered to the big red stone which still hung in the turban on +the table. Ten minutes--fifteen minutes--they sat in silence, as though +the Swami enjoyed the experience, then the bronze man rose and moved +slowly toward her. + +"Awake!" he whispered. "You must never forget that you wrote your +husband's name when you had not the right. Ah, in India, our knaves are +not also fools." + +There was a sudden sharp noise and a cry in the garden behind the hedge; +and the Swami leaped into attention with the swift motionlessness of a +wild animal. Lena roused herself heavily and blinked about. There was no +Swami to be seen. His turban lay on the table, but he himself had +disappeared in a twinkling. She heard a rush of feet and voices raised +in excitement and then a sharp command. Even while she listened, +confused, a blue-coated starred man appeared at the opening in the hedge +and over his shoulder she saw Mr. Early's face, startled out of its +decorum into bewildered anxiety. + +"Beg pardon, miss," said the officer. "Have you seen anything of that +nigger preacher?" + +"The Swami?" asked Lena. + +The man nodded. + +"He was here a moment ago--at least I think he was. I--I'm not sure. And +he seems to have gone away. I don't know where he is." She looked +vaguely around. + +"Left this in his hurry, I guess," said the man, taking possession of +the turban. "He must be hiding somewhere near. With your permission, I +will search the house, miss," and he moved off without waiting for the +said permission. + +"Mrs. Percival," said Mr. Early. + +"Beg pardon, Mrs. Percival," the man threw back with an added air of +respect. "It is an unpleasant duty, ma'am, but you'll not object, I +know." He beckoned sharply to two or three others who stood behind Mr. +Early, and turned toward the open door. + +"What does all this mean, Mr. Early?" Lena gasped. + +He tumbled as if exhausted into the same easy chair that Ram Juna had +occupied a few moments before. + +"I am completely staggered," he exclaimed. "The police seem to think +they have reason to suspect my guest of being implicated with a gang of +counterfeiters. In fact they say that it is his extraordinary cunning of +hand that produced the bills that have been appearing everywhere. +And--great heavens!--he used my house as--as--as a fence! My house! +Pardon me, my dear Mrs. Percival, but I am horribly upset. They've found +dies and all kinds of queer things in the little room that he kept +sacred to his meditations. But of course I can't be suspected of +knowing. Why, all my servants can bear testimony to the fact that I know +nothing about that room." + +"Of course, Mr. Early, no one would think of accusing you." + +"Still, my house, you know--and my friend. It's horrible!" In fact Mr. +Early was shivering as though he had the ague. "It would drive me mad if +any one should think--why, Mrs. Percival, think of the scandal of having +him with me for months. Of course, if they catch him, I'll make him +clear me at once. But, take it how you will, it is awful. The least I +can expect is to be laughed at over the whole civilized world for being +his dupe. I've always prided myself on my clean skirts. You think I'm +raving, Mrs. Percival. I am nearly mad." Mr. Early suddenly leaped up +with horror newly reborn in his eyes. "And I had just given him a large +check. That is bound to look bad. There is no knowing how it may be +misconstrued. Great heavens, what am I to do?" + +Lena flushed. + +"I'm afraid that check was for me," she said. "Mr. Early, I want to +thank you--for--for being so generous to me; and when Dick comes back +from North Dakota, he will repay you at once." + +Mr. Early caught himself up and remembered that he had a part to play in +the present drama. + +"When Dick comes back," he said in a stupefied way, "what do you mean by +'when Dick comes back'? Isn't he here now? Why, he must be. It isn't an +hour since he signed--" + +"Didn't you know he was away?" asked Lena timidly, her heart sinking, +for Mr. Early's tone was sharp. + +"I certainly thought he signed a note made out to me. Was it another +piece of the Swami's clever forgery?" + +"He--I--" cried poor Lena in confusion. "Oh, Mr. Early, do you call it +forgery?--my own husband's name? Oh, I--oh, Mr. Early, what are you +thinking?" At this moment she was the picture of confused innocence. + +Mr. Early looked at her and gave a long-drawn breath of astonishment. + +"I understand," he said at last, while Lena hung her head. "You wrote +Dick's name for him, and he knows nothing about it. Well, let it go at +that. It is a matter of no consequence. And, my dear Mrs. Percival, I +would suggest that this matter be kept a secret between you and me. +We'll never mention the debt again. I'm sure you will accept the rubies +as a little gift from one of the most humble of your admirers." He bent +forward and kissed her finger-tips in his most gallant manner. + +"Oh, Mr. Early, you are so good!" Lena's voice expressed manifest +relief. The memory came back to her of what Ram Juna had said about the +bond created by favor. It flashed into her mind, "He thinks it is sweet +and innocent and womanly in me to do such a thing in ignorance. Dick +would think so, too. How should I know?" + +"But suppose Dick shouldn't like to have me take them from you, such a +magnificent gift?" + +"I would suggest," Mr. Early's manner was regaining some of its +self-possession, "that you speak of the necklace--is that it in your +hand? a really wonderful thing, with curious settings, carved by +hand--as I was saying, I would suggest that you speak of it as a gift +from the Swami, who, as is well known, was much impressed by your +charms. A present from such a creature, who hardly comes into the +category of ordinary men, would create no such remark as might a gift +from me. Do you not see? We will let the truth remain a little secret +between us two. I have an idea that we shall not be likely to see Ram +Juna again. I fancy he is a fellow of greater cunning than any of us +dreamed; and if he has a little start of the detectives, I doubt if they +have so much as a glimpse of his heels; though, to be sure, he is rather +a marked figure, and difficult to disguise. Now don't forget. The Swami, +with oriental profuseness, gave you the rubies." + +"You are a dear," gushed Lena. "Oh, I do hope he is gone!" After all, it +was a relief that Dick should not know. + +"One favor I must ask, my dear Mrs. Percival," Mr. Early went on +hesitatingly. "If, by any chance, Dick should ever come to know of this, +will you assure him that I supposed his signature to be genuine? I +wouldn't have him suspect that I--that I was a party--or at least that I +knew that you wrote it for him. For really, little woman, it wasn't +strictly honest, you know." + +"I'm afraid it wasn't," Lena confessed with charming blushes. "But I +didn't think. I don't know much about such things, you know." + +"Of course you don't. No nice woman does," said Mr. Early comfortingly. +"And now let us forget it." + +"Here come the officers," said Lena. + +"It ain't no use," said the captain disgustedly. "He's given us the +slip, somehow. And we'd watched the house and made sure we'd nab him." + +"What are you going to do?" asked Mr. Early. + +"Take his kit, and set guards and send telegraph descriptions of him in +all directions. 'Taint likely he can get clean away. He'll be a marked +man wherever he goes." + +"If there is anything I can do to help you," said Mr. Early +grandiloquently, "you can command me, though you may imagine that it is +very offensive to me to be mixed up in this kind of affair." + +"Well, rather," said the officer dryly. Then, seeing the flush rising on +Mr. Early's face, he went on with the patronage of the majesty of the +law: "You needn't fear that you'll suffer any personal inconvenience. +We've had you under surveillance for a long time--ever since we began to +suspect your nigger friend; and we know you are all right." But the +assurance seemed to add to Mr. Early's discomfiture. "Looks as if it was +going to blow up a storm. A dark night would be a good thing for him and +a nuisance to us. But we'll catch him sure." + +They were gone, and Lena lingered a moment, fastening her dearly-bought +bauble around her neck and gathering her books, while a maid came +scudding from the house to bundle rugs and cushions away in face of the +thunder-heads looming in the southwest. A sudden sibilant sound brought +Lena to attention. + +"Mrs. Percival!" she heard. "Look up." + +Among the branches over her head the leaves were drawn so closely +together that only a few faint glimmers of white showed, and the +brilliant eyes that glared down at her were the most conspicuous things +she saw. + +"Listen and reply not," he said. "You will bring a dark and large +great-coat, and other dark garments that you can find, and leave them +here with swiftness and secrecy. I command you. If you do not obey, I +will make it the worse for you." + +He snarled suddenly, and Lena jumped back as though a tiger had sprung +at her throat. + +The face disappeared among the leaves, and Lena sped toward the house, +hastened by a crash of thunder and a few great drops, that seemed to her +frightened imagination like the servants of the savage creature that +she had left in the tree-tops. She slipped out again, in spite of wind +and rain, obedient to his command, and as she dropped her bundle at the +foot of the tree trunk, she whispered, + +"I hope, oh, I hope that you will get away!" But she heard no reply. The +storm came down and the night fell, seamed with lightning. + +Lena quietly ate her dinner, and listened to the well-bred calm voice of +her mother-in-law as she wondered what Dick was doing, and when he would +be at home again. But Lena wondered what Ram Juna was doing, and whether +she should ever see him again. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LIGHT FROM THE EAST GOES OUT + + +To be in the heart of a great country, fifteen hundred miles from the +Atlantic, and two thousand miles from the Pacific, to be forbidden the +public highway of the train, and to have one's objective point +India,--this is by no means an easy problem, even to the oriental mind. +And who could know what was going on in the being that crept away into +the storm, strong with the instinct of hiding and of cunning. He must +have balanced all things. To go westward, where the great steamers plied +toward the Orient, this would seem the natural course; and yet that way +lay interminable prairies and empty stretches, and again deserts and +piled mountains, without shelter and without food. It is easier to hide +among people than amid solitudes. On crowded city streets, we jostle +without seeing. + +It was no great feat to transform the once Swami of the flowing robes +and lofty port into a hulking skulking negro tramp, like the sturdy +villains of ancient days, sleeping in woody nooks by day, and pursuing +his slow journey under the stars, answering the look of such human +beings as he met with suspicion, keeping to the hamlets where police +officers were scarce and knowledge of the criminal world scarcer, and +where solitary house-wives, whose men were in the field, could be +persuaded, half through charity and half through fear, to dole out food. +Ah, but it was a weary journey. The world, of whose littleness we boast +when we think of steam and electricity, grows very sizable again when a +man comes back to the elemental means of progress--his own two legs. As +for the smaller world in which he had been living--the world of luxury +and of worshiping disciples--he laughed silently to think what a mirage +it was and always had been. + +Down the Mississippi he crept, sometimes peering from between the great +trees that flanked its steep banks, as the red Indians did long ago, to +see the boats of the white man go serenely up and down that mighty +swirling current, and stopping even in his self-absorption to feel a +little of the beauty when the great river spread itself into the +shimmering expanse of Lake Pipin, or to remember, at Winona, the +picturesque legend that he had heard of the deserted Chippewa maiden who +here threw herself from the overhanging rocks into the pitiless rush of +waters below, and left only her ghost and her sweet-sounding name to the +spot. He halted to inspect the great monolith, a hundred feet in height, +of Sugar Loaf. + +He had an idea that in some little town to the south he might venture to +board a straggling cross-country train to Chicago; and, once in the +thick of men again, he believed himself safe. He had always been wary +enough to keep on his person a certain sum of money. Such as it was, it +might serve his purpose. It also tickled his sense of humor to think +that--shabby black wayfarer that he was--he had in his pocket a check +for five thousand dollars, that he could not cash, and a handful of +rubies that were enough to awaken the suspicions of the least +suspicious. But still, day after day and night after night, he plodded +patiently on his way down the water course, until at last, at Prairie du +Chien, two hundred miles from St. Etienne, he felt that he might comfort +his inner man with hot food, and his weary legs with a bed and a +pillow. He prowled along the streets of the country town looking for +some cheap lodging-house where such as he, a humble, cringing, dog-like +fellow, might find shelter. He looked through a dusty window and saw a +shaggy-bearded, roughly-dressed man shoveling food with a knife, and he +felt that he had found the right place. + +The proprietor of the establishment sat at a small table absorbed in the +perusal of a week-old Sunday newspaper. He growled out a "Guess so. +Sausages; baked beans; coffee," to Ram Juna's polite inquiry. It neither +looked nor smelled inviting, but the Hindu submitted to fate and +swallowed a hasty and unpalatable meal. + +"Can you tell me where I can get a bed for the night?" he asked, turning +to his host. + +The evident refinement in his voice made that worthy look up from his +literary occupation in some startled curiosity. + +"They ain't many places where they take niggers," he said with an +unpleasant grin. "But I guess you might find a berth at Sally Munn's, if +you ain't too particular about morals. She's a merlatter herself; keeps +a place 'bout six houses down, first street to the left." The man +stared impudently as he spoke, but Ram Juna said, "Thank you," with his +usual politeness as he went out. The Hindu noted the impudent stare, but +he went away with an indifferent air. + +"See here!" said the proprietor to his single other customer, "ain't +this picture in the paper the very image of that black feller that just +skipped?" + +"Say, it's him!" + +"We'd ought to look this up. There's a big reward offered." + +While Ram Juna slept, lying in all his day clothes, some subtle +subconsciousness kept watch, became aware of disturbance, and roused his +body to attention. He got up, tiptoed to the open window and looked out +at the group of men standing below in the darkness. + +"Aw, shut up, Sal," one of them was saying to an angry woman in the +doorway. "We ain't goin' to raid ye, though Lord knows you wouldn't have +no kick comin' if we did. What we want is that black feller that come +to-night. We suspect he's one of a gang of counterfeiters that the St. +Etienne police are after; and we ain't goin' to lose the chance of the +reward. You fellers keep right under the window, and I'll take you six +up stairs with me. He's big and he may show fight. Get your guns ready. +Don't shoot to kill. We want to deliver him alive. But you needn't be +afraid to use a ball on him." + +Ram Juna drew away from the window and smiled his old Buddha smile. With +clumsy creaking precautions they mounted the stair. The moment for the +climax came; there was a rush all together, a breaking down of the shaky +door. The crew burst into the room--an empty room--and stared puzzled +and stupefied at the walls and at each other. + +"Well, if that don't beat all!" ejaculated the sheriff. "Where in ---- +has that fellow disappeared to?" + +"They say," said Josiah Strait, a lank westernized Yankee, "that them +Hindu jugglers and lamas, and so forth, has supernatural gifts, and I +begin to believe it." + + * * * * * + +Something over a month later, Mr. Early burst in on Mr. and Mrs. +Percival as they dawdled over the breakfast-table. + +"It's no time to be paying calls, I know," he apologized, "but I've had +such a sensation this morning that I had to come over and share it. +Yes, there are times when a man wishes that he had a wife to talk to!" + +"What is it, Early?" Dick asked indifferently. + +Mr. Early was waving a bit of paper about in a way quite hysterical. + +"Do you see that?" he cried exultantly. "I never expected to see it +again, but I declare it is worth its price. I was going over my bank +accounts the first thing this morning and I found it." + +"How do you expect us to know what it is when you're fanning it about +that way?" Dick demanded. + +"It's a check, man, a check for five thousand that I gave Ram Juna the +very day of his unceremonious departure." Lena turned scarlet, and Mr. +Early noticed it with fresh glee. "A check I gave Ram Juna," he +repeated. "It's been cashed, with four indorsements, in New Orleans. Now +how did he manage that, tell me. The Swami is one of the great geniuses +of the age. Of course I wanted to see the rascals punished, and it makes +me hot to think how they used my house and all that, but, by Jove! I'm +glad they haven't Ram Juna. From New Orleans, a seaport, mind you! I am +willing to make a good-sized bet that he's well on his way to his +favorite Himalayas by this time, ready to meditate on the syllable 'Om' +for the rest of his life. Oh, it's too good! How he must laugh in his +sleeve at the rest of the world! But how did he get that check cashed?" + +"Well, if I were in your place, I should have it traced back," said +Dick, the practical. + +"Of course I shall," exclaimed Mr. Early. "Of course I shall. I shall +put it in the hands of the police at once, for I'm sure of one thing, if +it helps to root out any sinners, Swami Ram Juna won't be among them. +He's gone for good, take my word for it; and as for the other rascals, I +hope with all my heart they may suffer." He nodded jubilantly at Mrs. +Percival, and she flushed again. + +"It's a very good joke, certainly," said Dick, "but rather an expensive +one for you, I should say, Early." + +"Oh, I shall get five thousand dollars' worth of satisfaction out of +it," Mr. Early went on enthusiastically. "And I'm proud of the Swami, +proud of him. And the splendid simplicity of him! I was talking +yesterday with the detective that ferreted him out. The plunder they +found in my little room was perfectly primitive. He had practically no +tools to make the cleverest counterfeits in years. A deft hand and a +wonderful thumb had the Swami." + +"What are they going to do with the big ruby in his turban?" asked Lena. + +"Oh, that is one of the chief things that I came to tell you about. You, +my dear Mrs. Percival, have especial reason to be interested in this." +He turned, brimming with information, to Lena, "The captain of police +took it to Brand's--the jeweler, you know--to be appraised. Now isn't +this the crown of the whole story? Brand tells him that it is paste!" + +Dick sat back in his chair and laughed with abandon, and laughed again. + +"And what about my rubies'?" screamed Lena, springing to her feet. + +"I have not the slightest doubt that they are paste, too. Everything he +touched was fraud." + +"I'm glad of it! I'm glad of it!" cried Dick, with a new access of +mirth. "The old rascal! Giving my wife jewels! Why, Lena, you couldn't +wear his stuff anyway, after all this fracas. It will do to trim a +Christmas tree." + +But Lena, with angry face, tapped the floor nervously with her gaudy +small slipper, and made no reply to her husband's hilarity. + +Even to her slow-working mind it was evident that she had paid a high +price for some worthless bits of glass. This conferring of a favor was +indeed a bond. + +She wondered what Mr. Early thought of her; what Dick would say if he +ever discovered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A LIGHT IN THE WEST GOES DOWN + + +The strenuousness of the fall campaign almost wiped these events from +Dick's mind. Day after day he spent in bringing home his points to the +man on the street and in the workshop. Much of it was dreary and +monotonous work, but he kept doggedly at it. It seemed his whole life, +now. And night after night Mr. Preston, Dick and Ellery tried to put +fire into some dingy little hall-full of men. To Percival's surprise, +Norris developed a plain common-sense variety of eloquence that appealed +to his audiences quite as much as did Dick's more fervid eloquence. +Ellery invariably spoke straight to some well-known condition. But they +hammered and pounded and reasoned and explained; they tried emotion, and +logic and everything except bribes to win their ground, until their +speeches began to sound automatic to themselves, their voices grew +hoarse, and they moved like men in a dream. + +"If there were one day more of this," Dick said to Norris, as they +tramped home late on the night before election, and felt a certain +restfulness in the November starlight, "I should send down a wheezing +nasal phonograph to grind out my speech. I am played out. Everything I +say sounds like tommy-rot." + +"It does grow hollow. The worst of it is it robs me of my evenings with +Madeline." + +"Um!" said Dick. "When are you to be married?" + +"About Christmas. The death of Golden, poor fellow, shoves me up a peg +on the editorial staff, and justifies me in facing matrimony. Mr. Elton +is good enough to give us a little home. They are a family to hang to, +Dick. I feel as though I had 'belongings' for the first time since I +lost my own father and mother. Madeline and I shall make rather a small +beginning, but, as you know, she has not set her heart on luxuries." + +"No," said Dick slowly. "You are a lucky fellow, Ellery. You're going to +get away ahead of me in the long run. Preston said yesterday that the +honors of this campaign were yours. He has been a fine figure-head, and +I have hollered loud, but you've hollered deepest, and the public knows +it. I guess that's the real reason that you've been shoved ahead on the +staff. Here's your boarding-house. Good night, old fellow. To-morrow +night our labors will be over." + +"I hope yours will have just begun, Mr. Alderman," Norris retorted. + +The polls closed in uncertainty and for three days speculation filled +the papers, and election bets remained unpaid. Then the decks cleared. +Mr. Preston was elected mayor by a narrow plurality; and out of the +eighteen aldermen, the reform element had carried seven, Dick Percival +among them, to victory. The Municipal Club counted its gains and was +jubilant, for this meant that, if the city council passed any +objectionable measure, their iniquity could be vetoed by the mayor, and +the bad men of the city fathers lacked one of the two-thirds majority +which they would need to carry their legislation over the executive's +veto. + +Dick took Lena and went away for a fortnight's rest, but came back +looking old and dissatisfied. + +It was understood that the first battle in the new council would be over +the lighting franchise, which was about to expire and which the company +in power wished to renew. There had been some talk of an attempt to +force it through before the old council went out of power, but even +Billy Barry's henchmen refused to commit themselves to so unpopular a +measure on the very eve of election; for St. Etienne had been paying a +notoriously high price for notably bad lighting, and the citizen, +usually a meek animal, had been stirred to a realization of his injuries +by wholesale exposition of the truth. + +But now there were new councils of war, and Billy swore more intricate +oaths than he had ever been known to produce in days of yore. He was +still in possession of his aldermanic seat, but a little uncertain +whether it was a throne or a stool of repentance. Still Billy talked +loudly of the things he meant to do; and, as usual in his troubles, went +to consult the delphic Mr. Murdock; and Mr. Murdock went to see Mr. +Early; and Mr. Early, after very much demur, went to see Mr. Percival. +Sebastian did not like to mix himself publicly in politics, and the +reformers were his friends. + +Still, one evening just before the franchise was introduced, Mr. Early +did drop in on Dick in a friendly sort of way. Percival took him to his +own sanctum, and settled down with him to the friendly communion of +cigars. + +Mr. Early hesitated and was manifestly ill at ease, which gave Dick a +pleasurable amusement while he waited to hear the discomfort unfolded. + +At last Sebastian said: "Dick, you know I am a man of art rather than of +politics, and of course I am in entire sympathy with the idea of clean +government; but I want to talk to you about this lighting business." + +"Well?" said Dick, as he took out his cigar. + +"It's a matter of some importance to one or two of my friends, and I may +say, to myself, that the old contract should be renewed," said Mr. +Early, gaining confidence. "I want to ask you to look at it in a +reasonable light. I suppose you fellows had to be a little outrageously +virtuous to make your campaign; but now it's time to drop that and get +down to business." + +Dick resumed his cigar with an air of settling the question. + +"Mr. Early," he said, "I do not think it necessary for us even to +discuss this matter. This was one of the main issues in the campaign. +Some of us were elected on purpose that we might rid the city of this +kind of thing; and we propose to carry out our pledges. There is +nothing more to be said." + +"There are personal considerations to every question, Percival," +answered Mr. Early, shading his face with his hand, and watching Dick's +expression with artistic appreciation of the changes that he felt sure +he should see. + +"Not for me," said Dick. "Thank Heaven my hands are clean, and I can do +whatever I believe to be right." + +"Yes, for you," answered Mr. Early suavely, and then he broke into a +suppressed laugh. "Why, you young idiot, if you care to be told, your +feet are limed, and the sooner you recognize the fact the better." + +"What do you mean?" cried Dick with fierce resentment. + +"Oh, sit down, my boy," said Mr. Early, still amiable. "There's no use +in rampaging. I just want to tell you a little story and show you a +little piece of paper." + +Dick sat down and glared at his guest. + +"Your wife--" Dick started up with something like a groan. "Yes, your +wife, Percival. You see a man does not always stand alone. Your wife has +a necklace of worthless rubies, which she has told you was a present +from our dear departed Swami. If people only knew about it, there might +be a certain amount of scandal about a young woman's receiving a +supposedly valuable gift from a swindler who was also a social idol. +Don't go off your head, Dick. You've got to listen to me. As a matter of +fact, she lied to you when she told you he gave them to her. She bought +them; and she had not the money to pay for them. I suppose it was at his +suggestion that she borrowed the sum from me. That would have been all +right, except that she gave me a note signed by Richard Percival, and +she quite omitted to tell me that her husband was away at the time. I +found that out by chance afterward, after I had supplied her demand. +Would you like to see the forgery, Dick? It's an ugly word, but we might +just as well be plain with each other." + +Dick's tongue had grown dry and speechless, so that he seemed to have no +power to check this recital, and now all he could do was to reach out an +eager hand. + +"Not so fast," said Mr. Early. "It's mine, not yours. And it will take +more than the five thousand dollars out of which it swindled me to buy +it back. It sounds bad, doesn't it? A forgery, connected with a rascal +who was the talk of the country. I should not myself care to pose again +as the dupe of a woman and her friendly counterfeiter, but that would be +a small matter compared with the hail of scandal that would whir around +the head of that pretty little butterfly, your wife." + +"Scandal! My wife!" Dick staggered to his feet. + +"That is what we all want to avoid, don't we?" Mr. Early asked with his +fat smile. + +They looked at each other in silence. Dick had a wild impulse to fling +himself on his knees, spiritually speaking, and to beg for mercy; but +the expression of Mr. Early's face suggested that all sentiment would +fall into cold storage in his breast. + +"You've been devoting yourself, with a certain amount of success, to +digging out the hidden things in other men's careers," the tormentor +went on with a cheerful sneer. "I suppose it has amused you. I know it +amuses me, and it would doubtless amuse the public, to fix attention on +this little affair of your own. You must remember that you have this +disadvantage: you and your kind are thin-skinned. Billy Barry and his +kind are pachyderms." + +He settled back comfortably in his chair and smiled benevolently at +Dick's white face. + +"Well?" Dick asked at last hoarsely. + +Mr. Early carefully refolded the slip of paper, and tucked it away in +his vest pocket, but he spoke with engaging openness. + +"It's yours, my dear boy, the day after the lighting franchise passes +over the mayor's veto. If they fail to pass it, I shall know that you +and Mrs. Percival are willing to stand a little public obloquy for the +sake of what you consider right. Very creditable to you, I am sure, and +damned uncomfortable for your wife." + +Dick still stared at him, and he went on: "I'll leave you to think it +over. In fact, I do not know that it is necessary for me to learn your +decision except by your action. Sorry to have to take extreme measures, +but it's every one for himself, in this world." + +He went out, and Dick sank into a chair and stared at his toes and the +ashes. + +"What's the use?" he said to himself. "She didn't know what she was +doing. I can't change it or her." + +Winter went on, and Ellery and Madeline were married. Dick squandered +himself on their wedding present, and looked like a thunder-cloud as he +watched the ceremony. On the day after he returned from his brief +honeymoon, Norris started down town to take up the routine of life, +irradiated now by love and purpose. The world seemed fresh and fair, and +even the face of Billy Barry less unlovely than usual as they met near +Newspaper Row. + +"Morning," said Mr. Barry. "You look ripping. My congratulations. Sorry +you could not come around to the council meeting, last night. You'd have +been pleased to see the old franchise waltz through." + +"What do you mean?" demanded Norris, stopping short. + +"Haven't even read the morning paper? Good land, that's what it means to +be a bridegroom!" Barry went on with a chuckle. "Couldn't stop looking +at her face behind the coffee-pot!" + +Norris restrained an impulse to throttle him and allowed Barry to +proceed. + +"Why, yes, we passed the old thing. I always said we would. Your friend +Percival voted with the combine. He's the real stuff. When he saw how +truth and justice lay, he buckled down and did the square thing. Have a +cigar? No? Oh yes, it's straight goods I'm givin' you. You needn't look +so queer. And say, on the quiet, I'm rather stuck on you reform +fellers. All they need is argument. So when you get 'em, you get 'em +cheap. Say, it's better than cash, any day." + +Norris ran up the steps and snatched a morning's paper. Yes, it was +true. Percival had voted against his friends and had given the victory +to the other side. Ellery flung into his office and whirled into his +day's work in a kind of daze. There was much to do and no time for +outside thought, but when the afternoon was over, instead of rushing +back to the little home, as he had expected, Norris hurried into his +coat and hastened to find Dick. Mr. Percival was at home; and, without +waiting to be announced, Ellery sprang up the stairs to the little +sanctum where the two had confabbed on many a day. He plunged in on +Dick, pale and unresponsive, and blurted out his question. + +"Yes," said Dick, "I voted for it. I became convinced that it was the +best thing the city could do. I've been telling the boys so for the past +two weeks. I really didn't understand the matter before. Don't get so +excited, Norris." + +He spoke quietly, but without meeting his friend's eyes, and Ellery's +heart sank. + +"I don't know what it means, Dick," he said bitterly, "but it seems to +me that, like Lucifer, you've been falling from dawn to dewy eve, and +now you are likely to consort with the devils in the pit. Are you the +old Dick who used to be my idol?" + +"Oh, bosh!" said Dick. "You are making mountains out of mole hills. The +franchise is all right." + +"It's not all right; and you're not all right," cried Norris, in a +frantic grasping after the truth of the matter. "The old relationships +are slipping away and something that was as dear to me as myself is +going with them." + +He turned away and Dick suddenly rose. + +"Ellery," he cried hoarsely, and Norris turned to see anguish in Dick's +face and outstretched hand, "I--I--can't explain to you," cried +Percival; "but, Ellery--" he moved forward, "don't cut the bonds of old +friendship, for God's sake! I need you now, as I never did before. If +you desert me, I shall lose my grip." + +Norris stepped back, and the two took each other's hands and looked +steadfastly, eye into eye. And Norris saw something that took on him the +hold that death has on us, and made him ready to forgive. Death is the +big problem of every mind. We may perhaps master and solve the question +when the death is of the body, but when the soul dies out, the problem +is too great. + +Ellery sank into a chair with weariness. + +"Tell me about it," he said. + +Then Dick stiffened again. + +"There isn't anything to tell." + +"See here," said Norris. "This isn't only a question of the lighting +franchise. The city may walk in darkness and be damned for all I care; +but I can't bear that you should walk in darkness. Do you realize what +it means? You have fought your first public battle on a basis of truth. +You make your first public appearance in league with evil. You are +killing the hope of your public career before it is fairly in bud." + +"I know it," said Dick. + +"Percival, you've stirred this city into consciousness. It's been +wonderful how you have done it so swiftly, for it is your doing. The +decent elements are marching forward into control and it belongs to you +to march at their head. The thing has got to go on. If you don't lead +it, some one else will." + +"I know it." + +"And you are going to give up?" Ellery urged, incredulous. + +"I haven't decided. Perhaps I have done with politics." + +"And if you abandon your public career, what are you going to do?" + +"What do other failures do?" + +"Oh, stuff!" exclaimed Norris, and began to pace the room. "Then you did +not vote for the franchise because you believed in it. Somebody has a +pull on you. I'd never have believed that any man in this wide world +would get a pull on Dick Percival." + +"Well, somebody has," said Dick shortly. "I wouldn't say so much as that +to any mortal but yourself. Now spare me, Ellery, and don't carry it any +further. Do you think," he went on bitterly, "that I have not gone over +the whole ground and told myself the old truths that never mean anything +to you until life rams them home on your consciousness? A man may creep +out from under the machinery of state law, and escape from the +punishment he deserves; but from the laws under which we really live, +there is no escape. It is reap what you sow; hate and you shall be +hated; sin and suffer. And it isn't as though one went out to sow. One +sows perforce, every minute, whether he will or not. In some instances +the reaping is singularly little fun, Ellery." + +"Well, whatever hold this mysterious some one has on you, be a man. +Stand up and own yourself and let the consequences go hang." + +"I know some men could. You could. That's the advantage of having taken +a good many hard blows. You learn to stand up against them," Dick +answered slowly. "You know other people's opinion has always been a god +to me. I haven't the strength to defy it now." + +There was a short silence, then Dick laid his arms across his friend's +shoulders, quite in the old friendly way. + +"Now may we drop that subject and be good pals again?" + +"Not yet," Ellery said sharply. "We won't drop it till I've had one more +say. Dick, don't be knocked out by a single blow. You! Why, I thought +you had a grip like a bulldog. I can't believe even in this ugly mess. +Still less will I believe that you haven't the courage--that you aren't +man enough to own your defeat, and then go on as though you hadn't been +beaten." + +Dick poked at the andirons with his toe. Suddenly he looked up with a +flash of his old brilliance and buoyancy. + +"Suppose I do!" he exclaimed. "What a fellow you are, Ellery, to stick +to me this way! But don't underestimate my difficulty. I'm not an +absolute coward, but I've been beaten not only once, but on both flanks +and in the middle. Everything in life seemed to be giving me a kick. I +was at the bottom when you came in, but if you believe in me, perhaps +I'll begin to believe in myself again. You've always been telling me how +much I did for you. You've done more for me to-night than I ever dreamed +of doing for you." + +Ellery's face cleared. They stood with clasped hands, and there seemed +no need of further explanations or assurances. Norris drew a long breath +of relief. + +"So we are friends still?" asked Dick. + +"Till the Judgment Day and beyond." + +"Now good-by," said Dick, as though anxious to get rid of him, "till +to-morrow." + +"Till to-morrow." + +A moment later a radiant vision stood in the doorway making a pouting +face. + +"Dick," said Lena. + +Dick started and stiffened himself as though to give battle, his hands +rested on the chair-back in front of him, but an instant's survey of +his wife's rose-leaf face, her well-groomed masses of hair, her dainty +evening gown, seemed to inspire another attitude. He threw his arms +passionately around her. + +"Oh, Lena," he cried, "love me! You must love me--you have cost me so +dear!" + +"Nonsense!" Lena gave him a sharp push and spoke resentfully. "I'm not +half so extravagant as most of the women we know." + +Dick drew away and became rigid again. + +"Extravagant!" he exclaimed as though to himself. "You have cost me my +self-respect, a big part of my future and the cream of my best +friendship. What higher price could a man pay for the thing he loves?" + +"I do think, Dick," said Lena severely, "that you can talk the silliest +nonsense of any person I ever heard. What on earth is the meaning of all +this? No--no--" as she saw that he was getting ready to reply. "I have +not time to hear. I thought that tiresome Mr. Norris would never go. +What can you see in him?--Have you forgotten that we are going to the +Country Club for dinner? It's long past time for you to dress." + +"Imagine it! I had forgotten that dinner!" Dick answered bitterly. For a +moment he turned away as though, he would not see her while he +readjusted something in himself. He felt like a different man and looked +to her indefinably strange when he faced her again quietly. To himself +he was saying, "What would Ellery do?" and on his answer to his own +question he was readjusting his whole life. + +"We will not go out this evening, Lena," he said. "We've come to a +crisis in our affairs more important than a club dinner." + +"What, have you been losing money?" cried Lena, startled and resentful. + +Dick looked at her with a very unpleasant smile. + +"No," he answered. "I wonder what you would say if I told you that I was +ruined?" + +Lena gasped with horror. For the moment she could not speak. A gulf of +poverty--no one knew better than she what that meant--yawned before her. +A blind fury against Dick, if he should have plunged her into this, +possessed her; and Dick watched her and read her as he had never done +before. + +"Will you sit down?" he asked courteously. "I want to talk with +you--just by our two selves. I haven't lost any money, Lena. Let me +relieve your mind of its worst apprehension." Her face smoothed, but +she seated herself quietly, puzzled and foreboding. Dick was so +singularly inaccessible. + +"I've lost no money," he repeated, "but I've come desperately near ruin +for all that. Lena, a moment ago I made a real appeal to your love. You +answered me by a shrug and a push for fear that I might muss that very +pretty and exceedingly becoming gown. It was a kind of illustration of +all our married life." + +Lena still stared at him dumbly, vague with uncomprehending fear. This +didn't seem like the easy-going husband she knew. She wished he would +look at her. + +"When we were married," he went on, "I had a dream that a man's wife +stood for his ideals, that he might mold his life by her purity and +nobleness and love. I've always been saying, in effect, 'Lead on, Mrs. +Percival and I will follow where you lead!' You've led me into the +depths, Lena, and I'm never going to say that to you any more. You and I +have got to remold our relations and start again." + +"What has happened?" Lena asked faintly, and feeling very helpless. She +seemed suddenly to realize how very big Dick's body was, and how little +chance she stood against it. If he was inaccessible in spirit she had no +hold over him. She wished he would get angry. That would be something +concrete. She would know how to meet it. + +"What has happened?" she repeated. + +"Only this," Dick said. "I am going to refuse to delude myself any +longer; and it is fair to you as it is to me that you should know it. I +am going to stop telling myself that you are my ideal woman, when you +have shown me, for instance, your unwillingness to make such tender +self-sacrifice as a mother must give to a child--that you are true and +honest when you are guilty of an underhand thrust like that little squib +about Madeline--that--" + +"Ah," shrieked Lena, leaping to her feet with the light beginning to +come into her eyes. "So that's what's the matter! That girl--" + +"No," said Dick evenly, "that is not what cuts most. What hurts through +and through, Lena, is the knowledge that you don't even love me enough, +in spite of all my wasted passion, to keep from intriguing with another +man behind my back for the sake of a few bits of red glass." + +"How--did Mr. Early--?" Lena began, but he interrupted her again. + +"Did it seem such a simple thing to keep me perpetually blinded? Last +night, Lena, I paid your debt to Mr. Early. I sold my vote in the +council, along with my self-respect and my honor in the sight of others +to get back this shred of paper. Once I might have thought you sinned +ignorantly, but I know you better now. Here is that priceless scrap." He +drew it from his pocket and threw it into her lap. "Now I've swept away +all the mists! There can't be any sweet illusions between you and me, +Lena." He drew a sharp breath. + +Lena's heart was beating very fast and her eyes were down. She saw +shrewdly that there was no need of argument on any of these topics. The +less she said about them the better for her. And Dick, with his hands in +his pockets, was watching her from the other side of the room. She +twisted the piece of paper in her hands. She had always a bald way of +telling herself the truth. Now she would face Dick in the same spirit. +After all, she was his wife. He couldn't get away from that. + +"Well," she said, "I suppose you don't love me any more?" Her voice was +like her mother's, acid and selfish. + +"Do you love me?" asked Dick. + +"No!" said Lena. She saw him writhe and felt glad that she had the power +to hurt him, but he answered very gently. + +"Then I still have the advantage of you, Lena. I love you, not in the +old way I once dreamed of loving--but still I love you. All this that +I've said to-night was not spoken in the heat of anger. I've known these +facts for a long time, and you have never felt any change in my manner; +but gradually I have come to see that there could never be any genuine +relations between us--you and me--so long as you thought me just a silly +dupe for you to get everything you could from, to be played on as you +pleased. We must begin again, a new way. You don't love me, you say. I +do love you, sweetheart, not for what I thought you were, but for what +you are, because you are my wife, because you need my tenderness and +help. But I'm not going to let you lead any longer. We can't even walk +side by side as some husbands and wives do." Dick seemed to hear the +voices of Ellery and Madeline by their own fireside, and he went on +hurriedly. "You needn't look at me that way, Lena, as if you were +afraid of me. I shall want you to be comfortable and happy. I shall try +to give you the things you want--things--things--things! But I have some +purposes in life, and they, not you, are to be my master-spirits." + +Dick turned away and stared out of the winter window, stirred by his own +words into a strange new understanding of himself--a mere fatuous +self-believer, a man who trusted to fate not fight, to fortune not to +mastery, who had not made his standards, but let them make themselves. +And now it was come to this, that a half-hour in a room with a foolish +girl was the turning-point in his life. + +He seemed strange to himself, as though he were examining a life from +the outside rather than from the inside, and fumbling at its real +meaning. + +He had done no wrong; but what does the march of events care whether the +failure be intentional or careless? Results follow just the same. + +There flashed before his inward eye the face of his long-dead father, +white and set with some inward pain of which he did not speak. Dick +remembered that as a boy that had seemed to him a pitiful thing. Now he +saw it somewhat as the believers once saw the face of the martyr, the +visible manifestation of triumph--the success of being true to yourself +in spite of all the world. + +Dick drew a long breath and dropped his boyhood without even a regret. +He knew he could accept conditions and limitations and not kick against +the pricks, but quietly, as one who is capable of being superior to +them. The bitterness, the depression of an hour, two hours, ago faded +into trifles, and the thing nearest to his consciousness was that dead +father who had had his wound and lived his life in spite of it; nearer, +infinitely nearer, than the living wife whom a slight noise brought to +his remembrance. He had forgotten her. She belonged now to the elements +outside his dearest life. + +He turned toward Lena, waiting, silent, uncomprehending,--poor little +Lena, a woman who could never be anything more. He felt a wave of +strange new pity for her, unlike the pity he had once experienced for +her poverty of body, a sorrow, this, for what she was in herself, his +wife--poor, poor little child! + +Lena sat still, picking at the bit of paper, but she looked up now, +moved in spite of herself by the exultant ring in Dick's voice, as he +strode over to her and held out both his hands. + +"And so we begin again--honestly, this time. Perhaps some day you'll +come to accept my standards inwardly as well as outwardly. Perhaps +you'll even come to love me, some day, little wife." + +Lena took his hands submissively. Her small tyranny, her stock of little +ambitions had slipped from her and she shivered as though she was +stripped and cold; but behind there was a kind of delight in this new +Dick, with authoritative eyes into which she stared, wondering still, +with trepidation, what he was going to make of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ANOTHER BEGINNING + + +Norris, as he left Percival's house, had a glimpse of Lena coming down +the hall, wonderful in her shimmering evening gown, brave in jewels. She +dazzled him, though he despised his eyes for admiring her and told +himself that she was tinsel. + +He bowed in response to her curt nod, well aware that she thought him +too unimportant to merit her courtesy, while she resented her husband's +inexplicable regard for him. He went out into a cold winter drizzle and +turned his face toward home and Madeline, those new and thrilling +possessions. For the moment, however, there was no exhilaration in his +heart, rather a depressed questioning whether, after all, everything +beautiful was a sham. Was the daily grind a mechanical millwheel? Dick +and Dick's marriage, were they but samples of the way life deals with +hope? A pang stabbed through him as his own marriage rose and stood +beside Dick's in his mind. It meant so much to him; yet only a few +months before his friend had been bubbling with an exultation more +open-voiced than his own. + +There are not only great Sloughs of Despond waiting here and there for +the pilgrim, but there are in almost every day little gutters of despond +that must be jumped if one does not wish cold and soiled feet; so here +his healthy mind cried out against morbid thoughts and he reviled +himself for companioning the thing he held sacred with the thing he had +always felt foredoomed to failure. He told himself that middle-age was +not a dead level of hopes grown gray and withered, but rather a +heightening of the contrasts between success and failure. A word of Mr. +Elton's spoken long ago, flashed back to him: "Don't build your attics +before you've finished your cellars." That, after all, was a test. If +one could but get a good solid foundation under hope, one might trust it +to lift its pinnacle as far toward Heaven as the ethereal upper air. +Alas for Dick! + +Then, though he still loved his one-time hero, Ellery put Dick from his +mind. His feet quickened and his heart began to beat joyously again. He +ran up his steps, delighting in the commonplace performance of putting a +latch-key into a lock. The cold and drizzle were shut outside, and +Madeline waited in the warmth and light of the hall to insist on helping +him off with his overcoat, a task so absurdly difficult that when it was +finished they laughed and kissed each other in mutual delight at their +own foolishness. + +Then Madeline took his hand and drew him into the living-room, where the +light was low and shaded, but blazing logs painted even far-shadowed +corners with warmth, and pranked the girl's white dress into glowing +pink, while the fire hummed and crackled its own triumph: + + "I consumed the deep green forest with all its songs, + And all the songs of the forest now sing aloud in me." + +Ellery stood with his arm around his wife's waist and looked about with +a quizzical expression that made her ask, + +"What are you thinking?" + +"I was remembering." + +"And pray what business have you, sir, to live in anything but the +present?" + +"Perhaps I get more from to-day because I don't forget yesterday. When I +first came to St. Etienne, sweetheart, Dick took me to his home. You +know, with your mere mind, but you can not appreciate, how unrelated my +life had been. You can't imagine how hungrily I looked at that restful +room and at Dick's mother. I felt as though I would give anything--my +soul--to have a home. And now, behold, I have one." + +"And you had to pledge your soul to me to get it." + +"True. I paid dearly," he said. "But I was wondering how it was that you +had managed to put so much atmosphere into so untried a place. It looks +to me as impossible as a miracle. Here are some new walls, and new +furniture and new curtains and new vases and new pictures. Even the +books are mostly new. I always resented new books. They are like green +fruit. A book isn't ripe until it begins to be frayed around the edges. +It would seem to me a hopeless job to make a home out of all this raw +material. Yet this room already reminds me of Mrs. Percival's library, +Madeline, and it isn't only because it is a long room with a big +fireplace." + +"I think it is a good beginning," she answered. "Now all we have to do +is to live in it." + +"You talk as though 'living' were a very easy matter," he remonstrated. +"I think it must be the hardest thing in the world, judging by the +failures. I know heaps of people who are drifting, or grubbing, or +wallowing, or stumbling, or racing, but only a handful that are living. +The thought of it made me blue all the way home." + +"Dick?" Madeline asked with ready intuition. + +"Yes, Dick. He voted with the combine and against the reform element in +last night's council meeting; and he did it on some one's compulsion. I +can't tell you how it has stirred and disheartened me." + +"Have you seen him?" + +"Yes." + +"What did he say?" + +"That he could not explain." + +"Then," said his wife decisively, "it is some of Lena's doings. About +anything else--anything--he would have told you, Ellery." + +"Very likely, though it is hard to see how Mrs. Percival could be mixed +up in affairs like this." + +Madeline was moving about restlessly. + +"Ellery," she said at last, "I feel as though you and I had to be a sort +of pair of god-parents to Dick. He is so dear, so lovable, so fine--and +so unable to go alone. You, particularly, dearest, are the stanchest +thing he has. I know just how he feels about you, for I feel so, too. +You are going to push behind him and understand him and back up all his +resolves, aren't you, even if he does half disappoint you? You aren't +going to let anything alienate you or come between your friendship and +his, are you? I know you love him, and I'm sure he needs you." + +Ellery smiled down at her questioning eyes and the intoxicating appeal +of her confidence in him--Madeline's! + +"I rather think I am Dick's friend for all I'm worth," he said slowly, +at last. "Even if I were tempted to disloyalty, I should be ashamed to +harbor it with your faithfulness standing before me. And I believe this +very afternoon was a kind of crisis with him--that he was gathering +himself together when I came away." + +"And by your help, I dare say," added his wife. + +"I hope so. I know but one thing that seems to me more worth while than +the purpose of helping Dick Percival to be what it is in him to be." + +"And what is that other better thing?" + +"You arrant fraud! Do you need to ask?" he said, laughing. + +"Well, comfort yourself. You are to go on fulfilling your two purposes +in life--you and I together." + +"I pray we may. I believe we shall," answered her husband earnestly. + +"I know we shall, doubting Thomas. I'm one of the women who are strong +in unreasoning faith." + +They stood silently smiling at each other for a moment. + +"Shall we celebrate the beginning of home with pomp and music?" she +asked. "There's a little time before dinner. Make yourself comfortable. +Push Mrs. Percival up to the fire." + +"Mrs. Percival!" Ellery exclaimed, dropping his guilty arm and looking +about in a startled manner. + +"Oh, I forgot you didn't know. I've been all over the house this +afternoon, christening our things with the names of the people that gave +them to us. Doesn't it make all the wedding presents seem very friendly +and not at all new? Wouldn't you know, even if you hadn't been told, +that this particular chair was Mother Percival--it's so graceful and +comforting. Dump yourself into it, Ellery." + +She pushed him down laughing. + +"Ah, I begin to see that you stole your atmosphere. The things aren't so +new after all. They're old acquaintances." + +"Of course they are. Isn't it jolly to have 'your loving friends' tucked +around in spirit in every nook and corner of the house, without the +nuisance of having the good people here in the body to disturb our +privacy?" + +"I see," he meditated, then went on ungratefully: "After all, I think +I'm more taken with the privacy than with the spiritual presences, +though they can hardly be considered skeletons at the feast." + +"I should think not," exclaimed Madeline indignantly. "I love them each +and all--well, with a few exceptions, Ellery. You needn't grin +sarcastically. Now there's the piano--such a piano as I have always +dreamed of but never hoped to own. If I called it a Steinway Grand, I +should know that it was an excellent instrument; but when I call it +'Vera,' it warms and delights my heart a thousand times." + +Ellery rose and bowed ceremoniously to the piano. + +"Vera, will you and Mrs. Norris favor me with Schubert's _Serenade_, +while I sit on Mrs. Percival?" he asked. "I am ragingly hungry, but +perhaps the _Serenade_ will keep me harmless and quiet for a little." + +He sat and listened and looked into the warm deep heart of the friendly +fire. Dreams and hopes came back to him, as things once seen through a +glass darkly, but now face to face. Without turning, he was conscious of +Madeline, across the room, filling life with music. + +When a small maid, as new as the books, appeared to announce dinner, he +looked up startled. + +"Shall we go?" asked Madeline, rising. + +"To our own private particular family communion-table," he answered, +drawing her arm through his. + + + * * * * * + + +FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS + +Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. +Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked +beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, +postpaid. + +THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE, By Mary Roberts Reinhart + +With illustrations by Lester Ralph. + +In an extended notice the _New York Sun_ says: "To readers who care for +a really good detective story 'The Circular Staircase' can be +recommended without reservation." The _Philadelphia Record_ declares that +"The Circular Staircase" deserves the laurels for thrills, for weirdness +and things unexplained and inexplicable. + +THE RED YEAR, By Louis Tracy + +"Mr. Tracy gives by far the most realistic and impressive pictures of +the horrors and heroisms of the Indian Mutiny that has been available in +any book of the kind * * * There has not been in modern times in the +history of any land scenes so fearful, so picturesque, so dramatic, and +Mr. Tracy draws them as with the pencil of a Verestschagin or the pen of +a Sienkiewics." + +ARMS AND THE WOMAN, By Harold MacGrath + +With inlay cover in colors by Harrison Fisher. + +The story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages +with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh +and blood, and not mere pictures of past centuries. The story is about +Jack Winthrop, a newspaper man. Mr. MacGrath's finest bit of character +drawing is seen in Hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and Jack's +chum. + +LOVE IS THE SUM OF IT ALL, By Geo. Cary Eggleston + +With illustrations by Hermann Heyer. + +In this "plantation romance" Mr. Eggleston has resumed the manner and +method that made his "Dorothy South" one of the most famous books of its +time. + +There are three tender love stories embodied in it, and two unusually +interesting heroines, utterly unlike each other, but each possessed of a +peculiar fascination which wins and holds the reader's sympathy. A +pleasing vein of gentle humor runs through the work, but the "sum of it +all" is an intensely sympathetic love story. + +HEARTS AND THE CROSS, By Harold Morton Cramer + +With illustrations by Harold Matthews Brett. + +The hero is an unconventional preacher who follows the line of the Man +of Galilee, associating with the lowly, and working for them in the ways +that may best serve them. He is not recognized at his real value except +by the one woman who saw clearly. Their love story is one of the +refreshing things in recent fiction. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP. Publishers,--NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS + +Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. +Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked +beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, +postpaid. + +NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin With illustrations by +F. C. Yohn + +Additional episodes in the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at +Riverboro which were not included in the story of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook +Farm," and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that +famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as +in the first. + +THE SILVER BUTTERFLY, By Mrs. Wilson Woodrow + +With illustrations in colors by Howard Chandler Christy. + +A story of love and mystery, full of color, charm, and vivacity, dealing +with a South American mine, rich beyond dreams, and of a New York +maiden, beyond dreams beautiful--both known as the Silver Butterfly. +Well named is _The Silver Butterfly_! There could not be a better symbol +of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery and +the flashing wit. + +BEATRIX OF CLARE, By John Reed Scott + +With illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood. + +A spirited and irresistibly attractive historical romance of the +fifteenth century, boldly conceived and skilfully carried out. In the +hero and heroine Mr. Scott has created a pair whose mingled emotions and +alternating hopes and fears will find a welcome in many lovers of the +present hour. Beatrix is a fascinating daughter of Eve. + +A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH, By Joseph Medill Patterson + +Frontispiece by Hazel Martyn Trudeau, and illustrations by Walter Dean +Goldbeck. + +Tells the story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of +society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous +member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic +wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme, +daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged +before."--_New York Sun_. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers,--NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS + +Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. +Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked +beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, +postpaid. + +THE FAIR GOD; OR, THE LAST OF THE TZINS. + +By Lew Wallace. With illustrations by Eric Pape. + +"The story tells of the love of a native princess for Alvarado, and it +is worked out with all of Wallace's skill * * * it gives a fine picture +of the heroism of the Spanish conquerors and of the culture and nobility +of the Aztecs."--_New York Commercial Advertiser_. + +"_Ben Hur_ sold enormously, but _The Fair God_ was the best of the +General's stories--a powerful and romantic treatment of the defeat of +Montezuma by Cortes."--_Athenaeum_. + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. By Louis Tracy. + +A story of love and the salt sea--of a helpless ship whirled into the +hands of cannibal Fuegians--of desperate fighting and tender romance, +enhanced by the art of a master of story telling who describes with his +wonted felicity and power of holding the reader's attention * * * filled +with the swing of adventure. + +A MIDNIGHT GUEST. A Detective Story. By Fred M. White. With a +frontispiece. + +The scene of the story centers in London and Italy. The book is +skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying, +exciting detective stories ever written--cleverly keeping the suspense +and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which precede the +end. + +THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI. A Romance. By S. Levett Yeats. With cover and +wrapper in four colors. + +Those who enjoyed Stanley Weyman's _A Gentleman of France_ will be +engrossed and captivated by this delightful romance of Italian history. +It is replete with exciting episodes, hair-breath escapes, magnificent +sword-play, and deals with the agitating times in Italian history when +Alexander II was Pope and the famous and infamous Borgias were tottering +to their fall. + +SISTER CARRIE. By Theodore Drieser. With a frontispiece, and wrapper in +color. + +In all fiction there is probably no more graphic and poignant study of +the way in which man loses his grip on life, lets his pride, his +courage, his self-respect slip from him, and, finally, even ceases to +struggle in the mire that has engulfed him. * * * There is more tonic +value in _Sister Carrie_ than in a whole shelfful of sermons. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP,--NEW YORK + + + + +FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS + +Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size. +Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked +beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume, +postpaid. + +LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed. + +A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance +finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest +of old-fashioned love stories * * * A rare book, exquisite in spirit and +conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor +and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift. + +DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a frontispiece and +inlay cover. + +How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life +made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of +a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, _Doctor +Luke_ is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and +the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are +expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes +a note of rare personality. + +THE DAY'S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated. + +The _London Morning Post_ says: "It would be hard to find better reading +* * * the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end, +that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till +they have read the last--and the last is a veritable gem * * * contains +some of the best of his highly vivid work * * * Kipling is a born +story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain." + +ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece. + +A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss * * * an +entertaining story or a man's redemption through a woman's love * * * no +one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story +with eyes that are always dry * * * goes straight to the heart of +everyone who knows the meaning of "love" and "home." + +THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John + +Reed Scott. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +"Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling +and romantic situations." "So naively fresh in its handling, so +plausible through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze +across the far-spreading desert of similar romances."--_Gazette-Times, +Pittsburg_. + +"A slap-dashing day romance."--_New York Sun_. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP,--NEW YORK. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWEL WEED*** + + +******* This file should be named 23996.txt or 23996.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/9/9/23996 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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